Erica: Hey, girl. By now, you know I have Her Collective, my online community for ambitious women who are done doing it alone. Her Collective is for the women who are smart, capable, and driven, but they find themselves stuck on the sticky floors like self doubt, burnout, and waiting for permission that quite honestly never comes. Inside HER, you get more than motivation. You get real support, real strategies, and real momentum.

Erica: We work on things like clarifying what you want now and what's coming next, building confidence without burning yourself out, navigating hard conversations, career moves, and leadership moments with clarity, and surrounding yourself with women who actually get it. This isn't about hustling harder. It's about moving intentionally with the right tools and the right people in your corner. If you're ready to stop spinning, start choosing yourself, and build a career in life that actually feels aligned, I'd love to welcome you inside her collective. You can learn more and join us at www.joinhercollective.com.

Erica: Because honestly, girl, you were never meant to do this alone. When you think of your life, are things just okay? Or are you wildly passionate and in love with it? Or is your mirrors just meh? Is your job just meh?

Erica: Are other areas of your life just meh? Well, today's guest, Kari Schwear, is a Gray Area lifestyle coach, and she does not believe in living a life that is just meh, that is just okay, that is average. Gray areas for Kari are much like sticky floors for me, But I want you to tune in and hear how she took her life from one big gray blob into a world filled with vibrant color.

Erica: Kari Schwear is an executive gray area lifestyle coach, and she empowers business owners and leaders to end the facade and gain control over their lives. She specializes in the gray areas of life, which we are going to dive into today. But I wanna kick it off by welcoming Kari. And, Kari, how are you today?

Kari Schwear: I am so great. Erica, thank you so much for having me on. I'm really excited to share all about the gray areas with the audience.

Erica: Am thrilled, but let's kick it off. Tell me a little bit about who you are and what you do.

Kari Schwear: I'm an executive lifestyle coach, and, really, what that boils down to is that I work with business owners and leaders that are in this one of many gray areas of their life. This could be with their habits, with their relationships and their marriage, with their career, with their health, with their habits, like I've mentioned, with their spirituality. It's this place of just feeling like you're existing. You know? Like, life isn't so bad, but it's not that great either.

Kari Schwear: And it's it's really about having a lack of clarity, direction, feelings of uncertainty and doubt, and having emotional conflict. So they're just in despite of all their outside achievements and successes, they're saying, what now? What now? What is next for me?

Erica: And I think everyone that listens to this podcast is going to hear this and really resonate because especially as a busy mom, like, we are just in it day to day. And it often is, like, the the days are just Groundhog's Day. Right? They're just coming and they're going and they're coming and they're going. We barely have time to celebrate.

Erica: So talk to me a bit about this area of the gray and the clients that you have. Where do you see it showing up the most?

Kari Schwear: You know, well, when they first come to me, because I do speak so much about gray area drinking, which is my own story and my gray area marriage, they tend to be attracted to that. So most times it's within a habit. You know? Hey, Kari. Can you just help me focus on reducing my alcohol consumption or helping me with my relationship with alcohol?

Kari Schwear: And then I then I'll be good. Right? But it's we all know that that is just the that's the facade. That's the that's the Band Aid over the real problem. So I am a life coach by trade.

Kari Schwear: I don't love saying that I'm a life coach because it's such a watered down term anymore, but I do also have leadership executive training and coaching, and plus I've been training with trauma and motivational interviewing and NLP and all the things. So I really spend a lot of time with my clients diving deep into what's really controlling them and what are the thoughts and the beliefs that are creating this identity for them and why they feel like they need to have a drink or something else to cope or escape from their day. And it's that work that is you know, people are they're kind of afraid to go there, especially if they have a lot of outwardly success already built into their world, and they're like, but I got it. I got it. I'm fine.

Kari Schwear: The whole I'm fine, you know, which is really a four letter word. We know this. Nobody's really fine. It's it's always a Band Aid for something deeper. And so I really like to get in there and and work on the real problems and the real solutions for that.

Erica: I'm peeling back the onion. That's what I call it. Yes. So you alluded to it a little bit, but what is your living in the gray story?

Kari Schwear: Well, my gosh. It started, honestly, when I was seven. When I was seven years old, I I was at my parents' house. My parents were still married, not for much longer, but they were still married at that time. And I was outside in a hot summer day in Saint Louis, and I was playing jacks in my driveway.

Kari Schwear: Of course, this was in the seventies, so that's how old I am. But, anyway, gave away my age. And I remember thinking to myself, is this all there is to life? Because if so, this just isn't all that great. And then I remember thinking, I'm seven.

Kari Schwear: Like, what seven year old thinks about these things? Right? Well, I should be out playing with friends, and yet I'm sitting here contemplating my own life. The only time I was ever really happy is when we went on the occasional, every so often, family vacation. And I remember just trying to find myself at that age, and I was such a rebel, and I wanted to stand out.

Kari Schwear: I wanted to be noticed, and I was not being noticed by the ones that I needed to be noticed by. So I created my own havoc, if you will, and one of those decisions that I made at age seven was that I was going to become a cigarette smoker. And so I stole a cigarette from my mom's best friend, Gladys, who lived directly behind us. Gladys smoked cool cigarettes. I'll never forget it because I wanted to be cool, and I smoked it.

Kari Schwear: And I told my mom. I declared to her I'm gonna be a smoker, and she said, I don't think so. And I was like, no. I really am. And I made that decision, and it's funny what happens when you make a decision and you declare something over your life and you declare your identity, you become it.

Kari Schwear: And little did I know how how relevant and prevalent those words would become because by the time I turned 11, I was smoking half a pack a day. Wow. And I really started looking at my life like, I I just this is it. Like, there's gotta be more to life than this. And it really started me down a kind of a path that created all kinds of crazy issues and problems for myself.

Kari Schwear: And, you know, but I look back on those times now. I've done so much work on myself that it's like, I'm so incredibly grateful to that little girl who made those decisions all the way back then because it she really set the path for who I've become today. And I realized the importance of identity. And then in my thirties, you know, I was married fairly young in my early twenties. I'm still married, thirty four plus years.

Kari Schwear: But, you know, when I hit my thirties, I was, discovered the love of wine and everything about it. You know? I first started with, Rianudi Rianiti Lambrusco, if people remember. It was the worst wine ever. But as as I got older, my taste, you know, got much, more refined, if you will.

Kari Schwear: And by the time I I was at my height of my drinking career, I was, you know, going after the more expensive $50, a $100 bottles of wine because I became such a wine snob and a wine connoisseur, part of that working in the food and beverage business for a number of years. And I realized that wine was doing a few things for me. It was helping me feel better about myself. It was helping me relax throughout my day, my busy day. It was helping me erase the fact that my husband and I weren't spending much time together and, kinda helped to erase all that for me as wine will, as all alcohol will.

Kari Schwear: Right? It just has this beautiful, camouflage effect that it creates for our life. And little did I know that my once in a while occasional glass of wine was now becoming a nightly glass of wine that became two glasses every night and eventually three glasses almost every night. And I realized that, oh, there's a problem here. I think I am drinking a bit too much and probably need to do something about this.

Kari Schwear: So in 2014, I had those little internal voices talking to me. I think you're drinking too much. How much is too much? I'm googling. I'm an alcoholic.

Kari Schwear: What does that even mean? Oh my gosh. Like, how do I fix this? What do I do? And I was in a precontemplation stage.

Kari Schwear: I was not ready to address my relationship, but I was having those internal questions. That lasted two years. In 2016, I had my own enough. The day had come, and that was just, a day of me drinking all day. It was 07/04/2016.

Kari Schwear: Came home trashed. My older son or my younger son at the time, who's 23, said, wow, mom. You're super trashed. You must, you know, really had a good time at this party. And I responded back with some words that no mom should ever say to their kid, a lot of it profanity.

Kari Schwear: And, he reminded me of that the next day and at the dinner table no less. And that was enough for me to just crumble into feeling like the worst mother, the worst human ever. And that was my wake up call that I needed to address this problem head on. And, I started doing my research. I'd moved in from precontemplation to contemplation now as in preparation.

Kari Schwear: And I'm like, okay. Let me gather some information. Let me gather some facts. Let me see what my next steps are. And it took me six weeks.

Kari Schwear: But finally, on 08/15/2016, I woke up that morning and said, okay. I put my feet on the floor, and I said, god, I'm done. I promise you I'm done. I'm just done. And I ended up going to AA for several months.

Kari Schwear: I love AA. I think it's an amazing program. Was not a good fit for me. It really focused on those that need recovery, and I was not an alcoholic. I was a gray area drinker, but I didn't even know it at the time.

Kari Schwear: I didn't understand what that term was. I never heard of it, but I knew I was an alcoholic. It just wasn't lining up for me. And that identity piece that I shared with you when I was seven really was standing out for me. If I'm gonna declare anything to myself, it's not gonna be that I'm an alcoholic.

Kari Schwear: It's gonna be that I'm empowering, that there's something better here. There's something greater for myself. And that really became the catalyst for me at that point of the path that I'm on now was, how can I do this better? What can I do to get out of this situation and saying, hi? I'm Kari, and I'm an alcoholic because it felt like it was just tearing my soul apart.

Kari Schwear: And I ended up working with a coach, and that coach is the one who really helped see the truth, helped me find my real self, helped me, reshape my identity. And he ironically said, at that time, I was making 6 figures at a job I loved, and he said, you know, Kari, I think someday you're gonna be a coach yourself. I think you're gonna start your own business, and I think you're gonna share your story with the world. And I bust out laughing and said, hell no. Like, you're smoking crack, dude.

Kari Schwear: That's never gonna happen. Little did I know he was right, and here I am over five years later doing my thing.

Erica: Doing a damn thing. I love it. Okay. So you said gray area drinker. What does that even mean?

Kari Schwear: So a gray area drinker is someone who is more than socially drinking, but not severely abusing alcohol. They are abusing alcohol to the point where they fall into alcohol abuse disorder in the mild category, sometimes even into medium category. And the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism states that there are three categories of alcohol abuse disorder, mild, medium, and severe. And when you get to the severe part, right, you no longer have a choice. You no longer have a choice.

Kari Schwear: And for gray area drinkers, this is the biggest, delineation of of what I can share is that it is still a choice when you are a gray area drinker. You have the ability to choose to not drink or drink. When you become severely abused, abusive to alcohol or with alcohol, you no longer have that choice. You have to be able to drink in order to survive a day. Right?

Kari Schwear: So there's variations of gray area drinking. It's such a wide spectrum, Erica. About fifty percent of the population consumes alcohol may be in this gray area. It's huge. And so while somebody might say, but I only have a couple glasses a week, you know, that's great.

Kari Schwear: Right? When we get to the place of binge drinking, you know, like, I don't drink all week, but on the weekends, I might have, you know, four or five. Well, if you're doing that in less than a two hour period, that's binge drinking and you are abusing alcohol, period. You know, they state the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, they state that for women, you can drink up to one standard drink per day. For men, it's double that.

Kari Schwear: It's 14 drinks for them. It's seven for women. But we're talking a standard drink here.

Erica: Right. So let

Kari Schwear: me give you an idea. Wine is five ounces. That's that's a standard drink. So that means if you're drinking six ounces every day, then you're abusing alcohol. Right?

Kari Schwear: And let's be honest. When I was drinking, I wasn't pouring just five ounces of wine. Oh, hell no. I was pouring closer to eight or nine ounces saying that was one glass. Drinking two of those, there's two and a half or, I'm sorry, there's four and a half glasses of wine in a standard bottle.

Kari Schwear: It's 24.5 ounces for most bottles of wine. So now you're looking at you know, you drink a whole bottle of wine in in on the weekends and, you know, there you go. You you do that a couple times a week. Yeah. Yeah.

Kari Schwear: So it's very easily done where you get into that abuse category, and this is where it becomes sticky. Mhmm. It becomes a very sticky place to be and which is why I love speaking about it for people to really raise their hand, and and that's honestly how Great Tonic got started. My business has evolved since I started five years ago. But my purpose and my goal was for people to raise their hand and say, oh my gosh.

Kari Schwear: Maybe I'm in the gray area too before they get too far down a path of addiction that they can raise their hand and say, wow. I I might be in this gray area. What can I do about it? What what changes can I start to make? And that's really my specialty.

Kari Schwear: My zone of genius is in that gray area.

Erica: I think it's so powerful to give people this option of saying it's not working for me before it is truly problematic, like, life endangering problematic. Because it seems to me like there's either like, you drink and you're good and rock and roll or you have a problem. And there's no in between, which is the gray area. There's none of that. And I think that makes it really hard for people to say maybe this is not for me.

Kari Schwear: That's right. And, you know, you brought up a really good point that society, for a very long time, has dictated to us it is very binary. You either have a problem or you don't. You're either an alcoholic or you're not, and that is so far from the truth. We do have a lot of gray area drinkers among us.

Kari Schwear: And here's here's what I'll share. If the listener, you, are saying to yourself right now, wow. She is speaking directly to me right now. I'm feeling this I'm feeling this little something something inside my belly right now, and it's hitting me in the gut, then you probably have a problem. If you think it's a problem, it's probably a problem, and it's the time for you to start really tuning in to those inner voices and asking yourself at what point am I gonna allow this to continue, and am I willing to address this before it becomes an issue?

Kari Schwear: And the problem with the gray area no. I mean, there's it's good and bad. Right? The problem is nothing bad has happened. Most gray area drinkers never have a rock bottom.

Kari Schwear: They don't have something that forces the change. Sort of like with me. My son didn't force me to change. My conversation with him, feeling so incredibly embarrassed and ashamed and having the massive amounts of guilt with that is what provoked me to finally make that change. But those voices were there for two years.

Erica: Right.

Kari Schwear: For two years, I let that seed cultivate, and finally, it was ready to be dealt with. And so my message has always been if I'm just planting a seed for somebody, if that's all I've I'm doing for someone right now listening, then awesome. And if you wanna take it a step further, what does that look like? There are definite ways that you can really attack this, and it maybe you're not even ready to attack it. Maybe it's like, let me just dip my little teeny pinky toe in the pool and feel what this might feel like.

Kari Schwear: There's options for you, and I just ask that you pay attention to those. That's it.

Erica: Earlier, you had mentioned, like, great area marriages, and I think that's something I also wanna hone in on because I work with so many women and have talked to so many women that are like, well, yeah, this is just the stage of life we're in. Right? Like, they attribute it to something else. Yeah. But what do you see in these gray area marriages?

Kari Schwear: Yes. That's just the stage we're in. Oh, that's such a common phrase. Right? We're feeling like roommates.

Kari Schwear: We're kinda drifting apart. The kids are out of the house now, or the kids are so busy, and our life is around to run the kids and all that kind of stuff. I hear it and say it all the time. That is for sure a gray area of marriage. And anytime you start to feel disconnected from yourself, your partner, your career.

Kari Schwear: You're in a gray area. It's that disconnect. It's those those internal struggles that you have within that you're saying to yourself, again, it's not that bad. It's not like, you know, I want a divorce. Like, you know, I'll keep him around.

Kari Schwear: You know? He's he's alright. But there's there's not this deep desired love for for each other anymore. It's like, you know, your roommates that have sex maybe once every two weeks, right, if that. So it's it's definitely when you get into that rut of the old familiar and you're not really having a conversation.

Kari Schwear: And that's where Rob and I, my husband Rob, found ourselves four years ago. It's only four years ago. It seems like forever ago now, but four years ago, in our thirtieth year of marriage, I'm the one who initiated it. I'm the one who said, hey. Something we're we're not good.

Kari Schwear: And if this is what the next thirty years is gonna be like, I don't want it. We gotta make some changes, and we gotta make some serious changes. Because at this point, you know, our kids had moved out. My youngest went off to college. My oldest moved out the same weekend with his girlfriend, now wife.

Kari Schwear: And all of a sudden, we're we're empty nesters, and we're going, holy cow. Like, what do we do? And we and we did pretty well there for the first year or two, but then we started you know, he got busy with work, kept his head down. I was only a year into my own business, and, you know, I was so rich with ideas and excitement and energy, and he didn't wanna hear it because his job was super stressful and hard. And when he came home, he just wanted to chill, and I'm like, hey, honey.

Kari Schwear: Guess what happened today? And he just didn't wanna hear it, and we just started drifting off. And so I recognized, you know, not only that, not only was the communication off, but I was no longer really attracted to him. And I don't know if he was all that attracted to me. We both had started gaining a little bit of weight.

Kari Schwear: You know, we were not really focusing on each other. The communication definitely was not there. And when I told him, I don't want this if this is what it's gonna be like, it rocked his world. And we dug deep. And we worked on each other for five months.

Kari Schwear: We never saw it. We did speak to a friend I mean, I'm a coach. Right? So I have tons of coaching friends. So I did speak to one of my coaching friends that that does coach couples, and we talked with him, once and just started getting some basis for ourselves.

Kari Schwear: But I do recommend that if somebody is in a gray area that you reach out to someone professional, and that is some work that I do also with with couples is to really help them with their communication style. There's something else I use with my one on one clients and with my couples is this assessment that I do that helps them see each other in ways they've never seen each other before. It's measuring 13 of their traits and seeing what motivates them emotionally as well as behaviorally and and where their brain is landing and where are their cognitive channels at and really diving deep into how are they relating to each other. So I have some really awesome tools that help me with that. And that's honestly what helped Rob and I is for me to see him in a way that I've never seen him before, understanding that his lens is stability and my lens is affirmation.

Kari Schwear: So I wasn't able to provide the stability part for him. He was not able to provide the affirmation I needed, and we just were not connecting. And once we saw that in each other, we were able to create better conversations. Another thing we did was we bought a conversational deck of cards. If you ever seen those, it was called The End is the name of the deck, and it was specific for long term couples.

Kari Schwear: And we would play this card game every night, which is nothing more than pulling some questions and diving deep on them. Like, when was the last time that I made you upset, and where are you with it today? Very thought provoking questions. When was the last time you looked at me with pride? When was that?

Kari Schwear: And so, like, really tough, deep questions, and that opened up so much conversation. And it was not comfortable, but we had to go there. And every so often, we'll we'll play the game, especially if we're on a road trip. I'll pull them out and take them with us, and, hey. Let's let's dive deep again on some of our our stuff.

Kari Schwear: You know, we've been together thirty seven years. That's a long time to be with somebody, and I'm always learning something new. And so marriage is is a huge piece, and most of my clients are you know, they've been married for a little bit, right, a little bit of time. So they have some of this going on, and it's it's quite normal. You know?

Kari Schwear: But it's not a it's not a place to settle. It's just not a place to settle. And that's my message is don't settle for being stuck in a gray area. You know? Life is too short.

Kari Schwear: It's too precious.

Erica: What I'm hearing from you all the way from the age of seven was that if it did not light you up and just bring you happiness and joy, it wasn't for you. And maybe you didn't recognize that right away, but would you say that's how you're living your life now and that's staying out of the gray area?

Kari Schwear: Oh, yes. And and if anything does not serve me anymore, I've I've come to the point thank you for gosh. I've never had anybody reflect that back, so thank you. I am finding the older I get is that my tolerance level for things that don't light me up, I move on from it. Because I realize life is so precious and it is so short, and I really wanna live life to the fullest.

Kari Schwear: But I also been given this opportunity to impact others, and I take that responsibility extremely serious. And so for me, this is a gift. This is a privilege that I've been provided to help others, which is my whole life has been a complete setup. Everything that I've went through in my life has been this massive master plan of a setup for me to do this work. And I realized, you know, not everybody can see the gifts from their past, but really reconciling those inner thoughts and the past trauma and all of that to be where I am today has just been an incredible journey, and it's like, I'm not wasting one minute of it.

Kari Schwear: So if something doesn't light me up, I'm moving on for sure.

Erica: So when you think about these shades of gray, I imagine that sometimes it's like a continuum. It shifts perhaps. Right? So, like, if you shift out of the gray, does that mean you're good? You're never gonna shift back into the gray?

Erica: Or No.

Kari Schwear: We will always have a gray area. That's the that that's the thing. So even now, you know, like, right now, I will say that I'm in a slight gray area with my, weight. I had gotten down to a a great place, and the past month has been really stressful, with some bigger projects and client, work that I've been working on retreats and and things like that, that it has been stressful that I have not pry been prioritizing my food and my training. I have a personal trainer that I work out with.

Kari Schwear: I still go, but, you know, I'm not as tight as I want to, so that has become a gray area. And, also, you know, a couple months ago, I started shifting a little bit and pivoting my focus in inside of my business. And so for a while there, I was like, okay. Which direction do I wanna go? And there was a little bit of a gray area there.

Kari Schwear: So we always will have a gray area somewhere that we're working on. So, unfortunately, I'd like to say, no. You're always perfect, and you're always in living color. But that's not always the case. You know?

Kari Schwear: There's usually one area, whether it's with your purpose that you have for yourself in life. It's in a relationship that tends to be probably one of the biggest ones. Your habits, your health, that's you know, health and habits is huge. Mindset, That's another place where we get stuck. Our spirituality, you know, like, maybe you're feeling disconnected from God or source creator, whatever you wanna call it.

Kari Schwear: Maybe you're just asking all these questions, and we got a lot of unrest going on in the world right now. So maybe it's, you know, like, gosh. Do I even believe that there's anything protecting us, and why should I? And maybe you're turning, I you know, a blind eye to that. So there's multiple gray areas that we have.

Kari Schwear: And, again, it's any place that you have this internal struggle or conflict despite the outside appearances and obvious successes that you have, there's this deep feeling, this gnawing at you of why is this all there is? What's next for me? Why do I feel like I'm in this place? Why do I feel like I've achieved all this stuff? And yet I can't find my way.

Erica: Hey there, listeners. If you have ever felt like you're stuck in a place, held back by self doubt, perfectionism, or that pesky inner critic, you're not alone. We all face those sticky floors that keep us from reaching the heights we dream of. But guess what? It's time to shatter those limiting beliefs and toxic behaviors to uncover infinite possibilities.

Erica: My book, Glassy Leads and Sticky Floors, is your ultimate guide to smashing through barriers, overcoming limiting beliefs, and stepping into your full potential. This book has been endorsed by none other than the great Mel Robbins, best selling author and motivational powerhouse. It's also been featured in Success Magazine, so you know it's packed with insights that work. Inside, you'll find real life sticky floor stories, practical strategies to help you navigate your own sticky floor moments, and a whole lot of inspiration to keep you climbing. This isn't just a book.

Erica: It's your roadmap to success, confidence, and freedom. Grab your copy of Glass Ceilings and Sticky Floors today at www.ericaandersonrooney.com. Whether you're in the boardroom, the classroom, or just starting out, this book is for you because no one, and I mean no one, deserves to stay stuck, no one deserves to feel small, and you have glass ceilings to shatter. Let's do this.

Erica: Your work with gray areas is very similar with mine with sticky floors. And I tell people all the time, you're never ever free from sticky floors. However, you do get better at recognizing when they show up and what you need to do to get back on track.

Kari Schwear: That's right. That is exactly it. And recognizing them and and also being able to respond rather than react to them, and that's what gets us into trouble is when we tend to overreact and react to things in a negative way. And, typically, that could be self sabotaging. And, that's what gets you into trouble instead of responding with curiosity and approaching things with a a childlike manner of, you know, how how did this happen?

Kari Schwear: What can I do to to address this now? And being very curious with yourself and being gentle.

Erica: One thing I wanna touch on before we end today, and I saw this on your social media, but you talk about the pseudo control syndrome, and I have to say that slow. But as someone who probably lives in the gray area of being a control freak, what does this mean?

Kari Schwear: Yeah. So pseudo control syndrome is all about the need to always control everything in your life. And, again, it may appear that you have everything under control. I have so many clients that really when oh my gosh. When you when they come to me, it's like you would never imagine them feeling the way that they do inside because it appears like they have everything under control.

Kari Schwear: Their marriage, their business, their kids, their spouse, their, you know, all the things. Right? Their habits. Nobody really knows what's really happening inside except for that person. And so pseudo control is exhausting because it is really a form of imposter syndrome along with this idea of needing to control everything so that they appear as though they're successful.

Kari Schwear: And that takes a lot of energy, and I wanna really speak into that. Oh my gosh. Because when we get to that place that we are constantly trying to control every single thing in our life down to the nitty gritty t, including your hiding the truth of whatever it is that's going on really inside of you, whether that's your habits or your health or, again, maybe you're looking at some beautiful, hot guy at the gym or some hot chick. Right? Like, whatever it is.

Kari Schwear: You know, maybe you're you're not doing quite what you need to be doing, but yet you fight it and you have this this pseudo control of I've got it. And that energy that that takes to keep up that facade is exhausting, and it will wear you out. And, eventually, again, you're not gonna be able to have that choice. You're gonna be so far deep into those shades of gray that you're gonna be forced into making a change rather than it being a choice for you to decide what it is that you want now.

Erica: When you were talking about that, the first word that I wrote down, which equates in my sticky floor worlds, was perfectionism. Mhmm. And feeling this need for everything to be perfect. It reminded me of a story. One of my daughter's birthdays, we got this big, stupid, ridiculous blow up unicorn rainbow balloon.

Erica: Right? And, of course, the day of the party, something happens to this rainbow balloon and it pops. I think we're, like, I don't know, an hour away from the party starting, and I'm like, no. No. It's okay.

Erica: I can go back to the store. I can pick up this balloon. So I drive to the store. Of course, there's a long line because it's Saturday. I get this balloon, but everything about me is stressed because I've now added another chore to my day before said party.

Erica: I am believing that I have to have this one balloon to have a good party. No one knew about this balloon, you know, but, like, I was putting so much emphasis that if I had this one thing. So that's what makes me think about, like, if I have control over this one thing, then the party will be perfect. Everyone will see me as the perfect mom. I will have all my shit together.

Erica: When in reality, having my shit together would have been saying screw the balloon. It doesn't matter.

Kari Schwear: Yep. That's a that's a great example. And it's and it's surrendering to what is. And, you know, surrender the word surrender, a lot of it totally is the opposite of pseudo control because there's no such thing as surrender. I got it.

Kari Schwear: I got it. I got it. I'm a leader. I'm a business owner. I'm a professional for crying out loud.

Kari Schwear: I'm an executive. I got it. And so much of that pressure that someone puts on themselves, again, is so exhausting when they just wanna be honest. There's something that happens when people share their truth with themselves. Freedom abounds.

Kari Schwear: Right? Freedom is there. There's so much freedom in the truth. And when you become truthful for yourself is when you start to get better, is when you start to make some improvements. Because guess what?

Kari Schwear: The truth is always gonna set you free. And I know that's, like, such a cliche, but it is so true. It, like, takes off the bondage. Remember when I said my coach said to me, and you're gonna share your story with the world? I was like, dude, you are so crazy.

Kari Schwear: That's never gonna happen. Because I was so private. Again, I had the control. I was in pseudo control. Like, no one's ever gonna know about my secret.

Kari Schwear: And the moment that I started sharing and sharing publicly and sharing it with my closest friends and my family is when everything started melting away. Like, oh my gosh. I've surrendered to what this is, and therefore, I'm actually helping myself and helping others at the same time.

Erica: Yeah.

Kari Schwear: So there's some beautiful things that happen when somebody says, you know what? Maybe I just don't have to try so hard. Maybe I just don't need to try so hard. And that's when someone's at that place, I welcome you. I welcome you with open arms because that's where you need to be.

Kari Schwear: You need to be willing to decide for something different in your life.

Erica: So, Kari, the one question that I always ask my guests is what is the one piece of advice you would give that chain smoking seven year old little girl? What is the one piece of advice you would give her now that you know all that you know?

Kari Schwear: Oh my gosh. You know? Well, my seven year old, I I probably would have spoken to my parents a little bit more about what I was feeling. But to give to the audience, because it's prevalent now in their life, in their own life, again, is if you are feeling any sort of twinge inside of your belly or inside of your heart or your gut or in your head even, that there's something going on that you need to address, whether it is pseudo control or maybe you are drinking a little bit too much or you're looking elsewhere outside the marriage and you're not happy or your career is stalled or maybe you have your own business and you're like, this sucks. I don't want anymore.

Kari Schwear: Right? You're in that in between space and those thoughts are keep fighting with themselves inside your head. Now is the time to pay attention to it and listen. Lean in. Stop ignoring it because it's not gonna get better on its own.

Kari Schwear: It's only gonna get better when you decide you want it to get better.

Erica: I love it. And this is airing in December. We are getting ready. We are gearing up for New Year's resolutions, all the things. Yes.

Erica: Weird. I know people are gonna hear this, and they're gonna wanna figure out how they can get in touch with you, how they can work with you, where should they go, what should they do.

Kari Schwear: Yes. Please go to my website, graytonic. It's GrayTonic.com. I have a new program that's starting in the New Year. It's called decide 90, and I'm not gonna give you any more clues as of right now.

Kari Schwear: I'll just tell you that if you are in that decision making process of I don't wanna be in the gray anymore. I have a couple areas that I wanna work on. This is the program for you. It will magically and drastically change and improve your life. I'm taking it off of part of it's gonna be a former, course that I just retired that has had a 100% satisfaction and, rate on that out of everyone that was surveyed.

Kari Schwear: And that was really focused on habits, and this one is gonna be a little bit more robust with some other areas of gray. So come on in to decide 90. Love the habit.

Erica: It. Start your year in full living color. No shades of gray.

Kari Schwear: That's right. That's right. We're ending that that facade and that BS. It's time for you to step into what you want for yourself.

Erica: I love it. Kari, thank you so much for your time today.

Erica: Wow, friends. I hope that today's episode with Kari gives you all of the motivation and that push that you need to really take a look at those areas of your life that are just myth, that are just okay. Because you deserve so much better than just an okay life, just an okay friendship, just an okay marriage. You deserve amazingness and awesomeness and passion. And, y'all, if you need that help to get out of just the gray, do it.

Erica: Now thank you so much for listening. Y'all, I am just so grateful for you. Please make sure to rate, review, and subscribe to the podcast if you haven't already, and maybe leave a review. I would be so grateful. Alright, y'all.

Erica: Until next time.