The Midlife Remix: Petra Kolber on Resilience, Reinvention & Leading with Joy

3 Nov 2025 · 34 min
The Enlightened Executive

3 Nov 2025 · 34 min

0:00

In this episode of The Enlightened Executive, host Susan Drumm interviews Petra Kolber, a two‑time cancer survivor, author of The Perfection Detox, and former fitness icon turned mindset coach. Petra recounts her multiple career reinventions—from a Reebok‑backed fitness leader, to a step‑mom, to a positive‑psychology graduate, to a corporate VP at 59, and finally to a conscious‑leadership speaker. She explains how her cancer diagnoses (melanoma and Hodgkin’s lymphoma) became catalysts for fearlessness rather than anxiety, and how she leveraged the PERMA model (Positive emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, Accomplishment) plus health to teach leaders to lead from presence, empathy, and self‑acceptance. Petra shares practical tools such as breathwork (“birthday‑cake breathing”), the importance of not dragging past experiences into the present, and simple team‑recognition practices. The conversation weaves personal narrative with actionable leadership advice, emphasizing that midlife reinvention is possible by recognizing existing strengths, confronting imposter syndrome, and adopting conscious, human‑centric leadership—especially as AI reshapes work.

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