School of Midlife

Why so many high-achieving women feel lonely in full lives…and what it takes to actually let people in.

Laurie is in France, doing something she's wanted to do for years. A language immersion school, then a retreat in Paris. It's her best life, no question. And last week, she sent a text to a couple of friends back home: When I'm back, I want to go to dinner. Because I really miss my people.

That text opened up a bigger conversation. Laurie should have a huge circle of friends. Women from elementary school. Sorority sisters. Instead, she has a lot of acquaintances and very few friends…because for most of her life, she didn't invest in female friendship. Nobody ever showed her how.

This episode is about loneliness in midlife, the kind that hides inside a full calendar. It's about why so many of us learned the caretaking but never learned the friendship. And it's about the hardest part of being in community: not the giving, but finally letting someone help you.

What we cover:

• The text Laurie sent from France…and why you can do the thing you've waited years to do and still miss your people
• How you can be surrounded by people, in a big city, and still feel lonely
• Why Laurie should have a huge circle of friends, and doesn't
• The three women who've known her since childhood: there when her brother died, when her parents divorced, when her dad died
• Watching sorority sisters celebrate their kids' graduations and weddings on social…from the outside, with no one to blame but herself
• Why it gets so much harder to make friends once you lose the built-in friend-making environments of school, work, and your kids' activities
• Being raised to see other women as competition
• Why the strong women who mentored us modeled caregiving and career success…but rarely friendship
• "We learned the give and give and give at all costs. We didn't learn the friendship."
• The wedding-party choice that shows how easily long friendships drift in your 20s and 30s
• Why a friend who'd drop everything to fly to you isn't the same as a friend you can have dinner with next Tuesday
• How Laurie has more community now than she did living in a sorority house
• The turning point: realizing she could do it all on her own…and didn't want to anymore
• Who takes care of you, like you take care of everyone else? (And why the honest answer is probably no one)
• The two reasons no one helps you, and one of them is you
• The dishwasher test: are you actually letting people do the things you say you want them to do?
• The phone call after Laurie's dad died, a dumpster, and the call back that changed how she lets her friends show up
• Why refusing help denies your friends the very thing you'd want if the roles were reversed
• Why community isn't something you have to wait to be invited to
• What happens when women who've never met show up to a retreat on a Thursday
• This week's homework: send the text

Quotable moments

• "Most high-achieving women aren't lonely because they don't have anyone around them. They're lonely because they've built lives where they do all the giving."
• "I didn't invest in female friendship because no one ever showed me how."
• "We learned the caretaking. We learned the selflessness. We learned the give and give and give at all costs. We didn't necessarily learn the friendship."
• "Sure, I am strong, I am capable, and I could do it on my own. But I don't want to."
• "It's one thing to say that you want people to help you, and it's an entirely other thing to actually let them do it."
• "Community isn't something you have to wait to be invited to."
• "I didn't wanna see more social media pictures of dinners or vacations that happened without me. I wanted to be in those rooms. So I created one."
• "I don't want small talk with you. I want to know what lights you up. What are you scared of? What haven't you admitted to anyone else?"

Laurie's ask for this episode Send the text. Tell a friend you miss her, pick a date, and get something on the calendar. And if she doesn't listen to the podcast yet, share this episode with her.

Resources + links mentioned

• BEST LIFE™ Retreats (including the Paris retreat) — 2027 dates coming soon!
• JOIN MY MAILING LIST
• CONNECT WITH LAURIE

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Why collecting information feels like progress (and isn't), and what France is teaching Laurie about the only way to really know.

Laurie Reynoldson brought three books with her to France. She's barely opened them. And that small, slightly guilty stack beside her bed got her thinking about the much bigger stack back home: a whole shelf of personal development books in her Boise office, color-coded, reread, underlined in a different color pen every time.

For years, that shelf was the plan. If she just learned a little bit more, read one more book, added one more page to a pro/con list she'd been building for years, she'd finally figure it out. Sound familiar? This episode is about the difference between gathering information and actually doing the thing, and why so many accomplished women who make fast, confident calls at work give themselves unlimited time to "research" their own lives.

With stories from her first job as a medical malpractice lawyer, Sully Sullenberger's landing on the Hudson, and a surprisingly tender lesson from living abroad, Laurie makes the case that clarity doesn't come before action. It comes from it.

What we cover:

• The three books on Laurie's nightstand in France, and the color-coded shelf back home they made her think about
• Laurie's rereading trick: a different color pen every time, because you're a different person every time you read it
• Why "I just need a little more information" was her MO for years (as a high achiever, people-pleaser + recovering perfectionist)
• The pro/con lists that go on for pages… and that she kept adding to for years at a time
• Why collecting information can feel like progress, but isn't
• "Learning more" as delay with better nomenclature
• The promotion you never put your name in for, and all the reasons that felt like facts
• Why "I'm not ready yet" is usually indecision dressed up as research
• The question at the heart of the episode: why are we so decisive at work and so stuck at home?
• Deadlines, sales goals, maternity leaves: what forces us to decide at work, and why nothing forces us at home
• "If we stayed in the accumulation stage, we'd literally shut down the company"
• The woman who makes the call with 70% of the information… and has been researching a personal change for five years
• Why she's never allowed herself to bring that decisive woman home
• What Laurie learned about hindsight in her first job as a lawyer, defending doctors and hospitals in medical malpractice cases
• Why a bad outcome doesn't mean a bad decision
• Sully, the simulator, and what happens when you take away what the pilots knew in advance
• France as the experiment: testing a long-held vision of living part of the year abroad
• The one thing Laurie learned for sure in France… and the part she never saw coming
• Why it's okay to pivot, change your mind, or decide you want something else (but only once you're in motion)
• This week's challenge: one real step that isn't reading, listening, or asking for opinions

Quotable moments

• "You can only have hindsight if you actually do something."
• "Collecting information can feel like progress, but it isn't."
• "Learning more sounds responsible, it sounds reasonable, but it's really just delay in better nomenclature."
• "What you can't do is read about something and just dream it into existence."
• "If we stayed in the accumulation stage, we'd literally shut down the company."
• "They're not two different women. She already knows how to do this."
• "It's super easy to poke holes in anyone's reasoning when you already know how it ends."
• "You only get new underlines in that book if you actually go out and live some of the pages before you reread it."

Laurie's challenge for this episode Think about what's on your shelf: the book you keep rereading, the Google Doc called "Someday," the dream you've been researching for years. This week, do one thing toward it that isn't reading, listening, adding to the pro/con list, or asking someone else what they think. One real step. It can be very, very small… as long as it gives you information you can only get by actually doing something.

Resources + links mentioned

• BEST LIFE™ Mastermind: a year-long program starting January 2027; applications open soon. More at https://www.schoolofmidlife.com
• JOIN MY MAILING LIST (including Laurie's perspective on the protests in France) — https://www.schoolofmidlife.com/newsletter
• CONNECT WITH LAURIE: Email Laurie

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That's great for you...but I could never. What's really underneath that line, and why the answer is almost always permission.

Laurie is recording from Bordeaux this week, a couple weeks into a two-month stretch in France that a lot of people have had a lot of feelings about. After the now-infamous Must Be Nice episode, she kept noticing a quieter cousin of that reaction. Not the backhanded compliment. The other one.

"That's so great for you. But I could never."

So she started asking the follow-up question nobody asks: why not? Not to challenge anyone or prove them wrong. Just genuinely curious. And after years of working with high-achieving women, she's pretty sure she knows the answer. 

It's permission. We've been asking for it since we raised our hands to go to the bathroom in second grade, and somewhere along the way it became permission to pick a college, take a job, live in a city, go on a girls' trip, meet a friend for wine on a Thursday.

This episode is about the difference between asking and deciding, why being polite and being a team player can still mean handing away your decision-making, and what it looks like to give yourself permission at every stage of coming back to yourself in midlife.

What we cover:

• The "I could never" reaction, and why it's a close relative of "must be nice"
• Why Laurie's follow-up question (why not you?) isn't a challenge, it's genuine curiosity
• The root cause behind "I could never" in most high-achieving women: permission
• Why some of us won't even let ourselves want the thing before we've built the list of reasons it's not for us
• From raising your hand to use the bathroom to asking if it's okay to take the job: how a lifetime of asking permission adds up
• The girls' trip test: did you decide and declare, or did you check the calendar and clear it with everyone first?
• How we use scheduling and logistics to support a decision not to do the thing
• What the men in our lives do differently (spoiler: they make plans and inform us)
• "Is it okay if I go away for a long weekend?" vs. "I'm going on a trip these dates." Hear the difference?
• Why it doesn't have to be a big swing like two months in France; we deny ourselves permission for dinner with friends
• Two things can be true: you're being polite and a team player, and you're outsourcing your decisions
• "I could never" and "must be nice" as permission dressed up in different ways
• The aha moment Laurie sees in coaching when women realize they've never just stated a preference
• What could be different if you stopped asking others what you should do
• A refresher on the Four Cs of coming back to yourself in midlife: curiosity, clarity, courage + confidence
• Where permission shows up in each of the Four Cs (it's not only courage)
• Permission to ask new questions, answer them honestly, and keep the answers to yourself until you're ready
• Permission to define success on your own terms for this season of life
• Permission to dream some adult dreams
• Flipping the script from "I could never" to "what if?" "Why not me?" "Why not now?"

Quotable moments

• "It's great for someone else, but not for me. I could never do that."
• "Some of us aren't even allowing ourselves to want the thing."
• "If you really think about it, we've been asking for permission our whole lives; haven't we?"
• "Oftentimes we use scheduling and logistics to support our decision not to do the thing."
• "They don't ask for permission; do they? They just make the plans and inform us."
• "Not only are you being polite and a team player, but you are also giving away your decision-making."
• "It's permission dressed up in different ways."
• "You have your own back, maybe for the first time ever."
• "Why are you waiting for someone else to give you permission to do it?"

Resources + links mentioned

• The Must Be Nice episode of the School of Midlife podcast
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Rigidity or serendipity. Guardedness or openness. What Human Design taught Laurie about the week when things didn't go quite as planned.

Your mother-in-law dies on Monday. You're supposed to get on a plane to France for nearly two months on Wednesday.

A younger Laurie would have read that as a sign. Selfish to go. Time's not right. Clearly the universe is telling you to stay where you are. This time, she got on the plane… and in this episode (recorded from France, so forgive the audio), she explains why.

It turns out that same week, the dominant energy frequencies in Human Design were the 46 and the 25: the Euphoria Explorer and the Accepting Priestess. They also happen to be two of the four frequencies that make up 80% of Laurie's own design. Coincidence? She's not sure she believes in coincidence anymore.

This one gets a little woo-woo. It's also one of the most practical conversations about control, fear + the stories we tell ourselves about "the right time" that you'll hear this year.

What we cover:

• Why there was no episode last week, and why presence with Mike mattered more than a self-imposed deadline
• A tribute to Virginia: 93 and a half years, an incredible life, and a son who cared for her with real tenderness
• Human Design, the Gene Keys + the I Ching: why gates, keys and frequencies are the same thing with different names
• The "core four": the four frequencies (out of 26) that make up 80% of your personality and what you're here to do
• Laurie's 11 and 12, and why her life's work literally requires her to stop generalizing and get specific
• Why she's not for everyone… and why that's exactly how it's supposed to work
• Energy frequencies as a "weather report" that surrounds all of us, whether or not they're in your chart
• The 46, the Euphoria Explorer: seeing magic in the unexpected
• Rigidity: "It must happen in exactly this way. I need to know where this is going before I even begin."
• Why there's almost always more than one road from point A to point B (and what that means for your white knuckles on the steering wheel)
• Serendipity: letting go of the outcome and trusting you could never have planned the magic
• The 25, the Accepting Priestess: loving what is, without faking it
• The "I'll be happy when…" trap, and how we delay loving the life we're living
• Guardedness: the walls we build so nothing can hurt us
• Openness: letting the wound unwind into a higher destiny
• Why you can feel your spouse's hard day before they say a word (yes, that's energy)
• "You can't have high frequency dreams for your life by operating at a low frequency."
• The moment of decision: what the old Laurie would have done, and what she did instead
• Staying in the stands vs. getting in the arena
• This week's coaching question: where are you gripping the steering wheel too tightly?

Quotable moments

• "The timing was never gonna be perfect. The timing was never gonna be right."
• "You don't have to hold the steering wheel so tightly."
• "You could never have planned the magic that could happen."
• "We delay our happiness, and we delay loving the life that we're currently living."
• "You can't have high frequency dreams for your life by operating at a low frequency."
• "Walls don't just go one way. Yeah, you can't get hurt, but you also can't feel the goodness."
• "You don't have to know how it's all gonna play out. You just have to be open to possibility. What's meant for you will find you."

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Why "must be nice" says more about the person saying it than it does about you — and what it actually takes to build the life other people call lucky.

Someone found out Laurie is going to France and said, "Must be nice." A week later, a different woman heard the exact same news and said, "Oh my God, that sounds amazing."

Same information. Two totally different responses. In this episode, Laurie digs into that gap — why some women respond to another woman's choices with inspiration, and why others respond by building an airtight case for why it could never work for them. Along the way: the limiting beliefs that keep women small, the wildly different way men and women give themselves permission to want things (hello, husband's golf trip), and the real, unglamorous, five-years-in-the-making story of how this France trip actually happened. Spoiler: it wasn't luck.

By the end, Laurie leaves you with one question to sit with — the next time you catch yourself building a case for why something can't happen for you, is it actually impossible? Or have you just not given yourself permission to want it yet?

What we cover:

• The "must be nice" comment at a summer party — and the smirk that came with it
• The dental hygienist who heard the exact same news and said, "Oh my God, that sounds amazing"
• Two types of women: the ones who see possibility, and the ones who shut an idea down before it ever gets the chance to grow
• Why "no time, no money, wrong season of life, too selfish, too late" is a script — not the truth
• The limiting-beliefs idea Laurie can't shake: the more you argue for your limitations, the more you get to keep them
• Why women weren't born into this pattern — we were trained into it
• The husband's golf trip: how he announces it, doesn't ask permission, and never feels guilty about the kids' soccer cleats
• How women do it differently — checking the schedule, clearing it with a spouse, then still drowning in guilt over the money
• Why "it's different if you're a man" isn't just a feeling — it's a pattern Laurie sees in her coaching practice every single day
• The truth about the France trip: five-plus years of researching schools, watching the timing fall apart, and choosing it again anyway
• What actually got in the way, year after year — Mike's parents' health, his father's passing, a move, a remodel
• Why this trip isn't happening because the timing is perfect (it's not) — it's happening because Laurie decided
• The first time Laurie landed in France and realized it was a place she'd been homesick for her whole life
• Why midlife is a dress rehearsal for your third act — and why you shouldn't wait for retirement to test-drive the life you want
• What Laurie is actually doing on this trip: a month of language school, hosting the Paris retreat, then Frankfurt for a client workshop
• The real test: does the romanticized "live part of the year in France" fantasy hold up in practice, or just in theory
• The challenge Laurie leaves you with: the next time you catch yourself building a case for why something can't happen for you, ask if it's actually impossible — or if you just haven't given yourself permission to want it yet

Quotable moments

• "Two women, same information. One sees possibility, one shuts it down before it ever even gets a chance to be real."
• "The more you argue for your limitations, the more you get to keep them."
• "Whatever you believe is possible for yourself is actually what becomes possible."
• "He doesn't ask for permission. He just says, 'It's something we're gonna do.'"
• "She isn't giving herself permission to want something different. She's letting her limiting beliefs keep her stuck."
• "Nothing about this trip is luck or circumstance. It's conscious. It's been a repeated choice to continue building towards it."
• "Is it actually impossible, or is it just something you haven't given yourself permission to want yet?"

Resources + links mentioned

• JOIN MY MAILING LIST
• CONNECT WITH LAURIE

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📩  Email Laurie

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One-to-one coaching, BEST LIFE Retreats, and the BEST LIFE Mastermind — what each one actually is, who it's for, and the honest story of why one of them just got rescheduled.

It's episode five in the Back to School of Midlife series, and Laurie is calling this one registration day. You've sat through a month of lectures — the coaching philosophy, the BEST LIFE framework, Learn/Earn/Yearn, the Four C's — and now it's time to actually look at the course catalog and figure out what you're signing up for.

There are three ways to work with Laurie right now: one-to-one coaching, the BEST LIFE Retreats, and the BEST LIFE Mastermind. In this episode she breaks down exactly what each one is, who it's actually built for, and how to tell which one is right for you (hint: it's not a spreadsheet decision). And she doesn't dodge the elephant in the room — she also tells you exactly why the Mastermind, originally slated to launch in September, has a "rescheduled" sign taped to the door right now, and what changed.

This is the most practical, least tactical episode of the series so far — less framework, more "here's literally how you'd work with me if you decided today."

What we cover:

• Why Laurie is calling this episode "registration day" — and finally handing you the actual course catalog for working with her
• The three ways to work with Laurie right now: one-to-one coaching, BEST LIFE Retreats, and the BEST LIFE Mastermind
• Why so many high-achieving women instinctively reach for 1:1 coaching first — and the fear (not the logic) that's usually driving it
• Who 1:1 coaching is actually built for: a woman who already knows the decision and needs support implementing it, on her own timeline
• Why group coaching is Laurie's personal favorite way to be coached — and what she gets from listening to someone else get coached
• What the BEST LIFE Retreats actually look like: 4-7 day immersive experiences, not a ballroom full of note-taking
• Where the 2027 retreats are happening: Civana in Arizona, Sun Valley (the original BEST LIFE Retreat location), the Viceroy in Cabo, and Paris
• The surprisingly common reason your body gets sick right when you finally clear space to focus on yourself
• What you actually leave a retreat with: full clarity on your BEST LIFE, plus a real 5, 10, or 15-year plan
• Why a retreat alone isn't always enough — the gap Laurie kept watching her clients fall into once they got home
• What the BEST LIFE Mastermind is: two in-person retreats plus monthly group coaching calls, including "hot seat" coaching
• The honest, real-time story of why the Mastermind's original September 2026 launch got rescheduled
• Why the original Tuesday–Friday retreat format didn't account for how much vacation time women already had booked for the year
• The new format: Thursday evening–Sunday morning retreats, cutting the time-off ask from eight days to one or two
• Why the container grew from a planned 9 months to a full 12, now starting January 2027, capped at 10 women
• How to actually know which of the three options is right for you — and why it's a body response, not a logic exercise
• This week's homework: noticing which option sparked something in you, and getting curious about why

Quotable moments

• "Sometimes the class you actually want has a sign taped to the door that says, 'Rescheduled.' Not canceled, just not today."
• "Anytime somebody tells me they just need to work harder, it just means that they're lacking clarity."
• "I mean, we've got our shit together, and we can turn it on when we need to."
• "It's a little shot in the arm, right? It's go in, get this shot of clarity, and then go home and implement it."
• "The time off math wasn't mathing, right?"
• "Let's stop living the same week on repeat and start making choices that actually reflect who you are now."
• "There's no pressure and no pitch, just a real conversation about where you are and what might actually help."

Homework assignment for this episode:

Notice which of the three ways to work with her actually sparked something in you — not which one makes the most sense on paper, but which one you felt something about in your body. Write it down. You don't have to act on it yet — just get curious about why that one.

→ Send her an email

→ DM on Instagram

→ Book a no-pressure, no-pitch conversation with Laurie

Resources + links mentioned

• BEST LIFE Mastermind — launching January 2027, applications/waitlist open now
• Join My Mailing LIst
• Email Laurie

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📩  Email Laurie

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Curiosity, Clarity, Courage, Confidence — the four phases every high-achieving woman moves through on her way back to herself, and why they only work in that order.

This is episode four in the Back to School of Midlife series, and it's one that Laurie purposely saved. Not because it's the least important — because it's one of the most important, and if she'd led with it, you would have tuned out.

Here's the setup: most of Laurie's clients arrive having already done the physical work of midlife. Hormones optimized. Sleep dialed in. Alcohol cut back. Steps logged, protein hit, strength training on the calendar. They're doing everything right. And they still don't feel like themselves.

That's where the Four C's come in — the actual transformational arc underneath every coaching relationship Laurie has, whether her clients realize they're moving through it or not. 

And one thing she definitely wants to correct: Confidence does not come before Courage. It's the other way around, and getting that order backwards is exactly what keeps so many capable women stuck.

What we cover:

• Why Laurie deliberately waited until episode four to introduce the Four C's, even though it's the "30,000-foot view" of everything she does
• The exact moment most of her clients hit: feeling good physically, but still not feeling like themselves
• Why optimizing your health further isn't the fix — and how that instinct keeps women in a burnout loop
• The four phases, in order: Curiosity, Clarity, Courage, Confidence
• Why confidence does NOT come first — and what actually produces it (hint: it's the action itself)
• What Curiosity feels like: the big questions most women have never once asked themselves — What's next for me? What's my legacy? Who am I in this season?
• How every core identity — daughter, mother, wife, career woman — is shifting at the same time in midlife, and why that's what makes the disorientation so intense
• Why "what don't you want" is often an easier, more honest starting point than "what do you want"
• Why Laurie thinks the "what do you want" question really is that simple — just not easy
• Where the word "Courage" actually comes from (it's not what you think), and what that means for the decision you're sitting with
• Laurie's own "calculated risk" stories: training for her first marathon having never run more than a 5K, hiking 15 laps of a mountain in 36 hours to match Everest's elevation gain, and leaving her law partnership in the middle of a recession
• Why Courage is a full-body "yes" in your heart, not certainty about how things will turn out
• What Confidence is actually for: staying the course once Courage gets you moving
• Why you're not going to magically find more time in your schedule — and what has to come off it instead
• The pushback you should expect once you start changing, and why it usually comes from the people who love you most
• This week's homework: figuring out — honestly — which of the four C's you're actually in right now

Quotable moments

• "Confidence doesn't come first. Confidence actually comes from taking the action."
• "Courage means you're willing to take the first step in the direction of the life you want to live, not because you know it's going to work out, but because it means so much to you."
• "You can have everything you ever thought you ever wanted and still feel like there's something missing."
• "It starts and ends with: what do you want? Just because it's simple, though, doesn't mean it's easy."
• "Courage actually comes from the Latin word cor, meaning heart."
• "Your biggest cheerleaders are the ones who are gonna throw up the most walls because they like the old you."
• "People don't chase dreams to get what they already have."
• "We need to have the Confidence to continue on the path that our Courage put us on."

Laurie's ask for this episode Figure out which of the four C's you're actually in right now — Curiosity, Clarity, Courage, or Confidence — and be honest about it, not aspirational. Then ask yourself how you feel about that, and what you're going to do about it.

• → Send her an email
• → DM on Instagram

Resources + links mentioned

• Episode 1: Overview of the School of Midlife and the coaching Laurie provides
• Episode 2: The BEST LIFE™ Framework
• Episode 3: Learn, Earn, Yearn — the three phases of life
• JOIN MY MAILING LIST
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25 years to learn. 40 years to earn. And if you're lucky — 13 years to yearn. Once you see that math, you can't unsee it.

Session three of the Back to School (of Midlife) series. This week, Laurie lays out the three seasons of life — Learn, Earn, Yearn — on a simple timeline from zero to 80, using the average U.S. female life expectancy of 78.8 years as the anchor. The math is blunt: 25 years learning, 40 years earning, and only about 13 years left to yearn — and that's if you're lucky, since that number is actually decreasing, not increasing.

She calls it one of the biggest grifts sold to high achievers: give your most vital, vibrant years to climbing the ladder, and get a shorter, less certain stretch at the end as your reward. She brings in Bill Perkins' Die With Zero and its health/time/money framing — good health and time but no money in the first third, health and money but no time in the second, and money and time but no guaranteed health in the third — to make the same point from a different angle.

Then she tells the story of her Dad: retired on his 66th birthday after 48 years of work, moved back to Boise, had real, specific plans for retirement, and he never got the chance to live out those retirement dreams.

The episode closes with this week's assignment: identify one thing you've been deferring to your "someday" Yearn season, and find a way to move it into your Earn season now — the same thing Laurie's doing with her own upcoming France trip.

What we cover:

• The three seasons of life, laid out on a simple zero-to-80 timeline
• Why the math changes once you use the real average life expectancy (78.8, and declining) instead of assuming a full "65 to 80"
• The "grift" framing — why trading your most vital years for a shorter, less certain retirement is a bad deal
• Bill Perkins' Die With Zero and his health/time/money breakdown of the three phases of life
• Why health is the one resource in that equation nobody can guarantee, no matter how well you plan
• Laurie's dad's story — 48 years of work, five months of retirement, and the retirement dreams he never got to
• The reframe: you don't have to wait for the Yearn season to start living like your life matters
• A BEST LIFE Retreat client who moved up her own retirement date by five years after doing this work
• Laurie's own example: finally taking the France trip she's talked about for five years, instead of deferring it again
• The "must be nice" reaction some women have when they hear about the trip — and why that reaction is worth examining
• This week's assignment: do your own version of the math, name one thing you've been deferring to "someday," and move it into your Earn season now
• A preview of next week: the Curiosity, Clarity, Courage, Confidence framework — the actual mechanics of how this work happens

Quotable moments

• "Once you see it laid out, you won't be able to unsee it."
• "I think this is one of the biggest grifts sold to high achievers."
• "Why should we spend forty to sixty hours a week at work during our most vital life years?"
• "He got five months of his Yearn years. And when he died, so did every dream he'd put off."
• "You don't have to wait to the Yearn season to start living like the life you want matters."
• "You have to plan for your own dreams just like you do your kids' schedules and your work projects."

Resources + links mentioned:

• Die With Zero by Bill Perkins
• Episode 187 — Attainable Is Overrated: Why "Wildest Dreams" Beat "Realistic Ones | Back to School - Ep. 2
• Episode 186 — Orientation Day: When Being a High-Achiever Isn't Enough | Back to School - Ep. 1
• CONNECT WITH LAURIE: Email Laurie or book a call 

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Most of us would fire our contractor building our dream home if she tried to make the plans conform to "specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound." So why do we do that to our own lives?

Session two of the Back to School (of Midlife) series. If last week was orientation, this is the core curriculum — the actual framework behind everything Laurie coaches: BEST LIFE™.

She starts by naming the pushback she hears constantly — "I'm not a high achiever" — and dismantles it directly: if you've ever solved a problem nobody asked you to solve, put yourself last on the list, or believed your rest had to be earned, you're a high achiever, whatever your job title says.

From there she walks through the two real reasons she built BEST LIFE™: the goal-chasing problem (achieving the goal without ever asking what you actually wanted, and feeling empty anyway), and her long-standing issue with SMART goals as personal-life advice. The dream house metaphor she opened with threads through the entire back half — you wouldn't build a house without a plan for what you actually want to live in, so why are you building a life that way?

Then she breaks down BEST LIFE™ letter by letter — BEyond your wildest dreams, Success on your terms, Truly want, so you can build a LIFE of Legacy, Impact, Fulfillment, and Excitement — with homework at the end: pick one letter, write down what it actually means to you.

What we cover:

• Why Laurie built BEST LIFE™ for two specific reasons, not one
• The "I'm not a high achiever" pushback, and why she doesn't let anyone off the hook for it
• The success playbook checklist — school, job, marriage, kids, house, promotion, retirement — and why finishing it doesn't always feel the way you expect
• Why chasing the right goal without checking in with yourself first still leaves you empty
• What changes when clients do the foundational work first — what do you want, what does success mean, what does your best life look like
• Laurie's own story: 20 years in commercial real estate and brokerage before she became "student one" at the School of Midlife
• Why the SMART goals framework is excellent for a sales quarter and terrible for a marriage or a health goal
• A closer look at two SMART letters specifically — Attainable and Time-Bound — and why Laurie thinks both are the wrong filter for your personal life
• The dream house metaphor, used to explain why you plan a life the same way you'd plan a home: you can't hand someone the blueprints until you know what you want
• BE: Beyond your wildest dreams — letting yourself want something big before your brain talks you out of it
• S: Success on your terms — redefining success outside of money and job title, specific to this season of life
• T: What you truly want — stripping away everyone else's opinion, including a nod to that scene in The Notebook
• LIFE: Legacy, Impact, Fulfillment, and Excitement — including the generational angle: what your daughters and sons learn by watching how you live
• This week's homework: pick one letter, write down what it actually means to you — not a dictionary definition, the real one
• A preview of next week: the three seasons of life — Learn, Earn, Yearn — and why waiting for the last one is a bad bet

Quotable moments

• "You have to remember, I was student one at the School of Midlife."
• "If there is a problem in your life, more often than not, you're the one who solved it, even when nobody asked you to."
• "I don't care if you get there. When we talk about attainable and achievable, I want you to make it so big — wildest dreams big."
• "If this is something you genuinely want... who cares how long it takes?"
• "You have to stop trying to make everybody happy and start living a life that is true to you."
• "If, like, none of it excites you, it's probably someone else's goal or dream that you've just adopted."
• "This is not just some rosy saying that should make you feel good. There is intentionality behind this."

Resources + links mentioned

• Episode 186 — Orientation Day: When Being a High-Achiever Isn't Enough (Back to School [of Midlife] series, session one)
• Best Life Planner
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The problem with high-performance coaching for high-achieving women? They're already high performers. That's exactly the problem.

This episode kicks off something new: a multi-week series Laurie's calling Back to School (of Midlife) — not the pencils-and-Trapper-Keeper kind of back to school, the adult kind. Every week for the next several weeks, she's walking through the frameworks she's built over the years, where they came from, and how she actually uses them with clients.

Today's episode is the origin story. Before there was a BEST LIFE™ framework, before Learn/Earn/Yearn, before Curiosity → Clarity → Courage → Confidence, there was a certification — an elite one, one of only 1,100 in the world — and a realization that cracked everything else open.

Laurie walks through exactly what that certification taught her (and still uses in every session), and exactly how "she's already a high performer" turns out to be the whole problem, not a strength to lean on harder. She also gets into two decades of living this pattern herself — first in law, then in commercial real estate — before she ever became a coach.

What we cover:

• Why Laurie is kicking off a new podcast series, and why she's leaning all the way into the back-to-school metaphor
• The "adulting playbook" — school, job, marriage, kids, promotion, retirement — and the homework she gives you about it
• Why she chose Certified High Performance Coaching, and the Brendon Burchard connection that led her there
• What the CHPC curriculum actually taught her — and why she still uses those skills in every session today
• Why "busyness" is often an avoidance technique, including her own real example of over-boarding on volunteer work and marathon training to avoid being home
• The most important piece her clients kept missing: checking in with themselves
• Why it wasn't a gap in the curriculum — it was just more of the same
• The two decades she spent living this exact pattern herself, in law and then commercial real estate
• What Personal Leadership Development actually means, and why it's not life coaching or executive coaching — it's the umbrella above both
• A preview of the entire Back to School series: BEST LIFE™, Learn/Earn/Yearn, Curiosity/Clarity/Courage/Confidence, and an honest look at what's happening with the Mastermind
• The adult "back to school supply list" — a new notebook, a hall pass, an elective, and office hours
• Why "I just need to work harder" is almost never actually about working harder

Quotable moments

• "You have one life. You need to bring all of those pieces of your life instead of compartmentalizing them."
• "That feeling of having to become someone different depending on which room you walked into — that's not just a career problem. That's the whole thing I coach on now."
• "The problem with high performance coaching for high-achieving women is they're already high performers... they're missing the most important piece, which is checking in with themselves."
• "It wasn't so much a gap in the coaching curriculum. It was just more of the same."
• "Probably 95% of the time, the statement 'I just need to work harder' usually means I haven't asked myself what I actually want."
• "We use a busy schedule as an avoidance technique."
• "It's not the work that's leaving you burned out. It's the requirement to show up as a different person in every different role you're asked to fill."

Resources + links mentioned

• Episode 183 — "Did You Actually Choose This Life? Or Did You Just Do What Was Expected?"
• Best Life Planner 
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