Begin Again with Davina McCall - Reinvention: The Secret To Finding Yourself. Every Woman Needs to Know This About Midlife! With Eleanor Mills.

Episode Date: January 30, 2025

In this transformative episode of Begin Again, Davina McCall is joined by acclaimed journalist and author Eleanor Mills to explore the powerful concept of renewal and reinvention after 50. Eleanor shares her wisdom on how women can overcome societal expectations, navigate the fear of change, and embrace midlife as an opportunity for growth and joy. Drawing from her personal experiences and the stories of others, Eleanor redefines what it means to thrive in later life, offering actionable advice for finding purpose and creating a vibrant, fulfilling future. Whether you’re seeking inspiration or practical guidance, this empowering conversation will leave you energised and ready to embrace the possibilities of a new chapter. Follow me here: www.instagram.com/beginagain https://www.tiktok.com/@beginagainpod  (00:00) Intro   (02:02) Changing The Perception Of Aging For Women   (04:55) Made Redundant In Midlife   (11:33) Eleanor's Organisation   (12:29) Psychedelics Changed My Life!   (17:22) Rebirth After Redundancy   (21:55) How To Make The Changes You Need (24:43) Zoe Ad   (28:46) The Impact Of The Patriarchy On Women In Midlife   (40:18) Eleanor's Vision For The Future   (42:30) What Can Businesses Do To Change Perceptions Of Women In Midlife?   (48:40) How Can Women Reframe The Way Society Looks At Women?   (55:00) Eleanor's Book Sponsored by: ZOE - https://zoe.com and use code BEGIN10 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You are all about rebirth, finding a solution to what many people find in midlife, which is a complete cut off with your old life and you've got to start a new one. What do you do? Where'd you go? When you hit 50, probably everything will change massively. And probably the thing that's been at most at the centre of your life will fall away. But in the space that that death brings, something amazing new can grow. So there's so many women, I think, are in something where they feel like I'm not really living my truth. It's so frightening.

Yeah, to shift out of it. To shift out of it. What should they do? And I felt like I'd been recharged by the universe with this really strong sense of the possibility of renewal and reinvention. And I came out of it with a sense that that was what I wanted to do. So you're very exciting to talk to you. Like, you're fizzing. I can feel it. But what I see is a lot of women and they know that something needs to change and they don't really know kind of how to do that. The first thing I say is you can really kind of manifest in you and joyous life for yourself and that that's really not impossible and I've seen so many women do it or in the process of doing it.

I think women will get so much from you. Just want to say hi. Hi. Thanks for coming. I mean, Eleanor, I love your journey and I love the fact that you are all about rebirth, you know, finding a solution to what many people find in midlife, which is a complete cut off with your old life and you've got to start a new one, what do you do, where do you go? But also the deep dive into what it is to be a woman. Yes. And where we're going, but how far we've come.

There's so much to get at. What is your main aim, goal, wish in life? Well, my real sense of purpose now, my real, like, driving purpose is to try and tell a different, more optimistic and positive story about women's lives from kind of 45 plus. Because I think that the story that we're told in the culture is manifestly not far. fit for purpose. And when I look around me at all the amazing women, I call them queen ages at this point, doing incredible things. The broader story is really, really not, just really not cutting it. And I really saw that because I was a top editor in the media for 25 years. I was chair of women and journalism, editorial director at the Sunday Times, magazine, all that stuff. So I really have had a

kind of inside view, inside the belly of the beast, at quite how gendered ages the media is. So That's where ages and meets sexism, how hard it was to get pictures of older women, say, on the front of the magazine, how basically we were seen, women were seen as, I remember an old picture editor saying to me, oh, we love brighten up the page, which meant, you know, putting a picture of a pretty girl. And that really our value was to be kind of, you know, young and decorative and kind of fecund and fertile and fanciable. A bit like in the old days, in the 70s when they had, you know, used to sell cars with kind of pretty young girls straight to cross along the bonnet. It's not that long ago, and that's really the mentality underneath. So therefore, women at 50 plus, you don't fit that anymore, we basically see this completely redundant or invisible.

And the research that we did showed that over half of women over 50 felt completely unrepresented in the culture. And about 40% felt completely invisible. Can you define what a queen nature is? Well, I like to see it as a woman in midlife who is a queen. and coming into her prime. And I came up with the whole phrase because I had been writing headlines for a long time. And one of the women in one of our focus groups said,

I feel like a teenager, but in my own house with poshites and nice tea. So that stuck in my head. And then I go to Jamaica a lot. And we listen to a song there all the time, which goes, she's a queen. And also, older Jamaican women are seen as queens.

They have, and they're really respected. They're kind of called auntie in the community. We were playing pickleball one day and there were a whole load of boys playing football next to us. And one of the women just turned around, one of the queen ages turned around and said, will you go and play at the other end of the thing? And they just immediately did it about 20 boys, just like total respect. So I think that those two things, the queen and then the same she felt like a teenager,

came together in my head and I got kind of queenager, which I also think is a great rebranding. And it has that sense of us coming into our power and into our prime at this point in our lives. and I really want all women to look forward to being Queen Ages, and I think it sounds joyful. I kind of want to go back to the beginning and you getting into journalism, what was exciting about that time?

Because you were 25 years, like you said, in the papers, and something of a record breaker, because, or, I mean, you, at 26, weren't you, the youngest ever-features editor on the Daily Telegraph? That's amazing. Yeah, and then I went to the Sunday Times, and I started doing the paper's main interview every week. So I was interviewing everyone from the like the Dalai Lama to Cheryl Sandberg to prime ministers. I did Cholten Heston.

You know, it's a really long time ago. Every week. And that was such a kind of massive kind of thing to be doing. So I was a bit of a journalistic, Lundekinder. And I had this amazing kind of ride in journalism from when I was in my early 20s to what just before 50. And then I kind of got, I got spat off the wave. And that's really when the kind of. kind of midlife reinvention and kind of rebirth begins.

But I must say about journalism, that I felt like I'd had a fantastic front row seat, you know, on history. And I always say it beats working for a living because you're kind of doing, you're getting paid to do what other people would do if they could. So, I mean, obviously you're very grateful for it. I can hear that. Yeah, it was amazing. And the experience that you had and the opportunities that you were given.

Yeah. But when you've been in that industry for so long, and very suddenly, like out of nowhere, because you were doing a great job. Yes, came a redundancy. What happened? Well, it was a huge shock to me was that it came kind of out of a blue sky.

And I'd always thought that journalism was a kind of really meritocratic profession and that if you were really good at your job, which I was and you kind of hit your targets, whatever, you would be all right and you would be protected. And then suddenly that wasn't enough anymore. And you do get to the very top of organisations and then it often comes down to, you know,

are you fit? is their personal chemistry with the person who comes in and they want their own teen. And I was out. And that was a massive, huge shock. Because I think Queen Ages are the kind of first generation of women who really, for me, I really identified myself by my job, by my work. I'd worn this big kind of Game of Thrones cloak of editorial power.

For a really long time, I was, you know, I was editorial director. So that was so much my life that when it was suddenly taken away from me, me kind of with no warning and I hadn't really had a chance to kind of even think about what else I might do. It was like a death. It was like a bereavement or, you know, and I've heard women since talk about, you know, when somebody dies or if they get divorced or when the children leave home. It's that kind of thing where suddenly whatever had been before is gone. You know, you can't go back. And so the only thing you can do is move forward eventually and reinvent. But what I say in the book and what I really believe is that you have to pause and you have to grieve what you've

lost and that there's no quick route through that. I remember going to a chagung class. I'm really pretty bad at chagong but I don't have much else to do and I was sitting there and at the end of the thing the instructor came around the class and they were going, how was it for you and one woman was going, oh, I could feel rainbows between my hands and you know and I was just sitting they were weeping. I didn't have a tissue, so I was really kind of snotty. And he was like, you're right. And I was just like, whoa, I've heard a big transition. And he looked at me with great compassion, and he just said, change is difficult. And it was such a magic moment for me, because I'm sure you know what it's like, if you've been in a bad way, everyone goes,

oh, you'll be fine, you know, or, you know, it'll be the making of you. And when they say that, you just want to punch them. That's not where you are. And to actually be told that it was allowed to be given permission to be in a bad way and to be finding it tough and to be really sad. It was really liberating. It was kind of a moment where I thought, okay, for the first time I had a little bit of self-compassion. And I was kind of going, okay, maybe this is difficult and I'm allowed to be in this place and find it tough and be sad. And that was really liberating. I think for so many people, change is one of those things that literally you're back as up against the wall.

But often a change is very, very painful. and it's like, I don't want to do it, I don't want to do it, but you get to make the choice, but you didn't get to do that. No, no. And so when it's forced upon you, I was actually experiencing quotas, and some achieve greatness, some have greatness thrust upon them. So it's one thing to kind of pursue a change. And it's quite another to have a massive change thrust upon you. And that's why it's like a death, because when somebody dies, there's nothing you can do, you can't go back. And it was like the death of the person that I'd been. And I mourned it. It was the pandemic. So I was at, I was at home. I also got really sick with COVID. And I was just really, really kind of anxious and in a low place. And I wrote about that, which a lot of people found surprising at the time. And I was quite honest about how awful that felt. But actually, that was one of the best things that I've ever done because it made me realise that I was really not alone and that there were so many other people at this point in midlife having to reinvent, you know, for whatever reason. I really hope you are enjoying this episode. We would love a follow, please. Thanks.

What's interesting about what you're talking about is, firstly, I think, how many women, but not just women, men, men, everyone, go through this redundancy thing at 50. Yes. It is an absolute. But then we are expected nowadays to work until we're 68. Yeah. 68. Yeah.

So it is that what the hell am I going to do? Midlife crisis, which kind of often comes out in different ways with men and women. But it's an incredibly difficult and painful place. That identifying yourself with your job, which I absolutely 100% have done my entire career. And I'm now trying to replace some kind of spirituality of understanding of the world. Yes, me too. It's very difficult. So you started by writing.

Yeah, so I started by writing. I'd been a columnist for a very long time on the Sunday Times and the news review. And so what I knew from that is that often if I was going through something, even if it wasn't something that was really being talked about, that if I was going through it, then other people probably were too. So I think that that gave me the confidence to share it, because I'd kind of, you know, done that before. And then I also think that I realized that there was a massive gap.

It was a huge hole, you know. And when I looked around and I could see that there were so many people, needing to reinvent at this point, but who, and there was nowhere to go. I mean, I remember Googling Midlife Redundancy and I got the HMRC website. Let me tell you, if you are looking for inspiration, the HMRC website is not where you're going to find it.

No, it was so depressing. And there was just nothing. So I thought, okay, this is an opportunity. So I set up my organisation noon.org.org. And I called it noon because in the 100 year life, 50 is only halfway through. And I really wanted that rebrand of thinking, actually, it's only lunchtime. You know, I loved like the afternoon tea, cocktails.

You know, it was like the whole of the good day was to come. And I thought that was optimistic. Lunchtime of your life. Lunchtime of my life. So it's like, well, you can't give up. You can't feel like you're on the scrap heap that you're all done if it's only lunchtime, you know. So that I found kind of inspiring. Could I ask you something quickly because, you know, whenever I see somebody and they go,

so I saw a hole in the market. And I started a business. And you think, no, no, no, no. It's not that easy. But how did you do it? Yeah. It was that quite daunting for you. Did you do it in lockdown?

Were you on your own? No, I did it in lockdown. So I'd been, just before I was made redundant from the Sunday Times, I had been on a retreat in Jamaica where I'd taken some magic mushrooms. And during, it was a kind of therapeutic retreat. It wasn't just like taking them for lots. It was medicine. It was medicine.

It was seen as a magic. medicine where you could learn from it. It was a properly spiritual journey where you were going into taking the magic mushrooms, asking it some questions, and you do three heroic doses in a week. And they call them heroic doses because they want you to reach that point of kind of singularity where your ego dissolves. Does that mean the amount? So it's quite a lot. Heroic dose is really going to be. So I took eight grams of psilocybin. And, you know, then I know, and everyone was doing that too. So it was a lot. And it was a lot. And, and, And what it did was it kind of, on the last day, they said, you know, take away, throw away everything you don't, you no longer need in your life and all kind of blow it up.

And I had the sense of completely melting. When I took the mushrooms, I had the sense of completely kind of melting into a golden. It was like being, at the time I described as being like in a big bowl of golden cream. And I felt like I'd been recharged by the universe. this kind of golden light. And what I came out of the trip with was just this really strong sense of the possibility of renewal and reinvention at this point.

And I came out of it with a sense that that was what I wanted to do, that I wanted to help people to catalyze that change. Would you mind if I asked you a bit more about that retreat? Because I think there might be lots of people watching who have no idea about what magic mushrooms do, what a retreat would be like. had you ever had experience of that before?

Well, I'd taken loads of ecstasy and stuff back in the... Yeah, you know, back in the day. Back in day. Back in day. We did it. We all did our like jumping around. I did a lot of jumping around in field. We were doing it together.

Exactly. We were the rave generation. So yeah, back in the 90s, I did my hands in the air. But not since then, at work and everything. And I'd always been scared of taking acid. So we took E and that kind of thing. But not hallucinogen. No.

Helucidgen seemed a bit scary. We were really brought up with, you know, we had Zamo just say no, didn't we on of stuff. And then we had on acid, everyone said if you took acid, you'd try to jump out of a window. Yeah, you jump out of a window and think you could fly.

So I was like, I don't think I want to do that. So, but you went from nothing to Hero Dose in Jamaica? Yeah, I went with my, I went with a friend who'd had really bad PTSD and she wanted to go because she'd read the Michael Poland book,

How to Change Your Mind, which is all about the kind of amazing documentary, isn't that as well? Incredible documentary. People should watch on Netflix, which is basically the book, kind of in film version.

But he talks about the, what actually the neuroscience of what the psilocybin, which is the active bit of magic mushrooms does in your brain. And I talk to a lot of neuroscientists about it as a good journalist. And what they say about it is it's a bit like if you're going skiing and they were really deep ruts in the snow because it's all been carved up and there hadn't been snow for a while, what taking the psilocybin does is it kind of like a fresh fall of snow

and it allows you to create new paths in your brain. That's brilliant. Which I think is a really clever way of describing it. It really stuck with me. And so it's very good for people. If you're in PTSD, you're kind of stuck in grooves. Or it's good for people who are anorexic or obsessive-compulsive or depressed where their brain has got into deep grooves. And this just allows you.

And when you see it under brain scanners, you can see new connections being made. Because it takes off on something, the default mode network, which is the front bit of your brain, which basically tries to control everything all the time. and it allows your brain to make new connections. So I think it's a really worthwhile thing for people to do at this point. And it is quite scary, but I think if you go and do it in a therapeutic way, and what they have is they have what they call trip sitters or psychedelic ninjas who are with you all the time, who are there to kind of be as your guardian angels.

And you do it. So they talk about set and setting. So you do it in a very careful place where you can't jump off a balcony me and somebody kind of looks after you. But I think what it allows you to do is to really kind of reset your sense of yourself. And for me, it opened me up to a whole kind of spiritual aspect of the world, which I think I'd been very resistant to. So because what I find interesting is that you're not somebody who would naturally go out

and seek narcotics. No. But this was something completely different. And I think it is worth knowing for people, obviously it's not legal here. But in Jamaica, it is legal. But in Jamaica it is. They never got around to making it illegal. And so you can, you know, you can do it there.

But if you're going to go and do it, I really recommend doing it under controlled conditions because it can be quite frightening. And you want to be in a situation where you can completely surrender to what you're being shown. And that capacity to kind of open up. I mean, I've done it a few times since. And every time I've been shown something which is then, maybe I didn't even understand in the moment, which has gone on to be what Coleridge or Wordsworth would describe as a vivifying virtue,

which is, i.e., it kind of stokes your capacity for kind of joy or aliveness in your life afterwards. So how long did the effects of that trip stay with you? Did they expand and grow? I think they're still with me. Wow. And actually quite a lot of research which they've done in America shows that for a lot of people there, they put this experience of having done psilocybin up there with like giving birth or getting married, that it can be completely transformational in terms of how you see yourself and your place in the world.

And for me, it gave me a great sense of connectedness to everything, the sense of a life force chugging through me, but also through the insects and the trees and the waves and the sunshine and just feeling linked to it. it all. What I discovered was having been given a glimpse of that sense of connectedness and goldenness, I could find it again without the mushrooms. You could recall it. I could recall it. So it really, I started meditating and I would think about the golden light and the light that I'd seen through the waves

or that sense of connectedness. And I could find my way back to that place through meditation and I did silent retreats and I've done kind of, I've done all sorts of silent retreats, how do you do that? How did you do that? I decided I could. quite like my silent self because you stop, you stop telling yourself stories, you stop having to tell a story about yourself all the time and everything becomes quite still. Quite like silent Eleanor. She was quite chill.

Is this like a completely new Eleanor? Yeah, you're getting to know. Totally. I mean, because I think it's important to put in context. So I was like, I was a really like hard, charging tough hack. You know, I worked in newsrooms where I was often the only woman, you know, I ran the coverage, you know, after 9-11 or of like. down Malona Taylor's death or American elections.

All consuming, we're talking day and night. Yeah, always on call. Yeah. You know, until it was done. Always. And I had two small kids as well. I had kids while I was doing it. And I'm slightly ashamed to say now that I think I often put my work ahead of my kids.

And but I think that so in some ways, the redundancy, although it felt like a death at the time, I really now see as a kind of renaissance, a kind of rebirth, a second chance to be a different. to become a different version of myself. I talk in the book about 50 being the point where we become the woman we always wanted to be, that you can kind of become a different version of yourself. I think I'm a, I certainly am having more fun.

And I feel much more essentially me and much more free. And I also feel that I can really speak my truth in a way that I couldn't before. And I think that's partly to do with menopause and kind of getting to a point where you really don't give a stuff about. stuff and but I just it was a very it was a hard crucible I mean um chip connie talks about midlife not as a crisis but as a chrysalis which I really like and I and I'd actually got to that same idea in this book that this this moment of shedding of I've talk about it more as like a pruning it's like you know in 25 to 50 you grow all these kind of tendrils and actually need a good like chopping back to your kind of central essence and I wear my

bright green nails as a kind of as a kind of reminder that I'm now this new very bright green shoot I love that yeah that this is so there's like a kind of I feel like I've gone back to kind of core green kind of ring and other people can too God I've you're very exciting to talk to you like you are joy no but yeah are joy I can I can literally you're fizzing I can feel it it's lovely I like being near you it's very infectious oh good that's nice and because one of the big I say in the book is about saying yes to joy. And so one of the things I did, but I wasn't having to slug into the Sunday Times all the time is I started swimming every day in the Hampstead Ladies Pond all the way through the winter

and just doing lots of things that made me feel good. And through that, and what I say to, and I now run lots of circles for my Queen Ages. I saw that, but with noon. If you go on to noon, you can actually find a circle. So you can find a circle near you. We started doing it just in Soho. I started sending out this Queen Age and newsletter. And you know what it's like to begin with, you know, you have a few hundred, then you have a few thousand.

And then it really kind of gathered pace. And I started just doing it in this flat in Soho that I borrowed. And it got too big for that. And now we've got chapters all over the place, which is really exciting. I love that. Chapters like Hell's Angels. Yeah, like Hell's Angels. Hell's Queen Ages.

Hell's Queen Ages. You're going to have to get some leather jackets or something made up. We've got some tape bags. saying join the Queen Age of Revolution. And what you see, what's so amazing about the Newn Circle is just the sense of that we're all in this. And one of the things we say in the Neen Circle is the say yes to joy. And I think that actually following your joy,

following doing the things that you love, it are the stepping stones. You were saying, how did you set up this business? Well, I think following those pebbles of the things that really make you happy are the root to a kind of a successful life, a truly successful life, a resonant life, a life that matches on the outside, how you feel on the inside. And I think for a lot of women, that's not the case.

They have a, it's one of the things I talk about in the book. In fact, when I was, after I left the Sunday, after I was made redundant, I went to Jamaica with my friend Decker. And we, I was lying in and I was feeling really terrible. It was in the really early bit. And we went and we swam out around this boat in the bay. And a woman popped her head over the top of the boat and was like, you know, oh, Who are you? Come aboard.

So we were sitting there. It was about 11 in the morning. We were sick and then with a beer. And Nancy told us her story. And she was sailing around the Caribbean on kind of quite a funny, grossy little boat which she'd bought with her friend. They'd got it for 20,000 bucks from some marina in Puerto Rico. And she talked about living a resonant life and how the life that she'd had as a kind of

suburban woman in Chicago had really not been her. But this adventurous life, living like a pirate kind of from day to day, sailing around the Caribbean, she was in her late 50s, she suddenly felt who she was really supposed to be. And that really lit a spark in me. I was like, wow, and that was the first time that I actually spoke aloud my kind of plan for Nene and this kind of how we could create a community that would help other women to live a resonant life

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So that's zoe.com with code Davina 10. I mean, in a way, like you've already said, it was a kind of a blessing, in fact, this cutoff point that you had. Because so many women, I think, are in something where they feel like I'm not really living my truth. Yes, so much. It's so frightening. Yeah. To shift out of it. To shift out of it.

Yeah. What should they do? It's really interesting. I see someone said to me in the noon circle the other day, she said, I'm living this life. I'm like in this house. I've got these kids. She said to me, Eleanor, I don't feel like I chose any of it. I feel like I'm sleepwalking through my own life.

And I thought that that felt to me really sad. And I think that for me, it was kind of thrust upon me, this change. I had to do something else. But what I see is a lot of women. come and they know that something needs to change. They feel really stuck. They feel really numb. They know it's not resonant.

And they don't really know kind of how to do that. So what we say at noon is, the first thing I say is start doing something that you love. And a lot of them have even forgotten what that might be. And I go, right, go back. What did you really love doing when you were a kid? So for me, I loved reading books and I like swimming, which is weirdly like actually exactly where I vented up. So that's quite a good one.

It's like, what did you really love as a child? Use those as some building blocks. And then I think the other thing that's really important is to give yourself a bit of space. And we run retreats at noon. And we also do these amazing trips. I took 15 Queen Ages to Morocco. And we went high into the Atlas Mountain and walked for miles beyond the end of the road with this Berber woman and ex-Nobad, who's another queen-ager. And we slept on like floors on little mats and shared showers.

So it was something about really stripping. back. It's a bit like the traveling we used to do when we were, you know, I did a lot of traveling in my early 20s. So it was like really kind of stripping back all the extraneous stuff. And suddenly the women all began to talk and they began to share their truthiest truths or what they'd always really wanted to do and hadn't been able to. And there was so much tragedy and kind of difficulties that they'd face. But there was also this incredible strength. And what we see in our noon research is actually in this midlife collision. So over half of women by the time they hit 50, been through at least five massive life events, divorce, bereavement, redundancy,

death of elderly parents, looking after teenagers. We've got an epidemic of anxiety in Gen Z, empty nest, you know, their own health issues, maybe a bit of menopause, some abuse. So over half a woman who had at least five of those, and they tend to come all at once in what we call the midlife collision. But what we saw was that women who'd been through the most ended up the happiest. Yes. So there was such a kind of optimistic narrative to that.

Because when I started looking at the structure, I was thinking, oh, the gloom and doom, this is a nightmare. And actually, there was such, we talk about Queen Ages being forged in fire. And actually, when you come out the other end, you're this kind of like invincible, shiny, kind of great version of yourself because you sloughed off all the things that you aren't. I totally see that in women, I know. Yes. The ones that have been through the most. Yes. Have this.

Oh, my God, they're boss bitches. And they shine. You know, and then they take no prisoners. But they also have a great humanity and empathy and, you know, they're the person you need in a crisis. And I suppose also what they're sharing us is that, you know, this is what you can be when you go through trouble. Yes. Do not be afraid of going through the trouble. You can't avoid it.

You can't go around it, under, over. No, I see that. It can't go over it. It's got to go through it. Like the bear hunts it in the book. It'll get better. I love what you said about speaking your truth as well because I think you've earned it, you know. Yes.

Like, actually, do you know what? I've earned my right to say whatever I want. Yes. You can argue with me now. Look at Miriam. Yeah. Miriam Margoalis. We all have to bow down to the altar of Miriam Margoalus.

But she, exactly. She shows away. And what I'm hoping that this book does and my story does for other women is to point a map of what this point can look like. And it's both a kind of warning and an encouragement, I hope. It's saying when you hit 50, probably everything will change massively. And probably the thing that's been most at the center of. of your life will fall away. But in the space that that death brings,

something amazing new can grow if you let it. And it's giving people the kind of courage to walk through those pinch points, those dark times, and knowing that something will come better afterwards. And weirdly enough, that's the older, I'm an obsessive storyteller, it's what I've always done, but that story of kind of going into the darkness

and then coming out to light is actually the oldest story in humanity. There's an Syrian goddess called Diana, a queen who goes down into the darkness, and she's hung on a hook like a slab of meat in the dark. And then she's rescued by some people who come down to find her. But when she's in the dark, you think she's dead, but actually she's not, she's regenerating. It's that kind of fallowness. It's the turn of the year.

It's like winter, the leaves come off the trees. And at the point where it looks darkest, it's actually when all the buds are going to come out again. That we need that kind of fallowing, wallowing, regenerating. a bit of time in the dark. That's the change is difficult bit, so that we can come back like this new, my new bright green sap. I mean, you've also talked about

how this generation of women are real trailblazers, really, because we are completely different to previous generations. So much so. The ravers. We were the ravers. We shook it off.

And I think that we, I also think we were sold a massive lie. So I think when we came into the workforce, we were told that we had equality. We didn't. I think about it is we were given the lanyard. So we were allowed in. We were given a kind of security pass. But everything was still set up for men. I mean, I was lucky enough I went to Oxford University. But at my college, there wasn't a single female tutor. There wasn't a single woman on any wall. It was like an entirely male world, which we were allowed into. And it was the same when I went into newspapers. You know, you were allowed in. But the price of entry was not being what they used to call missish. So, you know, not me. not minding when someone made terrible kind of sexist comments. You know, people were really brutal. You just had to put up with it.

That was the price of being in the room. And I'm sure you know what I mean. And it's so exciting to actually be allowed in the room that you didn't complain. You just got on with it. But I think that that was a massive gaslighting because although we were allowed in the room, it wasn't set up for us. And things, we've also been huge drivers of change in our generation. My first daughter, I was allowed five months maternity leave.

And then by the time I had my second law in 2005, I was allowed a year. So that was like real, like social change happening in real time. And then, of course, when I was first allowed a bit of flexible working, it was unheard of. I got it because my male boss suggested it because I resigned and he didn't want me to leave. But then, you know, everybody could have it. So we have been the spear, the kind of tip of the spear of this social change all the way through. And that's why I think it's up to us to now change this conversation about women of things. 50 and what we're for.

I mean, you did it brilliantly with all your stuff on menopause. That was really the beginning, I think. But I think it's a bigger conversation. You know, menopause is the beginning. Yes, we want doctors to know what they're talking about. You know, we want to feel okay. But also, we don't want to be seen through just the menopausal lens. Because I think that there's so much that we can be at this point.

And the next bit is stopping companies making women redundant at like 50, which is what happens. Well, there's an economical value. And it's beyond, beyond, like, important for a company to keep women with all of that experience, all of that knowledge, all of those people you've met. Yeah. And the wealth of, or the depth of help that you can pass on to a new younger journalist when they're going to go and interview somebody. Exactly. And Cheryl Sandberg's research shows that lean in that women, senior women, are 68% more likely to mentor the kind of diverse talent coming up the ranks than men would. So when you whack your queen ages, you lose a huge amount of kind of culture and kind of nurturing this within the organisation and all that wisdom. And we're never going to get to equality at the top if we lose all the women at 50.

I mean, the average age of a female CEO is 56, average age of a female chair 61. If we leave the work, if the workforce spits us out of 50, we're never going to get to that kind of equality. And we're so far away from it, even though we all began with the first generation. who kind of began often in equal numbers in the professions. But if you look at law or at medicine, at the very top, it's still only about 15% female. I mean, there's a massive way to go before we have any kind of equality at the top of our society.

How do we do that? Well, part of it is tackling the gendernages narrative, which says women are useless and have no value once they hear 50. And is that up to us? Well, I think no one else is going to do it. We live a life where people go, oh, yeah. Isn't she 50? Yeah, but she's cool.

56. Look, she's... No, and I think you're totally manifesting that. And I think we need to keep challenging the gender-ed ageism and the culture. So if you think about just the normal, you know, rubbish that we're told, like men age like silver foxes, you know, all that kind of George Clooney, kind of, you know, they get better with age, like fine wine. Women, not so much more seen to age like peaches, one wrinkle and we're, you know, we're in the bin. And that, you know, so that needs to change because that goes to the heart of. what we value women for in our culture. And I'm afraid patriarchy values women for being, you know,

fecund and, you know, fanciable. So, and I see that as a bit like, if women are rainbows, the patriarchy only sees us in black and white. And actually there are all these other things that we are and we go on being and that we become even more powerful and amazing as we age, which our culture doesn't cease. So that's the story that I'm trying to change is that, and that's why it's the last bit of feminism,

because it's saying we need to value women for all that they are, are and kind of shake off the male lens which makes us only see ourselves valuable in the black and white of, you know, how hot we are or, you know, whether men think that we're going to be good mothers, which is still the lens that too much of the media sees us through. Yeah. And one of the great revelations I had when I was writing the book was, I was thinking, hmm, society tells me I'm only valuable if I kind of, you know, have a thigh gap and I'm kind of, you know, don't have cancals, whatever.

And I'm thinking, you know, actually I'm 53. I've had two children, you know, I've got, I've got nice. nice chubby thighs and a bit of stomach. And actually that's completely fine. It hasn't actually stopped me having a very successful and happy life. And actually I think that's quite an important thing to say. Oh my God, it's so important. And the other thing I think is that all women come out, more women come out and speak of that.

I mean, I can't tell you how much I loved Pamela Anderson for her makeup. Oh my God. I love, I've always loved Pamela Anderson. That documentary is incredible. Yeah. You taught me apart what we as a society. did to that woman. Yes, exactly. And particularly her. And what I've also seen, I write about in the book, is that the closer women are to this kind of male ideal or this kind of patriarchal ideal,

which is pushed in the media, the more lacking they feel that they are. So it's always my most beautiful friends who were kind of closest to being kind of eat, whatever it was, who felt the most sense of lack as they could see their imperfections. I was always kind of a bit short and round and busty. And so I never really looked like any of those women in the magazine. So I kind of got on with it. I never had any shortenship takers. And I was interviewing an amazing woman who worked in advertising for a long time in New York. And she said to me, of course, the truth is, Eleanor, that what's attractive in people is energy, confidence, you know, vitality, pizzazz.

But you can't sell that in a bottle. Well, I think that's what I was trying to say to you earlier. You're just immensely attractive. Like, you just want to be near you because you are so confident. and full of joy. I think it's a very, it's a really kind of magnetic power to have. And you,

you being like that will enable other people to be like that. It's leading by example, really, isn't it? So, Decker, my lovely friend Decker, who wrote this book about her husband dying in front of her. She had two small children, he drowned in front of her in Jamaica. And she wrote an amazing book called All at Sea.

And when I was writing this, because my book's very honest, I said, gosh, I don't know if I can do this. there's, you know, can I share these things which I still feel a kind of residue of shame about. You know, I feel really fearful about it. And she said, the thing is, Els, when you take off all your clothes and you walk down the street, you allow everyone else to take their clothes off too. Yes.

And, you know, you feel it's shameful because people kind of haven't done it, or they don't usually talk in this way. But when you do it, you suddenly give everyone else a magic permission pass to say, oh, yeah, I also feel like that. I love that. And that if I'm really powerful as a way of explaining, you know, why I've been as honest in the book as I have. Because I think people were surprised because I'd had the big cloak and being the big executive that I was so raw about how I felt about being made redundant and, you know, everything that's happened since. But I just kind of thought if you're going to write a book, you might as well share your truthiest truths or it's not worth it, right?

I mean, how did it feel at the end? What was it like when you gave it to somebody else to read? Well, I tell you what I think helped is I write this newsletter every week called The Queenager. So I kind of road tested quite a lot of it and that. And what I do really feel about this book is that it is an absolute kind of testament to all the amazing women who've come to noon over the last three years. And it's because of their love and support and the kind of joy that they've taken in my story or the optimism that they've been able to take from someone like me going through this and being sad and kind of coming. out the other side, they gave me the confidence to write the book. Because I feel like I've got a kind of Praetorian guard of women who really get it.

And I'm kind of writing it for them. I kind of feel like it's kind of wrong everything out of me. Everything I ever knew that I thought was true is in that book. What do you want for your life for the next 10, 20 years? I really want this story to change. I really, really want to create a new map, a new set of signposts for women. about what life can be from 50 onwards and that this is the age of becoming, that they're not done yet, they're not on the scrap heap, that you're never too old, it's never too late, that you can

really kind of manifest in new and joyous life for yourself and that that's really not impossible. And I've seen so many women do it or in the process of doing it and you can go back and follow your dreams and, you know, all of that stuff is possible. And find your tribe, it's like you were saying, you know, going to try and find other people. I remember when I turned 45, I discovered a Facebook group called 50AF. Oh, that sounds good. And I got on there.

It was the most inappropriate, saucy, naughty, hilarious. And I thought, oh, God, these women are so funny. It's not all like, oh, God, I feel awful. It was rude and funny. And funny, and people were talking about these outrageous clothes that they were buying. And I thought, oh, life can be like that. Yeah. Yes.

And that's what we need to show. I think we have to model a different way of being a woman, you know, between 50 and 75, you know, and beyond. That we can, that we are, we have such an opportunity. We're so lucky that we have this longevity, this longevity dividend. It's actually the biggest dividend of all the scientific revolutions. We've doubled the length of time that people live in this century. And we'd like the first generation of women to really reap the benefits of that. And so it's really important to kind of, my stepfather used to say,

who was a psychiatrist, used to say, we owe death a living. And I really believe that. And then it's kind of that this can be a really amazing, important, rich part of life. And rather than thinking that we're, you know, we're tall and we've had it and no one cares about us anymore, we should be really grabbing it by both hands and having a ball. what can businesses do to China buck the trend? Well, I think the first thing they can do is actually look hard because in business, what gets measured gets done.

So most businesses are not even tracking how many women over 50 they've got in their businesses. They don't value them. And actually the research that we did shows that Queen Ages are behind over 90, 90% of all household consumer spending decisions. We know that. We're buying stuff for ourselves, for our kids. for our husbands, for our parents. And yet we appear in less than 11% of advertising. I definitely feel invisible in terms of advertising.

Completely invisible. And yet we're the ones with the money. And I know, I mean, I will spend five times as much on a pair of jeans than my 21-year-old does. I mean, they go to a thrift shop and they look fab. It's all directed at the 21-year-olds, which is completely mad. And that's partly because only less than 6% of marketing and advertising professionals or people in it are less than 6% are over 50.

So it's entirely kind of braced than the young. And that's completely bonkers. We're living in a society where we're lucky enough to age. And yet the whole kind of messages that getting older is a disaster, which is just mad since we're incredibly lucky to have the privilege of getting old. The alternative to getting old is dying. So, you know, I think that that's an important thing to kind of spell out. And also that the queen age of pound, you know, we sort of

talk about things like the pink pound or the black pound. The queenager pound is massively valuable. So I think it's really important that companies start thinking about us and they need queen ages in their companies if they're going to be able to sell to us. I mean, I think that the sheer economics of us should change that. And also is, I mean, you'll know this, but the number of women over 50 in the workforce is getting bigger and bigger. It is getting bigger and bigger, but they are hitting this really toxic cocktail of gendered ageism in the culture, the midlife collision of all these things hitting together. And what my friend Lucy Ryan, who wrote in a brilliant book called Revolting Women,

talks about as The Revolt, which is just that thing of getting to this point and going, oh my God, I've lived by everyone else's rules for too long. And I just can't be bothered anymore. And wanting to shift into purpose or a sense of legacy or doing something that feels meaningful to them. And I also think that this whole thing about, you know, the world's being set up for men and we were given the land yard, but not really equality. If companies want to hang on to Queen Ages, they've got to really start thinking about what it is that we want. And again, our research shows that for Queen Ages, flexibility, work-life balance, 16 times more important than status or kudos.

And yet, at the top in those very hungry jobs, you get status. I was given a big, fancy kind of corner office. but the flip side of that was I was meant to be on call 24-7. So I think that there's also a sense of us going, I think we've had enough of pleasing everybody else. What do I want to do for myself? You know, maybe I've got another 10, 25 good years. What does that look like for me?

And so many Queen Ages have spent the last 25 years looking after everyone. But I think it's also really important to say there that nearly a third of our Queen Ages don't have children. And of those over half have actively chosen. to be child free. And again, you know, if we think Queen Ages are invisible in the culture, child-free Queen Ages, even more so. But a woman who's a partner in a law firm,

she said to me, Eleanor, I'm disposable income-a-rama. You know, I've got no kids. I'm a partner in a law firm. And not a single brand ever targets me. And I just think that's bonkers. I mean, I went to interview Cheryl Sandberg as one of the last things I did at the Sunday Times. And she said, this midlife cohort are the most lucrative

and underserved set of consumers in the whole of the kind of marketing firmament. And this is the kind of great, you know, the unconquered continent, as it were. So, you know, we're definitely onto something, but trying to persuade businesses to actually picture older women, particularly women who actually really look like they're older,

not like, you know, they're still looking incredibly young for their age, is really hard. If you think about women who actually look older who are allowed to see on our screens, Miriam Margola and Judy Dent, You know, and that's about, and Helen Mirren because she still looks fab in a bikini at 85. Yeah.

You know, but that really is about it. And when you start actually trying to picture real women, that becomes more tricky. And there's a big reluctance to do that within brands and kind of marketing, often because the CEO would much rather have Kim Kardashian. It is launch party. You know, but there's a real, there's a real kind of piece of education that we have to do about reconditioning ourselves. And I think that that's also to do with women looking at their own internalized misogyny.

because patriarchy makes women compete against each other. And often there's only been one position at the table for women. So we've been taught to kind of judge each other and exclude each other. So I talk in the book about what I call sistering, which is like looking at other women with love. You know, if you looked at this woman really with love and you saw all the wonderful things about her, you know, and you cast off all that way you've been chosen to cut,

you've been taught to judge and kind of criticize other women. You actually go to them with an open heart. What a different world we were living. I actually think that's a wonderful thing that really only women can do. Yeah. Yeah. And we can do that so easily. It's just about a kind of shift in mentality.

It's not seeing other women as competition, but seeing them as allies. And of course, unite against the external aggressor. I mean, it's always been the case with, if you think about colonialism, they do divide and conquer. So if women are all fighting against themselves, then, you know, the patriarchy challenges. Is uncharchy? Yeah, triumphs. And so if we all kind of stick together and start going, no, actually, there's room for all of us.

You know, budge up. Let's have another sister on the bench. Life can change quite quickly. I love that idea. Let's have another sister on the bench. So nice. Yes, definitely. I would love you to round off our chat with maybe some of the sort of most important things that we've spoken about today.

tips that where women can help the sisterhood make society reframe the way they look at us. How can we do that? Give us some tips. Give us some pointers. So I think my first really, I mean, I think I'm quite a joyful person. So my first tit always is follow your joy. Because I think if you can really tap into that yourself,

then you can spread it to others. I think the second thing that women can do is never to judge, or comment on other women's bodies. And I really noticed that. I think that's really important. My mum's generation, absolutely dreadful. The first thing they do is, oh, if you lost weight,

oh, you know, you're looking so thin. I absolutely hate that. And what I noticed with my daughters is they never comment on anybody else's weight. You're so right. Ever. So that's one thing that Queen Ages can do. And it's really interesting.

If you stopped doing it, you just stop thinking about it. It just doesn't become the currency. And I think for our moms, we're really that pivot generation because our mum's, you know, they could never be too rich or too thin, and they really meant that. Whereas I think for us, you know, that's not the case. And I think we could learn something, we can learn something from the Gen Z's on that front. So never comment on another woman's weight and just try not to think about it. Just kind of tune it out. And then

what I've learned from swimming at the ladies pond every day was just really like zoning in on the incredible beauty of older women's bodies. Yes. And, you know, maybe their kind of faces were wrinkly, but you'd notice that one woman had an amazingly beautiful breasts or wonderfully kind of, you know, muscled kind of legs or a beauty in her eyes or the way that they were. So I think I kind of actively looking for beauty in elder women rather than judging them. So that helps, I think. I'm half French and the French are really good at that. Yes.

They love. I mean, the number of women that I've looked at on a beach in France and just gone, wow, you must be 70s, 80s. And you're just the way you carry yourself. Yes. It's not about your size or you're just, it's like you love yourself. Yeah, it's that be that bianne d'all sapeau, you know, feeling good. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Feeling good in your own skin.

And you can feel it, you know, and it's so attractive. It's so attractive. So that's what we're saying. So, okay, I think shifting from that kind of constant judgment of other women, oh, why are they wearing that, you know, oh, she's too fat. You know, that kind of horrible kind of, you know, narrative that we can have running in our head, fueled by a whole industry, a kind of industrial beauty complex.

And we all do it to each other and we've been told to do it by magazines and stuff. So I think actively opting out of that. And I think really paying it forward for other women. You know, always kind of, I now in my business, I try and use other kind of female entrepreneur suppliers. You know, I always recommend other women for things.

I talk them up. You know, we can, you can be. kind of really positive about the other women around you rather than seeing them as competition. I think that that really helps. And have you found by doing that really great things come to you as well? Of course.

By amplifying other women, I always find I am, in the back of my book I always, I put, I don't know, like loads and loads of Instagram pages of other people to go and follow it. It's not like, just follow me. No, I can tell you everything. It's like, follow all of these people.

They're amazing. Exactly. And so I think really kind of spreading the love, and whatever, everything I do at noon is really collaborative. Yes. You know, there can be women who are like, oh, well, I'm in the middle of space. I own the men and Paul's chat. It's like, no, we're all coming at this with our own particular slant. And when we all join together, we all rise, you know.

And I think that that's really, really true. And understanding, not being cross with, you know, not being kind of cross with ourselves for how we have been, because we were taught to behave in that way. And we've been very much conditioned. And the book unpicks a lot of the way. that we've been taught to think, which are maybe a bit unsisterly. So I just think it's being much more conscious kind of about those things.

And then we can really change things. And also catching yourself making ages comments. Yes. You know, not going, oh, I'm too old for that. And also, I was reading a wonderful thing about from someone the other day he'd taken up surfing at 55. And she was going, well, I've always wanted to surf. If I don't do it now, it's not going to get any easier. Yeah.

So she'd taken up surfing and speaking Spanish or something kind of in her 50. I think also that feeling of you can. I became an entrepreneur at 50, which has been amazing. It's been a wild ride. So that sense of, yeah, well, why not? I'll give it a while. What have I got to lose? You know, if I wanted to do that, you know, I'll give it a try.

My mum just went off and did a week's Spanish language, immersive language. Good for her. In Spain, on her own. Wow. With a lot of university students. staying in student accommodation. Brilliant. It was amazing.

Yeah. But she was terrified. But I think that's possible. It's putting yourself out. Yeah. Putting yourself outside your comfort zone. And the point about change is you have to do something different. You have to do something that feels a bit scary.

And if you can keep putting yourself in a position where you go, actually, this feels a bit scary, but I'm going to do it anyway, then your whole life can begin to open up. And I found it really scary writing a lot of this book. When I first started to really write my truth on my newsletters, I literally felt that somebody was going to kind of come and put me in a dungeon. I really did. Because I had such conditioning that there were certain things that I wasn't allowed to say because I'd done so many years writing for newspapers

where there were just certain topics that were off limits or whatever. So when I really started to write what I really felt rather than the way that I'd been trained to write, that felt very scary. And often it came with quite a lot of tears. And there was a wonderful woman called Claire Gibois, who's an incredible eco campaigner. And I remember talking to her and saying, I feel so terrified by this. I don't think I can do it. And she said to me, Eleanor, when women speak their truth, it always comes with tears and pain.

And you have to go through that and do it anyway. So I think it's really important that can people look at me go, well, it's all right for her, she's all confident, she's been a journalist, whatever. But it's hard for all of us, and I'm sure you know that too. And the point is you have to do it anyway, because it's important for the women who come after us that we tell the truth. Oh, I know that's purpose. Yes. And purpose is so important in later life. Crucial.

I speak, not for myself, but for all the millions of women who have been made to feel crap about themselves at midlife. So, you know, you're not on the scrap heap. You're not done yet. There's so much more to come. Oh, my God. I can't think of a better way to end than that. So this is your book. That's my book.

Much more to come. Much more to come. Yes. Absolutely brilliant. Kind of the Bible. Hope so. And I think there'll be, people will read and be moved to tears several times because I think you will see yourself.

Hope so. In these pages. But thank you. so much. I think women and men I mean men definitely will learn a lot about what it feels like to be us. Yes. I hope so. But I think women

will get so much from you. So thank you. That was really brilliant. And I think also what it does is it extends the runway for all women because by saying that we're not done at 50 or those women who would like trying to crush so much into their 30s and 40s having kids

and jobs or all those 20-something who are freaking out because they think they're getting a wrinkle and are having surgery, hopefully can just go, hey, I'm going to come into my prime when I'm a queen age. I'm looking forward to being 50. That's what I want the new story to be. And feel the most settled. Like, I feel so settled. Yeah.

And I think people sometimes think they're just saying that to make themselves feel better about being 50. We're not. No, no, no. This is when you become the woman you always want it to be. And that's what needs to change. So we need to look forward to this point, not dread it. That's my mission, now. Thank you.

Thank you. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. You're right. Oh, I love it. Thank you. Thank you.