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TED Talks Daily

Forget the corporate ladder - winners take risks | Molly Graham (re-release)

with Molly Graham

Published September 27, 2025
View Show Notes

About This Episode

Molly Graham challenges the traditional idea of a linear career "staircase" and argues that great careers are built by taking risks she calls "jumping off cliffs." She illustrates this with her own transition from a secure HR role at Facebook to a risky new project where she initially struggled, then grew into a far more capable version of herself. She outlines three skills needed for successful cliff jumps-learning to actually jump, surviving the emotional fall, and becoming a "professional idiot"-and urges people to question narrow definitions of success and dare to trade the known for the unknown.

Topics Covered

Career transitions Personal Development Risk and uncertainty Failure and perseverance Identity Perspective shift Resilience Grit Growth mindset Work ethic

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Quick Takeaways

  • Linear, promotion-focused career "stairs" can be an illusion that tie self-worth to titles and ratings.
  • Taking big career risks-"jumping off cliffs"-can transform your capabilities and open opportunities you would never see by staying on the safe path.
  • The hardest part of risk-taking is often enduring the beginner phase, with its emotional roller coaster and feelings of incompetence.
  • Distinguishing between fear of real financial danger and fear of failure helps you decide when to leap.
  • Being willing to sound like a "professional idiot" and ask basic questions makes you an exceptional learner and often a highly valuable contributor.
  • There is no single staircase or definition of success; impressive titles, money, and fame do not guarantee fulfillment.
  • Career moves that look sideways or backwards to others may be the ones that reveal who you really are and what you can do.
  • Giving new, challenging situations at least two weeks before reacting helps you separate transient emotions from real issues.

Podcast Notes

Transition into Molly Graham's talk

Host introduces that Molly Graham's TED Next talk is about to begin

Signal that the episode is shifting from host intro to the main talk content[2:59]

Challenging the traditional career "stairs" model

Pressure to know what you want to do in your career

Molly says there is a lot of pressure around what it takes to build a great career[3:29]
This pressure centers on the idea that you are supposed to know what you want to do[3:40]

Defining the "stairs" metaphor

Molly calls the dominant career idea "the stairs"[3:45]
Description of the stairs: you show up in college and are expected to know your major[3:51]
• That major is supposed to lead you to your first job
• Then you get another job, and are promoted repeatedly, seemingly forever

Appeal of the career stairs

Best part of the stairs is the feeling of safety and security[4:06]
The stairs feel like you know what you need to do to get ahead[4:11]

Downside of living on the career stairs

Molly compares the stairs to a weird video game you can be stuck in for years[4:14]
The stairs can make you feel like your self-worth is tied to your title[4:21]
• They can also make you feel like your life is tied to your last performance rating or your next promotion

Asserting that the stairs are an illusion

Molly states that the stairs are an illusion[4:31]
She claims excellent careers today are not built by excellent stair climbers[4:35]

Introducing the "jumping off cliffs" metaphor

Molly reframes the key career skill as taking risks, which she calls "jumping off cliffs"[4:48]
She signals she will explain what she means through a story[4:54]

Molly's first big career cliff jump at Facebook

Receiving a surprising job offer

At 25, Molly was working in human resources at Facebook[5:01]
A leader of another department asked her to help start a new project[5:07]
• The project involved doing something she knew nothing about
It was a long-term project and considered risky[5:15]
• Many people told her that the project would probably fail

Fear, advice, and inner curiosity

Molly felt intrigued by the offer but also scared[5:22]
She talked to many people about the decision[5:25]
• A lot of them told her not to take the job
Despite external advice, she had a persistent inner voice saying, "I wonder"[5:31]
• Specifically, she wondered if she could be capable in a completely new environment

Choosing to jump off the cliff

She decided to take the risk and accepted the job[5:41]
She frames this decision as a cliff jump[5:49]

Initial experience: the feeling of falling

Molly says the first nine months felt like falling off a very steep cliff[5:53]
She went from feeling competent and capable in HR to feeling like an absolute idiot[6:06]
• She sat in rooms with brilliant people and found herself asking very dumb questions
Six months into the new job, she received the lowest performance rating of her life[6:16]
• She frequently wanted to run back to the safety and security of the stairs

Turning point: leading a high-stakes meeting

Around nine months in, she had to lead a meeting[6:33]
• It was a big meeting involving a complicated debate about a nuanced part of the project
She was successful in leading this meeting[6:41]
Walking out, she vividly remembers feeling like herself again[6:49]
• She had transitioned from feeling like a beginner to feeling confident and capable in the new environment

Longer-term impact of the cliff jump

Molly spent another three years on the project learning and growing[6:58]
Afterward, she felt she was a completely different person[7:02]
She was offered jobs she would not have been offered if she had stayed in HR[7:06]

Cliff jumps as elevators, not stairs

Molly says that jumping off cliffs does not just move you a few flights up the stairs[7:15]
Instead, a cliff jump is like a weird elevator that takes you to a whole new place[7:19]
Cliff jumps teach you who you are and what you are capable of in ways the stairs never can[7:23]

Three core skills for becoming good at career cliff jumps

Skill 1: Actually jumping off the cliff

Molly acknowledges that sometimes it truly is not the right time to take a risk[7:47]
From coaching many people on career decisions, she knows timing can matter[7:41]
However, she observes that most people do not stay on the stairs out of necessity[7:58]
• In her view, people mostly stay put because of fear
She distinguishes between two types of fear[8:01]
• Fear of running out of money is real and should be listened to
• Fear of failing is different and should be treated as a green, flashing signal to jump
Cliff jumps teach you what you are capable of despite fear[8:25]

Skill 2: Surviving the fall

Jumping off a cliff means taking a giant step backward into being a beginner again[8:38]
Being a beginner makes the experience a big learning process with a huge emotional roller coaster[8:47]
Molly describes vacillating daily, weekly, and sometimes hourly between confidence and doubt[8:51]
• At times she feels, "Oh, maybe I'm going to be good at this"
• At other times she thinks, "Who the hell even gave me this job in the first place?"
She emphasizes that this emotional swing is normal and does not necessarily mean anything is wrong[9:10]
You have to learn to both expect the roller coaster and ignore it at the same time[9:13]
Her most valuable mantra in this phase is "give it two weeks"[9:19]
• She notes that advice to simply "sleep on it" is insufficient because many emotions persist past a single night
• Two weeks provides a better barometer for which feelings or issues you should truly pay attention to

Skill 3: Becoming a professional idiot

Molly claims that becoming a professional idiot is one of her greatest strengths[9:44]
She is comfortable sounding like a moron[9:53]
She is comfortable sitting in rooms with brilliant people and asking very dumb questions[9:58]
This comfort with appearing foolish actually makes her an extraordinary learner[10:06]
Her favorite way to ask is, "Sorry if this is a stupid question, but..."[10:12]
• When phrased this way, others typically rush to reassure her that it is not a dumb question
• People then often eagerly teach her what they know
• She observes that people love teaching because it makes them feel smart
She points out that most "stupid" questions are not actually stupid[10:33]
Because many people fear sounding dumb, the world is full of important questions that never get asked[10:38]
• Examples of such questions include: "Can you define that word for me?" and "Why are we doing this?"
• She adds questions like "Why are we having this meeting?" and "Why are we doing this to me?"
Molly argues that embracing being a professional idiot often makes you the most valuable person in the room[11:03]

Questioning the idea of a single staircase and single definition of success

Illusion of one set of stairs and one success path

She says that a hidden part of the stairs illusion is the belief in one set of stairs and one definition of success[11:07]
This illusion becomes more obvious the more cliffs you jump off[11:12]

Friends who climbed to the top but felt miserable

Molly has many friends who climbed up the stairs to some version of the top[11:22]
• Their achievements include fancy titles, a lot of money, and fame
Some of these friends realized that despite those markers, they were miserable[11:33]

Example of a friend who changed paths dramatically

One friend became CEO of her company and immediately thought, "Is this all there is?"[11:37]
This friend then jumped off a professional cliff[11:47]
• She went from being the CEO of a marketing agency to helping people who were dying in hospice

Conclusion: Courage to trade the known for the unknown

Acknowledging the difficulty of jumping

Molly recognizes that what she is talking about is not easy[12:01]
She says it takes bravery to trade the known for the unknown[12:06]

Willingness to move sideways or backwards

It takes courage to do something that might seem like a step sideways or backwards to someone else[12:16]

Discovering who you are through trying

Molly asserts that you will never really know who you are or what you are capable of until you learn to jump[12:20]
She closes by urging the audience to "learn how to try" and thanks them[12:27]

Podcast outro and identification

Identifying the speaker and event

Host notes that the talk was by Molly Graham speaking at TED Next 2024[12:31]

Podcast and production credits

Host states that TED Talks Daily is part of the TED Audio Collective[13:00]
The talk was fact-checked by the TED Research Team[13:03]
The episode was produced and edited by Martha Estefanos, Oliver Friedman, Brian Green, Lucy Little, and Tansika Sangmarnivong[13:11]
The episode was mixed by Christopher Fasey-Bogan, with additional support from Emma Taubner and Daniela Balarezo[13:14]
Host Elise Hugh says she will be back tomorrow with another idea and thanks listeners for listening[13:21]

Lessons Learned

Actionable insights and wisdom you can apply to your business, career, and personal life.

1

Relying solely on a linear, promotion-focused career "staircase" can trap your self-worth in titles and ratings, whereas taking non-linear risks can open doors to entirely new opportunities and identities.

Reflection Questions:

  • • Where in your career have you been prioritizing title and security over growth and learning?
  • • How might your path look different if you treated your next move as an intentional "cliff jump" rather than just the next step on the stairs?
  • • What specific opportunity have you been avoiding because it does not fit the traditional staircase model, and what is one step you could take this month to explore it?
2

Learning to distinguish between fear of true financial risk and fear of failure allows you to make bolder, smarter career moves instead of staying stuck out of generalized anxiety.

Reflection Questions:

  • • What current decision in your life feels scary, and which part of that fear is genuinely about money or survival versus ego or embarrassment?
  • • How would your options change if you treated fear of failure as a green light to experiment rather than a stop sign?
  • • What concrete guardrails (savings, timelines, contingencies) could you put in place so that you can safely ignore fear-of-failure and still respect real financial constraints?
3

Major growth periods often feel like emotional free-fall, so expecting a roller coaster and using time-based rules like "give it two weeks" can keep you from overreacting to normal turbulence.

Reflection Questions:

  • • When was the last time you abandoned something challenging too quickly because the initial discomfort felt like a sign that something was wrong?
  • • In your current challenges, what emotions might look different if you evaluated them after two weeks instead of after one bad day?
  • • What practice or reminder could you adopt to help you stay with difficult learning phases long enough to see whether they truly are a bad fit or just part of the fall?
4

Being willing to sound like a "professional idiot"-asking basic questions and admitting what you don't know-turns you into a faster learner and can make you one of the most valuable people in the room.

Reflection Questions:

  • • In which settings do you hold back questions because you are afraid of looking uninformed, and what has that cost you in understanding or impact?
  • • How might your learning accelerate if you adopted a standard phrase like "Sorry if this is a stupid question, but..." and used it regularly?
  • • What is one meeting or project this week where you could deliberately ask a clarifying question that you have been too embarrassed to raise?
5

There is no single staircase or universal definition of success; aligning your career with what actually feels meaningful to you may require steps that look sideways or backwards to others.

Reflection Questions:

  • • Whose definition of success are you currently living by, and how well does it match what genuinely matters to you?
  • • If you ignored others' expectations for a moment, what unexpected professional or personal direction would feel more fulfilling to pursue?
  • • What small, low-risk experiment could you run in the next three months to explore a path that seems "off the stairs" but resonates more deeply with who you are?

Episode Summary - Notes by Sawyer

Forget the corporate ladder - winners take risks | Molly Graham (re-release)
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