Episode 24. Stop Over-Developing Yourself — Hone Your Craft Instead
The Inner Briefing Podcast
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Episode Description:
This episode is a call back to the heart of why we do what we do: the work itself. I challenge the popular narrative that you must endlessly “develop yourself” before you can be good at your craft, make money, or grow in your career. Instead, I share the wisdom that devotion to your craft—actually showing up in the work day after day—is what shapes you, grows you, and naturally leads to success.
We explore:
Why personal development adds value but isn’t the true requirement for business growth
The danger of getting stuck in programs, books, and hacks instead of practicing your craft
The discipline of separating yourself from outcomes (echoed by both Steven Pressfield and the Bhagavad Gita)
How to measure success by the quality and depth of your work, not just dollars or client counts
Why being “in the work” is both the most challenging and the most rewarding path you can take
Whether you’re knitting socks, coaching clients, leading a team, or running a heart-centered business, the question remains the same: If you had a million dollars tomorrow, would you still want to do this work? If the answer is yes, then your devotion to the craft itself is the only thing that matters.
Transcript (RAW):
Marie Groover (00:03.833)
Hello and welcome to the Spiritual 9to5 podcast hosted by myself, Marie Groover of The Corporate Psychic. Today's episode is challenging the narrative that we need to develop ourselves to be good at what we do, or to make money at what we do, or to grow in life, career, business in general. Instead, it offers the wisdom that being in the work we desire itself will be the thing that grows us. Throughout the episode, I talk a bit about
De-identifying with the work or the outcomes, as well as the importance of devotion and dedication to your craft, plus so much more. If this episode resonates with you, and you want to be in the work, the work that your heart is calling you to bring to the world in order to grow and achieve success, I invite and encourage you to apply to work with me through either one-to-one coaching or to join my upcoming mastermind, the Quantum Sessions. More info will be shared at the end of this episode and can also be found in the show notes.
As a coach, I subscribe to a lot of other coaches content, a lot of personal development and a lot of self-help. And we all say things like, nourish yourself to nourish your business. I'm pretty sure I said this last week. And I think that we're committing a gross disservice when we say this and just leave it at that. For me personally,
I have found that when I nourish myself, I do nourish my business and my business does in fact sustain or grow. However, I run a spiritual and personal development business. So it makes sense that when I'm nourishing myself and developing myself and focusing on being the absolute best being that I can be, that I would grow my business because that is the work that I do for my business. And this can be true for many coaches or spiritual or wellness professionals because for a lot of these businesses,
Being deep in the self is being deep in the work. It is practicing what we preach. It's honing our craft. However, my business runs on clients. I wouldn't be a business if people didn't purchase my services. And so being in the work is not just being in myself, it's actually being with them. And while my work
Marie Groover (02:25.929)
and similar type of work does require that we be deep in the self. Not all businesses require such deepening. Don't get me wrong. I think that every single business owner and executive and frontline employee of every single business will only benefit and that in turn businesses will only benefit through more self-dubbed, through more self-knowing, through more introspection, through more awareness, through more personal development.
I believe that personal development will only add and never detract to a business. But, big but here, it's not required, at least not explicitly and especially not in the beginning. What is required, and now I'm speaking specifically to those of you trying desperately to grow your business, your product, your team, but also to anyone trying to grow in their work or their career, is to be in the work itself.
Let me repeat that but more concisely. What is not a core requirement for a business to be successful is personal development or energetics or self-nourishing. What is required and the only requirement actually is to hone your craft. Let's talk about it. If you're starting a homemade hand knitted sock knitting business, I believe that you should spend the majority of your time knitting socks regularly.
especially if it was your love for knitting socks that planted this idea for you to start a business knitting socks in the first place. Makes sense, right? But this is so much easier said than done because what happens when we start a business is that the thing that we love so much that we want to bring to the world so much gets somehow inadvertently placed on the back burner. And we start to focus on things like marketing, websites, selling. Why are nobody, nobody, why, why is nobody buying?
Right? And these things are very important, absolutely necessary components of business, and they are just components of business. So 100 % of our time should probably not be in those, worried about those, executing on those. Because if you don't have any socks to sell, what are you marketing? What are you worrying about? What are you executing on? What are you delivering to the world? When coaches, including myself, say,
Marie Groover (04:54.391)
To grow your business, have to be your best. To be fully yourself, embrace your authenticity, be in the energy of your offers. That's only half of the equation. What you actually have to do if you wanna grow your business is to simply be in your craft, to be devoted to your craft. Because it's through this devotion to your craft that you will, one, become really fucking good at it if you aren't already, in which case you'll get even better.
And two, you will inadvertently and naturally become the best version of yourself. You'll see what you're made of, AKA know yourself deeply. You'll come to appreciate the fuck out of yourself and your work. And you will then naturally get in the energy of your offers. Thus, sell more, make more, achieve more, whatever. Nourishing yourself is a byproduct of being in your work. And being in your work is not marketing, not selling, not building a brand or a website.
You do spend time doing these things if you're opening a business by the way, because they are very important, but they are not what will grow you. They are not the thing that's going to achieve your success. Your deepest success heart, soul level success, by the way. And nor is dropping 30 K on a coach. If you're not willing to sit down and knit the socks that you're trying so desperately to sell. And I hear you. Some of you are like,
I am willing to sit down and knit these socks. But are you knitting the socks actually right now? Do you have an inventory ready to be sent out upon orders? Are you waiting for orders to come in before you begin? If you're a coach or a reader or someone who requires a booking to deliver a service, are you spending time in your own work or are you hiring a coach seeking a hack for business growth? Invest in yourself by investing in your craft.
by showing up for yourself and your work every single day, no matter what the results are, because the results for both your personal development and your craft itself are going to be huge. And still, Steven Pressfield in The War of Art says, a professional schools herself to stand apart from her performance, even as she gives herself to it heart and soul. The Bhagavad Gita tells us we have a right only to our labor,
Marie Groover (07:17.151)
not the fruits of our labor. All the warrior can give us is life. All the athlete can do is leave everything on the field. And I say that all you can do and control is what you bring to the world. You are not your craft and you are not your business. You are not the thing that you bring to the world, but you do need to give it your all. You do need to devote yourself to it because your heart tells you to, not because you want to make a million dollars.
not because you are focused on the outcome or the reward, not for the promotion, not to sell X number of socks, not to do X number of things. The outcome and the reward will be there and it will be beyond whatever your wildest dreams can imagine, but only if you show up in your craft day in and day out and let that shape you. Let that teach you, let that grow you, let that be the reward because it will.
personal development after personal development, AKA program after program, coaching and more coaching, reading books upon reading books, listening to a podcast after podcast, it will only lead to anguish when you hone all these skills within yourself, but not the discipline to put them into something real and tangible. Trust me, I have seen this time and time again. I have experienced it myself.
What if you measured your sock knitting business on the quality of the socks that you produce? What if you measured your team's work not on how many things they did, but on whether or not they did the right things and how well they did them? What if you measured your consulting business, not on the dollars you sold each month, but on the results of your clients? What if you measured your spiritual business, not on the number of clients you book, but on the depth of connection within each session or transmission?
Because to be honest, great work is rare and it's priceless. And the amount of money made means apps of fucking, lootly nothing in terms of the value of the work that you put out into the world, especially when it's good. As a consumer, when I purchase something, I want quality and I'm willing to pay for it. I want to work with those who have either been in the work, AKA I'm buying a product from them,
Marie Groover (09:37.813)
or who are willing to be in the work with me. And actually, if we're talking about who I wanna work with from a client perspective as well, the same holds true. I wanna work with clients who are willing to be in the work together, not who are simply trying to turn a profit. If you're listening, you might say, well, Marie, I wanna do heart-centered work and make a lot of money. And I say, fuck yes, that's amazing. And keep those things separate.
If you received a million dollars tomorrow out of nowhere and tied to nothing, would you still show up in the work that your heart is calling you to do? Would you still be a coach, a writer, a manager, an artist, a consultant? If the answer is yes, then great. Keep doing the work. Keep being in the work. Keep holding it in your heart, what your financial goals are and still keep them separate. Don't identify your work with the money and don't identify yourself with the work.
If the answer is no, then you may want to reconsider what it is that you're setting out to do in your business, your career, your life, if you're calling what you do a heart centered business, career, whatever. If you're clear that your business is in existence to make a bunch of money and that is it, that's great. No change required. And I hope that you're making a bunch of money by being the best product or service or offering that you can be. And I hope that you're not wasting any money on growth, energetics.
And if you have a job or career simply for the monetary exchange, I'm not judging you. I did the same thing and I'll do it again in a heartbeat if I need to. But be honest about that and stop trying to make your career the centerpiece of your life or to make it a fulfilling piece of your heart. Let it be what it is. But if your answer was yes, if you received a million dollars out of the blue and you would still want to show up in your desired work again today.
Be in your work now and let that be it. My point in all of this is that it's easy to act when there's some guarantee of reward. But as quoted in the Bhagavad Gita, we have a right only to our labor and not to the reward. And if that is true, what is worth laboring for? What is worth giving our absolute all day in and day out regardless of the outcome?
Marie Groover (12:06.241)
That's the thing to focus on. And in focusing on that, you will become the very best you that you could possibly be. You will see who you are and what you are made of. And you will very likely also see success beyond your wildest dreams. So don't hire a coach because they have made it. Hire a coach because they will keep you in your work until you have to.
Marie Groover (12:36.087)
Thank you for listening to this episode of the Spiritual 9to5 Podcast. If it resonated with you, please share it or leave a review and join the TCP community if you want to chime in with any questions or continue in the discussion. If you want support to be and to stay in your work, the work that your heart is calling you to bring to the world in order to grow and achieve success, I invite and encourage you to apply to work with me together through either one-to-one coaching or to join my upcoming mastermind, the Quantum Sessions.
Application links are in the show description and I would be happy to answer any of your questions directly at hello at the corppsychic.com. Thank you again for listening. Until next time, love.
