The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Balance Of Power (The Chozien Path Series) by Krystal B Clark

Episode Date: October 30, 2023

Balance Of Power (The Chozien Path Series) by Krystal B Clark https://amzn.to/49bkuO1 Movingwithmeaning.com The Great Spirit has entrusted one special ame (a spirit) to us all: It resides in a child. A child to be groomed in the fashion of his or her order. A child known as the Chozien and sent by the Great Spirit. This child has a heightened ame capable of molding and shifting the way of our world. Once our study of the spirit language achieved a degree of sophistication, we were able to receive the Great Spirit’s counsel. This instruction calls to the spirit seekers of all orders, advising them that a new Chozien has been born, though his place of origin is always unknown. After one Chozien’s ame has left this world, a new one is born and the cycle begins again, as does the quest to find him—known as the Quête. The order that finds the Chozien can subsequently disrupt or soothe the world we live in. The Onyx Order, in the eastern Upperlands, has always coveted the Chozien for themselves. They embrace domination, by which their strength is determined and their numbers multiply. Their order is a constant menace, yet their fear of being overtaken keeps them from maintaining a ruling grip over the other orders. The order that holds the Chozien can make or break the future. As such, the progress or peril of our days ahead rests upon the shoulders of the order that lays claim to the Chozien. In this tale, the Great Spirit has called to all orders that a new Chozien has been born. The search has already begun. All have released their finest huntsmen and spirit seekers to find the child. We can only hope that we are not too late. Here are some high-level summary notes from The Chris Voss Show podcast interview with author Crystal B. Clark: Crystal B. Clark is a fantasy author who recently published her debut novel "Balance of Power", which incorporates her life experiences. She was sexually abused as a child by a family member, leading to shame and emotional withdrawal. In college she got pregnant and had an abortion she regrets. Clark became an alcoholic and severely depressed, planning her suicide after her wedding before getting unexpectedly pregnant on her honeymoon. She built a successful tech career she grew to hate, feeling unfulfilled. Her husband encouraged her to finish writing a book she'd started 20 years prior. Writing "Balance of Power" allowed Clark to process her trauma through the characters. It's a spiritual fantasy dealing with internal struggles. Clark now works as a life coach helping people with career transitions and mental health issues by asking questions and reframing things logically. Her story and book aim to help others realize they aren't alone in their pain, and there is meaning to be found in life's difficulties. Clark hopes readers find their own journey reflected.

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times, because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks. It's Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com.

The Brain Voss Show. Dot com. There you go, folks. Welcome to the Brain Voss Show. Welcome to Big Show. We certainly appreciate it. We're our family and friends as always. Being part of our favorite show and our audience, we certainly love you. We couldn't do it without you.

So there you go. We have an amazing author who's joining us on the show. I think you're going to like her story and her life and her journey and how she's overcoming to lift herself up and be a better person. Now she shares it with everybody else in the world. But until we get to her, as always, we ask just one thing, one simple thing. That's all we want. It's not a cult, but we don't want 10% of your earnings. We don't want your firstborn, your secondborn.

I don't know. Send us pictures. Let's see if they're any good looking. But no, if they have talent like, I don't know skills and computers or something but uh because we need more of those or they're good at gaming so i need somebody to win my reads for me but in the meantime refer the show to your family friends and relatives just go to goodreads.com for it says chris voss linkedin.com for it says chris voss youtube.com for it says chris voss and it tickety-tockety chris voss won uh she's the author of the newest book that came out September 16th, 2023, Balance of Power,

the Chosen Path Series. And Crystal B. Clark is the author. She joins us on the show today. And we're going to be talking about her story, her life. I believe she also does some coaching, life coaching services, and different advice that she helps people as well. So she's a fantasy author. And, yeah, we're getting into all the great stuff about her life.

She made the career move that went into becoming an author. Her book, Balance of Power, is the first in the Chosen Past series. It's an epic spiritual fantasy. She spent most of her professional life in IT, solving data problems, providing insights, and selling work for and to large corporations. This is great because it paid well, but there wasn't a lot of passion, and yet she was successful,

and now I think she's found her passion in writing books and sharing her story with the world and improving the quality of it. Thanks for joining us, Crystal. Welcome to the show. Thank you, Chris. This is an awesome intro. I appreciate you.

Thank you. Well, it's your intro. I didn't do it. It's, you know, it was your life. So there you go. Congratulations on the new book. Give us a.com. So where do you want people to find you on the interwebs?

Sure thing. You could get me on my website, movingwithmeaning.com. You can also check me out on YouTube on Moving With Meaning as well. I'm also on Tickety Talk at Crystal B. Clark with a K and Instagram at movingwithmeaning82. There you go. So give us a 30,000 overview of the book and what's inside. I mean, don't give us all the details because it's a novel, so we can't give away everything. Certainly. So I guess part of my book really is my life and every piece of my characters, as well as even in the plots. But at its very core, it's essentially the inner struggle that we have day to day. And what I think about, well, first and foremost, I love fantasy, everything fantasy. So what I did find lacking in a lot of fantasy books was character development because there's a lot of internal

turmoil that makes us go different ways, choose different decisions, and so on and so forth. And we don't dig into that a lot and how much that really impacts the story. And so that's kind of what happened is as I was writing, I realized I was telling my story throughout all these characters. It just took a life out of it on its own. Stories are the great owner of Spaniard's life is what I always say. So tell us a little about your journey,

because I know that it's a journey that plays into this, as you mentioned and developed into your book. Sure, sure. So I'm going to take you guys on a tale of self-worth or rather the lack thereof. So I found that after telling my story, it was basically both entertaining and the only other word I could think of is engorging. And that's because there's a lot of interpretation of what I envisioned my life to be versus how it turned out and what I did with all that experience. So I think it's best to kind of like start with the end first.

And I guess you're going to be like, well, who does that and not spoil the story? Well, as you said. It's always a developing story. So, you know, it never really ends. Well, I guess it ends, but yeah. Yes. Yes.

You might be starting in the middle for all we know. Yeah. The true that through that. As you said, I'm currently an author, a life coach, blogger and podcaster. And I'm great in IT and all that great stuff. And I always seem to keep a toe in IT for some reason, whatever it is. But every other day I'm doing what I love, which is telling stories and coaching others in their own career and mental health journeys. Uh, so in a way, my spiritual fantasy, uh, genre is literally the manifestation of my life told in various characters and plots. Oh, wow. So before my whole world came crashing down I wanted to get married

And have six kids Six kids? Yes Well there's still time if you haven't done it yet Where are you at now? How many are you up to? I'm at three And let me tell you

If I had the last one first I would have stopped The last one is going to be Her Birth control I would have stopped. The last one's going to be her own form of birth control. Yes, it is. Kids are kind of a form of birth control

when you really think about it. They'll do it to you. Yeah. But you know what? I dated when I was in high school. Sorry. I had to cut you off. I just had to get this joke in. When I dated, when I was in high school, I dated a gal and she said, I'm having 12 kids. And years later

I met her and I said, you know, how'd that 12 kids thing work out? I look at those horror on your face. And I said, we said to her, how'd that 12 kids thing work out? And she goes, no, I ain't doing that. And I'm like, what happened? She says, I saw a video of

what it looks like to give birth and i was like oh yeah there you go so sorry my daughter's there nope my daughter's right there with her and i told her i was like just consider please i won't grow kids so bad but but yeah i think she's doing the same thing i did too i haven't had any kids because i saw what birth was like i'm not doing that So back to where I interrupted you on my apologies. No worries. So I hadn't really thought much past that, right? That was the vision and that's all I needed to do. So how I was going to afford all of that wasn't a concern nor was the effort of raising kids. Your parents always make it look so easy and they never really talk about,

you know, what it ain't, you know what I mean? So, so as far as my life, a lot of it really was about being worthy of someone, you know, so like my parents, my brother, et cetera. I think of it like this. If you are a betting person, put your money on me because I'm a good bet. I'm a good bet. You could never lose. And I never felt that anyone was willing to do that. So I always had to prove myself. And clearly I had to make some tough decisions. And sometimes it was just for other people. It's always easier to blame me, the one that's clear headed, the one that's, you know, grounded, rooted. And clearly I was always at fault. So let me take you into that, that whole reason.

So as a child, you really look to your parents, right, as heroes. And I always had this feeling that they would never choose me. Okay. I felt like I was being raised to be Atlas. Like I'm carrying the world on my shoulders. So they raised me to be very independent. And someone recently told me on my podcast, without emotional intelligence. So they raised me to be very independent. And someone recently told me on my podcast without emotional intelligence. So I couldn't really express my emotion to my parents. So I had to write them down. So that's where I found my passion for writing, drawing and all that. So as I was growing up and I was really young, I was molested by a family member. Yeah.

And it was another, this person was two years younger than me. It was a cousin. And so that held a lot of shame. But the thing about this was my mom had always told me, don't ever let anyone do that. And the mistake she made in that was that she started listing out, okay, it could be like these kind of people could do that. She left out a family member could do it. Wow. So children latch on to these things, right?

And so I latched on to the fact that, hey, this is a kid, you know, a kid for one, and two, it's a family member. That's not on the list, she told me, Mom. So I immediately became shameful and I held it in for quite some time um I you know basically fast forward to to ninth grade I finally told her what was going on and he was living with us by this time oh my god yeah so it was and that's what happened is that it got scared. He was growing bolder. And what they did was they, and it's interesting because they remember it differently than I do. And I'm kind of like, I know this for a fact.

Well, I mean, it's your experience. It's not theirs. Yeah. Yes. I always find that interesting. Yeah. So they asked me, after I told them, they asked me, well, what do you want to do? And I'm looking like, what do you mean?

What do I want to do? Like, what do you want them to stay or you want them to go? And I'm kind of like, something about me as a parent, and I'm like, I would never ask my child that. The child or the person, whoever did that, would be lucky to be living. Yeah. So I immediately, at that point, I said, see, you're not choosing me. You're not choosing me. Oh, I kind of see the math there. Yeah.

So so anyhow, I went off to college and the when someone abuses you like that sexually, they kind of take something from you. They take a lot of innocence from you and they take wanting to explore this with others. So I became very intimately uncomfortable. So anyhow, I ended up getting pregnant in college and I really wanted to keep the baby. I didn't have an issue with keeping the child, but a friend of mine, I was like, oh, yeah, I know my parents went with me and we're trying to, you know, have this talk. And she was like, you told your parents? And I said, well, yeah, they're going to have to pay for it. I didn't have any money. But I said, but it wasn't all of that. It was I asked they I said, guys, I can do this.

And they, you know, my dad's perception was, well, if you have the baby, everything that you're working towards to be to your career and everything, you can kiss it goodbye. My mom says, no man's going to want you with another child. And they really do not remember this to this day telling me this. And so that's why I went forward with the abortion. And listen, you chase, this is something that you chase because that's, that's a decision that you can't get back. And I live with this daily that I regret. Really? Yeah. I really regret that. And, um,

you know, so that'll, that all plays again into, into my book. It does. There you go. Um, so,

uh, the next thing I happened is, is as all of this was happening, I started coping, uh, with these emotions because remember I can't express them. So I started to drink. So I became an alcoholic.

And when I tell you I was an alcoholic, I could put them down and I was drinking people who were double, triple my size under the table. I could out drink everyone. Wow. And yeah. So what ended up happening though, I became depressed with this. And what ended up happening though, I became depressed with this and what ended up happening

is I started to plan my suicide, but I didn't know that I was planning my suicide. It was, it was, it was weird. So I, what happened is, remember I told you I was going to get married and I was going to have these kids. I stopped seeing past my wedding day. So you know how people can see their future or you just imagine what things could be. I don't see past the next few minutes. I don't see past that far.

So at this point, I stopped seeing past the day I got married. And for some reason, that age was 23. I don't know where that age came out. It was just 23, which it wasn't, but I was like, Oh, 23 is when I'm getting married. Yeah. So what ended up happening? So at that point I would like not have any kids. So I wouldn't, so that no longer became insight that was gone. That, that part of my life started to diminish, right? So then I ended up kind of having started to waver in faith because my body started to reject alcohol.

And what a lot of people understand, when people take drugs, they call it chasing the dragon. Yeah. And again, on my podcast, I just love it because these guys are so insightful. You're really running. You're not chasing anything. You're running from the dragon.

Yes. So it was like. Friday's around here. Yeah. So I, you know what? I stopped drinking or my body started rejecting it. Like I couldn't smell it. I would get sick.

And I remember crying because I am extremely faith-based, but I remember crying and to asking God, like, why would you take this from me? You took everything else, everything, a child that I could have had. You've taken a lot of my innocence away, you know, everything. This is the one thing that was letting me live and you're taking this and um what ended up happening so here's the thing and this is crazy and i'm not i shouldn't be laughing because you probably wonder why i'm laughing but well that's the perspective i think we get when we look back and it's put into perspective right it's it seems like

hell and cathartic at the time and now we can kind of look back you know but they always say someday you'll look back on this and laugh you're like really this is hell yeah yeah so you get older and you're like yeah i got i lived yeah you're right and that's the part of the story you know know, you can get through that. But in the midst of me kind of rejecting, my body rejecting this, I met my husband in college. And he is also emotionally withdrawn. So it's like two negatives coming together. But he was. Well, at least you don't fight much or something.

I don't know. Maybe. Does it work out that way? No. Yeah. You know what? We don't. We don't fight much. That much um too bad that sounds like a healthy marriage but once we once we do it's like what are we talking about right now because we don't we're working through it okay

yeah yeah but he was really handy with a drill so So to me, I hit the jackpot. So when I say a drill, I mean he's handy. Yeah. I mean, that's why most women marry men. Let me ask you this. When he married you, I had to get that joke in there. It's right on the slide. I don't know what that means.

But when he married you, did you tell him you wanted to have six kids? I told him before. Yes, I did. And he still married you, did you tell him you wanted to have six kids? I told him before. Yes, I did. And he still married you. Yes. Well, he married, when I told him that he was like, I was thinking maybe two. And I was like, no, it's gotta be six or we're not going to make it. And he's like, can we meet in the, he negotiated with me.

So we were planning on four. When three came, I said, no, we can't. I can't. See, men know this stuff they know so this i mean listen i was so attracted to my husband that i thought i was like out of his league like that's how far that's how attracted to him i was and what's kind of creepy was no i wasn't i was exactly his type like from a physical characteristic perspective and i know this because when i went to visit his house he still had like a prom picture up of it with him and his prom date

and that girl looked like me And I was like Okay Now is it bad to have your prom date on your wall? I'm just asking for a friend It was And he took it down I should probably take down that picture Of my prom date Yeah we're looking

That would be weird I mean I'm not shaming I'm just thinking being funny. So this put me in a precarious position, right? Because here I am about to marry the man of my dreams, but make him a widower within two months of our marriage. A widower? Yeah, because I was still planning my suicide.

Really? Okay, so I see now. You were planning past your marriage. Okay. Yeah. And so you're dealing with depression. Do you know you were dealing with depression at the time? No, no.

I didn't. He didn't know a lot. I didn't. Like I said, we were emotionally withdrawn, so I didn't share. I shouldn't have. I mean, well, I mean, it was just because you're embarrassed. I mean, I don't want him to know that, you know, and then run away. That's all I would think.

I wouldn't think he would be like, oh, that sucks. Like, you know, where is he? Which is what he was. But because that's what happened. Everyone was always abandoning me. And so then you might want to ask, well, why are you waiting till after you marry? Yeah. Why are you waiting till after you marry?

See, you set me up on that one yeah so my dad would always talk about walking me down the aisle so I figured I I didn't want to take up let me give him that I didn't want to take that away from him and then I once that happened I was like okay checking out right so um on the honeymoon i got pregnant so that's a wrench in things right and you know it happens a lot i hear they've they figured out what what goes on that does it i mean i think the science behind it you know what me and my husband were incredibly surprised about this because listen listen you're surprised it It's the honeymoon. I mean, there's things that go on during that time that cause these things.

Well, we were not careful at all while we were dating. Let me just read between the lines. Plus, it's the whole point of being married. You don't need more protection anymore or something. I hear. I don't know. Listen, we were dating.

Listen, we were just buck wild buck wild and then nothing should be the name of your next book buck wild yeah that might be yeah so so anyhow so i couldn't do it right so i had to because now i have a child which is now going to love me unconditionally so we'll go ahead and fast forward through like the great recession. We kind of went through some homelessness and now we're three kids in, into this thing. All right. So I ended up making a great career in IT. And, you know, I mean, I was traveling and doing all kinds of things, speaking to large gatherings and so on. So there were, and this was a point of time where I think I had a lot of personal

growth because nothing prepares you for the mental and emotional strain working in a corporate environment does. And I think a lot of people try to write books about it. There's not one there that's going to help you react to people betraying you, people taking credit for your work, just all of these things. So I had to really, because I was an introvert, so I had to come out of my box and be warm and welcoming and, you know, because no one works well with someone who's really cold and closed off. I had to learn to pick my battles and how to not take things personally. I had to learn to ask for help. That was hard, again, because people, like, I didn't ask for help much.

So when I would do it, people didn't immediately give it to me. So I would have to, like, go back and do it. It was like they didn't believe me. So I would have to do it more than once. And I had to get used to asking for help and, you know, not feeling shameful, shamed about it. Then there were times where I had to fake the funk, you know, when you're leading a team and there's so much. Yeah. And there's these politics that are happening above your head with the leadership and you can't let your team know because then it'll be demoralizing to them. Right.

So think of being, you know, in the government or having multiple roles. You can't freak your people out. So you have to keep them in a performing and a productive way. And that plague that hurts you inside because you know you're lying to them. So before I knew it, I was leading in so many areas. And then I realized like a lot of my coworkers were calling me randomly either to vent and then they would be like, well, you know, what do you think I should do? And I had to be really careful because people handle situations differently and they move at different paces. And so, you know, I can be I tell you what I do, you know, and it's like, no, that's not what you would do.

So I end up basically donning my analysis, IT analysis hat and basically started asking them, well, what do you want? And then from there it would take off. And after that, you know, I just realized I'm starting to career coach people. And, you know, before you do that, you have to build a relationship first. People aren't just going to come up to you and start telling you all this stuff if you haven't developed some kind of rapport. So I felt like as an introvert, I realized, wow, just being vulnerable allows people to come in and develop this sense of trust. So, you know, eventually I started to burn down in IT because I hated doing it. What did you hate about it? I'm curious.

Everything. Like, literally everything. I hated looking at data. Yeah, I hated looking at data. I hated people complaining about the data. I hated people. Like, I hated all of this. I hated looking at data. Yeah, I hated looking at data. I hated people complaining about the data. I hated people. Like, I hated all of this. I hated everything.

You know, it was like it's a bunch of whiny babies was what it felt like, you know. And you just kind of almost wrote, like, you will realize a lot of people who are in IT, the ones who are, like, developers, that's why they're really closed off. Because they're like, you know, like, just leave it over there. Got it. Just let me, you know. So you're hearing these people vent and you're like, I don't want to hear all that. And now to me, this is different than a burnout. Right.

Because it's a burndown, not a burnout. Burndown. Yes. Yes. That's Fridays around here. We burn it down yeah right because the next day i could i could stay doing it for the rest of my life and be just fine you know but i thought i am much more than fixing other people's data problems sounds like a job that a pyro would really enjoy a pyromaniac maybe maybe i don't know they may have the

somebody look into that so i confided in my husband and he said you know why don't you finish your book so here's the kicker i started my book 20 years ago in college. Yeah. And like I said, I got pregnant. I had to work. All major stuff just started taking over. So he was like, you should finish that. Why don't you do that?

Because, you know, maybe that'll take your mind off of a few things. So I said, sure, let me go ahead and do that. That's no problem. And so what I found out while I was writing, I was weaving all of my trauma, all of my thoughts, my experiences, and all the various roles that I've played throughout my life as a mother, as a wife, as a career woman, and all of these as a daughter and so on. And I was weaving them into all of my characters and my plot. And what do you know? That makes for a great story. Yeah. The stories of life imprinted in the stories of, you know,

whatever it is, fiction or nonfiction, you know, collecting stories. I mean, we always say on the show, the stories are the owner's manual to life. And that's how we learn from each other.

Stories, movies, TV, books, you know, all these things that we enjoy that we kind of think is like, well, that's entertainment. No, there's things we learn. They're how we share each other. No one gets an owner's manual. Last time I checked, unless I was the only one who didn't get one. But story is the way that we learn from each other.

We learn about experiences. And it also helps us find out that we're not alone. Yes. Yes. And that's really important because some people, you know, they can feel isolated. They can feel like, well, this only happens to me. And finding out you're not alone helps you find other people who've gone through what you've gone through and maybe got over it or passed through it and healed. And you can find out how they healed and heal yourself.

So it's a beauty of stories. Absolutely. And that's why we do the Chris Voss Show. Yes. Yes. Amen. You know what? I want to add a little piece to that.

My podcast is Moving With Meaning, the podcast. And one of my members said, one of my guests said something very similar to what you said. It's the isolation and the secret that binds us. That's what keeps us in a depressive state. And once you tell someone, it's out. It can no longer hold you. The poison inside, if you hold it inside, will kill you. It's like having a snake bind a poison,

putting it inside your radioactive rock, your belly. And if you leave it there, it will just tear you up. It will destroy you. And it will be like a a poison so you've got to let it out you've got to bleed it out like you would bleed out a snake bite absolutely i guess you have to poop out the radioactive thing if you put in your stomach but that's your problem um the uh but no you've got to you've got to let that poison out and share it and that then usually you find other people in the world that are like, hey, that happened to me too. Or, you know, you search at other people. And finding out you're not alone, you know, that's the problem with, you know, you talked about suicide, wanting to commit suicide.

There's people that they think they're alone. They think this is, you know, they're isolated. And they think that if they end it, it'll get better. And there's so many people who have gone through that that can give them the tools that they use to get out of it. And stories are those tools. So you incorporate these, you lead them into your book. Tell us about more about the book and what goes into it. Sure.

So it's a spiritual fantasy. Okay. Sure. So it's a spiritual fantasy. So if you want to think of it from two perspectives, a spiritual aspect is what the faith of a mustard seed. So if we all had the faith of a mustard seed, what that is, what that means. What if I eat a lot of mustard seeds? I love mustard. No, no, no no the same thing no no and then the second part of that is what if we use our entire brain capacity so kind of like phenomenon with john walter but without the the tumor okay yeah yeah. And so that's kind of what it is. And so there's they're able to basically do things supernaturally. Different people are able to do supernaturally based on their belief in something. And so it's basically it's a tale that basically talks about our cultures, various different cultures and how we are all fighting for the same thing,

but we have different principles that we believe in. And that basically kind of push and pulls and the balance, if you will, of power. And so we talk about that and the characters go through that, but it's very much with the fantasy tropes of swords and cloaks and all that good stuff. Kind of medieval-ish or that whole sort of Tolkien sort of fantasy settings? Tolkien, I would say that.

Not medieval. Someone, when I was doing a book cover, that's what they were asking. Like, how does it, I was like, you know, I don't know. It's like they were asking. I was like, I don't know. It's like Egyptian. Yeah, if you think of it that way, it's not castles and stuff, but it's very Star Wars-y.

My daughter describes it as Hunger Games meets Game of Thrones and all that stuff. In Game of Thrones, if we went to different places, they don't look the same. Yeah. Right.

And they operate differently. It's very similar to that. And so we weave all of these things in and you have all these plots, suspicion and tons of cliffhangers. I mean, as I was writing it, I was just like, oh, my God, this is, you know, I was just engaged into it. So it's a good read. The Balance of Power or Balance of Power, I should say. The Chosen Past

Series. Now, do you have some other books you're cooking right now? Are you working on? Absolutely. I am working on two other books. One is the sequel to The Balance of Power. Book two in the Chosen Path series. And the second one is my memoir, which is basically my story in how my world in consulting developed my personal growth. And that's how I, you know, present myself as a life coach.

And it's one of the things that this one manager told me, he told me perception is reality. And I was like, okay, noted, you know, and that's the truth. I aviated.

So I, one of the first, the first chapter in that memoir is the truth doesn't matter. That's what it is. So I'm going to leave you with that little tidbit because it's a great book. It's a great memoir. Most definitely. And I noticed that it shows that Evadeli is a child.

Yes. Yeah. So, yeah, based on the there is so basically um people have we've evolved so this is basically dystopian post-apocalyptic so we have gotten too greedy and too big too powerful uh that we've basically destroyed the world because of that right seen that movie it seems to be coming the way we're going with AI and stuff. There you go. Yes.

So we've destroyed ourselves and nature has basically reclaimed the earth again. Well, I'm saying earth, but this is a different place. Okay. A dimension. So I bring dimensionality into that. Right. Because I love Marvel. Okay.

We talked about, you know, Dr. Strange and the different versions of Spider-Man. All up in their ways, can shift the world into push it forward or they could drive it backwards. Right. And so in this particular scenario, when one child dies, another one is born with this particular type of spirit and they have to go find it. Oh, wow. Yeah. So when they find this particular child, I'll just throw a little snippet in there. They don't find one. They find two.

Ah. So who is the chosen? We don't know. We do that on Fridays around here. Friday is a good day. It's been a tale on the donkey, I think is what how we come i don't know what that means uh but there's a lot of vodka involved um so this seems really interesting um and it goes through and and and you've incorporated a lot of your life into it and you know you there's

a lot of lessons i think that you probably learned or taught yourself or maybe experienced. And, and this is the power of stories in life. You get to put them into a book and, and without your life's journey, you might not have a book. Yes. That's exactly what one of my arc reader said. I said, I know I should have,

I should have wrote this 20 years ago. And she said, no, no. Cause you wouldn't know the story. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

She said, she said, I know you, I know you through this book i know now yeah it's super powerful uh let's talk a little bit about your life coaching too um because we don't want to give away the middle or the end of the book we want to give people good tease out uh what do you do in your life coaching thing that helps people so uh what here's what's interesting i was giving these people were calling me they you know, and I'm giving all this advice out and I found out like people actually get paid for this.

So I'm like, yeah. Oh, did you? Yeah. I was like, you pay me for this stupid shit that I'm doing? Right. You know, so, so yeah. So I do specifically career coaching and mental health coaching yeah so i help folks um a lot of people um well i can just tell you what what they do is they'll

they'll give me a call on the discovery and what we'll do is we'll develop a nice rapport and we'll talk about basically they're either trying to choose from a career perspective, they're trying to choose whether they should stay in their current position or company or should they leave, right? And so what I do is, and it's not like therapy, what I do is I just ask questions, right? And I just basically, well, why do you feel this way? What's making you do something? And the first question that I always, or I always, the first statement that I always say

is you want to make sure that when you are decide making these decisions is you want to make sure that you are running towards something and not running away from something. And so that's where a lot of the strength of my coaching comes from, because I'm always speaking to them as to one, don't, don't try to do this overnight.

It doesn't go that way. And to make sure you're running towards something, you're not running away. So we make decisions, certain decisions, we make decisions really emotionally. And I try to basically kind of bring that, take the emotion out of it and add the logic into it. And so we really, and through that, they find, you know, one, yeah, I was emotional. I shouldn't have done that. Um, or so we just kind of help do this. And so what we do is we, we meet once a month, we develop, we have this discussion,

they come up with their own action items. Um, and then I would meet with them, uh, depending on what package they have either a week later or a month later. And we discuss the progress on that. The kicker on that is that i was like i could go and say hey so how are we dealing with that they may say yeah i don't want to talk about that today today i want to talk about this so funny coaching people yeah yeah so then you have to be adaptable to say okay well then let's talk about that because that kind of that's a fallout right or that may be something that's on their mind for the day and they want the help to figure that out. They want the help.

They like deciding and making these decisions on their own and they don't realize that they have it in them. So I help them with that. There you go. And so people can onboard with you. They reach out to you. You do a test call with them or I forget what they call it discovery discovery call there you go um and uh all that good stuff i see on your website too you have the chozier you have coming soon two books the chozier past series and perception is reality uh coming so what's it like writing are you writing the two books at the same time? Yes, I am.

So part of on my website that I will be starting to post about is it's not there yet, but it's an author's corner. But it's how I share my writing style and my writing technique. And so what I do is I outline. So as long as I have an outline, I can write because I will never lose what my mind was, the thought that was the path that I was going on. So it's almost like a research paper. You remember how we had to write research papers for kids? That's really what I do. So I'm outlining, I outline my memoir and I outline my chosen path, and I just dedicate different times to them. I'm passionate about both of them, so it's not a problem. I could finish them. If I wasn't doing so much promoting, they would be done by now.

Well, you got to do the promoting part and get it out to people and all that good stuff. This has been fascinating, Crystal. Give us a final pitch on everything you do, the podcast, your coaching, the book. Give us the final pitch out as we go out. Sure. Well, ever since I've been writing and doing my podcast and creating content, I've been connecting with people more and more. And I really didn't think that I was that interesting, but I'm starting to see why now. And if anything, there is a lot that you can take within yourself through not only through my story, but reading this book, it will take you on your own journey. And that is the only thing that I desire for everyone who reads the book. It's not reading me.

Hopefully you get to know me, but it's about what you take from it as well. There you go. The stories that we learn and the lessons we learn from each other. Thank you so much for coming on, Crystal. It's been a lot of fun having you and very insightful. Thank you so much for having me, Chris. I appreciate you. Give us the dot coms one more time.

So if you're going to check those out sure thing it's moving with meaning dot com uh and then tiktok at crystal b clark that's k-r-y-s-t-a-l b clark there you go and instagram at moving with meaning 82 okay uh order it up folks Wherever fine books are sold. It's called Balance of Power, The Chosen Path Series. Available September 16th, 2023. Thanks to Crystal for coming on the show. Thanks, Ron, for being here. As always, refer the show to your family, friends, relatives, or else.

No, I don't. It's not like that, people. We're just teasing you. Go to goodreads.com, Fortuness Chris Foss. YouTube.com, Fortuness Chris Foss. LinkedIn.com, Fortuness Chris Foss. Subscribe to the LinkedIn newsletter and go to Chris Foss 1 on the tickety-tockety over there. Thanks, Amonis, for tuning in.

Be good to each other. Stay safe, and we'll see you guys next time.