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If You Want A New Life, Watch This — Transcript

by Mark Manson · 9,691 words · 1,541 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:00Drew, did you notice?
0:02>> Notice what?
0:04>> I'm a new person.
0:05>> I did
0:06>> Completely new.
0:07>> I did not notice this.
0:08>> Completely new, top to bottom. I can't
0:09believe you didn't notice.
0:10>> Okay, so tell me.
0:12>> Did you see the white wall?
0:14>> Wall, where Yeah, okay, new studio.
0:16>> This is my wall.
0:17>> All right.
0:18>> I replaced my black wall with my white
0:20wall.
0:20>> Okay.
0:20>> So, brand new studio.
0:22>> Yes.
0:23>> New microphone.
0:24>> Yeah.
0:25>> New jacket.
0:26>> Mhm.
0:27>> I shaved.
0:28>> Mhm.
0:29Which you haven't done in a while. I've
0:31noticed.
0:31>> I'm a new person.
0:32>> I think it's a little more complicated
0:34than that.
0:35>> If you were as superficial as I am.
0:37>> Oh.
0:38>> Right? Right?
0:39>> There is no soul within this walking
0:42meat robot known as Mark Manson.
0:44>> Sitting here across from me now.
0:45>> Therefore, the fact that I changed my
0:47jacket and shaved and sat us in front of
0:49a new wall
0:50>> is the entirety of myself.
0:52>> What does constitute change? That's a
0:54good question.
0:55>> You know, the Buddha said there's no
0:56such thing as self. Can you change that
0:58which does not exist?
0:59>> Can you just read the intro, please?
1:02>> Okay. All right, I'll read the intro.
1:05Here we go.
1:13Welcome to Solved, everybody. I am Mark
1:15Manson, and today we're talking about
1:17ch- ch- ch- changes. I'm going to take a
1:20not-so-wild guess and say that if you're
1:22listening to this, you have tried at
1:24some point in your life to make a big
1:26change. You've read the books, you've
1:28done the courses, you've woken up at
1:304:00 a.m. like a paled-face Victorian
1:32factory owner and journaled your
1:34intentions into a leather-bound notebook
1:36while the rest of the world slept.
1:37>> Why do I let you write the intros?
1:39>> You have tried, dear listener. Nobody
1:41could say you have not tried. And yet,
1:44you are this still the same you, still
1:46caught in the same patterns that you've
1:47tried to escape. And you're still in the
1:50same petty feud with your mailman since
1:522009.
1:54>> I've never met my mailman.
1:56For the record. Fortunately, I have some
1:58good news, but I also have some bad
2:00news. The good news is all of that
2:02fruitless effort is not evidence that
2:04you're a lazy sack of [ __ ]
2:06Or it it might be actually, but
2:09we'll get to that.
2:11You're not uniquely doomed to always be
2:13the same hapless lost soul you think you
2:16are. You can change. Change is just
2:18really [ __ ] hard. But the bad news is
2:21that you can't change everything about
2:23yourself, and you definitely cannot
2:25change all of the things at once. There
2:26is a subtle art to change, and we're
2:28here today to uncover how all of it
2:30works.
2:31And here's what most people get wrong.
2:34Most people don't fail at change because
2:36they lack discipline or commitment or
2:38the right morning routine. They fail
2:40because they keep aiming at the wrong
2:42target over and over for years on end.
2:45What we're going to discover is that who
2:47you are is actually a layered system,
2:49and if you don't know which layer you're
2:51dealing with, it doesn't matter how hard
2:53you try, it doesn't matter how many
2:55tactics or tips you implement, it's just
2:58not going to work. You can be a
2:59genuinely motivated person solving the
3:02wrong problem. So in this episode of
3:04Solved, we're going to talk about why
3:06your brain is actively working against
3:07you every time you try to change, and
3:09why insight, self-awareness, and
3:11understanding your patterns on its own
3:13can be almost completely useless.
3:16We're going to talk about why the most
3:17popular personality test in the world,
3:20taken by millions of people every year,
3:22predicts almost nothing useful about
3:24you, and what actually does.
3:26We're going to talk about the real
3:27reason you revert to your old self every
3:29time you go home for the holidays, and
3:31why it has nothing to do with how
3:33triggering your parents are. We'll
3:34discuss how the world came to
3:36misunderstand the most famous psychology
3:38experiment about self-control, and what
3:40the researchers were actually arguing
3:42for. We'll get into why trying to
3:44suppress a bad habit is one of the most
3:46reliable ways to make sure it sticks.
3:48We'll talk about the one category of
3:50change that is faster, deeper, and more
3:52permanent than anything else in
3:53psychology, and the four-step pattern
3:55behind every single case of it. And
3:57we'll talk about why harrowing traumatic
3:59events often lead to the most durable
4:01change in your life. This and much, much
4:04more.
4:05The argument that we're going to make in
4:06this episode is that you're not stuck
4:08because you're a lazy sack of [ __ ] or
4:10cosmically cursed, but because you've
4:12spent years heroically trying to change
4:15the wrong layer of yourself. We're going
4:17to point you to the right layer and then
4:18give you the actual practical steps to
4:20change. Because once you understand
4:22which part of you actually needs to
4:24change, it stops feeling like a
4:26character flaw and it starts feeling
4:28like a problem with an actual solution.
4:30One that does not require you to wake up
4:32at 4:00 a.m. and inject exotic vegetable
4:34juices directly into your bloodstream
4:37every day. Does anybody do that?
4:40I am New York Times best-selling author
4:42Mark Manson, and this is Drew Bernie, my
4:44co-host, producer, lead researcher, and
4:46the only person who
4:48has ever been known to formally ask to
4:49stop raising his hand in therapy.
4:52Oh, boy.
4:53And this is Solved, the most
4:55comprehensive podcast in the world where
4:56every episode we aim to solve one
4:59problem in your life once and for all.
5:01Today, we are solving how to change, how
5:04it happens, how to do it, and how to
5:06make sure it sticks.
5:09Let's do it. Let's
5:12I'm already tired.
5:19So, our story begins with a chance
5:22encounter between Sigmund Freud and a
5:24recent college graduate. And this
5:26encounter would go on to change the path
5:29of the field of psychology and influence
5:31how we see human nature. So, there was a
5:33young man named Gordon Allport. He had
5:35just graduated from college. It was
5:37around 1920, and he had just finished up
5:39a a study abroad program in Turkey. Like
5:42many recent college grads, he wanted to
5:44backpack across Europe. And on his way
5:46back, he thought what would be cooler
5:49than to stop in Vienna and visit Sigmund
5:51Freud. Now, Freud at the time was an
5:54intellectual celebrity. He was
5:56world-renowned by this point and a lot
5:59of people would make pilgrimages to
6:01Vienna to to meet him and to even be
6:03analyzed by him. So, Allport wrote a
6:06letter, he reached out, Freud said,
6:07"Sure, come on by." And they set up the
6:10meeting. It's important to note that
6:11Gordon Allport was not a psychologist.
6:13He didn't study psychology in school. He
6:16didn't really know a whole lot about it.
6:18He just kind of wanted to see Freud just
6:20the same way like,
6:21you know, you would probably want to go
6:23see Justin Bieber or I would want to go
6:25see, you know, Lady Gaga.
6:27>> Right.
6:28>> So, Allport shows up in Vienna, goes to
6:30Freud's office.
6:31Freud's office is famously super weird.
6:34It's full of like all sorts of Egyptian
6:36artifacts and like weird ancient texts
6:40and all this stuff. And Freud just sits
6:42there and stares at him
6:44for minutes. Like, multiple minutes go
6:46by and this poor college kid is just
6:49like,
6:50"Oh my god, like what is what what is
6:52happening?" This is like it's like this
6:55old Viennese guy is staring into your
6:58soul.
6:59And so, just to make small talk, Gordon
7:01Allport decides to talk about a little
7:04boy that he saw on the tram on the way
7:05over. And he noticed that this little
7:07boy was obsessively cleaning the areas
7:10of the train around him and complaining
7:12to his mother about how dirty everything
7:13was. And he thought this was really
7:15interesting and that Freud would find
7:17this interesting because there's clearly
7:18some sort of psychological thing going
7:20on with this boy.
7:22And like Freud's into psychological
7:23things, right?
7:25And Freud just stared at him and said,
7:27"Was the little boy you?"
7:32Gordon did not take this well.
7:34>> That's very Freudian, yeah.
7:36>> Yeah.
7:37He did not take it very well. He kind of
7:39freaked out. He got actually he got very
7:41offended and he left Freud's office in a
7:44bit of a huff.
7:45And as he made his way back across
7:47Europe, he kept thinking about the
7:50encounter and he he really just rejected
7:53this whole notion that there was
7:55anything in his unconscious that had
7:57anything to do with who he was. He
8:00believed on a very base level,
8:02instinctively, that human beings, we are
8:05not our past, we are what we do. And
8:09ultimately, this schism of philosophies
8:12would
8:13result in multiple decades of research
8:16and different approaches to human
8:18behavior and how we can actually change
8:20ourselves, whether we can actually
8:21change ourselves. It actually gets at a
8:23very
8:24deep philosophical question of are we
8:26restricted to who we were in our past?
8:29Are we Are we confined by our childhood
8:31experiences? Are we doomed to repeat the
8:34things that our parents did to us or our
8:37genetic heritage? Or
8:40do we have agency? Do we get to dictate
8:43and decide who we are moment to moment?
8:46And Gordon Allport felt very strongly
8:48that we do. So, when he went back to
8:49Harvard to do his graduate program, he
8:52decided to study psychology and he
8:54decided to try to find this out, to try
8:56to prove this, that people are not their
8:59past, they actually get to choose who
9:01they are moment to moment. And this was
9:03important because up until this point,
9:05Freud just absolutely dominated our
9:08understanding of the human mind and
9:10human identity. And Freud believed that
9:12we had a limited capacity to change.
9:14Freud argued that the whole point of
9:16psychoanalysis was to turn, quote,
9:19hysterical misery into common
9:21unhappiness.
9:23Which is just
9:24a bundle of joy in a fruit basket. So,
9:27Allport just rejected this. He was like,
9:29there's got to be a better way. Like, I
9:31can change my decisions.
9:33I've changed in my life. Like, there's
9:35got to be a more objective way to
9:37measure these things, to measure who is
9:39a person and then how do they change
9:41over time? And so when he returned to
9:44grad school, he switched to psychology
9:46and he decided to tackle this problem.
9:48>> This debate still goes on today, right?
9:51We still feel this tension. I think that
9:53anybody you talk to, they're going to
9:54have some idea about how fixed they are
9:57versus how much they can actually
9:58change. And that's that's a tension that
10:00goes on within us. There's still debate
10:01a large debate as we're going to get
10:02into here as well. That is a real
10:05tension that we all feel.
10:07>> Yeah, I mean it's in some ways you feel
10:10trapped. I mean there's certain
10:11certainly things about myself that I
10:13feel like trapped in sometimes.
10:15And then there's there are other things
10:17where I'm like, no, I'm just being lazy.
10:18>> Right, right.
10:19>> Or like you you know, you see something
10:20you do that like your dad did, right?
10:22And you're like, well, that's just how I
10:23am because of that.
10:24>> Yeah, because of my dad. And then all of
10:25that.
10:25>> Right, right. There's there's that real
10:26tension. We all feel that. And we're
10:28always answering that question, too.
10:30>> It turns out it's completely natural to
10:31feel those two sides of the tension. And
10:33we're going to explain in this chapter
10:34the psychological explanation of why
10:37each person feels that tension within
10:38themselves and how both sides of that
10:40tension are simultaneously true. But
10:43before we answer whether change is
10:45actually possible, we actually have to
10:48look at a more important question, which
10:50is
10:51how do you even measure what somebody
10:53is? How can you even measure change
10:55until you know who a person is in the
10:57first place?
10:59And it starts in a very unusual place,
11:01which is a dictionary.
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12:14But, we're going to continue with
12:15Allport here because he really did
12:17stumble upon I mean, some people would
12:19definitely argue the most important
12:21branch of psychology or at least
12:22probably the most stable and replicable
12:25branch of psychology and how we
12:27understand people today. So, Allport
12:29returned to Harvard, and he started
12:31thinking very deeply about this problem.
12:32And if you think about it, it's actually
12:34a a very difficult problem, which is A,
12:38how do you define who a person is?
12:41Because you can't define change unless
12:43you can actually define who someone
12:45somebody is. And then secondly, once you
12:47define who that person is, how do you
12:49actually measure if they have changed at
12:52all or not? There are a lot of different
12:54approaches, a lot of different schools
12:56of thought. Obviously, the Freudian
12:57school of thought had to do with
12:58unconscious motivations and drives.
13:01There was another school of thought that
13:02emerged slightly after this called
13:03behaviorism, which we've talked about in
13:05previous episodes, which was all about
13:07just measuring actual actions and
13:09behaviors, kind of treating the human
13:11mind as like a input-output machine.
13:15Allport stumbled upon a pretty novel
13:17approach to this problem. I did not
13:19appreciate how brilliant this was until
13:21we started researching for this episode.
13:22So, I had heard about this before, but
13:25up until we we started prepping for this
13:27episode, it really gave me an
13:28appreciation of just how brilliant this
13:30was. So, there was a guy in the 19th
13:32century
13:34named Francis Galton. He was Darwin's
13:36cousin. He was a bit of a polymath,
13:38wrote books and papers and articles on
13:41all sorts of different topics. Also was
13:43like apparently a a virulent racist and
13:46nationalist and like
13:48proto-Nazi, but we'll leave that for
13:50another podcast.
13:53But Galton had a a really interesting
13:55insight. He said that if you want to
13:57actually measure who a person is, you
14:00should start by looking at language.
14:02Because if you think about why we invent
14:05words for things, we invent words for
14:07things because those behaviors are
14:10significant in some way that they're
14:11worth identifying with some shared
14:15piece of meaning, lexical piece of
14:17meaning, right? And so if you go through
14:19the dictionary and you identify all of
14:21the words that could be used to identify
14:24a person or a person's behavior, that
14:27should give you a nice well-rounded look
14:30at how do how do you define a person?
14:33And you can probably find all sorts of
14:34commonalities among those words and
14:36start grouping them in certain ways.
14:37Allport decided to take this on, and he
14:39did it with one of his PhD students.
14:41They found the biggest dictionary they
14:43could possibly find, and they started
14:45going word by word and
14:48singling out every word that could be
14:50possibly used to identify a human or
14:53human behavior.
14:55And they initially pulled out 17,953
14:59words. This took them multiple years.
15:00>> They're just flipping through a
15:01dictionary.
15:02>> Can you imagine? Like
15:03can you imagine like you First of all,
15:05you were a PhD student. Like can you
15:07imagine somebody asking you like, "Oh,
15:08what's your PhD work on?" And you're
15:10like, "I'm reading the dictionary
15:12to understand human behavior."
15:15>> This is what happens when you're
15:16incredibly bored, right? This is so this
15:19with no phones around anything like
15:20that. Flipping through a dictionary is
15:21better than that.
15:22>> See, it could be worse, guys.
15:23>> It could be worse.
15:24>> It could be worse.
15:25>> They narrowed this list down to 4,500
15:27distinct descriptions or
15:28characteristics. And then once they got
15:30down to 4,500, they just published the
15:33list and left it for other people to to
15:35deal with. And the reason for that
15:37primarily was because they simply did
15:39not have the technology or the the means
15:43to like statistically analyze these
15:45words at the time. Computers had not
15:46been invented yet, and so you would have
15:48to literally calculate all 4,500 of
15:51these words, how prevalent they are, how
15:53much they
15:54>> occur in human language, and and do all
15:56sorts of combinatorial factoring on all
15:59this stuff.
16:00>> So, it wasn't until the 1940s with the
16:02very first early computer systems that
16:05you were even able to like start
16:06processing some of this stuff. And this
16:08is when you start getting some
16:09researchers taking that list of 4,500
16:11words and then trying to use statistical
16:14and mathematical means to clump them
16:17into clusters to identify okay, if we
16:20have all these words to describe human
16:23behaviors and human traits, clearly like
16:25a lot of them must be similar. A lot of
16:27them must be used interchangeably,
16:29right? You can say somebody is a very
16:30exciting person, you can also say that
16:32they're a very fun person, right? Like
16:34those are two very similar ways to
16:35describe somebody, and they're probably
16:37referring to slightly different surfaces
16:40of the same character trait. So, there
16:43was a guy named Raymond Cattell who was
16:45the first person to do this, and he went
16:46through all 4,500 words, and he boiled
16:49them down to what he called the 16
16:51factors.
16:52And this these 16 factors were kind of
16:55the the very, very earliest edition of
16:58today what we would call a personality
17:00test or personality traits. Now, the
17:03problem with Cattell's 16 factors is
17:05that nobody could replicate them.
17:07Researchers would go out and interview
17:08people and like ask them a battery of
17:10questions and do the same statistical
17:11analyses that Cattell was doing, and
17:14they would get completely different
17:15factors than he was getting. And this
17:16same problem continued to happen for the
17:19next 20 years or so. There was a there
17:20was a guy named Hans Eiden- Eidensink
17:23who narrowed it down to three factors,
17:25but
17:26that seemed implausible. There were a
17:29number of researchers in the '60s that
17:30also came down, you know, were able to
17:32narrow it down to say seven factors or
17:34six factors or five factors.
17:36Now, interestingly, today what we know
17:39as the Big Five, which is what all of
17:41this is driving towards, was originally
17:43discovered by a couple Air Force clerks,
17:46which is fascinating. And the reason the
17:48Air Force discovered this was because
17:50they were studying fighter pilots. They
17:52wanted to understand why are so some
17:54people just so cool and calm and
17:57functional in like an air fight and why
18:00do some people freak out or they're not
18:02able to like maintain their composure or
18:04they're they're not able to to, you
18:06know, last in such like a demanding
18:09profession.
18:09>> They're looking for an aptitude test
18:11earlier on that, right? Like yeah.
18:12>> Yes. Yeah.
18:13>> Yeah.
18:13>> Which makes sense. I mean, the military
18:15>> Right. You need to get the right people
18:17in the right spot.
18:18>> Right. If there's any profession that
18:19like really needs to objectively
18:20understand how good a person is or not,
18:23it's going to be the military, which
18:24interestingly the I believe the IQ test
18:26was created for the military as well.
18:28>> And notice there there's stakes involved
18:29here and that's kind of like that was
18:31Yeah. Yes. Wasn't just academic in that
18:33sense.
18:33>> Exactly. Two men by the name of Ernest
18:36Tupes and Raymond Crystal independently
18:38landed on the Big Five. And this I
18:40believe this was like 1963.
18:42>> Yeah, early '60s, yeah.
18:43>> Um and they correctly identified what we
18:46today know as the five fundamental
18:48traits of human personality and the the
18:50five traits that really define each of
18:52our uniqueness and and who we are as an
18:54individual. But the funny thing is is
18:56that they they published it internally
18:58at the Air Force and then it just got
19:00filed away with a bunch of other
19:02internal research and wasn't read for
19:04>> Yeah, it was like a bulletin, basically.
19:06You know, it was like an Air Force
19:07bulletin that just didn't get circulated
19:08outside of that. Yeah.
19:09>> And so it's funny because
19:11psychologists would take another 20
19:13years to land on the big five. And it
19:16was only later, I believe it was in the
19:17'90s that they actually just like
19:19randomly discovered that these these
19:21guys in the Air Force
19:22>> In the '80s, '90s, yeah.
19:23>> independently discovered the big five 20
19:25years prior to psychologists. So this
19:27brings us to the big five. And everybody
19:29listening to this has probably taken a
19:32big five personality test at some point
19:34in their life, whether you realize it or
19:35not. The big five are called the big
19:38five because these are the most
19:40replicated, dependable, durable,
19:42persistent, stable traits of human
19:46characteristics and behaviors
19:48that we have ever found. Is there an
19:50anything you know of that's been
19:52replicated more across more cultures and
19:55more consistently than the big five?
19:56>> And across the big that big of data
19:58sets, too. No, I don't know like
20:00anything.
20:01>> I think, I don't know this for sure, but
20:03I would guess, if I was a betting man,
20:05which I am, I would bet a lot of money
20:08that the big five is the single most
20:10replicated finding
20:12in psychology.
20:14Period. Full stop.
20:15>> Yeah.
20:16>> So this is like
20:18as credible as it gets.
20:19>> Right. Right. It doesn't mean it's
20:20perfect necessarily. It's not absolutely
20:22the best thing we have right now.
20:23>> Yes. If you've ever heard the acronym
20:24OCEAN, right? So that stands for
20:26openness to new experiences,
20:28conscientiousness, extraversion,
20:30agreeableness, and neuroticism.
20:33And I'll just give a very, very brief
20:36explanation of what each one of those
20:38is. So openness to new experiences is
20:41generally people who are open to new
20:43experiences. So it it maps pretty well
20:46to creativity, adventurousness,
20:49>> novelty seeking,
20:50>> novelty seeking, people who, you know,
20:52if you if you're somebody who like loves
20:54parties, you love trips, you love
20:56travel, you love spontaneity,
20:59um you're very open-minded about how
21:01other people live or other people's
21:03ideas, um you're probably very high in
21:05openness to to new experiences. People
21:07who are very low in openness, they tend
21:09to be very regimented. Um they tend to
21:12like rituals and routines. They are not
21:14very open-minded. They're very
21:15traditional. They like to do things the
21:18way things have always been done because
21:19it's more dependable, it's more
21:21reliable.
21:22The interesting thing about all five of
21:23these traits is that
21:25none of them is necessarily right or
21:27wrong. We're all higher or low in all of
21:30them. Each one comes with trade-offs,
21:33right? So, if you're high in openness to
21:34experience, you're probably going to be
21:36a very creative individual. You're
21:37probably going to be a very spontaneous
21:39individual. And that's great in a lot of
21:41contexts, but it's also bad in other
21:43contexts, right? So, if you're in a
21:44situation where you do need to be very
21:46regimented and you do need to be very uh
21:48repetitive and uh intentional and you do
21:51have to follow a tradition, you're
21:52probably not going to perform very well.
21:54So, a lot of this it's not that any
21:55trait is good or bad
21:58except for one, which we'll get to in a
21:59second. It's just that they're
22:00different. I am personally extremely
22:02high
22:02>> You are That's you are.
22:04>> I'm like 99th percentile
22:05>> up there for sure, yeah.
22:06>> in openness to new experiences. Yeah.
22:08>> Yeah. I think I'm slightly over average,
22:09but not No, not like you.
22:12>> Yeah, you're not you're not a degenerate
22:13like I am. Yeah. Second one is
22:15conscientiousness. So, conscientiousness
22:17is uh somebody who's very conscientious
22:20is very detail-oriented. They're very
22:22organized. They're very reliable,
22:24predictable.
22:25Um they like things to be in order. They
22:27like to um have structure and schedules.
22:31I'm definitely not super high in
22:33conscientiousness. I I actually I think
22:35when I was younger I was I was extremely
22:37low, but I think now I'm probably around
22:39average.
22:40>> Okay.
22:40>> I don't know.
22:41>> We'll get to that.
22:43What is that supposed to be? We'll get
22:45to why that might be, but
22:45>> What what what yeah, what what is that
22:47supposed to be?
22:47>> No, no, no.
22:48I don't think you're super high in
22:50conscientiousness.
22:50>> Not super high, no. Um I think uh maybe
22:53slightly above average or right around
22:54average, I would say, yeah.
22:55>> Then there's extraversion, which this
22:57one I I imagine is probably the one
22:59everybody's heard of.
23:00>> Uh yeah.
23:00>> Introversion versus
23:01>> Everybody has a label
23:03for themselves for this, for sure. Yeah.
23:05Yeah. Then there's agreeableness, which
23:07is how much people prioritize
23:10social harmony, getting along with each
23:12other, cooperation, making sure
23:14everybody's happy. So, like a very
23:15highly agreeable person is it it's going
23:18to be very important to them that that
23:19people like them,
23:20that people get along with each other,
23:22that there's no conflict, that
23:23everybody's on the same page. People who
23:25are very disagreeable are comfortable
23:27with conflict. They're comfortable being
23:29alone. They're comfortable being
23:31disliked. It's funny because as you
23:33know, probably the single most
23:36we get from readers, I get from fans, is
23:39how do I stop giving a [ __ ] what other
23:41people think about me? Those people are
23:42probably very high in agreeableness.
23:44And so that that is a challenge for them
23:47to let go of that social harmony and to
23:49allow themselves to be that disliked.
23:52And then finally, there's neuroticism.
23:54And this is probably the only thing that
23:56you can maybe argue that you don't want
23:58to be high in. Neuroticism, it predicts
24:01a tendency towards negative emotions,
24:03particularly anxiety, depression,
24:05stress. Highly neurotic people, they
24:07tend to experience more dissatisfaction
24:10in their relationships, they tend to
24:11experience more conflict,
24:14and they struggle to cope with stress
24:16more often. People would wonder, like
24:18why would neuroticism even like why? Why
24:20do we have that? If you're in a
24:23a chaotic unstable environment,
24:25>> Go. Go. Do it.
24:26>> Can I guess what you're going to say? Is
24:28only the paranoid survive.
24:30>> Yeah, yes, right. In a lot of ways
24:31that's that's true. And you could make
24:33the argument too that yeah, the people
24:35who are more neurotic are looking out
24:37for everyone who's not so neurotic and
24:38for that probably should be a little bit
24:40more worried and you know, the point is
24:42it's not all black and white.
24:43>> Yes.
24:43>> Okay, even neuroticism is not all black
24:45and white.
24:46>> You probably, if you're in a small tribe
24:47of like 20 people, you probably want one
24:49really neurotic person in the group to
24:52like call out risks and dangers even if
24:54they're wrong 90% of the time.
24:56>> That's right. Yeah, you just hope it's
24:57not you, so yeah.
24:58>> They all have advantages and
24:59disadvantages. And so it it
25:01I think what makes us
25:03interesting individuals is the unique
25:05combination of traits that we have.
25:07And then if you think about how we
25:09evolved in these tribal systems, right?
25:10It's like every tribe needs to have some
25:14people extremely high in each of these
25:16traits, but you don't want everybody
25:18high in each one of these traits. You
25:19kind of want a division of labor across
25:22you know, the social the social core.
25:24>> There's diversification there that Yeah,
25:25yeah, it helps everybody out. Yeah.
25:27>> Another one of the reasons that this
25:29this framework, the big five framework,
25:31has lasted throughout the decades, too,
25:33is that it does actually have predictive
25:35power. Unlike a lot of the other models
25:38that came before this,
25:39the big five can actually predict some
25:41outcomes. Conscientiousness, you kind of
25:43already alluded to this already.
25:45It's a one of the strongest predictors
25:47of job performance, actually. Also, like
25:49long-term health, as well. Conscientious
25:51people will take care of their health
25:53more.
25:53>> Yeah.
25:53>> They will work harder, usually, or show
25:56up to work on time more, or put in those
25:58extra hours more. They're more likely to
25:59do that, okay? Neuroticism, too, that's
26:02actually one of the most consistent
26:03predictors of like poor relationships
26:06and poor health, as well. Poor mental
26:07health, especially, too. Extraversion,
26:09that is a really good predictor of like
26:11social integration and your social
26:13relationships. Same thing with
26:15agreeableness, too. That actually is one
26:17of the best predictors of
26:18relationship satisfaction. So, all those
26:21people who come to you and they say,
26:22"How do I not give a fuck?" Well, it's
26:23like you need to give a [ __ ]
26:24>> Yeah.
26:24>> something, obviously. Openness, too,
26:27that will predict things like creativity
26:29and even even political liberalism, too,
26:32okay? Should mention this real quick,
26:33too. There's another model called the
26:34HEXACO model that adds one more
26:37dimension, which is the dimension of
26:39honesty and humility. There's still some
26:41debate This has been around for a little
26:42while. There's still some debate about
26:44how universal that is. The big five,
26:46it's been replicated across time. It's
26:47been replicated
26:49across many, many cultures. Hundreds of
26:50thousands, if not millions, of of uh
26:52subjects have have taken the Big Five
26:54test across the world, it's been found
26:57that it's it is actually very
26:58consistent.
26:59>> Yeah.
26:59>> Um across a lot of different
27:00populations. Now,
27:02that said,
27:03okay?
27:04We can we can predict those things, but
27:06notice what I said is that like
27:08conscientiousness predicts job
27:09performance, it projects long-term
27:11health. I can't actually tell you
27:13necessarily though that uh if you are
27:16high in extraversion that you got a
27:18meeting on Tuesday, I can't say you're
27:19going to be the first one to talk. It's
27:21actually not that specific, okay?
27:22>> It predicts tendencies, but it doesn't
27:24predict
27:26like microbehaviors.
27:27>> Exactly. This is at the population
27:29level, kind of at the at the aggregate
27:30level, or even within a person it's over
27:32long periods of time and many many
27:34interactions uh with the world or the
27:36people around you, right?
27:38So, there was this question that came
27:39about all of this was, you know, those
27:42tendencies, are they are they set in
27:44stone, right? Are they set like plaster?
27:47>> Yeah, which is what William James said.
27:49>> Right.
27:50>> Right, which is he he believed that who
27:52you were at 30 was who you were going to
27:54be forever. And there was not really
27:56anything you could do about it.
27:57>> kind of a modification of Freud there,
27:59right? It's like like all these things
28:00have happened to you up to this point.
28:02>> It's interesting to me that this this
28:04idea that
28:05we can even change ourselves
28:08is such a recent idea. If you go back
28:10and look at James, he believed we
28:12couldn't. Freud didn't really believe we
28:13could.
28:14Even Allport, I mean, like this lineage
28:17that we're tracing that ends up becoming
28:19personality psychology, most of the
28:21personality psychologists from the '80s
28:23and '90s also landed on a conclusion
28:26that you couldn't change these, right?
28:27So, it's like we're consistently landing
28:29on this idea of like, "Nope, this is who
28:31you are.
28:32Good luck."
28:33>> Right. Right. Yeah, so so the the
28:35researchers who found all of those all
28:37those studies I was talking about all
28:38over the world across time across
28:40cultures, uh Costa and McCrae were their
28:42names. They're two famous personality
28:44psych psychologists and researchers.
28:46They basically came to the conclusion
28:47that yeah, it's pretty much set. There's
28:49not a whole lot you can do about it.
28:51>> So, I mean, it raises the point like
28:53what are we even doing this episode for?
28:55>> Yeah. Yeah.
28:56>> I mean, if William James says we can't
28:57change, if uh Freud says we can't
29:00change, if Gordon Allport and the
29:01personality psychologists concluded that
29:04we can't change, like what the hell are
29:05we doing a 6-hour change episode on,
29:07Drew? Are we crazy? Are we making things
29:10up?
29:11>> No, we're not making things up. It turns
29:13out there's more to this story and
29:17there's more to us than simply our
29:19personality traits.
29:20>> This episode is brought to you by
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30:33>> There was uh a researcher, Walter
30:35Mischel. He'll come up a few times,
30:37okay? So, in the late '60s, he he
30:40started arguing the exact opposite. That
30:42actually there wasn't any such thing as
30:44like a stable personality um that we
30:46could point to and again make those
30:48specific predictions. Precisely because
30:50he was doing studies showing I can't
30:52This person's high in extroversion, I
30:53can't tell you if they're going to speak
30:55up in this situation or not. They just
30:56couldn't do it. Came up over and over
30:58again. William Fleeson was another
31:00researcher at this time who found that
31:02personality seemed to be more like a
31:03distribution.
31:04>> Mhm.
31:05>> Okay, there was a tendency, kind of a
31:06stable basin around which you would kind
31:09of float.
31:10>> Interesting. Like a center of gravity
31:11that that you get pulled back to.
31:13>> Exactly. There's like a fabric around
31:15you that pulls you back into this this
31:16well.
31:17>> Got you.
31:17>> Uh so if you're high in extroversion,
31:18yeah, generally you're high in
31:19extroversion, but that doesn't mean
31:21you're not introverted in certain
31:23situations um either. So kind of
31:26together, Mischel came up with the idea
31:27of this if-then signatures.
31:29>> Okay.
31:30>> Okay? Yes, you have this kind of not
31:32really set point, but distribution
31:33around which you float, like I said.
31:36And then in certain situations you
31:38change. We've all experienced this.
31:40>> Right.
31:40>> you wear or you know, you're you're
31:43probably not the same person around your
31:44grandma as you are your best friend when
31:46you two are alone, obviously. So we all
31:47know that experience, right?
31:49The question then becomes then
31:51So which one of those is the real us? Is
31:54that even the right question to ask?
31:55You're high in openness, let's say or
31:57you're introverted.
31:59Where do you flip those scripts?
32:01>> Well, so the interestingly the the one
32:03trait that has flip-flopped quite a bit
32:05throughout my life is
32:06introversion-extroversion. And it and it
32:08took me a long time to recognize this
32:10pattern. So when I was very young, I
32:11always tested as an
32:13a pretty strong introvert. And then once
32:15I
32:16got to university and started drinking
32:19and partying and meeting girls, I would
32:21always test as an extrovert. But that's
32:23because partying was like a big part of
32:25my life and I was dating a lot, so I was
32:27going out all the time. And it is
32:29self-report, self-identification, right?
32:31So they ask you questions like, you
32:33know, when you're when you're at a
32:34party, are you standing on the corner by
32:36yourself against the wall or are you in
32:38the middle of the room talking to lots
32:40of people? And I like spent many years
32:42intentionally training myself to be the
32:45guy in the middle of the room talking to
32:46lots of people even though it didn't
32:48come naturally to me. And so what would
32:50happen is that I would start answering
32:51that question differently in my 20s
32:54which would then
32:55trigger a a report of high extraversion.
32:58And then interestingly, once I got
33:00married and settled down and you know,
33:02started going to bed at 9:00 like an old
33:03man, now I now I show up as an introvert
33:06again. We're going to get into the
33:07explanations of like why this happens,
33:09right? Cuz it cuz you could look at that
33:10and you could say like, well, that's me
33:12changing, right? Changing throughout my
33:13life. It's like, okay, well, what
33:15changed? Did I actually ever stop being
33:18an introvert or did I just become an
33:20introvert that like trained himself to
33:22behave as an extrovert for a certain
33:24period of time and in a certain context?
33:26And Mischel and Fleeson would argue,
33:29yes, that's what I did. There were
33:31certain contexts where I learned that it
33:33was adaptable to be more extroverted.
33:36And
33:38we're going to get all into what those
33:40adaptations are and how you can develop
33:41them for yourself.
33:42>> Mine is actually uh the one that's most
33:44salient to me anyway is agreeableness.
33:47I'm an agreeable person. I have a need
33:49to please. Sometimes it gets a little
33:51toxic, but usually I think it's it's
33:52fairly healthy. I like to help people. I
33:54like to
33:54>> You you are very easygoing. It's it's
33:56interesting cuz it's we've worked
33:57together for a long time.
33:59I know that when you speak up and
34:01disapprove of something, I'm like, okay,
34:02it must be bad. Okay.
34:03>> That's
34:04>> Cuz it's like you
34:05>> And that's where I want to go, yeah.
34:06>> If Drew is raising a fuss, it's like,
34:07okay, it must be really bad. Yeah.
34:09>> Yeah. I I do I I like calm and going
34:11with the flow and everything like that
34:13until I don't. Okay? And this was very
34:15salient to me a few weeks ago or it's
34:18probably a month ago at this point.
34:19>> Drew Hulk smash? Is this where this is
34:21going?
34:21>> So, okay.
34:23I want to preface this too. Do you
34:24remember the values episode when I had
34:26the allegory of the taco truck?
34:28And I almost got into a fist fight with
34:29the guy at the taco truck.
34:31>> I forgot about the allegory of the taco
34:32truck.
34:32>> Right. So, I'm going to tell another
34:34story that's kind of in that same vein.
34:35I just want you to know that these
34:36incidences are 7 years apart from one
34:39another. This is not a pattern.
34:41>> Okay. Well, it is a little bit of a
34:43pattern, but it's not at a frequent
34:44occurrence.
34:45>> It's not a frequent occurrence. You're
34:45not starting fights at taco trucks on a
34:47regular basis.
34:48>> So, just a little bit of background.
34:50There's this one day
34:50>> to keep you away from taco trucks for
34:53>> I was having a very agreeable Drew does
34:57the day
34:57>> Okay.
34:58>> kind of day, okay?
34:59>> Okay.
34:59>> And uh I I went to yoga. I was
35:02>> You were centered.
35:03>> centered at your your inner peace.
35:05>> Yogis are very agreeable people, too,
35:07for the most part. They they are
35:08accepting and want to, you know,
35:10>> Yeah, of course.
35:10>> eager to please.
35:11>> Yeah.
35:12>> Right outside there was a charity that
35:14was set up. Um I bought five book bags
35:16for kids who were, um you know, victims
35:19of domestic abuse and fleeing their
35:20homes and need a book bags. I was like,
35:21"I'm a I'm a good person. Look at how,
35:22you know, good I am. I'll buy these five
35:24book bags."
35:25Later on that night, I needed a I was
35:27going to help out a friend. I was I went
35:28to another friend's house to pick
35:29something up and take it over to them.
35:32When I was driving over there, I did
35:34some boneheaded things in the in the
35:36street. It was a residential street,
35:37nobody around. Sun was shining. I
35:39couldn't see very well.
35:40>> Yeah.
35:41>> And I realized when I parked there was
35:42somebody behind me like waiting for me.
35:44And it's this older man, probably about
35:4570 years old, and he's in this little
35:47Honda Civic. And he's throwing a fit
35:49like a toddler in the middle of the
35:51street that I like delayed him by 10
35:53seconds. Wouldn't let it go, too.
35:55Honking at me, yelling at me. And so, I
35:57flip him off.
35:58Okay, I was I rate.
36:01I rate at this guy, okay? Cuz it's I'm
36:03like, "Dude, I it's
36:04>> Yeah.
36:04>> Come on, man. It's 10 seconds.
36:05>> Like, come on. But, I flip him off. Uh
36:08he calls me a prick. I called him uh a
36:10crusty old toddler.
36:12Uh I think cuz they're the words I used.
36:14I don't know.
36:14>> I know.
36:15>> So, in the span of 1 day, that's what
36:17happened, right? Generally speaking,
36:19though, I'm agreeable. I'm
36:20>> Yeah.
36:21>> I'm agreeable.
36:22>> one's the real Drew?
36:23>> W- Which one is the real Drew in that
36:24situation? And again, if you go back and
36:26listen to the the allegory of the taco
36:28truck, there was a similar thing that
36:30>> Our listeners are definitely getting a a
36:31certain impression of
36:33of Drew Berry.
36:34>> Suffice it to say, I I restored my
36:36agreeableness. I went into my friend's
36:38house. He's like, "I know that guy. He's
36:39an [ __ ] This is where he lives." And
36:41blah There was a whole thing that went
36:42down. Okay, but I wasn't proud of that.
36:45I went and I apologized to him. We
36:46buried the hatchet. It was cool,
36:48whatever. But, I'm agreeable until I'm
36:50not. And there's just situations where
36:53that can come out for me. Okay? And I'm
36:55sure everybody has something like that,
36:57you know? So, just know that yes, these
36:59things are you do have the stable basin
37:02usually where you're around, but you can
37:03get knocked out of that, yes, for sure.
37:05>> And you can push yourself out of that
37:07>> Yeah.
37:07>> temporarily. Let's say you are naturally
37:11very introverted, you can train yourself
37:13to be extroverted, but it's going to
37:14demand a lot more energy than it it
37:17would say if you're naturally
37:19extroverted. Like
37:20>> That was a question I was going to ask
37:21you is that when you were like in that
37:23more extraversion, and you've come back
37:25to introversion, which one of those like
37:28were you more exhausted in one of those
37:29situations?
37:30>> Absolutely. I mean, the the extrovert
37:32that extroverted period of my life, it
37:35felt like it was like work, you know? It
37:37was like a task. It was a skill I was
37:39like consciously developing.
37:41Um whereas my introversion just feels
37:43like my default. It feels like if
37:45there's no outside influence or pressure
37:48on me,
37:49I default to being a sack of potatoes on
37:51the couch.
37:52>> I imagine that experience with the the
37:54crusty toddler.
37:55>> It was probably very draining for you.
37:57>> Yes. Incredibly.
37:58>> You probably felt very exhausted
38:00afterwards. Whereas like buying the book
38:02bags bags for a bunch of kids, like that
38:04probably just felt very natural. Whereas
38:06like somebody who's extremely
38:07disagreeable, calling that old man a
38:09crusty toddler probably would probably
38:11feel very natural to them. It wouldn't
38:12be draining at all. I think what we're
38:14driving at here and why we're pushing on
38:17this on in in the first chapter of this
38:19episode is because we really just want
38:21to establish the framework of like who a
38:24person is. How do we define ourselves?
38:27Because it turns out that
38:30the self is operating on three different
38:33layers simultaneously. So, we've
38:36established the personality traits,
38:37right? It's like it's it's the base and
38:39it's the center of gravity. It's your
38:40natural tendency towards a pattern of
38:43behavior over a long period of time. And
38:46yes, your personality, it is largely
38:50unchangeable. It can be changed slightly
38:52over very long period of time,
38:55but we're going to argue in this episode
38:57that that is probably not what you
38:58should be focusing on. The best thing
39:00you can do with your personality is just
39:02a self-understanding of like this is my
39:05natural set point and so I need to be
39:07aware, right? It's like my natural set
39:08point is to be quite introverted.
39:11And so my awareness of that allows me to
39:13build adaptations and different patterns
39:16of behavior around that natural set
39:19point. And that's layer two, which is
39:21the adaptation layer. A lot of what we
39:23consider who we are, a lot of our
39:25self-definition, our identity,
39:28um our understanding of ourselves and
39:30the world, a lot of our patterns and
39:31habits and routines, like these are all
39:33adaptations to moderate
39:37our natural personality
39:38and then the environment around us,
39:41right? So,
39:42simple example is that I was
39:46a very introverted kid when I went to
39:48university. I realized that left to my
39:51own devices, I'm just going to sit in my
39:52dorm and play video games all day every
39:54day. I'm never going to make friends.
39:56I'm never going to have a girlfriend.
39:58So, I had to develop an adaptation,
40:01which is an identity of a party guy, a
40:04guy who is very social, who went out a
40:06lot, who knew a bunch of different
40:07people. And that adaptation allowed me
40:10to adapt to my environment to to get my
40:13needs met and to become a happier and
40:16more well-rounded individual. So, that's
40:18layer two. The third layer is is our
40:21actual behavior, right? It's the old
40:23maxim, you are what you do repeatedly.
40:26And the simplest way to change who you
40:29are in some ways is to simply change a
40:31behavior. Um to go from somebody who
40:34never exercises to somebody who
40:36exercises, to go from somebody who never
40:39speaks up for themselves to somebody who
40:40speaks up for themselves.
40:42And all three of these layers are very
40:45deeply interlinked. Right. They flow in
40:47both directions. So, one way to think
40:48about it is kind of a bottom-up point of
40:51view, which is that on your base layer,
40:54you have your personality traits, which
40:55is like your natural set points, your
40:57center of gravity, your natural
40:58tendencies. On top of that, you've built
41:02your layer of adaptations, right? Your
41:04different belief systems and identities
41:06and habits
41:08um to help you interact with the world
41:10around you. And then those adaptations
41:12produce behavioral outputs. And those
41:15behavioral outputs are ultimately how
41:17other people understand and relate to
41:19you. So, the bottom-up point of view is
41:22kind of the accurate depiction of I
41:25guess who you are, {quote} {unquote}.
41:28Now, the top-down version of the three
41:30layers is how we change. So, what we're
41:33going to discover in this episode is
41:34that the starting point is always the
41:36behavior.
41:37You change your behavior because that
41:39new behavior begins to create a new
41:42adaptation, and that new adaptation will
41:45suddenly shift
41:47the set point of your personality or
41:49where you exist among the spectrum of
41:52your potential personality. So, the way
41:54to understand yourself is bottom-up,
41:56start with traits, move to adaptations,
41:59and then move to behavior. The way to
42:00change is to start with behavior,
42:04move that down into adaptation, and then
42:05let that
42:07uh slightly alter your personality.
42:09Easy. Yeah, so so [ __ ] easy. So easy.
42:13>> This framework is really important and
42:15it's we're probably going to reiterate
42:17it throughout the episode because when
42:18people want to change consistently over
42:21a long period of time and they keep
42:22failing over and over, it's usually
42:24because they're making one of two
42:26mistakes. And I I'm I'm just going to
42:28call these the two fundamental errors of
42:30change. So the first one is that they
42:32are treating a trait like a behavior,
42:35right? So it's like somebody's just
42:37like, "I'm going to be extroverted now."
42:39And they think they can just decide
42:41tomorrow to go be an extrovert. Or
42:43they're going to say, "I'm going to be
42:44really organized and conscientious."
42:46Your traits are not switches that that
42:48can be flipped. Like they are extremely
42:52hard to alter and in many cases cannot
42:54be altered. And so the goal with trait
42:56is not to change them, it's to
42:58understand them so you can adapt to
43:00them. The second error is treating a
43:02behavior like a trait. So it's saying,
43:05"Wow, I'm I'm I'm never get off the
43:08couch and go to the gym. I must just be
43:10a lazy person and I'm never going to
43:13change that."
43:14And again, you're making a fundamental
43:16error. You're taking a behavior,
43:17something that is very easily changed,
43:20and then you are judging it as a
43:21permanent trait of your personality,
43:23which is just simply not the case. And
43:25so the goal with behaviors is to change
43:28them.
43:28And we're going to have a whole section
43:30in this episode on how to change
43:31behaviors.
43:33And the goal with traits is to
43:34understand them. And then the
43:35adaptations is is all the psychological
43:39layers that we build in the middle to
43:41make the two
43:43coalesce.
43:43>> Yeah. And and synchronize.
43:45>> Right. Right. Okay, so it would be
43:47easier if we could change traits. That'd
43:49be nice and fast if we could flip that
43:51switch. It's just
43:53not likely or maybe even impossible to
43:55do that, you're saying.
43:56>> Correct.
43:57>> So the the most reliable way to do this,
44:00you're saying,
44:01is to start with the behaviors
44:03and then work those into your
44:05adaptations, what you're calling, and
44:06then um those will adapt to your traits.
44:09>> And we're going to start with traits in
44:11this process because I think it's
44:13extremely important for people to come
44:15to terms with their own personality.
44:17>> yourself first.
44:18>> There's two ways that this can really go
44:20wrong. One is that people just
44:22don't accept their own personality
44:23traits. Like they they're introverted
44:25and they think they're a loser cuz
44:26they're not an extrovert. And it's like
44:27so if you judge yourself for for having
44:30not having the right personality, you're
44:32just setting yourself up for a lot of
44:34shame and self-loathing, which is
44:37not good. And then secondly,
44:40those adaptations, when you do decide to
44:42take on new behaviors, those new
44:45behaviors need to be aligned and
44:47adaptable to your personality trait,
44:49right? So, I am very introverted, but a
44:51big part of my job is doing public
44:54events. Like going and doing public
44:56speaking, going and meeting like
44:58hundreds of fans, right? Doing tons of
45:00media, like a dozen interviews in a
45:02single afternoon. It can be exhausting.
45:04And so, I have had to learn the
45:06behaviors and build up a skill set so
45:10that I can be adaptable to my
45:11environment. But that doesn't
45:13necessarily change who I am. It just
45:14simply is is building an adaptation that
45:17fits in with my personality. And even
45:19then, it's even though I built that
45:21skill set, I do a fraction of the
45:22speaking and appearances that a lot of
45:25other people in in our industry do. And
45:28a lot of that's just driven by my
45:30personality. It's important to
45:31understand the personality because
45:33A, it sets the parameters of like kind
45:36of who you can be. And then B, it helps
45:39you understand which behaviors are
45:41reasonable to pursue and which ones are
45:43are maybe a little bit less reasonable
45:44to pursue. Now, the interesting thing
45:46about this three-layer cake of
45:49personality is
45:52everybody kind of ended up being
45:54partially right. Right? So, like
45:56>> about so far, yeah.
45:57>> Yeah, so like Gordon Allport was right
45:59and all the personality psychologists
46:00were right in that like, you do have
46:03these baked-in tendencies that are very
46:06measurable and appear repeatedly across
46:08cultures and across languages and across
46:10contexts and time. Walter Mischel was
46:13also correct in that situations matter,
46:15and most behavior is adaptable, and you
46:18can change behavior depending on the
46:20situation and the environment.
46:22And funny enough, Freud was also
46:24correct, because Freud's theory of the
46:26ego was that our self-identity, the the
46:29way we come to see ourselves and
46:31identify ourselves, is itself an
46:33adaptation between
46:35who we are and our environment, which is
46:39fits right in with this. And one way to
46:41look at Freud's theory of the
46:43unconscious is that it's a bunch of old
46:46adaptation layers that we have
46:48forgotten, that we developed in
46:50childhood, and then we grew up and
46:52forgot that we created them, and that so
46:54they've just been running on autopilot
46:56beneath the surface of consciousness.
46:57>> gives you that sense of this is just me.
46:59>> Yeah, I'm just as This is just how I am.
47:01I can't handle these situations, or
47:03like,
47:04the world is just an upsetting place, or
47:06you know, whatever whatever baked-in
47:09beliefs you have you've carried over
47:11from your your childhood trauma,
47:13those are adaptations you developed at
47:15an early age and then just forgot they
47:17were there. So, throughout the rest of
47:19this episode, we we're going to go
47:20through these three layers one by one.
47:22We're going to be spending a quite a bit
47:24of time on each one, so that listeners
47:27can really understand what they're
47:29working with and and really understand
47:31themselves at each of these three
47:33layers. And then we're going to talk
47:34about the most evidence-based ways of
47:36approaching how to change each of those
47:38layers, and how much each of those
47:40layers can change. What we're going to
47:41find is that
47:43the bottom layer, traits,
47:45do not change very much. You can change
47:47them a little, but not a whole lot.
47:49The middle layer, the adaptations, you
47:51can change, but it's a lot of work and
47:53it takes a lot of time. The top layer,
47:55behaviors, you can change tomorrow. And
47:58it's just really about understanding and
48:00strategizing
48:02correctly how to approach it. Now, as we
48:04go through this, we're going to take
48:05some pretty fascinating twists and
48:07turns. We're going to talk about
48:08everything from horoscope readings to
48:10morning routines and why you should
48:13always leave your gym shoes by the door.
48:15And towards the end of the episode,
48:17we're actually going to talk about the
48:19one way that we know of, that the
48:22research knows of, to actually
48:24completely change your life extremely
48:26quickly, like even overnight.
48:29But we're also going to explain why you
48:31might not want to. But first, in the
48:33next chapter, we're going to start by
48:35digging further into the personality
48:37research, really understanding our
48:39personality traits, really understanding
48:41these default set points that we all
48:42exist with, how to come to terms with
48:44them, how to understand them, how to
48:46correctly identify them, and then how we
48:49can better work with them throughout our
48:51lives. But to explain it,
48:54we're going to start with a failed
48:55novelist and how she created one of the
48:57biggest corporate scams
49:00in modern history.
49:03What's up, everybody? Thank you for
49:04watching. This video is just one chapter
49:07of a much larger podcast episode about
49:09change, where Drew and I cover
49:11everything from specific ways to change
49:13an annoying behavior to deep identity
49:15level changes. We'll be releasing new
49:17chapters every few days on YouTube, but
49:19if you want to watch or listen to the
49:20full episode right now, click on the
49:23links in the description to watch
49:25everything on Spotify. And if you like
49:27the show, please don't forget to
49:28subscribe. And if you want to work on
49:30the topic at your own pace, we have a
49:31free PDF guide and workbook with all of
49:34the resources, citations, and exercises
49:37at solvepodcast.com/change.
49:39So, I will see you soon.
50:00>> Mhm.

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