The Thing Nobody Tells You About Success

You did everything right. You climbed the mountain, hit the milestones, checked all the boxes — and then you got there and thought... is this really it?

That quiet emptiness at the top of success is something nobody warns you about. In this episode, Stephanie and Maren get honest about why achieving your goals can feel like the loneliest moment of your life — and what's actually missing. Spoiler: it's not another goal. It's the inner work that most of us were never taught to do.

From Alex Hormozi's "apathy problem" to the woman who thought her gift was numbers (it wasn't), this conversation will have you rethinking what success actually means — and how to make it feel as good on the inside as it looks on the outside.

Key Takeaways

• Success can feel empty when it's built on someone else's prescription. When we follow the "right house, right car, right job" formula without checking in with our own longings, we arrive at the top of a mountain that was never ours to climb.
• Your gifts and your skills are not the same thing. You may have built skills to survive or fit in — but your true gifts are the things that come so naturally you've probably dismissed them entirely.
• Your inner world creates your outer reality. Most of us are unconsciously running on autopilot. Pausing to ask what do I actually need? — emotionally, mentally, spiritually — changes everything.
• Identity is not static. Who you are right now doesn't have to be who you stay. Growth requires updating the story you tell yourself about yourself.
• Simple practices create profound shifts. Evening journaling, flow writing, asking better questions — these aren't soft extras. They're how you access the magic that your conscious mind filters out.

Referenced in This Episode

- Alex Hormozi — entrepreneur and investor who openly discussed his "apathy problem" after achieving significant outer success

- Vicki Keith (Ep. 150) — Neurodiversity is Your Superpower (https://thesoulfulleaderpodcast.com/2024/05/28/150-neurodiversity-is-your-superpower-with-vicki-keith/) — referenced in the conversation around ADHD as a gift, not a deficit

- Morning Pages / Flow Writing — a journaling practice (popularized by Julia Cameron's *The Artist's Way*) that Maren uses as evening pages to access subconscious insight

TRANSCRIPT

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Transcript

A Big Question

Stephanie 0:03

In a world where we have everything and it's still not enough, we're often left wondering, is this really it?

Maren 0:10

Deep inside, you know there's more to life. You're ready to leave behind the old push your way through and claim the deeper, more meaningful life that's calling you.

Stephanie 0:19

That's what we invite you to explore with us.

Maren 0:22

We're your hosts,

Stephanie 0:23

Stephanie Allen

Maren 0:24

and Maren Oslac.

Maren and Stephanie 0:26

And this is The Soulful Leader Podcast.

The Lonely Side Of Success

Stephanie 0:30

Yay!

Maren 0:31

Welcome to The Soulful Leader Podcast. My name is Maren. I'm here with my co-host, Stephanie. And today we're talking about success and the thing that nobody tells you about success. And we were talking about this before we got on. The thing that nobody tells us about success is that when you actually achieve it, it can be the most, the loneliest, and like most misunderstood moment of your life. And that may sound dramatic, but here's the thing. You know, when you finally climb that mountain and you get there and you're at the top and you've achieved all this stuff, most people... like you've heard Steve Jobs talk about this. You've heard... I just listened to Alex Hormozi talking about this, where there is a... he said he has an apathy issue. It's because you achieve all that outer stuff and you still feel empty and you feel misunderstood because like everybody else is still in achievement mode. Everyone else is like still climbing the ladder, and you're like, I've done that, and I'm like... it's not fulfilling my soul.

Stephanie 1:38

Yeah, you know, and I feel like we've been told something and we follow the directions, we get product, and there's something missing, and we don't quite know what that is, because I feel like a lot of times we are focused on the outer and not integrating that internal aspect of our soul. Like, well, what is it that my soul is seeking? What is it that my heart cares about? It isn't, yes, we can care about the outer, and is there something else that so by you know, as we're climbing and going, we're kind of putting aside the internal longings too, just because we're so focused on the external sometimes. Now by the time we get there, we go... oh, I'm still missing

Ignoring Your Longings And Gifts

Stephanie 2:30

something. We lost a friend down at the bottom of the hill.

Maren 2:34

I think you gave us a huge key right there in saying we take our own stuff and we put it to the side, and we're trained to do that, like literally, we're being trained from a very young age through our education through everything to not pay attention to our own longings, to not need our own needs, our own longings, even our own gifts, or maybe especially our own gifts. And I think about like we've interviewed several people on this podcast who were quote unquote ADHD. And because they lived at a time when they were raised at a time when that was not a diagnosis, they had to figure out what that meant for them and how to use that in their lives. And it actually was like the greatest gift possible. I'm thinking of Vicky Keith, who lives in Canada, and she's one of the top, she was, I don't remember what podcast we interviewed her on. And go back and listen to it because it is amazing listening to what she achieved because her gift, a gift of hers, was that she was ADHD.

Stephanie 3:53

Like, don't wouldn't it... wouldn't the world be so much healthier and happier if we created space to discover... what are, first of all, what are my gifts? What are my strengths? Because we all, like, where I'm strong, someone else is weak. Where someone else is strong, I'm weak. And this is why we when we come together and collaborate and connect, we all raise each other up because there's different, there's different gifts. But a lot of times what I've seen is that we because we don't know our gifts, we're following the prescription of how to get to someplace on somebody else's gifts.

Maren 4:31

Yeah.

Stephanie 4:32

And we can effort it, of course, and it can work. And we have maybe forgotten that we also have a different way of doing something that also would work, that would give us meaning and fulfillment and joy and upliftment.

Maren 4:48

Again, I think you've given us a huge key because if I'm following somebody else's prescription of what's important, to what it means, what meaning is in my life. Here is what success means. It means you have the right house, the right car, and the right wife, and the right job and the right this and the right that... and I followed all of those things and I got to the top of that mountain, it's not going to be very fulfilling because it wasn't yours. And so if you, if we, if each of us, what a different world we would live in out there, meaning out in the outer world and also inside. Because if we're actually trained from the beginning that that's mine, what is it that's

Beyond Money And Comfort

Maren 5:35

yours? I don't know. You know, one of the things I've really noticed with my clients is that I ask them, what do you want? And that's the huge thing. They don't know. I don't even know what I want.

Stephanie 5:46

Isn't that the truth? Or we don't know what our needs are.

Maren 5:49

Yeah.

Stephanie 5:50

What do I need? And we tend to think about physical needs. So sometimes someone says, Oh, I've got everything I need. Well, maybe physically, you know, financially and physically, but do you have emotional needs met? Do you even know what your emotional needs are? Like, let's even break it down. Do we even know what our emotional and mental and even spiritual needs are? There's so many different levels of needs. It's not just about food, water, shelter, sex, the physical, that that would be more of our animal nature, which is not about making that wrong. It's just that that's our survival. Once we move up to a level of where we are not only surviving, we might be financially thriving or physically thriving, but there's something else missing. It's usually a need that is unmet. And it's it's something that's hidden. It's the internal aspect that nobody sees. And it's going to be different and unique to each and every one of us.

Maren 6:45

And I think that the flags for us are that we're feeling empty, that we're feeling. I mentioned um the Alex Hormozi. So he is a super successful, very young man. By the time he was like 35, 36, he had everything, right? He had accomplished it all, done it all. And I heard an interview with him where he started off with saying, I have an apathy problem. That's a... that's a flag. That's a... and what I what I loved about him was that he was interested in diving into it. He wants to know more. He's not just checking out. And I think that in our world, admitting that we have an apathy problem is a huge deal, especially for somebody who's super successful. It's like, how could you? How dare you?

Stephanie 7:43

And I think I would also ask a question on him as saying, well, what do you mean, apathy? Tell me what apathy means to you. Because when I look at the yin and the yang, you know, the yang is what we need to be able to get up out of bed in the morning and go, go, go. But if you were like that all the time, you would not be able to sleep at night. And guess what? I bet you most of you out there cannot sleep. But you're so focused on the productivity in the outer world, go, go, go, the caffeine, the you know, the things that get us get us all revved up, that by the time you hit the bed, you're like, I can't sleep. My mind is gone. The mind is racing. We need that internal reflection too. And so I would I would probably ask a little bit more questions

Apathy, Numbing And Dopamine Loops

Stephanie 8:30

about why he feels like he's apathetic, or what does that even mean to him?

Maren 8:35

Yeah. And so it's it's not even about him, right? I just realized that so many people were numbing out as a society. One of the issues that is become huge is the number of drugs, that how often people are scrolling, the online games, just all of the places that we go to numb out.

Stephanie 9:04

Yeah, the dopamine.

Maren 9:06

Yes. And that's where... what I was listening to him talk about, and what I liked about him was that he was like, I want to know more, I want to understand it. And so, as you all are listening to this, and this is something I'm looking at for myself of because there are still oh my god, there are still places I check out, right? Like I just don't even want to deal with it. I'm gonna, you know, like binge watch some TV show or eat tons of chocolate or whatever my vice is. And if I could just take a moment and break that pattern and get to the place where I could ask that great question, you know, like you said, I would ask him another question. Great, let's ask me another question, right?

Stephanie 9:52

Yeah, yeah.

Maren 9:53

Like, what does it mean? Why do you want to numb out?

Stephanie 9:56

Yeah, because it maybe... it maybe it's numbing out, or maybe it's it's literally stopping and creating some space to reflect. We do need to pause to just go, wait a minute, hmm. Is this really what my heart, my soul, my mind, my emotions, like what's really going on? What are my needs? And is this is this just going on the same trajectory as I've always gone? Or is this really is this really what I need?

Maren 10:26

Hmm. And I think for the highly successful person, and every single one of you out there, at, in some place in your life, you're highly successful. So looking at that and how is that particular success fulfilling to you? Because we can climb the entire mountain, do all of the stuff without the connection to our

Do This Alongside Goals

Maren 10:55

internal, and then it feels exceedingly empty and alone up there. And then we shame ourselves. Oh, maybe I climbed the wrong mountain or all the stuff. The other option is to do the inner work in parallel so that we are knowing ourselves and we're getting to know ourselves more and more and more so that the successes don't feel so empty. They actually feel rewarding.

Stephanie 11:24

And sometimes, Maren, like when I when I work with somebody and like kind of what we're talking about, like, you know, what does success mean to you? What are your gifts or your strengths? I think there's a lot of times when we don't know what our strengths are, or we've made our strengths and our gifts wrong.

Maren 11:42

Yes.

Stephanie 11:44

So just looking at like perhaps an inquiry of asking some people close to you, like, what am I good at? What am I strong? Where are my gifts?

Gifts vs. Skills The Spreadsheet Story

Stephanie 11:55

What are my strengths?

Maren 11:58

I want to distinguish between strengths and skills, gifts and skills. Because recently I worked with a woman who her skill set, she had trained herself to be really, really good with numbers, to be able to do budgets and do like all the stuff. And so when we were talking about her gifts, she listed that. And then as we started to peel that onion a little bit more, she does the numbers so that she can communicate, so that she can be in a relationship with people who do numbers because her huge gifts are all around people. She loves people, she loves creating teams, she just wants everything to do with like, let's make the team as functional as possible. That's her true g ift.

Stephanie 12:51

So, so what I'm understanding is that she studied the skill set of learning numbers so she could speak the language of those that she loves.

Maren 13:00

Exactly. So that she when thinks about building a team. In order to build a really truly robust team that all works well together, as the person who's bringing those people together, you actually have to know a little bit about each of those things that they do. You don't have to be completely brilliant in them, because then that takes away, right? You need to know enough to speak that person's language. And so she was, she had gotten confused between I do this so that I can bring people together, and I do this and it's my gift. And when she got that, and she realized, like, oh, I have a lot of different skills because my gift is bringing people together, and that matters to me. Now all of a sudden she's got a totally different trajectory and she's so excited about bringing people together. And she's more interested in building those skills because she was completely burnt out. I'm like, she's like, I know that my gifts are numbers, and I don't want to see another spreadsheet. Well, let's talk about that because that's kind of a red flag. If you don't want to see another spreadsheet, maybe it's not your gift, right? Or maybe you're burned out on it. Like, there's lots of roads we could go down with that. And for her, it was realizing that her true gift was people, like creating relationships and wanting to go deeply into understanding people so that she actually built skills in those areas.

Stephanie 14:39

Yeah. So perhaps those of you that are listening out there, maybe make a list of what matters to you, what's important to you, and what skills would be needed to do that, and also recognize where your gifts are and your strengths are, because they may or may not be related to the skill sets, just like Maren was speaking of, and then looking at like what who do you know, or what do you need to learn, or what do you need to let go of so that it can get you there.

Maren 15:19

And I... oftentimes our gifts are something that comes so easily to us that we dismiss it, just like she was doing. She's like, well, yeah, of course it's people. Great, let's acknowledge that natural, right? She thought she had to do all this other work, and when she let that other work go and said, oh, oh, I get to just play with people. Oh my god, I'm so excited.

Stephanie 15:51

It's like when other people value something and you don't fit into that way, we make ourselves wrong with it.

Maren 16:01

What do you mean? Can you give me an example?

Stephanie 16:03

Somebody else values being organized and focused. I'm just using the ADHD as an example. You know, someone really values that you gotta sit down, you gotta be still, you gotta focus, you gotta, you know, get things done and organize things. And that is not your strength. So we get labeled as ADHD instead of saying, well, what is your strength? Well, my strength is people, my strength is talking and connecting people and being out there and being social. You can see how if you're in a relationship with somebody who you value that's organizing and detail-oriented, you may get projected on that you are ADHD instead of saying, no, actually, I'm really good at bringing people together and really understanding people and serving people.

Maren 16:52

Yeah, to somebody else, you look scattered and because they're not seeing the full gift. And we're not seeing, that's the, that's the biggest thing, is we're not seeing our full gifts because we are... so to go back to I'm gonna bring this together with what we're talking about at the beginning of you know, success feeling empty. And there is a piece of it that's our gifts and our strengths. I think there's another piece of it that is we are meant to keep peeling the layers of the onion. If you've ever seen Shrek, one of my favorite scenes, I'm an onion, gotta peel the onion, right? And we are trained in this society that there's some end point, some magical endpoint. They hit this magical endpoint and poof, everything's gonna be what? I don't even know what.

Stephanie 17:50

Yeah, it's like the one and done. It's a one and done. It's not a one and done, it's an evolution.

Maren 17:54

It's not, it's an ongoing process, and the process can be magical when we're living in our gifts and our strengths, and we're doing it from that place of really the both. you, like you were talking about earlier: the outer, the yin, the the outer, the yang, and the the inner, the yin. And in our culture, as you were saying, we don't value that inner, we don't give it the space, so we end up

Stephanie 18:24

We don't value it, exactly. What we don't see, we don't value. It doesn't exist unless we see it. But yeah,

Finding Your Hidden Value

Stephanie 18:35

internal that creates the external.

Maren 18:38

That's a great exercise. Is, like what is it that I'm not seeing that offers value? And you know, like what did I not see today that was valuable? I know that sounds like a really strange question.

Stephanie 18:53

Give another example, Maren.

Maren 18:56

Okay. So at the end of the day, one of the things, one of my regular exercises is to do flow writing at the end of my day. It's kind of like morning pages, except I guess evening pages. So, what that does for me is by the time I get to my second or third page, I'm writing things that I didn't consciously necessarily notice throughout the day. So I'm grateful for, I love those. I'm like five things you're grateful for. And if you write down five things you're grateful for, you're gonna stay on the surface of like, okay, I'm grateful for, you know, the money I made today, my husband, my my dogs, the taking a walk this morning, and all those things are awesome and wonderful. And I'm not saying not to be grateful for them. What I'm saying is that there's some hidden stuff in your life that is where the real magic lies. And you're the only one who knows what that is. And so doing a journaling exercise, the magic of morning pages or evening pages, as I do them, is that you flow right for three pages or for five to ten minutes. And what happens is at the beginning, your conscious mind is in charge and you're writing. And then you get past the conscious mind and your subconscious starts to come through and it shifts. And so you start to notice things- that stuff comes up that you haven't, that your conscious mind has filtered out because it doesn't make sense, it's not proper, it's all whatever the stuff is, right? And guess what? That's where the magic lives. So it may not be the example you were looking for, and that's how I get to my own magic at the end of each day and get include the inner in a regular practice in my day.

The Practice That Changes Everything

Stephanie 21:00

I remember one time for me, as an example of an internal, is that I... this is an external and internal. I was in a situation where I was gonna react. I was really upset. And I stopped and I listened. And I remembered what my intention is, meaning, hey, I want to really be connected to this person. Then what, you know what, what needs to happen? What would be the most kind and noble thing to do? So I asked a question internally, and then I had to listen. I had to stop, I had to pause. And then it created the space for me then to make a different outer action. So that's what nobody saw, what was going on inside me. And I was observing what was going on inside by also asking a question to my internal self, which then created a different outer action. That's why, what I mean, the internal often and almost always creates our outer reality. So a lot of times we can be unconscious about the outer reality. We're just kind of going along following a prescription that's kind of on the surface. We haven't really dropped in to go, wait a minute. Is this aligned with my mental needs? Is this aligned with my values, my ethics? Is this aligned with my with my emotional needs?

Maren 22:35

And who you want to become?

Stephanie 22:37

And who I want to become, yeah.

Maren 22:39

Because one of the things I know about you is that you are you're wanting to continue to become a more loving person. And you're one of the most loving people that I know. And that's because this is something that you work on. So when I hear you give us that example, it's exactly that, because that's important to you, that's who you want to become. You stopped and you asked that question. And that's really powerful. I love that example. Thank you for sharing that. And so asking those internal questions, and it does need to start with, well, who do I want to become? Because you can't stop and ask a question from that place until you actually know that.

Stephanie 23:25

Exactly.

Maren 23:26

And that can be a very fun journey to explore.

Stephanie 23:30

Yeah. So to be open to discovering who you are. I think a lot of times the dangerous thing that I can say to myself is, oh, well, I already know who I am. I know what I'm good at. I know what I'm not. Well, what if there's no space for possibility? Like to allow some space for, like, yeah, you know, I'm gonna look at that. I'm gonna create some space to discover deeper and deeper and deeper levels of who I am and why I'm here.

Maren 23:55

And what if it's an ongoing morphing, right? We assume that it's like static, who I am is some static thing, and it's not. We know that

Identity Is Not Static

Maren 24:10

from anytime we do any outer exercise, say for example, I want to I want to learn a language, right? If I keep define, if I kept defining myself as the same person, then I would never learn the language. So if I want to learn Spanish and I'm not somebody who speaks Spanish, and then I start to learn Spanish, now I am no longer that same identity, right? I'm not the person who knows no Spanish. I know a little bit of Spanish. And I have to keep upping my identity and changing who I believe that I am, otherwise I'll stay stuck. And we see that very clearly with something like Spanish. You're like, duh. And yet that's exactly what we do with our persona. Well, that's just who I am. You're sure about that? Because it doesn't have to be, it's just the words you're telling yourself. Like I'm somebody who doesn't speak Spanish. So you can do something about that, you can change it. And

Stephanie 25:14

If, if and that's aligned with your higher vision. So that's that's the thing of like to stop and even ask yourself, who am I doing this for? Why am I doing this?

Maren 25:28

That can be a really scary question.

Stephanie 25:30

It can be.

Maren 25:32

Yeah.

Stephanie 25:33

So be gentle with yourself, and just you know, don't necessarily look for an absolute answer. Like just hold the question, be curious.

Maren 25:43

That's key. That's key. I know it sounds simple, and it's super, it's not easy. It's simple, it's not easy, and it's amazingly powerful. So if you want something that can really change your life, first of all, hold on for the ride because it will change your life. And, you know, step up and do some of those simple, not easy things like asking those questions.

Listener Reflection And Where To Connect

Maren 26:15

Well, thank you so much for joining us today for this discussion. If you've enjoyed it, we'd love to hear from you. What , what got you thinking? What were some of your favorite questions? And where are you in this whole success conversation? Let us know. You can find us on Facebook, on LinkedIn, on YouTube, all at the Soulful Leaders. And we'll see you in a couple weeks on the Soulful Leader Podcast.

Stephanie 26:47

And that wraps up another episode of the Soulful Leader Podcast with your hosts, Stephanie Allen and Maren Oslac.

Maren 26:55

Thank you for listening. If you'd like to dive deeper, head over to our website at the Soulful Leader Podcast.com. Until next time!