How to reclaim your life from work | Simone Stolzoff
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On this podcast, we talk about people's jobs, what you do at work, how you get better at work. But today, we're going to talk about something a little different, who you are outside of work. ♪

I'm Madhu Pakinola. This is TED Business from the TED Audio Collective. Our guest today is writer Simone Stolzoff. And he says he's sick of the question, what do you do, as a default conversation opener. Instead, he wants us to start asking people what they like to do. And funny enough, that kind of reframing might help you find more meaning in your 9 to 5 too. Then after the talk, we'll talk about what you like to do.

I'll tell you how I came up with a thoughtful answer to that question. But first, a quick break. Trust isn't just earned, it's demanded. Whether you're a startup founder navigating your first audit or a seasoned security professional scaling your GRC program, proving your commitment to security has never been more critical or more complex. That's where Vanta comes in.

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It's pretty much all he talks about, in a good way. He'd also tell you that this podcast is his favorite podcast, too. Ah, really? Thanks, Capital One Bank guy. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See CapitalOne.com slash bank. Capital One N.A. member FDIC. And now, Simone takes the TED stage. I once met this Chilean guy at a hostel. So, what do you do? I asked him.

You mean for work? He responded, as if I had just asked the color of his underwear. In the U.S., what do you do is often the first question we ask when we meet someone new. This is drilled into us from an early age. What do you want to be when you grow up? We ask our kids, already conflating who we are with what we do, as if our jobs and identities were one and the same.

I think about this a lot. I'm a labor journalist, and I wrote a book called The Good Enough Job, in which I spoke to over 100 people about the relationship between their work and their identity. But before I was a professional writer, I was a 22-year-old poetry student, trying to figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up. It was around this time that I had the opportunity to interview my favorite writer in the entire world, the poet Anis Mojgani.

And so I asked him, "Anis, how do you feel about the mantra, 'Do what you love and never work a day in your life'?" And I'll never forget what he told me. He said, "You know, Simone, I think some people do what they love for work, and others do what they have to so they can do what they love when they're not working. And neither is more noble." I think that last part is key. We live in a society that loves to revere people whose jobs and identities neatly align.

And here was my idol, a professional poet no less, telling me that it's okay to have a day job. If we want to develop a healthier relationship to work, we can't just think about work-life balance in terms of how we spend our time. We have to think about how we construct our identity. What we do is part of, but not the entirety of who we are. Let me be clear, I don't think there's anything wrong with doing what you love for work.

We work more than we do just about anything else, and how we spend those hours matters. And yet, our current relationship to work isn't quite working. A recent study found that 48% of workers around the globe are burnt out. 48%. That's half this room. Actually, in this room, probably more than half. And yet, the way that we commonly talk about burnout doesn't address its root cause.

There's a reason why a one-week vacation doesn't magically cure us. There's a reason why our intentions to practice self-care and set better boundaries inevitably break down. It's like we're shielding ourselves from the sun with a cocktail umbrella. If we want to actually change our relationship to work, we have to go deeper. It starts with our identity. Certainly, we are all more than just workers.

where parents and friends and citizens and artists and travelers and neighbors, much like an investor, benefits from diversifying the sources of stocks in their portfolio, we too benefit from diversifying the sources of meaning and identity in our lives. But how do you actually go about doing so? Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel describes Shabbat, the weekly Jewish practice of abstaining from work, as a sanctuary in time,

I love this image. Rather than a physical sanctuary like a synagogue, Shabbat is a time sanctuary. So the first step to diversifying your identity is to create those time sanctuaries, spaces in your days, in your weeks, in your life, where work is not an option. Unlike mere intentions to work less or set better boundaries, time sanctuaries require infrastructure.

putting time on the calendar to learn a new language, putting your phone in airplane mode while you play with your kids so that work doesn't expand like a gas and fill all of your unoccupied space. The second step is to fill those time sanctuaries with activities that reinforce the other identities you hope to cultivate: the present father, the community gardener, the amateur musician,

It may sound simple, but if we want to derive meaning from aspects of our life other than work, we have to do things other than work. Now, these don't have to be grand gestures. In the reporting of my book, I spoke to all of these hyper-ambitious workaholics, and they'd say things like, "'Diversify my identity. Got it. I'm going to read 52 books this year, or I'm going to run an ultramarathon.'"

We even convert our leisure into other forms of labor. My advice is to start small. How about a weekly walk with your best friend? Or 10 minutes practicing the piano after dinner? The third step is to reinforce these identities by joining communities who couldn't care less about what you do for work. For example, I love to play pickup basketball.

And one of the benefits of my weekly game is that the people I play with don't care how many words I've written or how many books I've sold. They care that I show up on time and that I'm a good teammate. It's a weekly reminder that I exist on this earth to do more than just produce economic value. The irony is that diversifying our identity can be great for business, too.

Research shows that people with varied interests tend to be more creative problem-solvers and more innovative. Hobbies are one of the best ways to recharge so that you can be more productive when you're back on the clock. And a diverse identity can come in handy in the face of a stressful event like a recession or a layoff. I spoke to all of these folks for my book who treated their work like their family and then were unceremoniously let go during the pandemic.

If you are what you do and you lose your job, who are you? But in addition to the business case, there's also the moral case. If we want to develop more well-rounded versions of ourselves, if we want to build robust relationships and live in robust communities and have a robust society at large, we all must invest in aspects of our lives beyond work. We shouldn't just work less because it makes us better workers.

We should work less because it makes us better people. This isn't just about you and me. This is about teaching our kids that their self-worth is not determined by their job title. This is about reinforcing the fact that not all noble work neatly translates to a line on a resume. This is about setting the example that we all have a responsibility to contribute to the world in a way beyond contributing to one organization's bottom line.

So the next time you're at a party, instead of asking someone, "What do you do?" I encourage you to add two small words to your question. Instead, ask them, "What do you like to do?" Maybe you like to cook. Maybe you like to write. Maybe you do some of those things for work. Or maybe you don't. But what do you like to do is a question that allows each of us to define ourselves on our own terms. Thank you.

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That was Simone Stolzhoff talking at TED Next 2024. I love Simone's line about how our current ways of establishing work-life balance are kind of like shielding ourselves from the sun with a cocktail umbrella. He's right. It's harder than it looks to nourish an identity outside of our work self. Well, the solution I've come up with for myself, my time sanctuary, is a little extreme.

It's shutting my trap. Every December, I do a 10-day silent meditation retreat, meditating 10 hours a day with around 100 other people I've never met before. No books, no television, no writing, no exercise, no phone, no laptop. It's pretty hardcore.

But ultimately, the reason I do it is that it's restorative. It helps me reflect and recenter, and it attunes me to my body. And that mind-body connection shuts out all the noise of everything else and makes you notice what's real and what's not, or what's just temporary. I don't think everyone needs to do a 10-day silent retreat to have that mind-body connection, but I do think everyone should ask themselves, why?

What might my body be telling me about how I spend my days? All those thoughts that come to my mind at work, outside of work, which really deserve my attention? What's the most rewarding use of my time? And how can I prioritize that a little more? Answering these questions can give you clarity on what you're all about. And that might have nothing to do with where you work.

This episode was produced by Hannah Kingsley Ma, edited by Alejandra Salazar, and fact-checked by Julia Dickerson. Special thanks to Maria Ladias, Farrah DeGrange, Daniela Balarezo, Tansika Sangmanivang, and Roxanne Heilash. I'm Madhupa Akinnola. Thanks for listening. Strap in. You're in the race with F1 TV Premium.

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