Tom Rath: The Bold Way to Rethink Purpose

About This Episode

In this episode, Leigh sits down with New York Times bestselling author and behavioral researcher Tom Rath to rethink purpose in a more grounded, actionable way. Tom explores why purpose is not one perfect calling or one perfect job, but a daily practice shaped by energy, alignment, contribution, and the small choices we make in the next 24 hours. Tom shares how his research, introversion, and experience living with a rare hereditary cancer condition have shaped his urgency, focus, and understanding of what it means to live boldly. This conversation offers a practical reset for anyone feeling misaligned, distracted, burned out, or ready to move from consuming to creating with greater intention.

About Tom Rath

Tom Rath is a #1 New York Times bestselling author whose books include How Full Is Your Bucket?, StrengthsFinder 2.0, Eat Move Sleep, and Life’s Great Question. His work, which blends behavioral research with practical insight, has influenced how organizations and individuals think about performance, wellbeing, and purpose. Tom lives with a rare terminal illness and has written extensively about work, health, and contribution with unusual clarity and urgency.

Additional Resources

Website: tomrath.org

Instagram: @tomrath_author
LinkedIn: @TomRath

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Welcome to the Bold Lounge Podcast. My name is Lee Burgess and I will be your host. If you're anything like me, you love hearing inspiring stories of people who have gone on bold journeys and made a positive impact in the world. This podcast is all about those kinds of stories. Every week we'll hear from someone who has taken the leap or embarked on an extraordinary journey. In addition to hearing their stories, we'll also learn about their bold growth mindset that they use to make things happen. Whether they faced challenges or doubts along the way, they persisted and ultimately achieved their goals. These impactful stories will leave you feeling motivated and inspired to pursue your own bold journey. I believe everyone has a bold story waiting to be freed. Tune in and get ready to be inspired. Welcome to the Bold Lounge. Today we have Tom Wrath. Tom is a number one New York Times best-selling author whose books include How Full Is Your Bucket, Strength Finder 2.0, Eat, Move, Sleep, and Life's Great Question. His work, which blends behavioral research with practical insight, has influenced how organizations and individuals think about performance, well-being, and purpose. Tom lives with a rare terminal illness and has written extensively about his work, health, and contribution with unusual clarity and urgency. He also has a new book out, which we're excited to talk about today, which is called What's the Point? Turning Purpose into Your Daily Superpower. Welcome to the Bold Lounge, Tom. Thanks so much. Good to be with you. So we're gonna jump right in to what bold looks like in your life. What would be your definition of bold today?

SPEAKER_01 1:49

You know, in my personal life, I'm kind of an introverted researcher at heart, and that's where I started my career. And so being bold for me is about forcing myself out of my comfort zone because I know that helps in terms of helping other people to relate to some of the things I'm talking about and the concepts and research that I believe in the most. But that's kind of a struggle I started maybe 25 years ago when I published my first book and was pulled into this world. And it's still something I struggle with launching a book 25 years later.

SPEAKER_00 2:20

Yeah, I don't think it goes away. I I'm definitely an introvert as well, and I think they misunderstand what that even means these days. Right. But getting yourself out of the comfort zone, I I might not ever leave the house.

SPEAKER_01 2:30

Yeah, I never would have written anything for public consumption and having to speak in front of audiences and promote stuff is like all of that's so far out of my comfort zone that it's a retest even after 12 books here or something. I would be much more comfortable if I could just keep researching and writing the whole time.

SPEAKER_00 2:45

Yeah. So when you think about getting out of your comfort zone, your book is obviously your book tour doing all the things that you do around that, certainly is aligned with that definition. Are there any other moments that come up for you where you're like, I am really out of my comfort zone and I'm gonna be okay. I'm gonna figure this out.

SPEAKER_01 3:01

Well, you know, I think for me, I've especially as I I just turned 50 in December and trying to figure out how I align more of my time to, in addition to my normal work as a writer and researcher author, to the causes that I believe in most. So I've started assembling groups of cancer researchers and trying to bring more funding in there and learning as much as I can. And so I'm I'm trying to challenge myself to realign a lot of my time and resources with the things that I have always told myself that I wanted to contribute to once I kind of got to a point in my life. And so forcing myself into some new circles there, it's been an adventure and a lot of learning. But I I can see how there's so much more meaning, even where I am in my career right now, to try and jump into something brand new like that.

SPEAKER_00 3:42

Yeah, that's probably a test of you know being out of your comfort zone too, when you're, you know, meeting new people, creating new communities, learning new things. Those are all things that can be uncomfortable.

SPEAKER_01 3:51

And a lot of advanced uh medical researchers who have bigger egos than the authors and CEOs I've spent time with, to be honest.

SPEAKER_00 3:59

Yeah, there's definitely some ego, but what incredible work they do. And yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I love that you're in that zone. Now, I know why that is of particular interest to you, but can you share with the audience who may not know why you would be working with researchers in healthcare and you know, trying to figure out some of the things that you're trying to figure out?

SPEAKER_01 4:21

Sure, yeah, it's a good way to kind of come into my personal introduction where I was uh diagnosed with a rare condition when I was 15 years old called von Hippelindau that essentially shuts off one of the body's most powerful tumor suppressors. And so I I have learned about it because I lost an eye to cancer when I was 16 or 17, and I've since had large tumors in my kidneys and pancreas and spine and all over. So I've kind of woken up every day since the internet emerged in my early 20s and spent several hours just digging into medical research and clinical discoveries and trying to figure out what I could do to keep myself alive a little bit longer and uh help some other people in the process as well. And so now, I mean, more than 30 years into that, I've tried to turn a lot of my attention to what I can do to be a part of stimulating more research for other people with rare cancers, hereditary syndromes, and the like. And it's been amazing for me to see just how much progress we've made, especially in the last 10 or 15 years with all the information that's become available. So, I mean, they they told me when I first was diagnosed that if I was lucky, maybe I'd live at a 47. And now I'm uh 50 years old and I'm pretty hopeful about getting another 30 years in there because of all the great research people are doing today. So it's it's inspiring and something I want to steer even more energy toward.

SPEAKER_00 5:34

Yeah. I know we're gonna talk about this in a little bit, but do you think that's connected to your purpose in life?

SPEAKER_01 5:40

I do think so. And that's where I want to steer a lot of my purpose in the next 10, 20, 30 years or however long I get. I think we're at a unique inflection point here where there's an opportunity to save and extend more lives than I would have thought was possible 25 years ago when I was first learning more about this.

Purpose Built From Daily Moments

SPEAKER_00 5:57

Yeah. Yeah, it's incredible how fast it's going and with AI, what we're able to do in clinical research and research now and be more efficient. That was where I was always like, why is this so inefficient? You know, some of the processes that uh we have around it, you know, from an administrative type of standpoint. So when you think about being bold and and you talked about getting out of your comfort zone, I think one of the things that I've seen a lot of people do, and you talked about realignment, you know, being aligned. And I usually say that instead of being having balance. I just don't think balance really lasts very long, just like a teeter-totter. So when you think about you the steps that you've taken to get more aligned, is there anything that you would share with someone else about how you did it or the process of knowing you're out of alignment?

SPEAKER_01 6:42

Yeah, I mean, I think the the thing that I discovered when working on this What's the Point book is that I started off trying to write a book about purpose and careers. And I realized last summer, so I mean, a few years into the book draft, that when you just put purpose out there for people, it almost creates more anxiety than is necessary because they think of it as some grand thing that descends from the heavens on a sunny day or one thing you figure out. Right. When in reality, purpose is probably the most practical hourly realignment task we all need to think about, where the real purpose that's created for me occurs when I'm exercising in the morning to make sure I have the energy I need to be my best that day. And purpose occurs when I have a meaningful conversation with one of my colleagues or someone I manage. And the best purpose for me in a given day is hearing what my kids say when they come home from school and they're answering questions I ask them about what they learned and what they were doing and what was fun and what was stressful and what was boring. In my life, I've learned that purpose is created when you kind of align those moments during the day so you spend more time on that and less time on the stuff that you're just kind of responding to notifications and emails and financial things you have to take care of and scrolling through social feeds and the like.

SPEAKER_00 7:53

Yeah, it's overwhelming, right? On any given day. Like you just saying that list made me tired.

SPEAKER_01 7:59

But if you say what really matters to me and what is the point, what is the purpose, and you say, okay, my kids are the purpose. All right. So then how do I make sure I'm actually dedicating an hour a day to listening and talking to them and asking questions? And if I say, well, part of my purpose is to make sure I'm creating some content that can grow when I'm gone 10 or 20 years from now, okay, so what does that have to do with my schedule tomorrow morning? So I make sure I'm carving out an hour or two where I'm not responding to distractions and I'm trying to focus on something substantive. And then I realign my time in my day based on, I don't know, maybe getting 30, 40, 50% of my time in purposeful activities instead of five or 10, which is where most of us start from as a default, maybe.

SPEAKER_00 8:40

Right. We we kind of start in the negative, honestly.

SPEAKER_01 8:42

Oh, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 8:44

Yeah. We start off with picking up our phone and reading our email or looking at the news or scrolling something. So we actually probably put ourselves in a deficit, you know, if we're talking about being fueled by purpose daily, you know, what are you putting into the engine, you know, so to speak, right? So your new book, and you have several books, so I think it would be interesting here the arc of the writing. But the new book, what's the point turning purpose into your daily superpower? First of all, I absolutely love it because it is straightforward to the point. You don't mess around, you say it like it is, which you know, I really appreciate that in just in life in general, but also just to to read it that way. But it's also walking us through the very thought-provoking process of understanding what it means when you're working, acting, taking action toward and learning more about what is your purpose. Because I think it's a really big question we get asked a lot, but we first, I think, get hit with that other P word, which is passion, which you start off the book by saying it is very overrated. Have you always felt like passion is overrated and purpose is really where we should be focused?

SPEAKER_01 9:50

Yeah, you know, when I still remember when I was my early 20s getting out of college, and I had a counselor or an advisor about careers and jobs when I was at Michigan ask me about kind of passion, what I was passionate about. And as someone who'd already had to confront my mortality and the like, it did ring a little hollow because I kind of viewed passion as like sugar water, where that's you go have fun and think about you. And I mean, sure, I I my what I was most passionate about growing up was basketball. I would have given anything to be a big career basketball player, but my genetics and height and a lot of things worked against that, and I could only see in one eye.

SPEAKER_00 10:21

But you did win the natty just recently, so that's pretty awesome.

SPEAKER_01 10:25

That that was fun. So I can be a good fan, and that's a hobby.

SPEAKER_00 10:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:30

But my passion for basketball, or people are passionate for golf or whatever, that doesn't really connect with what the world needs. And so I I real early on in my career saw that as a little bit more self-oriented than other-oriented. And as I've worked through the books I've written over my career and done a lot of work on well-being and my degrees and positive psychology and happiness, my graduate degree. And as much as I've learned in that area, when I have friends or colleagues who are struggling and they keep saying, What can I do to be happier? and so forth, the right answer is almost always to turn your focus outward and say, what can you do to serve other people, see what your family members need, your community needs, what does the world need, and then work back to who you are from that point. And so over the arc of my career, I've kind of seen the evolution of that where some of the early work I was very involved with was on strengths and strengths finder 2.0 and the like. And people would come to me and say, Oh, I figured out my strengths, and now I'm gonna go do a job interview and tell everybody about my strengths. Like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's not about how you're gonna go pound your strengths into the world. It's about how you can sort through what the world needs, what the organization you're interviewing for needs, and then say, oh, you can take your natural talents and serve those and go from point A to point B instead of saying, here's who I am and waiting for the world to revolve around you, which backfires for everyone. It's not just about my perspective and mortality and my thoughts on that early on. I think if if I'm hiring someone, I want to hear how they're going to make things better for our customers, for our community, for the hospital system we're serving, whatever it might be, and not about how they're going to just be more of themselves in isolation and focus on what they're passionate about.

SPEAKER_00 12:05

Yeah. So I've used Icky guy before, and I think I also use it with those that I coach in the sense of like when we're talking about our evolution as humans, you know, like you're learning, you're growing. And I think what I'm learning the most about is myself, certainly since 48. Like 48 was, you know, the low on the happiness curve in your life, and you say this is out of alignment and I don't want to do it anymore, right? So that's when I got burnt out and decided I have to make a choice, which is me, you know, because I'd let everything else take over. And when you think about being able to get to that point and start to really kind of you lead your own life, it probably sounds weird, but I've really felt like probably before then I felt like my life was leading me.

SPEAKER_01 12:48

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 12:48

Does that ring true for you in the sense of all your research and what you've seen? Is like there is a point where misalignment with your purpose is no longer an option.

SPEAKER_01 12:57

The way you just said that was is really important, and I hadn't really thought about that one. I need to write that down, but your life was leading you instead of you leading it. Right. That is maybe the a better encapsulation of what I've learned than I've been able to write or figure out. Um, and it it's the same thing that I've experienced myself where I mean, even with all the challenges I confronted and things I was dealing with before I was 40, I hit 40 and realized that everything I'd been doing, from what I studied in college to my career to the books that I'd worked on, were kind of all driven by life steering that because of where I was born, what my family did while I was growing up, what I saw from role models around me and the like, and what societal and external expectations were for me. And I would say that I don't know, maybe 85, 90% of what I'd done was the product of Jonathan Haidt talked about this in one of his early books, The Happiness Hypothesis, The Elephant and the Rider, where we're just kind of sitting on the elephant, we might be able to steer it a little bit, but it's the elephant driving the whole thing. And I realized that my life was kind of in that metaphor of, I mean, I grew up around teachers and psychologists and researchers, and so I naturally went into that. And like a lot of people, I went to work for the family business, stayed in that for a long time, and didn't even realize how much of that was driven by external forces until I stepped back a little bit and was objective about what should I really be doing so that I can make the greatest contribution to the world in the second half of my life, essentially. It's a great question.

SPEAKER_00 14:26

You're yeah, well, thank you. So you're really, I'm gonna use a word I don't like, but in control of the path, the next step. And I always say, like, you just need to know the next three steps, even the next this one. I think that sometimes can be what overwhelms at least adults in trying new things or doing things. The fear sets in, you know, our brain scanning for everything to be safe and saying, nope, that's a risk. There's a risk, right? So when you think about your bold moments and even putting this book out, did you worry about what people would think or you at the point where it's just like I, you know, I'm gonna be me and I just do it. You know, that judgment, that worry that someone might not understand why you wrote it.

SPEAKER_01 15:04

Yeah, I, you know, I've I've been able to set a lot of the fear from a writing standpoint aside of like the more I get into this, the more I realize you have to challenge people and help them to find some steps that are as practical as possible and to do that in as blunt a language as possible. Because with all the stuff out there today, to get someone to actually pay attention, you kind of need to throw a fastball at their forehead while they're reading something, right?

SPEAKER_00 15:28

Yeah, because I I took attention to your style of writing in this.

SPEAKER_01 15:31

Yeah, and I've tried to evolve that style even in the from the last book to this one, because I feel like it's more necessary now than it was five or 10 years ago. And I've been guilty of kind of sleepwalking in my career before. And the thing that really drove me writing this book, my kids are uh my daughter's 17, my son's 15. And it's so clear to me that we need more direct challenges early on in our career, because if left to the volition of falling into the defaults right now, you're forced to answer questions about what you want to major and what you want to study in when you're 16 years old. And you maybe have exposure to two, three, or four careers. But if even if you had exposure to 50 careers, that's only half of what's out there in the U.S. workforce. So I've done a lot of work on that as I was doing the research for this book. And by my estimation, at least 80 or 90% of us get all the way to the end of a career, into the end of our life, and we probably have not seen what we could have been best at in life and where we could have contributed the most to society. So that makes it easy for me to step back and admit that I've probably been doing a lot of the wrong things all this time. And it's not admitting weakness to say I should rethink the whole thing, even at my age right now, and just ask some questions about what else I could be doing, or at least in different ways.

From Consumption To Real Career Choice

SPEAKER_00 16:44

Yeah. One of the things I wrote earlier this week is your brain actually is more comfortable with something you know isn't aligned, but it knows what it is and has been through it and has gone through, you know, it knows the job you're doing, you know how to act, how to operate, those sort of things. So your brain would be more comfortable with you staying there than you actually having new opportunities, new things potentially. But because they're unknown, there's that could be unsafe and have higher risk. When you think about all that you know across the spectrum of your books and your research, what do you think is, you know, are there one or two things that keep people from taking a look or you know, having that retrospective review of like, am I doing what I really should be doing right now or want to be doing? And it's not passion, but it's that alignment with your purpose that I'm talking about. What do you think keeps people from actually doing it? I hear so many times, I know what I want to do, but I'm not doing it. Right.

SPEAKER_01 17:42

I think on a on a daily basis, I think the biggest problem is that consumption is kind of comfort, right? So when we're consuming things and you're like just scrolling through a feed or answering emails, it's moderately pleasurable, it's easy, and you don't have to tackle something big and difficult. And so I was hesitant to say this in the book, but I I think I included it in the end, about, you know, saying you got to go from consumption to creation. And it can be creation of relationships, it can be creation of good service at a Starbucks or creation of a good product in a manufacturing environment. But if your life and balance are way too tilted towards consumption, over time it's not good for you. And you're far less likely to be creating things that are meaningful and productive for the world and things that can continue to grow even when you're not working on them from an effort standpoint. So I think if we can tip the balance back and say, how do I spend at least an hour, two hours, three hours investing in a relationship, investing in a conversation, investing in a product, investing in new music, a form of art, whatever it might be that you create or business, I think we've got to try and bring that into balance a little bit because it's just going to get easier and easier and easier to fall into that mode of letting the next Netflix show play or keep scrolling through a different social media feed or whatever it might be. And so that's going to get more addictive and more of a dangerous feedback loop. And so we've got to see how we can break out of that on a day-to-day basis. And then to your question on a longer term basis, I would argue that everyone needs to step back at some point or many points in their career and say, hey, wait, is there a really good chance? Because I've asked 100 people, and 95 out of 100 are in the job they're in today because it's what mommy did or daddy did, or what's what the money pulled you towards, and say, hey, what else could I have been great at potentially? And I haven't even explored that because it felt too risky and not safe enough. I mean, it's like we were talking about this before, but I mean, I think about this all the time where I almost wish I would have gone to medical school and gotten into cancer medical research earlier on, but I didn't see anyone do that growing up, so I had no idea that was even possible. And there are probably 10 examples of that for everybody out there where they just didn't explore it because it wasn't on that path. So the earlier on in our lives we can do that the better. But even if you're mid-career, I don't think it's ever too late.

SPEAKER_00 20:00

Yeah, I don't either. I think one of the biggest things when I did leave my job and I didn't have a plan, I just knew I needed to do something different. And it was for me, um, it needed to be end this, figure out, and begin something new. I had to have a lot of belief in myself that I could figure it out. Obviously, it's a pragmatic thing, it isn't just something you do on a whim, you know. I we we thought about it, we planned, I tried to get a new job, you know. What probably most people do when they feel like, oh, this isn't gonna get fixed. And for me, I think the biggest thing was I was misunderstood by so many people when I left. Like, why would you leave? What are you doing? What do you mean you're trying this or trying that? When I first left, I had four ideas. They were really truly, I didn't limit myself. That was what I wanted to do. Don't limit yourself. Just put down where you feel like you're drawn to, want to learn more about. And that was probably one of the most freeing things. But I think when I first started out, I started to share the dream or the thoughts with everyone, you know, checking out at Walmart, wherever I was, I was really excited. I felt like I was 18, like I could do anything I wanted. I got to pick it, but I had so much more information than I did at 18, right? And I also know what I liked and didn't like about the world I was in, which I went into that world because is a solid, you know, healthcare is a solid industry. I have an interest in doing good for others and serving others. But I mean, if you told me now that that I could pick, I probably would not have picked that. I would pick something more creative because that is definitely where I thrive. And, you know, whether it's writing or creating art or creating, you know, the things that we do in social media, those types of things, I do think I would never have thought of creating or gardening as uh put I'd love it to be outside. So what keeps us from being I think when we think about our kids even like what keeps us from doing that to them and how can we set the roles a different way for the future?

SPEAKER_01 21:57

That might be the the best question I've heard in a long time. In terms of uh it's something I think about a lot. I've had very candid conversations with my kids about it already. What I look back at my own experience and I see what I've interviewed hundreds of people about, I think in many cases are what we think were our childhood dreams are actually anchors that hold us back and they're counterproductive. So when you look at what your childhood dreams really are, in so many cases they're just manifestations of the limited field of view you had, and they're manifestations of things that your parents never fulfilled, and they're manifestations of overcoming perceived social and economic status barriers and things like that.

SPEAKER_00 22:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:35

So I mean, a part of it, I started on this whole project of a business and this book, in large part because I asked my daughter three years ago, you know, what do you think you want to do as you're getting older and studying things? And and my wife's a second grade teacher, but is for context. And she said, Well, she said maybe a, she said, maybe a writer. I like writing, she's a very good writer, or maybe a teacher. I'm like, oh my gosh. So she's already just saying the two things that shouldn't be the only things on the radar. And so that's where I've said to my kids directly, you know what? I want you to figure out over the next years what you want to study, what you want to be, what you want to do. And it should not have anything to do with what you think we want of you or what we've done. And I want you to explore as many possible majors and careers and things you want to learn about and study as you possibly can. And I've actually been doing day-in-the-life interviews and trying to get video for the kids to watch a bunch of different professions and all this stuff.

SPEAKER_00 23:25

Yeah, I saw that. That's with your career site, right?

SPEAKER_01 23:27

Yeah, so we've been trying to put together a the top 50 jobs and day-in-the-life videos so people all around can study those and prioritize. And right now, I think if you think about it in the form of a camera lens, most of us are operating at an aperture of about maybe 5% of the lens when we get to college or graduate from college. And my goal is just to help people get to like 30 or 40% where they see a third of what's out there. If even just my kids get to that point, that's a lot better starting point when they enter the work world than where I was at that time. So I think at any point in our lives, just conceptually too, we can step back and say, so let's just imagine that our childhood dreams were really just kind of the byproduct mostly of our environment and social environmental expectations. And so if we were to start from scratch, what might the new dreams be at this point in our life if you didn't have all that baggage and so forth? Because I don't blame my parents or grandparents or anything. It's just kind of a natural thing where people, and I grew up in Nebraska where it's kind of a farming culture, and everyone wants to pass the family farm to the next generation or whatever, right? So I mean it's it's innocent the way it happens, but yet it shouldn't be that if your dad's a dentist, you've got to be a dentist. And if your mom's an administrative assistant, that's where you end up. And the there are examples in the book where in some professions people are 300 times as likely to go into that exact job if that's what mom or dad did. You know, it really hit me when I was 25 years old. I just had met my wife. We hadn't we weren't married yet, and she took me to a wedding down in South Carolina, somewhere in the South, and I hadn't really spent much time in the southern U.S. And we were there, and all the men at the dinner there, oh, their glasses of scotch and ice, and they were asked my, they walked up and they said, What's your daddy do? I'm like, why are they asking me this question about what my dad does? And I said to that, my wife is like, Oh, they assume that's what you're gonna do. So they're just asking you what you're gonna do. Yeah. And so it's that coded into some cultural expectations, and that hit me pretty hard about, oh boy, I think I'm this independent person as I graduate from college, but I've really just fallen into that.

SPEAKER_00 25:23

Right. And I think your parents do the best they can. I think that's one thing I realized too, at being at my age, and not that I'm old or consider myself old, I just consider myself way smarter, hopefully, than I was 25 years ago. That's the point, I think. So hopefully I'm getting smarter. But I think also I realized, you know, they didn't have a lot from their parents, you know. So there is that understanding, I guess, that happens too at this time. Do you feel like we understand ourselves better as well? Like, I I have a different definition of what I think success is, certainly than when I started in my career. Like it's not about title or money, money. I don't mean financial stability, that's still uh obviously important, but I mean I don't think X amount of dollars equals some pinnacle type of moment in my life.

SPEAKER_01 26:10

Right. And I think to your point, you mentioned something early on about how once you've reached that point of meeting your needs, not having to stress and worry about paying a bill or a mortgage on a regular basis. After that point, it is really important to align who you want to be and what impact you want to have in the world and prioritize that over some of the status and money and titles and the like. I talk a little bit in the book. I live across the street from a huge sprawling cemetery here in Arlington, Virginia. And I walk through there some days just kind of for perspective. And I mean, all the headstones are like loving father and husband and friend and all these things. I mean, there's there's nothing on there, and nobody's gonna say anything at your memorial service about how many followers you had or how many expense reports you finished or how much money you made. I mean, it's it's really about the impact you've had on mostly on relationships and people's lives and your friends and loved ones, and then some of the things maybe you've been able to do and reach people through a career or whatever product or service you've been a part of or created. And so aligning that with what you're actually spending time on is a way to bring that back into the practical world.

Sleep, Energy, And Burnout Reset

SPEAKER_00 27:09

Yeah. So do you ever in your calendar feel like you're pulled stuff that really isn't aligned with you and you need to just get a reset, like a mini reset. I don't mean like an overhaul. What's something that you do to click back in? Do you do you just say next week I'm gonna take those off, or do you do like a quarterly review? Like how do you make sure that because they always say if you really want to know what's a priority in your life, look at your calendar, right? So I think in that sense, how do you, once you see your calendar, you go, something's off, you know, feeling the friction, what do you do to reset it?

SPEAKER_01 27:42

You know, it's interesting because as I've learned about kind of all this comprehensive perspective of well-being from some of the research I've been a part of, I think it's it's more of a cumulative thing of energy and flow than it is more than it is like a blocking rote calendar exercise for me in some cases, where if I'm not doing that well, and my time and priorities are a little bit off, the single best thing I can do is just to get one really good night of sleep. And then if I do that, it's the reset button on the smartphone or the video game or the computer where everything starts fresh that next day. And I'm likely to say, okay, I got to get outside, get some exercise early on instead of dialing into my email. I go do that, and then I come into my office, I get some creative work done, and I make sure I have really good, energizing conversations with my colleagues, people I work with, and then I'm probably eating better that day, and then I save the routine tasks and the responding to emails and doing accounting and checking financials and so forth towards the end of the day because I know I don't need to be my best for that, but I do need to be the best for my creative work and my conversations with the people who matter. So I've been able to do that more from an energy flow, and then if I get a good day and it continues, there's a cumulative effect where it builds on the next one and things keep getting better. So, and I've also, I think to some of our earlier conversation, I've learned that the one thing you have to prioritize above all else is having the energy you need to be your best for other people. And I'm sure you've seen this in healthcare. I've worked with a lot of nurses and home care professionals and teachers and in the professions I admire most that have the most selfless people who I interview and talk to, they're often the most guilty of putting everyone else's needs ahead of their own. And the product of that is they don't have the energy for the patient or the family member or the student who really needs them at one o'clock in the afternoon when they're struggling with something. Whereas once they realize they're able to prioritize their own health and energy and well-being, they can be so much better and do it day after day and more effectively. So I've learned it's important to really bring the physical and psychological aspect into that allocation as well.

SPEAKER_00 29:50

Yeah. Yeah. I love that you basically you load up in the beginning of the day with the things that give you energy, that multiply the energy maybe you're already walking in with and keep the things that you know might take away or drain or just not give back. Right. You know, energy perspective-wise, and you kind of put those to the latter part. And your reset is sleep and just thinking clearer, having, you know, that reset of having a good night's sleep. Because I do think that's a lot of the challenges that you know someone can have is just they they may not be thinking clearly, and then everything compounds, right? Right when you're in that state. You had suggested that burnout isn't about working too much. I was curious what you think it's really about.

SPEAKER_01 30:32

I don't mean to suggest that burnout is not the product of working too much, to be clear. No, there's a combination, but I the thing that drives me most crazy is when I see leaders in particular who they don't even have to encourage other people to work around the clock and email them when they're on vacation, all that, which is just horrible in my opinion. Even if they just do it themselves, that's just as egregious and even more damaging, in my opinion. So when I see leaders who are saying, oh, I I want people to take vacation, do that, but then they're typing all the time, well, they're on vacation and they're staying in the office till eight o'clock at night, and they're working over their keyboard all afternoon, not getting around and being active and telling people to go home and stuff. I feel like that's the new burnout creation machine from an organizational standpoint. So I wish leaders and managers would take it much more seriously to say that they care a lot about making sure people get enough sleep, they're not working too hard, they do take the time off, they do get that psychological reset, they do value that time. So I think that's one piece of it. And then on an individual level, I think for each of us to say, how do we think about the ebb and flow and managing our own energy? So if I'm wiped out in a day and not being as productive as I'd like to say, okay, it's time to call a timeout and go for a walk, even if it's just to get a cup of coffee or whatever, just get outside for 10 minutes. Moving around every, I think it's like every 52 minutes on average for people who are in creative positions is such a key productivity hack throughout the day. And I think at an individual level, we can all manage the activity flow with foods that don't make us sleepy and bog us down, with movement ideally every 25 minutes at a minimum every 50 to 50 minutes to an hour, and then prioritizing devices off after eight o'clock, getting at least seven to eight hours of sleep, having a good sleep schedule, and making sure you're fresh on most mornings. Another just side piece on that is I know when I'm traveling for work, I it takes me like 10 hours to get the seven or eight hours I need. So I've reallocated my whole schedule when I'm traveling, knowing that my sleep efficiency is terrible.

SPEAKER_00 32:41

Yeah, thanks when you're not at home.

SPEAKER_01 32:43

Right. Yeah. So I'm thinking about that clinically. So it's what are the ingredients that need to go in if I have to be my best tomorrow and working backwards from that has been helpful for me.

Mortality, Motivation, And AI Curiosity

SPEAKER_00 32:51

Yeah. So knowing that you had such a, I would think, a life-changing diagnosis and the things that happened to you such an early age, how do you think that's impacted how you see purpose? And the reason I asked this question not only because I think it fits with your new book, what's the point, but also like in my life, though, I lost my brother, I was six and he was 11, and it was an accident and unexpected, and just it rocked your world. Um, but I think I also had a view on the world too, very differently for my entire life, probably forward, was that no one's guaranteed tomorrow, no matter how old you are, no matter what your age. And I think I've kind of been a bit a bit YOLO most of my life because today's the day. This is what you got, like make the best of it. And I feel like a lot of people miss that point. And I wondered what you thought personally going through what you did at such a young age. How has it impacted you in the sense of how you see not only purpose, but like human value and what we contribute?

SPEAKER_01 33:50

You know, it gave me that kind of sense of urgency where I've seen this in some of the research on people who, like, as you talk about, who have faced those challenges at young ages, on average, exhibit what psychologists call post-traumatic growth. You come out kind of more resilient in a lot of cases because you have that urgency and you don't take things for granted. And it gives you a little, it's kind of like an accelerant to your day-to-day. And I noticed that it was fascinating for me at the outset, the first two, three months of the pandemic, where I had a book I was trying to launch in March of 2020, which I highly recommend against. So it was awful, but I converted all my Zoom calls to these just kind of like one-on-one meetings with people I was getting to know. And they were feeling that for the first time in many cases, that kind of sense of mortality, and oh my gosh, what's happening? How do I make this count? And I was hopeful at the time that that might lead to some deeper conversations and people asking questions about what really mattered. And I think in many cases it has. So, yes, I think those of us who have had to deal with things like you have and I have can use that to your advantage in a way that helps you to have a bigger impact on society over each year. And it turns into an accelerant where you I can sometimes get more done in a month than I think a lot of people who are just kind of like going through the motions can in a year or two.

SPEAKER_00 35:01

Yeah, because I think there's a lot of put it off or tomorrow I will, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:05

Yeah, I think I said that in the introduction of one of my books. It's kind of like, you know, most people always say, Oh, I'll do this tomorrow. You have until tomorrow. And I'm positive that you don't. So I just do it today. Don't put the things off that you know matter. And you know matter could be calling a friend from college, right? I mean, it doesn't have to be some big project or a work thing. I mean, there's just things like that you got to build new day. But the one thing that I would say to anyone where you don't have to have a big life experience like that, is that when I think about my most productive days, my most energized days, I don't go work out or eat really well in the morning or whatever because I have this rare genetic condition, I know it's decreasing my odds of cancer by 0.002% every day. I do eat a healthy salad for lunch or whatever and get some exercise because I know I'll be more energized as a dad at four o'clock when my kids get home. And I can just have more energy in all facets of life if I'm taking those steps. So even though I know like from a health and energy and well-being standpoint, I think connecting what you do this morning and this afternoon with the motivation later on today is actually more effective than some of those long-term existential things that people talk about all the time. You see this research about uh cancer and heart disease and neurodegenerative conditions. And I would encourage people to really connect their daily habits with the energy changes in the next 12 to 24, 36 hours, because that's a more powerful motivator even for a guy like me.

SPEAKER_00 36:33

Yeah. Yeah. So think about like, you know, are my actions aligned with what I say is important? That's a big one. Yeah. And I think if you start there, it's like, oops, they're not. You know, like I'm thinking of mine today. It's like, nope, they're not. It's a beautiful day. I think I've NYX going outside already, but I know I have to be outside. You know, like I just need to do that. So it didn't it like you said, it doesn't need to be something huge or major. Like it can it's the tiny steps that lead to you know, you achieving what you're going to achieve. And I think just getting started is half the battle sometimes for folks.

SPEAKER_01 37:05

And just testing some things and then build the ones that work into your Yeah, like try it, learn something.

SPEAKER_00 37:10

I think it's hard for people even to say what they do for fun these days. You know, like when I ask some of my clients, like how how, you know, what are you doing for fun? What are you stretching yourself learning about, or what's something new you're going to do? It's like silence. So if someone's at that point, what would you say to that? Like if I couldn't tell you what I do for fun, but I work a lot.

SPEAKER_01 37:31

Yeah, I think that's where we've all got to kind of get out of the not only responsive mode that we've talked about, but kind of the the tunnel mode. Um, because it's really the and it's something that I think will only accelerate by 510X with AI right now, which is we all now have, I mean, the thing that changed the world for me in the most positive way I can describe was the emergence of the internet, which was I I graduated from college in 1998, so it was kind of right around 2000 ballpark. And all of a sudden, these things that I could find in isolated gopher servers in Minnesota or whatever about health, which was hard to get to, I had all this information at my fingertips. And the the emergence of all the information with AI is kind of like that on steroids right now for me. And it makes me more hopeful than I've ever been about how much we can learn and how much knowledge we can assemble to help people live longer, better, more productive lives. But the big caveat there is we all have to take ownership and say, how can I learn and do five to ten times more with these tools if we want to help move society forward? And so I've even had a video call a few months ago with the people that I work with and challenge them real directory and said, you know what, we've kind of been good collaborators and working together as a team and performers, but we all have to act like we manage a team of 10 because we have that resource right now with a$20 a month subscription or whatever. And we need to bring all that together and see how we can have an even bigger impact and all be learning 10 times more than we were a year ago. And so I I feel like if you if you take that approach, this should be like a new boom for people who can use intellectual curiosity to their advantage. Okay. But if if you don't do that and you just kind of let everything get easier, then you're you're gonna fall behind faster.

Planting Seeds That Outlive You

SPEAKER_00 39:23

Yeah. So be curious. You have a lot at your fingertips. I think obviously manage yourself there too. I think if you think about your email and things like that, and things you can do, and uh every day it gets smarter in the sense of using it and what it offers you. Um I think I've even I create because for me, like, oh, I can create this, this, and this. Would you like to see this? And I'm always like, yes, do it all, do it all, do it all. And now I like actually have a prompt of like, please don't ask me to do more than what I asked. Uh at least not yet. I think sometimes I can get buried in that. So as we're thinking about, you know, your new book, what's the point turning purpose into your daily superpower? What do you hope the readers walk away with? Or is it something you want them to do differently or think differently about?

SPEAKER_01 40:08

You know, I think the outcome of focusing on kind of turning purpose into your daily superpower essentially, is that at the end of that process and that cycle, that you're confident that you're in a position, that the work you do each day, and that work can be developing a young person or a loved one or a son or daughter or putting a product together or whatever it might be, that you spend more time during your days planting seeds that can continue to grow in in your absence and that will continue to have an influence on people and future generations, uh, even when you're not around. And I think that's w it's essentially aligning more of your day to things that make a positive contribution to society. And it doesn't just have to be you operating the machine or you being there presently to have that growth continue day in and day out over time. So I hope people kind of see how they can pull themselves out of the daily grind of responsiveness and societal expectations and the status treadmill and all those things, and at least begin to spend a portion of their day putting things together that continue to have a positive influence. My favorite uh quote of all time that I've always had on my uh wall and desk is from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who said, uh, life's most persistent and urgent question is what are you doing for others? And I I feel like if I can align even a good chunk of my day around that question, I always uh get home in the evening and uh feel a lot better about the work I got done and I'm eager to talk about it with my family members and friends uh when I can really confidently say that my work's been oriented towards just helping another person. And also, like we started out with, it's important that you acknowledge and can kind of see that connection at the end of the day as well.

SPEAKER_00 42:14

Yeah, yeah, and doing that reflection. Do you journal or do anything in the sense of kind of being able to be reflective, whether it's daily or you know something that you do weekly to kind of see the whole spectrum? Because I think sometimes people can get, oh, this was a bad week. And when you actually sit back and look at it, like, no, it actually was like a big a bad five minutes. And you know, like in the sense of that, do you do you do anything that's helpful for you to kind of see the bigger picture of life versus kind of maybe something that didn't go as planned or you know, not the way you wanted?

SPEAKER_01 42:45

Most of it for me is just a walk outdoors.

SPEAKER_00 42:47

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 42:48

Um, and so I I I I'll go out for a walk sometimes by myself, most of the time with my wife around our neighborhood here. And it's when when I'm by myself, it's kind of good reflection on what's going on during the day, what I can do more of. And I don't ever get my device out at all while I'm out on a walk. Um, and when I'm with my wife or a friend or family members, it's it's just remarkable how mind-expanding and open and productive those conversations are versus conversations when you're kind of rushing around or in a car or in a kitchen doing stuff in the house. Um, and so that's I I think I do that informally in that fashion. The thing that I have been trying to do more lately, and this goes back to my very first book was called Helpful is Your Bucket, that kind of caught on in schools and stuff. And one of the outcomes of that is kids and teachers kind of write drops for your bucket, which is a little handwritten card to each other and put them up on the wall and stuff. I've been trying to do more of that in the last months, where it's sitting down and writing a handwritten note or a book to uh someone who I've had a good friendship with or I've valued and worked with, and I've been doing this a lot in the last couple of months here, to really clearly describe what they've meant to my life and to my work and what they've been doing. And Um, I think some of those uh just handwritten messages and taking the time to do that, that helps to kind of journal and set in stone and do that in an outward focused way more than writing it for myself ever could. So I I I I need I I don't do enough of it to be really honest, but I I need to make that more of a habit habit like I did earlier on in my career.

SPEAKER_00 44:23

But it feels good. And I think it's also yeah, you're really obviously taking what you've learned and sharing, or you're just checking in with someone in a very thoughtful way. So sometimes those are the things that actually lift you higher than you might realize when you're doing it. So as we come to the end of the podcast, and you know, you've written many books and been very successful. For you, what did you learn about yourself? So I've only written two books, I've definitely learned something different about myself in each of those. They each have had their own little path and journey and have taught me something. For you, did this book teach you something new about you?

SPEAKER_01 44:59

Yes, and probably more than any other one that I've worked on, which I I don't say that ever. And it's I think you hit on the key theme of what I learned when you talk about alignment, because when I as I worked through this book and I looked at my daily habits and what I was spending time on in a given day, um, it was it was kind of frightening for me to admit how much time I ended up getting distracted during the day and looking at stock quotes, which is a hobby of mine from investing, or social media feeds, or the latest car accident of what's going on in the global news or whatever. I watch too much, I watch too much news. It's just not productive. I don't gain anything from that. Um, and to say it's really the moments where I'm digging into some medical research or learning or doing new research for a book or having those meaningful conversations. I I think my time was when I started working on this book, was probably 30% aligned to what I should be doing to have the most value for other people in my career. And today I feel like I'm closer to 70 or 75%, which I'm not sure if I'll get past that or not as things go along. But um, it's been a big turnaround for me because it's yeah, I mean, I feel like I my phones are always in focus mode. My kids ask me for 10 bucks on Apple Pay and I don't respond for an hour and a half, which I feel bad about. But they're they're so in that you got to respond within three minutes, but I'm no longer doing that. And it's that's been a big shift. And I think if if people can kind of figure out how to spend more time during the day connecting it to the purpose and what really matters, if I mean if even a hundred people get that out of it, that'd be a big victory for me.

SPEAKER_00 46:37

Yeah, agree with you. And and one already has, so at least, you know, count you know, 99 to go. Uh so please, everyone, pick up what's the point turning purpose into your daily power by Tom Rath. I'm so excited that you've been able to share this with us today and with uh the listeners. Thank you so much for being on the Bold Lounge.

SPEAKER_01 46:55

Thank you. Great conversation.

SPEAKER_00 46:59

Thank you for listening to the Bold Lounge Podcast. Through the continuum of bold stories, vulnerability to taking a leap, you will meet more extraordinary people making a positive impact for others through their unique and important story. By highlighting these stories, we hope to inspire others and share the journey of those with a bold mindset. We hope you've enjoyed this podcast and look forward to sharing the next bold journey with you.