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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.
- [00:31]
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- [01:33]
Molly Graham
I think that I spent a lot of my early career fighting to be remembered. Like, fighting to do work that was so important it would be in a history book or written down or something like that. And I had to confront no one's going to remember you. Like, no. No one gives a shit about you. Like, no one. The work you do is for you, not for other people.
- [01:59]
Anne Morris
Hello, everyone. Welcome to Fixable, a show where we take the problems at work that feel unfixable and prove that they are not. I'm Anne Morris. And I'm Frances Fry.
- [02:10]
Molly Graham
And I'm.
- [02:11]
Anne Morris
This month we're going deep on this very powerful variable in work and life, Frances, which is purpose. We see a hunger for purpose everywhere we go. We see it from young people just starting out in their careers, but also from people reinventing themselves and embracing purpose at work in new ways. So in this series, we're going to ask all the hard questions. How do you find purpose? How do you create it? Or do you do if you've lost it? What do you do if you've never had it at all. You know, people often think purpose is a soft idea, and maybe there are soft contours to it, but we should be clear. It can provide incredible advantage in the workplace. It's a source of resilience. It's a source of ambition. It's a source of focus. And teams and organizations with a clear purpose go further, faster. Oh, absolutely. We see it all the time. It can be a bit slippery as a concept. So the practical definition of purpose that we're going to use in these conversations is simply the why behind the choices we make. And I can't wait. We have some really terrific guests lined up. Oh, they're amazing thinkers, leaders, builders, people who have done the hard work of figuring out this purpose thing. Sometimes after spectacular detours. Our goal with this series is to help you, our listeners, build a roadmap to finding and unleashing your own purpose at work. So today on the show, to kick off this series is a guest who is a very familiar face and voice here at ted. Her TED Talk has over a million and a half views. She's the new host of the Work Life podcast. It's the wildly talented, multifaceted Molly Graham. Before Molly became what she describes as a company and community builder, she worked at tech companies like Google and Facebook, where she became an expert in scaling. She also has a substack called Lessons and is the co founder of a leadership peer group called the Glue Club. And what I appreciate most about the wildly talented, multifaceted Molly Graham is that she takes the multi and knits it together. So that one plus one plus one is way more than three. And I learned so much from her privately, and I'm really looking forward to our listeners learning from her. Collectively, she is a renaissance woman for the digital age. And I'm really looking forward to this discussion. Molly Graham, welcome to Fixable.
- [04:44]
Molly Graham
Thanks for having me, Anne. I'm happy to be here.
- [04:46]
Anne Morris
We're thrilled to have you on the show. Frances is devastated to miss this conversation, so she sends her regrets.
- [04:53]
Molly Graham
Well, tell her I say hi.
- [04:54]
Anne Morris
We want to congratulate you right off the bat on a new season of Work Life.
- [04:59]
Molly Graham
Thanks. I'm finding my podcast legs, learning from the two of you.
- [05:03]
Anne Morris
This is really your first swing at this format.
- [05:07]
Molly Graham
I've been on a lot of other people's podcasts, but this is my first time as a host and it's, as you know, very different.
- [05:15]
Anne Morris
It's very different, but you appear to be a total natural.
- [05:18]
Molly Graham
Oh. So that's very Nice. I don't feel that way, but I'm glad I'm faking it.
- [05:23]
Anne Morris
Well, this month on the show, we're tackling this big, messy theme of purpose at work. And based on my deep, deep reporting, you said yes to Ted's offer to host the show in the first conversation that you had about it.
- [05:45]
Molly Graham
Y.
- [05:45]
Anne Morris
What was the why behind that? Yes. And I'm curious how it's connected to how you understand your own purpose at this point in your career.
- [05:55]
Molly Graham
Yeah, I did say yes on the first call. I mean, I'm sure I said, let me think about it. But I basically said, yeah, yeah, I would do that. For me, my life took a big turn, you know, let's call it three and a half years ago, where I, you know, I've spent, uh. I spent sort of 18 years building companies and being the right hand of, you know, various CEOs. I was a COO for a lot of the last part of my career. And I got to a point where basically that was the job everyone was trying to hire me for. And it was like, yeah, you know, people would call me and say, hey, do you want this job? And I'd be like, you know, I'd be really good at that job. You called the right person. I am absolutely one of the best people on earth to help you build your company and deal with all your weird. And I'm gonna be miserable. I'm gonna be miserable doing that job.
- [06:39]
Anne Morris
I love weird as a noun. It is. Is part of the job description.
- [06:43]
Molly Graham
Yeah. But I just realized that the Venn diagram between what I was great at and what I loved doing had changed, which was really scary. And it took me on this three and a half year journey just to cut it all a little short of, like, what is the work I want to do and what, you know, if it's not building companies and if it's not doing this thing that I'm now well known for, what is it? And that was a very scary, hard journey for me. But I arrived at realizing that what I love doing is creating space. Spaces where people can learn and grow, but also feel safe and feel seen to. Talk about just the hard part of work. I basically love making people feel both more seen and more confident at work. And I think those are some of the tools that give you grounding to sort of do your best work. And a lot of people travel through work feeling lonely, feeling confused, feeling insane. Like, they're like, is it supposed to be this hard? And so I think when they offered me work Life. I was like, this feels like a much bigger, incredible space to be able to do this work, which is to try to reach people that I'm never going to meet and say, hey, it's going to be okay, you know, and the thing that you're going through, other people have gone through. And here's some tools to help you out and some stories to make you feel a little more grounded.
- [08:04]
Anne Morris
And your impact is no longer limited by the walls of an organization. You get to blow out those walls in this kind of a format. We wanted you to help kick off this series because you've done a lot in your career that, from the outside, feels very purposeful. So you led excursions into the wild as a young adult. You've made these very brave and intentional career jumps. You've talked and written very openly about your own experiences of work. I'm wondering about this idea of purpose in your own life. Does it resonate for you? Do you see a thread of purpose that connects all of these decisions? I see the thread of learning, yeah, absolutely.
- [08:53]
Molly Graham
What's been meaningful to me has changed a lot over the years. My first job out of college was leading wilderness trips for this school called Knowles, the National Outdoor Leadership School. And I was a little puppy instructor. But that was essentially a teaching.
- [09:05]
Anne Morris
I was scared of going on all those trips.
- [09:08]
Molly Graham
So was I. But I.
- [09:10]
Anne Morris
And yet you did it. I know we're gonna go back to this. You did it. And the rest of us stayed home.
- [09:15]
Molly Graham
But yeah, I was like, I don't know if I can carry a 90 pound backpack up a mountain. And I was like, let's go try it. And then I came out the other side and was an instructor. So that does tell you something about me. But I loved it. I learned a ton. And it felt too small to me. Like, I remember talking to someone that had been an instructor for 20 years or long when I was a new instructor, and he was talking about how much he loved work and why he loved it. I remember listening to him and thinking, gosh, this sounds too small to me. Like, I want to have a bigger impact than that. Like, I want my work to touch as many people as possible. This is when I was 22.
- [09:52]
Anne Morris
Oh, I had the same ridiculous thoughts at the same age.
- [09:56]
Molly Graham
So then I spent a bunch of years, you know, 10 or 15 years working in tech and Facebook in particular, and Google as well. Like, you were working on a product that touched everyone in the world, right? Everyone had an opin, everyone had used it, everyone had a lot to say. And that felt impactful to me at the time. Facebook is obviously a very controversial company and product, but you cannot deny that it had an impact, whether you see that as bad or good. And that felt very meaningful to me at the time. Then this wild right turn happened where I just realized I didn't care anymore, that I really cared about depth over breadth and that. And again, this is summarizing sort of three or four years of a lot of hard work, but just realizing that what mattered to me was these deeper conversations with people. And sometimes it's only 30 minutes, you know, but feeling like something I've done has meaningfully changed the trajectory of someone's life is now what feeds me. And that is so wildly different from caring about working on something that, you know, touches millions or billions of people.
- [11:02]
Anne Morris
Do you feel like your purpose evolved over time, or did it reveal itself to you more clearly over time?
- [11:09]
Molly Graham
Well, it's interesting. So when I think about the work that I was doing in my 20s and my early 30s, I'm not sure I was doing it, because it was, like, the highest and best use of me. I think it was like, I need to show people that I can, like, do this. Like, that I can be great in this world of business and, you know, competitive companies and things like that. Like, sometimes I feel like people, generally, the people I work with, have a sort of a proving phase where you're like, I need to show myself, my parents, my. Someone I don't know.
- [11:44]
Anne Morris
It's in as. Who were you in the beginning? Who were you proving yourself to?
- [11:48]
Molly Graham
The answer is, I was proving myself both to my dad, I think, and to myself, because, you know, my dad was a successful business person, and I have a family biography with a lot of success in it. And I think that I really set out on a journey at a pretty young age to be like, I got to prove that I'm good, separate from this biography. And I think originally, I set out to be like, I'm as good as them. Like, I can do.
- [12:12]
Anne Morris
I deserve to be in this tribe.
- [12:14]
Molly Graham
Yeah, exactly. And I think everybody, you know, whatever biography you come from, you end up with something that you're fighting against or fighting towards, but it's not entirely about you. Do you know what I mean? Like, when I look back on it, I'm like, I just see a lot of energy to show other people what I was good at, but not really the question, what is it that really feeds you? And for me, I proved and proved and proved, and I got to a job that most people in the world would be like, wow, that's the job. And I just realized it wasn't the job for me. It wasn't my work.
- [12:53]
Anne Morris
Was there a point at which it was not about proving yourself to these other people and it was about the highest and best use of you?
- [13:02]
Molly Graham
Yeah, that's basically what happened eight years ago.
- [13:06]
Anne Morris
When was this? Eight years ago.
- [13:07]
Molly Graham
Eight years ago.
- [13:08]
Anne Morris
Eight years ago. Back to the point of this realization.
- [13:11]
Molly Graham
A lot of people describe this as like, you put the ladder up against a wall, you climb up the ladder, and then you're like, oh, wrong wall. I basically had that experience where I was like, climbing and climbing and climbing and pushing and pushing and pushing and got the job, sort of. I thought I'd always wanted. And it's actually no offense to the job. Like, great.
- [13:27]
Anne Morris
Can you talk about which job that was? Or.
- [13:30]
Molly Graham
So I became the head of operations at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. And it literally, on paper, was the job that I thought I'd always wanted. It was a global organization with a mission, for.
- [13:39]
Anne Morris
The mission is so meaningful.
- [13:40]
Molly Graham
You would go to cocktail parties and people would be like, every day you get to change the world. And just to say it, I love Mark and Priscilla. I think they're extraordinary humans trying to do good in the world with that organization and with their work. And this is literally not to do with them. It was like, all of a sudden, I was just like, oh, this isn't my job. And if I had told you, like, one of my greatest mentors in the world, who was my first episode of Work Life, is the woman who ran the Gates foundation for 10 years and was the first CEO. So I was like, I want to be like Patty when I grow up. And I was. And so then I got the Chan Zuckerberg job, and I was like, oh, this is it. I did it. And I got there and I was like, oh, shoot. For a bunch of reasons, I've never felt more lost in my career. It was like being in a dark, dark hole. They gave me an executive coach at the time, and I remember my first meeting with her. I was just like, I feel so, like, lost, sad, no idea what to do, you know? And again, I. I just didn't think it was fixable. And she was like, oh, I think I can sort you out in five sessions. Like, we're gonna solve this. And I was like, you think this is solvable? But she did. Literally five sessions later, it was like, you gotta go, because this is not your work. And she helped me realize that I had work to do on like, what it was that I wanted to do, but I had to step away in order to do that work and I had to sort of step off that path. That was the moment that like, was sort of a right turn.
- [15:16]
Anne Morris
This episode is Powered by AT and 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 or when you need them to. That's why AT and 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 and T Business Built to Work get today@business.att.com Support for today's episode comes from Square. If you've ever been to a local business, a farmer's market vendor, a boutique, even a food truck, where everything just feels seamless, from ordering to checkout, there's a good chance Square is behind it. Square brings payments, pos, inventory, staffing, and online sales together in one system, so owners aren't juggling a dozen tools just to get through the day. And it scales with you. Whether you're just starting out or expanding to multiple locations, Square adapts to how your business actually works, not the other way around. Their plans are simple and transparent. Free plus or premium. No hidden fees, no locked in contracts, no surprises. With Square, you get all the tools to run your business with none of the contracts or complexity. And why wait? Right now you can get up to $200 off square hardware at square.com go fixable that's S Q U-A-R-E.com geo fixable run your business smarter with Square. Get started today. 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 24. 7 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 Parlor. Well, I want to get into the press because that's one of the big questions we're asking in the series is how do people figure this out? I've been that coach, by the way. Apologies to the organizations that have hired me. So then, where do you go next with this insight?
- [18:35]
Molly Graham
Oh, man. So basically I told her. I was like, I feel like if I leave, I'm just going to be lost. And she was like, all right, reframe. Like, got to find a different way to describe what's going to happen when you leave, because you need to take. Take this leap to figure out what's right for you next. And so she was like, you're gonna go on an adventure to, like, figure out what. And she was like, you like adventure, you know, and you're gonna get to learn and, like all these things. So. So there was partially just reframing, like, a feeling of adriftness and identity crisis into, like, all right, next adventure. And I think sometimes the language we use really prevents us from being willing to do that, you know, willing to, like, jump off whatever cliff or step out of this place where we feel safe and clear, even if we're miserable. So it was helpful to be like, okay, adventures I can do.
- [19:27]
Anne Morris
So give me a couple of plot points. And I'm trying to channel our listeners, some of whom are like, oh, God, I am having these feelings, and I'm not ready to confront them. Give us some of the plot points in how you found your way back to connecting your sense of purpose and reason for being here with the work you're doing. Were there therapists involved? Were there long walk with friends? Was there journaling? Like, give us some tactics here on just what worked for you.
- [19:53]
Molly Graham
Yeah, totally. So I basically, the year after, I took a couple of months just to kind of come back to myself from that job. And all I was doing was seeing friends and family, and it had been a very intense job. So I just needed a minute to recover. And Maggie, my coach, was like, you pick a date, you put it on the calendar, and on that date you can start to think about work again. But before that date, you get to only do things that remind you who you are outside of work.
- [20:19]
Anne Morris
How far away is that date from your exit?
- [20:23]
Molly Graham
So it was three months. So I took three months off and I just saw my family and I saw my friends and then I basically she. Then we designed a second phase that was starting the journey of asking, what is work for you? Like, what gives you energy? And my agreement with myself was any idea that I got energetic about, I wasn't allowed to judge it, I was only allowed to be excited about it. And that could be a job working for someone else, it could be a idea for a startup or whatever, but it was just like, okay, if you get excited about it, like write it down, get all excited and then let it go, you know? I did a very intensive therapy workshop called the Huffin Process, which thankfully for, I guess, me, I will go on almost any experience with sort of an open heart and an open mind. And it was one of the best things I've ever done in my life. But it really sends you on a journey to ask yourself a lot of pretty fundamental questions about why you are the way you are and why you do the things you do. And in it, I basically found this question, which is, what would you do if you believed you were already enough? And it was, you know, that proving energy we were talking about. I think it really put a spotlight on the idea that I was trying to fill up a void or something that I only felt like I would be worthy or loved if I did all these things at work. And I came out of it sort of with that question of just like, if you believed you were already enough, what would you choose to do?
- [21:47]
Anne Morris
Such a powerful question.
- [21:49]
Molly Graham
Then I started off on what I would say has been an eight year journey, if we're being honest, to figure out what that work was. And the first thing I did was found a company with a friend and we thought we were going to be like private equity people. We were ready to like buy startups that were sort of struggling and turn them around and had all these like, ideas. And I think we both realized about a year or two into that that we didn't love that work. One of my biggest journeys has been realizing that I love being pretty intimate with the impact that I'm having. And it's part of why philanthropy doesn't feed Me is philanthropy is sitting very far away from the people's lives that you actually impact, or at least most philanthropies. And same with this company I started with a friend was like, you were pretty far away from the sort of impact that you were having. So again, that was another one where, like, two years into it, I was like, oh, not my work. And part of the reason why I tell you this story is just because, like, when I've watched friends and folks that I work with go on these journeys, like, they're just not a straight line.
- [22:45]
Anne Morris
They're not a straight line.
- [22:47]
Molly Graham
And I always say, like, sometimes you need to take the interview to remind yourself that, like, oops, not gonna do that again. Or sometimes you need to take a whole ass job to be like, yep, really done with this, you know? And I feel like for me, the last eight years have been working and working and working, both on, like, being better at fighting the fights and winning. Like, there's just different parts of myself that I've discovered through all of this therapy and all of this coaching work where there's certain parts of myself that are like, yeah, let's take that cool job that everyone's gonna think is awesome. And I've had to work really hard to listen to the parts of myself that are like, you've. You've done this before. The stove is hot. Do you really need to touch it again and find, like, that voice that says, what does this get you that you don't already have? And what is the work that you're meant to be doing right now, Molly? You know, and is that it? Is this really it? Is this the best use of you and your time?
- [23:37]
Anne Morris
Do you feel like on that arc, do you feel like you have arrived with both clarity and a canvas to kind of express this purpose?
- [23:50]
Molly Graham
So three and a half years ago, I started on this journey that I mentioned, which is, okay, I'm not going to take another job. I'm not going to take a CEO job of a turnaround company. I'm not going to take a COO job working for somebody else. So it was like, what do I want to do? Okay, Molly, you're building something yourself. And I basically said, okay, in six months, I'm going to have an answer of like, what am I doing? And I was like, you know, I'm going to be able to go to cocktail parties. People are going to be like, what are you doing? I'm going to have a actual job, Capital J. And it really took me a six months or a year to realize that I was never going to have an answer, that this was like a journey that I was perpetually going to be on, and that I just needed to really embrace that journey as like a step by step process. And so I've. It's not what is my life's work, it's what's the right work for me next. And that has evolved wildly over the last three and a half years. I would say. Before I got this work life offer from ted, I was like feeling very peaceful and aligned because what I have arrived at is building communities where people can feel safe, connected and supported, where they can grow and become more confident in their work and in their life. And I've done that. You know, I built two communities. One is called the Glue Club and it is for sort of mid career leaders leading companies and trying to find growth and sanity in the face of, you know, walls and a ceiling that are moving. And then the second community is called the Guild and it's a community, an intimate community for women leaders in the middle of their lives who are grappling with a very particular moment in life and career and work and all that. And then this work life offer showed up, which again, I could not have designed that offer. But it really reframed for me that there was a way to continue to do the work with these communities, but add on this sort of like higher level conversation with a broader audience that is again, pretty similar to what I do in my communities, but just a bigger platform. So again I'm like, people are like, what do you think you're gonna be doing in five years? I'm like, no idea. But I can probably tell you what I'm gonna be doing in six months. I can tell you what I might be doing in a year. But I, I think again to the adventure point, I've really embraced the idea that just it's all about finding the right next step and trying things and then trusting that it's gonna take you somewhere great. If you're listening to like right parts
- [26:13]
Anne Morris
of yourself, you know, amazing. You have shared a lot of wisdom with the world in various forms about how to find meaningful, purpose driven work. And you just, you mentioned it in this story too. Some of the metrics you have used with yourself and some of the metrics you have seen other people use as indicators that we're getting closer. So this idea of peace, this idea of alignment, you've talked about happiness as this important personal indicator for you. You set your own goal, which was astonishing for me to read of feeling happy at work 90% of the time, I imagine this is a big umbrella of happiness. It's not just experiencing joy 90% of the workday. So what do you mean by that?
- [27:01]
Molly Graham
So one of the things I did when I was on my journey of. And this coincided, by the way, with turning 40, which for me was a moment to sort of say, I think I might be halfway through my life if I'm lucky. And, you know, what have I done with my last 40 years? And what do I want to do with my next 40? And one of the things that I did over the last couple of years is read a lot of books about death. I was very curious, like, what do people wish they'd known?
- [27:25]
Anne Morris
Like, memoirs. What books about death? Tell us what's in this category.
- [27:29]
Molly Graham
So, for sure, memoirs, like, When Breath Becomes Air, and all the ones of people that get life taken away from them shorter than they wish they had. But also one of my favorites is the five Regrets of the Dying, which is by a hospice helper in Australia named Bronnie Ware. And she. She sort of has had so many experiences with death that, you know, it's an aggregate view of just, like, what are the things that people say they wish they'd known? But one of my, like, big takeaways from that is, it's the journey, not the destination. Which sounds so simple and, like, lame. Like something somebody would put on a bumper sticker when you were 20 and you'd. Boring. But I think that I spent a lot of my early career fighting to be remembered. Like, fighting to do work that was so important, it would be in a history book or written down or something like that. And I had to confront, no one's gonna remember you. Like, no. No one gives a shit about you. Like, no one. The work you do is for you, not for other people. And then. And I look around me in life and I see people still fighting for that and no judgment to other people. But I do think that you spend a huge amount of your life at work. And you also, you know, you get to choose at some point how that time feels and what it's for and whether that's done consciously or unconsciously. And for me, I was like, I got 40 years left. I'm not planning to work all of those 40 years. So let's say there's 10 or 20 left that I wanna really bust my ass for. What do I want to do at that time? And I would say that one of the things that I had to come to grips with is like again, no one's going to remember you. So like why not be happy while you're doing the work, right? Like it's about the work and the steps in the day to day and the reps, not about the destination or I hope I will have changed some lives with the work that I do, but I'm going to enjoy the work itself every day as much as possible. And so like you said, you know, my bar is I don't think everybody's happy all the time. That's not a thing. Right? So, but that I can look back on a given week or a given month or year and say I really loved what I was doing most of the time. And for me that number is 90%. And by the way, that is true. My work today brings me joy every day and a lot of it is like I love my team. I going to a one on one with my team brings me great joy. Like I love problem solving with them. I love these communities when I get to spend time with folks and I love when I write a substack and I get an email back from somebody saying hey, this really helped me. That brings me joy. I actually love the process of writing. I love the process of building these podcast episodes. So I don't know, I'm the luckiest person because I love most of my hours of my day. And that definitely was not true when I was in my proving phase. Like I took misery as part of what work was that you had to crush and part of that was kind of crushing yourself. You know, you do not have to
- [30:34]
Anne Morris
be
- [30:37]
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- [31:04]
Anne Morris
Ts and Cs apply disordered eating Messaging is all around us. You can hardly leave your house or check your phone without seeing something about dieting, weight loss or exercise. With all that pressure, it can be hard to recognize habits have become harmful or even an eating disorder. If you're concerned you or a loved one might have an eating disorder, I want to introduce you to Equipment. Equip is a fully virtual evidence based eating disorder treatment program that helps patients achieve lasting recovery at home. Every Equip Patient is matched with a multidisciplinary care team that includes a therapist, dietitian, medical provider, and mentors. And you get a personalized treatment plan that's tailored to your unique goals and challenges. Equip treats patients of all ages and all eating disorder diagnoses. It's covered by insurance and there's no wait list. If you think that you or a loved one could be struggling with an eating disorder, don't wait to get help. Visit Equip Health to learn more. That's Equip Health. Healthcare can feel complicated. That's why Optum uses technology to connect the people and processes that make healthcare easier, more affordable, and more effective. We're making it clearer for you to know exactly what your benefits cover and to help you better manage your health. We're coordinating care between your doctors and your technology. We believe better, simpler healthcare is always possible. That's healthy optimism. That's Optum. Visit optum.com to learn more. Good. One of the most distinctive things about your career is your comfort with fear and risk taking. So you've also written and talked in a very nuanced way about distinguishing real threats from imagined threats. So what are the negative metrics that we should be paying attention to in this search for meaning and purpose? You argue persuasively that fear is not a reliable indicator of right track, wrong track. What should we be paying attention to?
- [33:13]
Molly Graham
To me, what you should be paying attention to is energy. You know, when I was in one of my last jobs, Maggie, my coach, who I mentioned, we're going to get
- [33:22]
Anne Morris
Maggie on this podcast.
- [33:24]
Molly Graham
She's great. I've had two coaches in my life and they've both just been unbelievable resources for me. But Maggie basically is so good at making you do exercises that really shine a light on what's actually going on. So one of the exercises she made me do was for an entire week, she made me rate every single meeting on a scale from 1 to 10 in terms of how energized I was coming out the other side of it. And it was just like very wild because I had ones and tens. Like I think a lot of people would be like 5, 5, 5, 6, 8, 4, 2. I was like 110 and the tens were actually all one on ones with people or moments when I got to like really connect with someone and help them. And so it was, it was very eye opening for me about what energized me, you know, and I feel like I come from, I was raised Facebook, built a strengths based framework for how we coached and grew people. And that means that what, you know, if you believe in strengths based, it means that you should focus on what you're great at and what you love doing, not trying to get better at what you're bad at. And I really believe that. Like, I really believe that what the most powerful signals in your life are, what do you naturally love? What do you naturally want to spend time doing? And, you know, some of those questions are that I ask people when I'm like coaching them about what they might want to do next is look backwards and say, okay, if you think back over the last couple of years, like, what is. What are the things you're proudest of? What are the things where you're like, I would do that a hundred times. Like, if you gave me that as a job, I would. The time passed and I didn't even notice when I was doing that. Those are the kinds of things that are telling you something about your natural strengths. And then there's like, what you love doing, which sometimes is like a slightly different list. I would say there's a Venn diagram between the two of like, what are you good at and what do you love doing? And. And you're looking for that Venn diagram, you know, and then the third part of the Venn diagram is obviously like, what will people. People pay you a lot of money to do? So somewhere between like, what do I love doing, what am I great at? And what will people pay me money for? Is like the highest and best use of you.
- [35:26]
Anne Morris
I love all of that. And the metric that has been most useful to me. And I have to get sometimes a little quiet to pay attention to it properly. But is this vitality question of when do I feel most alive?
- [35:44]
Molly Graham
How do you get connected to it?
- [35:46]
Anne Morris
I have learned to pay attention to which parts of me show up, in which situations, which kinds of conversations. So one of the most reliable tells for me is if that playful part shows up. I don't know that it's always about vitality, because I think that playful part probably needs to feel safe enough to reveal herself. But it is an indicator that a whole bunch of me wants to be in the room or in the situation or solving the problem, and I see the patterns. And so doing hard, creative things with a team of people, that's almost like a hack to feeling fully alive for me. And listeners are tired of me using this quote. But I think what first got my attention is Howard Thurman, who was this great 20th century theologian, said, don't ask what the world needs, which for a young Anne, and I bet a young Molly is like a shocking start, right? Because aren't we obligated to meet the world's needs? Ask what makes you come alive? Because what the world needs is people who have come alive. And there was so much challenge and permission in that that I have never forgotten the first time I read it. And I returned to it constantly. And in this work with myself and with other people trying to find their way towards meaning and purpose, I find that idea of vitality, paying attention to it, understanding, paying attention to yourself. And I love the simplicity of, like, rate the meeting 1 to 10. Like, how much of you was in the meeting? How much of you wanted to be in the meeting? I found very helpful for me, personally.
- [37:29]
Molly Graham
Yeah, you got to find the right tools for you, and it's. It's different for everyone. But what I've really found, again, as I've, like, seen a lot of this, and it sounds like you have, too, is just this is about you finding the tool that gets you to sit down and be like, okay, who should I be listening to? And what are the things and the signals and the signs and the metrics that I want to orient my life around instead of sort of like, letting myself drive blindly or letting my biography drive in. Go.
- [38:13]
Anne Morris
All right, Molly. So it's graduation season, and young people everywhere are applying for jobs and trying to figure out what they're going to do with their lives. We wanted to hear directly from some of these graduates, so our producing team went to Washington Square park in New York City, the famed Washington Square park, to talk to people who had just graduated from NYU about how they're thinking about purpose as they enter the workforce. So let's hear from one of them. My name is Sam.
- [38:44]
Molly Graham
My passion is really around higher education
- [38:47]
Anne Morris
and making sure that everyone has access to it.
- [38:49]
Molly Graham
I think a lot of people either
- [38:51]
Anne Morris
think I need to find my purpose in my work or I need a job that doesn't necessarily fulfill my purpose, but then I can do that outside of work. I'd love to know how to merge those things, how people can really look at. How do I make this a core part of every part of my life, not just work or at home? Molly, we hear a version of this question a lot. You know, should I be looking for purpose in my work or my life? And how do you see this working in practice? How has it worked for you? And how do you see it working for the people around you?
- [39:25]
Molly Graham
Well, listen, man, you got one life, you know, What I mean, and your life is a set of hours. And at the end of the day, I said, I spent some time thinking about death. And it's like, your journey is ours, right? And we spend some number of those hours earning money in order to take care of our needs and our family's needs, and that is work, right? Careers are long, and the journey is the point. You know, you're gonna go on a journey, and it's not to say that any of it is wrong. Like, all of it is just a journey to find yourself. And that's really powerful. Like, I think part of what bums me out is the. That we send kids into, like, high school now, and it's like, you're supposed to know what you want to major in, and then you're supposed to get to college, and you're supposed to know exactly what job you want. And it's like, no man. Like, you are supposed to go on a journey. And actually your career will be better the more you embrace and really focus on loving the journey as much as you can. Because the quest to figure out, like, who you are and what you're really great at is not a straight line, right? It's. It's a winding path. And you're going to make a bunch of mistakes and find some stuff you hate doing that you're great at but drains you and also find some stuff that you love doing that will surprise you. But I feel like the main thing that I wish I had understood earlier is that not knowing is fine, right? Not knowing is actually honestly the point and the state of most people in the world. And you have time, like, you have time to figure it out. So just try stuff. Stuff, you know, just go learn about yourself. And through that learning, you'll find a path. Whatever that path is, I love it.
- [41:06]
Anne Morris
What is one thing our listeners can do this week to honor or activate their own purpose?
- [41:14]
Molly Graham
Well, I'll give you the two. One is, like, I think that, like, rate all the meetings in just one week. That one is a great exercise, and I'd give it to people a lot. And the second is do the exercise of looking back over the last three to five years and ask yourself, like, three moments that are, like, the standout moments where you're like, I was so proud of the work that I did. I felt energized by it. Meaning, like, I would do it a hundred times over. Time passed really quickly and. And describe them. You know, if you have a friend that you could storytell this to and let them ask you questions. That's often the most helpful because what you really want to draw out are just patterns of like, oh, it turns out that you're really energized when you're solving a problem that's really messy. And you know, it doesn't, it isn't about the job title or it being in marketing or product or, you know, finance. It's about the state of the problem or this people you're working with. But drawing out those patterns are what tell you what to listen to. You know, that that's what tells you, like, okay, you're looking for a job that looks like this, you know, and it's, it could have a lot of different titles and a lot of different organizations, but this kind of work is what energizes you.
- [42:20]
Anne Morris
Beautiful. Cool. All right, a final question we ask all of our guests. What's something you're currently fixated on outside of work?
- [42:30]
Molly Graham
Ooh. My answer to that is depressing.
- [42:33]
Anne Morris
We can take it. We can take it.
- [42:36]
Molly Graham
You know, to be honest, my brother works in Hollywood and I love TikTok. So will. My brother would say that the power of Hollywood is creating cultural conversations. And I'm like, you are missing all the cultural conversations that are happening because of this art form that is short form video. TikTok and YouTube and Instagram. Like there are these incredible cultural moments that happen and I'm just fascinated by it. I don't understand it. I don't pretend to be an expert, but I find it fascinating.
- [43:09]
Anne Morris
The fabulous Molly Graham. Thank you for coming on Fixable. What a pleasure it has been to have this conversation with you.
- [43:15]
Molly Graham
Same an. I really loved it. Thank you.
- [43:21]
Anne Morris
And if you're enjoying this show, make sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcast 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 Baloraiso and Roxanne Hylash. Our show is mixed by Louis at Storyyard. Is your kid's birthday coming up?
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Molly Graham
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Anne Morris
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Molly Graham
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Anne Morris
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Molly Graham
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Anne Morris
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Molly Graham
You can instantly spend your balance with the Venmo debit card or when you
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Anne Morris
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Molly Graham
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