Heather Booth: Civil Rights Organizer on Women's Leadership, Jane, and Finding Your Voice at Any Age

How to Stop Letting Your Own Mind Be the Handbrake on Your Life | Cindy Kohler, Mind Garage

She was made redundant on a Friday. By Monday she'd enrolled in naturopathy. She built a 5-site business, sold it in one of South Australia's largest exits, and founded Mind Garage. Now Cindy Kohler brings 40 years and 10,000 coaching hours to this conversation. In This Episode: * Cindy's own story: from biomechanics to education to a 5-site business to its sale — and now the coaching practice she was always building toward * Why the beliefs we carry into adulthood were never actually chosen — and the one question that exposes whether they're helping or holding you back * The "handbrake" metaphor: how the business owner's own mindset is the single largest obstacle to business growth * Identity-based resilience coaching: why "who am I becoming?" is a more powerful question than "what should I do?" * The three-word exercise: a practice for stepping into your future self right now, without waiting * Metacognition — the skill only humans have — and how to use it to separate threat from story * Uncomfortable is not the same as unsafe: why the brain defaults to threat and how to override it with choice * How women rebuild self-trust after years of people-pleasing and meeting everyone else's expectations * "Empty the drawer first": the Russian proverb that reframes every major life transition * Cindy's upcoming book Manifest You and what it will walk readers through About Cindy Kohler Cindy Kohler is a transformational business and life coach based in Adelaide, South Australia. With 40 years of experience in mindset coaching, 20 years in education, 25 years in business, and a background in NLP, hypnotherapy, mindfulness, and energetic medicine, she is the founder of Mind Garage and the author of the forthcoming Manifest You. She has delivered over 10,000 hours of coaching to elite professionals, business owners, and athletes. She turned 60 last year and says she has never been more excited for what comes next. Connect with Cindy Kohler * Website: mindgarage.com * Upcoming book: Manifest You (July 2026) Resources * WeCanDoItWomen.com/group — join Debra's community

Sex, Sensuality, and How Women Over 70 Reclaim Their Desire and Their Lives

She was 70 years old, running a solo business without a steady paycheck, supporting a husband in severe decline in a nursing home — a man she had already decided to divorce — and quietly hitting the lowest point of her life. By 73, she was dating men in their 30s, 40s, and 50s, writing erotica, taking university classes, and finishing a book called Sex, Sensuality and the Senior Woman. Andrea Feinberg didn't wait for circumstances to improve. She decided she was the one who was going to improve them. In This Episode: * The unexpected crisis that preceded Andrea's transformation: planning a divorce, then watching her husband have a life-changing accident and decline in a nursing home * The four changes she made at 70 that cost nothing and changed everything: university classes, a weekly discussion group, one friend per week, and dating * What she discovered on a dating website for the over-50s — and why it completely reframed how she thinks about age and desirability * The 16 reasons younger men gave her for why they specifically seek out older women (she asked every single one) * Why Andrea says there's a generation of men in their 30s, 40s, and even 20s who find older women "wildly attractive and wildly desired" * Her 10-step common sense framework for personal transformation — no investment, no unusual skills required * Writing erotica for the first time at 70+ — and why she's now expanding it toward female satisfaction specifically * The childhood story that made independence feel like her natural state About Andrea Feinberg Andrea Feinberg is the founder of Coaching Insight and a 40-year veteran of business development, strategic marketing, and entrepreneurial coaching. After a decade on Wall Street and 35 years running her own firm, Andrea made a radical personal pivot at 70 — enrolling in university, dating younger men, and writing her most personal book to date: Sex, Sensuality and the Senior Woman, a 10-step transformation guide for women ready to pursue the life society told them they couldn't have. Connect with Andrea Feinberg * Website: marketingthatrocks.com * Website: bossonthebeach.com Resources * Sex, Sensuality and the Senior Woman * WeCanDoItWomen.com — join Debra's community

Gloria Feldt on Women, Power, and Leadership After 60: Use What You've Got

She dreamed the accelerator stuck on a dusty West Texas road — no brakes, no key in the ignition. Then she looked down and the key was in her own hand. Gloria Feldt turned that dream into a life's work: the key is always in our hands. We need the wisdom to see it and the courage to use it. IN THIS EPISODE: * Why women over 60 are the most untapped leadership resource in the world * "Confidence is overrated" — why waiting until you feel ready is the mistake * Why Gloria refuses to use the word "empower" * Use What You've Got: the first of her 9 Leadership Power Tools * How to close your own pay gap — research your worth, then ask * Women earn 57% of college degrees; companies with more women leaders are ~15% more profitable * Her two-word mantra for reinvention: just say yes EPISODE SUMMARY: Gloria Feldt has spent decades studying why women still hold a fraction of leadership positions — and her conclusion will free you. It isn't only the bias out there; it's what implicit bias does to our heads. We value ourselves less, ask for less, and wait to be tapped on the shoulder. Her work is about ending the wait. Drop the word "empower," she says — nobody needs to fill you up, because you already have power: your education, skills, relationships, money, plan. Shift from "power over" to "power to." And don't wait for confidence; overconfidence only stops you from learning. Her own story proves it. A teen mom in West Texas with three children, she rose to lead Planned Parenthood Federation of America, then left after 30 years — in her early sixties — to chase her childhood dream of writing. The books became a curriculum, the curriculum became Take The Lead, and Take The Lead became a movement, with online courses and "50 Women Can Change the World" cohorts where every woman builds a plan to rise and a plan to bring the next woman up with her. There will always be a disruption, Gloria says. Take its energy and build something new. Keep moving. Keep learning. Just say yes. ABOUT GLORIA: Gloria Feldt is an acclaimed expert on women, power, and leadership; bestselling author of five books including Intentioning; co-founder and president of Take The Lead; and former president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. She taught "Women, Power and Leadership" at Arizona State University for a decade. CONNECT: https://www.taketheleadwomen.com/ COMMUNITY: WeCanDoItWomen.com If this episode put the key back in your hand, say yes to one thing this week — then join us at WeCanDoItWomen.com. A 5-star Apple Podcasts review takes under a minute and helps more women find this show.

Heather Booth: Civil Rights Organizer on Women's Leadership, Jane, and Finding Your Voice at Any Age

A man told her to shut up while she was speaking. So Heather Booth finished her point, tapped every woman in the room on the shoulder, walked them upstairs — and founded the first campus women's organization in America. That was 1965. She has spent sixty years since proving one idea: when we organize with love at the center, we change this world. IN THIS EPISODE: * Freedom Summer 1964 at age 19 — and the Voting Rights Act that followed within a year * The full story of Jane, the underground network whose women performed 11,000 abortions before Roe * The "significant response" study proving professors engaged men's comments four times more than women's — and the bookend technique women still need * How a wrongful firing became the Midwest Academy, which has trained generations of organizers * Two housewives who noticed green meat at the supermarket and won food expiration dating for the country — one is now in Congress * Heather's first steps for any woman who says "I'm not political" EPISODE SUMMARY:Heather Booth acted in spite of insecurity, not because of confidence. Her answer to "am I enough?" became her life's work: we are enough, and we are the leaders we've been waiting for. At 19 she joined Freedom Summer in Mississippi. At 20, helping a friend's pregnant sister grew into Jane — at a time when three people discussing abortion in Chicago was conspiracy to commit a felony. Fired for helping a single mother question a pay cut, she won at the National Labor Relations Board and used the settlement to found the Midwest Academy. The smallest lessons may stay longest: women agreeing to "bookend" each other's comments so no voice could be erased — something Debra experienced herself as the only woman among partners at a billion-dollar firm. And Alice Palmer's warning, for every woman who says "I'm not political": if you don't do politics, politics does you. Find the issue you care about. Find the people already working on it. Join them. ABOUT HEATHER:Heather Booth has been one of the nation's leading progressive strategists for six decades — founder of Jane and the Midwest Academy, director of the NAACP National Voter Fund (raising African American turnout by nearly 2 million voters), and a leader of national campaigns on immigration, financial reform, marriage equality, and Social Security. CONNECT: https://midwestacademy.com/ COMMUNITY: WeCanDoItWomen.com If this episode lit something in you, take one step this week — then join us at WeCanDoItWomen.com. A 5-star Apple Podcasts review takes under a minute and helps more women find this show.

When Does 'A Glass of Wine at Home' Become a Problem? An Addiction Therapist Answers.

On January 7, 2005, Anita Cragen came off a life support machine after ten days when no one knew whether she would live or die. Twenty years later, she is twenty years sober and one of the most respected addiction specialists in the world — helping thousands of women get clean, stay sober, and repair the relationships addiction shattered. IN THIS EPISODE: * From running a Spanish real estate firm to 20 years sober and senior addiction specialist at Phoenix Programs, Spain's oldest treatment center * Why Anita didn't drink until 36 — and the loss of both parents within six weeks that pushed her over the edge * The wedding her daughter wouldn't let her attend at ten months sober — and how they became best friends * The "resentment rucksack" ritual: carrying written resentments down the beach and hurling them into the sea * Why 100 days is what the mind needs to change * Why empty-nest isolation is a breeding ground for addiction in women over 50 * The elevator metaphor: addiction only goes down — but you choose which floor to get off EPISODE SUMMARY: Anita had the big house, the cars, and a thriving business on the Costa del Sol. What no one saw was a woman who started drinking at 36 after losing both parents within six weeks — and couldn't stop. She promised her three children, over and over, that she'd never pick up another drink. Every time, she did. At her lowest, she tried to end her life and spent ten days on life support. That was 2005. She hasn't had a drink since. The man who told her "I have a solution" — Chris Spencer, ten years clean when they met — became her husband and program director at Phoenix Programs in Marbella, where Anita now serves as senior addiction specialist. What they build there is a re-education of mind, body, and spirit: nutrition, daily lectures, the 12 steps, and rituals like the resentment rucksack. Anita teaches that addiction is a disease — an allergy, not a moral failing. And she speaks directly to women home alone after the kids leave, drinking quietly: isolation is the disease's favorite room. Connection is the way out. ABOUT ANITA: Anita Cragen, ICADC, is an internationally qualified addiction therapist with 20+ years of experience, certified in Recovery Dynamics, specializing in women, young moms, and their children. She has worked with clients across Dubai, Saudi Arabia, and Europe. CONNECT: https://www.phoenixprogrammes.com/ COMMUNITY: WeCanDoItWomen.com/groups If this episode stirred something in you, please seek help — you can't do this alone, and you don't have to. Then join us at WeCanDoItWomen.com. A 5-star Apple Podcasts review takes under a minute and helps more women find this show.