I write about work problems a lot. To my mind, most of them come from an over-focus on measurable aspects of work — and a corresponding under-focus on “soft skills” like better management, true leadership, communication, empathy, self-awareness, and the like. We’ve wanted work to be logical for decades. That’s why we throw process at everything. But until our robot overlords come for our jobs, work is still made up of people. As a result, work is inherently an emotional place. When we strip the psychology from work, we create work problems for everyone.
Yesterday I was cleaning my house (Labor Day!) and because I’m a gigantic yuppie, I listened to some Malcolm Gladwell and Tim Ferriss podcasts. I had recently seen I Am Not Your Guru, which is the Netflix movie about Tony Robbins. As a result, I listened to this Ferriss-Robbins episode. It’s 1 hour and 38 minutes long but it’s very powerful. I’d give it a listen someday.
One of the central tenets of the podcast is this idea of “achievement” vs. “fulfillment.” I assume you kinda know what this means and how those words are different, but let’s start by defining them. After that, we can move into how this correlates to work problems.
