Some people fear getting older, but not Tracee Ellis Ross. In fact, she says her 40s have been quite “magical,” actually.

“My life is really great,” Tracee gushed to Closer Weekly at the 2019 PaleyFest panel for Black-ish on Sunday, October 13. “The thing that’s crazy is I feel like at 40 — from 44 to 46 — it’s been magical and all these seeds that I planted for so many years growing up are, like, all coming above ground at the same time in this really wonderful age. It’s exciting!”

Perhaps this is because she has found wild success on the ABC sitcom, which first began airing in 2014 and is still going strong. For her portrayal of Dr. Rainbow Johnson on the Kenya Barris-created series opposite Anthony Anderson‘s Andre ‘Dre’ Johnson, Tracee has been nominated for three Emmys and took home a Golden Globe in 2017.

View this post on Instagram

Me now. (Part 2)

A post shared by Tracee Ellis Ross (@traceeellisross) on

Aside from acting, Tracee is also an author, entrepreneur, fashion designer and producer. So what advice does someone as accomplished as this have for women making a name for themselves? None — but there’s a catch.

“I never use the word advice,” the Girlfriends star noted. “I like to share experience, offer suggestions, because I don’t have any idea what I’m doing and I have no reason that I should be telling anyone else what they shouldn’t be doing.”

“But I just think follow your heart and know that things take longer than you think they’re gonna take. I think that’s one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned as I’ve gotten older is that things just actually take longer than you think and patience and persistence,” she explained, using her hair company — which took about a decade to really blow up — as the perfect example. “I didn’t let go of the dream, you know? That doesn’t mean it’s all that everything’s going to happen, but some things do and some things are worth hanging in there.”

Just last year, the daughter of legendary singer Diana Ross opened up to InStyle about being single with no children. “Some of the ability to reflect on what I really want comes from pushing up against a society that shames me for not having the expected trappings,” she told the magazine about her decision to never get married or have kids.

If you ask us, Tracee is winning at life and is an inspiration to us all.