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"A LOT with Audra" is the podcast for women juggling big dreams and full lives. Each episode, host, Audra Dinell, Midwestern wife, mom and neurodivergent multi-six figure entrepreneur encourages women to embrace their many roles holistically by living a values-based life with confidence and joy. Through candid discussions, practical strategies and inspiring stories, this podcast is your guide to designing and achieving success without losing yourself in the process.
Ep53
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Introduction: Embracing 40
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[00:00:00]
Audra Dinell: This year is an exciting year for me. I turn 40 in the spring, and I am definitely not one of those people who doesn't enjoy aging. I feel like it's such a gift. I get so excited, and don't get me wrong, like. I know there's a lot that comes with it. We start to look different. Our energy levels are different.
Inspiration from Grandma and Mentors
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Audra Dinell: I mean like there are definitely noticeable changes that I'm not like, let's be positive about, but [00:01:00] I just have always looked forward to my forties and I contribute a lot of that to my grandma. She talks about her forties fondly, and she's a young grandma. She is not 80 yet, and. For as long as I can remember, she would tell me how much fun she had in her forties.
I have also heard a mentor of mine talk about somewhere in the early forties, you just stop caring so much about what other people think. This just life wisdom kicks in and you just have less give a blanks than you have ever had before. And. I remember working at the pool as a lifeguard in the summer, and one of our managers was, I'm assuming I guessed at that point in his forties, and I just remember thinking, what a great little life.
Honestly, he could have been in his thirties because you know when [00:02:00] you're in high school and you're a lifeguard at the pool, your managers all seem old. But anyways, the point is it's a big gear for me and.
The Second Act: A New Podcast Season
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Audra Dinell: I am using that as inspiration to shift into a different season of the podcast, and it's gonna be called the second act.
So this is not all about turning 40, let me just say that upfront. This is not. Age correlated necessarily. Let me tell you what it is about.
Shifts in Workplace Culture
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Audra Dinell: I am feeling the shift in me, but not only in me in workplace culture, the 2025 women in the workplace report from Lean in, and Mackenzie, I believe just came out and the data is showing that.
More women are feeling something similar to me too.
Balancing Ambition and Softness
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Audra Dinell: What I'm feeling is a shift, a desire for [00:03:00] softness and a different pace, but no less ambition. In fact, more ambition because we're building off of this foundation ambition, though, that feels grounded and is less interested in proving. More interested in clarity, flexibility, keeping our eyes on our own paper and doing our best work type of thing.
It's like a both and situation. Being in this season of life, I just have this desire to hold life more tenderly and differently you know, I've got a family that's growing. My boys are both in elementary school.
Life's Precious Moments
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Audra Dinell: I've got a business that hit five years and a marriage that hit 15 years, and life just feels so precious.
Most of us dealt with some sort of loss last year. Whether that be the loss [00:04:00] of, a family member or a friend or some other kind of loss, and I just am feeling so. Tinder and present as we start the year and move into some really cool conversations this season. So I just wanna say this, I do not have it all figured out, but I am noticing a shift in myself and in the culture of business.
The Human Skills Revolution
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Audra Dinell: Some people are even calling it the human skills revolution. So if you're sensing something similar, you're not alone. And what's interesting to me is when I started the thread five years ago, I was really betting on myself for the first time.
Reflecting on Act One
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Audra Dinell: I was building something from scratch, and that all still feels to me like act one, and I'm gonna talk a little bit more about the second act.
What does that actually mean? Where did I get that? What am I talking about? But Act one was setting the scene, it was building, it was striving. [00:05:00] It was becoming who I needed to be in the world. I needed that season, but now something is changing and I'm noticing that I want to live differently. I want to lead differently.
I want to hold my life with more intention and a little less urgency, more savoring the joy that is already there. So. This is what I'm calling the second act.
Defining Act Two
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Audra Dinell: If you've been feeling a quiet shift, a pull towards something more honest, more grounded, more you, this episode and season might be for you. So act one was what I needed and maybe we all need it.
I have talked before about. Grinding it out for the first three years of building the thread, and I am sure that that's not the only grinding season, but I do know that I don't believe I could have done it [00:06:00] much differently. I feel like I really had to kind of give that my all. And the same is true in other areas for Act one.
I think back to my career as a whole, and I worked in professional services marketing in multiple states before I made the leap into the ad agency world over 10 years ago. That got me another opportunity and I stayed there. Until my second son was born. So I worked in the marketing world for a decade before taking a pause to be with my family.
I took a very fun little pit stop in executive recruiting along the way, and then launched into entrepreneurship for the second time with the thread, and I just. I wanna honor all of that building and proving and the courage it takes and the skill it takes and the resilience it takes when we are just trying to [00:07:00] figure out who we are in the world.
I'm gosh, so grateful for the community that the thread my business has built. And for all of the amazing women and people who came alongside of me, the work I've been doing for over the past five years. Then led me to have an interest in podcasting and speaking, and I've always loved writing. It gave me the courage to do more of that.
I have also weaved in coaching every single step of the way. I feel like I have just building this staircase and everything feels a little bit more aligned than the last, which I think is such a testament to asking ourselves, what is the next right thing? So act two, what I'm calling this fresh season in my life, it feels more like becoming.[00:08:00]
Myself a little less proving and a little more becoming. When I talk about the second act, I'm really just talking about being in a different phase of life. So I was thinking about. Storytelling and when screenwriters write plays, they write Act one, two, and three. Act one. We meet the character. We learn about the character. Who are they? We figure out their place in the world.
They're building, they're striving, they're learning. But the second act, this is where things get interesting. This is where things get a little messy and complicated. The main character starts asking better questions. There's tension. They're finding their way. A lot of the things that they have done aren't working anymore.
There's a lot of trial and error. There's a lot of growth. [00:09:00] So for me, I think that's a helpful way to think about the second act and a helpful way for me to think about this season of life as I celebrate this milestone birthday this year. The second act isn't about starting over, it's about choosing. To live more intentionally, to lead more intentionally.
It's often the phase where we decide what we actually want to dedicate ourselves to. We stop living on autopilot and we start asking, what matters to me now, now that I'm building from this foundation, what am I here to build? Who am I here to be? What kind of life do I wanna stand behind? Act two is not necessarily louder, but it might get clearer and for many of us, it feels like when the story actually starts to feel like our own. So to summarize, in my mind, act one is becoming who the world needs us [00:10:00] to be. Who we need to be to survive. But act two is becoming more of who we actually are.
We might say fewer yeses, but we're gonna say truer yeses.
Midlife Crisis or Coming of Age?
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Audra Dinell: So I started thinking about this because I don't know about you, but growing up I heard a lot about this thing called a midlife crisis, and the picture painted in my head was. You know a white guy who goes out and buys a red Corvette because he turned 40 or 50.
I'm thinking of over the hill parties, right? Where it's like, I remember going to my grandfather's 50-year-old over the hill party and everything was black and black balloons, and I just thought, that's so interesting that. Growing up, there was this narrative of midlife crisis over the hill, and it was always this kind of like weird, looming thing.
But what I am actually feeling as I am sitting here in the [00:11:00] last few months of my thirties is a little bit more of a, a becoming a coming of age. It feels refreshing.
Now, I don't want to make it sound all rainbows and butterflies because I do think there are some real things that I've seen people grapple with. People close to me as well as I've grappled with as I am about to hit 40. But I also know, just like I teach my kids, there are so many different ways to look at things.
Yes, we can be scared. We can be a little sad. We can have some regret. You know, I think of 40 when I was approaching this birthday and I've been thinking about it for five years. Like anyone who knows me well knows I have just been so excited. I'm kind of obsessed with turning 40. I was probably like this, turning 32, but.[00:12:00]
I started a Substack late last year. I guess I got regular on Substack late last year is the better way to say it. And I named it at one point, the second half because the research that I have seen says that the average age of an American woman in general is like 78 or 80, 82, something like that. And it just hit me, right?
It just hit me that like. Oh my gosh. When I turn 40, I'm, I'm about halfway. I'm gonna be entering the second half of my life. And all of this is God willing. Of course, no one knows how long they have, but I really like to think in timelines like this. And for some reason the second half just felt too heavy to me.
I thought, you know. I don't know. I sort of want to think of it in a different, lighter way. And so then I started to think about the screenplay that I mentioned [00:13:00] and really liked the idea of like, second act just feel so much better because it feels so much truer, I guess I just decided, and this is naturally where my mind goes, so I really have to make sure I'm grounded in, in reality at times.
Excitement for the Future
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Audra Dinell: But I just decided that how exciting, like if I am 40 soon, if I am entering just this like shift, I have so much more time left. God willing, my career is. Not even halfway over.
I guess it's kind of that look at the glass half empty versus the glass half full thing of like, yes, we could look at it with like longing for our younger selves or feeling old or looking at what has passed. And I definitely think there's value in reflection. So I'm not saying skip that, but I guess I'm just saying that [00:14:00] I get so excited to think about what is next.
What is left because there is a lot left.
Mary Oliver's Wisdom
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Audra Dinell: One of my very favorite quotes is from Mary Oliver, and it's from one of her poems. And to sum it up, it says, tell me what is it that you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? And I just think that is more true now than ever. We have some life under us.
We have some things we've learned from, but we don't have to dwell in that we get to embrace what is here.
Jane Fonda's Advice
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Audra Dinell: I recently watched Jane Fonda talk about her advice for people who are 60. And she said, if you're 60, start being really intentional because this is your last act. This is it. Think about where you wanna be when you end your life, and then you have to live [00:15:00] into that in order to go forward.
Think about where you've been, who are you? When I was 60, I went back and really researched my life and discovered things that I didn't know, like that I was brave. I never thought of myself as a brave person, and really that helped me move forward. This is the time.
So for me, the second act is about not performing and really embodying belonging to myself. I don't think life is gonna get any cleaner, but I do feel a steadiness that I don't know that I felt before. Now there's still. Parenting and marriage and business and A DHD and friendship and all the mess that life has.
I don't think the steadiness and clarity that I feel entering Act two [00:16:00] is gonna fix everything. Like I said, I am so inside it. I'm not on a mountaintop, but I. Do feel more rooted.
Season Overview and Expectations
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Audra Dinell: So that's what we're gonna talk about this season. I wanna explore this thought out loud. It's not just gonna be my thoughts.
We're gonna interview some really cool people, but I've planned a great year that I'm really excited about. We're gonna hear from people whose life has completely changed at some point. We're gonna also hear about people who listened to whispers and made small shifts. So I'm really curious about how to trust ourselves more deeply.
How to hold the steadiness and the softness of motherhood and becoming with these, this tension of these like big dreams that's not going away. I am curious to talk about and learn about ambition without [00:17:00] burnout. I'm curious about what this is gonna mean for me as a leader. I'm curious and excited, so. I am solo recording this very first episode for you to just kind of tell you what I'm thinking, where we're going.
You listened to the little intro last week, and this is like a longer version of where I anticipate we go. This year I've already done some guest interviews and have some things lined up for you. I'm gonna take the conversations I hear within my community at the thread and the other communities I'm a part of around the world, and I'm gonna.
Talk about what I find, and we're gonna talk about the questions that are coming up, and we're gonna talk to some people who have really great experience.
Conclusion: Welcome to the Second Act
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Audra Dinell: So I guess I just wanna end this by saying this is not just, if you are in the same live season as me turning 40, this is really for anyone who is [00:18:00] feeling that shift, that click, that call.
To be more themselves, perform less, and absolutely still embrace our ambition. Show up in a beautiful way that feels values aligned to us, and be curious about who we are becoming on the base of the foundation that we have built in Act one. This is Act two. We're not behind. We're not late. We're not broken.
We are right on time, so. If you are interested in following this season, I would love for you to subscribe to the podcast, share this with anyone you think might be interested, and you can also find me on Substack where I'm gonna be writing under the second act. You can search Audra Dinell or the second act.
We'll put a link in the show [00:19:00] notes. Would love for you to connect with me on there. If you're feeling the softening, if you're feeling the clarity, if you're feeling the pull to live a little bit differently, you're not having a midlife crisis, you're having a coming of age. It's just the beginning.
Welcome to the second Act series.