More Money Podcast - 383 Why You Don't Have to Love Your Job - Simone Stolzoff, Author of The Good Enough Job

Episode Date: November 29, 2023

I've been teasing this episode throughout the season because Simone Stolzoff's book just so happens to be one of the best books I've read all year (and I can't shut up about it). In the personal finance space, we often talk about working, earning an income, getting raises and promotions, and the ultimate dream of having a career you're passionate about. But the reality is... work is still work even if it is your passion. Not only that, there are a ton of downsides to working a job you're passionate about as Simone shares stories about in his book. Maybe there is something to be said for keeping your life and livelihood separate. Maybe you don't have to be passionate about your job but can funnel that passion into your personal life instead. Maybe Mark Twain was full of crap when he was quoted as saying "Find a job you enjoy doing, and you will never have to work a day in your life." As a journalist, designer, author and now someone who quit his 9-to-5 to work for himself, Simone joins me on the podcast to discuss why having a job that's good enough may actually be what we should be striving for instead of a career that tries to fulfill us in every possible way. For full episode show notes visit: https://jessicamoorhouse.com/383 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, and welcome back to the More Money Podcast. This is your host, Jessica Morehouse, and this is episode 383 of the show. And I cannot wait to introduce my next guest. I've teased him on previous episodes because I was so excited about this episode. I'm talking about Simone Stalzov. He wrote the book, The Good Enough Job, Reclaiming Life from Work. And let me tell you, okay, number one, the reason I found out about him and his book was because I also listened to podcasts. Yes, that's right. I'm just like you. I'm just like you, of course. And I heard him on a podcast. And I'm like, I need to read his book. I need to hopefully also ask him to be on my show and see if he'd be willing to do that. And he said

yes. And I can't wait to really dive into all the topics and concepts of his book, which is really ultimately how we need to disconnect our full selves from our jobs, because too often, they are very commingled. Our work is our life, our life is our work, especially for people like me, or maybe you, maybe you work remotely. When you work at home, it is hard to create that barrier or that disconnect between this is personal Jessica and this is work Jessica. Honestly, I've had to do a lot of work on myself. In particular, this year, I think writing the book has been really good to self-reflect because I realized there really wasn't for a long time a disconnect and I was actually losing who I was, my sense of self.

And this book does a really great job of talking about that and giving some real life examples and stories of people he interviewed. And you're just going to love it. But just a little bit more about Simone. So he's a journalist, which means he's a really good writer, a designer, and of course, the author of The Good Enough Job. He was also the design lead at the global innovation firm IDEO. And his work has been featured in The New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, and so many other publications. And he's also a graduate of Stanford and the University of Pennsylvania. So we've got so much great stuff to talk about in this episode.

So without further ado, let's get to it. But before I get to that interview, I want to share a little bit more information about my online course that you may not even know about, but it's been around for almost three years called Wealth Building Blueprint for Canadians. It's a course I built specifically with you Canadian listers in mind who want to learn how to do passive investing like I've been talking about for years on the show. If you want to get rich slowly, invest for the long term, you don't want to day trade or dabble in something speculative like cryptocurrency or some hot stocks that you find online. You just want to make sure you can retire one day or

save enough for buying a home. And this course can help you. It is specifically about all the fundamentals you need to know about investing as a Canadian. But then I also show you how to build a strategic investment plan and then how to invest in your own portfolio by way of either using a robo-advisor or doing it on your own from scratch. There's lots of worksheets and calculators and spreadsheets that you will not find anywhere else on the internet, hence why I had to build them myself, but also get lifetime access

as well as access to the private Facebook group, my monthly Q&A sessions for students, a private email you can contact me with, and you also get a private one-on-one session with me when you finish the course as well. There are so many benefits to the course, so I highly recommend going to jessicamorehouse.com slash course to find more information and to apply. Again, that's jessicamorehouse.com slash course to learn more and to apply. Welcome Simone to the More

Money Podcast. I'm thrilled to have you on the show. Thank you so much for being here. It's a pleasure to be here. Yeah. So I've mentioned to you several times, I'm a huge fan of your book. I learned about it by listening to, I think, possibly the Happiness Lab or another podcast that you were on. And I'm like, oh, this is a book for me. And so I pre-ordered it, read it. I'm like, yeah, this was amazing. And I don't even know how many people I recommended it to so far, because I feel like this is a really important book. And I haven't seen anything else like it. It's called The Good Enough Job Reclaiming Life from Work. I on the show, we obviously talk

about money, personal finance, how to kind of elevate your situation and just how to navigate work life. But what often gets lost in the shuffle is our identities and our wishes and our values and our dreams, because you just get lost in trying to achieve your goals and things like that. And I was just having, I have a group of women, we've been in a book club for over 10 years now. And so I've seen a lot of ups and downs in a lot of their careers. And a lot of them have kind of come to a point in their lives where they're realizing, I don't think I'm going to find my passion, or I don't think, I think it's maybe okay and it shouldn't be judged. I shouldn't be judged for working a job that's fine, but it's not like the love of my life and then just enjoying the rest of my life.

But we're often kind of, I think, judged for, oh, you're not doing a cool job. Then maybe you don't have, maybe you're not a cool person, but believe me, I've met a lot of people who have cool jobs and they also hate them. So. Yeah. I think it's a reflection of our modern era where there's been a decline of a lot of other sources of meaning and identity in people's lives, things like organized religion or neighborhood and community groups. And so you pair that with the expectation that everyone should have a dream job or if you haven't found work that you love that you should keep searching. And it creates these really high stakes. It creates high expectations that often can't be delivered upon. You know, our jobs are not necessarily designed to be our sources of self-actualization and our primary communities. And so you get the message on one hand of, you

know, the WeWorks have always do what you love on the walls. And, you know, people say, you know, find your dream job, follow your passion. And then people don't have as many other interests or passions or identities that they've invested in. And as many people found out during the pandemic, it can eventually hang you out to dry. Yeah. I mean, and it's honestly, I feel like divine intervention finding your book because this year in particular, I've been on kind of a personal journey of trying to disconnect my work from my personal identity. And I think a lot of it was just reflecting on who I was during the pandemic and stuff like that. But I realized if someone asked me, what are your hobbies? I'm like, I don't have any. I don't really do much besides the work that I do, which I love, but it's all I have to talk about. And I'm like, I feel like there should be more to that. And so I've made it a priority being more social, having a better social life and doing activities that aren't about being productive or how you can turn your side hustle into, you know, or your passion into a side hustle. Why can't you just have fun? So I

think this is a really important. I'm curious, though, what inspired you to write the book? Was it just that you were talking to a lot of people and you're like, there's something here that no one's really talking about? Yeah, there's sort of two ways in. One is I'm a journalist by background, and I've been on the labor beat for the majority of my career. So I have places like The Atlantic and Quartz and Wired writing about our relationship to work. And the second is more personal. So in about five years ago or so, I was working in a magazine job in New York and a recruiter reached out to me about a job in the design industry, which I didn't really know much about. It was for this company called IDEO that I'd heard of and sort of thought

was like a potentially cool place to work. And, you know, I was flattered that the recruiter reached out. I took the call and ended up sort of passively going through this interview process. And then I found myself at this crossroads. I got the job and I had to decide between whether I wanted to stay working as a journalist or I wanted to leave to join this design firm. And, you know, maybe some of the listeners have been at a similar sort of crossroads in their own career. To a certain extent, it's like, you know, woe is me, the agony of having to decide between two attractive job paths. But on the other hand, it didn't feel like I was choosing between two jobs as much as it felt like I was choosing between two versions of me. You know, there was the Simone the journalist and Simone the designer.

And either path that I took felt like it was like turning off part of who I was. And so the book is really an investigation to how we got here. I knew I wasn't the only one who was conflating my job with my identity. And so the book sort of tries to do two things. One is investigate how work has come to be so central to particularly Americans, but also by extension Canadians' lives. And the second is an argument about the value of diversifying our identities. So for financial podcasts like this one, much as an investor benefits from diversifying the sources of stocks

and their portfolio, we too benefit from diversifying the sources of meaning and fulfillment and identity in our lives. Absolutely. And I know one thing that I feel has probably changed over time, or maybe not. I can't remember what you wrote in the book, but why is it that, especially now, it seems like we are trying to get everything that we need out of our job or, you know, our social interaction, personal satisfaction. And I think part of it, too, is there's all these companies and you talk about it, like the Googles, the Apples, the startups of the

world that are like, oh, please stay longer and we'll feed you and we'll we have events and all these things. And I remember there was a time I was interviewing for some startups and they had all these things, these attractive things. I remember one I stayed at just for a week because I realized quickly this is going to be a terrible life and terrible job. But they're like, oh, we've got Beer Fridays and we've got games and it's really fun. And then I did the week of the work and I'm like, oh, I'm excited for Beer Friday. That sounds so fun. And literally just people went to the fridge, grabbed a beer and went back to their desk and worked. I'm like, oh my God, this is not what they, not what I signed up for. I was hoping this could feel, cause I was, I was new to Toronto cause I just moved to Vancouver. I was hoping it could fill that void of a social life. Oh, this is how I get to know, you know, make

friends and didn't do that. Why do you feel like we have, instead of just having a job and then go home and have our lives, we want the job to be everything. Yeah, I think there's a few different ways to answer it. On one hand, the idea of conflating our identities with our jobs is nothing new. If your last name is Miller or Baker, you might think that this has always existed. The Protestant work ethic and capitalism were sort of the two strands that entwined to form America's foundation. But I do think there are a few aspects in the last 40 or 50 years that have made jobs and the importance that we place on them particularly central to our lives. is the ways, especially in America, where the consequences of losing work have become so dire. If you, for example, are tying your health care to your employment status, you're tying

your ability to stay in this country, if you're an immigrant, to your employment status. Then you look at things like stagnant wages. People have had to work more just to buy the same loaf of bread. And so there's this kind of level of precarity that undergirds the entire economy where people think that if they aren't somehow getting ahead, they're somehow falling behind. But the argument that I really focus on in the book is cultural. It's the sort of subjective value that so many of us place on our jobs. And part of that is a reflection of the decline of some of these other institutions. If you don't have a church or you don't have a social group in your community to rely upon, the need for

belonging and community and purpose remain. And many people have been transferring it onto the place where they spend the majority of their time, which is the office. And there's this sort of Silicon Valley ethos of the cushy office perks and the all-inclusive campus that have encouraged people to center so much of their lives around their work. But there are a few risks here. One is pretty straightforward. Your job might not always be there. If your job is your primary source of identity or your go-to gym and dinner spot, and you lose your job to a furlough, to a layoff, or your job materially changes because there's a

global pandemic, you can be left asking what's left. Then there's the expectations argument that I talked about a little bit before. If we're always expecting our jobs to be perfect, if we're always expecting our jobs to be a dream, it can create a lot of room for disappointment and for suffering. If you think that all your friends have these dream jobs, but you haven't quite found yours yet. Then the third is the main argument about the book, which is if we are giving all of our best time and all of our best energy to our jobs, it can neglect other parts of who we are. So certainly we are all more than just workers. We are neighbors and we are friends and we are citizens and we are, you know, athletes, travelers,

artists, what have you. But if we are only investing in our professional lives, those other identities can wither. In order to be a good friend, you need to show up as a friend and really invest in your relationships. In order to consider yourself an amateur guitar player, you have to make time in your weeks to practice the guitar. If you want to be invested in your neighborhood, you have to be showing up as a neighbor and building relationships, investing in causes that you care about. And yet so many of us bring the best of ourselves to work

and bring the leftovers home, which is a reference to Esther Perel. She has this great argument about how, you know, similar to our romantic partners, we're expecting our jobs to deliver all of these different roles in our lives, and they're not necessarily set up to do so. Yeah. And I know one thing that you talk about in the book, and I've heard this in many of the jobs that I've had in the past is, you know, these employers want you to kind of rely on them and loyalty and everything. And they use the term, you know, we're a family. I heard that in so many different jobs. But at one point, it's like, oh, that's, you know, you feel really included. You get that sense of community that we're really lacking

in this world. I know loneliness is an epidemic right now. And so it feels some of those needs are like, oh, this is great. You know, I just moved to the city and now I have this family. That's my work life and blah, blah, blah. And then you realize that you start seeing the cracks and you realize this job is not, you know, there's a lot of things that I don't like part of it. And that then it's hard to leave. It's hard to leave a job where there is this kind of there's nothing outside of your job. And that's probably why I stayed at lots of jobs longer than I should have, because I didn't know how to exit, especially when we had this friends and family kind of mentality. Why do you think it's so important to make sure like and is it even possible when this culture of like, oh, we're, you know, loyalty, we're a family? How is it

possible to kind of disconnect yourself? Because when I have seen employees try to do that, no, I'm leaving right at five instead of staying for the social hour or, you know, whatever. There is some sort of social engagement that's created in the workplace. They never come. They look like they're not a participator. They're not really, you know, and it can actually hurt their work. They may not be assigned certain things or the vibe is just like, oh, yeah, they're just not a team player. Is it possible to have that boundary set? Yeah. And I think ultimately it makes sense why some employers either consciously or unconsciously try to push the narrative that we are like a family here. You know, the implied assumption is that we look out for each other. We care about each other as humans in addition to being workers. And, you know, that's all well and good. But the problem is that families and workplaces have fundamentally different goals. For one thing, most of the families I know are pretty dysfunctional.

I don't know if that's the sort of thing that we want to aspire to. But the idea with family is that the love is unconditional. That's what makes things a family. But with employment, an at-will employment contract is by definition conditional. And so there's this great paper that I reference in the book that has a great name too. It's called Friends Without Benefits. And it's sort of about the dark side of these familial bonds in the workplace. And what the researchers found is that in companies that tend to have these kind of familial, very social cultures, there are definitely some benefits. You know, people tend to be happier at work when they have a best friend, for example, and they feel psychologically safe, like they can trust and share their opinions openly with their coworkers. But there are also downsides. For one, employees are less

likely to surface wrongdoing because it feels like if you see something that's going poorly and you bring it up, it's somehow, you know, betraying your family. In family-like cultures, they tend to be less transparent because information tends to travel through social channels and through relationships of people who you know rather than through open channels where everyone can see. People tend to trust the opinions of their friends rather than more rigorous business analysis. And so there's sort of like the

business case for not over-investing in the relationships at work and keeping some level of professional kind of semblance of who you are just in a work context. I think there's also the personal argument, which is if you are staying late and having dinner at the office every night, that is an opportunity that you're missing to have dinner with your family or your friends or your people in your local community. And so I think we are seeing sort of a shift away from these more paternalistic office cultures where the idea is that you come here and you can do your laundry and your dry cleaning and stay to go to the gym and it's your go-to bar. And, you know, this isn't to say there's anything wrong with free food or having a place to exercise, but

the idea for work is that it should be a means to an end. You know, we should show up and do good work. And at the end of the day, we should be able to go home. And sometimes when these lines between our work lives and our personal lives blur, that can be harder to do. Yeah. And I mean, one thing that I experienced, especially my last corporate job before I became self-employed, I was there for almost three years. And I really, I think, overinvested myself. That was, you know, I had all my friends there and, you know, spent way too much time there. I did a lot of overtime. That was the culture. It was a law firm, to be fair, very toxic. And, you know, there was a lot of social activities, all these things. And when I decided I need to leave, this just isn't a healthy environment.

I'm not getting what I want. I wanted to get a promotion. It wasn't working out. And then eventually, you know, handed in my notice. It was even interesting. I mean, I did hand in two months notice, which is way too long, would not recommend. But during that time, I thought a lot of my friends would, you know, stay loyal to me and we'd continue those friendships. And I can already see them kind of retreat and kind of make room for whoever my replacement was. And then once I did leave and try to keep up some of those relationships, it was just very hard to do because we didn't actually have a ton in common because I no longer worked there. So we could no longer talk about work. There was only maybe one person that I still now keep in touch with. And so it was very difficult. But I wish looking back,

I did make more of an effort to build a life outside of work. But it's sometimes when you're in an environment where you are working, you know, more than eight hours a day, you're there, and then you're getting the emails when you're at home or on the weekends, which is a whole other thing. It's hard to make that pivot. But you know, what would your suggestions be if someone's realizing, oh, my gosh, I don't want to be it's kind of like the same thing of, you know, when someone gets into a new relationship, and they just get super invested and then they start, you know, ignoring their friends because they're just like so in love and excited about this new relationship. And then maybe the relationship goes sour, they break up and they realize, oh, where'd my friends

go? I don't, you know, you don't want to be in that position. What can people do to make sure that they are still doing a good job? They're still participating, but they're not putting themselves in a position where it'll be difficult to leave or when they leave, then gosh, there's no one around. I have to start from scratch building a new friend group and a new social life. Yeah, I think there are two things that come to mind. One is that modern work, especially modern knowledge work is incredibly leaky. It can very easily fill all of the unoccupied space in our days if we allow it to, you know, we carry around offices in our pockets. And so I think the first step is to carve out space in your days, in your weeks, in your life where working is not an

option. You know, one of the benefits of going on a walk with your best friend or going to a yoga class is that they provide these structural barriers that prevent you from multitasking. They keep you present in a moment where you're not sort of like a shark with one eye open on your email. And then the second is, it might sound simplistic, but if we want to cultivate identities beyond the professional identities in our lives, we have to do things other than work. You know, identities are sort of like plants. They need water and intention in order to grow. And so, you know, it's not very actionable advice to say, like, care less about your job. But the other side of the coin is you can care more about other things. You know, as you said, try to do things in

your life that remind yourself that you exist on this planet to do more than just produce economic value. And so whether it is, you know, investing in your relationships or learning a new instrument or some form of exercise or getting involved in a cause that you care about. I think it's really important to have these containers where there is a different value system beyond the value system of your company or the market. Obviously, the office presents one sort of container that has one system of value where everything is quantified and you can kind of see what matters in that environment. But finding another environment that has a different source of values or maybe people can care less about what you do for work, I think, is really important. So for example, I love to play pickup basketball. I think one of the great

things about playing pickup basketball is no one cares how many books I've sold that week or words I've written. They care that I show up on time and that I'm a good passer and that I box out when I rebound. You know, these other sort of ways to demonstrate your value in the community. And then my identity is reinforced by these people that see me as a teammate first, as opposed to a marketer or a writer or someone that has to deliver this deliverable before a certain date. Yeah. Yeah. And I feel like that's something, especially if you were someone like me who definitely got a little too invested in the hustle culture and grind and shine and doing all that because you, you want to, you know, see how you can reach your potential.

It's you don't want to honestly be like me where you're in your mid 30s and you're like, oh, my gosh, I sure I worked hard and I achieved a lot of things. But then what's the you kind of lose the point of it. You lost the plot a little bit. And so it's really important to make. Yeah. Setting those intentions and doing hobbies and trying something new a priority, because I think a lot of us are just getting into a routine and we're on autopilot. I'm curious, you mentioned at the end of your book, because you were working full time while you wrote this book, which I think is commendable, because I don't, I mean, I work for myself. And that's, that's one thing, but I can kind of say

no to work, you were working full time. Then at the end of the book, you mentioned that you left that job. I'm curious, has any of your perspectives on anything changed? Or while you were writing the book, did it kind of make you think, huh job. And I thought that once I left work now, like you, I'm self-employed, everything would be fixed in my life. I thought my tendencies to overwork or to check my emails on the weekends was a reflection of the cultures of the company that I worked for or the manager that I had. And then I started working for myself and I realized I was the worst manager that I'd ever had. You know, like I was the problem. It was my own sort of drive to tie my self-worth to my productivity that kept me working all the time. I mean, I think one of the other sides of the coin of what we've been talking about is that the research shows that people who have what they call cultivated greater self-complexity, who have invested in other sides of themselves, tend to be fuller versions of themselves in terms of their personal lives.

But they also tend to be better workers as well. when we are in a knowledge economy and the deliverable of what you're making will be something like a podcast or a strategy document or a headline for a marketing campaign. Our brains need space in order to synthesize all the inputs that are coming in, in order to rest and recharge. We all know this on a personal level. If you're on hour 11 of a 12-hour day, you're not going to be firing at all cylinders. And so the research shows that people who have greater self-complexity tend to be more resilient in the face of adversity. If you're rising and

falling based on your professional accomplishments and your boss says something disparaging, it can very easily spill into all other aspects of your life unless you've cultivated other sources of meaning. People tend to be more creative and innovative if they have other hobbies or interests outside of work, sourcing other ideas. And so I think a lot of these ways in which we measure what it means to be successful at work, like the number of hours that you spend in your office chair chair are holdovers from a more industrial age. And as we move into a knowledge economy, we're seeing this through the four-day workweek experiments. People know this on an individual level. There isn't always a direct relationship between the number of hours you put in and the quality of the work that comes out. And so I'm

encouraged by this kind of cultural shift that we've seen over the course of the pandemic. It's not as simple as, you know, follow your passion or don't follow your passion or care about your job or don't care about your job. The question is about, you know, sustainability and balance and how you can design a life that your career supports as opposed to the other way around. Have you found now that I guess it's been some time since you left your job and the book's been out, you've been a better manager on yourself? Have you found more of a balance? I mean, for me, it took me years to figure that like it took me years to allow myself to take weekends off because I was just so in the routine of work, work, work. And also when I was working full time at my last job, I also was doing this type of thing with the podcast and stuff on top of it during all my free time. And so I didn't have free time. And then when I then had free time, I filled it up with work because I didn't know what else to do. Have you found a solution? Are you better balancing everything now? Yeah, you know, it can be kind of a chicken and egg problem, right? It's like you work all the time. So you don't know what to do when you're not working. And you don't know what to do what you're not working. And so you work some more. Yeah. And I have found better balance. I think part of it comes back to sort of structural boundaries and barriers of having something at the end of the workday to signify that the day is done. And, you know, I have this mentor

named Casper Turk Kyle, who sends out this tweet on Friday nights that I is done. And, you know, I have this mentor named Casper Turkyle who sends out this tweet on Friday nights that I really appreciate. And he says, the work is not done, but it is time to stop, you know, having that sort of mentality of like, okay, there will always potentially be more to do, but this is time to stop for today. And these are the reasons why I'm stopping so I can be able to invest in myself and in other ways. I think another thing that's helped me is trying to find community, especially being self-employed, finding other people that have similar struggles and being able to find solidarity. And I think, you know, one of the biggest things that you lose when you start working for yourself are coworkers. And so I think one is co-workers and the other is space.

And so one thing that's really helped me is having dedicated places where I work and places where I don't work. And so I've been part of a co-working space community, which has been very valuable. Having a very clear desk set up where all I do there is work and having some of those spatial boundaries, you know, they can often trickle down into being temporal boundaries and spiritual boundaries as well. But I think it's hard, you know, and I think it's particularly hard in an office environment too, where there's the expectation of the company that you work certain hours or if, you know, the CEO is sending emails at 10 o'clock, what's to stop you from also doing the same? And so I think one of the big things that I talk about in the book is that a lot of the onus is

often put on individuals to create boundaries, to practice self-care, to find work-life balance on their own, when in actuality, the institutions that are better equipped to give us some of these structural protections are the employers, are the government, ways that you can have firm guardrails that keep people from overwork, whether it's norms around communication or paid time off or ways of making the consequences of losing your work less dire. Often we tend to individualize what are in fact structural issues and issues that will require systemic response. I think it's difficult finding a workplace that understands everything that we've been talking about, understands the benefits of having your

workers work their regular hours and leave and have a life outside and don't look at your email, your work email on weekends. I haven't found a workplace that progressive yet, but hopefully they're becoming a more, you know, as more millennials and Gen Zs take up some of those leadership roles, hopefully we'll see some of those things. But I think at this moment, yeah, the only way to kind of have that structure is for you to create that structure for yourself and put those boundaries on yourself. I feel like it's easy to say, probably difficult to do depending on what kind of work environment you're in. So would you say if you realize you're in a work environment that's just not letting you have any boundaries, they keep on encroaching on them, would it make

sense to look elsewhere? I think it depends on the person. It's hard to give one size fits all prescriptive advice. I think there's definitely things that you can do within a job environment if it's untenable, things like collectively organizing or finding solidarity with other coworkers that might be experiencing similar things. So it doesn't feel like the onus is just on you to make the change you wish to see. I think this is particularly relevant to passion professions or professions where people are in more of a service mentality. There's this concept in the book that I talk about called vocational awe, which is that in certain lines of work, particularly creative or mission driven lines of work, there tends to be this sort of righteousness of the industry or of the work itself. If you're an educator or if you're a

nurse, for example, people think, oh, you're working in education. No one does this for the money. You put the kids first. Or, oh, you work as a nurse. Yeah, you're an essential worker, but we're not going to compensate you in line with the severity of the work that you're doing because you're doing it for the healthcare system or to be a healer. And I think that mentality can be really dangerous. I think it can cover up a lot of the malpractice or the injustice that exists in these fields and make people think that if there are problems with, you know, the way that they're treated or the amount of overwork that is in their weeks or their days or their months, that it's somehow just the result of this individual choice as opposed to this structural problem. And I think one of the things that's encouraging is we're seeing people start to push back. You know, there's the writers and actors in Hollywood, there's the auto workers in Detroit and in Michigan, and people are seeing that there is power and strength in numbers. And

a lot of times these issues that we have with the workplace are not just on you. There are things that people are experiencing across the board. And so there's one thing that I advocate in the end of the book, which is for a more transactional mentality, a more transactional relationship to work, which might sound crass because we've been told that jobs are meant to be callings and passions and vocations. But I think we've seen that employers already treat work transactionally. They hire employees when they add value. They fire employees when they don't. And there is something to gain from employees having a similar approach of thinking about, OK, what am I giving to this job? What am I getting in return, you know, job is first and foremost, an economic contract. It can certainly be a lot more than that. But if the contract, if the exchange is not working for you, if you're giving more than you're able to get, or you're not getting enough to support the life that you want to lead,

then I think it might make sense to move on. Yeah. Or if you're, you know, young, you're, you're at the stage where maybe you're thinking of college or you're in college. I mean, that's, that's one, that was one big shock where I didn't really consider what I would, what lifestyle I'd have to lead and what I'd have to give up. I went to film school. And so I thought I was going to be a famous filmmaker. And then I finished university and then I realized the reality of working in the industry. I'm like, there's no way I know. I don't want to, you know, especially starting at the bottom, not earning a lot, working 16 hour days, like this doesn't sound like anything. This is not what I signed up for. And then on the other side of it, like, well, what else do I want to do? I wanted to do something

that was going to make change in the world. So for movies, I want to make some, you know, documentaries and some art films that would change the world. The other side of it was like, well, maybe I can help people work for a nonprofit. And then again, you look at all these charities and nonprofits that are doing amazing work and they pay their workers not enough to live on. And so it's difficult, I guess, making that choice and also going counter to everything we've learned about. We ask kids when they're really young, what do you want to do when you grow up? As if that is going to be, what identity do you want to have, right? It's not about what job do you want to have so you can make money and then you can do your hobbies. It's always just like, what kind of person do you want to be? And we always want to do something aspirational or,

you know, life-changing or important. So it's difficult to try to shift that idea and maybe make a different choice. Maybe, you know, do a job that you didn't think that you would do that maybe isn't your passion and then trying to do your passion outside of that. I think, yeah, often we don't feel like there is a room for us to do a passion outside of our nine to five or work hours. But I think that's kind of probably the best way to go about it. Right. Yeah. You know, I think one of the things that I like about the term, the good enough job is that it's subjective. You know, you get to choose what good enough means to you. Maybe one person's good enough job is a job that pays a certain amount of money. Someone else,

the job that's in a certain industry or has a certain job title. And maybe for someone else, it's a job that gets off at a certain hour so they can pick up their kids from school or go and pursue cycling, which is their real passion outside of work. But I think the importance is recognizing when you have a job that is good enough as opposed to thinking about this dream or this perfect job that's out there. When we're able to recognize what good enough means to us, we can start to be the people that we want to be and not just think that we are what we do. Yeah. And getting rid of that, what's that saying that if you love what you do, you don't work a day in your life. It's like, that is a bunch of crap. A job, a job, a job is a job no matter what. I was just talking to my husband the other day and we both have jobs. We're both self-employed. And so we are doing what we love. But there are so many times where I'm like,

gosh, I don't want to do that. But I have to because it's a job. It is not. Yeah, this isn't a fantasy. This isn't just having fun all the time. There's always going to be work. There's always going to be things that you don't like to do. And so reframing and being OK with the idea that it's OK if you don't absolutely love what you do. You can still find things that you like. Yeah, really. I mean, the thing that really drew me to your book was really trying to disconnect you as a person to you as a worker, because I feel like we've lost sight of what those two things mean. Like, we really don't pay attention to who we are, because no one asks me what my hobbies are. But if I get an opening, I'll tell them. Now I'll tell them. I'm curious with that, what are some of the things that you've been able to open up space in your life to do that have really brought you happiness and value? Yeah. I mean, I feel very lucky that I've found a career in journalism and writing that does align with a lot of my interests. But I have also made a conscious effort to try and make sure that these aren't my only interests and these aren't the only ways I'm spending my time. So one recent one is that my wife and I have been learning how to salsa dance.

Oh, fun. Which is fun because I'm very, very bad at it. And it's like refreshing to be in this sort of mentality of not trying to become an expert or not trying to monetize this in any way. It's just a form of play, which I think is like a really nice antidote to overwork or workism as I define it in the book, because it's not indexed on any sort of like future potential

or trying to get a certain outcome. It's just about the present moment and enjoying ourselves while we do it. So yeah, it's something that maybe some of the listeners can try. Whatever form of play is most relevant to you. There's jamming if you're a musician. There's crafting if you're an artist. I think there's different forms of activities that you can partake in There's jamming if you're a musician. There's crafting if you're an artist. I think there's different forms of activities that you can partake in for the intrinsic pleasure in doing them, not because they help you get a certain outcome.

And I think it's a good reminder, even if you're, say, trying to learn a foreign language for 10 minutes a day, that we exist on this earth to do more than just produce economic value. Yeah. And yeah, I love that part of your book where you talk about how, and I think that this must be what, because when we associate play, we associate with being childish or being a child. And as an adult, it's like, well, we don't play anymore. And for years, I wouldn't allow myself to like play video games and stuff. Cause I thought like, no, that's going to distract me from the work that I need to do because I'm a serious adult. But I mean, play is fun. And it's like we need to have more fun and we need to be less serious and we need to actually enjoy ourselves and yeah, really reintroduced happiness and joy for the sake of it. So I think that's a really lovely message. And yeah, your book, again, is just so incredible. I think everyone should grab a copy because there's so many people I know

that listen to my podcast that listen to it so they can learn how to be better at their money so they can quit their jobs that they hate. So this is a great book to kind of add to the other component of once you've got that good, you know, F off fund or the emergency fund that will allow you to maybe leave a not so great workplace or to, you know, retrain and go back to school and figure out what you want to do next. This is a great book to also make you think about let's let's not forget that work isn't the only thing. So Simone, it was such a pleasure having you on. Where can people find more about you online and grab a copy of your book? Yeah, I think the best place is just thegoodenoughjob.com.

You can find me on social. I also run a little book club for articles. That's called the Article Book Club, which is articlebookclub.substack.com. And yeah, thanks so much for having me on, Jessica. I appreciate you taking an interest in my work. You're welcome. And that was episode 383 with Simone Stolzow. Make sure to grab a copy of his book.

You will not regret it. The Good Enough Job, Reclaiming Life from Work. You can find it wherever you find your books. But a great place to also check out is thegoodenoughjob.com. Of course, check out the show notes. I'll include links as well. jessicamorehouse.com slash 383. If you want to find show notes for any episode you've ever listened to that is how you do it jessicamorehouse.com slash whatever the number of the episode is or if you don't know the number

just go to jessicamorehouse.com slash podcast or just like hit me up over dm on instagram or email and you're like what was that episode you did I will know it because I remember every single person I've ever had on my show. You can also follow Simone on Twitter at Simone Stalzov and on Instagram, funnily enough, at the pizza underscore bagel. Love that. Love that for him. But of course, he also has a TikTok account, which you can find at the good enough job. Again, easy enough to just go to the show notes. I've got them all linked in there just to make it really seamless for you. But yeah, great book. You're going to love it. Just have a few things to share with you as always, including how to win a copy of his book and a bunch of other books that have been featured on the show thus far. So don't go

away. Just have a few things that I want to say to you. Do you want to figure out where your money is going? Do you want to organize your finances once and for all? Do you want to feel less anxious about your money? Well, I have a great tool for you. My collection of budget spreadsheets, which you can find at JessicaMorehouse.com slash shop. These new and improved budget spreadsheets have helped thousands of people over the years. And these are honestly the budget spreadsheets that me and my husband still use today. They come in Google Sheets and Excel. They also come with a comprehensive video tutorial to show you exactly how it works. And they're very easy to use. Not only that, I've got versions for pretty much any scenario. So if you're

an employee, I've got a budget spreadsheet for that. If you are self-employed, I've got a budget spreadsheet for that. If you're in a couple and one of you is an employee and one of you is self-employed, I've got a budget spreadsheet for that. I've got seven different budget spreadsheets for any kind of situation. So no matter what's going on in your life and your income, I've got a budget spreadsheet for you. So if you want to take action and see some progress with your finances, this is one really easy step that you can take right after listening to this episode. Just go to jessicamorehouse.com slash shop, find the right budget spreadsheet for you, and then start making some moves that future you will be really, really thankful for. Okay, so first and foremost, reminder, I'm giving away a ton of books. And I really don't promote this anywhere else besides

the podcast because I really do want it to be for podcast listeners. Like you literally can't even find this on like a button on my website, which maybe I should change. Maybe I should change that. But you know, that's a next year problem. I can't do any more new things this year. I just can't. So if you just go to JessicaMorehouse.com slash contest, that is where you will find all of the books that I'm giving away from all of the past people that have been on my show. And as a reminder, I'm just going to check it out right now for myself. Who? What books am I giving away? Okay, we're giving away a copy of Bad With Money by Gabe Dunn. We've got Thanks For Sharing by Eleanor Tucker, The Confidence Map by Peter Atwater, Money Zen by Manisha Thakur, The Immigrant View by Ayo Odanee, and Mellow Your Money by Mick

Heyman, and Nine Lives by 35 by Mary Sanders. And now Simone Stolzov's The Good Enough Job. And how many more books will I be adding? One, two, three. Three more books because I've got three more guests. I've got three guests only left of this show. Gosh, only three more weeks of the show. They all have books and I'm going to be giving away copies of those books also. So very exciting. So just for a little life update in case you're curious what I've been up to. Well, I have obviously been writing this damn book and we're getting close to the finish line, which is probably why I have been very overwhelmed and anxious lately, just because I see that the clock ticking and there's a lot of pressure. And I also had two keynote speeches to do this month as well,

which is a choice that I made. And I don't know why I put that pressure on myself, but I have a hard time saying no. And I do like to do public speaking. And so I'm like, yeah, sure. And I'm like, how am I going to do that and write the book? But here we are. We're almost at the end of the month. And I am hopeful that we're going to stay on track. I have talked to a lot of authors lately. I just like anyone I know who has written a book or is currently writing a book, I'm picking their brain. And everyone's laughing at me thinking that I'm going to actually hand it in on time. But I thought we had to. So I just don't want to get in trouble, basically. So I'm handing it in on time, but I thought we had to. So I just don't want to get in trouble, basically. So I'm handing it in on time. But yeah, it's just a lot. It's a lot. I'm

probably going to also ask you at some point to help me with some book titles, because I am telling you, this is hard to try to find a really good book title. It's not easy. And I've asked ChatGPT just to give me some inspiration and they are not helpful. They're giving me titles that already exist. Not helpful. But you know what? We're going to worry about that afterwards. That's a later problem, not this problem. So that's what I've really been doing is just like hunkering down. Working and somehow getting ready for the holidays. Like, what? How are we this close to the holidays? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. All I know is I'm going to do my best to stay safe and not get COVID again, because that is exactly what happened around, I guess it was

mid-December or early December. And then it ruined my holiday plans and really ruined the holidays for me. It really sucked. I don't want that to happen again. I want to have a nice, happy Christmas and all that good stuff. So that's what I'm going to be doing, staying at home so I don't get sick so I can make it there on time. So I guess that's really the life update. There's nothing really like crazy exciting happening, but you know, just that's what's been going on. But what I will do now is tell you who is going to be on the show next week. I've got a repeat guest. I've got Jamila Soufrant back on the show. She, you may know her already. She has a podcast, Journey to Launch. She has a course. She has a bunch of great things going on. And she has a book coming out,

which makes a lot of sense. Like when I heard that she was going to get a, or she got a book deal, I'm like, absolutely. Like, I can't wait to read it. So, you know, ask her to be on the show again so we can talk about it and give away a copy to one of you. And she's just so wonderful. So you're going to love that episode. And that is happening next week. So that is really it for me. Thank you so much for listening. Shout out to my podcast editor, Matt Rideout. And I will see you back here next Wednesday for that episode with Jamila. And that is really it. So have a good rest of your week and weekend. See you back here next Wednesday. this podcast is distributed by the women in media podcast network find out more at women in media.network