Lara Heacock is a Life and Leadership Coach, author, and speaker - and she’s one of my best friends in the world. She brings almost 20 years’ experience in Corporate America . She runs popular personal development blog KindOverMatter.com, and works with professionals and companies to help them use Kindness to end the epidemic of burnout in America. Lara has built her life and her business with kindness placed firmly at the centre of it. But when she talks about kindness, she’s not talking about fluffy kittens and things just being ‘lovely’ Kindness involves clarity, boundaries, focus, and action. Kindness isn’t ‘soft’ or unconcerned with performance. Instead, kindness in business places human to human interaction at the heart of our decisions, behaviors, and values. Kindness is about valuing ourselves and our colleagues, prioritizing well-being (not just because it’s the ethical thing to do but because it has a massive impact on our ability to perform), and having courageous conversations with compassion. In this episode Lara talks about her own business journey and what led her to the realization that Kindness was what she wanted to build her life around. She shares the big ‘Why’ behind her business and also what led to her latest book - Practical Kindness - 52 ways 52 Ways to Bring More Compassion, Courage, and Kindness into Your World For the first time there are a significant number of people leaving jobs for non-financial reasons. My Why? I want to end burnout in the workforce and I want to use kindness as the change agent that does that. My personal coaching practice was about helping people to be kinder to themselves and a large amount of people I worked with were on the edge of burnout- like teetering on the edge and I’m really good at helping people get past it and now I want to get to the root of it. I want to get underneath it and I want to prevent it from happening. We start with the foundation of self-kindness - I don’t think we can actually change anything else until we change the way we treat ourselves. Connect with Lara at Kind Over Matter, Lara Heacock and you can read her book Practical Kindness: 52 Ways to Bring More Compassion, Courage, and Kindness into Your World from all good bookshops.