Fire Up at 55 Plus

In this episode, Laurie asks this one powerful question that can uncover talents, gifts, and possibilities you’ve been overlooking for years: What if everyone around you can see your strengths more clearly than you can? Through real-life examples and practical reflection questions, you’ll learn how your untapped strengths may hold the key to greater purpose, fulfillment, and direction in your seco...

Over two past episodes we discovered the often-overlooked slice of the Baby Boom generation, the “Generation Jones” women born from about 1954 to 1965 who were too young to be flower children but old enough to watch a cultural revolution happen and inherit its unfinished business. Gen Jones women arrived just in time to be handed new expectations without being given new support systems to match. A...

Today we follow up on last week’s … well, more “serious” episode, with some fast fun facts and nostalgia for Generation Jones women. Remember metal lunchboxes, three TV channels, Pong, cassette tapes, feathered hair, The Brady Bunch, Star Wars, the mall, and memorizing phone numbers? But beneath the humor is a deeper story. Generation Jones grew up between worlds—old enough to remember rotary phon...

Generation Jones … who me? We absorbed 1960s idealism as children. We watched Kennedy, King, and the moon landing on fuzzy televisions. We were told the world was going to be amazing. And then we grew up and got Watergate, stagflation, the AIDS crisis, and a job market that told us pensions were a thing of the past, so … Hard-working. Adaptable. We're the women of Generation Jones. Baby boome...

This is a summer episode — and I meant it to be a short one. Not because the topic is small, but because I think the best things we can do for ourselves are usually pretty simple. So today, I have done the research so you don't have to. I have verified what matters, I have sorted out what doesn't, and I'm going to give you a few easy takeaways you can actually use — whether you&apos...

Here's something nobody tells you: feeling anxious about money is not a flaw. It's information. The worry isn’t the problem. The avoidance is. The sneaky thing that happens when we feel that anxiety — we avoid. We don't open the statement. We change the subject. We tell ourselves we'll deal with it later. And honestly? That avoidance feels like relief in the moment. Except it&a...

Picture this: It’s late June. The grass is cut. The paper plates are stacked. Someone has already asked you three times what you’re bringing. The cousins are pinging the group chat. The grandchildren are being promised a good time by people who will not be managing the logistics. And you are standing in your kitchen at 7 a.m., already tired. Today we dig into the foundation of family gatherings an...

So, a midlife life coach walks into a bar … actually, a vegan restaurant, and the transformational story ends in her happily-ever-after reinvention. OK that’s it, nada mas … zero … zip … that’s all I’m explaining here. To connect the scattered dots you’re just going to have to listen! Juliet’s School of Possibilities , by Laura Vanderkam, at amazon or audible: https://a.co/d/7tLXFYe Beer Advocate...

When was the last time you did something that surprised yourself? Let’s be clear … I’m not talking about an “earned” surprising week where  you finally clean out the garage! I mean the kind of surprised where you’re standing somewhere new, breathing different air and you think—with amazed delight, “Who IS this woman right now?” And you like her. A lot. There is a version of your life that doesn&ap...

Your closet is not a storage facility. It's a daily conversation with yourself. And right now, that conversation may be keeping you tethered to a version of yourself that has already been outgrown. Energy returns when life aligns with identity. That includes the life you put on every morning. This is a follow up to Episode 140 where Laurie cleared our closets of “shoulds” and settling for “pe...

There is a particular variety of exhaustion that sleep does not remedy. You are functioning. You are showing up. And yet you feel quietly eroded — navigating your days with diminished clarity, shrinking margins, and a subdued luminosity that is not quite you. If that resonates, this episode was made for you. Here, Laurie illuminates what is likely draining your mind and body at midlife, and it is...

What if your exhaustion isn’t about how much you’re doing — but about who you’re doing it all for? It’s not your age. It’s not your schedule. It’s not even your energy levels. It’s that your calendar has quietly become everyone else’s property. But here’s what I want you to know: That is completely, absolutely fixable. Not with a massive life overhaul. Not by becoming someone who doesn’t care abou...

What if you are not tired for the reasons you think? Not because of your age? … Not your schedule, or even your sleep? It’s not always the big reasons, but the tiny and quiet … almost invisible energy leaks. But here’s the most important part I want you to know: These leaks are fixable. Not with a new diet. Not with a complete life overhaul. But with small, specific changes that add up—fast. Today...

Let me tell you what I hear from women like you, like me, all the time: “I really should get rid of some things … old things, outdated things." And the brain's knee-jerk response? “But they’re perfectly good.” Talk about an energy drain! Here, Laurie explores the deeper reasons midlife women keep wardrobes in frustrating limbo: inherited scarcity messages, Depression- and wartime-thrift...

As many listeners move through spring break season, I’m revisiting one of the most joyful episodes from my Fire-Up archives. Originally released in August 2023, this episode explores the cultural phenomenon of Barbie, the blockbuster movie at the time, and why the world’s most famous doll has inspired generations of us to imagine bigger lives. After several recent episodes about stress and resilie...

If your mornings feel slow to start and your afternoons suddenly collapse around 3 p.m, you are far from alone. Many midlife-plus women assume their energy dips mean something is wrong with them — that their motivation has faded, their discipline is slipping, or their body is simply wearing out. But that assumption misses what science actually shows. Energy is our Fire Up podcast word of the year,...

We’ve been talking lately about something subtle, but powerful: what happens after you begin to change. You start making progress and feeling stronger—more clear and capable. And then … doubt creeps in. Or uncertainty. Or the quiet question, “OK, now what?” Today we go straight to the heart of that moment. Originally recorded as Episode 57, this podcast is about coaching questions, understanding y...

Feeling unsettled after you’ve made progress? You’re not imagining it, and nothing has gone wrong. It’s normal to expect relief once a problem is solved and then be ambushed by feelings of doubt, restlessness, or hesitation that rush-in just as things begin to improve. Today we build upon ideas from earlier episodes (104 and 105) about stress, now revisited through a new lens. I'm reframing t...

The most dangerous moment in change isn’t failure — it’s success. That’s when self-sabotage gets sneaky. And if you’ve felt that wobble, you’re not broken and nothing has gone wrong. In fact, that uneasy feeling is often a sign that you’re exactly where growth asks you to stay. You haven’t overshot. You haven’t tempted fate. You’re standing on ground you’ve already earned — and the work now isn’t...

If your nights have started to calm (especially after the recent episode on fixing nighttime eating) and a little voice inside you is saying, “Don’t mess this up now. “Get stricter,” that’s the boomerang showing up. It’s the reflex many women have after years of dieting. The moment things begin to work, the urge to tighten rules, eat less, and “lock it in” kicks back in. But that instinct, as resp...

Let me say this plainly: If nighttime eating doesn’t change, weight loss stays fragile. It doesn’t matter how motivated you feel in the morning. It doesn’t matter how “good” you think you’ve been all day. In fact, the very discipline you’re white-knuckling through — eating too little, holding back, following rigid rules — is often what creates the hunger and chaos that show up at night. … So liste...

If you’ve ever said: “I eat fine all day, but then I lose it at night,” or “Why can’t I just stop?” or even, “Something must be wrong with me,” today we offer relief. You’ll discover that nighttime eating is not a character flaw, it’s a signal. Building directly on the recent Fire Up episode number 131, I’m turning to a pivotal public conversation led by Oprah Winfrey titled “The Life You Want Cla...

You got building blocks for an energy toolkit in the last episode, number 129, with your system for building it, banking it, and guarding it. And today we’re doing something just as powerful: we’re going to talk about how your energy was taken from you in the first place. Because for women over 55, it isn’t just about hormones or aging. It’s about decades of dieting, deprivation, and self-discipli...

If you’ve ever wondered why your goals didn’t stick, even when you were motivated, this episode delivers the missing answer. Here we move beyond inspiration and into practical, research-backed tools to help women 55+ finally restore the energy—physical, mental, and emotional—needed to create real results. We’re fixing the energy drains that sabotage progress and replacing them with simple systems...

Welcome to 2026—a Year of essential Energy. After months of building vision, clarifying identity, and designing the life you want, there's one critical piece we haven't addressed: the fuel to make it all happen. In this transformative episode, we reveal why ENERGY is a Word worth using throughout our broadcasts and why ignoring it simply isn't an option anymore. I’m Certified Life,...