Eric (00:00.238)
What is your life for? What is a human life for? I could also ask you, what is a relationship for? Or we could ask, what is work for? Hello again, everyone, and welcome into Heartbeat, the podcast. On today's episode, we're joining Landon Saunders as he visits inside a company with a group of employees. The topic, making a life.
why we're making a living. Here's Landon. Now here's an interesting thing. There are a few things that I would do that I would not sort of want to know what it's for. We ask what things are for almost across the board except with our lives. What is our life for? I hope that we can take one point and just go all the way to the bottom with it.
today. And that is the answer to the question, what is your life?
Eric (01:06.19)
Now, I think I'm just going to give you my answer.
A human life is for joy.
Eric (01:18.446)
It's spiritual.
And I almost have to, in saying that, I almost have to whisper.
Eric (01:30.894)
that a life is for joy. Joy is the only way you will ever fully know that you lived with purpose. Now you think about it. If we could convince each other today that a life is for joy, I would promise you that your company will increase in every single dimension of its mission.
It will increase. If a life is for joy, I think that joy is the deepest thing in the universe. I think it is the deepest thing in life that a human being is made for joy. I want you to pause just a moment and just reflect on that in terms of your own life. I'm going to ask you a few questions and you answer them. How much joy do you presently have?
in the way your life is configured.
Is it, is your life a happy life?
One of the most important stories that I tell, which happened to me in the Northeast several years ago, I was speaking with a woman after a workshop and she was describing a little bit of her life and she was very, very unhappy. Her husband had abandoned her years before and left her with two sons to raise alone.
Eric (03:07.406)
She had to work two, three, four jobs in the process of rearing those sons. And she said, as she described that, she said, I had to do everything. I had to work all these jobs. I had to be there for them at school. I had to provide the camping trips. I had to go to the ball games. And she just became more and more exasperated as she told what all she had done. And now the boys were reared, and they were married, and there were grandchildren.
And guess who they were spending time with? That no good husband who abandoned her, spending more time with him than with her. But as she talked and her face was flushed and the veins stuck out, I asked her, and I can't quite ask this without it seeming starker than it really was. But I asked her, I said, but,
Are you any fun to be with?
Eric (04:12.334)
Are you any fun to be with? Now it's true. What he did was wrong and I'm sorry that you had to work so hard. Nobody should have ever had to do that. And I'm sure you did it well and I'm sure you have two fine sons. But when they come over to visit you now, what do you talk about? Are you angry that they've been spending time with their no good father?
And are you complaining all the time that why are you doing that? Are you able to get over your resentment? Are you able to get over your anger long enough to enjoy your grandchildren and to appreciate your sons and daughters -in -law? And the tears begin to come down our cheeks. We can do everything, but I'm telling you, you can be a great worker, you can be a great husband, you can be a great wife, you can be a great son, you can be a great daughter, but let me tell you.
If you're no fun to be with, can we really say that we're living? I want us to see the relationship of joyfulness to your work and to your relationships and to yourself. Landon will be back in less than 30 seconds, but we want to take this time to remind you that there are free resources available that deal with this life.
driven by joy that Landon's speaking of. And you can find out all about them by visiting the website, thisishartbeat .com. That's thisishartbeat .com. Now, back to Landon. What does your company contribute to the good of the world?
Why is your company a significant company?
Eric (06:14.99)
I don't know if somebody gets down to the end of life and says, you know, I just, I wish I'd have spent more time at the office. Everybody's got to have a job. Everybody's got to have some money. Everybody's got to eat. If that became the whole thing, then we'd all quarrel with that a little bit, wouldn't we? I mean, when you thought about it, you'd think, well, you know, I don't know if that's the whole story. And I don't know if you would say that the purpose of your life is to make money.
I don't know if any of us would say that on the last day, the only thing that would really make me happy is to have a bank account, and the more money that was in the account, the happier I would be. Anyone that would think that hasn't thought very much. And so I'm going to ask again.
What's this company? What good does this company do? What contribution does it make? Now the reason we're spending a little time on this is it doesn't make any difference what group and almost of what company together. We rarely have times like this when we're all together to think about really what this is for, what this is about, and what...
what I'm a part of. 250 jobs represent what?
250 families. How unbelievably.
Eric (07:50.19)
heart.
it would be for any one of us to say that what we do is not important. I wish I could say this without it being rhetorical.
Is there anything that we could not do? If we ask, what is your work? We've asked, what is a human being for?
Now we're going to ask, what is the work of a human being? What is your work?
What is it that you have to do before you die to feel like that you belonged?
Eric (08:45.23)
that you made a contribution.
that your life was important and worthwhile. What would you have to do? Do you know what you would have to do?
How can you ever know whether you're accomplishing it or not? How can you ever know how far along you are? How can you ever know about the worth and value of your life if you've never ever asked seriously, what is the work that I am in the world to do? The work that has my name on it.
The work that if I do not do, it will never be done.
Eric (09:26.99)
What is the work of a human being?
And for starters, the work of every human being, you've got to give something to your world.
You've gotta contribute some.
The second thing that figures into this is the fact that the
is what you do for yourself and others. And that's almost all of it. To get down to the last day of your life and to look out at the trees and the flowers and the birds and the planet.
Eric (10:08.814)
and to say, I planted that tree.
Eric (10:19.054)
I left this lawn.
Eric (10:24.942)
I made this house.
I did.
Eric (10:33.39)
That's what will bring you satisfaction.
to look at other people and say, I helped her.
You could pile money as high as the ceiling.
Eric (10:55.15)
but on that last moment when you're gasping for your final breath.
There's not much it can do. It can make the passage a little easier. But I'll tell you, if there's one or two or three people, or four, to crowd around your bed that care for you, people that you've cared for,
and that you've loved.
Maybe someone that comes by and takes your hand and says to you, I don't know what I would have done without you.
Eric (11:42.222)
Do these things count?
Everybody wants somebody to say something about how to make your job a little easier or a little more this or a little more that.
Eric (12:02.03)
and what we're talking about today.
I promise, I guarantee it will do that.
Eric (12:12.078)
The best thing we can do for each other today is not to give you one more solution.
Eric (12:22.222)
The best thing we can do is to think about the way we think and to get turned loose. What some of that, see every single, every single one of us has joy in our lives if we could just access it more. If you feel like your life that you're not very far along and you're not really sort of at the.
place that you thought you would be 20 years ago. If you can try with all your heart to hear what we're saying, I promise you that it will make a profound difference in the way you're experiencing your day and your work.
Thanks for joining us for today's episode and a reminder that you can learn more about resources that are available for this life driven by joy by visiting our website at thisishartbeat .com. All resources are free and made possible as is this podcast by Friends of Heartbeat. Until next time, this is Heartbeat, the podcast.
