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0:01:18 I think all of us, at some point,
0:01:21 have wondered why we are the way we are.
0:01:24 Maybe you’re a little neurotic, a worrier,
0:01:28 or maybe you’re a tad abrasive, confrontational,
0:01:30 or a bit evasive.
0:01:32 Maybe you don’t think enough about others,
0:01:35 or maybe you do, but just a little too much.
0:01:38 We see our faults as faults.
0:01:41 But aren’t they really just our personalities?
0:01:43 And what is that exactly?
0:01:45 A personality.
0:01:46 Is it something we’re born with?
0:01:49 Does it shift over time?
0:01:51 Can we think and act our way into being a different and,
0:01:53 hopefully, better person?
0:01:59 I’m Sean Elling, and this is “The Gray Area.”
0:02:07 Today’s guest is Olga Hazan.
0:02:08 She’s a staff writer at The Atlantic
0:02:11 and the author of the book “Me But Better–
0:02:14 The Science and Promise of Personality Change.”
0:02:17 The book is a joy to read, full of ideas,
0:02:19 but also personal in the sense that Olga documents
0:02:22 her year-long effort to change things
0:02:24 she doesn’t like about her own personality.
0:02:28 Along the way, she does a nice job of weaving in the science
0:02:31 and marking the limits of what we know and don’t know.
0:02:35 It’s honest, curious, and reflective.
0:02:37 And so, it turns out, is Olga.
0:02:39 So I invited her on the show.
0:02:47 Olga Hazan, welcome to the show.
0:02:48 Thanks so much for having me.
0:02:51 So let’s start with the basics here,
0:02:55 because personality is one of those concepts
0:03:00 that we all intuitively understand what it signifies,
0:03:01 at least loosely.
0:03:04 But it is pretty tricky to define.
0:03:06 You’ve now written a book on it, so give me
0:03:10 your neatest, clearest definition.
0:03:16 Yeah, personality is the consistent thoughts and behaviors
0:03:18 that you have every day.
0:03:21 And some researchers think that, in addition
0:03:24 to just having those thoughts and feelings and behaviors,
0:03:26 they also help you achieve your goals.
0:03:29 So depending on what your goals are,
0:03:32 your personality kind of helps you get there.
0:03:34 An example of this would be the personality
0:03:38 trait of agreeableness, which helps you make friends
0:03:39 and social connections.
0:03:42 So people who tend to be more agreeable also
0:03:45 tend to value friendships and connections
0:03:47 and achieve more of those.
0:03:50 You use the word consistent there.
0:03:54 To what extent is personality just a performance?
0:03:57 And to what extent is it something much more concrete?
0:04:02 So personality is, in some ways, a performance.
0:04:05 Let’s say you describe yourself as an introvert,
0:04:07 but you have to give a big talk.
0:04:09 And it’s very important to your career
0:04:12 that this talk go well, right?
0:04:16 You are probably going to perform, to a certain extent,
0:04:17 extraversion.
0:04:20 Or let’s say you’re going into a room full of investors,
0:04:22 and you have to raise money for your startup,
0:04:25 but you’re just a very introverted coder guy who just
0:04:28 wants to code all day and not talk to anyone.
0:04:31 You’re going to perform extraversion in that situation,
0:04:33 too, because it’s very important for you
0:04:37 to get whatever is at the end of that performance.
0:04:39 The money or the professional accolades
0:04:42 or whatever comes with it, it doesn’t have to be financial.
0:04:45 It could be going on a first date is kind of a performance
0:04:46 as well.
0:04:50 So we do all perform elements of these traits
0:04:52 every single day.
0:04:54 But what most researchers think is
0:04:57 that there is sort of a tendency that we all
0:05:03 have toward a certain pattern of behaviors and thoughts that
0:05:06 are more or less consistent, especially if we don’t try
0:05:08 to change them in any meaningful way,
0:05:11 that you kind of get up and you have these little patterns
0:05:12 that you fall into.
0:05:14 And that’s sort of like your, quote, unquote,
0:05:16 “natural” personality.
0:05:22 So we have what people call the big five personality traits–
0:05:25 neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness,
0:05:28 which you just mentioned, openness to experience,
0:05:31 and conscientiousness.
0:05:33 Are these categories generally accepted
0:05:38 in the field of psychology, and how useful do you find them?
0:05:40 They are generally accepted.
0:05:43 That’s now, if you read a personality study,
0:05:46 it will be most likely based on the big five.
0:05:48 So things like Ania Graham and Myers-Briggs
0:05:51 are not generally accepted.
0:05:54 That said, they are imperfect.
0:05:57 There are some cultures that have traits
0:05:59 that are very important in those cultures
0:06:02 that the big five doesn’t really pick up as much.
0:06:06 Meanwhile, things like openness, it’s sort of a catch-all.
0:06:12 It doesn’t really map very cleanly onto someone’s personality
0:06:14 as other people would observe it.
0:06:15 So yeah, it is valid.
0:06:16 It has weaknesses.
0:06:22 But personality is so hard to measure and kind of scientifically
0:06:24 get your head around that it’s sort of the best
0:06:25 that we have right now.
0:06:29 Well, part of the inspiration for this project
0:06:36 is that you wanted to change some things about yourself.
0:06:37 So what did you want to change?
0:06:40 And why don’t you love yourself, Olga?
0:06:42 Don’t you know you’re good enough and smart enough
0:06:43 and people like you?
0:06:45 Why do you want to change?
0:06:47 Yeah, so I did want to change.
0:06:50 And I also love myself.
0:06:53 The two are not mutually exclusive.
0:06:55 Though I know that it can feel that way,
0:06:58 that if you admit that you want to change,
0:07:01 that it can feel like you’re saying that you don’t love
0:07:02 yourself.
0:07:05 But I think that’s where the idea of personality traits
0:07:07 as tools to help you achieve your goals
0:07:09 can be really helpful.
0:07:11 Because we all have goals we want to achieve,
0:07:14 even if we all like our lives and ourselves.
0:07:17 And for me, what I realized is that things were going well.
0:07:20 I had a pretty nice life.
0:07:21 Nothing was seriously wrong.
0:07:26 But my reactions to situations were not benefiting me.
0:07:31 They were kind of undermining me and making me not
0:07:32 able to enjoy my life.
0:07:37 So I start the book out with this actually great sounding
0:07:41 now as a new parent of this great sounding day in Miami,
0:07:43 where honestly, all that happened
0:07:46 is that I got a bad haircut, then immediately
0:07:48 had to get professional photos taken,
0:07:51 then got stuck in traffic, and then
0:07:57 had this weird debacle with a grocery store shopping cart.
0:08:02 And honestly, just because of my high neuroticism at the time,
0:08:05 the accumulation of all of those small things
0:08:09 made me have this epic meltdown when I got back to my hotel.
0:08:13 And I realized that that happened a lot in various ways.
0:08:17 Small things would happen that would make me not
0:08:19 able to appreciate the big picture or not
0:08:23 able to just be happy with what I have or be grateful.
0:08:25 And so that’s really what I wanted to work on
0:08:27 is appreciating my life for what it was.
0:08:31 And also just outside of neuroticism,
0:08:34 I was feeling the COVID social isolation.
0:08:38 And I wanted to deepen my social connections as well.
0:08:40 So that’s why I wanted to change.
0:08:45 Would you say that you had or have a tendency to catastrophize?
0:08:46 Because I do.
0:08:48 And I don’t know if that’s a function of neuroticism
0:08:51 or something else, but I would say that is the one thing
0:08:55 that I’m trying most aggressively to stop.
0:08:58 Is that tendency part of neuroticism?
0:09:00 Or is it a little more complicated than that?
0:09:04 Yeah, it’s definitely part of neuroticism.
0:09:06 Neuroticism is sort of the trait that’s–
0:09:09 so to kind of simplify it, it’s associated
0:09:10 with depression and anxiety.
0:09:15 And basically, all those are just like a feeling of threat.
0:09:19 Like you just constantly see threats everywhere.
0:09:21 The reason you’re catastrophizing
0:09:24 is not because you’re silly or because you’re not realistic,
0:09:27 but because you kind of can see the threats coming
0:09:29 from every direction.
0:09:32 And you’re like, how do I prevent those from happening?
0:09:35 And that’s what makes people who are high in neuroticism
0:09:36 so miserable.
0:09:38 Well, I like the–
0:09:41 I think it was Jud Brewer argument
0:09:45 that you talk about in the book that anxiety is a habit loop
0:09:51 where anxiety triggers the behavior of worry, which
0:09:53 feels like it’s a temporary relief,
0:09:56 but really it just makes us more anxious in the long run.
0:09:57 And this is something–
0:10:01 this is something neurotic people do by default, right?
0:10:04 I mean, it’s just the first instinct.
0:10:05 Oh, yeah.
0:10:08 I always thought anxiety and worry were the same thing.
0:10:09 But worry is actually–
0:10:10 it’s a behavior.
0:10:13 It’s almost like a self-soothing behavior.
0:10:15 And people who are very anxious think
0:10:19 that if you just worry enough, you won’t be anxious anymore.
0:10:21 But instead, worry kind of sometimes
0:10:23 can make you more anxious.
0:10:25 Like you’re never going to get to the end of the worrying.
0:10:28 Well, it’s also about the discomfort with uncertainty,
0:10:29 right?
0:10:30 You talk about the neurotic person
0:10:34 is the one who gets the have a second–
0:10:37 do you have a second slack from your boss and freaks out?
0:10:38 I’m the type.
0:10:40 If I get that, do you have a second out of nowhere
0:10:41 from the boss?
0:10:46 I’m filing for food stamps before lunch.
0:10:49 It’s just my mind just goes there.
0:10:51 OK, this is becoming too much about me already.
0:10:52 No, it’s OK.
0:10:52 Yeah, I know.
0:10:53 I’m right there with you.
0:10:55 But uncertainty is wrapped up with this, right?
0:11:01 It’s just– it’s an uneasiness about what the future might
0:11:04 hold and our ability to control or not control.
0:11:08 And so you’re just anxious about the world.
0:11:13 And I mean, I’m sure there’s evolutionary utility in that.
0:11:15 But boy, past a certain point, it just
0:11:18 becomes pathological, really.
0:11:21 Yeah, I mean, that’s a huge part of it.
0:11:23 Neuroticism is all intertwined with a feeling
0:11:27 of wanting control, of really fearing uncertainty.
0:11:29 In the modern world, it’s all about learning
0:11:33 how to live with uncertainty and accept
0:11:37 that there is uncertainty in the world without letting
0:11:40 it rule you, basically, this fear of uncertainty.
0:11:41 What about agreeableness?
0:11:43 Agreeableness sounds pretty agreeable.
0:11:48 I mean, nobody wants to be called disagreeable, I don’t think.
0:11:51 But is agreeableness more complicated than that?
0:11:53 I mean, how much agreeableness is too much?
0:11:57 When do we need to be a little disagreeable?
0:12:02 Yeah, agreeableness was one of the ones that I was working on.
0:12:07 And it’s basically like warmth and empathy toward others
0:12:09 and also trust.
0:12:13 And that element of agreeableness can be really good.
0:12:15 And it can deepen your relationships
0:12:18 and give you more fulfilling friendships.
0:12:22 Where some people say that they’re actually too agreeable
0:12:25 and they want to pair back is when they feel like they’re
0:12:27 being people-pleasers.
0:12:30 And they feel like people walk all over them
0:12:32 or they don’t know how to say no.
0:12:34 So part of agreeableness is learning
0:12:38 how to communicate boundaries, how to make friends,
0:12:40 but also not just by saying yes to everything
0:12:42 that your friends ask of you.
0:12:46 And to still have your own boundaries and your own things
0:12:48 that you’re willing and not willing to do.
0:12:52 So for your year-long personality transformation
0:12:55 project, you did focus on all five of these traits
0:12:57 to varying degrees.
0:13:01 Which did you find was the hardest to tweak in any direction?
0:13:05 So neuroticism was the hardest by far for me.
0:13:11 It is because the way to improve on neuroticism
0:13:15 is meditation or any kind of mindfulness practice.
0:13:23 It can be yoga, not core power, like slow contemplative yoga.
0:13:26 It can be different forms of mindfulness,
0:13:28 but it’s basically mindfulness.
0:13:30 And I found that really challenging.
0:13:33 I am not a natural meditator.
0:13:37 I kind of have a loop of ongoing concerns and worries
0:13:42 and to-do list when I’m not thinking about anything.
0:13:45 I don’t like it when people are too relaxed.
0:13:48 I find that irritating.
0:13:48 Really?
0:13:50 Why?
0:13:52 I just– I think it was a little bit hard for me
0:13:54 to let go of my anxiety.
0:13:58 Because on some level, I think–
0:13:59 and I still sometimes kind of think this–
0:14:04 I think that anxiety is protective, at least for me.
0:14:07 It forces me to do things.
0:14:07 And it helps me.
0:14:10 It is like the fire under me.
0:14:14 And I think at times, I was a little bit like, oh, sure.
0:14:17 This is fine for people who don’t have a lot going on,
0:14:19 but I need my anxiety.
0:14:21 How long did you try meditating?
0:14:24 I mean, did you ultimately find it to be helpful?
0:14:30 Did you score less neurotic at the end of that practice?
0:14:32 I think I did meditation really, really seriously
0:14:34 for about six months of this.
0:14:39 And it did work in the sense that my neuroticism went down.
0:14:44 But when I said that neuroticism is depression and anxiety,
0:14:47 it was actually mostly my depression score that went down.
0:14:49 So I became less depressed.
0:14:54 And my anxiety also went down, but it was still quite high.
0:14:56 It was not as high as it had been,
0:14:59 but it didn’t go away completely.
0:15:02 But I think one reason why I became less depressed
0:15:06 is that the class that I took, which was called MBSR–
0:15:08 it was the meditation class that I took–
0:15:12 had a lot of Buddhist teachings that were part of it.
0:15:14 So one of the things that my meditation teacher said
0:15:18 was things happen that we don’t like.
0:15:21 And for me, even though obviously things
0:15:23 happen that we don’t like, I realized
0:15:26 that I was someone who, when things would go wrong,
0:15:29 I would start to blame myself very intensely.
0:15:32 And I would have this very intense self-blame that would
0:15:36 be very hard to break out of, even if it was something that
0:15:37 was clearly not my fault.
0:15:42 It was like an act of God or really awful traffic
0:15:46 or just something that had nothing to do with me.
0:15:48 I would start to be like, well, I should have left earlier.
0:15:50 I should have, blah, blah, blah, I should have predicted this.
0:15:54 And I think just this reminder that things happen that we don’t
0:15:56 like and that everyone has things that happen in their life
0:15:57 that they would rather not happen.
0:16:00 And we all have to deal with that.
0:16:03 I don’t know, that was weirdly very helpful to me.
0:16:06 What is the scientifically best personality?
0:16:09 And look, there is a part of my philosophical soul
0:16:12 that shudders, even at asking this question,
0:16:14 because I don’t think science can make these kind of value
0:16:15 judgments.
0:16:19 But what I’m getting at is, what does the research
0:16:21 on happiness and personality tell us
0:16:25 about what kinds of traits tend to be most correlated
0:16:29 with happiness and well-being and a flourishing life?
0:16:32 If your goal is happiness, which I am not saying that it has
0:16:34 to be, there’s more life than happiness.
0:16:38 But as far as happiness, well-being, longevity,
0:16:42 all those goodies, it’s basically being high but not
0:16:45 too high on all of the five traits.
0:16:48 So being pretty extroverted, pretty agreeable,
0:16:53 pretty open to experiences, quite very conscientious,
0:16:57 and then very emotionally stable.
0:17:00 You say in the book that extroverts are happier, in part,
0:17:05 because they interpret ambiguous stimuli more positively.
0:17:06 How true is this?
0:17:08 I mean, I’m sure there are some people out there
0:17:11 who might find this kind of claim a little crude.
0:17:15 So how clear is the evidence on this?
0:17:19 How confident are we that extroverts in general are happier?
0:17:22 I mean, they certainly look like they’re having more fun,
0:17:24 but that’s anecdotal.
0:17:26 So the evidence that extroverts are happier
0:17:28 is pretty consistent.
0:17:31 It’s been replicated quite a few times,
0:17:33 including by researchers who weren’t connected
0:17:36 to the original studies and were dubious,
0:17:39 and they replicated it.
0:17:41 And the one researcher who did that, who I talked to,
0:17:43 is himself an introvert.
0:17:44 So it is pretty clear.
0:17:47 The reasons why are less clear.
0:17:49 So as you mentioned, one interpretation
0:17:52 is that they walk into a room full of people,
0:17:56 and they’re all strangers, and they don’t immediately
0:17:57 get a smile out of anyone.
0:18:01 It’s just kind of a straight-faced kind of people
0:18:03 are like, what are you doing here?
0:18:05 I, an introvert, would be like, oh, my god.
0:18:07 I’m not supposed to be here.
0:18:09 Nobody likes me.
0:18:12 I need to leave kind of just like flea, flea, flea.
0:18:13 It’s that self-talk, right?
0:18:15 All that self-chat-er.
0:18:16 Right, right, right.
0:18:19 An extrovert would be like, oh, awesome.
0:18:21 I just need to introduce myself around.
0:18:24 And pretty soon, people will warm up to me.
0:18:27 They just have a different interpretation of events
0:18:30 that helps them be happier.
0:18:32 They are more active.
0:18:34 They’re just always out and doing things,
0:18:36 like the people who are signed up for a million clubs
0:18:39 and things are extroverts.
0:18:43 And they have more social connections, not just friends.
0:18:46 They also have more weak ties, more acquaintances,
0:18:49 just people they talk to throughout the day.
0:18:52 And that helps them feel happier.
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0:22:38 (upbeat music)
0:22:55 – Well, let’s talk about change,
0:22:58 the science of personality change.
0:23:02 As you say in the book, there is this idea
0:23:07 that at around 30, our personalities are set like plaster.
0:23:11 How true is that?
0:23:15 I mean, how fixed is our personality?
0:23:20 – So that idea is sort of not considered
0:23:23 totally true anymore.
0:23:25 There’s been quite a bit of research that shows
0:23:29 that even when people don’t try to change,
0:23:31 they actually end up changing
0:23:33 over the course of their lives.
0:23:37 So one example is that people get less neurotic
0:23:38 as they get older.
0:23:40 They also tend to get less open to experiences.
0:23:44 So if you ever notice that people get more conservative
0:23:45 as they get older, that could be
0:23:48 because openness to experiences goes down.
0:23:49 In studies where they follow people
0:23:52 over decades and decades, most of those people
0:23:55 in those studies change on at least one personality trait
0:24:00 from young adulthood to late adulthood, their 60s.
0:24:04 So it’s true, you’re not gonna be like unrecognizable
0:24:08 probably, but people do change over time
0:24:09 just kind of naturally.
0:24:12 But what kind of the heart of my book is about
0:24:15 is about changing your personality intentionally,
0:24:18 which is sort of an even newer branch of research
0:24:20 where they actually ask people
0:24:22 if they would like to change their personalities,
0:24:24 give them activities that are meant
0:24:26 to help change their personalities
0:24:29 and then kind of measure their personalities after the fact.
0:24:33 And so then your personality would change even more.
0:24:34 – This part of it is so interesting to me.
0:24:37 I mean, I’ve had psychologists on the show
0:24:40 before people like Paul Bloom who I love.
0:24:42 I think he’s just fantastic.
0:24:47 And I may be bastardizing his argument here.
0:24:49 So if you’re listening, Paul, you can write in and tell me.
0:24:52 But he always says something to the effect,
0:24:55 not necessarily that we look, you are your brain
0:24:56 and that’s it.
0:25:01 But he does suggest that by the time you’re pretty young,
0:25:04 five, six, seven, eight, whatever,
0:25:08 somewhere around there, your personality is kind of clear
0:25:09 and it’s kind of constant.
0:25:11 You kind of are what you are.
0:25:12 You can tinker a little bit at the margins
0:25:14 and the environment matters.
0:25:15 Of course, it always matters,
0:25:19 but you really are sort of, you kind of are what you are,
0:25:22 which isn’t to say that you can’t change anything,
0:25:24 but you kind of are what you are.
0:25:27 I mean, do you think that is a little overstated?
0:25:29 – Yeah, I mean, I think,
0:25:30 so there is a little bit of truth to that.
0:25:34 So part of personality is inherited, right?
0:25:36 It is genetic.
0:25:39 So like, in some ways you start to see
0:25:41 someone’s personality emerge in childhood
0:25:45 and like they’re gonna be kind of like that.
0:25:47 You know, probably for the rest of their lives,
0:25:51 like, you know, barring anything major.
0:25:53 But when you talk about tinkering at the margins,
0:25:56 like that is actually like quite important.
0:26:00 Like a lot of therapy is basically
0:26:02 just tinkering at the margins.
0:26:05 Like one of the books that I read kind of
0:26:08 in reporting out my book is 10% happier.
0:26:11 And that was Dan Harris meditating every day
0:26:16 for like an hour a day, just to become 10% happier.
0:26:18 – That’s a lot though.
0:26:18 10% is a lot.
0:26:19 – Yeah, yeah.
0:26:21 I mean, but that’s, so like it kind of is,
0:26:22 it depends on how you look at it.
0:26:26 Like, I was a really anxious kid and I’m an anxious adult.
0:26:30 You know, does that mean that I am exactly the same
0:26:31 as I was when I was seven?
0:26:34 I mean, you know, I’m recognizable,
0:26:39 but I also think that I have knowledge and tools now
0:26:44 to like control my anxiety a lot better obviously
0:26:47 than I did when I was a kid or a teen, even a young adult.
0:26:48 So I don’t know.
0:26:51 I think that’s true, but also the margins
0:26:53 are really important.
0:26:56 – Yeah, no, there’s a lot of difference in that.
0:26:58 Little tweaks here and there do matter.
0:27:01 So, you know, thoughts and behaviors
0:27:02 are these two elements of personality.
0:27:05 I mean, how much power do we really have
0:27:08 to alter our behavior by consciously,
0:27:11 deliberately altering our thoughts?
0:27:13 I mean, how clear is that relationship?
0:27:16 Because if it is fairly clear that that is,
0:27:19 seems like one of the more reliable ways to go about,
0:27:23 you know, making some of these tweaks.
0:27:25 – The traits where it’s all behavioral
0:27:28 are definitely the easiest to change.
0:27:31 So conscientiousness is a good example of this.
0:27:34 It’s the one that’s all about being organized
0:27:37 and on time, eating healthy, you know, exercising.
0:27:40 What they’ve found is basically that
0:27:43 you don’t have to like really want it
0:27:45 in order to become more conscientious.
0:27:47 You just kind of have to do the stuff
0:27:49 associated with conscientiousness.
0:27:51 So like making the to-do list,
0:27:53 making the calendar reminders,
0:27:57 leaving, you know, whatever, 10 minutes earlier,
0:27:58 you know, decluttering your closets.
0:28:01 Like if you do enough of that stuff,
0:28:03 kind of regularly and consistently,
0:28:06 that is conscientiousness.
0:28:07 Like you will become more conscientious.
0:28:10 You will get stuff done and like achieve your goals
0:28:14 and have a higher level of conscientiousness.
0:28:16 With some of the other ones like neuroticism
0:28:18 or even agreeableness,
0:28:21 like the reason why they’re harder to change
0:28:23 is that you have to really want it.
0:28:26 And it is kind of more about your thought processes
0:28:29 and like challenging your thoughts
0:28:33 and, you know, thinking about situations differently.
0:28:37 Like if I was to revisit that day in Florida,
0:28:39 now or in Miami,
0:28:42 I wouldn’t necessarily like do anything differently.
0:28:44 I would just think about it differently.
0:28:47 And I would be less anxious
0:28:49 as a result of how I was thinking about it.
0:28:52 But like that is obviously harder
0:28:53 than like making a to-do list.
0:28:58 – Well, I did, I like that quote from Jerome Brunner
0:28:59 in the book.
0:29:01 You more likely act yourself into feeling
0:29:05 than feel yourself into action,
0:29:07 which kind of just feels like, you know, fake it
0:29:08 till you make it.
0:29:10 – So Nate Hudson, who’s like the main researcher
0:29:12 that does the personality change research
0:29:15 is I think my quote from him was like,
0:29:18 fake it till you make it is a reasonable way
0:29:21 to do personality change.
0:29:24 And that’s because a lot of this is sort of like
0:29:26 the actions kind of make you think
0:29:27 about things differently.
0:29:31 So one example for me was with Extraversion,
0:29:34 where I really did not want to go to all the stuff
0:29:35 that I signed up for.
0:29:38 So I signed up for like improv class
0:29:41 and I just really dreaded it every single time.
0:29:43 I did not really want to go,
0:29:46 but I kind of found that if I like made myself go,
0:29:47 it would make me happier.
0:29:50 And I did have a good time and I enjoyed it,
0:29:54 but it just like my thought process around improv
0:29:55 was I’m not good at it.
0:29:56 I’m not going to have fun.
0:29:57 I don’t like this.
0:29:58 I’m an introvert.
0:30:01 So that was like sort of the clearest example of how
0:30:04 sometimes you just kind of have to do something
0:30:07 and the thoughts will follow from there.
0:30:09 – I want to talk more about improv.
0:30:11 I’ve always wanted to do it.
0:30:12 But again, I’m an introvert.
0:30:15 And I feel like I would just be paralyzed up there.
0:30:18 But tell me about how long you did that
0:30:21 and how transformative it was.
0:30:24 – Improv was probably one of the best things I did.
0:30:26 And also the scariest.
0:30:30 I did that for about a year kind of like,
0:30:32 but it was like several sessions of improv
0:30:35 that I guess altogether was about a year of a year’s worth.
0:30:40 And I was at times so afraid that I froze up
0:30:44 and like didn’t know what to say next.
0:30:47 But something that’s really cool about improv is that like,
0:30:50 it’s all about learning that other people
0:30:54 can supply part of the interaction, right?
0:30:57 Like you’re not responsible for everything
0:30:59 going right in improv.
0:31:04 It’s okay if things are just kind of chaotic and strange
0:31:06 and not going perfectly.
0:31:08 And I don’t know, it’s like a good lesson
0:31:09 to have for social interaction.
0:31:12 ‘Cause a lot of times when you’re just out there
0:31:15 dealing with people, it’s going to be kind of crazy
0:31:17 and you just kind of have to roll with it.
0:31:21 And I don’t know, to me that was like a good thing to see.
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0:34:56 – Well, look, there’s a,
0:34:59 I think a very important question you posed near the end.
0:35:01 And I wanna ask it here.
0:35:07 How do you know when to keep trying to change?
0:35:09 I mean, how do you know when you’ve tried enough?
0:35:12 I mean, isn’t there some point at which
0:35:15 you do more harm by resisting who you are?
0:35:19 And would be better off just making peace with that.
0:35:19 – Yeah.
0:35:21 I mean, this is like, you know,
0:35:25 it’s not gonna be a hard and fast rule for everyone.
0:35:28 But what I found is that when I was doing things
0:35:31 that were like no longer enjoyable on any level
0:35:36 and were not getting me any closer to like what I valued
0:35:37 or like what I actually wanted
0:35:40 is sort of when I would give up on them.
0:35:44 So the big example of this is that I led a meetup group
0:35:48 for a while based around foreign films, which is my hobby.
0:35:53 And I just like didn’t really enjoy it.
0:35:54 I just don’t like running meetings.
0:35:58 I do moderate professionally for work,
0:36:01 but like I just don’t like to do it in my free time.
0:36:05 I guess I just, and it kind of like wasn’t, you know,
0:36:07 I didn’t have that high afterward,
0:36:09 like I did after improv where I was like,
0:36:10 yes, that was so fun.
0:36:13 I kind of felt just like, oh, thank God that’s over.
0:36:14 And to me, that was like a sign
0:36:16 that it was maybe just time to wrap up
0:36:19 and like hand it over to someone else.
0:36:20 And I think that’s okay.
0:36:22 Like you don’t, you know,
0:36:23 trying something doesn’t mean you’re like stuck with it
0:36:25 for life.
0:36:27 – Yeah, and look, I ask this in part
0:36:31 because I am sympathetic to the idea that,
0:36:36 you know, being a little maladapted to a world
0:36:39 that’s actually pretty shitty in lots of ways
0:36:40 isn’t the worst thing.
0:36:43 And our society has a way of conspiring
0:36:47 to make good and honest people feel weird and unlikeable.
0:36:50 And that’s a society problem, not a you problem,
0:36:53 but also it is generally healthy to be well adjusted.
0:36:56 So I don’t want to gloss over that either.
0:37:00 – Yeah, and I mean, even things like neuroticism,
0:37:03 you know, in small amounts or in certain situations
0:37:05 can have some benefits.
0:37:08 Like, I mean, I never did away with my anxiety completely.
0:37:10 It’s now like at more manageable levels,
0:37:12 but it’s not like gone.
0:37:17 And, you know, in the last chapter,
0:37:19 I interviewed Tracy Dennis Tawari,
0:37:22 who is a psychologist.
0:37:25 And she talks about how anxiety can have
0:37:27 some positive elements.
0:37:32 And when her son was born, he had like a heart condition.
0:37:35 And she talks about how anxiety really helped her
0:37:38 prioritize like finding the right specialists,
0:37:40 you know, getting him the right treatment,
0:37:42 coming up with a good treatment plan,
0:37:44 you know, all of the things that are involved
0:37:46 in caring for a sick child.
0:37:49 It would be hard to do that stuff
0:37:51 if you were completely not anxious,
0:37:53 like if you just didn’t care about anything.
0:37:56 Like anxiety is in some ways a way of caring.
0:38:00 So, you know, I think it’s fine to like find ways
0:38:03 of living with your anxiety,
0:38:06 but to not like do away with it entirely.
0:38:10 – Well, what are the most concrete,
0:38:14 practical interventions you discovered along the way
0:38:17 that people might find useful in their own efforts
0:38:22 to improve or align their values and actions?
0:38:23 – Sure, I will just toss some out
0:38:25 that I found worked really well for me.
0:38:27 I would sign up for something.
0:38:30 Don’t just tell yourself you’re gonna go out
0:38:33 to drinks with your friends more.
0:38:37 Like sign up for a thing that like requires you to be there.
0:38:40 With improv, you couldn’t miss more than two classes.
0:38:43 So you had to go, even if you didn’t feel like going.
0:38:44 – Accountability, right?
0:38:45 There’s some accountability.
0:38:46 – Yeah, like that’s what I would do for extroversion
0:38:48 is I would sign up for a thing.
0:38:51 For conscientiousness,
0:38:54 I would actually start by decluttering.
0:38:57 Like if you feel like you’re really disorganized
0:39:01 before trying to like quote unquote get organized,
0:39:04 I would just throw away as much stuff as possible.
0:39:07 That was like the loud and clear thing
0:39:09 that all the professional organizers told me
0:39:13 is that like it’s all about just like having less stuff
0:39:14 in your life.
0:39:16 And that can be like, you know, commitments too
0:39:19 and like sort of extraneous stuff that you’re doing.
0:39:25 And I honestly would take a meditation class
0:39:27 for anyone who’s interested in, you know,
0:39:30 reducing their neuroticism to whatever degree.
0:39:32 Even if not, like it’s just like an interesting
0:39:38 intellectual exercise and, you know,
0:39:39 possibly an emotional exercise.
0:39:44 – Yeah, I found the ACT acronym, the ACT acronym,
0:39:48 pretty handy actually.
0:39:51 It’s, you know, accept your negative feelings,
0:39:55 commit to your values and take action.
0:39:57 And you can say anything you like about that,
0:40:02 but certainly the acceptance part seems really fundamental.
0:40:04 I mean, one thing that comes across
0:40:07 in a lot of the stories you tell in the book
0:40:10 is that it doesn’t matter who you are,
0:40:12 what you do, where you are,
0:40:15 you’re going to have negative feelings all the damn time.
0:40:19 And we add so much unnecessary suffering to our lives
0:40:22 when we resist those feelings.
0:40:25 Anyway, I’ll let you say anything you want about that.
0:40:26 – Yeah, absolutely.
0:40:28 Yeah, I thought that’s so helpful.
0:40:31 And that was really how a lot of the people who
0:40:34 I talked to who did change their personalities
0:40:36 kind of muddled through
0:40:39 because those first few attempts at, you know,
0:40:41 being extroverted or, you know,
0:40:43 even being conscientious can feel really uncomfortable.
0:40:45 Like getting up at, you know,
0:40:47 5 a.m. to go for a run is uncomfortable.
0:40:49 And so they really were just like,
0:40:51 I’m going to feel uncomfortable.
0:40:53 Like I’m not going to like this at first,
0:40:54 but it’s important to me that I keep doing this.
0:40:57 And so I’m going to take action and actually do it.
0:40:58 And I don’t know.
0:41:01 I think that’s like a good little rule to live by
0:41:03 for things that matter to you.
0:41:08 – How important is it to really believe in your own agency?
0:41:12 Is that a fundamental precondition of any kind of change?
0:41:14 To believe that it’s possible
0:41:18 that you have the freedom and the will to do that?
0:41:21 – The argument that I always get into with people is like,
0:41:24 some people think that like people never change, right?
0:41:26 And kind of the extension of that is like,
0:41:29 I will never change because people never change.
0:41:31 And if that’s truly what you think,
0:41:33 you probably aren’t going to try to change
0:41:35 and you probably won’t change.
0:41:38 There does have to be like some fundamental openness
0:41:42 to change in order to even like embark on something like this,
0:41:45 because it takes a lot of like energy and courage
0:41:46 to do some of this stuff.
0:41:50 And you can’t follow through on it
0:41:53 if you think that like it’s not going to work.
0:41:54 – All right.
0:41:57 Once again, the book is called “Me but Better,
0:42:00 the Science and Promise of Personality Change.”
0:42:03 Olga Hazan, this was fun.
0:42:03 Thank you.
0:42:05 – Yeah, thanks so much for having me.
0:42:06 This was great.
0:42:09 (upbeat music)
0:42:14 – All right, I hope you enjoyed this episode.
0:42:16 I know I did.
0:42:18 Personality change is something I thought about a lot
0:42:21 over the years in part because I’m constantly trying
0:42:24 to fix things about myself.
0:42:27 This book and this conversation gave me
0:42:29 some useful perspective on that,
0:42:31 both that it’s completely cool
0:42:33 to want to improve things about yourself,
0:42:36 but also it’s important to make peace with who you are
0:42:39 and not make yourself miserable fighting that.
0:42:43 But as always, I want to know what you think.
0:42:46 So drop us a line at the grayarea@box.com
0:42:49 or leave us a message on our new voicemail line
0:42:53 at 1-800-214-5749.
0:42:54 And once you’re finished with that,
0:42:56 please go ahead, rate and review
0:42:58 and subscribe to the podcast.
0:43:01 This episode was produced by Beth Morrissey,
0:43:05 edited by Jorge Just, engineered by Christian Ayala,
0:43:08 fact checked by Melissa Hirsch,
0:43:10 and Alex Ovington wrote our theme music.
0:43:12 New episodes of the grayarea drop on Mondays,
0:43:14 listen and subscribe.
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0:43:18 support Vox’s journalism by joining
0:43:19 our membership program today.
0:43:23 Go to vox.com/members to sign up.
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0:43:26 let us know.
0:43:38 – All right, Sean, you can do this promo
0:43:41 talking about all the great Vox media podcasts
0:43:43 that are gonna be on stage live
0:43:45 at South by Southwest this March.
0:43:48 You just need a big idea to get people’s attention,
0:43:53 to help them keep them from hitting the skip button.
0:43:53 I don’t know.
0:43:56 I’m gonna throw it out to the group chat, Kara.
0:43:57 Do you have any ideas?
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0:44:07 What do you think, Scott?
0:44:10 – I’m more of an X-man fan myself.
0:44:12 Call me professor.
0:44:13 Can I read minds?
0:44:14 I can’t really read minds,
0:44:17 but I can empathize with anyone having a mid-life crisis,
0:44:20 which is essentially any tech leader, so.
0:44:24 – Mines are important, Scott, but we’re more than that.
0:44:29 I think that you can’t really separate minds from feelings.
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0:44:41 I just wanna add a touch more.
0:44:43 From sports and culture to tech and politics,
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0:44:49 that’s great in your feeds, but even better live.
0:44:51 – That’s it, All-Stars.
0:44:55 Get your game on, go play, come see a bunch of Vox Media
0:44:59 All-Stars, and also me at South by Southwest
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0:45:06 March 8th through 10th in Austin, Texas.
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