40 things
I know at 40

I don't need to reinvent myself just because I'm turning 40.

I've spent nearly four decades becoming this woman.

I'd quite like to enjoy her.

I'm not burning my life down.

I'm not entering a new era where suddenly everything before this was wrong.

Quite the opposite.

There is a lot about my life that I fucking love.

I'm keeping it.

Being fit changes more than your body.

I don't train because I'm desperately trying to look 25 again.

I want to be capable.

I want to surf.

Travel.

Run around.

Try shit.

Carry my own bags.

Get on the ATV.

Walk up the mountain.

Say yes to something without wondering whether my body can handle it.

The older I get, the more being physically capable feels like freedom.

Your husband doesn't have to like everything you do.

Travie and I are two completely different people.

He doesn't need to want to do everything I want to do.

I don't need to want to do everything he wants to do.

We're married.

We're not one person.

I think part of loving someone is giving them enough room to keep being themselves.

Some friendships have seasons.

This one took me a while.

Not everyone who was right for one version of you will be right for every version of you.

Sometimes something happens.

Sometimes someone changes.

Sometimes you change.

And sometimes there isn't even a dramatic reason.

It's just… done.

Not every ending needs a villain.

I want women to make their own money.

Not because money is everything.

Because money gives you options.

Stay.

Leave.

Travel.

Invest.

Say no.

Change jobs.

Help your kids.

Buy the ridiculous thing.

Walk away from something that isn't right.

Money isn't the whole point.

Choice is.

Wear the fucking bikini.

Honestly.

Just wear it.

Nobody on that beach is conducting a detailed analysis of your stomach.

They're thinking about their own.

And if somebody is spending their holiday worried about what my body looks like while I'm swimming in the ocean?

That's really their problem.

I'm busy.

Go to the concert even if you don't know the band.

I went to Parkway Drive.

I don't listen to Parkway Drive.

Had a fucking great time.

You don't need to already be “the type of person” who does something before you're allowed to do it.

Sometimes the plan sounds fun.

That's enough.

Go.

Your children should know that you have a life too.

I have four kids.

Being their mum is one of the biggest parts of who I am.

It's not the only part.

I want my kids to see a mum who loves them enormously and has a career, friends, interests, adventures, goals and a life of her own.

I want them to see me train.

Travel.

Work hard.

Go out.

Try things.

Look after myself.

Have fun.

Do things purely because they make me happy.

Because one day they'll all have lives of their own too.

And I want them to know that loving your family doesn't mean disappearing inside it.

I refuse to choose between ambition and having a beautiful life.

I want both.

Actually, I want all of it.

The career.

The money.

The marriage.

The kids.

The holiday.

The gym.

The ocean.

The cocktails.

The random Tuesday where I decide I'm doing absolutely fuck all.

I don't see why those things need to compete.

So I'm not making them.

You don't have to announce every boundary.

Sometimes the boundary is just:

No.

And then you go about your day.

The goal was never to become less of myself.

Nobody is handing out permission slips.

Book it.

Apply.

Go.

Ask.

Wear it.

Start.

Leave.

Change your mind.

Say yes.

Say no.

Half the time nobody was actually stopping you.

You were waiting for someone to tell you it was okay.

It's okay.

Being really fucking good at something is incredibly freeing.

I spent years getting good at what I do.

Not Instagram-good.

Actually good.

I've looked at enough businesses, numbers, ad accounts, websites, customer behaviour and absolute fucking messes to recognise patterns quickly.

And there is something incredibly freeing about being able to walk into something and think:

Yep. I know what I'm looking at.

You don't need to be brilliant at everything.

Find the thing your brain does differently.

Then get ridiculously good at it.

A good marriage doesn't mean being obsessed with each other every second.

Sometimes we're romantic.

Sometimes we're best friends.

Sometimes we're parents.

Sometimes we're running a household.

Sometimes we're making plans.

Sometimes one of us is annoying the absolute shit out of the other.

We're married.

We're human.

I don't need every season of our marriage to look like a honeymoon to know I chose my person.

I have absolutely no interest in becoming smaller as I get older.

Physically stronger.

Mentally sharper.

Professionally better.

More confident.

More experienced.

More curious.

More myself.

Why would I spend 40 years building a woman just to start watering her down now?

“Is this appropriate for my age?” is a question I rarely ask.

Do I like it?

Do I feel good in it?

Do I feel hot?

Excellent.

We're done here.

Travel isn't an escape from my life.

I actually really like my life.

That's the point.

I don't travel because I desperately need to escape everything I've built.

I travel because seeing more, doing more and experiencing more is part of the life I'm building.

And I really fucking love coming home too.

You don't have to be “the type of person” who does something before you do it.

I'll go to the metal concert.

I'll surf the wave pool.

I'll get on the ATV and nearly tip the fucking thing.

I'll walk into a room where I barely know anyone.

I'll try something I'm objectively not very good at.

I don't need an identity before an experience.

Sometimes I just fucking go.

Motherhood added to me. It didn't replace me.

I'm a mum.

I'm Travie's wife.

I'm Ness.

I'm a strategist.

I'm a creator.

I'm a friend.

I'm the woman dancing somewhere after two margaritas.

I'm all of it.

Nobody gets reduced to one role just because they became a mother.

Thank God I don't want exactly what I wanted at 25.

Imagine being permanently held to the life plan you made in your twenties.

Absolutely not.

I've changed.

My definition of success has changed.

What matters to me has changed.

Some things I thought were incredibly important turned out not to matter at all.

That's not inconsistency.

That's growing up.

I don't need to apologise for loving my work.

I really fucking like what I do.

I'm good at it.

It lights up a part of my brain that other things don't.

That doesn't make me less of a mum.

It doesn't make me less present at home.

And I don't need to pretend I'd happily give it all up tomorrow to prove how much I love my family.

Both things can be true.

You can love the life you've built and still want more from it.

Some of my best decisions looked questionable at the time.

That's the annoying thing about hindsight.

Sometimes you don't understand why something mattered until two years later.

You can't always wait for certainty.

Sometimes you make the best decision you can with what you know…

…and see where the fuck it takes you.

I care less about being liked than I used to.

I still care.

Obviously.

I'm human.

I just don't let it make as many decisions anymore.

Huge difference.

Have the cocktail.

Not every pleasure needs to become a wellness debate.

Sometimes it's Tuesday.

The sun is setting.

You're sitting somewhere beautiful.

Someone hands you a margarita.

This is not a moral dilemma.

Drink the margarita.

Recovery is part of performance.

I love doing.

I love moving.

I love getting shit done.

I can also run myself into the ground if I let myself.

I've learned that operating at full capacity every second doesn't make me more impressive.

It makes me fucking tired.

I want a big life.

So I need enough energy left to actually enjoy it.

Pay attention to how you feel after spending time with someone.

Not whether they're impressive.

Not whether they're popular.

Not whether they're useful.

Not whether everybody else thinks they're amazing.

How do you feel when you leave?

Lighter?

Energised?

Completely yourself?

Or fucking exhausted?

There's your answer.

Your children will remember whether you were there.

The games.

The comps.

The school things.

The car rides.

The stupid jokes.

The random conversations that happen when you're doing something completely ordinary.

I know work matters.

I also know childhood moves ridiculously fast.

I don't want to accidentally optimise my way out of witnessing it.

Stop saving everything for later.

The outfit.

The perfume.

The restaurant.

The trip.

The nice bottle.

The experience you've always wanted.

Later is a terrible fucking calendar strategy.

Use the good shit.

The numbers aren't emotional. I am.

This might be one of the most useful things my career has taught me.

Data doesn't care what I hoped would happen.

It tells me what happened.

Look at it.

Understand it.

Make the next decision.

Turns out that's pretty useful outside Meta Ads too.

Being wrong quickly is better than protecting your ego slowly.

I've changed strategies.

Killed ideas I loved.

Turned things off.

Changed my mind.

Said:

“Yep. That's not fucking working.”

That's not failure.

That's information.

I don't need to always be right.

I need to pay attention.

Sometimes the smartest thing you can do is stop fucking touching it.

Especially in Meta Ads.

Also surprisingly applicable to life.

Not every wobble needs an intervention.

Not every uncomfortable feeling means something is wrong.

Not everything needs another strategy.

Sometimes you need to give it enough room to show you what's actually happening.

Something taking me 20 minutes doesn't mean it took me 20 minutes to learn.

It might have taken me 20 years.

That's what you're paying for.

I wish I'd understood that earlier.

I don't need a five-year plan.

I need the next right decision.

Then another.

Then another.

Make enough good decisions in the right direction and eventually everyone looks backwards and calls it a strategy.

Faster. Fitter. Stronger. Better decisions.

Confidence has terrible timing.

It would be extremely convenient if confidence arrived first.

Maybe with a PowerPoint.

Some supporting evidence.

A detailed risk assessment.

It doesn't.

Usually you do the scary thing first.

Then confidence turns up afterwards like:

Oh cool, we survived.

Buy the good moisturiser.

I'm nearly 40.

We've moved past the $8 moisturiser.

This is where I draw the line.

Not everybody gets access to every version of me.

Some people know me through work.

Some know me as a mum.

Some know me online.

Some have known me forever.

Some know the completely unfiltered, ridiculous version.

They're all me.

That doesn't mean everyone is entitled to all of me.

Marriage is basically agreeing to keep meeting new versions of the same person.

Travie and I aren't the people we were when we first got together.

Of course we're not.

We've lived.

We've changed.

We've had kids.

We've built things.

We've gone through shit.

We've become different people alongside each other.

You don't just choose someone once.

You keep choosing each other as you change.

The days can feel long. The decade absolutely fucking doesn't.

Kids are excellent at teaching you this.

One minute something feels like it's never going to end.

Then suddenly you look around and years have disappeared.

Turns out all those annoying people saying “enjoy it, it goes so fast” were right.

Still annoying.

But right.

I want a life I don't constantly need to escape from.

Obviously I want holidays.

Three weeks in Indonesia?

Absolutely.

I want weekends away.

I want cocktails.

I want days where I do absolutely fuck all.

But I don't want my entire year to be something I endure while waiting for two weeks where I'm finally allowed to feel alive.

I want the random Tuesday to be good too.

Maybe not Indonesia good.

Let's be realistic.

But good.

Turning 40 doesn't scare me.

I'm fucking ready for it.

I don't look at 40 and think I'm running out of time.

I look backwards and think:

Holy shit. Look how much I've already managed to fit in.

Four kids.

Marriage.

Businesses.

Careers.

Friendships.

Mistakes.

Money.

Travel.

Bodies changing.

Starting things.

Ending things.

Doing things I never thought I'd do.

And I'm nowhere near finished.

I don't want a new life.

I want more of mine.

More sunrises.

More sunsets.

More ocean.

More bikinis.

More cocktails by the pool.

More places I've never been.

More rooms that make me slightly nervous to walk into.

More doing things I'm not particularly good at.

More watching my kids become whoever they're going to become.

More adventures with Travie.

More work I'm ridiculously good at.

More money.

More strength.

More laughing until I can't breathe.

More experiences I haven't even thought of yet.

More saying yes because something sounds fun.

More being completely fucking myself.