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- [00:02]
Chris Duffy
This is how to be a Better Human.
- [00:04]
I'm your host Chris Duffy.
- [00:06]
Today on the show, we're talking with Simone Stolzoff about how to handle uncertainty. How do you make the right choice when you're not sure what the right choice is? What if you're not sure there even
- [00:15]
is a right choice at all?
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Simone talks about these questions in his new book, which is called how to not the Value of Uncertainty in a
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World that Demands Answers.
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Here's a clip from our conversation with
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where Simone is talking about what he means by the value of uncertainty.
- [00:31]
Simone Stolzoff
In the book, I tell a story about a couple who's wrestling with whether they want to get divorced or not. And their couples therapist was Esther Perel, the sort of famed couples therapist. And Esther said something that's really stuck with me, which is that trust is an active engagement with the unknown. In order to be in a relationship, or in order to start a company or a project, or to put your creative work out into the world, you need to cultivate some aspect of faith. Not in sort of just a woo woo spiritual sense, but faith, as in placing your heart on something. Making a bet on something that you don't necessarily know can be proven with evidence. Quite yet I think that is not only an incredibly important skill for an entrepreneur or someone that's deciding whether or not they want to stay married, or someone who is about to embark on an unknown journey. But for all of us, in the face of this world that we currently live in, we need both faith and we need to take action.
- [01:36]
Chris Duffy
We're going to talk a lot more about uncertainty and not knowing, but first
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I'm going to take a very specific action and that is to read you some podcast ads. We will be right back. This podcast is brought to you by Wise, the app for international people using money around the globe. With the Wise account, you can send, spend and receive in over 40 currencies
- [02:04]
Simone Stolzoff
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- [02:06]
Chris Duffy
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- [02:28]
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- [03:02]
Chris Duffy
And we are back. Today on the show, we're talking with
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Simone Stolzoff about the value of uncertainty.
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Simone Stolzoff
Hello, my name is Simone Stolzoff. I am a journalist and an author and I have two books. The first is called the Good Enough Job and my most recent is called how to Not Know.
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Chris Duffy
Let's start by talking about what's your relationship with certainty? What has it been in the past and what is it like now after writing a book about uncertainty?
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Simone Stolzoff
Well, the cliche among authors is that you write the book that you need to read. And so I would characterize myself as a naturally doubting person. I am prone to be in fits of rumination. I'm a very good devil's advocate for my own decisions. And the book itself actually began from a moment of indecision in my own life. I was working as a journalist and writing for the Atlantic and some other publications and I got a job offer from a completely different industry, a design firm called Ideo. And so on one hand it's like woe is me. The agony of having to decide between two attractive job offers. And on the other hand, it really threw me for this existential loop. Maybe some of our listeners have been in a similar place where they sort of see two paths diverging. And there was Simone the journalist on one path and Simone the designer on another path. And as I was trying to make up my mind, I was completely insufferable. I talked about it with everyone I knew, my Uber driver, my yoga teacher, anyone who would listen. I tried to get their opinion and, and I ultimately took the job at the design firm. But I think thinking back to that moment, the problem, the source of my angst and anxiety was I was looking for certainty where there was no certainty to be found. I was trying to find the right job before I had actually done either of the jobs. And that sort of began my multi year exploration into this topic of how we can get better at what we don't know.
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Chris Duffy
Okay, so tell me more about that idea. Of I was trying to find certainty where no certainty could be found.
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Simone Stolzoff
Yeah. I think so many of us have these decision point moments in our lives, these forking paths. And often we think that if we just bang our head against the wall at the right angle, then clarity will emerge that there is one right decision to be made. But I think what makes a hard decision hard is that neither option is better than the other one. Overall, if that were the case, it would be an easy decision. But with hard decisions, often there are trade offs. So, for example, the design job paid more money. The journalism job felt more in line with my passion. The design job was based in my hometown of San Francisco. The journalism job was based in New York City. And so there are these different competing values that I had and I was waiting to resolve all of them by just finding the one right choice, discounting my own ability to make that choice. Right. I think a lot of us, whether it's deciding in a relationship whether you should stay or should go or whether to move, you're trying to find certainty. You want to know exactly what is the say, right. College that you should attend. But it's impossible to have full certainty about anything that happens in the future. And by driving ourselves towards looking for that certainty, it can be a source of our suffering or our dismay.
- [06:19]
Chris Duffy
Sometimes uncertainty can also be the world outside of our choices. Right. Like, I don't know. I think a lot of people right now are feeling huge uncertainty and like, I don't know the value of my skills. I don't know if AI or technology is going to make my entire field disappear or all of a sudden be worthless. I don't know if I'll keep my job. I don't know if the country that I live will continue to be peaceful or whether it will be unstable and chaotic. I don't know whether the money that
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I've been saving for retirement will be enough.
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Like all these outside questions. So how can we think about that kind of uncertainty too? Or how do you think about that kind of uncertainty?
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Simone Stolzoff
Yeah, I'm glad you made that distinction. I think about it in sort of two different ways. There's acute uncertainty. So that's for example, not knowing whether you passed the bar exam or not knowing the results of a medical test that you went through. And then there's this more ambient uncertainty questions like, how will climate change affect my life or will I have a career in 10 years? I think it's important to differentiate between the two. So we can start with acute uncertainty. If there is a question that will have an answer one day. There's some really interesting research that I quote in the book from this researcher named Kate Sweeney. She specifically studies breast cancer patients and sort of the process and the journey of going through a cancer diagnosis. And one thing that she found was that the hard part for the majority of the patients that she worked with was the period between getting a biopsy and getting the results of that biopsy. That was harder than any sort of chemo or any sort of surgery. It was that not knowing exactly what was to come. This is backed up by another one of my favorite studies, which was the researchers in the lab gave participants either 100% chance of receiving a painful electric shock or a 50% chance of receiving a painful electric shock. And those with the 50% chance were far more stressed than those with 100% chance. We would somehow rather have a certain bad thing happen to us than have to deal with the ambiguity of not knowing. And so I think in those cases of sort of acute uncertainty, There's a few things that I would recommend. The first is to separate what you can and what you can't control. If there are actions that you can take that can actually influence the outcome, then you should take them. If you are, don't sign up for the study.
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Chris Duffy
For example, if they say, we're going to shock you, you could say, hey, actually, I'm declining to participate in this study.
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Simone Stolzoff
Yeah, I'll opt out for now. But, for example, say you're applying for a job Rather than just throw your hands up and say, I don't know if I'll get it or not. There are things that you can do, at least at the outset, like write a great cover letter, try and network with people on the hiring team. But once you've done all of the things that you can control, the next step down the flowchart is to plan for different scenarios. Often a lot of our discomfort with uncertainty comes from putting all of our eggs in one basket, saying, okay, we need this job to work out. We need to get into this school. We need to have this specific outcome when that outcome is actually out of our control. So rather than saying, I am just going to plan for one outcome, Planning for different, what I call contingency plans. So if this happens, I'll do this. That happens, I'll do that. And then after that, it's just a matter of being able to regulate your nervous system to be able to cope with the not knowing. That might mean getting into a flow state and distracting yourself through another activity that might Mean something like meditation that will help you get to a grounded place, or trusting in your future self to be able to handle any sort of uncertainty that comes your way. So those are all sort of for the acute category of you will get a piece of information.
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Chris Duffy
Is it your opinion that we are uncomfortable with uncertainty because we are like
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unrealistically poisoning our idea of the future
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and also stressing over the present because we just haven't made these plans so that we feel like if things don't
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go out, there are other options.
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Why do we have that depth of discomfort with uncertainty?
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Simone Stolzoff
Yeah, it's biological. It comes back to our roots as human beings. You can imagine one of your ancestors in the jungle and there's a rustling in the bushes and they're not sure the source of that rustling. Or they reach for a fruit that they don't know whether it's poison or not. That uncertainty can be lethal. And so our brains are wired in a way for certainty to make us feel safe and secure and uncertainty to naturally see as a threat, to put us into this sort of fight or flight response. But a few things that I learned through the research has really helped me deal with those sorts of scenarios. Where you might think about the worst case scenario. One is that humans are really bad at what's called effective forecasting. Effective forecasting is thinking about how we might feel about a future event. So there's this researcher from Harvard named Dan Gilbert, and he's one of the sort of foremost researchers on happiness. And, and one thing that he's found is that people, for example, that get left at the altar or people that didn't get that job that they really wanted to get, often with some benefit of hindsight, can look back at that experience and see it as a blessing in disguise or maybe even the best thing that ever happened to them. So the first thing that I'd tell you is if you're really in this catastrophizing mindset to think back about past periods of uncertainty. We all know a friend who maybe went through a breakup and then saw that breakup as the thing that allowed them to meet their partner that they actually ended up with or maybe didn't get that job that they thought they wanted and then ultimately got something that was even better.
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Chris Duffy
Let's also talk about that other kind of uncertainty that's not the acute uncertainty.
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Simone Stolzoff
Yeah. So the sort of ambient uncertainty of the world. So if you're feeling that the world is incredibly uncertain right now, you are not alone. Between Covid and wars and Ukraine and Iran and tariff policy, what have you. We live in this incredibly uncertain world. And the other side of the coin is that our tolerance for uncertainty is in decline. So the rise of the Internet and mobile phones has created the expectation that answers should be readily available. I know that maybe 10 years ago, if I didn't know the name of a given actor, I might have been okay. But now I feel an almost involuntary need to reach into my pocket. The second thing that does is it robs us of the practice of sitting with what we don't know. We are not as good at tolerating that uncertainty as we used to be. And so in terms of dealing with that ambient uncertainty, the first thing that I'll say is that when we are certain about some aspects of our life, it makes it easier to hold uncertainty in others. So I give the advice of finding your anchors. What are the things in your life that will remain constant amidst all that is changing? Maybe it's a commitment to live in a particular city or to a particular person. If you're running a business, maybe it's your company values or your commitment to serve a particular customer. But when you are clear about the things in your life that will be those sort of boulders amidst all the changing winds, it makes it easier to hold the uncertainty in other aspects of your life.
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Chris Duffy
I love that you brought that up, because this was one of my favorite passages in the whole book about finding your anchors. You say this on page 191. Being certain about some aspects of our lives allows us to hold uncertainty in others.
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Certainty.
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Anchors can be a routine ritual or unwavering relationship. But perhaps the most important anchor is our values. In spite of the swirling winds around us, values are the steadfast boulders that remain. I love that writing, and I think that is such an incredible framing. I never thought of it like that, and I found that to be really helpful and profound.
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Simone Stolzoff
Yeah, thanks for saying that. I'll give one example from my own personal life. So my grandma recently passed away. She was 99 and a half years old. And I'm Jewish. And in the Jewish tradition, there is this ritual of what you should do in the seven days after someone passes away. It's called Shiva. And I think one thing that's really nice about it is amidst all of the uncertainty of not knowing what to do after you lose a loved one, here is a list of instructions. On day one, you invite people over to the house to bring food. On day seven, you go on a walk in your neighborhood to show your face that you're still around to your neighbors. And I think having that process, certainty, can help us cope with or manage some of the emotional uncertainty that we may be feeling.
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Chris Duffy
I know we were talking about the second way that we can deal with ambient uncertainty. And I had taken us off on this tangent on the first.
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Simone Stolzoff
No, I think it's a great segue. We talked about finding your anchors. I think the second thing I'll say is to focus on the next right action. So this is a concept from Buddhism. Often when we are thinking about an uncertain situation, we can get overwhelmed with that spiraling thinking that you were talking about earlier, where you might end up sleeping with four people on a love seat. But instead of thinking about this leads to this, leads to this, leads to this, we can ground ourselves in the present moment and just think about one step at a time. So one example in the book I profile this crisis communications expert. She sort of gets brought into companies at the worst part of their company journey. Maybe there's been some sort of tragedy or scandal. And she told me about this one time where she was in this boardroom full of lots of executives, and everyone was freaking out about the next thing to do after this big sort of company calamity. And she took a piece of butcher paper and she rolled the butcher paper out on the boardroom table, and she wrote down every single thing that needed to be done. You need to write a press release. You need to communicate with your employees, you need to communicate with your investors. And she had all of these things written out on a piece of butcher paper. And she said, what is the next right action? What is the one most important step that we can take right now? And by getting all of those things out of their heads and onto the page, they were able to start prioritizing and chipping away. And so I think we don't need a boardroom to necessarily do this. In your own life, if you're overwhelmed by the process of writing a novel or applying to jobs or whatever, if you're able to just focus on that next right action, what the great writer Anne Lamott called going bird by bird, that will allow you to actually build some momentum and take the sort of amorphous uncertainty that you might be feeling and make it a little bit more applied, give yourself some control back over the universe.
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Chris Duffy
You can't see this because it's behind my camera, but I literally. I only have two things tacked up on the the bulletin board that's behind my computer, and one is a note card that says proceed as the way opens, which I learned a phrase I learned about from a friend who's Quaker, and he told me this is a Quaker saying. And then the other one is just actually related to the other thing. It's just some things that I really value to do every day. So it's like you're stressed. Okay, here's the five things you need to be trying to think about. One is laugh hard, eat well, learn something, go outside, meet someone. I'm like, if I can do any of those, we're going to have a good day.
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Simone Stolzoff
I love that. So you have your anchors on one side and you have your reminder to focus on the next right action on the other side. I think the idea with focusing on the next right action is particularly true with these big sort of uncertainties in our life, these existential uncertainties. And just quickly to round out the sort of ambient uncertainty category. The last thing that I'll say is to choose curiosity over fear. So often when we think about uncertainty, we see it as this threat, we see it as that rustling in the bushes, and we think that it's necessarily going to be something bad. But one thing that I like to think about is that uncertainty is also the birthplace of possibility. So no groundbreaking piece of art or inspiring company or scientific breakthrough has come without someone's willingness to get to a place of uncertainty and to persist. I like to think of the metaphor of someone on a lake that's shrouded in heavy fog. You might not be able to see very far in front of you or know exactly where you'll end up, but if you keep rowing, then you'll eventually reach land. And so those are the three I'd say. Find your anchors, focus on the next right action, and then choose curiosity over fear.
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Chris Duffy
Okay, we're going to take a quick break, but we will be right back,
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so please choose to keep listening. This episode is sponsored by Quince. I've been trying to be more intentional about what I wear, and I'm leaning into pieces that feel easy and comfortable but still put together. Quint's has been my go to for this. I don't have time to overthink my outfit for the day, so I am happy to have received their organic cotton camp shirt and chino shorts, which are actually so comfortable and still look presentable. They have all the perfect wardrobe staples for springtime 100% European linen shorts, cotton tees, and lightweight pants that are breathable and make you look clean and polished. Everything is priced 50 to 80% less than you'd find at similar brands because Quint's works directly with ethical factories and cuts out the middlemen so you can get premium materials without the markup. Refresh your everyday with luxury you'll actually use. Head to quints.com humin for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too, that is Q U I N C E.com human for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com/human this episode is brought to you by Shopify. When you first start your own business, every decision can feel super overwhelming. Your to do list is growing each day with new tasks. Finding the right tool that not only helps you out, but simplifies everything can be a game changer. And for millions of businesses, that tool is Shopify. Shopify is the e commerce platform behind businesses around the world, from household names like Heinz and Mattel to brands just getting started. If your brand isn't well known yet, Shopify helps you find your customers with easy to run email and social media campaigns. And if you get stuck, Shopify's team is always around to share advice with their 247 customer support service. Start your business today with the industry's best business partner, Shopify and Start. Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at shopify.com betterhuman go to shopify.com betterhuman that's shopify.com betterhuman this episode is sponsored by Omaha Steaks. I usually just buy my dinner proteins from the grocery store meat aisle. I figured I'd have to settle for a bland burger if I didn't want to go out to a nice steakhouse every night. But that was before trying Omaha Steaks. I recently tried their Air Chilled chicken breasts and let me tell you, I could taste the difference. Juicy, fresh, flavorful and with the convenience of a frozen meal. That's because Omaha Steak's unmatched selection of USDA certified steaks, chicken and more are frozen at their moment of peak flavor, texture and quality. So you can have that delicious, fresh tasting dish delivered right to your door for whenever you need a convenient meal. And with their risk free 100% satisfaction guarantee, you can order with complete confidence. Taste the Omaha Steaks difference and never settle for grocery proteins again. Get flavorful, high quality proteins delivered by visiting omahasteaks.com/$35 off when you use promo code human at checkout. That's omahasteaks.com code human terms apply. See site for details
- [22:17]
and we are back. I wonder if a part of this relationship with uncertainty that we have, that we struggle with is because we have an idea in our head sometimes, or
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let me just make it personal, I
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have an idea in my head sometimes that things are supposed to be easy and that if they're not easy, it means that I'm doing something wrong. So I wonder if you can talk about that part of that relationship with it feeling wrong, but us needing to live in that, to actually get past the scary uncertainty and into the good uncertainty.
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Simone Stolzoff
Yeah. So we're talking broadly about how do you build tolerance for uncertainty? How does uncertainty go from this thing that is incredibly uncomfortable to something that you can collaborate, that you can manage in your day to day basis? And I'd say that in general it's not too different from other phobias. So I talked to a lot of different psychologists for the book, and one of them is this guy named Michel Dugas. And he was the first one to link uncertainty intolerance to a lot of the anxiety and mental health problems that his patients feel and that many of us feel. And he equated uncertainty tolerance to something like exposure therapy. If you were scared of spiders, for example, you might not go toward reaching for a spider right away, but maybe you'd start by researching some fun facts about spiders. And then maybe you get comfortable enough to sort of be in the same room as a spider. I think the same can be true with uncertainty. We can build our uncertainty tolerance by sort of micro dosing uncertain moments, by consciously putting yourself in uncertain situations and safer, controlled environments, you are training your brain to be more comfortable with uncertainty when you are, say, facing that job uncertainty or that medical diagnosis. And so we can learn to build more uncertainty tolerance through exposure. The problem is modern life makes it very easy for us to stay in our comfort zones. Whether it's our climate controlled rooms that we're in, or our filter bubbles that we consume online, or or even just like our neighborhood in our cities or our towns that we live in. It's really easy to just stay in that comfortable place. But discomfort is necessary in order to learn and to grow. And so in the same way that unlearning is a precursor to being able to learn new information, developing the ability to not know, or maybe we can call it unknowing, is a precursor to being able to learn and to grow.
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Chris Duffy
I've never heard that before.
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What does that mean? Unlearning is a precursor to learning new information.
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Simone Stolzoff
I think it's a very popular idea in sort of education pedagogy about the necessary tool to trade Some of our hubris, some of our assumption that we know best for humility and whether that's updating your thinking about something that you once believed that's no longer true, or opening your mind to receiving new information or one sign of a good learner. We close our minds. It narrows our scope. But when we are able to maintain that level of uncertainty, of unknowing, we actually open our minds to what actually emerges. We can maybe surprise ourselves by learning that their neighbor that voted for someone different than you actually has things to teach you. That is sort of my goal of the book is to help readers get more tolerant, more comfortable with uncertainty, so that they can open their mind and choose to treat the future with a little bit more curiosity.
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Chris Duffy
I'm really interested in that specifically. I think that idea of intellectual humility and that idea that we maybe don't know everything. And it is one of the biggest things that I admire in people is when they say, here's what I think.
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But I also am open to the
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idea that I could change my mind if you present more information. But if you believe one thing and then you find out new information and change your mind, great. I want more of those people. I want people who flip flop from wrong to right. That's what we all should be aspiring to do.
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Simone Stolzoff
Totally.
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Chris Duffy
Yeah.
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Simone Stolzoff
We should be open to updating our worldview based on new information that we receive. For example, there's this professor named Phil Tetlock, and he was a professor of mine in college. He collated data from a decade's worth of predictions from the smartest people in the world. So these are like economists, politicians, journalists, experts in different fields. And then he took those predictions and measured them against what actually happened in the future. And his big canonical finding was that the average expert was roughly as accurate as a dart throwing chimpanzee. And so as much as we want to know who's going to win the election or when the market is going to crash, or how seductive some of those hot takes are on social media, the truth is we're not very good at predicting. And the people who are the best predictors are the ones who update their worldview and update their forecasts as often as possible. So we can take that into our own mind. One sort of little mantra that I like saying to myself is this is what I believe today based on what I know now. And I like that sort of framing of ideas because inherent in the sort of construction is the idea that I might learn more later that might change what I believe in the future. And if we could trade some of that hubris or that certainty for humility, I think we would live in a much more connected, open and generous world.
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Chris Duffy
You're from San Francisco. You have worked in a lot of tech adjacent industries. Your personal and professional interests have intersected with a lot of technology. I am curious about how artificial intelligence plays into these ideas, because I'll just lay my own prejudices on the table.
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One of the things that I find
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the most unappealing about AI is that it presents, in my experience at least, it has always presented me with a definitive answer. And I think that is something that makes me really deeply uncomfortable with it as the source of information for many people right now. But I would love for you to push, in the spirit of intellectual humility, I would love for you to tell me that either I'm wrong and there's something I'm missing, or that I'm right and that uncertainty plays in this way in some different way. So how do AI and uncertainty interact in your mind?
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Simone Stolzoff
Yeah, I see it on sort of two levels. There's sort of the question about how do we personally interact with AI and how does that change the way that we see the world? And then there's sort of like the macro question about how AI will impact jobs or careers moving forward. So let's take each of them one at a time. The first one is, you know, I think the models are getting better at not hallucinating, which is to say that the information that they are presenting is more and more accurate. The problem is when, like I was debating between these two jobs, we are looking for certainty where there is no certainty to be found. One thing that I think these LLMs and these chatbots do is create the expectation that answers should be readily available, even for big questions in our lives that don't necessarily have definitive certain answers. The second thing they do is they take away the need for us to wrestle with problems. So there's this idea that was coined initially by the writer Cal Newport, which I really like, and it's about cognitive fitness. And so similar to the metaphor used earlier, in order to get stronger, we have to lift weights, we have to put our muscles under tension. That's what allows us to get stronger. Similarly, cognitively with our thinking, we need time under tension in order to grow our brains, in order to learn, in order to think harder. And I think one thing AI does is it allows us to circumvent some of that time under tension, because we can just ask the chatbot for the answer. And there's some really interesting studies from MIT recently, people who were given the opportunity to use AI to help assist them write papers. And what they found is basically the papers were good, but the writers of the paper did not retain any of the information or the points that they were making. And so I think that's the real risk where we outsource the hard thinking to AI in a way that detracts from our own ability to actually learn and to grow. When it comes to sort of predictions about AI, I think we have this natural tendency to either lionize or villainize the technology, to say, okay, AI is going to automate all rote tasks and push us towards high level work. And we're going to be in this utopia of UBI and being able to just focus on writing poetry or the other side of the spectrum, which is this class warfare is imminent and the robots are going to show up at our doors with pink slips and there's going to be this massive disruption that's going to lead to this very dark. And the truth is, as seductive as both of these worldviews are, no one really knows. There was this great prediction about how people that looked at scans in doctors offices. So whether they're cardiologists or people that are trying to analyze X ray imagery, there was this very smart professor who said, by the end of 2025, there's going to be no more cardiologists. And then there were more cardiologists at the end of 2025 than there were before the year began. And so this comes back to this parable which I'll just share a brief version of, which is, there's this farmer and his horse runs away from the small village and his neighbors come to his door and they say, oh, we're so sorry to hear about your horse. What a tragedy. And the farmer says, maybe yes, maybe no. The next day the horse comes back and with it there are seven wild horses until and toe. So the farmer's livelihood depends on these horses. Now he has eight horses where he only had one before. And his neighbors come to his door and they say, oh, you're so lucky. What great fortune. And the farmer says, maybe yes, maybe no. The following day, the farmer's son is riding one of the horses and falls off the horse and breaks his leg. And again the neighbors return and they say, we're so sorry to hear about your son, what a bummer. And the farmer says, maybe yes, maybe no. The day after that, generals from the military come by to draft people into the war. And because the sun has broken his leg, he gets out of the draft. The neighbors say, what great luck. And the farmer says, maybe yes, maybe no. And so that's sort of my take on AI. Like, yes, it's really seductive to make predictions about exactly what the world's going to look like in 10 years, or the future of writers or the future of all of these different creative professions. But the truth is, we don't quite know yet. And the more time we can remain in this space of not knowing, the more receptive we can be to the actual information that presents itself as opposed to our expectations of what is to come.
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Chris Duffy
So let's start with someone who is maybe a recent graduate or early in their career, and they're just swimming in this pool of uncertainty, and they feel really helpless without answers. They have no idea what job or career path they want to take or even where to begin figuring it out. How can they begin to guide themselves through that immense uncertainty or even to just view it in a way that allows them to start taking actions and to not just feel completely paralyzed by it?
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Simone Stolzoff
Yeah, first and foremost, I empathize with the situation of new grads today. I don't want to sugarcoat the state of the job market or what it's like to be applying to jobs, coming out of school. A few things I'll say. One is the fastest way to learn what you want to do with your life is to build, which is to say, to get proximate to actually doing the work. I think this applies to people at any stage of their career. Often when we're trying to figure out what we want to do next, we get caught in these sort of thought experiments and you say, oh, do I want to be a project manager or do I want to be an artist? And you sort of get caught in your head thinking, like, what would be most fulfilling or what might allow you to pay the bills, et cetera. But the fastest way to learn whether either of those paths is actually something that is sustainable or viable or feasible for you is to do it. Which is to say, not wait for anyone to give you permission or to, you know, say, please, I want to commission you to paint this painting, but just to do it on your own terms. I, you know, as a writer, get a lot of DMs and people asking for advice on how to become a writer. And often the first question I'll ask them is, what do you enjoy writing? What have you written recently? And people often say, well, I haven't actually written anything. But I have all these ideas of what I want to write, and to that I say, go out and try to do it. At ideo, this place that I used to work, we used to say, never come to a meeting without a prototype. And so being able to prototype your career will be the quickest way to tell you whether or not it is actually something that is desirable to you. The other thing it'll do is give you a sense of agency. Part of the reason why it's so hard to be in the job market right now is because all of these applicants are sending out their resumes and cover letters into the void and waiting for a hiring manager to take mercy on their souls. It feels like they don't have very much control. And the way that you can take back control is by trying to build something on your own terms. It might not sound very optimistic at this point, but if you are curious about, say, building your own business or becoming an advertising art director or trying out your hand at coding, the best way to show your work is to actually do that work. And that skill of being able to learn through building is going to be one of the most important skills as we go from a more sort of laddered version of what a career looks like into this more sort of meandering path age, this pathless path that we're all entering today. So build to learn and don't wait for anyone else to give you permission to start creating the work that you want to be creating.
- [36:44]
Chris Duffy
How did writing this new book change how you thought about everything you'd learned about jobs in the first book?
- [36:50]
Simone Stolzoff
Yeah, so the first book is about how work has come to be so central to our identities. And I talked to many different workers, from Michelin star chefs to Wall street bankers to software engineers at Google, about how to think about their jobs. And the main argument of the book is about the value of diversifying your identity rather than putting all of your eggs in one basket. If you're able to diversify the sources of identity, meaning purpose in your life, then it is a much more sustainable way to think about work's role. I think it's also great advice for how to deal with uncertainty. If all of your identity eggs are in your basket of being, say, someone who works at Google, and that job is taken away from you, maybe by no fault of your own, then it can drive you towards an existential crisis. But if you have been able to diversify to say, okay, I'm going to invest in my relationships over here, I have these hobbies that really bring a lot of meaning to me. I have work that is a source of meaning, but is not the sole source of meaning. You're better equipped to deal with whatever slings or arrows the future holds. And so I think that is the link to me. You know how to not know. You're never going to know with absolute certainty what your career or your job might look like. But the more you diversify your source of identity, of meaning, of purpose, the wider foundation you will have. And even if one pillar of your identity were to crumble, you will remain standing tall.
- [38:28]
Chris Duffy
What if someone is in a job that they do not like? They feel like this is really unpleasant. I am not liking my day to day. I'm dreading going to work on Mondays. But I don't have a clear next step. Should I quit? Should I stay? How do you deal with that kind of uncertainty?
- [38:48]
Simone Stolzoff
I hear this a lot, especially these days, and particularly in relation to burnout. And one of the things that I've learned from research that has been really helpful for me is that there are actually three, at least three different types of burnout. There is overextension burnout, which is I have too much on my plate, I feel very strapped. There is depletion burnout, which is I don't feel like I am having enough time to recharge. And then there is misalignment burnout, which is I feel this discrepancy between what I value and what I'm doing with my time. And often when people are not happy with their job, it's one of these three things. So when it comes to overextension burnout, maybe it's just a matter of doing less, of trying to say no, set better boundaries, make sure that you have enough time to do deep work, the things that are maybe more fulfilling with your work. If you're in a state of depletion burnout, you feel like you aren't adequately resting or recharging. I would recommend trying to find active forms of rest. So often we will go to work, we'll come home, we'll try to turn off our brain, turn on Netflix, but actually by investing in things like your local community, your hobbies, something like learning a new language or going on a weekly walk with your best friend. Those are the types of things that will help you adequately recharge so that you can be more present and productive when you're back on the clock. And lastly, if you're in a place of misalignment burnout, where there's this discrepancy between what you care about and what you're doing. Maybe that means that you need to make a change. Maybe that means either changing your role within your company or leaving your company to try something else. But distinguishing between these three categories is often a good place to start when you have that sort of ambient sense of I'm unhappy, but I'm not exactly
- [40:45]
Chris Duffy
sure why this episode is sponsored by Wayfair. With summer on the way, I'm looking forward to spending a lot more time outside with friends. But for the longest time, my outdoor space hasn't felt all that inviting. But I've been looking at a nice patio rug on Wayfair, and I feel like it's going to totally transform the vibe of my whole patio. It's amazing how far a little pop of color and something that I pick out and feels like me can go to make a space feel more inviting and personal. Wayfair makes it easy to find what you need all in one place, whether it's outdoor seating, appliances, rugs, or decor. And they have options for every style and aesthetic to help make your space feel uniquely yours. And you can shop with Wayfair Verified, AKA your shortcut to the good stuff. Wayfair Verified Verified means their team of product specialists vet everything by hand so you know you're getting a quality piece. Get prepped for patio season for way less head to Wayfair.com right now to shop all things home. That's W A Y f a I
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Simone Stolzoff
Every Style Every Home
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Chris Duffy
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- [43:16]
Chris Duffy
What about in friendships? There is, especially in the beginning of a new friendship, so much of the barrier I feel is the uncertainty. Do they actually like me? Do they want to hang out with me? Is it weird if I meet this person in the park and then say, hey, can I get your number so we can just hang out as friends, or should I not do that? So much of what stops us from actually making deeper social connections with friends is uncertainty around what is or is not allowed, normal, wanted, desired. How can we think about or change our perspective on that kind of uncertainty?
- [43:52]
Simone Stolzoff
I think it's similar to romantic relationships in some way, which is the first thing that I always tell people if they're looking to meet a partner or looking to make a new friend, is to assume that person likes you. Often we sort of negotiate against ourselves and come up with all the reasons why they probably are judging you and they don't want a new friend anyways, or this, that, or the other thing. So I'd start from that place, assume they want to connect. And the second thing I'll say is to be an initiator, which is to say that if you want more friends in your life, be willing to make the first move. And then the third thing I'll say is give your friendship a reason for being. As my friend Anna Goldfarb likes to say, every friendship needs an about. It's not quite a complete sentence, especially as you're an older adult. To say, I want a new friend, give yourself a reason to make that friend. I want a new friend to watch the game with. I want a new friend to read books with. I want a new friend to talk about politics or to think about my career with. And if that relationship has a reason for being, it's much more likely to be sustainable and to give the relationship itself a sense of purpose rather than what happens so often, which is this sort of like, we should totally hang out sometime. Maybe you, like hang out once, but you don't necessarily have that reason to come back again and again.
- [45:15]
Chris Duffy
Okay, and then my last hypothetical one is a personal one for you, which I imagine you have experienced many times on the other end, which is, what if you are a person and you are meeting someone and you're not 100% sure how to pronounce their name, you're not sure. Is it Simone? Is it Simone? Is it Simone?
- [45:39]
You don't want to say it wrong.
- [45:41]
You don't want to be rude. How can you handle that uncertainty? As a person who I know has had to think about this many times
- [45:48]
Simone Stolzoff
in his life, it's a great note to end on. It's the first question every single podcast host or substitute teacher of my life has ever asked me. Yesterday I gave a talk at a company, and a friend of mine was the person that brought me in. We were sort of like loose coworkers working at the same company at the same time. She said, why don't you come speak to my organization? I gave the talk this morning. I get an email from her and say, I'm so sorry, this is so embarrassing, but do you pronounce your name Simone or Simo? Simo is sort of my nickname. And as the recipient, I felt so grateful that she asked because she was willing to traverse some of the, you know, awkwardness or social faux pas of asking the question, even though we've known each other for a number of years because she cared enough to get it right. And as anyone who has sort of a Italian or harder to pronounce name out there will probably agree with, it means a lot when people try to get it right. And I'm never judging someone for getting it wrong. If they show a genuine interest in who I am as a person, maybe that's a good note to end on.
- [46:53]
Chris Duffy
Simone, it's been such a pleasure talking to you. I knew I was. I will say I was certain that this would be a good conversation, but thank you for making it be a good conversation and for helping us all to embrace some uncertainty in our lives.
- [47:03]
Simone Stolzoff
Thanks so much for having me. Cheers.
- [47:11]
Chris Duffy
That is it for today's episode of how to Be a Better Human. Thank you so much to our guest, Simone Stolzoff. His new book is called how to Not Know. My new book is called Humor Me.
- [47:20]
And you can find out more about me and my book@chrisduffycomedy.com how to be
- [47:24]
a Better Human is put together by a team that seems like they really do know. On the TED side, we've got the
- [47:28]
masters of nuanced complexity.
- [47:30]
Daniela Balorizzo, Banban Chang, Michelle Quint, Chloe Shasha, Brady Brooks, Valentina Bohanini, Lainey Lott, Tanzika, Sun Manivong, Antonia Le, and Joseph de Bruyne. Ryan Lash knew how to edit this video and the episode was fact checked by Matteo Salas who is uncertain that we can say with certainty which times
- [47:45]
in history have been most uncertain.
- [47:47]
On the PRX side, they know how to make podcasts sound good and how to not make them sound bad. It's Morgan Flannery, Nora Gill, Patrick Grant and Jocelyn Gonzalez. Thanks to you for listening. In a world that demands answers, all that I demand is that you share
- [48:00]
this episode with someone who you think would enjoy it.
- [48:02]
We will be back next week with even more how to be a better human.
- [48:05]
At least I think we will be back. There is no way for me to know with certainty.
- [48:17]
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no fees or minimums on checking accounts. It's no wonder the Capital One bank guy is so passionate about banking. With Capital One, if he were here, he wouldn't just tell you about no fees or minimums. He'd also talk about how most Capital One cafes are open seven days a week to assist with your banking needs. Yep, even on weekends it's pretty much all he talks about in a good way. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See capitalone.com bank capital1NA member FDIC. You have the vision for your business. You have the plan and you just got handed a huge opportunity. But is your business connectivity reliable enough to make a move? Spectrum Business delivers fast, reliable Internet, phone, TV and mobile services, so you're always connected when it matters most. Get connectivity packages built for your business with savings that keep your budget in check. And with fast, reliable Internet and 100% US based customer support, you'll stay connected and ready to bring your vision to life. Learn more@spectrum.com business restrictions apply. Services not available in all areas this
- [49:53]
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episode is brought to you by Choiceology, an original podcast from Charles Schwab hosted by Katie Milkman, an award winning behavioral scientist and author of best selling book how to Change Choiceology is a show about the psychology and economics behind our decisions. Hear true stories from Nobel laureates, authors, athletes and everyday people about why we do the things we do. Listen to Choiceology Allergy at schwab. Com Podcast or wherever you listen.