{"podcast":{"title":"The Shift with Sam Baker","slug":"the-shift-with-sam-baker-1305838","podcast_index_feed_id":1305838,"rss_url":"https://feeds.megaphone.fm/AUDD5911261185","website_url":"https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/","image_url":"https://megaphone.imgix.net/podcasts/ca307044-48da-11ef-bc54-4b542b9ff10c/image/eb51c7bae8ff572c9c63cd96c36f576f.jpeg?ixlib=rails-4.3.1&max-w=3000&max-h=3000&fit=crop&auto=format,compress","author":"Sam Baker Ltd","episode_count":296,"summary":"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 changing? Each week, award-winning author and journalist Sam Baker asks a different woman how she got here, where she's going - and how it feels to be where she is right now. Expect intimate conversation, big laughs, occasional tears and an awful lot of ripping up the rule book and stamping on it... Past guests have included Nicola Sturgeon, Marian Keyes, Guilty Feminist Deborah Frances-White, Minnie Driver, Philippa Perry, Anita Rani, Tracey Thorn, Isabel Allende, Bobbi Brown, Barbara Blake-Hannah and many more, talking everything from confidence to career reinvention, mental health, menopause and so much more. If you enjoy The Shift podcast, and you'd like to show the love, you can buy…","last_synced_at":null,"page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-shift-with-sam-baker-1305838"},"episode":{"title":"Poorna Bell is rewriting the rules around ageing","slug":"poorna-bell-is-rewriting-the-rules-around-ageing","published_at":"2026-03-03T05:00:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-shift-with-sam-baker-1305838/poorna-bell-is-rewriting-the-rules-around-ageing","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-shift-with-sam-baker-1305838","url":"https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/","audio_url":"https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/pdst.fm/e/pscrb.fm/rss/p/traffic.megaphone.fm/AUDD1889973540.mp3?updated=1772449387","summary":"This week I’m delighted to welcome back the powerhouse Poorna Bell. Poorna is a journalist, author and speaker known for her advocacy on body image and diversity. And now she’s adding ageing to the list of things she is not about to shut up about. When Poorna first came on The Shift she had not long turned 40 and it’s fair to say she was a little trepidatious about the ageing process. Hardly surprising since the narrative that’s pedalled to younger women is that there’s nothing worse than being a woman over 40. Now 45 and perimenopausal, she’s shouting out loud about the potential of ageing life and the revolution she sees happening all around her amongst older women. Poorna has written two novels and three works of non-fiction. She’s here to talk about the latest. In the brilliant She Wanted More Poorna addresses the stories she was told about ageing and talks to other women about their experience. The aim? To rewrite the fear based narrative around ageing and reimagine what older life can look like for women. Poorna joined me to talk about so many things I can’t even begin to list them. But amongst others we discussed why changing the menopause conversation is good, but putting every last thing down to menopause isn’t. Why nobody benefits from playing the game. Hetero conformity. The productivity trap. Telling new stories around being single. Sexlessness. Learning our mothers’ stories. Weeding our lives and why the best years of our lives are definitely not behind us. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including She Wanted More by Poorna Bell as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too,…","meta_description":"This week I’m delighted to welcome back the powerhouse Poorna Bell. Poorna is a journalist, author and speaker known for her advocacy on body image and di…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":3812,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-shift-with-sam-baker-1305838/episodes/poorna-bell-is-rewriting-the-rules-around-ageing/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-shift-with-sam-baker-1305838/poorna-bell-is-rewriting-the-rules-around-ageing.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}