Pete Mockaitis
Olga, welcome!

Olga Khazan
Hi, thanks so much for having me.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, I’m excited to talk personality. We are going to get into the goods. Could you kick us off with a particularly fascinating discovery you made while putting together Me, But Better?

Olga Khazan
One finding that really surprised me is that when introverts are told by researchers to go out and act like extroverts for a little while, so to socialize with people for a few minutes and then come back, and they’re like, “Okay, how did that feel?” And they’re like, “Now I feel happier.” Okay, so the introverts feel happier acting like extroverts. And they said something else that was interesting, which is they also said, “I feel more true to myself.” So, they actually feel truer to themselves when they act like extroverts.

Pete Mockaitis
Wow, yeah, I could chew on that one for a while. Like, what is true, then? What is self?

Olga Khazan
I know, right? Yeah, that’s kind of where the book goes. Yeah.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. Okay. Well, so that’s intriguing right there. So maybe, what’s sort of the big idea with the book, Me, But Better?

Olga Khazan
So, the idea is that our personalities are the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that come most naturally to us but they also help us achieve our goals. So, your personality can help you get a promotion. It can help you stay calm in times of crises. It can help you make more friends. And so, if your personality is not helping you reach your goals, if it’s kind of standing in your way, it’s actually possible to change your personality.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, it is, in fact, possible to change your personality. Olga, tell me, what about being authentic and true to yourself? Aren’t those noble virtues?

Olga Khazan
Yeah, so the problem with authenticity is that what is most authentic at any given moment is not always what is best for us. So, if you think about it, what might be most authentic to you on a Friday night after a difficult week at work is to just be at home on the couch by yourself, watching TV, and drinking a bunch of wine. That might be the most authentically you thing to do.

But if you do too much of that, that’s not healthy. And what the research shows is that, actually, in that moment, what might be kind of best for your mental health is to actually reach out to someone else or to do something a little bit more active or at least more socially connected. So, this is kind of challenging the idea that we should always be doing whatever is… feels most “authentic” rather than whatever will kind of help us follow our values and achieve our goals.

Pete Mockaitis
Interesting. So, well then, this is getting philosophical rather quickly. What does authentic even mean? How are we defining that?

Olga Khazan
So it can be sort of just whatever you feel inside and, like, who you really feel you are, but it can also be the things that you get good at over time because you apply yourself to them and you get practice doing it. So, I talked with one researcher, Sonja Lyubomirsky, who explained that. She now is a runner. She’s like an avid runner. She runs all the time.

But she actually took a while to get into it. Like, in those first few runs, she didn’t really feel like doing it. It wasn’t an authentic thing for her to do. But now that she has gotten better at it, she’s gotten more experience, probably figured out what shoes are the right ones, she does feel like it’s authentic to her to go running. So, what’s authentically us can actually change over time.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, indeed. If we think about authentic as just meaning what you feel like doing and what’s comfortable and natural to you, then, certainly, that would flex and move and shake, versus if authentic is living in alignment with your values, that’s a very different view of what authentic is, versus authentic is just not straight-up fraudulently telling lies.

Olga Khazan
Yeah, exactly. And those values can kind of require us to take on new personality traits to fulfill those values, and I can go into more detail about that.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that’s good. Well, when we say the word personality then, I get all about the definitions here, what do we mean, specifically, by this term?

Olga Khazan
So, personality, it’s made of five traits. Most psychologists think it’s made up of five traits. You can remember them with the acronym OCEAN. So, O for openness to experiences, C for conscientiousness, E for extroversion, A for agreeableness, and N for neuroticism, which is the bad one. You’d want to be low on neuroticism and you want to be relatively high on some of the other ones.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes, so the Big Five, this is great juicy areas of debate, and I’ve read some of the articles. So, as compared to, say, the Myers-Briggs type inventory, that is another thing people use to say, “Oh, this is my personality. My preferences are extroversion, intuition, feeling, judging.” And so, how do you think about the Big Five relative to other personality typologies?

Olga Khazan
So, a lot of people are really invested and really into the MBTI, the Myers-Briggs, and also the Enneagram, like they have a lot of fans and people, like, really know their INTJ thing, and they’re like, “That’s who I am.” So, I really don’t like to yuck people’s yum, or like take that away from them if that’s like really, really important to them.

There is a little bit of scientific basis behind it, so I wouldn’t say it’s just like totally fake, but most scientists steer clear of personality tests that put people in categories like INTJ or like an Enneagram number, because most of us actually don’t really fit very neatly into categories. We kind of fall along a spectrum of all five personality traits.

So, you might be mostly an introvert, but you might be like 30% extroverted, so you’re not totally like an introvert. It’s not like you can never be extroverted. And so, really, what they prefer is to kind of show how you rank compared to all the rest of humanity on these five traits, because they all see them as a spectrum.

Pete Mockaitis
And, tell us, where can we go and see where we fall against the spectrum of humanity on each of these five traits?

Olga Khazan
So, what I used is a website designed by a researcher named Nathan Hudson. It’s a website called PersonalityAssessor.com, and he actually posts well-validated personality tests that other scientists use as well. He just put them in a web-friendly format so you can click through and get a score instead of like leafing through psychology studies and like the index or whatever. So, he’s put it up online but it’s called the IPIP, and it’s usually, like, either 120 or 300 questions depending on which version.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And it’s free?

Olga Khazan
Yeah, it’s free. He uses the data, I think, in his studies, but you don’t have to tell them your name or anything.

Pete Mockaitis
Very cool. All right. Well, that’s super. And then, yes, that debate is juicy because I have led Myers-Briggs workshops in which people were debating, “Oh, I don’t quite know which one fits, which one fits.” And so then with this system, you just completely sidestep this, and although I would say I got to give some pros to the Myers-Briggs for it’s really hard, I think, in a team setting to say, “Oh, I scored really high on neuroticism. How about you?” Like, “Oh, really? No, not at all. You’re the neurotic one,” it seems. And so, that could be sort of an off-putting experience in a team setting.

Olga Khazan
Totally.

Pete Mockaitis
But for a pure introspection situation, I mean, all for it. Let’s go where there’s a boatload of research here, and Big Five has got that going for it.

Olga Khazan
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, the Myers-Briggs is definitely more fun, and I think for, like, usually corporate environments like it, because it kind of also talks about, like, how people like to think about problems and resolve problems, which is not really what the Big Five is doing.

Pete Mockaitis
Yep, understood. Well, so could you give us a quick rundown definition of what do we mean by openness, what do we mean by conscientiousness, etc.?

Olga Khazan
So, openness is like this kind of ambiguous trait. It’s basically like imaginativeness and creativity. Political liberalism is also part of it and, like, verbal intelligence, but not mathematical intelligence.

Pete Mockaitis
If I may, is that actually a part of the thing that they’re measuring, or just a fun correlation they seem to find out there?

Olga Khazan
It’s a fun correlation. What they’re measuring are things like, “I like to debate abstract ideas,” “I like poetry.” Open people tend to like kind of really avant-garde music and art and like foreign films. Like, they’re not watching The Avengers. They’re watching, like, whatever came out at the indie theater last week.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay.

Olga Khazan
So, there’s that. Okay, so conscientiousness is sort of like productivity, organization, meeting deadlines, being really diligent. Extroversion is things like friendliness and cheerfulness, and also just like activity. Like, extroverts are just always on the go. Agreeableness is sort of like warmth and empathy, and also trust in others. And then neuroticism, which once again is bad is depression and anxiety.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, someone who is high in neuroticism might find a given challenge or experience to be more triggering of depression and anxiety feelings. Is that what we mean?

Olga Khazan
Yeah, exactly. So, when I noticed this in myself, it was sort of like, I would have a perfectly fine day, nothing especially upsetting happened, but minor frustrations would kind of start to stack up, and I would kind of start to use them in a story where it was like evidence that, “I’m just cursed and everything bad happens to me. And my life is just bad and it will never go well.”

And so, that’s kind of the cycle I was hoping to break out of, is sort of this, you know, neurotic people that just, like, really latch on to those negative thoughts, very, very hard to see the silver lining, and it kind of sucks the joy out of life, because, really, the amount that you enjoy life is determined moment to moment and day to day, and not sitting back on your deathbed and thinking like, “Did I get stuck in traffic like 12 times or 13?” you know, or whatever else.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes, understood. Okay. And so then, your big idea here is that you can take these assessments, PersonalityAssessor.com or wherever, and you can see where you land, but that’s not the end of the story. We have the capability within us to say, “Hmm, I would prefer to be less neurotic, and that is an option for me.”

Olga Khazan
Exactly, yeah. And it’s, basically, so this research, once again, by Nathan Hudson, and a few other researchers have replicated it in Switzerland and other places, is what it basically shows is that if you behave in a way that aligns with the kind of person that you’d like to be, you can actually shift your personality in that direction.

Pete Mockaitis
That sounds important. Let’s hear it again.

Olga Khazan
So, if you behave in a way that aligns with the kind of person you’d like to be, you can actually shift your personality in that direction.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, that sounds a little bit like fake It till you make it.

Olga Khazan
Yeah, that’s, I think, one of the titles of one of his studies, or like one of the takeaways. He’s like, “Fake it till you make it is an appropriate way to change your personality.” Or, he says it in some very academic way, but, yeah.

Pete Mockaitis
So, it’s, like, if I would prefer to be less neurotic, I would behave in the fashion like a less neurotic person would behave.

Olga Khazan
Yeah, and neuroticism is one, so, yeah, you can just simply think to yourself like, “Oh, man, this day was so terrible. I got stuck in traffic,” and some of the exercises would be like journaling, “Okay, but what are three good things that happened today?” Or, “What’s a different way of looking at this that’s less negative?” So, I did do some of that journaling, but most of the kind of actionable recommendations for neuroticism are actually various forms of mindfulness and meditation.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, mindfulness and meditation, it seems like there’s a boatload of studies saying it’s good. Can you share with us any of the particularly striking findings here?

Olga Khazan
So, the meditation class that I took, which is called Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, I think it’s like an 8- or 10-week class, and it’s actually been found to work as well as Lexapro for depression and anxiety.

Pete Mockaitis
So, this is an eight-week course. Where does one go about doing it?

Olga Khazan
Anyone can sign up for it. I think you just Google MBSR, and they’re virtual. They’re all over the country. You can go in person. You can go on Zoom. I did mine over Zoom because the pandemic was still kind of going on. But it basically consists of a 45-minute meditation every day, and also a class that is sort of, I want to say, like “Buddhism for Dummies.” It’s very, very watered-down, broken-down teachings from Buddhism presented by the teacher.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And so, just doing that eight weeks later, you’re less neurotic.

Olga Khazan
So, yeah, for me, it did work. It did bring down my neuroticism, especially the depression component of my neuroticism. But I don’t totally get why, because I didn’t ever really enjoy meditation. Like, I kind of always resisted it. I found it really boring. Even at the very end of the class, we did a retreat just in our houses, but we meditated all day, and I found that really grueling. But, yeah, something about it just like it made me less depressed. I don’t know how.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that is such a rich example and experience. I’m glad you’re sharing it with us because I have often had this experience of, they say, “Oh, yeah, mindfulness meditation is very good.” “Okay, yeah, I should do it. There’s a lot of benefits. It’s going to be worth it. There’s a clear ROI on my time. Okay, let’s do it.” And sometimes it’s very peaceful and pleasant. It’s like, “Okay, yeah, I’m glad I did that.”

But other times it’s a brutal slog. It’s like, “I would rather be doing anything but this right now,” and it’s brutal. And so, it’s encouraging to hear you say that you, too, were not feeling it in the moment, and yet, on the other side of it, you’ve got just an emotional experience that is more enjoyable just all the time.

Olga Khazan
So, Jon Kabat-Zinn, who kind of invented MBSR, for lack of a better word, he wrote a book about it. And but one of the things he suggests is, like, it’s best to go into meditation without striving to feel better. Like, you’re not supposed to really be pushing for it to work. You’re supposed to just kind of do it and let it, like, kind of work in the background. And so, that’s sort of what I tried to do, and I guess it did work, like, I don’t know, in its weird, magical way.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, so that’s pretty cool, 45 minutes a day. Sounds intense, but it’s only for eight weeks, and then the benefits are lasting without maintenance?

Olga Khazan
I think you do have to maintain it to some level, but I will say that I do not have time to meditate anymore because I had a baby right after I finished the book so I have not kept up my meditation practice. And I’ve found that when I don’t get to any kind of mindfulness, even like mindful walking or yoga, whenever I have like a week or two without anything like that, I do start to feel more just like jumpy and irritable.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, it takes a good week or two, in your own experience. I guess it probably varies person by person, for you to go back to the jumpy spot, but it’s not 45 minutes a day.

Olga Khazan
Yeah, but I would say I wouldn’t tell people that if you don’t have 45 minutes every day that you shouldn’t even bother with this, because there’s a lot of meditations out there that you can do in 10 minutes, 15 minutes, just when you have time. I kind of don’t like this all or nothing feeling about meditation, where it’s like unless you’re committed to do it an hour every morning, like don’t even bother. I think you can just kind of try to fit it in whenever you can, and that’s good.

Pete Mockaitis
That is good. And there’s a study that put a dollar amount on just how good this can be. A reduction in neuroticism can be quite substantial and even put into some monetary equivalency terms. Olga, can you speak to this?

Olga Khazan
Yeah, one study found that even a small reduction in neuroticism was like earning $314,000 more dollars a year, which I think just goes to show how much neuroticism can really grind away at people, and how living this way and just being constantly plagued by negative thoughts can really bring you down so much that it’s like you’re like earning very little money, or if you didn’t have that you’d be basically rich. Because, honestly, our happiness is kind of determined by our level of neuroticism.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, this reminds me of a quote from Epictetus, “Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.” And that so rings true for me, as I’ve lived high-income and low-income years in the course of running business. So, it kind of doesn’t seem so outrageous. It’s like, “Yeah, if you have less neuroticism and are less worried about all sorts of things, it’s like $314,000 can sure take care of a lot of worries, but so, too, could worrying less.”

Olga Khazan
Yeah, exactly. And, I mean, one of the kind of takeaways that I have from the book is that you can improve your life even if nothing in your life really improves. And that’s kind of what happened with me. Like, I had the same exact job before and after this project. I live in the same house. But I, honestly, feel like a lot better and more fulfilled. And, to me, that’s sort of the difference that a small amount of reduction in neuroticism can do.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, there’s the mindfulness-based stress reduction eight-week situation. Were there any other key interventions that were transformational for you there?

Olga Khazan
On that trait specifically? So, I would say, like, honestly, this is strange, but one of the most effective things about that class was that “Buddhism for Dummies” kind of like little aphorisms and things that they would teach us. So, one of the things that my meditation teacher would always repeat is, “Things happen that we don’t like.”

And I know this sounds strange, but I had been going through life thinking that everyone else can make it so that bad things don’t happen to them. They can, like, control their lives to a degree where only good things happen to them. And whenever something bad would happen to me, I would get kind of mad at myself for failing to avert that.

And I think there was just something really freeing. Of course, this is like a group class where we’re all sharing like negative experiences we’ve had, so it’s like even more powerful. But there was something really freeing in being told that some things are just out of our control and that you can’t always prevent bad things from happening.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that’s a big lesson to internalize, which will have big impact, no doubt. All right. Well, let’s hear about some of the other personality dimensions, if we’d like to be more extroverted or more conscientious or more or less agreeable. Sometimes I think I’m too agreeable, and I would be better if I felt a little bit more comfortable holding my ground, and saying “No, that doesn’t work for me. You’re going to need to fix it.”

Olga Khazan
I actually brought this up because, as I was working on agreeableness, I noticed that a lot of my friendships were falling apart, and I kind of thought, “Oh, if I become more agreeable, my friendships will stop dissolving.” And that one way to do that is just to do whatever my friends want. Right? Like that’s agreeable.

But that’s actually not really true, and I talked with this friendship expert who really drove home the power of boundaries within agreeableness. So, being agreeable doesn’t mean that you just let people walk all over you. It does mean having strong boundaries. So, as an example, in the midst of this project, I had a friend text me and tell me that I wasn’t texting her enough and that I needed to commit to texting her at least once a week to check in with her.

Pete Mockaitis
I’ve never had a request like that.

Olga Khazan
Me neither. So, I was like, “Huh.” And so, kind of my natural reaction was like, “Oh, my gosh, of course. Like, I will text you every week, like, no problem.” But I actually knew, internally, at the same time, that I was never going to do that because I actually don’t like texting. It’s not like a mode of communication that I like, and I also don’t like text check-ins. Like, I really don’t like having to remember to check in with someone when there’s nothing wrong and there’s nothing going on. So, I, basically, immediately fell off of this plan.

And so, I asked this expert, Miriam Kirmayer, I was like, “What was I supposed to do in that situation?” And she said I should have said something like, “Hey, I’m sorry that you’ve been feeling like I don’t text you enough. The truth is, I actually don’t really like texting. Is there another way we can keep in touch? Is there another way that I can meet my needs, but also meet your needs?”

And so, that’s really like the heart of agreeableness is setting boundaries with people so that you are treated well and you do get a say in the relationship but, at the same time, showing people that you value them.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, I think that sounds dead on. And so, if we need to, it seems like that that’s the master key is kind of the fake-it-till-you-make-it situation, is if we think that we have been a bit on the doormat side and need to establish boundaries, we would act as though we were a person who were a bit less agreeable to everything.

And it will feel unnatural and uncomfortable and weird in the moment, like, “Oh, my gosh, was I a total jerk? Oh.” You might feel that way when you’re establishing a very reasonable boundary. But then, if this path follows the way it seems like it goes, you’ll say, “Oh, actually, I’m glad I did that. I stood up for myself. I feel good and proud, and maybe even more like myself.”

Olga Khazan
Yeah, exactly. And it’s also a good way of kind of working on agreeableness and working on deepening your friendships with people without feeling like a doormat, which is, I think, one reason why people are sometimes reluctant to try to become more agreeable.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. Okay. And how about conscientiousness? I would like more of that, I think.

Olga Khazan
Yeah, most of us would. Conscientiousness is like the trait everyone wants to increase on. It’s the trait that employers really love because conscientious people get to work on time and they do everything really fast and really thoroughly. It predicts like greater wealth and health and all this other stuff. So, I would say a really poignant example of conscientiousness, for me, was this guy, Zach Hambrick, that I talked to.

Zach is a guy who got to college from this small town in Virginia, and growing up he had never really studied and he had never really written a paper or, like, applied himself to school in any way. So, he gets to college and, suddenly, you have to study or else you will, like, fail college and would have to go home. So, he’s kind of lost, but he realizes that he would like to finish college and succeed and get into a grad school program for psychology. He decides he wants to be an academic psychologist.

So, he actually sits down and finds another student just like him who is like someone who doesn’t have a very scholarly background, and they actually study together and learn tips from each other of how to study better and how to, at one point, he bought a book that was, like, how to make A’s or something like that. They would stay up late, like, reading and highlighting these dense psychological textbooks, and it actually worked, like, not right away.

I think his first GPA was like a 2.7 or something like that, but, gradually, he actually did really well on the GREs and he got into Georgia Tech, and, actually, he is now a professor of psychology. And this kind of all happened because of this concept that, sometimes, doing things alongside other people, or learning from your peers, can actually be more effective than having it taught to you by a teacher or trying to do it on your own.

There’s research out of the University of Pennsylvania that shows that when people are told to go learn an exercise strategy from their peers versus just being told by the researchers, like, “Hey, here’s how you can fit more exercise into your life,” the people who learn from their peers actually end up exercising more because there’s something about it, like friendly competition, or just like seeing someone just like you apply those same skills, or, honestly, just having some solidarity, I don’t know. But it actually does work, and it worked for Zach.

So, that’s one strategy that I’d recommend, is like if there’s something you’re working on when it comes to conscientiousness, find someone else who is working on that same thing and learn from them.

Pete Mockaitis
So, I want to find someone who’s working on conscientiousness as opposed to someone who’s just already supernaturally just conscientious.

Olga Khazan
You could try to talk to someone who’s just super-duper conscientious, but I would pick someone who has, like, gained those skills in a way that they can explain to you. Don’t just pick someone who was like born meeting all deadlines and never had to think about it, you know?

Pete Mockaitis
“You just sit down and you do it. That’s all.”

Olga Khazan
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Nifty. Well, tell me, any other key things you want to make sure to mention before we shift gears and hear about some of your favorite things?

Olga Khazan
Also, for conscientiousness, something that I found really worked for people is this strategy called episodic future thinking, which is where you envision very clearly what’s the positive outcome will look like. So, let’s say you’re really having trouble motivating yourself to get through a spreadsheet, a PowerPoint, whatever else it is, boring work project, you can kind of think about what it will look like to present that PowerPoint.

What are you going to be wearing? How will your boss react? Where is he going to take the team out for lunch to celebrate afterward? And it’s not just like The Secret, like if you can see it, you can achieve it, because it’s actually just motivating you to get through that slog of doing something really rote or really tedious or something that conscientious people find really hard in order to get to that outcome that you really, really want. So, that’s another thing I would recommend for people who struggle with that.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Episodic future thinking sounds fancy, although I think others would call that simply visualization. Are there some nuances or distinctions to be made between the two?

Olga Khazan
I think it’s just whatever you’re working on now needs to be connected really clearly with whatever you’re envisioning. So, it can’t be just like, “Oh, if I finish this spreadsheet,” and then imagine yourself flying around in a private jet with models and stuff. It has to be a realistic, positive outcome based on what you’re doing now.

It could also be a negative outcome as long as it’s not so negative that it’s paralyzing. So, for me, when I was struggling in journalism school, I had a really dead-end job right before I went to journalism school, and I would always just envision myself having to go back to that dead-end job and do these boring tasks that I was doing before I went to grad school. And that would always motivate me to be like, “Hey, okay, I really need to get to my interviews on time,” or whatever else it is.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, I like that. So, the dead-end job, it’s negative enough to be motivating, but it’s not, like, horrifying, like, “I’m going to be homeless, sleeping in the ditch!” It’s like that may very well be paralyzing for you.

Olga Khazan
Yeah, it can’t be something where you’re, like, you know, if you’re the kind of person who’s like made so anxious by kind of like bad outcomes that you’re like, “Oh, my God, I can’t do anything now,” just don’t go there. Focus on the positive stuff. But some people I talked to did find negative outcomes really motivating.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, you’re bringing me back to the early days of getting my business going, and it was kind of spooky just like having no income and watching savings deteriorate month after month, while getting going. And it felt as though, “Oh, my gosh, if the savings goes to zero, I’m dead. It’s like game over.” It’s like, “No, no, no, that just means I have to get a real job. I’ll go do…”

I would always tell myself I would end up doing cheese strategy at Kraft Foods just because I felt like a lot of Bain people went to Kraft after their Bain tenure in Chicago. It’s like, “So, I would be excited about it but I could probably find some joy in cheese strategy but I’d really rather not, so let’s go ahead and make this thing work out.”

Olga Khazan
Yeah, I had a similar thing when I did journalism school during the recession, and then I graduated, like still in the recession, and I was like, my thing was always, “Oh.” I was like, “Am I going to have to do PR for people who pour acid into the eyeballs of puppies,” and like spin that to be a positive thing. And I was like, “Well, you know, maybe the puppies don’t really have a lot of feeling in their eyeballs.” I didn’t end up having to do that.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, yeah. You know, Olga, I will hand it to you. Not once in over a thousand episodes has any guest referenced pouring acid into any animal’s eyeballs. This is a first.

Olga Khazan
Well, you said you wanted it to be memorable.

Pete Mockaitis
It is memorable. It’s fresh. It’s original. I appreciate it. So, understood. Well, let’s round it out. Can we hear about the extraversion as well?

Olga Khazan
Sure. So, for extraversion, this is the simplest one, you just have to get out and talk to people. You don’t have to be good at it. You don’t have to be the life of the party. You, honestly, don’t even have to talk that much. Just go to a group activity that involves other people, preferably one that occurs regularly, and you will gradually become more extroverted.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And openness?

Olga Khazan
For openness, the non-drug kind of option is travel. So, just traveling to cultures where you don’t speak the language, talking to people who you don’t totally understand. That kind of thing can really increase openness.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, now can you share with us a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Olga Khazan
So, this quote appears in the book, and it’s from David Axelrod, the political consultant, and what he says is, “All you can do is everything you can do.” So, you can set yourself up for success, you can check all the boxes, you can make all the phone calls, you can work super-duper hard, but then, at a certain point, you just have to let go and hope for the best. And, for me, that was really, I don’t know, comforting, especially as someone who was launching a book.

Pete Mockaitis
And can you share a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Olga Khazan
I like this study, also from the book, where researchers, they asked older people, “Have you changed in the past 20 years or something?” And they were like, “Oh, yeah, I’ve changed in all these different ways, I’m so different now.” But then they asked younger people, “Do you think you will change in the next 20 years?” And they were like, “No, I don’t think I will. I think I’m going to stay this way forever,” which just goes to show, like, we do change, but we think that we won’t. So, I thought that was, like, pretty poignant.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. And could you share a favorite book?

Olga Khazan
I really liked How to Say Babylon by Safiya Sinclair. I thought it was just really beautifully written.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite tool, something you use to be awesome at your job?

Olga Khazan
I use TapeACall Pro. It’s kind of janky, but it’s the best we got. That’s what I use to tape interviews.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite habit?

Olga Khazan
My favorite habit is putting everything I need to do in a given day into Todoist, which is also an app, and that just helps me stay really organized, and I just don’t know where I’d be without it.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And is there a key nugget you share that really seems to connect and resonate with folks?

Olga Khazan
I think people really like the idea that, you know the summer between high school and college, how everyone kind of reinvents themselves, and they’re like, “When I go to college, I’m going to be cool, and I’m not going to be the loser anymore.” I think you should be able to do that whenever you want. It doesn’t have to be when you’re 18.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Olga Khazan
I would point them to TheAtlantic.com, which is where I’m a writer, and my Substack is at OlgaKhazan.substack.com. And you can find my book, Me, But Better, wherever books are sold.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

Olga Khazan
Sign up for an improv class.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Olga, thank you.

Olga Khazan
Yeah, thank you so much. This was fun.