Bill Burnett

And people are looking for meaning in what we call the transaction world, you know, getting stuff done.

But if you look at all the research and you look at the histories of the question, you know, people answering this question, meaning is really not found in the transactions and the day-to-day stuff.

We have a notion that there's really two worlds.

I mean, there's one world, but there's two ways of thinking of it.

There's two worlds, this world of transactions where you're getting stuff done.

And right under that, I like to think of it like an aquifer, you know, of something right under the transaction world is the world of flow, right?

And that's the world where actually meaning is discovered in moments of flow and moments of wonder and joy.

There's a lot of new neuroscience on this, awe and wonder, but wonder and meaning and joy, it's all found in the flow world.

And so we can get there.

You just got to look in the right place.

Yeah, sure.

So let's say you're sitting in the average staff meeting at the job.

And mostly the staff meeting is a transactional meeting.

Things are happening, right?

We're making schedules, we're making budgets, we're doing reports, we're doing status.

And so you can experience that meeting as a transactional meeting.

There's nothing wrong with that.

But it's probably kind of boring.

Frankly, most of the staff meetings I've been in are pretty boring.

But if you flip the switch, if you sort of drop into the flow world and you start to notice, oh, well, you know, John is really nailing it when he describes his stuff.