Why I Created The Breakout Room on Substack

It’s time to create a writing room of my own

‘No risk, no glory’ – Madonna

As a writer who has spent the last eight years honing my craft and writing using different pens – as a legal academic, content creator, policy expert, communications specialist, op-ed writer, spiritual and wellbeing writer and entrepreneur – now feels like the ideal time to write using my own pen and execute my own creative and editorial vision however, and whenever, I want.

When it comes to my writing, my priority is to connect with my reader and explore meaningful ideas without any of the usual constraints, such as waiting for an editor to approve my pitch or writing under a specific professional persona. The Breakout Room is my own personal breakout room which blends all the professional identities I have, sprinkled with personal thoughts, insights and interests. It’s a place for lateral thinking, creative stimulation, ideation and expansion. And you’re welcome to come in and read if this resonates with you.

The idea behind The Breakout Room is simple. I believe that there is greater understanding of issues from a variety of perspectives. Think of an academic exploring the future of democracy and a spiritual writer providing a spiritual perspective on the topic but in a single essay. My focus will be on wellness/spirituality, political/democracy issues and popular culture, with a dash of AI and goings on in the business world. What I hope to show is how highly interconnected different perspectives and themes are, and how well they dance together on the same page. My purpose is to create a more holistic picture of the times we are living in which is exciting, revolutionary, random and scary and every emotion in between. Hopefully some of the thoughts I have may help flip a switch and solve some problems, too.

Curiosity is my number one character trait. It’s why I write, and why I have been able to write with so many different pens in my career. Playing with ideas from different viewpoints has enabled me to think, speak and act from an energy of expansion, and it’s an energy I want to experience/explore more. When we become restricted and siloed from different perspectives, we limit ourselves and our potential to do more and be more in a world that survives and thrives because of Earth’s natural diversity. Playing with and enjoying the freedom of different views and perspectives enables the magic of humanity and its creative components to be discovered and put to good use. This is my intention for The Breakout Room.

The Name

For me, the sweet spot of writing is discovering and expanding the nuance of what I’m writing about. To do this successfully, I need to thread together different strands of thought. This is where the name for The Breakout Room comes from.

I should also say that the name came to mind instantaneously – always a promising creative sign from the Universe – and one that intuitively felt like the perfect fit for me. I have a couple of theories about where it came from.

• Firstly, from my desire to break out of any narrow professional perceptions people associate with me. I think the Internet presumes that I’m primarily a constitutional law nerd based on some of my recent and very public academic work, however that is far from who I am IRL. The Breakout Room will be a breakout space for my wider work and interests and will enable me to put all my professional skills and personas to good use in one place.  

• I’m sensing a transition happening – a bit like when a caterpillar breaks out/transforms into a butterfly. Potential to actualisation. Everyone goes through this in life (several times too), but I’ve been sensing a big shift for a while, especially in relation to what I write about, how I write and the ‘why’ driving my writing into existence. It’s only when we break out of thought-loops that we expand our consciousness and beliefs. FYI: I have a huge interest in/passion for astrology and spirituality, so expect some interesting and animated discussions on this.

• I was recently told by a literary agent that a book proposal I was working on needed to be in a DEFINED category. Hell no to that, so I decided to create my very own writing category on Substack. The Breakout Room comes from a desire to create a writing space of my own, and not being stuck and limited to one restrictive box.

• The words ‘break out room’ have become part of my everyday vocabulary over the last few years thanks to the pandemic, remote work and my constant use of Zoom and Microsoft Teams. I thought the following descriptions were right on point:

Cambridge Dictionary:

Microsoft Teams:

Why Substack?

I choseto come over to Substack because this is the best place to find fantastic, deep-thinking and interesting writers in whom I want to invest my time and money. Substack is leading the way when it comes to putting meaning back into words and creating genuine engagement with an online community who are willing to take the time to provide thoughtful responses.

A platform which is ‘on a quest to build a better internet for readers’ and ‘a system that nourishes culture instead of tearing us apart’ (as recently said by Hamish McKenzie, one of the co-founders of Substack) sounds like my kind of place, and I believe that this is the future of the internet in a world which is increasingly having mixed feelings about social media, and how it makes us feel and act over a decade on. As someone who seeks out high-quality news and culture, Substack is the platform specifically crafting its features to cater for that. And, as an intentional and conscious communicator, I agree with Substack that what we read matters. Many positives, no negatives. Sign me up.

It’s easy to forget that we are the first humans to acclimatise to 24/7 online news and hope to learn the rhythm and beat of social media. How we choose to dance to it, or whether we choose to at all, is up to us. We’re still getting into our groove, deciding when and how we funk to it. Yet we’re becoming increasingly clear on what we don’t want from it.

What I’ve observed in the thirteen years that I’ve been using social media (from Facebook to Instagram to X to LinkedIn to Mastodon to TikTok) is that at some point or another, the party just stops. Certain characteristics begin to crop up. Less posts from our genuine connections. More advertisements, both personalised and obscure. Watered down home page feeds. Too diverse; not diverse enough. Weird glitches (posts don’t get shown to followers), unappetising features (I’m against platforms showing metrics to indicate follower numbers) and vacuous information (what was Facebook’s ‘complicated relationship’ status all about?!). It all feels a bit antiquated and irrelevant in the 2020s. We’ve become more attuned to how we spend our time and whether it is meaningful to us and adds to our lives in a positive way.

Substack feels richer, more concentrated, less superficial, more memorable, more enjoyable and I keep wanting to come back and read more. It feels worthy of my time in the Age of the Attention Economy where there is plenty to discover, but often lacks depth and purpose beyond grabbing your attention and fixating on entertaining, annoying or amusing you.

I’ve previously written for national and international media outlets such as British Vogue and The Times but there’s no diversity of writing angles or consistency with it. And neither is it 100% under my creative direction (I like writing my own headlines thanks very much).

My priority is to make my writing a regular and persistent/consistent practice to share with my readers, with the idea that it resonates with and benefits them as well as myself. Writing gives me a high dose of creative joy; so why wouldn’t I spend more time doing it? That’s not to say that I won’t write for media outlets in the future, but I envisage that the bulk of my writing will appear here. Plus, Substack has some interesting quirks that I intend to use; guest articles, podcasts, you name it, I’m all for using Substack’s all-in-one offerings.

During this turning point in time (or vibe shift if that’s your wording of choice) connection has rightly become the experience that people are savouring more. Substack is more about substantive connection, less so about distraction and superficiality. Substack makes it tricky for writers to say something just for the sake of it (unlike X) and encourages deeper observation and more focused attention for both the writer and reader. Hurray for that!