The Uplifters

For midlife women, Mother's Day can bring up all sorts of feelings. In this special episode, four midlife women share radically honest stories about motherhood, identity, and the inherited scripts we get to rewrite. Ruthie Ackerman, author of The Mother Code and founder of Ignite Writers Collective, reframes motherhood as a time of transformation rather than self-sacrifice and shows how midlife wo...

What does it actually take for women over 40 to start investing, raise capital, and build the future they want to see? This panel discussion, recorded live at Uplifters Live in New York City, brings together three extraordinary women for one of the most honest conversations about money, midlife reinvention, and women's economic power you'll hear this year. For women navigating midlife transitions...

What if the thing you've been adapting to your entire life had a name, and discovering it at 40 changed everything? Sadie Dingfelder is a veteran Washington Post science journalist who discovered at 39 that she had prosopagnosia (face blindness), affecting an estimated one in 50 people, many of whom have no idea. Sadie's journey into midlife self-knowledge is a masterclass in what it means to stop...

What happens when a midlife woman decides to stop segmenting her identity and start owning her whole story? In this episode of The Uplifters Podcast, leadership consultant and memoirist Blair Glaser joins host Aransas Savas to explore one of the most common midlife reinvention challenges: the courage to be fully known. Blair's memoir, This Incredible Longing , follows her years inside Siddha Yoga,...

If you're a woman over 40 who has ever found yourself stuck in a loop — knowing what you need to do but unable to make yourself do it — this episode is for you. Somatic teacher and spiritual leadership coach Ally Bogard joins The Uplifters to talk about why we avoid, procrastinate, and what it actually takes to build the courage to live more fully in midlife. Whether you're navigating a midlife tr...

Three years ago, I launched this podcast because I believed that women in midlife were doing some of the most important, most underrated work in the world, and that if we could just hear each other’s stories, we would all be braver. Three years and 155 episodes later, I believe that more than ever. So I wanted to close out this Women Making History series with someone who embodies everything The U...

This week on The Uplifters Podcast, global peace leader and midlife changemaker Kerri Kennedy shares how women in the second half of life are uniquely primed for civic action. Kennedy brings 20+ years of experience in human rights, peacebuilding, and political violence response to a conversation that every woman navigating midlife reinvention, community leadership, and the question of "what can I...

What does it look like when midlife women step up to lead in a world that has historically told them to sit down? In this episode of The Uplifters Podcast, host Aransas Savas sits down with her own neighbors, two women who ran against each other for mayor of Highlands, New Jersey, to talk about local leadership, community engagement, and the very specific courage it takes to run for office as a wo...

In this episode, we meet Dutch documentary filmmaker Corinne van der Borch and Australian artist-animator Edwina White — two women in the second half of life who turned a dog park friendship into a creative partnership, and a Brooklyn crossing guard into the subject of their upcoming documentary, I Got You . For any woman navigating midlife reinvention, this conversation is a masterclass in starti...

Alyssa Dineen: Midlife Dating Coach — Finding Love Online After 40 What does it actually take to find love in midlife — especially when you're starting over after a long marriage, navigating menopause, and swiping on apps you never imagined you'd need? For women over 40 returning to dating, the modern landscape can feel like a foreign country. Dating coach and author Alyssa Dineen found herself th...

Susan Ruth: Filmmaker and Podcaster on Human Connection — Staying Fully Human at Midlife and Beyond What does it mean to stay human — really, vulnerably human — when AI, algorithms, and an endless scroll are designed to do our connecting for us? Episode 150 of The Uplifters features Susan Ruth, a filmmaker, songwriter, painter, and host of the nearly 500-episode Hey Human Podcast, in a conversatio...

Picture a 200-year-old barn on a New England flower farm, the kind of place where the air smells like hydrangeas and history, and the stone fence bring you back to that Robert Frost poem you memorized in high school. Now picture the woman who built that life — not inherited it, not stumbled into it — but willed it into existence through decades of patient dreaming and one very courageous conversat...

Dina Aronson and Dina Alvarez: Creating Midlife Private Parts - An Anthology for Women over 40 What happens when two women meet in their fifties and decide that the stories being told about midlife women are incomplete? Dina Aronson, a former attorney turned pro-age advocate and writer, and Dina Alvarez, a freelance writer and co-founder of SomosPadres, created Midlife Private Parts: Revealing Ess...

Discover how award-winning journalist Ruthie Ackerman challenged every motherhood myth and became a first-time mother at 43 in this powerful episode about midlife reinvention and career change . In this conversation, we explore Ruthie's journey from believing she inherited a "flaw" that made her unsuitable for motherhood to writing the critically acclaimed memoir "The Mother Code." Learn how she n...

After two decades climbing the corporate ladder in finance, Karissa Pfeffer hit what she thought was burnout. As a working mom navigating the pandemic, she blamed her exhaustion, anxiety, and brain fog on postpartum recovery and work stress. But at 41, she discovered the real culprit: perimenopause . This revelation transformed her understanding of what women over 40 experience in the workplace—an...

If you’ve ever wondered, “Is it too late for me to...” the answer’s NO and The Uplifters are about to show you why. This space is for purpose-driven women who want to do big, brave things in the second half of their lives. I’m your host, Aransas Savas, and I’ve spent the last 20 years at the intersection of behavior change research and coaching. This month for the new year, we're exploring new beg...

If you’ve ever wondered, “Is it too late for me to...” the answer’s NO and The Uplifters are about to show you why. This space is for purpose-driven women who want to do big, brave things in the second half of their lives. I’m your host, Aransas Savas, and I’ve spent the last 20 years at the intersection of behavior change research and coaching. This month for the new year, we're exploring new beg...

If you’ve ever wondered, “Is it too late for me to...” the answer’s NO—and The Uplifters are about to show you why. This space is for purpose-driven women who want to do big, brave things in the second half of their lives. I’m your host, Aransas Savas, and I’ve spent the last 20 years at the intersection of behavior change research and coaching. This month for the new year, we're exploring new beg...

In an era of unprecedented social isolation and loneliness, one Philadelphia engineer is combating disconnection one compliment at a time. Celine McGee, who works in corporate telecommunications by day, has spent over a decade approaching strangers with genuine compliments and cards that say "pass it on"—creating what she calls the Compliment Squad. What started with a single compliment during a n...

What if the key to building your midlife business isn't having all the answers but knowing how to ask the right questions? In this episode, we meet Gita Vellanki, founder of Neeshi, who left a successful career in high tech to create functional foods for women navigating menstruation, perimenopause, and menopause. After watching her daughter struggle with debilitating periods and experiencing her...

What happens when health challenges in your 40s become the catalyst for a complete career reinvention? In this episode, Kimberle Lau shares her journey from 20-year beauty industry executive to founder of Bake Me Healthy, an allergen-free, plant-based baking company. After pregnancy-induced food intolerances and a breast cancer risk diagnosis, Kimberle left corporate America at 44 to build a missi...

Starting over during perimenopause and midlife doesn't always mean changing careers—sometimes it means creating entirely new solutions the world desperately needs. In this episode, meet Tara Miko Ballentine, founder of Bright Littles, who transformed her experience of childhood sexual assault into a company helping parents have crucial conversations with kids about consent, boundaries, safety, and...

Producer Rachel (Rachel Giordano) spent nearly 30 years climbing the entertainment industry ladder—from Barbara Walters and The View to Disney Feature Animation to iHeart Media. But at 47, she realized the traditional path wasn't letting her be fully herself. Now she runs a boutique production company, hosts The Producer Rachel Show, wrote and self-published a children's book (Santa's Secret Wishi...

Discover how women over 40 are leading systemic change and tackling audacious goals. In this episode, 42-year-old Kiersten Barnet, Executive Director of the NYC Jobs CEO Council, shares how she's coordinating Fortune 100 CEOs to hire 100,000 low-income New Yorkers—and they're already more than halfway there. If you've ever wondered "is it too late to take on something impossibly big?" this convers...

Former Dance/NYC co-executive director Candace Thompson-Zachery shares her journey from 20 years in arts advocacy to launching a menopause and wellness coaching practice at age 40. This episode explores career transitions in midlife, building courage capital through curiosity, and why women's growth mindset peaks in their 40s. Candace discusses her path from founding Dance Caribbean COLLECTIVE on...