Something to listen toChanging jobs
Blowing up your life
A podcast episode on the jolts that make you rethink your work, and how to use them
Why it’s worth your time
The moment something at work makes you want to walk out can be useful, as long as you don't act on it right away. Psychologist Anthony Klotz, who studies these jolts, talks with Shankar Vedantam about the room between quitting on the spot and pretending nothing happened.
What to do when you suddenly want to quit
- Listen to the episode.
The conversation with Klotz runs through roughly the first half. Listen for his advice to zoom in and zoom out, and for his friend Jenny's story about a toxic coworker and a request to move offices. The second half, with psychologist Ap Dijksterhuis on creative breakthroughs, is optional here. It works on a commute.
- Write down your last jolt, then zoom in and out.
Note the last moment that made you want to quit. Under it, answer two questions: do you enjoy the tasks and the people day to day, and is this job moving you toward what you want over the longer run? If the problem looks fixable, draft one change you could suggest to your boss that helps them or the team as well as you.
Good moments for this: the evening after a bad daywhen a colleague hands in noticebefore you reply to a recruiter
Keep going with Truest
Small actions add up. Truest helps you find the next thing worth doing, make the space to do it, and keep a record of your progress. It’s a private place to work on your career, and it’s yours, not your employer’s.
- It actually happensWe’ll put it on your calendar and remind you before it starts.
- Part of the check-inThe end-of-day text asks for two scores and a line; this fits in it.
- It’s yours to keepEach thing you do is saved to your private record, there when your next review or job search comes around.
Anything else we can help you with this week?
Making it work for you
Every workplace is different. Here’s what to think about before you start, and what might get in the way.
Things to think about
Klotz's examples include people who stayed and did well, and his own story of the time three friends were job hunting: he was the one who left, and all three stayed.
What might make this harder
Klotz's advice for a domineering boss is to phrase the change as a question. Turn the change you drafted into a question about what might work, instead of a request.
Questions people ask
What is the Hidden Brain episode Blowing Up Your Life about?
Host Shankar Vedantam talks with psychologist Anthony Klotz, author of Jolted, about the sudden moments that make people rethink their jobs and lives, and how to respond without acting on impulse. In the second half, psychologist Ap Dijksterhuis answers listener questions about creative breakthroughs.
What is a career jolt?
A name used in the research, alongside shocks or career shocks, for an event that knocks you off autopilot and makes you rethink your work. Klotz's book on them is called Jolted. A jolt can be big, like a diagnosis, or small.
Should I quit my job on the spot?
Klotz says that, unless something egregious has happened, impulsive quitting often ends in some regret, mostly because people rush into the next job and end up in the same situation. He suggests a middle ground: zoom in on the day-to-day and out to the longer run, and try speaking up with a fix.
How do I raise a problem with my boss?
In the episode, Klotz suggests bringing a solution, making sure it benefits more than just you, and saying the problem plainly instead of sandwiching it between compliments.
What it says, and how it holds up
You may have had a day when one remark, one mistake or one piece of news made the whole job look different. Psychologist Anthony Klotz of University College London calls these jolts, and in his telling, the research on why people quit finds that about half of resignations start with a one-off event rather than slow deliberation. A jolt can show you something true about your job without telling you what to do about it.
The episode is built from stories. Klotz quit a high school job at a lumberyard on the spot when his boss suggested he and a friend had planned their time off together, which seemed to Klotz like an accusation of lying. Years later, a flour shortage he caused shut down a cereal plant and redirected his career. Jürgen Klopp, Chris Hemsworth, Pat Tillman and Bob Iger show jolts leading to leaving, to small changes, to a new path entirely, and to staying put. The practical advice comes near the end of his segment: a way of looking at the job close up and from a distance, and a few rules for speaking up.
Klotz names one limit of the evidence: there isn't much research, he says, on how people feel after impulsive quits. He also says the regret tends to come from the rushed next job more than from leaving itself. The famous examples are vivid, and they're people with unusual freedom to choose. Vedantam does point out that being able to walk off a job is itself a privilege. A listener's story in the middle, of a gut warning she set aside and the hard years that followed, is a useful counterweight to the idea that waiting is always wise.
The episode is about whether and how to respond, and it says little about where to go next. If the zoom-out question has already answered itself and you're leaving, Klotz's warning about regret points to the next job as the thing to slow down on, and that calls for different work: deciding what you want from the next role before the search starts.
You might like
More in Changing jobs
See allRead this alongside your role page
Tell Truest what you’re dealing with
We read every one, and we write guides for the things that come up most. Leave your email if you’d like to hear when we do.
Picked by Truest and described in our own words. The original belongs to its creator. Last updated October 9, 2026. We sell a career membership; where that’s relevant above, we say so.