Episode 3: Who Am I Now? Redefining Identity and Designing Your Second Act

Episode 3:  Who Am I Now? Redefining Identity and Designing Your Second Act

Ever looked at your life and thought, okay… but who even am I now?
Same.

In this episode of Midlife: Interrupted & Unfiltered, Anne and Melissa dive into the identity shake-up that happens when the roles, labels, and expectations you’ve been carrying no longer fit. You’ve been the helper, the wife, the mother, the professional, the one who keeps it all together — but what happens when you start asking who you are underneath all of that?

This is an honest, funny, and empowering conversation about identity, reinvention, self-discovery, personal growth, purpose, and designing your next chapter with intention. We’re talking about the messy magic of change, the discomfort of letting old versions of yourself go, and the freedom that comes when you stop living by default and start choosing who you want to become.

If you’ve been feeling disconnected, restless, or like you’re outgrowing the life and identity you once worked so hard to build, this episode is your reminder: you are not lost — you are in the middle of becoming.

Expect truth bombs, laughs, and the kind of motivating conversation that helps you stop asking for permission and start creating a second act that actually feels like yours.

If you’re searching for a podcast about identity, reinvention, self-discovery, personal growth, purpose, life transitions, mindset shifts, confidence, women’s empowerment, and designing your next chapter, this episode is for you.

Because “Who am I now?” isn’t a crisis. It’s the beginning of clarity. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to Midlife Interrupted and Unfiltered.

SPEAKER_00 0:03

I'm Melissa, coach, counselor, and professional truthbringer.

SPEAKER_01 0:06

And I'm Anne, trial lawyer, accountability partner, and certified Pilates instructor. Yes, that's true.

SPEAKER_00 0:12

We're just two East Coast women who met at kindergarten drop-off in the Midwest.

SPEAKER_01 0:16

And 15 years later, decided that midlife needed a megaphone and not a new button. So we're here to interrupt those negative narratives and share the unfaltered truth about reinvention, perimenopause, and everything in between.

SPEAKER_00 0:30

Just real talk. Let's go. Oh, hey, and can I read you something? Read it's from a client note. No identifying details. Um, but a client a couple years ago wrote this to me after one of our sessions, and I've kept it because it says something I've actually never been able to say better myself. Read it. Okay. She wrote, I've spent 45 years becoming everything everyone needed me to be. I was somebody's daughter, somebody's wife, somebody's mother, somebody's employee. And somewhere in all of that becoming, I forgot to find out who I actually was. Midlife didn't give me a crisis, it gave me a question. And for the first time in my life, I think I'm ready to answer it. And that's why I'm with you.

SPEAKER_01 1:22

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 1:23

How many women do you think that describes? The majority of the women that I work with in this age range in some version or in some way.

SPEAKER_01 1:31

So welcome to midlife, interrupted and unfiltered.

SPEAKER_00 1:37

Today we are not talking about a midlife crisis. We're talking about a midlife question. Who am I now?

SPEAKER_01 1:43

And more importantly, what do I want to be? Well, let's find out. Okay. So let's start by blowing up something that I think does women a tremendous disservice.

SPEAKER_00 1:56

The midlife crisis narrative.

SPEAKER_01 1:58

Where did this even come from?

SPEAKER_00 2:00

So the term midlife crisis was actually coined by a psychologist, Elliot Jex, in 1965, I think. And it was largely based on research. Guess who? Based on men. Of course it was. It's everything. Yep. And it was about men experiencing mortality anxiety or buying sports cars or making impulsive decisions. Of course it was about men. Every study. Of course. And somehow this study became the dominant cultural narrative for what happens to everyone in midlife. And it's the expectation is you do something dramatic and irrational and then you regret it.

SPEAKER_01 2:37

Which, as a framing, is incredibly unhelpful for women.

SPEAKER_00 2:41

Right. It's not just unhelpful, it's actually really damaging because it turns what's actually a profound and meaningful psychological evolution into a punchline.

SPEAKER_01 2:50

Or a cliche.

SPEAKER_00 2:52

A cliche that dismisses or invalidates the very real, very significant inner work that midlife invites. When a woman in her, let's say, late 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s starts questioning her identity or asking these gay questions and wanting something different. That's not a crisis. She's having an awakening. Exactly. Awakening. And there's a profound difference between those two words.

SPEAKER_01 3:17

In my mind, a crisis implies that something's wrong, that something's broken, and something needs to be fixed or managed or pushed through.

SPEAKER_00 3:25

Exactly. And an awakening implies something's opening, something's possible that wasn't before.

SPEAKER_01 3:32

I know which one I'd rather be having, and I think we all do.

SPEAKER_00 3:35

And that reframe from crisis to awakening changes everything about how we navigate this season of life.

SPEAKER_01 3:41

So we're retiring the midlife crisis narrative on this podcast.

SPEAKER_00 3:47

Officially retired, Ann.

SPEAKER_01 3:49

And we are going to replace it with something much more interesting.

SPEAKER_00 3:54

So let's talk about those shifts. Like what's actually happening in midlife? Because I think one of the reasons this crisis narrative persists is that people don't actually have a word or a language for something more nuanced.

SPEAKER_01 4:08

They're not always dramatic. They're not always a lightning bolt moment. It doesn't have to be that much of a seismic shift.

SPEAKER_00 4:17

Exactly. And often they're quiet or they come over time, accumulative, slow awakening of something inside of us.

SPEAKER_01 4:24

So give me some examples, since you see this in your profession, about what those subtle shifts are and what they might look like. Just walk us through that.

SPEAKER_00 4:33

Well, let's start with the first one. And this is with almost every woman and various parts of her life, but in particular in midlife. And this is what I call role reckoning. It's the moment when you look at all the roles you've been playing: mom, wife, daughter, professional, caretaker, fixer, peacekeeper, cooker, and you realize that somewhere along the way, you started confusing that role with yourself.

SPEAKER_01 5:04

Okay, so first of all, I'm totally exhausted by all those labels. But so essentially what you're saying is that this role reckoning, the costume, became the person.

SPEAKER_00 5:15

Exactly. And in midlife, something shifts. So many things shift, right? We're not just gonna say things, but the kids, right? Our children need us differently. Our career evolves, or maybe restarts, or maybe totally changes, relationships change. And suddenly these roles that we've been holding, that we have our identity tied to start to loosen. And then this question becomes who am I when these costumes come off? Not that you're not those roles, but you're presenting in a different way.

SPEAKER_01 5:48

No, I totally get that. I really do.

SPEAKER_00 5:51

And most women do. That subtle shift is what researchers actually call authenticity search. A lot of studies show that women in midlife report a significant increase in their desire to live more authentically and more with purpose. Less performance, less people pleasing, less doing things because you're supposed to, and more doing things because they actually align with who you are.

SPEAKER_01 6:14

The tolerance for inauthesity drops dramatically, I think, as we all enter midlife and people pleasing too, at least in my experience.

SPEAKER_00 6:24

Absolutely. You almost become comfortable in your own skin in a new way. You know, and from others, right? Looking in, it can look like disruption from the outside. She quit her job, she ended our marriage. Oh my God, she changed her social circle. But from the inside, it's not a disruption. We're really aligning to what our values are.

SPEAKER_01 6:43

And finally becoming congruent with ourselves.

SPEAKER_00 6:46

Exactly. So let's go. There's one more shift. And the third shift is the time horizon shift. When you're young, time feels infinite. There's always a later. I'll do that someday, always a someday. But now, and not in a morbid way, but more in a clarifying way, we become aware that time is finite.

SPEAKER_01 7:07

And that awareness, I think, really does change everything. The things that you were tolerating, I think you think, okay, I need to stop tolerating them. The relationships that are draining you are not as fulfilling, or the relationships where you're giving more to somebody than they're giving to you. You think these relationships aren't serving me, and you decide to release them. And those dreams are things you wanted to pursue, but kept deferring either because you didn't have time or because you didn't think you were good enough, or because they didn't meet that role that you felt you were defined to be serving. That voice keeps getting louder about needing to do it and wanting to do it, because the reality is that someday is today, it's now.

SPEAKER_00 7:50

Yeah, it is. And and the fourth shift I find so fascinating, and this is the integration shift. So young adulthood, we're we're learning who we are, we're differentiating ourselves, we're deciding what we don't want to be, right? And then in midlife, it's almost like it's the opposite. Something switches. You're trying to bring together all these different parts of yourself and professional, personal, spiritual, both the strong and the vulnerable, and really still figuring out who do I want to be, who do I not want to be, but all together in one kind of whole person.

SPEAKER_01 8:26

And really, we all just need permission to be complicated. And when you are aligning all these different parts of yourself to live a true authentic life, it is complicated.

SPEAKER_00 8:36

Absolutely. And it's this permission notion is really to just be fully, completely, and authentically human. And it's a gift, even when it doesn't feel like one.

SPEAKER_01 8:46

Okay, I want to talk about something that I know a lot of women feel, but almost nobody says it out loud. Say it. Okay, the invisibility, the feeling of becoming invisible in midlife, of walking into a room and not being seen the way you used to be seen, of being passed over, of being overlooked, of being dismissed. And let's talk about it honestly because I think there are two sides to this conversation that really need to be had.

SPEAKER_00 9:12

Yeah, let's have them both.

SPEAKER_01 9:14

Okay, so side one, the invisibility is a real thing. And sometimes it can be infuriating.

SPEAKER_00 9:19

It is real. And there is research, actually, significant research, that shows that women in midlife really experience this genuine shift in how they're perceived socially and professionally. I can even speak to that with my own shift, and I'm sure you can too. This like cultural premium that's placed on youth is a real thing. And ageism in the workplace is a real thing. The way women over 45 are marketed or completely ignored by marketers is real.

SPEAKER_01 9:48

And as somebody who spent her career in the courtroom fighting for people who are dismissed and overlooked, it's particularly infuriating to me. And let me tell you, I've seen so many cases of age discrimination predominantly with females. And quite honestly, think about all the female salespeople. Small portion who when they're older in pharmaceutical sales or something, still exist and have a role in their 50s compared to men. They can keep doing it into their 70s and there's no invisibility there.

SPEAKER_00 10:23

That is a really great point. And it makes my blood boil. I don't know about you.

SPEAKER_01 10:29

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 10:31

What else?

SPEAKER_01 10:32

Side too, there's this other side of that invisibility that's actually extraordinary. And I don't want to skip past the way we get infuriated over and the anger we feel about the invisibility, because it really is a valid feeling and a valid emotion. But I don't think we should stop there. We need to talk about that other side. So let's talk about that. So when you stop being visible in certain spaces, when you stop being the youngest person in the room, and I know this has happened with me, when I stopped being looked at for certain things, something unexpected happened. I stopped performing, and quite honestly, I stopped caring what people think whose opinions I didn't truly value.

SPEAKER_00 11:16

Tell me more.

SPEAKER_01 11:17

So I spent years, decades really being acutely aware of how I was perceived in courtrooms, in boardrooms, in every room, quite honestly, monitoring, adjusting maybe my behavior, my interactions, managing this impression. And then some of the external attention shifted away.

SPEAKER_00 11:41

So the energy you were spending on this performance became available for something else, though.

SPEAKER_01 11:46

Yeah, definitely for something real, for actual presence and then doing the work without the performance that was layered on top of it.

SPEAKER_00 11:58

And this is so important because I also see this constantly in my practice. Women who initially come grieving a change, whether a change in its midlife or even a change in career, becoming a mom, even, but this change in their work or something else. And then they discover that through this invisibility, it was actually freedom in disguise.

SPEAKER_01 12:20

I was gonna say, like it's liberating. And what would you say the freedoms from what?

SPEAKER_00 12:27

It's freedom from a male-dominated workplace, right? Freedom from the constant performance of femininity and youth and attractiveness that women are socialized into from childhood. And most importantly, freedom from needing external validation to feel like you exist and you're doing what you need to do.

SPEAKER_01 12:44

So when you stop being seen through those lenses, which are really the lenses of other people and not yourself.

SPEAKER_00 12:50

Right. You start seeing yourself through your own lens.

SPEAKER_01 12:52

That's so true.

SPEAKER_00 12:54

So when this world that we've all grown up in stops defining who you need to be, you get to define yourself. And it's not a consolation prize at all. It's actually, I think it's our superpower.

SPEAKER_01 13:05

So really invisibility as a superpower. Think about that. When you're no longer performing for the room and no longer really caring about how people are judging you or how they're assessing you when you come into the room, then you can observe the room. You can see what's actually happening without the distortion of other people's lenses and the feeling of, oh, I need to be seen. And you can move through spaces with intention rather than a performance. You can invest your energy in building instead of maintaining. And the women I know who have made their most powerful moves in their careers, in their lives, they did it in their 40s and 50s when they stopped caring what that room thought, and they started acting on what they knew and being true to themselves.

SPEAKER_00 13:54

Right. Because wisdom without the need for external approval, that's unstoppable. It's not a badass.

SPEAKER_01 14:00

That's totally badass and unstoppable. And I've never really thought about those two together, taking the wisdom without the need for external approval.

SPEAKER_00 14:09

Yeah, brave the visibility if you need to. We all do. But and you can rage against the ageism because it deserves to be raised against.

SPEAKER_01 14:17

But then pick up the superpower.

SPEAKER_00 14:19

Yeah, pick up that superpower because it's really sitting right there waiting for you when you don't even know it.

SPEAKER_01 14:26

So before we move on, superpower is your invisibility. All right.

SPEAKER_00 14:34

So can we get personal for a minute? I guess it's called unfiltered.

SPEAKER_01 14:40

Isn't that what we do? So when did you have your identity shift moment? Like the one where you looked at yourself and you quite didn't recognize who you were.

SPEAKER_00 14:53

It was about, I don't know, four years before I launched the humor group officially. I had taken this extended leave of absence over a summer. It was called like flex leave or something, where you could take the time off, but you had to roll when you came back. And during that summer, I was so excited just to spend it with the girls. But I also took a class called Kaufman Fast Track here in Kansas City, which I believe still exists today. You basically take a business concept and you create a plan to launch it. And this is really where the human group was born and concept and even the logo and everything. But after this amazing summer of just being able to do a lot of yoga, being present, focused on the things I love, which is my family, I love summer, fun, idea creation. I went back to my role at work and I carried on just like I did before the summer. But a few years into that return, I was at a work meeting in one of those big team meetings and gatherings where everyone's performing on their professional identity. And I think I've said it before on a previous podcast, you feel like they're wearing a costume sometime. But I could see and feel how these women were almost silently competing or jockeying for the next organization, the new roles coming out of it was going to be a new reorganization and trying to present or perform like you would expect. And I remember standing there in the middle of this room, and I remember exactly where it was and exactly who was in it. And I remember thinking, I don't recognize who I am in this room anymore. And I need to stop presenting and I need to really dig deep and I want to be something different.

SPEAKER_01 16:34

And so what did that feel like?

SPEAKER_00 16:36

Well, terrifying and then oddly relieving, right? Because something in me thought, this isn't who I am. And I took time over a summer and created something that I could get to the heart of the work that I really want to do and find out who I actually am.

SPEAKER_01 16:53

So you took the crisis and reframed it as a question.

SPEAKER_00 16:56

Exactly. And that question led me to the courage, courage that led me to launch the human group. And obviously, courage now, even with this podcast sitting here with you, I'll take any question over the certainty every time.

SPEAKER_01 17:10

And so, what about your role in your current situation right now that's shifting? Because I know it's not just professional for you.

SPEAKER_00 17:18

Yeah, being a mom of three daughters who are all growing up. My oldest is 23 and living her best life in New York City. My my middle daughter is now 20 and in California in film school, living her best life in California. And my youngest is a freshman in high school and is 15 and will be driving very soon. And so the relationship with each of them is changing real time. And I'm watching the role of mom, who I don't always have the answers. Dad always has the answers in our house, but the mom who maybe has some answers, but to becoming like this person, you know, especially with the girls who are out of the house, this person they choose to come to because they want to. And girls, if they're listening, just know that that makes my heart feel really happy. But that shift, I think, is beautiful, but it's also brief at the same time because you miss having everybody around.

SPEAKER_01 18:08

But also, I think there's some grief too in the fact that they don't need us like they did when they were little. But that's the whole goal is to raise them to be independent. But we don't get the calls that often with a crisis. They know how to handle it, unlike forgetting their homework when they were in.

SPEAKER_00 18:24

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 18:25

You can be the hero to the rescue with a lunchbox that they forgot or the piece of homework or the permission slip that they forgot. It's hard to be a hero when they're legal adults for your kids anyway.

SPEAKER_00 18:36

I know. And like you said, that's what we did. That's what we worked. So you want them to become independent. You want them to chase their dreams, whatever they are. Okay, your turn. So you get to get personal. What's the identity shift you're sitting in right now?

SPEAKER_01 18:48

Honestly, I think it's that we'll be empty nesters come this summer. My son's in a second year of college, and my daughter's about to go off to college. And so the role of daily mom, who's present and needed every day, whether to ride or eat me a pasta or where's my shirt or all those fun questions. And being at the center of their daily orbit, not that I'm I've daily orbit since he's off of college, but really with my daughter, I still am. Net rules ending. And you don't know what replaces it, but I also feel like something doesn't have to be a replacement. It doesn't have to look as a replacement. It could just, you could still feel that void and do other things. But I knowing that I may have more time on my hands in addition to practicing law full-time when I'm an empty nester, that's one of the reasons I thought it'd be fun to get certified at Pilates and teach and meet new people. And then, of course, travel. I love travel, you know that.

SPEAKER_00 19:54

Well, that that was very honest. And thank you. And I like how you said the void's still there. You can't replace it. You have you can, but you find other ways to use that sign.

SPEAKER_01 20:06

Yeah, and I think I've been telling myself that I'm ready for this phase. I'm so proud of them, I'm excited. And that's all true. And there is some apprehension about the changing, but I need to, because I don't think I've done this yet, is just give myself the permission to sit with the not knowing of how am I really gonna feel and how am I gonna replace a quote void quote when they're gone. So also that question of and now what comes after of what are the next things I want to look at and pursue.

SPEAKER_00 20:36

Yeah. Can I say something?

SPEAKER_02 20:39

You can always say something and let's just be real. I should have just if I said no, I'm still gonna say it.

SPEAKER_00 20:44

So let's just well, I just think this is so this is the beauty of it. The fact that you don't know yet isn't a problem. It's actually exactly where you're supposed to be. So this not knowing is the fertile ground in identity, our identity, doesn't just get redesigned uncertainty, right? It gets redesigned in exactly the kind of honest and vulnerable uncertainty that you just described.

SPEAKER_01 21:07

And that's like really validating. I needed to hear that. So thank you, Coach Melissa.

SPEAKER_00 21:11

I know, and that's why I'm here.

SPEAKER_01 21:13

So 15 years of this woman keeping me honest.

SPEAKER_00 21:16

Somebody has to. Oh, so let's switch gears just slightly and let's talk about how to design what I'm gonna call a second act because I like frameworks and I like theater. So we talked about what's happening, right? You've reframed this midlife crisis narrative and talk about it as an opportunity. So let's just talk a little bit about what to do with all of this, because conscious creative design of your second act of life doesn't just happen by accident.

SPEAKER_01 21:46

It takes real tools and a framework. Take it away, Coach Melissa, with the framework.

SPEAKER_00 21:51

Yes. This is the core of when I do a lot of career things of what I do, and I call it the five pillars of second act design. I don't always say that out loud, but This is how I'd like to think about it. And I I want to be clear, this isn't linear, right? It's not a step one, step two, then done. It's more like you do something, you come back, you process it. It's more like a constellation. And so you work with all of these five things that we're going to talk about simultaneously because they do inform each other.

SPEAKER_01 22:18

Okay, so let's start with pillar one.

SPEAKER_00 22:21

Okay. Well, this is values, values excavation, not clarification. I'm talking about pulling them out, pulling them out, looking at them, saying, what are my values? How do I prioritize them? And how satisfied am I against each of these values and how I'm living them? They're they're always there. Maybe the values, priorities change based on the role you're playing, but the work is to dig them out and to really understand them and really be honest with yourself about how satisfied you are of living them out.

SPEAKER_01 22:54

Because I would think not only do you, if you go through the values excavation, that you're going to find values that are truly what you believe in midlife versus values that you may have placed importance on in your 20s that are no longer important values anymore. Tell us how one would go about this values excavation.

SPEAKER_00 23:16

Right. And I one piece of clarity I think is important because there's there's goals, right? And there's values. Goals are things that you put on your to-do list and you achieve them. You can cross them off. Values are not things, they are enduring. They stick with you. They're like the foundation of how you live your life and or should live your life. And you have to look back, look at the history, look at what you achieved. Those are things that you had, those were goals. But when we talk about values, we're talking about what's moved you. Like when did you feel the most alive, most aligned in flow? When did you feel like yourself, like you were doing what the universe puts you here to do? When you're present in these moments, you're doing something you love. Or when was I absent, maybe because I was just going through the motion. And when you think back to these things, these patterns actually help you reveal those values more honestly than any work she could ever do.

SPEAKER_01 24:12

So while you were saying that, I kept coming back to like fairness, justice, empowerment, growth. And after all our years together as friends, fierce loyalty that I'm always going to have somebody's back. And that's a really important value to me if there's somebody who's truly wanted by people who's important in my life.

SPEAKER_00 24:32

Yeah. And everything you've done is an expression of those values you just said, right? Your law practice, your friendships. This podcast values, they're the way you look at your identity, and they're what remain constant as roles change. And they should remain constant. They're again that foundation of your house.

SPEAKER_01 24:53

So now what about pillar two?

SPEAKER_00 24:56

So pillar two, again, I'll give you a word because we like frameworks, but it's really a process. So it's called narrative archaeology. And this is really of the process of going back through the narrative and the story you've been telling yourself and questioning it. So not from a place of regret, but from a place of curiosity. What stories did you inherit from your family or from your culture or for maybe the generation of women who came before you? And I'll give you an example of that. Maybe it's a story that you have to go to college and have a job when you graduate, or maybe it's you have to go into a business or a medical or a law practice because that's what the family does. But you know, that's what I talk about.

SPEAKER_01 25:39

So, like basically stories that maybe we all grew up with about what a woman's supposed to be, what they're supposed to want, what they're supposed to become that becomes so ingrained in us.

SPEAKER_00 25:52

Exactly. And some of those stories served you, served us. And some of them, if you look closely, were actually never yours to begin with. And so we have to go in and dig out and decide which parts of that story do I want to keep? Which parts do I lovingly want to set down? And what new story, and that's what we talked about here, what new story do I want to rewrite from here?

SPEAKER_01 26:19

And really claiming things and making yourself the author now.

SPEAKER_00 26:23

And even though we were always the author, midlife is, I think, a time when we actually realized, oh my gosh, I can do this.

SPEAKER_01 26:30

So now pillar three.

SPEAKER_00 26:32

Pillar three. Again, we'll we'll give it a fancy word, but it's about permission, which we talked about a little bit earlier. So it's called permission structures. And this is about identifying both the internal permissions you give yourself and the external permissions you're waiting for, or maybe you realize you don't need anymore. So that permission slip we talked about last episode. Exactly. Because here's what I see a lot of women know exactly what they want to do next. Exactly. They've known for years, but they're waiting for permission or the right time. They're waiting for the kids to get older to go to college. They're waiting to have enough money, they're waiting till they move to the place they want to move for retirement, the right sign. They're waiting for someone to say, yes, go do this. But that permission shouldn't come from the outside, right? No, it never was supposed to. It's always an inside job. And I think we don't realize that we have that. We are the ones that need to give ourselves this permission.

SPEAKER_01 27:31

That's so true. And so now, what about pillar four and how we continue on this framework?

SPEAKER_00 27:39

Yes. Then once you give yourself permission, then then let's let's go map out the possibilities, possibility mapping. And this is where spotting you can get creative, where you actually let yourself dream without that internal editor little voice inside your head running and saying, nope, you should do this. What does second act actually look like? What avatar do I want to be? Do I want to be on a motorcycle? Do I want to be on a beach? Do I want to be climbing Silmanjaro? But I think that you have to really, really, really think about what does that look like and use your imagination? You have to picture, but you can't really build something that you can't picture.

SPEAKER_01 28:16

That's so true. So, how do you go about building that picture?

SPEAKER_00 28:21

You imagine. And then you just play like kids do, right? You play, you write, you draw, you paint, and you deliberately dream. You give yourself time and space to just think where you're not distracted. You ask yourself, okay, here I am in five years. If everything goes exactly as I hoped, not as I planned, but as I'd hoped or dreamed, what would my daily life look like? Who would I be spending time with? What would I be building? And maybe how would I feel when I wake up in the morning?

SPEAKER_01 28:52

And how you feel is huge. That's so important.

SPEAKER_00 28:55

Yeah, I think it's more important than the specifics, actually, because life rarely looks exactly how you picture it. But if you hold the feeling, the essence of what you're building and when it arrives, it's just different than what you expected. But you'll get the feeling. Exactly. So pillar five. Well, and this is where courage comes in. If you do it and you figure out like what is that play I wrote or picture I drew, it's which way, which which road do I take to get there, right? And it sounds simple just to figure out the road, but it's actually the hardest one because we've talked before, sometimes it requires going back to school or certification or studying. But the first four pillars we just talked about, it they become comfortable. We can introspect, we can journal, we can vision, we can do art. But the terrifying thing comes to make the change.

SPEAKER_01 29:47

And so actually taking that first step and being courageous enough to do it.

SPEAKER_00 29:52

And that step isn't going to be a perfect one and it's not going to be fully planned. And it's going to be the one you take while you're in the user shaping, or you think, what am I doing? And that's when we call a friend, like I would call you. And you need that, you know, that external friend like can give you that validation and keep going.

SPEAKER_01 30:09

Yeah. To give you your courage back and encourage you to do something because that action will then create clarity that really just sitting there thinking or making a list of what you should do never can give you that same clarity.

SPEAKER_00 30:24

Exactly. You can't think your way to something new. You have to act, you have to move, you have to see what happens and learn, adjust, and adapt. And that's how it gets built, this second act. It's not a planning session, it's a series of a bunch of really brave, vulnerable, and imperfect actions that you take.

SPEAKER_01 30:42

So you know me well enough to know I like a recap everything in a nutshell. So the pillars are values, excavation, narrative archaeology, permission structures, possibility mapping, and then taking courageous action.

SPEAKER_00 30:58

Exactly. And you don't have to do them in order, and you certainly don't have to do them perfectly. You just have to start.

SPEAKER_01 31:05

Now let's continue this conscious creation conversation. And I want to add something to the design conversation because I think there's a word that you've used conscious. And I think that word alone deserves a lot of attention.

SPEAKER_00 31:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:23

You said consciously designing your second act, yeah. Because what's the alternative to conscious design? It's what you just let things happen to you.

SPEAKER_00 31:34

That's what a lot of women do, right? And not because they're passive people. Many of them are incredibly intelligent, dynamic, and driven people, but because quite honestly, nobody taught them that this midlife time was time to do something that they could actually design, right? That they thought it was something that happened to you. But no, they they have the power. We're saying no. We're saying no, you are not a passive recipient of your midlife identity. You, Anne, me, Melissa, we are the architects of our identity.

SPEAKER_01 32:08

And we get to decide what our next venture is, what our next identity is.

SPEAKER_00 32:16

Exactly. And which roles we want to keep, and which roles we want to evolve. Which relationships get our energy, which relationships don't. What version of you are you building towards? And what are you willing to tolerate? And what are you just absolutely done with because you're smart enough to know you want to keep your life peaceful?

SPEAKER_01 32:35

Yeah. And that word done in midlife is incredibly powerful.

SPEAKER_00 32:41

Yeah, I think it's one of the most powerful words kind of available to us. You know, it's it's the done with performing, done of shrinking, done of waiting for permission or doing something for someone else's expectation. You know, the best is behind us. We're ready to go forward.

SPEAKER_01 32:57

And to your point earlier, the best is not behind us, right? Equally powerful as conscious, the word conscious in this whole conversation is the word beginning. Right. And why is that so important?

SPEAKER_00 33:17

I think this second act, it's it's not a consolation prize for the first act being over. It's a beginning, a conscious, intentional, wisdom-informed beginning.

SPEAKER_01 33:27

That is this beginning is being built by someone, a woman who knows herself in a way that she simply couldn't have known at 25 because she didn't have the like experience, she didn't have the knowledge, the wisdom.

SPEAKER_00 33:38

Exactly. Or survive things that she wasn't sure she could ever survive.

SPEAKER_01 33:43

And that woman who has figured out what actually matters to her in midlife.

SPEAKER_00 33:49

Yeah, and earned the right to stop being who everyone needed her to be and start being who we actually are.

SPEAKER_01 33:56

Well, that's the second act. That's the whole second act right there.

SPEAKER_00 34:03

All right, let's move on to who am I now? Let's do it. Your exercises. All right. The action item.

SPEAKER_01 34:12

Let's try something with the listeners.

SPEAKER_00 34:15

I love when you have ideas. Do you know how bad that sounds? Oh, just teething you.

SPEAKER_02 34:22

I know. Okay, so Melissa gave me this exercise when I was going through a particularly intense period of rule shifting.

SPEAKER_01 34:30

And I thought about it almost every week since the three columns, you can tell him. Oh, good lord. Okay, well, you're gonna need a piece of paper for this. Or we'll let that notes app so you can write down the three columns. So, column one, who I was, write down the identities, roles, and versions of yourself that you've outgrown or that are shifting. Don't judge them, just honor them. They served you at some point and they got you here. So now column two, who am I? By that it's who are you right now, today? Not the roles, the actual qualities, your actual values, the things that have always been true about you, even as everything may have changed around you. What are the constants that make you who you are? And then column three, who am I becoming? And this is the one going back to now your courageous action. This one actually requires courage. This is that column that requires intentional action, the designed column. Who are you consciously choosing to become or growing to? And what qualities do you want to amplify? What do you want to release? What does the woman you're becoming stand for? What's important to her?

SPEAKER_00 35:53

And that shift, Dan, from column one to column three is the second act. Because column two is who you are. It's the bridge and the foundation and the thing that makes this transition possible, because it's always there, it's still there and will always be there.

SPEAKER_01 36:08

And you don't have to reinvent yourself from scratch. And let's be honest, you don't have to do something like it's like totally out in left field to take some courageous action to become who you want to become.

SPEAKER_00 36:20

It's doing more of what you love that you've always loved, and really just being more intentional about how you spend your time. And you never had to reinvent yourself from scratch. You just have to pull yourself, excavate the real you. You're never lost. She's just waiting for you to look and say, Oh, now's your time.

SPEAKER_01 36:38

That's so awesome. It really is awesome, but now's your time. Now's your time.

SPEAKER_00 36:43

All right. So here we go. Your action item for episode. And this one, I want to give it real time, not five minutes, at least 30 or an hour if you can. Make this appointment with yourself and put it on your calendar, just like you would for any meeting, because this one is the most important. Meaning you're gonna have on your week.

SPEAKER_01 37:04

So, three things. First, the column exercise that Melissa taught me years ago. Who I was, write down who you were, who you are now, and who you are becoming. Write it all out. Let it be messy, let it be incomplete. And that's okay. You're not writing a final draft, you're not turning in a big essay, you're just having a conversation with yourself. And second, take one pillar from the second act design framework that feels most alive for you right now.

SPEAKER_00 37:38

Yeah, and I just add to that, not the one you think you should start with, the one that actually calls you, the values excavation, the narrative archaeology, these permission structures, possibility mapping, or courageous acting. So whatever one you want to start with and is most comfortable for you.

SPEAKER_01 37:55

So again, Mel, no certain order can just go with the one that you are most called to take action with and do, and then go deep with that one this week.

SPEAKER_00 38:07

Yeah, absolutely. And you could do it and then you can go back to it if you think about it. But sir, and this is the one I really want you to sit with and finish this sentence. The woman I am becoming believes, creates, no longer tolerates, is known for, wakes up every morning and finish all five, all five of those.

SPEAKER_01 38:30

Don't overthink them, just write the first honest thing that comes to mind.

SPEAKER_00 38:36

And then share them with us, please, via email, which is interrupt at midlifeim.com or on Instagram at the dot interruption. We really want to know the woman you're becoming, and I think she sounds awesome already.

SPEAKER_01 38:54

She does, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 38:56

This one felt a little different, Ian, this episode, didn't it?

SPEAKER_01 39:00

It did. It felt a little more important, maybe.

SPEAKER_00 39:03

Yeah, so let's bring it home. Here's what we want to leave you with today.

SPEAKER_01 39:06

You are not having a crisis, you're having an awakening, and that identity shift that you're feeling is not, I repeat, not something that's going wrong. It's something going right or coming right. And that invisibility that you may be experiencing is definitely not an ending.

SPEAKER_00 39:23

No, it's a superpower waiting to be claimed.

SPEAKER_01 39:26

And the roles that are shifting and changing are not taking something from you.

SPEAKER_00 39:32

No, it's not a consolation prize. It's a second act, it's the main event. Built by a woman who knows herself, you. You are the only person. You survived hard things and you figured out what actually matters to you. So you've earned this extraordinary right to stop performing and start being present with what you love.

SPEAKER_01 39:56

And that is every woman who is listening to this podcast. That woman is you. She always was you. And okay, I need a minute again. Take your minute. All right. Subscribe if you haven't already. Leave a review on the podcast. It helps other women who need to find us.

SPEAKER_00 40:16

And please share this episode because somewhere in your life, there's a woman in the middle of her own identity shift, and she's feeling lost and scared and wondering what comes next.

SPEAKER_01 40:25

And she needs to hear this. What she's feeling is not a crisis. And she needs to feel that courage. Invite her to that. What are we doing next week? Oh my gosh. The permission slip, right? Are we gonna tell you about that?

SPEAKER_00 40:42

Yes, we are gonna dig into that permission slip. Oh, I'm so excited.

SPEAKER_01 40:46

So giving ourselves and everybody giving themselves permission to want more midlife without guilt. It's a good one. It's a really good one. And until then, keep interrupting the narratives that don't serve you.

SPEAKER_00 40:58

And keep designing the second act. That does.

SPEAKER_01 41:01

And stay unfiltered, and we will see you next week.