Certainty vs. Clarity: The Mindset Shift That Changes Everything

Daron shared a story about Mother Teresa that reframed how I think about content strategy entirely.

When someone came to Mother Teresa asking her to pray for clarity on their next season of life, she refused. “I will pray for you for certainty,” she said. “Those words don’t mean the same thing.”

Clarity is knowing exactly where you’re going. Certainty is knowing who you are and trusting that the next step makes sense from that foundation.

Most coaches who haven’t started a podcast or video series are waiting for clarity. They want to know what their content will look like in a year, whether it will work, whether their audience will show up. They want a roadmap before they take a step.

But the coaches who build lasting authority on content? They operate from certainty. They know who they are, they know the message they carry, and they take the next best step available with what they know right now.

You don’t need a perfect content strategy to start. You need a clear enough sense of who you are and why your message matters to record the first episode.

The Real Problem Isn’t a Content Problem, It’s a Calling Problem

Before we ever talked about podcasting, Daron Earlewine and I talked about purpose. And for coaches who feel stuck on content, that might be exactly where you need to start too.

Darren has spent the better part of two decades helping people understand the difference between their occupation and their vocation. Occupation is what you do. Vocation (from the Latin vocari, meaning calling) is who you are.

Here’s the trap most coaches fall into: they try to build content around their occupation. What they do, what they sell, what their program delivers. And it always feels hollow, performative, and exhausting because they’re building from the outside in.

Content that actually connects, content that builds trust, attracts premium clients, and creates lasting impact comes from vocation. From calling. When your content is anchored in who you genuinely are and what you were made to do, showing up becomes natural. The message isn’t manufactured. It already lives inside you.

If you’re struggling to create content consistently, ask yourself: Am I trying to create content around my offer, or around my calling?

Three Lessons from a Decade of Podcasting

Darren Earlewine’s podcast has gone through multiple iterations over ten-plus years — radio, video, audio — and along the way, he’s distilled some hard-won perspective that every early-stage content creator needs to hear.

1. Consistency creates compound interest, and you won’t feel it at first.

Darren described a moment where a listener reached out after discovering an episode from 2018 or 2019, and said in 2026 that he was still learning from it. That’s the power of evergreen content. The work you put out today is working for someone, somewhere, years from now. But you have to stay consistent long enough for the compound effect to kick in.

2. Vanity metrics will try to kill your mission.

Early download numbers don’t tell you whether your message is resonating; they just tell you that it takes time to grow an audience. Daron’s reframe is one of the most practical I’ve heard: picture everyone who downloads your episode in a room with you. If 30 people showed up to hear you speak, would you call that a waste? Almost certainly not. Those 30 people are real. They chose to listen. Honor them.

3. Your podcast can coach your clients before — and between — sessions.

This is something coaches almost never talk about, and it’s one of the most powerful arguments for podcasting. Darren shared that his clients now frequently come into monthly coaching sessions referencing specific podcast episodes they listened to on the way to work. He’s not just getting 90 minutes a month with them — he’s getting hours. The podcast extends his coaching capacity without adding time to his schedule.

The Podcast vs. Radio Decision That Says Everything

Here’s a data point worth sitting with: Daron had a radio show on the number one pop station in Indianapolis. Three hours every Sunday morning. Access to a potential audience of 1.2 million people. And when the opportunity came to bring it back, he said no.

Because podcast listeners are different. Radio listeners exist on a spectrum from background noise to die-hard fans, and most of them fall toward the background noise end. A podcast listener found you. They subscribed. They pressed play. Their attention is yours in a way that broadcast media simply cannot replicate.

The reach of podcasting isn’t measured in potential impressions. It’s measured in depth of relationship. And for coaches whose business runs on trust, that depth is everything.

The One Reframe That Defeats Imposter Syndrome

If you’re holding back because you don’t think anyone wants to hear from you, Darren shared an exercise that stops that thinking cold.

Think of a book, a podcast episode, a person’s story that changed your life. Now imagine that story didn’t exist. Imagine that person sat on their couch and said, no one cares about what I have to say. How different would your life look?

That person was dealing with the same imposter syndrome you’re dealing with right now. The same resistance. The same fear of being irrelevant. But they pushed through and their message reached you.

Write for one person. Record for one person. Create for one person. Because more than one person will show up. And you’ll never know which of them needed it most.

Your Next Step

If this resonated with you, it’s probably because the message you carry is bigger than the hesitation you feel. The question isn’t whether to create content. The question is whether you’ll let fear of the metrics, fear of imperfection, or fear of being seen keep the right people from finding what they need.

Watch the full conversation with Darren Earlewine on Episode 016 of the Coaching with Content podcast. And when you’re ready to install a content system that works for your coaching business, visit 1898creative.com.

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Full Transcript

Darren: Have you ever wondered what it’s like to say you’ve been a podcaster for a decade? Well, if that’s the case, I have something for you today. I’m sitting down with Daron Earlewine — a client and a friend — who has been podcasting for over a decade. The lessons he’s learned, the highs, the lows, the ins and outs — that’s what we talk about today. And I can’t wait to share this conversation with you. So if you’re ready, I’m ready. Let’s get to it.

Darren: Mr. Daron Earlewine — here on our set, but in the wrong chair. It feels familiar yet awkwardly unfamiliar. You’re on the other side. You’re going to wake up tomorrow with a crick in your neck.

Daron E.: It’s truly awful.

Darren: Well, man, thank you so much for taking the time to sit down with us. I wanted to start this conversation by framing up a little bit of what got us here. I don’t even know what year it was — I won’t pretend I do — but I called you up. I had been in your sphere a little bit. You were doing some pub theology stuff, you were a pastor, and just the way you presented the world was super interesting to me. I think at that point I had either taken or was about to take your Spiritual DNA course — just about who I was created to be and finding purpose and meaning. I called you up and said, I don’t know what this means, but I feel like we’ve got to work together. And you had some random guy named Darren call you and say that, which is kind of odd. But that kind of started a relationship over the last handful of years of just figuring that out.

Daron E.: Yeah. Obviously on the ministry side of things, coming alongside you. At that point in my life, I was a musician — trying to make the music thing happen. And then we stepped into walking through Spiritual DNA. I’m trying to figure out how I can help you grow this thing. It’s just been this really beautiful friendship over the last handful of years. And one of the big things you’ve helped me with, especially in the coaching work you do now, is you really helped me understand not only who I was created to be, but also find a little bit of purpose and meaning in the work that I do — the way God kind of put me together — to go, oh, I actually kind of make sense.

Darren: So let’s start there. The journey you’ve been on these last handful of years, dating back to when you were a full-time pastor — wanting to help people understand their calling, their mission, who God created them to be and how to make a positive impact on the world. Talk to me about that journey and what sparked it for you.

Daron E.: Yeah. One of the things we talk about in our Spiritual DNA online course, the workshops, and the work we do with Rogue Collective is that the roots of your greatest passion are often found in some of your greatest pain. And that feels counterintuitive — and also scary. Most of us, when we go through a season of pain or struggle, we bury it. We hide from it. We think it proves we’re broken or flawed, that we’re not worthy.

For me, the process of finding my own purpose was kind of painful. I went through what I call a death of a dream — a dream I’d had since third grade. And the pain of that first four to five years, stepping into becoming a church planter, felt like I was falling down the stairs of life to get there. I didn’t feel like I fit. I didn’t really understand anything that was unique about me — which is interesting, because I’m a pastor’s kid. I grew up in church my whole life. But I don’t remember hearing much about how God took great care in creating you, and if you don’t know the unique ways you’ve been put together, you’re just guessing your way through life. And that’s how I felt.

A couple of times I guessed right, a couple of times I guessed wrong. And I kept reading in the Bible that I’m supposed to make sense — but I didn’t feel that. So the process I took myself through to discover that began to really pay dividends. Understanding purpose, passion, living with peace and momentum — and seeing things start to scale. I’m doing what I think I was created to do and seeing positive results. So I thought, well, this worked for me. Maybe it’ll work for others.

We put together the Spiritual DNA course and started taking people through it at the church plant — a couple hundred people. Then I went to a large megachurch here in town, and over the next four years, about 2,500 people went through the course. I started hearing testimonies that sounded a lot like mine. And I realized God had given me a gift in this understanding — anything good that comes to me, I want to pass on to someone else. That connection brought me to life.

Darren: And getting to walk this journey with you — I think if we really look at the dates, it’s been probably at least a decade, if not more. And Darren, your journey has been one of the more inspiring journeys I’ve gotten to be a part of. We came into each other’s lives as friends, and within about 24 months, you were about to experience a pretty aggressive death of a dream.

Daron E.: Yeah, for sure.

Darren: Watching you walk through that, watching you in a place of liminality — you didn’t run away from God. You dove into your faith. You dove in to make sense of the pain. And getting to walk with you through the past decade of watching you discover more about yourself, and having the courage to say, I don’t know where this is going, but this makes sense right now. Every step of the way, you made the next best decision you could with the clarity you had.

Daron E.: That sparks a memory. I think it was Mother Teresa — someone came to her and said, Mother Teresa, I’d really like you to pray for me for clarity on what this next season of life looks like. And she said, I’m sorry, I can’t pray for you for clarity. He was taken aback. And she said, I will pray for you for certainty. You may think those words mean the same thing, but they don’t.

And what I’ve seen in your journey, Darren, is that you weren’t always clear on what the next step would be or where it would go. But every step of the way you moved with the certainty of someone who knows who God created them to be. This makes sense in that context. Certainty — yes. Clarity? Not always.

And man, when you came to me and said you wanted to work together, there was something in my heart, soul, mind, or strength that said, yeah, there’s something here. And you’ve been an absolutely critical part of helping us build what we’ve built. At that point, I was super unclear about what I was doing. Certain, but super unclear. And you’ve been such an integral part of enabling us to build the purpose-driven ecosystem we’ve built over the past decade.

Darren: I always joke that you kind of let me test ideas on you with the content we’re doing — oh yeah, that worked, or no, that was terrible. You’ve been a good guinea pig.

Somebody might be listening and going, what the heck is this doing on a content podcast? But a lot of the folks we work with have a message — something that burns inside of them — and it’s more than just building a business or starting a podcast. It’s mission-driven. That’s why I wanted this conversation. So before we get into the content side, talk to somebody out there who’s wrestling. Maybe they’ve had a death of a dream. Maybe they’re going, what I thought I was supposed to do isn’t working. What would you say to them?

Daron E.: I think a great starting point is understanding the differentiation between occupation and vocation. When we feel stuck, we usually process it as something’s wrong with me — and then we blame our job. We define ourselves so much by what we do.

I work with a lot of people in what we affectionately call the “dirt world” — heavy civil construction, asphalt, concrete, directional drilling. I always ask them: give me some jobs that, if you had that occupation, you’d feel like you had great purpose. And you get the same answers every time. Doctor, nurse, first responder, teacher, someone in ministry. People in the asphalt industry are never saying asphalt.

And then I say, go interview a bunch of those people and ask if they wake up every day in complete peace because their job creates it. Probably not. Because we’re human beings, not human doers. If we’re human doers, then our life is defined by our occupation, and we’d better choose right. But that’s a lie we believe — that if I fix the externals, I’ll find what I’m looking for internally. Incorrect. It won’t ever happen.

We don’t become who we were born to be from the outside in. It’s always inside out. We have to come back to understanding that we have a vocation. The Latin root, vocari, means calling. The vocation of a human being — in my opinion — is love. And before the dirt world guys walk out, that’s not about hugging everybody on the job site. It comes back to this: life is relationships. Everything else is details — Gary Smalley said that.

If I can understand the three sides of the triangle — I’m loved by God, I receive His love and love myself, and then I can begin to love and serve others — that vocational calling can find its way into any career. Not every career will produce the realities of that calling, but the calling transcends the occupation.

So if you’re feeling stuck right now, your first question isn’t what new job do I need? It’s: what is my sense of calling? Who was I created to be? I help people answer four core questions: Who are you as identity? Why do you do what you do? What do you do better than millions of other people? And where do you find your greatest passion? When you start answering those four questions with certainty, your occupation looks completely different. Life begins to open.

Darren: And that’s what I’ve experienced working alongside you — seeing that not only in my life, but in so many others. You’ve had quite a few jobs in the past decade.

Daron E.: Oh, for sure. We’ve gone all over the board. But you haven’t changed. The core of who Darren Cooper is has gotten more certain and clearer, stepping in with more confidence. None of the occupational adventures created that. They may have helped edit a little bit — stepping up and going, well, not quite that. But the core was always there.

I’m a pastor, author, podcaster. I did radio. I do bar ministry. I’m a drummer. I’m a corporate purpose coach, keynote speaker. All those different occupational adventures helped me edit down to, I think this is my lane. Occupation isn’t completely irrelevant — it’s just not the silver bullet.

Darren: And something you talk about that I think is helpful when someone’s feeling stuck: you use the term “compassionately curious.” I’ve been trying to apply this in my own life. When things feel sticky, when they hit a wall, I take a step back and ask, what is actually going on here? Can you break that down?

Daron E.: Who’s the meanest person on earth to Daron Earlewine?

Darren: The guy in the mirror.

Daron E.: The guy in the mirror. We are the most critical, condemning voice to ourselves on the planet. When we get stuck, we beat ourselves up constantly. But if you could separate yourself and treat yourself like your best friend — think about the most encouraging, nicest person in your life. Take on that role in your own mind and ask: if I were having a conversation with the nicest person who believes in me the most, what would this conversation sound like? You’d start to see a lot of compassionate curiosity.

Here’s a practical step: go to the most dominant negative emotion you’re feeling right now. Then start asking, compassionately, why — about five times. When you get to the answer to that fifth why, you’ll start untying the knots that are keeping you captive. And probably once you get to that fifth why, you’re going to be looking at some kind of false belief about your identity. That’s the deep end of the pool. A lot of people don’t want to go there. It’s hard.

But what I love about my connection to Jesus is that unlocking the true treasures of life requires immense courage — and I don’t think human beings can accomplish it alone. We were created for and by relationship. The invitation is: there’s a God who knows you, loves you personally, made you on purpose and for purpose, and offers to walk with you in intimate relationship to the scariest places of your life. So you don’t go there alone.

Darren: That’s what I mean. And I want to be clear to anyone listening — what you just outlined is a way of finding peace and fulfillment beyond just the vanity metrics of impact. Oh, my YouTube numbers are big, so I’m making true impact. Not really. Real impact starts here. That’s why I wanted this conversation.

So let’s turn slightly and talk about the podcast. You have a message, a mission, a voice — and a handful of years ago, you decided to bring it out through a podcast. You’ve said, and I hear a lot of clients say, I don’t want to be a YouTuber, I don’t want to be a content creator, I don’t want to be an influencer — I want to have influence, but I don’t want to be an influencer. What was it about this medium that stuck out to you?

Daron E.: I think it started because I was consuming a lot of podcasts. The people I really looked up to — the people I really wanted to learn from — I was so grateful they had a podcast, because I couldn’t call them. I can’t call them every Saturday when I’m mowing the lawn and say, give me your best stuff for an hour. It’s not accessible.

What I loved about podcasts was that I learned so many amazing things because somebody with a message took the time to sit down and make it available. So I thought, okay, this works — it’s been working for me. And some of it was: I wanted a medium where the content I felt called to bring to the world would be free, globally accessible, and evergreen. They’re there all the time.

I was just talking to a buddy the other day, and he said he was back on an early episode — way back in the radio theology days. And this current iteration of the show is 200-plus episodes. So he’s back in 2018 or 2019, listening in 2026 and saying, dude, I’m loving what I’m learning. That says everything. Content you produced years ago is still impacting people today.

And when you look at the back end of our podcast and see downloads — you’ll see a week’s worth of new episodes doing well. But then you realize only about a third of the downloads are from the current episode. The other two-thirds are people consuming content from across a decade. Hundreds of people consuming something we put out years ago.

Darren: And that’s what makes this medium so powerful.

Daron E.: Exactly. And I love the interview format too — being able to let other people’s messages get out, to learn from them. It’s a lot of fun. So when you came to me about putting it on video, getting it on YouTube — from my seat, it was like, you have an awesome way of communicating faith and purpose and meaning. We have to get this in front of people. It wasn’t about spending thousands of dollars trying to figure it out. You communicate well. What’s a good way to communicate? Podcast — boom, let’s go.

Darren: You mentioned the radio. Tell us about that experience.

Daron E.: For three and a half years, we had a radio show on the number one pop station in Indianapolis — three hours every Sunday morning. Access to 1.2 million people. And we won our time slot a handful of times, which was great. But what I began to realize was that radio has tiers of listeners. Tier four — you’re background noise. Pour your heart and soul into everything you say on the radio, and they’re yelling at their kid in the back seat with no idea you exist. Tier three — they know what station they listen to. Tier two — they actually know the radio station and might know your name. Tier one — they love it, they call in.

In your mind, you’re creating three and a half hours of content thinking you’re reaching 1.2 million people. But you’re not. Maybe tens of thousands of real tier one listeners every week.

But when you’re on a podcast — what’s your reach? The globe. When is it broadcast? Whenever they want to listen. And are they tier four listeners? No. They found you. They chose to listen. They’re not distracted.

A couple of years ago, a brand new station manager came in and said, hey, everyone’s talking about how great the show was — would you be interested in coming back on radio? And it didn’t take me very long to say, no thank you. We have a radio opportunity at the number one pop station in the city, and for where we were at, the answer was, no — we’ve got the podcast. And I couldn’t be more bought in to what we’re doing now.

Darren: A couple weeks ago we sat down with Dave Rodriguez — he was just on episode two of his podcast. Now you’re on the other side. Over a decade in, 200-plus episodes of this current iteration, probably double that if you count everything before. Talk us through the journey — the highs and lows, the behind-the-scenes.

Daron E.: For me, I’ve never had a negative about creating the content. If you’re a content creator, coach, or consultant, you need something that forces accountability on you to stay fresh — to keep growing, keep reading, keep learning so you can bring value to people. That accountability has been one of my favorite things.

Some of the struggle — and you’ve helped me with this — is the vanity metrics thing. You crank it out, put it out there, and you see the download numbers and go, really? My mom listened again.

But here’s something that helped me, and maybe it’ll help someone listening: envision whatever your download numbers are as people in a room with you. If you put out your third episode and have 30 downloads, you’re going, what am I doing? But put 30 people in a room with you and deliver that content — would you drive home feeling like it was a waste? If you had 180, 500, 1,000 people in a room, that would be a big deal. Speaking to rooms of over a thousand people — that doesn’t happen very often. And if it’s 30 every month, and 30 different people, and you don’t know where they are in the world — that perspective shift changes everything.

You helped me with that. And the consistency piece — you’ve been beating that drum forever. We’ve been consistent. And you and the team have helped me understand there’s some genius behind how you post things and what needs to be included. Without your team, we don’t have the numbers we have now. For me, I talk in front of cameras and people — and after that I get a little loosey-goosey on the details. To have a team where it’s: you do what you do best, then get out of the way, we’ll get it to where it needs to be — that’s what we’ve built.

And now we’re looking at numbers and going, oh. Things are moving. And what’s really started happening is — because we’ve been doing the current coaching format for just over a year now — when I’m out coaching, I mention the podcast. And when I come back month after month, people say, dude, on the way to work today I was listening to episode whatever and you said this thing. And I’m realizing — I’m here 90 minutes a month with you, but if you’re grabbing onto the podcast, I’m actually mentoring and developing you for hours in between sessions. That tool, that resource — it’s incredible.

Darren: That’s the whole point. Your content is coaching them when you’re not in the room. And when they show up and you are in the room, they’re paying more attention. They’re locked in. And I love your point about vanity metrics. If 200 people are listening and you get to talk to them, and one of them raises their hand for your high-ticket offer — that’s all it takes. One out of 200. And that can be a game changer.

Daron E.: There’s another angle I love as a coach — the accountability of the content, plus the ability to test ideas on the podcast before I bring them to a coaching environment. I’m very comfortable here. Someone brand new to podcasting might feel more nervous in a room with one person than with 60, but this environment has let me say, I’m going to test drive this concept on the podcast. Now it’s going into a coaching environment. And then vice versa — content created for coaching comes back to the podcast. Either way, you now have an on-demand resource. Two o’clock in the morning, in their PJs, mowing the lawn — whenever they need it. And if your heart is to coach, consult, guide, inspire — it makes so much sense.

Darren: As we land the plane here — what would you say to a coach or consultant who has this burning message and is on the fence? I don’t know if that’s for me.

Daron E.: It brings me back to before I wrote my book — Death of a Dream, available on Amazon and Audible — there was the imposter syndrome piece. I can’t write a book. No one’s going to read my book. Who wants to hear my story?

I was sitting down with Emily Southerland, a great writing coach. She took our group through a storytelling workshop, and I didn’t know what she was doing at the time. But she went around the circle and had everyone share their favorite book, their favorite movie, the person whose story inspires them most. And you’re hearing movies you loved, books that changed your life. Then she says, okay — now imagine that movie, that story, that person’s story doesn’t exist. And you could feel the sorrow in the room. What if that person hadn’t told their story?

Then she said, now put yourself in that. The way you feel about not having access to that person’s story — would you be willing to go through this process so that just one person could be impacted? And everyone in the room said yes. Write it for one person. More than one person is going to read your book. We’re not talking about metrics. We’re talking about — what content, what story changed your life? What if that person had sat on their couch and said no one cares?

That person you were inspired by — they were dealing with the same resistance, the same imposter syndrome you’re dealing with right now. But they pushed through. They chose the pain of discipline. They chose courage. So I’d say: think through it. What are the stories that have changed your life? What if that person hadn’t shown up? Because that defeats imposter syndrome relatively quickly. Man, I’ve got to do this. I’ve got to step up for one person.

Darren: What if their story wasn’t there? That’s powerful. And that defeats imposter syndrome remarkably fast.

Well, Darren — you have a coaching process called Rogue Collective that you’ve launched over the last couple of years. How can people get ahold of you?

Daron E.: Go to roguecollectivecoaching.com. There’s a tab on the homepage that says “book a discovery call.” Thirty minutes — you’ll get to share a little of your story, hear about what we do, and see if it’s a match. And if you’re not quite ready for coaching, go to darronEarlewine.com. The podcast is there. Spiritual DNA course, the book, a lot of content available to you. If you feel like you need someone to help you take steps toward becoming who you were born to be, go to roguecollectivecoaching.com and book a discovery call.

Darren: Do it. I’ve worked with Darren for a while and I’m very excited about this next iteration. Check out the Rogue Collective Coaching and the Daron Earlewine Podcast — you can be inspired every day. And Darren, at the end of your podcast, you always say…

Daron E.: Until we talk again, remember these three things: God is for you, not against you. He is near you, not far away. And he has created you on purpose and for purpose.

Darren: I love it. And what I want you to remember is that you are an artist, and that you need to do the hard work of bringing your voice out into the world. Get out there and create your art. Until next time on the Coaching with Content podcast — go create some art. We’ll see you then.