We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Cara Chace a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Cara thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

A few years ago, I walked away from the business I’d been building since 2015 and burned it all down. Not because I had a shiny new idea, but because I hit a wall that so few women entrepreneurs don’t talk about publicly. Burnout wasn’t a buzzword for me – it was my reality. Chronic health issues, mental fatigue, and the growing realization that the systems I was using to “be productive” were actually making everything worse and I needed a complete shift.

My business looked fine from the outside. But behind the scenes, it was built on strategies that required constant hustle, performance, and pushing. I had duct-taped together tactics that never truly aligned with my brain, my energy, or my season of life as a working mom. I wasn’t just tired – I was exhausted from “performing” productivity for the sake of external validation or checking a box. And the harder I tried to “fix” things with better planners or tighter schedules, or an expensive mastermind, the more unsustainable it became.

When I stopped everything, I didn’t know exactly what was next. I just knew I wasn’t going to rebuild a slightly better version of the same problem. What I needed – and couldn’t find – was a time management system that started with how I think and how life happens, not just what I want to do. I needed something that didn’t treat real life as an inconvenient disruption to my weekly plan.

Chaos Detox came out of that lived experience. It wasn’t designed to be a trend or a tactic, or to jump on the freebie to low-ticket to course funnel that everyone creates. It was designed to solve a problem no one else was addressing: the gap between what productivity advice assumes and the experience that women actually live. It’s not about choosing between rest and results. It’s about teaching a mind-first approach to time management that works when life doesn’t go according to plan – which, let’s be honest, is most of the time.

I didn’t build this because I knew it would “work” in a business sense. I built it because I needed it, and I knew I wasn’t the only one. What got me excited wasn’t the offer or the strategy. It was the conversation: helping high-achieving, ambitious women see that it’s not their fault they feel behind. It’s the systems they’ve been told to trust.

This isn’t about more discipline or better planners. It’s about clarity, flexibility, and building systems that protect your time and your peace – while giving you space in your day to just be and have boundaries that are guilt-free.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I’ve worn a lot of titles over the years: Special Agent. Social media manager for a Grammy-winning metal band. Digital marketing strategist. Agency owner. But the one that matters most today is Time Management Coach – for women who are done with rigid systems and pressure-based productivity.

My essential work skills have always been about clarity and systems. Whether I was doing international criminal investigations, or building social media plans with music industry bigwigs, my work has always required out-of-the-box ideas, precision, problem-solving, and high-stakes focus.

When I decided to create my own place in the online world as a digital marketing agency, that work benefitted from all the skills in my previous careers. But I didn’t know how to filter out the noise of what everyone says you “should” be doing to build an online business. And since I love learning, I was drinking from a firehose constantly and jumping from one strategy and model to the next.

Once I hit that wall of burnout and chronic health issues, I knew I had to clear the decks of everything I thought I needed to do to be successful. It was a quiet knowing that the business I’d created no longer aligned with the life I wanted.

So I shut it down.

I didn’t pivot. I didn’t rebrand. I walked away completely and took time to rebuild something that actually supported the real life I was living – as a working mom, as a business owner, a homeschooling mom of 2 – as someone who was deeply tired of white-knuckling her way through her calendar.

That rebuild became Chaos Detox—my flagship program that teaches a mind-first approach to time management. It’s a self-paced course designed for high-achieving women who don’t need more planners or “wake up earlier” advice. They need systems that flex with their energy, season, and brain—not against them.

Everything I create starts with one assumption: the women I serve are already productive. They’re running businesses, raising families, managing careers. They don’t need another motivational speech—they need real strategies that help them feel in control again.

In terms of how I serve:

My blog and podcast (Ditch the Chaos) are where I give away my best thinking. They’re not fluff content or listicles—they’re in-depth, strategy-driven, and rooted in lived experience.

My email list isn’t built on freebies or funnels—it’s mid-funnel by design. People join because they already see the value in my content and what I teach. They’ve read the blog, listened to the podcast, and want to stay in the loop when new content or offers drop. It’s a VIP list for people who want first access to new content and offers.

My products include the Chaos Detox course, the AI-powered Pro Planner (like an AI coach trained on my course that’s available 24/7), and a few spots per year for 1:1 coaching.

What sets my work apart is that it’s not performance-based. I’m not here to help women do more. I’m here to help them build systems that protect their time, their energy, and their peace—without guilt. I’m proud to have created an entire business ecosystem that reflects that mission.

This isn’t about aesthetic productivity or optimizing every hour. It’s about building space and giving women permission to define success on their own terms.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

The biggest lesson I’ve had to unlearn – multiple times – is that someone else has the answers.

Like a lot of ambitious women in online business, I spent years chasing the “right” strategy. I invested in high-ticket masterminds, blueprints, courses, all of it – convinced that if I could just copy and implement the secret someone else had, I’d finally get the clarity and traction I wanted.

But here’s what I learned the hard way: when you build a business on someone else’s framework without filtering it through your values, your energy, and your life (and without knowing that their life might look completely different than yours as far as demands) – you end up with either a business that doesn’t feel good, or one that’s not working at all.

Every time I outsourced self-trust to a mastermind coach or course instead of pausing to ask “Does this even make sense for me?”, I paid the price in burnout, misalignment, and wasted energy (and lots of money).

Unlearning that reflex – the idea that someone else knows better than me – has been a long process. But it’s also what led me to rebuild Chaos Detox the way I did: not as another plug-and-play system, but as a flexible framework that teaches women how to create their own rules. Not mine. Not their coach’s. Theirs.

Now, when I make business decisions, I don’t start by asking what the experts say. I start by asking what protects my white space and aligns with how I want to live. That shift changed everything.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

Absolutely. Three standouts shaped both my personal philosophy and how I now teach time management and business systems.

First, Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport gave me permission to step back from the noise. As someone who used to run a digital marketing agency, my entire business was built on being “on” all the time – creating, posting, engaging. But Newport’s work helped me reframe my relationship with tech and productivity. It taught me that just because something is available or trending doesn’t mean it’s worth my energy. That mindset shift was huge.

Next, Essentialism by Greg McKeown completely rewired how I think about time and decision-making. The idea that “if it’s not a clear yes, it’s a no” became a filter I now use across my business. It helped me stop chasing every opportunity, every strategy, every idea – and instead start protecting my focus and energy. Essentialism was the catalyst for building a business that’s intentionally small, calm, and aligned – not busy for the sake of busy.

And finally, Profit First by Mike Michalowicz changed how I think about business finances. I’m not naturally a numbers person, but this book made profitability simple and actionable. It helped me design a business that’s not just sustainable emotionally – but financially too. I now make decisions based on actual data, not vibes or false urgency.

Each of these books helped me unlearn the noise, strip back the clutter, and build a business around clarity, not complexity.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://carachace.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/carachace
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@CaraChaceTV
• Other: https://carachace.com/buzzsprout

Image Credits

Dani Rexine, Morgan Phipps