x

75% of people globally want unbiased news (Pew Research) but are concerned they're not getting that.

Get balanced coverage with Symby. See how stories are covered across diverse outlets and spot when one side covers a story the other skips.

PODCAST

The Shift with Sam Baker

The Shift is a podcast that aims to tell the truth about being a woman post-40, created and hosted by writer and broadcaster, Sam Baker. Did you ever wonder why you stop hearing so many women"s voices once they pass 40? That"s where The Shift comes in - a frank, funny, sometimes heartbreaking, always honest look at what it means to be a woman in midlife and beyond. Work, life, love, health, sex, money, identity, body image... What does it all mean when everything around you (and inside you...) is

society & culture personal journals

All Episodes

54:00

The "other" Maggie Smith on her midlife reappearing...

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2025/04/08

As we put the finishing touches to the Spring season of The Shift, I thought we'd raid the archives for a few of my favourite episodes. First up, "the other" Maggie Smith (as she says she will always be), who I first spoke to when her memoir, You Could Make This Place Beautiful was just creeping into the world. Little did we know back then that it would be the leading wave in a tsunami of divorce memoirs written by midlife women. Also look out for Maggie's new book, Dear Writer, a collection of "pep

en

67:30

Lorraine Kelly on menopause, misogyny, toxic men in...

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2025/04/01

My final guest of this season is the British TV legend, Lorraine Kelly. You know, Lorraine off the telly! Her show, Lorraine, which airs every weekday morning, revolutionised Daytime Telly, she’s now been doing it for an astonishing 40 years. She took so called soft telly and turned it into a must take notice of for politicians and people who thought they were too good to watch telly during the day. She has won a Royal Television Society Award, a scottish BAFTA, and last year she was awarded a

en

60:19

Jenni Fagan: I'm 46, nobody thought I'd make it past 16

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2025/03/25

My guest today is the award winning author, screenwriter and poet Jenni Fagan. Jenni has written four novels, several poetry collections and been named Scottish novelist of the year. 18 months ago Jenni and I met in a suitably spooky basement in Edinburgh’s old town to discuss her incredible, harrowing memoir about growing up in care, Ootlin. An ootlin, according to Jenni, is ‘someone who creates their story without first seeking permission to do so’. And you’ll soon see why that couldn’t be more

en

56:16

Ione Skye: I'm still working on being seen in the...

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2025/03/18

My guest today is a Gen X legend and someone I’ve been a little bit obsessed with ever since I saw her star in the definitive (late) 80s movie, Say Anything. Ione Skye. There was a time when It seemed like if there was a hot young actor - John Cusack, River Phoenix, Keanu Reeves - she got to snog them on screen. (I know, shallow, much.)Ione has spent her life in the centre of the Venn diagram of film, music and celebrity. The daughter of 60s superstar Donovan, she famously dated Red Hot Chilli

en

60:13

Denise Lewis shares her secrets for adapting to a big...

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2025/03/11

My guest today is a woman who knows better than most what it takes to adapt to life’s big shifts. Dame Denise Lewis is one of the UK’s best known athletes. She won gold in the heptathlon in Sydney Olympics in 2000 and bronze in Atlanta in 1996. She has won medals at the Commonwealth games, the European championships and World Championships. After retiring from athletics in her early 30s she built a successful career as a BBC sports commentator. Oh, And had four kids. In 2023 she was made a Dame

en

54:14

Liz O'Riordan: When breast cancer surgeon becomes...

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2025/03/04

My guest today is Dr Liz O’Riordan. Liz is what’s apparently known in the trade as a double doctor; a breast cancer surgeon with a PhD in molecular oncology. But more than that Liz is also both expert and patient. She received her first breast cancer diagnosis aged 40. Her second aged 43 and her third, just two years ago, at the age of 48. Her experience of life on both sides of the cancer patient-doctor fence makes her uniquely qualified to talk about it. She now campaigns to inform and

en

67:41

Martha Beck on creativity, anxiety & finding your...

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2025/02/25

I first encountered today’s guest back when I was editor of Red magazine and - for some crazy reason - went to an Oprah convention in Atlanta.I know right? I can literally hear everyone who knows me in real life laughing. So, Yes! I went to Atlanta to see Oprah but really I went to see someone else - a woman who Oprah described as “one of the smartest women I know”. Martha Beck. Martha is a Harvard trained sociologist and life coach who was Oprah’s no-nonsense agony aunt on O magazine for almost

en

51:34

Diana Evans on expectation, ageing & turning 50...

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2025/02/18

My guest today is the novelist, journalist and critic Diana Evans. Diana is the award-winning author of four novels 26a, The Wonder, Ordinary People and A House for Alice. She has been shortlisted for countless awards including the Women’s Prize and won the South Bank Sky Arts Award for Literature for Ordinary People. She has, as she puts it, been writing against invisibility her entire life. Before all that she was a dancer, with the Brighton-based African and Caribbean troupe Mashango, and then

en

62:54

Kate Fagan on success, ambition and ageing alongside...

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2025/02/11

This week's guest is the Emmy award-winning American journalist Kate Fagan.Kate started out playing college basketball before making the move into sports journalism. She worked for the American cable channel ESPN (for brits, that’s THE sports channel in the US) and wrote the number 1 NYT bestseller, What Made Maddy Run. Then, just before she turned 40 and at the top of her professional game, Kate took a hard left. She stepped away from the career that made her famous, moved to Charleston and

en

49:59

Miranda July on the unexpected wildness of ageing -...

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2025/02/04

I was the very first person to interview Miranda July about All Fours this time last year. To say she was nervous about how it would be received was an understatement. "Will you have my back?" she asked me (and the rest of the female world) towards the end of our conversation. Yes, I said, yes we will. And how! Since then All Fours has taken the world by storm - women over 40 have a sex life, who knew?! So I've decided to replay this episode for everyone who's new to The Shift and new to

en

52:27

Ruby Wax on building an emotional toolkit for the...

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2025/01/28

Today’s guest is someone I’ve wanted to get on The Shift for the longest time. You might know Ruby Wax as a successful comedian and presenter, one of the funniest women of her generation. Or you might know her as a mental health campaigner and best-selling author. One thing’s for sure, she has been using humour to make the rest of us feel better for decades.Having suffered depression her whole life, Ruby had a breakdown after losing her job on the BBC in her 50s (hold that thought!). Determined

en

54:06

Dani Shapiro on family secrets and coming into your...

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2025/01/21

My guest today is the bestselling writer Dani Shapiro. Dani is best known for the memoirs that made her name. Startlingly honest works of self-investigation like Slow Motion, in which she examines the questionable decisions her younger self made (let’s face it, whose younger self didn’t?). And the book that catapulted her to the top of the bestseller lists, Inheritance. In Inheritance, Dani explored the impact of taking a DNA test - just for fun! - in her mid 50s only to discover that her beloved

en

49:03

Bryony Gordon on burnout, binge eating and...

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2025/01/14

Today I’m delighted to welcome back one of The Shift’s very first guests, journalist and mental health campaigner Bryony Gordon.Bryony has been a columnist on the Telegraph for over 20 years and for ten of those she has been writing candidly about her own experiences of addiction and mental illness. She is the best selling author of Mad Girl and The Wrong Knickers and in 2016 she founded Mental Health Mates a global peer support network that encourages people with mental health issues to connect,

en

54:15

Sarah Knight: why selfish isn't a four letter word -...

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2025/01/07

Today’s guest is the anti-guru behind the massive No F*cks Given franchise, Sarah Knight. What started life with the Marie Kondo pastiche, The Life Changing Magic of Not Giving A F*ck, now comprises 7 guides and three journals which have sold three million copies and a TED talk that’s notched up ten million views. But Sarah wasn’t always the queen of giving zero f*cks. Scroll back to her mid-30s and you’d have found her having a panic attack in the Manhattan office where she worked. So started ten

en

45:30

Dr Gladys McGarey: a 102-year-old shares her life...

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2024/12/31

Dr Gladys McGarey died, aged 103, in September of this year, so I wanted to honour her by making her episode the last to go out on the last day of the year. Rest In Power Gladys. ---- A few months ago I read an article that took my breath away. The author was 102 years old and in it she wrote candidly about losing her partner in life and work after 46 years. Not because he passed away, but because he handed her divorce papers! That would have floored most of us, but despite being sideswiped, Dr

en

54:15

Barbara Kingsolver on why life gets better with every...

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2024/12/24

For this bonus episode of The Shift, I’m delighted to welcome a very special guest: the award-winning author of ten bestselling novels, Barbara Kingsolver. Every so often, a book comes along that you want to press into the hands of everyone you meet. For me, Demon Copperhead, is one of those books. A reimagining of the Dickens classic, David Copperfield, translated to the Appalachian mountains in the midst of the opioid crisis that has gripped the area. It’s funny, it’s furious and its hero Demon

en

47:07

Katherine May: why we all need a little more wonder...

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2024/12/17

We’ve all had those moments in our lives when everything feels… darker, colder, a little (or a lot) less hopeful. Those emotional winters were perfectly encapsulated by today’s guest, Katherine May in her transatlantic bestseller, Wintering, the power of rest and retreat in difficult times. Her new book is another soothing antidote for the way we live now, Enchantment, Reawakening wonder in an exhausted age. I don’t know if it’s the aftermath of the pandemic, our always on culture, or just… life,

en

55:14

BONUS EPISODE: Neneh Cherry on love, loss & legacy

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2024/12/10

If you were a teenager in the late 80s you only have to hear the name Neneh Cherry to conjure the image of Neneh, seven months pregnant, on the Top of the Pops stage performing her hit Buffalo Stance. She was the epitome of cool. She made teenage girls everywhere believe that anything was possible.Now, almost 40 years later, the award-winning singer, songwriter, rapper, producer, mother of three, stepmother of one, grandmother of four, has lived - and continues to live - the most incredible life

en

60:48

Bella Freud: "I've definitely got more daring with age"

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2024/12/03

My guest today is the fashion designer Bella Freud. Bella launched her eponymous label in 1990. Over thirty years later it remains resolutely independent, one of the very few that hasn’t been subsumed by a fashion conglomerate. Bella’s clothes are for wearing and have become a byword for women who want to be glamorous but not girly with a bit of added wit. Her iconic word jumpers are one of the most covetable individual fashion items bar none. (As her instant-sell out collaboration with M&S

en

58:14

Donna Ashworth on finding her calling in midlife

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2024/11/26

My guest today is a woman who is credited with putting poetry back on the map, Donna Ashworth…. Donna came to prominence in 2020, when a poem she wrote about lockdown was read in a viral video to raise money for the NHS. She subsequently self-published her first volume of poetry, To The Women, which sold over 100,000 copies. Unsurprisingly the publishing industry came a-calling.Now The UK’s best selling poet, Donna has written eight books, including the bestsellers Wild Hope and I Wish I Knew and

en

276 results

Similar Podcasts

Voices of Life

APG Mannheim

Promo Estereo Podcast

Promo Estereo

Talking Timelines Podcast

Talkingtimelines

גיקונומי

ראם שרמן ודורון ניר

Drømmefanger

Drømmefanger