My So-Called Midlife with Reshma Saujani

Thasunda Brown Duckett was trying to do it all – be a mom, a wife, and a high-powered CEO – when it hit her: work-life balance is a lie. The President and CEO of TIAA tells Reshma how this realization helped her prioritize the myriad things fighting for her time and caused her to become a more present mom to her four children. Thasunda also tells Reshma that she’s learned to live her life knowing...

If you don’t understand what’s happening to your body during menopause, you’re not alone! Dr. Mary Claire Haver is a Certified Menopause Practitioner and joins Reshma to answer all her questions about what the heck is going on with her body during midlife. They tackle everything from sleep issues, weight gain, depression and anxiety, nutrition, frequent urination – nothing is off-limits in this in...

In this special episode, Reshma joins two of the world’s leading voices on happiness and beloved podcast hosts Gretchen Rubin (Happier with Gretchen Rubin) and Laurie Santos (The Happiness Lab) for a candid, thought-provoking roundtable on the power of friendship. They dive into how our friendships shift as we grow, the right way to handle conflict, and why forming new connections in adulthood can...

Tamron Hall looks like the very definition of success. She’s an Emmy Award-winning broadcast journalist, author, wife, and mother. But all of that happened after she was fired from co-hosting The Today Show’s third hour. She and Reshma share their biggest failures … and why they’re so grateful for them. They discuss the lessons they learned from life’s defeats, including the benefit of throwing yo...

Phoebe Robinson is known for making us laugh. Whether it’s through her standup, her books, her acting, or her podcasts she is writing award-winning jokes about some of life’s universally awkward moments. But now that she’s officially joined the 40’s club, Phoebe is…running. She’s running marathons. She and Reshma talk about how running becomes a metaphor for life. It teaches you that you can’t giv...

We’ve got something special for you this week. We previously had economist, professor, and author Emily Oster on the show, where she shared her invaluable insights on parenting, pregnancy, and motherhood. We loved the conversation so much that we wanted to introduce you to her own podcast, Raising Parents. When Emily was a kid in the 1980s in New Haven, Connecticut, she grew up on a block with a l...

Does it seem like everyone around you is microdosing, or is at least talking about it? Reshma had a lot of questions about psychedelics, so she called up psychiatrist and psychopharmacologist Dr. Julie Holland, one of the leading voices in the field of psychedelics and mental health. Reshma and Julie dive deep into the hard science and real data behind psychedelics and discuss how these tools can...

Chelsea Handler has made a career of saying exactly what’s on her mind. And the comedian and actor has compiled a lot of her frank thoughts in her latest book, “I’ll Have What She’s Having,” which came out yesterday — her 50th birthday. Chelsea tells Reshma about balancing her vanity with the realities of aging, being grateful to Jane Fonda for calling out her bad behavior, the positives of being...

Actor Richa Moorjani says she’s had chronic pain much of her life, but it got really bad in her 30s. She tells Reshma how she’s learned to prioritize self-care and why she finds that talking about it publicly has been healing. Plus, they talk about Richa’s acting career, including the importance of representation in media and the reason Richa almost didn’t audition for what became her breakthrough...

Given everything happening in the world right now, it's important to remember there are people fighting for what's right. To that end, we wanted to revisit Reshma's conversation with Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who knew she wanted to sit on the high court since she was a little girl. Now in her midlife, she’s made that dream come true – and she’s the first Black woman to do so. Re...

If saving and investing money isn’t a top priority in your life, you’re not alone. The AARP reports that over half of Americans over 50 are worried they won’t have enough money to support themselves in retirement. Noah Kerner created Acorns to help people gain control over their financial future. Noah and Reshma discuss how our relationship with money changes and evolves as we get older, the bigge...

Dr. Kelly Casperson — a urologist, sex educator, and host of a hit podcast — wants you to have great sex. And she knows you probably aren’t. A lot of that, she says, is because most of what we think we know about sex — especially in midlife — is flat-out wrong! She and Reshma get to the bottom of some fundamentals around libido, desire, and hormones, and also give you some tips on how to improve y...

At 41, Mel Robbins was at her rock bottom when a rocket launch changed the trajectory of her life. Mel tells Reshma how she got herself unstuck and began the work that would lead to becoming a #1 New York Times bestselling author and podcast juggernaut. Mel puts her “Let Them” theory into practice for Reshma, with examples from Reshma’s relationships with her mother and her friends. Plus, Mel shar...

Sahaj Kaur Kohli is going on her fourth father-daughter trip soon – something that she could never have imagined 10 years ago. And it’s something that Reshma definitely can’t imagine with her own father. Both daughters to immigrant parents, Reshma and Sahaj talk about how their unique upbringing has informed their senses of self. But Sahaj’s work as a therapist, journalist, and founder of Brown Gi...

Classicist Mary Beard is the author of Women & Power: A Manifesto and has a cult following because she doesn't fit any kind of mold. She definitely speaks up, and she says whatever she thinks whenever she wants. But it wasn't always like that. In this episode, she talks to Reshma about how she had writer's block for most of her 20s and 30s. It wasn’t until midlife that she figured out how to write...

Bozoma Saint John is the newest cast member of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, and she has a take-no-shit approach to life that will motivate you to demand everything you deserve. After working in executive marketing positions for companies like Uber, Netflix, Apple and Pepsi, Boz decided to leave corporate America and do things her own way. She had experienced so much loss in her life that she...

Famed activist, journalist, and feminist Gloria Steinem knows how to regroup after a loss. Just like the rest of us, she’s gearing up to live through a second Trump presidency.  At 94 years old, she’s here to remind us that our community – friends, family, chosen family – is our power and our medicine. Gloria talks about how her home has become a sanctuary, and why she opens it up to women of all...

For actress, comedian and singer Margaret Cho, being 50 is hot. And she’s here to tell us how we can all feel the same way. Not only is she taking better care of herself these days but she’s also tapping into her goddess energy. So much so that people are paying attention! And she says she owes a lot of this midlife energy to menopause. With hormones no longer ruling her life, she is free to be wh...

Ilana Glazer is all grown up! You might know them from their spunky stoner bestie role in Broad City. But now, they’re a mom, and they’re determined to show us what it's really like to be a pregnant person. We're talking about the funny, messy, and totally insane parts of growing a human that no one talks about. Illana talks to Reshma about getting the funding for their film Babes and what it was...

Yvette Nicole Brown says being single with no kids in midlife is something to be proud of. At 53, she’s about to walk down the aisle for the first time and she’s happy she waited. All the while, she’s been busy caregiving for her father. In 2013, her dad first started showing signs of Alzheimer's, so Yvette broke her contract with the beloved comedy series, Community, and took him into her home to...

“You’re in menopause. Any questions?” That’s the brief message a doctor sent to journalist Tamsen Fadal after she almost passed out one day at work. She was 49. And she did have questions. So she took it upon herself to talk to OBGYNs, neuroscientists and hormone experts about what’s happening to our bodies during this pivotal time in our lives. All her work is compiled into a new documentary, The...

Best selling author and advice columnist Cheryl Strayed isn’t looking back. She’s taking a front seat to her post menopause years so much so that she’s given it a name — the “crone age.” Cheryl shares why she’s excited about this next stage of her life and what she’s learned from her iconic advice column Dear Sugar. Plus she gets real about grief and why we shouldn't wait for the “deathbed moment....

  Divorce therapist Oona Metz takes us through the ups and downs of marriage, from fighting to making up to ending the relationship to dating after divorce. She tells us why we shouldn’t fight dirty (we all do it, right??), the difference between leaving a relationship and ending a relationship, how to make up in front of kids, and how to know when it’s time to go. Plus, why women get more sleep *...

Chelsea Clinton would rather focus on the change she wants to see in the world than think about her age. That’s why we thought she’d be a perfect guest as we all count down the hours until Election Day. (I mean, how do we not let this election age us!?) As the author of several children's books, she gives us tips on talking to kids about big topics like abortion and climate change. Plus, what she...

Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson knew she wanted to sit on the high court since she was a little girl. Now in her midlife, she’s made that dream come true – and she’s the first Black woman to do so. Reshma talks with her friend Justice Jackson about how to stay present while balancing it all: the kids, the marriage and the highest of high-pressure jobs. Literally, if she can manage to d...