Vice President, Chief Ethics Officer and Assistant General Counsel, Evergy
Search every verified Kara Larson interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. Kara Larson, Vice President, Chief Ethics Officer and Assistant General Counsel at Evergy, has appeared on podcasts and given talks discussing productivity and decision-making. In a September 2022 appearance on "The Biohacking Secret Show," Larson described herself as a "productivity and performance nerd" and shared techniques for improving efficiency. She stated that she calculated having saved approximately $270,000 over eight years through various productivity methods. Larson discussed the Pareto principle, brain breaks, habit mapping, and the importance of eliminating distractions, such as by wearing noise-canceling headphones. She also recommended using rituals and audio components to boost intentionality when starting work. In a 2012 TEDxBROADWAY talk, Larson addressed the difficulty of predicting the future, arguing that people are generally poor at it due to factors like impact bias and situational bias. She cited examples such as King George III's dismissal of July 4, 1776, and Margaret Thatcher's prediction that a woman would not be elected prime minister of Great Britain in her lifetime. Larson suggested two alternative approaches: adapting to change as it comes, or actively creating the future rather than trying to predict it.
“I recently went back and calculated how much time I've saved myself through doing various things in high school, college work, etc., and over the course of my life I've saved approximately two hundred and seventy thousand dollars in eight years which is kind of mind-blowing.”
“Brain breaks are very simply put a form of meditation, breath work or movement that helps you get out of the logic of your mind and into your body, your breath, or focusing on something external such as nature. It's a way for you to give yourself a little mental recovery during the day.”
“Chris Bailey estimates that for every one minute we spend doing these brain breaks we get nine minutes back in our day, and he estimates that up to 30 minutes per day can increase your productivity by four and a half hours a day in theory if you really aren't practicing these at all.”
“One of my go-to brain breaks is doing an inversion at least once a day, which supports your lymph fluid and immune cells by draining it directly to your heart while getting the benefits of grounding.”
“Productivity routines help you get into the task faster by setting rituals and patterns, like plugging in your computer, putting your phone away, and adding an audio component to eliminate distractions and boost intentionality.”
“I recommend eliminating distractions by wearing noise cancelling headphones so you can stay focused and motivated, and I like to be cozy and relaxed with a fuzzy blanket and pillow nearby because that supports my routine.”
“Habit maps are a framework where habits equal your motivation plus your ability plus the prompts. If these are above an action line, you will automatically complete that behavior or habit; if below, you won't.”
“When trying to remove a habit like watching Netflix, I removed the remote prompt by placing it on a bookshelf I rarely visit, adding friction and making it harder to access, which helped interrupt the habit.”
“Addiction is heavily rooted in emotional and mindset work, so while habit mapping alone may not eradicate addiction, it can support substitution strategies, especially when combined with external accountability and a strong why.”
“The Pareto principle means that 20% of our efforts produce 80% of our results. For example, when creating a workshop, coaching time and actual creation were the 20% that produced 80% of the results, while research was the less productive 80%.”
“Almost everything we do requires making predictions about the future. If you put on a coat before you left the house today, it was in part based on a prediction about the future.”
“We have abundant evidence that we're terrible at predicting the future.”
“When we try to predict the future, we're either predicting future events or we're predicting how we'll feel about those events when they happen. And of the two, the second is actually the more difficult.”
“Surveys of single women always come back saying that most single women think they'll be happier married. But surveys of married women asking them how they feel now over and over again they're not as happy as the single women say they are.”
“Impact bias is overestimating how our future emotions will impact us or how future things will impact us. So, we assume that a happy thing that happens in the future will make us happier longer than it actually does.”
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Kara Larson is founder and principal of Arts Knowledge, a marketing consulting firm specializing in the performing arts. She is ...
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