EP: 95 Congrats on Your Midlife Failures: Most People Don't Ever Try with Lisa Hart Anderson

What if midlife isn’t about becoming someone new—but finally giving yourself permission to be more of who you’ve always been?

In this episode of Rewired Sober, I’m joined by Lisa Hart Anderson, certified women’s life coach, recovery coach, content creator, and the woman behind Hart2Hart Coach. With a combined audience of more than 92,000 across Instagram and TikTok, Lisa has built a community by doing something deceptively simple: showing up as herself.

Dancing. Swearing. Laughing. Talking about recovery. Talking about menopause. Talking about being a grandmother. Occasionally waking up in the middle of the night and deleting something because even women who look wildly confident can still wonder, Oh God, what are people thinking about me?

And that’s exactly where this conversation gets interesting.

Lisa and I talk about the strange experience of becoming more visible as women at an age when society often seems to suggest we should be doing the opposite.

We get into confidence versus insecurity, the fear of being misunderstood, body image and aging, menopause, creativity, social media, fashion and personal style—and why neither of us wants to spend the rest of our lives trapped inside a single identity called “the sober woman.”

Sobriety may have made our lives possible. But it doesn’t have to remain the most interesting thing about us.

We also talk about the pressure women feel not to look like we’re “seeking attention.” Because apparently wanting to be seen, heard, creative, expressive and visible still requires some sort of permission slip once you're a grown-ass woman.

No thanks.

Lisa shares how social media became part of her recovery, why dancing and creating can be healthy forms of escape, and what she’s learned from putting herself in front of tens of thousands of strangers—even while admitting that confidence is still very much a work in progress.

We talk about style as a form of identity and communication, Lisa’s evolution from bows and Christmas sweaters to dressing according to her mood, and why taking care of herself became meaningful again after getting sober.

And then we get to one of my favorite parts of the conversation: failure.