Sarala Life — Life in Chapters: Careers, Canines, Cabernet & Courage – Join me as I document what it really takes to rebuild your career, confidence, income and identity after the life you planned changes.

Before My Birthday, I Need to Tell Myself the Truth

September 22, 2026

My birthday is approaching, which means it is almost time for the annual examination I conduct without being asked: the review of my life.

I look at what changed, what grew, what ended, what I avoided and whether the life I have been building actually feels the way I imagined it would.

This year, the review is complicated.

From the outside, it has been a year of courage, visibility and reinvention. From the inside, it has also been a year of uncertainty, uncomfortable truths and repeatedly asking myself whether I am building something sustainable—or simply becoming better at making uncertainty look brave.

The year after 40

Turning 40 felt significant.

It was not because I suddenly had all the answers. In fact, I may have entered this decade with more questions than certainty. But I did feel a growing responsibility to stop living by default.

I wanted to choose more deliberately.

I wanted to build work that reflected the breadth of my experience. I wanted to use my voice beyond boardrooms and legal documents. I wanted to write, speak, create and discover who I was without relying entirely on a corporate title to explain my value.

Over the past year, I have done many of those things.

I built my consultancy. I advised clients. I travelled. I stood on stages and spoke about reinvention, leadership and the moment the traditional ladder no longer fits. I appeared on podcasts, shared more of my story and allowed myself to be seen in ways that once felt uncomfortable.

I also returned to writing consistently.

Week after week, I tried to tell the truth about this chapter—not the polished version in which courage is immediately rewarded, but the version in which confidence and doubt regularly sit beside each other.

There is much for which I am grateful.

There is also much that has been difficult.

The part nobody romanticises

Reinvention is often described as though the decision itself is the hardest part.

Leave the job. Start the business. Book the trip. End the relationship. Choose yourself. Begin again.

But choosing a new direction is only the beginning. You then have to live inside that decision.

You have to continue when the applause ends, when the income is inconsistent, when an opportunity does not materialise and when the person you expected to support you cannot—or does not—show up in the way you hoped.

You have to keep believing in what you are building while also being honest about whether it is working.

That has been one of the most difficult parts of this year.

I have experienced freedom, but I have also missed certainty.

I have been proud of myself, but I have also questioned myself.

I have created opportunities that may never have existed had I remained in the safety of my former life. I have also watched my savings more closely than I would like and wondered how long courage is supposed to take before it begins to feel sustainable.

Both things are true.

My life feels more like mine than it did a year ago. It also feels less predictable.

Alignment has not automatically produced security.

Purpose has not removed the need to earn.

And bravery does not pay a bill simply because it photographs well.

An impressive year can still be a difficult year

This may be the lesson I carry most deeply into 41: an impressive year and an emotionally difficult year can be the same year.

A woman can be photographed on a stage and still return to her room worried about her future.

She can launch a business and still question whether she has done enough.

She can be described as brave while privately wondering whether she made the right decision.

She can love parts of the life she is creating and grieve parts of the life she expected to have by now.

We are often encouraged to select one version of the story.

Either the reinvention was empowering or it was frightening.

Either the year was successful or it was disappointing.

Either we are grateful or we are struggling.

Real life is rarely that tidy.

This year expanded me. It also exhausted me.

It brought beautiful experiences, meaningful work and evidence that my voice can travel beyond the spaces in which I once felt confined. It also exposed the places where I still seek reassurance, tolerate uncertainty for too long or make myself responsible for effort that should not be mine alone.

I cannot call the year a failure simply because it did not give me everything I wanted.

But I also do not want to call it a success without examining what it cost me.

The questions have changed

In earlier years, my birthday review centred on achievement.

What had I accomplished? What could I add to the list? What goal should come next?

As I approach 41, those questions feel incomplete.

I still care about meaningful achievement. I am still ambitious. I still want my work to grow, my income to become more secure and my voice to reach the people who need it.

But I am also asking:

Does my life feel supported, or am I carrying too much of it alone?

Am I building a business—or relying on hope, visibility and occasional opportunities to eventually become a business?

Where have I accepted less effort, care or reciprocity than I need?

What am I continuing because it genuinely matters to me, and what am I continuing because I am afraid of admitting that it may need to change?

Am I happier—or simply proud that I survived?

These are not comfortable birthday questions.

But perhaps comfort is no longer the point.

What I want from 41

I do not want the next year of my life to become another performance.

I do not want to look publicly brave, professionally visible and personally composed while privately living with questions I am afraid to answer.

I want substance beneath the story.

I want a business that is not only meaningful but sustainable. I want relationships in which care, communication and effort are not things I must repeatedly request. I want to keep creating, speaking and writing without measuring the value of my voice only by numbers.

I want softness, but not avoidance.

I want peace, but not at the cost of honesty.

I want to continue becoming, but I also want to build something solid enough to hold the woman I am becoming.

Perhaps this year’s life review is not about proving that leaving corporate life was the right decision. Perhaps it is about being honest enough to decide what must change next.

I do not have all the answers yet.

But before my birthday, I owe myself the truth.
I’d Borrow Carrie Bradshaw’s Life—But Not for the Shoes

September 18, 2026

If you had to switch lives with a fictional character for a week, who would you choose?
View all responses

If I had to switch lives with a fictional character for one week, I would choose Carrie Bradshaw.

Yes, I know.

Her financial decisions are questionable. Her romantic choices are occasionally infuriating. And I have no interest in spending seven days trying to decipher emotionally unavailable men.

But I would still choose Carrie.

Not only for the Manhattan apartment, the fabulous wardrobe or the ability to wear something objectively impractical and somehow make it look iconic. I would choose her because she built a life around noticing things.

She paid attention to conversations, friendships, heartbreak, contradiction and all the little moments most people experience but never stop long enough to examine. Then she sat at her desk, looked out at the city and turned those observations into words.

That part feels especially appealing to me now.

For much of my adult life, my days were shaped by responsibility: deadlines, negotiations, meetings, decisions, expectations and the quiet pressure to always know what came next. I became very good at performing competence—even during periods when I was exhausted, uncertain or quietly wondering whether the life I had worked so hard to build still suited me.

Carrie’s life, however imperfect, made room for curiosity.

For one week, I would love to wake up in her apartment with nowhere to be immediately. I would make coffee, open the window and listen to New York moving below me. I would write without first asking whether the words were commercially useful, professionally appropriate or strategically aligned with anything.

I would simply write because something had made me think.

I would wear something fabulous to lunch with women who knew the full story—not only the polished version. We would talk about careers, money, marriage, ageing, desire and all the ways a woman can feel deeply grateful for her life while still wanting something more from it.

I would walk through the city alone, perhaps stop for a glass of wine, buy a book I did not need and allow an ordinary afternoon to feel like an occasion.

And, of course, I would explore the wardrobe.

But what I would really want to borrow is Carrie’s freedom to treat her own life as worthy of observation.

There is something powerful about believing that your questions matter, that your experiences can become stories and that the messy middle of your life does not need to be resolved before you are allowed to write about it.

At 40, while building a business, developing a new voice and learning to live beyond the security of a corporate title, I often find myself in that messy middle. I am still ambitious, but my definition of success is changing. I want meaningful work and financial stability, but I also want time, softness, creativity and a life I do not constantly need to recover from.

Perhaps that is why Carrie appeals to me right now.

She did not wait until she had mastered relationships, money or adulthood before telling her stories. She wrote from inside the uncertainty.

I think many women postpone their creativity because they believe they must first become more successful, more settled, more healed or more certain. We tell ourselves we will write the book, start the business, take the trip or share the truth when life becomes clearer.

But sometimes clarity arrives because we begin—not before.

So yes, I would happily borrow Carrie Bradshaw’s life for a week. I would wear the shoes, enjoy the lunches and spend far too much time studying the contents of her closet.

But I suspect the most important thing I would bring home would not be a pair of Manolo Blahniks.

It would be the reminder that my own life—unfinished, evolving and occasionally complicated—is already worth writing about.

And perhaps I do not need to switch lives with anyone to begin treating it that way.
I Needed Washington to Mean Something

September 15, 2026

I have been trying to decide what to write about Washington.

The easy version would be to tell you that I travelled to speak at the Breakthrough to the Bank Brunch, stood before a room of women and delivered a speech called “From Performer to Powerhouse.”

I could tell you how meaningful it was to be invited, how carefully I prepared and how grateful I felt to have another opportunity to share my story.

All of that would be true.

It would also be the version that keeps me safely hidden.

The more honest version is that I needed Washington to mean something.

I needed it to feel like evidence.

Evidence that walking away from the predictability of corporate life had not been a terrible mistake. Evidence that ALTRIX was becoming more than an idea I kept trying to convince myself—and everyone else—to believe in. Evidence that my voice could take me into rooms that my former title once opened for me.

I needed to feel that this new life was beginning to lead somewhere.

That is a difficult thing to admit because we are supposed to approach opportunities from a place of confidence. We are supposed to say that we are honoured, excited and ready.

We are not supposed to admit that sometimes an invitation arrives while we are quietly questioning whether anything we are building is working.

For more than twelve years, I had the reassurance of structure. I had a title, a salary and a place within an organisation. Even on difficult days, I could point to something tangible and say, “This is who I am. This is what I do. This is what my work is worth.”

Now, so much of my life requires faith before evidence.

I have to keep showing up for a business that is still growing. I have to introduce myself without leaning on the name of a large company. I have to put a value on my own work, ask people to pay it and remain steady when the opportunities do not arrive at the speed I hoped they would.

I have to keep believing in myself on the days when belief does not feel especially sophisticated or strategic. It simply feels necessary.

So yes, Washington mattered to me.

But perhaps not only for the reasons people could see.

When I stood before that room speaking about the journey from performer to powerhouse, I was not speaking as a woman who had completed the journey.

I was speaking as a woman who knows performance intimately.

I know how to achieve, deliver, anticipate what is needed and become the person a room can rely on. I know how to attach my worth to excellence and call it ambition. I know how to appear composed while privately wondering how much longer I can carry everything.

I also know what happens when the ladder you spent years climbing no longer leads to the life you want.

The uncomfortable part is that leaving the ladder does not immediately make you powerful.

Sometimes it simply leaves you standing on the ground, looking around and wondering what you are supposed to build next.

There are days when reinvention feels expansive. There are speaking engagements, new connections, client work and moments when I can see the outline of the woman I am becoming.

There are other days when reinvention feels like watching money leave my savings account while I try not to calculate how long courage is supposed to take before it becomes commercially viable.

Both versions are real.

That is what I carried with me to Washington.

The woman on the stage was not separate from the woman who has worried about money, questioned her decisions or wondered whether she left one version of success without knowing how to create another.

She was that woman.

Perhaps that is why the moment affected me as deeply as it did.

I was not standing there because of a corporate title printed beneath my name. I was not representing an organisation whose credibility I could borrow.

I had been invited because of my own story, my own expertise and my own voice.

For those few minutes, I did not need an old title to explain why I belonged in the room.

I belonged there as myself.

I wish I could tell you that I returned home completely transformed. That the experience erased every fear and that I now have absolute certainty about what comes next.

It did not.

The trip ended. The clothes were unpacked. The speech became a memory. My ordinary life—and all its unresolved questions—was still waiting for me.

There was no magical email promising financial security. No sudden map showing me exactly how to turn my experience, ideas and voice into the life I am trying to build.

That is the part of breakthroughs we rarely discuss.

Sometimes nothing changes immediately after the big moment.

You still have to return home and keep going.

But Washington did give me something I had been searching for.

It reminded me that I am not imagining the woman I am becoming.

She exists.

She can walk into unfamiliar rooms. She can speak without hiding behind a former position. She can create connection from the truth of what she has lived. She can be respected for more than how efficiently she performs.

I still do not know exactly where this road is taking me.

I am still learning how to build a business, create sustainable income and trust a life that does not come with the guarantees I once depended on.

But for one morning in Washington, I saw evidence that there is a life beyond the ladder.

And perhaps what I needed was not proof that I had already arrived.

Perhaps I simply needed proof that I was not walking towards nothing.
There is still a Lot of Life to be Had.

September 8, 2026

On Saturday, someone asked me what I was thinking about.

“My life,” I replied.

Their response was almost immediate: “What—everything that it isn’t what you thought it would be?”

It was the kind of comment that was perhaps a little too perceptive for a Saturday.

I paused before answering.

“Well, I’m not dying right this minute, so there is still a lot of life to be had.”

I laughed when I said it, but I also meant it.

My life is not everything I thought it would be. There are parts I imagined differently, parts I expected to have figured out by now and parts that still feel strangely unresolved. But I am also only 40. This moment—however uncertain, lonely or uncomfortable it may feel—is not the final verdict on my life.

That is what I am trying to remember this week.

I feel unusually vulnerable. Part of it is the luteal phase, when the thoughts I can normally manage seem to arrive without volume control. Part of it is that I have not been sleeping well, and an exhausted mind has a remarkable ability to turn every concern into a crisis.

It is not that the feelings are invented. I dislike when women’s emotions are dismissed as “just hormones,” as though what rises to the surface during that time has no meaning. Sometimes the feelings are very real. They are simply louder, less filtered and more insistent.

This week, mine have quite a lot to say.

I am preparing to travel to Washington to speak at the Breakthrough to the Bank Brunch. I have been thinking about my speech, what I will wear, how I will present myself and, beneath all of that, whether I will be meaningful.

Not merely good. Not polished. Not impressive.

Meaningful.

I want something I say to stay with someone after the brunch is over. I want the difficult parts of my own story to become useful to another woman. I want the journey—the titles, the losses, the reinvention and the rebuilding—to mean something beyond me.

That is a great deal of expectation to place upon a few minutes at a microphone.

Perhaps the pressure I feel is not really about remembering every word. Perhaps it is about wanting reassurance that this chapter I am building is real. That the opportunities are leading somewhere. That I am not simply travelling, speaking and sharing while remaining uncertain about how all the pieces will eventually come together.

There is an odd vulnerability in preparing to stand before a room and speak about power while quietly questioning parts of your own life.

But perhaps that is where the meaning comes from.

I am not speaking because I have conquered every struggle. I am speaking because I know what it is to continue while the story is still untidy.

The untidiness extends beyond work.

I have also been thinking about what it means to feel single when you are not actually single.

It is a difficult feeling to explain because it is not necessarily about being physically alone. It is about feeling alone in the responsibility for creating a life. It is having someone beside you but sometimes still feeling as though you are the only one thinking ahead, making the plans, initiating the conversations or carrying the emotional weight.

Sometimes what you miss is not companionship in the literal sense. It is the feeling of being considered.

Of someone else noticing what needs attention.

Of not always having to explain why something matters before it is treated as though it matters.

There can be love in a relationship and still be loneliness inside it. Admitting that does not automatically negate the love or mean the relationship is ending. It simply acknowledges that partnership is more than presence. It is participation.

Perhaps the luteal phase makes that loneliness harder to ignore. Perhaps poor sleep makes it feel heavier. But neither of those things means it is unworthy of examination.

Then, in the middle of contemplating my purpose, my marriage, my career and the entire trajectory of my life, one of the doggies needs something.

Naturally.

George and Isabella do not care that I am having an existential crisis. There is food to be prepared, a door to be opened, medication or routines to be remembered and attention to be provided—often at precisely the moment when I have run out of patience.

I love them deeply. Still, I sometimes become frustrated while looking after them.

That frustration is usually followed by guilt.

They are getting older. They trust me. They depend on me. I know that one day I will miss even the moments that currently test me. Knowing that, however, does not magically make me endlessly patient.

Love does not prevent exhaustion.

Caring for someone—whether a person or an animal—does not mean loving every task involved in their care. Sometimes devotion looks tender. Sometimes it looks like doing what needs to be done while tired and slightly irritated.

I am trying to stop interpreting every impatient moment as evidence that I am unkind. Perhaps it is simply evidence that I need more rest, more help or five uninterrupted minutes in which no living creature asks anything of me.

This feels like an appropriate moment to talk about wine.

It has been a while.

For this week, I am recommending a Beaujolais-Villages: a light, fruit-forward French red, usually filled with cherry and raspberry flavours and best served slightly chilled.

It is not a wine that requires you to sit upright and discuss tannins with authority. It does not need a special occasion or an elaborate meal. It is the kind of wine you can pour after feeding the dogs, removing your bra and deciding that none of your major life questions need to be answered before bedtime.

Put the bottle in the refrigerator for about 20 or 30 minutes before opening it. Not long enough to make it icy—just enough to make it bright and refreshing.

Think of it as a red wine that understands we are going through enough.

Maybe I need to approach this week in the same way: with a little less heaviness.

Washington does not have to prove that my new life is working. One speech does not have to justify the entire journey. One lonely season does not define a marriage. One impatient moment does not define how well I love my dogs. One hormonally and emotionally difficult week does not mean everything is falling apart.

The truth is that my life is not what I thought it would be.

But perhaps no honest life is.

The plans we make when we are younger rarely account for who we will become, what we will lose, what we will outgrow or how many times we may need to begin again. We imagine that by a certain age our careers will be secure, our relationships will feel settled and our sense of self will no longer be under review.

Then life continues being life.

At 40, I am not finished. I am not out of time. I am not required to treat today’s reality as the permanent shape of my future.

There are rooms I have not yet entered, work I have not yet created and people who have not yet heard what I have to say. There are places I have not visited, pleasures I have not discovered and versions of myself I have not yet met.

My life may not be everything I thought it would be.

But I am not dying right this minute.

So there is still a lot of life to be had.

And for now, that is enough reason to keep going—and perhaps to open the wine.
The Year I Turned 40 — But Not to Change It

September 5, 2026

Daily writing prompt
If you could relive one year of your life, which one would it be?
View all responses

If I could relive one year of my life, I think I would choose the year I turned 40.

Not because it was the easiest year. It wasn’t.

It was a year of transition, uncertainty and uncomfortable questions. A year when some of the things I had built my identity around began to shift. I was no longer able to define myself only by a title, a salary, a career trajectory or how successful my life appeared from the outside.

It was also the year I began to understand that reinvention does not always arrive looking brave and exciting.

Sometimes it looks like fear.

Sometimes it looks like waking up and wondering whether you made the right decision. It looks like watching your savings more carefully, questioning your relevance and trying to build something new while quietly grieving what you once had.

But if I could relive that year, I would not go back to change it.

I would go back to experience it differently.

I would tell the woman approaching 40 that she did not need to have everything figured out before stepping into a new chapter. I would tell her that uncertainty was not proof that she was failing. It was simply evidence that she was moving beyond a life she already knew how to live.

I would ask her to be more present for the beautiful moments.

To enjoy the birthday celebrations without mentally calculating what came next. To take more photographs—but also to put the phone down. To receive the love being offered without questioning whether she had earned it. To stop treating joy as something she could fully enjoy only after every problem had been solved.

I would remind her that turning 40 was not a deadline.

There was no final assessment of whether she had achieved enough, earned enough, travelled enough, loved well enough or become enough.

She was allowed to arrive at 40 still becoming.

I would also tell her to pay closer attention to herself.

To notice what made her feel alive. To recognise which rooms allowed her to expand and which ones required her to shrink. To listen when her body asked for rest. To stop confusing endurance with strength and familiarity with alignment.

Perhaps that is the real reason we sometimes want to relive a year. It is not always because we want a different outcome. Sometimes we simply wish we could return with the wisdom to recognise what was happening while it was happening.

We would worry less.

We would savour more.

We would forgive ourselves sooner.

But maybe the gift of looking back is not that we can return. It is that we can bring those lessons forward.

I cannot relive the year I turned 40. I cannot go back and reassure that version of myself that she would survive the uncertainty, discover new parts of herself and begin building a life that felt more honest.

But I can offer that reassurance to the woman I am today.

I can remind myself that this chapter does not need to be perfectly mapped before it can be meaningful. I can stop postponing joy until everything feels secure. I can allow myself to be proud of the life I have lived while remaining open to the life I am still creating.

So yes, I would relive the year I turned 40—not to rewrite it, but to witness it more tenderly.

And perhaps that is how I want to live every year from now on: present enough that I do not have to look back and wish I had truly been there.
What Do You Do When the Life You’re Building Isn’t Paying You Back Yet?

September 1, 2026

There is a particularly uncomfortable stage of reinvention that nobody romanticizes.

It is the stage where you are doing the work—showing up, creating, applying, pitching, learning and trying to remain hopeful—but the life you are building has not started paying you back yet.

Not financially. Not consistently. And perhaps not in any of the tangible ways that would reassure you that all this effort is leading somewhere.

People enjoy talking about the courage it takes to begin again. They celebrate the announcement, the new business, the career pivot and the brave decision to leave behind what no longer fits.

But they speak far less about the middle.

The middle is where the adrenaline has worn off, but the evidence has not yet arrived.

It is where you can be proud of how far you have come and still wonder whether you have made the right decision. It is where you can believe in your abilities while quietly questioning whether the world will ever value them in the way you hoped.

I know this space intimately.

I am building a consultancy, pursuing executive opportunities, developing my voice as a speaker and continuing to create work that reflects the woman I am becoming. There are days when it all feels deeply aligned. There are also days when I look at the effort I am making and wonder when—or whether—it will translate into the stability and income I need.

That is the part of reinvention we do not always admit.

Purpose does not cancel bills.

Potential does not automatically create profit.

Being brave enough to begin again does not protect you from uncertainty.

Sometimes the hardest part is knowing that you are capable of so much while living through a season that does not yet reflect that capability.

When progress doesn’t look like progress

For most of my professional life, progress was easy to recognize. There were titles, salaries, promotions, major transactions and increasingly significant responsibilities.

The markers were visible.

Reinvention has required me to develop a different relationship with progress. A conversation that does not lead to immediate work may still create an important relationship. An application that is unsuccessful may help me articulate my value more clearly. A speaking engagement may not transform my income overnight, but it can introduce my work to someone who needs precisely what I offer.

These things matter.

But I am also learning not to use gratitude as a way of avoiding reality. Visibility is valuable, but visibility alone is not a business model. Encouragement feels good, but encouragement cannot be the only return on sustained effort.

There must be room for hope and honest evaluation.

Is it not working—or is it not working yet?

This is the question I keep returning to.

Some things need more time. Trust takes time to build. A new professional identity takes time to become established. People may need to encounter your work several times before they understand what you do, remember you or decide to hire you.

But time is not the answer to everything.

Sometimes the offer is unclear. Sometimes the audience is wrong. Sometimes we are spending energy on activities that make us feel productive without moving us closer to income, opportunity or impact.

Perseverance is important, but so is discernment.

I am learning to ask:

What is beginning to show genuine momentum?

What am I continuing only because I have already invested so much in it?

Where do people consistently recognize my value?

What needs a better strategy rather than more effort?

What am I afraid to release because stopping would feel like failure?

Those questions are not evidence that I have lost faith in myself. They are evidence that I am taking responsibility for the life I am trying to build.

Self-belief must be able to survive quiet seasons

Believing in yourself is relatively easy when the invitations are arriving, the money is flowing and other people are affirming your decisions.

The real test comes during the quiet seasons.

Can you remember your value before the next client confirms it?

Can you remain grounded when someone else’s progress seems faster or more visible?

Can you acknowledge that a strategy is not working without turning that into a judgment about who you are?

I am trying to separate my worth from the speed of my results.

A slow season does not erase my experience. A rejection does not invalidate my ability. An uncertain chapter does not mean I have no future.

But self-belief is not pretending that everything will work out simply because I want it to. It is trusting myself enough to review the evidence, make difficult adjustments and keep moving.

Building a life—and a life that can sustain me

I still want to build a life I actually like.

I want meaningful work, flexibility, creativity, impact and room to be a whole person. But I also want financial stability. I do not believe I should have to pretend that money is unimportant in order to prove that my work is purposeful.

A life that looks inspiring but cannot sustain me is not the destination.

So I am learning to hold two truths at the same time: I can be proud of what I am building, and I can expect it to produce more. I can honour the progress I have made while changing the parts of my strategy that are not delivering results.

That is not ingratitude. It is maturity.

Perhaps that is what this stage is here to teach me. Reinvention is not simply having the courage to start. It is having the honesty to assess, the humility to adjust and the self-trust to continue—even when the rewards have not yet caught up with the work.

Sometimes the answer is to keep going.

Sometimes the answer is to change the strategy.

Wisdom is learning to tell the difference.
Title: I’m Building a Life I Actually Like. Now I Need It to Pay Me.

August 25, 2026

Screenshot

There is a part of reinvention that photographs beautifully.

It is the part where you finally leave what no longer fits. You rediscover yourself beyond the title, the office and the carefully constructed career. You begin doing work that feels more meaningful. You speak, you write, you create, and you start building a life with more freedom and more room to breathe.

Then there is the part that does not photograph quite as well.

The inconsistent income. The savings moving in the wrong direction. The opportunities that sound exciting but do not necessarily pay. The quiet calculations you make before saying yes to something you would once have booked without thinking twice.

That is the part of reinvention I am living now.

I am building a life I genuinely like. I have more ownership of my time. I am doing work that reflects more of who I am—not only as a lawyer and strategic adviser, but as a speaker, writer, mentor and woman with a story worth sharing.

I am no longer forcing myself into a version of success that looks impressive but feels increasingly disconnected from me.

And yet, I would be lying if I said that freedom alone was enough.

I need this life to pay me.

Not because every passion must immediately become profitable. Not because the value of our lives can be reduced to what we earn. And certainly not because choosing a different path was a mistake.

I need it to pay me because peace is difficult to protect when it exists alongside persistent financial anxiety.

Purpose matters. Freedom matters. Fulfilment matters. But so do bills, savings, healthcare, travel, independence and the ability to make choices without fear sitting at the table.

For a long time, I associated financial security with the salary that arrived predictably every month. It did not require me to constantly market myself, explain my value or wonder whether an opportunity would convert into income. That certainty created a kind of ease that I perhaps did not fully appreciate until it was gone.

I do not miss every part of my old life.

But I do miss the certainty.

There is a particular vulnerability in being experienced, capable and accomplished, yet still uncertain about where your next consistent stream of income will come from. You know what you can do. You have evidence of what you have done. Other people recognise your expertise. But none of that automatically creates a sustainable business.

That has been one of my hardest lessons.

Being good at the work and building a business around the work are two different skills.

A respected career does not automatically become a profitable consultancy. A powerful speech does not automatically lead to paid speaking engagements. A thoughtful article does not automatically build an audience. Visibility does not always produce revenue, and opportunity is not the same thing as income.

There is also an uncomfortable amount of asking involved.

You have to ask for the meeting. Ask for the fee. Ask people to consider you. Explain what you offer. Follow up when there is no response. Say your price without apologising. Keep showing up even when the evidence that it is working has not yet arrived.

For someone who spent years being known within an organisation, there is humility in having to introduce yourself all over again.

I am learning that building a life I like requires more than courage. It requires structure.

It requires me to be honest about what is generating income and what is simply keeping me busy. It means creating clearer services, following up more consistently and becoming more comfortable with selling the value of what I know. It means protecting time for revenue-producing work, even when the more creative or visible opportunities feel more exciting.

It may also mean remaining open to opportunities I had not originally imagined—including the possibility of returning to an executive role if the right one appears.

I am trying not to frame that possibility as failure.

There is no rule that says reinvention must happen in a straight line. There is no prize for struggling unnecessarily to prove that I can make one particular version of my life work. A role that respects my experience, supports my financial goals and leaves room for the person I have become could be part of the life I am building—not a retreat from it.

Perhaps this chapter is teaching me to stop treating purpose and profit as opposing forces.

I am allowed to want meaningful work and financial security.

I am allowed to value freedom and still want predictable income.

I am allowed to build a business while remaining open to employment, advisory work, speaking and opportunities I cannot yet see.

The goal is no longer to prove that I can survive without my former career. The goal is to create a life that is emotionally, professionally and financially sustainable.

I have already done the brave part of admitting that the old version of success no longer fit.

Now I am doing the less glamorous work: building systems, asking for opportunities, confronting my discomfort with selling, and making decisions based not only on what feels meaningful, but on what can support the future I want.

I am building a life I actually like.

Now I am learning how to make that life hold me, too.
I Don’t Think I’d Erase Anything

August 19, 2026

Daily writing prompt
If you could erase one event from history, what would it be?
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If you could erase one event from history, what would it be?

It feels like there should be an obvious answer.

A war.
A genocide.
An act of terrorism.
A moment when humanity failed itself so spectacularly that you wonder how the world might look if it simply had not happened.

And of course, there are events I wish had never happened. There is suffering so immense that I would never try to romanticise it by saying everything happens for a reason.

But erase it?

I’m not sure I would.

Because history isn’t a collection of isolated moments. One thing changes another. Tragedy has changed laws. Injustice has created movements. Failure has forced accountability. Loss has changed the way generations think, lead and love.

And when I bring the question closer to home, it becomes even harder.

What event from my own history would I erase?

There are certainly contenders.

The professional disappointments. The friendships that ended. The decisions I would make differently now. The moments I stayed too long, trusted too much, said too little—or perhaps said too much.

There are versions of my life I sometimes imagine where certain things simply didn’t happen.

But then I have to ask: Who would I be without them?

Would I have learnt boundaries without having mine crossed?

Would I understand reinvention if everything had gone according to plan?

Would I appreciate peace if I had never known chaos?

Would I have discovered how much of my identity was wrapped up in achievement if the ladder had never broken?

Probably not.

At 40, I am becoming less interested in editing my past and much more interested in understanding it.

That’s different.

Understanding allows me to say: I wish that hadn’t happened, but it did.

It allows me to hold people accountable without allowing them to occupy permanent space in my future.

It allows me to acknowledge my own mistakes without turning them into a life sentence.

And perhaps most importantly, it allows me to stop bargaining with a life that has already happened.

There is something incredibly freeing about that.

Because maybe the goal isn’t to build a history without regret, pain or failure.

Maybe it’s to build a life where those things don’t get the final word.

So if I were handed an eraser and given the opportunity to remove one event from history?

I think I’d put it down.

Not because everything that happened was good.

Not because everyone who hurt us deserves forgiveness.

Not because suffering was necessary.

But because history—collective and personal—isn’t meant to be rewritten until it becomes beautiful.

Sometimes the beauty is in what we choose to build from what remains.

And right now, I’m far more interested in the next chapter than I am in rewriting the last one.
Maybe I don’t need a Breakthrough; Maybe I need a Business Model

August 18, 2026

Maybe I Don’t Need a Breakthrough.
Maybe I Need a Business Model.

I have spent a lot of the last few years talking about reinvention.

About what happens when the ladder breaks.

About leaving titles behind.

About learning that success and identity are not the same thing.

About having the courage to build again when the version of your life you thought was permanent suddenly isn’t.

And lately, I’ve been wondering whether reinvention has become the comfortable part.

Because I did it.

I changed.

I walked away from the certainty of a corporate salary and a title that explained me before I even entered the room. I started consulting. I started writing more. I said yes to speaking opportunities. I went on podcasts. I travelled. I met extraordinary people. I built new relationships. I put myself into rooms where nobody knew the title I once held — and discovered that I still had something valuable to say.

There is something incredibly liberating about that.

But there is also a question that eventually interrupts all that lovely reinvention:

What is the business model?

Because applause is lovely.

It is not a revenue model.

Neither are likes.

Neither is visibility.

Neither is having people tell you, “You should absolutely be doing this.”

There comes a point when someone has to say, “What do you charge?”

And, even more importantly, you have to know the answer.

When Busy Looks Like Success

This is something I have been thinking about a lot lately.

My calendar can look wonderfully full.

A podcast here.

A speaking engagement there.

A consulting conversation.

A proposal.

A coffee.

An introduction.

An application.

Another opportunity that could become something.

And all of those things matter. I don’t dismiss them.

Some of the most meaningful opportunities of this chapter of my life have begun with conversations that didn’t initially have a dollar sign attached to them.

But I am also learning to distinguish between momentum and monetisation.

They are not the same thing.

A full calendar and a full bank account are not the same thing either.

And perhaps one of the hardest adjustments when you have spent years in corporate life is accepting that nobody deposits a salary into your account simply because you worked incredibly hard this month.

Entrepreneurship — consulting, speaking, writing, whatever form it takes — requires a different muscle.

You don’t just have to be good.

You have to be commercially clear.

Maybe I Don’t Need Another Reinvention

This may be the biggest realization for me.

For a while, whenever something wasn’t working, my instinct was to ask:

What do I need to change about myself?

Do I need another qualification?

Another certification?

A different offering?

A new website?

More content?

More visibility?

More networking?

Perhaps another pivot?

But lately, I have started asking a different question:

What if I don’t need to become someone new?

What if the woman standing here already has enough experience, expertise, stories, relationships and scars?

What if the next level doesn’t require another identity transformation?

What if it requires structure?

A clearer offer.

A clearer client.

A clearer price.

A clearer way for people to move from saying, “You’re brilliant at this,” to saying, “I’d like to hire you.”

There comes a point when potential needs a pricing strategy.

The Awkward Middle

And perhaps this is another version of the middle that we don’t talk about enough.

The space between reinvention and sustainability.

You are no longer who you were.

You know you don’t want to go backwards.

You have begun creating something new.

People can see it.

Sometimes they even celebrate it.

But the financial infrastructure hasn’t quite caught up with the vision yet.

That space can mess with your confidence.

Because externally, things may look exciting.

Internally, you’re doing calculations.

How long can I keep building?

What should I be charging?

Which opportunities deserve my time?

Which opportunities am I accepting because they are strategically valuable — and which ones am I accepting because being wanted feels good?

That last question is uncomfortable.

But necessary.

Because when you have spent years being validated by promotions, titles and compensation, it is remarkably easy to replace corporate validation with another kind:

being invited.

Invited to speak.

Invited to contribute.

Invited to advise.

Invited into the room.

And invitations are wonderful.

But eventually, I want to build something that doesn’t only invite me into other people’s rooms.

I want to build my own table.

So, What Am I Doing About It?

This is where I am now.

Not abandoning the speaking.

Not abandoning the writing.

Not abandoning consulting.

Not running back to safety simply because building something takes longer than I imagined.

But becoming much more intentional about how these pieces fit together.

What am I actually selling?

Who needs it?

What problem am I solving?

What is worth paying for?

What am I doing because it builds the business — and what am I doing because it makes me feel busy?

Those aren’t particularly glamorous questions.

They don’t make for inspirational Instagram graphics.

But perhaps they are the questions that turn reinvention into a life.

Because courage got me here.

Curiosity opened doors.

Relationships created opportunities.

But the next chapter may require something slightly less romantic:

commercial discipline.

And maybe that’s growth too.

Maybe growth isn’t always another dramatic leap.

Maybe sometimes growth looks like sitting down with a notebook, a calculator and a glass of wine and saying:

Right. This is who I am now.

How do I build a sustainable life around her?

I don’t think I need another breakthrough.

I think I need to build the business model around the breakthrough I’ve already had.
Who Waters the Woman Who Waters Everyone Else?

August 12, 2026

On birthdays, reciprocity, disappointment, ambition, and learning to participate in my own life.

There is something about a good glass of wine that encourages honesty.

Maybe it’s the ritual of it. Pouring it. Sitting down. Not rushing to the next thing. Or maybe, by the time you reach a certain age, you realise some thoughts need somewhere to go.

So tonight, they’re going here.

Over a glass of Châteauneuf-du-Pape.

My birthday is approaching, and this year I’m looking at it differently.

I love birthdays. I always have. I’m someone who believes in celebrating life — preferably with a passport, a beautiful hotel and an unnecessarily long dinner somewhere fabulous.

This year, though, travel may not happen.

Finances have been raised as the reason, and I understand that. In fact, I understand it perhaps more than ever because I have invested heavily in building my business this year. I am learning that entrepreneurship requires not only courage but restraint. Sometimes the grown-up decision is not the glamorous one.

But I’ve realised that what disappoints me isn’t really the absence of a plane ticket.

It is the absence of a counterproposal.

If not the trip, then what?

A night away? A carefully planned weekend at home? Somewhere new for dinner? Something thoughtful, researched, arranged?

Not expensive. Intentional.

There is a difference.

And perhaps that’s what I’ve been thinking about lately: the difference between being loved and feeling considered. Between people being present in your life and people actively pouring into it.

I don’t say that to indict anyone. I certainly don’t want to conduct my marriage through a blog post. Relationships are complicated, private things, and there are always perspectives other than our own.

But I can talk about what something awakens in me.

And lately I have been asking myself a difficult question:

Who waters the person who is always watering everyone else?

I have spent much of my life being capable.

I organise. I solve. I remember. I show up. I work. I encourage. I make things happen.

Capability is a wonderful thing.

It can also become a trap.

Because when you are good at looking after yourself, people can begin to assume that you don’t need looking after.

And maybe, somewhere along the way, you begin assuming it too.

A couple of weeks ago, my therapist said something that has stayed with me: whatever my life looks like four years from now will ultimately be on me.

Not in a cruel way. In an agency way.

At first, that landed heavily.

Because there are things about our lives that absolutely involve other people. Their choices affect us. Their capacity affects us. Their willingness to show up affects us.

But I cannot build my future around the hope that someone else will eventually become the architect of it.

That part belongs to me.

And strangely, accepting that has been both sad and liberating.

Because there have been beautiful things happening too.

I recently secured another engagement from a new client who came back to work with me again. That matters enormously when you’re building something of your own.

I’m preparing to travel to Washington in September to speak at the From Breakthrough to the Bank Brunch — another opportunity that once lived somewhere in the category of things I’d love to do someday and is now actually on my calendar.

I’ve taken myself on solo dates.

I’ve dressed up simply because I wanted to feel beautiful.

I went to a friend’s birthday, made an effort, painted my nails red and enjoyed being out in the world.

I’ve been cooking more.

I’ve been exercising.

I’ve been deliberately resting instead of treating rest as something I earn only after exhaustion.

And I’ve been spending more time simply enjoying my dogs — not while answering an email, planning the next project or mentally running through tomorrow’s list. Just enjoying them.

These are small things.

Except they aren’t.

They are evidence of a woman learning to participate in her own life instead of constantly administering it.

A friend said something to me recently that I haven’t been able to shake.

She told me she had watched how hard I had been trying — working, exercising, building, saving, planning, carrying responsibilities — and that she had always found something inspiring in that.

Sometimes you need someone outside of your own head to remind you of the effort you have stopped giving yourself credit for.

Because I’ve been asking myself another question lately:

What exactly am I afraid of?

Being on my own?

There is an uncomfortable irony in fearing that when you already know how to look after yourself.

Financially. Emotionally. Practically. Professionally.

Perhaps the fear isn’t really about being alone.

Perhaps it’s about letting go of the expectation that certain people will eventually show up for us in precisely the ways we’ve imagined.

And maybe there is grief in that.

Not everything we grieve has to end.

Sometimes we grieve expectations.

Versions of relationships.

The person we thought someone might become.

Even versions of ourselves.

I’ve also become more protective of the truth of my own life.

Recently someone jokingly suggested that my husband was funding one of my trips.

I laughed.

But afterwards I thought: actually, no.

I work hard for the things I experience. I save for them. I plan for them. I make choices and sacrifices for them.

There is nothing wrong with being treated by your partner — how lovely when that happens — but there is also nothing wrong with quietly correcting a narrative that erases your own work.

I don’t need to diminish anyone else to acknowledge myself.

Maybe that is where I am as another birthday approaches.

Not angry.

Not bitter.

Not pretending everything is wonderful either.

Just increasingly unwilling to abandon myself while waiting for other people to choose me.

And here’s the strange thing:

there can be two truths at the same time.

My life is full.

And there are parts of it that make me sad.

I am proud of the business I am building.

And I want more clients.

I am grateful for the opportunities finding me.

And sometimes I wonder, with all the connections in this enormous interconnected world, why I haven’t been able to turn more of them into sustainable income yet.

I feel strong.

And sometimes I feel lonely.

I love people deeply.

And I am tired of always being the person doing the watering.

None of those truths cancels out the others.

Maybe maturity isn’t reaching some magical point where everything finally makes sense and you’re permanently happy with the life you’ve created.

Maybe it’s being able to look honestly at what is beautiful and what hurts without allowing either one to distort the whole picture.

So I don’t know exactly what my birthday will look like this year.

Maybe I’ll still get on a plane.

Maybe I’ll decide the financially strategic thing is to stay home.

Maybe I’ll buy myself an excellent bottle of wine, put on something fabulous, paint my nails red again and create a celebration that feels like me.

What I do know is that I don’t want to spend another year waiting to see what everyone else decides before deciding what my own life gets to look like.

There is too much I still want.

More business. More financial freedom. More travel. More rooms where I get to speak. More meaningful connections. More mornings when I wake up excited about what I’m building.

And yes, more reciprocity.

More being considered.

More being watered.

But perhaps the biggest shift is understanding that while I can desire those things from the people around me, I cannot make my happiness conditional upon receiving them.

So tonight, I’ll pour another small glass.

I’ll think about the woman I was at 30, the woman I became at 40, and the woman I might be four years from now.

And instead of asking whether everyone else will show up for her, perhaps the better question is:

Will I?

I’m beginning to think that’s the relationship I can no longer afford to neglect.