Zoe Amar  0:04  
We are delighted that this episode of Starts at the Top is sponsored by Arvato CRM Solutions. Arvato CRM Solutions designs and delivers award winning customer service, business process outsourcing, and digital and intelligent automation solutions with some of the world's most respected brands, as well as innovative charity and public sector clients. They partner with clients to help them define their customer experience and transformation strategies by implementing the right technology, people and processes to improve their customer journey while driving new efficiencies and helping them prepare for the future. To find out more about how Arvato CRM Solutions could help an organisation like yours, and to receive a free no obligation chat visit arvato.co.uk/walesairambulance 

Lorraine Candy  1:13  
I realised that my experience at midlife and perimenopause is actually not uncommon. And as soon as I noticed that I thought, well why not write about it. I'll put it all in one place. But I'll do it in a soft, easy to read memoir style.

Paul Thomas  1:29  
Welcome to a brand new episode. And a brand new season of Starts at the Top, our podcast about leading differently. I'm Paul Thomas.

Zoe Amar  1:37  
And I'm Zoe Amar, our podcast exists to help leaders and their teams understand what they need to do differently today, to prepare for the world of tomorrow. We started Starts at the Top as a podcast about digital disruption. But we soon realised that leaders were telling us about something more important and urgent about how traditional ways of leading had changed forever.

Paul Thomas  2:01  
So we've made it our mission to speak to leaders who are carving out new ways of leading and we cover topics from emerging tech to inclusion, from remote work to mental health and climate change. Basically, all the subjects that leaders today need to be knowledgeable about. So no biggie there, then.

Zoe Amar  2:18  
Our podcast isn't about shiny corporate case studies. It's about lessons learned and progress made the hard way, and crucially, how that can inspire others. We want this podcast to span across sectors and industries. The world can often seem very fragmented, and we believe that lessons can be shared and learned whether you're leading a small charity, aFootsie 100 multinational business or local government think tank, we're all in this together.

Paul Thomas  2:47  
So with that grand podcast reintroduction now complete, let's tell you a bit more about today's episode with Lorraine Candy. Lorraine is an award winning journalist and host of the podcast Postcards from Midlife, which has had millions and millions of downloads. With insight gained from years of interviewing the top midlife experts and celebrities as well on their experiences, Lorraine really is one of the go to voices for a generation of women who are seeking information and guidance.

Zoe Amar  3:16  
Our conversation with Lorraine kicks off a run of four episodes focused on women in leadership. Over the next few weeks, we have interviews lined up with some amazing women, and we can't wait to share them with you.

Paul Thomas  3:28  
And later in the season, we'll be covering topics such as AI, climate change, political influence, and activism, and much, much more. And actually, it's political activism and influence that I've thought we could discuss briefly today before we introduce the conversation with Lorraine. And that was around the ongoing sort of saga of we're in a big election year, aren't we over this side of the pond and over that side of the pond. And over that side of the pond there's a big discussion going on at the moment about is it gonna be Biden is it gonna be Trump, feels so like last time around again. And the interesting thing within all of that was a discussion I was having outside of a pub in London with a friend of mine, about how Taylor Swift was going to play a big influential part in this. And I just thought it was an interesting thing to discuss the role of people outside of the normal places that we look to for leadership politicians, you know, leaders in that respect, that there is a sort of a whole new range of influence coming in. And I think reading between the lines and looking at the article that we'll share in the show notes. Taylor Swift isn't going to decide the outcome of the US election, but what she will be able to do is motivate a huge amount of numbers, people, fans of hers into actually going and voting and having their say so I just thought it was interesting that that sort of that influence coming in from other areas. The other example we discussed yesterday, briefly, the role that Jürgen Klopp faces in news a lot in the last couple of weeks. 

Zoe Amar  3:28  
[Laughs] Back to footbal!

Paul Thomas  4:48  
You know, his role as a leader within the community of Liverpool. You know, it really can't be sniffed at it is to the level of a politician that people of Liverpool have so much trust in him as a figure as somebody who cares about their city and about their football club. But it's that sort of idea that it's coming from all different channels.

Zoe Amar  5:35  
Yeah, absolutely. So I think this is another angle on the question, is it about, what does a leader look like now? What does influence look like now in an election year, and there was a piece that I wrote for Third Sector last week about the amount of elections that are going on across the world. So I think it's 4 billion people going to the polls, as I recall, in more than 40 countries. So it's a really historic year and the number of elections and the number of people that are voting and where it comes back to Taylor Swift is that's gonna be really important in mobilising the the youth vote and turnout from young voters. So that's where I think younger influences such as Swift could really make a difference. But you're right, I think with iconic figures such as Taylor Swift, there's something about how and also Jürgen Klopp as well, there's something about how people have a lot of trust and confidence in people in those positions and the way that they probably don't for a lot of mainstream politicians, because the whole game of politics has sort of changed so much. So I do think there is something really interesting, and I'm sure we will be exploring it as we go through this year around elections and how to prepare for them and also the role that all of this is going to occupy in organisational conversations about politics too.

Paul Thomas  7:04  
Yeah, totally, totally. I think it's gonna be a really interesting area. And as you say, we have got people lined up to speak to later in the season, to find out their views on all of this, and a couple of open spots. So Taylor, if you're listening, Jürgen if you're listening, and you fancy coming on and sharing things. Well look, Jürgen's out of a job coming this summer, so he's gonna have plenty of time on his hands. So he's more than welcome to come on. And would always, you know, welcome to chat with Taylor Swift if she can fit us in.

Zoe Amar  7:36  
So would I, so would I.

Paul Thomas  7:38  
So now for our conversation with Lorraine Candy. And a big thank you to Lorraine for taking the time out of her schedule to come on to the podcast. I just wanted to say before we introduce it, before we fully introduce Lorraine, that as the male half of this duo I really recommend that all men listening to this podcast, go out and get a copy of What's Wrong with Me. When it came through the door, I opened it up and my wife said oh that's on my reading list. So I've handed it over to her now. I learned a huge amount from reading it about women in general and also what might be going on in my own life and our own lives here. But I learned a huge amount from reading it. And whilst there always be more to learn Lorraine's book is a really accessible entry point for men to learn about menopause. And it's also a book that should be in every leaders toolkit.

Zoe Amar  8:26  
Well, I really enjoyed reading it, as well. I totally echo what you said. And I also felt this book came out just the right moment in my life to read it. Lorraine describes so brilliantly the huge tumultuous shifts that happened in midlife and how to deal with them. So I think it's an essential read.

Paul Thomas  8:47  
Yeah, and funny. And in places very, very fraught. The chapters on her kids leaving the nest, were actually harrowing. I'm not looking forward to that at all.

Zoe Amar  9:01  
Oh I'm not looking forward to that.

Paul Thomas  9:02  
But anyway, no not at all. Anyway, now for our conversation with Lorraine.

Zoe Amar  9:09  
We are very excited to welcome Lorraine Candy to Starts at the Top. Lorraine Candy is a mother of four and an award winning journalist with over three decades of experience writing about women's lives and parenting in national newspapers and magazines, and its former editor in chief of Elle, Sunday Times Style and Cosmopolitan, a hugely engaged community of listeners from hosting the podcast Postcards from Midlife, over 1.5 million downloads, and a brilliant podcast, which I highly recommend. And many insights gained from years of interviewing the top midlife experts and celebrities on their experiences. Lorraine is a go to voice for a generation of women seeking information and guidance. She is the Sunday Times best selling author of Mum, What's Wrong with You?: 101 Things Only Mothers of Teenage Girls Know which I really need to read as the mother of an 11 year old. And we're here today to talk about her wonderful new book, the paperback launch of her latest book What’s Wrong With Me?: 101 Things Midlife Women Need to Know which Paul and I read recently and absolutely loved. Lorraine, we are so excited you're here. Thank you for coming on Starts at the Top.

Lorraine Candy  10:26  
Thank you so much for having me. I think we didn't update the bio. We're nearly 5 million downloads on our podcast. So it's a really big community now.

Zoe Amar  10:34  
Oh, congratulations! That's super exciting!

Lorraine Candy  10:36  
Yeah I know very exciting. Can't quite believe it! [Laughs]

Zoe Amar  10:41  
That's amazing. Well done. Super! So can you tell our listeners about your latest book? What's wrong with me? Can you tell them what it's about? What compelled you to write it?

Lorraine Candy  10:56  
Well, I started writing it sort of four or five years ago just after I'd finished my parenting book because I realised that I had quite a large Generation X community around me because of the magazines I did, because I did at Cosmo at its peak of its success because I did it at Elle and you know, I'd written a column in a national newspaper. So I had this community and we all seem to be going through a fairly similar thing and I was talking about it with my friends and I was writing about health journalism at the time, in national newspapers and I realised that my experience of midlife and perimenopause was not uncommon what I was going through, which I thought was extraordinary and ridiculous. And I thought I had a brain tumour or something quite seriously wrong with me, was actually not uncommon, according to the science and the health, the medicine around it. And as soon as I noticed that, I thought, Well, why not write about it, because I feel, you know, I communicate a lot with my community on social media. And I thought I should just put it all in one place, I'll research all this information. I've got ultimate access to all these leaders to all these experts to all these medics, I'll put it all in one place. But I'll do it in a soft, easy to read memoir style, so that women aren't terrified because I don't think you should be terrifying women, particularly now, as women come into this stage of their lives is a perfectly normal thing to go through, we all experience it in a different way. But if you've got all the information, then it's a bit easier. So I thought, let's put a book together on women's experience of midlife, the good and the bad. And this huge transitional phase, what you're going through mentally and physically.

Zoe Amar  12:37  
Feels like a very revolutionary and exciting act, doesn't it to have a book like this, because one of the things that occurred to me as I was reading it over the Christmas holidays was Gosh, I wish I could have been prepared for all of this. Why isn't this something that younger women get told about?

Lorraine Candy  12:55  
Well, why isn't... I mean, there's a lot of things that women aren't taught about. I mean, I, you know, without boiling it down generically, we live in a patriarchal society that was built by men and for men. So you know, even from product design, from experience, from the way we work, from the way we live from the way we parent, the emotional labour, all of that. So nobody has really been talking about women's experiences in depth, and linking it all up, no one has been joining the dots. And yeah, we've had some really Senior NHS experts on the show, we've had the kind of highest ranked maternal health experts on the show, and Lesley Regan, we do not join up from teenage till we die with women, so and we don't really have all the research, and how it affects women. So for example, heart disease is the biggest killer of women after 50. That was a revolution revelation to me, I had absolutely no idea. And I come from a family with a huge history of heart disease. So all the work though all the research, and this is one leading cardiologist told me this is all men, and men have a very different physiology around their heart. So something that really that kills more women, at a particular stage of life, all the work has been done on men so you know, there are so many examples of this. And that, you know, I'm not a scientist, I'm not a data scientist, either. So I just started to find all of this out, sort of got to put all the details so that people women ask the right questions, so they get the right information. So in some ways, it is revolutionary. But in some ways, I'm just sort of rolling my eyes and saying, Well, you know, it's like running shoes, isn't it? They were designed for men and men have got completely different shapes from women, and it's that kind of eye rolling. Here we go again, feeling around it.

Zoe Amar  14:42  
Yeah, absolutely. And I found what was really exciting about the book, I mean, obviously, there's that whole sense of realising the way society is so orientated around men, including the experience of ageing, and yet I found the book really uplifting. It's not particularly the final chapters, because you talk about the transformation and liberation that midlife women experience. So I, I entered the book on a really positive note on that. What do you wish you'd known about this chapter of your life? Before you went into it? You talked about the science side of things, the upheaval side of things, but is there anything that you wish you'd known before you went into this phase of life?

Lorraine Candy  15:27  
Yes, I wish I'd known the medical side of it. And all that was available to me to change my life because I was very lucky hormone replacement therapy changed my life overnight, it was just extraordinary brought me back into the room again, and many women will tell you that and as we know there's huge amount of misinformation around it. But what I didn't know is that you do in any period of transition, you're in a sort of voyage or between one place and the next. And you need to stop in that void. Feel all the feelings in the body, you need to deal with all the retrospective feelings that come forward. You need to look at where you are and who you are and who you want to be. And you, you get a very stark realisation that you've got less left than you've had. So you want to really take stock and I wish I'd known that this moment was coming because I wouldn't have continued in kind of perhaps the same. I think it's probably particular to Gen X, this kind of relentless movement moving forward, slightly ambitious what next feeling. I wish I'd take known it was coming because I would have known to take the moment and to have known. I wasn't alone in wanting to take that moment. And I needed to. And that, you know, the next step is very important, but also really can be quite amazing. All the women I interviewed who were sort of 60 plus for the book, told, even though they'd gone through really heartbreaking things, told extraordinary stories of finding themselves being confident in themselves, having this new renewed energy, and this real thought process of I can be and do what I want to do now, regardless of their background and their financial, it was a really living in the moment. And I wish I'd known all that was coming and was a possibility because I wasted time, you know, trying to sort out the menopause and perimenopause. And I wasted time with a mindset I'd had before, which didn't serve me now.

Zoe Amar  17:19  
Absolutely. And I love your description there of the void. And also just that value in the transition where the work happens. And the growth happens. And sometimes you look back on these things, I think whether whatever kind of life transition you're going through, and you think, actually, that was really hard, but I learned a lot. Is that something you felt as you went through that transition?

Lorraine Candy  17:44  
All life has changed and I think you get to this stage of life, and you think this change will be constantly it will be all day every day. So I'm going to sit with it and just be in it. Rather than thinking when this is done, I can sort that out. Or if this is done, I will be happier. Really just the hopefulness and keeping the hope and being optimistic and upbeat is what sort of moves you forward. But living in the present is really necessary, I think, as you age. So I think that's the main thing I learned that you know, everything will change, no one day will be the same because something will happen in that day, particularly at this stage of life and teenagers, elderly parents, you might be changing jobs. It's the highest divorce rate for women after the age of 45. It's also the highest suicide rate for women after the age of 45. So much is happening. There is no point forward planning and trying to have a kind of logical goal sets goal driven, you really got to live in the moment and deal with the change and accept that there will be change every day. 

Zoe Amar  18:45  
So with that in mind, how do you think that employers and leaders could better support women in midlife?

Lorraine Candy  18:53  
Well, we Trish Halpin and I who we co host a podcast called Postcards from Midlife. So we've done you know, and she the magazines I didn't edit she edited so she had this Mary Claire read in style. So between us we've edited all those magazines we know women of this generation, we know the women going through midlife now. So we go into lots of big corporations and talk to them about how to empower their female workforce over the age of 40. Some women go into menopause, perimenopause, a bit earlier, but what we've learned is it's really about whoever is responsible for your kind of occupational health, your personnel, knowing the facts and knowing the resources. So the big myths around HRT that it will give you breast cancer not true. So once somebody knows all the details, and we always refer to Dr. Louise Newton, who's kind of the pioneer in researching that, and a lot of the facts around HRT are based on a very misleading, debunked, now debunked American survey. So you need your teams to know all of the facts. It's not about turning the heating down, or having fans on desks, that's hardly any women get hot flashes. So it really isn't about that or having different uniforms, particularly in the NHS, which is a massive employer of women. It's about believing women who say, these are some of the things I'm going through at the moment, which is making it a little difficult for me to do my work, how can I resolve them so I can be better at what I do or more efficient or happier in my role. So it's about your teams, who are there to make people well at work and happy at work, knowing all the facts, and I'm afraid they just don't know all the facts at the moment. So they need to get with all the resources they need to know about all the books, you need to know about the latest research, they need to have GPS, who are modern, you've done the training so that I think they'd make a really big change. And I don't want this to portray women at this stage of life as being weaker or worse at their jobs or not as good at their jobs as men because men go through a fairly they go through quite tumultuous midlife stage themselves. It's both got physical and mental aspects to it too. So we're all going through something because women at this stage as well are often have a lot more time so they can spend a lot more time being more efficient at work. They're very, very experienced. Many get this surge of energy and confidence after they've worked out how to deal with menopause and perimenopause. So they're incredibly valuable, and their training is really valuable to the workforce. So if your leaders know what's going on and the people responsible for that need to talk up as well as down so often in many places at the top level, it will be mostly men. But it will be men whose wives, if we're talking about this time and this present moment, whose wives may very well be going through, its partners, daughters may be going through this as well. So it does for everybody to know all the nation really, I think that's the main thing for everyone to know the information and the new information and the NHS guidelines, which have always said HRT is the first line of treatment for menopause and perimenopause symptoms, that just hasn't been known. There's been so much misinformation, and you know, the symptoms, leading anything from tinnitus to dizziness to suicidal ideation. So it's serious. So when someone's talking about that, then you need to be able to help them get help for them.

Zoe Amar  22:13  
Absolutely, it feels like such a key responsibility of leaders and also the workplace and the systems is supporting people like HR to really be on top of all this because as your book outlines, it's, there's so much happening and there is a lot to get on top of isn't there.

Lorraine Candy  22:32  
There is a lot of resource and information has always been out there, though, but it's just been, you know, neglected people have not been interested in this area of medical science or this area of medical support. So it's making them interesting that you don't want women to come out of the workplace at a time when they're particularly well skilled, particularly in medical areas, you know, had colleagues in the NHS during COVID, who found the PPE was all designed for men anyway, because it was too big, but also found it unbearable, because of some of the symptoms that were going through. And you didn't want to lose those women, that's just a little tweak of things that can be done. So it's really important, everyone knows the facts of what's going on, and that every woman will have a slightly different experience. But we don't want to scare monger, we want to just say this is the next stage of life. There are some things you should know about our teams know about it, we can help you through it. We will have women who've been through it and talk to you about it. There's plenty of resources, there's about 10 books out on it at the moment as well.

Paul Thomas  23:33  
We also talked recently to Dr. Lucy Ryan, who's written a book called Revolting Women. And she was talking about this very fact that within companies and I think you mentioned it as well, in the episode of the podcast you recorded with Annie Mac. It was her podcast sorry, it wasn't an episode of your podcast, it was Annie Mac's podcast wasn't it, but the idea that midlife seems to be missing from a lot of organisations views on HR policies and things like that, it just doesn't seem to be something that's discussed. And I reflected, I'm working with a client at the moment, who are very carefully sort of picking their way through a lot of that sort of territory, but midlife just isn't on the agenda. So I think there's probably something to do with levelling the conversation out to have midlife as a general thing that a lot of employees will be going through at the table as well. So it doesn't become that sort of scare mongering. It's everyone's going through this and there are differences between the ways that men and women are experiencing it. But basically, a lot of people at a very, very critical time in their lives are going through this and they're going through it at home and critically at work too.

Lorraine Candy  24:57  
I think hearing people around you being able to talk about it out loud is really important. I think it's really important that we use a healthy positive language ourselves that we don't buy into this Oh, I'm having a hot flash, I can't remember anything brain fog joke element that seems to be around as well. I think we need to avoid that in the workplace. This is just there is a problem, there is a solution usually so let's work it out for both men and women. It's a little bit like working out, you know how we work in the workplace when we have family demands and responsibilities and who's responsible for that. It's just another thing we need to be well aware of, but just extraordinarily has never been talked about. It just seems the most bizarre. And I think that's what Trish and I found as journalists we've been doing this a really long time working in the field of health, you know, and I worked on the Times and the Sun I worked on all and I think never, never was mentioned and I specialised in women's stories is just so extraordinary. It was just completely ignored for so many years and it has taken women like Davina McCall talking about it you know Lorraine Kelly has taken people with massive reach who've been through it, talking about it to really get it hold people. But you know I say that and we live in this London leadership bubble in it in a way or the Southeast bubble, but there are huge chunks of the country where women simply still don't know about it from all different backgrounds, we know it's much more difficult for black and brown women to access proper support from their GPS, they're often believed less than white women. So just research around that. So we know this is a real struggle out outside of the kind of more media centric bubbles, we're all talking about it, but it really did need, it does need people to be in their communities talking about it as well, and then affecting that workforce there.

Paul Thomas  27:04  
So talking of communities, I think that the sort of need more information and don't have the information, this book, your book arrived through the post and I opened it in the kitchen, and my wife saw it and she said, Oh, that's on my reading list. And I thought to myself, while I was reading through the book, there are going to be many situations where in our household, the man in the household is reading the book before the wife or actually wants to read it. And what I've thought was, there is a big recommendation coming from me to, for men to pick up this book and read it. And hopefully, take as much out of it as I did, and learn as much from it as I did. But hopefully, they will be asking the question, how can they support their wives? How can they support women in their lives, whether it's at work or at home? So what can men do to help other than pick up the book and read it of course.

Lorraine Candy  27:59  
Yeah I had an amazing man when I was at a book festival in Cornwall, I'm from Cornwall, it was quite big festival. And he'd accidentally walked into my talk. I think he thought it was something about machine which came before. And he stayed all the way through. And then he came in and he had five books, he said, Oh, my God, this is it. This is what this is what's happening, I had no idea what was going on at home, I bought five books, because I think my sister is going through it as well. And I'm gonna pass on the knowledge so that you know, what men can do is listen, this is not about fixing. So we're not saying to male leaders or male partners, you've got to fix us, we're saying, Can you listen to us, which is a difficult skill for men. And I don't say that off the top of my head. I say that having researched that for my book on parenting teenagers, actually, when I was looking at dads and daughters, it's really hard for dads to listen without trying to fix it. So they stopped listening, because I keep thinking I'm going to sort this out, I'm going to sort this out. So their actual active responsive brain just shuts down because they're already thinking what they can do to help. So that's not what we're asking for. We are asking for you to listen and bear with us while we find and help us with the solutions. One of the things we always advise to women and we advise this when we give talks in the workplace is that if you go to the GP and you are told, you probably should take antidepressants, because anxiety is a huge symptom of declining oestrogen. But you don't want to do that. And you don't think it's right. And you don't think the GP's told you the right thing. You can then have the right to go to another GP and say I'm not happy with that I've read about this. I would like to talk about this. Take your partner with you. Because it's really hard. The declining oestrogen affects the way your brain works. So you sometimes you physically cannot remember anything. And this is not a bit of brain fog. I forgot what side of the road to drive on. My brain couldn't find the vital, just couldn't find it. So that was a neurological breakdown, which is very common when oestrogen, testosterone all those hormones are fluctuating or decreasing. So you need someone with you when you go to get this information. So go with your partner so that you can find out about it. So when you're having these conversations at work, don't say there's a big con, we're going to have a big talk about the menopause, and then only send an email to the female staff. That has happened. So and I would say with corporations, and we've done some banks and big things, we've had, like 400 people on the Zoom call, I would say 300 will be women you really need as many men in the room listening as you do and really just being listening rather than thinking, I can't fix this or I can't fix this.

Zoe Amar  30:48  
Yes, it's essential isn't it, is really important that everyone takes ownership of this information and thinks about how they can act. For me it's part of creating a really, ultimately inclusive workplace.

Lorraine Candy  30:59  
I think it's the same kind of thing when I was editing Elle we had just integrated the digital team with the print team. We were the first ever publication to do it, we all worked together on a hot desk around a glass fashion cupboard because obviously the fashion is the central content for Elle. So it was quite revolutionary. Some of it worked. Some of it didn't. But as a leader I realised sitting out with my team that I had to really accommodate many different people. And at that time, I did a lot of research into how we accommodate more neuro diverse members of the workforce, because, you know, fashion encourages, and it really is a bit of a magnet for really creative people who work in a very different way from perhaps more logical people. So I was seeing lots of different personalities. And I think, in a way, this is just another way of we must include everyone, and the way they work, we must be mindful of how what everyone's needs are within the workplace. You know, we don't have to bend over backwards and change everything because we still got to deliver but under the banner of still delivering to the business, how can we get the most of that out of our employees by being mindful of the way they were, and many of them work in different ways. For example, I had an employee that just simply could not come in on time. And I just thought, well, you can't, I don't really want to fire her for not being able to come in on time, there's something clearly going wrong. And we looked into how it was working, what was working, and actually, she was much more effective coming in at 11 instead of 9.30. It was a very simple switch didn't really affect me didn't affect the business. We did, uh, you know, we had a look at how it would work. So it's that kind of, you know, that's a very tiny, probably inconsequential example, but it's that kind of thinking, if you've got an 80% female workforce, you really need an HR team that knows absolutely everything about the menopause and perimenopause to work with them.

Zoe Amar  32:52  
Absolutely, yeah, we would highly recommend this book to any HR professionals listening today.

Lorraine Candy  33:00  
I think also Dr. Louise Newson's book and Davina's book and there is a book called Your Hormone Doctor, which is a really brilliant book about how you can work with midlife.

Zoe Amar  33:12  
Fantastic. I'll have to put those on my reading list as well. Thank you. So one of the things you described in the book, which I found especially fascinating was how cultures such as Japan have different attitudes to ageing and the menopause. Can you tell us more about this and what we could learn from it?

Lorraine Candy  33:32  
Well I interviewed women from all backgrounds for the book, and really age range sort of 40 to 82, I think the eldest said it was, and from all sorts of parts of the world. And I also interviewed a really great obstetrician and gynaecologist called Dr. Vikram Talaulikar and he worked in a community from various different parts of the world, and obviously looked at the research and in places in Japan, for example, they call it the Second Spring. And their diet is slightly more suited after the age of 42. Women's oestrogen levels, so I didn't look into it in detail. But I think it's something to do with the amount of soy that's eaten. So it's, there is an attitude, cultural attitude in the Western world, though, that we will experience a problem, whereas in other parts of the world, women are much, you know, we will experience a problem and we will be a problem. Whereas in other parts of the world, older women are really revered, they're revered for a kind of sexual liberation, as well, in many cultures, you know, because obviously, there's no chance of pregnancy. So it really is about your sexuality, which is seen as very powerful in many parts of the world, and revered as having time to be able to make decisions and be part of decision making processes within communities and promoted to you know, higher levels of whatever industry they're in. So it's a real shame that in this culture, it has such a negative, you know, talking about it more and all the negative aspects of it, which I absolutely believe we must do, until that message has got through does contribute a little bit to our generally negative attitude towards it. Whereas in other places in the world getting older is seen as a really liberating, amazing thing, you know, because obviously, the alternative is terrible. So it's yeah, I didn't go in depth into that. But I do know that places like Japan, it is much more of a positive experience.

Zoe Amar  35:34  
I found that especially fascinating because my heritage is mixed Chinese and English, and my mother's Chinese and in Chinese culture, often, age is seen as being synonymous with wisdom. So yeah, I think that's I think it's really fascinating to read about how the different cultures tackle this kind of life transition, so speaking of those moments...

Lorraine Candy  36:00  
We're quite heavily influenced here then aren't we by the media and entertainment so we don't see all the women in films and TV we do more so now but we don't see the films, they were never on telly. We don't see it as a good thing because we just don't see it so.

Zoe Amar  36:14  
Yeah I think that's so true, isn't it? I mean, I really enjoyed the Sex and the City reboot And Just Like That, and afterwards I was thinking, Gosh, I don't think I have ever seen women in midlife portrayed in this way before and why not because they've got agency. They're making different choices. They're entering this new chapter and doing completely different things. And I think you're right. It feels like such a limited way in which midlife women get portrayed in the media.

Lorraine Candy  36:46  
It is limited, it's limited, and it's kind of cliched, but it's again, it's the, you know, it's a patriarchal thing, isn't it most, all the surveys on TV in the last five years less programmes are made by women, less programmes are written by women. Less adverts are made by women. It is going down, not up. So we aren't going to be there because we're not involved in the process of putting us there. I mean, there's one or two standout. I think things that happen. I think Bridget Christie's programme The change on Channel Four was an extraordinary comedy, which I don't think would have been made five years ago. I just think it wouldn't even got past the commissioner. So you know, and I, we interviewed Georgia Pritchett, who was one of the writers of Succession. And she wrote the Gerry character and again, initially that was supposed to be a male character, they kept the name. And the male script writer said, let's keep, alright, let's make it women because otherwise every boardroom scene will just be men. So we need to have a woman in there but you know well let's make her them to kind of matriarchal figure, the maternal figure, look, and Georgia was like, no, we're going to make her really sexual. We're not going to make her this maternal. We're going to do the woman that we think we would see if she wasn't constricted, so but that character would not have been written without a woman like Georgia Pritchett, a midlife woman who had such a menopause story to tell herself that she just wouldn't Gerry wouldn't have been written so that and it's so rare to see that kind of woman in society here. So of course, we don't, you know, our daughters aren't seeing it, they might be seeing it a little bit more now. But, you know, if easily changed this, we just need to open the creative doors to more women to say yes to more women.

Zoe Amar  38:34  
Oh, amen to that. So one of the things we loved about the book was your description of how midlife forces us to sit with discomfort and painful feelings. Is there any advice you'd give to someone who is at the start of sitting with that process of discomfort and these difficult feelings?

Lorraine Candy  38:56  
I think men go through this as well. So once you've sorted out the physical side of your life, got your sleep back, taking HRT, if you can, and changing your diet, all the things that we get a little bit less healthy after we've had kids and all that, because we just don't put ourselves first we don't take care of ourselves. So once you've done that, you have to realise that you might be thinking, you might have not met your expectations of where you wanted to be in life, you might not be happy with your partner, your long term, but because you're a changed, different changing different person. So there is that divorce and all of that that happens to women at this stage of life. And I think what I was told by Julia Samuel, who's an amazing therapist, who's written several books, around therapy with families, within families and how it works and how we change as we age, is that there is this place called the void. And to get past any pain, you know, it's an agent of change pain, you know change is coming is to really take care of yourself in the moment so that you aren't feeling physically unwell, to allow yourself to really just sit with those feelings and go through it can be a bit miserable, you feel like you've lost your mojo, don't really know who you are, you only have this kind of tumultuous sense of identity loss when you're in your teenage years. So it's the other time I think we all feel it, because we don't know who we are really then either, but we just keep moving forward with it because that's all we know, in our teenage years. So I think you just have to acknowledge it's going to happen, it's going to be a bit painful, but out the other side is pretty amazing.

Paul Thomas  40:28  
And you mentioned the idea in the book of the midlife MOT in our situation here that would I guess look like me and my wife getting together and having that conversation about expectations and what we expect for the next few years and just having that conversation out loud, which probably most people don't.

Lorraine Candy  40:50  
I think I wrote it when I came back from work after my fourth baby. I wrote a piece for one of the papers, I think it's The Guardian about a contract. We don't ever sit down together with our partners that we have children with and say who exactly is going to do what? How is our day going to go? Particularly for Gen X heterosexual couples, we just carried on without any thought about how our days were going to change. Now we had four children under 10 and I just picked up the stuff that I needed to pick up while I was working full time I changed my working schedule at work I had, I went into work with a contract saying right I'm finishing at five o'clock, we're going to change this printing schedule of magazine, I'm going to have every other Friday off, but I'm still going to meet these goals, we're going to review it every three months. I didn't do that at home. And I always advise people to do that. And I think when you hit midlife, you've got to sit down and think, right, okay, is this what I really want to do? And why do I feel this way? Why am I working? So why do I feel I worked so hard? So why am I working? So keep asking the why question. And just review yourself physically, from an MOT point of view, but also take agency over your own health. I think a lot of women in their 40s begin to think, right, okay, I'm going to sort this out, I'm not just going to be fobbed off anymore, I'm going to go back in and get a second opinion. But also to think is this the place I want to live? Is this the way I want to live? Is this how I want to interact with my teenage children or my children you've left home, it's really about being quite specific about it and thinking it through.

Paul Thomas  42:22  
Do you think you would have changed anything about the latter stages of your magazine career, knowing what you know, now? Do you think anything would have changed? You wouldn't have done anything differently or no regrets?

Lorraine Candy  42:33  
Yes, I think I wouldn't have been so hard on myself. I was you know, getting up at like, I think because my perimenopause was a bit extreme. And I had such severe brain fog, and I was so depressed, I think I would have if I'd known that was coming and then been able to get the medical help to go on HRT earlier, I would have then sat down and thought, okay, hold on, some of the things that I've done, I do not need to get up at five o'clock to make sure I get through this list. I'm going to delegate more. You know, I'm going to work out how I work my home life and my family life so that I'm not so grumpy and angry and cross all the time. Because that's not helpful to anybody. So yes, I really regret of the last sort of, from the age of sort of 47 to 50, not sorting it out quicker. And, you know, I was offered antidepressants twice by my doctors. And I didn't think it was right. Why on earth the first time I didn't say no, that's not right, please go see another doctor, which I know is perfectly within my right to do on the NHS, I don't know, I would just take more agency for making my life better. And I really would slow down. I you know, I think particularly I did a chapter on burnout for Gen X, I think Gen X, we were driven to do really well at home. And really well, you know, I come from a very working class background, I felt incredibly lucky to be where I was, and I wasn't going to let go of that. And I was going to work so hard. And actually, that does have quite an extreme effect on your health, I think in the end. And really what I needed to do sort of at 45. And I would say to a lot of women in their mid 40s is to step back and slow down a little bit. Work out how you can still achieve your goals at work. But review it so that you aren't burnt out trying to do that. How can you share the load? There's a very small window of tolerance for stress as you get older. And I think if I'd known that my window of tolerance was closing, I would have done less stressful things.

Paul Thomas  44:30  
Yeah, I think that's sound advice. I feel that nearly every day that, the stress levels for just the smallest little things that you just sort of you snap whereas before we were just sort of brushed it off, it's absolutely fine.

Zoe Amar  44:44  
Yeah, full disclosure, I live my life with this general feeling of being on the edge. I love spinning all the plates but I know exactly what you both mean about having this much more focused window for stress, it feels like a big part of that is all the juggling isn't it as much as the life phase.

Paul Thomas  45:08  
But I've never thought of it in this way. Well look you've just described it perfectly Lorraine, I think there is within this within our generation there is this sense that you can do everything you need to do everything. And we we've talked several times in this podcast with other people about the next generation coming along and having that sort of take it or leave it happy go lucky sort of approach to the world of work that we just we just never had.

Lorraine Candy  45:37  
Well, I worked with a lot of much younger women in the industry I was in and actually on newspapers as well in the latter end of my career. And I learned a lot about women saying, younger women saying oh no, I don't want to do that and be too stressfull you know, I just I'm gonna go because I don't feel great now like you know the things that perhaps a more martyr attitude was not healthy to have. And I think we don't do ourselves any favours by not welcoming in the modern way of working as well. You know that a lot of the digital advances in journalism were making our lives easier. But I think part of the time we were thinking and this is just another thing I've got to learn or another thing I've got to be part of and actually, particularly a lot of the production logistic processes that was there to make my life easier and I was slightly dreading it thinking I had to add it to my to do list to know how to make that work. It's you know, it's about giving yourself some softness around who you are as well, I think.

Paul Thomas  46:36  
That's great thanks. And so wrapping up then with sort of a final question and this is a podcast about exploring leadership and everything that's changing with leadership and has changed over the past few years in particular. So what one piece of advice would you give to leaders about midlife women? If you could give one piece of advice, what would it be?

Lorraine Candy  47:00  
Well I've managed really big teams and worked within massive teams on newspapers. And I've managed very small, specific targeted teams for very specific things as well. And I've had quite a lot of career coaching throughout that. And I would say, and I really enjoyed being a leader, it was really no is one of the perks of my job, I felt incredibly privileged, but I would say, you really have to work at how your style affects other people, and where you are within that. And in order to do that you need to learn to listen, and you need to learn to work out how everyone's working together. And I think if you look around your room, and you have midlife women in there, they will all be going through something even if they absolutely sail through the physical aspects of menopause and perimenopause and perimenopause can start in your early 40s. There will be huge pressures at home that you perhaps aren't aware of I mean, we are all dealing with elderly parents, we're all dealing with children, I totally underestimated how empty nest and when my two eldest left home, I completely underestimated how that was going to affect me it was absolutely devastating. I just thought I'd sail through that. So all there is a lot going on. So you need to recognise that within your workforce and bring the wellness I hate to use that word wellness, because I hate it into the workplace, I think because you will have a much stronger workforce if you do that. And if you understand what's going on, and it's not making women weaker. It's about making anyone at works life better. That's what we should all be doing as leaders. So it's, you know, you have to dump that negative attitude towards it and think how am I going to make it easier for my brilliant women to perform better at work? Because women are absolutely amazing in the workforce, if you if we so many women are going through all of the things that I was going through and still hit, you know, hitting targets and becoming CEOs and becoming, you know, fighter pilots and all that while going through that. And I think, good God if they could do all of that and still achieve at this level, that's extraordinary. Imagine the power of this army of women fueled by the things they need without worrying about everything that they're going through and going through it then it's just they're incredibly resourceful as members of your workforce.

Zoe Amar  49:22  
Absolutely. I mean, just imagine what could happen with the right tools, the right support the right understanding from leaders. Wow, I think midlife women could be even more unstoppable.

Lorraine Candy  49:36  
They are quite, they can they can do a lot. Also they are they do get this like don't give a shit attitude, which I think is really helpful in the workforce. They have a kind of I'm gonna make this happen. And I am not worried about what you think about me. I'm just gonna get it done in the most efficient way possible and the kindest way possible, they really aren't gonna listen to all the stuff around them.

Zoe Amar  50:00  
100% and I'm definitely seeing that amongst my my peer group. What an amazing inspiring note to end on. Thank you so much, Lorraine. We love this book, we highly recommend it to everyone listening to this podcast. Is there anything you want to say about the paperback launch before we wrap up?

Lorraine Candy  50:18  
No, I think I changed the title slightly on the paperback. It's instead of 101 things it says, From Unravelling to Reinvention because I do think what we lost when we didn't put it on the first book is that it is a reinvention. And it is an incredibly powerful, positive time of life. And I just want to make sure all women know that and that they're not alone. I think that's the main thing. A lot of women felt alone. But I would hope that your generation Zoe and younger millennials coming through won't feel alone now because there's so much information out there.

Zoe Amar  50:52  
Thank you to Lorraine. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And reinvention. I think I may have to write that on a post it and put it above my desk in it to be my watch word through this phase of my life. Thank you so much for coming on Starts at the Top. We really appreciate it.

Lorraine Candy  51:08  
Thank you for having me.

Paul Thomas  51:09  
Thank you for coming on. And my wife can now have this copy of the book and she can read it.

Lorraine Candy  51:13  
Good luck to her!

Paul Thomas  51:16  
Once again, thanks to Lorraine for taking time out of her schedule to come on to the podcast.

Zoe Amar  51:21  
And thank you from me too. We absolutely love the book and as a long term fan of Lorraine and her writing. It was such a pleasure to talk to her.

Paul Thomas  51:30  
We really do appreciate that you've listened all the way to the end of the episode. Thank you so much. As always, you can support the podcast by leaving us a five star review wherever you listen to us. It really does help us reach more people. Apple now are highlighting recent reviews to people so if you leave a review today is going to do us an enormous benefit. So thank you. So if you've enjoyed what you've heard, do share us with a friend.

Zoe Amar  51:54  
Thank you so much for listening today. And we will see you in a couple of weeks with a brand new episode of Starts at the Top with a very exciting guest!

Paul Thomas  52:04  
Will see you then and bye for now. 

Zoe Amar  52:05  
See you soon.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai