Living shamelessly with Mich and Zara from Shameless

0:02 A listener production. Hey, you're listening to Crappy to Happy. I'm your host, cast done. I'm a clinical and coaching psychologist, a mindfulness meditation teacher. And author of the Crappy to Happy books. In this series, we look at all of the things that might be making you feel crappy and give you the tools and. Techniques to help you to overcome them. In each episode, I chat with interesting, inspiring, intelligent people who are experts in their field, and my hope is that you take something away from these conversations that helps you feel a little bit less crappy and more happy. Today, I'm speaking to Michelle Andrews and Zara McDonald, two young women most well known for their incredibly successful podcast Shameless.

0:47 Shameless is the show for smart people who love dumb stuff, and Mission and Zara not only bring very thoughtful, insightful conversations about all things pop culture, but they have interviewed some amazing guests, including the likes of Julia Gillard, Jamila Jamil and many more. They've also just released their first book together, called The Space Between, and I couldn't have been more thrilled to have the chance to speak to these two incredible young women about their success, the challenges it has brought them, and how they've overcome those challenges together so that they can keep on doing the important work that they are doing in the world without further ado. His mish and Zara, Zara.

1:28 And Michelle, best known for the Shameless podcast, thank you so much for being with me this morning. I'm crapy to happy. Thank you for having us. We are so excited to be here. I'm so excited to talk to you. I'm a huge fan. I am probably not in your target demographic, but I just wanted to say that I really really enjoy the show. I love the interviews, I love the content, and you are obviously smashing it with the success of that show. So I suspect that we probably have some listeners who overlap and as are probably from their twenties all the way through to fifty sixties and beyond. And I suspect that you have a fairly broad age range of women mostly who listen to you as well.

2:10 Yeah, for sure. I mean it's predominantly women in their twenties, but we have realized in twenty twenty that we're branching out to more men and to more people are guests who are parents or even grandparents like I love to comment. We received on one of our posts yesterday from a father of four adult women, and he DMed us on Instagram to be like, hey, guys, I've found the show and I think listening to you both has helped me understand my daughters better. So I love getting messages like that to think that we're reaching different people in different pockets of the world. Absolutely, And in fact, my daughter is fourteen and I actually play your show like when we're driving in the car, hoping that she might just be tuning in and listening to you know, she's on she's snap snap streaking whatever it is that they do on their foes, But I'm hoping that she's listening because the message that you share.

2:59 So people who aren't listeners of Shameless, would you like to just give them a little bit of an insight into what the show is and how it got started. Yeah, for sure. I mean we've kind of been The tagline of the show is it's the show for smart people who like dumb stuff, because we wanted to have conversations about celebrity and pop culture and stuff that I think the world has traditionally told women are stupid and silly, but in a way that's not, you know that the way that doesn't take them literally all the time, and the way that actually in a way that kind of delves deeper into why we're interested in the things that we're interested in, because they were the conversations we were having back and forth with miss and I, particularly about things like The Bachelor.

3:40 I mean, you're talking about the Bachelor, but you're not taking it at surface level and you're not taking it seriously, and there are really smart conversations to be had about this stuff. So we decided to jump in a studio and start sort of creating the show. Originally we pitched it to networks, no one really wanted to pick it up, so because that forced our hand, we just sort of launched it independently, having no idea what. We were doing. We had never, you know, really spoken into a microphone much at all. We didn't know how to edit, we didn't. Know anything about podcasting, but we taught ourselves everything, and it has been one of the biggest blessings of everything, being forced to actually teach yourself everything. Because we've been able to do this ourselves for the last two and a half years, and now if you had have asked me like I wouldn't want to be signed to anyone.

4:26 I'm so glad that we get to do this thing ourselves because it means we also can kind of say what we want. Yeah, and I think as well, the surprising thing we began shameless to talk about things like The Bachelor, but I think Zara and I've realized over the last few months that the concept of rejecting shame has kind of infiltrated every nook and cranny of the podcast, So now it's about everything to do with life as a young woman, and I think that's really important to us to kind of debunk shame and push back on shame because I think it's something that a lot of women in general struggle with in all facets of their life. Absolutely so glad you brought that up. And I do want to get to your book obviously that's just come out, because you do talk about some really deeply personal things in the book and really free yourselves of all of that stigma and shame around so many personal things.

5:14 I want to get to the book, but I want to stick with the podcast for. Now, so you both started working for Mamma Mia as young journalists. You pitched the idea and it was accepted right, They liked it. They liked the idea, and then at the last minute said, no, we've changed our minds. Is that how that went down? Yeah, So you're absolutely right when I said before that we pitched it to networks. The first place that we pitched it was to our workplace, and they did like the idea. They thought it was something that could work. But when we got closer to launch, I think it was a week or two out, we were kind of told that it wasn't going to be a priority for the business moving forward, that they thought the idea was okay, but if they did eventually pick the idea up, they couldn't guarantee that miss and I were going to be hosts of it.

5:59 And I think Michelle and I we knew. That this was an idea that was good, to be honest, and we knew it was good because it was something that we wanted to listen to ourselves and couldn't find anywhere. And we said to ourselves, if we don't launch this thing now ourselves, somebody else will just fill the gap. Like it's such an obvious gap for us that we're not going to be the only ones that think of this because it's so obvious, so we have to just do it ourselves. And for anybody not familiar with the podcast, when you say you talk about things like The Bachelor, you talk about things like the Bachelor and entertainment, you know, gossip, celebrity gossip, but through the lens of very I would say a feminist perspective from a very progressive, intelligent, critical way of thinking. Right, you actually bring intelligent conversation. Ah, this is why I love it so much. I wish more people would listen.

6:48 Thank you. Not that you need a lot more listeners, you have clearly millions. But I remember when I first came across your show when I was about twenty, I guess, and I had this boyfriend and his father a bit of an arrogant prick, to be honest, and he used to but he loved me because I was at university and I was studying, and he used to ask me my opinion about all of these things. And then I remember one day telling him, he said, what do you do? I don't even remember how it came. Up, but he stumbled upon the fact that I was obsessed with The Bold. And the Beautiful, and I used to watch The Bold and the Beautiful at four o'clock every after minute. I was working three part time jobs at the time, I was studying, but I would make sure I was at home at four o'clock to watch Bold and the Beautiful Beautiful, and he looked at me with contempt.

7:31 You know. It was this I thought you were a smart girl, and that was the disdain. And I remember saying, these things aren't mutually exclusive. I can be intelligent and all of those things and still kind of like at the time, it was Bold and the Beautiful. Obviously, now we have this whole reality TV and all of these other things going on. But that's what I love about your show. I think a lot of people are made to feel kind of stupid for being interested in things like that, but like you say, you can watch them through this critical lens and bring an intelligent conversation to the table. Yeah, well, that's the thing. I think. One example that stands out to me that really epitomizes why we created Shameless is actually that of professional wrestling. Like, we know that millions of people predominantly men around the world sit in front of their television screens or pay hefty prices for tickets to go to a scripted, drama filled wrestling match.

8:30 No one blinks, no one bats an eye at the fact that pro wrestling is a totally legitimate hobby for men to have, even though we know it's fake, we know it's scripted, we know it's kind of ridiculous when you lay it out like that. And yet women being interested in potentially scripted reality programs or being interested in salacious celebrity gossip, they're discounted as I don't know, ridiculous and frivolous and silly. And I just think society seems to give green ticks to every hobby that a man can have. But if women have hobbies that aren't high brow and societally like, I don't know, acceptable and intelligent, where kind of discredited as just being ridiculous and little girls.

9:16 So for Zara and I where two people who also love our sport, myself probably a little bit more than Zara on some days. But there is such a disconnect there that people are happy to watch sport and happy to spend hours pouring over analysis and commentary on sport, but commentary on any other facet of entertainment isn't okay suddenly. So yeah, it was important for us to have intelligent conversations about pop culture because, to be honest, the conversations we have on the podcast are very indicative of the kind of conversations we have in our group chats with our best friends and our sisters. So, going back to the Muma Mia, they basically pulled it at the last minute, and then you had a decision to make about what to do going forward. So ultimately you decided to go ahead with the podcast on your own.

10:06 And then how soon after that. Did you actually resign from your jobs to pursue the podcast. Can you just talk a little bit about that. Yeah, for sure. So the conversation we had with each other once the podcast was rejected was a pretty simple one, Like I said to you, we have to create this thing, and we have to do it pretty soon. So after that, we probably launched the podcast about five weeks later. It was pretty rough. At the time in terms of how it was structured and how we were as hosts. But I mean, it's kind of nice having that backlog there for people to listen to. It's kind of proof that it's the best thing you can do is get started right. And I think that. Once we'd started the podcast, we both had conversations with each other kind we only within a couple of weeks saying this probably isn't a long term thing, being able to work at Mama Mea and produce a podcast that is directly targeting the same women they do, like we've accidentally created a competitor, not through our own fault, but they and they were completely on board with us making the podcast ourselves outside of work hours, like they had given us written approval to do that.

11:07 So I started applying for jobs and started. Having think about, you know, what the future was going to hold if we were going to push this thing. And then about ten weeks into the podcast, it kind of did come to a bit of a head where we were like, I think we need to make the jump here, Like it's getting a bit hard, a bit untenable to do both. So I quit. Michelle quit. I think it was the day later. It was probably fifteen hours and twenty. Four hours of each other. We both quit, and it. Was very fair. Yeah, and the podcast wasn't big when we quit. It wasn't big at all. I think it genuinely probably only had one thousand or two thousand listeners at the time per episode. But I think it's the potential that we saw in it, that if we were able to give it the time and the space and the energy that we thought it deserved, that this could be something that we could really nurture and grow.

11:54 I was going to ask you, was that a tough decision? I mean, that seems like. A really big leap to resigned from full time jobs in order to pursue this potential in this idea. Did it feel like a really big deal at the time or did it feel like how challenging was it? I guess with hindsight, I think it's easy to gloss over that time and be like, oh, it was pretty obvious to us. We had a gut feeling, And of course we're going to feel that way now two years later because everything worked out great and the podcast is going great, and we can kind of look back and be like, best decision ever. But at the time it was something we really did Mullova a lot. I think Zara was more ready to go because she had this other job lined up and she could see herself in this other workplace, and for me, it was more a question of I don't want to work at Mama Maya anymore, but there's no other role that I can see myself in, so I went freelance. And that was really scary at the time to kind of go into this freelancing gig, and people would ask me, like, what's the plan? What is a freelancer? And I simply did not know. Like I'd heard other people were freelance writers, and I was like, cool, I'll give that a crack while try and figure out what to do next. But I do think it was easier for Zara and I to make that leap when we did because we were what twenty three, twenty four Zara, we didn't have children, we didn't have mortgages, we didn't have dependence relying on us. So I kind of think the timing was perfect, and that if we were telling ourselves, if we don't make this jump now, when will we, logically, this will be the easiest time in our lives to jump.

13:26 And that's not to say it's easy. It's really hard to kind of back yourself and take a risk. But if we weren't going to do it, then when was it going to happen, So I'm just happy we did it, as scary as it was and as intimidating as it was to go out on our own and try and figure it out as we went. I think the other thing as well, is like I really think you need to look at those times when your hand is forced and just seize them. Like a hand in many ways was forced in a sense that we didn't really think we could continue working at Mama Mea and producing Shameless at the same time just wasn't possible. So it was like pick the job or pick the podcast. And I just I think when your hand is forced like that and you've grown something that you really truly believe in, you've really just.

14:11 Got to take that opportunity and run. Like I know a lot of people, particularly a couple of people come to mind as well this year, who have been kind of made redundant from their jobs of course because of the pandemic, and they've had these side hustles and these side gigs that they've wanted to kind of chase for so long and they're still not even sure if this is the time to do it. And I do think it's. Those times where you are forced into a corner that you have to go, well, I've got to take this now because I know I never ever will. Within twelve months it became well. I think you launched in twenty eighteen. In twenty nineteen, you were voted Australia's most Popular Podcast or the Australian Podcast Awards. You were listed in the Apples Best of twenty eighteen and twenty nineteen, so it was.

14:53 Enormously successful very quickly. Will you this seems like a dumb question, but were you prepared for it to become You knew you were onto a good idea, but were you prepared for that level of success so quickly? Well? Probably not. I'm curious to hear what Zara's response. I don't think so. I think to be to be really honest, it's quite confronting when you go from being really young, like we were really young when we launched this, and the goal with Shameless was never to make it our full time job. We did Shameless because we genuinely loved the idea. We have so much fun together, where great friends, we work really well together. We knew we wanted to work together in some capacity, but the main goal with shameless was to add another dot point to our resume.

15:37 We were looking at the media industry in Australia, particularly in Melbourne, and seeing it crumbling around us, Like the media industry in Melbourne is totally emaciated. So we were thinking, okay, well we need to be the most skilled young journalists who can come to a media organization and go, yes, I can write news articles, but also do you need an audio editor? I can edit audio, I can produce audio. I can be the host of a podcast if you want to launch a podcast, like we just wanted to have many bows in our I don't even know what the saying I'm going for. I don't know. I'm yeah, we wanted to have multiple things in our arsenal I guess, so to launch this podcast and see it go super well and see it again an audience, and then our careers become very public and our lives become very public.

16:23 That was a teething process for sure, and I think it's one that Zara and I are still trying to wrap our heads around. I think there was definitely a twelve month month period probably from winning that award at the Australian Podcast Awards till about May June this year where we struggled. I really struggled mentally on some days with the public nature and feeling so exposed in my job. And I think Zara would say the exact same thing. Yeah, completely, because I do think it's an interesting question. I don't think it's a silly question at all, Cass. I think it is something that we just definitely weren't prepared for. I think there's a beautiful sense of ivity that comes from pursuing something you love when you don't actually think it's going to become your job, and when it becomes your job. I think in our case in particular, it forced us to grow up really, really really quickly, because we were twenty three twenty four and suddenly we're reaching hundreds of thousands of women a week. At the moment, we're reaching like I think we're getting about one point five million streams, and so you're thinking you have to be really serious about that responsibility, Like you can't just be fickle and fluffy, Like you have to think really strategically about how you're using that responsibility and that power.

17:33 And it's very overwhelming, Like it's not the worst thing in the world. It's really lovely too, But you do have to sort of suddenly come to come to terms with the fact that people care about I don't know every word that you say, and you have to be very careful about every word that you utter. And that's also not a bad thing that I think. It's great that people can hold us to account, but there is a certain level of exposure that is very overwhelming. And I'm quite a private person. So just suddenly be the center of all this noise, very very quickly was a bit terrifying, But you learn to grow with it and really enjoy it and find the really good parts to it. And I was going to ask you about that. You are so well known now and you call out like you've been known to call out poor behavior by influencers and footballers, for example, on other podcasts, how do you handle the bigger you grow and the bigger your audience gets, the more responsibility obviously you have, and the more likely you are to attract criticism and negative feedback.

18:38 How do you manage that? How do you. Continue kind of speaking up and speaking out about these important things and managed to contain that fear of judgment or fear of criticism, which is just so common among women, especially you know, especially young women. That's really common in my audience, like this fear of criticism, fear of judge. What will people think? Like, how do you manage that? I think my psychology just said something really powerful to me. Earlier this year, when I was really struggling with this issue in particular, I felt like it was too daunting to share my opinion with the world anymore, or to take a stance on things that conflicted with my ethical moral belief system. And I was saying this to my psychologist that I don't know if I can keep going, like, I don't know if I can keep dealing with the criticism and the backlash and people sometimes assuming the worst in me. And she basically said, Michelle, the greatest shame imaginable would be for you to to shut up and go away, Like instinctively, we want loud women and opinionated women in a patriarchal world to not share their opinions.

19:46 We want them to be quiet, we want them to not take up space, we want them to be small. And for you and Zara to internalize that message and throw away the best thing you have ever created would be the biggest shame. So I think I really try and remember that, and since that session it has emboldened me. I think to remind myself of that. It's also a good arrogance check in I think to tell myself that not everyone will agree with me, not everyone will like me, not everyone will love my work, and it is ridiculous for me to ever assume that that should be the case, and it's okay for people not to like me. I think there's definitely a line between valuable criticism and bullying or trolling. Luckily, I actually don't think we receive much trolling or bullying at the moment at all, Zara. But it's good, I think sometimes for your ego to accept that, yes, you are twenty six, you are a work in progress, and you need to grow and develop, and you need to improve in some areas. I think it would be ridiculous, bizarre and I to ever assume that we are perfect at our jobs and we have no work to do, because it's just not the case.

20:52 Well, I think it's like that saying, right, you're never as good or as bad as they say you are. I think I find that quite comforting often too, because I don't think it's very helpful to be put on a pedestal. Nor do I think it's very helpful to be told that you're the worst person in the world, because neither of those things are true. I mean, it's funny, miss and I. I started seeing a psychologist when I started dealing with a lot of this stuff too, to be totally honest with you, because I don't think it's that normal to be young and have, you know, to be facing the level of kind of scrutiny that comes with podcasting. Podcasting is such a. Unique medium in that, particularly when you want to be political, there is a level of scrutiny that is not normal that you can't just quickly adjust to. You can adjust to it with work and with time. So I also started seeing a psychologist and she encouraged me to get more angry, which I had realized once I started talking to her that I never ever got angry at anything, like I just wasn't an angry person, and that when we were faced with commentary or criticism, I would just internalize it and get incredibly anxious because I kind of felt like I needed to take everything on and read everything because it would make me better at my job, and she said to me, I think you'd be a total narcissist if you couldn't tell the difference between genuine feedback and just completely you know, nasty criticism, like back yourself to be able to tell the difference between those two, and when you think something is unfair, just get angry, like get angry and be like, screw that person, they're not right. I am right, and I'm going to keep doing I'm going to keep doing my job. And I

22:22 think that's helped a lot, being like, nah, I'm not going to cop everything. I'll cop some things, but I'm just not going to accept certain things. And it's been very, very freeing to not feel like you need to internalize everything and take everything on, because it's it's quite a heavy burden when you need to take every piece of criticism on, and it makes you feel so anxious. For sure, And like I said, I think so many people. I mean the fact that you backed yourselves, you went out and you did it and now you're like you're living and breathing it and having to like, as you said, you're growing on the job. I think you've become really important role models for young women just by the way that you are managing that and handling that, And I think I love that you're willing to speak up about the challenges and having to see a psychologist and understanding the pitfalls, but doing it anyway.

23:11 Well, that's the important thing I think to us, Like, imagine if we threw this away. I also think it's just like a nature, it's just part of the job. So I think the onus is on us to find ways to protect ourselves and to put armor on when we go to work. And it's also been really important for us to differentiate Shameless Michelle and Shameless Zarah and then the Michelle and Zara that we have been our entire lives that spend time with our families and our friends and our boyfriends and in my case, my dog. Like those two things are separate entities. So I think it's been a big lesson for me that what someone thinks of Shameless Michelle is not what they think of me the person, Like it's two separate things.

24:00 You have launched the podcast, you've started your own media company, you've gone into the podcast full time, and now you have written a book together as well, also directed primarily at women. In their twenties. Do you ever foresee a time where they might be you might go your separate ways and do separate things. You've almost become like the Hamish and Andy. Amish and Andy, I've just been joined at the hip. For almost their entire careers and it's a winning formula. And maybe it's too early to tell, but do you have any thoughts on that, whether you will continue to work together or go off and do separate things. I mean, the first thing is we are We're bound by a business that we love a lot, so that business will always exist in some form, and I think we will always work together in some form of some form or another for a very very long time. But within that, I think absolutely we'll pursue our own projects.

24:49 I mean, as much as we have similar interests, we also have different interests from time to time. And I think the best part about the fact that we will work together for a really long time is that when we do separate things, you kind of have someone to bounce off straight away. Like if we ever wanted to write separate books, you've got a second editor right there. Or if you wanted advice on projects you want to take on, you've got someone right there, Like I think we've kind of got the cheat's way to a career separately because we're probably not doing it separately at all. We're probably just having the other person in area the whole time. Yeah, we have like a great working relationship in that I think we're really honest with each other. And I say, Zara and I doing podcasting and hosting things together and working on projects together for like twenty years, but as Zara said, it's really important for us to also have our own things. And I think, like you gave the example of Hami she and Andycass and I don't think we are like them, like that is the dream to be on that level, But they also do things separately, like they go on separate TV shows and they do things apart. And I think that's really important to Zara and I that we have a similar balance because like anyone, like sometimes we need a break from each other just for a day. Like we are so intensely close. We are in each other's pockets all day every day, and I think think we do relish time and energy being spent apart because then we can be each other's mentors as well. And I love having Zara in my corner for that type of stuff because I trust her opinion and I trust her sense of content and of business better than anyone else in my life. Like, I think she's incredible. So I think we both just consider ourselves

26:20 very lucky, and that we also have two skill sets that are completely different that I think really balance each other really nicely. And the things I have that are weaknesses Zara compliments and vice versa. Do you think that going back to that public criticism, do you think it has really helped that there are two of you in it together. You've got that, you know, like it's not one of you're out on your own. There is no doubt I don't think that. I mean I say this to Michelle all the time. There's no bloody way I could do this by myself. And I really do fundamentally believe that I have all of the respect in the world for people who have careers like this by themselves. Like I can't imagine how difficult it must be, because like I said before, oh, I do feel like we've kind of got the cheat's way to having a career because we have it together. I mean, it does mean if someone thinks we probably sink together now, but you know.

27:09 What, like we also balance each other out, Zaren. I noticed really early on that when one of us was having a really bad day, say they'd read a review that really hurt their self esteem, the other person was always like on a different level of It's very very rare that we're ever both feeling low at the same time. It always tends to be the case that one person's feeling low, the other person's feeling quite upbeat, quite positive, and quite holistically about things, and can lift them out of it. And I love that we have that. I don't know how that's happened, where we just always seem to be able to pick the other one up when they stumble and fall, so thank god. I can't imagine what it would be like if we both ended up in pits together and just couldn't get out of it.

27:50 I'm sure that that wouldn't happen, or you would find a way that the book The Space Between is it's a series of essays, which makes it a very easy to pick up and read. I've been again, I'm not your target demographic, but I've really enjoyed the book. It's divided into distinct sections, but I can pick it up at any page and read a short essay and take something away from that. What inspired you to want to move from podcasting to writing. The book, Well, look, we were always writers before the podcast so we love writing as much as we love hosting podcasts and editing podcasting. We think it's such a great way to speak to women and I guess build connections and build community. We are writers by trade originally, and we just adore writing, and I think we had missed it when we worked at Mum and mea. We were churning out four to six articles a day, and although I don't want to go back to that life because I don't think that's necessarily like honing your craft and being a writer, we just found ourselves itching to want to work on a writing project, and in the lead up to Penguin reaching out to us and asking us if we'd ever considered writing a book together, we had tossed around the idea for a book a couple of weeks before, and we'd very very quickly settled on the idea of writing a series of essays for women going through their twenties because it's been a crazy time for us, like looking across our twenties, We've had so many varying experiences, We've learned so much about ourselves. We feel like this decade, although it is literally the second

29:21 or third decade we've lived, we feel like it really does define a lot about a person, and it does see a person come into their own and shape the years to come and the decades to come. So we just love writing. And I think as well that when we worked at Mama Mea, what I loved about Zara and my relationship is that I loved reading her work, like I consider myself so lucky to have my words alongside hers. And I think we're also very very different writers. Zara is far more journalistic, I think in the way she approaches things. She is so thorough with her research and so great with interviewing people and getting different perspectives and having that really explore kind of essay. And then I think I'm probably more on the creative writing spectrum.

30:05 So I think our essays side by side are a very different tone. We have a super different tone of voice, and that's actually what I love most about the book, because I think it's really varied in that every piece is different, and I think in a really colorful and great way. You are both exceptional writers. The book is exceptionally well written, so congratulations. On that in the book. I mean, it's been a while since. I was in my twenties, so it is interesting to hear you talk about the unique challenges of your twenties and a lot of our listeners on this show going through that period of their lives as well, and you kind of describe it as being this I mean, hence the name of the space between this space between leaving your adolescence becoming an adult but not kind of fully adulting, like there's no mortgage and kids, and it's this time where you're sort of navigating adult life and all of the unique challenges that that entails. One thing that I do remember about that age for me, and something that I see that has come up with clients of mine in my therapy practice when I was doing more therapy with young women and probably young men as well, is this kind of a sense of urgency, like I've got to.

31:14 Take everything off. Do you experience that, Like I've got to get through union, I've got to get a job, and then I've got to be making a name for myself and I've got to be climbing the ladder and I've got it. If I'm not married or engaged or have at least found a long term relationship by this point in my life, I feel like I'm being left behind. And it's only in hindsight. You know that you can say, oh, take the pressure off, But at the time, that sense of urgency feels very real. Do you find that as well? Yeah, completely, I think that's bang on. I think for so many young women it's so kind of embedded in us. I think this really subconscous sense that our biological clock is ticking. You know that that's all you ever here, like when you hear biological clock or you hear is ticking too. And I think I think we all kind of either consciously or subconsciously have a backwards timeline for that, like when is the latest possible time I can have a kid? If I want to have a kid, do I want to get married before that? Or after that? Do I have to be a you know, a real peak of my career before I have children. And I think it has really kind of bred this sense of absolute urgency for women in their twenties who do happen to be career driven, to get to a really high peak, much higher than maybe you know a man has to be at because of all those things. And I think what it's also done is it's kind of created this. I think there's we look up to women now at the moment generally who have what we would deem quote unquote a cool career.

32:39 I think that the role models or the women that we deem popular at the moment are people with great careers who have done really successful things. And I think for women in their twenties, there's a real sense of, well, I've got to get to a really impressive point by a point. And it's one of those things where you hear a lot of people say, well, it's a marathon, not a sprint. We've got so many years to work. In fact, we'll probably working till the end of our lives if we're going to live to about one hundred and fifty, you know, like we'll be working for a really really long time. But it's it's really hard to shake that sense. You know. I don't think that Michelle and I would be the perfect people at all to give advice on that, because they think we're absolutely victims of that. Yeah, I just think normalizing that too. Like I said, I don't think you ever get that sense of perspective until you're well out of it. And what I see too is women. I know that you both talked just recently about I think you were reading Is it Hollywayne?

33:33 Right? Is that who wrote the book? Like, yes, I gage and you. Both said kind of put me off having kids like this whole if I want kids now. But that's the other thing I see too. When the women do get very successful in their career, then it's they keep putting off intentionally or not. When is the right I remember experiencing it myself, When is the right time, you know, to take this period of time out of my career? And then what. Happens after I come back? And there is never a good time, Like it's the eternal kind of It's just we can postpone and postpone and postpone it. I don't know if there's a point to that question.

34:14 It's just I guess I wonder. No, it's right though you have Razara obviously, because you had talked openly in the book about endometriosis, and there's question of fertility, and well I should cross that bridge when I come to it, Well, but how do I know what I'm at the bridge? And what do I do in the meantime? And they're big issues, They're big challenging issues for young women completely. And I also think it's a conversation that I don't hear any young women have on a public level. I think it's definitely a quiet conversation that people have, but nothing, nothing very public. And I guess the thing that's always kind of frustrated me as someone with endometriosis is there's a lot of confusion and frustration about understanding, you know, what fertility can look like. And I guess, as I write in the book, the beest fear of mine is to get to a point where I go and say, you know what, I'm ready to have kids, and a doctor turns around to me and says.

35:07 Are you kidding? You should have been doing this three years ago? Like why weren't you doing this three years ago? But the reality is, no one's told me that now either, because people tell you not to worry. And it's that fine line between fearmongering young women and saying, you know, you need to get going, you need to be freezing eggs you need to do all these things, and also that sense that it's okay to be worrying about it and it's okay to care about it because, as we know, it affects quite a lot of women. So the part of that essay that's the funniest to me is I just kind of like throw all these issues out and come to absolutely no conclusion on anything. But I guess that it's a really kind of authentic insight into my brain. It's just like a whole lot of confusion, a whole lot of frustration on paper, and I don't really know where to go from there. And I think a lot of women feel the same.

35:55 Yeah, And there aren't always answers tied in a neat little bow. I think that's the point that you make a lot of this stuff is just confusing, and we just are all sitting in the confusion together. And I think that's the power of this book is that you have both talked about some really deeply personal things. Michelle, you talk really openly about paralyzing debilitating anxiety, which again just makes me think you're such a rock star for doing what you do, putting yourself out there and opening yourself up to public opinion and criticism like that. For anybody who experiences anxiety like that can feel like the most terrifying thing. Right, You talk about. Your parents being divorced, parents with illness, getting cancer, and there's a story there about a sexual assault. I don' want to go too much because we want people to go and buy the book. I'm curious to know how did you decide kind of what to share because there is such personal information in there.

36:52 It's such an interesting question because I think it's one that across my life, I'll probably feel differently about it. It would be a lie for me to say that I haven't had moments over the last eighteen months where I've thought, should I have shared as much as I did? I think no matter what, I am glad that I arrived at the decision to just kind of speak about everything I spoke about in the book, whether it was personal trauma or something as silly as like buying a pregnancy test but I didn't want to be pregnant. I'm glad that I did it because I think ultimately it will hopefully make women feel seen and heard, and it will speak to an experience that many people, men and women and non binary people have had in private or in secrecy that they've never spoken about. But I think I've kind of have to sit in a space at the moment where I'm comfortable with giving that of myself and doing that in a generous sense. And I think it was generous to do the final essay about sexual assault and at the same time sit in the fact that that's going to be really difficult and that that's going to drain me energetically. And I think it has drained me a lot in the last month, because of course, as soon as you open up your own story, you get a whole bunch of people's stories in response. And I'm really glad that people have reached out to me and told me about experiences that perhaps they've never told anyone about. But that is a huge task for anyone to take on mentally or emotionally, so I think I think I'm always gonna have a complicated relationship with it.

38:18 I don't think it's accurate for me to get on this podcast and be like I shared it and now it's totally fine, and like I'm fine being as public with the world as I want to be, and like my life is open for anyone to I guess, take lessons and experiences and insight from because it's been hard, Like the last month has been really hard. I have had moments where I'm like, geez, the easier thing would have been for me to never speak about this. But on the bright side, I think speaking about it has shown me that a lot of people go through these things and they never feel like they can give their story weight. They feel like they're not allowed to feel traumatized by it. Years after the event, they feel like they should just move on and get over it. And I think that's a really universal experience for any woman who has been sexually assaulted, and that they try and downplay what happened to them or they try and minimize it at every turn. So I mean, it's a complicated one.

39:14 I think I'm happy ultimately, I'm happy that essay is in the book, and I'm glad it's in the book because I think it was really important in shaping who I am on the cussp of my twenties. But it has not been easy in any sense, and I can totally understand why so many women in the public eye or otherwise never choose to share these stories. Because it is not an easy thing to do, and it is certainly the more difficult route to take. All I hope is that it's the most helpful one for the people who buy the book. There is just so much power in the sharing of experience, like the telling of stories, and that for people to see somebody else who has been through it speaking publicly about something that they have experienced or they have been through is so and you know, potentially really healing for people.

40:03 Just to make people feel less alone. I think that is what is the wonderful thing about the book that you've written. But having said that, you know, we all really appreciate hearing other people's stories, but it is really like it's hard to be the one who's doing the sharing. And I guess I asked that because I know that, you know, Brene Brown obviously has done. She's a queen when it comes to all of that shame vulnerability stuff, and she talks about, you know, before she decides what to share, she makes sure that she's very much resolved something within herself. You know. It's kind of that sharing from the scab, not from the open wound. And so I was just curious, I guess to understand kind of what process you both went to in deciding together. You know what you would put in and what you would leave out, or what conversations you had with because sometimes there's other people involved in those stories too, right, so you're sharing other people's stories.

40:55 Yeah, No, you're totally right when you say that the Brene Brown thing of wanting to talk about things once they're relatively resolved is the way is kind of the easiest way to be able to share because I would say that there's nothing that we touched in this book or went anywhere in this book without really coming to the conclusion together that this was something we were ready to write about because we'd gone through a few kind of steps in order to get to a point where we're ready to write about it. So we had these conversations between each other. But you're right, like a lot of the stories you want to write personally will almost always involve somebody else. And it's really hard because you have to be very strategic about the way that you tell these stories because some stuff's not for you to share, Like there are some details that are not for you to share.

41:39 But that said, in a story like I don't know. Writing about breakups, or in a story I wrote about, you know, my parents being sick, you also come back to this idea of, well, I really do think this could help a large portion of people, Like I really do think that. So when I wrote about my. Parents being sick, it was kind of awkward because I am really really close to my parents, but we're also we also kind of have a pretty no fuss relationship, Like we don't have like very deeply sentimental conversations all the time. And so for me to turn around and say, well, the best way I express sentiment is when I'm writing stuff down and I'm ready to share it with the world, it's a bit awkward to then, you know, send it to them being like cool, So this is this thing that I've written that I've never really properly expressed to you, but here it is.

42:28 It's awkward, and it's probably awkward for them to turn around to us. And be like, well, we didn't know any of this was going on in your head, but it's been quite clarifying and quite validating for us to be able to write it down. And like I said, you have to be very conscious of the people in your circle and the people in your orbit, who are you know being touched on in these stories. But at the end of the day, it's kind of for the greater good, not making us like saints by any stretch, but you do you do sense that well, if this is going to help quite a few people, then it's okay. So when I talk about, you know, finding some sense of purpose, which is fundamental to happiness, this is a show about happiness after all. I think when you can use your gifts and talents and resources doing something that you love and is it align with your values in the service of a greater good, than you are kicking goals and that seems to me like exactly what you both have struck on.

43:21 That's what you're doing. Thank you, I mean, I hope. So. I think Zara and I want to be really thoughtful with what we put out into the world, and we want to make sure that if we were given this platform, that we do something hopefully powerful with it. I think, if anything, there are perhaps too many people online who take all of the great things about having a platform, who take the endorsement deals and the social clout and whatever else comes with having a following online, but potentially shirk some of the responsibility, and I think Zara and I really want to be people if we do have influence over young women, that we hopefully use it for some good. Not to say that we will always make perfect decisions. I don't think anyone is capable of that, but at least we will try to think about what's best for our audience. And if we're going to put out sugary stuff on a podcast, it's just entertaining that sometimes we will also put out that more meaningful stuff that will hopefully make women feel like their stories being told, or that they have a safe space to tell their stories.

44:21 Missions are Uh, just before you go, one last question, what advice would you give to young women thinking about going it alone? I mean, I think Mission and I might have very similar advice. I'll be interested to hear. I think the one thing that we tell any woman that wants to kind of go out something that you know has been lingering for a while is to just get started. I think that a lot of young women can be paralyzed by this sense of perfectionism and this sense that they want it to be absolutely ready to go before they pull the trigger. And I think if Mission and I approve of anything at all. It's that just gets started, like get something up and then make it better, because I think it stops a lot of people in their tracks, this sense that it needs to be perfect before they start.

45:02 We really love that advice. We give that to anyone who will listen. But on top of that, don't wait for someone else to back you. Back yourself, like we are living in twenty twenty. If you want to have a career in the media, or if you want to launch a small business or a side hustle, there has never been a better time to do it. Like you have all the tools at your disposal. If you get a little bit scrappy and a little bit creative, you can do anything. There is no gatekeeper anymore blocking the way to you, I don't know, getting into acting, like start a YouTube channel, start putting skits up online. There is no gatekeeper to you writing a book. Write a book and release it privately, or release it online to people who subscribe to your website. There are so many different ways for you to get where you want to go, and as long as you back yourself, that's all you need.

45:45 You do not need anyone else to back you anymore. So I just hope more women do that and they know that they can achieve something really incredible if they just give themselves the time and the space to do that. That is absolutely fantastic advice. Thank you both for your time this morning. Congratulations on all of your success. Thank you so much, Cass, we have the best time. Thank you so much for having us. I think we can all agree that Zara and Mish are two very inspiring young women on a mission to change the world in a really positive way, and I personally can't wait to see what they do next. Of course, you can find them by searching for the Shameless podcast wherever you listen to podcasts, and if you're a young woman navigating the chaos and magic that is your twenties, you might enjoy their brand new book, The Space Between.

46:35 Remember to come and say hi to me on Instagram. I'm cast done, underscore XO, or visit my website casdne dot com and my third book, Crappy to Happy Love who You're With is now available for pre order. Don't Forget. If you enjoy the show. To leave us a rating and a review, it helps us to get the podcast listen to by more people. Looking forward to catching you in the next episode of Crappy to Happy. Crappy to Happy is presented by hast Done, produced by Davis Lensky. Audio production by Darcy Thompson. Listener h