Social Media Burnout: Reclaim Your Energy & Creativity with Cara Chace

EP 55. Social media has become such a constant in our lives that we may not realize just how much our nervous systems get activated from the pressure to consume, compare, create, and stay visible online. I am joined by coach and author Cara Chace to explore the hidden ways social media can affect our nervous systems, creativity, and overall well-being. After years building a successful digital marketing agency, and an earlier career in law enforcement, Cara found herself facing chronic health issues that ultimately forced her to question whether the way we use social media is sustainable. Together, we discuss burnout, boundaries, self-trust, and why creating a business (and a life) that protects your energy may be one of the most important investments you can make. Whether you're an entrepreneur, content creator, or someone who simply feels emotionally drained after scrolling, this conversation offers a refreshing perspective on how to use social media more intentionally. 

In this episode:

• How social media burnout can affect your nervous system, creativity, and overall health
• The surprising health realization that made Cara completely rethink her relationship with social media
• How to build a business without relying on constant posting and content creation
• The hidden cost of constantly consuming other people's ideas, and how it impacts your own creativity
• Simple phone habits you can start this week to create healthier boundaries with your phone and social media
• Cara's philosophy for staying visible online without living on the apps
• The signs you could be stuck on the "content treadmill"

Resources:

Cara Chace's website: www.carachace.com

Cara's book (releasing September 2026): The Social Media Burnout Cure

Get Cara's Free Monthly Guide: The Productivity Rebellion

Follow Cara on Instagram: @carachace

Guest Bio:

Cara Chace is an author and burnout coach helping women entrepreneurs build sustainable, anti-hustle businesses without trashing their nervous systems. She built what she wishes she'd had when she burned out — because the planners, the productivity hacks, and the color-coded calendars left her more exhausted and more behind than when she started. She's the host of the Ditch the Chaos podcast, the forthcoming author of The Social Media Burnout Cure (September 2026), and a 10-year entrepreneur who runs her business from home with margin, intention, and a deep aversion to hustle culture.

Transcript

Cara Chace 0:00

time we spend, on our phones, on these platforms, is robbing us of what true community and connection actually is.

Speaker 0:07

This is well done. A space where we explore the mind skin connection, living in alignment, and what it actually means to live well and look your best. I am your host Kat, a beauty industry insider, mom of twins, and someone who suffered from severe eczema before realizing that true beauty is an inside job. We don't talk about surface level quick fixes here. This is about real insight, practical tools, and learning how to listen to your body. Let's go.

0:29

hi, and welcome back to Well Done. We have another great episode for you this week. I have been really thinking about the topic of burnout. You might be noticing on social media we're in the middle of the millennial career crisis. Millennials are leaving the corporate world in droves due to burnout and economic instability, massive layoffs, and people are just separating their identities from work. But burnout itself has been a term that is growing exponentially over past couple of years. Searches for the word burnout have reached record highs on Google. And along with that, other phrases like nervous system regulation and elevated cortisol are also entering our vocabulary. And of course, we are just really starting to see and understand that stress doesn't just affect our mood. It can affect our bodies, our skin, our health, our relationships, our creativity. And so today's conversation is personally relevant for me because I have found myself more on edge than normal. I have been feeling like I'm playing catch-up, constantly behind, too much to do, and I realize that part of this feeling is attributed to social media. Every time I feel like I go on social media, I get into a little bit of a spiral. I start second-guessing my own posts. I wonder why some posts aren't getting engagement versus others. I start to look at other creators, and I kind of go into the comparisonitis. And so even though I am very aware of this happening, I still find myself getting pulled into it, and that's why I'm really excited for today's conversation. My guest today is Cara Chase. She has spent years working inside the world of social media, really right from the beginning. But after experiencing serious health issues herself, she started to really question whether or not she needed to be on social media. Was it actually doing anything for her or her business, or was it actually contributing to her health problems? This has led her to create a business that helps female entrepreneurs today to be more intentional with their social media use. And before you think this episode isn't for you, and, you know, you're not just gonna go on a digital detox or stop using your phone, I encourage you to still give it a listen because it's really about reframing how you think about social media and just considering how it could affect your thoughts, your mood, and your behavior. Because I certainly think I needed to hear this and hear these reframes that we're about to discuss. Okay, here's my conversation with Cara Chace

Kat 2:44

Hi, and welcome back. If you've ever felt like social media has had an effect on your nervous system and your health, which I'm sure most of us have felt this way, then today's conversation is one you're really going to wanna pay attention to. We are gonna talk about burnout in the context of being visible online. And this isn't just for business owners who feel compelled to, you know, have to post on Instagram, but it can also be for anyone who just feels pressure to share their lives on social media. My guest today is Cara Chace. She's worked inside social media from almost every angle. She was managing a massive online community for the band Megadeth. She's run her own digital agency, and now she helps women entrepreneurs build businesses with more sustainable systems, stronger boundaries, and less dependency on social media. So I'm super excited for today's conversation. Welcome to the show, Cara.

Cara Chace 3:34

Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here and chat with you all about this

Kat 3:39

Yes, I am super excited because I feel like it is very personally relevant to my own situation.

Cara Chace 3:45

Yes

Kat 3:45

Cara, you have a very interesting background, I have to say. So tell us about what it was like for you moving throughout your career. Before you even had a language for burnout, what were you experiencing with your own health, as you built your career?

Cara Chace 4:00

Yes, I was a federal special agent, and that was my first career right out of college. And as you can imagine, it was a very intense career. When you are working for the government, you are pretty much owned by the government. You have no control over your, time, your energy, what you do with your day. A lot of your life decisions are, determined by that career. So, uh, very early in my 20s into my mid-20s, I, started having a lot of health problems that nobody could really figure out or name at the time. It was, oh gosh, probably 20-ish years ago at this point. The world of naturopathic medicine was just getting started. Things like food reactions and food sensitivities were just being explored, all of those things. But what I knew was that I was exhausted. I could never seem to feel rested. I never felt good. I had a lot of gut issues that doctors couldn't figure out, and I was just you know, the word that I would go to now is burnout, but at the time, we didn't have that language for it. So it was several years into my career when I found a naturopathic doctor, and we started working through all these things, and we had kind of come to the end of the line as far as trying to figure out why, why I just felt awful all the time, and my internal inflammation was off the charts as far as the blood tests that they did have for a lot of these things. And she looked me right in the eye and said, "Cara, your job is killing you." And that was that moment of like, I'm sorry, what now?" Right? I, wasn't sure what to do with that. And it was actually three years between her telling me that and when I was finally able to leave that career and separated from the government and quit my job in law enforcement. And during that time, I just continued to really struggle through those issues, kind of stuffing it all down and moving forward as a lot of high achievers, hoop jumpers, people pleasers you know, all of those things that you learn are just part of the hustle and part of having a high-speed career.

Kat 6:12

was it that you didn't really fully believe that stress could have that impact on your body? Or what was it that you were like, "Oh, I'll, I'll just deal with that another, day"?

Cara Chace 6:21

Right. You know, nobody was talking about the mind-gut connection, and no one was talking about nervous system dysregulation. Those terms didn't exist. No one was connecting all of those pieces the way that we have been able to do in the last really only couple of years. So it was more I had grown up with the story of you get a career, you do something high-speed, intense, the hustle, you climb the ladder, whatever that looks like in whatever your career or profession is, and you put having a family or your personal needs or taking care of yourself or getting enough sleep, those things don't enter the decision matrix of how you spend your time, energy, or attention

Kat 7:09

Yeah. So then what was it ultimately for you that so three years later you decided to leave? What, what was the breaking point, or was there a breaking point?

Cara Chace 7:18

Well, it was really situational. So my husband, who was an agent at the time as well, he got a transfer to a different city, and the agency that I was with didn't have an office there, so it was kind of like, "Well, I guess now is when I'm quitting." So it was really more he got a transfer, and that was the opportunity. At that time, I was 10 years into my career in law enforcement, so it was that, like, if I stayed in longer, it wouldn't make sense to leave because of the retirement and the benefits and all of those things I had invested in. So it was kind of like, "Now's the time to do it if I'm gonna do it." So I, I walked off into the great unknown moved with my husband. We didn't have any children at the time, and it was, it was really an opportunity that presented itself.

Kat 8:05

Okay. And then how

Cara Chace 8:06

Yeah

Kat 8:06

get involved in the social media side?

Cara Chace 8:09

Right. So this is the craziest story. So, during this transition from leaving our hometown and where we worked and everybody we knew and my career to a different city where we didn't know anybody, I was leaving my career, I didn't have that built-in, like, office people, you know, I, I didn't have any of that. I had rediscovered the band Megadeth and their music. I've always been a metalhead since I was a, you know, a teenager when I stopped listening to my parents' music and discovered what I liked. this is totally dorky. I don't know if anybody uses the word dorky now, but I joined their fan club, and it was a community where I was making friends, and I was just having fun with people and talking about the music and the band, and it kind of bridged that time between leaving everything I had ever known and all of my friends and my career and all of that to the great unknown of whatever was next. I got very involved with that community, and very shortly after we moved, I got pregnant with our first child, and so there was this like, well, I'm not gonna go get a job at this point, I didn't really know what I was doing. But this was the Wild West of social media, so this was like 2011, 2012. Instagram, I think, was barely around. It wasn't... It was only on iPhone. It wasn't even on Android yet. This was before paid ads on Facebook, so like the heyday of organic reach and business pages. And the more I messed around with social media, the more I saw how the band could be using it, but they weren't, and there really weren't a lot of musicians at that time that were using it in the way that I could see it could be done. So I started volunteering, helping them moderate all their different Facebook pages, eventually at one point, I finally said, "Listen, I got a new baby. Diapers are expensive." I'm working like a ton of hours. I'm growing social media across all your platforms. You either need to start paying me or I need to go. So they did. They started paying me, I worked for them for a couple years. I was interfacing with Universal Music Group, working on all the tour stuff that they were doing. And by the time I left, I was managing 13 million fans across 17 social media accounts for them, all the different band members and Dave Mustaine in the band and all the different platforms. It was nuts. So I got a front row seat to like the beginning of social media on a large scale for a brand, even though it was a band. At the end of the day, it is a brand and a business. So that was wild, and it was definitely the whole like jumping into the deep end with both feet

Kat 10:53

Yeah. My next question is probably a super loaded one, but what did you notice in terms of how social media, in that era, right, versus today? Like, what are some of those key differences? I guess the second question on that would be, how is that impacting us, health-wise?

Cara Chace 11:09

I think the biggest difference was when I was doing it with them, it was really pre-ads, so paid advertising, pay-to-play. I was there for the great Facebook Armageddon of... It was spring 2014 when Facebook launched ads and decided that it was gonna be pay-to-play for businesses and that whole very painful transition for not only the band, but pretty much every business who had built their business on free marketing and free social media. So that was a huge change, that, that pay-to-play era that came in very quickly. And then i- it was also one of my favorite things about the role that I had there was I was the bridge between the fans and the band, and I loved that. Getting that one-on-one engagement, making fans feel seen, doing you know, cool stuff like tweeting during concerts and retweeting people that were there and, you know, stuff that just, it seems like a given now, but at the time it wasn't. So what I have seen is that social media, when you have a business that's really fan-based like that, whether it's music or something else, it's become way less community and fan-driven than it used to be. I think Gary Vaynerchuk did something recently where he talked about how it's not social media anymore, it's interest media, and that is a really fantastic way to say that what we're seeing is this algorithm-based echo chamber of what they have decided we should be interested in. And the authenticness of connection on social media, the social part of it, is... really doesn't exist anymore

Kat 12:54

You think with each other or with brands and creators?

Cara Chace 12:58

Both.

Kat 12:59

Okay

Cara Chace 13:00

We've been sold connection, and that's not what it is anymore. We're drowning in ads. We're drowning in suggestions for who to follow. We're drowning in clickbait, as we all know, and I, I think we know these things. Like, me saying any of these things isn't a revelation,

Kat 13:22

Yeah

Cara Chace 13:23

but what we haven't made the connection of, of what it's actually doing to us and our relationships and our sense of connection and community redefining what social is and what we've been told it is versus that doesn't actually feel like that's what it is. So going back to the whole mind-body connection, I think more and more people are realizing that the time we spend, particularly on our phones, on these platforms, is robbing us of what true community and connection and being social with our people actually is, and our bodies feel it because we're wired to be social creatures.

Kat 14:01

Right. And that's not even including, like, what's happening with AI, right? I'm,

Cara Chace 14:05

No, I know

Kat 14:05

whole other can of worms on connection and social. so going back to s- your philosophy around social media is very interesting. Tell us about what led you to your philosophy around social media burnout and what you're doing with women. Was that journey like from managing,

Cara Chace 14:25

Ja

Kat 14:25

social media behind Megadeth to what you're doing today, and why?

Cara Chace 14:29

The quick story is in between Megadeth and what I'm doing today, I built a digital marketing agency, that was just based on the success and the knowledge and, skills that I had built with the band and doing that all at a high level. So it was truly agency-based. I had clients, I had a team, I had contractors that was fine for a while. I built a... You know, the business that everybody tells you that you should aim for, I built it. And I started having health issues, I guess, at this point about three years ago, meaning I never felt rested. I didn't feel good. Kind of some of those symptoms started coming back in a really big way that I had experienced in law enforcement, and that kind of high-stress demanding job in my early to mid-20s. again, I was shoving it all down. It was, "I've built this agency. I'm an entrepreneur." You know, all the things that people tell you you should want. then I started having, The symptom that made me stop everything was I started having food reactions almost every single time I ate. So I was getting I was getting skin breakouts, but I was also getting, like, a sore mouth, swollen tongue. Raw mouth is the only way I could describe it. My vision would blur when I ate. And then some little voice at some point was like, "This shouldn't be happening. There's something very wrong here." And fortunately, by this time medicine has come a long way and some of the diagnostic tools. And about three months after I started having those symptoms on a very regular daily basis, I was finally diagnosed with chronic Lyme disease. I had mold toxicity. I had all these bacterial infections that come with the Lyme disease, and I realized I had to, like, hard stop on my business. I was to the point where I could barely function as a mom just doing what I need to do for my family. I have two kids at this it was really hard to stop because it felt like failure. It felt like, "Who am I if I am not an entrepreneur?" And running this, you know, six-figure business with all these clients and, and getting asked to speak and do all of these things, I can't just stop. And my body reached a point at where I just was literally given no other choice. And thankfully, with the support of my husband and the life we've built for ourselves, I was able to do that, which I'm very, very grateful for. So over the course of, it was about two years that I, I stopped, I realized what I really wanted to teach was how to build a more sustainable business, so one that flexes with maybe your energy or your health problems or just your seasons of life that you go through as a mom or, a partner or spouse, whatever it is. Our lives change slowly and drastically, you know, depending on what it is, and just building a business that doesn't rely on showing up the same way all the time, all day, every day. I pulled on all the skills that I had built to run a business, to build a business as a work from home mom of two, and going through everything that happened in 2020 with kids coming home for online school and still running a marketing agency and all of those things. And so I relaunched that, and I started feeling into that and, and regrowing my business. And at the same time, I was also healing and at the final stages of detoxing all of the Lyme and the mold and all of that stuff. And then this very last year, it was December 2025. I take the last two weeks of the year off, like throw my phone in a drawer off. I don't do any posting. I don't even schedule posts. Like some people say, "Well, schedule all your posts," but I just take it off. We're just done. I realized that about halfway through that break, even though I wasn't eating perfectly, I stopped having food reactions, and I felt amazing. And at first I thought, "Oh, I finally detoxed everything." I knew I was clear of Lyme, but s- there were still some symptoms hanging on, and it was like, "I'm done with this." Like, "I've beat this. I can move on with my life." I felt so good. And then the Friday before the, the first Monday of the year, I started thinking about my social media strategy. I started thinking about B-roll. I started thinking about what do I wanna post on Instagram, how often, and in what form. I started thinking about, do I wanna do a, a YouTube strategy, like all of the digital marketing, social media things. And it was about half a day of leaning into all of that, and I started reacting to every single thing that I ate. And it was like any food elimination diet or anything you do, like if you're reacting to something on your skin and you stop using everything, and then you add... It was so clear that, oh, my body is reacting to just the thought of social media marketing and being online constantly.

Kat 19:49

Wow. That's crazy. Okay, so then that turned into your philosophy, the social media burnout, this idea that women you know, your, your focus is women entrepreneurs.

Cara Chace 20:01

Yes

Kat 20:01

do you then advise somebody, on staying visible without without becoming a victim to social media?

Cara Chace 20:11

Right. So I am not anti-social media. I do wanna be clear about that. I am not somebody that's gonna say delete all of your accounts and get a brick phone and, you know, whatever it is. I, I am not somebody that's gonna say just walk off into the woods and live in a cabin somewhere. The reality is social media is here to stay, and if you're in business, it is expected that there's some level of visibility. So with all that being said, my entire point and philosophy is you do have control over what you do and when, and you can be so much more intentional about what you post, where you're visible, and what you're doing than you've probably been led to believe.

Kat 21:02

Hmm

Cara Chace 21:03

one of the phrases that I use, guides that I use, is called signposts, not stages. that is one of the philosophies that I outline, or the, the guides that I outline in my upcoming book. But it is about using your social media accounts as your business card, like your website or, you know, whatever else you have out there, using those as a place to show this is me, this is what my business is about and this is where you can find me, and directing people to where you are active and engaged. So it doesn't have to be not using social media at all. Maybe it's you take a look at your analytics and you see that, you know what? Instagram is where I get tons of web traffic. If it is, double down on that and use all of your other accounts to point to where you're actually engaged, For some people who really don't wanna be on social media at all, that are really looking for that, being able to take a step back and a deep breath, directing people to your email list or your website, or maybe you have a podcast or whatever it is that you're building that's more long-term content that helps you build that bridge and that engagement relationship in a more authentic way that's not based on an algorithm

Kat 22:20

how do you coach somebody who feels like they need to be on social because of what their peers are doing or the trends they're seeing? Like, they feel like, "I have to stay relevant,"

Cara Chace 22:31

most people feel that way, and it's because these platforms are designed to pull on those fear FOMO strings. So I go back to I am a data and information person, and I don't know if this comes back to my years as a criminal investigator but when somebody says, "Well, I have to be on Instagram for my business," I say, "Okay, let's look at the numbers. Let's look at the numbers and go from there." So what I found when I had... I realized the food reactions were a result of me diving back into social media and strategy. I decided to completely stop posting on my feed on Instagram, which is where I was the most active. It was the most low-hanging fruit for me. So I was really only posting one story every week or two, but I was not posting on my feed at all, and I took a look at my data, my analytics in March. So I stopped the very beginning of January. My website referrals from Instagram had not dropped at all, and my Instagram was getting more engagement than the previous 90-day period. So when you look at the data and you look at, okay, I'm on this content treadmill. I am thinking in captions instead of enjoying my life. I am scanning for B-roll instead of looking at my kids in the eye when they wanna show me something. I am turning every moment of my life into content spending seven hours a day in the, doom scroll and the comparisonitis and looking at what everybody else is doing, and you look at the data and you see something like that, like stopping all of this made no difference in what Instagram was doing for my business. That's an opportunity to really stop and question what you've been told to think

Kat 24:25

But that's assuming you already have somewhat of an audience and people, you know, clicking on your Instagram profile. Like,

Cara Chace 24:31

Sure

Kat 24:32

you're br- you're new and you're like, how do I build an audience?" Like, what would you advise that person?

Cara Chace 24:38

I think what a lot of people have forgotten because of this low-hanging fruit, free marketing, social media world we live in, is that there are tried and true methods that are long-term that are still extremely valid and still work. So those would be things like SEO on your website, blogging for content and SEO doing things like long-form videos on YouTube, because YouTube is owned by Google, which means it's SEO-driven and your email list, which is your direct connection to people in their inboxes without an algorithm. So those core fundamental marketing strategies still absolutely work. And social media was designed... I, I shouldn't say designed. Social media at first was a way to get that long-term deep content out in little snippets for our goldfish brains, and at some point we bought into this is now the core marketing pillar instead of it's a way to get the core content out to more people. So I would say if you're brand new and you are, like, drowning in which course should I buy and should I be, you know, doing some strategy and all of the stuff that's out there right now, is look at if you've built core content that is going to be long-term for your brand and is gonna last. So blogging, SEO, email marketing, those, those foundational aspects of marketing that are still valid today.

Kat 26:22

Okay. So for somebody who doesn't have a business, right? Let's say they are a professional and they're using LinkedIn and they're thinking, "I want to... I feel some pressure to post on LinkedIn about what I'm doing in my career."

Cara Chace 26:33

Right

Kat 26:34

And then the second example would be maybe just somebody who is, I feel like my friends are all, you know, they're sharing their family trip. They're sharing, their really great, amazing European vacation, and I feel the need to share something." Like, how would you coach those types of people?

Cara Chace 26:48

So somebody who's a professional and just, and doesn't have a business I would say this really goes back to a c- a couple things. So when I was a special agent one of the things that was part of our job would be doing criminal investigations, and that could potentially lead to criminal trials where you would be called up on the stand to testify about your investigation, your reports, the evidence, the findings, all of those things. And this was right at the time when Facebook came out. People were posting really embarrassing pictures of, their Friday nights at the bar and all of that, the, the newness and almost naiveté of putting your life on social media.

Kat 27:33

Yeah

Cara Chace 27:33

And it was pretty much standard that someone who's a special agent, it's probably not a good idea to have public social media because even before people started talking about the internet is forever, we knew that a defense attorney could put up a picture on the stand of if you had posted a not so flattering picture from your Friday night, you know, downtown to try and impeach your, your integrity or whatever it was. while most people are not special agents, obviously you need to think in terms of the, is this professional? Is this emotional? Is this something I'm gonna regret posting a week from now? Whatever it is. So there's just a level of professionalism. If you feel pressured to be present, I would say be visible, If you are not doing that authentically, it's gonna come across every single time. So there is something about the way we're wired as human beings that probably goes back to that social aspect where we can tell when people are not being authentic. And while it's not as easy to tell that online as it is in person, you can still tell. And I think anybody who has been in the depths of social media and having their own personal or professional profiles can attest to when you know something's not quite right. I, again, would challenge anybody who's feeling that pressure to really think about why, why have I bought into this? do some thinking around what would this look like if I did this differently? Or can I just put up a boundary and it is what it is? People have forgotten their own personal boundaries when it comes to the online space. And I guess that feeds into your second question about somebody just, you know, personally living their life. I felt a lot of pressure about halfway through my 10 years owning a digital marketing agency to do the whole share my life as a mom entrepreneur. And at the time, I knew that was something I was never gonna be comfortable with because of my years doing criminal investigations. I've done a whole lot of child exploitation investigations, and so I know more than the average person about what happens with these photos when you put them online. that was a line I had to draw in the sand about posting pictures of my children in my personal life. And I think what it comes down to is you have to make the decision about your values and your lines in the sand, is there a potential for you to have to make the decision between a type of business or a type of success or whatever and what your personal values are? Hopefully, that's not the case, but you might have to decide that, and that is a personal decision for everyone. For me, I decided I was not going to build a business, and I was not interested in a business that required my nervous system as collateral, I will double down on the things that don't make me physically, emotionally, and mentally feel the way clearly social media was. And that is the only way that I am willing to be an entrepreneur and run a business

Kat 31:08

That's a really good point, is that sometimes you feel like posting and you actually feel like posting, and that's, like, an authentic place to be in, versus the I have to do this.

Cara Chace 31:17

Right

Kat 31:18

good point on the posting your kids too, because I um, switched my personal account to more of a, creator account, and I was like, "Ugh, I have, like, pictures of my kids on here." So now I've removed them all, and I just still think about that. Like, oh no, they're still out there.

Cara Chace 31:33

Mm-hmm

Kat 31:34

freaks me out.

Cara Chace 31:35

You can only make the best decisions for the information you have at the time. Everybody makes mistakes. I have posted pictures of my kids before and then gone, "Ah, I don't... I shouldn't have done that," right? Or the very beginning of Facebook when it was just my personal profile and I had it locked down, I would post pictures of my kids for the benefit of, the friends that I had on Facebook, and this was, I mean, this was more than 11, 12 years ago at this point, which is like a whole nother world from s- it's like olden times of social media. And I'd have to talk to friends and family about you cannot re-share pictures of my children because I don't know who you're friends with, right? And eventually I just stopped posting pictures of them and scraped everything, much like you did. But there's no point in beating yourself up over decisions that you wish you hadn't done. It's just you know, moving forward with the information you have now and being super clear about your values and your priorities.

Kat 32:32

So let's talk about your book, your upcoming book. What do you hope or... give us a little bit of a tease on the book and what you hope people will learn or walk away with when they read it

Cara Chace 32:42

Yes. So, the title is still working. It is slated to come out in September of 2026, and it's Social Media Burnout, it's about how to ditch the scroll, quiet your nervous system, and market your business without the chaos. So it's a lot of what we talked about today. There's way more stories about law enforcement and Megadeth and me pulling the thread over the years of what social media and the online space was doing to my health and my nervous system. part one is really about a lot of those stories and the very slow realization over many years about what was happening. And then part two is about what to do with all of that. So how to start assessing those things. Like, where should I really be online? What's worth it? Questioning everything you've been told, questioning that FOMO feeling that we've all been sold. How to really double down on those long-term and long-form content strategies how to quit being somebody that defaults to scrolling, how to put better guidelines around how you're using your phone and these apps. So some of it is very prescriptive, but it's also take what you need and leave the rest, You might not have literal physical reactions like I've had to social media. Maybe it's more, I just feel like I'm spending too much time, and I don't know what to do about it. So it is a smorgasbord of ideas and tips and how-tos about taking your time, energy, and attention back and being so much more purposeful about how you show up online, either personally or for your business.

Kat 34:34

great. if you could leave a tip for somebody who is listening and is thinking, "Am I spending too much time on social media?" Or they're, you know, they really identify with what you mentioned about thinking in captions, seeing everything as a B-roll opportunity.

Cara Chace 34:47

Yeah

Kat 34:48

start? Because for me, I'm like, "I'm not going to quit cold turkey and, like, turn off my social media."

Cara Chace 34:53

I'll give you two things. First, don't have your phone in your bedroom. That was one of the most life-changing habits that I tweaked when I first started realizing this is all just too much for me. Most people, I don't, I don't wanna quote a percentage 'cause I don't wanna get it wrong, but it's most people pick up their phone within five minutes of waking up in the morning. what that does to your brain the way that trains your brain to immediately start consuming instead of just giving yourself space to wake up and greet the day it's really incredibly valuable with how you feel and how you show up in your day. Plug your phone in somewhere else. Don't have it plugged in on your nightstand or in your bedroom. The second would be uh, use your app timers. Even if you start going around them, 'cause it's pretty easy to do, you will start noticing how often you ignore your limit, how uncomfortable and twitchy you get if you're out of time, and those are things to observe about yourself and what your brain has been trained to do with your phone and these platforms. big changes don't happen all at once. Like you said, you're not gonna quit cold turkey. It's about the noticing because these platforms don't want you to notice what's happening to you or your time, energy, and attention. So, put your app timers on. I... For instance, I allow myself 20 minutes a day across all social media, so that's a combination of any social media apps I have on my phone. I get 20 minutes a day. what it's trained me to do is use my desktop for the things that are business and truly marketing focused instead of saying I'm going to go into Instagram to post this or do something business-related, and an hour later, I've... I'm stuck in the scroll.

Kat 36:48

Hmm

Cara Chace 36:49

So using your app timers will be a way for you to notice how, how you're physically and mentally reacting to having those limits on giving your attention to these platforms, and that's a really great place to start with self-awareness.

Kat 37:05

How has putting in practice these tips a- affected your own, well, A, your own wellness and mental health, and B, your own business?

Cara Chace 37:13

Yeah So, number one, I'm just happier. There is something that I notice the handful of times in the last six months that I have for whatever reason, been in the doom scroll, where the rest of my day is not great. And we don't really realize what's happening when we just feel cruddy or that comparisonitis, or we feel like we are not where we should be, or you realize, well, there's three courses I wanna take about how to do this all better, and I don't know when I'm gonna have time to do any of it. You know, you just start... You get in a funk. And since I've made these changes, I'm not in a funk like that anymore. I use my time purposefully and in a way that fills my cup instead of draining it. For my business, what I've noticed is that it has freed up so much creativity for my own content, philosophies, blog writing, what I wanna say. When you're constantly consuming other people's content, everybody starts sounding like everybody else, and that's... Part of it is the AI thing that's happening, but part of it is also you're not coming up with your own ideas. Everything is colored by everybody else's. So it has freed up this creativity and this clarity for myself about my own thoughts and philosophies and what I wanna teach and what I wanna share that is not colored by what everybody else is doing. third, I took all of the time that I used to spend creating content and being on social media and put that into writing my book, which is something I've wanted to do for a very long time. And there's no better long-form content that is going to last and be a testament to my business and what I have to share with the world and help the people that I wanna help than writing a book that anybody can pick up versus a reel that has gone into the ether, within hours

Kat 39:20

That's really inspiring for me. I think I'm probably going to try some version of this this week so that I can be more creative, because I- I'm, like, with you on that. My head's all over the place whenever I go on social media.

Cara Chace 39:32

Yes.

Kat 39:33

If you could go back in time and, talk to your former special agent self or your former Megadeth social media creator self What would be the advice you'd give?

Cara Chace 39:43

it would be the advice that I give everybody now, which is question everything. Question the rules and make your own. We are told so many things when we start either our professional career as young adults or you get a job that, you know, like I was, it was trial by fire and jumping into this whole world that I didn't know and was learning on the spot, to then the whole online entrepreneur industry that came up out of social media and the online space we have now, where you learn to not trust yourself. You learn to defer to the experts and the gurus and the influencers or the people that are ahead of you in your career, and there's a lot of value in listening to advice and people's perspectives. But I wish that I had not taken everything at face value, and I wished that I had trusted myself more to question what I was being told to do and how to show up in my life more than I did at the time

Kat 40:51

Hmm. were there specific things that when you look back you're like, "I shouldn't have listened to that advice"?

Cara Chace 40:57

Not, not with my two previous careers. So in law enforcement, I mean, when I quit, my coworkers thought I was crazy because the benefits are so good and the pay was so good and, and all of these things, and I thought they were crazy for giving their lives away to, to the government and their health and all of those things. So I'm someone, once I've had a really deep realization, I am not afraid to flip the table and make a change. I did that with law enforcement. I did that with leaving the band. At some point it became just not cool anymore for what it was doing to my nervous system, which I go all into that in the book and what I was doing in that role. It really has been more this online entrepreneur space and this social media space where I realized there's a difference between someone being really good at marketing and being able to deliver on the promise that they're selling. And I think anybody that is in this space understands exactly what I'm talking about. I've probably... i've spent tens of thousands of dollars on masterminds and high-level courses and programs where I just wanted somebody to tell me what to do,

Kat 42:10

Hmm

Cara Chace 42:10

and it was not the right fit for me, or they were telling me to do things that were never gonna be my personality, like dancing on TikTok or being in DMs, you know, two hours a day, cold DM-ing people, all of that stuff that, I just figured I hadn't found the key or the secret yet. And so I kept looking outside of myself and spent a lot of money and a lot of time making those mistakes. So it really is this industry in particular where I've struggled the most with making those big changes and flipping the table

Kat 42:45

That's such a good point, I think, to end on, is that this self-trust, because there is now more so with AI, like even more tools,

Cara Chace 42:54

Yeah

Kat 42:55

mentorship programs, masterminds like you said.

Cara Chace 42:59

Mm-hmm.

Kat 42:59

how can people find more about you, your work, your book coming up?

Cara Chace 43:03

Yeah, everything's on my website, as it should be. So if you go to carachase.com, and it's C-A-R-A-C-H-A-C-E, Everything is there, whether that's you wanna dive into blogs or check out the podcast or get on the book presale list, all of those things you can find there.

Kat 43:21

All right. That was my chat with Cara. for me, I'm definitely going to approach going on social media with a lot more awareness than I have been. One takeaway is that burnout isn't always caused by one big event. Sometimes it's just the accumulation of all these little moments that keep our nervous system switched on, and one of those things can come from daily social media use. So if you notice your nervous system gets activated after you've been scrolling for a bit, maybe it's time to put down the phone and just reconsider that habit. The biggest takeaway, though, that I think I'm walking away with today is really how consuming less content can help us create more space to actually think and come up with more original ideas. So Cara shared a few really practical ideas you can try this week. You can keep your phone out of your bedroom, turn on your app timers to notice your habits. Maybe ask yourself whether you're spending more time consuming content than actually creating it and I think this is really applicable for anyone, because we're seeing a lot of AI-generated content and copy lately. Everything is starting to really sound similar, and I think as AI becomes more prevalent, having original ideas and being able to think clearly is going to be even more valuable as a skill. I'd love to know if you found this episode helpful or interesting. If so, please share it with a friend. You can also find me on Instagram and let me know your thoughts, or leave a review if you've been enjoying this podcast. Thanks again for tuning in. Until next time.