F*ck, I'm Nearly 50
"F*ck, I’m Nearly 50” is a no-filter dive into the messy, brilliant chaos of midlife. From career pivots to sagging eyelids, I’m here to share the wins, the WTF moments, and everything in between—because whoever has the most fun, wins. Fuck, I’m nearly 50… and isn’t it amazing?”
F*ck, I'm Nearly 50
F*ck, Success Isn’t What I Thought! with Justine Armour
🎙️Episode 1: Fuck, Success Isn’t What I Thought! with Justine Armour
We spend years chasing success, but what happens when we stop and ask—was this ever the goal?
In this episode, I sit down with my great friend Justine Armour, one of the most respected creatives in the advertising world, to talk about success, stress, and what actually matters. Justine has led global creative teams, made Super Bowl ads, and built a career most people dream of. But along the way, she’s also faced burnout, health challenges, and the realization that success doesn’t always feel the way you think it will.
What You’ll Hear in This Episode:
🔥 How we met as baby ad people at Clemenger Brisbane and have been through it all—career leaps, life shifts, and too many meatball sandwiches at Ant Café.
🔥 What it’s really like to be at the top of your field—and why high achievement doesn’t always equal happiness.
🔥 The stress of constant pressure, making big life changes, and how Justine’s rethinking what success looks like now.
🔥 Navigating societal expectations—especially when you don’t follow the traditional life script.
🔥 The reality of midlife reflection—health, priorities, and why good goes in, great comes out applies to more than just Pringles.
🔥 Justine’s challenge for me—what she’s daring me to try before I turn 50.
The ‘Try This Before I’m 50’ Challenge
Each guest on this podcast will leave me with a challenge—something to shake things up before I hit 50. Justine’s throwing down the gauntlet, and I have no idea what she’s about to suggest… but I’m committing to doing it.
Where to Find Justine Armour:
🔗 LinkedIn: Justine Armour
🔗 Forsman & Bodenfors: forsman.com
What’s Coming Up?
Every guest on this podcast has taken risks, redefined what matters, and found their own way through midlife. Each episode will leave me (and you) with something to think about—or maybe even something to change.
So if you’ve ever questioned the career you built, the expectations you’ve carried, or what’s next for you, hit play. Because fuck, we’re nearly 50—and isn’t that amazing?
🔗 Listen now, subscribe, and share with a friend who needs this!
🔥 Let’s keep the conversation going! 🔥
📺 Watch the episodes on YouTube – Subscribe here!
💬 Join the community – Follow me on Instagram @fckimnearlyfifty and share your thoughts on this episode. Or connect with me on LinkedIn.
🎧 Never miss an episode – Subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
📢 Spread the word – If you loved this episode, share it with a friend (or 10). Because midlife is better when we figure it out together.
Because f*ck, we’re nearly 50—and isn’t that amazing? 🚀
Hi, I'm Dom hind and f*ck, I'm nearly 50. Well, nearly 47 but I'm starting the countdown to 50 now so that I can make the most of it. One minute. I was in my 20s, hustling, building a career, working, working, running, working, working, working, way too much, and now I'm staring down the barrel of 50, wondering where the time went, why my body creaks when I get out of bed, and am I actually living my all, which is why I'm doing this fuck on nearly 50. Isn't just a podcast, it's a midlife check in. It's a reality check and also a celebration to make sure that I am living my all. It's about sharing those honest conversations about the big things, career, finance, friendships, relationships, purpose and all the shit that I've collected along the way and whether I really need it. Here's the thing, this podcast isn't about chasing fame or building the biggest audience. It's about documenting the journey in real time. It's about sharing the conversation I'm having with my friends and making sure that we can all get to 50 on our terms. So over the next 36 months, I'm talking to some incredible guests, sharing their experiences, trying new things and questioning everything, so that this journey can actually push us and make us grow. If you're wondering what's next, or want to feel a little less alone in the madness of midlife, then you're in the right spot. So let's do this because f*ck, I'm nearly 50, and isn't it amazing? My very first guest is someone who is not only ridiculously talented, but also one of my absolute favourites. Justine armour, Hi Tom,
Justine Armour:hi Dom, thanks for having me, and I'm the guest number one on what
Dominique Hind:an honour so good. And to say we go way back is actually an understatement. Justine and I have shared a lifetime adventure of laughter and the kind of memories that you remember forever. She's not just a world class creative and one of the most respected women in advertising, she's also our lodger, The Lodger, The Lodger, and every time Justine's back in town. She stays at our place, apart from now, which is very upsetting, yeah, and it has affectionately earned her the nickname The Lodger. And mornings in our house are not complete without Justin. And I doing this to summons Justine for a cup of tea, and she knows exactly how we like it. And we're very lucky, because our friendship has taken us everywhere, like that unforgettable New Year's Eve holiday in Bangkok and Thailand. We've crashed at her house in Portland when she first moved there, and we've shared way too many laughs and talked about way too many ads at ant cafe in Potts point, and she was even there on the very first night that Justin and I officially got together, and she's been such a huge part of our life from sharing all the wild stories about our families, both hers and mine, and all the adventures and the iconic moments that they all have together. The thing that even our kids love was watching your your first big Super Bowl ad, which is very, you know, good for this time right now, where, even now, they will get the Pringles can and wear it on their hand for way too long, like, way too long,
Justine Armour:happy to be that, yes,
Dominique Hind:yeah, because it means they have to eat them. And, of course, throughout this podcast, we will call each other Dahl, and that is our affectionate name for each other, for you know, showing how we really do feel, but also showing our proud Queensland roots.
Justine Armour:Yeah, expect there's some accents that others won't have heard come out of us when we talk, when we not Yeah, when we had a special set of accents, we just revert for each other,
Dominique Hind:yeah, way too, way too real and raw. And before we dive in, Justine, I would love you to introduce yourself, but in a non boring LinkedIn. A way. How would you actually introduce yourself to someone who has never met you?
Justine Armour:I don't know. I would say, I mean, I'm the oldest child. I'm a Virgo. I'm a Year of the Dragon. I and I don't know if you if you know anything about those, those characters, what those things mean. I'm pretty, like, textbook versions of those things. I'm also an Enneagram for which, if you know about the Enneagram, I'm a very textbook Enneagram for. I don't know what else I've done, a lot of, a lot of, like, self analysis, yeah. And weirdly, I find it very hard to, like, introduce myself in a succinct way. Okay, well, so like, if we're talking about lead, being a leader, I'm, like, I would say I'm a heart led leader. I care about people. I care about my relationships with people. I care really about authenticity and how I'm able to show up in the world. I don't like being in any environment where I'm not being able to able to be myself so and I will leave that environment, whether it's a relationship or a job or a room. You know, I find it very intolerable to me to be in a an environment or a situation where I can't, where I have to fake,
Dominique Hind:yeah, you're definitely not very good at faking, no, and which is funny in advertising, yeah, no, sorry everyone, yeah, yeah, okay. What would okay? Just to give people, what do you think your team would say are your strengths? Just so that they can understand what an amazing person you are.
Justine Armour:I would say they they would say that I care a lot about them and about the work and about the environment that they're in, because I think that the energy of the place is what sets the creates the ability for people to be authentic and and feel safe, to be coming up with the craziest ideas they you know that, then that's the stuff we need. You know, we don't need to be coming up with ideas that now, now an AI bot can do like you need. You need to create true, deep, emotional, psychological safety for creative people to have to have great ideas, but I also think that's true
Dominique Hind:for anyone. You've just got to be authentic actually, and you got to align with where your values sit and what you are actually doing. Yeah, that's a big one. My one of my big themes this year is alignment, because I do think sometimes we do get out of alignment with our values. Yeah. So yes, I do think you are very authentic, and you do live a very you life, and only you can do, yeah. And I've now I started to get really comfortable with being, like, unapologetic about it, too. So you've only get, you only get one life like you have to be. I
Justine Armour:think it was a long time, though, where I, like, really agonised about it, and had sort of an internalised idea about what it should be or it should look like, you know, I got married really young, and then I got divorced really young. Then I got married again, also really young, and divorced again, because I just, I was trying to, I was trying to fulfil, like a script that had been written inside me. I also think
Dominique Hind:at that point in time, you were a little bit of a people pleaser because you didn't know who you actually
Justine Armour:were. Yeah, that's absolutely true, and it's the people pleasing is goes really deep, and so it comes out in different ways and different different relationships, different jobs, different but, yeah, it's taken me, you know, you're saying you're nearly 50. I'm 50 next year. It has taken me almost this long to figure out who the one person I need to please myself.
Dominique Hind:And it's funny, isn't it, it takes you a long time to get to that point where you go, it actually only matters what I think and how I feel, and I'm the only one who can make me feel that way. Yeah, I think also
Justine Armour:Earth auto matters like my parents. I'm the eldest child, and I was so I got such a good child, yeah, and I've talked about my brothers all the time, they had such different parents, yeah? To me, like they had a completely different experience of my parents. And then I did and and so it's, it's really deep,
Dominique Hind:yeah, yeah. I agree being an oldest, the eldest child. I 100% agree that we always get the hardest parents and then everyone else gets the easier version. Yeah,
Justine Armour:I forgive my parents. I haven't said it to my mom yet. Yesterday, I was here visiting my family, and I was like, the version of you this is like, you know, 27 moms ago, like she's had so many different versions of herself since, since we were. A young mother, yeah, I don't hold any of it against them. Yeah, I think that's just like trying it. That was the first pancake.
Dominique Hind:Okay, so today was a very big day for you, Justine, and very big news. You've just been announced as the global creative or Chief Creative Officer at, I'm just gonna say F and B. You can say
Justine Armour:forgeman. It's a, it's a Swedish agency, okay, we'll just say Forsman, just for the
Dominique Hind:same, okay, you've just been named Global Chief Creative Officer of Osman, and it's a big role, because it will see you moving potentially to London as well.
Justine Armour:Yes, I'm really excited about it. This is, you know, these big, big, global, creative jobs don't come along very often. And I was pretty happy in my little life in New York, at my little in independent place that I've been a partner at for the last couple of years, and this thing came along, and I initially resisted it because I had I'm not what am I talking about? I'm going to be in my late 40s. I'm going to uproot my great life that I've created for myself in New York City. I live on the Brooklyn Heights promenade, looking out to the most incredible view of law in Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty. And I'm like, I sit in my apartment and I'm like, I've fucking made it. Yeah, I have got it figured out. I nailed it. Like, people come to New York and they never like it destroys them. I have. I felt like I have just like, conquered, yeah, my experience in New York,
Dominique Hind:which you have, like, literally, I mean, girl from Brisbane now, like,
Justine Armour:I've had, it's, it's taken, it has conquered me at times, yeah, but yeah. And I was like, What am I talking how am I gonna go? I'm, like, nearly, like, I'm nearly 50. Am I really going to uproot my life again and take another chapter in London, which I, by the way, have never really wanted to go and live in just to do this job. And I think the thing is, like I had an idea that was in me that I shouldn't do that, that that was, I was kind of too old to do that, or there's something about my story that would it's, I'm steering it in the wrong direction by going, Yeah, I just had this idea that I was, like, it was crazy to uproot my life again after I'd I've really done it so many times, and I'm happy. You know, it's not like I'm running away from something, which I think is another point. I'm not running away from anything in myself or in New York or anything like that. I'm I'm embracing another chapter in the story. And the company is incredible. The team that I've met, I haven't started, you know, I don't start a month and two months actually, but team seems great. You know, I have a lot of respect for the company. For the company, and I like the work that it's done over the course of the years. And so, yeah, like, you know, the very reason, the very thing is in me that's resisting taking another adventure is, is the reason why I should do it? Absolutely, absolutely, what was the hardest decision in that whole, you know, your your thinking process to actually push you over the edge? Was it that you needed to change like, you know, you were too comfortable and you thought? What was the factor that? Yeah, what was the factor? Honestly, this happened. It came around right before the election in America. And, you know, we I felt pretty good. I mean, I'm Australian, so I don't vote. I still want a visa. I'm not a citizen, and so, you know, I don't really have a stake in the US election. But I was there through, you know, the second time Obama was elected that was jubilant. I was there through the sort of Trump first campaign, Bruce First Presidency. It was not a good vibe. And I it was truly, I don't know I really, I was watching and paying attention. It was very painful to be there and to see all of these institutions be kind of pulled apart, and to see people around me hurt by these policies and these kind of narratives or going out there. So it was, it was painful. And if you're a thinking, caring, feeling person, you can't there's no way that you can't be devastated every day, yeah, by the things that they are doing. Yeah. So you know, and also it's you can't do anything about it. As a non voter, I don't have any power, the only power I have in. My happiness is to disengage. And so I made or move, yeah, and we're just using it, you know. So I made the decision at some point last year that because, you know, the first Trump presidency, I was living my partner, who I'm still very close to, my partner at the time, was very politically engaged, and so I knew everything that was going on, and I was very like, I had my high anxiety. Anxiety was like, all the time about what was happening, and I just made a decision of, sort of, my self care, my sort of emotional mental health, to, like, not actually participate as much. But when you're there, it's impossible not to, you know, it's impossible not to be in the cycle of the news, and it's designed to to weigh you down to you're getting, you know, just bombarded, bombarded with terrible things that are happening to people that are lovely and that you care about and and so anyway, Long story, long it came this job came around right as the election was coming up, and so I decided to just open the conversation up, because, you know, who knew if he was going to get in again? And I wasn't, you know, I was mad and America mad at men, yeah, I'm mad at America. And I was like, I'm ready to just like, have an option to get out of here, if that happens. And then, honestly, a great job materialised out of it. And I was like, now I want to do it. And regardless of if, you know the election went that way or not, I was like, I was excited to do it and to get out. Yeah, just explore the next expand my horizons,
Dominique Hind:so you have had such an incredible career. And we started as juniors together, yes, in Clemente, proximity in Brisbane, and now we are nearly 50.
Justine Armour:Look, you're gonna get more comfortable saying that. I'm sure,
Dominique Hind:no, I'm not really gross. And your journey has been phenomenal. How have you managed to keep your creative spark alive throughout this period, with everything that you have gone through? Yeah,
Justine Armour:it's a really good question. I think I have realised that the creative experience is a is an embodied, somatic, physical experience. It's like it's an energy that you cultivate in your body, right? And it goes away when you are being driven by fear, and it comes alive when you're being driven by some by inspiration, or by love or by something that you're excited about. And so in everything I've learned, I've had to really learn to cultivate an energy of of that of like, positive, creative, you know, like I'm seeking an openness, as you know, and so part of it is, like, physical, you know, it's like, what you're doing with your body, the mood, it's movement, it's rest, it's it's getting out of fear based narratives and making sure that I'm, you know, even things that are, You know, like, I just explained this, this political situation, like you, I made a conscious decision to not allow that into my head. And, you know, I It's, I think, as a creative person, you've got to be able to put it in its place and be really intentional about appreciating and having gratitude, and, like, having something that is driving you forward, yeah, and not driving you away. Has that always been the case for you? No, absolutely not. I think COVID, yep. So when COVID hit, I just I was 15 days into my job at grey, New York, huge, biggest job I've ever done. Massive job for me at the time, excuse me, massive job for me at the time, I knew it was going to be a big, hard job, and I had great people around me there who also knew that I was going to need a lot of support to be successful in it. So COVID came in all of a sudden, where New York was a crazy, terrible place to be, went home. Virus was all around us. Everyone's going to die running this, you know, huge creative department at one of the biggest agencies in New York. Um, then we had, you know, a grey there was a merger that WPP created between us and AK, QA, yeah. Then there was, you know, somebody on the leadership team had a brain tumour that did and wasn't sharing that information. Then there was, you know, I couldn't leave because I was on a visa. And there was so many things anyway I was it just created a fear energy in my in me, i. Think over time, plus I was, I didn't realise at the time, but I was quite unwell, yeah, and I was giving myself to the job so much that I was not available to what was going on in my physical body. So we'll get to that in a bit like I was, I had become and was getting more and more unwell, and was creating this like energy of desperation, which, by the way, everyone, when you're in leadership, and every when you have a team like that, everyone's looking at you, and they're, they're like, powered by that energy, which is anxious, fearful, um, annoyed when it doesn't go the way that it needs to, like, it's not curious, no, it's not. It's not your usual capacity for things to go not how you expected.
Dominique Hind:And that is hard. That is hard, and it's hard also to get out of that head space as well, unless you do make a drastic change, like leave
Justine Armour:Yeah, or it happens to you, you know, you have, like, a breakdown, you do Yeah, and then you have to reassess, yeah, and if you're lucky, and you've got time and you've got the headspace to
Dominique Hind:figure out what it's all about, what so being in that massive job at grey what was the biggest lesson that you learned about leadership?
Justine Armour:I think it would be that thing that we are driven by either love or fear? Yeah, everything that we do is driven by love or fear. And if you are a leader that that can't relax into the challenges of of it, you are going to be fearful. And so I think it's you get that. You get relaxed over time, through having experience. But as a young as a new leader, by the way, I was taken aback. I was only been maybe 10 years into being a creative director. At that point, you know, I was 14 years a copywriter, and then all of a sudden, I went to the 3% conference, and they were like, We need when I was at one in Kennedy, there were, there was, like, 180 creatives, 26 creative directors. No women, wow. There was an ECD who was a woman, Susan Hoffman. But then they were like, there were no women at that time in the creative and creative and I was this most senior woman. And there were nine women in the creative department, and I was the most senior female creative so I became a creative director, and then I came, I was on this trajectory that was like, I was a CD there, and then I was a GCD at 72 and sunny. And then six months later, I was an ECD, like, leading that office. And then two and a half years later, I was leading grey in New York, yeah. So I was never in mastery. I was always learning. And so my energy as a leader was always I don't know what I'm doing. I'm faking it till I make it. I'm leaning in because you told me to Yeah. And I never got that relaxed energy around me. And I just kept taking these opportunities because I kept getting offered to me, and I didn't want to be crazy and not do them. But what it created was a leader who was running on fear, yeah? And I've learned now that I can do it and what my boundaries and my limits are, and I can honestly say I run on pretty good vibes, yeah, and I
Dominique Hind:think that would be hard going from like that anxious. Am I actually doing the right thing? Because, I mean, I know exactly what it's like even, you know, when I was young, leading all 26 and having all those digital people around me trying to lead them, and no one had ever taught you how to lead or what you need to do,
Justine Armour:pioneering it too, like you were. I mean, that that part that time in our industry, you were on the cutting edge of that, of that space, yeah,
Dominique Hind:and being a female, yeah, and in like digital was something that it's hard. And I look back, even for myself, and I go, God, I made some dumb, dumb, dumb decisions, and I wish I could take them back, but it was great for learning, because you go, I would never do that again, and I would actually have those hard conversations that I just didn't know how to have. You're afraid to have them because you don't want to expose yourself as not knowing and when and what. I think the other thing that happens as you get older, yes, you get so much more comfortable with being the, being the most curious, not knowing person in the room. Yeah, and it is such a gift to everybody. Oh, it is being able to ask a question and not feel like you have to have all the answers.
Justine Armour:You're not afraid of being, you know, exposed as a fraud, yeah, which is your young leadership, you're always afraid of that.
Dominique Hind:So we did touch on it about your health challenges. How has that shifted your perspective in what is actually really important in life and work and everything that you do?
Justine Armour:Yeah, I mean, it's. Because it's like, I learned something that everybody else knew before me, which is, you don't have your own sort of energy in your body working. You can't really be there for everybody else, yeah, you know, as a leader, yeah, you know. And I think I'm just always an Aussie thing, like, she'll be right. Like, I just always whatever was going on with me. I just feel like I ran this body, like an old Toyota, like it was like the lights were going on, and I was like, it's fine. You know, there's sirens, like blinking shit, and there's like, so many warning signs. And I'm like, It's fine. I'll be fine. I'll get to the next stop. And I just truly, I got, I've learned that I, you know, not to let any of those warning lights go on, which is, I have, I'm so sorry to myself that I had to learn it the hard way.
Dominique Hind:What was the breaking point that you just went, okay? Now I actually do need to take care of myself. I
Justine Armour:went, I went on it. I took a year off between grey and the job that I've been doing for last couple of years at fig. To, you know, I was not in a good place when I left grey. I was not well, but I just felt, I thought it was stress, yeah. So I went up to this wellness retreat in Mexico, and I did, you know this, like, cleanse for a month, and then, you know, psychedelics in the jungle and Scorpios in your room, Scorpion, yeah, it was amazing. Um, and I came away from that. I was, I felt so good with a non what's an anti inflammatory paleo diet, working out every day, yoga every day. I was, I felt so good. I was like, my energy was incredible. I go back to New York, and I'm like, reset, you know, I'm me again. I'm like, you know, back in New York, and it's holidays, and I'm drinking Martina here and there, and then I'm back into my ute, my just eating like a six year old burgers at midnight, then I go home to Australia for Christmas, and for a couple months, and I started to, i, i So, so a piece of this I had that I didn't talk about. It's like, I've had pretty, like, heavy menstrual bleeding for 10 years from adenomyosis, endometriosis, fibroids, all these things. And it's, and I'd, I'd, you know, it's one of those things, like, every month a little bit worse, and then it's a little bit worse. And I'd had a couple of surgeries and tried different things, but it had just get even as healthy as I felt after going to this thing in Mexico, I I was like, it was, it wasn't good, yeah, so I came back from this trip to Australia, and I was heavy. I was like, losing a lot of blood, and I went saw my doctor,
Dominique Hind:and they were like, your, your,
Justine Armour:am I having? Why am I having a no, I'm conflating the two. Sorry, I want to go back. I'm going to go back. I'm conflating two. I'm conflating two experiences. Because there were two, there were two er things. So, okay, two, er, yeah, that's why they were so, when you were so, went home, the blood, yeah. So I came, I went to Australia. Had a lovely time. But while I was there, I started having, like, waking up in the middle of night, and like, having, like, body aches and pains and things like that, and sweating in the middle of night. And I was like, oh, maybe I'm going through Perry or something like that, like waking up and just drenched and sweat. And then I went home to New York, and it was still happening. And it was like, now it's the middle of winter, and I'm still drenched in sweat in the middle of night. So and my then my I had a look at pain in my elbow that was now a pain in my wrist and pain in my shoulder. And I was like, everything hurt. So I went and saw my doctor. They took up. She was like, Yeah, look, well, I'm like, to Mexico. How dare you, ma'am. And so she took a blood test, and I went home to my apartment, and the next day, I get this call, and the doctor's like, are you somewhere private? It's like, well, that's not great. She's like, you've had an abnormal blood test. You need to go to the ER right away. And I was like, Well, I'm about to do a call. I was doing a like, writing programme to join my class and and so she's like, No, no, you. She's like, Are you short of breath? And I was like, Yes, but I'm and I'm out of shape, and she's like, Well, are you? And she's like, are you? What is she? Are you feeling light headed? Are you? And all these things, yes, are you I thought of, and she's like, have you tightness in your chest? And I was like, Yes, but I'm heartbroken now. I had all these other reasons for the things that she was explaining to me. Out what was going on my body. And when she's like, No, you need to go you've had a an abnormal blood test with my haemoglobin, my red blood count was low, like, a normal level for an adult, for a human, is 15. You know anything about blood? Yeah, a low level for a woman, when you menstruating, is 12. And I was at a 6.1 she says, to get into the fives, you can't live for more than a couple of days like you're on, you're about to have a heart attack. So I go, okay. She's like, I need you to walk very slowly to get into a card, and you need to not expend any energy. And I was like, okay, so I get my keys, and I leave, like the dog there, and I I leave all my things. I think I'm just going to go get an injection of blood or something. She's, I think she goes near to my blood transfusion. Go to the ER. I don't even know how to go to the hospital. Like, I've never like, I say, so I go to the ER. I'm calling my friend on the way to Brooklyn hospital, and she my friend, is like, don't go to Brooklyn hospital. Go to Manhattan. It's like, it's fine. I'm almost there. And anyway, you do not want to go to Brooklyn hospital. Yeah, that is a very good advice my friend gave me. But you did a war zone of horror, yeah? So it takes, you know, there, and so 36 hours later, two bags of blood in my arm. I'm sitting under fluorescent lights in a corridor in a cot where there's, like, you know, people in all kinds of strife wandering around my bed. And I was like, this is a rock bottom Yeah, I'm I'm employed. I'm 46 years old. I'm getting, I've got, who knows whose
Dominique Hind:blood is in me. And I think we had a joke about, can we actually just go and audition people, yeah, to see what blood type they are and what they do. I'm ready to adopt
Justine Armour:a blood donor. And I was, I was like, This is not good. Like, I've got myself okay. But also, at the time, I realised this is also a gift, because I had time to figure this out. Yes, I have incredible health insurance. I have, you know, me leans, yeah, that's it. So that was it. That was a moment where I was like, Okay, I gotta sitting in their Brooklyn hospital. Was like, this, is it? This? And I think you had worked so much, like, literally, you put work as your number one priority, yeah, all the time, like it always was your number one priority, yeah, to the point where I had a series of, you know, a husband and then a fiance, and then another relationship with people who worked were at my work. So, like, we it made it very convenient to have, you know, work be the central relationship. And these other people kind of witnessed me, witnessing me and validating me in it, yeah? So, yeah, it was, I'm I was unconscious to it, but, yeah, but I'm sure now, yeah, that you've taken a step back from that. You can see that and go, Yeah, work was literally where I filled my cup or everything. Yeah, it's also, I think about advertising. As you know, I was a creative kid, yeah, and, but I also was in a came up in a really blue collar family, and then I think a look around advertising, a lot of people come came from, not like wealthy middle class families, but like people, people who needed security while they also wanted to be creative. Yeah, and so I have a lot of affection and empathy and compassion for myself as needing that like I was trying I needed to have a creative life, and it was a way to have live a creative life, but also have, you know, security, yeah, yeah. And so yeah, I try not to beat myself up about the fact that I put it for first, because I think I always put myself my creativity first, yeah, yeah. And if you look at it like it was about your creativity and expressing your creativity, rather than it just all being about work, yes, yeah, definitely a good way of looking at it. But I'm, I think now that's even shifted again, and you yourself the thing that you are prioritising now, yeah, or what I allow it to be has to be more energising. Yeah, it can't take more than it gives, and I think that's a great thing. It can't take more than it is, because otherwise it's just, you just end up depleted, yeah, or in Brooklyn hospital, which with someone a year later. But you know, so, you know, I didn't straight away, but yeah, she's getting it, and
Dominique Hind:you so this, this next one. I mean, I know we have, sort of, we've spoken about this personally, but you know, you nearly being in your 50s, nearly, nearly, and the whole societal pressure of kids. Or no kids? Yeah, you've had, you know, there have been a lot of comments or even just judgments on you not having kids. How have you managed that? You know, internally, yeah, and, you know, I don't know whether it's made pieces right word, but how have you, you know, backed your
Justine Armour:your choices, um, you know, I think the greatest gift my mom ever gave me was she was the one who said, Don't do it. And it took all of the pressure away. Because, you know, the people pleaser and me would have done if they if they wanted me to have kids. My parents said to me that they thought that would be a good like, I'd miss out on something if I didn't have them, I would have always felt like it was important to do it. But my mom, when I was in my 20s, I think she might have even been a little bit drunk. Yeah, she's like, don't do it. She didn't even smoke. This is me. This is my impression about like, don't do it. She goes live your life. And so I honestly, it was a huge gift to me. Yeah. And back to the pressure and the criticism. Something I learned recently is you'll only take internalised criticism from someone else as as much as you believe it, yeah, to be true. And so I think there was a period, maybe in my most fertile years, where I I felt like some internal judgement about not doing it, like a sort of selfishness, or a sort of I'm gonna or a fear that I was gonna miss out on something, you know, profound or Yeah, like washing, picking up after them constantly, yeah, or, but, like, what am I going to live do everything from living for myself? Like, how selfish Am I not to do this? Yeah, when and what am I? Where am I going to get my meaning from? Yeah, you know. But as I've gotten older, I've got past that window. I have absolutely no self judgement about it. I feel like it was a really good decision for me, yeah, and I have amazing relationships with kids that I you know, in my life, and
Dominique Hind:like, Yeah, I think Hallie would come and live with you in New York tomorrow. They're
Justine Armour:all coming. They're all coming. They're all going to London now, rather than New York. And I just have a lot of joy around them. I think I was, I was at the time, and, you know, I've been in relationships with people who I I could see they would going to be a great parent, yeah, and I know that they've, you know, exes are our great parents, but I didn't believe and trust that they would be a great partner to me in their parenting. And so I just I knew I was some there was something about honouring myself and taking care of myself that that made me, helped me make those that decision and be really kind of, you know, and really own it. But, yeah, I've also been moments you meet a great kid and you're like, I've been called out one of those. But I don't know, I'm also having a great time. So I think it's good to be, look, we've got, there's so many different ways that you can live your life as a woman, and there's probably not enough examples of happy, self assured, you know, kind of relaxed, powerful women in culture that don't have kids. And I'm, like, grappling with this, with this question, and so I'm happy to talk about it, because I'm genuinely happy in my life. Yeah, and you know what
Dominique Hind:you are the when I saw you today, literally, like, an hour ago, it was the best that I have seen you looking in, I don't even know how many years, and it's, you know, just telling that you are, you just seem yourself. Yeah,
Justine Armour:it's really true. I'm honestly, like, really, in a very relaxed, happy place in my life, yeah, which is good, yeah.
Dominique Hind:No, you know what. It is, hard earned, but you have. The thing that I love is that you have spent the time working on you and understanding you, you haven't hidden from it. You haven't, you know, that year that you had off, you actually did that work so that you wouldn't fall into those same work patterns. Find the relationship work too much, you know, forget everything and just get back into that, that, yeah, you know, it's, it's amazing to see the difference in where you were versus, you know, where you are now.
Justine Armour:Yeah, thank you. I it even
Dominique Hind:from last year, yeah, if you look at where you were last year to now, like, it's an amazing difference, yeah,
Justine Armour:and I don't know what, I don't know what happened. And in that time that I think I've just kind of, I've gotten like, you know, like we've talked about before, about leadership, I've just gotten comfortable in it. Yeah, no, I'm single. I was as, you know, as we've been friends for a really long time, relationship to relationship to relationship. Like, you know, I've barely had any time off between relationships that I've been in, jobs, jobs, jobs, job. Barely had more than two weeks off in my whole career. And I've been single for a lot the last couple of years, few years, and at the beginning was very uncomfortable. Kind of dependent tendencies really needed to see have somebody there validating me in my domestic life and the same person validating me in my work life. I needed that mirror, and I have learned that I to be my that mirror to myself, and that's all that I need. Yeah, like that, like that, like you said, the reflection and the time that I took in that year to, like, really sit with all this shit about myself, like, really kind of, like, get comfortable with it, and kind of fall in love with myself, and be like, have so much compassion for the ways that I was And the decisions that I made and, and even the stuff that's, like, so awful and painful and hurtful, like, kind of getting okay with that, and, yeah, like, you know, it's, it is, I'm a human being. I'm not perfect, and I'm, you know, and you actually seem at peace with it, like we should, you know, we were talking about it before, just being able to let it be or just be comfortable and not taking it on. Yeah, and it is like that is, I think the biggest difference in you this time around, when I've seen you, is you are calm. Yeah, you are just calm. You're calm in your decisions. You're calm in the way that you are straight off the plane. Hair looks like an old rat. No, it does. Sounds amazing. Yeah, this is, like the level of comfort that I have must have right now, the fact that I'm wearing Jean, Jean's an old t shirt, and he's getting me, yeah, hilarious.
Dominique Hind:Now, like we are, we talk, we talk a lot about doing life the way that we our way, and that idea means different things to different people. What does that look like for you now and heading towards you getting to 50?
Justine Armour:You know, I think it's always been about, we talked about this in the car, so wish we'd been able to record some of the car conversation on the way over here. But freedom has always been, I don't know why. I think again, it's their oldest child with parents that were like, super like, I felt like they were, yeah, they were incredibly strict, a lot of surveillance, not really a lot of freedom. And like, as soon as I could, I, you know, I'm, like, I wasn't allowed to, you know, the teens in our teen years, where you're sort of, you know, hormonally wired to sort of separate from the pack that wasn't available to me. So, you know, my family, we socialise with family, and I was in the pack. I was, like, forced to stay in the pack. So it freedom has always been, yeah, a very important value to me. Freedom is a big one, yeah. And so freedom everything I've been, you know, in my career, seeking, kind of these different positions and financially in different like getting myself into a position where I'm, I'm not account not, I'm not stuck anywhere, you know. And I'm not forced to do something I don't want to be doing. I'm not forced, you know. I'm not and I not trapped, yeah? And I think, yeah, I'm in a point now, and I'm at a point now where I'm, I'm not even accountable to my a partner, yeah, you know, and I'm about to take this job, um, it's in London, and I was, we were saying before, I'm gonna put all my stuff in storage, and I'm gonna live out of a bag for a year and just see where in where I'm gonna want to live, see that places and be amazing. And I think the, I mean, we talked about freedom, but we also talked about simplicity and, like, just simplifying and getting rid of the stuff. Like, I think the what the pearl of wisdom that you said was, I'm going to go through everything in my apartment, and if I look at it and ask myself, would I buy this today? And I say, No, I'm going to get rid of it absolutely. And it inspired me to go through my house, yeah, and I've got a lot of crap in my house, like there's way too much biggest house, yeah, in the world, and it's full of things. It's not the biggest, but it is, yeah.
Dominique Hind:He's not but I am going to go through my house and go, would I buy this again and then just get rid of it? Yeah, yeah. Except the problem is he would buy everything. And also I feel so bad because I'll have to recycle everything that will stay under my stairs in these recycling package but that's what I'm going to do. I loved it, like the freedom and the simplicity, because it's just like we just all accumulate this stuff and just stuff that weighs you down. Well, you end up
Justine Armour:taking care of it, you know? Yeah, we were saying before, like, you end up that your job now is to sort of maintain all the stuff and clean all the stuff and get it fixed. And I don't know that's not freedom, to me. That's definitely not free. I've realised, like, the only thing that's really stopping me from being fully free, it's like, I meant in New York back there, with all my things in it, I've got to think about what they're what I'm going to do with it all, you know, I think
Dominique Hind:the other thing, and I don't know about you, but the fires in LA really hit me, because there were so many people who had accumulated all of this stuff that they loved, that they maintained, that They looked after, and it was literally gone within seconds, and they they couldn't do anything about it. And, you know, I thought how it's, like, absolutely devastating, but also how freeing being able to start from scratch with out the baggage of, yeah, everything that you've accumulated.
Justine Armour:Yeah. I mean, obviously, if you're in a point in your life where home is really is so is crucial to you know you're emotionally where you are, like, there's been times in my life where I'm like, it really matters that my home feels like a sanctuary and and it depends what's going on in life, or different pressures and Things like that. But if you're feeling powerful and relaxed, and it doesn't matter so much what the physical environment is then, yeah, but I think there have been times in my life where that would have been traumatic and absolutely not something I could, yeah, cope with. But I think it is. You do get to the point, though, where you go, Okay, what do I actually need right now? And you know, when you're approaching 50, this is when you do start asking those questions, how can I be a bit freer? How can I simplify things? How can I actually have the time to do the stuff that I want to be doing? Yeah, rather than maintaining stuff? Yeah? Oh. Anyway,
Dominique Hind:it's, it's a big thing. So the industry and the advertising industry that we've grown up in is full on. It is very negative, because we get no so often, like so often we present ideas and it's no, no, no, no, no looking back, what's been the best strategy for managing stress and staying grounded?
Justine Armour:For me, it would be appreciating the no for what it is actually being okay, being not having a narrative that the No is the wrong answer. Yeah, right. And so all we talked about this before all pain, I realised all pain is comes from wishing against reality and in me and I and when, when I can see the situation and has as having value in itself, then I don't, I can, I can flow with it. Yeah, and, and one of an example would be probably the best piece of work I ever made was, I don't know, 12 years ago I was a winding Kennedy. I made a Super Bowl. Sorry, I want to go back. Probably the best piece of work I ever did was 12 years ago, winding Kennedy. I made with friends, with a team campaign for Old Spice my and it was like, really famous, and did really well. And I've talked about this with my teams ever since, because we got briefed on that in January, um, we, we, I don't even, couldn't even tell you how many rounds after rounds after rounds of creative, creative development we were in. We were, I think, in our third batch of research, like campaigns that got killed in research before that spot was written and and we made it. We shot it in September of that year. It we're in post through the end of the year. It shipped in December, and it's a great story of because all the other scripts that we wrote which we thought were great and would have, yeah. Would have been, could have been good, would have got made. And what they did was they helped us write a way better thing. And all the experience and the learning that we had, all those failures and all those disappointments, led to the best thing I have probably ever been involved in. And so it's just a really good example to me that I share with people, it's like, you don't know this no might actually be leading to a bigger, a better yes and and often it does, you know, and we wouldn't have got this group Bigger, bigger client. If that smaller client hadn't said no to us, we might have not had this Super Bowl opportunity. If this other thing was, you know, taking up our time. Yeah. And so I just always feel like there's a better whenever I get a No, it means, if I'm looking there's something bigger that's better coming. Yeah, I definitely
Dominique Hind:agree with that. Can you just touch on the pain? Reference the pain? What did you say? Pain is a reflection?
Justine Armour:Pain is comes from wishing against reality. Yes, and, and we have a narrative that this thing that's happening shouldn't be happening. Yeah? This person shouldn't be talking to me like this. That client shouldn't have said, No, this budget shouldn't have been halved,
Dominique Hind:and friends should have been annoying. Yeah? All the yes, my husband shouldn't be insisting on this, you know. And if you can just embrace like, take that narrative out of it, and embrace the challenge or the sort of thing that you're that you're being given, the challenge that you're being given as the gift and as the thing that's supposed to happen and welcome it and go, like, what is going to happen through me, from this, from this thing that I wasn't expecting, you can do it with with joy. You can, you can handle it with joy, yeah, but I think it's like, when it's when you've got an energy of like, that's it shouldn't be happening and you're angry, which is really fear, because you don't know how to handle the situation. And, you know, and like, just ease into it and be like, Okay, I love this weird turn of events. Yeah? How fun, yeah. And I think it's all just that mind shift, yeah, you know, you just need to try and look at the things you can control rather than the things you can't. Yeah, as soon as you start to focus on that, it does help to spark that joy and start to, you know, push you in a in a different direction. Yeah,
Justine Armour:that's right. And just whatever you're dealing with stress, stressing about things that that aren't going the way you men wanted them to, isn't helping anything. No, it's almost been creating your energy in your body, yeah, everyone else feels it, yeah. Then like, you know what, let's we'll answer all with this crazy shit.
Dominique Hind:How do you when the going gets tough, stay in that mindset of, you know, this will be or that no is getting to a yes,
Justine Armour:it helps to have people around you that share, like, that energy with you and that you're, you're in agreement that that's how things, that's how we are because, like, then you're, you know, because of nature, like we've got, you know, we're wired to to sort of, you know, like be looking out for threat, yeah, so. But having a, having a team of people around you who are committed to joy and committed to this is hilarious and stupid, and holding you to that, I think, is really helpful, yeah, okay, Joy. I love, I love the word joy. It's one of my favourite words in the world
Dominique Hind:at this point in your life and career. What does Joy actually mean to you? Oh,
Justine Armour:that's a good one. I think what it means to me, it's a crucial energy to the end. And I think it's again, it's like something you cultivate through appreciation, through gratitude, through like this, looking at your life with with, you know, thankfulness, yeah, even the stuff that's hard and so you can walk around in joy, even when you're in the hardest, you know, stuff that you've got going through the hardest stuff with your life. Yeah, and it's, it's, I'm realising it more and more as I'm getting older. It's like my health relies on me, mostly living in that energy and walking around in that energy, and walking around my life with eyes and a heart of appreciation. And it takes the other thing I realise, if I don't take regular scheduled like break. From the work that I'm doing all the time. And I last year, I again, didn't, yeah, I didn't do it. I've worked all the way through, didn't take a vacation. And I got to the end of the year, and I was, like, kind of miserable, and I realised I need to schedule breaks, and I need to, like, consciously be cultivating that energy, because I'll just get sucked into the doing, if I if I don't, yeah, so I had a co worker once, actually, that he did every 10 weeks. He would go five weeks off, five days off the grid. Wow, so and he had figured out his rhythms needed. He go 10 weeks on, really hardcore, 10 weeks on five days off. But if he was doing his five days off are, like, uncontactable, wow. And it was so intentional about using those five days and he come back on, yeah. And I think I need to work out what my rhythms are, I guess, or something would be, I guess it would be something similar, yeah, 10 weeks on, five days off. It's actually a really, really nice way of thinking about it, yeah.
Dominique Hind:How do you stay open to new experiences and personal growth?
Justine Armour:I think it's easy for me because I don't have a lot of people dragging on my time. Yeah, and I don't have a lot of responsibilities, and I don't really have a lot of there's not really a lot of judgement around me, around how I use my personal time. So honestly, it's that, like I, I'm my whole life is about doing whatever the fuck I want at any time. And, you know, following. Sorry, thanks. I don't know. I think the thing is, I part of taking this job, yeah, is also I realise I'm very comfortable in my little bird cage. Like I said, I'm on the Promenade. I look out at the city and people walking past, and I don't have to leave my house to feel like I'm in the city, but I'm not. I'm like, I'm very like, much an introvert and homebody too. So this job is like kicking me out into the world. By the way, my my lease is up. My landlord won't let me renew or go like, month to month. So all of that is a gift pain. It's a fucking pain, but it's a gift. It's pushing me out into the world, yeah, and at a time when I need it so absolutely, yeah, I'm open, I guess, yeah,
Dominique Hind:which is good if you could go back and give your younger self one piece of advice, knowing everything you do now. Yeah, what advice would it be?
Justine Armour:I wouldn't have been able to hear it, but something along the lines, you're you're enough. You don't need a husband or a partner telling you that you're enough or validating you. I think I wish I got really, really comfortable in my own in my own company and in my own skin at a younger age, because I feel like I missed out on so many years of being relaxed also being you as well. Yeah, sure, because, you know, the early stages being a people pleaser, yeah, striving for something everyone out, like being something for everyone else, rather than true to you. Yeah, and I wish that I just been able to understand that a little bit earlier. I think I would have had a more fun, more years of fun, and would have I would have had more sort of the self care angle would have been, yeah, more prevalent in the beginning, yeah,
Dominique Hind:and you and I have been friends through so many different stages of Our lives. And what role in general, does friendship play to you?
Justine Armour:I mean, it's huge, because my family is in Queensland, yes, and my life is in New York City, and it's, it's kind of everything my, it's my it's my family around the world are the friends that I have around the world, yeah, and that said, I'm, I don't like, I guess there. I've got a handful of friends in New York. I like, I spend a lot of time with the people that are in my sort of physical in the village, you know, that are like, right there. But,
Dominique Hind:yeah, no, it takes like, four texts me at
Justine Armour:three in the morning. So I'm just like, are you there? Are you alive? Hi, what's happening? You need to have my mom on and she can tell you. She can just talk shit about how bad I am staying in touch
Dominique Hind:now, I'm just like, have we found a good blood don't. Yeah, like, yeah. What can you send me the photos of them? Yeah? No,
Justine Armour:I appreciate it. I do appreciate it. I'm glad, because there's been moments where I've been like, if I died, no one would know that my body was decaying for like, weeks. So I appreciate that. But, yeah, it's everything, but it's also I, I'm the sort of person that I I might go and not be super present while when, yeah, we're separate, but then when we're together, it's like no time, yes, and I'm honestly like that with a lot of my friends. Yeah. So intimacy is I really care about getting in the meat. You know, I don't want to have light conversations with people. So he tried to have, like, a heavy conversation by text. And then it was like, I'm coming out. We'll talk about
Dominique Hind:it. Let's talk about it in front of a camera. And yeah, I know it's funny, isn't it? Because you do. I was listening to something that said the other day, friendships are really based on one of the key pillars is proximity. Yeah, and it is when you are able to pick up the phone, walk next door, go wherever the friendships are a lot easier to nurture, yeah, but you do have to invest the time to make sure that they're the ones that you do really care about. Yeah, are there for the long term? And I
Justine Armour:will say, you know, obviously I've moved to Portland now, then to New York, and I moved to London. I was, I've been quite scared about, yeah, because I don't have any close friends in London, yeah, and I'm a little scared about what that is, but I've also realised I've made amazing friends in New York. I've had incredible friends in in Portland. Yeah, you and Jussie and I are, like, as tight as ever. And I will say, I think one of the fears that we have, like moving away, is that we won't have people, or we'll lose touch with our with our old friends. Yeah, and it's honestly not true, like it's, it's a, it's a narrative that maybe stops us from taking these bold leaps. But I can say I've got beautiful, like, long, like, lifelong friendships that I see. You know, physically, we'll see each other, you know, once a year, yeah. I mean, we hang out like, Yeah, but, but, but it's when you've got those, like, really strong foundations with people. It means you can fly around, yeah, you always come back.
Dominique Hind:Apparently, it has a study that says that to have deep, foundational friendship circles or a relationship with someone, you need 200 hours of face time with them. Which I was like, wow, that's a lot of time, yeah, particularly if you're living across the world. But, you know, I think because of our history, we probably had way more, oh, my god, 200 hours. Yes, just in the cup of tea, a lunch has put in way more hours of that absolutely okay, so final question, so it has been amazing and an absolute joy to do this first one with you both going, what are we doing? We've covered everything, career highs, relationship highs, the learnings of life. And I do really love the pain coming from you looking, you know the reality? Yeah, pushing against reality. Pain is pushing against reality. Like I love that, because it 100% is exactly what it is. And for me, the one thing that I'm taking from getting towards 50 is that it isn't about slowing down. It's actually about leaning in, questioning more, making sure you're doing the right things, making sure that you yourself know and are in touch and in love with you as a person, because that's where it does actually come from. And it's all about finding a little bit more joy, a little less stress, and just questioning what the purpose is for you moving forward. And before we wrap up, there's one last question, just one last question, if, what would your advice be? If you could try something fun, bold, or something that shakes you out of autopilot before I'm 50. What would it be?
Justine Armour:I want to say, take a solo trip. I don't know why that just came to I think that would be, you know, like, unlike a, you know, a big one, yeah, you know, not four days. You know, at a day's bar, yeah? Taking a travelling solo and and going somewhere, being and having, like a sort of almost a spiritual experience, is, it's, it's incredibly powerful to be, to see yourself in out in the world, you know, without all the responsibilities of taking care of other people, doing everything on your own time. Yeah? I think
Dominique Hind:being able to have the conversations or talk to someone or, you know, just Yeah, it is. It's a that's a great one. Shake yourself out of your out of your comfort zone, absolutely. Yeah. Back to to what you were just saying before. I think not, you know, in this, in this investigation, yeah, what I've taken out of our conversation just now is like the appreciation of the of the moment you're in is so crucial. Yeah, all this stuff that's happening, all of these things that you're coming into awareness of you never would have had in your turning 40, turning 30, definitely not. This is fucking beautiful, like you're all of this stuff, of life, all these like relationships and kids and everywhere that you've seen yourself and all the roles that you played like they're just giving you such a all this wisdom, you know, and you're getting to kind of bring it all together into the next phase of your life. So I think it's cool. Yeah, it is. I can't wait to hear all the other conversations you have. It's, you know what? It's when you go, wow, 50, that's like, you know, is it halfway through my life? It is something that it does make you take stock and go, Yeah, I've got to make sure that I am actually living my all and living the life that I want to live. Yeah, because you don't know when your time's up, yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. Well, thank you, Dale Dahl, it was a pleasure to hull. It was lovely to collect you, especially since you just come off the plane, and I just like, took you away, whipped you to the studio, only for you. But thank you very much. Thank you buck. I'm nearly 50. Is all about embracing this next chapter, finding more joy, shaking things up and making sure we hit 50 on our terms. Today, we've learned that midlife isn't about slowing down, it's about getting clearer on what really matters. If you love this chat, make sure you subscribe wherever you get your podcast, share it with a friend and keep the conversation going with me on social media. But before we go, take Justine's try that before your 50 tip. And why don't you book a solo trip? I'm definitely going to be doing it. See where it takes. You have fun. Because fuck, we're nearly 50. But isn't it amazing? You.