More Money Podcast - From the Archives: Relistening to Simone Stolzoff Explain Why You Don’t Have to Love Your Job

Episode Date: April 3, 2025

The saying "Find a job you love and you will never work a day in your life" is quite honestly a lie. Even if you find your passion and are doing a job you love, it's still a job. And sometimes it's not fun. Take it from me! I love working for myself, but it's still work. Not only that, I know so many people who have passions outside of work, and their job is just, well, their job. And that's okay, says author and now TED Talk speaker Simone Stolzoff in this interview I had with him in 2023. I hope you enjoy it and his book as much as I did.This episode originally aired on November 29, 2023.To find the original show notes for this episode visit jessicamoorhouse.com/383Follow meInstagram @jessicaimoorhouseThreads @jessicaimoorhouseTikTok @jessicaimoorhouseFacebook @jessicaimoorhouseYouTube @jessicamoorhouseLinkedIn - Jessica MoorhouseFinancial resourcesMy websiteMy bestselling book Everything but MoneyFree resource libraryBudget spreadsheetWealth Building Blueprint for Canadians course Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, loo loo, and welcome back to the More Money Podcast. I am your host Jessica Morehouse, and we are re-listening to one of my favorite episodes because to this day, it's still a book I recommend to so many people. And I heard this guest first on the Happiness Lab, which is one of my personal favorite podcasts to listen to. Love learning about happiness. I'm talking about Simone Stolzoff. He is the author of The Good Enough Job, which is such an incredible book that I think everyone should read. It came out in 2023 and is really just a great way of reclaiming life from work, but reframing your life outside of work

so we can not just have an identity that is our job, but an identity outside of our job. Even though I'm self-employed, I don't have a nine to five, I really connected with the message in his book because before I wrote my book, quite honestly, and did a whole bunch of introspection and therapy, I didn't realize that I didn't have much of a personal identity outside of my work. And that is a problem. That is going to lead to some other issues.

So it was such a, for me, wow book. So I was so lucky enough to get him on my show. And since he was on my show, he's been doing some incredible things. You can follow him on Instagram at the pizza underscore bagel. Yes, that's true. I love it. And of course, find more information about him on his website, simonestallsoff.com.

The original episode number for this interview was 383. So you can find out the show notes at jessicmohash.com slash 383. But most exciting is, and I saw this on his Instagram because I follow him. He just a month ago did a TED Talk and not a TEDx talk, an actual TED Talk. That's pretty freaking major talking about the topics from his book. So he's just an amazing, and he's just like the nicest guy.

Like he's just such a great, really nice, supportive guy. So I can't wait to re listen to this episode with you and, you know, just, you know, just enjoy it one more time, one more time. So with that, let's get to that interview with Simone. 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, this is a book for me. And so I pre-ordered it,

read it and like, yeah, this was amazing. And I've been, you can't, 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 this shuffle is our identities and our wishes and our values and our dreams, because you just get lost in trying to achieve 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. 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 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, you know, 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. Our jobs are not necessarily designed to be our sources of self-actualization

in our primary communities. And so you get the message on one hand of the WeWorks have always do what you love on the walls marry communities. And so you get the message on one hand of, the WeWorks have always do what you love on the walls. And people say, 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. 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, 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 place it's like the Atlantic and courts 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 that was like a potentially cool place to work. And, you 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 well is me the agony of having to decide between two attractive job paths but on the other hand they didn't feel like I was choosing between two jobs as much as it felt like I was choosing between two versions of me. There was Simone the journalist and Simone the designer, and either path that I took felt like it was 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, you know, 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 like 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, 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 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 it was, I realized quickly is this 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 feel that void of a social life. Oh, this is how we 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, you know, the idea of conflating our identities with our jobs is nothing new. You know, if your last name is Miller or Baker, you might think that this is, you know, always existed.

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. One 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 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, is 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. And 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 athletes you know, athletes, travelers, artists, what have you. But if we are only investing in our professional lives, those other identities can wither. You know, in order to be a good friend, you need to show up as a friend and really invest in new 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 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 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, you're just 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 fills some of those needs really, 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 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, 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 to be like, no, I'm leaving right at five instead of saying staying for the social hour or, you know, whatever, there is some sort of social engagement that's created a, in the workplace. They, they never come.

They look like they're not a participator. They're not really, you know, and, and, and it can actually hurt their work. They may not be assigned certain things or the vibe is just like, oh yeah, they're, 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.

The implied assumption is that we look out for each other, we care about each other as humans in addition to being workers. And 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 outwell 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. 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 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 to go to bar. And, you know, it 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. 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. LESLIE KENDRICKS 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, over-invested myself. I had all my friends there and 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 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, handed in my notice. It was even interesting. I mean, I did hand in two months notice, which is way too long. We're 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 way, 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. 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 care less about your job. But the other side of the coin is you can care more about other things.

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 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's 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, 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, and I feel like that's something, especially if you are someone like me

who definitely got a little too invested in the hustle culture and grind and shine and doing all that because you want to see how you can reach your potential. You don't want to honestly be like me where you're in your mid-30s and you're like, oh my gosh, sure I worked hard and I achieved a lot of things, but then you kind of lose the point of it. You lost the plot a little bit.

And so it's really important to make 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 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, what am I doing? Maybe I should maybe try something new. Yeah, totally. I think there's a great irony that I was writing a book about right-sizing workplace in our

life on the side of a full-time 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, 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 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, you know, in terms of their personal lives, but they also tend to be better workers as well. You know, I think especially 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 an 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. You know, if you're rising and falling on based on your professional accomplishments and your boss is 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, are holdovers from a more industrial age. And as we move into a knowledge economy, we're seeing this through the four-day work week 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, it can be kind of a chicken and egg problem. 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 when you're not working, and so you work some more. 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 Turkeyle 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 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 think one of the biggest things that you lose when you start working for yourself are coworkers. And so I think one is coworkers 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 coworking 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, they can often trickle down into being temporal boundaries and spiritual boundaries as well.

But I think it's hard. 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 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,

you know, 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 whether 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 you know, don't look at your email, your work email on weekends. I haven't found a workplace that is that progressive yet, but hopefully

they're, they're becoming a more, you know, as, as more millennials and gen Z's 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 to kind of have that structure is for you to create that structure for yourself and put those boundaries on yourself. It's difficult. I feel like it's 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 know, 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 intendable, 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 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. You know, if you're an educator or if you're a nurse, for example, people think, oh, you know, you're working in education, no one does this for the money.

You know, you put the kids first or oh you you work as a nurse, yeah you're you know 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 health care 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 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. They're 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 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, a 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 at the stage where maybe you're not getting enough to support the life that you wanna lead, then I think it might make sense to move on. Yeah, or if you're young, you're at the stage where maybe you're thinking of college or you're in college. I mean, 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 gonna 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. I'm 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 wanted to make some 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 go encounter to everything

we've learned about. Like we ask kids when they're really young, what do you wanna do when you grow up? As if that is going to be, what identity do you wanna have, right? It's not about what job do you wanna have so you can make money and then you can do your hobbies. It's always just like, what kind of person do you wanna be?

And we always wanna do something aspirational or life-changing or important. So it's difficult to try to shift that idea and maybe make a different choice. Maybe 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, 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 is a 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 passionate 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 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 okay with the idea that it's okay 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, no one asks me what my hobbies are, but when I mean, 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, 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 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 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 because 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 that other component of once you've got that good F off fund or the emergency fund that'll 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 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 the good enough job.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 article book club dot sub stack.com. And yeah, thanks so much for having me on Jessica. I appreciate you taking an interest in my work. You'reack.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 my interview with Simone Stolzow. Original episode number was 383. So if you want to find the show notes for it, you can go to jessicamorehouse.com slash 383. Highly recommend grabbing a copy right now of The Good Enough Job. Such a great book. And if you like need a little taste of, okay, well, should I? Well, I mean, obviously you listened to this episode, so you get a feel for what this book is about, but definitely check out his Ted Talk, which you can find on Ted Talks on YouTube. It's only eight minutes.

And get inspired because I know you will. I know you will. One thing I have been forgetting to, I think let you know about also is, but I'm giving away any book that is featured on this show. So any author that comes on the show, I'm giving away a copy of their book. So for Shanna, she has a book came out called , Unraveling Your Relationship With Money, Ditch Your Money Trauma So You Can Live An Abundant Life,

that is out now and I'm giving away a copy and then I'm giving away a copy of Sabina's book and it should already be up on the page. If you go to jessicamorehouse.com contest you can enter to win. I do this every single podcast and I always buy these authors books to support them because I know there's so many amazing people like you supporting me and my new book, Everything But Money, The Hidden Barriers Between You and Financial Freedom. And just a little reminder about all of that. You know, if you want to grab a copy, you can find it anywhere, but you can find more information at JessicaMoorhouse.com.com.

As well as if you've already read it, but you want to access to some of those exclusive extras I've mentioned on the show a couple of times as videos, audio worksheets, things that kind of go deeper into the book so you get more more out of it and just can do some of the exercises and things like that. Just go to JessicaMoorhouse.com slash book and there's information on how you can provide me with proof of your rating or review of the book and how you can get instant access. So check that all out.

Well that's really it for me. Thank you so much for listening. And I'm gonna see you back here next Wednesday with that new episode with Sabina. So look forward to that. Until then, have a good rest of your day, week, weekend. Take care of yourself. See you soon. The More Money Podcast would not be possible

without the amazing talents of podcast producer, Matt Rideout, who you can find at mravcanada.com.