With lifespans increasing and retirement ages moving further into the distance, careers are becoming 50 or 60+ years long. Yet, with burnout statistics and chronic-stress-related illnesses rising – costing the economy billions in absenteeism – a reinvention mindset is no longer a ‘nice to have’ but an essential tool for a healthy lifespan. Before you dig into the changes you want to make in your life, and act on all the health advice we are hearing at the show today, your mindset must come first.

Eleanor Mills, bestselling author of Much More to Come, journalist, editor and founder of NOON.Org.uk, is the UK’s top midlife expert. Her community of Queenagers challenges assumptions around what women are capable of at 50 plus and challenges gendered ageism. In this conversation with Jennifer Howze, NOON Editorial Director, she explores how we can become the women we always wanted to be in our fifties. “At fifty, everything we have been until then can fall away. In our NOON research we find that by 50 over half of women have been through at least five of divorce, bereavement, redundancy, caring for elderly parents, or a Gen Z child with anxiety, other abuse, health issues and menopause. But what we find is that the more the women have been through, the more they shed, the happier they end up. In order to find a life that is truly resonant, we have to spend some time in the fog discarding our old assumptions and finding our true purpose now. Many Queenagers have spent the years from 25 to 50 ticking the achievement boxes, doing the things their family or culture wanted them to do. Midlife is the point where we finally get to choose who we really want to be. In the hundred year life, 50 is only half way through, it’s only lunchtime.. what will you do with your one wild and precious life?”