Ask the experts

[Kristen W]

You’re welcome, Karee! I’ll likely see you in the PPVE portal next week, then. 🙂 The PPVE course is way more in-depth than this one (it hits on ALL areas of your life and career), and it sounds to me like you’re primed and ready for that “next level” experience!

[Jasmine W]

Hi Kristen,
I am 17 years old and in my senior year of high school. I took the quiz and I got side hustler and thriver. I have a lot of different passions, from music to design to programming to business, etc. I keep on changing my mind on what major I should pick, what school is best for my career path, and the more I research about a certain career, the more confused I get from all the choices! There’s just so much to consider like the salary, the hours, the working environment, type of work, etc. I really value fun and flexibility, but I also like the idea of having a paycheck so I don’t have to worry about financial stuff anymore and I can just get to enjoy my hobbies and interests and go on vacations with friends without thinking that I can’t afford it.

People I know, like my parents, say that since I am not 100% sure what exactly I want to do, I should pick something that pays a lot and has stability (like what most old-fashioned parents say! lol). I’ve thought about banking and finance, but from what I know, it doesn’t seem like a very fun job as it isn’t flexible and has very long hours.

One solution I can think of is to be a software engineer because I enjoy coding and the jobs in tech usually involve some creativity and are flexible and fun. Then, I could have some other things I do on the side like being a piano teacher or make crafts, etc. There’s also some concerns though: one is that having a day job won’t leave me enough time and energy for my other passions, another is the fear that I won’t be really good at any of the things I like and that I will be wasting my degree/education.

Thanks so much for answering these questions, you guys are super helpful and inspiring!

[Kristen W]

Hi Jasmine! I’m so impressed that you’re pursuing this kind of self-awareness at age 17! I can tell you’re a wise soul in a young body. 🙂

Your question is very similar to another comment that was posted in this forum about a week ago (in a different thread) by an 18-year-old girl who’s feeling the same pressure that you’re feeling to figure this all out ASAP. I want to share with you my response to her (at least part of it), which I hope resonates with you and helps relieve some of the overwhelm you’re feeling.

“Because you’re already so committed to finding a career path that will allow you to have the kind of lifestyle you want after college, I have total faith that you’ll be able to make that happen. The key is to use this last year in high school and the next few years in college to understand yourself in a deeper way than you ever have before.

The beauty of being in school and not having to make a career decision right this very minute is that you have space to experiment, try things, and change your mind. That’s what I would have you really focus on over the next few years. Don’t feel like you need to make every decision perfectly right now — it’s perfectly OK to try things, realize you don’t like them (or don’t want to pursue them as a career, at least), and change course. If you view high school & college as a space where you have freedom to explore and discover who you are and what you love, you’ll feel SO much less pressure to “get it all right” immediately.”

I also want to add that, while your parents, friends, teachers, etc., have the very best intentions for you and want to give helpful advice, recognize that what works for them might not work for you, and that’s OK. For example, if your parents want you to choose a college major that will give you financial stability later in life, you can certainly consider that advice and see how it feels to you, but if you disagree, you don’t have to take that path. Ultimately, this is your life, and you want it to feel good to you. And you don’t have to make any decisions right this very minute! Explore, learn, try things, and then check back in with what feels right to you.

[Anonymous]

I was so excited to find the Clarity on Fire website as I was researching how to find my passion. I took the quiz and am a Firestarter. All of it rang true for me…. doing this short course, the values I consder most important when it comes to career (and that are from the actual firestarter PDF) are
freedom, passion, independence and flexibility. As an aside, I put that I value compassion and connection.
I am happy to have written down some of my values but I have not had an ah-ha passion finding moment… If I could understand/realize what it is, I can go in a direction toward it. Not really sure how to make that happen…I may have misinterpreted the course or am not understanding something…
Thoughts/suggestions??

[Kristen W]

Hi Keisha,

I love that the Firestarter profile felt so “you” and deeply resonated with your values.

It sounds like you’re pretty clear about HOW you want to be working in the next phase of your career (which is what your Passion Profile is all about), which is awesome. That was the main point of this Short Course, to help you get clear on HOW you should be working, based on your values & strengths. And now, naturally, you want to get clear on specifically WHAT you’d like to be doing. I have SO much to say on this topic that I have no idea how to condense it into a forum comment! In fact, our other virtual course (The Passion Plan Virtual Experience) is meant to be the “next level” course beyond this one, and it’s main purpose is to help you figure out WHAT you’re passionate about. (The Short Course is about HOW you should be working, and the Virtual Experience is WHAT you’re passionate about.) That entire course is really meant to help you answer the question you just asked! Unfortunately, The Passion Plan Virtual Experience is not currently open for enrollment — we only run that course twice per year, and we won’t be doing it again until September/October. If you don’t want to wait that long, you may want to consider some 1-on-1 coaching, where we can get super personalized and in-depth about WHAT you’re passionate about and how to turn it into a career that your Firestarter self will love.

In the meantime, you may want to check out a video that Rachel and I made last year. It’s called “How to Find Your Passion,” and it has some mindset shifts and first steps about figuring out out what you’re passionate about. We have SO much more to share on the topic, of course, but we packed as much as we could in a one-hour video. It might be a good starting point for you, if nothing else!

Hope that helps. 🙂

[KateCraig]

Hello fellow fierce and wonderfully-made fire starters!

My name is Kate and I just completed the short course. It was wonderful and really helped me develop my craft in terms of “how” to execute the business of my dreams. I am a chiropractor by trade, but I also developed and patented an ergonomic yoga block and published my first book! Through the venture of starting my own private practice, launching a product and now launching a book, I’ve learned a few things, which will lead me to my question. First, I’ve discovered that I love TEACHING my patients more than I love TREATING my patients. I also discovered that being in private practice “caps and snuffs me out” because by the nature of the business design, my income is directly correlated to the number of patients that I see in a day. I also discovered that I’m unable to make a big enough (and meaningful) impact (I’m talking large scale, “the masses” impact). Through your course, I’ve discovered that writing, storytelling, inspiring growth and development is a way I believe I can make a large-scale, meaningful impact and still have almost 100% freedom and autonomy (eBooks are entirely automated, so, if done correctly, your income isn’t limited). This leads me to my question: Historically in your personal experience (and with your clients) what was the key factor in terms of actually turning your business from a side source of income into a highly profitable one? Was it connecting to a PR company? Through social media advertising? How did you two “meet the world” so to speak? Any suggestions you can offer from working with past authors? Is writing enough? Is it possible to be the next J.K Rowling?

Thank you for taking the time to provide insight and wisdom. I am thankful, grateful… all of it!
Dr. Kate 🙂

[Kristen W]

Hi Kate! So happy you’re here! 🙂

First of all, can I just say how impressed I am that you’ve launched your own chiropractic practice, created an ergonomic yoga block, and published a book?!! That’s seriously amazing. And you still have bigger, bolder dreams — loving your pure Firestarter energy!

It’s really powerful that you’ve come to the huge realization that you feel much more passionate about teaching your patients vs. treating them. I’m sure that wasn’t easy to acknowledge, because it means big change is in order! Although I sense that you’re more that willing to make big changes if it means big impact and big payoff.

There are MANY ways I could answer your question about how to get your virtual products (and possibly physical products, too) out into the world in a big way because there are tons of theories and strategies behind online marketing and getting your voice out there. But the best way I know how to answer your question is by sharing what’s worked for us.

If I had to break down the biggest components of what’s helped to get us the exposure we’ve received, I’d probably lump them into these categories:

— Know your audience and speak directly to them. We got super clear years ago about our ideal audience/client, and everything we write & create is meant specifically for that person. That means our message doesn’t get diluted by trying to appeal to anyone & everyone. Although, the great part is, plenty of people who don’t necessarily align with our ideal client still find us and get real value from what we offer.
— Create consistent content. We write a blog post every single week, and we have for years. We’re extremely consistent with our writing, which means we’ve got TONS of searchable content on our site (which means lots of people now find us through Google searches) and our audience can always expect to reliably hear from us every Tuesday. This is the backbone of our business and our marketing.
— Get exposure through relevant outlets. We’ve slowed down on this in recent years, but we started out building our business and our community by getting published on relevant websites. We found a few sites that were geared toward young professionals or women in the workplace or Millennials, and we wrote articles for the semi-regularly. That got us a ton of exposure in front of the right kinds of people.
— Create an appealing, shareable freebie. Our Passion Profile Quiz is one of the MOST important parts of our business. It grabs people’s attention when they first find us, it captures their email address so they can become part of our community, and it instantly builds trust and intrigue. I attribute a LOT of our business success to our quiz. So having something compelling and shareable as a freebie really gets people engaged from the start!

I could probably write an extensive essay on each of those things, and those are just the first things that come to mind. There’s obviously so much more that goes into this that I simply can’t get into in a short forum comment. But it’s a start, at least! 🙂 Hope it helps!

[KateCraig]

Hi Kristen!

Thank you for your prompt and thorough reply! I really appreciate it. As a follow up question to your answer, how did you create the Passion Profile Quiz? Is there a program or quiz hosting platform that you used?

Thanks again for being so helpful and genuine.

Kate

[Kristen W]

You’re welcome, Kate! Hope it was helpful.

We created our quiz using a WordPress plugin called Viral Quiz Builder. I just looked it up to find the link for you, and apparently they’ve now changed the name to Thrive Quiz Builder. It’s a great, easy-to-use plugin if you want to add a quiz to your website.

[Gillian K]

Hi Kristen and Rachel!

I’m so glad to see there are so many Thrivers here. Being able to read through their stories and your advice has been helpful.

Some background (that you may know due to contact on your blog and Twitter): I signed up for this course two years when I was stuck at a terrible job. I wound up leaving that company for a similar position at a bigger (and what I believed better) company. They were a start-up with an open floor plan and lots of focus on community. I received a slight increase in salary and everyone tells me how lucky I am to work here. I enjoyed it for a few months and then everything changed. The constant team building activities have taken their toll on me, an introvert. My job became more of a customer service role which I was upfront about not being good at in my interview and the lack of these skills (which I do believe have improved slightly) are constantly being used against me with no desire to move me to a different position that is not so based in dealing with customers.

Mainly, I do not like what I do and that has always been the problem. In college, I majored in Finance because I was good at math, not because I liked it. I was actually terrible at Finance and almost didn’t graduate at all. I pushed through because I believed all I needed was a degree. It took two years to get my first job and then two more years to get out of there. All my experience is in billing and I hate it. I have all this experience but in a field I cannot continue with.

The other problem is that I don’t have a set career title I want. I would like to work in the entertainment industry or social media. The people whose jobs I’d love to have seem to be freelance positions which, as a Thriver who values financial security, will not work but still, they get to travel and interview people and visit film sets and I envy them so much.

I’m planning on redoing this course to try to figure some more things out about myself and where I want to go but I’m finding it more and more difficult to get out of bed in the morning. It’s sad but sometimes the best part of my day is when I’m reading on the train going to and from work (when the trains are actually running). I’m floundering hard and almost at 30, which makes me fear I will never make a career change that I desperately need.

Not really a question in here, just needed to get this off my chest.

Thank you,
Gillian

[Kristen W]

Hi Gillian!

Thanks for so candidly sharing your struggle here, and I’m happy to hear that you’re planning to retake this course now that you’re in a different job. I think it might really help to hear this updated content with fresh eyes!

It makes perfect sense that you’re feeling discouraged and frustrated by your current job. You never truly wanted to get into finance in the first place, plus you clearly told your current company that you didn’t want to be in a customer service role from be beginning … and yet that seems to be a lot of what you’re now doing. Anyone would feel overwhelmed in that situation!

It also sounds like you have a pretty good idea of what you’d like to be doing next. (And don’t worry about not having a set career title that you want — in my experience coaching hundreds of people, that’s the LEAST important part.) You’ve seen people in jobs that are attractive to you, which is incredibly helpful in clarifying your own path. Keep in mind, though, that even though you’re seeing many of those people in freelance jobs doesn’t mean that’s all that’s available in those fields. There are full-time remote jobs, long-term contract jobs, and all kinds of other options in both the social media and entertainment world. As you’re going back through this course, I want you to question the belief that “all of the jobs I’m interested in are freelance jobs,” and do some research to try and disprove that belief. I think seeing other, more stable options may bring you more hope that what you want really exists.

Enjoy the updated content in this course! 🙂

[Mary S]

Hi Kristen and Rachel,

First thanks so much for the starter course. Like Gillian I started it a couple years ago but didn’t finish it back then because I ended up getting hired by the company I wanted to work for. So it was just nice to know that I was a Thriver. Now I’ve come to the point where I’m unhappy with my position and finishing the course has shed more light on “why”.

I also felt validated because I know now that looking for a new job and having a foundation to work from is what I need to do at this point. The weird thing is, that this is the first time I’ve ever that I’ve had the opportunity to look for work while still fully employed. It’s really hard to find full-time work in Austin, TX in the tech industry. So I’m a little nervous to start looking only to find contract work.

In the course one of my Deal-Breakers is contract work. I will never work contract again. Doing so has decimated my finances and took the best years of my life. (All my 20s were spent in contracts…except for my first job…which I quit to start my own company with a friend…which failed in less than a year.)

Thing is I really like what I do and the culture of the company, but when I got “promoted” I didn’t realize I also had taken a pay cut. Previously, I was working an overnight shift which had a pay differential. I also had a great schedule. I worked Wednesday night to Sunday Morning, so I could run errands and go to the gym and volunteer on Monday and Tuesday. I was thriving. But since starting this new job, I’m micromanaged more, I’ve asked for a raise so it would match what I used to make but only got a fraction of it, and while I can occasionally work from home…I have to have a “reason” to do so and give 24 hour notice.

I’m pretty keen on learning more about working remotely. Do you know of any good resources I should check out as I research?

Also, any tips about asking for fair compensation? The last time I was job coached, I was told based on my resume I should be asking for 70k, but I have never found work willing to pay me that much and be in the field of what I want to do. Plus, I’d be happy with something closer to 45 or 50k. …Still haven’t been able to find or ask for that much.

Thanks in advance!

[Kristen W]

Hi Mary,

First of all, I’m so glad you realized that you have a big deal-breaker around contract work. That makes perfect sense, given that the Thriver in you loves stability and predictability! And now that you’re looking for a new job while still working full-time, you won’t have to accept a contract job just to get you out of unemployment. You’re in a much more empowered position now.

You asked some great questions! Before I answer them, I want to throw a question back at you. Since it sounds like you were so much happier with your job before you got “promoted” (how silly that your promotion came with a pay cut!), how possible would it be to ask for your old job back? Or to make your current job more like your old job? If you share with your manager how much more you enjoyed and felt engaged by your last position, they might be willing to work with you to make that happen. Most (quality) companies and managers would rather find ways to keep you engaged and happy than have to replace you, so it’s in their best interest to support you.

Now, to answer your questions:

Resources for working remotely — Here are a few sites where you can search for some work-from-home jobs (I’m sure there are lots more, plus you can always find them on big sites like Indeed as well, but here are just a few to get you started):

• • We Work Remotely
  • Remote Working
  • Working Nomads

How to ask for more compensation — I have lots to say on the subject, but a lot of it depends on your current situation. This article on The Muse sums up some of the points I often make to clients about asking for a raise and might be helpful for you.

Hope that helps!

[AmberDuffney]

Hi ladies,

I have just finished the “making it real” section of the course and after realizing that I’m like you both (I’m a Firestarter and Thriver combo) I have definitely gotten some wonderful insight into myself but I’m still unsure what to do next. Right now I’m off work on stress leave due to burnout in trying to do things on the side, none of which felt exactly right, and working literally in all my spare time. I don’t know how to narrow down my passions I think in order to decide which one is going to be the most lucrative and smartest one to lead with that I won’t have to work 24/7. I may expand down the road of course but I can’t seem to narrow down where to start. I’ve tried numerous MLM businesses on the side (ultimately trying to leave my day job behind) but thanks to this course and the Passion Profile I realize that I may never be satisfied selling someone else’s product/service. I want “my name on the door” so to speak. I also want to choose my own hours and not have to work weekends. I have an income potential that I want to hit and of course, as a Firestarter, I don’t want a cap on that. I’m just not sure which of my passions I want to incorporate into a business. I love the idea of motivating and inspiring people so coaching seems like it might be a good fit but in what capacity I don’t know yet. I’m quite passionate about natural health so if I could somehow incorporate health and wellness into my coaching, that might work. I have a mortgage and two young children and am a single parent so I can’t just up and quit my job even though I’m miserable. I have thought about what I could do that would allow me flexibility that would bring an income in while I build a business. The only jobs I can think of that would allow that are Real Estate (although being on call makes the Thriver part of me cringe), Financial Planner/Advisor, or mortgage broker (the last two of which I have a background in) but any of those jobs would require most if not all of my attention to earn enough to get by and then the dream of building a business which I’ve had since I was in my early 20s would go by the wayside again because I wouldn’t have enough time. I guess my question is how did you decide what your focus in coaching would be? And do you have any recommendations on the type of job I could do that wouldn’t kill me slowly as I’m building my business? Any feedback would be awesome! Thanks ladies!

~Amber

[Gillian K]

Hi, I’m back.

Last week, my boss asked if I wanted to shift out of my current position and into more of a processing role. I accepted because this is more ideal for me but I’m now worried about learning more about a position that I do not want to continue with in my career. I feel like I’m doubling down on billing and the more experience I get in this specific role makes it harder for an eventual change to entertainment like I want. Again, I can’t quit my job until I secure another one so switching positions is a blessing but it’s all feeling very hopeless that I will get out of finance one day.

Thank you,
Gillian

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