How Adam Grant uses data and intuition to make life decisions | from WorkLife with Molly Graham

**Adam Grant** (0:00)
Hey, everyone, it's Adam Grant. I love data, but when making big decisions in your career and your life, you don't always have data. So today, I'm sharing a special conversation I had on my former show, WorkLife, with its new host, company and community builder, Molly Graham. I joined her to break down how I use data and intuition to make my biggest life choices. You can find more episodes of WorkLife with Molly Graham wherever you listen to podcasts. Now, on to the episode.
Hey, WorkLifers, it's Adam Grant. I'm excited to do this today. We're actually handing off WorkLife to a new host, Molly Graham, who is a tech superstar.
I thought I would take today as a chance to get inside her head and figure out what motivates her, how does she work, what's she going to teach us as she hosts this show. So, Molly Graham, welcome to WorkLife.

**Molly Graham** (0:50)
Thanks, Adam. But just so you know, I'm actually interviewing you today.

**Adam Grant** (0:54)
Wait, what?

**Molly Graham** (0:56)
Yeah.

**Adam Grant** (0:57)
Wait, I'm sorry. I thought this is still my show.

**Molly Graham** (1:00)
Nope. It's my show now, so we get to interview you. Okay, here we go.
Hi, Adam. Welcome to the new WorkLife.
Hi, everyone, I'm Molly Graham, and I'm taking over as the host of this show. For the past eight years, Adam Grant has built WorkLife into one of the most thoughtful explorations of how we work, using research and psychology to help us understand our careers, our teams, and ourselves. I've learned a lot from it, and I know many of you have too. Now, I wanna take you on the next step of that journey, because most of what I know about work, I learned the hard way. In my career, I've led teams, scaled companies, and built things that worked, and things that really didn't. Over time, I've come to believe that what's most useful to people in the middle of mess is hearing how someone else navigated it, stories about what it felt like, what someone else learned through mistakes or successes, and that's what this show is going to be. Each week, I'll talk to people who have led teams, made hard calls, and navigated their own careers through moments of uncertainty, to understand what actually happened, what it felt like, and what they learned. We'll talk about the moments that no one puts on LinkedIn. The quiet doubts, the trade-offs, the career decisions that don't have obvious answers, the big mistakes, which by the way, I've made most of more than once.
So to start this all off, I wanted to turn the mic on someone that we all know and admire, Adam Grant. But instead of asking him about his research, I want to flip the script a little bit. Adam has spent his career giving all of us tools to make better decisions. So I was curious, how does he make decisions in his own life? How does a researcher whose WorkLife centers on science and data handle decisions when there isn't a clear answer? Because I believe most of the important choices in our careers don't come with perfect data. So we're going to start this season by exploring that tension. How do you decide what to work on? How do you know when it's time to change? And how do you evolve your identity over time?
Hi, Adam. Welcome to the new WorkLife.

**Adam Grant** (3:21)
Wait, am I a guest? I thought I was the host.

**Molly Graham** (3:24)
Listen, I get it. Does it feel a little weird?

**Adam Grant** (3:27)
Definitely. I feel like somebody just moved into my house and is sitting on my furniture.

**Molly Graham** (3:33)
We rearranged the furniture.

**Adam Grant** (3:35)
I'm really glad it's you.

**Molly Graham** (3:37)
Yeah, same. Well, thanks for helping me learn how to do this.

**Adam Grant** (3:40)
I've done nothing.

**Molly Graham** (3:41)
Well, you've spent the last seven years, right? Yeah, teaching everyone so much about work and how to feel more sane and more clear in what we do. I think everyone is so grateful for that. But I am curious, do you have a North Star or a Compass when you think about what you do?

**Adam Grant** (3:59)
Yeah, I do. It's probably different for different kinds of projects. I think it's clearest for book writing.
Because I think that's the biggest commitment of anything I take on. And it's also the process that I've learned the most about over the years since I've been doing it the longest, at least of all my public facing roles that I do.

**Molly Graham** (4:18)