Episode 23. Do Less, Make More (Shamelessly): My First Months Beyond Microsoft

The Inner Briefing Podcast

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Episode Description:

In this solo episode, I share the messy, beautiful, and unexpected truth of life after leaving Microsoft. July 6th, 2022 marked both my last day in corporate and the eve of my 32nd birthday—a threshold into an entirely new chapter. What followed included a health scare that shook my sense of security, a surf trip to Mexico where I wrestled with “doing nothing,” and a slow, winding road trip in my van Franny that helped me begin to settle into simply being.

I talk about what it feels like to shed an old identity, why productivity is overrated, and how I re-learned to trust myself (and life) outside of a steady paycheck. You’ll hear my five biggest takeaways, from embracing the discomfort of nothingness to experimenting with a gentle weekly flow that honors both rest and creativity.

If you’re considering leaving corporate—or even just craving a new rhythm—you’ll find both permission and practical wisdom here. Because sometimes the bravest thing you can do for your business and your soul is to let go, do less, and watch life hold you anyway.

Transcript (RAW):

Marie Groover (00:03.885)

Hello and welcome to the Spiritual 9to5 podcast hosted by myself, Marie Groover of The Corporate Psychic. I'm here today to talk about life after Microsoft, what I've been up to, what it feels like to go from corporate to running my own business full time, and what I've learned so far.

July 6th, 2022 was technically my last day at Microsoft. It was also my seven year anniversary and it was the eve of my 32nd birthday. It felt like a big day, but in truth, I had been off work since the end of May, May 25th to be exact. So it was a rather slow boil to the actual crossing of the finish line. But right around my last working day,

I took a weekend to meet Sol Speer in person for the first time. Sol is the founder and CEO of Donning Digital, who I've had the amazing pleasure of working with on the development of TCP's V1 website and brand. Together we talked work, we reflected deeply, we scootered all over DC, and we created and executed our own mini tour of psychics in the area. It was a dream. The day I got back, I went for a run and around 2.5 miles away from my home, my hands started itching.

My face went numb, my feet started itching, and then my body started going numb. My vision blurred, and by the time I called 911, I could barely use my fingers or see what was in front of me. I sat on the side of the road and I worried that I might die. I knew that if I didn't die, that something serious was wrong with me, and that perhaps it was a mistake to leave a secure job with secure and amazing health benefits. I live alone, and I'm about 45 minutes away from the town where most of my friends and family live.

Because it was so late by the time I was rushed to the nearby hospital, I didn't actually call anyone to let them know what had happened or to ask even for a ride home. I was still in such shock and I had no answers for myself or to give anyone else and I didn't know how to explain, nor did I want to be a burden. So I ubered home. Let me tell you, that was weird. So a week later, equipped with an EpiPen that I didn't even know I needed, I jetted off to Mexico with three girlfriends for a proper week off.

Marie Groover (02:23.215)

filled with surfing, exploring, and feeling wonderfully guilty for doing and enjoying nothing productive. You see, since I started TCP, I have to admit that I hadn't taken any real or serious time off at all. And taking some time in Mexico while severing my Microsoft career, it felt really weird. It was the start to a new chapter and yet I was still pretty shook. I had no idea what was going on with my body.

I was terrified that even taking one week off would kill my business, and I was leaving my job of seven years, leaving corporate as I knew it after being in it for ten plus years. It could have been relaxing, but everything just felt so big, so vast, and so unknown. Coming back felt even weirder. I had some things to take care of in my hometown, and then I traveled to my sweet man's home to rest, to recover, and to build out my van. Granny.

My van, if you don't know, is a 1995 Toyota Town Ace with four-wheel drive. And the plan was to road trip slowly to Maine and make our way back down the coast. And for me to take some time off, I was reading a book called How to Do Nothing by Jenny O'Dell, highly recommend by the way. And with the way I was feeling about it, Mexico was a cakewalk. But somewhere around Acadia National Park, I did eventually settle into the vast being.

simply being. We got back home to the beach right around July 4th and I wrapped my last official day at Microsoft without being able to fully access any of the internal resources because it had been so long since I logged in with my credentials. So I simply double checked that I had completed my exit checklist and I sent off a very big email to some of the amazing folks who I had the honor to know and that was that. If you are a colleague at Microsoft that used to work with me and you happen to be listening to this,

I want to say thank you. And I also, for anyone and everyone listening, want to say that I had planned to really stretch out and almost like market the leaving of my career. I wanted to tell everyone, I wanted to meet with everyone, I wanted to share so much of what was going on with everyone through a series of emails, not just like one bang and I'm out. But considering

Marie Groover (04:51.619)

what was happening in my body, what was happening in my mind. It felt like I left the way that I had to. And so the very next day, I celebrated my 32nd birthday and I kicked off a group mentorship course and container called the Quantum Leap with 21 amazing souls. And I spent the month of July learning how to reintegrate, learning how to reintegrate a loose structure into my day.

as well as continuing to pour into myself restfully and developmentally. It's now the end of August and I'm finally settled in. I feel like I have made it. I feel like I have tasted my dream life and I have some learnings that I want to share with it. First, it's not as scary as it seems. Not having a steady paycheck is not as scary as it seems.

It's actually quite exciting because at the present I can get paid at literally any moment. Whereas in corporate or working for an employer, there's like a pay cycle, right? And it's really nice to get a steady paycheck. I'm not going to lie that felt really good, but it's actually more exciting to literally make money at any time. Second, it's underrated. And in fact, it's not even mentioned, definitely not mentioned enough the amount of

processing and shedding and integration that's required when you lay down a former version of yourself. When you quit your job, for example, when you leave your nine to five, specifically when you lay down a version of yourself who had been conditioned to live a life dictated by productivity. In June of 2021, I would have surfed, worked a full eight to 10 hour day, guided a TTP session or two and posted to social media on top of probably writing and publishing a blog or an article.

In July, August of 2022, today times, I take no more than three calls a day. Sometimes I market, sometimes I rest. Sometimes I think about strategy, but mostly I read, I write, I walk. I watch the sunset and I do the things that I desire in order to lovingly take care of myself. When I start to feel the pressure again, I pause and ask myself, what is the most loving thing I can do for myself right now?

Marie Groover (07:15.407)

And then I do that. And so I say, if you're considering a shift out of corporate, or even a shift in employers, a shift in industries, a shift in your career, whatever, I highly recommend that you take some serious time. I'm not talking like four days. I'm not talking a week. I'm not talking two weeks, I'm talking serious time, a month, two months for yourself if you can. And to not fill it up with checklists of things to do.

to instead fill it with the excruciating discomfort of nothing at all and watch how your entire being becomes whole again.

Marie Groover (07:53.049)

Third, I kind of already said this, but I'll say it directly. Human productivity is overrated. Productivity in general is overrated. My mantra for months now has been, do less, make more shamelessly. The shameless part has taken some work. Thank you, coaching. But the medicine is learning how you can nourish yourself and let that be the guiding principle of your life, of your work, of your business. You don't have to do it all.

And doing it all is actually not even going to be the things that move the needle. What I've come to learn is that when I nourish myself, I nourish my business. That I can grow immensely in rest and so too can my business. That I can drop almost all the balls and the world is still spinning. I am still me. My work still exists. My business doesn't fall apart. People don't stop showing up.

Whatever it is that feels uber important, high priority, needs to happen for yourself, for your job, for your family, I challenge you to take your hand out of it for any amount of time and watch life work itself out. You are so much less pivotal in the grand scheme of things than you think. And allow that to free you. I know that's really scary. Like we want to be in control because it means we're important, right?

but we're so much less needed than we think we are and it's such a beautiful and freeing thing. Embrace it and allow yourself to just be from time to time. You don't even have to do it all the time. Fourth, building off of this, when you allow yourself to just be the to-do list, the things you've been telling yourself you want to do or work on, the things that you say you wanna do but you don't have time to do or like,

aren't working out for you or like you feel like you have responsibilities to other things so you can't do those things. All of those things, the things that you really want to do but haven't, they all take care of themselves. My business manager and I were talking actually and she was sharing with me that she was feeling personal development burnout about a month or two ago. Together we made a pact to let everything drop and just see what happens. To bask in the nothingness as an experiment.

Marie Groover (10:17.283)

And a couple of weeks ago, we connected again and not surprisingly at all, everything that was on her list to work on, she completed without the list, without the nagging feeling in the back of her mind. You know why? Because sometimes when we lessen the pressure, when we loosen our grips, we realize that we actually desire to do the things that are good for us. And when we create the space for ourselves to just be

we be exactly who we want to become. But that comes of letting go of whoever it is you believe you are and letting go of whatever it is you believe you have to do. And allowing yourself to trust yourself because you've got your back.

Okay, five. And last thing for now, a little bit of structure, as long as you're not married to it, can actually be a really good thing. Some of you are laughing because some of you guys live in structure. And if you're like me, I'm not a super structured person. I don't thrive with structure, although I've lived the past 10 plus years of my life in a lot of structure. And so I personally needed things to be a little loosey goosey for a while.

I needed to sit in the discomfort of vast nothingness, to be reminded of who I was, to be reminded of what I was here to do, and to remember what I set out to accomplish with TCP in the first place. It can be really overwhelming, but it doesn't have to be. And now I have a general weekly flow. It's not rigid, but it acts as a guide when I'm feeling lost.

it's a Monday and I woke up less than inspired. Cool. It's content creation day. So after my slow, peaceful morning with the ocean or my partner or at the local coffee shop, I'm online by 10 and I'm writing whether I want to or not. Tuesdays are recording days. It's a Tuesday right now. Well, while I'm speaking, you may or may not be listening to this on a Tuesday. It's also pitch days and it's meet with my lovely business manager to make sure I'm not missing anything days.

Marie Groover (12:23.533)

Wednesdays are split between TCP work and TCP clients. Thursdays are dedicated to clients and any admin that comes with it. So invoicing, calendar management. This is the day that I aspire to reach inbox zero. And no, I don't do that every single day. And by don't do that, I mean I don't check my email even every single day. Fridays are for special projects, my personal development and coaching, and for me, whatever my heart wants to work on.

Sometimes that's nothing. Generally, I don't touch my computer until 10 a.m. and I'm off by two or three, unless I'm hosting a master class or event in the evening, or unless I'm really feeling it. As I said earlier, I spend a ton of time reading, reflecting, daydreaming, and of course, surfing when there are waves. I value my time over all else, and to be honest, it has only done wonders for my health, for my happiness, and also for my business.

So that's it. That's pretty much what I've been up to since I left Microsoft. I'm now preparing to host a group mastermind called the Quantum Sessions, which is a high level, high touch group mentorship program posing this question. What would happen if I show up in my business, I being you, my business being your business or idea, what would happen if you showed up consistently in your work and with immense support for 12 full months?

My hypothesis is that whatever you think is possible for you, you can 10 times it. I would have never imagined that I would be where I am today, a year before now. And if I had, I probably would have reached higher. But I have to admit, I'm living the dream and every single day gets better and better. If you're building a business and ready to scale to sustainability, I would love to hold you through 12 months of dedication in this program. Info to apply is in the show description.

Marie Groover (14:24.202)

And thank you for joining me through this episode of The Spiritual Nine to Five. If it resonated, if you can think of one person who may relate or be inspired, please like the show, rate it, and share it. This podcast is a direct piece of my heart and soul, and I am so honored that you chose to be here with me today. Until we meet again, and with heaps of love, ciao.