What happens when a life that looks “fine” stops feeling true? Mikelann Valterra discusses the strange freedom that can follow loss. From rebuilding financially at age 40 to learning how to trust intuition, design a life on her own terms, and say no to other people’s expectations, Mikelann shares what it looks like to move from survival into possibility. This conversation is for anyone in midlife who feels untethered, restless, or quietly hungry for something more, even if they cannot yet name it.

Guest Bio

Mikelann Valterra is an author, speaker, financial therapist, and master money coach who helps women around the world rise above the money fog, transform their relationship with money, and design their ideal life. For twenty-five years, Mikelann Valterra, MA, AFC has been a thought leader in financial psychology. She has written, spoken, and been interviewed extensively on powerful, practical ways to reduce money anxiety and teaches effective methods for earning, saving, reducing debt, and managing money. Her new book, Rise Above the Money Fog is now available online. When she’s not working with clients, you can find Mikelann on the dance floor, indulging her love of Argentine Tango.

Turning 40 and becoming “uncorked”

Mikelann Valterra’s transformation began just before her 40th birthday, with a divorce that ended a “good on paper” marriage, the loss of nearly all her financial stability, and a year spent rebuilding from zero while living in her childhood bedroom. What followed was not a collapse, but an “uncorking,” a period of deep self-reflection, creative awakening, and intentional redesign of her life, her finances, and her sense of self.

Episode Highlights

1. How a career that looked unconventional on paper led Mikelann to pioneer money coaching before it was widely known
2. Why “losing everything” after divorce felt terrifying and oddly freeing at the same time
3. The messy middle between ending a marriage and starting over financially at age 40
4. How journaling, therapy, and deep self-reflection helped her rebuild from the ground up
5. The shift from living by external “shoulds” to designing a life that actually fit
6. Why knowing yourself is the foundation of both financial peace and personal fulfillment
7. How synchronicity, intuition, and curiosity led Mikelann to Argentine tango, and how dance became part of her second adulthood

Midlife transitions are rarely neat or linear, but they can be profoundly liberating. Through honesty, humor, and hard-earned wisdom, Mikelann illustrates how rebuilding after loss can open the door to creativity, clarity, and trusting yourself. Her story reframes starting over not as failure, but as an invitation to design a life that aligns with who you truly are, not who you were told to be.

If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to rate, follow, and share The Big Four Oh Podcast. It helps more people find these stories and reminds listeners that they are not alone in the messy middle.

Guest Resources

Take the Money Personality Quiz (In the top bar!)

Connect with Mikelann on Facebook

Connect with Mikelann on IG

Connect with Mikelann on TikTok

Connect with Mikelann on Pinterest

Mikelann’s website

Connect

TheBigFourOh.com

TBFO on Instagram

TBFO on Facebook

Get the Email Digest

Listen, Rate & Subscribe

YouTube Podcasts

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

Amazon Podcasts

Sponsor

The Big Four Oh Podcast is produced and presented by Savoir Faire Marketing/Communications

Stephanie: Hi Mikelann, welcome to the show.

Mikelann: Thank you for having me. I am so jazzed to see you again.

Stephanie: Oh, it's so good to see you again as well. And I'm excited because when we first spoke, you told me that in April you were going to a National Tango Championship, and it is now you and I are talking, it's the end of April. How did that go?

Mikelann: well, I am a, a crazy rabid Argentine tango dancer, so that hasn't changed. My dance partner and I competed in, basically a dance competition, right. we flew down to San Jose, California and competed, but it's a, it's a big one and it's one we've been working for a long time. And I, talk about highs and lows and, on the one hand we didn't do very well or as well as we wanted. On the other hand, I still can't believe that I was out there doing it and on the floor with these stunning dancers, right?

It's just like, oh my gosh. So it's kinda like, well, you went to the Olympics and that's all you can say. You actually went, but you

Stephanie: But come on.

You didn't place, so you didn't come back with anything, No, but going to the Olympics itself is its own achievement. I mean, that puts you better than, 99% of the humans on the planet.

Mikelann: In the little tiny world of argentine tango. But

Stephanie: Oh, that's so

Mikelann: It was, it was fun. It was crazy. It was a lot of emotional highs and lows. It's, it's exciting, but you know, you wanna do better than than you do. And here you are dancing. Everyone says dance, like no one's watching.

Stephanie: Right.

Mikelann: You know what, there's an audience and an entire panel of judges, right. So it's like.

Stephanie: Dance like no one's judging you.

Mikelann: Right. It is crazy. So yeah, definitely highs and lows. I didn't go back to dancing until, like last night and this morning. 'cause I was just like, I'm done with dancing.

I

Stephanie: Yeah. You were probably exhausted too. Yeah.

Mikelann: Oh my gosh. Yeah. Yeah. But it's all good. And my dance partner happens to be my husband, so it's sort of ever present in our lives. So it's not like it's ever still not the conversation at dinner.

Stephanie: Mm. Yeah. I grew up in a ballet studio, so I have some sense of the preparation that you need to put into presentinga dance to, to anyone. And I was really fortunate that I grew up before the days where ballet meant competitions. So we were just, getting ready for recitals and shows and, and different things like that. But, but these days, young kids who are in ballet are actually competing as well, and I, I can't even imagine.

Mikelann: That's intense. Well, and you know, most people wanna dance just to dance. And me too, right? I mean, we socially dance more than anything 'cause we just like dancing, but competition definitely is an odd thing unto itself.

Stephanie: Yeah, yeah. Well, and I know we are off on a tangent here, but it does tie in and we'll, we'll loop around and bring your tango back in sort of towards the end of our conversation, because this does have something to do with your midlife transition.

Mikelann: Oh, yes.

Stephanie: We'll get there. We'll get

Mikelann: Oh, yes, it does.

Stephanie: So let's go back to the beginning and will you tell me a little bit about the forces that shaped you as a young person and as a young woman? How did you become the person you were in your mid thirties?

Mikelann: Yeah. What a wonderful question. I mean, it, it, and it, everything intersects with, career and life and love and, all of that good stuff. I mean, I, I'd love to say that I started my career just perfectly after my undergrad, and I knew what I wanted to do since I was a child. Not true.

Stephanie: You would've been unique if that were true.

Mikelann: I would be. Thank you. Thank you. I would've been unique, right? So, I finished, my undergrad in economics which I, you know, I enjoyed, but, I wandered the earth like Cain for years and traveled, internationally and, did a whole lot of when your parents, why do you have a college degree? You're waitressing, things like that.

Stephanie: Mm-hmm.

Mikelann: years. And eventually found my way back to grad school and decided to get a graduate degree in transpersonal psychology. And so here I am at about the time when you're like, okay, we're looking at the thirties and I've got a economics undergrad and a psychology master's. What a strange combo. And I thought, what on Earth. And I, I felt very split, Stephanie. Part of me did wanna become a financial planner, but not really. Part of me wanted to become a psychotherapist. Right. And how do you marry? Two fields that seem on the opposite ends of the planet, right.

And so fortunately, in my late twenties, early thirties, I met a woman who was a money coach. But this is back in the day, 25 years ago. Money coaching didn't exist. No one had heard of it. And so here I am talking to this woman who is combining the psychology of money, the emotions of money. She's talking about the traumatic experiences that we had growing up and how that shapes us with money. And oh, how about we actually look at your money and not just talk about it.

I mean, practical, emotional, all of it all combined. And it was like a thunderbolt hit me out of the sky when I met this woman. I literally remember the day I heard her talk at a conference. And I just finished my graduate degree. And I went up to her and I said, I wanna do what you do train me. And I'm the very first person she ever trained, 'cause the training didn't exist.

The rest they say is history. And it, it, it put me on a path for being self-employed from my early thirties because the field just was so new and it's not like I could say, oh, I'm gonna go get a job as a financial coach. I, I mean, I could say that, but the jobs didn't exist.

I had to create my work, right? And I had to create a private practice. And good news. I fell in love with what I did, and I loved it, loved it, loved it. And it, kept me and helped me all of my own subsequent life transitions, like the big ones that you and I are gonna talk about. Luckily, I had been a money coach, by the time I hit my forties for a decade,

Stephanie: So in your early thirties you become a money coach, which is a, uncommon thing back in that time. Coaching has exploded in the last 10 years, but 20, 25 years ago, it, it, it was really not as mainstream as it is today.

Mikelann: Yeah.

Stephanie: What did your personal life look like?

Mikelann: Good question. No one had heard of what I was doing, so it was stressful from the point of view of what are you, what are you doing? You know, spending all your time trying to explain to people what you're doing while, while you're marketing a business as a new young business owner. But I had married at 27, and had moved back up to Seattle, where I am from, and I had my son at 29.

And so, you know, I, I walked into my thirties married, with a child, with a new career, all new, new and new, right. And like all of us did the best I could. I mean, there, it was a very, very busy time with having, the whole young children and the career and the house and the family, things like that.

So I would say, life was good. It was good. And I didn't have enough time for as much self-reflection and depth in a lot of the places that I did end up going because, to be honest, I was trying to keep my head above water.

Stephanie: When you and I first spoke, we talked about how that decade of the thirties comes with so much pressure because you have to do all of the things in the better part of 10 years.

Mikelann: It's insane.

We're we're, I mean, as, as, as women we're supposed to have a career and a family all at the same time, in the same, honestly, fairly short timeframe. I mean, looking back, now that I'm in my fifties, I mean, it's interesting. We just have different, different perspectives, but it's, it's a lot. It is a lot. And then now let's throw in houses and, and all the other financial responsibilities that you just weren't really doing in your twenties.

Stephanie: Yeah. Yeah. I've had a, conversations in the past where, 'cause you and I are about the same age. So there was a book that came out in the late seventies or early eighties. It was Helen Gurley Brown, who was the longtime editor of Cosmopolitan Magazine, and I think the book title was, You Can Have It All. And it was this like feminist manifesto that, that young women in the eighties kind of took to heart that we could do everything. We could get married and we could have kids, and we could have careers, and we could have a house, and we could, we could do all of these wonderful things. And though it was intended to be a aspirational, and coming out of the the fifties and the sixties, it very quickly turned into a prescription of you must do it all. You are expected to do it all.

Mikelann: Well, and, and let's burn out your adrenal glands while you're doing it. Right.

It's

Stephanie: Yeah, right? 'Cause sleep is out the window. And self-care is out the window. And eating well is out the window. You're gonna eat the three chicken tenders your kid leaves behind on the plate, and that's your dinner.

Mikelann: All the time. Well, but at the same time, people are telling you in your thirties, oh, and you're supposed to be working out regularly, but something's gotta go. Something's gotta go. Right. And everyone picks and chooses, you know, as best they can, but it's, it, it is a busy time. It's, it's, it is a busy, busy, busy time in that area of life.

Stephanie: Yeah. So tell me how you celebrated your 40th birthday.

Mikelann: Getting a divorce, that's, Lemme think, maybe I shouldn't say it quite that way. Many things happened, in that time period. You know, it's so funny when I told a friend I was getting a divorce, I was actually 39, and we were talking about it, and she said, you know, it sounds like your marriage is complete.

Stephanie: Mm.

Mikelann: And I loved that. I loved that perspective. It wasn't this, oh, you failed, or all the negative things, right? Because it's obviously a huge, huge thing to end a marriage and particularly when there's kids involved. But the reality is we did. We did end our marriage when I was 39. And I bought a house. The first house that we ever owned was what I bought after we divorced. And so, when I turned 40, you found me in a little fixer upper that I had just bought all by myself, happier than a lark, with my dad helping me. Probably my 40th birthday was demolishing my bathroom or something. I mean, I was, really working on this house, 'cause it was hard to buy a home on my own as a single woman and self-employed. And so, it was definitely a fixer upper. Boy, best thing I ever, ever did, and it was very much a new chapter in my life.

Stephanie: Yeah. Before that though, there is a period of messiness, right? This messy middle piece. And that's really what we wanna explore. So your ex-husband,

Mikelann: mm-hmm.

Stephanie: was a good guy. And he was a good dad. And this wasn't a, a breakup of, anybody had done anything wrong. There was no trauma, there was no, trust, you know it. So tell me just a little bit abouthow you made that decision when everything was kind of good.

Mikelann: Yeah.

And

Stephanie: Kind of okay.

Mikelann: Yeah, kind of okay would be a better way to say it. It's interesting 'cause our divorce put a lot of reverberations through the community because we were all young, married 30 somethings. And we were the first ones to divorce and throw in the towel and it had a lot of effect on a lot of our friends. Like, holy moly, if you guys are, you know, that type of thing. And, and the truth is my ex-husband and I were good friends. I think therein lied the, the problem. We had always been better friends than lovers. And it was interesting when we saw one of our very first, marriage therapists, you know, you're in like marriage counseling.

Oh,

Stephanie: Yeah.

Mikelann: Few things our harder and more painful, in my opinion. And sometimes it works and everything is lovely, right? But we saw this guy and he said, you guys sound like you have brother, sister energy. And we ended up not working with him and picking someone else, but I never forgot this one session because honestly, I think he hit the nail on the head, right.

We weren't really destined to be the romantic partners. We'd happened to come together at a particular time and had this wonderful child and,all of that. But it, you know, it wasn't, we weren't destined to go to go all the way. And I don't think either of us ever regretted our time together. And we also never regretted moving on. I mean, we're both, we're both remarried. We had very, very different paths afterwards. But, yes, the messy middle indeed, because notice I said we, we divorced at 39 and I bought the house at 40. Let me tell you, there's a year in the middle there that's holy smokes.

Stephanie: Let's talk about that year. So you leave your husband or, or however that happens. You left with what?

Mikelann: Yeah, that, that, that's part of the problem. Right. And you know, I'll just say this in to just to bring back the feeling. I'm a money coach, right? I'd been a money coach at that point for 10 years, who's supposedly supposed to have it all together. So there's this interesting public persona, private crisis going on. And the bottom line is I took my son and moved in with my mother, who luckily I love and I'm very close to. However, when you're, 39, 40, you generally don't wanna be living with your mother, right? I mean, that, that, that many, many years had happened. It had been a lot of years, right?

And so I took, Xander's that my son's name Xander was nine. And we moved back into my mom's house and I am literally living in my old high school bedroom. I mean, there are shadows of the Duran Duran posters on the wall. You know what I'm saying?

Right.

And it's, it's hard. I mean, I did a lot of deep soul searching. That is when I started my morning pages practice. I started writing and journaling every day. And it's, it's been 15 years. I've never stopped writing daily. But that's when I started this processing of who am I? You know, who am I, where am I, what do I wanna do, what's working, what's not working? Just the super, super intense, deep processing as well as, as well as therapy and all the things that you would imagine, right?

And it was a good year, a bad year, an intense year, a year I'd never necessarily wanna relive, but we have a lot of resources in our lives besides money. And one of my resources is family. I'm very rich. I'm very rich in family. I love that because it's like, oh my goodness, what a, what a huge blessing.

And it took about a year because, we, I came out of our divorce and I pretty much lost everything. I came out with no, no retirement, no money, no house, no 0, 0, 0, 0, 0. I mean, I, I was basically brought back to zero financially. And I had to restart my life at 40. I mean literally, practically. And so I bought that little fixer upper house and from there rebuilt, right? Restarted my retirement accounts and things like that. So, proof you can start over at 40. Proof you can

Stephanie: For sure. But I'm also thinking that this sounds like from a listener perspective, one of the most terrifying things to come out of a divorce with nothing, and may indeed be a reason some people stay.

Mikelann: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.

Stephanie: Tell me and tell me if this is fair or not, but how was it that you came out with nothing?

Mikelann: Well, I think part of it is we didn't have a whole ton to begin with, right. And the other part of it was I was earning more money than he was. So we forget. We always think that women end up with the divorce settlement because, in some marriages, the men make a lot more, but that just wasn't, that just wasn't the case for us.

This is why I said that I'm so glad that I had hit that time in my life with 10 years of experience as a money coach because I had to use every skill I ever possessed to, on myself, to help me, right? And, and to help myself not be stressed, believe it or not, as hard as all that sounds, and I don't wanna say it wasn't, it was. But it's amazing that I could get through that with the, the stress levels that I did have, meaning they weren't off the chart. And that I was able to turn around buy a house. Right. I mean, in some ways it's amazing that I was, I was able to do that and I'm like, I'm so, so proud of it. But part of it is because I did exactly what I have other people do, right? I worked my monthly spending plan, AKA budget every month, every month, every month. And I had to be so creative, Stephanie, with my financial choices, and I had, I just. Talk about creative finance.But you know, I'd been doing it at that point for, for a decade, and so I had the skillset to go, okay, there's a lot of creative ways to still enjoy my life that don't entail spending lots of money. Now would be a great time. Yeah. exactly.

Now would be a great time, Mikelann, to use that skillset, you know. So, because I had to save a lot of money very quickly and deal with, a lot of stuff. And I had this wonderful resource of paying very little rent, living with my wonderful mom for a year. Again, a huge resource in family. A huge blessing, right? So.

Stephanie: A huge safety net..

Mikelann: Yeah, absolutely. And, and, and, and we're all, we're all blessed with different resources. Some have money, some have family, some have talent, some have energy, some the resource is time, right. I mean, we all put together our different resource packages as, as best we can. And it was a year, that was like any other year of my life because I was so focused on, first of all, not living with my mother for the rest of my life. Right. You

Stephanie: Real motivator there,

Mikelann: Yeah. Well, and again, mom, if you hear this, you know how much I love you.

Stephanie: Of course.

Mikelann: You know it, so, but you know, I'm, I'm looking at turning 40.

I'm looking at this amazing next decade that everyone talks about. Everyone talks about the, the forties and like, it's so crazy what the different ways that people talk about it, good and bad, and this and that, and the massive transition. I would like to enter this transition in a better place. Right? And so I, I worked fast and furious. It took about a year. It took about a year of, scrimping and saving and being creative and doing all sorts of stuff, to buy that beautiful little fixer upper. and I, and I did it and I, I swear it is probably one of the things in my life I am the most proud of after raising my son and getting him into his beautiful manhood that he is in now. Right.

That's, that's its own saga.

Stephanie: Yeah. Yeah.

Mikelann: But there you go.

Stephanie: When we first spoke about this, you said that losing everything was oddly freeing.

Mikelann: Mm-hmm.

Stephanie: Talk a little bit about that. In what ways were you free?

Mikelann: Well, the year I lived with my mom, it was very freeing in a material way in that, like, I, I didn't even have furniture, right? I suddenly had no house to maintain. I mean, other than, helping my mom. But it, it's, it was very freeing. It's, it's kind of like I would never, ever want anyone to lose everything in a fire, ever. And you hear stories of what it's like when suddenly you don't have any possessions. Right. So my, my life in some ways became smaller because I just wasn't carrying around as much stuff.

And I also was in a very clear place of going, okay, what do I wanna put back? Because I am not going to buy or put back anything that I don't absolutely want to be there. Everything is at this extreme choice.

How exactly do I wanna set up my finances? And just one example, right? That's because who's deciding me. Right. So there was this intense, freedom of choice in, in everything. And, and, and I loved it. It's like, do I wanna explore taking yoga classes?. Do I wanna explore, taking art classes? Do I wanna explore taking dance classes? It, it became an incredibly creative time for me,

Stephanie: Mm.

Mikelann: as messy as it was.

Stephanie: Yeah. Yeah. So was that the time that you started waking up to more creative pursuits.

Mikelann: I agree. Like I said, Duran Duran posters and there was a lot going on in the, in the eighties in music. And there's other stuff that continued that I have since learned that was recorded after 1987. So I, I suddenly started listening to a lot of music. Everything was new to me. Everything I, I would say to my friends, oh my God, there's this new musician, have you heard of, like, this guy named Richard Cohen.

And they're like, seriously? Just so many things that everyone else seemed to be more plugged into. I started reading a lot. I started taking art classes. And, and I didn't have a destination, Stephanie, I just felt uncorked in a new way, that there's this, this I, and I don't know how I even would put that word on it, and that may be sounded strange, but just there, there's this sense of all possibility.

As as, as much as someone would go, oh wow. Mikelann Valterra, the money coach seems to be living with her mother and has lost everything in a divorce. It doesn't sound great. But on the inside it was a journey of exploring a lot of different things.

And when I did get into that, that sweet little house, it intensified even more, right. Because I got super excited about decorating and rehabbing this beautiful little queendom that I had just bought all by myself. And I had the smallest house of all my friends. I had the most parties, because I wanted to have people over for cocktail parties and people loved coming, and we just had a great time.

Stephanie: Yeah. I actually love that word, uncorked. It's so evocative,

Mikelann: mm-hmm.

Stephanie: because when we think about this transition from Gail Sheehy calls first adulthood to second adulthood. Our first adulthood, we are so focused on doing all the things that we are supposed to be doing, that we should be doing, that someone older, wiser, smarter than us, told us is gonna make us healthy, happy, successful, and safe.

Mikelann: Mm-hmm.

Stephanie: And so we do that. And we put a lid on a lot of the things that we personally want or would like to pursue because we're so busy doing all the things we're supposed to be doing.

Mikelann: Right.

Stephanie: And so for you to use the word uncorked, which has never come up in these interviews, is just so evocative because what I'm seeing in your story is this transition from all the things that you're supposed to be doing, to all the things that are making Mikelann come alive.

Mikelann: Oh, so true. It's so true. I mean, my forties were vividly alive. And, and part of it was just the exploring of so many things and giving myself permission to explore. And, I found myself saying, okay, I've always said that I was interested in, and fill in the blank. Like one example is I've always said I was interested in rocket science and astronomy and, and I love following NASA and things like that. And then I paused and I went, well, I say I like that, but, I I'm not reading about it. I'm not doing anything with that interest. I'm putting zero time. You can say you, you have a particular interest at a cocktail party, but do you actually spend any time exploring it? And so I, I thought to myself, well, if I say I'm interested in all these random different topics, how about I go get some books and read about them?

Stephanie: Mm-hmm.

Mikelann: Explore this and explore that and, go join this type of club or whatever it is. And it's such a fun, crazy thing to do. And of course, by day I'm working hard at my career. I'm growing and continuing to grow my practice as a money coach. And I know I've said it butI used the same skillset that I taught other people. And it was not that I hadn't always used it as, a young married woman. I, I did. But it's different, when it's just you and you're designing your own spending plan of how you wanna spend your money, and then looking at, oh my gosh, and that means I need to earn X because I wanna live this life. Right? It gave me huge fuel for this fire. So my career grew and grew and grew a lot in my forties because I was so focused and growing, and I think part of it was just this uncorked creative energy. A lot of it also did go into my career.

Stephanie: Mm-hmm. Wow.

I'm, I'm actually sort of at the end of a thread here, and I need to, I need to come around and, and, and, and loop it back in. I've been so absorbed by you. Hold on.

Mikelann: Live the story, Stephanie. Live it.

Stephanie: I gotta come back to my seat as an actual interviewer. Hold on.

Mikelann: Tell me about how Tango fits into this. Where did you run into Argentine Tango? And how Argentine Tango, other than swing dance lessons or ballroom lessons, or, Mm-hmm. Yeah. Good question. So I, I was in my forties. I had never danced. And well, I mean, we all dance. I dance many YMCAs at family weddings, but danced, but not, not huge.

And in my forties I was studying a lot of Yungian psychology. Your listeners are probably familiar with the theory of synchronicities, when things come up in seemingly disparate circumstances, but the same subject comes up and you're like, wait a minute, that's seems to be a, a coincidence. Coincidence. Coincidence. That's odd. So something in the Universe has pay attention.

And, and so I found a series of synchronicities occurring around Argentine Tango. I, read a book, wasn't about tango, but there was this vivid scene about tango dancers and really kind of described the world of tango. I'm like, oh, that just loved it. And then two weeks later I go out on a date, 'cause I'm single in my forties. I'm dating and all that stuff. And I go out with some random guy, who starts telling me all these stories about him in tango and that he's taken all these tango classes. I'm like, oh. That's a coincidence. I just ended up reading that.and then a week later it came up again in a conversation, completely disconnected to any anything else. And then it came up again, some weird little snippet on TV. And I found myself writing in my morning pages,a la Julia Cameron, the morning pages. And I'm journaling every morning with my coffee.

And one morning I said. Tango seems to be calling me. It seems to be knocking on my door. It keeps po, I'd never thought about it in my life, right? But by the time it knocked on the door, the fourth time in these completely unconnected circumstances, I said, I think I need to go take a Tango class.And I did. Right. You know, so I got online. I, live in Seattle and I looked for beginning tango lessons and found it right? And, and off I went. And you know, Tango's a funny thing as, if you have any of your, listeners that are dancers in different dances. Tango, you either fall in love with, or it's not your thing. There is nobody that is lukewarm about Tango, right? So I, I convinced two of my friends to take the beginning tango class with me, kinda like a bootcamp weekend. And they were like, yep, nope, not for me. And I was just hooked, so crazy, so hard, so deep, so fast. It was like, like, oh my God. It's ignited the tango addiction. And I, it's been enough years and I've talked to enough tango dancers that they, everyone has the same experience. We're all just crazy, right? We really, really, really get, get into it. Or you don't. And part of it is, it's just such a bloody hard dance to learn that it's a hard, you couldn't pick it up going to class a couple times a month.

Right.

It just takes a little bit more because of its complex nature. So I ended up picking up, going studying tango in my mid forties. It was, it was right as my son was finishing high school. It was part of the chapter of "the empty nest is coming," right? Another big transition. And things were also shifting in my career with a lot of transitions around my scheduling. And, I had a little bit more space. The question is, when space arises in your life, what do you invite in?

Stephanie: And you wanna be really purposeful about it because stuff will come in uninvited if you let it, but if you have a space open in your life, what do you wanna do with it? Right. and I, I chose Tango. And so I became a huge, huge dancer. I'm super involved in the Seattle dance community. And I mean, we could talk more about it, but Seattle is, is a big tango community. And I'm, I'm very fortunate because it's, there's just a lot of tango. And who knew? I never thought about it in my life. Before that, I had not. So there are two pieces to this that, that you've mentioned that I think really play into the transitional period around age 40, this transition from first to second adulthood. And because you are, a fan and a student of Jungian psychology, I'm gonna, I'm gonna throw them at you and let's see where we go. Number one, synchronicities. That is, to your point, the Universe trying to get your attention.

Mikelann: Mm-hmm.

Stephanie: Do you think there were synchronicities in your twenties and thirties that you just ignored because you didn't have time or space or attention for them? Was that an age thing? A time thing?

Mikelann: That's a really lovely question. I really like that. I, the way I would answer it is my intuition has gotten better and better the older I've gotten. It is the gift of age. I am one of those highly sensitive people. And I'm an HSP highly sensitive person as many, many people are. So I definitely felt and noticed other synchronicities in my life, in my, twenties, and tried to be very purposeful in picking my career for, for example, and things like that.

And my ability to read the signs of the universe has gotten better. And also I've gotten more courage in, in following them as well. Because sometimes the synchronicity will occur, you'll be like, what? What is coming up? Right.

And now what I literally will say, Stephanie, is I will say to myself, I believe a synchronicity is occurring. I'm catching it faster. Yeah, exactly. Almost as it's happening, right. As the second, or maybe third one shimmers in and something calls my attention. I'm like, oh, and I use it in my, in my business, with my client work. And some people would simply call what we're talking about, intuition, which is absolutely fine. And it gets better as we age. it's connected to wisdom as well.

Stephanie: Well, and the other piece of that, again, associated with the transition is that one way that I, I have said this a a number of times, is that this is a period in our lives where we start to turn down the volume on all those external voices.

Mikelann: Yeah.

Stephanie: On all those people telling us what we should do on all those opinions of how we should live our lives. And once we turn that volume down, we can start to tune into the quiet voice inside of us. And so for a lot of people, they do find that intuition gets stronger as you get older. But I think it's also, and I agree that it, it certainly mine has gotten stronger as I've gotten older, but I do believe it's a part of that balancing of the volume, of turning down what everybody else wants and expects, and turning up what you want and what's gonna make you feel good.

Mikelann: Oh, that's so well said. Yeah, I mean, for me, I had to turn down the volume on my people pleaser. Right. Which is, which is another way of talking about, I think some of what, what you're bringing up and, I am a, a people pleaser. And I've done some pretty intense good therapy on it and have done a lot of work and a lot of healing on it. But it, I it's, it's definitely been harder in my life. Right. In my, in my thirties. I spent a lot of tense time trying to figure out meal planning and cooking because I felt I should do all of this stuff and I hated it. I was not good at it. It was a constant friction point in our marriage. And part of it was the shoulds, and this is what you're supposed to do, and It took me forever to think clearly about the fact that, okay, I don't like this. There's a lot of other ways to solve this. We can have a conversation about this. But it, it was a sticking point for a long time that I just was so shut down about the subject that I should just do whatever it is I thought I should do.

Stephanie: Right, right. Because somebody else knew better than you. Because it was in magazines and it was on tv and it, it was, it was a thing, it was a trend. People were meal prepping, and that was supposed to be the most efficient and effective way to take care of your family as a working mom.

Mikelann: it's so true. My mother-in-law who I just, I, I adored, but she would call on me before she would come up to visit us, drive up from Salem, Oregon to Seattle, and she'd say, okay, so let's, let's talk about all the meals. Let's talk about all the food. Let's talk about all the food planning for the week I'm gonna be there for. And I was like, oh. I mean, it was just my literally weakest link, the thing I was the worst at. And it was such a stressor for me that it was just like, oh, I really had a hard time with it. Right?

And, and you do you do the best you can, but it was a lot of wasted energy and, and also just stress and not feeling good about myself.

Stephanie: Mm-hmm.

Stephanie: So let me ask you this, left to your own devices, what is your version of making dinner every night? how do you naturally solve that problem in a way that works for your body and your soul.

Mikelann: I did solve it. This is what's so awesome. So when, once I was single, divorced, I was a single mom, I discovered actually I didn't hate cooking. I just had a different way of doing it and it, it involved making huge vats of awesome different soups and stews and this and that on the weekend. That I enjoy doing. You know, I'd watch movies, putter around, hang out with my son, make whatever the big thing was. And we'd, we'd have a lot of it that week. Put really yummy bread with it, whatever. And then the next weekend I'd dream up and find some other recipe for some other big one potthing. And is it the perfect solution for everybody? No. But did it work for us? It did. Although I, I will say, and I cooked a lot of pork chops once I was a single mom, because as we know, listeners, you take it, you throw it in the pan and done.

You know, and I, I, I killed and made a lot of bad pork chops. And my, my son when he, when he left home, we're very close. He's got a really funny sense of humor and he finally said, mom, no offense, but I'm never eating another pork chop. I was like, well, honey, someday have 'em in a restaurant and you'll see how they could be.

Stephanie: Right,

Mikelann: Just not what you had at our house.

Stephanie: right. But between you and I, we survived the pork chop era.

Mikelann: We survived the pork chop era and it was an era. And guess what? It was fine. Was it the perfect meal put on? No. But was I spending time with my son and feeding him? Yes. It's like we lose sight of what's important.

Stephanie: I have my own example of that. I, when I was 36 and sort of at the beginning of my transition, I started my own business, which has turned into a marketing agency and for, for so long I was running it the way I thought I should be. And according to sales coaches, and according to, watching some people that I admired in the business community and how they were doing it, and it was, it was very hard.

And then a, a bunch of years ago, I, I got ill and have been managing a chronic illness ever since, and so I had to let go of a lot of those shoulds. And as soon as I started doing it my way, it got much easier and the business grew. So that was sort of one of my first indicators that like, oh, well it doesn't just have to be the way the boys do it. Like you, you could have your own way of doing it.

But the second thing that happened, and this again, was brought to me by illness. I don't know that I would've gotten to this on my own. I'm not a morning person. Never have been. I mean, literally as a 2-year-old, I would come walking out of the room at 10 o'clock at night 'cause people were still up and talking. Like they could not get me to go to bed. And, but since I've been ill, I, I have, I really struggle in the mornings.

And so I, I, a couple of years ago, I went, you know what? I don't need to be there in the mornings. I can work from 11 or 12 to six or seven or eight, and I can get all of my work done. And in fact, my brain works better. My brain, from three to 7:00 PM like those are my crank hours. And I know most people are like, oh my God, I'm, I'm, I need my coffee then, or I need a candy bar, or I'm, I'm dying. And it's like, it's okay. It works for me and we've made it work for the team and for the clients, but that's one of the things that I had to get past. And of course, morning people, there's a massive moral superiority that they have that starting at 7:00 AM is the right thing to do in the world. But you know

Mikelann: is so true.

That is so

Stephanie: it, this works for me and works for my family, and it works for my clients and it works for my team.

Mikelann: Well, and I mean, this goes back to Socrates know thyself. Know thyself. I mean, and also you have to know yourself. Everybody else is taken. You have to be you. Right.

It's like of course you have to be you. Right. And, and it's, it's so true. And it, I, I so get it because, obviously I'm, I'm self-employed and I get to design my own schedule, so of course I design the schedule that works for me. Like, why on earth? Who, who else am I designing it for? I mean, we've gotta find a way to make it work for clients and things like that, but it's, that's why it's a design. That's why it's a design. It's, it's a collaboration, a design, and it can be done so that people's needs are met.

Stephanie: Yeah. Yeah. And, and the older you get and the more you settle into yourself and realize that you are the one who gets to make the decisions and the choices, the more you can open up to some of these things that may feel unconventional, some of these choices, some of these solutions that work for you despite what anybody else thinks about 'em.

Mikelann: It is so true. Yeah. I was thinking, the other day I had a friend text me like, oh, hey, I'm inviting you to, and it was this big group thing with lots of interesting people. And, and I, I, there was a time when I would've gone because she invited me and, and that, and she wants me to go, right. There's the people pleaser. She wants me to go to this event. And I said, I, I don't have a lot of time. I would rather use my non tango time and non husband time to spend time with you one-on-one.

Stephanie: Yep.

Mikelann: To spend time with you. It's not that I don't wanna see you. I do. I would rather spend time with you one-on-one not, and what I didn't say is not spend an entire evening with a bunch of people I don't know, I don't care about. It. I am, I'm, I am an introvert, not an extrovert. Know thyself. And I adore her and love spending time with her, but I wanna do that one-on-one.

And I, I used to have a harder time saying no to group activities. For all the reasons that you know that, that we know, and it's, boy, talk about the gift of, of the second half of life. It's a big one.

Stephanie: Yeah. Yeah, knowing yourself, that is a, a, a really lovely theme and, and sort of thread to pull out of this conversation because as you roll into, roll through this transition and come out towards the other side, when things open up a little bit again, the way you talked about consciously choosing the elements that you fill your time and your space and your life with. The more you know yourself, the more you understand what makes you feel good and happy and fulfilled,

Mikelann: Mm-hmm.

Stephanie: the better you'll be at choosing what to call in.

Mikelann: I love that. That's so well said. Well, and it, I would also say it's one of the reasons why I love being a money coach, because it, the whole entire point is to design a life you love. Using money as the sacred tool to design the life you love. It's your life. It's not gonna look like anyone else's life. And you get to design it. And we use money to design it, but people are so stressed around money and finances that it's the opposite. They're shut down and they don't see the possibilities that they could actually do if they felt calmer and more in control around money. If you felt calmer and in control, maybe you could take up horseback riding, right? Maybe you could pursue all these dreams that are there if you felt better and less anxious around money. So it's, it's, there's so many areas that help people step into their dreams, but you know, it's, that's part of my mission is why you and I are so simpatico, because it's like, oh my gosh, yes. Here's my skillset that I bring to the table to help us in that second half of life.

Stephanie: Yeah. Oh God. And money is such, it can be such a third rail issue between people, in couples, between friends, like between, because we all come at it so differently and we have different emotional attachments to it and fears about it.

And, and so we have a, a friend staying with us this weekend who was talking about how his wife is such a saver. He said, what are we saving for if I can't take my kid, away on his spring vacation and go play a couple of rounds of golf with him? And so you can see the sort of disconnect between how they're, they're coming at those decisions. And I know that's one of the fundamental issues that couples fight about too, is that there are different perspectives on money and how it should be used.

Mikelann: Oh boy, that's, that's so, so, so true. I, I just finished an ebook on the four money types and, helping people figure out what is their type. And there's no wrong money personality type, but again, know thyself. Back to that theme. And the more that you know, what your we'll say archetype is around money, is one way to think about it, the more you can see, okay, these are my strengths, these are my challenges, these are probably some shadows that I need to address around money. We all have them. And the point is to feel better and feel more successful and peaceful around money, whether you know, with that couple, there's a spender, saver,kind of coming together, but it's not about spending and saving, it's about freedom and security. One person wants to make sure they're always secure. One person wants to feel free, right? So, what is, what's the underlying motivation underneath a lot of the stuff around money? That's where it gets really interesting.

Stephanie: Hmm. Well that sounds like a really interestingguide that you're creating. This, this, these money types. Is that something that you would make available to the people who might be listening to

Stephanie: Great. And we'll make sure to put the, that link in the show notes so anybody can get straight to it. Oh, Mikelann, it has been so lovely to spend time with you. Thank you so much for being with me today and for being really generous with your story.

Mikelann: Thank you. Yeah, we all have these vulnerable stories, don't we?

Stephanie: We do.

Mikelann: We all have 'em. I mean, I'm sure so many people have similar elements and our stories are our stories. We are who we are. So I hope some of this was helpful and opening up for your listeners, 'cause it's, it's so wonderful to go into the second half of life. And it helps when you really have a sense of, well, who am I in? Where do I wanna go and what do I wanna explore?

Stephanie: And also I'm not alone. There are others out there who've made it through.

Mikelann: Oh my gosh. It is glorious on the other side. I promise you. It is so fun and wonderful. And that's a, that's a good hope to put out to people that are in that messy middle, right? We all get through the messy middle, I promise.

Stephanie: Great.