Should You Move? Have Kids? Change Careers? Science-Backed Frameworks For Every Hard Decision

The Liz Moody Podcast

Liz Moody

Self-improvement, Education, Mental Health, Health & Fitness

4.9 • 3.2K Ratings

🗓️ 13 May 2026

⏱️ 83 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Did you know our brains are wired to fear uncertainty MORE than suffering? The good news is that in the same way you can build muscles, you can build your tolerance for the unknown. When you’re comfortable with uncertainty, you’ll be less anxious, go after more opportunities, find more success, and make better decisions. And that is exactly what you're going to learn how to do today. My guest is Simone Stolzoff, a famous journalist and best-selling author, who dives into the learnings and stories from his new book How To Not Know: The Value of Uncertainty in a World That Demands Answers. 🎧 What you’ll learn: • How to stop catastrophizing and start planning • The three "certainty traps" keeping you stuck • How to make hard decisions before you're "ready" • The one question to ask when you're stuck between two options • Why your future self is more capable than you think • How to microdose uncertainty to build your tolerance Check out our NEW YouTube Channel with tons of YouTube exclusive Shorts and, coming soon, YouTube exclusive podcast content: https://www.youtube.com/@LizMoodyTV Check out the previous episodes of The Liz Moody Podcast discussed today: • How To Have No Regrets When You Die with Mega Best-Selling Author Daniel Pink • Stanford Professors: One Tool That Makes Every Life Decision Easier If you liked this episode, check out: Stuck? How To Make The Right Decisions & Supercharge Your Path Forward For more from Simone Stolzoff: • Book, How To Not Know: https://amzn.to/3QUhqRY • Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thepizza_bagel/ • Website: https://simonestolzoff.com/ Ready to uplevel every part of your life? Order Liz’s book 100 Ways to Change Your Life: The Science of Leveling Up Health, Happiness, Relationships & Success now! Connect with Liz on Instagram @lizmoody or online at www.lizmoody.com. Subscribe to the substack by visiting https://lizmoody.substack.com/welcome.Buy our cute sweatshirts, conversation cards, and more at https://shop.lizmoody.com/. Use our discount codes from our highly vetted and tested brand partners by visiting https://www.lizmoody.com/codes. To join The Liz Moody Podcast Club Facebook group, go to www.facebook.com/groups/thelizmoodypodcast. This episode is brought to you completely free thanks to the following podcast sponsors: • Wildgrain: go to Wildgrain.com/LizMoody to get $30 off your first box + FREE croissants for LIFE. • OneSkin: visit OneSkin.co/Liz and use code LIZ to get 15% OFF for a limited time. • Branch Basics: head to BranchBasics.com and use code LIZMOODY for 15% off the premium starter kit. • NOCD: to learn more about OCD therapy with NOCD, go to NOCD.com and book a free call. The Liz Moody Podcast cover art by Zack. The Liz Moody Podcast music by Alex Ruimy. Formerly the Healthier Together Podcast. This podcast and website represents the opinions of Liz Moody and her guests to the show. The content here should not be taken as medical advice. The content here is for information purposes only, and because each person is so unique, please consult your healthcare professional for any medical questions. The Liz Moody Podcast Episode 430. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	You would rather get a guaranteed painful electric shock than face a 50-50 chance of getting one.
0:05.6	That is an actual study.
0:07.1	Our brains are wired to fear uncertainty more than actual suffering.
0:11.6	The fear of a layoff does more psychological damage than the layoff itself.
0:15.6	Not knowing if you're going to get sick is worse than dealing with the actual sickness.
0:20.0	And right now, the world
0:21.6	is a soup of uncertainty, like, will AI destroy humanity? What's going on with the political
0:27.4	situation and climate change? And that's outside of our personal lives. Will we fall in love? Are we
0:33.0	with the right person? Should we move to Europe? Should we have kids? The good news is that in the same way you can build muscles, you can build tolerance for uncertainty. And that tolerance is going to make everything better. You're going to be less anxious. You're going to see more opportunities and find more success in your life. You're going to make better decisions. And that is exactly what you're going to learn how to do today. My guest is Simone Stolesoff, a journalist who's been featured in the New York Times, The Atlantic, and the Wall
0:57.0	Street Journal. He is the best-selling author of The Good Enough Job, and now he's back with
1:01.6	his new book, which is called How to Not Know, the value of uncertainty in a world that demands
1:07.1	answers. Welcome to the Liz Moody podcast where we skip past the BS and get you
1:11.2	actual solutions to your real life problems so that you can feel as good as possible every single day.
1:16.9	We're not going to tell you, oh yeah, you can do it. We believe in you. We're going to tell you
1:20.9	exactly how. Welcome to the podcast. Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. Okay. So I want to know,
1:26.8	is the world actually more
1:29.4	uncertain than it's been historically, or does it just feel like it is? A little bit of both.
1:33.8	And so it's hard to have an objective measure of uncertainty. There's this one academic project
1:39.0	that has done a really good job of tracking global uncertainty over time, but it began in the 80s.
1:45.2	And what they found is that the five highest measurements since the study began have all occurred in the last five years.
1:50.6	So you think about things like COVID and the war in Iran, Ukraine, tariff policy. But you also
1:57.8	question how they're measuring uncertainty. And so there's not just like one number. One
	...

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