#72: Mental Health & Finding Meaning at Work - with Kara Hardin (CEO, The Practice Lab)

This episode is brought to you by Zttle. We're halfway through 2025 and one thing's clear. We've been feeling this firsthand for sure. Events continue to be one of the highest performing marketing channels. Niche meetups, conferences, curated dinners, networking, breakfasts. Everyone's all in. Everyone's leaning into in person. Events have become a core part of our playbook here at Exit 5. So far we've hosted two virtual sessions. We do them twice a month. We do one large virtual event, sometimes two a year. One in person meetup. And we're deep in the trenches right now planning drive our annual conference coming back to Vermont in September. We use Zuttle to help us run a smarter event strategy. They help us with driving registrations, managing invites, automating, communications, reminders, analytics, tracking. They do it all. They have a Salesforce integration that also makes it easy and simple to report on pipeline and revenue from events without having to pull an op so you'd know exactly how your events performed. On top of that, the differentiator with ZTTL is how their team is insanely good at supporting us. They always go above and beyond for us and that's how we've been able to keep the momentum going with 12 events this year already and just a small little team here at exit 5. So if events are a part of your marketing strategy like they are ours, you should check out Zuttle to see how Companies like Zillow, CrowdStrike and Iterable are using the top event platform for business events in 2025. Head over to zuttle.com exit5 that's z-u- dash dash-l.com exit5 to learn more.

This episode of the Exit 5 podcast is brought to you by Zapier. Zapier is an awesome company and I'm thrilled that they're sponsoring Exit 5. They are one of the secret Go to tools maybe not so secret anymore that I've seen B2B SaaS marketers use over the years and I'm thrilled to have them as a sponsor. Zapier is easy automation for everyone by connecting with more than 5,000 of the most popular apps B2B marketers are using, like Salesforce, HubSpot, Slack, literally thousands more. Zapier lets you automate almost anything you can think of without writing code, which is especially good for people like me. And with Zapier's easy to use workflow templates, you can start saving time and impressing your boss Fast. More than 2 million businesses automate their tasks with Zapier including top brands like Shopify, Airtable, Dropbox, HubSpot, Zendesk and more. They choose Zapier to streamline their work, save money, and find more time for what matters most. And that's more important now than ever. That's the reason why Zapier rhymes with happier. Bet you didn't know that. Now you know how to say it the right way too. Every day, Zapier customers save more than $10,000 in time per year. With Zapier, you can move new leads into your CRM. You can automatically reach out to new leads. Get Slack notifications for important emails Auto Generate emails with personalized content based on form inputs. Seamlessly synthesize data from multiple sources, reduce human error and increase accuracy. You can try Zapier for free. That's one of the best things about it. Go to zapier.com exit51word that's zapier z-a p-I e r.com exit5 zapier.com exit51234 exit.

Exit.

Exit Kara what's your who are you and what is your background?

Dave First I have to say I am a longtime listener, first time caller, really happy to be here. So thanks so much. It's a pleasure to introduce myself to the community. I am CEO and founder of my own mental health training and education company. I specialize in the intersection between high performance and mental health. I run the business with my husband. I'm a former practicing corporate insecurities lawyer and registered psychotherapist. After listening to your episode with Hana, I want to add a little bit more about the parts of me that show up to work. So if those are my credentials and my training, it's also worth noting a couple other things about me similar to you. I have two kids. One is six, one is three. I am a sister, a mom, a partner, a twin, a friend, an acquaintance and in case my voice is in your ears and you're not looking at me, pretty white. I'm cisgender female heterosexual. I'm 39. I'm standing right now because I'm having middle aged back pain, Dave and I'm Jewish. So these are all parts of me that when I show up and I walk around in the world, I take with me wherever I go. So if you're wondering who I am, that's where I'd start.

That's the best description of anybody that I've heard. Now everybody gets the full picture no matter where they're at. Which is great. I have a question. So you run A mental health training and education business. You were a corporate and securities lawyer. What is your business today? Like, do you work one on one with individuals? Do you. Do people bring you into companies to talk to teams? Like, what does your kind of practice look like?

So I have basically two big businesses. One is my. One of my favorite things to do is to hear and witness people's stories. So I run a private psychotherapy practice. I work with people I call strivers. And we can get into that in a minute. And then, yeah, I go into organizations and I talk about the intersection between mental health and high performance and the paradoxes, how the very things that make us successful also can leave us feeling just miserable.

We're going to end this episode with me sending you a note, being like, I think I should be one of your. One of. I think we need to work together.

It would be a dream. It would be a dream. But more than that, I think that when we finish this episode, I hope that people think about their relationship to work just a little bit differently. And when I say relationship to work, what I mean is there's a way that we have been taught to engage with our time and our energy and our attention, our most precious resources. And that's professionally in the context of work, especially for sort of the Exit 5 community. You know, I'm aware that there are so many other spaces in which people work. I tend to focus on the subset that I live in. So I just, you know, I acknowledge it's a niche and I just want people to go, huh? That I hadn't thought about how I spend my time, energy and attention like that before. So if that results in you being like, kara, I need to know more, that would be a huge win.

Okay, well, we'll see. And I want to get back to that question in a second, but just so I can set some background, how did you make the transition from being a lawyer to being a psychotherapist?

Sure. So the short version is, if we go back to my introduction, we can imagine that we're comprised of many different parts of us. And there were parts of me that came alive as a lawyer, the one who loved curiosity, who loved helping people, who love complex problems, who love to have direction. That was made for me. Like, it's a well known ism in law that a law degree will help you do anything, but also that you kind of start law school and you're on a conveyor belt that just tells you exactly where to go. And I really liked that until I got to law school. And realized, you know, I don't know if this really brings out the parts of me that make me feel alive and like myself. And so when I was practicing law, I noticed I became far more interested in. In the performance side. Like, how does someone perform at this elite A level in terms of access and intellect and knowledge and technical skill, and also feel healthy? Like, how does that work? I became obsessed with that question, started coaching, and started my own side business. I know we love a side hustle here as a coach, which is a funny thing to be when you're a corporate insecurities lawyer. It would be like, let's have her call at midnight. Are you available? Just close the deal. And then from there, had the opportunity to go back to school and get my master's in counseling psych, and realized that being a therapist was, like, the dream that I never knew I had, that I did. And then from there realized that my practice was filling up with a very particular type of person across age, across demographic, race, geography. And so started feeling like meeting one on one wasn't meeting the need of the community and then reaching out to organizations. And so, yes, my business is working with individuals and organizations. And I shifted based on in each moment in time, saying, well, what makes me feel alive right now? It reminded me of your podcast, Dave. And I was going to ask you this question when you talked about your burnout episode, the Giving Tree with Startup Great Podcast. You were inviting people to see new possibilities for their life that perhaps they hadn't seen before. And it's a really radical thing, whether you realize it or not. So I was curious in you what helped you see that there was more that you could do than what you had been doing.

That's a great man. This is not fair when you have the therapist on the other end.

In my defense, I did warn you before we came online.

Yeah, you did. No, but usually people that ask questions, this is not a knock on any prior guests. It's just they're more surface, you know, they're podcast questions. So for me, it's. I guess part of it is I think I can talk about burning out, because I feel like I'm through it and I'm on the other side. And now I run my own business, and I'm able to generate income to provide for our life and work very, very comfortable hours. And so, like, I. Part of me does feel a little bit of, like. I don't know if it's like, guilt is the right word, but I'm like, oh, man, I've now I've kind of, like, made it. And so, like, yeah, it's easy for me to, like, you know, as I work less than 40 hours a week and I'm at home and I'm, you know, spending a lot of time with my wife and my kids, and I'm. I'm not at a company, like, it's much easier for me to be like, oh, yeah, that thing was burnout. Where I think, like, at the time, even though I was burnt out, I still felt like I wasn't. Not felt like. But I. I wasn't yet, like, financially independent. And I think that that was a big roadblock to give me the freedom to now, like, do whatever I want. I still need to generate income and. And have a business, but I have a little bit more freedom, and I feel like now I can do that. Where at the time I was, like, you know, young. That was probably seven, eight years ago. I was younger. I would say maybe the catalyst was, like, having our second child was like, the like, holy shit moment, because I was, like, already stressed and burnt out with one and we're about to have another. And I was kind of wrapped up in all these, like, mixed emotions and feelings about traveling a lot for work and being asked to put in, you know, late ish nights at the office and, you know, kind of be available whenever. And I'm like, how am I going to be able to do all those things? And so that was the moment when it happened. But the reason I can talk about it now is because, like, I'm on. I'm on the other side of it.

There were two things I just heard there that were both really interesting. The first was sometimes it's what you just said. Sometimes our emotional experience is so profound that we can't put words to it until much later. Like, we only really attach narrative and understand and even have the capacity to share it, to share that tenderness and vulnerability once there's some stability. And that makes a ton of sense. And the other thing, which I'm gravitating to is the sense, Dave, of in order to break the mold or the box or whatever it is around what's possible. It was almost like your life had to become impossible first. Like, the way that you were existing before, it was like brick on brick on brick on brick on brick on brick, such that you were like, this actually has to change entirely because I cannot exist like this. And I think it's a really interesting problem in the way that one, how do we let ourselves get there? Like, how do we let ourselves get so boxed in to such an impossible existence? I have a theory, but also, how do you intervene sooner? Like, for the people who are listening that are just crispy, they're not burned out, their lives aren't impossible. And I'm wondering if you search back in your brain, if there would have been a different. Like, an off ramp, like, you know, in Candyland, like, you just, like, draw the card and it takes you on secret path. Is there, like, a Candyland path that you would identify?

Yeah. So what's interesting is. And I like, take a bunch of, like, I. This.

Yeah, I have a. This.

Yeah, yeah. So this is how we get there. But what's interesting is one of the things for me was it was burning out. But also, I kind of, like, saw this new door start to open up, which is, like, through my work at the time, I started to get a lot of messages from other CEOs, other venture capitalists, other companies, other people. And as much as my identity was tied up with the company that I was working at, and that's where the burnout was coming from, it was almost like I started to see, like, oh, this is interesting. Like, I am burnt out right now, but, like, wait a second, I'm getting a message from this person who's like, hey, you could do this here and we could take care of this for you. And, like, I started to see, like, a different path. And so that was kind of like what opened that door. And I actually. I started to build a personal brand of my own. Not on purpose, but just started to be associated with, like, I started to get messages and invites to do this thing or to do that thing. And I started to have this realization, like, wow, this is like, this could actually be, like, I could do this. I could do this on my own. This could be my own thing. And somehow I got put on this book called Million Dollar Consulting by this guy named Alan Weiss. And the word consultant to me, you know, like, I didn't do great in school, I went to college, but I wasn't, like, super fired up about it. I'm not an mba. I have no. In my mind, I'm the furthest thing from a consultant. But I read this book, and his premise in the book is basically like, if you have expertise in a niche, you can make that your life, and you can use this as a means to an end. You don't have to be defined by your work, but you can use your work to give you the freedom. And so he's like, you know, I'm writing this right now from the beach with my wife. But that's because, like, you know, I had a call yesterday and like, the consulting call basically paid for this trip. And I started to think, like, wow, that's super interesting. And like, I could have that. I got a LinkedIn inbox and personal email full of, you know, opportunities. But I can't go, and I can't go after those opportunities because I'm employed by one place right now. And so I think my off ramp was, my bridge was starting to, like, see some of those opportunities. And I think, like, those two things collided. Being burnt out and seeing some of the opportunities and like, and then the other one was like, my son being born was like the combination of those three things was what let me, you know, kind of got me out. And what's interesting enough is I went to a company to be CMO at the time, and that seems counterintuitive. Well, if you were burnt out from this role, why do this? Well, it was a much different stage of a company and I was very clear with the CEO who I'd known for a long time. He's like, look, I know you're burnt out. I know you don't want to do.

This, but here's why.

You can. Like, you can leave at 4 o'. Clock. I don't care if you come in at, at 10 o' clock and you leave at 4 o' clock every day because you're gonna see your kids or do whatever. I don't care. He's like, I know who you are. I know what I'm gonna get from you. I know the bump that my company is gonna get from hiring you. So I'm gonna give you all this freedom. You can have your hours. He's like, I don't even care if you wanna do consulting or talk to other people on the side. Come and work with me for about two years. I have this vision. I want to, you know, sell this company. And I think you can help me be a part of that. And so, like, I also kind of had that, that bridge built. And so I felt very good about, like, making a big change in my life. It wasn't like, man, I'm super burnt out and I'm going to go become an English teacher or, you know, a yoga instructor. Like, there's many paths that connected from that initial burnout.

There were two things there. So if people are listening and they're looking for off ramps, I heard two, two things. The former lawyer in me always scaffolds and it's so funny. It's so funny when I play it back.

That's great.

The first is you had a sense of your values. I think what happens is we are taught that success looks, walks, talks and exists in a certain way. And oftentimes that disconnects us from who we are and what matters to us. And so as a part of your journey, you were like, I want to see my kids, I want to be available, I want to work these kind of hours. This is what I'm going to prioritize. And there's an immediate thing that pops up in our lives. Gosh, capitalism is so tricky. That's like, yeah, but how are you going to make money?

Right?

How are you going to support your family? And financial security is a huge deal. And of course, like one of the threads both of our stories has is we had financial stability. Like there was a certain measure of I can take this risk because I'm not concerned about putting food on my table. But it is still a risk. It is still a risk nonetheless. The other thing that makes taking the risk easier is that it's incremental. Like the shift for me wasn't from lawyer to CEO of a mental health training and education company, which by the way, also I didn't know, like I call myself a mental health consultant. When I first started doing it, I remember, I think it was my father in law who was like, tell me what that is. And I was like, great question. Let me tell you how I imagine it. Right. And so it's incremental. It wasn't an overnight adaptation or shift. It's been sort of 10 years since I've been a lawyer to now and similar to you. So it's little by little by little as opposed to, oh, I'm going to go be an English teacher now. Not that that can't exist, but we can think about it incrementally as opposed to all or nothing.

Yeah. Okay. My question to bring back to you now, which is you mentioned crispy, not burnt. One of the things that I do kind of struggle when talking about burnout a little bit because I, I do have this belief that like there is going to be some stress. Like there is going to be like you do. I'm a believer in like you do need to work hard. So I have never wanted to just like, you know, live in a bubble and not have worked hard to. I don't discount like working really hard for a decade and now being able to do these things much as I'm sure Like, yeah, maybe it was really hard being a corporate lawyer, but I'm sure it's allowed you to have the life and do the things that you want now. And so I do talk to. Often talk to people that are maybe a little bit earlier in their career. And I sometimes I want to say, like, look, this is part of it. And I. I don't know if that's an unpopular opinion, but, like, how do you talk about, like, the healthy. There is going to be healthy stress and look, they call it work for a reason.

Right.

If we all, like, would want to sit on a beach or maybe do nothing, but, like, there is going to be some amount of stress and conflict and there are going to be some early mornings and late nights at some point in your career to get to where you are. Do you know what I'm trying to articulate?

Yeah, I think I'm hearing it as. Because I've been thinking a lot about, like, I'm doing, quote, unquote, my dream job, which I think is, like, constantly evolving and not singular. And gosh, it's hard. There are days that are dreadful that I wake up and I'm like, what do I have to do today? And, you know, it doesn't. As much as I aspire to not work evenings and weekends, ironically, next month is Mental Health awareness Month. I'm working phenomenal amounts of hours to prepare. And so there's. What I like to think about is these three levels. So if you're listening and you're wondering sort of about your relationship with work, that thing we talked about at the beginning, I think there's like, the work we do, like level one. The facts, the circumstances, the context, who we're working with, how much we like it, what's happening underneath that is the emotional impact of that work overwhelm, excitement, energy, dread, misery, whatever is coming up. It's like how we emotionally engage with work. And then the third level, my favorite level, is how we relate to ourselves as we're having our emotional and factual existence. So when I think about whether someone is crispy or burning out, it's not just based on the context. Are they working hard and all the time, or their emotional experience, but it's how they're relating to it. Is it worthwhile? Is it meaningful? Are they emotionally exhausted and also feeling alive, or are they emotionally exhausted and. And depersonalizing, like popping outside of their body and being like, what life am I living right now?

Right. Like, stress can be. If you're going through a stressful time at work, but you're like, man, I see this opportunity, I'm excited about this company. I know that if I do this, that's how I felt at that time was like, oh, this is my especially most people in like the tech kind of ecosystem are like that one company that's going to like make your career. I knew that that was it for me. And so it does make some of the like stress of, of it. Like, okay, and now I look back and I'm like, yeah, I probably wouldn't trade that for anything because it's allowed me this. That's a good way to, to frame it. So you're like asking yourself to kind of step outside and see the bigger picture and like, so for your case, you're going to be busy, you're going to be stressed. But it's World Mental Health month next month and that's important to you and it's important to your business and it's going to have a big, you're going to have a big impact on lots of people and it's going to impact you.

Today's episode is brought to you by ahrefs. You probably know Ahrefs as an SEO tool, right? I've been using Ahrefs personally for over a decade to see how we rank and see what's driving traffic to our site. Content marketing has always been a big part of the playbook. I use their product at Drift at Privy and now we're using it at exit 5. But over that time, Ahrefs has evolved.

A lot and they're not actually just.

An SEO tool anymore. They're a full on marketing platform built for marketers like you and me who want to grow traffic, understand our audiences and make smarter business decisions. In the AI search world. Their marketing intelligence lets you see what's driving traffic to your site, to your competitors, understand top performing content, paid keywords, backlinks. You can even understand how much or your organic traffic would be worth. Put a actual dollar amount to all that organic traffic that you're driving. They've also got tools for AI powered content and keyword research. 24. 7 Site monitoring, real time analytics, backlink tracking, brand mentions, you name it, you can do it all in one place. With Ahrefs, it's really a marketer's dream. If you're a marketing nerd like myself, one of the coolest features in my opinion is their new brand radar tool which allows you to explore what people and AI says about your brand topic or niche. You can do this to do amazing research to help Understand what's actually happening in AI search today and just what the conversations are online about your brand. Plus, um, you can try their free.

Analytics tool to show you how many.

Visitors you're getting from AI search like ChatGPT or Perplexity. And look, as a firsthand user of this, so much easier to use than.

Something like Google Analytics.

I love it. We use it on our site. I've used it for Exit 5 and we just found out that over the past 30 days, we've got 105 visitors to Exit 5 from AI search. 95% of that was from ChatGPT, 5% of that was from Perplexity. But it's really cool to understand and this is the way that search is going and shifting. So Ahrefs not just an SEO tool anymore. It's a legit marketing platform for anyone serious about growth in today's AI driven search world. If you do any type of content marketing at all, you gotta go check them out. Go visit ahrefs.com that's a h r e f s.com today. Go check them out and your business.

So you're like, yes, it's worth it. There's going to be moments when just like, you might not want to go for your run or go work out or do your thing. You're like, man, this is going to suck for a little bit. And I really don't want to do this. And even though I have a great life right now, but there's some days that I'm like, you know what? The last thing in the world I want to do right now is talk to this woman on this podcast, you know, and it's just like, yeah. And it's not a personal thing. It's just like we have these ebbs and flows. So I like how you're. You have to be able to like, go back to your why and figure out like, well, what is this experience to me? And even when I talk to other marketing people, sometimes I'm like, yeah, maybe. Maybe your CEO is a maniac and your job sucks right now and you hate what you're doing and your company's not doing well. But like, can you take this next year, in two years? And because your company is in an interesting space, can you like just file that away and say, like, yeah, I'm going to use this to build on my resume and like, this is an important step for me even if the company thing doesn't work out, the other thing.

So I would add, so that's exactly it. And I want to build in terms of the reason. Like we're talking about the why, the why, the bigger picture, the meaning, sometimes our why. So I work with drivers and it's a working definition, but I define them as people who are almost constantly trying to be and do more like, be and do better, be better versions of themselves and do more, who feel most comfortable, most safe, secure and like they belong and connected when they're meeting or exceeding expectations. So a lot of people like this definition is encompassing and it's meant to be affirming. And at the level of why. One of the things that I always have my ear out for is what do you believe is true about yourself? For example, are you saying, this podcast with Cara, I need to do it because I'm curious and I'm engaged and this is going to be worthwhile for me? Or are you saying because this is the only opportunity I'm ever going to have? Nobody really likes me and if I don't do this, then the stakes of my development are in question. If I don't take this job with this maniacal CEO, I will never have another opportunity like this again. I am not valuable, I am not worthy. I don't know how I landed this. Like, what is the story that you are also attaching to your why about yourself and your value and how you matter and what you bring to the table.

Love that. I would say 99.9% of the people listening to this are going to be strivers.

Welcome. Hello, my name is Kara and I am a striver.

Don't you dare email Cara until I can hang up and email her first. I'm going to be first in line, so don't you try to. I don't have to put a delike two week delay on putting this episode.

Out because I want to talk about. For strivers listening. There's this challenge that I found and I think it speaks to what we're trying to talk about. It's the paradox that I mentioned at the very top. So we're taught that success, like looks, walks, talks and behaves a certain way and achieving that makes us feel safe. Like, I have finished my to do list, therefore I can rest. Like, it's how we're conditioned to work. Tricia Hersey has a wonderful book, Rest is Resistance that sort of talks about how this is a conditioned program, historic, really oppressive system. It's really great. And so we find ourselves striving obviously for success and we do it by getting results or being, you know, meeting approval from other people or avoiding Conflict or, or being right. Those are the four big ones. I see the four pathways. I see a lot of people looking to feel safe, secure, and like they belong. But when we do that, we are disconnecting from what matters to us. That third level, that second level. How is this impacting me emotionally? And how do I now relate to myself as it's happening? Because the goal is just at the top level. Get the results, have people like me be right. Just avoid conflict in any area. So we disconnect from ourselves and, and when we disconnect from ourselves, that feels gross, it feels miserable, it's anxiety inducing, it's lonely, it's isolating. We feel inadequate because how could you not feel inadequate when you were constantly trying to be more than what you already are? And then this is the kicker. It's the paradox. In order to feel better, we strive harder. We go to the thing that we know how to do to make us feel safe, secure and like we belong. So our to do list gets longer. We take on more tasks. How many of us? Like, I was, I caught myself in it the other day. I was like, gosh, I've been feeling anxious. Like this month is coming up. I'm really busy. I need to meditate every single day. That's exactly what I'm going to do. And I'm going to get up and exercise at 5am And I was like, I'm in the paradox. It's like busted.

And how did you talk yourself out of that? Or did you embrace it? Did you get up at 5am and work out every day and meditate every day? And was that the solution? What did you do?

So it's really, it goes back to what we were saying about being incremental, being incremental and being open to possibilities. So the first thing is recognizing it, like just hearing that this is happening. Notice this is a part of high performance is the very things that make us successful can also make us feel these ways. The next thing is, can you go to that third level and not pathologize yourself as drivers? We're like, what is wrong with me? Why am I so miserable? Why am I so angry? Nothing's wrong with you. Like, this is a way in which we have been conditioned and taught to show up for work. So the first thing I did is I noticed it. And then I was like, gosh, that's funny. Isn't that a kicker? And then I was like, well, what do I need? So the next two steps are sort of regulating your body, which is what you Know, Hannah talked a lot about in the pod and actually I have. This is my favorite book when it comes. Ooh, this one. This is one of my favorite books for teams. This is Paula Davis lacks book. But when it comes to burnout for individuals. I had these on my desk. They talk about this.

Go back to the first one just because most people are gonna listen. So I just wanna shout.

Yeah. So this is Beating burnout at work by Paula Davis Lack.

Beating burnout at work. Paula Davis lack. Yep.

And it's Wharton. And then this book is the secret to unlocking the stress cycle. And it's by the Nagowski sisters.

Great, thank you.

I can send you these after Dave and I want to. For the other book that I mentioned earlier, Rest is resistance. This is like mandatory night table reading.

Night table. Like good before bed.

You know how you have that book that you always want to read that it's on your nightstand? At least I do. And then you carry it around the house with you when it's reading time. This is the one. But actually read it.

I just can't read anything related to work before bed because then I got 600 ideas. So I just read about golf or other things before.

That's fair. That's fair. Read about range. It was a good masters. It was a good masters.

We could go for three hours on right. If you will.

Oh my gosh, that rain. What high achievers. Look at them showing up.

My mother in law was over and she said, man, this is really long. Like, because it was on all day because there was a rain delay Sunday. I'm like, no, this is not. It is a lot. And it is. There is a lot on tv, but it's not usually on all day. And it's. The majors are usually the one I watch a lot of. Golf is like the only sport that I watch now. But the majors are the one where I indulge myself. And I'm like, we're going to have the TV on in the background. The kids will. It'll just. They don't pay attention to it. You mentioned regulating your body.

Yes.

Does exercise fit into that? Because at least personally for me, I feel like when I am in. In my own head about my to do list or things I got to do, I go for a run or I work out or whatever. And a lot of that stuff has magically just disappeared by the time I come back. And I'm like, all right, I just got to do this one or this big rock. This one or two big things on my list. Is that a part of regulating your body or is that different?

No, a gajillion percent. And let's do a little bit of science. So when I use the word regulate, what I mean is the distribution of resources in your body. And for us drivers, the body is always longing and seeking to distribute resources effectively. Right? And so when we think about stress, stress involves a message going from our body, several messages from our body into our brain saying, there's something, there's a stimuli, and now we see it as perhaps threatening or dangerous. And we need to distribute resources differently to respond in order to that stress or in order to the stimuli we see that reaction in the body isn't brain down. It's not your brain going, oh, there's an email. It's your body feeling all sorts of things and then your brain coming up with an explanation. Uh, oh, there's an email. And I know I'm nervous about it because my stomach's a knot, I'm wearing my shoulders leg earrings, so it makes sense. And if you're interested in the science behind this, this is Anowski book. If you move your body, you are metabolizing your stress, you are sending, you are getting your body to send a different message to your brain. We are not in threat. We have gone through and redistributed our resources. So exercise, sleep, laughing. Great one. Connecting with loved ones. Sometimes a good cry, a good cry can do it. Being out in nature, all of these things help you redistribute resources more efficiently. And I call it like present orienting. So that when you are facing the email, you're not in the past of every interaction you've had with this person that's stressing you out, your body is distributing resources. You could be like, okay, I got an email and exercise. Absolutely phenomenally helpful.

Great to hear the science behind that. I also think maybe it's easier for me now because I have my own business and it's just me. And I know that it's just I'm not letting a team of 30 people down if I'm not, you know, responding to emails quickly. But I do find that if I put away my work, if I truly separate from like working and not working, my stress and need to do more is like going way down. So even if I, if I am, here's an example. My daughter likes to have me lay with her before she goes to sleep. And so I'll read a couple of books and she likes me to lay there for a couple minutes and she falls off asleep. She Said, can you lay with me? And I'll often have my phone with me. And if I have my phone with me, I'll catch up on social media, whatever. But if I check my email, that's the mistake because it's now 7:45, 8:00 at night, I haven't touched work in a couple hours. I've de stressed, even if I consciously am, like I'm in a great mood right now. I'm not stressed. I'm not going to worry about work until tomorrow. If I just see that email that says, for example, someone signs up for Exit 5 and they email me because something is broken and they didn't get the email. Even though my gut and my physical body wants to like, I'm not going to worry about that until the morning. I cannot let it go. And I have to then go, like, either write it down or go and address it. And so I have to like tried to be more conscious of like creating boundaries and be like, just don't even look at it. Like it doesn't matter and you don't actually need to look at it until 10 o' clock tomorrow because by 10, because you'll have slept, you'll have eight, you'll have done other things that you need to do, you worked out and like that thing can wait. Even though it feels urgent in this moment. And I see you nodding your head like, can you just talk about the. Maybe it's science, maybe it's discipline, but just like how important it is. Especially in this world where like I got 700 inboxes, I got email, Slack, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, a million channels. Like how important it is to be disciplined about, like when you're nibbling. Like sometimes I write on a post it note to myself, I write, don't nibble. And what I mean by that is like, either do, like be in the work and do it or don't do it. When I'm in between is when like bad things, bad things happen.

It's, you're onto something really profound, I think as a tool. So state dictates story. The state of your body will dictate the story you tell yourself at any given time. And the body, remember, holds stress unless you metabolize it. And so when you shift from your workday, there is a shifting of your state that happens slowly but carefully based on external and internal cues. I close my laptop, I shift the room, I go to my, you know, we have family dinner, I go upstairs, I liken it to the like book, bath, bed, like if you want your kids to transition from playing to sleeping, you give their body a cue to shift their story so that their brain and their bodies and can be settled for sleep. When you check your email, you're doing book, bath, monkey bars and our bodies because as strivers, we're so primed to respond and get into it. You're basically having to start the cycle all over again. Now what I hear, and I'm curious to know what you think. I'll often get in workshops, people going, kara, you're your own boss. You're your own boss. So like you, you can like, I put my phone in the closet from Friday at the end of my workday till Monday morning. Like, don't answer my phone because it's like it changes my state so profoundly. And they say you can do that, but I can't do that. I'm a consultant or I'm a lawyer or I'm a journalist and I have leads and like there is a world in which I have to answer. And I'm so curious about your thinking on that.

I don't have to answer. I mean, I am. Yeah, I mean, I guess I am my own boss and so I don't actually have to answer.

You're like, da, da, da. So I think two things. I think we have been conditioned to think we have to answer and we expect other people expect us to answer and we are not used as drivers to making people feel uncomfortable.

Okay, let me give you a. You just made me think of a real world example of this. So when I was like cmo, I would oftentimes get a message on slack and. Or like I would be out traveling for work and I would be on an airplane or going somewhere at an event and I would not have, I didn't check my phone for like six hours because I'm at a work, I'm at an event. And so like it's not a day that I'm doing, you know, computer stuff. And I would oftentimes see this pattern and the pattern would be sometime in the morning, get a message from random person on the sales team like, hey, quick question, do you know where X, Y and Z thing is? And I would look at my phone like seven, eight hours later and I would see a message from the same person three or four hours later that said, nevermind, got it. And I was always amazed at how many like minor things or even middle things just kind of like because I wasn't there to respond. Like they figured it out.

Yeah.

They resolved or became not important. Or they asked somebody else and whatever. And that was really, really liberating for me because it was like, if I was at the computer, boom, that person would have got a response from me and then all of a sudden my state would have completely changed because now, oh, I was just writing this really important email to Kara. I got to talk to her about this thing. But then like, John emailed me and he wants to know where this thing is. And boom, now I'm gone. And so that lesson that you brought, you know, now that you've brought that back for me is like, I learned that lesson years ago. And I try to like remind myself of that. My monkey brain wants to say, like, oh, Cara just joined, you know, Exit 5. And like, she's going to be pissed because she just paid $20 for this thing. And you know your thing is broken. Like, what an asshole. Like, how did you not. If I just let it go. I email her the next morning when I get to it. Hey, Kara, sorry, you know, thank you so much. Sorry. I got your note. This thing is blah, blah, blah. It almost always turns out to be totally fine. My question to you is though, you have kids, you have a family, you said all these things. You're a sister, a mom, a partner, a twin. Do you really put your phone in the closet from Monday, from Friday into Monday? There's no way. I believe that. Because as much as I don't want my email and slack and other things on my phone, like my phone is crucial for like figuring out the address to the kid's birthday party or texting my mom back. So give me the real truth on that.

I'm going to tell you and you're going to laugh at me. I just realized this whole time I've had AirPods in and they. I haven't been listening through them. I was like, why is this sound? I can't. Okay, so there's two things scaffolding again. The first is my husband keeps his phone with him.

So it's his. You deal with it. You take the phone.

My husband keeps his phone with him. We're looking into a landline. So what happened was in the pandemic, I noticed like I was in the pandemic running a mental health education company with a nine week old and a three year old. And my husband was at like a basic pet food startup in some ways, like they were raising money, they were doing, and there was no one. We were meeting, there was nowhere to go, there was nothing to do. And yet what I noticed is I was like on my phone all the time. And it made me feel awful. And so it started with just Saturday mornings and then it extended and it extended it and extended. And what I find is I do a couple of things. And this is Tiffany Schlane has a book called 246 where she talks about this. You would be surprised how much planning you can do in advance. There is a lot of planning. If my kids have a playdate I have, sometimes I print it out on Google Maps. Truthfully, my husband will end up like taking and navigating it, but you just make plans with people in advance.

I love this. You're going to bring everything back. I just wrote this out. You're going to bring back landlines, you're going to bring back MapQuest.

MapQuest. MapQuest for the win and all it does. Because this is a muscle. The muscle of not meeting that. I'm going to get back to you. I'm going to get back to you. I'm going to get back to you. It takes practice because it's uncomfortable. You know what it's like the Friday night without my phone. Boring. It is boring.

There's probably something like, there's probably something bent, you know, like there's something to being bored, right? And I. I'm not always great at this, but isn't that like a whole thing for your brain? Like, we have forgotten how to be bored and what you think about and what you.

And.

And the phone just becomes this, like, constant. And I'm not preaching to anybody, like, I'm as guilty of this as anybody else. And I'll get a notification that says, you know, three, eight, four hours of screen time, which is like, I know people where it's like 6, 7, 8 hours of screen time. But even that I'm like, damn, that's a four hours. Is. How is a round of golf?

Like so. And I want to encourage the community to hear this the way we've been talking about everything else, which is, this is not all or nothing. You're not either staying in your job or moving to Bangkok. Right. You're not putting your phone away. Like, I do it. This is like two years later with systems and practices and expectations set with loved ones. You might want to start with, you know, I'm going to. I see that email. I'm just not right now. And I'm going to hold my discomfort like, can we not incremental and do all or nothing. And the other thing is I am constantly. And it feels like, like I make up that you do this too. So confirm, accept, reject, counter, offer. I'm constantly just trying things on. I'm like, okay, I'm doing texture, but now. But like, I've had to, like, I've been working on weekends. So I'm kind of on a screen. Am I not on a screen? Should I check my messages? I just, in every moment I'm saying, well, what do I think would help me? What do I not? And there's a practice of just not judging if it doesn't work. Like, oh, that kind of sucked.

Turns out I can just spiral about like the most meaningless things. Like, am I. Wait a second, I'm still paying $6.99 a month for this tech tool for my business that I'm not using. Like, I gotta look into that right now. And it's like, no, no you don't. And one of the actually nice things about working at home, there's many of them is, as you can see, I'm a. I got legal pads, I got post it notes, and one of my forms is actually, I write it down on a post it note and I put it on my desk and then I forget about it for later. And then when I'm back in work mode, then I can go and, and tackle through those things. And it's actually comical how many post it notes I write that when I go to actually sit down and work, I would say about 60% of them, I crumple up and I, I go, I put them in the trash. Like, here's a thing that I wrote down like last week that I thought was important at the time. Now that I'm in a different state and have a different relationship with this note, I'm like, I don't need to do that, throw it out. And it's an amazing form of like therapy for me is just, just to write it down on a post it note and like file it away. And like, I'm going to get to that later. And then oftentimes, like, it's very less than 50% of those things actually matter. But that could have been me being distracted in an hour trying to solve the problem on a Friday night when it doesn't really matter. That's just one way that I've found to like cope with that.

I love that system because oftentimes I feel like anxiety is like, I just need to keep my finger on this, right? I keep thinking about it, I keep coming back to it because I don't want to forget it. And I just need to. This is important. You have my attention you have my attention. So this is your way of saying, okay, you have my attention. I'll give it to you when I give it to you. And the framework that I've been playing around with since I started my business, I was working. This is. I was like starting the company. And at the time I was pregnant and just working a lot. And my friend, I was talking to her about it and she's like, God, you're a shitty boss. And I was like, oh, you're right. And ever since she said that to me, when I think about urgency and should I reply to this, the filter I apply is like, if I had the boss of my dreams, what would they say to me about this email? And the boss of my dreams would often say, carrie, you got time. You got time. Sometimes you'd be like, yeah, this one's like, kind of important, maybe by the end of the day. But there are very few things that require our attention and our energy immediately. One of the gifts I have in psychotherapy, like, I deal with, you hear some really existential things. And it reminds me almost on a daily basis, yeah, you know what? Gotta send that person some meeting times, could happen today, tomorrow, a week from now. Like. And so as you're listening, for anyone who's listening, you may or may not have a boss, but you are your own boss before anyone else is. And what would you say to yourself if it was the best possible leadership you could receive? It's a test. And then you can also do a compare and contrast. Like, oh, well, I would say this to myself, but here's what I'm being told might be a sign that the place you're at isn't the best culture fit for you. Like, all of it is data. All of it is data together.

All right, so one of my. You could frame this, what I've written down during this session, but I feel.

Like I keep doing this. Lean forward. Hahaha.

One of my. No, it's okay, it's okay. It's just a conversation.

No, I'm impressed, I'm impressed. Okay, good, good.

Well that's great. It makes me feel better. One of the notes that I wrote down, among other things, is that we a hundred percent need to do a part two, maybe a part three, maybe make this a recurring segment because there's. I didn't realize there'd be so many things, but in the 10 minutes that we have remaining, I need to ask you about this because it's something I've wanted to get to since the beginning and obviously we didn't cover. There's a hundred things that we didn't cover. But I think we've unlocked that. This is a great discussion and we should have more of this type of discussion. And I already know that the response to this is going to be off the charts. You talked about finding meaning at work. Let's spend a little. Let's wrap up as we talk about this. This will be our last segment, what I'm calling part one with you care.

Okay.

I hope you're okay with that.

Love it.

Hopefully you find high roi. And coming back on this podcast, one of the things that I've struggled with this in my career, and I know many others in this field is like, so this audience podcast, most of the people are marketing professionals. And one of the things that I hear a lot is, you know, how do I find meaning at work? Because, like, people say I'm just working marketing. I'm not. I'm not a doctor. I'm not saving lives, I'm not curing world hunger. And it's kind of this weird. Maybe weird is wrong word, but it's kind of this dance that we feel like what we're doing in the grand scheme of all of the problems in the world. Like, I'm doing marketing at some company that's helped. That help sells B2B sales software. Like, how do I find meaning in that? And I think it's very easy to just throw that away and be like, yeah, that really doesn't matter. Capitalism, you know, like, yeah, but I feel like you'd have a thoughtful story around that. And I wanted to talk through that.

I really love the question. And I want to first point out that my initial instinct was a really striver strong. Like, well, I will come up with the answer. Like, I will tell the answer. I'm going to be the expert and be so impressive. And that's something that. That's like an ah. Like when we think about striving for results or approval or. Or to be right or to avoid conflict, it shows up in these insidious ways, like just in conversation. So just, you know, I noticed that. And because it's part of being human, I flag it. My next thought for you had to do with something related but slightly different that Bernay Brown, who's a researcher out of the University of Houston, she has several books I recommend, all of them coined. I believe she coined the term. It's called the Myth of Comparative Suffering. The myth of Comparative Suffering is that when we think of suffering in the world, we imagine it existing in a hierarchy. And so, Dave, you. I'm going to make up some things about you and I as illustrative for an example.

Feel free.

In the pandemic, you had two young kids. People are like, ooh, that's kind of hard. And then I'm like, okay, well, I had two young kids and my son would get febrile seizures. Ooh, okay. So I just put, like, Kara had it a bit worse. Okay, but what if Dave also didn't have access at all to any help? Parents, friends, anything? Oh, I don't know. Are seizures worse than that? I can't. We do this thing, and what we're trying to do is figure out who deserves more care. As if our care is a scarce and finite resource. It's not. And the reality is, when we get in the habit of evaluating and judging who gets care, our response to anything is going to be judgment. It will be the opposite of the compassion and care we want to give. And so when I heard you say, you know, gosh, I'm only in marketing. I'm like, working for the men and it's the machine. I don't know. Like, do people say, working for the men still? I'm such a 90s child.

I love it.

I love it as a 90s child. Is the machine and capital and. Oh, I think, huh, that's pretty judgy. That's a pretty judgy response. As if there aren't a million gajillion infinite ways to contribute to the world. As if the talents of some are less worthy than the talents of others. I believe. And this moves into the personal more than the research base that, like, everybody is good and has something in them that is unique to them. Many things, really, that they bring to the world, not only of work, but of everything. And whether it's expressed through marketing or therapy or podcasts or art or politics or charitable work, I don't think it devalues or it makes them less valuable. The value comes from continuing to put yourself in the world with a view to embeddering it and improving it.

So that could be from I met a bunch of good friends through work.

That could be from I'm working at this big company, and I'm marketing, and I believe in the mission of the company or if I don't, that I believe in the people, the stories I'm telling. I believe that I come alive as I do this work or that I matter. Here we get into, and this is like, it's full circle. It's back to like, well, what is your third level? What matters to you? You know, not every job, not every experience has to be about your passion and your best and coming alive. Like, for me, I needed this, but I know people who are just like, yeah, this pays the bills. And I really am 9 to 5 and I get to hang out with my family and my friends and we have a board game night. It gets wild. Like, just imagine the possibilities.

It's good to hear you say that. That's okay. And I think, like, there's also like, well, maybe you work at Salesforce and you are one of, you know, hundred thousand in people there and you're doing marketing there and you're like, look, man, this is a good salary. I got a good job. I know I'm not saving the world, even though the CEO believes we are. Like, it's not for me. But what if you're making that salary and that's going to allow you the freedom to hang out with your family and maybe you can do something in your community and because of that salary, make an impact locally and have time and be a good parent. And because you have that freedom, you coach your kids soccer. Like, I have been trying lately to think about all of the kind of second, third, fourth order, like, downstream effects of that, as opposed to be like, yeah, am I, Am I saving the world with Exit 5? I'm not. But I see it now as, like, this has become a resource for people who work in marketing to further their careers and learn more about their craft. And it doesn't mean that you have to wake up and be super excited to go do marketing today, but if this is your job. And I also, as humans, we put so much stock in, like, what our identity feels to be so tied into. Like, what do we do for work? Right? The number one question, you meet a stranger or friend at a party. Like, oh, hey, Kara, nice to meet you. So what do you do? Right? It's just like, our human nature is to be like, we go right to work. And so if Exit 5 can help you get better at your job, that might mean that you get promoted. That might mean you get more money, which might mean more time, more freedom, more X, Y and Z. So I've just lately been trying to think about that broader view as opposed to, like, yeah, I'm not saving the world.

It also remember, like, I love. It's incremental. A part over here, a part over here, this matters over here, this splatters. It's not that, like, we have one lever that we're pulling, and either we're helping the world or we're not. I think about it in terms of what are my core values? Am I doing work that engages with my core values and that may directly or indirectly improve the world I'm living in? And of course, you know, it goes back to all of my intersections and identities, being aware of my privileges and advantages and ensuring that there's equity in the circles and connections that I exist within. Like, all of that has to be an active process, but it doesn't have to happen through work. That doesn't have to be the one way that you express yourself in the world. In fact, it can't be, because you're human and gonna need to sleep at some point and eat at some point. Also, I have noticed, by the way, like, you haven't had a single drink of water. Like, I have been hydrating, I've been.

Chugging that I. I've been literally having.

Noticed it at all, I'm like, how are you? Parched.

I can't even believe that. I feel like I've had this in my face the whole time. That means it's great because when you're talking, you're locked in. All right, we gotta wrap because it's time and my daughter just got home and it's going to be chaos in here in any minute, but this is amazing. Go to LinkedIn. Here's what I want you to do. This is a call to action, this episode. Go to LinkedIn, find Kara Hardin. I'll put her LinkedIn profile, as we do in all these. And I want you to send her a connection request and send her a note and tell her what you got from this podcast. And that would make my day, because then in a week or so, Kara's gonna message me and be like, oh, my gosh, I got so many messages from people like this. Really resonated with your audience. And, I mean, I'm gonna follow. I have some things that I wanna follow up with you because I feel like this could be a recurring segment that will be beneficial to a lot of people. So thank you, Kara. I was excited to talk to you when we did our quick intro, but I think this exceeded expectations. So to the striver in you, Greg, great job.

Yeah, check. Right, check. You know, all I want to say is, thank you so much for having me. I would love to hear from you. I love that call to action. I'm always curious as I'm developing my theories and ideas to know what's landing and what isn't. And more than anything, I'm grateful for the time, attention and energy that you, Dave, and you to anyone who are listening, have spent with me. I think that is the biggest, most humbling compliment you can give to someone. So thanks so much for having me.

Thank you. Hey, thanks for listening to this episode of the Exit 5 podcast. If you're in B2B marketing and you want to grow your career, you should also go and check out everything that we have over@exit5.com we've got articles, we've got videos, we've got templates. Plus we have a community. A community of over 4000 B2B marketing pros. Whether you're deep in your career and want to connect with your peers or just starting up and you want a place to go where you can and see what people are talking about, get smarter about B2B marketing in your own time to grow your career and help grow your company. Go and check it out. It's exit5.com you can get on the email list there you can join the community. There's 4,000 marketers in the community. We have a job board. We're always adding new stuff. It's really becoming the number one place you can go if you want to grow your career and learn more about B2B marketing outside of what you're doing inside of your company every day. So check it out. Exit5.com and I also want to make sure I give a shout out to my friends at Hatch. That's Hatch fm. They produce this podcast. It sounds amazing because of the work that they do and they work with B2B companies just like yours. They offer unlimited podcast editing and strategy for businesses. You can get unlimited podcast setting and on demand strategy for a low monthly cost. All you got to do is just upload your episode and they take care of the rest. Go and check them out. Out. It's Hatch fm.

Today's episode is also brought to you by Paramark. It's July 2nd half of the year is here and hey, before you know it, 2026 planning and everything's going to be here. But let's be real, most teams are still guessing when it comes to what's actually working in marketing today, which channels to double down on, which campaigns are worth running again or not and what's just noise, what's actually contributing to Pipeline and what's not. It's Messy. This is B2B marketing and that's exactly where Paramark comes in. Paramark is a marketing attribution platform that shows you what's working and what's not so you know exactly where to invest your next dollar. They use marketing mix modeling and incrementality testing to give you a full picture of performance across every channel, tactic and region. And it's built by a marketer made for marketers. And right now they're hosting a special office hours on helping you with your second half of the year, planning, forecasting and putting your best foot forward for the rest of this year and into 2026. It's not a sales pitch from them, but this is your chance to get real help from their experts that are at the intersection of marketing and planning. Bring your data, bring your questions, your roadmap and the Paramark team is going to help you figure out what's driving results, where to cut and where to invest moving forward. So stop guessing and you can plan smarter right now with the team at Paramark. But you got to grab an office hour spot. I highly recommend doing this. Pranav is awesome. The rest of their team is great. They totally get this space. You should go check them out. Go to paramark.com office hours that's paramark. Com Office hours.