You're listening to Amma Mia podcast.
Mama Mer acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast is recorded on Hello and welcome to Mamma Mia out Loud. It's what women are actually talking about. On Monday, the twenty eighth of October. I'm Holly Wayne right, I'm still basking and having given the best ever recommendation ever on Mama My Outloud on Friday, do you very popular know how many out louders are now obsessed with Rivals? Watch Rivals? Me Friedman?
Have you started?
Hello, I'm mea Friedman. I wasn't on the show on Friday. I didn't listen to the show on Friday, but on the weekend I started watching Rivals and I love it.
Oh my goodness. Okay, I am Jesse Stevens. I haven't started watching Rivals yet because I've got a lot of other shows to get through.
But it's don't stop.
On today's show, one of the most successful women in Australian media has surprised everyone by talking about her drug and alcohol addiction and it reminds us of something we repeatedly choose to forget. Also probably seen the clip of Irish movie star Sirsha Ronan sitting on a chat show couch, shutting everyone up with a truth bomb about women and violence. But what wasn't said? And screw getting a mentor don't
dream big and really really don't trust your gut. It's the best career advice that's exactly the opposite of everything you've been told.
But first, in case you missed it, Americans are really keen to dress up as Raygun for Halloween. Google Trends has tracked the most popular Halloween costumes, and as it stands, Raygun is coming in at number two, just under Shrunken Head Bob from Beetlejuice. Never heard of Shrunken Head Bob.
I'm picturing what a Raygun costume might be and I'm coming up completely blank.
It's an Australia track.
Suit, you know, Walmart is selling it.
Yeah, Maggie, Australia green and gold tracksuit.
Yeah, so they are selling a Raygun costume and it's actually really good. And I kept thinking, I really hope that Australia has trademarked some of this because I think it could fix our cost of living crisis if we get all this money from the US. Because every single American, all three hundred million of them, are dressing as Raygun. We could do with that in our public person Anyway.
I get a bit confused this time of year because I thought that Halloween was about being scary, and perhaps Raygun fits into that genre, but also in the top ten.
Well, that's not very nice.
I think that a lot of people were quite confronted by her doubts. I'm a big fan of Raygun, but like, I think it fits in the Halloween category.
Do you I was just about to say, do you think you'd be flattered or freaked out if you were Raygun?
I think she'd find this fun. She found the memes and stuff fun. She didn't find the cancel uo everyone in an.
Apology as fun, not the death threats less fun.
Less fun. But among some of the other top training costumes, Sabrina Carpenter is a big one, and also Moodang, the.
Viral hip hop.
Oh yeah, how do you dress up as Mudang? I like that?
I like that a lot.
Untsipig.
Yeah, Maya, what are you gonna dress up?
As well?
We've got an all hands meeting at Mamma Maya, and apparently we've got dress ups in here. Oh and our CEO's coming as a vampire as per your instruction.
Yes, scary.
I don't usually.
Dress up, like when I used to take my kids out, did I dress up? I don't think I did, and I think I've given away all our old Halloween stuff because my kids have grown out of it.
To your point, Jesse, about whether it's scary or not, obviously I don't like Halloween because I don't like dressing up. That's on the record. However, Halloween is scary when you're a child because as our relationship in Australia with Halloween has matured and become more American, if you're not a little kid, it's now just dress up as whoever you want, which is why it's always interesting what the.
Cultural and Sabrina kat is exactly.
And so you know, a few years ago there was lots of Donald Trump, but I think this year everybody's decided that's too close to the.
Bad MAYA fun fact. Holley and I were at a writer's festival over the weekend and we met a group of out louders who said they had a dress up party recently and the theme was what do you want to be when you grow up and they went as us and they had headphones, they had a microphone. One woman dresses in sparkles. Around that time you said you won't wearing sparkles anymore, which ruined her costume. But I assured her that you have changed your mind and your back to sparkles.
That's phenomenal. Is there photographic evidence of this?
Well, I saw it, but I didn't get sent it. So I would like to do a call out for that out louder. Can you please put it in the Facebook group or send it to us? We desperately need to see that image.
They're wonderful out louders from Adelaide. So if that's you, because maybe more out louder than I don't know.
My fallback for fancy dress and this works for Halloween or book week. If it's you, or if it's a child, just get a pen and draw a Harry pottersca on.
A forhad done off you go.
I'll be checking in to the Betty Ford Center in ranch Home, Miarage. I'll be spending twenty eight days there, voluntarily enrolled in a twelve step program there to treat the substance dependence and drug addiction. I've been able to keep secret for three long four years. Are you okay?
I am okay?
Yeah, that is one of the most successful people in Australian media. Jackie O reading an excerpt from her memoir on The Kyle and JACKIEO Show on Friday, which is a radio show in Sydney and also in Melbourne, and it's one of the biggest radio shows that's ever existed in Australia.
Right.
It was very interesting that Jackie O decided to share that as part of her memoir promotion because for the past year or so a lot has been written about her, some of it by me. I wrote a piece about Jackie's comeback and what it all meant in the context of weight loss and body image back in June last year, because it seemed like suddenly the second chair on the Kyle and JACKIEO Show, one of the most listened to
people in the country was everywhere. After being almost invisible there for a while, post divorced the narrative when she was back, and she was back on magazine covers at the kind of social events that get you in the paper. She was launching a business with her best friend. She signed a new deal with Sandaland's worth a reported two
hundred million dollars. The narrative was that she'd been sad about her relationship breakdown and deep in pandemic work and motherhood funk, and now she was on a health kick, feeling great and was back out there. Pieces like mine talked about how women feel that they can re emerge from social hibernation when their confidence is back, and yes, when their body looks the way everybody wants it to
turns out. I, like everyone else who was talking about this, knew nothing, because, as you just heard this past week, Jackie O read from her book called The Whole Truth about the fact that actually she had been in a pit of addiction to painkillers, to sleeping pills, taboos for years, and that the re emergence that we all witnessed in
twenty twenty three was actually about her becoming sober. She'd spent time at the Betty Ford Clinic in America, as she said in that clip, entered a twelve step program, detoxed from her drug addiction and was learning how to live a life without that toxic secret. What we were actually seeing was her coming back to life. I read everything I could about this on the weekend because Jackie
fascinates me. She always does. I think she's consistently underrated as the reason that that show is a success, but also because it's yet another reminder that the stories we tell ourselves about what's going on in public people's lives, even the story they're telling us, is rarely accurate. And when we latch onto it as a story to tell ourselves and compare ourselves against, we're never doing that with the full picture in sight, so it's never a good idea.
Mia.
You interviewed Jackie last year, were you surprised by this?
To be honest, MY first reaction was that I was bummed, but I didn't get the screen. Of course, that she didn't tell me, but I completely understand that she wanted to do it in her own time and in her own words, and I really respect that. I was really surprised because I think you, being a little bit generous, I would say whole in terms of the main conversation that's been around jack for the last year, which has been around her weight, but.
Not only about her weight. It's been about this hole she's back thing. Right, That's what I very much have been reading, and that's the subtape.
I think her weight has been an avatar for that, you know, in terms of the media's portrayal of her. Every single article on the Daily Mail, which you know, writes about her incessantly as they can. She's in the public eye, but it is all focused on her weight. It's all shows off her new pins, shows off her new body, shows off her svelt frame. There was this cultural obsession that Jackie looked very different to the way Jackie's looked for the last ten years. And I think
that by talking about is it the divorce? What is it?
That sort of.
Gave people permission to have the conversation and ask her the questions, often directly, and she denied it. Every time that she was on a zempic she said, no, no, I'm not, I'm not not. You have to believe someone, while at the same time you have to respect that someone's health information is completely their own to share and decide whether they want to make a public or not.
So I think what this has done is, as you say, the story we thought we were seeing, which was one about weight loss, and she even has said in the book all her team were running bets on what they thought it was did she have gastric bypass surgery? Did she leave to have cosmetic surgery? Was she on a reality show? Why did she have this absence that she had told everybody was because she was suffering from long
COVID and needed time off. Even Kyle in an industry that can't keep secrets very well, I guess I was incredibly impressed and also just impressed that she's done this on her terms. In terms of telling her story.
Yeah, I'm really glad that she was afforded that privacy because that would have been really difficult. They explain how the pre recorded message i think went out after she left the country so that you know, she wouldn't be followed, and she had the hat on and the mask and everything so that people wouldn't talk about it before she was ready.
And we know that.
Happens all the time to celebrities, and that must really hinder recovery or just make it more difficult. So I'm glad that she was able to just disappear and recover. But you're right, Holly, that when someone is on radio for four hours every day, five days a week, that's twenty hours where they are talking, often about their lives. You can feel as though with public figures that you know them very, very intimately, and this just reminds us
that we don't. On the days that she wasn't doing radio, she was saying that, you know, she might just sleep. There's women who were living with addiction, which tying into the post COVID world. I know that COVID has exacerbated
addiction for a lot of people, alcoholism, substance abuse. But also I was thinking about all of those women and men who are married and have kids and then they split and all of a sudden, and I've heard divorced women talk about this, the loud silence of a house where the child used to be and how you feel that, And she speaks about that as well, which I thought was really generous.
And also, you don't have caring responsibilities for you know, maybe half the time or whatever it is when your child is with their other.
Parent, how do you feel that time when you're not used to filling that time.
But it's not just that, it's you can be out of it because you don't have to take care of someone. So that's why women's addictions are much more likely to be addictions like gambling or overeating, because they are addictions. You can carry on your caring responsibilities, whether it's for children or whoever it's for. But when you are only with your children half the time, you can get away with it a lot in that time because you have no responsibilities. It's like it's all on or off.
Yeah.
Yeah, It's also a different narrative about what addiction looks like and who suffers from it, right, Because when I say about the story that we're always told but we happily forget, it's the idea that famous, rich, beautiful, successful, thin people, you know whatever, who live in mansions in beautiful bits of the city are immune from the kind of issues that plague other people. And I'm not suggesting that that means there should be a tiny violin for
all the rich and glorious millionaires. But what I mean is it's like, again, we look at people sometimes in that public fear, and we compare ourselves to them and make ourselves feel bad about it, like why aren't I doing so well after my divorce? Or why haven't I managed to get on top of my weight issues or whatever it is? And the sort of fridge magnet cliche
of you never know what people are going through. It's just really really true because she was looking like one thing, and really she was going through this really serious addiction.
And it challenges the narrative that we have because when people talk about addiction in past tense, it often follows the pattern of a rock bottom. So the rock bottom might be that you were driving your kids around with a high blood alcohol level, or you ended up in hospital, or you lost your job, or you lost your job, something really really significant that you go. And I've heard addicks say they're waiting for the rock bottom period because
they're like, I'm functioning. Why would I get this sorted now? I've not had the rock bottom? And in Jackie's story, she wasn't found out. She was still somewhat functioning. What I love is that her best friend this is I think it's also a story of like strong female friendships, because it was her best friend, Gemma that said we're getting you to rehab. But Jackie, which is the story of so many addicts, was like, that feels really over the top because.
She hadn't hit rock bottom. And what we learned from the book or that the interview she gave about it, is that what prompted her to tell people was not in her control. It was that the person who'd been supplying her with the prescription medication was no longer able to supply her. So she knew, I'm addicted to all these substances and they're gonna run out. She had like a week or something left. She didn't know how she was going to cope, so it was almost forced upon her.
I thought also it was interesting, you know, you say, you think you know these celebrities, but you don't. I mean, everybody's got secrets, for sure, but I would say of Jackie on the scale of famous people, she is so normal and down to earth. And if you just look at pictures of her, particularly in the last year, where she does look incredibly glamorous, and you don't listen to the show and you don't know anything about her story, you might dismiss her as an influencer or all for show.
But she's actually very self deprecating, very down to earth, very very hard working, very smart. And that's what I was struck most by, you know, in the interview that I did with her, and on all the occasions I've met her, and I think that what's so good about this also is that she was able to we talk all the time right from a or speak from a scar,
not a wound. Recovery is fragile, and when you have to be in recovery while also dealing with the world talking to you and asking you questions and following you and writing about you and speculating about you, I think that that adds a whole layer to it that is not conducive to sustaining that recovery.
Or we're still wrestling with what happened during COVID when everyone disappeared and when we all went into our homes, so alcohol use had been going down, and then something happened during COVID that they're still studying, which is that at the very least it didn't continue going down like people's relationships.
With Some people drank themselves to death during.
Yeah, And I think we're still wrestling with that. But I think it's also important, just when we're talking about this, to acknowledge that there are a lot of people listening and a lot of people in Australia who are living with addiction issues that don't have the resources to go to a really premium rehab facility, to take a month off and to take a month exactly.
Right, that's true. But I've seen her copying a bit of credit for that, and that irritates me because of course that's true, and there are real issues here. Why would you criticize her well saying that, saying oh, it's all right for you because you could fly off to the Betty Ford Center, right that. I've seen some of that, right. And the thing is is it is an important point to make, Jesse, because it is really hard for a lot of people to access help for addiction and mental
health issues, and we absolutely know that. But she did not have to come clean and inverted commas about this. She's got a memoir full of stories that she could have told without this, and it's speaking for a lot of people who are struggling with this, which I think
is hashtag brave. And also you know you're going to open yourself up to that kind of criticism about privilege, So still hashtag brave because ultimately saying me too, I struggle with this to a lot of women similar phase of life or whatever is.
A gift after the break the ten words from one very famous woman that silenced all the men on a talk show.
Couch all came of it.
Finally happened. Beyonce came down from whatever planet of sweet smelling awesomeness she in habits, walked out on stage and endorsed Kamala Harris. While all the Kamala stands among us are hoping it's a knockout blow for that guy, we kind of doubt it. Beyonce didn't sing, despite what I'm sure were eye watering offers for her to have come out and belted out freedom. Instead, Here's what she said.
I'm not here as a celebrity. I'm not here as a politician. I'm here as a mother, a mother who cares deeply about the world. My children and all of our children live a world where we have the freedom to control our bodies, a world world we're not divided. Our past, our present, our future merge to meet us here.
It's no accident that that happened in Texas because it was the first US state to implement a near total abortion man after Roe versus Wade was overturned. That same week, Trump was cosplaying working in McDonald's. So it's quite surreal.
Yeah, although there are so many celebrities for Harris, now it feels like every celebrity is for Harris, and I just wonder if it really helps. However, I wish I'd been at that rally. I would literally faint if I was in the presence of Beyonce.
I'm a massive, massive Beyonce fan and shameless plug. Tomorrow's episode of canceled all about Beyonce. We go into the Beyonce conspiracy theory? Did he? We had a lot of excellence. Okay, you might have seen the headline this week that Sirsha Ronan, who you might know from Ladybird or Little Women, managed to silence all the men on The Graham Norton Show
with just ten words. Over the weekend, footage went viral of Ronan sitting beside Paul school, Eddie Redmain and Denzel Washington and they were talking about the ridiculous ways they might protect themselves in a fight. Paul meschyl Is famously in the Next Gladiator movie is and out next week, and they were talking about how, you know, they were doing training on set and someone said, you can use sort of anything as a weapon, even a phone can
be a weapon, and so off that story. This is how the conversation went.
Who's actually going to think about that?
Though?
Someone a text me, I'm not going to go phone.
That's a very good point, like the top girls have to think about all the time, Am I right?
Ladies?
Quickly, this grab was bundled up by news autlets who pointed out the issue with Paul Meschal's joke. She was celebrated for and this is a quote gagging men, and many women have responded with the ways in which they keep themselves safe. Some even said that mescal now gave them the ick and even the good guys don't get it.
I had a.
Different response to this clip, but first I want to know what you made of it.
Maya, Well, that's exhausting. I mean, you know, I think she made a good point, but I don't think he was doing anything wrong. And none of the other men
on the couch we're doing anything wrong. We live in different worlds, Like women have an awareness that we have had pretty much since we've been sentient of our vulnerability, and this idea of using a phone as a weapon or as a diversion, like I'll walk to my car and I'll call my husband if I'm walking to my car, so that I'm on the phone in case anything happens to me. Men can't be expected to necessarily know that.
I know that when you talk to men about the fact that, oh yeah, we all just carry our keys between our fingers, and my mum taught me to look in the back seat in my car before I get into it after it's been parked. It makes me incensed that women live in a different world to men, and sometimes they get angry that that's the case. But I don't think we need to attack these particular men.
I don't think that's what she was doing either. Right, it's irritated me those headlines that are like she silenced them, she gagged them, she called them out. That's not what she was doing. If you watch the clip, she literally was saying the most normal thing in the world that lots of women would say. And then she kind of senses the vibe shift and she makes a little joke and makes a little hand gesture like I don't think she was doing that. But anyway, that's not really the point.
No, I agree with you, because I like that she said that, and she's speaking to how cognizant women are of their own safety, which I think is a valid point. But I've said it before and I'll say it again, and I definitely thought it when I saw this clip being shared by a lot of women. If her and Paul were walking down the street together, it is more likely, statistically that Paul is going to be attacked. There's a
name for it. It's called the fear of crime gender paradox, and it's that men are commonly less fearful of violence crime than women, despite the fact that they are at much higher risk of being victims.
So is that because men have a better chance of defending themselves firstly, Secondly, that if a woman is attacked, it's likely that it will end either in her sexual assault or her death.
No, this is a thing if a woman is on a run, and we know that the media has stories that they pick up on and it is based on how a woman looks, it is based on her age, it is based on the circumstances upon which she died. And I learned this when I was hosting true crime conversations. There are many cases of men who have been randomly attacked that maybe they don't make the headlines, and that then perpetuates the fear that a lot of women feel. I think the men I know many men.
Don't fear healthy I don't mean good, I don't mean positive. But doesn't it contribute to our survival?
No, I'd argue that it doesn't. So my brother, for example, was walking down the street a few years ago and was punched in the face by men much much bigger than him. And men might be stronger, but like, if you're walking down the street and you're the victim of violent crime, you're probably not going to fight back because you're in total shock. You've frozen. I've spoken on this podcast before about being the victim of a random attack and I froze. I had no idea what to do.
So what's your point. I don't understand that men should be more afraid or women should be less afraid.
Of women should be less afraid. And when I looked at that couch, and it wasn't about her, right, it wasn't about ron, and it was about the reaction women going, men don't know how we live. And I was looking at the men on that couch and I went, hang on, you don't know the stories of those men. And in fact, I know a story about Graham Norton, who's sitting on the end there, who's a gay man, and his likelihood of being attacked randomly on a street is significantly higher
than anyone else on this couch. When he was in his twenties, he was a victim of a mugging and he was violently stabbed and he was left to die. That would have impacted how he walks through the world as well as I know that it does for men who are the victims of violent crime. And the reason why I get my back up a little bit when I talk about women who say I carry my keys, we do carry our phones to try and protect themselves.
I don't do any of those things. And the reason I don't is because I was attacked on the street and none of those things would have helped me. They didn't make me feel safer. And in fact, sometimes being hyper vigilant about.
You change your behavior at all.
I don't think I have not, And in fact, for a while I was very scared when I walk past a man. I feel my body. Happened the other day and someone kind of darts in front of me, and I feel my whole nervous system going to overdrive. But I think it's almost like, no, I'm not going to not walk home. I walk home from the gym at night, I get on the train at night, I do all those things. I'm not going to change my behavior because I had that experience. I feel quite like indignant about it.
And I agree with you about all that, right, I feel the same way. I feel like a lot of the stuff that's about making women feel afraid to be out in the world is not helpful to us at all. But I feel so defensive. You start this conversation right, because you know, when was it, how long ago was it when there was that awful spate of violence against women and it seemed to break through into a national
conversation always. Yeah, you know, there was a point this year where there were a couple of horrimen Yeah, a couple of horrific attacks, and we started to talk about it in a big way, and people were taking to the streets and it was discussion all the time, and I heard some very prominent men saying exactly what you're saying, Jesse.
They were like, yes, that's awful, but do you know women that we are much more likely than you to be attacked, And do you know women that male violence affects men more than it affects women, And it in senses me because it's like a wilful misunderstanding of the fact that you're absolutely right about the fact that a man walking past a group of young men on the street has more right to be worried in a way than women, and it probably is, and many men live
with that fear. But women are attacked and killed all the time by men in their homes and in their lives, and the idea that we are somehow inflating our risk of violence to victimize ourselves makes me so mad.
I think.
So that's a really good point, right, because for women, you are more likely to be inside your own home by someone who claims to love you than you are walking down the street.
So so male violence is a massive problem for women. And every time I hear that defense, it sounds to me like they're telling us to shut up and sit down, when actually, you know, what everybody's talking about today is the interview with Lily James's parents on sixty Minutes last night. She was the young woman killed at work one year
ago this month. She was at her job at a school in Sydney and a young man that she'd been dating for five weeks and had stopped dating, came to her workplace and murdered her brutally, then sent her dad a text message saying this is Lily, come and pick me up, and then took his own life. Horrible, horrible story on every level. But that's how male violence affects women in all kinds of ways. Is often within our
home with men that we know. And every time I hear that defense of like, but men, but men, but men, I'm just like, you don't get it. We're living with very different realities.
But isn't the point that we're not.
I think we absolutely are.
But this is a thing, right if statistically a man is more likely to walk down the street and be attacked, which we know, and we saw it with the King hit, you know, example.
And we saw the reaction to that, and laws were changed and an entire city was altered in reaction to that. I'm with you.
I'm with you. My reaction is there is something oppressive about telling women to change their behavior or like perpetuating this idea that we should be always on high alert. That's suggesting that the street isn't ours to own. And so that's the thing I feel like I rebel against is that men are still.
But why can't we be on alert and in the street. I don't stay home, but when I'm at I'm on alert. And there are things that I do, and there are things that I have taught my daughter.
To do, even teaching our daughters. And I'm in the same position that the idea of something ever happening to my daughter is my worst nightmare in the whole world. But telling her to walk around with keys between her like is that freedom? Is that true freedom to feel as though you are waiting. And in fact, when I was attacked on the street, I remember thinking, this is when it happens. Like I'd been waiting my whole life
for that moment because I'd been prepared for it. I'm not sure my brother had.
Sarah Silverman has a joke quote Mark's joke about this where she talks about you know, hearing the footsteps behind you and as a woman thinking, oh, this is my sexual assault. Yeah, it's come now, Like in some ways, it's the expectation that it'll probably happen to you. It's a question of when. I also understand that there's theory
and ideology and then there's actual practice. And I've had arguments about this all the time, often with younger women about well do we talk about the connection between, for example, different things that will put a woman at higher risk.
We don't do it to men. And I do think the statistics matter because they tell us that the man who hurts you is probably not hiding in a bush right now.
Exactly.
It's more useful to talk to your daughter if she is.
But I talked to her about both.
Of course you do. But the problem making to your son, and also the problem about the end result of that don't do anything dangerous is like, what, so, don't walk home? Get an uber, but what about the uber driver? Don't go out in it? Like the end result is us locked in our houses, not going out alone, which is a mostageous absolutely not reflective of where the risk is. And so I get the urge of like, well, I could have had my keys, I could have not taken
that route home. But also that leads you to never going anywhere.
It kind of it's about needing the illusion of I'm going to do whatever is in my power to do, and maybe it's useless, maybe it's a prophylactic. What else can I do other than just rely on the goodwill of a man not to attack me?
Or is it when women are attacked or when women are the victims of violence, the stories that we tell often suggests that they could have done more to prevent it. There's a gendered thing that's like, well, if she wasn't wearing that, or if when a man is attacked on the street, we never talk about what he was wearing. We never talk about whether or not he was drinking.
He should have been out at night.
Yeah, yeah, I don't think we talk about women like that anymore. Maybe I'm being knaved, but I just don't. I think that we've progressed as a society light years from the way we used to think. We understand about there being no such thing as a perfect victim. We understand the fact that what a woman does is not necessarily going to impact But even if it's just the illusion of protection, I just don't see the harm.
Out loud as If you want to listen to us every day of the week, and why wouldn't you, You can get access to exclusive segments on Tuesdays and Thursdays by becoming a Muma mea subscriber. Follow the link in the show notes to subscribe, and a big thank you to all our current subscribers.
The topic of career advice has never been more relevant because the World Economic Forum has suggested that by twenty twenty five, which is just next year, eighty five million jobs will disappear.
But the good news is.
That ninety seven million new jobs will be created, except most of them will just be from robots. But anyway, no, I made that bit up. And the rate at which people are switching jobs has accelerated dramatically. For example, baby boomers worked for approximately six employers during their working life, while gen z are predicted to work eighteen jobs across
six different careers in their lifetime. So if you start work at eighteen and finish up at about seventy, you'll be changing jobs around once every three years if you're a gen Z. So while you think about how long it's been since you updated your CV or your LinkedIn profile, lor to the point, I'm going to tell you about a newsletter being widely shared this week about the best career advice nobody will tell you. It was written by
Faris Staw, who actually also works at Substack. She has a newsletter called Things Worth Knowing, but she used to be the editor in chief of Cosmo and L in the UK, and I'm going to take you through some of the bits of her advice and see what you think. First bit of advice, don't get a mentor. She said that people who are considered mentors are much further along in their career than you and won't have much insight into the challenges that you'll be experiencing.
Yeah, that's true. And I also think that you can have a mentor and they don't need to know that you're their mentor, you know what I mean, Like, you don't have to ask anything of them. You can just watch them really close.
So you know, there's this idea now of a formalized mentor. Yeah, situation where you go up to someone and say, will you be my man, have a coffee with me every month, pass on your wisdom. You're like, not that, No, I.
Think sometimes you only realize mentors in the review mirror, and I would agree. Fara's advice was that you should find someone sort of just a couple of rungs up on the ladder from where you want to be. But my advice is closer to yours, Jesse. You don't need an IRL mentor, like someone that you've never met, and that you do never meet. They might not even be
in your industry. They could be your mentor. And then sometimes also you'll look back on your career and you'll go, oh, that person really impacted.
It's funny because I have never thought about formalizing mentors. But obviously lots of women who've been very influential in my career and what I wanted to do, and obviously you're one of them, Mayor. But actually several of my mentors are younger than me, for sure, and that is relevant and important. I think in a changing workplace is that often you will learn more from people who are more familiar with say the technology, or they're closer to how social media works or whatever.
It is.
Like, there are people I will pick up the phone and call for advice who it's not that they've done what I've done and they higher up the ladder. It's just that they're smart, they're quick. I'll ask you for advice, Jesse. I've got lots of people who I'll call and say what should I do about this? And it's not about that formalized ladder.
Yeah, or just watching someone do their job well. If you're in an office or if you're at a school or if you're working in a hospital, there will be people who you're like in awe of how good they are at their job, and the closer you watch them, I think that can just rub off on you, probably more than any pearls of wisdom they could formally give you.
The next one, she.
Says, is the perfect job only exists in hindsight. I thought that's really interesting. By this, she means that it's only by looking back contextually you can see what the perfect job is, because she said, people will often say the perfect job is when I get to the top or when I achieve this high thing. And she said, when you get there, often it's not fun at all.
And I would certainly vouch for that. I've found my whole life has been climbing to the top and then going, oh, I don't like it up here, and then climbing back down. She said, what you'll so often find when you look back is that the perfect job for you, or the time that you were happiest was on.
Your way there.
I would agree with that, like some of my happiest times have been when I did not have externally the high point markers of success that I have had At other times in my career, I was actually a bit lower, but it was the perfect job for me. Yeah, I agree with that getting to the top should only be a consequence, not a goal.
Sometimes I feel like this kind of advice, though from people at the top, is all about saying to young people, stop trying to get my child.
But she's not at the top anymore.
She was top in a different way.
You know.
I think it's interesting because I know what you mean about, Oh, the times I loved work the most is when I was barely earning anything and just working hard with the fun team. If you're at that phase in your career where you're barely earning anything and working hard with the fun team, you're like, it's not that much fun. Like it's fun, but you've got other problems. And I think that sometimes when really successful people tell you that you don't know how lucky you are right now, it's not
necessarily helpful. Yeah.
One of the worst pieces of advice I have come across a bit is don't worry about the money. Maybe there are times in your career where you can afford not to worry about the money in the early days,
if you're trading it in for really great experience. But I have a lot of people in my life who didn't worry about the money for a really long time and ended up in a place where they were panicking because they had a young family, or they couldn't afford to live where they wanted to live, or whatever it is. I think eventually some decisions have to be made that
are based on salary. Some of her others were like, don't confuse a hobby with a job, Like, just because you really like making cakes, don't think that you should open a bakery.
And she also says keep your dreams small. So she's talking about dream big, how she hates that whole you know Instagram, dream big, you reach for the stars. She's like, no, don't reach for the stars. Reach closer, because you probably won't reach the stars. And just because you want to dream big, that can actually be a real diversion in you actually achieving anything because your dreams are too big.
Yeah.
Yeah, I think you can do both at once. I think you can have the big dream of winning the Academy Award or whatever, but then you can also have finished my course at the local drama school.
It keeps moving that goalpost.
Right.
The more really successful people you talk to, they'll tell you that is that I thought i'd be happy when I got that, and then I got that. Then I felt like I ought to want that, and then I felt like I ought to want that. I think better advice is, actually, don't confuse other people dreams with yours. Just because you're really good at cooking, it doesn't mean
you're going to be Naggi from recipe te eats. Maybe you will, but also, like her, dream might not be your dream, So I think that that's more important it is actually identifying your dream.
Do you know one that I.
Hadn't heard before that I thought was interesting that Pharah Roade act your salary and I hadn't heard that before, And how she explained it was that when you get a bigger role, or a pay increase or a promotion, you have to change your behavior. You have to be tougher, you have to complain less, and you have to often work harder.
What do you think about the advice, because this is one I've always taken a bit of issue with, but I think it might be my own neuroses. Dressed for the job you want, I don't like that advice. It annoys me.
Why why don't you like that advice?
Ah, because I think it is only ever dish out to women. I think it suggests.
I don't think it's only dished out to women. Really. I've got a friend who's a manager, and she once called a man in and told him he had to stop wearing those shoes, Like those shoes are the shoes of a man who has two jobs back on the career. Lie and if you want to keep it, like if you're going out to meet clients and you're doing that and those shoes, forget it. You've got it like that.
It applies to everyone.
I think client is different, but I think it's quite superficial. And I feel as though if you think that a promotion is just on the other side of a blazer and a knife handbag, then.
Maybe it doesn't mean so much anymore. That people are more likely to work from home and after the pandemic when people wear all kinds of things and there are less strict rules. I mean, in some industries there are strict rules. I did an Instagram real the other day about what I was wearing to work, and I made an offhanded comment about, well, most people can wear what they want to work and oh I can't.
Yeah, true true.
I work in a conservative industry. What I think that this does is it talks about self awareness.
Yeah true, true, true. Because the other one actually that grinds my gears a bit is about executive presence and leadership. So this is a big thing that people talk about is.
That's just because you don't have any if you know what.
And I don't. And I look at people in my family who might not be extroverts, but I look at my dad in particular, who is a leader. He's an assistant principal at a school, and his leadership looks Basically, what I'm trying to say is there is one thousand different ways to be a great leader. That's true, and a lot of businesses and schools and you know whatever, bureaucracies need that different hundred.
She said that level of diversity is absolutely Yeah.
Jessie, what you're talking about those extroverted leadership styles and introverted leadership styles, which I agree with. I think executive presence is not synonymous with being an extrovert at all.
I don't think it is either, But I think that sometimes with leadership we try to pretend like there is only one way that you've got to have the loudest voice, you've got to be wearing the suit jacket, that you've got to have a certain way of speaking to people. I think we are learning that that is not the case.
That's true. I know someone who has given executive presence coaching, and top of that list was I think you should wear shoes in the office. And that might seem like a silly thing, but when she would come to work, she would just kick her shoes off and walk around barefoot. And that was fine when you're really junior. Maybe it's not, but it doesn't scream executive presence.
It doesn't.
We asked out loud as what the worst career advice they'd ever see, and here with some of their answers, find a job you love and you'll never work a day in your life.
That's not true. I love my job, people exactly. People, you know, some of those big dream jobs are incredibly hard work.
Like trust your gut is also terrible advice. Someone said, I have anxiety. My gut is virtually always telling me to panic.
And never do anything.
And people saying, yeah, don't be afraid to do what you love and then money will follow. This could be true, but also not true.
Before we go, I wanted to let the out louders in on some exciting news. November is Mother and Maya's Month of Move. You might have heard about Move. It is Muma Maya's exercise app and starting November first, the Move team are going to drop daily workout recommendations to keep your company all month long, because there is mental load in choosing what workout to do today. So we're just gonna tell you which one and guess what might
be ten minutes, might be fifteen minutes. But what's for sure is that there will not be any dish need tap and also take.
Away my decision for tea exactly.
So if you're wanting to get back into exercise, this is a great way to do it. You can just focus on what's important, which is feeling great. If you want to join the Month of Move, you can get thirty dollars off a yearly Muma Mea subscription which gets you unlimited access to Move with the code Month of out Loud. So that's a reminder that if you are a Muma Maya subscriber, you already have access to move. The offer is valid till the end of November. All the details are in the show notes.
That's it from us for today, whatever you are in the world. Hello to those out louders who've messaged us recently from as far afield as Dubai and Saskatchewan in Canada. Thank you for letting us in your ears. We appreciate you all more than you ever know. See you tomorrow.
Bye.
Shout out to any Muma mia subscribers listening. If you love the show and want to support us as well, subscribing to MoMA Miya is the very best way to do so. There is a link in the episode description.