Pick Your Label

The Real Beginning: How the Podcast Was Born

People often assume the podcast started because I wanted a platform, or because I had something big to say. The truth couldn’t be further from that. The podcast was born because I was sick — really sick — and I needed a way to parent my children during the days I couldn’t get out of bed.

When you’re lying there, watching life happen around you but not always able to participate in it, the mind goes to dark places. I needed something to lift me up, something to give me light, something positive that helped me feel like I still had value as a mother and a person. But when I went searching for content that could help me through that season, all I found was negativity. I didn’t need more doom. I needed hope, humor, connection, direction — anything that would help me show up for my kids even when my body wouldn’t.

I kept telling my husband, “I need to find something. There has to be something out there.”
And he finally said the sentence that changed everything:
“If you need something and it doesn’t exist, you should create it.”

So I did.

I started with a blog called Chronically Positive Mom. It was my lifeline — a place to put the encouragement I couldn’t find anywhere else. Over time, the blog evolved into The Sick Mom’s Guide, and that’s when I wrote my first book by the same name. Writing that book was my way of getting the podcast and message into hands that needed it, because I knew I wasn’t the only mother struggling through chronic illness, guilt, and exhaustion.

But as much as I wanted to help people who were sick, I didn’t want to anchor my entire identity to sickness. I wanted to talk about resilience. Reinvention. Joy. The parts of life that illness couldn’t take away. So the show became Hardy Mom.More positive, more empowered — and closer to where I wanted my work to go.

The real turning point came when I attended a podcasting conference. I always pay attention to who’s missing in a room, and what I saw was clear: women over 50 — wise, experienced, funny, capable women — were nearly invisible. They weren’t being served. They weren’t being spoken to. And they weren’t being invited into the spotlight.

That’s when I realized where I needed to go next.

Right there in that conference hallway, Fabulous Over 50 was born. I told people I was changing my show, and a few well-meaning voices warned me not to do it. They said admitting my age would be the death of my media career. They said no one wanted to follow a woman who was open about being over 50.

They were wrong.

It wasn’t the end — it was the beginning.

Within the first year, my stats quadrupled. My audience deepened. My purpose sharpened. Women over 50 found the show and said, “Finally. Someone gets it.” What was supposed to “limit” me ended up opening the door to everything that followed — awards, interviews, national attention, and a community of women who refuse to fade into the background just because a number changed.

Fabulous Over 50 didn’t just give me a new direction. It gave me back my voice.

IV Building a Bigger Voice: From Personal Story to Public Influence

Once Fabulous Over 50 took off, something unexpected started happening. Women weren’t just listening — they were responding. They were emailing, messaging, stopping me at events, and sharing their stories with a kind of honesty I hadn’t seen in the podcasting world. They talked about reinvention, about marriages ending, about health battles, about dreams that had been tucked away for decades. They talked about careers they wanted to start, ideas they wanted to pursue, and the quiet hope that maybe their best years weren’t behind them after all.

That shift — from me speaking to people to people speaking with me — marked the beginning of my next evolution.

As the audience grew, the invitations grew with it. First small interviews. Then bigger ones. Then conversations with people in the justice system, legal experts, judges, people who normally operate behind closed doors and away from public view. It wasn’t strategic at first; it was curiosity. I’ve always been drawn to conversations that pull back the curtain on how power, fairness, and influence actually work in real life.

And then something else happened.

My legal content started going viral.

Not because I chased trends, but because the world was confused and overwhelmed by what they were seeing in courtrooms and headlines. I simply explained it the way I wished someone would explain it to me: plainly, calmly, without sensationalism, without talking down to anyone.

People connected to that. They trusted it. They shared it. And new audiences—men, younger viewers, people far outside the original podcast demographic—found my work.

But even with that growth, I was never meant to live only in the legal world. I could feel that. Legal content became a chapter, not my entire identity. I didn’t want to be boxed in. I didn’t want to build a career around reacting to chaos. I wanted to build around purpose.

So while the legal videos were taking off, I paid attention to what else my audience responded to. Reinvention. Creativity. Growth. Confidence. Resilience. The stories behind the people we see on screens. The quiet truth that it’s never too late to become the person you know you can be.

And that’s where my broader vision began forming.

I wasn’t just building a podcast anymore.
I was building a voice.
A platform.
A home for women (and eventually creators) who wanted something real.

This shift — the widening of the path — is what set the stage for everything that came next: the brand expansion, the new YouTube channels, the music, the events, the movement, and the understanding that “The Jen Hardy” wasn’t a name change.

It was a declaration.

Epic Wave is a media company.
It isn’t a channel.
It isn’t a music brand.

Epic Wave is the umbrella exclusively for:
• The Wave of Influence creator conference (coming 2028)
• The Power Up Creator Awards
• The experiences, relationships, and community that will grow from them

But the event — the space where creators meet, collaborate, and grow — needed its own stage, its own name, and its own identity. Epic Wave is that stage.

This structure finally allowed everything to breathe.
Everything made sense.
And it opened the door to the next evolution — the one no one saw coming, including me:

Music.

Real music.
Written, produced, and performed under the Hardy House Media banner.
And powered by the same story that started this whole journey.

V. The Turning Point: From Podcasting to a Larger Platform

For years, the podcast was my main home. It grew steadily, it meant something to people, and it meant something to me. But the truth is, podcasting is quiet. You send your heart into a microphone and hope it lands somewhere. Listeners feel close to you, but creators rarely hear anything back.

I knew I wanted to reach more people, but I didn’t know how that would happen yet.

What I did know was this:
Every step of my journey — from Chronically Positive Mom, to The Sick Mom’s Guide, to Hardy Mom, to Fabulous Over 50 — showed me that reinvention wasn’t just possible. It was necessary. And the women who listened to my show were hungry for it. They weren’t just looking for inspiration; they were looking for proof that a woman in her 50s could evolve publicly, boldly, unapologetically.

VIII. The Moment Everything Clicked: Pick Your Label

After the whirlwind of YouTube growth, interviews with judges, millions of views, and an audience that was suddenly much broader than I ever expected, I found myself in an unusual position.

People were trying to label me.

Some people thought I was a legal analyst.
Some thought I was a YouTube strategist.
Others knew me as the host of Fabulous Over 50.
Still others discovered me through creator education or interviews.

None of those labels were wrong.

But none of them were complete either.

The more visible you become, the faster people try to categorize you. It’s human nature. Labels help people make sense of the world. The problem is that those labels can also become cages.

I had already lived through this once before.

When I was sick, the world wanted to label me as the “sick mom.” That label may have been accurate in a moment of my life, but it wasn’t who I was meant to be forever. So I changed the narrative. I evolved the blog. I changed the show. I built something new.

Later, when Fabulous Over 50 began to grow, people warned me that saying my age publicly would destroy my media career. They were wrong about that too. That label didn’t limit me — it liberated me.

Then YouTube arrived and tried to label me again: the “judge interviewer,” the legal explainer, the courtroom channel.

And that’s when the deeper realization finally landed.

We are always being labeled.
By society.
By algorithms.
By critics.
By audiences.
By our past.

But the most powerful thing any of us can do is choose the label ourselves.

That realization became the foundation of everything I’m building now.

Pick Your Label.

It sounds simple, but it’s actually radical. It means refusing to let your past define your future. It means recognizing that identity is something we shape, not something assigned to us. It means understanding that life is not a single role we play forever — it’s a series of chapters we write as we go.

And for women especially — women over 50 — this matters more than ever.

Because society has a lot of labels waiting for us at this stage of life.

Invisible.
Past our prime.
Too late.
Too old to start something new.

I reject every one of those.

The truth is that many of us reach this stage with more clarity, more courage, and more wisdom than we’ve ever had before. We know who we are. We know what matters. And we’re finally ready to build the things we once postponed.

That’s what Pick Your Label represents.

It’s not just a phrase.
It’s a philosophy.
It’s a movement.

It’s the idea that you don’t have to stay the person you were five years ago, or even yesterday. You can pivot. You can grow. You can surprise yourself.

You can choose your label.

And once I understood that, everything I was doing suddenly made sense — the podcast, the music, the interviews, the events, the creative work, the message.

They’re all different expressions of the same idea.

Helping people realize that they still get to decide who they become next.

IX. Why the Podcast Is Becoming Fabulous Over 50: The Jen Hardy Podcast

As everything evolved — the YouTube channel, the interviews, the legal content, the music, the events, and the broader philosophy behind Pick Your Label — I realized something important.

The podcast that started all of this deserved to stay exactly where it belongs: front and center.

Fabulous Over 50 isn’t just a show title. It represents a turning point in my life and in the lives of the women who listen. It represents the moment I stopped apologizing for my age and started embracing the power that comes with it.

When I first announced the name years ago, a few people warned me not to do it. They said publicly attaching “over 50” to my brand would limit me. They said it would make people see me as older, irrelevant, past my prime.

Instead, the opposite happened.

The show grew.
The audience deepened.
The message resonated.

Women found it and said, “Finally, someone is talking about this stage of life honestly.”

So when it came time to align everything under a single identity, I knew one thing immediately: Fabulous Over 50 had to stay in the lead.

But at the same time, my work had expanded far beyond a single podcast. I wasn’t only the host of a show anymore. I was interviewing judges, building a YouTube audience, writing music, creating events, and developing a philosophy that tied all of it together.

That’s where the Fabulous Over 50 Podcast comes in.

The new title — Fabulous Over 50: The Jen Hardy Podcast — reflects both sides of the journey.

It keeps the heart of the show intact.
It honors the community that built it.
And it connects the podcast to the broader world of work I’m doing today.

Think of it as widening the doorway.

The message remains the same: women over 50 are not finished. In many ways, we are just getting started. But now the show also lives inside a larger ecosystem of conversations about reinvention, creativity, influence, and choosing the labels that shape our lives.

Because that’s what this whole journey has taught me.

You don’t have to stay the person the world expects you to be.

You can evolve.
You can pivot.
You can build something new.

You can pick your label.

And for me, that label still proudly begins with Fabulous Over 50.

X. Music, the Phoenix, and the Deeper Meaning of Pick Your Label

One of the most surprising turns in this journey — at least surprising to everyone else — has been music.

If you had asked me years ago whether I would one day be writing, producing, and releasing my own songs, I probably would have laughed. My world at that time revolved around blogging, podcasting, interviews, and trying to build something meaningful from a place where life had knocked me flat.

But reinvention has a funny way of opening doors you didn’t even know existed.

As the philosophy of Pick Your Label began to take shape in my mind, I realized that the message wasn’t just something I wanted to talk about in interviews or podcast episodes. It was something I wanted people to feel. Music has a way of doing that better than almost anything else.

A song can reach places words sometimes can’t.

So I started writing.

At first, the songs were deeply personal — reflections on resilience, identity, starting over, and the strange realization that life after 50 can be one of the most creative and powerful stages of all. But the more I wrote, the more I realized these songs weren’t just about me. They were about the same idea that had been guiding everything else I was building:

You are not stuck with the label life handed you.

You can change it.
You can evolve.
You can decide who you are next.

That is the heart of Pick Your Label.

The symbol that began to represent that transformation for me was the Phoenix.

The Phoenix is one of the oldest symbols of reinvention in human history. It burns, it falls, it disappears — and then it rises again, stronger than before. For anyone who has lived long enough to experience loss, illness, reinvention, career changes, or starting over, that symbol makes immediate sense.

Most of us have lived through more than one lifetime already.

The difference between someone who stays stuck and someone who rises again often comes down to one decision: the willingness to choose a new identity instead of accepting the old one.

That is why the message of Pick Your Label keeps showing up everywhere in my work.

It shows up in the podcast, where women over 50 talk about redefining their lives.
It shows up in the creator conversations and interviews.
It shows up in the events I’m building.
And now it shows up in music.

The songs are another way of expressing the same idea that has guided my entire journey: the past may explain where we’ve been, but it does not have the authority to decide where we go next.

Every time we reinvent ourselves, we are choosing a new label.

And that choice — that moment of claiming who you are now — can change everything.

That’s why Pick Your Label is more than a phrase. It’s the thread connecting the podcast, the music, the community, and the movement that is growing around all of it.

Because no matter where you are in life — 25, 50, 70 — the truth remains the same.

You still get to choose who you become next.

You still get to Pick Your Label.

XI. The Thread That Connects Everything

When I step back and look at the path that brought me here, it doesn’t look like a straight line. It looks more like a series of reinventions.

A sick mom looking for something positive to listen to.
A blog called Chronically Positive Mom.
A book called The Sick Mom’s Guide.
A podcast evolving into Hardy Mom.
A conference hallway realization that women over 50 deserved a bigger voice.
The birth of Fabulous Over 50.
A leap into YouTube that changed everything overnight.
Interviews with judges and millions of views.
Music that came out of nowhere and somehow felt like it had been waiting all along.

None of those steps were planned years in advance. Each one came from the same instinct: listen to what life is asking you to become next.

That instinct is what eventually turned into the philosophy I talk about today.

Pick Your Label.

When you look closely, every chapter of my story reflects that idea.

When I refused to let illness define my identity, I picked a new label.
When I stood on stage and said “Fabulous Over 50” out loud despite the warnings, I picked a new label.
When the YouTube audience tried to put me in a single box, I learned again that I could choose my own direction.

Life will always try to assign us labels.

Sometimes those labels come from society.
Sometimes they come from critics.
Sometimes they come from algorithms, audiences, or even well-meaning friends.

But the most powerful moment in a person’s life is when they realize those labels are optional.

You can change careers.
You can start over.
You can create something new.
You can walk into a completely different chapter of your life.

You can Pick Your Label.

That idea is the thread connecting everything I’m building now.

It’s why the podcast is becoming Fabulous Over 50: The Jen Hardy Podcast.
It’s why the music exists.
It’s why the community continues to grow.
It’s why the events and creator conversations matter.

All of it is built around the same simple but powerful truth:

The most interesting stories are not about people who followed a straight path. They are about people who had the courage to reinvent themselves along the way.

And if there is one thing I hope people take away from this journey, it’s this:

No matter where you are in life, you still get to decide what comes next.

You are not limited to the identity you had five years ago.
You are not confined by the expectations of the world around you.
And you are definitely not finished just because you crossed some imaginary milestone.

The next chapter is always waiting.

All you have to do is Pick Your Label.

And then start living the story that comes next.

connect with me (Jen): 

Contact: https://www.jenhardy.net/contact

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