Let's Think About It Podcast

Episode 56: Stuck in Your Career? How to Find Purpose Again

• Morice Mabry • Season 2 • Episode 56

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Episode Summary

What happens when success starts to feel like a trap instead of a triumph? In this episode, Coach Mo sits down with executive and career clarity coach Danielle Droitsch to unpack what it really takes to reset your career when you're feeling burned out, unfulfilled, or stuck. Danielle shares her personal pivot from senior leadership in the nonprofit space to building a career rooted in purpose, and reveals how mindset, self-reflection, and courageous action are essential tools for anyone ready to rediscover their “why.” If you're questioning what's next, this episode will help you turn confusion into clarity.

🔑 Key Takeaways

  • Burnout Isn’t Always Obvious: Success on the outside can mask deep disconnection on the inside—and it often hits mid-career leaders the hardest.
  • Clarity Comes From Action: Danielle explains how taking aligned, imperfect action is key to moving through confusion—not just thinking harder.
  • You’re Not Alone in Feeling Stuck: 70% of the global workforce is disengaged. Feeling misaligned isn’t failure—it’s a signal for change.
  • Stop Outsourcing Your Purpose: Real career clarity doesn’t come from polls, mentors, or LinkedIn—it starts from within.
  • Inner Critic vs. Inner Coach: The voice you listen to most determines whether you stay stuck or start moving.

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to the let's Think About it podcast, where we embark on a journey of thoughtfulness and personal growth. I'm your host, Coach Mo, and I'm here to guide you through thought-promoting discussions that will inspire you to unlock your full potential. In each episode, we'll explore a wide range of topics, from self-discovery and mindfulness to goal-setting and achieving success. Together, we'll challenge conventional thinking and dive deep into the realms of possibility. Whether you're looking to find clarity in your personal or professional life, or seeking strategies to overcome obstacles, this podcast is your go-to source for insightful conversations and practical advice. So find a comfortable spot, chill and let's embark on this journey of self-improvement together. Remember, the power of transformation lies within you, and together we'll uncover the tools and insights you need to make it happen. So let's dive in. Welcome to another episode of the let's Think About it podcast. I'm your host, Coach Mo, and I'm here with another amazing guest, and her name is Danielle Deutsch. Danielle, what's?

Speaker 2:

up. It's so good to be here. I'm excited to dive in with you.

Speaker 1:

I am so excited to have you. Where are you checking in from?

Speaker 2:

I live in Salt Lake City, Utah, so here in the very dusty desert beautiful mountains though, and I'm from the Washington DC area.

Speaker 1:

What's the most exciting thing to do in Salt Lake City?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so we're at 5,000 feet and we're up on, you get the Wasatch Mountains and we're overlooking the Great Salt Lake. So we have beautiful mountains, beautiful skiing, beautiful camping, hiking. So we're an outdoors family and that's a big part of our lives is spending time outdoors. So that's my thing.

Speaker 1:

So tell us who you are, what you do and the type of value you bring.

Speaker 2:

My name is Danielle Troich and I am an executive leadership and career clarity coach. I have been working in the nonprofit space for 30 some years and about 10 years ago I made a big transition from law and policy in the environmental space to helping others reach their full potential, whether a leader or they're thinking about a career transition. I had to go through my own stuff first to become that person. Now I love helping people figure it out for themselves.

Speaker 1:

Okay, you said you had to go through your own stuff. Let's explore that a little bit, because I'm sure there's a lot of my audience who's going through their stuff and can utilize some insights on how to navigate through their stuff. Take us through some of that stuff you were dealing with and had to navigate through, and what was your approach and what does it look like?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so I had. For many years, decades I had focused and I still I'm still very passionate about the protection of our environment, clean air, clean water, all of that good stuff, and I'd been there for 30 years, and then I hit a wall. The wall felt I was disconnected to my job, I was maybe a little bored, I was maybe feeling a little bit cranky about what I had to do every day. The way I described at the time was something was missing. There was something missing and there's a little part of me that was like is this it? Is this my job, is this my career? Because, if this is it, I didn't think it would feel this way and I was at the top of my career in the sense that I had reached a senior leadership role. I'm working for an organization that does incredible, amazing work, had a great team, great budget. One part of me was like why are you even thinking this, danielle? You should be really happy. You should be grateful and happy for what you have. Another part of me was like I'm just something's missing here, and so that's what the wall felt like. The wall feels different to different people, because I've coached a lot of people and you feel it differently. But there's a point and usually it's mid to senior in your career You've been around the block, you've done a bunch of stuff and something's missing or something's not right, and that happened to me. And so then I went on this journey because I was.

Speaker 2:

It took me a couple of years to figure this out. It kept coming back, it recirculated again and again, and so I kept trying different things and eventually I started to be convinced that it was something bigger than just a tweak to my career. So I went on a journey and I actually went part time in my job and I took the other part time that I had available to do a ton of volunteering. I was volunteering at domestic violence, shelter and working with families immigrating from Afghanistan. I just threw myself into all the things that I thought might help.

Speaker 2:

And that journey was a good journey because it helped me figure out what didn't work for me or wasn't the right fit, and eventually wasn't a short time, I would say. My process was about three years long. I came across this world of coaching and even then I had to figure out what that looked like. But once I experimented and had to take course to figure that out I realized, oh my gosh, there's this whole world there for me and I would never in a million years would have thought this is. If someone had said, oh, you were going to be a coach, I'd be like no way.

Speaker 1:

But just how you show up, I'm here, I'm listening to you doing all of this volunteer work, and that's what coaching is giving giving and helping to empower people. And you went on this journey for, like you said, three years, and that's where the discovery happened. It brought you to coaching. So I'm going to go here with this, now that you've discovered that this is your passion. You love helping people. But what do you do for those who are stuck and not know how to find their purpose and their passion, but not necessarily looking to go into coaching, but how do you help them find that alignment?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's such a fabulous question because there's a lot of people that feel stuck and hit. The statistic that is really troubling is that 70% of the global workforce and so this is not just the US, this is everywhere 70% of the workforce is not engaged in their jobs. What does that mean? It means you don't go to work feeling happy, you're not feeling fulfilled, you're there to get a paycheck. Don't get me wrong, but that's a pretty big statistic and that's a global trajectory that's been going. It's not just COVID. Covid made it a little bit worse, but it's been something we've been trending toward over the past several decades and the short maybe. If you ask why the reason is, there's a lot of big issues where we have a disparity between what the workforce is looking for and what the workplace is offering. So that's a bigger conversation. But if you don't feel, or if you feel stuck, you are not alone. So that's number one. Number two is, if you're stuck, usually what's happening is you're circulating, just like I did, with a lot of ideas. You've got a lot of ideas. They're probably all good ideas. Maybe I could do this, maybe I could do this, maybe I should do this. Maybe I should do this. Maybe I should be an entrepreneur, maybe I should whatever, and it just circulates and the stuckness kind of comes with that sort of circulation.

Speaker 2:

To get unstuck, we need to get out of our heads. We need to in some ways. We need to be in our heads to figure this out. But we also need to get active and try some things out. But with my own clients, the first thing I do is just understand that all those ideas are not bad ideas. There's probably within your ideas list some really golden things. Understand what's behind those ideas a little bit first, before you make any choices, and ultimately the answer is within you. It's not outside, it's not on LinkedIn, it's not on Facebook. You might have some good advisors, you might have some good friends who you can talk to, but often the real answer is within us.

Speaker 2:

And if I could go back and talk to myself 10 years ago, I was looking outside myself, I was talking to people, I was reading books, I was getting on LinkedIn and seeing what other people were doing, the answer was within me. It was the helper within me. I've always been a helper, ever since I've been a little girl and I thought that it was going to be all being a lawyer, and that was the way I was going to help. I was going to help by being a lawyer and saving the environment, but in fact I'm good at that. I'm not probably the most amazing lawyer out there, but I'm good, but I'm great at coaching, and so for me it was discovering the secret sauce. That's what it is. It's about figuring out your secret sauce, and then that is a clue, a major clue to what that next step should look like. But you need to start with figuring out your secret sauce before you figure out what the job is.

Speaker 1:

I remember when I was feeling stuck at one point in my career and in my journey. I would categorize myself in that moment of being stuck I was a lazy thinker. Here's what I mean by that. Here's what I mean by that being a lazy thinker. I didn't challenge myself to think through and self-reflect on what it is that I wanted. I copped out and said I don't know what I want. And I dismissed it and kept it moving.

Speaker 1:

But it kind of kept repeating itself right, why am I not making any progress? And the thought was I don't know what I want to do, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. But I never challenged myself to think what's really important to you right now and what's one action I can do right now to take a step forward towards discovering what that looks like for me? And consistently asking myself those little questions forced me to be an active thinker on what's important for me and from that man I've discovered my values. I discovered my why, my purpose. All of these things came from that. But in the moment of being stuck it's very easy to generate certain fears, limiting beliefs and a lazy thought process because I didn't want to challenge myself to get out of my own way, so to speak.

Speaker 2:

Oh, it's incredible to listen to you reflect, because I was there too. You were there. Your listeners are maybe there. I would say the majority of the people that I end up talking to. They'll say I just don't know, I just don't know, and they'll kind of look at me like somehow I'll have the answer for them and I don't. There's no way I can have the answer for them. But they're, they're looking at me, hoping I will figure it out for them.

Speaker 2:

And yeah, like in a way it is lazy thinking. I mean not to be judgmental, because I was like that. It sounds like you were like that too, but the thing is that you have to change how you're thinking in order to get unstuck, and if you're thinking I can't figure this out, you won't figure it out. One of the key things that, as you were talking, that really hit me as a recognition really is that it does take time. I think that we hope that it will just strike us like a lightning bolt, like it will just hit us, and I don't know about you, but it didn't hit me like a lightning bolt. There was moments where I was like, ooh, I think that's interesting, but it wasn't like. One day I woke up and I was like that is it day. I woke up and I was like that is it?

Speaker 2:

No, and I don't think it happens to most people. It is a series of thought processes, of experimentation, of investigation, of pushing yourself, of acting, of experimenting, and it takes time. And my pro, I have a program where it takes a while. It takes many months for people to work through it and often they're wow, I can't believe it's taking this much time. And I'm thinking to myself, yeah, and you're probably going faster than most people. The reality is that it does take time.

Speaker 2:

When you're going through some sort of transformation whether it's a career change, a life change, whatever it may be and you're trying to figure out how do you want to aim yourself? What is your North Star? You got to be patient. It's hard if you're not a patient person. I'm not a patient person, I am not patient at all.

Speaker 2:

But I am so glad I took that time because I might have ended up in some ridiculous field, because whatever my aunt said you should do this, because whatever my aunt said you should do this, and what I needed to do is feel it in my heart and I did. I felt it in my heart when I finally signed up for a course and I started to coach and I noticed this alignment within my heart. But it wasn't until after. I was helping others, I worked in the domestic violence shelter, I was working with the refugees, I was volunteering my time, I started to try to, I did a whole bunch of stuff and every single piece of that added to my life and it was good and nothing. But I do think you're right. I think it's a combination of really challenging ourself and our minds in a different way, not getting lazy and then realizing it does take time and it requires action, taking over a period of time versus insisting that something happens overnight.

Speaker 1:

I'm listening to you and I'm smiling, because that length of time it took me for my self-discovery process could have been shortened dramatically. The other aspect of the lazy thinking concept that I just brought up was I was seeking validation from external forces outside of me, me to find my discovery. Because, as I'm listening to certain people of what they think I should be doing, and I'm listening to them, and then I go down that path and I'm doing everything that they recommended to do, and I'm walking that path, but it doesn't feel right. I feel the purpose isn't really being fulfilled. And so then it's, this isn't working. Well, let me try this, I'll talk to this other person, I'll talk to this, I get this advice, I do this and this, and at the end of the day, I still wasn't going back to what's important to me.

Speaker 1:

And then here's the other piece, the judgment of self, because if I go against the grain of what other people think I should do or should be doing, then what are they going to be thinking of me? Yes, and I'm beating myself up. I'm beating myself up, and it's just like you said, that length process, that long process. So now that you're going through these, I was going through trial and error, trial and error and then at one point you go through that, whatever it took to get to that bottom, and he was like I know for me it was losing my job. It was losing a job and then getting coaching. And then we got to the root and I discovered coaching, mentoring, counseling, consulting All of that is my realm, that's where I thrive at and I discovered that. But that's how we get in our own way right. We're looking for those external validations from people outside of us and not trusting our inner selves to oh my gosh, you know what I mean Anybody listening.

Speaker 2:

This is really important point, because we do get in our own way. Of course, we've had our our path so far. And guess who helped create our path? Our parents, our school, our college, our university, our church, our friends, our neighbors. And we have and that's our sort of social self, and we have this societal expectations, and that's a good thing, it's nice to have a good society, but what happens is we end up trending toward this sort of it's. It's just like it's almost like we're wearing a cloak. It's oh, coach Mo, or they didn't call you coach Mo then, but this is what he did, and so I'm going to give him advice based on what he did before.

Speaker 2:

And, in a way, this is almost the worst thing that we can do for our friends. In fact, with my own clients, when my clients go out and ask the world, I tell them to do this. I give them a little exercise to go out and try to help figure out their superpowers and their secret sauce, and I say go to your most trusted friends or family. Just, you trust them like to the core. Do not ask them what they think you should do. That's not what we're doing here. All you need to know is what they think your special talents are, and the reason I do that is because we often don't even notice our special talents. We're just natural and innate. So it's great to get feedback from people on how they see your talent. What's John's special sauce? What is Jen's? What is she really good at? That's really good data. That's really helpful. But the moment you cross over into what should Jen do, what should John do, then immediately you go into that category of social self and what we want to get to is our essential selves. Our essential selves are who you are as a kiddo, when you're out there and you're on the playground, and just what really inspires and and draws you.

Speaker 2:

And for me as a kid I was, I remember it vividly they would give us those little cartons, the milk cartons, and then you'd have to go around the neighborhood and fill them up with coins. I was that kid. I would go around for poverty or hunger or something like that, door to door to collect money, because I was so concerned about the people who were hungry and it was like I was driven to get as much money as possible for these hungry people, and that's how I've always been a helper, always from the very youngest age. But then I decided oh yeah, I want to be a lawyer. A lawyer sounds good. I think I should be a lawyer. And when I finally figured out that I'm a helper and the best way for me to help is to help other people reach their full potential, figure out their career path, help them be good leaders and so on, I had to go and this was really hard to go on LinkedIn and I had to post I am yeah, business, that's a legitimate fear.

Speaker 2:

I was. It was hard because I thought people were going to be like let's just be honest, not all coaches are made equal. So for lawyers, by the way, too, it's the same thing. But coaching people are skeptical, and so on. And even when you get your certification, you build clients, you do all this training practice. Anyway, for me to go out into the world and say, hey, I do this now. Now it's changed. I have people who come to me who are my former colleagues and they're like, hey, I want to refer you. But at that time it was a little bit like what are you doing, lady? Like why are you leaving? It's scary. And yet I needed to do that to become my more of my central self. So it's crucial what you pointed out about this idea of judgment, because sure, you can go and pave the path you've always paved, but if you believe this may be your one life maybe you don't, but maybe if you believe this is your life right now, then you know this is it.

Speaker 1:

Man, you hit something because you said central self, and I'm thinking back when we were kids, when I was a kid and you go to the park and you're Central South, you just play with whoever you're free, you're climbing up. There's just no fear. You're doing whatever you feel like doing in that moment and it's fun. There's no judgment. You're approaching people kids, that's doing certain things. You're approaching them, asking to play, things like that. Then we become these adults.

Speaker 1:

Now we have all of this fear just filtered in into our consciousness. Oh, I can't approach that person. What would they think of me if I approached them and asked them about their business? What would they think of me if I posted this on such and such? And then you finally, just like you said on LinkedIn, you finally drive up the courage to do your first post on.

Speaker 1:

Then there's another fear that comes, another judgment that comes after you make the post. There's not a lot of people liking my post. Maybe I'm not a good coach, maybe I did something wrong. Maybe I should really rethink this whole posting thing. Now you move into this other area and just going back to being a kid, we didn't have any of that. We didn't have any of that at an early age we were just having fun enjoying life. And then, as we get older, society, culture, family, our environments, mentors, just across the board they all influence our consciousness. Tvs, everything, and it generates certain viewpoints, beliefs, from that space. And so now you carry a certain set of lenses and as you approach different dynamics, certain fears pop up.

Speaker 2:

And people hold themselves back and they stay in jobs they hate. They stay in maybe relationships that are bad for them. They never break out of their shell and make really. What it comes down to is risk. If you were going to ask me the question, danielle, how'd it go for you on this whole, coming out and saying you're a coach? I would say I've made a million mistakes. I have fallen flat on my face, but I've also picked myself back up and I've failed a lot in order to get to the place where I am. I think you have to fail a lot. I really I think you have to fail and fail again. And if you are afraid of failure, guess what? It's going to be pretty hard for you to make the shifts to create the fulfilling life and career you want. But if you're okay with falling on your face and be like whatever we all do, think about it. If you go onto any YouTube anything these days it's all about people failing Then what we just be okay with making a mistake when I worked at the domestic violence shelter.

Speaker 2:

I put a lot of work into getting to that role and it's a very meaningful part of my life now and I feel very strongly about that issue. But I remember being there and working with women and men who are in abusive situations and I was like, wow, I really don't want to do this as a profession. It just was not for me at all and I was thinking I've made a horrible mistake. And that's not true. In fact it's not a terrible mistake. It was a great thing for me to learn. But every day I have to do I've I try new things out every day. Oh, maybe I should try this, maybe I should try that, maybe I should work with that kind of client, maybe I should open this kind of program. But when you are the beginning of a transition, of trying to figure out what the direction of your life or career looks like, you have to be open to failing and whatever that feels like.

Speaker 1:

I would like to edify what you're saying around. Failure, right? Not failure in a sense that you carry self-pity and you suck and don't do this. Failure in a sense that without it, there's no opportunity to learn. And that's how we grow through certain desires that we're wasn't able to achieve in that particular moment, yes, and in that moment of not achieving it, what's the opportunity? The learning opportunity to grow, yeah, and we, we characterize that word failure as that.

Speaker 2:

Exactly yes. Here's a great case in point. I work with people who are career transition people and right now May 2025, things are not looking great in the job marketplace and people are worried about the economy and opportunities and, in fact, people are hunkering down more. I don't know. I think I'm just going to stay right where I am Not going to make any changes. But people look around. They say, okay, I'll play. So what about? You see that job, or you see something you might want to go for? Maybe you apply right, maybe you decide let me just see what happens, and I'm a big proponent of like why not just see?

Speaker 2:

Take a moment, If you don't get the interview, you get the big no reaction, which is really hard because you maybe put a lot of time in the application and then there's no response. Is that failure? Probably not. You could see it as failure. You could see it as oh my, my resume didn't even get looked at. Look at me I can't even get an interview for this position over here, and the reality is that you just tried. You just put yourself out there and experimented with something.

Speaker 2:

So when I started being a coach and this may have happened to you too you need to like. You might not get hired initially, or you might not get callbacks, or people are not reaching out to you, or I'm not getting a lot of clients, or whatever. It is. When you start anything new, any business, it takes a little work and maybe you make a mistake or maybe whatever, and it's hard. So if I had just taken the time, if I had looked at all those signals early in my coaching career as oh, people don't hire me, I have hardly any clients If I had done that, I would have closed up my shop and gone home. But the reality is that's not the reaction that's going to help me grow. What do I learn from that? And from there is where you grow is through adversity.

Speaker 1:

The other question is what's your self-reflection process? When things doesn't go to you, go your way. How are you self-reflecting? And then, what is the narrative of the thought? Is it positive feel of it or is it this negative feel of it? Yeah, inner critic or inner coach, which one shows up?

Speaker 2:

Which one shows up. That's exactly right, and you got to stop yourself before you get, because it's easy. We have a negativity bias in our brains, so, of course, the inner critics right there, ready to go.

Speaker 1:

We all have it Ready to talk you down, make you feel small, tell you you're not good enough, make you feel like you're stupid, but then your inner coach is the one that's let's think through this. There can be an opportunity that we're not seeing right now.

Speaker 2:

What was interesting about that Wow, good for you for actually even trying which is self-compassion. What could I do differently next time so that I could move forward? But that's a growth mindset which we want our kids to have, and all the parents out there. We want our kids to bounce back from adversity. We want them to pick themselves up when they fall down. We got to do it too, as parents and as adults. But we forget, and so then we allow the inner critic and then we shut down and we don't take action.

Speaker 2:

So the big difference between those who figure it out and move forward and those who don't are usually has to do with how they treat the challenges in their life. It's not the amazing opportunities and the lucky you hear stories about. I don't know why Oprah is in my mind, but Oprah talks about it all the time. She doesn't. She doesn't talk about every opportunity was thrown my way. That's not how she talks about it. She talks about how had to pick herself back up over and over and over again after lots of adversity, and then look at her now but it wasn't because things just worked out, and that is true for just about all of us.

Speaker 1:

Man, I bet your clients are lucky to have you as their coach.

Speaker 2:

Oh, you're so sweet. Same for you. You've got to help. There's all these people out there that really need to be helped. I needed help way back when. I'm sure you needed help too.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I always need help.

Speaker 2:

I always need help too.

Speaker 1:

But who are your clients?

Speaker 2:

They're mid to senior in their career, so they've been around for 15, up to 30, 35 years and usually it's they've hit some wall the same wall that I hit and they're trying to figure out what comes next. And sometimes they're government, sometimes they're academic, sometimes they're nonprofit, sometimes they're corporate. But usually it's not just about the mighty dollar anymore Climbing the ladder. It's not making more money although more money is always good it's really about fulfillment. So those are my clients. If they've got five, 10, 15 more years in the workforce, they can make it meaningful, make it real and make it high impact.

Speaker 1:

Okay, and how can you be found?

Speaker 2:

You can find me on LinkedIn. I love to connect, so connect with me on LinkedIn, and I have a free training I offer which helps people figure out career clarity, and so we'll try to make that available as well how to figure out your next step.

Speaker 1:

Tell me about the free offering.

Speaker 2:

It's a training on for those who are swimming in their ideas about what could come next. It's all about how we need to think about what that next career step looks like and how strengths, in particular, your superpowers, figure into it, and why skills matter but not as much as superpowers, and why you don't have to go back to school.

Speaker 1:

Okay, okay, okay, and they get that off your website, or?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, or yeah, we can include in the show notes or they can get off my website as well. Message me on LinkedIn and I'll get it to you.

Speaker 1:

Okay, and you want to tell us the website?

Speaker 2:

Yes, that's right. The website is time for wellbeing, so time for the number for wellbeingcom.

Speaker 1:

All right, and as we get ready to sign out, any lasting thoughts or message you would like to leave for the audience?

Speaker 2:

I would say it's never doubt what is possible, never doubt that you can reach your full potential, that you can actually make it happen. It's a long and winding road. It's not an easy road, but I've seen so many people go from lost to feeling like they have found their path, and it just takes tenacity, action and a great mindset.

Speaker 1:

Miss Danielle, thank you so much. I really enjoyed today's talk.

Speaker 2:

Same coach Mo. Thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for joining me in this episode of let's Think About it. Your time and attention are greatly appreciated. If you found value in today's discussion, I encourage you to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. Remember, the journey of self-improvement is ongoing and I'm here to support you every step of the way. Connect with me on social media for updates and insights. You can find me on Instagram and Facebook, at Coach Mo, coaching or LinkedIn, at Maurice Mabry, or visit my website at mauricemabrycom for exclusive content. Until next time, keep reflecting, keep growing and, most importantly, keep believing in yourself. Remember, the most effective way to do it is to do it Together. We're making incredible strides toward a better and more empowered you, so thank you, and I'll see you in our next episode.