Simone Stolzoff

So you imagine like a mountain climber who's on the peak of a mountain.

I've made it.

But they don't know that there's a taller peak right around the corner.

And so they have to be willing to descend from that shorter peak in order to discover something that's greater.

It makes us feel warm and fuzzy and sad.

It's the equivalent of comfort food.

It makes you feel like you're in a familiar place where you're safe and secure.

The problem is when you stay too fixed to that one idea of what the future should look like, and then it becomes brittle.

The difference between what I might call blind faith and a more conscious version of faith.

And so the sort of religion example to the extreme is something like a cult where someone says, if you follow this 10-step plan, if you do exactly what I say, then I guarantee you will be rich or you will go to heaven or X, Y, or Z. And if you are completely outsourcing your own autonomy or your own agency or your own ability to think for yourself, that's when you can find yourself out above your skis.

You can find yourself in a situation where

where it is more problematic than it is self-serving.

I think it's for the same reason, which is that the confidence or the conviction makes us feel like someone's in control.

I remember when I was growing up, I used to work at a summer camp.

And one of the lessons that I remember from our staff training was that kids' biggest fear is that no one's in control.

No one knows what's going on.

And I think in many ways it's the same for an adult.

And so it's very comforting when Jim Cramer says you should buy this stock or when this online self-help guru says the key is fiber.

And if you maximize your fiber, all your other problems will go away because it gives you a sense of control over a world that is otherwise unpredictable.

And it's really seductive and easy to follow those steps.