Speaker 1: Pushkin. Imagine you're at a cocktail party and you're getting
Speaker 1: to know someone new. You've just asked the stranger's name
Speaker 1: and where they're from. What's the next question out of
Speaker 1: your mouth? Did you try to learn more about this person?
Speaker 1: If you're like most people, you might have thought to ask, so,
Speaker 1: what do you do? And you probably didn't mean that
Speaker 1: question as in what do you do for fun? Or
Speaker 1: what do you do to relax? Or what do you
Speaker 1: do when you want to feel happier? You probably meant
Speaker 1: that query to imply what do you do for work?
Speaker 1: And we asked this question because, at least implicitly, we
Speaker 1: think our jobs kind of matter for who we are,
Speaker 1: and not just because being a doctor or a lawyer,
Speaker 1: or a teacher or a podcaster helps us put food
Speaker 1: on the table. These days, we often think of our
Speaker 1: jobs not just as a means to an end, but
Speaker 1: as a deep reflection of who we are. More and more,
Speaker 1: our work identities wind up taking center stage as a
Speaker 1: fundamental part of our identities of how we think of
Speaker 1: ourselves as people. And lately, especially as I've been navigating
Speaker 1: my own sense of burnout and overwhelm, I've been wondering
Speaker 1: is this conception of our jobs actually a good thing?
Speaker 1: Do we really want our work selves to be the
Speaker 1: main character in our lives? So in this installment of
Speaker 1: our special New Year season of the Happiness Lab, we'll
Speaker 1: be exploring what our wise inner voices might be quietly
Speaker 1: trying to tell us about our relationship with work, and
Speaker 1: whether it's finally time to gently reevaluate the identity we
Speaker 1: get from what we do. Our minds are constantly telling
Speaker 1: us what to do to be happy. But what if
Speaker 1: our minds are wrong, What if our minds are lying
Speaker 1: to us, leading us away from what we'll really make
Speaker 1: us happy. The good news, the understanding the science of
Speaker 1: the mind can point us all back in the right direction.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Happiness Lab with doctor Laurie Santos.
Speaker 1: There's this narrative that we should keep searching and never settle,
Speaker 1: and if your job isn't perfect, then there's something wrong
Speaker 1: and you should keep looking for a new one. And
Speaker 1: it creates massive expectations and also is dangerous. This is
Speaker 1: author an overworked expert. Simony stalls off. Simony is no
Speaker 1: stranger to the question of how work fits into our identities.
Speaker 1: In fact, it's a worry he's been personally trying to
Speaker 1: navigate for over a decade. I was a twenty two
Speaker 1: year old at the University of Pennsylvania. I was studying
Speaker 1: poetry and economics, and so from an early age there
Speaker 1: was already this tension between the pursuit of art and
Speaker 1: the pursuit of commerce. And I got the opportunity to
Speaker 1: interview my favorite writer in the entire world. He's this
Speaker 1: poet named a niece Mojgani. He's actually the current Poet
Speaker 1: Laureate of the State of Oregon. And I was so
Speaker 1: excited for this interview, and I wanted a niece to
Speaker 1: give me a pep talk, you know. Here, I was
Speaker 1: this twenty two year old young poetry student about to
Speaker 1: embark on an unknown future, and I wanted him to
Speaker 1: give me that voter confidence to pursue something that I love.
Speaker 1: And so I asked him, how do you feel about
Speaker 1: the mantra love what you do and never work a
Speaker 1: day in your life? And he said something that really
Speaker 1: surprised me and has stuck with me since. He said,
Speaker 1: some people love what they do, and other people do
Speaker 1: what they have to do so that they can do
Speaker 1: what they love. When they're not working, and neither is
Speaker 1: more noble. And I think that last part is key.
Speaker 1: We love to revere people whose identities and their jobs
Speaker 1: neatly aligned. But I think a niece's wisdom was telling
Speaker 1: me that the other side of the equation, treating a
Speaker 1: job as a means to an end, is no less noble.
Speaker 1: It's nothing to fear being the young naive college student
Speaker 1: that I was. I sort of did not heed his
Speaker 1: advice and spent my entire twenties looking for that vocational soulmate,
Speaker 1: looking for that job that would help me self actualize.
Speaker 1: And so I worked in advertising, and I worked in tech,
Speaker 1: and I worked in food, and I worked in journalism,
Speaker 1: all the while looking for this perfect job that will
Speaker 1: help me become the fullest version of myself. Eventually, Simony
Speaker 1: searched for his sacred calling came to a head. He
Speaker 1: found himself at a career crossroads when he was forced
Speaker 1: to choose between a long term gig as a journalist
Speaker 1: at a trendy magazine and a higher paying role at
Speaker 1: a design firm. The decision fell overwhelming. But the thing
Speaker 1: that I realized in that moment is it didn't feel
Speaker 1: like I was choosing between two jobs as much as
Speaker 1: I was choosing between two versions of me, And so
Speaker 1: that was sort of the first kind of colonel that
Speaker 1: put the wheels in motion for the book is understanding
Speaker 1: sort of how did we get here? How did jobs
Speaker 1: become synonymous with our identity for so many people and
Speaker 1: so many Americans in particular. Simony's upcoming book is entitled
Speaker 1: The Good Enough Job, Reclaiming Life from Work. The book
Speaker 1: explores how we've gotten so wrapped up and thinking about
Speaker 1: work is a deep part of our identity, as an
Speaker 1: almost sacred calling. But the book argues that the concept
Speaker 1: that our job should be the main characters in our
Speaker 1: lives is actually quite new. In fact, it's only been
Speaker 1: around for a generation or so. So my grandmother, for example,
Speaker 1: lives in a small town in Italy. She had five children.
Speaker 1: They all lived in that same small town growing up.
Speaker 1: And my grandma worked in a coffee shop, and she
Speaker 1: has this kind of single bulbous by set from pulling
Speaker 1: down the manual lover at the coffee shop. And her
Speaker 1: identity was pretty straightforward. First she was a woman of faith,
Speaker 1: a woman of God, and then she was a mother,
Speaker 1: a fresh pasta maker, and her job was important to her,
Speaker 1: but it was very much a means to an end.
Speaker 1: And then my generation, you know, I'm probably smack in
Speaker 1: the middle of the millennial generation. We were raised with
Speaker 1: certain scripts that jobs should be calling's. Jobs should be
Speaker 1: something where that you can find that you can do
Speaker 1: what you love. And so I think a lot of
Speaker 1: people among my peer group have been searching for work
Speaker 1: as a means of self actualization, as a way to
Speaker 1: make themselves whole, and looking for a vocational soulmate that
Speaker 1: can deliver on that promise. And I think it actually
Speaker 1: sets us up for a lot of disappointment. So this
Speaker 1: is a phenomena that you've described as WORKSM. How would
Speaker 1: you define WORKSM? Yeah, so, workism is a term that
Speaker 1: was originally coined by a colleague of mine named Derek Thompson,
Speaker 1: who's a journalist for The Atlantic, And the idea is
Speaker 1: that work has become akin to a religious identity. It's
Speaker 1: something that people look to not just for a paycheck,
Speaker 1: but for a community sort of purpose and meaning and
Speaker 1: a way of making a difference in the world. And yeah,
Speaker 1: this can be a good or bad thing, depending on
Speaker 1: sort of what stage you are life and how diverse
Speaker 1: your meaning making and identity portfolios are. But the danger
Speaker 1: of workism is a fu fold. The first is when
Speaker 1: you have a work centric existence, you can neglect other
Speaker 1: aspects of who you are. The psychologist Esther Perel has
Speaker 1: this great phrase that she says, too many of us
Speaker 1: bring the best of ourselves to work and then bring
Speaker 1: the leftovers home. A job is not something that is
Speaker 1: always in your control. You know. This is something that
Speaker 1: we have very much seen recently with the pandemic and
Speaker 1: furloughs and people losing their jobs for one reason or another.
Speaker 1: If your job is your sole source of community, is
Speaker 1: your sole source of identity, and you lose that job,
Speaker 1: it can really send you for an existential loop. So
Speaker 1: this idea of workism is so powerful nowadays. But you've
Speaker 1: argued that this is like a recent phenomenon. Talk about
Speaker 1: some of the historic trends that got us here. So
Speaker 1: if you think about the history of the United States,
Speaker 1: capitalism and the Protestant work are really the two strands
Speaker 1: that entwined to form our countries DNA. So you can
Speaker 1: sort of trace a line from those early days of
Speaker 1: our country foundation to our current culture where what do
Speaker 1: you do is often the first question people ask each
Speaker 1: other when they meet. But there are also some of
Speaker 1: these social and economic and political and cultural trends that
Speaker 1: are more recent that has made workism particularly apparent in
Speaker 1: the last say fifty years in the US. You know,
Speaker 1: for the majority of the twentyth century, the average working
Speaker 1: time was declining for all workers and developed countries. This
Speaker 1: makes sense, you know, as countries and individuals become more wealthy,
Speaker 1: they can afford to work less. But as the twentieth
Speaker 1: century progressed, the technological trends and innovation continued, but certain
Speaker 1: subsets of Americans started working more than ever. And so
Speaker 1: the question is why how have our peer nations continued
Speaker 1: to decline in the average time they spend working while
Speaker 1: some Americans are working more than ever. So there's no
Speaker 1: sort of single explanation. There are many different possible ways
Speaker 1: to slice it. One is the decline of other sources
Speaker 1: of meaning and identity in people's lives. So if you
Speaker 1: think about things like organized religion. At the peak of
Speaker 1: religiosity in the United States in nineteen fifties, over nine
Speaker 1: out of every ten Americans associated with some sort of
Speaker 1: organized religion. But in the last thirty years you've seen
Speaker 1: a precipitous decline where now almost one in three Americans
Speaker 1: do not affiliate with the religion, And so now the
Speaker 1: world that religion once had in our lives is no
Speaker 1: longer there for a lot of people. But the desire
Speaker 1: for belonging, for community, for a sense of purpose larger
Speaker 1: than themselves still exists. So that's one explanation. Another is
Speaker 1: just the way that our political system is set up
Speaker 1: in the United States. One of the reasons why our
Speaker 1: relationship to work is so fraught is because the consequences
Speaker 1: of losing work in the US is so dire when
Speaker 1: when healthcare, for example, is often tied to people's full
Speaker 1: time jobs. And the last thing that I'd like to
Speaker 1: call out is the kind of cultural factors. And so
Speaker 1: in the US in particular, we have this very individualistic
Speaker 1: society where we've idolized businesses and CEOs have become celebrities,
Speaker 1: and we sort of valorize these side hustles and side grinds,
Speaker 1: and you know, work is one part and parcel with
Speaker 1: our identities, and a lot of this is getting even
Speaker 1: worse as so many of us are working from home
Speaker 1: now or engaging in hybrid work. This idea that the
Speaker 1: culture is telling us work is our sacred duty. It
Speaker 1: becomes even harder to separate yourself from that sacred duty
Speaker 1: when the sacred duty is all around you all the time, right.
Speaker 1: You know, part of the problem when you frame work
Speaker 1: as a sacred duty or a sacrifice is that the
Speaker 1: more you sacrifice for your job, the holier your work becomes,
Speaker 1: and so those long hours are further idolized and seen
Speaker 1: as something to pat workers on the back, as opposed
Speaker 1: to viewing them as problems or things that deserve structural interventions.
Speaker 1: This is the time of year that we get so
Speaker 1: focused on our jobs, well, how we can do better
Speaker 1: in our jobs? You know, what productivity app could we
Speaker 1: download to do better, or even rethinking whether or not
Speaker 1: we have the right relationship with our jobs. But often
Speaker 1: we don't turn to our inner value system to really
Speaker 1: think about what we should be doing. Why is that
Speaker 1: a problem? A job is just one part of who
Speaker 1: we are, but not the entirety of our lives. And
Speaker 1: I think if we are solely looking through the lens
Speaker 1: of our professionalize to determine our well being, it's easy
Speaker 1: to neglect those other aspects of ourselves and it's easy
Speaker 1: to mistake a job or professional success as this silver
Speaker 1: bullet that will make the rest of our lives fall
Speaker 1: in place. I can't tell you how many people I
Speaker 1: interviewed for the book who have achieved levels of personal
Speaker 1: success and have still felt unfulfilled. And so one piece
Speaker 1: of advice that I might give as you think about
Speaker 1: your goal setting and your resolutions and what the next
Speaker 1: year might bring, is what are some ways that you
Speaker 1: can invest in the other aspects of your life, whether
Speaker 1: it's your relationships, whether it's your inner spiritual life, whether
Speaker 1: it's your family or your hobbies, or your means of
Speaker 1: feeling whole outside of work that also could use a
Speaker 1: little bit more love and attention in this next year.
Speaker 1: We usually assume that having careers that give us meaning
Speaker 1: is a good thing, that being passionate about our jobs
Speaker 1: is something to strive for. But when we get back
Speaker 1: from the break, we'll see that there are some real
Speaker 1: downsides to thinking about our jobs as the most meaningful
Speaker 1: part of our lives. We'll hear about some of these
Speaker 1: surprising psychological costs when the happiness sad returns in a moment.
Speaker 1: Author Simony stalls Off has written an entire book about
Speaker 1: the psychological costs of investing too much in your work,
Speaker 1: But he also experienced the pain that comes from those
Speaker 1: costs personally. When he made the hard decision a few
Speaker 1: years ago to abandon his career as a journalist, I
Speaker 1: felt guilty. I felt that I was sort of abandoning
Speaker 1: a calling. And democracy dies in darkness? And what am
Speaker 1: I doing turning off one more light in the room?
Speaker 1: And will my colleagues and my co workers ever forgive me?
Speaker 1: Will I ever be able to publish ever again? And
Speaker 1: I think that black and MTE thinking can be really
Speaker 1: damaging to people when they think that their jobs and
Speaker 1: their career decisions take such a taxing toll on themselves
Speaker 1: and their identities that it begins to spill into their
Speaker 1: life outside of work as well. And it's not just
Speaker 1: the idea of guilt and sort of experiencing guilt. Even
Speaker 1: when you stick with your job, there are high rates
Speaker 1: of things like burnout and stress too, right, Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think this is particularly true in jobs that are
Speaker 1: a flection of your identity. I'll speak to journalism just
Speaker 1: because it's the field that I know best. Your worth
Speaker 1: and your self worth are directly tied to your output,
Speaker 1: and a lot of the ways I used to obsessively
Speaker 1: check the reader numbers on the articles I would publish
Speaker 1: to see the impact or see the difference that I
Speaker 1: was making. But when you rise and fall with your
Speaker 1: output and your productivity, it can be very precarious. It
Speaker 1: can put you on an emotional roller coaster. It can
Speaker 1: keep you from being able to set boundaries around when
Speaker 1: you are and you're not working, and in a very
Speaker 1: individualistic culture, can push people to the point where they're
Speaker 1: not actually being more productive. They're not actually being the
Speaker 1: effective workers that they want to be, but they're sort
Speaker 1: of caught in this loop where the lack of productivity
Speaker 1: pushes them to work even further, which pushes them to
Speaker 1: be less productive and ultimately drives people to burnout. And
Speaker 1: that burnout also comes with physical consequences to like consequences
Speaker 1: for your body. Certainly, I love the example of being
Speaker 1: able to rest before you need it, because often what
Speaker 1: happens is we sort of push the buck down the
Speaker 1: road and we think, Okay, I'll rest once I finish
Speaker 1: this last article, once I finish this last report, once
Speaker 1: I make this title or make this bonus at the
Speaker 1: end of the year. But what happens when we burn
Speaker 1: out is then we can't work at all. You know.
Speaker 1: It's this sort of mental game that we play with
Speaker 1: ourselves that Okay, when this happens, then I'll be able
Speaker 1: to rest, when in fact, having a more sustainable, balanced
Speaker 1: approach to productivity to work is actually what makes us
Speaker 1: more productive and effective workers in the long term. It
Speaker 1: also makes us better humans and better social companions. To
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about the social costs of overwork
Speaker 1: and having your identity be too kind of infused with
Speaker 1: your job, I think one really important thing to remember
Speaker 1: is that a work centric existence doesn't just take our
Speaker 1: best time, but it often takes our best energy too.
Speaker 1: And similar to an investor who might want to diversify
Speaker 1: the sources of their investments to be more resilient, to
Speaker 1: have a more balanced portfolio, we too benefit when we
Speaker 1: have a diversified identity, when we have distinct sources of
Speaker 1: meaning in our life. But if we're spending all of
Speaker 1: our time working, if we're spending all of our energy
Speaker 1: focused on our professional goals, we can neglect these other
Speaker 1: aspects of who we are. And so in thinking about that,
Speaker 1: I really advise people to do two things. One is
Speaker 1: to make sure that they're carving out time and space
Speaker 1: in order to focus on non work pursuits, and the
Speaker 1: second is to act to actively do things. There's this
Speaker 1: phrase that I love from the Alcoholics Anonymous literature, and
Speaker 1: the paraphrase it's that we can't think ourselves into better action,
Speaker 1: but we can act ourselves into better ways of thinking.
Speaker 1: And so if we want to diversify our identity, if
Speaker 1: we want to diversify the sources of meaning in our life,
Speaker 1: we actively have to do things that reinforce that identity
Speaker 1: through our actions and also through the social communities that
Speaker 1: we create around them. Another problem with taking action to
Speaker 1: kind of diversify our senses of meaning, and I've experienced
Speaker 1: this myself, is that you kind of wind up in
Speaker 1: this interesting chicken and egg problem. Right, so you start
Speaker 1: working all the time, and then you're kind of exhausted
Speaker 1: and that you don't know what to do when you're
Speaker 1: not working, or you haven't invested in the friendships or
Speaker 1: the kind of activities that you do outside of work,
Speaker 1: and then you don't know what to do when you're
Speaker 1: out of work. So then you just work some more,
Speaker 1: and then the cycle gets worse and worse, like to
Speaker 1: the point that we almost don't even know who we
Speaker 1: are when we're not working. Yeah, I mean it's so
Speaker 1: relatable in those days where you're just exhausted and all
Speaker 1: you want to do is turn on Netflix because it
Speaker 1: feels like all your brain has the capacity to do
Speaker 1: in that moment, and nothing against Netflix. It can be
Speaker 1: a great way to turn the brain off. But it's
Speaker 1: through those active forms of recreation and leisure that we're
Speaker 1: able to really derive more meaning from our non work pursuits.
Speaker 1: And this is something that you've talked about in terms
Speaker 1: of taking a more active role in the kinds of
Speaker 1: things we value so that we're not just like inheriting
Speaker 1: the life values that exist around us, so that come
Speaker 1: from our job, but it's like figuring out the things
Speaker 1: that give us value outside of our productivity. After over
Speaker 1: two years of reporting and talking to so many individuals,
Speaker 1: I think that work is just one container in our lives.
Speaker 1: You know. It's obviously a container for the work that
Speaker 1: we do, it's a container for an identity. It comes
Speaker 1: with a certain value system of what the workplace measures
Speaker 1: or values, and it can be a great source of
Speaker 1: meaning and identity and purpose. But I think it's dangerous
Speaker 1: when it's the only one. So one of the solutions
Speaker 1: you've come up with this this idea of this good
Speaker 1: enough job. So what is a good enough job? And
Speaker 1: how does it help us kind of protect our values
Speaker 1: from getting too caught up in work? Prinsipally, a good
Speaker 1: enough job is a job that allows you to be
Speaker 1: the person you want to be. What I like about
Speaker 1: the framework is that it's subjective. Maybe it's a certain
Speaker 1: amount of income, maybe it's a certain job title. Maybe
Speaker 1: it's a job and a certain industry, or a job
Speaker 1: that gets off at a certain hour that lets you
Speaker 1: pick up your kids from school. Whatever good enough is
Speaker 1: to you, I urge you to recognize once you have it,
Speaker 1: because then you can convert some of that energy that
Speaker 1: you might be spending questioning, oh, is this the perfect job?
Speaker 1: Is this the dream job? Is this my vocational soulmate?
Speaker 1: Into two things? One, an appreciation for the role work
Speaker 1: plays in your life, first and foremost, that it allows
Speaker 1: you to live and second into your life outside of work,
Speaker 1: and ways in which you might be able to invest
Speaker 1: in yourself, in your relationships in your community. That can
Speaker 1: also be a source of identity and meaning for you.
Speaker 1: Simone's advice of downsizing to a good enough job and
Speaker 1: investing more energy in your relationships, health, and community may
Speaker 1: sound like an amazing idea and principle, but in practice,
Speaker 1: renegotiating a healthier relationship with your job can be hard,
Speaker 1: especially when you've been caught up in that cultural work
Speaker 1: is m for a long time. So when we get
Speaker 1: back from the break, we'll learn about some specific practices
Speaker 1: we can all use to reevaluate the role that our
Speaker 1: career plays in our lives. We'll see that there are
Speaker 1: strategies that every one of us can use to better
Speaker 1: align our values with our identities, both inside and outside
Speaker 1: of the office. The happiness Lab will be right back
Speaker 1: overwork experts. Simone stalls Off thinks that many of us
Speaker 1: would be happier if we took some concrete steps towards
Speaker 1: reevaluating the role that work plays in our lives, and
Speaker 1: the first step he recommends involves being more intentional about
Speaker 1: how we use the time we spend away from our jobs.
Speaker 1: I think the idea of setting up non work time
Speaker 1: is trying to create infrastructure around our non work time,
Speaker 1: as a religious institution might create infrastructure around worship or prayer.
Speaker 1: One of the benefits of say going to a yoga
Speaker 1: class or going on a run is their activities that
Speaker 1: structurally prevent us from working. I think a lot of
Speaker 1: times the pieces of anti burnout advice that we hear
Speaker 1: like set a boundary. The problem with it is that
Speaker 1: personal interventions inevitably break you know, I definitely thought this
Speaker 1: even in the writing of the book. I was writing
Speaker 1: a book about how to sort of right size worksplace
Speaker 1: in our life and develop a healthier relationship to work.
Speaker 1: And yet the looming deadline of trying to get the
Speaker 1: manuscript done pushed me to open up the laptop on
Speaker 1: the weekends when I vowed that I wouldn't be working
Speaker 1: at all. And so the idea of kind of setting
Speaker 1: up this intentional space is really to make sure that
Speaker 1: we have this sacred space, is sacred time in order
Speaker 1: to do things other than work. One small anecdote from
Speaker 1: one of the psychologists that I interviewed. Often what she
Speaker 1: sees when she suggests practices like setting up intentional space
Speaker 1: for non work activities is that they want to sign
Speaker 1: up for a marathon or for an iron Man, or
Speaker 1: to try and turn their leisure into another form of work,
Speaker 1: and what she often advises them is to start small,
Speaker 1: like how about a job? And I think that piece
Speaker 1: of advice is really resonant, you know, instead of having
Speaker 1: to think about, Okay, what do I want this identity
Speaker 1: of mine to be and what is my six month
Speaker 1: plan for achieving it, just start by taking small steps.
Speaker 1: And this gets to another practice you strongly suggest in
Speaker 1: the book, which is this idea that we have to
Speaker 1: get out of the optimization mindset. Generally, all the patterns
Speaker 1: we experience and work like wind up getting us to
Speaker 1: optimize every single second, and it can be easy to
Speaker 1: start to try to do the exact same thing when
Speaker 1: we're dealing with our leisure. But the whole idea is
Speaker 1: to kind of move ourselves worth away from being productive
Speaker 1: even when it comes to our leisure. Yeah. I think
Speaker 1: one great antidote to people who have a natural tendency
Speaker 1: to optimize is something you've talked about a lot on
Speaker 1: the podcast already, which is the value of play. And
Speaker 1: one thing that I like about play is that it's
Speaker 1: grounded not in future achievement or success, but present moment
Speaker 1: awareness and whether that play is jamming if you like
Speaker 1: to play music, or dancing if you like to dance,
Speaker 1: or free writing if you like to write, or playing
Speaker 1: a board game, or doing something that isn't a means
Speaker 1: to another end but actually it's an end and out
Speaker 1: of itself is a great way to serve as a
Speaker 1: counterbalance to our natural tendency to try and find a
Speaker 1: productivity of every moment of our day. And this connects
Speaker 1: to another practice you've really suggested, which is this idea
Speaker 1: of you know, if we're investing in the jamming or
Speaker 1: the d saying and so on, we also are just
Speaker 1: generally investing in multiple different kinds of identities. Have you
Speaker 1: also tried to invest in multiple different non work identities.
Speaker 1: How's that gone for you, especially as you've been busy
Speaker 1: writing the book and so on. Yeah, So, as I mentioned,
Speaker 1: I think work really can function as a container. But
Speaker 1: I think the value investing in other containers is that
Speaker 1: they help us as individuals see that our purpose on
Speaker 1: this earth is not just to produce economic value. So,
Speaker 1: for example, one way that I have diversified my own
Speaker 1: identity is I play on an ultimate frisbee team. I
Speaker 1: know I'm not doing much to dispel the lanky California
Speaker 1: stereotype here. But one thing that I really appreciate about
Speaker 1: the team is that on the team, people don't care
Speaker 1: about the last performance review or how many pages or
Speaker 1: words I've written that day. My identity on the team
Speaker 1: is completely decoupled from my identity as a work and
Speaker 1: that can be a really generative space for me to
Speaker 1: be able to inhabit where the goals of our team
Speaker 1: are not tied to our economic output. I have to
Speaker 1: show up as someone who plays my particular position and
Speaker 1: supports my teammates, but they're not asking me about sort
Speaker 1: of the things that might be sources of stress or
Speaker 1: anxiety throughout the day. And I think the more of
Speaker 1: these containers that we have in our lives, the more
Speaker 1: well rounded we are, the more resilient we are in
Speaker 1: the face of adversity, and ultimately, the more developed we
Speaker 1: are in the multiple interests each of us have. The
Speaker 1: final practice you suggest is a bit more reflective. It's
Speaker 1: this idea of defining what we want our work to
Speaker 1: be because we're not usually the ones that get to
Speaker 1: define that, right, you know, talk about where that definition
Speaker 1: usually comes from for many of us. Unless we define
Speaker 1: for ourselves what we want our relationship to work to be,
Speaker 1: our employer will happily do it for us. And so
Speaker 1: one of the benefits of putting a stake in the
Speaker 1: ground and saying, Okay, this is what I want my
Speaker 1: relationship to work to be is it allows us to
Speaker 1: fall back on those values. It allows us to really
Speaker 1: understand who we are outside of work, and how work
Speaker 1: can serve our vision of a life well lived, as
Speaker 1: opposed to being the central axis around which the rest
Speaker 1: of our life orbits. And so part of the goal
Speaker 1: of the book is to kind of help you put
Speaker 1: all of these different tips into practice yourself. And even
Speaker 1: though I'm sure it's pretty hard, I'm curious if kind
Speaker 1: of adopting all of these strategies has helped you, you know,
Speaker 1: even in the context of writing a book, which is
Speaker 1: pretty hard and pretty kind of productivity focused activity. It's
Speaker 1: an interesting place to be in now because I finish
Speaker 1: the book. There are no more words left to be written,
Speaker 1: and it feels bittersweet. I am letting go of this
Speaker 1: project that I've tinkered with for more than two years
Speaker 1: and had something to be an anchor for my attention
Speaker 1: as I go through my working days. And now I
Speaker 1: have to eat some of my own dog food. I
Speaker 1: have to practice, but I preach by trying to find
Speaker 1: other sources of identity and meaning outside of the dopamine
Speaker 1: hit that I get when I reach my self imposed goals.
Speaker 1: And one other big change that I made recently is
Speaker 1: I started working for myself and it's a really interesting
Speaker 1: moment for me personally, where now I no longer have
Speaker 1: that employer prioritizing my weeks. I no longer have a
Speaker 1: manager telling me, Okay, this is what's important for you
Speaker 1: to be working on, and I have to do some
Speaker 1: of that work myself, and part of that means knowing
Speaker 1: when to stop, because, as I'm sure any freelancer someone
Speaker 1: who has done a personal project knows, there is an
Speaker 1: infinite capacity of more work that we can do. One
Speaker 1: of my mentors and someone that I interviewed for the
Speaker 1: book is this religious scholar named Casper to Kyle, and
Speaker 1: every Friday, at the end of the week, he sends
Speaker 1: out the same tweet, which is a great source of
Speaker 1: inspiration for me. And every Friday he says, the work
Speaker 1: is not done, but it is time to stop. And
Speaker 1: that is sort of a personal mantra that I've adopted
Speaker 1: in my own life, and I hope that you might too.
Speaker 1: I hope my chat with Simony has convinced you that
Speaker 1: it may be time to listen to what your inner
Speaker 1: voice is telling you about work in the new year.
Speaker 1: As Simony eloquently put it in his book, our desks
Speaker 1: were never meant to be our altars. I share his
Speaker 1: hope that with the right strategies, we can all begin
Speaker 1: to develop a healthier relationship with what we do for
Speaker 1: a living. So if what you heard in this episode
Speaker 1: hit a nerve, you can start by just gently asking
Speaker 1: some questions about the identity you get from your job.
Speaker 1: Are you treating your career as a kind of moral
Speaker 1: good in ways that leave you overstressed, overtired, and burned out.
Speaker 1: Is your business at work covering up a deeper sense
Speaker 1: of emptiness with what you do outside the office. If so,
Speaker 1: maybe this is a year to start renegotiating the role
Speaker 1: that work plays in your life. Maybe this is the
Speaker 1: year to get more intentional about the effort and energy
Speaker 1: you give to your non work pursuits. You two can
Speaker 1: take the steps needed to deprioritize work a little in
Speaker 1: order to prioritize life. Next week, We'll continue our requests
Speaker 1: to hear what our wise inner voices may be telling us,
Speaker 1: and we'll do that by finding ways to intentionally seek
Speaker 1: out something that many of us have been missing out
Speaker 1: on silence. We'll hear why quieting our mental and environmental
Speaker 1: noise can be so essential for our well being, and
Speaker 1: we'll learn some practical steps we can all take to
Speaker 1: get there, even in an ever louder world. So I
Speaker 1: hope you'll join me next week for the final installment
Speaker 1: of this special New Year's season of The Happiness Lab
Speaker 1: with me Doctor Laurie Santos. The Happiness Lab is co
Speaker 1: written by Ryan Dilley and is produced by Ryan Dilley
Speaker 1: and Courtney Guerino. The show was mastered by Evan Viola
Speaker 1: and our original music was composed by Zachary Silver. Special
Speaker 1: thanks to Shane Beard, Greta Kone, Nicole Morano, Morgan Ratner,
Speaker 1: Maggie Taylor, Jacob Weisberg, my agent, Ben Davis, and the
Speaker 1: rest of the Pushkin team. The Happiness Lab is brought
Speaker 1: to you by Pushkin Industries and by me, Doctor Laurie Santos,