'Dear GMA' Advice Guru Search: Spotlight on Carla Barnhill

Jan. 27, 2011— -- From 15,000 applications, the search for the "Dear GMA" Advice Guru is down to the final four candidates. We're searching for someone to join the "GMA" team and answer questions about love, work, family and much more.

The Advice Guru candidates have answered your questions online, shared their holiday advice and faced-off in Daily Guru Duels on viewers' questions.

This week on "GMA," we're spotlighting one of the finalists each day, taking you into their homes, work and lives.

CLICK HERE to ask Carla Barnhill and the other Advice Guru finalists a question.

Carla Barnhill of Minneapolis, Minn., is an author, editor, blogger and mom of three.

"It's always hard to define myself because I play about 18 different roles in any given day," she said.

This proud Minnesotan thinks she has what it takes to be the "Dear GMA" Advice Guru.

"I think I'm good at figuring out what the root of a problem is. I think that for most people they know what it is that they need to do or want to do. They just need somebody to give them a little nudge and give them permission to take that next step in their life," she said. "I feel like I'm really good at helping people do that."

Barnhill took a unique path in her professional life. After she got her master's degree in literature on a Rotary scholarship in Scotland, she attended a seminary in Fullerton, Calif.

"I am a Christian. I'm a person of faith, and that does influence the way I live my life and the way I think about life," she said. "But I have a very open theology. ... I don't have that sense that everybody needs to believe what I believe. I think there are lots of different ways to believe and think about God."

To Barnhill, the secret to living a good life is to lighten up. "When we learn how to laugh at life, we find it's a whole lot more enjoyable," she said.

"I keep telling myself to trust my gut," she wrote in her application. "It has never steered me wrong."

CLICK HERE for her web column on raising kids and the paranoia of parenting.