Why Walking is More Powerful Than You Think & A Career You May Have Missed

Most recipes tell you to preheat the oven before cooking. But why? Wouldn’t it save time to just let the food cook while the oven heats up? There’s actually a very good reason recipes insist on preheating—and it has everything to do with chemistry, texture, and how food cooks. https://food52.com/story/16152-why-you-must-preheat-the-oven-even-if-you-re-in-a-rush Walking may be the most underrated thing you do for your health. It seems so ordinary that most people never think much about it—but how you walk, how often you walk, the shoes you wear, and even when you walk can have a profound impact on your body, your longevity, your energy, and your risk for disease. Dr. Courtney Conley, internationally recognized expert on foot mechanics and gait dynamics, explains why walking is far more sophisticated and important than most people realize. She works with elite athletes and professional sports teams including the Phoenix Suns, New York Yankees, Cleveland Browns, New York Giants, San Francisco 49ers, and Minnesota Vikings, and in our conversation she reveals how improving the way you walk could dramatically improve the way you feel. She is author of Walk: Rediscover the Most Natural Way to Boost Your Health and Longevity—One Step at a Time (https://amzn.to/48SHDq1). Most people choose careers from a surprisingly small slice of what’s actually available to them. Often, we follow paths we happened to be exposed to—through parents, friends, school, or circumstance—while countless other possibilities never even enter our awareness. Which raises an interesting question: could there be another kind of work you’d be better at, happier doing, or naturally gifted for? Tom Rath, who has spent decades researching work, behavior, and human wellbeing, explores how people discover meaningful work and why purpose has such a powerful effect on everyday life. He is author of What’s the Point? Turning Purpose Into Your Daily Superpower (https://amzn.to/3R0gATB). Most people know salty foods make you thirsty. What many don’t realize is that salt may also make you eat significantly more food—and not by accident. Researchers are discovering that salty, ultra-processed foods can alter the way your brain responds to hunger and satisfaction in ways that make overeating much more likely. https://keck.usc.edu/news/why-ultra-processed-foods-upfs-make-us-overeat-and-what-it-means-for-your-brain/ PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS POCKET HOSE: For a limited time, when you purchase a new Pocket Hose Ballistic, you'll get a FREE 360 degree rotating pocket pivot and a FREE thumb drive nozzle! Just text SYSK to 64000 AQUA TRU: Take the guesswork out of pure, great-tasting water. Head to ⁠⁠⁠https://AquaTru.com⁠⁠⁠ now and get 20% off your purifier using promo code SYSK. AquaTru even comes with a 30-day best-tasting water guarantee or your money back. RULA: This Mental Health Awareness Month, don’t just think about your mental health - actually take the step to take care of it. Visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://Rula.com/sysk⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to get started. QUINCE: Refresh your everyday with luxury you will actual use! Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://Quince.com/sysk⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada, too! DELL: With the Dell Pro laptop powered by Intel Core Ultra with vPro, no matter how many interruptions you have, your laptop won’t be one of them. With battery that’s optimized for the way you work, and built-in intelligence that quiets distractions the moment you’re trying to focus, your tech won’t slow you down. Find out more at https://Dell.com/Dell-Pro Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Mike Carruthers?

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• 0:42Mike Carruthers?

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• 1:23Mike Carruthers?

  Just go to indeed.com/podcast right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need the right hire fast? Then this is a job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs. Today on Something You Should Know, do you really have to preheat the oven before you cook something? Then the remarkable health benefits of walking. Just increasing daily step counts can do wonders, including preventing cancer.

• 2:01Speaker 01

  At 5,000 to 7,000 steps, you have an 11% lower risk of cancers. When you get 7,000 to 9,000 steps, 16% lower risk. I mean, this is something that we all have easy access to, that I think a lot of us aren't taking advantage of.

• 2:16Mike Carruthers?

  Also, is salt in your food making you eat more? And finding your calling? Is the career you've chosen the actual thing you're best at?

• 2:26Speaker 02

  Most people get all the way to the end of a career, and they never uncover what they could have been best at in life. And so, I've spent the last five years just doing an intensive dive around, how can we help people to at least see what's out there?

• 2:39Mike Carruthers?

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• 3:22Mike Carruthers?

  So, instead of bouncing around from website to website, you can search across stores, find what you're looking for, and track your orders, all in one place. Clothes, electronics, gifts, things for the house, all kinds of stuff. And whether you win or not, it's worth knowing. But with a thousand chances to win $1,000, I'd certainly take a look. Enter to win the $1 million Shop Cash giveaway from now until November 1st. Just go to shop.com. There are so many ways to win. That's shop.com. Shopping designed around you. No purchase necessary. Restrictions apply. Official rules available at shop.com.

• 4:09Speaker 03

  Something You Should Know. Fascinating intel. The world's top experts. And practical advice you can use in your life. Today. Something You Should Know. With Mike Carruthers.

• 4:22Mike Carruthers?

  Even if you're just an occasional cook, I'm sure you've wondered, "Why do you have to preheat the oven? Wouldn't it be better to just put the food in and let it heat up along with the oven?" Well, we're going to answer that question as we start this episode of Something You Should Know. I'm Mike Carruthers. Welcome. So it might appear that preheating the oven before you cook something is not only a waste of time, it's a waste of energy. Why do it? Well, according to food scientists and bakers, that first blast of heat once the oven is heated up is one of the most important parts of cooking. When dough and batter hit a properly heated oven,

• 5:05Mike Carruthers?

  trapped air and moisture rapidly expand, which creates the soft crumb in cakes, the flaky layers in pastries, the chewy crispy texture of a pizza crust, and the perfect bite of a cookie. Without that immediate blast of heat, the chemistry changes. Cookies can turn hard and dry. Cakes even develop a strange, dense layer at the bottom. Pastries lose their flakiness, and pizza crust can come out pale and limp instead of crispy and chewy. In other words, preheating isn't just about getting the oven hot. It's about triggering a chain reaction that completely changes the texture, flavor, and even the appearance of what you're cooking. And that is something you should know.

• 5:54Mike Carruthers?

  Okay, so this might seem a little weird to talk about walking. If you're an able-bodied person, walking is something you do every day. You do it a lot. You do it without thinking. It seems to work pretty well. It gets you from here to there. So what in the world could be so interesting about walking that would warrant a whole segment on Something You Should Know? Well, you'll be amazed.

• 6:22Mike Carruthers?

  From how you walk, when you walk, how much you walk, the shoes you wear when you walk, and how all of this affects your health and well-being. There is so much to the science of all of this, I bet you have never heard before. And there's no one better to discuss it than Dr. Courtney Conley. She holds a doctorate in chiropractic medicine, and she is an internationally recognized authority on foot mechanics and gait dynamics. She works with individual clients as well as professional athletic teams, including the Phoenix Suns, the New York Yankees, Cleveland Browns, New York Giants, San Francisco 49ers, and the Minnesota Vikings. She's author of a book called, "Walk: Rediscover the Most Natural Way

• 7:07Mike Carruthers?

  to Boost Your Health and Longevity, One Step at a Time." Hi Courtney, welcome to Something You Should Know.

• 7:14Speaker 01

  Thank you for having me on, and I'm excited to talk to you.

• 7:18Mike Carruthers?

  So when I think about it, walking is not a subject that comes up in conversation very often. And yet, we're doing it all day, every day. We don't really talk about it. So why are we talking about it?

• 7:30Speaker 01

  What I want to educate people on is that walking is a physiological necessity. So that should be in the same category as breathing and sleeping. And so, when we look at it from that lens, that it's a core biological input that every system in our body depends on to function well. If we are not getting the appropriate inputs, then every system in our body suffers. Your metabolic system, your cardiovascular system, your nervous system, your circulatory and lymphatic system. So because this is what we were designed to do, and what we have evolved to do, putting one step in front of the other is a non-negotiable.

• 8:15Speaker 01

  And we need to look at it, like I said, from that lens in order to live well and live long.

• 8:23Mike Carruthers?

  And is walking, walking, as long as you're putting one foot in front of the other, the steps are the steps? Or is there a quality of walking, a quality of steps that matters? Or just walk?

• 8:37Speaker 01

  That's a great question. And I always respond saying, anything is better than nothing. So when you're looking at, if you were to assess your baseline, for example, and see how many steps per day you're taking. If you are someone that lives on the lower end, say 2,500, 3,000 steps per day, then my recommendation is always just get out there. Take another 500 steps, which is called a micro walk, so that we can start to put more time on your feet. If you are someone that's already getting 6, 7, 8,000 steps, we can also look at intensity of your walking. A lot of the research, especially the ones looking at lowering the risk of certain cancers,

• 9:21Speaker 01

  talk about walking for 30 minutes at a brisk pace. So that's very different than, say, ambient steps that you get around your house. This is going outside or getting on a treadmill, walking at a specific speed. So if you were on a treadmill, it would be 3.5 or 4.0 miles per hour for 30 minutes. Or if you were outside, getting a step count of about 130 to 135 steps per minute. And when you can do that, the research is really exciting. At 5,000 to 7,000 steps, you have an 11% lower risk of cancers. When you get 7,000 to 9,000 steps, 16% lower risk.

• 10:06Speaker 01

  I mean, this is, this is something that we all have easy access to, that I think a lot of us aren't taking advantage of.

• 10:14Mike Carruthers?

  And so what's the connection? What's the connection between steps and this reduction of health problems?

• 10:22Speaker 01

  Well, when you look at it, for example, with each system. So if I were to take the metabolic system, a lot of the research talks about going for a walk after you eat. And when you eat something, you have an increase in glucose in your bloodstream.

• 10:41Speaker 01

  And our goal is to get the glucose out of the bloodstream and into the cells to be used. Our pancreas does that, and so does activity, movement, walking. So when we eat a meal and we're sedentary afterwards, the pancreas is the only system that's working. We're not taking advantage of the movement system. So the pancreas has to work harder. So for someone who has diabetes, for example, or insulin resistance, and we all should be monitoring, you know, our glucose levels to some extent, this form of activity of going for a 10 to 15 minute walk after you eat has so many health benefits for your metabolic

• 11:25Speaker 01

  system, for example, and you can relate that research to, like I said, every system in the body.

• 11:31Mike Carruthers?

  And that 10 to 15 minute walk after dinner tends to be pretty leisurely because you've just eaten a meal, it's evening, you're getting tired. And I would imagine brisker would be better, but leisurely is fine, or what?

• 11:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's interesting. After you eat, the researcher will say, just get out there. They don't look at how fast you're walking. It's just get outside, get on your treadmill, and go for 10 to 15 minutes. The interesting thing that they found there was making it within 30 minutes of the meal, though. So that's when you would see the most benefits for this glucose metabolism, insulin sensitivity is within 30 minutes of your meal.

• 12:20Mike Carruthers?

  Regardless of how you walk?

• 12:23Speaker 01

  Regardless of speed. It's just 10 to 15 minutes after you eat, which is, you know, it's nice. My daughter and I do that after dinner. It's a nice little walk.

• 12:33Mike Carruthers?

  You said, I think you said, "The average number of steps people take per day is somewhere around 4,500 steps a day."

• 12:42Speaker 01

  That's the average. When you look across the board, global, how many, well, how many steps are people taking on average? And it's 4,700, 5,000 steps per day.

• 12:54Mike Carruthers?

  What surprises me is that if you walk a mile, which sounds like a lot of walking, that's only about 2,000, 2,500 steps. That's not even halfway there.

• 13:04Speaker 01

  Right. If you look at it from that context, five minutes is about 500 steps. So 10 minutes would be 1,000. It's interesting, you know, when I'm in my clinic and I'm seeing patients, I'm constantly moving. So I'm never sitting for the eight or nine hours that I'm there. But when I get home and I look at my step count, I'll sometimes only be at 4,000, 5,000 steps. So it's been a reminder for me as well, when I get home, if I haven't hit my baseline, which is 7,000 is my baseline, then I know I have a 20-minute walk to do before I'm, before I'm calling it a day.

• 13:46Mike Carruthers?

  What about the idea that walking a lot causes injuries, that wears things out, that it's, it's, too much is not good?

• 13:58Speaker 01

  When you understand the mechanics of walking, I think we can reframe that a little bit. Walking is a low-load activity. It also is a mid-range, range-of-motion activity. So what I mean by that is if you were to look at your ankle mobility, ankle range of motion is around 20, 25 degrees, some have 30 degrees. So that's your average ankle range of motion. But in a walking gait, the ankle only needs 10 degrees of range of motion. That's the same with the big toe. So we're not taking our joints to their end

• 14:42Speaker 01

  range when we're walking. That's why we, as human beings, are able to walk upright and balanced for very long distances. We are endurance creatures.

• 14:56Speaker 01

  So to say that walking too much can be detrimental. I would argue that is it the walking? Or is it potentially that there's a weakness somewhere? Do you have weakness in your feet? Do you have weakness or less ankle power? And when those things happen, then the longer you walk, things become more difficult because you are no longer efficient. But we as human beings should be able to walk for very long distances, well over seven to eight thousand steps if we chose to, without being concerned that we would be causing damage to our joints and tissues.

• 15:40Mike Carruthers?

  What about people who are seriously overweight? So they're putting a lot more stress on their joints because of all the weight they're carrying.

• 15:49Speaker 01

  Small doses. This is a large portion of my patient population, or either people that are overweight or in pain. And we want to build confidence with them in their movement and get them to trust their bodies. So we start with micro walks, five minutes. And we will see how they feel that night and the next morning. And it's progressive load. You're just slowly adding time on your feet and outside. You're building endurance. And it's a safe way to do that because of the amount of loads going through the system.

• 16:33Mike Carruthers?

  In a moment, I want to talk to you about walking on a treadmill. Because with a treadmill, you can design your own terrain, your own incline, your own program. But what's the best way to do that?

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• 17:15Speaker 05

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• 17:41Mike Carruthers?

  We're talking about walking with Dr. Courtney Connolly. She's author of Walk: Rediscover the most natural way to boost your health and longevity, one step at a time. So Courtney, for people who walk on a treadmill, like I do, always wonder like, what's the best incline number? Or should you be walking flat? Should you be walking uphill? If so, how much? What do you say?

• 18:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's many benefits to treadmill walking. It's a controlled environment. So we can keep the speed the same. If you were interested in weight loss and you wanted to focus on zone two training, you can do that easier on a treadmill because you can keep the environment controlled. On the treadmill, I like to keep the incline at a minimum of 1.0 because it takes a little bit of the... There's a little kickback feature on a treadmill. So when you put it to 1.0, it takes care of that. But then on the treadmill, you can also do interval training, which I really like. So that would be, you could increase the incline to say three or four.

• 18:51Speaker 01

  Walk there for a couple of minutes and then drop it back down. And I like that training variability. I think it's very good from a cardiovascular perspective.

• 19:02Mike Carruthers?

  What about the shoes you wear?

• 19:05Speaker 01

  The simplest answer to that is the widest part of your foot should be your toes. So if you were to look down at your foot, the widest part should be the toes. Which means that if footwear is going to respect the anatomy of the foot, to allow it to function as it should, the widest part of our shoes should be the toe box. Not the ball of the foot, the actual toe box. And I think if you look at the majority of footwear, you'll see that the toe box is tapered. It almost looks like it's pointing. That changes the function of the foot. In particular, the big toe.

• 19:48Speaker 01

  That big toe is responsible for pushing us forward, for stabilizing our forefoot, for getting us to balance. And when you take that big toe and you angle it and squeeze it into a toe box, you're changing the function of the foot. And that's truly why I believe we see the majority of forefoot injuries or pain in the ball of the foot, because people go to push off when they're walking and they no longer have a wide, stable platform.

• 20:17Mike Carruthers?

  Wow.

• 20:18Speaker 01

  They have a tapered toe box.

• 20:21Mike Carruthers?

  I'm looking at my shoes and I have a tapered toe box. And this is a, you know, name brand athletic shoe. How hard are the shoes you're talking about? How hard are they to find?

• 20:33Speaker 01

  When I first started doing this, there was one company. But now there's thousands that are starting to realize the importance of putting your foot into a shoe that respects the anatomy and function of it.

• 20:53Mike Carruthers?

  So if I were to call the guy that designs the shoes for, you know, Nike or Skechers or whatever, and I ask him, "Well, you guys taper your toes there. What's the point?" What would they say?

• 21:08Speaker 01

  I've called. Trust me, I've called plenty of them. There is a, an important caveat to this conversation is that there is a difference between a wide shoe and a wide toe box. So a lot of these companies have wide shoes, which is width at the ball of the foot. That's a different conversation than a wide toe box. So they'll say, well, we do have wide shoes. And I'll say, well, the width is in the wrong place. These companies are well aware of this research. The problem is, is that their entire business model is based on stability footwear or fashionable

• 21:53Speaker 01

  footwear. And we were warned, this is, we were warned centuries ago that if we started compromising our foot because of footwear, that we were going to see problems. And I truly believe that if we were to pay attention, especially with our children, that we would see a lot, a lot less of these foot injuries.

• 22:16Mike Carruthers?

  So if I looked at your shoes right now, would I think, well, those look kind of goofy? Or do they, I mean, what, it's hard to ima, I have to look this up online, but, but do they look weird?

• 22:28Speaker 01

  Well, when they, the first company that I first looked, that I was, when I first got into this, you could say yes, but they've come a long way. My daughter is 15 and she'll say to me, Mom, you make me wear these platypus shoes. So our eyes have been trained to think that fashionable footwear is very pointed and very narrow. Yes, my shoes, my non-negotiable with my footwear is a wide toe box.

• 23:00Mike Carruthers?

  Wow. And, and to buy a wide toe box shoe, if I were to look for one online, I would, I would ask, I would search for a wide toe box shoe?

• 23:12Speaker 01

  Yes, I have companies, I'm just not sure if I'm allowed to.

• 23:16Mike Carruthers?

  Yeah, sure, yeah, you can say, I'm sure.

• 23:18Speaker 01

  We talk about the difference between functional versus minimal footwear. So functional footwear is your wide toe box. Having the heel and toe in a low to zero drop, which basically means if you were to stand barefoot on the ground, your heel and your toe would be on the same plane. That's a position that aligns the rest of our bodies, our ankle, our knee, our hips. So when you wear a shoe that has, say, an eight millimeter drop or a 10 millimeter drop, you're basically in a high heel. And that's the majority of athletic shoes out there. So functional footwear, wide toe box, low to zero drop.

• 24:01Speaker 01

  Companies that fit in that category, Ultra Running, Topo Athletic, and there's a new company called Notice. If you pay attention, you'll start to see more and more people wearing this type of footwear. With my patients, when we're transitioning them out of traditional footwear, I always start with one of those companies because those shoes have a little more cushion on them.

• 24:29Mike Carruthers?

  There's a lot of companies that are

• 24:35Mike Carruthers?

  conspicuously absent from your list.

• 24:39Speaker 01

  Yes. You are very correct.

• 24:44Mike Carruthers?

  And some of them, I would think, would be on your list, people that see, the companies that seem to make shoes for, well, they're not necessarily making walking shoes, they're making tennis shoes or running shoes, and maybe that's a different conversation.

• 25:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, one of the things, everybody has a different sized foot. So what you can do at home is take out the factory insert of your shoe. So if you have any type of running shoe at home, or walking shoe, take out the factory insert, put your foot on it.

• 25:20Speaker 01

  And splay your toes. Because most people's feet, when you look at them, because they've been in restrictive footwear for so many years, their toes are, look like a shoe. They're tapered towards the top. So if you can put your foot on the factory insert and spread your toes out, do your toes expand over the factory insert? And if they do, you know, when you put your foot inside that shoe, that your toes are going to be squished together. So some people with more narrow feet, for example, can get away with some of these other companies, but for the most part, the majority of footwear does not respect the anatomy of the foot.

• 26:05Speaker 01

  And it's really interesting that, as I've called many of these companies, a lot of the people that design these shoes have a fashion background and not an anatomy background.

• 26:16Mike Carruthers?

  Interesting. Interesting. Because you would think the opposite when it comes to athletic shoes, that the shoes would be designed for the purpose that the shoe is intended for. These are basketball shoes. These are running shoes. These are walking shoes.

• 26:30Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 26:31Mike Carruthers?

  No, apparently not.

• 26:33Speaker 01

  No.

• 26:34Mike Carruthers?

  Well, you've certainly said a lot of things I've never heard before, not just about shoes, but what you were saying earlier about the relationship between walking and cancer. I mean, this is really eye-opening. I've been speaking with Dr. Courtney Connolly, and she is author of a book called Walk: Rediscover the Most Natural Way to Boost Your Health and Longevity, One Step at a Time. And there's a link to her book at Amazon in the show notes. Courtney, this was great. Thank you. Thanks for explaining all this.

• 27:05Speaker 01

  Thank you, Mike, so much. I've really enjoyed this conversation.

• 27:36Speaker 05

  Pink Pantheress here. Coach and Spotify are teaming up to bring music and style together, and they want you to be part of it. Grab your friends and head to the Tabby Tour, hitting cities around the country with live performances from special artists, exclusive experiences, and personalized products. And discover custom playlists on Spotify, booked just for you based on who you are and how you listen. Live your story with Coach. Learn more at coach.com.

• 28:06Mike Carruthers?

  From an early age, many of us are told some version of this message: Follow your passion, chase your dream, do what you love. And if you don't find that one perfect calling, or you end up in a job that's not your life's passion, it can feel like somehow you missed out. But what if that whole idea is misguided? What if purpose and fulfillment don't come from finding one magical thing you were meant to do? What if meaning is something much more practical and much more attainable? My guest says we've put way too much pressure on ourselves to discover a grand purpose, when in reality, small daily actions may matter far more.

• 28:51Mike Carruthers?

  Tom Rath has spent the last two decades researching how work and behavior affect human well-being. He's the author of several bestselling books, and his latest is called "What's the Point? Turning Purpose Into Your Daily Superpower." Tom, welcome to Something You Should Know.

• 29:09Speaker 02

  Thanks so much. It's good to be with you.

• 29:11Mike Carruthers?

  So what about this idea of seeking out whatever it is you're passionate about as the road to fulfillment? What does the research say, and what do you say?

• 29:22Speaker 02

  I think what the biggest challenge or mismatch that I see out there right now is that we're essentially doing things backwards, and we're starting with who we are and then expecting the world to revolve around us. And I think a lot of people realize pretty early on in their career that it doesn't work out that way very well. So what I've been encouraging people to do the more I study this and learn about it is to, instead of trying to kind of pump who they are into the world, to do a much deeper dive and focus on what the community around you needs, what your family needs, what your customers need, what the world needs, and then to figure out how you can connect some of those dots. Because simply starting with what you're passionate about... It creates an instant mismatch in the basic supply and demand of people and labor

• 30:07Speaker 02

  markets out there.

• 30:08Mike Carruthers?

  Well, I mean, I guess it could by accident fit into the scheme of things, but it seems like the odds are much better doing it the way you just suggested instead of the other way around.

• 30:20Speaker 02

  You know, most people that I talk to, they wind up in the jobs that they're in the same way I did. And most people I know where you end up doing what mom did, you do what dad did, or you do where who will employ you, or where the money is, or where the social expectations are. But in very few cases is it ever the product of real, meaningful thought and working things through and trying to see what's out there. And that's one of my biggest concerns in life, especially for my kids who are 15 and 17 right now, because I'm increasingly convinced that most people get all the way to the end of a career and they never uncover what they could have been best at in life. And so I've spent the last

• 31:00Speaker 02

  three to five years just doing an intensive dive around how can we help people to learn more earlier on so that they at least see what's out there.

• 31:10Mike Carruthers?

  Well, when your son or your daughter comes to you and says, you know, or you have a conversation about, you know, what do you want to do with your life? What kind of, what is it that interests you? The question is, what interests you? It's what do you want to do? What do you find interesting? That that's usually where the conversation begins.

• 31:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, and my biggest concern is that they're not even qualified to answer that question. So when I asked my daughter that when she was 14, three years ago, and I said, what are the things you kind of think about when you're thinking about careers? I started to dig into this. And for context, my wife's a second grade teacher. She said, oh, I think maybe I could be a teacher, or maybe a writer. So that's, I mean, there are, you'd need to see 50 jobs, have exposure to 50 jobs, just to see half of the US workforce. I've done the math on this. And so if young people are asked to figure out what they want to major in, or what they want to do for a career, when they're 17 years old or 21 years old, they probably have about 5 to 10% field

• 32:15Speaker 02

  of view or aperture, if you think about it, similar to a camera lens. And so we've got to find ways to stretch that a little bit, because the byproduct of it is that you end up in a job when you're 35 that you burn out in and you're not loving, or you miss out on an opportunity to be really great at something, because our system pushed you to focus and narrow so early on that people never had the chance to broaden their exposure, essentially.

• 32:42Mike Carruthers?

  Well, it seems that when you look back, or you talk to people about, oh, how did you get into the line of work that you're in? It isn't from any kind of deep thought, or, as you were saying, it's because your father did it, or the neighbor knew a guy who had a job that you took, or, it seems very happenstance and very random. It doesn't seem like a thoughtful approach.

• 33:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, most people, to be really honest, they just fall into the defaults, right? And so, as I've, and even, even when I've been interviewing people about this for three or four years now, and when I get back and talk to them about what their precious childhood dreams, usually those childhood dreams are more of an amalgamation of what their parents might have been good at, or might have failed at, and pushed down to the next generation. Or, I mean, some of it's really innocent, where we've grown up in a kind of a developing country with a real hard work ethic, where it's natural for parents to say, I want to pass X or Y or Z psychologically or financially on to the next generation. And there's a piece of financial security and sustenance built

• 33:53Speaker 02

  into that as well. But yet, I mean, I've met with people who have passed businesses on to the next generation of their family, and I say to the first-generation founder who passed on, I said, you know, did you ever ask your kids if they wanted to be a part of this? And they'll kind of look at me and chuckle and be like, no, actually, I didn't.

• 34:11Mike Carruthers?

  You know, I'm curious if there are any statistics about how often someone actually goes into the same business their parents were in. Do we have any sense of that?

• 34:24Speaker 02

  You know, it's absolutely unbelievable. There's some tables we have in this new book, "What's the Point?" where it shows that if your father was a dentist, you're more than 100 times as likely to do that. Or if your mother was in the military service, you're 200 times more likely to end up in that exact job. And there's research that, longitudinal 30-year research out of Europe, showing how most young men between, I think it was between 1970 and 2000 roughly, because these are long-term studies, they not only end up, a majority end up in the same job or industry as their father. It's, boys follow men, women follow their mothers, on average, to oversimplify it. But it's almost a third end up in the exact same company and job. So it's overwhelming, the degree to which

• 35:09Speaker 02

  we pretty much just follow our parents. A part of what got me into this work and really struck me was I, when I first met my wife 20 years ago, she took me to a wedding down in South Carolina, and it was a bunch of people I'd never met. And the first question all the young men my age asked me, they said, "Oh, what's your daddy do?" And I didn't really understand the question at first. And I asked my wife, I said, "What's this about?" And they said, "Oh, they just know that that's what you're going to do, and that represents what your social standing will be." Right? And so, I mean, growing up around a couple of family businesses, that's frightened me a little bit, where am I just kind of falling into this because it's what everybody expects?

• 35:48Mike Carruthers?

  So if the approach of "What does your daddy do?" or "What do you want to be when you grow up?" If those aren't the best ways to go about it, what works better?

• 35:58Speaker 02

  I think what works better is doing a thorough evaluation of, A, what's out there, and what are things that people do that are important and that do serve a need, and that needs to be built into more of our educational programming. It needs to be built into more of the conversations that we as parents have with our kids. So we say to our kids, "We want you to explore a lot of stuff and find what you could be great at, not just feel like you need to do what mom or dad did."

• 36:26Speaker 02

  I also think it takes some examination as we enter the workforce to say, what are the things that not only society values most, but how can I make sure that in the earliest years of my time in the workforce, I get exposure to a lot more than... There was kind of a conventional wisdom when I entered the workforce, geez, almost 30 years ago now, where the goal or the dream was to have a lifelong career. And I think that's already changed quite a bit, where people are moving around every year and a half, two, three, four years. And so to think about that broadening of exposure, especially in the earliest stages of a career, as a positive aspect, might be a good thing.

• 37:05Mike Carruthers?

  Very often, when you talk to young people about what they want to do, the answer is, "I don't know."

• 37:13Mike Carruthers?

  It's kind of hard to carry on the conversation from, "I don't know."

• 37:19Speaker 02

  It's hard to carry on the conversation from, "I don't know." And that's a part of the reason why I've spent most of my time in the last few years trying to... We've sent production crews out all over the country and filmed people doing a day in the life of being a veterinarian, a day in the life of being a pilot, a day in the life of being a nurse, and talked about the stressful parts, the fun parts, exciting parts, the boring parts, just so we had some videos to show people about what that's like. Because when I look back at my own experience, I mean, I followed my family into a family business and ended up kind of doing research and writing because of my family and mentors and where that path took me. And, I mean, as I look back now, the thing I'm most passionate about and spend hours every morning studying is more about health and medicine, to be really honest.

• 38:02Speaker 02

  But I never knew any nurses, or PAs, or physicians growing up, or there's a really good chance I could have and should have studied that. So I think as parents and teachers and mentors, we've all got to do a little bit better job of helping people to stretch that field of view.

• 38:19Mike Carruthers?

  Well, that's a really important point, is that... People could be good at lots of things, but it really has to do with how much exposure you have to something. If you might have been great in the medical field, but you didn't really have the exposure to that, it's kind of hard to know, it's hard to know what you don't know.

• 38:41Speaker 02

  That's, you know, that's, as I've worked on this for the last five years, I've talked to my team about it and said, the biggest problem we have with trying to educate people around this is that people don't know what they don't know. So you just came to that perfectly, where it's, we don't even, we're looking out of a lens where we can see about three degrees of all the careers out there, maybe five degrees if we're lucky, out of 180 or whatever. And if that's, or if we're looking out of a pinhole, there's almost no way we have a shot at that. So I think the goal should probably be to help people see 10 or 20% of what's out there instead of three to five. And that, that would be, that would make some big progress. And I also think that the way the nature of jobs is changing

• 39:24Speaker 02

  so fast right now, that if we have this upheaval that is already starting in pockets I'm seeing, that a lot of people are going to be forced to say, hey, what's a career that was never on my radar when I was young, but I need to kind of think about new ways where I can contribute to the world, even if it's in a very different capacity?

• 39:44Mike Carruthers?

  Well, we hear today that people, unlike in previous generations, don't pick a career, work it for 50 years, get a watch when they leave and that's the end of it, that they have multiple careers, or certainly many multiple jobs within an industry, that it isn't like it used to be.

• 40:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, I don't, I don't think it's realistic at all for someone to think about a career in the same sense that I would have growing up, and something you kind of stick with forever. And that's, that can be, produce anxiety and be challenging in terms of the security and financial aspect of it. And I hear from young people about that all the time. But it also presents a little bit of opportunity because ideally, early on in your career, you're going to have the opportunity to jump around a little bit more, see some more opportunities and then ask a question about, over the next 20, 30, 40 years of your life, what are all the different ways that you can make a contribution to your community or your organization? And continue to find ways to do things that serve a purpose.

• 40:46Speaker 02

  That was kind of the other big discovery from this whole research project I've been working on is that when I heard the word purpose at first, it seems like this big time-consuming quest and something that eventually you find after years and years of hard work. When in reality, purpose is just something that you have to build into your day on more of a moment-to-moment, an hourly basis. And make sure that you're connecting back what you do every day with the value it delivers for another person. And if you're able, if you're able to build that into your daily routine, purpose becomes something that's a lot more practical than a big intimidating, overwhelming concept about kind of like winning in your career essentially.

• 41:29Mike Carruthers?

  So then how do you find something that makes you happy, that lights you up, not just because you made a difference in some people's lives, but because you enjoy the work you're doing?

• 41:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, that's the obvious goal. And I think it's also important to set realistic expectations where when I first started working on this research about strengths with our teams at Gallup many years ago, the question that we ask people in the Gallup's Employee Engagement Survey many years ago is, I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day. So none of us, even as much, many decades as I've spent on this, I don't get to spend 50, 60, 70% of my day doing things that are super fulfilling and use my strengths and all that. But I need to try and figure out a way to do that at least once a day and maybe even with 10 or 20 or 30% of my day if I'm really lucky. And acknowledge that that's kind of the fuel that keeps things going, even though we all have to answer emails, we all have to do expense reports and

• 42:27Speaker 02

  do things our boss wants that may not be at the top of our priority list. So there's some alignment of expectations there too, where I think people in the workforce today need to have some realism about that, where it's making sure you have some small wins throughout the day and then acknowledging those wins instead of taking it for granted. So you have a little motivation to keep going the next day, even if you're in a Neutral to mediocre job until you find something better.

• 42:53Mike Carruthers?

  What about people who say, or who think that really, they don't care so much what they do. They just want to make a lot of money. Is that a worthy goal?

• 43:06Speaker 02

  I don't think so personally. I'll just be real direct. I think if the soul, the more that the goal is climbing a financial ladder, the less likely the person is to ever find real purpose or meaning or satisfaction because that is a kind of what researchers call a hedonic treadmill that never stops, where if that's your orientation, you're always going to have discontent and you're always going to feel inadequate when you're comparing yourself to a higher status group, which just keeps going and going and going. So there, of course, all of us, you need to make enough money to where it's not causing day-to-day stress and consternation. You're not worrying about paying your bills. You're

• 43:49Speaker 02

  not worrying about your mortgage. You're not worrying about being able to feed yourself. But once you get to that point, every doubling in income, people think it's going to make them twice as happy and it makes them, I don't know, five or seven percent as happy with each doubling in income. So all the time that's wasted on that from a social and a family and an emotional and a relational standpoint, I think is commonly a mistake.

• 44:12Mike Carruthers?

  And but at least today, it seems that once you choose a career, you're not locked into it in the way that maybe people were a few generations ago, where once you became a doctor or a lawyer or whatever, that was pretty much it for you. Now, it's much more acceptable to jump ship and go do something else that you want to do.

• 44:35Speaker 02

  It is, but there's still, I would argue, like a little bit of that, what psychologists call that endowment effect, where once you've put four years into an engineering degree or once you've put six to eight years into medical education, or you've put six years into a law degree, you're much less likely to jump because you feel like you've invested so much time and psychologically. And financially into the more specialized training in some of those fields. So I mean, another part of the problem here is I talked to a bunch of my friends who I went to undergraduate college with at Michigan, and they mostly went into med school or law school because that's what their parents expected of them, whether their parents were in those professions

• 45:19Speaker 02

  as well or not. And out of the ones that went to law school, there may be one out of five who are still practicing law because they realized they didn't enjoy that and probably would have taken back going to law school if they'd done a more thorough evaluation of that. So you still have some of that baked into the higher education system. You have a little bit less when you get into trades and two-year and technical school.

• 45:43Mike Carruthers?

  Yeah, well, that does seem to be pretty commonplace with lawyers. You hear that a lot about lawyers, and I know some too, that went through law school, became lawyers, and hated it and left and thought, this is not, this is not for me. And you wonder what, it took you a long time to figure that out.

• 46:03Speaker 02

  You know, I spent a big chunk of my career studying global well-being research. And if there are two things that you really don't want to do for your well-being over a decade or a lifetime, the first one would be, like we talked about, don't retire because you'll fall off, have a huge fall off. The second one would be, don't go to law school. Those are the two.

• 46:22Mike Carruthers?

  Well, this is something everybody needs to think about regardless of where they are in their career. And maybe people do think about this, but I haven't heard it talked about this way. So I appreciate you sharing this. Tom Rath has been my guest. He is author of the book, What's the Point? Turning Purpose Into Your Daily Superpower. There's a link to his book at Amazon in the show notes. Thank you, Tom, for the conversation.

• 46:47Speaker 02

  Thanks so much, Mike. Take care.

• 46:52Mike Carruthers?

  People trying to lose weight often focus on sugar and calories. But one overlooked culprit might be salt. Research from Deakin University found that adding salt to food caused people to eat about 11% more calories because salty foods were simply more pleasurable to eat. Today, scientists believe salt is part of something even bigger: the rise of hyper-palatable foods, foods loaded with combinations of salt, fat, and sugar that can overpower the body's normal fullness signals and just keep us eating long after we should stop.

• 47:32Mike Carruthers?

  Researchers say these foods may help explain why ultra-processed foods are linked to overeating and weight gain. In fact, ultra-processed foods now account for more than half of the calories consumed by many Americans. The really interesting part is that salt may not just season food. It may actually make it harder for your brain to know when you've had enough. And that is something you should know. And that's one of those things you might want to share in a conversation with someone. And if you do, you might tell them where you heard it. Share the episode. Tell people about this show. I'd appreciate it. I'm Mike Carruthers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know.

• 48:15Speaker 05

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• 48:43Speaker 06

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