Gwyneth Paltrow x Bruce Feiler: Are You in a Workquake?

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0:31Side effects may include allergic reactions, neck and injection site pain, fatigue, and headache. Allergic reactions can include rash, welts, asthma symptoms, and dizziness. Don't receive Botox if there's a skin infection. Tell your doctor your medical history, muscle or nerve conditions, including ALS Lou Gehrig's disease, myasthenia gravis or Lambert-Eaton syndrome, and medications, including botulinum toxins, as these may increase the risk of serious side effects. Why wait? Ask your doctor. Visit BotoxChronicMigraine.com or call 1-800-44-BOTOX to learn more. I've been in and out a lot lately for work, press and photo shoots, the usual whirlwind.

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2:09When you are pioneering anything or introducing new ideas to the culture, you get criticized. You do? Yeah. Did you hear about that? I didn't find the one. I found someone I respected and we made it the one. In a sort of longing kind of view of love, people understand each other as if by magic. Nothing in itself is addictive on the one hand, and on the other hand, everything could be addictive if there's an emptiness in that person that needs to be filled. I now know that nobody changes until they change their energy. And when you change your energy, you change your life. I'm Gwyneth Paltrow. This is the Goop Podcast, bringing together thought leaders, culture changers, creatives, founders, and CEOs, scientists, doctors, healers, and seekers here to start conversations because simply asking questions and listening has the power to change the way we see the world.

3:05Here we go. My guest today is bestselling author, Bruce Feiler. Bruce's latest book is called The Search, Finding Meaningful Work in a Post-Career World. Today, Bruce shares insights from hundreds of life stories he collected about how people navigate through work transitions, which he calls work quakes. We talk about why we've been inculcated with the premise that there is a linear path to success. And he shares why it's time to rethink what it means to have a career. Ultimately, Bruce's work is about helping people define what success means to them on their own terms, and equipping people with the tools to identify and live out their purpose.

3:46So let's get to my chat with Bruce Feiler.

3:52It's just so nice to have you here. Your body of work is so extraordinarily wonderful. And I guess just to sort of frame the conversation, well, you've spent years writing about these moments of uncertainty in life and how to turn them into opportunities and moments of growth, which I also want to talk to you about how that applies to children and teenagers as well, in terms of, you know, how to create resilience, et cetera. By the way, that's a big interest of mine. My twin daughters are about to go to college, and I've been thinking a lot about children and transition. So we'll put a pin in that and come back to it.

4:32Okay, good. So these themes around uncertainty and growth, which I think they're deep and important topics and they lead to so much. But can you just tell us a little bit about your particular journey that led you to this work? I grew up in Savannah, Georgia, and I left there and I went to the Northeast to go to college. I left there and I went to Japan in the mid 80s. And I'm old enough that I started writing home letters on crinkly airmail paper, right back in that the kids today don't know what that is. You'll Google it. And when I got back to Georgia six months later, everyone said, I loved your letters.

5:10And I was like, great. Have we met? And it turned out that my grandmother had Xeroxed them and passed them around. And they went viral in a sort of 1980s sense of the word. And I thought I should write a book about this. I didn't know anyone who'd ever written a book, but it doesn't happen this way. But I sold my first book at 24, now 35 years ago. And I set off on this journey of kind of entering worlds and writing about them. I wrote books about Japan and England. I spent a year as a clown in a traveling circus. I spent my 30s back and forth to the Middle East writing a series of books about, you know, religion and spirituality, walking the Bible and Abraham.

5:47And I think of this now, Gwyneth, in the context of the conversation we're about to have as a linear life. Like it's the fantasy that we all have. Like I figured out what I wanted to do early. I did it for no money. I had some success. I got married and had children. But then in my 40s, my life just was completely blown up. First, I got cancer, as you know, as the father of identical twin daughters, asked a group of men to be a council of dads for my girls. I had some financial trouble because my family owned a bunch of real estate in Georgia that got wiped out by the recession. And then my dad, who has Parkinson's, got very depressed and tried to take his own life six times in 12 weeks.

6:28So here I am, like I'm a professional storyteller like and i had no idea how to tell the story and i didn't want to right i felt shame i felt i felt embarrassment and confusion and when i started telling it what i found out is that everybody goes through these periods when they feel kind of pain or confused or or or just out of sorts and what i kept hearing from people actually went to a college reunion and i was moderating a panel there were 250 people in the room these were very impressive people I had their resumes and on my way up, a friend of mine was closing a huge business deal and was talking on the phone.

7:05He was on top of the world and he would talk to his partners and he was crying because the nine month old of one of his partners went down for a nap and never woke up. Oh, my God. I'm sitting in this room with all these fancy people at Yale and I ripped up their resumes. And I was like, you know what? Losers don't come to their college reunion. I don't want to hear about your successes. I want to hear about your struggles and what keeps you awake at night. And that night, person after person came up and told me a story. Like my wife had a headache and went in and died. I'm being sued for malpractice.

7:38My boss is a crook. My child's trying to cut herself. And I called my wife and I was like, no one knows how to tell their story anymore. and I want to do something to help. So what I did was create this thing that I now call the Life Story Project. And I went out and just started finding people and saying, tell me your story. This is what you do every week. Like, just tell me your story. I didn't know what I was looking for. I didn't really know what I was hoping to find. And in the field that I sort of stumbled into of narrative psychology, like a, you know, meaningful academic paper will have six, eight, 10 of these stories.

8:14In the last six years, I've done 400, 1500 hours of interviews, 10 ,000 pages of transcripts. And sort of, so with the first book that this led to, the big idea was that the linear life is dead, right? The idea that we're all going to do the same thing in our twenties and our thirties, and then have a quote unquote midlife crisis between 39 and 44 and a half. That's what the original idea was. Like that turns out to be bunk. It's just not how we live. And what we live is we live nonlinear lives that involve many more transitions. You know, my data from that book show that we go through three dozen, what I call disruptors in the course of our lives.

8:52That's one every 12 to 18 months. Like that's more often than most people see a dentist. And most of these we get through, but one in 10 of them becomes a lifequake, right? A massive change. And I think that the, you know, we'll talk about the new book in a second, but I think the signature piece of data from that book is that the average length of a life quake is five years. So you think three to five in a lifetime, four, five, six years, that's 25 years. That's half of our adult lives. We are in this kind of state that you asked about. And I think the big thing that I most feel is that we usually talk about it as grit and grind and kind of resilience your way through it.

9:31That's a problem. We've sort of, we've normalized the stable periods and we've sort of fetishized the unstable, pathologized, if you will, the unstable periods. And that's what my work is about. It's like in these periods, as difficult as they are, we can learn skills to get through them more effectively. And even as painful as they are, they can lead to periods of growth and renewal. And is it because we are inculcated with this idea that life is linear, that then these transitions feel so painful because we're supposed to be going up and to the right? How did this construct start that we're supposed to live this linear life?

10:09I actually think that that's what a lot of people miss, which is essentially we have linear expectations, but nonlinear lives. And I think the gap between them is what causes the anxiety. And what we do is we blame ourselves, right? What people say is like, I'm off track, or I'm off schedule, or I'm off kilter, like the life I'm living is not the life I expected to live. The problem is not you. The problem is the expectation. So where did this come from? Right? So if you go back, and it turns out that the linear life, it's the aberration, right? So in the ancient world, they thought that life was a cycle, because they had agriculture, They didn't have clocks.

10:50They didn't have linear time, right? To every season, turn, turn, turn. We all sing when we're kids. In the Middle Ages, they think life is a staircase up to middle age and then down. Like you peak in middle age. So that's what is that? But that's no new love at 50. That's no retiring and moving to Florida and opening a B &B or now an Airbnb. It's like straight up and straight down. And this really changes with the birth of science 150 years ago, because then you have the Industrial Revolution, right? So you have everything going in conveyor belts and assembly lines. And so you've got Piaget with childhood development and Erickson with the eight stages of moral development, the five stages of grief.

11:32These are all linear constructs. And the problem is that's the aberration. So now we know with chaos and with the internet, like life is coming at us from all directions. So we've changed how we look at the world, but we haven't changed how we look at our lives. And I think that that is the tension. To go back to what I said before, we are haunted by the ghost of linearity. We still normalize the idea that all changes are coming at birthdays that end in zero, right? And that's because that's what we read in the magazines and in the back of a textbook as undergraduates. But think about the pandemic.

12:12If you were 30 or 40 or between 39 and 44 and a half, you were having a midlife crisis. But if you were between 57 and 65, you were having one or 23 and 28. Or in the case of my children, 15 years old, you're having a crisis. So we have to let go of the safe idea that these changes happen on a calendar and accept the fact that they come at us from all times. And as we turn to work, this is even more relevant. You get to write the story of your own life. That's a great opportunity. But a lot of us essentially get writer's block in writing the story of our own lives. chronic migraine 15 or more headache days a month each lasting four hours or more can make me feel like a spectator in my own life botox on a botulinum toxin a prevents headaches in adults with chronic migraine it's not for those with 14 or fewer headache days a month it's the number one prescribed branded chronic migraine preventive treatment prescription botox is injected by your doctor effects of botox may spread hours to weeks after injection causing serious symptoms alert your doctor right away as difficulty swallowing speaking breathing eye problems or muscle weakness can be signs of a life-threatening condition.

13:20Patients with these conditions before injection are at highest risk. Side effects may include allergic reactions, neck and injection site pain, fatigue, and headache. Allergic reactions can include rash, welts, asthma symptoms, and dizziness. Don't receive Botox if there's a skin infection. Tell your doctor your medical history, muscle or nerve conditions, including ALS Lou Gehrig's disease, myasthenia gravis or Lambert-Eaton syndrome, and medications, including botulinum toxins, as these may increase the risk of serious side effects. Why wait? Ask your doctor, visit BotoxChronicMigraine.com, or call 1-800-44-BOTOX to learn more.

13:50And I guess it's reductive too to assign a certain chapter of your life, you know, to sort of conjugate it with like a midlife crisis or, you know, you're sad because you're in this phase or you're an empty nester or, you know, you're in your Saturn return or whatever. It's like we find comfort in these ideas of like this happens to everyone, but at the same time, it doesn't fully, you know, give that chapter its full due course. I think that's exactly right. I was a 43 year old man when I got diagnosed with a life threatening cancer and I had three year old identical twins and this upend, that's not supposed to happen.

14:31You know, my parents were still living, right? My in-laws, that's not supposed to happen. Like the, the, the prior generation, right? I mean, I've done 400 stories. I bet a quarter of them involve addiction, either the person or, or a parent or a partner or a child, like that just happens when it happens. The pandemic happens when it happens, the downsizing, the tornado, the natural disaster, whatever it is, they're not happening on a schedule. And I think you're right. We take comfort in that because I think it makes us feel safe. But the reality is that's the crutch. And the way to feel safe is to say, I don't have to live someone else's dream anymore.

15:15I can live my dream and I can make the change and I can make the decision to write the story of my own life. It's harder, but it ultimately will bring you more fulfillment. If you go back a hundred years, most of the sources of meaning in our lives were handed to us, right? We had to live where our parents wanted us to live, love who our parents wanted us to love, do what our parents wanted us to do, believe what our parents wanted us to believe we didn't have this kind of agency. Now, that's not true. You can live where you want to live, love who you want to love, believe who you want to believe, do what you want to do.

15:53Okay. That is, and by the way, this has especially helped women, but it's harder. And essentially what my work has become is giving you a tools to navigate the transitions. And in the case of this new work, to sort of decide what it is that you want to do, what kind of work will bring you meaning, and then give people the tools to help achieve that. Yeah. And I think it's really interesting to look at it through the lens of work, because as you say, you know, our life sort of defaults to work. We work all the time. It defines our life. It's what we spend the most time doing. So it's interesting to look at this through the framework of work and how we relate to ourselves through work and this idea of a career trajectory.

16:36I want to start with, I think, to that end, this idea you talk about, about America being kind of at a turning point with work. And of course we've all read about quiet quitting and the great resignation and, you know, like running a company, I can't tell you how many people after the pandemic, you know, came to say, you know, I've just always wanted to do landscape architecture. So I'm going to quit my, you know, data science job. And I was like, great, you know, but also like, wow, what is, what is happening here? So what was it about the pandemic that facilitated these ideas of workquakes that you talk about?

17:19Maybe, maybe define what a workquake is first, and then we can talk about that. So, well, what I love about this, but on my way to answering that question is that you, I love that you brought up you as a, you know, as the, as a leader, because you both embody this in the sense that you've made non-traditional work choices. Even the idea of starting this company was a bold move at the time that you did it because you were known for being in one space and then suddenly you were transitioning to another space. So you've seen it from both sides, both as a practitioner and now, you know, as a leader, both as an employee and an employer.

17:57And of course, that gets to what we'll get to, which is that we're all all these different things. None of us has a job anymore. We have these multiple different roles. So that book we've been talking about, Life is in the Transitions, it was actually scheduled to come out in May of 2020, which couldn't happen because we were all in quarantine. Bookstores were closed. You know, media was covered with focusing on the pandemic. So we ended up bringing out that summer and it and suddenly the entire planet was in a life transition at the same time. Right. So suddenly I had the right book at the right time.

18:29You were in the zeitgeist. I mean, it was just, I didn't see it coming, but I did know that. And there hadn't been a major book on transitions in 40 years. So that book comes out and just touches a nerve, leads to a TED talk. Now this TED course I teach on navigating life transitions. And to be entirely honest, a week after it came out, I was having a drink with my editor in Brooklyn. I think about it because we were just socially distant, the whole thing. And it always begins with me, Gwyneth, with a feeling. And I was like, you know what? Work is going to be the next domino to fall. I just feel like the combination of, you know, the public health crisis, the social justice movement, we were still in the wake of Me Too at that time, and of women beginning to find their voice even more in the workplace, the political upheaval, the technological, the technological change.

19:20Here we are, you know, few years later and how many jobs are going to be lost to generative AI, right? But I sort of felt like work is going to be the next domino to fall. And so I set out again, gathered another few hundred stories from all walks of life, all backgrounds. And I would say the first thing we need to do is reckon with the expectations because the expectations are of this linear career path. I mean, I'm sitting here at my desk in Brooklyn, and I stacked on this desk the five most popular success books of the 20th century. Okay, that's How to Win Friends and Influence People, The Power of Positive Thinking, What Color is Your Parachute, right?

20:07The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. I turned every page, researched every name, and to cut to the bottom line, there were 693 stories that were mentioned. 93 % are straight white men. Only 7 % were women and 0.009 % were minorities. So, you know, Horatio Alger, who gave his name to the American success story, starts writing his bestselling novels about boys in New York City after he was accused and found guilty of sexually abusing boys in Cape Cod, right? So before we even grapple with the choices of today, we need to recognize how narrow-minded, I would even go so far as to say cruel, the American success story has been.

20:52And it's focused only on one type of person with one type of story and one type of work trajectory. And that turns out to also be an aberration, okay? So step number one is you don't have a career. Like that's lie number one. You don't have a career because that was decided 100 years ago by this guy, Frank Parsons. I mean, I love the story in the search. It was essentially invented when people leave the farms and go to the cities and immigrants come from overseas. Because for most of human history, people live where they worked and work where they live. And we didn't need this idea. Lie number two is you have a path.

21:25And there you get to the workquake. So what is a workquake? A workquake is a moment of instability, right? Where you rethink or reconsider or reimagine what you're doing. And I like the term workquake because it's value neutral, because some of them you don't control. They're involuntary. You get laid off or there's a recession, right? Or your spouse gets sick and you have to spend more time or your partner moves and you need to move or you have a child who needs greater attention for you. So, but some of them are voluntary. You know, we've been talking, I'm the dad of identical twin daughters.

22:04When they were born 18 years ago, it was a workquake. I mean, it was joyful, but like everything got upended. And, you know, I told you before that I think that the signature piece of data from life is in the transitions is that the average lifequake takes five years. I think that the signature piece of data from the search has to do with workquakes. And let me first say that the average person goes through a workquake every two and a half years. But here's the thing. It's women go through them more frequently than men. Xers go through them more frequently than boomers. millennials more than Xers and diverse workers more than non-diverse workers.

22:44Okay. So the average millennial woman will go through a workquake 67 % more frequently, you know, than her boomer mother. So we have to grapple with this because it's becoming more the norm, but here's the signature piece of data. More than half of all workquakes, 55 % begin outside of the workplace. So it's not that you don't like your job or your boss or the hours, it's you don't like the commute, right? Or something happens with your family, okay? Or something happens between your ears, your mindset changes, or you have a medical problem. So that means in the battle between work and life, in effect, life now dominates work.

23:26And I think we have women to thank for this. Okay. Because when, once women got into the workplace, we're not prepared to make these sacrifices. Okay. We want, our families are important to us and our work is important to us. And the old days, you just basically had to, you know, always vote in favor of the workplace and you don't have to do that anymore. That is a massive change that women single-handedly and now that the workplace is essentially predominantly female okay and the majority of workers hired now are black and brown women like so diverse women are even leading more change women have brought us to this place where i don't have to do it just what you want because here's where we are right now the single biggest takeaway from this project is that fewer people are searching merely for work anymore.

24:21More people are searching for work with meaning. Struggling to find something for everyone on your list? Bob's Discount Furniture can help. Shop Bob's super selection of great gifts, from deluxe dining sets with storage and nap-ready recliners with all the bells and whistles, to oh-so-soft Bob-O-Pedic sofas and beautiful budget-friendly bunk beds, all available at everyday low prices that'll keep your holiday shopping haggle and hassle-free. So stop into your nearest store, shop online at mybobs.com and holiday the Bob's way. Oh, my Bob. But how do we get the permission to start to think that way?

24:56What happened? Well, in fact, one of my favorite questions in this book that I ask people, which is who gave you permission to make the change? And so I think we should talk about that because I think the issue is I think that people now know they want work that gives them meaning, that gives them purpose, okay, that brings them happiness, whatever is the metric that they want. But no one's ever told us how to do that. And also, we've conflated the idea of work with the opposite of that, of self-discovery and joy. And I was always told, well, it's work. It's not fun. It's work, right? There's that ad on the TV you see from time to time.

25:32There's a great line, and Mad Men does this too. The woman comes to Jon Hamm and says, I want to feel good about my work. And he was like, the money is supposed to make you feel good, right? That is how we grew up. And by the way, for some people, money can be meaning. Like I'm sending two kids to college. Trust me. You know, like I understand that there are times in your life that this is the most important thing. But the great opportunity of the moment is you don't have to always make that choice. We know a lot of people who started out down a creative path, okay? Because they wanted self-expression and then maybe it didn't work out and they settled down and they had families.