Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning.
Speaker 1: This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
Speaker 1: episode is going to be a slightly longer one part
Speaker 1: of the series where I interview fascinating people about how
Speaker 1: they take their days from great to awesome and any
Speaker 1: advice they have for the rest of us. So today
Speaker 1: I am delighted to welcome Simone stoles Off to Before Breakfast.
Speaker 1: Simone is the author of The Good Enough Job and
Speaker 1: also the author of the brand new book How Not
Speaker 1: to Know the value of uncertainty in a world that
Speaker 1: demands answers. So Simone, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, why don't you tell our listeners a little bit
Speaker 1: about yourself.
Speaker 2: I'm a journalist and an author. I wasn't always this
Speaker 2: profession that I had sort of a meandering career. In college,
Speaker 2: I studied poetry and economics, and so maybe you can
Speaker 2: already see the tension between the pursuit of art and
Speaker 2: the pursuit of commerce. But I like to think of
Speaker 2: my as taking big swings at big questions, and so
Speaker 2: my first book, The Good Enough Job, was about how
Speaker 2: work has come to be so central to our identities,
Speaker 2: and in the release and afterwards, I kept hearing questions
Speaker 2: from listeners and readers about how they should think about
Speaker 2: their career and the face of about the uncertainty in
Speaker 2: the world and their careers and their lives. And so
Speaker 2: my second book, How To Not Know, is sort of
Speaker 2: response to that. It's an attempt to help you get
Speaker 2: better at dealing with uncertainty, and God knows we all
Speaker 2: need that right now.
Speaker 1: Well, I would say, I mean, is life more uncertain
Speaker 1: now or are we just more aware of various aspects
Speaker 1: of the uncertainty.
Speaker 2: It's a little bit of both. And so there's been
Speaker 2: some really good research that has come out. There's this
Speaker 2: project called the Economic Policy Uncertainty Index that has tracked
Speaker 2: global uncertainty over time, and since the study began in
Speaker 2: the eighties, the five highest measurements of uncertainty have all
Speaker 2: occurred in the last five years. So you think about
Speaker 2: things like the COVID pandemic, the Warren Ukraine, Iran tariff policy.
Speaker 2: We live in an incredibly uncertain world. Now. If you were
Speaker 2: talking to someone who lived in Floorince during the bubonic plague,
Speaker 2: they might think, Okay, maybe it's not that uncertain But
Speaker 2: I think the biggest thing that's changed recently is that
Speaker 2: our tolerance for uncertainty has declined, and so with the
Speaker 2: rise of the Internet and mobile phones, it's done two things.
Speaker 2: One is, it's created the expectation that answers should be
Speaker 2: readily available, and so whereas maybe five years ago I
Speaker 2: might have been fine not knowing the name of a
Speaker 2: given actor, now I feel this almost involuntary need to
Speaker 2: reach for my phone. And the second thing that's done
Speaker 2: is it's taken all of the world's crises, all of
Speaker 2: the uncertainty that might exist out there, and flattened it,
Speaker 2: and it brought it right to our doorstep. And so
Speaker 2: the world is incredibly uncertain, our tolerance for uncertainty is
Speaker 2: in decline, and that leaves us so much of the
Speaker 2: anxiety and fear that so many people are feeling today.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is true about you know, be out at
Speaker 1: dinner with people and somebody asked the question, what was
Speaker 1: that guy who was in this? And you know, you're
Speaker 1: all pulling out your phones to check its, like, well,
Speaker 1: none of us actually needed to know that. We could
Speaker 1: have continued our life and this dinner without that. But
Speaker 1: you mentioned that we're less tolerant of uncertainty, then why
Speaker 1: is it important for us to be tolerant of uncertainty?
Speaker 2: At the most basic level, the world is uncertain, especially
Speaker 2: when you think about anything that happens in the future,
Speaker 2: and so if you are intolerant of uncertainty, individuals tend
Speaker 2: to be less creative, for example, because when they hit
Speaker 2: a moment of discomfort or ambiguity, they tend to go
Speaker 2: for the safest option, which isn't always the optimal choice.
Speaker 2: Communities tend to be more cohesive and collaborative in the
Speaker 2: face of higher levels of uncertainty tolerance, because they're able
Speaker 2: to collaborate across differences, whereas if you're intolerant of uncertainty,
Speaker 2: you might not want to speak to your neighbor, or
Speaker 2: speak to a stranger, or speak to someone who voted
Speaker 2: for someone differently than you. And as a society at large,
Speaker 2: when we're intolerant of uncertainty, we tend to not be
Speaker 2: very resilient or adaptive. Part of what it means to
Speaker 2: live in the modern world is to be able to
Speaker 2: face uncertainty and continue to make decisions, continue to persist,
Speaker 2: and if we're intolerant, then we continue to close our
Speaker 2: minds and not open our minds to the possibilities that
Speaker 2: might be sitting on the other side of what we
Speaker 2: don't know.
Speaker 1: So here's something I don't know, Simone is what the
Speaker 1: wait times will be at Newark Airport, where I am
Speaker 1: trying to go in the next few days. We're in
Speaker 1: a period of time this will air later, but when
Speaker 1: there's a lot of uncertainty about TSA staffing and things
Speaker 1: like that. So I find myself scrolling around online a
Speaker 1: lot trying to find anybody who claims to know anything
Speaker 1: about the new airport wait times. Why am I doing that?
Speaker 2: I think it's an attempt to find control in that
Speaker 2: situation that you might not necessarily have very much control.
Speaker 2: So in the book, I talk about three different traps
Speaker 2: that we often fall into. The first is comfort, our
Speaker 2: desire to stay comfortable, which keeps us from exploring things
Speaker 2: outside of our comfort zone. The second is hubris, our
Speaker 2: tendency to think that we know best, which keeps us
Speaker 2: from admitting what we don't know. And the last trap
Speaker 2: that I talk about is control, our desire to plan
Speaker 2: to know exactly what the future will hold, even when
Speaker 2: we sometimes cannot. And so I think in the situation
Speaker 2: like this with the New York airport, certainly it's good
Speaker 2: to do some research to figure out if there's estimated
Speaker 2: wait times, if maybe your airline can send you an estimate.
Speaker 2: But there comes a point in any sort of decision
Speaker 2: making process where gathering more information has diminishing returns. I'm
Speaker 2: thinking specifically about one moment in my life where I
Speaker 2: was deciding between two job offers, and I spoke to
Speaker 2: everyone I could about it, my uber driver, my yoga teacher.
Speaker 2: I was like insufferable as a friend and as a partner,
Speaker 2: and I realized I was trying to control a situation
Speaker 2: that I fundamentally could not. I wanted to know what
Speaker 2: was the right job for me in the same way
Speaker 2: that you might want to know exactly what time you
Speaker 2: should arrive at work. And so I think for someone
Speaker 2: in your situation, the most important thing is to separate
Speaker 2: what you can and you can't control. You can control
Speaker 2: for things like your method of getting to the airport,
Speaker 2: trying to arrive with as much time as possible, but
Speaker 2: there is a level of uncertainty that is inherent in
Speaker 2: flying or making any sort of decision like that, And
Speaker 2: I would say, to not opt on the full end
Speaker 2: of the conservative spectrum and arrive six hours for your flight,
Speaker 2: and then not opt for the sort of wishful thinking
Speaker 2: line of the spectrum where you arrive forty five minutes
Speaker 2: before your flight and think everything is going to be fine.
Speaker 2: So gather information that you can plan, fritage different contingencies,
Speaker 2: and then ultimately you have to be comfortable with not knowing.
Speaker 1: So I think that thing about trying to exert control
Speaker 1: over things that also plays out in people maybe sometimes
Speaker 1: sense that they are doing something by doing all this
Speaker 1: additional research or reading, as it might be, clickbaity articles
Speaker 1: on anything that is increasing their anxiety level. Does that
Speaker 1: sort of keep us from maybe focusing on the things
Speaker 1: that we can control. I mean, I think of all
Speaker 1: the people who are reading some ragey article online and
Speaker 1: thinking that that is activism as opposed to actually doing
Speaker 1: something that has any effect on the topic that they
Speaker 1: are reading about.
Speaker 2: Yeah, A line that I like to think about a
Speaker 2: lot is that action absorbs anxiety. And often when we're
Speaker 2: gathering more information, it can be useful to a point,
Speaker 2: but beyond that point, it often just fuels our anxiety.
Speaker 2: That's why we live in this information age, and yet
Speaker 2: access to more information has not necessarily made us any
Speaker 2: wiser or less anxious. You can pour gasoline on the
Speaker 2: fire of your anxiety by continuing to research, by continuing
Speaker 2: to click through articles. I'm a new parent and I
Speaker 2: think about this all the time. In relation to parenting.
Speaker 2: You can read endless things about anything on the internet
Speaker 2: about what might be happening with your kid. But at
Speaker 2: a certain point that is getting in the way of
Speaker 2: you actually being present with your kid and being able
Speaker 2: to be responsive in the moment.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, Well, We're going to take a quick ad break
Speaker 1: and then I'll be back with more from Simoni Stolelof. Well,
Speaker 1: I am back talking with Simonie Stolesov, who is the
Speaker 1: author of the brand new book How Not to Know
Speaker 1: the Value of Uncertainty in a world that demands answers.
Speaker 1: So you say that we should you increase our tolerance
Speaker 1: for uncertainty. And if somebody's listening to this, it's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I want the equivalent of exercises I can do, like
Speaker 1: at the gym, to make myself more tolerant of uncertainty.
Speaker 1: What would you suggest that they do?
Speaker 2: The first thing I always say is to find your anchors,
Speaker 2: so research shows, and when we are certain about some
Speaker 2: aspects of our life, it makes it easier to hold
Speaker 2: uncertainty in others. I think about this in relation to
Speaker 2: time management all the time. If you know, for example,
Speaker 2: that you're going to exercise at a certain moment in
Speaker 2: the day, or if you have a bed time at
Speaker 2: a certain time, it'll make it easier to hold some
Speaker 2: of the more amorphous and certainty throughout your day. So
Speaker 2: for you, your anchors might be something like your values,
Speaker 2: or where you know you want to live, or who
Speaker 2: you know you want to be with, or where you
Speaker 2: want to spend your time. Those anchors can be the
Speaker 2: boulders amidst all the changing winds around you. The second
Speaker 2: thing I'd say is to try to separate what you
Speaker 2: can and can't control. That's what we were talking about earlier.
Speaker 2: There is this great prayer that you may have heard
Speaker 2: of before, called the serenity prayer, and it's very popular
Speaker 2: in recovery communities. But it basically says, God, grant me
Speaker 2: the serenity to separate what I can and I can't control,
Speaker 2: and to know the difference. So often when we're dealing
Speaker 2: with uncertainty, we spend lots of energy and effort on
Speaker 2: things that we fundamentally can't control, So how can you
Speaker 2: divert that energy towards things that you can? And the
Speaker 2: third is I'd say choose curiosity over fear. I think
Speaker 2: part of the problem uncertainty is so uncomfortable for us
Speaker 2: is that we have a natural tendency to catastrophize, to
Speaker 2: think about all the things that could go wrong, to
Speaker 2: worry about arriving to the airport and there being a
Speaker 2: five hour TSA line and you missing your flight. But
Speaker 2: I think it's also important to think about what might
Speaker 2: go right, so to frame the possibility as opposed to
Speaker 2: just the threat of uncertainty. Certainly, every scientific breakthrough or
Speaker 2: revolutionary company, or genre busting piece of art has come
Speaker 2: from someone's willingness to get to a point where they
Speaker 2: were uncertain and persist nonetheless. And so thinking about those
Speaker 2: small steps that you can take to what I say,
Speaker 2: row through the fog, to keep moving through the uncertainty
Speaker 2: that you feel, that is both where clarity and growth
Speaker 2: will emerge.
Speaker 1: All right, So we're gonna we're going to try and
Speaker 1: proach these things that might produce anxiety with a little
Speaker 1: bit more of a spirit of curiosity exactly than fear.
Speaker 1: I love that. So you also have a phrase that
Speaker 1: you say you want to trust in your future self
Speaker 1: to solve your future problems. One of the things we'd
Speaker 1: sometimes talk about on this show is people go over
Speaker 1: the top of like preparing meals for the entire week,
Speaker 1: or you know, packing everything for every day of the week,
Speaker 1: you know, in their bag the night before or something
Speaker 1: like that. And sometimes there's a reason to do that,
Speaker 1: but it's also like, well, could Thursday me come up
Speaker 1: with dinner? I bet Thursday me could figure out dinner Sunday.
Speaker 1: Meat doesn't necessarily have to figure out dinner for Thursday.
Speaker 1: I'm curious. What are some other ways where we should
Speaker 1: trust in our future self to solve our future problems.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so the phrase comes from a friend of mine
Speaker 2: named Emily, and she is a therapist. But before she
Speaker 2: became this mental health professional, her mom was given a
Speaker 2: terminal cancer diagnosis when she was in her early twenties
Speaker 2: and she would spend days after days her side at
Speaker 2: the hospital and one day a family friend of theirs
Speaker 2: named Bill came by to see how Emily was doing,
Speaker 2: and so he asked, you Emily, how are you holding up?
Speaker 2: And she said, honestly, I am not doing very well.
Speaker 2: I'm riding this roller coaster of anxiety and anticipatory grief,
Speaker 2: and I'm not sure what I'll do if my mom
Speaker 2: passes away. And Bill says, you know, Bill is an
Speaker 2: oncology doctor, so he has a lot of experience dealing
Speaker 2: with people at the end of their lives. And he said,
Speaker 2: you know, Emily, the version of yourself that will deal
Speaker 2: with that tragic event, if or when it happens, will
Speaker 2: be born into existence in that moment, and that version
Speaker 2: of you will have more context, more information, and will
Speaker 2: be better equipped to deal than you are today. You
Speaker 2: have to trust in your future self to solve your
Speaker 2: future problems. Now. Obviously, in a case of Emily's life,
Speaker 2: the stakes are incredibly high. You know, she's dealing with
Speaker 2: her mom.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a little bit worse than the dinner on Thursdays.
Speaker 2: A little bit worse than the dinner on Thursday. But
Speaker 2: I think the wisdom still applies. And so often, when
Speaker 2: faced with uncertainty, we have this natural tendency to rush
Speaker 2: out and meet our suffering and say, oh, if you
Speaker 2: know my mom dies, I'm not sure what I'm going
Speaker 2: to do. I'm so worried and to really rush out
Speaker 2: to meet that moment. And in Emily's case, her mom
Speaker 2: ended up recovering and she's so grateful that she didn't
Speaker 2: spend too much time in that dark place worrying about
Speaker 2: something that hasn't yet come to be. I think, in
Speaker 2: a more mundane practical sense, when we're too rigid to
Speaker 2: our plans, it makes us less flexible and less adaptable.
Speaker 2: And especially in a world that is rapidly changing, or
Speaker 2: in a life that is incredibly busy that has lots
Speaker 2: of variables in the air, if you're too fixed to
Speaker 2: your one specific way of doing things, it makes it
Speaker 2: very easy to really get thrown off kilter if something
Speaker 2: were to change. And so I like the idea of
Speaker 2: having intentions. As you like to say, doing something three
Speaker 2: times a week makes it a habit, having a way
Speaker 2: of knowing what's important to you, but being flexible enough
Speaker 2: to change the scope or schedule if the week dictates you.
Speaker 1: Adapt yep, because Thursday we might have a really fun
Speaker 1: dinner outside if the weather is good or something like that. Somebody,
Speaker 1: I actually want to ask you a little bit about
Speaker 1: what is a good enough job. So your previous book,
Speaker 1: a lot of people are hearing that are like, hmm,
Speaker 1: what is a good enough job?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So the title the good enough job is an
Speaker 2: allusion to this theory that was devised by this British
Speaker 2: pediatrician named Donald Wynicott, and you might have heard of
Speaker 2: it. It was called the good enough mother or the good
Speaker 2: enough parent. And Wenicott was observing how who's a doctor
Speaker 2: in England in the mid twentieth century, how these parents
Speaker 2: were trying to be the perfect parent. They were trying
Speaker 2: to shield their kid from experiencing any sort of negative
Speaker 2: emotion or harm. And then when the kid never really
Speaker 2: felt frustrated or sad or angry, the parent would take
Speaker 2: it extremely personally and so proposal alternative. He called it
Speaker 2: the good enough parent, and he said, rather than striving
Speaker 2: for perfection, if you strive for sufficiency. It benefits both
Speaker 2: the child and the parent. The kid can learn how
Speaker 2: to self soothe and take care of some of their
Speaker 2: own issues, and the parent won't lose themselves in their
Speaker 2: children's emotions. So in the book, I make the direct
Speaker 2: allusion to the working world, where so often we talk
Speaker 2: about the dream job and perfection and creates so much
Speaker 2: room for disappointmentment underneath that sky high ideal. So I
Speaker 2: define a good enough job as a job that allows
Speaker 2: you to be the type of person that you want
Speaker 2: to be. It's sufficiently vague, but I like that everyone
Speaker 2: can define what a good enough job means for themselves.
Speaker 2: Maybe for one person it's a job that allows them
Speaker 2: to pick up their kid from elementary school, or another
Speaker 2: person that's a job that allows them to go on
Speaker 2: that afternoon bike ride that really makes their life meaningful.
Speaker 2: And maybe for someone else it's a job that pays
Speaker 2: a certain amount of money, or a job that has
Speaker 2: a certain job title. But the truth is, we get
Speaker 2: to define what good enough means to us. And once
Speaker 2: you have your own definition of good enough, you can
Speaker 2: divert some of that attention and energy that you might
Speaker 2: be giving to questioning whether you found your perfect calling
Speaker 2: towards other aspects of your life that might make your
Speaker 2: life meaningful.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because it turns out there is no perfect job,
Speaker 1: just as probably there's no perfect person. There's no perfect future.
Speaker 1: There's always some uncertainty involved in all of it.
Speaker 2: Great I can't say better myself, and I think that's
Speaker 2: sort of like the intersection of the two books, where
Speaker 2: if we take table stakes the idea that there is
Speaker 2: no perfect job out there, we must be willing to
Speaker 2: trust our futureselves and understand. Okay, maybe AIS undermining my industry.
Speaker 2: Maybe I don't know exactly what my ten yere plan
Speaker 2: is going to be, but I have built my uncertainty
Speaker 2: tolerance and I'm able to be resilient in the face
Speaker 2: of all this change.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. Well, We're going to take one more quick ad
Speaker 1: break and then I'll be back with more from Simono
Speaker 1: stalls Off. Well, I am back talking with Simona Stolzov,
Speaker 1: who is the author of the brand new book How
Speaker 1: Not To Know. We've also been talking about the Good
Speaker 1: Enough Job, So I want to pivot to talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about your schedule. Now, what does your schedule
Speaker 1: look like these days?
Speaker 2: Well, as I mentioned earlier, I'm a new parent, so
Speaker 2: my schedule is a little bit more in flux than
Speaker 2: it used to be. And I'm grateful to say that
Speaker 2: I work for myself. So for the last five years
Speaker 2: or so, I've been independent author, trying to make it
Speaker 2: as a full time author, living in San Francisco, one
Speaker 2: of the most expensive cities in the world. But there
Speaker 2: are some choices that we've made structurally to make that
Speaker 2: more possible. One is, I live with my wife, my son,
Speaker 2: my mom, and my stepdad, so we have this intergenerational home,
Speaker 2: and I live my childhood home, the same house that
Speaker 2: I grew up in, and having that level of support
Speaker 2: provides some buffer both from a childcare perspective and from
Speaker 2: a work perspective. And so there's this distinction that I
Speaker 2: make in my first book between what are called integrators
Speaker 2: and segmentors. Graters are people whose jobs integrate throughout their day.
Speaker 2: They might do a little work in the morning, go
Speaker 2: on a run, go to the grocery store, come back,
Speaker 2: do a little work, hang out with their kids, have
Speaker 2: some dinner, and do work after dinner, where as segment
Speaker 2: arms are the people that want to log on at
Speaker 2: nine am, log off at five, and then not open
Speaker 2: the laptop. Ever. Again, I'm very much an integrator, so
Speaker 2: I work in small pockets. I try to keep my
Speaker 2: mornings reserved for creative work, so output like writing that
Speaker 2: requires a little bit more of that deep work, and
Speaker 2: do more of my administrative tasks in the afternoon. But
Speaker 2: every day looks a little bit different for me. I
Speaker 2: have some anchors. I always try to be home for dinner.
Speaker 2: I always try and have breakfast with my wife and
Speaker 2: my son. But the nice thing about being a solopreneur
Speaker 2: is that no two days are exactly the same.
Speaker 1: Well, let's talk a little bit about that morning. So
Speaker 1: there's a family breakfast in the morning. Do you have
Speaker 1: anything else that you do as a regular part of
Speaker 1: your morning routine.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So one thing that actually has been a change
Speaker 2: relatively recently is we've started listening to the radio and
Speaker 2: good morning. This might not seem revolutionary, but in a
Speaker 2: world of Spotify recommended songs and Apple Music AI generated playlists,
Speaker 2: listening to the radio has been such a source of delight.
Speaker 2: There's this radio station called k EXP that's based in
Speaker 2: Seattle that recently started streaming in the Bay Area, and
Speaker 2: it's just this little moment of serendipity each day. It's
Speaker 2: sort of I think about it as like a college
Speaker 2: radio station for adults, and so it's super eclectic, and
Speaker 2: I'll play classical music and then hip hop and then
Speaker 2: indie and then folk and having that little bit of
Speaker 2: time between say seven forty five and eight thirty where
Speaker 2: we're having breakfast together, we're listening to the radio has
Speaker 2: been one of those anchors if nothing else in my
Speaker 2: day is predictable. I know that I'll have k exp
Speaker 2: in the morning.
Speaker 1: Well that's predictable, but what they're playing is unpredictable, uncertainty,
Speaker 1: whatever the DJs want to play. I love that idea.
Speaker 1: And do you have any other strategies that like make
Speaker 1: you more productive in your life?
Speaker 2: Yeah. I try to do a little bit of exercise
Speaker 2: every morning, and it's as small as I possibly can
Speaker 2: make it, so I do thirty push ups, I do
Speaker 2: a few minutes of like plank and stretching, and then
Speaker 2: a few sort of weights to lift. And what I
Speaker 2: found is that having that small workout routine it takes
Speaker 2: me about five minutes, makes it much easier for me
Speaker 2: to be consistent. And consistency has always been the name
Speaker 2: of the game for me with any sort of movement
Speaker 2: or exercise. And now that I have a little bit
Speaker 2: less free time with a crying one year old at home,
Speaker 2: I can always think back to that moment in the
Speaker 2: day where I got my movement in, I did something
Speaker 2: for myself, and then the last thing that I do
Speaker 2: that I think is really helpful, is I, like many
Speaker 2: of us, have realized my addiction to my phone, and
Speaker 2: so I've started using this device called a brick, which
Speaker 2: you may have heard of before, to basically make my
Speaker 2: phone not impotent. You know, it basically makes it not
Speaker 2: very useful from nine thirty to four each day. And
Speaker 2: so that's something that I have as like a schedule,
Speaker 2: and it's really curbed my ability to focus on what matters.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so during the time time that you're working, you
Speaker 1: can't just go randomly surf the web and you know,
Speaker 1: start looking at the Newark Airport your equivalent thereof Yeah.
Speaker 2: My guilty pleasures beyond social media are like ESPN dot
Speaker 2: com and the New York Times. You know, I'll just
Speaker 2: like swipe to refresh a million times a day if
Speaker 2: I don't put some blockers on myself.
Speaker 1: Very smart, very smart. So so mony I asked all
Speaker 1: my guests, what is something you have done recently to
Speaker 1: take a day from great to awesome? I mean, obviously
Speaker 1: the listening to the music in the morning the radio
Speaker 1: is certainly one of those things. I'm curious if you
Speaker 1: have anything else you've done lately.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I think about like microdosing novelty a lot.
Speaker 2: And one thing that my wife I've done and I
Speaker 2: have done recently, is that we've taken up sausa dancing,
Speaker 2: which might not seem like you know, as someone with
Speaker 2: two left feet, I'm not the most natural dancer, but
Speaker 2: I think it's been two things for us. One is
Speaker 2: it's one night a week, every single week, where we
Speaker 2: know that we're doing something for our relationship. And so
Speaker 2: on Monday nights we go to this local sort of
Speaker 2: bar dance studio in our neighborhood. We just go for
Speaker 2: an hour and a half and we have that regular
Speaker 2: date night. And the second thing it does is it
Speaker 2: puts us back in that sort of beginner mindset where
Speaker 2: we're on the steep part of the learning curve. And
Speaker 2: a lot of my work and my wife's the teacher,
Speaker 2: is about having confidence and speaking with conviction and just
Speaker 2: a space in our weeks where we cannot be very
Speaker 2: good at something. And it's been such a regular source
Speaker 2: of joy, even in this past year of having this kid,
Speaker 2: that I would recommend that everyone finds what they're saucea
Speaker 2: dancing might be.
Speaker 1: I love it, and yeah, that makes a Monday night
Speaker 1: a lot more interesting than a Monday night would otherwise
Speaker 1: be for sure.
Speaker 2: Amen to that sabout it.
Speaker 1: Where can people find you?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the best way to find me these
Speaker 2: days is just to go to how to Not Know
Speaker 2: dot com. It has all of my social media. I
Speaker 2: run a newsletter where I send out good articles every
Speaker 2: other week, and that's the best place to find me.
Speaker 2: I'm really proud of this book, not just because I
Speaker 2: feel like the timing couldn't be better. You know, the
Speaker 2: world it feels more uncertain by the day, But I
Speaker 2: think it's this nice combination of narrative, of stories of
Speaker 2: people dealing with uncertainty in their life. A couple deciding
Speaker 2: whether or not they want to get divorced, an island
Speaker 2: nation reckoning with the existential threat of climate change, someone
Speaker 2: trying to predict the next economic crash, but also those
Speaker 2: tips that will actually help you improve your relationship with uncertainty.
Speaker 2: I feel like uncertainty is like that Lepanto the room.
Speaker 2: It's the thing that is around us all the time
Speaker 2: that we don't often have the words to talk about,
Speaker 2: And hopefully this book will help you get a little
Speaker 2: bit better at dealing with what you don't know.
Speaker 1: Absolutely well, Simona, thank you so much for joining us,
Speaker 1: and thank you to everyone for listening. If you have
Speaker 1: feedback on this or any other episode, you can always
Speaker 1: reach me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com and
Speaker 1: in the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and
Speaker 1: here's to making the most of our time. Thanks for
Speaker 1: listening to Before Breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback,
Speaker 1: you can reach me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.
Speaker 1: Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts
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