Shadowing Practice: How to be less neurotic | The Gray Area - Learn English Speaking with Video

Hey, it's Sean.

Today we are revisiting a conversation with Olga Hazan, journalist and author of Me, But Better, The Science and Promise of Personality Change.

I've always enjoyed this conversation because it tries to answer the question, is it possible to change who we are?

Even just a little bit.

I hope you enjoy the conversation.

I certainly did.

I'll see you next time.

I think all of us at some point have wondered why we are the way we are.

Maybe you're a little neurotic, a worrier, or maybe you're a tad abrasive, confrontational, or a bit evasive.

Maybe you don't think enough about others, or maybe you do, but just a little too much.

We see our faults as faults, but aren't they really just our personalities?

And what is that exactly?

A personality?

Is it something we're born with?

Does it shift over time?

Can we think and act our way into being a different and hopefully better person?

I'm Sean Elling, and this is The Gray Area.

Today's guest is Olga Pazan.

She's a staff writer at The Atlantic and the author of the book Me But Better, The Science and Promise of Personality Change.

The book is a joy to read, full of ideas, but also personal in the sense that Olga documents her year-long effort to change things she doesn't like about her own personality.

Along the way, she does a nice job of weaving into science

and marking the limits of what we know and don't know.

It's honest, curious, and reflective.

And so it turns out is Olga.

So I invited her on the show.

Olga Hazan, welcome to the show.

Thanks so much for having me.

Well, let's start with the basics here,

because personality is one of those words that are one of those concepts that we all intuitively understand what it signifies,

at least loosely.

But it is pretty tricky to define.

You've now written a book on it.

So give me your neatest, clearest definition.

Yeah, personality is the consistent thoughts and behaviors that you have every day.

And some researchers think that in addition to just having those thoughts and feelings and behaviors, they also help you achieve your goals.

So depending on what your goals are, your personality kind of helps you get there.

An example of this would be the personality trait of agreeableness, which helps to make friends and social connections.

So people who tend to be more agreeable also tend to value friendships and connections and achieve more of those.

You use the word consistent there.

To what extent is personality just a performance?

And to what extent is it something much more concrete?

So personality is in some ways a performance.

Let's say you describe yourself as an introvert, but you have to give a big talk.

And it's very important to your career that this talk go well, right?

You are probably going to perform to a certain extent extroversion.

Or let's say you're going into a room full of investors and you have to raise money for your startup,

but you're just a very introverted coder guy who just wants to code all day and not talk to anyone.

You're going to perform extroversion in that situation too, because it's very important for you to get whatever is at the end of that performance,

the money or the professional accolades or whatever comes with it.

It doesn't have to be financial.

It could be going on a first date is kind of a performance as well.

So we do all perform elements of these traits every single day.

But what most researchers think is that there is sort of a tendency

that we all have toward a certain pattern of behaviors and thoughts that are more or less consistent,

especially if we don't try to change them in any meaningful way.

That you kind of get up and you have these little patterns that you fall into, and that's sort of like your quote-unquote natural personality.

So we have what people call the big five personality traits,

neuroticism, extroversion, agreeableness, which you just mentioned, openness to experience, and conscientiousness.

Are these categories generally accepted in the field of psychology, and how useful do you find them?

They are generally accepted.

That's now, if you read a personality study, it will be most likely based on the big five.

So things like Enneagram and Myers-Briggs are not generally accepted.

That said, they are imperfect.

Um, there are some cultures that have, uh, traits that are very important in those cultures that the big five doesn't really pick up as much.

Meanwhile, things like openness, um, it's sort of a catch all.

Like it doesn't really, um, it doesn't really map very cleanly onto, onto someone's personality as, as other people would observe it.

Um, so yeah, it is valid.

It has weaknesses, but personality is so hard to measure and kind of scientifically get your head around, that it's sort of the best that we have right now.

Well, part of the inspiration for this project is that you wanted to change some things about yourself.

So what did you want to change?

And why don't you love yourself, Olga?

Don't you know you're good enough and smart enough and people like you?

Why do you want to change?

Yeah, so I did want to change and I also love myself.

The two are not mutually exclusive.

Though I know that it can feel that way, that if you admit that you want to change,

that it can feel like you're saying that you don't love yourself.

But I think that's where the idea of personality traits as tools to help you achieve your goals can be really helpful.

Because we all have goals we want to achieve, even if we all like our lives in ourselves.

And for me, what I realized is that things were going well.

I had a pretty nice life.

You know, nothing was seriously wrong, but my reactions to situations were not benefiting me.

They were kind of undermining me and making me not able to enjoy my life.

So I start the book out with this like actually great

sounding now as a new parent of this great sounding day in Miami where honestly, all that happened is that I got a bad haircut,

then immediately had to get professional photos taken, then got stuck in traffic and then had this like a weird debacle with a grocery store shopping cart.

And it honestly just like, because of my high neuroticism at the time,

the accumulation of all of those like small things made me have like this epic meltdown

when I got back to my hotel.

And I realized that that kind of happened a lot in various ways.

Like small things would happen

that would make me kind of not able to appreciate the big picture

or not able to just be happy with what I have or be grateful.

And so that's really what I wanted to work on is sort of appreciating my life for what it was.

And also just, you know, outside of neuroticism, I really,

like I was feeling the COVID social isolation and I wanted to deepen my social connections as well.

So that's why I wanted to change.

Would you say that you had or have a tendency to catastrophize?

Because I do.

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And I don't know if that's a function of neuroticism or something else, but I would say that is the one thing that I'm trying most aggressively to stop.

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Is that tendency part of neuroticism or is it a little more complicated than that?

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Yeah, it's definitely part of neuroticism.

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You know, neuroticism is sort of the trait that's

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so to kind of simplify it it's associated with depression and anxiety

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and basically all those are are just like um a feeling

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of threat like you just constantly see threats everywhere um you the reason you're catastrophizing um is not

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because like you're silly or because you're not realistic but

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because like you kind of can see the threats coming from every direction

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and you're like how do i prevent those from happening and that's what makes people who are high in neuroticism so miserable.

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Well, I like the, I think it was Judd Brewer argument that you talk about in the book that

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anxiety is a habit loop where anxiety triggers the behavior of worry, which feels like it's a temporary relief,

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but really it just makes us more anxious in the long run.

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And this is something neurotic people do by default, right?

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I mean, it's just the first instinct.

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Oh, yeah.

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I always thought anxiety and worry were the same thing.

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But worry is actually, it's a behavior.

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It's almost like a self-soothing behavior.

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And people who are very anxious think that if you just worry enough, you won't be anxious anymore.

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But instead, worry kind of sometimes can make you more anxious.

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Like you're never going to get to the end of the worrying.

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Well, it's also about the discomfort with uncertainty, right?

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You talk about like the neurotic person is the one who gets the, you know, have a second, do you have a second slack from your boss and freaks out.

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I'm the type, if I get the, do you have a second out of nowhere from the boss, I'm filing for food stamps before lunch.

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My mind just goes there.

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Okay, this is becoming too much about me already.

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No, it's okay.

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Yeah, I'm right there with you.

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Uncertainty is wrapped up with this, right?

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It's an uneasiness about what the future might hold and our ability to control or not control.

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And so you're just anxious about the world.

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And I mean, I'm sure there's evolutionary utility in that, but boy, past a certain point, it just becomes pathological, really.

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Yeah.

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I mean, that's a huge part of it.

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Neuroticism is all intertwined with a feeling of wanting control, of really fearing uncertainty.

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You know, in the modern world, it's all about learning how to live with uncertainty and accept that there is uncertainty in the world,

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you know, without letting it rule you, basically, this fear of uncertainty.

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What about agreeableness?

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Agreeableness sounds pretty agreeable.

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I mean, nobody wants to be called disagreeable, I don't think.

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But is agreeableness more complicated than that?

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I mean, how much agreeableness is too much?

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When do we need to be a little disagreeable?

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Yeah, agreeableness was one of the ones that I was working on.

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And it's basically like warmth and empathy toward others and also trust.

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And that element of agreeableness can be really good and it can deepen your relationships and give you more fulfilling friendships.

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relationships, where some people say that they're actually too agreeable

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and they want to pare back is

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when they feel like they're being people pleasers

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and they feel like people kind of walk all over them

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or like they don't know how to say no. So part of agreeableness is learning how to communicate boundaries,

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how to make friends, but also not just by saying yes to everything

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that your friends ask of you and to still

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have your own boundaries and your own things that you're willing and not willing to do.

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So for your year-long personality transformation project, you did focus on all five of these traits to varying degrees.

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Which did you find was the hardest to tweak in any direction?

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So neuroticism was the hardest by far for me.

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It is like, because the way to improve on neuroticism is meditation,

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uh, or like any kind of mindfulness practice.

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Um, you know, it can be like yoga, not core power, like slow contemplative yoga.

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Um, you know, it can be different, different forms of mindfulness, but it's, it's basically mindfulness.

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Um, and I found that really challenging.

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Like I, I am not a natural meditator.

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Um, I kind of have a loop of like ongoing concerns and worries and to-do list when I'm not, you know, thinking about anything.

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um you know I I don't like it

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when people are too relaxed I find

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that irritating um why um I just like you know I

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think it was it was like a little bit hard for me to let go of my anxiety

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because on some level I think

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and I still sometimes kind of think this I think

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that like anxiety um is protective at least for me like it like forces me to do things

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and it helps me like it like is like the fire under me.

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And I think at times I was a little bit like, oh, sure, this is fine for like people who don't have a lot going on.

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But like, I need my anxiety.

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How long did you try meditating?

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I mean, did you ultimately find it to be helpful?

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Did you score less neurotic at the end of that practice?

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I think I did meditation really, really seriously for about six months of this.

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And it did work in the sense that my neuroticism went down.

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But when I said that neuroticism is depression and anxiety, it was actually mostly my depression score that went down.

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So I became less depressed.

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And my anxiety also went down, but it was still like quite high.

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It was not as high as it had been, but it didn't go away completely.

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But I think one reason why I became less depressed is that the class that I took, which was called MBSR, it was the meditation class that I took,

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had a lot of like Buddhist teachings that were part of it.

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So one of the things that my meditation teacher said was, things happen that we don't like.

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And for me, even though obviously things happen that we don't like, I realized that I was someone who, when things would go wrong,

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I would start to blame myself very intensely.

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And I would have this like very intense self-blame that would be very hard to break out of, even if it was something that was like clearly not my fault.

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It was, you know, like an act of God or like really awful traffic or like, you know, just, just something that, that had nothing to do with me.

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You know, I would start to be like, well, I should have left earlier.

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I should have blah, blah, blah.

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I should have predicted this.

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And I think just this reminder that things happen that we don't like, and that everyone has things that happen in their life that they would rather not happen.

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And like, we all have to deal with that.

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I don't know, that was like, weirdly, very helpful to me.

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What is the scientifically best personality?

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And that look, there is a part of my philosophical soul that shudders even at asking this question, because I don't think science can make these kind of value judgments.

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But what I'm getting at is, you know, what does the research on happiness

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and personality tell us about what kinds of traits tend to be most correlated with happiness and well-being and a flourishing life?

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If your goal is happiness, which I am not saying that it has to be, there's more life than happiness.

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But as far as happiness, well-being, longevity, all those goodies,

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it's basically being high but not too high on all of the five traits.

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So being pretty extroverted, pretty agreeable, pretty open to experiences, very conscientious,

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and then very emotionally stable.

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You say in the book that extroverts are happier, in part because they interpret ambiguous stimuli more positively.

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How true is this?

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I mean, I'm sure there are some people out there who might find this kind of claim a little crude.

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So how clear is the evidence on this?

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how confident are we that extroverts in general are happier?

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I mean, they certainly look like they're having more fun, but that's anecdotal.

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So the evidence that extroverts are happier is pretty consistent.

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It's been replicated like quite a few times, including by researchers who weren't connected to the original studies and were like dubious and they replicated it.

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And like the one researcher who did that who I talked to is himself an introvert.

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So it is pretty clear.

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The reasons why are less clear.

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So as you mentioned, one interpretation is that they, you know, they walk into a room full of people,

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and they're all strangers, and they don't immediately get a smile out of anyone.

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Like, it's just kind of like, kind of a straight face kind of people are like, what are you doing here?

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I, an introvert would be like, Oh, my God, I'm not supposed to be here.

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Nobody likes me, I need to leave, kind of just flee, flee, flee.

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It's that self-talk, right?

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All that self-chatter.

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Right, right, right.

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An extrovert would be like, oh, awesome.

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I just need to introduce myself around.

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And pretty soon, people will warm up to me.

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They just have a different interpretation of events that helps them be happier.

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They are more active.

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They're just always out and doing things.

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The people who are signed up for a million clubs and things are.. are extroverts.

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And they have more social connections, not just friends.

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They also have more like weak ties, like more acquaintances, just people they talk to throughout the day.

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And that like helps them feel happier.

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Well, let's talk about change, the science of, of personality change um as you say in the book there is this this idea

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that at around 30 our personalities are quote set like plaster um how true is

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that i mean how fixed is our personality so um

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that idea is sort of not considered totally true anymore um there's been quite a bit of of research

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that shows that even when people don't try to change, they actually end up changing over the course of their lives.

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So one example is that people get less neurotic as they get older.

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They also tend to get less open to experiences.

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So if you ever notice that like people get more conservative as they get older, that could be because openness to experiences goes down.

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In studies where they follow people over decades and decades,

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most of those people in those studies change on at least one personality trait from like young adulthood to late adulthood, you know, their 60s.

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So it's true, like, you're not going to be like unrecognizable, probably, but people do change over time just kind of naturally.

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But what kind of the heart of my book is about is about changing your personality intentionally, which is sort of an even newer branch of research where they actually

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ask people if they would like to change their personalities, give them activities that are meant to help change their personalities, and then kind of measure their personalities after the fact.

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And so then your personality would change even more.

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This part of it is so interesting to me.

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I mean, I've had psychologists on the show before, people like Paul Bloom, who I love.

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I think he's just fantastic.

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And I may be bastardizing his argument here.

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So if you're listening, Paul, you can write in and tell me.

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But he always says something to the effect, not necessarily that we, look, you are your brain and that's it.

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But he does suggest that by the time you're pretty young, five, six, seven, eight, whatever,

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somewhere around there, your personality is clear and it's constant.

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You are what you are.

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You can tinker a little bit at the margins and the environment matters.

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Of course, it always matters, but that you really are sort of, you kind of are what you are, which isn't to say that you can't change anything,

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but you kind of are what you are.

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I mean, do you think that is a little overstated?

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Yeah.

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I mean, I think, so there is a little bit of truth to that.

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So part of personality is inherited, right?

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It is genetic.

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So like, in some ways you start to see someone's personality emerge in childhood and like, they're going to be kind of like that,

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you know, probably for the rest of their lives, like, you know, barring anything major.

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But when you talk about tinkering at the margins, like that is actually like quite important.

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Like a lot of, um, therapy is basically just tinkering at the margins.

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Like, um, one of the books that I read kind of in, in reporting out my book is 10% happier.

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And that was Dan Harris meditating every day for like an hour a day just to become 10% happier.

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That's a lot though.

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10% is a lot.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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I mean, but that's so like, it kind of is, it depends on how you look at it.

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Like I was a really anxious kid and I'm an anxious adult.

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You know, does that mean that I am exactly the same as I was when I was seven?

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And I mean, you know,

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I'm recognizable, but I also think that I have knowledge and tools now to like control my anxiety a lot better,

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obviously, than I did when I was a kid or a teen, even a young adult.

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So I don't know.

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I think that's true, but also the margins are really important.

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Yeah, no, there's a lot of difference and little tweaks here and there do matter.

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So, you know, thoughts and behaviors are these two elements of personality.

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I mean, how much power do we really have to alter our behavior by consciously, deliberately altering our thoughts?

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I mean, how clear is that relationship?

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Because if it is fairly clear, that that is, seems like one of the more reliable ways to go about, you know, making some of these tweaks.

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the traits where it's all behavioral are definitely the easiest to change um

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so conscientiousness is a good example of this um it's the one that's all about being organized

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and on time eating healthy you know exercising um what they found is basically

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that you don't have to like really want it in order

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to become more conscientious you just kind of have to do the stuff associated with conscientiousness.

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So like making the to-do list, making the calendar reminders, uh, leaving, you know, whatever, 10 minutes earlier, uh, you know, decluttering your closets.

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Like if you do enough of that stuff, uh, kind of regularly and consistently, um, that is conscientiousness.

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Like you will become more conscientious.

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You will get stuff done and like achieve your goals

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and have a higher level of conscientiousness with some of the other ones like neuroticism,

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um, or even agreeableness, like the reason why they're harder to change is that you have to really want it.

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And it is kind of more about your thought processes and like challenging your thoughts and, you know, thinking about situations differently.

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Like if I was to revisit that day in Florida now or in Miami, I wouldn't necessarily like do anything differently.

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I would just think about it differently.

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And I would be less anxious as a result of how I was thinking about it.

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But like, that is obviously harder than like making a to do list.

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Well, I did.

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I like that quote from Jerome Bruner in the book.

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You more likely act yourself into feeling than feel yourself into action, which kind of just feels like, you know, fake it till you make it.

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So Nate Hudson, who's like the main researcher that does the personality change research, is, I think my quote from him was like,

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fake it till you make it is a reasonable way to do personality change.

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And that's because a lot of this is sort of like the actions kind of make you think about things differently.

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So one example for me was with extroversion, where I really did not want to go to all the stuff that I signed up for.

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So I signed up for like improv class, and I just really dreaded it every single time.

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I did not really want to go, but I kind of found that if I like made myself go, it would make me happier.

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And I did have a good time and I enjoyed it, but it just like my thought process around improv was I'm not good at it.

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I'm not going to have fun.

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I don't like this.

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I'm an introvert.

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Um, so

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that was like sort of the clearest example of how sometimes you just kind of have to do something

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and the thoughts will follow from there.

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I want to talk more about improv.

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I've always wanted to do it.

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But again, I'm an introvert, and I feel like I would just be paralyzed up there.

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But tell me about how long you did that and how transformative it was.

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Improv was probably one of the best things I did, and also the scariest.

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I did that for about a year, but it was several sessions of improv that I guess altogether was about a year's worth.

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And I was at times so afraid that I froze up and like didn't know what to say next.

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But something that's really cool about improv is that like,

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it's all about learning that other people can supply part of the interaction, right?

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Like you're not responsible for everything going right in improv.

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It's okay if things are just kind of chaotic and strange and not going perfectly.

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And I don't know, it's like a good lesson to have for social interaction

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because a lot of times when you're just out there dealing with people, it's going to be kind of crazy and you just kind of have to roll with it.

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And I don't know, to me, that was that was like a good thing to see.

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Well, look, there's a I think a very important question you pose near the end, and I want to ask it here.

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How do you know when to keep trying to change?

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I mean, how do you know when you've tried enough?

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Isn't there some point at which you do more harm by resisting who you are

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and would be better off just making peace with that?

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Yeah.

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I mean, this is like, you know, it's not going to be a hard and fast rule for everyone.

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But what I found is that when I was doing things

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that were like no longer enjoyable on any level

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and were not getting me any closer to like what I valued

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or like what I actually wanted is sort of when I would give up on them.

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So the big example of this is that I led a meetup group for a while based around foreign films, which is my hobby.

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And I just like didn't really enjoy it.

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I just don't like running meetings.

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I do moderate professionally for work, but like, I just don't like to do it in my free time, I guess.

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I just, it kind of like wasn't, you know, I didn't have that high afterward like I did after improv where I was like, yes, that was so fun.

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I kind of felt just like, oh, thank God that's over.

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And to me, that was like a sign

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that it was maybe just time to wrap up and like hand it over to someone else.

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And I think that's OK.

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Like you don't, you know, trying something doesn't mean you're like stuck with it for life.

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Yeah, look, I ask this in part because I am sympathetic to the idea that,

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you know, being a little maladapted to a world that's actually pretty shitty in lots of ways isn't the worst thing.

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And our society has a way of conspiring to make good and honest people feel weird and unlikable.

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And that's a society problem, not a you problem.

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But also, it is generally healthy to be well adjusted.

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So I don't want to gloss over that either.

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Yeah.

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And I mean, even things like neuroticism, you know, in small amounts or in certain situations can have some benefits.

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Like, I mean, I never did away with my anxiety completely.

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It's now like at more manageable levels, but it's not like gone.

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And, you know, in the last chapter, I interviewed Tracy Dennis Tiwari, who is a psychologist.

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and she talks about how anxiety can have some positive elements.

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And when her son was born, he had like a heart condition.

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And she talks about how anxiety really helped her prioritize, like finding the right specialists, you know, getting him the right treatment,

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coming up with a good treatment plan, you know, all of the things that are involved in caring for a sick child,

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it would be hard to do that stuff if you were completely not anxious, like if you just didn't care about anything.

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Like anxiety is in some ways a way of caring.

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So, you know, I think it's fine to like find ways of living with your anxiety, but to not like do away with it entirely.

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Well, what are the most concrete, practical interventions you discovered along the way

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that people might find useful in their own efforts to improve or align their values and actions?

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Sure.

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I will just toss some out that I found worked really well for me.

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I would sign up for something.

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Don't just tell yourself you're going to go out to drinks with your friends more.

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With improv, you couldn't miss more than two classes

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so you had to go even

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if you didn't feel like going um accountability right there's some

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accountability yeah like that's what i would do for extroversion is

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i would sign up for a thing um for conscientiousness i would actually um start by decluttering um like

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if you feel like you're really disorganized um before trying to

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like quote unquote get organized um i would just throw away as much stuff as possible um

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that was like the loud and clear thing that all the the professional organizers told me is that like, it's all about just like having less stuff in your life.

404

And that can be like, you know, commitments too, and like sort of extraneous stuff that you're doing.

405

Um, and, uh, I honestly would take a meditation class for anyone who's, who's interested in, you know,

406

reducing their neuroticism to whatever degree,

407

even if not, It's just like an interesting intellectual exercise and possibly an emotional exercise.

408

Yeah, I found the ACT acronym, the ACT acronym, pretty handy, actually.

409

It's accept your negative feelings, commit to your values, and take action.

410

And you can say anything you like about that, but certainly the acceptance part seems really fundamental.

411

I mean, one thing

412

that comes across in a lot of the stories you tell in the book is that it doesn't matter who you are, what you do, where you are.

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You're going to have negative feelings all the damn time.

414

And we add so much unnecessary suffering to our lives when we resist those feelings.

415

Anyway, I'll let you say anything you want about that.

416

Yeah, absolutely.

417

Yeah, I found that so helpful.

418

And that was really how a lot of the people who I talked to who did change their personalities

419

kind of muddled through.

420

Because those first few attempts at being extroverted or even being conscientious can feel really uncomfortable.

421

Like getting up at 5am to go for a run is uncomfortable.

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And so they really were just like, I'm going to feel uncomfortable.

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Like, I'm not going to like this at first, but it's important to me that I keep doing this.

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And so I'm going to take action and actually do it.

425

And I don't know, I think that's like a good, a good little rule to live by for things that matter to you.

426

How important is it to really believe in your own agency?

427

Is that a fundamental precondition of any kind of change to believe

428

that it's possible that you have the freedom and the will to do that?

429

the argument that I always get into with people is like, some people think that like people never change, right?

430

And kind of the extension of that is like, I will never change because people never change.

431

And if that's truly what you think, you probably aren't going to try to change and you probably won't change.

432

There does have to be like some fundamental openness to change in order to even like embark on something like this, because it takes a lot of like energy

433

and courage to do some of this stuff

434

and you can't follow through on it if you think that like it's not going to work.

435

All right.

436

Once again, the book is called Me But Better, The Science and Promise of Personality Change.

437

Olga Hazan, this was fun.

438

Thank you.

439

Yeah, thanks so much for having me.

440

This was great.

441

All right, I hope you enjoyed this episode.

442

I know I did.

443

Personality change is something I thought about a lot over the years, in part because I'm constantly trying to fix things about myself.

444

This book and this conversation gave me some useful perspective on that, both that it's completely cool to want to improve things about yourself,

445

but also it's important to make peace with who you are and not make yourself miserable fighting that.

446

But as always, I want to know what you think.

447

So drop us a line at thegrayareaatvox.com or leave us a message on our new voicemail line at 1-800-214-5749.

448

And once you're finished with that, please go ahead, rate and review, and subscribe to the podcast.

449

This episode was produced by Beth Morrissey, edited by Jorge Just, engineered by Christian Ayala,

450

fact-checked by Melissa Hirsch, and Alex Overington wrote our theme music.

451

New episodes of The Gray Area drop on Mondays.

452

Listen and subscribe.

453

The show is part of Vox.

454

Support Vox's journalism by joining our membership program today.

455

Go to vox.com slash members to sign up.

456

And if you decide to sign up because of this show, let us know.

457

Thank you.

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

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