Welcome to the Andy Stanley Leadership Podcast Reverb, a conversation designed to help leaders go even further faster by digging deeper into this month's episode.

I'm your host, Susie Gray. Last week's conversation with Arthur Brooks on his new book, The Meaning of Your Life, was such a great episode, and I highly recommend a listen.

Andy and Arthur talked about meaning and why success doesn't automatically create it.

Andy, remember when Arthur actually teed up the concept of the me self, that part of us

that keeps score?

Yep.

And here's the tension.

Sometimes things are going well, but it does not feel the way you thought it would.

In fact, winning stops feeling like winning. Andy, I bet a lot of leaders have felt that at one point or another in their leadership journey.

Yeah, that's exactly right. And I think part of it is when we anticipate winning, we anticipate the emotions or the feelings that come along with it. And that's why this book is so important, because what we want to feel is we want to feel like we're doing something meaningful. And

the whole idea of simply being recognized for things we've done, I mean, there's a momentary

sense of we did it, we crossed the finish line, you've been successful. But that's a moment in time. It's the awards banquet.

Yeah. It's the, you know, you hit the number. It's the boss congratulates. You mean, there's a moment, and we strived to have those moments.

But after that moment, we think that somehow there's going to be a feeling associated with crossing the finish line

that goes with us. And it doesn't. It just doesn't. It's just Tuesday, right? It's just,

I'm driving home again. And that sort of sinking feeling, not depression, but that sinking feeling,

and I don't want to just repeat a

cliche, but there is a feeling, we don't say it, but there is a feeling of, isn't there more

than this? Isn't there more to like this? And again, I don't want to be too dramatic, but there's

a dip. And so, of course, the high capacity leaders or the type A personalities are like, okay, find the next challenge, find the next challenge. That's right. Because when I'm immersed in the challenge, when I'm immersed in the adrenaline rush, I've got to do this, got to get this done, that's a comfortable. I mean, that's kind of, I'm comfortable there. Yeah, you're on the hunt for something. Yeah. And then you cross the finish line again. There's some sort of celebration. And then there's, oh, where's, you know, where's the thing? Well, this is why this is such an important discussion. The thing is finding meaning in life. And crossing the finish lines, hitting the goals, hitting the marks, you know, whatever it might be, and whatever our world is. And again, I'm in the nonprofit world, but we have the same

chase, you know, more numbers, more campuses, more people, more books, you know, whatever

it is. None of that, none of that necessarily provides meaning or a meaningful life.

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