Success Isn’t Enough: Building a Work Life Worth Living, with Jeff Westphal

Career Sessions

Former Vertex CEO Jeff Westphal joins host J.R. Lowry to explore why traditional career milestones often fail to deliver lasting fulfillment, drawing from his two-decade tenure where he grew the company fortyfold while grappling with deeper questions

Key takeaways

• Jeff Westphal scaled Vertex from roughly 75 employees to over 1,000 and increased its value fortyfold during his twenty-year CEO tenure.
• A pivotal conversation with DuPont executive Jim Patton challenged Westphal to ask 'how do you intend to contribute to the greater whole?', sparking a shift toward reflective leadership.

Main topics

• Career fulfillment versus traditional success metrics
• Reflective leadership and active listening

Notable quotes

"How do you intend to contribute to the greater whole?"

Conclusion

Listeners gain actionable frameworks for replacing reactive management with

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) When people think about career success, what usually comes to mind are things like promotions and bigger paychecks and impressive titles and maybe building a company. And those things certainly matter. But I would imagine that some of you have reached goals that you've probably worked really hard to achieve, only then to find yourself asking afterwards, was that really it? And my guest today believes that that's one of the most important questions that any of us can ask. Jeff Westfall spent two decades as the CEO of Vertex and led the company through a 40x growth in value and from 75 employees to more than a thousand by the time of his retirement. By almost any measure, he'd achieved extraordinary professional success. But along the way, he also began asking himself deeper questions about meaning and purpose and fulfillment and what truly makes a work life worth living. And those reflections became the foundation for his new book, which is called A Work Life Worth Living. In our conversation today, we're going to explore why achievement alone isn't always satisfying and how to build a career that's both successful and meaningful, what leaders can do to create workplaces where people thrive, and why these questions are becoming even more important as AI transforms the future of work. Whether you're just starting your career or questioning your next move or wondering how to make your work more fulfilling, I think you're going to find a lot to reflect on in this conversation. And ironically, Jeff is very big on reflection. So here's my discussion with Jeff. Jeff, welcome and thanks for joining me today. Speaker 2 (1:25) Good to be here, JR. Speaker 1 (1:26) Yeah, glad to have you on as well. So let's dive right in. I know you've got this view and you write about it in your book that a lot of people feel successful on paper, but still feel like... something is missing. And you experienced a bit of that yourself. So it'd be great to hear your own experience. And when you kind of had that first clue that success alone just wasn't everything for you, it wasn't enough. Speaker 2 (1:48) Yeah, it's interesting. It's not like it wasn't enough. I wasn't looking for more. I was succeeding to the extent that, you know, on paper at a cocktail party at 28 years old, I would have felt like, hey, I'm doing as well as anybody here. multiple promotions, started at my father's company and sales were doubling twice. And I was leading sales and marketing, not all due to me, but still I felt like I was contributing meaningfully. And I was introduced by one of our salesman's father-in-law's colleague, who had become a certified seven habits facilitator, seven habits of highly effective people. And I meet this very poised gentleman. who was a former executive at DuPont, the big chemical corporation. Sure. And he says very nicely, why are you working so hard? And I was like, is that a trick question to have more sales? And he's like, okay, why are you wanting more sales? And I'm like, this guy can't be serious. Like, what do you mean? Of course you want more sales. He goes, well, I get that. But why do you want more sales? And I'm like, what is this? Like, I was literally confused. Yeah. And this man is so calm, smiling at me. And then he says, how do you intend to contribute to the greater whole? And I'm thinking, what is he talking about? The greater whole of what? And I'm like, I got to know what this guy knows. He just helped me realize for the first time that my assumption that I basically knew what I needed to know was just completely off base. And he gave me the seven habits book. And in it, I learned about seeking to understand. Speaker 1 (3:24) Right. Speaker 2 (3:25) And then I tried that with my wife. We were debating going away for the weekend. And I'm like, oh, I wonder what she's thinking. And I'm leaning over the chopping block in our kitchen. And I'm like, what is she thinking? Don't try to convince her. And all of a sudden, I'm like, oh, she's worried about the children. She's like thinking, like, how are they going to eat? I'm like, oh, well, I'll figure it out. But she's like really worried. At the time, we had a four-year-old, a two-year-old, and an infant. And I want to go camping for the weekend. And I'm thinking, no problem, just like when we were dating. And that was a huge epiphany. So between 28 and 30, between experiences like that at home and Speaker 1 (3:58) the Speaker 2 (3:59) questions this man was asking me, my whole world got turned upside down, basically. And I started realizing that actually, instead of knowing a lot, I knew almost nothing. Speaker 1 (4:09) I wouldn't call myself a seven habits disciple. The book's kicking around this house somewhere, but. Certainly that point about seek first to understand, then to be understood. It's very simple, which is the whole of that book, right? But it's also very powerful because we spend so much time thinking we know the answer or wanting to get our point across that we stop listening and we stop observing. And I think that's really what that point is about. You were getting it in both those ways, right? He was pushing you to observe more deeply about why you were doing work, not just for the goals, but ultimately what was the real why. And then your conversation with your wife and stepping back and making sure that you understood where she was coming from, which you clearly needed to step back and give thought. Speaker 2 (4:52) Like a two by four. Speaker 1 (4:54) Yeah. Yeah. Like a two by four. And what was Speaker 2 (4:57) shocking wasn't so much what she cared about. That was obvious once I saw it. It was the instant recognition that I never realized that before. Ostensibly, I'm a successful guy growing and doing all these things. And I had no idea. And my next thought was, what did the employees think? I wonder what they Speaker 1 (5:12) really care Speaker 2 (5:13) about. So I was literally a different person at work on Monday morning. How so? Well, I went from sort of being decisions while you wait, thinking the measure of my success was how hard could I work to help people by giving them the answers they're looking for, because I was in a line leadership role at the time. And I just realized, I don't even know why they're asking. So the line outside my door was there, just like it was most days. Not all day long, but, you know, during the day, two or three people be coming by. And instead of saying, oh, just go do this. I was like, well, why do you ask? They're like, well, because of something like, well, why is that? And I like was genuinely curious, like, what is bringing you here? And they started sharing. It was like, oh, no. I've been making decisions with practically no information needed to make the decision. And the notion that they should have any say in the decision that they were going to implement was a couple of years in the future before I had, with the help of my mentor, had that epiphany. He says, how do you plan to build spirit and willfulness among the stakeholders? And of course, he's using an ancient esoteric technique. Basically stretching my consciousness by giving me challenge and questions that aren't in my current paradigm to help me really search for understanding. And what I came to realize was, right, if you're not a party to the decision, why would you be deeply invested in the decision? And so we then moved into a phase where we became intensely collaborative in the business and it worked out quite well. I Speaker 1 (6:44) have to imagine that that first Monday morning when you were starting to ask these deeper questions of your staff. They probably didn't open up just right away, right? They're probably like, what the hell's going on here? Speaker 2 (6:54) Yeah. There were times. So my mentor, I said, I'll ask a question to the group. And there's like silence or they like give an answer. And then they look at me like, what do you think? And I'm like, it's like they Speaker 1 (7:06) want Speaker 2 (7:06) me to dive in and answer for them. Speaker 1 (7:08) Yeah. And Speaker 2 (7:08) he said, yeah. And he taught me the trick of just looking at my watch to just remind me, don't answer. And I just wouldn't answer. And it took a while. But after a while, they came to realize I'm not just going to come in. and give the answer that then they can just go execute, which keeps all the responsibility and risk on me and no real commitment on them. But we're going to do this together. And what emerged were insights about the decisions we were making that none of us had anticipated and creative solutions that emerged from the intensity of the understanding that was forged that none of us had anticipated. but that were clearly superior answers than what any of us would have predicted the right answer was going to be to the point where we really knew going into any of these collaborations that there's a better answer than any of us realize and it's here to be found and we can do it together. So that was ultimately what we developed over a five-year period. Speaker 1 (8:05) That's a pretty powerful learning for a group to have that realization that they can embrace the uncertainty of a situation and know that they're going to figure it out. A lot of groups never get to that point. Speaker 2 (8:14) Yeah, and we never would have if it wasn't for Jim Patton, who was a senior executive at DuPont, had a heart attack that moved