S17:E28: Reflections on Turning 40 (+40 Things You Might Not Know About Me)
Helping Writers Become Authors
K.M. Weiland
4.8 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 10 November 2025
⏱️ 24 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today, I'm turning forty and taking a quiet moment to reflect on the decade that brought me here. My thirties were a season of transformation, challenge, and deep awakening. They changed me utterly, teaching me about pain as a portal, creativity as a life force, and story as the map that guides us home to ourselves.
In this episode, I'm sharing 40 Things You Might Not Know About Me—a blend of the personal and the profound, from lessons on love, self-sovereignty, and radical ownership, to small joys like morning rituals and the comfort of old movies.
It's a celebration of what it means to grow, to heal, and to keep choosing life again and again and again. Whether you're at a turning point yourself or simply in need of a little perspective and inspiration, I hope these reflections remind you that every story, including yours, is always unfolding.
Read the full transcript here: https://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com/40-things-you-might-not-know-about-me-turning-40-reflections
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Helping Writers Become Authors podcast. I'm K.M. Wyland, and I am here to take you |
| 0:07.8 | deep with story theory, writing techniques, and the incredible wisdom of story. I believe story is the |
| 0:14.9 | greatest power on this earth, and that as writers, we carry the torch of wielding that power with responsibility, passion, |
| 0:23.6 | and skill. There is no such thing as just a story. Today, it is my honor and my purpose to help you |
| 0:31.2 | write your best story, astound the world, and maybe change your life. |
| 0:38.0 | Hello and welcome. |
| 0:39.8 | You are listening to Season 17, Episode 28. |
| 0:45.7 | So today's episode is a little different. |
| 0:48.6 | Today, I turn 40. |
| 0:51.8 | Behind the scenes, I'm taking an intentional day to myself, no computer or phone, |
| 0:56.7 | to celebrate the massive decade that is behind me and to lean into the excitement I feel for the |
| 1:03.3 | decade ahead. When I turn 30, someone told me my 30s would be the best decade. |
| 1:16.0 | And I often think about that because my 30s did turn out to be monumental. |
| 1:22.2 | It wasn't the best decade in the way this person meant, but at the same time it kind of was. |
| 1:29.1 | Before the first year of my 30s was halfway over, an event that I now personally think of as the Big Bang knocked the ground from beneath me in ways I never saw coming. My 30s were honestly a decade |
| 1:36.9 | of great pain in a lot of ways, but it was a strange sort of pain. I looked back on it and honestly, |
| 1:44.1 | it seems glorious. It was the sort of pain? I look back on it and honestly, it seems glorious. It was the sort of pain that |
| 1:48.3 | brings change, transformation, liberation. It was a portal, a doorway of no return, right on time |
| 1:57.3 | as my first act ended and the second began. |
| 2:03.5 | And what an adventure world I entered. |
| 2:04.8 | It was a character arc. |
| 2:07.6 | It changed me utterly. |
... |
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