Woman's Hour - 05/05/2025

Episode Date: May 5, 2025

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Hello, I'm Nuala McGovern and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Just to say that for rights reasons, the music in the original radio broadcast has been removed for this podcast. Hello and welcome to Woman's Hour. Our program today is all about mistakes. Today we are focusing on mistakes, those that we make and the impact that they have on our lives. There are so many motivational quotes about mistakes from famous women. Here's a couple. Actress Sophia Loren, she's often quoted as saying mistakes are part of the dues one pays for a full life.

And Beyonce apparently said this, I'm not afraid to make mistakes. I embrace mistakes. Does that ring true for you? Well, in the next hour, we're going to look at why in fact we so often cringe when we make a mistake and why women can be judged more harshly when they slip up. Also, what does it feel like if your conception was called a mistake? And we will also have one woman's story of how her faux pas made it onto the big screen, featuring in the end a Hollywood actor no less. Obviously when someone takes you to one side and says you've

created an international incident, unlike your first few weeks in a job, it's just devastating. Keep listening to hear more from Nicole Mowbray. And I have a studio full of women here. They're ready to reveal their mistakes, I think. And it is all in the hopes that we can feel a bit better about the blunders, the errors, whatever we want to call them, that we make. And I want to introduce them to you as well. First up, bestselling author and clinical psychologist, Dr. Julie Smith.

Hello. Hello. Thanks for having me. So what's what do you think of when I say mistake? Oh, so many words, but probably the first one in my mind is fear. Fear. Let me move on to Sarah Ellis, a career expert and co-founder of Amazing If. The word that comes to mind? I think for me it's learning at my best, panic at my worst. We also have the marketing expert Lauren Spearman.

What word comes to your mind? The word comes to mind would be accident. Hmm, accident, mistake, error, blunder. We have the journalist Sophie Heywood and Bethanne Ryder here. Same question to you, Sophie. First to you. I think of relief because then you've done it. That's very positive. A growth mindset as we might call it and we're going to get into exactly what that term means during the hour as well. Bethanne, instead you? Well, I was going to say learning as well, but I also think on the flip side of that

anxiety and we also have the teacher Gloria Dallafoo. How about you? What word would you ascribe to mistake? I see mistake as being a feedback from what I've done. Okay. Well, we're going to hear more about why they all feel that way as we explore our complicated relationship with mistakes. We're not live today so don't text in but if you would like to comment on anything you hear over the next hour you can of course email us through the Woman's Hour website. So let's start with a bit more understanding about mistakes because not all mistakes are made equal. Mistakes are created by a decision or an action that we come to

regret. They can be small, silly blunders or perhaps a catastrophic error. Some mistakes lead to punishment but today we are mostly looking at mistakes that we make on a daily basis and I think we all know that feeling of making a mistake, stomach drops, it can make you feel terrible. But we do know that we cannot go through life without making them. So why do we sometimes find it so difficult when we make a mistake? Well, to understand our reaction to it all, I'm joined by the clinical psychologist and bestselling author of Open When. And why has nobody told me this before? It's Dr. Julie Smith.

How would you describe mistakes? How do you see them? Yeah, so like you were saying there, you've got lots of different types of mistakes. It's a big umbrella term, isn't it? So you've got the very big and famous mistakes like the Leaning Tower of Pisa that will be forever in our minds, or the kind of smaller, more mundane things and the very private things. So if you lose some money to scammers, or if you post something impulsively on social media

and then regret it, or, and you know, all the 50 shades in between those two things. So a mistake to one person can seem, you know, like a really huge thing, but there are also little mistakes that we are much more able to cope with and be resilient to. And it often depends on how we frame that mistake in our mind. So some people will make a small mistake, but the emotional consequence will be big,

often because of the relationship they have with failure. Because I think whether it's a small mistake or a big mistake, perhaps that initial reaction for a lot of us is the same. That kind of churning, oh no, cringe kind of embarrassment. Yes, so it can be a sort of maybe embarrassment at least or public humiliation and shame at worst, can't it? So if we fear other people's disapproval or judgment or abandonment in a public arena or even privately or if we have a tendency to abandon ourselves in response to failure as well. And if we don't

look after ourselves in response to mistake or people say, well, I'm my own worst critic and things like that. And sometimes that sort of inner dialogue can be really brutal and pull people right down. What an image abandoning ourselves. All the different scenarios that you might make a mistake in, I think the overall theme is how you relate to that mistake and how you relate to failure. And I think a key theme across that is,

if I feel that the mistake I made was an event that I experienced, so that was not good enough. Then I feel guilt. If I say, I am not good enough or I am a failure or I am bad, then that's shame. And shame is so psychologically threatening that we then are too distressed and too much in a sort of fight or flight mode to learn anything. We're so focused on feeling safe again and numbing that feeling. So some people won't even notice that they are feeling that, they just notice that they're trying to numb it. So they're, you know, they've got the head in the fridge or they're, you know, drinking wine before dinner or, you know,

whatever those things are, those sort of chosen behaviors. It's so interesting, that feeling of shame, we often talk about it on Women's Hour and I'm wondering, do you think women are more likely to feel bad about the mistakes they make? I think probably that's applicable to certain scenarios. So I think men can also be really hard on themselves and people can be really hard on men in certain scenarios, and they're hard on women in different scenarios. So we set ourselves up to, you know, on pedestals in different roles depending on what our roles are in our relationships.

Do you feel there are certain types of people that feel their mistakes more? Yes, I think those who see failure as saying something fundamental about who they are as a person, then you're at risk of really, really struggling in the face of failure. Whereas if you see it as, you know, if failure is something you can experience rather than something you become, then you can learn from that and you can move on from it. Whereas if every time you make a mistake, that tells you something about your self-worth, then that's really, really hard to get back up and recover from. Is perfectionism at the back of that? Yeah, so perfectionism would be a sort of symptom of that sort of belief system, if you like.

So, you know, if I fail then it means I'm a failure. So it's emotional reasoning. You know, if I feel something then it must be true. I feel like a failure, therefore I am. Then you're much more likely to trip into cycles of perfectionism things like that because as long as you can do everything perfectly then you won't feel like a failure and actually it's a bit of a fallacy and we tell ourselves it's going to protect us from feeling that way but actually we end up feeling it more. Is there any mistake that comes to mind Dr. Julie of your own?

Oh plenty well I'm a parent so there's always parenting mistakes aren't there where you sort of you say something you think oh I shouldn't have said it like that or I shouldn't have done that or I you know or times when I've been busy working and then forgotten to attend something at the school or and the oh the guilt is just yeah. And I see nodding heads around the table so we will come back to that but I suppose at the heart of it we always hope that the mistake will be minimized we don't want it shared too widely and So we will come back to that. But I suppose at the heart of it, we always hope that the mistake will be minimized. We don't want it shared too widely.

And of course, we live in an era of social media now which can change all that. We definitely hope that our mistake won't be seen by millions of people. But what happens if it is? Well, my next guest can tell us what that is like. I want to take us back to March 2003. News is swirling about an imminent invasion of Iraq. Politicians are making the case for

and against and people around the world have taken to the streets to protest. Journalists are feverishly reporting on this story and this is where our next guest Nicole Mowbray comes in. Nicole was working on the foreign desk at the Observer newspaper where what could be considered a clerical error turned into an international incident. Eventually her mistake even found its way to Hollywood and was turned into the film Official Secrets, starring Keira Knightley. Nicole told me how the event unfolded. It was 2003 and I just got a job as the foreign desk assistant at the Observer newspaper which was my kind of dream job because I grew up wanting to be like Kate Adie or somebody like that and when I got a job in a newspaper I I was kind of like, quite overwhelmed and I felt slightly

out of my depth and I'd only, I'd been working in women's magazines before that. So I kind of didn't think I had a hope really of getting the job. And so when I did, I was really put myself under quite a lot of pressure to do it well and double check everything. And a few weeks into the role, I was given a piece of paper, which I think might have just come from like, behind a filing cabinet or something. And I was given this piece of paper and I didn't have any clue what it was. I was just told to type it was a Saturday and I was just told to type this piece of paper into like the word processing system type thing that we had back in

2000. Yeah, and, and not to make any mistakes. And, I mean, not knowing what it was, I typed it in and then I spellchecked it because I didn't want to make any mistakes. And ultimately, I anglicize the Americanisms in the any mistake. And ultimately I anglicise the Americanisms in there. All the Zs to Ss, you know, that kind of thing. Yes, yeah, adding a U maybe to favour it. Yeah. Things like that. Bring us through then the trajectory of events after you had diligently typed in this memo, spell checked it. Yeah, come on. To my mind, I'd sorted out the mistakes that were in the document, you see, because

I was working for a British paper. I filed it and I sent it through and I just didn't really think anything of it. I didn't know it was going to be a front page story and I certainly didn't know it was going to be about the case for going to war in Iraq. I didn't realize that until Sunday morning when I went to the shop and got a paper. So when you got that paper though, you're like, huh, that's the memo I typed up. I realized it was a memo, but I still didn't quig that it was an American memo and I'd anglicized it. Well, why does that matter?

Let's go into some of these details. So you have picked up the paper. Oh, that's the memo. Oh, look, I'm part of this big scoop really. But when did it surface that in fact, your diligence in spell checking and anglicising actually was creating quite the international incident, as some might call it? I was phoned on Monday to be alerted to the fact that had I done something to the memo, had I changed anything? And I think I'd said, I don't really think so. And then they sort of said, basically they said, this was a leaked American memo, you didn't Angersize it and the penny dropped and I sort of thought I actually, yeah I did.

What impact did it have on the story and on your colleagues? Yeah, I think that was why I felt so terrible about it because I realised immediately what a massive impact it had. They'd all been sort of showered in disbelief really about the veracity of the memo. Very few people believed that it was real. So they firstly felt that the Observer had printed a fraudulent or fake email and had been palmed off with a fake. And so before the papers spoke to me they'd already done quite a few investigations as to is this the real memo, you know, where did it come from, and obviously there's a duty to protect the person that

gave the memo. So it was quite a difficult thing for them to have to go through. And it had already cleared lots of legal hurdles before they published the memo. So they had to go back on all of that. And then they realized what had actually happened was just a clerical error on my side.

But I think for a lot of them, it was one of their stories of their careers, because it was such an important story. And then I think the importance of the story got overshadowed, really, by the fact that there was all this kind of confusion about whether it was actually real. And so we now know it was Catherine Gunn who'd given this memo to the Observer. Let me give a little bit of background on Catherine Gunn. So she was the British intelligence specialist working at the government's communication headquarters known as GCHQ, risking everything to blow the whistle.

And she had passed on this top secret memo that shows the US was collaborating with the UK to collect sensitive information on the UN Security Council members in order to pressure them, the UN members, into supporting the Iraq invasion of 2003. And so the clerical error has ripples. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it was a tiny mistake. It was just spelling mistakes, but it discredited for a short time their story. They were very disappointed in the fact that their story didn't get the rightful play in the media that it should have done because of this doubt about it and because they all had to, some of them had to go on and defend the story

without exposing who, how it came to pass and it was very complicated. It overshadowed some of the to pass and it was very complicated. It overshadowed some of the points that were being made. And Catherine Gunn, did it affect her directly? I don't really know too much about it because I was really junior, but I'm sure that she had a long and protracted process about who she would trust to give this paperwork to in the first place. And I'm sure, you know, if she could see the future, she would have, I'm sure that wasn't the outcry that she was hoping for. I think the outcry would have been better focused purely on what she was trying to expose rather than whether, you know, it was a propaganda war, which is what kind

of came out of it. Certainly in the short term, in the long term, obviously things panned out differently. And we know what we know about the case for going to invade Iraq in 2003. How were you in those days, those weeks? I just felt really ashamed. I felt like I ruined this big story and that I just sort of felt like I didn't,

couldn't really live it down. And a lot of the times, a lot of those days afterwards, I really didn't want to go to work. And I, my old editor and asked if my other job was available and it wasn't. So I was only 24 at the time. I think if I did that now, I would probably go through a lot more hand wringing then, then then because I think I didn't really realize that you might only get one of those response in your career, I guess, I didn't really understand the seriousness of it. And also they didn't make me feel like

somebody took me to one side and was like, it's just a mistake, try to just, you know, move forward. And I think because it was a quite a supportive work environment in that way, I didn't feel like on my own really, but obviously when someone takes you to one side and says you've created an international incident, unlike your first few weeks in a job, it's just devastating. Did it stay with you? It sounds like you obviously look at it differently now, you know, further on in your career than you did at the very beginning.

I think it made me feel quite forgiving of other people's mistakes. Because it is a horrible feeling to have when you've done something accidentally and not realized. And also, we all do it. Some of them are on a public stage, and some of them are in private. But even if you like send an email to the wrong person, you know, we've all had that like sinking feeling of I've done something really bad and the only thing that really makes it better is time. And the other thing is because it didn't actually affect my career in the long term, I think if I had been let go or something, not that there was any suggestion of that, but if something like that had happened then I'm sure I would be telling a different story because I probably wouldn't have left journalism. I think because it was supportive that enabled me to sort of get over the mistake. So interesting. But then, you know, life progresses, years go on. But 16 years after that particular mistake, you're living your life and then you find out that a film has been made about Catherine Gunn's whistleblowing. How did you find out what was your reaction?

I found out because a colleague who's a journalist sent me a message on Facebook saying, a friend of mine is playing you in a movie. I take it you know about this. She'd like to meet up with you and discuss what you used to wear and what snacks you used to have in your desk. I was like, I don't know anything about this. And then I got in touch with one of the reporters on the story, Martin Bright, who was also a Facebook friend and said, are you making a movie about this? And he was like, oh, yeah. Yeah, we're making a film. And it's going to be a big deal. And there's some really big stars being cast in it.

And I just, my heart kind of sunk, because I just thought, no, obviously you have no control of the narrative. And if someone's going to make a movie and you're in it, that's the kind of dinner party or chat that you would have, like who would play gonna make a movie and you're in it, like that's the kind of dinner party or like chat that you would have, like who would play you in a movie? And you would always think, oh, if someone was gonna make a movie that you're in,

it would be like a good story or you're the hero or something. You don't really wanna be like, I wasn't the villain, but you don't want to be the hapless assistant in it, which is what I was. So I was pretty mortified, to be honest, because also I felt like it was a long time ago

and it wasn't something I thought of very often. My role was tiny in the film and that was what I was told at the time. But because it's a key kind of story moment and for all the reasons I said, it's a big turning point in the film when they realize that this person's gone to all these risks to get this document out and then it's not believed. They were adamant that I would have, that someone was going to be me in it.

So interesting. But also, Keira Knightley is also in the film. I should let people know it was a big film. But also, isn't it interesting that all those years later, it's still smart. Yeah, I actually, when I was invited to the screening with the people who are in the film, as in people who have played in the film, I actually cried when they showed my, yeah, the part of the film, because actually, even people who knew what would happen, what was going to happen, sort of gasped. And I went to see the film in our cinema in Brixton where I live, and when it came out, and I also people went, oh, and I just was like, my husband wanted to see it. So we went to see it. And

yeah, I mean, I realized that I'm not really overreacting when I sort of think about it being a moment of, it's just a big moment in my life. It was a big moment in that story. So yeah, it was quite major to see it on screen. I don't know whether watching the film helped you process that mistake in any way or whether you came out from the theater feeling differently about it. Actually what made me process it slightly differently was that I wrote a piece about

it for The Guardian. I read that, yeah. And I was sort of dreading it because of the comments and I thought, oh, I hope they don't have comments on. And when they did have comments on, I was sort of, I didn't really want to read them. But actually all of the comments were really supportive and not all of them, but the majority of them. And it made me think, oh, you know,

I was just like a young kid really, who didn't, I didn't know, obviously it wasn't a malevolent mistake. And people were super supportive of being like, this isn't your fault. And I don't know, I guess I think I hadn't, I hadn't really carried it around with me, but probably, I guess I did deep down think it was my fault for a really long time,

but I just kind of learned to live with it and move on. And actually it was my fault for a really long time, but I just kind of learned to live with it and move on. And actually it was really nice to hear other people, especially people who'd read the piece or seen the film say, oh, it's not your fault. Because obviously your friends and family are going to say, that's not your fault. But they're not, it's not really a bomb when you feel really burned by something. Interesting the kindness of strangers and how it can impact. Any advice you'd give to people listening who've made a mistake that are still

like perhaps feeling that wound off a mistake still? Because the mistake I made was so public and big and I think it doesn't really apply to my mistake but it's definitely I think where I've made other mistakes in my personal life or whatever, it's all about time and context. At the time you make a mistake, it feels like the biggest thing in the world, and then a few days or months later, it's nothing, really. And I think the only way that you get through those things sometimes is just by time elapsing and, you know, other things happening in your life which come to the front of your mind. Nicole Mowbray there discussing the big mistake that happened at her work or really as I said a clerical error that turned into what one of her colleagues called an international incident. Dr. Julie you're listening to Nicole. In this age of social media our mistakes can live for a very long time online.

Do you think that has changed our reaction to it? Yes social media can have mistakes can live for a very long time online. Do you think that has changed our reaction to it? Yes, social media can have a big effect. I think some of the factors that sort of influence how we feel about a mistake include that sense of responsibility, like the story we just heard, but also the influence or impact it can have. And so, you know, in the same way with the newspaper and something going out widely, well, that can happen to anyone who's just impulsively posting on social media. You know, you do something and you make a mistake that you didn't foresee, totally unintended consequences, but algorithms really favor high emotion.

And so if you do something with no intention to generate anger or disagreement, but that pose could suddenly go viral and you find yourself in the thick of it and then it just keeps going and an impact you never could have foreseen can change your life. Yeah, yeah. I thought Nicole's story was fascinating and thanks to her for sharing it with us. Now, maybe her story will make you feel better or worse about making mistakes at work. It is a key place, of course, where we worry about them. And the impact of the errors that they might have

in our careers or our income or our reputations can make even like small mistakes feel huge. So how can we reframe them, turn them into a learning experience? I want to bring in Sarah Ellis, co-founder of Amazing If. It has a mission to make careers better for everyone. She also co-hosts the Squiggly Careers podcast. And we have Lauren Spearman, a marketing specialist,

self-described career compass and co-host of the Working On It podcast. You're both very welcome. You've thought about this quite deeply. First, your thoughts. I liked watching you, Sarah, as you were listening to Nicole's story. Well, I think what Nicole experienced, which you think is something we can all learn from, is that sharing our mistakes means that actually we learn more from them and it does help us to feel better. So in our company, every time someone makes any mistake, we call it a mistake moment. Moment's quite a useful word because then you can move past it. We share it with everybody

transparently. Which, that's the reaction I always get, everyone always goes... And what's funny is the first time you do it and the first time you explain it to somebody who joins our company, you can see the horror and fear on people's face. And then they do it for the first time and what everybody gets in response to sharing their mistake, we keep it really really short one line on the mistake you've made then what have you learned what you get is you get people offering help support I've been there what can we do to fix it fast now I appreciate not everyone will be in a team or an organization where they feel like they

can do that and I got some really good advice from a CEO quite early in my career she said you will make mistakes because everybody does them. She has this 24 hour rule and it's really stuck with me. You've got 24 hours where you're allowed to wallow, blame yourself, have that kind of self doubt. But after 24 hours, you have to write down three things that you've learnt. And there is something about the process of writing down what we've learnt that gets it out of your head if you're like me and you enjoy a bit of overthinking and you could keep going, you could keep spiralling for quite a long time.

And just by writing, it consolidates our focus away from, I've made this big mistake, to, well, what have I learned? And then kind of how can I move forward? And it is always worth remembering, the mistake for you feels massive in your mind. You magnify it. For other people, and I've had lots of personal examples of this at work, they're not thinking about it. They've moved on really fast, but you are still worrying a week later. Do you think there's a gender angle to it? I do see women are sometimes their own worst critics and then the knock-on impact actually comes from then comes to confidence. So actually already kind of women can give themselves quite a hard time at work like one mistake suddenly then leads to I'm just not good at this job exactly as Dr. Julia was describing you suddenly then go from something small to something really significant. I once remember making a mistake and not

involving somebody senior at work in something. And she told me afterwards after this big presentation that she was disappointed in me. That's a terrible word. Disappointed. It feels like a parent-child relationship. And I was absolutely distraught. I was like, well, this is it. I need a new job. That night I was honestly researching new jobs that I could apply for. And then I just thought, do you know what, I'm going to turn up tomorrow, I'm just going to say sorry, and then I'm going to talk to her about what we need to do now. And what's so interesting, it took me so much bravery to do that. But what

was really clear when I had that conversation with her is she hadn't given me or that context, that example, another thought since it had happened. She told me that I'd made a mistake, and she was right. And then actually she'd moved on. But that was the problem perhaps that you didn't have the feedback, the support, whatever it may have took to get you to the next level. You kind of have to wade through it yourself. Yeah I think I had to then have the confidence to have the conversation the next day otherwise I think the mistake would have stayed with me and so that sometimes I think the challenge is if you don't have the confidence to have the conversation the next day. Otherwise I think the mistake would have stayed with me. And so that sometimes I think the challenge is if you don't have the confidence in the first place, you don't have the conversation. And then that's when that spiral can start.

Lauren has been nodding her head along with some of that. You know, Sarah's just done her confessional of her mistake. Do you have one that you've prepared to share? I do, yes. Quite early on in my career, I really struggled. I think we're often told bring your whole self to work. And actually, you can't bring your whole self to work. You have to moderate it a little bit. But I did bring my whole self to work. And I kind of brought my personal life into work a little bit. And I just wasn't really present in the office. My boss pulled me aside and she said I've really noticed some behaviors and I actually got sent on an emotional intelligence course and it was the best thing that I think has helped my career in how I see

myself, how I see people and I think my own lack of awareness was my mistake. I think I hadn't, you know, was new to an office environment, didn't know how to behave and I think it's really benefited my career and I think to Nicole's story and what Sarah's been saying as well, when you have leadership that supports you it is so empowering and so helpful for your career. You know I didn't get a telling off, I got a look, I've noticed this, these are my observations and this is what I think we're going to do to help and that's so incredibly, incredibly powerful. I love the sound of an emotional intelligence course. Any one takeaway that you could share

with us from it? I remember doing a lot of work on values and what's important to me and understanding that what is important to me isn't necessarily high up on someone else's priorities. So it just made conversations a little bit easier to kind of understand, okay, why is someone not bothered by that? Also, why is someone so bothered about something I'm not? I think that was a huge takeaway for me. You're nodding, Sarah. I think it's also worth remembering you stand out more for how you respond to a mistake

often than the mistake you made in the first place. So actually how you react, that's what people will remember. But I think it's very easy when you are confident to not overreact or dramatise the mistake. But I think when you're starting out, like Nicole for example to go back, I mean in some way you've helped her as she described, but when you're starting out and you don't have those successes and experiences to lean back on, it's hard to not take it so personally. Yeah, and I think what we are aiming for is accountability versus over explaining. I see

a lot of over explaining from people, you know, when you've got to go and talk to your boss about a mistake you've made, and you give everyone all of the detail because you can remember it all because you feel it so keenly. And this is where you know, something like AI could be your friend. So, you know, you could write that mistake into AI and ask the AI to summarise it for you in a way that you can explain it in two sentences to your boss. Because what they need to know is what's the mistake and what do you need from them quickly and concisely. We had it last week. Someone in our team had a mistake moment, sent an email out with the wrong date in,

and she clearly felt awful about it. She obviously, she was really beating herself up up but what she did brilliantly was she said to me this has happened this is what we need to do Sarah can you tell me that you're now happy with what we need to send and I could respond you know super fast and then you can all kind of move forward so I think you know don't don't beat yourself up too much when this happens but also things like AI can be your friend. What about those workplaces that aren't as forgiving? Lauren?

I think that's just echoing Sarah's point a little bit. I think by owning it first, rather than waiting to get found out, I think is where you can help yourself in an environment where it is a little less supportive. So, you know, holding yourself accountable, what are you going to learn? What are you going to do next time, rather than either get found out or just go to someone and say, this is the problem. And for bosses that are listening, Sarah, what would you recommend? Anyone who's in any sort of position of power in an organization, role modeling matters. So if you want your team to learn from mistakes and to kind of learn fast and to get better,

they need to hear about yours. So there is sometimes an assumption from teams, you know, you look up to your leader and you're like, well, they're so perfect, they get everything right all of the time. They absolutely don't because none of us do. But if you want to give kind of people permission to talk about mistakes much more openly and to share them,

they do have to hear it from you too. So just people hearing those stories of like, this went wrong. It just helps it to feel okay for everybody else too. Where did you come up with that idea in your company to share the mistakes? We were reading about what it takes to have a high trust team where people enjoy working in it and therefore when you enjoy your work, you do better work. And one of the things that you see in the difference between a low trust team and a high trust team, those two teams make exactly the same amount of mistakes but in the high trust team they

talk about them and so that can be the difference between how much you learn. Do you think we learn from our mistakes? I think we do when we sort of share them, when we talk about them. We are more likely to repeat mistakes because our brains like repetition. So even though, you know, we learn from mistakes, actually we're much more likely to default to things we've done before. You know, you think, oh, well, I won't make that mistake again. I've learned now that multitasking means I make mistakes. And so we say to ourselves, I'm not going to multitask tomorrow. I won't multitask next week. And then what do we do next week, I'm not going to multitask tomorrow, I won't multitask next week. And then what do we do next week? Because we've learned to behave in a certain way,

we just do the same thing again. We make the same mistake. So it's not as easy to learn from mistakes as we might think. So we have got to take an action to kind of make that learning last. Lauren, you made a brave move. You asked your old bosses about the mistakes they can remember you making. A, what possessed you? And two, what did they say? I probably chose a boss that I knew would give me a really constructive answer. I think I love learning, I like reflecting and I really like learning for my sakes. And actually,

last year, this has really stuck with me. I did a yoga class and I couldn't do the move. And I was really feeling like, oh, I, you know, it's a mistake, but can this class, why did I do it? And the yoga instructor said, don't worry if you can't do that move, your body just hasn't learned it yet. And I've really taken that into how I, when I see I make perceived mistakes at work, it's like, I just haven't learned that yet. It might be the first time doing something and I didn't do it in the way that I wanted to. And that mentality has made me feel a bit more freer to make mistakes. wanted to and that mentality has made me feel a bit more freer to make mistakes. Yeah because it's I suppose just been very harsh on ourselves. Yes.

Do you think that's in a way Dr. Julie wants to come in on that? I think that's the perfect example of the difference between a fixed mindset and a growth mindset isn't it? So if you're in a fixed mindset you think that you're sort of born with certain abilities or skills and strengths and they're fixed throughout and so you know I'm either a yoga person or I'm not and if I get in there and it's difficult it's not for me and so you're much more likely in that fixed mindset to give up to quit when it gets difficult and sort of be very risk averse or you know have very sort of defensive practice if you were in something like a health

service or something like that. Whereas if you're in a growth mindset, you just recognise that I have different strengths and weaknesses and have the potential to improve with effort and time. And what that yoga instructor did was just frame a growth mindset to say, you're not there yet. It's the power of yet isn't it. I suppose also in some of these scenarios that we're discussing there's yin-yang or kind of a dynamic that can help be it Lauren or one of Sarah's employees to get to the next level but why can't we do that for ourselves instead of needing that external person to bring us. I think other people give you a perspective that is very hard to see for yourself when

you are negotiating and navigating. All of the feelings that Dr Julie's described and you're being your own worst critic, you're also probably trying to fix the mistake fast. So you have got so much kind of going on that actually to also be able to be your own fly on the wall is difficult. And that's where if you maybe are in an organization where it doesn't feel like you could ever talk about mistakes

or you don't see any examples, go to friends that you trust, people who are on your side and they want you to succeed because they will remind you, yes, you might have made a typo in that email that went out to 30,000 people but don't forget you've done 12 emails before that for the last year and a half without a single mistake. So they give you that different kind of data for your development, they see a more balanced and more pragmatic view of you

and they will remind you of what you've done well. I do think sometimes that is just a really difficult ask of ourselves. The growth mindset, Dr. Julie, how can we get one? Well, I think it can be sort of context specific. So again, you don't want to be fixed about your growth mindset. And it's not that you it's not that you either have it or you don't. It's that you can kind of set yourself up with it. And, you know, certainly in my career, going from being in the therapy room, one to one with people doing what I knew I could do well to into this sort of very public arena you know live

television and really that kind of thing. The only way I was able to really sort of do that was if I fully committed to myself that I would not kick myself while I was down so if I made a mistake or it didn't go well that I would not talk to myself like a bully, I would talk to myself like a coach. And I would look at, okay, that's a learning experience. We'll learn from that and then we'll get better for next time. And so I think if you can kind of be that coach

for yourself in your own mind and have that, and it's not really about the specific words you use, it's about that idea of what would a coach say in this situation? Because a coach is someone who wants you to be at your best, to continue to learn, to pick yourself back up when you fall. And so it's a sort of a sense of how you should relate to yourself. And so whenever you go into a situation that's difficult or you might make a mistake, it's just having that sense of, you know, the approach to yourself

and then the words will follow. Really interesting. Lauren, Sarah. Dear daughter, the lesson that I want you to take from this is simple. Choose yourself first. You cannot pour into others from an empty cup. Dear Daughter is the podcast building a handbook to life

for daughters everywhere. Our listeners share their life experiences. We've shared so many moments of laughter and tears. Words of wisdom. Never be afraid to take risks. Education is your greatest weapon. And letters to their daughters. Dear Daughter.

Dear Daughter. Dear Daughter from the BBC World Service. Listen now wherever you get your BBC podcasts. Thank you very much. If you're just tuning in, you are listening to Women's Hour and our program today is all about mistakes. We are not live, but if you'd like to get in touch perhaps with your story, you can still email us through our website. So most mistakes are small, some can be life-changing and in some cases they're also life-creating. One in three births in England are from unplanned pregnancies and some of the words commonly used to describe the situation can feel quite loaded. For example, mistake, accident, surprise.

We're wondering what impact does that have on you growing up if you were told you were conceived by mistake? Well, here to speak to us about it are the journalist Sophie Heywood, who says she got pregnant by mistake, and the journalist Bethanne Ryder, who was told she was conceived by mistake. You're both very welcome to the Woman's Hour Studio. Good to have you in and have you as part of our conversation. Bethanne, let me begin with you. People don't really like to think of their conception or of their parents conceiving them, perhaps.

But you have thought about it more than most people, if you don't mind telling us what happened. Yeah, I guess I've thought about it more than most people, if you don't mind telling us what happened. Yeah, I guess I've thought about it more than most people because at some stage when I was a teenager, my father said, you know, I didn't really want to have a child and I wanted your mother to, you know, get rid of you. So that obviously makes you think about the situation quite a lot and also being the product of a single mother, I get very frustrated by the negative press that single mothers get. Although I was a mistake, my mother decided she definitely wanted to keep me.

She has never shown me anything but love and I've never felt like it's a negative thing. But what I think is interesting about why that's turned out well is there were lots of occasions in my upbringing where she had help, whether it was getting maternity leave. She had a supervisor who said I will get you your maternity leave. When she needed childcare, there was a lady next door that could do it very affordably. When she wants to mortgage, the bank manager was someone you could walk in and talk to and he gave her 100% mortgage. So I think that that's the reason I sort of, I guess, you can be a mistake, but if with a little bit of help, you can turn that into something

that is not regretful for either my mother or myself. But going back to when your father used the word mistake, I can't imagine what that's like for a kid. Yeah, I suppose I was a teenager. It did make me think about the other thing that happened, I guess, in the 70s when I was growing up, it was more unusual to be a single child of a single parent mother. And my mum, I think one time in the playground, someone called me the name, which you can't say on air. And I remember just being actually quite upset

at that point, because I thought, well, I don't feel like I'm a negative thing. Why am I a swear word? And I think at that age, I was sort of upset by it. But I think I do have a difficult relationship with my father, no surprise there. But because my mother was such a strong, formidable character who was all encompassing, all loving and surrounded me with a lot of other important role models and father figures if you like

and other people, you know, it takes a village to raise a child. She very much did it that way. And I think that has made me okay about it because... Do you see the word mistake as loaded in this context? I suppose, I think the fact is that it's a luxury to plan a pregnancy. It's a luxury in the developing world if you like, it's a luxury in many ways. You said like one in three, I hazard a guess it might even be more. You know, just within

families there's a mistake, the last child. So I think this kind of idea around respectability and pregnancy is something that I've always found frustrating, that the conventional society's idea of pregnancy and mistakes, I think I've always fought against it. So I suppose it's loaded if you can't economically afford to raise your mistake. It's very difficult. But I don't think it has to be a negative thing. Let us turn to Sophie who's sitting beside you. You have a daughter and she was unplanned. You've written about it feeling like a

mistake if that's a fair characterization. Yes, I mean she's 13 now and things have really come on I think since Bethan's 1970s childhood you know it's not the same name-calling although there were definitely kids at school going you know why haven't you got a dad and I sort of taught her that she did have a biological father but he wasn't in our lives and you know every couple of years I'd have to sort of update that story to a level that she was able to cope with and he did finally meet her when she was six and he's in her life now. So again it's been a journey but it's funny I think of myself as quite a quite a brave confident person I'm not from a

conservative or religious background but that shame that we've all mentioned it it does seep in. Although it's funny, the fact I got pregnant in the first place was because the hospital that I'd been to, it turned out I had a slipped disc, but the pain was presenting very strangely. It was a yoga class while we're on the yoga. Well, so I was living in Los Angeles as a journalist.

I was living there for a couple of years, interviewing celebrities in Hollywood and having quite a lot of fun. And I think I'd partly gone there because my friends, we were in our mid-30s and back in London, people were starting to get married and settle down. And I just wasn't really there yet.

I was still sort of partying too hard and hadn't made a relationship work. So I went to somebody's sort of trendy yoga retreat. I got a free place, whilst there, did my back-end but couldn't quite work out what I'd done because some of the pain was in the front. Ended up in this very fancy LA hospital just because that's all there was,

they don't have a health service. Luckily I had a sort of basic level of insurance. And they did all these tests, all sorts of tests, they tested my ovaries, my spine, all sorts of things, and at the end they said, well, the good news is you've got a slit disc, which is agony now, but you'll be fine in a week. The bad news is whilst we were in your ovaries,

we found out that you can't have children. And I took this news terribly. I was in agony, I was single, I sort of thought I'd have kids one day, but you know, I was nearly 35. And cried for a week, and at the end of the week, suddenly felt, oh felt my back feels fine now found out that you know someone I'd hooked up with many times before was in town and I was like well we don't have to worry about one thing and that's

how I have a 13 year old. So the mistake was made by some very expensive doctors. So basically they thought you would not be able to conceive naturally, obviously that was proven wrong. But when you realized that mistake that became what you call lovingly your mistake, what was that like? Well it's funny with a child, you know, the word mistake is the first thing with a pregnancy that shouldn't and couldn't be and then I think you sort of when you realize like Bethan's mum did no I want this baby I want this child especially having cried for a week about being infertile it feels like a bit of a kick in the face to then even think about not

having this baby so I think then the word mistake turns to accident then I think once the person's born that turns into you were a surprise unplanned the language gets more PC as you go along And I think once the person's born, it turns into you were a surprise. Unplanned. The language gets more PC as you go along. I do just have to let our listeners know, though. I love the story or the anecdote of you were crying about not being able to conceive naturally to your friends. And then within a week, you were crying to them because you were pregnant. It was a confusing time because I didn't know I'd got pregnant. And do you know what's fascinating? I came home from the

night I spent with him and I opened my laptop. It was a Saturday so I didn't need to work and I thought why am I opening my laptop? And I wrote this thing on it and I wrote on it, one day I will tell you all about how you were conceived in a hotel room in Hollywood. And then I slammed it closed and started to cry and said to myself, why are you tormenting yourself? That that child will never happen, but it did. But there was a part of my body that knew. Come in, Bethan.

That's exactly what my mother said. She knew as well. And yeah, and lo and behold. But my mom said to me very, she's very honest with very close, you probably are with your daughter. But she said, you know, I was, it was the day after my period, it wasn't even when I was fertile, you know,

it's just, you were meant to happen. And I think the doctor she went to said, when she went along, oh, I've got a lovely couple that will adopt this baby. And she just said, no, hang on a minute, I'm having this baby no way it's the parallels are really interesting aren't they what about your daughter Sophie I mean do you play with that word mistake it's funny because I you know remain a somewhat chaotic person we had

to go across London yesterday on you know a train line we've used hundreds of times and I suddenly realized you know four stops beyond Highbury and Islington that I should have got us off. And I thought, oh God, you live and don't learn, which is my motto. And she's, you know, the more organized, if you remember in ABFAB, you had sort of Safi, the straight kid of the sort of hapless media mom. So she was sort of shaking her head, oh, mummy, you never learn. And I think she sees my life as one big sort of rollicking rather joyful mistake so I think she doesn't see it as anything to do with her but it's a bit like that's how Mummy goes through life. We've been talking about mistakes and how they can make us cringe and feel

embarrassed and whatnot but what mistakes when we look back, they're often very funny as well. You wrote, Sophie, a memoir, The Hungover Games. Because mistakes can make us laugh. Well, it's mistake plus time equals comedy, isn't it? It's like sometimes people tell you an awful thing that's happened that day and they said, I know I laugh at this you know one day so it does take a while. I suppose they're not mutually exclusive you know sadness and comedy they can definitely come together. Absolutely and I think if you look at all of our great rom-coms they're all based around mistakes aren't they? There's you know the guy who loves the girl but he sees her in the bar window laughing with someone and then it turns out actually that's her brother. It's just magic. Always the brother or the cousin.

That's helping or whatever. The girl helping the boy pick out an engagement ring for whatever. Then he finally gets the date with her and it starts so well but then there's a terrible misunderstanding and somebody storms off and there's another month's delay. It's the basis of most of our comedy I think is misunderstanding. It's the basis of most of our comedy, I think is is is misunderstanding. It's Shakespeare. Yes Comedy of errors What about that Judy? I mean, what does it take for us to be able to laugh at? Basically being human. Yeah, and I think there's you've sort of hit the nail on the head

It is it time changes it and and what time does change is your time changes it and and what time does change is your perspective or your ability to choose your perspective so you're able to do what we call reframing and that's a lot of what happens in therapy is reframing so that's not being dishonest with yourself about a situation it's not telling any lies about it it's recognizing that you can stand back from a situation and there are 360 degrees of angles you can choose to come out this situation. But when you're in it and the emotion is high, your brain is set up in those potentially

threatening situations to offer up all the possible worst case scenarios that you need to watch out for. And that's your brain doing its job really well to keep you safe so that you can avoid those, you know, potentially threatening situations. But that leads to all of those kind of catastrophizing style thoughts of, you know, horror stories going through your mind about the worst-case scenario and continues that sort of high emotion for a while. But as

time goes on and everything calms, then you're able to sit back and more carefully choose your perspective. And as we just heard, you know, unintended doesn't have to be negative. But in the moment, you've got your, oh, you're just focused on the negative because that's what your brain's set up to do. I want to move on to somebody who loves mistakes, who loves making mistakes. That is Gloria Delafue, who is a maths teacher and a classroom behaviour management coach. She takes this enthusiasm for errors into the classroom, allowing her pupils the space to feel

safe to make mistakes and learn from them. Gloria, you're very welcome to the conversation. Thank you very much. Why do you love mistakes? I think as I said my one main word for mistakes is more about feedback because mistakes actually tell me how not to do it. I did not actually start off by enjoying how to make mistakes but starting my teaching career one of the things that I did realize was I was making so many mistakes each and every single day and I was actually struggling to sleep because it starts with when the bell rings what did I say did I pronounce it right did I get the person's name correct so I just felt that instead of me enjoying

my teaching career I then had so much pressure on me and I wasn't actually enjoying the job so one day I was driving home and I just thought, well actually if I relax and enjoy the mistake and look at it more as how not to do it, maybe that might be a way forward. So I stopped worrying about the mistakes. I just go home and rise. This is what happened. That's what I need to do next time. So as the weeks were getting on, I realized that I was beginning to enjoy my teaching. My students actually found that I was a lot more relaxed. Based on that, I was then able to change a lot of the students as well in the classroom so they could see me making mistakes.

And I think, as Sarah said, that having the role model, it makes it a lot easier because they can see me making the mistakes and they can see how I'm visualizing the mistakes or how I move on after the mistake. Now, you have children that show you exactly the workings of, let's say, when they're working on a problem within maths or something like that. And I was struck by the fact that they don't like to make the mistakes in their workbooks so you got whiteboards they want their workbooks to be perfect without mistakes and I was like what is going on there that kids are afraid to make mistakes? I think I wouldn't say it's just their students I think it's a society because when you look most of social media they actually enjoy seeing people make mistakes so social media they actually enjoy seeing people

make mistakes so I think the mindset behind seeing people make mistakes make the student actually think why do I need to make a mistake in front of 29 other students so what I was realizing was that I was doing most of the talking or most of the working hours so I just thought it might be a lot easier if they are very comfortable with what they are doing. So I then gave everybody a whiteboard and a whiteboard pen. So you get to write down what you're writing and that's more personal to you. You then get a chance to share with a small group of people on your table before you show me your whiteboard. And I am looking at the whiteboard and I call

it feedback so it's not a mistake I just need to know what you have done and that's the feedback for me and that helps me to change my teaching so that way I get the students to actually get a lot more engaged in terms of their work Do they use the word feedback or do they use the word mistake? When I normally start with a new class they always say oh I've made a mistake and I'm like no that's not a mistake this is feedback this is telling us how not to do it. I'm curious Dr Julie how you see it with children making mistakes do we need to let them fail more or make more mistakes it's really interesting Gloria's approach to it. Yes and given that failure and mistakes are such a fundamental part of human life, you

know it's not something a few people do, it's something we all do a lot of the time. You need to experience mistakes and failure and to learn that you can survive them, to learn that you can get yourself back up again. And so, you know, in some ways, the children that don't fail very often or, you know, always get picked or always seem to find things that they're put up for, you know, easy, those children have to learn those lessons later on, which can be much more tricky. And so, you know, if we can create safe failure environments for children in that sort of education context, we're really doing them huge favour for their development. The growth mindset, Judy, do you think we're more aware of it? Do you think there's going to be a change in perception of mistakes?

Yes, I think people like me are sort of talking about it more widely and I think when we're aware of it, then you start to notice it in the moment and you can trip into it. And I think the key is, when we fall down with failure and mistakes, is we expect ourselves to know the lesson before we've learnt it. And that's when all the emotion comes into it. Whereas if we don't expect ourselves to know before we've tried it out, then it doesn't create such a psychological threat and we're able to kind of learn from it in that way. I want to thank all my guests that have come to join us in the Women's Hour Studio. Dr Julie Smith, who you're just hearing, also Lauren Spearman, Sarah Ellis, Nicole Mowbray,

Bethan Ryder, Sophie Haywood and Gloria Dallifoux. Hopefully next time when you make that mistake, it'll just be a little easier. Some of the words of today's program will be in your head and you'll let it go. You'll have a growth mindset and maybe even have a laugh at it or embellish it perhaps in the future. Enjoy the rest of the bank holiday and please join me tomorrow at 10am for more Woman's Hour. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. for Women's Hour. That's all for today's Women's Hour. Join us again next time.

This is Dr Chris and Dr Zand here and we are dropping in to let you know about our new BBC Radio 4 podcast. In WhatsApp Docs, we are going to be diving into the messy, complicated world of health and wellbeing because it can be confusing, can't it Zand? That's right Chris, the massive information out there can be contradictory, it can be overwhelming and Chris and I get confused too. That's right, we get seduced by the marketing, the hype, the trends, so we want to be your guides through it.

And I think it's fair to say Zant, we are going to be getting personal. We're absolutely going to be getting personal Chris, what I want to do is bring in my own health dilemmas in the hope that we can help you with yours. Listen and subscribe to What's Up Docs on BBC Sounds. Dear daughter, the lesson that I want you to take from this is simple. Choose yourself first. You cannot pour into others from an empty cup. Dear Daughter is the podcast building a handbook to life for daughters everywhere. Our listeners share their life experiences. We've shared so many moments of laughter and tears. Words of wisdom.

Never be afraid to take risks. Education is your greatest weapon. And letters to their daughters. Dear Daughter. Dear Daughter. Dear Daughter their daughters. Dear daughter. Dear daughter. Dear daughter from the BBC World Service. Listen now wherever you get your BBC podcasts.