From A People Perspective

Martin Hauck (00:00.235)
So, all right. Welcome back everyone. Thanks for coming to show up for another episode of from a people perspective. I'm your host, Martin Hawk. And today we've got a special guest, Linda Rainier. Thanks for joining us today.

Linda Raynier (00:16.398)
Thanks for having me, Martin. I'm excited for this conversation.

Martin Hauck (00:19.957)
I'm yeah, me too. Before we dive into things, I like to do a little bit of a icebreaker situation. So let's just as you can see, I've got a bunch of albums behind me. I'm a little bit of a music nut. I'm curious to get a sense of what your what your musical preferences are. So if you had to choose an album or a musical artist that you could only listen to them for the rest of time, what are you going with?

Linda Raynier (00:47.694)
Oh my gosh, you're asking the wrong person because I'm the type of person that literally whatever's playing on Spotify, it's like, okay, do I like it or not? And then I don't really pay attention who, but I think they're called the paper kites. that, cause I find myself drawn to them. Is that right? Is that a group?

Martin Hauck (00:51.033)
You

Martin Hauck (00:59.992)
Okay.

Martin Hauck (01:04.343)
I saw paper kites is, you know, maybe I'm not as musical. Okay.

Linda Raynier (01:07.222)
Yeah, paper kites, the paper kites. They're, more like acoustic and kind of indie. I don't know. It's that, yeah.

Martin Hauck (01:13.719)
Nice, That's your jam. Okay. What is so let's let's pick a genre like what jazz classical hip hop, what do you what do you usually gravitate towards?

Linda Raynier (01:25.386)
I would say more of the of the acoustic, like the sort of that cottage music that you always play when you're like sitting by the lake. It's that vibe, the mellow. I don't even really know what that's called. Yeah.

Martin Hauck (01:33.26)
You

Martin Hauck (01:37.823)
mellow. Yeah, cottage vibe. I dig that. I dig that. Cool. Cool. All right. Midnight snacks. What are you going for?

Linda Raynier (01:46.252)
I actually don't do midnight snacks, believe it or not. But if I was, I know that sounds really boring. If I was, then it would be, I've recently gotten really into the Dubai chocolates from Costco and they're good. Yeah. Have you had? No? I would recommend it. Give it a try. I mean, one bag is like $17 and you only get maybe 10 pieces, but I feel like every piece is worth it.

Martin Hauck (01:59.033)
Okay, I've seen these I've not had them no no

Martin Hauck (02:15.051)
Okay, yeah. I don't have the discipline when it comes to chocolate, so this is concerning. Sounds like you do have the discipline, which is probably, yeah, like, let's dive into that. And final question. What was your first job?

Linda Raynier (02:35.95)
My very first job was, it was a very boring job, it ties to my ability to land job offers, I guess. It was at a government office, like the Ontario Ministry of Children's Services or something. I forget what it was even called, but it was just a summer job making $6.35 an hour filing papers.

Martin Hauck (02:59.481)
filing papers, like the actual tangible papers, you're just.

Linda Raynier (03:03.162)
actual paper files, folders, putting them on shelves and making sure they were in alphabetical order, all those things, yes.

Martin Hauck (03:10.233)
For the gens ears listening to this right like my god, right? Yeah, like actually

Linda Raynier (03:13.422)
That's true. I guess that doesn't exist anymore. Paper files? I don't know.

Martin Hauck (03:19.981)
Yeah, yeah, like, when's the last time I have a filing system in my office here and and I'm just like, I don't even touch it anymore. I'm like, why, why do I still hold this weird practice? But that, that somehow led to to working at Ernst and Young, joining the world of accounting. And then, yeah, I would love to just like hear your journey and how you got to to where you are today. And I want to spend a lot of time on that, obviously.

Linda Raynier (03:31.394)
That is true. Yeah.

Linda Raynier (03:49.88)
Sure, yeah. So I was born and raised here in Toronto, Canada, but my parents were refugees that came to Canada in the 80s after the Vietnam War. They came with nothing to their name and, you know, just like other refugees, they really just had to start from scratch and build their way up. And so I come from a blue collar family. My parents were working in factories. And so I was instilled with this belief growing up. You just got to work hard, study hard. And one day,

once you get this, you you get a stable prestigious job, then you'll be set for life. You'll live happily ever after. That was sort of the mindset I was instilled with. so growing up, that's what I did. I studied really hard. I worked really hard so that I could one day achieve this level of success. And there was a whole other set of factors, you know, trying to please my parents, trying to, as the eldest daughter, really wanting to be seen and recognized and feel validated, all of these other things that came along with me striving so hard in school.

And it led me down the path of once I got to university, I had to decide, okay, what am I going to do career wise? And I remember the professor had put up a chart and this was because I was at the Laurier Business Program where I got into co-op. So I got to pick, I could work four months and then go back to school for four months. And so that was gonna be my life for the next several years in university. And they told us that we had to pick a stream, a career path. And they put up this chart.

and they said, these are the career paths you could go into. And so the first, was a bar chart showing income levels, believe it or not. So they showed finance, this is the highest. The next was accounting. The next was like, I don't know, marketing, HR. I mean, then everybody kind of just leveled out. And so of course, for me, coming from the background that I came from, you know, wanting to be successful and money was seen as the sign of success, I said to myself, well, finance would be great, but I'm not that great at...

Martin Hauck (05:27.033)
You

Linda Raynier (05:47.342)
the finance courses I'm already taking, so that's out of the picture. And then I said, well, accounting's not that difficult for me right now, so I'll do that. And so literally that was how I decided to go down the accounting path was because I looked at one bar chart showing that it made more money than the others. And I went down the path of accounting and realized very quickly that was not what I wanted to do, but because I was good at landing jobs, even back then, I ended up getting job offers with all four of the big accounting firms.

And so I picked EY, Ernst & Young, as you mentioned. And like I said, when I started working there, I realized very quickly, this is not what I wanna do for the rest of my life. I don't enjoy this work, I'm not good at it. And I kept also failing the exams to get the CPA designation those years. So my then boyfriend, now husband, he passed with flying colors. All of my accounting friends passed full time, first time. And so I was feeling really behind and that was causing a lot of confidence issues because I was...

the studious high achiever that could not pass these exams and could not get this designation that was to be the rest of my life. And so I was in this, you know, dark period of my life where I had to just figure it out and I ended up passing the exams. But then I said to myself, I'm not gonna continue on this path. And I ended up pivoting into the world of recruiting. So I ended up joining an external.

agency and became a headhunter, external recruiter there. And I realized I was really good at it. I thrived in that job. I became like the top producer or whatever you call it. And I broke all these records and got all these, you know, awards and made good money. And so I was riding high, but my self-worth was based

Martin Hauck (07:24.001)
No.

Linda Raynier (07:35.31)
on how much I was making every month. I started to train myself subconsciously that my self-worth is based on what I'm producing on a monthly basis. And that started to become really toxic for me personally because months that I wasn't doing as well, I wasn't feeling as good about myself. eventually got to a point where, and I'm sure you can relate to this, Martin, when you're placing people into jobs, as much as you're placing, like for me, I was placing hundreds of people.

Martin Hauck (07:37.849)
Hmm.

Linda Raynier (08:03.542)
all the way up to C-suite, CFO level positions, people into opportunities, there were thousands of other people in the process that I had to flat out ignore and not talk to and not help. And I knew deep down that these people could get these jobs if they just knew how to communicate a little bit better, if they just knew how to sell themselves better, if they knew all the things that most job seekers at that time without AI, without...

Martin Hauck (08:06.179)
Mm-hmm.

Martin Hauck (08:14.766)
Yeah.

Linda Raynier (08:33.23)
all the information that we have now. At that time, this was back in 2015, 2016, most people didn't have access to. And so I decided, you know what? I'm tired of the recruiting world. I'm tired of the nine to five. I'm gonna quit my job. And six months after quitting my job, I put out my first YouTube video. And by the third YouTube video, I went viral, because it was the, me about yourself, how to answer that question for interviews. And...

Martin Hauck (08:38.381)
Yeah. Yeah.

Linda Raynier (09:00.854)
I guess for that particular video, most people did not have that answer or didn't know how to answer that. And I was giving out that free content and that was when my business kind of took off. I started offering courses and coaching one-on-one coaching programs. And I rode that wave for years basically from then onwards. And it was shortly after COVID, well, during COVID, I got pregnant and I had my two boys back to back 2020, 2021.

Martin Hauck (09:18.627)
Mm-hmm.

Linda Raynier (09:30.114)
and so, you know, my identity as Linda Rainer, this career strategist, successful YouTuber, blah, blah, kind of came crashing down because now I was a stay at home mom and, I was not feeling as successful because I was, you know, at home with my kids and, I had to really sort of go through this identity crisis and ask myself, well, who am I now if I'm not that version of me? And then.

This other part of my story, which I share very openly and I've written about it in my book, The Quiet Achiever, is the fact that my husband at the end of 2022 got diagnosed with cancer. And the doctors did not have a lot of hope, I would say. They weren't very optimistic given how far along he was and all of those things. But it was a full on...

inner and outer healing journey for the both of us, me and him being parents with two under two, me also then being a caregiver for him, supporting him through his healing. And now he's deemed a miracle by the doctors. Like they've called him an exceptional case. That's the term, but he's completely cancer-free. But it was through that journey. was actually a period of three to six months where our whole life was just turned upside down. And this is back in 2023.

And then the story continues, six months after that. So right around the time where we were actually starting to live a normal life again, you we had gone through months of just being at home, living a very, I just had to focus on the day to day. What can we do to make sure that we get through the day and I make sure the kids are fed, make sure my husband's fed. He has his medication, all those things. After six months of that, we were living a normal life. We were going to our friend's cottages. We were, you know, just focusing on family time. And then I had this dream.

And I'm not kidding you, I had this very vivid dream where I looked up at the top of my ceiling and my eyes were closed, obviously, because I was dreaming. But it looked as if, it felt as though my eyes were open. I was looking at the top of the ceiling of my bedroom where I saw a book and it looked like one of my journals because I have these nice hardcover journals, but it had words on it. It said, Express Your Inner Confidence by Linda Rayner. So I knew in the dream, I was like, that's a book that clearly I've written, but I had never written a book at that point.

Linda Raynier (11:55.342)
And then I decided, oh, I'm gonna take that as a sign. And I took it as a sign for the next few months after that, I started going through research and figuring out how do I write a book? How do I get a publisher? How do I get an agent? How does this all happen? And then I started to get a little bit deflated because even though I knew I had a book in me, I just didn't really know how to start. And I was kind of overwhelmed with the idea that I had to go looking for a publisher to want me.

So I kind of put it on the back burner and I kid you not, within just a few weeks after that, I get an email out of the blue from Wiley, so my current publisher. They reached out to me. At first I thought it was spam. I thought all my research led me down these weird emails that I probably put my email in and people are messaging me thinking, pretending to be publishers. Anyways, they said they wanted to partner with me. I was like, what does that even mean? Let's just have a conversation. Turns out it was legit. It was the editor there.

who had found me, she found my YouTube channel, she had found my work and she said, Linda, have you ever thought about writing a book? Because if you have, we'd love to publish it. And that was like my aha moment, like, that's why I had that dream. That's what happened. So I ended up writing the book and that's called The Quiet Achiever. And that's now coming out in the next few weeks. Now, Martin, I know that I'm...

Martin Hauck (13:08.141)
Mm-hmm.

Linda Raynier (13:20.554)
Am I freezing on you right now because this is no, okay. It's okay. So that's that. So that's where I'm at. And my whole mission and work has also shifted as part of this. My focus now really is on a particular group of my segment of my audience that I've always resonated with and I've called them quiet achievers. Quiet as in very similar to me, we're introverted.

Martin Hauck (13:23.189)
No. No. No.

Linda Raynier (13:48.256)
You know, we prefer to keep to ourselves. We're not the loud extroverted type. But at the same time, we are high achievers. We are driven. We have goals. We have dreams for ourselves. We are go-getters. And in the corporate world, quiet achievers aren't necessarily as celebrated the way that maybe loud achievers are. You know, if you're really robust and extroverted and, you know, you showcase confidence,

outwardly, then people will recognize that more. But for quiet achievers, we're not the type to necessarily always talk about ourselves, but we'll work hard, we'll get things done. And my whole mission now is to support quiet achievers in a way where, because all through our lives, we've sort of been sidelined, I would say, you know, we haven't been put in under the spotlight, we don't want the spotlight, we've kind of, we're happy in the background.

it's really getting quite achievers to see their value more clearly within themselves so that they can bring forth that confidence in their careers and then they can move up and grow.

Martin Hauck (14:58.905)
mean, love the story. and kudos to you and your husband and your family for kind of like, that's not, that wasn't like 10, 15 years ago. That's still feels fresh. and, and you're here and you're smiling and, and, you know, cancer free and, and wrote a book and so many questions. have so many questions. so many questions. and thank you for sharing.

Linda Raynier (15:15.724)
Yes.

Martin Hauck (15:28.789)
in terms of like where I feel like would make the where my instant like I'm most curious by this like vision on the ceiling and we'll get into like the tactical stuff and like obviously, you know, there's an audience of HR and recruitment folks and I think there's a lot of quiet achievers within our community and and I've heard so many times

Linda Raynier (15:28.918)
Yeah.

Martin Hauck (15:55.437)
the like imposter syndrome is is is thick. And so I feel like there's there's a lot to talk about there. But I'm gonna go with my curiosity here just because like, there's an aspect it feels like what I was it feels like this is a clip from The Secret. Like, like, if you've seen and heard the secret, know about the secret, it's a book, it's it's a movie. And it's a little bit out there in terms of like, woo, woo stuff. And like, I love believing in the woo woo stuff, but also

Linda Raynier (16:11.096)
Mmm.

Mm-hmm.

Martin Hauck (16:24.921)
try to crown myself in a little bit of reality. So I'm just curious, like, how do you feel now knowing that like you had a dream about a book, and now the books real and then somebody reaches out from Wiley and says, Linda, have you ever written a book? Or have you ever thought of reading a book? Like, I'm so curious as to like what that all looks and feels like.

Linda Raynier (16:47.262)
Yeah, I mean, for me, I have, I've always been a woo-woo person. So that's part of it. I've experienced quite a few weird things throughout my life, especially as a, so I'll tell you this, after I quit my job as a recruiter, I started doing yoga, yoga teacher training specifically, where it was intense, like, you know, nine to five, you're doing yoga pretty much the entire day and you just have a few snacks in between. you know, you have to do meditation and open yourself up and,

Martin Hauck (17:05.037)
Okay.

Linda Raynier (17:16.938)
It was from that time that I did yoga where I realized, I'm very sensitive. I always knew that I could sense things and feel things. I think that's part of why I was a good recruiter was that I could look at someone, you know, very briefly, look at their resume, look at them, their picture on LinkedIn, and I could get a sense as to they'll be good at this company. Like, of course, you know, you could just say it's just an instinct or whatever, but.

my hit rate was so high in some instances. Like could just hear a person's voice and I'd know exactly they're gonna get hired for this job. Like I just always had these weird inklings. And so, and that was just a little bit of it. Like I've had other experiences too, but so the dream, it was so vivid and it was so clear that I just, I was, you know, this is what I talk about a lot in the book as well where your intuition plays a big role.

in guiding you and it knows what path you are here to do and where you're meant to go. It knows what it wants, like, which is you, your true self, what you want, if you're willing to listen to it. And so many of us, we have learned to block ourselves from our own intuition, from our own instincts in many ways, we'll question it, or we don't know if that's really our heart speaking or we'll lean into our head and we'll overanalyze and

So especially as quiet achievers, we've been trained out of, feel, our intuition in many ways, just through society, our upbringings, all of those things. So the key here, the key message here is when you learn to listen to your intuition and you learn to open yourself up to your own inner guidance, you will receive signs and messages and pointers.

guiding you in the right direction. Things will happen and I'm even still experiencing it now, even more so actually, as I put myself out into the world again and talk about this book and all the stuff that I'm wanting to do. It's crazy how the synchronicity and the events and the people that are just being drawn to me and the clients and all kinds of things, it's actually crazy because you would think like, don't I,

Linda Raynier (19:33.813)
shouldn't I be like chasing these things that that's how it's gonna transpire but really it comes from you, your energy, you being open, putting yourself out in the right up, know, listening to your guidance and then putting yourself in those right opportunities and then these things come to you. So I feel like the book dream was just, I was, at the time I was so not thinking about work, I needed to have something that vivid for me to go down the path of doing the research. If I didn't do the research,

I would not have been able to submit the book proposal, which they asked for within 24 hours. So I submitted a really impressive, they said, book proposal within 24 hours because for the last three months I had been figuring out what kind of book I wanted to write.

Martin Hauck (20:18.227)
been thinking about it the whole time. Like you've, you've read it, you wrote it up here in your mind.

Linda Raynier (20:24.309)
Exactly.

Martin Hauck (20:26.531)
Did lose you?

Linda Raynier (20:31.0)
Hi Martin, are you there?

Martin Hauck (20:32.269)
Yep, I just lost you for a quick second there. No worries. I'll be able to patch this like my production team does a fantastic job so we can just pick up. guess the jumping back into it.

Linda Raynier (20:34.827)
Okay, sorry about that.

Linda Raynier (20:42.242)
Okay.

Martin Hauck (20:49.729)
What would you say the

Martin Hauck (20:57.177)
I think.

Like, I'm not, I'm not sorry, I called it woo woo, because that's kind of like how society sees a lot of these things. But I'm, I'm a big believer in that kind of stuff. And I guess I'm still double clicking on a little bit of this and like, obviously there's like, tactics, that aren't necessarily related to like things that are kind of hard to believe. And I'm, I'm curious. There's, there's one, one aspect to, to what you were talking about, like,

even just with like, deciding to start posting stuff on YouTube, and then going viral after video three, like, was there anything around that that you felt like, this is the right thing to do? Or how did you listen to your own intuition, just in terms of like, it's not every day that, you know, a recruiter slash former accountant would just start a YouTube channel. So I guess how did that come about?

Linda Raynier (21:54.997)
Yeah, so similar thing. It wasn't a dream. It wasn't a dream. So Sarah Blakely, for example, she talks about this a lot where when she was building her Spanx billionaire, billion dollar business back in those early days, she would have these meetings with these other big business people, just like sort of these masterminds.

Martin Hauck (21:57.835)
You

Linda Raynier (22:19.218)
And she would say, okay, I'm thinking of doing this idea, but hold on, let me talk to the universe and I'll come back and clarify if that's what I'm gonna do. She always said that. And I remember seeing that in interviews. And it reminds me of, I've also pretty much always had to ask the universe or whoever, my guides or my inner guidance for answers. Because when I was in the recruiting world, I was starting to feel that

you know, my time was ending. And I think we all get that sense. You know, we've had that sense before with certain jobs where you can feel like, I don't see myself continuing doing this. It's not lighting me up anymore. There's no fire left. And so you just start to feel this sense that there's something else. There's more that you can do. And so for me, what I've learned throughout these last 10, 15 years is if I just sit with myself and I allow myself the time, space and energy to just

visualize what do I want my next version of my life to look like, the next chapter of my life. Then things come through. And it's just about being willing and open to ask yourself those questions. So what I did was after I quit that job, I spent, it was a good six months of just getting in tune with myself and asking myself, what would I really want this next version, this next job or whatever it is that I do to look like? And I knew I wanted to work for myself.

I wanted to run my own hours. didn't want to be working in an office. So therefore I didn't want to do another job. I knew it had to be running my own business. And then I just kept getting this feeling, no, but you need to also use your voice. You need people to see your face. You need to put yourself on camera. It was just this, I kept getting this image of me sitting in a chair, the way that I am right now in a camera exactly as now in front of me. So.

I said to myself, you know what, I might as well put myself on YouTube. And this was back in 2016 when not everyone under the sun like they are now is on YouTube. So I was one of very few people who were career coaches on YouTube. So I think that also helped. It was the right time for me to jump on and do that.

Martin Hauck (24:17.027)
Yeah.

Martin Hauck (24:21.507)
Yeah.

right timing.

Martin Hauck (24:34.009)
Okay, so like I said, so many questions. First off, you mentioned something interesting to me that I've been interested in for a while now and you just said like visualize, like you've used a lot of visualization and even in your dream you mentioned. So this is totally not your typical HR recruitment podcast, but I love it. This is fantastic. It's so exciting. So in terms of like,

Linda Raynier (24:55.15)
That's okay. Yeah.

Martin Hauck (25:01.483)
So I've talked about it before and I actually like used the podcast to chat with the person that sort of discovered it. His name is Dr. Zimmin and he, he discovered aphantasia or hyperphantasia. Are you familiar with it?

Linda Raynier (25:20.878)
I am not, no, what is that?

Martin Hauck (25:22.521)
Okay, so get ready. So there 5 % of the world has no ability to visualize. It's just like when they close their eyes, if they imagine something, it's just a black screen. There's nothing there. That's me. And I've always been like seeking and trying to like, excited about ideas of like video games are like my vice because it feels like I get to imagine things and participate in this thing. And so when you were saying it, I'm just like, Oh, it sounds like you have a very strong

Linda Raynier (25:34.126)
Okay.

Martin Hauck (25:51.619)
visual ability to visualize in your mind something. And of course, like with things like the secret and just manifesting things, like visualizing is a core part of it. so I'm curious to like hear from you, like what what level of like, visualization skills do you have?

Linda Raynier (25:56.131)
Yes.

Linda Raynier (26:10.06)
I think they're very strong. I see things and it's not only that, but this is a whole other topic, but I also have the ability to tune into someone's energy and I get images about them. things about them, and this is part of the work that I'm doing now, which is unblocking people because I can sense when someone's blocked and where it's coming from. I can feel it in my body. So the thing with you saying, Martin, that you can't visualize,

Martin Hauck (26:22.039)
Okay.

Linda Raynier (26:38.188)
I wouldn't worry too much about the fact that you can't see, even though of course that's very helpful, but the other parts that I also utilize to be able to make sense of what I'm seeing is the feeling aspect, which I think is more powerful. And so if you can tune into the feeling of what that's telling you, you'll also hear things as well. So I hear, I feel, I see. Without the seeing, I could still hear, I could still, sorry, hear and I could still feel, which will still give me

Martin Hauck (26:49.827)
Right. Interesting.

Linda Raynier (27:09.226)
into guidance. Like sometimes I only hear something about like if I'm talking to a person and they're asking me to tune into them, I can hear, I'm hearing this message or I'm hearing something about relating to this. I'll hear certain words and that already then opens and unlock something. So I wouldn't be too concerned if you don't have that. I don't know if that's something you've been, you know, mulling over, but.

Martin Hauck (27:27.587)
Okay.

Yeah, yeah, not not concerned, but more just like I'm completely fascinated by it. The like, the idea that first off, not many people talk about it. And there's also like this whole idea of like, from an education perspective, like, we're always being told to like visualize things. Meanwhile, like people can visualize an answer or a word or like, you know, some people are able to like have that photographic memory, whereas like, I got nothing. And I'm just going off.

my gut most of the time, which is which has led me to pretty fantastic places on my own, which which I like. And anytime I've been listening to my own instincts, it's always it's always done well. But it's also easy to get caught up in the like, whole, I'm not gonna call it rat race, but just the cycle of life. And then you forget to listen to your own intuition, you were sort of like,

Linda Raynier (28:04.664)
Yeah.

Martin Hauck (28:22.819)
talking about it. So I've found it really fascinating before one one more like kind of out there question and then I'll I'd love to dive into the more tactical sort of tangible stuff. But have you heard of the telepathy tapes?

Linda Raynier (28:29.784)
That's okay, yeah, we can talk about it.

Linda Raynier (28:41.482)
No, what is that? that like, what is that?

Martin Hauck (28:42.495)
Okay. It's, it's, it's some, it's my latest sort of like hyper fixation. It's the podcast I've been listening to. It's like eight or nine episodes. And basically, this woman, she's a documentarian by profession and she ends up hearing about, this doctor who lost her PhD because she wrote a thesis on,

nonverbal autistic children who are able to telepathically communicate with people they're very close to. And it's like full blown scientifically, like, not signed, like it's being contested scientifically in the larger realm, but there's so much data to suggest and prove that there's a level of frequency and communication and energy kind of like what you were talking about where

Linda Raynier (29:16.184)
Mm.

Martin Hauck (29:36.301)
where we're just not tapped into it, but they're so tapped into it that they're able to like with teachers, for example, like teachers that are teaching these children are able to think about something and they will spell it back to them and they will talk about it. they've on top of that, they've gone so far as like predicting future events and whatnot. So the part that kind of like reached out to me was like, you saw this, you visualized it and you saw your, your journal or your notebook and the book.

where you wrote your book. And so that's just wild to me, right? That level of detail, that specificity, I guess, were you intentionally thinking of it or did it just come to you in that moment?

Linda Raynier (30:22.01)
I you, I was not thinking about writing a book in that, at that time in my life. My husband was just getting better. I was focused on taking care of the kids, still two under two at that time, diapers. I knew, I've always known I had a book in me, but that visual was very clear. I knew that I was being guided to tune into that. But I do wanna speak about, so thanks for sharing about the telepathy, right? I can't say it.

Martin Hauck (30:23.875)
Thank

Martin Hauck (30:40.515)
Hmm.

Martin Hauck (30:48.899)
The telepathy tapes, yeah, yeah.

Linda Raynier (30:50.146)
Telepathy, telepathy tapes. I mean, I'll tell you this, when it comes to visualization, what I genuinely believe is that I'm not creating it. I'm actually tuning into a timeline or a version of myself. So we're getting even more woo-woo about this, but I'm tuning into like a parallel universe where that version of me exists. So, you know, if I'm saying to, okay, I see me doing YouTube, it's because I was tuning into a version of me.

Martin Hauck (31:06.35)
I love it.

Linda Raynier (31:19.66)
that was doing YouTube already. And so I was just calling forth that version. And so then I got the inner guidance as to, okay, so now I have to start putting out videos. Okay, I'm gonna do start doing these types of topics. this is, when you start to tune into those other versions of you that exist, cause I genuinely believe we have billions of other parallel versions of us. When we tune into the one that we feel most called to, that's how we know what's next for us. That's how we know what steps to take. We start to just get these hunches.

And with the book though, I feel like that was sort of like, I don't know if it was, maybe it was a higher part of me that was like, no, you need to look at this thing. And it was a very clear image of my journal and the words on it. And it's funny because Express Your Inner Confidence is not the title, but the book is about expressing your inner confidence, which it wasn't even, that wasn't even the book proposal that I wrote about. I thought I was gonna help people to get promoted in their jobs. So it's kind of like more corporate.

And as I was writing the book, I was like, this is not the book that I wanna write. And I just kept feeling and a part of it felt like it was channeled. I just kept getting these other messages to write about. And so I completely scrapped those five chapters. I had to go back to Wiley and say, can you please extend the deadline because I have to rewrite my book. I was so compelled to rewrite it and I did. And that's how it became, you know, the quiet achiever, your journey to authentic confidence, which is really about expressing your inner confidence, which was the message that I'd gotten.

months before.

Martin Hauck (32:48.513)
wild. So again, like listening to your instincts head and truly, I guess, have you always been in touch with your instincts? Or did you you mentioned like there was a good period of like doing yoga and stuff like that, like kind of like tuning in with yourself. But did I guess, for the purposes of folks listening to this, like what are some sort of tactical things that you can do to like, get a better

of your instincts if you don't feel like you're in line with yourself in the first place, so to speak.

Linda Raynier (33:23.478)
Yeah, well, I would say there's sort of two sides to it. You can obviously do things to hone in and listen to your intuition, but you also have to be very clear minded. And I don't know if the word clear hearted is the right word, but if you are feeling emotionally distraught on a regular basis, there's a lot of anxiety, there's insecurities, there's like self doubt, there's a lot of all these like programming that you're living with.

it can interfere with your intuition because you're gonna think something, but it's actually your anxiety that's causing you to see a certain vision. let's say you're thinking a worst case scenario and you're thinking, that's what my mind is telling, that's what my intuition is telling me is that it's not gonna work out. But actually that's your fear that's speaking to you that you need to address more. If you can address and calm yourself, then your intuition opens up. And so intuition, I feel opens up more so when we are in that calm, centered,

Martin Hauck (34:07.18)
Yeah.

Martin Hauck (34:16.866)
Right.

Linda Raynier (34:22.12)
self-trusting place because you'll get things where you're like am I making this up? If you trust that it's not coming from your mind but it's actually coming from a deeper place, the more you trust that and you follow through with that you'll see yeah that was actually my intuition. But so there's those there's two sort of moving pieces it's working on your inner world, clearing out your inner world which is a big part of the quiet achiever as well where I talk about working through

the self doubts, the fear based beliefs that we hold onto clearing those things out over time. then, know, intuition then just naturally becomes so much clearer because you just get hunches and hints and you trust it and you know it and you know that it's not related to a certain fear and anxiety because you've pretty much cleared a lot of that. But of course, I'm talking about as if it's so simple. This has taken me years and years and years to get this to this place where I can actually.

Martin Hauck (34:59.341)
Mm-hmm.

Linda Raynier (35:17.634)
describe it the way that I'm describing it. Even maybe a year ago, I couldn't say it as well as I'm saying it now. But we're always on this journey of inner work and intuition, I feel heightens the more that you're willing to turn inward.

Martin Hauck (35:33.335)
Yeah, no. And of course, a lot of people in the people ops space or the HR and recruitment space. Like it's a tough time for the market. Like it's it's September 2025 right now. And lot of companies in tech are going through massive changes because of AI. And so people are sort of

being forced sometimes to like reevaluate, like being put into those tough situations, some of which you described that you going through, right? Like what

Martin Hauck (36:09.885)
it is the perfect time to kind of start doing not the perfect time. It's a hard time, but it's important to sort of do that inward work at that time, so that you don't necessarily just go back and you just find the next job and then tough it out. But also sort of like feel like you're sort of like missing something or lacking something and like, you know, I'll use my own example, like I I've been running this community, the people people group for eight years.

But in the last two years, I've been working on it full time. And it wasn't like, I'm just going to take a risk and do that. Like, I was part of a big restructure of 60 people at the organization that got let go, I was one of them. I was lucky because I got working notice. But for the most part, it was sort of like, okay, well, now the universe is kind of pushing me into this opportunity. Do I go back into the working world? Do I try to do something on my own? And I think the reason I bring up that story is I feel like a lot of people are being put in that position.

And so needing to like, having tools when you're in that position is important. And like, yes, getting a lawyer is important. And yes, getting a good like bookkeeper or accounting firm, if you're going to start your own business is important. But there's also a lot of like, inner work that you need to do on the mental and the physical side. So I guess like, what have you found or what in your book kind of speaks to like those skills or those tools, if you have any examples.

Linda Raynier (37:06.606)
grade.

Linda Raynier (37:35.009)
I love that you're mentioning this. I actually feel like this is part of the reason, the bigger reason why I've written this book, because there was a sense in me, I mean, my own prediction of that this was gonna happen in terms of, I mean, I think we could have all, we all kind of saw it coming, but this world that we're in right now, especially me being a career coach over the last few years, we can see right now things are, like you said, the world of work is changing. AI is playing a big role in that.

Martin Hauck (37:53.113)
Yeah.

Linda Raynier (38:04.494)
people are getting laid off. And so there's a lot of uncertainty, there's a lot of instability, and there's a lot of, you know, old ways, old beliefs, old programming need to be shed. They need to be transformed if you're going to step into this next new phase that we're moving into, whatever that looks like. And so in my book, The Quiet Achiever, it really is speaking to those quiet achievers who are feeling stuck, they're feeling stagnant, they're feeling

lost right now in their careers because they're asking themselves, do I keep trying to climb this corporate ladder even if I don't know if that's what I want or if that's not even, I don't even know if that's available to me. Do I go and do something else? Do I switch career paths? Do I start my own business? And so from that place, before you jump into doing something else, I recommend in the book is to turn inward because then you'll know what to do.

versus running around like you're like a chicken with a head cut off type of vibe. You don't wanna be doing that necessarily, because I've seen that happen too with some of my clients. just, they come to me feeling completely anxious because they're just applying everywhere under the sun, not knowing spinning in circles, not knowing what it is that they really want, what their next thing looks like. And it's all fear driven. And if we're going to step into this next phase with...

Martin Hauck (39:24.333)
Mm-hmm.

Linda Raynier (39:27.732)
stability with a sense of groundedness. We have to get grounded within ourselves. That's the only way that then you'll be able to make decisions and take action steps that are going to lead you to where you're gonna feel most fulfilled. That's what I genuinely, and because I've gone through this journey and this is for me, 10 years ago, I went through this journey. So now I can speak to it from experience, but it really is about there's so much shedding that we need to do. When you're in the corporate world,

Martin Hauck (39:46.851)
No.

Linda Raynier (39:55.437)
You embody certain mindsets, you embody a certain way of being and seeing yourself, you value yourself a certain way based on your external outcomes, the things that you do, the value that you bring to others. And when you're working for yourself, let's say if that's the path people wanna go down, you can't continuously only value yourself based on that, you'll constantly run yourself into the ground trying to do everything for everyone and...

and it really has to come from a grounded place. So in my book, I teach a method called flu. Flu in short, if you think about the flu or fever, what happens when you have a fever, your body heats up, you're sweating, you're trying to get rid of the virus or the infection. And then after you go through that whole sweating session and the fever's gone, you feel better, right? You feel, now you've moved into this next healing phase.

The same thing happens, I believe, with fear-based beliefs that we're all carrying at some deep level within us in order to really release them. They're actually sitting and they're circling around in our system energetically. We need to go through that process of burning up the pain. So what that means is F for flu stands for feel. We need to first feel the feeling. So if we're talking about, you just got laid off or you're feeling.

Frustrated, you're feeling annoyed, you're feeling worried and scared. Feel those feelings. Allow your body, because we need them to rise to the surface. Then L stands for label. So now label them. What are those feelings? So I kind of described, you know, feeling scared, disappointed, guilty, whatever. And then from there, U, which is the biggest part, is uncover. Uncover the underlying belief that you are choosing to hold onto that's causing you to feel that way. Because the truth is,

Martin Hauck (41:23.917)
Yeah.

Martin Hauck (41:44.984)
Yeah.

Linda Raynier (41:46.199)
We have no feelings about anything unless we had an underlying belief about that thing. So if I was to say, what do you feel about my mouse? You'd be like, I feel nothing. It's just a mouth. And that's because you don't have, you know, any beliefs associated to it. But if I said Donald Trump, you might have a bit of an emotional reaction, whatever direction that is, because maybe you have certain beliefs associated. So ultimately it comes down to our beliefs. What are you believing?

Martin Hauck (41:54.957)
Yeah

Martin Hauck (41:59.769)
Yeah.

Martin Hauck (42:10.413)
So, so big, big contrast. They're like, here's my mouse and here's Donald Trump. Yeah. But no, you're, you're, you're absolutely right. Right. There's it's it's association. It's like, what are the things that you associate with a thing and are they serving you basically? Right. So yeah, no, that's, wild, wild, not the conversation I was expecting, but I love it. So,

Linda Raynier (42:27.038)
Exactly, exactly.

Linda Raynier (42:35.246)
Me too.

Martin Hauck (42:37.665)
I guess, you know, we've talked a lot about sort of like past, present, we've spent some time there. Maybe want to just kind of get a better sense of like, what you're, I mean, you've got such a, you've had a dynamic career you're working on in for all intents and purposes, you're closest to like your purpose now more than ever, just because we're all sort of on this journey of like, what do need to do? So

beyond, you know, writing a book and coaching people or like, what does it look like? What are you up to now? And yeah, I'd love to spend a bit of time on the future as well.

Linda Raynier (43:15.092)
Yes. mean, you for me, it actually, it's still very new me going through this shift because my identity up until even just last year has been Linda Rayner, the career strategist that's helped you to land job offers. And I've helped thousands of people through my coaching programs and courses. And that was my identity. So there was the shift that I had to go through for myself, that inner shift.

And then externally, it's been, thank goodness for this book, because that's been the catalyst for me having to speak out more about this message of, know, quiet achievers. We need to discover our inner authentic confidence. We need to express it because we need to be prepared for what's coming, whatever that looks like. And it's really about turning inward. And so for me right now, there's speaking that I'm doing. I actually recently spoke for Harvard University, Harvard Medical Students, alumni and students.

Martin Hauck (43:53.646)
Mm-hmm.

Linda Raynier (44:08.674)
teaching them more of the technical concepts around communication and confidence. But then I have professional associations that are engaging with me now. And so a lot more speaking that's related to the book. Also, I have my coaching program, Quiet to Confident that I've already rolled out, but now I'm going to be rolling out again more officially. And so that's happening as well as...

you know, for me, it's now just shifting more into this identity and this, I still don't really know what I would call myself, but really, you know, speaking and sharing this message about the quiet achiever. then, you know, hopefully from there, maybe another book, but that's later down the line.

Martin Hauck (44:54.391)
Yeah. What's, what's the best part about what you do right now?

Linda Raynier (44:59.726)
You know, honestly, that's a great question because previous to this, I felt like I was just doing things because I had to because that was the way to earn money. Like it was like I was feeling like I was getting in that cycle of like I have to do this work. I built a job for myself. It was a business, but it was a job. And now I feel like there's, I can be myself and still do and still it's still a business.

So that's the biggest shift. That's the thing that I enjoy the most is that I don't have to show up as someone else. Whereas before I felt like I had to show up as the teacher. Let me teach you how to interview. Let me be this version, this professional version. Now I can just show up as me, Linda Rayner, and share my story. And there's lessons that I can share and there's things that I can pass on to you and to the audience that hopefully will resonate. And that's all I have to do. I don't have.

too many expectations of myself compared to before.

Martin Hauck (46:00.045)
Nice, nice. There's always that. When I was a kid, my dad, my dad bought me like my the domain for my name, like as a Christmas present, it was so weird. It was like 12 or 16. And he's like, it was was, it's my favorite gift that he's ever given me because it forced me to think very early on about like personal branding. And but

Linda Raynier (46:13.573)
wow!

Martin Hauck (46:26.515)
as I had the website, it forced me also to answer the question like, okay, I'm working at this company. And if they go to my website, and they see that it's all goofy video game stuff, are they going to respect me and like, what you put out into the world? And this is before like Twitter and tik tok and YouTube and Instagram and all that fun stuff where it's like, you kind of that was the thing that forced me to start thinking about my personal brand. And like, I always had this like, idea that like, there's professional Martin, and

personal Martin and I never get to have the overlap and what I'm hearing you say is that like now it's just like professional Linda and personal Linda are the same person and you just get to show up as who you are and that's the like that's the best part but I guess that takes time it doesn't happen overnight and I'm curious how have you gotten comfortable or what what would you recommend people do to get to that place of

comfortable enough to just show up as yourself and thrive as yourself.

Linda Raynier (47:29.548)
I love your questions and I feel like I just keep repeating myself with my answer, it, cause every question's amazing, but it's like, I keep giving the same answer, which is honestly, you have to be willing to face yourself. And I think that's the biggest thing that, you know, it's so easy for us to get distracted, especially with the internet and we're looking at, you know, Instagram, we're looking at all these things, looking at other people. Okay.

Martin Hauck (47:34.905)
you

Martin Hauck (47:44.845)
Hmm

Linda Raynier (47:53.229)
What is it outside of me that I need to do or become or look like or act like or achieve or acquire to feel better about myself? And I've gone down that path. My business, I built it up to multiple seven figures. I felt like, okay, I've achieved what I wanted in this world. And yet inside I was feeling so empty and so lost and so...

Martin Hauck (48:16.665)
Hmm.

Linda Raynier (48:18.958)
not comfortable and not at ease within myself. And so I realized through this journey and through, you know, with everything that's gone on within my family, with my husband's health journey and healing journey, it's, it all happens within, which means turn inwards. Look within before you look out for answers. Turn inward and ask yourself, how do I actually feel about myself? What is really going on beneath the surface?

You need to be completely honest with yourself and lay it all open. know, what are the judgments that I have about myself? What are the insecurities? What are the doubts? What are they saying? do they sound like? What do they look like? Lay it all out because when you start to do that, you start to offload it from within you and out onto maybe paper or on your laptop, whatever it needs to be or maybe to a therapist or whoever resonates with you.

but it needs to energetically leave your system for you to then start to feel more like who you really are. And it's still a journey for me. I'm not sitting here saying, I'm all perfect, but I definitely can say I feel so much more comfortable within myself in any situation because I've allowed the pain to sort of burn itself out, burn itself up and out. And that means a lot of tears.

Martin Hauck (49:19.449)
Mmm.

Linda Raynier (49:45.025)
lot of crying. So if there's a big tip I can give to those, these HR professionals is to cry more. You know, really like allow yourself to feel the hurt that you have within you. And that's the sooner you do that, the sooner it starts to dissipate.

Martin Hauck (49:50.967)
Yeah? No.

Martin Hauck (50:04.599)
I say this half jokingly because HR has got a tough job, right? They like people have tough jobs and don't get me wrong. It's not like other people have much harder jobs, but when you are the person that is letting 60 people go 150 people go and you have to go back to back, like it's a, it's a, are weeks, there are months that are super hard. And like HR is a, is definitely a

a tough gig for people to take on. And oftentimes you like, there's a level of like, sympathy fatigue where people will just like, yep, this is just another day. And you kind of like in order, like, mentally, you adapt to the role to be like, I can't feel these things. Because if I did, like, no, no person should feel that like the grief and the like,

guilt almost to a certain extent of just like having to let so many people go on the same day like you like that's not a fun thing to do and yet they do it and oftentimes they're the ones being called on to do that work because the executives just want to be able to say we need to make this really hard decision it's good for the books it's good for the business and then somebody has to do the emotional work of it and they can't even be emotional about it right and so

Linda Raynier (51:31.137)
Yeah.

Martin Hauck (51:31.863)
Like when you say like cry more, I think there's a lot I've you see it like it's one of the professions where people burn out the most in the sense that like, they're like, I just can't do it anymore. I got to move on. Right. And there's, there's no, there's no real like, Hey, for HR people, we give you two or three months off so that you can recover from some of the more challenging, especially when it's a down market, right? Which is kind of sort of what we're, I don't know what we're in, but it's not

a bull market, that's for sure, right? So that's more of a statement than anything. I'm open to your thoughts on that.

Linda Raynier (52:02.477)
Right.

Linda Raynier (52:06.156)
No, I mean, I appreciate you sharing that. To be honest, I never actually really thought too much about that side of things with HR professionals and how they feel afterwards because, I mean, my world was all about just like recruiting and all that, but from an HR perspective, that makes a lot of sense. And yes, in that case, they definitely need to cry more because if anything, they've either blocked it out or they're suppressing it, but they're still feeling it and it's coming out in other ways, because it's going to impact

Martin Hauck (52:19.769)
Totally.

Linda Raynier (52:35.746)
the way that you interact with your family, the way that you pursue the next role or the career or the business that you want to do. It all plays a role in that if you don't really look at it and see it for what it is and release it because it doesn't belong to you. But yeah, HR professionals would definitely need that to do that for sure.

Martin Hauck (52:51.811)
Yeah.

Martin Hauck (53:00.873)
What want to be are you good for time like just a couple? Yeah, cool. I'm just making a note

Linda Raynier (53:04.514)
Mm-hmm. Yep. Yep.

Martin Hauck (53:11.137)
In terms of like coaching people, there might be another book, but you've just written the book and it's coming out when, sorry, October 14th. So it'll be out before that or after. Dealer's choice, I don't know, what would you prefer?

Linda Raynier (53:22.454)
October 14th.

Linda Raynier (53:32.366)
Honestly, yeah, either. Yeah, like we're so close to it anyway.

Martin Hauck (53:39.021)
Yeah, yeah, fair. I guess with that, kind of looking more to the future. What, what are you what are you paying attention to? What is either got you super excited opportunity wise in the space that you care about? Or what what what's keeping you up at night and you're like, I'm gonna tackle this head on.

Linda Raynier (54:03.756)
Yeah, I mean, I'm a very big picture thinker. I've always been, and I guess that's why I've decided to just do this work. But the one thing that when you asked me that, I get really excited because in the back of my mind, as much as right now what we see is a market that is very difficult and tough and changing and going through transformation, I see big opportunity for people.

Martin Hauck (54:10.905)
Hmm.

Linda Raynier (54:30.188)
to do exactly what I just shared, which is to turn inward. Cause a lot of people are going to start questioning themselves, their lives, where they're at, what success really means, who they are, who they want to be. What does a fulfilling and meaningful life mean for them? Is it still, you know, the BMW, the big home, the fancy watch, or is it a quieter lifestyle, which I am seeing people are attracted to a lot more, you know, spending more time with family. And so that,

doesn't just happen overnight. that's as to shift into a new direction lifestyle wise, how you live your life, how you feel about yourself, that requires a lot of this shedding work, this internal inner work. And I would love to be the voice to guide people in that direction because I mean, I feel like I've gone through it to the depths of it in the ways that I have, and I can relate so

Martin Hauck (55:10.734)
Hmm.

Linda Raynier (55:25.132)
well to corporate professionals who are quiet achievers, who are high achievers, who've put all their identity in their career. And if there comes a day where that career stalls or it flatlines basically, you're gonna have to pivot and make a new move, what are you gonna hold on to to make sure that you move forward with clarity, with confidence, with strength?

Martin Hauck (55:32.089)
Hmm.

Linda Raynier (55:52.171)
it means that you need to look within, you need to turn inward and I would love to guide people through that. So the bigger work here is not so much about helping you to get confident so you can get that next promotion, even though right now that's kind of my marketing because there's still people that feel that way but ultimately the bigger picture is when you're feeling at the depths of that sense of loss or that confusion or that stagnation in your life, it really is about

Martin Hauck (56:07.288)
Bye.

Linda Raynier (56:19.744)
okay, let's now hopefully you're willing to go deeper and hopefully I can guide you on that journey and take you through the transformation of becoming more authentically you and knowing and having the clarity and the intuition to know what am I gonna do next? Every person's path is going to be unique but it's really about guiding them in that direction so that they know what they need to do and then they're off on their own doing that. It's really just helping people to

to make that pivot more smoothly, if that makes sense.

Martin Hauck (56:51.425)
Yeah. No, totally. Linda, this has been a blast. I had so much fun chatting with you. Definitely. This was not on my bingo card at all in terms of topics and directions, but those are the best conversations was this was a real treat. Thank you so much.

Linda Raynier (57:00.001)
Me too!

Linda Raynier (57:13.57)
Well, thank you, Martin. I loved your questions. And yes, this is my favorite type of conversation. So I'm so glad that you were willing to open up and ask.

Martin Hauck (57:23.257)
For the folks, and we'll obviously put this in the description and everything like that, but what's the best way for folks to engage with all the amazing stuff you've put together?

Linda Raynier (57:33.198)
I mean, people can find me on my YouTube channel if they want to look into my content. Linda Rayner is my YouTube channel. Otherwise, my website lindarayner.com. But ultimately, I mean, I'm really hoping that people continue to preorder the book. We are at 600 preorders now and I'm seventh on the Amazon bestseller list for my category, which is...

very small category work-life balance in business but it's all good you know hopefully I can get to number one if people are willing to pre-order and yeah you can find that on Amazon or the books gonna be available at Indigo as well. I'll be also doing book signings at the Indigo locations, Sherway Gardens and Young and Eglinton that week of launch and I'll be promoting it on my email list and website and all of that.

Martin Hauck (58:24.225)
Awesome. Yeah, no, we'll make sure to promote it on our newsletter and in the community as well. And again, thanks so much, Linda. I really appreciate it.

Linda Raynier (58:30.543)
Thank you, Martin.