Latest / In The Driver's Seat / Life After 40: Is It Too Late to Start Over?
Transcript
- Lisa French: Is the good part of life over after 40? If that question has been lingering on your mind or weighing on your heart, I want to answer before I go any further. No. It is not too late for you. But I also want to be honest about something. I don't think the answer is some dramatic leap where you uproot your whole life self- everything you own and start over with not much more than a suitcase, a vision board, and a motivational playlist. Hmm, that sounds familiar. Sometimes the next chapter starts much smaller than that. It starts with one yes. And to explain why I believe that, I need to tell you about a six year old girl In Washington, Iowa, who said yes before she had any idea what that yes would teach her. At the end of kindergarten, my school had called my dad with a bit of an unusual question. They needed to even out this class sizes between the two elementary schools, and they asked if I would be willing to switch schools when I went back for first grade. Looking back on that now, I understand. How big of a question that was for a little kid. At six years old, your school is your whole world. Like your teacher, your friends, the hallways you walk down, the playground that you know, the whole thing is your universe. And yet, this core memory reminds me I said yes without hesitation. I was not running from anything. I had friends, I had good friends. Some of those friends are still in my life today. Nothing was wrong with the school I was in. Nothing needed to be fixed. But something in me just lit up. Like the thought of new people, the opportunity to make new friends, new faces, new stories, a new little world to explore. That part of me was not trying to reinvent herself. She wasn't chasing a better version of life because the one she had was broken. She was simply open and curious and willing. And I think that that's important because when we talk about life after 40, we ⁓ make it so heavy. We talk about starting over like it has to begin with some sort of crisis, like a divorce, job loss. A move, a big dramatic moment where life forces our hand. But what if the life you want after 40 doesn't have to begin with a breakdown? What if it begins with remembering the part of you that used to say yes before fear started asking for a full strategic planning session? Hold on to that six year old girl for a minute because I think she has something to teach both of us. Let's talk about the leap of faith because I know the internet loves a leap. Quit the job, sell the house, move across the country, start the business, end the relationship, become a brand new person by Tuesday at noon, preferably with good lighting and a capsule wardrobe. And listen, I understand why that message is appealing. It feels powerful and decisive. It gives people the feeling that one bold move could finally make everything different. I also understand it because from the outside, I did the dramatic looking version. A few years ago, I packed up my whole life into an old RV, drove about a thousand miles from Iowa to a beach town in Florida where I did not know a single soul. From the outside, that looks like the lead that everyone talks about. It looks brave, it looks cinematic, it looks like I had some perfectly clear plan and a soundtrack playing behind me as I crossed the state line. But here's the truth. The RB did not build my new life. It just only changed my address. That's all. A new life was built afterward, and it wasn't built in one grand sweeping moment. It was built by hundreds of small yeses that did not look impressive enough to put on a poster. Yes to walking into places alone when it would have been easier to stay in my familiar little bubble. Yes to shrimp and grits the first time I saw on the menu, even though I with Lisa was not entirely sure what we were doing there, but I loved it. Yes to kayaking. With manatees gliding under me in the water. So clear it felt like another world. What a magical experience. Yes to conversations with strangers. I have met so many interesting and wonderful people. Yes to learning the roads around here. Yes to figuring out the grocery store. Hello, pub sub. Yes to being the new person. Yes to being a little uncomfortable. Those were the moments that actually changed me. Not the RV, not the mileage, not the Florida address, the yeses. That is why I want to challenge the way we talk about starting over after 40. Because I think a lot of people are waiting until they feel ready for a leap. And while they're waiting for that giant burst of courage, life keeps handing them small doors they could actually walk through today. You do not need to blow up your whole life to prove that you are serious about living differently. Sometimes you just need a course correction. And that is what I mean by the course correction. A small deliberate shift in direction that lands you in a completely different life over time. If you have ever driven in a straight line for a long time, you know this. A tiny adjustment in the steering wheel does not look dramatic in the moment. But give it enough road and you end up somewhere completely different. That's how life works too. One yes turns you a few degrees, then another. Then another, and one day you look around and you realize you are not where fear told you to stay. So no, I am not anti leap. Sometimes life really does ask for a bold move. But I think we have made the sleep the hero of the story when most of the time it's a small yes that's doing the real work all along. Now let's talk about the fear that's underneath this whole thing. Because if you did a Google search for Life After 40, I do not think you were only looking for tips. I think there is a question underneath the question. Is it too late for me? Too late to start over? Too late to become someone new? Too late to want more? Too late to build the business, write the book, leave the relationship, find real love, make new friends. Change careers or feel alive again? And woo, that question can get really loud. It can sound like I should have figured this out by now. It can sound like everyone else is already ahead of me. It can sound like I've missed my window of opportunity. It can sound like, what if I try and it looks ridiculous? It can even sound like maybe this is just my life now. That last one is Sneaky because it tries to sound mature, try to sound practical, it puts on sensible shoes and acts like protecting you from disappointment. But a lot of the time it's just fear with a better outfit. Here's what I've come to believe. The fear that says it is too late is doing bad math. It counts every year as evidence and puts prices on every year ahead of you at zero. Think about that for a second. It looks at everything you have lived through, every decision, every detour, every heartbreak, every relationship, every job, every version of yourself you have outgrown. And it says, See, there's the proof. Then it looks at the decades in front of you and acts like they are already spent. No ma'am. No sir. We are not letting fear do the accounting for us anymore. Its spreadsheet is a mess. I started over in my 40s, not because I had some guaranteed outcome, not because I knew exactly how every piece would work. I started over because something in me knew I could not keep living as if the good part was behind me. I was ready for more of the beautiful things that life has to offer. Everything in my life now lives on the far side of. The age where fear tried to tell me the door was closing, the beach, the show, the work I do now, the people I get to walk alongside, the version of me who feels more like me than any version before her. None of that existed when fear was giving its very official closing argument. So when I say it's not too late, I'm not saying that from a cute little quote graphic. I'm saying it as someone who has had to build a life past the age where the world loves to imply we should start becoming quieter, smaller, more grateful for what we already have. And yes, gratitude matters. Of course it does. But gratitude for the life you have does not require you to betray the life that you is still calling you. It is not too late. It may be later than you thought. It may be later than the timeline you imagined. It may be later than your fear wanted. But later is still alive. Later still gets a vote. So if it's not too late, why do so many of us feel stuck? I do not think most of us wake up one day and decide to abandon ourselves. We drift a little at a time. We say yes to being responsible, yes to keeping peace, yes to making sure everyone else is okay. Yes to the job because the insurance is good. Yes to the relationship because leaving would be complicated. Yes to the role we have played for so long that people would be confused if we suddenly change the script. And some of those yeses are not wrong. Let's be clear about that. Stability matters. Paying bills matter. Showing up for people that you love matters. Real life has real responsibilities. And I'm not here to pretend that we can just float through the world on vibes with a cute water bottle. But somewhere along the way, the yes that used to belong to your own life can get buried under all the yeses you give away. That's what I mean by the drift effect. It's a slow, almost invisible way a good life can move off course without a single dramatic mistake. Nothing technically has to be wrong for something inside you to feel restless. You can have a good life and still feel like you're only using part of yourself. You can love the people in your life and still miss yourself. You can be grateful and still feel a tug towards something more. That was a hundred percent me before I completely changed my life. That's the part that we don't always know how to admit, especially after 40. Because by then a lot of us have built something, a a family, a career, a reputation, a routine, a version of life that works on paper. And when life works on paper, it can almost feel ungrateful to question it. So we tell ourselves, Maybe someday, maybe someday I will take a class, maybe someday I will go on the trip. Maybe someday I will make Friends who know this version of me, maybe I will stop performing ordinary and actually ask myself what I want. Then someday becomes a storage unit for the life that we keep postponing. If hearing that makes something inside of you ache a little, that's not bad news. That ache is useful information. The childhood would willingly say yes is still in there. She may be tired, she may be buried under carpool schedules, work emails, caregiving, heartbreak, disappointment, practical realities, and a very long list of people who need things from you. But she is not gone. She is listening right now. Just this week, I was sitting on the beach reading a book called Chasing the Bright Side by Jess Ekstrom. There was one line that gave me pause. She wrote that we cannot let fear of the unknown become bigger than the excitement of possibility. I laid that book down in my lap and it just resonated with that for a minute. Because that's the whole game right there, isn't it? Both of those things live in us at the same time. The fear of the unknown and the excitement of possibility. The part that wants to know every outcome before it moves, and the part that feels a little spark when something new appears. The question is which one gets bet. And after forty, a lot of us have gotten really, really good at feeding the fear. Not because we are weak, because we have evidence. We have lived long enough to know things do not always work out. We loved people and lost them. We have trusted the wrong people. We have made decisions that cost us. We have survived seasons that changed us. So of course the fear of the unknown can feel bigger now than it did when we were six years old. At six years old, I heard new school and I thought, ⁓ new people. As adults, we hear new and immediately open 17 mental tabs. What if it doesn't work? What if I'm bad at it? What if I'm too old? What if I spend the money and regret it? What if I go alone and I feel awkward? What if I want them and they don't want me? Our brains deserve a snack after all that work. But breeding that line on the beach reminded me that both fear and possibility are asking for my attention. And whichever one I keep feeding will start to feel like the truth. That is what attention does. It turns up the volume. If I keep feeding the fear, the unknown gets bigger and bigger until even a small yes looks like a clip. But if I feed possibility, even a small opening starts to feel like a doorway. And I think that's what happened when I was six. I had not yet learned to make the unknown the enemy. I had not collected enough evidence to distrust my own curiosity. The excitement of the possibility was still easy to hear. Maybe life after 40 is not about becoming someone completely new. Maybe it's about turning the volume back up on the part of you that already knew how to move toward life. Let that inner child play. That part has been there all along. She may just need you to stop feeding every fear like it was a sacred assignment. So how do we feed the possibility side? Not the big leap. with small reps. Nobody goes into a gym on the first day and attempts their heaviest lift. You build strength through small, consistent reps. Saying yes works the same way. You practice in low stake moments first. Say yes to the new food on the menu. Say yes to coffee with someone you just met, even if staying home in comfy pants sounds much easier. Say yes to taking a different route home. Say yes to the class you keep almost signing up for. Say yes to going to the event, even if you have to walk in alone. And if those examples sound too small, good. That's the point. A lot of us wait until we are ready for the big life-changing yes. But we have not practiced being available to our own lives in the small moments. We want to trust ourselves with a giant decision, but we keep overriding ourselves in the tiny ways all day long. The yes muscle gets stronger when you let yourself choose something because it calls to you not only because it makes sense to everyone else. And here's the wonderful thing about small yeses. They teach your nervous system that new does not automatically mean risky. Unfamiliar does not have to mean unsafe. Awkward does not mean wrong. Being a beginner does not mean you are behind. Sometimes unfamiliar turns out to be interesting. Sometimes it turns out to be funny. Sometimes it turns into a friend, a story, a skill, a doorway, a version of yourself you have not met yet. Now I want to be really clear. I am not talking about saying yes when your whole body is saying no. I do teach boundaries, so you know I'm not here for that nonsense. This is not about people pleasing in a spiritual looking hat. The kind of yes that I am talking about is aligned. It has energy in it. It may feel nervous, but it does not feel like self-abandonment. It stretches you without shrinking you. There is a difference between a yes that comes from pressure and a yes that comes from possibility. Pressure says if I do not do this, they will be disappointed. Possibility says something in me is curious. Pressure says I should. Possibil says I wonder. Pressure tightens. Possibility. may flutter, but underneath the flutter, there is a little light. That is the yes we are practicing. And the more that you practice, the more that you start to trust yourself again. You remember that you can choose. You remember that you can try something and sort of behide the awkwardness. You remember that your life is not a hallway with one door at the end. It is full of doors, some tiny, some hidden, some waiting for you to stop insisting That they need to be dramatic before they count. This openness is not something you either have or do not have. It is a muscle. It responds to use. You can start training it to a day and nobody even has to know. Now I want to talk about the deeper part of this because the practical side matters, but it's not the whole story. For years before I left Iowa, something inside of me kept whispering that I was meant for more. I did not have a solid grasp of it at the time. It was not a full plan. I didn't have a 10-step strategy. It was not a voice saying, move to Florida and become an empowerment coach and start a podcast called In the Driver's Seat. Life is rarely that tidy. It was more like a knowing I could not unknow. A sense that the life I was living had pieces of me in it, but not all of me. Like I had learned how to function, but I had not fully learned how to feel free. And for a long time I tried to be re reasonable with that whisper. Maybe you have done this too. You tell it now is not the time. You tell it be grateful. You say this is fine. You tell it it could be worse. You tell it who am I to want more? But the whisperer does not usually leave just because we explain ourselves well. It waits. It waits while we keep the peace. It waits while we ⁓ make the practical choice. It waits while we take care of everyone else. It waits while we convince ourselves that wanting more means we are somehow ungrateful for what we already have. And then every once in a while it gives us a small opening, a conversation, a book, a memory of a six-year-old girl who said yes, because possibility felt bigger than fear. That is when we get to what I call a compass chug. A compass chug is simply pausing long enough to ask. Is this pointing toward the life that I actually want? Not the life that looks impressive, not the life that keeps everyone comfortable, not the life that you built because you were trying to be responsible, lovable, useful, or safe. The life that you really want. And here's the grace in that question. It does not require you to know the whole road. It does not require a perfect plan. It does not demand that you rearrange your whole life by Friday. It just asks you to tell the truth about the direction you are facing. Because sometimes the first yes is not a visible action. Sometimes the first yes is admitting I want something different. That counts. Sometimes the first yes is letting yourself want again without immediately talking yourself out of it. Sometimes it's recognizing the whisper and saying, Okay, I hear you. And then the next small thing appears a class, a conversation, a walk, a message, a book, a room full of strangers, a menu item you have never tried, a new town, a new idea, a new version of you that feels strangely familiar. You just have to stop pretending you cannot hear the whisper. It's not asking you to become reckless, it's asking you to become more honest. And maybe that's where life after 40 gets really beautiful. We are old enough to know what fear costs, and we are still young enough, alive enough, wise enough, and capable enough to choose differently. So here's your assignment do not make it dramatic. One yes. That's the whole assignment. Say yes to one thing you would normally scroll past, brush off, postpone, or talk yourself out of. Maybe it's coffee with someone new. Maybe it's a walk on a different time of the day. Maybe it's a class you've been wanting to take. Maybe it's sending that message to someone. Maybe it's going somewhere alone. Maybe it's trying the thing you've been secretly curious about. Maybe it's finally having the conversation you keep avoiding because you know it will change something. Keep it small enough that you will actually do it, but meaningful enough that it expands your world, even the tiniest bit. And then come back and tell me in the comments what you said yes to. I read every single one. I would love to know. Because I do not think these little yeses are little at all. I think they are how we come back to life. I think they are how the next chapter starts to take shape before we even recognize it. And if you want more of this every week, my free newsletter is called Hello Possibility. This week's issue is literally titled You Don't Need a Leave, You Need a Yes. And the link to subscribe is in the show notes. The newsletter is where I go a little deeper into stories and the mindset shifts, the small moments that change how we see our lives. Because that is how it happens. One on purpose yes at a time. One small course correction, one honest compass check, one moment where you decide the fear of the unknown does not get to be bigger than the excitement of possibility. And eventually you wake up in a life that feels like home. Not because someone handed it to you, not because you waited until it was easy, but because you kept saying yes to the pieces of it as it appeared. The best part of life is not over at 40. You just have to say yes to the next possibility. And if you enjoyed this episode, I would greatly appreciate if you like or subscribe. to the show. It really does help. Others find it too. And until the next time, just know that you're always in the drivers of your life.