Hi Reader,

Is fulfillment a destination?

Provided you agree that being fulfilled is an immutable emotion connected to achievement or purpose (or both), do you believe it's a destination?

What happens when you arrive at a destination such as?

A job title or seniority.

A financial goal.

A personal goal.

For many, arrival at such a destination is a momentary feeling of satisfaction, maybe even joy.

But, the momentary nature of that feeling is what catches us off guard.

It turns out that the way to cope with this is the same way of coping with job loss.

That may sound counter intuitive, but that's what this week's episode 293 is about.

This week's episode is part 3 of 4 on self-leadership where I cover the same empty feeling one can experience due to a job loss or to reaching a goal, and what to do about it.

In episode 293 you'll hear about a concept known as The Arrival Fallacy, coined by Harvard Psychologist, Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar. If this explains how you felt when you "arrived," now you know you're in good company.

You'll also hear about the hedonic treadmill, that feeling when you achieve a goal and you quickly set the next goal, and the next goal, and the next goal without experiencing sustained fulfillment.

In this week's episode 293 my main point is this.

"Whether you have lost your job or reached the top of your career, the emptiness you feel comes from the same structural problem: building your life on a single support. Harvard psychologist Tal Ben Shahar called it the Arrival Fallacy, the belief that hitting the goal will finally bring lasting fulfillment. It never does. And for high achievers, the instinct to set a bigger goal only keeps you running on the hedonic treadmill. The way forward for both the job seeker and the successful but empty achiever is identical: stop, take an honest inventory of where your life actually is right now, and check whether the weight of your life is spread across the things you genuinely value. That inventory is the first real step toward a life that holds."

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The Coach's Corner

Weekly insights and actionable tips from my lens as an executive coach—helping you lead, grow, and thrive.

The Four Moves That Determine Whether Your Team Survives AI Change or Thrives In It

In The Human Dividend White Paper, I introduce the concept of the Fear Tax, the invisible performance drag that builds when people don’t trust the intent behind a major change, like an AI rollout. Job hugging adds a second layer to that tax, and it’s one most leaders aren’t watching for.

Think about what’s happening inside the mind of a job-hugging employee. They’re already navigating uncertainty about how AI might reshape their role internally, or even eliminate it entirely. At the same time, they’ve concluded that the door to anywhere else is closed. That’s not a recipe for renewed commitment. It’s a recipe for someone who shows up, does the minimum required to stay safe, and quietly disengages from anything beyond their job description.

Four Essential Moves to Thrive in AI Transformation

The Leadership Parallel

There's something else worth calling out here, and it connects back to the four-part podcast series I'm currently releasing on self leadership. The individual facing a silent job search has to find what they can still control when the external circumstances offer nothing back. Leaders are facing a version of the same challenge.

You can't control the job market. You can't undo what AI screening has done to the hiring process, and you can't promise your team that external opportunities will open back up anytime soon. What you can control is whether the people inside your organization feel that they're being equipped for what's ahead, or simply managed until something changes.

That's the Human Dividend. Not the efficiency AI creates, but what you do with the space it opens up. For a job-hugging employee, that dividend might be the difference between someone who stays and slowly fades, and someone who stays and rediscovers why their contribution matters.

The door outside may feel closed for a lot of people right now. The question for leaders to ask is what kind of room you're giving them on the inside.

Continue reading this article.

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You Can Catch This Week's Episode:

Listen on Apple
Listen on Spotify
Listen on Overcast
Listen on our Website
Watch on YouTube

What Losing Your Job and Reaching the Top Have in Common

What if the person who just lost their job and the person who finally got everything they ever wanted are actually facing the exact same problem? One had their foundation knocked out from under them. The other built theirs so high they can barely see the ground anymore. Different circumstances, different bank accounts, different Monday mornings but underneath it all, the same quiet ache. That's what episode 293 is about.

Who This Is For

This episode is for you if you are in the middle of a hard job search and wondering whether the problem is bigger than your resume. It is also for you if your career is going well by every measurable standard and you still find yourself thinking, wait, is this it? If either of those hit close to home, you are in the right place.

Five Key Takeaways

The Arrival Fallacy is real and almost nobody talks about it. Harvard psychologist Tal Ben Shahar coined the term to describe a belief most of us carry without ever saying it out loud: that once we hit the goal, the title, the milestone, we will finally feel complete. He identified it as a trap, not a truth. And if you have ever arrived somewhere you worked years to reach and felt almost nothing, you already know he was right.
You cannot out-achieve this feeling. For high achievers, the instinct when something feels off is to set a bigger goal. But the hedonic treadmill means the next goal produces the same brief spike and the same return to empty. Achieving is the one tool that does not work here.
Height is not the same as stability. Building one pillar of your life sky high is not the same as building a life that holds. The person whose career collapsed and the person at the top of theirs arrived at the same place through opposite routes.
Gratitude is not the answer to this one. Telling someone who is balanced on a single support to just be grateful misses the point entirely. The issue is never appreciation. The issue is structural.
The same three questions apply to both situations. What fulfills me right now? What are my values right now? How aligned is my actual life with those values? These questions work whether you are rebuilding from a setback or standing at a summit that feels surprisingly quiet.

Summary

Episode 293 is the third in a four-part Self-Leadership Series. The high achiever who did everything right and still feels empty. I make the case that this is not a gratitude problem or a goal-size problem. It is a structural problem, and it is the exact same structural problem facing anyone whose career has been disrupted by forces outside their control. Both roads lead to the same honest inventory. Episode 4 is where that inventory becomes a plan, and where I hand you the free 90 Day Self Leadership Blueprint to get you started.