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How do we connect who we are with what the world needs? Tom Rath returns to the podcast this week to discuss his newest work, Life’s Great Question. Discover how focussing on another’s growth can relieve your stress, how to find your place on a team, and how you can attempt to get other people to see you as you see yourself.
About
Get the book, Life’s Great Question, from Amazon here:
Website: TomRath.org
Bio: Tom Rath is an author and researcher who has spent the past two decades studying how work can improve human health and well-being. He has two books slated for publication in 2020, Life’s Great Question: Discover How You Best Contribute to the World and It’s Not About You: A Brief Guide to a Meaningful Life, published in partnership with Amazon Original Stories.
In total, Tom’s 10 books have sold more than 10 million copies and made hundreds of appearances on global bestseller lists. His first book, How Full Is Your Bucket?, was an instant #1 New York Times bestseller and led to a series of books that are used in classrooms around the world. His book StrengthsFinder 2.0 is Amazon’s top selling non-fiction book of all time. During his 13 years at Gallup, Tom led the organization’s strengths, employee engagement, wellbeing, and leadership consulting worldwide. Tom has served for the past five years as an external advisor and Gallup Senior Scientist. He also served as Vice-Chair of the VHL cancer research organization and has been a regular lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania. Most recently, Tom co-founded a publishing company; he is also an advisor, investor, and partner in several startups. Tom holds degrees from the University of Michigan and the University of Pennsylvania and lives in Arlington, Virginia with his wife, Ashley, and their two children.
Transcript
This transcript is unedited.
Peter:
With us today is Tom Rath. He has written most recently the book called life’s great question. Discover how you contribute to the world. When Tom was 16 years old, he learned he had a rare and catastrophic genetic mutation, one that would lead to cancers and multiple organs after living more than 25 years. Since his diagnosis three years longer than doctors predicted. He’s not only beating the odds, but has learned that time is more valuable. When you can see your mortality on the horizon, we can all resonate with that. So this new book really thinks and talks about really how you contribute to the world which is so critical for all of us. He was on our program a couple of years ago probably and I left him, so I’m so delighted that he’s back. Tom, welcome to the Bregman leadership podcast.
Tom:
Thanks so much. It’s a pleasure to be with you again.
Peter:
Tom, you’ve written a bunch of books. They all sell really well. They all do really well. They’re all incredibly personable and connected. Why this one? Why now? What’s the goal? What are you hoping to accomplish?
Tom:
Yeah, you know, it’s a good question to start with because I took a step back a few years ago and as you mentioned, I, I had this catastrophic genetic mutation and I’ve been battling cancer in my kidney and pancreas and spine most recently. It’s been kind of tough. And doctor said, you know, we’re not sure if you’ll live till 40. And so I basically make a real long story short, I tried to pack as much life as I could into my first 40 years and then I actually turned 40 and I was kind of like, Oh, what do I do now? What’s I, it wasn’t a really good career strategy to be blind, but what I did –
Peter:
Actually, can we pause there? I think it’s a brilliant career strategy. Like, you know, like, I mean, it’s not, it’s a painful career strategy and it’s not one that I envy, but it’s like I’m going to pack as much as I can into my first 40 years and then ask the question based on where I am, what do I want to contribute now. Like most of us may be, you know, wait til we’re 40 to begin packing that stuff in. So, you know, it’s not for enviable reasons and I’m sorry that you’ve experienced that, but from a strategy perspective you know, we’ve all learned a lot from you, well before you hit 40.
Tom:
Well, thank you for saying that. And it’s maybe in hindsight, maybe it worked out because it gave a lot of extra motivation to pack things in there. But when, so when I turned 40, I did take a real kind of conceptual and philosophical step back and I looked through a lot of research and I was trying to sort out essentially what I realized from all of that work in my first 20 years of my career was that basically life’s not about what you get out of it. It’s about what you put back in and those things that you put back in get to keep growing perpetually, even in your absence, whether you’re not working on that project a week from now, whether you’re in a different job a year from now or whether you’re no longer with us a decade from now. And so the more I thought that through, one of my aha moments was when I figured out that, you know, there’s a lot of work out there and I’ve been a part of it and added to that about discovering who you are, developing yourself, focusing on your personality and your talents and the like.
Tom:
And that’s a good important starting place. But really the biggest challenge that a lot of us face at a high level is how do we connect who we are with what the world needs. And frankly, when I looked at the big picture, I don’t see a lot of work being done around helping people to sort through what the world needs. And the more I thought that through and studied work forever from Dr. King to her. A recent speech I saw from a venture capital’s Ben Horowitz really inspired me where he talked about focusing on contribution instead of passion. That got my head aligned around how do we help people to start with where they can make the greatest contribution to their family, to their organization, to their community, and then kind of work back to who they are and how they can align those two things.
Peter:
You know, Frederick beacon, it reminds me of this quote by Frederick Beachner, the theologian who said, your vocation in life, and I’ve heard it said, your calling is where your greatest joy meets the world’s greatest need. And it’s a similar idea, which is really like, it’s, it’s that intersection of what matters to you and what matters to other people. I am curious, you know, you said something early on that we sort of take for granted, but I think some people are constitutionally set up this way and other people are more in a survivalist mentality and constitutionally set up a different way, which is, you know, we focus more on what we give than what we receive. And spiritually, that’s really clear conceptually. You think? Yes. You know, we know that when we give something, we receive so much tremendously back. You know, more than we’ve given.
Peter:
Like it’s easy on the surface of it to say what’s most important is my contribution and what I’m able to give to other people and I’ll receive back in, in, in, you know, manifold. But I think it’s also really hard for people sometimes to get there because we’re afraid we’re afraid of not having enough. We’re afraid of, you know, like we’re in a survival mentality. We think the pie is a little smaller. We think if we don’t have enough and we need to get everything that we can get as opposed to giving it away. And I’m curious, you know, from an existential perspective, from a philosophical or spiritual perspective, even, how do you help people move from, you know, one mentality of this sort of survivalist mentality to the one that you almost take for granted? But I don’t think people do.
Tom:
It’s a great question because I think the, the default for a lot of us is that kind of scarcity mentality where, you know, I need to be able to ensure that I’ll continue to put a paycheck forward a month from now so I can pay rent, put food on the table and if I lost my job but have less security about what I want to do and so forth. And I think that that’s actually pervaded and dominated the typical relationship and unspoken social contract between people and organizations for generations now. And it’s something that I think we all need to think about how we can be a part of kind of moving that evolution along. It’s moving. And I think most of us realize that if work is nothing but a paycheck, it’s nowhere near as sustainable as it could be if it was part of a bigger purpose where we can see that we’re making a contribution and most people entering the workforce today know that they want to get to that at some point, which is probably a better place than we were on average 50 years ago.
Tom:
So I think the big challenge is to kind of speed up that evolution of what we expect out of the work that we do on a daily basis and on a more individual level. One thing that’s helped me out at least personally is understanding that even when I’m under the most duress and I’m the most stressed out about what’s going on with family or my own health challenges or whatever else it might be, that the more time I can dedicate in that proceeding day two things that are focused on the growth of even one other person, whether that’s one of my kids or someone who looks to me for guidance in the workplace, that actually takes the pressure off myself and leads to a lower stress environment when you’re focusing your energies outward. And so I think both on a individual tactical level and when we think about it over the arc of a career, there are little steps we can take there to move in that direction where work is more than a paycheck and work is something that can be fulfilling for you and make a contribution to the people around you in the process.
Peter:
You know, it also occurs to me that I think knowing that like knowing that is true. Knowing that if we contribute more, if we offer more that we will receive more even if it’s hard to actually do in the moment. Knowing that’s true. We can organize our lives in material ways that make it easier for us to live that philosophy out. And I’m sort of thinking like very, very practical ways like are do you have backup plans? Are your, is your, you know, like to the extent that you can control it and many of us can, are your expenses lower than your income? Are you saving money? Are you, are you doing things that create enough of a cushion that allows you to say, I can take risks with my generosity. I could take risks with my contribution and not always worry so much about what I’m receiving and trust that I’m going to receive what I need and if we have a little more than we need, that is like a buffer. It allows us to take that risk a little more.
Tom:
Yeah. And it’s, I like the way you talk about that because the financial security matters a lot. I wrote a book about wellbeing and the five essential elements of individual wellbeing almost a decade ago now. And the thing I learned from studying that with my colleagues at Gallup and my coauthor Jim harder was that until you get past that point of feeling secure about your finances, being able to pay for food and shelter and like, it’s really hard to get to some of those expansionary thoughts. But the, the really encouraging thing that emerged from a lot of that research is that it doesn’t take an extraordinary amount of money or a doubling of income in order to be able to have really good days and minimize stress once you get past the threshold level. When you really look at daily wellbeing, some of the happiest countries in terms of their daily experience in the world are countries like Costa Rica and Panama and Paraguay and Uruguay where they, they have the, some of the lowest levels of gross domestic product per capita in the world. So it doesn’t require a living in a rich country or making an extraordinary amount of money. You just need, need to be able to say, yes, I can make ends meet and then know that as you put it, that gives you the time to be able to dedicate to contributing to the growth and development of other people and what they need and creating wellbeing for the networks around you.
Peter:
Well, and since so much of that sense of wellbeing, when you use those examples, so much of that sense of wellbeing comes from the sort of social interactions. So, you know, in some ways it makes me think, you know, if everybody around me is wealthier than me, it makes me feel more insecure. If everybody around me, if I’m making more money than them, then it makes me more secure. And I feel like I have what I need. So to think about the communities that we’re in, because sometimes our ambition in terms of who we’re connected with keeps us feeling insecure versus feeling like, Oh yeah, I could take some risks.
Tom:
Yeah. And that’s it. It’s, I mean the scientists used to live a wellbeing by asking people where they stood on a ladder with steps numbered one through 10 and that that item is still used. But I think it’s kind of misleading because if you’re telling people to imagine a ladder, I mean we just imagine you can keep climbing ladders almost indefinitely and anyone who’s chasing a doubling of income is going to be chasing that doubling of income until they die. Exactly. Right. And so I think we need to put all of that in perspective. And really what I’ve learned from a lot of my work and my own experiences is that our relationships are probably the central currency of a life well lived. And so if you’re dedicating time to and investing in the closest relationships around you, there’s a pretty good chance that you’ll end up really wealthy in this lifetime.
Tom:
So you surveyed in 2017 1099 people to ask them whether they’d rather be remembered for the contribution they made or the amount of financial wealth they created. And of that group, 960 about nine and 10 reported that they’d remembered that rather be remembered for their contribution. First of all, I have like this totally random, you know Picayune question, but why did you survey 1099 and not 1100 I think we went for 1,101 was excluded for the weighting and sampling based on certain days. As long as you serve at least 300 and ideally a thousand you kind of get good general estimates. Right, right. No, that was great. Okay. I was sort of curious about that. And, and you know, we sort of talked about, even though people say that they don’t often always act in that way, right? So they, they say, I would rather be remembered for the contribution I make to others in society, but they spend their time trying to be focused on the amount of financial wealth they created.
Tom:
And, and I think what you’re doing with this book is you’re trying to shift that dynamic. You’re saying, if this is what you really care about, here are some ways to actually follow through on it. Is that, am I thinking about this correctly? Yeah. The whole intent of this book and the website that accompanies it for readers is just to start a conversation about contribution. It’s really boils down to that. And so that’s what I mean. We talked about this earlier. What I was kind of stuck facing when I was trying to figure out how to get people focused on contribution is, well, if contribution is what the world needs is we discussed, how do you define the contributions that people make that are valued in society. So I actually started by going back to the us Bureau of labor. Statistics has a big database with all the jobs that people get paid to do.
Tom:
And our society started with a few thousand of those jobs and said, if you narrow down to the contributions kind of psychologically, emotionally, and functionally that people are making, can you boil that down to a list of 10 15, 20 things that people do that are common and valued in our society? And so that’s where I started to work back to some of these fundamental contributions. And then realize, you know that is, we were just talking about if you’re going to build a profile for people of how they can contribute, you kind of have to start with the big roles they play in life. So for me, that’s being a dad and a husband and a researcher. And then say, what are the most influential life experiences as we’ve talked about today here that have shaped who I am and what are the things that consider to be my strengths are natural talents. And then you can get into how do you leverage that picture to make a greater contribution to a given team or to an organization.
Peter:
So you, you broke this down into these sort of three buckets of individual contributions. And and there’s also I should say, and we can link to this in on our website a link or maybe we can’t, I can’t remember. I know I, I did the assessment, but I don’t know if it’s a free assessment or if it’s an assessment that you pay for. But either way we can, we can link to it. That’s included for everybody who reads the book, who reads the book. Great. And and there you break it up into, we create, we relate and we operate. Will you just give us a quick primer on those three?
Tom:
Yeah. The, those are kind of the buckets of what a team needs to do essentially. So when I stepped back and looked at all these 12 individual contributions and said, if we get a team of three people together or seven people or tan, what are the things that most teams in society are expected to do? And they’re expected to, I mean, to make something, to have a product or a service, basically they’re expected to be able to form relationships with one another and energize one another for the sake of getting things done. And they’re expected to continue operating and kind of having things organized to a level of quality and adapting as changes happen and figuring out how do we scale this up to reach more people essentially. So within each of those three buckets, there are more detailed contribution. So we were on a team together.
Tom:
What I recommend is that teams, before they even get started, have kind of a level setting conversation about expectations and say, you know what? A lot of the areas where I’d like to contribute are in this area of creating. So I’m going to help us get things rolling, get things initiated. I’m going to keep teaching people what they need to know about our products and our services and what we’re doing, but I need other people on the team to help me build and maintain the relationships. I need other people to help us operate and execute and get things done and scale up for a larger audience. And that, you know, in many cases the challenge there is when we form teams, we bring people together who are like us or have similar interests and we all start running on parallel tracks at 50 miles an hour. And it isn’t until six months later we all realized we were doing the same things, right? So if we could just step back from the outset and say, here’s who I am, here’s who I am, here’s how I would like to contribute to this effort. Boy can help to minimize a lot of the friction and keep things moving smoothly early on.
Peter:
So really you’re, you’re, you’re kind of saying with this, this is, we’re talking about how people contribute to a team, not necessarily just how they contribute in the world in terms of purpose, right? We’re not talking about purpose, we’re talking about like, you know, there’s a role that you play in any team that you’re in and you should play a role that the team needs and that maximizes your ability to contribute.
Tom:
Exactly. Yeah. It’s you, it’s funny when you mentioned purpose, you know, I started trying to look at purpose with this and actually I had an early draft of this book called the pursuit of purpose. And I quickly realized that I, I couldn’t even figure out my own purpose, nor do I hope to ever kind of find one purpose. So when I was thinking about the practicality of it, I think what’s important for a lot of us in our jobs is that we can actually see how we contribute to unique efforts even on a daily basis. We don’t have to see it every hour throughout the day, but if even once in a day, you can see how you’re doing something that directly benefits another person to have some recognition of that or visual visually be able to see it. If you’re preparing food in a restaurant, can you shoot a person eating it? It’s really that practical. That’s what helps us to feel good about what we’re doing and to want to do more of it.
Peter:
That’s great. So let’s, let’s talk for a second about each one of these three. Like create, relate and operate. I took the assessment so we could use me, you know, as an example as well, although I have to find it. So while we’re talking, I’ll find this, but, but you know, when, when you talk about, you know, there’s, there’s four there’s four sort of ways of contributing in, in each of these. So like what the world needs us to do is to create, relate and operate in these various ways. And then there’s, there’s the question of, you know, when I’m thinking about creating, there’s, I could either initiate things or challenge or teach or vision. So everybody has a way in which they can tribute in the create phase or the create section, the relate section of the operates section. And the question is, what are you most predisposed to, you know, like what, what, what way takes advantage of your natural sort of passions and, and competence to some degree. Is that, am I thinking about this right? And if so, could you kind of give us a little bit of a primer on some of the things inside of create, relate and operate? Yeah, that’s a, that’s a part of it is
Tom:
What the natural talents and experiences, motivations are that you bring in. But it’s also we designed this inventory and this kind of profile as the result of it for people so that anytime you join a new team you would want to go back through and kind of update your profile and update your inventory because I might need to contribute a little bit more in terms of connecting and energizing people in that relate area on one team. Whereas on another team, if someone else, not a lot of people are better at doing that than I am, but if someone else is filling in those roles or those contributions on the team, maybe I can do more of the teaching envisioning that I’m more comfortable with in the context of that team or that effort. And so it’s meant to be far more dynamic and fluctuate based on different teams and different jobs in different places where you are in your career, in your life.
Tom:
Then a lot of times you’ll see assessments out there, for example, that are about personality and likely to be more stable or fixed over time. And I, your personality should absolutely factor into how you contribute to a team. But in this case it should be even more dependent on what the people who you serve need and what the kind of at other, the demand side of the equation is. I like to call it, I would say your personality is the supply side and we need to bring more into the conversation about the demand side of what your community needs, what your family needs, what your team needs essentially. And so how do we figure that out?
Peter:
We can’t do an assessment. We’re not doing an assessment to figure out what the team needs, right?
Tom:
Correct. So at an individual level, it’s saying if the big buckets that a team needs are the create and the relate and operate within operate, for example, who’s going to help us to stay organized and make sure that things run smoothly throughout? Who’s going to help us to adapt? And the minute there are changes and we need to be flexible, who’s the person that can help us to do that best on this team? And then also with an operator, there’s a piece about scaling and figuring out what could we do to help our products or services reach more people. And those are some of the fundamental responsibilities that you need around any team.
Peter:
Got it. Okay. So were your, the, the actual individual elements of the contributions can almost be like open buckets to what a team needs, you know, and it’s kind of whose name are we going to put in here and, and it, it, it assumes, you know, I’m sort of thinking about the six hats, you know, the old style of people have meetings and like you’re going to be the creative person, you’re going to be the challenging person. And in some ways that is useful in terms of a role. But is there a danger of pigeonholing people into the contribution that they’re making?
Tom:
Yes. I think it’s, one of the things I’ve learned through reading a lot of research in my work over the years is that, I mean, take for example, I’ve been through a million personality inventories and they’ve all been consistent in labeling me as being more introverted than extroverted. And so I’ve taken that label to heart over the last 20 years and I use that as my favorite crutch to avoid about every cocktail party and social outing. And my wife tries to drag.
Peter:
I’ve always worried about that, about personality assessments. Like we ended up fitting into the box that puts us in.
Tom:
Right? And, and you know, in a lot of cases there’s really good research showing that personality can be pretty stable over time, but there’s new work emerging just in the last three to five years. And I love it when I learn something that proves my assumptions wrong. And so as I started to see these experiments where they take introverts and they say, you know what, you have to go out and act like an extrovert for a few weeks and you need to go attend these things. You know what happens? Those introverts end up going and they end up having fun and learning something and feeling better as a product of it. So I’ve ever since I’ve read that work, I’ve tried to force myself out of my comfort zone and essentially to push my personality on the margins and it turns out I do end up enjoying it even though I reluctantly sign up now most of the time.
Tom:
And so I think it is good for all of us to be more of who we are and know that our greatest area for growth lies in the places where we’re already strong, but also be open to new experiences and things that challenge our assumptions and to try to push those boundaries a little bit on the margin. So I mean, when you look at those contributions of essentially what you’re doing for others and what the world needs, I’m trying to force myself to try some new things within there that I might not have five years ago. Right. Okay.
Peter:
What new things are you trying outside of the, I mean, I find this sort of interesting that, that you’re finding that you’ve had success with outside of the introversion, extroversion.
Tom:
Yeah. You know, I mean, I’ve, I’ve, I’ve written a book about kind of energizing people and Hey, one called are you fully charged recently? And I have thought a lot about that from a standpoint of, you know, a part of my job is to try and create energy and enthusiasm and as someone, you’re someone who’s interviewed me in the past, you probably know, I’m not one of those naturally super charismatic, energizing people, but I’ve, I’ve tried to, I’ve tried to realize and acknowledge that when I’m speaking to a group or in more public settings that sometimes people do kind of, that energy can be contagious and people sometimes thrive off that and it helps to energize a room in a group. And so I’ve experimented with what can I do to rally even more my personal energy for the sake of doing that for other people. And you know, I’ve also spent a lot of time trying to figure out how I can better scale different products and services and things that we’re working on for the sake of reaching more people, even though that’s something that I hadn’t spent a lot of time, spent a lot of time doing earlier on in my career.
Peter:
I’m curious if someone really wants to, you know, kind of reads the book and kind of has a sense like, okay, so I, you know, I really need to be more of a, you know, in, in relating high-end connecting. And so I, I need to really be playing this role more, but my manager or the board when the board is not really an issue with CEOs but, but you know, my manager and my colleagues really want me to play this other role. Like they think I’m really, really great at influencing. They misunderstand me or my manager really wants me to spend like much less time relating at all, like much less time connecting and much more time, you know, organizing. They see me as a project manager where I really see myself as a networker. How do you help a how do you have the conversation that allows other people to see you the way you see yourself?
Tom:
It’s a really good question. And I think one of the big challenges is that when you’re in that situation, a lot of is about demonstrating that you can do something at a very different level than most people would be capable of in terms of what are the natural talents you have that you can continue to build on, extrapolate on. So I would encourage people to try and stay close to that, but know they can use those talents to meet some of these contributions in unique ways. So I mean I think they’re all certain in almost every job. There are things that people are going to expect of us that we wouldn’t jump to or resonate to right away. But I think a part of why it’s important to start with what the world needs is because especially as a new teams forming, it is a process of kind of negotiating how each person can make a unique contribution so that they’re clear expectations up front and we all feel like we can move forward with as little conflict and overlap as possible. And you know, I’m, I’m amazed by how often we get really smart, passionate, well-meaning people together and just never have some of those initial level setting conversations.
Peter:
I’m curious, Tom, what, how writing this book and exploring this and doing this research has changed your personal perspective. Like how, how are you contributing differently? How are you kind of approaching your work or other people differently?
Tom:
You know, it’s, I think it’s an important question that people in kind of create rules like I’m in right now need to spend more time thinking about, because a good example is the standard way for an author to reach someone for the last, I don’t know, a hundred years has been you write a book, it’s published in Brandt and people read it and you kind of move forward with that model or whatever. But everything that I’ve learned in the last five or 10 years is that essentially there’s a very limited amount of attention out there anymore and all of us who put together creative pieces or thinking or learning or writing, we’re essentially competing with someone letting the next show on Netflix continue to play, not another hardcover book. Right, right. So to that and I’ve spent a lot of time lately exploring very different ways to reach people.
Tom:
A few years, a couple of years ago we worked on a documentary around the book. Are you fully charged to try and help reach people who wouldn’t pick up a nonfiction book with this book? Life’s great question. We at the last minute had a conversation with Amazon who said, you know what, a lot of people read your books and hardcover they told me, but we don’t see a lot of people reading your books and Kindle because Kindle is a different audience, different types of books. And so we created a book based on life’s great question just for Kindle readers. And that book’s called, it’s not about you that we actually put out a month before the hardcover business book. And that was intended for an entirely different audience. No, no application, no stories. I’m just trying to reach a different audience in a different way. And I had a conversation with one of my favorite nonfiction authors just a couple of days ago and we were talking about how someone needs to really reinvent the way we reach out to people and audio books because simply having someone read the exact same text that’s in a printed book doesn’t make very much sense in this day and age either. So how do you start to reinvent the way you reach someone? And I’m trying to challenge myself to do more of that in the future.
Peter:
And so this sort of reinventing is, I’m looking at the list of contributions and sort of the is that, is that in create and it’s initiation? Cause in some ways you’re really challenging also you’re saying are we doing the right things? Are we you know, my, am I doing what it needs? What needs to be done? And you’re also teaching in terms of saying like how do I get to people in different ways and certainly visioning. So it’s funny because as you, as you told, as you explain that, I see you having to be kind of strong. Like that whole question and conversation that you’re answering requires sort of strength and draws out your contribution in the four areas that are all focused within the create sub area.
Tom:
Exactly. And that’s, you know, that’s where I’d love to spend a hundred percent of my time if I could. I was certain teams I have to fill in other areas. But that’s the part that’s the most fun that gets me wound up is mostly in that area of creating things. And you know, it’s why with this book and with most of the books I’ve worked on over my career, I’ve always tried to include a website and some activities for people to use so that instead of it just being a book, they read once and put down and maybe never, probably never come back to it again. But it hopefully becomes a part of a conversation they have with even one other person. Because I mean really with a lot of the things we’re talking about here, I think most growth occurs in the context of a conversation and our relationship with another human being. And so if there are any ways in addition to books and videos and audio and podcasts and the things that we do that you can give people an activity so they do something associated with it. What I found is that that gives it a better chance of having an ongoing contribution with the people who you’re trying to have a positive influence with.
Peter:
All right, that’s great. We have been talking with Tom Rath. He has written most recently the book life’s great question, discover how you contribute to the world. Tom, I so appreciate your perspective and, and knowing your story, all the more so about the importance that we really have of, of, of what we’re doing and how we’re contributing. And so I appreciate you sort of putting that on our radars and, and hopefully, you know, listeners will, that will give us all pause as it did meet to sort of say, really, how am I contributing? And, and also like so many other people that I talked to, it’s this question of and how do I, once I realized that, spend more of my time making those contributions that, that, you know, I love and that add value to people around me and less doing stuff that isn’t a particularly useful or valuable fit for me. So Tom, it’s been such a pleasure. Thank you so much for having, for being on the Bregman leadership podcast.
Tom:
Thanks so much. It’s been a lot of fun. I enjoyed it.