Your Inner Advocate

Episode 224: One Less Day: The Wake-Up Call I Didn't Know I Needed In this episode of Your Inner Advocate, host Kimen Petersen delivers a powerful, deeply personal message about the trap of "someday" — that comforting but dangerous word that sounds hopeful while quietly keeping you stuck. Drawing from his own experience of leaving a nearly finished book in a "steam trunk" for over a decade before...

Episode 223: You Can't Go Back. But, You Can Go Forward Wiser.   If you could go back — knowing what you know now — what would you do differently? In this episode, Kimen Petersen explores the weight of regret and the difference between wishing you'd made different choices and wishing you'd lived a different life. He argues that every mistake, wrong turn, and painful lesson helped shape the person...

Episode 222: The Real Flex: Being Grateful for What Didn't Work Out   Most of us know how to be grateful when life goes our way — the job, the relationship, the diagnosis that comes back negative. But in this episode, Kimen Petersen flips the question: How grateful are you when it doesn't work? Kimen makes the case that the real measure of growth isn't gratitude for the gifts you received, but gra...

Episode 221: Want an Extraordinary Life? Get Comfortable Being Misunderstood. What if the life you're trying to build requires you to be misunderstood — not for a day, but for years? In this episode of Your Inner Advocate, Kimen Petersen unpacks the uncomfortable truth behind pursuing something extraordinary: you cannot build an extraordinary life while requiring ordinary levels of approval. Kimen...

Episode 220: Resilience - The Quiet Trust That Gets You Through Anything We've been sold a myth about resilience — that it belongs to the unbreakable, the people who never stumble, never cry, and never ask for help. In this episode, Kimen Petersen dismantles that myth and offers a radically different definition: resilience isn't about being unbreakable. It's about knowing that when you do break, y...

Episode 219: Be Kind: It Matters More Than You Think! In this episode of Your Inner Advocate, Kimen Petersen makes a passionate case that kindness is not a soft, optional add-on to life — it's one of the most powerful things we can offer another human being. Drawing on a deeply personal story of feeling invisible at a party and being tracked down by someone who noticed his absence, Kimen illustrat...

Episode 218: What If You’re Someone’s Inspiration and You Don’t Even Know It? What if the person you're hardest on is someone else's inspiration? In this episode, Kimen Petersen explores the gap between how we see ourselves and how others actually perceive us. We replay every failure, notice every missed opportunity, and let our inner critic narrate the story — but the people watching us see resil...

Episode 217: You Matter More Than You Realize — Even When You Think Nobody Notices What happens when you become so good at functioning that you forget how to live? In this deeply personal episode, the host explores the quiet struggle of feeling invisible — to others and to yourself — and offers two powerful reframes: stop measuring your worth by your output, and stop needing to see the whole futur...

Episode 216: You Can Be Unfinished and Extraordinary his episode of Your Inner Advocate with Kimen Petersen challenges the way we measure our own progress. We tend to fixate on the gap between where we are and where we want to be — the "trap of 'not yet'" — using our future goals as evidence that our present isn't good enough. But as Kimen points out, we're often living inside the answers to our o...

Episode 215: Dare to Fly: Stop Letting Your Fears Drive Your Life   What if the thing you're most afraid of isn't failure — it's discovering what you're actually capable of? In this episode, Kimen Petersen challenges the stories we tell ourselves about readiness, risk, and living a "reasonable" life. He shares his personal journey of leaving a job that pushed him to the edge, going back to school...

Episode 214: What If It’s Supposed to Be This Hard?   This episode reframes difficulty as a signal of growth rather than a sign something is wrong. The host argues that hard doesn't mean "stop" — it means you're stretching, adapting, and building capacity, just as muscles grow through resistance, not ease. Drawing on a personal story from training for a marathon (including a brutal 30K+ run where...

Episode 213: Stop Wasting Your Energy on Little Problems — Choose One Worthy of Your Life This episode of Your Inner Advocate with Kimen Petersen reframes how we think about life's problems. Rather than chasing a problem-free life, Kimen argues that problems are often evidence that something matters — and the real question isn't whether you have problems, but whether they're worthy of your life an...

Episode 212: The World Told You to Toughen Up. What If It Was Wrong?   This episode of Your Inner Advocate reframes sensitivity — often labelled a weakness — as a potential source of strength. The host shares a personal story: when asked their greatest weakness, they answered "I'm sensitive," and their greatest strength was the same trait, just expressed positively ("the little things make me happ...

Episode 211: The Person You’re Becoming Is More Important Than the Person You Were This episode of Your Inner Advocate (by Kimen Petersen) confronts the painful belief that time or years of life have been "wasted." The host shares his own story — years spent misaligned with his purpose, a health crisis that became a turning point, and going back to school later in life — to argue that survival isn...

Episode 210: Embracing Uncertainty - Certainty Can Only Take You Where You've Already Been This episode of Your Inner Advocate explores why certainty—while comfortable—keeps us stuck living out what we already know, and why real growth only happens on the other side of uncertainty. The host argues that chasing guarantees before acting is a trap: confidence isn't knowing what will happen, it's trus...

Episode 209: The Cycle Ends With You: Turning Your Pain Into Purpose This episode of Your Inner Advocate challenges the popular saying "hurt people hurt people." The host argues that while pain can shape us, it doesn't have to define our destiny — hurt people can also become the most compassionate, protective, and healing people in others' lives. Drawing on a personal childhood memory of feeling u...

Episode 208: "Be Here in This Moment" -  The Tattoo That Changed the Way I Live My Life   Summary This episode of The Internal Advocate explores the habit of mentally living anywhere except the present — replaying the past or rehearsing the future. The host shares the personal story behind a spiral tattoo reading "Be here in this moment," gotten around age 40 as a reminder after years of anxiety,...

Episode: 207:Love Deeply. Cross Oceans. Give Freely. — It’s Okay If Others Can’t Swim at Your Depth. This episode of Your Inner Advocate reexamines the popular saying "Don't cross oceans for people who wouldn't cross a puddle for you." Rather than urging listeners to give less, the host argues that the real lesson is to keep giving freely and loving deeply — while letting go of the expectation tha...

Episode 206: Life only has Three Answers to any Question you Ask In this episode of Your Inner Advocate, host Kimen Petersen explores a powerful reframe for anyone who has ever prayed, worked, and sacrificed — only to feel like life never answered. The central idea: life never gives you a negative answer. Every request you make — for love, healing, opportunity, or a breakthrough — receives one of...

Episode 205:The Square Peg Superpower: You Were Never Meant to Fit In In this episode of Your Inner Advocate, host Kimen Petersen explores a powerful reframe: the very traits you've spent years trying to fix — your sensitivity, stubbornness, intensity, or quirks — may be the very things the world needs most. Drawing on personal stories of not fitting in, insights from history's greatest innovators...

Episode 204: If You Don't Heal, You'll Bleed on People Who Never Cut You   In this episode of Your Inner Advocate, host Kimen Petersen explores one of the most powerful ideas in personal growth: if you don't heal, you'll bleed on people who never cut you. Kimen breaks down why we overreact to small moments — not because of what's happening now, but because unhealed wounds from the past are still r...

Eposode 203: What Happened to You Wasn't Your Fault — But Who You Become Is Your Responsibility   In this episode of Your Inner Advocate, Kimen explores one of the most powerful — and potentially misunderstood — concepts in personal growth: responsibility. Drawing on personal stories, a framework for healing, and a Buddhist parable about breaking karmic cycles, Kimen unpacks the critical differenc...

Episode 202: Not really Talented: Just really good at Not Givig Up! Episode Summary: In this episode of Your Inner Advocate, host Kimen Petersen dismantles one of the most damaging myths holding people back: the belief that success belongs to the naturally talented. Sparked by the quote "I'm not talented — I'm actually just really good at not giving up," Kimen explores how persistence, identity, a...

Episode 201: You've Always Figured It Out—Why Would This Be Any Different? Episode Summary Can you actually name a time you didn't figure it out? In this episode of Your Inner Advocate, Kimen Petersen challenges you to stop letting fear predict your future and start letting your past prove your strength. The problem isn't that you're incapable — it's that your brain is wired to remember danger and...

Episode 200: The Story of Your Struggles will Become Someone's Survival Guide In this episode, host Kimen Petersen shares a deeply personal and powerful message: your hardest seasons may not just be happening to you — they may be happening through you, for someone you've never met. Drawing from his own experience of burnout, sleepless nights, and a breaking point that landed him in the hospital, K...