Pod Insights Something You Should Know How to Awaken Your Genius & Is Personality Change Possible? - SYSK Choice About this episode There is probably something you are worrying about right now. After all, that’s what we do – we worry. This episode begins with some optimistic news about whatever you are worrying about https://www.huffpost.com/entry/85-of-what-we-worry-about_b_8028368
Advice on success isn’t hard to find. The problem is, there are a lot of different ways to become successful and you have to find out which way works for you. That is why you should listen to my guest Ozan Varol. Ozan has some interesting insight into what will make you more successful in whatever you choose to do it. Ozan is a former rocket scientist, lawyer, and professor and he is author of a book called Awaken Your Genius: Escape Conformity, Ignite Creativity, and Become Extraordinary (https://amzn.to/3Gx4qtl).
If you could change any part of your personality, what would it be? Or maybe you are perfect just the way you are. Still, most people have at least one thing about their personality they would change, and the good news is, you can! That’s according to my guest Christian Jarrett a cognitive neuroscientist and author of the book Be Who You Want to Be: Unlocking the Science of Personality Change (https://amzn.to/40Y5BKD).
When you want to pitch an idea to someone, perhaps you shouldn’t call it an idea. There is another word that tends to get people to pay more attention to you. Listen and I will tell you what it is. Source: Dan O’Connor author of Say This Not That https://amzn.to/3Gx4qtl
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
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1:27 Mike Carruthers? Today on Something You Should Know, some good news for whatever it is you're worrying about right now. Then, some powerful techniques to supercharge your success and creativity.
1:40 Speaker 01 When we're stuck physically, we often get stuck creatively, because our beliefs and perspectives are tied to our environment. So if I'm in a creative rut, if I get writer's block, I move outside of the room where I normally write, which is associated with the same old thought patterns.
1:55 Mike Carruthers? Also, why any idea is better if you don't call it an idea. And personality, we all have one, and there's a good chance you'd like to change something about your personality.
2:07 Speaker 02 In surveys that have been done actually all around the world, it's upwards of 90% of people say there is at least one aspect, one of those big five traits that they would like to change. At least in some ways, most of us would like to change some aspects of ourselves.
2:21 Mike Carruthers? All this today on Something You Should Know.
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4:23 Mike Carruthers? Hello, welcome to Something You Should Know. I wouldn't be surprised if, right now, there's something on your mind that you're worried about. Because worrying is normal, it's what people do, and some of us worry a lot more than others. But here's something to consider: 85% of the things people worry about never happen. And in the 15% of the time, when the things we worry about do happen, 80% of people say they handled the problem better than they thought they would. Experts say that the best thing to do if you're worried is to write down what it is you're worried about, and then decide which things you can actually do something about and which ones you cannot.
5:05 Mike Carruthers? Then create a plan to do something about the things you can actually impact. Because it seems to be universally true, that doing something usually lessens the worry. And that is something you should know.
5:23 Mike Carruthers? As you travel through life in search of success, there's a lot of conventional wisdom you hear. Things like "persistence is the key to success." "There are no stupid questions." "Find someone successful in your field and do what they do, that's how you'll be successful." All these things may sound good, and maybe they work for some people, but maybe we need to question some of these ideas rather than just seek to follow them blindly. And here to do that is Ozan Varol. Ozan is a former rocket scientist, lawyer, and professor. He's been a guest here before, and he is the author of a book called "Awaken Your Genius: Escape Conformity, Ignite Creativity, and Become Extraordinary."
6:08 Mike Carruthers? Hi Ozan, welcome back.
6:10 Speaker 01 Thanks for having me on, Mike.
6:12 Mike Carruthers? So I've always found it interesting that there's all these cliches about success that we're all supposed to follow, but often when you look at successful people, they take a different path, they find a different way of doing it, and that's what makes them successful. And yet, all of these cliches about success persist, and kind of makes you wonder why.
6:37 Speaker 01 Well, you live in a world where there's so much conformity, so much copying and pasting, and much of conformity is genetically programmed. We are conditioned to follow the herd. Thousands of years ago, conformity was essential to your survival. If you didn't conform, if you didn't fit in, then you would be rejected, ostracized, or worse, left for dead.
7:00 Mike Carruthers? Which is good, or it was good back in the day, but that's not such a problem anymore that you're gonna be left for dead. So why, why do we still feel the need to conform?
7:13 Speaker 01 Number one, our education system in many ways conditions us to look externally for answers. So in school, we're taught that there is one right answer that's been determined by someone far smarter than you are, and your only job is to memorize that answer and spit that back out on a standardized test. And that conditioning gets reinforced year after year after year, and then we move on to the workforce.
7:40 Mike Carruthers? Well, it's interesting today that we have so much information available. I mean, you can ask Google anything and get an answer and get thousands of answers, that that becomes our default method of figuring out, you know, what to do.
7:55 Speaker 01 The tendency that most people have isn't to just ask, well, what do I actually think about this? The tendency is to jump on Google and start searching for answers on Google instead of looking first within to see what we actually think.
8:11 Mike Carruthers? Yeah, well, I mean, that sounds right. I do that, a lot of people do that. You hear about something and you go to Google and search it, I guess, to kind of figure out what you're supposed to think. So how do you not do that?
8:28 Speaker 01 Step one is to think before you research. So let's say you're curious about, for example, where good ideas come from. Instead of jumping on Google or instead of reading the latest hottest book on that topic, think for yourself first. So that would mean, you know, you take out a notepad or you open up a new Word document on your computer and you jot down some theories about where good ideas might come from. What might boost creativity? Once you've done that, then you can turn to what other people have read. But if you switch the order, if you go immediately to the research, then other people's opinions will end up anchoring your own
9:10 Speaker 01 and your own ideas will end up deviating only marginally from what you've read. So it's much better to first think yourself and then turn to the research.
9:22 Mike Carruthers? Well, I like that idea, but sometimes there are people who are smarter than you. Sometimes there is only one right answer. Sometimes doing a little research is a good idea to get some sense of the lay of the land. So how do you know when to do it and when not to do it?
9:41 Speaker 01 Research is important for sure, and I'm not saying don't research at all or don't read what other people have written or don't listen to smart people. That's not what I'm saying at all. The only thing I'm saying with respect to this topic is to start by thinking for yourself first before reading what others have written on it. And yes, there are to some answers or to some questions, there is a single right answer, but those questions tend not to be very interesting or very relevant because there is only one right answer and the answer has already been determined. But for life's harder questions, especially the type of personal questions that we struggle with, like what should I do with my life?
10:24 Speaker 01 Or have I chosen the right career for myself? What do I think about this important personal topic? On those questions particularly and on the life's more interesting questions where there isn't a single right answer and the answer depends on the perspective that you have, the experiences you've had in your life, then it makes sense to start by thinking about it first yourself and then absolutely turn to what other people have written and read them and turn to get advice from others as well, but don't pause your own thinking.
10:58 Mike Carruthers? You say that persistence can backfire and persistence is one of those things that, you know, people are told that that's the key to success, man. You just gotta keep, you gotta keep moving, you've gotta keep trying because persistence pays off.
11:10 Speaker 01 Yeah, the cliche of, you know, winners never quit and quitters never win and you need more grit and persistence in your life. Look, some people do need more grit and persistence in their lives, but others need less. And persistence, if it means chasing the same thing that is clearly not working out for you, or walking down a path even though you've exhausted what you can get from that path, if that is persistence and if that's grit, that can certainly backfire. Because, look, you're going to change over time. The commitment that you made, for example, by going to law school 10 years ago, that commitment may
11:52 Speaker 01 be very different from how you're feeling right now about the practice of law. I'll give you an example from my life. I was a law professor for 10 years and shortly after I got tenure, I realized that that career was no longer for me. I loved teaching. When I was teaching law, the first six or seven years, what I remember distinctly walking into the classroom one day and feeling my whole body sink. My shoulders collapsed, my heart sank with this feeling of... Ah, not again. I can't believe I'm about to teach the same class in the same way that I've taught it dozens of times again. And instead of pushing that voice down, instead of saying,
12:37 Speaker 01 you know, I made a commitment to be a law professor six or seven years ago, I'm just gonna keep going down this path, even though my body is sending very strong signals that what was once the right path for me is no longer the right one. And I leaned in with curiosity to that voice. And over the next several years, I experimented with different futures and ended up picking a career as an author and speaker and ended up doing what many, many of my colleagues thought would be the unthinkable, which is to leave a ten year job, the ultimate safety net. But that was absolutely the right path for me. And if I had said grit and persistence and keep doing what you're doing, you probably would
13:22 Speaker 01 not be listening to this conversation right now.
13:26 Mike Carruthers? One of the things I worry about when, and you just said the word, that was the right thing for me. Well, that doesn't mean it's right for me. It's just you. It's your story. It's, and it worked for you. But I don't know that you can apply that to the general population and say, because it worked for me, it will work for you.
13:45 Speaker 01 Well, that's the whole point, right? And that's the reason why I write that grit and persistence can backfire. And that's how I led the answer by saying, some people need more grit in their lives, others need less. So it's, it's all personal. But I'm sharing that story because you often don't hear stories like that. You hear stories of grit and perseverance and how you're never supposed to quit because winners never quit. But you don't often hear the stories of, of leaving the path of, of abandoning grit and persistence and, and going off and, and doing something else. And yeah, that was the right thing for me to do at the time. Doesn't mean it's the right thing for you,
14:29 Speaker 01 which is why personal reflection and thinking for yourself, instead of blindly copying and pasting somebody else's path to success becomes really important.
14:39 Mike Carruthers? So you say that there are stupid questions, and we've all heard that there are no stupid questions. So explain what you mean by that.
14:47 Speaker 01 When I first became a professor, I would pause from time to time during class and ask, "Does anyone have any questions?" Now, nine times out of 10, no one would raise their hands, and I would move on confident that I'd done a stellar job of explaining the material. Well, I was wrong. The exam answers made it clear that there were plenty of students who weren't getting it. So I decided to run an experiment. Instead of asking, "Does anyone have any questions?", I began to say, "I will now take your questions." Or even better, I would say something like, "The material we just covered was really confusing. I'm confident there are plenty of you with questions.
15:31 Speaker 01 Now is a great time to ask them." The number of hands that went up increased dramatically. And I realized in hindsight that, "Does anyone have any questions?" was a stupid question. I had forgotten how hard it was for, and I taught these big first-year classes with hundreds of students in them. I'd forgotten how hard it is for someone to raise their hand and admit that they didn't get something in front of all of their friends and future colleagues. The way that I reframed the question normalized confusion. It normalized the fact that the material was difficult. And by doing that, I made my expected outcome,
16:15 Speaker 01 which is more questions from the students, the norm, not the exception. And we ask stupid questions all the time outside of the classroom setting, too. So if you're, for example, a business leader, and you ask a team member, "Are you facing any challenges?" Now, most people will say no, because they'll fear that their admission of a challenge will be seen as a weakness. You're more likely to get a more insightful response, insightful answer, if you say something like, "We just finished a really tough quarter. Everyone is facing significant challenges. I'd love to hear about yours." Now, again, now you've normalized challenges and you've created psychological safety
16:58 Speaker 01 for that team member to come forward and share a more honest response with you.
17:04 Mike Carruthers? That's a great idea. I like that.
17:06 Speaker 01 So many professionals could use more of this. So if you're listening to this and you're a doctor, for example, and you just went over a really complicated diagnosis with a patient, don't just ask, "Do you have any questions?" Instead, say something like, "You know, I just threw a lot of information at you, lots of acronyms and lots of jargon, probably, and I'm sure that information was confusing. And I'm sure you have plenty of questions. Now is a great time to ask them." Now you'll get a lot more insightful responses from the patient, instead of if you just went in and said, "Do you have any questions?"
17:42 Mike Carruthers? I'm speaking with Ozan Varol. He is author of the book, "Awaken Your Genius: Escape Conformity, Ignite Creativity, and Become Extraordinary." If you listen to something you should know regularly, you know we talk about sleep quite a bit here. And one of the things I've learned from those conversations is just how important a good night's sleep is. And I've always been someone who loves his sleep. So I was intrigued when I heard about Beam Dream. It's a delicious nighttime drink formulated to help you fall asleep faster, stay asleep, and wake up refreshed. It contains ingredients like reishi, magnesium,
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20:57 Mike Carruthers? So Ozan, let's talk about creativity, because, I mean, how many times have you heard, you know, you have to be more creative, you have to find creative ways to do things. How, how can people be more creative?
21:10 Speaker 01 I think there's a number of things you can do to boost creativity, simple things that we often don't do. So I'll give you just one example. My high school soccer coach had a saying that I love. He would say, "If you're not in possession, get in position." In other words, if you don't have the ball, move to a different place on the field where you'll be open to receive the ball. The same principle applies to creativity. Far too often, we sit in the same room, in the same position, facing the same computer for hours at a time. When we're stuck physically, we often get stuck creatively.
21:53 Speaker 01 Because our beliefs and perspectives are tied to our environment. If you change your environment, it becomes easier to dislodge what's no longer serving you. And by the way, this is why many smokers find it easier to quit when they're traveling. Because their environment, the new environment, doesn't have the same smoking associations as their own home. So if I'm in a creative rut, if I get writer's block, I move outside of the room where I normally write, which is associated with the same old thought patterns. So I take my laptop and I bring it with me to an entirely different room. With different decorations and different books on the shelves, different energy, different everything. And that minor shift in location brings a major shift in perspective. It forces a reset in my mind.
22:38 Speaker 01 It creates this blank space where I can project new ideas. And ideas that were obscured by the old setting begin to reveal themselves in the new. Walking also helps. So research shows that movement and cognition are activated in the same region of the brain. And that walking improves creativity. So if you're feeling stuck, go for a walk. Without a, you know, an audiobook or a phone call to keep you company. Just you and your thoughts. There are so many examples of scientists being stuck on a problem and then walking away from the problem and, and literally walking themselves into the right answer.
23:18 Speaker 01 By stepping away from the problem, stepping away from the same environment where you've been focused on the problem, you're creating space for your subconscious to create new ideas, to marry the old with the new, to, to generate original insights that you could not have seen before.
23:38 Mike Carruthers? Talk about the power of play in creativity. Because I know for myself, one of the hardest things to do is to sit down and be creative as if it were work. It just doesn't come. But it often comes when you're not trying and when you're, when you're doing something else, when you're playing.
23:58 Speaker 01 Play is essential to creativity. Because practice or work is often backward looking. So when we're practicing, for example, you may have heard the term deliberate practice. It's all about looking backward and repeating the same thing over and over again. And so deliberate practice is how you perfect your golf swing or how you, you know, get the right chord on, on the guitar. But if your goal isn't to look backward to repeat what you've done before. Instead, your goal is to look to the future and create new ideas that didn't exist before, then deliberate practice won't help you because you'd be looking back and repeating the same thing over and over again.
24:43 Speaker 01 Now you have to create room for play. Now you have to abandon structures, abandon boxes and let yourself be free and let yourself play like a child might. Now you might be wondering, well, how do I actually do that? I mean, there should certainly be room in your life for play, for doing things on their own, for their own sake. But how do you play when it comes to the traditional area of work? I write about an example from the TV show The Office, which was one of my favorite shows of all time. Now, The Office lasted for about 10 years and it's not easy for writers of the show to maintain momentum for that long.
25:28 Speaker 01 And so inevitably, from time to time, they would find themselves in a creative rut. And when that happened, they would do something really interesting. They would stop working on their show and instead they would write, they would take about 10 to 15 minutes to plot out the script of a different show called Entourage, which was on HBO at the time, also a comedy show. And their goal was to play. So they would set their own work aside and they would say, let's just come up with silly, playful ideas for 10 to 15 minutes for this other show that we're not responsible for. Right? And so that playground activated their creativity muscles. It created an environment where it didn't matter if the plot that they created for
26:12 Speaker 01 Entourage wasn't great, they were just playing.
26:16 Speaker 01 Now, here's the important part. When they went back to working on the office, when they went back to working on their own show, they brought that playful mindset with them to their own work. So the creativity that had been hampered before, if they were feeling blocked or feeling in a rut before, having that playful mindset carry over from working on The Entourage would allow them to generate ideas that they otherwise would have missed. And you can apply this playful mindset regardless of what you do for work. You don't have to be a writer. Let's say you're a marketer and you're trying to come up with a marketing campaign for your product. And you're feeling, you know,
27:00 Speaker 01 you're in a brainstorming session and you're feeling stuck. Take just 10 minutes creating a marketing campaign for a competitor's product. Just play around with wild, silly, unreasonable ideas and then come back to your own work. And you'll find that the ideas that you generate for your own work will be a lot more creative as a result.
27:24 Mike Carruthers? Explain a bit about what you mean by "look where others don't look."
27:30 Speaker 01 I write this story, share the story of Jimmy Breslin, who was a journalist and he was tasked with covering the assassination of John F. Kennedy. And just like every other reporter in the country, he went to the White House, to the White House press briefing room to get answers from the official executive branch mouthpiece. There were hundreds of reporters in the room and he looked around the room and he thought to himself, "I can't make a living here. Everyone's gonna have the same story. Everyone's looking in the same place. So everyone's going to be writing the same piece, basically, or similar versions of the same idea."
28:14 Speaker 01 So he decided to leave the White House and look where other reporters were not looking. He went across the river to Arlington National Cemetery, where JFK would be buried. And he found a person who was digging JFK's grave.
28:32 Speaker 01 And he wrote this massive column telling the story of JFK's assassination from the perspective of the person who was tasked with preparing JFK's final resting place. And he ended up winning the Pulitzer Prize as a result of that. And that's one example of someone who is actively stepping out of where other competitors, other journalists are hanging out and looking where others aren't looking. Because the problem with looking where others are looking is you're getting the same information. And so you're going to be thinking, or you're going to be writing, or you're going to be creating very similar things.
29:17 Speaker 01 Which means there's so much value in diversifying, in changing where you look.
29:24 Mike Carruthers? Yeah, well, stepping away from what everybody else is doing is is hard to do because everybody tends to follow the leader. We tend to look at who was successful or who is successful at something and try to do what they do. And and so it's hard to step away from that because you you're told, you know, pick somebody and do what they do.
29:47 Speaker 01 Exactly. There is this, it's a fancy Latin word, but I'll explain what it means. A logical fallacy called post hoc ergo propter hoc. It means after it therefore because of it. So in the case of a success story, the assumption, the fallacy being this person did A, B, and C, and that's why they became successful. And if I do A, B, and C as well, then I will also become successful. And it's a flawed assumption because A, B, C may have nothing to do with their success. It might be that they got successful because of X, Y, and Z. It might be that they got successful because they were lucky.
30:32 Speaker 01 They were at the right place at the right time. And you can copy and paste exactly what they did and get very different results. Which is why it's so important to not blindly try to copy and paste someone else's path to success. But certainly learn from people who came before you, but test that knowledge in your own world. Ask yourself, does this resonate with me? Run experiments for yourself in the way that we already talked about to try to figure out whether the steps that they followed will actually work for you.
31:06 Mike Carruthers? Great. Well, I think what you've had to say is really going to help people think about their own path to success. And I appreciate you sharing that. I've been speaking with Ozan Varol. He is a former rocket scientist, lawyer and professor. And he's author of the book Awaken Your Genius. Escape Conformity, Ignite Creativity and Become Extraordinary. And you'll find a link to that book in the show notes. I appreciate you coming on, Ozan. Thank you.
31:32 Speaker 01 Awesome. Thank you so much, Mike.
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34:48 Mike Carruthers? You have a personality. It's what kinda makes you you. So where did your personality come from? Do you like your personality? Or do you wish you could change it? Or at least parts of it? And is changing your personality something you can really do? Well, maybe. And here to explain how that all works is Christian Jarrett. He is a cognitive neuroscientist and psychologist. And he's author of a book called Be Who You Wanna Be: Unlocking the Science of Personality Change. Hey, Christian, welcome to Something You Should Know.
35:25 Speaker 02 Hi, Mike. Thanks for having me on.
35:28 Mike Carruthers? So I guess we should start with defining what a personality is. Because when I think about my own personality, I mean, I'm different people at different times in different situations. I don't know that I have a personality. So what is a personality?
35:45 Speaker 02 Well, in psychology, your personality is your very strong tendencies of behavior, thinking, and feeling. And they tend to be relatively stable across different situations and over long periods of time. So that's how psychologists define it.
36:05 Mike Carruthers? And the elements, if you unpack a personality, it's made up of what are the building blocks of that?
36:11 Speaker 02 So I should say as well, the personality is how you act in different situations without thinking about it, without conscious efforts. There's a certain automaticity to it. You know, it's what comes naturally to you. And the big five traits that capture all the different elements of personality, would you like, shall I go through those five?
36:32 Mike Carruthers? Please, yeah.
36:33 Speaker 02 Yeah, so there's extroversion, introversion, which is one dimension. There's openness to experience. There's conscientiousness. There's neuroticism, which is the flip side of being emotionally stable. And there is agreeableness, which is how friendly and warm you are and how trusting you are of other people.
36:56 Mike Carruthers? So would you say that most people, based on the work that you do and the people you talk to, would you say most people like their personality or wish it were different?
37:09 Speaker 02 Well, actually, in surveys that have been done actually all around the world, it's upwards of ninety percent of people say there is at least one aspect, one of those big five traits that they would like to change. Of course, that doesn't mean we want to radically transform ourselves into a totally different type of person. But at least in some ways, most of us would like to change some aspects of ourselves.
37:32 Mike Carruthers? So why don't we? I mean, it seems that some of the traits you described, like conscientiousness, all of these traits, I'm sure, must be difficult to change. But it seems like if you were really set on changing that and you were real intentional about being conscientious, you could be more conscientious.
37:51 Speaker 02 Well, lots of people do try, but they or they or they might harbor the wish, but they don't know how to go about it. Or they or they have this aspiration, but they they don't act on it. Which studies there actually suggest that that can be counterproductive, that that having the desire to change your personality, but not having any concrete plan in place for how to make those changes and not doing anything differently is actually you're more, you know, you're likely to actually go backwards counter to how you want to change. If you don't, if you don't have some specific plans in place.
38:27 Mike Carruthers? But even if you do have a plan in place, I mean, how changeable is your personality? Because I know I've heard, and I don't know where I heard it, but I've heard that, you know, your your personality is locked in at by a certain age, that that by then you are who you are. Not so?
38:45 Speaker 02 Yeah, so this has really been a long running debate in psychology through, you know, for decades. And and you had some psychologists who, you know, believed personality is pretty much set in stone from a young age. William James said it was from age thirty that personality was set like plaster. And then you there have been, there's this different camp, you know, very skeptical about personality. And they argued and came up with studies showing it's it's what's much more important is the situation that people find themselves in, you know, and if the situation is strong enough, it will override people's so-called personality.
39:24 Mike Carruthers? And so what would be an example of that? I'm not sure I understand how a situation can override your personality.
39:31 Speaker 02 A kind of classic example in the literature would be Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment, where he recruited these students to play the role of, some of them to play the role of prison guards and some of them to play the role of prisoners. And he found that those recruited to be guards, you know, started acting in a very tyrannical authoritarian manner. And they were abusing the students acting as prisoners and the, those acting as prisoners started acting submissive. In other words, whatever personality difference these two groups of students might have had before the experiment started, ended up, you know, completely drowned out by the strength of the situation or the, the role,
40:15 Speaker 02 the social roles they were playing in, in this study. Findings like that prompted some psychologists to say that personality, you know, is quite, quite a weak concept. You know, that it's overwritten or overpowered by social roles and social situations we find ourselves in.
40:34 Mike Carruthers? And given those two points of view, those two camps about personality, is there now a consensus? Or is it rival theories?
40:45 Speaker 02 Well, what's happened over time is there've been, you know, tons and tons of studies now that have looked at personality and look at how it gets expressed in different situations. And really the consensus that has emerged now is personality traits are real. They're very important. They, they do predict a lot of what happens in our lives. So, you know, so if you took a personality test and it got scored up and we had your scores on the different main traits, we could make some fairly accurate predictions about, you know, things that are going to happen in, in your life. You know, your health outcomes, your career outcomes, the sort of things you enjoy doing and, and so on. But at the same time, the research has shown that it, it is not set in stone.
41:29 Speaker 02 Your, your traits aren't, they aren't fixed. So we end up with this kind of... Compromise, I suppose you could say. So it's frustrating for anyone who likes things to be black or white. You know, the idea that it's either all about the situation and social roles, or it's all about personality. But it's really a bit of both. And so personality traits, the accumulation of evidence suggests they are real. They matter. They are relatively stable, relatively, but they are not totally fixed. So they can and do change over time.
42:04 Mike Carruthers? As people age, how generally does their personality change? Or is everyone individual? But it does seem like that that age has a fairly consistent effect on people. And people older seem different than younger people.
42:20 Speaker 02 That's right. So there are average patterns of change that have been seen. It's called the maturity principle in the research literature. So you see these average trends across the main traits. For example, on average, as they get older, people tend to become less extroverted. They tend to become less neurotic. So that is more emotionally stable. Conscientiousness tends to show this inverted U-shaped curve. Conscientiousness tends to increase through the first half of life. It peaks around midlife and then declines into later life. Openness to experience is one that tends to gradually decline through life.
43:06 Mike Carruthers? When people try to change their personality, they try to change one of those five things that you mentioned. And you said, most of us wish we could. Typically, how successful are they? And is there a way to do it that makes success more likely?
43:24 Speaker 02 There isn't a huge amount of research on this question, but generally what it's shown is, yeah, people who desire to change and then, you know, the researchers ask them, well, you know, how do you plan to go about that change? And if they've got some specific plans in place about changes they're going to make to how they behave and their routines and habits in life, they tend to be successful and the change that they want happens and it seems to be, seems to last. But those participants who say, yeah, I really wish, you know, like I wish I could be more conscientious or whatever it might be, but they don't have any plans in place to do anything differently. If anything, they kind of relapse, they go in the opposite direction.
44:09 Speaker 02 The key finding at the moment is that if you, you've, you've got to follow up on your desires to change. It's certainly not enough just to wish yourself different.
44:18 Mike Carruthers? And so what's the plan? Does the plan, does any plan work as long as it's a plan? Or is there a specific step by step process?
44:27 Speaker 02 Yeah, there's a, there's a step by step process. So one of the main, most important ways to change is to develop new habits. Cause if you can imagine habits kind of sit in between your desires to change and your underlying personality and by shifting your habits, doing things differently, often enough until it becomes automatic, then in a way it's trickling down and it's becoming a part of your personality. So what I, the approach I've advocated for is doing certain things to change yourself from the inside out. And I recommend specific techniques and approaches for the different traits.
45:07 Mike Carruthers? So can you pick one of the traits and then explain how you would change from the inside out?
45:13 Speaker 02 Extroversion is one of the easiest to talk about because it's a trait that lots of people say they would like to have more of. So to change yourself from the inside out would be to do things like form so-called if then plans. So you might start off gently, if you're, if you're very withdrawn and introverted, you might start off by saying, if I am waiting at the bus stop and there's a stranger next to me, then I will make an effort to strike up conversation. Or if I'm in the coffee, you know, the coffee room at work. Then I will strike up conversation with someone else in the room.
45:55 Speaker 02 If it's a Saturday and I'm not going out, then I will ring a friend for a chat. This kind of thing. So it's just, it's just to encourage yourself to form new sociable habits. Another way from the inside out would be, so extroverts tend to be more optimistic than introverts. They think things are going to be well. It's one of the, they think things are going to go well. It's one of the reasons they're more willing to take risks. So you could practise rehearsing this intervention. It's called the best possible self intervention, which is visualising yourself in the future in as much detail as you can, using all the different senses and imagining everything in your life has gone how you, how you want it to.
46:38 Speaker 02 It's played out how you, how you would like it to. And doing this several times a week has been shown to boost optimism. And by boosting your optimism, again, it's going to trickle down and increase your extroversion. And then we are all affected by the company that we keep, you know, and you, you might have noticed this yourself, that different friends or relatives bring out different aspects of your own personality. So this, this kind of approach would be being a little bit more conscious and deliberate about thinking, uh, who you hang out with. So if you, you know, if you have a certain friend or, or relative
47:19 Speaker 02 with whom you feel more outgoing, more confident, more gregarious, well, make a plan, make an effort to hang out with them more.
47:27 Mike Carruthers? And when you talk to people who have made a change like this, do they say it was worth what seems to be a considerable effort? Because now they're happier or it's just different?
47:41 Speaker 02 Most of the people I've spoken to overwhelmingly say it was worth it. Yeah, because typically people are wanting, well, to change. I would say one of the main things people are trying to change is their trait neuroticism, you know, which is characterised by a lot of worry and low mood. So it's not really too surprising if people are successful at changing themselves that way, that it will be welcome. But also changing to become more extroverted, you know, people will say their life is fuller, they've met, you know, they've they've met more people. Bear in mind, you know, if you can increase your extroversion just a little bit, and it
48:23 Speaker 02 means you end up meeting someone you wouldn't have otherwise, that person could end up being your best friend, or your partner, or your new business associate, you know. So the changes can snowball, or a fairly modest change can have, send you down a different path in life.
48:43 Mike Carruthers? Are there any other things in life, other than intentionally trying to change these traits? Are there other things that can affect and change these traits? Like, for example, maybe if you get married, or you have children, or some other life event that can help to alter your personality traits?
49:04 Speaker 02 Studies have shown people who spend time living abroad, for example, they come, when they come back home, the trait neuroticism is typically lower, perhaps because in comparison to the challenges abroad, where you're adjusting to new routines, new sights and sounds, and a new culture. When you come back home, by comparison, you know, it's like you recalibrated what you what you find threatening and challenging. So it's like dials has effect, an effect of dialing down neuroticism.
49:38 Mike Carruthers? Well, that's pretty interesting, that moving abroad will make you less neurotic, or improve your neuroticism. It seems like a, you know, fairly, it's not easy, but it's a fairly simple way to do that.
49:50 Speaker 02 It is, but at the same time, it's, as you, yeah, as you say, it's quite a substantial change. I mean, we are very much shaped by our experiences and the environment around us. So if you shake that up by go, you know, if you, by going abroad, living somewhere different, mixing with new people, i- in a sense, yeah, you're kind of recalibrating your brain sense of risk and threat. So then when you come home, by comparison, the world can seem a little, you know, a little less threatening.
50:20 Mike Carruthers? Where you fall on those, on the scale for those five ingredients of personality? What determines that? Is it, is it, is any of it pre-wired? Or is it all just from experience of life? Or what?
50:38 Speaker 02 It's about 50/50. So the study suggests, yeah, genetic inheritance accounts for about 50% of the variability between people. And of course, that then leaves about 50% for your individual experience, life experiences. It does suggest we all have a kind of a foundation from what, you know, based on our genetic inheritance. So there are going to be some limits to the amount of change you can achieve based on that. But there's plenty of scope for change as well. So if you take a kind of an analogy with your physical body, there are some things you can't change, like your height and so on.
51:20 Speaker 02 But through your exercise and nutrition and that kind of thing, obviously you, you can exert a huge influence as well. So it's similar in that way.
51:30 Mike Carruthers? Since, as you point out, it's a fairly universal desire to want to change at least some of your personality, I wonder how much of it might be just the you want what you can't have. You know, we all have things about ourselves that we wish we didn't or wish was different because it's, it isn't different. So, you know, taller people maybe wish they were shorter, shorter people maybe wish they were taller. That you want what you can't have, but that maybe part of the solution to this is not so much figuring out how to change it, but figuring out how to be comfortable with who you are, with the personality you have, rather than try to change it.
52:16 Speaker 02 There is some research on authenticity, for example. So I think one natural objection to wanting to change yourself is, yeah, why can't you just be self-accepting and be true to who you are? And then it almost, I suppose, gets us into philosophical territory because studies that have looked at this have found that people actually feel more authentic when they are behaving in ways that are in line with their so-called ideal self. So the kind of person they aspire to be, when they act in ways consistent with their ideal self, rather than how they actually are, they feel more authentic. Similarly, in relationships, for example,
52:59 Speaker 02 people say they feel more authentic in relationships where they are with a partner who sees them more as their ideal self, sees them more as the kind of person they aspire to be. So while, yeah, while there probably is a case for trying to be a little bit more self-accepting, I suppose you could say our aspirations for who we want to be are actually a part of us, you know? So perhaps we shouldn't ignore those feelings of wanting to change or wanting to be a better version of ourselves. Maybe that is actually part of who we are.
53:37 Mike Carruthers? I would imagine that it matters to how you frame the change you want. If your change is to be, well, I'd like to be less neurotic. Well, that, how would you ever measure that? I mean, it's not a very specific goal. If I want to be a little more outgoing, well, you know, I mean, what does that, what does that all mean?
53:59 Speaker 02 Yeah, so you're right, actually. The more specific people's goals are in this, in this sense, that actually the more likely they are to succeed at making those changes. The other thing is, which wanting to change just for the sake of it is also less likely to be successful. It's, people are more likely to succeed in changing their personality if it's, rather than being for its own sake, if it's in the service of some... Kind of higher value or higher life goal, if you like.
54:32 Mike Carruthers? Well, it's certainly an interesting topic when you think about, you know, what is it that makes you who you are? And can you change who you are or parts of who you are? And, and, and apparently you can. I've been talking with Christian Jarrett. He is a cognitive neuroscientist and author of the book, Be Who You Want to Be: Unlocking the Science of Personality Change. And there's a link to his book in the show notes. Thanks, Christian.
54:57 Speaker 02 Cool. Excellent. Well, thanks again, Mike.
55:02 Mike Carruthers? The next time you have a good idea and you want to tell someone or pitch it to someone, don't call it an idea. Call it a proposal. According to Daniel O'Connor, author of the book, Say This, Not That, a proposal holds a lot more weight than an idea. An idea is easier to dismiss than a proposal because a proposal, well, that's, that's concrete and it implies you've given it a lot of thought as opposed to an idea which may have just occurred to you. And that is something you should know. With all the millions of podcasts available, people like it when you give them a recommendation of one you like because if you like it, maybe they'll like it.
55:45 Mike Carruthers? So I hope you will tell your friends about this podcast and suggest they give a listen. I'm Mike Carruthers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know.
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