What happens when you achieve the life you were told to want… and realize it doesn’t actually feel like yours?

This week’s conversation with Florian Kemmerich, founder of On Vocation, explores a quiet but powerful truth many high performers face: success doesn’t always equal fulfillment. This episode isn’t about quitting your job or blowing up your life — it’s about choosing your life consciously instead of inheriting it unconsciously.

Most high performers aren’t failing — they’re functioning.

They’re capable, respected, productive, and doing “everything right.” And that’s exactly why the deeper questions get postponed. Education and career paths teach us how to make a living, but rarely ask:

• What do I actually care about?
• What feels meaningful to contribute?
• What kind of life would I choose if I wasn’t responding to expectations?

That gap doesn’t show up immediately. It shows up later as burnout, golden handcuffs, quiet dissatisfaction, or the feeling of being busy all day but disconnected from yourself.

As Florian put it:

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

Florian introduces the idea of vocation — not as a title or outcome, but as alignment.

A vocation isn’t about status or external validation. It’s about dedicating your skills in service of something greater than yourself.

The key distinction he makes:

• Imagination is externally driven (money, recognition, approval).
• Intuition is internally driven (service, responsibility, meaning).

You don’t have to abandon your experience to follow your vocation.
Vocation answers why you care.
Your skill set answers how you contribute.

Avoiding these questions doesn’t make them disappear — it delays them.

The longer you delay conscious choice, the higher the cost:

• Over-identification with money or status
• Quiet regret
• Feeling like you never really chose your life

As Florian said:

“Work becomes exhausting when it’s disconnected from who you are.”

This episode aligns directly with Prime Principle: Clarity.

Clarity isn’t about having all the answers — it’s about asking better questions and acting intentionally instead of reactively.

If this episode resonated, this is exactly the work we do inside Prime Performance Coaching and the Momentum Mastermind:

• Clarifying who you are becoming
• Aligning effort with intention
• Turning awareness into momentum
• Designing a life and business that actually fits you

You don’t need to abandon your life — you need to author it.

To dive deeper into Florian’s work:

• 📘 Book: On Vocation – Aligning Purpose with Profession
• 🌍 Website: on-vocation.com

Florian also has upcoming books on Purpose & Business and Purpose & Capital, along with future workshops and a gamified platform.

You don’t need to figure everything out today.

But you do need the courage to ask the question honestly:

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

As always:
Reflect honestly. Choose intentionally.
And keep surviving the side hustle.

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.

Here’s a hard truth most high performers don’t want to hear:
Your body isn’t slowing you down — your ignorance of it is.

In this Friday Recap, Rob breaks down the biggest lessons from this week’s conversation with Beth Mielbrecht, a health coach with 35 years of experience as a mechanical engineer. Beth doesn’t treat health as mysterious or spiritualized — she treats it as a system. And systems, when understood, can be fixed.

This episode is a wake-up call for driven side hustlers, solopreneurs, and high achievers who believe they can outwork the consequences of neglecting their health. It’s not about working less — it’s about stopping the habit of treating your body like it’s disposable.

If you’re building something meaningful and pushing through pain, fatigue, or burnout “just a little longer,” this recap will change how you think about performance, recovery, and long-term success.

Most people don’t neglect their bodies because they’re lazy — they do it because they’re driven, capable, and under pressure. The lie we tell ourselves is: “Once I hit this milestone, then I’ll take care of myself.”
The problem? The goalpost always moves.

Beth reframed this perfectly:

If you don’t schedule recovery, your body will schedule it for you — and it won’t be convenient.

Beth spent 35 years as a mechanical engineer. Engineers don’t accept “there’s nothing you can do.” They assume problems have causes and systems can be understood.

She didn’t abandon that identity — she layered it into health. The human body follows logic, patterns, and cause-and-effect just like any other system.

Beth offers a short 10-question quiz to help identify where your system is out of balance and what to focus on first.

👉 Visit YourHealthWithBeth.com to take the quiz and access her private podcast.

Your body isn’t a disposable tool — it’s a business partner you can’t replace.

Ask. Listen. Take action.
And remember: you don’t hustle your way to freedom — you build capacity for it.