The 40 Portal

What Were You Supposed to Have Done by Now? Her Answer Will Stop You Cold: with Lourdes Rodríguez

One of the most intimate spaces a woman can occupy is the chair of her hairstylist. There's something ancient about it — being touched, being seen, the conversation going exactly where it needs to go. For women in their 40s navigating identity, relationships, and the quiet work of letting go, that kind of space is rare and genuinely necessary. That's where this episode was born. Lourdes Cristina Rodríguez da Costa has been doing hair for over 20 years. She's also the kind of woman who will be doing a foil and casually redefine the word grace for you in a way that makes you want to pull out your journal. She's intellectually restless, deeply rooted in her Puerto Rican heritage, a mother, a community builder, and a forever curious person who describes herself — accurately — as a cultural anthropologist who happens to do really good hair. She is also someone who believes, with full conviction, that every woman's life assignment should be to write a book. That there is so much layering, so much wisdom, so much that we need to say — and that we owe it to each other to say it out loud. We recorded this live in her salon in Hudson, NY. No agenda. No problems to solve. Just two women in their 40s sitting with the open questions — and finding out, as Lourdes would say, that some of our most meaningful exchanges happen exactly when we stop trying to resolve anything. In this episode: * Getting bangs as code for "I'm having a little existential crisis." * What it means to be 46 and finally feel 46. * Grace: a big exhale and a deep breath at the same time — Lourdes's definition will stay with you. * The question she didn't expect: what were you supposed to have done by now? Her answer: love myself. BOOM. * You can change your mind in your 40s. Full stop. * Why the hair salon is one of the last truly IRL places where people touch each other and tell the truth. * AI & phone addiction, and the very real grief of losing your book-reader self to your phone. * Hormones, nervous systems, perimenopause, and taking all of it with a sense of humor. Watch on Youtube: https://youtu.be/96tdOIet4KI [https://youtu.be/96tdOIet4KI] Join The 40 Portal Book Club over on Substack: https://substack.com/@the40portal [https://substack.com/@the40portal] Want to go deeper into your own 40 Portal work with Cath, she's got 1:1 coaching spots opening this September: https://www.the40portal.com/coaching [https://www.the40portal.com/coaching] Find Lourdes: Instagram: @lifebylourdes @creemhairstudio https://www.creemstudio.com/ [https://www.creemstudio.com/] New episodes drop weekly. Subscribe, rate, review, it genuinely helps more women find this show. Website: the40portal.com [http://the40portal.com] | catherinezack.com [http://catherinezack.com] Instagram: @the40portal Hosted by Catherine Zack | Guest: Lourdes Cristina Rodríguez da Costa | Edited by Ruwantha Gunasinghe © 2026 The 40 Portal. All rights reserved. Submit your wisdom, your voice belongs in this podcast. If you're over 40: what have you learned, earned, and burned? If you're under 40: what's the open question you're living? the40portal.com/submit [http://the40portal.com/submit]

Why Women Over 40 Might Be the Most Powerful Creatures Alive with Alicia Johnson

Some meetings are just cosmic. This conversation started as a potential business collaboration and turned into one of the richest episodes of The 40 Portal yet. Alicia Johnson is a 65-year-old author, “elder curvy model,” brand strategist, board director, and AI ethics advocate, and wise, wise woman. We talk about what it really means to connect as women, not perform, not impress, just be present, and how that single shift changes everything. We talk about her memoir Buried Treasure, about hope versus optimism and why the neuroscience says they are not the same thing, about threshold guardians and portal monsters from Joseph Campbell's work, and about what it means when something feels hard and scary: you might just be getting close to the treasure. We also talk about life after 40. About belly energy. About the gravitas and raw power of this decade and why a woman in her forties might just be the most potent, terrifying creature in the universe, and why that is exactly when society tries to make us disappear. Alicia is my wisest elder guest to date, and she is completely, magnificently uninterested in “old lady” vibes of any kind. If you are a woman navigating reinvention, aging, identity, or just trying to figure out what comes next, this one is going to light you up. In this episode: * What it feels like to meet someone and just not care where it goes — the ease of no expectations and why that's actually a superpower. * The "I must be impressive" mode and how to catch yourself in it — because if you're trying to impress, you cannot connect. * What to do when you get knocked off center and don't want to stay there (hint: one hand to your heart, one hand to your belly). * Using AI with her own book manuscript as a real-time emotional regulation tool — and what that says about where we are with technology. * The universe abhors a vacuum principle — and why you better know what you're putting in that space before you clear it. * What it actually felt like to turn 40, 50, and now be 65 — and what each decade has held. * Threshold guardians, portal monsters, and why resistance might mean you're getting close to something juicy. * The clearing: one listener's question about reinvention in her 40s, and Alicia's generous reply. * About: Alicia Johnson is an author, creative director, brand strategist, elder curvy Ford model, and board director dedicated to shaping AI for the public good. Her memoir Buried Treasure weaves neuroscience with deeply personal storytelling and agency-laden tool. She is also the person who introduced me to my AI boyfriend Claude, so she is directly responsible for a significant portion of any admin organization I am currently capable of. Places to find Alicia: https://www.aliciaellejohnson.com/ [https://www.aliciaellejohnson.com/] https://aliciaellejohnson.substack.com/ [https://aliciaellejohnson.substack.com/] https://www.instagram.com/alicia_elle_johnson/ [https://www.instagram.com/alicia_elle_johnson/] The 40 Portal Book Club — now open 🖤 : the paid tier of The 40 Portal Substack is officially a thing — and that thing is the world's most low-key book club. These are the books making me braver, more honest, better at boundaries, and smarter about my energy at midlife. Cliff notes, journaling prompts, zero pressure to finish the book. $8/month. First selection: Pema Chödrön. Join here. https://substack.com/@the40portal [https://substack.com/@the40portal]

Getting Out Before You Bottom Out: Emily Drake on Burnout, Reciprocity, and Reclaiming Yourself

Five years ago, Cath met Emily Drake on a Zoom call during a coaching cohort for lawyers in transition. They've never hugged in person. And yet, as Emily puts it, the hug is already epic in her head. This conversation is exactly what The 40 Portal is built for: two midlife women getting below the perception, getting real about what the hustle actually cost them, and talking honestly about burnout recovery, midlife reinvention, and what's on the other side of bottoming out. Emily is a therapist, former CEO, and (her preferred self-introduction) a really good hang for two to four people. She's 46, recently came out of a period of midlife burnout and business dissolution she calls her "sabbatical," and has just joined a therapy practice with two women in their 50s that finally, finally feels like the collaboration she'd been craving. In this episode she opens up about female friendship, intellectual intimacy, why women's lives were never meant to be linear, and the simple antidote she swears by for the overwhelm so many midlife women are quietly carrying. In this episode we talk about: - Burnout recovery — what it actually looks like to get out before you bottom out, and what it costs to wait - The growth edge — why living in that space of becoming is, as Emily says, genuinely sexy - Raising the floor vs. being there when someone hits it — and why Emily stopped believing she could do the former - Capitalism got me — the cycle creative entrepreneurs know too well: should I just get a job, I like nice things, and then the knock on the door that says you don't want this - The ladder on the wrong wall — on discontinuity, cycles, and why women's lives were never meant to be linear progressions - Intellectual intimacy — and why Emily's access to pleasure (all kinds) has never been higher at 46 - Female friendship — the ones you outgrow, the ones that have grown with you, reciprocity, and why conflict is good actually - Living from the neck up — what it means to detach from the get-shit-done brain and feel more - The antidote to overwhelm — brick your phone, get your girls, reduce the comparison, do what feels good - The thesis question — does midlife invite us to reclaim our ability to do what feels good and own it? Cath and Emily mention: Composing a Life by Mary Catherine Bateson, Ayurvedic doshas, the phrase "intellectual intimacy" (which Cath is putting in her pocket forever), and Olive Garden takeout as an ingredient for a perfect evening. Find Emily: @threepointsrelationships | https://threepointsrelationships.com/about/ [https://threepointsrelationships.com/about/] One Spot Left for The 40 Portal Retreat - June 17-19, 2026: https://www.the40portal.com/retreat [https://www.the40portal.com/retreat] Subscribe to the Substack: https://substack.com/@the40portal [https://substack.com/@the40portal] Get the Guide: Are You in A Portal? [https://www.the40portal.com/tools]

Stop Pushing. What Your Body, the Seasons, and Your Ancestors Are Telling You: Callia Hargrove

What happens when the job title you worked years for stops fitting — and you realize you've become the label, not the person? Callia Hargrove is a brand strategist, marketer, educator, and passionate advocate for change, and the founder of Backstory, the inclusive brand strategy consultancy she launched in 2020. Before that, she spent years developing inclusive marketing and impact initiatives at Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren, and Teen Vogue. But when it was time to leave that world behind, she faced something no resume could prepare her for: a full identity reckoning. Callia is a textbook Capricorn, a 1/3 projector in human design, and someone who — without a resume in sight — describes herself as a seer. Someone always seeking to understand. Her journey from hustle culture burnout to seasonal living, energy management, and trusting her own body's wisdom is one that will feel deeply familiar to any woman approaching 40 who is done pushing and ready to feel genuinely aligned. In this conversation, Cath and Callia explore what it truly means to stop forcing and start trusting, the intelligence of the body when a path stops fitting, and why no community — not even women approaching 40 — is a monolith. ---------------------------------------- What we explore in this episode: * The difference between forcing connection and trusting flow — and what human design (specifically being a 1/3 projector) taught Callia about when to push and when to pause * Leaving "Callia from Teen Vogue" behind — and the identity reckoning that came with it * The seasonal map: how Callia uses the rhythms of Chinese medicine, astrology, and her own body to structure her work and her life * The points system — an alternative to hustle culture's productivity myth that will change how you think about your energy (stay till the end) * Being a participant, not a passenger, in the building of your own life * Why there is no monolith of women at any age — and why that's exactly the point of this podcast * What her grandfather's mural in St. Albans, Queens has to do with all of it * The healing balm of storytelling — especially now Books mentioned: * When Things Fall Apart — Pema Chödrön * You Can Heal Your Life — Louise Hay * Acts of Faith: Meditations for the People of Color — Iyanla Vanzant Connect with Callia: calliahargrove.com [http://calliahargrove.com] Mentioned in this episode: * Episode 5 with Alison — https://the40portal.substack.com/p/and-now-its-like-this-on-the-grief?r=6l5p5w [https://the40portal.substack.com/p/and-now-its-like-this-on-the-grief?r=6l5p5w]  * Episode 6 with Francesca Choy-Kee Damico — https://the40portal.substack.com/p/were-not-late-were-right-on-time?r=6l5p5w [https://the40portal.substack.com/p/were-not-late-were-right-on-time?r=6l5p5w]  The June 17–19 Women's Retreat — https://www.the40portal.com/retreat [https://www.the40portal.com/retreat]

She Left it All Behind to Finally Be Herself: On Trusting Yourself with Amanda Baudier

What does it really mean to trust yourself after 40? In this episode of The 40 Portal, Catherine Zack sits down with Amanda Baudier for a raw, funny, and deeply honest conversation about spiritual awakening, midlife transformation, and what it actually looks like to stop living for other people's approval and start committing to the bit of being yourself. Amanda is a former nightlife industry insider, startup founder, and self-described recovering cultural-capital addict who left a Brooklyn brownstone and a buzzy startup to move to the woods and build something "weird, low-cost, and deeply spiritual." A journey of personal growth, self trust, and following the winks from the universe even when it made zero logical sense. Everything she did was against her own best advice by conventional metrics. And that, she says, is exactly how she knew she was on the right track. "If it didn't come from logic, where'd it come from? Somewhere cooler. Somewhere more magical." This conversation is electric. Amanda is one of those women who has done the excavation work, the real kind, not the Instagram kind, and come out the other side with a point of view that is sharp, funny, zero-bullshit, and deeply generous. I took notes the entire time. I laughed out loud multiple times. We talk about: winks from the universe and how to start seeing them. Why you were probably on a great path that just wasn't your path. What happens when the medicine of external validation wears off, and it always wears off. Heart surgery at 28 as a portal no one saw coming. Why "trust the process" is actually kind of bad advice. The anti-aging industry as the current strongarm of the patriarchy. Why your choices are not going to make sense to other people, and why that is the cue, not the warning. How women in their 40s are done proving themselves and ready to just be themselves. And the thing I wrote to myself the night before my 40th birthday that Amanda basically tattooed onto this entire conversation: Commit to the bit of being yourself. No halfsies. No halfway in, halfway out. Whole ass living only. Amanda Baudier is a spiritual guide, somatic practitioner, earth medicine worker and entrepreneurship coach for growth-minded humans. She is the founder of becoming collective, which is rooted in the belief that we are all meant to unfold according to our unique and divine design in this one precious life. She is a wife, the mother of two wild children, and currently resides in the Shawangunk Mountains of the Hudson Valley after 21 years in NYC. Find her: Website - www.becoming-collective.com [http://www.becoming-collective.com] IG: @amandabaudier Submit your wisdom, your voice belongs in this podcast. If you're over 40: what have you learned, earned, and burned? If you're under 40: what's the open question you're living? the40portal.com/submit [http://the40portal.com/submit] June retreat, Hudson Valley. June 17-19, 2026. Two spots left. Details and application at catherinezack.com [http://catherinezack.com]. New episodes drop weekly. Subscribe, rate, review, it genuinely helps more women find this show. Substack: substack.com/@the40portal [http://substack.com/@the40portal] Website: the40portal.com [http://the40portal.com] | catherinezack.com [http://catherinezack.com] Instagram: @the40portal Hosted by Catherine Zack | Guest: Amanda Baudier | Edited by Ruwantha Gunasinghe © 2026 The 40 Portal. All rights reserved.