Build a Bold Next Act (After a Major Life Change) with TV Anchor and Author Tamsen Fadal
Sponsored by Elektra Health
Show Snapshot:
Need to reinvent or fall back in love (or even in like) with yourself? Meet award-winning TV anchor, author, and champion of midlife women Tamsen Fadal. Thrown a major midlife curveball with a painful, public divorce—Tamsen rekindled her sense of self and has powerful, do-able advice for facing big life changes with confidence. If you are struggling with the end of a relationship or want new tools to unlock your boldness— no matter what life throws at you, this show is for you!
In This Episode We Cover:
1. Why falling in love (or like) with yourself is the building block for all relationships.
2. What’s “sexy self-talk” and how to silence your inner critic.
3. Why it’s better to be lonely than alone with someone.
4. Leaning to become a “party of one” after time as a couple.
5. Practical ideas for jumping back into the dating pool, plus, pandemic and online dating.
6. Shifting your mindset to embrace aging.
7. The #1 thing to do to navigate a big life change.
8. How to fuel an “anything is possible” approach to life.
9. Aging out loud as a woman on TV.
10. Tips for navigating menopause, unlocking your bold, and finding purpose.
Quotable:
When I say, 'Unlock your bold,' I mean move through that next door, unlock it, go through it, don’t be afraid to move forward. What’s next? Anything you want is what’s next.
I think it’s important that we don’t label ourselves as we shift into this next person, chapter, act, and that we are patient with ourselves. Because it’s scary to transition, whether you’re transitioning out of a divorce, if you are newly widowed, if you’re trying to figure out your career, or if you’ve just turned 50.
More Resources:
Follow Tamsen
Tamsen’s Podcast:
Tamsen’s Book:
The New Single: Finding, Fixing, and Falling Back in Love with Yourself After a Breakup or Divorce
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Meno-Morphosis Program
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Transcript
Katie Fogarty (0:04):
Welcome to A Certain Age, a show for women who are unafraid to age out loud. You know that feeling you get when you crack open a book and the first line rivets your attention? The first paragraph hooks you deeper, and by the time you’re two, three pages in, you feel like you’re in a conversation with a fabulous new friend? My guest today is that magic writer.
Tamsen Fadal, a TV, evening news anchor chronicles a painful divorce and the rebuilding of her life in her book The New Single: Finding, Fixing, and Falling Back in Love with Yourself After a Breakup or Divorce. Part confessional, part manual, The New Single provides practical tips for women on reclaiming their lives and identities when a relationship ends. Tamsen is also the host of the podcast, Coming Up Next, which helps people boldly approach the next stage of their lives. If you are struggling with the end of an important relationship, if you want to reprioritize your relationship with yourself, or if you simply want new tools to energize future you, stick around, this is a show for you. Welcome, Tamsen.
Tamsen Fadal (1:09):
Hi, thanks so much for having me.
Katie (1:11):
I’m really excited, your book hooked me from the jump. I am not kidding when I say by the second line I was all in. I would love it if you could share with our listeners how you opened your book The New Single, and why you wrote the book?
Tamsen (1:26):
You know, it’s funny when I wrote this, I wasn’t intending to even write a book, I was just trying to get through a divorce. A really messy divorce, a scary divorce, and one I was certainly not expecting. But I had to do certain things to figure out how to get there, how to get to the end and get back to who I was and who I wanted to be going forward and that was really the reason for it. And then I realized that I was not alone going through it. And when you realize you’re not alone going through something and you’re actually able to help people, with different stories I had told just kinda going through life and said I think there’s something here and I gotta put that down and that’s where it started. A lot of people thought it was gonna be a “How to date again” book, and that wasn’t what it was, it was like, how to fall in love with myself again or just like myself again.
Katie (2:17):
Yeah, absolutely. ‘Cause you open by saying you got married in The New York Times, they covered it, you were a TV personality, you got divorced on Page 6.
Tamsen (2:27):
The New York Post.
Katie (2:28):
In The New York Post. It’s like, nobody wants to go through that and it was a very bruising, public experience but you used the opportunity to sort of, right your ship and get yourself back on track. You share in your book that your dad said something to you that had never made sense to you but in going through your divorce, you got clarity. He said, “It’s better to be alone than lonely with somebody.” And you eventually got there and you created your book as a guide to help others get there too. I would love it if you could give us a quick overview of how your book is structured and what it offers in terms of tools.
Tamsen (3:06):
Yeah, absolutely. Like I was saying, this is not a book that I wanted to say, “Hey get back out there and date and here’s 5 dating tips to do that.” I have run a matchmaking business with my now ex-husband so we had learned a lot in terms of understanding dating, the dating environment, the dating world, but that wasn’t what I wanted to talk about, where I wanted to come from. So, it was important to me to give somebody something actionable to take away. It’s not gonna be a same size fits all for everybody. But I feel like, if you know that you can do something in a small amount of time, achieve that, I think you can get to the next thing a little bit easier and that’s what was important for me.
So, I do it in 90 day increments. That’s what I felt was habit-forming, that’s what I felt like I could deal with and actually be able to function doing. So, I split up the book like that because that seemed to me to be the way that I could survive and I called that survival mode, the first 90 days, I needed to make sure I could get through those. Then I have the next 90 days and the next 90 days. But what was important for me was to have a little bit of wellness. When I wrote the book I don’t think wellness was quite such a thrown around term, but what it was for me is making sure that I got my mind, my body, my soul back physically, mentally, so I could function. Those things take time and if you try to go do them all at once and say, “I’m just gonna fix this,” or, “I’m gonna ignore it,” or, “I’m just gonna get back out there and start dating again,” I don’t think you ever get to who you are and you make those same mistakes over and over again. And the last thing I wanted to do was be right back where I was because I had met the same kind of person, done the same kind of thing, hadn’t done the work, and hadn’t done the lessons in myself.
Katie (4:50):
And the book offers so many wonderful lessons. I love the way it’s structured in these sort of 90 day increments because it feels manageable. You open with surviving the first 90 days, very practical; how not to call your ex, why to plan your time, how to eat, pray, and unplug. And you move through, and the part of the book that I think really resonated with me too were ideas for kind of reclaiming your identity and falling back in love with yourself. Because you literally say in the book, “Learn to love the sound of I,” you have a section called “Sexy Self-Talk,” which I thought was genius. And I would love it if you could tell us more about that.
Tamsen (5:26):
Yeah, absolutely. I mean look, it was very difficult for me at one point to go, “Party of one at the restaurant, please.” I’m an "I" now, no longer a "We." And you know, we weren’t married that long but we’d been together for a very, very long time so it was really important that I took that back. I spent a lot of time writing about it, focusing on it, living in the present because I really wanted to be able to thrive into my future. And that was important to me and I was working at the same time, full time job, I was on the air, and I wanted to make sure that this didn’t bleed over into that. Even though that’s impossible, I wanted to do the best for myself because I was the only one I had to rely on moving forward. And there’s a real strength in that, there’s a really strength in understanding it and then living it.
And then with the Sexy Self-Talk, I thought, we always talk about the word sex, sexy, and attractive, romance. We do all of those for somebody else but we don’t do them for ourselves. And I think that that was really, really important. So, I try to not have my self talk be that negative self talk. Because let me tell you something, your ears hear it, your ears hear everything that comes out of your mouth and you know, that’s not just what other people hear, it’s what you hear too. My stepmother taught me that lesson a long time ago and I thought, Wow, if I’m running around saying, “My marriage is a bad idea, the finances were terrible, he was terrible, it was awful,” ears hear that. So, over time I realized that that was really becoming self-destructive and locking me into a place that I didn’t want to be.
So, I made some changes so I could make sure and protect my ears [both laugh] with the sexy self talk. So, I did things like not confide in everybody all the time, I tried to decide what I wanted. I tried to only fix myself, not tried to fix other people. I tried to make sure that I went out by myself and was okay with that. I was out in nature as much as I could be. And it was also important for me to like myself, not just love myself. And I almost regret, every once in a while, I didn’t put that in the title because I think that was a huge part of it, is liking myself first.
Katie (7:34):
Yeah, absolutely. And you actually list out some of the sexy self-talk phrases that you said to yourself like, “I can do this,” and, “You’re more than a relationship.” You brainstormed a long list of phrases that I would encourage all listeners to go look at and also to have listeners do this for themselves. The inner voice in our heads sometimes focuses on what’s going wrong and is negative and critical. And to really take the power of positive talk to, you know, put yourself back on your feet I thought was such a wonderful, tactical tip and your book is chock-full of them.
One of the things I wanted to ask you about is that for women who are listening to this show, divorce is very common. People also lose spouses to illness. For people who are thinking about getting back in the dating game right now, once they do the work that you outline and regain their equilibrium, what are some of your recommendations? Because you do offer tactical ones. You shared a story of a friend who wanted to date after her 12 year marriage collapsed but said, I’m no longer going to a trendy bar, and she learned that if she went to professional events in her field of interest and work, that she could connect with people that were like-minded. What is some other advice that you might offer to a woman right now who’s listening and thinking, I would love to start dating again but I’ve got no idea how to begin?
Tamsen (8:57):
Yeah, that’s such a common question you know. The pandemic has changed a lot of things, it clearly has. I think that, for me, the most important thing, first of all, after you have done that work and I think after you do that work, you have a different sense of confidence, you have a different understanding of who you are and who you want to be surrounded by. And I think the most important thing to do is make sure you keep those value systems in place. I mean, this is an exciting time for women and men who are in midlife and are in this period of life. This is an age where we’ve never been before, we’ve never been so young, and so inspired, and so ready for our next chapter. So, I think that if you know that and you know that that’s what you want to go after, you need to not forget that just because you get caught up in a moment.
With my situation, I got remarried at 50 years old and it took me a while, it took me a long time to get back out there and really say I was going to commit to getting married again, I never thought I was going to. I love love. However, I wasn’t sure I wanted to walk down an aisle again. So, I think if you want to get back out there, it’s important to keep that value system in place. I think it’s important to let people know that you’re available and looking, but you’re not just looking to get out there on a date, you really, you have a type of person or a type of lifestyle that you want. Because that’s where we kind of are at this age, whether you’re going through what they like to call “gray divorces” I don’t love that word, or you’re going through a loss, I think it’s important that you don’t just get back out there and date 50 people. It’s not like when we were 20 years old. I think it’s important to know the type of person you want to go after. So, for example, do you want to travel a lot? You know, I would let somebody know you’re going after that and you don’t want to sit at home every night. Or, do you want to sit at home every night? Maybe you don’t want somebody that has 4 houses around the country. So, I think it’s important to have that confidence in who you are, embrace that, and that’s the type of person that you look for. Let people know who you’re looking for. Look, there’s nothing wrong with the online dating sites but I think you have to be reasonable about it and not think that every single one of those dates is gonna end up in a big relationship because I think we can lose a lot of time in that as well.
Katie (11:14):
Yeah, that’s really great advice, is to really do the inventory, figure out what type of person you’d want to meet, where you are now because you might want somebody very different from your spouse. If you do have that wanderlust and want to get going and get up and travel, or if you’re looking to, you know, nest and spend time with your children or your grandchildren, you might want somebody who’s more settled and perhaps more local. So, it’s super smart to do that.
I love the way your book really— and one of the reasons I wanted to have you on this show is because your book is about— and you’ve written several books but The New Single, the one that I’m talking about today, is really about, you know, reinventing yourself after a relationship ends. Your two earlier books were about how to find relationships, perhaps when you were younger. But your books go really beyond simply relationships; it’s about shifting of identity which is what really connected with me. Because as we are in midlife, we are shifting our identities as well. You say in your book, don’t be wrapped up in being single or married or coupled or a widow, you have to create your own identity. We have to recreate our identities as we age too because we move from being young to old. Perhaps if we are mothers, we move from being a day-to-day mom to an empty nester. We might be moving into retirement, we might be moving into, you know, the approaching grandparenthood. And shifting gears can be hard. What is your coaching on shifting our mindset to embrace our new circumstances as we age?
Tamsen (12:46):
You know it’s interesting, I’m so glad you asked me that because I didn’t realize how much my divorce impacted what was gonna happen next in my life in terms of transition. I’d never thought about the word ‘transition,’ whether it would be career or age, quite frankly, or where we are as we figure out what’s next, what our next chapter looks like, our second act. So, I think that we all do this, right, we all identify with something. So, I say, oftentimes when someone says, "Hi my name is Tamsen, I’m a TV journalist.” So, we label ourselves and I think we box ourselves in oftentimes. So, what I’m trying to do anyway is not do that, is not put those three things after my name with commas. I mean you know as a former journalist, you’re a storyteller, you’re asking questions, you’re inquisitive, you’re an interviewer, you’re not just locked up into one box. And I think it’s important that we don’t do that as we shift into this next person, chapter, act, whoever we are going to be next. And, you know, we figure out what it is we want and we are patient with ourselves because it’s scary to transition, whether you’re transitioning out of a divorce, whether you were newly widowed, whether you were trying to figure out your career, whether you’ve just turned 50. For me, I turned 50, I hit menopause, I got married, I was like which one am I? [both laugh] I don’t know who to identify with.
Katie (14:08):
You’re like, I have a trifecta of identities I could choose from. [laughs]
Tamsen (14:11):
I’m like hold on, [laughs] I have a whole list. But I think sometimes we box ourselves into that and then we get lost, right, and then we maybe don’t live to our full potential because we do that with ourselves. And so, I’m trying to learn how to do that for myself and I’m trying to teach that as well and trying to spread that message and I know you use the word ‘bold’ and I do too because I feel like that that’s what it is, I feel like we’re unlocking that bold part of ourselves again that maybe we haven’t taken out in a long time as we move into what a lot of people think is an invisible age, because I sure don’t think it is.
Katie (14:48):
No, absolutely not. We are here to reframe that. The women that come on my show, they’re experts, they’re advocates, they’re second acts, they’re what’s next-ers, you know. Getting to midlife has it’s own sort of unique challenges. We do go through body changes and menopause and relationships. I’m not saying it’s all rainbows and unicorns but it’s an incredibly vibrant time. I’d would love to hear, you use the word, the phrase, “Unlocking bold,” which I absolutely love. Your show is called Coming Up Next. What does unlocking bold mean to you?
Tamsen (15:20):
Yeah. Unlock your bold, here’s how I came up with that and I thought about it. And this was a few years ago, I said, I’m not like that person I used to be who was really cool and bold and jump without nets and didn’t care and didn’t care what other people thought. I’ve all of a sudden become very concerned and saying things like, “I’m too old to XYZ,” or, “I’m still trying to figure it out,” or, “I can’t do this at 50,” or, “I shouldn’t wear this at 51,” or, “I’m too old for this.” Those things make me cringe. And so, unlocking your bold really is what it is of knowing that you’re not invisible and you’re not isolated and you have a voice and it’s all okay and you don’t have to feel overwhelmed and you don’t have to grow old gracefully. We’re living our lives and I think that this is an exciting time because your stock hasn’t gone down. The world is not no longer looking at you. In fact, the demographic of 50 is unbelievable in the workplace. We’re in a place where people are relevant and visible and are not alone and that’s what’s exciting to me. So, when I say unlock your bold, I say, move through that next door, unlock it, go through it, don’t be afraid to move forward. What’s next? Anything you want is what’s next.
Katie (16:36):
I absolutely could not agree more. I’m so excited. When we come back from this quick break which we’re moving into, I want to hear what’s in store for you, with a TV career as a woman who is aging and your perspective on what it means to age out loud on television.
[Ad break]
Katie (18:17):
Tamsen we’re back. You talked about unlocking bold, you know, just really putting your hand on that doorknob, opening it, moving forward, boldly and, sort of, with excitement into this next phase. You work in a field that is historically tough on both women and men as they age. I would like to hear from you what it’s like work on TV, as a woman who is aging. And you’re doing it publicly, you are aging out loud.
Tamsen (18:44):
Yeah, I wasn’t though for a long time, I was really afraid. I remember I was in Philadelphia and I sat next to this woman that I, she was about 10 or 12 years older than me and I remember her saying, “Hey when you get to be about 40, 35, 40, 45, you know, you better start thinking about what’s next for you because women age out of this a lot faster than men and you’re gonna have an older man on the air and a young girl next to him and it might not be you.” And I thought, Oh my gosh, she’s right. [Katie laughs] And so for years— and you know as well as I do, you’ve seen that.
Katie (19:15):
Of course! We’ve all seen this, yes.
Tamsen (19:18):
Yeah, and I, for years I woke up thinking, My gosh, is this the day I’m gonna be irrelevant? Am I not gonna matter anymore? Are they gonna kick me out to pasture? And then I realized, maybe, you know, I think the divorce did a lot for me in terms of, made me see things differently. I had a lot of financial issues I had to deal with as a result of it, on my own. I was very scared for a long time, I was very resentful. And I think it made me see, Hey, I can do anything. And so when I started aging and I do the evening news, and I never said my age, and then all of a sudden, I thought, what am I hiding? I’m asking other people to be open and honest and tell me their stories, and I’m hiding mine, what the heck is going on? And so, I started doing that out loud and I got al little push back from it. Some people didn’t want to hear that, some people didn’t want to know my age, some of the men that were watching didn’t think it was so hot to be 45 and 46 and 51. And it made me prouder. Scared and first and then prouder. And then I went through menopause, I had a big incident at work, it was about a year and a half, almost two years ago now, and I had an anxiety attack and a hot flash, and my heart racing out of control and I couldn’t read the prompter, I got off the set and I went and laid down, literally on the bathroom floor, never finished the newscast that night.
Katie (20:39):
Wow.
Tamsen (20:39):
And it was a part of menopause and severe symptoms that I didn’t know I needed to be addressing I guess, and didn’t even, had never talked to anybody about menopause. My mother died when I was young, and I realized at that time like, Wow, this is a whole other topic to be talking about. I am a woman in this age, going through this, and if you don’t like it, I don’t know what to say.
Katie (21:03):
Right.
Tamsen (21:03):
So, I’ve been really vocal about it. I’ve talked a lot about it, I have a YouTube channel I talk about menopause on all the time, I talk about aging and I just feel like there are some people that are gonna like it, some people that aren’t and I am lucky enough to be working with people that are accepting of that and encourage it. I have a female boss that I just love and she, you know, cheers me on about it. So, I find it to be an exciting time for a woman at this age in my career, versus, 15 years ago. I would have been scared to death right now. I would have been trying to figure out, anything else to just get out of there so they didn’t kick me out the door right away.
Katie (21:44):
I adore everything that you’ve shared Tamsen honestly, because I really feel like things are not gonna change until people require them to change. We see that with every kind of social movement. And agism is one of the last isms that people kind of overlook. People are not, you’re gonna look at people who are older and not feel comfortable because if they’re fearful and they’re hiding it, it’s something to be hidden away. The narrative will never shift unless people require it to shift. And people like you who are aging out loud, who are using your platform to talk about things like menopause has been going on for as long as, for millennia. This is an issue and it’s been going on for women in the workplace, women have been aging forever. We should be able to do it out loud, we should be able to do it publicly. Expertise should be embraced, experience should be celebrated. It should not be overlooked. So, I absolutely adore that you’re doing this out loud and on TV and through your podcast.
So, tell us a little bit more about Coming Up Next. What is that designed to do? If our listeners were to tune into that because they are podcast fans, what could they expect to be hearing? What kind of stories are you sharing?
Tamsen (22:58):
Oh yeah, absolutely, thanks for asking me that. You know, Coming Up Next came from the words that I say every night, “Coming up next, we’re gonna do this, coming up next” and I said, well what’s coming up next for all of us after this certain age? So, that’s how it came about. But you know, what I’ve tried to do on there is share stories that are in that next chapter and or healthy people get into that next chapter. So, whether or not it’s somebody that has retired from one job and is starting an incredibly other career, we have that. I’ve talked to brain coaches, I’ve talked to menopause experts, we’ve shared stories of people that are really about pro-aging right now and are helping all of us unlock our bold and figure out what is next. These are people that are relevant, that are smart, that are moving the ball forward for all of us, they’re making sure that agism is not a thing. And I love it and it feels like a little bit of a call to action for people to come forward and to share those stories and I get excited about those stories. Every time I talk to somebody new, I’m like, “This is a story, this is my favorite story.” Then I have another guest and I’m like, “No, no, no this is my favorite story.” I feel like Coming Up Next is about that, it is those stories for people to help them figure out whatever that next act is. I like seeing people live out loud, I like that next stage of life being done boldly. We have thought leaders in aging and menopause and relationships and beauty and divorce. And we have one woman that talks about narcissism and understanding how to negotiate that in life. Roaring into the second half of your life, I interviewed recently Michael Clinton, an author, who’s incredible talking about that. Another woman that talks to people about why they should unfollow their passion as they get older. Exciting stories that she has, she just published a book. So, that’s what Coming Up Next is about, to figure out and inspire your next act and how to live your best life.
Katie (24:50):
I love that. So, if someone’s listening to this show and thinking, I’m ready to try something on for size, I need a career shift, or I want to— ‘Cause the women that come on this show share similar stories. It’s a lawyer who left lawyering to publish a New York Times Best Seller at 50. A woman who was a stay at home parent for more than a decade and launched her multimillion-dollar events company at 47. Inspiration is all around us, there’s so many people up to amazing things. If someone is listening right now and saying, you know, I’ve got an idea, I’ve got a notion, I’ve got a company, I’ve got a passion, I just need a few concrete tips, how would you put them in motion? How would you encourage them to get in action?
Tamsen (25:32):
I actually have 5 hacks on my website, “Unlock Your Bold and Start Writing Your Next Act.” Because I feel like that’s kind of what I know how to do, the writing part of it, right. I put those together but I would start by saying, stop waiting for things to get better, like, you’ve got to do it now. If you have an idea that kind of blows your hair back [Katie laughs] and you really want to do that, that’s what you need to do. You have to stop waiting for things to get better. We oftentimes wait for things to be perfect.
Katie (25:59):
Especially women, I think especially women. Women think they have to be perfect to get going. And men, you hear this, they’re always applying for the job if they’ve got like 7 out of the 12 qualifications.
Tamsen (26:11):
Yeah, a hundred percent. I’ll give you the five tips fast and then I have more of it written out on the site, you can download that, it’s free. I think the first thing is, declutter your mind, figure out what you want. This is about you and this is what you’re looking to do, you need to declutter it, write it down, get real with it and then second, be honest with it. What are your goals with this? What do you want a year from now? What do you want a week from now? What do you want your someday to look like? Because that someday is today. So, you have to figure out what it is you really want. Do you want to be able to travel? Do you want freedom? Do you want to do all your work on Zoom? Do you want to stay home with your kids? Do you want to, I dunno, date ten people? Whatever it is that you want, you gotta be honest about that. Quit comparing yourself. We live in this age of social media that is, as a Gen Xer I didn’t grow up with it, I had to grow into it and learn it. So, I feel like I was almost lucky in some ways that I didn’t see what everyone else was doing so it made me bold. Now, I see what everyone else is doing and every once in a while, it paralyzes you, right.
Katie (27:08):
Yes.
Tamsen (27:08):
So, I think you have to stop comparing yourself and somebody gave me really good advice the other day. They said every time you are working on you and you find yourself get distracted by social media, reset a timer. Have a timer there, reset the timer so you realize how long you actually do the work that you’re supposed to be doing. So, you can do your time block of work for 15 minutes and if you find yourself distracted because you start scrolling on TikTok, reset the timer and start over again. Force yourself to sit down and be honest with yourself about what you’re working on.
Again, I mentioned live your someday today but I think that’s a big deal. We all say, “Someday I’m gonna take the class, learn a new language, have a business, call XYZ.” That day is today. That lesson was taught to me several different times, but especially when my mother died when I was 20. And then step number five is don’t be perfect, be pleased. Be happy with the fact that you are working toward achieving your goals. Give yourself little steps, little steps, little steps to get to that next thing. That’s how I’ve written every book, that’s how I’ve launched every podcast, that’s how I’ve done every video I’ve ever done or gotten every job and I think that it’s important for all of us to do that and not get distracted in trying to be perfect.
Katie (28:18):
I adore that notion. Don’t be perfect, be pleased. That is words to live by. You mentioned that your mom you know, passed away when you were young, you were 20. I saw your recent Instagram post since I’m following you over there, that you recently turned 51. Your own mom died before that. How did losing a parent at a young age affect how you see aging?
Tamsen (28:41):
Yeah, it’s interesting. Fearful. I always thought, I never thought of 50, 51 as midlife. I thought of that as the end of life. For me, those were scary years for other reasons, along with the typical scary reasons. So, that was hard for me. But what it did do was make me appreciate all these little moments. And I appreciated every single day that I get to the next one, and I appreciate when I can pick up the phone and call my 82-year-old father to this day. I really appreciate that beyond anything. It is a big deal for me and I say thank you every time he picks up the phone and I know he’s there. So, I think that that’s changed a lot. And I think that it also made me realize that we don’t have forever, we really don’t.
Katie (29:31):
I absolutely adore that Tamsen. If you want to start doing something, do it right now. Get up. We all have those things that are percolating in the back of our minds. I will share with our listeners that I thought about launching a podcast for two years and I told myself that I was gonna do it when I turned 50. I was gonna do two things; I was gonna launch a podcast, and I was gonna have a fabulous party with all the women in my life that I love. And I had the fabulous party [laughs] and then all of a sudden I was like, wait a minute.
Tamsen (29:58):
I’m sad I didn’t know you I would have loved to come.
Katie (30:00):
You would have been there, you would have totally been there. But all of a sudden I looked at the calendar and I thought, Oh my God, I’m turning 51 in 30 days and I haven’t launched my podcast. And you know what I did? I booked 4 recordings, you know I threw some money at it, I booked 4 sessions, I called 4 guests. I told anyone who would listen, anyone who stood too close to me at the supermarket line, I’m like, “I’m launching a podcast” and I did it. Because what am I waiting for? I’ve been talking about this for two years.
Tamsen (30:29):
I’m with you.
Katie (30:30):
I mean this show got up in a week’s time because I was finally like, “Get going,” and I did.
Tamsen (30:35):
I love that, I love it, I love it.
Katie (30:36):
People are listening right now and they’re thinking to themselves, there’s that thing and you all know what it is, because we all have one thing that we’ve been meaning to do so, go and do it. I adore that advice. Tamsen we’re nearing the end of our time together but I want to, do a quick speed round. We always close with this because I could talk to my guests forever. I want to make sure we go out on a high note and share some more with our listeners so I would love to dive into that if you’re ready.
Tamsen (31:03):
Mhm, absolutely.
Katie (31:04):
So, this is a quick just one or two-word answer to these questions. So, writing The New Single taught me that I am _____.
Tamsen (31:13):
Brave.
Katie (31:15):
Love it. Dream podcast guest _____.
Tamsen (31:19):
Dream podcast guest… I want Brenée Brown like everybody else.
Katie (31:22):
[laughs] Yes. Unlocking bold is a continuous evolution. What is the last new thing you tried or learned?
Tamsen (31:32):
The last new thing I tried or learned… Oh gosh, how to shoot my own videos on a new Sony camera, it was so scary.
Katie (31:41):
[laughs] You know, you can learn anything with Google.
Tamsen (31:45):
I know, I know.
Katie (31:46):
Everything’s at our fingertips. We live in an exciting time. Best lifestyle hack for feeling bold _____.
Tamsen (31:54):
Best lifestyle hack for feeling bold… I started taking a cold shower in the morning, I don’t know why, but it energizes me to a whole new level. I was taught it was good for your circulation and good for your skin. And anybody that tells me anything is good for my skin, I do it, so I started that.
Katie (32:12):
It’s also good for your hair, it makes it shiny. I’ve heard that as well.
Tamsen (32:14):
Oh good!
Katie (32:16):
It closes the hair cuticle, which is another reason. Cold showers everyone. A mantra that keeps you grounded or gets you going _____.
Tamsen (32:26):
Unlock your bold.
Katie (32:27):
Unlock your bold. Perfect. Finally, our last one, one thing you plan to do before your next birthday _____.
Tamsen (32:35):
One thing I plan to do before my next birthday. I’m going back to Italy, and I’m continuing to grow my YouTube channel because I’m meeting incredible women there and I just love it.
Katie (32:44):
All right, everyone, head to Tamsen’s YouTube channel. I will put that in the show notes. Show notes can be found over on acertainagepod.com. It has all the links to the shows, it will have links to Tamsen’s book, it will have links to her podcast, and will have a complete transcript of this show.
Tamsen (33:01):
I’m so excited with what you’re doing. I just want to say that.
Katie (33:05):
Aw, I appreciate it, thank you so much. I get out of bed every Monday so excited to connect with my guests. But before we say goodbye, how can A Certain Age listeners find you, your podcast, and keep following your work?
Tamsen (33:18):
Absolutely. tamsenfadal.com and Tamsen Fadal TV on YouTube.
Katie (33:24):
Thank you Tamsen. This wraps A Certain Age, a show for women who are aging without apology. Join me next Monday when author and activist, Deepa Purushothaman shares her pivot from corporate life to advocacy for diversity and inclusion in the workplace and beyond.
Before we say goodbye, I have a favor to ask. Please take a minute to rate or review A Certain Age over on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. This is super easy to do. Just find A Certain Age on your podcast app, scroll down to the bottom, and tap on the stars to rate or leave a written review. Both matter. Reviews and ratings help the show grow.
Special thanks to Michale Mancini who composed and produced our theme music. See you next time and until then: age boldly, beauties.