How to Rethink a Bad Decision | WorkLife with Adam Grant
How to Be a Better Human
TED
4.1 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 26 April 2021
⏱️ 39 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In life and work, we have a hard time changing course. When we wind up in a miserable job, a failing project, or a floundering romantic relationship, we rationalize, make excuses, and stick with our bad decisions—even when the writing's on the wall. Why? Usually we assume the driving force is sunk costs: we don't want to admit we've wasted that time or money. But in fact, the root of our stubbornness is a psychological trap called “escalation of commitment.” Once we understand that, we can start taking steps to protect ourselves from… well, ourselves. This is an episode of WorkLife with Adam Grant, another podcast in the TED Audio Collective. For more episodes, find and follow WorkLife wherever you're listening to this.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Ted Audio Collective. Hey, it's Chris here. Today we've got something a little bit different for you. |
| 0:14.1 | It's another show from the Ted Audio Collective. This one is called Work Life with Adam Grant. |
| 0:19.3 | I love Adam Grant's work because he is so smart but also accessible and he never |
| 0:24.5 | takes himself too seriously. The episode that we're about to play for you |
| 0:28.1 | it really plays out like a thriller and it's hilarious and incredible but also so practical in terms of what you can |
| 0:35.6 | take away for your real life and that's what we try and do on this show as well so I think that |
| 0:39.7 | you are going to love it and if you do it, you can find more new episodes of Work Life |
| 0:44.5 | with Adam Grant wherever you're listening to this podcast. We will be right back in just a moment. Okay, here's the show. |
| 0:56.4 | Okay, here's the show. |
| 0:57.8 | Enjoy. |
| 0:59.0 | We've all dug ourselves into some holes |
| 1:01.0 | that we're hard to dig out of, especially at the urging of good friends. |
| 1:05.4 | She knocked on my door to my room, which she never does, so I knew something was up. |
| 1:09.6 | And she was like, hey, where a person down, everyone's going to go, you're going to be so upset that you missed |
| 1:15.0 | with. |
| 1:16.0 | That's my student, Alexis. |
| 1:17.8 | This was the second time her friend asked her to go to a trendy new festival, so she couldn't |
| 1:22.0 | turn her down again. |
| 1:23.6 | But as soon as she said yes, things started to go downhill. |
| 1:27.6 | Not only did my friends not have any details about the event, |
| 1:31.6 | but even the contact that we made with the organizers of the event seemed pretty sparse on the details as well. |
| 1:39.0 | So I was already feeling a bit uneasy about what was happening but it felt like I'd |
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