The 40 Portal
Claim This Podcastby Catherine Zack
Podcast Overview
<p>The night before my 40th birthday, I invited the real-life women I admire to a wine bar and asked them to "sign my yearbook." Not happy birthdays, not well-wishes — I wanted wisdom. I realized the gift wasn't the party. It was the roomful of extraordinary women and all the hard-won wisdom we were sitting on, untapped, waiting to be shared.<br /></p><p>What came back when I asked was so raw, so honest, and so clearly not just for me that I couldn't stop asking. So I turned it into a process of self-inquiry practiced out loud, in community — not alone in my journal, but in real conversation with real women, on the record. </p><p></p><p>The 40 Portal is a coming-of-aging story, told by those women. You don't arrive at 40 — you enter it. Each episode, I sit down with a different woman to explore the threshold she's walking through.</p><p></p><p>Turning 40 is the portal to midlife — the bridge between who we were and who we're still becoming. Something happens to a woman here: the truth starts coming, whether or not she planned to tell it. It's a potent and powerful moment in our life, and the one we're least often invited to talk about out loud. We call it a midlife crisis, but the root of "crisis" means to sift — to pour over the particles of your life, hold each one up, and ask, honestly: does this still belong? Would I choose this now?</p><p></p><p>Portals can be big and specific—turning 40, 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.</p><p></p><p>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, connect in conversation, with the right conditions of candor present: the truth comes out. </p><p></p><p>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 version, but the actual truth) it sets us all free.</p><p></p><p>Season One is complete: twenty conversations, close to a hundred handwritten submissions. The full archive lives here — and the notebook is still open. Whichever side of forty you're on, add your wisdom at <a rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="http://the40portal.com" target="_blank">the40portal.com</a>.</p><p></p><p>The story of what these conversations taught me is still being written.</p><p></p><p>Hosted by Catherine Zack — contemplative educator, writer, former litigator, and speaker. More at <a rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="http://catherinezack.com" target="_blank">catherinezack.com</a>. </p>
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Publishing Since
1/25/2026
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Recent Episodes
July 22, 2026
How to Trust Yourself When You Don't Have It All Figured Out with Gabrielle Haddad
<p>What if learning to trust yourself is the real work of midlife, more than any career move ever was?<br /><br />In this episode, Catherine Zack sits down with Gabrielle Haddad -- a former lawyer who left a New York firm for international development work in Switzerland, then business school, then six full-force years co-founding an AI company, before stepping back on the eve of motherhood. On paper, a woman who has arrived. In conversation, a woman practicing self trust in real time: after two decades chasing meaning at work, what happens when you realize it was never missing from the work at all -- it was missing from your life, and your life is finally full of it. This is a personal growth conversation for women navigating midlife who look, from the outside, like they have it all figured out, and quietly wonder if believing in yourself is supposed to feel this uncertain.<br /><br />This conversation goes deep into motherhood in your forties, the felt tension between doing and being, and the slow, unglamorous work of trusting yourself before you have any proof it will work out. What happens when the meaning you built a career around finally shows up somewhere else entirely? How do you honor the part of you still aching to do more without abandoning the beauty of what already is? And what becomes possible the moment you stop needing to have it figured out?<br /><br />This episode is for every woman in midlife who looks, from the outside, like she has it together -- and still feels, quietly, like she is only just now finding her way.<br /><br />In this episode:<br />- Becoming a mother in her forties.<br />- The felt tension between the achiever and the mother -- doing versus being -- and the strangeness of knowing that raising a human is the most productive thing she has ever done while a voice still asks why she hasn't done more.<br />- Stepping out of her company post-Series A and on the eve of motherhood -- how "I'll take six or nine months" became nearly three years, and what that taught her.<br />- The arc: New York law firm to international development in Switzerland to business school to founding an AI company -- a decade-long search for work that meant something.<br />- The realization that reframes the entire search: "I was seeking meaning in my work because I was missing it in my life."<br />- The myth of the woman who, by a certain age, has it all figured out -- not true, not fair, not representative of anyone actually living it.<br />- Why a woman does not have to be the same person at forty-five that she was at twenty-five -- and why the culture keeps trying to pin her down anyway.<br />- The inner critic as a nervous-system pattern -- knowing something is true in your mind while it lives, stubbornly, somewhere else in your body.<br />- Where she feels most seen, most safe, most at home -- an answer that seems to surprise her as she says it out loud.<br />- Trusting your intuition even when it leads to a detour -- how you can follow your gut, land somewhere that isn't the destination, and still know that going was right.<br /><br />And the quiet thesis of the whole show: the point was never to solve the problem. It was to hold the big questions, together, and let that be enough.<br /><br />Submit your portal wisdom: <a rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="http://the40portal.com/contribute" target="_blank">the40portal.com/contribute</a> <br />Subscribe, rate, review -- it genuinely helps more women find this show. <br />Website: <a rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="http://the40portal.com" target="_blank">the40portal.com</a> | <a rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="http://catherinezack.com" target="_blank">catherinezack.com</a> <br />Instagram: @the40portal | @cathzack <br />Hosted by Catherine Zack | Guest: Gabrielle Haddad | Edited by Ruwantha Gunasinghe (c) 2026 The 40 Portal. All rights reserved.</p>
July 22, 2026
How to Let Go of Perfectionism and Just Do the Damn Thing with Hillary Zio
<p>What would you build if you finally stopped caring what anyone thought? This episode is about letting go of perfectionism and midlife reinvention, and Hillary Zio is the perfect guide for both.<br /><br />Catherine Zack sits down with Hillary, a wine bar owner, former competitive snowboarder, skydiver, adventurous eater, and, in her own words, a woman who genuinely does not care what other people think. She means that as an invitation, not a wall to hide behind, and this conversation is a masterclass in the kind of self acceptance and confidence after 40 that so many women over 40 are quietly working toward.<br /><br />This one comes full circle. Hillary owns the wine bar where Catherine threw her 40th birthday party last summer, the night she set a now falling apart notebook on the bar and asked every woman there to fill it with wisdom if they were over 40, or questions if they were under 40. That notebook became The 40 Portal. One year and twenty episodes later, Catherine sits down with the woman whose room held the very first spark. Both born in July 1985, both about to turn 41, same portal, wildly different passage.<br /><br />This conversation goes deep into perfectionism, reinvention after divorce, mental health, and the quiet discipline of finally asking what you want, not for anyone else, but for you.<br /><br />What does it cost to keep performing perfect? What becomes possible when you stop? And how do you build a life -- a business, a body, a closet, a self -- that actually feels like home?<br /><br />This episode is for every woman in midlife who is done waiting until she feels ready and prepared to just do the damn thing.<br /><br />In this episode:<br /><br />* The wine bar as the birthplace of The 40 Portal -- the birthday, the notebook, the question that started all of this.<br />* Women as cyclical beings -- honoring hormonal shifts and rhythms instead of fighting them.<br />* The unglamorous nitty-gritty of running a small brick-and-mortar business in a small town -- the millennial dream versus the reality behind the bar, and why you cater to your community or you don't survive.<br />* Drama queen in one moment, cool as a cucumber the next -- the full spectrum, all happening at once.<br />* Being hard on yourself, and the decision at 41 to stop -- "I don't need to do that to myself anymore."<br />* Perfectionism as the thing that keeps you stuck, and the whole antidote: just do it, because the only way to get better at anything is to keep doing it.<br />* Living someone else's dream versus building your own -- what the entrepreneurial life actually asks of you.<br />* Reinvention after divorce -- asking what do I want, not from a partner but for me. If you feel good and you're not hurting anyone, what does it matter?<br />* The Let Them theory in practice -- letting people want what they want and going on with your day.<br />* A nod to Lena Dunham -- it is none of your business what other people think of you.<br />* Extreme minimalism as nervous system regulation -- 24 items of clothing, zero clutter, simpler is safer.<br />* The freedom of just deciding -- a style, a hair-and-makeup routine, a way of being -- so you can quit chasing trends. Know thyself, then do that.<br /><br />Submit your portal wisdom: <a rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="http://the40portal.com/contribute" target="_blank">the40portal.com/contribute</a> <br />-- Whichever side of 40 you're on, your voice belongs in this book we're building together. <br />Subscribe, rate, review -- it genuinely helps more women find this show. <br />Website: <a rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="http://the40portal.com" target="_blank">the40portal.com</a> | <a rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="http://catherinezack.com" target="_blank">catherinezack.com</a> <br />Instagram: @the40portal | @cathzack <br /><br />Hosted by Catherine Zack | Guest: Hillary Zio | Edited by Ruwantha Gunasinghe (c) 2026 The 40 Portal. All rights reserved.</p>
July 22, 2026
How to Stop People Pleasing and Finally Live on Your Own Terms with Nancy Harris
<p>What does it actually take to stop performing for everyone else and start living for yourself?<br /><br />In this episode, Catherine Zack sits down with Nancy Harris, a Chicago-based leadership consultant, executive coach, and entrepreneur who is -- in her own words -- caring less and less about damn near everything. And she means that in the most liberating way possible.<br /><br />Nancy is one of the five women Catherine was placed with in an online A Team about five years ago, a little seed of The 40 Portal before Catherine even knew that's what it was. She is living proof that what is on the other side of the portal is absolutely worth the passage.<br /><br />This conversation goes deep into people pleasing, self worth, and the slow, deliberate work of putting down the need for external validation. <br /><br />What happens when you stop trying to figure it all out and start exploring instead? What does it really cost to keep performing for everyone else? And what do you earn when you finally stop?<br /><br />This episode is for every woman in midlife who is done with pleasing and ready to start living.<br /><br />In this episode:<br />- The A Team as a seed of the 40 Portal -- five women across different decades and industries, all at the same juncture: not starting, not finished, right in the middle asking where do I go next?<br />- Figuring out versus exploring -- and why the people who tell you they have it all figured out are lying.<br />- The 30s as a decade of putting it together, the 40s as a decade of things coming apart -- and the freedom that lives inside that.<br />- Not just when things fall apart -- when you choose to tear them apart. When you look at a constraint and say: this is all made up. <br />- Fifty-something and ageless -- the story of Nancy's mother whose age nobody in the family ever knew, and what that taught her about how energy and spirit matter more than numbers. <br />- The myth of figuring it all out -- you can read Wayne Dyer, Eckhart Tolle, all the books, and then life happens anyway.<br />- What she is not willing to trade: her soul, her values, her authenticity. Showing up as someone else is just damn exhausting.<br />- When you're trying to impress, you cannot connect -- and connection is actually what we came here to do.<br />- The roles we're handed -- wife, mother, career woman -- and the kaleidoscope of everything else that also counts as a life. <br /><br />Submit your portal wisdom: <a rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="http://the40portal.com/contribute" target="_blank">the40portal.com/contribute</a> -- Whichever side of 40 you're on, your voice belongs in this book we're building together.<br /><br />Join The 40 Portal Book Club on Substack: <a rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="http://substack.com/@the40portal" target="_blank">substack.com/@the40portal</a><br /><br />Subscribe, rate, review -- it genuinely helps more women find this show.<br /><br />Website: <a rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="http://the40portal.com" target="_blank">the40portal.com</a> | <a rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="http://catherinezack.com" target="_blank">catherinezack.com</a><br />Instagram: @the40portal | @cathzack<br />Hosted by Catherine Zack | Guest: Nancy Harris | Edited by Ruwantha Gunasinghe<br />(c) 2026 The 40 Portal. All rights reserved.</p>
22 total episodes available
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- What is The 40 Portal?
<p>The night before my 40th birthday, I invited the real-life women I admire to a wine bar and asked them to "sign my yearbook." Not happy birthdays, not well-wishes — I wanted wisdom. I realized the gift wasn't the party. It was the roomful of extraordinary women and all the hard-won wisdom we were sitting on, untapped, waiting to be shared.<br /></p><p>What came back when I asked was so raw, so honest, and so clearly not just for me that I couldn't stop asking. So I turned it into a process of self-inquiry practiced out loud, in community — not alone in my journal, but in real conversation with real women, on the record. </p><p></p><p>The 40 Portal is a coming-of-aging story, told by those women. You don't arrive at 40 — you enter it. Each episode, I sit down with a different woman to explore the threshold she's walking through.</p><p></p><p>Turning 40 is the portal to midlife — the bridge between who we were and who we're still becoming. Something happens to a woman here: the truth starts coming, whether or not she planned to tell it. It's a potent and powerful moment in our life, and the one we're least often invited to talk about out loud. We call it a midlife crisis, but the root of "crisis" means to sift — to pour over the particles of your life, hold each one up, and ask, honestly: does this still belong? Would I choose this now?</p><p></p><p>Portals can be big and specific—turning 40, 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.</p><p></p><p>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, connect in conversation, with the right conditions of candor present: the truth comes out. </p><p></p><p>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 version, but the actual truth) it sets us all free.</p><p></p><p>Season One is complete: twenty conversations, close to a hundred handwritten submissions. The full archive lives here — and the notebook is still open. Whichever side of forty you're on, add your wisdom at <a rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="http://the40portal.com" target="_blank">the40portal.com</a>.</p><p></p><p>The story of what these conversations taught me is still being written.</p><p></p><p>Hosted by Catherine Zack — contemplative educator, writer, former litigator, and speaker. More at <a rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="http://catherinezack.com" target="_blank">catherinezack.com</a>. </p> - How often does this podcast release new episodes?
This podcast updates daily.
- Where can I listen to this podcast?
This podcast is available on 4 platforms including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and more. You can also use the RSS feed directly.
- Does this podcast accept guests?
Yes, this podcast regularly features guests.
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