The right risks to take for a great career with Molly Graham (from How to Be a Better Human)
Worklife with Molly Graham
TED
4.8 • 9.4K Ratings
🗓️ 22 April 2026
⏱️ 42 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What does it take to have a great career? And how do you know what job you should take, which you should quit, and which you should try to change? In this special episode from How to Be a Better Human with host and comedian Chris Duffy, learn about your new WorkLife host, Molly Graham. Chris and Molly discuss what she's learned working at incredibly successful companies, the benefits of taking a meandering path, and how to take more risks for a fulfilling life.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, work life listeners. It's me, Molly Graham, and I'm so excited to begin the next chapter of |
| 0:04.9 | work life with you as your new host. But our episodes won't be ready for you until next Tuesday, |
| 0:10.0 | April 28th. So today, I'm sharing a special conversation I had with comedian, writer, and host of |
| 0:16.4 | the TED podcast, How to Be a Better Human, Chris Duffy. Coming up, you'll hear a bit more about my career |
| 0:22.2 | and my perspective. I really enjoyed my conversation with Chris, so I hope you will too. Now on |
| 0:28.1 | to the episode. This is How to Be a Better Human. I'm your host, Chris Duffy. Today in the show, |
| 0:35.4 | our guest is Molly Graham, and Molly is, among many other things, a very successful business person, a writer, and the new host of Ted's work life podcast. So we're going to be talking to her about how the rules for building a great career have evolved and what it takes to navigate this new work landscape. You know, when I was searching for my first job, I really, really, really wanted to |
| 0:55.2 | write for a newspaper. I was positive that I wanted to be a traditional newspaper journalist. |
| 0:59.3 | But then everywhere I applied, they were cutting positions rather than hiring. I couldn't get a job. |
| 1:04.3 | And I needed a job that would let me pay my bills. So I just started applying for anything and |
| 1:09.2 | everything. And I ended up getting a position teaching English abroad. |
| 1:12.7 | And then I got a job teaching at an elementary school in Boston. |
| 1:15.9 | And I could never, ever, ever have predicted that starting there would lead me to be here |
| 1:22.2 | hosting this podcast and talking to you right now. |
| 1:25.0 | In fact, one of the biggest lessons that I've learned, maybe the only career lesson that I feel totally confident standing behind, is that you cannot predict how things will turn out. Like it or not, you are going to be surprised. So how do you help people to figure out how to navigate a career path if you can't possibly know what's coming next? Well, that is exactly the kind of challenge that Molly lives for. |
| 1:45.6 | To get us started, here's a clip from Molly's TED Talk, |
| 1:48.0 | where she's addressing one of the biggest misconceptions that people have |
| 1:50.8 | about their jobs and their career choices. |
| 1:53.4 | Here's Molly. |
| 1:54.9 | There's a lot of pressure around what it takes to build a great career. |
| 1:59.6 | And it all comes back to this idea that you're supposed to know what you takes to build a great career. And it all comes back to this idea |
| 2:01.6 | that you're supposed to know what you want to do. |
... |
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