It's Not About You: A Brief Guide to a Meaningful Life
Author: Rath, Tom
Date: 2019-12-26

Text copyright © 2019 by Thomas Rath

All rights reserved.

No part of this work may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

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eISBN: 9781542022262

Cover design by David Drummond

Contents

Introduction

Step 1: Get Over Yourself

Step 2: Invest in the People Who Matter Most

Step 3: Focus on What Will Grow When You Are Gone

Living a Life of Contribution

How Can I Contribute Today?

Answering Life’s Great Question

Further Reading

About the Author

Introduction

Life is not about you. It’s about what you do for others.

The faster you are able to get over yourself, the more you can do for the people who matter most.

Yet external forces keep pulling you toward self-centered pursuits. From books pushing “happiness” to advertisements convincing you that consumption leads to adoration, these messages tempt you to focus inward. That is all a trap (and a load of crap).

I have studied and written about well-being for twenty years, and the last thing I recommend is chasing your own happiness. It may even do more harm than good. The key to creating collective well-being is to start by improving the life of another person, not your own.

This is the essential lesson I learned at a young age from my late grandfather, Don Clifton. He was a lifelong teacher who grew up on a Nebraska farm and later built his career around helping people to connect their talents with how they can contribute to the world. Don was also the ultimate mentor to me, and later on in life we coauthored a book on these topics. But when I was a kid, he kept it simple and described how every exchange with another person either “filled their bucket or dipped from it.” He also taught me the best way to fill my own bucket was to spend time filling other people’s.

Like Don, I want to ensure most of my daily efforts are aimed at contributing to another person’s life. Simply asking, “What can I do for another person?” is a good reminder to focus on what’s larger than self. It also orients your energy and work toward efforts that grow in your absence.

Your life has an unknown expiration date. Your efforts and contributions to others do not. The time, energy, and resources you invest in people you care for and your community keep growing forever.

Through my research and study of people who have built lives of meaningful contribution, I have uncovered a few basic steps to help focus your energy on something larger than self. And I will tell you how, from deep personal experience, there is nothing in life more liberating and energizing than getting over yourself.

When you move past self, life is simpler and less stressful.

Step 1: Get Over Yourself

You have twenty years to live.

This, in short, is what I heard from a doctor when I was sixteen years old. I was in the middle of feeling invincible as a teenager . . . and suddenly I was anything but. What initially looked like a vision problem in my left eye turned out to be something far worse.

Your remaining years could be extremely challenging.

My doctor told me I had a catastrophic genetic mutation, one that essentially shuts off the body’s most powerful tumor suppressor. As a result of this mutation, in addition to the large tumors already growing on my left eye, I was likely to have kidney cancer, pancreatic cancer, and tumors in my spine, brain, and adrenal glands. He also told me they could try to save my left eye, but after a few failed surgeries my vision in that eye was gone.

If you decide to have kids, they may also have it.

Even at that young age, those words hit the hardest. I still recall sitting in a sterile exam room while a very nice young geneticist drew her diagrams with boxes and connecting lines on a piece of paper attached to her clipboard. She explained how this condition, von Hippel-Lindau (or VHL for short), was autosomal dominant. This means that anyone carrying the affected gene has a fifty-fifty chance of passing it along to future offspring. Normally, this condition moves through families like a weed spreading through generations.

But in my case, I have a rare de novo mutation, meaning I am the first in my family with VHL. The geneticist explained how future generations would forever be affected if I ever wanted to start a family. I was the box at the top of her page—the one who my future kids and grandkids could point to as having started this whole sequence of events.

Despite these challenges, I knew that I wanted to start a family someday. I quietly hoped that I could make the ultimate contribution: to raise a child.

The brilliance of the human species lies in our ability to put collective interests ahead of our own. We have the opportunity, every day, to contribute to collective efforts and others’ lives. These contributions will live on, well beyond our brief life span here on earth.

We are, to a large degree, the product of what others have contributed to our lives. From relationships to experiences and the environment in which we are raised, life is shaped by the actions of others, for better and for worse. This is more important to acknowledge than you may imagine, in an era where self-oriented thinking and development reign.

I grew up as an only child in the midwestern college town of Lincoln, Nebraska. Both of my parents worked for a small start-up and had to travel frequently for work. On the rare occasions when my dad was home, he sparred with my mom. It was so bad that I could hear the constant badgering through the thin walls of our house and wondered if people living on the other side of our shared-wall duplex could as well.

By the time I was eight, my parents had (thankfully) separated and I transferred to a new elementary school that was a block away from my grandparents’ house, where I went each day after school. Around that time, my grandfather—a psychologist and entrepreneur—spotted an early interest in business and suggested I open a snack stand. My extended family and friends pitched in as well. Before we knew it, a dozen of my friends were working with me, and we were turning a decent profit. It was fun for me to see how this supportive network invested not just in me but also in the circles that surrounded me and the broader community. Even though I did not realize it at the time, everyone around me was sending a clear message.

For the first sixteen years of my life, no one had any idea I harbored a potentially fatal genetic defect. In fact, most of my loved ones treated me as if I had unlimited opportunity. Instead of dwelling on shortcomings throughout my childhood, they searched for early signs of talent and showed me how to build on areas of strength. I had no idea how beneficial this would be when I received my diagnosis.

It takes time to develop an outward focus. In far too many cases, people move into this mindset only when the end is in sight. It does not need to be that way. Anyone can learn about and develop an outward focus, starting early on in life.

But, fair warning: you must put your mortality in clear view first. Acknowledging that all our stories have an end can be deeply beneficial. In my own experience, orienting my efforts to where I could make the greatest contributions, both during and beyond my lifetime, helped me to push through major challenges and made life far more meaningful.

Life is about what you put back into the world, not what you take out of it.

Being told by doctors that I would battle cancer over a shortened life span flat-out sucked to hear. And going blind in one eye presented a host of new challenges. At the time of my diagnosis, I was learning to drive, had finally grown out of my nerdy young businessman phase, and was obsessed with basketball. I had an active teenage social life and no idea how this condition would change things.

Before some people even found out about my diagnosis, I was already trying to uncover any steps I could take to stay ahead of my condition. From day one, it was clear to me there was nothing to be gained from dwelling on why this happened or what was beyond my control. The most promising thing I learned was that many of the tumors I was likely to develop were operable if caught when relatively small in size. So perhaps, with CT scans, MRIs, and regular testing, I could keep my condition at bay for a few decades.

At least that’s what I hoped.

Let go of what’s beyond your control.

The quickest way to get over yourself is by acknowledging that “self” implies a finite term. The one thing we can all guarantee is that our lives will end at some point. It actually helps to embrace that fact.

I have found that time is more valuable when you can see your mortality on the horizon. Recent research found that kids who battle cancer somehow emerge stronger when compared to peers who have not faced a similar challenge. In particular, when children twelve and older battle cancer and survive, they are more likely to experience what scientists call post-traumatic growth.

Why does this occur? A review of eighteen studies suggests that the prospect of death leads to greater appreciation of life, more rapid formulation of values, more thought about the meaning of life, and stronger social connections. As I have learned from experience, when you consider how short life can be, you create more meaning in the world.

Initially, I did not think I would live as long as I have. The more I have learned on this topic, the more strongly I believe it is not in anyone’s best interest to live like they have forever. When you view your time as finite, you build more life into each day.

Look through the lens of what will outlive you, and you’ll quickly see past self.

Step 2: Invest in the People Who Matter Most

What you put back into the world is built one interaction at a time. This is why contributions to others typically start small. Eventually, these efforts create new relationships and strengthen existing ones.

When researchers study the importance of brief interactions, they generally find that a single bad exchange can counteract several positive ones. If you are able to have at least five positive conversations for every negative one in a given day, it should carry forward and energize the networks around you. As a part of the research I conducted on this topic, I found that people who have great interactions throughout the day are five times as likely to have a very high sense of well-being.

You may not get to control how another person initiates your next interaction, but you always get to choose your response. Even when you’re having a horrible day and someone says something rude to you without reason, you get to decide if you will dig in on the negative tone or try to turn things around. With that choice, you will likely set off a cascading process that will make your day progressively better—or progressively worse.

I test this out routinely. Without vision in my left eye, almost every time I’m in a grocery store (or another crowded public place) I will invariably run into someone if they approach from my left. While I wish I could avoid these scenarios, it does give me a fascinating lens into what’s going on in the minds of this fairly random sampling of strangers.

Some people likely assume I am oblivious, not paying attention, or worse. Others blame themselves and apologize in order to defuse any tension. However, some people are quick to become enraged, express disgust, or say something rude, like “Watch where you’re going.” If only that were possible.

The problem for the latter group is that they are making a choice that works against their own well-being. By choosing not to assume positive intent, they increase their own hostility levels in a way that is likely to carry forward for at least hours, if not days. In contrast, those who choose to assume I did not have any bad intent get to move on through their day as usual, or perhaps even feel good about letting me off the hook.

You always have a choice of how to respond. Start by assuming the other person has positive intent.

The worst thing you can do during a challenging time is to withdraw from relationships and social circles. In the years following my initial diagnosis with VHL, much of my attention was focused on living as normal a life as possible and learning as much as I could to stay ahead of my condition. One thing I learned clearly from my grandfather is that strong relationships are the cornerstone of growth and contribution in life.

I wrote heartfelt notes to family members detailing what a difference they had already made in my life. Next, I did the same for teachers and health-care providers who helped me through this time. My primary daily focus was simple: nurturing relationships and spending quality time with the people who mattered most.

It would have been easier to withdraw into a world of books, television, or video games. I enjoyed all three. Doing those things was also easier than leaning into relationships. But I knew that no one would ever care how many episodes of a sitcom I watched or how well I played Madden NFL Football on my game console. What would matter more was the time I spent with my friends and family.

Your greatest contributions are what you put into your closest relationships.

I am increasingly convinced that even fifteen minutes of time spent listening to another person is one of the most valuable things you can do today. In this era of hyperdistraction, asking great questions and listening are two of the qualities we look for most in friends, partners, and colleagues. Yet most people are sending the exact opposite message to friends and loved ones today.

Personally, I know that my smartphone can be a great asset to combat boredom or idle time in a long line when I’m alone. As a lifelong gadget guru, I used to see huge value in being able to stay more connected, access almost unlimited amounts of information, and so on. But then a few years ago, I read about a study that completely changed my mindset, habits, and behaviors.

This study, titled “The iPhone Effect,” was based on an experiment with two hundred participants and examined the effect the mere presence of the smartphone has on a conversation. What the researchers essentially found is anytime a smartphone is visible, even if it is not ringing, buzzing, vibrating, or even powered on, it degrades the quality of the conversation for everyone. In the cases where the phone was visible, participants had lower levels of empathetic concern and found the conversations less fulfilling. The people who took their phones out were essentially saying, “This device comes before you and this conversation.”

Ever since, I have been careful in every conversation, from work events to sitting at the dinner table, to keep my phone stowed away and out of sight. On the rare occasions when I do need to have my smartphone out, my friends and family members now notice, because it is the exception and clearly not the norm. It’s been refreshing for me to see how quickly this pattern has caught on, both within and beyond my own social circles.

Essentially, giving another person your undivided attention is a measure of how much you care. Intently listening, even to people you have just met, is a remarkable way to create new relationships and deepen existing ones. At a minimum, when you plan and choose to spend time with a friend, make it count.

Invest your time and attention wisely. They are your most precious resources.

Step 3: Focus on What Will Grow When You Are Gone

The focal piece of art in my grandfather’s home was a painting that read Our Greatest Contribution and portrayed a group of young students learning.

One of the most surprising things I learned from Don is that we often do not appreciate which types of contributions we are best suited to make or the ones we will find most rewarding. Many of us take a “what does the company want from me” approach to applying our talents, and we end up tailoring ourselves to suit our work rather than tailoring our work to suit who we are.

So often, people take on roles they don’t want and stay in jobs that don’t excite them, never exploring a wider set of possibilities about the types of contributions they could be making. Despite being raised by a family of teachers and psychologists focused on building me up, I almost fell into a default path myself instead of exploring a full range of potential contributions.

The greatest strength is helping another person to uncover a hidden talent.

Throughout my final years of high school, despite countless eye surgeries, I was set on leaving the state of Nebraska for college. No one in my family had left the state, as almost all my family members had attended the University of Nebraska in my hometown of Lincoln. While I loved this network of support and was nervous about leaving, I also yearned for new experiences, perspectives, and independence.

Especially when you are a kid openly battling cancer, you can’t help but wonder if people are treating you differently as a result of your condition. So I applied to ten schools across the country, none of them very close to Nebraska. I wound up attending the University of Michigan in the small liberal enclave of Ann Arbor. It was about a twelve-hour drive from Lincoln, which I figured would give me plenty of independence.

The student body at Michigan was so big that it provided near anonymity. No one knew who I was, which meant no one knew about my underlying condition. By the time I realized this, I figured I might as well keep it that way so I could be as normal (and have as much fun) as possible. While I was open with friends about being blind in one eye, I did not feel any need or reason to divulge the rare genetic condition that led to my loss of vision.

In my final year of college, I did share more about my condition with a few of my closest friends, as I was not trying to keep a big secret. But I chose not to have this as a central part of my story, and that strategy served me well during that time. If not for a unique situation that presented itself a couple of years after graduation, I might have decided never to discuss my genetic mutation in a public or professional context.

When I graduated from college in 1998, my focus turned to how I could make a lasting contribution over the next two decades (or however long I had left to live). I knew that if my time was abbreviated, I had to build as much life into those years as possible. Most importantly, I wanted to contribute to things that would continue to live on without me.

Businesses and technology were booming at the time. I had been told that I had a talent for research and technology. So I assumed that I would follow this encouragement, along with social expectations, to a job at a large company or influential management consultancy. I interviewed and received offers to join a few. However, my grandfather had another idea.

You do not need to be defined by a family background or chronic condition.

Don had spent much of his life (after leaving the academic world) building interviews for specific job roles, from truck drivers to schoolteachers. His goal was to match the right personal talents with the right careers. One of my first jobs in high school was to administer these interviews over the phone and manually score each person’s responses. Each interview usually took between thirty and ninety minutes.

Don built quite a business around this idea. The small company he started a few years before I was born, called Selection Research, Inc. (or SRI for short), grew rapidly in those early years. By the time I was born in 1975, most of my family was involved in the business. In 1988, the company was large enough to purchase the better-known Gallup organization—well known for its public opinion polls—and assumed the Gallup name.

Given the rise of this family business during my childhood, there was always an expectation that I might work there after college. I had worked there and spent time doing research with Don in the summers throughout college. Yet as I finished my time as an undergrad at Michigan, I had major reservations about diving into the family business.

My initial issue was I had no way to know if I truly deserved a job at Gallup. The company had grown into a legitimate midsize business with over one thousand employees worldwide. Presumably there were hundreds of people more qualified than I was but lacking the direct family connection. If I did go to work at Gallup, I assumed my family would try to set me up for success at every turn, as they always did. Again, not a level playing field if I wanted to be confident that I was making a meaningful contribution with my efforts.

When I studied my options and offers, I knew working at Gallup would be the most challenging opportunity, and not for the right reasons. I would feel the need to work longer and harder than anyone to disprove their assumptions. My actions would be under a microscope given my family connections. Even when no one actually gave me a leg up, everyone would assume I had one. If I did succeed at something, I would always question if that perceived victory was real.

The last thing I wanted was to spend my career wondering if all I had done was to be born into the right family. The case against going to work in a family business was stronger than I had imagined while growing up.

Then my grandfather made his counterargument. Appealing to my idealistic side, Don described how there was nowhere I could go where my work would have as wide of an influence right away. He envisioned working together on efforts that could improve the lives of employees and students around the world.

Don also asked me to work with him on a very specific and special project. It was the early days of the internet, and the aim of this project was to develop a more comprehensive web-based assessment of human talent. Don saw how this could help his work on strengths to reach beyond the one-on-one telephone interviews for specific jobs.

Given my background in psychology and interest in technology, I was fascinated with this idea. Don’s seventy-fifth birthday was also around the corner. While I did not know how much longer he would be working full-time, I realized this might be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for a twenty-two-year-old kid to spend a few years working alongside his mentor and someone he loved and admired more than anyone. In the end, that answered my question.

When you see a rare opportunity, take it. Life is too brief for living with regrets.

I became the program leader for my grandfather’s nascent research and development effort. The initial phase of this project was to assemble the best questions to measure a complete range of human talent. We started developing both desktop and web-based assessments and eventually landed on the latter as a more scalable way to reach people.

This project, which quickly grew in scope and scale, was eventually dubbed StrengthsFinder. After a year of testing, we decided to share the assessment in a couple of books Don was working on. It started to catch on, especially in schools and businesses.

Every morning, Don and I received an email detailing how many people had used this new StrengthsFinder assessment, from various groups, book readers, and countries around the world. Don always printed out these emails. I think it made these numbers feel like an even more tangible contribution and kept us motivated.

At first, we openly wondered if this new tool could reach ten thousand people. When it did, quite quickly, Don asked me if he thought we could ever help fifty thousand people to uncover their strengths. Eventually, he wondered if this work could ever influence a million lives . . .

Unfortunately, three years into this burgeoning project, my grandfather was diagnosed with stage IV gastroesophageal cancer. From all my experience with and research on cancer, I knew this meant Don likely had only a few months to live. But we were determined to extend his life as long as we possibly could.

As we traveled around the country trying to find a treatment that might help, I remembered something Don had said frequently when I was a child: he found it odd that we essentially wait until people die to praise and celebrate all their contributions in life and “fill their bucket.” So one night, I decided to tell my grandfather how much he had contributed to my life, in great detail, while he was alive. I wrote Don a lengthy letter about all that he had done for me and his profoundly positive influence on my life.

I was somewhat hesitant about giving him the letter because I lacked the courage to share my writing with others, as I had always been told (even by a high school English teacher) to stick with numbers. Given the circumstances, however, I shared the letter with Don. It turned out to be one of the most meaningful things I’ve done in my life.

Not only did this letter allow me to tell my grandfather all that he meant to me, but it also (inadvertently) led to my writing career. A few days later, Don told me that he had been reading and rereading the letter. “You have a talent for bringing things to life with words,” he said. Don then said he thought we should write a book together. He paused for a minute, then added, “And I think we should write it in the next two months.”

Since Don was the most positive person I had ever met, I knew that meant he understood the severity of his condition and how little time he had left. We worked furiously on the book as we traveled and tried about everything possible to treat my grandfather’s cancer. Fortunately, we were able to keep Don alive far beyond any doctor’s expectations. And I was able to read a full draft of the book to my grandfather just days before he died.

We called it How Full Is Your Bucket? The book’s title was based on the story my grandfather told when I was young, about dipping from or filling others’ buckets in each interaction. But it was also a story about making each moment count while you can. Because Don and I both had a clear line of sight to our own mortality, we worked with passion and clarity, and it was a remarkably meaningful experience not just for us but also for everyone who was involved in creating the book.

Tell someone how they have contributed to your life . . . while they are still around to hear it.

Given all Don’s work and interest on the topic of contribution, in hindsight I am pretty sure he knew what he was doing in those final months. Even fifteen years after his death, the influence of his work continues to grow exponentially. The business he built has employed thousands of people and helped millions to be more engaged in their work. The StrengthsFinder program he created has now enabled over twenty million people to find their talents. And that book we were working on, How Full Is Your Bucket?, went on to be a #1 New York Times bestseller and led to an entire series of books for kids, which are used in schools around the world.

Don was able to have an outsized influence because he was always playing the long game of contribution. Every day he invested in the growth of other people and worked on projects that could have a wider reach and influence. It was not about him—Don’s actions showed me how helping other people to thrive was a much better strategy. My own story is just one example, where he spotted a talent no one had noticed, gave me a specific challenge, and helped me to see why it mattered.

There are things we all have the opportunity to do for others, every single day. In any role or place in life, you can take time today to focus on a contribution that will continue to grow. This contribution can be to a person, a project, or a work of art. What matters is that you see how your effort can benefit other lives, now and into the future.

Plant a few seeds today that could grow for years to come.

The evening before my grandfather passed away, I was sitting in his bedroom, where he lay in a hospice bed. He was no longer able to speak or converse well in these final hours of life. When people called to say their goodbyes, we would hold the phone up to his ear in case he could hear. But mostly those last hours were filled with silence, hugs, and holding Don’s hand.

This is why I was surprised that night when I heard a clear and loud voice coming from Don’s room. I tiptoed down the hallway. As I got closer, I peeked around the corner and saw the hospice nurse reading a book to my grandfather, as if his attention were hanging on every word. Don’s face and body showed no visual sign of response, but she read like his ears and mind were listening. She was so engrossed in the story she was reading she didn’t notice my head in the door, so I stepped back into the hall and just listened for a while.

I have never witnessed such a pure example of someone fully engaged in a meaningful contribution to another human being. It was a lasting reminder of how the most important things we do in a lifetime start small and are almost always directed at others. You don’t need any kind of permission or position to have a positive influence like this . . . you just have to start, today.

Living a Life of Contribution

When I was diagnosed with cancer at age sixteen, the odds suggested life expectancy for someone born in my generation was about forty years.

So my plan was to pack as much life and contribution into those years as humanly possible. In the same year that my grandfather passed away, I met someone who was amazingly warm, helped me through that difficult time, and accepted me for who I am, health risks and all else. We married three years later, in 2006, and soon thereafter decided to start a family.

Our daughter was born in 2009, and we had a son in 2011. They are both happy, healthy kids who do not have the VHL mutation that I have battled. As one of my doctors likes to say, I am the first in my family line with this disease . . . and hopefully the last.

In 2013, with just a few years left in my forty-year window, I realized I had another once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. My kids were two and four years old, and I wanted to be fully present for their childhood instead of spending 80 percent of my time on the road or at work. So I stepped away from my job leading Gallup’s workplace consulting and decided to focus more of my time, attention, and energy on contributing to the growth of my two children.

This turned out to be one of the best and most rewarding decisions of my life. While this change in focus has admittedly decreased the production of writing and research, it has enabled quality time with the most important people in my life, which has been invaluable. My experience over these years also showed me how the most meaningful contributions in life start at home.

I have faced myriad health battles, with most of the cancers my initial odds suggested, over these years. In the last two decades I have been diagnosed with kidney cancer, retinal (eye) lesions, pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors, adrenal tumors, and spinal tumors. Treatment has required surgeries, difficult drug trials, and more than fifty CT and MRI scans. The larger spinal tumors, in particular, cause severe pain and have been my biggest challenge in recent years. One of the tumors now resembles a large barbell protruding from my spinal column and is hard to even look at on my most recent MRI imaging.

Despite living with chronic pain and a degree of fear and uncertainty, once again the contributions of people around me provide hope that greatly outweighs the downside. My friends and family keep me focused on the daily moments that matter. My colleagues are great examples of how to work for more than a living. And all over the world, there are smart and driven researchers who are dedicating their lives to help people like me live longer, healthier lives.

For the past two decades, I have read thousands of studies on my own condition and discovered how I can help myself and others to live healthier in general. This is how I have learned to stay ahead of my disease. From regular scans, healthy choices that improve my odds, and specific drugs that may prolong my life, I have benefited greatly from the research and contributions of complete strangers.

When I was working on this book, I stumbled on some new work from Spanish researchers about a compound approved for heart disease a quarter century ago that may help to delay or prevent VHL-related cancers. After sharing this with a couple of my doctors here in the United States, they agreed to let me test this compound, and it has made a substantial difference in decreasing the daily pain from my spinal tumors.

Think about this for a moment. A team of researchers in Spain worked away in a lab with animal models and a few early patients. Then they went through the process of publishing a paper in a journal about repurposing drugs for rare cancers. I happened to read this article, shared it with my doctors, and it had a profound effect on my quality of life. It has since been given orphan designation for use by VHL patients throughout Europe.

These are the types of contributions that require the most patience. The positive influence these researchers’ work had on my health is almost impossible to see or even know about in the moment. But these efforts accumulate and can change many lives over time.

You have to find work that you know in your heart is making a positive contribution.

You can’t be anything you want to be, but you can be a whole lot more of who you already are.

Of all the sentences I have written, this is the most commonly cited in books, social media, and motivational posters. Yet this is an incomplete thought at best and may even lead to a misguided focus.

To be clear: I am more confident than ever that you cannot be anything you want to be. What I struggle with is the part about trying to be more of who you already are. When I reflect on that advice, my concern is how it can feed into a self-focused mindset.

While your talents are nature’s best building blocks, they serve the world best when your efforts are directed outward—not inward. Being “anything you want” or “more of who you already are” doesn’t add value for society unless it provides something others need. Simply put, your strengths and efforts must be focused on specific contributions you can make to other people’s lives.

However, most of us are so caught up with daily demands that we continually put off serious reflection about how to make a greater contribution to the teams, families, and communities around us. This is a consequential mistake. Tomorrow is gone in an instant, another month rolls by, and eventually you have missed years, and then decades, of opportunity to make meaningful and substantive contributions.

Knowing who you are—and who you are not—is essential. But it is only a starting point. All the talent, motivation, and hard work in the world will not be valued or remembered if it does not help another human being.

Most people agree life is not about focusing on self-oriented or monetary ambitions. It is about what you create that improves lives. It is about investing in the development of other people. And it is about participating in efforts that will continue to grow when you are gone. In the end, you won’t get to stay around forever, but your contributions will.

I have read that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. described “life’s most persistent and urgent question” as being “What are you doing for others?” It is easy to see how, in the last decade of his life, Dr. King dedicated almost all his time to answering this question. In doing so, he showed us how orienting your efforts outward creates perpetual growth for generations to come.

Contribution starts when you see beyond self.

Real growth is the product of following your contributions more than your passions. Simply asking, “What can I contribute?” leads to a better path and result than starting with yourself. This applies far beyond the realm of careers.

A growing body of evidence suggests that the single greatest driver of both achievement and well-being is understanding how your daily efforts enhance the lives of others. Scientists have determined human beings are innately other-directed, which they refer to as being “prosocial.” According to top researchers who reviewed hundreds of studies on this subject, the defining features of a meaningful life are “connecting and contributing to something beyond the self.”

Knowing we’re making meaningful contributions to others’ lives leads not only to improved work outcomes but also to enhanced health and well-being. Even small acts of generosity trigger changes in our brains that make us happier. Each prosocial act at work creates energy that measurably benefits “the giver, the receiver, and the whole organization.”

Think about that. Work can actually improve your health and well-being every day. Work can also be about doing something each day that improves your relationship with your family and friends. I believe we all inherently know this—which makes the gap between what we’re currently contributing and what we have the ability to contribute all the more frustrating.

The work you do should improve your well-being so you can do more for others.

While I was finishing a draft of my next book, Life’s Great Question, about discovering how you best contribute to the world, a dear friend and colleague of mine passed away after a long battle with heart problems, a heart transplant, and subsequent cancer. Normally there is nothing I would have found more depressing than attending the memorial service of someone I loved and admired. But this time turned out to be different—in large part because of the way my friend Mark lived his life.

In Mark’s final months, I celebrated his fifty-seventh birthday with him and his wife, daughters, and parents. At dinner, we all went around the table and answered questions about Mark that his wife had written on a piece of paper. This gave me the opportunity to tell him how I was a better dad to my two kids because I’d learned so much from him about family, parenting, and having fun. It meant even more to share this while Mark was at the table and his daughters could hear how much we’d all learned about parenting by watching their growth.

Later that evening, I told Mark I was sure he had lived more in fifty-seven years than most people would live in several lifetimes. Because of his work, millions of students had learned about their natural talents during their first year of college. Thousands of students in college and Young Life, an organization he worked with, had benefited from his teaching and mentoring more directly.

Mark lived a life of contribution—to family, community, business, schools, and his faith. So his birthday night was sad at times, but it was also deeply meaningful. One thing I learned from this experience is that we must find ways to celebrate people’s lives and contributions while they are still alive. We need far more celebrations of life . . . even before people know they are dying.

A few weeks after that memorable dinner, my friend Mark Pogue passed away at home with his family. And his memorial service was something I will never forget. I heard students talk about how Mark had helped them stay in college, find a major, and much more. It was a memorial service, yet all the remarks and conversations focused on how countless people were already leading better lives, and would continue to do so for generations into the future, because of Mark’s efforts and contributions.

One thing was abundantly clear as I listened to friends, family, colleagues, and students: Mark lived a life that will just keep on growing to be far bigger than one human life span. This is what I believe we should all aim for: to make contributions to others’ lives that will grow infinitely in our absence.

A great commonality we all share is that we only have today to invest in what could outlive us. After today, there are no guarantees. As Mark taught me, every hour you devote to answering the question “What are you doing for others?” becomes something that gets to live on.

In the end, you are what you contributed to the world.

How Can I Contribute Today?

As of this writing, I am forty-three years old. I officially beat the over-under on my early life expectancy. Like millions of other people, I am now trying to figure out how to make the greatest contribution over the rest of my lifetime. While working to answer that question, I thought it would be helpful to look back at all the people who have contributed to my life.

As you have read this story, you likely noted how other people’s contributions have made me who I am. Throughout the years, so many people—from friends and family to teachers and researchers—have substantively influenced my life. My hunch is your story is also the result of others’ contributions.

When you think about getting over yourself and doing more for others, I encourage you to learn from those who shaped your story. Take a few moments now to think about some of the people who have had the greatest influence on your life. What can you learn from them? How can you let them know what a difference they made, before it is too late to tell them?

Next, start asking what the world around you needs today. I know from my own experience that you may not have tomorrow to do what matters most. Tomorrow turns into the next day, but you always have today.

Every morning, wake up and remind yourself: it’s not about me.

Then ask yourself: How can I contribute to another person’s life today?

ANSWERING LIFE’S GREAT QUESTION

If you enjoyed It’s Not About You, Tom Rath’s next book will help you apply what you have learned to better serve your family, teams, organizations, and communities. Life’s Great Question includes a unique access code to Contribify.com, which will allow you to identify your top three contributions and build a personalized profile.

Ready to find meaning and figure out how you can do more for others?

Order the book on Amazon now.

FURTHER READING

Albiñana, Virginia, Karina Villar Gómez de las Heras, Gemma Serrano-Heras, Tomás Segura, Ana Belén Perona-Moratalla, Mercedes Mota-Pérez, José María de Campos, and Luisa María Botella. “Propranolol Reduces Viability and Induces Apoptosis in Hemangioblastoma Cells from von Hippel-Lindau Patients.” Orphanet Journal of Rare Diseases 10, no. 118 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13023-015-0343-5.

Chancellor, Joseph, Seth Margolis, Katherine Jacobs Bao, and Sonja Lyubomirsky. “Everyday Prosociality in the Workplace: The Reinforcing Benefits of Giving, Getting, and Glimpsing.” Emotion 18, no. 4 (2018): 507–17. https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0000321.

Christov-Moore, Leonardo, and Marco Iacoboni. “Self-Other Resonance, Its Control and Prosocial Inclinations: Brain–Behavior Relationships.” Human Brain Mapping 37, no. 4 (April 2016): 1544–58. https://doi.org/10.1002/hbm.23119.

Gottman, John M., and Nan Silver. The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work: A Practical Guide from the Country’s Foremost Relationship Expert. New York: Random House, 2000.

Maddock, I. R., A. Moran, E. R. Maher, M. D. Teare, A. Norman, S. J. Payne, and D. G. Evans, et al. “A Genetic Register for von Hippel-Lindau Disease.” Journal of Medical Genetics 33, no. 2 (1996): 120–27. https://doi.org/10.1136/jmg.33.2.120.

Misra, Shalini, Lulu Cheng, Jamie Genevie, and Miao Yuan. “The iPhone Effect: The Quality of In-Person Social Interactions in the Presence of Mobile Devices.” Environment and Behavior 48, no. 2 (2014): 275–98. https://doi.org/10.1177/0013916514539755.

Rath, Tom. Are You Fully Charged? The Three Keys to Energizing Your Work and Life. Washington, DC: Silicon Guild, 2015.

Smith, Emily E., and Jennifer Aaker. “In 2017, Pursue Meaning Instead of Happiness.” Cut, December 30, 2016. https://www.thecut.com/2016/12/in-2017-pursue-meaning-instead-of-happiness.html.

Turner, Jasmin K., Amanda Hutchinson, and Carlene Wilson. “Correlates of Post-Traumatic Growth Following Childhood and Adolescent Cancer: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.” Psycho-Oncology 27, no. 4 (April 2018): 1100–9. https://doi.org/10.1002/pon.4577.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Photo © Charles King Photography

Tom Rath is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller How Full Is Your Bucket? and StrengthsFinder 2.0, as well as Life’s Great Question: Discover How You Contribute to the World, Strengths Based Leadership, Wellbeing, Eat Move Sleep, and Are You Fully Charged?

A former vice chair of the VHL cancer research organization and Gallup senior scientist, Tom has spent the past two decades studying how work can improve human health and well-being. At Gallup, he was the program leader for the development of the Clifton StrengthsFinder and went on to lead the organization’s leadership practices worldwide. Tom also cofounded a publishing company and is an adviser, investor, and partner in several start-ups. Tom holds degrees from the University of Michigan and the University of Pennsylvania, and he lives in Arlington, Virginia, with his wife, Ashley, and their two children. His books have sold more than ten million copies. For more information, visit www.tomrath.org.