Real & Raw by Unsetting Expectations Franka Grubisic

In these ‘Raw bite’ episodes of my podcast, I’ll be selecting my favorite moments from previous episodes of Real & Raw.

I’ve been thinking back about things that had been a huge problem for me when I worked for different companies over the past couple of years, and I suddenly realized that many of the troubles have resulted from over analyzing my menager's or my colleagues' emails and replies. I immediately started to internalize and feel fear inside of me when I saw a question mark in it, because I thought there was something I hadn't done right.

Crazy, isn't it?

Technology has undoubtedly made our lives easier in many ways, but I’m not so sure I like the effect it has on communication and understanding those written messages. It's especially present in communication between a manager and their employees, and a huge problem is not even hearing something each of them has to say.  And I've realized that people had never thought of listening as an important subject by itself.

Now that I'm a business owner and having people working for me, I have realized that listening to what they have to say is one of the most important parts of our communication and of me getting to understand how they feel and what they need so that they can feel more comfortable working and communicating back to me.

Listening to what they have to say may be more than an eye-opening experience for them, as well as for me and the business. It could mean more understanding of their needs, more progress and possibly innovation when they are being heard and valued.

I'm kind of in the midst of a journey of reframing and reparenting myself  I also run two social businesses and I have a small team working together. And the roles are different so I need to be able to recognize how my team is feeling that day just based on their messages and their replies. And then I moderate my replies to them based on understanding what they need to hear, or what they might think. Because I know that sometimes they can also feel the same fear from a message that I sent that has a question mark in it.

In these ‘Raw bite’ episodes of my podcast, I’ll be selecting my favorite moments from previous episodes of Real & Raw.

Do you feel guilty when you even think of setting boundaries? Well, I'm here to tell you that you're not alone!

One of the main reasons we avoid setting boundaries is that we mistakenly think they’re rude and controlling and that we'll get characterized as being mean and selfish. For many of us the problem is being stuck in a people-pleaser mindset, letting other people tell us what's right for us instead of deciding for ourselves.

We have all these negative beliefs because others have reacted poorly to our boundaries in the past. And this is especially present in dysfunctional families where people may feel guilty or unjustified in asking for what they want or need and never getting their needs met. Personally, I didn't have boundaries for a lot of reasons and when I met people who had them, I always thought "Oh my God, what a rude person!".

The relationship with my parents, and their parents was really dysfunctional and it was especially hard for me as a child to look at and to grow up in such environment. I didn't have anyone  kind of role-modelling that it's okay to stand up for yourself, that it's okay to say no to things and that it's okay to, not to raise your voice but to speak your truth. And by getting raised by a family that acts a certain way, I just thought that I should be quite all the time and let people use me however they want, because those were the behaviors that I saw for such a long time.

When I moved to Zagreb, for University, I figured that people were acting differently here and I quite liked it. It was a transitioned period of me realizing that having boundaries is not rude at all, that's what should be the bare minimum of common courtesy to yourself.

Setting boundaries means, for once, putting ourselves first. And what it really does is, it protects us from being hurt and taken advantage of.  In fact, setting clear boundaries creates healthy relationships and clear expectations as long as we learn how to set them properly and don't feel guilty. Therefore, we have to figure out how to find ways to set boundaries that work for us.

Listen to the whole conversation and pick up some of the tips for yourself!

In these ‘Raw bite’ episodes of my podcast, I’ll be selecting my favorite moments from previous episodes of Real & Raw.

So many of us go through life disconnected from our inner self, not paying attention to our core, looking for someone or something to complete us. And it's almost like we're waiting for some kind of outside approval for things we should or shouldn't do, we begin to lose control of what we truly want and feel like doing. We miss out so much on vital information that could be shaping our life choices and daily actions by not trusting ourselves and our inner feeling.

Sometimes you get really caught up on looking so much outwards and comparing ourselves and our businesses with how businesses of other people work so much that we lose that inner connection and trust and you're like "Oh, I'm actually not feeling really aligned with this, I don't feel like I have the energy to launch this now even though I already had that planned." And that can create a lot of resistance and judgement and a lot of those negative emotions.

For the most part of my life I struggled with a poor relationship with myself. I used to have a critical, judgmental inner dialogue. My perfectionist tendencies made me feel like I was never good enough which made me feel completely disconnected from my inner self. Over recent years, so much of this has changed. I have practiced acceptance, forgiveness and unconditional self-love, which made me realize, I'm on my own journey in this life and it's completely fine to take a step back, tune in and be like "it's okay if I don't do this at the moment because it doesn't feel right".

The key is to develop the connection with the source of guidance, the sense of self that lies within you, to discover that you're able to rely on your inner feeling, your inner guidance. And just like anything, it requires dedication and a lot of patience. It's important to let yourself receive any information that comes from within, and give yourself time to process it and understand what is it trying to tell you.

In these ‘Raw bite’ episodes of my podcast, I’ll be selecting my favorite moments from previous episodes of Real & Raw.


Many of us have been in a place where we are in a constant resistance to what we feel inside ourselves, our internal state where we're holding off, and it's almost like constant pushing or pulling back.

Being too hard and resistant to ourselves makes us feel angry, miserable, frustrated and even overly restricted. It makes us blame ourselves for things we didn't do, we even blame ourselves for things we did and how we did them, almost like we have no control over ourselves and our emotions towards ourselves.

Whether it's a trauma response, whether it's the discomfort that you're feeling, the resistance where you're resisting against your own nature, it's important to figure that out, and see if you can get yourself to a space where there's just less shame and it doesn't feel as heavy. We need to be light. You cannot be limitless when you're just like "I'm going to apologize for everything I am and everything I do and everything I didn't do." You don't want that version of you showing up in the world.

Personally, I don’t believe it’s really healthy to fight or judge yourself, and I also don’t believe it’s healthy to just give in to every impulse either. There should be a healthy balance between the two. It’s about compassionate self guidance and self discovery, so that we can get where we want to go in life, as well as feel free and be able to enjoy the journey.

In these ‘Raw bite’ episodes of my podcast, I’ll be selecting my favorite moments from previous episodes of Real & Raw.

So much of our time we spend trying to keep up and fit everything into our days that we can't even enjoy them as we want to. In a world like this that often seems to get busier and fast-paced than ever, it’s easy to get swept up by the feeling of needing to do more and do it faster, just to keep up with the world. It has become a societal norm that being busy equals more productivity.

It leads us feeling overwhelmed, stressed and it makes us feel like we're not good enough, like we're not doing good enough. We're running ourselves into the ground, almost. And I'm kind of feeling that in all our busyness and constantly running around, we're missing out on the most important and most beautiful parts of our lives.

It is important to make slowing down a priority and focus on what's really important for you at the moment. And it isn't the easiest thing to do, it takes time and practice and a lot of discipline and self control to take it easy. You need to learn to pay attention to the things that are in front of you in the moment, to stay present and right where you are.

"How could I slow more today?" Okay, I'm going to sit and I'm going to journal for five more minutes. So my thing today is like, how can I keep slowing down? And every time I've noticed that I've started getting a bit more stressed, everything speeds up for me. I talk a little bit faster, I move faster. And, so rather than just telling myself to slow down, if I can slow down my body movements, I start to cultivate a feeling of slowness and everything suddenly my day has felt a little more spacious. And it feels like I have room to move. - says Vix Anderton.

Whenever you’re feeling overly busy, stressed or simply overwhelmed, try some of these small tips to help you slow down and just follow the pace of yourself. Every small change throughout your day can slow down your pace without killing your productivity. If you find a more peaceful process, you’ll be both happier and more effective. If you're interested in learning how to slow down and still get things done, I highly suggest you to listen to this episode!

In these ‘Raw bite’ episodes of my podcast, I’ll be selecting my favorite moments from previous episodes of Real & Raw.

We live in a world where not everything we see on the internet is true. And this is especially the case with social media. With so many opinions and information coming from all sides, people showing up with filters and masks on, it’s easy to just fall for everything that’s fighting for our attention.

The most widespread use of augmented reality is the face filters on social media that are more and more used among women and even young girls. And I don’t think it’s just filtering an actual image, it’s filtering  their whole life. Nowadays, everything is all about portraying a perfect life to gain fame and a number of followers, people forget who they are and they pretend to be someone who they're not. And I think it’s very sad what’s happening more and more.

So much of the things we see online is scripted and Unsetting Expectations is my counter medicine to that. It's because everything is so scripted, everyone shows up with a filter and with a mask, it feels like we're already living in the metaverse. It's already like we're showing up as different people than who we are because someone one day decided it's better because it earns them more status, more followers and more money.

I remember kind of being left, standing like this time a year ago and thinking like "Who is showing up as a human being?", " Where do I find human beings?", almost only place where people share conversations like these is on communities like Reddit, for example. And my intention for this entire project is to raise that awareness that every experience as a human being is a normal experience, that it's okay to show up as who you truly are.

We're consuming more online media than ever and people have become obsessed with seeking approval from millions of strangers online. It has led to creating an incredibly fake persona and not having a genuine sense of identity and purpose. This is why Unsetting Expectations came to life, to normalize the experiences of us as human beings, to normalize the conversations around them and to offer a safe and warm space to share your stories.