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- [00:00]
Anne Morris
Hey listeners, we want your questions. Are you early in your career and trying to find meaning in the job hunt? Are you looking back on years in one industry and wondering if you found your life's work yet or if you might have missed it when thinking about your purpose and how it ties to your career? Whatever's on your mind, we want to hear from you. Send us your questions by emailing fixableed.com and we'll deliver you answers in a special series coming soon.
- [00:32]
Toyota/Capital One Sponsor Voice
This episode is sponsored by Toyota. Independence is one of those words that sounds simple, but when you really think about it, it's deeply personal. For some people it's about freedom. For others, it's about flexibility or just having options that actually fit your life. That idea shows up in interesting ways in the tools we choose, especially now as more people think about switching to electric vehicles. Toyota's approach is to give people real choice with their new all electric family, the bz, the BZ Woodland and the C hr. Each vehicle is designed a little differently for different kinds of lives. So whether independence means getting through your day more efficiently or having the freedom to explore what's next, it's about finding something that works for you. Learn more at toyota.com, the new all electric family Toyota. Let's go places.
- [01:19]
Nick and Jack (Best One Yet Podcast Hosts)
Hey Yetis, this is Nick and Jack from the Best One yet podcast. Now, the last company we worked at, they used Paylocity and everything just worked. It wasn't until launching our own media business this show that we realized how rare that is. Because Paylocity is one delicious burrito of operational needs. They roll up HR finance and it seamlessly into one delicious bite. When everything wraps together like that all at once, your workforce, your tech stack, your business. You don't need more tools. You don't even need cilantro. You need one solution and and that is why Paylocity built a single platform to connect hr, finance and IT with AI driven insights and automated workflows that simplify the complex and power what's next. Or as we call it, a delicious operational burrito. Yes, we do experience a one place for all. Your HCM needs besties. So start now at paylocity.com1paylocity.com o n
- [02:08]
Arun Gupta
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- [02:12]
Anne Morris
Frances we are coming to the end of our Purpose at Work series. I have surprised myself by how much I have enjoyed this. We've talked to some really interesting folks about what gets them out of bed in the morning and keeps them going in the face of setbacks and uncertainty. It has been super energizing to include all of these voices in a conversation I feel like you and I have been having with each other for, like, our whole lives.
- [02:43]
Frances Frey
When people get more in touch with their purpose, I don't think it's like an incremental improvement in their lives. I think it is a dramatic improvement. So I have been unexpectedly surprised at how helpful this series has been.
- [02:58]
Anne Morris
Yeah. One of the things I realized coming into this episode is that I haven't officially asked you how purpose has operated in your life, at least not in front of our fixable audience. So let me ask for the record, how are you thinking about purpose these days, particularly when there's so much chaos and disruption and uncertainty in the world? It's not a small question.
- [03:23]
Frances Frey
Well, my operations roots will show, I think, in my answer to this, which is I think about purpose in terms of the capacity of people, of other people, and how do I get them in touch with not only their full capacity, but how do we help them dramatically increase their capacity? And when I'm doing that, I don't even notice time. I don't notice effort. I don't notice anything. And so it's being in touch with the enhancing the capacity of others and then trying to let them live fully into it.
- [04:02]
Anne Morris
First of all, that was beautiful and resonates in my experience of you. Does it feel more urgent for you given the state of the world or where you are in your own life?
- [04:13]
Toyota/Capital One Sponsor Voice
No.
- [04:14]
Frances Frey
You know, we've said that we need more leaders. And leaders, fortunately, are not just at the top of the hierarchy. They're everywhere. We need more leaders unleashing what's possible in others.
- [04:29]
Anne Morris
Well, one of the reasons I'm excited to talk to our guest today is that he, in kind of a similar way, is making the case that purpose is the answer to what so many people are feeling in the year of our Lord 2026. This is Fixable, a show where we take the problems at work that feel unfixable and prove that they're not. I'm Anne Morris.
- [04:58]
Frances Frey
And I'm Frances Frey.
- [05:00]
Anne Morris
Listeners, before we get to our interview today, I want to invite you to stick around after our conversation to hear our thoughts on our Purpose at Work series. Frances and I have really loved making the last five episodes and wanted to take a minute to reflect on what we've learned from all of our fantastic guests. So hang in there with us. And first, our guest today is Arun Gupta. Arun is a longtime investor and the CEO of the Noble Reach Foundation. He spent his career helping people find ways to serve something bigger than themselves. He lectures at Georgetown and Stanford, where he teaches the popular course Valley meets Mission. He's also the co author of the new book the Mission Generation.
- [05:42]
Frances Frey
I am so excited for people to learn about this book.
- [05:45]
Anne Morris
Yes. And join the movement that is the Mission Generation. Let's bring him in. Arun Gupta, welcome to Fixable and thank
- [06:03]
Arun Gupta
you for having me.
- [06:04]
Anne Morris
We're delighted you're here. We have been talking to a whole bunch of high profile people for a series about purpose at work. And Arun, we wanted to end with you because we think you're saying something really big and important about purpose. And I'm going to have the audacity, audacity to try to summarize it and then you tell me how close we are to getting it right. So what I think I hear you saying is that purpose is the answer to all of our fears and anxiety, which are at an all time high as a species right now. Is that in fact what you're saying?
- [06:45]
Arun Gupta
We'll start with the punchline and I'll work. How do I get there? But the short answer is yes, is what we're saying.
- [06:51]
Anne Morris
Very exciting.
- [06:53]
Arun Gupta
And how we get there though, is that what you're alluding to? You know, in the world that we're living in, where we've got so much change going on right now. Right. And especially for this younger generation, as they look at their post Covid, you see geopolitical conflict, you see environmental conflict, you see great power competition emerging, you see AI, you know, transforming jobs. That's a lot of swirl, that's a lot of history in a short period of time. And that swirl, it's not clear that that's going to change going forward. We're going to be living in a world that's kind of constantly an accelerating change going on. The systems that we've built, however, Anne and Francis to date have been built for a more stable world. And so what we contend is that those old scripts were great for looking back, but they're not what we need looking forward to. And especially when we start talking about career pathways. The pathways that our careers were built on were really around prestige markers, institutions that we want to be part of, or job titles we want to have. Those are getting disrupted real time. And I think that's the anxiety that many people are feeling. What we contend is the stabilizing force then going forward is going to be purpose. It's going to be, what problem do you care about? That's what we need to be building our careers around. Around Those problems. And then more importantly, as things get disrupted, how do you navigate and create fluency around those problems across different institutions, across different sectors? And I think that's the transition that we're in right now. And so we argue that stability actually is the new risk. Like, it's riskier to go do the stable thing. And yet that's what our systems have been built for, because we as humans are wired to want stability and security over happiness.
- [08:33]
Anne Morris
Yeah. And so your point seems to be that we now have to generate our own internal stability as opposed to outsourcing it to these now wobbly institutions and roles.
- [08:46]
Arun Gupta
Not only our own stability, but our own sense of meaning and purpose. We've outsourced meaning and purpose to the institution. Right, right. You tell me what the career pathway is, I'll go do it. And then, you know, hence we have, you know, shows like Severance, making fun of that. You know, like, we create this duplicitous lifestyle. We're now moving into a world where that contract is broken, where we can't expect the institution to be providing us stability with. That means that agency is falling back onto the individual. And while that can feel disconcerting to many because it's the first time they're actually having to think about, like, what do I really want to go do. We contend also, though, that it can be very empowering once you get on the other side of it.
- [09:25]
Anne Morris
Yeah, there's a whole bunch of agency in this approach to the world. Just to ground it for people listening. When you see somebody doing this, well, what does it look like?
- [09:34]
Arun Gupta
You know, what it looks like is someone that has focused their career on a problem that they care about and then have moved across different sectors and solving it. That could be doing it as an entrepreneur, it could be doing it as an academic, it could be having worked in a large corporation, it could be working at an ngo. But their stabilizing force around it is a certain issue that they care about. And those issues could change over time. But they're not as enamored with saying, like, I need to be part of this institution because that gives me my identity.
- [10:06]
Anne Morris
Let me take a skeptics role on, on two pieces of this. So you are coming into this conversation as a man with Stanford, Georgetown, Harvard Business School, all these institutions attached to your name. For people listening who are like, sure, Mr. Gupta, like, you're at a place in your life where you can dismiss these things as kind of icons of the past, but you also have the safety and security of having checked all These boxes.
- [10:33]
Arun Gupta
Yeah, no, I think that's an important thing to address. A few things have changed. You know, when I came out 30 years ago, it was a more stable environment. And those prestige markers could provide you that stability to allow you to go create those career pathways. I'm just contending in the world that we're in today, if I were coming out and look, I've got two boys coming out of school, I've got a daughter that's a sophomore in high school, we're not directing them down a pathway that says, hey, go do X, Y, Z. Because then here's how you're going to map out the next 20 years. We're recognizing and having those conversations that the world you're walking into is like, find the things that you care about. But look, the other thing in this is that when my dad had one job for 40 years, I had one career. That was the way I was raised. These kids going forward are going to have four to six careers going forward. That's the scaffolding that we're trying to bring to them. Like when I was coming out of school, I felt like I had to get on one conveyor belt and that conveyor belt was going to take me through for 30 years. What we're arguing today is that those days have gone and coming in today, the jobs that I'd go after thinking that they were stable, those are the exact jobs that people are getting disrupted with. And that's what's creating the anxiety. Because you have a group of people feel like I did all the right things and now I've gotten here and now those jobs are not materializing in the way I thought they should.
- [11:57]
Anne Morris
And so your point is that the North Star in this environment is an internal sense of purpose and meaning.
- [12:04]
Arun Gupta
Yeah. But it's also aligning it not in isolation from being able to do well.
- [12:11]
Anne Morris
Let me push on this a little bit. So why can't my purpose be to create the financial security that I didn't grow up with or to keep my family safe? I think sometimes these questions of the pursuit of wealth or the pursuit of prosperity get dismissed as this superficial ego driven drive that we often have. But often it comes from a place of security and safety. And I know a lot of people who find deep meaning in the challenge of creating a sense of safety that they didn't necessarily inherit.
- [12:50]
Arun Gupta
What you just described there is totally fine and is perfectly acceptable. It's going through that thinking of like, is this my purpose? What we're contending is a lot of Folks just follow the herd. A lot of folks just follow the current, and they're externally motivated without doing that thinking. What you just articulated there is very thoughtful. There's a reason of why you're doing it. When we talk about purpose, it doesn't need to be, again, altruism, but it is a sense of being thoughtful about the why you're doing what you're doing. What we're saying is the prestige markers as they get disrupted. The only thing that's going to be stable then is you understanding why you're doing what you're doing. When that disruption takes place, that why will be your stabilizing force. In fact, I say this in my class. If you want to go do the traditional thing, go do it, but just know why you're doing it. Yeah, right.
- [13:41]
Anne Morris
Yeah.
- [13:42]
Arun Gupta
So that's really the point. It's not about having judgment around. My purpose is greater than your purpose. It's just about knowing what your purpose is.
- [13:50]
Anne Morris
So I want to get into kind of the how of how to do this. Francis, anything you want to jump in with here?
- [13:56]
Frances Frey
I've been at the Harvard Business School for, I think, three decades now, and in all three of those decades, we have been encouraging students with exactly what you're saying now, which is know why you're doing it. Don't just follow the herd. So what I'm trying to tease out in my mind, I believe there is something about this moment that makes it even more poignant, but I don't yet know what that is.
- [14:20]
Arun Gupta
Yeah, Francis, I'll take a shot at maybe trying to answer what's different about the moment we're in. And I do think it goes back to the conversation with Anne around just the confluence of events as creating this uncertainty and anxiousness when it gets really unstable, like he's in the world that we're in right now. I think people reach out to others to want to be part of something bigger than I think that's where we are right now. When I talk to young folks, there's a real resonance around, like, I want to be part of something. I want to feel like I'm having some level of impact in a way that I pre Covid I was not seeing that honestly, in the same students I was teaching. What's different about this moment is, I think, where students heads are or young folks are as they're looking to embark on their careers. I think when I was graduating, there was a sense of your life had thirds. Your first third was you learn. Your second third was you took what you learned and you go earned. Then your last third is when you return, you give back. That was something you did at the end of your career. I think what we're seeing as a disruptive force right now is that people are realizing this idea of monetizing what I've learned. The shelf life of that has condensed. I can't go learn a skill and monetize it for 20 years. In fact, it's obsolete after one or two. But also the idea of purpose being something I do later is being pulled in.
- [15:45]
Anne Morris
Arun, I'd love to get into some of the way you describe the how of this more entrepreneurial approach, which really resonated for me in the book. It has a very venture infused kind of lean, lean philosophy. And you're transferring that to the unit of a life or a career, which feels really right to me. Talk to us a little bit about this process, what it feels like, how you recommend people approach this.
- [16:15]
Arun Gupta
So one of the things that we talk about, you know, when you go around and ask folks, you know, what's your net worth? They're going to probably write down a number that some probably summation of their savings account, investment portfolio and real estate assets. And we define net worth in our society in a very financial way. So we shouldn't be surprised that our systems then are built around that and support that. And then how people make decisions feed off of that. And I saw this firsthand teaching at a business school where students would be making job decisions based on what the signing bonus was and the expected salaries were. And you'd say, look, close your laptop and let's talk about the big picture here. And so what we talk about are the hidden capitals. What are the other capitals that really matter? And we use capital intentionally because we believe, like financial capital, that if you invest in them early and consistently over time, not equally, but consistently, they will compound. And that compounding has a value to you. And so those other capitals that we talk about include mission capital, like finding, you know, impact and purpose. Because that meaning, ultimately, as I tell my students, you will have a reckoning. You can go so far without having any meaning. That could be five years, 20 years, or 30 years, but at some point you're going to feel like hollow. And so identifying what that could be like. The second, you know, we talk about is learning capital, you know, not in the context of skills, but in the context of curiosity. What are the right questions to ask, you know, and in a world of AI, that's going to become incredibly important, experiential capital. In a world where AI goes after IQ over eq, the experiences that you have, the diversity of experiences you have, is what brings you unique human judgment to it. It's not going to be the skill that could get automated trust capital. The relationships you've built, arguably in a world of AI, trust capital will be incredibly more important. And then finally, health capital, one of the things we're writing about, our systems are currently set up for 20, 30 year careers. We're walking into a world where we're going to have 60 year careers. I mean, young folks are going to be living longer. So the idea of doing One thing for 60 years is also kind of a daunting activity.
- [18:32]
Anne Morris
And again, when you say mission, I don't know that we've established this because name of the book is mission Generation. You're not talking about a single generation as we typically understand.
- [18:42]
Arun Gupta
Yes, I'm glad you mentioned that, Ann. And we're absolutely not. When we talk about the mission generation and we debated this, like, do we call it mission generations? But we talk about the mission generation not being about age, but about agency. It's a group of folks that really want to combine personal ambition and civic responsibility as they build their careers at
- [19:01]
Anne Morris
any age, at any life stage, at any age.
- [19:03]
Arun Gupta
That can be early mid what we realized as we were writing it, it's the same questions, the same frameworks apply, they just manifest themselves differently. If you're 25, getting starting a career or late 30s, early 40s, maybe two kids and in a mortgage, or, you know, late 50s and about to be an empty nester, thinking about, like, what's the next 20 years look like? And so all of that can be part of the mission generation and the way we define it.
- [19:27]
Anne Morris
All right, once we find our mission, you suggest steps for turning purpose into action. You call it the mission flywheel.
- [19:33]
Arun Gupta
It starts with, you know, recognizing what are the problems that you care about, what are the things that give you energy, that you light up the second piece of it and that ties to your mission capital. And hopefully over time you've been able to accumulate something that gives you a sense of like, what are the things you care about. The next step then is reframing and thinking about what have I learned? Like, what skills have I built? I think the biggest thing many times for folks, especially in the mid and late career stage around identifying, you know, pivots is this idea of like, I'm starting over again, like, do I really want to, Like, I've invested all this time here. Do I really Want to start over again in a new space or sector? We haven't given language to all the accumulated experiences, skills and people that you've built. You're really not starting all over again. In some ways, you have a beginner's mindset, but you're applying a wealth of accumulated capitals to bear in this new domain. To your point, I think the piece that's very venture y entrepreneurially is you got to run experiments.
- [20:30]
Anne Morris
What's a good experiment in purpose and mission?
- [20:34]
Arun Gupta
Yeah. So, you know, look, in a world that's changing really rapidly, it's not good enough to just sit there and think about, like, what do I care about? Cause clarity doesn't bring action. Acting will bring you clarity.
- [20:44]
Anne Morris
Arin, I really like your advice just to be in motion. Take action, reflect as you go, but keep moving. And I think. I think that's a really powerful part of what you're saying.
- [20:55]
Arun Gupta
Yeah, but it can happen by, you know, whether it be a side hustle, it could be happened by taking a new class of something that you care about. It could happen by volunteering on an issue that you care about. For me, it started with even guest lecturing at universities to think about if teaching is something that I care about. Then I went into started teaching and I thought, like, oh, maybe I want to be part of an institution. And then I sat through meetings with academics and I was like, ah, this isn't me. So, like, I was able to find where in that construct where I would get energy from and what part of that was like energy that wasn't for me. And so it's those kinds of experiments that you can run. Once you identify that you've run these experiments, you know, what you want to double down on, then double down on it and resource the scale and, you know, think about, like, how you sustain that over time.
- [21:53]
Anne Morris
This episode is powered by AT&T Business. I was thinking recently about those early days of building something of your own. It's not just the little things. You're building the whole plane as you fly it. Think of those mornings you might find yourself sitting in a crowded coffee shop or the back of a library, hunched over a laptop and just hoping the public wi fi would hold long enough to upload a pitch. It's a stressful way to start a day and an even harder way to build a legacy. You're working from wherever you can, piecing things together, hoping everything holds. And it's funny, connectivity is one of those things you don't really think about until it becomes a problem. And when it does, it can throw everything off. The last thing you want is to be worrying about whether things are going to work when you need them to. That's why AT&T business is a great provider for small business owners. It's built to work so you can stay focused on what you're building. Powered by AT&T Business Built to Work get today at business.att.com here's something we've all experienced and somehow still accept as sitting on hold, repeating yourself, explaining the same problem to the fifth person who picks up this episode is brought to you by Parloa, the AI platform built to make that a thing of the past. Parloa's AI agents work 247 across voice, chat and email in any language, and with zero wait time. They remember every customer interaction so no one ever has to start over. The result? Service that doesn't feel like a transaction, it feels like being known. The world's biggest brands already trust Parloa to deliver customer experiences at enterprise scale. Because when loyalty is on the line, good enough simply isn't. See Parloa's AI agents in action at parloa.com that's P-A-R L O A.com.
- [23:51]
Toyota/Capital One Sponsor Voice
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- [24:34]
Anne Morris
I want to get into kind of some of the threats to this way of living. You call them forms of resistance. You've written that being stuck is not failure, which I think is a really important part to underline, because I think there are points we can get stuck in this evolution. It's a signal. So what's the signal in being stuck?
- [24:55]
Arun Gupta
The signal in being stuck is that there's a gap growing between what you're doing and who you're becoming. And I say it in that context because it's who you're becoming that's creating the gap, not the decision you made five years ago or 10 years ago. I feel a lot of times when people feel stuck, they're like, oh God, I wish I hadn't done X or I wish I hadn't done Y. Now I'm stuck. And then they're left looking backwards and they're left not moving. When you think of it as a signal, it's saying like, hey, I'm just becoming someone different. You know, Carl Jung, as we talk about it, you know, it's called individuation. I mean there's terms for this, right? So it's not like we're inventing it. People talk about this and this is just a maturity and growing, like, hey, look, maybe what I'm doing today was based on what people's expectations were of me. But like, as I keep doing it, like I'm realizing like what I really care about is X. And that's just through a shared level of experiences. People I've met, things that I've done. And that's what we're trying to highlight. Right.
- [25:59]
Anne Morris
And that's why emotions are data.
- [26:01]
Arun Gupta
Yep. Yeah, emotions are data. But also that like look forward, not backwards. Right. I think there's a posture element to this as well. And that, you know, the intrinsic thing is to, as soon as you feel stuck is to say, how did, why did I, why do I feel stuck? And what decision led me here? Like I took the wrong road. And all we're saying is like, maybe you took the right road for the time, at the time and maybe now you're at a, you know, you're at a crossroads of saying like, you want to do something different and that's, that's fine. And then think about like, how do you fill that gap? And so that's what we mean by that.
- [26:36]
Anne Morris
Yeah, I love your framing. It's a gap between where you are and who you are becoming. So you mentioned forms of resistance as threats to this way of living around. So the first is, is psychological resistance which you define as the voice inside telling us that we're not ready or we don't belong. In your experience kind of coaching young people just starting off on their careers, how do you tell the difference between like healthy, clear eyed self awareness and psychological resistance?
- [27:14]
Frances Frey
I'm not ready for the NBA because I'm not ready for the NBA versus
- [27:21]
Anne Morris
this is a big one.
- [27:23]
Arun Gupta
Look, I think part of the inner resistance that we talk about here is the notion of am I prepared? Am I, can I do this? And implicit in that is a level of self awareness of what is it that I can do and what is it that I can't do. But I also think it's somewhat around how do I frame doing it? I'll explain what I mean. I think many times we as individuals, when we're making a decision like this, think about like, well if I do it and what if it doesn't work? What if it doesn't go right? And so we focus on what could go wrong with a decision. That's the inner resistance, like to focus in on the downside. I think that's very natural, it's very human. But I also think we overestimate risk. Now think about what if it goes right. This is where I think most people underestimate and spend the least amount of time is really thinking about what happens if it goes right. If it goes right and you go like I'm marginally better than where I am, it's probably not worth the risk. But if it could be transformative to where I am, why not?
- [28:32]
Anne Morris
Yeah, I think that's all really good practical advice. Okay, let's do relational resistance. So this is friends, families, loved ones telling you to slow it down or throwing flags that you're making the wrong choices. It often comes wrapped in genuine love and protectiveness. It's not always wrong. We have a 18 year old kid, we're launching into the world right now. When I ask him to slow down or make good decisions or think carefully kind of about risk of reward of his decisions. If we take his perspective now,
- [29:13]
Arun Gupta
how
- [29:13]
Anne Morris
does he handle that input and also handle me and the other voices around him that are coming from such a well meaning place?
- [29:22]
Arun Gupta
Having kids slightly older, this is hard. And it's hard as a parent, probably hardest as a parent when you're thinking about your child because you're trying to protect them and you're trying to provide them stability. I think that the person getting the input needs to bring the folks giving the input into their thinking and bring them into their why. Why is it that you want to do it? What is it that you want to go do? Have them be part of the journey. Have them be part of the thinking around that.
- [29:59]
Anne Morris
Yep. All right, so let's say I'm a manager, listening, and I want to bring more purpose and meaning to the work of my team. What advice do you have for me?
- [30:12]
Arun Gupta
I think the way you bring purpose doesn't need to be only in the outcome of the work that you do. Right. It could be in the how you do your work during your coffee break, et cetera. Like, you know, ask if two of them want to just Sit down and ask them about how they're doing. Like, you know, take them out to lunch. You know, make your team around you feel better, make them feel heard, make them feel part of something. You know, let them into you with a sense of vulnerability. Because you know, even though you're spending all this time with individuals, much of that time is alone. It's not really opening up and getting to know one another. So acts of kindness can go a long way if you're a more senior person, how you mentor folks. And back to the point that we were making, I do this with my team of trying to ask them what are their aspirations and then are there people in my network that I can connect them with so that they could go have coffee with. To me that's all a sense of purpose or right is the idea that we're all looking out for each other.
- [31:13]
Anne Morris
Francis, I want to go back to the team question and ask you this because we have seen teams and organizations getting in touch with their noble purpose in an authentic way. Do you have any advice for people who hear that it resonates, they want to bring their team or organization closer to it. Just practically how you do that?
- [31:37]
Frances Frey
Yeah, the word that comes to mind to me is co production. So I want to make sure that my team, that they're really like satisfying the Thomas the Train useful engine, not towards profits, towards purpose. So that I can demonstrate, see that I'm making, let's call it the customer or the client better off. That's the first one is understanding. So in healthcare, am I helping make my patients healthier?
- [32:06]
Nick and Jack (Best One Yet Podcast Hosts)
Right.
- [32:06]
Frances Frey
So I think it's the agency, I like the word that you used of being Thomas the Train useful. And it's also, I mean in my experience, people have an unlimited amount of energy for doing things for others and a limited amount of energies for doing things for self. So it's, you know, I find that the other distracted people don't burn out nearly as quickly as the self distracted people.
- [32:39]
Anne Morris
And we see cautionary tales of organizations moving in the wrong direction. So the Toyota story that we have shared before, but it might be worth just revisiting, I think that's part of Boeing's journey over the last few decades of starting as you know, and thriving as this purpose driven organization and then kind of losing their way, getting distracted
- [33:03]
Frances Frey
by being what I would call self distracted on profit. By the way, worst way to make profit is to get self distracted on profit. Like profit needs to be a manifestation of something more noble if you want it to be ongoing. But I think if you can get people in touch with the other part of the distraction, it's gonna solve a lot of these problems. I think it's in the runes, you know, what problem are you? And I bet if we watched him have conversations with people, it would be solving problems for others, not yourself. Like without, without your saying it. I feel it as unsaid and I think so that, that to me is getting people other oriented. You know, when we watch our kids and kids our age kids, our kids age, they start with problems that they're facing. And honestly it's where all the first Internet companies came in. Right. And it's what's wrong with all of those companies is that they never stopped being self distracted. But the ones with real purpose are the ones that are solving needs for others. And that's I think where it becomes pretty glorious.
- [34:12]
Arun Gupta
And it becomes glorious. Francis, I love the way you frame that in that I think what we're also finding is those firms are able to attract better talent because it's much more sustainable. Right. And in many of those things of solving problems for others aren't simple problems. And so you need these folks aligned for not like a two year quick flip, but like a seven to ten year like you know, product run. And they're there.
- [34:40]
Anne Morris
Yeah. And Arun, to that point, I think this is your world. But the best venture capitalists approach these problems with that kind of patience and that kind of timeline. Like if we're, if we're taking a big enough swing, this isn't like a three to five year run.
- [34:56]
Arun Gupta
That's exactly right.
- [34:57]
Anne Morris
Like if we're gonna, if, if our ambition is big enough in, in terms of the worthiness and nobility of problem we're solving, then it looks a little bit different than the traditional venture model. If someone's listening and tomorrow they just, they wanna make their current job more, more purposeful, more meaningful, what's one step they can take tomorrow?
- [35:17]
Arun Gupta
I would really, on day one, really take an inventory of your capitals. Then just think of one thing on each of those that you can do differently. So on trust capital, what's one relationship that you can go reach out to? On health capital, what's one thing that you can invest in for yourself? Because self care is important. On experiential capital, what's one thing that you can do to give yourself just a different experience, something that you haven't done before, get yourself out of your comfort zone, Learning capital. Like what's one question that you hadn't really pondered that you just want to think about, you know, to really get your curiosity going and think about your mission capital. Like, what's the one? You know, what's one. What's one group? What's one other that you want to impact, as Francis was just saying. You know, I think using that as a framework, I say one in each because I think all of those are important over time, again, all of them aren't going to be moving in the same direction and the same quantity. Quantity consistently. But I think it starts getting you moving in a more holistic manner.
- [36:17]
Anne Morris
And those are all things that are totally within our control.
- [36:21]
Frances Frey
It's a really nice part of it.
- [36:22]
Arun Gupta
Yeah, they're all within your control, and they're all very human.
- [36:25]
Anne Morris
Okay. Finally, a question we ask all our guests. What are you currently fixated on outside of work?
- [36:32]
Arun Gupta
Oh, gosh. You know, outside of work right now, you know, I think it is really family, honestly, I feel like for my wife and I, we're in this new phase where we've got two boys that are now adulting. We've got a daughter that in a year and a half, two years will be going off to college. And so I think what I'm fixated on is it's enjoying this transition period, thinking about what that looks like for us, even going forward. It's one thing to be talking about it for others, but, you know, if I'm being honest, you know, we're celebrating our 30th anniversary this year.
- [37:05]
Anne Morris
Congratulations.
- [37:06]
Arun Gupta
So there's a. You know, I think for me, there's a lot of that all kind of coming together, you know, in August. And so I think that's where a lot of share of mind has been.
- [37:15]
Anne Morris
Arun, what advice do you have for us? We have two boys who are starting to adult. What advice do you have for us? It's daunting.
- [37:23]
Arun Gupta
It is daunting. I think my daughter will be able to adult sooner than they will coming out of school.
- [37:30]
Anne Morris
We have no comment. Shocked to hear you say that.
- [37:37]
Arun Gupta
Yeah. No, I don't. Look, I think the only advice I've started to really hold on to is just let them figure it out, because they will. And it may take a bit of time, but they ultimately get there. The other thing with our kids, I do say separate out what matters from the noise and, like, the big decisions that you got to get right, like, is who you want to be with, you know, on the journey of life. Not, like, oh, what job did I get here? Or what did I, you know, like, so focus on. Make sure you get the Big ones, right? And the, and the, and the noise stuff will kind of fall.
- [38:15]
Anne Morris
Arun Gupta, thank you for coming on Fixable.
- [38:19]
Arun Gupta
Thank you for having me. This is a great conversation. I really enjoyed it.
- [38:38]
Nick and Jack (Best One Yet Podcast Hosts)
Hey Yetis, this is Nick and Jack from the Best One yet podcast. Now, the last company we worked at, they used Paylocity and everything just worked. It wasn't until launching our own media business this show that we realized how rare that is. Because Paylocity is one delicious burrito of operational needs. They roll up HR for finance and it seamlessly into one delicious bite. When everything wraps together like that all at once, your workforce, your tech stack, your business, you don't need more tools. You don't even need cilantro. You need one solution. And that is why Paylocity built a single platform to connect hr, finance and IT with AI driven insights and automated workflows that simplify the complex and power what's next. Or as we call it, a delicious operational burrito. Yes, we do experience a one place for all your HCM needs besties. So start now at paylocity.com 1paylocity.com O
- [39:28]
Toyota/Capital One Sponsor Voice
N E With no fees or minimums on checking accounts, it's no wonder the Capital One bank guy is so passionate about banking. With Capital One. If he were here, he wouldn't just tell you about no fees or minimums. He'd also talk about how most Capital One cafes are open seven days a week to assist with your banking needs. Yep, even on weekends it's pretty much all he talks about. In a good way. What's in your wallet? Terms apply see capitalone.com bank capital1na member FDIC
- [39:59]
Anne Morris
this episode is brought to you by Capital One. Capital One's tech team isn't just talking about multi agentic AI.
- [40:06]
Frances Frey
They already deployed one.
- [40:08]
Anne Morris
It's called Chat Concierge and it's simplifying car shopping using self reflection and layered reasoning with live API checks. It doesn't just help buyers find a car they love, it helps schedule a test drive, get pre approved for financing and estimate trade in value. Advanced, intuitive and deployed. That's how they stack. That's technology at Capital One. Frances, we made it. All of our episodes of purpose at work are out into the world. I'm feeling a sense of achievement on this one. I want to do just a quick recap of who we talk to and then I'd love to get into some of the lessons that you and I are together and separately taking away from these conversations. How does that sound? It sounds great. So we kicked it off talking to Molly Graham about the risk reward of really pursuing a purpose driven career. One of the things that is so remarkable about Molly is just her own tolerance for fear and uncertainty and not knowing the answer before she takes these really big and interesting swings. And you know, one of the things I took away from that conversation is that this is going to require a stronger stomach than a more traditional path.
- [41:34]
Frances Frey
Yeah, it will feel like we're jumping off cliffs a little bit more. So we have to build the resilience to do that and, you know, wear good clothes so that you, you know, bumpers and, and the like.
- [41:46]
Anne Morris
Yeah, we don't have to grow wings.
- [41:48]
Frances Frey
No, no, no, no.
- [41:50]
Anne Morris
But we do have to be able to survive a couple. Couple bumps.
- [41:53]
Frances Frey
A couple bumps along the way. A couple bumps.
- [41:56]
Anne Morris
So then we talked to Emily the recruiter about many things, but. But also about not outsourcing your purpose entirely to work. You weren't able to join us for that conversation, but I know you listen to it word for word.
- [42:11]
Frances Frey
I loved that episode so much. I feel like if I were looking for a job, it was just expert hands for guidance. And if I was the parent of someone looking for the job, really good insight into the job market today. And so just the practicality of it, but then also the spirituality of it. I don't even know what else to call it that about where do you derive meaning? And she has a beautiful architecture of where meaning can come from. And spoiler, it's a stack of things and work is only one of them. And so if work is doing it, great, and if it's not, there are other ways also to do it. So it was really inside a very practical thing. It was, how do you construct a life? And I was just deeply moved by the conversation that the two of you had.
- [43:05]
Anne Morris
Then we got to talk to our old friend Jodi Kanter, which was such a fun reunion about the urgency of meaningful work and then what it takes to go out there and not just find it, but create it. To be in touch with our agency in building our lives around that kind of meaning and impact. And of course, what an astonishing messenger she is for that.
- [43:34]
Frances Frey
She is an aspiration for the agency that you can, that you can take and the can do spirit. Like, I loved how she. She not only has it, but she's really thinking hard about how to cultivate it in others.
- [43:49]
Anne Morris
Well, I had the privilege of going out to Vancouver for the TED Talk and talking with the amazing Yara Shahidi and her mom, Kerry Salter, about What a purpose driven, creative life looks and feels like. And I know this part of it was very resonant for you too, Frances, what it looks and feels like to bring your loved ones with you. I mean, it was so cool to talk to both of them and not just see and hear the story of their deep collaboration, but really, you know, be in the room and feel it.
- [44:27]
Frances Frey
You know, what I really appreciated about that conversation is that we can bring our loved ones along in traditional way, you and I, like, we work together. That's one way to do it. But we can also.
- [44:38]
Anne Morris
Annfrancis.com right?
- [44:40]
Frances Frey
Annanfrancis.com but we can also bring our loved ones along when we have very separate things that we do during the day. And I thought that was a very poignant message.
- [44:52]
Anne Morris
Yeah. And of course, part of their story is that they did that informally. You know, they collaborated informally for a long time, playing distinct roles in the creative process, and then finally realized, oh, we could formalize this collaboration. We could start a product company, we could put a company, we could start a production company.
- [45:12]
Frances Frey
I think not enough families work together.
- [45:15]
Anne Morris
I know, I know, I know it's
- [45:18]
Frances Frey
not a popular opinion, but I just. I believe it.
- [45:21]
Anne Morris
Yeah, not enough loved ones work with one another. I don't endorse that. And finally, we just had the pleasure of talking to Arun Gupta and how purpose can create an internal stability even when the world is feeling unstable, and really guide a life and career. And I just love that he put words to that and underlined it, because I think it's a message people really, really need to hear right now. So when we put all of these conversations together, I want to try to pull out a couple of meta lessons and we'll just. We'll just see if we get somewhere interesting here. My first one is from everyone we talk to. I heard some variant on the idea of paying attention to what brings you to life. So the power of your own vitality as a metric to pay attention to as you kind of explore this idea of purpose and meaning. What are you doing? Who are you talking to? What are you experiencing? What are you looking at? Where are you in the world when you feel most alive? And that was very resonant for me. I always hear you say some version of, you know, if an anthropologist.
- [46:43]
Frances Frey
That's exactly what I just wrote down. Yeah, exactly what I just wrote down. If an anthropologist followed you around, what would they observe? And to your question, when would they observe? You were at your most vital, your, you know, your vitality score and actually, I like to know it for the highs and the lows. I think learning happens at the extremes, both extremes. And as you have coached me, what are you seeing? What are you smelling? What are you doing? Who are you with? What are you hearing? All of it. But if you take that perspective and you're curious, not judgmental about all of it, you're just curious about narrating it, then you can bring intentionality, then everything is fixable. That's like our premise. And so. But golly, do you need an accurate diagnosis before you go in and change things. And so have your inner anthropologist help you with an accurate diagnosis and pay deep attention to the extremes.
- [47:44]
Anne Morris
So, Frances, I'm professionally obligated to ask, what are you doing? Thinking, feeling, eating, experiencing when you feel most alive.
- [47:57]
Frances Frey
I feel most alive when I am pursuing so cousin of purpose, when I am pursuing the act of democratizing access to education. And I think I would gnaw off a limb to do that. So I've spent my career providing access to education to a few people. And what now brings me alive is to keep doing it for the few, but to do it for many, many, many more people. And so the anthropologist would see a spike when I'm in front of thousands, whether it's online or in very large classrooms, trying to unleash the capacity of people, trying to both build the capabilities of people and to unleash them in the world. Now, the ways in which I do it and the urgency with which I do it is heightened now. I have a deep sense of time and a deep appreciation of time. As you know, the last year has been I've been on my own healthcare, my own health journey. I'm recovering from cancer. I'm fine. Everybody went through the gruesome parts of the treatment. I'm now on the lovely parts of the treatment. But it really has left me with. I don't want to waste time. I don't want to waste time. And so I feel more directness and more urgency in getting after it. And so there's any listeners, I would say don't wait to the aftermath of a health diagnosis to get after it
- [49:40]
Anne Morris
urgently to get after it.
- [49:44]
Frances Frey
I think to the extent that you can marshal the urgency of what you're supposed to be doing. And it's so clear. I'm supposed to be removing the obstacles that I see as pebbles and people experience as boulders. And my job is to point them out and help them sweep them away. The irony is I've been a teacher for three decades and I feel like I now understand what it means to be a teacher. And that's what I, you know, I could do anything I want. That's what I choose to do. And that means try to serve as an inflection point in people's lives.
- [50:22]
Anne Morris
What's really interesting about this conversation is where you started in describing your purpose has evolved into the language I would use to describe my own purpose almost exactly. But I feel like we are very different people on overlapping but sometimes parallel mission. The language that our listeners have heard in this series and that I think is most resonant for me now is to play a catalytic role in the evolution of someone else.
- [50:59]
Frances Frey
Yeah, here's where I would say we're different. I have a max 15 minutes, one on one with somebody, one time, 15 minutes.
- [51:08]
Arun Gupta
Hope it works.
- [51:11]
Frances Frey
Otherwise, I have a strict one to many philosophy. You, yes, you can do one to many, but you're just getting started in the 15 minutes. Like you can do the layers and layers of intimacy. So I'm sweeping away the pebbles that they're misperceiving as boulders. You are changing the wiring. I think we probably. We appreciate each other so much because we can see what one another does.
- [51:37]
Anne Morris
That's very gracious framing. It brings me to another lesson on my list of lessons from these conversations, Frances, which is bring other people with you. Do not attempt this alone.
- [51:52]
Toyota/Capital One Sponsor Voice
Yeah.
- [51:52]
Anne Morris
You know, Jodi's astonishing career has involved deep collaboration with other people. There's mentorship from her grandmother. You know, Yara and Carrie just kind of revealed it in their own deep cloud. But there's a piece to this that is about the social creatures that we are, and also what's possible in terms of realizing our purpose and ambition. And the possibility of impact just goes up exponentially when we go together.
- [52:32]
Frances Frey
I love it. And it is a learning by doing sport to get better at it. In the beginning, expect the collaboration to not only not be 1 plus 1 is 10, 1 plus 1 might be 0 in the beginning as you're learning it. Because collaboration, I think it's a skill that we can learn, but it's not a skill we appreciate. We just kind of think, oh, it worked because of magic or not. I don't believe that. I actually think we can be great collaborators, but we haven't been given the secret memo on how to learn how to do it. So I would say give grace. In the early stages of collaboration, you know, you and I have grown into being magnificent collaborators. But it was. I don't know if you remember back in the day I was not a very fun person to collaborate with.
- [53:21]
Anne Morris
I do remember back in the day. I think I remember that moment well because I said to you, I cannot collaborate under these conditions. I remember this vividly.
- [53:29]
Frances Frey
Totally visceral. I go back to the exact same inflection point, and because it was at that point where I realized I just thought collaboration, it either was or wasn't. And at that point, I was like, oh, it's a skill, and I suck at it. But I'm gonna now, I vow to now learn how to get better at it.
- [53:49]
Anne Morris
Beautiful. All right, I'll give you my last one. And, you know, Molly got us started on this, but this idea that our tolerance for risk, uncertainty, and instability is a major factor in our ability to do this. And then for me, what it motivated is to bring some of that beautiful curiosity to those questions of how do we define safety? How do we define security? What is it that we think we need? What is it that we actually need? Security is a core human need, but we default to these things that I think we learn at a very young age that do not necessarily serve us into adulthood and middle age and stages beyond. And so the power of really interrogating it and understanding it and bringing that stuff to the surface as part of this search for meaning and impact and mission. To me, they are very intertwined. And then I think so many people we talk to. For me, Jody was the one who most directly really challenge that. Just back to our anthropologists, just looking at, like, our own definition of safety with clear eyes. So we understand how it's operating in our lives and how it may be getting in the way of. Of this variable that creates so much meaning and vitality in a life without dealing with the safety stuff, you can't really lean in to some of these ideas.
- [55:43]
Frances Frey
You know, as. As someone who has. In my history, I've had too much safety and security, like an overabundance. So I was too cautious, and I've had too little safety and security. And so I feel like I have an appreciation for both sides of it. But, wow, is it good to interrogate and take action. And a surplus of safety and security is not actually a very good thing. And a deficiency is for sure not a good thing. And we go about closing those gaps very differently.
- [56:14]
Anne Morris
All right, Frances, we're gonna leave it here. We had a great time. We hope you, our listeners, also enjoyed this. We're gonna do another series in the fall on power and influence.
- [56:23]
Frances Frey
And if you're wondering, will all of our series begin with the letter P. If I have any say in it, who will
- [56:31]
Anne Morris
just soothes me. My wife's brain is a pattern seeking machine.
- [56:39]
Frances Frey
Indeed it is.
- [56:40]
Anne Morris
And you love a good alliteration. So from now on, all series shall begin with the letter P. There it is. You heard it here first. Thanks everyone. If you're enjoying this show, make sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and tell a friend to check us out. Fixable is a podcast brought to you by Ted and Pushkin Industries. It's hosted by me, Anne Morris and me, Frances Fry. This episode was produced by Trina Menino. Our team includes Constanza Gallardo, Banban Chang, Daniela Baloraso and Roxanne and hi Lash.
- [57:27]
Frances Frey
Our show is mixed by Louis at Storyyard.
- [57:42]
Toyota/Capital One Sponsor Voice
This episode is sponsored by Toyota. There's something powerful about momentum. That feeling when things are moving forward, when you're not stuck, you're not waiting, you're just going to. That's true in life and it's true in how we move through the world. Toyota's new all electric vehicles are built to support that kind of momentum. Whether it's the quick acceleration of the C hr, the versatility of the BZ or the capability of the BZ Woodland. And with access to a growing network of chargers including Tesla superchargers, it's designed to keep you moving, not slowing you down. Because capability isn't just about power, it's about removing friction. Learn more at toyota.com, the new all electric family Toyota. Let's go places.
- [58:23]
Nick and Jack (Best One Yet Podcast Hosts)
Hey Yetis, this is Nick and Jack from the Best One yet podcast. Now, the last company we worked at, they used Paylocity and everything just worked. It wasn't until launching our own media business this show that we realized how rare that is. Because Paylocity is one delicious burrito of operational needs. They roll up HR finance and it seamlessly into one delicious bite. When everything wraps together like that all at once, your workforce, your tech stack, your business. You don't need more tool. You don't even need cilantro. You need one solution. And that is why Paylocity built a single platform to connect HR finance and IT with AI driven insights and automated workflows that simplify the complex and power. What's next? Or as we call it, a delicious operational burrito. Yes, we do experience a one place for all your HCM needs besties. So start now at paylocity.com 1paylocity.com O
- [59:12]
Frances Frey
N E Are you really buying a
- [59:15]
Arun Gupta
car online on autotrader right now. Really? At a playground?
- [59:19]
Anne Morris
Yeah, really. Look at these listings from dealers.
- [59:21]
Arun Gupta
Wow, your search can really get that specific.
- [59:24]
Anne Morris
Really?
- [59:24]
Arun Gupta
And you just put in your info and boom. Car's in your budget.
- [59:28]
Anne Morris
Mom needs a second. Honey, you can really have it delivered. Really? Or I can pick it up at the dealership. One sec, sweetie. Mommy's buying a car. Mommy, look.
- [59:37]
Arun Gupta
I think kid is walking up the slide. Kyle. Again?
- [59:40]
Anne Morris
Really? Autotrader. Buy your car online. Really?
- [59:44]
Toyota/Capital One Sponsor Voice
With no fees or minimums on checking accounts. It's no wonder the Capital One bank guy is so passionate about banking with Capital One. If he were here, he wouldn't just tell you about no fees or minimums. He'd also talk about how most Capital One cafes are open seven days a week to assist with your banking needs. Yep, even on weekends, it's pretty much all he talks about. In a good way. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See capitalone.com bank capital1, NA member, FDIC.