The Life Of Bryony - From Power Suits to Punchlines: Cally Beaton on Menopause, Midlife, and Reinvention

Episode Date: August 4, 2025

In this episode of The Life of Bryony, comedian and author Cally Beaton breaks down the taboos and stereotypes around midlife, menopause, and the supposed “invisibility” of women as they age. Drawing from her book, Namaste Motherf**kers, Cally shares personal stories and scientific insights, challenging what society – and the animal kingdom – really tell us about women and aging, and why life after 40 is just the beginning.   WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU   Got a question or a story to share?   Text or send a voice note on 07796657512 - just start your message with LOB   Use the WhatsApp shortcut: https://wa.me/447796657512?text=LOB - Prefer email? Drop us a line at  [e-mail] If this episode resonated with you, please share it with someone who might need it—it really helps! Bryony xx   Credits:  Host: Bryony Gordon   Guest: Cally Beaton   Producer: Laura Elwood-Craig & Jonathan O’Sullivan   Assistant Producer: Ceyda Uzun   Studio Manager: Sam Chisholm   Editor: Luke Shelley   Exec Producer: Mike Wooller    A Daily Mail production. Seriously Popular. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This episode of The Life of Bryony is sponsored by George at ASDA. Bring it on with George School uniform. Shop now in store or at George.com. This week on The Life of Bryony. Today's episode of The Life of Bryony is how to be a bit more bonobo. I do feel much like an orca where it's the post-menopausal grandmothers who have all the power and it's with those orcas that the male young orca bucks first have their sexual experiences. We were raised on a diet of it's best to hate yourself unless you can attain the Christie-Tirlington perfection.

If you think about what holds us back from doing or trying anything, it's a fear of failure. You know, you learn that as a stand-up, you cannot come out of the womb a good stand-up. We've just got to put the hours in and be shit until we're not shit. Even in crisis, it can be with ambition. I think really what it comes down to is resilience. It's all the seasons of midlife. You can be riddled with anxiety and feel optimistic, and maybe it goes brilliantly, and maybe you epically fail and you row with your kid and the dog shits on the carpet,

that's all part of it. Dream big, but just start small. Hi, I'm Bryony Gordon, and this is A Life for Bryony, the podcast where we talk honestly about the chaos of life and the resilience it takes to keep your sense of humour along the way. and the resilience it takes to keep your sense of humour along the way. Today, what if the best lessons come from falling flat on your face and finding the funny in it? My guest is Callie Beaton, a comedian, writer and former TV executive whose career and life prove you can tear up the script at any age. My chat with Callie Beaton right after this.

I'm really happy you're here Callie. Callie, I've been on your podcast. You have a very popular episode, Brian, I have to say and rightly so. And now Namaste, how do we say it? Namaste, namaste motherfuckers. And you have a book now called Namaste motherfuckers. And I was, I read it. Thank you for writing it. And what really, do you know what I felt in it is like, you know, people talk about, and this is what I want to get into with you. When people talk about menopause, they talk about it in midlife. Like you start by talking about how you become an invisible woman after a certain age, you know, and there's this notion that you get past the age of, I don't know, you get into your forties and it's like,

oh, just motherhood and no one's looking at you anymore. The fear people have of menopause, you hear it's terrible, hot flushes, you know, hormones, your life's over. And I was reading your book and I'm like, oh my god, it's only just begun. Yes, it has. And I think we're, are we a similar age? I think I'm probably tiny bit older. I'm 56. I'm 40. I'll be 45 next month. So I'm a sort of a half a generation on from you. And what I do think, so the book is partly about menopause, but it's actually about the massive mess

that is midlife in so far as, I think there are lots of books and things acknowledging how hard it can be to be a midlife woman. And lots of books that are like, I am woman, hear me roar. And I'm all of that, I'm an absolute mess. I'm also living the best life I've ever lived. Everything in between. But there's so much opportunity in it because it is, you have to reinvent at this time in your life. Your

body literally goes, we're going to do something different now. And we're always reinventing in every way, sort of professionally as well. So I would not have my radical reinvention came about partly out of ambition and excitement and trying something new and a side hustle that got bigger than I meant it to. But it also came about out of complete burnout collapse. I couldn't keep doing what I was doing. And all of that can still give you something better than you had before. So that's the message really. It's sort of not a redemptive story, but it is my story. Two things I just want to put at the top of this episode to let people know, you know, anyone listening who's feeling

just knackered, exhausted, past it, you know. So first of all, there's this quote from Tracy Emin, which you put in, which is that men peak in their 40s, whereas women tend to come and come and come and they keep coming. I love that. I love that. Right. And then you also talk about the animal world, you have an autistic zookeeper for a son. We can talk about that later. But matrilineal animal species and elephants are matrilineal, which means that older women run the show, right? Men never run the show. They are like off in the like, you know, so it's like with age comes power. So it's like, as you say in the book, it's like a reverse

Boris Johnson. Yes, it is. And God knows we need one of those, don't we? I think it's also the reason I love stuff from the animal kingdom. And I'm sure you've read Lucy Cook's book, Bitch, which is a phenomenal book at debunking sort of myths around the females of the species in the natural world. But often we sort of make excuses for why women are marginalized. Men are given different sets of rules. Men have power, they're the hunter gatherers. And actually some of that is sometimes excused by some kind of, well, it's just nature, isn't it? It's biology. Well, as it turns out, no, it isn't. You know, female promiscuity in the animal kingdom wasn't even written about until the 70s or 80s, despite

there being immense amounts of research around it, because it didn't suit the sort of patriarchal narrative. So yes, it's funny that I've learned as much about feminism from my son as I have from any number of rallies, books, goodnights out with my girlfriends. So yeah, I love, I love and I love the, you know, the sort of narrative arc of the book follows the fact that I do feel much like an orca where it's the postmenopausal grandmothers who have all the power and it's with because they know where the food is, they've got the wisdom and it's with those orcas that the male young orca bucks first have their sexual experiences. So that's what's going on if you're an orca grandmother.

They're having sex with all the young male orcas. That's where they learn their tricks is with the older. I know. So there's much to be learned, Bryony, from the animal kingdom. So much to be learned. You describe yourself as a bonobo ape mom. Well, because I spent my life having a son who, you know, I put out a thing on my socials last week saying if someone had told me three decades ago that I would be sending a message to my son and he would be messaging back saying, mum, can I call you back? I'm just giving the panda her bamboo for lunch. I'd have said, well, I really hope so because that's all he wants. So from Dot, he's autistic and he

was set on his dream and his dream was animals and in particular primates. And that's what he now does. He works with primates. And I have learned an enormous amount about primates, whether I wanted to or I didn't. So yes, I do stuff in my show about the fact that it's not like being a ballet mum or a football mum. It's a lonely life of being a bonobo ape mum. But I like it because bonobos, they're like, I feel like they're living their best lives. I mean, the things I've seen bonobos do, they're very sexual. Before I've even had my first flat white of the day.

Yes, I have seen the most unspeakable acts being committed by bonobos as I stand next to my son at five in the morning. So forget about being a tiger mother, a helicopter mother. This is today's episode of The Life of Briony is how to be a bit more bonobo. And it's about how we talk about downsizing as we get older. But as you say, the book is about upsizing. And this is where I want to talk about you, Callie, and your extraordinary reinvention. Do you know what I mean? Like this Madonna couldn't imagine this reinvention.

I love to think I've done this better than Madonna, Brian. You have. You're the only person who's noticed. Thank you for noticing. That's okay. I'm glad that you feel seen. I feel totally seen. So, your life, you are going through life and you want to be an actor and then you kind of realise that that's not going to happen. Because I couldn't act. Because you couldn't act. And that's good self-awareness. It doesn't stop everyone. Could it stop me? But you end up through a series of, you know, just life, you end up becoming this kind of quite high powered television business. Yeah, TV executive. Yeah, I sat on the boards of TV companies, basically. So I was, yeah,

I ran a production company that was acquired by ITV. So I found myself the youngest and only female member of the ITV board when I was quite young in my early thirties. And then I just carried on in this life of being a sort of supposedly successful board member in media. And it's funny how also life sort of happens when you're not quite looking, doesn't it? I didn't ever think that's what I think I kept thinking, I'll do this for now. And then at some point, I'll go back to whatever track I thought I'd be on. But you keep getting, you know, I'll do this for now. And then at some point, I'll go back to whatever track I thought I'd be on.

But you keep getting, if you do your job well and you are riddled with imposter syndrome and desperately trying to outshine your male colleagues, then you do quite well at the job you're doing. So I sort of thought I'd picked my lane. And I used to look at all the, I ended up being on the board of ViacomCBS who own Comedy Central, Nickelodeon, MTV. So I would the, I ended up being on the board of ViacomCBS, who own Comedy

Central, Nickelodeon, MTV. So I would work, I was based in London, but sat on the board over in New York. So I was sort of surrounded by particularly the comedy lot. I used to love the people I met through Comedy Central and I met loads of my sort of absolute kind of iconic heroes and heroines. Like Amy Poehler. Like Amy Poehler and Kevin Hart and Amy Schumer and anyone called Amy. All the comedians called Amy.

All the Amy's. I was being tight with the Amy's. I think I just used to think, oh, in another world. Maybe I'd have been on that side of the camera, but it just felt like that must be another world. I did used to do lots of public speaking, so I would be a spokesperson for the business. So I would, I'd be a token woman. Exactly. They'd be like, well, actually, it's funny you say that I won't say which board, but I do remember once somebody racing in a photographer for our end of year board report for the board I was on at the time. And said, we really want to get you like, you know, front and central on the cover of the board

report. You know, they do a nice glossy, almost like a little book they'd produce. And I thought, isn't it brilliant that the production company I'm running, you know, that's been recognized because we were doing really well. I thought, isn't it great? We've cut through. And then when I went to get the photos done, the photographer said, oh, it's brilliant that they've got you because they couldn't get the Indian woman who runs the other business. So they got you. And I like, Oh God, you've just offended everybody racially, gender wise. And it was clear positive discrimination. We need someone said to them, we better have a blooming woman on the cover of this this time. And it happens to be me. So terrible. This is 25 years ago. So I, yeah, so I thought

I so I would do public speaking and if they needed someone on Bloomberg television from Cannes or whatever, it would often be me. So I was doing things, but very business to businessy, not glamorous things. But I suppose I was using my voice. I was performing and I was using my voice with microphones. I was giving keynote speeches. So I was doing stuff but totally as a boring business person, not in any way doing what the aim is. You weren't doing stand up on Bloomberg News. I wasn't doing, I was not. I started getting closer and closer to doing it by mistake and

I thought I really need to, you know, change direction here because one day I'll say the things I shouldn't be saying. But yeah, so I just thought, oh, as you often do, I think I was a single mom, two kids. I'd raised them pretty much single-handedly from quite young. And I was, I didn't think I had choices. I was, I was the sole breadwinner. It wasn't like, oh, I can muck about and try a new hobby and see if it earns me money. It was me who was paying for everything. So money had to be earned. So that it didn't feel like I could make a frivolous life decision in my mid forties. I felt like I was in the heart of

responsibilities, which I was. But then the universe sort of, I guess, delivered you, I mean, delivered you Joan Rivers. Yes, what a nice thing to manifest. What a woman. Bring me Joan Rivers. Yeah, I mean that. So I was lucky enough, I used to in those days working at Comedy Central, I used to meet some amazing people because we would go to Cannes or we would go to wherever it was around the world and we would host industry events where we would invite whichever Hollywood

A-lister it was who was fronting the shows that we were hoping that the jaded drunken TV executives assembled would invest in. And I worked with Joan Rivers on a few occasions and I got to know her well and I'd never really thought of her as an archetypal feminist, but of course she was. She was busting through the glass ceilings of Hollywood when women weren't doing what she was doing. What she went through in those environments was quite phenomenal and I'd never thought of it that way.

I just knew that because of women like her, I grew up knowing women could be funny. I owed people like Joan Rivers that. And it was Joan Rivers who said to me a couple of weeks before she died, we had dinner together and she was the person who said to me, I've seen you do sort of warm up basically for me on several occasions and I think you should try stand up. That's kind of what you've been doing and I think you could. And I was 45 and I said, it's too late for that. I'm 45. I've got two kids. One of my kids has special needs, board level day job. It's way too late.

And she just looked at me and said, I'm 81. You're in the thick of it. And then she died two weeks after that conversation from unexpected complications to surgery. And then I did my first ever stand up gig two weeks after that in a pub, you know, drunk and sort of hopeless open mic type thing, which is where you start and you put your hours in doing that for a long time till you get any good. But it was it's lovely that it was Joan Rivers who told me that because it makes for a much nicer story on a podcast and in a book. But I think any 81 year olds who's still at the top

of their game or has been at the top of their game. Any 81 year old woman saying to a 45 year old woman, do you know you're young? You've got it all ahead of you. That was the biggest gift of all. And I often think about that. And now at 56, I'm very proud of my age. I wear it with pride. It's better than the alternative. And I'm aware at 56 in 10 years time, I will think God at 56, you were so young and we've we're never going to be younger than we are right now. I love that bit in the book that right now and this is something for anyone tuning in to really consider you are the youngest you're ever going to be. And the most beautiful and unblemished.

Yes, but also you talk about you've never been happier than you are in your 50s. And I'll come back to that. But you also say that you've never felt more beautiful and more attractive. Can we talk a bit about that? Because I also love that. I mean, you are a very attractive woman, do you know what I mean? As anyone can see, but it's the feeling it, isn't it? It's and it's, you know, it's not even whether anyone thinks I mean? As anyone can see, but it's the feeling it, isn't it? And do you know, it's not even whether anyone thinks I am or I'm not, or that it's really lovely of you to say that, but it's actually, it's sort of, well, I feel like I'm speaking to the kind of the queen of this, of like just freeing ourselves from the shackles of

what it is that should hold us back from, you know, from dressing for the body we've got, not the body we want, to much bigger concerns. I think it's, I think what it is, is that as a child I was overweight, ginger, not need, industrial strength glasses, the offspring of the teachers who ran the school where I went, which was also a boys school. It was a pretty disastrous start. And I was always the sort of joke. I was the joke looking person. If anybody wanted to make a joke about how someone looked or not pick someone for netball, or there's the person you would not go out with on a date, it was always me. And it took me until I was in my 30s to sort of start to grow into myself and have some confidence. And it isn't that I think

externally that I think, oh, look at me in my 50s. There are loads of very beautiful women in their 50s, 60s and 70s. And I don't know whether I'm in that category or not. I'm probably not, but it sort of doesn't matter. It's more that I feel, I sort of know who I am now and I feel that it's a bit, I know this sounds so trite,

but that relationship with yourself, I feel much happier with my relationship with myself, which makes me feel a bit more able to have relationships with others. And I remember my daughter saying when she was on one of her on one of her first boyfriend, that sounds awful. She's 25, so one first or second proper boyfriend. And I remember sort of saying something and sort of saying, you know, and think about when you have sex and, you know, that they just make sure you're not sort of giving stuff away until you're sure this is someone you want to. And she was like, you know, she had this real sense of self-esteem. She's like, you know, if this guy's lucky enough to get

anywhere near me naked, he better be blooming grateful. And I was like, Oh my God, amen. I never felt like that. I should be grateful. So and it's not against my daughter's arrogance. She's just got that lovely thing called self-esteem. And I think I'm now at this stage in life getting towards that for the first time. And I think there's a whole community of women who perhaps are getting into this space, but it isn't about aesthetics. It's not about do we look perfect? And how do we look in swimwear? And does everyone fancy us? It's something much more... It's kind much more... Well, it's kind of not giving a shit, isn't it?

It's that, yeah. And realizing that beauty is lots of different things. And that no one's really looking. No one cares. I was thinking about this actually when I was reading the book because I'm about to turn 45 and I genuinely, genuinely... When I was 25, I hated myself, like physically. I was always analyzing my chin. I thought my nose was awful. I just, I could not see the wood for the fucking trees, put it that way. You know, I was too fat. I was, it was, it was, it was like self-loathing. But also I feel like self-loathing was like

the starting point from which women were expected to be at. We were raised on a diet of it's best to hate yourself unless you can attain the Christy Turlington perfection. That was the, that was the story. It was very much like, yeah. And now I genuinely just think I'm fab, you know, like, and I don't care, I genuinely don't care. And I find it remarkable. I think how think I'm fab, you know, like, and I don't care, I genuinely don't care. And I find it remarkable. I think how did I go from that to that? Because I know there are lots of women my age who are still, they're still in the self-loathing phase. And I don't know whether I had the great, you know, in a way it was great luck to have

to end up, you know, in psychiatric care and in rehab and having to get sober because I was forced to do all this work on myself. Do you know what I mean? And maybe that's what it was. Maybe actually to stop giving a fuck and to have that quote unquote confidence that people always say, I wish I had your confidence. Maybe it was, you know, maybe it just requires a nervous breakdown. Well, the rock bottom of the 12 steps is really important. The reason that people don't do the work in 12 steps is because they haven't hit rock bottom. And when you have, where else are you going to go? And my rock bottom also took me into psychiatric care and an extreme sort of collapse. And I suspect similarly, I don't know if I could have come out as resilient

as I now feel without that collapse. I wouldn't wish it on everybody. But it's also really common, especially for people, women in their 40s. It's really, really common. You know, it's that the peak age for not to be too much of a Debbie Downer, but the peak age for women to commit suicide is in their early 50s. And we're not talking about that. We talk about the horrific stats around young men and we should be talking about that. But what about middle-aged women? So there's a real extreme sort of mental health crisis for women in midlife that we're also not talking about. And in my case, it's what helped me jettison the day job and become

a full-time performer. But it also, like you, maybe that's kind of also to do with self-esteem. Maybe it's a bit of a leveler when you've really looked down the barrel of the gun. Things like, is my tummy a bit flabby or a bit less important? So let's, can we talk about your experience? So you ended up in, I mean, can you tell, yeah, I ended up having psychiatric, again, I talk about it in the show and it's really weird trying to write about, it's one thing writing about it in a book that's funny, but also can of course be heartfelt, not everything has to be funny. And in a tour show, I've never got to be very far from a laugh. So I'm trying to depict my midlife mental health collapse in a way that's got enough sort of levity in it, because there was lots of funny

stuff about it as well. But yeah, it actually took, I completely fell apart after giving a keynote speech about empowered women to 5,000 women. And I did this great keynote and I came off stage and I just couldn't stop, I just properly couldn't stop crying. And I called a mate from work and he had, he'd had a sort of mental collapse about two years earlier. And he just took one look at me and said, you're not going back into work. I'm going to get you in front of a doctor this afternoon. You need some help. And it was that friend of mine who, well, I owe him a lot. I owe him, probably owe him my life. And yes, and he got me in

front of a doctor. And then I had six weeks of treatment in a psychiatric hospital as a day patient. I was lucky enough, very lucky, that I had six weeks of treatment in a psychiatric hospital as a day patient. I was lucky enough, very lucky, that I had private healthcare through my work because I appreciate there'll be people listening going, I'd be loving love to get six weeks of help at psychiatric hospital, it's not available. It was available to me because of my job

and my private healthcare. And I was, I describe it in the show as like a reverse, one flew over the cuckoo's nest because I didn't tell the children. My kids were doing their A levels and GCSEs respectively. And I thought the last thing they need to know is that their mum has, you know, got metaphorically got her pants on her head at the moment and she can't cope. So I would leave home at time to go to work dressed as if I was going to work and come home and do their revision with

them. But by day I was having this and I know you're no stranger to these kind of rooms. I was having these incredible, basically intensive group therapy around the clock for six weeks. But that wasn't the end of it. I came out of it after six weeks thinking that's me sorted then, done the work. And then went straight back to work, went straight back to the same life. And as you know, keep doing the same thing. You'll keep getting the same thing. So it had a slightly lesser collapse about six months later, went back to the hospital for another two weeks, and the insurance ran out. I was like, I really need to work this out. And then that's when I thought everyone kept saying to me in the hospital, it's about profound change. And I kept thinking, what

do they mean? And I thought I knew the first time. And the second time I did know. And I kept thinking, what do they mean? And I thought I knew the first time and the second time I did know. And I just thought, whatever price it takes, whatever the cost is, I can't carry on like this. So I remember sitting down with my financial advisor saying, again, I was lucky enough, I had a financial advisor and say, and we worked out, I was like, she was like, do you think you could manage to earn 30 grand a year? If you jettison everything, I said just about possibly I could. And she was like, she was like, Do you think you could manage to earn 30 grand a year? If you jettison everything, I said just about possibly I could. And she was like, Right, well, let's work out what you can sell, how you can live on that. And I remember thinking, right, that's my goal. So I'd gone from a board level, immense sort of luxury salary to thinking, can I walk?

How can I pay the mortgage? And actually, I say it in the book, you know, I then thought about the life I'd love to have if I could. And it's really quite remarkable how close to that life I've now got the fortunate, you know, opportunity to live. Yeah. It's so interesting. I do think that like, you know, when people talk about the you, you mentioned how the suicide rates are highest in women in their 50s. I sort of had quite an early menopause. And I, the reason I, the only reason I knew that was happening apart from, you know, erratic periods and all of that was, was this sort of sense of absolute mental collapse. And

it was like all of the confidence I'd built up in my, over the decades. It was like the rug of confidence had been pulled out from underneath me and it just had vanished. And I had no self belief, I had no sense of, I just was, it was very bleak. And, and I look back at that, and I think it's like all of the things that come up for you in midlife, perhaps, you know, whatever the kind of mental health issue is, the hormones kind of surface, it's almost like your brain and your body going, are you going to deal with this now? Because if you don't, if you don't, the next 40 years of your life or whatever are going to be, they're just going to be the same. You just said those two words, profound change. It's like, when are you going to do what you were really put on this earth to do?

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Bring it on with George School uniform. Shop now in-store or online at george.com. Available at selected Asda stores and george.com. Delivery charges may apply apply subject to availability. A girlfriend of mine when I just left the day job said we went out for and she'd done similar a couple of years earlier and she said as you get to a certain point in life she said your wise mind gets very wise and there was something that was just telling me just to stop doing this sort of bullshit stuff anymore. And, but it wasn't a kind of, aren't I amazing? I'm going to do this huge,

my side hustle is going to become everything. And isn't this an empowered power move? It wasn't like that. It was kind of like, I don't know what else to do, but I know I can't keep doing what I've been doing. And then it was in increments really that it became, I mean, it did happen quite quickly that it worked out, but it could have as easily not worked out. And a lot of the pivotal moments were down to the wisdom of women around me actually, not just Joan Rivers. You know, I remember someone saying to me, I talk in the book about reinvention being bringing everything you've done to date with you. So whatever you've done, whatever your jobs were, you know, underage barmaids selling ice creams, working on Camden market, all the things I've ever done, the things I've done. Yeah, the things I've done. And they've all served me really well. They all

served me really well in boardrooms, being in boardrooms to serve me really well as a comedian. And someone said to me, well, why don't you do corporate speaking? Because that's the combination. And if you're a funny corporate speaker, you'll be a real rare beast, you know, unicorn among corporate speakers, as anyone who's listened to it, most corporate speakers knows. So that and then I was like, and that's actually lucrative. So that actually does pay well if I can get onto that circuit.

And just one thing led to another, really. But it's about I don't think reinvention need be with resignation. I think even in crisis, it can be with ambition. But that's not me being all naive and going, yeah, take a risk. Don't worry if it doesn't work out. I know people listening and it's the same for you and for me. We are trying to make a living here. We're not just mucking about on the borders, but there's a lot of possibility in how we can do that. I think, especially if we're willing to fail at some of it, which I do often.

Yes. So this is what I kind of want to get into because what you said about reinvention is about turning up the volume on ourselves, not imitating someone else. And all the possibility that comes to mind from your book where you think all of these things we hear about like empty nest and you know, all of that, it's all got this sort of tone of everything's over now. The consolation prize at the tombola. Yeah, yeah. When in actual fact, the way you I mean, this book is very much it's a self help book. It's very much a like guide. Yeah, there's lots of take as I mean, every chapter's got stuff you could do, you don't

have to do. But I've got across the book, there are 30 different things that you can go right, you could literally go, I'm not very good at public speaking. How could I or how could I have a difficult conversation? Or how can I tackle my imposter syndrome? There's stuff in there. Because if I read a book that's purporting to be of some help, I want to actually give me things that help that help. So if nothing else, it's 30 really useful things. I mean, I was a coach for 20 years. So it's all the stuff I know has worked when I've coached people in groups and individually. Yeah. So I wanted to talk about some of these things, which is like you talk about perfectionism being the enemy. And I think it's an enemy that women are particularly taunted by this notion that we have to be perfect,

we have to be good. And actually, it's, it's, and we think of it as a good, we think of perfectionism, being a perfectionist as being a good thing. Right? If I've always get right, right, and it's always really good, then I am the best or whatever. And actually, in this book, you talk about how it's a kind of tool of the patriarchy that actually stops us from ever getting started properly. I think if you think about what holds us back from doing or trying anything, it's a fear of failure, isn't it? From can I wear that? Will I look stupid? Through to can I say that? Will I sound stupid? Can I try? You know, I'd like to write a book or but maybe I can't write a book, you know, whatever it is.

If we knew we could succeed at everything we tried, we'd try everything. But then when you think about it, there literally is no success without failure. You know, you learn that as a stand up. You cannot come out of the womb a good stand up. Occasionally there are people who just have it innately in them, even they have to work really hard. Most of us, we've just got to put the hours in and be shit until we're not shit. And there's no shortcut to that. So stand up is a very visceral example of it. So as soon as you get into that, you're like, oh, right, I can't avoid failure.

And I think perfectionism, all you're doing is leaning unhappily into thinking, well, if I could just do that, it's a very un-Buddhist approach to life, if I can just get to that bit in the future that I'll never get to. But actually, the fun is in the mess. So when as an inspirational speaker, I do speeches all around the world, but my thing isn't and try and be like me, you know, it's about the mess. And I don't feel, I don't feel that I've got all the answers. I don't feel that I'm sitting here going, yeah, and I've done this great reinvention and I've written a book and everything feels great. Everything still feels really raggedy, snaggedy. And I don't know if I'm capable of promoting a book of its selling. I don't know if my tour

show will be okay. I don't know if anything I'm doing is okay. And I'm still riddled with all of the stuff that goes with it. But I am also doing it and loving it. And it's that it's all the seasons of midlife, you can be riddled with anxiety and feel optimistic and try a new thing. And maybe it goes brilliantly. And maybe you epically fail. And you row with your kid and the dog shits on the carpet. That's all part of it. And it can still be so energizing and such a lovely messy place to be. But this is the big learning as we get older and I think and this is what comes through

is that I definitely feel the thing I'm having to learn is that it's okay if people don't like the thing I do, it's okay if the thing I do isn't massively successful or do you know what I mean or it doesn't hit whatever metric I've told myself it has to hit. And you talk about how your 50s has been your most happy decade because you've learned how to deal with the shit stuff. It's that. And again, I feel like you've written so powerfully on this and a lot of your stuff is so in this space as well. But with, I guess when we were both talking about our different variety of sort of rock bottom and what maybe enabled us to sort of go into the next chapter in a different way, I think really what it comes down to is resilience. So I still absolutely

will have, you know, things that I find immensely difficult, you know, plenty of crying, plenty of self-doubt, all of that still absolutely exists. But the thing that's different is now I know I'm resilient. So I'm never thinking, you know, and I dropped my daughter lives abroad, I dropped her off the other day, knew I wouldn't see her for a while. She's got an office based job in another country. She can't just up sticks and come home for long periods. And I just kind of wept as soon as she was out of sight. I didn't let her know how quite bad I was feeling. And I just cried and I cried and I cried and I cried for hours. But I knew I'd be okay.

I didn't feel I needed someone to save me. You know, I'm single at the moment by choice. I'm having a mindfully single period of time. And I didn't feel the need. I didn't think, oh, I need to find a bloke to sleep with or I need a drink or I need- Something to make it better. Yeah, I didn't need an anesthetic. I was like, I, yeah. And I kept thinking this

is such a, this, this is what I'm feeling because it really blooming hurts. And I, and I might cry for days now. I don't know, but I do know I'll survive. Whereas I think in my forties, if I like life and death, I think I sometimes thought if things get difficult, I might actually literally die. And I don't feel like that anymore. I want to be here and I know I'll be okay. I do think that ability, there's a saying in recovery, which is, you know, the good thing about getting sober is you get your feelings back. And the bad thing about getting sober is you get your feelings back.

And you know, obviously, addiction is an extreme version of not being able to deal with feelings. But I do think on a sort of a much, you know, on a much more general scale, we in this country, you know, those of us in our 30s, 40s, 50s, and anything above were not brought up to, to, to understand any feeling other than happiness. So it's kind of very natural. You know, when I was a kid, it was like when you were sad, it was like, oh, don't be sad. Yeah, pull yourself together. Yeah.

Yeah. And also, sorry, there's that thing of, you know, just sitting on it there is that when something is wrong, there's that very human desire to make things right and to provide a solution. When actually sometimes the solution is just to feel the thing. And solving it, I think if we keep trying to solve the puzzle of ourselves and existence and first of all, we realise how it's sort of also quite egocentric really, isn't it? It's a sort of a way of if I'm not all right, the world's not okay. And it's kind of all, we realize how it's sort of also quite egocentric, really, isn't it? It's a sort of a, if I'm not all right, the world's not okay. And it's kind of like, I'm just so incidental as well. And I find that liberating. That's why I love walking my dog

and going out on Hampstead Heath and just being out there. Because I think that tree doesn't think I'm relevant. That tree will be there long after I'm gone. And it was there long before I arrived. And there's something about letting things pass. When I first got into, I'm still quite crap at doing regular meditation and mindfulness, even though it helps me immensely when I do it. But I've done lots of it and whenever I do do it, it just never ceases to amaze me that sitting with all that crap doesn't enhance its power. It completely lets it be and lets you free. It's so easy.

Just do nothing. Don't solve it. Don't worry about it. And when I go on stage and some of the things I do are big things in front of thousands of people and some are small, I very frequently think, well, I don't know if I'm going to be the right person for this. And I never think, aren't they lucky to have me? What a brilliant booking. There's always a level of this could be the one that undoes me forever. But I go on stage with that as

well. I just think, well, then how do I feel? I'll take that on stage then and I'll be however I am today. And that's really a massive relief. And I don't know about you, but I'd rather see someone giving a speech from a position of authenticity than some absolute no-chinks-in-the-armor invincibility. And as a comedian, nobody wants to come and watch a comic and go away thinking, well, that comic was so sorted out, I feel really inadequate. They want the chinks in the armor. That's the funny. And we are so irrelevant. That's the other bit. So it doesn't matter. That thing that we think matters so much. That person didn't like me or someone said something mean about how I look on Twitter. Who cares? It doesn't matter.

It's like when you get really honest and call it out, I think people just go, oh, their shoulders like relax a bit. I was, I had to do something a few weeks ago in Scotland and I sat on the stage and I was really hard, I was like really trying, you know, I was like, like, like, I'm not a stand up comic, but I always, I get my, you know, am I doing well? And I know I'm doing well if people are laughing, you know, even if you're making jokes about being a drug addict or OCD and thinking you're a serial killing pedophile or something. Do you know what I mean? It's good to enrich mine. It's a laughter.

And I had this moment where I was like, oh, they're not laughing that much. And I was like, oh, and then I just was like, I'm feeling really insecure. I'm feeling really insecure. And this morning I woke up and my brain was like, you should stay in bed. You're a piece of shit. No one wants to listen to you. Do you know what I mean? You're over.

You're irrelevant, Briny. And the moment I like tuned into what I was really feeling was the moment that that connection came in with the audience of like, because we all wake up and feel that, you know, like this morning I woke up and was like, I had this elephant of terror on my chest because I've just come back from a holiday. Do you know what I mean? And I was like, you've got to work. The transition points are really hard, I think, aren't they?

But isn't it a relief to know that we all have that? Like I often have that in the mornings. Mornings are not my moment. And I now, instead of waking up thinking that's determining everything, I just sort of notice it and think, yeah, sometimes it does. It is a bit of a sluggish, tough start and that's okay. And I just feed the animals and get myself dressed just about and go out and just get out with the dog and then see what happens. And I think giving all those moods permission to come in is enormously helpful. And they say, I mean, I do think stand up is a really

good metaphor for loads of this, because you never learn as much from a good gig as a bad gig for starters. So it's always you know, I've got a chapter on that in the book, but it's always the bad ones that give you the learning and you're never far from a bad one as a comic. It's like alchemy. No, no amount of brilliant wordsmithing gets you out of trouble because somebody just might not like you or a weird thing happens. But also that you need to sort of let go of any bad gigs. You know, Sarah Millicum says that, you know, by 11 o'clock the next morning, let it go. It doesn't matter. You can wallow in it and feel like you've had a terrible gig, but by 11 the next morning, that's yesterday's gig move on. Millicum's law and it's a really good rule of thumb,

but I think not just for stand up, for anything. It's like, and yeah, we do screw things up and we absolutely do and I 100% do, but it's just coping with that much better than I used to. And why should we tap dance for the world perfectly anymore? Women have been doing that forever. Why should we be so nice and tap dancing and people pleasing? Sometimes maybe we don't please people and maybe that's fine. Thought to me about how stand up comedy has taught you that the fear of upsetting people, how much that holds us back as women. They say when you're, the easiest way to sum up being a female stand up, even though there

are loads of us now, we're probably not far off half the circuit, you wouldn't know that from what you see on telly, but that is probably the case in the live circuit, maybe a bit less. That's not to say all the female comedians are getting booked as much as the male comedians. You're still often the only woman on the bill, but there are loads of incredible female stand-ups. But if a female stand-up comedian has a bad gig, there will be people leaving the venue going, you see, women aren't funny. I don't suppose it's ever happened that a bloke had a bad gig and people left the venue going, it's a shame men aren't funny.

So you end up speaking for everyone like you. And they also say as a woman, you end up going on stage and everyone has to be funny quickly as a comic. That's a given. And you've probably got about a 30 second, maybe 60 second window to have made them think you're funny and you're in charge or you're in trouble. But for women, it's also being liked, that they've actually got to sort of like you as well. And I think there's something about, I used to do loads of MCing.

I used to find the writing bit of comedy really hard, but the performing I liked. So the perfect art form then is being an MC because loads of it is improvised. And also I felt like I think I had a kind of reasonable high status just because of my age and gender. It helped me, like being an older woman in charge of the room. I think it made it quite... The grandmother orca. I wasn't always sleeping with the young male ducks just on on a good night. And, but I think there's something, first of all, I would never think I was going to get hit.

So if people got really rowdy, and I really took on a really rowdy group of blokes, male comedians, a lot of them will have had stories of being hit or threatened. I thought you're really going to have to be a prick to jump up on stage and punch someone your mum's age. You know, so I felt, I think, physically less intimidated by really rough things happening. But also I realised if you go straight into it, when someone throws you a horrible thing, it's like live trolling. If you can deal with it, the whole room wants you to succeed. They do not want the troll to succeed. So you might feel attacked, but the whole room is with you and they're dying for you to put that person down, not

in a hopefully horrible way, but get back control. And if you can do that, that's your bulletproof for the rest of the night. So I, instead of dreading a man saying, you know, show us your tits or women aren't funny, I got to the point where I was like, I really hate something like that happens early doors, because I can set the room up then that I can deal with this and just turn it on people. I'm sure you have it sometimes online. You'll get some twatchish comment on a thing you've posted that fully illustrates your point better than anything you could have said in your original post. You're like, thank you troll man for pointing out exactly what I just said. But I do think that, yeah, that you can't please everybody as a stand up. Like life is so imperfect as a standup.

It just is. And that there's no getting around it. And I've got much better as a stand up since I've been willing to try and say what I actually really want to say, rather than trying to right size my set for whatever I think that room wants. I think it's much more effective. But presumably that was something you had to learn as well. Yes, it's taken me 10 years of dying on my ass, Brian. But like in the boardrooms as well, like you can't be, I mean, I don't know, I think it's really fascinating this need we have as women where we have to achieve all the things, but we also have to be liked, you know.

The being liked is a real pressure and the idea that there's lots of research about women, you know, that statistic that came out is about 10 years ago now, that a woman will apply for a job when she has 100% of the qualifications, and a man will apply for a job when he has 60% of the qualifications. And then women are giving assertiveness training or mentoring, they're given support

as if they've got a sort of bit of a mental block. But it's a societal cultural block. It's not the women that need the help. It's all of our problems. It's actually the men that need the help to understand. Yes, and why that's happening. So I think, and the reason I've got a chapter about, it's not about public speaking, most people don't want to and don't have to do public speaking. It could be about that, but it's about, I call it make the edit, by which I mean when I used to produce panel shows,

we would say to people, just say enough that make sure you're in the edit. The first time I did QI, I knew thankfully from having produced shows like that, just say loads, don't worry if it's funny, get your voice in the room and keep getting it in the room and you will be in the edit and it'll become funny even if Jack Dee is the one who makes it funny, don't worry about it, just get your voice in. And I think we're more liable to wait till we have got something perfect to say. And not everyone around us is waiting for that time. So why should we be perfect? It goes back to the perfectionism thing of like, I'm going to wait until, and it's like, no, just get in there.

And if I'd waited till I was a perfect stand-up, I'd never have given up my day job to become a stand-up, because I'm still far from perfect as a stand-up. If I waited till I knew I could write a perfect book, I'd never have written a book. So I think we literally can't wait to know if it's and also what is perfect, you know, what is it we're aiming for. But I do think that there's something very visceral about having to do it on stage. I think I've done a lot of my inner workings have been on stage where there is no choice. You've got to turn up and see what you can do. And it is in its by its very nature, messy. You also talk about how menopause is when women tend to leave the workforce when in

actual fact, it should be when we're absolutely like fucking killing it. Right. And you know, and I do think there is that sort of the likeability factor and the need, you know, and the sort of crippling self-esteem and imposter syndrome that is sort of written into the kind of very fabric of our DNA by patriarchal systems, essentially. For me, it was really obvious that when I was in the ITV boardroom and I was the only woman and they were all Eton educated white men of great privilege and I desperately tried to compensate and be like them. Everything was about how can I be like them. It cost me the relationship with my children's father. My children were very young. I became a single parent of very young children because of that.

Because you were having to behave like a man. Yes. Well, I think something had to give. I was putting so much into what was going on in my working life. I was, you know, your relationship suffered. So the most important thing suffered. I think I still was a decent mum, but I think I and it wasn't it's not all on me that it that we ended up splitting up. We're still very, very good mates. And it's worked out, I think, as it as it should have done for us all as a blended family. But but it did happen then it was hard. And then when I started working for Americans, there were some advantages to my difference in terms of gender, accent, age. I was a bit more of a rare, I think they thought, you know, I

say in the book, I think they thought I was a royal or a Weasley. But suddenly I got a little sense of, oh, doing it in a different way might be okay. They don't need an identikit version of who they've got because they've got them. So why don't I go against all our tribal instincts of have to be like everyone else? And as long as I'm, I mean, I was responsible for multi millions of dollars worth of revenue, I had a business function. So I was measured against a very clear set of financial goals. But as long as I was hitting those, which I was, then I sort of started to do it a bit more my way. I think that was of much more help to the organization than if I'd done it, you know, in the way that all the others

before me had ever done it. So, but it's not a sort of, it sounds, they say that standups are egomaniacs with intense self loathing. And I think the same is often said of addicts. I think it's a different saying. Your ego is in the penthouse, self-esteem in the basement. There you go. And that's, I think, addicts and comedians have that in common. And whether in the room, some of us outside the rooms, I think most of us, you know, you don't, you don't become a stand up if all is completely well. Mentally, there's usually some shit going down. We either have sorted out or we're sorting out live on stage. Yeah. So if there is anyone who, who is in their

mid forties, fifties and thinks, I don't, I'm not, I'm not done yet. I'm only just going to get, I'm only getting yet, I'm only getting started. But I don't know how to get started. Like I feel that there's a lot more life. I wanna become a grandmother orca. You know, I wanna be the elephant, you know, in the room. What would your top, what would your best piece of advice be?

I think there were sort of a couple of things to it. The first thing is, think what would that be then if everything were possible and you couldn't fail and I have a thing in the book where I ask people to sketch this all out. If you could just design what it is you would love to be doing in your life, forget about money and practicalities, just sketch it all out, literally write it all out in beautiful technicolor, just sketch it all out, literally write it all out in beautiful technical, just write it all out and then see what the nearest to that might be that you could start to work towards because we don't even dare let ourselves think what that might be. And I'm so glad I did let myself think what that might be because I have got reasonably close to that and I'm working, you know, in fields that excite me. But it's

also definitely dream big, but just start small, just something. What's the thing? You know, my comedy started as an open mic-er performing comedy in front of other open mic-ers and I was mostly shit. And that's how it started. And that's how it needed to start. But it kind of ended up live at the Apollo. It ended up at live at the Apollo, but not overnight. Not overnight. Yeah, but those, all those little open mics lead to... I had to do those to get to the point where I knew how to do. If someone gave me Live at the Apollo six months into doing open mic gigs, I couldn't have done it. So there'd have been no point. But also the idea of being willing to fail, you know, as the Samuel Beckett quote ever tried, ever failed, no matter, try again, fail again, fail better. So let's just keep failing better.

And that's a bloody relief, isn't it? Because you can't go too wrong if that's your ethos. That is a bit of a comfort, isn't it? Yeah, just, yeah, it absolutely is. And what is failure anyway? What do we mean by success and failure? You know, what do we mean? There'll always be everyone I've ever met. I'm sure it's the same for you. You know, when you meet a sort of massive A-lister and to us, they're like, oh my God, that person did that film and then you'll find out that they know that they didn't get the part of whatever it was and that's always haunted them. And that person didn't ask them out. And that thing that they were trying to do in their Hollywood home didn't come off. They've got their version of, oh but if only that

and if only you knew that bit, there'll always be that. Whoever we are, there'll always be that thing we didn't achieve and that thing that haunts us and that shame we feel around it. And we can just throw all that away and have a happier time. com. you