Today is your someday with Tamsen Fadal
We refuse to stay behind a locked door, curled in a corner waiting for midlife to pass.
Midlife isn’t a stage we need to endure or wait out. It’s a point in time when we can boldly embrace who we are. And we are kicking the door wide open.
We’re not alone in breaking down the midlife door and boldly barging through. This week, we are talking with Tamsen Fadal journalist, role model, and champion for women. Tamsen Fadal anchors the primetime news for WPIX-TV in New York City. She also hosts a weekly podcast Coming Up Next, where she explores stories of women creating the next phase of their lives and is the author of the book The New Single. And if that isn’t enough, Tamsen is currently producing a documentary on menopause. A true Gen Xer, having it all and doing it all.
In this episode, Tamsen talks about bouncing back from a very public divorce which led to crushing debt, and her own menopause struggles including brain fog which disrupted her ability to read on air, and why she is passionate about menopause education.
She firmly believes Gen X women owe it to themselves to believe today is their someday. We do too.
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Here are some highlights from our conversation:
“My end goal is to educate and help women thrive in midlife. That's my goal.”
“You’ve been thinking about doing that big, bold thing for a long time and it always gets pushed back to someday. Guess what? Your someday is now.”
“If it's something that I've said yes to just because I feel guilt or I feel like, oh, this is going to make somebody happy, but I really have no intention of doing anything beyond this phone call. I've just learned to be really honest about it. Like, at this point in my life, I'm not able to do that. When I can, I'll let you know, instead of leading somebody in the wrong direction, but to waste my time and their time, frankly.”
“I am learning to be comfortable with uncomfortable conversations because I think that, one, that's the only way that you don't get that feeling in your stomach that's like that dread.
And two, because I think that there's nothing worse than not being honest with somebody about where you're at and trying to make them feel better. And then in the end it doesn't make anybody feel good at all. It's a hard lesson, though.”“I start every day with a plan, but I look at it the night before, and I'm like, what can I take off this list?”
“I was the first one in my family to get divorced. I'd gotten married much later in life, so I thought, I want to make sure that I do this perfectly. The perfect time to get married, the perfect person. And so when all that was clearly not the case, that was hard for me and so I was embarrassed by it.”
”I think the brain fog was what really scared me because I really had a hard time feeling confident in my job because I would look at words that were familiar to me and my head wouldn't I couldn't process what those were.”
“I was really scared. I really was. That's part of the reason that I talk so much about it. Because if somebody else is having that and doesn't have another outlet or doesn't know to go to a doctor or hasn't experienced it yet, but then goes and experiences it, maybe that's in the back of their minds, like, oh, I heard this girl talking about this.”
“The first thing that I think about is confidence. That's where I see a big hole, myself included. I think we all kind of go through those, but I think that lifting people up into fix that space would be incredible.
And then I think we'd also see women not be afraid of moving further in their careers at an older age, which I often hear a lot of them say, like oh, I'm going to switch careers, I'm going to do something different.
And some of them do it out of just pure passion and that I love and that's where the confidence goes into play. Some of them do it out of fear. I think they are afraid to ask for a promotion, afraid to ask for more money, grateful to just be there.”“I'm hopeful that they feel like that's where they belong and that people are lucky to have them, not that they're lucky to be there. And I think that we can change that mindset.
I think that's a mindset not just for women, for men too, but in particular for women because I think women struggle with that the most. Men really focus on their careers their entire lives and I think women have a lot of different little tributaries they have to go down along the way in their careers.
And I think that could look like more money, equal pay. I think it could look like balance in their lives. I think it could look like confidence at the end of the day and feeling good about what they've done and where they're going.”“I'm trying to take those little moments and make those building blocks to how to help people become bolder in whatever it is they want to do. That doesn't mean that it's easy to walk in and quit your job and start your new company. But I think that little things help build up to that.”
“I think you have to sit down and look at what every part of that day looks like because I still do it today. The night before, around eight or 09:00, I look at the next day and say, is all of this moving toward my purpose? And if it's not, I eliminate it. And I can't help it if it disappoints somebody. And it sucks. And I don't like to disappoint somebody, and I try to make up for it somehow, but I have to, at the end of the day, do it for myself because we don't have that many more years left. How many more years do we all have on the planet, even when you're first born? It's not that many years if you think about it.”
Mentioned in this episode:
Tamsen Fadal: Thrive in midlife
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