Designed Pause Podcast

Career breaks are about more than preparing financially. You need help getting ready for the mental shift too.
Most high achievers who take a career pause are blindsided by two things nobody warned them about. The first is living between identities — the disorientation that hits when someone asks what you do and your old answer no longer fits. The second is letting go of the need to feel productive — the guilt of sleeping, resting, and existing without a deliverable attached.
Both of them can take a pause that was designed to restore you and quietly turn it into another source of stress. This episode is about seeing them coming before they arrive.
I walk through what each struggle actually looks like, what I personally experienced, and the strategies that helped me — before the pause and during it. Because the mental preparation is just as important as the financial preparation. And almost nobody talks about it.
Download the free Designed Pause journaling prompts: https://stan.store/designedpause/designedpause_prompts
designedpause.com

Tarji Carter knew she was leaving corporate. She just didn't know when.
So she started preparing. Two years before she actually left, she was collecting personal phone numbers and email addresses, saving aggressively every pay period, getting her medical appointments done, and quietly building the vision for what would become The Franchise Player — because she knew that when the moment came, she didn't want to leave out of desperation. She wanted to leave on her own terms.
In this episode Tarji and I talk about what intentional exit planning actually looks like, what it cost her to build something that the franchise industry had never prioritized, and why she has no plan B.
We cover:
How she went from knowing nothing about franchising to being promoted to Director of Franchise Sales within eight months
The slow build that led her to leave corporate — and the week in Barcelona that started it all
How she prepared financially for her pause two years in advance
The loneliness of building something nobody around you understands
What franchising actually is — and why it might be the wealth-building tool you never knew was available to you
What she wishes she had known before she made the leap
Connect with Tarji Carter and The Franchise Player: thefranchiseplayer.com
Get the Designed Pause Decision Kit: www.designedpause.com

There is a lot of noise about what a career break will cost you. You'll fall behind. Employers won't hire you. You need to have it all figured out first.
Some of that is true. Some of it is outdated. And some of it is just fear dressed up as fact.
In this episode I walk through three of the most common myths about intentional career pauses — what the research actually shows, and what I experienced on the other side of all three.
Myth 1: You'll fall behind and never catch upA 2022 LinkedIn survey of 23,000 global workers found that 56% of people who took a career break acquired new skills or improved existing ones during that time.🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/business/talent/blog/product-tips/linkedin-members-spotlight-career-breaks-on-profiles
Myth 2: Employers will never hire you after a gapHarvard Business School research found that 43-48% of applicant tracking systems filter out resumes with gaps over six months. But 51% of hiring managers say they are more likely to contact a candidate who provides context about their break.🔗 https://careerreturners.com/external-research/
Myth 3: You need to have it all figured out before you pause64% of people felt anxious about taking a career break. The anxiety is normal. Moving anyway is the difference.🔗 https://careerreturners.com/external-research/
Book a free Pause Clarity Call: designedpause.com Use code SAMPLE100 at checkout
 

I'm not going to tell you to quit your job.
What I will do is ask you five questions. Because the woman who is privately wondering whether she needs to make a change doesn't need someone to hand her an answer. She needs someone to help her find her own.
These are the questions I would ask if you came to me and said — I think something needs to change, but I don't know what.
Something shifted. What happened — or what stopped happening — that made you start taking this seriously?
If you're being honest with yourself — not the version you'd tell your manager or your partner — how done are you really?
If you stripped away the title, the salary, the way people introduce you at dinner parties — what is left?
If the money was handled and nobody had an opinion — what would you do tomorrow?
Not the full plan. Not the five-year vision. Just the next honest step. What is it?
You don't have to have all the answers right now. Sit with the one that landed. The question that felt a little too close — that's usually the one worth staying with.
Download the free Designed Pause journaling prompts: https://stan.store/designedpause/designedpause_prompts
Book a free Pause Clarity Call: designedpause.com use code SAMPLE100 at checkout

If you're wondering whether now is the right time for a career break or career pause, this episode is for you.
High-achieving professionals — directors, VPs, senior managers — have built programs from nothing, led teams through constant change, and been held responsible for outcomes they didn't even control. So why does planning a career pause feel harder than any of that?
In this episode, I break down how to plan a career break using the same skills you already use at work — and why the confidence you have professionally is exactly what you need to plan your own pause.
We cover:
How to know if you're ready for a career pause
Why planning a sabbatical or career break feels scarier than planning at work — and how to get past it
How to bring structure to a career break decision instead of just sitting in fear
The framework I used to plan my own career pause with clarity, not anxiety
If you're ready to plan your career pause with the same rigor you bring to everything else, the Designed Pause Decision Kit walks you through it step by step. Or book a free Pause Clarity Call to talk it through with me first — both live at designedpause.com.
Designed Pause is a podcast for corporate professionals planning an intentional career break. | designedpause.com

The thing standing between most high-achieving women and a career pause isn’t information. It’s the internal work. The self-sabotage. The scarcity mindset. The fear of what people will think. The way we overcomplicate decisions until we can’t make any of them.
These four books helped me work through all of it.
In this episode I share what I was going through when I read each one, what shifted, and why I think they belong on your list if you’re in the middle of this kind of decision.
The Mountain Is You by Brianna Wiest — for when you’re getting in your own way
The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel — for when money fear is making your decisions
The Courage to Be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga — for when you’re afraid of what people will think
The Four Agreements by don Miguel Ruiz — for when you’re overcomplicating everything
 
The Mountain Is You: https://amzn.to/3Tq31xX
The Psychology of Money: https://amzn.to/4aTEWpo
The Courage to Be Disliked: https://amzn.to/4wNS1Jk
The Four Agreements: https://amzn.to/4wKLUFr
 
Download the free Designed Pause journaling prompts: www.designedpause.com

If you found this video, something stopped you. Maybe it’s the word pause. Maybe it’s the word designed. Maybe you’ve been quietly wondering whether the career you’ve built is actually the life you want.
This episode answers the question: What is Designed Pause — and is it for you?
I walk you through the brand story, who this is for, what a designed pause actually is, and every tool I’ve built to help high-achieving corporate professionals move from stuck to decided.
We cover:
The brand story — why I built Designed Pause and what my two pauses taught me
Who this is for — and who it isn’t
The three types of pauses and which one might be right for you
The Free Journaling Prompts — where it starts
The Designed Pause Decision Kit — the foundation
Do the Math: The Pause Runway Calculator — the financial reality check
The Fast Track AI Prompts — for the woman who wants to use AI
The Pause Clarity Call — 60 minutes, free, no pitch
 
Start here — everything lives at designedpause.com

Kat Kibben quit their job on a Thursday. By Monday they had given their notice. No fallback plan. No slow walk. Just a decision made in the middle of caregiving for their mother, after a manager told them they had no talent.
What followed was eight years of building Three Ears Media, three years of van life across the country, two books, and a top surgery that taught them something they hadn't expected: their business could run without them.
This conversation is one of the most honest ones I have had on Designed Pause. We talk about what it actually means to bounce back — not winning all the time, but keep going no matter what.
We cover:
Growing up with a military mom who moved 13 times before Kat turned 18 and what that taught them about work
The toxic manager moment that pushed them out of corporate for good
What van life actually looks like from the inside — and the lesson about community it forced them to learn
Why resilience in entrepreneurship means something completely different than it does in corporate
Taking four weeks off for top surgery and opening the laptop eight days later to find zero emails waiting
Why your dreams are not a coincidence — they are for you
Keep Up with Kat: 
https://threeearsmedia.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/katrinakibben/
https://www.youtube.com/@ThreeEarsMedia/featured
https://www.instagram.com/KatrinaKibben
Designed Pause Decision Kit: www.designedpause.com

You have a folder. Maybe it doesn't have a label. But it's there. Career break posts. Sabbatical stories. Financial independence threads. Women who walked away and figured it out.
You've been saving them for months. Maybe years. And you are still in the same place.
This episode is about why inspiration without a framework doesn't move you forward — it just gives you something to do with the anxiety. And what to do instead.
We cover:
What the inspiration spiral actually looks like from the inside
Why research without structure feeds anxiety instead of resolving it
What shifted when I stopped consuming and started answering questions
The four questions that actually move you from stuck to decided
Download the free Designed Pause journaling prompts: www.designedpause.com
 

I lost someone recently. Someone close to me. And I’ve been sitting with something ever since — not just grief, but gratitude. Gratitude that when it happened, I was fully present. That my pause made it possible to show up the way I wanted to.
Today I want to talk about what losing someone teaches you about the life you’re living.
This episode covers six things:
Grief and joy can exist at the same time — and you don’t have to choose
Getting your affairs in order — and helping the people you love do the same
What you have been putting off — and I’m not talking about the laundry
What you will regret — and what to do about it while you still can
The pain you’re carrying alone — and why someone you know would help you carry it
Why it is never too late to learn something new
What happens when you stop letting other people’s perception of you change how you show up
 
“What to Know Before I Go” workbook on Amazon: https://amzn.to/43L9CFk
 
Download the free Designed Pause journaling prompts: https://stan.store/designedpause/p/get-my-free-journaling-prompts-now-qlomu3h9