James LaughlinHigh-performance leadership and executive coach. Covering all aspects of life and career.

If your job disappeared tomorrow, would you still know who you are?

25 Jun 2025 · 0 min

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0:26

A short personal reflection (spoken in a YouTube video) on deriving meaning and identity apart from one’s job. The speaker describes an internal realignment: meaning is not tied to work or output, and people possess inherent value and dignity regardless of their role, urging listeners to sever the link they often create between identity and work.

Where do you derive meaning? Where does your sense of meaning come from? And for me, it was more about an internal realignment. That my meaning in life is not tied up with my job or anything that I produce. That I have inherent value and dignity regardless of who I am or what I do in the world. And I think that's a universal message that's important for all of us to recognize, to almost sever that link that we have chosen to create between our identity and our work.