Feminist Founders Subscriber-Only Podcast

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Becky Mollenkamp: Howdy! I am bringing you today, Ellie Kime, who is a writer and Substacker. I will link to her Substack in the show notes. It's called Pep Talk. Make sure you go and check it out. As you will find in this episode, I think she's really good at giving pep talks. We're talking about enthusiasm, what it is and what it isn't, and how to get it. In these unprecedented times, I think enthusiasm, in the way that Ellie talks about it, is just so important. I really hope you enjoy this conversation with Ellie and me.
Becky Mollenkamp: Ellie, thank you for participating in this. I'm really excited to chat with you about enthusiasm—what a wide-open category! I love that that's what you write about on Substack, and I hope this will help introduce more folks to your work and what you do. I think the best place for us to start might be for you to tell us what you mean by enthusiasm. That's the focus of your work, and I think it could be interpreted in many ways, so I'm curious what it means to you.
Ellie Kime: Hey, Becky, thank you so much for having me. Great idea, and as you know, big fan of your work. So yeah, good to be here. Enthusiasm for me isn’t what everyone thinks it is. As you can tell from my accent, I’m British, so sorry for this, but enthusiasm always conjured up images of American-style cheerleaders in stereotypical high school films—relentlessly peppy. But enthusiasm isn’t that; it can be gritty, and it can be tough. It’s not about blind positivity and blind optimism. It’s about wanting to do things even when the going gets tough. That’s part of enthusiasm, and it’s about thinking that something is worth it, even when the world is...well, worlding.
You can have general enthusiasm for life, which I kind of fall into that camp, but you can also have enthusiasms—hobbies like crafting or football. That’s kind of like extracurricular, or as I like to call them, extra-curricular because I’ve been out of education for quite a while. There are two branches of it, but my main point is that enthusiasm is a kind of infectious energy that makes things seem more meaningful, playful, and just more fun.
Becky Mollenkamp: I love your explanation of what you mean by that infectious energy. What I’m hearing is it’s less about the infectious energy being projected outwards, which may be more of that cheerleader thing, but it’s more about the internal infectious energy—the thing that keeps us finding meaning, keeps us feeling playful, and having fun, and engaging with the world around us, even when the world is worlding like you said. So, I heard you mention two components: enthusiasm as a verb, right? It’s this thing that we do, and then enthusiasm as a noun, meaning the things that we do, the activities themselves. Let’s start with the verb piece of it—that energy that we bring internally to continue to have meaning and joy about life. That sounds lovely. As you mentioned, the world likes to world, and life likes to life, and it can be really heavy and hard. The idea of maintaining enthusiasm in the face of life’s challenges can be a lot. This is probably going to be a big question, so we’ll see where it goes, and feel free to tell me if we need to narrow it down, but how do you maintain enthusiasm when the world around you feels like a giant dumpster fire?
Ellie Kime: Yeah, great question. The number one thing I would say is it’s so easy to get lost in doomscrolling and panicking, sitting on the edge of your bed in a towel and staring into space because everything and nothing matters. I think the main thing is to really schedule in time to do what you're enthusiastic about. Literally block out your calendar, kind of like Julia Cameron’s artist dates, but just stuff that you enjoy doing—your hobbies. It doesn’t have to be something you book onto; it doesn’t have to be a class. It can be a sewing day with yourself, for example. I book those in quite a lot just so I can reconnect with those enthusiasms.
In terms of the general piece, I would say keep touchpoints that remind you that people are good, that there are things to be enthusiastic about, and that there is hope. I think hope and enthusiasm are so closely intertwined, especially in times like this. Not to the point where you're just blissfully, blindly, positively ignorant, but surrounding yourself with good people and things that bring you small bits of joy—focusing on the small bits of joy as much as the big ones—is really important.
Becky Mollenkamp: I want to continue on with this idea of enthusiasm but expand it beyond the verb or the noun and talk about what I’ve seen you share on your Substack and website about harnessing enthusiasm in service of something even more powerful and bigger—specifically about being unapologetically yourself. How do you see enthusiasm, whether it’s the noun or the verb, aligning with being truly authentic?
Ellie Kime: I think enthusiasm and being authentically yourself are so interlinked because we live in a society that tells us we shouldn’t be enthusiastic. We get it in so many ways. If you're female, or gendered as female, the messages you receive from society, often not intentionally and not overtly, tell you your hobbies and interests don’t really matter—they're not worth your time. You should be following pursuits that are more historically thought of as masculine, capitalistic, and patriarchal.
Learning to not necessarily shed societal expectations but being able to connect with what you really want to do—something that speaks to who you are in a world that constantly tries to mold you into its own idea of what you should be—is so healing. I know there’s a lot of talk about connecting with your inner child, and while I’m not a psychologist or therapist, I do think there’s something wonderful about connecting with something you really love, something that brings you pure unbridled joy. At our heart, I think we all have the capacity for that. It’s one of the joys of being human—the capacity for joy, emotion, and connection.
Enthusiasm also speaks to a state of being in flow. If you're enthusiastic about something and really in it, that flow is recognized as one of the best, most fulfilling states to be in. It works in so many ways. It’s about giving space to those parts of you that society might not value—how you dress, for example. We’ve all seen someone who really comes alive when they start dressing the way they want to dress. There are so many elements to it, but essentially, it’s about sticking a big middle finger up to what society tells us.
Another element of this is embracing being childlike, as opposed to childish. Society loves to tell us we're childish if we enjoy things, but actually, being childlike is a lovely thing. There’s so much wonder, joy, and innocence in that. Also, caring—being passionate about something—is often criticized, especially for millennials and Gen Z. We're either called apathetic or labeled as snowflakes for caring too much. There’s no winning, so one of the best ways to get through all the noise and do something you can stand behind is to connect with what makes you authentically you. Then, you always know where your compass is.
Becky Mollenkamp: Yes, yes, yes, to giving a middle finger to what society dictates! That makes me wonder, what criticism do you hear from people about this idea around enthusiasm? Or what misconceptions have you found people have when you're out talking about this?
Ellie Kime: The one I get the most, and the one that grinds my gears the most, is the idea that enthusiasm is frivolous and not connected to the times we're living in. So many people see it as something completely devoid of all reality. How can we be enthusiastic about the world we're living in? My answer is, how can we not be? It’s literally all we’ve got, and enthusiasm is such a key part of an activist's toolkit and the ally’s toolkit. I really feel the need to stress that to people.
You know, they accuse me—and this isn’t my movement alone—when they accuse people who dare to show enthusiasm, they say we're not in touch with reality. But actually, if you're enthusiastic, you're probably highly empathetic, highly sensitive, and more in tune with what’s going on. Feeling stuck and overwhelmed by the weight of the world all the time, without any reprieve, doesn’t help you. It doesn't help anyone, and it gets you stuck in a shame and guilt cycle, which isn’t very helpful. It’s not helpful to you, and it’s not helpful to the people who need help. Having enthusiasm at your disposal for things that light you up is so important. That’s the thing I wish I could scream a bit louder. I often tell people, but I don’t scream at them because my mum raised me better. But yeah, I do wish more people knew that because the idea we have of enthusiasm as just screaming teenage girls and fan culture makes it seem frivolous, when actually it’s the opposite.
Becky Mollenkamp: Thank you. We need to listen to you talk about enthusiasm because your passion is clear, and it rubs off on people. I’m feeling myself thinking, "Oh yeah, she’s right. Yes, yes, yes, this is the only life we have, the only world we have, and what’s the point if I’m going through it without hope, excitement, and passion?" So thank you for that.
Maybe our last question—although I may have a follow-up, so we'll see—but what I’m thinking as we start to wrap this up is for people who are like me, who are saying, "Yeah, yeah, she’s right," but still feeling like they’ve lost all touch with enthusiasm. They feel so not enthusiastic. I don’t mean people who are depressed and need therapy or medication, but just people who’ve kind of lost that passion, that zeal, that lust for life. What are your best tips for reigniting enthusiasm or getting in touch with it if you feel like you once had it and lost it, or if you're not even sure you’ve ever really had it? How do you cultivate or reignite enthusiasm?
Ellie Kime: I think the most important thing is to reconnect with something you loved as a child. It doesn’t have to be a specific hobby you did as a child; it can just be something you loved. For example, I used to love getting loads of elastic bands—we had an elastic band ball—and I used to take off all the elastic bands and arrange them in shapes of people. Don’t ask me why. Not quite sure what that was about, probably one for my therapist.
Now, I’m not suggesting you create elastic band people in your 20s, 30s, 40s, or 50s. If you want to, I’m not going to stop you, but something I take from that is that I like to play big. I like to have a lot of space, so I do a lot of big paper planning now. I also like organizing, not in a Marie Kondo kind of way, but in a way that speaks to me. These are the kinds of things you can draw from that. My sister, for example, used to take our family camera and go around the house pretending she was doing a video tour—this was pre-vlog, so she wasn’t YouTubing; she was just genuinely excited to show off. Now, she watches vlogs. These are kernels of stuff you can take that you can use to reignite that childlike spark.
It’s all about being childlike, not feeling childish. You don’t have to pick up a whole new hobby. You just have to spend some time doing stuff that your inner Becky, or your inner whoever, would really thank you for. It’s sometimes about just getting to that place of flow, where you quiet your mind from all the stuff that’s going on. You don’t have to feel super great about everything; it can just be about not feeling terrible. That would be my number one tip.
Another thing I hear from people a lot is that they don’t have time to do these things. To that, I would say, good old Julia Cameron’s artist dates—schedule time in your calendar to do it. Make sure you have no pressures from kids, partners, family, or work. Schedule that time for yourself. It doesn’t have to be productive; it just has to be passionate. It just has to be something that, after those two hours or however long, makes you feel better. Have non-negotiable time in the calendar, so you don’t feel guilty while you're doing it because guilt does not work well with these things.
Becky Mollenkamp: Let’s wrap things up by having you share the one thing you want people to leave here with. I don’t know if it’s a thought starter or a challenge to action, but what’s the one thing you want people to leave with to help them start to feel more enthusiasm or to show up more enthusiastically in their lives? What’s the one thing you want them to either know, do, or just leave with from you?
Ellie Kime: As an enthusiast, I am a maximalist, so I’m going to go for two if that’s OK. The first one is to remember that if somebody ever yucks your yum or ridicules something you really enjoy, it says more about them than it does about you. They’re jealous that you're showing up as your full self, and they don’t feel brave enough to do that or feel like they can’t for whatever reason.
My second point is to remember that enthusiasm is a concrete tool in an activist’s toolkit, which I know I’ve mentioned before, but it’s worth remembering. That’s the key takeaway, especially considering what’s happening at the moment and with your fabulous audience, Becky. If anyone ever tries to make you feel bad for being enthusiastic or outwardly enthusiastic, remember that without the light, there is no darkness, and without the darkness, there is no light. It’s really necessary to keep doing things for yourself so you can be steeled to do all the really important stuff for other people.
Becky Mollenkamp: Thank you so much for being part of this, Ellie. I really appreciate you. Can you let everyone know—I'm obviously going to share Pep Talk in the show notes—anything else about where people can connect with you or how they can work with you after this?
Ellie Kime: Oh my God, thank you so much for having me. I’ve absolutely loved it. I’m going to miss having you on my phone, talking about enthusiasm. You can find me on Instagram at @TheEnthusiastAndCo. You can also find my website, TheEnthusiast.co, where you can see some of the topics I talk about for speaking gigs or corporate gigs. I did have a shop on there, but it’s temporarily closed—it’s on a hiatus, a bit like One Direction. Thank you so, so much.
Becky Mollenkamp: All right, thank you, Ellie. I’m going to get out there and be enthusiastic, show my enthusiasm, and find my enthusiasm. Thank you so much for being a part of this, and thanks to everyone for listening. I hope you have really enjoyed this conversation, and I will be back tomorrow with another amazing conversation.