How to find your purpose (w/ Master Fixer Molly Graham) | from Fixable

Summary

Podcast Summary: How to Find Your Purpose (w/ Master Fixer Molly Graham) | from Fixable

Podcast: WorkLife with Molly Graham (hosted on TED, guest spot on Fixable)
Episode: How to Find Your Purpose
Release Date: June 7, 2026
Guest: Molly Graham (TED, company/community builder, ex-Google/Facebook, Glue Club/Guild founder)
Hosts: Anne Morris (with Frances Fry absent for interview portion)

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Episode Overview

This episode dives deep into the struggle and journey of finding purpose at work and in life. Molly Graham, renowned for scaling companies and building communities, discusses her own meandering path from early career ambitions to a more meaningful, grounded sense of purpose. The conversation explores how experiences—both successful and “proving”—eventually spark radical self-honesty, leading to fulfilling, purpose-driven work. Practical frameworks, exercises, and advice for listeners at all stages are woven throughout, capturing the messiness and adventure of the journey.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

What Is Purpose? (04:16–04:45)

• Purpose Defined: The "why" behind our choices.
• Misconception: Purpose often misunderstood as "soft", but it's a source of resilience, ambition, and focus, and gives organizations a competitive edge.
• Purpose’s Power: Individuals and teams with clear purpose go further, faster.

"The practical definition of purpose we're going to use is simply the 'why' behind the choices we make."
— Anne Morris (04:45)

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Molly Graham’s Career Journey: From Proving to Purpose (07:19–16:50)

• Early career at Google, Facebook, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative—driven by proving herself, especially to family and herself.
• Realization: Venn diagram between what she was “great at” and what she “loved” had shifted. She could no longer ignore that misalignment.
• Leaving a dream job revealed a loss of meaning and the realization that her ambitions had been fueled by external validation.
• Executive coaching (especially with coach Maggie) helped her reframe leaving a high-profile role—not as “being lost,” but as starting a new adventure.

"I got to a point where that was the job everyone was trying to hire me for... and I'm gonna be miserable."
— Molly Graham (08:08)

"It's like you put the ladder up against a wall, you climb up the ladder, and then you're like, oh, wrong wall."
— Molly Graham (14:47)

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Embracing Uncertainty and the Messy Process (20:01–24:49)

• Recovery after major career change involved rest, connection with friends/family, and setting a "no-work" window.
• Reframing: Use language of “adventure” instead of “identity crisis.”
• Concrete tactics:
  • Take extended time off (she chose 3 months).
  • No judgment for initial excitement about possible paths.
  • Write down energizing ideas.
  • Intensive therapy to confront underlying motivations (e.g., “The Hoffman Process”).
  • Pivotal self-reflection: “What would you do if you believed you were already enough?”

"If you believed you were already enough, what would you choose to do?"
— Molly Graham (22:52)

• Accepting that the journey to purpose is not linear; involves experiments, failed attempts, and continual learning.

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The Real Markers of Purposeful Work (25:16–31:56)

• Finding community and depth, rather than just broad impact.
• Purpose shifts: First wanting scale, then valuing deep, transformational moments with individuals.
• Current work revolves around founding support communities (Glue Club, Guild), coaching, podcasting, and writing.
• Letting go of needing a straightforward “job title”—embracing ongoing evolution.
• Molly sets a personal goal of being “happy at work 90% of the time.”

"Before that date, you get to only do things that remind you who you are outside of work."
— Molly Graham (21:45)

"No one's gonna remember you... The work you do is for you, not for other people."
— Molly Graham (03:07/29:35)

• Advice: Focus not just on happiness as joy, but also peace, alignment, and a felt sense of rightness in the work.

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Facing Mortality, Striving for Joy (28:46–31:56)

• Contemplating mortality (e.g., through books like “When Breath Becomes Air”, “The Five Regrets of the Dying”) delivers clarity about what matters.
• Key lessons:
  • It’s the journey, not the destination.
  • No one else’s memory or validation should drive your purpose.
• Conscious choice about how to spend one’s hours at work emerges as central.

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Practical Exercises for Listeners (32:35–36:55; 43:40–44:46)

• Energy Audit: Rate each meeting (or work activity) on a 1–10 scale for post-meeting energy. Identify the 1s (draining) and 10s (energizing).
  • Reveals patterns around what work is truly meaningful.
• Strengths and Joy Inventory: Reflect on the past 3–5 years; pick 3 “standout moments” where you felt pride, deep energy, and engagement. Look for patterns—not job titles, but types of problems, tasks, or environments.
• Vitality Check: Tune into when you feel most “alive” at work; recognize cues (such as feeling playful, losing track of time, etc.).

"To me, what you should be paying attention to is energy."
— Molly Graham (32:35)

"What are the things where... the time passed and I didn't even notice?"
— Molly Graham (34:18)

• Support System: Encourage sharing these stories and patterns with a close friend who can ask probing questions.

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Advice to New Graduates and Those at the Start (40:49–43:32)

• Don’t rush finding your purpose; it’s a journey, not a fixed endpoint.
• Reject societal pressure to have it all figured out after school.
• Embrace experimenting, learning by doing (including “wrong” routes).
• Not knowing is normal—and in fact, healthy.
• Purpose doesn’t have to sit only in “work” or only in “life”; work is a huge slice of life, and integration is possible and desirable.

"You have one life. Your life is a set of hours... Your career will be better the more you embrace and focus on loving the journey."
— Molly Graham (41:53)

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Final Thought-Provoking Quotes

• On Self-Compassion in the Journey:

  "Sometimes you need to take the interview to remind yourself, oops, not gonna do that again. Or sometimes you need to take a whole ass job to be like, yep, really done with this."
  — Molly Graham (24:15)

• On Letting Go of Legacy:

  "I had to confront, no one's gonna remember you... The work you do is for you, not for other people."
  — Molly Graham (03:07/29:35)

• On Progress:

  "It's not what is my life's work, it's what's the right work for me next."
  — Molly Graham (25:41)

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Notable Moments & Timestamps

• Definition of Purpose: (04:45)
• Molly's wakeup moment: “I’m gonna be miserable in this job.” (08:08)
• Proving phase vs. real purpose: (12:44–14:47)
• “The ladder against the wrong wall.” (14:47)
• Therapy & transformative question: (22:50–22:52)
• Community-building as new purpose: (26:36–26:39)
• Setting 90% happiness goal: (31:00)
• Energy tracking exercise described: (32:35–33:19)
• Advice for new graduates: (41:53–43:32)
• Two takeaways for listeners (exercises): (43:40–44:40)

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Tone & Language

The conversation is candid, reflective, and compassionate, laced with humor and gentle irreverence (ex: “I love weird as a noun”; referring to past jobs as “a whole ass job”). Molly is disarmingly honest about her struggles, growth, and ongoing uncertainties—offering both wisdom and comfort to listeners unsure of their own paths.

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Conclusion

Molly Graham’s story is a testament to the winding, sometimes uncomfortable, always evolving journey of finding purpose at work. Rather than delivering pat answers or fixed formulas, she and Anne Morris emphasize self-compassion, curiosity, experimentation, and the relentless pursuit of both what energizes you and what serves those around you. Through exercises, memorable anecdotes, and a refusal to sugarcoat the messiness, this episode delivers both practical tools and inspiration for anyone seeking meaning in their work or in the larger adventure of their life.

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Key Takeaway:
Purpose isn’t a destination or a single job—it’s the ongoing process of tuning into what brings you alive, where you can serve, and what sustains you, while having the courage to let go of proving, performative ambitions and walk towards genuine fulfillment.

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For further resources, check out Molly Graham on Instagram, LinkedIn, her Substack Lessons, or her community at Glue Club.

Transcript

[Sponsor Announcer]

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[Sponsor Announcer 2]

This episode is brought to you by Walmart Business. Here's something I've seen over and over in high growth organizations. The leaders who actually transform how their teams operate aren't the ones with the biggest visions, they're the ones who ruthlessly protect their team's time and attention. And yet, so many of us are still losing hours to the basics like procurement, ordering supplies, chasing down purchases that should just happen. That's where Walmart Business comes in. It's built to simplify your operations. A huge assortment of business products, everyday, low prices and fast, reliable shipping and fulfillment. You can manage all of it on your schedule, online, in store or right from the Walmart Business app. It's Walmart built for your business. Get your team focused on what actually moves the needle. Sign up for a free Walmart Business account [e-mail] this episode is sponsored by Study.com Life can be messy and complicated and it can be hard to work towards finishing your college degree when other responsibilities get in the way. Luckily, Study.com is designed to help you earn college credit online and on your schedule. They offer over 220 online college courses that help students make progress towards completing a college degree in a flexible and more affordable way. Knock out your general courses like English, Math and History and study on your phone or computer for just $95 a month. Study.com courses are fully online and self paced and designed to transfer to over 2000 colleges and universities. It's a great way to earn your college degree at an affordable price and on your own schedule. Study so life doesn't get in the way of your education. Go to study.com podcast to browse courses and get 10% off your first month when you sign up. That's study.com podcast hi work life listeners. It's me, Molly. Recently I was a guest on another TED podcast, Fixable With Anne Morris and Frances Fry. Each episode on Fixable, Ann and Frances take on a problem with work and fix it. And in this episode, I joined them to kick off a series they're doing this month on a big problem that

[Molly Graham]

almost everyone faces, one that can feel impossible to solve.

[Sponsor Announcer 2]

What is your true purpose and how

[Molly Graham]

do you find it?

[Sponsor Announcer 2]

This was a really fun conversation, and

[Molly Graham]

I'm so excited for you to hear it.

[Sponsor Announcer 2]

Now on to the episode.

[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 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.

[Anne Morris]

Hello, everyone.

[Anne Morris (Narrator)]

Welcome to Fixable, a show where we take the problems at work that feel unfixable and. And prove that they are not. I'm Anne Morris.

[Frances Fry]

And I'm Frances Frey.

[Anne Morris (Narrator)]

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.

[Anne Morris]

We see it from young people just

[Anne Morris (Narrator)]

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? What do you do if you've lost it? What do you do if you've never had it at all?

[Frances Fry]

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. It and teams and organizations with a clear purpose go further, faster.

[Anne Morris]

Oh, absolutely. We see it all the time.

[Anne Morris (Narrator)]

It can be a bit slippery as a concept. So the practical definition of purpose that

[Anne Morris]

we're going to use in these conversations is simply the why behind the choices we make.

[Frances Fry]

And I can't wait. We have some really terrific guests lined up.

[Anne Morris (Narrator)]

Oh, they're amazing thinkers, leaders, builders, people who have done the hard work of

[Anne Morris]

figuring out this purpose thing.

[Anne Morris (Narrator)]

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

[Anne Morris]

leadership peer group called the Glue Club.

[Frances Fry]

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.

[Anne Morris (Narrator)]

Collectively, she is a renaissance woman for the digital age. And I'm really looking forward to this discussion. Molly Graham, welcome to Fixable.

[Molly Graham]

Thanks for having me, Anne. I'm happy to be here.

[Anne Morris]

We're thrilled to have you on the show. Frances is devastated to miss this conversation, so she sends her regrets.

[Molly Graham]

Well, tell her I say hi.

[Anne Morris]

We want to congratulate you right off the bat on a new season of Work Life.

[Molly Graham]

Thanks. I'm finding my podcast legs, learning from the two of you.

[Anne Morris]

This is really your first swing at this format.

[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.

[Anne Morris]

It's very different, but you appear to be a total natural.

[Molly Graham]

Oh. So that's very nice. I don't feel that way, but I'm glad I'm faking it.

[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?

[Molly Graham]

Yep.

[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.

[Molly Graham]

Um, yeah, I did say yes on the first call. Um, I. I mean, I'm sure I

[Molly Graham (continued)]

said, let me think about it, but I basically said, yeah, yeah, I would. I would do that.

[Molly Graham]

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

[Molly Graham (continued)]

people on earth to help you build

[Molly Graham]

your company and deal with all your weird. And I'm gonna be miserable. I'm gonna be miserable doing that job.

[Anne Morris]

I love weird as a noun. It is. Is part of the job description.

[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.

[Sponsor Announcer 2]

And it took me on this three

[Molly Graham]

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, 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.

[Molly Graham (continued)]

And I think those are some of

[Molly Graham]

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.

[Molly Graham (continued)]

Like, they're like, is it supposed to be this hard?

[Molly Graham]

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,

[Molly Graham (continued)]

you know, and the thing that you're

[Molly Graham]

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.

[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.

[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.

[Anne Morris]

I was scared of going on all those trips.

[Molly Graham (continued)]

So was I, but I.

[Anne Morris]

And yet you did it. I know we're going to go back to this. You did it. And the rest of us stayed home.

[Molly Graham (continued)]

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.

[Molly Graham]

And then I came out the other

[Molly Graham (continued)]

side and was an instructor. So that does tell you something about me.

[Molly Graham]

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 longer 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.

[Molly Graham (continued)]

This is when I was 22.

[Anne Morris]

Oh, I had the same ridiculous thoughts at the same age.

[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

[Molly Graham (continued)]

and product, but you cannot deny that

[Molly Graham]

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.

[Molly Graham (continued)]

And again, this is summarizing sort of

[Molly Graham]

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.

[Anne Morris]

Do you feel like your purpose evolved

[Anne Morris (Narrator)]

over time, or did it reveal itself

[Anne Morris]

to you more clearly over time?

[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

[Molly Graham (continued)]

to show people that I can, like, do this.

[Molly Graham]

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.

[Molly Graham (continued)]

I don't know. It's a.

[Anne Morris]

Who were you in the beginning? Who were you proving yourself to?

[Molly Graham]

The answer is I was proving myself

[Molly Graham (continued)]

both to my dad, I think, and

[Molly Graham]

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 good separate from this biography.

[Molly Graham (continued)]

And I think originally I set out to be like, I'm as good as them.

[Molly Graham]

Like, I can do.

[Anne Morris]

I deserve to be in this tribe.

[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.

[Sponsor Announcer 2]

Do you know what I mean?

[Molly Graham]

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. And for me, I. I proved and

[Molly Graham (continued)]

proved and proved, and I got to

[Molly Graham]

a job that, you know, most people in the world would be like, wow, that's the job. And I just realized it wasn't the job for me, you know, it wasn't my work.

[Anne Morris]

Was there a point at which it was not about proving yourself to these other people and it was about the highest, best use of you?

[Molly Graham]

Yeah, that's basically what happened. Eight years.

[Anne Morris]

Wait, when was this? Eight years ago.

[Molly Graham]

Eight years ago.

[Anne Morris]

Take us eight years ago back to the point of this realization.

[Molly Graham]

A lot of people describe this as

[Molly Graham (continued)]

like, you put the ladder up against a wall, you climb up the ladder, and then you're like, oh, wrong wall.

[Molly Graham]

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.

[Anne Morris]

Can you talk about which job that was? Or.

[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.

[Anne Morris]

The mission is so meaningful.

[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.

[Molly Graham (continued)]

And I was. And so then I got the Chan

[Molly Graham]

Zuckerberg job, and I was like, oh, this is it.

[Sponsor Announcer 2]

I did it.

[Molly Graham]

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.

[Molly Graham (continued)]

And I was like, you think this is solvable?

[Molly Graham]

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.

[Sponsor Announcer 2]

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[Molly Graham]

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[Sponsor Announcer]

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 chr. 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.

[Anne Morris]

Well, I want to get into the process 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?

[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.

[Molly Graham (continued)]

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, you need to

[Molly Graham]

take this leap to figure out what's right for next.

[Molly Graham (continued)]

And so she Was like, you're gonna

[Molly Graham]

go on an adventure to, like, figure out what.

[Molly Graham (continued)]

And she was like, you like adventure,

[Molly Graham]

you know, and you're gonna get to

[Molly Graham (continued)]

learn and, like, all these things.

[Molly Graham]

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

[Molly Graham (continued)]

to do that, you know, willing to, like, jump off whatever cliff or.

[Molly Graham]

Or step out of this place where we feel safe and.

[Molly Graham (continued)]

And clear, even if we're miserable.

[Molly Graham]

So it was helpful to be like, okay, adventures I can do.

[Anne Morris]

So give. Give me a couple of plot points. So. 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?

[Anne Morris (Narrator)]

Was there journaling? Like, give us some tactics here on

[Anne Morris]

just what worked for you.

[Molly Graham]

Yeah, 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.

[Anne Morris]

How far away is that date from your exit?

[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

[Molly Graham (continued)]

idea that I got energetic about, I

[Molly Graham]

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 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,

[Molly Graham (continued)]

I guess, me, I will go on almost any experience with sort of an

[Molly Graham]

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, and in it I basically found this question which is what would you

[Molly Graham (continued)]

do if you believed you were already enough?

[Molly Graham]

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?

[Anne Morris]

Such a powerful question.

[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, and part of the reason why I tell you this story is just cuz like when I've watched friends and folks that I work with go on these journeys, like, they're just not a straight line.

[Anne Morris]

They're not a straight line.

[Sponsor Announcer 2]

And I always say, like, sometimes you

[Molly Graham]

need to take the interview to remind

[Molly Graham (continued)]

yourself that like, oops, not gonna do that again.

[Molly Graham]

Or sometimes you need to take a whole ass job to be like, yep,

[Molly Graham (continued)]

really done with this, you know, And

[Molly Graham]

I feel like for me, the last eight years have been working and working and working both on like being better

[Molly Graham (continued)]

at fighting the fights and winning.

[Molly Graham]

Like, there's just different parts of myself

[Molly Graham (continued)]

that I've discovered through all of this

[Molly Graham]

therapy and all of this coaching work

[Molly Graham (continued)]

where there's certain parts of myself that

[Molly Graham]

are like, yeah, let's take that cool

[Molly Graham (continued)]

job that everyone's gonna think is awesome.

[Molly Graham]

And I've had to work really hard to listen to the parts of myself that are like, you've.

[Molly Graham (continued)]

You've done this before.

[Molly Graham]

The stove is hot.

[Molly Graham (continued)]

Do you really need to touch it

[Molly Graham]

again and find like that voice that

[Molly Graham (continued)]

says, what does this get you that

[Molly Graham]

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?

[Anne Morris]

Do you feel like on that arc, do you feel like you have arrived with, with both clarity and a canvas to kind of express this purpose?

[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, you know, 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

[Molly Graham (continued)]

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 like a actual job, Capital J.

[Molly Graham]

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,

[Molly Graham (continued)]

you know, walls and a ceiling that are moving.

[Molly Graham]

And then the second community is called the Guild, and it's a small 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

[Molly Graham (continued)]

doing in five years?

[Molly Graham]

I'm like, no idea.

[Molly Graham (continued)]

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.

[Molly Graham]

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 going to take you somewhere great. If you're listening to like, right parts

[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?

[Molly Graham (continued)]

So one of the things I did

[Molly Graham]

when I was on my journey of, and, and this coincided, by the way, with turning 40, which for me was a moment to sort of say, I

[Molly Graham (continued)]

think I might be halfway through my

[Molly Graham]

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?

[Molly Graham (continued)]

And one of the things that I

[Molly Graham]

did over the last couple of years

[Molly Graham (continued)]

is read a lot of books about death.

[Molly Graham]

I was very curious, like, what do people wish they'd known?

[Anne Morris]

Like memoirs. What books about death? Tell us what's in this category.

[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.

[Sponsor Announcer 2]

But one of my like big takeaways

[Molly Graham]

from that is it's the journey, not the destination.

[Molly Graham (continued)]

Which sounds so simple and like, lame. Like something somebody would put on a bumper sticker when you were 20 and you'd be like, boring.

[Molly Graham]

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 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, I'm not planning to work all

[Molly Graham (continued)]

of those 40 years. So let's say there's 10 or 20

[Molly Graham]

left that I want to 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.

[Molly Graham (continued)]

And so like you said, you know,

[Molly Graham]

my bar is, I don't think everybody's

[Molly Graham (continued)]

happy all the time. That's not a thing.

[Molly Graham]

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%.

[Molly Graham (continued)]

And by the way, that is true.

[Molly Graham]

My work today brings me joy every day. And a lot of it is like, I fucking love my team. I going to a one on one

[Molly Graham (continued)]

with my team brings me great joy.

[Molly Graham]

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 sub stack 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

[Molly Graham (continued)]

crush, and part of that was kind of crushing yourself.

[Anne Morris]

You know, you do not have to be 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. 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, like, reliable indicator of right track, wrong track. What should we be paying attention to?

[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 gonna get Maggie on this podcast. 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

[Molly Graham (continued)]

because I had ones and tens. Like, I think a lot of people

[Molly Graham]

would be like, 5, 5, 5, 6, 8, 4, 2.

[Molly Graham (continued)]

I was like 1 10.

[Sponsor Announcer 2]

And the tens were actually all one

[Molly Graham (continued)]

on ones with people or moments when

[Molly Graham]

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 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

[Molly Graham (continued)]

doing, which sometimes is like a slightly different list. I would say there's a Venn diagram

[Molly Graham]

between the two of like, what are you good at and what do you love doing? And.

[Molly Graham (continued)]

And you're looking for that Venn diagram,

[Molly Graham]

you know, and then the third part

[Molly Graham (continued)]

of the Venn diagram is obviously like, what will people pay you a lot of money to do? So somewhere between like, what do I love doing?

[Molly Graham]

What am I great at?

[Molly Graham (continued)]

And what will people pay me money for?

[Molly Graham]

Is like the highest and best use of you.

[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?

[Molly Graham]

How do you get connected to it?

[Anne Morris]

I have learned to pay attention to which parts of me show up and 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 so, and I see the patterns and so like doing hard, creative things with a team of people, that's a, that's almost like a hack to feeling fully alive for me. And listeners will 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 met a young Molly, was is like a shocking start, right? Because don't we. 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

[Anne Morris (Narrator)]

way towards meaning and purpose, I find

[Anne Morris]

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.

[Molly Graham]

Yeah, you gotta find the right tools for you, and it's, it's different for everyone.

[Molly Graham (continued)]

But what I've really found, again, as I've like seen a lot of this,

[Molly Graham]

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

[Molly Graham (continued)]

I be listening to?

[Molly Graham]

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.

[Anne Morris]

Yeah, Foreign.

[Sponsor Announcer 2]

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[Molly Graham]

of everyday life life, the last thing

[Sponsor Announcer 2]

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[Molly Graham]

It.

[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.

[Anne Morris (Narrator)]

We wanted to hear directly from some of these graduates. So our producing team went to Washington

[Anne Morris]

Square park in New York City, the famed Washington Square park, to talk to people who had just graduated from NYU

[Anne Morris (Narrator)]

about how they're thinking about purpose as

[Anne Morris]

they enter the workforce. So let's hear from one of them.

[Sam (Graduate Interviewee)]

My name is Sam. My passion is really around higher education and making sure that everyone has access to it. I think a lot of people either 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 those a core part of every part of my life, not just work or at home?

[Anne Morris]

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?

[Sponsor Announcer 2]

Well, listen, man, you got one life,

[Molly Graham]

you know what I mean? And your, your life is a set of hours. And, you know, at the end of the day, you know, I said, I, 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 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 gonna 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, you know, Just go learn about yourself, and through that learning, you'll find a path. Whatever that path is, I love it.

[Anne Morris]

What is one thing our listeners can do this week to honor or activate their own purpose?

[Molly Graham]

Well, I'll give you the two. One is, like, I think that, like,

[Molly Graham (continued)]

rate all the meetings in just one week.

[Anne Morris]

I love that.

[Molly Graham]

One is a great exercise, and I'd give it to people a lot. Um, 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.

[Sponsor Announcer 2]

And describe them.

[Molly Graham]

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 the 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

[Molly Graham (continued)]

that looks like this, you know, and it's.

[Molly Graham]

It could have a lot of different titles and a lot of different organizations, but this kind of work is what energizes you.

[Anne Morris]

Beautiful. All right, a final question we ask all of our guests. What's something you're currently fixated on outside of work?

[Molly Graham]

Ooh. My answer to that is depressing.

[Anne Morris]

We can take it. We can take it.

[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

[Molly Graham (continued)]

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.

[Anne Morris]

The fabulous Molly Graham. Thank you for coming on Fixable. What a pleasure it has been to have this conversation with you.

[Molly Graham]

Same Ann. I really loved it. Thank you.

[Anne Morris (Narrator)]

And 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 series. 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.

[Frances Fry]

Our show is mixed by Louis at Storyyard.

[Sponsor Announcer]

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[Sponsor Announcer 3]

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