The Midlife Makeover Show | Women Over 40, Menopause Support, Divorce Recovery, Empty Nest Advice, Aging Gracefully, Finding Purpose

What happens when you plan perfectly for retirement… and still end up feeling completely lost?

In this episode of The Midlife Makeover Show, Wendy Valentine sits down with George Jerjian — retirement mindset mentor, Emmy recipient, and award-winning author of 12 books — to talk about the part of retirement money can’t organize: your identity.

At 52, George was given six months to live. The diagnosis was wrong, but instead of life snapping back to normal, he drifted for nine years — until a 30-day silent retreat changed everything and he chose to unretire on his own terms. Now he guides people through what he calls the Identity Renaissance, using the DARE Method® he built from working with more than 21,000 retirees.

If you’re staring down the “what’s next?” question feeling stuck, restless, or invisible, this conversation is your reminder: your best chapter isn’t behind you — it’s the one you design next.

✨ What You’ll Learn
•     Why even the best-planned retirements can leave you feeling stuck, restless, and invisible — and the part money can’t organize
•     What the Identity Renaissance is — and how to navigate the “liminal space” between your old title and your new self
•     Why asking “Who do I want to be?” unlocks “What do I want to do?” in your second act
•     How George’s DARE Method® moves you from drifting to a purposeful, self-designed next chapter
•     Why your mindset needs a “software update” for the 20–30 bonus years ahead

🎧 Tune in now
✨ Watch the video replay
👉 Connect with George Jerjian
🌟 Explore All Things Midlife
📖 Order Your Copy of Women Waking Up
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Author Spotlight: Preferment™ by Anne van Leynseele — the research-backed alternative to retirement, trading "what now?" for a mission worth waking up for (from a five-time career reinventor and award-winning chocolate farmer!). Grab it on Amazon and https://www.rarifiedlife.com

What would it take for you to give up YOUR ghost?

In this episode of The Midlife Makeover Show, Wendy Valentine sits down with Samantha Rose — Emmy award-winning television writer and New York Times bestselling ghostwriter of nearly twenty books — to talk about what happens when the woman behind everyone else’s stories finally tells her own.

After losing her mother to suicide in 2020, Samantha began writing to process her grief… and discovered she had been living as a ghost in her own life. That writing became Giving Up the Ghost: A Daughter’s Memoir — winner of Best Memoir at the San Francisco Book Festival — and the first book ever published under her own name. Together, Wendy and Samantha explore grief, healing, finding your voice in midlife, and why it’s never too late to stop playing small and finally be seen.

If you’ve ever felt invisible in your own life, this conversation is your permission slip.

✨ What You’ll Learn
•     Why so many women become the “ghostwriter” of their own lives — and how to stop
•     What “giving up the ghost” really means — and how to give up yours
•     How writing (or any creative outlet) helps grief move through your body
•     Why unprocessed grief waits for you — and how to finally give it a voice
•     How to step out of the shadows and be seen — even as an introvert

🎧 Tune in now
✨ Watch the video replay
👉 Connect with Samantha Rose
🌟 Explore All Things Midlife
📖 Order Your Copy of Women Waking Up
📸 Follow the fun on IG

Author Spotlight: Preferment™ by Anne van Leynseele — the research-backed alternative to retirement, trading "what now?" for a mission worth waking up for (from a five-time career reinventor and award-winning chocolate farmer!). Grab it on Amazon and https://www.rarifiedlife.com

Have you ever looked back at a relationship and wondered, how did I lose myself like that?

In this powerful episode, Wendy sits down with Jessica Anne Pressler — a Columbia-trained psychotherapist, hospice grief counselor, and author of the new psychological suspense novel Traitor Within — to talk about self-abandonment, trauma bonding, and the hidden ways we disappear inside our relationships.

With four decades of clinical experience (and her own hard-won healing), Jessica explains what a trauma bond really is, why intelligent, empathetic women stay, and how the “traitor within” — the protective part born in childhood — keeps us people-pleasing and self-abandoning for decades. Most of all, she offers hope: the moment you stop abandoning yourself to keep everyone else comfortable is the moment healing begins.

If you’ve ever made excuses for someone, loved them for their potential, or struggled to walk away — this conversation will help you reconnect with your voice, your worth, and yourself.

✨ What You’ll Learn
•      What a trauma bond actually is — and why leaving can feel physically impossible
•      The “traitor within”: the childhood-born protective part that keeps us self-abandoning as adults
•      Why smart, empathetic women stay — and why understanding someone is never a reason to accept abuse
•      How to tell narcissistic traits from the clinical disorder — without the social-media buzzwords
•      The first steps to boundaries, going no-contact, and coming home to yourself

🎧 Tune in now
✨ Watch the video replay
👉 Connect with Jessica Anne Pressler
🌟 Explore All Things Midlife
📖 Order Your Copy of Women Waking Up
📸 Follow the fun on IG

📚 Author Spotlight: The Balance Cure: The TCM Way to Lasting Weight Loss by Dr. Angela Zeng — an Amazon #1 bestseller blending the ancient wisdom of Chinese medicine with modern science to help you discover your unique body pattern, understand why you gain weight, and navigate GLP-1s with confidence.
💛 Grab it on Amazon

What if you could completely transform your marriage — without your husband changing a single thing?

In this episode of The Midlife Makeover Show, Wendy Valentine sits down with Alicia Johnson, certified Laura Doyle relationship coach and founder of Crown of Honey, who went from constant fighting, controlling everything, and believing she’d married the wrong guy… to rebuilding her marriage from the inside out.

Alicia shares the six intimacy skills that changed everything — starting with self-care (the real kind), the daily gratitude practice that dissolved years of resentment, and what happened when she finally let go of control and let her husband step up. She also opens up about feminine energy, the fear hiding underneath our need to control, and why your joy is your responsibility — and your power.

If you’re exhausted, stuck, or secretly miserable in your marriage but divorce isn’t what you want, this conversation is your permission slip to stop waiting for him to change.

✨ What You’ll Learn
•     Why the woman who shifts first changes the whole atmosphere of her home — no couples therapy required
•     The six intimacy skills — and why real self-care (not just pedicures) is the foundation of all of them
•     How a daily gratitude practice “hijacks your brain” and dissolves resentment — because the two can’t coexist
•     How to stop complaining and start expressing your desires femininely — so he finally knows how to make you happy
•     What’s really hiding underneath control (hint: it’s fear) — and how to let it go without losing yourself

🎧 Tune in now
✨ Watch the video replay
👉 Connect with Alicia Johnson
🌟 Explore All Things Midlife
📖 Order Your Copy of Women Waking Up
📸 Follow the fun on IG

Author Spotlight: Preferment by Anne van Leynseele — the research-backed alternative to retirement, trading "what now?" for a mission worth waking up for (from a five-time career reinventor and award-winning chocolate farmer!). Grab it on Amazon.

Is your bank account stuck in fight-or-flight?

In this episode of The Midlife Makeover Show, Wendy Valentine sits down with money mindset expert Tiffany Carter — business mentor and host of ProjectME with Tiffany Carter, a Top 5 money and entrepreneurship podcast in 57 countries. Tiffany opens up about going from TV news broadcaster to multimillionaire entrepreneur, losing her first million to a smooth-talking “finance guy,” and the wake-up call that sent her on a mission to heal the trauma driving her money story.

You’ll learn how fight, flight, freeze, and fawn show up in the way you earn, spend, and sell — why those patterns were wired in long before your first paycheck — and how to start rewiring them with radical responsibility and zero shame.
🎧 Tune in now
✨ Watch the video replay
👉 Connect with Tiffany Carter
🌟 Explore All Things Midlife
📖 Order Your Copy of Women Waking Up
📸 Follow the fun on IG

📕 Today's Author Spotlight: She Who Remembers by Megan Dalla-Camina Grab your copy

📚 Got a book to share? Head to author.wendyvalentine.com