Most business leaders hit their late 40s or 50s and quietly downgrade their physical ambitions. Cara Kleinhout — founder of a 20-year-old experiential marketing agency and longtime Stark student — did the opposite. She climbed Kilimanjaro, trained for a triathlon, and learned to surf, all after building the foundation of strength she never had in her 30s. If you've been telling yourself that peak performance is behind you, this conversation is a direct challenge to that story.
Cara describes her 50s as "an amazing pivot point that should not be dreaded, but welcomed." With her kids older, her team more capable, and her career established, she finally had the margin to invest in herself — and the results compounded fast. The lesson for business leaders: health ROI is highest when you stop treating wellness as a side project and start treating it as a core operating principle.
Her story also reframes the common narrative around menopause. Rather than treating hormonal transitions as a signal to slow down, Cara used that season as a forcing function to finally understand her body — her sleep disruptions, her energy patterns, her recovery needs — and build systems around them. That diagnostic mindset is exactly what separates high performers from everyone else.
When Cara first tried surfing, she was too exhausted to paddle out, let alone catch a wave. The culprit wasn't age — it was the absence of functional muscle. After training at Stark, she had enough power to trek Kilimanjaro and enough endurance to actually enjoy it. Todd makes the science clear: muscle is not a vanity metric. It's the infrastructure for every physical goal you have, from surviving a red-eye to keeping up with your kids to living independently at 80.
For women in particular, this matters urgently. Strength training in perimenopause and beyond is one of the most protective interventions available — for bone density, metabolic function, hormone balance, and mood. Cara weighs 18 pounds more than when she started training, and she's dramatically smaller. The scale was never the right instrument. We don't guess. We measure.
Cara isn't a perfectionist about nutrition — and that's precisely why it works. She loves to cook, preps colorful farmers market meals, and tracks her protein with a food scale. But on a dinner out or while traveling? She eyeballs it, knows her protein target, and moves on. No guilt spiral, no full derail. This 80/20 approach — doing an excellent job most of the time, not a perfect job sometimes — is what makes a health practice permanent rather than seasonal.
Todd echoes this: "Doing a decent job every day is better than an amazing job sometimes." Consistency beats intensity. For business leaders who can't control every meal, that's a profound reframe. The goal isn't a perfect week. The goal is a permanent lifestyle you can sustain across time zones, board dinners, and conference seasons.
What makes Cara's story land so hard is the why. She didn't start training for aesthetics. She trained to surf, to summit, to travel comfortably, to move through her 60s with confidence and zero apology. Her health practice is in service of a rich, adventurous, purpose-driven life — and that inverted motivation is what makes it stick when discipline alone would fail.
Todd calls this "health span" thinking — not just adding years to your life, but adding life to your years. Business leaders who operate from this orientation don't grind through workouts. They train toward something. The destination makes the discipline feel obvious.
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Medical Disclaimer: The information in this post is for educational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. Always consult a qualified healthcare provider before making changes to your health regimen.