The Wobbly Middle: Women's Career Crossroads In Midlife

Donna was in her 40s when she picked up a camera. A stay-at-home mum in a new country, she poured her passion for food into a blog to fill the long school days. Good photos were essential, so—like every resourceful mother—she taught herself. The result? Drool-worthy, award-winning images that launched a stellar career.

Now in her 50s, professional food photographer Donna Crous has cancer. With the same creativity, determination, and heart that shaped her career, she’s using her Diary of a Booby Queen to educate women about secondary breast cancer and to give them the courage to advocate for themselves.

• (00:16) - Susannah's Week of Perspective
• (01:20) - Patsy's Small Steps Approach
• (02:11) - Introducing Donna Crous
• (04:57) - Donna's Journey: From Banking to Baking
• (09:47) - The Leap into Food Photography
• (22:12) - Facing Cancer: Donna's Story
• (25:46) - Advocacy and Final Thoughts

The Wobbly Middle is a podcast for women rethinking their careers. Each season, Patsy and Susannah sit 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.

This is the final episode of Season One. Thank you for your support and encouragement. That the response has so far exceeded our expectations shows that The Wobbly Middle is striking a chord. Women are recognizing themselves in these stories of career reinvention, and they’re feeling seen, heard, and inspired to reimagine the shape of their own careers. We’re committed to continuing this conversation and energizing women to seek purpose, passion, and fulfillment in their midlife chapters.

Links

Season 2 is coming soon. In the meantime, you can stay up to date by signing up for our newsletter on Substack. You can also find us on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook @thewobblymiddle.

About the hosts:

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.

Susannah de Jager has just moved to Abu Dhabi. She is podcasting, consulting to start-ups and occasionally advising on scale-up capital having left her role as CEO of a boutique asset manager and asked "what next?”. In the last five years she has forged a new path following her passions and interests. This podcast is for her and for all those like her.

Notebooks at the ready—this is a masterclass in taking ideas to thriving ventures from one of the UK’s most dynamic businesswomen. Debbie Wosskow OBE has built, scaled, and sold multimillion-pound businesses, including Love Home Swap, and now leads the charge for female founded businesses with the £250 million Invest in Women Taskforce and her new venture The Better Menopause.

In this candid conversation, Debbie shares the lessons learned from decades of experience: the sunlit uplands as well as the darkness. With a different business for every decade of her life, Debbie’s playbook is packed with insights to inspire your next move.

• (00:00) - The Wobbly Middle S1 E7 Debbie Wosskow
• (02:11) - Debbie's Early Career and Success
• (05:07) - Personal Reinvention and Challenges
• (15:19) - Building and Leading Female-Focused Businesses
• (24:46) - Navigating Uncertainty and Personal Growth

The Wobbly Middle is a podcast for women rethinking their careers. Each season, Patsy and Susannah sit 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.

Links

For additional insights, read The Wobbly Middle on Substack. You can also find us on LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook @thewobblymiddle.

If you are in the wobbly middle of your career, please share your story with us via our socials or email us at [email protected]. We'd love to hear what’s on your mind - and if you're out the other side, please let us know how you got there!

About the hosts:

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.

Susannah de Jager has just moved to Abu Dhabi. She is podcasting, consulting to start-ups and occasionally advising on scale-up capital having left her role as CEO of a boutique asset manager and asked "what next?”. In the last five years she has forged a new path following her passions and interests. This podcast is for her and for all those like her.

Born in the New Mexico deserts where running water was a luxury, Dr. Emily Connally was an unlikely contender for the ivory towers of Harvard and Oxford — but with grit, brilliance, and a touch of rebellion, she soared. Yet her greatest achievements may not be in the lab...

When the pandemic struck, Emily applied the same expertise she used to map the brain’s complex pathways to chart a thriving grassroots network. Starting with a schoolgate foodbank, she built Cherwell Collective which is transforming how local networks tackle food waste and sustainability.

From elite academia to community hero, listen to Emily’s warm, uplifting tale of courage, ingenuity, and the power of pivoting when it matters most.

• (02:53) - Emily's Early Life and Education
• (05:33) - Challenges and Triumphs in Academia
• (11:37) - Activism and Union Leadership at Arizona
• (19:30) - The Birth of Cherwell Collective
• (24:34) - Cherwell Collective's Impact and Future Plans

The Wobbly Middle is a podcast for women rethinking their careers. Each season, Patsy and Susannah sit 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.

Links

New episodes of The Wobble Middle released fortnightly. For additional insights, read The Wobbly Middle on Substack. You can also find us on LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook @thewobblymiddle.

If you are in the wobbly middle of your career, please share your story with us via our socials or email us at [email protected]. We'd love to hear what’s on your mind - and if you're out the other side, please let us know how you got there!

To learn more about Cherwell Collective, visit https://www.cherwellcollective.com/

About the hosts:

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.

Susannah de Jager has just moved to Abu Dhabi. She is podcasting, consulting to start-ups and occasionally advising on scale-up capital having left her role as CEO of a boutique asset manager and asked "what next?”. In the last five years she has forged a new path following her passions and interests. This podcast is for her and for all those like her.

Sophie was 37 when she was diagnosed with a life-threatening illness. Recovered but with a heavy dose of heartache, she had a choice to make: return to the legal career she had spent years building or follow her passion into the fires of the kitchen.

With humour, grit, and inspiring zest, Sophie Archer reveals how her strength grew to fuel her culinary dreams - all the way to MasterChef: The Professionals. This is a story that will ignite your own ambitions and leave you hungry for possibility.

• (00:00) - From Courtroom to Chef’s Kitchen: A Feast of Grit and Glory
• (02:17) - Introducing Sophie Archer
• (06:26) - The Shift from Law to the Culinary Arts
• (12:16) - Building a New Career
• (18:03) - The Kitchen of Dreams
• (27:43) - Reflections and Future Plans
• (28:52) - Sophie's MasterChef Experience

The Wobbly Middle is a podcast for women rethinking their careers. Each season, Patsy and Susannah sit 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.

Links

New episodes of The Wobble Middle, released fortnightly. For additional insights, read The Wobbly Middle on Substack. You can also find us on LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook @thewobblymiddle.

If you are in the wobbly middle of your career, please share your story with us via our socials or email us at [email protected]. We'd love to hear what’s on your mind - and if you're out the other side, please let us know how you got there!

About the hosts:

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.

Susannah de Jager has just moved to Abu Dhabi. She is podcasting, consulting to start-ups and occasionally advising on scale-up capital having left her role as CEO of a boutique asset manager and asked "what next?”. In the last five years she has forged a new path following her passions and interests. This podcast is for her and for all those like her.

Midwife turned femtech founder Nina Van Schaick felt a deep calling to support mothers through the transformative experience of child birth. But as she witnessed the trauma caused by failures in maternal care, she knew change was urgently needed. With less than 2% of pharmaceutical R&D dedicated to maternal health, Nina decided to take action herself and developed Peripear, a groundbreaking product designed to minimise perineal tearing.

Join warm, funny, and bold Nina as she shares how she moved from the delivery suite to the boardroom to create meaningful change for women’s health.

• (00:00) - Introduction to The Wobbly Middle
• (03:08) - Nina's Journey into Midwifery
• (05:39) - The Emotional Spectrum of Midwifery
• (08:04) - Challenges and Changes in Midwifery
• (12:11) - Innovating with PeriPear
• (20:00) - Empowering Women in Midlife

If Femtech is your thing, another great episode is with Rachael Newton (see Celebrating a Period of Change) where she tells us how she designed Nixit, a revolutionary, reusable menstrual disc after she realised her tampon waste took so long to break down it would likely survive the apocalypse alongside the cockroach.

The Wobbly Middle is a podcast for women rethinking their careers. Each season, Patsy and Susannah sit 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.

Links

New episodes of The Wobble Middle are released fortnightly. For additional insights, read The Wobbly Middle on Substack. You can also find us on LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook @thewobblymiddle.

If you are in the wobbly middle of your career, please share your story with us via our socials or email us at [email protected]. We'd love to hear what’s on your mind - and if you're out the other side, please let us know how you got there!

About the hosts:

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.

Susannah de Jager has just moved to Abu Dhabi. She is podcasting, consulting to start-ups and occasionally advising on scale-up capital having left her role as CEO of a boutique asset manager and asked "what next?”. In the last five years she has forged a new path following her passions and interests. This podcast is for her and for all those like her.

What happens when one of the most influential woman in the City resigns at the top of her game? Dame Helena Morrissey stunned the financial world when she stepped down as CEO of Newton Asset Management at 50 — without a fully formed plan. In this compelling episode, Helena opens up about the unfinished business that drove her forward; and how she learned to embrace discomfort as she forged a new path.

As one of the most prominent advocates for equal pay and opportunity, Helena also sets out her powerful vision for getting more mid-career women into investment roles. Listen in to hear how she’s making an impact yet again, transforming the future of women in finance.

The Wobbly Middle is a podcast for women rethinking their careers. Each season, Patsy and Susannah sit 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.

Links

New episodes of The Wobble Middle are released fortnightly. For additional insights, read The Wobbly Middle on Substack. You can also find us on LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook @thewobblymiddle.

https://thewobblymiddle.substack.com

If you are in the wobbly middle of your career, please share your story with us via our socials or email us at [email protected]. We'd love to hear what’s inspiring you or if you have a question for us - and if you're out the other side, please let us know how you got there!

About the hosts:

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.

Susannah de Jager has just moved to Abu Dhabi. She is podcasting, consulting to start-ups and occasionally advising on scale-up capital having left her role as CEO of a boutique asset manager and asked "what next?”. In the last five years she has forged a new path following her passions and interests. This podcast is for her and for all those like her.

Helen was made redundant while pregnant. In the playground, she watched as skilled mums - lawyers, accountants, architects - pushed swings, frustrated by the lack of jobs that could accommodate family life. Grabbing her phone and laptop, she decided to take matters into her own hands. In this episode, Helen Wright of 9-2-3 tells us of life at the forefront of the movement that is reshaping our working lives.

The Wobbly Middle is a podcast for women rethinking their careers. Each season, Patsy and Susannah sit 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.

Links

You can find Helen at www.923jobs.com

New episodes of The Wobbly Middle drop every two weeks. For additional insights, read The Wobbly Middle on Substack. You can also find us on LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook @thewobblymiddle.

https://thewobblymiddle.substack.com/

If you are in the wobbly middle of your career and would like to share your story with us, please drop us a line via our socials or email us at [email protected]. We'd love to hear what inspiring you or if you have a question for us - and if you're out the other side, please let us know how you got there!

About the hosts:

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.

Susannah de Jager has just moved to Abu Dhabi. She is podcasting, consulting to start-ups and occasionally advising on scale-up capital having left her role as CEO of a boutique asset manager and asked "what next?”. In the last five years she has forged a new path following her passions and interests. This podcast is for her and for all those like her.

When their often young, sub-fertile patients needed perimenopause help, Drs Susanne Hooper and Melanie Hacking took a sharp right turn in their careers...

The Wobbly Middle is a podcast for women rethinking their careers. Each season, Patsy and Susannah sit 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 of The Wobble Middle drop every two weeks. You can also read our Wobbly Middle musings on Substack at The Wobbly Middle. You can also find us on Instagram, @thewobblymiddle

Links

Find Susanne and Melanie at the Oxford Hormone Clinic.

If you are in the wobbly middle of your career and would like to share your story with us, please drop us a line via Substack or email us at

[email protected]. We'd love to hear what inspiring you or if you have a question for us - and if you're out the other side, please let us know how you got there!

About the hosts:

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.

Susannah de Jager has just moved to Abu Dhabi. She is podcasting, consulting to start-ups and occasionally advising on scale-up capital having left her role as CEO of a boutique asset manager and asked "what next?”. In the last five years she has forged a new path following her passions and interests. This podcast is for her and for all those like her.

Patsy quit her job. Susannah quit the city. Now they’re on a quest to find the path through the wobbly middle of their careers - that in between space at the career crossroads where you know you want change but don't know how to move forward.

Looking for some career change inspiration? This podcast is for every woman who’s asking “What's next for me?”.

Susannah de Jager and Patsy Day sit 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.

Season 1 of The Wobbly Middle features interviews with famed city superwomen, , revolutionary midwives, fem tech innovators and menopause doctors who reveal what they’ve learnt through their own wobbly middle experiences.

Find us on Substack: thewobblymiddle.substack.com

About the hosts:

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..

Susannah de Jager is podcasting in Oxford, consulting to start-ups and occasionally advising on scale-up capital. Having left her role as CEO as a boutique asset manager and asked "what next?”.