Anyone obsessed with the idea that success means ticking off milestones according to a certain timeline would do well to follow Elizabeth Day. Vocal about her belief that women have been sold a lie that their power diminishes the older they get, at 42 and having recently married for the second time, she’s found the opposite to be true. ‘I feel I’ve got better with age. I feel like most of my professional successes, and actually my personal life, got so much better in my late thirties and early forties. This is the optimal time of my life,’ she says.
Elizabeth is famous for finding the value in failure, but on screen her life looks pretty sorted. She has a dazzlingly successful career as an award-winning author and chart-topping podcaster. She’s found happiness with new husband, financial tech CEO Justin Basini, 46. And the snapshot I can see of their south London home during our Zoom chat only supports my suspicion that every corner of her life is stylish and immaculate.
If you asked her in her twenties, though, she wouldn’t have believed her life would look this way. She says she spent the decade ‘lost’ and anxious about turning 30. Back then she believed you had to be young for an achievement to be worth anything. ‘There’s way too much cultural emphasis placed on being the next big thing and it’s really unhelpful because actually older voices have so much to say and contribute.’
She thought she’d be married with children by her mid-thirties. Instead, she went through three miscarriages and a messy divorce and now swears by the years of therapy she’s had since she was 29. ‘I realised [that] assumption and timeline was not something I crafted for myself, it was something that society had bequeathed me… I think that’s changing a lot now.’
She’s well-placed to know if the mood of the country is changing: in recent years she’s become the unofficial agony aunt of our age. Her inbox alone can detect a societal shift. In the past, before launching the podcast, fans asked her exclusively about her writing or books. But during the pandemic, she says, ‘A lot of people opened up about how lonely they felt, and not just if they were living alone. Sometimes, they felt lonely in relationships, or sometimes romantic relationships had broken up in the midst of lockdown and so there was a specific kind of pain.’ People whose fertility treatment had been interrupted or who had suffered miscarriages also reached out to her.
Anyone who knows Elizabeth from her podcast How To Fail – where she interviews celebrity guests about difficult times in their lives – won’t be surprised to hear she’s as charming, warm and unguarded in person. She’s also mastered the art of making you feel like you’ve been friends for years. Perhaps it’s the many hours I’ve spent with her in my ears. As we chat, no topic is off-limits.
‘What I’ve realised doing How To Fail and writing is that, actually, when we feel strong enough to share our vulnerability, that’s the source of real power and solidarity and the source of all human connection. And so that’s a real positive that has come out of the pandemic.’ Another is her latest novel: Magpie, which she finished during lockdown last year. ‘I haven’t baked a single loaf of banana bread,’ she concedes.
Magpie is the story of Marisa and Jake, whose relationship is tested when a lodger, Kate, moves in and takes an uncomfortable interest in the baby they are hoping to have. It’s a rich plot that also delves into meaty topics: jealousy, motherhood and fertility.
Elizabeth has made no secret of the fact she yearns to be a mother and has undergone a number of fertility treatments. She tells me she got pregnant again last year and sadly miscarried last May. ‘That was devastating,’ she says, her voice breaking. ‘It also meant that I wanted to create something in that space.’
Was writing about this subject harder after she miscarried? ‘It got easier,’ she says. ‘I really did find it cathartic and therapeutic. It helped me process something that I think I’d otherwise have tried to compartmentalise and get on with my busy life.’
In fact, the pandemic has made her reevaluate the notion of productivity. ‘As a culture we perpetuate this idea that to be busy means we’re effective human beings. And actually, I’ve realised that I can only be creative… if I’ve got time to rest. And so I realised that I don’t want to fill my every single minute of every single day with work. Therefore, I need to work out what are the things that bring me the most joy, focus on them and give up some other stuff,’ she says.
She doesn’t think taking a step back necessarily equates to ‘leaning out’, in the sense that you’d be withdrawing from work or responsibilities. ‘I think taking a step back and reassessing what’s important in your life can lead to you being a far more congruent member of society,’ she says.
The pandemic has triggered a monumental rise in people reconsidering what’s important. Add to that the usual reassessing we do at this time of year, as summer draws to an end and that back-to-school feeling takes hold. Elizabeth says there’s ‘an opportunity for people to ask themselves whether they really do feel seen in their place of work. Because if they don’t, either it’s worth taking the risk of showing up as their true selves (rather than pretending everything is fine or not letting people get to know you) or it’s worth finding something different to do in a place that does respect you.’
The boundaries between the personal and professional have also blurred as we’ve dialled into conference calls from our bedrooms. Elizabeth warns there needs to be delineation between the two. ‘There has to be some way of differentiating between when you’re working and when you’re not. Whether that’s putting your phone on airplane mode, going for a walk or watching an episode of Love Is Blind,’ she says.
What we’ve just been through has led us to redefine success and failure, she believes. ‘We’ve been quite mono-dimensional about how we perceive success for many years and it’s generally been related with success at work. And actually, there are many types of success and the pandemic has made us realise that one massive part of a successful life is having meaningful relationships, whether that be family, [romantic] relationships, friendships or relationships with your local corner shop.’ She adds, ‘For me, connection is success.
‘A failure, for me, is not a verdict on you as a person, it’s something that inevitably happens to everyone, no matter how hard you try to avoid it. And therefore it’s overcomeable a lot of the time.’
After 18 months when we’ve had to keep going in the face of adversity, Elizabeth’s rebrand of failure might just be the ethos that gets a nation back on its feet.
‘Magpie’ is out 2 Sept
Elizabeth Day answers YOUR questions
Reader: How would you ask for a pay rise?
ED: If you don’t ask you don’t get, and there are other people asking. Strip out mitigating words and step into your own power. If you get emotional, that’s fine because it shows how much you care. We all need to get braver about showing emotion at work. There’s no right or wrong way to do it. Just believe you deserve it.
Reader: What’s your advice for women fighting impostor syndrome in a new job?
ED: It’s OK for you to take some time to settle in. You don’t have to do that overnight. And, as much as you might feel like the most nervous and least worthy person there, I promise you you’re not and that other people are thinking the same [of themselves].
From Elizabeth’s husband, Justin: When I sit in the audience of your live shows, what is it about you that resonates with this group of women in their twenties and thirties?
ED: I think they can see a woman being honest about her struggles and confusion from a position of having got through them. I can look back on my twenties with perspective and I hope it’s reassuring. Young women face so much pressure right now, so to be able to give a collective exhale in a non-judgemental space is really powerful.