The Real 50 over 50 presents a monthly Wisdom Panel; this panel’s topic, “Self…” celebrates and amplifies the powerful voices of professional and entrepreneurial women over 50.

Four remarkable women entrepreneurs, each over 50, bring their brand of expertise to this powerful conversation. In this LIVE event, we will discover what happens when you build an unshakeable relationship with yourSELF, which is the most important one. Our panelists include:

• Ellen Williams: CEO & Founder of The Salient Strategist, Business Process Leader, Speaker, Host of the Time to Press Pause Podcast
• Jenn Gulbrand: Motivational Speaker, Storyteller, 2x Author, Podcast Host, Coach, Somatic Healer
• Paige Arnof-Fenn: Founder & CEO of Global Marketing and Branding Firm Mavens & Moguls
• Adrienne Garland: CEO, She Leads Media and Producer of She Leads LIVE

Key Takeaways

• This isn’t reinvention—it’s remembering. The work of our Third Act is about reconnecting with who we’ve always been, not becoming someone new.
• Self-awareness is a lifelong practice. The lessons come in layers, and each time they return, we have the opportunity to handle them with more grace and less impact.
• We were conditioned not to trust ourselves. Particularly for women who spent time in corporate environments, reclaiming self-trust is essential work.
• Your tribe matters enormously. You need cheerleaders, butt-kickers, and accountability partners, and that group will evolve as you do.
• The negative self-talk isn’t always yours. Question where those voices come from. Your heroine doesn’t speak to you that way.
• Self-care is maintenance, not luxury. Resilience isn’t about enduring; it’s about how we recharge.
• Find your lane and own it. When you stop trying to be what others want and start owning what you do best, people are magnetically drawn to you.
• Lead with love. In all things, love for yourself, your work, your clients, your life.

The Brief

I recently hosted the Self… Wisdom Panel for The Real 50 over 50, where these brilliant panelists explored the many dimensions of “self” from multiple perspectives. Our conversation focused on dispelling the myth of reinvention, addressing the layers of conditioning we carry, and providing actionable insights for women reclaiming their authentic selves in their Third Act.

The panel highlighted that this work is not about reinvention but about remembering, reconnecting with all the parts of ourselves we’ve lost or hidden along the way. The panelists emphasized the importance of understanding self-awareness as a lifelong practice, self-trust as something we must reclaim after years of conditioning, and self-compassion as the foundation for resilience.

A central theme was the reality that this work comes in layers and is never one-and-done. The panelists discussed the need for women to question whose voices they’re listening to, to surround themselves with people who challenge and support them, and to be willing to own who they are rather than performing for others.

Not Reinvention—Remembering Who We’ve Always Been

The conversation took a philosophical turn early on when we explored whether we have many selves or one self with many identities. This led to what became the most significant insight of the entire panel. As I reflected: “This is the biggest lesson I have learned through all of this—107 interviews and 16 panels. It’s not reinvention. Reinvention is a line that’s fed to us to make us feel bad about ourselves. It’s us remembering who we are.”

The distinction matters. We’re not becoming someone new. We’re calling back the parts of ourselves we lost along the way. As I said during the panel: “It’s not about burning down the ships—it’s about gathering the fleet. That fleet is all of the parts of ourselves.”

Jenn Gulbrand reframed the entire journey: “There’s always this talk about becoming, when really we’re having to sort of unravel the societal stuff… it’s almost like peeling off the layers to get to that core, that true nature, that essence that is the most familiar and yet we tend to hide behind.”

Reclaiming Self-Trust After Corporate Conditioning

All panelists identified as “corporate dropouts,” and this shared experience revealed something crucial about how institutions condition us away from trusting ourselves. Adrienne Garland articulated it powerfully: “We were raised and conditioned to not trust ourselves, and that played out, at least anybody who’s been in corporate, it played out and it was reinforced over and over and over again. You don’t learn that that’s not the way that it needs to be until you remove yourself from the situation.”

Ellen Williams emphasized the disconnect many of us experience: “Our intuition is like our inner GPS, but as women particularly, I feel like we’re taught to sort of silence that voice that should be much more familiar and one that we should trust.”

The Saboteur vs. The Heroine

Jenn Gulbrand introduced a framework that resonated deeply: “We all have a saboteur, a self-saboteur who’s living in the dark telling us all the things that are wrong with us and keeping us small. And then we have our heroine, that’s the part of us who reminds us that everything you do has a purpose.”

Adrienne expanded on this by acknowledging the sources of negative self-talk: “A lot of that negative self-talk is not necessarily something that we even believe about ourselves. There’s a lot of insidious messaging that comes through the media and just the way that systems are… Sometimes these negative words, thoughts—they’re not ours. So we have to question: where is that coming from? Is that truly me and my soul? No. That’s something else, and I choose to reject it.”

Self-Care as Maintenance, Not Luxury

Paige Arnof-Fenn shared advice from a mentor: “Me time is not a luxury or pampering. Me time is maintenance. Whether it’s to sleep, to relax, to exercise, to get a massage, to get your nails done—that is not luxuriously pampering. Downtime is necessary to recharge and to reboot and to come back with even more creativity and energy.”

Ellen Williams emphasized: “Self-care is health care. You want to be at your best so that you can do your best work and bring out the best in others.” She also noted: “Resilience—our ability to move through challenges and our overall well-being—is actually so much more about how we learn to recharge, not how we endure all the tough stuff.”

The panel tackled the challenge so many women face: taking on everyone else’s problems. Ellen admitted: “I was in my 30s and I realized that every problem in my life was somebody else’s problem, and I started axing people out of my life left and right.”

Finding Your Lane in Business and Life

Paige Arnof-Fenn offered liberating business advice: “Starting a business is a little bit like dating—the more that you push, the more that you try to be what they want, it’s like the faster they run in the other direction. Once you realize ‘here’s my sweet spot, here’s what I’m really great at, here’s the kind of business and clients and work I want to attract,’ once you find that space and you set goals to really play in that sandbox, people find you.”

Ellen Williams added: “Don’t be afraid to be yourself. I can bring my whole self—some of my quirkiness, some of my sarcasm—and if it’s not a good fit, then it’s not a good fit. The clients that appreciate who I am, not just my skills but me as a person, that’s a much better strategic relationship.”

Building Your Ecosystem

The panelists emphasized the critical importance of surrounding yourself with the right people. Paige noted: “There’s a role for people who are cheerleaders, there’s a role for people who are butt-kickers, there’s a role for people who hold you accountable. You need all of those people in your world.”

Adrienne emphasized finding people who support your journey: “We need someone or something to help us set our sights on what we can create instead of using all of our good energy to fight against what is. We don’t really have a role model to look up to because it’s all based on stuff that’s come before—we are the pioneers.”