After more than 70 episodes asking what makes work meaningful, Adam finally has a working answer: learning with people who make him laugh while providing for his family.

Then AI changed how he experiences all three.

In this episode, Adam and Stephen explore whether AI strengthens our connection to work or quietly erodes it. It can accelerate learning, eliminate tedious tasks, and increase our ability to provide. But it can also remove the small human interactions that make work enjoyable and introduce an uncomfortable question: What happens when the systems we build can do our jobs too?

Takeaways

• Meaningful work is personal. Adam finds it through learning, laughter, and providing for his family, while Stephen looks for strengths, community, and balance.
• AI may not eliminate learning, but it changes what we need to learn and can leave us feeling permanently behind.
• Efficient answers can come at a relational cost. A 15-minute conversation with a coworker may be inefficient, but it can also make work feel more human.
• AI is neither inherently meaningful nor meaningless. The challenge is using it intentionally to strengthen the parts of work that matter most to us.

Chapters

• 00:00 Did Adam finally figure out meaningful work?
• 02:45 The questions that started Identity Work
• 03:50 Adam’s three pillars of meaningful work
• 05:10 Why “people who make me laugh” matters
• 08:33 What happens when AI changes the equation?
• 09:52 Is AI helping us learn or removing the struggle?
• 14:27 Learning versus operating in your strengths
• 19:11 The human interactions lost to efficiency
• 24:42 Will AI help us provide or replace us?
• 27:20 When AI comes for the product manager
• 29:23 Using AI to deepen meaning and connection
• 31:18 Epiphany Corner and the Delve Deck
• 36:55 How is AI changing your experience of work?

Listener Reflection

What makes work meaningful for you? Write your answer in one sentence. Then consider how AI is affecting each part of it. Where is it increasing your connection to work, and where might it be quietly taking something away?

Why can we accomplish ten things and only think about the one we left undone?

In this episode, Adam and Stephen wrestle with the persistent feeling that they are falling behind at work, at home, and in life. Adam shares how competing priorities, unfinished house projects, and an imaginary better version of himself left him wishing for a 36-hour day. They explore research showing why criticism and failure stick more powerfully than encouragement, and whether deliberately remembering our wins can help counteract that tendency.

The conversation turns to Max Lucado’s You Are Special and its story of stars and dots. Adam and Stephen consider the uncomfortable possibility that freedom from criticism may also require loosening our dependence on praise. They discuss receiving feedback without turning it into an identity, defining what would make a day successful, and committing everything left unfinished to God.

Takeaways

• We often compare ourselves to a fictional version who is better than us at everything and constrained by nothing.
• Bad is stronger than good. Criticism, failure, and unfinished work naturally command more of our attention than encouragement and progress.
• Remembering a win is helpful, but lasting security cannot come from placing more stars on ourselves.
• If we want the dots to stop sticking, we may also need to let go of our dependence on stars.
• Choosing two priorities can give a day a clear definition of success, even when many other tasks remain unfinished.
• Our value does not rise and fall with our productivity, feedback, or ability to keep every ball in the air.

Chapters

• 00:00 - The Question: Am I Enough?
• 01:35 - Competing With an Imaginary Version of Yourself
• 02:39 - When Every Priority Feels Essential
• 05:22 - Wishing for a 36-Hour Day
• 06:47 - Why Bad Is Stronger Than Good
• 09:20 - Practicing Daily Self-Encouragement
• 12:08 - Why One Criticism Erases Ten Compliments
• 13:25 - The Stars and Dots of You Are Special
• 16:21 - Can We Release Criticism Without Releasing Praise?
• 18:01 - Committing Everything Left Undone
• 19:53 - Defining What Makes Today Successful
• 22:03 - Seeing Yourself Through a Father’s Eyes
• 24:06 - AI Corner: Unleashing Claude in Slack
• 28:26 - Using AI to Bring More Fun to Work
• 29:53 - Delve Deck: Frivolous Hills to Die On
• 31:27 - Listener Reflection

Listener Reflection

What might change if you allowed both affirmations and criticisms to stick a little less?

For the first in-person episode of Identity Work, Adam is joined by his friend and podcast superfan Griffin Davis. Stephen is absent, so Griffin receives the full Adam Beasley Experience: one microphone, two coffee mugs, and whiskey in the home office.

Griffin recently left The Home Depot, just two months after earning a promotion, to co-found Novora Communities with his best friend. He shares how he evaluated the risk and why he believes the opportunity is worth the leap.

The conversation then turns to a question at the center of Griffin’s new season: Do high achievers have to work long hours? Drawing from Four Thousand Weeks, Adam and Griffin discuss the efficiency trap, accepting that we are finite, and the parts of life we give up whenever we choose to work more.

Along the way, Griffin explains Novora's mission to improve renters’ financial literacy, predicts what the national debt means for the next decade, and joins Adam in questioning whether AI companies can defend trillion-dollar valuations.

Takeaways

• Every career decision reveals what you value. Griffin left a promotion, stability, and strong career prospects because entrepreneurship, meaningful impact, and working with his best friend mattered more in this season.
• You can take a risk without ignoring the downside. Griffin and his wife reviewed their expenses, calculated their runway, and named the worst-case scenario: if the business fails, he gets another job.
• Efficiency does not empty the to-do list. Completing more tasks often creates more emails, responsibilities, and expectations. Everything will never be finished.
• Your calendar should reflect your actual values. Long hours may be worthwhile during a particular season, but they should serve something you deliberately chose instead of comparison, pressure, or the desire to appear successful.

Chapters

• 00:00 - The First In-Person Identity Work Episode
• 02:21 - Who Is Griffin Davis Outside of Work?
• 06:02 - Comcast, The Home Depot, and Career Decisions
• 13:10 - Leaving a Promotion to Become an Entrepreneur
• 16:39 - Building a Business with Your Best Friend
• 18:05 - Novora's Mission and Business Model
• 21:39 - Do High Achievers Have to Work Long Hours?
• 23:34 - Four Thousand Weeks and the Efficiency Trap
• 25:52 - The Infinite Versions of Ourselves
• 28:10 - Retroactive Shame vs. Present-Day Choice
• 32:18 - Do Your Actions Reflect What You Value?
• 34:35 - Comparison, Success, and Celebrating Your Friends
• 37:05 - Griffin’s Advice for Aspiring Entrepreneurs
• 39:34 - Trend Spotter: America’s $40 Trillion Debt
• 44:17 - AI, Cheaper Models, and Trillion-Dollar Valuations
• 50:20 - Delve Deck: Griffin’s Elementary School Glory
• 51:11 - Is Meaning Found or Created?

Listener Reflection

If you added 15 more hours of work to your week, what would you gain, what would you lose, and would that trade reflect what you actually value right now?

What if the peace is not just an aspiration, but something we can actually experience in our work today?

Adam and Stephen sit down with Kevin Ainsworth, founder of GuideCap Partners, to discuss calling, ambition, contentment, and the burden of believing every outcome depends on us. Kevin explains why meaningful work can be part of our identity, why money fails to deliver the happiness we expect, and how defining success protects us from absorbing the world’s definition by default.

The conversation then turns to Good Word, the faith-informed AI platform Kevin is building to help people navigate real-life questions with biblical wisdom. They explore AI sycophancy, the danger of creating a god in our own image, and how technology might help us become more human without replacing the relationships and practices that make us human.

Takeaways

• Believing every outcome depends on us creates a burden we were never meant to carry.
• Calling does not require knowing the full plan. It can mean faithfully following where God leads today.
• Work is not spiritually inferior to ministry. Using our gifts to serve others reflects how we were created.
• If we do not define success intentionally, we will unconsciously inherit the culture’s definition.
• AI can provide remarkable wisdom, but it can also affirm our assumptions and help us create a god in our own image.

Chapters

• 00:00 - Welcome and Introducing Kevin Ainsworth
• 02:47 - Releasing the Burden of Outcomes
• 05:00 - Is the Easy Yoke Actually Possible?
• 07:09 - Calling, Career, and Daily Dependence
• 12:05 - Should Our Identity Be Connected to Work?
• 17:08 - Why the Most Blessed Are Often the Most Depressed
• 22:26 - Adam Defines Success
• 25:01 - Contentment and the Power of Enough
• 30:44 - Peace Is a Present Reality
• 32:50 - Building a Faith-Informed Alternative to ChatGPT
• 38:30 - What AI Can Teach Us About Wisdom
• 41:50 - How Good Word Works
• 46:55 - Purposeful Work or Unhealthy Striving?
• 51:20 - How AI Could Make Us Less Human
• 53:21 - Is Meaning Found or Created?
• 55:00 - Closing Reflection

Listener Reflection

What outcome are you carrying as if it depends entirely on you, and what would it look like to work faithfully while releasing control of the result?

Comparison Is the Thief of Joy

Why does someone else’s success make us question our own lives?

A former Bain coworker announces a massive startup fundraise. A younger colleague climbs the career ladder faster. Someone on LinkedIn seems to be building the future with AI while we are still figuring out how to write a good prompt. We see the headline and immediately wonder, “Why isn’t that me?”

In this episode, Adam and Stephen explore why we compare ourselves to the people closest to us, why we cannot separate someone’s success from the sacrifices that made it possible, and how comparison can become either envy or admiration. They also discuss self-forgetfulness, our desire for praise, the tension between ambition and faith, and the freedom of believing we are not being judged nearly as often as we imagine.

In AI Corner, they explain looping, autonomous AI agents, overnight workflows, and why even active AI users may be much further ahead than they think.

Takeaways

• We need a scorecard. When life and work do not offer an objective measure of success, we use the people around us as the measuring stick.
• We compare ourselves to headlines. We want one impressive part of another person’s life without accepting the pressure, sacrifice, and responsibility surrounding it.
• Comparison is not automatically destructive. The same success that produces envy can also produce admiration, motivation, and gratitude.
• Other people think about us less than we imagine. Much of our fear of judgment comes from an audience that exists primarily in our own minds.
• A secure identity removes pressure. When our worth does not depend on achievement or approval, we can work hard without making every outcome a referendum on our value.

Chapters

• 00:00 Super fans and podcast editing problems
• 01:26 Why comparison damages meaningful work
• 04:45 Why we compare ourselves to close peers
• 05:59 Is comparison inherently bad?
• 08:10 You cannot trade for one part of someone’s life
• 10:24 Social media and self-forgetfulness
• 11:46 Our endless desire for praise
• 14:00 Identity, approval, and God’s grace
• 16:22 Ambition, faith, and releasing control
• 20:06 Stewardship, pride, and appearing successful
• 23:19 Looking beyond someone else’s headline
• 25:25 AI Corner: What is looping?
• 29:23 China’s cheaper open-source models
• 31:28 Mosquitoes, air conditioning, and meaningful work
• 33:23 Listener reflection

Listener Reflection

When you notice yourself comparing, consider the person’s whole life instead of the single headline you envy. Then choose one part of your own life and reflect on why you are grateful for it.

Back pain and late work nights have left Adam stuck on the same question most mornings at 4:45 a.m.: snooze for more sleep, or get up and protect the routine? Adam and Stephen dig into the research on sleep and morning routines, unpack the "worst of both worlds" cycle Adam has fallen into, and land on two very different default answers.

Adam breaks down the six research-backed pillars of a good morning (timing, sunlight, movement, hydration, nutrition, screens, plus mindfulness) and his own step-by-step routine. Then he and Stephen split hard on late nights: Stephen sides with more sleep, Adam almost always protects the routine, and he revisits his old, now-tempered belief that "sleep is for the weak." Along the way: sunrise alarms, a very salty electrolyte habit, and a heart scare that ended with a doctor's prescription to eat more salt.

Takeaways

• Consistency beats quantity. The research Adam found suggests a steady bed-time and wake-time may matter more for meaningful, energized work than the total number of hours slept.
• Doing both badly is the real risk. Setting an early alarm and then snoozing it for an hour combines lost sleep with a broken routine, which turned out to be worse than committing to either option on its own.
• A good morning routine has well-worn pillars. Consistent timing, sunlight, movement, hydration, nutrition, limited screens, and mindfulness keep showing up across the research, even if no one's studying the ideal trade-off between sleep and a solid routine.
• Grace matters as much as discipline. Both hosts land in the same place: aim for a consistent routine, but don't let missing it become one more thing to beat yourself up over.

Chapters

• 00:00 - Welcome
• 04:39 - What Research Says about Sleep and Morning Routines
• 04:51 - What the Research Actually Says
• 08:05 - The Worst of Both Worlds: Snoozing an Early Alarm
• 09:17 - Adam's Morning Routine
• 13:43 - The Six Pillars of a Good Morning Routine
• 15:51 - Screens, Sunrise Alarms, and Getting Salty
• 18:53 - A Scary EKG and an Unlikely Prescription
• 20:47 - Late Nights: Sleep More or Protect the Routine?
• 22:17 - "Sleep Is for the Weak": Adam's Controversial Take
• 26:07 - Bedtime vs. Actually Falling Asleep
• 27:03 - Takeaways: Consistency and Grace
• 28:22 - AI Corner: ChatGPT/Codex and a CEO's Data Warning
• 33:14 - Delve Deck: When Did You First Feel Old?
• 35:58 - Listener Reflection

Listener Reflection: What's one thing you could change about your morning routine to make it more consistent or research-backed? And if your routine already feels solid, how could you give yourself more grace on the mornings you don't follow through?

Adam made $3,000 selling World Cup tickets and got to attend two games for free. It was an objectively great outcome. Then ticket prices doubled a few days later, and all he could think about was the additional $7,000 he could have made.

Adam and Stephen explore the strange emotions of missed upside, why our brains remember losses more vividly than wins, and how counterfactual thinking can turn success into disappointment. Adam shares the exercise that finally helped him regain perspective: writing down his financial mistakes alongside the good decisions he rarely gives himself credit for.

The conversation expands beyond money into work, leadership, and the ways high achievers quickly move past accomplishments while endlessly replaying mistakes. Adam and Stephen discuss how teams can create more meaningful celebrations, including visible records of wins, surprise afternoons off, and the possibility of commemorating every new client with a trip to Wendy’s.

1. Missed upside feels like loss.
   Even when nothing was taken from us, seeing what could have happened can overpower the satisfaction of what actually happened.
2. Our brains preserve mistakes and discard good decisions.
   Failures create stories, consequences, and emotional weight. Good decisions often quietly work, then disappear from memory.
3. Compare your losses with your wins.
   Writing down both sides of the ledger can reveal how small one mistake is within the fuller story of your life.
4. Celebration needs more weight.
   A Slack message and a few emojis rarely carry the same emotional force as a failure. Teams may need tangible, memorable rituals that interrupt work and make success feel real.
5. Keep a visible record of what is going well.
   A running list or physical board of wins helps fight the tendency to evaluate a month, project, or career based only on its most painful moments.

• 00:00 - Making $3,000 and Feeling Terrible
• 03:48 - Loss Aversion and Missed Upside
• 05:13 - The Exercise That Restored Perspective
• 09:03 - Why We Remember Mistakes at Work
• 10:17 - Midyear Reviews and Celebrating Forgotten Wins
• 15:07 - The Power of Stopping Work to Celebrate
• 17:47 - Why Nobody Feels Sorry for Adam
• 19:51 - The Unexpected Joy of the World Cup
• 22:26 - Trend Spotter: Fable, Taylor Swift, and AI
• 24:56 - Delve Deck: Elementary School Glory
• 29:40 - Listener Reflection

What loss or missed opportunity are you currently replaying, and what wins have you forgotten to include in the story?

What happens when pain keeps you from doing the things that make you feel like yourself? After reinjuring his back and barely sleeping for six weeks, Adam wrestles with losing his ability to work out, focus, write, and be present.

Adam and Stephen discuss how health shapes identity, why “my identity is in Christ” can feel abstract, and what it means to be loved when you do not feel like yourself.

Takeaways

• You often do not realize something is part of your identity until you lose it. Working out, waking up early, writing, and being present felt like habits. When pain took them away, Adam felt like he had lost parts of himself.
• Pain affects more than your body. It consumes attention, sleep, energy, patience, and your ability to engage with the people and work you care about.
• Being loved is a more tangible way to understand identity in Christ. God’s affection does not change based on Adam’s productivity, discipline, health, or ability to show up as his best self.
• Pain can deepen empathy. Experiencing constant pain helped Adam understand why people with chronic pain talk about it often. It may not be the only thing happening in their lives, but it can become the loudest.
• Asking someone how they are doing matters. Friends, family members, and coworkers could not fix Adam’s back, but remembering his pain and following up made him feel seen and cared for.

Chapters

• 00:00 - Welcome
• 03:35 - The Night That Led Adam to Write
• 04:53 - Herniating and Reinjuring a Disc
• 09:23 - When Health Interrupts Meaningful Work
• 09:56 - Losing the Habits That Made Adam Feel Like Himself
• 12:06 - Is Your Identity Really in Christ?
• 16:18 - Being Loved When You Are Not Productive
• 18:20 - Health Is Wealth
• 22:33 - What Pain Teaches Us About Empathy
• 25:45 - Walking, Movement, and Doing What You Can
• 27:07 - Trend Spotter: AI Regulation and Model Fusion
• 32:30 - The World Cup and Singing Country Roads
• 35:41 - Closing Reflection

Listener Reflection: What is one physical thing your body allows you to do that you rarely stop to appreciate?