TL; DL: Too Long Didn’t Listen

Resources mentioned in the audio episode:

* DHR Global Workforce Trends Report 2025

* Microsoft Work Trend Index Annual Report 2025

* 2025 Edelman Trust Barometer

Hey everyone 👋🏼

Welcome back to A Day in the Life. If you're new here, or haven’t been with me since the beginning of this Substack journey, let me say: I'm so glad you're here!

I started this whole thing to reveal the behind-the-scenes. The real life, the unfiltered stuff. Not just polished advice or curated aesthetic moments—but the messy, in-between, full-body experience of what it means to survive and show up in a world on fire.

I'm a career clarity coach, yes. But I'm also a solopreneur, a government contractor, and someone working at the intersection of nonprofit, government, and corporate development. And right now, I'm navigating all of that while the systems around us crumble—and while still trying to walk in integrity, practice what I preach, and stay grounded in something bigger.

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the foundations: why I started, how I'm surviving, and what it means to keep choosing self-trust in the face of structural collapse.

I grew up reading The Hunger Games, 1984, and Animal Farm. I share a birthday with George Orwell.

June 25.

Dystopia is kind of in my DNA—an intuitive understanding that structures can be beautiful and violent at once, that survival takes scaffolding, that systems can both support and suffocate.

But I also share a birthday with Yann Martel, the author of Life of Pi. A book about finding faith, about navigating absurdity with resilience and imagination. That paradox lives in me. Dystopia and belief. Collapse and care. And this is the paradox I see in my clients, in myself, in all of us right now.

We're living in this moment of reckoning. Internally and externally. And the question keeps returning: What does it mean to survive with sovereignty?

I don’t have a one-size-fits-all answer.

I don’t think there is one. But what I know is this: our nervous systems can’t afford to wait for permission. We have to start now—by feeling our feelings. By getting grounded. By remembering that there is no rescue plan coming.

So let me tell you about today. Second day of my boss being out of office. Chaos. ⛈️

I was scrambling to find someone to shadow-send our internal newsletter because there’s no formal process. At all.

My boss is usually the one who does it. He’s out. So I had to find someone else. Just ten minutes of effort, but somehow it drains more than hours of focused work.

At the same time, I’m getting emails forwarded to me with zero context, leading meetings that aren’t mine, pretending like I’m part of a team I’m not really part of. You know that feeling? That liminal, blurry contractor zone where you’re expected to behave like an employee but without the benefits, structure, or even real inclusion.

The truth is, most of corporate America—especially internal comms—operates like high school. Popularity matters more than clarity. Charisma trumps systems. I say something, and it gets overlooked. Someone else says it with a wink and a joke, and it lands. And I just don’t have the bandwidth for that right now.

After all this, I had to walk into a meeting with the director about a SharePoint article my boss dumped on me last minute. No training. No documentation. And every little action feels heavier when there’s no foundation.

And when something goes wrong? It’s the contractor’s fault.

But here’s the thing: I am doing the best I can. And that is enough.

This is what survival in the midst of chaos looks like:Scrambling for clarity. Losing work and redoing it. Navigating egos. Navigating systems that don’t have your back.

Feeling your feelings in tiny corners of an office because there’s no room to cry, or scream, or dance it out. And still somehow showing up.

And maybe, just maybe, learning to find your center in the middle of the chaos, not waiting for the chaos to end.

There is no perfect season to plant. You plant anyway. 🌻🌻

I build my own internal scaffolding—financially, emotionally, spiritually. I’m saving money. Getting out of debt. Mapping a plan. I’m aiming for $10k. Then $15k. Then $20k.

Not because that solves it, but because it gives me some breathing room to eventually leap.

There is no guidebook for this. We are [fill in the blank] (pushing back, taking up space, saying no) it as we go.

As a career clarity coach, I witness my clients doing the same thing. Building something out of nothing.

Doing what they can with what they have. Letting go of the idea that their worth is tied to a paycheck, or a polished plan, or anyone else's approval.

We're in this moment where the personal is political, the systemic is spiritual, and our resistance looks like self-trust. Looks like selfishness, in the best way.

Tending to our own needs. Hiring a coach. Saying no. Saying f*ck it. Feeling our feet. Feeling our feelings.

Every act of selfishness is an act of revolution. Every moment of sovereignty is sacred.

Let them underestimate you. Let the systems grind on. You? You just keep coming home to yourself.

If you want someone to walk with you in this in-between, to help you build your scaffolding and honor your capacity, I got you.

Share it with someone who needs it.

Until next time,Raquel

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