Saving You a Seat Karen Joy Hardwick

This week, I welcome Melissa Clark to join us at the table. As an expert in all-things therapeutic and mental health, Melissa focuses specifically on anxiety, body issues and identity issues. Melissa also hosts the podcast Thrive: The Art of Living Free.

Melissa and I jump right into the mental health issues millions of people are facing, how the pandemic exacerbated mental health struggles, and how we can move towards living a more connected life. Honest and real, we talked about how when we unpack our baggage, we are able to connect in healthy ways and move forward on our journey to true healing.

Melissa and I share our own  experiences and why it is so important to take care of ourselves spiritually and mentally. In a world that feels more disconnected than ever, we hope this episode brings a light on the true impact emotional wellness has on us as individuals and as a society.

Here’s what we connect on:


Why society is suffering from mental health issues and unraveling from the outside in, especially after the pandemic
How we are all addicted or co-dependent to something or someone in our distracted numbing culture
How practicing acceptance, openness and honesty in all relationships, starting with ourselves, can transform our most important connections
How giving up control, surrendering and letting go of our “stuff” allows us to experience true freedom, healing and hope with God
The power “seasons of silence” hold in self-connection, self-reflection and becoming more emotionally healthy and secure with ourselves and others

Thank you so much for saving a seat for us this week! Please rate this podcast and subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode!

To connect with Melissa, visit her at @melissaclarkcounseling on social media, melissaclarkcounseling.com and listen to Thrive everywhere podcasts can be streamed!

To connect with Karen, follow her on social media: @karenjhardwick and visit connectedleaderbook.com to order The Connected Leader today.

Joining us at the table this week is Sarah Kroger, Christian recording artist Sarah’s work is some of my favorite and her new album, Light, transforms hearts and invites souls to the love of Christ.  Don’t miss the single, Belovedness, if you need a reminder of how lovable you are.

Sarah and I chat openly about our shared love for all-things-healing. Don’t miss our conversation around the courage it takes to heal and truly own what we push deep inside and avoid at all costs.  It is throughout the healing journey that Sarah and I come to understand that recovering our true self is exactly what God wants us to do.

By accepting who we are, including the things we are healing from, we allow ourselves to exist as the Lord truly made us to be.

Here’s what we connect on:


Staying present in the moment, both big and small, even when it feels like distractions are ever-increasing
How Sarah’s new release, What a Wonderful World, celebrates life’s most beautiful and magical moments
How our Heavenly Father encourages us to own our belovedness, even when we feel most unlovable and lost
How we must walk a truly vulnerable path to healing and self-love by giving our “stuff” to God and facing our pain head-on
Keeping hope, feeling fulfilled,  and showing up for ourselves for ourselves even when it’s hardest

Thank you so much for saving a seat for us this week! Please rate this podcast and subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode!

To connect with Sarah, visit her on Instagram @skroger, online at sarahkroger.com, and stream her newest album, Light, on all streaming platforms. Listen to her latest release, What A Wonderful World here.

To connect with Karen, follow her on social media: @karenjhardwick and visit connectedleaderbook.com to order The Connected Leader today.

This week, I am excited to welcome Matt Tebbe and Ben Sterke to the table. Matt and Ben are the cofounders of Gravity Leadership, an organization focused on transformational leadership and discipleship.  We chat about how in order to evolve we need more than a change in practice: we need a change in paradigm.

Through eight transformative axioms found in their book Having the Mind of Christ: Eight Axioms to Cultivate a Robust Faith, Matt and Ben lay out a guide to connect with Christ that helps us be open more fully to God, ourselves, and others.  By putting on new glasses so to speak, we can embrace the healing and change God wants for our lives.

Matt, Ben and I dive into the important stuff:  letting go to accept God’s love, practicing self-honesty to invite healing, recovering (in many different ways) while walking a path of faith, and accepting ourselves and others for who they are – fully.

Here’s what we connect on:


How to achieve connectedness, and not correctness, with God
The healing power found in rigorous self-honesty
Waking up to God, who is already here and present
Learning that God shows up with unconditional love and acceptance in our messy reality, even when we aren’t able to show up for ourselves.
Looking past shame, fear and doubt to see the truth about ourselves by trusting in God.
How compassionate awareness, creative alignment and cooperative action are essential tools on our faith journey

Thank you so much for saving a seat for us this week! Please rate this podcast and subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode!

To connect with Gravity Leadership, visit them at gravityleadership.com, check out their book at gravityleadership.com/book and follow them on social media @gravityleadership.

To connect with Karen, follow her on social media: @karenjhardwick and visit connectedleaderbook.com to order The Connected Leader today.

I am elated to host the lovely Megan Felton at our table this week! Megan is a proud Enneagram type 6 and the co-founder of the beauty and skincare platform Lionne. Megan started Lionne out of her own struggles with rosacea and frustration with the oversaturation of products available to her. Megan’s skincare advice has been featured in publications like Elle UK, Vogue, Cosmopolitan and Women’s Health - so she is the real deal y’all!

Recently, Megan spearheaded the voice for change in the beauty industry, after joining forces with other skincare gurus and taking on celebrities like Brad Pitt. We dive deep into the nitty-gritty truth of being an entrepreneur and how the Enneagram can be a huge tool in personal growth.

The Enneagram assessment is a tool that can truly open our eyes to things about ourselves we may have never known. Specifically, the Enneagram brings out the good, the bad, and the ugly that we know exists deep down, making us aware of everything that makes us uniquely ourselves. Harnessing the power of knowing more about ourselves through the Enneagram is a major step towards growth in all aspects of our lives and a key in unlocking true connection with both ourselves and others.

Here’s what we connect on:


Connecting with reservoirs of resilience, hope and strength by using the Enneagram (6:06)
Keeping boundaries between personal and professional life as an entrepreneur (12:13)
Megan shares a beautiful (and true!) story about courage and standing for what you believe in, even if it means standing up to one of Hollywood’s biggest stars (18:25)
Bringing awareness to how oversaturated the beauty industry is today and how to find real products that actually work (26:32)

Thank you so much for saving a seat for us this week! Please rate this podcast and subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode!

To connect with Megan, follow her on Instagram @megfel, follow Lionne on Instagram @lionne.co or visit them online at lionne.co to connect with a skincare expert.

To connect with Karen, follow her on social media: @karenjhardwick and visit connectedleaderbook.com to order The Connected Leader today.

Fear is a universal experience for all of us,  whether it is physical or emotional. Fear forms a stronghold within our hearts and brains, latching itself onto every fiber of our being. Unconsciously, fear can push us to create coping mechanisms that do more harm than good to our brains, souls and hearts.

I have recently returned from a 30 day retreat completely focused on healing all the things that lingered and kept me in fear-based responses.. I had to face things I shoved to the back of my mental closet, yet I realized that I was super fortunate to be able to dive deeper than ever before.

Tune in as I  talk about what I focused on, what I learned as a result, and how I emerged clearer and more courageous. I hope this episode inspires you to do your work, show yourself empathy, and understand that we are all just bozos on the bus. Here’s to  finding the courage to finally unzip the luggage hiding in the bottom of our emotional closets and unpack what lingers there.

To connect with Karen, follow her on social media: @karenjhardwick and visit connectedleaderbook.com to order The Connected Leader today.

No one ever wants to hear that someone they know is diagnosed with a disease like Alzheimer’s - especially not when that someone is your loved one. Walking hand-in-hand with your loved one down the winding road of dealing with Alzheimer’s Disease is one of the toughest emotional rollercoasters imaginable.

Oftentimes, those of us charged with becoming a caregiver can feel completely isolated, alone, and misunderstood by the world around us. Finding healthy, sustainable, and manageable ways to cope and connect with ourselves and the world around us is, at times, the only light amid the darkness.

This week, I am delighted to welcome Marty Schreiber to the table. After serving as the 39th Governor of Wisconsin, Marty retired from public office to become a full-time caregiver for his beloved wife Elaine, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease almost 20 years ago. He is an Alzheimer’s Disease caregiver advocate and author of My Two Elaines. He is passionate about speaking out to help caregivers and their loved ones live their best life possible.

We hope this episode provides caregivers with some relief and lets you know that we see you. And if you are not a caregiver, we hope this episode gives you some insight into the long journey caregivers take with their loved ones.

Here’s what we connect on:


Marty shares his tips and what he wishes he would have done after spending almost 20 years as a caregiver, including how to join your loved one’s world, while also learning how to cope as a caregiver (6:00)
How Connection lives at the heart and center of coping as a caregiver (17:34)
Marty explains the backstory to his book + how he found joy with both Elaine's (23:08)
The importance of finding ways to keep consistent self-care as a caregiver in order to keep caring for your loved one (26:07)
Avoiding turning to unhealthy coping mechanisms and how caregivers can avoid that (29:42)

Thank you so much for saving a seat for us this week! Please rate this podcast and subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode!

To connect with Marty, visit him at mytwoelaines.com and order My Two Elaines everywhere books are sold.

To connect with Karen, follow her on social media: @karenjhardwick and visit connectedleaderbook.com to order The Connected Leader today.