Summary

In this episode, Andy sits down with Tom Rath, one of the most respected researchers on wellbeing and human potential, author of What's the Point? Turning Your Purpose Into a Superpower. Tom argues that we can be incredibly busy while slowly drifting away from what matters most, optimizing our schedules while our lives quietly leak away.

Andy and Tom explore why "follow your passion" can be harmful advice, how status seeking becomes career quicksand, and why our smartphones may be one of the greatest threats to purposeful living. They also discuss how many of us inherit ambitions from our parents that we never consciously chose, and how an honest awareness of mortality can sharpen our clarity, intentionality, and sense of purpose. Rather than treating purpose as one grand calling, Tom reframes it as something we create in small moments throughout the day.

If you're looking for a practical, and honestly a little uncomfortable, guide to leading and living with more purpose, this episode is for you!

Sound Bites

"Here's what I know with absolute certainty: you're wasting most of your day. Not because you're lazy, but because you've never asked the right question. You're so busy being busy that you've forgotten to ask why. You're optimizing your schedule while your life leaks away, hour by hour in meetings that don't matter and tasks that won't be remembered next week, let alone next year."
"If you fail to do those things in a day and take that initiative and have those meaningful and purposeful conversations, and you put those off until tomorrow, tomorrow never really comes because we get into that responsive mode."
"Passion by definition starts with you, and it's a little self-oriented, whereas I would argue purpose by definition has an other orientation to it, which is a much better idea for anchoring your energy in a day."
"If you're not connecting back with the impact that it made on one person that day, it fails to kind of count in the way we motivate ourselves and think about our work on a daily basis."
"I would argue that 90% of the purpose in life is built in those moments, not in some epiphany on a sunny day."
"I would estimate that at least 80% of people, maybe 90%, make it all the way to the very end of their career in their life without ever seeing what they could have been best at in life."
"Even as managers and leaders, if we don't take care of our own health and wellbeing first, we just have no shot at even being our best for other people that we manage."
"There's always someone making twice as much as you or 10 times as much as you, and there's always somebody with more followers or more listeners or more readers or whatever it might be."
"The eulogy virtues are about what am I doing today so I'll be a better dad, a better husband, a better friend, to help readers, to help people with the products I'm working on."
"I would argue that 80% of people I see out in public today, out in the wild, are essentially working for their smartphone."
"Their smartphone's running their life, and they're the ones salivating like one of Pavlov's dogs every time the darn thing blinks or buzzes or vibrates, right?"
"Having your phone out sends an implicit message to the other person that the little black box on the table matters more than the other person, and it degrades the quality of the conversation."
"The one thing we've all got in common is we have today to try and do some things that serve a purpose and help another person, and if you miss that opportunity, it's gone."
"None of them, none of the headstones say anything about those kind of resume virtues that we were talking about."

Chapters

00:00 Introduction
02:00 Start of Interview
02:08 Busy, Yet Drifting from What Matters
05:50 Rethinking the "One True Calling"
07:38 Why "Follow Your Passion" Can Backfire
09:26 From "What Do I Do?" to "Who Do I Help?"
11:20 How Our Parents' Paths Shape Us
12:11 When Admirable Influence Becomes a Limiting Script
15:01 Unlearning the "Always the Hardest Worker" Mindset
16:55 Are We Nudging Our Kids Into Our Dreams?
19:23 Status Seeking as Career Quicksand
22:02 Choosing Your Own Scoreboard
23:38 Smartphones and the Threat to Purpose
26:28 Making Technology Work for You
28:05 How Mortality Sharpens Purpose
30:52 What the Headstones Don't Say
32:33 Helping Kids Build Lives That Matter
35:21 End of Interview
35:48 Andy Comments After the Interview
40:20 Outtakes

Learn More

You can learn more about Tom and his new book at tomrath.org/whats-the-point.

For more learning on this topic, check out:

Episode 132 with Tom Rath. An earlier conversation with Tom, digging into his story and his research on wellbeing.
Episode 140 with Tom Rath. Another previous discussion with Tom on wellness and living with strengths.
Episode 31 with Adam Grant. Adam's first-ever podcast interview, where he shares insights on how to lead with meaning.
Episode 261 with David Epstein. A conversation about his book Range, a helpful complement on career decisions for kids and for us.

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Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast!

Talent Triangle: Business Acumen

Topics: Purpose, Leadership, Career Development, Passion, Wellbeing, Intentionality, Status, Comparison, Digital Distraction, Mortality, Parenting, Meaningful Work, Project Management

The following music was used for this episode:

Music: Summer Awakening by Frank Schroeter License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Music: Tuesday by Sascha Ende License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license