Stephen Dubner and the Joy of Quitting

Fail Better with David Duchovny

Grace Cohen-Chen

Society & Culture

4.6 • 534 Ratings

🗓️ 4 June 2024

⏱️ 44 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Stephen Dubner, host of Freakonomics Radio, has done more than change the way we think about economics — I consider him a spiritual guide of our time. But for all his success, he’s got a laundry list of careers he’s left behind, from rising-star musician to New York Times writer. We debate the merits of expecting the worst versus hoping for the best and discuss how to trade nuance for novelty as we get older. It’s never too late to keep learning — or, according to him, to start a podcast. Follow me on Instagram at @davidduchovny. Stay up to date with Lemonada on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at @LemonadaMedia. Joining Lemonada Premium is a great way to support our show and get bonus content. Subscribe today at bit.ly/lemonadapremium. And if you want to continue the conversation with other listeners, join the My Lemonada community at https://lemonadamedia.com/mylemonada/ For a list of current sponsors and discount codes for this and every other Lemonada show, go to lemonadamedia.com/sponsors. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	It's morning in New York.
0:02.8	Oh, God.
0:06.2	Hey, everybody.
0:07.3	I'm Mandy Patinkin.
0:08.7	And I'm Catherine Grady.
0:09.8	And we have a new podcast.
0:11.7	It's called Don't Listen to Us.
0:14.1	Many of you've asked for our advice.
0:16.1	Tell me, what is wrong with you people?
0:19.2	Don't listen to us.
0:20.3	Our Take It or Leave a Advice show Wednesday out now, a Lemonada Media Original.
0:30.1	I've quit a bunch of things in my life, probably.
0:32.9	But the most glaring of those is graduate school.
0:36.3	So I quit on getting my PhD in English literature from
0:39.3	Yale in the mid-80s. And it was something that my mother, until the day she died, asked me if I was
0:44.7	going to go finish my PhD. But I wish that I had, if only because I would like my credit to read
0:53.2	such and such a role played by Dr. David
0:56.8	DeCovney, I think would be fun. Or Dr. So-and-So played by Dr. David Dikovney. That would be
1:02.2	meta-meta. And as much as I joke about it, it hurts not to complete something. It hurts,
1:12.8	it hurts to quit on something.
1:17.3	My consolation, however, is that I did go a long way.
1:19.6	I went as far as the dissertation.
	...

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