Your Ambitions Might Not Be Yours | Tom Rath

About this episode

Tom Rath discusses how many people's ambitions are influenced by external factors rather than personal desires, particularly in midlife.

Most of us reach our 40s and discover something unsettling: the ambitions we've been chasing weren't entirely ours. They came from parents, from culture, from the two or three careers we happened to see up close. Tom Rath calls this looking through a pinhole, and he thinks it explains more midlife restlessness than most of us are willing to admit. Tom is one of the most widely-read researchers on how careers shape health and wellbeing. His books, including the instant number one New York Times bestseller How Full Is Your Bucket? and StrengthsFinder 2.0 , have sold more than 10 million copies. His latest book is What's the Point?: Turning Purpose into Your Daily Superpower . In this conversation, you'll explore: Why only 50 jobs represent half the entire labor market, and what that means for the choices you made at 18 The difference between a ladder and a garden as frameworks for a life and why one of them is making you miserable What headstones actually say (and never say) about what we thought mattered The legacy question that most people answer wrong and what Tom's grandfather's final hours taught him about the purest form of giving Why purpose is less about finding your…

People in this episode

Host: Jonathan Fields

Guest: Tom Rath

Topics covered

• midlife reflection
• career choices
• personal ambitions
• purpose in life
• legacy
• health and wellbeing

Keywords

• ambitions
• midlife
• career
• purpose
• legacy
• health
• wellbeing

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: How Full Is Your Bucket?, StrengthsFinder 2.0, What's the Point?: Turning Purpose into Your Daily Superpower

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