Fearne: Why your 40s are ace and how to cope with imposter syndrome

There’s probably a bit too much pressure on reaching a definitive state of happiness isn’t there? It’s just not realistic. So Fearne’s dropping into your feed every week for some honest chat about what’s making her (and you lot) feel great, and what’s making us all feel completely rubbish. This is a cosy little corner for all of us to explore what’s been on our minds, what’s been getting us down, inspiring us, and making us laugh. Want to join the chat? Send us a voicenote, DM, or comment on Instagram @happyplaceofficial! In this chat, Fearne explores: -Why being middle aged is actually ace -The iconic TV show that is Below Deck -Loving having grown up kids -How to lean into the cosiness of autumn -Dressing like a teenage boy in a 90s American TV show -Coping with imposter syndrome at work -Why on earth there have to be so many school Whatsapp groups -How to block out chronic pessimists Ps, you heard Fearne, if anyone has a contact for Below Deck’s Captain Sandy… slide into our DMs @happyplaceofficial! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:15Speaker 01

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• 0:45Speaker 02

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• 1:18Fearne Cotton?

  Hello, everyone. This is Happy Place. Oh, welcome along. I hope you're all doing all right. I'm Fern Cotton. And today we're going to chat about some likes and dislikes.

• 1:29Fearne Cotton?

  So should we start positively with some likes? Because we want to keep things upbeat as much as we possibly can. I mean, hopefully, the whole thing will be. But I'm going to start with my likes. So I've just turned 45, a number that when I was in my teens, I thought was really fucking old. And the thing is, right, when you're 45, there'll be maybe some of you watching this who are 45 or older. I still identify as, I want to say 24. That's the age I feel, which is maybe concerning. But I still kind of like, like the same things. Haven't really, I mean, I've definitely grown because I've been through some shit. But I like the same stuff.

• 2:14Fearne Cotton?

  And I still feel like as energetic and optimistic and excited by what I do and the people around me, as I did when I was 24. But the added bonus of being in your mid 40s is that, in that very cliche way, you give less of a shit about things that you don't need to be worrying about. I think certainly when you've lived life for 45 years, you're in that middle age category. You've been through some stuff, like by 45, you've most definitely been through some stuff. You just don't have the capacity to care as much. Like, you just don't. Whether it's having kids, getting married, getting divorced,

• 2:57Fearne Cotton?

  people around you getting divorced, people dying, whatever it might be, but really personal stuff that we all go through. You go through a certain amount of it and then reach this point where you're like, right, so now I don't have to give a shit about X, Y, and Z. So I think there are, there's like a big perspective shift in middle age. And I'm here for it. I like 45. I should have worn a badge that says I'm 45. I'll get one. Let's move on to Team Happy Place. Lauren, who works on Happy Place and looks after some amazing other people at my management company. She's a brilliant, brilliant manager and brain and has, is just buzzing with ideas constantly. We love you, Lauren.

• 3:43Fearne Cotton?

  Lauren says, finding a new series that has three seasons out already. I'm not quite sure what season of what Lauren has just found. But let me tell you, only in the last year, I don't know how I've gone through so many years of life not knowing about this. Only in the last year have I discovered the pure joy that is Below Deck. And lucky for me, there are so many series that I have to catch up on. I'm currently watching the current series, which I'm completely obsessed with. If you watch Below Deck, you'll probably be in the same cycle as me, where you watch a series you absolutely love every minute, every drama, every dynamic, like all the stuff that's going on,

• 4:28Fearne Cotton?

  whether it's the people coming on board the boat, or the staff that are working on the boat. You get to the end of that series, you're like, oh, man. Then literally another series comes straight out and you're like, oh, God, it's a whole new crew of people. I don't know who these people are. And you feel really deflated on episode one. Like, I can't remember who these people's names are. Three episodes in, I know them more intimately than my own family. And you've ditched, there's last season, you can't even remember them. You are so on board, quite literally, with the new cast of people. It is my favorite. I love Captain Sandy so much. If you know Below Deck, you know what I'm saying. Captain Sandy, what a legend. I've got to get Captain Sandy on Happy Place for an interview. How do I do that? Let's get this ball rolling.

• 5:10Fearne Cotton?

  If you know Captain Sandy or how I can get in touch with her, I would do anything to get her on the podcast. Should we make it happen? Let's do it. I love it, Lauren. That was very much inspired by you and your brilliant like for this week. Also, you lovely listeners have sent in your likes and dislikes. Elsa said her likes for this week are her grown up sons. That's so lovely. I don't know, like, everyone's got a different idea about parenting. But for me, the older my kids get, the more I enjoy every bit of it. Like, some of my friends are like, oh, I really miss the bit where they're like so cute and they're six and they've got like missing teeth. Yeah, that, you know, they were cute and adorable and brilliant.

• 5:53Fearne Cotton?

  But I love the ages my kids are at now. I can see that it's only going to get better as they get older. But having like proper, good, deep conversations with your kids, there's something really cool about that. I'm here for it. So I get you, Elsa. That's gorgeous. Emma says, the first signs of autumn. I'm ready for cozy knitwear, candles, and crunchy walks. Okay, I am really split with this one because the current state that I'm in, where we've had a really good, lovely, hot summer. I know it's also been problematic, hashtag climate change. But there is a bit of me that's like, no, I don't want to lose summer. Don't slip through my fingertips. And I start to get really nostalgic about the summer that's just gone

• 6:36Fearne Cotton?

  and remembering all the good bits and remembering like jumping in the sea and having barbecues. And I can't bear to leave it all behind. But then when we are fully in autumn, I love it. And I forget that I love it. I think I'm going to hate it. And then when I'm in it, I love it. Also, I only know how to dress in the autumn and winter. I, I don't, what do you wear in the summer? I don't know what to wear in the summer. I dress like a teenage boy who's on some sort of American soap. I'm basically on Saved by the Bell. That's how I dress. I'm wearing shorts, a baggy t-shirt, and vans for the whole summer. I'll try and wear a dress if I go out, but there's something that feels deeply uncomfortable about like a strappy dress without sleeves.

• 7:21Fearne Cotton?

  I will do it. I don't feel comfortable. In the winter, oh, my God, get me a pair of corduroys. Get me a chunky knit. Get me a massive jacket over that. Get a scarf around that neck, a woolly hat on, some big chunky boots, big old thick socks. Delightful. I understand it. I get it. So autumn, I am kind of ready for you. Right, we are on to dislikes. Let's go to our listeners' ones first. Anonymous says, struggling with imposter syndrome and not feeling good enough at work. What I will say to that, because look, most of us have imposter syndrome. I don't think there's any quick fix to get out of it because we've all got insecurities. We've all got things that we worry about at work.

• 8:05Fearne Cotton?

  You know, I constantly worry. Are people listening to this thinking, shut up? You're talking a load of old shit? I mean, they absolutely could be. You might be thinking that now. I think we all have an element of it. It doesn't matter how long you've been doing your job, how qualified you are, what your skill set is. Most of us, I think, have at some point experienced imposter syndrome. That, for me, is the only way to slightly override it, to look around at your colleagues and think, there's at least two other people who feel exactly the same as me. So many people have it, if not the majority, like the vast majority of people. If you like your job, if you know you're good at it, which you probably do deep down, stick at it. And just as a little daily discipline, look around you and think, I bet blah and blah also are feeling imposter syndrome. You've got this.

• 8:51Fearne Cotton?

  My dislike this week is, like, we're in the sort of beginning bit of the school term, if you've got kids, kids going back to school. Why are we getting so many WhatsApp messages? Why? I can't cope. There are so many. The class WhatsApps, because I've got two kids, some of you, like, one of my mates has got five kids at school, five! How do you cope with five separate WhatsApp groups? That is nuts. I've only got two. And I'm so overwhelmed with what they're meant to be wearing, what day they do sport on, what days they've got clubs after school, what homework, I'm meant to be involved in

• 9:33Fearne Cotton?

  that apparently, what the homework is and when they've got to do it, and when they've got to, like, bring a plastic bottle in because they're making something out of something. It's so overwhelming. And this is definitely something that my generation of parents did not have to cope with because WhatsApp wasn't invented, nor was email. They didn't even get an email. At best, they'd get a letter once a year. We were sent to school and we would arrive home from school and that is where it ended. Take us back to the eighties, please, God. That is my big dislike for this week. Let's get to the teams dislikes, Team Happy Place. Penelope says, what I dislike this week is chronic pessimists. I really struggle with people whose default setting is to assume the worst.

• 10:15Fearne Cotton?

  I know life isn't always sunshine and rainbows, but that outlook can be exhausting to be around because it is so easy to get dragged into it. The world feels heavy enough without constantly assuming bad intentions. Yeah, I agree. Look, we all know there's shit going down, not only in the world, but also in our own lives, in our friends' lives. There's constant drama and shit going down, but there are beautiful, brilliant things too. You know, even in my own life, I can see there's a bunch of stressful stuff going on, but also there's total glimmers of joy. I went to Legoland very recently with my children and just to watch them laughing and screaming on all of the rides was extremely joyful amongst stress.

• 10:54Fearne Cotton?

  So it is easy, like you say, Penelope, to get dragged into the stressful, the bad, the awful, like, and just feel so bogged down by it all. It is a much easier option. It's so much easier just to feel, you know, I, even when I arrived at the studio today, I spent 10 minutes ranting at everyone about things. What, why? Like, we need to kind of get it off our chest, but also we need to readdress balance. So, Penelope, you've very much reminded me of that today. We can sit in the stress for a bit and the drudgery and the shit and then get yourself out of it and look for hopeful things. And also, I guess, if you're hanging out with people that are constantly negative, get away from them when you can.

• 11:36Fearne Cotton?

  And also, on that note, what I will say is, we have very recently recorded what I think is one of the best episodes of Happy Place ever, actually. It was a conversation that, I mean, it felt too short. This interview could have easily gone on for four hours and the person I was interviewing would have still had something erudite, astute and deeply important to say. And it was along this topic of, of looking at pessimism versus optimism. And I took a lot from it. So that episode is out next week, next week on Monday. And I think that you'll really enjoy it.

• 12:18Fearne Cotton?

  So, Penelope, that one is for you, but anyone else who feels that, that it's, like, heavy, that heaviness of people being very negative, then next week's episode is a real good one. So, we got that off our chest. Hopefully, we're all feeling better, lighter and also more positive. I hope we all are. If not, plenty more episodes in our back catalogue to go and listen to, covering all manner of subjects. Thank you so much for listening and I'll see you very soon.

• 12:54Speaker 01

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• 13:24Speaker 02

  Network freedom and flexibility. That's what you want in a healthcare plan. With a Humana Medicare Advantage PPO plan, you can see any doctor in the country who accepts Medicare, including specialists. No referrals, no kidding. Learn more at GetHumana.com. See any doctor who accepts Medicare and is willing to build Humana. Humana PPOs may not be available in all areas. Benefits and costs share may vary. Humana is a Medicare Advantage PPO organization with a Medicare contract. Enrollment in any Humana plan depends on contract renewal.