{"podcast":{"title":"The Scenic Route with Victoria Steward","slug":"the-scenic-route-with-victoria-steward-7782802","podcast_index_feed_id":7782802,"rss_url":"https://api.riverside.fm/hosting/S6ZcgSiO.rss","website_url":"www.victoria-steward.com","image_url":"https://hosting-media.riverside.com/media/podcasts/951714c0-7b4d-4675-bd36-b3bd278f8546/logos/46260bbc-d587-4fc0-b414-b393efa55bf4.png","author":"Victoria Steward","episode_count":19,"summary":"What if the detour was never a wrong turn? We get handed one map early on: the superhighway. Pick the career, hit the milestones, stay in the fast lane somebody else drew for us. And one day a lot of us look up and realize it's been heading somewhere we never actually chose. This is a show about the people who got off it. I'm Victoria Steward. I spent 20 years as a federal civilian engineer/project manager before I left on a gut feeling and started taking my own scenic route. Every week I sit down with interesting people who made a change, sometimes sudden, sometimes so gradual they almost missed it, that sent their life somewhere they never saw coming. The kind of stories that inspire you to start dreaming into your own. If you've started to wonder whether there's a different road available to you, you're in exactly the right place. ✨ New episodes every week. Subscribe so you don't miss one.","last_synced_at":"2026-07-22T22:19:55.428806+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-scenic-route-with-victoria-steward-7782802"},"episode":{"title":"There’s No Magic Bullet: Rachel Smith on What Women Over 40 Actually Need to Thrive","slug":"there-s-no-magic-bullet-rachel-smith-on-what-women-over-40-actually-need-to-thrive","published_at":"2026-06-24T10:00:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-scenic-route-with-victoria-steward-7782802/there-s-no-magic-bullet-rachel-smith-on-what-women-over-40-actually-need-to-thrive","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-scenic-route-with-victoria-steward-7782802","url":"https://api.riverside.com/hosting-analytics/media/7d08ba883c3cbb040cb8ec333cab9276a26d13e8c8863cd3a3743a7292e11677/eyJlcGlzb2RlSWQiOiJkOTQ1OTJmMi04YWYxLTQ0NzgtYTBlMy0wMDhlNzYzMjI3NGMiLCJwb2RjYXN0SWQiOiI5NTE3MTRjMC03YjRkLTQ2NzUtYmQzNi1iM2JkMjc4Zjg1NDYiLCJhY2NvdW50SWQiOiI2OTlmNjIyYzM1MDAxYzBlOWJlNGFlNGIiLCJwYXRoIjoibWVkaWEvY2xpcHMvNmEyNTg1MjUyMTZhMGZlMDNlZGM4ZDk3L3ZpY3Rvcmlhcy1zdHVkaW8tUGhZZDAtY29tcG9zZXItMjAyNi02LTdfXzE2LTUwLTEzLm1wMyJ9.mp3","audio_url":"https://api.riverside.com/hosting-analytics/media/7d08ba883c3cbb040cb8ec333cab9276a26d13e8c8863cd3a3743a7292e11677/eyJlcGlzb2RlSWQiOiJkOTQ1OTJmMi04YWYxLTQ0NzgtYTBlMy0wMDhlNzYzMjI3NGMiLCJwb2RjYXN0SWQiOiI5NTE3MTRjMC03YjRkLTQ2NzUtYmQzNi1iM2JkMjc4Zjg1NDYiLCJhY2NvdW50SWQiOiI2OTlmNjIyYzM1MDAxYzBlOWJlNGFlNGIiLCJwYXRoIjoibWVkaWEvY2xpcHMvNmEyNTg1MjUyMTZhMGZlMDNlZGM4ZDk3L3ZpY3Rvcmlhcy1zdHVkaW8tUGhZZDAtY29tcG9zZXItMjAyNi02LTdfXzE2LTUwLTEzLm1wMyJ9.mp3","summary":"It’s 2am. You’re three videos deep into someone promising the one protocol, the one supplement, the one secret that big pharma has supposedly been keeping from you. And here’s the part that stings: at 2pm you run a team, read the data, command the room. So why does the magic-bullet pitch land so hard at midnight? That question sits at the heart of this conversation with Rachel Smith, DNP, FNP-C, CNM, NBC-HWC, a nurse practitioner, former certified nurse midwife, and founder of Aspect Wellness, whose own path to longevity medicine took the scenic route. Rachel grew up swearing she would never work in healthcare; she wanted to write the great American novel. Then a chance meeting in a tornado shelter introduced her to nurse midwifery, she went back to school at 33 (“how bad can nursing school be?”), delivered over a thousand babies, and let her own perimenopause push her toward the work she does now: helping women build the strength and capacity to actually live the decades ahead. You’ll hear why she believes muscle is the single most important health lever for women over 40, why the number on the scale was never the real question, and why, after twenty years and a wall of letters after her name, her answer to “what’s the secret?” is the most unglamorous list imaginable: eat real food, lift heavy things, sleep, get sunshine, build relationships you trust. There is no magic plant growing in the Amazon. There never was. CHAPTERS 00:00 Welcome and What Longevity Medicine for Women Really Means 02:51 Why Your Health Is the Launching Pad for Everything Else 03:43 From Aspiring Novelist to Nursing: An Unexpected Start 06:06 The Tornado Shelter Meeting That Changed Everything 07:38 “How Bad Can Nursing School Be?” Going Back at 33 10:31 Delivering 1,000 Babies and the Burnout T…","meta_description":"It’s 2am. You’re three videos deep into someone promising the one protocol, the one supplement, the one secret that big pharma has supposedly been keeping…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":2869,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-scenic-route-with-victoria-steward-7782802/episodes/there-s-no-magic-bullet-rachel-smith-on-what-women-over-40-actually-need-to-thrive/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-scenic-route-with-victoria-steward-7782802/there-s-no-magic-bullet-rachel-smith-on-what-women-over-40-actually-need-to-thrive.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}