Fearne Cotton In Conversation

Fearne Cotton: Breaking Free from the Need to Please

For over two decades, Fearne Cotton was one of Britain's most beloved broadcasters. But in 2015, exhausted from trying to please everyone, she asked herself a radical question: what do I actually want?

Now, the Sunday Times bestselling author and founder of the Happy Place podcast—featuring guests from Hillary Clinton to Brené Brown—returns with her most personal book yet: Likeable: How I Broke Free from the Need to Please.

Join Fearne for an unflinching conversation about the cost of people-pleasing. She'll share her own experiences of morphing into who others needed her to be, suppressing her feelings, and staying quiet in the hope of being liked—and what happened when she finally stopped. Drawing on her journey from burnout to building a community of over 120 million podcast listeners on her own terms, Fearne explores why women are conditioned to prioritise likability over authenticity, and how we can break free from the “good girl” trap.

This isn't a wellness workshop; it's an honest reckoning. If you've ever dimmed yourself to fit in or apologised when you had nothing to be sorry for, this is your permission slip to stop performing. You can’t please everyone. So, let’s stop trying.