We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Angela Burk a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Angela , thanks for joining us today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?
I didn’t set out to start a midlife revolution, but crossing into my fifties made it impossible to ignore how women “of a certain age” get treated like we’ve aged out of relevance. One minute we’re running companies, raising families, holding up entire communities… and the next, we’re invisible.
What most people don’t know? The idea for The Real Girls Guide first hit me in my mid-30s – and back then, it was going to be called The Real Girls Guide to Over 35. Life, career, and chaos shoved it into a folder that sat untouched for years. Then, during a so-called “retirement” that lasted exactly one month before I jumped back into consulting on marketing and go-to-market strategy, I found that folder – and realized the book was demanding to be written.
So I built The Real Girls Guide Over 55 as the antidote. No filters, no “aging gracefully” platitudes – just real talk about the chaos, the curveballs, the reinvention, and the audacity it takes to thrive when the world keeps trying to sideline you.
This isn’t about playing small. It’s about claiming space, about laughing through the mess, owning the power in our stories, and passing the mic (and the wisdom) to the women coming behind us. Through raw storytelling, community, and a soon-to-drop book, I’m rewriting the narrative on midlife—and trust me, it doesn’t involve fading quietly into the background.
Angela , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
I’ve spent three decades in high-tech marketing – scaling companies from scrappy pre-IPO startups to Fortune 500 giants like Confluent, ServiceNow, and NetApp – building brands, leading teams, and delivering results that actually move the needle. Corporate marketing, revenue ops, demand gen, strategic comms – you name it, I’ve led it or influenced it. And somewhere along the way, I got a reputation for being the one who asks the questions no one else will.
Now, The Real Girls Guide to Over 55 is a community, a Substack, and a soon-to-launch book for women navigating the messy, beautiful, chaotic middle of life – hot flashes, career reinventions, empty nests, long-distance love, late-in-life confidence, all of it. I wanted to create the thing I couldn’t find: a space where women like us could laugh, rage, cry, and tell the truth about midlife without apologizing for it.
What sets me apart? I don’t do glossy, buttoned-up inspiration. I write for real women with real lives, the ones juggling aging parents, adult kids, second acts, grief, ambition, love, and identity – often all in the same week. My work – whether consulting for tech companies or writing for midlife women – is about clarity, courage, and cutting through the noise with strategy, wit, and a little bit of edge.
At the heart of it all, I want women to stop waiting for permission to live on their own terms. The book, the blog, the community – it’s about telling the truth, owning our power, and creating a life that doesn’t shrink as the decades stack up.
Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?
A big one? You Are a Badass by Jen Sincero. I’ve owned eight copies and given away seven because, apparently, I think everyone I meet needs a literary kick in the ass. I first read it in 2015 and still crack it open when I need a reminder to get out of my own way.
Other favorites? Grit by Angela Duckworth, Wild by Cheryl Strayed, and Mindset by Dr. Carol S. Dweck. Together, these books have been my career GPS, and honestly? They gave me the nerve to finally write my own damn book in my mid-50s.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
Career shift. Divorce. Raising three boys while figuring out who I was without the titles – wife, executive, always-on problem-solver. And then, because life has a wicked sense of humor, finding new love…8,000 miles away.
There were years when it felt like everything familiar got stripped away at once. The marriage unraveled. The career I’d built for decades morphed into something new. The kids grew up and out (2 of them anyway so far). And love showed up in the least convenient zip code possible.
But here’s the thing: I didn’t break. I bent. I recalibrated. I learned to lead differently, love differently, live differently. I built a consulting business, started writing the book that had been sitting in my head for twenty years, and created a platform for women like me who are done waiting for life to calm down before they start living it on their own terms.
Resilience wasn’t bouncing back. It was building something entirely new out of all the pieces.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.realgirlsguide.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/realgirlsguide55/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/people/The-Real-Girls-Guide-to-Over-55/61577754742937/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/angela-burk-a510516/
- Substack: For a free sign-up to blogs on midlife reinvention: realgirlsguide55.com
