Soul Gum

Victoria Hutchins
  • 4.9 (716)
  • Philosophy
  • Updated Weekly

A self-development podcast with philosophical, psychological and literary flair hosted by Victoria Hutchins, the creator of @thedailyvictorian and nationally bestselling author of MAKE BELIEVE. Episodes every other Sunday.

  1. 2d ago

    How to Prepare for the Best Year of Your Life

    The best year of your life doesn't start on January 1. It starts with what you do before the year begins. Today, I come to you with three things you can do right now to prepare for 2027 to be the best year of your life.  I know it’s still October, but every year we lose our collective minds from November until January. And soon it will be New Year’s Eve and we’ll be trying to make our vision boards without having given any thought to the actual vision. SO: we’re getting a head start on preparing for 2027 before the holiday chaos hits with 3 audits that will help you get clear on what you want, what's holding you back, and how you actually want to live. Along the way, we're talking about why we're so bad at estimating how much we can get done in a day, why being harder on yourself might actually be holding you back, what the Stoics (the original chads) can teach us about new year’s resolutions, and how to chase your biggest dreams without wishing away the life you're living.  PS: I made you a free worksheet to walk you through all three audits! It's got all the questions we talk about in this episode and space to work through them yourself. Find it here!!  EPISODE OUTLINE 00:00 Intro + why we’re starting before January 1 06:40 Audit #1: the levels of energy audit 07:36 How to make an energy ledger 10:02 The energetic evolution of choices 12:32 Epictetus on how to handle temptation 14:02 Reflection questions to audit your energy 14:44 Audit #2: the promise audit 16:26  Why shaming yourself doesn’t work 18:01 The planning fallacy 20:25 How to actually plan your day accurately 21:57 Intentions are not plans  23:08 Procrastination as a coping method  24:54 Audit #3: the perfect day audit 26:17 How to design your perfect mundane day 27:08 My perfect day 29:12 Comparing your ideal day to reality 29:57 Loving your current self while working to meet your next self 30:46 lightning round recap + worksheet!  33:48 The Orange by Wendy Cope EPISODE LINKS GET THE FOLLOW-ALONG WORKSHEET HERE My debut poetry collection MAKE BELIEVE is out everywhere now⁠ ⁠Subscribe to Soul Gum’s new instagram :-) ⁠ Follow me on ⁠Instagram⁠ and ⁠TikTok

  2. Oct 11

    How to Become Unbotherable

    We all have that one person who can ruin our day in less than 30 seconds. Why is it so hard to stay in our values around certain people? And how do we stop giving them so much power? In this episode, we're turning to the 19th-century philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche for five lessons on dealing with difficult people, navigating conflict, and becoming unbotherable. If you've ever let a five-minute interaction ruin your entire week, this episode is for you. EPISODE OUTLINE - NIETZSCHEAN PRINCIPLES FOR BECOMING UNBOTHERED 00:00 Intro 9:13 1. Navigating other people’s opinions of you 14:50 2. Let them misunderstand 21:01 3. “They muddy the water to make it seem deep” 24:30 4. Are you actually keeping the peace? 31:10 5. Knowing when to walk away 35:40 Lightning round recap 38:08 Help keep Soul Gum ad free 39:05 To Take Back a Life by Kate Baer EPISODE LINKS   My debut poetry collection MAKE BELIEVE is out everywhere now⁠ ⁠Subscribe to Soul Gum’s new instagram :-) ⁠ Follow me on ⁠Instagram⁠ and ⁠TikTok

  3. Sep 27

    The 6 Levels of Living a Meaningful Life

    According to the existentialists, the core problem of being human is this: we are meaning-seeking creatures in a universe that is silent on meaning. But somehow, we're supposed to figure out what to major in, who to marry, and what to do with the approximately 30,000 days we get to be alive. In this episode, we walk through six levels of living a meaningful life as described by Simone de Beauvoir in her 1947 work The Ethics of Ambiguity, moving from brainrotten aimlesness to a life driven by purpose. If you want to live a life that feels meaningful but have no idea what you’re supposed to be doing with it, this episode is for you. EPISODE OUTLINE: THE 6 LEVELS OF LIVING A MEANINGFUL LIFE (according to 20th century existentialist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir)  00:00 Intro  04:57 1. The sub-man  10:13 2. The serious man 14:17 3. The nihilist  16:43 4. The adventurer  22:06 5. The passionate man 24:10 6. The compassionate person 26:27 but btw life isn’t a ladder  27:51 Reflection questions  30:20 Lightning round recap 32:07 When Death Comes by Mary Oliver  MY LINKS My debut poetry collection MAKE BELIEVE is out everywhere now⁠ Follow Soul Gum’s new instagram :-) ⁠ Follow me on ⁠Instagram⁠ and ⁠TikTok

  4. Sep 13

    Habits of Highly Charismatic People

    The manosphere wants you to think charisma is all about dominance and control. But what if it’s actually about deep presence and social courage? I don’t want to be like the guy who uses scarce communication to hide his lack of depth and fear of commitment. I want to be like the people who make you feel cool just by talking to them, while radiating charisma themselves. If you’ve ever wondered why some people can have fun talking to literally anyone, struggled to know what to say when someone asks you a question, or wished you were more comfortable saying what you actually think, this episode is for you. In today’s episode, we unpack 5 habits of highly charismatic people, from what they say when they’re getting to know someone to how they navigate disagreements. Along the way, we’ll talk about what we can learn from Socrates about swag, dive into the science of answering any question well, and use Byung-Chul Han’s concept of “the smooth” to investigate how we can stay raw and real in a world that tries to sand our edges. EPISODE OUTLINE: HABITS OF HIGHLY CHARISMATIC PEOPLE 00:00 Intro 07:14 1. How to ask better questions  08:18 The science of how asking questions makes people like you  10:18 The power of follow-up questions 13:41 2. How to answer any question without freezing  14:37 The scary thing no one tells you about writing a book  17:11 Why your mind goes blank when someone asks you a question  18:03 The secret to answering questions with ease  20:21 The link between storytelling and charisma 22:40 3. Stop performing agreement in conversations  23:18 What is backchanneling?  23:59 Upspeak, confidence, gender, and the way we talk  26:05 Should we actually backchannel less? 28:58 4. How charismatic people handle disagreement  30:27 What Socrates can teach us about intellectual humility 32:14 5. Stop treating human connection like a formula 33:36 Byung-Chul Han and “the smooth” 36:13 Btw you’re not a chad for wanting to be loved 39:04  Lightning round recap 40:44 Poem: Small Kindnesses by Danusha Laméris MY LINKS My debut poetry collection MAKE BELIEVE is out everywhere now⁠ ⁠Subscribe to Soul Gum’s new instagram :-) ⁠ Follow me on ⁠Instagram⁠ and ⁠TikTok

  5. Aug 31

    How to Plan Your Fall to Change Your Life

    Pumpkin spice apologists wya? It’s the great lock in Charlie Brown!!!!! In this episode, I’m walking you through the exact five-step seasonal planning system that dramatically changed my life a few years back. Along the way, we’ll dive into the philosophy and psychology behind why it works. We’ll talk through Nietzsche’s philosophy on habits, Simone de Beauvoir’s ideas on how to reconcile your past and future selves, the planning fallacy, and more. Whether you want to change the trajectory of your life this fall or just set up some systems to make life a little less chaotic, this episode is for you.  EPISODE OUTLINE: HOW TO PLAN YOUR FALL TO CHANGE YOUR LIFE  00:00 Intro 06:21 I made you a worksheet ◡̈ 09:30 STEP 1: THE AUDIT 10:36 Facticity vs. transcendence (de Beauvoir)  11:11 The importance of considering both your past and your potential 12:55 Using self-distancing to self-reflect more effectively 13:31 How to audit your goals 14:56 How to audit your execution 18:24 STEP 2: THE PURGE  19:07 The paradox of choice Cleaning out digital and physical worlds 22:15 Choice architecture 25:15 STEP 3: THE CHOICE 25:55 The planning fallacy 27:54 Optimism bias & why overplanning feels good 29:00 STEP 4. THE TRADE OFF  31:25 Nietzsche’s on the power of “brief habits”  33:10 STEP 5. THE TIME  34:33 Temporal landmarks and why they make you more likely to achieve goals  35:44 the fresh start effect 36:05 Kairos: the opportune moment 37:28 Leaving room for life inside our lives 38:13 Lightning round recap EPISODE LINKS Get instant access to the fall planning worksheet HERE. NOTE: If you can't find it in your email, search "YOUR FALL PLANNING WORKSHEET" in your email inbox! It is likely hiding in the Social or Promotions tab. My debut poetry collection MAKE BELIEVE is out everywhere now Subscribe to Soul Gum’s new instagram :-)  Follow me on Instagram and TikTok

  6. Aug 16

    The Possibility Crisis of Your Late 20s

    If your early twenties are for your Sylvia Plath fig tree allegory crisis, then your late twenties are for your Joan Didion Goodbye to All That crisis. In her famous 1967 essay, Didion writes, “That was the year, my twenty-eighth, when I was discovering that not all of the promises would be kept, that some things are in fact irrevocable and that it had counted after all, every evasion and every procrastination, every mistake, every word, all of it.” This episode explores a strain of existential dread that often shows up in your late twenties: the possibility crisis. Sometimes it hits you after capital-S Something happens. A bad break up, a wounding professional failure, or a friendship ending that felt like betrayal. Other times, there is no one defining moment or incident. You just realize one day that you are no longer as bright eyed, bushy tailed, or hopeful as you used to be, and can’t put your finger on why.  Using Didion’s Goodbye to All That as our guide, we break down three key signs you might be experiencing a possibility crisis and what it might be trying to teach you.  Along the way, we talk about how to cope with the realization that certain doors really do close, what to do when new people stop feeling full of promise, and how to let go of the fantasy that someday you’ll magically know what you’re doing. Consider this episode a field guide on the strange grief of growing up.  EPISODE OUTLINE 00:00 Intro  04:23 What made Joan Didion great? 05:13 Signs of a Goodbye to All That crisis 05:46 1. You realize future you is just you 07:41 Weird girl money  08:22 The 90s’ overly adult depiction of your 30s 10:41 2. You stop believing in new faces 11:32 Hope springs eternal on Love Island 12:09 Give me back my girlhood, it was mine first 12:58 POV you’re 28 & have met every person alive 13:55 3. Some doors are actually closing 14:52 The first time I felt a door close 16:14 When the doors start slamming left & right 17:03 It’s easy to see beginnings and harder to see ends 18:54 Perspective shifts that got me out of this crisis  19:29 1. Idk what I’m doing but neither does anyone else 20:59 2. Trust means more when it’s a choice not an instinct 21:45 3. On “it’s never too late” 22:27 Possibility must be unactualized to exist 23:10 The U-shaped happiness curve 23:55 Has the internet made the possibility crisis start earlier?  24:28 Socioemotional selectivity theory 25:25 The happy ending Joan Didion doesn’t tell you EPISODE LINKS ⁠My debut poetry collection MAKE BELIEVE is out everywhere now⁠ ⁠Follow Soul Gum’s new instagram :-) ⁠ Follow me on ⁠Instagram⁠ and ⁠TikTok

  7. Aug 2

    Rituals for De-Internalizing the Male Gaze

    Be honest: do you ever perform for no one? Do you spectate your own life instead of living it? Have you ever caught yourself changing pieces of you, from your clothes to your voice to your hobbies, in order to impress someone you don’t even like?  This episode is for you if you’ve ever sucked in your stomach in a completely empty room. Or scrolled through your own social media posts, imagining someone else looking at them. It’s for you if you've ever looked at yourself through someone else's eyes for so long that you've forgotten what you look like through your own. In it, we’ll unpack how we get trapped under the male gaze through the work of Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Susan Sontag, Margaret Atwood, Ada Limón, and more. Then, I'll walk you through 7 rituals that have actually helped me climb out from under it. This is not an episode about giving up on love. It is a field guide on how to stop twisting yourself into inauthentic shapes to earn validation to fill the void of love. If you want to become the subject of your own life again, I think you'll like this one. RITUALS FOR DE-INTERNALIZING THE MALE GAZE: EPISODE OUTLINE 00:00 Intro 07:28 1. The gaze audit (Sartre) 08:40 Subject self versus object self 10:01 Foucault’s panopticon & self-surveillence  10:54 How to do a gaze audit  14:11 2. Photo and mirror detox (Sontag) 15:42 3. Interrogate “I do it for myself” (de Beauvoir) 16:50 de Beauvoir v. Sartre: existence precedes essence? 17:21 Do we have to stop shaving to be good feminists? 18:14 How to trace the origins of your grooming habits 18:47 The marketing origins of shaving 20:02 5. Bechdel mode 21:35 The importance of non-man focused conversation 22:25 6. Pleasure inventory (Mary Oliver) 22:56 The antidote to self-surveillance according to psychology 23:45 How to take a pleasure inventory 24:49 7. Pre-situationship prep 26:44 Love poem with apologies for my appearance (Ada Limon 27:51 The surprising unobjectifying power of being really loved and really seen 28:48 Lightning round recap EPISODE LINKS My debut poetry collection MAKE BELIEVE is out everywhere now Subscribe to Soul Gum’s new instagram :-)  Follow me on Instagram and TikTok

  8. Jul 19

    Secret Portals to Your Next Self

    In stories, the narrator tells you which ordinary things are portals to magic and adventure. In real life, you have to find them yourself. This episode reveals 5 secret portals to the next version of yourself: seemingly ordinary choices, traits, and habits that are thresholds to the future version of you who lives with more courage, clarity, and freedom. It’s for you if an old version of you has died but the new one hasn’t been born yet. You might have recently experienced a big life change: a move, or a relationship ending, or a career change. Or maybe you know one is coming. It’s for you if you have an unshakeable feeling that there is a more alive version of you out there, if only you could figure out how to get to them.  We’ll examine the work of philosophy’s greatest minds, like Nietzsche, Kant, Kafka, and the Ancient Greeks, to uncover the hidden thresholds between who you are and who you're becoming, and point out clues for how to spot them when they appear in your own life. EPISODE OUTLINE  00:00 Intro 04:54 I missed you 06:05 Help me keep Soul Gum ad-free 07:35 Talk to me!!!  08:18 1. Intuition is a portal 08:49 Nietzsche’s beef with Socrates 10:44 The neuroscience of intuition (Gary Klein)   12:31 I exist because of a woman’s intuition 13:03 The tension between ambition & intuition 14:13 Mary Oliver on reacquianting with your intuition 15:05 Small ways to reconnect with your intuition 15:42 2. Solitude is a portal (Pascal) 16:39 The fear of being alone with your thoughts 17:33 2014 study on the discomfort of being un-stimulated 18:05 Solitude as a tool in my creative process 18:58 Brain drain study: it is that d**n phone 19:30 Going phone n*k*d 20:12 3. Aligned friendship is a portal 21:36 Nietzsche: Friends should be your “best enemies” 23:06 Friendship as a mirror  23:40 The research of social contagion  24:18 Look for friends that show you what’s possible  24:52 4. Nature is a portal 25:40 Our increasingly sanitized relationship with nature 26:15 Kant, the sublime, and the gorpcore of it all 28:41 The ego-interrupting power of awe 29:45 5. Action is a portal (Kafka’s Before the Law) 31:29 Mary Oliver on the most regretful people  32:00 You deserve to know what’s on the other side of fear 32:33 Leap by Joy Sullivan 33:34 For the Ones Who Left by Me (Victoria Hutchins) 34:29 Lightning round recap 35:40 Subscribe, rate, share, talk to me!!!  LINKS My debut poetry collection MAKE BELIEVE is out everywhere now Subscribe to Soul Gum’s new instagram :-)  Follow me on Instagram and TikTok

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4.9
out of 5
716 Ratings

About

A self-development podcast with philosophical, psychological and literary flair hosted by Victoria Hutchins, the creator of @thedailyvictorian and nationally bestselling author of MAKE BELIEVE. Episodes every other Sunday.

Information

  • Creator
    Victoria Hutchins
  • Years Active
    2022 - 2026
  • Episodes
    44
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Victoria Hutchins
  • Show Website
    Soul Gum

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