Summary:

In this episode of The Joy CEO Podcast, Lori Pine explores what it truly means to find your North Star, the simple truth she arrived at after decades spent surviving a demanding career and raising her sons, with little room for a bigger question. Her north star today is radically small on purpose: help one person. In every phone call, coaching session, Connect gathering, and speaking event, that's the only question she's answering. .

This episode also challenges the common misconception that joy is something we earn once life is perfect. Lori explains why joy is different from happiness—it isn't dependent on circumstances, and it can exist alongside grief, uncertainty, or struggle. This episode makes the case that joy is the strategy, not the consolation prize, and closes with a direct question for the listener: who is the one person in front of you today, and what would it look like to let that be enough?

If you've been questioning your purpose, feeling disconnected from your work, or wondering what really matters, this episode offers a powerful invitation to return to yourself.

🔑 Key Takeaways:

Your North Star Isn't Found Outside of You

Titles, promotions, money, and recognition may feel like the destination, but they rarely provide lasting fulfillment. Your North Star is discovered by looking inward and identifying what truly gives your life meaning.

Audience follow-up → If no one could see your accomplishments, what work would still feel worth doing?

Helping One Person Is Enough

Lori shares how shifting from trying to reach everyone to intentionally helping one person changed everything. One conversation, one client, one post, or one act of encouragement can create a ripple effect you may never fully see.

Audience follow-up → Who is one person you can positively impact today?

Ego Chases Performance. Purpose Creates Impact.

There was a season when Lori believed saying "yes" to everything was the path to success. Looking back, she recognizes how ego often disguises itself as ambition. Real leadership comes from alignment, not constant proving.

Audience follow-up → Where are you saying yes because it feels expected instead of because it feels aligned?

Joy Is Different Than Happiness

Happiness depends on circumstances. Joy lives underneath every circumstance. It doesn't erase grief, disappointment, or uncertainty—but it can exist alongside them and guide how we lead.

Audience follow-up → What brings you back to yourself when life feels uncertain?

Small Daily Wins Build Real Confidence

Instead of measuring success by external milestones, Lori encourages listeners to audit the moments where they honored their values, kept promises to themselves, or made a meaningful difference.

Audience follow-up → At the end of today, what evidence will remind you that you lived in alignment with your North Star?

Let Joy Become Your Leadership Strategy

Joy isn't a reward reserved for after success—it becomes the strategy that helps you make better decisions, stay grounded, and lead with authenticity instead of exhaustion.

Audience follow-up → What would change if you let joy—not fear or achievement—guide your next decision?

🔎 Mentioned in the Episode:

• The concept of finding your personal North Star as your guiding purpose.
• The distinction between joy and happiness, and why joy is available regardless of circumstances.
• Lori's personal journey through career success, loss, survival seasons, and redefining leadership.
• The "One Person Mission"—measuring success by lives impacted rather than followers, titles, or recognition.
• Daily self-audits as a way to build confidence, self-trust, and self-esteem.

✨ Reflection Prompts:

• What has been your North Star up until now—and is it still serving you?
• Are your biggest decisions being driven by purpose or by performance?
• Where have you been measuring success by someone else's definition?
• What would it look like to help just one person today?
• If joy became your strategy instead of your reward, how would your leadership change?

🧠 Who This Episode Is For:

• Women leaders redefining what success looks like.
• Professionals who feel successful on paper but disconnected internally.
• High achievers recovering from burnout or constant striving.
• Entrepreneurs and executives searching for deeper purpose.
• Anyone wanting to lead with greater intention, joy, and lasting impact.

📩 Want to Go Deeper?

Follow Lori on LinkedIn to continue the conversation

• Book a Leadership Strategy Call with Lori: loripine.com

🎧 Subscribe to The Joy CEO Podcast

⭐️ Leave a review to help other heart-centered leaders find the show

📲 Share this episode with someone who’s navigating pressure and wants to do it with more grace

Transcript

Hello, I'm Lori Pine, the Joy CEO, and welcome to the Joy CEO podcast. This is a podcast for ambitious leaders who are trying to find more joy in their leadership. Not the fluffy kind of joy, but the real joy as a leadership strategy. If that is you, I am so pleased to have you here with us today. If you are new, welcome.

If you are returning, thank you for coming back. You know I am so pleased to have you here, and I just adore you. Today, we are going to talk about finding your North Star. You know, the real North Star, the one that is your real purpose and your mission. I often get asked, "How do you do what you do? How do you stay grounded, and how do you know what to say yes to?"

And what people are really asking is, "What is your North Star?" [00:01:00] It's a North Star sort of question. And I firmly believe that joy lives within us. It is not this existential thing that we are chasing, that when I get this, I can then have joy. When I get the title, when I get the husband, when I get the new house, when I get the promotion, I can then experience joy.

Au contraire, I believe that joy is within us at all times and can coexist with any other emotion. So no matter what else is going on, joy is one of those very high-vibrating emotions that can coexist. Can coexist with grief, can coexist with anger, can coexist with fear, can also coexist with happiness, and happiness is very different than joy.[00:02:00]

And so joy lives within us, but so does our North Star. And that is not necessarily found in a framework, but it is found inside of you So this episode is not about my North Star, though I'm going to tell you how I got to my North Star. But my story is just going to be a way to get you to look at your North Star.

So for me, this has been a long, long road. In fact, it's been decades in the making, and there were full-on decades where I was either just surviving, right? I was a single mother raising two little boys, just trying to keep my head above water. That was an entire decade. There was a decade in my 20s where I was just trying to figure out who I was.

It was a whole coming of age, [00:03:00] leave college, leave my home state of Maine, reestablish myself in a new city and a new job, kind of go through some of all of those falling from innocence sort of moments. And then, then there was life, life being lifey. Being let go from a job I loved in a major reorg, finding a new job, losing my mother to cancer.

And so through all of those iterations, I might have just been holding on for dear life, and the idea of a North Star was probably really superficial. I mean, let's scratch the word probably. It was very superficial. I was chasing titles. I wanted to be promoted to certain levels within the organization, and I was only going to be okay if my [00:04:00] externals were okay, if my security was okay.

And so if you're in that season right now, just trying to survive, just chasing a title, just making sure that your security is intact, I so get that. And so this episode isn't asking you to get anything figured out. It's just probing, like, how are you getting through the day? And is your North Star, in fact, aligned with who you really are on the inside?

So, for example, where I landed is that the North Star had to get down to the most simplest of simple brass tacks My North Star today is I am here to help one person. That's it. I produce this podcast [00:05:00] in the hopes that one person will listen and one person will hear one thing that benefits them. I coach so that when I show up on one phone call, I can give value to that one person, say one thing that may help them.

When I do my group coaching, that I'm there to give value and give something to that one group, that when I am in a one-on-one coaching scenario, one thing will translate to that one person that can be beneficial. One thing, one person. So I'm not trying to be a guru. I'm not trying to be the biggest and the best.

I spent a long time trying to do that. I wanted to be the biggest, the [00:06:00] best, the greatest, and that ego got me in some trouble. You know, it got me way outside of my hula hoop. It got me overextending myself, saying yes to things I'm should have been saying no to. It got me overly concerned with what people thought about me instead of what I thought about them.

And, you know, it complicated my mission. It complicated my North Star. And if my North Star had been this simple when I was in my corporate life, I might have done a better job than I did, even though I did a great job So, uh, the idea of my North Star really targeting just that simplicity of helping one person in every phone call, in every coaching session, in every speaking event.

I mean, [00:07:00] I can speak to two, three, 400 people. I'm just there for one person to take one little bit of information and have that be useful. And so your North Star might not be a phone call or a coaching session or a stage, but it might be a hallway conversation. It might be a text to somebody who needs some sort of encouragement that only you can provide.

It might be the way you walk into a room, that people need the assuredness that only you can provide. So it's the same sort of feeling, it's just in a different shape for you, your position, your abilities. Where does your version of this already show up, [00:08:00] even if you haven't named it yet? So I want you to think about that.

Where is your version of this already showing up, even if you haven't named it yet? Let's be honest about the thing that's h- the hardest s- to say out loud, and that's really the ego, and for me, it was the real grandiosity. Those are always in the mixed. You know, if, if you were sitting right here now and we were having a glass of iced tea on this 100-degree day in New York, I would tell you that there's a part of me that wants to be like Mel Robbins.

I wanna have a book, and I wanna go on tour, and I wanna have a speaking career, and I wanna go to Barnes & Noble on Fifth Avenue in New York City and pull up in a black SUV. But a lot of that's just my ego. I don't really know if that would, in fact, bring me joy. I mean, [00:09:00] maybe that's just exhausting, and maybe Mel Robbins is really tired from that sort of tour.

I don't know if having a million Instagram followers would bring me joy. I don't know if bigger, better, faster, more is really where joy lives for me today. But let me tell you, my ego sure does scream that it would bring me more joy And so if, if that applies to you, like every ambitious woman I know wants more.

I think I, I think I was born wanting more, wanting more of everything, you know, the promotion, the title, the recognition, the metric, the, the bonus, like all of it. I, I think I was just raised like that. Maybe not even [00:10:00] raised like that, but I was just... That was in me. When I got to one level, I was ready for the next, and when I got there, I was ready for the next.

And so kind of reverse engineering that and saying, "There's nothing wrong with wanting more and seeing it and chasing it and going after it." I love that ambition. But now I'm not necessarily closing the door on it I'm just saying that I don't know that that's my North Star. My North Star is in the mission, the mission of the impact, and I want the impact to land.

The impact of whose life can be improved because my specific thumbprint touched theirs. That's the difference. When I'm involved in my ego, it's just about me and look at me and look at what I can do. [00:11:00] I'm not really interested in that anymore. I'm interested in the impact and the difference and how rising tides raise all boats.

That's the difference. And that, you know, can change for all of us when we're less about us and more about the collective. And so I know that I can no longer steer the ship by just what is it that I want? What's my ego? It's too self-serving. And the moment, you know, that I'm able to really focus on just the one person and I'm measuring my days by the people impacted, everything changes.

I just did my first half of twenty twenty-six audit, and those are important. Doing an [00:12:00] audit is important, whether it's a weekly wins, you know, three, three wins every Friday just to let you know, let your brain know, and have a concrete realization that you actually did some good this week, whether it's monthly, quarterly, or for the first half or back half of the year.

But I did that this week, and it's astonishing when you put pen to paper what you've actually accomplished. I don't know about you, but my brain was like, "Oh, I really didn't do that much this first half of the year. I'm kinda slacking. I really better get it together the second half of the year." But that's not true.

When I put pen to paper, when I got out my calendar, when I got out my QuickBooks, when I got out the metrics, holy smokes. And why is that important? Esteemable acts build [00:13:00] esteem, and you want to feel good about the work you are doing, the mission you are out to accomplish by having facts that support what you have done My mission might seem small today, just to impact one person, where I used to lead a billion-dollar business.

But that does not mean my ambition has shrunk. It means that I'm crystal clear on my goal today. I know what I'm being called to do, and I know what it looks like when I've hit the goal. I could be at a networking event and somebody come up to me and say, "Hey, I listened to last week's podcast episode.

Holy smokes, that really impacted me." Check. Done. It could be that I'm out to dinner and somebody says, "I saw your post on Instagram. I [00:14:00] felt like you were talking to me." Check. Done. It could be a client who last week was named president of her company, welled up with tears and said, "Lori, if it hadn't been for you, this would not have happened."

Check, check. That is the payoff of me staying true to my mission. One person just for today that I can give my presence to, give my experience to, give my training to, and regardless of the outcome, I can show up, and that trumps follower count, that trumps standing ovations. You know, that's just better than all of that superficial stuff that my ego so [00:15:00] enjoys.

Why? Because I'm human. We never rise above the level of human. There's probably always going to be a part of me that wants that stuff, and there's no shame in that If I stay in that superficial stuff, I may never experience the joy. That's the point. It's in being in the North Star, knowing the North Star, that I get to experience the joy.

The joy is the strategy, not the consolation prize. So in knowing my North Star, joy is the strategy, and that's how it works for you, too. So we can have joy, and it isn't this settle for once the bigger dream doesn't pan out, it's, you know, we'll settle for the littler dream. That's not [00:16:00] it. It's know thyself.

Check in with you. Find that North Star for you so that your life doesn't just feel like a performance, where every day you're on a hamster wheel, lather, rinse, repeat, lather, rinse, repeat, and do it again and again and again as though you're performing and being graded under somebody else's rubric system.

This is your one wild and precious life. And so the test that you can use for your own North Star is does pointing at it feel like joy or does it feel like performing? That's it. Ask yourself that. So a few honest questions you can sit with. When do I most feel like myself? Not the most impressive version of [00:17:00] myself, but the most like myself, the authentic me.

Who did I help this week without posting about it or telling anyone? Who'd you help? If nobody else was looking, who did you help? What would I still want to do here if no one was ever going to see it? What would you do even if you weren't going to get paid for it? And the answer to those are closer to your North Star than any five-year plan.

Okay, so your North Star, it's within you, and so is joy. Joy is the strategy for your life. It is not the consolation prize or the payoff that comes after you've been a good girl or performed or done the thing that made somebody [00:18:00] else happy Who is the one person in front of you today that you can impact, whose life can be better because you were in it?

In the next meeting, in the next call, in the next conversation, even with your own kids, how can you show up with joy as the strategy? And what would it look like to just let that be enough? Not forever, not forever, just for today, to let that be enough. I want you to know that this is possible. I am living proof that this is possible.

I walked away from a billion-dollar career. I became a stay-at-home mom. I now run my own company. I still have a roof over my head. I'm incredibly grateful, and life is really, really [00:19:00] good, and the work that I put in the world today brings me so much joy, as do you, my friend. You being here, you showing up week after week is really part of the joy.

If you need help with your North Star, send me a note. Find me on Instagram, LinkedIn, lori@loripine.com. Let me know how I can help you. I'm so glad to be doing it with you. Until next week, have a great day. Thanks for listening to The Joy CEO. I hope today's conversation left you feeling seen, stretched, and a little more grounded in your own joy.

If something resonated, be sure to hit Subscribe, leave a five-star review, and share this episode with someone walking a similar path. And if you're ready to take this work deeper, connect with me on LinkedIn or Instagram, @loripine, or head over to my website, loripine.com, to learn more about coaching, [00:20:00] retreats, and how we can work together.