This episode feels like a warm hug with our newest British friend who just GETS IT! It's a beautiful conversation with Elizabeth Day. Elizabeth is a journalist, podcaster and the author of several best-selling books, including "How to Fail: Everything I've Learned from Things Going Wrong.”
In this chat we cover off 4 big F words:
Failure - How Elizabeth's 'failed' marriage and attempts to have a child taught her so much about herself
Finding purpose - How those adversities led her to seeking a different purpose for her life and how our purpose isn't always tied to raising children
Friendship - Learning quality over quantity
Fertility privilege - Having more awareness around people who may be struggling with fertility
If you'd like to check out Elizabeth's podcast, books or Aus tour, you can find everything here!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Life Uncut acknowledges the traditional custodians of country whose lands
were never seated. We pay our respects to their elders
past and present.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Always was, always will be Aboriginal Land. This episode was
recorded on drug Wallamuta Land.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Hi guys, and welcome back to another episode of.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Life un Cut.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
I'm Brittany and I'm Laura, and this is our Wednesday episode,
which still sounds weird, but it is. We're dropping every
week our interview as a separate episode, and we have
such a freaking amazing episode for you guys. Today we
are interviewing Elizabeth Day, who you might know her from
the absolute behemoth of a podcast which is How to
Fail Now. I loved this chat so much, and it's
(00:48):
not just because Elizabeth is possibly the most well spoken
interviewee that we have ever had.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
Yeah, but she's not even just a podcast.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
She's an amazing journalist. She's a best selling author. She's
got books including How to Fail Everything I've Learned from
Things Going Wrong. The podcast in the UK is absolutely
huge where she speaks to some of the biggest people
in the world to unpack failure. What does that failure
look like to them? What has it done for them.
How does it change their life? Has it helped them
be more successful? Has it been detrimental? And I think
(01:17):
it's a really incredible thing to look at these people
that from the outside we think are really successful and
just be reminded that everyone goes through failure.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
And it's okay. It's normal.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Yeah, but it's also not even just that it's okay.
I think one of the things that was so amazing
about this chat is that it's not that it's okay
and that it's normal, because it obviously is, but it's
about your reaction to failure, and it's about being able
to use failure as a way to either learn from it,
to grow from it, or like how you can change
the trajectory of your life. And I guess one of
the parts of this conversation, which I think for anybody
(01:51):
who has been through any fertility issues or maybe you
have found yourself going through a breakup in your late
thirties and you're like, holy shit, life has not panned
out how I expect it too. That's what I think
this conversation is, this is the candle in the dark
for anybody who has found that their life is not
where they expected it, and they have felt like a
failure because of that. Some of the things that we
(02:11):
touch on in this chat is Elizabeth's experience with pregnancy
and fertility and her not being able to be a
mother and not by choice. And also she talks about
something which was really freaking controversial at the time. She
talks about her take on fertility privilege and explains why
this is something that she feels so passionate about.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
Yeah, and I don't think it's just why she's passionate
about it.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
I think she explains it further as to why it's
not as controversial as it was taken. I think there
were a lot of headlines written about what she had
said and taken out of context. So anyway, let's jump
into the chat with Elizabeth. I'm very excited for today's
guest because as someone we've wanted on the podcast for
a very long time.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
It is Elizabeth Day. Welcome to Life on Cut. Thank
you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
Oh my god, we've actually been trying to get you
on for so long. So this is one of those
moments where I'm like, yes, we locked to you, Dan,
Now before you get too excited. We start every episode
with an accidentally unfiltered your most embarrassing story, Elizabeth, what
do you got for us?
Speaker 3 (03:09):
My most embarrassing, accidentally unfilled a moment was actually the
moment I met my now husband. So we got through it.
Spoiler alert, we got through it. Yeah, we're going to
scoop to the end, you know. But what happened was
I was dating on the apps in my late thirties,
so I had got divorced, and then I'd got into
(03:29):
a relationship with a younger man because I'm a massive cliche,
so I'd done that on the reband and then that
had ended just before my thirty ninth birthday. So I
was in the the unenviable position. And if anyone listening
is in this position, now, I see you, because it
is a jungle out there of just trawling through the
apps trying to find someone to go on a few
dates with. And I matched with this guy on Hinge
(03:50):
called Justin, who seemed very nice, but I wasn't sure
that there was any chemistry there. And it's partly because
I now know he is the least vain man you
will meat, and he just hadn't realized that the photos
didn't do him justice.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
But that is like a twist and a turn in
an online dating story. It never happens. It's always the opposite. Yeah,
you're always go on a date and you're like, this
man is hideous in comparison to his profile, exactly. And
that had been one hundred percent of my experience up
to that point. It had been the men who had
posed with kids with caption saying not my own yeah,
like big dogs and bathroom selfies in hotel rooms. So
(04:28):
my expectations were sub zero, to the extent that that morning,
the morning of the date, I had booked flights to
move to La full time.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
I was like, I'll just go. I'll keep this date
out of the way. I'm going to start my fabulous
new life. Anyway, I walked into this hotel bar and
I turned the corner and I saw this distractingly handsome
man sitting there, and I was like, oh, my gosh,
it's him. He was so handsome. I felt all a tizzy.
And it had been raining outside, and I was wearing
(04:57):
a coat, and I had an umbrella and a bag
and everything. And I walked across to meet him. And
it was one of those modern hotel bars where the
seats were sort of chrome, and they had a very
narrow base which fanned outwards. It's really open plans, so
loads of people there, and I sit down and I'm
taking my coat off, and I'm like, oh, it's so
nice to meet you, and like trying to give a
good impression, taking my bag off, putting my umbrella to
(05:18):
one side, and the seat starts to wobble, and I'm like,
that's fine, all right. Itself was still trying to give
a good impression, like I'm enigmatic and you'll want to
be with me, and then the seat just keeps on wobbling,
and at one point it just fatally hinges over and
I fall on the bar floor. Everything goes flying, my bag,
(05:42):
my umbrella, and my coat everything. I'm wearing a short
leather skirt because it's a first date, and so I
let a kimbo just honestly one of the most embarrassing things.
Everyone in that bar saw it, and Justin just came
rushing around and helps me up, and he kept saying,
oh my goodness, and he helped me up, and then
(06:03):
I was like, the only way I can cope with
this is just to style it out and pretend it
hasn't happened, so I just didn't mention it, didn't mention
it from then on. It it sounds like it could
be the start of a rom com. To be honest,
I know it was one of those things where I
was like, I know that if I make a joke
out of this, I won't be able to stop making
a joke about it and it will just be like relentless.
(06:24):
But what I really really liked about him was nice
of us mentioned it. If I sat on my chair
until about one cocktail in, I got up to go
to the toilet, and he just said quietly, don't fall over,
And I was like, oh, he's got And that's when
you're fell in love? Literally fell yeah? Oh yeah, literally,
I didn't know ever mean that. What happened then? If
(06:47):
you were booked to move cities that day? What happened?
Did you still go? Did you stay for love? Was
this like the rom com?
Speaker 1 (06:53):
We all need it?
Speaker 3 (06:54):
Yeah? I stayed for love. So I booked the tickets
that day, but they weren't to leave that day, so
they were to leave in like three months time, and
that gave me enough time to realize that this was
something really special. But he's an amazing person, justin but
he kind of left it up to me to decide,
which sounds weird because obviously it's you know, I'm a
(07:15):
modern woman, so you'd expect that from a relationship of equals.
But what I mean by that was that I was
at the stage in my life where I had been
used to being in quite dysfunctional romantic relationships, where I
wanted someone. I thought I wanted someone to say, God,
I'm so in love with you, don't leave. Let's just
make a life together. And actually he said, I can't
make that decision for you. You've got to decide, so
(07:36):
whatever's best for you. And I was a bit like, oh,
that's no help to me, is it. But that's what happened.
I decided to stay, and I'm so glad that I did.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Isn't It's so interesting that even you saying that like
that to me sounds like it's almost apathetic, like they
don't like, there's not enough care. I would think that
that wouldn't be enough of a commitment to derail my
original plans. But maybe that is what you should be
looking for rather than this, Like, especially in the initial
times of dating and the initial months of dating this
like all encompassing, like, oh my god, please don't leave
(08:06):
without you because you don't even know what you're in for,
so totally it's overstating it to be like, please stay
for me.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
I think you need like a bit of a healthy
bit of a bit to be like I want someone
to be like you are everything.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
I can't live without you. But you totally up to
you if you want it. Also not with yeah, someone
to declare their love, but like, but you desn I
think that was the subtext. But you're so right, Like
I just it took me a really long time to
understand that for me, true love is it represents safety
rather than you know, passion is completely wonderful and obviously
(08:40):
that's part of any long term relationship. But sometimes I
was definitely guilty of confusing dysfunction, fuck worchery for passion.
It was like the unpredictability was just so exciting. No
unpredictability stresses me out. I want someone to be where
they say they will be and to reply to my text.
I don't. I hate playing games the Boers High, Elizabeth.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
I know that we're going to get into unpacking sort
of how you did go through a divorce and finding
love again. But also to me, it's incredible how you
have created such a career and to anyone from the outset,
you are so successful. And so much of that conversation
has been off the back of speaking about your vulnerabilities,
the irony and speaking about failure and how that can
turn you into a success. But could you tell us
(09:29):
a little bit about for people in Australia who maybe
don't know your backstory, about where you grew up, what
life was like, kind of before you got into a
big romantic relationship that didn't work out the way you expected.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Sure.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
So I was born just outside London. My dad is
now retired, but he was a surgeon and he happened
to get a job in Ireland when I was four,
in the North of Ireland, and so we moved out
there in nineteen eighty two just to date myself. And
I don't know how popular Dairy Girls is in Australia,
but I watch Okay.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
I don't know if it's popular, but I think it's
hilarious and I think people have seen it, like I
think people know of it.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
Yeah, yeah, So Dairy Girls was basically my experience. We
moved just outside Derry, and as you can hear, I
speak with a very English accent, and it was a
time of civil war essentially in that province, and it
was quite a kind of weird stage to move because
there were bombs going off, you know, there was lots
of infighting, and to speak with an English accent in
(10:27):
certain areas marked you out not only as an outsider,
but as the enemy. And so it was a strange
place to grow up. And it was also really beautiful,
like the landscape in Ireland is so stunning. The people
are so great. When I was at primary school, I
had a really good time. But at secondary school, as
you know, as teenagers, that's when you start to identify
(10:48):
differences and you start to really want to belong to
your tribe, and I just never fitted in. So in
Dairy Girls, I was the equivalent of the weird English
cousin James. That was me And I ended up leaving
that school and getting a scholarship to a boarding school
in England. So when I was thirteen, I went to
a boarding school in England and it taught me a
lot about the importance of friendship, and I went to
(11:10):
that school absolutely determined to make friends and to be accepted.
And I've recently written a book about friendship called Friend
of Hollick, which is about my addiction to friendship. And
I think my addiction started there because for me, friendship
was a place of acceptance and belonging and it felt safer.
But what it took me much longer to unpack was
(11:31):
I was changing myself according to what I thought other
people wanted. So in the rush to be accepted, I
was sort of cutting myself to fit to size, whereas
actually now I realize in my forties that true belonging
is being welcomed exactly as you are. And I think
that also taught me a lot about failure and my
compulsion to people please probably led to me being in
(11:56):
a marriage that I shouldn't have been in because and
I think a lot of people relate to this, particularly women.
In my twenties and early thirties, it felt like the
most important thing was that other people liked me, including
my romantic partner, that I was quote unquote perfect for
them so they would never leave. And actually, in attempting
to be perfect spoiler alert, there's no such thing and
(12:19):
it's impossible, I was effacing myself I was negating my
own needs and I wasn't really living authentically. I was
outsourcing my sense of self to what I thought others wanted.
And so my life has been a process of unpacking
all of that.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
So before we scoop past the friendship and into relationships,
what is your taken now on friendships as an adult
woman that has a busy life, Because I think when
you're younger, you spread yourself pretty thin, and you want
to be a part of all the groups, and you
want to like you just said, you want everyone to
like you. But I guess I feel like I've always
been the opposite to that, and I've felt like as
(12:54):
much as I fit in with the small groups I have,
I've always had an unusually small amount of friends.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
Great question, and Britt, you'll be happy to know that
you're incredibly enlightened, because that is exactly how friendship should
be done, according to a pre eminent scientist in this
field called Robin Dunbar who's a professor of evolutionary psychology
and one of his areas of expertise is friendship, and
he says that friendship done at its best in a
(13:21):
way that feels sustainable for all parties. It starts with
having your core group of up to five key relationships.
There you go. He actually says up to five, and
he says, if you have a long term romantic relationship
or you have kids, that will generally cost you two
of those other intimate relationships because we just don't have
enough time, and for those friendships to sustain in quality,
(13:45):
we need to give time and attention to them. And
I think that's the thing that I've realized that time
is finite. And the pandemic was a huge waking up
point for many of us, and definitely for me in
this regard, because our diaries emptied overnight, and it was
very obvious to me who I really missed, and the
people that I really missed were not the people I
was spending most time with because my diary was filled
(14:07):
with other obligations, so it was filled with work stuff
or like acquaintances that I've met in yoga and suddenly
now I'm going for dinner with them. And I think
I've realized now that there's a difference between being friendly
and actively wanting to embark on a friendship, because friendship,
for me is one of the most profound elements of
(14:27):
my life. It's definitely the most consistent love of my life,
and so I want to commit to it, and I
can't commit to the same level to everyone. So now
I'm a lot more aware of those layers, and my
inner layer is slightly bigger than yours. It's like, probably
about ten or twelve. But my husband is much more
like you. He's very discerning in you know, my best
(14:48):
friend is also like you, very discerning in who they
allow in, and it sort of means that they can
trust those people beyond doubt. So I think that's the
main thing. I've realized that there are different friendships, different
reasons and different seasons of your life, and that also
I'm now of an age where some friendships have ended
and they're no longer an active part of my life,
(15:09):
but they forever changed how I see life, how I
experience it, and so in a way, although I no
longer see the friend in question for various reasons which
we can get into if you want, the friendship itself
still has an impact. So I don't think a friendship
is a failure just because it ends.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
I also think that that relates to romantic relationships, to
this idea that you know even if a romantic relationship
ends and it can be challenging, there are lessons to
be learned from that. And it's not like it's not
this idea of like I learned so much from being
traumatized by my ex. But you learn about yourself and
the process. You learn about the things that you do
want or don't want in your future. For you going
(15:48):
through divorce at thirty six, I'm sure that that wasn't
on your Bingo card for that time of your life.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
I'm sure that wasn't your plan. What was that period
of life like? It was really really tough, and thank
you for asking about it so sensitively. It wasn't on
my Bingo card. It wasn't on my plan for myself,
and I felt an enormous amount of shame and failure
because I had always thought and it was such a
(16:15):
boring plan that I had, but it was a very heteronormative,
conventional plan where I'd always thought, oh, get married, I'd
have kids, I'd live in a terrace house in Clapham
with lots of Australians.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Yeah, yeah, by other Australian.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
Of course, that's what you think, because that's the only
especially for our age group growing up, it was the
only option that was shown. Yeah, that was the normal,
and anything outside of that was kind of not done exactly.
And it's why today I'm so passionate about diversity of
stories and using whatever platform I have to showcase different
(16:50):
people's different experiences of life.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
Because you're totally right. I grew up with eighties rom coms,
and I love eighties rom coms, but they're not actually
a blueprint for life. Sadly, so I didn't meet Tom
Hanks at the top of the Empire State Building. So
you tried, I tried, and I ended up and it
was no one's fault. Really, well, maybe it was my
(17:13):
fault because I didn't know myself well enough, but I
thought I did. But I ended up married to the
wrong person. And it took me a really long time.
It felt like a very long time to realize that.
And part of the reason I did realize it is
because I had started to have unsuccessful fertility treatment and
that process felt very, very lonely, and I realized that
actually it was a priority for me to try and
(17:36):
have a child, and that priority wasn't necessarily shared to
the same degree of importance. But I always say you know,
some people ask me, how do you know? How do
you know that your marriage is over? And how do
you get the strength to acknowledge that? And it's an instinct.
And I knew that I had to leave it until
(17:59):
I felt so beyond that, like something had to change.
And I think that whole process took a year, and
one day it just got to a stage where I'd
been communicating how I was feeling and nothing was really changing,
and it got to a stage where I felt like
I hit a wall and I was like, oh, I
can't stay in this because I will lose myself. And
(18:19):
it's actually, if you know me, it's a sort a
very atypical thing for me to have done. But I
think it's a mark of my desperation that I did it. Yeah,
so that's how it ended.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
You just mentioned you were going through some unsuccessful infertility
that did contribute to the breakdown of your marriage. Do
you think the fact that your treatment was unsuccessful was
what put the weight on the relationship or was it
his response to the unsuccessful fertility treatment that sort of
attributed to the decline. Do you know what I'm saying,
(18:52):
is it because I know a lot of couples in
fertility can add so much extra stress to a relationship.
So I'm just wondering if that, yeah, on its own,
added to the breakdown.
Speaker 3 (19:01):
Yes, that's such a good question, And I have to
be really careful here because I'm very respectful of my
ex and he has his own version of events. So
what you hear the caveat is it's only my story
and only my perception. Of course, I love that, Yeah,
it was. It wasn't the lack of success around the
fertility treatment. He already had children from a previous relationship.
(19:24):
It was more how the fertility treatment was approached and
that feeling of loneliness. And actually, I don't think you
should feel lonely when you're going through something like that,
because it should be about you as a couple as
a unit expanding your family. And that to me signaled
(19:45):
that there was a deeper issue here. So in a
way it sounds odd to say, I'm quite grateful for
that very dark period of my life.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
Now.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
So this was twenty fourteen. I had two rounds of
IVF unsuccessfully, and then I got pregnant naturally and I
had a miscarriage at three months and that all happened
in one year. It was horrendous to go through. I'm
grateful for it now because it highlighted things that we
needed to address and that I specifically needed to address
within the parameters of that relationship. And I don't know
(20:16):
if I hadn't had that, whether I would have thought
in those terms, and whether I would have fanned the
courage that I needed. So actually it all works out
in the end. I mean, I don't actually mean that. Sorry,
that was such a trivial ending. No, it's the sort
of thing.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
That you're like, I don't want to say, but often
it often does.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
That's the thing I think.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
Sometimes you can be so in it, and you can
be so sad because you're so deep in the fog
of failure that you can't ever think like, how the
hell could my life be better from this point or
how could this make my life better? And I think
it's why highlighting failure as a concept something that we're
all going to experience in some way in our life.
Speaker 3 (20:58):
You know, we're going to have our own.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
Individual journeys, but how do you use that to be
able to move on to have a happier life or
a life that's still fulfilling, even if you don't get
to have the things that you think you always wanted.
I guess for us, like, we've had many conversations around
fertility on this podcast. We've spoken about miscarriage many times,
We've spoken about IVF, we've spoken about infertility, and I
(21:20):
think often we've spoken about childless by choice, this idea
of new age of women who are being able to
choose not to have children. But we've also spoken to
them like yourself, and it's not been by choice. I
can only imagine that that must be a very difficult
process to go through the acceptance phase of that. What
were those years of your life like or how did
that When did you come to the decision that you
(21:40):
were like, it's not going to happen for me.
Speaker 3 (21:42):
Yeah, very recently, in also to that, at the beginning
of this year, I'm now, as you know, married to
a wonderful person, and we found out that I was
pregnant naturally, completely out of the blue, just after my
forty first birthday, and very so that pregnancy ended in miscarriage,
and then I got pregnant again and that one ended
(22:03):
in miscarriage, and throughout it all I was also undergoing
various interventions, surgical interventions and try new treatments, and we
decided to have a sort of cutting edge fertility treatment
at the beginning of this year, and I'd put a
lot of hope into that, and it was one of
those situations where it felt like the universe was sending
(22:26):
you signs saying it was all going to work. It
was so weird, and it didn't, and that was also
one of the lowest points. But this time I had
someone by my side and it felt like we were
sharing it and walking through our pain together, and that
was actually part of my realization. I feel so lucky
(22:49):
to have the relationship and the love that I have
with my partner, and many people don't have that, and
many people who don't have that will experience a quality
of love with their children that is incredibly special. But
I realized that so many people don't experience that kind
of love and I already have that and that could
be enough. And I'm now at peace and have let
(23:13):
go of the trying to have a baby, and I
never thought I would be at this point and it
has taken me many months. Actually, I had dinner with
a friend last night. She's like it's taken you nine months.
I was like, oh, that's so true, because this whole
thing happened in January.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
It's really nice to hear that you've gotten to that
place because you don't want anyone to struggle, do you
feel like? And I'm in my fertility journey right now,
so only a couple of weeks.
Speaker 3 (23:38):
I'm thirty six. Only a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
I went to freeze my eggs and I got none,
like I just had nothing to freeze.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
So withal, I'm so sorry, it's okay. Ed my eggs too,
and I only got I got like two, but they
froze three just to throw me one in. Yeah, like
just for good. Yeah, like well just in case of checking. Yeah,
they were like, this hasn't developed, but we'll put it
in any way. That's what I got.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
Actually, I got one that wasn't developed, and then we
ended up with none because it just wasn't it wasn't
good enough. I have done this so many times in
terms of this conversation with other people, so I know
psychologically what the answer is and how we should feel
and what.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
We should think.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
It's not our fault and it's not failure, but one
thing you'd have said, you know, you felt really lonely,
and I have a beautiful partner, but he lives on
the other side of the world, so there is a
sense that I'm going through it with him but also alone.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
But I, even though I know.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
The answer is it's not failure, I feel like I'm
already failing and I'm so early in the journey. I
haven't done any actual IVF treatments yet. Did you feel
like that and was that a big driving force towards
these failure conversations.
Speaker 3 (24:41):
Yes, constantly. First of all, I want to say thank
you so much for sharing that, and thank you to
both of you for having these kinds of conversations, and
I'm so sorry for what you've been through, because the
thing about egg freezing is that it is like an
IVF cycle without the bit of the end where they
hopefully put an embryo back in. And it's a lot
to go through because you are on all of the hormones,
(25:01):
and it is a lot of money. And then to
get to the end and to feel like you haven't
got the result that you wanted and that you were
sort of semi promised, is so difficult to handle and yes,
I constantly felt like a failure. And I actually think
a lot of the medical language seems designed to make women,
specifically women, feel like failures. And obviously I know on
(25:24):
one level it's not my failure, but it felt like
my body wasn't doing what so many other women could
do and what so much of historical society expected me
to do. And all the time that I was going
through all of these various procedures, I was told, overwhelmingly
by male consultants that I was failing to respond to
(25:44):
the drugs. I'm sure you heard that it's unsuccessful, that
just the technology, Yeah, exactly like my friend was told
she had an incompetent cervix. Another person I know was
told she had an inhospitable womb. But this is all
language that it's just accepted. It is quite it's used
quite frequently. And one of the things that I have
(26:06):
been passionate about in terms of having these sort of
conversations is attacking that language because I internalized it so
much for so long that it was really difficult to
separate my feeling about myself and the baby I was
trying to create, and so it felt really sad. A
lot of the time, and having conversations about it and
(26:29):
writing about it made me feel better, because that loneliness
that we've discussed was really the antidote to that was
understanding that other people had these stories too, and for
a long time, particularly women, but also men, felt a
misplaced sense of stigma about fertility issues and didn't feel
able to share. And I'm so glad that those conversations
(26:50):
are opening up because I feel less alone as a result,
and I feel more validated, and now I really understand
being on the other side of it. My life has
tremendous purpose, even if being a biological mother isn't going
to be part of it. Not only are there other
ways that we can parent. And I don't necessarily just
mean having other children in my life. I mean in
(27:13):
the way that we podcast or the way that we
create that in some sort of way is an act
of mothering or parenting or sharing or connecting. And I
just want anyone who is listening to this, who might
be in the grip of a fertility journey right now
and might not be able to see light on the
other side. I never thought I would feel as at
(27:34):
peace as I now do. And I promise you that
it is possible and that you will know when the
time is right for you.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
It just occurred to me, And I know I said
earlier that we've spoken to so many people who have
been on their fertility journeys, but we've actually never spoken
to someone who has been on their fertility journey and
made peace with it.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
It's always been people who have been still in the
throes of it, and they're still in their head that's
the only goal that's going to happen for them. And
so I'm so grateful to have that different perspective and
to be able to show that there is peace that
can be achieved as well. You mentioned something earlier, you
said how men have failure around fertility, but it is
often very different to women. Do you think and from
(28:15):
the research that you've done and the conversations that you've had,
that men and women experience failure differently or we prioritize
failure differently.
Speaker 3 (28:23):
Yes. First of all, thank you for saying that about
being a voice for those people who are child free
not by choice, because I think I realized one of
my fears was what is my purpose going to be?
What is going to bring my life meaning? If I'm
not going to have a baby, because that's how focused
and obsessed in my opic I have become. And actually
(28:45):
now I firmly believe that part of my purpose is
to provide that voice. Because you're so right. We hear
increasingly thank goodness from people who are going through it all.
We hear from people who have their baby and have
their quote unquote happy ending. So I'm really happy to
be that person. So when I started How to Fail,
it was July twenty eighteen, and I definitely noticed a
(29:08):
real difference between how men and women viewed failure. Then.
So when I approached my first eight guests, because it
was a new podcast, I didn't really know what I
was doing. I relied on friends and contacts that I
built up through years as a print journalist, and from
those eight, every single time I asked a man to
be on How to Fail, their response would be I
(29:29):
just don't think I have failed, so not sure I'm
going to be right for this. And every single time
I asked a woman apart from one, she would say,
oh God, I've failed so many times. I can't just
whittle it down. Because I asked guests to come up
with three failures and it was fascinating because when I
persuaded those men to be interviewed, it turned out, of
(29:50):
course that they had failed, but they hadn't categorized it
as such. And I think there are two reasons for that.
One is, if you are lucky enough to be a
CIS white man, you are still overwhelmingly born into a
world made in your image, so if you encounter failure,
you think of it as an overcomable obstacle on your
path to eventual success. But the second reason is that
(30:13):
actually some of those men probably did feel like failures,
but they didn't feel able to admit it because they
had been socially conditioned to be quote unquote manly and
not to show their vulnerabilities. So I think both of
those things were a sort of disservice to the sort
of conversation that I was trying to have, and actually
they opened up and were really beautifully vulnerable in each episode,
(30:36):
whereas when I had the women on, or when I
had someone who didn't fit that category of a CIS
white man, when I had someone who was maybe marginalized
in some way, who was a person of color, who
lived with the chronic illness, who had endured spells of homelessness.
Whatever their lived experience was, they were more likely to
experience failure as something that they internalized and thought was
(30:58):
a definition on who they were as a person. But
that has changed massively as the podcast has grown, and
as I think we've all started having more conversations around failure,
And now I have people of all genders who are
only too happy to open up and who understand how
I define the concept as something that we can learn from.
(31:21):
But it is really interesting for everyone to ask what
their attitude of failure is because a lot of people
still feel scared of admitting to it.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
I'm curious as to what you think is the healthiest
way to approach looking at failure, because when I'm trying
to think of my failures, I have failed many times.
But there's a paronomy that likes to look at it
the same way you'd have said the men did, which
is they're just obstacles, because I guess they are one
in the same in a sense. But I still know
deep down that it's a failure. But for me, maybe
it's a psychological thing. Is to think, Okay, that was
(31:51):
one big obstacle that sent me back a little bit,
but I'll keep going. Do you think there's like a
healthy way that we should be approaching it? Do you
think owning failure is a driving force to success, to
further success?
Speaker 3 (32:00):
I do, But I define success as living your authentic
life rather than being driven to a private jet in
a limo, which would be really nice. Also nice, Yeah, yeah,
I suppose I define success slightly differently off the back
of what I've learned about failure, and I agree with
you that all failure, if we learn how to handle it,
(32:22):
can be treated as data acquisition. It can be treated
as an opportunity to learn, and what you learn might
simply be well I got through that, I survived. That
the failure itself might not have any meaning. It might
just be one of those awful, cataclysmic things that happens
and there is no explanation. But my firm belief is
(32:42):
that you can live alongside that failure, and the true
test of your character is not the failure itself, but
how you respond to it. And in responding to it,
I guarantee you that you will learn something meaningful in
the same way that I have learned so many meaningful
things from my self perceived failure. To have my own children.
(33:04):
And then there are your common or garden failures like
failing your driving test, or failing an exam, or failing
to get a job promotion, and they can definitely teach
you something. It might be that they teach you that
you are applying for the wrong job, or it might
be that it teaches you to prepare slightly differently next time,
or to really focus on your handbrake turn your three
point turns, not your handbrake turns. You don't want to
(33:26):
be doing those in your driving test. But no, I
do believe that all failure can be a portal to
greater learning.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
I think this is such an I mean, it's such
a wonderful take because we spend so much of our
life trying to avoid it. Like the reality is, no
one wants to feel like they're failed at something. No
one wants to be a failure in any aspect of
their life. And even sometimes across social media, you know,
we've fed this kind of success reel that everybody else
is killing it in different ways, and then that only
(33:56):
then goes to highlight those moments when we feel like
we are truly a failure. How important do you think
it is for people to be able to learn to
lead into those moments and almost be in flow with it,
so that you can instead of finding this idea of failure,
instead of internalizing it all, but actually learn from those
moments in life that are almost unavoidable. I think the
(34:17):
first thing to remember is that failure happens to us all.
It is genuinely what makes us human. And the greater
failure for me is allowing your fear to stop you
from taking the adventure. So it's always better, I think,
to have tried something new and to have failed at it,
because you'll have gained something along the way. There'll be
(34:39):
some useful knowledge along the way. And the other thing
to remember is that we live in a society where
you're right, there is this constant Instagram reel of curated perfection,
and we are getting better on social media as showing
up as ourselves, but still when you're comparing yourself to
a bikini shot of ca Him Kardashian looking absolutely incredible
(35:02):
on holiday in Costa Rica, and you've just got out
of bed and you're back to get your period and
your cat needs feeding and you're already late for work
that you're going to feel less than And I want
you to remember that we compare our insides to everyone
else's outsides, so we all know what neurotic messes we
(35:23):
feel inside. We all feel at some point in our
lives like we're an impostor, we don't deserve to be here,
we're not good enough, and yet we're constantly comparing that
to everyone else's external presentation and what we believe about them,
and so very often we project and we think that
other people have it all sorted, and so we're making
(35:44):
that feeling of comparison worse for ourselves. The chances are
that the person you're comparing yourself to also has messy,
neurotic insides and also has a private battle that they're fighting.
And I found that just a really helpful mindset because
it reminds me that we're all human, infallible, and.
Speaker 3 (36:08):
That's what makes us interesting, and that actually, when we're
open about our vulnerabilities, that's the source of all true connection.
Speaker 1 (36:16):
Elizabeth, you have interviewed some of the biggest names around
the world. We're talking Stephen Bartlett, who we recently had
on the podcast Bear Grills, Brene Brown, Jamil Jamil. It's
a good guest you you've done Jerry halliwell, Elliott Page,
like I mean, just to name a few. These are
huge people with what I can only assume, huge stories
(36:38):
and huge lessons and huge failures to get to where
they are. Is there a standout guest or a standout
moment or story where you've really learned something that's stuck
with you.
Speaker 3 (36:48):
Yes. Actually, it's so interesting you mentioned Elliott Page. I
just found him one of the most moving individuals, and
it's such an honor to me. I record has failed
in this tiny little studio that's basically like a cupboard.
Speaker 2 (37:04):
We feel you're good acoustics and good standproofing though, I
like that.
Speaker 3 (37:08):
But it's up like three or four flights of stairs,
and so have these extraordinary people schlep up these stairs
and sit down opposite me on these tiny, slightly rickety,
uncomfortable chairs. Elliott Page, Bernie Sanders has been in that room.
It's just it's so surreal and amazing. I never take
it for granted, and that was a very special conversation
(37:31):
with Elliot But I think if I had to choose one,
it would be a really early one. Actually, it's an
episode that I put out in twenty nineteen. It was
season four, and it was a man called Mogawdat who
has gone on to have all of the success that
he's always deserved. Actually, Stephen Bartlett has interviewed him now
a couple of times, and he was the former chief
(37:54):
business officer of Google X and he had written a
book that claimed it could make anyone happen. He had
developed an algorithm for happiness because he had applied all
of his engineering and statistical research skills to the problem
of human happiness and come up with this equation which
I will totally mangle. So just go and listen to
the episode because he'll explain it much better. But it's
(38:16):
essentially about managing expectation. It's about your perception of life
and the reality of it and not having overhyped expectations.
And the way that he spoke about these very profound
ideas was so mind blowing to me. It was a
massive light bulb moment in my own life, and it
changed the way that I live my life. And the
thing that most stuck with me and that I practice
(38:37):
still every day is this idea that you are not
your worst thoughts. So Moe explained the human brain and
explained that sometimes the human brain gets stuck on an
anxious narrative loop and it's constantly pointing out the things
that might go wrong, scanning the horizon for danger. It's
constantly misinterpreting the smoke alarm going off because the toast
is burning by saying that your house is on fire.
(39:00):
And he's like, you need to interrogate your brain, because
unless you suffer from a neurological condition, your brain does
what you tell it to. So if you turn your
brain to raise your right arm, your brain does that
for you. So when his brain gets stuck on this
anxious narrative loop and it's telling him awful things like
you're a failure, you're a terrible parent, no one likes you,
he stops himself and he calls his brain Becky, and
(39:23):
he says, Becky, I would like you to give me
objective evidence for that assertion. And if you can't give
me objective evidence for that assertion, I'd really love it
if you could replace that negative thought with the positive one.
Thanks so much, Becky, I'll see you in a few minutes.
It's like speaking so your out. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (39:44):
It's so funny you say that, because just yesterday we
were recording because we're recording me now a home studio
at my house, and long story, sure, we were recording
here and we both Laura and myself had to leave
to do separate things for the day. We're done, and
it was only about fifteen minutes and I get a
call from law She's like, you're still home and I said, no,
I've gone out, and she's like, oh, I feel like
(40:05):
I might have left the straightener plugged in.
Speaker 3 (40:07):
Oh my god, And I said, I said you didn't.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
I was like, no, I'm pretty sure you didn't because
I think I popped my head in and also I
think it's got a time where you know, it turns
itself off. She's like, no, I'm going to have to
come back, and I was like, it's okay, don't come back.
Speaker 3 (40:20):
And she's like, I'm.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
Not being responsible for having your house burned down.
Speaker 3 (40:23):
I'm not leving anxiety around if I left that on.
Speaker 1 (40:26):
And then if I did leave it on and you
don't come home for an hour and it starts a
fight and it burns it down, and then it's exactly
what you just said, where your brain gets stuck in
a loop that you you can't get out there.
Speaker 3 (40:35):
You can't break it. And Laura drove back. She drove
back to check it and was it off. I didn't
find out. Yeah, it was off and unplugged. That is
so me.
Speaker 2 (40:43):
But we do it to ourselves, and especially if you're
someone who has any sort of anxieties anxious attachments. For me,
it was triggered post having kids. I have a much
more heightened anxiety around danger and I don't know why,
but it's debilitating at times, like I'll get up and
check the oven a few times and it's like almost
like a compulsion.
Speaker 3 (41:02):
Now that has.
Speaker 2 (41:03):
Definitely gotten worse as I've gotten older in life.
Speaker 1 (41:05):
Where you have other people that you're protecting now. So
I guess that's an in built almost makenis.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
I also think it's not just that. I think it
happens to people. As we get older, we become worriers,
we worry more, and yeah, you know, when you're in
your twenties, you don't care about anything. You don't worry
about your mortality, you don't worry about your life. You
just kind of go and jump off those cliffs and
do crazy shit. And then you get into your thirties
or your forties and you have been exposed to bad things,
(41:30):
and so those things sit in your mind. And if
you're someone who struggles with anxiety, you can exactly like
you said, allow your brain to go on this loop.
And like for me, it's definitely an episode I need
to listen to because it's something that I struggle with.
Once I get into these spirals, I find it hard
to break that pattern.
Speaker 3 (41:45):
I totally understand where you're coming from, and I do
think that episode would help you. I've actually had him
back on the podcast twice since then because he always
has such amazing, profound insight. I've always been a worrier,
and it's interesting because in the era that I grew
that was the language. Right, you were a worrier rather
than you had anxiety. But you're so right that the
older I get, the more aware I am of the
(42:07):
things that could go wrong, and the more aware I
am that life is fragile and that I'm halfway through it,
probably if I'm lucky. And my closest examples of that
is airplane turbulence. I used to be fine flying and
now I just I hate I just hate turbulence, and
(42:28):
I get very illogical and irrational about it. And that's
always quite difficult to talk yourself out of in that
very rational way that Moe says. And my life hack
for anyone who struggles with airplane turbulence is to imagine
that you are in a car or in a horse
and car, and you're going along a cobbled street. And
there's something about the image of the cobbled street. I
(42:49):
don't know if you have cobbles in Australia because like
some countries, it.
Speaker 2 (42:52):
Sounds so English. There's like one place in Sydney that
might have a cobble street.
Speaker 3 (42:57):
But do you know, genuinely like, one of the things
that I'm grateful for not having children is that I
think I would be so anxious. I totally, I completely
understand why that would happen and why you're feeling it,
and it must be really horrible sometimes. So yeah, listen
to Mogada and Reader's book.
Speaker 2 (43:17):
I mean touching back on this idea of kids, and
it was something that you have spoken about before that
I would love to unpack a little bit, and it
was fertility privilege. Yeah, I would love to understand what
that means to you and why it's important for people
who do have the privilege of being able to get pregnant,
to be very cognizant of what they're doing.
Speaker 3 (43:36):
Yeah, I'm so glad you asked me about it, because
I think when I coined this term, it landed in
some quarters without nuance. What I'm not saying, let's start
with that. I'm absolutely not saying that I have an
issue with parents who have children. I think it's absolutely
fantastic you have kids. I'm not saying you're not allowed
to post pictures of your kids on social media and
(43:58):
celebrate what parenthood is or complain about how difficult it
is and share I'm absolutely not saying that. All I
was trying to get at was that if you know someone,
someone is in your friendship group or perhaps a relative,
is going through fertility struggles and you have been able
to have children, just to be cognizant of what you
(44:21):
expect from that person and how you communicate with them
in the same way as I'm so lucky that I
have a roof over my head and a house. If
a friend of mine was struggling or homeless, I wouldn't
constantly be complaining to them about how the boiler was
broken or how I've got to pay my counsel tax
and oh, it's a bit of a nightmare, but my
(44:42):
bed's really comfortable. It's just about being aware of what
other people are going through. And I think fertility privilege
has been overlooked for so long and so many people
have felt silenced because of it, and the people without
children have felt very marginalized by a societ which for
many decades has fetishized and elevated the idea of parenthood.
(45:06):
So I was struggling with my fertility at a time
when the mummy blogger terrible phrase was like really coming
of age, when we had this incredibly popular internet form
called Mum's Net here in the UK that it just
felt like all of the conversation was built around families
(45:27):
and children and it felt very very exclusive, and it
also felt like the rest of us weren't able or
couldn't find the space to share our stories. So it's
really about being aware of that and trying to correct
it slightly, in the same way that we have awareness
of other privileges. We're trying to correct that and restore
(45:48):
the equilibrium. So it was a way of starting conversations
was to talk about it and.
Speaker 2 (45:53):
To name it, you know, and also with these things,
I liked the way you described it when you're like
it didn't land in other people's camps. Like the thing
is is sometimes people will take a little bit of
what's been said or interpret something that's been said, and
then they have their own flavor on it are offended
by it, like what do you mean I can't I'm
not allowed to post that I'm pregnant.
Speaker 3 (46:11):
I'm not allowed to do X, y Z.
Speaker 2 (46:13):
And it's like, you can do all the things that
you want to do, it's just navigating it with kindness
for other people who are in and around you, people
who you probably care about, who are your friends and
your family, who might be experiencing something else. A lot
of people are very open and talk freely about their
fertility and where they're at. But also a lot of
people who may be your friends don't speak about it
(46:33):
because we have been conditioned that it's a private thing.
So you're never especially with social media being so public,
like you may not be aware what somebody else very
close to you is physically going throughout that time exactly that.
Speaker 3 (46:45):
All of that, I just want to bottle that up
and claim it as my own. You've explained it so
perfectly exactly that that term might not have landed with
some people. And that's fine, it's not for you. I'm
not I know that I speak two and four an
orgients who understands what I'm saying, and they're very often
the people who haven't spoken publicly, you haven't shared, and
(47:06):
who haven't told their own family. And it's completely understandable
because it's so so traumatic, so much of it is
so traumatic that you want to keep it private. But
they're the people that I get private messages from, and
they're the ones who say, we appreciate this, and please
keep doing what you do, and they're the people that
I'm passionate about speaking up for. As someone who is
(47:26):
an inveterate over sharer, I really don't mind. I really
don't mind talking about it. And I think every if
we're talking about the world of social media, we all
have our own audiences, our own communities, and we know
who we're speaking to, and that's a really beautiful thing.
And sometimes, as you say, it's just about navigating that
(47:48):
with awareness, because if you are a social media influencer
with many, many, hundreds of thousands, even millions of followers,
I guarantee you that within those followers there will be
people who struggle with fertility. And if you are posting
your successful baby scan, it doesn't mean you shouldn't do it.
That's a wonderful thing to celebrate, but maybe to do it,
(48:09):
as you say, Laura, with awareness that someone following you
or someone who knows you that will land differently for them.
Speaker 1 (48:16):
Can I ask you, Elizabeth, because I don't think we
touched on it earlier, but did you ever find out
the reason for your infertility or did you have unexplained infertility?
Speaker 3 (48:24):
Unexplained baby explained?
Speaker 1 (48:27):
Do you feel like there's more frustrating than not, Like,
are you more like, tell me why I can't do it?
Speaker 3 (48:33):
Yeah, like I want to make peace with that, Yeah, exactly.
Or if you are someone which I was, who felt
like the solution was to work harder, Yeah, and to
try and have control over things, It's like, well, if
you tell me what it is, I can work harder
to rectify it. But it was ultimately unexplained. There was
one thing. I was born with a bicorn you at uterus,
(48:56):
which is a heart shaped womb with the septum at
the top, and women with those kind of wombs have
successfully gone on to have full term pregnancies, so they've
never done enough research into it. But there are some
schools of thought that believe that that can trigger early miscarriage,
and then there are other schools of thought which is like,
well might not though, and as ever with things that
(49:18):
are wrongly termed women's issues, there just hasn't been enough
medical research devoted to it, of course, but I did
one of my many procedures was to have that sept
and removed and it still didn't work, sadly. So yeah,
it's unexplained, but actually it's been quite a good lesson
for me as someone who did believe that the solution
was always to work harder. There are some things I
cannot work harder for. And ultimately, what makes the universe
(49:41):
beautiful is that it is mysterious and there are bits
of it that are unexplained and that that is part
of life, and so sort of living alongside that has
brought me peace actually and alignment rather than an attempt
to control the chaos.
Speaker 1 (49:57):
You speak so well on the topic, and as Allan
is going through at the moment, I really appreciate the
chat and the honesty and you definitely make me look
at things in a different light.
Speaker 3 (50:06):
And I know that you're helping so many people out.
Speaker 1 (50:08):
There, and not just I mean, I feel like we
spoke a lot about fertility in this chat, because I
think it's something that does affect obviously so many women,
but failure as a whole is something really important that
I think people can definitely take a different perspective on.
Speaker 3 (50:20):
And I mean, you've got it all covered. You've got
the podcast, you got the books, you're doing.
Speaker 1 (50:25):
You're doing everything, so you're definitely putting out to the
world and helping a lot of people. So we can't
thank you enough for your time today.
Speaker 3 (50:30):
Oh I cannot tell you how much I have loved
this conversation. It's so nice being interviewed by two exceptional women.
I really loved your questions and the thought and the
care that you put into it, and I felt like
it's the conversational equivalent of a warm, understanding hug. So
thank you so much for having me, and I hope
(50:51):
I get to see you when I'm in Australia in
February at the Sydney Opera House and in Melbourne.
Speaker 2 (50:57):
Surreal Cereal They perhaps is amazing it's amazing that you
get to do shows there. Tell us the dates and everything,
so people where they can get tickets, how they can
get tickets.
Speaker 3 (51:08):
Okay, so the dates. I'm so excited to be coming
to Australia because since day one, Australia has been I
think my second largest international audience for the podcast, and
I feel so loved by your people. So I'm really
happy that I get to come over. So on Monday,
the twenty sixth of February, I know Taylor Swift is
playing Sydney, but if you haven't got tickets, come and
(51:30):
see me. We're going to Taylor Swift.
Speaker 2 (51:33):
A lot of people don't have tickets. We're going to
one of the shows. I don't know which I'm going to.
Speaker 1 (51:36):
I think we're going to different ones. I think you're
going to the first one. I'm going to the one,
the second coming.
Speaker 3 (51:40):
To show last, Okay, okay, great, great, So one of
you can come on Monday the twenty sixth of February
at the Sydney Opera House and you can book tickets
via the Sydney Opera House website. And then on the
twenty eighth of February, I'm going to Melbourne and I
will be at Hamer Hall and again you can get
tickets on their website. So thank you so much for
having me and allowing me to talk about all the
(52:02):
things that I really love getting deep into.
Speaker 1 (52:04):
Well, so that was the nicest thing anyone's ever said
to us. By night Like, we're probably gonna take that
and use.
Speaker 3 (52:09):
It as the grab Yeah.
Speaker 1 (52:11):
Thanks again, and we're gonna put all your podcast links
in our notes for anyone that wants to go and
check you out. Okay, guys, we're gonna get out of
here because we have got to go and catch a
flight to the other side of the world or the country.
Speaker 3 (52:23):
Perth.
Speaker 1 (52:24):
We're coming hot for the live show, which will be
tomorrow night, Thursday night. If you haven't got your tickets yet,
there's still.
Speaker 3 (52:29):
A couple of laughs.
Speaker 2 (52:29):
Oh I got so many people from Perth have messaged
us and been like, no one.
Speaker 3 (52:32):
Ever comes to Perth. Thanks for coming to Perth. We
are pumps so excited.
Speaker 2 (52:37):
I mean, it does feel like a little bit of
a well wind trip for what could be an international flight.
Speaker 3 (52:42):
We're only there for one night.
Speaker 2 (52:43):
That would be we could have gone to Bali for
the same amount of time, but Honestly, we could not
be more excited. This is number two lap show Baby,
and now we know what we're doing on stage, so
it's going to be even better than the last one,
which was still really good.
Speaker 3 (52:55):
But you can get your.
Speaker 2 (52:56):
Tickets at lifeoncutpodcast dot com today you and that will
be Thursday night and then on Sunday night we have
Sydney Show.
Speaker 3 (53:02):
So it's all happening. It's a wild week, isn't it. Anyway, guys,
that's it from us.
Speaker 1 (53:06):
You know the drill, Tell your mum tay, dad tay,
don't tell your friends and shared a love because we
love them.
Life Uncut acknowledges the traditional custodians of country whose lands
were never seated. We pay our respects to their elders
past and present.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Always was, always will be Aboriginal Land. This episode was
recorded on drug Wallamuta Land.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Hi guys, and welcome back to another episode of.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Life un Cut.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
I'm Brittany and I'm Laura, and this is our Wednesday episode,
which still sounds weird, but it is. We're dropping every
week our interview as a separate episode, and we have
such a freaking amazing episode for you guys. Today we
are interviewing Elizabeth Day, who you might know her from
the absolute behemoth of a podcast which is How to
Fail Now. I loved this chat so much, and it's
(00:48):
not just because Elizabeth is possibly the most well spoken
interviewee that we have ever had.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
Yeah, but she's not even just a podcast.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
She's an amazing journalist. She's a best selling author. She's
got books including How to Fail Everything I've Learned from
Things Going Wrong. The podcast in the UK is absolutely
huge where she speaks to some of the biggest people
in the world to unpack failure. What does that failure
look like to them? What has it done for them.
How does it change their life? Has it helped them
be more successful? Has it been detrimental? And I think
(01:17):
it's a really incredible thing to look at these people
that from the outside we think are really successful and
just be reminded that everyone goes through failure.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
And it's okay. It's normal.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Yeah, but it's also not even just that it's okay.
I think one of the things that was so amazing
about this chat is that it's not that it's okay
and that it's normal, because it obviously is, but it's
about your reaction to failure, and it's about being able
to use failure as a way to either learn from it,
to grow from it, or like how you can change
the trajectory of your life. And I guess one of
the parts of this conversation, which I think for anybody
(01:51):
who has been through any fertility issues or maybe you
have found yourself going through a breakup in your late
thirties and you're like, holy shit, life has not panned
out how I expect it too. That's what I think
this conversation is, this is the candle in the dark
for anybody who has found that their life is not
where they expected it, and they have felt like a
failure because of that. Some of the things that we
(02:11):
touch on in this chat is Elizabeth's experience with pregnancy
and fertility and her not being able to be a
mother and not by choice. And also she talks about
something which was really freaking controversial at the time. She
talks about her take on fertility privilege and explains why
this is something that she feels so passionate about.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
Yeah, and I don't think it's just why she's passionate
about it.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
I think she explains it further as to why it's
not as controversial as it was taken. I think there
were a lot of headlines written about what she had
said and taken out of context. So anyway, let's jump
into the chat with Elizabeth. I'm very excited for today's
guest because as someone we've wanted on the podcast for
a very long time.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
It is Elizabeth Day. Welcome to Life on Cut. Thank
you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
Oh my god, we've actually been trying to get you
on for so long. So this is one of those
moments where I'm like, yes, we locked to you, Dan,
Now before you get too excited. We start every episode
with an accidentally unfiltered your most embarrassing story, Elizabeth, what
do you got for us?
Speaker 3 (03:09):
My most embarrassing, accidentally unfilled a moment was actually the
moment I met my now husband. So we got through it.
Spoiler alert, we got through it. Yeah, we're going to
scoop to the end, you know. But what happened was
I was dating on the apps in my late thirties,
so I had got divorced, and then I'd got into
(03:29):
a relationship with a younger man because I'm a massive cliche,
so I'd done that on the reband and then that
had ended just before my thirty ninth birthday. So I
was in the the unenviable position. And if anyone listening
is in this position, now, I see you, because it
is a jungle out there of just trawling through the
apps trying to find someone to go on a few
dates with. And I matched with this guy on Hinge
(03:50):
called Justin, who seemed very nice, but I wasn't sure
that there was any chemistry there. And it's partly because
I now know he is the least vain man you
will meat, and he just hadn't realized that the photos
didn't do him justice.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
But that is like a twist and a turn in
an online dating story. It never happens. It's always the opposite. Yeah,
you're always go on a date and you're like, this
man is hideous in comparison to his profile, exactly. And
that had been one hundred percent of my experience up
to that point. It had been the men who had
posed with kids with caption saying not my own yeah,
like big dogs and bathroom selfies in hotel rooms. So
(04:28):
my expectations were sub zero, to the extent that that morning,
the morning of the date, I had booked flights to
move to La full time.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
I was like, I'll just go. I'll keep this date
out of the way. I'm going to start my fabulous
new life. Anyway, I walked into this hotel bar and
I turned the corner and I saw this distractingly handsome
man sitting there, and I was like, oh, my gosh,
it's him. He was so handsome. I felt all a tizzy.
And it had been raining outside, and I was wearing
(04:57):
a coat, and I had an umbrella and a bag
and everything. And I walked across to meet him. And
it was one of those modern hotel bars where the
seats were sort of chrome, and they had a very
narrow base which fanned outwards. It's really open plans, so
loads of people there, and I sit down and I'm
taking my coat off, and I'm like, oh, it's so
nice to meet you, and like trying to give a
good impression, taking my bag off, putting my umbrella to
(05:18):
one side, and the seat starts to wobble, and I'm like,
that's fine, all right. Itself was still trying to give
a good impression, like I'm enigmatic and you'll want to
be with me, and then the seat just keeps on wobbling,
and at one point it just fatally hinges over and
I fall on the bar floor. Everything goes flying, my bag,
(05:42):
my umbrella, and my coat everything. I'm wearing a short
leather skirt because it's a first date, and so I
let a kimbo just honestly one of the most embarrassing things.
Everyone in that bar saw it, and Justin just came
rushing around and helps me up, and he kept saying,
oh my goodness, and he helped me up, and then
(06:03):
I was like, the only way I can cope with
this is just to style it out and pretend it
hasn't happened, so I just didn't mention it, didn't mention
it from then on. It it sounds like it could
be the start of a rom com. To be honest,
I know it was one of those things where I
was like, I know that if I make a joke
out of this, I won't be able to stop making
a joke about it and it will just be like relentless.
(06:24):
But what I really really liked about him was nice
of us mentioned it. If I sat on my chair
until about one cocktail in, I got up to go
to the toilet, and he just said quietly, don't fall over,
And I was like, oh, he's got And that's when
you're fell in love? Literally fell yeah? Oh yeah, literally,
I didn't know ever mean that. What happened then? If
(06:47):
you were booked to move cities that day? What happened?
Did you still go? Did you stay for love? Was
this like the rom com?
Speaker 1 (06:53):
We all need it?
Speaker 3 (06:54):
Yeah? I stayed for love. So I booked the tickets
that day, but they weren't to leave that day, so
they were to leave in like three months time, and
that gave me enough time to realize that this was
something really special. But he's an amazing person, justin but
he kind of left it up to me to decide,
which sounds weird because obviously it's you know, I'm a
(07:15):
modern woman, so you'd expect that from a relationship of equals.
But what I mean by that was that I was
at the stage in my life where I had been
used to being in quite dysfunctional romantic relationships, where I
wanted someone. I thought I wanted someone to say, God,
I'm so in love with you, don't leave. Let's just
make a life together. And actually he said, I can't
make that decision for you. You've got to decide, so
(07:36):
whatever's best for you. And I was a bit like, oh,
that's no help to me, is it. But that's what happened.
I decided to stay, and I'm so glad that I did.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Isn't It's so interesting that even you saying that like
that to me sounds like it's almost apathetic, like they
don't like, there's not enough care. I would think that
that wouldn't be enough of a commitment to derail my
original plans. But maybe that is what you should be
looking for rather than this, Like, especially in the initial
times of dating and the initial months of dating this
like all encompassing, like, oh my god, please don't leave
(08:06):
without you because you don't even know what you're in for,
so totally it's overstating it to be like, please stay
for me.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
I think you need like a bit of a healthy
bit of a bit to be like I want someone
to be like you are everything.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
I can't live without you. But you totally up to
you if you want it. Also not with yeah, someone
to declare their love, but like, but you desn I
think that was the subtext. But you're so right, Like
I just it took me a really long time to
understand that for me, true love is it represents safety
rather than you know, passion is completely wonderful and obviously
(08:40):
that's part of any long term relationship. But sometimes I
was definitely guilty of confusing dysfunction, fuck worchery for passion.
It was like the unpredictability was just so exciting. No
unpredictability stresses me out. I want someone to be where
they say they will be and to reply to my text.
I don't. I hate playing games the Boers High, Elizabeth.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
I know that we're going to get into unpacking sort
of how you did go through a divorce and finding
love again. But also to me, it's incredible how you
have created such a career and to anyone from the outset,
you are so successful. And so much of that conversation
has been off the back of speaking about your vulnerabilities,
the irony and speaking about failure and how that can
turn you into a success. But could you tell us
(09:29):
a little bit about for people in Australia who maybe
don't know your backstory, about where you grew up, what
life was like, kind of before you got into a
big romantic relationship that didn't work out the way you expected.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Sure.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
So I was born just outside London. My dad is
now retired, but he was a surgeon and he happened
to get a job in Ireland when I was four,
in the North of Ireland, and so we moved out
there in nineteen eighty two just to date myself. And
I don't know how popular Dairy Girls is in Australia,
but I watch Okay.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
I don't know if it's popular, but I think it's
hilarious and I think people have seen it, like I
think people know of it.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
Yeah, yeah, So Dairy Girls was basically my experience. We
moved just outside Derry, and as you can hear, I
speak with a very English accent, and it was a
time of civil war essentially in that province, and it
was quite a kind of weird stage to move because
there were bombs going off, you know, there was lots
of infighting, and to speak with an English accent in
(10:27):
certain areas marked you out not only as an outsider,
but as the enemy. And so it was a strange
place to grow up. And it was also really beautiful,
like the landscape in Ireland is so stunning. The people
are so great. When I was at primary school, I
had a really good time. But at secondary school, as
you know, as teenagers, that's when you start to identify
(10:48):
differences and you start to really want to belong to
your tribe, and I just never fitted in. So in
Dairy Girls, I was the equivalent of the weird English
cousin James. That was me And I ended up leaving
that school and getting a scholarship to a boarding school
in England. So when I was thirteen, I went to
a boarding school in England and it taught me a
lot about the importance of friendship, and I went to
(11:10):
that school absolutely determined to make friends and to be accepted.
And I've recently written a book about friendship called Friend
of Hollick, which is about my addiction to friendship. And
I think my addiction started there because for me, friendship
was a place of acceptance and belonging and it felt safer.
But what it took me much longer to unpack was
(11:31):
I was changing myself according to what I thought other
people wanted. So in the rush to be accepted, I
was sort of cutting myself to fit to size, whereas
actually now I realize in my forties that true belonging
is being welcomed exactly as you are. And I think
that also taught me a lot about failure and my
compulsion to people please probably led to me being in
(11:56):
a marriage that I shouldn't have been in because and
I think a lot of people relate to this, particularly women.
In my twenties and early thirties, it felt like the
most important thing was that other people liked me, including
my romantic partner, that I was quote unquote perfect for
them so they would never leave. And actually, in attempting
to be perfect spoiler alert, there's no such thing and
(12:19):
it's impossible, I was effacing myself I was negating my
own needs and I wasn't really living authentically. I was
outsourcing my sense of self to what I thought others wanted.
And so my life has been a process of unpacking
all of that.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
So before we scoop past the friendship and into relationships,
what is your taken now on friendships as an adult
woman that has a busy life, Because I think when
you're younger, you spread yourself pretty thin, and you want
to be a part of all the groups, and you
want to like you just said, you want everyone to
like you. But I guess I feel like I've always
been the opposite to that, and I've felt like as
(12:54):
much as I fit in with the small groups I have,
I've always had an unusually small amount of friends.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
Great question, and Britt, you'll be happy to know that
you're incredibly enlightened, because that is exactly how friendship should
be done, according to a pre eminent scientist in this
field called Robin Dunbar who's a professor of evolutionary psychology
and one of his areas of expertise is friendship, and
he says that friendship done at its best in a
(13:21):
way that feels sustainable for all parties. It starts with
having your core group of up to five key relationships.
There you go. He actually says up to five, and
he says, if you have a long term romantic relationship
or you have kids, that will generally cost you two
of those other intimate relationships because we just don't have
enough time, and for those friendships to sustain in quality,
(13:45):
we need to give time and attention to them. And
I think that's the thing that I've realized that time
is finite. And the pandemic was a huge waking up
point for many of us, and definitely for me in
this regard, because our diaries emptied overnight, and it was
very obvious to me who I really missed, and the
people that I really missed were not the people I
was spending most time with because my diary was filled
(14:07):
with other obligations, so it was filled with work stuff
or like acquaintances that I've met in yoga and suddenly
now I'm going for dinner with them. And I think
I've realized now that there's a difference between being friendly
and actively wanting to embark on a friendship, because friendship,
for me is one of the most profound elements of
(14:27):
my life. It's definitely the most consistent love of my life,
and so I want to commit to it, and I
can't commit to the same level to everyone. So now
I'm a lot more aware of those layers, and my
inner layer is slightly bigger than yours. It's like, probably
about ten or twelve. But my husband is much more
like you. He's very discerning in you know, my best
(14:48):
friend is also like you, very discerning in who they
allow in, and it sort of means that they can
trust those people beyond doubt. So I think that's the
main thing. I've realized that there are different friendships, different
reasons and different seasons of your life, and that also
I'm now of an age where some friendships have ended
and they're no longer an active part of my life,
(15:09):
but they forever changed how I see life, how I
experience it, and so in a way, although I no
longer see the friend in question for various reasons which
we can get into if you want, the friendship itself
still has an impact. So I don't think a friendship
is a failure just because it ends.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
I also think that that relates to romantic relationships, to
this idea that you know even if a romantic relationship
ends and it can be challenging, there are lessons to
be learned from that. And it's not like it's not
this idea of like I learned so much from being
traumatized by my ex. But you learn about yourself and
the process. You learn about the things that you do
want or don't want in your future. For you going
(15:48):
through divorce at thirty six, I'm sure that that wasn't
on your Bingo card for that time of your life.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
I'm sure that wasn't your plan. What was that period
of life like? It was really really tough, and thank
you for asking about it so sensitively. It wasn't on
my Bingo card. It wasn't on my plan for myself,
and I felt an enormous amount of shame and failure
because I had always thought and it was such a
(16:15):
boring plan that I had, but it was a very heteronormative,
conventional plan where I'd always thought, oh, get married, I'd
have kids, I'd live in a terrace house in Clapham
with lots of Australians.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Yeah, yeah, by other Australian.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
Of course, that's what you think, because that's the only
especially for our age group growing up, it was the
only option that was shown. Yeah, that was the normal,
and anything outside of that was kind of not done exactly.
And it's why today I'm so passionate about diversity of
stories and using whatever platform I have to showcase different
(16:50):
people's different experiences of life.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
Because you're totally right. I grew up with eighties rom coms,
and I love eighties rom coms, but they're not actually
a blueprint for life. Sadly, so I didn't meet Tom
Hanks at the top of the Empire State Building. So
you tried, I tried, and I ended up and it
was no one's fault. Really, well, maybe it was my
(17:13):
fault because I didn't know myself well enough, but I
thought I did. But I ended up married to the
wrong person. And it took me a really long time.
It felt like a very long time to realize that.
And part of the reason I did realize it is
because I had started to have unsuccessful fertility treatment and
that process felt very, very lonely, and I realized that
actually it was a priority for me to try and
(17:36):
have a child, and that priority wasn't necessarily shared to
the same degree of importance. But I always say you know,
some people ask me, how do you know? How do
you know that your marriage is over? And how do
you get the strength to acknowledge that? And it's an instinct.
And I knew that I had to leave it until
(17:59):
I felt so beyond that, like something had to change.
And I think that whole process took a year, and
one day it just got to a stage where I'd
been communicating how I was feeling and nothing was really changing,
and it got to a stage where I felt like
I hit a wall and I was like, oh, I
can't stay in this because I will lose myself. And
(18:19):
it's actually, if you know me, it's a sort a
very atypical thing for me to have done. But I
think it's a mark of my desperation that I did it. Yeah,
so that's how it ended.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
You just mentioned you were going through some unsuccessful infertility
that did contribute to the breakdown of your marriage. Do
you think the fact that your treatment was unsuccessful was
what put the weight on the relationship or was it
his response to the unsuccessful fertility treatment that sort of
attributed to the decline. Do you know what I'm saying,
(18:52):
is it because I know a lot of couples in
fertility can add so much extra stress to a relationship.
So I'm just wondering if that, yeah, on its own,
added to the breakdown.
Speaker 3 (19:01):
Yes, that's such a good question, And I have to
be really careful here because I'm very respectful of my
ex and he has his own version of events. So
what you hear the caveat is it's only my story
and only my perception. Of course, I love that, Yeah,
it was. It wasn't the lack of success around the
fertility treatment. He already had children from a previous relationship.
(19:24):
It was more how the fertility treatment was approached and
that feeling of loneliness. And actually, I don't think you
should feel lonely when you're going through something like that,
because it should be about you as a couple as
a unit expanding your family. And that to me signaled
(19:45):
that there was a deeper issue here. So in a
way it sounds odd to say, I'm quite grateful for
that very dark period of my life.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
Now.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
So this was twenty fourteen. I had two rounds of
IVF unsuccessfully, and then I got pregnant naturally and I
had a miscarriage at three months and that all happened
in one year. It was horrendous to go through. I'm
grateful for it now because it highlighted things that we
needed to address and that I specifically needed to address
within the parameters of that relationship. And I don't know
(20:16):
if I hadn't had that, whether I would have thought
in those terms, and whether I would have fanned the
courage that I needed. So actually it all works out
in the end. I mean, I don't actually mean that. Sorry,
that was such a trivial ending. No, it's the sort
of thing.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
That you're like, I don't want to say, but often
it often does.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
That's the thing I think.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
Sometimes you can be so in it, and you can
be so sad because you're so deep in the fog
of failure that you can't ever think like, how the
hell could my life be better from this point or
how could this make my life better? And I think
it's why highlighting failure as a concept something that we're
all going to experience in some way in our life.
Speaker 3 (20:58):
You know, we're going to have our own.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
Individual journeys, but how do you use that to be
able to move on to have a happier life or
a life that's still fulfilling, even if you don't get
to have the things that you think you always wanted.
I guess for us, like, we've had many conversations around
fertility on this podcast. We've spoken about miscarriage many times,
We've spoken about IVF, we've spoken about infertility, and I
(21:20):
think often we've spoken about childless by choice, this idea
of new age of women who are being able to
choose not to have children. But we've also spoken to
them like yourself, and it's not been by choice. I
can only imagine that that must be a very difficult
process to go through the acceptance phase of that. What
were those years of your life like or how did
that When did you come to the decision that you
(21:40):
were like, it's not going to happen for me.
Speaker 3 (21:42):
Yeah, very recently, in also to that, at the beginning
of this year, I'm now, as you know, married to
a wonderful person, and we found out that I was
pregnant naturally, completely out of the blue, just after my
forty first birthday, and very so that pregnancy ended in miscarriage,
and then I got pregnant again and that one ended
(22:03):
in miscarriage, and throughout it all I was also undergoing
various interventions, surgical interventions and try new treatments, and we
decided to have a sort of cutting edge fertility treatment
at the beginning of this year, and I'd put a
lot of hope into that, and it was one of
those situations where it felt like the universe was sending
(22:26):
you signs saying it was all going to work. It
was so weird, and it didn't, and that was also
one of the lowest points. But this time I had
someone by my side and it felt like we were
sharing it and walking through our pain together, and that
was actually part of my realization. I feel so lucky
(22:49):
to have the relationship and the love that I have
with my partner, and many people don't have that, and
many people who don't have that will experience a quality
of love with their children that is incredibly special. But
I realized that so many people don't experience that kind
of love and I already have that and that could
be enough. And I'm now at peace and have let
(23:13):
go of the trying to have a baby, and I
never thought I would be at this point and it
has taken me many months. Actually, I had dinner with
a friend last night. She's like it's taken you nine months.
I was like, oh, that's so true, because this whole
thing happened in January.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
It's really nice to hear that you've gotten to that
place because you don't want anyone to struggle, do you
feel like? And I'm in my fertility journey right now,
so only a couple of weeks.
Speaker 3 (23:38):
I'm thirty six. Only a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
I went to freeze my eggs and I got none,
like I just had nothing to freeze.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
So withal, I'm so sorry, it's okay. Ed my eggs too,
and I only got I got like two, but they
froze three just to throw me one in. Yeah, like
just for good. Yeah, like well just in case of checking. Yeah,
they were like, this hasn't developed, but we'll put it
in any way. That's what I got.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
Actually, I got one that wasn't developed, and then we
ended up with none because it just wasn't it wasn't
good enough. I have done this so many times in
terms of this conversation with other people, so I know
psychologically what the answer is and how we should feel
and what.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
We should think.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
It's not our fault and it's not failure, but one
thing you'd have said, you know, you felt really lonely,
and I have a beautiful partner, but he lives on
the other side of the world, so there is a
sense that I'm going through it with him but also alone.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
But I, even though I know.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
The answer is it's not failure, I feel like I'm
already failing and I'm so early in the journey. I
haven't done any actual IVF treatments yet. Did you feel
like that and was that a big driving force towards
these failure conversations.
Speaker 3 (24:41):
Yes, constantly. First of all, I want to say thank
you so much for sharing that, and thank you to
both of you for having these kinds of conversations, and
I'm so sorry for what you've been through, because the
thing about egg freezing is that it is like an
IVF cycle without the bit of the end where they
hopefully put an embryo back in. And it's a lot
to go through because you are on all of the hormones,
(25:01):
and it is a lot of money. And then to
get to the end and to feel like you haven't
got the result that you wanted and that you were
sort of semi promised, is so difficult to handle and yes,
I constantly felt like a failure. And I actually think
a lot of the medical language seems designed to make women,
specifically women, feel like failures. And obviously I know on
(25:24):
one level it's not my failure, but it felt like
my body wasn't doing what so many other women could
do and what so much of historical society expected me
to do. And all the time that I was going
through all of these various procedures, I was told, overwhelmingly
by male consultants that I was failing to respond to
(25:44):
the drugs. I'm sure you heard that it's unsuccessful, that
just the technology, Yeah, exactly like my friend was told
she had an incompetent cervix. Another person I know was
told she had an inhospitable womb. But this is all
language that it's just accepted. It is quite it's used
quite frequently. And one of the things that I have
(26:06):
been passionate about in terms of having these sort of
conversations is attacking that language because I internalized it so
much for so long that it was really difficult to
separate my feeling about myself and the baby I was
trying to create, and so it felt really sad. A
lot of the time, and having conversations about it and
(26:29):
writing about it made me feel better, because that loneliness
that we've discussed was really the antidote to that was
understanding that other people had these stories too, and for
a long time, particularly women, but also men, felt a
misplaced sense of stigma about fertility issues and didn't feel
able to share. And I'm so glad that those conversations
(26:50):
are opening up because I feel less alone as a result,
and I feel more validated, and now I really understand
being on the other side of it. My life has
tremendous purpose, even if being a biological mother isn't going
to be part of it. Not only are there other
ways that we can parent. And I don't necessarily just
mean having other children in my life. I mean in
(27:13):
the way that we podcast or the way that we
create that in some sort of way is an act
of mothering or parenting or sharing or connecting. And I
just want anyone who is listening to this, who might
be in the grip of a fertility journey right now
and might not be able to see light on the
other side. I never thought I would feel as at
(27:34):
peace as I now do. And I promise you that
it is possible and that you will know when the
time is right for you.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
It just occurred to me, And I know I said
earlier that we've spoken to so many people who have
been on their fertility journeys, but we've actually never spoken
to someone who has been on their fertility journey and
made peace with it.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
It's always been people who have been still in the
throes of it, and they're still in their head that's
the only goal that's going to happen for them. And
so I'm so grateful to have that different perspective and
to be able to show that there is peace that
can be achieved as well. You mentioned something earlier, you
said how men have failure around fertility, but it is
often very different to women. Do you think and from
(28:15):
the research that you've done and the conversations that you've had,
that men and women experience failure differently or we prioritize
failure differently.
Speaker 3 (28:23):
Yes. First of all, thank you for saying that about
being a voice for those people who are child free
not by choice, because I think I realized one of
my fears was what is my purpose going to be?
What is going to bring my life meaning? If I'm
not going to have a baby, because that's how focused
and obsessed in my opic I have become. And actually
(28:45):
now I firmly believe that part of my purpose is
to provide that voice. Because you're so right. We hear
increasingly thank goodness from people who are going through it all.
We hear from people who have their baby and have
their quote unquote happy ending. So I'm really happy to
be that person. So when I started How to Fail,
it was July twenty eighteen, and I definitely noticed a
(29:08):
real difference between how men and women viewed failure. Then.
So when I approached my first eight guests, because it
was a new podcast, I didn't really know what I
was doing. I relied on friends and contacts that I
built up through years as a print journalist, and from
those eight, every single time I asked a man to
be on How to Fail, their response would be I
(29:29):
just don't think I have failed, so not sure I'm
going to be right for this. And every single time
I asked a woman apart from one, she would say,
oh God, I've failed so many times. I can't just
whittle it down. Because I asked guests to come up
with three failures and it was fascinating because when I
persuaded those men to be interviewed, it turned out, of
(29:50):
course that they had failed, but they hadn't categorized it
as such. And I think there are two reasons for that.
One is, if you are lucky enough to be a
CIS white man, you are still overwhelmingly born into a
world made in your image, so if you encounter failure,
you think of it as an overcomable obstacle on your
path to eventual success. But the second reason is that
(30:13):
actually some of those men probably did feel like failures,
but they didn't feel able to admit it because they
had been socially conditioned to be quote unquote manly and
not to show their vulnerabilities. So I think both of
those things were a sort of disservice to the sort
of conversation that I was trying to have, and actually
they opened up and were really beautifully vulnerable in each episode,
(30:36):
whereas when I had the women on, or when I
had someone who didn't fit that category of a CIS
white man, when I had someone who was maybe marginalized
in some way, who was a person of color, who
lived with the chronic illness, who had endured spells of homelessness.
Whatever their lived experience was, they were more likely to
experience failure as something that they internalized and thought was
(30:58):
a definition on who they were as a person. But
that has changed massively as the podcast has grown, and
as I think we've all started having more conversations around failure,
And now I have people of all genders who are
only too happy to open up and who understand how
I define the concept as something that we can learn from.
(31:21):
But it is really interesting for everyone to ask what
their attitude of failure is because a lot of people
still feel scared of admitting to it.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
I'm curious as to what you think is the healthiest
way to approach looking at failure, because when I'm trying
to think of my failures, I have failed many times.
But there's a paronomy that likes to look at it
the same way you'd have said the men did, which
is they're just obstacles, because I guess they are one
in the same in a sense. But I still know
deep down that it's a failure. But for me, maybe
it's a psychological thing. Is to think, Okay, that was
(31:51):
one big obstacle that sent me back a little bit,
but I'll keep going. Do you think there's like a
healthy way that we should be approaching it? Do you
think owning failure is a driving force to success, to
further success?
Speaker 3 (32:00):
I do, But I define success as living your authentic
life rather than being driven to a private jet in
a limo, which would be really nice. Also nice, Yeah, yeah,
I suppose I define success slightly differently off the back
of what I've learned about failure, and I agree with
you that all failure, if we learn how to handle it,
(32:22):
can be treated as data acquisition. It can be treated
as an opportunity to learn, and what you learn might
simply be well I got through that, I survived. That
the failure itself might not have any meaning. It might
just be one of those awful, cataclysmic things that happens
and there is no explanation. But my firm belief is
(32:42):
that you can live alongside that failure, and the true
test of your character is not the failure itself, but
how you respond to it. And in responding to it,
I guarantee you that you will learn something meaningful in
the same way that I have learned so many meaningful
things from my self perceived failure. To have my own children.
(33:04):
And then there are your common or garden failures like
failing your driving test, or failing an exam, or failing
to get a job promotion, and they can definitely teach
you something. It might be that they teach you that
you are applying for the wrong job, or it might
be that it teaches you to prepare slightly differently next time,
or to really focus on your handbrake turn your three
point turns, not your handbrake turns. You don't want to
(33:26):
be doing those in your driving test. But no, I
do believe that all failure can be a portal to
greater learning.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
I think this is such an I mean, it's such
a wonderful take because we spend so much of our
life trying to avoid it. Like the reality is, no
one wants to feel like they're failed at something. No
one wants to be a failure in any aspect of
their life. And even sometimes across social media, you know,
we've fed this kind of success reel that everybody else
is killing it in different ways, and then that only
(33:56):
then goes to highlight those moments when we feel like
we are truly a failure. How important do you think
it is for people to be able to learn to
lead into those moments and almost be in flow with it,
so that you can instead of finding this idea of failure,
instead of internalizing it all, but actually learn from those
moments in life that are almost unavoidable. I think the
(34:17):
first thing to remember is that failure happens to us all.
It is genuinely what makes us human. And the greater
failure for me is allowing your fear to stop you
from taking the adventure. So it's always better, I think,
to have tried something new and to have failed at it,
because you'll have gained something along the way. There'll be
(34:39):
some useful knowledge along the way. And the other thing
to remember is that we live in a society where
you're right, there is this constant Instagram reel of curated perfection,
and we are getting better on social media as showing
up as ourselves, but still when you're comparing yourself to
a bikini shot of ca Him Kardashian looking absolutely incredible
(35:02):
on holiday in Costa Rica, and you've just got out
of bed and you're back to get your period and
your cat needs feeding and you're already late for work
that you're going to feel less than And I want
you to remember that we compare our insides to everyone
else's outsides, so we all know what neurotic messes we
(35:23):
feel inside. We all feel at some point in our
lives like we're an impostor, we don't deserve to be here,
we're not good enough, and yet we're constantly comparing that
to everyone else's external presentation and what we believe about them,
and so very often we project and we think that
other people have it all sorted, and so we're making
(35:44):
that feeling of comparison worse for ourselves. The chances are
that the person you're comparing yourself to also has messy,
neurotic insides and also has a private battle that they're fighting.
And I found that just a really helpful mindset because
it reminds me that we're all human, infallible, and.
Speaker 3 (36:08):
That's what makes us interesting, and that actually, when we're
open about our vulnerabilities, that's the source of all true connection.
Speaker 1 (36:16):
Elizabeth, you have interviewed some of the biggest names around
the world. We're talking Stephen Bartlett, who we recently had
on the podcast Bear Grills, Brene Brown, Jamil Jamil. It's
a good guest you you've done Jerry halliwell, Elliott Page,
like I mean, just to name a few. These are
huge people with what I can only assume, huge stories
(36:38):
and huge lessons and huge failures to get to where
they are. Is there a standout guest or a standout
moment or story where you've really learned something that's stuck
with you.
Speaker 3 (36:48):
Yes. Actually, it's so interesting you mentioned Elliott Page. I
just found him one of the most moving individuals, and
it's such an honor to me. I record has failed
in this tiny little studio that's basically like a cupboard.
Speaker 2 (37:04):
We feel you're good acoustics and good standproofing though, I
like that.
Speaker 3 (37:08):
But it's up like three or four flights of stairs,
and so have these extraordinary people schlep up these stairs
and sit down opposite me on these tiny, slightly rickety,
uncomfortable chairs. Elliott Page, Bernie Sanders has been in that room.
It's just it's so surreal and amazing. I never take
it for granted, and that was a very special conversation
(37:31):
with Elliot But I think if I had to choose one,
it would be a really early one. Actually, it's an
episode that I put out in twenty nineteen. It was
season four, and it was a man called Mogawdat who
has gone on to have all of the success that
he's always deserved. Actually, Stephen Bartlett has interviewed him now
a couple of times, and he was the former chief
(37:54):
business officer of Google X and he had written a
book that claimed it could make anyone happen. He had
developed an algorithm for happiness because he had applied all
of his engineering and statistical research skills to the problem
of human happiness and come up with this equation which
I will totally mangle. So just go and listen to
the episode because he'll explain it much better. But it's
(38:16):
essentially about managing expectation. It's about your perception of life
and the reality of it and not having overhyped expectations.
And the way that he spoke about these very profound
ideas was so mind blowing to me. It was a
massive light bulb moment in my own life, and it
changed the way that I live my life. And the
thing that most stuck with me and that I practice
(38:37):
still every day is this idea that you are not
your worst thoughts. So Moe explained the human brain and
explained that sometimes the human brain gets stuck on an
anxious narrative loop and it's constantly pointing out the things
that might go wrong, scanning the horizon for danger. It's
constantly misinterpreting the smoke alarm going off because the toast
is burning by saying that your house is on fire.
(39:00):
And he's like, you need to interrogate your brain, because
unless you suffer from a neurological condition, your brain does
what you tell it to. So if you turn your
brain to raise your right arm, your brain does that
for you. So when his brain gets stuck on this
anxious narrative loop and it's telling him awful things like
you're a failure, you're a terrible parent, no one likes you,
he stops himself and he calls his brain Becky, and
(39:23):
he says, Becky, I would like you to give me
objective evidence for that assertion. And if you can't give
me objective evidence for that assertion, I'd really love it
if you could replace that negative thought with the positive one.
Thanks so much, Becky, I'll see you in a few minutes.
It's like speaking so your out. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (39:44):
It's so funny you say that, because just yesterday we
were recording because we're recording me now a home studio
at my house, and long story, sure, we were recording
here and we both Laura and myself had to leave
to do separate things for the day. We're done, and
it was only about fifteen minutes and I get a
call from law She's like, you're still home and I said, no,
I've gone out, and she's like, oh, I feel like
(40:05):
I might have left the straightener plugged in.
Speaker 3 (40:07):
Oh my god, And I said, I said you didn't.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
I was like, no, I'm pretty sure you didn't because
I think I popped my head in and also I
think it's got a time where you know, it turns
itself off. She's like, no, I'm going to have to
come back, and I was like, it's okay, don't come back.
Speaker 3 (40:20):
And she's like, I'm.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
Not being responsible for having your house burned down.
Speaker 3 (40:23):
I'm not leving anxiety around if I left that on.
Speaker 1 (40:26):
And then if I did leave it on and you
don't come home for an hour and it starts a
fight and it burns it down, and then it's exactly
what you just said, where your brain gets stuck in
a loop that you you can't get out there.
Speaker 3 (40:35):
You can't break it. And Laura drove back. She drove
back to check it and was it off. I didn't
find out. Yeah, it was off and unplugged. That is
so me.
Speaker 2 (40:43):
But we do it to ourselves, and especially if you're
someone who has any sort of anxieties anxious attachments. For me,
it was triggered post having kids. I have a much
more heightened anxiety around danger and I don't know why,
but it's debilitating at times, like I'll get up and
check the oven a few times and it's like almost
like a compulsion.
Speaker 3 (41:02):
Now that has.
Speaker 2 (41:03):
Definitely gotten worse as I've gotten older in life.
Speaker 1 (41:05):
Where you have other people that you're protecting now. So
I guess that's an in built almost makenis.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
I also think it's not just that. I think it
happens to people. As we get older, we become worriers,
we worry more, and yeah, you know, when you're in
your twenties, you don't care about anything. You don't worry
about your mortality, you don't worry about your life. You
just kind of go and jump off those cliffs and
do crazy shit. And then you get into your thirties
or your forties and you have been exposed to bad things,
(41:30):
and so those things sit in your mind. And if
you're someone who struggles with anxiety, you can exactly like
you said, allow your brain to go on this loop.
And like for me, it's definitely an episode I need
to listen to because it's something that I struggle with.
Once I get into these spirals, I find it hard
to break that pattern.
Speaker 3 (41:45):
I totally understand where you're coming from, and I do
think that episode would help you. I've actually had him
back on the podcast twice since then because he always
has such amazing, profound insight. I've always been a worrier,
and it's interesting because in the era that I grew
that was the language. Right, you were a worrier rather
than you had anxiety. But you're so right that the
older I get, the more aware I am of the
(42:07):
things that could go wrong, and the more aware I
am that life is fragile and that I'm halfway through it,
probably if I'm lucky. And my closest examples of that
is airplane turbulence. I used to be fine flying and
now I just I hate I just hate turbulence, and
(42:28):
I get very illogical and irrational about it. And that's
always quite difficult to talk yourself out of in that
very rational way that Moe says. And my life hack
for anyone who struggles with airplane turbulence is to imagine
that you are in a car or in a horse
and car, and you're going along a cobbled street. And
there's something about the image of the cobbled street. I
(42:49):
don't know if you have cobbles in Australia because like
some countries, it.
Speaker 2 (42:52):
Sounds so English. There's like one place in Sydney that
might have a cobble street.
Speaker 3 (42:57):
But do you know, genuinely like, one of the things
that I'm grateful for not having children is that I
think I would be so anxious. I totally, I completely
understand why that would happen and why you're feeling it,
and it must be really horrible sometimes. So yeah, listen
to Mogada and Reader's book.
Speaker 2 (43:17):
I mean touching back on this idea of kids, and
it was something that you have spoken about before that
I would love to unpack a little bit, and it
was fertility privilege. Yeah, I would love to understand what
that means to you and why it's important for people
who do have the privilege of being able to get pregnant,
to be very cognizant of what they're doing.
Speaker 3 (43:36):
Yeah, I'm so glad you asked me about it, because
I think when I coined this term, it landed in
some quarters without nuance. What I'm not saying, let's start
with that. I'm absolutely not saying that I have an
issue with parents who have children. I think it's absolutely
fantastic you have kids. I'm not saying you're not allowed
to post pictures of your kids on social media and
(43:58):
celebrate what parenthood is or complain about how difficult it
is and share I'm absolutely not saying that. All I
was trying to get at was that if you know someone,
someone is in your friendship group or perhaps a relative,
is going through fertility struggles and you have been able
to have children, just to be cognizant of what you
(44:21):
expect from that person and how you communicate with them
in the same way as I'm so lucky that I
have a roof over my head and a house. If
a friend of mine was struggling or homeless, I wouldn't
constantly be complaining to them about how the boiler was
broken or how I've got to pay my counsel tax
and oh, it's a bit of a nightmare, but my
(44:42):
bed's really comfortable. It's just about being aware of what
other people are going through. And I think fertility privilege
has been overlooked for so long and so many people
have felt silenced because of it, and the people without
children have felt very marginalized by a societ which for
many decades has fetishized and elevated the idea of parenthood.
(45:06):
So I was struggling with my fertility at a time
when the mummy blogger terrible phrase was like really coming
of age, when we had this incredibly popular internet form
called Mum's Net here in the UK that it just
felt like all of the conversation was built around families
(45:27):
and children and it felt very very exclusive, and it
also felt like the rest of us weren't able or
couldn't find the space to share our stories. So it's
really about being aware of that and trying to correct
it slightly, in the same way that we have awareness
of other privileges. We're trying to correct that and restore
(45:48):
the equilibrium. So it was a way of starting conversations
was to talk about it and.
Speaker 2 (45:53):
To name it, you know, and also with these things,
I liked the way you described it when you're like
it didn't land in other people's camps. Like the thing
is is sometimes people will take a little bit of
what's been said or interpret something that's been said, and
then they have their own flavor on it are offended
by it, like what do you mean I can't I'm
not allowed to post that I'm pregnant.
Speaker 3 (46:11):
I'm not allowed to do X, y Z.
Speaker 2 (46:13):
And it's like, you can do all the things that
you want to do, it's just navigating it with kindness
for other people who are in and around you, people
who you probably care about, who are your friends and
your family, who might be experiencing something else. A lot
of people are very open and talk freely about their
fertility and where they're at. But also a lot of
people who may be your friends don't speak about it
(46:33):
because we have been conditioned that it's a private thing.
So you're never especially with social media being so public,
like you may not be aware what somebody else very
close to you is physically going throughout that time exactly that.
Speaker 3 (46:45):
All of that, I just want to bottle that up
and claim it as my own. You've explained it so
perfectly exactly that that term might not have landed with
some people. And that's fine, it's not for you. I'm
not I know that I speak two and four an
orgients who understands what I'm saying, and they're very often
the people who haven't spoken publicly, you haven't shared, and
(47:06):
who haven't told their own family. And it's completely understandable
because it's so so traumatic, so much of it is
so traumatic that you want to keep it private. But
they're the people that I get private messages from, and
they're the ones who say, we appreciate this, and please
keep doing what you do, and they're the people that
I'm passionate about speaking up for. As someone who is
(47:26):
an inveterate over sharer, I really don't mind. I really
don't mind talking about it. And I think every if
we're talking about the world of social media, we all
have our own audiences, our own communities, and we know
who we're speaking to, and that's a really beautiful thing.
And sometimes, as you say, it's just about navigating that
(47:48):
with awareness, because if you are a social media influencer
with many, many, hundreds of thousands, even millions of followers,
I guarantee you that within those followers there will be
people who struggle with fertility. And if you are posting
your successful baby scan, it doesn't mean you shouldn't do it.
That's a wonderful thing to celebrate, but maybe to do it,
(48:09):
as you say, Laura, with awareness that someone following you
or someone who knows you that will land differently for them.
Speaker 1 (48:16):
Can I ask you, Elizabeth, because I don't think we
touched on it earlier, but did you ever find out
the reason for your infertility or did you have unexplained infertility?
Speaker 3 (48:24):
Unexplained baby explained?
Speaker 1 (48:27):
Do you feel like there's more frustrating than not, Like,
are you more like, tell me why I can't do it?
Speaker 3 (48:33):
Yeah, like I want to make peace with that, Yeah, exactly.
Or if you are someone which I was, who felt
like the solution was to work harder, Yeah, and to
try and have control over things, It's like, well, if
you tell me what it is, I can work harder
to rectify it. But it was ultimately unexplained. There was
one thing. I was born with a bicorn you at uterus,
(48:56):
which is a heart shaped womb with the septum at
the top, and women with those kind of wombs have
successfully gone on to have full term pregnancies, so they've
never done enough research into it. But there are some
schools of thought that believe that that can trigger early miscarriage,
and then there are other schools of thought which is like,
well might not though, and as ever with things that
(49:18):
are wrongly termed women's issues, there just hasn't been enough
medical research devoted to it, of course, but I did
one of my many procedures was to have that sept
and removed and it still didn't work, sadly. So yeah,
it's unexplained, but actually it's been quite a good lesson
for me as someone who did believe that the solution
was always to work harder. There are some things I
cannot work harder for. And ultimately, what makes the universe
(49:41):
beautiful is that it is mysterious and there are bits
of it that are unexplained and that that is part
of life, and so sort of living alongside that has
brought me peace actually and alignment rather than an attempt
to control the chaos.
Speaker 1 (49:57):
You speak so well on the topic, and as Allan
is going through at the moment, I really appreciate the
chat and the honesty and you definitely make me look
at things in a different light.
Speaker 3 (50:06):
And I know that you're helping so many people out.
Speaker 1 (50:08):
There, and not just I mean, I feel like we
spoke a lot about fertility in this chat, because I
think it's something that does affect obviously so many women,
but failure as a whole is something really important that
I think people can definitely take a different perspective on.
Speaker 3 (50:20):
And I mean, you've got it all covered. You've got
the podcast, you got the books, you're doing.
Speaker 1 (50:25):
You're doing everything, so you're definitely putting out to the
world and helping a lot of people. So we can't
thank you enough for your time today.
Speaker 3 (50:30):
Oh I cannot tell you how much I have loved
this conversation. It's so nice being interviewed by two exceptional women.
I really loved your questions and the thought and the
care that you put into it, and I felt like
it's the conversational equivalent of a warm, understanding hug. So
thank you so much for having me, and I hope
(50:51):
I get to see you when I'm in Australia in
February at the Sydney Opera House and in Melbourne.
Speaker 2 (50:57):
Surreal Cereal They perhaps is amazing it's amazing that you
get to do shows there. Tell us the dates and everything,
so people where they can get tickets, how they can
get tickets.
Speaker 3 (51:08):
Okay, so the dates. I'm so excited to be coming
to Australia because since day one, Australia has been I
think my second largest international audience for the podcast, and
I feel so loved by your people. So I'm really
happy that I get to come over. So on Monday,
the twenty sixth of February, I know Taylor Swift is
playing Sydney, but if you haven't got tickets, come and
(51:30):
see me. We're going to Taylor Swift.
Speaker 2 (51:33):
A lot of people don't have tickets. We're going to
one of the shows. I don't know which I'm going to.
Speaker 1 (51:36):
I think we're going to different ones. I think you're
going to the first one. I'm going to the one,
the second coming.
Speaker 3 (51:40):
To show last, Okay, okay, great, great, So one of
you can come on Monday the twenty sixth of February
at the Sydney Opera House and you can book tickets
via the Sydney Opera House website. And then on the
twenty eighth of February, I'm going to Melbourne and I
will be at Hamer Hall and again you can get
tickets on their website. So thank you so much for
having me and allowing me to talk about all the
(52:02):
things that I really love getting deep into.
Speaker 1 (52:04):
Well, so that was the nicest thing anyone's ever said
to us. By night Like, we're probably gonna take that
and use.
Speaker 3 (52:09):
It as the grab Yeah.
Speaker 1 (52:11):
Thanks again, and we're gonna put all your podcast links
in our notes for anyone that wants to go and
check you out. Okay, guys, we're gonna get out of
here because we have got to go and catch a
flight to the other side of the world or the country.
Speaker 3 (52:23):
Perth.
Speaker 1 (52:24):
We're coming hot for the live show, which will be
tomorrow night, Thursday night. If you haven't got your tickets yet,
there's still.
Speaker 3 (52:29):
A couple of laughs.
Speaker 2 (52:29):
Oh I got so many people from Perth have messaged
us and been like, no one.
Speaker 3 (52:32):
Ever comes to Perth. Thanks for coming to Perth. We
are pumps so excited.
Speaker 2 (52:37):
I mean, it does feel like a little bit of
a well wind trip for what could be an international flight.
Speaker 3 (52:42):
We're only there for one night.
Speaker 2 (52:43):
That would be we could have gone to Bali for
the same amount of time, but Honestly, we could not
be more excited. This is number two lap show Baby,
and now we know what we're doing on stage, so
it's going to be even better than the last one,
which was still really good.
Speaker 3 (52:55):
But you can get your.
Speaker 2 (52:56):
Tickets at lifeoncutpodcast dot com today you and that will
be Thursday night and then on Sunday night we have
Sydney Show.
Speaker 3 (53:02):
So it's all happening. It's a wild week, isn't it. Anyway, guys,
that's it from us.
Speaker 1 (53:06):
You know the drill, Tell your mum tay, dad tay,
don't tell your friends and shared a love because we
love them.
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