Dating After 50 and the Power of Reinvention: A Conversation with Laurie Gerber

What if reinvention in midlife isn’t a total life overhaul but a choice to change your mind and bet on yourself? 

In this candid conversation, Laurie Gerber, dating coach, shares how being fired, reworking a marriage, and reframing menopause led her to reinvent life — and dating after 50 — with unapologetic positivity. 

Expect practical mindset shifts, a no-nonsense approach to dating, and concrete next steps to move from fear to action. 

What we cover:

• Laurie's turning points: getting fired, marriage pivot, and choosing reinvention
• Why past ≠ future: the mindset shift every dater needs
• How to curate what you consume (media, conversations, negativity)
• Menopause: ditching the rabbit hole of doom and reclaiming agency
• Practical moves: hire a coach, name the dream, make a plan, be accountable

Key takeaways:

• You don’t have to believe everything you think. Change the thought; change the outcome.
• Reinvention can be forced — and liberating. Sudden endings often open new doors.
• Curate your inputs. Unsubscribe from narratives that don’t serve your midlife story.
• Plan + accountability = action. Say the dream, make a plan, get help, and do the work.

Links & resources:

• Download Wendy’s freebie — Do It Scared ebook (free): A short, powerful guide to help you face fear, take one bold step, and spark your midlife reinvention. 👉 https://reinventionrebels.com/do-it-scared/
• Register for Laurie’s FREE webinar: 3 Secrets to Finding and Maintaining Healthy Love without Repeated Disappointments — www.lauriegerber.com/webinar
  
  Learn:
  • The biggest mistake women make that keeps them from happily-ever-after
  • The 3 essential ingredients for long-term commitment
  • Laurie's 3-date strategy to find your soulmate in WAY fewer dates
• Laurie Gerber — website / contact: www.lauriegerber.com
   
• What Wendy’s listening to: Older Women & Friends with Jane Leder — a warm, wise podcast celebrating older women’s stories. 

Join the FasterWay 21-Day Reset program and transform your midlife body for good!

Chapters

• 0:00 Overcoming Fear to Chase Dreams
• 5:43 Embracing Change With Radical Positivity
• 17:57 Changing Beliefs, Saving Relationships
• 25:01 Navigating Mindset Shifts and Reinvention
• 37:33 Dreams, Plans, and Hard Work
• 44:50 Celebrating Older Women's Stories

Transcript

00:00 - Laurie Gerber (Guest)
Our whole job, our whole purpose as souls is to overcome our fear and chase our dreams. But because fear pretends like it's something else you know, like busyness or good logic or taking care of others, it really. It masquerades and tricks us into thinking it's not the right time. We shouldn't, we don't deserve it. Just say I'm scared. Just say I'm scared. Make a plan and do the plan. 

00:34 - Wendy Battles (Host)
Welcome to Reinvention Rebels Stories of brave and unapologetic women, 50 to 90 years young, who have boldly reinvented life on their own terms to find new purpose and possibilities. I'm your host, wendy Battles. I need to kick your fears to the curb, do it scared and step into who you are meant to be in midlife and beyond. These amazing women, these reinvention rebels, can help light your reinvention path. Come join us and let's get inspired together. Hey, hey, hey, rebels. Welcome to another episode of the Reinvention Rebels Podcast. I'm your host, wendy. I'm so excited you're here. If you are a Reinvention Rebels newbie, welcome to our community. This podcast is about betting on ourselves in midlife and celebrating the bold, amazing people we are becoming, how we can reinvent with joy on our own terms. And today I want to ask you a question what if reinvention isn't about flipping your life overnight? Because most of us, well, we're not going to do that. But it was about changing your mind and daring to try again, because so many times, reinventing ourselves it's not a one-shot deal. It's about our mindset, it's about persistence and determination, it's about self-belief in making it happen, and that's exactly what my guest today, lori Gerber, has done. This coach and speaker has such an interesting reinvention story and a lot of motivation for us, especially around dating in midlife, after 50 or whatever age. So I think you're really going to love her story. But before I get to that, I do want to mention because we are talking about making bold moves and doing it scared At the end of the episode, I'm going to tell you about my Do it Scared ebook that I want to encourage you to download to help you get into action. You're going to listen to her fabulous story and then we need to get busy in figuring out how we can reinvent our own lives. So stay tuned for that. Now let me tell you about Lori Gerber. What if midlife reinvention isn't about flipping your whole life overnight, but about changing your mind and daring to bet on yourself? That's exactly what Laurie Gerber has done yourself. That's exactly what Lori Gerber has done. 

03:49
Founder of Laurie Gerber Coaching Inc. And a veteran of 20 years with the renowned Handle Group, where she rose to president of HG Life, Laurie now licenses the Handle Method and focuses her practice on bold, truth-telling love coaching. Her straight talk approaches landed her on the Today Show, dr Phil, mtv A&E and in the expert's chair for Match, zook, j-date and more. You can also catch her TED Talk the Secret Free Diet, a Powerful Ode to Radical Honesty. At 50, Laurie has redefined what it means to thrive in midlife, recreating her business, marriage, menopause experience and even her dating philosophy with unapologetic positivity. From keynotes at General Assembly and Elevate to coaching thousands of individuals, couples and groups, she shows women how to dismantle limiting beliefs, reclaim desire and rewrite the rules of what's possible after 50. When she's not coaching from her New York City townhouse, you'll find her meditating, jogging along the Hudson or wrangling cuddles from her three kids and husband of 26 years. Laurie Gerber, welcome to the Reinvention Rebels. Guest chair. 

05:12 - Laurie Gerber (Guest)
Wow, you made me sound fabulous. It sounds so good coming out of your mouth. It is so good to be here. 

05:18 - Wendy Battles (Host)
Well, I'm excited and it's all true, so it should sound good, right? 

05:22 - Laurie Gerber (Guest)
You've done this, just the actual sound of your voice and the way that you put it. It's exciting to be me. The journey has been very exciting. I've been at this many years and I love talking about what I do in my own life and in the lives of my clients. So thank you for inviting me. 

05:41 - Wendy Battles (Host)
It's my pleasure. I'm so excited you're here. You do this fabulous work and it's so key to this idea of reinventing ourselves, the work that you do to help people see these new possibilities when sometimes, you know, it's almost like we have these blinders on, in this tunnel vision. We can't see it for ourselves, and having this outside person makes all the difference. So you know, lori, I have questions for you that I know our audience also wants to hear about too, and just this notion that we'll talk about a little bit later, this idea of reinventing love, which I know is on the minds of so many women in midlife for many different reasons, whether they're widowed, divorced, never been married, you name it. So that's just, of course, part of this whole story we're going to be telling today, but I do want to begin with you. 

06:30
Before we get into the amazing work you're doing, I want to begin with your story, and I know that you've reinvented yourself in several bold ways, as we talked about in your description, from launching your own business to embracing menopause, to this whole idea of creating this radically positive outlook when society will tell us well, I don't know about that, but you're doing that. What was the moment, lori, when you knew it was time to bet on yourself. And how did you take that first leap? 

07:05 - Laurie Gerber (Guest)
I'm going to be honest with you and this is something that I have actually never said on a podcast before, in fact I've even covered up which is that I was fired from my job in the Handel Group. It's a long story how that happened, a very long, complicated story. I am still best friends with the woman who created the Handel group, who trained me in the Handel method, who you know. She's one of my dearest friends back from back then and still to this day. She did not intend that I get fired, but I did. I got fired and I will say it was the best. 

07:43
So many people choose to reinvent themselves. I was forced and I do not regret that one single bit. In fact, I'm proud to say that it only took me a few days to get over my ego and get over my shame and get over my anger and get over all those feelings, to go oh my gosh, thank goodness, because I never would have done this myself. I would have never had the guts. I would have never had. I just would have never had the guts or the. It's more than guts. It's strength, it's vision, it's guts, it's all of these things. 

08:17
I think it was from above, right, so I will. I'm not mad. I really never shared it because I think it makes the Handel group look bad and I never wish to make them look bad because I love them and I still license the method and love everything that my past has been with them. But that's the truth. When you asked me point blank, what was the moment? That was the moment when they were like we won't be needing your services anymore, I was like okay, well, I have a lot of decisions to make. 

08:45 - Wendy Battles (Host)
Then in that case. You know, it's so interesting because these things can happen to any of us the shock of something unexpected, whether it's work-wise or in our relationships or our family or whatever it is, and I think it throws us for a loop. So one, I'm so impressed that it only took you a few days to kind of work through that, which is amazing because it's so easy, I think, to feel bitter or like what the what? Instead of seeing it as an opportunity. 

09:19 - Laurie Gerber (Guest)
I wanted something different and they wanted something different. 

09:23
So, which is another reason why it's there's no need to make a drama about it but I wanted something different. My both of my parents had gotten diagnosed with two cancers. They were ailing. They needed help. I was getting two kids out of the house, still one at home. I was working like a crazy person, and so I really did need something to change. And I was snooping around. You know how could we make this work? So it wasn't. I think they knew they weren't ruining. Yes, right, they were really setting me free. So that's part of why it was not that hard to get over. And I will say the same exact thing happened in my marriage at the turning point of my marriage, which was my husband said I want to divorce you. Right, like it was. 

10:05
It was these moments of truth where I'm called into question. My value is called into question, what I can provide is called into question. That I'm not proud of it, but it's the truth about the moments where I have had to go. Okay, I'm ready to change everything. I I am. I'm ready to change everything. Now. I coach women and my mission is to help people avoid the crisis moments that force reinvention. But sometimes we can't avoid those moments. Sometimes the powers that be are working on our behalf in ways we can't understand, and they are served to us rather than proactively I don't know how to put it proactively manifested by us. They are manifested by sources that we can't see. 

10:48 - Wendy Battles (Host)
Yeah, I completely agree with you and I know that I always believe. I always believe that things happen for a reason, even though it doesn't always seem fair or it's not understandable sometimes, but in the end I always see it was for my greater good. 

11:03 - Laurie Gerber (Guest)
Talk about radical positivity. I mean if you really live that way and believe that you are in the top 1% of positivity on this earth. 

11:13 - Wendy Battles (Host)
I mean it takes a while. It's not like I instantly say that, but I thought of that because I saw one of my really close friends over the weekend and she said she'd gotten fired. She was in a job that was so miserable that was making her sick. You know, she had a toxic boss. This was the best thing that could have happened to her. Even though right now she's searching for a job and she's kind of feeling like, well, I'm 62 and I feel like ageism and all those things, it is still the best thing that could have happened to her, because she can't afford, with someone that has like an autoimmune disorder, to have this kind of stress. That's right. 

11:47 - Laurie Gerber (Guest)
When you weigh and we don't right, because every time I think back on that transition that I went from being a workhorse executive inside a company to working for myself as an entrepreneur. It's so obvious that I'm much better suited to working for myself, being independent, making my own hours, being flexible and all that working from home all of the above. But when you're in it, you justify it, of course you do because it's what you have, it's what you got right. 

12:19
Kids are up in the middle of the night because they're babies. At some point you just have to validate the experience that you're in. So I had put so much energy into validating where I was and I don't even regret that because it is where I was and I was not miserable. I was not actively miserable, but when I look at it, when I look at those moments of truth, I and this is what I encourage my clients to do is I go. Well, what's the alternative? Right, I have a client right now that's in the middle of an awful, contentious divorce, okay, and she's like I can't believe he couldn't see me, he couldn't give me what I needed in this, even when I told him that me giving him the house was predicated upon. Could he just do these few things for our kids? Could he just and I said that's the reason you're getting- a divorce. 

13:06
Don't you remember? You can't have it both ways, right? The person doesn't change because you got a divorce. You change because you set yourself free from that. And the fact that you keep thinking there's some alternative, like if that change had occurred then you'd be asking yourself should I go back? So you can't have it both ways. 

13:29
You have to accept that there is a reason you are leaving and you have to be able to live with the fact. You chose that. I chose the work I did for 20 years. I chose being a jerk in my marriage for five to 10 years. We made choices and we have to humble ourselves to go you know what? In order to say we're picking something new and really get focused on the future. We have to be humble enough to say and we also pick that other thing, yeah. 

13:57 - Wendy Battles (Host)
Right, Exactly, we had our reasons, didn't we Right? Yeah, and so much of what you're saying to me has to do with this light bulb and self-awareness that when we can have that light bulb go off and that you had the realization in your marriage of how you were being well, then that shifted things. And you know, in a world where there's so many negative things said about women as we age and it's so easy to get absorbed into that, I'm really curious because in our pre-interview chat, you said that the biggest challenge in your reinvention was overcoming the negative projections of society. So I do want to ask you how did you rewrite this narrative and really choose to own your truth instead? 

14:46 - Laurie Gerber (Guest)
Well, first of all, I want to disagree with you and potentially with myself, if I did say I think it's hard to overcome those voices because I actually don't think it's hard Literally, like literally. If you look at my Instagram feed, it's all positive voices about aging. It is an immediate unsubscribe to any email, anything that enters my field that is not pro-aging period. And that also answers your question how do you do it? You literally stop ingesting material. You stop ingesting conversations, you stop ingesting media. You stop ingesting any ingredient that you're allergic to. I'm allergic to dairy, I'm allergic to peppers. I'm allergic to negativity about aging. I'm allergic to negativity in general. 

15:41 - Wendy Battles (Host)
Yes, me too, I mean. I think we're very similar in that way, so I like that idea. Just like stop you can the power to stop. 

15:49 - Laurie Gerber (Guest)
If you're allergic to peanuts, you really might not even go on an airplane. You might, and you really might tell everybody I'm allergic to this, and you really wouldn't be like, oh, let me just try it this once. You just wouldn't. 

16:00 - Wendy Battles (Host)
No. 

16:01 - Laurie Gerber (Guest)
It's the same. You want to stop a particular, whether it's a negative conversation about politics, about dating which is rampant over 50, a negative conversation about aging, a negative conversation about menopause, a negative conversation about your ex any negative conversation you want to unsubscribe from, opt out of. You have 100% control over that and that even means if someone brings it up, you may not be able to stop someone from bringing it up, but you can immediately stop someone from continuing the conversation If someone put a peanut near your face you wouldn't lick it. 

16:34 - Wendy Battles (Host)
No, you would be like let me get away as far away as possible, right, because I might. You know, I do have my EpiPen near me, right? So you need to be preventative, which I think is so is so impactful right now because we live we're living in a world that often feels overwhelming. There's so many things coming at us, often negative things, and from whatever perspective you want to consider all the things you mentioned, and more so, I like this idea that we have agency, that we can make choices, we can choose what's right for us, and I think that is so much about midlife and reinvention is getting clear about, like, what do I want? Not what everybody else says, but what Wendy wants. 

17:16 - Laurie Gerber (Guest)
And everyone who is following their own voice, listening to and following their own voice, is actively shutting out, shutting down extraneous voices, actively curating what comes in. You curate what you eat. You curate what you listen to. You curate what you eat. You curate what you listen to. You curate how you spend your time. That is all 100% under your authorship. 

17:37 - Wendy Battles (Host)
Yeah, and what a difference that can make, even sometimes just that aha moment of recognizing that that I have the power, and sometimes that means taking it back because we've given it away to other people and other things. It could be anything our jobs, our families, you name it. So I like this idea of reclaiming. You also said, lori, that one of your key lessons that you've learned is that you don't have to believe everything you think. You don't have to believe everything you think. Can you share? 

18:13 - Laurie Gerber (Guest)
a moment when I'm glad I said that you talked to me a long time ago. I don't remember anything. I said yeah, you said that I love it too. 

18:20 - Wendy Battles (Host)
Can you share a moment when this insight shifted something for you as you were reinventing Sure? 

18:28 - Laurie Gerber (Guest)
So, first of all, I'm talking about shutting out propaganda, right, I'm talking about shutting out voices that don't serve you, but maybe you hear 10,000 words a day from other people. You hear between 12 and 60,000 thoughts in your own head every day. That's the voice you really need to curate, is that not the truth? Oh, my marriage. I did not understand that perpetual interrupting and criticizing and judgment and withholding sex was going to be the end of my marriage. I thought that was normal. I did not think that was ultimately going to be the end of my marriage. 

19:25
So in that moment of truth, I had to inspect my beliefs, and that is literally what I had a coach for. My coach would ask me what do you believe? And I remember thinking I believe my husband's an idiot and I believe he doesn't love me. Those are some of the beliefs that I am proving and not beliefs, I should say theories that I am proving true because, upon questioning, I recalled I used to think my husband was pretty brilliant and I used to think he loved me. So something happened where I started proving the wrong theories. Like you can't have a great career and raise children or you can't. You can't get better at the gym or better at sex as you age or you know, like all of these crazy theories that we have and then prove true. 

20:08
So I started to literally change my mind and collect evidence for my husband's brilliant and he loves me, which automatically equaled if he's talking, I have to listen to the end of his sentence, the end of his story, which I was never doing. One day I was cutting him off with my own brilliance, quote unquote. So I actually didn't know how smart he was, because it turns out my husband was raised by a minister. He heard sermons. Growing up he learned to speak in what I would consider sermon talk, where the moral of the story comes at the end, where there's a reveal at the end. And he does put his most intelligent stuff at the end when he sums everything up and explains his ultimate point and conclusion. 

20:56
And I was never getting to the end with him because I would just talk over him. So the more I believed he was intelligent and loved me, the more I listened. The more he talked, the more love I felt, the more intelligent he seemed. So, lo and behold, I did not believe what I thought and I was able to prove something true that saved my marriage and has made my marriage better and better over the last. I think it's been more than 26 years now. Possibly I don't know. We were married in 98. So it may be. It may be maybe we may be coming up on 27. 

21:27 - Wendy Battles (Host)
Yeah, I think you're right. I think you're coming up on 27. I'm not good at this kind of math, but anyway, I think you're coming up on 27. 

21:31 - Laurie Gerber (Guest)
Yeah, I think you're right. I think you're coming up on 27. I'm not good at this kind of math, but anyway, I think that was a good example. Yes, yeah, I think that's a great example. And if you want me to go into menopause. That's another great example of not believing what you think. 

21:42 - Wendy Battles (Host)
Yeah, absolutely, and I think that there's something powerful about when we can come to this realization and we realize we don't have to believe all these things so that we can make our own choices, that we can have these kind of ahas, because that's basically what's that you had, this awakening about this, not having to believe that, and things really shifted. And I think that that's very powerful, especially these days, because I feel like so many of us are looking for hope, we're looking for this positivity we're looking for and it doesn't mean we don't have to do hard work, because that's still right it's hard work in any relationship. It's hard work at you know, in any job. It's not like we're just coasting through, right, we have to put in the effort. But it's a reminder, though, about what can be possible, and you know that just is, to me, is so in step with your whole philosophy of this radical positivity. 

22:35 - Laurie Gerber (Guest)
Yeah, I think the hard work is actually what gives people hope. You know they're not two separate things, like because you have hope, you do hard work. It's more like you do hard work and then you have hope Absolutely. 

22:47 - Wendy Battles (Host)
Absolutely, and then I think that often restores for us this sense of hope that might have been missing, or you know what have you? So it makes a huge difference. I do want to ask you, of course, the thing that I know people really want to hear about is your role as a dating coach, because this is such a huge issue for so many women. I mean, it's mostly women that are listening to this podcast. They're, you know, women who are in all different stages of things some singles, some couples, some whatever but you do help women over 50 navigate love and relationships with fresh eyes, because your whole perspective is about seeing things with fresh eyes, based on your experience with menopause and your marriage. Right, these, oh wow, look at that. I didn't know that was possible, even getting fired fresh eyes. So there's this theme about fresh eyes. What do you see as the biggest mindset shift women need to make to reinvent themselves in this area, and how does dating become a powerful part of this reinvention journey? Fun question. 

23:53 - Laurie Gerber (Guest)
The biggest mindset shift women need to make is debunking the theory that the past predicts the future, which completely applies to dating and love, but also applies to everything right. Just because you had this kind of job before does not mean that's the job you need to have. Just because you had this kind of relationship before does not mean it's the kind of relationship, whether it's with your current partner or a new partner. If you're asking me, really, what is the biggest mindset shift and it's the most ubiquitous excuse slash theory that people have, which is that because I didn't get it right before, I won't get it right again. 

24:28 - Wendy Battles (Host)
Oh yes, so much of our experience is grounded in like well, this is what happened in the past. So I think it's hard sometimes to see, just because I didn't get it right the first time, or the first 10 times or however many times right, that it could still, on the 11th time, be different. 

24:44 - Laurie Gerber (Guest)
and awesome If you worked in science or technology. That would be a duh right Like do you think we're inventing a new technology or getting to the moon on the first try? Of course not. No one's even expecting to get it right the first hundred times. And I say the opposite of what most people believe, which is that the more times you fail, the more likely you are to succeed. Because if you take the learning and because you've tried a lot of different things I even think about a health. I have an autoimmune condition for which I tried 70 solutions before I found the one that worked. And again, think of if it was your kid, would you stop at two tries? No, you would go until you've tried literally everything and you wouldn't even think. That's weird that you love your kids so much that you would never give up trying to solve the thing so that they can have a happy, healthy life. Why wouldn't you do that for yourself? 

25:41 - Wendy Battles (Host)
That's a mighty good question that you ask, because I think it's so interesting how we can, as you're saying, apply this with ease to the people we love our kids. Yes, we'll go to the ends of the earth for our children, and that's just what you do. 

25:58 - Laurie Gerber (Guest)
Right and you're full of ideas. Oh that you didn't get that internship. What about this job? What about this Exactly? Oh, it didn't work out with that person. What about this person? Yeah, you think it's your job to not give up on the possibilities for them, but for yourself, we put ourselves last. We are not enculturated to make sure we turn out happy. We're enculturated to make sure everyone around us turns out happy, exactly, and that's a very different set of skills. 

26:29 - Wendy Battles (Host)
It is. It is, and I think it really begs the question well then, how do I? I mean, it's one thing to say, oh, you know, just keep trying and you have wisdom from all these experiences Great. But I think it's another thing to actually do that, to begin to make that shift. I understand this idea that, yes, just because it's happened in the past, it's failed, doesn't mean I could do it in the future. I could, but I also think getting my arms around that in my mind is hard. It's hard. 

26:58 - Laurie Gerber (Guest)
I'll tell you the solution I have always used myself, which is I find an expert who has accomplished what I want to accomplish and I know other people have said this. But I hired a coach because the coach had the life I wanted. I hired a doctor because the doctor had cured the situation I was in. I hired. You know I hire ultimately I hire for what I can't figure out myself and I'll try a bunch on my own, like I certainly am happy to try the obvious things on my own. But if there's a place I'm stuck or I have a blind spot, I'm hiring somebody to show me the way that has been proven to work. 

27:40 - Wendy Battles (Host)
That's like so key, that's so key to write. It's obvious and it seems obvious, but I think for some people it won't be. And just this reminder that I don't have to struggle so much by myself. I could improve or advance through the help of others. We don't have to go it alone and sometimes we need to just ask for support. We need to ask for support. 

28:04 - Laurie Gerber (Guest)
Wendy, when my coach helped me understand that a healthy marriage has listening and sex, I was like, really, you couldn't figure that out yourselfori obvious, right? But it wasn't obvious to me, a smart, educated person, because I was getting away with murder and no one was really calling me on it until it went that far. And so I did need another set of eyes, a honest set of eyes, to tell me and the same thing. It's so funny too, because we have to talk about menopause, right, we've teased it and now we have to talk about it, but here's how it can go wrong, getting information from experts. So I remember the moment when my gynecologist said something like might you want HRT? Or like some form of like. Well, you are at the age of like. She said something, and up until that moment I don't think I really had any symptoms, wendy, which is weird. And then that day I went home and started having symptoms of perimenopause menopause, right, which is in and of itself, remarkable to notice, right, if you think about when something started to go south. Do you remember the moment or who said what to you when that happened? Okay, but that was remarkable. 

29:22
Then I started researching because, as a type A person. I like to gather information Now. I currently now, as a result of the learning from this a few years ago have a rule that I'm only allowed to research any health condition for two minutes enough to be like do I need to go to the ER? Is there a medication for this? That's it right, because what I did instead and I'm sure you, I can't remember the wonderful woman's name, but somebody referred a wonderful, brilliant scientist on YouTube and I watched 81 out of 279 YouTube videos about menopause, where now my four little symptoms went like. Now I was mulling over 65 symptoms, right, and starting to be like, eh, you know like. And the more I was educating myself with expert opinions, the more I was going down a spiral into a rabbit hole of pain and discomfort and hypochondria and and also misery, you know, misery community, misery community. 

30:27
Okay, I called my coach Wendy, my coach that 20 years ago helped me save my marriage, my coach that got me into this business to begin with. That I love. That taught me how to think this way. That taught me how to think myself out of any condition I didn't like being in, but I thought I was being so smart, getting educated about menopause, you see like being a good type A student. And she was like you're, you're cut off, you have not used this information for good. You have now no right Like starting right now. And sometimes she just has to tell me we're just going to turn this around, like we're just not going on this trail anymore. You have infinite paths you can pick. Stop picking the one that's making you crazy and pick one that's going to make you feel better. 

31:14
And I changed my mind and I took each symptom and I reinvented what that symptom meant to me. And then I just had a little talk with myself and was like Lori, this is not how you go down, like you don't go down as the coach who couldn't be happy because then what are you going to do with your life? That's not going to work. And, by the way, wendy, I had pain-free natural childbirths. 

31:36
I hypnotized myself to believe that childbirth is not painful. So I mean, it's a little hard to convince me that I don't have control over my mind-body connection, because I have a lot of proof that I have control over my mind-body connection. So I changed my whole perspective on menopause and I can give you more specifics about each symptom, but suffice to say in that moment, just like in the moment the symptoms started to appear, the symptoms started to disappear. In that moment, either I found how to treat them, they literally just disappeared. My hormones changed who's to say what happened? But I no longer complain about perimenopause, unless I'm just having fun joking and thinking it's Because hot flashes are funny. I really do think hot flashes are funny. 

32:20 - Wendy Battles (Host)
Sort of. 

32:22 - Laurie Gerber (Guest)
I used to think they're funny. Maybe Nothing's been ruined yet. Yeah, yeah. 

32:28 - Wendy Battles (Host)
I know what you're saying, and nobody dies from a hot flash. So you know, but in the moment, you become a furnace in a moment. 

32:37 - Laurie Gerber (Guest)
You can bond with any other woman. 

32:38 - Wendy Battles (Host)
Yeah, it's true. 

32:39 - Laurie Gerber (Guest)
I just think that's pretty. 

32:41 - Wendy Battles (Host)
It's so relatable. It's so relatable and I love this idea right that you're saying you can change your mind. First of all, I can't even believe it. I mean, I can believe it, but it's amazing to me. It's amazing to me that you hypnotized yourself during childbirth and it didn't hurt. I was like what? 

32:55 - Laurie Gerber (Guest)
Well, to be clear, I had three childbirths. The first one was painful, very fast, but I was not able to get ahead of the experience. Also, I had induced myself with castor oil, so it was faster than it naturally should have been. The second two do we have time for the story? Oh my gosh. Second one it was completely pain-free until I hit the five hour mark, which was the amount of time it took my first one to be born. So at five hours I started to have a thought. 

33:24
Remember changing your mind? My mind was like the baby should be here by now, because the last one was five hours. I said is something wrong? And my practitioner said no. And then I realized oh, I'm comparing this one to the last one I remembered. Oh, the last one I induced with Castor oil. That's a very different labor than this one where I'm in a bathtub and relaxing. It should take longer. I changed my mind like oh, this is normal, this is healthy. The pain went away. Baby born in eight hours, right Like so. And then the third one was just like. 

33:56
You're amazing I could have been walking to. You know walking, oh my gosh. You know you get used to it, you're. You know I was not prepared at all. Honestly, it only hurt because I was trying not to push, because I wanted the labor to last longer. It was like a three hour, okay, lori. 

34:13
But my point is, it wasn't like a snap to not have pain. First of all, to your original point. I put in hundreds of hours of practice, hundreds of hours, so I did my freaking homework. It wasn't simple. I did my homework to train my body to believe my auto-suggestion to myself, which was that everything that was happening was normal, everything that was happening was healthy and beautiful, and, in the right time, that my body knew what to do, all of the ancient wisdom, I hypnotized myself to believe it. And then, boy, did I rigorously rule out anybody else's voice on that topic, because the whole wide world thinks it's the curse of Eve, right, that we should have painful childbirth and that is just absolutely normal. And then, considering how medicalized it is, of course it often is extremely painful and scary and all those things. So I'm not trying to be flip about it. I think my hard work and my belief paid off and I don't think everybody you know and I think there's a healthy amount of luck in it as well. So I'll give myself that. 

35:19 - Wendy Battles (Host)
And what a story. And I think it's interesting to hear such perspectives because it never was even a consideration to me that you could have a baby and it wouldn't hurt or that you could reduce the pain. And I think it's raised the power of our minds and I think, that same powerful mindset that you have about childbirth. It feels like we can apply that to so many things and especially, obviously, midlife. As we're reinventing ourselves, we could have a very different perspective as we're wrapping up. What's one piece of advice or some wisdom that you want to share with listeners about this whole idea of reinvention and how we can ease our path and do it with more confidence and more joy? 

36:07 - Laurie Gerber (Guest)
I mean, aside from don't believe what you think, if you don't like what you're thinking, I would say what I find very reassuring is I believe your dreams are encoded in you. I don't believe you really have to look far and wide. I think you need time and space and structure to listen to yourself. But it's in there, right? What you really desire, what you really want, is in there, and it doesn't have to be hard to figure it out. Mostly, you're probably just scared to say it and then you don't have a plan. So if you can deal with your fear to say it and then you can make a plan, preferably accountable to a coach, a therapist, a friend, somebody who loves you, and then execute that plan, then that dream is possible. 

36:54 - Wendy Battles (Host)
I love this advice, I love this idea, one that it's already in there and part of it is being open to birthing it, speaking it out loud, saying I have a dream and then getting the requisite help, whatever that is, in whatever form it shows up or you seek. Yes, I am 100% with you. I love this perspective that we can take those things that sometimes we've been afraid to say. Is it too much for me to have this dream? You know, women, we play small often. Who am I to do that? Instead of like damn it, I'm going to do X, and I don't even know how right now, but I'm going to figure it out. 

37:35 - Laurie Gerber (Guest)
Right, and sometimes X is just fall back in love with my partner, find a healthy love, get myself in good physical shape, take care of myself, eat more healthfully, do an art project, write a book. These are not insane requests of the powers that be. They're not. They're not insane requests and they're not undoable, but they do require hearing the voice of the dream, being able to do battle in your mind and manage it, and then creating a plan and being accountable to the plan. 

38:07 - Wendy Battles (Host)
Yeah, absolutely All those things. So it takes effort. What we're saying, right, that's the hard work. Yes, the hard work is the plan yeah, right, you can birth it, but then actually the actual process of manifesting it, creating it like everything else that's good in our lives, it takes effort, it takes attention, it takes intention to do those things we actually like hard work. 

38:30 - Laurie Gerber (Guest)
People act like we don't like quote unquote hard work. People act like it's to be avoided. But whenever you ask anybody about their peak moments, their peak experiences, they threw a wedding for their daughter. They wrote a book. They finished a marathon. They made it a beautiful meal for their family. They wrote a book, they finished a marathon. They made it a beautiful meal for their family. They created a work of art. 

38:51
It takes work. We're proud of work. We're happy when we work. We love meaningful work actually way more than we like sitting and consuming media. That doesn't make us feel good. So we should not be afraid of hard work. Feel good, so we should not be afraid of hard work. You know again quote unquote hard work. And I also just we can't underplay how much fear comes in disguise. And really our whole job, our whole purpose as souls, is to overcome our fear and chase our dreams. But because fear pretends like it's something else, you know, like busyness or good logic or taking care of others, it really it masquerades and tricks us into thinking it's not the right time. We shouldn't, we don't deserve it. Just say I'm scared. Just say I'm scared. Make a plan and do the plan. 

39:38 - Wendy Battles (Host)
I love that advice that is so spot on. Just make a plan and then work that plan and we can move toward those things we want to do, whether they're big or small or somewhere in between. Brilliant, as we're wrapping up, lori, I have to ask you where can people find you? You know people listening are going to be like. I want to follow Lori. I want to learn more about what she does. Where are you? 

40:03 - Laurie Gerber (Guest)
Where the heck am I? The best place to find me is lauriegerbercom. There's a little contact thing where, if you want to send me an email, you can. On lauriegerbercom, I want the daters, I want the women daters over 50 to do the free webinar and to look at my digital course, because that is the answer right. If you are nervous about dating, if you're feeling unsuccessful, disappointed in dating, if you're in early dating and you're not sure if you're with the right person, that is just the most obvious route to go. That is the area of my business that I've developed to be the most accessible to the most people. But if you are someone who's in a relationship, not sure if you should stay or go, needs help going, or you want to save your marriage, or you just are in some transition or other and need somebody to hold you to account for thinking the right thoughts and taking the right actions, you should just send me an email. 

40:58 - Wendy Battles (Host)
Fabulous. That is fabulous, and all of that information you just talked about is in the show notes so people can easily tap or click and find it. Lori, this has been so amazing, thank you. Thank you for joining me and thank you for gracing all of us with your presence today. I really enjoyed this conversation with Lori so much. 

41:27
I came away with a lot of little nuggets, and one of them was that you don't have to believe everything. You think that we can change our thoughts and we can change the outcome, and that sometimes reinvention is forced and that's okay. And that sometimes reinvention is forced and that's okay, because I've seen so many times in my own life how something happens that seems like catastrophic has happened to her right. She lost her job, but she was able to reimagine that and turn it into something better, and I see that as possibilities. And, of course, we can get help when we're stuck. We don't have to go it alone, which I say all the time like come up with your reinvention dream team, your squad, those people that will help you, whether they're your friends or family or a coach that you're paying for. There's so many different ways that we can do that. If you loved this episode as much as I did. If you loved this episode as much as I did, I want to encourage you to subscribe, rate and share Reinvention Rebels on your favorite podcast platform, because it helps other midlife women find the show too. And that's what we're all about Trying to inspire people into action, to activate all of us about living our best life. By the way, all the links that Lori mentioned, they're in the show notes, so you can check it out and learn more about her. By the way, don't forget to download my Do it Scared ebook, because this is all about activation, about getting into action to pursue our dreams. Not just listening and thinking that's great, but thinking about, well, what does this mean for my own life? And the thing is, I do it scared a lot when I was just speaking on a big stage in Atlanta a few weeks ago. I did it scared, but I did it, and this ebook will help you along the way. 

43:24
Okay, one last thing I want to tell you about what I'm listening to right now. It's my friend Jane Leader's podcast Older Women and Friends. It's warm, it's wise, it celebrates our stories with humor and talks about the amazing things that older women are doing. I'm going to tell you it is the perfect companion for anyone living boldly in midlife, aka you, and I've been soaking up her episodes. I think you're going to love them too. You're going to find details in the show notes. Thank you all for listening and remember keep shining your light. Rebels. The world needs you and all that you have to offer.