Resources
A working list of the books, tools and accounts referenced throughout The Reset Guide and the masterclass, organised by theme, so you can go straight to whatever you need most.
Further Reading & Resources
Everything below is grouped by theme so you can go straight to what's useful — books, accounts, frameworks and community, all things I'd genuinely point people toward.
Financial Clarity
Before you make any clear decisions about your next chapter, you need two numbers: your long-term position, and what you actually need day to day. Use this free spreadsheet template to collate them.
Free spreadsheet templates
Excel files to collate your numbers: pension pots, State Pension and a household budget.
Choose the one that fits:
Life Audit: to help you get a realistic assessment of your financial position and retirement outlook.
Career and Life Pivot: additional fields to calculate your runway during a pivot.
- MoneyHelper — free, government-backed pension guidance and a State Pension forecast tool
- Pension Wise — free appointments (phone or in person) for anyone 50+ with a defined contribution pension
- @edit.her.wealth — practical, approachable financial literacy content for women
- @clare.seal — money and emotional wellbeing, the psychology of spending
A note on regulated advice: these are brilliant for building financial literacy and confidence, but none of them replace a conversation with a regulated financial adviser once real decisions are on the table.
Values & Purpose
Dare to Lead by Brené Brown (2018) — essential for Part Two's "Living Into Our Values" exercise. Narrow a long list of values down to just two, then define the specific behaviours that show you're living into them, and the "slippery" behaviours that show you've drifted.
Energy & Life Design
Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans, and its companion workbook — built on Stanford d.school design-thinking principles. The Good Time Journal tool inside is a brilliant way to find out what energises you versus what quietly drains you, regardless of how good you are at it.
The Longer Life
Two books on rethinking career and life over a longer horizon than the traditional retirement narrative assumes.
- The Age Rebellion by Lyndsey Simpson — a practical, evidence-based guide to designing a life and career you never want to retire from, from the CEO of 55/Redefined.
- The 100-Year Life by Lynda Gratton and Andrew Scott — a foundational look at how longer lifespans change the way we should think about finances, career stages, and relationships across a life that may run to 100 years.
Finding Your Unique Advantage
A few established frameworks worth exploring if you want to go deeper than the guide's self-audit exercise:
- The Ikigai Journey — the Japanese framework mapping the overlap of what you love, what you're good at, what the world needs, and what you can be paid for
- CliftonStrengths (Gallup) — a paid assessment identifying your top strength themes from a set of 34; free alternatives are also available online
- The 6 Types of Working Genius (Patrick Lencioni) — six types of "genius" across the working process, identifying where you generate energy versus where you drain it
Positioning & Career Tools
The Positioning Brief Method
A free, step-by-step process I built for turning your own career history into a short, confident positioning brief: a through-line, a handful of strengths, and bio-length lines you can actually use in interviews, pitches, or your own bio.
You can either paste the method straight into a conversation with Claude or ChatGPT and it'll walk you through it, or, if you're on a paid Claude plan, set it up as a reusable skill so it's ready whenever you need it without pasting it in each time.
N.B. I do recommend using your own words as you start finalising the outputs, but this can help unblock you and get to that stage more quickly.
Research & Data
Coming soon — a growing bank of statistics and sourced research on midlife careers, the 45+ job market, and women's workplace experience, to back up what this site talks about with real numbers.
Community
The Encore — founded by Stacey Duguid, a growing community and campaign for midlife women navigating career disruption and age discrimination in hiring. A place to find solidarity and support beyond your own network.
Your Support Network
Every exercise on this page works better with someone reflecting it back to you — a trusted friend, a mentor, a therapist, or someone going through the same thing at the same time. What matters is that you're not holding all of it alone.
If you'd like that support structured as 1:1 sessions, Work With Me has more on how that works.
Some links on this page are affiliate links, which means I may earn a small commission if you choose to purchase through them, at no extra cost to you. I only recommend books and resources I'd genuinely point people toward regardless.