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When Ambition Leads to Burnout with Rainesford Stauffer · QUESTION EVERYTHING

0:04
Speaker 1: Big things happen when you're pretty, pretty bold, pretty clever,
0:08
Speaker 1: pretty strong. I'm Danielle Robe and each week my guests
0:12
Speaker 1: and I have conversations that put a new spin on
0:15
Speaker 1: pretty This is pretty smart. Hello, I hope that you're
0:23
Speaker 1: planning on some rest because we are so close to
0:26
Speaker 1: the holidays.
0:27
Speaker 2: Actually, you know, I take that back.
0:29
Speaker 1: I hope you are planning on whatever it is you're craving,
0:31
Speaker 1: because I think some people may be craving adventure. I
0:35
Speaker 1: think I'm craving a little rest, to be honest. So
0:37
Speaker 1: I'm hoping I get that. I recorded this a little
0:41
Speaker 1: bit ahead of time, and so I'm actually currently in
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Speaker 1: Chicago freezing my eggs, and I just recorded a podcast
0:49
Speaker 1: with the clinic.
0:51
Speaker 3: It's named OVA.
0:51
Speaker 1: I just recorded the podcast with Ova about the whole
0:55
Speaker 1: process because I felt like it was mysterious. I did
1:01
Speaker 1: a ton of research online before this, but the questions
1:06
Speaker 1: to ask who needs to do it, at what age
1:08
Speaker 1: you need to do it, all of that felt sort
1:10
Speaker 1: of obtuse. And you know, I like things to the
1:14
Speaker 1: point and clear, right, That's the journalist in me. I
1:18
Speaker 1: like them clear and to the point. So that episode
1:21
Speaker 1: is going to drop the first Thursday in January, so
1:25
Speaker 1: right after New Year's Half the episode is going to
1:27
Speaker 1: be you hearing from them, so you get their scientific perspective,
1:32
Speaker 1: and the other half is going to be sort of
1:36
Speaker 1: dear diary from me. I've never done that before, but
1:39
Speaker 1: I have so much to say about this process, and
1:44
Speaker 1: I want to take you through what my experiences were,
1:46
Speaker 1: Like I recorded the whole thing, like I video journaled. Basically,
1:51
Speaker 1: there were only a few tears, but I will share why.
1:54
Speaker 1: And the goal is really to just demystify all of this.
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Speaker 1: When I started posting on Instagram, I got but I
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Speaker 1: think thousands, like literally thousands of messages from women who
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Speaker 1: have either frozen their eggs or frozen embryos and done IVF,
2:10
Speaker 1: and their tips helped me so much. So I'm going
2:15
Speaker 1: to share all those tips with you. You know, some
2:18
Speaker 1: of those things are not necessarily scientifically proven, and so
2:21
Speaker 1: the clinics can't share them with you because it's like anecdotal.
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Speaker 3: But women know what they're talking about.
2:27
Speaker 1: People have been through this know what they're talking about,
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Speaker 1: and so I want to share what all of those
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Speaker 1: things are that no one else tells you except for
2:34
Speaker 1: people that have been through it. Okay, now for today's episode.
2:41
Speaker 3: Today is about burnout.
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Speaker 1: So you may have heard, but in case you haven't,
2:47
Speaker 1: hustle culture is dead.
2:49
Speaker 3: The girl boss is also dead.
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Speaker 1: If you look on TikTok, we've entered our soft girl eras.
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Speaker 1: It's really a new perspective on ambition now only as
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Speaker 1: an ambitious woman and an ambitious person. I'm not ready
3:04
Speaker 1: to give into the idea that we're in the age
3:06
Speaker 1: of anti ambition.
3:08
Speaker 3: But what I do like.
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Speaker 1: Is that maybe ambition has evolved, and maybe that means
3:13
Speaker 1: we're determining there's a better way, a better way to
3:17
Speaker 1: be simultaneously ambitious and not exhausted, not burnt out. So
3:23
Speaker 1: first things first, what is burnout? Burnout is a state
3:26
Speaker 1: of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion caused by excessive and
3:31
Speaker 1: prolonged stress. It occurs when you feel overwhelmed, emotionally drained,
3:37
Speaker 1: and unable to meet constant demands. As the stress continues,
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Speaker 1: you begin to lose the interest and motivation that led
3:44
Speaker 1: you to take on that certain role or those responsibilities.
3:47
Speaker 2: Or that task in the first place.
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Speaker 1: Burnout reduces productivity, SAPs your energy, and it leaves you
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Speaker 1: feeling helpless, hopeless. Maybe even a little resentful or cynical,
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Speaker 1: and eventually you just feel like you have nothing more
4:02
Speaker 1: to give.
4:04
Speaker 3: I've been there.
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Speaker 1: It happened this year for the first time, and I
4:07
Speaker 1: share that story in this episode, and I got to
4:10
Speaker 1: share it with our guest Rainsford Staffer. She's an accomplished
4:14
Speaker 1: author and journalist. She's contributed to renowned publications like The
4:18
Speaker 1: New York Times, The Cut, New York Magazine, Wall Street
4:22
Speaker 1: Journal Magazine, Teen Vogue, The Atlantic.
4:24
Speaker 3: The list goes on.
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Speaker 1: But in her latest book, All the Gold Stars, she
4:29
Speaker 1: explores how the cultural, personal, and societal expectations around ambition
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Speaker 1: are driving the global burnout epidemic.
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Speaker 2: I think exhaustion can come from burnout and be a
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Speaker 2: result of burnout, but to me, exhausting is something where
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Speaker 2: we need to take care of ourselves, where we know
4:47
Speaker 2: we need that rest. Burnout, I think is the aftermath
4:52
Speaker 2: of total structural crises that have pumped the burden of
4:56
Speaker 2: those crises on individuals and told them if you work
5:00
Speaker 2: a little bit harder, if you do a little bit more,
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Speaker 2: if you log more hours, it's all going to be okay.
5:06
Speaker 1: She says, it's actually limiting our imaginations. Her own ambition crisis,
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Speaker 1: which is what she calls it led her to interview
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Speaker 1: women across the country suffering the exact same thing. She
5:17
Speaker 1: was determined to figure out how so many of us
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Speaker 1: got to this place of burnout, and what she discovered
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Speaker 1: were the common factors driving us all peeling back layers
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Speaker 1: of family expectations, capitalism, self esteem that dangerously tie up
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Speaker 1: our worth in our output.
5:35
Speaker 2: I think that one of the traps that we sometimes
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Speaker 2: fall into with ambition is thinking that if it changes,
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Speaker 2: if it ebbs and flows, it means that we're quitting,
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Speaker 2: and that quitting is always a bad thing. I think
5:47
Speaker 2: quitting can be a really ambitious thing, first of all,
5:50
Speaker 2: but I also think it's really natural for our ambition
5:54
Speaker 2: to change in shape as we do.
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Speaker 1: Interviews with students, parents, workers, psychology, labor organizers, and more
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Speaker 1: allowed her to reframe and retool ambition as more collective, imaginative,
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Speaker 1: and rooted in caring for ourselves and each other.
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Speaker 2: I think that that is a total structural failing, and
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Speaker 2: the most unimaginative idea we could have about ambition, that
6:21
Speaker 2: it only looks one way.
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Speaker 1: One of the things I really valued about our conversation
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Speaker 1: is that Rainsford is not telling us to stop being ambitious.
6:31
Speaker 1: She says she's still very ambitious. She is simply saying
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Speaker 1: maybe we've been looking at ambition all wrong, that there
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Speaker 1: is a deeper, more creative way to be ambitious. You know,
6:43
Speaker 1: I love flipping words on their head. So another way
6:46
Speaker 1: of looking at ambition required a bit of thought about
6:50
Speaker 1: the questions we're asking ourselves. So here's what I came
6:54
Speaker 1: up with. We all hear, try harder, work harder, try harder,
6:58
Speaker 1: and you'll get there. But what if if we flip it?
7:01
Speaker 1: What would our ambitions and our goals look like if
7:04
Speaker 1: we tried easier.
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Speaker 3: So, Rainsford, you are a writer.
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Speaker 1: You've been writing for years, and then you decided to
7:19
Speaker 1: write this book called All the Gold Stars, which is
7:21
Speaker 1: right behind you, has a beautiful green and gold cover.
7:24
Speaker 3: I'm obsessed with your cover.
7:26
Speaker 2: I can take no credit for that. What an amazing
7:28
Speaker 2: designer we had working on this cover. I'm very lucky.
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Speaker 1: Well, it makes sense because All the Gold Stars really
7:35
Speaker 1: is sort of alluding to ambition, like gold stars that
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Speaker 1: you would get at school. This book is about ambition
7:41
Speaker 1: and overwork and burnout. And in the first chapter you
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Speaker 1: write ambition felt alluring to me. I could time my
7:49
Speaker 1: life on goals. I could feel the flood of relief
7:51
Speaker 1: when a teacher or bus or random stranger on the
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Speaker 1: Internet thought I'd done a good job. I lit up,
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Speaker 1: not at accolades or accomplished, but at the acknowledgment that
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Speaker 1: came with them. So I got what you were saying.
8:05
Speaker 1: I relate to you in a lot of ways. How
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Speaker 1: would you characterize or describe your ambition?
8:11
Speaker 3: Early on?
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Speaker 2: Early on, when I think of my ambition, I think
8:16
Speaker 2: about people pleasing. I think about a desire to earn
8:22
Speaker 2: self worth and the idea of worthiness. I think that
8:25
Speaker 2: if I could articulate it in one word, it would
8:27
Speaker 2: actually be earning. I felt like my ambition was my
8:31
Speaker 2: opportunity to prove that I was good enough. And so,
8:35
Speaker 2: whereas I think other people were really focused on a
8:38
Speaker 2: specific goal or getting a straight A, what felt so
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Speaker 2: alluring to me was not really getting the gold stars,
8:46
Speaker 2: so to speak. It was that I had poured my
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Speaker 2: entire self into something and that maybe I would feel
8:52
Speaker 2: worthy on the other side of that. And it's really
8:55
Speaker 2: interesting to think back now as an adult, how early
8:58
Speaker 2: that manifested. I don't think obviously I would have articulated
9:01
Speaker 2: it that way when I was an elementary schooler, a
9:04
Speaker 2: middle schooler, But I think that that was kind of
9:07
Speaker 2: the constant current running through my ambition, was this desire
9:10
Speaker 2: to feel safe and secure and good enough.
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Speaker 1: This is a lofty question, but your attachment to ambition,
9:22
Speaker 1: like you said in Money Ways, was tied to self worth.
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Speaker 1: Have you sort of unpacked having written this book and
9:29
Speaker 1: I'm sure done therapy, have you unpacked where your attachment
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Speaker 1: to ambition came from?
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Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, yes, so many different facets of that.
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Speaker 2: I really do think it's one of those things where
9:42
Speaker 2: it was a lot of threads tied together. And I
9:45
Speaker 2: think that honestly, having the conversations I got to have
9:48
Speaker 2: while reporting this book really helped me think more critically
9:52
Speaker 2: about not just how my own ambition manifested, but my
9:56
Speaker 2: own relationship to it. So as a backstory, I I'm
10:00
Speaker 2: chronically ill and I have obsessive compulsive disorder, and now
10:05
Speaker 2: it is very easy for me to kind of see
10:07
Speaker 2: the pattern that when I fell out of control in
10:11
Speaker 2: my own body, when I felt a little bit out
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Speaker 2: of control in my own mind, ambition kind of became
10:16
Speaker 2: an outlet for that. I knew I couldn't control outcomes.
10:20
Speaker 2: I couldn't control you know, if I got cast is
10:23
Speaker 2: the part I wanted in the childhood Dance performance. But
10:26
Speaker 2: I could be the one that showed up early and
10:29
Speaker 2: the one that stayed late. I may not be able
10:31
Speaker 2: to control getting an A on a test, but I
10:33
Speaker 2: could certainly control the amount of hours I put into
10:36
Speaker 2: overdoing my homework. And I think the slippery thing about
10:40
Speaker 2: all of that is that on the surface, it looks
10:43
Speaker 2: like really positive things. It looks like somebody who's hard
10:47
Speaker 2: working or diligent or all of these good qualities that
10:50
Speaker 2: we tend to align with a certain kind of ambition
10:53
Speaker 2: that presents in a certain way. And I think that
10:56
Speaker 2: the detrimental aspect of that is I didn't realize how
10:59
Speaker 2: much it was apping on to these other parts of
11:02
Speaker 2: my life, to OCD, to very low self esteem, to
11:06
Speaker 2: feeling like I was an imposter, and a lot of
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Speaker 2: the things I wanted to do or the work that
11:11
Speaker 2: I was passionate about, And I think that it kind
11:14
Speaker 2: of trickled into not necessarily being ambitious because I cared
11:18
Speaker 2: so much, but being ambitious because I was trying to
11:21
Speaker 2: protect myself. I was trying to make sure everything was
11:24
Speaker 2: going to be okay.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, the protection is such a huge aspect of that.
11:30
Speaker 1: One of the quotes I wrote down that stood out
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Speaker 1: to me is when you said, if ambition felt like
11:34
Speaker 1: such a part of me, that it was responsible for
11:37
Speaker 1: all the good stuff, what bad habits or mistakes or
11:40
Speaker 1: misprioritization had my own ambition enabled? So you mentioned some
11:45
Speaker 1: of those negative things that it enabled. At what point
11:50
Speaker 1: did you decide that you needed to reflect on your
11:53
Speaker 1: own ambition.
11:55
Speaker 2: This is so funny because basically my first book was
11:59
Speaker 2: about to come out, which was about Expectations and young
12:01
Speaker 2: adulthood and really talked mostly to people in their late
12:04
Speaker 2: teens and early twenties about this pressure to have the
12:07
Speaker 2: time of your life that we know is not happening
12:11
Speaker 2: for people for personal reasons and really structural reasons, where
12:14
Speaker 2: there's a lot of systemic factors that kind of come
12:17
Speaker 2: to fruition in adulthood. So I had been doing all
12:20
Speaker 2: of this research, I had been doing work that I
12:23
Speaker 2: was really passionate about, on top of work I needed
12:25
Speaker 2: to do to pay my bills, and it was one
12:28
Speaker 2: of those moments where there was just kind of a
12:32
Speaker 2: cascade of hard life things all at once. My health
12:37
Speaker 2: was getting worse, and no one could figure out why.
12:40
Speaker 2: I was going through a lot of interpersonal struggles just
12:44
Speaker 2: in my relationships. Everything felt like it was in flux
12:48
Speaker 2: and falling apart at once. And my default setting before
12:53
Speaker 2: was to double down and get more ambitious when I
12:55
Speaker 2: felt like I was in crisis. That was kind of
12:58
Speaker 2: my crisis response. Silly as it sounds. I was going
13:01
Speaker 2: to start a new project. I was going to be
13:03
Speaker 2: the person that organized everything. I was going to make
13:05
Speaker 2: sure everyone else was okay. And it's like my second
13:09
Speaker 2: gear had gotten stuck all of a sudden. I couldn't
13:13
Speaker 2: push through at work, and I couldn't show up the
13:16
Speaker 2: way I wanted to show up personally, and it felt
13:20
Speaker 2: beyond drained. It felt as though I had lost the
13:23
Speaker 2: sense of self and was sort of staring at who
13:25
Speaker 2: I used to be through this fog and wondering why
13:29
Speaker 2: I couldn't get back to that person. And so I
13:32
Speaker 2: started thinking about ambition in relation to that, and where
13:35
Speaker 2: had my ambition gone and had I lost it? And
13:38
Speaker 2: who was I without it? And more conversations I had
13:42
Speaker 2: with people, the more I realized that ambition intersex was
13:47
Speaker 2: so much of how we think of work, of how
13:51
Speaker 2: we think of earning it, of how we think of deservedness.
13:54
Speaker 2: It bumps up against all of these different structural or
13:57
Speaker 2: systemic issues. And that's when the reporter writer part of
14:02
Speaker 2: my brain got involved and was like, I don't want
14:05
Speaker 2: to just think about my own ambition. I want to
14:07
Speaker 2: talk to a lot of other people who know more,
14:09
Speaker 2: who feel more about theirs. And I think it was
14:12
Speaker 2: through those conversations that it showed me a different way
14:16
Speaker 2: forward for myself as well.
14:19
Speaker 1: So you decide to interview people about ambition, and throughout
14:22
Speaker 1: your book you did interviews with students and parents and
14:26
Speaker 1: psychologists and even labor organizers workers. I want to talk
14:32
Speaker 1: to you about a few specific examples, for sure, but
14:36
Speaker 1: before that, did you find a common thread at all
14:40
Speaker 1: about ambition or was everybody's ambition a bit different?
14:43
Speaker 2: This is so interesting and it's been interesting to think
14:45
Speaker 2: about both while I was reporting and afterward, because I
14:49
Speaker 2: think the thing about ambition is it does feel deeply personal.
14:54
Speaker 2: For some people, their ambition is a huge point of pride.
14:57
Speaker 2: Others feel like ambition has almost been use to exploit
15:01
Speaker 2: them and it's caused a lot of harm in their lives.
15:04
Speaker 2: But everyone talked about the different structural factors that enabled
15:09
Speaker 2: or upheld a certain social script of who an ambitious
15:13
Speaker 2: person was supposed to be, what kind of things did
15:16
Speaker 2: they do, what kind of timeline did they do them on?
15:19
Speaker 2: And I was really interested to see how in every
15:22
Speaker 2: single conversation it pointed back to these larger structural crises honestly,
15:28
Speaker 2: and lack of resources that kind of led to lack
15:32
Speaker 2: of choices or feeling like lack of agency, and how
15:35
Speaker 2: you wanted ambition to inform your life and your choices.
15:39
Speaker 2: So I think that I think that, as wild as
15:42
Speaker 2: it sounds, that was kind of the common thread. The
15:45
Speaker 2: other one that surprised me that I really didn't expect
15:47
Speaker 2: going into it is how many people wanted to talk
15:50
Speaker 2: about ambition. There are so many important interviews with such
15:55
Speaker 2: incredible people that did not make it into the final
15:58
Speaker 2: copy of this book, just because we only had so
16:01
Speaker 2: many pages and we only had so many words, And
16:04
Speaker 2: as my editor can attest to, I really tried to
16:07
Speaker 2: fit them all in because they're all important. But I
16:11
Speaker 2: was astounded by how many people were willing to sit
16:15
Speaker 2: and talk with me sometimes for hours about this and
16:18
Speaker 2: how they felt like it had impacted their sense of
16:20
Speaker 2: self and their life.
16:22
Speaker 1: That lack of agency that you mentioned sticks out to me,
16:26
Speaker 1: at least personally, any moment in my life that I
16:29
Speaker 1: have felt burnt out now that you mention, it does
16:33
Speaker 1: feel like.
16:34
Speaker 3: I just don't have a choice.
16:35
Speaker 1: I have to keep working because I have to pay
16:37
Speaker 1: my bills or I have to just get through the
16:39
Speaker 1: next month. And it is that lack of agency that
16:41
Speaker 1: is so exhausting. I've never thought of it that way, absolutely, and.
16:45
Speaker 2: I think we see that all the time across all
16:48
Speaker 2: different fields of work and experiences. It's low wages, it's
16:53
Speaker 2: lack of paid leave, it's not having access to universal
16:57
Speaker 2: health care, universal basic income, or care infrastructure, all of
17:01
Speaker 2: these things that people pointed to in the book is
17:04
Speaker 2: solutions that would actually allow them to be more ambitious
17:09
Speaker 2: about things that they care about more deeply. And I
17:12
Speaker 2: think that's one of the takeaways that I had, is
17:15
Speaker 2: we really can help create a more sustainable version of ambition,
17:20
Speaker 2: a more imaginative version of ambition if people have more
17:23
Speaker 2: autonomy and more resources.
17:26
Speaker 1: So there's a woman named Kendra in your book, and
17:30
Speaker 1: she starts to self medicate. She's exhausted, she's not feeling well,
17:36
Speaker 1: and you write. Rather than the workload slowing down to
17:39
Speaker 1: account for a deadly virus, her workload increased as she
17:42
Speaker 1: worked from home with the company of her cat. She says,
17:45
Speaker 1: I just started to self medicate. I didn't even have
17:47
Speaker 1: the energy to address what was going on. I was
17:50
Speaker 1: drinking beyond excess. And that stood out to me because
17:54
Speaker 1: I heard a version of that story so often throughout COVID.
17:58
Speaker 1: There was something about the isolation of working from home,
18:01
Speaker 1: the uncertainty coupled with it, and then just the immense
18:05
Speaker 1: pressure of work.
18:08
Speaker 3: What's the line between burnout and exhaustion?
18:11
Speaker 2: Ooh? First of all, Kendra is an incredible human being.
18:15
Speaker 2: I am so honored to have that conversation in the
18:19
Speaker 2: book and so grateful for what was shared in that conversation.
18:23
Speaker 2: I think line between burnout and exhaustion. I think, first
18:28
Speaker 2: of all, they go hand in hand and they relate
18:30
Speaker 2: to each other. I think that one kind of begets
18:33
Speaker 2: the other. I think that when we're burnt out. To me,
18:38
Speaker 2: burnout is a systemic and structural crisis. Burnout is not something,
18:43
Speaker 2: in my opinion, that you are going to lay down
18:45
Speaker 2: on the couch and have a lazy weekend and emerge
18:48
Speaker 2: feeling refreshed and renewed come Monday morning. I think burnout
18:52
Speaker 2: is a depletion of resources, a lack of access to meaningful,
18:57
Speaker 2: sustainable support, and I think a lack of access to
19:00
Speaker 2: sustainable work or personal situations overall. I think exhaustion can
19:05
Speaker 2: come from burnout and be a result of burnout, But
19:08
Speaker 2: to me, exhaustion is something where we need to take
19:12
Speaker 2: care of ourselves, where we know we need that rest. Burnout,
19:15
Speaker 2: I think is the aftermath of total structural crises that
19:21
Speaker 2: have dumped the burden of those crises on individuals and
19:25
Speaker 2: told them, if you work a little bit harder, if
19:27
Speaker 2: you do a little bit more, if you log more hours,
19:30
Speaker 2: it's all going to be okay. And I think what
19:33
Speaker 2: people are narrating all over the place is that it's
19:37
Speaker 2: really not okay, and that the work is not fixing
19:40
Speaker 2: any problems. In some ways, it is creating more of them.
19:44
Speaker 3: Have you felt burnt out before?
19:47
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh. Honestly, I think in retrospect, I think
19:50
Speaker 2: when I started having this loss of ambition or this
19:53
Speaker 2: crisis of ambition, I think I was so burnt out
19:57
Speaker 2: and so fried, I don't even think I would have
20:00
Speaker 2: been able to articulate that to you. I think I
20:03
Speaker 2: was so far gone and so focused on just trying
20:07
Speaker 2: to hold all of these really heavy things that were
20:10
Speaker 2: happening in my life together that I didn't realize that
20:13
Speaker 2: I was burning the candle at both ends and down
20:16
Speaker 2: the middle. And I'm saying with a lot of privilege.
20:19
Speaker 2: I am a white woman. I was able to work
20:22
Speaker 2: from home throughout the pandemic. I do have access to
20:26
Speaker 2: a lot of resources that most people just don't. And
20:29
Speaker 2: so I grappled with does this classify as burnout? Is
20:35
Speaker 2: that what this is? Should I be able to push
20:37
Speaker 2: through this? I am? Should I be able to handle it?
20:41
Speaker 2: And I think it finally hit the point where the
20:43
Speaker 2: question was no longer can you handle it? Or should
20:46
Speaker 2: you be able to handle it? It's that you're just not.
20:49
Speaker 2: And I think that that moment of just total surrender
20:53
Speaker 2: and kind of emotional collapse stemmed, in a lot of
20:56
Speaker 2: ways from being burnt out.
20:59
Speaker 1: So I'm going to admit something to you that feels embarrassing.
21:03
Speaker 1: I used to think that burnout was kind of a myth.
21:06
Speaker 1: I am very wary of colloquialisms, especially on the internet, because,
21:13
Speaker 1: for instance, self care, I think we've totally co opted
21:15
Speaker 1: self care, and the actual meaning of self care is important.
21:19
Speaker 1: The way like beauty brands have taken it over, I
21:23
Speaker 1: think is really damaging.
21:25
Speaker 3: So that's just an example.
21:26
Speaker 1: And I used to feel that way about the word
21:28
Speaker 1: burnout because I had heard it online all the time,
21:31
Speaker 1: and I never really, I never felt like anybody got
21:34
Speaker 1: to the meat of what it was. I was like, Oh,
21:35
Speaker 1: you're tired, take a nap. And then this year I
21:40
Speaker 1: got to a point where and I won't bore you
21:43
Speaker 1: with the steps leading up to it, but I got
21:46
Speaker 1: to a point where I was in New York for
21:48
Speaker 1: work and I pushed through that final day of work
21:53
Speaker 1: and I got to my friend's house and I collapsed
21:58
Speaker 1: on the couch and I started and they said what's like,
22:02
Speaker 1: what's wrong?
22:03
Speaker 3: And I tried to.
22:03
Speaker 1: Explain it, and they were like, well, it sounds like
22:07
Speaker 1: you need to rest. And the words out of my
22:10
Speaker 1: mouth were this, there is no amount of sleep that
22:14
Speaker 1: can cure what I'm feeling like. There's no amount of rest.
22:17
Speaker 1: It's not about rest. But I didn't have the words
22:20
Speaker 1: to explain what was going on, and your book gave
22:22
Speaker 1: me those words. I've never heard anybody articulate it the
22:26
Speaker 1: way you do because it's sort of this obtuse philosophical
22:30
Speaker 1: idea and you made it really, really practical. But you
22:34
Speaker 1: don't think of ambition as a negative thing. You're just
22:37
Speaker 1: calling out the systemic issues there. So I guess that
22:41
Speaker 1: story aside the systemic issues is what I kept coming
22:44
Speaker 1: back to, And I sort of had this thought like,
22:47
Speaker 1: is there this consensus that we all just girl boss
22:50
Speaker 1: too hard realized it sucked? Or were girls raised to
22:55
Speaker 1: be perfect without complaining perfect, without looking like you're trying
23:00
Speaker 1: hard but on the inside trying really hard? And is
23:03
Speaker 1: it the double bind that's exhausting? Like were you able
23:06
Speaker 1: to unravel sort of what it is?
23:08
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, I think that there's so much I think,
23:12
Speaker 2: First of all, I don't think ambition can be separated
23:15
Speaker 2: from the different cultural, structural, institutional forces that shape it
23:22
Speaker 2: and context that it kind of exists in. I think
23:25
Speaker 2: that when you go back to researchers who have looked
23:28
Speaker 2: at kind of the origins of ambition and where the
23:31
Speaker 2: roots come from, I think that it's important to name
23:35
Speaker 2: that a lot of those origins, A lot of those
23:37
Speaker 2: norms were grounded in a kind of ambition that was
23:41
Speaker 2: predominantly white, it was predominantly male, cisgender able bodied, usually
23:48
Speaker 2: with some access to resources, and again, kind of the
23:51
Speaker 2: autonomy of having choices. And I think we can see
23:55
Speaker 2: that all the time in how ambition shows up. Now.
23:59
Speaker 2: I think it's in whose ambition is celebrated versus whose
24:03
Speaker 2: ambition is tolerated.
24:05
Speaker 3: What do you mean by that? Can you give me
24:06
Speaker 3: an example?
24:07
Speaker 2: Oh, my gosh, I think that there are so many.
24:10
Speaker 2: I think that you can take it from sort of
24:12
Speaker 2: the social script of achievement angle, where you know, we
24:15
Speaker 2: celebrate things like college graduations, and that's a wonderful thing
24:20
Speaker 2: to celebrate. What are we not acknowledging that young people
24:24
Speaker 2: are doing, or that people of all ages are doing.
24:27
Speaker 2: There was a source that I spoke to the book, Asia,
24:30
Speaker 2: who talked about earning her associate's degree, taking care of
24:35
Speaker 2: her son, who she had when she was a teenager,
24:38
Speaker 2: and having this epiphany when she was in high school
24:40
Speaker 2: with her child, where all of a sudden, people stopped
24:44
Speaker 2: asking her questions about her future. They stopped asking if
24:48
Speaker 2: she wanted to go to college. They stopped asking what
24:50
Speaker 2: she saw for herself, and she was a very ambitious person.
24:54
Speaker 2: This was a young parent who was navigating housing in security,
24:59
Speaker 2: who was doing the best she could for her child,
25:01
Speaker 2: who was working, who was going to school, and yet,
25:05
Speaker 2: as Asia pointed out, she was not thought of as
25:08
Speaker 2: an ambitious person. And I think that that is a
25:11
Speaker 2: total structural failing and the most unimaginative idea we could
25:17
Speaker 2: have about ambition, that it only looks one way, that
25:21
Speaker 2: it can only be for one kind of person, who
25:24
Speaker 2: does one type of work in one kind of order.
25:28
Speaker 2: And I think about that example all the time, first
25:30
Speaker 2: of all because getting to talk to her was a pleasure,
25:33
Speaker 2: but also because it shows how limiting the norms of
25:37
Speaker 2: ambition are. And I think that when we zoom out
25:41
Speaker 2: and look at the broader context of systemic racism in
25:46
Speaker 2: this country, lack of resources, who is underpaid, who's living
25:50
Speaker 2: in an environment and having access to jobs that are
25:54
Speaker 2: dignified and are safe, who is given the opportunity to
25:58
Speaker 2: pause long enough and think, Okay, hey, what am I
26:01
Speaker 2: ambitious about? What brings meaning to my life? And I
26:04
Speaker 2: think that it can kind of go both ways, because
26:06
Speaker 2: I think ambition is in some ways a privilege to
26:10
Speaker 2: have the chance to slow down and even think about
26:13
Speaker 2: what you want your aspirations to be, to even have
26:16
Speaker 2: that moment in the day where you think about that clarity.
26:20
Speaker 2: And then I think, on the other hand, it's kind
26:22
Speaker 2: of used in a way where people are supposed to
26:25
Speaker 2: out ambition structural forces and structural barriers to them getting
26:30
Speaker 2: what they need to thrive. And I think that that's
26:35
Speaker 2: bound up in how we think about ambition, our own
26:38
Speaker 2: navigation of ambition, but also how it's kind of used
26:41
Speaker 2: structurally to reinforce really harmful barriers to everyone having what
26:46
Speaker 2: they need.
26:48
Speaker 1: I like that you brought up Asia because I wrote
26:50
Speaker 1: down this quote from her chapter. She said, I just
26:53
Speaker 1: want to be ambitious about caring for myself and caring
26:55
Speaker 1: for the people I love. Though ambition is often tied
26:58
Speaker 1: to material things, Asia's getting more ambitious about her values.
27:02
Speaker 1: One example that comes to mind is when she was
27:04
Speaker 1: recruited to lead communications for a huge organization, a role
27:08
Speaker 1: that came with a significant title and in.
27:10
Speaker 3: Theory, a bigger role.
27:12
Speaker 1: The answer was a hard no, and Asia says, I'm
27:15
Speaker 1: really ambitious about doing the least, and that's a sentiment
27:19
Speaker 1: that I hear echoed on TikTok all the time we start,
27:23
Speaker 1: we keep hearing about soft girl era. And yes, that
27:26
Speaker 1: is definitely a colloquialism that's on TikTok, But I think
27:30
Speaker 1: it's a trend for a reason. Everybody is so tired totally.
27:35
Speaker 2: I think, not to correct you, but I do want
27:37
Speaker 2: to make sure she gets credit. I think that quote
27:39
Speaker 2: might have been from Kendra.
27:40
Speaker 3: Oh, I'm sorry, Oh no, you're all good.
27:42
Speaker 2: I just want to make sure she gets the credit
27:44
Speaker 2: because it's your right. Yes, much an important point. I
27:47
Speaker 2: think that when people here doing the least, I think
27:51
Speaker 2: because of the endless turd of capitalism and how our
27:56
Speaker 2: worth is tied to our labor output, I think they
27:59
Speaker 2: really flinch and they hear, well, I don't want to work,
28:02
Speaker 2: I want to do the least. I want to do
28:04
Speaker 2: the bare minimum, and then I'm want to go home.
28:06
Speaker 2: But I think what was so important about what she
28:10
Speaker 2: shared in that specific conversation was doing the least in
28:15
Speaker 2: one way was not doing the least at all. It
28:19
Speaker 2: was such a more meaningful, substantive, sustainable kind of ambition.
28:25
Speaker 2: I think that sometimes doing the least in one area
28:28
Speaker 2: actually lets us be a lot more ambitious about some
28:31
Speaker 2: of the others, as backward as that might sound.
28:34
Speaker 1: So do you kind of feel like in a pragmatic
28:37
Speaker 1: way because most of us have to work for money obviously,
28:41
Speaker 1: do you think the answer is that there are seasons
28:45
Speaker 1: in life and you can be ambitious about different things
28:47
Speaker 1: at different times.
28:48
Speaker 2: I think that that's definitely true. I think that again
28:51
Speaker 2: just because of what I've heard in the reporting. I
28:54
Speaker 2: think that sometimes collectively we act like this is a
28:59
Speaker 2: problem with a solution. And what I loved about the
29:02
Speaker 2: people that I spoke to is they pointed to really
29:05
Speaker 2: concrete policy solutions that would absolve a lot of this
29:10
Speaker 2: stress and strain around work. And I think what was
29:13
Speaker 2: so important about that is people weren't describing not working
29:17
Speaker 2: or not caring about something they cared about so much.
29:21
Speaker 2: I think it's just that when people have resources, we
29:24
Speaker 2: give them the capacity to own their time. And I
29:27
Speaker 2: think that that comes out in what they're ambitious about
29:31
Speaker 2: and who they take care of in their lives and communities,
29:33
Speaker 2: and I think it makes ambition a lot richer. I
29:37
Speaker 2: certainly think that there are stretches where we are more
29:40
Speaker 2: ambitious about one area of our life than another, and
29:43
Speaker 2: I think that that's probably true in every scenario. Just
29:47
Speaker 2: like you hopefully are learning different things about yourself as
29:51
Speaker 2: you grow, you hopefully are reprioritizing where you can accordingly.
29:56
Speaker 2: And I think that one of the traps that we
29:58
Speaker 2: sometimes fall into with ambition and is thinking that if
30:01
Speaker 2: it changes, if it ebbs and flows, it means that
30:05
Speaker 2: we're quitting, and that quitting is always a bad thing.
30:08
Speaker 2: I think quitting can be a really ambitious thing, first
30:11
Speaker 2: of all, but I also think it's really natural for
30:14
Speaker 2: our ambition to change shape as we do.
30:18
Speaker 1: I really really like that you said there are many
30:21
Speaker 1: solutions to this, because we do talk about it like
30:25
Speaker 1: there aren't any, and it is.
30:27
Speaker 3: It's a systemic issue.
30:28
Speaker 1: There's one aspect of this that you kind of like
30:34
Speaker 1: peppered in there that I hadn't thought about. You said,
30:38
Speaker 1: I could outwork loneliness by constantly giving myself something new
30:41
Speaker 1: to look forward to.
30:43
Speaker 3: What's the link between loneliness and ambition?
30:46
Speaker 2: Oh, my gosh. I can talk about mine personally, But
30:50
Speaker 2: I think that for a long time, ambition, as I
30:54
Speaker 2: was using it was filling a kind of void. And
30:57
Speaker 2: I think the void in my own life came from
30:59
Speaker 2: not feeling good enough or worthy enough of the things
31:03
Speaker 2: that I desperately wanted, which were deep friendships, connections. And
31:08
Speaker 2: I also think that it came from a sort of
31:11
Speaker 2: hyper self reliance that I would not expect of anyone
31:16
Speaker 2: else in my life. I think that the way individualism
31:21
Speaker 2: is all over so much of our society is responsible
31:24
Speaker 2: for a multitude of ills. I think that when we
31:27
Speaker 2: see movements toward collectivity and how organizers are bringing that
31:32
Speaker 2: out in so many different ways around so many different
31:35
Speaker 2: issues in their communities, we can see very clearly that individualism,
31:39
Speaker 2: that going it alone is just not the way forward.
31:43
Speaker 2: But for a long time, for me personally, that's what
31:46
Speaker 2: my ambition looked like. It looked like I can't ask
31:49
Speaker 2: for help because I don't deserve it. I can't need
31:52
Speaker 2: anything from anyone because what if they say no? And
31:55
Speaker 2: then I've asked for too much? And oh no, what
31:57
Speaker 2: do I do from here? Just spiraling off in all directions.
32:01
Speaker 2: And I think that the deeper I got into that
32:04
Speaker 2: self reliant mode of I need to do everything myself.
32:08
Speaker 2: I need to be self reliant, I need to be
32:10
Speaker 2: able to take care of myself Obviously it's easy for
32:13
Speaker 2: me to say, now, of course you were going to
32:16
Speaker 2: end up lonely. You are completely isolating yourself and playing
32:19
Speaker 2: by these rules that you have only set for you.
32:23
Speaker 2: They don't make any sense. But I think a lot
32:26
Speaker 2: of the time, I think ambition can be used to
32:29
Speaker 2: fill a void, because I think that when we're ambitious
32:31
Speaker 2: about something it's meaningful. We're craving meaning, and I think
32:36
Speaker 2: that that's an incredible important thing. I also think it's
32:39
Speaker 2: important to dial it back and figure out, Okay, does
32:43
Speaker 2: this thing bring meaning to my life? Or am I
32:47
Speaker 2: trying to use it to fill this hole where meaning
32:49
Speaker 2: could be drived somewhere else? What am I really craving
32:52
Speaker 2: that I'm ambitious.
32:54
Speaker 1: There's this book called Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam, and
32:58
Speaker 1: I read it in college, and the idea is that
33:01
Speaker 1: in the nineteen fifties there were bowling leaks and everybody
33:05
Speaker 1: would meet on a Wednesday night or something with their
33:07
Speaker 1: collective uniform matching, like matching bowling shirt and their shoes,
33:12
Speaker 1: and they had a night together. And then he explains
33:15
Speaker 1: through each decade how we are now bowling alone. And
33:19
Speaker 1: it's like about individualism, and it's very, very difficult to
33:25
Speaker 1: do anything great alone personally or professionally. But for some reason,
33:30
Speaker 1: that's where our society has tracked. I don't know how
33:35
Speaker 1: we become more communal.
33:38
Speaker 2: It's awful because I even think about the book. It's
33:40
Speaker 2: always felt like the biggest scam to me, honestly that
33:44
Speaker 2: my name is the one on the cover of this
33:46
Speaker 2: because so and it sounds sappy, but I really do
33:50
Speaker 2: mean it. I think about like, this book would not
33:53
Speaker 2: exist without over one hundred people who sat down and
33:58
Speaker 2: made time out of their very big days, they're very
34:01
Speaker 2: ambitious lives to talk to me about some weird little project, right,
34:05
Speaker 2: it would exist without my agent and my editor and
34:08
Speaker 2: my fact checker and the editorial team. So even work wise,
34:12
Speaker 2: I think the idea of the person that is totally
34:16
Speaker 2: self made that never had any help.
34:19
Speaker 1: That I hate that term self Nobody is self made.
34:22
Speaker 1: You're not a self made man, You're not a self
34:24
Speaker 1: made woman. Every somebody helped.
34:27
Speaker 2: Always, always, And I think that obviously do some people
34:32
Speaker 2: have more resources than others one hundred percent, But I
34:36
Speaker 2: think that not only is it probably inaccurate for most
34:41
Speaker 2: of us, I would dare to say I also think
34:43
Speaker 2: it's really limiting, and I think that that's really lonely.
34:46
Speaker 2: I think the greatest privilege of our lifetime is needing
34:51
Speaker 2: each other and having people to think when we accomplish
34:55
Speaker 2: something that's really meaningful to us, or we hit a
34:57
Speaker 2: moment in our life where we're like, I feel good
34:59
Speaker 2: about I feel good about where I'm at. I think
35:02
Speaker 2: it's the most profound gift we can give each other
35:07
Speaker 2: is to be ambitious about each other and to need
35:09
Speaker 2: each other. So I look to a lot of organizers
35:13
Speaker 2: on the ground right now, from workers' rights and strikes
35:19
Speaker 2: and people unionizing their workplaces, I think people organizing around
35:24
Speaker 2: abortion access in their communities. I think that throughout history
35:28
Speaker 2: there have been people who have guided us toward more
35:32
Speaker 2: collectivity and leaning on each other. And I do think
35:35
Speaker 2: that there are so many examples of that that are
35:37
Speaker 2: happening right now as we speak. And I think that
35:41
Speaker 2: the more conversations we have with each other about how
35:45
Speaker 2: limiting this idea of the individual going it alone is,
35:49
Speaker 2: I think we open up even more opportunities to connect
35:52
Speaker 2: with each other. And I do think that that's a
35:55
Speaker 2: worthy thing to be ambitious for.
36:00
Speaker 1: It feels like the holidays sneak up on us faster
36:03
Speaker 1: every single year. Just when you think you have all
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Speaker 1: smart for ten percent off. How do you determine or
38:09
Speaker 1: take stock in your ambition? What questions do I ask
38:14
Speaker 1: to say? Okay, is this valuable ambition or is this
38:17
Speaker 1: wounding ambition?
38:19
Speaker 2: I think that what came through in the research and
38:23
Speaker 2: over the course of conversations with people who are much
38:25
Speaker 2: smarter about all this than me, is that where ambition
38:30
Speaker 2: can become harmful is when it starts eclipsing all of
38:34
Speaker 2: your other needs, for example, your need for rest, your
38:38
Speaker 2: need for belonging, your need for community. When it is
38:42
Speaker 2: so one track and so all consuming that all of
38:47
Speaker 2: a sudden it kind of cancels everything else out. That's
38:50
Speaker 2: when we've started to dip into territory where it can
38:53
Speaker 2: be really harmful to well being. And of course that's
38:56
Speaker 2: tricky because for a lot of people, how much they
38:59
Speaker 2: work and the hours they log is directly correlated to
39:03
Speaker 2: their quality of life in very specific, immediate ways. And
39:08
Speaker 2: so I think again that goes back to the structural
39:10
Speaker 2: crisis part of it. But I think that when you
39:14
Speaker 2: are working beyond excess, beyond what you need for financial security,
39:19
Speaker 2: beyond what you need for personal fulfillment, and it dips
39:23
Speaker 2: over into that other category where all of a sudden,
39:26
Speaker 2: you can't talk about anything else, you can't think about
39:29
Speaker 2: anything else, you can't recognize anyone else's needs, you can't
39:32
Speaker 2: recognize your own needs. I think that's when it goes
39:36
Speaker 2: too far. I think ideally ambition should feel full. I
39:42
Speaker 2: don't think it should feel endless. I think it should
39:45
Speaker 2: create opportunities for us to pause and think about why
39:49
Speaker 2: something is meaningful. And I think that when we find
39:51
Speaker 2: ourselves running out of time to do that, that's maybe
39:54
Speaker 2: where it's dipped into a little bit of a scarier place.
39:58
Speaker 1: Imagination is a word that comes up in the book
40:01
Speaker 1: a lot and I saw online years ago. Imagination is
40:06
Speaker 1: intelligence having fun. And I kind of loved that idea,
40:10
Speaker 1: because it is you have to be imaginative, you have
40:13
Speaker 1: to be very intelligent. But you say that people are
40:16
Speaker 1: sort of imagining their ambition in different ways.
40:20
Speaker 3: I love that idea.
40:21
Speaker 1: I'm also sort of a very practical, grounded person, and
40:26
Speaker 1: I want to be able to imagine ambition without misery,
40:31
Speaker 1: but also really strive and I find great pleasure in
40:38
Speaker 1: accomplishing goals. So are there tools that we can use
40:42
Speaker 1: to sort of reframe our ambition?
40:44
Speaker 2: Absolutely? And I appreciate this question because something I've heard
40:47
Speaker 2: a lot is sort of this scotcha of like, you
40:51
Speaker 2: wrote a book, are you saying you're not ambitious about it?
40:53
Speaker 2: And No, that's not what I'm saying at all I did.
40:57
Speaker 2: I have to be honest when I set out to
40:59
Speaker 2: report the book when it was it's just a little
41:00
Speaker 2: kernel of an idea that I didn't even know was
41:03
Speaker 2: going to be a book. I was thinking about it
41:05
Speaker 2: through the vein of what happens if we get rid
41:08
Speaker 2: of this altogether? Who are we? Do we need it?
41:11
Speaker 2: Is there a way to bring it back if we do?
41:13
Speaker 2: What happens when you lose it? And it was really
41:16
Speaker 2: over the course of these conversations not to keep coming
41:19
Speaker 2: back to that that I was like, well, people aren't
41:23
Speaker 2: just talking about abandoning it, they're talking about expanding it.
41:26
Speaker 2: And so to me, that's where the imagination comes in.
41:30
Speaker 2: I don't think it inherently means don't have goals related
41:33
Speaker 2: to your work, don't strive for anything, settle in where
41:37
Speaker 2: you are, and be content with that. I think there's
41:39
Speaker 2: a lot to be said for contentment. I think that
41:42
Speaker 2: that is actually as backward as it sounds, something we
41:45
Speaker 2: can be ambitious about. I think we can be ambitious
41:48
Speaker 2: about noticing where we are and what we value in
41:52
Speaker 2: our lives right now, and we can be ambitious about
41:56
Speaker 2: the thing that's meaningful to us. So I actually think
41:59
Speaker 2: that the best pool that I've come across is instead
42:02
Speaker 2: of thinking of ambition as a one lane, one track
42:07
Speaker 2: kind of single shot goal, how can I spread my
42:10
Speaker 2: ambition around? If I'm really ambitious about this project at work,
42:15
Speaker 2: how can I also throw some ambition toward making sure
42:18
Speaker 2: I call my friends and check in on how their
42:20
Speaker 2: weeks have been. How can I be ambitious about showing
42:23
Speaker 2: up for my community, even if it's not giving one
42:26
Speaker 2: hundred hours of time? What can I do to be
42:29
Speaker 2: a resource or a support for other people just where
42:32
Speaker 2: I can? And I think the thing about a lot
42:34
Speaker 2: of this is just like ambition ebbs and flows, so
42:37
Speaker 2: does our capacity in our time for all of these
42:39
Speaker 2: different things. So I think it's less about moving down
42:42
Speaker 2: the checklist of everything we need to be ambitious about
42:45
Speaker 2: over the course of the week and more noticing where
42:48
Speaker 2: we can. Okay, I know I've got this long term
42:51
Speaker 2: goal I'm working toward. I know it's meaningful to me
42:54
Speaker 2: because of XYZ. Now, how can I spread some of
42:57
Speaker 2: that ambition around, even if it's in smaller way? And
43:00
Speaker 2: I think over time that small stuff really does add
43:04
Speaker 2: up to reshape it and make it seem more expansive.
43:08
Speaker 2: Than all consuming.
43:10
Speaker 1: My takeaway from your book in terms of tool was
43:14
Speaker 1: to make sure that we're all decoupling self worth from ambition.
43:19
Speaker 1: Because if you're able to make sure that your ambition
43:22
Speaker 1: lives in that world alone, you're good and you get
43:25
Speaker 1: to decide what to be ambitious about and how far
43:27
Speaker 1: you want to go. But as soon as it's tied
43:30
Speaker 1: to your identity and your self worth, that's when it's dangerous.
43:35
Speaker 1: It reminded me I had a very successful friend and
43:38
Speaker 1: they were an athlete, so their career was sort of
43:40
Speaker 1: over early, and I was at lunch with them one
43:43
Speaker 1: time and they said, you know, if I'm being honest
43:45
Speaker 1: and vulnerable, I'm really worried about retirement because I'm worried
43:50
Speaker 1: people aren't going to like me without being an athlete.
43:54
Speaker 1: I'm worried that I'm not going to get the same
43:57
Speaker 1: amount of attention. I'm worried that I'm not going to
44:00
Speaker 1: have cool opportunities. I'm worried that my friends aren't going
44:03
Speaker 1: to think I'm as shiny. And I had a hard
44:08
Speaker 1: time sort of rebuttling because he was in a shiny
44:13
Speaker 1: profession and I was like, there probably will be some
44:17
Speaker 1: people that fall off right, But they weren't your people anyways.
44:21
Speaker 1: And as I got older, I reflect on that conversation
44:27
Speaker 1: a lot because I realized I probably had a little
44:29
Speaker 1: bit of that in me too, And when I really
44:33
Speaker 1: loved myself, I didn't care if anybody loved me for
44:38
Speaker 1: any of the shiny things, And so it was really
44:40
Speaker 1: about self love and self worth. It all tied back
44:42
Speaker 1: to that same place that you were talking about.
44:45
Speaker 2: And I think that that's so true, and I think
44:47
Speaker 2: that it's hard because when we hear self worth or
44:50
Speaker 2: self love, I think it can in our minds, or
44:53
Speaker 2: at least in my mind, I'll speak for myself equate
44:56
Speaker 2: to I need to sit here and I need to
44:59
Speaker 2: do more work on myself to get to that point.
45:02
Speaker 2: And again, just speaking for myself, that never worked. There's
45:07
Speaker 2: research in the book that talks about these incredible researchers
45:10
Speaker 2: who did a lot of work on self esteem and
45:12
Speaker 2: self worth and contingencies. So are self worth being contingent
45:16
Speaker 2: on a career outcome or contingent on people liking us?
45:20
Speaker 2: And they point out in that research that is incredibly hard,
45:24
Speaker 2: especially in America, if not impossible, to have self worth
45:28
Speaker 2: and self esteem that is contingent on nothing, because so
45:33
Speaker 2: much of our identities are wrapped up in for what
45:37
Speaker 2: we produce. It's really hard. This goes I think back
45:40
Speaker 2: to the capitalism of it all, the individualism of it all,
45:44
Speaker 2: and so they had a hard time giving the advice
45:47
Speaker 2: of try to have self worth that's contingent on nothing.
45:50
Speaker 2: You just like yourself as is. Is that the ideal situation?
45:54
Speaker 2: Of course? Is that really hard for most of us
45:56
Speaker 2: to do. I think so. But when your self work
46:00
Speaker 2: is contingent at least in part, or your self esteem
46:04
Speaker 2: is contingent in part on how you are interacting with
46:09
Speaker 2: other people, how you are showing up for them, how
46:13
Speaker 2: your passion or your interest extends beyond just you, that
46:18
Speaker 2: can help. And I don't think it's any secret that
46:21
Speaker 2: that kind of collectivity, in terms of our contingencies of
46:25
Speaker 2: self worth or self esteem, to me, ties right into
46:29
Speaker 2: this idea that we don't get anywhere alone. Everyone to
46:33
Speaker 2: some degree wants to be liked. Everyone wants to feel
46:36
Speaker 2: valued for what they bring to the table, whether that's
46:39
Speaker 2: work in the home, outside the home, not related to
46:42
Speaker 2: work at all, maybe it's a hobby. We all want
46:45
Speaker 2: to be recognized and celebrated for that, and I think
46:48
Speaker 2: that one of the things that I've taken away about
46:51
Speaker 2: self worth and ambition and how all of this runs
46:54
Speaker 2: together is the more that we can extend it beyond us,
46:58
Speaker 2: the more we will feel in our own ambition, the
47:02
Speaker 2: more creative we will be able to be with that ambition,
47:05
Speaker 2: and hopefully the more meaningful it feels to everybody.
47:09
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm going to say something as a pushback, but
47:12
Speaker 1: not because I agree with it. Yes, I think this
47:15
Speaker 1: is going to be what some people are thinking. This
47:18
Speaker 1: all sounds really lovely, but I already don't have time. Yeah,
47:22
Speaker 1: how do I go find time to serve? Like? I
47:25
Speaker 1: am already so depleted? What do you think about that?
47:30
Speaker 2: First of all, I'm with you, I think everybody is.
47:34
Speaker 2: And yeah, totally, a lot of this sounds really good
47:37
Speaker 2: in theory and is really borderline impossible to do an execution.
47:41
Speaker 2: But I do think it's one of those instances where
47:44
Speaker 2: even starting small, even starting inconsistently, matters than not starting
47:50
Speaker 2: at all. I talk to some researchers in the book
47:53
Speaker 2: who did a lot of work around mutual aid, and
47:56
Speaker 2: what they stressed is there can kind of be this
47:59
Speaker 2: default that we have in America where we recognize a
48:03
Speaker 2: problem and we think that we alone need to be
48:06
Speaker 2: the one to start a nonprofit to solve it or
48:09
Speaker 2: an initiative to solve it, when in reality, there are
48:12
Speaker 2: probably more things in our communities that exist for that already.
48:17
Speaker 2: And it's not about being the one who does it
48:20
Speaker 2: the most or does it the best. It's you're grabbing groceries,
48:25
Speaker 2: can you grab a couple extra things and drop off
48:28
Speaker 2: at a community fridge? It's can you venmo someone who
48:32
Speaker 2: needs it twenty bucks if you've got it in your budget.
48:35
Speaker 2: Can you listen to a friend who needs someone to
48:38
Speaker 2: talk to? And I know how small these things sound,
48:40
Speaker 2: because again, we need the structural support.
48:43
Speaker 3: I don't think they sound small.
48:46
Speaker 2: Well, I think in the scheme of things that can
48:48
Speaker 2: sound small, because people were talking about this in the
48:51
Speaker 2: book right alongside you know, universal basic income, universal healthcare,
48:55
Speaker 2: that would free up a lot of time for us
48:58
Speaker 2: to be more attentive not just to our needs but
49:00
Speaker 2: to our communities' needs. But I think these small instances
49:03
Speaker 2: where we sometimes feel like we're really doing nothing, and
49:07
Speaker 2: if we can't really do it and really help, why bother?
49:11
Speaker 2: I think bothering, even if it's once a month, even
49:15
Speaker 2: if you've got it in your budget to set up
49:17
Speaker 2: a recurring donation to an organization on the ground in
49:20
Speaker 2: your community, that counts because we are not going to
49:24
Speaker 2: get through it alone. We need one another. And I
49:27
Speaker 2: think that the more we can lean into the fact
49:30
Speaker 2: that this is reciprocal. Other people need us, We need
49:34
Speaker 2: other people. Our communities need us, We need our communities,
49:38
Speaker 2: the easier it becomes to kind of chip away at
49:41
Speaker 2: building that into the routine. It doesn't have to be everything,
49:45
Speaker 2: it doesn't have to be all of your time. I
49:47
Speaker 2: think that just doing what you can with what you've
49:51
Speaker 2: got is the starting point that at least I have
49:54
Speaker 2: tried to really prioritize in my life, and that I
49:56
Speaker 2: do think is better than doing nothing.
49:59
Speaker 1: Okay, I do some rapid fire questions. So people in
50:02
Speaker 1: your book described being ambitious about friendship, even about fun
50:07
Speaker 1: and sort of the many forms that community can take.
50:11
Speaker 1: What are you personally being ambitious about right now?
50:14
Speaker 2: Two primary ambitions. I am working with some incredible youth
50:19
Speaker 2: journalists in Kentucky, which is where I'm from, and I
50:22
Speaker 2: am so ambitious about their work, their approach to issues
50:26
Speaker 2: how they think about it. I'm ambitious about supporting them,
50:30
Speaker 2: and I have two cats, and I'm very ambitious about
50:33
Speaker 2: the cats, very enthusiastic about that unabountably.
50:38
Speaker 3: So I love that. That's amazing. Okay. What is a
50:41
Speaker 3: book that changed your life? Something you think everybody should read?
50:45
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, this is an endless list. We'd be
50:49
Speaker 2: here all day. Okay, I'm going to go for one.
50:51
Speaker 2: I read recently, You Are Someone You Love by Hannah Matthews, who,
50:57
Speaker 2: among being just a gorgeous writer, is an abortion doula
51:01
Speaker 2: and it is a gorgeous book. I highly recommend it.
51:05
Speaker 1: Okay, pretty smart question. I'm kind of hoping you get
51:08
Speaker 1: the one that says, what's the best thing you ever quit?
51:10
Speaker 3: But you tell me when to stop?
51:14
Speaker 2: Okay, stop?
51:15
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, Okay, Oh this is interesting. What's the
51:22
Speaker 1: earliest memory or example of what success looked like and
51:25
Speaker 1: how did that impact you? Oh that's a great question,
51:30
Speaker 1: particularly for you in this interview.
51:32
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, I think it changed. I think that
51:36
Speaker 2: when I was a lot younger, I was a dancer
51:39
Speaker 2: growing up. That's what I wanted to do. I would
51:41
Speaker 2: have said that, you know, getting cast is the lead
51:43
Speaker 2: in something was probably the example of success. But when
51:46
Speaker 2: I look back at it now, I had a teacher
51:49
Speaker 2: when I was in like first or second grade who
51:53
Speaker 2: was really into me, sitting and writing stories in my
51:57
Speaker 2: shaky little child handwriting, and she was an artist who
52:00
Speaker 2: when she had time, would draw illustrations for my stories
52:03
Speaker 2: on like the back of an envelope or like a
52:05
Speaker 2: scrap of paper, just when she just when she could.
52:09
Speaker 2: And that changed the course I think of my entire life.
52:13
Speaker 2: And so I think that success for me looked like
52:16
Speaker 2: an adult slowing down to recognize that a kid was
52:20
Speaker 2: really into something and taking it really seriously. And I
52:25
Speaker 2: would love to be that adult for someone. So that's
52:27
Speaker 2: my example of success.
52:29
Speaker 1: That is one of my favorite stories anybody's told on
52:31
Speaker 1: this podcast. Thank you for sharing that.
52:33
Speaker 2: I think about it all the time now. I never
52:36
Speaker 2: would have said that at the time, but now I
52:38
Speaker 2: truly think about it, like once a week.
52:40
Speaker 1: Okay, my last question, what is the smartest decision you've
52:43
Speaker 1: ever made.
52:44
Speaker 2: Depending on other people? It's a hard one. It's I
52:48
Speaker 2: have to practice it consciously, practice it. My best friends
52:52
Speaker 2: can tell you every day, but needing other people and
52:55
Speaker 2: letting myself have that need.
52:59
Speaker 1: You know, as you say it out loud, it sometimes
53:03
Speaker 1: makes me shudder, like even you saying it gives me
53:06
Speaker 1: permission to need and want that too. I think that
53:08
Speaker 1: your book and your words will do that for a
53:11
Speaker 1: lot of people.
53:12
Speaker 2: Thank you. That is the biggest compliment.
53:19
Speaker 1: Okay, you know what time it is. Today's a good day.
53:22
Speaker 1: To have a good day. I'll see you next week.