Clarity on Fire

After years of job hopping (including starting her own side gig), hoping to find the right fit, Ella recently landed a job that by all counts should have been her "dream job." And yet, she felt strangely conflicted about it right from the initial interview. On her very first day of the new job, she knew this was utterly wrong for her. So what happens when you get your dream job … and you hate it f...

A client of mine recently wrote to me saying: "I feel like at my age, I'm SO far behind and need to be insanely productive every single day." She was referring to feeling behind in her career, which is something I hear all the time from my clients (regardless of their age). But feeling behind can spill into every area of your life. If your friends start getting married while you're still single, i...

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: Sarah, who's trying to eat better and get in shape, but keeps rebelling against even the most reasonable calorie...

Back in college I did a case study about something I thought was wild at the time … It was called Second Life . Maybe you've heard of it? It was a virtual-reality online game that connected hundreds of thousands of users around the world. You built an entire life — complete with houses, jobs, pets, and spouses — inside this game. I was fascinated by the intersection between real-life and virtual r...

A few weeks ago Kristen and I were out to lunch and we couldn't help but overhear the conversation happening between the people at the next table.

 The man said to the woman, "If millennials had helicopter parents, then Gen Z has snowplow parents—They're constantly clearing any obstacles or difficulties in their kids' path." 

We were intrigued and, quite honestly, it's hard to deny the truth of...

We've all heard the advice that, if you want to be a more confident person, you've got to "fake it 'til you make it." As in, if you pretend to be confident for long enough, eventually you'll actually FEEL confident. Who knows, maybe that works for some people. But I think for most of us, faking confidence when we're not feeling it just makes us feel … well, fake. A client of mine has been role-pla...

Imagine a dude pumping iron, except he only ever works out one arm. He's basically a circus attraction with his one giant bicep on the right and a puny, atrophied bicep on the left. Well, this freak is all of us. Except the over-developed right arm is your logic/fear muscle, and the atrophied left arm is your feelings/intuition muscle. Most of us want to start working out that sad, deflated left a...

If I want to test the unconditional love of any friend, family member, or future spouse, I have one epic assignment for them—Go on vacation with me, and if we both make it back alive and still sort-of liking each other, then we're made to last. Last summer Kristen and I flew to Europe for my 30th birthday. We spent half the time in Austria, with my brother and his wife, and the other half in Scotl...

We're sure you guys have heard the oft-quoted inspirational phrase, "Jump and the net will catch you!" Obviously it's something people tell you so that you'll have faith. Go ahead and take that risk, because it's bound to pay off! But that's not how life works, is it? Life doesn't guarantee any of us success. Sometimes you do take risks … and you fall flat on your face. What happens after that ? T...

Instead of a new blog, on today's episode of the podcast we're taking a few minutes to clue you in to TWO major developments in the Clarity on Fire universe! BIG ANNOUNCEMENT #1 One-on-one coaching will now be enrollment based! Which means: Instead of taking on clients whenever, we're going to be taking them on a few times per year, in waves. As of today, continuing until Friday, June 21, we're ac...

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: Kaitlyn, who wants to know the secret to making healthy, lasting relationships. Leslie, who's frustrated because...

Tell me if this sounds familiar: Every Sunday evening, you have a growing sense of dread as the last few hours of your weekend slip by. Most mornings, you can barely drag yourself out of bed because you can't imagine spending another day at your job. You have big plans for your after-work hours, but after 8+ hours at your job, all of that flies out the window because you're flat-out exhausted. You...

Calling all fellow bookworms, library nerds, and general lovers of literature — it's time for another book club episode of the podcast! Whenever there are five Fridays in a month, we devote the extra Friday to a book that we can't get enough of. This time we decided to have a conversation about a rampant problem that a LOT of people in our audience are likely suffering through—being preyed upon by...

If you started following us in the last couple of years, you probably don't know that we used to do this thing called #ClarityGems. They were pretty images with a quotable on them that people got in their inboxes once a week. Here's an old one, just so you get the idea: They were fun to write, in part because they were so different than a traditional blog. It was all about getting straight to the...

If you're a compassionate, sensitive, people-pleasing-type person who hates rocking the boat, then the very idea of negotiation is probably nausea-inducing at best, and horrifically impossible at worst. (And even for those of us with thick skin, it's still awkward as hell!). A lot of us think, "What's the point of asking for what I really want if I have to be someone I'm not—pushy, aggressive, sel...

As the Harry Potter super fans (and Ravenclaw nerds) that we are, it's truly amazing that this idea hadn't occurred to us before … but better late than never! Instead of a blog this week, we sat down for a quick, fun round of sorting our favorite HP characters by their Passion Profile. Can you guess whether Harry, Ron, Hermione, Dumbledore, Luna, Neville, Ginny, and even He Who Must Not Be Named i...

We all have that thing —that one block we just can't get over; the thing we keep bumping up against, but either can't fully see or don't totally understand. In this month's Side Chat we're shining a light on the likely source of your deepest, most secret (and stubborn) blocks, so that you can identify them and then finally get over them. We're talking about: The ways your brain got wired in childh...

I've never been 100% sure how I feel about the concept of soul mates. Although the Pride-and-Prejudice-loving side of me wants to believe that we each have one specific soul mate who's our perfect match, I can't fully buy into the idea. Now, don't get me wrong … I wholeheartedly believe in soul  connections. We've all experienced that phenomenon when you meet someone for the first time and you ins...

After 40 years of obesity, Tony Weaver decided it was time to make a drastic life change. Despite having many previous failed attempts at living a healthier life, he committed to losing 100 pounds in a year. Not only did he achieve his goal (and then some! He lost 131 pounds in total), he also went on to run two half-marathons, start a blog, and write a book. Maybe most importantly, he found his v...

The other day I was on a walk with my dog, which is as great a time for mental wandering as it is physical wandering, when something weird happened — I remembered a part of my life I had completely forgotten about. I'm not talking about something that happened in a single day, and that naturally faded from memory. I'm talking about something I did almost every day for many months (maybe even a yea...

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? O...

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...

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...

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 regu...

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 s...