Speaker 1: Pushkin, Hey, slight Changers, Maya Here. My new newsletter, which
Speaker 1: I'm so excited about, is out now. It's called Change
Speaker 1: with Maya Shunker. It's totally free and you can sign
Speaker 1: up at Changewmaya dot com or check out the link
Speaker 1: in our show notes. The reason I started this newsletter
Speaker 1: is that I'm so excited about building a community with
Speaker 1: all of you around how we can navigate change with
Speaker 1: more wisdom and with more hope. I'll be sharing personal updates,
Speaker 1: links to what I'm reading or watching lately, exciting new
Speaker 1: science about change, and my top takeaways for my conversations
Speaker 1: on this show, with some behind the scenes action. I
Speaker 1: hope you'll sign up and spread the word with your
Speaker 1: friends again. You can sign up at Changewithmaya dot com. Okay, now,
Speaker 1: onto the episode, there were.
Speaker 2: Kind of signs along the way that not only was
Speaker 2: I not thrilled with my personality, other people were not thrilled.
Speaker 3: With it either.
Speaker 1: Olga Hasan didn't really like herself. A self described neurotic,
Speaker 1: she tended to fixate on the negative at parties. Her
Speaker 1: go to conversation starter was everything that was wrong in
Speaker 1: her life. Olga just assumed that she'd always be this way,
Speaker 1: but then she came across research showing that personality is
Speaker 1: something you can change.
Speaker 2: And I was like, huh, that's kind of interesting, because
Speaker 2: though neuroticism was probably my biggest problem, it wasn't my
Speaker 2: only problem, and I felt like a personality overhaul was
Speaker 2: sort of an effective way to get at all of
Speaker 2: the stuff I was struggling with at the time.
Speaker 1: On Today's show Extreme Makeover Personality Edition, I'm Maya Shunker,
Speaker 1: a scientist who studies human behavior, and this is a
Speaker 1: slight change of plans. I show about who we are
Speaker 1: and who we become in the face of a big change.
Speaker 1: Olga Hasan is a writer for The Atlantic, and she
Speaker 1: recently decided to tackle her biggest challenge to date. Could
Speaker 1: she fix the parts of her personality that she didn't like.
Speaker 1: She gave herself a year to find out. She chronicles
Speaker 1: this experiment in her book Me But Better, The Science
Speaker 1: and Promise of Personality Change. Olga says that from the
Speaker 1: time she was a little kid, she's known one thing
Speaker 1: to be true.
Speaker 2: I am very anxious and have always been very anxious.
Speaker 2: My parents told me that as a toddler. One of
Speaker 2: my first full phrases that I said was I'm not
Speaker 2: going to like it.
Speaker 4: I'm going to be uncomfortable. Oh about okay, new situations.
Speaker 1: What a mature, precocious toddler. You have all the words
Speaker 1: you needed to describe that. I'm impressed.
Speaker 2: I was mature and precocious, but I was very very anxious.
Speaker 2: I did not like new experiences and new things. That
Speaker 2: was a problem because when I was three, we immigrated
Speaker 2: from the USSR, which is a new experience and a
Speaker 2: new thing, and I think I just never really got
Speaker 2: over my anxiety, my kind of like wariness of new
Speaker 2: things and new people. I was never really a joiner,
Speaker 2: being an immigrant kid. I was always sort of like,
Speaker 2: are other people judging me? You know? Am I sticking
Speaker 2: out from everyone else? And so because of that, I
Speaker 2: think I always kind of retreated from not just big
Speaker 2: groups of people, but just sort of people in general.
Speaker 2: Like I kind of kept everyone at arm's length. So
Speaker 2: to me, that was a kind of like very extreme
Speaker 2: introversion of almost like just leave me alone.
Speaker 1: I found it so funny and charming that in your book,
Speaker 1: when you talk about resenting parts of your personality that
Speaker 1: you're like and guys don't just take my word for it.
Speaker 1: Other people didn't like me that much either.
Speaker 2: Yes, so there were kind of signs along the way
Speaker 2: that not only was I not thrilled with my personality,
Speaker 2: other people were not thrilled with it either. So one
Speaker 2: of them was that in grad school, we were all
Speaker 2: paired up and we had to write obituaries, like fake obituaries,
Speaker 2: obviously about one another, as sort of practice for the
Speaker 2: first job that everyone has at a newspaper, which is
Speaker 2: writing obituaries. So for these obituaries, you had to interview
Speaker 2: the other person's friends and family. And I remembered one
Speaker 2: line that stood out from my partner's obituary about me,
Speaker 2: which is, she really enjoys grocery shopping. He called my
Speaker 2: best friend from college, and that is what she said.
Speaker 2: And then there was like I was like a bridesmaid
Speaker 2: of one of my other friends or no, I was
Speaker 2: the maid of honor. And on her wedding website she
Speaker 2: was like, Olga doesn't tolerate bullshit from anyone, and I
Speaker 2: was like, I feel like, typically you want a maid
Speaker 2: of honor who is like, she's the best, She's always
Speaker 2: there for me exactly exactly, you know, has some sort
Speaker 2: of other qualities than like no bullshit, tolerate.
Speaker 1: We call this damning with faint praise.
Speaker 2: Right, yes, yes, And so there were just a lot
Speaker 2: of situations where I was like, am I like bringing
Speaker 2: my best into the world sometimes?
Speaker 4: Or you know, I don't know, is this too much?
Speaker 2: This sort of cynical, introverted, kind of neurotic person that
Speaker 2: I've become.
Speaker 1: There's a story you talk about in your book that
Speaker 1: I found so much resonance in where this very good
Speaker 1: thing happens to you in your professional life. Right, it's
Speaker 1: a kind of a big career moment, but your brain
Speaker 1: finds ways to self sabotage and to create lemons out
Speaker 1: of lemonade. Essentially. Can you share a little bit of
Speaker 1: that story? I think it exemplifies well what a can
Speaker 1: mean to be neurotic in everyday life.
Speaker 2: Sure, And I'm going to preface this by saying that
Speaker 2: the story will make everyone hate me at first. I
Speaker 2: also hate the version of myself that wasn't grateful this day.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 2: With that said, So I'm in Miami and my boss
Speaker 2: will call me and they're like, we need to take
Speaker 2: a photo of you, like a professional photo of you
Speaker 2: to illustrate this story that you wrote. Part of me
Speaker 2: was obviously like wooho, like my Carrie Bradshaw moment. You
Speaker 2: know I'm gonna be photographed, and then I kind of
Speaker 2: started to freak out. I hate having my photo taken.
Speaker 2: There's just something about it. I feel like I don't
Speaker 2: look the way I really look in photos. And I
Speaker 2: also hadn't gotten a haircut in a while. So I
Speaker 2: go and I book a hair appointment and I kind
Speaker 2: of don't describe what I want very well, which was
Speaker 2: on me, and she cuts it into probably the worst
Speaker 2: haircut I've ever gotten outside of like a supercuts.
Speaker 1: Can you just describe it just for listeners, like, what
Speaker 1: does it look like?
Speaker 2: It looked like an avant garde mush. I think she
Speaker 2: was going for like a layered almost like a Rachel
Speaker 2: from Friends type thing, except my hair doesn't do that,
Speaker 2: and so it just looked strange. So on top of
Speaker 2: time to get my phototaken, I have to get my
Speaker 2: phototaken with awful hair. Miami, for all its positive qualities,
Speaker 2: a lot of traffic. Hard to find this photo studio.
Speaker 2: There's no parking because there's never parking. The first thing
Speaker 2: the photographer says is, do you want to fix your hair?
Speaker 2: There's this's a specific type of photo which I have
Speaker 2: to look very serious and not smiling, and they want
Speaker 2: it to be a profile photo.
Speaker 4: I do not like.
Speaker 2: Having profile photos taken of me. I'm like just getting
Speaker 2: like more and more clenched. Is this is all happening?
Speaker 4: Whatever? That's over?
Speaker 2: I drive on into Miami. I take a wrong turn
Speaker 2: because I'm a terrible driver, and end up like having
Speaker 2: to circumnavigate this little cruise ship launching island. It takes forever.
Speaker 2: My boss is like slacking me about other things. My
Speaker 2: mom is flying in that night and I have to
Speaker 2: go get groceries for her at the grocery store. This
Speaker 2: is again a very small thing, but the shopping cart
Speaker 2: locks on my way to my car to load the groceries,
Speaker 2: so I have to like drag the shopping cart full
Speaker 2: of groceries across the parking lot. So I get home
Speaker 2: and I just melted down. I was like crying, wailing,
Speaker 2: chugging wine, just like I need to get to a
Speaker 2: place of calm, and I have no idea how to
Speaker 2: do it. Telling my husband I don't want kids because
Speaker 2: I can't handle kids obviously because I can't even handle
Speaker 2: like Miami on a frustrating day. Yeah, I was having
Speaker 2: this connection and that is sort of what launched the
Speaker 2: whole thing.
Speaker 1: So would you say, then, based on the scenario, just
Speaker 1: describe that the trait you most identified with was neuroticism.
Speaker 1: Was that the thing that you were finding to be
Speaker 1: the most challenging.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was definitely the one that in day to
Speaker 2: day life, I felt like was holding me back from
Speaker 2: enjoying life the most. There are a million ways to
Speaker 2: have interpreted that day, and I chose the worst possible interpretation,
Speaker 2: and that really is neuroticism. It's like seeing threats, seeing
Speaker 2: bad things, being anxious, being depressed. That's what the trade
Speaker 2: of neuroticism is all about. And I was like, wow,
Speaker 2: this trait is why I have days like this, meaning
Speaker 2: I interpret days like today in this way.
Speaker 1: So you have this experience with the mushroom haircut and
Speaker 1: the photo shoot gone wrong and then everything else going
Speaker 1: wrong that day, and you said that was kind of
Speaker 1: your like come to Jesus moment, right, Okay, things, something
Speaker 1: needs to change because I'm actively self sabotaging my happiness
Speaker 1: or like what could be happiness in most moments of life. Yes,
Speaker 1: what first gave you the idea that personality change was
Speaker 1: even a possibility?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So this is some research that I came across.
Speaker 2: It showed that personality can change through things like behaviors,
Speaker 2: just stuff you do every day, small things, small habits
Speaker 2: that can actually alter the way you think about the world,
Speaker 2: the things you like to do, the things you end
Speaker 2: up doing. And I was like, huh, that's kind of
Speaker 2: interesting because though neuroticism was probably my biggest problem, it
Speaker 2: wasn't my only problem. And I felt like a personality
Speaker 2: overhaul was sort of an effective way to get at
Speaker 2: all of the stuff I was struggling with at the time.
Speaker 1: So you have this realization, Okay, personality can change, right,
Speaker 1: I'm seeing that in the research. Now I'm going to
Speaker 1: embark on a journey to better understand personality and understand
Speaker 1: what levers are at my disposal so I can in
Speaker 1: fact change it. And I loved learning about the history
Speaker 1: of personality science, especially because researchers had been a bit
Speaker 1: all over the place right historically, I'm like, what is personality?
Speaker 1: What's the best way to test it? Can you tell
Speaker 1: me about the first researcher who essentially put forth the
Speaker 1: idea of personality traits, these distinct features that we each carry. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So this was Gordon Allport, and he was sort of
Speaker 2: reacting to Freud and a lot of previous researchers who
Speaker 2: were just kind of like making stuff up, like you know,
Speaker 2: people must secretly want to have sex with their moms
Speaker 2: and that's personality. And he's like, no, let's like actually
Speaker 2: just see what what are some of the ways we
Speaker 2: describe people? Maybe that's personality. So he sat down and
Speaker 2: he looked through the dictionary and he just made a
Speaker 2: list of adjectives that can be used to describe people.
Speaker 2: And some of them were kind of out there, like
Speaker 2: airy and zestful or two of them, which like, I
Speaker 2: don't think you describe anyone as like zestful. And so
Speaker 2: he had a huge list of thousands of traits. Researchers
Speaker 2: eventually just winnowed down through those and they narrowed all
Speaker 2: of those traits, all those synonyms, down to five big traits.
Speaker 1: Can you walk me through the big five traits and
Speaker 1: what each of them are?
Speaker 4: Sure?
Speaker 2: Yeah, The Big five traits can be remembered with the
Speaker 2: acronym ocean. The first's openness to experiences, which is sort
Speaker 2: of imaginativeness and creativity, political liberalism. Also in their conscientiousness,
Speaker 2: which is getting stuff done, being on time, meeting deadlines,
Speaker 2: being organized, extraversion, which is being cheerful, having a lot
Speaker 2: going on, just being really busy, and being a people person. Agreeableness,
Speaker 2: which is also being a people person, but more in
Speaker 2: like a warm, empathetic way. So you might not have
Speaker 2: a ton of friends, but you're just so close with
Speaker 2: the ones that you do have, and like you're just
Speaker 2: a super nice, sweet angel person. And then neuroticism is
Speaker 2: basically anxiety and depression. Okay, the flip side of neuroticism
Speaker 2: is emotional stability, and that's the one that you do want.
Speaker 2: That's a good thing.
Speaker 1: So is it fair to say, like neuroticism is bad,
Speaker 1: Like is that what the personality scientists are saying, Then
Speaker 1: if they're saying the flip side is emotional stability, right right, right,
Speaker 1: Like extraversion introversion. Okay, we've got pros and cons to both,
Speaker 1: but like neuroticism versus emotional stability.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so generally neuroticism is considered bad and all of
Speaker 2: those other ones that I mentioned those other four higher
Speaker 2: levels of those are considered good. They tend to correlate
Speaker 2: with well being. At the same time, you don't want
Speaker 2: to be too high on them or like just off
Speaker 2: the charts high. So conscientiousness is a good example. Conscientiousness
Speaker 2: is correlated with longevity, making more money, being healthier. But
Speaker 2: if you think about people who are just super duper
Speaker 2: detail oriented, that can start to be like obsessive compulsive
Speaker 2: disorder almost sure, so you kind of want to stop
Speaker 2: short of those extremes.
Speaker 1: I mean, the reason I asked too, is that I
Speaker 1: think we can argue that there's many benefits to being
Speaker 1: a bit neurotic right in everyday life. And more importantly,
Speaker 1: I think this raises a more philosophical question about how
Speaker 1: we gauge whether personality traits are quote good or bad,
Speaker 1: which is, should we be only solving for well being
Speaker 1: and happiness on an individual level. I mean, I'm certain
Speaker 1: that Beethoven was highly neurotic and his artistic contributions to
Speaker 1: the world were profound.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that's a really good point.
Speaker 1: It just raises an interesting question of again, what we're
Speaker 1: solving for, Like what's the north star? Is it for?
Speaker 1: Every human to be maximally happy, or is it for
Speaker 1: every human to live kind of a rich life full
Speaker 1: of varied emotions. And then on a societal level, couldn't
Speaker 1: we argue that society flourishes when it has this mixing
Speaker 1: pot of different personality types that were just better off
Speaker 1: when there is that diversity kind of built in. I
Speaker 1: do wonder were you worried that trying to change your
Speaker 1: personality kind of overall might impede aspects of the traits
Speaker 1: you actually wanted to preserve.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there was always this element of striving in anxiety,
Speaker 2: Like I'm nervous and you know, I'm worried, but I'm
Speaker 2: also trying to do better. I'm trying to do well,
Speaker 2: and I think part of me was a little reluctant
Speaker 2: to give up on the anxiety because I worried that
Speaker 2: it would mean that I was no longer trying to
Speaker 2: do well.
Speaker 1: Also, that's what gives life meaning and purpose, right, and
Speaker 1: like gets you out of that in the morning is
Speaker 1: some feeling of striving.
Speaker 4: Right exactly.
Speaker 2: I think reading those studies and seeing that they worked
Speaker 2: for people gave me hope that I could do it too,
Speaker 2: because I did think, Okay, if I'm actually able to
Speaker 2: change my personality, that could make my life better.
Speaker 1: After the break, Olga gets to work, and let's just
Speaker 1: say it's not without pain.
Speaker 2: I just was like, I don't want to do this.
Speaker 2: I want to just jump out of my skin and
Speaker 2: run out the front door.
Speaker 1: That's after the break. On a slight change of plans,
Speaker 1: Olga gave herself one year to change her personality. Her
Speaker 1: goal to become more extroverted, more agreeable, and less neurotic.
Speaker 1: Olga found in her research that even small changes a
Speaker 1: person makes in their daily lives can alter the way
Speaker 1: they engage with the world.
Speaker 2: So I signed up for improv, I signed up for sailing,
Speaker 2: I sign up for a bunch of meetup groups that
Speaker 2: went like hiking and other stuff. I just tried to
Speaker 2: get out as much as possible. And so for each
Speaker 2: of the trades I basically went through and made like
Speaker 2: a little curriculum for myself.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about improv. That sounds like my worst nightmare.
Speaker 1: So tell me about that first day of class, and
Speaker 1: like just set a scene for me of what it
Speaker 1: was like for Olga. Who's there for like really non
Speaker 1: traditional reasons, Right, You're like, I'm actually here because I'm
Speaker 1: trying to overhaul my personality and I would really like
Speaker 1: to be slightly more extroverted, which is a hilarious premise
Speaker 1: for joining an improv class.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was not there for the right reasons to
Speaker 2: you the reality to Yeah, so yeah, I signed up,
Speaker 2: and I have to say that I was like, I'll
Speaker 2: just deal with the fact that this is my worst
Speaker 2: night merit later. Like I kind of just put it
Speaker 2: off and put it off, and then suddenly it was
Speaker 2: the day. It was the day of the improv class,
Speaker 2: and I was like, Okay, I'm actually gonna go. I
Speaker 2: hate performing in front of other people. I hate people
Speaker 2: looking at me, I hate being silly. So I'm driving there.
Speaker 2: It's an hour long drive, and I'm kind of getting
Speaker 2: mentally prepared and like whatever, it's not a big deal.
Speaker 2: Just be cool, you know, all the stuff that doesn't
Speaker 2: really work.
Speaker 1: For me at all.
Speaker 2: And so we like sit around in a circle and
Speaker 2: she does intros, introduce yourself, have you done improv before?
Speaker 2: Like how long can we like draw out these intros
Speaker 2: so that we don't actually have to do any improv
Speaker 2: on the first day. And then she's like, okay, let's
Speaker 2: get started, and I just had this extreme feeling of
Speaker 2: wanting to die, like I just want to not exist,
Speaker 2: because I just really didn't want to do it. I
Speaker 2: was like, I don't want to do this. I want
Speaker 2: to just jump out of my skin and run out
Speaker 2: the front door. But I did not do that. I
Speaker 2: stayed there, and I improvised a bus stop conversation with
Speaker 2: someone else, and I improvised being a purchaser of sulfuric acid.
Speaker 1: Wow, what else?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I would not be impressed. Actually, the fact that
Speaker 4: you did.
Speaker 1: It at all. I mean, I don't even care about quality.
Speaker 1: Just the mere fact you didn't dissolve into a puddle
Speaker 1: on the ground is like applause worthy in my opinion.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So how long did you participate in these classes,
Speaker 1: these improv classes? And then were you noticing changes over time?
Speaker 2: I did improv for probably about a year all told.
Speaker 2: The dread was there almost every time for the first
Speaker 2: five or six months. But what I started noticing over
Speaker 2: time is that invariably I felt really happy afterward.
Speaker 4: It was just like a mood boost.
Speaker 2: For whatever reason, being really silly with other people with
Speaker 2: no expectation of performance in a good way. There's no
Speaker 2: expectation that what we did was good. That was really
Speaker 2: freeing for me, and it was just like really fun.
Speaker 2: It was like what people talk about when they talk
Speaker 2: about having fun, which is just like being silly and
Speaker 2: playful for a few hours.
Speaker 1: So you actually found yourself enjoying it. Maybe it's too
Speaker 1: far to say you were looking you looked forward to
Speaker 1: the classes, right, I did not look forward to that,
Speaker 1: but you found it less painful over time.
Speaker 2: So this is still my thing with extroversion is that
Speaker 2: I'm still like, oh, I don't want to go. I
Speaker 2: don't want to go. Maybe I should just cancel, maybe
Speaker 2: I should just bow out. And then I'm there and
Speaker 2: I like slowly warm up over time to whatever the
Speaker 2: situation is improv but even you know, a party mixer,
Speaker 2: happy hour or whatever, I'm there. It gets better over
Speaker 2: time and I'm happy after it ends, I'm like, oh,
Speaker 2: that was really cool, that was really neat. That was
Speaker 2: nice to catch up with them, you know what have you.
Speaker 2: And there's studies on this too that show that like
Speaker 2: hardened introverts will be like I'm not going to socialize.
Speaker 4: I'm not going to socialize.
Speaker 2: Then the researcher is like, go socialize for a couple
Speaker 2: of minutes, just do it, and then they do it
Speaker 2: and then they feel better afterwards. Yeah and that Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's exactly what happened to me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that research. It's so compelling. It's like
Speaker 1: people are like, there's no way I'd want to talk
Speaker 1: to the stranger, and then they talk to the stranger
Speaker 1: and it's like that was the best moment of their
Speaker 1: day having that interaction. So you mentioned a couple of
Speaker 1: things that you tried in order to boost extraversions, so sailing,
Speaker 1: these improv classes, other activities. When it came to boosting agreeableness,
Speaker 1: this one was really surprising to me because you actually
Speaker 1: took an anger management class, and I wouldn't naturally have thought, oh,
Speaker 1: the soul for agreeableness is managing anger. But then when
Speaker 1: I was thinking about your definition, right, you talked about
Speaker 1: it as being about human empathy, right, Like, it's about
Speaker 1: exercising that empathy in moments you have maybe more compassion
Speaker 1: for others, And so I can understand then the connection
Speaker 1: to anger. You want to limit the frustration that you
Speaker 1: have in response to other people, thus made making you
Speaker 1: more agreeable. Is that the right way to think about it?
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. And I mean one thing that did come
Speaker 2: through consistently is that as we all noticed opportunities in
Speaker 2: our lives to have more empathy for people that made
Speaker 2: us mad, we became less mad at them. Like one
Speaker 2: of my classmates said she was always mad at a
Speaker 2: friend who was always late, and then the friend told
Speaker 2: her that she's always late because she's always checking to
Speaker 2: unplug all of her appliances around her house because she
Speaker 2: had been in a house fire, and so she was like, oh, man,
Speaker 2: like okay, I could totally see that, I could totally
Speaker 2: see why you would do that and that would make
Speaker 2: you late. Yeah, And that kind of just stopped her
Speaker 2: anger at her friend. And that happened to me on
Speaker 2: different levels with a lot of different things, including anger
Speaker 2: that I had at my husband over various things.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there were two techniques that you talked about coming
Speaker 1: from the anger management classes that I thought were super
Speaker 1: interesting things to kind of be aware of that were
Speaker 1: sort of subconsciously doing in day to day life that
Speaker 1: if we were to be more aware and reframe things,
Speaker 1: it could help increase our agreeableness. So can you tell
Speaker 1: me about inflammatory labeling?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So this is something I mean that we all do.
Speaker 2: You're not a rage aholic if you do this, But
Speaker 2: people who tend to get angrier than others tend to
Speaker 2: do this a little more inflammatory labeling is sort of
Speaker 2: referring to situations more negatively than is realistic. So if
Speaker 2: a coworker makes an innocent mistake, you say, like, that
Speaker 2: guy's a total idiot. You know, you're just kind of
Speaker 2: writing off the things that people do in this very
Speaker 2: negative way, and that actually makes you angrier. Like that
Speaker 2: doesn't help you understand that person or help you explain
Speaker 2: their behavior. It just you're like, yeah, that idiot and
Speaker 2: I have to work with him, Like you know, you
Speaker 2: kind of just get more and more frustrated. And so
Speaker 2: the recommendation there is actually just I mean, I know
Speaker 2: it's hard, but like, don't do that. Don't try to
Speaker 2: read into the motivations behind people's behavior. Maybe they're not
Speaker 2: an idiot, maybe they're having a really busy day. I mean,
Speaker 2: I know it's like a new parent. I honestly seem
Speaker 2: probably really dumb to people a lot of the time.
Speaker 2: But it's honestly just because I'm really tired, and so
Speaker 2: I'm sure that like I've made people mad by just
Speaker 2: I've like misspelled my name at the doctor's office. But like,
Speaker 2: I'm just honestly really tired.
Speaker 4: I'm not sure, you know. So, yeah, I'm just remembering that, you.
Speaker 2: Know, there's situational factors behind people's behaviors.
Speaker 1: Yeah, can you give me a concrete example of how
Speaker 1: you might have applied this to your marriage? For example,
Speaker 1: So you talk in the book about using inflammatory labels
Speaker 1: when it came to your husband and your interactions, and
Speaker 1: so what's an example of a time where you try
Speaker 1: to apply like, okay, taking the temperature down and maybe
Speaker 1: not type casting him is a certain way following some
Speaker 1: sort of failure, negligence or what have you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, many many years ago, I noticed that our fridge
Speaker 2: had like seven or eight different mustards in it that
Speaker 2: were all open, and that he had gone to the
Speaker 2: store and bought more mustard. And I got so mad
Speaker 2: at him. I was like, rich, what is the deal
Speaker 2: You're trying to like throw all our money away on ustard?
Speaker 4: You don't care at.
Speaker 2: All about our grocery management, or like, you just don't
Speaker 2: care about me.
Speaker 4: All you want is mustard.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: I was just getting so worked up thinking that he
Speaker 2: was in the grocery store plotting, you know, to like
Speaker 2: overwhelm me with mustard. But really he just forgot, because
Speaker 2: everyone forgets whether they are mustard or not.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, it's just kind of like reminding yourself
Speaker 2: in those moments. Okay, was he really like, was this
Speaker 2: a you know, malicious mustarding or was this just kind
Speaker 2: of being forgetful?
Speaker 1: Even like, my husband's not a mustard lobbyist, this is
Speaker 1: truly innocent. Another one that I really loved was around
Speaker 1: the expectations that we have of others, reducing them a
Speaker 1: little bit with a slight tweak. So you talk about
Speaker 1: framing things as goals rather than expectations.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is something that is useful in particular with
Speaker 2: family members or even like kids, Like a lot of
Speaker 2: the people in anger management were getting mad at their
Speaker 2: kids for not meeting their expectations, and maybe like a
Speaker 2: better way to look at that is as a goal.
Speaker 2: So you know, your goal is for your child to
Speaker 2: have their homework done by a certain time, but an
Speaker 2: expectation is sort of a little bit more rigid, and
Speaker 2: you also get more frustrated when someone doesn't meet your expectations.
Speaker 2: It's literally like the phrase from a performance review, but
Speaker 2: someone missing a goal is sort of like, Okay, well
Speaker 2: we can try again, you know, Okay, let's just practice
Speaker 2: some more and maybe we'll meet it the next time.
Speaker 2: It's just another way of reframing the way you think
Speaker 2: about other people's actions.
Speaker 1: So now let's get to the third trait that you
Speaker 1: tried to change, which was decreasing neuroticism. Right, this is
Speaker 1: the big beast. Tell me about what you tried to
Speaker 1: try to decrease neuroticism.
Speaker 2: So for neuroticism, I tried a lot of stuff, but
Speaker 2: it was mostly meditation, and people don't like to hear
Speaker 2: that because I've found that people do not like meditation,
Speaker 2: especially anxious people.
Speaker 4: They don't want to do it fast.
Speaker 2: And that is, unfortunately like most of what I did.
Speaker 2: I did, okay, different types of meditation. I did guided meditations.
Speaker 2: I meditated in a sensory deprivation tank. But the biggest
Speaker 2: thing I did is I did a meditation class for
Speaker 2: which we meditated for forty five minutes every day, and
Speaker 2: then we did an all day meditation retreat, which was
Speaker 2: not a retreat for me, and we also learned about
Speaker 2: Buddhist concepts and principles, which was probably the most helpful part.
Speaker 1: What concepts in particular did you find resonant. I really
Speaker 1: like the double arrow, which is this idea that if
Speaker 1: something bad happens to you, let's say you miss a deadline, right,
Speaker 1: that you shouldn't then berate yourself from missing the deadline,
Speaker 1: because that's hitting yourself with another arrow, right, that's the
Speaker 1: second arrow of blaming yourself and being mad at yourself.
Speaker 1: So just say, okay, I missed that deadline. You know
Speaker 1: what am I going to do next? And just this
Speaker 1: idea that you don't always have to reprimand yourself or
Speaker 1: punish yourself for things not unfolding the way you would
Speaker 1: like them to have unfolded. That was really freeing for me.
Speaker 2: And weirdly, the other thing that was really helpful was
Speaker 2: that my meditation teacher always said things happen that we
Speaker 2: don't like. And I know that sounds really simple, but
Speaker 2: I had never honestly considered the fact that everyone has
Speaker 2: things that happened to them that they don't like.
Speaker 1: So I'm asking for a friend for those who uh
Speaker 1: don't take to meditation, are there other techniques that they
Speaker 1: or I might use in the neuroticism space.
Speaker 2: I did do gratitude lists, but I struggled with them
Speaker 2: because for whatever reason, or maybe it's just my family,
Speaker 2: but I was kind of always taught that it's not
Speaker 2: good to express gratitude for things that you have in
Speaker 2: an open way because that would mean the fate or
Speaker 2: like the mean Russian god who's always watching, can take
Speaker 2: them away.
Speaker 3: Interesting, Okay, so like we weren't ever supposed to be like, oh,
Speaker 3: thank goodness we have money and savings without like spitting
Speaker 3: over our shoulder and knocking on wood and like all
Speaker 3: this other stuff, because it's like that's tempting fate, right, Okay,
Speaker 3: So for me, it kind of made me a little
Speaker 3: queasy doing that. Although if you're not someone who has
Speaker 3: that response to gratitudeless, I would recommend that as like
Speaker 3: a more cerebral type of exercise to just like boost
Speaker 3: those warm and fuzzies if you're struggling.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the science is so strong here about the boost
Speaker 1: to well being and satisfaction when practicing even just small
Speaker 1: moments of gratitude, right, or like experiencing those moments of
Speaker 1: mindfulness where you're just doing the dishes and you just
Speaker 1: pause for a second and like kind of appreciate the
Speaker 1: stillness or the water on your hands, or something good
Speaker 1: that happened in your day. Because I really struggle with meditation,
Speaker 1: I try to just do more bite sized moments, like
Speaker 1: little meditation snacks I'll call them.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Then I try to like sprinkle them throughout my day
Speaker 1: because I just don't have the right temperament.
Speaker 4: That totally counts.
Speaker 1: And are there any other interventions you tried in any
Speaker 1: of the buckets that you would want to share?
Speaker 2: Those are the three that I worked on, But there
Speaker 2: were also the two that I did not. I kind
Speaker 2: of had no room to go up because I'm already
Speaker 2: very open and very conscientious. But I will say that
Speaker 2: the thing that seems to work for openness is psychedelics.
Speaker 2: There's like a few things that seem to work for conscientiousness.
Speaker 2: Probably the most interesting one that I came across is
Speaker 2: just decluttering. And I don't mean just like your stuff,
Speaker 2: I mean like obligations, your to do list. Taking a
Speaker 2: more minimalist approach to various things in your life will
Speaker 2: actually allow you to get more done.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because it's also making it more manageable to be
Speaker 1: conscientious in the first place. Right, you have just a
Speaker 1: more limited to do list or schedule as you're trying
Speaker 1: these different interventions. I'm curious, although, like, did certain things
Speaker 1: feel like they were coming more naturally to you? So
Speaker 1: they were things that you you kind of instinctively wanted
Speaker 1: to keep doing, versus things that you felt like you
Speaker 1: were forcing yourself to do for the sake of this project.
Speaker 2: I would say the thing that started coming more naturally
Speaker 2: was extroversion. I started to really like and look forward
Speaker 2: to socializing in a way that I really had never had.
Speaker 2: And I started to really want to go to all
Speaker 2: these activities that I had signed up for with my
Speaker 2: credit card and couldn't back out of. So no, but
Speaker 2: it was actually it was a good thing because I
Speaker 2: was like, oh, man, I actually have you know sailing today,
Speaker 2: and I really want to go. It's not, you know,
Speaker 2: a thing I'm being forced to do. So that's the
Speaker 2: one that I ended up kind of taking to the most.
Speaker 4: I would say, hmmm.
Speaker 1: So this leads me to a a broader question than
Speaker 1: I have about personality. I'm curious to get your thoughts
Speaker 1: on it, which is, should we reduce personality to just
Speaker 1: a set of expressed behaviors or should we be thinking
Speaker 1: about personality in terms more in terms of our internal state, right,
Speaker 1: like how it makes us feel or even what comes
Speaker 1: more naturally to us. So I could see if we're
Speaker 1: defining personality in the former way, then a lot of
Speaker 1: these interventions can work because you're just seeing changes in
Speaker 1: behavioral expression. But to really alter your core and to
Speaker 1: feel like there's something natural and organic about it feels
Speaker 1: like a different size of problem to solve than one
Speaker 1: that might be out of reach for these sorts of interventions.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so great question. And the answer to that is
Speaker 2: that different traits work differently along those two metrics, Like
Speaker 2: is it natural versus is it just expressed?
Speaker 1: Yeah, tell me more. So.
Speaker 2: Conscientiousness is one where all you have to do is
Speaker 2: just make the to do lists, set the calendar reminders,
Speaker 2: leave fifteen minutes early, and you will be conscientious. Like
Speaker 2: that is conscientiousness. It is only measured through expressed behaviors
Speaker 2: and that's pretty much all you have to do. And
Speaker 2: that's actually how I became conscientious, Like, I honestly was
Speaker 2: not really detail oriented in high school and in college,
Speaker 2: and I actually just started using technology frankly to just
Speaker 2: remind myself of stuff and it worked. You know, there
Speaker 2: are other traits like neuroticism, which, as you can imagine,
Speaker 2: is more about mindset and how do you approach the
Speaker 2: world and how do you think about things, And that's
Speaker 2: why neuroticism is harder to change. You know, people do therapy,
Speaker 2: they take medication. Those things can change neuroticism, but you know,
Speaker 2: it takes a while and it is trickier in that sense.
Speaker 2: But I will say that once you start doing some
Speaker 2: of these things, even if it doesn't feel natural at first,
Speaker 2: it can start to feel more natural over time.
Speaker 1: You took that baseline personality test at the outset right
Speaker 1: to set, kind of like, okay, here's where I'm beginning,
Speaker 1: and then you tracked personality along the way and you
Speaker 1: took the test repeatedly. What did you find at the end.
Speaker 1: What were the areas where you noticed big changes?
Speaker 2: The biggest changes I noticed were a huge increase in extroversion.
Speaker 2: And that's something that I think has stuck with me,
Speaker 2: and I think is like no longer true of me
Speaker 2: that I'm an introvert. I think, oh, I would not
Speaker 2: really describe myself that way anymore. Anxiety went down a
Speaker 2: little bit, but my depression went down a lot. I
Speaker 2: became a lot less depressed. Not totally sure why, but
Speaker 2: I did a lot of meditation, a lot of like
Speaker 2: loving kindness, reflections of things, and I guess it made
Speaker 2: me less gloomy. And then my component of agreeableness that's
Speaker 2: love and trust in other people went up as well.
Speaker 1: Have the people in your life, Olga, notice meaningful differences
Speaker 1: in you in terms of the way that you engage
Speaker 1: with them.
Speaker 2: I did have some friends say that they noticed that
Speaker 2: I was more up for doing things, like I was
Speaker 2: less reflexively like no, no, no, no no to every invitation.
Speaker 2: My friend Kathy said that I have a healthier relationship
Speaker 2: to work. I get less every time I have a deadline.
Speaker 2: I'm not like, oh my god, oh my god, am
Speaker 2: I going to meet it. I'm a little bit more
Speaker 2: chill about my job.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, you had the ultimate pressure test recently
Speaker 1: for all of this, which is you had a baby.
Speaker 1: You have an eleven month old now, and man, I mean,
Speaker 1: like your basic needs haven't been met. I'm assuming no,
Speaker 1: I'm not sleeping, you don't have a lot of time
Speaker 1: for yourself, just total overwhelm. And I'm wondering because you
Speaker 1: don't have the cognitive wherewithal like you don't have the
Speaker 1: bandwidth to actively practice some of these traits or like
Speaker 1: some of these desired behaviors, have you reverted back to
Speaker 1: certain tendencies more than before? Are there other ones that
Speaker 1: have remained quite sticky despite the pressure test.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so having a baby is like rewiring your whole
Speaker 2: personality and everything else in your life. I think with
Speaker 2: extra version, you know, new motherhood can be very lonely,
Speaker 2: and I think the previous version of me would have
Speaker 2: retreated into the loneliness and kind of just tried to
Speaker 2: tough it out on my own. But instead I really
Speaker 2: have tried to reach out more and meet up with people,
Speaker 2: make connections with other new moms, even if it's a
Speaker 2: brief whatever what's that message, or you know, not like
Speaker 2: a bosom friendship, but just sharing experiences or meeting up
Speaker 2: for the like thirty minutes that we have in our.
Speaker 4: Free time and our way.
Speaker 2: You know, I really kind of try to prioritize that
Speaker 2: because I just saw the power so much of interacting
Speaker 2: with other people and socializing, even if it's in short
Speaker 2: little bursts throughout the day.
Speaker 1: How do you think that post experiment Olga would respond
Speaker 1: to the day of the photo shoot. So back in
Speaker 1: the day you came home and you had to melt down,
Speaker 1: you said you were like guzzling wine. How do you
Speaker 1: think you would cope today with that same experience?
Speaker 2: Oh, I just completely differently. First of all, Instakart, those groceries,
Speaker 2: girl liked you got too much going, Like, like, why
Speaker 2: didn't I think of that?
Speaker 4: Anyway?
Speaker 2: Also, okay, don't schedule a haircut for the morning of
Speaker 2: the photoshoot.
Speaker 4: But whatever.
Speaker 2: Okay, let's say you did that. You get there, your
Speaker 2: hair looks bad, the photos look bad. Whatever, nobody cares.
Speaker 2: This was published in the magazine and zero people said
Speaker 2: you look bad. So just whatever, not my favorite photo.
Speaker 2: They got what they wanted. Go back to the airbnb,
Speaker 2: get in the pool.
Speaker 4: Whatever. Yeah, it's you know, I think I would.
Speaker 1: Have just had a completely different reaction and just kind
Speaker 1: of enjoyed it for what it was, like, almost in
Speaker 1: all of its hilarity. I mean, it's hilarious to go
Speaker 1: mushroom cut the day of your big photo shoot.
Speaker 2: Right, It's like an improv show that's going really badly,
Speaker 2: and like people are totally misunderstanding each other and mishearing
Speaker 2: each other. And it's just getting more and more weird
Speaker 2: because no one's on the same wavelength. Sometimes those can
Speaker 2: be like the funniest shows, because yeah, life is like
Speaker 2: that sometimes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely. At the end of the day, do you
Speaker 1: feel like you got what you wanted out of the experience,
Speaker 1: that your personality changed in the ways that you'd hoped.
Speaker 2: Yes, I still wish I had completely like nuked my anxiety,
Speaker 2: my like little striver immigrant, like I want to be perfect.
Speaker 2: It's like I wish I was totally not anxious anymore.
Speaker 2: But I aside from that, I am happy with the results.
Speaker 2: I think that it it just made let me see
Speaker 2: myself and the world in a different way. And I
Speaker 2: think it made me just aware of the possibilities that
Speaker 2: are out there and of.
Speaker 4: What can happen when you break out of grooves that
Speaker 4: you've created for yourself.
Speaker 1: Hey, thanks so much for listening. Don't forget to check
Speaker 1: out my new and free newsletter Change with Maya Shunker
Speaker 1: on Substack. This week, I took the personality test that
Speaker 1: Olga mentioned. It was super fun and I share my
Speaker 1: results with all of you there. I'll share a link
Speaker 1: to that personality test so that you can try it
Speaker 1: for yourself, and while you're there, please leave a comment
Speaker 1: so I can hear from you about what you learned
Speaker 1: about yourself and maybe what parts of your personality you'd
Speaker 1: like to work on. You can sign up at the
Speaker 1: link in the show notes or go to change with
Speaker 1: Maya dot Com. Join me next time for the first
Speaker 1: episode in our two part series with Amanda Knox, a
Speaker 1: woman who spent years in an Italian prison for a
Speaker 1: murder she did not commit. In part one, we'll revisit
Speaker 1: my twenty twenty one conversation with Amanda. She talks about
Speaker 1: what it was like to return to the US after
Speaker 1: being exonerated and how she struggled to rebuild her life.
Speaker 5: Just because you deserve to be angry doesn't mean that
Speaker 5: it's the thing that's going to make you your best self.
Speaker 5: And I don't want what happened to me to turn
Speaker 5: me into something that is not my best self. I
Speaker 5: want to still feel like I'm in control of at
Speaker 5: least one thing in my life, and that's me and
Speaker 5: how I'm reacting to a set of bad circumstances.
Speaker 1: Then you'll hear part two. In the decade that followed
Speaker 1: Amanda's exoneration, she made a bold choice to reach back
Speaker 1: out to the lead prosecutor who built the case against
Speaker 1: her and to confront him face to face in Italy.
Speaker 1: I invited Amanda back to reflect on this experience and
Speaker 1: is truly one of the most moving and profound conversations
Speaker 1: I've ever had. That's all coming up on A Slight
Speaker 1: Change of Plans. A Slight Change of Plans is created, written,
Speaker 1: and executive produced by me Maya Schunker. The Slight Changed
Speaker 1: family includes our showrunner Tyler Green, our senior editor Kate
Speaker 1: Parkinson Morgan, our producers Britney Cronin and Megan Luvin, and
Speaker 1: our sound engineer Erica Huang. Louis Scara wrote our delightful
Speaker 1: theme song, and Ginger Smith helped arrange the vocals. A
Speaker 1: Slight Change of Plans is a production of Pushkin Industries,
Speaker 1: so big thanks to everyone there, and of course a
Speaker 1: very special thanks to Jimmy Lee. You can follow A
Speaker 1: Slight Change of Plans on Instagram at doctor Maya Schunker.
Speaker 1: See you next week. If your son grows up to
Speaker 1: resent parts of his personality and is like, hey, mom,
Speaker 1: I want to do an overhaul of my personality. I'm
Speaker 1: curious about the kind of advice you would give him.
Speaker 2: Well, my son is perfect in every way, and so
Speaker 2: there can never be anything wrong with him.