Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - The Psychology of Menopause | Tamsen Fadal

Episode Date: September 2, 2026

Tamsen Fadal was 47 and anchoring the evening news when the first hot flash hit.She got off the set and laid down on the bathroom floor. She had never heard the word perimenopause. A few weeks later, a note landed in her patient portal with four words: “In menopause, any questions?”Tamsen Fadal is an Emmy Award-winning journalist, executive producer of the documentary The M Factor, and New York Times bestselling author of How to Menopause. She spent thirty years in television news before turning to the thing nobody had explained to her.Tamsen and Mike get into what menopause actually is, why the symptoms are read as anxiety or depression, what changed after the 2002 hormone study, and how partners and teammates can be useful instead of awkward.Mike talks about watching his wife go through it, and what the two of them missed.Tamsen calls what comes next “the next 30.” Her point is that these are the years to decide what you want them to look like, and to start now.Enjoy the conversation.___________________________________________________Links & Resources:Tamsen Fadal’s Website: tamsenfadal.comTamsen Fadal’s Books: How to Menopause: Take Charge of Your Health, Reclaim Your Life, and Feel Even Better than Before, The New Single, Why Hasn’t He Proposed?, Why Hasn’t He Called?Tamsen Fadal’s Documentaries: The M Factor: Shredding the Silence on Menopause and The (M) Factor 2: Before the Pause, both on PBSTamsen Fadal’s Podcast: The Tamsen ShowSubscribe to our Youtube Channel for more conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and wellbeing: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMasteryGet exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors!Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletterDownload Dr. Mike’s Morning Mindset Routine: findingmastery.com/morningmindsetFollow on YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, and XSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

I'm on the set one night and we're in a commercial break. And I felt something that I'd never felt before. I had this heat come up through my body and just sweat break out everywhere, my heart racing, like pumping. And I was like, I'm going to pass out. She's a New York Times best-selling author of how to menopause. She's a powerhouse in women's health. Emmy winning journalist and health advocate, Tams and Fidel. I was told not to bring it up on television.

And I did. And they said, could you please stop talking about this over and over again? Just please stop. Nobody wants to hear about this all the time. And I said, 1.2 billion women globally are in this transition in life. Everybody needs to hear about it. Coach me and our entire community up. A lot of the men in those rooms go, oh, my gosh, I had no idea what my wife was going through,

but all of a sudden I was living with a stranger. My wife has not wanted to have sex with me or be intimate with me or have me even touch her for a long time. I didn't know what was going on. I thought it was me. I did not get properly trained here. It looks just like anxiety and or depression. But they never said anything about menopause being a differential diagnosis.

So I think, like, sadly, how many misses have I had? I've had doctors tell me they had one hour. Gynecologists, maybe a week. I had one doctor tell me that they were offered free pizza in exchange for a luncheon to talk about menopause. And I say, oh, I get it. You weren't trained. There weren't doctors, you know, online talking about it. There weren't pharmacists talking about it.

Everyone was sort of on their own to figure it out. This conversation is certainly for women. But this conversation is also for men. It is materially important for the relationships we have. For any man that's out there listening, you're not going through menopause, one, but understand that you are going to be going alongside somebody who is. And whether that means that you're at the head of a big corporation or you're working next to women or you're a son or you're a father or you're a partner, somebody in your life's going to be going through that. And they don't have to go through it, but they do have to understand it. If we knew what you knew, how would men be better partners?

So for me, the number one-one thing that I focus on first has to be. Tamsan, I've been looking forward to this conversation for a long time. I've been trying to understand this process that you've become an expert in. And I'm limited. You know, I don't experience it so I can only observe it. And this conversation is certainly for women. But this conversation is also for men, me included in that narrative, obviously, because if you are a father, if you are a partner, and, and in the home.

in the workplace. It is materially important for the relationships we have. And so thank you for writing a book. Thank you for your mission here. So if we just start with like, what would you want to say to men about the woman's experience with menopause? What's exciting to be here? And it's exciting you ask me that because I, you know, I've been talking to men recently. And I think it's so important. They can't be left out of this conversation. And for any man that's out there listening, like, yet be lucky you're not going through menopause, one, but understand that you are going to be going alongside somebody who is. And whether that means that you're at the head of a big corporation, or you're working next to women, or you're a son, or you're a father, or you're a partner,

somebody in your life's going to be going through that. And so for men to do two things, they don't have to go through it, but they do have to understand it. And it just needs to be the simplicity of it and not make fun of it. And I think that we came from a place for a very long time where it was the ha-ha and every sitcom and every rom-com, and we laughed a lot about it, which is fine, because there are some very funny parts to it. But I also think understanding it, so you understand that this person in your life hasn't changed to a point where they're not themselves anymore, but something is changing in them. I think that that nuance is really important. My wife would say often, like, I feel different. And so you're saying they haven't changed, but that there is a change.

I think they don't feel like themselves anymore. And I think that you'll hear that over and over. there was actually even a study because women were going into doctors saying, I just don't feel like myself anymore. I don't know what's going on, but I don't feel like myself anymore. So yes, your body's changing. And I think that a lot of things are changing, but you're not a different person. And what happens and how this shows up, maybe it will start in a relationship, is that men will come to me and say, I don't know my wife anymore. Like she doesn't want me to touch her. She doesn't want me to come near her. She's frustrated all the time and everything. I don't know what to do. I'm getting my head bitten off. But that's not the person that's changed. It's something that's happening to them that is making them

in that moment, because this is a transition. How did you get here? How did you get to studying this at such a rich level? I know. I ask myself that sometimes because it really, it all sort of happened for me in a very organic way. So I was a newscaster and a journalist for 30 years. Most recently in New York for 15 years, I put New York to sleep. I say I did the evening news. I started out doing the morning news. So I was the girl that got up at 3 o'clock in the morning. I was on your television at 4 o'clock in the morning and talking about the events of the day, eventually moved to evenings. And I was having a tough time around 46 years old, 47 years old.

I'd get on a set. I would just not feel like myself in terms of I didn't feel comfortable having a conversation. So a conversation like this would make me nervous to have because I wasn't able to have coherent thoughts anymore. I would read a teleprompter and I'd look at a word that I'd known from ever and I wouldn't come out of my mouth even though I knew I knew the word. and so my confidence was really taking a beating. I went to a doctor because I had experienced weight gain. I experienced moodiness, just kind of not feeling agitated all the time. And they wrote in my notes like patient complaining of moodiness and weight gain and put me on an antidepressant.

Fast forward now to 47 years old and I'm on the set one night. And again, I've never heard the word pari menopause or menopause at that point. I'm on the set one night and we just finished the part of the newscast. were in a commercial break. And I felt something that I'd never felt before. I had this heat come up through my body and just sweat break out everywhere, my heart racing, like pumping. And I was like, I'm going to pass out or fall over.

I don't know what's to do. I got off the set, went to the bathroom, and just promptly laid down to the floor to calm my body down. By the way, you're great writer. So I appreciate this part in your book. You're like germs and all. I didn't know what it was. I was facing the toilet, my face.

Yeah, I didn't care at all. Did you think it was a heart attack? Did you think it was a panic attack? did you, like, where did your mind go? I never had a panic attack before, so I'm like, I'm not nervous doing my job. I've done this job for 30 years. I don't get nervous doing that. So I knew that that wasn't, it wasn't something odd like that.

I was like, is it food poisoning? Am I having a heart issue? Like, I really did sort of run that gamut. And I remember laying with my face, like facing the toilet going, what is going on? And I worked a night shift. It was primarily mostly men that worked there. And my two producers came in. they're like, knock, knock, are you okay? And I said, yeah, I'm fine. My skirt up, you know,

it was just, it was crazy if I'd go back and look at that. But that's how severe and how scared I was at that point. Yeah, so you had a moment, obviously, that you said, okay, I got to figure this thing out. Yeah. And you went into the world and there wasn't a lot of commercially available resources. No. Right? So much so that your doctor was a little callous in the way that he or she recommended, you know, your diagnosis. So before we get to resources, can you go to the model for just a moment. Yeah. So this is 2019. Things have changed quite a bit. The medical model in terms of, you know, what you do. So I didn't know what I was dealing with at all. And I wound up going to my OBGYN and I did some blood tests. I went to my general practitioner and I said,

I don't know what's going on. This happened. I'm a little scared. I don't want it to happen again. God forbid it happens on the air. And I don't get off the set on time. And eventually I got a note in my patient portal that had four words in it in menopause, any questions that was signed by the doctor. And I went, I'm in menopause? I'm too young for menopause. I didn't know the average age. I didn't know anything about it. I'd never had the conversation with anybody in my life. My mom died when I was 20 years old, so I didn't have a conversation with her. So I was flabbergasted. And then the callousness of the message was alarming, too, because I thought, are there options? What are the questions I'm supposed to ask? You know, I'm classically trained as a psychologist with specialization, high performance, and I did not get properly trained here. So when you described in your book and just now, let's call it hot flashes, let's call it racing heart rate, there's a maybe a malaise, there's a cognitive, it looks just like anxiety and or depression.

It does. However, it is foundationally different. One of the things that I am grateful for is in my rotations internships, the supervisor was very clear, like, look, do not die. diagnose depression without blood work. So how come? Because hypothyroid looks almost exactly like it. Okay, so they were close, but they never said anything about menopause being a differential diagnosis.

So I think, like, sadly, how many misses have I had? And so, like, thank you, first and foremost. And I can't go back and change those, but, like, it does concern me that the training that folks are getting around this differential diagnosis. It's shocking, actually, and I had no idea. I mean, I had no idea. I'm a journalist. I'm not a doctor.

I'm not a physician. I have now come to know a lot about this, but I wanted to make sure I understood it for myself, first of all, and then when I jumped into understanding it, after that diagnosis, I jumped in to go, well, what the heck is menopause? And why did anyone talk to me about this? And certainly, why didn't the doctor want to have more than that conversation? Now I go back and I say, oh, I get it. You weren't trained.

It's never been a comfortable conversation for a lot of people, first off. That doctor wasn't trained in medical school, and the only option for that doctor was to go out in seek education on their own. I've had doctors tell me they had one hour. I had doctors tell me that they had, you know, even gynecologists tell me they had maybe a week. Gynecologists, maybe a week. I had one doctor tell me that they were offered free pizza in exchange for a luncheon to talk about menopause. So it's a real thing. So there's so many different parts of this conversation and different pillars where I understand now why we're where we are today, why women were not informed, especially during this time, why doctors haven't been comfortable talking about it or treating it, why medical schools stop doing it, which goes back to a study in 2002, which confused a lot of people as to the effects of hormone therapy.

And so there's a bunch of things that added up to put us where we were, and this is now 2019. that were talking about this, where there was limited information. If I had Googled it back then, very limited information, just more of the who, what, what, where, when of it. Weren't influencers talking about it. There weren't doctors, you know, online talking about it. There weren't pharmacists talking about it. Everyone was sort of on their own to figure it out.

Yeah, well done to be on the frontier of this and make some noise and make some impact. Can we start by grounding in the actual experiences or symptoms of menopause? And so I even hesitate to say symptoms. I'm not sure why. but there's over 30, according to the way that you've described it to me. There's over 30, and I don't expect you to list all 30 of them, but just ground what's actually happening. Yeah.

And there's even more than that. You know, honestly, if we look at everything, so we talk about hot flashes, we talk about anxiety, talk about brain fog, we talk about mood changes, we talk about libido changes. They talk about painful sex. It can be nausea, migraines, joint pain, weight gain. I mean, those are 10, right, right off the bat that nobody wants to deal with one. And so what's interesting about skin, hair, skin, hair, dryness, because there are estrogen receptors essentially all over your body.

And when your estrogen goes down and plummets during this time, you start to see the effects of that. And I think for me, what was the most, you know, sleep problems, I think what was most important to me anyway, because I was in the corporate world is I wasn't sleeping. I was gaining weight and I was on television every day. So that was making me scared and I had brain fog. So those were my three, oh my gosh, if these things, none of these things are working very well. I'm not sure how I go into my job every day confident.

This is a call to psychologists right now, you know, my peers, like without proper digging in the context of the symptomology, meaning age, whatever, and functionality, that sounds just like anxiety or depression. Sure. That sounds just like a hand. handful of easily diagnosed conditions. But it is biological. This is not psychological. There are psychological symptoms, if you will, but it's a biological origin. And because of that, we need to also address the biology. So are you more of a fan, if you will, of bottom up, meaning

hormone therapy, or top down psychological or behavioral or an interactionist approach to work with the condition? I think it has to be a little bit of both. because. As most reasonable people do say. Well, I think so because psychologically, if you're not even willing to accept what you have to be willing to accept what's going on to. You know, and I think that what happens during this time is there's a lot of things happening all together, right? For me, I went, I'm in menopause. Is this mean I'm, is this mean it's over? Like, I didn't know when menopause happened. I didn't know if it was 70 years old. Yeah, right. Yeah, I really thought that like, wow, this is an age thing. And I think that that's what's going on with a lot

of women, because we have associated that with much later in life, much further down the road. And not quite as sexy, not quite as pretty, not quite as ambitious, not quite as whatever, behind, invisible, whatever word you want to use to describe that. Because there is a psychological, behavioral, and sociological condition that's at play. A hundred percent. Yeah, because our society, you know, there's a productivity that is kind of a big thing. And if you are, our producer and I were kind of workshopping scenarios about how could we be great here at finding mastery and places that I go work at, how can we be great?

for women during this condition. And it's like, I don't know. If I had a broken leg, people would say, hey, you need a stool. But for somebody that, should I make an assumption that if somebody is, I don't know, 48 to 55, somewhere in that range, correct me if I forgot the ages wrong here, should I make an assumption that menopause or paramanopause is online and happening? And to be a great teammate, there's things I could do. Absolutely.

And I'd start that age at 40. You do four. Stuck at 40? Well, the average age of a menopause. For paramenopause. Well, the average of menopause in the U.S. is 51. So that's the average age. You've got to count back four to ten years.

So I would start saying, I mean, essentially, paramedopause and menopause, it means a change in hormones, right? A transition is starting to happen. You know, the way you just said that is like so clear, so grounded, no taboo. It's like, hey, hormones are changing. No kidding. For me, too. Yeah. In different ways.

All of us. Yeah. Okay, I love that clarity and it just kind of takes this ageism thing out of it. Bodymaster is brought to you by granola.a.i. Some of the most important work we do happens in conversation. It's in the meeting. It's in the 101 connection. It's the moment someone shares an idea that could shift the direction of everything.

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I think you're really going to like what they're doing. If meetings are eating up your day, granola is a no-brainer. You can try it totally free. Just head to granola.a.ai.coma.coma.coma.coma.com. A. Gronola.mola.a.a. slash mastery to get your time back. Try it for free at granola.com. A.mast Yeah. There's an ugly stigma with menopause and perimenopause, right? I mean, there really is. If I went up to somebody, it was, I'll give you this example. My dad's 86 years old. He has learned more about menopause now than he ever wanted to know. And so is my 15-year-old nephew. They are both well-versed. They're well-versed men. 1677 86. And so I think what's interesting about it is my father was at a class that he goes to. And he said that there was a woman next to him that was getting hot. And he said, is it the menopause maybe? Because my daughter wrote a book on it. And he told me. And I said, Daddy, you can't go and talk to you can't go up to a woman and ask her she's a menopause. I appreciate that you're trying to be an advocate here. This is where I get confused. One, I love the laugh about it because it's true. Right? And I love that you call it the menopause. The menopause. It's what he said. Yeah, right. Yeah. Well, our producer is from England.

Yes. And she were workshopping, you know, I quote, scrimaging this conversation. And she kept calling it the menopause. I was like, wait, are you making fun of it? She's like, no, God, no. But that's how they call it in the UK, the menopause. And that's how my dad says it, who's 86 and he's from Texas. So I don't know. Yeah, okay, got it. So, all right, in menopause, so 42, what do we say? So I look at it like this. 51 is your average age. And there are some variables with that, obviously.

but, you know, 10 years. So let's go back to 40 years old approximately. Your hormones are starting to change. Okay. So that's why I would, you know, part of the advocacy that I am doing as somebody who is a layman, that's not, I'm not a doctor. I can't make changes, policy change, any of that kind of stuff. But I really would love to see a baseline. So when you go into any type of doctor, whether it's 35 or 38, they go, you know what you should start looking at?

All these symptoms. And if you're seeing any of those, you could start to be within the age range. Oh, you want to know symptoms, not hormonal panels. Symptoms because paramedopause is diagnosed by your symptoms. Symptoms, yes, because you're fluctuating all over the place. It's a chaotic time. So you might go in one day and have one number and another day, go in and I have another number. Hormones are difficult to measure.

Yes. We can measure them, but because they're so time sensitive that that's the difficult part. Yeah. So, okay, so you want to do symptoms early and then just get a baseline there. Yeah, because I think it would make it a lot less. scary and I think it would make it a lot more clear at what was coming up because right now what's happened is women come into 45 and 50 years old and they go and some doctor says oh you're in menopause now you're in peri menopause and you go what am I supposed to do to now I've got all these things

to deal with I've got to eat protein protect my bones you know you've got women coming out with a list of 50 things that they're supposed to do to beat menopause and it can be very overwhelming I do want to get to the practical piece and before we go there I want to go to 20% I think of women in the workforce in the U.S. are in menopause. If we add paramedopause, it's going to at least double that. Yes. Okay, so let's say between 20 and 40% of the U.S. workforce are in the age range where hormones are fluctuating, where there are biological, sociological, and psychological impacts from it. And I want to be a great teammate. I love that. So we've got a real mission that we're on. And we need everybody to be

great for that thing to, for us to give a chance. So how can, just coach me up? How can I be a great teammate to, you know, not to make the blunder, maybe that your dad eloquently, like, you know, but how can I be great and not reinforce a stigma, not make it awkward, but be direct, be kind, be like just a great teammate. Like coach me and our entire community up. I would love to because I think that men really have a place in this conversation. And for the beginning of the conversation, when we were first starting to have it,

women were like, we're taking care of it ourselves. And that's how we felt. It's how I felt. But now I realize men have to be a part of this conversation. We're everywhere altogether. Even if you're not in a relationship with a man, you're dealing with one at work, or you're talking or you might have a son or a brother, whatever that is. So, you know, I think in the workplace a couple of things, and I think that this is

where it can start. If you're somebody that is able to implement policy and change in a workplace, have some type of, say, when it comes to insurance policies or, you know, health care or whatever that is, if you're somebody that has that kind of say, this should be on the table. there so that it's part of the health care system. So maybe it doesn't even have to be a conversation within the workplace. That's one area. Another area is we talk about, I talk to a lot of like HR departments and a lot of HR leaders. And the big question is, how do I go bring this up to my employees without making them feel uncomfortable and myself feeling uncomfortable?

I have been to so many big companies that will bring me in and say, just talk about it. So they'll feel comfortable talking about to this third party, me or somebody else that might They have an expertise in this kind of conversation. So they can talk to you, relate to you, read a book. I have two films on it. So I bring, I bring assets. Oh, the M factor one and two. The M factor one is shredding the silence.

We've been in over a thousand cities with it. We bring it into communities, give it to them for free. Well done. Thank you. It's really been a learning curve for me to understand what's needed. And then the M factor two was before the pause about perimenopause, because I think we have got to talk to younger people too. We've got to talk to younger women and younger men, so they understand what's going on.

So the second area, I think, is dealing, you know, with HR and being able to bring a third party in so that that's not the responsibility of the workplace to say, we're having a menopause seminar, everybody, and we're leading it. Because I don't think that's always comfortable, you know. But if they bring you in, there's an expertise, there's a, you know, and obviously you have an eloquent way of talking about it and you bring some levity to a very serious condition. Thank you. Yeah. So. I try to because I think it could be really, it can be really, if I, if I. go in there and I list all the symptoms? They're like, just get out. Lady, just get out of here.

But I think it's really important. And I see what's interesting is that a lot of the men in those rooms come up to me afterwards and they go, oh my gosh, I had no idea what my wife was going through, but all of a sudden I was living with a stranger. Or, oh, my gosh, my wife has not wanted to have sex with me or be intimate with me or have me even touch her for a long time. I didn't know what was going on. I thought it was me. And so that's been a really exciting breakthrough, I think, in this conversation over the course of the last five years. And then I think the other way is to make sure that there is an open policy where somebody can feel comfortable going in there and have the conversation and say, hey, I need a fan at my desk. Or, hey, I might need to do X, Y, Z and go see the doctor because I've got to go get this taken care of.

I worry about the workplace, and we have a lot of legislation state to state that is being, you know, is passing right now, which is exciting. But I worry about the workplace because I never want it to harm women. We have women working longer than ever and in bigger roles. than ever before, and I don't want that to ever harm them, where somebody goes, oh, gosh, we don't want to bring her in here because she's going to be going through this for 10 years. That concerns me. Yeah, so that was what we were scrimaging yesterday is, like, where does performance and biological slash psychological challenges impact performance?

Like, where is that kind of imaginary line? Yeah. And I don't think there's an easy answer. Well, and I think that that's also why, when I say there are so many different areas we have to tackle at the same time, we have to tackle. we have to tackle educating the doctors. There's no question about it. That has to happen.

You go docs, you go HR. I go docs in telehealth because telehealth is able to move people faster than anybody else, which is super exciting because we're able to get women in, get them seen. They're not waiting six months for an appointment. They're able to, if they decide to go on hormone therapy to help, great. If they decide to do on something that's non-hormonal, great, but at least they're being seen at a quicker pace, quite frankly, than going to offices. So that's one area.

And then the other area is educating women. in general, so they understand what to look for, so they can go in as their biggest advocate. Because unfortunately, the onus is on women to go into a doctor's office, which is why I give so many free resources away because I don't know how else to tell them what to do. You know, I'm like, here's a symptom tracker. I don't care if you write it down manually and tell the doctor what you're dealing with. So at least they can start on a path of getting help. Like I like that a lot, like the consumer advocacy or patient advocacy for sure, because, again,

I'm not working with this population, but if somewhere were to come into me and give me the list of symptoms. And I'm not trained in it and I miss it. And I'm like, oh, good. You know, I've got a protocol here. But it is actually biological, meaning if it's a hormonal thing, I'm wasting time and energy and resources. And if a patient client were to come and say, hey, Doc, are you sure? Because I'm actually, I'm 52 years old and I've been having this trend. And I go, oh, like that would have, yeah. Okay, but go now drop down to the layer of teammate. So my teammate, either as a peer in the organization or. I'm reporting to or is a direct report. It does not matter to me the directionality. But my

teammate or the person I'm working with in an office is 48, 52, whatever. Yeah. Dealing with symptoms or not symptoms or whatever it is. Yeah. Just coach me up. Being aware of it, first of all, I mean, being aware of it, being willing to, and it depends on how, you know, close you are or how comfortable you feel of talking about this openly because I don't think there's anything wrong with that of, hey, my wife is going through paramedopause. She's been dealing with XYZ. I don't care how people bring it up into a conversation, but I will tell you this from experience over and over. The minute I crack open the door a little bit to have the conversation, people open it up so quickly because they want to talk about it because it's not been talked about

before. And I really think that that's something that's important. I mean, when I go into places to talk, I had a cameraman running after me down the hallway. He's like, how do I bring it up to my wife? My wife. How do I bring it up with not insulting her? And I said, I don't know, say you heard this girl talking about on NTV and, you know, I don't know if you're going through this or not, but it was really interesting. Because here's why. It's not just about menopause, perimenopause. It's about long-term health. We're talking about brain health, heart health, bone health. We're talking about long-term ramifications if we're not dealing with what's going on right now. There you go. And that's health. You'd bring that up to anybody.

Yeah, it's foundational. What do you think the cost of losing talent in the workplace is for not addressing something that is, again, biological. Oh, it's a huge cost. I know that a Mayo Clinic had a study that had come out not too long ago. I think it was like two years ago, and it said there's $1.8 billion being lost when people are not showing up to work because of symptoms, when we're losing top-tier talent because these people are people that are very wise and have been in the workplace a long time and very experienced. That's a huge number, and that's what companies will listen to. Wait, why are they not coming to work?

Symptoms, not able to come to work because they're not feeling. right? They're missing time at work because of menopause symptoms. Some people have very severe symptoms of menopause. People are not just hot flashing. There's other things that are going on. And I think that when you're talking to workplaces, if workplaces aren't going to talk about, okay, yeah, I know women go through all sorts of things, they're going to have children, then they're going to go into this cycle. If we're not talking about any of those things, and we just talk about what we're losing in terms of money, I think that that's where we see a lot of people paying attention. Did you have that condition or experience? Or are you

myself. Yeah. No, you know, I did not show up to work, but I did not show up to work necessarily as good as I could had I known 10 years earlier. That's what I was going through. If I knew I was going through that, I would have, for me, because I can do hormone therapy and I really understand it now, I would have hopped on hormone therapy, and I would have been sleeping at night. I would have been feeling better. I wouldn't have been having hot flashes. I wouldn't have had that incident on set.

But I'm glad I did because now I feel like I can educate other people. I wouldn't have cared. I wouldn't have known. Isn't that something where like, all. Oftentimes our moments of great confusion or despair or whatever turned into a real purpose. It really did. It was never a conversation I'd had. I lost my mom early. I think she wound up, was going through a medical menopause, but we had no idea. She didn't die.

Yeah, my mom passed away from breast cancer. From breast cancer. But she had, because she went through breast cancer, she had gone through chemotherapy and a double mastectomy, I think it put her into a premature menopause, a medical surgical menopause. Okay. I'm going to go back to this. Coach me up again. Like, do I bring? Bring it up? Do I not bring it up? Do I... I'd rather you insult somebody and help them than not bring it up. Okay. Great. And then I hear like an HR narrative, which is like, wait, hold on.

Like now I've made, like, somebody feel uncomfortable, but I was actually trying to be a great teammate. But I think that's okay to have those conversations out loud. I don't think you're saying, hey, you look like you're not yourself anymore. You look like you've gained a little weight. You're not sleeping. Is it menopause? That's obviously not what we're talking about. But I do think you can be a great teammate of being open to that. conversation if you're bringing it up in a way that is as comfortable as you can bring it up. Let's say you're in the corporate environment and you're going through about, let's just stay on half flashes for a minute. And you are the lead on a project. You are got great momentum. You've got all the kind of seasoned wisdom about the client and the profession and it's pitch time.

And you're the point person. And you're having like you're in a phase where it's like, man, these hot flashes are uncontrollable. I do. not want to show up, terrible. You know, to my client's office in front of whatever number of people, pitch this brilliant idea and have them think that I'm a nervous wreck and then I'm not confident because that's what sweating ovens obviously looks like, right? Would you shoulder tap somebody and have them sub in for you?

Would you address the room and be like, hey, everybody, I got something that I believe in. It's going to be amazing. And I've got this thing that's going on. It's called menopause. I'm sweating. It's not nervousness. I'm going to kick ass. That's me.

You would do the second. A hundred percent. I used to do it in the studio after I found out. I'm like, guys, I'm sweating. It's a hot flash. Sorry about that. And there would be a little of a laugh because that's what this was. It was a self-deprecating moment.

But I'm telling you that I taught so many people as a result of that. And if you're on air having a hot flash, that's kind of like the pitch moment. Absolutely. What would you do? I mean, I think that that's the only way to do it. I probably did do it during that time because I was told not to bring it up on television. And I did because, remember, we're at a different time now. This is a few years back.

And they said, could you please stop talking about this over and over again? Just please stop. Nobody wants to hear about this all the time. And I said, everybody needs to hear about it over a billion women globally, 1.2 billion women globally are in this transition in life. Everybody needs to hear about it. Because I really think it's unfair, actually, to men, too, in this conversation for them not to know what's going on. Yeah, right.

I do. And I wouldn't have said that five years ago. Is this an unfair understanding that I have? is that when menopause kicks in and it's happening, it doesn't go away. And it is not something that women are wanting, meaning hair, skin, this, that, and the other mood, weight, whatever this symptomology is, that it's like you just kind of endure it. Or there's a way to gracefully work with it where wisdom is part of the experience as opposed to like, I'm just going to grind it and fight through it. Like, teach me how you think is the best way to approach this.

Yeah, I love this question. I think my answer has changed over the years. I think my answer would have been years ago, go to a doctor and see what they tell you to do, and if you got a good doctor that's going to listen. And then, you know, I think what happened and what caused me to do the films, write the book, really lean into the advocacy part of it is I realize that women have to have to take charge of it. And that has to be from top to bottom to top, like all over. It needs to, you need to really take charge of that. So I think for me, it's, you know, it's getting the help that you can get if it's if it's hormone therapy but it's also really understanding the other things that need to be done because you're never going to waste your time doing these things because we're talking about long term. I always call it the next 30. Like the next 30 years is really what we're talking about. We're not talking about just this transition in time where your hormones are going to change because they're going to balance out at some point and you're going to be, you know, menopause is one day after you haven't had your cycle for a year. That's what it is. That's what menopause is. All these symptoms of chaos are the things that are leading up to it that are perimenopause.

You've got this one day of menopause. The symptoms of chaos is so good. That's what they are. Because I can never put a pinpoint what they are. It's just chaotic. And then after that, it's called postmenopause, but I kind of hate that word. So you're just menopausal the rest of your life. But I don't even think you need that title anymore.

And I hope we get to a place where we're not doing that. Where it's just like, this is that next chapter of your life. But what's important when we're going through this and trying to beat the symptoms, or at least work with the symptoms, I think it's important to say, okay, what do I want the next 30 years of my life to be like? If you hit menopause at 49, you're probably most likely pending something really going to be at 79 years old. What do you want to do to make that great? And this is a really good time to start focusing on yourself. Body Master is brought to you by Momentus Fiber Plus. Here's a stat that surprised me when I first came

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bearing to reduce or remove child bearing at a certain age because of the complications that happen both to child and mother. Is that the kind of most, I don't know, basic evolutionary? I think that's the most basic evolutionary. I mean, if you think about it, these are also the women that have come back and are helping, you know, helping the women that are younger with children at some point. You know, these are the mothers that are, there was like a grandmother hypothesis that, you know, a lot of people talked about for a long time. A lot of people have gone like, oh, we're not going to talk about that anymore because these women are more than just grandmothers now, you know what I mean, when they hit this age period.

There was some research to that point. There was a lot of research about it, yeah. That women that had grandmothers that were alive and active were able to have more children. Is that, is that, do I have that right? I think so. What I turned to was a lot of the research that had to do with the brain of understanding that, you know, when you're perimenopausal or, you know, when you're perimenopausal, you know, when you're perimenopausal, you've got all this activity going on. You've got this nurturing during this time until you hit menopause. And then menopause, not that you're not nurturing anymore.

But really, it's a different part of your brain that's clicked on now where you're not kind of so empathetic. You're not child caring. You're not taking care of children and caretaking all the time. And that's when you hear women being like, I have no more Fs to give, you know, is that you're now focused on yourself during this time, which is why I think we use the word wisdom and wise all the time. But we see women come on the other side of this and go, hey, this is the best time of my life.

And I see it over and over again. And I wish that we could show younger women those examples. So they understand this is a transition you're going to go through, hopefully with enough advocacy, education, doctors being trained, new advances in medicine and science. Here are your two solutions, five solutions, ten solutions. Do one of these, and you're going to be on the other side of this without any problem. Which is hormone therapy, which is sleep and behavioral kind of practices. Exercise, lift heavy weights, do some cardio, you know, invest in.

Protect your bones. Protect your bones. Yeah. There's a nutritional category, which is. against like the protein and in and you've written all about your chapter headings are exactly that you know so you've hit all of those can you give us just a couple things that you're practicing yeah amongst those four or five that we just mentioned yeah i think it can be overwhelming when you get that list you're like wait i got to sleep and heart and bone and what my bones i never thought about my bones did you at 20 years old it was like the you know i just wanted to not break one this is a long-term life practice not a let me try to get through this as best i can practice i think what happens is women go oh I really got to focus back on myself right now if I want to be okay during this time. Like I'm paying, I'm paying attention to me. In journalism, we, you know, stayed up late, got up early, like worked, you know, all ends of the clock.

Stress was immense. We're always on a crunching, traveling. And so I don't think I ever went, I want to really work on my stress management. That was never a conversation I had, like, ever. And I wasn't in elite sport. And so that was never part of my conversation. But for the majority of women, they're working, raising. kids, dealing with family, caretaking, you know, a lot of the sandwich generation, not focusing

on themselves. And I think this has been a time, you know, for them to do that, whether it's in the 40s or in 50s, and I see it over and over again. And so that gets me excited, but I hope they're not, I don't want them to just do it for this to get through. I want it to be for that long term and really understand why they're doing it. And I think it's for everybody. Yeah, niche down to be super practical. There's so many symptoms. So for me, the number one, one thing that I focus on first has to be sleep. And I would say that to anybody because you're not going to remember to make a doctor's appointment if you're if you're not coherent about what's going on. You're not going to want to get up and work out. You're not going to go make a Mediterranean diet if you know. If you're,

if you're, if you're sleep deprived, it is a single worst thing that it, you know, I believe that. So with my sleep, I pay full attention to it. I pay full attention to the scrolling that I used to do. I mean, my sleep routine, I never had a sleep routine. I didn't even know what sleep hygiene was back then. But I've had enough doctors that I've talked to about sleep to pay attention to what to do if I can't fall asleep and how to get up and get out of bed as quickly as I can to be able to come back to bed to go back to sleep. I talked to one of the doctors and she said, I go into my kitchen when I can't sleep and I read cookbooks. And I said, have you ever just sat and tried to read a cookbook? And I go never. And she goes, that's why.

And I said, oh, that's a really good idea. So getting out of bed and not fighting that is a big deal sleeping in a cool room, which I know there's a lot of, you know, back and forth if you've got a partner and that can be frustrating. What temperature do you like? I like about 68. My husband likes 72, and so there's two degrees. It's a lot of... It's actually a big difference. It is a big difference. It's a huge difference. We have a mattress solution that we love that has temperature changes on both sides. Is it really been a big difference? Game changer. Game changer. I think I got to get serious about that again. Yeah, yeah. Because I really believe we have a lot of tools out there that we didn't have before. to be able to handle some of these things.

And that's a really great one to have. So you're not sleeping out of the couch to, you know, just get out of bed. Blankets off or on or whatever. Like the foot in and out of bed all the time is like kind of the running joke. I do go to bed at the same time every night as best I can. And I really try to do that. And I live between New York and L.A., so it's hard. So I find myself having to get into bed, you know, try to pair those times up and do the same thing in the morning.

And then in the morning I never did this before either the last four years out of bed and walking. And I don't care if it's 10 minutes in New York. York City down the block to go get coffee or it's here in L.A. and getting out by the water. But I do that every morning I'm out. Yeah, first light and last light are both interesting behavioral kind of things that you can do. But they're easy. You know, they're easy because they're not asking too much of you. They're not asking you to go to the gym and do, you know, 30 minutes of cardio and then weightlifting. So, so that is my, that is one area that I think is the most important if there's anything else. And then the second area, I guess I would say for me anyway is, I know working out is really important, but I think food is my second. Like, I really have to have the

focus there. And the fact of adding all these supplements can be so confusing. And I think women have cabinets full of them because a lot of things promise. And by the way, if anybody sees something that's like, menopause everything, we can fix it all. That is not going to fix anything. So I just hope that that's, you know, something that people know because a lot is being sold to women right now to fix everything. There is a thing happening. Menopause is beyond, yeah? Yeah, like it's a great conversation that is happening. So there's more, more remedies, if you will. 100%. So there's a swell, which is pretty cool. It really is. And I feel like, just going back for a second to what you were saying about in the workplace, I think that that's what makes it a little

bit easier to be able to bring up those conversations or in a relationship to bring up those conversations. I think it makes it a little bit easier because it has become a word that is not cringy. And it was cringy for a while. I think it was like, oh, gosh, that means old. And, you know, I don't want to be associated with that. And now I hear women saying, yeah, I'm in actresses, celebrities, you know. When Hallie Berry comes out and says she's in menopause, like I want to be there too. And I feel like young women are having that conversation as well, which is super exciting to see the generations. You've had some prominent female voices on your podcast that have spoken about menopause.

Who are some of those? Yeah, Hallie Berry was one. She was my first guest, which was super exciting. Naomi Watts had come on to talk about it. Melinda Gates was on just recently making a big announcement about a, an, incredible amount of money that she's going to be donating toward this. I think it'll be a big game changer in terms of helping educate doctors, which is more and more doctors, which is exciting. Because to your point, different disciplines didn't have education about this. Like, even the OBGYNs

struggle to get somebody to talk about this stage in life because it really wasn't on radars, which is so bizarre. Well, what's the name of your podcast? The Tamsden Show. Yeah. Well, I mean, well done on all fronts, being on the frontier. And honestly, and earnestly leading it. And so it leads to a couple more questions I have about intimacy, libido, sex, and, you know, if your partner spouse is sweating or agitated and irritated and tired, this is not the recipe for great sex. Yeah, that's not the time to be intimate.

No, right. If I could just put a little asterisk there. You know, I think being understanding about it outside the bedroom is really where you have to have that conversation. I put together this little men's guide because somebody said, are you going to write a book for men? And I went, no, men are not going to read a book on menopause. I don't care that men is in the title of it. But they'll read a book about sex.

But they'll read a book about sex intimacy. But, you know, I think it's really important to have that conversation outside the bedroom, first of all, and be able to be understanding. I did a visit to a men's group. And there were the six guys talking about menopause. And it was the coolest thing ever. And one of them said, you know, I just got to say, once I learned that menopause was the thing and I wasn't the problem anymore, I'm like, yeah, you can teach an old dog new tricks. I'm happy to like learn different things, but thank goodness it's not me. And I think that that's what a lot of men have been dealing with, you know, of thinking like,

wow, what did I do that I'm not, you know, that I'm not attractive anymore? It's not working between us anymore. Is there a pause in sex for women in menopause, meaning like if I take a female's voice, I am just not interested in sex. Yeah. Right. There's just, is there a pause or is like. It depends if you get help.

Like, you know, women can start hormone therapy in perimenopause and go right through it. But if you are dealing with painful sex, that's the last thing that you want to be having. And if you, in the low libido is a part of these hormones that are really fluctuating in a lot of different ways. The good news is there's solutions for it. There's vaginal estrogen that can help with, to make sure you don't have painful sex. And there's hormone therapy that can help with that low libido. And there are prescription drugs out there right now. There's one Adi.

There's Viosa. There's different drugs out there that can help with a sex drive. When we look at these kind of meds, men have like 26 different medications plus to help in the bedroom. And women have like two or three that help with libido. How about it? Yeah. How about those numbers? Yeah. Right.

Okay. So drill down one more time. Like what can husbands do to be great teammates, partners? Yes. The understanding of it. Not think that we're just, you're going to jump into like the TV show sex. You know, like we roll into bed and we're all sweating. We're already sweating.

So we don't need to do that part. But there needs to be the intimacy part that starts, like the real intimacy part of it be, you know, a little more romance, a little having this conversation outside the bedroom, inside the bedroom, being patient in terms of understanding what's going on. And I swear, I think there have been huge changes in relationships with men just understanding these words. I mean, I think that's kind of hot. Yeah. Oh, you do? I do. I was on a phone call with a guy this morning, and he had my website up and his wife came by and said, I read her book. And he's like, really? I'm talking about menopause. I'm like, really? I'm talking about menopause. I'm like, that guy's totally going to have a great night tonight. Yeah, that's right. He's talking about menopause. Yeah, right. Trying to understand. Yeah. Okay, so I have one experience of menopause that I'm intimate with my wife. I've got to say that she was rad. Just like she does everything in life, she faced it full on, she educated, she researched, and then she put in the work to make changes. And I do think that both of us fell into this uninformed.

narrative based on, I think, marketing bad information about hormone therapy. So we missed. We're both well-read and well-informed, and we missed it. And that would have been a game-changer for her. But like I watch her and she is on it on every front, on all five factors that you can invest in. And I don't know if this is right or wrong, but I think you've got to really work to have a chance of being graceful during this phase. Would you co-sign that or would you say, no, you're kind of using an old model. No, I don't think that's an old model at all. I think that I always get very sad when somebody misses that window, you know, and there is this window. Look, there's guidelines, and the guidelines are changing and being updated all the time, where at one point, if you're 10 years

past when you went into menopause, most likely hormone therapy or 60, most likely hormone therapy is not going to be recommended, but even that's changing now. So there are some tweaks to that, but I had to work hard. You did too. Absolutely. I had to work hard at my relationship. I was newly wet, by the way. I was 50 years old, and I was like, I don't think I'm interested in sex. I mean, my poor husband was like, wait, what happened? You were, three years ago, it was very different when we met. And so, yes, I think I have had to work at it. I have to think about it. I think about it all the time. And more than I think about menopause, I think about what do I want these next 30 years to look like? And it's very important for women to

pay attention to bone health, heart health, and brain health. Those are the three things that can really get impacted during this time. What do you do for bone health? So for bone health, I'm lifting all the time. And I try to do, if I do supplements, the supplement I'm adding there is vitamin DK2 and protein. I've had a protein. I never paid attention to it before. I'm a Gen X, 80s girl. I was like, you know, you just got to not be, you know, not have any fat.

Did you drink for the hose? Did you drink through a rusty hose? I drank from the hose. I ran on this slippery thing down a hill. I, you know, a bike without a helmet on. Didn't tell my parents where I was going for hours. Yes. Right.

Okay. So on that front, like, can you address? your experience or understanding of the narrative and the science around hormone therapy. Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, hormone therapy, there was at one point, before 2002, 40 plus percent of the population in paramedopause, menopause, was on hormone therapy. Today, we're just eeking up to 5 percent of the population. There was a severe, severe drop-off, a very significant drop-off in 2002. There was a study called the Women's Health Initiative that came out with these headlines that got women very confused.

and just to kind of filter it all out, the headlines essentially read, estrogen could cause breast cancer. That is what women heard. That is the scariest thing in the world to a woman. My mom was diagnosed at the age of 44. So for me, that was the cloud of doom that lived over my head all the time. Like, oh, my God, when is the day? When is that call going to come for me?

So that has something, and today, if you talk to women, they don't necessarily know that there was a 2002 study that scared them. But if you ask a woman, what do you know about estrogen or hormone therapy? most often they'll say like, I don't think it's safe. And so part of my work has really been to explain to women that it's not for everybody, but it is for a majority of people that are able to do it. If you have not had breast cancer, if you do not have history of a stroke or blood clot, you know, most likely, and there's a couple of other, you know, contraindications, but most likely you can do hormone therapy? And now the question is, do you have a doctor that can explain that to you?

And then the next step is, if you don't want to do that, what are my other options? And luckily, we have a drug out now that can help with hot flashes. We have the drugs we were talking about for low libido. So there are different things you can do if you're not able to do hormone therapy. And the reason that both sides of the coin are very important to me is because if my mom were here today, I don't know that she could have been a candidate, was a candidate for hormone therapy. She had a very aggressive form of breast cancer. So most likely we would have had to figure out some of those other things for her to do.

Very cool. Yeah, thank you for that. Because that's what I was alluding to earlier, is that we didn't realize kind of what was happening. and we hook line and sinker bought that idea about estrogen-related cancer. Come to find out, it was not right. Well, some doctors still believe that. Some doctors won't prescribe it. Some doctors don't feel comfortable prescribing it.

And so that's why I think it's important. When I said at the beginning, the onus is on the woman, it's not only to go into a doctor's office and say, hey, this is what I think I'm going through. It's also finding a doctor that feels comfortable talking about it. If we knew what you knew, how would men be better partners? Oh, I think men could be great partners. I think you could go along with some of these things that we would. We are being told to do all the time, and women are being told to get outside in the morning.

Maybe you get up with your partner. Maybe you go to the gym with your partner and work out. Maybe you figure out how to help with some stress management. I think men can be great partners by just understanding what they're going through or providing solutions. Hey, you know what? We were talking about menopause the other night. I heard this interview and, you know, there's a couple other things maybe we can try. I think that would be nice to have a partner do that so it doesn't feel like such a woman problem that she has to go through on her own.

And if we knew what you knew, how would we be better leaders in the workforce? Oh, I think that men could be incredible leaders by just being able to be aware of what's going on and seeing it and saying, like, what can I do to help my workforce, whether it comes from what kind of policies we have in the workplace or what kind of things we can implement, what kind of programs we can bring in? Can we bring in some kind of longevity program that makes women feel like, okay, we're not pointing to you as a woman in menopause, but this might be able to help you. What's your call to action for women that are in a leadership position? Maybe they're a senior leader or vice president, maybe not a CEO or maybe, but you choose which level you want to talk through, which are called to action there. Finding Master is brought to you by David Protein. Travel a lot at Finding Mastery.

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you'll get the fifth one for free. Again, that's Davidprotein.com slash Finding Mastery. I would love every woman to just be educated with the top bullet points of what this is and have an open door policy. So women feel comfortable going in and talking about it and never get penalized. There you go. Take me five years forward. What are we doing in the workplace that's different? Or let's go three years.

Three years. And then let's go out like 10 years. I wish now. But in three years, I hope everybody has access to some type of doctor in their programs, and their health care policies and programs where they can go access this. So it's just part of what happens. You know, we have that when it comes to a reproductive years. We should just have that continuum.

Like for some reason, when it comes to women's health, that hormone continuum that, you know, should exist stops right here in midlife. It just kind of falls off. So I would love for there to be, hey, guess what? At this point in your life, we've got, we can provide you with telehealth services that are part of your policy. Whatever that is that women can move into this next chapter because we have a lot of women that are going from having children right into perimenopause. And some women get pregnant in perimenopause. So it's not like there's this big line in the middle of it. This is like what women go through in general.

So I hope that we have that continuum where it goes all the way out past menopause and postmenopause because I think we're going to have women in the workplace so much longer. And that's what I'd like to see. I mean, I'd like to see that right now. I'd like to not have this conversation about menopause being this stopping point. What do we do? I want women to know what to be able to do and doctors to know what to be able to do and leaders to know what to be able to do. go. You know, for biology, medication and biology can work sometimes well. Sometimes it's really,

really noisy. However, there is still a psychological thing that takes place in context of social structure that values A, B, and C, indicators of beauty, and does not value people sweating, and does not value people that are deregulated because of sleep deprivation or sleep restriction. So there's this thing that happens to our identity. And there's an astric here for me. If we're allowing the external world to dictate our internal experience, which my experience has been the most powerful people on the planet, that direction doesn't work.

They are working from the inside out. To your point earlier, it's like, hey, I'm having sweats. You know, like, I got a great idea. You're going to want to hear this. If I sweat, it's not what you think it is. And just kind of owning your experience. Yeah, confidence. So can you speak?

to identity, and can you speak to some of the psychological challenges, like confidence, like self-esteem, like ambition, potentially, like drive? Can you speak to some of those things that you personally went through or that you'd like people to understand a little bit better? Yeah, I had a real lack of confidence when I started going through these things because I wasn't sure, I didn't know what was going on, first of all, and that I didn't know what to do about it. So just that increases anxiety. Oh, my gosh. My whole job, I mean, my whole job was to read. And so I would look at the teleprompter or look at my partner at the desk. And I couldn't finish a sentence.

I wouldn't have been able to sit here with you. I would have been sweating. I would have been a little panicky that I couldn't, you know, I would be reaching for words. And so I know what that feels like. And it's pretty awful. And so I understand when a woman is in a boardroom and goes, oh my gosh, I don't even know what I'm doing here. And I have this and I can't figure out what the next slide is.

So I understand that lack of confidence. and it does have a lot to do, you know, with what you feel comfortable doing next, right? So it's not just confidence in that moment. It's confidence in, who am I now? Like, this isn't who I was before. I was this person that would come in here and rule the world. And now I feel like a very weakened watered-down version of myself. So I understand that.

What I also understand is once I figured out what was going on and your wife could probably attest to this, I felt so much more powerful, not because I had solved menopause, but because I understood that I was now on a track to fixing something. some of these things that were going on, or at least addressing them, if I couldn't fix them. And I think that that's where I come in, because for a long time, I went, well, what do I know about that? I'm not a doctor. And then I went, oh, but a lot of the doctors are still learning at the same time. And when I realized that in real time, average women like me were learning at the same time, I went, oh, okay, we do have something to say, and it did give me a lot of confidence

in terms of being able to speak about it. And then one by one, I would see women changing and becoming more confident. I saw doctors that had a, you know, OBGYN practice of delivering babies switch over to do midlife health. I mean, I saw women making real changes in real time. Is that the title? Midlife health. Yeah, they're doing midlife health now, which is essentially treating perimenopause and menopause in those post-reproductive years, which I think is pretty incredible. That's a cool framing. Speaking of framing, let's go above the line below the line just for a minute. Symptoms to strengths. Yeah, we got to deal with some symptoms. And we've got to address some of those challenges. But what percentage of time am I focusing on strength building versus symptom management?

And on the strength building side of the equation, like, okay, this phase, if you haven't figured it out yet, we're going to triple down on confidence building on how, where it comes from, from yourself talk. Nothing outside of you can determine yourself talk. You are fully responsible for the way to speak to yourself. Confidence comes from what you say to yourself, and it has to be grounded in real things. Fake it to you make it. Please, let that thing fly. It's done. It's like that is the, we don't want anything fake. I don't want to fake anything. Surgeon. I don't fake psychologists. I don't fake. I don't want to fake. You just get that out of the system. So developing strengths, like confidence, like using this as a moment to say, okay, if you haven't fully figured out your

identity, let's do that now. You get to decide. The world does not decide your station or your position in life. Full stop. There's influences. There's, are sometimes harder for other people than whatever. Your purpose, now's the time. Your sense of like efficacy, where power comes from for yourself. All of those asset building strengths, this is a great time if you haven't invested in them to make sure that you own them. 100% and reducing any type of shame or guilt during this time.

I think that those are really big ones because I think that as women, we have spent a lot of time outward, right, everybody else. and I think you've got to reduce the shame and the guilt and take that inward a little bit because you're not going to be good to anybody else if you can't even function. And quite frankly, I don't know anybody that could under some of those circumstances. Now, I want to say not everybody's menopause is the same. Some people, my best friend, went through it without any problem at all. But what she didn't do was address these long-term things.

So she doesn't pay attention to bone health. She didn't pay attention to heart. So right now she's got osteopenia. You know, so this is that time, whether or not you're dealing with severe symptoms, and hot flashes and in joint pain and low libido, these are those years, 40 to 50 to wherever you are to be focusing on those things. And when we bring up men, it's a great time for men to be doing that too, quite frankly. So I don't think anybody loses if we're talking about that kind of focus of the strengths. We're in an ecosystem. We're more like a coral reef than

like these individual humans going through life. No one's doing this thing alone. No. But that is part of the experience when you are embarrassed. by a set of symptoms or behaviors that are compromised. So can you give the women in our community right now like a final word on paramenopause, menopause? Like, can you just share your best with them right now? Yeah, I feel like on the other side of this, I think I've become stronger than ever before. I feel like I see women doing that. I feel like I see women going, you know what? I'm shedding all the BS that I lived with for such a long time. Don't know how I live with it for such a long time, but I'm not doing it anymore. I want to say this. There are solutions.

to all these things. There are ways to be so proactive in it where if you're younger, you can take charge of it now. You don't have to wait until you're 55 years old to start thinking about this stuff. And you're never going to hurt yourself by paying attention to it early. And I can't stress that enough because if I had known some of these things at 40 years old, I wouldn't have been blaming everything else around me. I was blaming my divorce. I was blaming my job. I was blaming all these other things. And in reality, I wish somebody had said to me, go talk to X, Y, Z, doctor, go to this person, see if hormone therapy is an option for you, get on it, and cruise through these next years.

And I think it would have been very, very different. Because I get very excited when I see how powerful women are. And they really are powerful. And these are incredible times and so wise and have so much to offer in the workplace and or in doing something else. And those second act careers, those second app jobs, they get me more excited than anything. Before I came on, I was talking to, I was talking about a woman who recently switched her career. She's 50 years old doing something amazing. And I went, oh my gosh,

she went through men and pause. She's amazing. Tamsin, thank you for leading from the front. Thank you. Thank you for the conversation. And where's a place that you hope people can go get the resources that you're providing? Yeah, Tamsonfidel.com. We have links to everything there. And we have a downloadable for men. So they can get all that and more. Well done. Appreciate you. Thank you. Next time on Finding Mastery. faster than most of us can fully process. But what if the most important question isn't what this technology can do,

but who we choose to become alongside it? Dr. Mike sits down with futurist Jamie Metzl, who has reimagined the Ten Commandments for the Age of AI to explore the values we need to guide us and why shaping the future requires all of us to become active participants, not passive bystanders. So join us Wednesday, September 9th at 9 a.m. Pacific only on Finding Mastery.

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