This is Andrew Soren, host of Meaningful Work Matters. If you are listening to this podcast and it's the beginning of January, Happy New Year. Over the past 18 months of hosting this podcast, I've received incredible feedback that's really helped me grow as a host and I love feedback. So please keep it coming. One thing I've heard a few times now is that some of you want to hear more from me. My perspectives on meaningful Work eudaimonia and
how they intersect with our lives. Well, today I'm flipping the script. Sonia Looney, one of the best podcast hosts I know and a world champion endurance athlete, invited me onto her podcast, the Sonya Looney Show. I couldn't resist. In this special crossover episode, I'm excited to share that conversation with you. We dig into the dark sides of meaningful work. Why can work that feels so important sometimes leave us so burnt out, exploited or unfulfilled?
We unpack what it means to matter at work, why harmony is essential, and how concepts like eudaimonia and psychological well being can help us redefine success. If you're a regular listener to this podcast, you'll hear me reflect on my own journey, the work I do, and the challenges we all face in finding meaning that truly supports
our well being. And here's a bonus. Sonya will be my guest next week on Meaningful Work Matters, sharing her wisdom on navigating perfectionism, redefining achievement, and using our goals to create real positive impact. But for now, let's dive into today's episode where I get to be the one answering the questions for a change. Hey everyone and welcome back to the Sonya Looney Show. I'm your host, Sonya Looney. I am a former world champion mountain biker and I'm
still racing professionally. I am just finishing my Master of Applied Positive Psychology in just a matter of days. I'm a health and wellness and mental performance coach, a keynote speaker and mom to a 2 and 4 year old. So I have my hands full, along with a lot of other hats that I like to wear. Have you ever felt deeply passionate about your work, only to burn out from the
pressure and lack of boundaries? I know I have. Have you ever wanted to find purpose in your job but struggled when the goals didn't align with your values? Well, you're not alone. Today we're diving into a topic that's both intriguing and vital. Finding and fostering meaningful work. It's not just about the tasks we perform. It's about aligning our work with our deepest values and finding joy and purpose
in what we do every day. I'm thrilled to have Andrew Soren with us, a leader who has dedicated his career to enhancing well being through work. He was my journal reader and mentor in the Master of Applied Positive Psychology program at the University of Pennsylvania. And today we'll hear about his latest research on the dark side of meaningful work and how to balance meaning with self care and what it means for us in practical terms.
We'll also discuss how to cultivate a sense of mattering at your workplace so you feel valued and are able to contribute to be your best self, even each day. Andrew is the founder and CEO of eudaimonic by Design, where his work is about making sure that organizations not only function effectively, but also cultivate environments
where everyone can thrive. He's also a passionate educator in the University of Pennsylvania's Master of Applied Positive Psychology program, and he spent over two decades helping organizations foster cultures that enhance personal and professional growth. Andrew shares his valuable perspectives on eudaimonic well being, how we can achieve a life of fulfillment through our professional endeavors, and the crucial role
organizations play in this journey. Whether you're leading a team, navigating your career, or simply looking to bring more meaning into your daily work, this conversation is packed with actionable insights. So let's dive in and learn how we can transform our work into a source of fulfillment and joy. Andrew, I am so excited to have you on the podcast. It is such a pleasure to be here, Sonja. I've been waiting for this day
for a year now. Yeah, so. So we first met at the IPA conference last year, the International Positive Psychology Association. Are you the co chair or were you the co chair of that conference? I sure was. I was the co chair of that conference. I'm also on the board of the International Positive Psychology association and. And have been for probably four years at this point. But yeah, yeah, that was, that was quite an event.
Yeah. And. And I want to talk about IPA later. And then I started the MAP program, the Master of Applied Positive Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. And you were assigned to be my journal reader where for people are like what do you mean journal reader? So we would have these three day on sites where we would have all of our, our classes and then at the end of that we were prompted to reflect on what we learn and how
we're going to bring that forward. So you were the one who got to read my rambling thoughts or had to. It was an incredible pleasure. I got to be. I feel like I got to be a witness sitting on Your shoulder, looking at MAP through your eyes. It was a pretty amazing experience for me. What's that like? Because you read lots of people's journals, you've been an assistant instructor in that program for a long time. What's that like to be on,
sitting on somebody's shoulder like that? I've been. So I've been doing this role for 12 years now, which is kind of incredible. So I graduated, I graduated in 2012, 2013 was when I went through the MAP program and, and then I was, I was involved the first year that I was part of that program or when I was part of that program that we started the journal program. So I got to be the guinea pig student who was going through that experience and I loved it. Basically the idea of this,
of this journal is, it's, it's meta reflection. So everybody is going through the experience of, of MAP in their own kind of way. And it's a Masters of Applied Positive Psychology. So the whole idea is try to figure out how are you applying this stuff in the context of your life, in the context of your work, in the context of your relationships, in the context of just your intentions, period. And so we have these journals after, as you say, every single on site where we ask people to, to do that
reflection. And it's really incredible because everybody sees different things. I mean, sure, there's common themes that you see year over year or throughout a specific class, but every single one of you has a different perspective, a different way of being able to make sense of the things that you're receiving.
I mean, there's so much content that you go through over a three day on site and different people pick out different things and people think about different ways of thinking about applying it, depending upon what their professional interests are or their personal interests. So it's, it's a real privilege. Yeah. The way that we make sense of the things happening to us or the things that we're learning really change our narrative as we move forward. And that reflection is so important.
Do you have a regular journaling practice or reflection practice? I totally don't. I don't either. Although I know I should. I know, I know it's a, it's a complete failure to walk my own talk. I, I do think that journaling is an incredibly valuable process and, and I also have terribly low self regulation, so it's one of those things that, that, that I, that I definitely do not have and think I probably should.
But yeah. However, I will say that having a podcast is a form of meta Reflection because of the way that you bring in information and filter it back out to the world. And even if you're not handwriting, if you are thinking about things, you're still reflecting on it and generating your narra. That is very true. That is very true. I can say now, since meeting you as a podcast host myself, that it's an incredible structure for having to process, make sense of, do some meta reflection, feedback,
accountability. It is definitely an accountability. Yes, exactly. So, yeah, you said you graduated map 12 years ago, you've been heavily involved in the program, you are on the board of ipa. How has your perspective of positive psychology evolved over the years? It's, it's a really good question because it really has. Uh, I think that, I think that that's true on, on a whole bunch of different levels. Let me
see if I can pull some of the layers back. I think that at one level there's just so much that's being studied and, and has been studied over the last 25 years that positive psychology as a, as a quote unquote thing has existed. I mean, of course there was lots of, there was lots of positive psychology going on throughout the last hundred years in all sorts of different ways, probably throughout the last millennia or history of time, depending on what your layer of focus is.
But, but, but, but for sure, you know, this, this idea of positive psychology really came into being around the turn of the 21st century and over the last 25, exploded. I mean, there is so much growth in the research of what is studied, how it's being studied, the, the kinds of rigor that are associated with the science of well being and human flourishing that that is just impossible to keep track of anymore.
I mean, I remember when I was going through the program, there would be, you know, an article that would get published about gratitude or about well being in the New York Times or in hbr. And everybody who was in the MAP community would be like, oh my God, let's share this article. And it was, you know, it was quiet. It was a quiet celebration of the fact that there was interest
in this topic. And now, you know, it would be impossible, especially after the last few years, it would be impossible to try to, to try to wrap your arms around all of the research that was being published in this field. And so that's definitely the biggest thing that's evolved. And, and I think in, in that there's a couple really big shifts that I've noticed within the field. One is a much more holistic view of what well being is not just A kind of cognitive. Cognitive in
your head view of. Of well being. And then the other thing that I think that has really evolved is, is the complexity of well being and the recognition that one size fits none and that we have to. We have to really think at a very personalized level to be able to address well being in different contexts. Yeah. And you recently published a paper with Carol Riff, Meaningful Work, well Being and health enacting a eudaimonic vision in 2023. Tell us about this paper.
Maybe I'll start by saying a word or two about Carol Riff. Carol Riff is. I said. I was saying that there was. There was definitely work going on around. Around themes of positive psychology before the turn of the 21st century. And Carol Riff is certainly an exemplar of that. So Carol's big, big idea was really about looking over the 21st century, the 20th century of psychological research and, and theory, and trying to be able to say what
are all of the ide. You know, individuals like Jung or Maslow or Viktor Frankl or Fromm. There's so many different psychological researchers and theorists. What were they saying about topics like well being? And how could she create a framework or a way of thinking about well being that encompassed all of those? And so she created this framework called Psychological well being back in the 80s and, and created a measurement scale.
And it was really one of the very first ways of. Of very comprehensively, rigorously measuring what the pillars of a way of thinking about a kind of eudaimonic well being might look like. And she's obviously a huge hero of mine. I mean, I run a company called eudaimonic By Design. I care a lot about eudaimonia, and we can unpack what that means, I'm sure, at some point in this call.
But, you know, Carol has always been a huge hero of mine, and we started to get close over the last handful of years and she really just started prodding and cajoling me into thinking about writing a paper of my own. And then when I obviously didn't do that fast enough, she was like, look, I'll do it with you. Just make it happen. And so we wound up writing around this topic of, of meaningful work.
And really the thing that we were really interested in was this notion that within the positive psychology literature, so much has been written about the idea of meaning and meaningful work. And in an exponential way. I mean, literally half of all of the stuff that has been published on meaningful work has been published since 2019. So it's just doubling, basically Every year in terms of the amount of literature on this topic. And most of it says meaning at work is a really, really good thing.
And it boosts your motivation and it boosts your loyalty to the organization, and it generally boosts performance and it should boost well being because meaning is a huge part of what wellbeing is all about. And yet, I mean, I don't know whether you can relate to this, but certainly I've spent my life doing a whole bunch of different kinds of meaningful work, and it doesn't always boost my well being.
And that was the question. It seemed like especially the more meaningful the job, often the more miserable people were who were doing it. And so we just got really curious about, well, what's the research about that dark side of meaning? And there is a whole entire literature on dark side of meaning that says when we're really engaged in doing deeply meaningful work, often work that has a high moral stake to it. Meaning that, you know,
it's really important. The work we believe is really important. And it kind of hits us at the heart level when that's true. Our levels of obsessive passion tend to skyrocket. And I know that's a topic that you know quite a lot about. And there's like all these other things that happen based on that. Number one, the boundaries between work and life just become eroded. And all the ways that we would normally protect ourselves and bolster buffer our well
being kind of disappear. And in parallel to that, we often open ourselves up to exploitation, taking jobs where we will expect less pay, getting into situations where people actually wind up taking advantage of the fact that we care so much. We have this deep sense of passion or purpose or meaning
at work. There's a whole level of career regret that many people who do deeply meaningful work experience a lot of negative affect, a lot of actually lower life satisfaction, a lot of stress, and eventually a lot of burnout. And so the article is really about trying to grapple with this paradox. You know, we know that meaning is good, we know that it's important. We know that meaning is technically part of our wellbeing.
And yet often the experience of work that is deeply meaningful winds up doing the very opposite of all of those things. Yeah, I remember when you first told me about that. We were having lunch together in Philadelphia and it really struck me because I've experienced that. But I want to take a step back because it'd be really easy for us to just take off on this, this awesome train, going into the nuance and then leaving our Audience behind
because they haven't spent many hours. So let's go back and talk about what is eudaimonia? Great. So eudaimonia, very ancient word, ancient Greek, as the case is. And really like the etymology, you is good. And daimon is like a spirit or demon. Daimon, demon. We kind of associate those words in English. So this good spirit that lives within all of us, that, that really is about in, in, in all sorts of ways being
able to achieve our potential. And so that's, that's really what the ancient Greeks thought, that we all have this hidden potential that exists within us, and that if we could just exercise that potential in the right way, that would ultimately
be the secret to a good life. That if you asked Aristotle, a life well lived was a life of very deliberate practice, where every single day you're working your butt off trying to figure out how do I balance all the competing demands, all of the strange contextual realities of my life, all of the relationships that I have to have, and how do I figure out how in this particular moment to do the right thing that will ultimately take me closer to trying to realize my
potential in life, realizing my own purpose in life. That if I do that every single day, I'll probably fail a lot, it will be hard, it probably won't be fun, but if I do it every single day at the end of my life, I'll look back and say, wow, that was a life well lived. That was truly a good life.
And so this perspective about Eudaimonia has really found its way into all sorts of really interesting nuances of how philosophers have thought about wellbeing, as to how religious figures have thought about well being, as to how sociologists have thought about well being. And eventually in the 20th century and the 21st century, how psychologists are trying to understand, unpack, ask questions about like, is that actually true? Does that actually make a difference? And so that's,
that's a little bit about what Yuda money is. I was on the edge of my seat because you described that so well. And that is such a hard question that I asked you. So, yeah, that was such a great response. So thank you. And I remember actually emailing you saying, hey, what are some papers you like on Eudaimonia? And you're like, oh, boy, you know, that was before, you know, really knowing what I was even asking. So thank you for being so graceful. No, of course
it's hard. It's a really, it's a, it's a really interesting and a really hard question. Especially because eudaimonia has so many different labels. I mean, we can call it eudaimonia, those who are within this literature will use that term, but most people don't know what that means. And eudaimonia is often translated as happiness. But like everything that I just described is very different than how most people tend to think about happiness or even well
being or flourishing. There's all sorts of synonyms to this idea of eudaimonia. So, so it's, it's, it's pretty complex. Yeah. Pursuing your potential does not feel good a lot of the time. And I think that that is a myth of positive psychology is that people think positive psychology is about just good all the time and thinking happy thoughts, but really living a life of meaning and where you look back and say, yeah, like I did something with that.
That doesn't mean that you're going to feel good all the time. And it's really what you do with it moving forward that matters. Yeah, no, I think that's a huge thing. And going back to an earlier question that you asked me about how have I seen the field evolve in the period of time that I've been involved, I think that that's a huge part of it is a recognition that a happy ology. You know, positive psychology as just like, hey,
how can we be happy all the time? Is, is a really unhelpful perspective that in many ways what positive psychology can really do for us is, is help us figure out how to struggle. Well, because life is about struggling. You know, trying to fulfill your purpose or potential in life is often challenging. It is often hard. Just having good relationships with other people might be really important for our well being. But it's hard. You know, other people are hell sometimes.
How do you do that effectively? I think positive psychology can really give us a lot of information about how to struggle. Well, yeah, something that I always appreciate when I talk to you and that when I've heard you speak is that you bring a very balanced perspective to things and you help people think about the other side, like kind of the
dark side of meaningful work. Like that's probably something a lot of people haven't really thought about before because people want to always put a positive spin on it. I think that's true. I really care a lot about critique, I guess, or critical thinking perspective. Yeah, there's different, maybe different strengths that I could bring to bear around that, but also just fundamental values and beliefs.
And it's also very eudaimonic. I mean the idea of eudaimonia is very much about the reality that everything in life exists between tensions. And the idea is never to just, you know, go. And there's. There can be too much of anything. Right. And we have to. We have to understand that counterbalance and bring enough nuance to know, great, how do we live? How do we live within what Aristotle might have called the golden mean, between two vices.
Virtue always exists in between two vices, so we need to understand that stuff. I just want to pull out a quick quote that you said for people to walk away with if they walk away with anything. From the beginning of this is everything in life exists between tensions. A lot of times we're trying to make tension go away, but tension can be such a powerful way to grow. And like you said, it could also be a way that could burn you out. So the golden mean.
Golden mean, Yep. So your company is eudaimonic by design. Can you. Since while we're on the topic of eudaimonia, can you tell us about your company before we move on? Yeah, sure. So. So the idea of eudaimonic by design was actually an idea that I had really, while I was in map, while I was going through the program myself. And at the time, I was working for a big bank, and. And. And was working
in leadership development in that big bank. And most of the time that I had been at the bank, we were constantly searching for the secret to high performance within the organization. And. And we generally approached that pursuit in a very productivity ratio kind of way, where the goal was constantly to try to figure out how do we get more out of people, how do we get people to exercise more? Discretionary performance would have been the labels that we were using in relation to whatever they were
doing. How do we get people to work harder? And yet we didn't actually think very much about the human being. And I think that as I was going through MAP, in many ways, the reason I wanted to do a degree in positive psychology to begin with was because I understood mostly because of my theater background. To be honest, that was where I started well before I worked in a bank, that people do things
for very different reasons. And generally nobody's walking around thinking, I'm a productivity ratio, and. And I need to figure out how to exert my discretionary performance. Like, no, that's. So you're literally just reducing a human being to a cog and a machine when you do that. And so what I started to realize as I was going through this, this MAP program was really the heart of what eudaimonia is all about this idea that no like it. We all are striving to be our best selves in different
ways, and that's going to look different for different people. But generally, when we get to do good work and we feel that the work that we're doing is good, we generally are pursuing excellence in some way, shape or form. We're generally trying to be as engaged as we possibly can. We're often doing that in a kind of e. Ethical way where we want to try to do the right thing, whatever that might look like. And so, and so I. I got really excited about this idea of,
of trying to spark eudaimonia for people in work. If, if we could figure out how to make people more eudaimonic in the work that they were doing, that truly must be a better recipe for what high performance could look like in any kind of an organizational setting. But the problem is, was that certainly the bank that I was working for was not designed to do that. I mean, none of our performance management approaches were really about helping someone be eudaimonic. We didn't hire people
for eudaimonia. We. We didn't even fire people for eudaimonia. We certainly didn't reward or recognize people for eudaimonic effort. And that was just kind of from a human resources perspective. We didn't structure work or meetings or goal setting, any of those things to foster eudaimonia. And so that was kind of a design challenge. I was like, oh, what would it look like if we designed an organization to help people be as eudaimonic as possible? Hence eudaimonic
by design. That's basically what we do. My. My background was in hr, in leadership development and culture change and policy. So I got really interested in figuring out how do we. How do we design the context to allow people to be their most eudaimonic selves at work? Wow. I wish I could be a fly in the wall at some of those. Those meetings that you have. That'd be really fascinating. Some of them are, and some of them are insanely frustrating. But many of them, many of them are really
exciting. It's, you know, it's not for everybody. You know, I call my company eudaimonic by Design in many ways, because I actually think that it doesn't work unless you fundamentally believe in the idea of eudaimonia. And most businesses, you know, for sure, the majority of businesses are not walking around trying to be eudaimonic. But those who are, those who get it.
Those who, you know, they might never have heard of the term eudaimonia before, but they'll hear me give my spiel and they'll reflect for a second and they'll be like, wow, you know, I didn't know that word. But that's exactly what we're trying to do around here. That's incredibly cool. That gives language or ideas or philosophy to. To things I didn't even know exist. How do we do that? Those are the places where there's just so much potential,
and it's. It's just super fun to help people go on that journey. And what a cool way to impact the world at scale through organizations. I think that's true. I think that's true. I mean, I. We have to. We have to hit all sorts of different, you know, buttons to be able to move the world forward. But I think that organizations of all kinds are really a big part of that. So how does eudaimonic by design square with meaningful work?
I think that in some ways you could think about meaningful work in eudaimonic by design as kind of synonyms. I mean, I think I use meaningful work as a bit of a simpler entrance point into eudaimonia. Although I would say that eudaimonia is more than just meaning. But there's a lot to what if you're really doing meaning? Well, that ties into all sorts of things that we know about eudaimonic well being. I mean, eudaimonic well being beyond meaning often includes
positive relationships. It includes a sense of autonomy. It includes what Carol would call environmental mastery, which is really about being able to understand the environment that I'm in and make changes to it to really allow my best self to be able to come forward. That kind of potentiation thing that I was talking about before, it also involves learning and development. It involves a sense of growth, and it involves self awareness. You know, those are all the aspects that Carol would say
are part of what she thinks eudaimonic well being are. And to do meaningful work, you have to really be able to do all of those things. Like, yes, you need to have a purpose, you need to have meaning. And we can talk more about what that is, but you kind of have to do it all. So if you're going to do meaningful work while. And you're especially going to do it in ways that I think bolster and buffer somebody's well being,
you're really thinking about all of eudaimonia. Yeah, I. I really loved Carol Rift's model of Psychological well being. That one really stood out to me and made the most sense to me. And especially when it's combined with Corey Keys work in social wellbeing and also Isaac Pilotinsky's work on Mattering, which you've had him on your podcast and I'm hoping one day he'll come on on mine. But it's just so interesting whenever you start thinking about, like, what does the good life look
like? Like, what does it mean? What are different ways that people have conceptualized it? And how that can really change your perspective and make you question, what am I striving for? Like, what is this all for? And I think that can really help you, especially when things are hard, when you're viewing, your perspective gets narrow. To be able to zoom out and say, what is this all for? That's, I think a huge piece of what meaning both in life and at work is all about is being able to ask that,
you know, why, why am I here? What am I doing this for? So tell us, what is meaning in life? I wish that there was a single answer to that. Yeah, so there's, there's actually so many answers to that, that, that there are people who have come along and have tried to say, you know what, there are so many definitions, there are so many ways that we think about measuring it that, you know, how can we at least go through all of those and
take the greatest hits of them? And so I'll give you, I'll give you one way of thinking about it that comes from Mike Steger and Frank Martella. And, and they, they, when they surveyed the literature of all of the different ways of thinking about meaning in life, they really boiled it down to three major buckets. One bucket was all about a sense of purpose. And purpose is often largely tied towards these big kind of
big hairy, audacious goals that we have in life, right? These bhags, these, these, this grand sense of goal, of what am I trying to do in life? That's often the way that we think about purpose. That's only one piece of it. The second piece of meaning is about significance.
Is that goal that I'm doing actually important? Is the stuff that I'm engaged with on a day to day basis, whether the tasks, whether the relationships that I have, whether the association that I have with my actual institution or any context in our lives. Are those things significant? Is there a sense of worthwhileness in the stuff that I'm doing? And then the last piece of the equation is coherence or congruent. And so the way to think about this is I might have a really big
goal, I might think that that goal is really important. But are the things that I'm actually doing on a day to day basis laddering up to those things? Is there what sometimes, especially in an organizational context we might call a say, do gap, where I'm saying one thing but I'm actually doing another. And this often comes down to an alignment of values is does it feel like I'm actually living life in a way that is truly in line with all the things that I think are
important? And so significance, purpose, coherence are kind of the three major kind of pieces of what Stiegar and Martello would say meaning in life is. I also think it can get quite complex whenever the things that are being measured are the things that you don't necessarily value. So you have to work towards something. Maybe it's not worthwhile to you and maybe it doesn't really feel congruent
with the things that are important. So in an organizational context, what, what can people do when they're there and they have to work towards these goals and yet they don't feel that meaning? Yeah, I think that this is, this is true for most people, I think in, in the context of work or at least at times. And I guess maybe that's another way of thinking about all of this. Stu. It's pretty contextual. Like it's, it's hard to say in a global way. All the work that I do lacks meaning or, or is
filled with meaning. Of course it's going to be different. I mean meaningful work shows up in at least four different places in the ways in which we think about our work. It for sure shows up in the tasks that we do. It for sure shows up in the roles that we play in an organization. It shows up in the interactions
we have internally or externally. And it shows up in our association with the organization itself in terms of, you know, our alignment to its values or its core purpose or its vision or mission or strategic goals. And I think each one of those different areas is going to have moments where there's tremendous alignment and moments where it's not. And I think a huge part of the task here, going back to Carol's model of eudaimonic well being, is about having self awareness to just even know
and identify. Oh yeah, this does feel like it's aligned or this does not feel like it's aligned or even just like this feels weird, this feels wrong, what's going on here. Like that's a wonderful moment to enter into the self awareness experience and then to use another piece of her model, the environmental mastery is to try to figure out, hey, how do I, how do I make changes here?
How do I adjust? What control do I have in this particular moment to try to make this experience a little bit more aligned to the things that I think are important or meaningful in my life? And so I think that that's, that's certainly an important way of being able to do it. It's, well, much easier said than done. I'm not even sure I said it that elegant, eloquently, but like that it's, it's kind, it's again, I think that's kind of the practice of what all of this stuff
is about. Yeah. So you said having self awareness. And I'm going to tie this all the way back to the very first thing we talked about was kind of the journaling and the reflection on what you're doing. So you're also an ICF coach, correct? Yep. Yep. And I know there's different levels and I'm not familiar. Can you tell us what level? Just to give you the. Sure. So I, I went into co. I am an acc, which is kind of the first level of, of accredited certified coach.
And then you can be kind of a master certified coach and a professional certified coach. I think acc, pcc, MCC are the three levels that the International Coaches Federation has. I got into coaching before I got into positive psychology. In many ways I got interested in positive psychology because I was interested in the science of coaching. So yeah,
so there's a glimpse into the ICF for people. But the self awareness and reflection piece in my research I've been doing for my capstone that is a theme, is that people don't reflect on their accomplishments and if they did and when they do, through even an interview, which is not the same as a coaching session,
is so powerful for them. So in your work, how do you help people, even from an organizational perspective, have this self awareness and this reflection so that they can have more meaning at work? When I, when I think about the coaching model that I learned and so I went through the coactive training institute or the coaches training institute and they talk a lot about deepening learning and forwarding action. So deepening learning being like a vertical thing,
right. Where, where I ultimately want to be able to understand myself better in any context, use anything that I'm engaged with as an opportunity to be able to deepen that self awareness. But the self awareness to a certain Extent is only as useful as my capacity to use it to do something in the world. Maybe that's about being more in line with my values or the things that I
care about in the world. Maybe it's about being able to advance some sort of big, you know, hairy, audacious goal that I have some sort of purpose. But. But the goal is to
be able to make a relationship between those two things. And I think that that's really important because I think going into an organization and just going into any context, but I think as human beings and just focusing on one of those axes, like just focusing on the meta reflection and the learning, can often feel a little bit like, theoretical. Right. So. So in my experience working in organizations, you want the pragmatic, like, you want the tactical and
practical. You want to be able to use the meta reflection as a mechanism for trying to do something that you're trying to do. And so what does that mean in very practical terms? Often when I'm doing this work in organizations, I want to really associate it with something that they're trying to do already. Like maybe it's a technological transformation that they're trying to engage in. Maybe it's about achieving some sort of strategic goal that they're working on. Maybe it's about helping
a human resource professional be able to do their job better. But the point is, how do you attach any of this stuff on meaningful work to very concrete things that an individual cares about within the organization and helping them think about the ways in which that kind of meta reflection, that self awareness, having, you know, just even reflection questions, or a group conversation where we're having dialogue about what makes work meaningful, can actually be very tactically associated
with concrete things that they're trying to advance and achieve in the world. And doing that, I think is. It's not only helpful in terms of making it real, but I think it grounds people in a desire to actually stick with it and do the work. Yeah. So I also wanted to ask you because, you know, we've had some in map, we learned about, you know, Amy Razniewski's work and being able to, like,
job craft, for example. So if people are in jobs, which a quick, quick little backstory on me, which a lot of the listeners might know, is that I started off in engineering. I got my master's degree in engineering. I sat in my chair and said, I do not want to do this. This is not the meaning that I have. The, the purpose. My purpose in life is not this. I do not want to do this.
But not everybody has that option. And this came up, actually, in one of your podcasts with one of your guests about how not everybody's work can be committed or related to their. Their purpose. And so how can you find this. This meaning at work if your job is not the thing that you love or the thing that you really align with? Yeah, this is, I think, a really important. It's really important nuance, and I think, actually an interesting misconception about the way in
which people think about meaningful work. So, first of all, I think that within the literature on meaningful work, there's a whole bunch of people who say maybe we shouldn't be working so hard at trying to make work meaningful. Like, maybe. Maybe we should actually back off of really, you know, really trying to boost meaning, especially given the dark sides of meaning.
But beyond just the dark sides of meaning that I talked about, I think that there's a lot of ways in which organizations can use meaning in. In a way of being able to. To try to get more out of people. Right. So I think that I, you know, there's a way that organizations try to compete on meaning. There's a way that organizations try to use meaning as
a way of paying people less. There's a way in which organizations might even be able to try to harness meaning as a way of trying to, like, tap people's souls to get them to do things that they might not necessarily otherwise want to be able to do. And I think these are all very real things, and I think that they're all very real things in all sorts of different kinds of capitalist contexts
in which people try to boost meaning at work. And. And so I think it's great that there's more of an interest in meaning at work and purpose at work. And I think that there's real risks of us leaning too heavily. But going back to the thing that you said before about the fact that, you know, not everyone can do the thing that they're totally passionate about or find a deep sense of purpose around. One of the. One of the podcasts that I did was with a guy named
Michael Pratt. And Michael. Michael's like one of the. The real true founding fathers of the meaningful work literature. He was one of the very early people who tried to define what meaningful work is and how it can actually be measured. And over the years, what he has realized is that people find their work meaningful for a whole bunch of different reasons, and all of them are valuable. And so he actually has six of them. And I think they're really Instructive to think about.
One of them is very, very utilitarian. Like some people go to work just so that they can get paid, so that they can live their meaning outside of work. They maybe have families, they have other passions, they like to travel, they, they just care about their kids, they just want a roof over their heads. All of those kinds of things are very fundamentally important. And work can be a very meaningful thing if it allows us to get a paycheck so that we can leave work and then live the rest of
our lives. I'm going to interrupt really quick. I'm going to interrupt because I think that that is true for many people and there's guilt associated with that. Like I should be pursuing something more purposeful or, you know, I should be doing something more in alignment. But you are enacting your values if you are supporting your family and there is no shame involved,
that needs to be involved with that. So when I heard him say that on your podcast, I felt such a deep sense of relief because I know that that is the reality that so many people live in. Absolutely. And it's huge. Like that's hugely important. And I think it's probably the dominant reason why people work around the world. And I think
that we should just acknowledge that. And especially that's true in lower income contexts and contexts where the jobs are not necessarily great jobs and, or they're, they're terrible jobs or sometimes known as dirty jobs or like there's all sorts of different really crappy jobs that are out there that people are not doing because they want to, but because they have to. And, and so it's, but it's totally fine if that's your relationship to what work is.
And we should help people figure out what their purpose is outside of work in that context. But utilitarian 11 of 6, 2 is status. And I think that we often think about, we often think about organizations as places where we can climb a ladder, or professions as places where we are trying to rise up in ever increasing increments of either power or status or wealth. There's all sorts of different ways of being able to think about that ladder that is,
is important to people. So that can give meaning to a lot of people. But those are definitely not the only two ways that we can have meaning. We can find meaning because the work that we do is just a real huge passion for us. Right. Like we, we just love it so much, we wouldn't do anything else. Right. Like that we would love it so much, we wouldn't Even like, we would. We would do it
without a salary like that. That kind of passion, which is sometimes called a calling in the literature, is definitely a reason why people work. But I think what Michael Pratt does even, like, more brilliantly is kind of like stretch out what that passion can look like. So we might care a lot about kinship, so we might care a lot for the other people that we are working with and alongside.
And this is especially true in often, like, military contexts or, you know, firefighters or, like, team sports. You know, I would imagine this is like, a really big sense, like, I'm doing this. I'm here for my brothers and sisters who are here as well. And that gives people a lot of meaning. Another one is service. I'm here because I am just trying to serve. I'm here to support the people. You know, think about teachers, think about nurses, think about people who are really in their
jobs to be able to help others in the world. And then the final one that Michael talks about is mastery. I'm here to be able to get better, to pursue mastery, to up my game. That's the thing that gives my life a tremendous amount, my work a tremendous amount of meaning. And so just thinking about those. Those six intersecting things, and of course, you know, we might have more than one. We might have kind of a utilitarian priority, but kind of are interested in building
our mastery at the work as well. Or they might change in different moments. I mean, maybe there's some moments in our lives where it's actually really important that we make more money and have more utilitarian perspectives, even though we really care about the teams that we're working with or the service that we are trying to do in the world. So they're likely going to change, they're likely going to intersect, and we can have many of them.
But even just taking a step back and having somebody think about those six things can, I think, really shift the way that we approach meaningful work. So I'm going to pull out the. The passion in the meaning, because I think also in this teenage, not everybody just has one job. People wear multiple hats for their jobs. So maybe one of their jobs is one of. Of meaning and
passion. And I want to come back to your work on the dark side of meaningful work, because I actually think that this is really applicable to. To cyclists. And while a lot of people might be racing, they might not be making money doing it. I think that there is. It'd be interesting to study it a d. A dark side to the. To this. That world.
So we don't have to apply it specifically to cycling. But I'd like to hear more about how can people know that they're either choosing to exploit themselves by, you know, not getting paid for the work that they're doing, or not valuing the work that they're doing, or if somebody else is exploiting them. And how do you get yourself out of that? Because that must be really hard because you might have your. There's values and guilt and all this stuff associated with that. So you feel like
you can't step away from that. Yeah, I think it's, the research here is really interesting. And if you're, if you're a research geek like both of us are, and you're interested in these topics, passion exploitation is sometimes the ways that this is, that this is described and really like the, and there's different varieties of it as well that look at different
aspects of it. But the fundamental notion of it is that when we find our work deeply meaningful, we often go into situations where we expect that the work itself is its own reward. And therefore we don't necessarily look for the same kind of other external validation or external rewards that we might otherwise expect from a different kind
of career or a different kind of job. What this often means is that we'll go into a job interview and we'll intentionally lower the bar on what our salary expectations are, or we'll expect to work longer nights or, or, or more weekends, or work over holidays because we think that the work itself is so important, even if that means going over and above the policies that are in place or doing things that we kind of know are not necessarily the right thing to do, but we do it anyways because
we think that the work is like that worth doing and like it needs to get done anyway. Right. These are things that we often do to ourselves. Now, of course, there are organizations that take advantage of those things. You know, I once had a boss who was like, I'm. He literally said, I'm going to pay you less because this work is purpose driven work and you could be sure making more if you went and worked at that organization. But all they care about
is money and all that we care about is purpose. And so you should expect to be paid less. Of course there are situations like that. Of course this person was a deeply principled person. I don't, I don't necessarily, I don't necessarily fault him for it, but it's a reality that we've constructed contexts where often the more meaningful the work, the more that we Open ourselves up to different kinds of, of exploitation in the workplace
and. Sorry, can I interrupt really quick? Yeah. I also want to add in the context of, of being a solopreneur, where you are driving the ship and. Yeah, sorry, go ahead. No, absolutely. Solopreneurs, entrepreneurs. This is like a massive thing that, that we do. And, and it's all true. Like, I mean it's all, it's all, it's all because we care so much. We care so much that it's like it's really hard to let go, which is the whole point of the Dark side of meaning. Right?
Like it's, it's. We care so much that it's really hard to let go. Side note, this is one of the reasons why it's really helpful when you're thinking about any kind of a team to have folks on that team who are, whose meaning is, is more utilitarian at work. And this is something Michael Pratt also said, which I kind of love. Like, you always want someone on your team who can be like,
why are you working past five, buddy? Like, stop it. You don't need to like, you know, it's time to clock out, leave or kinship. People who are kind of like noticing and looking and trying to be like, you are working way too hard. You need a break. What can we do to make sure that you like, actually take a step away from the thing that you think are really important to think about that diversity from that lens on a team that I think really interesting kind of
meaningful diversity. But going back to the purpose exploitation literature, I, I think it's, you know, there's all sorts of things that we can try to do, but I think at the end of the day the best thing that we can try to do is is think a little bit about the relationship between meaning and decency. And, and so this is, this is, this is somebody else who came onto the podcast at some point and who's done a lot of, of of work in this regard.
But, but, but this idea of being able to take meaning and decency and put them on a two by two. And by decency, what I mean is how much, how much freedom do I have in my work? How much security is there? What equity is there? How much dignity is there in my work? You can think about decency as kind of, kind of the very fundamental things like do I, do I get paid? Is work safe? Am I, am I free from all the kind of bad things
at work? That, that there can be jobs that have really high meaning and really high Decency and those are things that like, are ideally like that's the sweet spot, that's ideally where we want to go. There can be jobs with no decency and no meaning. Like the gas station employee who has no control over their, their work and just, you know, gets thrust into jobs and has to work the midnight shift and
has terrible clients that are abusive and stuff like that. There can be people who have a lot of decency but no meaning. You know, the people who have like the swish corner office and you know, a lot of money but fundamentally hate what they're doing or think that their work is. And then there's the people who have a lot of meaning
but very low decency. And, and these are people who, you know, teachers and, and, and nurses and you know, international aid workers and most nonprofit professionals, I'm sure a lot of athletes, certainly a lot of performers are, are often in this kind of a context. And so, and so I think what we can do is try to be able to say, hey, where am I in that? 2 by 2. And depending on where I am, I'm probably going to have some different priorities for myself that will help me think. Do I need to act?
Do I need to boost the meaning here or do I need to, do I need to focus on the decency part of the equation here? That requires an incredible amount of self awareness coming back to the term that we were using earlier. And also you might be aware of it, but to actually do something about it might be really hard. I think it is really hard and I think it's really hard to do on our own. And I think that that's why, you know, organizations like unions are so important.
You know, having a group of people who are ultimately looking out for your best interests is really important. Having governance, governments who care, you know, is something that's really, really important. And so I don't think that we can do it on our own. I think that we need, we need organizations to be able to help. We need societies to be able to help. And I think that that's like a real, it's a real call. Like when we talk in that article about a Eudaimonic vision, I think
that that's what we're talking about. Yes, there's things that we can do at an individual level, but more fundamentally we really need to think about the organizations that we're a part of. We need to think about the societies that we are citizens of. And we need to be able to work at all three of those levels to be Able to truly create the conditions where people can experience eudaimonic be their most eudaimonic
selves. I'm gonna ask a question that I hope we can cover in the amount of time left. Whenever we talk about meaning and meaning at work, we're talking about significance, right? We're talking about coherence. We're talking about passion. The work is significant. However, when it comes to mattering, there's different ways that we can add value and feel valued in the world and to ourselves and our. In our relationships. So the work is significant, but maybe I am not significant.
And then I don't feel like I matter. Like the work I'm doing is significant, but I don't feel like I matter. So how does that mattering piece, especially mattering as an individual, where they just like, I'm a drop in the bucket versus I actually matter, how does that play into meaningful work? When I wrote this paper, I sent it off to Martin Seligman, who's the guy who both of us know quite well at this point. He kind of runs the Masters of Applied Positive
Psychology program at Penn. Basically the founder of positive psychology. At least that name and what he said as soon as I sent him the paper was, you know, this is great. This is useful. And I don't really talk as much about meaning anymore. I pretty much just talk about mattering. And I think that's a really. It's instructive, I think, that this idea of mattering is so important. There's another MAP alumni whose name is Julie Hayslip, who is a doctor who studies nurses.
And so in her research, she's gone out and looked at nurses generally come to the profession of nursing because of the fact that it's meaningful, but they only stay if they feel that they matter. And so this is a really, I think, useful thing for us to pause and think about. And maybe it helps us to just really define what we mean by mattering. Mattering is, as Isaac Prolatensky would say, the felt experience of feeling valued and being able to add value.
So those two pieces, we matter when we feel like what we are doing matters, when we feel valued and when we can actually apply our strengths, our values, our passions in service of something that we think of important when we are able to fundamentally add value. So much of this mattering piece is, again, I think, what Eudaimonia is all about. We. We want to feel like we can contribute. We want to feel like when we do so, we're seen, we're valued, we're respected. For doing so.
And I think it is really at the heart of what we can try to do in any context where people are doing meaningful work is we can try to say, hey, how do we, how do we remove as many barriers to somebody who wants to do meaningful work and allow them to add as
much value as they want to do? And how can we work our butt off in any kind of a context to recognize that, to celebrate that, to applaud that, to be able to make sure that people know who are doing that deeply meaningful work, that the work is valued, it is recognized, it is appreciated. And some of that comes in monetary ways. But a lot of it comes from just being able to be seen and recognized and celebrated in all the small ways on a
very regular basis. And I think that we can, we can take that to heart and really think about how do we design organizations to be able to do that. It can become this design criteria, this principle that we use to think about the ways that we think about any kind of practice in an organization, what a team meeting looks like. It can also be a really important way
of thinking about what leadership is. In many ways, the role of a leader is to find ways of adding value, Helping people add the most value that they can and feel as valued as possible while they're trying to do that. I mean, if that were, if that was the two part instruction to every single leader that we had in the world, we'd have a lot better leaders. Like, it would be an amazing, amazing difference.
I think the feeling valued piece and the recognition is very challenging because like you said way back in the beginning when we talked about how has positive psychology evolved is that it's very individual. So the way that people want to receive recognition so that they feel valued, that's really difficult because as a leader, you have to know on your team what that looks like
for each person so that they feel valued. Because many people are working their butt off to add value, but if they don't feel value, they don't have that felt sense of mattering. And like you said back with Julie Hayslip's work, they, the nurses, they leave or they burn out because they don't feel like they matter. Yep, absolutely. Absolutely. And it is like it's a true one size fits none situation. Well, unfortunately, we're already out of time. I could talk to you all day long.
So, I mean, I think the best thing for people to do is go to your podcast. I'm an avid listener. I've learned so much from it. I'm Very excited to continue going down the rabbit hole of meaningful work because I think this is such an important topic. Thanks Andrew. I just want to acknowledge you for all of the generative work that you're doing in the world and how you are adding value to so many different people across many different domains. So I'm so glad
to be one of those people. Thanks. Thank you. So Sonya, thank you so much for listening to the Sonya Looney show and being a part of this podcast community for seven years. That is wild. If you want to help spread the word, make sure to share the show
with your friends. You can tell them about the show, you can share it on social media, or you can reach out to our guests who always appreciate hearing from you because a lot of times we are trying to spread these important messages but we don't know who it's impacting and that is is so valuable to us. Big thanks to my team at Palm Tree Podco for the brilliant work that you do.
I couldn't do this without you. And as always, I'm with you all on this journey of personal growth, adventure and our mission to be better every day. We'll see you right back here next week. Thank you so much for tuning into this special crossover episode of Meaningful Work Matters. I hope this conversation sparked some new ideas about the balance between meaningful work well being and what it truly means to matter.
But we're not done yet. Next week, the tables turn once again as I welcome Sonia Looney to the Meaningful Work Matters podcast. We'll explore how to pursue high standards without burning out the emotional roller coaster of striving for excellence and how shifting our goals towards other ish impact can help us thrive both as individuals and in service to others. Trust me, you won't want to miss it until then. Thank you Sonya and I'll see you next week.
Thank you for joining us for another episode of Meaningful Work Matters. If you haven't already done so, be sure to subscribe to our podcast on your favorite platform. And if this episode resonated with you, please take a moment to leave us a review. Your feedback helps us make this podcast better and reach more listeners. You can connect with me, Andrew Soren on LinkedIn or visit www.eubd.ca
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