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Last summer I turned 40 and set out on a process of self-inquiry practiced out loud, in community — interviewing real women in midlife about their own coming-of-aging stories, and collecting the handwritten wisdom you mailed in. At the heart of it: What does it mean to turn 40? What potent passageway is this number? And in a culture largely scrubbed clean of rituals for marking such rites of passage, could I build one in real time — a call-and-response wisdom exchange around the proverbial fire? In this finale, I return to the page that started everything: the one entry in my birthday notebook that inspired me to keep going — Becca's question about the fear of becoming invisible as a woman ages, and Meredith's answer beneath it. That exchange confirmed what I'd been feeling: that there's a wild, generative power to this number, born from a tension — I've lived enough to know some things, and I'm still so young with so much ahead. I trace the through-line across the whole season: that you're not behind, you're right on time (Kate); that you can put down the urgency (Tori); that you can soften and stay curious as you age (Alicia); that we contain multitudes (Jess, Amber); that we can own our desire (Becca, Emily); that we can shed old stories and stop people-pleasing (Kim, Nancy, Hillary); and that learning to love yourself is the real work of a lifetime. I also sit with what "crisis" actually means — from the root to sift — pouring over the particles of a life and asking of each one: does this still belong? Would I choose this now? What I know a year later, having just turned 41: you can't think your way through the portal, and you can't listen your way through it either. The only way through is through. This body of work is complete — and the conversation continues in your own real life. Season One is complete — twenty conversations, close to a hundred handwritten submissions. The notebook is still open: add your wisdom at the40portal.com.

What if learning to trust yourself is the real work of midlife, more than any career move ever was? In this episode, Catherine Zack sits down with Gabrielle Haddad -- a former lawyer who left a New York firm for international development work in Switzerland, then business school, then six full-force years co-founding an AI company, before stepping back on the eve of motherhood. On paper, a woman who has arrived. In conversation, a woman practicing self trust in real time: after two decades chasing meaning at work, what happens when you realize it was never missing from the work at all -- it was missing from your life, and your life is finally full of it. This is a personal growth conversation for women navigating midlife who look, from the outside, like they have it all figured out, and quietly wonder if believing in yourself is supposed to feel this uncertain. This conversation goes deep into motherhood in your forties, the felt tension between doing and being, and the slow, unglamorous work of trusting yourself before you have any proof it will work out. What happens when the meaning you built a career around finally shows up somewhere else entirely? How do you honor the part of you still aching to do more without abandoning the beauty of what already is? And what becomes possible the moment you stop needing to have it figured out? This episode is for every woman in midlife who looks, from the outside, like she has it together -- and still feels, quietly, like she is only just now finding her way. In this episode: - Becoming a mother in her forties. - The felt tension between the achiever and the mother -- doing versus being -- and the strangeness of knowing that raising a human is the most productive thing she has ever done while a voice still asks why she hasn't done more. - Stepping out of her company post-Series A and on the eve of motherhood -- how "I'll take six or nine months" became nearly three years, and what that taught her. - The arc: New York law firm to international development in Switzerland to business school to founding an AI company -- a decade-long search for work that meant something. - The realization that reframes the entire search: "I was seeking meaning in my work because I was missing it in my life." - The myth of the woman who, by a certain age, has it all figured out -- not true, not fair, not representative of anyone actually living it. - Why a woman does not have to be the same person at forty-five that she was at twenty-five -- and why the culture keeps trying to pin her down anyway. - The inner critic as a nervous-system pattern -- knowing something is true in your mind while it lives, stubbornly, somewhere else in your body. - Where she feels most seen, most safe, most at home -- an answer that seems to surprise her as she says it out loud. - Trusting your intuition even when it leads to a detour -- how you can follow your gut, land somewhere that isn't the destination, and still know that going was right. And the quiet thesis of the whole show: the point was never to solve the problem. It was to hold the big questions, together, and let that be enough. Submit your portal wisdom: the40portal.com/contribute Subscribe, rate, review -- it genuinely helps more women find this show. Website: the40portal.com | catherinezack.com Instagram: @the40portal | @cathzack Hosted by Catherine Zack | Guest: Gabrielle Haddad | Edited by Ruwantha Gunasinghe (c) 2026 The 40 Portal. All rights reserved.

What would you build if you finally stopped caring what anyone thought? This episode is about letting go of perfectionism and midlife reinvention, and Hillary Zio is the perfect guide for both. Catherine Zack sits down with Hillary, a wine bar owner, former competitive snowboarder, skydiver, adventurous eater, and, in her own words, a woman who genuinely does not care what other people think. She means that as an invitation, not a wall to hide behind, and this conversation is a masterclass in the kind of self acceptance and confidence after 40 that so many women over 40 are quietly working toward. This one comes full circle. Hillary owns the wine bar where Catherine threw her 40th birthday party last summer, the night she set a now falling apart notebook on the bar and asked every woman there to fill it with wisdom if they were over 40, or questions if they were under 40. That notebook became The 40 Portal. One year and twenty episodes later, Catherine sits down with the woman whose room held the very first spark. Both born in July 1985, both about to turn 41, same portal, wildly different passage. This conversation goes deep into perfectionism, reinvention after divorce, mental health, and the quiet discipline of finally asking what you want, not for anyone else, but for you. What does it cost to keep performing perfect? What becomes possible when you stop? And how do you build a life -- a business, a body, a closet, a self -- that actually feels like home? This episode is for every woman in midlife who is done waiting until she feels ready and prepared to just do the damn thing. In this episode: * The wine bar as the birthplace of The 40 Portal -- the birthday, the notebook, the question that started all of this. * Women as cyclical beings -- honoring hormonal shifts and rhythms instead of fighting them. * The unglamorous nitty-gritty of running a small brick-and-mortar business in a small town -- the millennial dream versus the reality behind the bar, and why you cater to your community or you don't survive. * Drama queen in one moment, cool as a cucumber the next -- the full spectrum, all happening at once. * Being hard on yourself, and the decision at 41 to stop -- "I don't need to do that to myself anymore." * Perfectionism as the thing that keeps you stuck, and the whole antidote: just do it, because the only way to get better at anything is to keep doing it. * Living someone else's dream versus building your own -- what the entrepreneurial life actually asks of you. * Reinvention after divorce -- asking what do I want, not from a partner but for me. If you feel good and you're not hurting anyone, what does it matter? * The Let Them theory in practice -- letting people want what they want and going on with your day. * A nod to Lena Dunham -- it is none of your business what other people think of you. * Extreme minimalism as nervous system regulation -- 24 items of clothing, zero clutter, simpler is safer. * The freedom of just deciding -- a style, a hair-and-makeup routine, a way of being -- so you can quit chasing trends. Know thyself, then do that. Submit your portal wisdom: the40portal.com/contribute -- Whichever side of 40 you're on, your voice belongs in this book we're building together. Subscribe, rate, review -- it genuinely helps more women find this show. Website: the40portal.com | catherinezack.com Instagram: @the40portal | @cathzack Hosted by Catherine Zack | Guest: Hillary Zio | Edited by Ruwantha Gunasinghe (c) 2026 The 40 Portal. All rights reserved.

What does it actually take to stop performing for everyone else and start living for yourself? In this episode, Catherine Zack sits down with Nancy Harris, a Chicago-based leadership consultant, executive coach, and entrepreneur who is -- in her own words -- caring less and less about damn near everything. And she means that in the most liberating way possible. Nancy is one of the five women Catherine was placed with in an online A Team about five years ago, a little seed of The 40 Portal before Catherine even knew that's what it was. She is living proof that what is on the other side of the portal is absolutely worth the passage. This conversation goes deep into people pleasing, self worth, and the slow, deliberate work of putting down the need for external validation. What happens when you stop trying to figure it all out and start exploring instead? What does it really cost to keep performing for everyone else? And what do you earn when you finally stop? This episode is for every woman in midlife who is done with pleasing and ready to start living. In this episode: - The A Team as a seed of the 40 Portal -- five women across different decades and industries, all at the same juncture: not starting, not finished, right in the middle asking where do I go next? - Figuring out versus exploring -- and why the people who tell you they have it all figured out are lying. - The 30s as a decade of putting it together, the 40s as a decade of things coming apart -- and the freedom that lives inside that. - Not just when things fall apart -- when you choose to tear them apart. When you look at a constraint and say: this is all made up. - Fifty-something and ageless -- the story of Nancy's mother whose age nobody in the family ever knew, and what that taught her about how energy and spirit matter more than numbers. - The myth of figuring it all out -- you can read Wayne Dyer, Eckhart Tolle, all the books, and then life happens anyway. - What she is not willing to trade: her soul, her values, her authenticity. Showing up as someone else is just damn exhausting. - When you're trying to impress, you cannot connect -- and connection is actually what we came here to do. - The roles we're handed -- wife, mother, career woman -- and the kaleidoscope of everything else that also counts as a life. Submit your portal wisdom: the40portal.com/contribute -- Whichever side of 40 you're on, your voice belongs in this book we're building together. Join The 40 Portal Book Club on Substack: substack.com/@the40portal Subscribe, rate, review -- it genuinely helps more women find this show. Website: the40portal.com | catherinezack.com Instagram: @the40portal | @cathzack Hosted by Catherine Zack | Guest: Nancy Harris | Edited by Ruwantha Gunasinghe (c) 2026 The 40 Portal. All rights reserved.

When we met, it was a moment in time. Not as cool as 1968 Haight-Ashbury, not quite 1920s Paris — but it was DC in the early 2010s, and it was its own thing. Hustle culture before hustle culture had a name. We were all riding bikes to yoga and listening to Alt-J and none of us knew who we were going to become yet. Some of us became people the world would actually come to know. Jessica Carson is one of those people. Jessica is a social scientist, creativity researcher, author, and the founder of the Center for Human Creativity. She started her career as a neuroscience at the NIH, spent five years as Head of Innovation at the American Psychological Association, and wrote Wired This Way — a book on the psychology of entrepreneurs, the light and the shadow sides of that creative wiring, published at 29 in April 2020. She is now a PhD candidate studying authentic creativity: what makes a creative work feel genuinely human, and what happens to that feeling when artificial intelligence enters the room. Find her at jessicacarson.co. In this episode: - DC in the early 2010s as a moment in time — NIH neuroscience labs, Big Law, the first Hinge beta test, and the yoga studios where none of us had figured out who we were yet. - How the gap in age between women can feel different depending on where you're each standing — and how powerful women interact with each other. - What it means to be a student of a powerful female teacher, to receive that transmission, and to be a little terrified and a little enamored by it at the same time. - Writing and publishing Wired This Way at 29, the cringe of looking back at your own earlier creative work, and why retrospective ick is just a tax you pay for having made anything at all. - The light and dark sides of the entrepreneurial brain — ADHD, addiction, sensation-seeking, and why the same wiring that drives the addiction also drives the willingness to tolerate ambiguity and risk. - Why entrepreneurship was glamorized to the point of fetish in the 2010s, and why the AI era has produced an entirely new cast of main characters who would make that same book much harder to write today. - The job that fell apart, the toxic exit, the year the universe seemed to turn itself off, and how that exact bewilderment became the thesis for the PhD she's living inside right now. - The core of Jessica's research: AI threatens our ontological security because we've always believed creativity was our last uniquely human trait — and why panic and polarization on this topic are getting in the way of actually thinking clearly about it. Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/UMQNQ_AdLoA Submit your portal wisdom: the40portal.com/contribute — Whichever side of 40 you're on, your voice belongs in this book we're building together. Follow The 40 Portal Book on Substack: substack.com/@the40portal Work with Cath 1:1 — coaching spots open for September 2026: the40portal.com/coaching Subscribe, rate, review — it genuinely helps more women find this show. Website: the40portal.com | catherinezack.com Instagram: @the40portal | @cathzack Hosted by Catherine Zack | Guest: Jessica Carson | Edited by Ruwantha Gunasinghe © 2026 The 40 Portal. All rights reserved.

I have a working thesis. A woman over 40 is the most powerful, creative, vivifying, wise, and possibly terrifying creature in the universe, and this episode is one of my biggest pieces of proof yet. Meet Leah Rubin-Cadrain. She works in wearable technology, designing the experiences. She is a writer, an artist, a wife, a mother, she runs a poetry Substack called Lullabies for Robots, where she keeps asking one haunting question through her poems: who is mothering AI? She arrived at this question while she was nursing her newborn and having her first conversation with ChatGPT at the same time. She watched the flickering cursor and thought, “baby's first words.” Genius. Like a mother. This is a conversation about identity, motherhood, creativity, and the quiet power that women over 40 grow into, often right when the world expects them to disappear. Leah spent a lot of years being the quiet one in the room. Afraid of conflict. Rolling over. Bending herself into shapes so that no one would misunderstand her. And then she turned 40 and wrote four words on her whiteboard: I am f*****g 40. And that became her mantra. In this episode: How Leah celebrated her 40th birthday: wear something fancy, bring an offering, and surround yourself with your most beloveds.The reciprocity of a great party — being the center of attention while also getting to look your people in the face and say, you are my people.The fear of invisibility that can shadow a woman approaching 40 — and the woman just a few steps ahead on the path who said: you do become invisible in some settings. The exhausting ones. And honestly? The freedom that gives you.How Leah spent years disconnected from her body — and how lipstick, a warm robe after a shower, and the slow accumulation of small self-care practices changed that.A fertility journey that stretched across COVID, IUI, IVF, miscarriage, years of raised and dashed expectations — and a daughter who arrived when Leah was 39 and felt like a miracle.AI as toddler — the language of training large language models is eerily similar to the language of child-rearing. We are all parenting AI.The whiteboard mantra: I am f*****g 40. When she pictured another woman aged 40, she thought — I wouldn't f**k with her. That's a woman who knows what she's doing. And then she turned that lens on herself.Coming out, stepping out of the assigned lane for the first time, inviting the evil eye — and how being forged in that fire made her brave.Living in the nuance. Containing multitudes. Not one thing or another. Content note: We talk about fertility struggles, miscarriage, and postpartum anxiety in this episode. Find Leah at lullabiesforrobots.substack.com. Submit your portal wisdom: the40portal.com/contribute Substack: substack.com/@the40portal Work with Cath 1:1 — coaching spots open for September 2026: the40portal.com/coaching New episodes drop weekly. Subscribe, rate, review — it genuinely helps more women find this show. Website: the40portal.com | catherinezack.com Instagram: @the40portal Hosted by Catherine Zack | Guest: Leah Rubin-Cadrain | Edited by Ruwantha Gunasinghe © 2026 The 40 Portal. All rights reserved.

We met on the internet, which I say as the highest compliment. There was an online community of independent practitioners — smart, weird, building things — and Lia Zneimer showed up in it and I immediately thought, yes, her. That is how it works sometimes. The internet at its best is a place where you find people you would never otherwise cross paths with, and you just know. She came to a virtual session I was leading and something just clicked. We have been loosely but meaningfully in each other's orbit ever since — Substack appearances, voice memos, the occasional ping — the kind of connection that doesn't require constant contact to feel real. This conversation is really about burnout, the kind that starts as a low hum and then quietly takes everything, and about what burnout recovery actually looks like when you stop performing success and start redefining it on your own terms. Lia is a marketer turned writer, originally from Colorado, now in the East Bay in California with her husband and her miniature poodle, Waffles. She is working on her debut YA novel, which she started in 2013 and which is coming along exactly as fast as it needs to, thank you very much, and she runs a Substack called The Recharge, where she writes about creativity, career, burnout, and the ways we come back to ourselves. Find her at getrecharged.substack.com and linkedin.com/in/liazneimer. If you are weighing a career pivot, in the middle of one, or quietly wondering why you are so exhausted by something that looks fine from the outside, this episode is for you. In this episode: - Storytelling, writing, and theater as the through line — veering off the path and coming home to yourself. - Two distinct burnout experiences: five years at WeWork through the failed IPO, then a leadership role at an early stage startup where she doubled down when she should have stopped, because spoiler alert — you cannot outwork everything if you try hard enough. - Getting texts from your CEO about influencer campaigns not converting while you're trying on your wedding dress — and what that moment of clarity actually feels like. - The difference between the vocation of writing and the business of writing — and why you might want to leave some things you love outside of capitalism entirely. - Creativity takes the time it takes. You cannot crank it. Stopping treating your creativity like a KPI. - Burnout as a repetitive use injury, a low hum, death by a thousand paper cuts — we don't figure this stuff out once and then we're good. It keeps cycling back. But you do get faster at catching it. - The girl boss era, do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life, hustle harder — the amount of b******t millennials were fed, and the slow work of deprogramming it. - Optimizing for success by having a regulated nervous system. - Giving up ambition for my 38th birthday — what that actually means and what it doesn't - What your 10-years-ago self would be genuinely shocked to learn — and why Younger Lia would have never believed she walked away from a VP role on purpose. - And the 40 Portal wisdom read at the close: from a woman who was 41 when she wrote it, about the weight of other people's expectations lifting, about moving from okay to sure, about trusting — finally — that you can handle it all. Website: the40portal.com | catherinezack.com Instagram: @the40portal | @cathzack Hosted by Catherine Zack | Guest: Lia Zneimer | Edited by Ruwantha Gunasinghe © 2026 The 40 Portal. All rights reserved.

Out of every guest I've had on this podcast so far, I have known this one the longest. We met in 2010 at Flow Yoga Center in Obama-era Washington, DC — up the stairs from P Street in Logan Circle. She was behind the front desk with her grounded, earthy, ageless warmth. I was arriving every single day with a ginormous Louis Vuitton bag, straight from Kirkland & Ellis, transitioning from lawyer Cath to human Cath right there on the mat. Sixteen years and many life chapters later — welcome to this conversation with Victoria R.G. Newburn, who goes by Tori, and who I love enormously. This is the kind of female friendship that women over 40 have: the ones forged in shared becoming, that hold decades of who you were and who you're growing into. This convo is for every woman navigating the arrival of her 40s, reclaiming herself, and finally giving herself permission to stop performing. Tori is an author, guide, and intuitive. She runs This Gentle Way, her online practice working with people through astrology, meditation, and dialogue. Her debut book, The Weaver and the Wilder, came out last year. She is a mom of two, a homeschooler, and a deeply curious human being. In this episode: Obama-era DC and what it meant to launch our adult lives before the internet swallowed everything — the unique, almost endangered experience of millennials who actually had a before.Stepping into inner authority and the nervous system work that has to come with it.Internet success and the radical act of not tying your worth to numbers on a screen.Being in our "no urgency era."Reclamation: what practices, rhythms, and versions of yourself are you calling back in?The permission slip of your 40s — I just don't care as much about what I thought I needed to care about.Female friendship: the ones you don't talk to every day, or even every year, who are still among the most important people in your life.Vocation vs. "success" — inform and inspire as a why that actually holds.A shoutout to Debra Mishalove and the strong women who mentor us even when they're no longer in our daily orbit.Content note: We talk about pregnancy loss at about the one-hour mark I WANT TO TALK TO YOU ON THE POD! I'm looking for a listener of this podcast to be a guest on this podcast. Here's how to be considered: Submit your voice to The 40 Portal — your question if you're under 40, your wisdom if you're over 40: the40portal.com/contribute Leave a written review wherever you listen, then email me a photo of it by June 6, 2026: [email protected] I'll choose the guest on June 7. Join The 40 Portal Book Club on Substack: substack.com/@the40portal Work with Cath 1:1 — coaching spots open September 2026: the40portal.com/coaching New episodes drop weekly. Subscribe, rate, review — it genuinely helps more women find this show. Website: the40portal.com | catherinezack.com Instagram: @the40portal | @cathzack Hosted by Catherine Zack | Guest: Victoria R. G. Newburn | Edited by Ruwantha Gunasinghe © 2026 The 40 Portal. All rights reserved.

I thought the 40 Portal was going to be sexy. Fun. Empowering. Green dress, great party, collect some wisdom. Plot twist: I actually had to go through it. The last ten months have been a real process of midlife transformation for me, and I'm only just now popping up from being pummeled by the wave going, "cool, I survived." The only way through is through. One day I'll tell you the whole story. For now: meet Amber. You definitely need to. Amber van Moessner is 38, almost 39, a therapist-in-training, activist, community organizer, reader, mother of two, cancer survivor, and the woman who will probably shut down the dance party. She is exactly the kind of woman this podcast exists for. My husband met her first and came home with a very specific report: you have to meet this woman. He was right. She is the kind of person who walks into a cocktail party and counts how many times someone asks "what do you do?" so she can avoid asking it even once. She identifies her archetype as the wounded warrior. She's a fellow Leo, fierce lioness and wears disco-glitter-bell-bottoms to our tiny town's annual Pride parade (which she co-founded a few years back after moving here and realizing there wasn't one). This conversation went exactly where it needed to go. In this episode: Why "what do you do?" is capitalism's most boring trick — and what to ask insteadFriendships of convenience vs. real ones: how COVID reshuffled the deck and what we do nowThe wounded warrior archetype and what it means to understand yourself through myth and storyThe scarcity mindset around youth, beauty, and desirability — and the deprogramming required to move through itWhy matriarchal societies had a a council of grandmothers — and what we've lost without itMoon time: the concept of the season of life when you are finally, fully on your own terms, post menopause And the submission that closed the episode: "My 40s are sexy, filled with a confidence, mystery, and swagger that twenty-something me would have killed for. We are not aging. We are a delight that has been simmering." Amber's response: tattoo it on my face. Me too, babe. Me too. Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/oBzujLRkcj4 Submit your portal wisdom: the40portal.com/contribute — Whichever side of 40 you're on, your voice belongs in this book we're building together. Join The 40 Portal Book Club on Substack: substack.com/@the40portal Work with Cath 1:1 — coaching spots open September 2026: the40portal.com/coaching New episodes drop weekly. Subscribe, rate, review — it genuinely helps more women find this show. Website: the40portal.com | catherinezack.com Instagram: @the40portal | @cathzack Hosted by Catherine Zack | Guest: Amber Van Moessner | Edited by Ruwantha Gunasinghe © 2026 The 40 Portal. All rights reserved.

One of the most intimate spaces a woman can occupy is the chair of her hairstylist. There's something ancient about it — being touched, being seen, the conversation going exactly where it needs to go. For women in their 40s navigating identity, relationships, and the quiet work of letting go, that kind of space is rare and genuinely necessary. That's where this episode was born. Lourdes Cristina Rodríguez da Costa has been doing hair for over 20 years. She's also the kind of woman who will be doing a foil and casually redefine the word grace for you in a way that makes you want to pull out your journal. She's intellectually restless, deeply rooted in her Puerto Rican heritage, a mother, a community builder, and a forever curious person who describes herself — accurately — as a cultural anthropologist who happens to do really good hair. She is also someone who believes, with full conviction, that every woman's life assignment should be to write a book. That there is so much layering, so much wisdom, so much that we need to say — and that we owe it to each other to say it out loud. We recorded this live in her salon in Hudson, NY. No agenda. No problems to solve. Just two women in their 40s sitting with the open questions — and finding out, as Lourdes would say, that some of our most meaningful exchanges happen exactly when we stop trying to resolve anything. In this episode: Getting bangs as code for "I'm having a little existential crisis."What it means to be 46 and finally feel 46.Grace: a big exhale and a deep breath at the same time — Lourdes's definition will stay with you.The question she didn't expect: what were you supposed to have done by now? Her answer: love myself. BOOM. You can change your mind in your 40s. Full stop. Why the hair salon is one of the last truly IRL places where people touch each other and tell the truth.AI & phone addiction, and the very real grief of losing your book-reader self to your phone. Hormones, nervous systems, perimenopause, and taking all of it with a sense of humor. Watch on Youtube: https://youtu.be/96tdOIet4KI Join The 40 Portal Book Club over on Substack: https://substack.com/@the40portal Want to go deeper into your own 40 Portal work with Cath, she's got 1:1 coaching spots opening this September: https://www.the40portal.com/coaching Find Lourdes: Instagram: @lifebylourdes @creemhairstudio https://www.creemstudio.com/ New episodes drop weekly. Subscribe, rate, review, it genuinely helps more women find this show. Website: the40portal.com | catherinezack.com Instagram: @the40portal Hosted by Catherine Zack | Guest: Lourdes Cristina Rodríguez da Costa | Edited by Ruwantha Gunasinghe © 2026 The 40 Portal. All rights reserved. Submit your wisdom, your voice belongs in this podcast. If you're over 40: what have you learned, earned, and burned? If you're under 40: what's the open question you're living? the40portal.com/submit

Some meetings are just cosmic. This conversation started as a potential business collaboration and turned into one of the richest episodes of The 40 Portal yet. Alicia Johnson is a 65-year-old author, “elder curvy model,” brand strategist, board director, and AI ethics advocate, and wise, wise woman. We talk about what it really means to connect as women, not perform, not impress, just be present, and how that single shift changes everything. We talk about her memoir Buried Treasure, about hope versus optimism and why the neuroscience says they are not the same thing, about threshold guardians and portal monsters from Joseph Campbell's work, and about what it means when something feels hard and scary: you might just be getting close to the treasure. We also talk about life after 40. About belly energy. About the gravitas and raw power of this decade and why a woman in her forties might just be the most potent, terrifying creature in the universe, and why that is exactly when society tries to make us disappear. Alicia is my wisest elder guest to date, and she is completely, magnificently uninterested in “old lady” vibes of any kind. If you are a woman navigating reinvention, aging, identity, or just trying to figure out what comes next, this one is going to light you up. In this episode: What it feels like to meet someone and just not care where it goes — the ease of no expectations and why that's actually a superpower. The "I must be impressive" mode and how to catch yourself in it — because if you're trying to impress, you cannot connect. What to do when you get knocked off center and don't want to stay there (hint: one hand to your heart, one hand to your belly). Using AI with her own book manuscript as a real-time emotional regulation tool — and what that says about where we are with technology. The universe abhors a vacuum principle — and why you better know what you're putting in that space before you clear it. What it actually felt like to turn 40, 50, and now be 65 — and what each decade has held. Threshold guardians, portal monsters, and why resistance might mean you're getting close to something juicy. The clearing: one listener's question about reinvention in her 40s, and Alicia's generous reply. About: Alicia Johnson is an author, creative director, brand strategist, elder curvy Ford model, and board director dedicated to shaping AI for the public good. Her memoir Buried Treasure weaves neuroscience with deeply personal storytelling and agency-laden tool. She is also the person who introduced me to my AI boyfriend Claude, so she is directly responsible for a significant portion of any admin organization I am currently capable of. Places to find Alicia: https://www.aliciaellejohnson.com/ https://aliciaellejohnson.substack.com/ https://www.instagram.com/alicia_elle_johnson/ The 40 Portal Book Club — now open 🖤 : the paid tier of The 40 Portal Substack is officially a thing — and that thing is the world's most low-key book club. These are the books making me braver, more honest, better at boundaries, and smarter about my energy at midlife. Cliff notes, journaling prompts, zero pressure to finish the book. $8/month. First selection: Pema Chödrön. Join here. https://substack.com/@the40portal

Five years ago, Cath met Emily Drake on a Zoom call during a coaching cohort for lawyers in transition. They've never hugged in person. And yet, as Emily puts it, the hug is already epic in her head. This conversation is exactly what The 40 Portal is built for: two midlife women getting below the perception, getting real about what the hustle actually cost them, and talking honestly about burnout recovery, midlife reinvention, and what's on the other side of bottoming out. Emily is a therapist, former CEO, and (her preferred self-introduction) a really good hang for two to four people. She's 46, recently came out of a period of midlife burnout and business dissolution she calls her "sabbatical," and has just joined a therapy practice with two women in their 50s that finally, finally feels like the collaboration she'd been craving. In this episode she opens up about female friendship, intellectual intimacy, why women's lives were never meant to be linear, and the simple antidote she swears by for the overwhelm so many midlife women are quietly carrying. In this episode we talk about: - Burnout recovery — what it actually looks like to get out before you bottom out, and what it costs to wait - The growth edge — why living in that space of becoming is, as Emily says, genuinely sexy - Raising the floor vs. being there when someone hits it — and why Emily stopped believing she could do the former - Capitalism got me — the cycle creative entrepreneurs know too well: should I just get a job, I like nice things, and then the knock on the door that says you don't want this - The ladder on the wrong wall — on discontinuity, cycles, and why women's lives were never meant to be linear progressions - Intellectual intimacy — and why Emily's access to pleasure (all kinds) has never been higher at 46 - Female friendship — the ones you outgrow, the ones that have grown with you, reciprocity, and why conflict is good actually - Living from the neck up — what it means to detach from the get-shit-done brain and feel more - The antidote to overwhelm — brick your phone, get your girls, reduce the comparison, do what feels good - The thesis question — does midlife invite us to reclaim our ability to do what feels good and own it? Cath and Emily mention: Composing a Life by Mary Catherine Bateson, Ayurvedic doshas, the phrase "intellectual intimacy" (which Cath is putting in her pocket forever), and Olive Garden takeout as an ingredient for a perfect evening. Find Emily: @threepointsrelationships | https://threepointsrelationships.com/about/ One Spot Left for The 40 Portal Retreat - June 17-19, 2026: https://www.the40portal.com/retreat Subscribe to the Substack: https://substack.com/@the40portal Get the Guide: Are You in A Portal?

What happens when the job title you worked years for stops fitting — and you realize you've become the label, not the person? Callia Hargrove is a brand strategist, marketer, educator, and passionate advocate for change, and the founder of Backstory, the inclusive brand strategy consultancy she launched in 2020. Before that, she spent years developing inclusive marketing and impact initiatives at Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren, and Teen Vogue. But when it was time to leave that world behind, she faced something no resume could prepare her for: a full identity reckoning. Callia is a textbook Capricorn, a 1/3 projector in human design, and someone who — without a resume in sight — describes herself as a seer. Someone always seeking to understand. Her journey from hustle culture burnout to seasonal living, energy management, and trusting her own body's wisdom is one that will feel deeply familiar to any woman approaching 40 who is done pushing and ready to feel genuinely aligned. In this conversation, Cath and Callia explore what it truly means to stop forcing and start trusting, the intelligence of the body when a path stops fitting, and why no community — not even women approaching 40 — is a monolith. What we explore in this episode: The difference between forcing connection and trusting flow — and what human design (specifically being a 1/3 projector) taught Callia about when to push and when to pauseLeaving "Callia from Teen Vogue" behind — and the identity reckoning that came with itThe seasonal map: how Callia uses the rhythms of Chinese medicine, astrology, and her own body to structure her work and her lifeThe points system — an alternative to hustle culture's productivity myth that will change how you think about your energy (stay till the end)Being a participant, not a passenger, in the building of your own lifeWhy there is no monolith of women at any age — and why that's exactly the point of this podcastWhat her grandfather's mural in St. Albans, Queens has to do with all of itThe healing balm of storytelling — especially now Books mentioned: When Things Fall Apart — Pema Chödrön You Can Heal Your Life — Louise Hay Acts of Faith: Meditations for the People of Color — Iyanla Vanzant Connect with Callia: calliahargrove.com Mentioned in this episode: Episode 5 with Alison — https://the40portal.substack.com/p/and-now-its-like-this-on-the-grief?r=6l5p5w Episode 6 with Francesca Choy-Kee Damico — https://the40portal.substack.com/p/were-not-late-were-right-on-time?r=6l5p5w The June 17–19 Women's Retreat — https://www.the40portal.com/retreat

What does it really mean to trust yourself after 40? In this episode of The 40 Portal, Catherine Zack sits down with Amanda Baudier for a raw, funny, and deeply honest conversation about spiritual awakening, midlife transformation, and what it actually looks like to stop living for other people's approval and start committing to the bit of being yourself. Amanda is a former nightlife industry insider, startup founder, and self-described recovering cultural-capital addict who left a Brooklyn brownstone and a buzzy startup to move to the woods and build something "weird, low-cost, and deeply spiritual." A journey of personal growth, self trust, and following the winks from the universe even when it made zero logical sense. Everything she did was against her own best advice by conventional metrics. And that, she says, is exactly how she knew she was on the right track. "If it didn't come from logic, where'd it come from? Somewhere cooler. Somewhere more magical." This conversation is electric. Amanda is one of those women who has done the excavation work, the real kind, not the Instagram kind, and come out the other side with a point of view that is sharp, funny, zero-b******t, and deeply generous. I took notes the entire time. I laughed out loud multiple times. We talk about: winks from the universe and how to start seeing them. Why you were probably on a great path that just wasn't your path. What happens when the medicine of external validation wears off, and it always wears off. Heart surgery at 28 as a portal no one saw coming. Why "trust the process" is actually kind of bad advice. The anti-aging industry as the current strongarm of the patriarchy. Why your choices are not going to make sense to other people, and why that is the cue, not the warning. How women in their 40s are done proving themselves and ready to just be themselves. And the thing I wrote to myself the night before my 40th birthday that Amanda basically tattooed onto this entire conversation: Commit to the bit of being yourself. No halfsies. No halfway in, halfway out. Whole ass living only. Amanda Baudier is a spiritual guide, somatic practitioner, earth medicine worker and entrepreneurship coach for growth-minded humans. She is the founder of becoming collective, which is rooted in the belief that we are all meant to unfold according to our unique and divine design in this one precious life. She is a wife, the mother of two wild children, and currently resides in the Shawangunk Mountains of the Hudson Valley after 21 years in NYC. Find her: Website - www.becoming-collective.com IG: @amandabaudier Submit your wisdom, your voice belongs in this podcast. If you're over 40: what have you learned, earned, and burned? If you're under 40: what's the open question you're living? the40portal.com/submit June retreat, Hudson Valley. June 17-19, 2026. Two spots left. Details and application at catherinezack.com. New episodes drop weekly. Subscribe, rate, review, it genuinely helps more women find this show. Substack: substack.com/@the40portal Website: the40portal.com | catherinezack.com Instagram: @the40portal Hosted by Catherine Zack | Guest: Amanda Baudier | Edited by Ruwantha Gunasinghe © 2026 The 40 Portal. All rights reserved.

Here's what women in their 40s are telling me: Many of us have spent most of our lives being extremely good at anticipating what other people need. The invisible labor. The mental load. The emotional labor and management of everyone in the house. The creativity and ambition quietly moved to the back burner because you're also the most flexible person in the room. And somewhere in the accumulation of all that giving — the resentment, the exhaustion, the burnout, the being spread too thin — the question of what you actually want starts to feel almost impossible to answer. If you're navigating perimenopause symptoms, midlife overwhelm, or simply feeling like you've been managing everyone else's life but your own, this episode is for you. This is exactly what my guest Kim Wensel and I talk about in this episode of The 40 Portal podcast, a midlife women's wellness podcast for women over 40 who are done with people pleasing and ready to trust themselves again. Kim is a writer, strategist, East Coaster through and through, primary parent, and world traveler. She spent 40 years making decisions based on how she thought other people would respond. She's done: "It's not my job to convince anymore." This is what the decade of giving less actually looks like — not a slogan, just a woman learning to trust herself. In this conversation, Kim and Cath cover the long arc of their seven-year friendship, the impossible math of being the most flexible person in your house, desire in a 20-year relationship, what female friendship actually needs to look like right now, and why 40 might be the first age that actually feels like a blank slatr. "Is this perimenopause, wanting to blow up my life, a bad day, or how I really feel? Who really knows." LINKS Submit your voice to the portal: https://forms.gle/FpqHwYgZ1HBFK1kr5 Follow the podcast on Substack: https://substack.com/@the40portal June retreat application: https://forms.gle/WbWLniPEqbhGKg699 Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@The40Portal Find Kim: kimwensel.com ABOUT KIM Kim Wensel is a writer, strategist, and community builder focused on helping high-achieving women navigate the messy middle of growth, career pivots, and identity shifts. Her work explores how ambition and humanity can coexist without burnout or self-abandonment — and why range is a leadership advantage. Her first book, The Multi-Hyphenate Advantage, will be released in spring 2026. Part memoir, part personal development guide, it's for every woman who's good at many things and trying to figure out what's next. Kim is the creative director of The Bench Magazine and host of the podcast Why Is Nobody Talking About This? She lives in Pittsburgh with her family, volunteers as a driver for Meals on Wheels, and serves on the board of the Peters Township Public Library Foundation.