Episode 99. When Achievement Stops Feeling Like Alignment
The Inner Briefing Podcast
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Episode Description:
The hardest moment isn’t when life is falling apart. It’s often when everything is working, but something inside you starts asking for more.
You’ve built a good life. Your career is working. Things are stable. Maybe even successful.
And yet, somewhere beneath it all, there’s the feeling that something is missing.
It's maybe not big enough to blow everything up. It's maybe not even big enough to clearly articulate or explain. It's just enough to make you wonder what comes next.
In this episode of The Inner Briefing, Marie explores the experience many high-achieving professionals encounter but rarely talk about: the moment when achievement no longer feels fully aligned, and purpose hasn’t revealed itself yet.
This conversation isn’t about quitting your job or reinventing your life overnight. It’s about understanding why curiosity, restlessness, or seemingly illogical nudges often appear after we settle into success — and how learning to trust those small signals can quietly reshape your sense of meaning, direction, and fulfillment over time.
You’ll learn:
Why feeling like “something's missing” is often a sign of growth, not failure
How purpose actually unfolds without crisis or epiphany
Why curiosity matters more than certainty
How to follow intuitive nudges without abandoning the life you’ve built
If you’ve ever thought, “Everything looks fine — so why do I feel this way?” this episode is for you.
Poem reference: https://www.mariegroover.com/post/where-to-go-from-here
Transcript (Raw):
This episode is an attempt to answer a question I think many of us have, which is, how do I live an interesting and purposeful life, a life of meaning, when nothing dramatic has happened to force one upon me? And when frankly, things are looking pretty good.
We hear stories about people who always knew their calling or whose purpose emerged from crisis, illness, loss, hardship, or survival. Maybe even an epiphany of sorts that makes their path just make sense. But what about the rest of us? What if your life feels normal?
What if you, like so many of my clients, have worked really hard to build a life that is everything that you thought you wanted, that looks great on paper, that checks all the boxes, that people would be so happy to inhabit, and yet you're still not entirely sure what your thing is?
What if you feel capable of more meaning, creativity, or contribution? You feel like you're made for more, but you don't know where to begin. Maybe you're wondering what you're here to offer or to bring to the world. Maybe you want to start something, but can't decide what that is.
Maybe you feel pulled in a direction that doesn't fully make sense yet, or maybe doesn't make sense at all. Whatever it is, you know something isn't quite as it should be. You feel like something is missing. This episode is about finding purpose without waiting for something external to define it, which is ultimately and very simply:
Learning how to trust curiosity, instinct, and intuition when the next step isn't obvious. Or learning how to trust the next step when it doesn't seem to make sense. This episode is about trusting the process and the unfolding of life while being an active participant in its ongoing unfolding. So that we can get out of that something's missing feeling and get
into purpose, fulfillment, joy, and ultimately alignment. This is the Inner Briefing Podcast.
and I'm your host, Marie Groover I have a business called The Corporate Psychic where our mission is to awaken the soul of business by integrating the soul and individual humans, which is really just to say we coach executives and teams back into integrity so that they can lead their lives and businesses purposefully, joyfully, and effectively. Because this is what we feel and believe the world deserves. If this episode resonates, please share it with someone. Give us a five-star rating and follow the show. Thank you so much and let's dive in.
Marie Groover:
I have a mentor and coach, Ray Dohar, that used to say two things that really stuck with me. One was, bow to what's alive in you right now. And the other was, rock bottom is simply where you decide to stop digging, baby. Both of them, however, I think you'll find quite relevant for the show. But it's the first one.
the one about bowing to what's alive in you right now, that's the one that we're gonna focus on today. If you can understand this, and if you can live by it, if you can continually and consistently bow to what's alive in you right now, in your life, in your work, with your families, in your business, when you're all alone, then congratulations, you're doing it. You've won at life.
No, I'm kidding about the winning part. But if you are bowing to what's alive in you consistently, you are likely living a life of purpose and meaning and fulfillment and joy. You very likely feel aligned and possibly you even feel complete. And it is and it also isn't that simple.
our lives, our culture, our society, the unspoken rules of much of the world that we live in, our family systems, of our governance systems, our workplaces, do not always align with this way of living and being and operating. And so what we often find ourselves feeling is that things are good, but something's missing. Something's a little off because
To bow to what's alive in you right now is not necessarily intuitive anymore. Mostly because we force ourselves into like, I don't know, 30 year long careers that are much of the same and we force ourselves into these boxes of identities and roles that we, in my opinion, definitely overstay our welcome in.
but we continue to justify them anyways because it feels safe and comfortable and it just makes sense because we've made it make sense but it's important to lean into this simple concept of bowing to what's alive in us right now
because many of the experts will tell you that if you want to live a life of purpose, you start with what's alive in you. And you allow what's alive in you to be the truth that anchors you, from which you move forward moment to moment, which...
Reminds me of another quote, a famous one, that I recently heard, which is, order to tell the truth, I cannot be consistent. I'm gonna repeat that. In order to tell the truth, I cannot be consistent.
This quote is most attributed to H.G. Wells, but to be completely honest, I have no idea who really said it. I recently heard Glennon Doyle quote it, maybe from a Rom Dos podcast or something. And regardless of its origin, I think that it's such a powerful quote because the nature of nature, which includes us humans, we are of nature, is change, is inconsistency.
when we resist change we are resisting our nature and nature in general. So from that context it would seem that there's no other way of living or being than to consistently bow to and move from what's alive in us moment to moment yet.
It's not that simple because that is just not how we seem to live. In truth, it's not how we've built much of the world for which we live within. So of course we're not always living this way. Yet...
I would argue that the way we are living instead is one of the greatest roots of our suffering, which is not being connected to purpose, which is not feeling fulfillment and joy on a regular, I'm talking daily basis, not knowing what exactly we are here to do at all, let alone being connected to that and moving from that place.
So lately, I've been meditating on this concept. What the experts say and what I would agree is the path to purpose. Which, to phrase it maybe less consequentially, to take the pressure off a little bit, to turn it into a question, would be to ask, what does it look like?
to follow the genuine curiosity that exists in us in the present moment, ongoingly.
for which a client once said or responded.
But sometimes the genuine curiosity doesn't make sense. It feels and seems like a distraction or worse, like it might not go anywhere or be worthwhile. How do I know that this curiosity is worth my time? How can I trust what's arising in me when it doesn't make any sense? Most especially when I have 8,000 other things that I know I need to do to keep this business running or to keep my job going or not to mention my life, my family, my children.
Which is such a good question. It's the crux. How can we trust what's arising in us, especially when it doesn't make sense?
Because the thing is, you've built this really amazing life, yet you feel like something is missing. Yet you also can't make sense of the little whispers and desires that arise within you. So because they don't make sense, you ignore them and you keep going as you've always kept going. And you keep feeling like something's a little off. And I see this all the time.
If you work with me one on one, it's a high likelihood that we'll follow a particular arc. Same arc for most of my clients, which is first, we take time to understand the story of you as you see it today. That happens through the intake form and in our first session or two. Then we articulate your personal mission statement, AKA what you are here to do. I E Marie's life work is to X. We name it. It's powerful. It's the.
changing part of you or mission that you came to the planet to accomplish and alongside this we articulate and pressure test your non-negotiable core values because your values are your guides sometimes more so than your purpose then
We disrupt that story by introducing unconventional tools to deepen in your understanding of yourself, which really just means we look at your astrology birth chart, your human design, maybe your gene keys, maybe we throw in a tarot or a caustic records reading. And this portion is not to tell you who you are. It's not to tell you anything about you that you don't already know, but it's really to reawaken, to jog your memory.
to jog your relationship to self-reflection, to awareness, to intuition with an open mind and a safe space and to jog your memory on some of the outliers about you, some of the things that maybe you've forgotten along the way.
Usually at this point, my clients are finding this new groove and sense of confidence in how they're moving through their lives. They're seeing themselves differently. They're reconnecting with their intuition. They're feeling inspired. The story is making sense. Or they know what changes need to be made and they're making those changes. They're finding more time for themselves. They're exploring old passions or curiosities. They're appreciating their job or their work for the first time in a long time.
Genuinely, I might add. And we reach a point where they're coming into integration and alignment. Things are feeling good. Things are making sense. Everything is flowing and moving forward. And then, boom, something starts whispering to them out of left field. And...
At this point in their personal transformation, they've learned to hear, to identify, to know when their intuition is speaking to them. It's not quite as quiet as it once was, but whatever's coming forward, it doesn't make any sense. And now it feels a little scary. And now there's a bit of resistance and uncertainty.
I think we all have had moments like this. I think we all have moments like this all the time because as I said earlier, nature is nothing if not ever changing. And we are nature, so we are no exceptions to that rule. And I think I'm making these moments sound like big moments, like the urge to suddenly quit your job when everything is going really well, or...
to move to a new town on a whim or to travel across the world when you have children at home or when you have a life that needs active tending today and traveling across the world doesn't make sense and these moments do exist. It can be moments like this that we feel pulled toward that don't make sense or logistically seem not the right thing to do right now. But the truth is these moments can also be really small invitations as well. That
as we begin to develop consciousness around can feel scary or trigger resistance as much as the idea of quitting our jobs, which is what I often see with my clients. Not the quitting of the jobs necessarily, but the resistance. But first, let me talk about me for a second. And let me talk about one of my bigger moments. Let's rewind to the fall of 2021. I'm working at Microsoft.
TCP, my business, the corporate psychic, is gaining traction and momentum. I had just closed on an oceanfront beach house on Topsill Island. I'm surfing every day. I am making money. I am walking the talk of what I'm sharing to the world in my business. I'm happy. Everything is flowing. Momentum is building.
and then I pull a tarot spread, which at this point in my life I did almost every day with and for my business. But the tarot spread basically reads, it's time to quit your job. And I'm like, what? No.
I just bought this house. My coaching business's messaging is literally built on, do not quit your job. Stop working for your job and make your job work for you, but do not quit your job. Allow your job to create the life that you wildly dream of. So, I'm so sorry, universe, but I can't quit my job right now. That was my response to that spread. And many other moments of knowing that my time in corporate tech was coming to a close, at least in the way that I was working in it then.
What I was thinking underneath all of that was, this makes no sense and I don't know how to make it make sense with my work and with who I see myself to be right now and with where I see myself going and with the way I've been presenting myself to the world. And so what I was feeling on top of these thoughts was fear and resistance to listening to this intuitive call.
Meanwhile, I could have only ever gotten to this moment, to this place of flow in my work and in my life, by listening to my intuition months before and continuing to listen to my intuition and following the curiosities with open arms and aligned action. Because when I first launched TCP, that also made zero sense. That was also a left field moment.
but I trusted it anyway, and that's what took me to the fall of 2021. That's what took me all the way to today, actually. But back to fall of 2021.
This idea of leaving my job at that point in time felt so counterintuitive. It felt scary. Like everything that I wanted, but like nothing that I really allowed myself to truly consider. And the timing was, it was just inconvenient AF. And it felt like everything that I had worked for would unravel if I followed this impulse. Have you ever felt that before?
So let me give you another example. I had a client for a number of years who was a VP in the corporate tech space. She was also a published author, a neuroscience and mindfulness enthusiast and leader and a painter and so many more things. Honestly, she was and is an all around bad-ass human. At that time, she was building an app in her non-working hours and...
really kind of leaning into these different buckets of who she was, the project she was working on, and her identity surrounding all of it. And integration was occurring for her and she reached this moment of finally fully understanding what she was doing, AKA the story of her life and her work was making sense.
And then boom, she got the nudge to study mediumship. And while she was open to studying mediumship, she did not know how to feel about offering mediumship as a service, which she was also feeling a nudge for. It didn't exactly make sense, especially at that time. And there was a reluctance that was arising in her.
And regardless of what our nudge is, there are so many reasons that the reluctance comes up and so many reasons that the reluctance is valid. Often, the more life altering they seem, the more out of character off the path of the identity that we've just written down for ourselves, the more resistance we may feel to the nudge, to the whisper, to the curiosity.
So I mentioned earlier that the curiosity, the nudge, the calling, it doesn't have to be these quit your job moments. And actually, it usually isn't. It could be like my client moment. It could be the call to study mediumship. It could be like this.
the thought to turn left at this intersection instead of going right, even though you always go right, even though you're on your way to work right now and you're already running a little behind. It could be...
a nudge or a feeling to take a Pilates class, even though you're a hardcore strength trainer. Could be the curiosity or the desire to sign up for a pottery class series, even though you thought you'd spend your free time writing a book or drawing and you're midway through a project already. It could be the feeling, the desire to talk about a very different topic than you were planning to talk about on your podcast or on stage.
or in your team meeting. It could be the desire to eat a steak when you're normally a vegetarian. It could be the want to the pool to travel to a place that you normally would never vacation. And you're really not sure why you're feeling the pull to go there. It could be walking through a bookstore and simply wanting to pick up a book and read a book that is not in your usual genre.
all these moments and many more moments can and often are met with, but I'm doing something else right now. But I don't have time for that. But the kids, but my job, but it doesn't make sense, but what will people think, but why? But how does this fit into my overall bio and narrative, the one that I'm presenting to the world? It could be all of those things, along with...
the fear and the feeling that maybe if you listened, everything could fall apart. And I know I went from big example like quitting your job to a seemingly tiny example like picking up a book you normally wouldn't.
And some of these things seem so small, you might ask, do people really resist even these tiny urges to try new things? And why does it matter anyway? And to that I say, yes, they do. And you do it too, maybe more than you realize. And I do it. And this is why it matters. You see, we have built for ourselves this identity, this way of seeing ourselves.
and this way that we believe the world sees us too. And when we get too attached, too ingrained, too indoctrinated into what we believe to be true about ourselves and who we are becoming and where we are going and how other people see and relate to us, we become reluctant to do or try things that are outside of that box or that we think are out of character.
not on brand. Anytime you feel yourself with the urge to explain yourself or to explain something you're trying or doing or committing to yourself or most especially anytime you feel the urge to explain yourself to anyone else, anyone that's close to you or anyone around you, you're likely considering or beginning to operate outside of your comfort zone and your identity zone. And when we do this,
we might be in the seeking permission phase, which I would urge you to just skip over that one. Just skip the permission part and do whatever you can to stop the explanation from forming in your mind or coming out of your mouth, unless you have a coach. And then by all means, take those thoughts right to your coach. But if not, try to just do. Allow yourself to experiment with whatever is pulling you.
Call it that you're experimenting. It doesn't have to mean anything It doesn't have to be part of or fit into the story that you've made about yourself that you're living in yet Try not to let the reasons not to deter you I Wrote a poem yesterday. I'm gonna read it to you. It's called Where to go from here? You can find it on my personal website MarieGroover.com and here we go
The zoom out can be dreadfully overwhelming. As if we could know where we're going. As if we could see the big picture of our lives. But what is it they say? That it's supposed to be the journey, not the destination that satiates our conquest for fulfillment.
It's the finding out that's dripping with joy. If only we could let ourselves, let ourselves let go and zoom in to today, to right now without the context of our entire lives hanging on this moment. And what is it then that's calling?
In order to bow to what's alive in you, in order to listen to, follow, engage, and experiment with your curiosities, you have to let go of the story. Not just of your past, not just of what got you here, of who you are, of what you're doing, of what makes sense, or what fits into that.
but you also have to let go of the story of who you think you're becoming and where you think you're going based on what you think makes sense about you today. If you want to live a life where you're consistently bowing to what's alive in you, which is to say, if you want to live a life of purpose and meaning and fulfillment and joy,
If you want to live a life that is interesting and worthwhile and of your nature, you have to let go of the story while you are in the story. And so how do you do that? How do you trust your instincts, your intuition, your curiosity when it doesn't make sense or when you just don't know when the thing that you're feeling drawn to
doesn't fit into the life or the work that you're currently living or you don't even know what you're feeling drawn to right now. Well, I would say pay attention to what makes you curious. Allow the curiosity to be an experiment. Resist the urge to construct a whole new story for where it might go and how it might make sense.
And most importantly, don't tell anyone about it until after you've tried it.
both because you don't need permission to try something new and because when you tell someone that you have a plan, you get the dopamine hit of execution in advance, and then you often don't ever get to the thing you said you would get to. instead, treat the desire or the curiosity both like it is no big deal and like it is sacred, which means you let it be just that.
curiosity, a desire, a question, a thought, an idea. An idea that is only yours, it is for you. And you take one action that honors, that follows the curiosity, that could maybe answer the question that's arising in you.
take it seriously but don't let anything ride on this little side quest. Don't make space for how it's gonna fit into your life or story. Don't make its own story for it.
Let it make its own space in its own time if it's meant to. Don't make it make sense. Let go of the need for it to make sense. Because I promise you that the curiosity, the desire, if it is not the thing, it will lead you to the next right thing and the next right thing and the next right thing until you suddenly look back and you see how it all made sense.
couldn't have been any other way. And this is what my clients often take away after overcoming the resistance again and again, which is why we find support, by the way.
And this is what my clients often take away after overcoming the resistance again and again when they show up for themselves, releasing the story, the old one and the urge to make a new one. That is, they take away the learning to trust in the wisdom that whispers from your soul and to move from that place. The place where only you can move from. Purpose.
clarity, even when things are unknown and uncertain, fulfillment, joy, momentum, even when things are unknown and uncertain. So when you ask me how to trust your instincts, your intuition, your curiosity, when it doesn't make any sense, I simply say, I hear you. It may not make sense right now, but can you trust it?
Not enough to write a new story or to rewrite your story, but enough to show up for it anyways in one tiny action at a time and to be open to finding out where it might lead you. And what support do you need so that you can do that? You see,
You don't need life to force you into a calling. You don't need trauma or some external experience to shape who you are and what you do. You don't even need an epiphany moment that is so compelling that you can't not move toward it. You just need to pay attention to what makes you curious and to trust that curiosity enough to reach toward it.
If you're successful on paper but feeling unsure about what's next or sensing that your work and life are asking to evolve, you're not alone.
private one-on-one coaching, I help executives and founders gain clarity on their next chapter, make confident decisions without constant second-guessing, and realign their leadership and careers with work that feels purposeful, sustainable, meaningful, and genuinely energizing. If you're ready for clear direction and meaningful momentum,
You can learn more or apply for private coaching at thecorppsychic.com. I'll leave some links for you in the description. Applications are selective, but I do personally review each one. So if this feels like the right time for you, I would love to hear from you.
Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Inner Briefing Podcast. I'm your host, Marie Groover. I have a business called The Corporate Psychic, where we coach executives and teams back into integrity so that they can lead their lives in businesses purposefully, joyfully, and effectively, because we believe that that's what the world deserves.
If this episode resonates, please share it with someone, anyone. Give us a five star rating, follow the show. Thank you, thank you, thank you for being here and we'll see you next time.
