In this powerful episode of the Empowered Team Podcast, Kari Schneider sits down with Kelsey Aida—best-selling author, energetic alignment coach, and co-host of the top 1% podcast High Vibin’ It.

Kelsey helps people uncover the hidden resistance keeping them stuck so they can align with the life they truly want.

From the outside, high achievers often look successful—but internally many are battling fear, self-doubt, identity loss, and subconscious resistance.

Kelsey shares her own journey from elite ballerina to a devastating career-ending injury that triggered a deep identity crisis and depression. That dark season became the catalyst for her healing work and ultimately led her to teaching manifestation, emotional healing, and energetic alignment.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

“The safety piece is the ultimate cure.”

“You are not what you do.”

“The only difference between you and the people you admire is that they got better at handling resistance.”

Success isn’t only about strategy or discipline.

Often, the greatest breakthrough comes from recognizing the inner resistance that keeps you playing small.

When you learn to create safety in your mind and body, feel your emotions, and stop fighting yourself—you unlock a new level of leadership, performance, and self-mastery.

Connect with Kelsey:

Pre-order The Manifesting Fix: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250432674/themanifestingfix/ 

Listen now and discover how to stop getting in your own way.

What if the way you end a conversation matters more than everything that happened before it?

In this solo episode of the Empowered Team Podcast, Kari Schneider explores the powerful psychology behind the Peak-End Rule, a research-backed principle from Daniel Kahneman and Barbara Fredrickson showing that people don’t remember the entire experience—they remember the most intense moment and how it ended.

That means whether you’re leading a team meeting, coaching an athlete, navigating conflict in a relationship, or ending your workday, your final moments shape what people carry forward.

Kari shares powerful examples from:

✔ Name the win — Anchor attention on what went right

You may not control every moment of an interaction…

And that ending may determine whether people feel defeated, motivated, connected, or ready to return stronger.

Your challenge:

Because the ending matters.

Fredrickson, B.L. & Kahneman, D. (1993). Duration neglect in retrospective evaluations of affective episodes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 65(1), 45–55.

Kahneman, D., Fredrickson, B.L., Schreiber, C.A., & Redelmeier, D.A. (1993). When more pain is preferred to less: Adding a better end. Psychological Science, 4(6), 401–405.

Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, Fast and Slow. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Gottman, J.M. & Silver, N. (1999). The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work. Crown Publishers.

Gottman, J.M. (2015). Principia Amoris: The New Science of Love. Routledge.

Bastos, V., Ekkekakis, P., Andrade, A.J., & Teixeira, D.S. (2025). The peak and end rule, affect-related cognitions, enjoyment, and exercise frequency: A randomized controlled trial ancillary study. Psychology of Sport and Exercise. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychsport.2025.102963

Bandura, A. (1997). Self-Efficacy: The Exercise of Control. W.H. Freeman.

We all experience pain. Physical pain. Emotional pain. Loss. Grief. Fear. Disappointment.

But what if much of what keeps us stuck isn't the pain itself?

In this final episode of the Clean Pain Series, Kari Schneider explores the critical distinction between clean pain and suffering, revealing why suffering is often the result of what we build around our pain—not the pain itself.

Drawing from psychological research, Viktor Frankl's teachings, Buddhist philosophy, and her own experiences navigating Graves' disease, injury, grief, and divorce, Kari shares a powerful framework for recognizing and releasing unnecessary suffering.

You'll learn how common patterns like rumination, catastrophizing, identity fusion, and comparison create "dirty pain" and keep us trapped in cycles that drain our energy and limit our growth.

You cannot always control the pain life brings.

You can choose whether you build a life around it.

When you learn to recognize suffering for what it is, you reclaim your ability to respond intentionally, align with your values, and move forward with greater freedom.

"Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional."

#Leadership #SelfMastery #EmotionalIntelligence #Resilience #PersonalGrowth #EmpoweredTeamPodcast #MentalFitness #CleanPain #Mindset #ViktorFrankl

In Part 2 of the Clean Pain Series, Kari Schneider explores the hidden cost of emotional suppression — and why avoiding difficult emotions may be creating more suffering, stress, and even physical illness than we realize.

Drawing from personal experience, leadership coaching, neuroscience, and the work of researchers like Dr. Susan David, Brené Brown, and Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, Kari breaks down the difference between clean emotional pain and the unnecessary suffering we create when we resist what we feel.

This episode dives into:

Kari also shares deeply personal reflections on grief, divorce, healing from Graves Disease, and learning how to process emotions after years of pushing through pain.

If you’re a leader, high achiever, entrepreneur, athlete, or someone who’s exhausted from “holding it together,” this episode offers a new framework for emotional strength and authentic fulfillment.

“The emotions we most want to avoid are often the emotions that contain the greatest wisdom.”

#EmotionalIntelligence #LeadershipDevelopment #SelfMastery #MentalHealth #EmotionalResilience #EmpoweredTeamPodcast #KariSchneider #CleanPain

In this deeply personal and eye-opening solo episode of the Empowered Team Podcast, host Kari Schneider shares a harrowing experience after being kicked by a horse—and the profound lessons it revealed about pain, awareness, and self-leadership.

Drawing from both lived experience and her background in athletic therapy and physiology, Kari unpacks the true role of physical pain—not as something to avoid, but as critical data your body is trying to communicate.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

Kari also shares the shocking reality of her misdiagnosis, internal injuries, and how tuning into her body ultimately protected her life.

Key takeaway: Pain is not the enemy—it’s a question. Your job is to get curious enough to answer it.

This episode kicks off a powerful 3-part series exploring:

If you’ve ever pushed through pain, ignored your body, or felt disconnected from what it’s trying to tell you—this episode is your wake-up call.

🎧 Listen now and learn how to turn pain into insight, awareness, and better decisions for your health and life.

REFERENCES:

Dr. Lorimer Moseley

Steven Hayes — ACT Therapy

Dr. Bessel van der Kolk

Buddhist Second Arrow — Sallatha Sutta

Epictetus

Chronic Pain Statistics

What happens when the dream you've carried for years finally becomes reality?

After the grand opening of Wick Cliff Lodge, Kari Schneider reflects on the six-year journey that transformed far more than a lakeside property—it transformed the leader behind it.

Through honest stories, unexpected setbacks (including one unforgettable antique jug), and deeply personal moments of navigating approval, partnership, and perseverance, Kari shares three leadership lessons every entrepreneur, leader, and high performer needs to hear.

In this episode you'll discover:

Whether you're building a business, leading a team, navigating a major life transition, or pursuing a dream that feels bigger than you, this episode will remind you that success isn't simply reaching the destination—it's who you become along the way.

Key Takeaway: The greatest project you'll ever build is yourself. Release the need for approval, trust your experience, embrace the gap between vision and reality, and you'll discover possibilities far beyond the dream you started with.

If this episode resonates with you, share it with someone who is building something meaningful. They may need the reminder that worthy visions always require worthy growth.  If you are curious about the space behind this episode… check out www.wickclifflodge.com and wickclifflodge on instagram.

What if the biggest factor influencing your leadership, focus, and emotional resilience happens before 9:00 AM?

In this episode of the Empowered Team Podcast, Kari Schneider shares the five morning habits she refuses to skip because they directly impact her energy, mental clarity, physical health, and long-term performance.

After years of observing what strengthens—or drains—her energy, Kari identified five simple but powerful science backed daily practices that consistently help her show up at her best. These habits have become even more important while healing from multiple rib fractures and navigating recovery.

In this episode, Kari breaks down the exact routine she uses to support high performance without burnout.

Your energy doesn’t just affect how you feel—it affects how you lead, communicate, decide, and serve others.

If you want to lead powerfully, you need systems that protect your physical and mental energy.

Master your mornings, and you strengthen your leadership.

Ask yourself:

Choose one habit from this episode and begin there.

Listen now and start building the kind of energy that helps you live—and lead—at your best!

Everyone talks about managing time.

But what if time is not the problem?

In this episode of the Empowered Team Podcast, Kari Schneider explores one of the biggest challenges facing leaders, professionals, and high performers today: the erosion of attention.

Research shows that our average screen attention span has dropped from 2.5 minutes to just 47 seconds. Meanwhile, every interruption can require up to 23 minutes of recovery time.

The result? More stress, less productivity, and a growing sense of depletion.

Kari unpacks groundbreaking research from Dr. Gloria Mark and Dr. Amishi Jha to reveal how attention actually works and why understanding it can dramatically improve your leadership, performance, and well-being.

• Why attention is the true currency of a high-performing life

Stop managing your time and start managing your attention.

The quality of your life, leadership, relationships, and results depends on where your attention goes. When you learn to protect it, replenish it, and direct it intentionally, everything changes.

Primary Sources

Dr. Amishi Jha, Ph.D.

Her research has been published in peer-reviewed journals and field-tested with members of the U.S. military, first responders, elite athletes, and corporate leaders.

Website: amishi.com

Dr. Gloria Mark

Her work includes more than 20 years of empirical, screen-based attention research. The 47-second attention finding was replicated across multiple independent studies conducted from 2014 to 2020.

Website: gloriamark.com

Supporting Data

• Gallup, State of the Global Workplace Report (2024): Estimated a $9 trillion global productivity loss associated with employee disengagement.

• University of California, Irvine: Research found that returning to a task after an interruption can take approximately 23 minutes.

• Jha et al. (2007): Mindfulness Training Modifies Subsystems of Attention, published in Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience. The study demonstrated that mindfulness training can improve alerting, orienting, and conflict-monitoring attention systems.

🎧 Share this episode with someone who feels busy all day but ends the day wondering where their energy went.

In this solo episode, Kari Schneider breaks down a powerful mindset shift that can transform your follow-through, leadership, and self-mastery: the critical difference between wanting something and liking the process of getting there.

Drawing on neuroscience research from Kent Berridge and Terry Robinson, Kari explains how the brain’s dopamine (desire) and opioid (pleasure) systems operate separately—and how confusing them keeps high performers stuck.

Key themes in this episode:

Standout insight:

Memorable moment:

Key takeaway:

That single question can realign your actions with your values and help you take consistent, meaningful action—even when it’s uncomfortable.

If this resonates, share it with someone who’s stuck between what they want and what they feel like doing—and start building a life aligned with your values, not your preferences.

Supporting Researches:

BJ Fogg — Stanford Behavior Design Lab. Tiny Habits published 2019. His core argument that motivation is unreliable is accurately represented.

Daniel Kahneman — Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011). The experiencing self vs. remembering self distinction is accurately applied. Note: Kahneman’s framing is about experienced vs. remembered utility — the application to want/like is an extrapolation, not a direct Kahneman quote. Present it as ‘Kahneman’s framework offers a useful parallel’ rather than a direct citation.

James Clear — Atomic Habits (2018). ‘Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become’ is a real and verified quote from the book.

Viktor Frankl — Man’s Search for Meaning (1946). Application is accurate. No direct quotes attributed to him in the script, so no risk there.

What if the biggest risk of AI isn’t the technology—but how we lead through it?

In this powerful episode of the Empowered Team Podcast, Kari Schneider sits down with Dr. Kelly Monahan—organizational psychologist, former leader at Meta, Deloitte, and Accenture, bestselling author of Essential, and upcoming author of Reclaim the Plot.

Kelly has spent the last decade studying the intersection of AI, leadership, and human behavior—and what she reveals is both urgent and deeply human.

From witnessing the collapse of Kodak as a child to leading workforce transformations herself, Kelly brings a rare, lived perspective on what happens when organizations fail to adapt to technological change—and how we can do better this time.

In this episode, you’ll discover:

Standout Insight:

Key Takeaway:

Connect with Dr. Kelly Monahan:

If you’re leading a team, building a business, or navigating change—this episode will challenge how you think about work, people, and what truly matters next.