🎙️ EPISODE 026: The Universe Doesn’t Respond to Performance
September 22, 2025
The Illusion of Performance-Based Leadership
You’ve been conditioned your whole life to perform. At school, you were rewarded for the right answers. At work, you were promoted for appearances of control. In relationships, love was often tied to how well you played the role that was expected of you. And somewhere along the way, performance became your currency.
Here’s what I know: the mask is convincing. You’ve worn it so long that people actually believe it’s you. Polished. Competent. Unshakable. But here’s what keeps you awake at 3am - the quiet knowing that the version of you who wins applause is not the version of you who feels free. The mask is heavy, and you’re tired of carrying it.
You’ve mastered the optics of leadership. You can enter a boardroom, a stage, or a dinner table and play the part flawlessly. You smile in the right places. You adjust your tone to make others comfortable. You say what’s expected, not what’s real. And it works. It works so well that people call you powerful. But deep down, you know it’s performance, not power.
And here’s the cost. Every time you perform, you split. You fracture. One part of you plays the role, while the real you waits in the wings, hoping to be let out. That fracture leaks energy. It’s why you feel drained even when you’re “winning.” It’s why you lie awake replaying conversations you wish you’d said differently. It’s why every achievement feels anticlimactic.
You tell yourself you should be grateful: after all, you’ve worked hard to get here. But gratitude doesn’t erase the emptiness of success that isn’t aligned. And the truth is, the mask doesn’t get you closer to what you want. It gets you applause, but it doesn’t get you peace. It gets you recognition, but not fulfillment.
Here’s what makes this even more brutal: the people clapping for your performance don’t see the cost. They don’t see you at night, staring at the ceiling, wondering how much longer you can keep this up. They don’t hear the whisper in your chest that says, this can’t be it. They don’t feel the pressure of constantly having to outdo your last act, because the mask always demands more.
And you know what? There’s a part of you that’s furious about it. Because you’re not weak. You’ve survived things that would have broken other people. You’ve built empires from the ashes. You’ve proven resilience again and again. You know you’re powerful, but you also know you’re not meant to spend your life proving it on repeat.
Leadership built on performance is a house of cards. It looks impressive, but one gust of truth will collapse it. Real leadership - the kind that bends rooms, moves industries, and rewrites lives - doesn’t come from performing. It comes from embodiment. From being so aligned with who you are that your presence alone shifts the space.
And here’s the beautiful part: that’s not out of reach. You already feel it in flashes - moments when you speak without rehearsing, when you stand in a room and everyone leans in without you trying, when you move from instinct instead of pressure. Those flashes? That’s who you really are. That’s the leader you’re here to be.
The illusion is thinking the mask is safer. That performance will protect you. But safety doesn’t come from performing. It comes from congruence. And the only way to build it, hold it, and expand it is to stop leading from the mask and start leading from the frequency of truth.
How Your Energy Leaks When You Fake It
Your body never lies. It knows when you’re faking it, even if no one else can see it.
Think about those moments when you walk into a room and paste on a smile. Outwardly, you’re composed. Inside? Your chest is tight, your throat feels heavy, your breath is shallow. That tension? That’s the signal that you’re betraying yourself, my friend. And every self-betrayal comes with a cost.
You feel it in business when you sell from fear. You over-explain, you drop your price before anyone asks, you pad your offer with bonuses you don’t even want to deliver - because deep down you don’t believe your voice alone is enough. And you walk away drained, replaying the conversation, knowing you gave away your power.
You feel it in relationships when you say yes out of obligation. When you keep the peace instead of speaking the truth. When you silence yourself to keep someone else comfortable. Each time, your energy leaks. You think you’re avoiding conflict, but what you’re really doing is abandoning yourself.
You even feel it in the mirror. You’ve played the role so long that you can’t always tell where the mask ends and you begin. You look successful, but you don’t feel it. And that disconnect eats at you quietly, especially at 3am, when the applause has faded and it’s just you and the ceiling.
This is what no one tells you: leaked energy is wasted power. You can perform perfectly, but if your energy doesn’t match your actions, the results won’t stick. You’ll hit the goal, but you’ll sabotage it. You’ll attract the client, but you won’t feel safe holding the money. You’ll win the opportunity, but it won’t feel like freedom.
And here’s the hardest truth: the Universe doesn’t care about your mask. It doesn’t respond to the show. It mirrors your frequency. Which means if you’re acting powerful but feeling powerless, powerless is what comes back. If you’re saying yes when your body is screaming no, the yes won’t hold.
The leaks are subtle, but they’re costly. They bleed out your confidence, your money, your trust in yourself. And the longer you ignore them, the more exhausted you become. That exhaustion you feel- the one coffee can’t fix, the one a vacation can’t cure - that’s not burnout. That’s the cost of living out of congruence.
But here’s what I need you to remember: you don’t leak energy when you’re aligned. When you’re embodied, your words land, your presence holds, your results stick. You don’t have to push to be heard, because your frequency does the work for you. That’s the difference between performing and being. One drains. The other sustains.
And if you’ve been wondering why success feels heavy, why money feels inconsistent, why no matter how much you achieve it still feels unstable - it’s not because you’re broken. It’s because you’ve been leaking. The good news? Leaks can be sealed. Integrity can be restored. Alignment can be embodied.
That’s where your power comes back. Not by rehearsing harder. Not by stacking more masks. But by closing the leaks and choosing congruence.
Why Authenticity Isn’t About Sharing - It’s About Being
Authenticity is one of those buzzwords that gets thrown around so much it’s lost its meaning. You’ve been told to “just be authentic” as if that means spilling your guts online, oversharing the details of your life, or constantly proving that you’re relatable.
But here’s the thing - oversharing isn’t authenticity. It’s still performance. It’s still managing perception. You’ve just swapped one mask for another.
Think about the times you’ve posted something vulnerable - not because it came from a clean, aligned place, but because you thought it would land better, get engagement, make people trust you. In that moment, it wasn’t your truth speaking. It was the part of you still trying to earn approval.
And here’s the thought that keeps circling at 3am: Do people actually know me? If I stripped away the role, the story, the content I curate - would they still stay? Would they still find me valuable? That question haunts you because deep down, you know that what you’re showing isn’t the full truth.
Authenticity isn’t about how much you share. It’s about the energy you share it from. You can tell the same story two different ways: one from performance, one from embodiment. Performance drains, embodiment resonates. People may not consciously know the difference, but they feel it.
When you’re authentic, you don’t have to try so hard. You don’t have to manage every angle, craft every word, or constantly look over your shoulder. Your presence does the heavy lifting. People are drawn in, not because you told them who you are, but because you’re being it.
And when you’re not authentic, when you’re performing under the guise of being “real”, the cost is brutal. You walk away from conversations or posts feeling hollow. The applause lands, but it doesn’t satisfy. You keep upping the performance, hoping the emptiness will fade. But it doesn’t.
Here’s the deeper truth: authenticity is congruence. It’s when your inner world and outer expression match. It’s when your words are clean, your body is aligned, your actions mirror your truth. And the Universe responds to that congruence. It doesn’t care about how much you share. It cares about whether what you’re being matches what you’re saying.
The power of authenticity is that it can’t be faked. You can’t trick frequency. You can’t out-strategize energy. And that’s why the woman who embodies her truth always outshines the one who performs her version of it.
How the Universe Matches Internal Alignment
The Universe doesn’t care about your performance. It doesn’t care about the polished smile, the curated feed, or the clever script you’ve rehearsed. You can work harder, push louder, and execute the strategy flawlessly, but if your internal state is fear, lack, or desperation, that’s exactly what gets mirrored back.
This is why you keep asking yourself at night, “Why does it always feel like I’m doing everything right but getting the wrong results?” Because the truth is: you’re not creating from what you’re doing. You’re creating from what you’re being.
Here’s what that looks like: you launch an offer, but underneath the pitch is the thought, “What if no one buys?” That fear is what reverberates. Not the copy. Not the bonuses. The fear.
You post online, but underneath the words is the energy, “I hope they like me. I hope this makes me look credible.” That hope is scarcity. And scarcity is what gets mirrored back.
You walk into a room, but under the composure is the whisper, “Don’t see how tired I am. Don’t see how close I am to breaking.” That fragility is what people feel. And the Universe amplifies what’s true, not what’s performed.
This is why two women can take the exact same action and create completely different results. One posts from embodiment, the other posts from performance. Same action, different state. The first lands. The second fizzles.
The Universe isn’t transactional. It isn’t rewarding hustle points. It’s mirroring congruence. And the most magnetic leaders are the ones who are internally aligned. Their words, their energy, their actions - they match. That’s what creates inevitability.
And you’ve felt glimpses of this. Those moments where you spoke without rehearsing, and the room shifted. Those times when you said no to something out of pure instinct, and a better opportunity appeared. Those flashes when you moved from clean alignment and everything clicked into place.
That’s the real game. Alignment collapses timelines faster than any strategy ever could. When your inner frequency matches the reality you say you want, the outer world organizes itself to meet you.
But if you keep leading from misalignment, here’s what happens: you get results, but they don’t hold. You make money, but it slips away. You gain influence, but you feel more invisible than ever. You build the empire, but it doesn’t feel like freedom. Because the Universe can’t sustain what isn’t congruent.
This is why the path forward isn’t “more doing.” It’s alignment. It’s sealing the leaks, choosing truth over performance, and letting the energy of who you’re being drive the results you’ve been chasing.
Building Rituals of Integrity + Embodiment
Embodiment isn’t a one-time decision - it’s a daily practice. You don’t become the woman who bends rooms, commands respect, and collapses timelines by accident. You become her by anchoring into who you are, over and over again, until performance is no longer your reflex and truth becomes your default.
This is where ritual matters. Not as another box to check, not as a rigid routine, but as an intentional way of bringing your inner world into congruence with the results you want to create. Rituals are how you practice being her, until “her” is just you.
It looks like starting your day not with your to-do list, but with a frequency lock-in. Choosing the state you’re going to embody before the world tries to choose it for you. It looks like sacral check-ins throughout the day that sound like, “am I truly a yes to this?” Or am I performing again? It looks like closing your day with reflection, not judgment that sounds like “...where did I embody, and where did I leak?”
These practices don’t take hours. They take intention. And the more consistent you are, the more they rewire your nervous system, your self-image, and your identity. That’s when embodiment stops being something you reach for, and becomes the way you live.
And here’s the truth: when you live in integrity with yourself, you stop performing for the world. You stop bleeding energy trying to earn love, success, or approval. You move from a place of wholeness, not fracture. From congruence, not compromise.
That’s the frequency the Universe can’t resist. That’s when money stabilizes, opportunities multiply, relationships shift. Not because you chased harder, but because you became the woman who no longer leaks, no longer fractures, no longer abandons herself for applause.
The rituals are the bridge. They’re how you collapse the gap between knowing and being. Between the mask and the truth. Between performance and power. And when you choose them, you’re not just building habits, you’re building the identity of a woman who leads without pretending.
And that’s the woman the Universe responds to. Every time.
Closing...
If this episode cracked something open for you…if it exposed where you’ve been performing instead of embodying, then I want you to take the next step with me. Like, subscribe, and leave a review for the Rewired to Rise Podcast (https://rewiredtorisepodcast.com/episodes). Every review helps this work reach the women who are ready to burn the mask and rise into their true power. And if you loved this, share it with the women in your circle who are done performing and ready to embody. Because that’s how we shift the collective frequency, together. Thank you for letting me spend this morning, afternoon or evening with you, and once again I am your host Tanya-Marie Dubé.