I'm 48. I'm building a new company. And last week I stood in my kitchen wondering if this was even a good idea.
It turns out, building a business at 48 is nothing like building one at 28. We're told that experience makes things easier. But experience doesn't account for perimenopause, raising a teenager, caring for aging parents, and the paralyzing fear of "what if I can't do it again?"
In 7th grade, my teacher asked what I wanted to be when I grew up. I said a secretary. That was the biggest dream I could see from where I was standing — bathing in a creek, wearing clothes from the donation bin, watching my mom stretch food stamps like they were made of rubber.
36 years later, I've built multiple businesses to over $100M. And now I'm starting over. Again. In an industry I've never been in. With a brain that leaves the building by 2pm and a phone that somehow ends up in the fridge.
If you're a woman over 40 reinventing herself — part of the sandwich generation balancing entrepreneurship, motherhood, and aging parents — this one's for you. I'm sharing the brutal truth about the difference between the desperate hunger of my 20s and the complex reality of my 40s.
In this video, we talk about:
- The Reality Check: Why starting a business later in life feels heavier than when you had nothing to lose.
- The "Sandwich" Struggle: Navigating entrepreneurship while balancing perimenopause, motherhood, and aging parents.
- The Identity Crisis: Why "doing it again" is scarier when you’ve already succeeded once.
- The Kitchen Moment: How to push through the doubt when you’re standing in your kitchen wondering if you’ve made a huge mistake.
Subscribe to follow the journey:
https://www.youtube.com/@iamcynthiagarcia#womenentrepreneurs #over40 #startingabusiness #perimenopause #womeninbusiness #entrepreneurship #reinvention #midlifeawakening #idliketothankmyself #cynthiagarcia
EPISODE CHAPTERS:
0:00 — Why building at 48 feels so much different
1:14 — The secretary story (7th grade dream)
3:50 — The kitchen moment that made me question everything
6:57 — The grief nobody talks about: burying your old self
8:57 — The real shit about building at this age
14:04 — The flip: why 48 is actually better than 28
18:25 — The close + callback
19:53 — The toast
About Cynthia Garcia
Cynthia Garcia grew up bathing in a creek in Appalachian poverty and built her entire life from nothing. She’s built and sold companies across education, wellness, and consumer products, including the Institute of Transformational Nutrition (
https://transformationalnutrition.com/).
Now she’s the founder of Rewritten Beauty (
https://www.rewrittenbeauty.com/)™, the world’s first Identity-Based Beauty™ brand. Rewritten was built as a refusal to fade and a challenge to everything women have been told about aging, visibility, and power. Her work has been featured in Forbes, Vogue, Elle, Glamour, Cosmopolitan, Shape, Good Morning America, The Today Show, and more.
Cynthia's mission is to inspire others to rewrite their story by being an example of what was possible when she rewrote her own.
Read more on her website -
http://www.cynthiagarcia.com.
FOLLOW CYNTHIA GARCIA
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cynthiagarcia.com
REWRITTEN BEAUTY
INSTITUTE OF TRANSFORMATIONAL NUTRITION
What is I'd Like To Thank Myself ?
We thank everyone else for our success... friends, team, mentors. But when’s the last time you thanked the only person who actually dragged you through hell and back?
YourSELF.
This show is my love letter to the version of you who doesn’t get enough credit. The you who kept going when it would’ve been easier to quit.
I’m pulling back the curtain on what it actually looks like to be 48, building a skincare company, navigating perimenopause, raising a teenager, and refusing to become invisible.
The stuff nobody talks about after 40. And how I’m rewriting all of it.
Sometimes it’s just me. Sometimes it’s founders, creatives, and icons who’ve rewritten everything too. Always, it’s the raw truth.
Nothing filtered. Nothing softened. Nothing for show. Just the truth... and a drink.
Every episode ends the same way: we raise a glass and say the thing most people are too humble to admit: I’d like to thank mySELF.