The Wobbly Middle: Women's Career Crossroads In Midlife

Media and entertainment lawyer Lisa Logan tells of the hidden talent that revealed itself as she sat at the piano helping her reluctant 11-year-old son with his homework.

A decade on, she has written six operas with themes ranging from Princess Diana to the Brontë sisters and Greta Thunberg, all the while keeping her legal career for the security it brings.

In this episode she talks to Patsy about the moment the talent revealed itself, going back to study music composition at King's College in her 40s, and how her legal career and her composing feed each other rather than compete. She explains why she writes strong women into opera, where so often the female roles have been courtesans and victims, and offers grounded advice for any woman wondering whether her own second act is still possible.

We also discuss:

• Opera for beginners — where to start
• Midlife career changes — discovering a talent which feels like fluency in a new language
• Women in opera — writing strong, fully rounded female characters
• Female composers — finding time to compose once the children are at secondary school
• Going back to study — rejection thena master's in composition at King's College London
• Arts funding — learning to write grant applications that don't read like a lawyer's

Links

• Lisa Logan, composer: https://lisalogan.co.uk/
• English National Opera: https://www.eno.org/
• Foundation for Future London: https://future.london/
• The Wobbly Middle on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-wobbly-middle/id1767850643
• The Wobbly Middle on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4YhwsBch8Q9vAOUBBfusIv

IF YOU ENJOYED THIS EPISODE: You might also love Sophie Archer (Season 1). Like Lisa, Sophie trained as a lawyer while a creative calling kept pulling at her — in Sophie's case, all the way to culinary school and MasterChef: The Professionals.

HELP US GROW: If this episode resonated with you, here are two ways you can make a real difference:

• Leave a review here — it only takes a moment, and it's one of the best ways to help new listeners find the show. Every review counts.
• Share this episode with a friend — if you know someone who might be in their own wobbly middle, please send this to them. Knowing that they are on this road with others can help build momentum.

Want more from Patsy between episodes? Subscribe to the newsletter — it's where the conversation continues: https://thewobblymiddle.substack.com

New to The Wobbly Middle? Find out what we're all about: https://thewobblymiddle.substack.com/about

ABOUT THE PODCAST: Join recovering lawyer Patsy Day as she navigates her own midlife career crossroads in real time. The Wobbly Middle explores that moment when we recognise the restless feeling for what it is - returning ambition - and begin actively questioning our direction. It’s that in-between space where we know we want change but don’t know how to move forward.

Each season, Patsy sits down with women who share their career pivot stories about leaving corporate life and building businesses, breaking back in after career breaks, going back to study and taking their long-neglected dreams seriously.

In Season 4, she’s speaking to the women who changed direction in midlife to build the things that make our summers: the holidays we book, the books we read, the swimwear we brave, and the financial confidence to enjoy it.

These wise women tell us that clarity comes from doing and that readiness grows as you go. The message is: don’t wait to feel ready to begin. Dip in a toe and see where it leads.

SHARE YOUR STORY: Made a left turn in your career? We’d love to hear about it - your story might just be the nudge someone else needs. Email us at patsy@thewobblymiddle.com

FOLLOW US on Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook @thewobblymiddle

WATCH ON YouTube @thewobblymiddle

Thank you for listening and for supporting independent podcasts.

It's Baby Loss Awareness Week, and host Patsy Day tells the story of the unexplained stillbirth of her and her husband Wil's baby, Jack.

Patsy shares a piece she made at First Person Health, an audio storytelling workshop run by the award-winning journalist Golda Arthur, where people learn to tell the stories of their bodies and their health in their own words.

In her 40s, with children, work and a changing body, Patsy found that a loss she thought she had dealt with “pretty well at the time” had come rushing back tied up in anxiety affecting all aspects of her life, not least her working one.

In the piece, she goes back to Jack's paperwork, where the hospital letter shows no cause, and asks why stillbirth research is so underfunded.

If you or someone close to you has lost a baby at any stage, please take care as you listen.

About Golda Arthur and First Person Health

Golda Arthur has been an audio storyteller for 25 years, reporting and producing for organisations including the BBC and Vox Media. She runs her own production studio and hosts Overlooked: Women's Health Can't Wait which features immersive personal storytelling and in-depth conversations about women’s health.

Her First Person Health workshop teaches people to tell their health stories in their own words, and each participant comes away with a professionally produced audio piece.

Links

• Overlooked: Women's Health Can't Wait: https://overlookedpod.com/
• Sands, the stillbirth and neonatal death charity: https://www.sands.org.uk/support-you
• Donate to Sands during Baby Loss Awareness Week: https://tinyurl.com/SANDS-Charity
• This American Life "One Last Thing Before I Go": https://www.thisamericanlife.org/702/one-last-thing-before-i-go/act-one-7

If you need support

The Sands helpline is free for anyone affected by the death of a baby. Call 0808 164 3332 or email helpline@sands.org.uk or go to their website: https://www.sands.org.uk/support-you

The Wave of Light

On Thursday 15 October, families around the world light a candle at 7pm local time, in memory of all babies who have died. As 7pm reaches each time zone, the candles make a wave of light that travels around the world.

ABOUT THE PODCAST: Join recovering lawyer Patsy Day as she navigates her own midlife career crossroads in real time. The Wobbly Middle explores that moment when we recognise the restless feeling for what it is - returning ambition - and begin actively questioning our direction. It’s that in-between space where we know we want change but don’t know how to move forward.

Each season, Patsy sits down with women who share their career pivot stories about leaving corporate life and building businesses, breaking back in after career breaks, going back to study and taking their long-neglected dreams seriously.

In Season 4, she’s speaking to the women who changed direction in midlife to build the things that make our summers: the holidays we book, the books we read, the swimwear we brave, and the financial confidence to enjoy it.

These wise women tell us that clarity comes from doing and that readiness grows as you go. The message is: don’t wait to feel ready to begin. Dip in a toe and see where it leads.

SHARE YOUR STORY: Made a left turn in your career? We’d love to hear about it - your story might just be the nudge someone else needs. Email us at patsy@thewobblymiddle.com

FOLLOW US on Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook @thewobblymiddle

WATCH ON YouTube @thewobblymiddle

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER: thewobblymiddle.substack.com

A midlife career change that began with perimenopause: Danni Hewson was an experienced BBC journalist who could take anything in her stride — until her body had other ideas.

Perimenopause slammed her in her thirties, the brain fog wearing her down and undermining her confidence on live television. So she made a plan, moving to the early-morning microphone of Radio Five Live's Wake Up to Money, where she could keep her notes in front of her.

Then Covid came, and with yet another restructure, the BBC were asking people to do even more with less. Danni finally made the call - and surprised herself more than anyone when it led her to the world of finance.

Now Head of Financial Analysis at AJBell, Danni talks to Patsy about her career crossroads, transferable skills and how to look differently at what you've spent years building up. They also get into money. Danni breaks down the gender pension gap, explains why women's financial journeys diverge from men's at age twenty-eight, and gives us a good push to show our pensions some love.

What We Cover

• How a chance meeting in a Mexican restaurant in Leicester led to a career in radio
• What local journalism gave Danni and what we lose as local newsrooms shrink
• Perimenopause in her late 30s and fighting to be believed
• The conversation that opened the door to AJ Bell
• Transferable skills: how to break down what you do every day into something someone else values
• The gender pension gap: why women’s financial contributions diverge from men’s at age 28
• What to actually do when you open those pension envelopes for the first time
• The snowball effect of compound interest and the benefits of combining pension pots
• Pension options for freelancers, the self-employed, and women not currently in work
• The Lifetime ISA: what it is, who it suits, and why it’s underused

Useful Links

• AJ Bell Money Matters: https://www.ajbell.co.uk/investment/women-and-investing?utm_source=moneymatters&utm_medium=partnership&utm_campaign=wobblymiddle
• Government Money Helper (pension guidance): https://www.moneyhelper.org.uk
• Check your State Pension forecast: https://www.gov.uk/check-state-pension

If You Enjoyed This Episode

If you enjoyed this episode, you might want to go back to two earlier conversations about leaving journalism behind:

• Helen Wright spent a decade as a broadcast journalist before redundancy — while pregnant — pushed her to build something entirely her own: Nine to Three, a recruitment agency for women looking for flexible work; and
• Aundrea Cline-Thomas, a three-time Emmy-winning journalist, left the newsroom to found Mountain Court Media and The Rewrite, a platform helping media professionals find their next chapter. Both are well worth your time.

Coming up: Lisa Logan, who went from practising law to composing opera. I promise that is exactly as surprising and wonderful as it sounds.

Help Us Grow

If this episode resonated with you, the best thing you can do is tell one person about it. Word of mouth is how independent podcasts like this one find their audience.

You can also:

• Leave a review on Apple / Spotify — it takes two minutes and makes a real difference
• Subscribe to our newsletter: https://thewobblymiddle.substack.com?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=show_notes&utm_campaign=ep38-danni-hewson

Find out more about The Wobbly Middle:

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-wobbly-middle/id1767850643?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=show_notes&utm_campaign=ep38-danni-hewson

One night Wendy Welpton woke up in agony. She was a fit and healthy runner who had always taken good care of herself. Four years of chronic pain followed, with no clear answer from anyone on how to fix herself.

What eventually changed things was a book, a lot of reading, and going back to study in midlife: first anatomy and physiology, then a movement certification. Out of that came Reclaim Movement and her book, Move Well For Life.

This a conversation about noticing the signs and about making changes through small shifts.

Links

Read: Move Well For Life: Unlock the life-changing power of everyday movement by Wendy Welpton

Wendy also mentioned: The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma by Bessel Van Der Kolk

Visit Reclaim Movement's website here.

Key Topics

• Reaching a career crossroads in midlife without choosing it
• A maternity leave career gap, and three or four senior interviews that ended in a quick no
• Keeping an entrepreneurial drive alive at home: knee patches, a wellbeing business, and a park campaign that raised £50,000
• Career change after injury, and what four years of chronic pain does to your sense of the future
• Going back to study in midlife
• Retraining in midlife when you have no formal background in the field
• What natural movement actually means, and the other fifteen hours of the day
• Why the body is at its best moving frequently and through its ranges
• Building a business on Instagram, and what happens when a reel goes viral
• Small steps, trial and error, and building confidence through action
• Second career after children: turning a personal problem into a business

More from The Wobbly Middle

The Wobbly Middle on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-wobbly-middle/id1767850643

The Wobbly Middle on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4YhwsBch8Q9vAOUBBfusIv

Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thewobblymiddle.substack.com?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=show_notes&utm_campaign=ep37-wendy-welpton

New to The Wobbly Middle? Find out what we're about: https://thewobblymiddle.substack.com/about?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=show_notes&utm_campaign=ep37-wendy-welpton

If You Enjoyed This Episode

If you enjoyed it, I'd recommend going back to Season 1 for our conversation with menopause doctors Susanne Hooper and Mel Hacking. Or, if you're exploring how to find your purpose, then the episodes with teacher turned psychologist Carri Simmons, and former CEO to hypnotherapist Heather Makepeace will certainly nourish you.

Help Us Grow

If this episode resonated with you, here are two ways you can make a real difference:

Leave a review here — it only takes a moment, and it's one of the best ways to help new listeners find the show. Every review counts.

Share this episode with a friend — if you know someone who might be at a midlife career crossroads, please send this to them. Knowing that they are on this road with others can help build momentum.

Thank you for listening and for supporting independent podcasts.

Share Your Story

Made a left turn in your career? We'd love to hear about it. Write to Patsy at patsy@thewobblymiddle.com, Your story might just be the nudge someone else needs.

About The Host

Join lawyer Patsy Day as she navigates her own midlife career crossroads in real time. A penny dropped for her when she realised that the restless feeling she'd been having was returning ambition, and she began actively questioning her direction. The Wobbly Middle is that in-between space where we know we want change but don't know how to move forward.

Each season, Patsy sits down with women who share their career pivot stories — leaving corporate life and building businesses, breaking back in after career breaks, going back to study, and taking their long-neglected dreams seriously.

In Season 4, she's speaking to the women who changed direction in midlife to build the things that make our summers: the holidays we book, the books we read, the swimwear we brave, and the financial confidence to enjoy it.

This episode was produced by Patsy Day. Studio recording by The Pod Collective.

How do you turn a conversation into a £68m turnover business? Helen Cannon started a managed travel co in her late 30s (with five children at home!) off the back of a conversation in a restaurant. While the whole industry was pushing clients onto booking tools and stripping out the human contact, Helen saw that her ability to build good, lasting relationships would set Ison Travel apart.

In a little over a decade, Helen has grown Ison into a super-scaler operating across five countries, with a workforce that is 70% women. Within that, 25% are over 55, and 5% over 65.

We discuss Helen’s people-first, tech-second philosophy and building a high-growth business on the basis of a flexible working, part-time workforce.

Helen shares precious insights into what’s holding women founders back from scaling their businesses and how we all need to be 1-% braver.

She also reflects on how the pandemic, which paralysed the travel industry, became the inflection point on which ISON took flight.

Listen to bolster your entrepreneurial resolve and to help you be a little braver.

The Wobbly Middle is a podcast for women rethinking their careers in midlife. New episodes every other Tuesday.

Key Topics

Starting a business in midlife — middle-to-late thirties, five children, a six-month-old, and the realisation that no employer was going to be able to cope with her life

Flexible working — hiring on ability rather than hours or postcode, job shares, school hours, and part-timers who became full-timers as their children grew

Female founders — how female-founded businesses deliver higher returns and why women should not be scared to knock on the doors

Scaling up — inflection points, the multiplier effect past £10 million, and why each step gets bigger rather than simply doubling

10% braver — a philosophy that can mean building a company or can mean getting out of bed and taking one small step

Purpose before profit — "you can't have profit without purpose", and changing the workplace for good

Trusting your gut — "your gut instincts are your guardian angels", and asking what's the worst that can happen

Links

ISON Travel: https://isontravel.com

The SuperScalers: https://www.superscalers.world — Sam Smith's programme for female founders scaling their businesses, which Helen discusses in the episode

Everywoman: https://www.everywoman.com

The Women's Chapter: https://womenschapter.com

More from The Wobbly Middle

The Wobbly Middle on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-wobbly-middle/id1767850643

The Wobbly Middle on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4YhwsBch8Q9vAOUBBfusIv

Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thewobblymiddle.substack.com?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=show_notes&utm_campaign=ep36-helen-cannon

Find out more about The Wobbly Middle: https://thewobblymiddle.substack.com/about?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=show_notes&utm_campaign=ep36-helen-cannon

If You Enjoyed This Episode

We've had other extraordinary female founders who have built boldly. Listen to Debbie Wosskow OBE (Season 1), who has founded and exited multiple businesses, and Rachael Newton (Season 2), a hedge fund lawyer who walked away to found period care company, Nixit.

Help Us Grow

If this episode resonated with you, here are two ways you can make a real difference:

Leave a review here — it only takes a moment, and it's one of the best ways to help new listeners find the show. Every review counts.

Share this episode with a friend — if you know someone who might be at a midlife career crossroads, please send this to them. Knowing that they are on this road with others can help build momentum.

Thank you for listening and for supporting independent podcasts.

Share Your Story

Made a left turn in your career? We'd love to hear about it. Write to Patsy at patsy@thewobblymiddle.com, Your story might just be the nudge someone else needs.

About The Host

Join lawyer Patsy Day as she navigates her own midlife career crossroads in real time. A penny dropped for her when she realised that the restless feeling she'd been having was returning ambition, and she began actively questioning her direction. The Wobbly Middle is that in-between space where we know we want change but don't know how to move forward.

Each season, Patsy sits down with women who share their career pivot stories — leaving corporate life and building businesses, breaking back in after career breaks, going back to study, and taking their long-neglected dreams seriously.

In Season 4, she's speaking to the women who changed direction in midlife to build the things that make our summers: the holidays we book, the books we read, the swimwear we brave, and the financial confidence to enjoy it.

This episode was produced by Patsy Day. Studio recording by The Pod Collective.

After over a decade in the family business, Heather took the painful decision to close its doors and change careers. The decision was long in the making but the relief was quick in flooding her senses. Now in her 40s, Heather retrained as a hypnotherapist, starting from scratch with zero clients and, in her words, imposter syndrome through the roof.

Propelled by her purpose-led approach, Heather now works with everyone from burnt-out professionals to Comrades ultramarathon runners.

In this episode Heather and Patsy talk about what hypnotherapy actually is (nothing to do with being made to cluck like a chicken); they pop the lid on confidence issues; and discuss how a purpose-led life gives you something to navigate by when you're at a career crossroads or the imposter voice starts up.

Links

You can find Heather at https://mindofpeacehypno.com/

Heather's Book recommendation for practical tools to work out your own purpose: There Is a Reason You Are Here by Gavin Lund.

If You Enjoyed This Episode

You might also love The Wobbly Middle Episode with investigative wellness journalist, Rebecca Newman, on the neuroscience of action boards (Season 3).

We've also been lucky enough to have other remarkable South African women on the show, like Carri Simmons, who left teaching to retrain as a clinical psychologist. and Donna Crous — a stay-at-home mum and self-taught photographer who became Nikon's first-ever food photography ambassador. Both conversations are well worth going back for. Until next time.

Help Us Grow

If this episode resonated with you, here are two ways you can make a real difference:

Leave a review here. It only takes a moment, and it's one of the best ways to help new listeners find the show. Every review counts.

Share this episode with a friend. If you know someone who might be in their own wobbly middle, please send this to them. Knowing that they are on this road with others can help build momentum.

Want more from Patsy between episodes? Subscribe to the newsletter — it's where the conversation continues: https://thewobblymiddle.substack.com?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=show_notes&utm_campaign=ep35-heather-makepeace

New to The Wobbly Middle? Find out what we're all about:https://thewobblymiddle.substack.com/about?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=show_notes&utm_campaign=ep35-heather-makepeace

Thank you for listening and for supporting independent podcasts.

“From the very earliest point of your career, you're building a wonderful mental Rolodex of people who might roll into any future part of your life, and I could've been more confident with that.” Dolly Jones, former editor of vogue.com, now an author building a portfolio career, reassures and encourages those of us at a career crossroads to get in touch with old friends and colleagues for encouragement and guidance.

For twelve years Dolly Jones ran vogue.com, at exactly the moment the fashion world looked most like The Devil Wears Prada. When she returned to work after her first baby, she was ready to go but could not find a roadmap to help her navigate the way forward.

That experience became Leaving the Ladder Down: How to Combine Career and Motherhood, from the Women Who’ve Done It, a book built on the voices of women who’ve made it work, and on the euphoria of working parenthood that needs to be celebrated.

In this episode Dolly and Patsy talk about returning to work; the confidence to say “this is my livelihood” when it comes to money; women’s professional networks and why building your network in midlife is less daunting than it sounds; and the bedtime trick a therapist gave Dolly for quietening the voices in your head.

About Dolly Jones

Dolly Jones is a journalist and digital strategist who edited British Vogue’s digital platforms running vogue.com before being promoted to Content & Strategy Director across Condé Nast’s wider portfolio. She left Condé Nast in 2018 after two decades to set up her own consultancy. Her debut book, Leaving the Ladder Down: How to Combine Career and Motherhood, from the Women Who’ve Done It, was published by 4th Estate. She is a trustee of Advance, a charity supporting women and young people affected by domestic abuse, and a primary school governor.

Links

• Leaving the Ladder Down: https://www.4thestate.co.uk/products/leaving-the-ladder-down-dolly-jones-9780008431402/ — Dolly’s book, published by 4th Estate
• Also mentioned: Julia Samuel, psychotherapist; June Angelides, venture capitalist
• Dolly’s summer read: The Correspondent by Virginia Evans

Where to Follow Dolly Jones

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dolly-jones/
• Instagram: @dolly_jones

If You Enjoyed This Episode

You might also love our episode Books and Chocolate with Georgina Atwell (Season 4). Georgina was made redundant while on maternity leave and built two book businesses from her kitchen table.

Find out more about The Wobbly Middle:

The Wobbly Middle is a podcast for women rethinking their careers in midlife. New episodes are released every other Tuesday.

You can find out more on our Substack page: https://thewobblymiddle.substack.com/about?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=show_notes&utm_campaign=ep34-dolly-jones

Subscribe to our newsletter: https://thewobblymiddle.substack.com?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=show_notes&utm_campaign=ep34-dolly-jones

Help Us Grow

If this episode resonated with you, here are two ways you can make a real difference:

Leave a review here — it only takes a moment, and it's one of the best ways to help new listeners find the show. Every review counts.

Share this episode with a friend— if you know someone who might be in their own wobbly middle, please send this to them. Knowing that they are on this road with others can help build momentum.

Share Your Story

Made a left turn in your career? We'd love to hear about it. Write to Patsy at patsy@thewobblymiddle.com — your story might just be the nudge someone else needs.

About The Host

Join recovering lawyer Patsy Day as she navigates her own midlife career crossroads in real time. A penny dropped for her when she realised that the restless feeling she'd been having was returning ambition, and she began actively questioning her direction. The Wobbly Middle is that in-between space where we know we want change but don't know how to move forward.

Each season, Patsy sits down with women who share their career pivot stories — leaving corporate life and building businesses, breaking back in after career breaks, going back to study, and taking their long-neglected dreams seriously.

In Season 4, she's speaking to the women who changed direction in midlife to build the things that make our summers: the holidays we book, the books we read, the swimwear we brave, and the financial confidence to enjoy it.

This episode was produced by Patsy Day. Studio recording by The Pod Collective.

Values-led and commercially minded Georgina Atwell turned a career crossroads moment and her knowledge of the publishing industry into two book businesses that give back.

Georgina grew up with chocolate and books running through her veins — a family chocolate business on one side, a lifelong love of reading on the other. She spent eight happy years at Penguin, then was made redundant while on maternity leave.

From her kitchen table she built Toppsta, a platform where children recommend books to each other, now home to more than 160,000 reviews. She did it on a shoestring: starting on Facebook, teaching herself newsletters, social media and the "dark art" of SEO from an online course.

Now Georgina has launched Readerama, a second-hand books marketplace that channels funds back into authors, festivals and schools. Listen for her advice on starting something new, building businesses on a shoestring, the power of SEO and, of course, our best 2026 summer reads.

If you enjoyed his episode:

Make sure you follow us so you don't miss our episode with Wendy Welpton who tells us how she used social media to build her Reclaim Movement Programme.

You might also love The Accidental Influencer: Hut-to-Hut Hikes, Night Trains and Going Viral with Bea Searle (Season 4). Like Georgina, travel blogger Bea built an online business from scratch around something she genuinely loved.

Links

Toppsta: https://toppsta.com/

Readerama: https://readerama.com/

Georgina Atwell: https://www.linkedin.com/in/georginaatwell/

Find out more about The Wobbly Middle:

The Wobbly Middle is a podcast for women rethinking their careers in midlife. New episodes are released every other Tuesday.

You can find out more on our Substack page: https://thewobblymiddle.substack.com/about?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=show_notes&utm_campaign=ep32-bea-searle

Subscribe to our newsletter: https://thewobblymiddle.substack.com?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=show_notes&utm_campaign=ep32-bea-searle

The Wobbly Middle on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-wobbly-middle/id1767850643

The Wobbly Middle on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4YhwsBch8Q9vAOUBBfusIv

Help Us Grow

If this episode resonated with you, here are two ways you can make a real difference:

Leave a review here — it only takes a moment, and it's one of the best ways to help new listeners find the show. Every review counts.

Share this episode with a friend— if you know someone who might be in their own wobbly middle, please send this to them. Knowing that they are on this road with others can help build momentum.

Share Your Story

Made a left turn in your career? We'd love to hear about it. Write to Patsy at patsy@thewobblymiddle.com — your story might just be the nudge someone else needs.

About The Host

Join recovering lawyer Patsy Day as she navigates her own midlife career crossroads in real time. A penny dropped for her when she realised that the restless feeling she'd been having was returning ambition, and she began actively questioning her direction. The Wobbly Middle is that in-between space where we know we want change but don't know how to move forward.

Each season, Patsy sits down with women who share their career pivot stories — leaving corporate life and building businesses, breaking back in after career breaks, going back to study, and taking their long-neglected dreams seriously.

In Season 4, she's speaking to the women who changed direction in midlife to build the things that make our summers: the holidays we book, the books we read, the swimwear we brave, and the financial confidence to enjoy it.

This episode was produced by Patsy Day. Studio recording by The Pod Collective.

Travel blog income, going viral on Instagram and hut-to-hut hiking with kids - Bea Searle turned school holiday travel into a midlife career.

Bea Searle has never quite known what she wanted to do but she is totally at ease with that. A part-qualified accountant who escaped the Big Four, she worked in top-end travel until her second child made the five-week India trips impossible. In lockdown, she started a travel blog, Wild Bee Outdoors, for the joy of it but as the world opened up so she left it go.

Eighteen months ago she restarted it properly - an SEO course, a rebuilt website, a focus on train travel in Europe and the adventures she and her kids actually do. Then one post about an independent trip to Finland went viral, and 1,000 Instagram followers became 54,000 in a week.

This is about travel as joy rather than logistics, hut-to-hut hiking in the Dolomites, cycling Austria's river paths on a Haribo economy and how an "accidental influencer" is now replacing her old salary by virtue of the freedom of her blog.

If you know a lot about something, Bea's advice is simple: just start.

BONUS EPISODE WITH BEA: For members of The Wobbly Middle Club over on Substack, there's a bonus episode (release date: 8 July 2026) where Bea gets into the nuts and bolts of blogging: why she chose WordPress as her blog building platform, engagement differs from Facebook to Insta to Pinterest, and how ad income actually works on a blog.

Bea also shares the details of that SEO course that changed things for her.

More about Bea Searle

Bea Searle of Wild Bee Outdoors is a family travel blogger specialising in active, sensible-budget European adventures — hut-to-hut hiking, multi-day cycle routes and train travel with kids. A former Deloitte accountant and luxury tour operator, she restarted her lockdown blog eighteen months ago, went viral on Instagram in January, and is now replacing her former part-time salary with income from her blog and brand partnerships.

Key Topics

• From Deloitte to the departures board— scraping the accountancy exams, the Big Four's "half day" culture at 6:30pm, and why Bea has never regretted leaving a job
• The lockdown blog that became a business — restarting with an SEO course, affiliate links and brand partnerships, and what travel blog income really looks like (one kids' hiking backpack sold a day)
• Going viral on Instagram — 1,000 to 54,000 followers in a week, the freak-out about her kids' faces, and her husband's billboard advice
• School holiday travel her kids can actually do — hut-to-hut hiking at the Tre Cime in the Dolomites, Austria's traffic-free Radweg cycle paths, and a snack-per-kilometre ratio powered by Haribo

Find out more about The Wobbly Middle:

The Wobbly Middle is a podcast for women rethinking their careers in midlife. New episodes are released every other Tuesday.

You can find out more on our Substack page: https://thewobblymiddle.substack.com/about?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=show_notes&utm_campaign=ep32-bea-searle

Subscribe to our newsletter: https://thewobblymiddle.substack.com?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=show_notes&utm_campaign=ep32-bea-searle

The Wobbly Middle on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-wobbly-middle/id1767850643

The Wobbly Middle on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4YhwsBch8Q9vAOUBBfusIv

Help Us Grow

If this episode resonated with you, here are two ways you can make a real difference:

Leave a review here — it only takes a moment, and it's one of the best ways to help new listeners find the show. Every review counts.

Share this episode with a friend— if you know someone who might be in their own wobbly middle, please send this to them. Knowing that they are on this road with others can help build momentum.

Share Your Story

Made a left turn in your career? We'd love to hear about it. Write to Patsy at patsy@thewobblymiddle.com — your story might just be the nudge someone else needs.

About The Host

Join recovering lawyer Patsy Day as she navigates her own midlife career crossroads in real time. A penny dropped for her when she realised that the restless feeling she'd been having was returning ambition, and she began actively questioning her direction. The Wobbly Middle is that in-between space where we know we want change but don't know how to move forward.

Each season, Patsy sits down with women who share their career pivot stories — leaving corporate life and building businesses, breaking back in after career breaks, going back to study, and taking their long-neglected dreams seriously.

In Season 4, she's speaking to the women who changed direction in midlife to build the things that make our summers: the holidays we book, the books we read, the swimwear we brave, and the financial confidence to enjoy it.

This episode was produced by Patsy Day. Studio recording by The Pod Collective.

Rita King is a Legendary Siren - a mermaid at Florida's Weeki Wachee Springs - who returned to the water after a whole working life away. She first performed in the famous mermaid shows as a teenager in the late 1960s, then raised a family, taking the sensible route to pay the bills. But the pull to the water never faded.

When she retired from the US Postal Service at 60, Rita retrained at mermaid school and waited four years for a place among the Legendary Sirens to open up. Now she runs adult mermaid camps for women who come from all over.

This Season 4 opener is about intrinsic motivation and reclaiming the part of yourself you set aside. Have you drifted from something you once loved?

THE WOBBLY MIDDLE is a podcast for women rethinking their careers in midlife. Each season, Patsy sits down with women who share their career pivot stories — leaving corporate life and building businesses, breaking back in after career breaks, going back to study, and taking their long-neglected dreams seriously.

New episodes every other Tuesday.

ABOUT THE HOST: Patsy Day is a recovering lawyer navigating her own midlife career crossroads. A penny dropped for her when she realised that the restless feeling she'd been feeling was returning ambition. The Wobbly Middle is that in-between space where we know we want change but don't know how to move forward.

IF YOU ENJOYED THIS EPISODE:

You might also love our episode on how to make an action board: Pin It To Win It: The Neuroscience of Action Boards with Rebecca Newman (Season 3, Episode 2). If Rita's story is about honouring a wish or a dream you've held inside you and finally going for it; the Rebecca's is about the science of holding that wish in front of you and acting on it.

It's an opportunity to be playful, to cut and stick and to start.

Links

Where to find out about mermaid camps at Weeki Wachee Springs, Florida — :https://weekiwachee.com/

Find out more about The Wobbly Middle:

The Wobbly Middle on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-wobbly-middle/id1767850643

https://thewobblymiddle.substack.com/about?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=show_notes&utm_campaign=ep31-rita-king

Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thewobblymiddle.substack.com?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=show_notes&utm_campaign=ep31-rita-king

TIME STAMPS

- 02:30 — Becoming a mermaid in the late '60s and the magnetic pull to the water

- 03:30 — Mermaid myths: custodians of the springs, manatees, and Columbus

- 04:30 — Inside Weeki Wachee: the aquifer, the current, the underwater caverns

- 06:00 — What it's really like to swim in a mermaid tail

- 07:00 — "It spoiled me for any other job" and the rural swamp mail route

- 07:50 — Going back to mermaid school: the four-year wait to become a Legendary Siren

- 09:00 — The performance schedule and underwater safety for the young swimmers

- 09:40 — Conservation: algae blooms, chemicals, and 17 springs that dried up

- 10:00 — Adult mermaid camps: who comes, and how the women transform

- 13:50 — The bond between the mermaids, across every age

- 15:00 — Inspiring women of every age and size from the theatre

- 17:40 — "How do I find the water baby in me again?"

- 18:30 — Soul-searching, determination, and how badly you want it

- 22:30 — What the little girl driven to Weeki Wachee would think now

- 23:50 — Advice to her younger self: "Be more patient"

- 24:00 — Season 4 preview: the women who bring us the sunshine

HELP US GROW

If this episode resonated with you, there are two simple things that make a real difference:

• Leave a review on Apple Podcasts — it only takes a moment, and it's one of the best ways to help new listeners find the show. Every review counts.
• Share this episode with a friend — if you know someone who might be in their own wobbly middle, send them this one. Sometimes knowing you're not alone is all it takes.

SHARE YOUR STORY

Made a left turn in your career? We'd love to hear about it. Write to Patsy at patsy@thewobblymiddle.com — your story might just be the nudge someone else needs.

This episode was produced by Patsy Day. Studio recording by The Pod Collective.

For women rethinking their careers in midlife, Season 4 of The Wobbly Middle is here and this summer it belongs to the women who bring us the sunshine.

The holiday you book. The book you pack. The swimwear you brave. The financial confidence to enjoy it.

Host Patsy Day speaks to women who have navigated a career crossroads in midlife and gone on to build businesses, solve overlooked problems, or finally pursue long-neglected dreams. Like the mum of five who built a multi-million pound travel business and the US postal worker who went back to mermaid school in her 60s and now runs adult mermaid camps. There is also the Vogue editor leaving the ladder down for others to follow.

Season 4, the Summer Edit, drops Monday 22 June, then every second Tuesday.

Show Notes

Welcome to Season 4 of The Wobbly Middle — The Women Who Bring Us the Sunshine.

This is a podcast for women rethinking their careers in midlife - that in-between space where you know what you don't want to go back to, but haven't quite worked out the path forward. That's the wobbly middle.

If you're at a career crossroads in your 40s or 50s, wondering whether a midlife career move is still possible, please give our pod a listen. We speak to women who have changed direction, backed themselves, and built things when the market didn’t provide. Together, their stories make the case that that restless feeling we have (call it our returning ambition?) is… well…normal.

This season features:

Rita King — A US postal worker who returned to mermaid school, in her 60s, to become one of the legendary mermaids at Weeki Wachee Springs, Florida. (And she now runs the adult mermaid camps but hurry - they sell out soon).

Helen Cannon — A superscaler who started building the multimillion pound Ison Travel when her fifth babe was wee.

Bea Searle — The accidental influencer who became a go-to guide for families travelling Europe on a budget, and one of Cycling UK's 100 Women in Cycling 2025.

Dolly Jones — Former digital editor at Vogue.co.uk, Digital Strategy Director at Condé Nast, and author of Leaving the Ladder Down on what she learned and why she's determined to bring other women with her.

Danni Hewson — BBC business correspondent turned Head of Financial Analysis at AJ Bell. She swapped the newsroom for the analyst's chair to help make the world of finance more accessible for women.

Georgina Magnotta — She faced redundancy, then founded Toppsta, the UK's biggest children's book review platform. Now she's launching Readerama, a new home for second-hand books.

Sarah Jordan — Former Head of Digital Strategy at Oxfam, turned underwear entrepreneur and founder of Y.O.U Underwear. Purpose-led from the start.

New episodes drop every second Tuesday from 22 June 2026.

Help Us Grow

If The Wobbly Middle has ever made you feel less alone in your career thinking, please share it. Tell a friend who needs a little career sunshine this summer.

Leave us a review - it helps more women find us at their career crossroads

Subscribe to our newsletter for weekly inspiration between episodes:https://thewobblymiddle.substack.com/https://thewobblymiddle.substack.com/

Follow us @thewobblymiddle on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook and YouTube.

The Wobbly Middle is hosted and produced by Patsy Day. For press enquiries: press@thewobblymiddle.com

Executive MBA, going back to study as a mature student, and finding your tribe in midlife with Urmi Dutta-Roy (CFO, The Folio Society) and Louise Welch (ex-PlayStation, now working fractionally) are executive MBA alumnae and good friends.

In this conversation they talk about the difficulty women have creating space to investing in themselves; about stepping away from the nine-to-five, and how "the 100 year life" changes our attitudes towards learning and the shape of our careers. They are honest about the trade-offs (financial, practical, emotional) and the rewards too of going back to study: community, confidence, a lens on the world that a job title alone will never give you.

If you are feeling a career plateau, wondering whether it's too late to go back to study, or simply looking for your tribe in the wobbly middle, listen listen listen.

THE WOBBLY MIDDLE is a podcast for women rethinking their careers in midlife. Each season, Patsy sits down with women who share their career pivot stories — leaving corporate life and building businesses, breaking back in after career breaks, going back to study, and taking their long-neglected dreams seriously.

New episodes every other Tuesday.

ABOUT THE HOST: Patsy Day is a recovering lawyer navigating her own midlife career crossroads. A penny dropped for her when she realised that the restless feeling she'd been feeling was returning ambition. The Wobbly Middle is that in-between space where we know we want change but don't know how to move forward.

THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS AJ BELL

Thank you to AJ Bell Money Matters for supporting this episode. The AJ Bell Money Matters podcast is created for women by women, featuring news, information and inspiring interviews to help build your knowledge and confidence around finances. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

Please click here to show your support and find out more about AJ Bell: https://www.ajbell.co.uk/investment/women-and-investing?utm_source=moneymatters&utm_medium=partnership&utm_campaign=wobblymiddle

Key Topics

Executive MBA for women — why Urmi and Louise did theirs, the financial and time trade-offs, and why women in their cohorts had to work harder to justify the space

Permission to succeed — the internal and external negotiation women do before investing in themselves, and why men in the same room didn't seem to need to

Going back to study as a mature student — the joy of learning for its own sake when you are no longer 19 and chasing a grade

Fractional working — what it looks like, why society struggles to classify it, and why "what do you do?" is a rubbish question we should start relishing

Identity beyond job title — Louise on the first day of her MBA cohort, watching everyone introduce themselves by job title, and realising she didn't want to

Women in male-dominated industries— Louise on gaming in the early 2000s, and the message younger women absorbed that to succeed you had to "be like a man"

Asking for help — Louise on unlearning the baby-boomer "keep your head down" mentality, and discovering that most people want to help

Links

- The Wobbly Middle on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-wobbly-middle/id1767850643

- The Wobbly Middle on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4YhwsBch8Q9vAOUBBfusIv

- Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thewobblymiddle.substack.com?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=show_notes&utm_campaign=ep29-urmi-louise

- Find out more about The Wobbly Middle: https://thewobblymiddle.substack.com/about?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=show_notes&utm_campaign=ep29-urmi-louise

If You Enjoyed This Episode

You might also love Season 3 Episode 8 Shefaly Yogendra, another conversation about non-linear careers, portfolio working and the gatekeepers women meet in midlife. If this episode made you think about what your next chapter might look like beyond a traditional job title, Shefaly's boardroom journey is the natural next listen.

HELP US GROW

If this episode resonated with you, there are two simple things that make a real difference:

• Leave a review on Apple Podcasts — it only takes a moment, and it's one of the best ways to help new listeners find the show. Every review counts.
• Share this episode with a friend — if you know someone who might be in their own wobbly middle, send them this one. Sometimes knowing you're not alone is all it takes.

SHARE YOUR STORY

Made a left turn in your career? We'd love to hear about it. Write to Patsy at patsy@thewobblymiddle.com — your story might just be the nudge someone else needs.

This episode was produced by Patsy Day. Studio recording by The Pod Collective.

Thank you for listening and for supporting independent podcasts.

Non-linear careers, midlife career change and what it takes to walk into a boardroom. Shefaly Yogendra - engineer, Cambridge PhD, portfolio board director and author of Uncharted Spaces: Reset the Agenda. Reimagine the Boardroomhttps://uk.bookshop.org/a/16913/9781788608770- joins Patsy on her book’s launch day.

Curiosity and patience are the golden threads running through Shefaly's life, and in this episode they take us from beehives in rural Kenya to onion warehouses in India, by way of a black cab in London.

If you’re at a career crossroads, feeling returning ambition, or quietly reimagining what a second act looks like, listen as together they unpack metacognitive reflections that will help you carry your capabilities into the next chapter.

THE WOBBLY MIDDLE is a podcast for women rethinking their careers in midlife. Each season, Patsy sits down with women who share their career pivot stories — leaving corporate life and building businesses, breaking back in after career breaks, going back to study, and taking their long-neglected dreams seriously.

New episodes every other Tuesday.

ABOUT THE HOST: Patsy Day is a recovering lawyer navigating her own midlife career crossroads. A penny dropped for her when she realised that the restless feeling she'd been feeling was returning ambition. The Wobbly Middle is that in-between space where we know we want change but don't know how to move forward.

THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS AJ BELL

Thank you to AJ Bell Money Matters for supporting this episode. The AJ Bell Money Matters podcast is created for women by women featuring news, information and inspiring interviews to help build your knowledge and confidence around finances. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

Please click here to show support of our podcast and to find out more about AJ Bell:

https://www.ajbell.co.uk/investment/women-and-investing?utm_source=moneymatters&utm_medium=partnership&utm_campaign=wobblymiddle

Listener Exercise — Channel Shefaly’s Curiosity

Over the next week or two, take something you’re chewing over — a challenge, a direction, a problem, a decision. Make a list of questions about it. Then drill down: what further questions do you need to ask to find the answers to those questions? In the next episode, we’ll think about what to do with them.

About Shefaly Yogendra

Shefaly studied engineering, earned an MBA from one of India’s most prestigious business schools, completed a PhD in decision making (and a Masters in Technology Policy) at Cambridge. Over the last decade she has served on the boards of several of the UK’s leading listed investment trusts, co-founded a luxury-tech startup, and been COO of an AI company. Her book Uncharted Spaces: Reset the Agenda. Reimagine the Boardroomhttps://uk.bookshop.org/a/16913/9781788608770publishes on 14 April 2026.

Key Topics

• The non-linear career — why Shefaly’s path through engineering, MBA, Cambridge PhD, MIT, a luxury-tech startup, an AI COO role and a portfolio of board seats was never going to be a straight line
• Returning ambition in midlife — the women who step away in their 30s and 40s and still carry their curiosity with them
• Curiosity and patience — two qualities that don’t seem to sit together until they do
• The board director career path — what non-execs actually do, how it differs from the executive suite, and why it isn’t a retirement gig or a “jolly”
• How Shefaly broke in — spotting the Board Apprentice Programme in a Sunday newspaper in 2015, being coached by headhunter Carol Rosati, and the interview where her small talk about Uber became big talk
• Metacognitive reflection — how to describe the higher-level capabilities that actually travel with you
• The psychological shift — detaching your identity from a job title and a company name
• Margaret Wanjiku’s Smart Hive — a young Kenyan engineer using IoT, solar panels and mobile phones to save collapsing beehives, and the ecosystem around them
• Kalyani Shinde’s onion warehouses — IoT sensing to catch rot before anyone can smell it, in Asia’s largest onion trading hub
• Belief as the biggest limiter — Sam Smith of Super Scalers on what holds women back from scaling, and why seeing other women do it matters
• The road not taken — Robert Frost only offered two roads. Shefaly thinks there are many — and many more uncharted ones

📺 Also on YouTube

Want to see as well as hear? An extended version of this conversation will be available on The Wobbly Middle YouTube channel — including extra material that didn't make the podcast edit. Watch it here: https://youtu.be/vvifAdOQ2os?si=XnVjDhJhWDndrkYY

HELP US GROW

If this episode resonated with you, there are two simple things that make a real difference:

• Leave a review on Apple Podcasts — it only takes a moment, and it's one of the best ways to help new listeners find the show. Every review counts.
• Share this episode with a friend — if you know someone who might be in their own wobbly middle, send them this one. Sometimes knowing you're not alone is all it takes.

SHARE YOUR STORY

Made a left turn in your career? We'd love to hear about it. Write to Patsy at patsy@thewobblymiddle.com — your story might just be the nudge someone else needs.

This episode was produced by Patsy Day. Studio recording by The Pod Collective.

Modelling, Motherhood and the Microbiome | Catherine Hurley Arbibe on Gut Health & Investigative Wellness Journalist Rebecca Newman

From behind the scenes at the world's biggest fashion shows to the science behind the gut microbiome - Catherine Hurley Arbibe shows us a new road to gut health.

Catherine read medicine at Oxford, modelled internationally gracing the covers of Vogue, Marie Claire and Cosmo, and is now the founder of NEWROAD30, a gut health supplement developed with scientists from Oxford, INRAE Paris and Queen's University Belfast. Catherine talks candidly about the reality of life as an international model, what motherhood changed, and how she found her way back to science.

Together with guest co-host and investigative wellness journalist Rebecca Newman, Catherine helps us cut through the noise on gut health supplements, the emerging research on microplastics and three clean living changes that actually make a difference - including the sunscreen question we all need answered.

This is an episode about returning to ours roots, career changes in our 40s, plant diversity, our beautiful brains and finding our way back to something that energises us.

THE WOBBLY MIDDLE is a podcast for women rethinking their careers in midlife. Each season, Patsy sits down with women who share their career pivot stories — leaving corporate life and building businesses, breaking back in after career breaks, going back to study, and taking their long-neglected dreams seriously.

New episodes every other Tuesday.

ABOUT THE HOST: Patsy Day is a recovering lawyer navigating her own midlife career crossroads. A penny dropped for her when she realised that the restless feeling she'd been feeling was returning ambition. The Wobbly Middle is that in-between space where we know we want change but don't know how to move forward.

THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS AJ BELL

Thank you to AJ Bell Money Matters for supporting this episode. The AJ Bell Money Matters podcast is created for women by women featuring news, information and inspiring interviews to help build your knowledge and confidence around finances. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

Please click here to show support of our podcast and to find out more about AJ Bell:

https://www.ajbell.co.uk/investment/women-and-investing?utm_source=moneymatters&utm_medium=partnership&utm_campaign=wobblymiddle

📺 Also on YouTube

Want to see as well as hear? An extended version of this conversation is available on The Wobbly Middle YouTube channel — including extra material that didn't make the podcast edit. Watch it here: https://youtu.be/vvifAdOQ2os?si=XnVjDhJhWDndrkYY

Guest Co-Host: Rebecca Newman

Rebecca Newman is an investigative wellness journalist who has written for the Financial Times, The Guardian and GQ. She has a particular interest in the science of the gut microbiome, women's health and evidence-based wellness. She joined Patsy for The Wobbly Middle's vision board episode and is back this week to dig into the science with Catherine.

Key Topics

• Career pivot in midlife — from medicine to modelling to founding a science-backed gut health supplement
• The gut microbiome — why it matters more than we realised and how to support it
• The American Gut Project — the research behind eating 30 different plants a week
• Gut health supplements — what to look for, what to avoid, and why food state matters
• Microplastics — the emerging research and what fibre has to do with it
• The backstage reality — what life at the top of the modelling world was really like
• Clean living edits — three practical changes Catherine has made at home
• Women's health in midlife — plant diversity for a healthy gut

Links

• NEWROAD30: https://newroad.life/?srsltid=AfmBOoo5nHDwZ8p4mpgOQDPPP_osOT6LynaaMgrt7pC48nSCMGHKu00Y
• Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thewobblymiddle.substack.com/
• Find out more about The Wobbly Middle: https://thewobblymiddle.substack.com/
• The Wobbly Middle on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-wobbly-middle/id1767850643
• The Wobbly Middle on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4YhwsBch8Q9vAOUBBfusIv

Time to make your action board

🎯 Time To Make Your Action Board

Before you leave — if this episode has you thinking about what you want your next chapter to look like, we have just the episode for you.

Do action boards actually work, or are they just arts and crafts with ambition? In our vision board episode, Rebecca Newman draws on the research of neuroscientist Dr Tara Swart, author of The Source, to explain what's really going on in our brains when we make an action board — and why it might be exactly the tool you need in your wobbly middle. Then theory meets practice as Patsy and Rebecca head to the craft room, where scissors and glue meet cork board, to make their own.

It turns out an action board isn't about magical thinking. It's a daily point of orientation — keeping you facing forward.

👉 Listen to the vision board episode here:

HELP US GROW

If this episode resonated with you, there are two simple things that make a real difference:

• Leave a review on Apple Podcasts — it only takes a moment, and it's one of the best ways to help new listeners find the show. Every review counts.
• Share this episode with a friend — if you know someone who might be in their own wobbly middle, send them this one. Sometimes knowing you're not alone is all it takes.

SHARE YOUR STORY

Made a left turn in your career? We'd love to hear about it. Write to Patsy at patsy@thewobblymiddle.com — your story might just be the nudge someone else needs.

This episode was produced by Patsy Day. Studio recording by The Pod Collective.

Thank you for listening and for supporting independent podcasters.

Women in midlife came of age between punk and the Spice Girls. That spirit doesn't leave you. If you're returning to work after a career break, rebuilding career confidence, or just need a shot of self-belief to counter the midlife angst, Jacquie and Rebecca will have you powering up.

Jacquie Duckworth worked in the media on iconic brands ranging from Country Life to FHM, Grazia, and the Times before co-founding Visible Start, a free 10-week career returner programme. Rebecca Byrne is one of its graduates: a former actor and NCT trainer who now works in community health — and someone who had, as she puts it, "never worked in an office." Together, they bring verve, wit, and a fierce refusal to accept that midlife women should settle for invisibility.

This conversation crackles with energy. We talk about why ageism at work is a commercial own goal, why transferable skills from life outside the office are exactly what employers need, and why a midlife career pivot is building forward (not starting over). If you're navigating a career break, wondering whether you still have a place at the table, or simply need reminding that your best work may still be ahead of you — this one's for you.

THE WOBBLY MIDDLE is a podcast for women rethinking their careers in midlife. Each season, Patsy sits down with women who share their career pivot stories — leaving corporate life and building businesses, breaking back in after career breaks, going back to study, and taking their long-neglected dreams seriously.

New episodes every other Tuesday.

ABOUT THE HOST: Patsy Day is a recovering lawyer navigating her own midlife career crossroads. A penny dropped for her when she realised that the restless feeling she'd been feeling was returning ambition. The Wobbly Middle is that in-between space where we know we want change but don't know how to move forward.

THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS AJ BELL

Thank you to AJ Bell Money Matters for supporting this episode. The AJ Bell Money Matters podcast is created for women by women featuring news, information and inspiring interviews to help build your knowledge and confidence around finances. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

Please click here to show support of our podcast and to find out more about AJ Bell:

https://www.ajbell.co.uk/investment/women-and-investing?utm_source=moneymatters&utm_medium=partnership&utm_campaign=wobblymiddle

LINKS

• Visible Start: https://www.visiblestart.com
• Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thewobblymiddle.substack.com
• Find out more about The Wobbly Middle: https://thewobblymiddle.substack.com/about
• The Wobbly Middle on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-wobbly-middle/id1767850643
• The Wobbly Middle on Spotify:

IF YOU LOVED THIS EPISODE

You might also love our conversation with Nina Van Schaick in Season 1, Episode 3. A midwife who witnessed firsthand the failures in maternal care — and decided to do something about it. With less than 2% of pharmaceutical R&D dedicated to maternal health, Nina didn't wait for permission. She took action herself. Another woman who saw a gap, backed herself, and built something. Sound familiar?

HELP US GROW

If this episode resonated with you, there are two simple things that make a real difference:

• Leave a review on Apple Podcasts — it only takes a moment, and it's one of the best ways to help new listeners find the show. Every review counts.
• Share this episode with a friend — if you know someone who might be in their own wobbly middle, send them this one. Sometimes knowing you're not alone is all it takes.

SHARE YOUR STORY

Made a left turn in your career? We'd love to hear about it. Write to Patsy at patsy@thewobblymiddle.com — your story might just be the nudge someone else needs.

This episode was produced by Patsy Day. Studio recording by The Pod Collective.

Thank you for listening and for supporting independent podcasters.

Comedy as a midlife career move — and why humour is one of the most powerful tools for change and an anti-dote to midlife angst.

What if the thing that makes you funny is the same thing that makes you powerful? Journalist, author and activist, Lynn Harris, has spent three decades using comedy to drive cultural change. From co-creating the cult 1990s superhero Breakup Girl, Lynn has now founded Gold Comedy, an online comedy school where women in their 40s and 50s are bringing the most fire.

In this conversation, Lynn and Patsy talk about the gender gap in comedy; who gets to talk and who has to listen; why "exposure" doesn't pay the bills, and how your transferable skills are the Candyland board that will take you places.

Lynn's message: if you're curious about developing your sense of humor, you don't have to change who you are in order to be funny… Don't wait for yourself to turn into someone else, which you won't. You already have everything it takes.

THE WOBBLY MIDDLE is a podcast for women rethinking their careers in midlife. Each season, Patsy sits down with women who share their career pivot stories — leaving corporate life and building businesses, breaking back in after career breaks, going back to study, and taking their long-neglected dreams seriously.

New episodes every other Tuesday.

ABOUT THE HOST: Patsy Day is a recovering lawyer navigating her own midlife career crossroads. A penny dropped for her when she realised that the restless feeling she'd been feeling was returning ambition. The Wobbly Middle is that in-between space where we know we want change but don't know how to move forward.

THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS AJ BELL

Thank you to AJ Bell Money Matters for supporting this episode. The AJ Bell Money Matters podcast is created for women by women featuring news, information and inspiring interviews to help build your knowledge and confidence around finances. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

Please click here to show support of our podcast and to find out more about AJ Bell:

https://www.ajbell.co.uk/investment/women-and-investing?utm_source=moneymatters&utm_medium=partnership&utm_campaign=wobblymiddle

KEY TOPICS

• Comedy as a vehicle for cultural change — humour as a "delivery system" for shifting norms and assumptions
• The Candyland board career — transferring skills across a patchwork freelance life, where writing, comedy, activism, and campaigning are all different-coloured squares on the same path
• The gender gap in comedy — not about talent, but about who gets the stage, the mic, the writers' room, and the power to decide what's funny
• Women getting paid for creative work — the Cindy Gallop advice: "Say the largest amount you can without actually bursting into laughter"
• Gold Comedy's Build and Pitch programme — taught by Ryan Cunningham, where women in their 40s and 50s consistently bring the biggest fire
• "You don't have to change who you are to succeed" — or to be funny. Your unique perspective is all the raw material you need.

Links

• The Wobbly Middle on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-wobbly-middle/id1767850643
• The Wobbly Middle on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4YhwsBch8Q9vAOUBBfusIv
• Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thewobblymiddle.substack.com
• Find out more about The Wobbly Middle: https://thewobblymiddle.substack.com/about

Where to Follow Lynn

• Instagram: @goldcomedy
• Twitter/X: @GOLDcomedy
• Lynn on Instagram: @lynnharris
• Lynn on Twitter/X: @harrislynn
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lynnharris1

---

If You Enjoyed This Episode

You might also love Episode 24: From Teacher's Desk to Therapist's Couch with Carri Simmons. Where Lynn describes the "Candyland board" of a patchwork career — transferring skills in unexpected directions — Carri tells the deeply personal story of leaving teaching and retraining as a psychologist in midlife.

HELP US GROW

If this episode resonated with you, there are two simple things that make a real difference:

• Leave a review on Apple Podcasts — it only takes a moment, and it's one of the best ways to help new listeners find the show. Every review counts.
• Share this episode with a friend — if you know someone who might be in their own wobbly middle, send them this one. Sometimes knowing you're not alone is all it takes.

SHARE YOUR STORY

Made a left turn in your career? We'd love to hear about it. Write to Patsy at patsy@thewobblymiddle.com — your story might just be the nudge someone else needs.

This episode was produced by Patsy Day. Studio recording by The Pod Collective.

A career pivot story about retraining as a psychologist after a career break — for women starting over in midlife.

What happens when you realise the career you built isn't the life you want? Carri Simmons spent years as a drama teacher until the toll of staying in the wrong role became impossible to ignore. "I had to leave because I wasn't able to be open to the world because I was in fight or flight. I was in a trauma mode."

In this episode, Patsy talks to her long-distance bestie about walking away from teaching, going back to university as a mother of three, and retraining as a psychologist in South Africa. It's about believing that there IS something more for you.

If you've ever wondered whether it's too late to start again, this one's for you.

THE WOBBLY MIDDLE is a podcast for women rethinking their careers in midlife. Each season, Patsy sits down with women who share their career pivot stories — leaving corporate life and building businesses, breaking back in after career breaks, going back to study, and taking their long-neglected dreams seriously.

New episodes every other Tuesday.

ABOUT THE HOST: Patsy Day is a recovering lawyer navigating her own midlife career crossroads. A penny dropped for her when she realised that the restless feeling she'd been feeling was returning ambition. The Wobbly Middle is that in-between space where we know we want change but don't know how to move forward.

ABOUT CARRI: Carri Simmons is a practising psychologist based in South Africa. A former drama teacher and mother of three, she returned to university in midlife to retrain — earning her psychology qualification and building a new career from scratch. She and Patsy are long-distance friends who share a belief that it's never too late to change direction.

KEY TOPICS

• Leaving teaching for a new career in psychology
• The emotional and physical toll of staying in the wrong career
• Recognising fight-or-flight mode as a signal that something needs to change
• Going back to university as a mature student with children
• The power of incremental steps - trying things out before you leap
• Being open to possibilities even when the path isn't clear
• Building a new professional identity in midlife

LINKS

• Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thewobblymiddle.substack.com
• Find out more about The Wobbly Middle: https://thewobblymiddle.substack.com/about
• The Wobbly Middle on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-wobbly-middle/id1767850643
• The Wobbly Middle on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4YhwsBch8Q9vAOUBBfusIv

Where to Follow Carri

https://www.instagram.com/carri_simmons_psychologist/

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IF YOU ENJOYED THIS EPISODE

You might also love Season 3 Episode 3 with Julianne Miles. Where Carri tells the deeply personal story of going back to university and retraining from scratch, Julianne explores the science behind career returns — including the psychology of good luck, neuroplasticity and lighting up the pathways. Together, they're two sides of the same coin: the courage to start again, and the evidence that we are still learning and growing.

HELP US GROW

If this episode resonated with you, there are two simple things that make a real difference:

• Leave a review on Apple Podcasts — it only takes a moment, and it's one of the best ways to help new listeners find the show. Every review counts.
• Share this episode with a friend — if you know someone who might be in their own wobbly middle, send them this one. Sometimes knowing you're not alone is all it takes.

SHARE YOUR STORY

Made a left turn in your career? We'd love to hear about it. Write to Patsy at patsy@thewobblymiddle.com — your story might just be the nudge someone else needs.

This episode was produced by Patsy Day. Studio recording by The Pod Collective.

Thank you for listening and for supporting independent podcasters.

Returning to work after a career break — the psychology of luck, neuroplasticity, and starting again in midlife.

Julianne Miles knows what it takes to return to work because she's done it herself. After stepping away from marketing when her children were small, she spent over a year asking herself "can I really start again?" — a question many of us will recognise. The answer was yes: she retrained as a psychologist and went on to co-found Career Returners, a social enterprise that has changed how employers and policymakers think about career breaks.

In this episode, Julianne shares the science behind why it's never too late, including the encouraging research on neuroplasticity, work-family enrichment, and the psychology of luck. Her advice? Stop overthinking and start doing.

THE WOBBLY MIDDLE is a podcast for women rethinking their careers in midlife. Each season, Patsy sits down with women who share their career pivot stories — leaving corporate life and building businesses, breaking back in after career breaks, going back to study, and taking their long-neglected dreams seriously.

New episodes every other Tuesday.

ABOUT THE HOST: Patsy Day is a recovering lawyer navigating her own midlife career crossroads. A penny dropped for her when she realised that the restless feeling she'd been feeling was returning ambition. The Wobbly Middle is that in-between space where we know we want change but don't know how to move forward.

ABOUT JULIANNE:

Julianne Miles MBE is an occupational psychologist and co-founder of Career Returners, a social impact enterprise and community dedicated to making career breaks a valued part of a lifetime career. A former marketer who retrained as a psychologist after her own career break, she has shaped how employers and policymakers think about return-to-work practices. She brought the concept of "returnships" — pioneered by Goldman Sachs — to the UK, and is the author of Return Journey: How to Get Back to Work and Thrive After a Career Break. She was awarded an MBE for services to career returners.

KEY TOPICS

• The "shall I, shan't I" phase — and how to break the cycle of indecision
• Why confidence comes from action, not from having the perfect plan
• Neuroplasticity: your brain makes new connections at any age — the science says it's never too late
• Work-family enrichment: why going back to work can give you more energy, not less
• The psychology of luck — Richard Wiseman's research on why "lucky" people create their own opportunities
• How Career Returners grew from kitchen table workshops to a national platform
• Navigating recruitment bias against career gaps — and what actually works
• Building your return-to-work support team and the power of community
• Why "every no gets me closer to a yes"

Links

• Julianne's book Return Journey: https://careerreturners.com/return-journey-book/
• Career Returners Professional Community (free or pay-if-you-can): https://community.careerreturners.com/
• The Wobbly Middle on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-wobbly-middle/id1767850643
• The Wobbly Middle on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4YhwsBch8Q9vAOUBBfusIv
• Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thewobblymiddle.substack.com
• Find out more about The Wobbly Middle: https://thewobblymiddle.substack.com/about

IF YOU ENJOYED THIS EPISODE

You might also love our Season 3 Episode with Carri Simmons From Teacher's Desk to Psychologist's Sofa with Carri Simmons. Where Julianne shares the science behind career returns, Carri tells the deeply personal story of walking away from teaching, going back to university as a mother of three, and retraining as a psychologist. Together, they're two sides of the same coin: the evidence that it works, and the courage to try.

HELP US GROW

If this episode resonated with you, there are two simple things that make a real difference:

• Leave a review on Apple Podcasts — it only takes a moment, and it's one of the best ways to help new listeners find the show. Every review counts.
• Share this episode with a friend — if you know someone who might be in their own wobbly middle, send them this one. Sometimes knowing you're not alone is all it takes.

SHARE YOUR STORY

Made a left turn in your career? We'd love to hear about it. Write to Patsy at patsy@thewobblymiddle.com — your story might just be the nudge someone else needs.

This episode was produced by Patsy Day. Studio recording by The Pod Collective.

Thank you for listening and for supporting independent podcasters.

The neuroscience behind action boards / vision boards and goal-setting — and how to use them at a career crossroads.

Do action boards actually work, or are they just arts and crafts with ambition? In this bonus episode, investigative wellness journalist Rebecca Newman draws on the research of neuroscientist Dr Tara Swart, author of The Source, to explain what's really going on in our brains when we make an action board — and why they might be exactly the tool you need in your wobbly middle.

Then theory meets practice as Patsy and Rebecca head to the craft room, where scissors and glue meet cork board, to make their own. It turns out a vision board isn't about magical thinking — it's a daily point of orientation, keeping you facing forward.

KEY TOPICS

• The neuroscience behind actions boards — what happens in your brain when you visualise your goals
• Dr Tara Swart's research in The Source on selective attention and goal prioritisation
• How action boards differ from wish lists — making goals tangible and visible
• Using action boards as a practical tool for navigating a career crossroads in midlife
• The power of keeping your goals front and centre as a daily point of orientation
• Why getting hands-on with scissors and glue can unlock clarity you weren't expecting

THE WOBBLY MIDDLE is a podcast for women rethinking their careers in midlife. Each season, Patsy sits down with women who share their career pivot stories — leaving corporate life and building businesses, breaking back in after career breaks, going back to study, and taking their long-neglected dreams seriously.

New episodes every other Tuesday.

ABOUT THE HOST: Patsy Day is a recovering lawyer navigating her own midlife career crossroads. A penny dropped for her when she realised that the restless feeling she'd been feeling was returning ambition. The Wobbly Middle is that in-between space where we know we want change but don't know how to move forward.

LINKS

The Source by Dr Tara Swart: https://uk.bookshop.org/a/16913/9781785042003

The Wobbly Middle on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-wobbly-middle/id1767850643

The Wobbly Middle on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4YhwsBch8Q9vAOUBBfusIv

Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thewobblymiddle.substack.com?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=show_notes&utm_campaign=ep22-rebecca-newman

- Find out more about The Wobbly Middle: https://thewobblymiddle.substack.com/about?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=show_notes&utm_campaign=ep22-rebecca-newman

IF YOU ENJOYED THIS EPISODE

You might also love our Q&A with Patsy Day and Susannah de Jager, where they opened the mailbag to tackle listeners' questions about navigating the midlife career odyssey. If the action board episode got you thinking about what's next, the Q&A offers practical encouragement for when you're ready to take the next step.

HELP US GROW

If this episode resonated with you, there are two simple things that make a real difference:

• Leave a review on Apple Podcasts — it only takes a moment, and it's one of the best ways to help new listeners find the show. Every review counts.
• Share this episode with a friend — if you know someone who might be in their own wobbly middle, send them this one. Sometimes knowing you're not alone is all it takes.

SHARE YOUR STORY

Made a left turn in your career? We'd love to hear about it. Write to Patsy at patsy@thewobblymiddle.com — your story might just be the nudge someone else needs.

This episode was produced by Patsy Day. Studio recording by The Pod Collective.

Thank you for listening and for supporting independent podcasting.

---

A career pivot story about leaving corporate life after redundancy and going back to study — from risk consultant to magistrate and PhD researcher.

When a long-term relationship ended in her twenties, Pip Symington chose adventure. She landed a job in Asia and spent twenty years working across Hong Kong, Shanghai, Singapore, and Japan as a risk consultant and loving every minute of it. She said yes to everything, until one day it was gone.

Made redundant and reeling Pip turned to friends and a bit of therapy before redesigning the shape of her working life. She no longer wanted one all-consuming thing. Today, it's family, study, and service that brings fulfilment.

Key Topics

• The emotional toll of redundancy and losing your professional identity
• Using therapy and a "happiness bowl" to rediscover what brings you joy
• Building a portfolio career after a career break — balancing study, service, and family
• What it's like to volunteer as a magistrate in the UK justice system
• Why it's never too late to go back to study — and why midlife is the ideal time

THE WOBBLY MIDDLE is a podcast for women rethinking their careers in midlife. Each season, Patsy sits down with women who share their career pivot stories — leaving corporate life and building businesses, breaking back in after career breaks, going back to study, and taking their long-neglected dreams seriously.

New episodes every other Tuesday.

ABOUT THE HOST: Patsy Day is a recovering lawyer navigating her own midlife career crossroads. A penny dropped for her when she realised that the restless feeling she'd been feeling was returning ambition. The Wobbly Middle is that in-between space where we know we want change but don't know how to move forward.

LINKS

Interested in volunteering as a magistrate? Find out more:

The Wobbly Middle on Apple Podcasts: click here

The Wobbly Middle on Spotify: click here

Want more The Wobbly Middle between episodes? Subscribe to our newsletter — it's where the conversation continues:

New to The Wobbly Middle? Find out what we're all about.

IF YOU ENJOYED THIS EPISODE

You might also our Season 1 episode From Lab to Lifeline with Dr Emily Connally. Like Pip, Emily is an Oxford-based woman who channelled her skills into community service — founding a food bank at the school gate that's now reshaping how local networks respond to food waste. Both episodes show how the wobbly middle can lead to something that serves not just you, but the world around you.

HELP US GROW

If this episode resonated with you, there are two simple things that make a real difference:

• Leave a review on Apple Podcasts — it only takes a moment, and it's one of the best ways to help new listeners find the show. Every review counts.
• Share this episode with a friend — if you know someone who might be in their own wobbly middle, send them this one. Sometimes knowing you're not alone is all it takes.

SHARE YOUR STORY

Made a left turn in your career? We'd love to hear about it. Write to Patsy at patsy@thewobblymiddle.com — your story might just be the nudge someone else needs.

This episode was produced by Patsy Day. Studio recording by The Pod Collective.