From Burnout To Vocation: Aligning Meaning, Money, And Machines with Florian Kemmerich

Feeling productive but oddly empty? We sit down with impact investor and author Florian Cambridge to unpack why the real risk isn’t AI replacing humans it’s work losing its meaning. Florian shares how he broke free from the golden handcuffs at 33, traded status for service, and built a practical, seven-step method to help you identify your vocation and make it your profession. The result: a clear path to align purpose, leadership, and AI so your career creates value for people and planet without sacrificing pay.

Together we explore how purpose turns technology into leverage, not pressure; why organizations that ignore meaning breed burnout; and how to rally teams around a simple, credible theory of change. Florian walks through a vivid MBA example where finance skills meet a climate calling, showing how AI lowers the threshold to innovate while mission provides direction. We also examine alignment at three levels—self, business, and capital so decisions about careers, strategy, and investments all pull toward the world you want to build.

You’ll leave with a sharper definition of success, practical prompts to cut the noise and choose agency, and concrete ways to use AI for research, modeling, and prototyping while staying anchored in values. If you’ve wondered whether your skills still matter as machines get smarter, this conversation reframes the question: what problem do you care enough to solve, and how will you use every tool available to solve it?

Find Florian’s resources and his book at on-vocation.com, and watch for the upcoming app that gamifies the seven steps for modern learners. If this resonated, follow the show, share this episode with someone wrestling with career questions, and leave a review to help more people find purpose at work.

Chapters

• 0:00 Setting The Stakes: Work And AI
• 0:32 Meet Florian And His Mission
• 2:11 Success Without Purpose Feels Empty
• 5:16 Breaking The Golden Handcuffs
• 8:40 Impact Investing And “Vocating”
• 11:15 Seven Steps To Make Vocation Work
• 14:40 AI Lowers Barriers, Purpose Guides Use
• 17:24 The MBA Case: Skills Meet Calling
• 20:24 Misalignment, Burnout, And Dopamine Traps
• 23:25 Purpose In Organizations And Capital
• 26:10 Redefining Success Beyond Wealth
• 28:01 Where To Start: Book, Site, App
• 29:02 Closing: Let Humanity Lead Tech

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:08

Oh, we are living in a time, dear listeners, where machines are getting smarter fast. But many humans feel more disconnected than ever. Productivity is up, burnout is everywhere, and a lot of people are quietly asking, is this really what work is supposed to feel like? Today's conversation is all about the purpose, leadership, and how AI can support human alignment rather than replace it. So hey dear listeners, welcome back to another powerful episode of My Meets Machine, where we explore the intersection of human intelligence, technology, and meaningful work. I'm your host, Avic, and today I have a lovely guest. So please welcome Florian Cambridge. So welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_01: 1:03

Thank you, Avik. And um, yes, a very interesting topic to explore, which goes deep into my own personal passion.

SPEAKER_00: 1:12

Amazing. So, dear listeners, before we delve deep into the discussion today, I'll quickly love to introduce you with Florian. So, Florian is an impact investor, author, and the leadership mentor who helps leaders align purpose with profession to create real-world impact. So he's the author of On Vocation and has helped mobilize nearly$1 billion to focus ventures and education. And today we are discussing the purpose-driven work in the age of AI, human leadership in technology and in a technology-accelerated world, and why redefining success is no longer the optional. Right? So, why do we let's get started? Welcome to the show again. So, so so before we start, because I know like there are a lot of people who have a lot of uh uh things uh goes into their mind that AI will it replace us, what a human and all. But before we get into all those things, um I want to start personally. Like, you have worked across the systems, the capital leadership for the decades. So, when did you first realize that success without the purpose has no longer enough for you?

SPEAKER_01: 2:31

Yeah, it's a great question. So it goes actually back when I was 33 years old. Yeah. And so basically, even before when I was 18, I had a passion project. I wanted to become a stand-up comedian. And my father said, Maybe you want to do something normal first and study something normal because, you know, as an artist, it's very difficult to make a living and the financial side. And so I followed my father's advice and then I studied something normal. I studied business administration and marketing. And then I never went into what I wanted to do, and then got a job, worked my way up. And at the age of 33, I had the success my parents were dreaming of. I was running a company, having a family, and a home. And I asked myself, hmm, so what do I do the next 33 years? Bigger company, bigger family, bigger home. And I actually asked myself, which life am I living? Even though I was, according to society, of a successful life. And because I felt void inside, I said, It's not me living my life. I'm just living the life I'm supposed to be. And that triggered a change because I recognized that in my education, I have been the absent subject of my own education. I learn about everything else but me. So I get the tools to make a living, not to live a life.

SPEAKER_00: 3:59

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01: 4:00

Yeah, and I put this now in the AI, is even worse. So basically, you gather information skills in the education side, then you work, then I did a master's, yeah, and then I climbed up the ladder. But I never asked myself, is it what do I really care for? What do I want to do in work? And also one of the questions was asking, so if life goes on at my deathbed, other than having had a family and a bank account, yeah, what is it the contribution I want to give to the world and say, okay, life has been worth living, and I contributed something. And this was the part where I actually then understood that I didn't know my vocation. I had no tools to help me to find or to decide on my vocation. And so this was then when I pivoted. I went out into a big corporate job, I got rid of the golden handcuffs, you know, you have when you're in a big corporation or running a division or subsidiary. I then also went into personal development methodologies just to find out more about myself. And then I started really a roller coaster life, but it was me deciding what I want to do, not just looking forward to it. And the more I learned about me, then I ended up doing impact investing. That's what I've been doing now over a decade, which is basically using capital as a force for good. And my leitmotif today, you know, is impact lives, share profits. But then that was saying, okay, now I have actually something which is bigger than me. It's not about me. And then people came to me saying, Flori, you do impact. How can I do impact? And I said, okay, what's your vocation? And people say, I don't know. And then, okay, let's start first. You do these exercises for you, you come back when you have your vocation. And then I developed seven steps to help people to make their vocation their profession. That's what I called to vocate, vocating. So vocation is not just something who sits there. Because normally people say, yeah, vocation might be religion, vocation might be value. One is philanthropy, you want to do something good, but you have to do get the job first and earn money. Now, if I translate that in today, in the perspective of technology, technology caters for me so many information that actually the threshold to innovate is much lower, less money, it's more affordable. But if I compete on knowledge I gather over years versus the machine, AI, I will lose. I have no value to tell AI that I'm smarter and I can do better. And that's where the switch comes. If you understand, when you are when you are vocating, when you are working in your profession, in your vocation, then it's bigger than you. So this is life is hard, and you will have problems and you have anxieties, that's just part of life. We are all fragile. But that brings you back to your question. I found that I actually saw that there's a problem in the humanity that rather than having a vocation, which you usually have, the first ones when you're five, six, seven, eight years old, you have these dreams of doing something, contributed something to the world, you know. But then you're told off by the parents, hold a second. You need to make living, make a living. Yes. Yeah. And so what uh annoys me is that my in in the education there's nothing vocational. Yeah. And that's where the part and the journey started at 33, and then the pivot. And I ended at to what I do today. And then the people I've helped asked me, Florian, you have developed seven steps, which actually helped me to identify my vocation and to make it my profession to start vocating. Can you write it down? Can you write the book? And that's what I did. I went to a publisher and it got published, and that's why I'm here.

SPEAKER_00: 8:08

That's amazing. Thank you so much for sharing that. And yeah, I mean, it's quite uh I'd say it's it's quite learning from uh what you've been through, and I totally totally agree. Like, but you said that first uh 30, 33 years I did for living, right? But I was not living myself, so that that something hits hard, and it's it's it's a real truth, basically, right? Because right now I'm 33. Right now I'm 33 in the both. Yeah, and obviously it's a it's a great way to think that yes, I also had uh a lot of things which I wanted to do, but somehow or the other not been able to get into those. But yes, like what we are doing, we are only running behind just to make our living, and we are not because we are compromising our living, right? To take care of us, to take care of what we wanted to do. So that is something which I really loved. And I believe there are a lot of uh listeners who would love this, and please, dear listeners, but do let us know like what you wanted to do, but somehow you missed in that uh rat race, right? So love to love to listen to. That's a that's a great, great discussion, I would say. And um also, uh yeah, you know what I mean.

SPEAKER_01: 9:42

This is the point where I with this book and with the methodology, you know, some people talk about ikigai, which is beautiful, but you say, How do I do this? Some people talk about personal development. Nice, I know more about me, but how does it help me? And then I say, and what if you can contribute to humanity and to the planet something, and this is your profession? Yeah, people go like, yeah, but a vocation, you know, vocation is to do good and you have this dream, but you cannot live from that. I said, Who says this? So, one of the examples was I was um giving a workshop at Oxford University for MBA students. And one of the students says, Look, I've worked and studied so hard to learn financial modeling in AI, will take my job obsolete. I will never be as good as AI in financial modeling. And I said, Hold a second, okay, let's put this aside. What is your vocation? And he says, Okay, let's do an exercise for you to figure out what do you really care for? If there's something you want to contribute, yeah, what would it be? And he said, I love nature. I makes you concerned about climate change and the adaptation of humanity into climate change. I said, Beautiful. You have your vocation. Now, if you take your superpower being good in finances, that's what you learned, and you put them together, you can start vocating. And he says, But where? Where do I go? You go to insurance companies, they need people like you with a vocation in climate change, but then skill set how to measure the measure risks financially on insurance. You can go to the financial services companies, you can go to corporations, you can go into industry sectors, you name it agriculture, whatever. You can go into tech companies, you can go in startups, anything with the where you can still vocate based on what your calling is and what you're good at. And this is where things then change. Because the fundamental flaw is for people to say, first you need to make money, and if you're done well, you can give something back. But sorry, why don't you do with the money when you invest or when you work, where you earn your money, do the same things at the same time. And this is where I go into the steps. Into seven steps. The first four steps are more to define your personal, professional, business plan to start vocating. And the other three steps are more guiding you on the execution and to measure that you're actually doing what you would like to do, the outcome of it, the output of it, the outreach of it. And so that's the idea of the seven steps. And this is where I would like to see as many people in the world to vocate. And it's not something which someone tells you. You should, I think you should like nature. I think you should think about climate change and adaptation. That's something which makes a lot of sense and you would give and care if you do that, but if it's not you from inside out. Yeah, this is like if you would say, okay, I'm a doctor, but I have no vocation to be a doctor, it's a brutal job. If you are a chef cook, why would you go these brutal working hours when everybody's having fun and you are working late night and things and it's stressful if you don't have a vocation? So you have some professions which are ideally vocation-oriented, but even you have people ending up doing that which don't have the vocation and actually really suffer. Correct. And this is where it goes back. My I invite people to actually discover the vocation inside out, and then to figure out actually how to live from this and how to work it. Because life will be hard anyway. How through, or you might lose a job or economy is a problem, or whatever it is, it's just life. So it's better to say this is me deciding my life, because then that's one of the steps. If the stress is a stress, you impose yourself because it's a challenge, because you want to reach something, is very different to being too exposed to a stress which is from outside hitting you because that's unhealthy. But the many, the whole chain, there's a whole sequence of what happens to you and to your life once you've actually taken your aware of saying, okay, hmm, let me figure out what I want to do. And you might have several vocations, and you might pick one of them, you might over time do first this one and then a pivot to something else. It is you, you don't have to justify anything to anyone as long as you are in your zone and you are vocating. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00: 14:30

Exactly. So, like like this point, like uh there's there's a very common growing belief that AI will either save us or replace us. So, I mean, from your perspective, like what is the biggest misconception that lead leaders have about AI and the purpose, and at the same time, like what tends to happen when the organizations adopt AI for the efficiency, but ignore the meaning, values, and human context. So, what do you say on this?

SPEAKER_01: 15:05

So AI exposes everything exponentially, humanity exponentially. Yeah, and it's with with every industrial revolution, and we have now the AI revolution, mankind has to understand and how to deal with it because things change fundamentally. Correct. Now, in the context, if my generation was educated that you get a good education, you get a good job, and you work, and then you can retire and you have have it have had a happy life, you're exposing yourself to factors outside. Now, if you take this in AI, it's even worse. It's worse because with AI, you learn and accumulate knowledge, and that was but the value. If I work long enough, let's say, go back to the financial services part, you know, and you're good in modeling and you have done many things and you've learned of it, and that's where it's is your value, is your know-how you have, AI will replace this. So now if we understand, that goes again with the stress, you can use AI to innovate, to contribute, to vocate at a much cheaper, much faster, and a much more of the, let's say, uh the threshold to innovate is much lower. So if you understand first what is it, what your purpose is and what you want to figure out and how you can vocate, then suddenly you will look at AI very differently because AI will cater to you to actually do it rather than you defending and being concerned about losing your job, especially youngsters, because you would not start as an analyst in a consulting firm or as a tech firm or as a programmer, an own coder, because all of that is no longer needed because AI will cater to it. But when you say, I'm 15 or I'm 16 or I'm 20, and actually look, I can vibe code. I have actually something I want to resolve and I can innovate in the world. So this is where things change. You might be good in accounting, but if you use AI in order to do much better, yeah, again, you you can translate into many, many jobs, many, many functions, because it will increase efficiency of mankind hugely. But the point is if you do not, if you do not listen to yourself what you really, really care for, you end up being more exposed, more stressed, more insecure, and more anxious. Okay. Rather than saying, hold a second, this is what I want to resolve, and I will use technology to cater. So it goes back, yes, I'm also concerned about AI, because AI can destroy mankind, humanity, or AI can be the best tool for the sake of quality of life, access and affordability, all changes. You don't have to be privilege-born. Correct. Yeah, with the best education, the best school. Otherwise, if you don't, you know one, because you can, you know, it's very different how you learn, faster learn, cheaper learn. So even for a lot of underprivileged people, now you have a big gateway for you to figure out and innovate wherever you are. But the point is, and that's where the important part is, that if you don't do this, the likelihood for you to get a burnout, anxious, or for you to pend on dopamine, looking at a screen and getting some TikTok, blah, blah, yeah, just to distract yourself and to procrastinate is huge. Because we cannot all be, you know, uh the ones who create content. But if you change that and you want to resolve something and you innovate, even with TikTok, it's very different. Yeah, and so those are the pieces where I invite people to consider, especially younger people, not to take so many years like I did to figure things out and to be frustrated and then to change, but really go much earlier and understand, listen to what you want to resolve, and then look how you can use and cater AI and technology to actually do it.

SPEAKER_00: 19:23

Correct. Correct. So that means here the thing is uh AI is not the problem, the misalignment is the problem. Like technology simply amplifies whatever leadership consciousness already exists. So that's pretty clear. That's really pretty clear. So, like in the real organizations, what do you think? Like, how do misalignment between the purpose and the work show up day by day? Um, especially when I mean as AI accelerates, pace and the pressure.

SPEAKER_01: 19:59

Yes. So Actually, I'm I've I have three books on writing, and they're all on vocation. It's a trilogy. And I put them in different contexts. So the first book is how to align your purpose with your profession. Early years, how you learn, how you cater, and how you benefit by vocating to decide you, your life, and you figure out then to. The second is I put this in context of an organization. Yeah. Even though we'll have much more microentrepreneurs with technology, you know, and doing new things and new startups, which is very different to the times when I was born. But again, if you're in an organization with a big corporation or a startup or something in between, is that the second book is how to align your purpose with your business. Because once you federate and you meet around a theory of change, a purpose of an organization, your net promoter score goes through the roof. And if you resolve that, you will not fight AI, making your job redundant. You will actually use and leverage AI for the sake of the success of the company on the mission to do. And the third book is then how do you align your purpose with your capital? How do you use money to trigger change, to contribute, not just for the sake of a financial return, but you're actually using money as a force for good. Yeah? So that's the third one. And it basically all goes back to what is it what you care about, whether this is you in your job, whether this is you in an organization in an organization, or whether this is you because of things you buy, things you invest in, or you support financially. Those are the three pieces. But again, the fundamental problem is the same, that if it's only for the sake of financial returns on capital, you will be safe financially, but you will not be happy. And you can see a lot of people which have a lot, accumulate a lot of wealth are not happy. The question becomes so what next? How can I actually I can contribute? And this goes back to the question is decide for yourself what do you want to solve for? And then choose the path, how to actually execute it, whether you do it yourself, whether you do it in an organization or transform an organization, or whether you do this with your money or the time or the you know the investments you do.

SPEAKER_00: 22:32

So suppose for the listeners who feel successful but quietly disconnected, so then what question would you invite them to sit with this week?

SPEAKER_01: 22:41

It's a great one. So one of the big problems with social media technology AI is that stimulants come for you to get the dopamine shots. And it's constantly, constantly, constantly, constantly. You cannot create and you cannot listen to what you want and listen to your intuition to vocate if you're construct if you're distracted only glued to something who entertains you. And this will lead to a mental burnout, it will lead to anxiety because you overstimulate with cortisol at the same time your body. And so the port part is you need to cut out the noise, find time for you, interiorize because the sanity level will go much higher. And this will affect your mental health, it will affect your physical health positively, but also at the end, the dopamine you get and the endorphines you get come through what you contribute and do, not through what is manipulating you. And so there's a mind shift to be done. And this now in AI, it's even worse. Because if AI tells you what to do, because you haven't figured out what you want to do, your dependency on it will go even up, even worse. And that's why you have these peaks of suicides, you have peaks of mental health problems, you know, of burnouts, because people do not understand that the answer lies in yourself, in what you figure out what you want to do with your life and how you want to live your life, not just numb out the pain by being distracted on something to entertain you. So I mean also this goes back for me on the topic of the human agency. You should decide for you what is the you want to do, and it will be hard anyway, but it's you, yeah, because if it's not you, your life will exponentially go miserable with technology.

SPEAKER_00: 24:52

Yeah, so so it's it's like if not you, then who? So it's uh definitely exactly. And like in a in an AI-driven world, like the most valuable leadership skill is not kind of the speed or intelligence, but it is alignment with the purpose. I mean, I I totally agree on this. So anything that you want to share on that, anything for the listeners?

SPEAKER_01: 25:19

It depends on how to define success. If success is measured on how much money you have in the pocket, so then you can spend it in your free time on some amazing travels or some amazing food or some amazing events. This is entertainment. This is not success. Exactly. If you measure your success on what you have actually achieved, and not the achievement on your image, on your reputation, or how much money you've earned, but actually how much you have lived, loved, and given, that's a big pivot. But it has to start from the beginning. Okay, you decide for you what is success. Yeah, so I invite people to question the ordinary things, the standard way of thinking and what success is, which is you know, people, how many people admire you and how big is your bank account? That's what success is boiled down. And this is goes if you flip this. This is the key component. Because if you live a life with values on the love you give and the contribution you give to people and planet, and you scale this, we will start avoiding to kill ourselves over time with overpopulation, over pollution, over anything, which is the path we're going to.

SPEAKER_00: 26:51

Exactly. I agree. I really love that. And that's a Florian, like, where can listeners learn more about your work and begin their own vocation journey?

SPEAKER_01: 27:01

So, yes, um, for my side, I invite you to read the book, which is a first reflection. And in the book, you have I have my own vulnerable story, my world course of life. I'm not telling this is success, and here I am, and that's the way I actually tell you the way you should do it differently in much earlier. Then I talk about the science of vocating. I give a lot of literature and you know elements, so I want to substantiate and then the seven steps. So if you go to on-vocation.com, you find the book. We will also publish now this year the second one, which is in organizations in a similar way. But that that's the one, and then uh of course, if you want to reach out, yeah, and get some advice and some support, um, you can do that also on the page. But that's the part. First thing for me is before it, you know, is actually to read the book. It's just a guide, it's not a big book. Yeah, one of the things actually I've I'm working on is right now to gamify the seven steps. Okay. Because my yeah, I have five children, kids, youngsters, they're all Gen Zers, and they don't read books in the old way. They read it through the internet and these things. So I'm now gamifying the seven steps so that the learning is different and we can scale it hopefully. But that's something I'm really looking forward to. It's not the way I would learn, but it's a clear message I get from younger generations. Exactly. And that would be also then I invite you to go to an app, yeah, which will be launched shortly on the platform also for people to do that in a next step, then really in a ganified way.

SPEAKER_00: 28:43

Amazing. Amazing, excellent. So, dear listeners, what I'll do is I'll include all the details and the links into the show notes for your easier friends. And as technology accelerates, your humanity becomes even more important. So don't let machines define your meaning, dear listeners. And um thank you so much for listening to Mind Meets Machines. And if this episode sparked reflection, then please share it with someone navigating their own career questions. So, with this hope, this is your host, Avik, and see you soon in the next conversation. So, thank you so much.