The Real Reason We Work So Hard

I'd like to ship you a free copy of my book Habits of High Performers. If you come and join the 2026 goal setting workshop, I will ship you one of these today. The link is in the notes. Please come and join me to set up the very best 2026 you could imagine. If you've set up goals in the past or New Year's resolutions and they haven't substantiated, I'm here to help you across all the key pillars of your life nail your goals. I'll see you there. Welcome to Lead On Purpose. I'm James Laughlin, former seven time world champion musician and now executive coach to global leaders and high performers. Each week I'll publish a solo cast where I'll share my top high performance habits and methodologies to supercharge your life and career. If you enjoy the show, please take a short moment to subscribe and leave a rating and review. I'd greatly appreciate it. Thanks for taking the time to connect today and investing in yourself. Enjoy the show.

Today's episode is made possible by our sponsor, NZ Mortgages. You can check them out at NZMortgages Co NZ. Most of us are working longer and harder than ever, but are we doing it for the right reasons? If you're waking up tired, frustrated, stuck, well, you're not alone. The question is, are you working towards something or just working to keep up? I bet that you work hard. That's in your nature. That's why you listen to this show, because you want to lead life on purpose. You want to make a difference. You want to have a lasting impact on the people around you and maybe the people that work alongside you or work for you. So therefore, you work hard, but to what end? At what cost? Today is about stopping just for a second and slowing down and going, why do I work so hard? Am I clear on why I work so hard? Am I happy and content with the sacrifices I'm making to have the outputs that I get because I work so hard? So we're going to jump into that. But first, if you're not subscribed to Growth Weekly, you need to do that right now. I've put a link in the Show Notes, it's my weekly newsletter where I send you a short email. Yes, it's very short because I know how busy you are, but it's high impact. You'll be getting early access to my weekly guests that I bring in. The world's best authors, leaders, prime ministers, formula one teams. So there'll be a weekly email coming Straight to you from me. And it's incredible in terms of the insights that these guests share. So please go and subscribe. If you're already subscribed, I hope you're enjoying it. But for now, let's get back to it. Look, we work hard because we have bills to pay. Life isn't cheap. I get it. And we are industrious beings. We like to produce. We don't just want to sit in a utopian mountaintop in a yogic position. Well, most of us don't anyway. And we all like to have a sense of purpose. In fact, we need it. A sense of meaning and purpose keeps us fueled and moving. When you look at being driven, you know, the intrinsic self starter, like, we all want to be known as someone who has initiative and can self start. Well, there's three key ingredients. We had Daniel Pink on the show. He wrote the book Drive. The three key ingredients were autonomy, mastery, and purpose. We've got to have those things. And that purpose piece is so important. If we want to have work that's meaningful, there's got to be purpose intertwined in it. Arthur Brooks and I bring him up a lot because I love him. You know, he looked at what brings happiness. Well, the third component was being in a pursuit of purpose or a pursuit of meaning. So that's the first question for you, is how much meaning does your job bring you? If you're still working, and I know most of you listeners will be still in the workforce, or some of you might be in philanthropy and giving back, but how much meaning does it give to you? In fact, answer this question when you get a chance to journal it or just think about it. What gives my work meaning? You know, what brings me meaning in the work that I do? But I want you to get clear on the meaning around the work that you do. I'd say that it seems that we have tilted a little bit too far in general and are now working harder and longer than ever before. Longer hours, harder focus in terms of we are so distracted that it takes us so much energy to bring back and get focused. So to me, we've got to get clear on how do we work smarter. I'm still, you know, working hard, fine. But is it smart? Is it effective? Is it productive? I want you to question why it is that you're working so hard. Is it because you're truly in love with what you do? Ask yourself that question right now. Do I love what I do? And I put my hand on my heart and say, I haven't Always loved the work that. That I do. I find joy in it. I find challenge in it. I find, you know, some sense of reason to show up. But I haven't always loved it. But the work that I do Now, I'll be 100% honest, I love it. I love the clients I get to serve. I love the people that I get to speak to from stage. I love the fact that, you know, there's a listener right now, that being you, who's getting to connect right now with some of the lessons that I've learned along the way from some of the greats, that gives me such meaning. I truly love what I do. How much do you love what you do? Take a moment to think about it. Are you filled with energy and a life force that drives you to get up every day and work as hard as you can? If that's you, more power to you. There's so many people that struggle to get out of bed. There's so many people that like their job but don't love it. And it's not about finding your passion and making that your job, because I find that that's not always the answer. I had that experience. Drumming was my passion. It's my childhood obsession almost. And then it became my job and I no longer play drums. And that's a bit of a pity in a lot of ways, but it got to the point where I had enough of it. I was fed up, I was burnt out. I was just over it. And we don't want to turn our passions into our professions and then for them to fizzle out. Sometimes your passion should just remain your passion. But wouldn't it be cool in your job, whether you're a salesperson, maybe you're leading a team, maybe you're a founder, maybe you are an admin, whatever you're in, maybe you're an author. How could you find more love for it? What are maybe aspects of it that you love? I'm not saying that most people find a job they love and they love every part of it. There's part of the stuff that I do I don't like. For sure, that's normal, but for the most part, can you find elements that you truly love and take a moment and go, what would those be? What would be one or two things that you love about your role? Is it maybe people you serve? Is it your colleagues? Is it the outcomes that you get to be a part of? Is it the sense of satisfaction when you complete important work, but just finding a couple of things that you can love. Some people don't ever complain about their work. They never say they're busy, they never feel annoyed about having to work harder or longer, and they have thriving relationships. And, you know, physical and mental health is tip top. There are some freakish legends out there that have it, and I would say it's 0.001%. The rest of us have times when we do feel overwhelmed, when we do feel we don't have enough time with our loved ones, when we do feel sluggish and out of shape, when we do feel mentally drained. Look, that's where we've got to just stop and take stock of how hard am I working and why am I working so hard at it. The reason I wanted to bring this today as a topic was that I meet a lot of people that talk about being a workaholic, and I think it sounds like a terrible thing. To be a workaholic means that you don't have any meaning or purpose outside of your work, that it is prioritized over everything else. Look, I get being passionate about your work. I really do. I love my work and 40 hours, I would normally do more, but sometimes when I'm doing more, it doesn't feel like work. But also when I'm with my family, it's like park the phone, park the email, park the social media. Goodbye to all that stuff and full noise on that. So I want to really challenge you around how you're feeling about your work. Is there joy and connection or is it hustle and grind? You know, if you're constantly just grinding at it and doing more and more and more and wanting more and more, there's a certain point where you will break. We had Gordon Parker on the show. If you didn't listen to that episode, I'll make sure the team puts it in the show notes. He's a leading psychiatrist on Burnout. If you think I'm starting to feel a bit tired, maybe resentful, disconnected, you want to just work rather than connect with others. You need to listen to that episode. He was just incredible. He has a book called Burnout as well. But you don't want to face burnout. And you won't know it's coming unless you see the signs. Don't work hard for working hard's sake. A lot of people like to work hard and say, I'm a hard worker and I'm busy. And I often say those people simply lack priorities. That was me a lot of the time. And you know what? I'm still in danger of doing that often. That's why I've got high performance rituals where I actually check in daily and weekly and even monthly. What am I focused on? Why am I focused on it? Where could I most valuably spend my time? What's my MVP today? My most valued priority. Working hard is not my priority. Working effectively, impacting others and influencing the world around me, that, to me, is smart. That's not working hard, it's working smart. So I really want to challenge you to think about that. What's most important? Are you working effectively or are you slowly, unknowingly, moving towards burnout? I promise you, you don't want to get there. I didn't realize I had burnout, but I did. And it was awful and it impacted many parts of my life, my mental health, physical health, relationship, finance, everything. Burnout is not a thing you want to visit anytime soon, so I hope this episode has landed for you. If you can think of one person right now, just one that you could share this episode with, I would love it if you could forward them this episode. I don't rely on anything else other than word of mouth for the podcast, so please take a moment to think about one person you could share this with. But until next time, please get out there and lead your life on purpose. Today's episode is made possible by our sponsor, NZ Mortgages. You can check them out at nzmortgages co nz. Thanks for tuning in today and investing in your own personal leadership. Please hit that subscribe button and I'd love if you'd leave me a rating and review. I've got some amazing guests lined up for you in the coming weeks and leaders. It's that time to get out there and lead your life on purpose.