# purpose
34 moments across 30 episodes. Click any moment to jump straight to that part of the episode.
24:58Truth or Lie: Does Gen Z value purpose more than pay?Leanne Elliott: Jake is leading Truth or Lie, and we're asking, does Gen Z value purpose more than pay? The media seems to think so, but what does the research say? Dr. Jake, over to you Jake Tuber: I just wanted to hearEP 306 · 2 Jun 2026·truth or lie· 24:58–39:5542:33Purpose, meaning and staying for more than the payLeanne Elliott: And I want to stick with you, Danny, just for a second on That clear sense of purpose, that direction, where are we going? How many civilian organizations have you seen that genuinely have that? And what EP 303 · 21 May 2026·panel interview· 42:33–49:3935:49The last exit — passion and purposeRosenna Bakari: I'll give away the last exit because that's the one that's most surprising for people. And the last exit is passion and purpose. 'Cause people are like, passion and purpose? Of course you need passion andEP 301 · 14 May 2026·interview· 35:49–37:5947:20Purpose balance over work-life balance: Losing his dadLeanne Elliott: Mike. Al Elliott: So we've got Mike, Joe, Aidan, Kieran. I know that 3/4 of those people are amazing people because you've just told me all the things that they've done. Tell me more about Mike. What was—EP 295 · 23 Apr 2026·interview· 47:20–52:5012:24Purpose, identity, and the push-pull of meaning vs. moneyLeanne Elliott: I had to try, but yeah, I respect that. I definitely want to come back to, as you say, what it means when, when, you know, work and identity is so Closely intertwined. Before we do, assistant producer GeoEP LIVE-2026-03-25 · 25 Mar 2026·panel interview· 12:24–23:4722:06Contributing for purpose, not for a paycheckTom LeNoble: This is a great question because I never stopped contributing. It just shifted from contributing for a paycheck to contributing through service, which is a huge part of my life today. You know, I was very siEP 281 · 5 Mar 2026·interview· 22:06–28:0137:38Living as an 'inspirator'Al Elliott: You mentioned something there, and please correct me if I've misunderstood this, but I think you said you came out again after 50 years. Does that mean that you hadn't been out at work in some of these placesEP 281 · 5 Mar 2026·interview· 37:38–44:0316:55Story 3: Hope is the emotion that creates meaning at workAl Elliott: Well, this is very meta, isn't it? What makes work feel meaningful? For me, something where I can create something. So maybe this is why I do like generative AI. If I feel like at the end of the day, somethinEP 276 · 17 Feb 2026·news roundup· 16:55–24:3639:28Work gives people a huge amount of purposeLouise Hill: I should say the one correlation I've seen over the years in where a launch to a set of employees is really successful. So, we'd get about a third of employees normally sign up for a first session when we laEP 272 · 3 Feb 2026·panel interview· 39:28–40:2241:52The moment Christian realised this was bigger than socksLeanne Elliott: Was there a moment where you realized— and your socks are fabulous, let's just say that for absolute sure— Truth for sure. Is there a moment though when you realized that people cared as much about the miEP 253 · 27 Nov 2025·interview· 41:52–48:400:00Intro: Profit is the applause of people doing great workGarry Ridge: In 1999, about 2 years after being given the privilege to lead the company, I went to an information session for a master's degree in leadership at the University of San Diego. And I heard Ken Blanchard, whoEP 251 · 20 Nov 2025·intro· 0:00–5:2219:44Purpose vs. product — the toaster storyAl Elliott: I've got a note here saying that, and I'm going to read it. It says WD-40 wasn't in the lubrication business, but the memories business. That seems like an odd thing for essentially a commodity or a CEO of a EP 251 · 20 Nov 2025·interview· 19:44–25:1749:50This Isn't Working – Who It's For, Who It's Not ForAl Elliott: Tell me about this isn't working. First of all, when's it out? Secondly, who's it for? Thirdly, who's it not for? Meghan French Dunbar: It came out August 5th. Who is it for? I honestly, on the title, it saysEP 229 · 4 Sept 2025·interview· 49:50–52:4523:53Pleasure vs purpose — why struggle creates meaningPatrick Fagan: It's really interesting. So there's some psychological research on happiness that says there's 2 dimensions to happiness, pleasure and purpose. So having like a lovely, I don't know, I mean, this is not thEP 227 · 28 Aug 2025·interview· 23:53–25:5750:47Did you worry about finding your purpose?Leanne Elliott: Um, I mean, there's a slightly deep one that might be nice to finish on. Um, did you worry about finding your passion, or was work just work? Al Elliott: Hmm, do you have an answer to this? Leanne ElliottEP 222 · 12 Aug 2025·other· 50:47–55:2717:31Belonging, travel and the search for something moreAl Elliott: Let's talk about belonging for a second Carolina Lasso: I knew you were going to go there. I saw your eyes. I saw your eyes Al Elliott: You knew it. Belonging. You traveled. A lot of people we meet who travelEP 221 · 7 Aug 2025·interview· 17:31–19:5515:22Why "why" matters before "how"James Fleming: So the first you've got to think about is why does it matter? So you've got to understand why. So why do I want to learn to present? What's the outcome? So once you understand why, then you need to understEP 165 · 23 Jan 2025·interview· 15:22–24:4310:25What brings meaning and purpose to work?Leanne Elliott: Talking of generations, what does our Gen Z guest Annabel think brings meaning and purpose to work? It feels like it should be very different to a Gen X, but perhaps not. I think you've got to be a bit paEP 141 · 31 Oct 2024·other· 10:25–16:147:27Finding purpose after burnout (Suneel Gupta)Leanne Elliott: What have you seen this week, Al? Al Elliott: Well, I've been reading CNBC. Not quite sure why, but it came up on my newsfeed. I don't know what the— the problem with those Brits is that we look at some oEP 138 · 22 Oct 2024·news roundup· 7:27–13:4512:17Can AI help us find purpose at work?Leanne Elliott: Well, I mean, we have been hearing quite a lot about AI recently Al Elliott: Oh yeah Leanne Elliott: How it's changing industries, maybe boosting productivity, or maybe even replacing jobs. And let's be hEP 130 · 24 Sept 2024·news roundup· 12:17–16:0046:53We all want to matterTodd Davis: We don't like to admit it, but we all want to be recognized. We want to make a difference. We want to matter. It's not a bad ego thing. And so, and so I think, I think I have loved being in a position to helpEP 96 · 9 May 2024·interview· 46:53–49:0710:54What employees really want: purpose over paycheckDave Kline: They want to know the work they're doing has impact. They typically want to grow and develop really fast. They want to contribute meaningfully. They want to be super efficient, right? If they can get their haEP 87 · 4 Apr 2024·interview· 10:54–13:5527:18Priority 3 — Develop a shared purposeAl Elliott: The third thing we need to prioritise is developing a shared purpose. Now, purpose might sound like one of these fancy things, always nice to have. We re— you know, oh yeah, we, we're working towards having aEP 63 · 2 Nov 2023·other· 27:18–36:5042:19The critical role of purposeLeanne Elliott: So as we've said before, values are words on a wall. Purpose is where your people will live and breathe those values in everyday working life. Purpose is what happens when values are embedded in operationEP 59 · 5 Oct 2023·panel interview· 42:19–45:1622:17Primary-level interventions: job design, flexible working, and purposeAndrew: Mm-hmm Leanne Elliott: Work-life balance policies. So basically all the organisational-level interventions. Now, this is challenging for organisations because typically it does mean making fundamental changes to EP 40 · 24 May 2023·panel interview· 22:17–33:4033:57Step one: who am I? Clarifying what you doAl Elliott: The first step is always, who am I? And by that I mean Do you understand very clearly what you do and what it means and why it matters, right? So that gets to the core value, the value prop, what makes you diEP 39 · 17 May 2023·other· 33:57–35:1837:42Case study: the summer day camp that lost its whyAl Elliott: I'm thinking of a summer day camp that I rebranded several years ago, and they lost their why, right? They— and what happens, and this is very common, and they've been around since the '50s, they started someEP 39 · 17 May 2023·other· 37:42–39:5436:38The power of a clear 'why'Al Elliott: I think I totally agree. And I think that with a lot of businesses who start off, they, they're kind of, they're seeking this product market fit where people actually do want to buy the stuff. But they're alsEP 33 · 5 Apr 2023·other· 36:38–38:037:01Are you the bottleneck or the lifeline?Al Elliott: So I think most people would think about that and go, purpose, okay, well, my purpose is to make a, make a load of money. Let's build a company to exit it. But that's not really what Leanne was talking about EP 28 · 1 Mar 2023·panel interview· 7:01–14:2514:25Sarah on purpose-led investing & accidental activismLeanne Elliott: Sarah also shared how her personal values and purpose-led investments have shaped her career and decisions as an investor Sarah Chen Spellings: I've always been a feminist, but I guess I became an accidenEP 28 · 1 Mar 2023·panel interview· 14:25–17:5052:20Tip 2 — Clarify purpose and valuesAl Elliott: But let's Okay, so the first one is to learn how to listen. The second one is all about clear purpose and values. Now, we've talked all before about empathy is understanding others, but we need to invest equaEP 25 · 8 Feb 2023·interview· 52:20–56:417:14The origins and purpose of the awardsLeanne Elliott: Mm-hmm. Yeah Al Elliott: It's quite a lot. So finally, a lot of organisations seem to have put put some kind of support in place, but how are employees finding that? Leanne Elliott: I think this is what IEP 24 · 31 Jan 2023·other· 7:14–9:3538:54Why we're in this business and the HR parallelAl Elliott: That was brilliant. And I think that, I mean, we have to remember why we're in this business. What are what us entrepreneurs? What are we doing this for? So we're growing our business because yes, of course, EP 23 · 25 Jan 2023·other· 38:54–47:0227:51'My work is not actually about burnout'Jim Young: I've been coming to this realization Over the last few months that my work is not actually about burnout, that my work is actually about intimacy. That as people in this modern society that's so fast and so diEP 22 · 17 Jan 2023·interview· 27:51–30:08
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