You can magnetize your customers into your business if you’re a soul-guided entrepreneur, someone who utilizes their intuitive gifts and authenticity to get customers. When you understand your soul mission you attract customers who are invested in your product.
Join Dolores Hirschmann as she talks to Master Intuitive Coach and Energy Clearing Guru Allyson Scammell. Allyson shares how you can grow spiritually by following your soul mission. Tune in to discover how you can unlock your intuitive gifts and create content that is authentic to you.
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Watch the episode here
Listen to the podcast here
Being A Soul-Guided Entrepreneur With Allyson Scammell
I am so excited to bring you an amazing guest. I haven’t spent a lot of time with Allyson yet, but I have heard many great things about her, and her journey is pretty magical. Allyson Scammell is a Master Intuitive Coach, psychic medium, and energy healer. Her mission is to help soul-guided leaders, influencers, and entrepreneurs to upgrade their energy frequency to gain unstoppable momentum in life and business.
As the Founder of the Soul Guide Academy, Allyson has helped thousands of leaders and light workers to earn more, serve more, and grow spiritually along the way. Help me welcome Allyson to the show. I am so excited to help her bring forth some of the stories where she was on a totally different career path, and something happened that changed the trajectory of her life, her business, and the impact that she has to bring to the world. Don’t miss this episode. You are going to love it.
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Allyson, I am excited about this conversation. I have been looking forward to meeting you, being with you, and sitting down for coffee, which is what we do in the show. Let’s begin at the top. I believe there’s a journey that we all go through to arrive at this moment of recording an episode with me. I call it a clarity journey.
I know that you will roll your eyes when I say clarity journey because I’m sure there are moments when there is no clarity. It’s not linear and not necessarily pretty. It definitely is not all clear but that’s the joy of it because I want the readers to recognize that if they are in a place of darkness or confusion, it’s part of the journey. Talk to me about your clarity journey and how did you arrive at the work you do now?
I love that you explore clarity. It is, on many levels, the key to everything we want to be and experience in life. My clarity journey on many levels started in 2009, and I had a near-death experience. Before 2009, the doors to my intuitive and spiritual gifts were all pretty closed off. I lived, in my head, the existence, separate, and type-A career climby kind of person that was very unhappy. That happened, and it blew me open, intuitively speaking. I came back with these really powerful, intuitive gifts. A lot of people are born super open in their intuitive gifts.
Let’s agree here. This is important to the readers. I believe, and you are saying the same thing, that we all have intuitive capacity. We are all connected to spirit. Open or close, that’s a conversation we are having. It’s not like, “You have it and I don’t have it.” We all have it but you are saying that until 2009, you are not awake to it.
It’s totally how I see it. I was jarred awake by it, and I had to start from scratch like, “What is this? What is intuition? What is a higher self? What is a multidimensional universe? Who am I? What makes my human self different than my spiritual self?” I started all from scratch in 2009 when I was 32 years old. I spent 13 years and I went on a journey as if I was relearning how to live from age 32. I changed everything, relationships, careers, and countries.
In that journey of finding my intuitive gifts and being able to tap into that higher voice to guide me forward, I basically left the whole previous life behind, which wasn’t serving me anymore. I landed being led by my higher self, my higher voice, to where I am now. I’m a spiritual mentor and an intuitive business coach for soul-guided leaders and entrepreneurs. Obviously, you can imagine it’s a much bigger story than that but I wanted to give you the cliff notes version.
I’m going to ask that bigger story, which we don’t have to go through the whole thing but sometimes a taste can help. Can you give me an example of one moment in the whole big story?
In terms of when clarity arrived and said, “You need to do this?”
For example, I will tell you one moment of my own journey that I have been intuitive all my life. I will give you an example. I met my husband on a blind date in Argentina. I live in the US and I’m from Argentina. Before we met, I had this glimpse of he might be the one. It was a crazy thought. I saw him, and he was not the one because he didn’t look like the one in my head. In my soul, yes, but in my head, no. He became the one, and three months later, we were engaged.
Someone said we were married, and I moved to the US. That intuition of he’s the one, and then the head playing me a trick and saying, “He doesn’t look like the one, Dolores.” Understanding that he still was the one was a moment where intuition in my head had to have conversations, and my intuition won. Here I am many years later with four children. Something like a moment, a decision, and a sign that will illustrate this journey.
Many of your readers will relate to this one. I had a seventeen-year career in international affairs, and I worked in countries all over the world. I had landed an amazing job that felt like a gilded cage at an international organization. Their super competitive, hard-to-get, gold-plated benefits, tax-free salary, lots of statuses, and cool travel. They approached me, and the head of the division where I would be in this prestigious position who is leaving said, “We want you to hire and you’re a shoo-in. We will basically cook the books to hire you.” I was freaking miserable.
Did you take it?
I didn’t. This was the moment because I longed to be an entrepreneur so badly and have this free life, free of the 9:00 to 5:00, free of working on things that I didn’t feel passionate about anymore, and free to give back the way my heart was feeling called. I said no because I was listening to the higher voice. The higher voice was saying, “Don’t take it because if you take it, then you will never break free. You will get so embedded in the whole thing.”
If you take a promotion in a job that you’re miserable at, you’ll never be able to break free.
Not only was my brain like, “Are you sure you want to walk away from that salary and all that stuff?” Everybody around me said, “Allyson, you are crazy. How could you walk away from this?” My higher self was saying, “It will kill you if you take that job. You are called to something that’s going to be so much more lucrative. In service to others, be joyful, and be in expression of your true gifts.” I took the risk and never regretted it for a day.
Let’s talk about this work, obviously is lucrative. You’ve built the business but what do you do? Who do you work with? What do you solve?
I work with soul-guided leaders, light workers, and entrepreneurs. Most of my clientele are entrepreneurs but I also work with some people who are in different lines of work and want to live a more spiritual life, more connected to their spiritual gifts, etc. For the entrepreneurs I work with, the biggest problem I solve for them is transforming their business to one that’s pushing out content, offers, and stuff, which is exhausting to all of us.
I made a note and you call it the Bro Marketing Techniques.
It’s Bro Marketing Techniques where they say, “If you want to succeed in this world, you got to create six social media posts per day. You need to do three live videos per week. You need to be growing your audience, be a content creation machine, and do Facebook ads.” It’s like, “Yuck.” Unless you have a background in marketing and social media, which some people do and find joy in that, which is great. We need these people in the world.
If you are not that person, which I’m not, that’s going to feel awful. You are going to have that push out, make you feel salesy and icky in your business. The problem I solve for them is how to flip that all around and how you become the magnet where you are in your gifts, in your true authenticity, and magnetizing the right people into your business, who I call soul clients and soul customers. You are magnetizing your soul audience and doing it with much greater ease and flow. It’s ultimately much more lucrative for the average soul-guided entrepreneur.

Soul-Guided Entrepreneur: Marketing experts always say that you need to be a content-creation machine if you want success. But what if you’re not into that? You’ll feel awful, icky, and salesy whenever you push out content.
Talk to me. I’m listening. How do we do that? I want you to keep on talking.
I believe that we are not here, and most business owners or coaches will tell you, “You are not here to serve everybody. You are here to serve your ideal client avatar.” I call it the Soul Client Avatar. It goes deeper than that. There is an audience that we are wired, created, and destined to serve on a soul level. We agreed on a soul level before we came into this lifetime that we were going to find each other on our path and help each other out.
If you are my soul client, you are going to find me. I’m going to give you what you need for my gifts because of my unique genius and my gifts. You don’t want what I have to offer. You literally need it to grow, expand, and get to the next level. Whatever it is you sell, it doesn’t matter if you sell. If you are a T-shirt designer, you have soul clients out there where your design is going to fill them with joy and make them feel confident when they wear it, for example. Magnetizing the soul client into your business requires and asks us not to hold back anything regarding the truth of who we are and what we feel called to serve.
There’s so much social conditioning like, “People aren’t going to like that. You can’t say anything polarizing.” I know we live in this very sensitive time where we feel like there’s a lot of stuff we can’t say. It’s almost, in some ways, even harder to be your authentic self because you might offend someone. It’s important not to offend people but at the same time, your people want you in your truth. That’s what they are looking for.
Having an honest conversation with yourself and saying, “Where am I holding back in my business? What do I want to say but I’m not because I fear people won’t like it? What do I want to create but don’t because people will think it’s weird?” I know a lot of my spiritual people are like, “People will think it’s too woo-woo, too out there, and too spiritual.” No.
It’s not for the right person, and that’s a good thing.
It’s filtering out those people who will never buy from you. I call them the looky-loos. They will look at your stuff. They might even book a discovery call to talk to you but won’t invest. You don’t want to attract too many looky-loos. A few are fine but you want to attract those people who are invested. They are enthusiastic. You don’t need to convince them to buy your stuff. They are convinced by the time they get on the phone with you.

Soul-Guided Entrepreneur: You want to attract people who are invested and enthusiastic about your product. These are the people who are convinced by the time they get on the phone with you.
I know there are five parts to it because you told me that. Talk to me about the five parts of the soul client attraction.
There are five parts to soul client attraction, which is what we are talking about magnetizing the right people into your offerings. The first part is what I call Activating. Many of us have already activated it. It’s almost like a reactivation of your soul mission. What is your soul mission? It’s your highest why like, “Why am I here? Why did I choose this lifetime?” You don’t have to know exactly what your soul mission is. I often say that the words get in the way because the words never tell the full picture but you can feel it. You can feel in your heart the impact that you are designed to have.
You can feel in your heart the things that you are meant to heal from, experience, grow to, and evolve from. You can feel it without putting words to it. When you drop into your heart, is your business more or less aligned with that? Is it aligned with your so mission? If you feel the answer is a big no, that is going to affect your magnetism because your business is an extension of your soul mission, of your highest why. That’s the first thing. Is my business in alignment with how I most feel called to serve and give back?
Your business is an extension of your soul mission, of your highest why.
We are going to do this work. Let’s get to it. Soul mission, my master in clarity, and honoring my soul mission. What we do is create a path, infrastructure, and systems for visionaries to make an impact on the world. That’s what we do. We create the path, the systems, and the support to make an idea and a vision a reality.
It feels very aligned to me. Gold star for you there, check. I will give you a brief example of what non-alignment looks like from my experience. I had this big experience in 2009 and I was very afraid ever to say that I’m a spiritual person. I’m a psychic medium. I have these gifts. I had so much fear that people would think it was weird, I’m weird, and it was all strange, so I hid them. I was out of alignment with my mission in life, which is to share these gifts and share how to do it. When I overcame those fears and started to share, that was the moment when my business took off because that’s what my soul clients wanted. It’s me waving my spiritual woo-woo flag.
Step two is what I call Amplifying your intuitive and spiritual gifts. That is that connection to your higher self and your divine support team if that aligns with you and your thinking. Intuitive gifts are like anything else. They are a muscle. Some of us are born more open than others but wherever we are on the scale, you can always open the portal door to your intuitive gifts wider and wider, so you have that beautiful connection to your higher self. You can get led and call in your next step. You have a whole support system of the divine, the spirit, and the source guiding you and helping you forward. You are not in it alone because you are not in it alone. There’s a whole universe of consciousness that wants to guide and support you on your path.

Soul-Guided Entrepreneur: Intuitive gifts are like anything else; they’re a muscle. Some are born more open than others, but wherever you are on the scale, you can always open the portal door to your intuitive gifts.
I’m going to say something and ask you a question about this. First of all, it’s the cheapest CEO, CFO, CMO, and coach you can hire. You don’t need to be alone for this one. How do you do that?
The first thing you do is invite it in. We are human beings of free will and the spiritual realm is polite, especially with high conscious energy. They will not come into our experience unless we invite it in because of free will so you have to invite it in from time to time. You don’t have to do it every day but notice when you feel the nudge like, “I am ready to raise my energy so I’m vibrating at higher levels.” What that does is it invites the spiritual realm to connect with you deeper and sometimes when you invite it in, there’s something blocking you from advancing. You are inviting in maybe something that will help you release the block.
Sometimes you are bringing it on but not really bringing it on, so you have to ask. If there’s anything that will get in the way, how do you figure that one out? It’s like, “I’m ready to receive.”
“I’m ready for a challenge and feel a little uncomfortable if it arrives,” because that’s what growth is. It’s a little discomfort. If you stay with it and get to the other side of the discomfort, you will have a deeper, more inspired connection to this divine support system.
Let’s do it.
I love this. I’m such a, “Yeah, let’s do it,” kind of person. I like your energy here. You take in some deep breaths. I always say quiet the mind. Pivot down to the heart space is a great way to tune into your higher self. You connect to that energy right at your heart center, sink into the body, and set an intention like this or something that feels better. I intend to invite in a deeper connection to my higher self, my divine support team, and the divine to help me connect deeper and guide me forward on my divine path.
I intend and am ready to invite spiritual guidance and my higher self to attract and support me with team resources and guidance to up-level and serve at my highest level for the good of all of us.
You are getting another gold star. It’s beautiful.
I can’t remember what you said but I fell for it.
I gave along inattention but you found the words that felt meaningful for you, and that’s how it’s done.
I gave myself permission for that for two reasons. 1) It is because I couldn’t remember what you said but, 2) If you are listening to it, there’s no one way to do it. As long as you are dropped into the heart, you are honest in your invitation, and you use open words of openness, then use your words. You could speak in English and Spanish. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t have to be Allyson’s words. Nobody has to give you a script. You have to open your heart. I love that.
I love it too. You exemplified that beautifully. The next one is number three. It should be number one but I never like to lead with this one because it’s not fun to lead with blocks and resistance. Number three is the Order. It’s the thing that will prevent our soul clients from finding us, and that’s releasing the blocks and tethering a stand. We all have them. We are born with them. We inherited some. We brought some in from past lifetimes. We develop some in childhood and adolescents. You name it. It’s part of the experience. What we are talking about is healing. My guides have been teaching me to stop looking at healing as part of the path and start looking at healing as the path.
Stop looking at healing as part of the path and start looking at it as the path.
We will stop healing the day we die because we start healing in a different way. There’s no ending.
There’s no end to it. When you make peace with that, it’s like, “I’m going to launch a new program.” They always say new level, new devil like, “I’m going to do something new. I’m at a higher level.” You are always going to find some resistance and fear. It’s always there. It’s getting into the daily practice of, “Is there a painful emotion inside of me that’s ready to be released? Is there resistance that I’m resisting?” Looking inside and saying, “What’s ready to be released now that is no longer serving me?”
It’s actually more powerful to do this process from a place of neutrality. For example, from a daily practice where you are looking in, saying, “What’s ready to be released,” vices when you are in a really horrible challenge and painful emotions. It’s hard. Sometimes, you can’t see the forest for the trees, so it’s hard for you to be mindful and releasing. It’s more empowering to do it from a place of neutrality on a daily basis.
It’s like your ab work. You got to keep it strong. We are not going to go deep into this because I want to make sure we keep moving, but if you are reading this, every day ask yourself, “What is ready to be released now that is no longer serving me?” Here’s the thing. I will ask you if this is the right way to do it to notice and give space. In coaching, they say, “Emotion is energy in motion.” When an emotion comes in, chances are its energy is an emotion. It’s the energy you’ve never given room for. All you have to do is sit with it and know that you will be okay. That’s the release.
I love this interaction. Number four is Connecting to Your Soul Client Avatar, a similar concept to an ideal client avatar but you want to think you are going one level deeper and can connect to them on an energetic level. It’s a very good idea to talk to people in your audience and ask them about their pain points. What’s even more powerful or what makes a very powerful thing to do in addition to that is doing that deep breathing, connecting to your heart space, and then set the intention to connect to your soul client avatar.
One person who is an absolute soul-level idealist of the ideal client that I am being called to serve now. Ask him, her, or them three questions, “What are the pains that I am uniquely designed to help you alleviate? What are your desires that I am uniquely designed to help you achieve? What do you need on a soul level from me?” It’s typical business stuff here but we are going one level deeper like, “What on a soul level do you need from me? How can I help you heal? How can I alleviate your pain for you? How can I help you get a desire?” Again, you can use this. You don’t have to be a coach or a healer for this to make sense. You can do whatever you are offering this.
I know you can do it, and I account you can do it.
My real estate agent did so much healing for me because I had a hard time buying a house and selling a house. I was like, “My real estate agent became my biggest healer.” There’s healing everywhere that could happen and should happen.
Real estate investors, teachers, or coaches need to do this work because there’s so much healing that you need to do to invest. Maybe I’m speaking for myself but I’m like, “I want to do that but I’m so afraid.”
Wouldn’t it be amazing if people didn’t hold back that side of themselves who are in all of these professions? Last step I call the Soul Client Courtship. This is your sales and marketing plan but you want to base it on your soul client’s needs, wants, and desires. You base it on the things that light you up. What do you most feel called to share? Getting back to that part one, “What would be something that’s in alignment with your soul mission that you feel called to share? What’s something that you feel afraid to share? Can you release that fear and share it?” This is how people will start finding you. You want to think of, “Where are the places that I love to show up?”

Soul-Guided Entrepreneur: What do you feel most called to share? What is something that you’re afraid to share? If you can release that fear to share it, people will start finding you.
Now, if you don’t like Facebook but are doing Facebook Lives, then try to take the good because all social media platforms have the good, the bad, and the ugly. It doesn’t mean you need to love all parts of a platform to benefit from it but if you can’t stand Facebook and it gives you the biggest ick factor and you are forcing yourself on Facebook, that will disrupt your magnetism. Get off there and find other things. There are more socially conscious platforms appearing all the time. Obviously, there’s Instagram, TikTok, and all the other ones. Find those places where your soul client avatars are hanging out that it more or less feels good for you to show up there.
If you are a speaker, then speak. Do videos. If you are a writer, then write. If you ever get that thing like, “I’m doing this because somebody told me it will help get a sale but it doesn’t feel good to me,” that will turn off your magnetism. It’s exploring into, “What lights me up and feels good?” I will add one other thing to this. The learning curve. If you are brand new to a platform, before you say, “This feels icky. This is not me,” give yourself permission to learn it. I used to think that I hated email automation and mailing lists but I gave myself permission to learn, and now I’m the biggest email automation nerd. I love putting together the most soulful, amazing email automation because I gave myself permission to learn it. I realized that it was a place where I wanted part of my soul client courtship.
There are many things coming out for me. I know we’ve taken a lot of time. Two last questions. What are you excited about in the coming year? Is there anything you are launching or working on that you want to talk about?
I’m working on a program called My Soul Blueprint and it’s about how we can activate and amplify our five key spiritual gifts. A spiritual gift is a gift that we express when we connect to and co-create with the spiritual realm, the divine, source, or however we experience it. The five gifts are intuition, which we’ve talked a lot about, healing, manifestation, teaching, and leadership. When you bring your unique five gifts together, it creates a blueprint for your soul or you clarify your soul mission, soul contracts, higher vision, unique genius, and unique intuitive languages that you speak. All of these things. It is exciting. That’s what I’m working on. I’m launching a program and it’s going to be life-changing for my soul clients.
When you can bring intuition, healing, manifestation, teaching, and leadership together, it creates a blueprint for your soul.
Where can people find you?
Head over to my website, AllysonScammell.com. On my homepage, you can find a link to download a free guided meditation. If you have a block, it will help you release that block, so you can raise your energy frequency and connect to your soul client avatar more easefully. I also have a podcast. My labor of love. It’s called Soul Guide Radio, where I unpack these issues, and you can find that wherever you listen to a podcast.
Last words of wisdom for our readers.
I invite you, readers, if you are resonating with this content and want to get more into your magnetism to end the next day, in the next 24 hours, do some deep breathing, pivot down to your heart space, and set the intention to connect to your soul client avatar. Even if you have no idea who he or she is, just do it. Let the spirit and your intention guide you. Let the intention do all the work and perceive what you receive when you connect. For extra credit, imagine that she consumed an offering of yours and she’s telling you that it changed her life forever. How does that feel when you tune into the transformation you gave this person? Sit in that energy for a minute or two and see what happens.
I’m checking it out. I’m joining your group. I’m not answering the question but maybe you can let me in any way. Thank you so much, Allyson, for all of your gifts, your wisdom, and your generosity in bringing value to our readers. I’m excited. I cannot wait to go through my notes and do this work with my team.
Dolores, I love how you interview. It is exactly how I like to do things. Thank you so much for the opportunity. I’m so grateful.
Thank you, Allyson.
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I had the most amazing conversation with Allyson. We actually got clear and raw there. I was sharing some of my personal struggles and how those are moments of change. She shared with me a lot about what her journey has been about for the last several years, where one moment changed the trajectory of her life. You don’t want to miss this episode. It’s an amazing revelation of how life can change if you trust the process. Read up.
Important Links
- Allyson Scammell
- Soul Guide Academy
- My Soul Blueprint
- Soul Guide Radio
- Guide Circle Facebook
- Allyson Instagram
About Allyson Scammell
Allyson Scammell is a master intuitive coach, psychic medium, and energy healer. Her mission is to help soul-guided leaders, influencers, and entrepreneurs to upgrade their energy frequency to gain unstoppable momentum in life and business. As the founder of the Soul Guide Academy, Allyson has helped thousands of leaders and lightworkers to earn more, serve more, and grow spiritually along the way. She regularly shares priceless wisdom and insight on Soul Guide Radio, a podcast for soul-guided influencers ready to unlock massive soul-aligned success.
Changes and transitions should not be interchanged because they are very different. Changes are used to reach a goal, while transitions are used when there’s a shift in what holds value and meaning to you. Transitions are invitations for growth. They allow you to come into your own voice. We need to learn how to embrace transitions to discover more about who we are.
Today, Dolores Hirschmann talks to author and transitions expert Linda Rossetti about recognizing your transitions. Linda helps people find their voice when they are in the middle of a transition. Transitions are normal, but they can be confusing. Discover how you can get through a difficult one while understanding yourself better along the way.
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Watch the episode here
Listen to the podcast here
Transitions: An Invitation For Self-Growth With Linda Rossetti
I am so excited to bring you this next guest for our show. Linda Rossetti is an expert on individual and organizational transformation. A wrenching upheaval in her mid-40s sparked her curiosity about those times when we call into question who we are and how we make meaning in our lives. That experience inspired her to expand on a decades-long business career by pursuing research, writing and advocacy focused on how adults step into the fullness of who we are and our truth.
You don’t want to miss Linda’s interview because she talks about that moment when everything in your life seems perfect to the outside eye but internally, you are in a moment where you cannot find your footing. How do you navigate that? How do you move from a place of internal disruption without breaking everything in your outside world? Join us for this conversation with Linda.
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Linda, it’s good to see you. Before the pandemic, we were on a panel together at the South Shore Conference For Women.
It was such a joy to be on the panel with you. I’m so happy to have the chance to talk again.
I remember my daughter was with me and we connected. I’m excited to start this conversation and bring to our readers this specific nuance that you have focused most of your career on that is so relevant. Let’s start at the beginning. How do we get here? How did you get to do the work you are doing? What has been your clarity journey? There’s a lot of confusion in clarity.
I’m fascinated by how we respond to major upheavals in our lives. That’s the thing that has grabbed my curiosity for more than a decade. The reason why I got there was twofold. One is in my mid-40s, I arrived at this moment where I felt as if the ground fell out from underneath me. I was in this free fall. From the outside, everyone said, “Look at that life.” I was an executive in a global Fortune 500 and the number 5 person in a 21,000-person organization. I had use of the corporate jet. My kids and I flew to DC for the weekend because it was good.
Yet I was struck by this feeling like something wasn’t right. It was radical. It wasn’t like, “I had a bad day.” I was in this increasing mode of not being able to function. I remember one day I borrowed a car. I say that in a very cautious way because we parked our cars underneath the building. We took 3 or 4 in a row because the place was teeny. You had to leave your keys in the car. Honest to God, I left the garage in the wrong car because I was in such a state. I was not functioning. When I say the ground fell from underneath me, I had this life but something was wrong and I had no name for it.
The second reason is everyone I tried to talk to about this was like, “Get over it. Go get some self-care. Move on. Buckle up.” Nobody wanted to honor the fact that I was in a space that was critical and scary. As much as I was feeling unmoored, I was also fascinated by the reaction of everyone around me. At the time, I ran HR and administration for this large Fortune 500 company. A colleague of mine ran an out-placement firm. I was like, “I want to talk to people who were in transition because I’m fascinated by this.” He’s like, “Let us be your learning lab, whatever you need.”
That started a series of conversations that I refer to as my research which has almost 300 people in it. I’ve spent hours talking to people who were in similar situations to my own. Their life circumstances were very different but all of a sudden, they found themselves in this moment of upheaval that they had no name for and yet they found it difficult to function to make their way.
There are a zillion reasons why we get to those moments but as a society, we are socialized to run the other way, to not give them oxygen or explore what they are but to tamp them down, ignore them, run the other way, buckle our shoes up and keep going. My work has all been about trying to understand what happens at those moments and give us a different way to respond.
Let’s bring this way down because the readers can relate. Transition is a big moment. What does it look like for you that day? You took the wrong car and felt what you were feeling. It wasn’t a day. It was a moment when everything stopped and you couldn’t do one more step. What happened next? Tell us the story. How did that translate into relating your tiny moments to your 300 reserved tiny moments of other people?
My first reaction to that is, “What’s wrong with me,” in a very serious way. I thought I had some mental functioning problem like there was something seriously wrong. That’s a very scary thing when you’re working 50 hours a week and you have 2 small kids. We are running lives. It was a time when I drew very close inward. I withdrew. I resigned from a lot of community work I did. I got to reduce stress in my life. What that ultimately did I can see in hindsight is that isolated me even more. It was the exact wrong thing to do because I pulled away. I ultimately left and resigned from the job thinking that the job was the problem.
I was like, “What’s wrong with me?” The first thing I do is start shedding things and commitments that I had. I was like, “I better get rid of this job.” That was a very terrifying thing. Economically, it had implications for my family. Socially, all the people I work with are like, “What are you doing?” When I was looking for what’s next, they’re like, “You’re not here anymore if you don’t exist.” I say that to say that it is terrifying to go into this zone that is a bit of a void. I was so curious about it. I knew that I couldn’t have been the first person to experience this.
I had spent 30 years by that time in the business world. I was like, “I know how to solve amorphous problems and figure this out.” I started to figure it out. I took one step and another step. I wish I could tell you it was some fancy moment and here’s the moment it all made sense but it didn’t. I took a step and kept taking another step.
Everything will make sense if you go one step at a time.
I’m curious about going this way in this conversation but let’s stay here. You took the actions you felt were the right actions. Some might have been exactly what they needed to be. Some might have been intuitively the right one but not what you needed like drawing away from people and organizations. I can relate to that.
We were chatting and I was sharing that it’s been hard. I’ll tell you this because it relates. I had been in such a state of physical pain, mental shutdown and burnout that I didn’t want to celebrate my birthday, which I love celebrating. It wasn’t until my aunt from Argentina said, “I don’t care what you do, I am coming,” and my best friend said, “I am coming.” Three women in my life who may be my best friend, my aunt and a cousin I hadn’t seen in twenty years came and set the table. They cut the fruit and hosted my neighbors who came.
I was celebrated that I realized that I didn’t want to celebrate and invite anybody. They didn’t listen. I am grateful they didn’t listen because that was what I needed for once. What you’re talking about and what I experienced and I’m trying to serve this conversation is that I didn’t want to be seen as broken. That’s why I shy away. It wasn’t because I didn’t need the help. I did but I didn’t want to have other people know that I needed help, nor did I want to experience it in a place of weakness.
That’s self-aware. First of all, happy birthday. That’s a lovely milestone. I’ve spent a decade talking with people who had moments as you described. I’ve learned that two different things occur in life that we don’t put a lot of brain time on. There are two words, change and transition. They mean different things even though we use them interchangeably. Changes are used to reach a goal. They are the known outcome, a variation and alteration. When I say, “I’m a marketing expert and I have my company but I’m going to go join Google,s” I’m making an alteration.

Transitions: Changes and transitions mean very different things. Changes are used to reach a goal. Transitions are used when there’s a shift in what holds value and meaning to you.
You get married, remarried and then divorced, which is a little different but all good. With change, we know the outcome. Transitions occur when there’s a shift in what holds value and meaning to us. Often, they occur when we’re not sure what’s happening but we have this sense. I drew in. It’s this notion that transitions are misunderstood. We think that they’re the same as change. They’re different. How we respond to them needs to be different. The beauty is that transitions are this invitation for growth. When I say growth, it is this opportunity to come into our voice in a larger way. When I use the word voice, it isn’t audible you hear me speaking. It’s our truth.
Transitions are invitations for growth.
What’s happening when we have these emotional reactions is we draw inward from the physical pain we were experiencing. “I drew inward because I couldn’t make sense of the environment I was in anymore.” Usually, what happens is our emotions mobilize to keep us safe. What happens is they staple our feet to the ground when in fact we need to keep going. We respond to emotion. Oftentimes, we can respond in almost a counterintuitive way.
This beautiful moment when your friends helped you on the ramp to celebrate your birthday is powerful. What they were doing is they were creating an environment for you to be and get closer to who you are. The thing that has been most inspirational about the work that I’ve done is that people have all these ideas that transition is leaving something like, “I leave a job, the geography or the marriage. I go into a new relationship.” That’s the transition. While society teaches us that that’s true, what I’ve learned is transition is this process of coming into our voice.
We’ll never do it with change alone. We have to constantly evaluate who we are and how we make meaning in the world. It’s through that process that our voices strengthen. That’s what transition is. I submit to you that sometimes we get there through pain but after my research, I’ve read that pain is real but it also can be a signal to say there’s something more. It’s a beautiful time to reach for that.
There’s so much to unpack in this. I want to put this in the context of what you stand for. One of the things that you’ve talked about is this place of advocacy in the study, support and resources of helping adults to step into the fullness of who they are, their truth. I want to bring that forth because why are we talking about all this? Why are you studying transition versus change and doing the work you’re doing? You have a second book coming up. You have a very successful first book. This is all the ingredients and the recipe for creating the space, guidance or resources for us adults becoming into our full expression of ourselves, our truth.
You talk about change and transition. The way I’m interpreting your way of explaining this is change is mostly engaging your head. It’s like, “I need to do this. I’m going to go right there.” You gave a specific characteristic, which is change means you are clear you’re going from point A to point B. Almost change could be a drive. Maybe you don’t know how exactly you’re going to feel but you know exactly where you’re going to end. Transition and why it’s scary is the opposite. Something is changing. You could use that word change but it involves the head and the heart. The head has no footing from which to lead because there’s so much turmoil and stirring in the soul or heart.
We decouple from so much that’s familiar when we transition. That’s unknown. Our bodies react to that instability in lots of ways. Many people in my research have had pain in lots of parts of their body, be it back pain, headaches or what have you. We respond to it energetically. Some people get amped up. Some people get lethargic. We respond to it emotionally.
This notion is when we lean towards transition. While it’s this enormous invitation, we respond with our hearts, motives and energy systems in ways that can be confusing. It can throw us off the track of advancing to where we have the possibility to go. The reason why I do this work is there’s something about it that captures my heart. It is this need for context. That’s all it is.

Transitions: When people lean towards transition, they respond with their hearts in ways that can be confusing. It can throw them off the track of advancing to where they can go.
I feel like I’m an educator more than anything else. If I can give you an understanding of what change and transition is, the next time you are smacked by something unexpected, you have the context to experience that upheaval in a new way. If that happens, I declare victory. We have this enormous capacity as individuals. Often, whether it’s because of our gender, intelligence, ethnicity, geography or whatever it is, we get these messages like, “No, don’t reach for that. You need to be lesser.”
That makes me crazy because everyone has this enormous capacity. There’s so much capacity left untapped. I do this work because I’m like, “If I give people the tools to understand what’s happening at a moment of upheaval, they’re going to reach forward.” That’s what we all need to do. We need to constantly be in moments of uncertainty. Instead of pulling back, we need to go forward. We can because there’s so much that we have. Every person reading has so much that’s untapped. It isn’t just for the few, the proud or the genius entrepreneur who’s a billionaire. It’s for everyone.
I went to school as a young kid at the Sisters of St. Joseph. They were an order of nuns that taught school in the US in the ‘60s and ‘70s. They always said, “A life well lived is a life in service to others.” That baked into my brain at some point. My work is that. It’s in service to this notion of believing in yourself. Go find that voice. Find your voice. It doesn’t come with one swing of the bat like, “I’m here.” It’s risking a little bit today, a little bit more tomorrow and much more than the next day.
Risk a little bit today, a little bit more tomorrow, and that much more the next day.
For me, it’s been at every decade. Every decade I go through a transition. I’m recognizing it. It’s interesting. I’ll keep bringing up my experience because it helps illustrate. As you’re talking, I’m recognizing that I am in transition with that pain. For those reading who are like, “How do you realize that you are in transition,” it is because something falls way off. For you, Linda, there was a feeling that something was wrong mentally.
Maybe some scientists will say that was burnout. You can put labels on it. It doesn’t matter. For me, I took my back pain and was like, “I hurt my back.” I then started going in. I bought a book saying, “Heal your back. Look at your psychology around it.” I got into therapy to talk about what back pain means. I have three herniated discs that show in the MRI. I’m not discussing that but what about me bringing this in now? The timing matters and the timing gives you information.
That example you raise is interesting. What I often say to people is there are ways to start that are easy to bring our awareness to what’s happening. One of the first ways is to think about the expectations that we carry. Most of us enter adulthood. We use what is external to us to form our definition and expectation for who we are. We use the communities that we live in, the schools we attend, our families and our religious affiliation. There are a zillion things that we look to as reference points and that’s how we form who we are. That’s the identity we create. We nourish it from those external pieces.
When we go through transition, we are moving to a new place where we rely on different inputs to define our expectations and definitions for who we are. We don’t throw the baby out with the bath water but we turn up the volume on those things that hold value and meaning to us. What that often means is that we have to occupy our identity differently.

Transitions: When you transition, you’re moving to a new place where you rely on different inputs to define your expectation and who you are.
We might still have faith or a connection to a community that’s the same but we might not lead with that. We’re different in how we occupy because we are more rooted in our genuine voice, what is of value and meaning to us. The easiest way to begin to recognize if that shift is happening is to ask ourselves what expectations we carry for ourselves. I talk to all these young women and they’re like, “I’m going to be a GM by the time I’m 40.” I’m like, “That’s excellent. That sounds like a good goal. Where does that come from? Why that?”
As simple as that, ask yourself, “An expectation is I want to be a good parent or neighbor.” It doesn’t matter what it is. Bringing our awareness to what it is we carry like what we are setting our expectations on is an excellent exercise because, in that, we can go down the list once we create it and say, “That one is in flux. I got that from my first boss whom I stopped working with years ago.” That can help dignify what is expressing itself in our life. That’s a simple exercise to say, “Look at that. If that isn’t something that I either believe in or think it’s current, what am I leaving space for?” It’s a lovely, simple way to begin.
I’m going to break it down. Stop me if I’m off track but it’s important, especially for young people, transitioning from high school to college and from college to the world, that senior year. I have three children, one is done with college, one is going through it and another one did it through high school. Everybody experiences it differently but there are a couple of elements here. The first step is giving space to whatever you are feeling. All of us push through until we have a mental cry, it doesn’t have to be a breakdown, back pain or hives. It will show up somehow in your physical being.
First is if you’re off, give it space. The second is, “What is in my backpack?” I love that you said we are carrying expectations. Put it down on paper, “What is it that I’m carrying?” I was talking to my daughter and she was saying, “I need to be X by the time I’m 23.” I’m like, “Where did that come from? I’m happy for you but is that something you’re carrying or is that something you’re embracing?” There is a difference.
I’ve talked to people who are 20, 70 and every age in between in my work. I find some of the heaviest burdens are those in their late 20s who went to college, got out and tried something and realized at the end of their 20s that they don’t like it. They almost cannot discharge that experience from a sense of failure like, “I’ve failed.” In fact, it’s nothing of the sort. What it is, is moving to this place of self-definition earlier than maybe the rest of the population. Some people go through life and make thousands of changes and never transition.
If you make a decision you don’t like, you’re not a failure. You’re just moving to a place of self-definition earlier than most people.
How can you go through change and not transition? My interpretation of what you’re saying is that you never give the space and have the courage to unpack your backpack and remove other people’s identities. You have incorporated expectations and shoulds that you don’t give yourself the time and the permission of saying, “I choose to move forward with this expectation. I choose to let go and send that back to my boss of twenty years. Thank you but no thank you. Thank you but it’s no longer serving me. Thank you but I no longer choose it.” That discernment is where you make a change a transition.
To be fair, we get mixed signals from society. A lot of people don’t know the difference. They think they’re doing the right thing. The right thing is to buckle down and get going. I thank you for having me join you here to help me educate. Once we know the difference, we can bring a different energy to our experience of upheaval, whether it’s a crummy boss or an apartment that doesn’t make any sense. If we have the tools in those moments to make different choices, we can change the trajectory of our lives.
With the right tools, which I understand you didn’t have at your moment of transition, we could make that transition for the highest good of all of us. Back to my experience, I know that I’m in transition so my thinking is not how I get out of all the commitments I have. That’s not where I’m going. I’m going with, “Let me get clear of where am I going. Where do I want to go?” Let that inform how I transition beyond whatever commitments I have or not. Clarity, awareness and leaning into the experience of transition can bring forth an amazing, beautiful process and avoid so much pain that the 300 or more people you’ve talked to have in many ways. Without aroma and resources, the transition will bring a lot of pain. It doesn’t necessarily have to.
These moments of upheaval in our lives are incredible invitations. There’s irreplaceable goodness in everyone. You don’t have to leave your current experience to participate. A lot of people are like, “I can’t. I got to pay the mortgage off. I got to send the kids to college.” You can make those shifts right where you sit. It’s a lot inside. It’s a different way you greet now. It isn’t a departure. It’s a wonderful place to begin, which is to center on who we are and how we make meaning in our world. Give space for that. Don’t think that that’s wrong, offbeat or a different course. It’s honoring that and continuing to foster it.
Thank you for your time. I want to honor that. Where can we find out more about you?
You can go to LindaRossetti.com. Right there, you can find links to my podcast. I write a blog. I’ve had a ton of speaking engagements. There are video vignettes there. There are a lot of resources. I also offer a free weekly drop-in session for those who are in transition. You can find that. It’s called Dishing on Disruption. The information on that is right on my website in the speaking area.
Linda, I always want to leave our readers with a clear action they can take. What is a clear action you would invite our readers to take on?
I would ask each of you to take one step that brings out your voice in a new way, whether that’s in a conversation with a sibling, a family member, at a workplace or with the dog. It doesn’t matter. One step to turn up the volume on your voice.
Thank you so much for joining us. As always, it was a pleasure. You’ve read it. Wake up, look at where you are and understand exactly what is the next step to bring your voice forward.
Dolores, thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
You’re very welcome, Linda.
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Have you ever thought about the difference between change and transition? You don’t want to miss this conversation I just had with Linda, where we go deep into how we recognize transition. She talks about how most of us go through life doing the changes that life brings us forth but we never embrace those changes enough or go deep enough to recognize them as an identity transition and a moment of understanding who we are, what are we here to do and what do we hold of value in our lives. That difference can be the biggest meaning and fulfillment for your life. You don’t want to miss my interview with Linda.
Important Links
- Linda Rossetti
- @LindaRossettiAuthor – Instagram
About Linda Rossetti
Linda is an expert on individual and organizational transformation.
A wrenching upheaval in her mid-forties sparked her curiosity about those times when we call into question ‘who we are’ and ‘how we make meaning in our lives.’ That experience inspired her to expand on a decades-long business career by pursuing research, writing, and advocacy focused on how adults step into the fullness of who we are – our truth. Through her own unexpected transition and extensive research born out of curiosity, she developed a profoundly new approach to progressing through major milestones in a way that allows people to successfully see and navigate a path forward in a highly effective and rewarding way.
Her work has been featured on NPR, NECN, CBS/WBZ, Money Magazine, Next Avenue, and other outlets. Her podcast, Destination Unknown, has explored transition with 2015 Nobel Peace Prize recipient Ouided Bouchamaoui, NPR Marketplace host Tess Vigeland, Miss Singapore, Rachel Leung, and others. Her 1st book, Women & Transition: reinventing work and life, is an Amazon top seller. Her second book on disruption in adult lives is scheduled to be released in May 2023.
Linda’s work extends her deep experience in organizational transformation. She served as CEO of EMaven, Inc., the venture capital backed tech company that led enterprise digital transformation on behalf of its clients. She also served as EVP of HR and Administration for Iron Mountain, a global Fortune 500 company, where she worked to integrate more than 200 acquisitions while transforming the organization into a digital records leader.
Linda is deeply active in her community and has served on not-for-profit and for-profit boards for more than twenty-five years. She is the parent of two teenagers and a loveable golden doodle named Apollo.
It’s not easy to make money podcasting. If you’re creating a podcast just to make money, you’re missing the point. A podcast is supposed to help your brand reach a wider audience with full creativity. It is one of the most creative things you could do in terms of outreach and promotion. You’ll earn money along the way but you need to build that audience first. Join Dolores Hirschmann as she talks to the creative director behind The Creative Impostor Studios, Andrea Klunder. Andrea shares more about her journey into podcasting and how it grew into something bigger. Learn how she helps companies, nonprofits, and small businesses create their own podcast to advance their goals. And find out the answer to the million-dollar question in podcasting, how do you make money? Start podcasting the right way today!
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Watch the episode here
Listen to the podcast here
Creating A Podcast To Advance Your Business Goals With Andrea Klunder Of The Creative Impostor Studios
I’m looking forward to my conversation with Andrea Klunder. She is a Creative Director behind The Creative Impostor Studios, a podcast production studio helping you craft a branded audio experience you and your audience will love. Here’s the thing with Andrea. I got curious about the name of a company, The Creative Impostor Studios, because, for me, there was a connection between creativity and Imposter syndrome. If that is happening to you, there’s a curiosity of how creativity and Imposter syndrome can be put in one name of a company and what is the relationship between those two, I want you to check out this episode with Andrea Klunder. You don’t want to miss it.
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I had a great conversation with Andrea Klunder from The Creative Impostor Studios. Here’s one thing that she shared with us. She shared the million-dollar question that everybody who is doing a podcast or thinking about starting a podcast would ask themselves. The question is, how do I make money with my podcasts? If you want the answer to that question, read the episode with Andrea.
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Andrea, it is exciting to sit down for this conversation. There are many questions I want to ask you, but first things first, I always ask the same question. What was your clarity journey? “Clarity journey” as we know that whatever we have arrived at, it was neither linear nor clear. Sometimes, there were ups and downs. I know you had a lot of them and the podcast had something to do with your ups and downs and where you are now. Why don’t you walk us through the journey?
The shorter version is that I have had many stages in my entrepreneurial journey. Originally, I went to college, majoring in Music and Vocal Performance, and I was going to be a singer. That was the only thing I wanted to do in my entire life. It was to become a professional singer and go to music school. I was studying opera and classical voice. In my freshman year, I hated it. It was doing exactly what I wanted to do and I was miserable. My first life crisis at the young age of eighteen years old was like, “What do I do with my life? This isn’t it. This is the only thing I’ve ever wanted to do.”
Eventually, I ended up studying Broadcast Media and Production. I graduated and moved to Chicago. I ended up working in nonprofit arts management at an opera company. I was suddenly working behind the scenes at the place where I thought that I would be performing on stage one day. I suddenly realized that there was only so far that I could go in nonprofit arts administration. There’s a ceiling and I had already hit it after eight years. I was wondering, “What happens next?” I never wanted to be an administrator that was never my goal. What am I doing?
A friend suggested that I attend these women in business cheeses and wine exception thing. I was like, “I don’t want to go. I’m not a woman in business. I don’t know what this is.” She’s like, “Just come.” I took a little quiz and the quiz told me that I should be an entrepreneur and start my own business. I was like, “That never occurred to me.”
At that time, I was teaching yoga on the side. It’s a fun thing that I had started doing a few classes here and there. I had the brilliant idea to quit my day job and start a yoga studio, which is what I did for five years. I ran out of money, energy, desire to run that business, and social life. I hit the bottom. When I say the bottom, that was in my early 30s and that was the first time that I had ever experienced what I would call depression.
It was the first time that I had experienced bankruptcy, hopefully, last. I started to have this feeling that I used to call Imposter syndrome. I’ve revised the way I think about it since then. It is that feeling of being a fraud or self-doubt because when I ended up closing the yoga studio, people would say, “What do you do?” I’d meet somebody somewhere, “What do you do? What’s your name?” That’s always what people ask.
I didn’t have an answer because I didn’t do anything for a while. I couldn’t say that I was a business owner or a yoga studio owner. I could barely say I was teaching yoga because I had 1 or 2 clients left-ish and I didn’t know what to do. I spent a good bit of time in that not knowing what to do place and the thing that pinged my interest was podcasting. It was something that someone had suggested to me.
The act of creating a podcast for your company is one of the most creative things you could do in terms of promotion.
A client had asked me when I had the yoga studio, “Would you ever start a podcast for yoga?” I didn’t know what a podcast was. She turned me on to a few different podcasters that she liked. I was like, “This is cool.” At that time when I had the studio, I could not even begin to fathom how I would start another project. I’m like, “Where does this fit in? I don’t understand how you make money from podcasting. This sounds awesome, but I don’t have the time to focus on it.”
All along since that moment, I was listening to all these amazing shows about entrepreneurship, lifestyle, business, yoga, and meditation. It kept this thing going in my mind, like, “Here are all these people building these amazing communities, building businesses, and having interesting conversations. I have a degree in Media Production. Even if I don’t know how that turns into a business and what is going to happen from there, how do I make money from this? Maybe I can start the podcast and go from there.” That’s how I created The Creative Impostor.
From there, it turned into consulting with other people who wanted to start a podcast. It turned into editing other people’s shows once they started them because a lot of people realized they didn’t want to learn how to edit their own shows. They thought, “Can I hire you to do that?” It has grown into The Creative Impostor Studios, which is a full-service media production company for nonprofit organizations, brands, and business leaders who want to shift the status quo in their niche through audio media. It escalated to where we are now.
There are so many nuggets of wisdom that you shared. I’m looking at this from the perspective of our readers where is the one a-ha moment or learning element that you shared. I believe that when we share our stories with authenticity, like not living any detail behind. People share their highs and lows. I always have this question, “How did you jump from this one to this one?” There’s always a gap there and I know there are no bridges. You have to go down to come up. I love that you shared, and you didn’t say it in these words, but the courage to sit with no identity. I also felt the courage to be in the limbo face and sit with it.
That is what most of us don’t do. You don’t get to the nuggets of learning, clarity that you need, and the courage to take action without clarity. We talk about mastering your clarity. In mastering your clarity, you got to be ready to take action with a little tiny clarity, not the whole picture because we never have it.
One day, you got hooked into podcasts, no plan around what podcasts will do for me, but it was enough for you to get into the podcast action, whatever that looks like, and here you are. What does that here you are mean? What does your business look like now? The readers are at the edge of their seats. Here you are. You start a podcast and now, what happened?
I have a small team of contractors who are all specialists in whatever they do. I have a couple of associate editors. I have a production assistant who helps with some of the social media and the scheduling. I have a technical director who helps with audio engineering, tech, and whatnot. I have a writer who writes show notes.

The Creative Impostor Studios: When you are at your bottom, you start to have this feeling of imposter syndrome. It is that feeling of being a fraud. You’re just constantly doubting yourself.
What are we creating? We are helping organizations, companies, and small businesses create audio-first podcasts that they can use to advance whatever the purpose is of their business. We’re helping by creating strategies with them and by helping them figure out the logistics of what are they going to record? How are they going to record? When are they going to record? How often? Who is the host of their show? A lot of times, when we’re working with a non-profit organization, they may have someone who wants to create the podcast that could be in their community outreach department. It could be in their PR department, but maybe it’s not the PR director who wants to be the host of the show.
How do we figure out who is the voice of your organization? How are we going to create this show? What is going to be useful and interesting to your listeners? How are we going to connect with them? From there, we will go ahead and edit the content. In some cases, add music scoring to it, and help publish and promote those shows. It grew from, “Let me create one show,” to now, depending on the month and who’s on contract at any given time. We have about 10 to 12 organizations of different sizes that we work with in some capacity to help them create their shows.
I have my idea of the meaning behind it, or I make my own meaning, but the Creative Impostor. Tell me more.
That was the name of my first podcast when I did not have a business plan and I don’t remember who came up with that name first. My partner was helping me brainstorm ideas around the podcast. It was because I knew I wanted to start a podcast, but I didn’t know what it would be about. I made a list of twenty ideas of topics. I was teaching yoga and meditation. It could be a yoga meditation podcast or a holistic lifestyle podcast. I have a background in music, theater, and performance. I’m going to create a podcast about creativity or maybe it’s about entrepreneurship.
I’ve been feeling like a fraud. I keep hearing about this thing in business called Imposter syndrome. Maybe it’s about that. I had all these ideas and I did informal market research. When I would meet someone, I would say, “I’m launching a podcast.” They’d say, “What’s it about?” I’d say, “It’s about yoga and meditation.” If their eyes glazed over or they were like, “Cool,” they move on to the next topic, or they’re looking around to see who else they can talk to. I thought to myself, “That’s not the topic because nobody is interested.” I was fishing informally for what is a topic that was going to catch somebody’s attention.
I came up with this idea. I was like, “It’s around creativity and Imposter syndrome.” People would say, “I don’t know what that is, but I think I have that.” They’d say, “Tell me more.” I was like, “This is the intersection.” I know many creative people who do all kinds of different things from some of the different experiences and backgrounds that I’ve had. I already had a list of people that I could talk to about this in my mind.
We were batting this idea around my partner and me. One of us said, “The creative impostor.” We were like, “Yes, that is it.” How does that translate from that show into the business? It’s something that resonates deeply with a lot of my clients, no matter what field they’re in. I work with organizations in arts and culture, an opera company, sales trainers, and people in wholesale distribution. No matter what industry we’re in, the act of creating a podcast or a show for your company and brand is one of the most creative things you could possibly do in terms of outreach and promotion.
When working with different companies and brands, you have to know what you don’t know. Be curious and ask the right questions.
There are a fair amount of artistic choices that you put into how you craft your show. The creativity part flows naturally, and it’s something new that you’re trying and implementing. Anytime we implement something new, there’s always that level of like, “Am I a podcaster? Is this who I am? Is this part of our identity? How do we communicate this?” It’s taking on a new role.
I don’t know that I’ve ever talked about this with anybody, but this is a great conversation that maybe we don’t have to go deep into here, but something that you’ve already had in your podcast. As you’re bringing it up, creativity and Imposter syndrome go hand-in-hand because creativity is about creating what doesn’t exist.
Have you ever led a group of people to a destination you’ve never been to and you think you know where you were going? You have your GPS and they’re following you. You look back and you say, “I hope I’m going in the right direction.” Creativity is about creating something. In your case, a podcast that didn’t exist before.
In that, if we don’t have self-doubt, we won’t have the quality, the capacity, or the curiosity to reach out to someone that can guide us. We can ask ourselves, “Is this working?” I love that you combined the one thing that can severely trump creativity, if you allow it, but can, at the same time, be the one thing that can make your creation much better if it empowers you.
You have the ability to know what you don’t know, ask questions, and be curious. When I’m working with my clients, that is a huge part of our process. They come to me and they say, “You’re the podcasting expert or genius.” Those are my client’s words. It’s not my words. They’ll say that and they think that I have all the answers. I don’t because I’m not an expert in their business or organization. What we’re doing is we’re coming together and I’m curious about what they’re creating, what is their mission, what are they trying to do, and who is their audience. They’re curious about podcasting, how do I communicate this? How do I do this? We’re discovering it and figuring it out together.
I’m going to ask the question that I wasn’t planning on asking. For anybody reading who is thinking about starting a podcast or that has a podcast is probably asking, “Dolores, ask the question.” The question they want me to ask you is how do you make money with a podcast?
This is a tricky question because a lot of times you don’t, and that is not the answer that most people want to hear. Part of what we’re working with our clients is what do you want the podcast to do? If you are strictly creating a podcast to make money, you have an uphill battle. It’s challenging. Those who are able to directly profit from their show are those who already have a huge following, a huge audience, and an audience that will translate to podcast listeners.

The Creative Impostor Studios: Creative Imposter Studios is a full-service media production company for nonprofit organizations and brands. This is for leaders who want to shift the status quo in their niche through audio media.
You might have a huge blog or YouTube channel and those audience members may or may not ever listen to a podcast. People tend to consume media in the way that they like to consume media. Few people will move around to various platforms. You can go the route where you are looking for sponsorships, affiliate deals, and things like that to profit directly from your content. More often, the clients that I work with, what I see work for them is that their show is a branch of some outreach-based mission that is part of the overall brand affinity that they are growing for their company.
For instance, I have a wholesale distribution flooring company in Western Canada. Their primary audience is small, flooring retailers based in Western Canada who carry the products they distribute. That’s not a lot of people. It’s a couple of hundred people. Those people that are listening to their show are already their retailers. They already work with them. They don’t need to get that person to be their customer, but when they create that show for them, they’re giving them sales advice. They’re given them, “These are the new products that are coming out. When your customer comes in and says X, what they mean is Y, and this is how you can better service them.”
It’s a client engagement podcast.
There are many different ways. That is one example of how you can cleverly use this medium in a way that’s not linear, and make podcasts get customers and increase revenue.
What are you working on? What are you excited about in the future? Is it anything that you’re about to reveal?
This is the first place that I am publicly talking about this. I’ve dropped hints to my existing clients, but I don’t think that I have publicly announced this yet because it’s not quite ready. It will be this summer of 2022. What I’m working on creating now is the Creative Imposter Studio Membership. This is going to be an annual membership for podcasters who are podcasting on behalf of a brand, a small business, a company, or a nonprofit organization who wants support with the strategy of the craft and the culture of their show. This is something that I’m already doing with my existing production clients. The clients that I’ve already helped actively create their show. I’ve capped out on how many clients I can have without adding more production team members.
I have people who are like, “I already have my show and editor I love, but I love what you’re talking about. No one has talked to me about podcasting like this. I’m creating this podcast for my company. I love making the podcast. It’s so much fun. I have a great audience, but I don’t know if it’s working. I don’t know if I should keep doing it. It was expensive. I don’t know what the return on investment is and I feel like I’m doing it in a vacuum. The only place I can go for advice is in Facebook groups where I get wacky advice whenever I post a question. I don’t what direction to go next.” The membership will be for those creators who want to come in and have a seminar every couple of months on a special topic.
Before you do a podcast, take a children’s book and read it out loud as you would to a child. You’ll become more expressive.
What are those topics about? We’ve already done one for my clients about how to interpret your download numbers and stats. What do those mean? Are they important? Are they accurate? What do they not mean? We’re doing one this June 2022, which will be the first one that will be open for public registration, which is about sponsorships and affiliate programs.
When does it make sense? When does it not make sense? What are the common mistakes that we see people make? We’re using case studies from within my clientele. That membership is going to be so much fun because I get to talk about everybody’s shows with them. I get to dive deep into their shows, listen to their show, see what’s working, see what could be better, help them to thrive, and help their voice to shine through.
I could keep on going for an hour, but I want to make sure that our readers get the succinct and clear value that we promised at this show. What book, podcast, or series, Netflix or something, must our readers check out.
I’m going to have an answer that I think no one has ever had on your show. I want everyone to pick up a children’s book. It doesn’t matter which one. I could recommend a couple from my childhood. I like A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein. You could pick up any of Dr. Seuss‘s books. The reason why I want you to do this is because if you are creating content where you use your voice, whether that’s a podcast, YouTube video, you’re doing Instagram Lives, or whatever it is, I want you to take this children’s book. I want you to read it out loud as you would to a child.
In your podcast?
No, before you create your next piece of content. Before you make your next video, live, and record your next podcast, take A Light in the Attic or take your favorite Dr. Seuss book. Read it out loud as you would to a child. The reason why I’m saying this is because what it does when you read a book like that has very specific language and it uses language in an arrhythmical way, and you imagine communicating to a child, you naturally become so much more expressive.
When you’re more expressive, that is what pulls your listeners and your audience into what you’re saying. That’s what leads them. That’s what creates the connection. If you could imagine reading a story to a bunch of small children. They have their eyes fixated on you and they’re waiting to find out what happens next. That’s how we want to engage our audience when we create media.
I’m going to practice that myself, but my kids are all grown up, so I don’t read children’s books anymore. Where can people find you?

The Creative Impostor Studios: If you are strictly creating a podcast to make money, you have an uphill battle. People who are able to directly profit from their show are those who already have a huge following.
The CreativeImposter.com and I do have a special something for your readers, which is a secret podcast. It’s five episodes. It’s called Five Questions You Haven’t Asked About Your Podcast. This is for someone who is thinking about creating a show but hasn’t yet or someone who already has one. These five questions are going to help you tie into some of those questions that help you dig a little deeper into the value that you are creating for your audience and what it is that you want to get in return. That is at TheCreativeImposter.com/Clarity.
Any parting thoughts?
My parting thought is when you were thinking about a new endeavor for your business or creating something new, like a podcast, think about what it is that you want to share. What is the impact that you want to make? What is the thing that you want to shift in your niche? I’m all about working with people who want to shift the status quo, not maintain it, but bring about a change. When you know what that impact and shift are that you want to make, that’s what is going to propel you forward, past any limiting, self-doubt, imposter-y feelings, and I don’t know how to. That impact and desire to make that change is what’s going to push you forward.
Go in there, impact and make your fear smaller than your dream. Thank you so much for your time and I’m excited to download my secret episode.
Absolutely.
Thank you, Andrea.
You’re welcome.
Important Links
- The Creative Impostor Studios
- The Creative Impostor Podcast
- A Light in the Attic
- Dr. Seuss
- TheCreativeImposter.com/Clarity
- Creative Instagram
- Andrea LinkedIn
About Andrea Klunder
Andrea Klunder is the creative director behind The Creative Impostor Studios, helping you craft a branded podcast experience you and your audience will love.
With a multi-faceted background in theatre, music, film, yoga, meditation, and small business management, Andrea wraps it all up in an approach to podcasting that helps your brand use audio content to break the status quo and influence a positive net impact in their niche. The Creative Impostor Studios has developed shows for clients like the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs, Del Norte Credit Union, the Santa Fe Opera, NARM Training Institute and more.
In 2017, Andrea launched Power Your Story, a high school mentoring program and podcast produced by students with neurodiverse learning styles in Chicago. She has been a featured speaker and trainer for many conferences and organizations. Her mission is to help your voice to shine!
When you wake up, make sure that you understand what is in your control and what is not. That is how you can practice the art of self-leadership. What is in your control? In your life? In work? Once you find that, you’ll be able truly lead yourself.
Join Dolores Hirschmann and her guest Stacy Raske as they talk about the importance of setting boundaries for yourself. Stacy is the founder and CEO of the InFLOWential Leadership Mastermind. She is also a bestselling author, speaker, podcast host, Iraq War Veteran, leadership mentor, and so much more. She helps people, especially entrepreneurs, unlock their highest potential.
Learn how you can practice self-leadership and self-ownership. Start setting boundaries for yourself so you can be your most authentic self. Start taking control of what you can control today!
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Watch the episode here
Listen to the podcast here
The Power Of Having Self-Leadership In Everything You Do With Stacy Raske
I am so excited about my conversation with Stacy Raske. I met her on social media like we meet a lot of people these days, but she struck me with her capacity to move a room and to show up powerfully. Stacy is a best-selling author, speaker, podcast host, Iraq war veteran, badass biker chick, leadership mentor, authenticity alchemist, and executive coach. Her mission in life is to unlock the highest potential and performance in others by shattering the invisible ceiling so that they can embody their full purpose while enjoying the ride. Come join me for this conversation with Stacy because I know it is going to be amazing.
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It is so good to see you again, Stacy. How have you been?
I have been amazing. It is so great to see you again too. It has been a little bit since we chatted on my podcast.
As we do in this show, it is all about exploring. I always say, “It is exploring the journey of clarity.” It was a little bit of confusion because one of the things that I love sharing with our audiences and our readers is that none of our journeys is linear. It is not clean. It is not precise. We do not know what that looks like. Let’s talk about your journey of how did you get to this point in your life?
It is funny because to a certain degree, the knowing is already there. All the clarity, all the knowing, and everything that we need are already inside us. The journey is getting to the place where we believe it and where we trust it. I feel like that was my journey because if I reflect, there were always the divine nudges, the intuitive nudges however we choose to frame that, they were always there. There were times when I did not believe it and decided to go with the overthinking, the programming, all the trauma, or the generational patterns. I went with that as my driving decision maker, rather than being in that place of my inner knowing, guiding, and directing me where I ended up anyway.
For me, it has been building that trust and confidence. Even though it has always been there, the journey of working on allowing myself to trust that came from my rock bottom moment, which was at the end of 2014. It was the culmination of a decade of deeply rejecting my truth, my power, and building this life of shoulds. The more time I wore this mask of who I should be, the way that I dealt with that pain of so much self-rejection, my old trauma, drama, and inner worthiness wounds behind that, was to numb out and avoid. A lot of the numbing out was food, drugs, alcohol, social media, television, or work. Even at my worst, self-harm to change how I was feeling in the moment.
My idea of self-control was an eating disorder because I had no skills to cope emotionally or spiritually. I was overwhelmed. Once I had this moment of clarity, of being present with who I am being in the moment and taking ownership of, “I hate myself and I hate the life that I have created, but it is my choices that made this.” I threw in the towel on trying to control anything other than myself. It has been a very rocky and messy journey to getting to the place of trusting myself and others and allowing the clarity to be there and follow it.
It is sometimes the courage to allow that clarity to come true for you. I love this concept of creation. People say, “Creation is always the great thing you create.” The reality is that we are creating every single moment of the day, whether it is intentional or unintentional. However or wherever you show up, you are creating an experience for yourself in the world. When we show up without a vision, without intention, and without awareness, we create what we create. You wake up one day and you are like, “I never wanted this.” It is true if you understand the power that this you created, then whatever the other this is, you can also create.
When you have healthy boundaries with yourself, you create internal safety for yourself to be more authentic and vulnerable.
That is the beauty of this work. What did you create, Stacy? You said that in 2014, you hit rock bottom and the life you had created was no longer a choice for you. Something shifted, micro steps started happening one way or another, but you created a new reality. Talk to us about your reality. What does that look like? What work do you do? What makes you tick?
It is about being in this place of full self-ownership. It is owning everything about who I am in the present moment and living this lifestyle of leadership in everything that I do. I am functioning from a place of self-leadership. In English, what does that mean? I have built this business and this brand. I am a best-selling author and a speaker, but my big passion is the coaching and mentorship of others to step into their genius, their greatness and unlock their full purpose and potential as leaders. I do this with predominantly entrepreneurs, but entrepreneurs and executives. These leaders are impact-driven and they are amazing high performers like myself.
I work with people who are like me. It is building this lifestyle where we are no longer chasing freedom or fulfillment. We are allowing ourselves to experience it by doing high-performance inner work. It is me always leaning into my own journey. It is bringing in this amazing team, curating this team, this process, and this pathway to help these leaders that are like me get results way faster without bypassing anything. I am like, “It is all the inner work.”
Let’s talk about the inner work because everybody wants to be given the blueprint for success or, “Let me read a book on leadership and tell me the framework. What is the framework? I will follow it.” There may or may not be one, but ultimately, no framework and no blueprint will work unless you can integrate it and allow it into your life. What gets in our way of leadership and even self-leadership?
The skillset for me was learning how to have boundaries. At the end of the day, the magic of boundaries is that they serve to support your inner work and your outer work. When you have healthy boundaries with yourself, it creates the internal safety for us to be then able to be more authentic and vulnerable. It creates the internal safety for us to go in and heal those inner worthiness wounds, which do not have to take forever when we are doing it in the right way. I see so many people like, “I want to be more authentic and I want to be vulnerable.” They go there and it is like a river with no banks.
Let’s create this beautiful structure and framework of safety to be the riverbanks for this creative flow, for this authenticity, and for this amazing feminine energy that we have. We have got to have that masculine energy in place, which are the boundaries. It is that safety, that energetic layer of protection. However, this also applies externally because, at the end of the day, we are not able to hold our team, our children accountable for themselves if we are not doing it for us as leaders first. Most people teach boundaries in the context of relationships with others. I am like, “Those are a mirror reflection of your relationship with you.” If someone is not respecting your time and your energy, ask yourself, “Where am I not respecting my time and my energy?”

Self Leadership: Don’t live a life of shoulds. Allow yourself to trust and be confident again. Because the more you wear this mask of who you should be, the more trauma and self-rejection you’ll feel.
I work with all these amazing leaders and they wanted freedom, geographic, financial, and time freedom. Yet, their business still is running them. They are maxed out on time. At the end of the day, I am like, “You are the one in charge of your schedule. If you are not willing to respect your time, your goals, and your vision enough, you are going to continue yes-ing and going over and then not respecting other people’s time. They are not going to respect yours.” That is just a small example.
It is sad. The concept of self-leadership is otherwise we look for it outside and it does not work. Leadership comes more on how you show up, modeling what you believe than talking about what you believe, or telling about what you believe. It only shows that if you do not act the part, you cannot talk about the part without because I was a dissonance.
Where people pick up on it is they think they have boundaries, but they are not boundaries. They are walls. The biggest wall that we have to create a layer of protection when we lack healthy boundaries is control. You see, so many leaders are struggling to fully let go and trust their team to delegate and to let go of some of these $5 or $10 per hour tasks so they can focus on the $500 and $1,000 per hour tasks.
Stepping out of the doing and into the leadership role where your job now is holding that space for your team, nurturing your team, elevating your team, and elevating the leaders within your team. It is a totally different way of being. Closing that gap is so important, but we got to go that route and be able to shift out of control and into that healthy harmony, boundaries, and trust.
Let me ask you a question. All of this is wonderful, but at one point, we need to take action. What does action look like from a place of self-leadership versus action from a place of no boundaries or a place of no leadership? It is the, “I will take it on.” My team, themselves will feel redundant because I will ask for something and get it done before they have a chance to do it or micromanage the doing. What does it look like to take action from a place of the self-leader, authentic, and that shows up powerful?
The simplest switch to flip is focusing on this context of control and building this relationship with boundaries. Boundaries, in their simplest form, is responsibility. What am I responsible for? What am I not responsible for? It is amazing that most stuff is not our responsibility, yet we are putting all this time, energy, and attention into it. The only stuff we are responsible for is ourselves, what we do, what we say, what we think, what we feel, how we respond to things, how we manage our time, and how we manage our energy and our emotions. At the end of the day, that is the only thing we have control over.
Don’t allow disrespect in your bubble. If you apply that to yourself, everything changes.
Every day, being in a place of self-leadership is strategically investing my time, energy, attention, money, and your team into what you have control over. The coolest thing is now you are in a place of self-leadership, self-control, and self-mastery to where you are now influencing those around you in a whole different way. The best boundary I tell everyone to focus on having is simply the boundary, no disrespect.
This is your energetic bubble. You will no longer allow disrespect in your bubble. If you apply that to yourself, everything changes. How would your world change, your impact, your income, or your influence change if you no longer allow yourself to disrespect your time, your energy, your body, your goals, and even how you talk to yourself?
It is in those micro moments, micro conversations, micro thoughts, and micro actions in our day that everything shifts. It is not the big moments or the daily initiatives, how you wake up and what you had for breakfast. If you wake up and the first thing you do is grab your phone, I would say, “Think again.” When all is said and done, what is the impact that you will have had on this world?
I had the gift of experiencing this. I spoke on stage at a women’s event. I got to watch onstage, not only my client, that I got to share the stage with her and see her standing in her genius and her power. I watched her client get on stage and stand in her genius and her power and move the room. I got to watch firsthand the beauty of that ripple effect.
I was talking with a client and what got me was sharing with her that I have age-appropriate versions of all of these self-management and self-mastery tools that she can share with her kids. We get to start impacting the next generation right now, break the generational cycles and patterns of trauma, lack of boundaries, and lack of confidence. That is what gets me.
I appreciate you showing up. You are powerful for that, Stacy. What book, podcast, or maybe Netflix series must be a watch or read?

Self Leadership: Being in a place of self-leadership is strategically investing your time, energy, attention, money, and team into what you actually have control over.
This is going to be a little bit of self-promotion. It is the television show. Season two launched. It is called 4 Days to Save the World. I am on the empowering women team. The actual release date for my episode is sometime in May 2022. What is amazing about 4 Days to Save the World is it puts people who have never met before in a room for four days. You have to create an economically viable business that solves one of the United Nation’s top world crises. It is things like suicide, hunger, homelessness, and cancer.
Is this on Netflix? Where do you watch it?
They have it on Amazon, Roku, and Human2Human Network. You can download the app, Human2Human, and they have their own network. It is on Apple TV, X-Box, and Amazon Prime. It is on a good bulk of the streaming services. I am on it, but it is not just about me.
4 Days to Save the World, you guys heard it. It is on Roku, Amazon, Amazon Prime, Apple TV, and Human2Human network. We can download the app. We will see our own Stacey in it. Before we leave, what action can our readers take right now?
The most important action you can take, every morning especially, is shifting your focus to not only what your intentions are for the day but jotting down what is within your control and what is not. One side of the paper says “mine,” and one says “not mine.” I draw the line down the center and word vomit everything that I have been thinking about and investing into. If there is a lot that has been on the “not mine,” I pivot back over to the “mine” column. That is what generates the results. Take that moment, get clear on what is within your control, and focus on it.
Where can people find you?
You cannot lead a revolution until you lead yourself.
The easiest central hub is StacyRaske.com. That’s a great spot because you can find my books, my app, and all my other resources from that central hub.
Do you have parting thoughts?
You cannot lead a revolution until you lead yourself. You must lead yourself first.
It might feel like a revolution, but it is part of the challenge. There are a lot of parts of us that need to be led sometimes.
Self-parenting our inner child is what we are doing.
Stacy, thank you so much for making time for us and for sharing all your brilliance.

Self Leadership: The most important action you can take every morning is to shift your focus to what is, not only to what your intentions are for the day, but to jot them down. What is within your control and what is not?
You are so welcome. Thank you so much for having me. It is such a pleasure.
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I finished an amazing conversation with Stacy where we talked a lot about leadership, but not from the place that you are used to hearing the word “leader.” We talked about leadership from the place of self-leadership, and what it looks like to have self-leadership before you walk into the world to have an impact, and how you can show up much more powerful as a creator when you can exercise self-leadership and model that to everyone around you. You do not want to miss this amazing episode with Stacy Raske.
Important Links
- Stacy Raske
- 4 Days to Save the World
- Human2Human
- www.Facebook.com/stacy.raske
- www.Instagram.com/stacy.raske
- Stacy YouTube
About Stacy Raske
Stacy Raske is a bestselling author, speaker, podcast host, Iraq War Veteran, badass biker chick, leadership mentor, authenticity alchemist, executive coach, and boundaries expert. She’s also the founder and CEO of the InFLOWential Leadership Mastermind. Her mission in life is to unlock the highest potential and performance in others by shattering the invisible ceiling so they can embody their full purpose while enjoying the ride. She loves to help Alpha leaders shift from intimidating to influential by embracing their rebellious side and disrupting the status quo. Stacy has written for and been featured in numerous magazines, including Authority Magazine and Business Insider.
Using the toolkit she’s learned recovering from trauma and addiction, she’s mentored and inspired thousands with her vulnerability, authenticity, intuition, and storytelling. Stacy believes that «everything we need to be successful is already within us and we must give ourselves permission to embody all we desire.» She lives outside Tampa, Florida with her husband, Jeffry, two fabulous motorcycles, and two cats.




