{"id":535,"date":"2024-04-08T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-04-08T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/moneywithkatie.com\/what-do-we-sacrifice-for-certainty\/"},"modified":"2025-09-03T18:50:50","modified_gmt":"2025-09-03T18:50:50","slug":"what-do-we-sacrifice-for-certainty","status":"publish","type":"essays","link":"https:\/\/moneywithkatie.com\/essays\/what-do-we-sacrifice-for-certainty\/","title":{"rendered":"What Are We Willing to Sacrifice for Certainty?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Late last year in a one-woman attempt to save legacy media, I paid $70 for an annual print subscription to New York Magazine<\/em>. (In all honesty, I was hoping physical reading material I couldn\u2019t Command-T away from would provide a more ~tactile~ experience, and so far, I feel like a 19th century poet every time I sit down with an op-ed.) This meant that, last week, the story that broke<\/span><\/a> biohacking hearts nationwide was in my hands, and Andrew Huberman\u2019s big, puppyish eyes were staring up at me from my open mailbox. <\/p>\n

I\u2019m not as interested in relitigating the claims in the piece about what happened after<\/em> he gained fame and a cult following, as much as I am intrigued by what led to his fame and cult following in the first place<\/em>. <\/p>\n

The writer, Kerry Howley, nailed his allure: \u201cHuberman offered\u2026a plan to structure your day. A plan for waking. For eating. For exercising. For sleep. At a time when life had shifted to screens, he brought people back to their corporeal selves\u2026the subtext was always the same: We may live in chaos, but there are mechanisms of control.\u201d Those mechanisms of control, also known as his \u201cprotocols,\u201d issued digestible prescriptions for living. <\/p>\n

After a re-read, I began flipping through the pages of a previous issue I hadn\u2019t finished (turns out I still need to work on the physical equivalent of a \u201cCommand-T,\u201d closing the magazine, and picking up my Small Screen instead) and discovered a story<\/span><\/a> I hadn\u2019t<\/em> seen making the rounds on Twitter. It was very similar, but like the mirrored opposite\u2014the parallel universe of Howley\u2019s expos\u00e9.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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>
\n \u201c<\/span>Both Huberman and Kennedy educate acolytes numbering in the millions about specific ways to engage with some of the most \u2018I don\u2019t know, it depends\u2019 areas of our lives: health and parenting.\u201d<\/span>\n <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n
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It was about a woman named Dr. Becky Kennedy and her 2.4 million followers on Instagram (a number that\u2019s now 200,000 higher since the story was published, me among them). Kennedy is a child psychologist-turned-parenting icon, and like Huberman, she possesses the charisma and institutional credentials that make her easy to trust. She\u2019s known chiefly for her theory (method?) of, among other things, \u201csturdy parenting.\u201d Her business, Good Inside, provides parents with resources and community\u2014with answers<\/em>\u2014in one of the most uncertain aspects of human life.<\/p>\n

From what I could discern during a close read of the story, sturdy parenting is different from traditional<\/em> parenting in the sense that it doesn\u2019t emphasize discipline and consequences, and yet it\u2019s different still from the new-age \u201cgentle parenting\u201d because it emphasizes enforcement of boundaries. Her business model is enormously profitable: She has 48,000 subscribers who each pay $276 per year, which I\u2014you already know\u2014calculated to mean $13M in recurring annual subscription revenue.<\/p>\n

Despite my child-free status, I consumed an unspeakable number of her videos with great enthusiasm. She\u2019d set up a scenario (\u201cYour kid won\u2019t get off the shed!\u201d) and play-act the wrong response (mostly yelling). And?<\/em> I\u2019d think, anxiously awaiting the big reveal, What should I say instead?<\/em>, ready to take mental notes of her response. (\u201cI\u2019ve asked you to get off the shed. I\u2019m going to come over there now. If by the time I am there, you are not off the shed, I\u2019m going to physically remove you.\u201d) Noted<\/em>. Her straightforward, highly specific advice was revelatory. Does she do adult interactions, too?<\/em><\/p>\n

I perused her comments section where the volume and caliber of discourse stunned me\u2014followers largely guiding one another, adding their own insights\u2014and observed the way Dr. Becky always seemed to have a directive to share. The experience left me feeling as though I<\/em> had been sturdy-parented.<\/p>\n

But there was a passage in the piece that struck me as eerily similar as I basked in the afterglow of the Huberman piece: \u201c[Kennedy\u2019s parenting methodology as a] trend has grown in tandem with the increasing precariousness of everyday life\u2026that nagging, unanswerable question of what constitutes enough is what has given rise to the Dr. Becky phenomenon. Among many of today\u2019s parents, there is a twin desire: for reassurance that they\u2019re doing their best and for guidance on how to do better.\u201d<\/p>\n

My comparison of these two is not to imply there\u2019s anything sinister going on with Dr. Becky, of course, just that both Huberman and Kennedy educate acolytes numbering in the millions about specific ways to engage with some of the most \u201cI don\u2019t know, it depends\u201d areas of our lives: health and parenting. <\/p>\n

Even before the Huberman Harem was revealed, the (very little) public scrutiny he did<\/em> face mostly pertained to the conclusiveness with which he presented information. His scientific claims were sometimes backed only by \u201climited animal studies,\u201d and his critics pointed out that he had a habit of \u201cposit[ing] certainty where there is ambiguity.\u201d<\/p>\n

My husband was at work when he read the Huberman piece, and we were texting about the claims. I asked him how he felt about religiously following directions that may or may not be truly <\/em>scientifically proven.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\"\"\/<\/p>\n

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\u201cBORING give me a protocol you nerd\u201d is how I\u2019m going to begin responding to ambiguous emails.<\/p>\n

The problem is, we\u2014the masses\u2014don\u2019t like ambiguity. Not to mention the fact that ambiguity does not a hit podcast make!<\/em> When it comes to high-stakes, low-confidence areas of our lives, we\u2019re willing to cede total accuracy for certainty. (I\u2019m sure you can see where I, Money<\/em> with Katie, am going with this.)<\/p>\n

We don\u2019t want correlations. We want action steps! We want someone to tell us what to do. \u201cGive us a protocol, you nerd\u201d is the rallying cry of the content creation age.<\/p>\n

In my own job, I often feel most uncomfortable in the moments where I sense my beliefs sound too dogmatic. Money is right up there alongside health and parenting with \u201cthings that really do<\/em> depend,\u201d but as ole\u2019 Hubes, Kennedy, and one of the only personal finance influencers to have millions of subscribers, Dave Ramsey, know, there\u2019s great economic value in prescriptive certainty. Ramsey\u2019s \u201cBaby Steps\u201d are an iconic example of this formulaic approach.<\/p>\n

These experts are comforting and magnetic because they have a solution for everything: Morning, low-angle sunlight as a way to<\/span><\/a> \u201cpromote early-day cortisol release\u201d (content warning: The linked citation features unsettling illustrations of a younger Huberman smoldering through his morning routine and is laden with AG1 ads; proceed with caution). \u201cSturdy parenting<\/span><\/a>,\u201d rather than punishment, as the correct way to enforce boundaries and discipline. Saving $1,000<\/span><\/a> as your beginner emergency fund as the step you must take before doing anything else.<\/p>\n

These are things that can be easily summarized in a PDF (something I inadvertently realized while hunting for citable examples, only to find that the Google search suggestions often returned \u201cpdf\u201d with the keyword). <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\n \u201c<\/span>There\u2019s great economic value in prescriptive certainty.\u201d<\/span>\n <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n
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As luck would have it, there\u2019s even an episode of Huberman Lab<\/span><\/a> wherein Dr. Becky Kennedy joins to discuss \u201cparenting protocols!\u201d (The first question he asks her: Can you give us some steps for determining how good of a parent we are<\/em>?)<\/p>\n

Part of this is just plain practical. People have looked to philosophers to make sense of the world since Ancient Greece. What are Huberman, Kennedy, and Ramsey if not modern-day philosophers with better ecommerce practices? There\u2019s less functional utility in people with wishy-washy, sometimes-contradictory takes who just kick around ideas without making any assertions. We want the seven steps, not \u201cthe seven considerations you might want to consider if you fit this narrow band of circumstances.\u201d<\/p>\n

Our search for certainty explains why some people prefer to pay down a mortgage with a 2.75% interest rate rather than deposit extra cash into the stock market. These are nearly identical choices from the standpoint of how they impact your daily financial life (i.e., you\u2019re sending money to an institution that you can no longer spend), but one promises certainty and the other does not. <\/p>\n

You know<\/em> what happens when you pay down the debt faster\u2014you save 2.75% in interest on each dollar of principal paid down. The stock market guarantees no such thing. You could make a contribution to an investment account and lose 10% that year, or make 30%. While we mostly know the average return is somewhere in the 7% per year ballpark, it involves more of a leap of faith than debt paydown. <\/p>\n

(This is my grand unifying theory about why some people are so good at paying down debt aggressively but struggle to flip the switch to aggressive wealth-building<\/em>\u2014it requires being comfortable with risk, with taking decisive action in the face of uncertainty.) <\/p>\n

In that sense, uncertainty is just another word for risk\u2014and most of us are not keen on risking the wellbeing of our health, finances, and kids with a free-wheeling approach, so anyone who seems credible and confident enough is a decent candidate for the person who gets to tell us what to do. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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>
\n \u201c<\/span>There\u2019s a certain texture our differences lend us as a collective that keeps things lively and interesting.\u201d<\/span>\n <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n
\n

So what\u2019s the risk? Perhaps a monoculture of sorts. If we\u2019re all drinking the same synthetic health powder and parenting in identical ways and approaching our money with the same cut-and-dry blueprint, maybe we all really will<\/em> be better off: living in a world full of healthy, well-regulated, debt-free automatons. But I don\u2019t know\u2014it seems like there\u2019s a certain texture our differences lend us as a collective that keeps things lively and interesting; new discoveries and breakthroughs that can only be made if there\u2019s not just one<\/em> correct way of being healthy, parenting kids, or managing money. <\/p>\n

Conceiving of these experts and their suggestions as \u201ctake what you like, leave what you don\u2019t\u201d tools has always seemed the healthiest way to engage with these titans of ideas. But it would be pretty hypocritical for me to offer you a prescriptive takeaway here, so instead, I\u2019ll conclude by saying this: I suppose the only difference between ancient philosophers and modern-day ones is that the ancient ones believed there were no answers, only questions.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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