This week’s piece opens with an evocative image. A khaki-clad finance bro in his early 30s is commuting on a train. After a long call about EBITDA, margin expansion, and recurring revenue, he shuts his laptop, takes out a pair of knitting needles, and starts crocheting a beanie.

I’m not sure why the image has stuck with me since I read the essay. Perhaps it’s just the relatable desire to work on something tangible in a digital age. But I think it speaks to something deeper.

Sometimes knowledge work feels like a collective delusion: no one actually aspires to be a senior product designer or an integrated marketing manager, yet the pay is so good none of us are willing to say it out loud.

I like how the essay frames existential angst as more emotional than economic. The anxiety is often framed in terms of money—the promise of joining the AI gold rush or the permanent underclass—but perhaps the more serious concern is a crisis of meaning.

Here’s the piece: Why is everyone in tech so sad?

Warmly,
Simo

P.S. The song of the week is some ethereal R&B from Ethiopian-American singer Mereba. The full songs of the week playlist is here.

I recently started turning off “self-view” during video calls. Perhaps I am late to the game, and this is a hack you all figured out in the spring of 2020. But I’ve been shocked by how much more present I’ve become. It turns out that staring at yourself in the mirror every few seconds isn’t great for your focus.

This week’s piece helped me understand why. The author starts with a rather simple observation: In our modern world, we spend way more time looking at ourselves—in mirrors, Zoom boxes, and Instagram grids—than at any other point in history.

The essay unfurls into a beautiful meditation on the cost of all of our self-gazing. As the author writes, “To see ourselves clearly, we don’t use mirrors. We use relationships.”

We think that we need to refine and protect our self-image, when in fact, this obsession is making us more fragile.

Here’s the piece: All This Staring at Our Faces Is Messing With Our Heads

Warmly,
Simo

P.S. The song of the week is the closing credits song from The Invite, the excellent new movie from Olivia Wilde. The full songs of the week playlist is here.

Married, single, young, old — Americans are having less sex than ever.

Like the trend of declining literacy, the so-called “sex recession” is not a new phenomenon. Esther Perel’s celebrated book Mating in Captivity is now 20 years old. But the author of this week’s piece makes an argument I hadn’t heard.

Inspired by Perel, she argues that perhaps our country’s shortage of eroticism stems from a deeper discomfort with uncertainty. Naturally, having just written a book on our aversion to uncertainty, I’m partial to the argument.

If safety is a precursor to intimacy, what happens when precarity is the coin of the realm?

Here’s the piece: Too Scared for Sex

Warmly,
Simo

P.S. The song of the week is some funky French pop from the Belgian singer-songwriter Claire Laffut. The full songs of the week playlist is here.

This is the best piece I’ve read on the end of reading discourse.

It’s a brilliant survey of the history of the written word—and the implications of the fact that more than half of all Americans did not read a single book last year.

What I appreciated most, though, were the author’s personal reflections:

In the years since—I’m not quite sure when—the habit slipped. The change was subtle. I became busier. I started scrolling on my phone before bed instead of reading. My attention began to wander every few pages. What did it matter if I read less? No one was checking on my progress. And the books would always be there. I could pick them up later.

The piece is admittedly long. But choosing to read it, like choosing to open that paperback on your nightstand instead of Instagram, is a quiet act of resistance.

Here’s the piece: The End of Reading is Here

Warmly,
Simo

P.S. The song of the week is some classic Florence + The Machine that always reminds me of summer. The full songs of the week playlist is here.

Last night, Jalen Brunson and the New York Knicks accomplished what 52 Knicks teams before them couldn’t: they became NBA champions.

I’ve long been fascinated with Brunson’s story. At every level, he’s been discounted and written off because of his size. And at every level—high school, college, and now the NBA—he’s found a way to win.

There was one quote from Brunson’s post-game interview that stood out to me: “My confidence comes from my work ethic.” His confidence comes from evidence.

This week’s article is a rare piece of sports writing because of its vulnerability. The writer, James L. Edwards III, suffers from debilitating anxiety, and so he asked Brunson (“Captain Clutch”) what to do.

Here’s the piece: I asked Jalen Brunson about pressure to better understand my own anxiety. Here’s what he said.

Warmly,
Simo

P.S. The song of the week is a (mostly) instrumental track from the groovy London-based Kokoroko. No stress, just vibes. The full songs of the week playlist is here.

P.P.S. I was on the TED Radio Hour, one of the most popular radio programs in the country! You can listen to my segment here.

Before we dive into this week’s ABC, I wanted to share a brief note of gratitude. How to Not Know was named a National Bestseller! This was, in no small part, thanks to the support of readers of this newsletter. Thank you to everyone who bought a copy, told a friend, or left a review. I couldn’t have done it without you.

One idea that's stuck with me from the research for How to Not Know is our psychological need to maintain a positive self-image. It's hard to change our minds when we tie our beliefs to our identities because updating our thinking can threaten who we think we are.

I see it in myself all the time. I’d often rather double down than admit I might have been wrong.

This week’s piece is about the breakdown of a marriage. What I appreciated, beyond the immersive storytelling and striking prose, was the author’s willingness to look at himself in the mirror after the cataclysm—and recognize his own role in the rupture.

It’s the type of article that makes you miss your subway stop. I couldn’t put it down.

Here’s the piece: The night my marriage fell apart

Warmly,
Simo

P.S. The song of the week is some feel-good summer reggae. No stress, just vibes. The full songs of the week playlist is here.

This week, by many measures, has been the most important week of my life online. Or at least it’s been the week where I’ve had the most exposure

Exposure is ostensibly what we seek when we post. We want eyeballs, attention, and in my case, book sales. But even though the book launch has been “successful”, my internal experience has been… quite mixed. So, I wanted to share some reflections while they’re fresh.

1 // The internet is not real life.

I spent a lot of this week refreshing platforms that measure success in quantifiable terms. I stared at Amazon rankings, Instagram likes, and retweets, waiting for the numbers to change, as if they were the true measure of my worth.

Even when I saw the numbers go up, it didn’t make me feel good. It felt more akin to relief. But the internet is not real life. These platforms do not encapsulate the entirety of my world or accurately measure my impact. My mental health rests on my ability to remember that.

2 // The internet makes it easy to compare your insides to other people’s outsides.

I was on the plane back home yesterday, listening to Strangers. For those who aren’t familiar, it’s the mega-bestseller about a woman, Belle Burden, putting back together the pieces of her life after her husband leaves her. And on the plane, I found myself thinking, “God, I wish I were Belle Burden.”

Who was I kidding? No, I didn’t. I didn’t want her life. I wanted her success, maybe, but definitely not the tumult she had to go through to inspire her memoir. On social media, it’s easy to cherry-pick attributes of others, to romanticize them, but it’s important to recognize when you’re comparing your insides to other people’s outsides.

3 // The internet is not the best place to hang out after you do something cool

I was in a yoga class last week, and the teacher remarked that the minute class ends, everyone tends to go straight to their phones. You spend an hour creating a sense of spaciousness, and then the minute the hour ends, you start eroding your hard work!

Guilty as charged. I found myself doing the book-launch equivalent of this many times over the past week. Something amazing would happen—a live event, a podcast episode, a book sighting in the wild—but rather than relish in the feeling, my first tendency was to see what strangers on the internet thought. I want to do a better job of letting the good vibes roll.

This week’s article is my favorite excerpt of the book, published in this week’s Atlantic. It’s about a software engineer who created an algorithm to randomize his life.

Read the piece: The lure of a fully randomized life

Book updates:

• Get 15% off! My publisher gave me a special discount code to share with ABC readers. If you use the code LOVEBOOKSELLERS at checkout, you can get 15% on Bookshop.org

• This is the last day to claim your launch bonuses for the book (including a guide to navigating uncertainty in your career, $150 off my course, and an invitation to a live Q+A with Michael Lewis this Thursday)

• All you have to do is order (Amazon, Bookshop) a copy of How to Not Know and forward your receipt to howtonotknowbook@gmail.com. (Today is also the last day sales count toward bestseller lists, so if you’ve been putting off getting a copy, now’s a great time!)

With gratitude,
Simo

P.S. The song of the week is a catchy bop from the SF-based Chicana singer La Doña. The full songs of the week playlist is here.

Novelist E.L. Doctorow once said, “Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”

It feels like I’ve been driving for the past three years, and I’ve finally arrived at my destination. How to Not Know comes out on Tuesday!

There’s a certain irony that the process of writing a book about the value of uncertainty felt so, well, uncertain. I spent lots of time in the “this is shit / I am shit” phases of the creative process.

And yet, one value of not knowing, as I argue in the book, is that we stay open to what emerges. In the words of my first editor, “The story you find is always better than the story you seek.”

I can’t wait for you to read it! Much like with the release of The Good Enough Job, the book is the beneficiary of very good timing. Given how much uncertainty people are navigating right now, I think it will resonate with a lot of people.

For those who have asked how they can help… the most impactful thing you can do is order a hardcover book (or two!) from Bookshop.org, Amazon, or your local indie bookstore.

Thank you all for the support that’s gotten me to this point!

Get your copy: How to Not Know: The Value of Uncertainty in a World that Demands Answers

Book updates:

• Michael Pollan tweeted about the book #lifegoals

• Look out for excerpts this week in The Atlantic, Wired, and The Guardian

• Last chance to get tickets for the tour stops NY (5/11), NY (5/12), DC (5/13), SF (5/14), SD (5/18), Virtual (5/21)

  

With gratitude,
Simo

P.S. The song of the week is a beautiful instrumental that’s kept me grounded amid all the chaos of the launch. The full songs of the week playlist is here.

Author’s note: Ahead of the release of my book, I’m trying something new and sharing some personal writing with the Article Book Club. If you haven’t ordered a copy of How to Not Know, now’s a great time to do so :)

On the long road of becoming who you are

I’ve known I wanted to be a writer since the second grade. My brother and I went to different schools. One day, he didn’t have school, and my parents offered to let me play hooky so we could hang out.

“My class has a writer’s workshop today,” I told them. “And I’m not missing that!”

Through high school, writing was my main academic interest. I started doing spoken word poetry, and chose to attend Penn, at least in part, because it had won the collegiate national poetry slam the previous year.

But in college, I started to lose sight of the clarity I’d had about writing when I was younger. I started to see friends with varied, quirky interests contort themselves to the interests of the investment banks and consultancies that came to campus to recruit. Looking back, it wasn’t just the money that drew my friends to finance and consulting. It was the certainty.

Finance and consulting each provided clearly lit paths, from intern to analyst to associate to manager to director. Much like school, they offered benchmarks for success and validation for drawing within the lines.

Rather than pursuing uncertain paths in, say, the arts or entrepreneurship, many of my peers opted for the least uncertain route. And after I started hearing about friends who landed prestigious internships at McKinsey and Goldman Sachs, I started to feel anxious about my own career prospects.

I’m reminded of this Paul Graham quote about prestige. He writes that, “Prestige is like a powerful magnet that warps even your beliefs about what you enjoy. It causes you to work not on what you like, but what you’d like to like.” I knew that I loved creative writing, but I wanted the legibility of my peers’ path. So, I decided to study both poetry and economics (hello existential crisis!).

When it came time to look for my first internship, I couldn’t admit to myself what I actually wanted—to be a writer—so I looked for jobs in advertising and tech. After I graduated, the pull toward certainty continued to warp my tastes. I remember one conversation I had with Sam Parr, who was in the early days of starting a media company called The Hustle. We sat in his office, and he asked me point-blank, “So, you studied poetry and econ. I can’t tell: do you want to write or work on the business?”

I let my brain override my heart. “I want to work on the business,” I told him. Maybe Sam could sense the shakiness of my conviction. I didn’t get the job.

A job is not a vocation

Elizabeth Gilbert has a great framework about the difference between a hobby, a job, a career, and a vocation. A hobby is something that you do for yourself. A job is something you do to earn a living. A career is a story you build over time, and a vocation is an almost-spiritual calling. The only thing you need is a job, she says. We live in a material world, and you must find a way to pay for your material existence.

But I was one of the lucky few who had a vocation. I just couldn’t admit it. The mental gymnastics I did to talk myself out of what I deeply wanted were remarkable. I chalked it up to realism or being “financially responsible,” but it was just fear dressed in sensible clothing.

Even after I went back to journalism school to get a degree, I still couldn’t admit my desire to myself. It came to a head when I was 27. I was at a career crossroads, deciding between two job offers: one at a trendy magazine and another at a prestigious design firm. The decision threw me for an existential loop. I spent weeks waffling back and forth. I asked the opinion of everyone I knew—and my Uber driver and my yoga teacher. I was insufferable.

Looking back, almost a decade later, I can now pinpoint the source of my ennui: I was looking for certainty where none existed. I deluded myself into thinking there was one right answer, one perfect job that would emerge if I just banged my head against the wall at the right angle. But the truth was, I was so uncomfortable with facing uncertainty that I would rather self-sabotage than make a choice for myself. I secretly wished one of the offers would be revoked, just so I didn’t have to decide.

Maybe you’ve felt something similar—a civil war being waged between different parts of yourself. One reason I believe so many young people in the 2000s and 2010s opted for careers in finance, law, consulting, and medicine is that legible ladders allow you to kick the can on having to reckon with what you actually value. You value what the firm values, which is much easier than having to determine what you value for yourself.

In retrospect, I’m grateful for my quarter-life crisis for the lesson it taught me. In the words of psychologist Rollo May, "Commitment is healthiest when it is not without doubt, but in spite of doubt.” Uncertain moments strengthen our values by forcing us to make choices without knowing how they’ll turn out. Rather than trying to rid our lives and careers of uncertainty, we must learn to live with it.

I think this skill—call it uncertainty tolerance—is going to be more and more important as career ladders and “stable” institutions break down before our eyes. The things about me that I thought were flawed—my inability to hold down a job for more than a few years, my desire to pursue multiple distinct careers, my meandering path—might all become advantageous in a world where nonlinear careers are the norm. I’ve built my tolerance through exposure.

Much like someone with a phobia of spiders can become more tolerant by gradual exposure in controlled environments, we too can become more tolerant of uncertainty by choosing to face it directly. Now, when I think about the uncertainty ahead of me—while trying to support a family as a full-time author in one of the most expensive cities in the world—I think back to past times in my life where I’ve been able to weather the anxiety of not knowing. I’ve chosen to take what my friend calls “the pathless path.”

I don’t think there’s anything inherently virtuous about approaching your career this way. But I believe those who are able to build their uncertainty tolerance—to see the possibilities that wait on the other side of not knowing—have a leg up in the increasingly uncertain world in which we live.

Next week, my second book, How to Not Know, comes out. I wrote it for that 20-something version of myself, hellbent on finding certainty, worried what he might find if he admitted what he actually wanted. Even now, 28 years after my second-grade writer’s workshop and after having written two books, I sometimes still doubt my desire to be a writer and question how much longer I can keep up the charade.

But I’ve come to learn that on the pathless path, not knowing is a feature, not a bug. Uncertainty is where the magic lies.

Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed these words and want to build your uncertainty tolerance, please consider ordering a copy of How to Not Know. Publishers Weekly, The Next Big Idea Club, and Adam Grant each named it a best book of the year.

You can order from Bookshop.org, Amazon, or get a signed/personalized copy from my local indie bookstore.

Warmly,
Simo

P.S. The song of the week is a thematically relevant classic from Faces. The full songs of the week playlist is here.

There’s a line I keep coming back to from a University of Chicago economist: “The United States was a reasonably happy country for a long time. It is not happy now.”

The data bears this out. By almost every material measure—income, employment, wealth—Americans are better off than they’ve ever been. And yet self-reported happiness has cratered since 2020. What gives?

Derek Thompson’s latest piece tries to explain the paradox. In his typical multidisciplinary style, Thompson argues that the pandemic, in many ways, never really ended. The erosion of trust, institutions, and our sense of shared reality continues.

It’s the type of “make it make sense” article that puts an amorphous feeling into words. It’s worth reading for the charts alone.

Here’s the piece: If America’s so rich, how’d it get so sad?

Book updates:

• How to Not Know comes out in 2 weeks (!!). If you haven’t grabbed your copy, this is the last week to get a signed and personalized copy shipped to you (link).

• Also, I’m going on tour. Excited to meet some of you IRL in May. Here are some links to secure your spot at some of the stops: NY, DC, SF, SD, Virtual.

  

Warmly,
Simo

P.S. You might recognize the song of the week from a movie soundtrack—it’s one of the most beautiful Italian songs ever written. The full songs of the week playlist is here.

John Carreyrou’s done it again.

The reporter who famously uncovered the fraud at Theranos is back with an 18-month investigation of the true identity of Satoshi Nakamoto, Bitcoin’s pseudonymous creator.

The fact that I have almost zero interest in crypto makes this detective story all the more impressive. For 17 years, sleuths have tried to uncover Nakamoto’s identity to no avail.

Carreyrou considered 600 suspects and pored through hundreds of thousands of primary documents (with the help of my best friend from journalism school, Dylan Freedman) to crack the case.

The article is a page-turner and a feat of investigative journalism, full of thrilling details.

Here’s the piece: My quest to solve bitcoin’s great mystery

Book updates:

• How to Not Know comes out exactly one month from today! I’m recording lots of podcasts and finalizing the details of the tour. I’ll have more to share soon, but you can already RSVP for events in SF, NY, and DC.

• I’m putting together a “street team” of folks interested in supporting the book launch. If you sign up, I’ll send you a free digital copy of the book and share some behind-the-scenes details of what it took to write it. I’d be so grateful if you joined (already 68 strong!). Here’s the sign-up link.

Warmly,
Simo

P.S. The song of the week is a classic 80s indie track from New Order. The full songs of the week playlist is here.

I chose to open How to Not Know with a story unlike any I’d heard before.

A couple who had been together for 17 years, married for ten, was having a drink at a bar when they decided to try an experiment. They would go their separate ways for twelve months. Exactly one year later, they would return to the same bar to decide whether they wanted to stay together or break up. They called it The Year of Living Dangerously.

My favorite part of being a journalist is discovering stories like these—stories so out there that they feel like fiction, and yet speak to themes that are honest and universal.

Today, I’m excited to share that my publisher has agreed to let me share an exclusive sneak peek at the book's introduction, a month before its release. Can’t wait to hear what you think!

Here’s the piece: The Art of Not Knowing

Book updates:

• Thanks to everyone who weighed in on their favorite headshot of the options I’m considering!

• We’re a month away from the release! I’ve started to get some amazing feedback from the writers I most look up to. Lori Gottlieb called it “A must-read for our time.” Dan Pink called it “Spectacular.” Michael Pollan sent me an unsolicited personal email (!!).

• If you haven’t already, now would be a great time to pre-order from Amazon or Bookshop.org. If you forward your receipt to howtonotknowbook@gmail.com, you’ll also get access to a live Q&A with Michael Lewis, a 40-page ebook on navigating career uncertainty, and more goodies.

Warmly,
Simo

P.S. The song of the week is the new single from the soon-to-be-released Jungle album. They never miss! The full songs of the week playlist is here.

America has a gambling problem.

From sports to the Oscars to the likelihood of the return of Jesus Christ in 2026, Americans bet on nearly anything imaginable. Seemingly overnight, roughly half of men ages 18 to 49 have an active sports betting account.

This week’s piece is a deep dive into how we got here. McKay Coppins—a practicing Mormon and self-described gambling virgin—is the perfect guide in this wildly entertaining piece of gonzo journalism.

After never having gambled in his life, The Atlantic gave him $10,000 to play with at the beginning of the NFL season. A year later, the effect on his family, psyche, and bank account was as disastrous as you’d expect. It’s the most fun I’ve had reading a piece in a while.

Here’s the piece: Sucker

Warmly,
Simo

P.S. The song of the week is a Colombian song that always reminds me of spring. The full songs of the week playlist is here.

Parenting is many things—exhausting, exhilarating, magical—but the one adjective that’s rarely said out loud is boring. Parenting, especially in the first year, can be incredibly monotonous.

This feels almost transgressive to say. As the author of this week’s piece writes, admitting that parenting is boring is “like admitting to drowning kittens or robbing liquor stores.”

But the underlying question is whether feeling bored is a problem. With so many forms of entertainment at our fingertips, we never need to sit still.

I find that I try to crowd out boredom every chance I get. Elevator rides, commercial breaks, and red lights are all opportunities to fill my brain with more inputs. But the question of this week’s piece is what we lose when we never let ourselves be bored.

Here’s the piece: Boredom is the price we pay for meaning

Warmly,
Simo

P.S. My son Luca turned 1 this weekend :).
P.P.S. The song of the week is some melancholy synth-pop from an artist about to release her debut EP. The full songs of the week playlist is here.

“The nuclear family was a mistake.” That was the argument from a viral David Brooks article from a few years back.

His argument was that by shrinking families into small, self-contained units, society traded communal support and stability for independence, often with damaging social consequences.

This week’s piece imagines an alternative reality. The author lays out a sober case for communal living as a way to address the housing, loneliness, and childcare crises.

As someone who has lived communally for the majority of my adult life, I have an obvious bias. But looking at the data from the piece (at the turn of the 20th century, roughly 2 percent of Americans lived alone!), perhaps the idea of opening up our doors to housemates, neighbors, and in-laws is less radical and more practical than many of us think.

Here’s the piece: Why I Never Want to Have My Own Place

Warmly,
Simo

P.S. The song of the week is from the Gorillaz-esque Irish rock band, Fontaines DC. The full songs of the week playlist is here.

There was one line in Ezra Klein’s interview with Priya Parker that has stuck with me. They were discussing why gathering feels difficult despite its obvious benefits. Parker posits that part of the problem is our society’s self-orientation.

“We also overemphasize the right and the space of the individual and, particularly in this country, the hyper-individualized context of self-care and self-help allows us to first focus on what the needs—or perceived needs—of the self are before we begin to even think about the group.”

It’s easy to see the cost of this self-orientation—the alienation and isolation so many of us feel—and yet we haven’t found an adequate counterbalance. If anything, I fear that the wide-scale adoption of AI will only perpetuate the trend.

This week’s article is one of my favorites I’ve read in a while. It’s by the inimitable Rebecca Solnit, and it not only diagnoses the problem but also charts a path forward. There are too many gems of lines for me to quote, so you’ll just have to read the piece yourself.

Here’s the piece: What technology takes from us – and how to take it back

Warmly,
Simo

P.S. The song of the week is my favorite off the new Bad Bunny album. Happy Benito Bowl to all who celebrate. The full songs of the week playlist is here.

A decade ago, I was reporting from Nepal after the 2015 earthquake. A director from a large humanitarian aid organization told me something that has stuck with me since:

“There are two definitions of community—to be united around a shared cause and to be united around a shared place. Crises bring those two definitions together.”

This lesson feels particularly relevant to what’s happening in Minneapolis right now. Amid the horrific tragedy and unspeakable violence, there are also glimpses of the best of humanity. Neighbors are forming mutual aid networks, faith leaders are praying with their feet, and over 50,000 Minnesotans are braving subzero temperatures to march in the streets.

This week’s article is an on-the-ground account of what’s happening in Minneapolis and the ways communities are looking out for one another.

Here’s the piece: Your friendly neighborhood resistance

Warmly,
Simo

P.S. The song of the week is an Afro-dance remix of a classic track from the Malian songwriter Salif Keita. The full songs of the week playlist is here.

P.P.S. I’ve been doing some more original writing recently! Here’s a piece I wrote on advice for new dads and another for Harvard Business Review on leading through uncertainty.

The stat that jumps out at me from this week’s article is that fewer than half of Americans have read at least one book in the past year. It jumps out because it’s both shocking and not at all surprising.

The “no one reads anymore” discourse has reached a boiling point. It started with the elite college students and then high school students, and now their parents, but all the thought pieces point back to a simple truth: it’s much easier to swipe up on another video than to turn the page.

The implications of this are profound. Perhaps an era of enlightenment is coming to an end. Perhaps we are all getting stupider. But, as someone with a vested interest in people’s reading abilities and desires, I’m more interested in solutions than resignation.

This week’s article offers a provocative one: if we want to convince more people to read, we shouldn’t appeal to a sense of public duty. We should remind them why so many of us got into reading in the first place.

Here’s the piece: Reading is a vice

Warmly,
Simo

P.S. With a voice reminiscent of Rhye and a catchy beat, the song of the week by the Greek artist Σtella, seems to fit any mood. The full songs of the week playlist is here.

P.P.S. The next cohort of my course kicks off on Tuesday. ABC readers get a 10% discount with this link.

After three years of reporting, writing, and editing, I’m excited to announce that my new book, How To Not Know, is officially available anywhere books are sold.

When I started working on The Good Enough Job back in 2019, I had no idea that it would be released in the midst of a global pandemic, when it seemed everyone and their mother was renegotiating their relationship to work.

I believe something similar is about to happen with How To Not Know. Uncertainty is the water we’re all swimming in these days. From our careers to our politics to our personal lives, the future is unknown. And yet, our capacity to tolerate this uncertainty is in decline.

I wrote this book to help you prepare for an uncertain, unpredictable world. And I can’t think of a more timely moment for you to read it.

The single biggest thing you can do to support my work is to pre-order a hardcover copy of the book today.

As I’m sure you know, pre-orders are incredibly important for authors. They determine how many copies bookstores order, signal demand to publishers, and significantly boost the chances of the book hitting a bestseller list.

As a thank you for ordering, I’m offering some special bonuses, including:

• The chance to read the book’s introduction right away

• An invitation to an exclusive virtual event with Michael Lewis (!!) and me

• $150 off my career design course, which kicks off next week

I’m also partnering with a local Bay Area bookstore to offer personalized signed copies of the book to the first 100 people who pre-order. You can order your signed copy of the book here (or unsigned copies from Amazon or Bookshop.org).

To receive all of the bonuses, all you have to do is forward your purchase receipt to HowToNotKnowBook@gmail.com. That’s it.

If you enjoyed The Good Enough Job, have gotten value from this newsletter, or simply want to support me as I try to make it as a full-time author, I hope you’ll consider pre-ordering a copy today.

Thanks to each and every one of you for the support over the years. On Sunday, we’ll be back with regular scheduled ABC programming.

Warmly,
Simo

P.S. The song of the week is a classic from Poolside and a fitting song to kick off the new year. The full songs of the week playlist is here.