Finding Purpose: How to give your work meaning (w/ the New York Times Jodi Kantor) | from Fixable

**Modupe Akinola** (0:00)
Hi, listeners, it's Modupe, the host of TED Business. On this show, we talk about the business of business and the why of it all.
A sense of purpose is often at the heart of successful, impactful work. And these are the big questions that we're constantly asking on TED Business. How do you seek out meaningful work? How do you locate meaning in your work? What does the word purpose even mean? Well, I'm not the only one in the extended TED family asking these questions. Over on the podcast Fixable, leadership coaches Frances Fry and Anne Morris have done a four-part series on Finding Purpose, and I'm sharing each part of it with you today. I just know you guys are going to love it. So without further ado, Frances and Anne are going to take it from here.

**Jodi Kantor** (0:56)
This is an environment in which everybody is seeking stability because it's a chaotic, intimidating environment.
And I get that. I mean, of course I understand why everybody just wants security right now. But the problem is that you don't really get anywhere in your career without risk. Like, it's just the other ingredient. Sometimes you need more of it, sometimes you need less of it, but you do need to take chances.

**Anne Morris** (1:28)
This is Fixable, a show where we take the problems at work that feel unfixable and prove that they are not. I'm Anne Morris.

**Frances Frey** (1:35)
And I'm Frances Frey.

**Anne Morris** (1:37)
As we continue our Purpose at Work series, this week we're talking to the amazing New York Times investigative reporter Jodi Kantor. Recently, she's been thinking and writing about how work fits into a meaningful life.

**Frances Frey** (1:50)
Her work has changed the way I think, and honestly the way everyone I know thinks about work.

**Anne Morris** (1:56)
She's reported on everything from power dynamics in Silicon Valley to allegations of sexual misconduct against Harvey Weinstein. She has masterfully documented what is broken about work, and she still believes it can be beautiful.

**Frances Frey** (2:10)
We got to know Jodi years ago when she did a story on gender issues here at the Harvard Business School.

**Anne Morris** (2:15)
And she's been on a rocket ship of impact since then, picking up a Pulitzer Prize along the way.
She has a new book out now called How to Start, Discovering Your Life's Work. It's a really moving guide to finding your purpose through work. We're going to talk to her about what that pursuit looks and feels like, and try to find the sweet spot between what you're uniquely built to do and what the world really needs from you.

**Frances Frey** (2:40)
And I hope we find out what got her from there to here. Like, why did she write this book? It's beautiful.

**Anne Morris** (2:46)
I have so many questions, so let's bring her in. Jodi Kantor, welcome to Fixable.

**Jodi Kantor** (3:01)
It's great to be here.

**Anne Morris** (3:02)
So we wanted to start with a hard-hitting question that's worthy of your status as one of the world's great investigative journalists. Have you seen The Devil Wears Prada 2?

**Jodi Kantor** (3:12)
I have. Oh, yes. We could have an entire conversation about that because it's very much about work, not to mention about journalism. I did think that this is a good movie about the workplace, and we have some of those, but I don't think we quite have enough of them.

**Anne Morris** (3:32)
It was a little Hollywood. A little.

**Jodi Kantor** (3:35)
Just a tiny bit, Anne. I mean, I wear that stuff every day personally.
Yeah. I mean, there were some specific lines towards the end of the film. I think there was a beautiful tribute to work near the end, right? Where they say, like, this is why we come here every day. This is what we want. This partnership, these relationships, this feeling of trying to do something big. I thought it was a very good defense of that. Because I'm curious whether you agree. I think what's basically happening is the idea of work needs defending in the culture right now. And I've seen various parties do it. The other cultural moment, right before the book came out, was the astronauts. And I don't know about you, but I fell down a rabbit hole of watching their teamwork, ambition, craft, precision, optimism, respect for one another. And I thought, this is the most provocative thing right now, because people are regarding work as so dystopian, and they're putting together both this very high-achieving but joyful sense of what work can be like.

**Anne Morris** (4:52)
I found the reaction to it to be kind of just as interesting the moment, because I think, and we see this all the time, people are really hungry for those positive examples and those really hopeful examples of work. It seems like part of your mission with this book and your wonderful commencement speech at Columbia, this fabulous press tour that you're on, is to rehabilitate the idea of work as a path to a meaningful life. Is that how you think about it?