Ashleigh Tobin is a master storyteller who uses words as colours and her voice as a paintbrush.

As a hormone health coach, registered nurse with 35+ years experience and TEDx speaker, she helps women navigate the profound transformation of midlife not as decline, but as awakening.

In this conversation, we dive deep into the four stages of womanhood: maiden, creative, enchantress, and sage.

That third stage, enchantress or warrior woman, coincides with our forties and fifties, exactly when society tells us we're "over the hill."

But Ashleigh reveals this as the time when our greatest resources are waiting to emerge.

We explore how the stories we tell ourselves either open or close possibilities, why curiosity is the antidote to certainty and criticism and how to navigate the break in continuity when you start becoming someone new.

This conversation also touches on the profound moment when Amanda chose her creative calling over traditional motherhood, leading to an identity shift from "escape artist" to "creative wayfinder", proof that we can rewrite our stories at any stage of life.

Key Themes:

• Four stages of womanhood & midlife as a beginning
• How the stories we tell ourselves shape our reality
• Moving from certainty to curiosity as a way of living
• Why "someday" is the enemy of a life well-lived
• How small moments of noticing create profound change
• Creating space for your evolving self

Connect with Ashleigh:

• Website
• LinkedIn
• TEDx Talk: "How Menopause Will Change Your Life"
• Instagram

Photographer and yoga teacher Tara Morris sits down for one of the most honest conversations about what it actually means to be free; not when you're "perfect," but right now, exactly as you are.

Fresh from losing her mother after 25 years of Parkinson's & navigating her own profound grief, Tara speaks with raw honesty about being "face down in the arena" while still somehow radiating the kind of energy that makes you want to lean into life harder.

As an Enneagram 7, she's learned that you can't just run from the hard feelings, sometimes you have to turn toward them.

We explore the difference between the stories we tell ourselves, particularly about our bodies and the actual experience of living in them.

Tara talks shares why she practices 'granular gratitude' for every single thing her body can do.

This is about more than body acceptance, it's about the courage to stop waiting for permission to live fully in the skin you're in.

Key Themes:

• What "being free in your body" actually means (and it's not what you think)
• Why we numb instead of feel and what's on the other side of that choice
• The different understandings of power
• How grief and gratitude can exist in the same moment
• Why your body stories are not the truth

If this conversation reminded you that you're already worthy of love exactly as you are, we'd love if you'd share it with someone who needs that reminder too.

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Connect with Tara:

The Love Offensive

Tara Morris Images

INSTAGRAM

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Subscribe to Amanda's ⁠⁠ ⁠SUBSTACK ⁠for companion articles, tools & resources.

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Music: Holes by Bradley James Grace

This one's for everyone who's ever felt like they had to choose between being authentic and being professional.

Jean Evans is a Networking Architect, but this conversation isn't about collecting business cards or LinkedIn strategies. It's about something much more essential: how authentic connection becomes life resourcing, especially for women rebuilding their worlds.

After being made redundant while breastfeeding one child with two toddlers around her feet, Jean discovered that learning to network wasn't just about business—it was about discovering who she was as a human being.

We dive deep into the wounds that keep us isolated—the fear of being seen as needy, the toxic self-reliance, imposter syndrome, perfectionism.

This conversation challenges everything we think we know about networking, success and the dangerous myth that we can, or should, do it all alone.

Key Themes:

• Networking as a learnable skill
• Vulnerability as permission
• Transactional networking or life resourcing?
• What's costing you connections & opportunities
• The mentality that leads to burnout, everytime
• The courage equation
• Your TRUE credentials

If this episode reminded you that none of us are supposed to do life alone, we'd love if you'd share it with someone who needs to hear that message.

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Connect with Jean:

Websites

Ignite Business Network

Jean's Newsletter, + free Top 20 Tips to Rock Your Week.

Jean's Networking Blog

Podcasts

Ignite Talks

NetworkMe

Socials

Linkedin

Instagram

Facebook

X.com

YouTube

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Subscribe to Amanda's ⁠ ⁠SUBSTACK for companion articles, tools & resources.

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Music Credit:⁠⁠⁠ ⁠Holes⁠⁠⁠⁠ By Bradley James Grace.