From Burned Out to Lit Up: How Cara Houser Turned Her Signature Talk into a Best-Selling Book: Podcast Ep. 363

From Burned Out to Lit Up: How Cara Houser Turned Her Signature Talk into a Best-Selling Book: Podcast Ep. 363

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Speaking and books go hand in hand. Many authors are public speakers and many speakers have written books.

What does it look like to take your thought leadership message and turn it into both a signature talk and a published book?

That’s what we dig into with my guest and Thought Leader Academy grad Cara Houser.

Cara recently published her best-selling book “Burned Out to Lit Up: Ditch the Grind and Reclaim Your Life” (I highly recommend it!).

Cara and I talk about:

  • Why she decided this was the topic for her thought leadership
  • My perspective on why her book on burnout is different from others
  • Cara’s thought leadership journey to refine her message
  • Her writing process
  • Building a book launch team and marketing the book to make it a bestseller

If you’ve been wanting to write a book or you know that having a book is in your future, this episode is for you!

 

 

About My Guest: Cara Houser is a best-selling author, career strategist, and empowerment coach, and she helps high-impact women leaders step into their power and go from burned out to lit up. Clients hone their ability to see and articulate their value (and values) and tap into their power, possibility, and purpose to pursue what matters most to them in their lives and careers. In her first career, Cara spent 20 years learning how to survive and ultimately thrive in the pressure cooker 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. Trying to be everything to everyone (except herself), Cara learned about burnout the hard way, and spent nearly two years testing out every possible way to heal herself and get back into rich, full-bodied, joy-filled living. She wrote a guidebook to help others recover from burnout – our modern epidemic.

About Us: The Speaking Your Brand podcast is hosted by Carol Cox. At Speaking Your Brand, we help women entrepreneurs and professionals clarify their brand message and story, create their signature talks, and develop their thought leadership platforms. Our mission is to get more women in positions of influence and power because it’s through women’s stories, voices, and visibility that we challenge the status quo and change existing systems. Check out our coaching programs at https://www.speakingyourbrand.com

Links:

Show notes at https://www.speakingyourbrand.com/363/

Get Cara’s book “Burned Out to Lit Up”: https://www.carahouser.com/book 

Discover your Speaker Archetype by taking our free quiz at https://www.speakingyourbrand.com/quiz/

Enroll in our Thought Leader Academy: https://www.speakingyourbrand.com/academy/ 

Connect on LinkedIn:

Related Podcast Episodes:

363-SYB-Cara-Houser.mp3: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

363-SYB-Cara-Houser.mp3: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Carol Cox:
Get ready for an inspiring conversation with one of our clients, Cara Houser, and how she turned her signature talk into a best selling book. On this episode of the Speaking Your Band podcast. More and more women are making an impact by starting businesses, running for office and speaking up for what matters. With my background as a TV political analyst, entrepreneur and speaker, I interview and coach purpose driven women to shape their brands, grow their companies, and become recognized as influencers in their field. This is speaking your brand, your place to learn how to persuasively communicate your message to your audience. Hi and welcome to the Speaking Your Brand podcast. I’m your host, Carol Cox. You know that speaking and books go hand in hand. Most authors are also public speakers, and many public speakers have books. What does it look like to take your thought leadership message and your signature talk and turn it into a book, especially a best selling book? That’s exactly what I talk about with one of our thought leader Academy graduates, Cara Houser. Cara recently published her book called Burned Out to Lit Up, Ditch the Grind and Reclaim Your Life, and it is a fantastic book, really well written, and Cara digs deep into her own personal stories and into those hard won life lessons and shares them in the book now. She started refining her thought leadership message when she went through our thought Leader Academy last year, and so she shares a bit about that process and what and how it helped her to refine her message, not only for her public speaking, but then eventually into the book that she just published.

Carol Cox:
We also dig into her writing process, the book launch, and how she marketed the book to make it a best seller. If you would like to work with us on developing your thought leadership message and creating your signature talk, along with learning the business of speaking, this is exactly what we do in our Thought Leader Academy. In the Thought Leader Academy, you get a one on one virtual VIP day where we work with you to create your signature talk from beginning to end using our proven framework. You also get weekly group zoom calls with a community of women so that you’re learning from each other and supporting each other. While we provide mini trainings and feedback on what you’re working on, you can get all the details, including pricing and speaking your brand. Com slash Academy again the speakingyourbrand.com/academy. We are enrolling now for our January start date. So now is the time to invest in yourself for 2024. You can either enroll directly or you can schedule a zoom call with me. Now let’s get on with the show. Welcome back to the Speaking Your Brand podcast, Cara.

Cara Houser:
So, so happy. To be here. Carol. Thank you for having me. It’s just a delight to be chatting with you.

Carol Cox:
Well, likewise. And you were on this podcast back in November of 2022. So just over a year ago where we were doing our series around the four speaker archetypes, and you are the provocative performer or speaker archetype during your graduation from the Thought Leader Academy. I remember you brought out your guitar and you even sang us a little song, which was so much fun. So for listeners, definitely go back and check out that episode with Cara and the entire series around the speaker archetypes. But what I want to talk to you about today is your new best selling book. I have it here. So for those of you watching the video in the show notes page, you can see it’s a beautiful like the whole book. The cover is beautiful. It’s called Burned Out to Lit Up, Ditch the Grind and Reclaim Your Life and I have so enjoyed reading this book. I love your writing style. It is. Your storytelling is so powerful. I mean, just the way that you write is so clear and and and engaging. So I want to know. Cara.

Cara Houser:
Thank you. Carol.

Carol Cox:
Ah, yeah. No, I really do. And I know I do not say that about every book that I read, even book by well-known authors. I don’t necessarily like their writing style, but I really like yours. So let’s start with first let’s tell us about what is burned out to lit up. What is that? What does that mean? And then why did you decide this was the message you wanted to put out there?

Cara Houser:
Okay, first of all, thank you. That’s high praise. I just really I’m blushing over here. Um, what is burned out to lit up? It is the journey from soul crushing burnout to joy filled, full bodied, rich, delicious living. And, um, you know, burnout is on. The notion has almost become so kind of overused and bland. People are like, oh, burned out whatever isn’t everybody who cares? And, uh, it’s actually really common. I talk about it in the book. The statistics are up to 89% of people this year in 2023 report having felt burned out in the last year, uh, in the US, which is crazy. It’s an epidemic, you know. And why did I decide that this was going to be the thing for me to, to do? It was sort of a people ask me, it’s like, funny story. Okay, so, Cara, how long did it take you to write this book? And I say, well, if you count the beginning of the lessons, I had to learn to, uh, have something to say that was useful about it. Ten years. If you say, um, all of the starting to structure it and put it together and, uh, really organize it and do all the thought leadership pieces like I learned with you, I would say. Two years and the actual writing, editing and getting it done once. Really, the rubber hit the road was fast, like six months.

Carol Cox:
Okay, that seems very. It seems pretty typical and very doable, I think, for people who are listening.

Cara Houser:
Mhm mhm. Absolutely it is. Oh and like they say this is true for me and for anybody. I mean you got to write about what you know about and you’re I call them lessons learned the hard way which is just lessons learned by actually living life. Right. Um, when you write about those, you can write about them in a really authentic and engaging way. Uh, you mean it. You’ve been there, you’ve learned it. And in my case, you know, I learned it and experimented with a bunch of stuff. But I am also just like a super reader and a super sort of student, too. And so I just test drove every single thing out there I could think of or Google to find, to try to help get myself out of this burnout hole I was in all those years ago. And, um, I’ve looked back all those years later and although I’m not all that, you know, pumped and grateful for those dark days, I am grateful that I was able to look back and really put together what I now think is a pretty good roadmap guidebook, um, really recipe that folks who are so burned out that they can’t even figure out step one to get out of it can. It’s very approachable. They can get in there and know, okay, there’s a process, there’s hope. I don’t have to always be like this. I can heal, you know.

Carol Cox:
Yes. And and you mentioned a few things, Cara, that I think are important for, for listeners to think about, for their own thought leadership. So I talk quite a bit about these different thought leadership layers. So the first layer is kind of like your, your expertise or kind of like what is the main thing you talk about? The second layer is your big idea. So your framework or process to in that’s unique to you to get the the audience, you know, the readers or the people in your audience that you’re speaking to get them to where they want to go. And then most people stop there. And those are the books and in their presentations that are kind of generic and anodyne and kind of like, okay, I think I, I feel like I’ve heard this before because people have heard about burnout. They may have even read books or listened to podcasts about burnout. But then that third layer is your personal story, your personal experiences. And then the last layer on top is the emotional courage to dig deep. And as I say, to share things that you may not necessarily want to share, that maybe even feel like a little bit embarrassing to you. And I feel like though, but that’s what makes the work that we put out much more relatable.

Cara Houser:
Mhm. Uh, well, I’m no exception. I mean, I felt super vulnerable and in fact, the day that I actually sent it out because I didn’t have and nobody read it before it went out to my, my launch team, my kind of group of awesome pre-readers except my editors. And so the day I sent it to those folks, it was like the day it kind of went to the world, you know, like, um, family, friends, colleagues and inner circle folks. And I had like, some kind of, like a mini panic attack. Like I was like, ah, this felt very scary. Too scary to me. And, um, because, yeah, you put stuff out there and you’re like, oh, what are people gonna think? And I talk about this in the book. And at my age, like mostly I don’t really care. But also when you put that much of your like, I don’t know, love and life into something, you do kind of hope that it hits the mark, which is that it’s resonant with people, that it helps people, that they get it and that it feels useful, you know?

Carol Cox:
And I feel like you have done that. And your book starts off with a very personal story about kind of that, that inciting incident, the realization that you had reached a place in your life with burnout, where it was not not only was it not sustainable, but it really isn’t even wasn’t safe for you and for your family. And so I’m not going to spoil it with for those. Please, all of you listening, please go get Cara’s book. Really? You will love it even if you don’t feel burnt out right now. You will learn so much from reading the book and that, and then it will hopefully help you now and in the future. But to your point, like it was a very vulnerable story that you started off with. Yet of course, how as I was reading it, I was thinking, wow, like, Cara is so courageous to put this out there so that those of us, because we kind of think of ourselves like, oh yeah, I’ve had those moments too, or, you know, not those exact situations, but I’ve had moments in my life where something has happened where I’m like, oh, this, this is not working anymore.

Cara Houser:
Right? Yep. And for most people, well, two things. One, I didn’t know I was burned out either. And, you know, I came to use that terminology later after having kind of. Healed and processed. I was like, oh, that’s kind of what was going on. Um, I just, you know, I was going 100 miles an hour for so long, like a lot of people do. And my sort of stress at that point was so high that it seemed normal to me. I just didn’t until I had an emergency. Like I talk about in the book. Um, and this is true for a lot of other people, too, unfortunately. You know, we just kind of keep going along, grinding ourselves to a charcoal little nub until finally something really serious happens and it kind of like smacks us to attention to where we finally have to pay attention to all the signs, quite frankly, that our bodies and minds have been feeding us probably for a long time, um, through illness, through whatever. Uh, it’s probably not that big of a mystery if we look back. But when you’re sitting in your own soup of despair and just, I don’t know, overwhelm, it’s really hard to to see that.

Carol Cox:
Yeah. Yes. That’s a that’s a really great point, Cara. Well, hopefully for everyone listening, reading the book and then listening to this, they will recognize it sooner for themselves.

Cara Houser:
I hope so,

Carol Cox:
Yes, and because

Cara Houser:
I do think the book sorry it helps with prevention and recovery. Yeah.

Carol Cox:
Yes. Yeah. I’ve been learning a lot from it myself just to even just like recognize what is going on in our bodies and in our minds. And, you know, whether it’s like clutter, like clutter in our minds, you know, racing from thing to thing or from task to task or from meeting to meeting and then how things feel in the body as you’re going around your work life or your life life and kind of, you know, recognizing that, oh, this thing is not making me feel good anymore or ever.

Cara Houser:
Right, exactly. And then letting that come to awareness such that you can then look at it for a minute, take the time and say, okay, now what? Okay, well, now I’m aware. What can I do about it? What can I shift? And that’s where all the strategies in the book come, come in to help you actually do that, because it’s one thing to have an idea and another thing to make it sort of manifest in your life.

Carol Cox:
Yes. And I know you’re very tangible things that you do with your sabbatical in a box.

Cara Houser:
Mhm.

Carol Cox:
You tell us a little bit about that.

Cara Houser:
That started when I first started my coaching practice and I thought, okay, so here’s one of the transitions I’m helping folks through. That’s one of them is working through burnout and then helping folks get to where they want to be on the other side of that, which could be any number of things. And so I put together a program, um, it’s a seven week group guided zoom program, and it’s like an online course, kind of, except, you know, we get to see each other in person, and I send everybody an actual box of beautiful goodies. And then also just useful stuff like, you know, handmade journals and this and that so that they can actually go through the process. And then I guide them through it. And it’s very if folks read the book, um, it’ll be, it’ll be very resonant because it’s, it’s based on that and it’s actually iterated. So I started to do that. And after that is actually when I met you because I knew, you know what? Here’s the next step I need to really up my level on. And that is thought leadership, public speaking. And that’s how I found you. And I’m so happy I did, because your program is amazing. Um, and really helped me. Refine, organize, crystallize framework. Storytell. Uh, kind of all of those pieces that needed improvement, really, and refinement. And so a bunch of the thought leadership elements that are in the book were actually really very much refined through that program.

Cara Houser:
And so it’s been a very, very evolving, iterative thing. It’s not like, well, step one, step two, it’s like I started doing this and then I did that, and then each of the things that I did fed the other things. And then once I did your program, I continued doing some workshops and the sabbatical program. And I was like, you know, this needs to be a book. Um, and so that’s how kind of all of the pieces have, have fed each other. But the storytelling piece is like I sort of already loosely knew that needed to be part of the book. Right? Who wants to hear a bunch read a bunch of dry bullet points that someone could have, you know, regurgitated from who knows where, or, you know, it’s so that that’s where I, I came to understand how essential it was physically for each chapter to have an illustrative story that’s like, okay, here’s what we’re talking about. This is this is the issue. Here’s an illustrative story. And then here’s how, um, you can apply it to you. And that’s how we have our activities at the end. So folks can go to the end and say, okay, uh, that’s nice. And how does this actually help me? And then people are able to do that.

Carol Cox:
Yeah, that is so well done. And I will say to your point about the, the you send the people in the sabbatical in a box program, an actual box, but you also with your book and I have here again show and tell on the video. So this lovely little package came with the book that Cara sent me because I was on her launch team. And I will tell you, I’m going to share a little bit more about the marketing of the book, but it has such lovely things in in here, the little gift package that, you know, no one likes getting quote unquote gifts that feel cheap or not really useful or, you know what I mean, right? I do, right. But all of these feel like so intentionally, you know, purchased and thought about and high quality. And so kudos to you on finding really good gifts to include.

Cara Houser:
Thank you. Well, everything’s got to be aligned right. Everything’s got to make sense together. And I don’t want a whole bunch of clutter in my house either. We write about that, you know, in the book. But I so am so grateful to my to you and to all the folks on my launch team who were just so generously beautiful, you know, with their time. Everybody read the book early. Everybody went on and put a review up candid. And then afterwards I sent everybody once I had my print copies, um, you know, assigned one with a bunch of stuff that just felt very thematically, uh, aligned with, with what our whole purpose is. So and I have to confess, I do love putting, like, gift stuff together. That’s like some weird love language thing. I am totally into it.

Carol Cox:
So you’re very good at. I’m gonna have to, like, uh, chat with you, like, some gift ideas for some things. Yes, clearly, it’s a talent. All right, so now, so we talked about how, you know, obviously you have all the lived experience of the burnout and how, you know, you recognized it and then got yourself through it. So which became the sabbatical in a box program that you offered online. And then you decided to go through the Thought Leader Academy with us, which we so enjoyed working with you, Kara, to kind of get you to refine your thought leadership, you know, learn more about how to tell great stories, kind of put together their signature talk. So you graduated, I think, in December of 2022. So about a year ago from the program and then what? And so then you decided you wanted to put together a book. So tell us about that process. Did you just sit down and carve out time every day to write it? Did you have someone, you know, like a coach to help keep you accountable? Were you really good with keeping yourself accountable? When did the editing process come in? Tell us about all that.

Cara Houser:
Um, so it’s kind of a combo. Like once I decide something is going to happen, I’m pretty good about. Um, I’m pretty good about, like, getting my schedule such that I just. I get it in there, and I just do it. So, um, once I and I decided, yeah, probably around the end of our time together, that, you know, I felt like my, the thought leadership topics that I was talking about had matured to the point to where I had kind of an overarching thesis for the book because it initially was going to be more around sabbatical themed, which is the course. But now, you know, as you read the title, it’s really just about burnout recovery in general and ditching the grind and reclaiming your life. And it talks about a sabbatical style, mindset and way of being. But it doesn’t necessarily talk about how, you know, some folks will take a literal sabbatical and some won’t, and that’s a piece of it. Um, but it ended up pivoting a little bit. And, and part of that evolution happened with your group because when you, you know, when you’re meeting once a week, you can kind of bat around what your all your theoretical, you know, thinkings are. And so, you know, I started to talk a lot with folks about, okay, we have self-neglect we’re getting over to self care. You know, burnout isn’t just about recovery. It’s not just about self care. And like getting a massage or whatever. Okay, great. You know, the world will have to sell us a bunch of crap we may or may not need.

Cara Houser:
Like I may not eclipse.org, don’t get me wrong, but you know, that’s just one thing isn’t going to cut it. And so I came to understanding that it’s really about self possession, which of course is this intangible thing. And I actually remember talking about that with, with my cohort and you. And being like, oh yeah, that’s it. You know, that’s really what it’s about. And then kind of weaving that back through everything that I was already working with people on so that it was all very, um, integrated. And anyway, so that’s the first thing. And then as far as writing the book is concerned, I started looking for like different partner people to work with on. And I first got kind of connected with some folks who ended up being a bad, uh, choice, but they I kind of got started. Like, they kind of help you with some really basic stuff that hopefully you’re already asking yourself and stuff that you ask folks and your thing, which are, um, what’s your message? Who’s it for? How does it help them? Uh, because if it’s not helping anybody, you’re just basically writing, like, a fun diary. And that’s nice, but that needs to not be published. So, like, what is the whole thing? Uh, and then they kind of just give you a little bit of a framework to, of just, I didn’t need those tools so much because, again, I already had this program and I kind of knew my process, but it’s still nice to have different eyeballs and perspectives of like, ways to bucket things and arrange things and organize things such that it’s the most useful it can possibly be for people.

Cara Houser:
So I went through that. That kind of all fell apart. And then I ended up, um, I knew I needed, like, a, like a publishing partner, I needed editing, I needed all the graphic design, marketing, all those pieces. Because although I, you know, very much enjoy the writing and I had the content down, you know, I would never recommend anybody edit their own stuff. You just you cannot even if you’re a fine language person, you need you need to have other and professional eyeballs on that. And they help you with kind of structuring it. And that’s the first level. And then later down to copy editing. And finally, you know, you’re proofing so that it’s a really beautiful, clean, uh, enjoyable process for your reader at the end. And the person I found for that is named Stephanie Fager. And she’s amazing. And her group is called the empower PR Group. And they do book marketing, um, editing. I mean, seriously, top notch graphic design, if I do say so myself. The cover is just gorgeous. Um, and it was made by someone who’s just really, really talented at it. So that’s not something I ever would have wanted to mess around with myself.

Carol Cox:
Yeah, Stephanie is fantastic. She’s got I’m going to have her as a guest on this podcast coming up in 2024, because I know she has so many things that she does for authors. You know, the marketing side, like you said, the graphic design, helping with the editing, all of that. And she actually is also worked with one of our other speaking your brand clients, Katie Anderson, who’s been on this podcast a couple of times. So definitely a lot of. Yeah, we’re so well aligned because obviously books and speaking go so well. They go hand in hand. Yes. All right. So then to kind of you wrote it, you got your drafts done. And then Stephanie and her team helped you with all of the editing, the different types of editing, the editing process and then getting the cover design and all of that. So then I mentioned a little bit ago that I was part of your launch team, and I know you had an incredible launch team because that got you to best selling status on Amazon through all of the reviews that come out right when the book is published, which is this is what authors do, you know, the big traditional publishers, the big names, they do the same thing because they know that they need the book to get more visibility. So how did you decide, like how many people did you have on your launch team? How did you decide who would be a good fit? And then like kind of what was the process of, I guess, nurturing the people on your launch team to actually, you know, to get them to what you needed them to do. But of course, what we as the launch team members wanted to do for you to support you.

Cara Houser:
Mhm. Mhm.

Cara Houser:
Um, yeah. This is something I put a whole bunch of effort in. It was really my, my biggest, you know I guess marketing effort if you want to say. I mean because yes I don’t have like a huge marketing team of people doing God knows what. Um, but this seemed like the right thing to do. And so for me and so also just the like the highest. Highest degree of usefulness for my time, I guess so.

Cara Houser:
I thought.

Cara Houser:
I thought back to all the different folks in my life some family, some friends, some colleagues, folks I’d worked with in different capacities in the past, and even people I was a little bit more loosely connected with, like folks I’d met on LinkedIn even, who were kind of vibing with. And we we were exchanging ideas and feeling supportive of each other’s work in that way. So people that fell into that category, I asked personally to join the launch team in an in an initial email and then gave them a sense of what it entailed, you know, so that they could be like, oh, is this for me is actually something I want to do. Um, so I asked, I don’t know, over 100 people.

Carol Cox:
Wow, that’s a lot.

Cara Houser:
It is, especially when you’re doing it one on one, which I felt was important because, you know, if you get a big ol spam email, you’re like, delete. Uh, like just like, why am I even on here? So I reached out to each person individually and maybe 120 people and yes, this was a whole thing. Um, and about 75 people were like, yeah, I’ll do it. I was like. That’s amazing. I mean, of course I’m like, I of course grateful. So grateful. Um, so that was a few months, let’s see, two, couple months before it was published. And then I just once people, you know, let me know if they were able and wanted to be a part of it. I just kept them kind of on my list for a little bit. And then once, um. I had like the early copy for them to read. Then I kind of started the whole process of essentially a few weeks before the book’s published. You, you get a, you get a copy into everyone’s hands, a digital copy, and then you ask everybody to go on Amazon and pre-order your Kindle version, you know, at like a super early bird price. And just so that Amazon knows they’re a real customer and not like some random person. And so even though they already have the book, so they have it, they’ve they’ve read that version. And then the idea is that, um, right when it’s published, like within that first week, they, they go on and um, write a brief and candid review and uh, and oh, and also just kind of reach out to their network because now they’ve already read it, they’ve already come up with their own conclusion as to how useful and, and so forth that they thought it was for them.

Cara Houser:
And so everyone did that. They shared on socials, they told their friends and family, they, you know, I got a ton of reviews. The goal was 50 in the first week, which we did, we got 51. And of course I was over the moon with that because that is no small feat. I mean, ask anybody who’s tried to go, it’s like people are busy, you know, I get it. People are like, oh wow, God, what was I supposed to do? You know, it’s a lot to it’s a lot of time for someone to to give. But people were so affirming, so gracious, so loving, so lovely and so, um, encouraging. You know, people are like, ah, I love this. It’s totally helping me. I feel like you’re sitting in my living room. This is funny. Whatever it was, you know, that they felt about it. Um, so it was a really, really cool process. And, and folks are still doing it. Folks who didn’t weren’t really able, you know, not everybody is able to do it exactly then, but some folks are still going on and reading it. And by the way, any review, any time? Ten out of ten. Very helpful.

Carol Cox:
Yes, yes. Well, and you know, well, first, congratulations, Cara, on the accomplishment of writing and publishing an incredible book because that is huge. Like I, you know, I’m so excited for you. And also, you know, the community that you have built around you, obviously, you know, is more than happy to give back to you and this.

Cara Houser:
And you were so, so lovely to I mean, you were, you know, one of my very enthusiastic folks who just kind of just told me your feedback too, just also on the side, you know, like, ah, this is actually this is great. I’m enjoying it. And ah, I just love, you know, anybody who does, who creates something. It’s like the greatest thing to receive that sort of feedback from the folks in your circle. So thank you so much, Carol.

Carol Cox:
Oh, well, it was truly my pleasure. Now, anything that you would do differently next time or anything that you learned that you would you want to share?

Cara Houser:
Um, well, I would never work with that first group that I’d worked with. Um, but you know what? If it hadn’t all fallen through with them, I wouldn’t have ultimately been introduced to Stephanie, who I found through the Ravel collective, which is Cara Seidman. Another one of your folks. It’s. Oh, I met, by the way, on one of your, like, other call events. She thought.

Carol Cox:
Oh, maybe the alumni call.

Cara Houser:
You know, some alumni call because we were not in the same cohort. And she, like, finds me and she’s like, we have the same name. We must have something in common, which we do. We’re both lefties. We both play guitar. It’s really weird. But, um, anyway, anyway, except I’m Kara and Kara. Uh, but anyway, it was through her that I found Stephanie. So it’s just like all of these, um, women helping women. People that I have been very blessed to have in my life over the last year and two years have been pivotal, really, in where I am now. And if I, I don’t think the book would be anywhere what it is without Stephanie and her team. So if we needed to burn through one set of knuckleheads to get to there, then I guess that’s, you know what? It what it needed to be.

Carol Cox:
Another life lesson, right?

Cara Houser:
Yeah, exactly.

Cara Houser:
Um, other than that, I just it’s been a really. Really great. I’m ready to write another one.

Carol Cox:
Oh, that’s always good to hear. Yeah.

Cara Houser:
No, no, I kind of know the ropes. You know, I’ll be less of like a newborn duck, just, you know, sort of flapping around. Yes.

Carol Cox:
Well, then. Okay, besides working on another book, what else is in the future? What are you looking to do in 2024?

Cara Houser:
So, um, keep working with amazing clients one on one and in groups and kind of turn back to my speaking practice, speaking workshops, keynotes, etc. and do more of that now that I’ve got the book written. Um, I have something very specific in terms of a thought leadership topic to pitch and talk with folks about. Um, working with more companies is something that’s on my radar, too. Um, you know, turnover costs. I read turnover cost companies like an average of 55,000 a person. And burnout is a huge driver of turnover. And to the extent that folks can actually not just put lip service to it, but actually have, um, real efforts and policies and resources and such towards, you know, having healthy cultures and happy staff. I think that that would be something that would I’d love to do.

Carol Cox:
That is a really great idea. I like that and much needed. That’s fantastic. Well, definitely keep me posted on how things are going and how I can help you. Cara, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. All of you listening, make sure to go get Cara’s book. The link is in the show notes. It’s also at Cara Houser.com so it’s Cara and then like house h o u s e r. Com and you can get it shipped within a day or two. So if you happen to be listening to this the day the episode has come out on December 18th, you can still get it in time for the holidays. Right? And that’s a lovely gift package. And or you can get it at any time of the year. Uh, make sure to go to Kara’s website to get all the details on that. And thank you so much for coming on the podcast.

Cara Houser:
It’s been such a fun time with you.

Carol Cox:
I hope this conversation has inspired you as much as it’s inspired me to get working on your book. And of course, your overall thought leadership and public speaking is a major component of that. We work with women entrepreneurs, executives and leaders to develop their thought leadership idea, much like we did with Cara. And we help you create your signature talk. We do this both one on one and in a group program, you can get all the details of speakingyourbrand.com/academy. Again, that’s speakingyourbrand.com/academy. Until next time. Thanks for listening.

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