Today, I turn 40.
And I’ve been thinking a lot about what I want this next decade of my life to look like.
While there are plenty of things I could write about turning 40, the lessons I’ve learned, the decisions I’ve made, the things I wish I’d known sooner, I actually want to do something a little different.
I want to ask you for something.
I’d love your support in helping me build the next chapter of my life and business.
Over the past couple of years, I’ve made some pretty significant changes.
I left a 15-year career in the pharmaceutical industry. I moved from Canada to Dubai.
I’ve been building a coaching business, teaching fitness, writing, and recently relaunched my podcast, Woman in Progress.
I’ve essentially been figuring out what it means to build a life and career on my own terms.
And it’s been exciting, challenging, humbling, and sometimes really uncomfortable.
I’ve gone from spending much of my adult life working within established organizations to building something of my own.
And while I’ve spent years helping companies grow their businesses, building my own has given me a whole new appreciation for what that actually requires.
There are no guaranteed audiences. No established distribution channels. No company putting its resources behind your work.
You have to put yourself out there, repeatedly, and hope the people who need what you have to offer find you.
Which brings me to my birthday wish:
If you’ve ever found something I’ve shared useful, interesting, thought-provoking, or even just relatable, here are a few ways you can help me reach more people.
1. Engage with my content.
If something I share resonates with you, like it. Leave a comment. Save it. Share it.
And if you have something to add to the conversation, I’d genuinely love to hear it!
I don’t write because I think I have all the answers. I write because I’m interested in exploring the questions so many of us are navigating around work, ambition, identity, and what it means to build a successful life.
Your participation helps those conversations reach more people.
2. Share my work with someone who might need it.
Maybe you have a friend who is doing exceptionally well professionally but is absolutely exhausted.
Maybe you know someone who’s questioning whether the career she’s spent years building is still what she wants.
Or someone who’s ambitious, capable, successful, and increasingly wondering when she gets to enjoy the life she’s worked so hard for.
Send her something I’ve written.
Introduce her to my work.
You never know which conversation might help someone see her situation differently.
3. Subscribe to my podcast, Woman in Progress.
I’ve recently relaunched my podcast, and I’m excited about the conversations we’re going to have.
We’re talking about career ambition, identity, relationships, health, burnout, decisions, and the complicated business of figuring out what you actually want from your life.
If those conversations interest you, subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
And if you’ve listened and enjoyed an episode, leave a rating or review where the platform allows it.
It makes a difference, particularly when a show is finding its audience.
4. Help me get in front of other audiences.
One of my goals for this next chapter is to do more speaking, facilitate more workshops, and have more conversations with communities of ambitious women.
If you host a podcast, organize events, run an employee resource group, lead a professional community, or know someone who does, I’d love an introduction.
My work is about helping high-achieving mid-career women stop letting work consume their lives so they can continue being successful professionally and actually enjoy the lives they’re working so hard to build.
I want to take that conversation into more rooms!
5. Tell people about my coaching.
If you know a woman who has built a successful career but feels like work has taken over her life, tell her about me.
She doesn’t necessarily want to quit her job.
She might love what she does.
She just wants to stop feeling like work takes everything out of her, leaving nothing for herself.
Helping women change that is the work I care deeply about doing.
And often, the reason someone finds a coach, a podcast, a book, or a piece of writing that genuinely helps them is because somebody else made an introduction.
Here’s what turning 40 means to me.
I’ve spent a lot of my life pursuing goals, achieving things, and figuring out what comes next.
And I still have ambitions. Lots of them.
But I’m increasingly interested in being deliberate about what I’m ambitious for.
I don’t want to spend this next decade simply collecting more accomplishments.
I want to build meaningful work, have interesting experiences, develop relationships, contribute to other people’s lives, and enjoy the process of creating something.
That’s what Make a Life, Not Just a Living means to me.
And part of building that life is learning to ask for what I want instead of assuming I have to figure everything out on my own.
So this year, I’m asking.
If you appreciate the work I’m putting into the world, I’d love your help getting it in front of more people.
A subscription. A share. A thoughtful comment. A recommendation. An introduction.
They’re small actions, but they can make a meaningful difference to someone building something.
And if you’ve already done any of those things, thank you. Truly.
I’m grateful you’re here.
Here’s to 40, and to making a life, not just a living!
- Sam
