The People Who Change Us (and Why We Need Them More Than Ever)

Reinvention isn’t a lightning strike, it’s a flicker often sparked by someone else. The stories women tell about midlife tend to center on resilience. Pushing through and powering on. But beneath the surface, there’s usually a quieter truth: someone said something that mattered. Not a speech, not a strategy, just a sentence that landed.

A friend who said, you’re not done yet. A mentor who reminded her she was more than the roles she’d outgrown. A stranger whose words unlocked a version of her she had almost forgotten.

That’s what came up in a recent conversation with Sherri Shepherd on The Tamsen Show. In one of the most understated moments of her story, Sherri recalled a time of uncertainty, when someone offered a truth she didn’t know she needed. That sentence changed her direction. Not overnight, but fully.

These are the moments we often overlook. Midlife is a blur of shifting identities, careers, hormones, partnerships, purpose… and in the noise, we forget how powerful the right words at the right time can be.

And it begs the questions of who helped shape the woman you are now and who might need a sentence from you today?

Relevance isn’t something we prove. It’s something we remember. And most of the time, we remember it because someone else hands us the mirror.

If you’ve ever carried a sentence that saved you, pass it on. Not with performance. With presence. Listen to the full episode with Sherri Shepherd on The Tamsen Show for more of the story.