1007: The Overachiever’s Guide to Finding More Fulfillment at Work with Megan Hellerer

Pete Mockaitis
Megan, welcome!

Megan Hellerer
Pete, it’s so good to be here today. Thank you for having me.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m excited to have you and discuss some of the insights from your book, Directional Living. And I would like to hear a story about a transformed client, but it sounds like, in many ways, your own story is like the picture-perfect textbook case for what we’re talking about here. Could you tell it to us?

Megan Hellerer

Absolutely, yeah. I consider myself my own first guinea pig. All of this grew out of my own need for solutions, for answers. And so, my story is I was what I now have come to call an under-fulfilled overachiever, which is someone who has checked all the boxes, done all the right things, did everything they were supposed to do, and really built this great on-paper life that did not feel so great inside.

And, for me, that looked like, you know, getting straight A’s in high school, captain and president of all the things, going on to Stanford, graduating at the top of my class, starting at Google almost immediately after I graduated, and dutifully climbing the ladder for eight years there, and getting a bunch of different promotions, and getting to work on cool stuff, and be exposed to a lot of interesting ideas.

And, in the meantime, I was having near-daily panic attacks, I was deeply depressed, and was struggling really even to get to work every day. I was just miserable. And I should say this wasn’t always how I was. My mental health started suffering in my time at Google, and yet I couldn’t quite connect it to the fact that I was unhappy at my work, and maybe it wasn’t the best fit for me. I felt so ashamed of the fact that I had this dream job that everybody would want, and what was so wrong with me that I couldn’t be happy or feel like a job was just a job or find fulfillment in this.

And, eventually, I ended up quitting my job with no plan, simply because I really could not do it anymore. And through that process of simply trying to help myself, I sought out many resources and teachers and mentors and programs, and nothing was quite helping me find a new approach or new way of thinking about my work and my career.

And through that process, I ended up taking a coaching training course, simply in an effort to help myself, but also thinking that it might help me when I was back in corporate land, mentoring and managing teams again, and I just loved the way that coaching worked, the frameworks around it. I did not intend for it to be a career. I was extremely skeptical and dubious of coaching as a career. I very much had a lot of ego involved where I was, like, “Who goes to Stanford and becomes a coach? That’s not a thing,” and didn’t really think I could also have an income from that.

But I kept sort of going through the process, and, in order to get certified, which I did just because I figured “Why not? I’m already here,” I had to coach, get a certain number of paid hours of coaching and reached out to some friends of friends. And what happened is that their lives started to change. My life started to change through helping them change their lives. They started referring people to me and before I knew it, before I even had the intention of having a coaching practice, I had a full roster of clients.

And sort of still dragging my feet, I decided it was something that I needed to, I couldn’t not try. And fast forward 10 years later, I’ve now been working with helping under-fulfilled overachievers find fulfillment and developed a methodology and a framework for thinking about this and looking at this, that I realized also applies beyond under-fulfilled overachievers, and now have had the great fortune and joy of getting to write a book about it as well.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that’s so cool. Well, I want to dig into so many little tidbits here. First, my own curiosity, which coaching certification body?

Megan Hellerer
Coaching Training Institute, CTI. I think they might have changed to Coactive Training Institute.

Pete Mockaitis
jI was going to say, I don’t know a ton about the coaching landscape but I did do the fundamentals course with the Coactive folks. And it seems like the people in the know often say “This is what’s up.”

Megan Hellerer
Yeah, that was the first course that I took was the fundamentals, and then, for the sake of brevity, I left this out of it. But I took that and then I didn’t go back, you know, there’s many other series. I didn’t go back for, like, three months because I was, like, “This is too much fun. This can’t be serious work because work has to be hard and serious, and, therefore, this is a waste of my time because it’s not going to lead me to where I want to go in my career,” which was a whole other mistake or misguided belief. And, eventually, I couldn’t stop thinking about it and went back and completed it.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, so then let’s back it up a little bit. The panic attacks and the deeply depressed and the miserable situation at Google, were these in your life prior to Google, like, as you were crushing it at Stanford, etc.?

Megan Hellerer
No. So, I think that’s a key part of the story is that I did not struggle with mental health previously. I should say, I had high-functioning anxiety, to some extent, but it wasn’t debilitating. It wasn’t getting in the way of the way I was living my life. I had pretty decent coping mechanisms. And so, it really escalated majorly at Google.

Pete Mockaitis
And so, now you’ve done a lot of work and a lot of reflection, and can you identify, is it your assertion that it was the primary driver of some of these mental health challenges, was the mismatch of you and that role there?

Megan Hellerer
Yes, actually. So, I often refer to it as the fulfillment ache, which is like the distance between who you are actually and how you’re showing up in the world. And when that chasm gets too big for too long, this sort of existential depression, anxiety, struggles develop in that gap. So, again, it really does become physically, viscerally painful to live that way.

And so, I think it was a misalignment of my life, in general, Google being a very big piece of it, given how much time I was spending there and how maybe unbalanced my life was. But I don’t think my relationship was a good match for me at the time. I don’t think the city I was living in was a good match for me. And so, there was, holistically, it was the misalignment of my life but that was a major piece of it.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, since we’re talking about being awesome at jobs here, at How to be Awesome at Your Job, I’m curious, can you identify the particular pieces of mismatch within Google? Because I would imagine, and you correct me if I’m wrong, that there may well be some roles inside the vast breadth that is this company, in which you might be delighted. Do you think that’s the case, or, no, no, there were a few fundamental things that just weren’t working for you?

Megan Hellerer
That one might be delighted in, or that I personally might be delighted in?

Pete Mockaitis
Ah, sorry, you, Megan, would be delighted in.

Megan Hellerer
Yes, because I was going to say, this is not an anti-Google thing, right? Like, there are many people for whom working at Google in whatever role they’re in, and I’ve coached people into Google or supported people’s decisions to be, to stay at, or join Google or other tech companies and all of that, so this isn’t anti-Google or anti-corporate. For me, personally, I do not think there is a role at Google. Never say never, but as far as I can tell, I do not think there’s a role at Google that would be aligned for me.

So, there are a few broader things, like environment, like I just don’t think I’m meant to be in, like, an open floor layout plan. Like, I’m very pretty introverted, and I like to do deep focus work separately from people. So, there are things like that, that I think were never a good match for me and really drained my energy.

Well, I love working from home, which I think is another thing, like, I am most creative and most effective from, like, five to nine in the morning, and that’s when I do my best writing, my best deep thought work. And so, it’s hard to do that when you are keeping corporate hours.

I mean, you can still do that, but then you’re spending four extra hours with your butt in the seat to demonstrate that you’re there in the office. You don’t have a lot of control. Like, I only take meetings at certain days and certain times in order because that’s like the best flow and efficiency for me. All of these things, not Google specifically, but are difficult in corporate land.

I also really like working for myself, as in being my own boss, and kind of, I don’t know, directing the flow of things and deciding what the priorities are, and I really like to be able to be nimble and make quick decisions, like hiring, firing, joining, a lot of testing and learning.

And I found that it was very, draining to have to support decisions and strategies that I really didn’t agree with because that’s the nature of the game. You can voice your opinion, leadership makes the decision, and then it’s your job to enact those things. I also was working on, like, sales and partnership side of things. But living and dying by the spreadsheets of revenue, and that are kind of arbitrary things were really difficult for me, and kind of just, like, the death by PowerPoint, I just like couldn’t. There was all the meetings about meetings and meetings, and I really, clearly, I need to go to more therapy for this.

I really had a hard time with things that felt inefficient or ineffective. And that stuff really grated at me. I also think that’s part of why I was good at my job there, is because I have an eye for scale and operations, and I was able to offer ways that we could improve things, but that isn’t always taken into consideration.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, well, Megan, I’m relating to this so much, and I love how you’ve teased out some of the very specifics. Like, based on who you are, how you roll, the means by which you operate and exist in this world, were not fitting there with regard to the bureaucracy, you wanted to do more testing and learning, the open floor plan was tricky, supporting things that you weren’t the boss of, making the decisions on, living and dying by spreadsheet revenue, things that felt inefficient.

And it’s funny, I can really relate to so much of this because I thought I had a dream job at Bain & Company and I learned a lot of stuff, and the people were phenomenal, and there was not a jerk or an idiot anywhere to be found there, in my experience, and some cases were really cool for me, and some really weren’t.

And that was really intriguing how we see, “Oh, well, some magazines say this is the best place to work,” Bain or Google, “And yet it’s not the best place for me to work. Huh.” And that’s natural for you to think, “Oh, well, what’s wrong with me? If the world says these are the best places to work, and I’m not happy there, maybe my happiness functioning is just broke.”

Megan Hellerer
Yep, exactly. And I think that gets to the point of there is no objectively great jobs or objectively perfect. It’s only good or right for you. And I will say that in terms of “Would there be a job at Google that would be a good fit for me?” I made many tweaks and shifts in the eight years there to try to make it work. This wasn’t like I did one thing the whole time and then I was like, “Hm, I’m done.”

Like, I changed teams, I changed roles, I changed locations, I changed organizations, I changed products, I changed, like, every managers, seating arrangements, like pretty much every tweak you could make, I made. And when I finally, in sort of the last role, was the thing that I was like, “This is my last hypothesis of what would make this work.” And my idea was, if I was working on consumer-facing products instead of ad-oriented or enterprise or some sort of products, like maybe then if I was working directly with the end consumer that I would care more about the impact I was having.

And even then, and we were working on Google Wallet at the time, like tap and pay, which was brand new and, like, such a revelation and was, like, novel and interesting, and as a consumer I was excited about it, and I still was not excited about doing the work involved in that and the day to day of what that actually felt like and the experience of it, really made it clear for me. And then I think working, I’d been working my butt off for this promotion. I really was like working so hard for so long and, whatever, doing all the things.

And then I got it, I got the promotion, and I felt nothing. In fact, I felt emptier, I was like, “What am I working for now?” And also, nothing actually changes. It’s the same job, which is like maybe more responsibility, maybe a slight pay increase, higher expectations, and now I just work for another promotion? And there was no one ahead of me that I could see, that I was like, “Oh, I actually really want that.”

And it just dawned on me, like, “Who am I doing this for?” And I think those were some of the moments where I couldn’t see somewhere that I truly wanted to get to, or where anything was going to feel different after having made all of those adjustments that I could think of.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, thank you. And I like the word “hypothesis” there. You were testing each of these things, and it sounds like that’s kind of like a fundamental means by which you cracked the code on this, in terms of “What’s going to do it? Well, let’s see. Maybe it’s this. Let’s try it. Oh, I guess that wasn’t it.” And then, “Oh, this coaching thing is really awesome. Huh, how surprising. Well, maybe let’s do a little more of that, see how that goes.” So, that seems to be one thread there.

Could you share what are kind of the fundamental principles you recommend people keep in mind? If folks are resonating, like, “Oh, this is haunting. Megan is like telling my story,” how would you recommend people start thinking about this thing all the wiser?

Megan Hellerer
I love that you brought up hypothesis because I often talk about it as sort of the scientific method for life, where our job is not to know the answer or to figure out the answer. We’re meant to sit there and be like, “Okay, what am I meant to do with my life? Let me think really hard about this.” We need to live into those things. We need to experiment.

So, have a hypothesis. That’s great. And think, “Okay, I think I want to go into this field,” or, “Coaching seems more interesting, or something to do with counseling and advising and consulting. That seems like a better direction for me.” And then the key thing, is that when you’re doing an experiment in scientific method, the goal is not to prove yourself right. The goal is not to prove the hypothesis right. It’s to find the truth.

And so, what often happens is we pick, in my language, a destination, and say, instead of a hypothesis, “I wonder if this is the right thing for me,” we say, “This is the thing I’m going to achieve. I’m going to become CEO by the time I retire,” and we get so attached to that goal as our failure or success, as opposed to testing and learning, that we don’t even realize somewhere along the way that that actually is not the truth, that’s not the results of the experiment, that’s not actually what we want. And so, when we get there, it doesn’t feel like what we thought it would. And that’s kind of where one of the biggest problems are.

So, to go to these core principles of what I call directional living, which is the first principle, which is focus on the direction, not the destination. And what I’ve found is that most of us who get stuck in our careers, and frankly in our lives, it’s because we focus on the destination. We are being outcome-oriented. We think we need to know exactly where we’re going before we start moving.

So, we think, “Okay, I want to be CEO in, however, many years. I’m going to reverse engineer my path in order to figure out exactly how I’m going to get there. And then I’m going to put on my blinders and I’m going to brute force, just make it happen because that’s what determination is,” and we miss out on so many opportunities and so much information about ourselves as we’re evolving and learning, and also the world as it’s evolving and learning.

And so, what we want to do instead is focus on the direction. And this is sort of the biggest place that we’ve been misled, I think, with traditional career guidance that says, like, have the five-year plan or the 10-year plan, and know exactly where you’re going. So, if you’re focusing on the direction, you’re focusing only on the single next directionally right step. That doesn’t mean, again, we don’t have an idea, a hypothesis of where we’re going.

So, if you imagine it’s a road trip, you might think, “Okay, I’m headed towards the West Coast,” which is different than, “I’m going to L.A. no matter what. No matter how many roadblocks there are, no matter how many detours, I am going to L.A.” to find out, when you get to L.A., that you actually don’t want to be in L.A., or that isn’t the best suited role or job or place for you.

So, instead we’re heading towards the West Coast and we’re allowing ourselves to launch and iterate, to use tech language, as we go. And that, I found, allows for so much more adjustment, flexibility, responsiveness, again, to our own selves and to the world around us, as all of these things are changing at a faster pace than they ever have before, and it allows us to evolve. So, that’s the first principle, focus on the direction, not the destination.

Pete Mockaitis
I love that. Thank you. And it’s intriguing, I loved when you said the word blinders, that resonated as the distinction in terms of directional versus destination. With the destination, we got the blinders, like, “Okay, just buckle down, grind, hustle, get her done.” But blinders, by their very definition, literally, I’m imagining a horse with the blinders on, it says, “You’re not looking around, you’re not observing, you’re not gathering the information.”

And yet, earlier in your story, you said, “I looked around and saw those in the elevated positions, those were also not what I wanted. Nobody was doing the thing that I wanted.” And I think that’s so huge, it’s like, “Are the blinders on or are the blinders off?” Because if they’re off and you’re observing, new stuff comes to light.

I’ve got a buddy who’s just on the cusp of the executive leagues at a major retailer. I want to keep it a little vague. And he’ll say the same thing, he’s like, “You know what? I thought I wanted to be a CEO and yet, when I observe CEOs and other executives, I don’t think that’s what I want. They actually seem to be working more than I’m working, and have more stress and responsibility and less time at home, and I’m already feeling like I’d like to spend more time at home with my two little ones and wife. So, I guess I don’t want to be a CEO?” And it was like quite a revelation for him.

Megan Hellerer
Yeah. So, I would say a couple things about that. So, in terms of your friend specifically, I love that he’s thinking about it that way. I would also caution that or I would question, if I were him, I would wonder if there is space to redesign what CEO looks like.

So, I wouldn’t just throw, like, “I don’t see any CEOs that look like the way I want to be a CEO, so I must not want to be a CEO.” Like, there may be room for him to design it in a way that works for him, especially because he’s going to be in a leadership position, or, again, he may say, “I don’t think I do want to be a CEO. What is directionally right for me? What’s like a one-degree turn? Is it something else in the C-suite?” Is it staying where he is for the next however many years? And then maybe he wants to be a CEO when he feels like it better suits his lifestyle at some later time.

There are many ways to look at this, but I love that he’s asking that question. And that is the opposite of blind ambition, in the sense that you aren’t looking around and you aren’t asking yourself the question. The moment you highlighted that I was recapping when I looked around and saw, “Oh, I actually don’t want this life that I have been working towards,” that was the moment my blinders came off. I wasn’t clear about that until those later moments. I was completely in the blinders, and this is where blind ambition comes from.

And a lot of people who come to me who are miserable, but have all the achievements and none of the fulfillment, all the success on paper, feel terrible, they’re like, “Maybe I’m just too ambitious. Is that the problem? Is ambition the problem?” And I feel like this question is coming up more and more. And the thing to me is that ambition is just the desire for impact, the desire for contribution, almost the desire for more life. There’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, I think that’s a beautiful, wonderful thing, and it’s the type of ambition, the way and the how of the ambition.

So, the blind ambition is the destinational thinking, the pick the destination and decide no matter what you’re getting there. It’s sort of like the end justifies the means approach of navigating your career and your life. Aligned ambition is “Is this warmer? Is this colder?” launch and iterate, directionally right approach where you have an idea of where you’re heading, you’re not aimlessly wandering.

And maybe CEO has been a beacon for him, and that’s been incredibly effective as a direction, but it’s different than holding on so tightly in the blind ambition sense that it becomes a destination, and the only way that he can achieve success in his life.

Pete Mockaitis
Lovely. Okay. So, that’s a core principle right there. We are going directionally as opposed to strictly to a precise destination. We are not having blinders. Rather, eyes wide open, observing what are we seeing, what are we thinking, what is this information sharing about our emerging evolving hypothesis. Is there another key principle you reckon to keep in mind?

Megan Hellerer

Yes, and we’ve touched on it a little bit, so perhaps we don’t need to go into as much depth about it, but it’s launch and iterate. So, take an experimental approach to your career and your life, and this is especially important for overachievers, or perfectionists, where it’s like either you failed or you succeeded.

But when you take an experimental approach, it can really help to sort of loosen up your ability to try things because if you learn, if you get any more information from whatever you’re doing, it’s been a success. So, if we’re redefining success as learning, as where the only mistake or the only failure is not taking action, this gives us so much more freedom and so much more permission to figure out what works for us. And that is actually what tends to build the most effective, fulfilling, impactful, meaningful careers and lives, is a willingness to launch and iterate, and test and learn.

Pete Mockaitis
And when we’re launching, iterating, testing, and learning, do you have any favorite approaches by which we could do this that might be lower risk than, “Quit your job, move across the country, and do the thing?”

Megan Hellerer
Well, that’s the whole beauty of it. With a launch and iterate approach, with a directional approach, you never have to take gigantic leaps because every single step is just taking the next directionally right action. And so, I actually discourage people from making any gigantic sweeping decisions. This should be a lot of small tweaks, and then when the big decisions get there, they feel like just the next decision as opposed to some gigantic leap of faith.

So, your job is only to move the plot forward. If you made progress that day, you’re good to go. So, again, it’s not about quitting your job, or getting divorced, or moving across the country, or selling all your things, or switching industries, or any of that. And often that is impulsive and running away from something as opposed to running towards something.

Obviously, I had to do that but not everyone has to blow up their life, and my hope is that, had I had these frameworks and tools, I might not have had to do that. I may have been launching and iterating and testing and learning a lot earlier.

So, yes, small decisions are important. And whenever you’re feeling stuck, I encourage people just to, “Where’s my curiosity leading me? What’s one thing I can do that feels, that makes this feel warmer as opposed to colder, that’s moving me in the right direction as opposed to the wrong direction?” And following just that sort of simple calibration, if you make enough right turns, you’re going to end up in the right place.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And could you give us some examples of tiny, hotter, colder decisions?

Megan Hellerer
So I recently moved Upstate New York. I guess it’s been about a year or two now, so not that recent. But I grew up in New York City, I, obviously, did a stint in California, but I was like, “I’m New York for life,” and really thought I was never going to leave, but I haven’t really given it much thought. I was never like, “Where am I going to spend my life?” It just was like, “This is where I am.”

And in the process of writing my book, I realized I really needed to give myself a DIY writing retreat. And so, I rented a cabin in Upstate New York and went there just to focus and write this book. And I ended up in this one place and I was blown away by how much I loved it and how different it was than what it was in my head, and also how differently I experienced it at this point in my life versus other points in my life.

So, I went home, went back to our normal life but I kept thinking about it. So, the next summer, we decided to rent a house for the summer up in the similar area and try out for the summer what it was like there. And, again, I was like, “Wow, I really love it here.” And then I started thinking, “What if I don’t leave? What if we actually live here?” And that felt like a complete revelation. But instead of getting rid of our apartment and buying a house Upstate, and just like making it happen immediately, I was like, “I just need to take one more directionally right step.”

So, I asked the person who we were renting the house from, you know, what her plans were, and she was actually like, “Well, I happen to not be coming back, so I would consider renting this to you long term,” which is actually a big deal because we didn’t want to buy because we wanted to test.

So, we ended up staying in this house and renting for a while longer, and just testing and learning, because there were many variables that we needed to figure out. My husband has a job in the city, so he’s a professor, and so he does need to be there a few days a week. What was that going to look like? And so, we did that for six months, see how it feels, and we loved it.

And so, then when it turned out that she was going to sell the house, we ended up finding another place, looking around and deciding, “Okay, what are we going to do?” And we found the most perfect home, and it happened to be right around the same time that we found out we were pregnant and we were going to have room for the baby, and so it all sort of, like, worked out. There was a lot of synchronicities involved.

So, that’s an example of how some people might be like, “I need to figure out where I want my permanent home to be,” versus, “Wow, I’m just noticing I really like being here. What if we tried this out for a few more months?” or whatever it is that you have the possibility of doing. So, that’s not a job example. That’s another life example, but that is kind of the framework you can think about it.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, no, I actually love that right there. And what’s fun is it’s just starting with that directional, as opposed to destinational, and blinders off approach. When you went on that writing retreat, if you had a different mindset, you might not have noticed at all that you liked being there, it’s like, “Got to get the pages. Got to get the pages. What’s the word count goal for the day? Oh, not there yet. Got to hustle. Got to crank. Got to get more words on my writing retreat.” And it could just blow right past you, that, “Hey, this is actually kind of an awesome spot. I’m enjoying being here.”

Megan Hellerer
That’s exactly the point. And I love that you picked up on that, because one of the things I’ve found with people who are used to this blind ambition approach is that we have been taught, or we believe on some level, that our curiosity, our interests, or our joy are a distraction from the goal at hand. So, it’s sort of like, we actively ignore it.

So, for example, I mean, I could think of picking a major in college. I was like, “Oh, I love this creative writing thing.” Well, that is just a distraction from the very practical major that I need to decide on that I’m going to use, as opposed to seeing that as, “That’s really valuable information about what I care about, what I love doing, what excites me, what makes me, gets my creative juices flowing, all of that kind of thing.”

And so, most people, when you ask them, “What do you actually want?” don’t know because they’ve been ignoring it for so long. So, exactly that, had I had a different mindset, if somebody had said to me, “Do you like living here? Have you liked spending your three months here for the writing retreat?” I think I would have said, “I don’t know, that’s not the point of me being here. That’s completely irrelevant information,” versus allowing that information in.

So, one of the practices I tend to do with people a lot is learning how to allow that information, recognize that information, and just even register it. You don’t even necessarily have to do anything about it. But one of the first steps is what I say screenshotting your mind. So, when you’re having ideas or thoughts cross your mind, to get into the practice of noticing them, and you’re sort of sending a message to your brain, to your psyche, to your creative, whatever you want, of “I’m paying attention. I’m ready to capture these ideas.”

Pete Mockaitis
Yes, and I love that so much in terms of like the joy, we could perceive it as a distraction from the real work, or I think we could be quick to write it off. And what comes to mind is a few times my wife has said while I’m just being silly with the kids, “Dada needs an improv class.” Because I’m being kind of kooky and silly and ridiculous, and I sort of immediately dismissed that in terms of, “Well, you know, hey, there’s a lot of going down with work, and the young kids, and this is not practical.”

But I think a better approach, steeped in these principles, would be to say, “Hmm, there is something to that. Like, there is a part of my silly, kooky nature that is meaningful and joyous, that isn’t getting a chance to be expressed as fully in my current set of roles and duties that’s worth reflecting on” as opposed to immediately dismissing, “Oh, improv class. Ah, I’m not going to drive all the way into the city for that. Ah, forget it.”

Megan Hellerer
Yeah, exactly. And that’s exactly the type of thing, because here’s the other surprising thing or at least surprising to me, curiosity, so an interest like that, like, “Huh, improv,” is the best proxy that we have for purpose. So, we spend so much time, “What is my purpose? What am I meant to do here?” We’re not going to be able to necessarily figure out the answer to that. I don’t think we have to have some broad mission statement.

The best thing we can do is figure out what our curiosity is telling us and know that that is going to lead us somewhere. So, if there’s something, when someone said, “Oh, improv class,” first of all, if it wasn’t interesting to you, if there wasn’t something in there that you were interested in, you wouldn’t even bother rejecting it, right? You would just be like, “Mm, yeah, no, that that’s not interesting to me.”

The fact that you, one, have noticed it, but two, actively are like, “No, I’m not doing that,” tells me that there’s something interesting in that to you. And then doing that, I would love to encourage you to explore, even just looking up improv classes, or maybe it’s a one-day workshop, or maybe it’s just going to more improv shows.

The lowest stakes thing that you can think of as a way to take another step, to explore this curiosity, because we don’t need to know where it’s going, and it doesn’t mean most people will jump to the destination, “Well, I’m not going to be a professional improv person,” or, “How am I going to use that in my life?” But instead, realizing it may not be that you do improv in some way, but maybe it sparks you, like just makes you so much more creative, in general, that suddenly you’re having all of these other ideas for a podcast or for whatever other things that you’re working on.

Or, maybe there is something there that you’re, again, it doesn’t have to be improv specifically, but maybe it moves to some other kind of performance, or you make some sort of connection that ends up being something that becomes really meaningful for you. These are the breadcrumbs; these are the clues that are telling us, “This is where the meaning is. This is where the fulfillment is,” and we’re so used to ignoring it.

Another analogy I like to use here is that it’s like cravings for food. So, the cravings are meant to tell you where the nourishment is, right? If you are lacking vitamin C, you might start craving an orange. For us, the craving, the curiosity craving for improv, for silliness, for goofiness, for whatever that self-expression is for you, is your body’s, your psyche’s, your spirit’s way of telling you that there’s some sort of nourishment fulfillment purpose there for you, and that you need to follow that.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, thank you. Well, Megan, tell me, any other top do’s and don’ts you want to make sure to put out there for the under-fulfilled overachievers?

Megan Hellerer
The first thing that I want to highlight is that many people say that this, they feel like doing this work, this reflection on like, “Where’s my curiosity leading me? What am I interested in? What do I care about? What is fulfilling for me?” is selfish or self-centered.

And what I want to say is that I really believe and have found that everybody benefits when we are doing the work that is most aligned for us, when we’re living the life that is most aligned for us, because we’re not only happier and more fulfilled, but we are giving other people permission for them to do what’s most aligned for them, and we’re also doing our best and most impactful work.

You’re actually not being helpful to your team for you to be in a job that is not aligned for you. Donate that job to someone else who actually is really aligned for that work, who can actually show up and want to be doing that work. A lot of people feel like, “Oh, but I’d be abandoning my team.” You’re actually abandoning your team by doing work that isn’t really where you want to be doing and where you could be having such a more impact.

The way that you contribute most to the world, the way that you can benefit most to your community, to the people around you, to your family, is by doing the work to figure out what is most aligned for you because that’s where you’ll be the most impactful. And this ties into the second point, which is another pushback I get, which is, “But what if I can’t afford to quit my job?” or, “What if I can’t afford to do this kind of work?”

And this is completely valid, in the sense that coaching is not available to everyone, and most people can’t afford to quit their job, and the good news is you don’t have to. But we are making decisions every single day in the life that we’re already living. And my suggestion would be to start asking yourself in all of those decisions, “Is this directionally right or is this directionally wrong? Is this warmer or is this colder? And how can I make it more directionally right?”

This could be in what you’re eating for dinner, “Am I doing this because it’s something I think I should do or because I actually want to?” in what books you’re reading, what podcasts you’re listening to. If you can start to make all of your decisions, steering them more in the directionally right, most-aligned-for-you way, this is going to have huge ripple effects on the rest of your life and costs nothing.

Exploring your curiosity doesn’t mean spending a couple thousand dollars on a program. It could mean taking a book out from the library. It could mean listening to a free podcast. It could mean doing a Google search. It could mean sending an email to someone to have a conversation about them. Take an action, any action, towards your curiosity and advance the plot and you’re doing your job.

Pete Mockaitis
Thank you. All right. Well, now could you share with us a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Megan Hellerer
One of my favorite quotes that is actually the best analogy I know for directional living came from E.L. Doctorow, which is, “It’s like driving in a car at night. You can only see as far as the headlights in front of you, but you can make the whole trip that way.”

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Megan Hellerer
I think these are depressing studies, but I think they’re important, which is engagement at work is at an 11-year low, where only 30% of people feel engaged with their work. That’s a Gallup poll. And only 17% find it to be a source of meaning, which is half of the rate from four years ago, and that’s a Pew study. And both of those are post-pandemic. This isn’t like the middle of the pandemic when there are many other issues going on.

We have a huge issue with engagement and meaning and fulfillment at work. The way we are working is not working and it’s only getting worse. This problem isn’t going away. And I found that those numbers to be shocking and really important for that reason.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And a favorite book?

Megan Hellerer
The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite tool, something you use to be awesome at your job?

Megan Hellerer
I would say this inner navigation system, calibration and barometer of simply asking, “Is this warmer or is this colder?” when I’m making decisions to make sure that they’re aligned for me. And I use it for everything, including coming on this podcast. I get an invitation for a podcast, and I ask, “Is this warmer? Is this colder? Does this feel directionally right or not?”

And I do say no to podcast invitation events that don’t feel aligned for me. So, I think that is sort of the cheat code to keep it really simple if you’re confused, “Is this warmer or is this colder?” I think that’s the easiest, simplest, most basic, and most effective tool for decision making there is.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And do you have a key nugget you share that really seems to connect and resonate with your clients; they bring back up to you often?

Megan Hellerer
I think simply the terminology of under-fulfilled overachiever and people having a word that resonates with them to articulate what they’ve been struggling with, and then also the vocabulary of the old way of doing things that we’ve been taught, destinational thinking, and the new way of doing things, directional thinking. I think having words to capture this tends to be one of the most revelatory things for people.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And if folks want to learn more or get in, where would you point them?

Megan Hellerer

My website is my name, so MeganHellerer.com, and I’m also on Instagram, @meganhellerer. And my website also has connections to all my socials and books and more information on my philosophy and all of that good stuff.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

Megan Hellerer
I would suggest asking yourself “Is this aligned for me?” and trying to be radically honest with yourself, tell yourself the truth about your life. And if the answer is no, or any part of that is yes or no, figure out what are the parts that are aligned and what are the parts that aren’t, and see what you can do to tweak the parts that aren’t. It doesn’t involve blowing up your life. Small tweaks can make a huge difference.

Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful. Well, Megan, this has been so much fun. I wish you many happy directions.

Megan Hellerer
Thank you so much, Pete. Have a great day.