0:00

Today's episode is brought to you by Shopify. Shopify

0:02

is there to help you grow. Whether

0:04

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0:06

productivity programs, Shopify helps you sell

0:08

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to their in-person POS system. Sign

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0:16

is brought to you by Indeed. We're

0:19

driven by the search for better, but

0:21

when it comes to hiring, the best

0:23

way to search for a candidate isn't

0:25

to search at all. Don't search, match

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with Indeed. Just go to

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indeed.com/creative right now. Need to hire?

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You need Indeed. Hey

0:34

everyone, welcome to the

0:36

show. Today's

0:43

episode is a replay of a 2020 conversation

0:45

I had with Tom Rath about

0:47

his book, Life's Great Question. And

0:50

on today's show, Tom is gonna talk about

0:53

life, work, meaning, purpose, and why

0:55

we're here on this planet. I hope you

0:57

enjoy. Let me

0:59

ask you a pretty provocative question. Why

1:01

are you here on this planet? Have

1:05

you ever thought about it? I mean, I'm sure you

1:07

have, but do you really spend much time considering why

1:10

you're here and what it is you wanna get

1:12

out of life? Or maybe more importantly, what

1:14

is it life is asking of you?

1:17

And that's what we're gonna talk about today

1:19

with my guest, Tom Rath. Tom believes firmly

1:21

that life is not what you get out

1:23

of it, it's what you put back in.

1:26

He quotes Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who

1:29

said, life's most persistent and urgent question is

1:31

what are you doing for others?

1:34

And on today's show, we're gonna talk about

1:36

Tom's new book. It's called Life's Great Question,

1:38

Discover How You Contribute to the World. Tom

1:40

Rath is an author, he's a researcher, he

1:42

spent two decades studying how work can improve

1:44

human health and wellbeing. His 10 books have

1:46

sold more than 10 million copies

1:49

and they've made hundreds of appearances on

1:51

global bestseller lists. So today we're gonna talk with

1:53

Tom about life's great question,

1:56

why we're here, how we contribute, how

1:58

we can identify what we're. to

2:00

contribute and how all of that can

2:02

lead to a life that is more

2:04

engaged, more effective, and frankly, more satisfying.

2:06

We had a bit of time to

2:08

chat before we started recording. I'm

2:11

a huge fan of your work and I

2:13

just love to see where your mind goes.

2:16

I feel like you are kind of

2:18

a leading indicator of where business leaders

2:20

need to be thinking. You know, you're

2:22

sort of the first one to kind

2:24

of cross the river to the other

2:26

side and you know,

2:28

often. So I'm curious why

2:30

this book, which is about contribution,

2:34

why did this become a point of

2:37

exploration for you? Yeah,

2:40

you know, it was actually the

2:42

convergence of a few big influences

2:44

I've had over the years and

2:47

one was one of my great mentors over the

2:49

years, my grandfather, Don Clifton, who I kind of

2:52

got into this work with all the way going

2:54

back to strengths and we wrote the book How

2:56

Full Is Your Bucket Together and you

2:58

know, he'd always kind of had his mind

3:01

and big outcome in life set on the

3:04

contribution that we make to society. So I

3:06

grew up around that as the overall mindset

3:08

and then in recent years,

3:11

I've kind of been my work at least

3:13

has been, I don't know if

3:15

haunted is the right word, but every day

3:17

I kind of think about Dr. King's amazing

3:20

call to action when he said that

3:22

life's most persistent and urgent question

3:25

is what are you

3:27

doing for others? And

3:29

when I think about that question of Dr. King's, I

3:31

know it may seem like a big broad aches essential

3:33

question to some people. I've tried

3:35

to ask that question almost every day.

3:38

So when I wake up and I'm thinking

3:40

about what's most important today, is it getting

3:42

through a hundred emails in inbox zero or is

3:44

it working on something that someone might pick

3:46

up and read a year from now or investing an

3:48

hour in the development of one of my kids that

3:50

will still matter a week from now, a month from

3:52

now. I

3:55

think it's a really good reminder to spend time

3:57

each and every day focusing on

3:59

one. what grows in our absence. And so

4:02

that's where a lot of this work was rooted. And

4:04

it was also the third big influence is I

4:07

think right now a lot of us have a really

4:09

good intent and we want to do good things through

4:11

our work, but we just don't know

4:13

how to match up who we

4:15

are with what the world needs in

4:17

a very efficient manner. And as a result, I

4:20

would estimate that a lot of us are showing up

4:22

each day and working at, I don't know, if it's 20

4:24

or 30% of our capacity, and I think we can do

4:26

a lot better. You use an

4:29

interesting word there that I would like

4:31

to revisit because I think

4:33

it's not, this is not how we often

4:35

frame up the world of work or frankly

4:37

like how we go about our lives, but

4:39

you use the word invest. And

4:42

the way that you describe that is what grows

4:44

in your absence. So when

4:46

you think about investment, your financial investment, you

4:48

think about you put money someplace and then

4:50

you just you kind of forget about it,

4:52

right? And it grows in your absence. Like

4:54

you're basically putting money into something

4:56

with the hope that it's going to increase

4:59

over time, the impact of that is going

5:01

to increase over time. And

5:03

you talk about this in the book from

5:05

the standpoint of moving beyond thinking about

5:07

work as you are what you do,

5:09

which is how we think about resumes

5:11

typically. Here's my set of

5:14

skills. Here are the things I do, the

5:16

tasks I do to transitioning to you are

5:18

how you help. Can you talk a

5:20

little bit about that transition? Yeah,

5:23

you know, I think it's important because if

5:25

we spend our time and

5:28

our efforts in life focused on essentially

5:30

what we get out of life, I

5:32

think it leads to a less

5:35

secure, less efficient, sometimes

5:37

even more paranoid minds that throughout

5:39

the day. And if

5:42

instead of focusing on what we get out of

5:44

life, if we're focused on what we're

5:46

putting back in, not

5:48

only does that lead

5:51

to work that we can be proud

5:53

of at the end

5:55

of our lives, at the end of the year, that's

5:57

going to continue to grow on and have a positive influence on our

5:59

lives. people. But the kind

6:01

of fun thing I've learned as I've spent the last

6:04

few years on this work is that when

6:06

you focus even some of your effort

6:08

during a day outward on the influence

6:10

it has on other people, the

6:12

more you're able to do that, the

6:14

less you worry about yourself and the

6:16

less stressful it is. I mean, it

6:18

sounds counterintuitive, but it almost makes life

6:21

in your work each day a little bit easier when

6:23

you're focused on the positive influence it has

6:26

on other people, as the

6:28

primary goal, independent variable, instead of

6:30

on what you're getting out

6:32

of it emotionally, psychologically, financially, and the

6:34

like. It's interesting that

6:36

most people think that the path to

6:40

finding satisfaction in work is finding tasks that

6:42

you enjoy doing. And my experience has been,

6:44

I'm sure yours has been as well, that

6:47

finding tasks that you enjoy is far

6:50

less satisfying than finding an outcome that

6:52

you're willing to even willing to suffer

6:55

for, if necessary, because the outcome, the

6:57

investment that you're making matters more to

6:59

you than your discomfort. And when you

7:01

discover that, when you discover it, and

7:03

that really is the meaning of the

7:05

word passion, right? Passion, the root of

7:07

the word passion is to suffer, which

7:10

we don't think about it. We think of passion as like,

7:12

I want to enjoy the tasks, I want to enjoy the

7:14

things I do, but that's not really the path to a

7:16

meaningful work life

7:18

or meaningful contribution. Yeah,

7:21

you know, I've been, and I think I've said

7:23

this to you in previous years, even over the

7:25

span of a half a decade or more here,

7:28

I've been as influenced by your work in Die

7:30

Empty as about any book that I've read. And

7:33

that, to me, is kind of a great

7:37

way to think about and summarize in a clarion

7:39

call around why we really

7:42

need to put as much as we

7:44

can out there and know that we

7:46

can be a part of something a

7:48

lot larger and contributing to a collective

7:50

body of work that continues to

7:52

grow and make a difference. So I

7:54

know that if I spend even a

7:57

little bit of time today investing in the growth

7:59

and development, of someone I lead or care

8:01

about that I am

8:05

off doing something else in a week or I'm not around

8:08

anymore a decade from now and I think that

8:11

when you get yourself into that

8:13

mindset and that frame, work

8:16

has so much more meaning than

8:18

the completion of tasks which

8:21

can it's tempting because the completion of tasks

8:23

can feel really good in the next

8:25

few hours here. It's almost easier and more enjoyable

8:27

for me to get to inbox zero right now

8:30

instead of writing a new chapter, right? But

8:33

we've got to try and turn that around a little bit in the

8:35

way we think about our work. So

8:38

one of the phrases or one of the quotes from

8:40

the book that you that you utilize is or that

8:44

let me rephrase that. So

8:46

in the book you say

8:49

instead of following your passion

8:51

find your greatest contribution. Tom

8:54

how do we begin maybe this is

8:56

the great question this is the great

8:58

question right how do we begin to

9:00

find our greatest contribution? Yeah I'm glad

9:02

you asked that question pretty early on here

9:04

in our conversation because that I

9:06

think that's the hard part in the big challenge and

9:08

where I've spent a lot of time in the last

9:10

few years trying to address is how

9:12

do we make a pivot from the

9:15

right now we have a very overly

9:17

sanitized work world in my from my

9:19

vantage point and if you

9:21

look at the manifestation of that we have LinkedIn

9:24

profiles and resumes that couldn't

9:26

be any less personal and

9:28

more sterile if we scripted them to

9:31

be in you me and

9:33

as a result of that we think

9:36

and talk in very tactical and sterile terms

9:38

about what we do and

9:40

who we are and our jobs and I

9:42

think we've got to begin to find a way to

9:44

talk about what's important to us

9:46

in our work and the contributions we can

9:48

make in a much more

9:51

personal and relatable way and so that

9:53

was the kind of the core of the research project

9:56

that I embarked on here was to say how

9:58

can we help people to

10:00

build profiles of who they are

10:02

and why they do what they do

10:04

and how they want to contribute that

10:07

people can update

10:09

and go through this

10:12

inventory every time they join a new

10:14

team, think about a new job and

10:16

that starts a conversation about what are

10:18

the big roles I play in life? Is it whether

10:20

that's as a dad, as a husband, as a researcher,

10:22

as a writer, what are the big

10:24

experiences that have shaped who I am and

10:26

why I do what I do and what

10:29

do I think my personal strengths are? And

10:31

then we also, one of the things

10:33

I spent quite a bit of time on as

10:35

a part of this recent book, Life's Great Question,

10:37

is I went back

10:39

through and looked at all of the jobs

10:42

people actually do in our society. I started

10:44

with thousands of jobs from

10:46

the Bureau of Labor Statistics here in the United

10:48

States and tried to narrow down

10:50

to what are the big functions that people perform that

10:53

make a difference for others in a given day. So

10:56

then there's kind of an inventory as a part

10:58

of this book that readers can access where they

11:00

begin to match up and prioritize how

11:02

they want to contribute to the world broadly

11:05

and how they think they can best contribute as a part

11:07

of a given team that they're on. I

11:09

mean, a part of this is really easy and functional. You

11:11

don't need any website or tools to do

11:13

this. It's just sitting down every time

11:15

you bring a group of people together and saying, how

11:18

can I best contribute and how do I want

11:20

to contribute? As you and I

11:22

have talked about, what motivates me, how

11:24

do I think I can make a difference in

11:26

the context of this team? Because right now, the

11:28

path of least resistance is to bring a group

11:30

of people together and they all

11:32

head off charging in independent directions. It's

11:35

not until three, six, 12 months down the road do

11:37

people realize, well, hey, we were all interested in

11:40

the same thing. We've all been trying to do the same thing

11:42

for three months. We didn't really coordinate

11:44

how we wanted to contribute to this effort. Hey,

11:46

everyone. Just wanted to say thank you for listening

11:48

to the show. If you enjoy what you're hearing,

11:50

please share it with someone else or

11:52

a great way to support the show is to buy

11:55

one of my books. They're available now wherever books are

11:57

sold. Just type Todd Henry in the search bar wherever

11:59

you buy your books. books. Now

12:01

back to the show. So let's

12:03

talk about the categories

12:05

of contributions that you've discovered in

12:07

your research. There are three of

12:09

them. Create, relate,

12:12

and operate. And within

12:14

those there are individual contributions.

12:16

But could you give us a broad

12:18

overview of those categories? As

12:21

I looked at all these job codes that I

12:23

mentioned and so forth and tried to get down

12:25

to at a team level,

12:27

what are the things that almost any team

12:30

in any service, product, creative,

12:32

industry, whatever it might be, what does

12:34

a team need to do? A team

12:36

needs to have a product or service. It needs to

12:38

create something. A

12:41

team needs to have relationships with one

12:43

another by definition. If they don't, it's

12:45

very unlikely to succeed. That's

12:48

the most underestimated part in my observation, by

12:50

the way. And a team needs

12:52

to operate and get

12:54

things done and scale and reach more

12:56

people. So when I try to

12:58

be as simplistic as possible in there, I

13:00

think I've seen probably 20

13:03

to 30 different groups of researchers

13:05

trying to sort out what teams do and

13:07

all comes down to three or four common

13:09

elements like that. And so I think there's

13:11

pretty good consensus on those team

13:13

elements. And then after that you get into the

13:15

more specific details about how I

13:17

think people should kind of self-nominate

13:19

and say, I want to contribute in the

13:22

create area by initiating and

13:24

getting new things started, for example, or

13:26

in the relate area by energizing

13:29

people on the team to make sure we're all

13:31

pumped up about what we're doing and alike. And

13:34

then to get into more granular detail

13:36

about within those broad buckets,

13:38

how can each person make a substantive

13:40

and unique contribution so

13:42

that it's complementary and not overlapping

13:45

as I mentioned? So

13:47

are the contributions

13:50

that we are, I guess, wired

13:52

to... Well, I guess that's the

13:54

question. Are we wired for certain

13:56

contributions or can we choose, hey,

13:58

I'm going to initiate? hey, I'm going to

14:01

vision, hey, I'm going to influence. I mean,

14:03

is that, is this something that's hardwired in

14:05

us to want to do or is

14:07

it something that we can choose to do instead?

14:10

You know, that's a really sharp question because

14:12

I think that

14:14

most of the work I've at least

14:16

been involved with, with all the original

14:19

work on talents and strengths, and the

14:21

like, that

14:23

work is about how you're

14:25

wired and your personality and the things that

14:27

are less likely to change over time. But

14:30

when I started to look at contributions and

14:33

what the world needs, that's more about meeting

14:35

the demand side of the equation of

14:37

all these things that a team needs or the

14:40

world needs. And I fully intended that to be

14:42

almost entirely situational in

14:45

terms of not being fixed. And there might be, I

14:48

mean, a good example would be even

14:50

though my natural talents aren't to go out

14:52

and win people over in

14:54

StrengthsFinder language or grow people and build new

14:57

relationships, there are a few teams that I'm

14:59

on where I need to fill in that

15:01

gap and do that even though it's not

15:03

the first thing I would opt in towards.

15:05

But if nobody's doing that on a team,

15:07

we're all in trouble. And so that's where

15:09

I tried to build this

15:12

website and system around contribution to be

15:15

more fluid and dynamic. So if you

15:17

join a new team, you might

15:19

think differently about what you're going to contribute to

15:21

this community group versus what you do in a

15:24

production or operational job during the day, for

15:26

example. And the

15:28

website is Contribify, right?

15:31

That's correct. C-O-N-T-R-I-B-I-F-Y. And

15:35

also, I think to your point, we've designed that so that

15:37

each reader can go through

15:39

that inventory an unlimited number of times

15:42

based on if they change a job, if they join a new

15:44

team and the like. So it's designed to

15:46

be far more fluid and situational

15:49

like a resume but with emotions.

15:55

This episode is brought to you by Indeed. We're driven

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by the search for better. But when it comes

15:59

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creative. So

18:46

as you mentioned, if it's situational, then what

18:48

are some questions that we should ask when

18:50

we, maybe we're in a team context? And...

18:52

and we're trying to assess, okay,

18:55

what is, where can I

18:57

invest, what's gonna grow in my absence, right? Where

18:59

can I invest in this team? What

19:01

are some questions we can ask to help us

19:03

identify which contribution we should be honing in on?

19:07

Yeah, you know, I think, and you and I talked about this

19:09

a little bit earlier, is what

19:11

motivates you to do your best work? That's

19:14

a good place to start, to say, I mean, if

19:16

you know who you are from a talent or

19:19

a personality standpoint is a great starting point. And

19:22

then I would ask, what motivates your best

19:24

work and really gets you going and fully charged

19:26

up in a given day? I

19:28

would ask, what are the big

19:31

roles you play in life that you're most

19:33

proud of, and both personally

19:35

and professionally? I mean, it's kind

19:37

of, there was a article in the New York Times a

19:39

while back, I believe it was by David Brooks, where he

19:42

compared and contrasted resume values with eulogy

19:44

values. And I'd encourage people to go

19:46

to the eulogy values because nobody's gonna

19:49

be talking about your VP title or

19:51

your social media following when

19:53

they evaluate your life in the end. And so I'd

19:55

kind of start with how you want to be known,

19:58

who you are, what motivates. you.

20:00

And then thinking about what this

20:03

specific community or team or company

20:05

needs from you, how do you

20:07

want to contribute based on

20:09

what you know about that job or

20:11

task and based on what you know about

20:13

who you are. And I mean that piece

20:16

that I ask people to spend a

20:18

little bit of time thinking about as a part

20:20

of this Contribify inventory is what

20:23

have been your miles or most influential

20:25

life experiences. And just sitting

20:28

down with a team of three or four or

20:30

five people as you embark

20:32

on a new project and talking about

20:34

what experiences have changed the trajectory

20:38

of your career most, that's a

20:40

great learning experience for people as well.

20:42

And I think we kind of underestimate

20:44

the power of the searing experiences when

20:47

we think about why we do what

20:49

we do each day. Completely agree.

20:51

And you mentioned David Brooks's

20:53

article about resume

20:55

versus eulogy. And

20:59

what's interesting to me about that is you

21:01

use the investment language and

21:03

when you talk about all of this about contribution

21:05

and I think so many people early in their

21:07

career are thinking about building their resume. That's really

21:09

what they're primarily focused on. And it's the same

21:12

way that you tell people in their early 20s,

21:14

hey start investing now. It's gonna pay off later.

21:16

If you just put a little bit of money

21:18

away now, it's gonna be a lot better than

21:20

having to put a lot of money away later.

21:23

And yet people don't do it. They don't do it anyway,

21:25

right? Even though it's not because they think, well I can't

21:27

live without that $100 a month. Really?

21:29

Okay. But the funny thing is

21:32

like it's it almost layers

21:34

perfectly onto our current

21:37

conversation. You know if you begin thinking about

21:39

contribution when you're 22, 23, 24, if you

21:41

begin making those investments in your

21:44

early, mid, late 20s, you're

21:47

gonna reap dividends over the course of decades versus

21:49

you a lot of people start thinking in their

21:51

you know late 40s like

21:53

which is where I am or maybe early

21:55

50s they start thinking you okay now how can

21:58

I give back now that I've built my resume. how

22:00

can I give back? But that's almost an inverted

22:02

way to think about it, especially if you think

22:04

about it through the lens of investment. It

22:06

really is, and it's a great point that, I

22:09

mean, the trajectory of most careers that I've seen

22:11

of good ones, I mean, it looks a lot

22:13

more like a chart of the S&P 500, not

22:16

some perfect smooth line. You

22:18

might be doing really well in the first year or

22:20

two, and then all of a sudden there's a big

22:23

crash, and then you come back, and it takes five

22:25

years, and then you start back on that trajectory. But

22:27

I think we've got to begin thinking about a career

22:30

over time as something that you're

22:33

gradually chipping away at and investing in things

22:35

that can continue to grow over time, and

22:37

you're gonna have some setbacks and some ups

22:39

and downs in there, but the point is

22:42

to begin to, over time, to craft the

22:44

work that you do each day into something that's

22:46

a little bit more meaningful over the span of

22:48

a decade and that you feel a little bit

22:50

better about. And, I mean,

22:53

I think it's also important to

22:55

know that that doesn't mean just jumping

22:57

from one job to the next as rapidly

22:59

as you can. There's a lot of growth

23:01

from a contribution standpoint that I believe people

23:04

can create within the current job they're in,

23:07

and at least within the current organization that

23:09

they're in it. Sometimes it doesn't require as

23:11

drastic of a change as people think on

23:13

the service. Yeah. So, Tom,

23:15

if people want to start identifying

23:17

their contribution, what would you recommend

23:19

to them? You

23:21

know, I would recommend that they

23:24

begin by mapping out, I

23:26

guess, in a very basic way where

23:28

point A is who you are as

23:30

an individual, your talents, your

23:33

motivations, what gets you going. And

23:35

point B is, I

23:38

think we've gotta bring this perspective in so much

23:40

more. Point B is what the world needs, what

23:42

the world around you needs. It's so often we

23:44

just start with this, here's who I am, here's who I am,

23:46

I wanna go do this, this is how I'm gonna apply more

23:48

of me for the world, instead of

23:50

saying, what would best serve

23:53

this community that's around me? What

23:55

would best serve this organization that I'm a part

23:57

of? What would best serve the broader world?

24:00

world from a big mission standpoint.

24:03

And I think if you actually start with point B and

24:05

map back to who you are, you might

24:07

get a better outcome there. And so most

24:09

of the pieces that we've talked about that I've kind

24:11

of, I've tried to build into

24:13

that inventory I mentioned, and my goal

24:16

there is that inventory continues to grow

24:18

and brings in even more data points

24:20

and information about people so that maybe

24:23

five, 10 years from now that

24:25

we could have a much more

24:28

comprehensive and meaningful baseball

24:30

card for how you can

24:32

best contribute for a person than that we

24:34

have today with resumes which are

24:36

kind of catalogs of skills

24:38

and accomplishments. And the

24:41

Contribify website is a great place for people to start

24:43

if they want to begin to answer some of those

24:45

questions as well as obviously the book, Light Screen Question,

24:48

Discover How You Contribute to the World. What

24:51

is the website for Contribify? It's

24:54

just Contribify, c-o-n-t-r-i-b-i-f-y.com.

24:59

And that's the place where the readers

25:01

can go and with each copy

25:03

of the Life's Great Question book, there

25:05

are actually two codes in

25:08

the back that where readers can use

25:10

it for themselves to build a profile. And we've included

25:13

one for them to share with a friend or a

25:15

colleague or a family member just in

25:17

hopes that that starts a conversation there where

25:19

I think, I don't think what's most important

25:21

is that people go through the inventory and

25:23

activity themselves. I think what's important is that

25:26

they talk to another person about it because

25:28

almost all of the growth

25:30

that I've seen from a career standpoint occurs

25:33

in the context of a relationship. And

25:36

the more we can at least have

25:38

some level setting conversations, whether you use a tool

25:40

or just some good questions to get to know

25:42

one another, I think that's what

25:44

matters. That's great. Well,

25:47

Tom Rath is the author

25:49

of Life's Great Question, Discover How You

25:51

Contribute to the World. Tom, you've been

25:54

such a gift in my life. I mean,

25:56

your work has really contributed greatly to my

25:59

personal life. perception of the world and

26:01

my career and just in so many ways

26:03

you've been such an inspiration to me. So

26:05

just as affirmation to you, you

26:07

are making a contribution. So thank you for for what

26:10

you do and thanks so much for taking your time

26:12

to be with us today. Thanks

26:14

so much it's been an honor and a really fun

26:16

conversation. Hey

26:19

thank you for listening. If you enjoy these

26:21

episodes please support the show by buying one

26:23

of my books. They're available wherever books are

26:25

sold. Just search Todd Henry wherever you buy

26:27

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26:34

right foot. You can subscribe at toddhenry.com Remember

26:36

friends, cover bands don't change the world. Don't be

26:39

a cover band. You need to find your unique

26:41

voice if you want to thrive. I'll see you

26:43

next time.