Midlife, Menopause In The Boardroom: Leading Through Your Strongest, Most Challenging Years
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You’ve arrived. The seat. The title. The influence. Yet somewhere between the strategy meetings and the school WhatsApp chats, something shifts.
You still deliver, but it takes more out of you. Sleep thins. Patience shortens. Words hide mid-sentence. You start to wonder if it’s stress, age, or just you.
It isn’t just you. It’s biology meeting ambition, the body evolving right when the world expects your peak.
The Silence We Inherited
Most of us were never taught what would happen to us. We learned algebra and literature, not hormones and cycles. We were told how to achieve, not how to age.
In many cultures, especially across Asia and the Middle East, youth is currency. Aging, particularly for women, is something to conceal, not understand. Menopause lives in whispers.
So when perimenopause arrives, sometimes as early as our late 30s, we mislabel it. Fatigue becomes “overwork” Brain fog becomes “distraction” Mood swings become “pressure”
But beneath it all, our internal chemistry is rewriting itself.
The Scale of the Untold Story
Right now, more than 1.1 billion women worldwide are either in perimenopause or menopause, a number expected to reach 1.2 billion by 2030. That’s roughly one in every eight people on the planet, or nearly every working-age woman between her late 30s and early 50s.
Every single woman who lives long enough will go through menopause, yet it remains one of the least talked-about biological transitions in human history. There are conferences for fertility, industries for youth, and endless advice on “anti-aging,” but almost no mainstream conversations about this universal passage that shapes half the world’s population.
What’s Actually Happening Inside
Here’s the simple truth: menopause is not a sudden event. It’s a multi-year transition, a recalibration of your hormonal system.
Estrogen and progesterone, the twin hormones that regulate mood, energy, and focus, begin to fluctuate unpredictably
Cortisol, the stress hormone, tends to run higher during these years
Brain chemistry adjusts
Metabolism slows; insulin sensitivity drops
Globally, around 1 in 10 women experience early menopause (before 45), and women of color often enter it almost a year earlier and with more severe symptoms.
Stress, discrimination, and access to healthcare all play a role in accelerating that transition.
The Double Load of Midlife
At work, you’re the anchor, in charge, composed, endlessly available. At home, you might be the hinge of multiple generations: teenagers leaving, parents aging, partners recalibrating their own identity.
This is the moment many women start asking dangerous questions: Is this all? Do I still want this? What if the very life I built no longer fits me?
It’s not crisis. It’s chemistry meeting clarity. When hormones drop, your tolerance for the unnecessary often drops with them.
The Hidden Cost of Not Knowing
When we don’t understand what’s happening, we turn it inward. We question our competence. We double down, overwork, over-mask, over-prove.
When menopause goes unrecognized, misdiagnosed, or brushed off as “stress” the cost is not just physical discomfort. It’s the quiet erosion of confidence, identity, and momentum.
For many women, symptoms start long before they realize what’s happening. Fatigue that won’t lift. Sleep that no longer restores. Mood swings that feel unfamiliar. Memory lapses that shake the certainty you’ve always relied on. You push through, assuming it’s just pressure or age, until one day your body stops cooperating.
That’s the hidden cost of not knowing.
Some women scale back, fewer hours, smaller roles, less visibility, just to stay afloat. Others leave entirely, not because they lost capability, but because they lost clarity about what was happening to them. The result is smaller paychecks, slower progression, and dreams quietly shelved in the name of survival.
And then there’s the emotional tax. The isolation of holding it all together while feeling like you’re falling apart. The shame of thinking you’re “too young” or “too strong” for this. The constant negotiation between who you were and who you’re becoming.
Menopause doesn’t just change your body; it changes your relationship with yourself. But knowledge softens the blow. Awareness turns confusion into strategy. Care replaces guilt with agency.
that why its important to understand that Silence and ignoring comes with an expensive price, and women pay most of it. However business and economies pay a hefty one as well, according to studies its billions. Check out my piece on How Much Is The Cost Of Menopause
Knowledge Is Power, Literally
You can’t manage what you don’t understand and you can’t thrive in a body you’re at war with. That why understanding your body during this phase is not indulgent; it’s a survival tactic, it's thriving mechanism and a leadership power move
Here’s where you can start:
Get the right doctor. Find a menopause-literate gynecologist or endocrinologist. Discuss symptoms, medical history, and options. Hormone therapy, when used appropriately, remains the most effective treatment for many symptoms. Non-hormonal alternatives also exist.
Track what you feel. Note patterns: sleep, energy, mood, cognition, temperature, stress. Data replaces doubt.
Re-engineer your fuel. Stabilize blood sugar, prioritize protein, hydrate, reduce alcohol and caffeine. These aren’t vanity habits; they stabilize hormones.
Move to regulate, not punish. Strength training improves bone density; cardio supports brain function. Gentle movement, walking, yoga, Pilates, lowers cortisol.
Sleep like it’s your next promotion. Lack of deep rest amplifies every symptom. Treat it as infrastructure, not reward.
Supplement connection. Oxytocin (the bonding hormone) buffers cortisol. Laughter, mentorship, friendship, intimacy, these are biochemical interventions disguised as joy.
The Knowledge Gap & The Missing Specialists
Across most societies, we’ve built entire medical ecosystems around birth, fertility, and reproduction, yet we’ve left menopause largely unstudied, unsupported, and underfunded.
Walk into any clinic, and you’ll find prenatal classes, IVF experts, and pregnancy apps but when it comes to menopause, too many women are met with blank stares or outdated advice. Few gynecologists receive deep training in menopause care; even fewer women are taught in school what hormonal transition actually means.
This lack of education costs women years of silent struggle, and it’s time that changed.
If you want to start understanding the science and strategies behind this stage, here are recommended YouTube conversations with trusted experts who speak about it clearly, compassionately, and without shame:
🎥 1. Dr. Louise Newson: How to Talk About Menopause at Work A leading UK menopause specialist explains why understanding hormonal change is essential for both women and employers, and how open dialogue reshapes workplace culture.
🎥 2. Dr. Mary Claire Haver: The Hormone Connection Dr. Haver breaks down what’s happening biologically in perimenopause and menopause, using simple metaphors that make complex science accessible.
🎥 3. Dr. Mindy Pelz: The Menopause Reset A deep, actionable talk on the relationship between fasting, cortisol, and hormonal balance, and how lifestyle patterns can either amplify or calm symptoms.
🎥 4. Dr. Jen Gunter: The Menopause Manifesto Dr. Gunter, an OB-GYN and author, challenges the stigma around menopause and explains why informed medical care, not silence, is every woman’s right.
The Cultural Layer
In many societies, menopause is cloaked in shame. Women who discuss it risk being labeled emotional or “past their prime.” The result: silence, misdiagnosis, or worse, surrender.
We must rewrite that story.
Aging is not decline, it’s evolution. At this stage, women’s intuition, pattern recognition, and emotional regulation peak. The world gains from that, but only if we stop pretending nothing is happening.
In many societies, menopause is tucked between taboo and misunderstanding. Aging is often framed as something to conceal. Fertility is celebrated; finality is feared.
The words a culture uses to describe this transition shape how women live it. Language doesn’t just describe reality, it creates it.
In English, menopause literally means “The Monthly Stop” a definition centered on loss. In parts of the Middle East, the Arabic term "سن اليأس" translates to “the age of despair” How could any woman feel empowered walking through a stage defined by endings?
And yet, other cultures tell a different story. In Japan, the term konenki translates to “renewal of life energy.” Among some Mayan and Cree communities, menopause is seen as entering the era of “wise blood”, when the life-giving force once released is now retained within, marking a woman’s transformation into a healer, mentor, or elder.
The difference between despair and renewal isn’t biology, it’s narrative. When language frames menopause as depletion, women shrink. When it frames it as evolution, women rise.
It’s time to reclaim that narrative. Not as the end of vitality, but as the moment power turns inward, quieter, wiser, and unshakably our own.
Leading Through the Transition
For many women, especially those in high-visibility roles, opening up about menopause or midlife feels too exposed. You’ve spent a lifetime mastering composure, now you’re being asked to name something you can barely describe.
That’s okay. You don’t need to talk about it before you’re ready.
Start by having the conversation with yourself. Build an internal system that supports you even in silence, one that honors your privacy, protects your energy, and lets you lead through this season on your own terms.
Here’s how.
1. Make Health Part of Your Leadership Model, Quietly
You don’t need to announce anything to model change. You can lead it from the inside out.
Reframe your health as your most strategic asset. Your brain, hormones, and nervous system are the infrastructure that sustain your performance, not afterthoughts, not vanity.
Build a personal health dashboard:
Track your energy, sleep, focus, and mood for two weeks.
Notice patterns: when you feel sharper, when you’re reactive, when focus drops.
Treat that data like business insight, because it is.
If you’re not ready to involve anyone else, this is your private board meeting with your body. You are both the CEO and the operating system. Lead your biology the way you lead your business, with data, empathy, and long-term strategy, and the system stabilizes.
2. Build a Multilayered Support System, Even If It’s Just You (for Now)
Support doesn’t always mean people. Sometimes it means systems that quietly hold you together.
Create small, discreet layers around you that make thriving easier without public disclosure:
Medical layer: Schedule regular check-ins with a doctor who listens. Write symptoms down beforehand. Be factual, not apologetic. Menopause is not a flaw, it’s physiology.
Nourishment layer: Plan three non-negotiable meals with real protein, fiber, and slow energy. Don’t outsource your body’s stability to chance.
Movement layer: Choose movement that restores you, walking, Pilates, dancing, weights. Consistency, not intensity, rewires your hormones.
Rest layer: Protect sleep like an executive briefing. Your brain clears toxins and resets mood only in deep rest. Guard it ruthlessly.
Each layer becomes invisible scaffolding. You don’t have to tell anyone you built it, they’ll simply feel your steadiness.
3. Structure Leadership Around Your Biology
You don’t have to push through it. You can plan with it.
Front-load high-cognitive work during your clearest hours; schedule strategic meetings then.
Design low-interaction days when patience dips or sleep was poor.
Delegate what drains.
Create recovery pockets, ten minutes between calls to breathe, stretch, cool down.
This is not weakness management. It’s performance design for a body in transition. When you align your workflow with your hormonal rhythm, your leadership becomes more humane, for you and everyone around you.
4. Revisit Ambition, Redefine What Winning Looks Like
Midlife shifts your internal metrics. The hunger that once drove you, recognition, mastery, velocity, starts to feel different. You crave depth, alignment, meaning.
Let that happen. It’s not loss; it’s evolution.
You don’t need to be less ambitious, just more intentional in where that ambition flows.
Ask yourself:
What am I proud of that no one ever saw?
What kind of work gives me energy instead of taking it?
If I stopped performing and started expressing, what would change?
Maybe your next big win isn’t a title, maybe it’s freedom. Maybe it’s teaching, mentoring, writing, or building something that outlasts you.
Midlife doesn’t shrink ambition; it distills it to its purest form
5. Protect Your Energy Infrastructure, Like It’s Your Legacy
When your body feels unpredictable, your energy plan becomes your power plan
Protect it at three levels:
Daily: Create micro-rituals that ground you, quiet mornings before screens, five deep breaths before meetings, a short walk after lunch. These are nervous-system resets disguised as routines.
Weekly: Schedule white space. One evening for solitude. One morning for thinking, not reacting. One activity purely for joy.
Seasonally: Review what drains you. Are there projects, people, or habits that no longer fit? You can’t control the hormones, but you can control the noise.
When guilt whispers that rest is indulgent, remember: you are the source code. If you crash, everything stops running.
If You’re Not Ready to Speak, You Can Still Act
You can heal in silence. You can reorganize your life before anyone notices you’ve changed. You can quietly rearrange your schedule, priorities, and habits until everything fits again.
And when the time comes, when you finally decide to speak about it, you’ll do it from a place of strength, not survival.
Because this is not the end of your power. It’s the moment you begin to wield it consciously.
Final Thoughts
Menopause is not the end of vitality; it’s the start of wisdom grounded in biology. These years can be the richest, sharpest, most impactful of your life, if you stop fighting yourself and start partnering with your body.
Talk to your doctor. Track your rhythms. Feed your system what it needs. And never again mistake silence for strength.
Because this isn’t the fading of power. It’s its concentration.
🤔 How are you leading yourself through this season, quietly adjusting, seeking guidance, or finally ready to speak it aloud?
📌 Know a woman who’s carrying this silently while holding everything together? Share this with her. Let her know she’s not alone, not broken, and not “past her prime.”
♻️ If this landed somewhere deep, resonated, or offered relief, pass it on. Because women shouldn’t have to walk through the most universal transition in silence. The more we speak, the lighter it gets, for all of us.
If you’re ready to build your own system for leading through this stage, privately, powerfully, and without losing yourself in the process, let’s talk. And if you enjoyed this piece, you’ll love our weekly Wednesday drop: real, bold, unfiltered conversations about work, womanhood, and the power that comes when you stop pretending you’re fine. [Sign Up Today]
