Build Your Career Around Flow: Table of Contents

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Hi! I’m Pooja — a double Harvard grad, ex-management consultant, and now, an executive coach and thought leader.

I help high performers build their careers around flow.

This requires…

1️⃣ Internally, learning how to access your flow no matter what’s going on around you

2️⃣ Externally, designing a career strategy that angles your flow at a high-priority problem that someone will pay you good money to solve

3️⃣ Tactically, navigating the transition from the role you’re in to the role you want

On this page, you will find a TON of free resources to help you do just that.

Dig in below and get started today.

You can also come talk to me for personalized help!

Drop by anytime for a no-strings-attached coffee chat ☕️

It’s not a sales call :)

It’s just an opportunity for us to talk about whatever’s on your mind, and I’ll be as helpful as I can be.

Or come talk to me about what a one-on-one coaching engagement could look like.

Prefer to listen instead of read? Check out my podcast!

Want to get these articles delivered straight to your inbox?

1️⃣ Access your flow no matter what’s going on around you

Even if your inner critic is really loud

• The Flame and the Mirror 🔥🪞: A parable to help you find flow no matter what’s going on around you

• Where your inner critic comes from and what to do about it

  • Part 1: Inner critics are scary on two different levels

  • Part 2: Where your inner critic comes from

  • Part 3: What to do about it

• The only 2 emotions you need to worry about

• If you can focus on a conversation even while music is playing, you can access flow even when you’re stressed

• If you spend all day at work quietly afraid that you’re not adding enough value… You need to read this.

• You can’t get to “I am __” from “I am not __” Mode

• How to access your best performance even when you’re stressed, scared, or feeling like an imposter

• The one master variable driving your life

• How I Get Out of a Self-Critical Spiral: Part 1, The Process Steps

• How I Get Out of a Self-Critical Spiral: Part 2, The Principles

• Masterclass: How to Like Yourself

• Why working harder isn’t making you feel better

• Don't be nice to yourself. Do this instead.

• I have a question for you.

• You are exactly where you’re supposed to be.

• Why self-criticism is so seductive — and how to break its spell 🪄

• There is a steadiness inside of you.

• The 4 kinds of self-doubt + The quick & dirty solution to each

• The simple, fixable trigger behind 99% of your stress

• If you're fighting a tough inner critic, here's 1 word to add to your vocabulary

• You’re not self-critical. You just have really good taste.

• I’ve been telling all my clients about this thing that happened to me in speed dating…

• How to spend more time in flow: The exact 4 step process I teach you in my coaching program

• Being a perfectionist is like having a speed cap on your car 🚗

• 3 sentences I use to harness my perfectionism for good

  • Sentence #1: Perfection is a direction.

  • Sentence #2: Low-cost lesson! 🙌🏽

  • Sentence #3: Another chapter for the book.

• What if there is absolutely nothing you should be doing differently?

• The cognitive illusion that causes worry and self-criticism

• The antidote to imposter syndrome

• Combat your inner critic with bullseye thinking 🎯

• You don’t have a confidence problem. You have a metrics problem.

• The Parable of the CEO Who Burns All Their Profits

  • The Parable

  • The Moral

• This mental trap will make you FEEL like you’re not making progress…even when you are

• “Doing it right” does not exist.

• A backdoor hack for liking yourself more

• Jealousy is super useful

• Doubt Your Doubt

• Rockstars CAN'T Shine Everywhere

• A quick way to combat imposter syndrome

• How I killed my imposter syndrome, live, in the middle of a conversation

• Your imposter syndrome is a sign of how much you know

• Why it’s so hard to feel good about yourself – and what you can do about it

• The 1 Root Cause Problem Every Person Has

• Your self-criticism isn't helping you

• A Radical Idea to Combat Your Inner Critic: Be Delusional

• But What If My Inner Critic has Good Ideas?

• Say Hello to Your Inner Fan

• How to Talk to Your Inner Critic

• A Tale of Two You's: The Student & The Expert

• You are not going to turn into THAT guy

• Stressed? Scared? Find sufficiency in the worst case scenario.

• It’s not that deep.

• Accept yourself or change yourself? First, ask these 2 questions.

• Let’s Try Something Different: Internalizing vs. Externalizing Blame

• Stressed at work? Let's check your calibration.

• Feeling Insecure? You Have 3 Options

• 3 Unexpected Ways Imposter Syndrome Shows Up In Your Life

• How to Appreciate How Good You Are Without Getting Arrogant

• The ONE Thought Loop That Holds Back High-Stress High Achievers

• Imposter Syndrome Does NOT Help You Improve Yourself

• How to be confident without becoming arrogant

• Who Decides Whether or Not You Did a Good Job?

• The Definitive Case for Never Beating Yourself Up Again

• The Source of Your Imposter Syndrome (part 1 | 2)

• 3 Reasons You Have Imposter Syndrome & What To Do About It (1 | 2 | 3)

Even if you’re worried about what other people think

• One simple reframe to help you care less about external validation

• People don’t want things. People want feelings.

• A people-pleaser trap to avoid

• ✋🏽 How to Stop Worrying About What Other People Think

• Worried About What Other People Think? Here’s Your Shortcut.

• 5 Things to Do When You Disagree with Someone

• Stop Blindly Listening to Feedback

• The 2 Ways of Being Misunderstood

• What Finding Nemo can teach you about speaking up

Even if you feel behind or unproductive

• 4 words to help you stop feeling behind

• The simple fallacy that leads to procrastination – and the 5 minute fix to cure it today

• It’s not that you’re not good. It’s that this is what good looks like.

• Railway switch habits: low effort, high impact

• This is why you get stuck in procrastination holes 🕳️ and anxiety spirals 🌀

• Stop prioritizing your tasks by importance

• You need a remote control for your emotions 🕹️

• The Car Honk Method for getting more done and staying in flow 🚗 📣

• The 1 tiny thought that can flip you from stress to flow and back again

• How to spend more time in flow

• The only thing standing between you and the life you want is a list of micro-blockers

• Free Public Coaching: When the "important but not urgent" stuff isn't getting done

• How to get things done

• 2 Reasons That Thing Isn't Getting Done

• The case for being less prepared

• Anchor to 0, not 100

• The 2 Kinds of Discipline

• When “trying harder” doesn't work

• Be disciplined about the right things

• Consistency and Commitment

• The Unintuitive Solution to Your Productivity Problem

• The Best Productivity Tool is Feeling Good About Yourself

• The Best Productivity Tip That No One Wants to Implement

• How to Turn Your "Shoulds" into Genuine "Wants"

• 🔥 Hot Tip: Do Your Worst Work

• 3 Questions to Help You Get That Thing DONE

• Why You Don't Do The Things You KNOW You Should Do

• How to Do Something You Don't Want to Do

• ☝🏽 The ONE Thing You Need To Be More Productive

• How to Stop Feeling So Behind

• Make it "Stupid Doable"

• The #1 Emotion You Need to be Productive

• Why That Thing Isn't Getting Done, and How to Solve It For Good

• Stop Setting QUALITY Goals & Start Setting QUANTITY Goals

• How to Get Into Flow✨ Right Now, Today

• How To Break a Bad Habit: Yes the Want, Change the How

• How I Lost 40 Pounds

Even if you’re burnt out

• 3 signs you’re hitting the limits of the Stressed Out Overachiever operating model

• Burnout has nothing to do with the hours you're working

• 3 questions to help you access flow on-demand

• 3 questions to get you unstuck right now

• To cut your to-do list in half (or more): Don’t pre-solve problems. Post-solve problems.

• The magic sweet spot that maximizes your chances of success

• 4 Steps to Stop Avoiding That Scary Thing

• Less linear logic, more paradox logic

• How to motivate yourself to change

• What emotion are you solving for?

• Do you have to be anxious to achieve big things?

• How to go after ambitious goals – and fail again and again – without burning yourself out

• More Success = More Failure

• Simple Processes = Big Results

• “I can't just do what I want all the time.” YES YOU CAN.

• Some things are 80/20. Some things are last-mile delivery.

• Emotional logic vs. intellectual logic

• Avoidable vs. Unavoidable Pain

• Why you get what you want...and feel MORE scared afterward

• What No One Tells You About Finding Balance

• 1 Question to Make Your Day Easier

• You Know What? Be A Perfectionist.

• Okay, I Did the Thing...and Now I'm Freaking Out

• When you numb your stress, you're also numbing your intuition

• Unrealistic Plans Are Just Like Crash Diets

• How to Tell If You Had a Productive Day

• The 3 Types of Work

• How to Have High Standards Without Burning Yourself Out

• Where Does Your Value Come From?

• Stop Believing Your Brain's Default Grading Scale

• My Favorite Habit: The 60 Second Celebrate 🎉

• Why Are You So Tired?

• Perfectionism is like saying, “I NEED to pay $1000 for this banana.” 🍌

Even if you don’t enjoy the work in front of you

• Every downswing contains the seeds of your next upswing

• The secret ingredient separating you from the people you’re jealous of

• A Project of One's Own

• 1 question you MUST include when evaluating yourself

• Who Before How

• Afraid of failure? Read this.

• How to Be a Chill, Happy Overachiever

• The Most Important Step in Solving Any Problem

• An exhortation for the anxious overachiever

• The 3 Signs of a Should

• Fun Problem-Solving Mode vs. Grind Problem-Solving Mode

• What Is The Point?

• Your Life is 99% Process, 1% Outcome

• Why Marie Kondo Loves Mess

• Are You Looking at the Right Metrics?

• What I Learned About Exponential Growth While Knitting This Scarf

• What Progress Really Looks Like

• How to Enjoy the Process (and Not Just the Goal)

• Don't Get Stuck in Problem-Finding Mode

• You Don't Know What Worse Luck Your Bad Luck Saved You From

Even if you’re afraid of making a mistake (or you’ve already made one!)

• How to turn your mistakes into superpowers

• Embarrassing struggle? Nope, rite of passage.

• 7 Ways to Maintain Your Identity Through Failure & Setbacks (intro | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7)

• The One-Liner I Use to Combat My Fear of Failure

• A client told me this concept changed their life

• You Haven't Made Too Many Mistakes. You've Made Too Few.

• The Only 2 Kinds of Mistakes

• Fall In Love With Your Mistakes

• Let's Change How You Think About "Failure"

• Don't Do This: Success Negligence

Even if you just feel bad

• Bad days are the best days

• The #1 Skill You Need to Create the Life You Want

• Look at the monster 🧸

• Stress is like a beachball 🏖️ 🇺🇸

• Masterclass: If you can do this, you can manage your stress

  • Intro: the 4 unhelpful ways you usually handle your stress 😕

  • If you can get your legs waxed, you can manage your stress 🦵🏼

  • If you can eat Thanksgiving dinner, you can manage your stress 🍗

  • If you can hug a toddler, you can manage your stress 👶🏻

  • If you can watch a fireworks show, you can manage your stress 🎆

• 3 ways to sit with a feeling until the insight tumbles out 🥚🐣

  • Introduction

  • Way #1: Treat the feeling like a trusty warning light 💡

  • Way #2: Juxtapose the feeling want + the situation you have, and let your brain fill in the gap 🧩

• 4 words to make any difficult emotion 10x easier

• 1 quick trick to understand yourself better (and like yourself more)

• Never Wanting to Feel Bad is Like Never Wanting to Feel Cold

• What I tell myself when I’m having a tough time

• An Unexpected Coaching Tool: The Bravo TV Reunion

• Accepting vs. resisting a job you don't like

• Sacred Dissatisfaction

• A controversial thought

• Feel the pain 🔥, close the feedback loop

• Don't Be Afraid Of Your Fear

• Your Brain's Most Unfortunate Design Feature

• Can't Relax at the End of the Day? Read This.

• 7 Ways to be Totally Okay, Exactly Where You Are Right Now (intro | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7)

• Stop Worrying About Changing Your Thoughts

• Say Hello to the Five-Year-Old In Your Brain

• How Not to Talk to a Five-Year-Old

2️⃣ Design a career strategy that angles your flow at a high-priority problem that someone will pay you good money to solve

Go from confusion to clarity

• Masterclass: 7 Ways People Get Stuck When Figuring Out Their Next Career Step

• 7 mistakes high achievers make when choosing their next career step

  • Introduction

  • Secret extra bonus mistake

• How to cure your burnout and figure out your next step in one short sabbatical

• The underrated emotional skill you need to land your next job

• 1 question guaranteed to unlock clarity about your next career step

• To figure out your next step: Stop thinking 💭 Start excavating 🦴

• 5 quick career experiments you could do this week

  • Introduction: Pick ONE job or career path to test

  • Experiment 1: Listen to podcasts where people “talk shop” about that industry

  • Experiment 2: Do coffee chats with people in the industry and get facts, not feelings

  • Experiment 3: Do the “job interview project”

  • Experiment 4: Make a ghost proposal

  • Experiment 5: Take on a free client or customer

• The one fallacy that keeps people stuck when they’re making a career transition

• Don’t change jobs without asking yourself this question

• A super quick clarity shortcut: Choose 3 words

• Don’t gossip about your gut 🤫

• If you worry a lot, here’s a rule for you

• 4 Ways to Think About Doing Something “Risky” in Your Career

• How to identify the strengths you should build your career around

• How to think about tradeoffs

• The power of the ✨Magic Circumstance✨

• Make It Smaller

• You're not confused. You're walking the Thought Maze.

• What mistakes are you willing to make?

• Looking for your next job? Do this first.

• How to Think About Money When Changing Careers

• The Fastest Way to Get Clarity: Foster the Dog 🐶

• How to Figure Out Whether or Not You’d like Someone’s Job

• A Love Letter to Basic Questions 💌

• 1 Thought That Will Kill Your Job Search

• How to Use Time Travel to Solve Your Problems

• 1 question to flip you from stuck and spinning to calmly problem-solving

• You Don't Need Advice. You Need To Clear Your Emotional Cobwebs.

• Stop Looking for Tactics. Start Looking for Thoughts.

• What To Do When You Just Don't Know

• Don't Know Where to Start? Do 1 of These 5 Things

• Stop Saying “I Don't Know What I Want” and Do This Instead

• Is It Wise Intuition✨ or Plain Old Fear 👻? Here's How to Tell.

Rethink the default template for your life

• Don’t build your career around your passion. Build it around your coping mechanism.

• To find love, be polarizing

• Good Student Mentality vs. Con Man Mentality

  • Part 1: Good Students play the game. Con Men see the board.

  • Part 2: Good Students are brittle. They crumble at the first mistake. Con Men expect things to go wrong. That’s when they get smart and scrappy.

  • Part 3: Good Students wait for permission. Con Men show people what’s possible.

  • Part 4: Good Students think they have to do it all themselves. Con Men build great teams around them.

• 3 thoughts that can bring you from bad to good…but not good to great

  • Thought #1: I need to win all the time.

  • Thought #2: I should think about my mistakes.

  • Thought #3: I have to control myself.

• It drives me nuts when people say this

• Is it scary, or is it dangerous? 👻 vs. ⛔️

• Prestige can free you – or it can trap you

• Click to discover your purpose in life

• The best career advice I can give you

• The time-wasting career mistake I don’t want you to make

• Your career is not “set it and forget it”

• Getting what you want is an amplifier, not a converter

• How to Build the Life You Want

• The 7 Principles of Aligned Ambition

• What are you under-correcting for?

• 3 Ways to Think About Doing Something “Different”

• How cognitive illusions prevent you from building the life you want

  • Introduction

  • Cognitive Illusion 1: Anchoring to the negative

  • Cognitive Illusion 2: Trying to do it “right”

    • How the illusion works

    • How to combat it

    • Common pitfalls and objections

  • Cognitive Illusion #3: Making it personal

  • Cognitive Illusion #4: The hedonic treadmill 🏃🏻

  • Cognitive Illusion #5: Turning single data points into infinite trend lines 📉

• Why you got everything you wanted but you're still unhappy

• Don’t fall for this success fallacy

• My Favorite Problem-Solving Shortcut: Same Goal, Different Path

• Hot take: turn your coping mechanism into your career

• What Growing Up Isn't...and What It Is

• 7 Assumptions That Have Gotten You This Far…But Are Now Holding You Back

  • Assumption 1: There’s a clear path that I’m supposed to follow.

  • Assumption 2: First, I define a goal. Then I make a plan. Then I execute the plan.

  • Assumption 3: I avoid making mistakes.

  • Assumption 4: I know I’m succeeding if I’m doing everything really well.

  • Assumption 5: Other people know better than me.

  • Assumption 6: I’ll feel good about myself when I get there.

  • Assumption 7: I earn my worth through doing and achieving.

• What Indian Vegetarian Food Taught Me About Creating The Life You Want

• A Radical Idea for Your Next Job: Burn the Boats ⛵️🔥

• Stop Doing What's “Right.” Start Being More YOU.

Make big decisions with confidence

• Mark Cuban would totally hate me: What Mark Cuban and a McKinsey partner can teach you about your next career step

• Don’t ask “Am I qualified for this role?” Instead, ask this.

• Do The Safe Thing Last

• Don't accidentally live your life on pause

• What Marketing My New Coaching Program Has Taught Me About Finding and Keeping a New Job (intro | 1 | 2 | 3 | epilogue)

• How I Learned to Make Decisions with My Brain AND My Gut

• Career Progression Isn't a CLASSROOM – It's a MARKETPLACE

• The 1 Mindset Shift Every Adult Needs

• Should You Quit Your Job or Not?

• Stop Looking For Your Passion

• How to Find Your Dream Job

3️⃣ Navigate the transition from the role you’re in to the role you want

• If networking for your next role is making you feel discouraged af, read this

• 1 question to diagnose “meh” job interviews and coffee chats

• If you hate pitching yourself for job opportunities, read this.

• Advice to the burnt out job-seeker

• How to Pitch Yourself: The Hard Way & The Easy Way

• Thinking of starting your own thing? Here’s the fastest way to get clarity and momentum: Focus on value creation, not value signaling

• How to Demonstrate Competence in a Job Interview

• A Message for Job Searchers

• Deciding what to do next is only the beginning

• Insecure in an interview?

• The best way to prepare for a big interview or meeting

And if you’re thinking, “Hey, this last section seems pretty small”…

I’ve found that building your career around flow requires:

~80% internally accessing flow no matter where you are

~15% designing your career strategy around your flow

~5% navigating the transition from the role you’re in to the role you want

Because accessing your flow no matter where you are and what’s going on around you powers everything else.

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You can get a LOT of mileage from the free resources on this page…

But you can get even further with the one-on-one support.

Drop by anytime for a no-strings-attached coffee chat!

Or talk to me about working together in a full coaching engagement.

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Why I think investing in a coach is so freaking helpful…

• Reading my posts is only half the equation

• The hard part about a job search isn’t the tactics. It’s the emotions.

• Here’s a real text I sent to my coach yesterday

• You and your brain need a couples counselor :)

• Why You Need To Create Your Life

• Why I Plan to Have a Coach for the Rest of My Life

• What if the reason you’re hesitating to get coaching…is the exact reason you need coaching?

• The cognitive illusion that made me wait too long to hire a coach

• You are an emotional athlete.

• 12 Things I've Done Thanks to Coaching

• What you really get out of coaching: The fish 🐟 AND the skill of fishing 🎣

• How much money are you spending to escape your life?

• How to ACTUALLY Change How You Think

• When Is It Time to Hire a Coach?

• Why I Hired My First Coach in January

• People’s #1 Fear About Hiring a Coach

• You’ve Got It Backwards

What it’s like to work with me one-on-one…

• How do you go from insecure overachiever to secure high performer? One Mental ChatGPT prompt at a time.

• In my coaching program, you’ll learn like a Harvard Business School student

• Client Testimonials

• What Happens in a Coaching Consult?

• What Happens in a Coaching Session?

• Coaching vs. Therapy

• How to Hire a Coach

Learn more about my coaching methodology…

• What my dating life has to do with your career

• You need to debug your brain’s operating system

• Your brain is ChatGPT. You are the user.

• The coaching toolkit is the P&L statement of life problems

• Why Your Thoughts Feel So True (But I Promise You They’re Not)

• How Your Thoughts — and Only Your Thoughts — Create Your Entire Reality (Seriously.)

• 5 words that could change your life

• The Framework That Changed My Life

• Model Example: Joan and the Silent Husband

• Choose Your Stories Wisely

• Never Asked Questions: The Model vs. Mindfulness & Meditation

• But When Am I “Allowed” To Change My Circumstances? (part 1 | 2 | 3)

• How Your Thoughts Create Your Results (It's Not ✨Manifesting✨ – It's Psychology)

• Your Brain is an Unreliable Narrator of Your Story

• A big misconception about tapping into your intuition

• The question I ask my clients when they’re totally stuck

…and try it out on yourself! :)

• A little exercise for you to do today

• The one thing I don't talk about enough

• Different Types of Thoughts

• Do You Even Know What You’re Thinking?

• What is an Emotion Anyway?

• Let's Play a Game: Fact or Thought?

• Problem-Solving Hint: The Answer Can't Be an Adjective

• Treat Your Brain Like a Google Search

• When the SAME Problem Keeps Coming Up

• 7 Ways to Believe Something New

  • Way 1: Put the new theory in your mental filter and find evidence everywhere

  • Way 2: Find things in your life that are going right and use them as reference points

  • Way 3: Find the most damning piece of evidence and rewrite the story

  • Way 4: Break down your brain’s logic chain

  • Way 5: Reverse the roles

  • Way 6: Zipline it

  • Way 7: Think like your future self

  • Epilogue

• My Coaching Secret: Future Self Mode 🤫

• The Most Powerful Way to Rewire Your Brain: SHOW, Don't Tell

Don’t wait another day to build your career around flow.

Let’s start today :)