Midlife Reinvention with Avril Millar: How to Break Out of the Cage & Put Yourself First

SPEAKER_00 0:26

The seventy-four-year-old who wrote that book is not the forty-five year old who brought me up. And that is the whole point. I was a clusterfuck at 45. Much of what keeps us in our cage is love. It is the love for our children. It is the love for creating a nice home. It is the love for a partner. When we get to the end, they're all and we are a husk. And then we're thinking, now what do I do? Now it is possible to rebuild from 50 to 74 because I did it. There is nothing you can do that will put yourself first or at least higher in the list that you will ever live to regret. Because if I can love myself, I can then love everybody else appropriately. But if I don't do that first, it's game over.

SPEAKER_01 1:11

Avril Miller has lived more lives than most of us. She was a civil engineer in 1960s Glasgow, back when a woman in a hard hat was a novelty. She taught maths and physics while her kids were small, then ran her own wealth management firm for 20 years before walking away to do something more meaningful than make rich people richer. Since 2009, she has worked with boards and CEOs who know they can do better but don't know how. Her personal story is just as remarkable. She was given up for adoption as a toddler, lost everything in her 40s, and started over from nothing at 50. In her 70s, she discovered four sisters she never knew existed. Now she's written feral, the book to which someone had handed her when she was starting over. It's about breaking out of the cage, the rules and roles and stories we've been handed, and using the extraordinary power we all have to change our own lives. Avril is living proof that the story you're handed isn't the one you have to keep. She lives in London, still asks awkward questions, and has no intention of slowing down. Avril, welcome to our show.

SPEAKER_00 2:30

Oh, thank you for I'm so pleased to be here. It's very exciting. I'm talking to America. Oh, I know.

SPEAKER_01 2:36

We're so happy to have you. And this, everyone, is the book that we are talking about. I have read it one and a half times, and I don't know if you can see all of my little page markers.

SPEAKER_02 2:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:48

Because it is, there's so much involved.

SPEAKER_02 2:51

So many, so many good nuggets. And uh when you I didn't, I don't think I knew that you taught math and physics. My uh youngest daughter, I'm not going to tell you what her grade was on her physics test in college right now, but she could use some. I just got her a physics tutor because that is some heavy duty learning in college. I'll tell you that.

SPEAKER_00 3:13

That's a maybe physics isn't her thing, you know. It's just for everyone.

SPEAKER_02 3:18

She wants to go to medical school, so it's a class that is, you know, she has to take it, but she is whoo physics is a is a wild, it really is like something you have to truly understand. Anyway, I just I don't think I knew that. So I was like, you have a very smart brain. So yes.

SPEAKER_01 3:38

So let's start with you had five careers that you sort of write about. Which one was, in your opinion, the biggest mistake, and which are you the most proud of?

SPEAKER_00 3:49

Oh, good Lord, Jesus, you're actually throwing me actual questions I have to answer. Umstead of just warbling on. Biggest mistake. Um, well, the biggest mistake was clearly the original financial services thing that I fell into after leaving teaching. Because I I left teaching, I decided after three years of teaching. Well, it was five years in total, but but three down in England when I was head of department, and I decided I just couldn't do that forever because the thing about a physics curriculum is it is the same thing every year, because it, you know, generally speaking, apart from quantum physics, it doesn't change, you know. And I thought I'm gonna have to kill myself if I have to do this. And so I I gave myself two months, uh two terms notice, you know, to go. I had to do that for the school, and um I I couldn't get a job, I was 35 years old, I was a qualified civil engineer, I was a qualified teacher, and I couldn't buy I had two small children, and the interview questions were how are you going to manage to do a proper job if you've got children? I mean, they can't ask that these days, but they still think it. Um and I I I fell into sales and financial services, and it was absolutely shit. It was the lowest of the low, it was like lower than you will call it real estate, we call it estate agents over here and insurance salesman. It was worse, it was worse.

SPEAKER_02 5:14

Oh, okay. So real estate is called uh selling houses here is real estate.

SPEAKER_00 5:20

Yeah, or we call we call it estate agency. But I mean, it was just absolutely awful. I fell into it, and and from that I then ended up creating a wealth management firm, and that sounds facile. So for anyone listening, when anyone who has succeeded says to you, I was doing this, and then I changed direction and I did that, and it sounds like seamless execution between there and there, that is rarely what it is. It's usually a series of shitty decisions and mistakes and hurdles and and sloughs of despond that you fall into, that you crawl out covered in mud and shit. And that was how I got to what my wealth management firm. Yeah. Because you know, people do this glib thing, oh, I was ruined, and then like as if there was like a nanosecond between there and then. That's bollocks, it's not like that.

SPEAKER_01 6:14

That's actually, yeah, for anyone who's lived through hard things, and I think everyone goes through a hard phase in life. Yes. I did after my divorce or after I was financially ruined by him, you losing Chris suddenly. Right. It's it's not right, you're right. It's not the before and after, it is a slow progression of pulling yourself up, falling back down, pulling yourself up again, and continuing to crawl. So that's a it's a very, very valid point.

SPEAKER_02 6:44

And that I was thinking about that um reading your book. Um, it was a question that I was gonna save till the end, but you did kind of make a good point right now, which was losing my husband. I didn't ask for this life of um needing, needing to change, wanting to change, flying out of this like new, you know, going into this new life. I had a a decent life. I was had, you know, I was, you know, and it was, it's like I am was am forced into creating a new life, creating a new self, because I that is not the person I was two years ago, is when my husband passed away. And um, I was telling Hillary before we started, just I can't believe it's been two years. And so in that interim, which is what we're talking about, that it's taken two years for me to even slowly, just even in the last couple of weeks, start to get out of my shell of like, shit, I really have to just like reinvent myself. Like I have to become this person that I didn't know I had to create to create. So yeah, it's a it's a sometimes we have to do those things when things like, you know, what you know, in your 40s when you were handed a bunch of shit, you know, you had to do that. But then there's people that were forced to do it that I didn't even want to do it, and now I have to do it.

SPEAKER_00 8:04

So it's not, and I think one of the big challenges is that the further we are away from that period in our lives, you know, I'm 74 now, so I'm kind of like 35 plus years away from some of the shittiest times of my life, the the the easier it is to kind of just like gloss them over. And it's important not to wallow in them and certainly not to go, oh my god, I had a dreadful time, it was awful, but to remember that you fought and you battled, and sometimes you lost the battle, and you had to, as you say, get back up off your knees. Because when someone is in the middle of it, they don't need to hear they don't need to see someone who's 30 years ahead and think, well, she was able to do it, why can't I? What they need to see is there were times when she thought she was never going to get out of this.

SPEAKER_02 8:54

It really is so important to when you said just blip over it. Sometimes I do just want to blip over it. But if I want to become the woman that I feel like I'm meant to be on this earth, I have to remember those times that I've been going through, whether I write them down and I reread through them so that I can also help other people. And it is true. Some days I go, okay, that was like two years ago. I've got to just like press forward. But in order to press forward, I still went through all of that stuff. And I sometimes I do forget that I was like laying on my closet floor for three days and didn't brush my teeth or change my clothes. So that is a very that like that's a very good point.

SPEAKER_01 9:35

You're now going through it in a different way two years later with different things, yeah. That have become your new normal.

SPEAKER_00 9:41

Yeah, but I think I think it is so, so important because so much of the so-called sort of aspirational, inspirational stuff that's written or spoken for very good intentions and for very good reasons misses out the bit when you are lying on the floor weeping and you can't move. And I think for I mean, I remember Eid Pray Love actually started with that, um, her lying on the floor weeping. And you know, I mean at the time when Eat Pray Love came out, I just absolutely loved it because to me it spoke at the time of someone saying, even when, and and I suppose the thing that for me really matters is that for most of us in the Western world, we don't have truly difficult lives in the real sense of it. You know, we're not hungry, we're not at war, we're not at risk of rape, we're not under threat, we have roofs over our head, etc. etc. And so I think it is very easy for us to sort of say to ourselves and to others, what have you got to complain about? What have I got to complain about? But emotional pain and psychological pain like that is very, very real, and it is really important to recognize that is that is the the fire in which the steel is tempered. But at the time it just feels like the fire.

SPEAKER_01 11:04

Yeah, it's crap. It's so it's so, and I think if it for when I was going through my stuff, is I immediately because I were kind of jumping ahead to the book, is I'm a helper. I took the I did the test, I did the test, I'm a helper. The the pros and the cons to a T. So in my mind, is I don't like to be stuck in the hard. Yeah. I I'm a usually a very positive person, but going through that, it was immediately like, I have to get out of this. And I I think of only recent have gone back to really acknowledge how difficult and emotional and challenging that was. Because in that time, I didn't want to feel it. I just wanted to move through it. And it was kind of like, I have to get to the next phase, because like I don't want to even pretend to be here. It was too probably hard to sit in that space. There's so many parts to your book at the end about changing the mindset of this, might be more of let's say, defensiveness with people, but talking internally to yourself, where I never I haven't really done that. I'm just kind of like, that was the past. I'm moving forward, I have to get to the next space. That's how I feel. Yes. And it's kind of like I I haven't laid, you know, I didn't, and I thankfully went on to create a beautiful life, super happy. But it is interesting how your brain, and I think also in society, is there with women. Society society sort of tells us like, right, your look on the screen and everything's everyone's doing wonderful. And you turn on Instagram and you turn on TikTok, and yeah, everyone's all glossy and shiny and pretty, and you don't want to see the hard stuff. And so you think in your mind, well, I just have to keep moving forward because that's where I need to get to, right? Like, I don't want to be here in the muck.

SPEAKER_02 13:00

No, we don't want to sit in that shit. Like, I get like, okay, I've been on the floor for three days, I haven't brushed my teeth, I haven't changed my clothes, like get it together. I don't, I'm tired of sitting in this shit. And it's like, get out, get outside, and I do feel better.

SPEAKER_01 13:13

You do feel better.

SPEAKER_02 13:14

Yeah. Society doesn't give me time off of work.

SPEAKER_00 13:17

That is a testament to both your characters, though, that you were able to be in a place, a very dark place, and to sort of give yourself a kick up the arse, basically, eventually. I think everyone is not only entitled to, but needs a period where they sit in that pity swamp, self-pity swamp, because it hurts. Whatever has happened to you has bruised you and hurt you tremendously. And what you have to hope for is that you have been blessed with uh a sufficient uh element of steel in your spirit that allows you to get to the point to say, enough now, even if it's only one little thing, I will do the one little thing. You know, some people really uh struggle with it. Not everyone, not everyone is is is blessed early on, either in their character or in their upbringing, with the ability to say, uh, I know that if I do something, things will change even if I can't feel it now. But um, being able to do it, and this is what women have to celebrate, is uh how often women are women are the reinventors of the species. We are always reinventing ourselves, and we reinvent ourselves through circumstances, you know, you've been bereaved and and you've been divorced, and you know, I've been divorced, and I'm going to say it fucking wish I had been bereaved, frankly. I agree.

SPEAKER_01 14:47

I say honestly, if anything had happened to my husband accidentally, the first one, they would have come looking for me because I so wish for him to just fall over a cliff.

SPEAKER_00 14:59

It is, I know it's a heinous thing, and it will turn off probably 50% of your audience, but shit, let's be honest about it. You know, you know, you carry it forward. But you know, I I I don't really do therapy very well. You know, I'm not I'm not in the therapy world, I'm not in the therapy speak world, but I do believe that we need to self-analyze and self-therapise, and we need a time to lick our wounds. You know, we call it licking our wounds for a very real reason. But we sit there and we just go, this really hurts. I hate this. And then hopefully we find a wee place in ourselves where we can move forward from.

SPEAKER_02 15:38

Yeah, I love that. I I really and I'd like to teach, I I try to teach that to my girls too, as they're watching me walk my journey is, you know, Maddie bombing a my daughter bombing a physics test. Like, it's okay to lick your wounds, but you and I want you to sit in that, but you now what? Now it's time to get your tutor and pull up your britches and like move forward. I want to teach them that as they be we have, we all have both of us have all girls, all young adults. And we talked a lot about that with just bringing them up in a way where they they don't have to wait until they're in their 40s, 50s, or 60s to break out of their cage. Like, do it now, you know. Absolutely. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:20

But I do also love the piece of sort of holding the mirror up and the self-reflecting. And that's why I love some of your questions in here in the book, where if you're going to be truly honest with yourself, and I think that I'm only gonna speak for myself, that's a hard place to sit. Is it always can be somebody else's, oh, they're doing this to me. No, they're doing, I'm reacting in a way that is causing, or I'm saying in a way that is causation of something else. And your some of your questions in here really resonated with the internal speak of changing it, of a the negative self-talk and changing it into just not right now, right? That you may not love your life right now, you're a work in progress now. But some of it also in just how we interact with others and not being reactive in situations, that I tend as a Scorpio to be a little reactive.

SPEAKER_00 17:19

Oh, you're a Scorpio. Now, you see, the fact I've got, ooh, you're a Scorpio, people go, Oh, for goodness sake, I thought this was an intelligent, sensible woman, and now she's doing horoscopes. But I actually do for I am one of these rare things. I'm a sort of um relatively devout Christian who believes in horoscopes and all manner of witchy things as well. Because I think I think that the universe is more mysterious than any of us understand, and all of these things have not come out, have not emanated out of nothing. They've emanated because they are they are a thing. And yeah, I've known some Scorpio's mine, you do have a sting in the tail. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But um but but the thing that I find fascinating is that uh if you are able to get to the point where you do that little test, and of course there is the bigger Enneagram, which is more explanatory, but the little test is good because it's just opening a door in your mind and allows you to say, oh, maybe that's why certain things uh trigger me, certain things, and I hate the word trigger now because it's been appropriated by the it's been appropriated by the walk brigade, but I'm going to use it in its its most authentic sense, which is it it it kicks off something in you that is uncomfortable and unpleasant. Um if you're able to see that, and if you are able to understand that that person standing over there is going through the same thing in his or her own way, then you get the chance to think, you know, maybe this conversation is just a pile of bullshit, and neither of us is really giving thought to what's happening in me, what's happening in them, what I'm co-creating over there. It's but that is a really challenging adult way of thinking and uh complicated to do. And and when you said earlier about uh you know bringing up your your daughters, um I I I've noticed recently, just call me a slow learner. Um I've noticed recently how for so many of us we don't understand something until it happens to us. We don't understand grief until it happens to us, we don't understand divorce and loss until it happens to us, or betrayal, or alienation. And I've I've this is very recent for me. In the last month, I've been thinking, how can I help people better? Because for so many, this is just ethereal, you know, it's it's it's an intellectual exercise. Teach someone something, but until you've done it, until you've gone through it. In the UK, and I think it's happening in in the US just now. A lot of midlife women in particular are finding they're being lost to the workplace because you know, AI is contributing to ageism, etc. etc. And I've been writing on LinkedIn repeatedly. I'm literally screaming at the computer these days, saying, but it was always like that. It's always happened like that. What the fuck have you just wakened up? And of course, then I realize they have just wakened up because it's happened to them. Them, sure, yes, yeah, that makes sense. And I I don't know what the answer. I would love you two to give me the answer to this question. How do I help younger women understand that they should be talking to older women, people like me who have been there before, because we're sitting there going, no shit, Sherlock, you know that that's what happens. Yes, and they're they're acting like it's brand fucking new. You're thinking, Jesus, give me a break.

SPEAKER_01 21:01

We were doing this when you weren't even born. Well, and that's exactly I think that that's where it's the bridging the gap of the two.

SPEAKER_02 21:09

Yeah, she's bridging us, we're bridging the younger generation, right?

SPEAKER_01 21:13

And it's also then recognizing, and I think this is hard for I mean, I'm gonna speak for again myself, is you're like, oh, I know it all. This is me, my younger self. Oh, I know it all, my mom. You can't tell me anything. You don't know what you're talking about. It's the whole thing. That's just ignorance. But that's how we all we're all raised. We're all raised to think we know everything. And then you realize when I got to my 40s and was going through hard times, I don't know shit. I think I what I I will never have it figured out. That's actually not my goal anymore. Because I'm never gonna have it figured out. I'm always gonna be learning, I'm always gonna be trying to do better. And for women who have come before us, you're the wisdom, you're the advice.

SPEAKER_00 21:59

I'm not even entirely sure that we're the wisdom or the advice, but what we are is the living example. Because I completely agree with you. I I, you know, when I say these younger women who go, Oh my god, this is happening, I did the same. Of course I did the same. My daughter was brilliant the other day. She was on a podcast herself. My daughter's infinitely cleverer, better at what she does, and better known than I am. No. But I love that. She was on a podcast where the the interviewer was a sports interviewer who has known us both for 20 years. And um she said to Francis, Oh my god, you know, your mum's written a book, everyone knows Avril and loves Avril. And Frances is kind of going, Well, quite not so much really, but um and uh Orla, the interviewer, said to her, It must have been wonderful being brought up by Avril Miller. And my daughter said very wisely and extremely correctly, the 74-year-old who wrote that book is not the 45-year-old who brought me up, and that is the whole point. I was a clusterfuck at 45. I was a ragingly bad human being and parent at 45.

SPEAKER_02 23:15

Oh, can you like just a lot? Like that is a that actually inspires me. Yeah, and I'm thinking, yeah. So what um what are some examples of looking back at as a parent where you think now, oh my gosh, I was a terrible parent. I'm sure you weren't like, you know, I'm sure you were not. But and then what was kind of the the hitting point where you were, you know, then that's when you started to change? Was it in your 50s or 60s? Like what, yeah, why would your daughter say that? And what were some examples, I guess? Because we're in that age bracket and I sometimes feel like a shit parent, you know.

SPEAKER_00 23:50

I mean, I think I think the big thing, I mean, I was I I was a good parent in the sense that I was exceptionally loving. I believed in benign neglect, so I wasn't a helicopter parent, you know. Yes, yes, it's a bit like my grandchildren. If they're alive when their mother comes home, I have won. So you have one success. But I was very much in the, and I think probably you are the same, and many women of your age are the same. I was very much in the seeking, searching, who am I, what am I, how have I got here? How did I make all those mistakes? How can I change anything? I'm comparing myself to all these other people. I was deep in that in my forties. I also at the time had chronic fatigue syndrome, which you know, which had disabled me to the extent that I wasn't working anymore. And I was deep in comparison territory. So I was uncertain, I was unhappy, I wasn't, I didn't have an identity, I didn't have a title I could give myself because I didn't have a job anymore. I mean, I was in this, you know, what am I thing? And uh and she would see me flip-flopping between alternative theories and and influences that would come into me. And I mean, I did crystals, I did taro, I did Kabbalah, I did all this shit.

SPEAKER_02 25:13

All of it.

SPEAKER_00 25:15

All of it. And instead of giving her what would have been sort of a a degree of certainty and security in her life, I was I was at home, I was on income support, which is the equivalent of benefits in in the US. We were living on beans on toast, I was permanently terrified about all financial things, and um and I and I and I was a shitsho. So that's where I was at the time. And she knew I loved her, and and there was a consistency around the we had certain rules in in the house, which was um the only things that I've really asked my kids, um, really asked for from my kids is honesty, effort, and respect. You know, they treat me with respect, that they never really talk back, and if they do, it's an intellectual talk back, it's a it's a fight with me, but don't disrespect me on it. I do the same with my grandchildren, and I get the whole grandma, you know. Um but um but um it was a very difficult time for her. But now she's now for she was 48 last week. Now she is able to say, watching it wasn't comfortable to go through that, you know. I would have loved to have a mum like my friend Lizzie's mum, who you know she knew exactly who she was, she knew what she was doing, it stayed consistent, she was still married to the same person, she was still doing the same job or whatever, or not job, or whatever it was. Um, and and Francis said at the time it was deeply uncomfortable, but now she is able to say, I've watched my mum have to dig to find herself, have to reinvent herself, have to fall down time after time after time, have a new idea, have a new passion, have a new enthusiasm, have that fall flat in its face, and then start again. Um, and she said it was hideous going through it, but now it's inspirational in the sense of, oh, that's how it works.

SPEAKER_01 27:17

I was gonna say the lessons in that you can't, you you can't, there's no book in the world that you could read that would teach you what she grew up witnessing. Yeah, and that's real life, is if you just always have a straight line, yeah. And I did, I had two parents who were married, I had mom who was home, very loving, kind parents, easy breezy. So when I married the wrong person and had a tumultuous, you know, hiding of money and crazy things happening, I had no preparation. It was like I had never walked that walk. I had never seen my parents fight. And I didn't have any of the communication skills or the self-esteem or any of it to know how to navigate that. So what a blessing for her to watch you reinvent yourself all those many times.

SPEAKER_00 28:13

It was, it was, I mean, she will describe it, and I mean, she obviously needs to speak for herself. She will now say that it has taught her a lot, but it had also given her some, you know, we are the sum total of our experiences in life and the meaning we make out of them because we make me we are meaning-making machines, it's what we do. And the meaning is very often not the intent, you know. So we don't, you know, it often gets contorted in the process from intention to the meaning we derive from it. She's now, because she's a very wise human being and she's she's done a lot of work on herself, she's now able to calibrate those, but she knows that what it's done is it has created in her a certain set of characteristics and behaviour patterns that are the result of that. You know, she she is deeply independent, she never had children. Uh she did it, she made the decision early on never to have children, and it was reinforced year by year, being my child. Um, you know, so I I find it, you know, I can't remember the name of the poet now, you know, they fuck us up, our mum and dad, you know, that that one, that one. We do, they do, we do, and um and that is kind of the point, isn't it? The kind of the point is that you were saying earlier that um, you know, you're not finished, you're always a work in progress. I mean, I am we're we're a work, God willing, we are a work in progress until the day we die. Because the last thing you want to do is to be able to say, I'm done, I'm cooked, finished. No, no, no, no, no. Um I I couldn't imagine anything worse than being at that point in my life to say, like, done, you know, I'm I'm done now, I'm cooked. I know people who are that way and they are deeply content. And I think that that's that's fine for them. And I expect that on the excuse my prejudice, on the evolutionary spectrum, they're somewhere still in the basement, frankly.

SPEAKER_01 30:23

Would be my would be my judgment on it. But being content would be really nice, right? To one day just wake up and think, oh, I've I've done, yeah. Yeah, I mean I'm I'm content in that my life is wonderful, but I mean, it would be nice to wake up and think, I've learned it all, I'm done evolving.

SPEAKER_00 30:42

That would be interesting, but I I think this is something that I never realized when I was younger, that contentment can coins can coexist with striving and can coexist with frustration and it can coexist with disappointment in yourself. It can actually coexist with that because contentment comes from a series of if it all ended now, today. I mean, I was at the lake, the Banyola's lake this morning with number two grandson, and then I was coming back to the other children, and I thought, if I drop dead today, or more likely crash the car because that appeared to be the direction I was going in. It's been a day with the car. Um, then I would think, oh my gosh, haven't I been lucky? Haven't I been fortunate? Thank God I got out of the hole I was in long enough to be able to appreciate this and enjoy it. And when I go, they'll still think of me as a slightly batty, etc., etc. But you know, I will have been a person of substance in their life, not some useless thing. And that doesn't stop me being mad with myself. I've not done more, achieved more, got more to do, more things. I think those things can coexist. I think it's important that they do.

SPEAKER_02 31:59

Yeah, I feel I'm a Gemini, so I get very bored very easily, and I can do things for a little bit, and then I'm like on to the next thing because I just don't like to feel stagnant.

SPEAKER_00 32:11

Out of interest, did you do the little test in the book?

SPEAKER_02 32:14

Not yet, because I I'm halfway I'm halfway through.

SPEAKER_00 32:17

My my my feeling is that you will come out somewhere in there as a high ranking as a seven, then because sevens usually do that board, board, board, board, butterfly. Oh, butterfly. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:28

Okay, yeah. Um, so I you know, I I'm like, there you go. See, that's my page is a marked. Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay, yes. So I I think that, yes. So um I'm I did with this would be his Enneagram, and I do test as a helper. I do test as a two with a wing three, but you're saying maybe I'm a seven. So I do kind of feel like I waffle with some of these.

SPEAKER_00 32:54

The thing about, and I think if anyone's listening to this and they're thinking, what the fuck are they talking about? This test, this little Enneagram test is simply about saying when we develop and we have our genetic predispositions, and then we have our epigenetics, which is our family and our environment and everything else, we develop a way of operating in the world to make ourselves safe in the world. And so we develop styles of behavior. They're not set in stone, and people shouldn't think that they've been shoved in a box, but they often can help explain why you do what you do. And the important thing is not actually necessarily the outcome, although it's extraordinary how many women. I mean, I every time someone does one of those tests, I get an email message and it doesn't tell me who did it, but it tells me what the results are. And the predominance of twos for women is off the chart because women are socialized into being helpers. Women are socialized into it from birth. Because you have to remember that this these characteristics, this, these behaviors are are roughly from the age of zero to roughly seven. So in that space of time, you've been socialized into being a helper.

SPEAKER_01 34:14

Yeah, we were talking about this earlier, is I write, I color, color between the lines, uh-huh. Don't go outside the box. People please, right? Say you we live in a wonderful family, but we were told what to do and we knew the expectation, and there wasn't pushback. It was you just did what you did. And I am a helper all the way through. And we actually on another podcast, I learned a line that I now actually think to myself probably a few times a day, which is when someone is telling me something, my immediate response is to jump in and fix it. Oh, I've got it. I'll fix it. Is I'll do this is do you want to be helped or do you want to be heard?

SPEAKER_02 34:58

And we that's what we do with our kids now, too. Do you want to be helped when or do you want to be heard? I'm happy to listen, but I'm also here to help.

SPEAKER_00 35:06

That has literally changed the game for my relationship with my kids because I want to just miss it massively, and and I had that today with the grandchildren because I went in to do something for my oldest grandson. They said, Grandma, no, that's my job. Oh, fine, backed out of the room. Um, so it's so important because we disable our children and we disable other people, and this is disable in the best sense of the word, when we don't allow them to find their own way through. I have a big thing about controlled failure. I mean, I think controlled failure is one of the most loving and most difficult things you can do for someone you care about, especially your children. I mean, I use it a lot in business where um you actually can see someone heading in a direction that they shouldn't be heading in, or trying to take a decision, and then you think, I know from experience that is not going to play out well. And provided it doesn't kill them, you have to let them do it because, like I was saying earlier, people often, well not often, almost entirely, don't understand something until it's happened to them. People don't see the uh consequences of certain decisions until they've taken them themselves. We can't we can't short circuit that process, but but parents, particularly parents these days, but but people in general and people in work often they want to say, I want to stop that mistake being made. But until the mistake is made, they won't learn because there are no consequences. So cause and effect is terribly important. And we're not good at controlled failure as a society now. It used to be we were much better because people would be let loose to go out and play outside in the countryside or to go and ride horses or to work with machinery. And you know, the the causes of not thinking carefully about security is you'd lose a finger or you'd lose a hand or you'd you know whatever it is. Now that was not controlled failure, but it was failure. And trust me, once that's happened to you, you learn. But that controlled failure for kids, you know, drink too much, you're gonna get sick, don't turn up to school, it's not gonna go too well for you. But we want to stop that happening, and in stopping that happening, we are literally stopping them learning because you cannot learn at a distance from someone else, you have to do it yourself, and it is exceptionally difficult as a parent or an employer to step away and say, Let me let me tell you what I think, but this is your decision, and then all they have to know is I will be there. I mean, I was saying to someone the other day, you know, we love our children unconditionally, it doesn't mean we like them, right? Um, and so we can afford to say, I love you unconditionally, and I will be here. You know, if you really cock this up, I will be here. Off you go and do it. But if you're gonna have to learn that lesson the hard way, then then do it. Terribly hard to do. That is good parenting.

SPEAKER_01 38:22

And I think you saying that, it makes me think that I always jumped in to solve the problem because I don't want to be uncomfortable. Right? Because they're I watching them be uncomfortable makes me uncomfortable.

SPEAKER_02 38:39

Yes, me too.

SPEAKER_01 38:40

I want to solve it and fix it so everyone's good, but I don't have to sit in the hard watching them suffer.

SPEAKER_00 38:48

Because like that that observation is so so important because the reality is that we we we think we are doing it for them and we're not, we're doing it for ourselves, and that is selfish parenting because good parenting is really, really hard. And I have yeah, I've failed time and time and time again that oh my I tell you what, I I actually see my my son and daughter-in-law do really good parenting because they do things that I flinch at, and I think can't you just let him? And no, we can't. No, we can't. It's not gonna, he's not gonna learn if he doesn't do that.

SPEAKER_02 39:27

Yeah. I think that I can, you know, see I do the same thing you do, although I'm I'm learning and forcing myself to be a little bit more um allow them, allow them to fail, and um therapies help me a lot with that. But with my husband dying, I see not only my mom or my family or my girlfriends, they just they want to fix it. And it's like, I sometimes you just need people just to sit with you, which you guys are so good at. But I imagine for my mom, it's very difficult for her to watch me walk this grief road because she wants to just fix it all for me. And it's like sometimes I just need nobody to, I can't, nobody can fix it, you know. So it is, I have to just walk through this experience on my own. But what I find really valuable is that now I am able to help people that are behind me, you know, widows and widowers behind me, which is isn't that the it's like that's the goal, that's what I want. I want to be able to help people do that.

SPEAKER_00 40:31

Yeah, and the whole the whole short-term pain, long-term gain thing is such a phenomenally true statement because you know, we we defer our happiness now, our relief now, or whatever it is, um, into and it's and it's uncomfortable. But but what we get in the long term is an exponential return on that because we get resilient, thoughtful, capable human beings who are able to do things. Um, yeah, it's but but that's not not really the norm just now.

SPEAKER_01 41:08

It's so, and we've really gone to We've really gone south. We've really, yeah. I was saying my parents were like, yeah, you're gonna live, you're going to you're going to live and breathe by your consequences. Yeah. So you have an action, you do whatever, and they let us do that. Yeah. And I went the other way. Oh, I have to bubble wrap, I have to make everything okay, especially after everything fell apart, is because I'm I've already caused this catastrophe and I've already told my kids now, I will pay your copay for therapy because I broke you, right? I was part of the problem.

SPEAKER_00 41:40

I have been there and I have and I have felt, and I still do at times feel, oh my god, if only I, but you did not leave a marriage, or a marriage did not break up because you were the only party in that process, you know, and and and you know, we we end up carrying these huge burdens of I broke you. I mean, I do still, I look at my my son's 50 in January and my daughter's 48, and I still think, oh my god, what did I do that caused this? It was called life, and you know, there are many, many couples who stayed together and who caused it as much, if not more, damage to their children because they demonstrated someone said earlier, I I never saw my parents fight. Actually, do you know what? Of course they fought. Of course they fought. If they didn't fight, they were either not talking to each other or they should have been talking to each other, or they were doing it somewhere else. So they didn't teach you that bit either. So your parents fuck you up because your parents are still growing and they're still developing and they're still making mistakes, and it's what we do. And if everybody can just get over that and say, Oh, that's what happens. I mean, I look at people, I look at my some of my daughter's friends now who are critical of their parents. I mean, fortunately, and unless they say it very privately and I don't hear it, my children tend not to criticize me other than Francis saying that 74-year-old is not the 45-year-old who brought me up. But I hear people criticizing their parents for the way they brought them up when those parents were the age those children are now bringing up their own children and making the same mistakes, and they've not joined those dots. But those parents, because we don't see our parents like that, do we? We we think somehow they were always that. No, they weren't. They were kids.

SPEAKER_01 43:40

I say that all the time to my girls. Is this and my girls and I are very close, and my three girls are phenomenal, and we thankfully came through our issues together, cohesive, and they're wonderful adults. And we will continue to say always they're incredible. But I always say to my oldest who's 26, I was parent, I'm parenting you for the first time at 26 when I was parenting you at 12. This is my first go round. So every year we get older, this is still my first go round. So, like you have to give me grace. I you I give you grace, and thankfully they're incredible. But that's it, is this is my first time every single day doing something different with kids of these ages.

SPEAKER_02 44:22

Well, they they say this is my first day doing this day.

SPEAKER_00 44:26

Right, right. It's so so true. And I see it so profoundly when I'm with my grandchildren. And I think, you know, this is also my first time doing it with the grandchild. And I think I I don't know how it's going to be. I happen to have, I mean, I've got three lovely grandchildren, but one is exceptionally deep and wise and was absolutely here before. And I can actually say to them, Archie, I got that entirely wrong. I said, Grandma, don't worry about it. It's fine. You've not done this before.

SPEAKER_01 44:57

Okay, quick break.

SPEAKER_02 44:59

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SPEAKER_02 45:43

I do have a question, uh kind of going back to your daughter and just kind of what you were saying about raising her in your 40s and now you're in your 70s. Have you has she ever approached you and ha wanted to kind of get an apology from you for something? Or have you ever acknowledged to her, you know, I was, I'm sorry that that happened when I was in my 40s? And I'm sorry that that was an issue. Or yeah, I just wonder, how did you handle if she, if you know that you had some stuff in the for in your 40s raising her, I'm 49. Um, how did you have you all have you just gotten along, or have you ever really had to dig deep and go to her and say, I'm really sorry that that happened in your life. And I hope it didn't, you know, how did it affect you? Let me apologize for that and then move through it. Or I just am curious how, you know, it sounds like you have a fabulous relationship with your kids.

SPEAKER_00 46:41

I have never had to do that, although I have acknowledged to her on many occasions. Frances, that was shit, you know, and I've acknowledged, and I think sometimes acknowledging actually to a third party in their hearing in some way or another is even more profound. You know, so I have said to other people in other books I've written or other material I've done or podcasts I've been on, you know, my daughter assumed too much responsibility in her teenage years for me because I was I wasn't well and also I was a clusterfrog. Um, and so she knows that bit about me. Now I was exceptionally fortunate in that my daughter kind of went through the process of trying to understand herself um in her 20s and 30s, and so she uh has been able to weed out and and whittle out from all those things that happened. Actually, yes, some of those things were truly shit at the time, but oh my gosh, what have they given me? So she got to there herself. I can't I can't take credit for it. She and I have never had um a sort of joint therapy or whatever. I think it would be terrifying. I'm terrified of my daughter. I mean, I I adore her. But she is she is whip, we all are. I mean, she is whip smart, she can't take anything off her face. She knows this, you know, her her face, everything gets to her face first, and um and and she's she's highly judgmental and highly able and scares the shit out of all of us. So um and she's yeah, and she is the most loving, amazing human per human being. But at times I'm sure she has disliked me intensely or found me pitiful, actually, and and pathetic. And now, as she's got older, she's able to see that those falling down, getting up, falling down, getting up is kind of part of the human condition for some people, not for not for everyone, but for some people. And so she's had the grace, thank God, to be able to cut myself back for that. Um, but I still I still irritate the shit out of her sometimes. I know, you know, sometimes I just know from I'm thinking, oh God.

SPEAKER_02 49:02

I love that. And you know, the reason I ask is because, you know, online there's just like you talked about the word trigger earlier and how it's a oh, it's like a buzzword, just like narcissism. And now I feel like there's emotionally immature parents, a lot of um content on on the internet about that. And then you start to read, and it's like like you said, they've only they were only given what they they knew how to do growing up, and it's a it's an up and down, and so it's like there's this like push-pull of I think it's our generation too that has really gone more into therapy and really like acknowledging, really like just talking.

SPEAKER_00 49:45

Yeah, and and just yeah, so I just was wondering because it's you know, it was just uh a thought I think there is something very important that has happened, which is that um for so many young people, and when I say young, I mean you know, in their like teens and moving into early 20s, they they quite literally have been in a position where their parents did not know how to parent, didn't know how to set boundaries, weren't prepared to go through the discomfort of setting boundaries and not being liked by their children, that they are held emotional hostage by their children. And I know many, many parents in their 40s and 50s who are literally held emotional hostage by their children. Now, I was brought up in in such a way, I mean, Scottish Protestant, I was brought up in such a way that if my parents said no, it was no. I brought my kids up with much looser rules, but they were there were very much rules. You know, and with my grandchildren, we sit down at the dinner table every night, properly set together for dinner. I ask them to do something, and if I have to ask them again, and their parents are the same, it is a I have asked you this once, don't make me ask you again. Because you know, there are these are just simple, simple things around saying we live together, and to live together in harmony, we just have to all do our bit and lift our bit of the load. But parents don't want to have that, and and if you say if you you know it it doesn't hurt so much when they're seven and eight. It hurts like fuck when they're 17 and 18. You know, if they get to 17 and 18 and they think they can say no or they can just ignore you, you're fucked, you can't do anything about that. I don't I don't I remember once I the only time my daughter ever spoke back to me, and I mean that's not to say that she and I haven't had a to and fro, but it's been a mutual exchange. But she was about 16 and a half, and her father and I had divorced, he'd gone to Hong Kong, it was a hideous time, and she was angry with me, and she was angry with him, and she was angry with everybody. And I said something to her about not doing something, and she's and she's taller than me, and she stood in front of me and she said, What are you going to do about it? And I thought, oh fuck, I have to find a new way of negotiating this relationship, and and I and I and we did, but you know, we are we're all going to get as parents to the point where your children can't be picked up and taken to their bedroom and put on their bed and the door shut and said, You will stay there until you know, and and if you don't negotiate that when they're young, you're screwed when they're when they're older. And when they're older, older still, they will have no respect for you because children want and need boundaries. They don't like them, but when they're in their 20s and 30s, they'll be angry with you for not having given them boundaries. So, you know, people don't know that.

SPEAKER_01 52:57

Well, and if they if you don't have respect for your parents, you're not going to have respect for anybody else. And that's what we're seeing in America, especially I think with our young people, is the willingness to go through hard times, work hard, hustle, have respect for people, listen versus speaking. It's it's gotten a little bit crazy over here.

SPEAKER_00 53:20

Yeah. Well, it's it is here too. It is in the whole Western world. I mean, it's the decline and fall of the Roman Empire played out two and a half thousand years later, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_01 53:32

Yeah, no, we become soft parents. I and I'm one of those. I will say my girls thankfully grew up to be wonderful, functioning, fabulous adults and they're all thriving. But I will say is I have apologized to them. I have apologized for the things I feel like I didn't do well and said, hey, I'm sorry that let's say when we blended our family, that I chose some things I think looking back, if I went back and did differently, I would I would change the course. But I do acknowledge how you feel, and I do acknowledge the pain that that caused. And I'm truly sorry about it. And if I could do it over, I would do it differently. And we've had those conversations.

SPEAKER_02 54:13

Yeah, I mean, we've we I come from a blended family, so we're great at talking about my perspective as coming from a child of a blended family, giving her perspective on the girls getting older and really appreciating the step parent later in life. In my 30s, I think it took me to truly go, you know, this person really stepped in, you know, and and took us on. But, you know, that's a that's a I just think having girlfriends is just like the best thing you can do to just keep each other accountable in this life where you want to just be reinvent yourself and become this different person who you know maybe you were stuck in this cage, right? Your whole life. And now in our 40s and 50s, we're like, we mean we want to like do different things. I'm tired of being in that cage. I'm all of that. Like, I just a lot of our friends are the same.

SPEAKER_01 55:08

Agree. So I have a question about the so for people who haven't read the book, is if you can kind of give a snippet of the overview, and this kind of plays into this, is sort of breaking out and stopping like you don't have to listen to everybody else that you sort of were pre-programmed to listen to. Give sort of your takeaway, I mean, how you wrote it, this part of it, and what people can really take away from it. And people, by the way, you've got to go buy the book, and we'll have it all over. I've read it one and a half times. I will finish it again the next couple days. I will probably read this book, honestly. I know, probably once a year for the rest of my life because it's got so you can't get it all in the first pass. There's so many nuggets. But anyway, I'm gonna turn it back to you.

SPEAKER_02 55:56

A little snippet, like a snippet about your book, but also really um I would love your advice to women out there. Um, you know, nobody is coming to save us, right? So I know you speak on that. And what is your advice for women that just feel like they have this beautiful, you know, life that they wish that they had in this, you know, and they're stuck in this cage, like nobody's coming to save you. How do you start to get out of your cage and live the life, the purpose that you're meant here, meant to do here?

SPEAKER_00 56:30

Well, I think I think the most important thing is that we as women are conditioned and programmed literally from birth to be a certain way. And we are we are surrounded all the time just now about commentary on how we should be, how we should present ourselves, how we should behave, and everything else is exceptions to the rule. And one of the big problems that women have, and I became acutely aware of it just this weekend because I've been here looking after my grandchildren, is that much of what keeps us in our cage is love. It is it is the love for our children, it is the love for creating a nice home, it is the love for a partner, it is the love for doing things and being the helper. And it is the natural, you know, I I do believe firmly that women are naturally more caregiving than men are, and because of that, we're kept there by love. And in order to not let that consume us, because people will take advantage of it, people will take advantage of it, and we will overgive because we're we're we're reluctant to lose the love by setting the boundaries. We help build our own cage, the cage is built, and we kind of fix the lock on the door. So, what we have to do in order to get out of that, in order to still be the loving, caring human beings that we are, but have our own lives and our own boundaries, is that we have to understand how we take and how we, by controlled failure, allow other people to live their lives so that we can live our lives. And what we do most of the time is that we spend all our time up until our midlife or a little bit later than midlife fixing everyone else, doing everything for everyone else, that when we get to the end, they're all there, and we are a husk, and and then we're thinking, now what do I do? Now it is possible to rebuild from 50 to 74 because I did it, and I'm not saying that in any way boastful, but why wait until you're 50? Why not start earlier to build? And this is why I wrote the book. I wrote the book because I wanted to say to women, and I think I need to write an addendum somewhere, but this weekend has really, really taught me about how that cage is partly constructed by love. I have nearly killed myself this weekend doing all the laundry, all the ironing. I've even sewn up the fucking dog's bed because it was pulling the lining out the inside. And and I had other things to do, but I wanted to do these things because they would make the life here for the people I love better. That is the example of how women do it to ourselves. We say, I'm going to put now, if I was here full time, I wouldn't do that. I was here for a short space of time, and so I did it. But for a lot of women, they do that all the time. They put themselves, they're not, it's not the last on the list, they're not on the list at all. Get yourself on the list, clamber your way up the list, and and by clambering your way up the list, uh when your children are older, as your children are now getting there, they will thank you more for being a happy, fulfilled, striving, contented as far as one ever can be as a human being, a confident woman, than they will for being someone who is broken because her children have left home and she doesn't know what to do with herself. They're not going to thank you for that. They might love it when they're eight, nine, ten, even fifteen, sixteen, but when they're 26 and 36, they want to know that mum is fine, mum is cracking on, she's out there. Get on with it now, start it now. That's what I wanted Ferrell to do was to say, you need to be putting in the building blocks and building up the muscular strength now in yourself. In in every way, psychologically, emotionally, spiritually, physically, in every way, in order to be a unique, independent human being who still can give dramatically of yourself for everybody else, when you choose to and when necessary, but knows that unless they are solid in themselves, they'll never be able to do it. That's that's what Ferr was about.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:05

That is, I mean, it's that was like, ooh, I just love that. So to someone that is not on the list in their 20s, in their 30s, had they have little ones. Because I always tell, you know, people that are married, I had a crazy marriage for a lot of years, and then it was really beautiful. And when your kids are grown and they're gone and you look at each other and you're like, oh, I married what are we supposed to be doing now? How do you tell the woman who's not even on the list what are a couple things that she can start to do to get herself on the list? Because I wasn't on the list.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:40

Well, I mean, I thought I think I think the first thing you have to do is to recognize that unless you have a life that is recognizably your own, you're not on the list. So what what are you doing for yourself? Is it that you go for a walk? Is it that you can go for a run without asking? Is it that you can go for a lie down? I mean, people, women ask for permission to do things. I I saw a LinkedIn post um two days ago, and I responded to it like that, and I was wagingly angry. This woman was saying how she'd had a most hideous month, she hadn't been well, her business was doing X, Y, and Z. She'd had a few technological challenges. And at the very end, in the last sentence, she wrote, and my husband finished the Portugal Iron Man last week, and he had done 400 hours of training. And I went back and I said, Oh, that's nice for him. His me type. He's had 400, he's had 400 hours of walking out of the fucking door and saying, I'm going training, or you've been bringing up three children, running a business, dealing with illness and dealing with a sick parent. And and you know, the the most telling thing of all, and this should tell every woman out there what you need to do, is that she wrote all of that about what she was dealing with, and the last line was the sentence about her husband. And if she doesn't wake up to that, then she's gonna have to have someone come around there and deal with it.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:09

We are so programmed to self-sacrifice. I mean, that was a huge that was like wow, that was a that was a big she respond to that post.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:17

I went back to her and said, Oh, that's nice me time. Did you get the equivalent? And she came back with ha ha ha ha, that's not gonna happen. And I thought she doesn't even see now. So if you are in a relationship and that is how it is, you have to recognize first of all that that is an imbalanced relationship. And if you choose for it to continue to be an imbalanced relationship, then you have to ask yourself why you're choosing. Are you choosing because you're scared to bring it up? Are you choosing because it's never been brought up before and you're worrying about what might happen if you do? Um, is it because you don't know what you would do with extra time? Is it because you need to be there? Which is why I always go back to please, please, please do that little Enneagram test. Spend some time first of all, first of all, thinking about yourself and why you do what you do. Because if you are, let's say, um a number six, which is safety and security, a woman who is a number six, uh, predominantly she will have all the other nine uh parts of the all the other eight parts of the Enneagram in her, but she will be so determinedly focused on safety and security and certainty that she will almost certainly do nothing to rock the boat. She'll be terrified of doing anything to rock the boat. So what she needs to do is she needs to learn how to open the because her partner may be absolutely blissfully unaware. I mean, not all men are bastards. We mustn't go through life thinking that all men are bastards. Some men are just going along with the pattern that they were handed by their parents and by their society and by their environment and by the marriage or the partnership that they have. And no one has said, you know, how you go off every morning at seven o'clock to do your training run, and I get the children up and give them their breakfast, and I take them to school. And I would like to do what you do 50% of the time. And actually, that might just be lying in bed. It doesn't matter what it is, because it's her time.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:24

Right. It does make me wonder if she is truly programmed to not even recognize that she is deserving and allowed to do that. I mean, that blows my mind. Like this is just normal life. This is like we you take your role in mind. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:42

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, for in she this, this in the remember, this was a post on LinkedIn, which is a professional platform, and she was talking about her business and her work, and she has a professional profile, and she was still saying, Oh, and my husband did an iron man and it was 400 hours of training, and she couldn't see the irony. She couldn't see that that was demented, demented behavior. So that I think just getting getting women to my thing about writing fell was to say, please can I ask you to see what is happening in your world? I don't react to it yet. Just see it first, then go inside and say, Now, how do I interact with the world? How do I behave? Now, how can I take how I am and the world and work out how to move my external environment in a way that is fair and equitable and healthy for me, and that will make it fair and equitable and healthy for everyone else. But I'll start with me, thank you.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:53

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:56

Check mark.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:57

I know.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:57

I mean, honestly, I it's so good so many takeaways.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:01

So many takeaways. And I got it from my daughters and I gave it to friends, and it is, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:06

I mean Yeah, she yeah, I mean she's she's handing it out like candy, which I'm so so blessed about. But the bottom line is we're here for a very, very, very short time. And if you and like you said before, until you've lost a spouse, gone through a divorce, gone through a divorce, you know, had whatever, you know, a diagnosis, lost a child, whatever, you truly don't know. But there are, you know, ways around to be compassionate and uh and try to understand um, you know, what other people are going through. But we're all I mean, I just think, oh my gosh, nothing, hardly anything bothers me anymore after my husband passed because it's it takes so much energy to even think about, and it that's sad. It might be a family died in, you know, the you in London last weekend and they're Americans. I I am sorry, but I then I'm like, I just can't process that or take it in. But we're just here for such a short time. I'm like, we need to live the best life we possibly can. And I want everybody to be feral.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:10

I think I think I think one last thing I do want to say is that you know, we we go through life and we do things and we we know that there may be long-term negative consequences of it. So we may smoke or we may vape or we may drink too much alcohol or eat too many ultra-processed foods or whatever it is, and we do it, but we kind of have it in our head, yeah, there could be shit down the line for this, but right now, this is the pleasure I get. As God is my witness, every human being as they get older does look back and think, I wish I wish I had, I wish I had said this, I wish I had changed that, I wish I had been braver. Every human being does it. It is the deathbed mantra. So don't so if you know that that's on the horizon for you, then try try and catch it earlier. Just try and catch it earlier. Some of the stuff, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:09

Yeah, and it's just one little thing, just change one small thing, just yeah, and start there and then build that into something else and continue on, is absolutely, absolutely. No, I well, I wait.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:23

I like I just have our clo our closing line, which I really was excited to say. If you could sit next to every woman listening for 30 seconds, what would you whisper to her to have a to break out of her cage and just know this life is the only one you're given, and go out and live it big, make mistakes, do all the things. So if yes, if all of our listeners were sitting in a room with you, which they are, what would you say to them? Just one final thought, and it can have a curse word and it can involve wine, and that is what we like.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:58

There is nothing you can do that will put yourself first or at least higher in the list that you will ever live to regret.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:11

I love that.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:12

It makes me emotional. May find out, but you never live to regret it. Never.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:19

Yeah, it's like makes me emotional because I, you know, you just want your the best for your kids and you know, your girlfriends, and you want them to see, you know, it's like, yeah, I just I don't know, yeah. It just makes me first on the list. Yeah, I just yeah, I'm now I'm first on the list. Now I'm first on the list.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:41

I yeah, I'm like, I never was on the list, and I put my I never even thought about being on the list.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:46

Don't even know there is a list. Don't even know there is a list.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:50

Honestly, I didn't want to be on the list because it meant I had to look at myself, yeah, and I had to be really honest about the things I didn't love about myself and the things I did like and encouraging the things I didn't want to like the growth part that came after I got divorced. I intentionally wasn't on the list.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:08

One last thing I would really like to leave your listeners with is that and not all of your listeners will have had children of their own, biological children of their own. But they will certainly have had people or or even pets. I know this sounds trite, but something that they would genuinely give their lives for. They would just fall over for. And we we love them unconditionally. We love them when they are shits, we love them when they are horrific, we love them when they make mistakes. We don't always like them. Sometimes we want to scream and shout at them, and we just don't want to see them for a minute, but we love them. And the moment they turn up at our front door, we we just embrace them and we love them. Love yourself like that, with all your faults and with all your mistakes, and with all the times that you think this is ugly and horrible and awful. That is what we are here for. And if you can love yourself like that, I never understood it. I genuinely didn't until I was well into my late 50s, early 60s, the notion of loving myself and recognizing that that's why I'm here. Because if I can love myself, I can then love everybody else appropriately. But if I don't do that first, it's game over.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:28

Absolutely. It's like putting your airplane mask on first. Yep. And then giving it to whoever is sitting next to you. Don't worry about that guy yet. Worry about yourself first, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:40

Oh I love it.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:43

Yeah, I just uh this was just like by like one of my most favorite, favorite podcast guests and episodes. It just truly, I just loved it so much.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:53

And we will have the book links, we'll have your links, but everyone listening, it is I don't talk about I don't think I've actually ever talked about a book to any of my friends or children. And this one I am so thankful that we that we were you found us and that I was introduced to it. And it is absolutely something that I am taking to heart and working on and will continue to work on. And I'm so happy to pass along to other people.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:24

Well, thank you both.