This week I’m dipping back into the archives with one of the most relistened episodes of Almost 40: a conversation with my mum. It started as a joke. My podcast manager suggested I ask mum the questions you’d want answered before the end of someone’s life. Mum was 57 at the time of recording! What unfolded surprised me. Mum shares why her proudest achievement isn’t her kids or grandkids, but the sharp left turn she took into a whole new career despite a lifelong fear of exams and a belief that she wasn’t smart enough. We talk about what it was like having two babies by 19, the day I rolled off a hospital bed at twelve weeks old (yes, I’m the fractured skull child), and why “I don’t know how you do it” rarely lands the way people intend.

We also unpack something I can’t stop thinking about: why women call their achievements luck. Mum bought her own home after her divorce and is now mortgage free, and her first instinct was to call herself lucky rather than proud. Becoming a mum myself changed how I see her, and this conversation changed it again.

In this episode:

• The career change my mum made in midlife and the self-doubt she pushed through

• Being a young mum at 19 and how you cope when there’s no other option

• Why “I don’t know how you do it” lands differently when you’re in survival mode

• Luck versus pride: how women talk themselves out of their own achievements

• The one thing mum would do differently, and what it reveals about parenting, guilt and work ethic

If you love this one, come join me over on Almost Confidential for the more personal episodes.

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