142: The "Good Enough Job" and Shaping Broader Identities with Simone Stolzoff

Overview

What is work? And what is its role in our lives?

For many Americans, work is a primary source of meaning and identity. But what if you embraced a more holistic identity? What ambitions would you nurture for your life as well as your work? How would they impact how you manage your career? How would the role of work shift if you were pursuing better work-life integration?

These are complex questions. The answers are deeply personal, and they will shift and evolve over time. In our journeys of life and work, we are always in the process of finding and living into our stories.

Today, I’m in conversation with Simone Stolzoff, author of The Good Enough Job, about his research and reporting on the roles of work in our modern lives and how work became such an enmeshed part of our identity for so many Americans. Simone invites us to embrace more sides of ourselves as we write our stories and, through a broader lens on identity, be more intentional about the role of our work and the ambitions we pursue.

More About Our Guest

Simone Stolzoff is an author, journalist, and workplace expert from San Francisco. A former design lead at the global innovation firm IDEO, his work has been featured in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, and various other publications. His debut book The Good Enough Job: Reclaiming Life from Work was the #1 bestselling work-life balance book of 2023 and has been translated into over ten languages. He is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and Stanford.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

  • How “the good enough job” helps us consider how a job can support a life well-lived

  • The cultural and political factors that influence why Americans are so defined by their jobs

  • The risks of making your workplace your sole source of community

  • How broader concepts of identity, ambition, and success can relieve the pressure to make the “right” choice  

  • How employees with more well-rounded identities benefit the companies they work for

  • A practical method for identifying the identities we’d want to embrace

Learn more about Simone Stolzoff:

Resources Mentioned

Thanks for Listening!

  • Send me ideas for what you’d like to hear on the podcast, or a question that might be read and answered here on the show! Email me at podcast@SustainableAmbition.com

  • Get my curated bi-weekly Sustainable Ambition Forum newsletter. Sign up here

2024Kathy OnetoRight Ambition, Right Time, Right Effort