It can be hard owning up to mistakes, but President and COO of Athletic Greens Kat Cole says that the more comfortable we can get with things not going perfectly, the better we’ll be at taking risks and trying new things. In this Taboo Tuesday episode, Kat and Dr. Emily discuss mistakes, loss, and grief and how to balance all of the above while also carving out a successful career. From asking for help to enduring a miscarriage, Kat doesn’t shy away from talking about her own experiences, including what she says was the worst mistake she ever made in her career and how she worked to turn the situation around. Tune in now for this thoughtful discussion on how to be honest, open and resilient in work and life. 

Staying emotionally fit takes work and repetition. That's why the Emotionally Fit podcast with psychologist Dr. Emily Anhalt delivers short, actionable Emotional Push-Ups every Tuesday and Thursday to help you build a better practice of mental health, as well as surprising, funny, and shocking conversations on Taboo Tuesdays - because the things we’re most hesitant to talk about are also the most normal. Join us to kickstart your emotional fitness. Let's flex those feels and do some reps together!

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The Emotionally Fit podcast is produced by Coa, your gym for mental health. Katie Sunku Wood is the show’s producer from StudioPod Media with additional editing and sound design by nodalab, and featuring music by Milano. Special thanks to the entire Coa crew!

JUMP STRAIGHT INTO:

(02:45) - Kat on mistakes, loss, and grief - “I have learned to appreciate that there is a spectrum which has allowed me to feel whatever I feel in the moment, but understand that it could be worse or it could be better and have a sense of perspective."

(6:15) - A framework for managing emotions - “I'm still a leader. I still have responsibilities for this team. And I have to decide if I'm going to show up, how do I modify? Because my words and my body language and my tone and everything that could be altered by something that's taking my energy, will definitely be misread if I do not otherwise explain it.”

(11:34) - Asking for help - “It is realizing that if I don't bring that help forward, there is a high likelihood for the receiver, for the audience, for the employee, that it will be a suboptimal outcome. And I should not be so complacent as to believe that a worse version of me alone is better than a little less of me and more of someone else.”

(16:18) - What care looks like for Kat - “I am responsible for my care, like full stop. At the same time, I think like most people, I don't know what I need. I just know I feel lost or sad or something in a moment. And maybe the answer is a hug. Maybe the answer is a text of, ‘It will be okay.’ Maybe the answer is my husband just saying, ‘What can I do?’” 

(20:15) - On making mistakes - “The more people get comfortable with things not going perfect or great, the less fearful they will be to make mistakes, and the more likely they will be to lean into something new or unfamiliar or non-traditional.”

(26:23) - The worst moment in Kat’s career - “They automatically leaped to, ‘You lied. You're just like every other corporate hack. You want to make money off of our backs. You can talk to our lawyers.’ And it was a long fall emotionally. And essentially, outside of losing life and losing love, I believe there's nothing worse than losing trust.”

The worst moment in my professional career. I was a new president at Cinnabon. I thought I was hot shit because I came in as a first time president and all these things are going so well. People were loving me. I was loving them. And after I announced a new channel, a new element of the business, a new way to do business, they automatically leaped to, "You lied. You're just like every other corporate PAC. You want to make money off of our backs. You can talk to our lawyers." And it was a long fall, emotionally,

Welcome to Taboo Tuesday on the Emotionally Fit podcast! I'm Dr. Emily Anhalt and I've always loved talking about taboo subjects, sex, money, drugs, death, because being a therapist has taught me that the feelings we're most hesitant to talk about are also the most normal. Join me as we flex our feels by diving into things you might not say out loud, but you're definitely not the only one thinking.

Quick disclaimer that nothing in this podcast should be taken as professional advice, diagnosis, or treatment because while I am a therapist, I'm not your therapist and I'm not my guest's therapist. This is intended only to spark interesting conversation. Thanks for tuning in!

Hey, there Fit fans! I am so excited to be here today with Kat Cole, President and COO at Athletic Greens. Kat is a truly inspiring leader operator and investor, and has led brands and teams at companies like Cinnabon, Auntie Anne's and Jamba Juice. In her past life, Kat was Vice President at Hooters, leading the company's global growth through franchising, training, and operations. She's been named to Fortune's 40 under 40, and is on the board of directors of companies like Slice and Milk Bar. And she's one of those people who holds audiences of all sizes captive with her wisdom and thoughtfulness. I've been in so many conversations with her where everyone around me has had their mouths just hanging open in awe of everything that she was sharing, and I feel exactly the same. I've had the honor and pleasure of collaborating with her over the past few years. And I'm really excited to have this conversation with her, where we'll be discussing the taboo topics of making mistakes, loss, grief, and reinvention. Kat, thank you so much for being here today.

So excited to be here.

It's an absolute pleasure, and I'm really looking forward to digging into these taboo topics of making mistakes and loss and grief and reinvention, which I think all kind of circle around the same theme of us being fallible and life not being always so clear or not always being able to get to where we're going in a straight line. So I'm curious if you can just start by telling us a little bit about yourself and then we'll dig in from there.

Sure. Present day I'm President/COO and Board Director of one of the fastest growing nutrition companies in the world called Athletic Greens, famous for its foundational nutrition drink AG1, and I'm just having a blast helping people on their health ownership journey. I'm a mom of two amazing littles, Ocean and Arrow. I am a child of a single parent and an alcoholic father. I have two younger sisters that I helped raise when I was very young that led to the whole journey of starting to work early. I'm an angel investor in over 80 early stage companies, along with my husband. It's been a side hustle and a passion for many, many years. And I am a super fan of yours and I am so, so, glad that we met on Clubhouse during the lockdowns and so grateful to be in your orbit.

Oh, the feeling is so mutual. And I am honored also for Coa to be one of those companies that you are invested in.

Yay.

We're so lucky to have your wonderful presence. Kat, I'm going to dig right in. So I'm curious about what your own journey with making mistakes and loss and grief and reinvention has looked like? And this, I'd imagine, applies to every part of your life. So start with whatever feels top of mind.

Yeah. I mean, hearing that question makes me think first of the spectrum of mistakes and loss and grief. Some mistakes feel like little M mistakes. Some mistakes feel like big M mistakes. Some moments of grief also feel like little G versus big G. So I have learned to appreciate that there is a spectrum, which has allowed me to feel whatever I feel in the moment but understand that either it could be worse or it could be better, and have a sense of perspective.

And so I think about a few things. On one end of the continuum, I've shared stories throughout my adult life, since I've been with my husband, of multiple miscarriages between the children that we've had. And so literal loss of what could have been, of potential, of time, of all of these things that create little G and big G grief in a moment. And then learning to appreciate my husband, who is my partner, but in a different way, and his journey in those moments. And having a process to check in with each other to both honor what we might be feeling, loss or grief in that moment, and figure out how we can show up for each other in whatever way makes sense in that moment.

And so there's a lot there, but those are literal moments of loss. And then more macro feelings of loss and grief with what's going on in the world at any given moment. And so the coping mechanisms or the skills to recognize when I'm feeling it, what I can control and can't control, what's normal and human, what serves me and doesn't, and having a way to put things in perspective that doesn't bury feelings, but honors it and then allows me to use it as fuel or goodness or something that's inspiring, as opposed to spiraling down into them. Miscarriages, hearing of loss, distant loss, societal grief, geopolitical traumas, things that are happening around the world. So, I like many, are hypersensitive to those.

Well, let me double click into one of those.

Yeah.

If you're willing. So I think one of the unique perspectives that you can bring that I think would resonate with a lot of people is how complicated it is to be a female leader, with a lot of agency, and leading a lot of people, who is at the same time managing her own feelings of grief and loss, especially around something like miscarriages. Because the metaphor I use often is that a leader is a lot like a parent. There are a lot of people looking to you to understand what the ethos of the company is and what is and isn't okay. They want to feel supported and cared for. Of course, it's not exactly the same, but I'm curious what it was like for you to be holding this huge group of people as a leader while also holding your family through these very real losses.

Yeah, it was interesting. I remember the second miscarriage I was in peak boss executive leader mode. I was traveling a ton for keynote speeches and for acquisitions. I was president of the parent company. And so I had nine presidents reporting to me. So a large amount of responsibility of leading leaders who lead leaders who influence other things. So to your point, much responsibility where others rely on my presence, my engagement, and my ability to bring mostly my best self, most of the time. And that second miscarriage, I was traveling for a keynote speech. It happened in the hotel the night before.

And the way I've navigated something like that is just I ask and answer and then act on three questions. First is, "Am I physically okay?" And if the answer is no, everything else is off. I don't owe anyone, anything. It's not going to be good for me to try to show up. That, the container, the body, if I cannot say, "Yeah, I'm okay. Or I will be, or I'm on the path." All bets are off. I need to remove myself out of the game to take care of myself.

And in that case, because I had experienced it before, because I called my doctor, I talked through everything, I could honestly answer the question, "I am physically okay." Then the second question, "Am I emotionally okay?" And my answer in that moment was, "No, not right now, but I will be." Part of that was because I had navigated it before. Some of it was also just maturity and perspective.

And so then the third question is, "Can I, and if so, how, can I engage in a net productive way for those I lead and for me?" And if the answer is no, I need to alter the way I would engage or remove myself, take the day off, not come to the meeting, arrange anything that I possibly can with the level of information being shared that I am comfortable sharing.

In that moment I decided, "I'm physically okay. I'm not emotionally in this moment, but I will be. And I can engage in a net positive way. I will do the speech tomorrow because it will make me feel a bit normal and probably give me a little bit of an escape." And so I did it, crushed it, it felt good, but that flight from that keynote to the next meeting I had for diligence on an acquisition, I cried the whole flight, just like tears rolling down. And there was a dinner that night that I was supposed to attend. And I texted the group and said, "Hey, just landed. Not feeling well. I'll see you guys tomorrow. Please represent me." I said enough to say, "There's a reason I'm not coming." But not the details.

The next morning, one of my team members, because I had shared, reached out and said, "Are you okay? Would you like us to start without you? Is there anything you need?" I said, "No, I'll be there, but I may need to step away on my phone a few times. Please don't read into it. Everything's okay. I just need to deal with some things." And so it was managing the optics, so I'm deciding to show up, but understanding if I don't explain what will be altered norms of my behavior, people will come to their own conclusions as to why or it can be viewed as disrespectful. And so those questions and those decisions have become a bit of a framework for me when I'm experiencing loss or grief or trauma. And then I'm still a leader. I still have responsibilities for this team and I have to decide if I'm going to show up, how do I modify? Because my words and my body language and my tone and everything that could be altered by something that's taking my energy will definitely be misread if I do not otherwise explain it.

Yeah. I want to just recap this framework beause I think it's really powerful. And I'm going to turn what you said into sort of step four and five. So step one is, "Am I physically okay?" If you pass that and want to keep going, step two is "Am I emotionally okay?" Step three is, "Is there a net benefit? Do I feel capable and willing and able to do what I need to do here?" It feels like step four is share enough with people around you that you are not navigating it completely alone, and it sounds like step five is set expectations, be clear.

Yeah.

Provide context, such that you are not having to explain and navigate a tough situation at the exact same time. Does that feel like a accurate recap?

Yeah. Love it.

So tell me a little bit about how you have navigated asking for help versus moving through these kind of moments on your own. Because I know a lot of leaders express that they know intellectually that they should ask for help and support, but when push comes to shove and it's actually time to do it, there's some kind of feeling of, "If I were a really good leader I would do this on my own," or, "I should protect people from these things." How have you navigated that balance?

First is really keeping the end in mind. And what would I view as real failure, if I'm candid with myself or even in a moment where I haven't been this thoughtful, I'm just aware that there's something going on where I would benefit from some help? It is realizing that if I don't bring that help forward, there is a high likelihood for the receiver, for the audience, for the employee, it will be a suboptimal outcome. And I should not be so complacent as to believe that a worse version of me alone is better than a little less of me and more of someone else.

That's well put.

There is some ego involved in these decisions, not ego in the, "I'm the best and nobody else is as good as me," but the technical ego, the sense of self, and how I will be viewed, and so that helps, that framing, that restructuring of what really matters in my mind as success, then makes it a responsibility to ask for help. And it creates this condition where I'm not saying, "Do my job for me." I'm saying, "I am humble enough to recognize that the outcome is what matters here. And I am humble enough to understand that there is help that could solve for any risk. And I am grateful enough and enough in recognition of your talents and your skills to recognize you being involved and helping could be of huge benefit."

And I have found that most people are grateful for the opportunity to assist. And especially when there is this heart centered human element to it. And it's really beautiful.

Yeah.

It's so cool. And then of course, recognition of their contribution to whatever that group is, and both private and public gratitude for them stepping in to have a role in whatever that work is.

That was all spoken like such a true leader. I love everything you said and imagine that there are a lot of leaders out there who by reframing that are going to feel more able to ask for help. But let me also ask you, because everything you just spoke to was in such beautiful service to the people that you lead. And I'm curious what it also looks like for you to get the support for you as a human?

Yeah. I mean it's like air coming out of a balloon. For many that I've observed, certainly for me, when my balloon is so full of the air of the responsibility to deliver? That's heavy. It literally is like a balloon where if you think of a balloon being pulled tighter because of everything that's filling it. There's no slack. If the wrong thing hits it, it pops. And so what does that mean? That could mean my temperament could change or my willingness and energy to engage in a way that I normally would, to fill my balloon with social interaction might be less, and people would, it's not the leader I want to be in a moment. And so it feels like relief, it feels like community. It feels like this is the way things are supposed to be. And it fills me with a growing desire to find those moments where I can be that person for other people, either when they ask and I think, "Oh my gosh, I'm so happy to help." Or maybe they've been in companies where that wasn't appreciated or welcomed or encouraged.

It makes me look for the signs and be more sensitive to it so I can say to someone, "Hey, I heard you mention that this is going on or I've noticed X, Y, Z. Is there anything I, or someone in the company can do to support you? To help? Just a reminder, we can always move meetings. We can always be off camera." Reminding people of the flexibility that we have. Even the best of cultures, not everyone believes it's true until it's put to the test on teams and in companies. And so those moments I benefit personally, and it fills me with the gratitude and the sense of duty and responsibility and desire to reverse the roles and reciprocate, certainly for that person, but for others in general.

Kat, I'm just so struck by even this pointed question about what do you need for you? You still end up talking about how to really best support your team. And I know the two are tied.

Very much so.

I think that is part of what makes you able to do what you do is you truly, it sounds like you really find balance through your ability to support other people, which is a lovely thing.

And at the same time, I am so clear that I am able to do that if I am cared for.

And what makes you feel cared for? Where do you go for care? What does that look like?

Part of that is these decisions that I would make to ask for help. I am responsible for my care. Full stop. At the same time, I think like most people, I don't know what I need. I just know I feel lost or sad or something in a moment and maybe the answer's a hug. Maybe the answer is a text of, "It will be okay." Maybe the answer is my husband just saying, "What can I do?" And then that creating some feeling of support and even control to a degree. And part of that includes those who are in a position to intimately care, being comfortable communicating.

I mean, I remember I came home from my son's soccer practice and the coach of the soccer team told me randomly without of context that he needed help at the game watching his youngest son. He said, "Could you help watch my two year old while I coach the actual game?" I said, "Of course. I'd be happy to help watch your son." And that was it. I didn't ask why. I didn't say anything. And he goes, "I'm just parenting solo these days." And I thought, "Okay." And then at the end he said, "My wife passed away suddenly a few months ago." And I like, my God. I mean, I came home to my husband and just lost it.

And it was a moment of just deep, deep, empathy for him as a parent, for these boys. And then I'm just filled with joy that my kids still have two parents and recognizing that could go at any moment. But then I literally came up to my husband and I was like , "I need a hug." And that is care. That is care for myself to be able to just feel that emotion in the moment, to ask for help, whatever that is, and then to feel release and that I'm a feeling being and allowing someone else to be a part of that care.

And that's a tiny example of a moment of something that didn't in particular affect my life. And those are the moments where we, I think, make deposits with other humans that remind them of our humanity regardless of our role in our relationship or in the company. And so caring for myself is allowing myself to feel, having boundaries like I've mentioned with questions that allow me to exercise those, but then letting people in to those boundaries to be a partner. And even if it's just a brief moment, like what I've described. But sometimes it's something bigger and more enduring and that partnership's even more important.

I feel like I got to just go on a meta version of that journey with you just now. I mean, everything you spoke to is such a beautiful example of leading with empathy, of letting yourself lean into the emotions that are coming up, letting them pass through you so that you don't carry them around with you all the time, and then using them to move forward. I feel if more leaders could do that, all organizations would be stronger as a result. So thank you for not only telling us about it, but feeling through it with me.

Yeah.

That felt really powerful to me and to have a framework described and then actually have someone say, "Here's what it actually looks like to go through it." To me, that's when change can really happen because it's experiential and it's experienced near. So I really appreciate all of that. And I know that we came today to talk about grief and mistakes, and I think the two are really tied. And I'm curious how you see these two bridge together.

Yeah. I think some mistakes, I have felt little versions of grief, that I'm grieving what was, the moment before, which felt really good or high or great. But what's different often is that in mistakes there's agency there. I did it. And so it's reacting to a different thing with different dynamics. And a mistake, by its definition is, like, "Oh, I've done something suboptimally or I could have done it better." And I have had many, many, many, especially given the number of new roles I've been in. I just started in business early, ended up opening businesses around the world with teams I had never met. When you don't have longstanding relationships and structures and systems and environments, there's constant friction or constant collisions of new dynamics that ensure mistakes.

And over time I've learned what contributes to those, behaviorally and psychologically. So lifting and shifting a playbook from one environment to another, without considering the variance of dynamics at play, and thinking, "Oh, I need to stop believing I had the answers from what went well and just duplicating that. I need to look back at the smart questions I asked and ask them again. And give space for what answers might be different to then act on." And that has been at the core of so many of my mistakes. The assumptions, right? I'm assuming something is similar, whether I know I'm assuming it or not. And that has taught me over the years to be far more thoughtful in asking questions, going into a new business, a new team, a new investment, yet still there are mistakes.

And here are a few quick things that I've learned. One is sometimes people are in such a tough moment with mistakes, that much like grief it is hard for them to get out of the trauma of it, the frustration of it, the anger of it, on their own. And then can wallow in it, or when people feel really lost, force others to wallow in it. And I've seen this with leaders. They're looking for multiple points of shared accountability and in doing so can unintentionally be challenging people to almost relive the mistake over and over. And what they're really looking for is partnership and ensuring it doesn't happen again. "How do I as a leader, how do we as a team, make sure we get better going forward?"

And acknowledging what contributed to a mistake is a pivotal piece of that, but it is not all of ensuring new behaviors. It's just a piece. And in certain environments, certainly I've seen in certain cultures, there's a leaning to either wallow in it or feel really bad for a long time, as opposed to, "I recognize that a mistake is a part and parcel to anything new. I need to learn from it. Ensure whatever I can control, that can be better and should be better, is implemented. I am consistent with it. Also, if my mistake has affected others, in any way, owning that, apologizing for it, apologizing for whatever led to it and my role in it." Conveying that feeling because it will also eat it at people on the inside if not conveyed. And then sharing what I will do about it and asking and enrolling others and making things better as well.

Some leaders feel sole accountability to improve things going forward, and often the root of mistakes is not involving the right people or not listening to the right people upfront. And part of the lesson is how to collaborate, how to have different systems in the company for new channels or new products or new stages of growth, and everyone owning their part but then focusing on forward. And at the same time, recognizing when little mistakes happen, little misses, and finding a way to celebrate the learning in those, to normalize it, and so the more people get comfortable with things not going perfect or great or well in service of learning and then iteration and improvement, the less fearful they will be to make mistakes and the more likely they will be to lean into something new or unfamiliar or non-traditional.

And because I did so many new things at a young age, I made so many mistakes, I benefited, selfishly, personally, from the outcome of sharing a mistake. "Here's my role in this. This is what I want to do better next time. I'd like your help with." "Great. Let's do that." When it happens, high five, "Thank you so much. This is a team effort." If you think of it as a line, if you zoom out, it looks up and to the right straight. If you zoom in, it's sort of up and down, up and down, but the trend is up and to the right. But I see a different pattern at play often, which is, imagine that line going from the bottom left to the top right, but there are moments where you sort of loop up or down and back and then come up a little farther together, and it looks like these loops that actually are the one step back or two steps back to take the next step up.

And those are the little mistakes and big mistakes that can lead to like a video game, like unlocking the next level, and you won't unlock the next level until you make some of those mistakes. And so I've learned to have the mindset that I sure would rather make these mistakes earlier, faster, and when we're smaller than when mistakes are higher and see those boo-boos as a, "Well, I don't love it. Here's what I could have done differently. Here's what I will now do differently. Let's share in that with those involved, but I am sure glad it didn't happen when we were 2X the team size and 3X the revenue. And so let's learn from it and move on."

Here, here, to that. Could not agree more. I'm curious, would you be willing to share one concrete mistake that you've made and how you handled it, what you learned from it?

Yeah. My favorite example is the worst moment in my professional career, an epic low. I was a new president at Cinnabon. I was 31 years old. I'd only been there a few months. We were turning the brand around, out of the heart of the recession. I had earned a ton of trust with the franchisees. We were putting things in place that were benefiting the business. It was, even though it was coming out of a very tough business environment, pretty much rainbows and butterflies. People were loving me. I was loving them. I thought I was hot shit because I came in as a first time president and all these things are going so well. And it's sort of like, remember, things are never as bad as they seem or rarely as bad as they seem and they're rarely as good as they seem.

And we had a new channel, a new element of the business, a new way to do business. It was licensing. It was sending ingredients to a retailer so they could make a version of our product. And essentially it was underway before I joined. I learned about it, knew it would be a little controversial with the franchisees because it was the first time we had put branded product in a meaningful way in a fresh baked environment outside of their locations. So I got all the information and communicated it to the franchisees. I put my name on the initiative, communicated what I believed was going on to the franchisees. And it was going to be this product, with this shape, that is different than what you sell in this place, all the reasons that it shouldn't set off alarms, even though it was going to be sensitive no matter what. And we're going to watch it and we're going to work together and it's all going to be great.

And they didn't love it, but they said, "Okay, thanks. It's different enough. Let's be careful. Let's watch it together." Three days after I announced this product and this multi-channel partnership, I got a picture emailed to me from the founder of Cinnabon, who was a franchisee that was essentially the exact product they sell in their locations being sold for half the price in this location. It was not the different thing that I said it was. And so they automatically leaped to, "You lied. You're just like every other corporate PAC. You want to make money off of our backs. You can talk to our lawyers." And it was a long fall, emotionally. And essentially outside of losing life and losing love I believe there's nothing worse than losing trust. And I had lost their trust.

And the short version of an interesting story of how does those types of things happen is that I had failed in my responsibilities as a president. I had not asked the questions I should have of the initiative, I had not pushed and challenged when I saw things being a little bit different. I had the humility to ask, "Who am I to question them, these people who have been here so much longer than me and these people who've been in business longer than I've been alive?" I had the humility to ask that question. It was out of deference and respect, but I failed to have the courage to answer it. And the answer is, "I am the freaking president and if I don't ask questions, no one will." I did not ask questions, therefore that product turned into something else than what the sales guy and I had initially agreed to because the retailer demanded the real thing, the sales guy's like, "Yep, cool. Let me get you the recipe."

And voila, we have now legal conflict or potential legal conflict and a crisis of confidence in me as a leader, which put our employees in a very difficult position because the franchisees were livid. And then I had to go to our CEO and say, "We've got to pull this product from this retailer. We had the legal right to do it, but we did not handle it right." And so I took full accountability to the franchisees for this happening. I apologized. I made sure that we were going to put the patient in the ER and stopped the bleeding, denuclearized the situation as I called it, which was committing to pull out of the business, walking away from millions in profits, that also affected my team's bonus that year to people that I had hired to manage the business we had to let go, but it was the right thing to do.

So we pulled the contract, walked away from the money, made the changes in process. And ultimately the franchisees said, "Okay, we see through your actions that you are clear who is at the center of this business, even if other pieces of the business will get bigger financially." And a funny thing happens when you do the right thing for the right reasons, because we had bigger and even more controversial opportunities come our way that we did execute and lean into, and yet when I brought it to the franchisees, they said, "Because of how you handled that situation, we support you. And we know you will make sure you handle this the right way." And it like 2X'ed and then eventually 3X'ed the business.

But I had made the mistake early in my journey, recovered with integrity and action, and then put that in place to build just stronger ways of working going forward.

It makes me think of one of my favorite quotes is the "perfect parent" does not prepare their child for an imperfect world. And I talk about it a lot also that the perfect leader does not prepare their team for an imperfect world. That I don't think it's a leader's job not to make mistakes. I think you actually are doing more for your team by making mistakes and then showing how to move through those mistakes and take accountability and fix them. That's actually going to do more for your team than if you'd never made a mistake because it allows them to be human and it shows them what it looks like to take accountability and move through. So that's a great example of that. Thank you so much for sharing that one with us.

And the time has flown by, as it always does with you, Kat. And so, where I want to end with you is where we end every Taboo Tuesday, which is we're going to show you a list of taboo questions about all kinds of different taboo topics. Read through them. Pick whichever one you like the best.

Okay.

Read it out loud and give us a quick answer about it, and that's how we'll leave everyone today.

Okay, cool. I feel like it's going to be Wheel of Fortune. Spin the wheel and see what question you get.

One irrational thing that I'm afraid of. I have these moments, out of nowhere, for no real immediate reason, envisioning something terrible happening to a member of my family. We were walking across a bridge daily, my husband and I and our two kids. It's one of these little bridges that is a pedestrian bridge with high walls, no chance of anyone, nothing can happen. We're over train tracks. And it's cool and the kids are like looking at the train that's coming and it's, again, safe as can be. And we were in the middle and I out loud, went, "Ooh." And was my husband was like, "What?" And I just literally had the thought of one of them falling over the edge.

And that probably happens once a week, once every two weeks, and I can move through it. It is irrational. There is no immediate threat, but my body reacts, viscerally, as if there is eminent risk, because the thought of the possibility comes in my mind. And I have just said these are moments that are reminders to pay attention as a parent, as a human. There is no reason for that. There is no risk. And we're going to keep walking across the bridge.

I think every parent out there is like, "Yes, I relate." And I relate too that I don't know that our fears are rational most of the time, even. We're not necessarily built to only worry about things that are very likely to happen. So I can appreciate that very much. And I just can't tell you how much I appreciate our conversation and you flexing your feels and breaking an emotional sweat with me. I love the framework you're shared. I love getting to see your empathy in action and I am so grateful for you. Thank you for being here, Kat.

Likewise. Thank you.

Thanks for listening to Emotionally Fit, hosted by me, Dr. Emily Anhalt. New Taboo Tuesdays drop every other week. How did today's taboo subject land with you? Tweet your experience with the hashtag #EmotionallyFit, and follow me at @DrEmilyAnhalt. Please rate, review, follow, and share the show wherever you listen to podcasts. This podcast is produced by Coa, your gym for mental health, where you can take live, therapist-led classes online. From group sessions to therapist matchmaking, Coa will help you build your emotional fitness routine. Head to joincoa.com, that's join-c-o-a.com, to learn more, and follow us on Twitter and Instagram at @joincoa. From StudioPod Media in San Francisco, our producer is Katie Sunku Wood. Music is by Milano. Special thanks to the entire Coa crew!