What happens when you achieve the life you were told to want… and realize it isn’t yours?

In this episode of Surviving the Side Hustle, Rob sits down with Florian Kemmerich — founder of On Vocation, author, investor, and global thought leader — to explore what it truly means to align your work with who you are.

At just 33 years old, Florian walked away from a high-level corporate career, a marriage, and a version of “success” that looked good on paper but felt empty in real life. What followed was a deep personal reckoning that led him to ask a question most people avoid:

Am I living my life — or just responding to expectations?

This conversation is a powerful invitation for anyone who feels successful, capable, and busy… yet quietly disconnected from meaning.

Florian shares that most education systems teach us how to make a living, not how to live a life. We learn skills, roles, and expectations — but rarely pause to ask what we are actually here to contribute.

That gap eventually shows up as:

• Midlife crises
• Burnout
• Divorce
• The “golden handcuffs” feeling
• Or the quiet regret of “I was too busy to live.”

Despite external success, Florian realized he was hiding behind competence, achievement, and identity. A coaching process helped him see that beneath the armor was an unexpressed inner calling — something ignored since childhood.

His realization:

“I had been the absent subject of my own education.”

One of the most powerful distinctions in this episode is the difference between:

• Externally driven imagination (fame, money, approval)
• Internally driven intuition (service, contribution, meaning)

A vocation isn’t about titles or outcomes — it’s about dedicating your skills in service of something greater than yourself.

You don’t need to burn your life down or abandon your experience. Florian emphasizes that vocation and skill set must work together.

Just like Rob’s transition from strength & conditioning into performance coaching, your skills transfer — the context changes.

Vocation answers:

• Why do I care?
  Skill set answers:
• How do I contribute?

Florian developed a practical, repeatable process to help people:

1. Cut through noise
2. Identify their vocation
3. Define a theory of change
4. Choose where to apply it
5. Build stamina & perseverance
6. Measure impact
7. Design a meaningful professional path

This framework now lives in his book On Vocation, with more books and a gamified platform on the way.

• 🌍 Website & Book: on-vocation.com
• 📖 On Vocation: Aligning Purpose with Profession
• 🔜 Upcoming books on Purpose & Business and Purpose & Capital

Vocation isn’t about quitting everything.
It’s about choosing consciously.

When your work becomes an expression of who you are, effort feels different.
Contribution feels energizing.
And success stops feeling hollow.

As always — reflect honestly, choose intentionally, and keep surviving the side hustle.