Saunders Fearns Catalyst Coaching

Open this if you’ve ever talked yourself out of celebrating an achievement.

I was telling another taxi driver this week that I’d been shortlisted as a finalist for a business award.

And almost immediately I started downplaying it.

You know the script.

“It probably doesn’t mean much.”

“I nominated myself.”

“Let’s see what happens.”

And he simply said:

“Why don’t you just back yourself?”

Such a simple question.

Yet it stopped me in my tracks.

Because I’ve noticed something over the years.

Many high-performing women wait for evidence before they believe in themselves.

More proof.

More certainty.

More validation.

Whereas many men seem willing to back themselves first and work the rest out later.

I’m not saying that’s always true.

But I do think women spend far too much time explaining away things they’ve worked incredibly hard for.

So this is your reminder, as much as mine:

You don’t need to wait until you’ve won.

You don’t need unanimous approval.

You don’t need more evidence.

Sometimes you just need to back yourself.

Before the rest of the world catches up. 🖤

🚕 Follow for more things I’ve learned from conversations in my taxi.

Open this if you’ve ever thought, “Maybe I’ve missed my chance.”

🚕 A woman in my taxi said something this week that stopped me in my tracks.

She called me brave.

She told me she’d been in the same career since she was 18.

She wasn’t even sure how she’d ended up there.

But now?

Now it felt too late to do something different.

She said leaving my corporate career to build something of my own was inspirational.

And maybe some of that is true.

But what struck me most was this:

Midlife women don’t stop being brave.

They stop recognising it.

Because we’ve been brave our whole lives.

We’ve built careers.

Raised children.

Held families together.

Cared for ageing parents.

Walked into rooms women before us weren’t invited into.

Started again after heartbreak.

Kept going when life felt impossible.

So who told us that midlife was the point we stop taking chances?

Who decided that reinvention belonged to younger women?

Because I don’t believe that.

I think midlife might just be the moment we finally stop living by everyone else’s expectations…

and start asking ourselves what we actually want.

So if there’s something you’ve been quietly telling yourself is “too late”…

Maybe it’s not.

Maybe you’ve just forgotten how brave you’ve always been. 🖤

🚕 Follow for more things I’ve learned from conversations in my taxi and if you want help finding that bravery, drop me a message

Save this if you’ve ever thought:

“They should have known.”

🚕 A woman in my taxi reminded me of something this week.

I dropped her in the wrong place.

She told me I was wrong.

So I tried again.

Still wrong.

But not once did she say:

“Turn left.”

“It’s the next road.”

“Keep going.”

And I found myself thinking…

How often do we do this in the rest of our lives?

With our partners.

Our colleagues.

Our friends.

Even our children.

We expect people to know what we need.

To anticipate it.

To notice.

And when they don’t, disappointment quietly turns into resentment.

The thing is, women are brilliant at noticing what everyone else needs.

But somewhere along the way, many of us stopped asking clearly for our own.

Maybe because we don’t want to be a burden.

Maybe because we’ve become so used to carrying everything ourselves.

Or maybe because we think people should just know.

But perhaps life gets easier when we stop expecting people to mind-read…

and start showing them the way. 🖤

🚕 Follow for more things I’ve learned about midlife women from conversations in my taxi.

Open this if everyone keeps telling you how brilliant you are… but you don’t quite believe them.

🚕 Another thing the women in my taxi get wrong?

They have absolutely no idea how brilliant they are.

They’ll tell me they’ve lost their confidence.

That they’re not coping as well as they used to.

That they’re second-guessing themselves.

That they should be handling things better.

Meanwhile, their colleagues describe them as capable.

Their friends admire them.

Their families rely on them.

And often, everyone else can see what they can’t.

This feedback landed in my inbox this week from a client I’ve only worked with for three sessions.

A woman who started exactly where so many high-performing women do:

Questioning herself.

Being hard on herself.

Assuming she’d somehow become less than she used to be.

Reading her words made me smile.

Not because she’d suddenly become brilliant.

But because she’d finally started to see what everybody else had seen all along.

Sometimes the woman everyone else believes in…

just needs help believing in herself again. 🖤

And if nobody’s reminded you of this recently:

You are probably doing far better than you’re giving yourself credit for.

Save this if you’ve been hard on yourself lately.

A woman got into my taxi today and told me she’d been up since 5am.

She wouldn’t get home until 8.

Then it was dinner, the kids and bedtime.

She was on her way to a meeting she hadn’t had time to prepare for because life had got in the way.

I told her about a mistake I’d made earlier that day.

She looked at me and said:

“Why are you being so hard on yourself?”

I smiled.

Because all I could think was…

You should probably ask yourself the same question.

Because high-performing women are often brilliant at giving compassion to everyone else.

Just not themselves.

We’ve become so used to carrying the load, pushing through and holding it all together that being hard on ourselves feels normal.

Necessary, even.

But maybe the strategy that got us here isn’t the one that takes us where we want to go next.

Maybe success doesn’t have to come at the expense of self-compassion.

And if nobody has asked you this recently…

Why are you being so hard on yourself?

Read this if you’ve ever described yourself as resilient.

A young lad got into my taxi this week, anxious about an event he was heading to.

We talked it through and focused on what he knew to be true about himself.

Then he said:

“But I’m resilient.”

And it hit me.

Because high-performing women say exactly the same thing.

“I’m resilient.”

“I’m capable.”

“I’m the one people rely on.”

Until those strengths become expectations.

Until resilience becomes pushing through exhaustion, carrying more than your share and coping for longer than you should.

What if resilience isn’t about enduring more?

What if it’s about adapting?

And what if the very qualities that make you successful aren’t meant to be used against you?

🖤 Don’t use your strengths against yourself.

🚕 Follow for more things I’ve learned from conversations in my taxi.

Open this if you’ve been trying to push through.

A few mistakes I wish I hadn’t made as a high-performing woman in perimenopause:

→ Saying yes to everything.

→ Not putting boundaries in place.

→ Believing that if I just worked harder, I’d get back to feeling like myself.

I was already overwhelmed.

Yet I kept accepting every invitation.
Every meeting.
Every opportunity.

Because somewhere along the way, I’d convinced myself that slowing down meant lowering my standards.

It doesn’t.

Midlife isn’t an excuse to expect less of yourself.

But it is an invitation to adapt.

To stop operating like the woman you were at 27.

And start supporting the woman you are now.

Because the goal was never just to survive.

The goal was to continue performing, leading and living well.

Midlife doesn’t mean lowering the bar.

It means changing the strategy.

🚕 Follow for more things I’ve learned through leadership, coaching and real conversations with women in my taxi.

Open this if you’ve told yourself “I’m fine” recently.

One of the biggest lies high-performing women tell themselves?

“I’m coping.”

Because technically, they are.

They’re still running the business.

Still leading the team.

Still hitting deadlines.

Still showing up.

But then Friday arrives.

And they’re exhausted.

Not because they’re incapable.

Not because they’re failing.

Because they’ve spent the entire week pushing through.

Through the brain fog.

Through the self-doubt.

Through the decision fatigue.

Through the pressure.

And somewhere along the way, we’ve normalised this.

We’ve convinced ourselves that feeling completely depleted by the end of the week is just the price of success.

It isn’t.

And if every weekend is spent recovering from your week…

You’re not thriving.

You’re recovering.

There’s a difference.

The women I work with don’t want sympathy.

They don’t want excuses.

They want to feel sharp again.

Confident again.

Clear again.

Like themselves again.

And honestly?

That’s a much better goal than simply surviving.

🚕 Follow for more things I’ve learned from high-performing women in my taxi and coaching conversations.