How to handle uncertainty (w/ Simone Stolzoff)
5/11/202642 min
I was looking for certainty when there was no certainty to be found. If Simone’s words resonate with you, then this episode is for YOU. Simone Stolzoff is a journalist who writes about the uncertainty of life. In his conversation with Chris, he observes why people are becoming less tolerant of uncertainty, the harm caused when we take AI output as definitive answers, and what you can do to expand your capacity to hold uncertainty in your life.
Featured guest
- Follow Simone Stolzoff on Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, and at simonestolzoff.com/
- Buy Simone's books How to Not Know and The Good Enough Job
Connect with the team
- Follow Chris on Instagram and at chrisduffycomedy.com
- Buy Chris’ book, Humor Me
- Watch How to Be a Better Human videos on YouTube at TEDAudioCollective
- Follow TED on X, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and TikTok
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Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsChris Duffy· Host0:00
[upbeat music] This is How to Be a Better Human. I'm your host, Chris Duffy. Today on the show, we're talking with Simone Stolzoff about how to handle uncertainty. How do you make the right choice when you're not sure what the right choice is? What if you're not sure there even is a right choice at all? Simone talks about these questions in his new book, which is called How to Not Know: The Value of Uncertainty in a World That Demands Answers. Here's a clip from our conversation where Simone is talking about what he means by the value of uncertainty.
Simone Stolzoff· Guest0:30
Um, in the book, I tell a story about a couple who's wrestling with whether they wanna get divorced or not, and their couples therapist was Esther Perel, the sort of famed couples therapist. And Esther said something that's really stuck with me, which is that trust is an active engagement with the unknown. In order to be in a relationship or in order to start a company or a project or to put your creative work out into the world, you need to cultivate some aspect of faith, not in sort of just a, a woo-woo spiritual sense, but faith as in placing your heart on something, making a bet on something that you don't necessarily know can be proven with evidence quite yet. And I think that is not only an incredibly important skill for an entrepreneur or someone that's deciding whether or not they wanna stay married or someone who is about to embark on an unknown journey, but for all of us in the face of this world that we currently live