What if the stress you're managing isn't the problem — it's information you haven't learned to read yet? Sara Nakamura, well-being consultant and founder of StressXperts, spent years running three Starbucks locations in Las Vegas, working herself into heart palpitations, hair loss, and an autoimmune condition before her body forced a reckoning she couldn't out-hustle.

Sarah's the moment stress stopped being just part of the job arrived while she was managing three Starbucks locations — burnt out, running point-of-sale systems, opening new stores fast — and a 5:30 a.m. phone call brought news that her dog had died of an aggressive cancer the same morning her boss screamed at a colleague over a coffee break. In this episode, Sara and KiKi talk about what happens in the body long before a breaking point becomes visible — heart palpitations, hair loss, an autoimmune skin condition — and why "you're so sensitive" is often the last thing said before someone's body forces the decision their mind wouldn't make.

Sara shares the "I CARE" framework she teaches leaders and clients (Inside, Contain, Awareness, Realign, Energize) for reading stress signals before they become a crisis, why she calls it "adaptive intelligence" — the human operating system nobody teaches us to update — and how she helps high-performing executives see that the stress showing up at home is data about what's not working at all.

In this episode:

• The 5:30 a.m. call that ended Sara's corporate career
• Why "thin-skinned" was the last thing anyone said to her before her body forced the exit
• Stress as data, not dysfunction — and how to tell healthy stress from harmful stress
• The "I CARE" method for catching a stress spiral before it becomes a health event
• The "six areas of life" audit (C.Fresh) for finding where you're actually out of alignment
• Why leaders are often "great in the office" and falling apart at home — and what that gap is really telling them

Resources & Links:

• Sara's book, Stressed Out and Don't Know What To Do: https://amzn.to/3RVP9Lx
• Free gift from Sara (10-minute audio, "Relax to Ease Pain"): https://stressxpert.com/free-gift-from-sara
• Sara's website: https://stressxpert.com
• Connect with Sara on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sara-nakamura-901a5b3

Lindsay Friedman built two tech companies, walked away from the second after a patent asset sale, and swore she'd never build again. Then she became her grandmother's family caregiver — and the thing she said she'd never do again became the thing she couldn't not do.

In this episode, Lindsay walks through the roller coaster of her first startup (a total failure), the patent sale that quietly ended her second, and the night her grandmother fell and broke her femur — the moment that pulled her back into building, this time for reasons that had nothing to do with return on investment. She and KiKi talk about what it's like to still be asking "who am I right now?" years into a pivot, why self-doubt kept her honest instead of stuck, and how being a self-described "control freak" collided with running a business built on things she couldn't control.

Lindsay is now the founder of Care Bloom and LT Care Nav, and hosts the Caregivers Compass podcast. This one's for anyone whose "never again" turned out to be less final than it sounded.

HIGHLIGHTS

• 01:33 — "Everything" — the roller coaster that made her say never again
• 02:28 — The patent sale that quietly closed the door on company #2
• 09:00 — She ghostwrote her grandmother's Holocaust survival story at 19 — years before it would matter
• 12:50 — The fall that turned "never again" into a new company
• 25:33 — "I still look around and go, who am I right now?"
• 32:39 — Why self-doubt is what keeps her on the right path, not off it

• LT Care Nav podcast (Caregivers Compass) + book giveaway on care planning: ltcarenav.com/podcast

Things Go Sideways with KiKi L'Italien is a space for honest conversations about disruption, identity shifts, and reinvention — no tidy bows, just real stories about staying oriented when what you thought was certain collapses.

🎧 Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube — search "Things Go Sideways Podcast Lindsay Friedman"
📩 Subscribe to the newsletter at thingsgosideways.com for patterns, tools, and behind-the-scenes reflections you won't hear anywhere else
📱 Follow @kikilitalien for more

Matt West didn't have one sideways moment — he's had a sideways career. Musician, graphic designer, creative director, consultant, and now leadership coach: every time he got comfortable, the context changed underneath him. In this conversation, Matt (author of Bend, Don't Break: How to Adapt in the New World of Work) talks with KiKi about the layoff he now calls one of the best things that ever happened to him, and why he doesn't recommend saying that to anyone still in the middle of theirs.

They dig into the difference between healthy stress (eustress) and the kind that actually breaks people, why curiosity lowers the emotional temperature that control tends to raise, and how AI fear often has less to do with technology and more to do with losing the story we tell about who we are. Matt also opens up about "credible vulnerability," trusting himself, others, and systems in very different ways, and why he's grieved his professional identity more times than he can count.

The throughline is this...bending isn't weakness. It's what happens when you're rooted in values instead of titles. And it's the difference between adjusting and shattering when the ground shifts.

Read Matt West's book! Bend, Don't Break: https://amzn.to/4wlStPb

• 00:00 — Opening: what it means when things go sideways
• 00:56 — Matt West introduces Bend, Don't Break
• 01:34 — Why Matt calls it a sideways career, not a sideways moment
• 05:31 — Parenting decisions that were "imperfect, just messy"
• 09:38 — Where AI fear actually comes from (identity, not technology)
• 13:18 — Turning emotions into data instead of threats
• 15:32 — The layoff Matt now calls one of the best things that happened
• 17:56 — "The end of expertise" and why adaptability keeps you in the room
• 20:12 — Toxic positivity vs. healthy positivity and mental scripts
• 25:30 — Trust in yourself, trust in others, trust in systems
• 29:04 — Bend vs. break: the actual difference explained
• 29:43 — Eustress: the healthy stress nobody talks about
• 32:34 — What are you rooted to? Titles, opinions, or values?
• 36:17 — Why Matt wrote the book (it started as LinkedIn posts)
• 40:46 — Grieving identity, over and over again
• 43:04 — Advice for anyone feeling the ground shift right now
• 45:54 — Closing thought: bending is awareness, not weakness

Matt West's book: Bend, Don't Break: How to Adapt in the New World of Work — benddontbreakbook.com (also available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Bookshop.org)

Matt West's LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/westpractices