Clarity on Fire

Welcome to another episode of Dear Krachel, a monthly advice segment where we answer audience questions about life, career, relationships, existential angst, and anything that helps you become a more whole, fulfilled version of yourself.

On this episode, we're answering questions from:

• Hannah, who's feeling drained by a co-worker who can't stop complaining. How can she stay above the negativity? Or is this a sign she should quit ASAP?
• Kate, a freelancer who loathes the thought of going back to an office because she fears she'll have to turn off her real personality in favor of her "work" personality. Is it possible to be "workplace appropriate" and stay true to your personality?
• Gillian, who's interviewing for a new job. She knows she can't pretend to be someone she's not to get a job, but on the other hand, she thinks her honesty and true personality are polarizing and off-putting in interviews. What's a girl to do when both lying and truth-telling end in bad results?

After you've listened, leave us a comment to let us know if our advice for these three listeners resonated with you, too.

Want to submit a question for our June episode of Dear Krachel? Fill out this form and you might hear us tackle your Q!

THIS ISN'T FATE

Carl Jung said, "Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate."

A lot of us (these Dear Krachel letter-writers included) are, consciously or unconsciously, allowing deep-seated fears and old patterns to direct our life. If you don't question and uproot those patterns, you're guaranteed to keep getting the same results.

If you're tired of patterns you either aren't aware of (or are aware of, but can't get rid of) controlling the direction of your life, and you'd like to take back that control, then that's exactly what we do in 1-on-1 coaching.

If you're seriously considering coaching, read this page and then click "sign me up" to talk to one of us about the possibility.

IF YOU LIKED THIS, YOU'LL ALSO LOVE…

Navigating a toxic workplace with Stacy Campesi (February 2019)

Side Chat: When you want to fix someone, but can't (March 2019)

Side Chat: Why positive thinking is mostly BS (April 2019)

Side Chat: "I'm not enough" vs. "I'm too much" (February 2019)

Getting over your "all or nothing" obsession with Amy Everhart (October 2018)

Blog: Are you tired of pretending to be someone you're not? (April 2018)

Blog: A story about when I was publicly insulted (October 2018)

LINKS

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You've seen the Facebook ads promising that "you too can have your own business making six-figures from your couch while wearing yoga pants — or no pants! Just download this quick guide, and you're on your way."

And you can't miss the countless Instagram accounts of burgeoning entrepreneurs who (at least according to their carefully curated social media feed) seem to constantly be working poolside, traveling the world with just their laptop, and generally living it up now that they're self-employed.

Maybe you've even read The 4-Hour Work Week, or another one of the countless entrepreneurial books that have hit the bestseller list in recent years, promising huge payoffs and tons of freedom in exchange for just a few hours a week of running your "lifestyle business" online.

In case you're not familiar with the term "lifestyle business," it's the newly popular way of describing a business you create with the primary intention of it supporting your ideal lifestyle. Usually that means having location independence, total creative freedom, schedule flexibility, and unlimited income potential.

Sounds amazing, right?

It's no wonder so many people are attracted to this concept right now. Millennials, in particular, seem to want more flexibility and autonomy in their career than previous generations, so a lot of us find the idea of a lifestyle business especially alluring. But no matter who you are, this is tempting.

I'm sure you're sensing a "but" coming, and you're right. Well, more like a yield sign. Because I'm obviously a big fan of lifestyle businesses! I'm the freaking co-owner of one.

And it's actually because I'm so intimately familiar with the inner-workings of this type of entrepreneurship that I want to make it super clear what it's REALLY like behind-the-scenes.

That way, if you're considering starting your own lifestyle business — or if you're feeling tempted by those perfectly posed Instagram photos of laptops in exotic locations — you'll have a real picture of what it's like so you can make the right decision for you.

IF YOU LIKED THIS YOU SHOULD ALSO LISTEN TO…

Ghosting your job with Lana Jackson (May 2018)

Blog: How to transform what you don't want into what you do want (August 2018)

Blog: Why you should keep new ideas to yourself (December 2018)

Side Chat: The 4 Passion Profiles (December 2018)

LINKS

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We continue to be delighted that we can keep celebrating our one-year podcast anniversary in true introvert fashion—separately, in the comfort of our own homes.

To round out this party we've got another special episode for you! It's an interview with an expert, except this time the expert is interviewing us.

We invited our friend Brit, creator of Marketing Personalities and proud listener of every episode we've ever published, to ask us her most burning questions, and she delivered!

She wanted to know things like:

Why did you start a podcast, and how did you actually feel about making something brand new? (Hint, one of us was thrilled, the other had to be convinced). Do you ever get totally SICK of thinking on a deep level?? What's the one thing each of you continually trips over in life? Your Achilles Heel, so to speak. You guys have a great dynamic, but what do you actually end up arguing about? Can you riff on how difficult it is to brag about yourself, as a woman? How do we not diminish our accomplishments? What do you each think your ultimate life purpose is?

Do YOU have any burning questions for us after listening to this? We're always game to answer, in the comments!

And, if you missed our first celebratory episode, a couple weeks ago we played "36 questions to fall in love with anyone," which was a real blast. At the end of that episode we also shared the top 10 most downloaded episodes from the past year, so check that out, too:

THE ONLY REAL PRISON IS THE ONE IN YOUR HEAD

At the end of this episode you'll hear Rachel say that one of the most common things she tells her clients is this: "You're sitting in a jail cell, feeling sad and frustrated and completely powerless to escape … except you're holding a key."

Coaching is the thing that helps you realize how you've been holding yourself back, and then how to free yourself. Plus, it helps you figure out what to do once you are free.

If that sounds like what you need, we'd love to chat with you about the possibility of coaching. Fill out the quick form on this page and we'll be in touch!

MORE ABOUT BRIT

Brit Kolo is the Creator of the Marketing Personality Type Framework at MarketingPersonalities.com and the host of the Marketing Personalities Podcast. Through her framework, designed to match you with your best marketing strategy based on your Myers-Briggs Personality Type, she's here to shake up your approach to marketing and inspire you to grow your business in a feel-good way. Meet Brit and get ready to go deep, find your true self, and grow that business of yours WITHOUT feeling fake and salesy at MarketingPersonalities.com.

Don't know your MBTI type? Find out at 16personalities.com

LINKS

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Yesterday I was listening to Oprah's new Super Soul Conversations podcast (it's basically just edited, audio-only versions of Super Soul Sunday TV episodes), where she was interviewing Paulo Coelho.

If you haven't heard of him, Paulo Coelho is the author of the mega-bestselling allegorical novel The Alchemist, which was published 29 years ago and still hits the New York Times bestseller list regularly. (If you haven't read it, you really should. It's one of those rare books that contain within it almost everything you'll ever need to know about life. Kristen and I did a book club episode about it last year, which I'll link to!)

Anyway, what struck me about Oprah and Paulo's conversation was what happened to him when he was 17.

He said that his parents really wanted him to be an engineer, like his father. His parents had experienced a lot of instability in Brazil, so they wanted something safe, secure, and socially esteemed for their son.

But Paulo always wanted to be writer, and he was adamant about it.

His parents were so distraught by his insistence on being a writer that they genuinely believed something was wrong with him … and so they committed him to a mental institution three times.

He spent his years between the ages of 17 and 20 being committed to institutions and then escaping every time before they finally gave up! (Of course, the ultimate irony is that he ended up becoming a world-renowned author and making ten times more money than anyone in his family.)

Fifty years later, we read a story like that and think his parents were the crazy ones. There's nothing wrong with someone just because he wants to be a writer, for god's sake! But this isn't a thing of the past. In fact, his story echoes something one of my clients shared with me a few hours ago.

IF YOU LIKED THIS YOU SHOULD ALSO LISTEN TO…

Blog: Are you tired of pretending to be someone you're not? (April, 2018)

Side Chat: Overcoming impostor syndrome (July, 2018)

How to find your tribe and grow a network with Carolyn Birsky (April, 2018)

Bonus Book Club! The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho (August, 2018)

LINKS

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Submit your question for a future episode of Dear Krachel

Check out our YouTube channel

You may not have seen this coming, but we're saying it: Positive thinking ain't all it's cracked up to be.

If this sounds suspicious for a couple of life coaches to be saying, you're going to want to listen (or watch!) this month's side chat. We're diving in to the compulsion that SO many of us feel to stay positive at all times, and why that is NOT necessarily a good thing.

We talked about:

• Why so many people feel guilty or ashamed for having thoughts that aren't positive
• How pretending you're upbeat and positive, when you're definitely not, does a lot of emotional damage
• Why the ugly emotions—rage, anger, grief, sadness, frustration, jealousy—are totally acceptable, and not scary
• How to stop "faking it" and let yourself feel everything
• How to tell the difference between fake positivity and real positivity within yourself

After you've listened, leave a comment to let us know if you've been glossing things over with false positivity, and how this conversation sits with you!

WANT HELP PROCESSING EVERYTHING?

When you give yourself permission to feel ALL the things—positive, negative, and everything in between—there's a LOT to sort through. How do you tell what's important? What do you focus on first? And how to do you figure out what the end goal is?

Those are questions you don't have to answer on your own! If you'd like to get out of your own way, make more progress in months than you've likely made in years, and have an expert take the responsibility for guiding you through the ups and downs, then that's what 1-on-1 coaching is for:

Fill out the quick form on this page and we'll talk it out.

IF YOU LIKED THIS, YOU SHOULD ALSO LISTEN TO:

Emotional constipation with Joanna Platt (April, 2018)

Side Chat: Curing your people-pleasing disease (May, 2018)

Side Chat: We are not the crazy ones (how to tell if you're a highly sensitive person) (April, 2018)

Side Chat: When you want to fix someone, but can't (March, 2019)

Bonus Book Club! Outrageous Openness by Tosha Silver (November, 2018)

Bonus Book Club! It's Not Your Money by Tosha Silver (March, 2019)

LINKS

Mari Andrew's Instagram: @bymariandrew

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Back when Clarity on Fire was brand new, Rachel and I were seriously hustling.

(And trust me, that's definitely not a humble brag. I am NOT someone who likes to hustle. Even the word hustle feels gross to me. But there's no better way to describe what life was like back then.)

We were working at full-time office jobs, going through an intensive coach-training program, and getting our business off the ground simultaneously.

I recently looked back at my Google calendar from those early days, and I'm astounded by how jam-packed it is. I genuinely don't understand how I juggled all of that!

So it's no wonder I desperately wanted to quit the full-time gig and give all my energy to Clarity on Fire. There were so many days when I was this close to walking in my boss' office and giving my notice semi-impulsively.

But I was terrified to take the leap. All these fears kept creeping up, and they all got back to the same scary question: What if I gave all my energy to this business … and it failed?

It was then that I had a realization that changed everything and convinced me to give this thing a shot:

In this week's brand-new blog, I'm sharing one big perspective shift to help you get over your worst-case scenario thinking, as well as a few ways to significantly lower the chance that your worst-case scenario will ever happen in the first place.

IF YOU LIKED THIS YOU SHOULD ALSO LISTEN TO…

Change your bad habits (& get over your fear of failure) with Jessica Binder (March 2019)

Bust through any block with Ryan Mathie (January 2019)

Blog: When is it worth getting out of your comfort zone? (September 2018)

Blog: How you can stop freaking out about not knowing the future (April 2019)

LINKS

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Well, this was supposed to be a normal person interview, but Kristen got sick and then our normal person got sick, so apparently the Universe wanted us to do something else this month!

So, have you heard about the 36 questions that lead to love? They're based on a psychological study that explored whether or not intimacy could be accelerated by having strangers ask a set of personal, sometimes probing questions. (Spoiler alert: One professor married the guy she tried this with!).

Obviously we've known each other for a decade, and we're not trying to fall in love, but hey, it's always fun to get to know your friends better! A lot of these questions are the type you could ask anyone—family, friend, co-worker—that you'd like to know on a deeper level.

We asked each other questions like:

• Given the choice of anyone in the world, whom would you want as a dinner guest?
• Do you have a secret hunch about how you will die?
• If a crystal ball could tell you the truth about yourself, your life, the future or anything else, what would you want to know?
• What do you value most in a friendship?
• What's one surprising thing you do like about me, and one unsurprising thing you don't like?

And, because the Clarity on Fire podcast is officially 1 year old, at the end of the episode we shared the top 10 most downloaded episodes from the past year! Check them out below.

We'd love to hear if this episode inspires you to get to know someone in your life better! And come share how you would answer some of these 36 questions in the comments.

TOP 10 MOST DOWNLOADED EPISODES FROM THE PAST YEAR

10. Treating life like a magical scavenger hunt with Francisca Hernandez (November, 2018)

9. Getting un-stuck from a beige existence with Nate Otto (July, 2018)

8. Side Chat: We are not the crazy ones (how to tell if you're a highly sensitive person) (April, 2018)

7. Ditching your perfectionism with Terece Hahn (October, 2018)

6. How to work less, live more, and make great money with Katie Mongelli (July, 2018)

5. Emotional constipation with Joanna Platt (April, 2018)

4. A former recruiter tells all (& helps you get hired) with Emily Liou (September, 2018)

3. Exploring the 16 personality types with Leslie McDaniel (August, 2018)

2. Side Chat: How to figure out what to do with your life (June, 2018)

1. Side Chat: Curing your people-pleasing disease (May, 2018)

LINKS

The original New York Times article about the 36 questions that lead to love

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Kristen and I are pretty seasoned in the ways of job-quitting. In my first three years of working post-college, I had three jobs and quit them all. And Kristen quit her very first job after 5 weeks (though they deserved it for having a series of meetings about whether or not to start a LinkedIn page for the company. I mean, come on now).

Maybe it's our mutual rebellious attitudes, but we've both been pretty YOLO about quitting (which has likely done nothing to help correct the notion that Millennials are entitled and disloyal, but that's a matter for a different day). The way we see it, if you don't advocate for yourself then you can't expect anyone else to step up to the plate.

But not all of you are so c'est la vie about quitting. In fact, most people we coach have a lot of hang-ups about it, like:

• I don't want to disappoint my co-workers.
• I can't leave if I'm in the middle of something.
• People will think I'm disloyal.
• What if they just can't operate without me?
• What if they can't find someone else to do my job?
• I haven't been here long enough to leave.

So, in this week's brand-new blog I'm giving my best counterarguments against these common job-quitting hang-ups, all to convince you that you truly don't need to feel guilty about leaving.

IF YOU LIKED THIS YOU SHOULD ALSO LISTEN TO…

Blog: Why selflessness doesn't make you a good person (February, 2019)

Permission to pivot (in your life & career) with Marissa Burdett (March, 2019)

A former recruiter tells all (& helps you get hired) with Emily Liou (September, 2018)

Side Chat: Curing your people-pleasing disease (May, 2018)

Dear Krachel: I love my job but hate my team. Should I quit? (August, 2018)

LINKS

Leave us a comment on this episode

Take the Passion Profile Quiz

Submit your question for a future episode of Dear Krachel

Check out our YouTube channel

Welcome to another episode of Dear Krachel, a monthly advice segment where we answer audience questions about life, career, relationships, existential angst, and anything that helps you become a more whole, fulfilled version of yourself.

On this episode, we're answering questions from:

• Larry, a Thriver who struggles to give people a good response when they ask about his job, which he isn't passionate about. How can he talk to people without sounding like a downer?
• Single Dimple, a hair stylist who's scared that promoting her services will make her look like she's begging (or worse, downright sleazy). How can she get over her fear and sell herself without being salesy?
• Chris, who has a boss that's TERRIBLE at running her business. They barely have enough clients to stay afloat, but her boss isn't willing to hear any feedback. Is it better to secretly job hunt or nicely tell her boss that this isn't working?
• Michelle, another woman with a terrible boss! When business got slow her boss promised her a minimum base pay, but it's been weeks and nothing has changed. What do you do when your boss is giving you the run-around?

After you've listened, leave us a comment to let us know if our advice for these four listeners resonated with you, too.

Want to submit a question for our May episode of Dear Krachel? Fill out this form and you might hear us tackle your Q!

THIS ISN'T FATE

Carl Jung said, "Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate."

A lot of us (these Dear Krachel letter-writers included) are, consciously or unconsciously, allowing deep-seated fears and old patterns to direct our life. If you don't question and uproot those patterns, you're guaranteed to keep getting the same results.

If you're tired of patterns you either aren't aware of (or are aware of, but can't get rid of) controlling the direction of your life, and you'd like to take back that control, then that's exactly what we do in 1-on-1 coaching.

If you're seriously considering coaching, read this page and then click "sign me up" to talk to one of us about the possibility.

IF YOU LIKED THIS, YOU'LL ALSO LOVE…

Dear Krachel: Should I do a job I hate for a few years (for the money)?

Dear Krachel: I feel invisible. How do I get people to notice me?

Dear Krachel: How do I recover from burnout?

LINKS

Leave us a comment on this episode

Take the Passion Profile Quiz

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Check out our YouTube channel

My dad is fond of teasing my mom about how, back when they were in college, she would buy all of her school books, take them home, and immediately flip to the back of each book.

As she glanced through the final chapters of each textbook, she would get more and more anxious. Eventually, fighting back tears, she'd throw her hands up and say, "I don't understand any of this! I'm never going to make it through these classes."

My dad would always chuckle and reassure her by saying, "Of course you don't understand the stuff in the back of the book. That's why you're taking this class! So that by the time you get there, you DO know how to do all of it."

We all laugh about this story now. It's one of those Thanksgiving-table stories that gets told over and over again.

But as I've gotten older, I realize that this story isn't just a funny family anecdote. It's actually a great analogy for what most of us do all the time.

We're all peeking into the "back of the book," trying to figure out what's coming and how we're going to handle it, and getting overwhelmed by everything we don't know yet.

In this week's throwback blog from November 2017, I'm sharing what to do INSTEAD of wasting your time worrying or shutting down options because you don't have all the answers right now.

IF YOU LIKED THIS, YOU'LL ALSO LOVE

Finding a dream job after years of searching with Teanca Shepherd (September, 2018)

Side Chat: A mind-blowing, time-bending analogy (October, 2018)

Bonus Book Club! Outrageous Openness by Tosha Silver (November 2018)

Predicting the future (the right way) with Madeleine Joan (December, 2018)

LINKS

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Take the Passion Profile Quiz

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Check out our YouTube channel