I’m Still Here — And So Are You

"The Momentum Coach Podcast exists to remind every midlife woman that her life is not over, it is just beginning. 

We gather each week around the real conversations about identity, purpose, love, faith, money, health, and becoming because we believe that the woman who has spent decades showing up for everyone else deserves a space to finally show up for herself. 

Through honest conversations, hard-won wisdom, and the courage to live out loud, we are building a movement of women who refuse to stay small, refuse to play it safe, and refuse to believe that their best days are behind them. 

This is not a podcast about surviving midlife. This is a podcast about owning it. Because midlife is not a decline. It is the most powerful chapter of a woman's life. And every woman deserves someone in her corner telling her so." 

Dr. Novice McDaniel, The Momentum Coach 

Transcript

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Greetings, everyone, and welcome to the Momentum Coach Podcast. I am Dr. Novice McDaniel, the Momentum Coach. If you've ever felt stuck, overwhelmed, or uncertain about your next step, you are in the right place. Every week we will talk about mindset, consistency, momentum, and productivity. So you can go from stuck to unstoppable. I want to start today with a question. Not a comfortable question, but a real question. When was the last time you chose yourself? Not squeeze yourself in between everyone else's knees, not got to yourself after everything on the list was done. But I mean chose yourself first, fully and without apology. For a lot of us, and I mean a lot, we have to think really hard to remember that moment. And some of us can't remember that moment at all. If that is you, I need you to know something before we go any further. You are exactly where you're supposed to be right now, right here. This podcast, this moment, because what we're about to build together, it starts today. Again, I'm Dr. Navis McDaniel, the Momentum Coach, and this is episode one of the Momentum Coach podcast. And I need to tell you something about myself before we do anything else. Because I don't believe in asking you to go somewhere. I haven't been willing to go myself. I was not always the woman you hear right now. There was a version of me that was silent, not only reserved by nature, but silent by circumstance. I spent years in a relationship where my voice didn't feel safe, where showing up fully as myself with my opinions, with my dreams, and my needs felt dangerous. Domestic violence doesn't always look like what people imagine. Sometimes it is loud, sometimes it's visible, and sometimes it's slow and invisible. A gradual erosion of who you are until one day you look in the mirror and you don't recognize the woman that's looking back. That was me. But guess what? I survived it. I survived it. And then in my 40s, my body started sending me messages that I was not ready to hear. Too many strokes. In my 40s, my body literally stopped me twice. And even then, even after that, I kept pushing, I kept performing, I kept being what everyone needed me to be. Because that's what we do, isn't it? We are so conditioned to keep going, to be strong, to hold it all together, that we will push past our own body telling us to stop. I kept going until I couldn't go again. At 58, I heard three words that changed everything. You have cancer, breast cancer. And I want to tell you what happens when you sit in a doctor's office and hear those words. I actually heard those words as I was walking on the track. I received the phone call. The world got very quiet. And in that quiet, everything that doesn't matter falls away. And what's left, what rises up from somewhere deep inside of you, is this fierce, burning, non-negotiable truth. I'm not done. I have not yet become who I was meant to be. I have not yet lived out my life. I have not yet lived out loud. And that moment walking on the track at the age of 58 was the moment the momentum coach was born. Not because I had it all figured out, not because I had it all together, but because I finally decided that whatever time I had left on this earth, it was going to be mine. I was going to use my voice. I was going to take up space. I was going to stop waiting for permission to become the fullest version of myself. And I made myself a promise that I would find every woman who was sitting in her own version of that moment, her own quiet, her own crossroads, her own, is this really it? And I would reach my hand out and say, come on, sis, let's move, let's move together. That's why I'm here. That's why you're here. And I don't take that lightly. I don't. I don't take it lightly. Because here's what I know about the woman that's listening to this right now. You are not weak. You are not lazy. You are not too old, too late, or too far gone. You are exhausted. Exhausted from carrying so much for so long. Exhausted from shrinking yourself to fit into spaces that were never designed for all of you. Exhausted from performing while quietly falling apart on the inside. Midlife has a way of bringing all of that to the surface. Your body is changing, and nobody prepared you for that. Your kids are growing up, or they're grown, and you're wondering who you are without that role. Your career might feel like a cage or a question mark. Your relationships, some of them have run their courses, and you're not sure what to do with that. Underneath all of it, all of it is this quiet, persistent voice that whispers, there has to be more than this. That voice. That's wisdom. That is the deepest, most knowing part of you, the part that has survived everything that life has thrown at you. Saying, We're not finished, there's still more. Go get it. The problem is not that you don't know what you want, the problem is that you spent so long making yourself small that momentum feels foreign. Starting over or starting again, or just starting feels scary. Wanting feels selfish. Becoming feels almost arrogant. Like, who am I to want more? I'll tell you who you are. You are a woman who has already proven that she can survive. She can survive the unsurvivable. And now it's time to learn how to thrive. How do I thrive? Allow me to introduce to you a concept that this entire podcast is built on. Momentum does not start with action, it starts with permission. Most of us are waiting. Waiting until the kids are settled, waiting until we lose the weight, waiting until we have more money, more time, more certainty, more confidence. Waiting until someone, anyone tells us that it's okay. But sis, here's the truth: the truth that took me cancer, strokes, surviving violence to fully understand. Nobody is coming to give you permission. Not your partner, not your children, not your doctor, not your past. The only person who can unlock this next chapter is you. And the moment you decide, truly decide that you matter enough to go after your own life, that's the moment that momentum begins. It doesn't start with a five-year plan, those are good. It does not start with a vision board, those are good as well. It starts with one decision. I am worth this. Now, now I know what some of you are thinking. Dr. McDaniel, that sounds good, but you don't know what I've been through. And you're right. I don't know your specific story, but I know this. Whatever you've been through, whatever has happened to your body, your heart, your confidence, your sense of self, it did not take your potential. It is still there. Your potential is still there. Waiting with more wisdom, waiting with more depth, more power behind it than it ever had before. The woman you are at 45, 55, 50, 58, 60. She is not a lesser version of who you were at 30. She is the refined version, the tested version, the survived it, survived it all version. And she has something your younger self never had. She knows what matters. That is your superpower. And we are going to spend every single episode of this podcast learning how to use your superpower. Before I let you go, before we leave today, I want to give you something, something to do. Because this show is never just about feeling good in the moment, it's about moving. So here is your momentum move for this week. I want you to write it down. Not type it, but actually write it down. Get yourself a journal. The answer to this question, write it down. If I had full permission to become anyone I wanted to be from this moment forward, who would she be? Who would she be? Don't edit yourself. Don't be practical. Don't think about what's realistic. Just let her come forward. Write down what she looks like, how she feels. Write down what she does and how she speaks. What she's stopped tolerating, what she's finally started to do. Give her a whole paragraph. Give her a whole page. Give her whatever she needs. And then keep that paper. Keep it somewhere you'll see it. Because that woman, that woman, she's not a fantasy. She's you. She's been you this whole time. We're just going to spend this podcast finding our way back to her together. You and I, and all the other ladies that are listening. Thank you so much for being here for episode one. I don't take it lightly that you gave me your time today. Time is the one thing that none of us can get back. And you chose to spend some of your time here with me. I promise you I will always honor that. New episodes will drop every week. Subscribe wherever you listen so you never miss an episode. And if this episode moved you, something in you, share it. Send it to the woman in your life who needs to hear it. Leave a review. Let other women find this space. We will build this community together. And when you are ready to go deeper, listen to the full podcast at Elevation Life Coaching.com slash podcast. New episodes every Wednesday morning, Spotify, Apple Podcasts. Download the Momentum 365 app at ElevationLifeccoaching.com or go to Momentum365.today, your daily companion for building unstoppable momentum. And grab your copy of my new book. It's a 31-day devotion, Momentum 365, 31 days of prophetic alignment, AI activation, and digital wealth available on Amazon and also at Elevation Life Coaching.com. Everything you need is waiting for you there. I'm Dr. Novice McDaniel. Now let's move.