Real Women's Stories with Lisa Quait

What are you currently putting up with that, deep down, you know isn’t right?In this short episode, I explore the things we learn to tolerate and normalise - even when they no longer feel right or fit who we’ve become. Through a series of powerful questions, I invite you to pause, reflect and recognise what may need to change.Whether it means setting a boundary, speaking up or walking away, change begins when you finally see what you’re no longer willing to accept.---Discover mid-life coaching with Lisa---Connect with LisaInstagram: Follow LisaFacebook: Follow LisaYouTube: The only place to watch every episode of Real Women's Stories with Lisa Quait

Why do so many women find it easier to care for everyone else than to choose themselves?In this episode, Lisa speaks with wellness podcaster and retreat curator Alexandra Simms about guilt, burnout, people-pleasing and the hidden cost of constantly putting yourself last.Alexandra shares her personal journey through depression, caring responsibilities, recurrent miscarriage, emotional eating and breast cancer - and explains why her diagnosis became the moment she could no longer ignore what her body had been trying to tell her.Together, Lisa and Alexandra explore why successful, capable women often struggle to rest, step away from their responsibilities or spend time and money on their own wellbeing. They also discuss the fear that can come with slowing down, particularly when being busy has become part of your identity.Alexandra shares simple ways to calm an overwhelmed nervous system, including breathwork, grounding, time in nature and creating small moments of pause within everyday life.This is an honest conversation about self-sacrifice, emotional exhaustion and learning to choose yourself before your body forces you to stop.---Discover mid-life coaching with Lisa---Connect with LisaInstagram: Follow LisaFacebook: Follow LisaYouTube: The only place to watch every episode of Real Women's Stories with Lisa Quait

After a disappointing book launch left Maddy Alexander-Grout feeling like a failure, an unexpected message from Zoe Ball helped her find her confidence again.In this mini episode, Maddy opens up about grief, losing herself and rebuilding her life around her values. We also discuss why community matters, how to recognise when life is becoming too much and why we shouldn’t have to reach rock bottom before asking for support.Listen to the previous episode for my full conversation with Maddy.---Discover mid-life coaching with Lisa---Connect with LisaInstagram: Follow LisaFacebook: Follow LisaYouTube: The only place to watch every episode of Real Women's Stories with Lisa Quait

Maddy Alexander-Grout was £40,000 in debt by the age of 23 after developing a spending addiction. After paying it all off and building a successful business, she found herself £65,000 in debt all over again.In this episode, Maddy shares how undiagnosed ADHD, impulsive spending and a personal guarantee contributed to her financial struggles, the devastating collapse of her business and the nervous breakdown that followed.She also opens up about her experiences of motherhood, postpartum psychosis and receiving diagnoses of ADHD and autism later in life. Maddy explains how understanding her brain helped her make sense of her past, rebuild her life, clear her debts and create a six-figure business.This is an honest conversation about money, neurodiversity, failure and finding the resilience to start again.Maddy’s book, Mad About Money: Managing Finances (and Life) with ADHD, is an unfiltered and practical guide to understanding your brain, managing money and navigating life as a neurodivergent person.---Discover mid-life coaching with Lisa---Connect with LisaInstagram: Follow LisaFacebook: Follow LisaYouTube: The only place to watch every episode of Real Women's Stories with Lisa Quait

You won't believe what really happens when you’re invited to Windsor Castle to receive an MBE.In this bonus episode, Lucy McCarraher shares the surreal story of receiving the letter she initially feared might be a tax demand, before discovering she was being recognised with an MBE.From arriving at Windsor Castle with her family to learning exactly how to approach Prince William, where to bow and how many steps to take backwards, Lucy takes us behind the scenes of an experience very few people ever get to have.You can hear Lucy’s full interview in the previous episode of Real Women’s Stories.---Discover mid-life coaching with Lisa---Connect with LisaInstagram: Follow LisaFacebook: Follow LisaYouTube: The only place to watch every episode of Real Women's Stories with Lisa Quait

At 40, Lucy McCarraher MBE’s life seemed to fall apart. Her marriage ended, her father died, a new business failed and she found herself having to start again.But that wasn’t the end of Lucy’s story. It was another reinvention.In this episode, Lucy joins me to talk about the many different lives she has lived - from working in television in Australia and raising a family, to rebuilding her career, becoming an author and publisher, and eventually stepping into her current role as Publisher at Forbes Books.We talk about starting again when life doesn’t go to plan, why success doesn’t have to happen when you’re young, and how every experience - even the ones that feel like failures at the time - can lead you somewhere unexpected.Lucy also shares why she believes women often reinvent themselves throughout their lives, the importance of finding the confidence to put yourself forward, and why sometimes the biggest opportunities arrive when you stop trying to force what comes next.A conversation about resilience, self-belief and proving that it is never too late to begin another chapter.---Discover mid-life coaching with Lisa---Connect with LisaInstagram: Follow LisaFacebook: Follow LisaYouTube: The only place to watch every episode of Real Women's Stories with Lisa Quait

This is a story about resilience, motherhood and having the courage to begin again.In this episode, I’m joined by Liv Parkes, Founder and CEO of AI styling platform Persi.After more than 15 years working with brands including Reiss, House of Fraser, Monica Vinader and Missoma, Liv decided to build something of her own.She shares the reality of closing her first business, losing investment and starting again with no income and two young children to support. We talk about selling leftover jumpers to cover costs, pitching to investors shortly after giving birth and questioning whether pursuing her ambition was putting too much pressure on her family.Liv also opens up about working-mum guilt, being judged for how she dressed and why she refused to make herself smaller to fit into the business world.---Discover mid-life coaching with Lisa---Connect with LisaInstagram: Follow LisaFacebook: Follow LisaYouTube: The only place to watch every episode of Real Women's Stories with Lisa Quait

In this Brucie bonus episode, I’m chatting to Sandi Birch about what it was really like working behind the scenes on The Generation Game in the 90s.From swapping vodka and Evian bottles during a studio drinking game, to accidentally causing a BBC evacuation over a cake left under her car, Sandi shares the kind of chaotic, hilarious and nostalgic TV stories you simply couldn’t make up.A lighter, behind-the-scenes bonus from our conversation - full of old-school telly memories, studio madness and the moments that made Sandi realise these stories needed writing down.Listen to my full conversation with Sandi in the previous episode.---Discover mid-life coaching with Lisa---Connect with LisaInstagram: Follow LisaFacebook: Follow LisaYouTube: The only place to watch every episode of Real Women's Stories with Lisa Quait