Can You Change Your Personality? Olga Khazan Tried.
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Hi, I'm Morgan Sung, host of Close All Tabs from KQED, where every week we reveal how the online world collides with everyday life. You don't know what's true or not because you don't know if AI was involved in it. So my first reaction was, ha ha, this is so funny. And my next reaction was, wait a minute, I'm a journalist. Is this real? And I think we will see a Twitch streamer president, maybe within our lifetimes. You can find Close All Tabs wherever you listen to podcasts.

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From KQED in San Francisco, I'm Grace Wan, in for Alexis Madrigal. Atlantic writer Olga Hazan had a good life, but like any self-admitted neurotic, she wondered if her life could be a little bit better. She wasn't seeking radical change, but she wanted to be more outgoing, less anxious, the person who embraced new things. So for a year, she embarked on a journey through the science of personality.

In her new book, Me But Better, Hazan chronicles her quest towards an improved self. We talked to Hazan and hear from you. Have you tried to change your personality? How did it go? All that right after this news.

Welcome to Forum. I'm Grace Wan, in for Alexis Madrigal. In a past career, I had an employer who had the entire company take a Myers-Briggs test. Apparently, I was an ENTJ. Or possibly, along with the firm's entire accounting department, I was an IFSP. I mean, I was in my 20s, this was the 90s, and who really knows? What I do remember was that we were told, you are who you are.

But you, like me, might be surprised to learn that personality isn't fixed. You can change who you are. And that's what Atlantic writer Olga Hazan attempted to do. Leaning on science, experts, and a lot of improv classes, Hazan embarked on a year-long journey to tweak aspects of herself.

She wasn't seeking radical change, but she wanted to be the kind of person open to new things, happy to host a party, able to do meditation body scans without falling into a deep, snow-white kind of sleep. She chronicles her quest in her new book, Me But Better, and she's here today to tell us how she fared. Welcome to Forum, Olga. Hi, thanks so much for having me. Let me ask you, before you launched on your journey of personality change, who was Olga Hazan?

Yeah, I would say I was very anxious a lot of the time. I just had a lot of anxiety and just a lot of negative thoughts in general. Just, you know, whenever something good happened, I would kind of immediately jump to like, oh, but what might, you know, what bad thing might happen next?

I was also pretty socially isolated. I kind of reflexively declined invitations and opportunities to hang out and connect with people. I preferred to just be by myself because I'm an introvert. But I kind of eventually started noticing that I was maybe too isolated and a little too lonely and kind of off to myself.

So those were some of the things that I was hoping to change. So there's a lot of great British bake-off happening in your life is what I'm hearing. Yes. Oh, totally. Yeah, I'm well acquainted with the genre, yeah. So the idea of wanting to be out there more, a little bit more extroverted, those were some of the traits that made you want to change a little bit. But was there a particular thing in your life that started you on this journey besides this idea like, oh, maybe if I could be a little bit different, I could be a little bit happier? Yeah.

this really bad day in Miami where I got a really bad haircut and then I got photos taken that looked really bad and then I got stuck in traffic and I had this weird debacle with the grocery store shopping cart that was anyway I describe it in the book and it was just so frustrating and I got when I got back to my hotel I kind of just like

melted down and was like kind of crying and sobbing and like chugging wine. Um, and then I kind of just like thought about it and I was like, was this day really all that bad? I mean, I'm, I was in Miami. It was like a beautiful day. You know, I was having photos taken of me, uh,

I had time to get my haircut, which I would kill for now as a new parent. And I just kind of started to think, I often seem to find the negative in whatever good things are happening. And it's really keeping me from enjoying life. I like how you put it. You said, I was tired of viewing my life through the dingy pain of neuroticism. Yes, exactly. So you're about to embark on this journey. But before you did...

Were you worried that the traits that kind of got you to this point in your life, because admittedly, you're the first to acknowledge, as you just said, like you have a really supportive partner, you have a career that you love. I mean, were you worried that if you tweaked aspects of yourself, you might lose that edge, which allowed you to find this fulfilling relationship, this career that you loved? Yeah.

Yeah, in particular, I was worried about worrying. I was a little nervous that reducing my levels of anxiety would make me less ambitious in my job and that my success at work would

was somehow attributable to my levels of anxiety. And so a big part of working on neuroticism for me was really thinking about, like, what role does anxiety actually play in my success? And can I still be successful, still be ambitious, but not be so anxious all the time? And staying with that kind of anxiety, I mean, that's a word that we hear a lot in the modern, especially post-pandemic age,

I mean, it sounds like you came to that anxiety honestly, that, you know, there was a thick seam of anxiety in your kind of growing up. I mean, you tell the story about your dad and his refusal to buy a Japanese car. And I wanted you to spin that out a little bit so people can understand just how anxious the world that you grew up in was.

Yeah, so our personalities are partly genetic and both my parents are extremely anxious. And so one of the many examples with my dad is that he once wanted to buy a new car, but he was nervous about buying one that

had been manufactured in Hiroshima, Japan, because he was worried that the, like, residue of the bomb that had been dropped there many, many, many decades ago would somehow, like, make its way into the car and give him cancer when he

was like driving around in the car. So he just like couldn't make up his mind and couldn't make up his mind and didn't end up buying the car. Yeah. I mean, I read that and I felt like, is Olga's dad my dad too? I wasn't sure. So then you wanted to change your personality. How do you define personality? Is it a disposition? Is it a diagnosis? Yeah.

Yeah, so most psychologists define personality as the thoughts, feelings and behaviors that come most naturally to us, the things that are kind of most reflexive. But one psychologist, Nathan Hudson, whose work actually forms a lot of the backbone of the research of the book,

He kind of would add on to that that personality serves some purpose in your life. So the traits that you have, they tend to help you meet certain goals. So people who are very conscientious, it's often because they found that the conscientiousness helps them at school or at work or

or with their health or in whatever other domain is important to them. So the kind of twist there is that personality can almost be seen as kind of like a tool. And this collection of traits, these tools, it's not fixed. I mean, it's a little bit on a spectrum. Is that right? Yeah.

Yeah. So it's both on a spectrum and it can change over time. So it changes naturally over time. Your personality, you just become gradually slightly different as you get older, even if you don't especially try to. And you also can change yourself if you really do try to. So you mentioned this researcher, Nathan Hudson, and he's

He sort of puts these traits in a bigger bucket because there's so many ways to describe our personality. There's anxiety, neuroses, this, that, and the other. And you have a very helpful anagram for the ocean. Tell us what these traits are, particularly as you were working on them.

Yeah. So so there's five traits that make up personality, according to most psychologists. And ocean is the acronym to remember them. So it's openness to experiences, which is like imaginativeness and creativity, conscientiousness, which is like being organized and timely and productive. Extroversion, which is like being friendly and cheerful and active.

agreeableness, which is like being warm and empathetic and trusting of other people. And then neuroticism, which is the bad one. It's the one you don't want to be high on. And that's basically like depression and anxiety. How did you figure out what kind of personality you had? Yeah. So this same researcher that I mentioned, Nathan Hudson, he has a website where he

basically post like research backed personality tests. So these aren't like BuzzFeed quizzes. They're, they're things that are used in like real psychology studies. Um, and I basically took one of his tests. Um, it's, you know, it's, it's the same test that lots of other psychologists use. Uh, it's called the IP IP. Um, and it'll tell you like, here's how you rank compared to all other people on, you know, openness, conscientiousness, et cetera. Um, and so that's how I knew, uh,

what I was like. Well, I think listeners will be relieved that you didn't rely on a Cosmo quiz or something to figure out who you are. But who are you then? How did you score on this test? Yeah. So when I first started this project, I scored very high on neuroticism, higher than I think 94% of people. I scored very low on extroversion, especially with the aspects of extroversion that had to do with being

friendly and cheerful. I scored kind of like medium on agreeableness, kind of maybe medium low. And I scored very high on openness and conscientiousness. And that has those last two have stayed high the whole time I've been working on this. Do you think that the pandemic I mean, did you take this post pandemic or in the midst of the pandemic? And do you think that had an effect on these scores?

So I took it like as the pandemic was sort of easing up a little bit. I took it, I think, my very first one in maybe 2021 or 2022, sort of like later, I think 2021. And I think it did have an impact because, yeah,

you know, a lot of people stopped socializing for good reasons during the pandemic. But I kind of was like a little too into it. Like I was like, you know, like most people are like, can't wait to get back out there. And I was sort of like, whatever, like I could do this forever. And I don't know. I kind of started to notice that a lot of my friendships were kind of like

Not really like maintaining through the pandemic. So it did have an impact, but it was also stuff that I had noticed was happening before. You were a pandemic winner in that, again, you got to watch a lot of Great British Bake Off. Yeah, I was like, this is great. And, you know, for people who are still grappling around this idea of what personality is, how would you distinguish that from maybe temperament?

Yeah, temperament is like not really a scientific term. I usually hear temperament kind of associated with life.

one with introversion and extroversion or like being shy or outgoing, you know, or even being like quick to anger or something like that. Those are all like what I just said are all personality traits. So they kind of map on to the big five. But temperament is sort of a kind of more of a layman's term. And so is are things like disposition or character. Yeah.

Well, we're talking with Atlantic writer Olga Hazan about her new book, Me But Better. For a year, she explored the science of personality to learn how she might be able to change hers. And we'd love to hear from you. Have you ever tried to change your personality? What did you try and how did that go? You can give us a call now at 866-733-6786.

That's 866-733-6786. Or you can email your comments and questions to forum at kqed.org. You can find us on social media, Blue Sky, Instagram. We're at KQED Forum or join our Discord community. We're going to hear more from Olga about all the things she did to try to tweak her personality after this break. I'm Grace Wan in for Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned.

Hi, I'm Morgan Sung, host of Close All Tabs from KQED, where every week we reveal how the online world collides with everyday life. You don't know what's true or not because you don't know if AI was involved in it. So my first reaction was, ha ha, this is so funny. And my next reaction was, wait a minute, I'm a journalist. Is this real? And I think we will see a Twitch streamer president, maybe within our lifetimes. You can find Close All Tabs wherever you listen to podcasts.

Welcome back to Forum. I'm Grace Wan, in for Alexis Magical. We're talking with Atlantic writer Olga Hazan about her new book, Me But Better. For one year, she dedicated herself to improving her personality, to changing her personality using science, research, and as we'll hear, sailing, surfing, and a lot of different ways to improve her personality. And we'd love

to hear from you. Have you ever tried to change your personality? What have you tried and how did that go? And what are aspects of your personality that you might want to change? I mean, Olga's here to maybe help you get through that. Give us a call now at 866-733-6786. That's 866-733-6786. Or you can email your comments and questions to forum at kqed.org. Find us on social media or Discord.

So, Olga, I wanted to start with one of these traits under Ocean, which is extroversion. And you write, quote, extroverts are happier, research unfortunately shows, which I thought was great. For introverts who are thinking, hey, there is absolutely no way I'm going to try to be the toast of the party, being a little bit more extroverted isn't exactly that, is it?

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So so what I'm really saying there and what the research suggests is that you can still be an introvert and feel like that.

most defines you and that's how you feel most refreshed. But even occasionally behaving in an extroverted way, and really that means connecting with others, socializing with others, that can really provide a big mood boost, even for people who are big time introverts. And actually one researcher I talked to said, you know, this can take the form of joining in a group activity and actually not even talking much, like kind of just listening more than you talk and

You know, just being around the energy of other people. You know, we're social animals, so that kind of thing can really lift our spirits. Because of the pandemic, like a lot of people in you, as you were saying, you weren't around, you know, groups of folks. So to try to address your 23rd percentile score in an extroversion, you went real deep and you went straight to improv, right?

which is probably like nails on a chalkboard for a lot of introverts. Tell me why improv and what was that experience like for you?

Yeah. So improv to me really felt like full immersion extroversion. Like I just wanted to like rip the bandaid off and do the most extroverted thing imaginable. And for me, it was so probably the first four or five months I did improv, I really felt a lot of dread every time I went. Like I had that feeling of like, I really don't want to go to this. Like I'm not excited at all. Like

Maybe class will be canceled, that kind of thing on the way there. And then I would kind of do it was a long class was like two, two hours long or something. And as class progressed, I found myself kind of like warming up.

Granted, it was a long warm up. It was like an hour and 45 minute warm up. But, you know, toward the end, like, you know, even like after, you know, the first or second class, like I really found myself feeling a lot happier after class. Like I was kind of smile to myself or kind of chuckle to myself afterwards.

You know, even just being around people, you know, sometimes something like overtly funny would happen, but sometimes it was just like this experience of being silly and playful with other people for a couple hours was just like so different than what I am used to that it really did it.

really did boost my mood, just like the studies say. Yeah. I mean, that's been a little bit of the vulnerability that comes with being an improv that kind of addressed those feelings. Yeah. And one reason why I wanted to do it is because a big kind of obstacle keeping me from extroversion is this discomfort with kind of chaos and unpredictability and of not knowing what

Where are the conversations going to go? What to say next? What's this person going to say? You know, I'm very comfortable in interviews, especially when I'm conducting the interview because I'm a journalist. You know, but when I'm not like trying to get to the point of a story, it always, you know, I kind of would get really uncomfortable sometimes.

you know, in just like regular conversation. So improv was a really good way to like kind of challenge that a little bit and to see that, you know, you can kind of like let other people pick up the slack or let other people like see what other people are going to do. Because usually things don't like totally spiral out of control. Right. And like unpredictability is kind of a good exercise because that's what conversations can be like in real life.

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So it was really good practice for like when you're at like a really weird party and someone just comes at you with like a strange statement, you know, what are you going to do next? Well, I love that it was D.C. You live in Washington, D.C. Yes. It was D.C. Improv. And you're right that improv there has a try hard overachievement air, which probably was also hard to get over initially. Yeah, I did feel like people were trying to make an A in improv as they do everything here. But yeah.

But, you know, I was too. I was also like, you know, whenever I would mess up a scene, I'd be like, dang it. Like, even though there was like no one watching. I mean, it's hard to get away from the desire to have a gold star. Let's go to the phones. Rich from Napa. Welcome to Forum. What's your personality story?

Well, when I was in my late 20s, I was trying to make a career change, and it was difficult for me because I grew up shy and introverted, and my goal became to be a firefighter. And it turned out I wasn't very good at interviewing, big surprise. But eventually I got hired, and over time,

I guess just by immersion in the world of the fire service, it changed me. And I realized that I became a person that just had to speak with people in uncomfortable situations or just off the cuff or people came to the door or... And so...

I ended up having a successful career and I'm now retired and my wife says, you know, you are definitely an extrovert. You like talk to people in the store. You are like...

aren't afraid to approach people, you aren't afraid to call people on the phone, you know, you aren't afraid of any kind of interpersonal, you know, discussion or anything, and you welcome it. And I realized, like, I didn't go searching for a new personality, but it found me. Like, my career actually crafted

a happier, healthier person. Yeah, I mean, well, first of all, thank you for being a firefighter. And Olga, I mean, what Rich is talking about is a little bit of what you say in the book, like you need to constantly do to be. And it seems like for in his job as a firefighter, there's just a lot of exposure therapy to interacting with people. Yeah, yeah, that was really a perfect example. You know, and sometimes having these goals in life, these personal projects that we're working on, you know, like

like changing careers is really can be something that really does inspire personality change. And, you know, like he said, after enough times of practicing extroversion, of having difficult conversations or, you know, off the cuff conversations, it actually started to reflect back on his personality. And that's really what we see happening is like,

someone will will act a certain way. They'll notice themselves behaving that way. And then they'll be like, oh, I must just be the kind of person who does this. And so now might even think of themselves as an extrovert. Well, when you think about yourself today, I mean, having you did improv, you also went to meetups to meet people in, you know, in random situations. Did that help? Did you become a little bit more extroverted? And how did you measure that?

Yeah, so I did become more extroverted. I think my extroversion, the latest test, I took another personality test and it said it was high. And I think really what I realized is that I need a lot more social interaction than I was getting. I think I, a lot of times when I was feeling down or kind of,

I don't know, frustrated or upset. My solution was to spend more time alone because I thought that's what I needed. But actually having like kind of challenged myself and pushed myself to

to connect more with others, I noticed that that was often more restorative for me and kind of helped me kind of snap out of, you know, my funk, I guess, for lack of a better word. And so I kind of just, now I really start to question that a little bit if I'm like, I just need, you know, three nights in a row of just watching Netflix. Like I'm like, oh, do it.

Do I really? Or should I, you know, phone a friend? Yeah, exactly. I mean, so tempting, though. So tempting to just watch Netflix. I mean, I wanted to go back a little bit to the tests that you're using to kind of assess how your personality is changing. And I started out by talking about Myers-Briggs, which is, I think, a personality test that a lot of people either know, have taken online or have had been administered to them.

And you write, you had, you quote Adam Grant in your book, who's a very famous organizational psychologist. And he has, he's a little skeptical about that particular test. Is that a valid way to assess what our personalities are? Yeah, I mean, people

People love the Myers-Briggs, and I don't want to take that away from anyone if they're really interested in their score and committed to being an INTJ or whatever it is. But most psychologists think that personality is on a spectrum. So instead of being either an introvert or an extrovert, you're probably somewhere in the middle. You might be at 30% introverted, or you might be all the way to 80%, almost a complete extrovert.

But you're not like completely one or the other. You still need a little bit of the other one in there. And so because all of the traits are on a spectrum, they kind of don't like to put people in categories like that where it's like you're this way or you're that way. It's a little bit more, I guess, flexible than that. I'm relieved to hear that because I never really braced my ENTJ-ness or whatever it was that I was. I'm like, I don't.

I don't know that I'm that way all the time. Exactly. Let's go to Ellen in Sacramento. Welcome to Forum, Ellen. Hi. Thank you so much. What's your personality story? Well, I just think this program is fantastic because it's so coincidental.

Yesterday, as a matter of fact, I was speaking with my sister about a problem I was having, and her response to me was, well, you just need to change your attitude about it. And I didn't say anything, but inside I was like, ugh.

That sounds rough. She's basically telling me I have to change my personality, and that's impossible to do, I think. And then the very next day, I'm listening to this show, and I'm so encouraged by it because...

I have often wondered if it was possible to change personality. And so I just wanted to thank the author so much for doing all of this work ahead of time. I don't have to spend a year researching it now to see if it's possible. And I appreciate that so much. I really do. And I'm going to buy the book, and I feel like buying it for everyone I care about. Yeah.

You know, the idea that we can change and make our lives better is a really positive contribution for all of us. So thank you so much. And I did have one question. Is basically everything you've talked about in the book because I'm driving and I'm madly trying to remember all of these things, but I want to buy the book and I'm hoping all this about the personality tests and so forth will be there.

Yeah, I mean, so well, first of all, and this is your demographic, Olga, you have found your reader. You know, so Ellen is wondering, you know, happy to hear that you can change your personality or aspects of your personality.

Would you say it was hard for you, Olga, this past year or the year that you spent doing this? So I would say some traits were harder than others. I think extroversion, you know, it was uncomfortable and sometimes scary, especially things like the improv class. But it was also quite fun.

Like, you know, socializing and going to parties and hosting parties is also fun. I would say working on neuroticism was which is the depression and anxiety. That was really, really, really challenging for me because that is really, you know, what the previous caller was saying, like an attitude change. It really requires you to think differently about your own thoughts and your own circumstances. You know, you're kind of doing a lot of inner thinking.

And, you know, that can be really, really challenging. And it was for me. Yeah. I mean, you know, it's always a question like, are we just born this way? Is it the way that we were raised? Because you would say, you know, even as a toddler, you just had these anxieties. Like your famous phrase as a kid was, I won't like it. I'm going to be uncomfortable. Yeah.

Exactly. And I was like, oh, I kind of relate to that. So is that when you have a trait that has been with you for so long, I would imagine it's harder to get at, harder to address. Yeah. And, you know, what I found is that like I you often attribute your successes to something.

you know, traits that are not totally adaptive, if that makes sense. So like I would often, I would often say like, oh, I, you know, I did well on that test because I was so anxious about it. Or, you know, I did, I did well on that assignment because I was so nervous. And I think a lot of it for me was sort of unlearning that connection and trying to understand how you can still

strive for success without, you know, without the anxiety and without like ruminating and worrying. We have an interesting question from Tom who writes, what does Olga think about ADHD? Is it more of an overlay or condition on top of my personality? Or is the ADHD part of my personality?

Oh, that's interesting. So ADHD, there's some research that suggests that it is like a type of low conscientiousness, especially the kind that is not hyperactive, the kind that's like more distracted type.

And so basically what people who are low in conscientiousness are just not very organized. Like they don't a lot of their activities are not very purposeful. Like they're a little bit all over the place. You know, they get distracted easily. They kind of don't know how long things take. They're often late, kind of lose things very easily. Yeah.

So a lot of that, that is low conscientiousness. And it also sounds like ADHD. Yeah. And I actually interviewed a researcher. It didn't make it into the book, but I interviewed a researcher, ADHD researcher, that basically said that a lot of, you know, non-medical kind of treatments for ADHD are very similar to what people suggest for conscientiousness, to boost conscientiousness. So things like, you know, locking up your phone in a lockbox,

you know, setting timers to get your shoes on, you know, get ready to get out the door, setting up systems so that you can like kind of

move through life smoothly rather than, you know, be so scattered. You know, I wanted to talk a little bit about how you addressed your neuroses and, you know, because it's this combination of anxiety, depression, irritability, and you really did move that score down quite considerably. And that was because, as you write, if you say the word anxiety, people then the next word out of their mouth is, have you tried meditation? So I guess the question is, you did try meditation and how did that work?

Yeah, so I was an extreme meditation skeptic. I was looking for literally any solution to anxiety that did not involve meditating in any way. Unfortunately, most of them do eventually circle back to some kind of mindfulness or meditation. It's still not totally

totally clear why meditation works for things like depression and anxiety. There's a lot of stuff about how it might regulate the nervous system. It might just help you train your attention so that instead of following negative thought spirals, you kind of just let them go, focus on your breath, focus on bodily sensations. So I did do this intensive meditation class that is

Research-backed, it's shown to be as effective as Lexapro for depression and anxiety. Yeah.

And so I did do it. I think it lasted something like eight weeks or 10 weeks maybe of every day we had to meditate for 45 minutes. Not easy. Which is a lot of time to spend meditating. And it did work. It especially helped to bring down my depression score. My anxiety was still high at the end, down from extremely high. So it's

small victory there. But the depression was actually low at the end. And I am still not sure why that happened. Like why? I think it maybe was just doing something in the background of my mind. I don't know, helping me like see myself in a more positive light maybe or just get less burdened by my circumstances or the issues that I was facing. I don't know. But it did end up working for me, even though I did not practice

I particularly enjoy it.

We're talking with Atlantic writer Olga Hassan about her new book, Me But Better. For a year, she explored the science of personality to learn how she might be able to change hers. And we're taking your calls and questions about how you have tried to change your personality, the efforts that you've made, the techniques and tips that you've tried. And we'd also love to hear about what aspects of your personality you would like to change because Olga is here to give you her best knowledge.

So give us a call now at 866-733-6786. That's 866-733-6786. I'm Grace Wan, in for Alexis Madrigal. More Forum after this break.

Welcome back to Forum. I'm Grace Wan, in for Alexis Magical. We're talking with Atlantic writer Olga Hassan. She tried to change her personality, and she chronicled that journey in her new book, Me But Better. And we're hearing from you about the ways that you've tried to change your personality, what went right, what didn't work for you, and what aspects of your personality would you like to change today? You can give us a call now, 866-733-6786.

That's 866-733-6786. Or email your comments and questions to forum at kqed.org. I wanted to go to the phones. Christopher in San Rafael, welcome to Forum.

Hi, thank you for taking my call. I was just going to call or ask Olga how changing the personality pertains to recovery from drugs and alcohol. I'm in early recovery, coming up on a year clean, and so I've been doing the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, which takes a deep look at what they call character defects, and I was just curious. I suppose that it's probably more...

geared on the neurosis side of the ocean acronym, anxiety and depression, as we're all probably self-medicating or a lot of us that are in recovery or actively using. And I was just curious how that might pertain to personality change.

Oh, thanks for that call, that question, Christopher. And congratulations on reaching a year. I mean, that's a really big achievement to be proud of. What do you think, Olga, about what Christopher has said about alcohol plus personality changing? Yeah, yeah. Great, great point. And congratulations. Yeah, I actually spoke with lots of people for this book who were in recovery from alcohol. It was actually a very common question.

among a lot of people who noticed a personality change in themselves. A lot of folks, so overindulging in something like alcohol is part of neuroticism and also part of conscientiousness. So as the caller mentioned, a lot of times there can be some self-medication of feelings of anxiety and depression with substances. And then people who are low in conscientiousness might be more tempted to

um, really go all out, you know, when they drink, like have the whole bottle of wine instead of just a glass. Um, so, uh, kind of what I noticed is that, um,

For these folks, they would hit sort of a rock bottom, you know, the proverbial rock bottom, and then they would cut back on alcohol and then they would really start to notice their personality changing. Like they would especially I noticed lower anxiety, higher agreeableness and higher extroversion without the alcohol, which is interesting because a lot of people don't.

drink in order to socialize. But I really, a lot of people that I talked to attributed their personality change to quitting drinking. Well, Michael writes, as someone who overcame what was known as borderline personality disorder using dialectical behavior therapy, I'm curious to hear Olga's thoughts on DBT. Did she utilize it in her attempt to change her personality?

Did you I'm not sure what DBT is. I don't know if you know, Olga. I'm not completely like a an expert on it, but I believe it has a lot to do with mindfulness as well, or at least it has a mindfulness component.

And, yeah, it can be very effective for for borderline personality disorder and other personality disorders. It's not something that I did for this just because it's it's like challenging to do just like kind of on your own. But, yeah, it's it's something that, you know, the evidence says can be really effective for that.

When you were going through this year of relying on experts and you talked to a lot of different people about the various techniques and attempts that you made to change your personality, were you also in consultation with a therapist? And if so, was that an important component of your journey through tweaking your personality? Yeah.

Yeah, it's interesting. So I was in therapy the whole time, but I actually have been in therapy for years now. So that wasn't like a new thing that I was doing with the book. And I didn't tell my therapist that I was doing this. I don't know why. I just didn't want to tell her, I guess. But I will say that the studies that have been done on therapy show that even a short course of therapy can actually reduce stress.

neuroticism by a pretty significant amount. So therapy is in itself like a form of personality change or a way of sparking personality change. So I definitely was doing that alongside, you know, everything else I was working on. Well, let's talk to Laura from Napa. Laura, welcome to Forum. Hi, thank you. I just wanted to say you asked what

I did change my personality and I had issues with anger where I would use anger as sort of a defense mechanism when anybody hurt my feelings or I felt vulnerable and it was really destructive to relationships and once I kind of acknowledged that I just needed to tell the truth and say that hurt my feelings instead of getting angry and be more honest and vulnerable with people it really helped me relax a little bit and

people understand me better and relate to me better. Well, we lost you there, Laura, but congratulations on figuring out a way to deal with anger. I mean, Olga, you were coping with that as well, like, you know, just sometimes having outbursts and thinking like, okay, that was a little bit of an overreaction. How did you address anger in your own life? Yeah, that was a great insight from that caller. For me, it was a slightly different but related thing where really the breakthrough for me was in

trying to understand the roots of why someone did what they did. Because what I was doing a lot was what researchers call like inflammatory labeling, or I'm sorry, misattributing causation. So I was sort of like assuming that whoever hurt my feelings was doing it on purpose or because they really had it out for me or something like that. And

really what changed for me is trying to think like, okay, why did that person, you know, cut me off in traffic or interrupt me or, you know, why did they say that thing that way? And often you find that there is an explanation that's not about you, that it's about them, something they're going through maybe.

Honestly, maybe they just said something kind of awkward and didn't really mean it. And so for me, it was really kind of pausing and thinking,

Why did that person say it that way? And how do I actually want to react? And that ended up at least giving me a chance to back out of the explosions. Yeah. Well, I mean, I enjoyed the section where you talked about joining an anger management course that was offered through the county. I mean, it's...

I think you were the only person in it who wasn't court ordered to be there. Yes. And part of what came out of it was also to like a way of dealing with anger isn't necessarily like punching a pillow or yelling and screaming, but

kind of planning around the anger, which I thought was another helpful tip. Can you kind of unpack that? Yeah. So some people think that, oh, if I go, you know, smash things or punch a pillow or, you know, scream or whatever, that'll help me get rid of my anger. But it actually can kind of stoke your anger because you kind of

notice that you're doing these really extreme things and your mind kind of looks for an explanation and thinks, oh, I must be really angry. So really what's a better way to go about it is maybe to just plan what you're going to do instead. So anger can feel like a loss of control. So let's say you're stuck in traffic and you're going to be late to a really important meeting. Instead of getting angry at traffic or the other drivers or at yourself,

you can kind of be thinking, okay, so if I walk in a few minutes late, where am I going to sit? How am I going to, you know, smooth my entry so that nobody really notices? How am I going to maybe apologize to the team? That kind of thing can get you out of that, you know, kind of explosive feeling and more into your prefrontal

cortex. Always a good one. Here's a listener who writes and has a question. Matthew writes, I've struggled my whole life as a serial interrupter. I get so enthusiastic that I end up completing people's sentences when they pause or struggle with word choice. Years of meditation, therapy and workshops brought me to the root issue. I want you to love me because I'm smart and funny. My close friends tell me I'm doing much better. I'm

I sit with the desire to break in and just pause, breathe, and feel a lot more now. But I still go back to my old lecturing ways, sometimes under stress. How can close friends help us do better?

Any advice, Olga? Yeah, that's so interesting. So there's a part of my book where I talk about, so I also am an interrupter, even though I'm an introvert. So there's this thing called cooperative overlapping, which is basically interrupting. But some cultures and some peoples have a tendency to interrupt as a way of showing interest.

And it's almost like if you're not interrupting, you're not interested.

And that can be a really hard conversational style to break out of. I read this one like anthropological study basically of a dinner where some people were overlappers and some people were not. And the people who weren't overlappers basically didn't get to say anything because the kind of eager interrupters were just constantly saying stuff and interrupting before those people could answer. So it is a really hard, I mean, I think awareness is one thing.

Yeah, I mean, just try to connect, right? Leah writes...

Having kids can change your personality. When my oldest was a toddler, she used to ask women what was in their purses. Everywhere we went, just out of genuine curiosity. We were constantly having people empty their bags for us and tell us about their lives. It got all of us in a pattern of chatting with strangers in a way that I never did prior to being this kid's mom.

I mean, I can imagine it would be weird as an adult to ask people to empty their purses and bags around you. But I mean, she brings up a very good point, which is sometimes the people you are around, I think that they can help you change or alter parts of your personality. Right.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, some researchers think that kind of the component of your personality that's not genetic is basically the people that you're around. So, you know, your co-workers, where you live, your neighbors, your friends, you know, your kids, too, can change your personality. There's not really like one given way that having kids tends to change personality. It's a little bit all over the place. But kind of anecdotally, I have heard from a lot of people that

It increases extroversion because you are always going to playdates and romp and roll and stuff like that. And it also can increase agreeableness because you want to please this little cute person so much. And so even really disagreeable people like me will be cooing and making horsey noises and stuff. Well, and patience. That is for sure. That definitely changes. Let's go to Amy in Oakland. Amy, welcome to Forum. Thank you.

Hi, thank you for taking my call. I just wanted to share a way that I have reduced anxiety. I guess I mean, I've been I, I guess I was anxious and I was in my when I was in my 20s.

And someone suggested I take an Aikido class. It's a martial arts class. And I have been doing Aikido for over 30 years now. And I'll have to say it's one of the best ways to reduce anxiety is through martial arts. You're doing motion. You're constantly being put under pressure and trying to find an opportunity to move. And I feel like it's been an overlooked. A lot of people talk about

anxiety and I feel like Aikido has been one of the best things because another reason is because it's just energy like the anxiety itself is just energy and that energy is there to help you and that's one of the

biggest things I have found from martial arts. Well, that's an excellent tip. And it reminds me of parts of your book, Olga, where you talk about, you know, learning to sail or learning to surf and how the physicality of those endeavors sort of occupies the field. And you're just so concentrated on that. You can just focus on what you're doing and not how you're feeling. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, I love that. And, you know, actually a lot of forms of mindfulness for people who really, really cannot do the like cross-legged sitting on a cushion meditation. There are a lot of forms of mindfulness that are movement oriented, like yoga. There's mindful walking, things like Tai Chi. You know, those are all considered mindful. And really the reason is that they take you out of your mind and relax.

and puts you into your body to where you're focusing on body sensations and you're not just, you know, going over the same three things over and over again. So, yeah, I think that definitely could work. There are a lot of other comments here. Sadie writes, I tend to look at boosting my self-confidence. When I was in my early 20s, I became a substitute teacher with no prior experience. I learned so much about myself and how important it was to present an air of confidence

and to connect with whoever you are speaking to. Was there an innate sense of confidence that you went in with, Olga, when you started this project? Like, I can do this? Oh, that's interesting. So confidence is kind of part of extroversion. It's related to extroversion. And I actually did not think I could do it. In particular, improv, I was...

You can't really fail improv, but I was I thought I would be so bad at it that it was pretty clear that I should not like return. You know what I mean? Like I thought it would be like ushered out kind of gently. And so I would not say that I was I was really confident as far as I can definitely do this. But I would say that my confidence built and most people find their confidence builds as they grow.

practice something. I mean, quite obviously, you know, but that is sort of like the path to personality change is just

becoming more comfortable with some of these new behaviors. Well, I wanted to ask you, at what point did you realize, I'm done? I'm done with all these, the meditation and the improv classes and the sailing and the surfing, and said, okay, this is it. This is my personality. I mean, was it fixed at that point? Or does your personality require constant maintenance? Yeah.

It does sort of require constant maintenance. There are some things that I'm still doing. So I would say in particular with the extroversion, I have a kid now, so I can't devote as much time to improv. But I am, you know, I'm part of a mom's group. I really try hard to reach out to other moms and parents.

connect with them and do playdates and all the other things, you know, that new moms do. Yeah, so I've really tried to keep it going. You know, there are some things that I had to let go of because of time constraints, or, frankly, because I just wasn't enjoying that particular activity. But what I would focus more on is is on pursuing your your overall goal of personality change and not on the specific kind of strategies that you choose to get there.

Well, what does the better Olga or the improved personality Olga, what's the advice you would give to the Olga who began this project?

Ooh, I would tell her that she doesn't actually need anxiety to get things done, that everything will get done without the anxiety. Yeah. Well, Lois writes,

And Karen writes, this discussion is incredibly moving and gives me hope that I can work through some of my own challenges with anger breaking a generational cycle. So, Olga, you know, in the last minute that we have, what's your one tip for somebody who's trying to change their personality? What's one thing a person can do today? Okay.

I would go sign up for an activity that recurs regularly. So like once a week or once a month that involves other people and that is hard to get out of. So you can't just back out if you don't feel like going. Ooh, would that be improv? It could be improv. You know, it could be church. It could be volunteering. It could be whatever you want to do. I personally like the idea of improv, but...

Whatever, you know, if you don't want to go in the deep end, you know, try something smaller first. Well, mine would probably be pick up Olga's book. We've been talking with Atlantic writer Olga Hassan about her new book, Me But Better. It's about how she spent a year really exploring the science of personality and learning about how she might be able to change hers. Olga, it was really a pleasure to have you on Forum this morning. Absolutely. Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah.

I'm Grace Wan, in for Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned for another hour of Forum Ahead with Mina Kim, and good luck with changing your personality. Funds for the production of Forum are provided by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Generosity Foundation, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

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