Episode 10. Corporate Soul Sucking is a Myth: Living Consciously in the 9-5
The Inner Briefing Podcast
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Transcript (RAW):
Marie Groover (00:05.219)
Welcome to the Spiritual 9to5 podcast hosted by myself, Marie Groover, of The Corporate Psychic. Today we are going to talk about the myth of corporate soul sucking. Trigger warning. To say that corporations are sucking the souls out of human beings is not exactly true. It's taking the responsibility for the state of the world and the state of business out of the human hand. And today I want to invite that responsibility back in with you.
Businesses have souls. I repeat, businesses have souls. When I started TCP, I knew that the word corporate in the corporate psychic would be triggering to many individuals in the spiritual community. When I started sharing content, I was giving a lot of free readings and people in the spiritual space were really forgiving with my business name, but...
I did get a lot of response on my work related or nine to five content. I remember one conversation of many, by the way, fairly specifically. Someone asked me what other kind of work I do. I said, I work for Microsoft as a business manager. I had been working at Microsoft for six years at that point. And I mentioned my tenure plus the fact that I had been in and out of technical roles for 10 years at that point in the corporate space in general.
They then asked me if working in the space was making me sick, like physically ill sick, quoting that they found that people they had met over the years who work in corporate have health issues from the corporate environment. I responded, actually, no, I love my job. Sometimes it's too much, but usually it's me taking on too much, not my work piling on too much. And the team, my team, the people that I work with, they're probably why and how I'm still here.
Marie Groover (02:04.566)
I did add the disclaimer that I have it really good where I work and I do have it really good. And I know and understand that no two businesses and corporations are the same. But the conversation went on where it was acknowledged that many big businesses and corporations will put the bottom line financially over human rights and environmental concern. I am absolutely not here to combat that. But when I am here to challenge
is the failure to take human responsibility in the corporate world and work. It's as if businesses and corporations themselves, without human control or dictation, are responsible for the state of poor ethical business practices leading to unhappy humans and bad environmental conditions. Worse, it's very common to excuse unethical behavior by labeling it with, it's just business, or business is business.
And I'm not talking just at the corporate level. I'm talking about individuals. have friends who are really great people, like really great people, but who, if and when you try to do business with them, a different and acceptable way of interacting becomes okay. And I follow spiritual business coaches online, feminine empowerment, leadership coaches, and a lot of soulpreneurs on Instagram. All of these people who claim to teach me or you how to lead from something other than KPI strategy in the bottom line.
but in their reels and in their content, they'll talk about this feminine body of leadership and then they'll add, quote, but business is business and I'll teach you how to build yours. But what does that mean? Business is business. It's a common misconception of what it means to be, to have or run a business. And it's become far too common of a phrase to excuse things that are maybe not the most ethical practice or maybe not how
a normal human would interact. But here's what I think and believe based on my own experience. You can take it or leave it. First, not all businesses or corporations are bad. Actually, very few of them are. Also, businesses don't suck souls. Corporations don't suck souls. People do. Processes do. Policies do. Conformity does. And businesses themselves have souls.
Marie Groover (04:30.359)
Think of them like children or pets or plants or animals, things that you can experience the essence of, that you can empathize with when you look into their eyes, not that you can always see the eyes of business, but things that you can watch communicate with each other, animals, plants, again, who aren't able to speak English directly at you. Businesses do have souls. They are an energy each and of their own. I know this because I talk to TCPs all the time.
I talk to other people's businesses all the time. I know this because I work within the Akashic Records and I'm able to access the blueprint of businesses. And I can tell you that like us, they have lived and reincarnated over lifetimes. I know it sounds crazy, especially for my corporate listeners out there. And it's okay. You can let this one go if it's too much for you. No big deal. It doesn't change the bottom line here. Regardless, a business and the human running the business, they are indeed separate entities. But a business itself,
so incorporated business name building products, not going to suck your soul. The person leading it, the people attempting to be in control of it, the frontline employees who conform to the rules or regulations or processes that don't sit well in their bodies and beings, these are the things that suck souls. Saying something like business is business or my job is sucking the life out of me, it's giving away your power and it's not taking responsibility for your life or your actions.
If you're in a job or a relationship or a life situation where something doesn't feel right in your being and you continue to choose to show up without investigating what doesn't feel right or why it doesn't feel right and you do nothing about it, that will eat you alive. Not your relationship, not your partner, not your boss, not the company that you work for. It's the conflict in your heart that you feel.
when you know you're doing something that doesn't serve you. But then you betray yourself and you're knowing and you do it anyways, over and over and over and over again. That will suck your soul away. And I've been there. I've been in relationships that I knew were not serving me, but I chose not to leave. And I wanted so badly to be the victim. And I've been in jobs at companies whose values did not align with mine. And it is so easy.
Marie Groover (06:52.748)
It was so acceptable for me to say my job is sucking the life out of me. I hate it here, but I need to pay my bills. So I'm going to suck it up. I remember actually starting a job in Atlanta and looking around the office. I was chatting with my new peers and I thought to myself, I don't want to be like any of these people, but I was working on my master's degree. I needed to pay for it. I needed to live. I knew that this was temporary.
It was a means to make money while studying and moving in the direction where I wanted my life to move. And I needed this for my resume. Have you ever said this to yourself? Yeah. So I sucked it up. I thought I'll just put my head down. I'll just do the work and I'll do it well. I will see all the silver linings and I will leave when the right opportunity comes when I'm done with my degree. And for the most part, I did do this. I got a lot of amazing experience and learnings from this job.
I got an offer from Microsoft a little over a year later, actually. On paper, everything is great, right? But the truth is, and the truth was, I was so internally conflicted that about nine months in, I needed to switch to a part-time position. Not because I truly needed more time for studying, but because I saw how I was being influenced and shaped by what was around me. And shortly after I quit, because I couldn't reconcile it in my body anymore.
So I moved to a tech startup that was amazing, but it also didn't work for me. And I left that too. If you ever walk into a room and think to yourself, I don't wanna be like any of these people, get out of the room because it's not their fault if you end up like them. And if you stick around for long enough, you will end up like them. It's far too easy to play the victim.
far easier to do that than it is to say no to something that doesn't feel 100 % to you. So do yourself a favor and say no as soon as you can because it only gets even harder the longer you stay in a situation that isn't working for you. Now, that's just one part of what it looks like to take responsibility for yourself. That's also the one that most of you, especially my spiritual peeps, will resonate with. It's the one that helps shape the narrative of corporations suck, leave them, get out.
Marie Groover (09:11.146)
get out of a bad situation. But I also want to share this story. July 6th, 2015. It was my very first day at Microsoft and I had no fucking idea if I belonged or what my job was going to be or if I knew enough to do my job or do it well or if I would even like my job or the people or the environment. What I did know is that I was making three times more than I was at the tech company in Atlanta and that my benefits were like nothing I had ever experienced before.
For the first 23 years of my life, by the way, I didn't have health insurance. When I got my first job, I had to pay for my health insurance. When I started at Microsoft, health insurance was one, just one of the amazing, totally paid for benefits that I got just by being there. So while I had no idea if Microsoft was gonna work for me, I was pretty freaking positive that I was going to make it work for me.
But you know the truth in the story? I was actually really unhappy, really confused, and really lost for my first two to three years at Microsoft. I had days that I loved and appreciated my job, and I had days that I was like, what the hell am I doing here? Who am I? What should I be doing with my life? Where am I going? How did I get here? I don't want this. And you know what I did?
I would look at my student loan debt. It was $88,000 by the way. And that would motivate me to show up because I needed to pay for my student loans. And I did. I showed up. I showed up and I showed up and I showed up. Six months in, I was almost like, fuck this amount. I don't know what I'm doing. And I didn't want to be there. I thought I didn't want to be there. But then I watched this internal series that we had where people from outside of the company, outside of our industry entirely.
would come in and talk to us and tell us their stories. And I don't remember who the speaker was, but she was a woman. And she said something that she says to a lot of university students. She said, don't worry about your degree. Don't get lost in the existential crisis of figuring out what you want. Figure out who you want to be and use every single resource at your fingertips within this college to get you there. And I kind of thought about that and applied it to the resources that I have.
Marie Groover (11:31.212)
accessible to me at Microsoft and it hit me that I didn't need to quit my job to be the person I wanted to be. I could just use Microsoft to help develop me into the person I wanted to be. I say this because we have speakers like this woman who I could take advantage of and learn from for free. Mentors, managers, role models, resources that I could leverage, trainings. There are so many really cool trainings at my job. And they're there for a reason, by the way. So I started to dig in.
And I did my day job. And when I couldn't motivate myself, I looked at my student loans. When that didn't motivate me, I turned on someone's story to success. I listened as people talked about their passions and their paths and what they learned, and I soaked it in. And sometimes I was still unhappy because I didn't exactly know who I was yet. This is a cross roles, by the way. My first three years at Microsoft, I was on three different teams doing three different jobs.
And I was convinced that I needed to find the right role or the right team to make me happy. And then one day, three to four years in, I was in a role that I loved, new role, and I loved it, but I was still not quite satisfied. And I was still debating on quitting or staying. I had everything. I had money, flexible schedule. I traveled all the time, traveled where I wanted to travel all the time. I taught yoga on the side for fun.
I surfed whenever I wanted to. I was paying my student loans down. I had a nice car, a big house, promotions. I was doing work that I thought was really interesting. Every single thing that I wanted, I could check off my list. And I was still not happy. And let me tell you, I studied philosophy in college. I taught yoga on the side. I did numerous teacher trainings, yoga teacher trainings. I knew and did all the mind tricks to make myself content.
I practice gratitude, affirmations were my go-to, I had little Post-its on my mirror, and I want to let you in on a secret. Gratitude and affirmations, they're not the secret to your success. They don't work. They're not going to make you happy. You're not going to affirm yourself into happiness, fulfillment, self-love, self-realization. I mean, maybe you will, but my guess is that you'll still feel like something's missing. And if you're working a nine to five like me, you're probably going to say something like,
Marie Groover (13:54.848)
My job is sucking the life out of me. It must be my job because that's what we hear from everyone. It's so common, right? That's what we've been trained to believe because we buy into the story of quitting your job in order to build your dream life because quote, business is bad. But I'll remind you again, businesses don't suck souls. People do, processes do, policies do, conformity does. You do. When you step into suffering that exists in the conflict of doing something that doesn't feel right,
And then continue to do it anyways. And y'all, my job didn't not feel right. I was awake enough to realize that I was the one that didn't feel right. But even then, it was so easy to blame my job and I did outwardly, I blamed the crap out of my job. But eventually, I didn't want to feel that way anymore because no matter how normal a feeling is, it's really about whether you want to feel it or not, right? If you want to continue to feel it or not, do you do something or not?
totally fine to be unhappy at work, but do you want to be unhappy at work? I didn't, so I hired a coach. First time ever hiring a coach, by the way. And I was hoping more than anything that she would give me permission to leave my job. I was really hoping that she would tell me to quit and lean into the work that I wanted to lean into and that it would all work out. But she didn't do that. She told me something that I knew very well from my yoga practice. She said,
how we do one thing is how we do all things. And instead of working together on building a business so that I could quit my job, we worked together on me. And for the first time in my 26 years, I was able to articulate who I was and what I was here to do. And in that, I could separate myself finally from the stories that I told about myself. And I could separate myself from my decisions and the things that I wanted to do. And holy motherfucking shit.
My entire life changed. Not overnight, but...
Marie Groover (15:56.948)
I can tell you this. I do love my job at Microsoft. I do love the work that I do. And I am completely separate from it. I love my life and my lifestyle and all the things that come from it. And I'm completely separate from those things too. Everything that exists in my life right now today is because I choose for it to be present. My job, my home, my family, my people, my work.
And I am fulfilled on a level that I did not know was possible. I feel totally connected and rooted in my soul. I am happy. I am healthy. I laugh every single day. And I work a nine to five. My job never changed. I'm still at Microsoft. I didn't quit. And it was never Microsoft or my previous company or any of the previous working situations that were the sole root of my unhappiness and disease and lifelessness. It was me.
not yet knowing who I was. And I'm not the example for every single being I know this. Situations can be shitty. Working environments can be shitty. I've been in them. And you always have a choice. How you do one thing is how you do all things. So pay attention to the voice in your head when you hear it. Say something like, the company you work for is sucking your soul away.
I meant to talk today. I meant to talk about awakening the soul in business, by the way. So we'll save that topic for the next episode where we'll dive more into the souls of businesses and how we can work with them, co-create and build businesses with extraordinary energy results and ethical success because businesses do have souls and businesses in and of themselves are not bad. So it's all really about how we manage them, how we work with them, how we co-create with them, how we build.
the life or the business of our dreams ethically in the way that we would as a human. Because we are humans and how we do one thing is how we do all things. And no matter the situation, we always have a choice. The question is, do you know who you are? Do you know how you do one thing? And do you realize that you have a choice?
Marie Groover (18:17.971)
Thank you for listening to the Spiritual 9 to 5 podcast with myself, Marie from The Corporate Psychic. Save and follow for more wisdom, rate the show, and reach out with questions or topic requests. You can find me at hello at thecorppsychic.com. I also invite you to follow me on Instagram at thecorppsychic, and I would love for you to join our community for courses, containers, discounts, and live events. It's called TCP Community and Courses.
and can find it at community.thecorppsychic.com. And if you want to go big on you, reach out. I would love to work with you. Wherever you are, whatever is on your mind, I hope to meet again, maybe in the next episode right here. I'm honoring you and with gratitude, good day.
