We Can Do It Women

She grew up with an alcoholic mother she never saw sober. At 11 she moved to her father's — safer, but still emotionally alone. Tatjana Simakova spent her childhood surviving without support. She spent the next 12 years making sure no teenager has to do the same.

IN THIS EPISODE:

• Growing up in Lithuania — an alcoholic mother, an emotionally absent father, and the art that kept her going
• Why 12 years with teenagers led to one conclusion: the parent-child relationship is everything
• How art therapy reached a 13-year-old Traveller boy who had no words for his grief
• The three-part workshop: group chat, meditation, then whatever arrives on paper — no explanation needed
• Why teenagers are in constant fight-or-flight on Snapchat — and what it costs their self-esteem
• The mirror in Tatjana's office — and the teenagers who can't turn to look at themselves
• One meal a day, no gadgets: the simplest first step any parent can take
• Salvos Parenting: the online village for parents who need community and professionals in one place
• Practicing in English, Russian, and Lithuanian — why mother tongue is the first language of emotion

EPISODE SUMMARY:

Tatjana discovered in 12 years of clinical work what her own childhood had already taught her: when a teenager has at least one trusting relationship with a parent, they can survive almost anything. Without it, everything is harder. Art therapy gave her the tool to bridge the gap — not because teenagers draw well, but because paint and paper carry what words cannot. Her new Salvos Parenting platform builds the village that parents desperately need: community, professionals, resources, and a safe place to ask questions without judgment.

ABOUT TATJANA:

Psychotherapist and art therapist, County Clare, Ireland. 12 years working with teenagers and families. Practicing in English, Russian, and Lithuanian. Founder of Salvos Parenting.

CONNECT: https://salvustherapy.ie/
COMMUNITY: WeCanDoItWomen.com

If this episode made you want to put your phone down and ask your teenager how they really are — do it today. Then join us at WeCanDoItWomen.com. A 5-star Apple Podcasts review helps more families find this show.

At 14 she told her mother she'd write a world-changing book. It took decades, a year-long concussion, and a formula born in Olympic gymnastics coaching. Laura Ballet did it anyway.

IN THIS EPISODE:

• J3=E: the Olympic gymnastics formula adapted for everyday women — unpacked simply
• The three fields of energy — negative, positive, neutral — and why neutrality is the superpower
• The five principles: awareness, willingness, accountability, critical thinking, energy
• "Negative Bob": the 7-year-old who learned to walk negativity out the door — now a champion at 15
• Subconscious contracts: how to identify the ones keeping you in the same loop
• "Suspend the doubt": the single most powerful instruction Laura gives every client
• How the concussion became the proving ground for everything she was writing

EPISODE SUMMARY:
Laura Ballet watched her brother Chris — former USA Olympic gymnastics coach — apply mindset training to elite athletes for decades. She wondered: what if everyday women had access to the same formula? The answer became The Science of Empowerment and a coaching practice built on one central truth: neutrality is where choice lives, and choice is the most powerful seat anyone can occupy.

Her five principles — awareness, willingness, accountability, critical thinking, energy — don't just describe change. They create it. When a client walks in believing they're stuck, Laura asks one question: if you had high-level intellectual awareness right now, how would you answer this? They always know. The moment they voice it, the alignment begins. Information becomes knowledge. Knowledge becomes wisdom. Wisdom becomes an empowered life.

ABOUT LAURA:
Number-one bestselling international author of The Science of Empowerment, speaker, and empowerment coach. 150+ podcast and media appearances. Based in Farmington, Connecticut.

CONNECT: https://thescienceofempowerment.com/ | Amazon: The Science of Empowerment
COMMUNITY: WeCanDoItWomen.com

If this episode made you ask what energy you're contributing right now — the formula is already working. Join us at WeCanDoItWomen.com. A 5-star Apple Podcasts review helps more women find this show.

At 12, a botched surgery shattered every bone in both feet and ended her Olympic skating dream. At 315 pounds in her late 30s, she decided that wasn't her story either. Two weeks before her 52nd birthday, a corporate layoff handed her a door she never would have opened herself. She walked through it.

IN THIS EPISODE:

• The malpractice surgery at 12 that launched a lifetime philosophy: focus on what you can do
• Losing over 100 pounds as a single mom through tiny, sustainable changes — before GLP-1 injections existed
• The layoff at 52, one week of intentional stillness, and the Venn diagram that changed everything
• Why six months of living expenses in savings is the breathing room that makes real choices possible
• What happens when women reconnect with physical strength — and why it changes everything beyond the body
• The 69-year-old client: breast cancer, a stroke, two knee replacements, couldn't rise from a toilet unassisted — now a self-described gym rat who lifts a 30-pound sewing machine alone
• Why reinvention starts where staying the same becomes more painful than changing

EPISODE SUMMARY:
Misti McCloud built her coaching practice around what she knows firsthand. She survived single motherhood in D.C., raised a neurodiverse son, built a corporate career, and lost over 100 pounds through micro-changes made one at a time. When a layoff at 52 pushed her through an unexpected door, she took one intentional week, drew a Venn diagram of her skills, the world's needs, and what she could earn, and found her answer: NASM-certified coaching for women 40 and better.

Her philosophy: when women reconnect with physical strength, the transformation is never just physical. It changes how they walk into rooms, set boundaries, and trust themselves. She is the GPS. Her clients do the driving.

ABOUT MISTI:
NASM-certified personal trainer, nutrition coach, and women's empowerment coach serving women 40 and better. Former corporate professional and single mother who lost over 100 pounds. Speaker and workshop leader for women's groups.

CONNECT: trainwithmisti.com
COMMUNITY: WeCanDoItWomen.com

If this episode fanned an ember, take one step today — then join us at WeCanDoItWomen.com. A 5-star Apple Podcasts review helps more women find this show.

In his last coherent week, after eight and a half years of a brain tumor that had stolen him one layer at a time, Gerard came back. He told his wife she had been to hell. Then he asked her to promise him two things: love again, and write the novels. She scattered his ashes in Ireland and started writing that same night.

IN THIS EPISODE:

• A fifth-generation Michigan girl who read every library in town — and ended up in the Reagan White House
• How CEO Frank Popoff found her writing speeches that didn't sound like business speeches — and her career was never the same
• Meeting Gerard Cowan in a Dublin pub — the electricity, the Tuesday Club, the triplets
• Eight and a half years of a right-frontal-lobe astrocytoma: personality changes, financial devastation, seizures, a broken back, and caregiving alone
• How IBM's chief medical officer got them into Sloan Kettering by Wednesday morning
• Gerard's final week — the deathbed promise that unlocked everything
• Three novels published in two and a half years. A fourth coming. A life that is finally full.

EPISODE SUMMARY:
Michelle Morris has always connected with people by telling their stories — at the White House, in journalism, across corporate boardrooms, in crisis communications on three continents. But the decade she spent caregiving for a husband whose brain tumor was slowly dismantling his personality was one she lived mostly alone — too hard to explain, too strange to fit anyone's framework.

When Gerard died, he gave her a permission slip she had been waiting for her whole career: write. She came home to Michigan, walked away from her last corporate job, and in two and a half years published three novels. Her characters face what she faced — the question of whether you get back up and what you build next. Her answer, in every book and in this conversation, is yes.

ABOUT MICHELLE:
Novelist, former Reagan White House staffer, corporate executive, and crisis communications professional. Author of Comes Around, A Quiet Town, Fresh Water, and a forthcoming fourth novel. Based in Michigan.

CONNECT: http://michellesmorris.com | Amazon: Michelle S. Morris | Facebook: Michelle S. Morris, Author | Instagram: @michelle.s.morris
COMMUNITY: WeCanDoItWomen.com

If this episode reminded you the story isn't over, come find your people at WeCanDoItWomen.com. A 5-star Apple Podcasts review helps more women find this show.

She was made redundant on a Friday. By Monday she'd enrolled in naturopathy. She built a 5-site business, sold it in one of South Australia's largest exits, and founded Mind Garage. Now Cindy Koehler brings 40 years and 10,000 coaching hours to this conversation.

In This Episode:

• Cindy's own story: from biomechanics to education to a 5-site business to its sale — and now the coaching practice she was always building toward
• Why the beliefs we carry into adulthood were never actually chosen — and the one question that exposes whether they're helping or holding you back
• The "handbrake" metaphor: how the business owner's own mindset is the single largest obstacle to business growth
• Identity-based resilience coaching: why "who am I becoming?" is a more powerful question than "what should I do?"
• The three-word exercise: a practice for stepping into your future self right now, without waiting
• Metacognition — the skill only humans have — and how to use it to separate threat from story
• Uncomfortable is not the same as unsafe: why the brain defaults to threat and how to override it with choice
• How women rebuild self-trust after years of people-pleasing and meeting everyone else's expectations
• "Empty the drawer first": the Russian proverb that reframes every major life transition
• Cindy's upcoming book Manifest You and what it will walk readers through

About Cindy Koehler

Cindy Koehler is a transformational business and life coach based in Adelaide, South Australia. With 40 years of experience in mindset coaching, 20 years in education, 25 years in business, and a background in NLP, hypnotherapy, mindfulness, and energetic medicine, she is the founder of Mind Garage and the author of the forthcoming Manifest You. She has delivered over 10,000 hours of coaching to elite professionals, business owners, and athletes. She turned 60 last year and says she has never been more excited for what comes next.

Connect with Cindy Koehler

• Website: mindgarage.com
• Upcoming book: Manifest You (July 2026)

Resources

• WeCanDoItWomen.com/group — join Debra's community

She was 70 years old, running a solo business without a steady paycheck, supporting a husband in severe decline in a nursing home — a man she had already decided to divorce — and quietly hitting the lowest point of her life. By 73, she was dating men in their 30s, 40s, and 50s, writing erotica, taking university classes, and finishing a book called Sex, Sensuality and the Senior Woman. Andrea Feinberg didn't wait for circumstances to improve. She decided she was the one who was going to improve them.

In This Episode:

• The unexpected crisis that preceded Andrea's transformation: planning a divorce, then watching her husband have a life-changing accident and decline in a nursing home
• The four changes she made at 70 that cost nothing and changed everything: university classes, a weekly discussion group, one friend per week, and dating
• What she discovered on a dating website for the over-50s — and why it completely reframed how she thinks about age and desirability
• The 16 reasons younger men gave her for why they specifically seek out older women (she asked every single one)
• Why Andrea says there's a generation of men in their 30s, 40s, and even 20s who find older women "wildly attractive and wildly desired"
• Her 10-step common sense framework for personal transformation — no investment, no unusual skills required
• Writing erotica for the first time at 70+ — and why she's now expanding it toward female satisfaction specifically
• The childhood story that made independence feel like her natural state

About Andrea Feinberg

Andrea Feinberg is the founder of Coaching Insight and a 40-year veteran of business development, strategic marketing, and entrepreneurial coaching. After a decade on Wall Street and 35 years running her own firm, Andrea made a radical personal pivot at 70 — enrolling in university, dating younger men, and writing her most personal book to date: Sex, Sensuality and the Senior Woman, a 10-step transformation guide for women ready to pursue the life society told them they couldn't have.

Connect with Andrea Feinberg

• Website: marketingthatrocks.com
• Website: bossonthebeach.com

Resources

• Sex, Sensuality and the Senior Woman
• WeCanDoItWomen.com — join Debra's community

She found out that two-thirds of divorces are initiated by women — and was stunned. Then she found out that almost everything she believed about aging was equally wrong. That same question — why don't we know this? — made Ashton Applewhite the world's leading voice on ageism.

IN THIS EPISODE:

• Why "old" should be a neutral word — and the shame we attach to it is the problem, not the age
• The U-curve of happiness: people are happiest at life's beginning and end — and why
• Only 2.5% of people over 65 are in nursing homes — and dementia rates keep dropping
• Yale research: your attitudes toward aging affect your health at the cellular level
• Elder speak — what it is, why everyone hates it, and how to avoid it
• Why "aging successfully" is ableist and sets us all up to fail
• The single greatest predictor of a good old age: not health, not wealth — your social network
• The shoe test for age diversity — and why making one older or younger friend is an anti-ageist act
• Free resources: Old School Hub, Wednesday office hours, "Aging Is Living" artwork

EPISODE SUMMARY:
Ashton Applewhite is entirely self-taught. She didn't start writing until her 40s or discover ageism until her mid-50s. Her TED Talk, her manifesto This Chair Rocks, and the Old School Hub she co-founded are the product of a researcher's rigor and a deep suspicion that cultural forces keep women in the dark on purpose. Under capitalism and in a sexist, ageist society, fear of aging is profitable. The facts are not.

The facts: the U-curve proves people are happiest at life's beginning and end. Yale psychologist Becca Levy's research shows people with positive views of aging live 7.5 years longer. Loneliness rates are higher in young people than old. And discrimination, not age itself, is the problem. When you learn to see ageism in yourself, a veil lifts — and then you can do something about it.

ABOUT ASHTON:
Author of This Chair Rocks, TED speaker, co-founder of Old School Hub. Recognized by the United Nations, WHO, PBS Next Avenue, NYT, and NPR as an expert on ageism.

CONNECT: thisChairRocks.com | oldschool.info | Wednesday office hours 1:30 ET
COMMUNITY: WeCanDoItWomen.com

If this episode lifted a veil, go to oldschool.info and join us at WeCanDoItWomen.com. A 5-star Apple Podcasts review helps more women find this show.

She was mid-sentence in a business meeting when her brain froze. It kept happening. She stopped speaking in meetings. She couldn't sleep. She was convinced she had early dementia. A retired gynecologist at a dinner party changed everything: you're in perimenopause, Ellen. That moment became a 20-year mission.

IN THIS EPISODE:

• The brain freeze, insomnia, and emotional chaos nobody warned Ellen about — and what was actually happening
• The three stages: perimenopause (6–10 years of symptoms), menopause (one single day), and post-menopause
• The 2002 WHI study that scared women off hormone therapy — and the 2024 study of 10 million Medicare women that reversed everything
• Why heart disease kills more women than cancer — and how estrogen therapy reduces that risk
• UTIs and vaginal health after 60: why this becomes a life-threatening issue and how to prevent it
• How to find a certified menopause specialist at menopause.org — step by step
• Why only one-third of gynecologists have menopause training
• Ellen's free symptom tracker, Menopause Mondays blog, and Fearless Vagina course

EPISODE SUMMARY:
Ellen didn't plan this career. She hand-wrote a book on her living room floor, her son put it on a Word doc, menopause specialists vetted it, and a Disney ABC imprint bought it after Rachael Ray's producer found it first. Her Menopause Mondays blog has run every Monday for 20 years. Now her Fearless Vagina course delivers five 20-minute modules on everything women need to know — from perimenopause to post-menopause, hormones to heart health.

The medical facts she shares are backed by two decades of interviewing the top scientists: the 2024 study of 10 million Medicare women proved that women who stayed on hormones had better outcomes in heart, bone, brain, and cancer protection. The conversation women deserved for decades is here. Ellen has been leading it the whole time.

ABOUT ELLEN:
Menopause advocate, bestselling author, and creator of Menopause Mondays and the Fearless Vagina course. Featured on CBS Sunday Morning, Today, Rachel Ray, NPR, and Oprah Radio.

CONNECT: ellendolgen.com | menopause.org for a specialist near you
COMMUNITY: WeCanDoItWomen.com

If this episode gave you something you didn't know you needed, share it with every woman in your life. Then join us at WeCanDoItWomen.com. A 5-star Apple Podcasts review helps more women find this show.

She filled out a coupon in her FFA magazine. The Army wasn't looking for her. They got Major General Tammy Smith anyway — 35 years of service, two stars, and the first openly gay general in United States military history.

IN THIS EPISODE:

• A farm-girl scholarship and the career no one saw coming — from Oakland, Oregon to the Pentagon
• 25 years hiding her identity under threat of dishonorable discharge — not from shame, but to keep a job she loved
• The parachute jump that knocked out her tooth — and taught her to trust her equipment
• Building roads and bridges in Costa Rica — and finding them still standing 20 years later
• The Admiral Mullen testimony that made her cry and rescind her retirement papers
• Deploying to Afghanistan while her partner said goodbye like a stranger in a civilian airport
• Waking up in Bagram on September 20, 2011 when Don't Ask, Don't Tell was repealed
• Becoming the first openly gay general in US military history — terrified, and doing it anyway
• How LGBTQ veterans can access blanket discharge upgrades and reclaim VA benefits
• 
  

EPISODE SUMMARY:
Tammy Smith hid for 25 years — not from shame, but from a policy that allowed commanders to discharge service members administratively, without legal recourse, simply for being identified as gay. She loved the Army too much to leave. When she met Tracy Hepner in 2004, hiding became harder. When Admiral Mullen testified that he couldn't understand asking soldiers to lie about who they were to serve with honor, she wept, rescinded her retirement papers, and stayed. She was in Bagram on the day repeal happened. She came home, married Tracy at the Jefferson Memorial, and two months later became the first openly gay general in US history — with her wife and her father pinning on her stars.

ABOUT GENERAL SMITH:
Major General Tammy Smith (Ret.) served 35 years in the US Army. She holds a BA in US History, two master's degrees, and a Doctorate of Management in Organizational Leadership.

COMMUNITY: WeCanDoItWomen.com

If this episode moved you, come carry it forward at WeCanDoItWomen.com. A 5-star Apple Podcasts review takes under a minute and helps more women find this show.

She didn't think she would live to see 42. A domestic violence survivor who escaped three times — arriving in California with two babies and the clothes on her back — Wendy Ida spent her thirties overweight, stuck, and convinced she was destined for the same life as the women before her. Then, at exactly 42, the lights came on. At 72, she holds two Guinness World Records and is the oldest active certified fitness instructor in the country.

IN THIS EPISODE:

• How Wendy escaped domestic violence and rebuilt her life from nothing at 42
• Why "go big or go home" is an antique — and how micro steps actually change lives
• The suitcases: your past packed into luggage you don't know you're carrying, and how to set it down
• Outlook vs. inlook — and why the inlook is the first domino
• The hallway: her name for the stuck place between who you were and who you're becoming
• Cease and replace: the nutrition approach that changes your palate without saying "don't"
• Why laughter and recovery are as important as any workout
• Adiwanda: the mental sanctuary Wendy built — and how you can build yours

EPISODE SUMMARY:
Wendy didn't start competing until 57. She broke Guinness records at 60. She left a six-figure accounting career behind because she discovered the reason she was born: helping others rebuild their minds, bodies, and lives. The tools she teaches go far beyond fitness. Her suitcase model unpacks old trauma that silently steers your choices. The hallway names the painful middle ground of change — and shows you how to walk through it. Cease and replace in nutrition starts with sugar and portion awareness, one micro step at a time. And inlook — how you see yourself in the world — determines whether any of it even starts. Courage, Wendy says, is wanting to change so badly that fear doesn't stop you. She proves it every day at 72.

ABOUT WENDY:
Wendy Ida is a bestselling author, certified trauma and life coach, fitness expert, domestic violence survivor, and motivational speaker who holds two Guinness World Records set at 60. Author of Take Back Your Life and Unbreak Me.

CONNECT: https://wendyida.com | YouTube & Instagram: Wendy Ida Fitness
COMMUNITY: WeCanDoItWomen.com

If this episode stirred something in you, take one micro step today — then join us at WeCanDoItWomen.com. A 5-star Apple Podcasts review takes under a minute and helps more women find this show.