Book Club Meets: Namaste Motherf*ckers! How to nail midlife, with Cally Beaton

0:00After a recent gig where I'd done a bit of menopause material. Welcome to the Happy Place Book Club with me, Fern Cotton. We were having a rollicking good chat until he said... Today, Namaste, Motherfuckers, by Callie Beaton. Not that he's got anything against female comics talking about periods or menopause or sex or whatever. Or indeed, against female comics full stop. But how did I think his mother and grandmother coped with menopause without needing to talk about it all the time? Having briefly toyed with slapping an oestrogen patch over his still open mouth, but they're very hard to come by so why waste one?

0:35I responded by explaining that we'd all coped with lots of things in the past like dentistry without anaesthetic or passive smoking in public spaces or dying in car accidents without seatbelts. And how did he know they'd coped when women were routinely being locked in institutions and given everything from valium to hysterectomies when all they actually needed was HRT? And if, for generations, men had been having their willies removed because of anxiety, depression and an inability to regulate their own body temperature, then I think we'd all feel able to agree that it's a pretty good thing. It's finally on the agenda now.

1:11Yes? Right. Are we going for a drink then or what? No idea why I'm single.

1:20OK, let me give this book the respect of its full brilliant title. Namaste, motherfuckers. A modern manifesto for keeping cool when you're a hot mess. This book is so great because not only does it weave in some of Callie's own personal story and her views on life and ageing and being a woman, it's also incredibly funny because Callie is a stand-up comedian and you hear about her life pivot within her own memoir parts of the book. But also it's highly practical. Callie not only talks about her own life but gives little examples and bits of advice on how she's navigated some tough stuff, whether that's being a single parent, whether that's raising a son with autism, whether that's being a female in a very male dominated industry.

2:07There's so much in there and there's some very funny jokes to end each chapter too. Comedian Callie and I had this chat live at the Happy Place Festival in Tatton Park just a few weeks ago. Maybe you were there, you lovely lot. I hope you had a good time. I really do. I did. I loved it. There's a lot of love for Callie in the talk 10 a lot of love and on Instagram if you're not in our book club why if you love books you've got to join our book club we chat about brilliant books that are out we have a chosen pick for each month which we dive into deeply that's what we've done with Callie's book and we suggest books we hear what you think of them oh it's so fun go to our Instagram account at happy place book club you lot have been sending me your thoughts on this book Nahal says I'm about to turn 40 and feel I'm on the cusp of radical change that hasn't materialized yet.

2:56Hearing Callie's words is really reassuring. Oh, thank you so much for that message. We talk about radical change a lot in this convo, actually. This is from Bunny. Bunny says, I used to be trapped by the too old cage, but I busted that lock and I'm now frolicking in beautiful fields of endless color and creativity. Oh my God, I feel ramped up from reading that message. And Alice wrote a similar message. I've passed the old broad past 60 border I've just started to write sing make dance music yes and I've picked up photography too the good news behind all this dear girls you can start and keep going as long as you bloody well want let's kick those limitations society has put on us to the curb oh my god Alice I've got goosebumps so as I said coming up in this chat why you're never too old to change the path you think your life is on loving your imperfections looking up to older female elders and mentors, bloody important.

3:52And a big one, perimenopause.

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5:52Right, here's the show.

6:16Let's do it. Come on, book nerds. Please welcome my guest, Callie Beaton. Hello. Hello, Callie. We're awake. We're here. We were just chatting backstage because Callie was saying, you know, obviously you do a lot of your stand-up in the evenings. This is like you've got jet lag for this one. If they give you the 9.15 slot at most of the festivals I do, 9.15am, you'd be like none taken. But here, prime time. Your prime time. And also, for any of you book lovers out there, the Happy Place Book Club is where we have big, deep chats about books that we love. So this is our book club pick for August, Callie's book.

6:55Namaste, motherfuckers. I feel like I've got to whisper because it's nine in the morning. It feels like kind of sinful saying it. Too early to swear. Too early to swear. But this book has brought me so much joy. And I know lots of you have been following us on social media, reading along with us. So look, I love this book. It's a modern manifesto for keeping cool when you're a hot mess. Yes, indeed. What initially inspired you to write this book, Hallie? I'd been thinking for about five years about writing a book and I didn't quite know what book it was I wanted to write. But I kept thinking, you know, I used to sit in boardrooms.

7:32Now I'm a comedian. My life's kind of messy. There's lots of stuff I put out on social media people seem to sort of relate to. and I was thinking I need to write this glossy gorgeous perfect book and and then I realized no actually the book I want to write is about imperfection and not having to know how to do things so I kind of I spend my life fitting the wheels while I fly the plane and that was sort of how I decided to write the book so I what I finally hit upon was writing the book that I would like to read and I had some brilliant advice from someone in the literary world who said that she I said, just don't worry about who's going to read it.

8:09Just write from the heart and write what you want to write. So, yeah, I embarked upon the journey of getting someone to pay me to write a book because I'm not very good without deadlines or incentive. And then I had nine months in which to write the book. So it was like a sort of like a pregnancy. Yeah, quite. Cracked through my nine months. The nearest I'll get to a pregnancy these days. It really is. It's like writing a book is no mean feat. It's a wild process to go through. and any other writers that I speak to, I think you go through this cycle of, you're so excited, you're fired up, you're writing it, you're loving it, get to the next bit, this is a pile of shit, what am I doing?

8:44I don't want anyone to see this. Then you come out the other side of that again. It's so undulating. Yeah, I think I had really good advice, loath as I am, to give a big word to a man at the Happy Place Festival, but Richard Osman's a mate from the telly days and he's obviously written a few quite successful books and he said, get it down, then get it good. and every time I just asked, I sort of manifested the willingness to sit and write, not the capacity to write something amazing. So I just kept trying to sit with it. Lots of the book got written, dictated into my phone on dog walks. So I would think of things.

9:18I'd be like, oh, that's a good idea. I'll do that. And I would dictate stuff. And then when I got home, I would look at it and put it together. So I don't, when I read the book back in its entirety, when the manuscript was finished, I was like, gosh, it sort of, it did just kind of come into the world it was a bit like a birth I don't know where it did come from but I enjoyed reading it and I hope other people enjoy reading it I love it I love it it's such a good mix of real practical advice but also loads of personal anecdotes in there and stories you know you had your own whole kind of life pivot is featured in this book heavily yes as you say you worked in tv that was your career and you were thriving and then you had this seminal chat with Joan Rivers, which is not something many people can say, but tell us about that and why that sparked something in you.

10:05It's never too early in the day for an epic name drop, is it? So here we go. She's in the tent. So yeah, I was, well, in fact, it's funny, our paths never crossed because I worked at MTV for many years and I ended up sitting in boardrooms at quite a young age. I ran a production company that was acquired by ITV and I sat in these really male dominant I was the youngest and only female member of the ITV board back then this is going back 25 years it was really fun David Cameron was on the board at the time yes that David Cameron some of you thinking why didn't he just stay there so I was in these very sort of male dominated boardrooms and then began this life in as a sort of board level person in media which wasn't ever what I set out to do you know and you watch your life going down a path that you never quite intended and it's really easy to think well I'm on this path now I'm committed what am I supposed to do and along the way I'd become a single mum of two young kids and one of my kids has special needs so I felt like I'm trying to have a grown-up career and support my family and just kind of crack on really not make a fuss and I ended up being on the board of Comedy Central in the US and we would meet the sort of A-list talent at industry events so I was the boring business person but we would host events for drunken jaded tv executives so fun around the world such fun and I was like the least sexy fluffer ever I would be the one who'd have to bring on the sort of acts and I said I soon realized you just got to sort of keep the room awake at the wheel before you bring them on and I worked with Jane Rivers a few times on those occasions and she and I kind of hit it off from the start I hadn't really thought of her as a feminist icon until I met her the first time I I was like, oh, wow, you really were busting through the glass ceilings of Hollywood when no women were doing what you were doing.

11:53It was because of women like Joan Rivers that I'd grown up as a little girl knowing women could be funny. And I introduced her at several events. And we had dinner together, just the two of us, not long before she died. Not connected. Not long before she died. And she said to me, you should have a go at stand-up. I think you've got what it takes. And I was 45 at the time. And I said, you know, I'm a 45-year-old single mum of two kids. I sit in a boardroom. That's way too late for me. And she just looked me in the eye and she said, Callie, I'm 81. What's stopping you? And she died two weeks after that dinner, unexpectedly from complications to surgery.

12:35And two weeks after that, I did my first ever stand-up gig, an open mic gig. That's how tough it is for older women in comedy. Yes! So we operate a one-in, one-out policy. And in honour of Joan Rivers, I died. But I was doing it. So that was my first gig. And I still have my boardroom job. So I was doing the open mic circuit like everyone has to. I was hustling my way through, trying to get good. You have to do a lot of gigs to become remotely good as a stand-up. So I put my hours in on the circuit by night. and by day I was in boardrooms. But what's so remarkable, and I really felt this reading the book, was, yes, that's an extraordinary moment to have someone like Joan Rivers look you dead in the eye and give you that advice.

13:27You know, I'm sure most of us would go, oh, I should probably take this a bit more seriously than I am. But it's really something to go from, that was a funny little moment, to you're on a stage doing it. You know, how do you get from, oh, that does feel quite exciting, maybe I could to actually doing it because I think the thing that stops most of us is just going, oh no, I can't be bothered. It's not for me or I couldn't do that. You know, we don't even give ourselves the chance to try. I think it's remarkable that you even got on the stage to try that first gig. Well, I think a couple of things.

14:01One is it's really nice for the purposes of the book and our chat that this conversation has Joan Rivers in it. But what's relevant about that conversation is that it was an 81-year-old. It was a wise female elder who I revered who told me that. It's nice she was famous for the story, but actually it doesn't matter. It was someone who, so that person, you know, today is as young as we're ever going to be. And I never felt that more clearly than in that moment with her. Her dying then obviously anchored the sort of mortality of things because she was so vibrant and, you know, and it was out of the blue, her death.

14:36And so there was that. there was this kind of like you know real carpe diem sort of thing to the whole thing but there was also an increasing um looming perimenopausal desperation within me something in me it was screaming yeah and was thinking about saying what i thought so i was like in board meetings thinking i'm this close to saying what i'm actually thinking yeah so i kind of needed somewhere to go and do that that was not in the boardroom so this the reason the book is namaste and motherfuckers is because on the one hand I was very namaste you know juice cleanses you know doing my meditation being a real grown-up and on the other side I had this rage in me that women my age and women full stop are told not to feel I had this motherfucking rage and I was like well that needs to go somewhere so I my life became very split into the namasteing in the boardroom and the motherfucking at night yeah and um but it was very hormone I would say as someone now at 56 I would say for anyone in the 40s in the trenches that were those were the hard yards those are the hard yards much yeah those are the hard yards yeah it's a funny old time I mean I'm sort of I talked about this a fair bit yesterday in various talks I was doing I'm in sort of like peri-denial I'm just like no I'm not even I can't be bothered to do menopause I know I'm in it all the things are there all the signs but I'm like la la la and I'm like at some point I will called Davina McCall but I haven't got there yet or Callie Beaton what I would say is I feel really strongly about um the perimenopausal phase and how little is talked about that yeah I think it's brilliant that we talk much more about menopause but I do think so I I properly had a kind of a full-on meltdown at 47 and that's when it was that was part of what led to me actually making the full pivot so it looks like a radical powerless reinvention and it it was and it wasn't but it also came from the fact that my coping strategies what I was doing and how I was doing it perimenopause made them reach their cell by date and I had nothing much left to give I mean you were misdiagnosed at one point as well with bipolar yeah which I think you know that's a whole the conversation about the disparity between sort of men's health care and women's that a lot of these symptoms are not taken seriously or we're meant to just push through and crack on with it but a misdiagnosis that's some that's major i did some research about it for the tour show i'm doing at the moment and it's um because i talk about the diagnosis in the period of psychiatric support i had at 47 and it was actually what was going on at 47 was a venn diagram of looming empty nest perimenopause and burnout.

17:22That's what was going on. And I will be by no means unique as a 47-year-old woman going through those things. It was misdiagnosed as bipolar disorder. And I found out that if you're perimenopausal or menopausal, you're more than twice as likely to be diagnosed with bipolar disorder, oftentimes erroneously. I was given medication for it. And I took that medication for nearly 10 years until I found out it was not bipolar disorder. Along the way, luckily, I also started taking HRT. But that bit of medical misogyny cost me a decade. And it's serious. And I don't know a single one of my mates, my hugely scientific focus group of menopausal and perimenopausal mates, but not one of us went through our 40s without some kind of massive wheels coming off the bus.

18:12If it's any consolation to anyone in their 40s, things have been much better in my 50s. Menopause has been a dream compared to perimenopause. It's not been easy all the time, but the peri years were the trenches for me. Yeah, but I think, again, what I love about this book is, yes, you talk about the trenches, you talk about the rock bottoms, but also the potential for reinvention. And I don't want to sort of say that in a reductive way, like, oh, and then you can reinvent and be someone new, But I think, you know, I've been sort of ground zero before, not necessarily to do with hormones, but, you know, maybe like early 30s.

18:46And it was a chance for me to reassess my whole life and go, this doesn't make sense. I'm not loving this. Why do I think like this? And unless you are forced to have those big, big reframing moments, you probably won't. You just carry on because, oh, this is just how life is. This is what I do. So there is a glimmer of light, I think, in those moments that feel like absolute shit. I think it literally, when you realise, when you think about what holds you back from doing anything, it's a fear of failure. And we're thinking, well, I'd better not do it in case I'm not good at it. If I'd been saying as a comic, I'm not going to do a gig until I'm a good comic, I'd never have done a gig.

19:24You get good from doing the gigs and you never learn as much from a good gig as you do from a bad gig. So stand up will bring you hard up against failure, like it or not. And it's really a massive relief. because so what you go home and cry into your pillow no one there gives a shit that's happened now they saw someone else who was good you weren't doesn't matter to them and I think real and also realizing what I do now seems very different so I'm now a broadcaster podcaster writer comic but everything I learned in the boardroom everything I was all those years before I took it all with me and that has really been able to help me and what I do now so everything you've worked so hard to be every single thing you are in your work at home whatever you decide to do next it's all in the toolkit and there's enough that gets in the way of midlife women without us getting in our own way yeah so doing it our way messily and knowing that the aim is not how well we do it it's just letting the wind be in our hair and having a go yeah that was such a relief to me I was like, oh, yeah, you're allowed to just try stuff and do stuff.

20:31And the only person who really cares is me. Yeah. It's fine. So it just is a big sort of relief, really. And I just think far better my imperfect story than some perfect story that I've been told is the one I should be living. Oh, my God. I mean, no one is. It's just a whole fallacy when we see these stories on social media or whatever. It's just a load of old nonsense. Yeah. I mean, you tell one story in the book that sort of merges. is everything you've talked about there, which is the notion of feeling invisible in midlife, but also being a stand-up comic. But like you say, you're facing potential failure.

21:06There's risk every time. But also it's a real male-dominated scene. We've had on the podcast Joanne McNally. We also had Harriet Kemsley at the last Happy Place Festival. And both have talked about that. And you tell a story of turning up to support Mickey Flanagan and not being allowed in. Yeah. I turned up, I was doing some tour support for Mickey. and I turned up at the London theatre and the stage door had scaffolding so you couldn't go in the stage door. So I just whizzed to the front of this massive queue. People get a bit twitchy if you're walking to the front of the queue anyway. So I was a bit like, sorry, sorry.

21:38And then I got to the front and I just said, oh, you know, I'm Mickey's tour support. And the security said that it's only Mickey on stage tonight. I said, well, and it's tour support. And she went, no, there is no tour support. It's just Mickey on stage if you just want to get in the queue with everybody else. And I literally was like, oh God. So I then had to walk past 600 people, all of whom were about to see me on stage, calling Mickey's agent, going, oh, Christian, could you get me into the venue? But I've never heard of a male comedian be turned... And I get turned away from, I think, particularly as an older female comedian.

22:10I don't look like what people at the venue think a comedian should look like. I repeatedly have to negotiate to be allowed into venues. I do after-dinner speeches and get told I'm not the speaker. I've you know I mean I it happens so often I said I'm here with um with Lou from my publishers today and I was saying it's really nice I reckon this one they'll actually let us in and we'll be fine all women welcome it's that I've never had more swagger I was like yeah yeah this is just a community of middle-aged women hanging out chatting about hormones carpet for all menopausals. We love it. But it is a harsh environment.

22:49You know, I always, whenever I get to interview stand-up comics or chatting informally, I'm like, I don't know how you do it. I wonder if you do have to have a certain personality type, because I love what you just said a moment ago, that you might have a bad gig, go home, have a cry, but no one else thinks about it. I don't think I could put myself through that. You know, I've obviously done shit podcast episodes, or I've done a talk at an event, and I thought, God, I just wasn't on point that day. I hate that feeling. But I could drive myself mad for weeks, sometimes months. It could wake me up in the middle of the night.

23:22And again, like you say, no one else is worrying about it. But I think stand-up is the most sort of brutal environment to test that theory out in, because the reaction is a must. You know, we could do a talk today, and it doesn't have to be funny. People might walk away and think, oh, that was interesting, I like that. But with comedy, you know how it works. There has to be laughter. that is like a must otherwise why have you turned up so how do you again sort of put yourself in the face of that risk but also go home and pick yourself back up to get back out on stage and do it again well I always think first of all with stand-up I mean all we are doing is mucking about on stage telling jokes there'll be loads of people in here whose jobs are actually really hard and challenging and brave so I always think to keep it in context but I do think they say that um they say that stand-ups are egomaniacs with intense self-loathing and I think that probably sums us up really because on the one hand we're like look at me and on the other hand we're like I hate myself and it's this weird push me pull me thing that we have um there's usually a re that there's something something's gone a bit awry or we wouldn't do stand-up most of us have had something in our childhood or something it's rare you meet a stand-up whose life has just gone in a linear sorted way so we're all doing it for some kind of a weird reason that we can't explain it's a kind of band of rogues I've never felt I belong as much as I do in stand-up sort of circles but it's also really empowering so if I'm on stay I like doing I used to do loads of emceeing that's when I got kind of got my craft because you have to be live you've got to work the room turn up can't hide behind your script and I love nothing more than if a bloke gives me a heckle a big loud heckle near the start because I'm the one with the microphone and none of the room want the heckler to win they want you to win and as soon as you can adequately put the man or men and it often is men or yeah often is males who will give me the biggest heckles once you've put them in their box you've got the room when do you get that chance in life imagine if you're on the tube and some dickhead says to me and you've got a mic and you're like well I might take one next time yeah so you've got the mic and when you remember you've got that you've actually got a lot of power when you've got the mic and um and most of the room have come because they want you to succeed can you take that attitude into your real life because I think that is a lovely skill not to literally shout someone down but to realize you do or you could but to have that level of autonomy like I'm not going to be put down by you I'm not going to be told what to do by you I've realized as I've as I've gone through life that I think we put I don't know how it is for you but I've often been the one to put myself down the most yeah so I'm only too willing to be thinking well I'm less than you because I don't look as good in my yoga clothes or I don't do this so I'll have a pop-up myself before anyone else has and now I realize that we all are allowed to occupy our space and the reason I have such a positive relationship with social media which I know has its massive downsides but the stuff I put out on social media and the incredible community of Amazonian women who engage and it's a similar community to the one that you guys have across the happy place platforms and you realize that these outliers who want to bring women down who just hate women they are outliers common sense can prevail and they don't diminish us for a second you know the biggest thing I get leveled at me on stage or on social media one of the biggest insults is oh you know you're so ugly I would not want to have sex with you that kind of stuff and I'm like by way of an insult that is like you telling me you're not going to burgle me and expecting me to be really upset so so thank you so but I think those things I think that's not that's not about me that's about that person so I feel much more able to see it for what it is and you do get a lot of you know on stage and on social media you know I I'm I get a lot of hate thrown my way and I think it's actually helped me realize that it's it's a sort of bubble of hatred that has nothing to do with the recipients that's the that is the one huge lessons I think I mean I'm still learning it and I know it and you know I've had to learn that one pretty early on in life and it is so powerful if you can really really lean into that one with you know not just on social media but like in our lives whether it's a friend saying something shitty to you or a relative or someone at work it's so rarely if ever about you it's someone else's projection onto you their own self-loathing you know we all know really happy grounded content people and then they're they're good eggs they don't feel the need to bring other people down or to you know throw their weight around with other people it's totally different transactions so I think when you can really believe that one because we all kind of know it's true that is such a weight off our shoulders because we waste so much time constantly worrying what other people think about us and it really doesn't one of the things I was thinking about because they say as a female stand up everyone's got to be funny within the first 30 seconds that's about as much grace as you've got get a banging joke out within 30 seconds and for women you've got to be liked as well so you've got two things you've got to do um and if you're not liked you you can't you don't see many female comedians who come in with an objectionable persona as their persona because no one would go with us long enough to keep it going it's pretty hard you got it you got to be kind of oh you know i'm your friend you know let's all hang out together but i do think that when you're looking at kind of how you do these things and how we get out of our own way when I do kind of stuff on the corporate speaking circuit I do loads of like TED talkie type stuff and I realize actually what people also want is stuff they can actually take away that they can do stuff with so I thought it's one thing me saying oh I've got all these revelations and isn't it helpful but the other thing I really did want to write down in the book was take outs as you know that every chapter has stuff that you could actually try um and and you don't have to you can read the whole book and do none of them or you can just step in and out of them if you want something for a certain occasion but I thought all the stuff I've tried to learn with 56 years at the wheel of life or sometimes not feeling much like I'm driving but being in the car I've sort of thought yeah I wanted to try and share those as well and also just write them down for myself what helps and how can I try and catch it and keep it and use it if I need it I think you know certainly that stuff around caring less about what people think is I think that's one big lesson we all need to learn and that's one of the big takeaways that we need to have from your book from listening today is you know it's it's never about us and you're so right like I was having this chat the other day about it wasn't necessarily about female comedians but just females in general and this this this sort of must that we should be likable and I was thinking have we ever seen a sort of character on TV like Simon Cowell who everyone sort of loves but he's the mean guy, he's the bad guy if there was a female equivalent you'd go what a bitch, don't like her, she'd last one season of a show and then be booted off and it's such a that's such a tricky one for you to cross because comedy it's meant to be pushing boundaries and saying the unsayable but you've got to also tread the line of please also like me so that I can stay in this job I always love doing longer sets so if you're doing even a 20 minute set which is the normal amount of time you do on a club stage within 20 minutes by about minute 12 13 if they're in and you've given them enough laughs and you're likeable you can start putting in what it is you want to say and how you want to say it so I've got much darker funny dark but I've got much darker in what I'll dare to say on a stage but I'll only be able to do it when I've properly got everybody really with me yeah and the nice thing about doing longer shows obviously is you really do get a chance to sort of tell your story but I also think we're when we're heckling ourselves people say to me how do you deal with hecklers it's my own heckles to myself that are the biggest problem and it's if somebody you could have a hundred good gigs and one bad gig and that'll be the one you remember the bad gig and all of us have an equivalent of that and if someone says something lovely to us we dismiss it someone says you look great or I love that thing you did at work or we'll be like oh yeah, we've moved on.

31:50But we need to bank that stuff, all that lovely stuff, all the lovely people, the energy of places like this. This exists outside of here. There's so much more of this than there is of the toxic stuff. And if we can just relax into that, life's so much more pleasant. And also we might be able to give ourselves permission to fail and try something we always thought we could try. Yeah, we need to let ourselves off the hook big time.

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34:23I mean, you say that your 50s has been the happiest decade so far. What do you think has made it such a great decade for you so far? Well, the kids fucked up. See ya!

34:38And I got a dog.

34:43so yeah I think I mean well I gave up the day job um the year the year I turned 50 um there was a B-list French celebrity that year a guy called Yann Moir who went viral you may remember it he said that women at 50 are invisible and there was this big backlash and I did a show that year called invisible and I gave up my my boardroom job it was also the year that the global pandemic shut down all live venues so don't take business advice from me but I did give up the day job I don't regret it even though it was it was it was tough timing with the pandemic um I have become an empty nester which is a which is a mixed blessing but there is I couldn't have um written this book when I was as busy as I was with my kids I have got the dog Jeff who I love and is great joy to me yeah I'm a big one for pets with human names I've got two cats and they're called frank and simon there you go well they'd probably they should meet jeff they could yeah yeah and we've got a cat called crystal not named by me so jeff and crystal i always think they should have a lot of cortina with their fluffy dice fluffy dice so their names on it but the other thing that is a real revelation to me at the moment is i've i've been a real serial data so from from sort of 14 to 54 i always had a boyfriend always always and i finally realized after one disastrous kind of car crash relationship after another, that it would be really nice to just, I know it sounds really cliché, but to actually worry about my relationship with myself and my friends and doing things that have nothing to do with that.

36:17So I've not hung up my hat forever. I've not joined the convent. But I'm really loving having a life that is just open and free and full of possibility. And there is something very liberating about no longer being fertile. There is no clock ticking on anything. I still have the period pants, but for wee, not periods. Yeah, same. Yeah, I wear them for wee. Yeah. I have no pelvic floor. Yeah. No, the period pants are great. Yeah, I love them. I'm peeing right now. Yeah. It's really nice. Fantastic. But I do think the, but being able to just walk free in our period pants, what a joy. Dreaming. What a joy.

36:57But you know what, this is all the stuff no one talks about. Like, you know, we are fed this narrative that, you know, oh, menopause and kids leaving and like your 50s, oh my God. All I've ever heard is sort of, not from women that I know, but the sort of societal piece on being in your 50s. What a terrible time for women and everything's going tits up. And actually, everything you've just said excites the hell out of me. What an amazing period of freedom and liberation. And I know it's not always that simple. You know, a lot of my friends who are a decade or two decades older than me and maybe you've got parents that they're now caring for and that's sort of all tips as well.

37:32But I think we're not looking at any of the positives at the moment of midlife. What I wanted to say in the book and the reason it is about what to do when you're a hot mess is it's all of that. It is sleepless nights, anxiety, upset, tears about weird things, non-stop crying, non-stop pissing. But it's also free and joyous and I've only just found my voice. It's taking me 10 years as a comic to find my voice. Writing this book helped me find my voice. The tour show I'm doing right now is the first show I've ever done where I'm like, oh, right, this is my show. I found myself. All of that is happening.

38:10And when people say, it's amazing, you reinvented at 50, it's like, well, this isn't my last reinvention. Why would it be? My dad's 81, and he still plays the drums, and he still cycles and plays tennis, and he's still living his life and having new adventures. when he heard he had his third type of cancer, he went out and bought a crappy old kit car and went driving. And I was like, yeah, we can live like that. So it's all of that. So even on the messiest days, I think HG Wells said, if you fell down yesterday, stand up today. And I fall down and stand up many times every day. And we were saying before we came on, weren't we, that we were, you know, just to break the force, we were both a bit, oh, we're not quite awake, what's going to happen?

38:52And we both said, it's always when you feel like that, you have a lovely time and just knowing we might be slightly bleary eyed and what and then we come on and it's just lovely in the moment and that's all part of a normal day and it's nice yeah i mean that's certainly one of the main things that i try and talk about either at the festival or in the podcast or whatever and it's kind of why happy place exists is that it is a place for like anything goes like absolute imperfection you don't have to come here and be good at yoga or meditate every day. I haven't meditated for years. I just, I haven't had the time.

39:24That's a crap excuse. I'm meant to apparently meditate more when you say things like that, but none of it is about perfection or like this regimented lifestyle. So everything's perfect. It's like, we're all trying our best. We're all getting out of bed every day, giving it a good shot. Some days it's going to be great. Other times, not so much, but we've got to give ourselves a break. Stop being so hard on ourselves. Well, it's also when I talk about, I completely agree with everything you've said and one of the things that people often ask me about imposter syndrome when i do the corporate speaking and i speak to that theme a lot of and when you think about whether it's imposter syndrome or what holds us back we're always comparing our insides to other people's outsides because that's all we can see of the other so we're the only one who knows about the mess and it's our mess but everybody is they i think the latest research says that over 90 of people suffer from imposter syndrome and don't and the ones who don't are narcissists and psychopaths so good good if that's how we're feeling so when people say to me well how do you counter imposter syndrome and every single thing i ever do i a bit of me is thinking this will be the one i get found out or it's been a bit of a mistake that they put me for this yeah every time i'm walking around here going yes i deserve my own festival everybody follow me around and take pictures now i'm going what the fuck is this about like it's completely insane you know we've got um as a little exclusive tomorrow on our regular happy place episode that goes out we've got pru leath on dame pru leath who's amazing i'm such a big bake-off fan her story is incredible and she talks about starting a restaurant uh she's never done it before also opening a cookery school she'd never taught anyone to cook in her life she sort of was a great cook but had never taught it and she's like none of those things should stop you like give it a go and imposter syndrome is a is a new term so she went obviously everyone's always been feeling that we just didn't have language for it and you kind of assume yeah everyone's winging it flying by the seat of their pants giving things a go but it should never ever stop you from trying you know we can all look at other people it could be someone on the talk stage today or the person next to you doing yoga and you think oh man they've got they've got it all sorted they've cracked life they're nailing it everything's going brilliantly we haven't got a clue yeah i don't have a clue what's going on for other people ever no idea and i find the the bit that brings people in is that vulnerability so i realized as a as a corporate speaker i i it's a very male circuit and i occasionally get to see the other speakers on it normally we're booked simultaneously you know at different events we don't see each other but whenever i see people often their whole vibe is this amazing thing they did and they're going to help you try and be as good as they are and personally i think well i'm never going to climb up everest in a tweed suit so good luck to you but that's not my whereas I always will go on with how I'm feeling what's actually going on and I will kind of um break down the what's actually what it actually takes to be doing including public speaking I used to hate public speaking I think Jerry Seinfeld said most people would sooner be in the coffin than give the eulogy because people are so scared of public speaking but I just um yeah so I think actually vulnerability and people giving their true sort of sense of what's going on invites people in and that's much more inspirational to me yeah than someone who really has got that shit together that i'm like oh that's yeah that's just unattainable i completely agree and also that's the sort of stuff that's relatable you go oh god i've i've felt like that i understand that you know it's a shared human experience rather than yeah like you say these sort of unattainable stories that just feel completely out of reach that makes me want to give up yeah from the get-go i'd much rather hear about someone's struggles but they still kept on going and gave things a try the other thing i love about this book is that I laughed out loud throughout it, not only from your own personal stories and the brilliant way that you write, but you also include jokes that people have told you over the years at the end of each chapter.

43:13And there are some absolute corkers in there. This is my least favourite question when people ask me, because I can't remember any jokes ever. But do you have a favourite joke? My actual favourite joke, I think you'd have to bleep out. So I will give you... this isn't my joke there's a massive hornet or something up there he's a big northern hornet just wandering around the tent don't get done like that in Camden so this is not my joke this is Dimitri Martin, the American comedian's joke but I like it so I checked into a hotel and they said would you like a wake up call in the morning and I said I would, next morning phone goes, voice at the other end of the line says what the hell are you doing with your life

44:04the other thing that I adored about this book is how you weave in lessons that you've learned from your son your son is mega obsessed with wildlife always has been has got a really interesting take on lots of different species and how we can learn from their habits and what they do what would you say your favourite thing is that you've learned from your son? Yeah, my son is an autistic zoo keeper. I mean, he's autistic. He's not looking after gorillas with Rubik's cubes. But he's, so yeah, so he was always obsessed with animals from really, really young. And so I spent my life chronicling particularly primates with my son in further and further flung locations as he got older.

44:46And I think the thing I most learned from my son was, well, first of all, that different is not less. He was so different from everything I ever thought I would have in my family. He's probably the sort of kid I would have taken the piss out of at school, I'm ashamed to say. And then I'm his mum, and I'm having to come hard up against all my preconceptions and really rethink what it is to be neurodivergent or neurotypical. But the other thing I learned, my son has taught me so much about feminism from the animal kingdom, because the animal kingdom is full of feminist role models. And there's a brilliant book, Bitch by Lucy Cook that demystifies and debunks all this erroneous information from centuries of evolutionary biology where we disregarded anything that might give the power to females of the species as inconvenient anomalies and gave it all to a sort of patriarchal narrative and she writes this brilliant book that debunks all of that but my son has kind of been debunking that for me along the way so yeah we've particularly like bonobos he's obsessed with bonobos and they're matriarchal they're bisexual and they have these revered older female you know role models orcas it's the orca grandmothers the post-menopausals who have all the power because they know where the food sources are and it's with those post-menopausal grandmas that the young orca bucks have their first sexual experiences so be more orca guys yes so yeah i've learned a lot about um feminism from my son through feminist role models, yeah, in the natural world.

46:17And I've learned that, yeah, when I was told of his diagnosis, it was given to me like a sort of like I'd won the wrong prize at the raffle. It was like, oh, sorry, seems you've got a kid like this. And I've realized that, yeah, it's been the richest gift I've ever had watching my son navigate the world and what I've learned from watching that. And there would be swathes of the world that wouldn't function without neurodivergent people. So thank goodness we celebrate that. Yeah. The best. I loved every one of those stories. It was all so fascinating. And yeah, on that note from your son, we need to respect our elders way more than we are.

46:57Female elders, where it's at, and you look at so many other countries, you're like, one of my friends does a lot of work in Mexico. She'll stay out there for 10 months. She'll work with all of the Mexican grandmas, and they teach her everything, everything all of the rituals and the ways and their wisdom and and they see older women in a completely different light they are revered they are you know they want to constantly get that wisdom from them and apply it to their lives and over here we're just like cute little grandma well it's funny how um people have to make assumptions as well about what people want to hear and who they want to hear from i sometimes find there's definitely ageism in the world that we work in lots of it and i we've had it before my agent has been told oh we'd love to book cali for that panel show but our audience is like 18 to 34 year old so probably she's not the right booking and it's like well who do you think's in the comedy clubs it's mainly under 30s and i would tell you this the people who come up to me after the club gigs it's very often women a generation younger than me coming up to me saying i loved hearing what you would and they want to see what might be next.

48:05Of course. And they want to hear that. So, and I, we may be traditionally told that we should go gentle into that good night and become invisible as we get older. There is no one more visible to me in the world than women midlife and older. I see those women. I love those women. I have yet to ever sit next to a woman 40 or above without a fascinating story to tell. And indeed women younger than that. But I love midlife women and I love older women and I see you and I hear you and I want to hear more from you. Yeah, you've come to the right place. Yeah, yeah. Very much here for all of it. Where would you say your happy place is, Callie?

48:46I think a lot of it does come down to the dog. I'm pathetically happy. I'm so happy with Jeff. I'm so happy. He's the best husband I never had. I love him. So yeah, when I'm with Jeff and in nature, I'm really really happy and I'm also just really noticing I am very much at the sandwich point my dad's very unwell um you know we're in the trenches with dad and my kids live very far away from me and I am relishing any moment I get in the orbit of any of my family and also relishing the moments I get of connection with them even when I'm not actually with them but however we connect when we're remote as well so right now it it's it's jeff and then my dad and my kids let's just get your priorities yeah exactly it's all about jeff i've told jeff and i have a pact that he has to live forever he said he's going to be the first great news first sausage dog that's never gonna die and it was really nice of him to agree that yeah pets are the best i i said this yesterday but i one day will quit everything and open a cat sanctuary like that's the plan yeah the first thing I do when I get out of bed is I go downstairs Simon, you don't pick Simon up absolutely not, he will scratch your eyes out but baby Frank I pick up baby Frank, he's not even a baby, he's two now but he's my baby, he is a baby and I pick him up and he's got, they put a squirrel's tail on him rather than a cat's tail, he's got a big fluffy tail, he's got the wrong tail all together and I hold baby Frank and I rock him like a baby and I talk in a stupid voice and he's looking at me going shut the fuck up and I just rock it and that's my happiest bit of the day, just rocking baby Frank I know.

50:26I go around talking to Jeff. I'll sometimes think there's no one around. And I'll be like, are you such a good boy? And then there'll be someone. I'll be like, oh, sorry. But I do talk. Yeah, I do. Oh, yeah. The best. I love talking. And I have a cat who I absolutely adore as well. She's a really furious tortoiseshell midlife female cat. Yes. We are very. Hard relate. Very, very attuned. But yeah, actually, it's the times when I'm just still. And I also need to try and remember, I didn't expect to write a book. I did not expect the book to hit the Sunday Times bestseller list. I didn't expect any of this.

51:00I didn't expect to be sitting here with you. And to notice right here how I'm feeling, this is a pretty happy place. Yeah. Yes to that. I love it. I love it. Well, look, I love this book. And I know a load of our Happy Place Book Club followers did. And as I said, if you haven't got the book, do go to the book area for a book signing. And also you're going to do a book reading as well today. I'm doing a reading in about half an hour. Yes. Amazing. So look, all of you gorgeous people, thanks so much for listening to this live Happy Place Book Club chat with the wonderful Callie Beater. Thank you.

51:33Thank you. Oh, Callie, I love that. That's fucking funny, but also deeply seeped in wisdom that I shall hold on to dearly as I canter through my mid-40s. That Prue Leith episode that I mentioned, by the way, is obviously out now. Now, that was last week's episode. So do listen to that if you want more on just bloody starting that thing, whether you think you're going to be good at it or not, because Prue has and she's absolutely nailed life. So it's a new month, which means a new book to read in the Happy Place Book Club. September's book is the debut novel by Aisha Muhara. It's called Loved One.

52:11It tells the story of Julia, whose first love, Gabe, dies aged 29, launching her into a worldwide quest to recover the possessions he left with friends and acquaintances across the world. It also brings her into contact with that last woman that Gabe loved. It's set between LA and London, deeply evocative places that she talks about and how she describes them. Oh, and Barcelona's included too. It's completely gorgeous and I know you're going to love it. You'll be able to hear my chat with Aisha in a few weeks time. So do join the book club discussion on Instagram if you want to send us a little comment to be featured in that episode.

52:47We're at happyplacebookclub on Instagram. All right, until next time, you beauties, a massive thanks again to Callie, to the producers of this episode, Anushka Tate and Basil Oxtoby, and to you, you bloody book nerd legends.

53:35We'll be right back.

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