Purpose at Work: What a Job That Doesn't Fit Costs You

I'm Andy Temte and welcome to Money Lessons! Join me every Saturday morning for bite-sized lessons that are designed to improve financial literacy around the world. Today is October 17, 2026.

Last Saturday we measured human capital — the skills and earning power you carry around inside you — and I closed with a line I'd like you to remember: your earning power is the biggest asset you own. If your earning power is the biggest asset you own, then where you spend your working hours is the biggest investment decision you make, and many of us made that decision without ever asking whether the work fits us. Today we'll define four terms, name what a poor fit costs you in dollars and in the rest of your life, and I'll give you one diagnostic you can run this week.

Four Terms We Need

Let's start with four definitions.

The first term is purpose. Back on January 18th of last year, we said that your purpose is your reason for being — your answer to the question "why am I here?" — and that while your definition of success will shift through the seasons of your life, your purpose tends not to change. Mine is six words: to teach, coach, mentor, and (hopefully) inspire. How to define your own purpose is the subject of my forthcoming books, The Modern Golden Rule and its companion guidebook, Stop Standing Still, which will be published in the coming months.

The second term is alignment. Alignment means that the work you're paid for and the reason you get out of bed in the morning point in the same direction. It has two parts: whether the work itself uses what you're here to do, and whether the purpose of the business you work for, and the industry it belongs to, is one you're willing to give your working years to.

The third term is misalignment. Misalignment is the opposite: the work you're paid for and your purpose point in different directions, so the work pays you and doesn't fit you. At its mildest, misalignment is a job you put up with. At its worst, it's the job that drains the life out of you, where every week takes more out of you than the paycheck helps put back.

The fourth term is golden handcuffs. Golden handcuffs is the name for pay arranged so that leaving an employer costs you money: a retirement match that isn't fully yours yet, a bonus you're promised only if you stay through a certain date, or company stock that becomes yours only after several more years on the job. The pay is real, and so is the cost of walking away from it.

With those four terms defined, let's look at what misalignment costs.

The Price in Dollars

Let's start with the dollars. Misalignment costs you money in three ways.

The first way misalignment costs you money is disengagement. Gallup, the polling company, has measured engagement at work for more than two decades, and it defines engagement as the involvement and enthusiasm of employees in both their work and workplace. In its most recent annual report on American workers, published this January, 31 percent of U.S. employees were engaged in 2025, and 17 percent were actively disengaged — unhappy at work, resentful of it, and letting it show in their work.

Why does disengagement cost you money? Last Saturday we said that every working week you are either adding to your human capital or letting it sit, and that a skill you stop using fades. An engaged worker is adding to it: learning, taking on more, and getting noticed. A disengaged worker has stopped adding to their human capital, and the skills a disengaged worker stops using begin to fade — and when skills fade, the earning power they command fades with them.

Fun fact, Gallup also puts a price on low engagement for the whole world. In its 2026 State of the Global Workplace report, Gallup estimated that low engagement cost the world economy about $10 trillion in lost productivity in 2025 — about 9 percent of everything the world produced that year. Only one employee in five, worldwide, was engaged.

The second way misalignment costs you money is golden handcuffs. Three weeks ago, on September 26th, we said that vesting in a retirement plan means ownership, and that if you leave your employer before you're fully vested, you give up the part of the match that hasn't vested. That unvested match is one example of golden handcuffs. A retention bonus — a bonus paid to keep you from leaving, which you keep only if you stay through a certain date — is a second example; company stock that becomes yours in installments over several years is a third example. I'm not saying golden handcuffs are bad; they're pay, and often generous pay. The point I'd like you to focus on is that golden handcuffs are real dollars, which means leaving a misaligned job is a calculation, not a feeling. Oh, and keep one bias out of that calculation. On March 8th of last year we talked about the sunk cost fallacy — treating money or time you've already spent, and can't get back, as a reason to keep going. The years you've already put into an employer are gone whether you stay or leave. They are not a reason to stay.

The third way misalignment costs you money is drift — staying in work that doesn't fit, year after year, without ever deciding to. Last Saturday we said that a lasting skill you build this year gets raised every year for the rest of your career. Each year spent in work that doesn't fit you is a year your human capital isn't growing the way it could — not because you're lazy, but because few people build skills quickly at work they don't care about. This cost never appears as a line on your pay stub; it shows up over years, as incremental earning power you could have grown.

The Price That Isn't in Dollars

Now to the other half of last Saturday's promise: the cost that isn't in dollars.

In 2014, in the journal Psychological Science, researchers reported on more than 6,000 American adults, ages 20 to 75, who were followed for fourteen years. The adults with a stronger sense of purpose in life were less likely to die during those fourteen years, and the benefit was about the same for younger, middle-aged, and older adults. Note what that study measured: a sense of purpose in life, not whether a job fits that purpose. But your working hours are a large share of your waking hours, and when your work runs against your purpose, often the largest single block of your week runs against it too. That is the cost I meant last Saturday when I said that misalignment costs you in non-monetary terms: a job that drains you is draining the sense of purpose that the research ties to a longer life.

One Diagnostic

So how do you know whether your work fits you? The best diagnostic I know costs nothing. For one working week, listen to your own words when you talk about your job. Count the number of times you say "I have to" — I have to go in, I have to finish this, I have to get through that meeting. Then count the times you say "I get to." Few jobs are all "get to," and a week of "have to" doesn't mean you should quit on Friday. But if the tally runs almost entirely one way, you've learned a fact about the fit that your pay stub can't tell you.

If the tally runs toward "have to," take things in this order. Talk to your manager first, and be specific about the fit: which parts of the work you want more of, and which parts you want less of. If that conversation goes nowhere, then leaving is likely the courageous move. Back on January 18th of last year we said that courage is the most important ingredient to success, and it takes courage to say out loud that your employment-purpose fit is wrong.

What This Means for You

There are two things to focus on from today's episode.

First, where you spend your working hours is an investment decision, and it's the biggest one you make, because it decides whether the biggest asset you own grows or stalls. Treat it with the seriousness you'd give any other decision this large: slow down and ask whether the work fits.

Second, misalignment has a price you can name. In dollars, the price is disengagement that stalls your earning power, golden handcuffs that make leaving a calculation, and drift that keeps your human capital from growing. In the rest of your life, the price is work that literally and figuratively drains the life out of you. Naming the price doesn't mean you have to act on it this year; golden handcuffs can be worth wearing for a while, on purpose, with an exit date in mind. Naming the price means you stop paying it without noticing.

So here's your homework this week. Keep the tally: "I have to" on one side, "I get to" on the other, for five working days. Then look at the two numbers and ask yourself which one you'd like to be bigger a year from now.

Where you work is your biggest investment decision. Make sure the work fits you.

Next Saturday we take up staying relevant: treating a new skill as an investment — what it costs, what it returns, and when to make it.

Until next week... Grace. Dignity. Compassion.