What if you could make every job deeply meaningful — no matter the industry, title, or task?
In this episode of The Flourishing Edge Podcast, host Ashish Kothari sits down with Tamara Myles, author, researcher, and founder of Keynote Speaker, to explore the science of meaningful work. Together, they reveal how leaders can turn workplaces into thriving communities where employees feel valued, challenged, and connected.
From her groundbreaking research, Tamara shares the Three C’s of Meaning — Community, Contribution, and Challenge — and how these elements can unlock performance, loyalty, and fulfillment across organizations.
💡 What You’ll Learn:
- 🌱 What makes work meaningful: Why it’s not what you do but how you experience what you do.
- 🧩 The 3 C’s Framework:
- Community — Creating belonging through care and authentic connection.
- Contribution — Recognizing impact and helping people see how their work matters.
- Challenge — Stretching potential with support to inspire growth and pride.
- 💬 Leadership’s impact on meaning: Research shows leaders shape 48% of how meaningful work feels.
- 🪞 The power of positive feedback: How one simple “thank you” per week can halve burnout and disengagement.
- 🔁 Gratitude as culture: A story of how one leader’s “five Friday thank-you emails” transformed an entire team.
- 🧠 The ROI of meaning: How fostering meaningful work drives productivity, retention, engagement — and even financial performance.
- 🤖 Meaning in the age of AI: Why human connection, purpose, and mattering are more vital than ever in a technology-driven world.
🧘 Guest Spotlight: Tamara Myles
Founder, Keynote Speaker & Researcher on Meaningful Work
🔗 Connect with Tamara on LinkedIn
Tamara Myles is a leading expert in organizational psychology and meaningful work. Her research, consulting, and talks help companies cultivate workplaces where people don’t just perform — they flourish.
🪞 Key Insight: “Meaningful work isn’t about what you do — it’s about how you experience what you do.”
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Happiness Squad Website: https://happinesssquad.com/
Ashish Kothari: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashishkothari1/
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/@MyHappinessSquad
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/happiness-squad
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/myhappinesssquad/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/myhappinesssquad
Transcript
Ashish Kothari:
Welcome to The Flourishing Edge, the podcast where we share weekly tips on making flourishing your competitive edge. I’m Ashish Kothari, your host, and each week we dive deep with flourishing experts, changemakers, and executives to share best practices that help unlock higher performance through science-based interventions.
Let’s step together into the edge of what’s possible and live, work, and lead with more joy, health, love, and meaning.
Tamara, it’s so lovely to have you on the Happiness Squad podcast. Thank you for joining us today and for sharing your incredible work and insights in the field of meaningful work.
Tamara Myles:
Thank you so much. I’m delighted to be here and really excited for our conversation.
Ashish Kothari:
We are such kindred spirits in this work. We spend so much of our lives working, yet most people think of work as something separate from life—“I work so I can live.” But the truth is, you’re living your life at work.
If you’re not thriving, growing, and becoming the best version of yourself at work, then you’re wasting a huge part of your life. I know this is central to your passion. I’ve shared my own journey often, but I’d love for you to share your origin story and how meaningful work became your life’s work.
Tamara Myles:
I started my career in advertising and over about ten years worked at three different agencies in three different places—St. Louis, New York City, and Durham, North Carolina.
What fascinated me was that I was doing essentially the same work at all three jobs—client service, strategy, development—but the experience felt completely different.
At two of the agencies, the work felt deeply meaningful. I had leaders who believed in me, saw my potential, and gave me opportunities to grow. I had colleagues who supported me and celebrated wins together. Leaders helped me see the impact of my work, whether through appreciation or sharing customer success stories.
At the third agency, none of that existed. I was bored, underutilized, and stifled. I kept asking for more responsibility and development opportunities, but nothing changed—even though the work itself was the same.
That contrast made me deeply curious. Why did the same work feel meaningful in one place and empty in another?
Later, I stepped away from advertising, started a family, and moved into consulting. What began as strategy consulting evolved into productivity consulting when I realized one of my strengths was time management and prioritization.
As people became more productive, something interesting happened—they had more time for what mattered most, felt more energized and engaged, and became even more productive. There was a virtuous cycle at play.
That curiosity led me back to graduate school to study this cycle. That’s when I discovered the science of meaningful work. Now I get to study and teach the mechanisms behind it.
Ashish Kothari:
That story is powerful. And I love this insight: meaningful work isn’t about what you do—it’s about how you experience what you do.
Tamara Myles:
Exactly. That’s what the research shows over and over again. Meaningful work is far less about job type and far more about experience.
Ashish Kothari:
And when people don’t find meaning at work, I believe that’s often a failure of leadership—not the individual.
Tamara Myles:
We found that too. Leaders are responsible for 48% of an employee’s experience of meaning at work. Individuals can only get halfway there on their own.
Leaders create the environment—the container—that either fosters meaning or kills it.
Ashish Kothari:
That resonates deeply. Leaders help connect people to impact, to each other, and to their own growth.
You talk about the Three C’s of Meaning. Let’s walk through them and how leaders can bring them to life.
Tamara Myles:
Absolutely. Meaning comes from three main sources:
Community, Contribution, and Challenge.
Community
Community is about belonging and authenticity. It answers the question: “Do I matter here?”
The strongest predictor of community in our research was whether people felt their leader cared about what was happening in their life outside of work—not just knowing, but caring.
Small moments matter: remembering a child’s soccer game, asking about a milestone, showing genuine interest. It only takes about 40 seconds to create a high-quality connection.
Contribution
Contribution is about knowing that what I do matters.
This shows up most powerfully through positive recognition. Research shows that one genuine “thank you” from a manager once a week can cut burnout in half.
We teach simple sentence starters like:
“I noticed how you…”
“Because of you…”
“If it weren’t for you…”
We also use a feedback framework called BEST:
Behavioral – what they did
Explicit – the impact it had
Strength-based – the strength they used
Timely – delivered close to the moment
Challenge
Challenge is about growth. It answers: “Does my development matter here?”
Meaningful work doesn’t always feel good in the moment. Often, it comes from being stretched by someone who believes in you and supports you through difficulty.
When leaders give people hard opportunities—with belief and support—it builds confidence, mastery, and lasting meaning.
Ashish Kothari:
This connects deeply to how we see people. If leaders believe people want to grow, achieve, and contribute, they lead very differently than if they believe people are lazy or disengaged.
Tamara Myles:
Exactly. The stories leaders hold about people become self-fulfilling prophecies.
Ashish Kothari:
Let’s talk about purpose, meaning, and mattering—terms often used interchangeably but not the same.
Tamara Myles:
Purpose is part of meaning, but it’s not the whole picture.
Purpose helps attract people to an organization, but it doesn’t guarantee meaningful daily experience. Purpose lives under contribution.
Meaning comes from the combination of:
Community (I matter here)
Contribution (What I do matters)
Challenge (My growth matters)
Mattering is the actionable side of meaning—it’s how meaning is felt day to day.
Ashish Kothari:
That distinction is so important. I’ve seen deeply purposeful work cause personal suffering when meaning is missing.
Let’s talk ROI. How do you show leaders that meaningful work isn’t just “nice to have”?
Tamara Myles:
Meaningful work is an upstream driver of the outcomes leaders care about—productivity, retention, engagement, and attraction.
When work becomes meaningful, those metrics improve. Meaning is a leading indicator; engagement and retention are lagging indicators.
Ashish Kothari:
As we close, one final question: in the age of AI, where people feel more replaceable and invisible, how do meaning and mattering become even more important?
Tamara Myles:
They become essential.
As technology advances, the human qualities—connection, adaptability, creativity, empathy—matter more than ever. How AI is implemented will determine whether it enhances or erodes meaning.
Organizations that use AI thoughtfully—to support humans rather than replace their humanity—will thrive.
Ashish Kothari:
Tamara, thank you for the work you do and for this conversation.
We spend most of our lives at work. A poorly lived work life is a poorly lived life. Leaders have a responsibility to infuse meaning, mattering, and purpose—for others and for themselves.
Tamara Myles:
Thank you, my friend. This was a joy.
Ashish Kothari:
Thank you for joining me on The Flourishing Edge. If today’s conversation inspired you, share it with someone ready to flourish. Subscribe, leave a review, and stay connected for more tools to achieve breakthrough performance through flourishing.
