My So-Called Midlife with Reshma Saujani

When there's a fire, you can do one of three things: run away, stand and watch, or run toward the flames. Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer has spent her career running toward the flames. Most recently, she went to Washington to ask President Trump for aid after an historic ice storm hit northern Michigan – and ended up, as The New York Times put it, “an unwilling participant in his unending reality show.” But she did it because the people of Michigan needed her to stay and get the help they needed. Reshma also asks the Governor about getting called “that woman from Michigan,” her decision to share that she was sexually assaulted in college, navigating a divorce, and if she has any plans for 2026 when her term is up.   Follow Governor Whitmer on Instagram @truegretchwhitmer and on X @truegretch. Check out her book, True Gretch, which also has a YA edition.   You can follow our host Reshma Saujani @reshmasaujani on Instagram.    Let us know how you’re doing in midlife! You can submit your story to be included in this show at speakpipe.com/midlife    Stay up to date with us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at @LemonadaMedia.    Joining Lemonada Premium is a great way to support our shows and get bonus content. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.   Click this link for a list of current sponsors and discount codes for this show and all Lemonada shows: lemonadamedia.com/sponsors   To follow along with a transcript, go to lemonadamedia.com/show/ shortly after the air date.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 that you rent your title but you own your values. Plus, Thasunda offers some accessible financial advice for women in midlife and convinces Reshma to start a Midlife Money group chat with her girlfriends.  Follow Thasunda Brown Duckett on Instagram @thasunda. You can follow our host Reshma Saujani @reshmasaujani on Instagram.  Let us know how you’re doing in midlife! You can submit your story to be included in this show at speakpipe.com/midlife  Stay up to date with us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at @LemonadaMedia.  Joining Lemonada Premium is a great way to support our shows and get bonus content. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Click this link for a list of current sponsors and discount codes for this show and all Lemonada shows: lemonadamedia.com/sponsors To follow along with a transcript, go to lemonadamedia.com/show/ shortly after the air date.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 incredible conversation! Follow Dr. Mary Claire Haver on Instagram @drmaryclaire. You can follow our host Reshma Saujani @reshmasaujani on Instagram.  Let us know how you’re doing in midlife! You can submit your story to be included in this show at speakpipe.com/midlife  Stay up to date with us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at @LemonadaMedia.  Joining Lemonada Premium is a great way to support our shows and get bonus content. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Click this link for a list of current sponsors and discount codes for this show and all Lemonada shows: lemonadamedia.com/sponsors To follow along with a transcript, go to lemonadamedia.com/show/ shortly after the air date.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Join bestselling author Gretchen Rubin, known for her insights on happiness, and Yale professor Laurie Santos, host of The Happiness Lab, as they delve into the evolution of friendships in midlife. They discuss how friendships can flourish or fade, share strategies for navigating conflicts, and emphasize the importance of maintaining genuine connections. With personal anecdotes and practical advice, they encourage listeners to embrace new friendships and nurture existing ones, proving that it's never too late to enrich your social life.

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 yourself a little pity party. Look, we all lose. But Tamron has learned how to still win in the loss, and wants you to be able to do the same. Follow Tamron on Instagram @tamronhall. You can follow our host Reshma Saujani @reshmasaujani on Instagram.  Let us know how you’re doing in midlife! You can submit your story to be included in this show at speakpipe.com/midlife  Stay up to date with us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at @LemonadaMedia.  Joining Lemonada Premium is a great way to support our shows and get bonus content. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Click this link for a list of current sponsors and discount codes for this show and all Lemonada shows: lemonadamedia.com/sponsors To follow along with a transcript, go to lemonadamedia.com/show/ shortly after the air date.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 give up when it gets hard, how to deal with rejection, and that tuning into what you need always serves you in the long run.    Follow Phoebe on Instagram @dopequeenpheebs. You can follow our host Reshma Saujani @reshmasaujani on Instagram.  Let us know how you’re doing in midlife! You can submit your story to be included in this show at speakpipe.com/midlife  Stay up to date with us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at @LemonadaMedia.    Joining Lemonada Premium is a great way to support our shows and get bonus content. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.   Click this link for a list of current sponsors and discount codes for this show and all Lemonada shows: lemonadamedia.com/sponsors To follow along with a transcript, go to lemonadamedia.com/show/ shortly after the air date.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 lot of other children. Every day after dinner, around 6:30, everyone emptied out of their houses and went down to the church parking lot where they engaged in all kinds of unsupervised activities—throwing balls at each other in front of the church wall, climbing up trees and sometimes falling out of them, riding Hot Wheels until people skinned their knees. There was street hockey and there were scrapes. There were a few broken arms.  That experience of playing outside unsupervised in the dark—or walking a mile home from school in kindergarten—is very different from her own children’s experiences, even though they’re growing up in a very similar environment, with very similar parents. They aren’t leaving the house every day after dinner. If Emily had suggested that they walk home from school in kindergarten, even though it’s only a couple of blocks, there’s no chance that would have been met with the school’s acceptance. Since 1955, there has been a continuous decline in children’s opportunities to engage in free play, away from adult intervention and control. In 1969, 47 percent of kids walked or biked to school, whereas in 2009 that number had plummeted to 12 percent. How did we get here? What are the consequences of hypervigilant parenting? On kids’ happiness? On their well-being? Their mental health? And on their ability to grow into independent, self-sufficient, and successful adults? And, maybe most importantly, how can we alter this trajectory before it’s too late? *** Resources from this episode: Timothy Carney: Family Unfriendly: How Our Culture Made Raising Kids Much Harder Than It Needs to Be (Bookshop)) Jonathan Haidt: The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness (Bookshop) Lenore Skenazy: Free-Range Kids: How Parents and Teachers Can Let Go and Let Grow (Bookshop) Let Grow  Free Range Kids Jonathan Haidt in The FP https://www.thefp.com/t/jonathan-haidt  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 be used to unlock profound healing. Plus, they get into the specific reasons why midlife may be the ideal time to unpack trauma with psychedelics.   Follow Dr. Holland @juliehollandmd on Instagram. You can follow our host Reshma Saujani @reshmasaujani on Instagram.  Let us know how you’re doing in midlife! You can submit your story to be included in this show at speakpipe.com/midlife  Stay up to date with us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at @LemonadaMedia.  Joining Lemonada Premium is a great way to support our shows and get bonus content. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Click this link for a list of current sponsors and discount codes for this show and all Lemonada shows: lemonadamedia.com/sponsors   To follow along with a transcript, go to lemonadamedia.com/show/ shortly after the air date.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 child-free, and why she finally decided to address her anger with therapy in her 40s. Then, Reshma calls up her personal therapist Dr. Malika Bhowmik to dive more into the anger so many people in midlife are feeling. She offers tips and tricks to validate our anger, stop gaslighting ourselves, and eventually, move through our feelings.   Follow Chelsea at @chelseahandler on Instagram and check out her new book, I’ll Have What She’s Having.  Follow Dr. Malika Bhowmik on Instagram. You can follow our host Reshma Saujani @reshmasaujani on Instagram.  Let us know how you’re doing in midlife! You can submit your story to be included in this show at speakpipe.com/midlife  Stay up to date with us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at @LemonadaMedia.  Joining Lemonada Premium is a great way to support our shows and get bonus content. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Click this link for a list of current sponsors and discount codes for this show and all Lemonada shows: lemonadamedia.com/sponsors To follow along with a transcript, go to lemonadamedia.com/show/ shortly after the air date.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 role in “Never Have I Ever.”   Follow Richa at @richamoorjani on Instagram.  You can follow our host Reshma Saujani @reshmasaujani on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/reshmasaujani/?hl=en Let us know how you’re doing in midlife! You can submit your story to be included in this show at speakpipe.com/midlife  Stay up to date with us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at @LemonadaMedia.    Joining Lemonada Premium is a great way to support our shows and get bonus content. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.   Click this link for a list of current sponsors and discount codes for this show and all Lemonada shows: lemonadamedia.com/sponsors To follow along with a transcript, go to lemonadamedia.com/show/ shortly after the air date.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.