Hey, Uplifters!

Last year at our Uplifters retreat, we carried on our annual tradition of creating vision boards. We spend the weeks leading up to the retreat distilling our ideas for the future and what we’ve learned from the prior year to ensure the things we put on our boards focus, energize, and stretch us.

I had three focus areas on my vision board.

✨Health: reimagine my self-care habits to match my midlife body, and release the things that worked for my 20- and 30-year-old self to make space for what works now.

✨Family: celebrate 20 years of marriage with Andy, support Sav through the college transition, help Derby get settled into new routines.

✨Work: book and give a TED talk, write a book I’m really proud of.

Looking back at that board now, nine months later, is honestly a little bonkers. One girlie is in college. The other was cast in her school play this week. Andy and I have a trip planned in October to celebrate the anniversary. I’m feeling stronger than I have in years and am participating in the first-ever Super Age Games in November. I finished writing my book last week, and I feel really proud of it because it’s good (that’s fun to say) and because I know it’s a book only I could have written, with the roots of my foremothers’ stories, my research, my community, my gifts, and my experiences. I’m giving a TED talk on October 7 about how midlife is a time for genius because it’s when many of us stop the BS stuff we were conditioned to do and start doing the things only we can do (you know, like writing this book!).

Someone asked me yesterday if vision boards actually work. Here’s my honest answer. The board itself doesn’t do anything. It’s paper and glue. The magic is in spending the time to get really clear on what you actually want, clear enough that it excites you enough to go after it with focus and vigor. The board is just an anchor. It’s there to remind you not to get distracted by the interference of shiny objects, uncertainty, and doubt. It’s there to remind you how energized you felt when you were brave enough to say what you really wanted.

If you want to do that work for yourself, we have 4 spots left for this year’s retreat. More info HERE.

September on the Podcast: New Beginnings

Maybe you’re deep in the back-to-school, clean slate, who am I becoming mode, even if nobody in your house is actually going back to school.

September’s episodes are all about new beginnings. We kicked things off talking about ending the last thing well, because that’s the first step to starting the next thing.

Lift & Be Lifted Recap

One of my favorite parts of this community is watching what happens when a room full of midlife women introduce themselves and ask for what they need. Here’s who showed up last month’s Lift & Be Lifted, and how you can support them.

Nia Bonson runs Mavenhood Society, a media platform and community for midlife childfree and childless women and their empty-nester sisters. Through their digital magazine, weekly newsletter, and Substack, they cover money, career, relationships, health, style, and culture, all from a midlife point of view. I am honored that Nia has invited me to be a facilitator for their first live event in NYC event on September 24.

Tickets and more info

Melanie Cohen is a clutter coach, physical, digital, mental, emotional, all of it, and hosts the podcast Lighten Up: The Art of Living Clutter-Free. She runs a 3-month group experience, 30-day challenges with daily prompts, and monthly live declutter sessions. If you know a woman who feels overwhelmed, but might not use the word “clutter” to describe it, send her to Melanie. thoughtfullycoaching.com

Jess Kaplan is an actor, writer, and host of Nopes and Dreams, a podcast about rejection and normalizing failure in creative fields. She just started her book proposal and is craving accountability for her writing practice, plus help getting the podcast out into the world on social. She’s based in Miami. nopesanddreamspodcast.com

Tracy Siri needs art submissions for the Art Enclosure Contest she built for a local animal sanctuary. Kids draw the art, winners go up on the animal enclosures, votes are $1 donations. Zero cost to submit. Get your kids, nieces, nephews, and art-teacher friends involved. https://alpine-acres-enclosure-art-contest

Adena Artale is an actor, writer, and IT sales rep in the middle of a big transition. Her sister’s cancer diagnosis cracked something open in her, and she’s been pouring herself into a book about what she wants for her children’s future. She needs external motivation and community to keep going when the pull between corporate life and creative life gets heavy. imdb.com

Karey Edwards spent 25 years as an operations executive and is now a stained glass artist. She’s developed stained glass privacy panels that slide into a metal channel on window frames, requiring no permanent install, making them swappable by season. She also designs the full hospitality wrapper around events, communications, visuals, flowers, music, gifts, everything that makes guests feel like they matter. Looking for connections to community organizers, workshop hosts, corporate offsite planners, architects, and interior designers. She’s also looking to connect with anyone who has worked with a specialty package designer they recommend as she creates custom packaging to ship her work. kareyedwards.com/

Tara Thurber runs Defined Talent, fractional HR and leadership development for small businesses, and is also a life and professional coach. This year has been brutal for her. Her ask was simple: positive energy. definedtalent.com, tarathurber.com

Nina Saporta is a web developer relaunching as Wild Bloom Websites, which went live the day she introduced herself to us. She’s a single mom of three trying to make a decade of web work into something sustainable. She needs clients, referrals, and advice. wildbloomwebsites.com

Gabriella Caracappa just graduated with a film and television degree, with a background in photography, video, audio, social, and Canva. She’s looking for freelance work, project based or ongoing, in the New York and New Jersey area or remote, though she’s open to moving. If you need help with your podcast presence, Instagram content, or video editing, she’s your person. linkedin.com

And an urgent one. Gita Vallenki, the founder of Neeshi, had her listings pulled from Amazon last month over a filing issue from one of her labs. She has spent years building this brand, and losing 80% of her subscriptions could mean the end of it. If you’re a subscriber, please resubscribe directly at neeshi.com. If you have creative ideas for navigating the Amazon issue, reach out to Gita at hello@shopneeshi.com.

Want in on conversations like these? Become a paid subscriber and you’re in for monthly Lift & Be Lifted calls, weekly Co-Working Cocoons, and our group chat, where a lot of this connecting happens in between the big moments.

Subscribe now

Around the Community

For the first time in 70 years the best women baseball players in the world are competing on a professional stage. The WPBL named Alli Schroder captain of the Boston team! Alli is a professional baseball player and a Canadian wildfire firefighter in the off-season. I write about her in the book and interviewed her back in episode 86.

I also spent an afternoon at Trudyfest, honoring Gertrude Ederle, the first woman to swim the English Channel, who trained in the waters of my small town before her historic 1926 swim, beating the men’s world record by nearly two hours in the process. I met Trudy’s niece, along with HannaH Hubert Executive Director of the Trudy Ederle Foundation, and a remarkable midlife woman who swam the Channel herself on the anniversary of Trudy’s original swim. We’ve started working on an audio documentary to tell her story on The Uplifters. Stay tuned.

For anyone looking to pitch a script or series, , a new Uplifter in our crew, has a few seats left in her Build & Pitch Any Idea course, taught by Ryan Cunningham, an Emmy and Peabody award winning producer whose credits include Broad City and Inside Amy Schumer, and basically every other show I’ve ever loved. Here’s my affiliate link if you’re interested.

Save the date: 826NYC’s Trivia Night for Cheaters is back on Tuesday, November 3 at 7pm at Brooklyn Brewery’s Barrel Room. Co-hosted by comedians Josh Gondelman and Alison Leiby, this is Brooklyn’s greatest game of chicanery, and all proceeds support the 3,500+ young authors who come through 826NYC each year. Reply to this email if you’re interested in joining our team! More info at 826nyc.org.

We talk endlessly about how to begin things, especially in September, when we’re flooded with fresh-start stories. We rarely talk about how to end things well, which is the real key to starting the next thing well.

Today’s guest, , just made the bold move to close her thriving retail business, to “end it before it ended her” and free herself up to live and work in a way that’s better suited to where she is at this stage in her life.

She could have just hung a shingle that said “closed” and gone on with her life, but she chose instead to end it in a way that nurtured the joy and connection she and her work are known for.

This conversation is a masterclass in ending things well, whether it’s a career, a relationship, or anything else.

Lisa is best known for her colorful, graphic style and her exploration of themes of joy, liberation and inclusion. She makes art for clients around the globe, including The Library of Congress, The U.S. Postal Service, Amazon, Google, Warby Parker, Comme des Garcons, Peets Coffee, REI and MoMa, among many others.

Lisa exhibits internationally and is the author of ten books, including Art Inc: The Essential Guide to Building Your Career as an Artist and Find your Artistic Voice: The Essential Guide to Working Your Creative Magic.

Lisa is self-taught and didn’t achieve momentum in her career until she was 40 years old. Despite her untraditional path, Lisa has achieved recognition, not just as an artist, but as a leader in the industry for her work in social justice, mentoring and teaching. In 2021, she was named “One of the 50 Most Inspiring People and Companies According to Industry Creatives” published by AdWeek. In 2026, she was named to the Eames Institute’s Curious 100 for her work addressing social justice.

Listen to this episode if...

• You’re sitting on a decision that looks irrational from the outside but feels right on the inside

• You’ve built something that “works” but no longer feels like you

• You’re the person everyone else depends on, and you can’t remember the last time you asked what you need

• You don’t yet think of yourself as a creative person, but something in you keeps asking to be let out

• You’re trying to figure out what ambition even looks like for you now, at this stage of your life

5 Ways Lisa Congdon Shows Us How to Build Our Courage Capital:

1. She let herself be a beginner again, decades in. Lisa didn’t pick up a paintbrush seriously until her late thirties, and she still talks about how radical it felt to claim a creative identity.

2. She replaced the goal with the why. When cycling stopped delivering constant personal records, and when her career hit its ceiling, she didn’t quit. She went looking for a new reason to keep going, one rooted in feelings instead of performance metrics.

3. She closed the door before it closed her. Instead of waiting for burnout to force the decision, she made it while the business was still thriving, which meant she got to close it with love instead of resentment.

4. She trusted her team with the truth. She assumed her employees needed her to keep the business running. She was wrong, and giving them the real reason gave them freedom to make their next moves.

5. She’s rebuilding structure on her own terms. Lisa knows she needs structure to feel calm, so instead of throwing it out for “flexibility,” she’s redesigning her days around the things she wants more of.

Lift Her Up: Follow Lisa’s essays on her transition at her Substack and on Instagram at @lisacongdon.

What’s a door you’ve been afraid to close, even though some part of you already knows it’s time?

We’re closing out our 3-part series on Fulfillment this week.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Listen to this episode if...

• You’re mourning an old version of your body.

• You have tried and quit the same fitness or health goal more times than you want to admit.

• You spend more time thinking about who you once were than who you want to become.

Heike Yates is fierce and determined. She’s the kind of person who powers through and doesn’t take no for an answer, so when an arthritic knee threatened to end her running career, she tried everything to keep going. But nothing worked. Eventually, she had to stop running. With it, she lost her community, her routines, and a sense of herself. She spent a full year grieving these losses.

Now she is 65, turning her decades of fitness, nutrition, and mindset work into something gentler. Her book Pursue Your Spark and her SPARK Framework are for women who are stuck in the gap between who they were and who they want to become. Her mission is to get women out of the trap of wishful thinking and into motion, without guilt, extremes, or starting over.

Her courage practice: The 10-year Reset

Every decade, on her round birthdays, Heike asks what’s next. The rule is simple: don’t discard what you learned. Keep the building blocks, toss what no longer serves you, and decide what you want now. Mourn as long and as hard as you need to for what you’re leaving behind. But then celebrate where you’ve been and focus your energy on where you’re going.

Lift Her Up

Heike’s book baby is out in the world and she would love your support. Get Pursue Your Spark in paperback, e-book, or audiobook. If you love it, leave a review on Goodreads, Amazon, or Barnes & Noble so more women can find it. Find her at heikeyates.com and listen to the Pursue Your Spark Podcast wherever you get your podcasts.

We’ve been talking a lot about fulfillment on the podcast lately. , , and Sue Moser each shared how they rebuilt their careers around what actually matters to them.

Then shared her journey from full-time attorney to a portfolio career that lets her bring more of herself to every room.

Later this week, we’ll keep the thread going with , a midlife fitness expert, author, and creator of the SPARK Framework, who helps midlife women stop dimming their light and rebuild strength, energy, and confidence without guilt, extremes, or starting over.

A recent study in the Journal of Career Development found that the midlife women they interviewed described their earlier careers as ones they “fell into”, stayed in for financial security and social recognition, while their deeper values went unmet, until some triggering event finally forced a shift.

The traditional metrics society celebrates, like salary increases, prestigious titles, and external recognition, often start feeling hollow around midlife. If we’re going to stop measuring life by other people’s metrics, we need our own.

When I start working with clients, one of the first questions I ask them is, “How do you know you’ve had a good week?” The answers are rarely quantifiable. They’re things like calm, peace, balance, physical energy. Felt things. Knowing your definition of what good feels like, and paying attention to how it shifts in different situations, is one of the most clarifying practices I know. (Spoiler: when one measure goes up, another often comes down. They’re all connected.)

My measures of success right now look like this:

Doing at least one thing that really scares me every week. Usually asking for what I actually want, sharing my true feelings, or reaching out to someone I’m pretty sure won’t respond the way I’m hoping. I know it’s working when I feel a little jolt of fear before, and a twinge of bravery after.

Taking care of my body in ways that make me feel strong and sturdy. Not skinny or small or empty. I know this is working when I feel ease.

Having relationships with people who cheer me on and challenge me to be better. I know this is working when I feel supported.

Doing work I love. I know this is working when I feel proud.

Appreciating what I have and tending it with care. I know this is working when I feel rich.

I chose words that are evocative on purpose. The best felt metrics trigger a physical response: a smile, shoulders dropping, an exhale.

To build your own success measures:

Ask yourself how you feel when things are going well. Aim for 3 to 5 things you can actually feel. Choose words that shift something in you when you think of them.

Decide how you’ll measure them. I use a ten-point scale: 10 is the highest, 1 is the lowest.

Check in daily or weekly, ideally at the same time. I do mine every morning when I journal. Reflecting on them consistently has taught me more about what works for me than anything else I’ve tried. It makes it crystal clear what is and isn’t working.

Notice the patterns. What behaviors, interactions, and thoughts move your numbers up or down? How do the metrics relate to each other? Change them as you go.

I’d love to know: what does a good week feel like for you? Comment and tell me.

Let’s go do big, brave things!
Aransas

This week we’re exploring what gets in the way of fulfillment. Our guest is .

Listen to this episode if...

• You’ve spent years being excellent at something that stopped feeling like you

• You’re carrying the weight of everyone else’s idea of who you should be

• You’re afraid that letting go of your title means losing your value entirely

• You have whole sides of yourself you haven’t let out in the open since childhood

Who are you, really? Like, really, really?

“Who are you, really?” is a hard question for many of us to answer because, since we were little girls, we’ve been taught to whittle away at ourselves, to sculpt some ideal version of girlhood and then womanhood that helps us fit in.

Research from The Confidence Code for Girls by Katty Kay and Claire Shipman found that girls were also found to be rewarded more by teachers and parents when they exhibited people-pleasing behavior. We learned early on that staying quiet, following instructions, and not asserting opinions was a more acceptable path. We learned that certain parts of us are acceptable and other parts should be hidden in the background. So we started editing ourselves.

Faye McCray started her career as a federal attorney. She was the first lawyer in her family. She had a “curated identity” with the right degree, title, suits, and professional presence. Then a government furlough sent everyone home and she started thinking about the parts of herself she’d set aside when she chose her career.

What she found, when she started writing in her off hours, was herself. “I was giggling while I was writing,” she says. A whole other world was opening up, one that she’d never let herself entertain because the lawyer title had become so impressive so quickly. She was meeting people she found fascinating. She wasn’t overthinking how she was showing up. “It felt natural to who I was.”

She didn’t quit law to become a writer. She became more than a lawyer, and became more Faye.

Today she is the founder and CEO of Culture&Quill, chief communications officer at the National Conference of Bar Examiners, a speaker at South by Southwest and Aspen Ideas, a TEDx speaker, and the author of the forthcoming “More Than Your Job,” out June 2027.

Research into midlife transitions helps explain why this expansion gets so urgent in our 40s and 50s. Developmental psychologists call it identity certainty: we begin to know ourselves more clearly, and that self-knowledge makes the gap between who we’ve been performing and who we actually are harder and harder to ignore.

5 Ways Faye McCray Shows Us How to Build Our Courage Capital:

1. Follow the giggling. Joy is data. Faye didn’t make a strategic plan to become a journalist. She noticed where she felt like herself, and she followed it. Ask yourself not where you think you should find joy, but where it’s actually showing up right now.

2. Call it a pilot. Everything scary becomes survivable when you frame it as an experiment. You’re not launching a new career. You’re trying something. Low stakes, real learning, no performance required.

3. Name the grief. Letting go of an identity you worked hard to build is a real loss, even when you’re ready to go. Faye let herself feel it and understand it, because “you can’t busy it away or work it off.”

4. Negotiate your job title as hard as you negotiate your salary. One of the most tactical insights in this episode: if your title is so specific it can only live in one context, you’ve painted yourself into a corner. Build portability in from the start. Your next chapter will thank you.

5. Expand your identity before you need to. Faye didn’t wait for a crisis to start writing. She started building other streams of herself, and income, while she still had stability. By the time she made the full leap, she already had proof she could do it.

Lift Her Up

Subscribe to Faye’s Substack, where she’s exploring the ideas at the heart of her forthcoming book. Find her everywhere at @heyfayemccray. And put “More Than Your Job: Four Practices for Keeping Your Identity Bigger Than Your Career” on your list for June 2027.

What if it all works out?

A newsletter for firsts and aspiring firsts—combining inspiration and practical tips to ensure you never forget the visionary you are.

By Faye McCray

Subscribe now

Last week was a lot.

We went to two funerals that dredged up surprising new layers of grief over losing my grandmother last year. We moved our firstborn off to college. We celebrated my mother’s 75th birthday. My brother’s neighborhood in Kauai got pummeled by a storm that swept away so many of his belongings, and then we held our breath as the forest near his house went up in flames four days later. The chapter I was working on for my book felt like an indecipherable puzzle. Meanwhile, the regular things like work and cooking and cleaning kept going, and I expected myself to keep tending them as though nothing else was happening.

So many friends and clients are carrying a lot at once right now too. Broken bones, fractured relationships, disrupted careers, moving homes- all of it, all at once. Shouldn’t there be an agreed limit to how much one person can manage at once?

Maybe you’ve got a lot happening at once now too?

We’ve managed lots before, haven’t we? And we’ve survived it, so you’d think we’d glide on through this lot too, huh? And yet, we forget that we have to remind ourselves of these lessons every time we enter a new obstacle course.

We know what works: Remembering that we have survived hard patches before and that we’ll get through this one. Making room for mistakes, because they’re gonna happen. Letting the small stuff slide, because times like these remind us what really matters. Trusting that the things that aren’t top priority now will wait (or they won’t and probably weren’t actually that important anyway).

All of that is true. All of it helps.

But today? Let’s find some delight.

Not once things calm down. Right now, in the middle of it, while a ray of sun is shining on the plant that is still alive, even though we keep forgetting to water it.

Research shows that small moments of genuine positive emotion help us move through hard stuff faster. Today, for me, that looked like putting on a pretty dress with red lipstick and my favorite earrings, for no reason at all except that it made me feel brave.

That’s enough.

xo, Aransas

Paid subscribers, come hang with us. Our Monthly Lift and Be Lifted meetup is Wednesday, and our Co-Working Cocoon is Friday. If you’re not sure where to find those or want me to add them to your calendar, just reply to this email.

Y’all know this, but the whole “over the hill” thing is absolute BS. After today’s episode, you’re going to be extra, extra, extra certain, because we’re sharing the stories of three women who will prove to you that midlife is prime time for the most meaningful work of our lives.

In fact, our midlife brains are rewiring in ways that make our quest for fulfillment feel more urgent than ever. And yet. So many of us are sitting on our hands, waiting for permission or perfect conditions before we act.

This week’s episode is for the women who are done waiting.

Our three guests are each at a different point in her second act, each with her own story about what it actually took to close what calls the fulfillment gap.

Dr. Krug von Nidda spent more than 20 years in global human resources, including time at the United Nations, watching talented women arrive full of energy and slowly wilt. She went back to school at 50 to earn her doctorate from Columbia University, spent years researching why some women manage to recreate their careers and find real fulfillment while others stay stuck. Her book, Closing the Fulfillment Gap, releases September 15th. Go pre-order it now!

Risa Crandall spent 38 years in media and technology sales and marketing. When she lost her father, his last words to her, in a text, were “love is.” For a year she wondered what he meant. What emerged was Love Is, an in-person community supper program she founded, rooted in the belief that a shared home-cooked meal can foster genuine human connection.

Sue Moser was born with a cancer so rare she is the only documented case of that type and severity. Her fight since birth lit in her a refusal to exist in anything other than the truth. Today, alongside her thriving corporate career, she channels her fire into The Visceral Edge, where she helps high-capacity leaders learn how to use their natural intensity.

5 Ways These Three Uplifters Show Us How to Build Our Courage Capital:

1. Let your grief show you the way. Risa spent a year with two words, “love is,” before they led her to her new path. If you don’t know what your purpose is, the hardest parts of your story will often point you in the right direction.

2. Name what drains you, even when you’re good at it. Dr. Krug von Nidda left a career in HR that people celebrated her for, because she realized that just because you’re excellent at something doesn’t mean it’s the thing that energizes you.

3. Shift the question from “what am I doing” to “who am I being.” Sue’s path changed when she stopped organizing her life around task lists and started organizing it around the person she wanted to become.

4. Start before you’re ready. Instead of waiting to figure out all the answers for Love Is Suppers, Risa booked a venue, invited strangers, cooked dinner for 17 people on a Tuesday, and found out what worked. Like so many of the stories you’ve heard on this podcast, she found that the best learning happens through active experimentation.

5. You don’t have to choose. Sue is building The Visceral Edge while kicking ass in her corporate role, and she is better at both because she does both. When we ask ourselves either/or questions, we’ve usually missed the best option.

Lift them up:

Pre-order Helen’s book at with-helen.com and follow @with.dr.helen. Find Risa at love-is.com and @love.is.community.suppers — and if you know a foundation that would be a great fit for Love Is as it applies for nonprofit status, Risa would love to hear from you. Check out Sue’s work at thevisceraledge.com and follow @susan_moser17.

Huge thanks to this week’s guest nominators:

Thank you to for nominating , Betsy Parker for nominating , and for nominating Sue Moser.

Leave a comment

In this episode of The Uplifters Podcast, I’m talking to bestselling author and behavioral change expert who has sold over two million books and courses worldwide, including the instant bestseller, How to Be Happy, Dammit, and most recently Your To-Die-For Life.

Karen started her career as a creative director, then pivoted to pioneer a category of self-help that didn’t yet exist: books that merged psychology, philosophy, and her signature feisty humor. Over and over, she’s broken molds and created new ones. But despite her epic success, her latest book almost didn’t happen, because for ten years, her agent kept telling her that a happiness author had no business writing about death.

Then, a “Lion King moment” reminded her who she was. “When I was younger, and someone told me my idea was crazy, I fired them and did it anyway.” So, she fired the agent. She wrote the book. It became another bestseller.

I suspect some of you out there have a version of a death book sitting in your draft folder, some idea you believe in that someone important has convinced you is wrong for you. If this is you, put those AirPods on now, because this conversation is your prescribed infusion of badassery!

5 Ways Karen Salmansohn Shows Us How to Build Our Courage Capital:

1. Fire gatekeepers who can’t see your vision. Karen has done it twice now. The first time launched How to Be Happy Dammit. The second time launched Your To Die For Life. If you don’t have the right team, you deserve a better team.

2. Write your eulogy. Karen keeps hers on her phone and reads and revises it regularly, including things she hasn’t done yet. It is the map she creates for how she wants to live.

3. Name your identity, then do the thing. “I am brave, and so I do brave things.” This is not affirmation fluff, but behavioral science. When you link an action to your identity, you are more likely to follow through, because the inconsistency creates cognitive dissonance.

4. Train yourself to be a noticer. Karen assigns her coaching clients a noticing journal: small, specific observations from daily life that only they could have seen.

5. Find the fun. Karen has motivated herself to build a keynote career partly by imagining the cool outfits she will wear on stage. Visualize the excitement of the goal, not just the hustle of it.

Lift Her Up

Subscribe to ’s Substack and follow her Instagram.
Then, grab a copy of Your To-Die-For Life, and if it moves you (it will), leave her a review on Amazon. Authors live and die by those five stars, and it takes two minutes.

Listen to this episode if...

• You have a big idea you have been quietly talking yourself out of.

• You are 40, or 50, or 65, and you still feel like you are only getting started.

• You want to know what a purple velvet suit has to do with building courage.

Leave a comment

Hey, Uplifters!

Sorry this is late this month. It turns out writing a book and doing anything else is hard, especially when there’s so much summer fun to be had.

The last month had me surprisingly obsessed with tall ships and learning to read nautical maps (not on my bingo card). And my daughter turned 18, so we took a 3-generation outing to learn about birds.

I had ChatGPT make a photo of me with silver hair to try to figure out when it’s time to stop coloring mine, which sparked some great conversations, but I still don’t have any answers. The best advice boils down to “you do you,” which is the best advice for most things.

We went to Colorado to see the Avett Brothers at Red Rocks, and to visit Kristy and Brian Jeansonne from episode 58. Red Rocks has been on my bucket list for 20 years, so it was a real what-am-I-waiting-for moment. Planning for more of those in the next year.

And I got to take part in a table read of a wonderful new musical created by two women in their mid-70s who had never written a musical or play before. It’s a perfect illustration of the findings from a new study on aging conducted at Yale.

Nearly half of the adults over 65 that they studied improved physically, mentally, or both over time, despite the messages we’ve gotten that aging is a time of constant decline. And the people most likely to improve were those who held more positive beliefs about getting older. In other words, learning about women who are writing their first musical in their mid-70s or about Allen Levi, who spent his career as a small-town judge and lawyer before writing his breakout debut novel, Theo of Golden, in his late 60’s, might help us age more powerfully by proving that it’s possible to develop new strengths at every stage of life.

Despite feeds still filled with anti-aging messaging, a new survey from People Health found that 73% of Americans prioritize aging well over living longer. We want to stay mentally sharp, independent, mobile, and emotionally well.

If we put these pieces together, it’s clear that we all need to be spending as much time as possible with people who are doing big, brave things and showing us how we can too. Just sayin’.

Speaking of, we had our second Lift & Be Lifted meetup, and they keep getting better. Read all the wishes from our Uplifters here and reach out if there’s something you might be able to help with. And if you want to join a group of midlife women who love lifting others up while also practicing asking for and receiving support, become a paid subscriber and join us for the next one on August 25.

Subscribe now

🎙️ On the Pod

Coming next: the incomparable , bestselling self-help author for people who don’t read self-help, behavioral change expert, founder of NotSalmon.com, and most recently the author of a very funny and wise book on death.

Last month we talked about:

🌟 And we’ve been celebrating!

My client , creator of Meno & Money, was interviewed by Danielle Friedman for the New York Times after Danielle saw Kim speak at Uplifters Live last year. It’s a thoughtful guide for what to do if you can’t get your estrogen patch due to the shortage, so there are lots of reasons to read this one.

Karly Swaim from episode 129 set another world record. In her words: “As of today, I am the fastest woman from the USA to joggle 3 clubs for 100 meters.”

Cat McKenzie from episode 102 was featured in Canvas Rebel.

And so was I.

🏡 The Retreat is Back

We still have a few spots open for our 2026 Uplifters Winter Retreat.

We’re heading back to Red Bird House in the Catskills, a stunning wellness house created by the legendary and , both of whom you may have heard on the podcast or met at Uplifters Live.

This is our third annual winter retreat, and it has become, for those of us who’ve attended, the most meaningful weekend of the year. It’s a chance to give ourselves the real gift of rest in the hectic holiday season, to connect deeply with other Uplifters, and to launch into the new year with clarity and momentum instead of scrambling to find our footing in January.

Kristy Jeansonne, who has attended the last two years, puts it this way:

“I will never not attend this retreat. Everything I put on my vision board and the plans I make there change the entire year for my business and my life. Instead of spending the first six months trying to figure out my priorities, I launch into the year refreshed and ready to go.”

Details and registration here. Spots are limited, as always. Don’t wait.

Until next time, let’s keep chasing the good scary moments, friends.

Aransas

In this week’s mini episode, you’ll meet Angela Burk. She spent three decades scaling companies and leading large teams. Like so many of us, she was an “execution machine” for everyone else. Meanwhile, she was managing a marriage she suspected wouldn’t last, navigating hormonal shifts she didn’t understand, editing away the parts of herself that made her feel like herself, and ignoring her own needs entirely.

After leaving her marriage and her job and retiring for a hot minute, she set out to find the answers to all of her questions about midlife. The result is A Real Girl’s Guide to Midlife. It blends her story with stories of other women in their 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s, and insight from the psychologists, coaches, and counselors she interviewed.

Over and over, she heard from women who had internalized the message that their happiness needed to come last and that wanting more was wrong. The antidote, she says, is small, consistent acts of telling the truth to yourself. It’s noticing when you’re saying yes to something you want to say no to. It’s declining invitations simply with the word NO (or “I’m not available” if you need a bit more cushion). She now describes herself as “radically self-possessed.”

Lift Her Up

Grab her book: Real Girls Guide to Midlife. Find her on Substack at realgirlsguidetomidlife.com and on Instagram @realgirlsguide55. Support her by actively engaging in the conversation. Comment. Disagree. Share what resonated. “We cannot gatekeep the good, the bad, or the ugly,” she said. We have to talk about it all!

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Every month I host a Lift & Be Lifted session for The Uplifters Podcast Substack paid subscribers. We start by introducing ourselves, and it feels like it’s high time we all do that here. I’ll start (since I promised last week that I’d bet on myself as big as I bet on everyone else I care about).

Hi! I’m Aransas Savas, host of the Uplifters Podcast and the Experience Strategy Podcast (with experience economy legends Joe Pine and Dave Norton), and the author of this Substack. I host an annual conference called Uplifters Live, annual reset retreats at the end of each year, and I’m writing a book, Courage Capital: It’s Not Too Late to Do Big, Brave Things (Hachette GCP Balance, 2027). I’m on a mission to uplift uplifters, women who are driven to support and serve.

I spent the last 25 years living in New York City with my husband Andy (a 16-time Emmy award-winning ABC news producer), our two teenage daughters Savannah (a writer of music and films) and Derby (a poet), a short-legged, sleepy pup named Arlo, and a rather needy 200-year-old sourdough starter we call The Laramie Mother. Then in 2024, I put “work from the beach” on my vision board. Now I live on the Jersey Shore and still spend lots of time in the city, including serving on the board of 826NYC, a nonprofit that helps kids of all means gain the skills to write their stories. Six years ago, at a time when most days felt far from dreamy, a coach asked me to describe my perfect day. Today, I’m living it.

I have worked as a coach and behavioral researcher for over 20 years. I’m triple certified in neuroscience and multiple change methods, including Tiny Habits, NLP, and neuroleadership. I spent 18 years at one of the world’s leading wellness brands. I’ve done research for Disney, Best Buy, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Clayton Homes, Avery Dennison, Fiserv, the Transformation Travel Council, and dozens of others. All of it was built around one obsession: how do people move from thinking and indecision to action?

This is the same question that drives my work as a business and life coach for midlife women doing big, brave things.

The women I work with want to make a big difference and live a rich, full life. They come to me because they’re stuck in the gap between thinking and doing. Should I do this or that? Am I going to regret this decision? How do I actually do this? What’s the right path for me for right now?

For founders, CEOs, and creatives, figuring out these big questions alone inside our little purpose bubbles can feel nearly impossible. Most coaches and advisors stand outside that bubble, looking in. I get in it with my clients.

I use coaching paired with behavioral research to move them from thinking and indecision to action. The coaching helps with the mental blocks and hurdles. And instead of guessing at strategy, we design structured learning experiments that help them see what’s working and what isn’t for them and their clients, so they move from spinning on questions to building on answers.

Clients who work with me don’t just get me. They get our whole community of Uplifters. I’m often called a creative matchmaker. I love getting my hands dirty and weeding through the messiest challenges with my clients, connecting them to others who have been there, and finding creative solutions that help them stay in their zone of genius. Uplifting others and their dreams is my zone of genius.

My 12-week accelerators are 1:1 engagements designed to take big, brave things to the next level. Some of the things we’ve done in these 12-week accelerators:

• Written, booked, and delivered TED and keynote talks

• Shaped cohesive personal narratives for speaker pitches and podcast guest pitches

• Launched and monetized Substacks, courses, and entire brands

• Designed “portfolio” careers that blend and balance coaching, creative, and consulting gigs

• Built clear, compelling stories from decades of wonderfully not-so-linear experience

If that sounds like what you need, or you know someone who does, just hit reply.

Now, allow me to introduce the women from our last Lift & Be Lifted, along with their asks of the Uplifters community.

Susannah Ludwig is a relationship and resilience coach helping women navigate divorce, new relationships, and what comes after. She’s looking for a referral to an abundance mindset coach to work with one-on-one.

helps women clear the clutter from their lives, physical, mental, calendar, emotional, all of it. Two asks: referrals to women who feel overwhelmed and could use support clearing clutter from their lives, and podcast guests who talk about clutter in any form.

Rachel Josephson curates Fils et Poisson, a microboutique of artisan jewelry, accessories, and clothing. She’s looking for ideas, venues, and connections for in-person pop-up opportunities in NYC.

Alessandra Iavarone is a writer working on a collection of personal essays and short stories, two already published in Jenny Magazine and Sneaker Wave (🎉). She’s looking for introductions to editors, zines, and publications to submit her work to.

Nia Bonson is the founder of Mavenhood Society, a community and digital magazine for empty-nester and child-free women in their 40s and 60s. She’s looking for Instagram follows and reposts, and writers who want to contribute to the digital magazine @ mavenhoodsociety.com

Linda Jermacans is launching Oyva in September, a hormonal supplement line for women with endometriosis, PMOS, and perimenopause. Two asks: introductions to women with endometriosis willing to trial Oyva’s Trinity set before the September launch, and Instagram follows and reposts on @oyvaofficial.

Jessica Hansen is a voice coach and voiceover artist. She’s looking for a literary agent for her practical nonfiction book, At Home In Your Voice: Build a Voice You Love to Live In. She’s also open to voiceover referrals, especially audiobook and documentary (jessicahansen.net), and voice coaching referrals (sigsound.net).

Jess Kaplan is an actor, writer, and podcaster. Her podcast, Nopes + Dreams, is about creativity and rejection. She’s looking for creative connections anywhere, especially South Florida, and a literary agent for her nonfiction book based on her one-woman show.

Tracy Siri is building the Family Legacy Program. Two asks: people willing to take the AI assessment at elevatemy.ai, and honest feedback on the Family Legacy Program app via the demo site.

Asking for support is probably the hardest part of being an Uplifter. We are so great at lifting everyone else up, so here we make a pact to also ask others to lift us up. If you’re able to help support these asks, reply to me to connect or reach out to them at the links above.

Now, tell me about you. I spent a lot (probably too much) time writing my intro. But that doesn’t mean this needs to be so hard. What’s something that you worked on this month? It doesn’t have to be the be-all-end-all-forever-put-a-ring-on-it thing, just something. If you’re reading on the Substack app, introduce yourself in the comments. If you’re reading via email, I’d love to learn more about you by hitting reply.

Become a paid subscriber to join our next Lift & Be Lifted, weekly Co-Working Cocoons, and community WhatsApp. And if you’re looking for a coach and collaborator to help you take your big, brave thing to the next level, just hit reply. I’d love to connect.

If you could use some dedicated time to get clear on what you actually want and get ready to make it happen, snag a spot at our next reset retreat. It sells out every year, and for good reason.

If you’ve been humming the lyric, “Please allow me to introduce myself” since you read this subject line, here ya go:

A few weeks ago, I was rummaging around in my grandmother’s things and found an old postcard I sent out in July 2003 to my cherished list of agents and producers in hopes that somebody, anybody, would hire me as an actor, pleasseeeee. Despite (or maybe because of) my long stint as the infomercial spokesperson for The Ab Lounger, I remember that time of life as my “failed actress era”.

When I looked at the back of that card, I thought: Damn, girl, what were you thinking with those fonts? But, also, you were booked and busy. I’d forgotten all of the projects it listed, things I’d done, but erased from my memory. I realized looking back that the lasting feeling of failure wasn’t the result of the number or type of projects I’d gotten, but all the ones I didn’t get. Like so many of us, I believed rejection was the problem. I don’t believe that anymore. I am pretty certain rejection is the goal.

Looking back at that card now, without the rejection scoreboard running in my head, all I could see were the yeses. And I felt so proud of little Aransas. In our latest episode, that version of me from almost a quarter of a century ago (gasp!) got to meet up with current 51-year-old me, and Jess Kaplan, host of the Nopes + Dreams Podcast, who is trying to sort out her own feelings about her career as an actor and writer by talking to other creatives about rejection.

Jess is an actor, a writer, and the host of Nopes + Dreams, a podcast about creativity and rejection. Her spec scripts got the attention of Lorne Michaels’ company, Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine, and LeBron James’s SpringHill Entertainment. CBS Studios and Frolic Media optioned her TV show. She premiered a one-woman show at the Orlando Fringe Festival. For ten years, she has taught monthly writing workshops to people affected by cancer through Red Door Community.

This episode is a different format than our usual shows, since Jess and I interview each other. I think we found some pretty great lessons on dealing with (and maybe actively seeking) rejection in this episode. I hope you’ll listen to the full episode, but for now…

Eating Nos Like Cheerios: 5 Ways to Build Your Rejection Tolerance

The goal isn’t to stop getting nos. The goal is to get so good at digesting them that they become your morning fuel. So here are the five things we came up with that actually work.

1. Make nos the objective, not the obstacle. Instead of setting outcome goals (”I want to get booked”), set behavioral goals (”I’m going to get rejected 10 times this month”). The no becomes the win.

2. Watch for the all-yes warning sign. If you’re getting a lot of yeses right now, that’s worth examining. It usually means you’re only asking for things that feel safe, which may mean you’re not growing. Nos are proof you’re reaching.

3. Say “that was the goal” out loud. When the no comes, your brain needs a new story to tell itself. “That was the goal” interrupts the spiral before it starts. Say it out loud, even if you don’t mean it yet.

4. Precision manifest your ask. Vague asks get vague results. “I want to meet people in the film industry” helps nobody. “I want to meet independent filmmakers in Miami who are excited to work with local creatives” gives people an actual assignment for helping you. The more specific you are, the easier it is for someone to say yes.

5. Name the awkward. When asking feels hard, say so. “This is uncomfortable for me to ask, but it would mean a lot if you...” is almost always received with warmth. Honesty about the discomfort is disarming. It also makes you sound human, which is the whole point.

Lift Jess Up:

Listen to Nopes + Dreams wherever you get your podcasts, follow Jess at @nopesanddreamspod, and visit nopesanddreamspodcast.com. If you know someone in the Miami film community who makes independent projects, reach out to Jess and make an introduction.

PS: Here’s the front of the postcard in case you want to see how cute I was

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Give me an assignment, and I will slay it for you! I’ll stay up late, go deep on the research, find the angle nobody else thought of, and deliver something that exceeds what you asked for. My family, colleagues, clients, and neighbors know me as someone they can count on. If you are in my orbit and have a dream, goal, or problem, I am your person. I will get into it with you, stay up late thinking about your situation, send you the article, make the introduction, and show up to your thing. I am a badass, unrelenting courage investor in others’ dreams.

Betting on other people is a joy for me and one of my greatest strengths. But it’s also a way that I mitigate risk. It is kind of like boxing in a padded room. It softens the rejection, cushions the disappointments, and if I’m doing it on someone else’s behalf and I get knocked down, I can still get back up because it’s not entirely my fault.

Sound familiar? I suspect you are a spectacular investor, too. You have funded a kid’s dream while yours stayed on hold, been the wind beneath a partner’s career, taken on extra work so a colleague could shine, met every expectation your parents had for you. Maybe, like me, the only portfolio you consistently underinvest in is your own.

While my default has often been to place my bets on others’ priorities and permission, and downplay my bets on myself, the times when I’ve bet big on myself have been the most growth-filled, energizing, and empowering (also terrifying, but hey, that’s why we enlist that courage capital).

When I was acting in my 20s and not getting the roles I wanted, feeling like the victim of a system that didn’t understand me and casting agents who were too busy to see my potential, I got together with a group of talented friends, and we created the opportunity ourselves. We produced On the Verge, a female, character-driven play off-off-Broadway, and I starred in it. It worked. I got more work from the gatekeepers, but more than that, I learned that if I wanted anyone else to bet big on me, I needed to place my bets on me first.

When I was laid off after 18 years with my company, I toyed with betting on another corporation, but in the end, I decided to gather up my courage capital and go all-in on my little girl dream of being a media host. Ok, that’s a lie. I didn’t go all-in. If you’d have asked me, I’d have said I was all-in, but in truth, I was making messy, tiny baby bets. But they were mine. There was no manager approving the budget or strategy, just me deciding that what I wanted to build was worth building.

I’m still learning to bet bigger on myself. For me right now it looks like investing in coaching and professional support for my own work; blocking real calendar time for my writing (not the leftover time, the good time); saying no to things that promise good money, but pull me away from what I’m investing in; telling you here what I’m building; admitting my biggest, craziest dreams out loud; and initiating opportunities instead of just applying to those that others initiate. I still bet big on others. AND, I’m committed to betting on me as unrelentingly as I do everyone else that I believe in.

I’ve done extensive research to understand the different ways that we women diminish and downplay our bets on ourselves. If you want to raise the bet on yourself, here are 10 ways you could double down this week.

1. Say no to one thing this week you’d usually say yes to out of obligation, and reinvest that exact time for something on your own list.

2. Track the number of times you say “I think,” “just,” or “only” for one day. Don’t downplay that wisdom you worked so hard to earn, friend.

3. Sit at the front of a room you normally sit in the middle or back of.

4. The next time someone compliments your work, say “Thank you, I worked really hard on it” and then stop talking.

5. Quote a slightly higher rate for your work than you normally would to the next person who asks.

6. Send an email asking for specific help from someone you’ve been thinking is probably too important to ask. If you’re a paid subscriber of this Substack, you can practice this at our next Lift & Be Lifted Session tomorrow!

7. Write down five things you are really, really good at. Put them on a Post-it in your workspace.

8. Invest something that feels precious to you (like money or time) in your dream this week.

9. Plan a gathering around something you care about. Invite people over to share your art, and maybe they can share theirs too. You don’t need a venue or a budget or all the answers, just a reason and a group text. You’ll figure out the rest.

10. Apply for something you’re pretty sure you won’t get, like a job, grant, speaking slot, or residency. Not because you’ll definitely land it, but because you’ll become someone who puts herself in the running.

How do you prove to yourself that you’re all in on yourself?

If you’re looking for someone to help you bet big on your dreams, reach out by replying to this email! I help my clients do big, brave things!

Let’s bet big this week!

Aransas

P.S.: If you could use some dedicated time to get clear on what you actually want and get ready to make it happen, snag a spot at our next retreat. It sells out every year, and for good reason.

I cleaned out my closet this weekend. It was a belated seasonal switch: pulling things from bins and trying to figure out what actually fits this body, this month, this year. For 25 years I knew that if something fit one summer, it would fit the next. But that era is over. Dresses that were too small last year fit now. Pants that were loose in the fall are not anymore. There’s no rhyme or reason to it, other than the obvious: I am different this year, so my body must be too.

And then I thought about this week’s guest…

spent nearly 25 years as a social worker running federal programs for low-income families. She was devoted to it, but she also needed something light and creative as a relief from the weight of systemic challenges her clients faced.

So she started styling her friends, and before she had a name for it or a plan or any fashion credentials whatsoever, Susan was a personal stylist, a local magazine style editor, a television contributor, and the woman behind The Midlife Fashionista, with 45,000 followers and 2.4 million blog views. Susan has collaborated with national and global brands including Chico’s, Clinique, Easy Spirit, Braun, and L’Oreal.

When her styling clients started asking if they could bring their donated clothes to her office so they could go directly to women who needed them, she set up clothing racks in her government office. In 2016, that became Uncommon Threads, an innovative nonprofit in Lawrence, Massachusetts, one of the poorest cities in the country. With an innovative "outside-in, inside-out" approach, they help low-income women see and feel their true potential by using clothing and image as tools for building self-esteem and self-worth. Unlike other organizations that solely focus on work attire, Uncommon Threads addresses all aspects of a woman’s clothing needs while nurturing personal growth through self-esteem-focused styling sessions and workshops. They serve more than 8,000 women a year now.

In 2018, Susan was diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). During treatment, she had to step back from Uncommon Threads, hire a new director, and trust that what she’d built would continue to grow. It did. She used that time to co-found CLL Women Strong, the first national support group for women with CLL, and Kicking Cancer in Heels, an online platform providing resources, community, and hope for women impacted by cancer.

This episode is about a lot of things. It’s about fashion and midlife bodies and building a platform when you don’t know what you’re doing yet. It’s about what cancer teaches you about timing. And it’s about the one thing Susan believes most: that overanalyzing is the thing that actually holds us back.

What the Research Says:

The concept Susan and I discuss, enclothed cognition, was named by researchers Hajo Adam and Adam Galinsky in 2012. Their work found that clothing doesn’t just reflect our psychological state. It actively shapes it. What we put on affects attention, focus, and cognitive performance. For midlife women navigating identity shifts and new chapters, the first decision we make every morning may be more powerful than we’ve been giving it credit for.

Lift Her Up:

Follow Uncommon Threads and visit uncommonthreads.org. If you are in the Greater Boston area, Uncommon Threads turns 10 this fall and is throwing a birthday bash on September 17th in North Andover, Massachusetts. They need sponsors and silent auction items, and the details are all on the website. Find Susan’s daily midlife fashion inspiration on Instagram. And if you are living with or impacted by CLL, CLL Women Strong is the first national support group built specifically for women with this diagnosis.

Every dollar of paid Uplifters subscriptions goes into a community fund we use to donate to the nonprofits, books, and causes our guests champion. To celebrate Susan and the work she’s built, I made a donation to Uncommon Threads on behalf of our Uplifters community. If Susan’s story moves you, please join me in supporting Uncommon Threads.

Huge thanks to Dina of for nominating Susan!

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Over the last few weeks, my goal has been to prove to you, one stubborn assumption at a time, that it’s not too late to do big, brave things. Welcome to the last installment of this little series.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Part 4: In for a penny, in for a pound.

When I got laid off after almost twenty years of working in corporate, I kept circling a rather frustrating question: Was it a waste to start something brand new after pouring all that time, energy, and I-know-what-I’m-doing-ness into one thing? I kept thinking that maybe I should keep doing the thing that clearly wasn’t working for me since I’d already invested so much into it. Yes, I knew that route would pull me further away from the things that most energized and excited me at that point in my life, but making a pivot felt like a waste of my prior investments.

This is what economists call the sunk cost fallacy: we keep pouring money, time, or energy into something because of what we’ve already invested, not because of what it’s actually worth to us going forward. The classic example is the movie ticket. You’re twenty minutes in; the movie’s terrible, but you paid $18 for it, so you stay. The $18 is gone either way, and sitting through the rest of the movie doesn’t get it back. All it costs you is two more hours of your life watching something that stinks.

Now swap “movie ticket” for “career,” “marriage,” “business,” or “eighteen years of working in corporate”. By midlife, we’re not talking about $18. We’re talking decades of time, energy, money, and, ahem, our entire identity. Pivoting away from that is less like watching a bad movie for two more hours and more like setting the theater on fire.

So instead of cutting our losses, we dig in (at least I did). We try to manufacture more energy and passion for the thing that isn’t working anymore, because admitting it might be time to walk feels like a waste. We let the past investment decide our path, instead of asking whether the thing is still worth investing our future in.

I’ve been thinking about this because I sat down yesterday for a pre-interview with , a wildly successful artist, author, and illustrator. Over the last two decades, she built what, for many, would be the dream career: a life as a full-time artist, including a thriving online and brick-and-mortar shop, a team she loved, and big client commissions. And she just made the decision to close it, because every time she analyzed why she was keeping it all going, every single reason was about someone else. Her team, her partners, her customers. But never herself.

It takes a whole lot of courage to shift gears, even more so when we’re cruising down the road at 90 miles per hour. When Lisa slowed down long enough to ask herself what was right for her now and what she wanted for her future self, the answers were very different.

“What would it mean about the last twenty years if I stopped?” builds fear. “What’s right for me right now?” builds courage capital.

And when we slow down and look at the whole picture, we will likely find that nothing was wasted. The skills we build don’t disappear when we change direction. They come with us. The only thing that’s actually a waste is the damn energy we spend defending a decision that no longer fits, instead of redirecting that same energy into something we actually care about now.

P.S. Shout out to vision boards. Every year at our annual Uplifters Retreat, we make vision boards. Last year, I put three names on mine of women I wanted to interview for the show. Lisa was one of them.

If you could use some dedicated time to get clear on what you actually want for the year ahead and get ready to make it happen, snag a spot before they’re gone. It sells out every year, and for good reason.

I spent this week thinking about all of the little ways we hedge our bets on ourselves while betting big on others. We’re so good at showing up for our friends, neighbors, partners, kids, bosses, clients, mentees. Those bets matter. But, friends, we gotta bet on ourselves too.

Meeting up with other Uplifters is a big way I double down on those bets. Through our Lift & Be Lifted sessions each month, I build my courageous community and practice asking for support and working through the weedy messes that zap my courage.

Through our weekly co-working sessions on Zoom, I invest in the work that matters most by putting it into a little cocoon to protect it from distraction.

Through our annual retreats, I give myself space to reflect on what’s working and what isn’t and create clear roadmaps for focusing my time, energy, and creativity.

As an Uplifter, these are all here for you, too. I hope you’ll join us.

Click into today’s -co-working session to reflect, reconnect, and reenergize.

Every week we meet up on Zoom to remember one good thing and one worry or challenge from the week, because celebrating the good stuff and working through the tough stuff is how we keep doing big, brave things.

You’re invited, and we’d love for you to join us at the link below.

Every Friday from 10-12 ET, on Zoom. Here’s our flow:

• 10:00 - Set intentions and reflect together

• 10:15 - Three deep breaths, then dive into solo work

• 11:00 - One-song dance party to shake things loose

• 11:03 - Second solo work session

• 11:59 - Close and pat ourselves on the back

🎵 This week’s dance party

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This month for Simmer Summer, we are riffing on the power of R&R.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Have you ever been told you're too sensitive? Too emotional? That you just need to toughen up? If so, you might be a highly sensitive person. And if you’re in midlife right now, you might be noticing that your stress, overwhelm, and exhaustion are getting harder to manage.

In this episode, licensed occupational therapist, certified perimenopause and menopause coach, and functional pelvic health practitioner Dara Steinberg explains what it means to be a highly sensitive person (HSP) and how it shifts in midlife.

Research by psychiatrist and researcher Elaine Aron found that approximately 10% of every species, humans included, shares a nervous system that processes the environment more deeply than most.

Dara shares her own journey through clinical burnout, the physical toll of overriding her sensitive nature for years, and how she built her methodology, Slow Down to Become, to serve the women her field was failing. Whether you've always known you're highly sensitive or you're only now starting to wonder, this conversation will help you see your sensitivity not as a flaw to fix but as a superpower.

What You'll Learn:

• What makes someone a highly sensitive person

• How the highly sensitive nervous system interacts with perimenopause and why estrogen fluctuations can intensify sensitivity for women in midlife

• The difference between everyday exhaustion and clinical burnout

• How to support a highly sensitive person, whether that's yourself, your child, or someone you love

• The five stages of Dara's Slow Down to Become framework for nervous system stabilization and building a life that’s a better fit for your operating system.

Her Courage Practice

Dara calls it the Safety Map, and it’s the first thing she recommends for any highly sensitive woman who is beginning to understand herself. It’s a free resource on her website, a personalized nervous system profile you fill out on your own, ideally with a cup of tea and a little quiet.

The map asks you to identify what makes you feel unsafe, what kinds of things are triggering to your system, and what brings you back to calm. The act of naming those things, writing them down, provides invaluable insight for understanding what your system needs.

Lift Her Up

Dara's website and free Safety Map: slowdowntobecome.com
Instagram and Facebook: @slowdowntobecome

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Hey, Uplifters!

July has been a delicious simmer of record-breaking heat and big cultural moments that seem to demand we step away from our screens and into time together IRL. My daughter graduated, tall ships from around the globe floated past my window, I got to play with and on their farms, and with my friends Karen, Kyia, and Joanne in Minnesota, and the sports fans (who are not me) were very well entertained. It was a spicy, flavorful stew, and on this advice from , I savored every bite.

🙌 Lift & Be Lifted: Our First Session

The highlight of the month, without question, was hosting our very first Lift & Be Lifted session for paid subscribers.

Women joined from New York to San Diego to Rochester to Fairbanks, Alaska. Each person came prepared to share not just what she’s working on, but what she needs: support, ideas, accountability, introductions. That second part is the one that made us squirm. We’ve been trained to carry it all ourselves and to look like we have it handled. But for most of human history, women did everything together. We soothed each other’s babies, shared the work based on who was good at what, and figured things out in community. This feels more like that.

The ripples have been remarkable. Every day since, I’ve been sending emails with the subject line: INTRO.

You can read the asks from our first session here, and jog your mental Rolodex to see if you can help any of your fellow Uplifters.

Our next session is July 28 at 7pm ET.

If you want in, become a paid subscriber and then register for July 28 here.

Subscribe now

🗽 Let’s Meet Up IRL

If you’re in Manhattan, join me and other Uplifters at these events this month:

Wednesday, July 22: I’m heading to Manhattan for South, an acoustic solo musical by , part of SheNYC Arts, the City’s premier festival showcasing new, original works by women, trans, & non-binary writers & composers.

Thursday, July 23: I will be at P&T Knitwear Books & Podcasts (180 Orchard St, New York, NY 10002) for the launch event and contributor reading of What Are You Waiting For? An Anthology, edited by Kathy Curto. The very uplifting is featured. Doors at 6:30pm, reading at 7pm. Tickets are $10 or the purchase of the book.

Comment below or reply to this email if you’re coming to either, and let’s make it an Uplifters meetup.

🏡 The Retreat is Back

I am absolutely giddy to announce our 2026 Uplifters Winter Retreat.

We’re heading back to Red Bird House in the Catskills, a stunning wellness house created by the legendary and , both of whom you may have heard on the podcast or met at Uplifters Live.

This is our third annual winter retreat, and it has become, for those of us who’ve attended, the most meaningful weekend of the year. It’s a chance to give ourselves the real gift of rest in the hectic holiday season, to connect deeply with other Uplifters, and to launch into the new year with clarity and momentum instead of scrambling to find our footing in January.

Kristy Jeansonne, who has attended the last two years, puts it this way:

“I will never not attend this retreat. Everything I put on my vision board and the plans I make there change the entire year for my business and my life. Instead of spending the first six months trying to figure out my priorities, I launch into the year refreshed and ready to go.”

Details and registration here. Spots are limited, as always. Don’t wait.

🎙️ On the Pod: Simmer Summer

This month’s episodes are leaning into the season. Consider this your invitation to turn the heat down on the hustle and let things get slow and rich and flavorful.

Coming next: Dara Steinberg, a licensed occupational therapist, certified peri/menopause coach, and functional pelvic health practitioner who helps highly sensitive women in midlife naturally ease symptoms of exhaustion and chronic pain and make new, aligned life choices from a place of authenticity.

📖 In the Newsletter: It’s Not Too Late

Over at the Substack newsletter, we’re continuing the It’s Not Too Late series.

📚 What I’ve Been Reading

The Substacks I Keep Coming Back To

I always read , but I was extra delighted this month to see two women I adore featured there. First, my pal Lakshmi Rengarajan, from episode 128 talking about AI and dating. And then the extraordinary Lisa Congdon, whose story of trusting the evolution of her creative life is one I keep thinking about. If you don’t subscribe to , consider this your nudge.

And every single issue of Closer to Home by . Maggie founded my favorite small bookshop ever and now shares her life and design wisdom in a newsletter that aims to help us all feel more at home in our lives. I always feel better after reading it.

Books on My Nightstand

Perfect Unfolding by Kristy Halvorsen. I truly cannot overestimate my love for this book. Kristy is a firefighter-turned-coach who sold her house and everything she owned and has been living off-grid in an Airstream for seven years, moving with the seasons, and figuring out the most challenging wilderness is the one inside. It has me thinking deeply about how I show up in my day-to-day life, even though I am decidedly not living full-time in an RV. (Which was also super interesting to read about.) A perfect summer read

Was That Racist? by A useful and powerfully written book that I think should be on everyone’s reading list right now. Dr. Carter is a social psychologist who offers clear, research-backed frameworks for navigating the questions so many of us are afraid to ask out loud. It’s rigorous and readable, which is a rare combination.

No Name Bastard by Tori DaCosta. Tori wins best title. This is a beautiful memoir meets practical leadership guide about learning to lead yourself well, the distinction between what you can control, manage, and influence, and how to stop carrying what was never yours to hold in the first place.

Shaken to the Core by Dara Levan. Fiction! And a total Uplifter journey. If you want a novel that will make you think and feel in equal measure, try this one.

A Weird, Wonderful Discovery

Gertie. I can’t tell you too much because I don’t want to ruin it for you. What I can tell you is that it’s a short weekly episodic that arrives in your inbox, it features spectacular photography from Sirli Raitma, and it has made me laugh and gasp and root for someone in a way I didn’t expect from something I can read in three minutes. Sign up and thank me later.

Please Celebrate These Women With Me

Two of the women who make this show possible through their support of the podcast recently released books!

CJ Lake’s Eugene Pioneers: Frontier to the American Heritage is out now. CJ is a Brooklynite and history buff who wrote and published a book in her 50s while teaching full-time in NYC public schools! I can’t wait to read it!

And I just ordered Wendy Richardson’s brand-new Real Estate Systems That Work. Here’s what she said when it landed: “My book is now published on ALL platforms! This is a labor of love and there were many times I wanted to throw it in the trash! My dream is now a reality.” She has an interview coming up on the pod later this summer, and I cannot wait to share her story.

💬 The Big Question

Someone dropped this in my brain, and I can’t remember who (if it was you, please shout so I can give you credit):

If you could take a year off, what would you do?

I’ve been sitting with it all month. Hit reply or comment below and tell us.

Until next time, let’s keep lifting and letting ourselves be lifted.

With love and good trouble, Aransas

Every week we meet up on Zoom to remember one good thing and one worry or challenge from the week, because celebrating the good stuff and working through the tough stuff is how we keep doing big, brave things.

You’re invited, and we’d love for you to join us at the link below.

Every Friday from 10-12 ET, on Zoom. Here’s our flow:

• 10:00 - Set intentions and reflect together

• 10:15 - Three deep breaths, then dive into solo work

• 11:00 - One-song dance party to shake things loose

• 11:03 - Second solo work session

• 11:59 - Close and pat ourselves on the back

Read more

This month for Simmer Summer, we are riffing on the power of R&R.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Somewhere in our 40s or early 50s, most of us start to notice that our brain isn’t quite doing what it used to. Words disappear mid-sentence; we walk into a room and can’t remember why; we read the same paragraph three times and still can’t process it. Maybe we start to wonder: is this just stress? Or is this something worse? Research suggests dementia has become the most feared health condition among people over the age of 50, surpassing heart disease, cancer, and stroke.

Christine Despres spent more than 30 years as a registered nurse and director of nursing, caring for dementia patients. She lost her own mother at 57. She says that what we are experiencing in perimenopause is almost certainly not that. What it is, though, is our brain sending signals about how to better protect it from cognitive decline.

In this episode you’ll learn:

• Why you can lose up to 30% of brain function during perimenopause and what you can do about it right now

• The four lifestyle areas that can prevent up to 50% of cognitive decline, even with a genetic predisposition or family history of dementia

• The MIND diet for cognitive health

• Why quality sleep is essential for brain health and Christine’s top micro habits for protecting your sleep during the menopause transition

• Why brain fog and memory lapses are usually data, not disease, and what to do with that information

• What blood work to request and why knowing your numbers is the first step to protecting your future self

You’ll also get to know Christine, a total Uplifter. After decades of running a skilled nursing facility in a small Montana town while raising her daughter as a single mom, midlife afforded her the flexibility to do something she’d long dreamt of: start her own wellness practice.

She packed up her house, moved across the country to Atlanta, and started over. All while going through perimenopause.

She is now the founder of The Wellness Navigator, a brain health and metabolic wellness coaching practice for women in midlife and beyond. She is a Board-Certified Health and Wellness Coach, a Certified Dementia Practitioner, and an Elite Brain Health Coach.

She is one of us: a woman doing a big, brave thing in midlife, figuring it out as she goes, and using everything she’s learned along the way to help other women do the same.

Her Courage Practice:

Christine’s single most powerful shift has been in her morning and evening routine, based in neuroscience.

The brain processes roughly 60,000 thoughts a day, and it latches onto whatever direction you give it in its most receptive moments: first thing in the morning, before you reach for your phone, and last thing at night, as you’re drifting toward sleep. Christine starts each day with a simple intention: today is going to be a great day. I am open to what’s coming. I can handle whatever comes my way. She ends each night with gratitude for what was good. And her brain, she says, takes those directions and works all day to make them true.

The habits accumulate. But the mindset, she says, is 95% of the work. Everything else follows when you believe it’s worth building.

Lift Her Up:

Christine offers a free monthly Brain Boost, a live virtual event on the first Wednesday of each month at 10 AM Eastern, along with a quiz designed specifically for midlife women: Why Does Everything Feel Harder After 40? Head to thewellnessnavigator.com to find both. And if you’re ready for personalized support, her four-month coaching program is built around your individual blueprint for aging well.

Other Resources Mentioned in this Episode

• The POINTER Study on lifestyle factors and cognitive decline

• Joyspan: The Art and Science of Thriving in Life’s Second Half by Dr. Kerry Burnight Ph.D

• Function Health Panel (Dr. Mark Hyman’s biomarker panel)

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