With Purpose

It has been one full year of With Purpose, so what’s next? In this special anniversary episode, Ben reflects on the first 52 episodes and the lessons of treating the podcast, and life, as an experiment that can evolve. Ben also takes some time to discuss what’s on the horizon for With Purpose and some exciting changes.

Don’t forget to subscribe to Ben’s new newsletter at benhutton.com. As always, reflect and plan your upcoming week with this episode’s planner — linked here.

You can feel the energy when your people and their work are aligned with a vision. In this episode, Ben concludes his series by exploring the idea of harmonics and the moments when people, teams, and organizations become so aligned that their efforts seem to resonate beyond the work itself. Those moments are evidence that the vision, repetition, and tension required to get in tune are paying off.

When was the last time you experienced that kind of alignment, and how can you make it happen more often? Reflect and plan your week ahead using this episode’s planner — linked here.

A leader’s job is to help get the right tune out of their organization. In this episode, Ben explores the lessons leaders can learn from piano tuning and why bringing people, processes, and priorities into alignment requires vision, repetition, and a trained ear. Just as a piano is tuned one note at a time, meaningful leadership often comes through the steady, consistent work of making small adjustments over time.

Where do you need to be more repetitive in reinforcing your vision, and what part of your organization needs to be brought back into tune? Reflect and plan your week ahead using this episode’s planner - linked here. 

The best leaders know that growth rarely happens without tension. In this episode, Ben reflects on a lesson inspired by the piano and the remarkable amount of tension required to create beautiful music. Just as each string must be carefully tuned, leaders are responsible for creating the right kind of tension that helps people, teams, and organizations perform at their best.

What area of your organization is out of tune, and what levers can you pull to bring it back into alignment? Reflect and plan your week ahead using this episode’s planner — linked here.

What if you’re working on the wrong problem? In this episode, Ben reflects on a diagnosis that changed how he understood a lifelong struggle with asthma and the opportunities that opened once he took time to diagnose the real cause. Sometimes the most valuable investment we can make is taking the time to test our assumptions to learn what’s really happening beneath the surface.

What problem in your work or life have you accepted as fact that need to be reexamined? Reflect and plan your week ahead using this episode’s planner — linked here.

Growth rarely happens without risk. In this episode, Ben reflects on insights from Arthur Brooks about satisfaction and meaning and explores the idea that without some measure of risk, our pursuits will become little more than hobbies. Whether in our work, relationships, or personal growth, fulfillment often lives just beyond the edge of comfort.

Where are you playing it safe when you should be taking a calculated risk? Reflect and plan your week ahead using this episode’s planner — ⁠linked here.⁠

Everyone is always talking about finding a good work-life balance. But what if that’s the wrong goal? In this episode, Ben challenges the idea that balance is something we can achieve and introduces a different approach: conscious entanglement, the intentional blending of the parts of life that matter most.

 Where could you be more intentional about bringing part of yourself from one area of life into another? Reflect and plan your week ahead using this episode’s planner — linked here.

Knowing when to stay the course and when to move on is a key principle in both fishing and business. In this episode, Ben reflects on an Alaska fishing trip and the lesson that success often comes from keeping the right bait in the right place long enough for the conditions to align. Sometimes the difference between an experiment working or failing is how much time you spent, “on the bottom.”

What opportunity needs more time, and what is it time to let go of? Reflect and plan your week ahead using this episode’s planner — linked here.

Sometimes, things can begin to feel gloomy and cloudy. In this episode, Ben reflects on a simple truth he was reminded of from an airplane window: it's always sunny above the clouds. When life feels heavy or discouraging, we can change our vantage point by reconnecting with our purpose, leaning on wise people, or remembering what's still true.

Where in your life have you been living below the clouds, and what would help you regain a higher perspective this week? Reflect and plan your week ahead using this episode’s planner — linked here.

Some crutches are worth keeping, but others deserve a closer look before they become dependencies. What are the invisible crutches in your life and are they making you stronger or weaker? In this episode, Ben explores the tools, habits, and conveniences we rely on every day, and how the things that help us can also quietly erode the abilities we were meant to develop.

What’s one habit, tool, or shortcut you’ve become too dependent on, and what would it look like to strengthen that ability instead? Reflect and plan your week ahead using this episode’s planner — linked here.