The 40 Portal

The night before my 40th birthday, I did something kind of wild. I invited the fabulous, inspiring, real-life women I knew to join me at a wine bar and asked them to "sign my yearbook." Not happy birthdays, not well wishes. I wanted wisdom. What they wrote was so raw and honest that I couldn't stop asking. The 40 Portal is a coming of aging story told by 40 real women about the portal that is midlife. Each episode, I sit down with a different woman to explore the threshold she's walking through — the portals we all face between who we were and who we're becoming. I believe a woman in her 40s is one of the most interesting, creative, powerful, and inspiring creatures in the universe. And as more and more of us step into our power, claim our own voices, our bodies, our good work in the world, this world is going to be a kinder, more beautiful, more emboldened, and more just place for all of us. Portals can be big and specific—turning 40, bat

The 40 Portal is a society podcast hosted by Catherine Zack, with 23 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Catherine Zack hosts The 40 Portal, a society show with 23 episodes published.

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  Episode #22

  The 40 Portal — Season One Finale: You Don't Arrive at 40. You Enter The Portal.

  Aug 12, 202621 minS1

  Last summer I turned 40 and set out on a process of self-inquiry practiced out loud, in community — interviewing real women in midlife about their own coming-of-aging stories, and collecting the handwritten wisdom you mailed in. At the heart of it: What does it mean to turn 40? What potent passageway is this number? And in a culture largely scrubbed clean of rituals for marking such rites of passage, could I build one in real time — a call-and-response wisdom exchange around the proverbial fire? In this finale, I return to the page that started everything: the one entry in my birthday notebook that inspired me to keep going — Becca's question about the fear of becoming invisible as a woman ages, and Meredith's answer beneath it. That exchange confirmed what I'd been feeling: that there's a wild, generative power to this number, born from a tension — I've lived enough to know some things, and I'm still so young with so much ahead. I trace the through-line across the whole season: that you're not behind, you're right on time (Kate); that you can put down the urgency (Tori); that you can soften and stay curious as you age (Alicia); that we contain multitudes (Jess, Amber); that we can own our desire (Becca, Emily); that we can shed old stories and stop people-pleasing (Kim, Nancy, Hillary); and that learning to love yourself is the real work of a lifetime. I also sit with what "crisis" actually means — from the root to sift — pouring over the particles of a life and asking of each one: does this still belong? Would I choose this now? What I know a year later, having just turned 41: you can't think your way through the portal, and you can't listen your way through it either. The only way through is through. This body of work is complete — and the conversation continues in your own real life. Season One is complete — twenty conversations, close to a hundred handwritten submissions. The notebook is still open: add your wisdom at the40portal.com .

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  Episode #21

  How to Trust Yourself When You Don't Have It All Figured Out with Gabrielle Haddad

  Jul 22, 202657 minS1

  What if learning to trust yourself is the real work of midlife, more than any career move ever was? 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. 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? 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. In this episode: - Becoming a mother in her forties. - 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. - 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. - 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. - The realization that reframes the entire search: "I was seeking meaning in my work because I was missing it in my life." - 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. - 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. - The inner critic as a nervous-system pattern -- knowing something is true in your mind while it lives, stubbornly, somewhere else in your body. - Where she feels most seen, most safe, most at home -- an answer that seems to surprise her as she says it out loud. - 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. 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. Submit your portal wisdom: the40portal.com/contribute Subscribe, rate, review -- it genuinely helps more women find this show. Website: the40portal.com | catherinezack.com Instagram: @the40portal | @cathzack Hosted by Catherine Zack | Guest: Gabrielle Haddad | Edited by Ruwantha Gunasinghe (c) 2026 The 40 Portal. All rights reserved.

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  The 40 Portal

  How to Let Go of Perfectionism and Just Do the Damn Thing with Hillary Zio

  Jul 22, 202651 min

  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. 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. 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. 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. 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? This episode is for every woman in midlife who is done waiting until she feels ready and prepared to just do the damn thing. In this episode: * The wine bar as the birthplace of The 40 Portal -- the birthday, the notebook, the question that started all of this. * Women as cyclical beings -- honoring hormonal shifts and rhythms instead of fighting them. * 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. * Drama queen in one moment, cool as a cucumber the next -- the full spectrum, all happening at once. * Being hard on yourself, and the decision at 41 to stop -- "I don't need to do that to myself anymore." * 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. * Living someone else's dream versus building your own -- what the entrepreneurial life actually asks of you. * 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? * The Let Them theory in practice -- letting people want what they want and going on with your day. * A nod to Lena Dunham -- it is none of your business what other people think of you. * Extreme minimalism as nervous system regulation -- 24 items of clothing, zero clutter, simpler is safer. * 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. Submit your portal wisdom: the40portal.com/contribute -- Whichever side of 40 you're on, your voice belongs in this book we're building together. Subscribe, rate, review -- it genuinely helps more women find this show. Website: the40portal.com | catherinezack.com Instagram: @the40portal | @cathzack Hosted by Catherine Zack | Guest: Hillary Zio | Edited by Ruwantha Gunasinghe (c) 2026 The 40 Portal. All rights reserved.

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  Episode #19

  How to Stop People Pleasing and Finally Live on Your Own Terms with Nancy Harris

  Jul 22, 20261h 3mS1

  What does it actually take to stop performing for everyone else and start living for yourself? 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. 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. This conversation goes deep into people pleasing, self worth, and the slow, deliberate work of putting down the need for external validation. 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? This episode is for every woman in midlife who is done with pleasing and ready to start living. In this episode: - 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? - Figuring out versus exploring -- and why the people who tell you they have it all figured out are lying. - 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. - 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. - 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. - The myth of figuring it all out -- you can read Wayne Dyer, Eckhart Tolle, all the books, and then life happens anyway. - What she is not willing to trade: her soul, her values, her authenticity. Showing up as someone else is just damn exhausting. - When you're trying to impress, you cannot connect -- and connection is actually what we came here to do. - The roles we're handed -- wife, mother, career woman -- and the kaleidoscope of everything else that also counts as a life. Submit your portal wisdom: the40portal.com/contribute -- Whichever side of 40 you're on, your voice belongs in this book we're building together. Join The 40 Portal Book Club on Substack: substack.com/@the40portal Subscribe, rate, review -- it genuinely helps more women find this show. Website: the40portal.com | catherinezack.com Instagram: @the40portal | @cathzack Hosted by Catherine Zack | Guest: Nancy Harris | Edited by Ruwantha Gunasinghe (c) 2026 The 40 Portal. All rights reserved.

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  Episode #18

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

  Jun 25, 20261h 8mS1

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

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