We Can Do It Women

She grew up with an alcoholic mother she never saw sober. At 11 she moved to her father's — safer, but still emotionally alone. Tatjana Simakova spent her childhood surviving without support. She spent the next 12 years making sure no teenager has to do the same. IN THIS EPISODE: Growing up in Lithuania — an alcoholic mother, an emotionally absent father, and the art that kept her going Why 12...

At 14 she told her mother she'd write a world-changing book. It took decades, a year-long concussion, and a formula born in Olympic gymnastics coaching. Laura Ballet did it anyway. IN THIS EPISODE: J3=E: the Olympic gymnastics formula adapted for everyday women — unpacked simply The three fields of energy — negative, positive, neutral — and why neutrality is the superpower The five principles:...

At 12, a botched surgery shattered every bone in both feet and ended her Olympic skating dream. At 315 pounds in her late 30s, she decided that wasn't her story either. Two weeks before her 52nd birthday, a corporate layoff handed her a door she never would have opened herself. She walked through it. IN THIS EPISODE: The malpractice surgery at 12 that launched a lifetime philosophy: focus on what...

In his last coherent week, after eight and a half years of a brain tumor that had stolen him one layer at a time, Gerard came back. He told his wife she had been to hell. Then he asked her to promise him two things: love again, and write the novels. She scattered his ashes in Ireland and started writing that same night. IN THIS EPISODE: A fifth-generation Michigan girl who read every library in to...

She was made redundant on a Friday. By Monday she'd enrolled in naturopathy. She built a 5-site business, sold it in one of South Australia's largest exits, and founded Mind Garage. Now Cindy Koehler brings 40 years and 10,000 coaching hours to this conversation. In This Episode: Cindy's own story: from biomechanics to education to a 5-site business to its sale — and now the coaching practice she...

She was 70 years old, running a solo business without a steady paycheck, supporting a husband in severe decline in a nursing home — a man she had already decided to divorce — and quietly hitting the lowest point of her life. By 73, she was dating men in their 30s, 40s, and 50s, writing erotica, taking university classes, and finishing a book called Sex, Sensuality and the Senior Woman . Andrea Fei...

She found out that two-thirds of divorces are initiated by women — and was stunned. Then she found out that almost everything she believed about aging was equally wrong. That same question — why don't we know this? — made Ashton Applewhite the world's leading voice on ageism. IN THIS EPISODE: Why "old" should be a neutral word — and the shame we attach to it is the problem, not the age The U-curve...

She was mid-sentence in a business meeting when her brain froze. It kept happening. She stopped speaking in meetings. She couldn't sleep. She was convinced she had early dementia. A retired gynecologist at a dinner party changed everything: you're in perimenopause, Ellen. That moment became a 20-year mission. IN THIS EPISODE: The brain freeze, insomnia, and emotional chaos nobody warned El...

She filled out a coupon in her FFA magazine. The Army wasn't looking for her. They got Major General Tammy Smith anyway — 35 years of service, two stars, and the first openly gay general in United States military history. IN THIS EPISODE: A farm-girl scholarship and the career no one saw coming — from Oakland, Oregon to the Pentagon 25 years hiding her identity under threat of dishonorable dischar...

She didn't think she would live to see 42. A domestic violence survivor who escaped three times — arriving in California with two babies and the clothes on her back — Wendy Ida spent her thirties overweight, stuck, and convinced she was destined for the same life as the women before her. Then, at exactly 42, the lights came on. At 72, she holds two Guinness World Records and is the oldest acti...

She dreamed the accelerator stuck on a dusty West Texas road — no brakes, no key in the ignition. Then she looked down and the key was in her own hand. Gloria Feldt turned that dream into a life's work: the key is always in our hands. We need the wisdom to see it and the courage to use it. IN THIS EPISODE: Why women over 60 are the most untapped leadership resource in the world "Confidenc...

A man told her to shut up while she was speaking. So Heather Booth finished her point, tapped every woman in the room on the shoulder, walked them upstairs — and founded the first campus women's organization in America. That was 1965. She has spent sixty years since proving one idea: when we organize with love at the center, we change this world. IN THIS EPISODE: Freedom Summer 1964 at age 19...

On January 7, 2005, Anita Cragen came off a life support machine after ten days when no one knew whether she would live or die. Twenty years later, she is twenty years sober and one of the most respected addiction specialists in the world — helping thousands of women get clean, stay sober, and repair the relationships addiction shattered. IN THIS EPISODE: From running a Spanish real estate firm to...

She was at a book signing when a well-dressed woman hung back until everyone had gone. Then she leaned in and whispered: I can't afford to buy your book. I've worked all my life. And I'm terrified I'm going to end up homeless. Jane Caro heard that story again and again on tour — from teachers, nurses, managers, women who had done everything right. It became the rawest material in her research on w...

She lost 60 pounds in eight months — and has kept every pound off for seven years. But that's not the transformation that matters most in this story. The real shift began when Mugs Haugen's best friend and oldest sister, Kathy, died of metastatic breast cancer. Standing beside Kathy as her nurse, her sister, and her closest confidante, Mugs looked at her own life and asked: How do I want to live t...

She had a bald spot the size of her fist. Her body had been sending signals for months — and she kept flipping her hair to hide it. She had worked for the world's largest retailer, managed multimillion-dollar budgets, traveled to 40 countries before 40, and climbed every rung she had set out to climb. And then her body simply refused to get out of bed. Lynn Wong's burnout story is not a cautionary...

She passed out at the podium on her very first public speaking assignment. By the time she graduated college, she had won a national speaking competition and spoken to stadiums of 10,000 people. That trajectory — from clinically diagnosed shy child with a debilitating stutter to global leadership CEO — is not just Linda Fisk's backstory. It is the exact philosophy she has built an entire movement...

Dotty Scott built her business the same way she learned to run a farm as a child — through discipline, consistency, and showing up even when it was uncomfortable. As a committed introvert, she knows firsthand how paralyzing the online world can feel. So when she launched her web design and digital strategy business, she made herself a promise: one video per week for one year, no matter what. She k...

She landed at JFK from Lithuania with $100 in her pocket and couldn't understand "window 30" — because she'd learned British English, not American. She didn't know what a checking account was. Had never seen a credit card. What Asta Sanders built from that starting point will change how you think about your own financial future. In This Episode: How Asta went from selling Kirby vacuums to becoming...

Women over 50, financial reinvention, and the revolution Debra Morrison is leading — that's what this first episode is all about. Debra L. Morrison, CFP®, TEDx speaker, and founder of We Can Do It Women sits down with Zondra Evans to tell her story — from a beef cattle farm and a trembling grandfather's stock shares, to leading an insurance agency at 21, earning her CFP® in 18 months, and ultimate...