Why You Feel Stuck in Life | Simone Stolzoff

27:20Who you wish for. Obsession is 96 % fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. I love you so, so, so, so much. It's blood-soaked nightmare fuel. What kind of sponge you put on her? You have been warned. Obsession. Rated R. Under 17 on a minute without parent. Only in theaters May 15th. With special engagements in Dolby. And we share this with our clients. And Johnny, our co-host, his dad shared this with us. Basically, there's no right or wrong decisions. There's just decisions you make right. And we often don't think about the effort that went into those right decisions in our past. And all the ways that it ended up working out.

27:56Because we applied ourselves. We fought through the discomfort. for it. We double down on the decision and we move forward on it. And there's so many of those decision points in our life that if we look back, we go, well, they weren't right or wrong. We made it right. It was our actions after making the decision that made it the right fit for us. And it's very similar in your career. You will make the right decision for that next step. And then when you land that role, you will lean in and all the ways that turn that into the right decision for you. And in the very worst scenario, like you make a decision, you realize it's the wrong path.

28:27And that's an incredible lesson. You know, I think there's this philosopher that I talked to in the book who said something very similar. She said, what makes a hard decision hard is not that one option is clearly better and the other option is clearly worse. And you're just like too stupid to figure it out. What makes a hard decision hard is one option is better for some reasons. Another option is better for other reasons. And neither option is better overall. all. And so, you know, if that weren't the case, it'd be an easy decision. So when we're in these hard decisions, it's really just about what trade-offs are you willing to accept in this moment?

29:04And then how can you spend your energy retroactively convincing yourself that you made the right decision, trying to make the most of the decision that you made? And if you really understand that you made a bad decision, course correcting. You know, Jeff Bezos has this distinction between one-way door and two-way door decisions that I think is really helpful, which is the majority of our life, the decisions we make are two-way door decisions, which is to say you walk through them. If you make a mistake, you can probably come back. These are decisions like what to do in our career, whether to go on a date, whether to eat the pasta or the pizza, whatever.

29:39One-way door decisions, they're few and far between. They're decisions like, should I buy this house? Should I marry this person? They're much harder to reverse. But the problem is we take our one-way door decision analytical process and framework and use them for two-way door decisions that actually matter far less than we think. And so part of my goal for this book, and so far as it relates to decision making, is to help people understand where they can lower the stakes and actually move a little bit more quickly in their decision making. this isn't to say that they should just like flip a coin necessarily but when you're choosing between a hard two-way door decision it's hard because they are trade-offs that you have to be willing to accept and it's just a matter of like which trade-offs are you willing to put up with like i think about this in careers all the time like sure if you work in finance you can make a lot of money but like there are really long hours and it might not be particularly meaningful If you work in the nonprofit sector, maybe you can make a big impact and it can be really fulfilling, but maybe you'll be stressed about how much money you'll make, etc.

30:51Like you can do that ad infinitum. And the question is, what tradeoffs are you willing to accept at this season of your life? And a lot of these decisions are much less set in stone, much less final than we tend to assume. What goes along with that, unfortunately, is consumption of information and optimization feels better than facing the tradeoff and dealing with the tradeoff. So many of us will sit in that rumination and optimization phase and say we're experimenting, but we're really just consuming before actually taking any action. weighing should I eat this food or do this diet or change this workout routine instead of actually just going to the gym and doing the thing that will prove out the experiment many in our audience many of our clients will sit in the information loop consuming consuming consuming to avoid the trade-off and avoid the decision ultimately yeah I mean it's a comfort thing right like it's there's got to be like a German word or something for rather than doing the thing like consuming information about doing the thing.

31:54I noticed this in myself. The other day, I was feeling really addicted to my phone. And rather than just put my phone down or try and touch grass or whatever, I read an entire book about phone addiction. And I think probably a lot of listeners to the show, maybe you have always had this dream to start a company. But instead of actually taking the first steps and start the company, you just listen to a lot of podcasts about entrepreneurship or the same about dating, what have you. And I think it's exactly what you said. You stay in this sort of information consumptive space, which is safe and comfortable, but doesn't actually get you closer to your goal.

32:32Unfortunately, life is full of trade-offs and we're going to have to wrestle with them. A life avoiding trade-offs, a life avoiding uncertainty is not a life well-lived. But in this information age, it just feels really good to consume those empty calories of another short form reel about iPhone addiction or another short form reel about what I should be doing in the gym to get a six pack.

32:59And I think the other thing that like these information loops do is they give us a sense of control. Like, yes, like if I just read about sleep training babies, then I feel like I can be like the master of this universe of like information gathering about parenting or same with the gym or entrepreneurship. But the problem is there's lots in our life that we can't control. And even if you read all of the books about sleep training, and even if you, you know, take a course and, you know, pay$19.95 to have a coach in your pocket every day, there's a difference between that sort of consumptive layer and what I'd call like the transactional layer or like the action layer of actually being in the world.

33:48And one of the other traps that keeps us in this hell-bent grasp for certainty is the assumption that we can control how the future goes or we can plan everything. And therefore, we don't have to like accept that anything is out of our control. and there's no better practice than parenting to this i think at least yeah i also have a young kid at home and there just isn't always a direct relationship between your effort and the outcome and you know it's just this great microcosm for learning about the value of acceptance you know and i think that is sort of on the other side of the desire to control is the desire to be able to accept what we can't control.

34:35And I think a lot about the serenity prayer that's used often in addiction circles of, you know, God grant me the serenity to understand the things that I can control, the things that I can't, and the wisdom to know the difference. I think this is like real foundational, you know, wisdom for living is, you know, think about something like climate change. It might be causing you so much anxiety to think about like the future of the planet. But the thing that will help with your anxiety is actually the same thing that will help make a difference with climate change, which is taking some sort of action.

35:11And, you know, I think of this line sort of action absorbs anxiety. Like as you take action, the clarity begins to emerge. That's the thing that actually will help you get more certainty and less uncertainty. but when we're anxious it can be paralyzing and that's sort of my favorite definition of uncertainty is like a sense of doubt that keeps you from taking action or keeps you from making progress and so that's the people just take away one piece of wisdom from the book it's that you know action is the process through which you can gain more certainty it's not gathering information it's not you know thinking really hard it's actually going out into the world and trying things.

35:55For me, coming out of COVID, this was probably the biggest lesson around my own dealing with uncertainty was this control trap. And I'm thankful that my partner and I will call it out in each other now. Like, is this something that we can control? And, you know, I'm falling into a very similar loop with AI of like learning everything I can about it, just like I was trying to learn everything I can about the different variants and how it's hitting different places in the world and the vaccines and everything that I could consume in a hope of trying to get some control back in my life as I was going through the pandemic.

36:25And now it feels very similar with AI. Like you could spend all day long learning about the models and how things are changing and what could possibly happen. And I'll come out of that and I'll share something with my wife. And she's like, well, what are we going to do about it? Can we control this? Like, is there some meaningful action we can take with this information? Or are you allowing it to just create this steady state of anxiety in you that's leading you to try to consume more information? Like what's the action that we can take for me has helped quite a bit to like, okay, there are things that I can control and I can take action around.

36:57And there are things that I cannot control that I don't really think doing more reading or seeking more information is one of those areas that I should be focusing on in this area that I can't control. I love that. Yeah. When I think about sort of like taking action in spite of uncertainty, I think sometimes about a decision tree. And the first question is, do you have the ability to influence the outcome? So, for example, imagine you are a senior in high school and you are really anxious and unsure about where you're going to go to college. If you're in a place where you can influence the outcome, say, like, you haven't submitted your applications yet or, like, you have the ability to, like, try and get good grades a semester, like, do that thing.

37:41Like, if you have the ability to change the potential outcome, like, try and write the best application you can, et cetera. But then if the answer is no, you kind of drop to one level deeper in the decision tree. And the question is, can you prepare for different potential outcomes? So this is what's often called contingency planning. And rather than just thinking about sort of one fixed future of exactly how you want things to go, can you think of like different potential futures? And maybe going back to this example, like if you got into that dream Ivy League school, do you know how you would pay for it?

38:15If you didn't get into that dream Ivy League school, do you have a good sense of like how you might be able to design a major at the backup school? if you don't get into any of the schools that you want to get into do you have like a plan for how you might deal with that situation and by doing some of that contingency planning it does two things one is it helps you find some agency so like take a little bit of control back from the universe and the second thing it does is it helps you feel prepared for these multiple potential scenarios so you don't feel blindsided and then if you've done everything that you can to plan for different scenarios and you can't do anything to control the outcome, that's when it just comes down to acceptance.

38:56And there are things that we can do, especially in like an acute sense. So one of the studies I read about in the book is breast cancer patients. And often breast cancer patients find the hardest part of the entire process of their breast cancer journey, the time between when they get a biopsy before they get their diagnosis, that waiting period. And it's harder than chemo or any of the surgery, et cetera. It's that uncertainty about whether or not they have this potentially terminal disease. And if you're in that waiting period, you can do things like plan for different situations. You can look for silver linings and potential bad outcomes.

39:34But really, at the end of the day, it just comes back to regulating your nervous system. How can you get to a place where you can be grounded through the uncertainty. And maybe that's something like breathwork or meditation. Maybe that's something like just an acceptance of the uncontrollability of the universe. But once you can accept the things that you can't control, you get out of that place of denial and it actually shrinks that anxiety. You might still have some worry. You might still have some anxiety. But if you're not trying to control things that you can't control. It helps right size that worry that you might be feeling.

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41:39the judgment. You cannot control them. You can think and hope and strategize around. But oftentimes when that then happens, our clients will find themselves pulling back. It's like, oh, I can't control that. So I'm not going to lean in. When in actuality, that is like the most important is to lean in in those moments where you can't control the other side, because that's where all the learning and growth actually happens. And if we allow our inability to control something to lead to us to again to be indecisive or not take action we're surrendering to that uncertainty those moments are incredible opportunities for us to refine our character which is to say to make decisions based on the type of people that we want to be and you know i'm thinking about that sort of clear indecision moment for myself like ultimately i said yes to the design firm.

42:31And then I had all this like crippling doubt the moment after I said yes. But what helped me sort of persist is I said, I want to be like someone of my word. And I said yes. And therefore, even if this is like the wrong job for me, I still want to be the type of person that is like good to what he says he's going to do. And therefore I'm going to make that choice. and it's like i spoke to an ethicist for the book about these sorts of decisions and he always advises yeah he always has the same three questions to people that he's counseling the first is what do you want to do which hopefully gets into that sort of more embodied sort of gut feeling as opposed to just being in your mind do you want to want to do that which taps into what's often called like our second order desires, like our higher level thinking, which is like reflecting on that.

43:32And so maybe you want to smoke a cigarette, but you don't want to want to smoke a cigarette. It gives you a little bit of psychological distance. Or maybe people in your life want you to do that, but you don't actually want to do that. And I find that a lot in career where our family and loved ones want us to do something because they feel that there's uncertainty in that path. And I faced that in my own career of like following along what would be certain for them and create safety for them, knowing that I got an advanced degree and I got a professional career. And then I was faced with the decision and I went with my gut in that decision.

44:05And 20 years later, you know, clients will ask me, well, how did you make that decision? Because I find myself ruminating and I find myself in indecision. And I was like, well, in that moment, I was able to tap into my intuition and it worked. In other moments, I've been faced with uncertainty and I've ruminated as well. But I think that want to want is such a key question because oftentimes we'll realize that societal pressures, family pressures are driving us in a direction that's not what we really want to want. Yeah, exactly. Like whose narrative is this? Whose voice is this in my head if not my own?

44:37And then the third question he always asks is, what does this choice say about you as a person? and so connecting that choice to like your values your identity and i think that is like such an eye-opening question often because like if i were to like say yes to the design job and then like renege and go back to the journalism job you can spin up many different stories about what that means but like i think the story that i would tell myself in that moment is like you are you know and consistent. You're not trustworthy. You're flip-flopping versus like taking the job, even if it isn't going to work out or it's like the worst decision I've ever made would say, you know, I'm a person of integrity.

45:22I have follow through. I'm willing to like turn towards uncertainty and see how they turn out. And I think especially for people that are in higher stakes situations, like, you know, asking someone out on a date or something like that. well who is the type of person that you want to be like do you want to be the person who like makes the ask or like goes on that date or do you want to be the person that is so crippled by uncertainty that you never actually transact you never actually enter the arena so to speak and i really like that sort of like three question framework for coming to a decision in these moments of indecision?

46:02Because the truth is, you're never going to know exactly what outcome you're going to get before you make the choice. The key is getting to a place where you can choose. The third question for me really strikes a chord because it's that part of the narrative writing that we do actually have control over. And we were joking a little bit before we started about writing a book and how the process is and how you go in with an idea and you test it out and you work with your editor and you're rewriting sections, maybe even full chapters of the book. That when you first wrote it, you thought, Eureka, this is it or this is perfect.

46:35But we have that control in our narrative at any point in our life to rewrite that decision, to rewrite what it ties to our new values as or what the lesson is that we got out of that decision that at the moment felt like it was out of our control or felt like the worst thing in the world. I can't believe that breakup. I'm never going to find anyone. we have the power to grab the pen and rewrite that narrative now to be like no that was actually the perfect thing that i needed in that moment to find this other career path or to meet someone new or to really challenge myself in ways that i hadn't while i was in that relationship so then the question basically becomes like what is a decision that you can stand by even if you don't get the outcome that you desire you know like how can you make decisions that are from a place of your values or from a place of the aspirational person that you want to be and let that drive you and not let the result of the decision determine the quality of the decision.

47:31Let the decision be what it is and then you get the outcome and then you can readjust from there. Yeah. One of the exercises we do with our X Factor accelerator members is that self-authorship of looking back at these moments in your life and recataloging them and rewriting the narrative around them because sometimes we will hold on to past stories or past versions of ourself that in that moment felt like us and were emotionally maybe impactful in a positive or negative way and if we actually do some introspection and look back now where we are in our life we can grab the pen and change the narrative and rewrite it as like no actually that was a key decision of me living to this value of being adventurous or being outgoing that i didn't realize it in the moment and I hadn't written the narrative in that moment around that exact value.

48:19And that kind of brings us to the third trap, the third sort of thing that I bring up in the book that keeps us from being able to tolerate uncertainty, which is hubris, which is our own assumption that we know best. And I think one thing that I really like about this sort of rewriting the narrative exercise is it trades some of that hubris for humility. And rather than thinking like I am the master of the universe I know what's best like I know it all I don't need to open my mind to new information it says like okay this is like the narrative I'm writing today but I'm gonna proceed with full knowledge that I can always rewrite that narrative that I can trade the sense that I know exactly what's best for me or I know exactly how the world works for a sense of open-mindedness that I can be able to assess new information as it presents itself.

49:15And that's really, I think, the benefit of developing more tolerance of uncertainty, is rather than approaching your life or the world through a fixed mentality where you're closing your mind to new information, when you're more tolerant of uncertainty, you can open your mind to the world as it emerges. And I think that's sort of the problem that I see in so much of society these days, where our desire to find certainty, to find the guru that'll tell us exactly when the market will crash or how the relationship will end or who's going to win the election, what have you. All of that certainty is actually a narrowing function.

49:57And once you are certain, you don't need to gather more information. But if you're able to maintain that space of not knowing, that space of humility, that's when you can actually see all of the possibilities that are opening up in front of you. Yeah. What struck me about the three traps as I went through the book was how those different traps hit me at different points in my life and what it meant in my 20s where hubris was really a driving force. I was comfortable with discomfort, going to college, moving away, all this change in upheaval in your life when you're younger and you're not as set in your ways.

50:36You don't have as many of these wired patterns in your brain to deal with. But that hubris of like, I know what's best often led to me falling to that trap. And now as a parent, I see control is like the trap that I'm really finding myself wrestling with as I crave safety for my daughter. And I really want to handle the uncertainty of this changing, evolving world that we're facing, especially now as parents thinking about school and what the job workforce will look like in the future. That's really the trap that I'm wrestling with. And I think what's interesting about thinking about these three traps is it allows you to navigate through it depending on where you are in your life and what those values orient around?

51:15As I mentioned earlier, I wrote the book that I needed to read. I think this is something that is never something that you fully have figured out. And part of what it means to be human or to build your tolerance to uncertainty is to continually wrestle with these different inclinations that we have. The reason why there are traps is because they're really easy to fall into. And so one metaphor that I like thinking about is to be a leader in this world is like being on a rowboat in a lake that is shrouded in really heavy fog. You might not be able to see very far in front of you, or you might not be able to know exactly where you'll end up, but you have two jobs.

52:03One is to maintain faith that you'll eventually reach land. Remember, you're in a lake. And the second is to keep rowing. And I think that's the key, you know, is to not let the uncertainty, not let your fear prevent you from continuing to take one step at a time. And that's really what I hope people take away from the book is how can you find a way to continue to take action in spite of uncertainty rather than waiting for this moment of perfect clarity or perfect certainty before you act. So for those in the audience right now who feel like they've been rowing the boat, but they're overwhelmed with fear, are there some practical exercises that we can share with them to manage that fear to keep rowing?

52:53It sort of depends a little bit on whether we're talking about like acute uncertainty. So a piece of information that will one day be revealed versus more ambient uncertainty, like the uncertainty of when I'm going to die or when this war overseas is going to resolve. But a few things that I keep in mind. One, I always start with trying to separate what we can and what we can't control and really give your energy to the realm of things that you can't control. The second is just to focus on one next right action at a time. There's this concept from Buddhism that I really like, which is, some version of the journey of a thousand miles start to the single step.

53:37Part of what's so hard about these moments of uncertainty when it feels like you're rowing the boat and you can't know exactly where you're going to end up is that we have this natural tendency to catastrophize or think about all the things that will go wrong or to focus on the myriad different tasks that you need to accomplish before you reach whatever your sort of version of enlightenment is. But all of these paths start with just one stroke, one row at a time. Like there's this chapter in the book that I write about crisis management. And there's this image that's like really stayed in my mind since I learned about it.

54:13The woman that I profile gets brought in to companies at sort of their worst moments. And she had this client, they were a big manufacturing firm and there was a big accident in one of their factories and some of their employees had died. And so she shows up to this boardroom and there's all these executives and they're just freaking out like chickens with their head cut off. And she took this big piece of butcher paper and she rolled it out over the table in the boardroom. And she wrote down every single thing that needed to be done. We need to communicate with investors. We need to issue a press release.

54:46We need to talk to employees. We need to check the factory and make sure it's safe. We need to make a plan for how we're going to talk about this in the press, et cetera, and wrote all of the things down on the piece of paper and then asked sort of like, where do we begin? And that is sort of like the mental exercise that I often encourage people that are feeling really overwhelmed by this uncertainty to do is like, what is the first step and not have to worry about everything after that. And then the last one is just a mindset shift, which is to try to choose curiosity over fear. So often when we are in uncertain situations, we are only thinking about the threat that's posed from uncertainty, which makes sense.

55:30Biologically, if you think about our ancestors, if there was a noise in the bushes, you didn't know the source of that noise, that uncertainty is potentially lethal. And I think often we still feel that way in a sort of a fight or flight response when we approach uncertainty. But the other side of the coin is that uncertainty is also the birthplace of possibility. Without uncertainty, there would be no serendipity or surprise or magic. It is the uncertainty that gives our life texture. And so if you're able to see the uncertainty as a potential source of opportunity, you choose curiosity over fear, that's what will allow you ultimately to keep rowing, even in those moments where you're not sure exactly where you'll end up.

56:21That curiosity piece can feel like a trap going back to the information and the seeking of information, where we often find ourselves in hard decisions and we think, well, maybe there's an imbalance of information here. So making a hard parenting choice. Well, I just got to read every Reddit thread and I got to talk to Chad about it. And I got to weigh what all my friends who are parents who are further along did. When in actuality, the information doesn't change how hard the decision is. It's hard because both options are on par. Either path could work for you. Maybe there's one more piece of advice that I'll give, which is maybe a little more philosophical.

56:58I have this friend named Emily. And Emily is a therapist. She's sort of like a therapist to the stars. She advises CEOs and leaders on how to navigate change and uncertainty. But before she became this sort of star-powered mental health professional in her early 20s, her mom was given a potentially terminal diagnosis. And Emily was like 23, 24. For a week, she just spent by her mom's bedside day after day. And she was really struggling. She felt like she was on this roller coaster of anticipatory grief and fear. And one day, a friend, a family friend of theirs named Bill, who is an oncology doctor who has lots of experience dealing with people at the end of their life, came by and visited Emily and said, Emily, how are you doing?

57:46And Emily said, honestly, not great. I had no idea what I'll do if my mom dies. I'm not sure I'll be able to handle it. And Bill said, Emily, the version of yourself that will deal with that tragic event if or when it ever comes to pass will be born into existence in that moment. And that version of you will have more experience, more context, and will be better equipped to deal with that than the version of you today. You have to trust in your future self to be able to solve your future problems. And I love that line, trust your future self to be able to solve your future problems. In the moment of parenting, you may not know whether you're doing the right thing for your kid.

58:37You may not know whether this is the best approach. But if you're able to cultivate some of that self-trust and think of your future yourself as someone who is capable and someone who is resilient and someone who will have more context and information than you do today, then hopefully that will give you the encouragement you need to keep taking action, to keep focusing on what's in front of you, as opposed to letting the fear take over and paralyze you. I think it's so beautifully said. And I think so many of our audience members can relate to that because they are high achievers, they are self-improvement junkies, and they look at themselves where they are today and how far they've come.

59:23So if we bring that into the future, saying whatever decision I make, I will be able to handle in the future with that information or who I've developed into, it's just a much better way to manage that uncertainty, especially in moments that we're all going to face. Our own mortality, or family members' mortality. These are going to be challenging moments, but we can muster in those moments based on all of the work we've put in to get there. I kind of said it better myself. Well, thank you so much for joining us. Where can our audience find out about your latest book and your work? Yeah, well, the book's called How to Not Know, as you can see over my shoulder.

1:00:01You can check out howtonotknow.com. That's probably the best place to go, but anywhere books are sold. and I can't wait till you read it and develop a little bit more uncertainty tolerance for yourself. Thanks again for joining us. It's wonderful. Cheers.

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