#137: How to Set and Achieve Audacious Goals After 40
with Kiersten Barnet, Key Advisor to 100 Fortune 100 CEOs
If you’ve ever wondered, “Is it too late for me to...” the answer’s NO—and The Uplifters is about to show you why. This space is for women who want to do big, brave things in the second half of their lives, and who want to inspire each other along the way. I’m your host, Aransas Savas, and I’ve spent the last 20 years at the intersection of behavior change research and coaching.
Last week, we heard from Candace Thompson-Zazhary. This week, we’re exploring fear of failure with Kiersten Barnet. Next week, we’ll hear from midlife founder, Rachel Giordano. Welcome to the Uplifters!
Listen to This If...
You’ve turned down opportunities because you were afraid of visible failure
You’re trying to get support from powerful people
You’re facing a problem that feels impossibly big and don’t know where to start
Have you ever quietly shrank from a bigger role because you were afraid you’d fail and the whole mess would be your fault? I have.
So when I meet Kiersten Barnet, Executive Director of the New York Jobs CEO Council, I want to know how she does it. At 42, she’s coordinating 100 Fortune 100 CEOs, CUNY schools, workforce development programs, and city agencies through wildly complex systems toward an unprecedented goal: hiring 100,000 low-income New Yorkers into family-sustaining jobs by 2030. They’re already more than 50% of the way there. And she’s doing all this while being a mom and wife.
She tells me flat-out that if they don’t hit it, it’s on her. “This is mine to lose.”
So how does she carry that level of accountability, and stay calm enough to succeed? This episode is a masterclass in exactly that. From her annual “future-self letter” practice that turns overwhelming goals into calendar entries, to why she tackles the hardest task of her day in the morning, to how she asks the right questions of the right people (including CEOs whose time is worth thousands per minute), Kiersten shows us how to build courage capital one strategic choice at a time.
Her Courage Practice: The Future-Self Letter
Every December, Kiersten writes herself a letter as though it’s already next December and everything went exactly as she hoped. When she was pregnant: I took care of myself. I prepared my team for a smooth transition. I did X, Y, Z on leave so coming back was smooth. Then she backs into it: What needs to happen for that to be true? Start prenatal yoga by March. Brief the team by May. Suddenly the overwhelming “how will I manage?” becomes calendar entries and actual steps.
The practice forces three things: naming your actual priorities (not what you “should” want), mapping the gap between here and there, and creating accountability checkpoints.
What the Research Says
Research shows that our growth mindset actually peaks in our forties—which directly contradicts the cultural narrative that midlife women should be slowing down. What Kiersten demonstrates is the power of what researchers call “implementation intentions”: the specific if-then planning that turns vague goals into concrete actions. Her annual letter practice is a year-long implementation intention.
Ways She Shows Us How to Build Our Courage Capital
She asks “what’s right for right now?” instead of following an imaginary timeline. At 20, Kiersten was fixated on the “right” path—how many years until business school, what the average was. But the times she veered from that rigid plan are when exceptional opportunities happened. Now she diagnoses what matters most in each specific season. Sometimes it’s finances. Sometimes growth. Right now, with two small children, it’s impact—she needs to feel good about what she’s leaving them for. Lesson: Stop measuring yourself against some imagined timeline and ask what actually matters right now.
She diagnoses what’s actually making something hard before trying to solve it. When facing a difficult situation, Kiersten stops to ask: Why is this hard? Sometimes it’s not the task, but that meetings interrupt strategic thinking. That’s a calendar problem, not a strategy problem. Lesson: Separate the actual problem from the circumstances around it
She “eats the frog first”—tackling the hardest task in the morning. From Mark Twain’s idea that if you eat a frog first thing, nothing worse will happen that day. Kiersten used to procrastinate through college, but learned that dreaded tasks don’t get easier by waiting. Do the difficult conversation, the complex briefing, even calling your mom back first thing. You’re most productive in the morning, and it stops creating ambient stress all day. Lesson: Hard problems never solve themselves
She practices “strategic neglect” and names what she won’t feel guilty about. Cooking dinner every night has never appeared in Kiersten’s annual letters. Not because it’s bad, but because date night with her husband matters more to her. She asks: “Is this what I want or what I’m supposed to want?” Lesson: The “shoulds” are often someone else’s priorities dressed up as our own—naming what you’ll strategically neglect frees energy for what you actually care about.
Lift Her Up
Support the Mission:
If you’re an employer (any size!), prioritize hiring local talent from your own community
Think about how your business can help close skills gaps through training programs
If you’re an hourly worker, put those roles ON your resume—customer service, time management, and responsibility are transferable skills employers value
Follow the Progress: The NYC Jobs CEO Council is more than halfway to their goal of hiring 100,000 low-income New Yorkers by 2030. Follow along to see how Fortune 100 companies are proving systemic change is possible.
Connect with Kiersten:
If You Liked This Story, Check Out These
Holly Diamond: Creating Map-Based Hiring Software for Hourly Workers
Sarah Krasley: Revolutionizing Manufacturing Education for Women Globally
Emily Levin: From Psychoanalyst to Tech Founder Solving the Affordable Housing Crisis
Melissa Aviles Ramos: NYC DOE Commissioner on Leading Through Change
Kiersten Nominates:
Dustee Jenkins, Chief Public Affairs Officer for Spotify
Your Turn
Kiersten writes herself a letter every year from her future self, describing how the year went exactly as she hoped—then backs into the steps to make it real.
If you wrote your letter from December 2025, what would your future self be celebrating? What’s one thing that would need to happen in the next month to move you toward that vision?
Drop your answer in the comments—sometimes saying it out loud (or typing it out!) is the first step toward making it real.