Coherence Podcast

If you’re feeling disempowered, uninspired, or disconnected, consider my go-to way to get back into a space of power, inspiration and connection: collaborations and side projects. For those who have been seeking other people’s green light through job applications or client sales, being able to make something counterbalances the external striving energy. Because when we step into the role of creator, we put ourselves in a generative place. In today’s episode I’ll go over how to think about who to collaborate with, how to scope your project, and how to side step common collaboration challenges. And if you’re not stoked to start a joint project, I’ll walk you through how to run a personal side project that bakes relationship building into the process. You’ll walk away utterly convinced that collaborations and side projects are the most underrated career tools to spiff up your portfolio, deepen connections with creative peers, and remind yourself of the many ways you can add value. Resources: https://www.coherence.studio/fluidhttps://www.coherence.studio/fluidThe Shape of Now on Metalabel.

Time to go deep on relationships, the currency of the fluid careerist. How can you be making and strengthening relationships as a regular practice, not just something you do in spurts when you need it? I’ll lay out all my outreach tips in this episode. Let’s approach relationship building (not “networking”) as the living, breathing infrastructure that makes a fluid career work. We'll talk about the mindsets that make outreach feel less terrifying (including the one that trips up almost everyone I coach) and get into the tactics: how to know who to connect with, invite them into a conversation, and structure your weekly outreach. I’ll share the most common blockers I see that trip people up with their outreach and people-fueled job searches so you can be sure to avoid them. Get ready for a mini-outreach bootcamp. Resources: Get a FREE download of The Fluid Career book introduction here⁠: https://www.coherence.studio/fluid Get the RELATIONSHIPS guide here: https://www.coherence.studio/fluid

A diversified skill set can be a great advantage right now. But you still have to be strategic about which skills to protect, which to augment, and which to say goodbye to. In this episode, we dig into the classic cleaning out the closet question: what is sparking joy and what is making you look out of season. We'll map your skills across three dimensions—recency, proficiency, and transferability—and I'll introduce three portfolio shapes (the T, the M, and the Comb) to help you figure out which pattern actually fits how you work. And yes, we're going to talk about AI. Because everyone and their mother seems to be expecting you to be “AI literate” by now. But what does that mean and how do you make sure you’re keeping with the times while staying true to your ethical compass? No small question. If you're already navigating what I call a “fluid career”, one marked by increased movement, variety, and interdisciplines, it’s essential to know how to purposefully curate your skill set, because it directly influences how you spend your time and how confident you feel. Resources: ⁠Get the SKILLS guide here⁠FREE download of The Fluid Career book introduction here⁠

Whether we like it or not, we have been reared in a society that conditions us to tie our identity and our worth to our job. In this episode, we go deep on identity, the most foundational piece of building a fluid career. Before we can talk about how to wield time, money, or skills, we have to talk about how you see yourself. Because that self-concept shapes the opportunities you give yourself permission to go for. We’ll explore three perspective shifts that can fundamentally change how you see yourself professionally: moving from perpetual employee to career owner, from a single professional identity to many, and from rigid self-presentation to what I'm calling "contextual authenticity." We also get practical with a framework called "Jobs to Be Done", a way of understanding what each role or project in your life is actually doing for you so you can embrace your work ecosystem for the multi-purposed system that it is. Along the way, you'll hear from multi-hyphenates who've stopped forcing themselves into one rigid box and discovered that they can conceive of themselves in a more flexible and forgiving way. Resources: Get the IDENTITY guide hereGet a FREE download of The Fluid Career Book⁠Get the FREE Fluid Career Checks and Balances Guide⁠

How do you build a career when the old career playbook no longer applies, and a new one hasn't been written yet? We're at an ahistorical moment. The big picture job numbers are not yet reflecting the existing and impending market shake up, but the AI disruption is happening already, and most of us are somewhere between anxious and in denial about what it all means for how we work. Looking to find a recommendation for how to conduct your career during shaky times, I argue that the people who are more distributed, more in motion, more multi-hyphenate might just be the ones best positioned for this moment of seismic change. In this first episode of Coherence Podcast's fourth season, I'm sharing more about an exciting project I've been steadily working on: The Fluid Career book. This podcast season is a companion to the book: a way to introduce the core ideas, bring in voices of people living them , and to give you a taste of the general framework before the book is fully available. This kickoff episode lays out the big picture of what a fluid career actually is, why it matters right now, and the five domains we'll be exploring together over the next ten episodes: identity, time, skills, relationships, and money. You'll also hear clips from interviews I’ve conducted with an array of multi-disciplinary careerists who are already managing fluid careers. If you're looking for guidance on how to be thinking about your career trajectory and how to maintain your livelihood now that AI is closing in on your industry, this could be the very thing you need to hear.

Working from home, working for yourself, creating independently - so many of us have to actively TRY to collaborate with others. It’s not built into our workflows or home offices. Last summer I got tired of hearing myself complain about feeling isolated in my job and decided to strike up a creative collaboration with a group of other coaches and guides in my existing network. Seven months later, the “Resonance Collective” launched our first project into the world on Metalabel (a platform helping artists release co-created work). In this episode, I’ll walk you step-by-step through what I did to get this collaboration from up and running to cheers-ing to the successful completion of our group art project: The Shape of Now. Once you have the blueprint for how to create your own Shape of Now project or any collaborative project of your design, you will have zero excuses for wishing you had more teamwork and partnership in your work. Zero! ✨The Shape of Now Project on Metalabel ✨ Thanks to my collaborators: Amelia Hruby - Off the Grid podcast + founder of The Interweb membership community Xenia Viray - Myths of Creation -- Imagination Healer + Frequency Artist who runs business incubators, retreats, workshops Lexi Merritt - The Pretty Decent Internet Café - writer and runs the membership community The Study Callie Rojewski - Online and IRL - brand and business consultancy for founders, leaders and creatives shaping the future with technology More resources from Melissa: Coherence Studio Website: Explore 1:1 coaching FREE GUIDE: Career Crossroads: From Confusion to Confident Action in 30 minutes FREE TRAINING: Work that Works: Design your next career move with confidence

The Fire Horse Lunar New Year has arrived, signaling passion, independence, innovation, and rapid action over strategy. Easy right? For so many of us, the gap between knowing what we want and actually moving toward can be hard to traverse. What I’ve found in my coaching sessions is that the resistance toward advancing our audacious goals comes from low belief in… ourselves. In this solo episode, I use the symbol of the Fire Horse as a jumping-off point for something I’ve been sitting with for a while: the inner capacity that makes action possible in the first place. Self-esteem. If you’re someone who knows what you want but keeps finding reasons not to go after it, this episode is for you. 🔥 Join the Fire Horse Power Hour workshop - Tuesday, Feb 17th More resources from Melissa: https://www.coherence.studio/https://www.coherence.studio/coachingCareer Crossroads: From Confusion to Confident Action in 30 minutesWork that Works: Design your next career move with confidence

At the top of 2026, I am inundated with prospective clients signing up to do 1:1 coaching. What are they all looking to find? To solve? I’ll tell you what I heard. For anyone feeling both a tug to strive and a pull to stay under the covers, this episode will remind you of the main ingredients that go into having enough clarity, enough confidence, and enough hope to move forward in your life with grace.

Give me the Coherence Podcast cheat sheet. What are the things you need to know from this past season? In this cherry-on-top, Season 3 finale, I’ll walk you through the five essential takeaways from six months of weekly episodes. I didn’t need no ChatGPT to help me distill all of the good conversations into five key takeaways. I lived the conversations! For both newcomers and those who have been with me along the way, this episode will give you a primer on the biggest themes that came up in my conversations with self-employed creatives creating their own custom jobs. I’ll share why I am especially proud of this season, and give you a hint about what’s coming next. I’ll be taking a couple months off to regroup and gear up for Season 4. If you miss Coherence Studio in the meantime: Dip back into the archive to listen to past episodes Subscribe to my newsletter Reach out for an intro call to explore 1:1 coaching or take my signature program - Coherence You can also find Melissa at: Coherence Studio Website: https://www.coherence.studio/ Career Crossroads: From Confusion to Confident Action in 30 minutesWork that Works: Design your next career move with confidence

What does it mean to create "exquisite work" when machines can mimic human output in seconds? In this special episode of Coherence Podcast, my friend and collaborator, creative career coach Kat Koh and I pull back the curtain on the urgent questions that we coaches are grappling with as artificial intelligence reshapes the creative landscape. Kat describes herself as a "career therapist" (though she's quick to clarify she's not actually a therapist) who celebrates existential crises because they signal growth and aliveness. Drawing from her decade of coaching and deep background in art history, she introduces the concept of “exquisite work”—her thesis for how creatives can not just survive but thrive in the AI era by returning to what makes us fundamentally human. We wrestle openly with the real dilemmas their clients face: Should a podcaster become a therapist for job security? Can idealism coexist with pragmatism when AI threatens traditional creative roles? We explore the tension between wanting to encourage our client’s artistic souls while understanding that financial worry kills creativity faster than anything else. I hope you can feel the unscripted, emergent nature of this conversation and our belief that self-trust becomes more crucial than ever during times of rapid change and uncertainty. You can find Kat at: Website: Kat Koh Coaching Substack: https://katkoh.substack.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katkoh/ IG: @katkoh You can find Melissa at: Coherence Studio Website: https://www.coherence.studio/ FREE GUIDE: Career Crossroads: From Confusion to Confident Action in 30 minutes FREE TRAINING: Work that Works: Design your next career move with confidence

Olivia Vagelos runs a creative agency called Design for Feelings Studio, and her work spans everything from coaching couples designing their weddings to consulting on the experience of "people pooping in space on commercial space travel." With a background in product design and years at IDEO.org, Olivia has crafted a unique practice centered around one deceptively simple question: "How do you want people to feel?" In this conversation, we explore how Olivia left IDEO during peak COVID days only to accidentally recreate all the same structures she'd purposefully wanted to leave with her corporate job. And how she course corrected to build a business that actually lets her take time to stare at trees and research magic tricks. She shares practical wisdom about playtesting early and often, designing time itself as an experience, and how she's building her latest creative sandbox, The Good Chaos Club. Listen to find out why Olivia thinks that the best creatives often fall prey to burnout (it has to do with being radically uninspired!) You can find Olivia at: Website: Design For Feelings Studio The Good Chaos Club Substack: https://designingforfeelings.substack.com/

Your relationship with acknowledging yourself might feel more… non-existent than it needs to be. The skill of recognition has a way of getting overlooked in our daily lives, especially when we're so busy focusing on what we haven't accomplished yet! In this solo pep talk episode, I break down why being seen and acknowledged brings up so much emotion—and remind you that you can give yourself credit right now, no major accomplishments required. This episode will hopefully feel like you just got a good hug.

Kaitlin Carpenter runs her freelance company under the name "Battle Cat"—inspired by her family's first cat and the perfectly fierce energy she brings to her work. From a small town in rural Idaho to working on projects like NASA Earth Sciences and heading up Creative Mornings Portland, Kaitlin embodies what it looks like to build a career around values rather than a predetermined strategy. In this conversation, we explore her journey from being discouraged by a dismissive creative writing professor in college to now pursuing her MFA while maintaining a rich ecosystem of meaningful work. Kaitlin opens up about the bridge-building potential that comes from understanding both rural and urban perspectives, her seven years leading Creative Mornings Portland with intentional attention to justice and representation, and why she created a literal punch card to reward herself for saying no to social invitations. We dive into the benefits and challenges of having multiple professional identities—from the cross-pollination of ideas between projects to the constant juggling act of competing priorities. Kaitlin shares practical wisdom about templatizing what you can while accepting what you can't predict, the importance of talking through decisions with trusted friends, and why she believes deciding is more important than making the perfect decision. You can find Kaitlin at: https://kaitlincarpenter.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/kaitlincarpenter/

The moment you make a big life change—quitting your job, ending a relationship, moving across the country—you might expect to feel immediately transformed. But usually your internal world doesn’t change as fast as the external structure of your life. Coach and founder of Slant’d, Krystie Yen shares about how learning how to pause has often been the key to getting through the "structural lag," that disorienting gap between outer change and inner alignment. From chasing the quintessential Asian American dream in corporate America to building her own freelance branding business, Krystie shares her journey of saying goodbye to prestige and comfort for something more authentic. You'll hear how a simple post-it note idea evolved into a nonprofit publishing house and how Slant'd continues to capture her attention years later. Whether you're contemplating a leap or finding yourself in the messy middle of transition, this conversation offers practical wisdom for honoring both the courage to change and the patience to let transformation happen at its own pace. You can find Krystie at: Substack: https://burnthegoodcandle.substack.com/ Website: krystieyen.com IG: @createwithkrystie

Your relationship with money might feel more… tense than it needs to be. Anxiety about money has an insidious way of creeping into how we run our lives, especially during uncertain times when the world feels unstable and we grip our resources tighter. In this solo episode, I break down three concrete exercises that can quickly shift how you feel about your finances—no complicated jargon required. I'll walk you through creating a financial snapshot that gives you clarity on how to assign a job to every dollar you make, understanding the financial order of operations so you know what to prioritize first, and optimizing your savings to work harder for you. Whether you're drowning in decision paralysis about debt versus emergency funds, or you're ready to move beyond survival mode into intentional abundance, this episode offers practical steps you can take immediately after listening. To be notified about future Savvy dates, add your info here: https://coherence-studio.myflodesk.com/getsavvy Coherence Studio - Savvy Financial Snapshot Spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qu3MWeV-YEdOQQUHxp1vugps86BRxPgehBeGPz6UURU/edit?usp=sharing External Resources mentioned on the episode: https://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/investing-for-beginners/ https://moneyguy.com/guide/foo/

Callie Rojewski refuses to accept that logging off is the only solution to our complicated relationship with technology. In this conversation, she shares her journey from a decade of banging her head against the creator economy wall to building her branding and business strategy company, Online and IRL. “Online and IRL” helps entrepreneurs and creators move beyond the pressure and perils of sustaining a personal brand to build truly sustainable platforms rooted in authentic connection and long-term impact. In partnership with Cyber Collective, she helps people learn about how to protect themselves online and use ‘internet street smarts’. For anyone who has ever wondered if their brand should be one based around their personal identity and name or broadened to an organization or studio name, this conversation might help you make up your mind! You can find Callie at: https://www.onlineandirl.com/ https://www.cybercollective.org/ IG: @callieand.co

Experience designer Anthony Rocco and I sit down to record on the summer solstice and engage in a unique episode for Coherence Podcast -- one that doesn’t dip back into the past to connect dots but explores this present moment. Anthony describes this summer as "weird" and "challenging"—his inner world feels calm while the outside world grows increasingly turbulent. In this reflective conversation, we explore what it means to choose stillness over reactive action when everything around us feels chaotic. He shares his journey from peak experience seeking and American "go and get it" culture to prioritizing ancient wisdom traditions, daily spiritual practice, and humble living. From swimming in San Francisco Bay as moving meditation to singing Marvin Gaye in the kitchen for nervous system regulation, Anthony offers practical tools for staying grounded when everything feels unmoored. He even guides us through a micro-meditation practice using the five senses and issues a challenging homework assignment that we can practice right after listening. You can find Anthony at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arocco/ https://architectingcuriosity.org/

Rashid Zakat is a filmmaker and artist based in Philly. His work spans video production, interactive installations, and ecstatic gatherings like Revival!—a video DJ experiment that explores what collective joy and resilience looks like in times of crisis. From following a group of boys into his church's video ministry as a child to recently hosting hands-on workshops at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Rashid has spent his career exploring how creativity can be both a tool for solving problems and a vehicle for asking deeper questions. In this episode, Rashid reflects on the balance between his work as a capital “A” artist and his freelance work as a creative director and cinematographer for non-fiction, experimental films and music videos. He shares how he’s navigated the tension between being a "creative plumber" who helps others bring their visions to life and prioritizing his own artistic inquiry. Listen to this conversation if you want to explore the artist's life beyond the romantic notions—the reality of building sustainable creative work in a system not designed to support artists— and to remember the power of side projects that can evolve into something bigger. This episode offers a meditation on staying true to your questions while building a life around them. You can find Rashid at: rashidzakat.com@rashidzakat

When we step into our personal agency, we step into a place of engagement with the world and we start to grow hope. I made this episode to respond to the mounting scarcity energy that I’m witnessing in my client calls. People are frustrated with not hearing back about job opportunities, outreach emails, and are in a ‘what’s going to keep the lights on?’ moment (both literally and figuratively). This all is super challenging and it all requires a LOT of resilience. I hope this listen can be a dose of inspiration to keep trying, to keep showing up and remain awake to yourself and to others. Stay until the end of the episode to hear me run you through a clarity exercise that you can do to take a next step toward figuring out what you, the protagonist of your life, can do to remember that you have the Author’s pen in your hand.

Stuck in the endless loop of "What should I do with my life?" When you're stuck between knowing you want change but feeling paralyzed by the pressure to figure it all out perfectly, it's easy to get caught in what I call "analysis paralysis." In this solo episode, I’ll dismantle the problematic "follow your passion" advice and introduce a drastically different approach that actually leads to results. Through real examples from my own transition from Kickstarter to founding my first business, New Women Space, I’ll show how the people who successfully create meaningful career changes aren't making one dramatic leap. They're making a series of small, strategic experiments that build confidence and gather real-world data. You'll learn two specific tactics you can start this week: the coffee chat challenge and how to offer small versions of your ideas in low-stakes settings. If you've ever felt haunted by not knowing your "passion," overwhelmed by too many options, or stuck researching without ever taking action, this episode offers a practical roadmap for getting unstuck. Resources referenced: Coherence Course - for a more structured guide through the career change process