We’re looking forward to introducing you to Michele Lefler. Check out our conversation below.
Michele, we’re thrilled to have you with us today. Before we jump into your intro and the heart of the interview, let’s start with a bit of an ice breaker: What’s more important to you—intelligence, energy, or integrity?
None of these are more important to me than the others. They are equally important. Intelligence comes in many forms, and everyone is intelligent is something- it’s just a matter of finding what that is and then focusing on it. Many people ignore energy, but when they do they risk burnout and frustration. That doesn’t benefit anyone. And integrity is who you are. If you don’t have it then it doesn’t matter how intelligent you are or how much you rest and honor your energy. If you don’t have integrity then who are you?
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
My name is Michele Lefler, and I call myself Your Personal Librarian. Yes, I’m a “real librarian”. I have a master’s degree in library & information science. I do work as the Executive Director of a public library, but I weave the librarian vibe into my own business through helping people sort through the overload of information and advice they’re drowning in.
My work sits at the crossroads of strategy and spirit, and I work with people as individuals and with entrepreneurs. I guide people who feel stuck, scattered, or pulled in too many directions. Many of them have already tried the usual productivity tricks and business formulas, and they’re tired of doing things that look good on paper but feel wrong in the gut.
Along with my library science background, I’ve been trained in shamanism and holistic life coaching, so I can spot patterns, ask the right questions, and get down to what’s real, not what’s trendy. And I tend to go deep into the shadows with what I do. My role is to help people make decisions with intention instead of pressure, and to build a path that matches their values instead of someone else’s blueprint.
Thanks for sharing that. Would love to go back in time and hear about how your past might have impacted who you are today. What’s a moment that really shaped how you see the world?
That would be when my husband died and I became a young widow. One day we were imagining the next fifty years, and the next day I was learning how to breathe without him. Everything I thought was stable, predictable, or guaranteed broke open. He was 24 and I was 31.
Navigating through that really transformed me as a person. I’m definitely not the same person I was when he was alive or before I met him.
I stopped pretending that “someday” was a real plan. I stopped following paths that weren’t mine. And I stopped trying to make myself smaller or quieter to fit what other people thought was acceptable.
Losing him pushed me into an extremely personal spiritual search. I leaned into my witchiness because it gave me a language for intuition and ancestral connection that I didn’t have anywhere else. Eventually that path led me to Judaism. I wasn’t trying to replace the faith I was born into and grew up with, but it hadn’t felt right for me my whole life. Choosing Judaism felt like I was coming home. Rituals, seasons, memory, and community gave me ground again when nothing else did.
So when I say that I help people live with intention, it’s not a marketing line. I learned the hard way that we don’t have unlimited time. We all know this intellectually, but we also tend to think that we have so many tomorrows that we just aren’t promised. We never know when this part of our soul’s journey will end. The conversations we avoid, the dreams we postpone, the life we plan to get to later. That only leads to regret.
If someone is waking up every day feeling like they’re drifting, I want them to know they don’t have to stay there. There is a way forward, even after loss, even after everything has changed. And if they’re ready for someone to walk beside them while they figure out who they’re becoming next, I’m here. It’s always the right time to start living on purpose.
What fear has held you back the most in your life?
For most of my life I had this fear that I was unlovable. Not just that I was hard to love, but that there was something wrong with me and that it made me so bad people couldn’t love me. That fear was so deep I didn’t even know it was there. It was just part of who I was. I didn’t recognize it for a long time, and I wouldn’t have even been able to put it into words at the time. But I feared deep down that if I wasn’t perfect, people would leave. If I disappointed someone, they’d stop caring. So, I built my whole personality around anticipating everyone else’s needs before my own and my entire personality was built around people pleasing. If I worked harder, showed up flawlessly, didn’t make mistakes, didn’t ask for too much maybe someone would stay.
The problem is that fear doesn’t stop when you grow up or build a career or collect degrees. It follows you everywhere. Into friendships, relationships, business, even spirituality. And the saddest part is that you can check every single invisible box, and it still won’t make you feel safe. And it doesn’t make people love you or stop people from leaving.
It took losing my husband to really understand how much of my life I’d spent performing worthiness. Grief stripped away every mask. When you’re standing in the ashes, you don’t have the energy to impress anyone. And the people who stayed did so because of who I am not because I was doing everything right. And to be honest, not everyone did stay. But the ones who left were not right for who I was becoming. That’s ok. I spent a lot of time being angry because they left, but I’ve come to realize that someone leaving doesn’t make them a bad person. It just means that we were no longer supposed to be a part of each other’s journey.
Sure, so let’s go deeper into your values and how you think. What’s a belief you used to hold tightly but now think was naive or wrong?
Ha! This is a great question. Honestly, I’d say the idea that I had to pick a life path or make a choice about who I wanted to be and that everything would just fall into place. Pick the right career. Pick the right relationship. Go to college. Get married. Have 2.5 children, a dog, and a white picket fence. I used to see life like a map with clean routes and predictable outcomes.
It took growing up, losing, rebuilding, changing paths, changing again, and then changing some more to realize how naive that was.
Life isn’t something you solve. It’s something you stay in relationship with.
The older I get, the more convinced I am that rigidity is fear in disguise. When we cling to one identity, one plan, one spiritual path, one “this is who I am and who I’ll always be,” what we’re really saying is “If I change, will I still be safe? Will I still belong?”
Letting myself evolve has been the healthiest decision I’ve ever made. Be open to making choices and then failing massively at those choices. I’ve changed religions, blended multiple spiritual paths into that, started a business, planned to incorporate different paths into my business and then gave up and went back to the first choice. Some people see that as failure. I see it as adapting to what actually fits.
You’re allowed to outgrow things you once prayed for. You’re allowed to change your mind. You’re allowed to become someone new without apologizing for it.
Okay, so before we go, let’s tackle one more area. What is the story you hope people tell about you when you’re gone?
That I loved people hard. Not neatly. Not quietly. Not only when it was convenient. I want to be remembered for loving people in the way that sees them in all of their brilliance, their flaws, their history, their hopes and does not run.
I’ve lived enough life to know that most folks aren’t starving for inspiration. They’re starving for connection. For someone to really look at them and say, “I’m here. I care. You matter.” If I’m remembered for anything, I want it to be that I gave that kind of love freely.
And I don’t just mean romance. I mean friendship. I mean community. I mean clients who became family. I mean anyone who crossed my path and left feeling more whole than when they arrived.
I don’t need people to remember my achievements or my résumé. Those things fade. But if someone can say, “She made me feel valued,” that’s a legacy that actually lands.
And while I’m still here I intend to keep loving people like that. The world needs more of it right now, not less.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://michelelefler.com/
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Michele Lefler
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