A How to Fail Miniseries: Rebecca Anderton-Davies

For this four week miniseries, we've been introducing you to four 'ordinary' people with extraordinary stories as part of a one-off How To Fail miniseries in partnership with Grey Goose.

My final guest is Rebecca Anderton-Davies, a woman with a double life: a high-flying investment banker who has become a yoga phenomenon in her spare time. At the age of 27, she was hit by a van while cycling to work, breaking her collarbone and badly damaging her shoulder tissue. As part of her rehabilitation, her physiotherapist suggested she started doing a slow form of yoga. To begin with, Rebecca was, by her own admission, 'rubbish' but she soon found that the lessons she learned in failing on the mat served her well in the rest of her life.

When, a couple of years later, a doctor found blood clots on her lungs - a life-threatening condition - yoga helped her again. But her busy job meant that she didn't often have time to make it to a studio, so Rebecca started practising at home, and sharing her journey on Instagram. This year, she published The Book of Yoga Self-Practice, enabling everyone stuck at home during lockdown to keep their bodies moving. She joins me to talk about all of this, as well as the joy - and wisdom - that comes from embracing imperfection when you're a perfectionist. Rebecca is such an uplifting, smart and self-deprecating guest: even if you've never done yoga (or, like me, you've done it for years and still can't do side-crow or headstand and are deeply competitive with the man in the harem pants at the front of the class even though you know that's not the point of yoga) you *will* gain something precious from this episode.

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You can buy The Book of Yoga Self-Practice here.

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Looking for a Christmas stocking filler? I can highly recommend Failosophy: A Handbook For When Things Go Wrong which contains 7 Failure Principles developed from two-and-bit years worth of accumulated podcast wisdom.

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How To Fail With Elizabeth Day is hosted by Elizabeth Day, produced by Naomi Mantin and Chris Sharp. We love hearing from you! To contact us, email howtofailpod@gmail.com You can buy our fantastic PODCAST MERCH here.

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Social Media:

Elizabeth Day @elizabday

How To Fail @howtofailpod 

Rebecca Anderton-Davies: @somewhatrad