When Success Nearly Kills You – The Truth Behind the ‘Have It All’ Lie with Karen Kadin
Kat talks with Karen, who went from accidentally building a global creative agency to nearly killing herself saving it. Karen shares how this led to adrenal fatigue so severe that she developed pre-diabetes, and what she had to change in her life to survive. Karen shares why the 'have it all' mentality is toxic, her glass balls vs rubber balls theory for managing life and how she's rewiring her perfectionist brain.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
• Working in the events industry, which ranks alongside firefighters in the top 5 most stressful jobs, Karen admits Type A personalities like herself can’t help themselves and will fight through everything until they crash.
• Life feels like living with a thousand tabs open in her brain. Unlike her business partner, who compartmentalises perfectly, Karen is constantly juggling work emails, school WhatsApp groups, and the mental load of motherhood, making it impossible to truly switch off.
• As someone in a position of power, Karen refuses to perpetuate the lie that women can have everything simultaneously without paying a price.
• Karen has abandoned all or nothing exercise training for 10-minute walks and weekly tennis lessons, admitting triathlons now 'sound horrible' compared to 15 years ago when they felt fun.
• Dr. Mark Hyman's research changed her perspective completely, learning that sedentary lifestyles are more dangerous than smoking transformed how she views getting up every hour for squats or water as essential survival, not productivity breaks.
BEST MOMENTS
"I fought like hell, not just for my life, but for everybody who works for us, for all of our clients and every supplier that counts on us for business."
"We can have it all, guess what? It's gonna come at a price. It's really unrealistic to think you can have it all, or at least all together all the time."
"A sedentary lifestyle is more dangerous than smoking to your health. We grew up seeing cigarette packs with shrivelled lungs, but now it's the lack of movement that will kill you."
ABOUT THE GUEST
Karen is the Co-Founding Partner of Brands at Work, the award-winning creative communications and events agency that unleashes the power of experience to build trust and loyalty between brands and the people who matter most.Her passion lies in helping companies become better storytellers — building vibrant brand communities from the inside out.
ABOUT THE HOST
Kat started her career as a teacher, before moving into Tech where she worked in different executive roles within teaching and consulting working across the globe, both in the public and private sector. Despite appearing 'successful' on the outside, she paid a heavy ‘life’ price. In 2016, her whole world collapsed. The reason? The compound effect of years of unhealthy and toxic habits that destroyed her health, relationship and career. She suffered a severe breakdown and lost everything. In the middle of this she got headhunted for her first CEO role. She rebuilt herself by changing just one small habit, and built a series of positive habits which has transformed her professional and personal performance, resulting in becoming the healthiest and happiest version of herself.
She is a positive habits international keynote speaker and teacher, giving talks and delivering high impact programmes to organisations across the globe.
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/katthorne/
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/the_morning_gamechanger/
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