Caru Jones of Coaching with Caru: Inside the Architecture of Healing Burnout and Ditching Hustle Culture for Sustainable Leadership

“Hustle Culture” is an ethos often propounded by young self-proclaimed internet gurus that centers around the idea that working long hours and sacrificing self-care are required to succeed. This mentality may have gained popularity in the mid-2010s, but it has peaked, and now it has been sardonically renamed “Burnout Culture.” So why exactly is Hustle Culture the wrong path to take? What damage can it cause? What is a viable, sustainable alternative to hustle culture? How can we move from Frenzy To Focus? In this interview series, we are talking to business leaders, mental health leaders, marketing experts, business coaches, authors, and thought leaders who can share stories and insights about “How We Can Cancel Hustle Culture And Create A New Sustainable Work Paradigm.” As a part of this series, I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Caru Jones.

Caru Jones is an Executive Coach who specializes in helping passionate, high-achieving humans lead deeply fulfilling lives. Her coaching methodology involves shedding the constraints of hustle culture and building a new paradigm for leading one’s life soulFULLY. Caru has a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and is a Professional Certified Coach (PCC) through the International Coaching Federation (ICF), Certified Professional Co-Active Coach (CPCC), and Certified Positive Intelligence Coach (CPQC).

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive in, our readers would love to know how you got from “there to here.” Inspire us with your backstory!

I was born and raised in the Bahamas, attended university in Canada, and started my career in London, England, before moving to NYC — where I now call home.

I spent the first chapter of my career supporting and developing leaders at some of the world’s most innovative and creative companies in digital, experiential, and traditional advertising. With my genuine love and care for people’s happiness, as HR Director, I put my heart and soul into my work and everyone else’s needs before mine — every day for over a decade. It was an exciting start to my career, but I did not have the internal tools to sustain me within that environment and spent most days in survival mode. Inevitably, this led to burnout.

After several years of trying to “solve” my burnout through external solutions (taking work off my plate or hiring into my team) I realized nothing seemed to be working and I was at a breaking point. That’s when I turned to Reiki.

At first, I can honestly say, I thought Reiki was about sucking the bad energy out of you. Each session I would arrive — carrying the stress or anger I had absorbed from my colleagues — and my guru would suck the bad juju out of me. I gradually came to know that Reiki is about healing energy. Practitioners use their energy to improve flow and help balance your own energy, to promote healing from within — and healing was exactly what I needed.

It was around my third session when my guru asked me two of the most powerful questions I’ve ever answered in my life: What do you love to do? When do you feel most energized?

As clear as day, the word “coaching” came out of my heart.

I left that session a little discombobulated. A shift had happened deep within me, and I now knew what I needed to do to thrive — not just survive.

From there on out I did everything in my power to get to where I am today. I talked to other coaches, I got certified, I left my full-time job to start my own company (yikes!) — and now I’m here, speaking with you!

Tell us about your typical day!

Does anyone really have a “typical” day?! If I was answering this question a few years ago my “typical” day would look something like this: fight to get up, cry because I’m too exhausted and stressed, head to work, lots of meetings, lots of emails, stress, stress, stress, and then crash — at an ungodly hour. These days it looks quite different and there isn’t a day that goes by that I take the structure and flexibility I have created in my life for granted.

I’m a huge believer that our morning and evening routines help ground us, help us stay focused throughout the day, and set us up for success — so most days my mornings and evenings look very similar.

I typically wake up around 7am, brush my teeth, wash my face, and flow through my morning spiritual practice — meditation, visualization of goals, and journaling. I know this all sounds cliche — trust me there was a lot of resistance to this practice over the years — but once I noticed the impact it was having on my energy and my success it became a necessity, not a nicety.

By 8am I’m either taking my first client call or prioritizing movement, which typically looks like going for a walk and listening to an audible book, or 20-minutes of yoga or a HIIT workout session.

From here on out, my days start to look different.

As the CEO of my business, I wear many hats — Coach, Marketing, Business Development, Finance, Tea Lady — so my days will vary quite drastically. My best days, however, are filled from start to finish with coaching calls.

I’ll typically wrap up my final client call around 7:30pm. And, before ceremoniously closing my laptop for the day, I’ll look over my schedule for the next day to ensure I’m familiar with what’s coming up and then head to the kitchen to cook dinner.

My evening routine starts around 10pm, when I declare that it’s my bedtime. My husband finds this quite comical because I don’t always get up, right there and then, to go to bed — sometimes the couch is just too darn comfortable! But the mental declaration helps make sure I don’t waste the night away in front of the TV or doomscrolling on my phone.

By 10:30pm I’ve typically managed to peel myself off the couch, brush my teeth, wash my face, and change into my pjs. I like to be asleep between 11pm and midnight (7 ½ hours of quality sleep is my sweet spot) and to help me fall asleep I’ll either read a book or finish a sudoku puzzle (from a book, not on my phone).

And then I start it all again!

What lessons would you share with yourself if you had the opportunity to meet your younger self?

This is such an interesting question, and I find it even more interesting that there’s some vagueness to it. Are you asking from the perspective of your ‘now’ self sharing the lessons with your younger self? Or is the question: When you have the opportunity to meet your younger self, what lessons does she have for your ‘now’ self? I personally prefer to reflect on lessons from my younger self.

As a kid, I was a bundle of joy, love, and sunshine — energy I try to embrace every day. But during some of my worst bouts of burnout, this was hard to sustain. My younger self could teach me a lot when it comes to releasing the shackles of perfection, people pleasing, and self-judgment, and, instead, help me embrace pure, unconditional joy and self-love.

But to answer the question I think you’re asking, the lesson I would share with my younger self is to continue to embrace your true nature and uniqueness — no matter what. As you grow up, you’re going to start creating stories and assumptions in your head that make you question and doubt yourself. Always remember, that unique spark within you is what is going to make the most difference in this world — so be yourself.

Oh, and never drink the punch at college parties!

Ok, thank you for sharing your inspired life. Let’s start with a basic definition to make sure that all of us are on the same page. How do you define Hustle Culture?

Hustle Culture is the belief that to succeed you must keep pushing no matter the cost — mental or physical — while the goal post of success keeps moving. In addition, it is the societal pressure that if you’re not pushing, if you’re not hustling, then you’re doing it wrong.

Glorified by songs, shows, movies, and influencers — our brains are consistently fed messages that we must do more, be more, show more, have more, work harder, faster, better. Messages like: “Good things happen to those who hustle,” trick us into thinking if we don’t hustle, we won’t have good things — and that’s simply not true. In this way, hustling is seen as a badge of honor, and we’ve been brainwashed into thinking it’s a positive trait. Don’t get me wrong — sometimes it is. But when hustling is your default mode and fueled by the misdirected focus of a scarcity mindset — the belief that the world’s resources and opportunities are limited — you are on a never-ending road to burnout and dissatisfaction.

Now let’s discuss an alternative to Hustle Culture. To begin, can you share with our readers a bit about why you are an authority on the problems that come with Hustle Culture?

I have an academic background in Psychology, People & Culture, and Coaching. On paper, that makes me an authority on the problems that come with Hustle Culture. But, what’s the quote? “The best teacher in life is experience.” I’m also an avid life student and, through my own personal and professional experiences, I have a strong perspective on the matter.

Coming from the world of advertising, I often heard people describe the culture as, “Work hard, play hard.” Heck, I even said that countless times throughout that phase of my life. And I loved it — the hustle energy is addictive — but at what cost? For me, that cost was my mental and physical health.

Throughout my career, I experienced burnout twice. The first time, we “solved” it with external solutions. But about six years ago I found myself right back in the blackhole of burnout because I hadn’t changed anything within me.

You asked about my “typical” day today, but if we were having this same conversation six years ago, my day would have looked very different. I was still waking up at 7am but surviving on 4 or 5 hours of sleep a night. Back then my alarm was the theme song from Zootopia — Shakira’s “Try Again”. It was the reminder I needed every morning to keep trying. I was exhausted — mentally and physically. I felt and looked like the shell of the person I used to be — but I had to keep going.

There were several days where I’d hope my morning shower would miraculously make me feel refreshed from the inside out. Instead, I’d often step out in my wet towel, make my way to the couch, lay down, and cry — before pulling myself together and heading to the office. I knew something had to change, but this time I knew it wasn’t just about looking externally, I had to change my mindset and behaviors which were contributing to my burnout.

Since recovering from burnout and strengthening the tools I know helped reignite the spark within my soul, I have hosted multiple workshops on Healing Burnout and help my clients break free from Hustle Culture.

The specific term “Hustle Culture” may have been popularized in the 2010s, but the concept behind it and the behaviors that come with it can be traced back hundreds or perhaps even thousands of years. From your vantage point, experience, or research, what were the main drivers of Hustle Culture?

Oh goodness, so many things! But one of the biggest culprits is technology.

Thank goodness for technology and for the geniuses behind each innovation — and I do not say that facetiously. We now have a world of information at our fingertips and the ability to communicate with loved ones halfway across the world, at speeds once unimaginable. Honestly, where would we be without technology? But for every positive impact technology has on our society, unfortunately it also has a corresponding negative impact.

The following are three key areas directly influencing Hustle Culture: 1) technology replacing jobs; 2) enabling more avenues for social comparison without human-to-human conversation; and 3) disrupting boundaries.

First off, technology replacing jobs is an age-old story. Whether it’s machinery replacing humans in factories or AI replacing humans in all sorts of roles these days, the fact of the matter is, some of the most amazing inventions are created to improve efficiencies or quality (of life, products, or services), which inevitably lead to redundancies — and this makes humans panic. People start hustling to keep their jobs, land new ones, develop new skills, or sometimes even work multiple jobs — just to survive.

And while everyone is fighting to keep their jobs, we’re all looking at each other’s lives through the rose-colored windows of social media. From this viewpoint, we start to evaluate our happiness or success based on what we see and the stories we make up about other people’s lives compared to ours. Let’s take Millennial debt as an example.

Research shows that Millennials are accumulating debt at historic rates right now. What’s happening? One influencing factor is that everyone is using social media to look from the outside in, creating stories about the idyllic lives of others, and trying to replicate that lifestyle for themselves. Without having human-to-human conversations about how others are able (or not) to afford their lifestyle, people make the uninformed decision to move their fulfillment goalpost and chase a lifestyle they think they want — whether they can afford it or not.

Social media is also an example of technology disrupting boundaries. We’ll talk about boundaries with others in a minute, but first, what about boundaries with ourselves? Many of us have a hard time upholding our own boundaries when we get sucked into doomscrolling — spending hours mindlessly scrolling on social media. It is often easier to mentally zone out and waste hours scrolling than it is to prioritize our mental and physical health by doing other activities like exercising, reading a book, meditating, speaking with loved ones, or sleeping.

And if we’re not able to uphold our own boundaries, is there any hope for enforcing boundaries with others?

The other day I watched the movie, The Harder They Fall. The first scene is of a family sitting down for dinner. There’s a knock on the front door and the woman at the table comments, “Who could that be at this hour?” My immediate thought was: How early did people eat dinner back in the day, because it’s clearly still daylight outside? And my second thought was: I wonder what the cutoff threshold was for acceptable “calling” times back then?

Now I know this movie isn’t a true story, I bring it up for dramatic effect and to emphasize my point, which is: technology has broken down physical and cultural barriers for how and when we interact with each other. We no longer have to physically go over to someone’s house to give them a message or interact with them — all we have to do is pick up the phone. We aren’t writing letters and sending them via mail service or drafting memos and physically sending them around the office — we’re sending emails or Slack messages and expecting responses within minutes.

But thank goodness for technology, especially during the pandemic. It kept us all connected, informed, and kept businesses and people alive. However, during that time — when our homes became our offices — all remaining physical barriers were removed and working days that were previously bookmarked with a commute now blurred from one day into the next. Even master boundary setters were put to the test.

I work in the marketing industry, and so I’m very cognizant of this question. What role do you see that marketing and advertising has played in creating the frenzy caused by Hustle Culture that many of us feel?

Happiness is just around the corner… Isn’t that the essence of most marketing or advertising campaigns — promising a better life, better health, better looks? But what happens when you finally get around the corner?

Marketing and advertising (for the most part) perpetuate the cycle of hustle. Starting with the constant flow of messages that tell us we want more, different, or better; marketing plays into the psychological concept of hedonic adaptation — “the notion that after positive (or negative) events (i.e., something good or bad happening to someone), and a subsequent increase in positive (or negative) feelings, people return to a relatively stable, baseline level of affect.” (Diener, Lucas, & Scollon, 2006)

So, after you get the new car, new clothes, new job, new salary, new status, the celebration is fleeting and you’re back to not feeling satisfied — until the next ad promises something even more amazing — and the hustling begins again.

Can you help articulate the downsides of Hustle Culture? Why is this an unsustainable work paradigm?

There are so many downsides to Hustle Culture, but the two I’m most concerned about are: unhappiness and loneliness.

Despite being more connected than ever (through technology) the human population continues to grow more and more dissatisfied with their lives. This dissatisfaction — showing up as unhappiness and loneliness — contribute to increases in burnout, anxiety, depression, heart attacks, chronic illnesses, chronic pain, and suicide. This level of stress is not sustainable and I’m so glad that you have started the conversation about the true impact of Hustle Culture — because there is a better way!

Let’s now discuss Focus, the opposite of Frenzy. Can you please share one area of your personal or business life where you simplified things and then felt less frenzied and more fulfilled? Can you please explain?

One area I’ve simplified, both personally and professionally, is goal setting. I believe a symptom of Hustle Culture is wanting to achieve everything and yesterday — but that’s simply not possible.

When I first started my company, I was getting overwhelmed with the many goals I wanted to accomplish and found myself making very little progress on all of them. I also noticed my stress levels increasing and my satisfaction with my business and life decreasing. So, a few years ago I decided to choose a focus of the year or, as I call it, my highest goal.

My highest goal is a vision of where I want to be and where I want my business to be by the end of the year. There are of course many smaller goals that stem from there, but having this one point of focus helps keep me in check if my mind starts to suck the joy out of my accomplishments by comparing myself to others or distracting me from the path that I know will lead to success and happiness!

What life experiences have you adopted in your business or personal life that have left you more satisfied? Can you please explain?

One of the most impactful experiences I’ve adopted and has brought me great personal and professional satisfaction (and clarity) was defining my core values.

Before starting my coaching journey, I honestly thought my core values were the values of the company I worked for at the time — innovation, service, quality and thought. The only personal addition to that was my strong work ethic. It was then — during my very first coaching training session where we explored and defined our core values — that I discovered, while these are all great values, they weren’t mine.

After that, I continued to refine my values and further articulate what each of them meant to me. In doing so, I learned so much more about myself, how I was holding myself back, and where I wasn’t being true to who I was.

Our values are guiding lights and pillars of strength keeping us on the path to living our greatest life. If you don’t know what your core values are, or you haven’t connected with them in a while, I highly recommend completing a values exercise.

Okay, fantastic. Here is the main part of our interview. In your opinion, how can we break the addiction to being busy or trying to find the next big thing? How can people truly focus on tasks that make THE difference to their business and lives giving them satisfaction or life purpose alignment? Based on your experience and your area of expertise, can you please share “Five Ways To Move From Frenzy to Focused”?

1 . Define your focal point. I used to dance and when you first start learning to do turns you have to learn to spot. Spotting is finding one stationary point to focus on as you whip your head around with each turn. This technique helps maintain balance and prevent dizziness. Having a well-defined purpose statement in life is just like spotting.

As you go through life — which can often be swirly-twirly and ever-changing — if you don’t have a defined focal point, you might find yourself losing balance and focus. Having a well-defined purpose statement will keep you centered, guide you through tough decisions, and help you remain in alignment with all that you wish to achieve in life.

2 . Become a master solotasker. We think we’re masters at multitasking but I’m going to let you in on a little secret — none of us are! When you’re focused on everything, you’re focused on everything — and that sounds exhausting.

Stop splintering your attention and depleting your energy levels any faster than you need to. Instead, embrace solotasking — the practice of intentionally focusing on one task at a time.

This might look like dividing your days into blocks of time (e.g., 30 or 90 minutes) and dedicating your attention to one thing at a time. It could also look like greater awareness. For example, at the start of every meeting, take a few minutes to breathe deeply, clear any residue from the last meeting you were just in or thoughts that might already be creeping in about future meetings, and connect yourself to the purpose, attendees, and agenda of the current meeting.

3 . Be aware of your self-sabotaging thoughts and patterns. If life feels frenzied right now, I recommend taking a step back and noticing if that’s because things have piled up as a result of procrastination or avoidance.

You might be surprised to learn that fear is at the heart of procrastination. If you’re putting off completing something or doing everything else but your most important task — I’d ask yourself, “Who’s in the driver’s seat right now?” You might just discover that your fears have taken over.

Fear can sound like: “If I never do it, then I can never fail.” Or “Maybe it will just resolve itself.” Or “What if I say the wrong thing?” And so on and so forth.

I have perfectionist and people pleasing tendencies which can sometimes take over when I’m writing an article or creating a workshop. If I find myself in the kitchen cleaning halfway through the working day, I know I’m avoiding something. My brain gets frustrated and worried that I won’t be able to achieve perfection or perhaps I’ll be rejected by others and therefore tells me that it would be much more satisfying and safer if I go do something I know I can control, I can complete perfectly, and no one will reject me in the process. And let’s just say, in the process of preparing for this interview, I now have a very clean apartment!

Most often the simple act of being aware of these self-sabotaging thoughts or behaviors can help you course correct and refocus. But if you need a little extra oomph to get you back on track, then I recommend taking a few deep, clearing breaths and re-engaging using the following 3 questions: What am I putting off? Why am I putting it off? What is one thing I can do right now to move closer to completion? And then focus on that one thing.

4 . Zoom out. If you’ve been sucked into a frenetic vortex, sometimes the best way to refocus is to zoom out as far as possible.

Look at your current situation from a birds-eye view or visualize hopping in a helicopter and gradually rising higher and further away from where you currently are. You can use this visual exercise to not only give yourself a fresh perspective, but also to help shift your energy.

From this new vantage point, ask yourself: What can I see from here that I couldn’t see before? What’s possible from up here? When I land back on the ground, where do I want to focus my attention?

5 . Find your baseline — and reconnect often. Our nervous system can pick up what others are putting down. Said another way, when we live in a frenzied environment our energetic vibrations can start to mirror that of those around us. It is therefore important for us to reground, recenter, and reconnect with ourselves often throughout the day. Breathing is a great technique for this.

The following are three different ways for you to practice breathwork and return to your baseline energy:

1. Box breathing: Inhale slowly and deeply for 4 seconds, hold for 4 seconds, exhale slowly and fully for 4 seconds, hold for 4 seconds. Repeat this pattern 3 or 4 times.
2. Tracing your hand: Place one of your hands on a flat surface in front of you. Using your index finger on the other hand, slowly trace around each finger — as if you’re drawing the outline of your hand on the surface. Slowly and deeply inhale and hold as you trace going one direction, and exhale slowly and fully as you trace going the other direction. Repeat this pattern 3 or 4 times.
3. Connected breathing (after reading the following, close your eyes and try it out): Put one hand on your heart and the other on your stomach. Inhaling slowly and deeply, notice the rise of your chest and stomach. Now exhale slowly and fully, noticing the fall of your chest and stomach. Repeat this pattern 3 or 4 times.

How would you describe a work paradigm that is a viable alternative to Hustle Culture? What would it look like, and what would you call it?

I love this question because my 24/7, my why I wake up in the morning, is focused on a new paradigm of leadership — SoulFULL Leadership™. And I’m not just referring to leadership within organizations, I’m also referring to being the leader of your life.

What does this look like? This looks like leading and living life to its fullest with more heart and being connected to the part of ourselves that is often discarded — our soul. That spirited self that we usually leave behind when we’re leaning too hard into our headspace and strategic minds. The part of us that tingles inside when we’ve aligned our strengths with our passions. The part of us that is our inner glow.

We don’t have to sacrifice our health, our joy, our relationships, and everything in between to reach for our greatness. We can reach our greatness AND do it soulfully — we just need the right tools and operating systems to do so. This looks like overcoming self-sabotaging thoughts and behaviors, strengthening your mental fitness, and living life with purpose. In doing so, you can truly move through life with more ease, more joy, and more success.

Do you have any favorite books, podcasts, or resources that have inspired you about working differently?

So many! But I’ll share three:

• To better understand the stress cycle, I recommend: Burnout, by Emily and Amelia Nagoski.
• If you’re working on expanding your self-awareness and quieting your self-sabotaging thoughts, then I recommend: Playing Big, by Tara Mohr.
• And, if you feel like the work you are doing right now is unfulfilling but you yearn to find your flow or “zone of genius” (as Gay Hendricks refers to it), I recommend: The Big Leap, by Gay Hendricks.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can inspire.

Everything we’ve spoken about already is core to so much of what I do and what I believe in. I want to inspire people to move away from the Hustle Culture and toward a more soulful way of living. When we do this we shift out of survival mode and our default mode becomes kindness and compassion.

If I could inspire more kindness and compassion in the world — if that truly was my legacy — I would consider my life purpose fulfilled!

What is the best way for our readers to continue to follow your work online?

Readers that want to connect and find out more about working with me can find me on Instagram or LinkedIn or can book time directly on my calendar.

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for the time you spent on this. We wish you only continued success.

About The Interviewer: For 30 years, Drew Gerber has been inspiring those who want to change the world. Drew is the CEO of Wasabi Publicity, Inc., a full-service PR agency lauded by PR Week and Good Morning America. Wasabi Publicity, Inc. is a global marketing company that supports industry leaders, change agents, unconventional thinkers, companies and organizations that strive to make a difference. Whether it’s branding, traditional PR or social media marketing, every campaign is instilled with passion, creativity and brilliance to powerfully tell their clients’ story and amplify their intentions in the world. Schedule a free consultation at WasabiPublicity.com/Choosing-Publicity.