Latest / Thrive After 45® | Life After 45, Self-Trust, Midlife Women / From Rowing the Atlantic to Beating Cancer: A Midlife Woman's Story of Resilience with Felicity Ashley
Transcript
- 0:00Hello and welcome to Thrive After 45, the podcast where we redefine what's possible in midlife.
- 0:10I'm Denise, drink Walter, your midlife renewal coach Here to help you embrace your power, purpose, and potential.
- 0:18This is your space to let go of guilt.
- 0:20Navigate transitions rediscover joy and thrive for you by you.
- 0:27Because of you.
- 0:28It is an honor and an absolute privilege to welcome and introduce Felicity Ashley to our show today.
- 0:38Felicity is a motivator, a mariner and a marketer who has inspired.
- 0:44Thousands with her story of courage and resilience.
- 0:48After 20 years leading marketing teams, she rode over 3000 miles across the Atlantic with the mothership, a crew of working moms proving.
- 1:01That midlife women can do extraordinary things.
- 1:07Soon after Felicity faced a new challenge, stage three bowel cancer, she overcame treatment, pivoted her career.
- 1:18And now shares her powerful journey as a professional speaker helping organizations and individuals thrive through change, uncertainty, and challenge.
- 1:30Most recently, she marked her three year cancer milestone by running.
- 1:37The world's highest marathon at Everest Base Camp.
- 1:42Please join me in welcoming the incredible Felicity Ashley, it's so great to have you here today.
- 1:50Thank you so much for having me.
- 1:51It's a privilege to be here.
- 1:54Oh my goodness.
- 1:56You have faced both epic adventures.
- 2:00And life-threatening adversity.
- 2:04What do you think has taught you more about resilience?
- 2:09The ocean, the mountain, or the cancer diagnosis?
- 2:16I think it's actually a combination of all of them.
- 2:20I, you know, rowing the ocean is builded as the world's toughest row, and it really is an enormous test of both your mental and your physical endurance and resilience.
- 2:30And it is absolutely all of those things, you know, to do anything of that length.
- 2:35It took us 40 days rowing, two hours on, two hours off.
- 2:3824 hours a day to do anything like that, you need to be so mentally and physically strong and you know, both the two years of training to to, to prepare us for it.
- 2:49And then the event itself certainly built my resilience, both my mental and physical resilience.
- 2:56Um, and you know, I completed that and I thought, well, that's that.
- 3:00Go back to normal life.
- 3:02Yeah.
- 3:02But then as you said in your introduction, you know, life had other plans for me.
- 3:06And actually what happened was I was thrown straight into a very different challenge of facing a cancer diagnosis.
- 3:12Um, and it was fairly advanced cancer.
- 3:14It was a large tumor in my bowel.
- 3:17Um, and you know, at that point, I think it would've been understandable to think why me?
- 3:24You know, I've just wrote an notion.
- 3:25I'm relatively speaking, I'm young.
- 3:27I was 40.
- 3:29Six, I think when I was diagnosed.
- 3:32Had three small children and I was having just done the row, I was fitter and stronger than I'd ever been.
- 3:37And I think, you know, it would've been understandable to think Roe is me.
- 3:40This isn't fair.
- 3:42Yeah.
- 3:42But I was actually able to think, well, why not me thinking back to the row, because I'm fit and strong and because I have age on my side, then I'm probably better placed than most people to get through this.
- 3:55And I think just having completed the row and knowing that I was.
- 4:00Physically and mentally.
- 4:02Bulletproof.
- 4:03Okay.
- 4:03Physically, I, yeah.
- 4:04Had cancer and so not quite bulletproof, but, but knowing I had this resilience and this grit that was really my superpower that helped me mm-hmm.
- 4:12Cope with the cancer diagnosis and then get through the treatment.
- 4:15Um, and so I think it really was, going back to your question, it was the combination of those two things, because I very much took.
- 4:23The resilience that I build up through the row and I just applied it to something very different, but using, you know, similar tools and techniques, um, and, and very much using the confidence that the row had given me to help me get through this next challenge.
- 4:39Um, and both of those things.
- 4:41Okay.
- 4:42There were very different challenges, but they, to me, they proved my resilience and my grit to be able to get through some of life's biggest challenges.
- 4:50Whether they're challenges that you've chosen, like the ro, or whether they're challenges you simply have to face like a health, you know, a health diagnosis.
- 4:58Um, and actually what they've shown me is that I can do.
- 5:02Almost anything I set my mind to.
- 5:04And they gave me the confidence then to tackle the world's highest marathon at every space camp.
- 5:09I wasn't a serial marathon runner.
- 5:11In fact, I had a hip replacement before the row and No way.
- 5:15Way.
- 5:15Yeah.
- 5:16Yeah.
- 5:17And the one thing the surgeon said to me that I might not want to do with a hip replacement was a marathon.
- 5:22And I kind of thought, well, it's not an ordinary marathon.
- 5:25So, you know, I hadn't run many marathons before.
- 5:27I'd run two marathons before.
- 5:29Um.
- 5:30I'd never tested myself for altitude before, but that wasn't a reason not to do it.
- 5:35Actually, it was a reason to go.
- 5:36Do you know I, I know I can row an ocean.
- 5:38I've never done that before.
- 5:39I've got through cancer treatment.
- 5:40I know I'm tough.
- 5:41I can prepare myself for this other challenge of altitude and running a marathon altitude.
- 5:47So yeah, it's very much the combination of all of them and having been through challenges, it's the confidence that coming through the other side and finding your strength gives you to enable you to tackle other things, other challenges in life.
- 6:00Right.
- 6:01There's some, there's so much in that that I wanna unpack, but the one thing that's really resonating for me is something you shared that you said age is on your side.
- 6:12Age was on your side.
- 6:14Our audience of midlife women thrive after 45.
- 6:20We are.
- 6:21Battling, I'm going to say this idea, and there's so much out there around ageism and, okay, you've hit, that's it.
- 6:29You're plateau.
- 6:29You might as well just start going down the hill.
- 6:31Now at whatever age that society feels that is, tell us what you mean by age is on your side because we need to unpack that and share with our audience what that can mean.
- 6:43Absolutely.
- 6:44So in cancer terms, 46 is very young to be diagnosed with something like bowel cancer.
- 6:50It's associated typically with much older people and and also with men.
- 6:56And so I was this fit, relatively speaking, young person being diagnosed with it and therefore.
- 7:02Because I was young, I was more likely to be able to get through it.
- 7:06You know, I had this strength and this youth on my side to be able to get through, get through it.
- 7:11Where most people who are treated with something like bowel cancer, for something like bowel cancer are a lot older, have less natural, you know, body strength and therefore don't recover as quickly from surgery and then don't cope as well with.
- 7:25Things like chemotherapy and therefore it was, you know, simply being younger.
- 7:30I had a better chance that was on my side.
- 7:33Um, but also I think age brings experience.
- 7:39You know, you don't get to midlife, let's say, without having.
- 7:43You are having had, you know, your fair share of knocks, right?
- 7:47And having had to pick yourself up from those, and that does give you resilience.
- 7:51Um, as I say, it might be things, it might be challenges that you've chosen, like I chose to do the Atlantic Row, or it might be challenges that simply come your way through life.
- 8:00Um, but that's where I think age is a tremendous advantage because it gives you that experience, that wisdom.
- 8:07And in many ways, the confidence that you can get through things.
- 8:11So I think it works in, in different ways.
- 8:13You know, partly the physical resilience, the physical strength, I suppose, um, of being relatively young, right, for a cancer diagnosis.
- 8:21But equally having got to midlife the experience that comes with it.
- 8:25Exactly, and I, I love what you're sharing because this is key for our conversation in terms of that wisdom and to step into that wisdom and use it and not listen to those outside going, oh, well what do you know your, well, let me tell you what I do know and how I came to know.
- 8:51What I do know through like your sharing your experiences.
- 8:56Yeah.
- 8:56Right.
- 8:57And, and and that age actually, and the experience and the wisdom and the resilience it gives you was, was such an advantage for us as a crew of four working moms doing the the Atlantic Row.
- 9:09We were quite different to the profile of your standard crew at the time that we rode the Atlantic, which was.
- 9:15Three and a half years ago now, most of the crews were men, typically white young men, um, deemed to be stronger and fitter and everything else, more capable of doing things like that.
- 9:26Mm-hmm.
- 9:26We were very different crew of midlife working moms and nobody expected very much of us.
- 9:33Um.
- 9:35You know, I think many people thought we would probably give up somewhere on the way to the start line, you know, that we, the challenges we would face as working moms in our mid midlife sure would just be too much to overcome and we'd just give up.
- 9:47Um, if that didn't happen, I think people thought we'd just sort of float in somewhere near the back of the fleet, just give it a go, but, but not do anything particularly, um, impressive.
- 9:58We wanted to challenge those perceptions about what we could do in midlife because we, we knew that we were so much more capable than those expectations of us, and that made us work really, really hard.
- 10:09And we had enormous challenges to overcome in the two years of preparation for the race.
- 10:14Some of them, because we were, you know, mothers and we had lots of other things going on, but being able to get through those challenges gave us so much more.
- 10:25Confidence and resilience to actually get through the race itself.
- 10:29And when we came to the race, some of the biggest challenges for other crews are things like sleep deprivation.
- 10:35Mm-hmm.
- 10:36Because you have to row two hours on, two hours off 24 hours a day, which means the maximum sleep you get at any one point is about 90 minutes.
- 10:44So during the night, you are up every two.
- 10:46To row a two hour shift.
- 10:47And for most people, that is incredibly daunting.
- 10:49They think, well, I, I simply can't do that.
- 10:52If you're used to your 8,000 night, I simply can't do that.
- 10:54But as moms, we were used to feeding children through the night for months and months on end, you know, month.
- 11:01We years of broken sleep, of course, and we knew that we could do it.
- 11:05We knew that your body.
- 11:06Going,'cause you have to.
- 11:08And so that didn't phase us and that was a superpower because of course that's one thing that really a a lot of crews really struggle with, but we knew we could do it.
- 11:16Yeah.
- 11:16You know, 40 days is actually in the context of feeding children through the night and have broken sleep.
- 11:21It's a short period of time.
- 11:22Um.
- 11:24And so that again, is where age and experience as mothers and as Midlifers was really our advantage and our superpower.
- 11:32I love that.
- 11:33How did you come to the journey of putting yourself into the throws of that race?
- 11:41How did you pull it together?
- 11:43Like what came to be in order for, let's go do this, ladies.
- 11:50But it, it came about really, I, I suppose my brother-in-law was, um, was the instigator in many ways.
- 11:57He rode the Atlantic two years before I rode the Atlantic, and when I first heard about him doing it, I thought he was absolutely mad.
- 12:05I thought why would.
- 12:06Anyone choose to put themselves in this tiny little rowing boat in massive waves.
- 12:12And the idea of it ter literally terrified me, for sure.
- 12:16Um, and then it was only when I watched his race and his race had started, and I was following him on social media.
- 12:23And then in particular, seeing him finish the race and I'd, um, I was watching him on my iPad, sat in my bed at home in the middle of the night, and it was spine tingly exciting.
- 12:33I, I just remember.
- 12:35Seeing him crossing the finishing line and the look on their faces and thinking, wow, if I feel this excited, thousands of miles away sat in my bed.
- 12:44What must it be like to do that?
- 12:46And at that point, you know, the, the, this seed was planted and I thought I would love to experience that for myself, but my sort of rational brain took over and I.
- 12:55Well, look, the children are too young.
- 12:56At the time, they were two, four, and six, so I thought they're too young.
- 13:00Um, but maybe I could do it in five to 10 years time when, you know, they're a bit older and a bit more independent, and I'm not too old to do it.
- 13:08Um, and so sort of the, the thought was lodged, but I pushed it to one side.
- 13:13But then about a week later, my younger sister Pip called me and she said, D, I've got a boat.
- 13:19Do you want a road?
- 13:20The Atlantic?
- 13:24I, I mean, I immediately felt this glow of excitement, you know, waving through my body and.
- 13:32Even though the words that popped outta my mouth were, of course I can't do it.
- 13:35The kids are too young.
- 13:36I've just had a hip, hip replacement.
- 13:39I knew in my heart of hearts that I was gonna say yes.
- 13:42I'm a big believer in seasoning opportunities that come along.
- 13:45And this to me just felt like a once in a life opportunity to do something absolutely extraordinary and to do it with my sister.
- 13:53Yeah.
- 13:53Uh, and I'm also a big believer in.
- 13:56Uh, not having regrets.
- 13:58And it's the things that you don't do that you typically regret rather than the things that you do do.
- 14:03Um, and yeah, and so, so that's really where it first started.
- 14:08And Pip said to me, look, stop giving me reasons why you can't start giving me reasons why you can, can.
- 14:14Um, and I put the phone down, had a quick conversation with my husband, and the next day I called her back and said, I'm in.
- 14:21We're doing it.
- 14:22Beautiful.
- 14:23Uh, and that was the start.
- 14:24And then I.
- 14:26It was such an enormous goal, and it was sort of almost two years away.
- 14:30Yeah.
- 14:31Um, that, but it was that goal and that desire to do it.
- 14:35That kept us going through all of the different challenges that we faced.
- 14:38And we were training through COVID.
- 14:40We had multiple crew changes.
- 14:41There were so many different obstacles in our way.
- 14:44Um, but we had this massive goal and, and this, I suppose, shared commitment to doing it, and that kept us going.
- 14:53So you and your sister.
- 14:56Were the two foundational pieces that started the Yeah.
- 15:00Boat rowings.
- 15:01Yeah.
- 15:01As so to speak.
- 15:03How beautiful.
- 15:04Yeah.
- 15:05And you've got that memory forever, don't you?
- 15:08Yeah.
- 15:08And it was such a privilege to share it with my sister.
- 15:12Mm-hmm.
- 15:12Um, I think we both got to know each other on a completely different level.
- 15:17And I'm not sure that we've ever actually spent that much time in such close confinement together.
- 15:24Certainly not in adult life.
- 15:25You know, we've got seven children between us and whether when we do get together, it's chaos.
- 15:31Oh.
- 15:31So we barely get a second to actually have a proper conversation, whereas on the boat we had 40 days just to chat and to remember who we are.
- 15:39Yeah.
- 15:40And to meet these multiple layers of life.
- 15:42Um, and, and as I say, it was such a privilege and it was lovely to.
- 15:46See each other as, as we once were, you know, underneath all those layers.
- 15:51Yeah.
- 15:52Very, very in.
- 15:54What an incredible opportunity for both of you.
- 15:56Yeah.
- 15:56And you, I love how it came to be.
- 16:01And that inner spark, is that something common that.
- 16:06Happens for you where this is like that little feeling or that big feeling that washes over you, is that common in some of the aspects when you think about yourself over the years?
- 16:16Is that how you've always greeted new opportunities?
- 16:21Is that something common or was that out of the ordinary?
- 16:25I think it was a little bit outta the ordinary actually.
- 16:27Okay.
- 16:28I thrown myself into challenges, but on, you know, challenges, they, they felt like massive challenges at the time, triathlons and things like that.
- 16:35But now looking, you know, I now call'em kind of mini endurance events, so I've always enjoyed throwing myself into things like that.
- 16:42This was on a completely different scale and I think it got that, you know, the excitement ter, if you like, ramped up.
- 16:49Right.
- 16:50Um, but it's certainly something that I've noticed since then.
- 16:54Ah, you know, something will just spark that interest for, and it can be for a number of different reasons, but I think, you know, I'll.
- 17:02That's what I want to do.
- 17:04Yeah.
- 17:04Um, and I think having rode the Atlantic at the time, I, I very much talked about it as a once in a lifetime opportunity.
- 17:11But having done it, I realized it's not a once in a lifetime opportunity and I got so much out of it.
- 17:19And I think also it was about inspiring other people as well, inspiring our children, other women, to show them that they can go and do extraordinary things and to encourage people to dream big.
- 17:30Um.
- 17:31So having done it.
- 17:33Something that I just want to do again, not necessarily the row, although I'd love to do a row again, but other things like that because I got so much out of it outta challenging myself and pushing myself, and I think that's what gives me that spark now.
- 17:45It's finding things that will push me, whether it's from a professional perspective, you know, launching a new career, having that career pivot to professional speaker.
- 17:54Or whether it's in my personal life, it's finding those things that can help me develop and help me grow in different ways because I think I've realized how much I get outta challenging myself.
- 18:04And do you notice an impact?
- 18:08You mentioned briefly there about showing other people what's possible.
- 18:14Are you receiving feedback that also impacts your next moves as well?
- 18:23Yeah, definitely.
- 18:25Um.
- 18:26Through the row we had, you know, we built up quite a following on social media and during the row itself, we didn't really get to hear much of the feedback because we were pretty much cut off from communication.
- 18:36But when we got back, it was an opportunity to kind of go through lots of those messages that we were receiving on our social channels.
- 18:43It was incredible.
- 18:44You know, I think we'd set out to inspire other people, but I'm not sure we actually realized how much we could do that.
- 18:53And the messages from other people, women, women and men, were just so positive.
- 18:58And you know, people saying, you've made me realize what we can all achieve and you are incredible.
- 19:02All of those kind of things.
- 19:03And I think that made us all realize that actually going and doing something that like that.
- 19:07Can really inspire people.
- 19:10Um, and then subsequently having, you know, made the pivot to, um, to professional speaker, I'm in such a privilege privileged position to be able to share my story and inspire other people.
- 19:23And again, it's the messages that I get from audience members afterwards.
- 19:27Right.
- 19:27Um.
- 19:28Who tell me about changes they've made in their life as a result of hearing my experiences.
- 19:33And it may be, you know, people will say, I went for a run this morning because I, I, you know, I heard you speak, or I've, you know, I, somebody, somebody told me, um, the other day having read my book, that having not driven for 10 years, she started driving again because it gave her the courage to do that.
- 19:51So it's amazing hearing how.
- 19:54My experiences and story can have an impact on individuals in different ways.
- 20:00Um, and that yeah, that's such a privilege to be able to have a platform to be able to do that.
- 20:06Absolutely.
- 20:07Absolutely.
- 20:09Tell us about your book.
- 20:11So I've recently published my book, um, in July this year.
- 20:14It's called Stronger Than the Storm.
- 20:16Um, it's really my memoirs, my, it is a very raw and personal account of my experiences.
- 20:23It starts with the foundational years, I suppose, growing up and right, maybe where some of my attitude and mindset came from.
- 20:31But the focus really is about.
- 20:33You know, the row what came directly before the row, the hip replacement, the row, and then the cancer diagnosis.
- 20:38And it's about my journey through those various challenges, the highs and the lows, um, and how I, how I approached it all really.
- 20:48And some of the lessons that I've learned along the way.
- 20:50So it's, it's, it's memoir style.
- 20:54Um, it's very much, it, it's my story.
- 20:56But there are lots of lessons I think that people can take from it.
- 21:00And, you know, I've had so many people reaching out to me afterwards just to say how much they've both enjoyed it, but also how it's maybe inspired them or helped them think differently.
- 21:10It could be thinking differently about challenges that they might be facing or about things that they're capable of doing.
- 21:16Yeah.
- 21:17But yes, it's, it's available in all good, well, in Amazon, uh, yeah.
- 21:22Where most people get their books.
- 21:24We will make sure all of that information is in the show notes so that people can find their way to it and grab their own copy and reach out to you and have a conversation.
- 21:35Brilliant.
- 21:36Thank you.
- 21:38Is there one message that you would love to leave our audience with?
- 21:46Yes.
- 21:47And that is that we are all so much stronger and more capable than we think.
- 21:53And really it's only when we are challenged that we realize how strong we are.
- 21:59And that challenge can come from you choosing to challenge yourself.
- 22:03Where it come from having, it can come from having to face challenges in life, but.
- 22:08The power, you know, all of that strength is within us all.
- 22:11Yes, we can look for other people to help us, but within us all, we have the power to get through challenges.
- 22:17Um, and.
- 22:19I would love to encourage people to push themselves, to give themself license to do things, which feels scary because it's only in doing that, that you realize how strong you are.
- 22:30And when you do things like that, it gives you the confidence to do more and more and more and go further.
- 22:35And I think we typically, especially as women, we hold ourselves back.
- 22:40We, we naturally think about the negatives and the why nots instead of thinking of the reasons.
- 22:45To do something or to say yes, and I'd love to encourage people to just push yourselves and say yes to things that feel right for you, and see where that takes you.
- 22:55And you really don't have to be great, and you don't have to have all of the answers when you decide to do something.
- 23:04It's about having that personal commitment, just having the courage and being bold enough to say yes and then learning along the way and you'll get so much growth and um, satisfaction from challenging yourself.
- 23:18And you mentioned earlier, and I wanna bring it back'cause it ties in beautifully to what you just shared, but the idea of the regrets.
- 23:28Right, and it's, people don't regret that they did it.
- 23:32They regret that they didn't go forward and just put, just put it out there and just go for it because you need to do this for you by you because of you.
- 23:42Nobody else can do it for you.
- 23:45And you are a perfect example for us women in our midlife years too.
- 23:53Take that challenge, rise up, do what feels right.
- 23:58I love that point that you just made as well.
- 24:01Don't do it to prove something.
- 24:03Do it to prove for yourself, not for anybody else.
- 24:07Don't do it because somebody said, well, well, you can't do it.
- 24:11You do it.
- 24:12That happened to you, but you weren't doing it for that purpose.
- 24:15You were doing it.
- 24:17Because it was what was feeling right for you and aligned and your body tangled with excitement, just with the concept of what if I could do that?
- 24:27Yeah.
- 24:27Right.
- 24:28Yeah, and I, and I think that's a great point.
- 24:30You don't have to say yes to everything'cause you just wear yourself out.
- 24:34But it's about finding the right things for you.
- 24:37And when you found those right things.
- 24:39Go all in.
- 24:40You know, it is either all in, all out, but nothing in between.
- 24:44And that's the way for me, that's the way, that's the way to live life.
- 24:48Mm-hmm.
- 24:48Um, and I think, you know, what I've learned from experience is that you just never know what's coming around the corner.
- 24:55Yeah.
- 24:55And so often we wait for the right time, you know, or we tell ourselves it's not the right time when X, Y, or z.
- 25:01Happens, then I'll do something.
- 25:03But actually those things might never happen.
- 25:05Something might come along in the meantime that throw it, throw it all sideways.
- 25:09So generally speaking, now is the right time.
- 25:12Just, just get started.
- 25:13Yeah, yeah.
- 25:14Just do it.
- 25:16Yeah.
- 25:16Infamous Nike.
- 25:17Just do it.
- 25:19Exactly.
- 25:23Felicity, what a privilege to share space with you this morning and learn about your journey and.
- 25:31I would love to have you back on the show Absolutely.
- 25:34To go deeper and dive specifically into some other components that we didn't get to today.
- 25:40But I wish you all the best as you continue this new, you pivoted and are now doing this speaking and, um, let's make sure we get your voice out into this world because you've got so much to offer all of us.
- 25:57In terms of inspiration and proof of what is possible when you dig in and you go for it and you don't hold back.
- 26:05'cause we get to do whatever we choose to do.
- 26:09So thank you so much for being here and sharing your gifts with us today.
- 26:15Oh, thank you so much for having me, Denise.
- 26:16It's, it's been brilliant to have a conversation with you this morning.
- 26:21For those of you who are not already subscribed, please subscribe to wherever you listen to your podcasts.
- 26:28We are also on YouTube, so you can, if you are a visual learner and want to see the energy behind the scenes, make sure you subscribe to our YouTube channel.
- 26:39And if this has sparked something in you and you want to explore further and need community support, becoming her mentor membership is available for women in midlife years.
- 26:53All of the information can be found on any of my social media, so join us there behind the scenes.
- 26:59And let's get that journey going for you by you because of you.
- 27:04Have a wonderful day and thank you for following, sharing and subscribing.
- 27:10Bye-bye.