In this episode, Lauren welcomes Sarah Cooper, founder of Flamingo Menopause Coaching and a graduate of the Women of a Certain Stage Menopause Coach diploma program. Sarah brings over 10 years of HR experience, specializing in diversity and inclusion strategy, employee experience, and most notably, building workplace belonging—particularly for women navigating menopause.

Sarah's journey from contact center customer service to leading diversity and inclusion initiatives for an entire organization is a masterclass in identifying gaps and creating solutions. When she joined her last corporate role, they were just beginning to explore menopause support. Sarah volunteered to set up the menopause support group from scratch—and what she learned became the framework for seven other employee network groups across the organization.

This conversation explores what diversity and inclusion really means beyond checkbox exercises, why belonging (not just fitting in) is the foundation of workplace culture, how one painting of a flamingo became a business metaphor for creating safe spaces, and why Sarah's "menopause geek" tendencies finally found their perfect outlet after redundancy gave her the push she needed to go all-in on her passion.

If you've ever wondered how to make menopause support feel like genuine cultural change rather than a lunch-and-learn tick-box, or how to transition from corporate security to entrepreneurial freedom, Sarah's story will inspire you.

Key Points Covered:

• From Customer Service to Employee Experience: Sarah started her career in contact centers on the phones, then transitioned into HR about 10 years ago—swapping customer experience for employee experience, which became the foundation for her people-first approach.

• The Menopause Support Group That Changed Everything: When Sarah joined her last company, they were just beginning their menopause journey. She volunteered to set up the menopause support group from scratch, and her learnings from that became the framework for seven other employee network groups across the organization.

• What D&I Actually Means: Diversity and inclusion isn't just about reporting gender pay gaps or diversity in hiring (the "hard elements"). Sarah's strategy was heavily focused on belonging—making sure everyone in the organization felt they had a place, were accepted, understood, and valued for their unique contributions.

• Belonging vs. Fitting In: You can have diversity and inclusion policies without having a diverse workforce. True belonging means diversity of thought, acceptance, finding your place in the organization, and feeling like you truly belong—not just fitting into someone else's mold.

• The Family Analogy (With Caveats): Sarah is resistant to calling workplaces "families" because you're being paid to be there and many families are dysfunctional anyway. But the sense of belonging she aimed for was similar—ensuring women of a certain age don't feel pushed out, misunderstood, or like they no longer belong.

• Culture Starts with Line Managers: Senior leadership matters, but most employees (especially in large contact centers) never interact with the CEO. What makes the real difference is your immediate team and line manager. Do they understand you as a person, not just your role? Do they show kindness, flexibility, and genuine care?

• Common Sense Isn't Common: Sarah's HR mantra: "If we just had managers that use their common sense and were nice people, we wouldn't have HR problems." But somehow that common sense seems to "leave them at the door" when they become managers.

• Lunch-and-Learns Don't Change Culture: One soft lunch-and-learn on menopause (or any topic) doesn't make culture change. Real transformation requires...

In this episode, Lauren welcomes back Carey Peters—actor-turned-entrepreneur, co-founder of Health Coach Institute (HCI), and the coach who taught her how to coach. This is a raw, unfiltered conversation that veers beautifully off-script, touching on everything from voice training and stage presence to psychic downloads, the brutal realities of scaling to eight figures, and why menopause might be the greatest gift of midlife.

Carey brings over 20 years of business-building wisdom, having co-founded Holistic MBA and HCI, which graduated over 40,000 coaches and achieved one of the biggest exits in EdTech history before she stepped away in 2025. Now working privately with founders in the $1-5 million revenue range, Carey shares what she wishes she'd known before building her empire, why most coach training schools are failing their students, and how one to three strategic adjustments can completely transform a business.

This conversation is part masterclass in business strategy, part spiritual journey, and entirely Carey—bold, honest, hilarious, and deeply human. If you've ever wondered whether you should scale or stay small, whether that seven-figure dream is worth the 80-hour weeks, or how to coach with your whole heart while maintaining boundaries, this episode is for you.

Key Points Covered:

• Voice as a Tool: Carey discusses the importance of vocal training for speakers and coaches, drawing from her theater conservatory background. She emphasizes that voice, like clothing and physical embodiment, is an emotional communication tool that requires technique to appear natural.

• Unconscious Competence vs. Conscious Teaching: Carey reveals she's terrible at teaching stage presence because she has "unconscious competence"—she knows how to do it naturally but can't break it down. However, she's an excellent business teacher because she had to learn it step-by-step without natural skill.

• Psychic Coaching & Soul Connections: Before client sessions, Carey receives "full downloads" of what's happening—sometimes relatives come through to chat. She's unsure what's actually happening ("Am I the avatar of a 12-year-old girl in the year 2312?") but trusts what she hears and follows it.

• The Terror Barrier: New coaches hit what Carey calls "the terror barrier"—full-on terror when entering sessions. The scripts in her programs weren't meant to be permanent crutches but "training wheels" to ferry coaches through that initial fear until they gain 1% more confidence.

• The Massive Gap in Coach Training Schools: The biggest players in coach training (especially private equity-owned ones) fail catastrophically at one thing: sharing student success stories. With 40,000 graduates between Holistic MBA and HCI, there should be 20,000 stories showcasing return on investment—but PE-backed schools don't understand information marketing.

• Students Are the Stars, Not the Founders: When PE investors pushed to make HCI an "institution" rather than "the Carey and Stacy show," they missed that the answer was making students the stars. The #1 objection to enrolling is "Will I make my money back?"—and only student stories prove that convincingly.

• The Woman Problem in Coaching: 95%+ of coach training students are women, yet most major schools have no female faces representing the brand. Women need to see other women who've done it, who understand the unique layer of self-doubt, need for permission, and patriarchal limitations wired into female nervous systems.

• It's Only Been 50 Years: In 1974—when Carey was born—women in the US were finally allowed to get their own credit cards without a man. That's only 50 years ago. Women are still emerging from under "the crust of patriarchy" and need female role models who understand that...

In this episode, Lauren Chiren welcomes Kate Atha, a graduate of the Women of a Certain Stage Menopause Coach diploma program who brings a deeply personal and profoundly important perspective to the conversation about surgical menopause, fertility loss, and finding your identity in midlife.

Kate's journey is one that too many women experience in silence—years of battling stage 4 endometriosis, multiple surgeries, a difficult IVF journey, and then waking up from what she hoped would be a partial hysterectomy to discover it was total, effectively ending her fertility dreams in an instant. With minimal psychological preparation, no grief support, and just a prescription for HRT handed to her before discharge, Kate was left to navigate surgical menopause, identity crisis, and profound loss largely on her own.

This conversation explores the devastating gap in support for women who enter menopause through medical intervention, the quiet grief of childlessness that society often dismisses with unhelpful "advice" about adoption, the triggering nature of celebrations like Mother's Day, and how Kate has transformed her pain into purpose by becoming a menopause coach and advocate—both within her corporate HR role and beyond.

Kate also opens up about the changing relationship with alcohol in menopause, the "sober curious" movement, and why she believes menopause is far from a "saturated market"—there's still so much work to do.

Key Points Covered:

• The Endometriosis Journey: Kate suffered with stage 4 endometriosis for years before diagnosis—stuck bowel, removed fallopian tubes, recurring cysts the size of grapefruits. Unlike many endo sufferers with debilitating daily pain, Kate's pain was primarily during menstruation, which delayed proper diagnosis for approximately 8 years (the current average).

• The Doctor's Dismissive Response: When Kate first went to her GP with stomach pain, she was met with "Have you been Googling? You're obviously thinking the worst"—a dismissive response that's all too common for women with endometriosis and other reproductive health conditions.

• The Hysterectomy Shock: Kate consented to various surgical options including total hysterectomy, but conversations with her consultant had been hopeful it wouldn't be that severe. Waking up in recovery still groggy and sick to learn it was indeed a total hysterectomy—with no working ovaries—was devastating.

• Zero Psychological Preparation: The consultant returned hours later to say "You're entering menopause, you'll need HRT" and simply left the room. No grief counseling, no psychological support, no explanation of what surgical menopause would mean—just a prescription to be filled within two weeks.

• The Double Loss: While being told about menopause, Kate's brain wasn't even there yet—she was grieving the end of her fertility journey. Years of IVF (which was "not a really good experience"), countless surgeries, and the dream of biological motherhood had just ended without warning in a recovery room.

• The Fertility Dreams We're Conditioned To Have: Kate speaks honestly about being conditioned that "this is what we do—we're females, we produce babies, we get married, we have kids, we're homemakers"—and the profound grief of that life path being suddenly, permanently closed.

• Time as the Only Healer: Kate describes how "just gradually, bit by bit, it didn't hurt as much"—the rawness of "you are not going to be a biological mum" faded over time. But there are still triggers, particularly around Mother's Day, even though she has a wonderful relationship with her own mother.

• The Unhelpful "Adoption" Suggestions: Well-meaning people asking "Haven't you looked into adoption?" don't understand that for many women, the desire is specifically...