The 40 Portal Podcast
An Invitation to Join Me
As a guest on my new podcast, launching late January 2026.
Will you be one of the 40?
This past July, the night before my 40th birthday, I asked 40 women to “sign my yearbook” with either their big questions or hard-won wisdom about life. (The full story is below & some of you were THERE!)
What they wrote was so raw and honest that I kept going — sending handwritten letters to women across the country, asking them to share what they've learned, earned, and burned.
Letter after letter arrived. Women wrote truths I’d never heard them say out loud. About bodies and motherhood (or not) and work and becoming and all the messy, beautiful parts of being human.
Now I'm turning this collection and conversation into a podcast, and I want you to be one of the 40 women I interview.
What’s a “portal” anyways?
A portal is a threshold—a crossing point between who you've been and who you are becoming.
It's not always dramatic or public-facing. Much of it takes place behind-the-scenes, in the deep underground of our Real Lives. Portals often begin quietly, in moments that look fairly ordinary from the outside: the morning you realize you don't recognize the woman in the mirror anymore. The day you stop apologizing for taking up space. The moment you choose yourself even when it disappoints someone else.
Sometimes portals are opened by instant, sliding-door moments—deaths, births, accidents, diagnoses. But even then, the portal isn't the event itself. It's the long hallway we keep walking through afterward, because the only way out is through.
Portals are the spaces where transformation happens. Where the old story falls away and the new one hasn't quite formed yet. They're liminal spaces—that in-between time when you're no longer who you were but not yet who you're becoming. They're uncomfortable and disorienting and necessary. They're grist for the mill of our own becoming.
But here's what matters: Portals aren't something that happen TO you. They're something you actively move through. You can stand at the edge for years, or you can step in.
This podcast explores real women and their portal moments—the messy middle, the doubt, the courage, and the wisdom that only comes from walking through. I’m beginning with women close to me, themselves hovering on either side of that 40 portal. And I hope to expand the conversation out to other decades and walks of life — my little notebook already contains handwritten wisdom from women ages 33 to 83!
Welcome to the Portal, babe.
What Each Episode Will Look Like —
I. The Warm Up (10-15 minutes)
I’ll ask the same 10 questions to each guest get us started, establish our on-air rapport (most of us already have a fabulous one in real life ;), and make our listeners feel like they’re sitting right with us. Things like:
How would you introduce yourself if job titles and accomplishments weren't part of the answer?
What is one narrative you were given about being a woman at the age you are now?
What is one thing your 10-years-ago self would be really surprised to learn about you today?
II. The Deep Dive (25-35 minutes)
I’ll choose one piece of handwritten wisdom submitted by a listener, and that becomes our jumping-off point. We go wherever the conversation takes us. This is the heart of the episode. Here’s a taste of what 40 Portal contributors have written so far:
“I wish I had been told I did not have to be married to be a successful woman. I married one year out of high school (1979) and it was a disaster. 3 years after that marriage failed, I got married again because that is what I was 'supposed to do.' Disaster, again! The threshold that I am now crossing is wondering if my husband really loves me or that he just wants someone to cook for him. I have feelings of wanting to escape my life and live alone.”
“What does reinvention look like in my 40s? It's so hard not to compare myself to other people and see how far they've come. I bat off the jealousy that's inside when I see people in their 20s come out swinging. I placed so many roadblocks in my way, but now at the end of my 30s, I've finally gotten most of them off the road. So this decade feels like a clearing. Where will the road take me?”
“I think the best part of being 40 is finally doing whatever I want, without the fear of judgment. I've had the wedding, the child, bought the house, opened the business and NOW I'm gonna have the relationship on my terms, I'm gonna parent as soft or as hard as I want, I'm gonna buy that couch and that coffee table that don't go together at all. It's about time that I take society and norms and others' ideas for me and burn them and just start fresh.”
Fire, right?
I’m collecting handwritten wisdom from people ages 20s-80s, from all over the world, and from all folks who resonate with “women” in some way. This project is about the breadth of women’s experiences, broadly defined and radically inclusive.
III. The 40 Portal Prompts & Wrap Up (5-10 min)
I’ve got two prompts I ask each 40 Portal Contributor, one for those of us over 40 and another for those who are not yet 40. We’ll end each episode with your on-air, off-the-cuff, from-the-heart contribution.
THE DETAILS
When: I'm recording episodes now 2026
Where: Via Riverside (better audio/video quality than Zoom) How long: 45-60 minutes
Launch date: January 31, 2026
Episodes release: Weekly through November 2026 (I’ll turn 41 (!) myself in July 2026!)
What you'll need:
Quiet space for 1 hour
Reliable internet connection
Headphones/earbuds (recommended)
Just show up as yourself, I will too
Your control:
Choose how you want to be identified
Request certain topics stay off-limits
Review your episode before it goes live
If you’d like, I’ll link to all the places people can find you and your work in the show notes and promotion
I’d be grateful if: You’d be willing to share your episode to your group chats, social feeds, book club — wherever and however you speak to the world and share what you love with people you love.
Are you in?
Fill out the form below to claim your spot. I’ll send you a calendar invite with all the details once I receive your response.
Not yet ready to go on air?
No problem.
Here’s how you can still support:
Connect me with someone amazing who should be on the show—someone with an untold story, interesting perspective, or compelling journey.
Submit your handwritten wisdom even if you don't want to be on the podcast: [LINK TO SUBMISSION FORM]
Follow along:
Instagram: @the40portal
Substack: the40portal.substack.com
The FULL Story Behind the Podcast
It all started the night before my 40th birthday.
I love collecting wise words from other women and building connection through the stories we share.
So I decided to hold court (in my emerald green satin slip dress!) at the local wine-bar in our little Hudson Valley village. I issued a siren call to my female friends, acquaintances, and beloveds — “I’m holding court from 5-7pm. I’d love to have you join. This is not exclusive, share this out, can’t wait to sit together.”
As I got ready to head to my “non-party party” (Any other women love to deflect and downplay their own spotlight? yeesh!), I grabbed a blank copy of 8x11 sketch book that I use in my own daily Morning Pages practice. Like covering your text books in grade school with paper grocery bags, I handmade a new “The 40 Portal” cover for my book.
I wanted to ask the women who came to my celebration to fill it with their lived wisdom, if they were over 40, and their vulnerable questions, if they were not yet 40.
I hesitated. This was kind of silly and stupid, right? Like “Please Sign My Year Book.”
But I knew I would REGRET it if I had not asked. If I missed this moment to gather these wise women and ask them to share their stories. I’d regret it. Something potent and powerful and radical was brewing — I could feel it in my heart.
F*ck it, I thought and said out loud to myself:
“Commit to the bit of being yourself.”
So I brought my little note book and humbly asked the women there to start leaving their words of wisdom and vulnerable questions in reply to my prompts —
“If you have passed the threshold over 40, tell us what you know, trust, have learned & earned & burned. It can be short & sweet, silly & irreverent, sexy or serious — I’m here for all of it.”
— or —
“If you are not yet 40, what’s an open question you’re living? What longing, dream, dear, desire, do you want to put out into the universe?”
The responses I got in the book that night were nothing short of ASTOUNDING.
So I began sending handwritten letters to women across the country — friends, colleagues, blood and soul sisters and sisters-in-law. I asked them to respond by hand, to take time with their truth, to share what they wished someone had told them about becoming, about aging, about all of it.
What came back changed everything.
Letter after letter arrived filled with raw honesty I had never heard before. Women responded with ferocity and felicity. With grit and grace. With humor and sage advice. With open questions and boundaries claimed.
They wrote about crossing thresholds—stepping into their 40s, leaving careers, ending relationships, choosing courage over comfort. They revealed so much courage, depth, curiosity, and playfulness than we might ever imagine is hiding beneath the surface when we look at each other (or make quick judgments about women we don’t know).
Reading their handwritten words on my back porch, I cried. Not from sadness, but from recognition. Each letter felt like a woman raising her hand and saying, “Me too. I've been there. You’re not alone.”
That’s when I realized: this isn’t just a collection of letters. This is THE portal.
When one woman tells her truth, she gives other women WILD permission to tell theirs.
The responses I’ve received aren’t just letters — they're healing balm, soul medicine, and radical acts.
They’re proof that:
You’re not alone in how you feel, even if you’re lost, still wandering, or doubting yourself when everyone else seems to have it “figured out” by now (spoiler: the juiciest women I’ve received letters from ARE still experimenting, creating, making, seeking, iterating no matter the decade they’re in!)
It’s normal to outgrow the person you used to be or who you THOUGHT you were supposed to be
Transformation is terrifying and necessary and beautiful and we’re all still learning
We need each other's courage to cross the thresholds that matter. We need to reclaim the narrative and tell our own stories. Our connections are key and require a courageous vulnerability that we are all capable of, especially when we embody that with each other.
Here’s what I promised the women that night:
“I’ll try to do something beautiful with this little book of blessings.”
And That’s Where YOU come in.
I’m turning the 40 Portal into a limited series podcast so I can sit down with 40 of the most inspiring women I know (or am a degree or two removed from!) to Real Talk about the mid-life threshold.
The 40 Portal Project
Something extraordinary happens when women stop performing and start sharing their real stories.
What began as handwritten letters for my 40th birthday has become a revolutionary collection of multigenerational wisdom—women’s authentic voices creating medicine for other women’s becoming.
When we tell the truth about ourselves in our own voices, we grant wild permission for other women to do the same.
Your voice—whatever threshold you’re standing at—might be exactly what another woman needs to remember who she really is.
This isn’t just a book project.
It’s a quiet & powerful revolution of women choosing truth over armor, presence over performance, and collective wisdom over isolated struggle.
How I Serve People
Corporate Speaking
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Transform your teams by teaching folks how to become anchors of calm instead of sources of escalation. Perfect for high-pressure industries ready to move beyond surface-level stress management.
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Are you standing at the threshold of becoming?
Nervous system-first transformation for high-achieving professionals navigating major transitions. Ancient wisdom meets modern life. By application only.
India Pilgrimage
March 2026
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A transformational journey and immersive experience that creates space for your own wisdom to emerge. This isn't about finding something new—it's about coming home to what you already know.
What Cath’s Clients Say:
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"Her warmth is contagious. From the moment she entered the space, the energy shifted, and everything felt more serene. Catherine has a gift for making everyone feel seen and supported while delivering transformational content."
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"Over the past 4 years of working with Catherine, she has offered endless wisdom and thought-provoking questions that help me move from point a to point b with confidence. She is a trusted guide who always has your back."
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Welcome,
Welcome,
Welcome.
I'm Catherine Zack, but you can call me Cath.
I work with people who are ready to listen for the sound of their own voice.
I see you—you’ve spent a lifetime checking the right boxes, collecting the degrees, climbing the ladders. You've achieved what others call success.
And yet... you’ve reached a moment where you’re ready to ask: Are these choices really my own? Is there better alignment between my inner landscape and my outer reality?
As a former Big Law attorney who walked away from the partnership track to find something more sustainable and true, I understand the complexity of transformation without abandoning excellence.
My approach bridges ancient wisdom with modern life—because sustainable leadership requires more than strategy. It requires connection to something timeless and true.
