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 for her services to sport. Now 52, she is President of UK athletics and has written a book sharing everything she’s learnt, aptly named Adaptability, a guide to surviving and thriving in a world of competing demands. 

I met up with Denise to talk about self-reliance, independence and how growing up the only child of a single mum shaped her. The challenge of building a whole new identity in her 30s - and again in her 50s. Her secrets to adapting after a big life shift and How she learnt the vital skill of mansplaining. Plus menopause, ageing And why she loves being on the fifth floor of life.

* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including The Cancer Roadmap by Dr Liz O'Riordan and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.

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