From Rowing the Atlantic to Beating Cancer: A Midlife Woman's Story of Resilience with Felicity Ashley

Oh my gosh, friends, you are in for such an incredible conversation this week on the Thrive After 45™ podcast. I am sitting down with the phenomenal Felicity Ashley, and her story is just proof that our midlife years can be the most powerful and adventurous chapters yet.

At 46, after leading marketing teams for 20 years, Felicity did something absolutely extraordinary: she rowed over 3,000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean with an all-female crew of working moms!

 This epic journey proved that women in midlife can do incredible things. But the adventure didn’t stop there. 

Soon after, she faced an entirely different kind of challenge: a diagnosis of stage three bowel cancer.

Felicity’s story isn’t just about overcoming a life-threatening illness; it's about using the strength and resilience gained from one challenge to face the next. 

She shares how the mental and physical grit she built from rowing the ocean became her superpower to get through cancer treatment. And after overcoming cancer, she celebrated a three-year milestone by running the world's highest marathon at Everest Base Camp!!! 

Talk about unstoppable!

We get into a real, honest conversation about what it means to truly thrive through change, uncertainty, and challenge. 

We also dive into the idea that age is an advantage, not a limitation. Felicity explains that being a working mom gave her a unique superpower on the Atlantic row. She and her crew were used to broken sleep from feeding children through the night, so the two-hours-on, two-hours-off rowing schedule didn't faze them.

This is a conversation that will leave you feeling so empowered and ready to tackle your own "Everest" whatever that may be.

You'll hear about how she made a career pivot to professional speaking and how her book, "Stronger Than the Storm," is inspiring others to find their own strength.

Felicity’s message is so beautiful and simple...

We are all so much stronger and more capable than we think, and it's only when we're challenged that we truly realize our own power. 

She encourages us to push ourselves and to say "yes" to the things that feel right for us, even if they feel scary.

You can connect with Felicity and learn more about her inspiring journey on her website at www.felicityashley.com

LinkedIn - www.linkedin.com/in/felicityashley

Instagram - @felicityashleyspeaker

Thank you for spending time with me today on the Thrive After 45™ podcast! If this episode spoke to you, be sure to hit that follow button so you never miss one.

And if you loved it, I’d be so grateful if you left a review - it helps more amazing women like you find this show!

Your journey doesn’t stop here - let’s keep the conversation going! Connect with me at denisedrinkwalter.com, and follow @thethriveafter45podcast for daily insp, tips, and support.

Remember, midlife isn’t the end - it’s just the beginning of a new, exciting chapter! Keep thriving, keep shining, and I’ll see you next time!

Transcript

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Hello and welcome to Thrive After 45, the podcast where we redefine what's possible in midlife. I'm Denise, drink Walter, your midlife renewal coach Here to help you embrace your power, purpose, and potential. This is your space to let go of guilt. Navigate transitions rediscover joy and thrive for you by you. Because of you. It is an honor and an absolute privilege to welcome and introduce Felicity Ashley to our show today. Felicity is a motivator, a mariner and a marketer who has inspired. Thousands with her story of courage and resilience. After 20 years leading marketing teams, she rode over 3000 miles across the Atlantic with the mothership, a crew of working moms proving. That midlife women can do extraordinary things. Soon after Felicity faced a new challenge, stage three bowel cancer, she overcame treatment, pivoted her career. And now shares her powerful journey as a professional speaker helping organizations and individuals thrive through change, uncertainty, and challenge. Most recently, she marked her three year cancer milestone by running. The world's highest marathon at Everest Base Camp. Please join me in welcoming the incredible Felicity Ashley, it's so great to have you here today. Thank you so much for having me. It's a privilege to be here. Oh my goodness. You have faced both epic adventures. And life-threatening adversity. What do you think has taught you more about resilience? The ocean, the mountain, or the cancer diagnosis? I think it's actually a combination of all of them. I, 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. And it is absolutely all of those things, you know, to do anything of that length. It took us 40 days rowing, two hours on, two hours off. 24 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. And then the event itself certainly built my resilience, both my mental and physical resilience. Um, and you know, I completed that and I thought, well, that's that. Go back to normal life. Yeah. But then as you said in your introduction, you know, life had other plans for me. And actually what happened was I was thrown straight into a very different challenge of facing a cancer diagnosis. Um, and it was fairly advanced cancer. It was a large tumor in my bowel. Um, and you know, at that point, I think it would've been understandable to think why me? You know, I've just wrote an notion. I'm relatively speaking, I'm young. I was 40. Six, I think when I was diagnosed. Had three small children and I was having just done the row, I was fitter and stronger than I'd ever been. And I think, you know, it would've been understandable to think Roe is me. This isn't fair. Yeah. But 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. And I think just having completed the row and knowing that I was. Physically and mentally. Bulletproof. Okay. Physically, I, yeah. Had 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. Cope with the cancer diagnosis and then get through the treatment. Um, 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. The 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. Um, and both of those things. Okay. There 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. Whether 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. Um, and actually what they've shown me is that I can do. Almost anything I set my mind to. And they gave me the confidence then to tackle the world's highest marathon at every space camp. I wasn't a serial marathon runner. In fact, I had a hip replacement before the row and No way. Way. Yeah. Yeah. And the one thing the surgeon said to me that I might not want to do with a hip replacement was a marathon. And I kind of thought, well, it's not an ordinary marathon. So, you know, I hadn't run many marathons before. I'd run two marathons before. Um. I'd never tested myself for altitude before, but that wasn't a reason not to do it. Actually, it was a reason to go. Do you know I, I know I can row an ocean. I've never done that before. I've got through cancer treatment. I know I'm tough. I can prepare myself for this other challenge of altitude and running a marathon altitude. So 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. Right. There'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. Age was on your side. Our audience of midlife women thrive after 45. We are. Battling, I'm going to say this idea, and there's so much out there around ageism and, okay, you've hit, that's it. You're plateau. You might as well just start going down the hill. Now 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. Absolutely. So in cancer terms, 46 is very young to be diagnosed with something like bowel cancer. It's associated typically with much older people and and also with men. And so I was this fit, relatively speaking, young person being diagnosed with it and therefore. Because I was young, I was more likely to be able to get through it. You know, I had this strength and this youth on my side to be able to get through, get through it. Where 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. Things like chemotherapy and therefore it was, you know, simply being younger. I had a better chance that was on my side. Um, but also I think age brings experience. You know, you don't get to midlife, let's say, without having. You are having had, you know, your fair share of knocks, right? And having had to pick yourself up from those, and that does give you resilience. Um, 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. Um, but that's where I think age is a tremendous advantage because it gives you that experience, that wisdom. And in many ways, the confidence that you can get through things. So I think it works in, in different ways. You know, partly the physical resilience, the physical strength, I suppose, um, of being relatively young, right, for a cancer diagnosis. But equally having got to midlife the experience that comes with it. Exactly, 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. What I do know through like your sharing your experiences. Yeah. Right. And, 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. We were quite different to the profile of your standard crew at the time that we rode the Atlantic, which was. Three 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. Mm-hmm. We were very different crew of midlife working moms and nobody expected very much of us. Um. You 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. Um, 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. We 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. And we had enormous challenges to overcome in the two years of preparation for the race. Some 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. Confidence and resilience to actually get through the race itself. And when we came to the race, some of the biggest challenges for other crews are things like sleep deprivation. Mm-hmm. Because 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. So during the night, you are up every two. To row a two hour shift. And for most people, that is incredibly daunting. They think, well, I, I simply can't do that. If you're used to your 8,000 night, I simply can't do that. But as moms, we were used to feeding children through the night for months and months on end, you know, month. We years of broken sleep, of course, and we knew that we could do it. We knew that your body. Going,'cause you have to. And 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. Yeah. You know, 40 days is actually in the context of feeding children through the night and have broken sleep. It's a short period of time. Um. And so that again, is where age and experience as mothers and as Midlifers was really our advantage and our superpower. I love that. How did you come to the journey of putting yourself into the throws of that race? How did you pull it together? Like what came to be in order for, let's go do this, ladies. But it, it came about really, I, I suppose my brother-in-law was, um, was the instigator in many ways. He 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. I thought why would. Anyone choose to put themselves in this tiny little rowing boat in massive waves. And the idea of it ter literally terrified me, for sure. Um, and then it was only when I watched his race and his race had started, and I was following him on social media. And 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. I, I just remember. Seeing 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. What must it be like to do that? And 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. Well, look, the children are too young. At the time, they were two, four, and six, so I thought they're too young. Um, 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. Um, and so sort of the, the thought was lodged, but I pushed it to one side. But then about a week later, my younger sister Pip called me and she said, D, I've got a boat. Do you want a road? The Atlantic? I, I mean, I immediately felt this glow of excitement, you know, waving through my body and. Even though the words that popped outta my mouth were, of course I can't do it. The kids are too young. I've just had a hip, hip replacement. I knew in my heart of hearts that I was gonna say yes. I'm a big believer in seasoning opportunities that come along. And this to me just felt like a once in a life opportunity to do something absolutely extraordinary and to do it with my sister. Yeah. Uh, and I'm also a big believer in. Uh, not having regrets. And it's the things that you don't do that you typically regret rather than the things that you do do. Um, and yeah, and so, so that's really where it first started. And Pip said to me, look, stop giving me reasons why you can't start giving me reasons why you can, can. Um, 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. We're doing it. Beautiful. Uh, and that was the start. And then I. It was such an enormous goal, and it was sort of almost two years away. Yeah. Um, that, but it was that goal and that desire to do it. That kept us going through all of the different challenges that we faced. And we were training through COVID. We had multiple crew changes. There were so many different obstacles in our way. Um, but we had this massive goal and, and this, I suppose, shared commitment to doing it, and that kept us going. So you and your sister. Were the two foundational pieces that started the Yeah. Boat rowings. Yeah. As so to speak. How beautiful. Yeah. And you've got that memory forever, don't you? Yeah. And it was such a privilege to share it with my sister. Mm-hmm. Um, I think we both got to know each other on a completely different level. And I'm not sure that we've ever actually spent that much time in such close confinement together. Certainly not in adult life. You know, we've got seven children between us and whether when we do get together, it's chaos. Oh. So 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. Yeah. And to meet these multiple layers of life. Um, and, and as I say, it was such a privilege and it was lovely to. See each other as, as we once were, you know, underneath all those layers. Yeah. Very, very in. What an incredible opportunity for both of you. Yeah. And you, I love how it came to be. And that inner spark, is that something common that. Happens 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? Is that how you've always greeted new opportunities? Is that something common or was that out of the ordinary? I think it was a little bit outta the ordinary actually. Okay. I thrown myself into challenges, but on, you know, challenges, they, they felt like massive challenges at the time, triathlons and things like that. But now looking, you know, I now call'em kind of mini endurance events, so I've always enjoyed throwing myself into things like that. This was on a completely different scale and I think it got that, you know, the excitement ter, if you like, ramped up. Right. Um, but it's certainly something that I've noticed since then. Ah, 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. That's what I want to do. Yeah. Um, and I think having rode the Atlantic at the time, I, I very much talked about it as a once in a lifetime opportunity. But having done it, I realized it's not a once in a lifetime opportunity and I got so much out of it. And 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. Um. So having done it. Something 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. It'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. Or 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. And do you notice an impact? You mentioned briefly there about showing other people what's possible. Are you receiving feedback that also impacts your next moves as well? Yeah, definitely. Um. Through 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. But 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. It was incredible. You 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. And the messages from other people, women, women and men, were just so positive. And you know, people saying, you've made me realize what we can all achieve and you are incredible. All of those kind of things. And I think that made us all realize that actually going and doing something that like that. Can really inspire people. Um, 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. And again, it's the messages that I get from audience members afterwards. Right. Um. Who tell me about changes they've made in their life as a result of hearing my experiences. And 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. So it's amazing hearing how. My experiences and story can have an impact on individuals in different ways. Um, and that yeah, that's such a privilege to be able to have a platform to be able to do that. Absolutely. Absolutely. Tell us about your book. So I've recently published my book, um, in July this year. It's called Stronger Than the Storm. Um, it's really my memoirs, my, it is a very raw and personal account of my experiences. It starts with the foundational years, I suppose, growing up and right, maybe where some of my attitude and mindset came from. But the focus really is about. You know, the row what came directly before the row, the hip replacement, the row, and then the cancer diagnosis. And it's about my journey through those various challenges, the highs and the lows, um, and how I, how I approached it all really. And some of the lessons that I've learned along the way. So it's, it's, it's memoir style. Um, it's very much, it, it's my story. But there are lots of lessons I think that people can take from it. And, 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. It could be thinking differently about challenges that they might be facing or about things that they're capable of doing. Yeah. But yes, it's, it's available in all good, well, in Amazon, uh, yeah. Where most people get their books. We 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. Brilliant. Thank you. Is there one message that you would love to leave our audience with? Yes. And that is that we are all so much stronger and more capable than we think. And really it's only when we are challenged that we realize how strong we are. And that challenge can come from you choosing to challenge yourself. Where it come from having, it can come from having to face challenges in life, but. The power, you know, all of that strength is within us all. Yes, we can look for other people to help us, but within us all, we have the power to get through challenges. Um, and. I 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. And when you do things like that, it gives you the confidence to do more and more and more and go further. And I think we typically, especially as women, we hold ourselves back. We, we naturally think about the negatives and the why nots instead of thinking of the reasons. To 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. And 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. It'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. And 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. Right, and it's, people don't regret that they did it. They 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. Nobody else can do it for you. And you are a perfect example for us women in our midlife years too. Take that challenge, rise up, do what feels right. I love that point that you just made as well. Don't do it to prove something. Do it to prove for yourself, not for anybody else. Don't do it because somebody said, well, well, you can't do it. You do it. That happened to you, but you weren't doing it for that purpose. You were doing it. Because 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? Yeah. Right. Yeah, and I, and I think that's a great point. You don't have to say yes to everything'cause you just wear yourself out. But it's about finding the right things for you. And when you found those right things. Go all in. You know, it is either all in, all out, but nothing in between. And that's the way for me, that's the way, that's the way to live life. Mm-hmm. Um, and I think, you know, what I've learned from experience is that you just never know what's coming around the corner. Yeah. And 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. Happens, then I'll do something. But actually those things might never happen. Something might come along in the meantime that throw it, throw it all sideways. So generally speaking, now is the right time. Just, just get started. Yeah, yeah. Just do it. Yeah. Infamous Nike. Just do it. Exactly. Felicity, what a privilege to share space with you this morning and learn about your journey and. I would love to have you back on the show Absolutely. To go deeper and dive specifically into some other components that we didn't get to today. But 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. In terms of inspiration and proof of what is possible when you dig in and you go for it and you don't hold back.'cause we get to do whatever we choose to do. So thank you so much for being here and sharing your gifts with us today. Oh, thank you so much for having me, Denise. It's, it's been brilliant to have a conversation with you this morning. For those of you who are not already subscribed, please subscribe to wherever you listen to your podcasts. We 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. And 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. All of the information can be found on any of my social media, so join us there behind the scenes. And let's get that journey going for you by you because of you. Have a wonderful day and thank you for following, sharing and subscribing. Bye-bye.