Finding your life purpose usually starts to feel like a terrible joke when everyone keeps repeating the same tired career advice: follow your passion, chase your dreams, and somehow everything will magically work out. In this exclusive interview, I sit down with bestselling author, researcher, and entrepreneur Tom Rath to show why that advice can be misleading, and what you can actually do instead. Tom has spent years studying how careers affect health and wellbeing, and his work has reached millions of people through 12 books that have sold more than 10 million copies worldwide. His bestselling books include How Full Is Your Bucket?, StrengthsFinder 2.0, Strengths Based Leadership, Wellbeing, Eat Move Sleep, and Are You Fully Charged?, giving him a pretty interesting perspective on purpose, work, leadership, and how we spend our limited time.

Tom’s career has also gone well beyond writing books. He previously led Gallup’s workplaces business and served as a Senior Scientist, and he is now the co-founder and CEO of CareerSight. His work has consistently focused on understanding what helps people build healthier, more meaningful careers, which makes his perspective on purpose very different from the usual “just follow your passion” advice. We talk about why asking “Who can I help, and what problem can I solve for them?” can be a far more useful starting point, how the small purpose concept can change the way you approach your career, and why personal development advice can sometimes leave people chasing goals without ever asking whether those goals actually matter. We also get into the creator vs. consumer mindset, building better daily habits, and finding ways to stop wasting your time on social media and other distractions.

The future of work belongs to people who can adapt, so we also spend a huge part of this conversation talking about artificial intelligence and how Tom uses tools like Claude in his own life. Rather than treating AI as something that simply threatens your job, Tom shares how he uses it to handle parts of his schedule, research, finances, and health-related information, giving him more room to focus on meaningful work. We talk about his daily routine, work-life balance, productivity, and the 70/30 creative work split he uses to protect time for deeper thinking. Tom also shares his perspective on leadership, including why stability and hope play such an important role in how people experience good leadership, along with practical thoughts on time management and reducing the distractions that come with being glued to your phone.

If you’re thinking about your purpose, career, productivity, leadership, or the role technology should play in your life, this conversation will give you plenty to think about. Drop a comment below and tell me which idea from the conversation changed the way you think about your work and purpose, then subscribe for more conversations like this.

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