The 40 Portal

Catherine Zack
  • 5.0 (12)
  • Personal Journals

The night before my 40th birthday, I did something kind of wild. I invited the fabulous, inspiring, real-life women I knew to join me at a wine bar and asked them to "sign my yearbook." Not happy birthdays, not well wishes. I wanted wisdom. What they wrote was so raw and honest that I couldn't stop asking. The 40 Portal is a coming of aging story told by 40 real women about the portal that is midlife. Each episode, I sit down with a different woman to explore the threshold she's walking through — the portals we all face between who we were and who we're becoming. I believe a woman in her 40s is one of the most interesting, creative, powerful, and inspiring creatures in the universe. And as more and more of us step into our power, claim our own voices, our bodies, our good work in the world, this world is going to be a kinder, more beautiful, more emboldened, and more just place for all of us. Portals can be big and specific—turning 40, battling cancer, losing a loved one, divorce, becoming a mother, leaving a career. Or they can be less specific but still all-encompassing—the "everything looks fine but I'm dying inside" feeling, the army crawl, the resentment. We talk about it all. Each episode is anchored by handwritten wisdom submitted by listeners. Because typing is fast — it's what we're DOING all day. Handwriting is slow. Handwriting reveals our BEING. When you slow down, truth slips through. This isn't a podcast about experts or influencers. This is a podcast about real women telling the truth about their real lives. Because when women tell the truth (not the polished Instagram version, but the actual truth) it sets us all free. New episodes weekly starting January 25, 2026. Submit your handwritten wisdom at the40portal.com. Hosted by Catherine Zack, former Big Law attorney turned meditation teacher, executive coach, speaker, writer, and collector of women’s wisdom.

  1. 5d ago

    A Researcher's Take on Authentic Creativity in the Age of AI with Jessica Carson

    When we met, it was a moment in time. Not as cool as 1968 Haight-Ashbury, not quite 1920s Paris — but it was DC in the early 2010s, and it was its own thing. Hustle culture before hustle culture had a name. We were all riding bikes to yoga and listening to Alt-J and none of us knew who we were going to become yet. Some of us became people the world would actually come to know. Jessica Carson is one of those people. Jessica is a social scientist, creativity researcher, author, and the founder of the Center for Human Creativity. She started her career as a neuroscience at the NIH, spent five years as Head of Innovation at the American Psychological Association, and wrote Wired This Way — a book on the psychology of entrepreneurs, the light and the shadow sides of that creative wiring, published at 29 in April 2020. She is now a PhD candidate studying authentic creativity: what makes a creative work feel genuinely human, and what happens to that feeling when artificial intelligence enters the room. Find her at jessicacarson.co. In this episode: - DC in the early 2010s as a moment in time — NIH neuroscience labs, Big Law, the first Hinge beta test, and the yoga studios where none of us had figured out who we were yet. - How the gap in age between women can feel different depending on where you're each standing — and how powerful women interact with each other. - What it means to be a student of a powerful female teacher, to receive that transmission, and to be a little terrified and a little enamored by it at the same time. - Writing and publishing Wired This Way at 29, the cringe of looking back at your own earlier creative work, and why retrospective ick is just a tax you pay for having made anything at all. - The light and dark sides of the entrepreneurial brain — ADHD, addiction, sensation-seeking, and why the same wiring that drives the addiction also drives the willingness to tolerate ambiguity and risk. - Why entrepreneurship was glamorized to the point of fetish in the 2010s, and why the AI era has produced an entirely new cast of main characters who would make that same book much harder to write today. - The job that fell apart, the toxic exit, the year the universe seemed to turn itself off, and how that exact bewilderment became the thesis for the PhD she's living inside right now. - The core of Jessica's research: AI threatens our ontological security because we've always believed creativity was our last uniquely human trait — and why panic and polarization on this topic are getting in the way of actually thinking clearly about it. Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/UMQNQ_AdLoA Submit your portal wisdom: the40portal.com/contribute — Whichever side of 40 you're on, your voice belongs in this book we're building together. Follow The 40 Portal Book on Substack: substack.com/@the40portal Work with Cath 1:1 — coaching spots open for September 2026: the40portal.com/coaching Subscribe, rate, review — it genuinely helps more women find this show. Website: the40portal.com | catherinezack.com Instagram: @the40portal | @cathzack Hosted by Catherine Zack | Guest: Jessica Carson | Edited by Ruwantha Gunasinghe © 2026 The 40 Portal. All rights reserved.

    1h 8m

  2. Jun 15

    Who Is Mothering AI? On Lullabies for Robots, Invisibility, and Turning 40 | Leah Rubin-Cadrain

    I have a working thesis. A woman over 40 is the most powerful, creative, vivifying, wise, and possibly terrifying creature in the universe, and this episode is one of my biggest pieces of proof yet. Meet Leah Rubin-Cadrain. She works in wearable technology, designing the experiences. She is a writer, an artist, a wife, a mother, she runs a poetry Substack called Lullabies for Robots, where she keeps asking one haunting question through her poems: who is mothering AI? She arrived at this question while she was nursing her newborn and having her first conversation with ChatGPT at the same time. She watched the flickering cursor and thought, “baby's first words.” Genius. Like a mother. This is a conversation about identity, motherhood, creativity, and the quiet power that women over 40 grow into, often right when the world expects them to disappear. Leah spent a lot of years being the quiet one in the room. Afraid of conflict. Rolling over. Bending herself into shapes so that no one would misunderstand her. And then she turned 40 and wrote four words on her whiteboard: I am f*****g 40. And that became her mantra. In this episode: How Leah celebrated her 40th birthday: wear something fancy, bring an offering, and surround yourself with your most beloveds.The reciprocity of a great party — being the center of attention while also getting to look your people in the face and say, you are my people.The fear of invisibility that can shadow a woman approaching 40 — and the woman just a few steps ahead on the path who said: you do become invisible in some settings. The exhausting ones. And honestly? The freedom that gives you.How Leah spent years disconnected from her body — and how lipstick, a warm robe after a shower, and the slow accumulation of small self-care practices changed that.A fertility journey that stretched across COVID, IUI, IVF, miscarriage, years of raised and dashed expectations — and a daughter who arrived when Leah was 39 and felt like a miracle.AI as toddler — the language of training large language models is eerily similar to the language of child-rearing. We are all parenting AI.The whiteboard mantra: I am f*****g 40. When she pictured another woman aged 40, she thought — I wouldn't f**k with her. That's a woman who knows what she's doing. And then she turned that lens on herself.Coming out, stepping out of the assigned lane for the first time, inviting the evil eye — and how being forged in that fire made her brave.Living in the nuance. Containing multitudes. Not one thing or another. Content note: We talk about fertility struggles, miscarriage, and postpartum anxiety in this episode. Find Leah at lullabiesforrobots.substack.com. Submit your portal wisdom: the40portal.com/contribute Substack: substack.com/@the40portal Work with Cath 1:1 — coaching spots open for September 2026: the40portal.com/coaching New episodes drop weekly. Subscribe, rate, review — it genuinely helps more women find this show. Website: the40portal.com | catherinezack.com Instagram: @the40portal Hosted by Catherine Zack | Guest: Leah Rubin-Cadrain | Edited by Ruwantha Gunasinghe © 2026 The 40 Portal. All rights reserved.

    1 hr

  3. Jun 8

    Walking Away From Burnout Was the Most Ambitious Thing She Ever Did with Lia Zneimer

    We met on the internet, which I say as the highest compliment. There was an online community of independent practitioners — smart, weird, building things — and Lia Zneimer showed up in it and I immediately thought, yes, her. That is how it works sometimes. The internet at its best is a place where you find people you would never otherwise cross paths with, and you just know. She came to a virtual session I was leading and something just clicked. We have been loosely but meaningfully in each other's orbit ever since — Substack appearances, voice memos, the occasional ping — the kind of connection that doesn't require constant contact to feel real. This conversation is really about burnout, the kind that starts as a low hum and then quietly takes everything, and about what burnout recovery actually looks like when you stop performing success and start redefining it on your own terms. Lia is a marketer turned writer, originally from Colorado, now in the East Bay in California with her husband and her miniature poodle, Waffles. She is working on her debut YA novel, which she started in 2013 and which is coming along exactly as fast as it needs to, thank you very much, and she runs a Substack called The Recharge, where she writes about creativity, career, burnout, and the ways we come back to ourselves. Find her at getrecharged.substack.com and linkedin.com/in/liazneimer. If you are weighing a career pivot, in the middle of one, or quietly wondering why you are so exhausted by something that looks fine from the outside, this episode is for you. In this episode: - Storytelling, writing, and theater as the through line — veering off the path and coming home to yourself. - Two distinct burnout experiences: five years at WeWork through the failed IPO, then a leadership role at an early stage startup where she doubled down when she should have stopped, because spoiler alert — you cannot outwork everything if you try hard enough. - Getting texts from your CEO about influencer campaigns not converting while you're trying on your wedding dress — and what that moment of clarity actually feels like. - The difference between the vocation of writing and the business of writing — and why you might want to leave some things you love outside of capitalism entirely. - Creativity takes the time it takes. You cannot crank it. Stopping treating your creativity like a KPI. - Burnout as a repetitive use injury, a low hum, death by a thousand paper cuts — we don't figure this stuff out once and then we're good. It keeps cycling back. But you do get faster at catching it. - The girl boss era, do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life, hustle harder — the amount of b******t millennials were fed, and the slow work of deprogramming it. - Optimizing for success by having a regulated nervous system. - Giving up ambition for my 38th birthday — what that actually means and what it doesn't - What your 10-years-ago self would be genuinely shocked to learn — and why Younger Lia would have never believed she walked away from a VP role on purpose. - And the 40 Portal wisdom read at the close: from a woman who was 41 when she wrote it, about the weight of other people's expectations lifting, about moving from okay to sure, about trusting — finally — that you can handle it all. Website: the40portal.com | catherinezack.com Instagram: @the40portal | @cathzack Hosted by Catherine Zack | Guest: Lia Zneimer | Edited by Ruwantha Gunasinghe © 2026 The 40 Portal. All rights reserved.

    1h 8m

  4. Jun 1

    Your 40s Are Not a Crisis. They're an Arrival into Your "No Urgency" Era with Victoria R.G. Newburn

    Out of every guest I've had on this podcast so far, I have known this one the longest. We met in 2010 at Flow Yoga Center in Obama-era Washington, DC — up the stairs from P Street in Logan Circle. She was behind the front desk with her grounded, earthy, ageless warmth. I was arriving every single day with a ginormous Louis Vuitton bag, straight from Kirkland & Ellis, transitioning from lawyer Cath to human Cath right there on the mat. Sixteen years and many life chapters later — welcome to this conversation with Victoria R.G. Newburn, who goes by Tori, and who I love enormously. This is the kind of female friendship that women over 40 have: the ones forged in shared becoming, that hold decades of who you were and who you're growing into. This convo is for every woman navigating the arrival of her 40s, reclaiming herself, and finally giving herself permission to stop performing. Tori is an author, guide, and intuitive. She runs This Gentle Way, her online practice working with people through astrology, meditation, and dialogue. Her debut book, The Weaver and the Wilder, came out last year. She is a mom of two, a homeschooler, and a deeply curious human being. In this episode: Obama-era DC and what it meant to launch our adult lives before the internet swallowed everything — the unique, almost endangered experience of millennials who actually had a before.Stepping into inner authority and the nervous system work that has to come with it.Internet success and the radical act of not tying your worth to numbers on a screen.Being in our "no urgency era."Reclamation: what practices, rhythms, and versions of yourself are you calling back in?The permission slip of your 40s — I just don't care as much about what I thought I needed to care about.Female friendship: the ones you don't talk to every day, or even every year, who are still among the most important people in your life.Vocation vs. "success" — inform and inspire as a why that actually holds.A shoutout to Debra Mishalove and the strong women who mentor us even when they're no longer in our daily orbit.Content note: We talk about pregnancy loss at about the one-hour mark I WANT TO TALK TO YOU ON THE POD! I'm looking for a listener of this podcast to be a guest on this podcast. Here's how to be considered: Submit your voice to The 40 Portal — your question if you're under 40, your wisdom if you're over 40: the40portal.com/contribute Leave a written review wherever you listen, then email me a photo of it by June 6, 2026: 40portalpodcast@gmail.com I'll choose the guest on June 7. Join The 40 Portal Book Club on Substack: substack.com/@the40portal Work with Cath 1:1 — coaching spots open September 2026: the40portal.com/coaching New episodes drop weekly. Subscribe, rate, review — it genuinely helps more women find this show. Website: the40portal.com | catherinezack.com Instagram: @the40portal | @cathzack Hosted by Catherine Zack | Guest: Victoria R. G. Newburn | Edited by Ruwantha Gunasinghe © 2026 The 40 Portal. All rights reserved.

    1h 18m

  5. May 27

    The Most Powerful Creatures in the Universe are Women Over 40: with Amber van Moessner

    I thought the 40 Portal was going to be sexy. Fun. Empowering. Green dress, great party, collect some wisdom. Plot twist: I actually had to go through it. The last ten months have been a real process of midlife transformation for me, and I'm only just now popping up from being pummeled by the wave going, "cool, I survived." The only way through is through. One day I'll tell you the whole story. For now: meet Amber. You definitely need to. Amber van Moessner is 38, almost 39, a therapist-in-training, activist, community organizer, reader, mother of two, cancer survivor, and the woman who will probably shut down the dance party. She is exactly the kind of woman this podcast exists for. My husband met her first and came home with a very specific report: you have to meet this woman. He was right. She is the kind of person who walks into a cocktail party and counts how many times someone asks "what do you do?" so she can avoid asking it even once. She identifies her archetype as the wounded warrior. She's a fellow Leo, fierce lioness and wears disco-glitter-bell-bottoms to our tiny town's annual Pride parade (which she co-founded a few years back after moving here and realizing there wasn't one). This conversation went exactly where it needed to go. In this episode: Why "what do you do?" is capitalism's most boring trick — and what to ask insteadFriendships of convenience vs. real ones: how COVID reshuffled the deck and what we do nowThe wounded warrior archetype and what it means to understand yourself through myth and storyThe scarcity mindset around youth, beauty, and desirability — and the deprogramming required to move through itWhy matriarchal societies had a a council of grandmothers — and what we've lost without itMoon time: the concept of the season of life when you are finally, fully on your own terms, post menopause And the submission that closed the episode: "My 40s are sexy, filled with a confidence, mystery, and swagger that twenty-something me would have killed for. We are not aging. We are a delight that has been simmering." Amber's response: tattoo it on my face. Me too, babe. Me too. Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/oBzujLRkcj4 Submit your portal wisdom: the40portal.com/contribute — Whichever side of 40 you're on, your voice belongs in this book we're building together. Join The 40 Portal Book Club on Substack: substack.com/@the40portal Work with Cath 1:1 — coaching spots open September 2026: the40portal.com/coaching New episodes drop weekly. Subscribe, rate, review — it genuinely helps more women find this show. Website: the40portal.com | catherinezack.com Instagram: @the40portal | @cathzack Hosted by Catherine Zack | Guest: Amber Van Moessner | Edited by Ruwantha Gunasinghe © 2026 The 40 Portal. All rights reserved.

    1h 3m

  6. May 19

    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 Join The 40 Portal Book Club over on Substack: 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 Find Lourdes: Instagram: @lifebylourdes @creemhairstudio https://www.creemstudio.com/ New episodes drop weekly. Subscribe, rate, review, it genuinely helps more women find this show. Website: the40portal.com | 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

    1h 18m

  7. May 10

    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://aliciaellejohnson.substack.com/ 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

    1h 14m

  8. May 3

    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/ One Spot Left for The 40 Portal Retreat - June 17-19, 2026: https://www.the40portal.com/retreat Subscribe to the Substack: https://substack.com/@the40portal Get the Guide: Are You in A Portal?

    1h 2m
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5
out of 5
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About

The night before my 40th birthday, I did something kind of wild. I invited the fabulous, inspiring, real-life women I knew to join me at a wine bar and asked them to "sign my yearbook." Not happy birthdays, not well wishes. I wanted wisdom. What they wrote was so raw and honest that I couldn't stop asking. The 40 Portal is a coming of aging story told by 40 real women about the portal that is midlife. Each episode, I sit down with a different woman to explore the threshold she's walking through — the portals we all face between who we were and who we're becoming. I believe a woman in her 40s is one of the most interesting, creative, powerful, and inspiring creatures in the universe. And as more and more of us step into our power, claim our own voices, our bodies, our good work in the world, this world is going to be a kinder, more beautiful, more emboldened, and more just place for all of us. Portals can be big and specific—turning 40, battling cancer, losing a loved one, divorce, becoming a mother, leaving a career. Or they can be less specific but still all-encompassing—the "everything looks fine but I'm dying inside" feeling, the army crawl, the resentment. We talk about it all. Each episode is anchored by handwritten wisdom submitted by listeners. Because typing is fast — it's what we're DOING all day. Handwriting is slow. Handwriting reveals our BEING. When you slow down, truth slips through. This isn't a podcast about experts or influencers. This is a podcast about real women telling the truth about their real lives. Because when women tell the truth (not the polished Instagram version, but the actual truth) it sets us all free. New episodes weekly starting January 25, 2026. Submit your handwritten wisdom at the40portal.com. Hosted by Catherine Zack, former Big Law attorney turned meditation teacher, executive coach, speaker, writer, and collector of women’s wisdom.

Information

  • Creator
    Catherine Zack
  • Years Active
    2K
  • Episodes
    19
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Catherine Zack

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