How to Find Clarity and Become a Category of One for Your Expert Business with Julie Ciardi

As a woman in business, we all have moments when we are confused about the next big thing and seek professional clarity to get to the next level for more
 visibility, authority, and industry opportunities.

But how and where do you REALLY find it?

This week's guest, The Clarity Catalyst Julie Ciardi, shares her clarity vs. confusion reframe and how it impacted her expert business six years ago to her work today with women.

We break down the two keys to unlocking your potential in life and business, especially branding and marketing yourself as a woman in business.

If you're stuck or just looking for that clarity kick, this week's insight will help you find clarity and embrace confusion for your next big breakthrough.

LINKS
Connect with Julie Ciardi on LinkedIn
JulieCiardi.com

Michelle B Griffin is a thought leadership-focused personal brand and PR strategist and founder of Standout Women Media who positions established women experts and authors into visible industry authorities.

If you're ready to up-level, a powerful personal & PR brand foundation are key. Become clear, confident, and cohesive in your branding, positioning, messaging, LinkedIn, and PR strategy in 30 days with my Visible Brand Authority Accelerator™.

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Transcript

 Welcome back everybody to this week's episode.

I'm your host, Michelle B. Griffin, and I am excited today to talk about a subject I'm so passionate about because it's given me superpowers. It's given my clients superpowers, and it's going to give you a superpower. And it's, Clarity and the role it plays with confusion and why we need to embrace both clarity both confusion, not try to fight it.

So I'm delighted to have as my guest today, Julie Ciardi, who is the clarity catalyst, among other things, but she'll tell us exactly what she does. Welcome to the show, Julie. Michelle, I am so excited about this. I geek out about this topic and I know you do too. We are soul sisters on this.

So I'm really looking forward to the conversation today. As I always say, clarity is everything. It's queen. You need it to be able to take action. And so to me, it's a topic I could talk about. Well, I know you teach it and you've lived through it and your journey as an entrepreneur, which is five years plus.

So for those who haven't met you yet, tell us a little bit about what you do, who you help and how you do it. Absolutely. So I spent, you know, I'm turning 50 this year. I spent, the first, you know,  20 years or so of my career doing what most people do. You know, you get the good job and, you know, you work up the corporate ladder and, you know, hopefully secure and all those things.

And I knew for 20 years I was not doing the right thing. I knew that my soul was pulling at me that I was meant to do something else, but I didn't know what that was. And I think that. We live now in a time where there's so much more, you know, different flavors of what work looks like. But back then it wasn't so much the case.

1996, little different that you didn't have social media and online entrepreneurship and all of these incredible opportunities. So when I was turning 40, which was 10 years ago now, that is when the whole path towards leaving that high paying job. I was a vice president at IBM.  in marketing and sales. And it was really, really hard to leave that high paying job.

I was the primary breadwinner for my family, family of five. And I just knew, I knew I was meant to do something else. And so I made the switch and left IBM. It'll be six years ago this year and started my own business. And I really haven't looked back. I, I, my soul is on fire knowing I made the right decision, even though it was really scary. 

You may not know this piece of information, but we sold our house and downsized so that I could leave IBM and we made some pretty bold moves so that, I mean, I got one shot here, right? It's not a dress rehearsal as my uncle would always say. And so we made some really big moves to allow me to really explore what I really was meant to do.

Now,  I love what I get to do. I've always in the, in the five years I've had the coaching business, I have I started a brick and mortar boutique as my very talk about not having clarity, Michelle. All right. I started the wrong business to start, but that's okay.

And so in the five years of having this coaching business, my number one priority throughout has been to help. And whether that's, you know, in their career entrepreneurs, I tend to work a lot with entrepreneurs and over the course of helping women do work that they love. , the number one thing I will tell you, the number one thing holding these women back is lack of clarity.

They think it's confidence. They think it's these other things, but honestly it really boils down to clarity. And that is why I am such a fan of talking about this so that we can name it and claim it and do something about it because it keeps most people stuck. The lack of clarity. This is why you and I bonded the minute we met on LinkedIn.

We just bonded on so many things, but this is my story too. In so many ways,  I've set up on the podcast and so many places, when I was in my twenties, getting my master's in PR, I had this vision. I wanted to have my own PR agency and then life got in the way. And then around 2015, I started getting these ideas and bubbling up the drive to do something more.

Not so much a PR agency but I knew like you, I was ready for something bigger and different and a calling, a burning desire to get out there with my gifts and expertise to really make an impact and have my own business. But it took me five solid years To actually do the thing, I started binging on content and taking courses and credentials, even though it's well equipped on paper.

But at the end of the day, I had no professional clarity and it  took me years to figure it out. It's a whole process. I do what I do now because of it. But the thing of it is, I don't like to say I wasted it, but there was a lot of time. There was a lot of money and frustration. That was just wasted.

And now like you, it's my mission to help more women get out there with clarity, never waste time, do what they love, be recognized and visible and well paid doing what they love. So that's why you and I are so aligned. Before  we kind of go into a little bit more about, about clarity and kind of that process that you have to embrace.

You know, we also. Found very quickly that we have a, a love of a similar author, Florence Scovel Shin, who, you know, I just, Oh, you know, when you think of the new thought era back with, you know, you think of Napoleon Hill and thinking grow rich, but she was writing her books at that time and she's less known. 

But you and I totally bonded over that and, and her full set of works, but she's most notable for the game of life and inside of her, message, is this idea that I think you and I are so aligned on, and that is that we were created with a perfect self expression, this divine design, she says, right?

That we're meant to bring out into the world, but most have wandered far from that. Design. I get the chill saying it. And I think that's why we're so in alignment is that we are here to help women first understand maybe what that perfect self expression is, how to fully live their divine design and do work that they love.

And I just, that's why I think it's actually goes back to the heart of her message is really why I think we've connected so well.  Just for those listening I signed up for your recent masterclass all week going through that evening, the slides 

and you had that quote, I stopped the presses immediately DMG. And I said, are you kidding me?  I listened to her every day on audible. It's like my daily mindset. I showed you my dog eared version from 2016 when a fellow entrepreneur had recommended her. I have never actually found someone who knew her and just, you know, think the world of what she does.

And, she was a woman at that time doing that, which was pretty rare too.  It's so cool. She is amazing. We'll have to come back and do another episode just on her and the power because I recommend her. But the reason you're here among other things, because we bond so much, but we're going to talk about clarity, confusion, all the things, and let's get into it because it is a part of life being an entrepreneur, female founder, female entrepreneur.

We have to embrace it and not fight it. As you say. Yes. A hundred percent. And I think I fought it, you know, for so long because I, you know, I, in human design, I'm a manifesting generator called an express builder. And I like to do things quick. I make decisions pretty quickly. I like to go, go, go.  Being stuck is not, it's not a place I enjoy being.

And I would find that, especially in the beginning, it's what kept me stuck at IBM. , I didn't know what I was going to do. I had my list kind of similar to you. I remember having this list of, well, these are the things I could do if I left. And I don't know, do I really want to do this? And it was such this process of years of it being a desire, but not being You know something that came to fruition because  I was confused.

I didn't have clarity, right? And what I've come to learn, and it's funny because then when I became an entrepreneur, same kind of thing. What sales strategy do I want to use? What marketing strategy? What's my offers going to look like? My branding? I mean, you think of every decision you need to make as an entrepreneur.

as a leader, really, you are making decisions constantly. And so you have to get very comfortable with making decisions. And how do we make decisions? We make decisions once we've got clarity. And so the problem is, is that when we don't Trust the process. And honestly, our own personal process for clarity.

It can really derail us, you know, and so what happens, what happens when we don't know our own process for clarity or rethink something's wrong because we don't know the answer. We look outside of ourselves. So we try to get to the next guru or, you know, and again, I'm not saying, listen,  I help people get clarity, but I don't,  I don't tell them what to do. 

to get clarity. It's a process they have to go through to get the clarity out of them. So I always tell my clients, I'm not going to tell you which social media platform to be on, you know, which marketing strategy to do. What offer should you do group programs or one on one? No way I'm going to tell you there's one way you've, I'm going to help you get to the clarity in you to know which is the right path because it's not that decision making.

So what I've come to learn is that if you think, nothing is by itself. It's always a polarity, right? So what's the opposite of clarity? It's confusion, right? But it's the same thing. It's just you're trying to get to the other side of it. And it's, it's such a process that again, that can be unique to you.

And I started to get excited now. when I get confused.  So when I feel confusion, it's almost, and it's a feeling in my body. It's right behind my eyebrows and my eyes. And it's like, it almost feels like my brain can't get clear, you know, it's like staticky and I used to fight against it.

look for solutions outside of myself. It may be there's a course or a podcast or something that's going to help me. Now I know it's an internal process that could take me a couple days, might take me a couple of weeks, might be quick. It depends. But now I know that when the confusion starts happening, like, Ooh, something good is coming.

On the Other end of this confusion is complete clarity and I'm going to allow, this is my big word with it, allow the time it takes for that clarity to come to fruition. And I use different practices and tools for me. The biggest one has been getting to know my design, getting to know my own human design, how my unique process for making decisions. 

And, and, and getting that clarity. And then for me, it's going on walks. For some people, they can sit and meditate to get to the clarity. That does not work for me, but I, I need almost  moving meditation. And so I walk, I move my body and that is when all the downloads start coming. It's when these, divine downloads, these intuitive hits, because clarity comes from intuition.

It doesn't come from.  So when you can really find the process that works for you, those hits will come and clarity, I say, is like the best dopamine in the world. You know, when you get that clear hit, you're like, Oh yes, I know what I'm going to do next. And so. Yeah. Cool. Welcoming confusion as a sign that clarity is coming, that a breakthrough is right around the corner.

If you don't give up and you, and you, or you try to force it and you just got to follow that process that becomes unique to you to get to that, that intuitive internal clarity. Oh, another thing on our list of why we're like, because walking is my, that's my answers. It's my own therapy.

My answers come to me all the time. I take my phone with otter. ai and just start  blabbing it out. And then I have an audio and a transcript because I do that all the time. That's right. If I'm stuck, but I then you have it.

It's transcribed. You have the audios. You can listen back and go, Oh yeah, there's power. I even tell my clients this when we're working. I'm like, go blab it out and then go listen. You're going to trigger other ideas. But you've got to find, I've always said the answers are inside and that's what I've knew and I should have known.

Five years because I started going off and all the digital marketing courses, the copyright. I mean, all those things are great down the road. You have no clarity. They make no sense. And so I was getting more and more lost, more and more frustrated, more and more confused. And one of those daily walks, I had a couple different intuitions come to me over certain times.

One of them was like, your struggle is your story. Your struggle is your story, whatever that meant. Right. And then, One of the other ones was that I, I just knew that the answers were inside, but I was just consuming and you were just like, you're on the wrong path. You're on the wrong path. But I just had no idea how to get there.

But that's a whole nother story in itself, how I work my way out, why I do what I do, why I help women do their own roadmaps or personal brand positioning. And that's why what we do is so aligned. It's almost like, I think you're the one that comes before. The actual, you know, get out there work I do. So I love that we're so aligned, but the answers are inside.

You don't have to look externally. They're there. They're absolutely there. You know, if you, if we could kind of talk about, you know, women, right. So I love what you're doing. I love, you know, this idea of stand out women and owning own your lane, right? This incredible thing that you're doing to help women and, and, and zeroing in there because I will tell you the same with me.

That's another reason why we're aligned. I've chosen to really work with women and here's why. And I think I shared this with you. You know, I had the most beautiful opportunity to work with Bob Proctor and I actually had the chance to go and have dinner with him and his wife literally a few months before he.

He passed and I mean, I have the chills. He's just, it's one of the most powerful, amazing, genuine souls I have ever met. He was 87 when he died, still doing what he loved. He was doing Facebook live masterclasses like couple weeks before he passed. And his message was always the same from the time he, you know, from like in the early eighties until, you know, he passed.

And in working with him, what I began to understand and, welcome, is this process of self study and I've learned so many gems from him. But one of the things he said to me was he said, you shouldn't just work  with women. You should work with everyone.

Like don't limit yourself. Don't just work with women. But he's a man. He was a man saying that. And, and I get, and the people I do get it from are usually men, like men coaches or, you know, whatever. And here's why I will not do that.  I'll work with some men one on one, but not in kind of my mission in what I do.

I believe that we are still fighting against a narrative, a bunch of narratives that still are holding us back in a different way than men. And we look at it as, as you know, there's a lot of confidence stuff, right? A lot of confidence stuff. Don't want to put yourself out there too much.

But if you're not putting yourself out there, I mean, there's so much we could spend a whole episode just on that. But what I want to share with it when it comes to clarity  with this for women  is that lack of confidence has lots of flavors to it. Just like fear can have a lot of flavors to it, right?

We can have fear of putting ourselves out there. We can have fear of what others are going to think. We can have fear that, you know, we might be judged. We can lack confidence in our words. We can have lack confidence because sometimes we lack confidence because we're afraid that certain people are going to see what we're saying and, and it's usually comes down to often.

Just a few people that we are worried are going to hear and judge what we're saying. And it holds us back. But what happens is that we try to go to, well, how can I get more confidence? How can I create more courage?  You can't force that. You, what I find is that clarity becomes this fuel that helps you get past.

a lack of confidence and do it anyway. So, you know, the whole do it anyway, you know, like get pushed through the fear and do it anyway, just do it. I think that can be really challenging when you don't have clarity. That's why I like to say the clarity catalyst because that clarity It actually triggers more confidence, it triggers conviction, it triggers courage.

So even if you're not entirely sure, you're worried about what people are going to think, you're not, you know, quite sure you have all the depth that you want on a topic.  If you've got clarity on this is what I'm meant to say, this is what I meant to bring into this world. These are my beliefs or whatever it's going to be. 

You can bypass some of that stuff and then the confidence builds, the courage builds, but it starts, I really have found over the course of, you know, this work, it starts with that clarity. Have you found that too? Oh, absolutely. As you're sitting here, I'm reaching for the LinkedIn branding book  where we, you know, we had those.

30 fears, but in chapter two, it's called action brings advantage. And my quote on the top says action breeds, courage, clarity, and confidence. It's really the whole thing of putting yourself out there, but when you have that clarity, you will also have courage and conviction, and you can say yes to the things that are meant for you.

That's a whole own your lane concept. You're here, you know, the whole Florence thing, the, thing that you're here to do. You say no to those things. You don't go there. You don't look and compare either because you have, clarity on who you are and then gives you more confidence to get out there and keep going farther and farther.

So clear confidence and courage, I think kind of like twins that, that come from clarity. So we are, you're so there. Yes, they breed. That's the word I loved using breeding. Yes, absolutely.  And you know, The word clarity, even though we're branding, it's such a word that sometimes it doesn't, it's not a physical thing, but boy, when you have it, the world is on fire.

It's your superpower. And so that's why it's really my mission to help more women find it. Well, and here's the thing, you know, I think we are helping  similar type of women where they are the product. So they are the brand.  So clarity and branding becomes a whole other thing. Right. So my daughter who's 20 years old, she's looking for her internship.

She's a junior, you know, going to be a rising senior in college. And so she's into marketing and communications and all the things like, you know, kind of like her mom. And, but she really wants to be on the product side of things, right? She wants to help bring new products to market, like physical products, branding, marketing, positioning, clarity.

so different when it's a product versus when it's you. Like I could market my My amazing iPhone case all day long. It's so cool. Cause it's got square edges and I love that. It makes it look, I could go on and on about like how much I love this case. When it comes to promoting me or any woman that promoting themselves, everything changes.

And the crazy thing is women are the.  networkers of promoting things, right? We're gonna be like, where did you get those earrings? I love them. Oh, where did you get that coat? Oh my gosh. Where did you get that lipstick color? Right? We are so natural. at this, except when it comes to us. I was on a group chat this morning with some of friends that are like, they're like my son, who's 10.

It's the friend's moms. And we're on this little group chat. One of them is an actress. She was just on a a series and didn't tell anyone. Yeah. I mean, really? It's a lot. So I'm like, wow. Why don't you give us like, well, I don't want to be too much. I don't want to share. I'm like, what? Like we want to watch you on TV.

Like this is huge. Right. But this is pervasive. Yes. We can share the best shows, the best books, all the things, but when it comes to us. And so I think that what you and I do is so important because we're helping women get clarity on positioning themselves, the confidence to do so, to take a stand. You know, it's like this, take a stand in your brand, right?

Like for who it's not, it's not natural because we haven't been taught it. We haven't been taught how to brand and position ourselves. And so I love the work that you're doing and what I'm doing because. That's, it's so needed. And you know what? The Dalai Lama said that the world will be saved by the Western woman.

What he meant by that is the more that we stand in our power and what uniquely we were here to say and do and, and do that work promoting ourselves. It's okay. The world will be a better place. You know, I really believe that I'm not being Pollyanna.  If you are in my about section on my michellebgriffin.

com website, I say the same thing. I'm here to help women get visible, to support them in their work and ideas, earn more, make that impact, influence for all the right reasons. You know, and with that becomes profit, but that's exactly it. We are here and we need to be out there in a bigger way to make that change we're here for.

And women are truly capable and need to be recognized and amplified doing so. That's why I'm here.  I love it. I cannot wait. For your book. I can't wait to help you promote this book. I think it's just going to be so incredibly powerful.  I have no doubt. It's so needed, because when you think about how marketing Branding, all the things have, it's been a male dominated industry.

If you ever watch Mad Men, right? I mean, we are still utilizing marketing strategies and principles that were created by men and, and there's nothing wrong with that. It's not like male bashing. It's just more that like, but you know what? Women buy differently. We just do.  And as if anyone watched anything that happened with Stanley Cups, we have this incredible purchasing power, but we buy differently and for different reasons.

And that means that as women. Who are our brands. We want to show up and market differently and sell differently. And the more that I understand human design, okay, and the more that I, half of us are emotional buyers and that is why we FOMO, scarcity, all these things we jump and often it's the wrong decision.

And so one of the things that I'm really taking very, very seriously in my own business. Is making sure that I am marketing and selling with that in mind, out of integrity. I don't want someone to feel like they're going to miss out. And that's why they're making a decision. You know, I was taught that, it was taught that scarcity and FOMO, they work.

Well, yeah, they work because that is, you know, half of us as humans, Yeah. We have to wait for that emotional clarity before we make a decision. The other half of us can make decisions in the moment more based on their gut, but sometimes the mind gets in the way. So people buy differently and I think that we women have an opportunity. 

To make even just marketing and selling more authentic with more integrity, showing up to serve the way that we love to do. And I'm excited. I'm excited to be a part of that shift. And I think that what you're doing, the book you've got coming out, like it's That's all in alignment with that approach.

That's exactly it. You just said earlier, we haven't been taught when we're the face of our brand, we can read any book in the world about brand marketing, all the things, even the personal branding books out there. No, no offense to them. Some of them are little just, You know, surface level, and I want to give a real actionable roadmap, how to get there.

It's personal positioning, personal branding, personal marketing, personal PR, wrapping that all in. And here's how to do it authentically. That's for you. That is aligned with you and makes you fulfilled too. Because at the  at the end of the day, if you're not aligned, fulfilled, none of that other stuff's going to happen.

And you're not going to connect with the right people and make that impact you're here to make. Right. And so, yeah. Everything you're saying. I'm like, yes, that's exactly what the book's about. 

 I'm really looking forward to, you know, just continuing to collaborate and, and partner and support each other. You know, the more of us that can do that, the better. And I, I'll say one last thing.  When it comes to clarity,  make sure one little piece of actionable advice, really be careful of how much you're letting in and influencing your own choices.

Right? So anyone that's listening or watching, right,  you pick up this phone and you start scrolling and now you're going away from your own, intuitive insight as to what you want to say and how you want your brand to look and how you, what you want to take a stand for. And in human design, about 70 percent of us have what's called the, an open head center, an open inspiration center.

So what happens is that it becomes a mirror for everything we consume. So we end up like, that's why so many people sound the same.  Go roll Instagram or LinkedIn and you know, it's, it's LinkedIn's a bit badder than, than Instagram with this, but everyone's saying the same things,  but we're all meant to bring something different and unique.

And so go in versus out, guard your mind as Jim Rohn and Bob Proctor would say, like, just guard your mind. What are you allowing in? Because if it's too much, you're shiny object. You know, syndrome, you know, mind is going to distract you from what you're actually meant to say, what you're meant to do. And I think that that's just something to be mindful of so that your voice is coming out and not what you're hearing and seeing in the, all the social space. 

I love that. That's your actual tip. I was going to ask you that. So thank you for doing that. But no, that's exactly when you own your lane, you're never going to feel lost. Like that is exactly it. So if you do go, Oh, look at that. And then you realize, Oh, maybe, maybe, nope, get back on track. That's their lane.

This is mine. I am owning it. I'm uniquely qualified and here with my self expression and my own design, as you would say, and Florence would say, to just keep going that way and not off track. And I, I get it too. I call it, put your blinders on, have your guardrails. That roadmap I help my clients create is that roadmap.

So they don't have to look off and get off track. I'm using all the analogies and cliches. I know. My brain thinks in analogies and cliches every second of the day. But but that's exactly it. So that's a wonderful tip because it is so easy. And the thing that completely is making you different and unique is what we need.

We don't need the clone. That's why everyone looks the same on Instagram and sometimes talks the same. And it's just. It's depressing, especially in AI where everything's just, you know, sourced out from a robot and computer. We don't need that. We need more human connection, so let's do that. 

I'm going to have you back on the show at a future time and we will be collaborating. I know when so many things, so we can just go deeper and just We have so much on cover, but in little micro chunks, I think is the best way to do it. So this has been a blast, Julie. Thank you so much. Where can people find you if they want to learn more about what you do?

 Just go to julieciardi. com. All the stuff's there. Nice and easy. Yeah.  And follow Julie on Instagram and LinkedIn. I'll put your links there because you do have a really awesome Instagram, which I'm not very, Active. So always look at you and see how you're doing things there. That's where you started Instagram.

And now I know you're on LinkedIn and love it. So thank you so much for being here today. I cannot wait for our future collaborations to happen.  Same. Thank you so much, Michelle.  All right, everybody. That's another episode. Thank you to Julie. Until next time, keep putting yourself out there.

You have a brand to build, a message to share and people to impact. I'll catch you next time. Take care.