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

Cara, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What’s something crazy on unexpected that’s happened to you or your business

Like many women, especially as a mom who had a demanding full-time job, I slid down the slippery slope of being everything to everyone – except myself. I betrayed myself and my own needs one choice at a time, until I became so utterly depleted, that it took me nearly two years to recover. I kept going until I reached a breaking point with my physical and mental health.

That was over 10 years ago, and I didn’t realize at the time I was dealing with soul-crushing burnout, and an equally strong sense of hopelessness about my prospects for ever getting healthy again and back in touch with what I actually wanted in life. It was to be the beginning of a long journey that has led me toward building a rich, full-bodied, joy-filled life that lights me up. And into my current profession as a coach for burned out mid-career women and teams, and author of an award-winning guidebook for burnout recovery called Burned Out to Lit Up: Ditch the Grind and Reclaim Your Life.

I was in the brittle and fried depths of burnout when a family emergency happened. It laid bare the fact that, despite our best efforts, we can still get ourselves into some very bad places, to the detriment of not only ourselves but also to those around us.

One blizzardy February night, we were visiting friends in a small mountain town where we’d traveled for a weekend visit. We were in charge of dinner for the crowd, which included another family.
In the frenzy of making the meal and keeping an eye on the kids— and I’m sure tracking a hundred other things in my unpleasantly busy brain—we’d failed to inform the other guests that our son had a life-threatening nut allergy or ask what they’d brought to share.

All the kids finished eating quickly and scampered off to play, taking the tray of nut-filled brownies with them (unbeknown to us). Even though he was only five, my son was well-versed in having a food allergy. He was used to asking what is in desserts at school birthday parties before partaking, for example, but he’d never seen brownies with tiny bits of walnuts before (he thought they were white chocolate chips) and dug in.

Our daughter came booking up the stairs to tell us she thought her brother had eaten nuts, and we went into emergency mode (for me it looked like more of a freak-out mode). When asked how he felt moments later, my son said his throat felt weird and tight, a sign of anaphylaxis, and I think I felt my soul flee my body for a moment. We grabbed the baby Benadryl and administered the EpiPen auto injector shot into his thigh while our hosts called 911.

The snowstorm was horrible, and the house was remote, so it would be a while for the ambulance to arrive, and more time to get to a hospital. As the minutes dragged by, I struggled mightily to mask the growing panic in my body and mind, since it was only a matter of time until the EpiPen’s effects wore off. We needed to get to the hospital fast.

When the ambulance finally arrived, my son and I were hustled in, and our family and friends followed behind. He was so sleepy from the effects of medication I felt the urge to continually check that he was breathing all the way during our interminable ride. We made it, thank God. He was treated, and we were sent back to the house with more medication to get through the next volatile and vigilant twenty-four hours.

I remember sobbing on our friends’ couch the next morning, asking how I’d allowed myself to get so depleted that I failed to protect my child. Huge helpings of guilt, self-blame, and shame accompanied the fear and stress that were still there from the night before—an emotional hell cocktail.

I had no idea how I got so burned out and even less of a clue how to come back to life.
I admitted through ugly cries that sent the kids running to far corners of the house that my attempts at doing it all were doing me in and I didn’t know how to fix it.

At that moment, my friend suggested a concept that would not just be game-changing for me but would be life-altering for so many women I’ve been able to help since. “A sabbatical could be a place to start,” she noted, observing that I needed to step away, reflect, evaluate, and make some changes.
At first, I thought sabbaticals were only for pastors and professors, not for regular people like us. Then I doubted I deserved this or could do it without permission from others in my life. Indeed many folks (family, coworkers, the lady at the corner store), loudly (and uninvitedly!) voiced their fears about the demise of my career and probably my life.

How would I get a real job again with a big resume gap? I’d be labeled as someone who couldn’t take the pressure. How would we live on one salary and meet our financial obligations and goals? These are the terrifying stories we tell ourselves that keep our wings clipped down tight, that keep us assuming there are no “realistic” possibilities or options to really start living (versus surviving).

Those voices of doom were loud inside me too. I’d grown up in very modest circumstances, and fears around financial security were never far from my mind. For this reason, I always had money squirreled away and a hefty plan B in case of disaster. But my mental and physical state at the time were in such dire straits that they demanded I act and take real responsibility for my life choices.

So I pushed forward and planned with my partner-in-crime (my husband, Dave) to reclaim my life and make the positive impact on our family life I so desperately longed for. I leaned hard into faith that it would work out even though I didn’t yet have the answers, and I reminded myself of all the times I’d been resourceful and resilient in the past. I could do this. I had everything I needed within me to take a big leap.

Now I help guide my clients through the fear uncertainty involved in healing from burnout, all the way to the vibrant, energized, lit-up life on the other side. We have everything we need inside of us to go from chaos to clarity, self-neglect to self-possession, burned out to lit up. We just need a little support and roadmap.

Cara, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I spent 20 years learning how to survive and ultimately thrive in the ultra-male, 24/7, meat grinder field of real estate development. It’s an “always on” business, in which it is a peculiar badge of honor to be so “busy” as to have few, if any, other priorities in life. During that time, my teams produced over 3,000 homes in the San Francisco Bay Area, creating over $1.5 billion in value.

After slogging away for the first 15 years, doing all (most? some?) of the things working parents are “supposed” to do, with two children and a crushing set of expectations from myself, work, home, and beyond, I hit a nasty wall caused by years of built-up exhaustion and overwhelm, and ultimately a family health emergency.

These factors reached a boiling point that caused me to quit my job and embark on a career break of unknown duration to figure out how to heal myself inside and out.

As I recovered from burnout, I got my mojo back, and with it plenty of motivation to get back in the game of work. By shifting my perspective, strategy, and approach, I rebuilt my career with far more autonomy and purpose (and made more money working less)!

Learning I had the power to set my own rules of engagement with the world was a watershed moment; I just had to learn how to use it. Bursting with ideas and inspiration, I started a consulting business n my field and worked on many exciting projects with terrific clients, chosen based on shared purpose and mutual benefit.

I was able to set appropriate guardrails around work and other demands and protect precious time to raise my family and invest time and energy in my own needs and interests. I learned that the more I nourished myself, the more I had to give my loved ones, work, and the world. (I also learned that playing your first instrument after 40 is a slow road, but who cares – being horrible at first builds character!)

Now I’m a burnout recovery expert, empowerment coach, speaker & author, and I help disconnected, exhausted, overwhelmed mid-career women step into their power and build lives and careers that light them up.

I love working with incredible and inspiring clients, providing thought partnership, strategic insight, clarity on value and values, healthy mindset practice, new chapter exploration, career acceleration support, and accountability. All wrapped up in warmth, understanding, and inspiration —the kind we all need from time to time, especially when in a period of growth or transition.

My best-selling book Burned Out to Lit Up: Ditch the Grind and Reclaim Your Life, a guidebook for burnout recovery, was released in 2023.

I offer coaching, courses & workshops to help clients:

– reignite their spark
– reimagine a new beginning
– restore clarity, confidence, and vibrancy
– recover from burnout + reclaim your wellbeing
– get back in the game after a layoff, on your own terms
– explore a new chapter when you’re not sure what’s next
– grow into a promotion or launch your own consulting business
– develop your powerful professional value proposition and story
– manage and restore your energy for maximum impact in life and work
– go from chaos to clarity, self-neglect to self-possession, surviving to thriving

I help them reconnect with what matters most in their lives and provide strategy, accountability and thought-partnership, all with a warm, good-humored vibe.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

Pick one social media channel and dedicated effort to building there. I use LinkedIn for this purpose and post most weekdays as well as engaging with others. I’ve meet quite a few interesting people that way, and also found opportunities and clients. Come up with 5 or so content pillars that surround your core message and keep most of your posts revolving around those themes. This helps your audience get to know your areas of thought leadership and you can become the go-to person for that. Also remember that most posts need to be oriented toward serving your ideal clients. This can involve sharing knowledge, fostering discussion, sharing case studies and news in your realm, and/or highlighting project and team members you’ve worked with. Use it a platform to build your voice, writing skills, and relationships.

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

The book Mindset, by Dr. Carol Dweck is the original “growth mindset” guidebook. Mindset really is the foundation of everything and the book helped shift mine toward an attitude of possibility and curiosity and away from rigidity and self-limitation.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.carahouser.com
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/caraehouser/
• Other: Amazon – https://amzn.to/3xzgUyP

Image Credits
Images by Cara Houser