Over 40% of people in sales, marketing, and PR say their job adds no value to society. Fewer than 5% of nurses and teachers say the same. The jobs that help people most pay the least, and the jobs that pay well are the ones people quietly call pointless.

Ryan and Daniel spend this episode arguing about what that gap actually means. Is it a bad job, a bad company, or just a long distance between your desk and the person your work helps?

In this episode:

• Why the highest-paying roles score worst on "does my work matter"
• The argument Ryan and Daniel can't settle: can you think your job is useless and still be happy at work?
• Daniel's Fortune 500 job that was 80% political posturing and 20% real work, and the day he started looking
• The one variable that predicts whether a job feels pointless, and it isn't the job title
• Why sales and PR feel worse than most: they talk to the buyer, almost never to the person who benefits
• What happens when a company posts a mission on the wall and then pays people to ignore it

00:00 — 37% Say Their Job Is Bullshit

02:00 — Why the Jobs That Help People Pay the Least

07:00 — 40% vs 5%: The Chart That Started the Fight

14:00 — Can You Feel Useless at Work and Still Be Happy?

20:00 — The Distance Problem

24:00 — Work Receipt: 80% Politics, 20% Actual Work

31:00 — Monday Morning Fix: Go Ask Your Team

36:00 — Last Word: What If They're Right?

RYAN: You know what's interesting?

DANIEL: What?

RYAN: You've got sales, marketing and PR at over 40%. That's a big chunk. Then you've got nurses at 5%. And then I saw this: the more a job contributes to society, the less it seems to pay, and the more purpose it brings. That got me thinking about teachers, government employees, nonprofits, anybody doing any sort of good. Why do the ones doing good things pay the least, and the ones that feel like bullshit pay more?

DANIEL: There's a lot to discuss there, but it certainly seems to be true that the more a job contributes to society, the less it pays. But here's what's most surprising about this topic in general. How many of us know something is off and just keep going anyway? I've been there. I've had a job I knew was BS and I kept going. I wasn't happy about it, but I can see why you'd do it.

RYAN: So in this survey, what makes a job bullshit?

DANIEL: It's a completely made-up job. It has no use. If you removed it, nothing would change. The world keeps going.

RYAN: Why are people saying their job is bullshit?

DANIEL: A couple of reasons. One is: if your job disappeared tomorrow, would anybody notice? Would anybody care? Some of them feel like they don't serve a purpose, or worse, they don't serve a good purpose. "I'm here to make rich guys richer." And you go, you know what, I'm good. I'm not getting out of bed today. I don't want to give my day to that cause.

RYAN: That's interesting, because if sales is one of the groups that thinks their job is bullshit, is it because all they do is bullshit people all day?

DANIEL: I could see some sales jobs being BS.

RYAN: Well, a sales job is just to BS people all day, isn't it? That's what they all say. "I'm a professional bullshitter."

DANIEL: Spoken by a guy who's not in sales.

RYAN: I am in sales, and that's all I do is BS all day.

DANIEL: It depends a lot on the kind of sales. There are people in sales who really enjoy their job. And I'm sure there are plenty who find it complete BS. Have you ever had a BS job? I know I have. I've had a couple.

RYAN: I'm trying to think. You asked me earlier, and you said if you have to think about it, you haven't had one. I know I've had BS clients I've had to deal with. But I'm going to have to think about it. You go ahead.

DANIEL: If you have to think about it, the answer is probably no. I've worked for a couple of large organizations, Fortune 500s. One rule I made for myself was that every job has things that aren't good. If your job was nothing but awesome all the time, you would pay them to go. They wouldn't pay you to be there. So there's going to be some level of bullshit in just about any job. My gut says 80-20 is a good rule. If 80% of your job is adding value and only 20% is BS, you're in a pretty good place. It's unrealistic to hope for better than that.

I found myself once in a job I felt was 80% BS and 20% value-add. It was just politicking. Getting all these different people lined up, making sure nobody's feelings got hurt. All this political posturing to get something done that was fairly obvious we should do. But you couldn't call that guy's baby ugly, and he funded that thing, so you can't say bad things about it even though everybody knows the bad things about it. I got so annoyed that it took so long to actually do something valuable. I started looking for another job. The paycheck was okay, but it was way too much BS for the value I thought I was adding.

RYAN: Let's quantify this, because this is what I missed up front. The study we're looking at is the percentage of people who think their job is pointless, or who have doubts about its value for society, by occupation. Sales, marketing and PR staff: more than 40% believe their job adds no value to society. Nurses were under 5%, and looking at it, maybe 2% or 3%. Elementary school teachers look like about 4%. So those jobs feel like they add value, which makes sense. You're saving people's lives and you're educating children.

DANIEL: Sure.

RYAN: And sales, marketing and PR is the highest one. Over 40% think their job adds no value to society.

DANIEL: Why do we build entire industries where the people who work in them feel like they're wasting their lives?

RYAN: They're wasting their lives?

DANIEL: They feel like they are.

RYAN: I guess it depends on what your motivation is. If you're a sales guy getting a kick-ass commission, you may think your job doesn't add any value to society, but that doesn't mean you're living a bad life. It doesn't mean you hate your job. It just means you're not adding to society.

DANIEL: There are some people wired for results who would do just about anything within legal and ethical bounds as long as it pays well. And I think the percentage of those people goes down as you get into younger demographics. I'm seeing more and more millennials and Gen Zs who want to make a positive impact in the world with their work, and throwing more money at them doesn't fix that. It's a different thing, and it's a very important thing, that they're sometimes willing to forgo a higher salary to have a job they feel makes a positive impact.

RYAN: That makes sense. One of the ones I like on here is right next to the IT workers. IT looks like about 37%. Bankers look like about 36%. So 36% of bankers think their job is pointless and doesn't add value to society. You could flip that around. It depends on what kind of banker you are. If you keep people's money safe and give them access to financial tools that let them have a thriving life, that sounds meaningful. If you're on the other side of it, charging bank fees and taking money out of people's accounts, yeah, you probably don't add value to society. You just make somebody else rich.

DANIEL: I wonder how much of this ties back to the fact that organizations are so large now. Not all of them, but many are so large that it's hard for a worker to know the end impact of their job. If you're a software developer making loan origination software for a bank, you're deep in the bowels of some large organization coding away. The product you're making gets sold to a bank. The bank uses it to originate loans to their consumers. You're three steps from the end user. And to that end user it's very valuable. They're buying their first home. They're starting a small business. They're doing something productive with that money. The loan officer probably sees that and says, yeah, I'm helping the world. But the guy three steps up the value chain, it's got to be really hard for him to say, "I wrote a really good software program that's helping originate small business loans for all these entrepreneurs. I'm making the world a better place." I think he is. But it's really hard to see when you're in a large organization.

RYAN: Maybe this is where I struggle with this topic, because that's a lot of what I do when I go into organizations. The first thing we ask is, how do we make a meaningful impact? I'm the millennial walking into these organizations saying we've got to have purpose first. So I struggle with it a little, because look at a company like SpaceX. It's very clear what their mission is. Everybody knows what they're working for and how they're making the world a better place. You could probably say the same thing about Tesla.

DANIEL: Maybe.

RYAN: Maybe. And there are dozens of others. Southwest Airlines. Chick-fil-A. There are examples of large organizations very aligned to a purpose, and very vocal about it, and they tend to be very successful.

DANIEL: Let's take the stats though. Do you think the IT guy at Chick-fil-A thinks his job is useless? Do you think the PR and marketing people at Chick-fil-A think their job is BS?

RYAN: I don't know. I actually know a couple of marketing people at Chick-fil-A. I should go ask them.

DANIEL: That's what I'm asking. Does the PR person at SpaceX think their job is BS?

RYAN: I doubt it. That's where I'm struggling, because I've worked with so many companies where we've always found it connected. But I do agree there are a lot of companies, especially older legacy companies, third generation, still in the small business space, where the vision is just grow revenue and expand market share. And don't get me wrong, there are legacy companies I've worked with whose undocumented, intrinsic motivation was to build community. Their purpose isn't in their product. But they donate to this local charity, they support the local sports team, they support the community. Their purpose isn't what their product does for their customers. It's more, this is what we do with our profits. It's still mission-driven.

DANIEL: I'd say that's more nonprofit mission-driven, as opposed to purpose baked into what the company does. I still get back to: where do all these people find no value in their job? If you looked at 100 small businesses, I would easily bet 40% of them don't have that kind of purpose alignment. It's the exception, not the rule. The fact that 40% of people think their job is BS does not surprise me. I would have guessed it was higher.

RYAN: It doesn't surprise me either, and I know there are companies like that. What surprises me is how much PR and marketing think their job is BS. I was talking to a couple of healthcare companies over the past few months, and I told them, you're almost getting a free pass on purpose, because you're working with humans and serving people. In your industry alone you automatically have a connection to purpose, because nobody shows up saying, I don't want to serve people today. I want them to suffer. I want to shorten their lifespan.

DANIEL: That's your malpractice suit right there.

RYAN: So I get it in that sense. But it's very interesting that marketing, sales, PR, IT workers and bankers are where they are. I guess I get the bankers. Bankers have their own issues.

DANIEL: Bankers got issues.

Some of this is a negative byproduct of a society that really worships the dollar. We're all about results, at least stateside. We talk about work-life balance, but you look at European countries and they actually do something about it. We work more hours. We make more money. I think it's because capitalism is functionally the religion of America. In a world like that, I don't care if you like your job or not. It's just a question of how much money you're making. And there are a lot of people who buy that. Maybe they've never even thought about it. They've just assumed that's the way the world works. They have a job, they hate their job, but it pays the bills. They don't think about it. They're not bringing their best self to work, but they never thought they were supposed to. They're just there to get a paycheck and not get fired.

RYAN: Could meaningless jobs be freeing? Emotional detachment with benefits? Can you feel useless and still be happy at work? I'm going to go with yes. People who are happy at work in a role that's more mundane, or perceived as something anybody could do, easy to do, doesn't add real value. If you've got a person happy in that role, that might be the right person for it. Because it means they find their value outside of work. They show up, they clock in, they do their job, they go home happy. That doesn't sound like a downside to me.

DANIEL: That's okay for a while. But let's go to Maslow's hierarchy of needs. There's always this desire to move up. Not up in the company, up the ladder of needs. Once shelter, food and clothing are met, you start looking for things like love and fulfillment and you work your way up. If you're in a context where you're not sure you and your loved ones are going to have enough to eat or a place to stay, then we're not even having this conversation. You don't care how bullshit your job is. This is what's feeding your family. Suck it up, buttercup, get to work. Once you've moved past that, once you've got a little money in the bank and things are relatively stable, you know people are going to be clothed and fed, you start asking the next question. And that next question is about purpose, meaning, impact.

RYAN: I get all that. Seriously, I get all that. But that doesn't mean it has to come from your job. Your job is not your only place to find it. The devil's advocate question here is, can you feel useless at work and still be happy? If your Maslow's hierarchy is being met externally, if food and clothing and housing are being provided by the job, then check. Your job is the bottom rung. I can see how a sales or marketing person might see no societal value in their role, but that doesn't mean they hate their job or they're unhappy at work or they're not getting purpose. I think they're finding purpose somewhere else.

DANIEL: So where are we going with this? It is a common problem. It's something that makes work suck for a lot of people, and there are a couple of ways to solve it. But it's a broad problem, because a third of your life, right? We've said this before. You spend about a third of your life asleep, a third working, and a third doing other things. So about a third of your life is spent doing something you don't really care about. Now, you've got to do it to pay the bills, to feed your family, to have a place, because I'm a big fan of not sleeping outside. But at some point you start to ask, what have I done with my life? What have I done with my talents? Is this really all there is? And I don't think purpose is just a luxury of the privileged. I get that most people need a paycheck. But eventually all of us begin to ask these questions. Unless you're permanently stuck in survival mode, the question comes: am I making a difference? If I disappeared tomorrow, would anybody notice? Would anybody care? That question comes up eventually.

RYAN: I agree. But I keep bringing it back to people finding meaning outside of work more than inside it. Maybe that's generational. Maybe for older generations it was more outside of work, and with millennials and Gen Z we're looking for more meaning, or that's how society is evolving. But I go back to people thinking their job is bullshit in terms of contributing to society. If I'm a sales rep and selling this coffee mug doesn't make the world a better place, does that make work suck?

How do you feel about it as an employer? If you were hiring people and your whole team said, yeah, this job is bullshit, but the pay is good?

DANIEL: We've got to keep in mind, we're not talking about the job being bullshit. We're talking about the value it provides to society.

RYAN: Okay, and that's where I'm challenging the survey and how we're reading it. Because if a person is disgruntled and thinks their job is bullshit, that's more about the environment of the company, the core values, the culture.

DANIEL: But this was a survey of people across many companies, in their particular field, about the value they thought their job provided to society. Bankers, IT workers, PR, sales, all thought their job was bullshit in terms of how it adds value to society.

RYAN: So how does thinking your job doesn't add value to society make work suck?

DANIEL: I know it was hard for me when I was in a job like that. Working in a large organization, never seeing my end beneficiary, knowing that if I worked really, really hard, maybe I contribute a little to the earnings this quarter, which makes some hedge fund manager a little richer. It was hard to get really motivated to contribute my highest and best. I did the job. I did it reasonably well. But I took that extra energy and started looking for other things I found more fulfilling. The marginal time just wasn't worth investing in that organization.

RYAN: I agree. What I'm challenging is that I don't think that's what this survey is talking about. There's a difference between a company's purpose and you being fulfilled in your role.

DANIEL: All right. So what would you advocate? What's your position?

RYAN: I do agree with this: if there's no purpose in the organization, or you have a false sense of purpose, and you attract talent that's looking for purpose, that's going to end poorly. People will say the job's bullshit and they'll walk away. But let me take another example. I'm kind of rabbit-trailing here. A healthcare company. The company has sales reps, marketing, PR, IT, finance, nurses, operations. According to that survey, in that same company with a great purpose, the nurses think their job adds value. Do the sales reps think their job is bullshit?

DANIEL: I guess it depends on what they're selling. What if they're selling hospice services? That wouldn't be too hard for me to see the value in.

RYAN: What if you're selling hospice management systems? That one's like, okay, it needs to exist. I'm not saying it's not a thing.

DANIEL: I don't think those people had any problem with their jobs. I think they loved their jobs. They made a lot of money.

RYAN: And they knew they were providing software to hospice services so they could better provide care. I think where we break this down is if a company has a good purpose. I'm using the hospice company because it's got two opposite ends of the spectrum on this grid.

DANIEL: Yep.

RYAN: The nurses make sense. The question is, do the sales and marketing reps in that organization feel like their job is BS compared to their peers who are the nurses? Do they feel like they're not needed? They're needed to generate revenue for the company. But do the sales reps at a hospice and home health organization feel like they add no value to society?

DANIEL: I can see that. Because as a sales rep, if you don't buy from me, you're going to buy from somebody else. If I'm not here, there are three other people you can buy from. So I can see why that could feel like, yeah, I'm not really contributing a lot to society here. Because if I was gone, nobody would notice.

And the other challenge with sales is that sales usually interacts primarily with the buyer and not as much with the user. In many organizations the buyer and the user are two different people. Think about a teacher. The user is the student, and the teacher gets a ton of time with the student. The payer is mom or dad, and the teacher probably doesn't have as much interaction with mom or dad. But the sales guy is only interacting with mom and dad and has very little exposure to the child, which is where a lot of the impact is.

So I think part of the challenge here, part of why people feel like their job is BS, is the distance from their seat to the person who is receiving the positive impact of that organization's creation.

RYAN: There you go. You just landed it. The distance between you and the person who gets the most benefit from your job.

DANIEL: And the beneficiary of the product or service.

RYAN: Seeing it in that light, I can understand how a sales rep is so disconnected from it.

DANIEL: So then PR is worse, right? PR is like, we got hacked, we lost a million social security numbers, and my job is to write a memo to a bunch of investors trying to convince them not to dump the stock. Who's the beneficiary there? Me. Shareholders. The CEO. It's hard to know who the beneficiary is. Hard to see if I'm actually making a difference. I can see why that would be a really discouraging job.

RYAN: Ooh, that's a good one.

DANIEL: You probably take a few drinks after that day of work. I'm not saying all PR people are liars. I'm just saying I can see why they'd have a hard time feeling like their job makes a positive impact on society.

RYAN: Okay, so now I'm going to turn this the other way. I can totally get behind it if you were selling smoke and mirrors, if your job is to get people to sign on the dotted line for vaporware.

DANIEL: Oh yeah.

RYAN: And if you take that and you're selling a software system, you don't have nurses and teachers and librarians working in your organization. You've got IT and sales and marketing. So I can see that. So you take the stat and go, okay, 40% of those workers feel like that. I'm making some assumptions here, but would that mean roughly 40% of sales, marketing and IT people, let's say SaaS companies all fit into that category, are selling a crappy product?

DANIEL: No, I wouldn't go there, because you can sell a good product and not understand the positive impact you're having.

RYAN: That's where I struggle, because especially in today's age, if you know what product you're selling, you probably know the benefits downstream. I don't think you have to have a perfect VTO on the wall to know that.

DANIEL: I would challenge you. I think there are a lot of people who don't connect those dots. And maybe that's why it's 40%. That's the 40% that doesn't connect the dots.

RYAN: So 40% aren't capable of connecting the dots? Are you calling 40% of people stupid, Daniel?

DANIEL: No, I'd call a lot higher percentage than 40. I just think there are people who don't give it the mental effort. They're like, look, my job is to come in here and make sure all of these numbers look like those numbers.

RYAN: Yeah.

DANIEL: And it's like, so what? Why do you do that? I don't ask. That's just my job. Well, who benefits from that? Not my problem.

RYAN: Well, that's not a given.

DANIEL: Right. But there are a lot of people like that. You could be curing cancer and they're just like, you know what, they didn't ask me to do that. They asked me to make sure these numbers look like those numbers.

RYAN: But see, that's where I go back to the particular fields. I get that it happens everywhere. It doesn't matter if you're a teacher, a nurse, a doctor, a banker, a librarian. Every field on this survey is going to have individuals who fit that category. But I keep asking why sales, marketing and PR are the highest group that thinks their job is bullshit in terms of contributing to society. And the only thing I can take out of that is that the product or service they're representing, or the systems they're working on, don't add value. They don't move the needle.

DANIEL: All right, let's think about this through vision, journey, culture, results. We've talked about organizations that don't have a clear purpose, or don't have a compelling one. "Maximize shareholder returns" is not something very many people get out of bed for. And I think there are a lot of people in this 40% who don't understand how their job contributes to the purpose of the organization.

So you've got a couple of different problems. One is that the organization has no real purpose other than to make money. It's results only. That's an executive leadership problem, a board problem, a C-suite problem. They've got to fix that. They've got to find some purpose.

But let's assume that hard work has been done and there is a purpose. Now there's a lot of work to make sure it's communicated to the organization and tied back to every individual job. Here is how your work as a bookkeeper contributes to the purpose this organization exists to achieve. That's a management task. Management has to do the hard work of connecting the dots.

And then there's a third group that, even if there was a great purpose and even if their manager communicated it, wouldn't give a damn. We're probably not going to be able to change that.

So those are the three tiers. The question is, where does this 40% of PR, marketing and IT people sit? Are they in organizations that don't have a good purpose? Are they in organizations that have a purpose but they don't understand how they're connected to it? Or are they just the people who don't care, even when there's a great purpose and it's very clear how they connect, and they still don't want to be involved?

RYAN: Here's my stance. I think the reason the survey shows 40% in those groups is that those are the people who get met with this: say part of our mission is that we work with mission-driven, purpose-driven organizations. You walk into an organization, you're going to sell them a product, and they don't really fit. They're not a culture fit. They're not the right ICP. And then the boss says, sell them anyway. So they're forced to sell to a company they don't believe is a good fit and doesn't serve the mission. That's why PR and sales and marketing are up there. They're forced to close deals, put press releases out, glaze over details that don't align with the mission of the company.

DANIEL: So maybe that's something in between. It's not that they don't have a purpose, and it's not that they've got a purpose that isn't communicated. It's that they've got a purpose, maybe it's even been communicated, but they're being asked to behave in a way that's contrary to it.

RYAN: That's a good one. So my job as a sales rep is to bullshit, because we sell this product to people who shouldn't have it. We should be saying no, but we're not living the purpose.

DANIEL: Right. We're here to help these people, but at the end of the quarter we've got to close this deal. So I'm going to tell them it does things it doesn't do to get the deal signed, and we'll figure it out later. In the long run you're going to end up screwing your customer, but we need the deal.

RYAN: Yeah. I've seen that, and that sucks. And I think this is why you're seeing bankers, IT, sales, marketing, HR. HR was even up there. Actually, you know what was interesting? Journalism was 20%. Journalism almost feels like a BS job at this point, just because of the way the media is going. That's a whole other topic for another day.

DANIEL: That's a different episode.

RYAN: But I think the reason those are so high is that companies will put the mission up there and then not live it. So people aren't connecting to it. They think their job is bullshit because it's not living up to a mission. They say one thing and do another, or incentivize and reward another.

DANIEL: Right. We say we're here for purpose, but we still bonus the people who bring in the most deals, even if the deals are bullshit.

RYAN: Right. That's why I think they feel like they add no value. Or one of the reasons, I should say.

DANIEL: I think that's good. All right, so what do we do about it? Because let's be honest, it's unrealistic to believe every job is a calling. Somebody's got to mop the floors. Somebody's got to empty the trash cans. Somebody has to do the jobs nobody really wants to do. So we can't believe everyone's going to have their perfect job. But I don't know if having 40% of people think their job is bullshit means this is working. So how do we change this?

RYAN: I'm still a little bit like, what am I supposed to do with the information in this survey? What are we trying to prove here? So I'll say this as more anecdotal, not fully grasping what this thing is trying to communicate.

If you're a manager or a leader, someone with direct reports or running an organization, go to your people and ask if they think their job is bullshit. And if they say yes, that it adds no value, ask why. You're going to find one of three things. Either you have people who don't care about your vision or don't align with the purpose. Or your vision and purpose aren't clear. Or the culture of the company doesn't operate in a way that achieves the purpose. Whichever one of those three insights you get, you'll have a plan for what to do.

Because let's be honest, if people think their job is bullshit, that the role has no value, you're probably not getting top performers. And every business owner and executive wants A players, which I have a problem with as a term, but that's another episode.

DANIEL: Whatever that means.

RYAN: Top performers, A players. But at the end of the day, you want all the people in the organization equally bought in and working at a fair rate to each other. People are going to have ebbs and flows. It's not about perfect performance, which, like you said, doesn't exist. But if you just ask those questions, as a leader or a manager, you might be surprised, and you'll have clarity on a path forward.

If you're an individual and you think your job is bullshit right now, I'd challenge you: why do you think that? Is it because the company doesn't live its purpose? Then maybe it's time to define what your purpose is. Go back to the previous episode, we just talked about this. Find what your purpose is and see if you can find a company that aligns with it.

DANIEL: Right. Find your why.

RYAN: Find your why. And if it's really because you just don't know, start asking. You might be surprised how your work contributes to the benefit of somebody.

DANIEL: That's interesting, and this is a potential tangent, but I'll go quickly. In very large organizations, your customers might be internal. The people you create value for and positively impact could work for the same company. And you're still making society a better place. If you're part of the sales comp team, your customers are the sales team. Doing your job well has a positive impact on them.

I don't think everybody's going to cure cancer or feed the homeless. That's unrealistic. But as an individual it's worth a little effort to step back and think: who benefits from the work that I do? If I wasn't here, if nobody did this job, what would the world look like? Who would suffer if nobody did this job? Because those are the people benefiting from your work. And there's probably more value in most roles than people think, because they haven't spent the time to go through that exercise.

RYAN: I'll give you an example of what you just said, going back to the home health company. If that home health company has nurses who are badass and take care of the patient, and you've got a CEO who really cares and goes out of the way to take care of the customers, and you provide more than just the care the government pays for, then as a sales rep, not closing that deal means you possibly removed the opportunity for that person to have the best care possible. There are probably other companies that are equally serviceable, but there are probably others that fall below that bar.

DANIEL: Yep.

RYAN: So you're depriving that person of the opportunity. Yes, as a sales rep you may be making money for the organization. But if your company really is providing that level of service, then you're depriving that individual of the opportunity for that level of care.

DANIEL: I agree.

RYAN: I do think that with AI coming, a lot of these BS jobs are going to be eliminated.

DANIEL: I agree. I think those are some of the first to go.

RYAN: But it goes back to the survey we're referencing. What are we calling BS? Because there are bullshit jobs that are meaningless, and there are people who think their role is bullshit in terms of the value it adds to society. So I agree with you on mindless bullshit jobs. Sweeping the warehouse when it's completely robotic. Sure. That's actually a useless job.

I saw a stat recently, or it was a graph, that plotted income versus lawn care. When you're broke, you mow your own lawn. When you make some money, you pay somebody else to mow your lawn. And when you're really wealthy, you go back to mowing your own lawn again, because you enjoy it, because it actually feels like you're accomplishing something. There's a lot to be said about manual labor, because you can see that you did something.

DANIEL: Next episode.

RYAN: That'll be the next episode.

DANIEL: I do think that ideally a job can have both purpose and stability. Financial stability. I don't think those are opposites. It's hard to find. You've got to do a lot of work to get there. And it's not necessary that those two things are connected. If you're fortunate enough that they are, congratulations. But there are a lot of people who are going to do one job and then find purpose and meaning and impact in something else. And that's okay.

RYAN: That's okay. It's just about being clear on what your expectations are of yourself and of your work.

DANIEL: I agree.

RYAN: All right, so as we wrap up, here's what I'd love to know. A question for the listeners: do you think your job matters to the world? Why or why not? We'd love to know. And what would you do if you couldn't pretend your job was meaningful anymore? Everybody knows your job is BS. What do you do about that?

DANIEL: Remember the 37% in marketing who said their job was BS. What if they're right? And what if we're all just pretending?

RYAN: Ooh, I'd love to hear some responses to that.

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