431. Is Your Work Worth It? Exploring Purpose with Christopher Wong Michelson

Welcome to episode 431 of the Brainy Business Understanding the Psychology of why people Buy. In today's episode, I'm excited to introduce you to Christopher Wong Michelson, co author of Is your work worth it? Ready? Let's get started.

You are listening to the Brainy Business Podcast where we dig into the psychology of why people buy and help you incorporate behavioral economics into your business, making it more brain friendly. Now, here's your host, Melina Palmer.

Hello hello everyone. My name is Melina Palmer and I want to welcome you to the Brainy Business Podcast. In today's conversation, I'm joined by Christopher Wong Michelson. Christopher is a philosopher with 25 years of experience advising business leaders, pursuing meaning and providing work with a purpose, and is the co author with Jen Tosti Karas of Is your work with worth it? After earning his PhD in philosophical ethics and Aesthetics from the University of Minnesota, Christopher joined the New York office of price Waterhouse, now PwC, as one of the first five consultants in a business ethics practice. In 1998, a few years into his business career, he accepted a full time faculty position at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, teaching corporate ethics and while keeping a foot in practice for a while, he was PwC's only one day a week employee, working on 10 editions of its Global CEO survey and as its first Strategy Officer to the World Economic Forum before leaving in 2016. Christopher went from Wharton to NYU's Stern School of Business in 2005, where he continues on the business and society faculty and has taught professional responsibility and corporate governance governance. After moving home to Minneapolis, he also joined one of the largest business ethics faculties in the world at the University of St Thomas in 2008, where he is now the OPUS Distinguished professor of Principled Leadership and academic Director of the Melrose and the Toro Company center for Principled Leadership. He's currently President of the Society for Business Ethics, affiliate faculty with the University of Minnesota center of Bioethics, an Academic Fellow of the Ethics and Compliance initiatives on several editorial boards, and the host of work in progress with Christopher Michaelson. Very, very well established. We're so delighted to have him here with us today where we're going to be discussing that new book, is your work worth it? Really quickly, before we get into the conversation, I want to be sure you know that there are links in the show, notes for my top related past episodes and books, ways to get in touch with Christopher and myself, and more. It's all within the app you're listening to and at the brainy business.com431 now let's jump right in. Christopher Wong Michelson, welcome to the Brainy Business Podcast.

Melina, thank you for having me. It is a pleasure to be here.

Yes, I'm so excited. And we had a nice little chat as we were getting ready to jump into the conversation.

So.

So we have gotten a bit acquainted now, which is nice. But for everyone who's listening to the show that doesn't yet know you, can you share a little bit about yourself and the work that you do?

Absolutely. I am a philosopher of work, as I like to consider myself. So what is that? Well, philosophers ask lots of questions. And one of the questions that I actually went to graduate school in order to study was, what is the meaning of life? Maybe the most important question of all. And I found when I got to graduate school, at least at the time that I was doing it, that my professors were much more interested in studying the meaning of words than the meaning of life. And that frustrated me. I really wanted to explore these big, giant questions. And as academics often do, these scholars were studying very seemingly small questions. I didn't realize at the time that they all added up to these big questions. I just was kind of youthful and frustrated. So I decided I didn't want to be a philosophy professor. I wanted to make a difference in the real world. So of course, with a PhD in philosophy, I went into management consulting, as one does. The truth is that at the time, most of the large professional services firms, I was living in New York City, they were launching business ethics advisory practices. And I thought, well, you know, I don't know much about business, but I know quite a bit about ethics. And so maybe I can convince them that they should hire me. So the firm I ultimately joined, I sent four resumes to. Three of them got flat out rejected. But the fourth, I had met the person who was starting the practice at a conference and he invited me to send me hand, send him my resume. And I did and kind of learned business on the job. And I did management consulting full time for about five years. And then I ended up, after going back into academia, keeping a foot in management consulting for almost 15 more years. And in that process, I probably had some of the most meaningful work I will ever have, as well as some of the most meaningless experiences that I will ever have. And I started to think of my foot in management consulting as kind of my laboratory for understanding work. So that's how I became a philosopher of work. And by the way, I should mention, so we're Here to talk about a book that I co authored with Jennifer Tosti Karras. And Jen is not a philosopher. She can be philosophical, but she's an organizational psychologist. But a few of the things that we have in common that ultimately brought us together as a co author team were that at the same time that I was a management consultant in New York City, she was a management consultant with a competing firm in New York City. Although we come at it from different perspectives, we were both studying the meaning of work just from these distinct but complementary disciplinary perspectives. And we both were actually living this management consulting life on 9 11, 2001 and the aftermath, trying to understand and make sense of that tragedy actually led to our collaboration together.

Yeah. And you, of course, thank you for the background on your work. And I have many thoughts and questions of all of your journey that I want to dig into at some point. But as you brought up in the book, you talk a lot about the stories of 911 and how this is understanding when other people are writing and the profiles from the New York Times versus how you're thinking about your life and work in the day to day and how these things all come together, being really foundational in the, in the book. I think this of course gets into, of course, this sort of philosophical question of, you know, is work worth it and what's, what is value when it comes to our lives and all these things. Can you share a little bit more about this? You know, how you even get to the question by asking more questions? It's one of my favorite things.

Yeah. Well, as you've sort of alluded to, not only is the book title a question, but there are nine chapters in the book, and every single chapter is a question. And I don't want, I don't want to give the impression that we don't offer any answers, but ultimately the answers have to come from inside the reader. But I think that is your work worth it is a question that just about anybody who works asks themselves at some point, maybe every single day. Some people ask it, some people have more wherewithal to do something about it, you know, if they decide that their work isn't worth the trouble and toil and commute and lack of appreciation, et cetera, that they get back from it. Maybe they have the power, the privilege, the money to make a change. But then even those who don't have the means to make a change, who are just stuck doing what they're doing because it's the way they make ends meet and any interruption of the working Life might be catastrophic. They still ask it, and they still wonder, and they can still dream. And I think those perspectives all came out in our 911 research. So, as I alluded to, our research together began when we were as much citizens as academics, just processing the loss of 9 11. And. And we, along with many other people in the world, were reading profiles of victims in especially the New York Times. They had this extensive series called Portraits of Grief that chronicled ultimately, the lives of almost 2,500 of the 2,977 victims. And they all told stories about lives, but many of them also told stories about the place of work in life. So that became sort of our data for our initial academic study together. Another contextual piece is that, you know, of all places, the Wall Street Journal in December of 2001. I say of all places because the Wall Street Journal is kind of, you know, not really known for the soft side of business. But the Wall Street Journal ran an article about people who post 9 11, were rethinking their work and lives. And, you know, as I said before, some people had the wherewithal to make a change. So some people just decided, I'm going to retire early. Some people decided to travel around the world, but also those who stayed in the workforce. There was, at least anecdotally, an increase in applications to be New York City's public school teacher, a firefighter, a police officer to join the military, and so on. People looking for more meaningful work. So, you know, Fast forward to 2020 and beyond. This is when Jen and I were actually sort of in the throes of writing our book. And we realized in the pandemic, people were asking many of the same kinds of existential questions about the place of work and life because of the pandemic tragedy. And although we kind of wish that it wouldn't take tragedy for people to actually think really seriously about these questions of should I be making a change? Tragedy does have a way of sort of focusing our minds on questions that we might sort of leave on the back burner during ordinary times.

Definitely. I was trying to find a. I know. I took a screenshot of a passage, just a statement of something that I think is interesting that's toward the end of the book, but says this new state of affairs gives rise to the dystopian tension. To live a meaningful life devoid of the kind of work that we may not previously have realized, gives structure to our days and an implied worth to our existence. If our work gives our lives more meaningful, what happens when it Goes away. And I think what's really interesting here is, you know, as you think about, and like you said, that early retirement or what we choose to do with our time and the balance of life and work, and this like, do we live to work, work to live sort of aspect that is very prominent, you know, in the theme throughout the book, but where we don't realize how much of our life identity is tied up in this aspect. One of most common question, you talk about this in the book as well. When you meet people, as they say, oh, what do you do? Right. That's the first thing. And then when we have a, a nothingness that doesn't feel right, and when we don't have a set flow, you know, there's so much of our value, like perceived on ourselves that is tied in work. Like, you know, kind of why is that? And I just, I don't really have the question there as much as I thought of this. And I shall now let you speak.

Thank you. I can think of lots of questions that may come from this, and I'll try to address some of them. But that idea that, you know, we, we kind of romanticize the idea of a life without work, especially when we have a bad day at work or a bad few at work or something, you know, we fantasize about winning the lottery or making, you know, getting rich quick and then retiring early. In fact, one movement that we write about a little bit in the book that our friend and colleague Laura Sunday has researched in detail is the fire movement. You know, financially independent, retire early. And there is something that is appealing about that idea of not having to worry about the material practical concerns of do I have enough money to make it through life in the way that I want to make it through? And then just having this endless choice about how to spend time. A lot of people, by the way, in the fire movement don't actually retire early, but they might retire to things that they might consider more meaningful, but they pay a little less or they do them for fewer hours. But, you know, even these people who are sort of committed to this idea that life is not about work often continue to do some work, including counseling other fire movement participants and how to do it. So there's sort of a, an inherent irony in that. But, but more broadly, I think anybody should ask themselves the question, if I didn't have to work, what would I do with my life? Another academic friend and colleague, Santiago Mejia, kind of inspired us with that kind of point that, you know, it's not just about the hours that you spend working, it's that your entire life is structured around work. You have certain work hours, which means that the hours that are non work hours are the hours where you have to do everything else. And it's work that determines when you work and therefore when you have the freedom not to work. It's work that determines when you're on, which gives you the opportunity to have some vacation time off, etc. And it's work that gives you a reason to wake up in the morning. So what would your reason to wake up in the morning become? One of the stories that we tell in the book is about my stepfather who sadly passed away as we were finishing the book. But he had been retired at that point for about 10 years and, and I would say it took him a handful of years to figure out retirement and to become an even happier person in retirement than he had been when he had been in the workforce. It's not like he loved every day in the workforce. He was a real estate lawyer and there was always the pressure to sell and there was always the expectation that clients come first. And I remember, you know, he would leave for work in the morning and he would say, well off into it, as though saying, you know, I'm joining the rat race. And he left behind after he died some reflections that he had written down. And one of them was about these dreams that he had for years after he retired. And I think they're probably very familiar to anybody who loses work as a central organizing principle of their life. He said that sometimes he would dream that he would get into the office and his office was no longer there, which was actually literally true. You know, it had somebody else's name on it. Sometimes he would get into the office and the office wouldn't be there, like the firm had moved or something. Sometimes he'd get there and people wouldn't recognize him, sometimes there'd be no place for him to sit, etc. But you can kind of imagine this, all these themes of sort of losing your sense of where I'm supposed to be that day. And it was really through a combination of non profit work and gardening and learning how to grill and reading a lot that led him to be happy. And it wasn't really until my mom approached retirement and he could enjoy all day, every day with her that he really kind of coped with retirement. I realized that a lot of people listening are probably, you know, thinking retirement's a really long way off for me. But I still think this exercise of thinking about Retirement. What would you do if work went away? Not necessarily because of retirement, but because of say, technological unemployment. What if we're all given universal basic incomes to do higher order things rather than the mundane work that robots and artificial intelligence can now do for us? What would give structure and purpose to our days? I just, I, I'm a tennis player, not a golfer, but a lot of people think golf and I just can't imagine that golfing all day, every day would feel like anything but work after a while.

Right? Yes. And I would think that there's something to this as well. In. So I've done different consulting for people and over the years I specifically remember someone who was like the first of these deep dives that I did that was a friend when I was first starting to do work on the side. So I had a full time job when I started doing consulting and you know, made this whole transition. I've had, I've been through this sort of loss of identity in a, in a job, especially being the head of the marketing department where I helped create the whole brand. It was very much tied into who I was. And my husband gave me very good advice in leaving that, of saying like, you know, taking the time to grieve that, leaving that space, even though I was doing something I was very excited about. It's still a shift that you really go through and having that space is a really big deal. But we tend to get so myopic in our thinking about this day to day and what I'm doing tomorrow or five minutes from now. And I just need to get through this and then sometime in the future I'll be ready to really focus on those things that I love and have the life that I want to. If I do, if I work so, so hard today, then so many tomorrows, then I can stop and think about it. And in this case, this was someone who is a photographer and she was setting up, she had, you know, company around this and it was looking to set up doing more of these like corporate headshots and things. And we'd been together for like six hours and towards the end of the day and I'm asking about, you know, what are you going to, what do you see, you know, five, ten years from now, you know, you've made it, you know, what are you doing? And she was saying how half or more of her time was going to be to higher level art and like landscape photography and having things up in galleries and whatnot. And I had said to her, well, it's not anywhere in the plan right now, like, you didn't talk about any of that. As you're building out your whole business, should it be 5% of what you're doing today and then you can be 10% in couple years and like building up to that thing, like, why wait to do any of this until that, you know, you can start to incorporate some of these on some level now, you know, to have this balance. What are your thoughts on. I know in the book you talk about, and I know the, the calling versus a job comes more from, you know, Jen's work and research, but where it feels like until you found your, your life's purpose and your calling in the work that you do, you haven't made it. And you have to maybe just like kind of be in this grind. But there's a bit of that actually being, you know, research showing that's actually harder for a lot of people. And where's the balance of, you know, our working lives and our kind of real lives as we're. We're getting, bringing all this together?

Yeah, that's such an interesting story and in many ways a very familiar story about the photography. Who has this bigger vision and your advice to sort of think about how can I incorporate a little bit of that into my work now and maybe gradually increase. That can be really good advice because I think most people who are not in their dream job, you know, whether they are an aspiring artist or something else, most people who are not in their dream job don't make time, maybe don't have time to pursue something else. And so they just get stuck in this not so dreamy job and they sort of stay on what researchers sometimes refer to as a hedonic treadmill. So you alluded to a theory of work orientation job career calling that I'll say a little bit more about. So Jen studied for her PhD with Amy Reznevsky, who is really the person who sort of brought this framework of job career calling from sociology into organizational psychology and management studies. And Amy has for a long time sort of popularized this idea that there are three really important ways in which people relate to their work. One is as a job, which is more or less a means to the end, usually the end of material sustenance, making money. Basically, a career is also a means to an end, but it's more a means to the end of achievement, sort of rising up a hierarchy. And then a calling is sort of an end in itself. It is, as Amy describes it, personally valuable or personally fulfilling or socially valuable. And she doesn't necessarily distinguish between one or the other. Sometimes what is socially valuable can be personally fulfilling. Sometimes what is personally fulfilling can be just sort of self interested. But they're both in some sense can be a calling, an end in itself. And we're kind of living in a period of time in which there's not only pressure on especially young people to find employment, but to find a calling. There's a famous speech that Steve Jobs gave at Stanford in 2005 in which he essentially says, the only way to be successful is to love your work. I think it was, you know, one of the co working giants that used as its slogan something like love what you do. And then one of the large recruiting websites said something like your calling is calling. Long story short, there's something in the zeitgeist in the past few years and in the foreseeable future that's placing this immense pressure on people to find their calling. And in some ways I'm not at all against that. You know, I think loving your work can be a wonderful thing. I think it is pure fiction. To believe in the cliche though, that if you love what you'll do, you'll never work a day in your life like that is just patently false in the sense that some people who love what they do, they work harder than anybody, they work for less and you know, they can even be susceptible to exploitation. So part of what interested me about your story about the photographer is that, you know, we talked about sort of higher order art, I think we both use that term actually. And that kind of suggests that commercial photography is just sort of crap and, and low and necessary. And then, you know, photograph photographing landscapes and fashion and beautiful things, you know, that's sort of what really matters. And you know, there's some truth to that, but they ultimately take the same amount of skill. It's just that the higher order stuff is more romantic. It's what more people want to do. They sort of feel like if they do the commercial stuff, they might be selling out. And if that is the case, then in many especially artistic careers you have a lot more people aiming to do work that very few people are actually willing to pay for. So I'm not an economist, but I think there's something about the intersection of supply and demand there. That means that if there's this vast supply of entrants in that kind of career and relatively few rewarding positions, then not only will there be sort of a small market of winners who actually take all the spoils, but the rest of the people will actually work for, for rates that are probably below market for their skill level. And that can be one of the costs of chasing a calling. And it can leave people sort of frustrated for their entire careers to experience an unfulfilled calling. You know, Jen and I both teach in business schools and we talk with our students a lot. And I would say that maybe the career orientation of just seeking to achieve and the job orientation seeking to make money, those are probably pretty well represented among business students. But when they express a calling, usually if they're not sort of secret artists in the background, usually a calling to them means becoming their own boss. And that too is an occupation in which there are probably more people seeking to become their own bosses than there are boss positions available. And as you probably know, as the CEO of your own corporation, if the boss isn't working, then the work isn't getting done. And it's sort of a 247 kind of worry. So it might be worth it for you, but that doesn't mean that there aren't downsides to calling.

Definitely. I know that in the book, you know, so we ended up talking about this as photography here. And you talk about the musicians, right? And the spots that exist in the. That even pay at all. And you may be invested a huge amount in going to top schools. And then can you even get. There's only one first chair and there's only, you know, one orchestra that pays or whatever that is. And so knowing then you have a lot of people that are feeling that need to fight for spots to sit in those seats that kind of ends up being this side thing that they're doing. But again with all of it, like you said, it's not necessarily throughout the book that it's A. And what I think is important in the philosophical side of this and what may be difficult for some is, you know, they're hoping for, you know, in the kind of that Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, you're going to get your answer to what is the meaning of life? And like, is your work worth work it work worth it that we're going to go through and say, like, if A, B, C and D, your work is work is worth it. And if not, then you go do this other thing. But as you said, it's kind of finding. Asking your own questions and this balance of work and life and what that means for you to round out the story of my friend the photographer, she ended up in that, you know, we had just a little bit of time Together on that one day when we were digging in, where, when this came up and I asked the question and ended up kind of restructuring everything toward the end. And it was really cool that she ended up shifting and bringing in some of that other type of work that she was wanting to do of different photography. She ended up setting up a different profile for this type of work she was doing and making really cool art pieces through like that she was doing on Instagram and setting up classes for people to come in and learn from her. And so she brought it into the work that she did to help have that balance. And it actually, I know where she didn't love the corporate headshots, but then over time as she had this other aspect, she really started to appreciate that side of dealing, you know, working with people and helping them to feel like they came out in the photo and she could give more of herself to those sessions that she did because she had this balance of other work that she was able to be doing in this process. So even if that side, I think didn't really pay per se, like showing it off and being able to participate in that way, brought more value for her, you know, throughout her whole life, which is I think, a really key piece of what we find in the, in the book of this balance of, like you say, the meaning, meaning of life, meaning of work and how they come together.

I think that's a really healthy way of thinking about that balance. And you know, Jen and I talk a lot about trade offs and the reality is that maybe that time that she is spending on the more artistic pursuits could be repurposed for value maximization. And you know, in American corporate life we are often taught to be value maximizers. But value maximization in your own personal life, I mean, unless your purpose in life really is to make as much money as possible and that's sort of the end in itself, then maybe if that's not your perspective, then it's helpful to think of value in different ways. And maybe this is where the philosopher and me comes into things. So, you know, value in corporate life equates to money, but there are lots of other forms of value, maybe the most important forms of value that can never be monetized. So one question I ask my students is, you know, what are some values that you have that really can't be translated into money? Of course, you know, MasterCard has a really good commercial series about this. The things that are priceless and usually they have to do with love and relationships and beautiful experiences and so on and Those things that you can't put a price on might be worth more than some of those things that you can put a price on. So the idea of worth as we use it in the book is just sort of acknowledging that there are inherent trade offs between these incommensurate forms of value that just can't be translated into each other. It's funny because, you know, I say that they can't be monetized and measured on the same scale. But one of the people that we interviewed for the book is a former tax accounting partner at a Big four firm. And I'm sort of laughing as I reflect upon this because in the firm that I worked in, and to a certain extent in Jen's former management consulting firm as well, both firms were founded by accountants. And I would sometimes joke or complain, depending on the day, that to accountants, only the things that can be counted, count. And my point is, you know, there are lots of things that can't be counted that count even more. But this accountant taught us in our interview about this accounting tax accounting concept called transfer pricing, which, you know, I thought my eyes were going to glaze over, but she actually spoke pretty compellingly about it. So transfer pricing is when different business units or geographical units of an organization are providing services to each other. You know, because in the making of their widgets, one provides one part and the other provides another part or something. And so they, they actually do internal transactions within the corporation and they have to figure out how to account for that kind of transfer pricing. And sometimes there are tax implications because it's happening across borders. Anyway, I don't want to get too wonky about this, but Kathleen Glue is the name we use, the pseudonym we use for this accountant that we spoke with. She said she sometimes thinks about transfer pricing and thinking about her own career. And what are these investments that she's making in her working life that are exacting costs on her personal life and vice versa. And that can just be sort of a convenient way of thinking about these trade offs that make work worth it or not. I just want to quickly go back. You were mentioning musicians, so I have to do a shout out to Shasa Dobrau, who's a mutual friend of Jen and me, but also a longtime co author of. Jen Shasta is this amazing researcher who not only she's a professor at London Business School, she got her PhD at Harvard, but she's also a concert bassoonist, which is just like these are positions that are so rare for people to get any of. And she gets all of them. But instead of becoming sort of a professional bassoonist, which might have kind of led to a purgatory of being sort of in an orchestra that's not quite as famous as the ones that she really aspired to or something, she actually, in her PhD research, began a study that she's been doing for years of aspiring musicians who went to some of the most famous schools of music in the world and sort of followed their careers. And that experience of vying for these very rare positions where they're sort of winner take all markets and just what, what she and, and Jen have found in their research on musicians just sort of underscores this idea that callings can work as a calling can exact cost that is, you know, sort of uncounted on the career satisfaction and just general well being of somebody who never quite gets to the point that they aspire to.

Definitely thank you for all of that. I, I could talk to you all day as a. I love the philosophical side of, of things and asking all the questions and, and these aspects of thoughtfulness and, and how we can consider all angles, I guess, as we go to close out the conversation. And we think too, as you had said, there people more and more are maybe thinking about how they can be their own boss. Right? It's aspiring to this and at a time where in the age of YouTube and TikTok, whatever you like to do, like there are people making enough money playing miniature golf and opening Pokemon cards or baseball cards or, you know, whatever else and having channels that pay them ridiculous amounts of money to do a thing they really enjoy doing and they've turned those things into jobs. I think we've talked about that side of, you know, finding the passion, knowing there are options for you if you want to turn it into something. You know, basically anything can be a job these days if you want to do that. For the companies though, at a point where anyone can go open Pokemon cards for money, what is it that you can do or what advice would you give to the people, you know, running departments, departments that are at larger organizations and they're trying to make it so that the people that they're employing feel like it's worth it to keep coming into to their organization versus going somewhere else? You know, how can, how can people be building companies and spots that people feel like it's worth it and that it's fulfilling for them and being thoughtful to that.

That's a really good question and you know, I could go on about some of the important answers that others may give to that question, which has to do with, you know, providing flexibility and benefits and enough time off and perks in the workplace and so on and all of that is important. But as another friend and colleague, Mike Pratt says, that has to do with meaning at work. And what I really like to talk about is meaning in work as the reason for people to come in and go to work in, in an organization every day. I think number one is to provide a product or service that is actually worth coming in for. You know, so I think when we talk about widgets in the business world, we're kind of implying that any product sort of has the same kind of product strategy and marketing, etc. Behind it. But some widgets actually matter more than other widgets. So make a widget that is actually making the world a better place. Secondly, I think, you know, there's a sense in which a lot of people think of meaning as being a part of something bigger than oneself. And that's actually what an organization is, is. And well run organizations can make things that sole proprietors can't because they are harnessing the power of a community. And so that sense of being a part of something that's bigger than oneself is really what an organization can provide. And so I think leaders need to remind people of the possibilities of what they can create and how being part of an organization can be purposeful. I also think that we are social animals to spit out a cliche that a lot of people have observed. And there is something that one can do with like minded co workers that one can't do on one's own. So those are all important things to think about. But ultimately, and this is for organizational leaders or for individuals, I'd like to think that amid a lot of pessimism, and I've articulated some of that pessimism about work in general or work as a calling, there's been kind of a backlash of work against work since the pandemic and people are talking about great resignations and quiet quitting and so on. I think the optimism in our book has to do with the fact that work has the potential to be one of the most valuable things that we do in this life and provides an opportunity to, if you don't love work every day, to do something that is worth loving. And so in that sense, I'd like to encourage individuals and organizational leaders to think about what makes their work worth loving. And then especially to the leaders, I'd like to remind them that to the extent that they care about the meaning of their own work. They're likelier to provide work to others that is meaningful. But if you have a boss who really doesn't care about the meaning of their own work and is just trying to maximize value and to make the most for doing the least, then it's pretty likely that but you'll just be sort of a cog in the wheel of value maximization and that can be sort of debilitating for the people who have the least power to change their own situations. So I think good leaders think not only about the meaning of their own work, but also the way in which they can make the lives of others better through meaningful work.

I love it. And what a wonderful thought to end on as we know that everyone who's listening, I think one everyone should read is your work worth it? Because it's good to be asking more of these questions and hearing the stories and seeing how it can tie in together as you know that it goes beyond work. Really. This is about kind of that meaning of life question and hopefully getting an answer that feels more fulfilling than 42. As I was talking about the Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy there for everyone who is so excited to go get their own copy of is your work worth it? And to connect and, you know, follow you and learn more. You know, what's their best path to do?

So they can Google the title of the book. It's available at all places that sell books. And they can also find me at Christopher Wong michaelson.com and I think Jen is still working on her website, so just Google her at Babson College and you'll find her there.

Perfect. Well, and we'll put links in the show notes for everything to make it easy for people. And yeah, again, thank you so much, Christopher, for joining me today. It was really enlightening to chat with you today.

Great talking with you, Melina. Thank you so much.

Thank you again to Christopher Wong Michelson for joining me on the show today. What got your brain buzzing in today's conversation for me, you know, I love questions and taking the time to thoughtfully reflect on the possible questions to ask the definitions of various aspects of things, what could be, what is and all that. Essentially the philosophical side of it all. As Christopher mentioned in the conversation, each chapter is presented as a question. They are, of course, is your work worth it? And that's followed by what is work? Why do you work? When and how much should you work? Should you work for love or money? Is it enough to love your work? What work can't society do without? Can your work have a higher purpose? What would make your life worth living in a world without work? And finally, what legacy will your work leave? Some of these questions you've likely asked yourself before, others you might not have yet. And this is a great prompt to start that internal conversation with yourself and chats you might have with others on the topic, which you can do and kick off by getting your copy of Is your work worth it? There's of course a link for you in the show Notes, which also has links to my top related past episodes, other books, ways to get in touch with myself and Christopher, and more. It's all waiting for you in the app you're listening to and@the brainybusiness.com 431 and thank you again to Christopher Wong Michelson for joining me on the show today. It was a delight to chat with and learn from you. Join me Tuesday for another brainy episode of the Brainy Brain Business Podcast. It's going to be a lot of fun. You don't want to miss it. Until then, thanks again for listening and learning with me, and remember to be thoughtful.

Thank you for listening to the Brainy Business Podcast. Molina offers virtual strategy sessions, workshops and other services to help businesses be more brain friendly. For more free resources, visit thebrainybusiness.com.