Aug. 11, 2025

When Being Great at PR Gets in the Way of Life

When Being Great at PR Gets in the Way of Life
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When Being Great at PR Gets in the Way of Life
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Episode Summary

In this episode of That Solo Life, hosts Karen Swim, APR, and Michelle Kane dive into the unique challenges PR professionals face when their exceptional skills at work start to interfere with their personal lives. From overthinking to overworking, they explore how these traits, while beneficial in the professional realm, can hinder personal growth and enjoyment. Karen and Michelle share personal stories, practical advice, and encouragement to help solo PR pros find balance and live a more fulfilling life.

Episode Highlights
  • [00:18] Introduction: Karen and Michelle set the stage for today’s topic.
  • [01:00] The double-edged sword of overthinking: How it makes PR pros great at their jobs but can complicate personal life.
  • [03:16] Acknowledging the problem: The first step to overcoming overthinking and overworking.
  • [04:41] Personal stories: Karen and Michelle share how they’ve learned to step back and prioritize fun.
  • [08:10] The importance of taking breaks: Why PR pros need to take their foot off the gas routinely.
  • [10:07] Finding intentionality: How being deliberate about work and personal time can lead to a healthier balance.
  • [16:07] Learning to say no: Why “no” is a complete sentence and how it can protect your mental health.
  • [17:22] The power of fun: How rediscovering joy can make you better at work and in life.
  • [18:12] Final thoughts: Encouragement to put your PR tools away at the end of the day and live a full, rich life.
Related Episodes & Additional Information

Related Episodes:

  • Additional Resources:
Host & Show Info

That Solo Life is a podcast created for public relations, communication, and marketing professionals who work as independent and small practitioners. Hosted by Karen Swim, APR, founder of Words For Hire and President of Solo PR, and Michelle Kane, Principal of Voice Matters, the show delivers expert insights, encouragement, and advice for solo PR pros navigating today’s dynamic professional landscape.

Join us next week!

If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe to That Solo Life on your favorite podcast platform and share it with your network.

That Solo Life, Episode 309: When Being Great at PR Gets in the Way of Life
Transcribing live conversations can be tricky so please be forgiving of any typos or errors that you find. Love something here and want to share? Great, please read the notes at the end. Enjoy!
Michelle Kane (00:18):
Thank you for joining us for this episode of That Solo Life, the podcast for PR pros and marketers who work for themselves, people like me, Michelle Kane, with Voice Matters, and my wonderful co-host, Karen Swim of Solo PR Pro. Hey Karen, how are you doing today?
Karen Swim, APR (00:34):
I am doing well, Michelle. How are you? Doing
Michelle Kane (00:37):
Okay. Doing pretty well. We're getting into those last weeks of summer and I dunno, it's been a little weird out there, but that's okay. We're getting through getting it done as we PR pros do no matter what. We get it done.
Karen Swim, APR (00:52):
We do get it done, which can work against us sometimes.
Michelle Kane (00:59):
Yeah, I can. So that's why today we're going to talk about how being great at PR sometimes makes you not so good at life.
Karen Swim, APR (01:08):
So true. So this is a fun topic today, and I love this. We sometimes like to have those light moments and we know that you all do too.
Michelle Kane (01:19):
Exactly.
Karen Swim, APR (01:19):
And we have been chatting and something I've been working on is like most PR people, I'm a big old overthinker.
Michelle Kane (01:30):
Yeah, totally, totally. And like you were saying before we came on air, it helps us be really good at what we do.
Karen Swim, APR (01:40):
It really does because we overthinking helps us to run different scenarios. No one else. We can see all of the angles, the twists, the turns, and our overthinking helps us to be meticulous about execution. Great for terrible for living your life.
Michelle Kane (02:02):
I mean, it's always good to be a little troubleshooting, but yeah, sometimes I know for me, I am guilty of it too, and I'm definitely a recovering personal overthinker because you just get in your own way at some point. You just have to make the call. And I know, well, we both know we are not alone in this. And the way I describe this skill or value to my clients is I, I forget which Billy Bragg song it is, but I'm like, I'm your little black cloud in a dress. This is my job to point things out to you. But when you're just trying to live life and be a little spontaneous and it can be a drag, and honestly it can really stump you in many ways and hold you back. And I don't know, I think, not to get too armchair psychologist, but I sense that some of it is fear, right, for sure. Because if it's in your personal life, your day to day, it will likely revolve around unknowns as opposed to the knowns that inside and out in your work. So I just urge all of us to first of all acknowledge you have the problem and just try and relax a little more into this day-to-day decisions and see how it feels. It's going to feel weird at first
Karen Swim, APR (03:36):
To work on, I went through a lot of hard things this year as many of us have, and I think it pushed my overthinking and the overdrive because when you're in crisis mode for a prolonged period of time, you're just thinking and you're overthinking. And it got to a point where I realized, and then people close to me realized this too, that I had forgotten how to have fun
(04:06):
Because, and I wasn't really living. I was doing all the things and surviving, but I wasn't really living. And so it is a great character trait again for pr, but it really can get in the way. And so I have actively had to back away from that. So it's kind of like, okay, for my job, I'm going to think about things and I'm going to be meticulous about things and tend to the details. But when it comes to life, there are some things that you just overthinking will stop you from living your best life. And I don't want to do that anymore. So this is a fun topic to talk about, but it's also a personal one for me too. So I'm there with you if you were in the club of having this interfere with your real life. I get you. I see you, I understand you. And I'm telling you that it's possible to change.
Michelle Kane (05:01):
Yeah, it is. And I am right there with you having come out of some serious caretaking years and just kind of like, okay. And I think coupled with that is I noticed a change in myself when I started the business because especially at the beginning, you're pouring everything you have.
(05:19):
And I had an aha moment, a few, even several years back when I'm holding my glass of wine at a networking event and I'm thinking, oh gosh, this is my social life. That's not good. That's not good. Or you're having a coffee meeting with a business associate and you're like, oh my gosh. I mean there's nothing date-wise going on here, but I'm like, you really should be actually dating. Let's just, yes. And it's challenging because while our businesses give us freedom, they also require more of us than those. I'm not saying that people who are employed, yes, you work to the bone too. However, there is a good chunk of the place that gives you employment that you don't have to worry about at all. And it's definitely something to be conscious of. However, as time goes on, not only is this an unhealthy way to be, I think, and again, this is again going against the grain of our inclination of our profession. We need to take the foot off the gas in the hours that we have in our days and weeks. And like you say, yeah, I literally have all my to-do list, make sure I have some plain old fun. And that could just be indulging in 15 minutes of standup on YouTube, just making sure you get something in every day that's enjoyable, otherwise you will burn out. And I'm sure there's some of us that are very close to it.
Karen Swim, APR (06:56):
I see a lot of that around us. And as you said, that is a good distinction. This is not comparing like, oh, I work harder than you, but the reality for anybody who owns a small business like we do, we're not mega corporations, but when you own a small business, it really does become a part of you 24 hours a day. And so we have to work harder to disconnect. And I know again, for PR people, we overthink taking time off. So you may go away, you may take a vacation, but you're not doing things like we see other people doing. You're not taking a sabbatical where you're just pausing completely and you overthink being away for X amount of days. We all have our limit. Like, oh, well, I got this, I got that, and I don't know if I could leave this. We overthink it and we have to allow ourselves to have fun because life is not going to pause until you feel like you've hit a point of perfection or a point in your life where it's like, okay, now I can take my foot off of the gas. You have to take your foot off the gas routinely, and it's hard, but it is something that we can all learn to do and lean into and guess what?
Michelle Kane (08:21):
Yeah,
Karen Swim, APR (08:22):
Nothing bad happens.
Michelle Kane (08:24):
No, it does. No, for real. And I know both of us, and I'm sure many of you listening, we've all lived long enough and experienced enough to know that if we do not take the breaks, our body or our psyche will break us
(08:42):
In big and small ways. Just as you were talking about that, I think back to, and again, I am a recovering take time offer and life has given me actually in the bad. There's good lessons in dealing with my aunt's decline and my mother's illness at the same time. It showed me, yes, you can be away from the office, away from your keyboard and still hit your numbers every month and you can still make it work. Which has now taught me, oh, you know what? I don't have to grind every day. I can still get it done. And another thing, it's kind of taught me, because again, as you were saying, preparing to go away right away, I had those old feelings of the fatigue of sometimes it's you just figure it is just way too much work to work ahead. It's not worth it, but it is worth it. It really is. And it's important to keeping you refreshed and you work hard, so you deserve it. You deserve to have those times of replenishment. And I know it's easy to say, but it'll make you better on the other side, and it really will. And if you're like me, start small, start small, and maybe you'll get to the point in life where you become a member of the We do not Care club.
Karen Swim, APR (10:05):
And I think we have to get there. It's interesting because a lot of this is leading to finding that place of rest, which is so important for every human being. And I think about as PR people, because we are planners, we're thinkers, we get things done that that also can be a hindrance in our personal life because often we're the go-to for everything and everyone, which can also drain you. And so I know our audience will completely relate to almost needing to physically restrain yourself from jumping in when you see something wrong. We want to fix everything. And that is hard. It's impossible to see sometimes those things like, ugh, let fix that. Let me tell you what to do. I have given people marketing plans on the fly on the street, but I have learned to shut my mouth, drink my water, and keep it moving because I need rest and I can't off all the time. And so learning to ignore problems that I'm not being paid to solve, it takes a lot of work. I'm not going to tell you that I'm 100% successful, but I have done a much better job. And with time it gets easier to say, I'm not going to answer that question. I know the answer, I know how, but it's not my problem. And I say that to myself a lot internally, that's not my problem, just ignore it. That's not my problem. Just ignore it.
Michelle Kane (11:57):
Yes,
Karen Swim, APR (11:57):
That's terrible. Yes, I can fix it, but it's not my problem. And again, it's that separation and that didn't come naturally to me for some people in our profession, maybe it does. Maybe you are naturally able to turn it off after work. And if that's you, please share with us. Yes.
Michelle Kane (12:19):
Can you
Karen Swim, APR (12:19):
Tell us how you do it? As we all are for the rest of us who have to learn that skillset, it just doesn't come natural.
Michelle Kane (12:29):
No, no, it's so true. And I think through the years, I am also a performing people pleaser,
(12:39):
And I'm grateful that I just don't get the juice from it that I used to. It's not that I don't care. I have of course, take pride in doing good work that has not changed, but that little motivation of, oh, look what I did for you's, like it's either been squelched or beat up and put away. I don't know. But I think there's a lot to that. That is helpful. And yeah, like we were saying, it's like, can I ever just join a community group and just join it halfway, just be a cash? And that has been a struggle. And I know, I just know you ask yourself, how many times do you get involved with something and you have to be the one, sometimes you just don't want to be the one
(13:31):
To do the things, and that is good enough. Or how often do you have to be in these things? I don't know if anyone can relate to that. And we all do things for different reasons. Yes. It can also help bolster your business credibility. There I go again, bleeding the lines. But I think what I'm just trying to say is just try to do the healthiest thing for you in that season. And that is okay, you know what? Sometimes we just need to hear someone else give us permission. We will never give ourselves permission or it'll take a lot of knocks to give ourselves permission, but it's totally okay. And I agree with you, Karen, if someone out there can help us,
Karen Swim, APR (14:20):
I mean, I think one of the things that's helped me to really start to turn the corner is intentionality. And so when I am at work, I'm really intentional about my time and how I'm spending it. And at the start of every day, I just take a quick moment to review and decide what are the things that are most important to accomplish? So then when I'm showing up for work, I'm showing up in work mode with my professional self wholly and fully and doing the, but I'm equally intentional about the time away from
Michelle Kane (14:55):
Work.
Karen Swim, APR (14:56):
I'm intentional about how I use social media. I'm intentional about what's playtime and what's So I am not phone in hand all the time and looking and checking messages 24 hours a day. I just let it go because I've learned from life experience that no matter how prepared I am, no matter how much I care about things, no matter how much I overthink, if something terrible is going to happen, it's still going to happen with or without my permission. So I've even learned that if I'm at work, and I used to overthink like, oh, well, what if a member of my family calls and something has happened? Well, me missing a call and having to return it an hour later is not going to change that bad thing. That bad thing still exists. And so I've had to learn because I was in a really bad place, how to control my environment and how to not bleed the lines all the time because it can take a physical and mental toll on your body.
Michelle Kane (16:08):
Oh, truth, truth. I've learned the very difficult way that I used to have this. If it's crazy, this is what the voice in my head used to say in my twenties and thirties. Well, yeah, I have time, so I should do it. Or It's not going to kill me. I should just do it. And that's just dumb younger, Michelle. That was dumb. Because I think growing up in a culture of having that servant's heart, it doesn't mean to just literally run yourself into the ground. And so we just want to encourage you all out there to be okay with just saying no. As they say, it's a complete sentence, and we should know because we're word nerds.
Karen Swim, APR (17:04):
No, it's a complete sentence. And really ignoring problems when you're off duty, you really don't have to solve everyone's problem. Even if you have the answer, you're not required to give it. Show up for yourself. And I mean, something that my pastor said to me and two little words that really hit home for me because it was something I had been thinking about is he told me to have fun. And I realized, yeah, I haven't been having a lot of fun lately. That's good advice. So focusing on that has been a game changer for me. And honestly, it's made me better at work because, because I am living my whole entire life and not just a portion of it. So PR people for those characteristics that make us great at our jobs, remember that they should have an off button so that you don't cheat yourself out of living a full and rich and complete life.
Michelle Kane (18:12):
Yeah. In fact, as you said that, I pictured picture that we maybe picture it as though our PR skills are actually tools we use with our hands. And at the end of the day, you put the tools away, you lock up your locker and you go home even if home is the next room. So I know we're encouraging each other to keep this up, and we also encourage you, and honestly, if this has been your path or you're realizing this, we definitely want to hear from you. Hit us up@solopro.com. And until next time, thanks for listening to “That Solol Life.”
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