Self-Awareness Archives - How to be Awesome at Your Job

Pete Mockaitis
Kathy, welcome!

Kathy Oneto
Hi, Pete. Thanks for having me.

Pete Mockaitis
I’m excited to talk about Sustainable Ambition. Great title. It seems like something we’re into here. But could you kick us off by sharing a particularly surprising and fascinating and/or counterintuitive thing you’ve learned about folks and ambition from all of your consulting, coaching, facilitating years and many, many clients?

Kathy Oneto
This is the thing I’m going to start with, which is often where I end, which is to remember that we’re human, and that it’s both natural as humans to be both ambitious and to have goals. It’s not a bad thing. We’re wired to do this. And also, in our pursuit of ambitions that we don’t always get it right and that we stumble along our way. And that’s the life journey. And to, really, end this journey, to be generous with ourselves as we navigate the ups and downs of pursuing what we want for ourselves in our lives.

Pete Mockaitis
And so, is it your observation that we tend to not do these things, we either vilify ambition itself or harden ourselves as we over or under do it?

Kathy Oneto
Ambition, in our society, can have a negative connotation. And so, for some of us, we can be judged when we are ambitious.

And what can happen over time is that our ambition ebbs and flows. And people are surprised by this and it throws them off and they start to judge themselves around this. And there’s a lot of angst that is associated when our ambition ebbs and flows like this, when it goes up and down.

And I think what I’m wanting for people is just to embrace a little bit of, “Yes, this is part of our human nature. We have these different tendencies that tug and pull on us.” I’d like people to find a little bit more joy, peace, and ease in this journey as they navigate their ambition over time.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, well, joy, peace and ease are things I’m into. Thank you. And you’re right, like, I don’t think I’ve ever really stopped to ponder this point until now. So, thank you. This is valuable already because I’m thinking… It’s so funny, ambition can be perceived as positive or negative by different people at different times, and ourselves at different times. And then it just kind of gets you wondering.

So many things are popping up here for me. I’m thinking, so we have the old aphorisms, like, “Oh, the early bird gets the worm,” as in, “Oh, that’s a good thing. You want to be up early to get worms. Otherwise, as a bird, you will starve if you don’t. So, you should, you should hustle.”

And then there’s this hustle culture like, “Yeah, that’s cool.” But then there’s also the backlash against hustle cultures, like, “No, no, guys, Big Tech is just pulling the wool over your eyes. They want you to think hustling is all that because they benefit from that if you’re the employee and you’re hustling.”

But then there’s the flipside as well, in terms of, like, “Oh, someone’s trying to be…” I don’t know if this slang is still in popular usage, but I’ve heard it before at times, like, “Oh, oh, he’s trying to be extra, and that’s not cool. It’s not cool to try to be extra,” or another word for ambitious. And yet, one of my favorite Onion articles, we’ll link in the show notes, headline: “Man’s Utter Failure in Life A Bit Of A Sore Spot.”

And so, it was like, “Ha, ha,” and that’s the joke. It’s like, “Of course, it’s a sore spot.” And so, we’ve got all of these conflicting messages from the outside, as well as I’m thinking about in my own world. I studied finance in college, and so we learned very firmly that the sacred duty of the firm is to maximize shareholder wealth.

And so, now as I’m doing my own business thing, it’s like that idea was just in there. And it was kind of a revelation, it was like, “No, Pete, you can see an opportunity to go get money and just not do it because you don’t want to. That’s okay.” And it was like, “Wait, it is?” And yet, if it was a different context, like if I were the CEO of a publicly traded company, that I kind of do have a legal duty to go after that and could get sued if I don’t. So, yeah, it’s quite easy to get all mixed up on this subject, Kathy.

Kathy Oneto
It really is. I studied undergraduate finance as well, so this is in my brain. I have an MBA as well. And I think what we all can benefit from remembering is we humans live amongst constructs. We make up these constructs. Yes, sometimes there’s math and science behind them, but there’s one person who determined that, “Why does a firm exist? To maximize shareholder value.” Well, there were other constructs before Milton Friedman said that as to why firms existed and how firms got ran.

And so, we can challenge some of these norms around, “Well, how do we define success? How do we define what ambition is?” And I think that’s where I’m inviting people to really reclaim that and to determine, “What is work? And what is worthy work? And what is worthy of your effort?”

And I think, in today’s culture and society, we often think it has to be tied specifically to monetization. And so much, you brought up technology companies, so much of this world of, like, social media, we kind of are called into, you know, we need to monetize ourselves. And so, this is an invitation to also kind of say, like, “How do you want to define work for yourself?”

And, yes, work that is your professional life is important, but there can also be other aspects of work that can really be soul-filling and keep you sustained as well, and can be important parts of who you are, and can really allow you to have more holistic ambitions than just think that our ambitions are solely about our professional life, which I think is something that people also get wrong about ambition.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, you’re right, and it’s fascinating. Now I’m thinking, this is so dorky, Kathy, but what comes to mind is one of my all-time favorite games that’s really shaped the way I think about the world and resources was from 1992 called “Master of Orion.” And you try to conquer the galaxy with your alien race and do resource management, yadda, yadda. And so, I just thought it’s the coolest game and sometimes I’ll still play it.

And I just learned that this guy, his name is Ray Fowler, just decided that, “Yes, this game is fantastic and the new generations need to know about it.” And so, he just created, by himself and with collaborators that he hired with his own money, to create a whole new version of this for the modern era called “Remnants of the Precursors,” and just gave it away for free.

He just spent multiple years of his life making this thing, because he thought, “You know what, this is an amazing game and the world needs to know about it and not be turned off by the old graphics or interface or whatever, and so I’m just going to do that.” And it’s just free.

And it’s fascinating because there’s some ambition and there’s no money whatsoever, and his motivations, as far as I could tell, I’ve tried to stalk him and learn, it’s just that, “No, this is an amazing game and the world should know about it so I’m just going to make that possible.” And he went and did it, and we’re enriched for him having done so. And we can all do that, we have permission to do so, and he seems quite pleased that he made that choice.

Kathy Oneto
I love that. And that’s what I would call a right ambition, right? It’s something that, for him, is personally rewarding and satisfying, I would imagine, and he felt was worthy of his effort. And I think more of us do this more often than we probably realize and recognize. And I think what’s important is acknowledging that and claiming that as something that is really worthy of your time and your effort.

Somebody who I interviewed on my podcast, we really went into this distinction between paid work versus non-paid work. And I, even for myself, have thought about my own work in this context, and really struggled because people ask me, “Well, why do you call that your paid work?” versus this is what I would call my service work or my creative work.

And perhaps only because I was asked, I was kind of like, “Hmm, maybe I shouldn’t be calling it that.” But in this conversation with this guest, it really became, for her, this distinction between saying it’s paid versus non-paid work, really allowed that non-paid work to be on equal footing with her paid work. It serves her and it fulfills her and satisfies her and, frankly, sustains her so greatly that is just as valid and just as important in her life to be putting her time and attention to those activities.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, yes. Well said. Because if it’s not work, is it a “distraction” or a hobby? The other words we have available to describe such things are a bit diminutive in, like, “Well, of course that’s not as important as your job. That is of utmost importance.” So, there is some handy language pieces there, which I appreciate.

And I also want to talk about ambition, in and of itself. There are some negative connotations, there are some positive connotations. But, as I think of other words that are virtues, that we could all just kind of agree that, “Yeah, it’s a good thing to be fair or kind or patient or humble.” And, of course, you could take these to some extremes and that might be not ideal.

But how do you think about the word ambition and what makes it good or bad or virtuous? You use the words right and wrong a lot. Can you unpack a little bit of that?

Kathy Oneto
Yes. Let me start with the last thing you said because I think this is really important to distinguish. I talk about in my sustainable ambition method that, really, where I’m pointing people is to find more sustainability by aligning the right ambitions at the right time with the right effort. And what’s really important about using that term right is that, actually, I don’t think that there’s necessarily a wrong. It’s that right is making sure that it’s right for you.

Pete Mockaitis
But it could also be wrong for you if it’s not right for you?

Kathy Oneto
Perhaps that’s fair. That’s fair. That’s a good pushback, yeah. But the distinction, and what I appreciate about what you just said, was this is individual, it’s personalized. And I think where I’m trying to point people, or where I am pointing people, is, for a lot of our lives, we are influenced by external factors, by social norms, and these things guide us.

But I’m calling people to step into a self-authored mind, and starting to say, “What do I want for myself? How do I step into what I want and make this personal?”

And so, I appreciate what you just said, Pete, which is, “It’s wrong in terms of what’s personal for me. Meaning, like, I’m going after a should as opposed to something that’s not aligned to who I am and what I really want for myself.” So, I think that’s how I think about that context.

I also think that ambition is good. It is what motivates us to shape the things that we want for ourselves in our lives and what we want for the world, and it’s what pulls us forward. But it can also, I talk about this idea that there’s a U-curve of ambition, similar to the U-curve of performance, where if your ambition is too low, you can get into this, what I call stagnant zone. If your ambition is too high and you’re driving hard all the time, or you’re in this unproductive sense of striving, you can get into the severe zone.

And so, it really is about, “Well, how do I dial in my ambition to be kind of the right level so that it is sustainable for myself?” So, I guess that’s how I think about it in terms of this context of, like, “Well, how do you dial it in to be just right for you?”

Pete Mockaitis
Now, when you say U-curve, I’m already imagining I have axes and I have a U. Can you go into some depth here?

Kathy Oneto
Sure. So, on the Y-axis is sustainability, from low to high, and on the X-axis is ambition, from low to high. So, if you’re low ambition and low sustainability, you’re going to be in the stagnant zone. If you’re in the middle, around the right level of ambition, you’re going to be in the optimal sustainable ambition zone.

And then if your ambition is too high, you’re starting to get into this area of, “Okay, now my sustainability is starting to come down because I’m really, perhaps, either I’m not aligned to what my ambitions are, I’m too externally focused, or I’m really in the sense of unpredictable striving, where I’m really just driving hard all the time. I’m not taking breaks. I’m not prioritizing other aspects of my life that are important to me, that matter, that also help keep me sustained.” So that’s how I think about that.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, so, as you describe this, this sort of sounds like a lowercase N as opposed to a U, if that’s the curve, as we follow. Is that accurate? The optimal would be a medium-ish level of ambition, which is maximumly sustainable?

Kathy Oneto
Yeah, the optimal level is, like, in the middle, right, if that’s what you’re describing. But the U is kind of an upside-down U. So that’s why you’re saying, yes.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, cool. All right. So, there we have it. So, we have an upside-down U or lowercase N, if you will, curve, with the optimal level of ambition for sustainability being somewhere in the middle. And that makes sense, because if you’re going minimally, life is kind of, “Ugh, meh, whatever.” It’s kind of depressing. And if you’re going to the max, it’s like this is exhausting and anxiety-provoking and just a crazy town, not a great place to be.

So, I hear what you’re saying is that midpoint of ambition in the optimal is sustainable because it’s sort of like you’re challenged, it’s fun and interesting, but you’re not overwhelmed and you’re not bored. This kind of reminds me of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s perspective on flow, with kind of any given challenge of the moment that you’re in.

Kathy Oneto
Right. And if you start to get into where that challenge is overly stressful, it starts to also take you not into that optimal sense of flow, right?

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And so, a great thing you said earlier about not going after a “should,” which would just be the sort of, like, the socialized perspective of whatever people say just is the thing to do, like, “Oh, you should do that.” And I always, I’ve been criticized for taking things super literally at times, but, like, with your U and your N.

But when people say should, it’s interesting. They could say to all sorts of things like, “Oh, I should really get back into…” whatever, TV show, or game, or thing. And I often will directly challenge them, it’s like, “Should you really? Would that be optimal for you?” It was like, “I mean, probably not. No, I’ll just continue not watching that show. And that’s probably actually the right choice for me. Cool. Thanks.”

So, can you unpack a little bit? What is right ambition, right time, and right effort?

Kathy Oneto
So, right ambition is, again, I talked about redefining success based on your own terms. And so, this is really about shifting from looking at that external lens and starting to say, “What is going to be personally rewarding to me?” And it’s starting to look at what you want to do.

So, again, it’s shifting from that external to internal motivation and really getting clear on what internally motivates you. I point to four different areas in the book around this. What’s your vision? How do you like to give or contribute, which a more common lexicon that gets used these days is purpose? I look at values, and then also what you love to do, intrinsic motivators. And so, that’s really about, “How do you motivate your effort around what you’re pursuing?

Right time is about considering your life and work together, and is focused on choosing, “Well, where do you want to put your attention, your effort, your energy based on really what’s personally important matters most in your life and work now?” And so, this is shifting a mindset from doing it all to really focusing on doing what matters and helping you focus your effort.

And then, finally, right effort is about really being discerning about the level of effort you’re putting towards your ambitions and goals rather than just thinking you should be putting a ton of effort into everything. Ambition is often tied to this idea that it’s, like, maximum effort. But then it’s also being discerning about, “How am I really managing my effort and my energy so that I do keep myself sustained over time?”

So, this is really about managing your effort and energy, shifting from constant drive to really being more strategic about how you manage your effort.

Pete Mockaitis
Now you said right time was about doing what matters. Can you help me distinguish all the more clearly? That kind of sounds like right ambition, if it’s in conjunction, if it’s working with my vision values and what I like to do.

Kathy Oneto
No, this is great. So, those two things work together, in terms of like, so right ambition is like, “Okay. Well, how do I ascertain, like, how I either define success on my own terms,” or defining my goals and even checking like, “Are these things that I truly want to do?”

Right time is about, “Okay, great.” If I think about my vision for my life, I might say, I’ll take a very simple one that is’ve had an ambition or goal that I’ve wanted to do all my life, which is to live abroad for an extended period of time. I’ve not been able to make that happen in my life.

So right time is really about, “Well, what is most important now? How do I think about both, what do I have energy for now and what really is urgent for me to pursue at this moment in my life? What is my life context or what am I being called to do right now such that I’m making this a priority in terms of what’s important in my life at this moment in time?”

So, these two things do work together, but I invite people into, “Well, how do you think about your life in arcs and periods and thinking about horizons? And how do you think about what really is important now in this moment? And what might you shift out to different time periods? What might you say, like, ‘Okay, this isn’t a priority right now. I actually am going to put this on the back burner for now and allow myself to focus my attention on what matters to me at this moment.’?”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Understood. So, given the season and the context of what’s up, that will vary.

Kathy Oneto
And your stage of life as well.

Pete Mockaitis
Understood. Okay. Well, let’s talk about the right level of effort. What are some of the telltale signs where our effort is too little or too much?

Kathy Oneto
I think, in terms of if our effort is too little, it could be that you yourself are feeling like you’re stagnating, that you’re not making progress, the kind of progress that you want to see. It could be that, again, it goes back to the first thing I said, like, “What is your energy level?”

But, like, even if your effort isn’t the right level of effort, that may start to bring into question, like, “Huh, is this the right ambition for you at this time?” So, checking in with your energy level and whether or not you’re putting enough energy into something is a really great clue as to whether or not you’re motivated around pursuing something or not.

I think, on the other side, and the other extreme in terms of “Are you putting too much effort into something?” is, “Do you start to feel like you are ignoring certain things in your life that really matter to you and are important to you? Do you feel like you’re constantly driving hard all the time and you’re never taking breaks?”

“Are you starting to feel, you know, are there physical symptoms that you might not be operating at your best? Are you starting to have health problems that are giving you clues that you are potentially putting too much effort into all that you are trying to do?”

So, there are a number of different signals that you can be looking for in terms of this sense of, “Am I putting a little too much effort?” It can start to become like these signals that can be associated with workaholism, and there’s different factors around workaholism that can start to show up, which are not just behavioral. They can be psychological. They can be biological as well in terms of these health aspects too.

Pete Mockaitis
And what about those tricky situations where it’s, like, “I really want the results and outcomes of a thing, but I really just don’t like doing the work to get there”? For some people, that might be in the fitness zone, that could be in the business career finance zone. What do we do with these matters?

Kathy Oneto
There’s a couple of different ways that one can manage this. So, one is, “Is this something that, in terms of pursuing a goal, something that you don’t really enjoy doing? Is it something that you yourself have to do or is it something that you can outsource?”

And where you can get help and support so that it’s like, “Well, this isn’t my zone of genius. So, as this part of this ambition or goal, I’m going to hire out or have somebody help me achieve some of these aspects of what I’m trying to pursue that can actually help me reach that goal.” That is a possibility depending on what the ambition and the goal is.

Then there’s the other side, which is, sometimes these are things that we have to do ourselves. I’ve experienced this, too. And I think you have to question, “Well, how committed are you to that ambition and goal? And how much do you want that result?”

So, that’s one way of going at it, which is, “Okay, I am really committed. This is going to be the way that I’m going to pursue it. I’m going to go ahead and do some of these things that I don’t love because I really want to achieve that goal.”

I think the middle way is to challenge, like, whether or not you need to be doing the specific thing that we think we need to do in order to achieve that goal, and whether or not there is a middle way that one can find that is actually better aligned to who you are and what your values are.

Sometimes, again, it’s kind of like, “Well, this is the external norm of how something is achieved, but is there actually a way that I can achieve the same outcome and the same results, and do it in a way that is better aligned to who I am?”

Pete Mockaitis
Can you give us some fun examples of folks who have done just that?

Kathy Oneto
I would say that one of the examples is, I’m thinking about somebody who is, like, she has grown her business, and she’s not on social media. And I think the norm these days is, “Hey, I need to be on social media, and I need to be building a significant following.”

And she has taken a completely different approach that is much more aligned to who she is in terms of building a following through an email newsletter and through offering really valuable content. And that approach has worked for her, and also through building relationships.

And so, I think that we often see examples or think that there’s only one way to go about achieving a goal. And yet, there are ways to realign towards something that is better aligned to oneself. I’ll say, even on this, around my book, I would say I’m not a huge fan of social media either.

And so, a way that I am going about this that is much more resonant for me is to, what I want to be doing is talking about this topic as well as connecting with people and partnering with people to get this message out. And that’s a way that I am approaching this in a way that is much more resonant and aligned with my personal values.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes, that’s lovely. I’ve experienced that, people say, “Well, you’ve got to get on Twitter. You’ve to do all the things.” And there are numerous counter examples. I’m thinking about Cal Newport famously just doesn’t do much on social media. His books are doing great, and that works just fine for him.

So, that is a fine thought, to challenge the conventional wisdom. Although, to perhaps also be cautious not to fall for, I don’t know, snake-oil, get-rich-quick, the Ab Belts, which does your workout for you, kinds of things that promises of low-effort results are often misleading. So, I guess maybe that’s a distinction to draw there.

Kathy Oneto
I think that’s important. One of the things that I talk about with Sustainable Ambition, too, which may surprise people, is I believe in hard work. I think it’s just being really discerning about, “Where do you want to put in that hard work?” And also, being really discerning about, “How are you going to sustain yourself in the process?”

And so, I think that people may be naïve in thinking that there are these get-rich-quick kind of schemes, but I think, like, even something like get on, create a digital course, or get on social media, or do these various things that I think are quite common are often posed as being that you can have this immediate success, but that’s often not the case.

Pete Mockaitis
That, indeed, it is. So, when it comes to being sustainable, taking care of ourselves, resting, recovering, rejuvenating, do you have any pro tips on how you think about how much time we spend doing that, and/or if there are any research-backed approaches that are phenomenally efficient and effective at giving us rest, recovery, rejuvenation with a relatively modest investment of our time and other resources?

Kathy Oneto
I think what’s really important here is a couple of principles. One is to think about sustainability on different timeframes. And I think what can help people is to make sure that they’re, I mean, it sounds so simple, but the problem is people don’t do it, which is to think about sustainability on a longer time horizon.

I think why people can often get tripped up with work-life balance and that concept is that they think that, “Oh, I’m supposed to be in balance all of the time.” And yet, again, there’s going to be intense time periods. That’s a reality of life and how our life and work, work together.

And so, are you thinking about a broader time horizon, 12 to 18 months, and kind of ascertaining, “When am I going to take those down times? And when am I going to give myself those breaks so that I can keep myself sustained over time?”

And then the other, in the opposite direction, I would say, I think where people can get this wrong is thinking that they need to make all these big gestures in order to keep themselves sustained over time. And what I really advocate, and, again, it’s quite simple, which is, like, make sure you’re taking small breaks regularly. And the problem is that most of us don’t take those breaks.

And so, research by Slack a couple of years ago found that about 50% of knowledge workers around the globe don’t take breaks during the day.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, wow, so they would know. Slack, they can tell you, “Slacking nonstop, guys.”

Kathy Oneto
Exactly. And some people challenge me on that, like, “Ah, people probably are taking breaks,” but often they’re checking email or they’re looking at social media or they’re checking their Slack. It’s not necessarily really getting themselves that psychological detachment that they need from work. And so, I think it’s being really discerning again about, “How am I taking these breaks?”

And things like a five-minute walk outside, five minutes of deep breathing, being in nature, going and talking with a friend, five minutes of daydreaming, are all these things that are quite simple to do and don’t have to take a lot of time, and yet, really, can help us reduce our stress in the moment and keep us sustained for a longer period of time.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, I love these, and then you can get as wild and weird and unique as you want to with whatever you’re up to there. And with these five-minute breaks, I imagine there’s going to be some variation person to person, but do you have a range of just how many or how often are these five-minute breaks optimal for folks?

Kathy Oneto
Well, I’m going to borrow from a colleague, John Briggs, who wrote a book called The 3.3 Rule, which is based on some science that he has rooted in his book, which is this idea that we really shouldn’t work more than three hours at a time.

And there’s different studies out there. That’s a maximum, but there’s different studies out there around, like, the optimal amount of time that one should work. But what his 3.3 Rule is about this, like, for whatever amount of time you work, take a 30% break after it.

And so, you can use that to kind of have as a gauge in terms of how often one should be taking a break. So, no more than three hours and then taking an appropriate amount of break after that. Personally, one of my greatest tools that I really pay attention to and use myself is just really being tuned into my own personal feelings and my energy.

And I kind of follow my energy in terms of paying attention to, “When am I starting to get distracted? When am I starting to lose focus?” And that’s typically a clue for me that I’m ready for a break.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, Kathy, tell me, any final do’s, don’ts, tips, tricks before we hear about your favorite things?

Kathy Oneto
I think sustainability really lives in being aligned to who we are, so get to know yourself.  The other is to pay attention. Things change on us. And, oftentimes, part of what causes that angst that I talked about earlier, Pete, is that we’re thrown off when things change on us.

And I think that we often need to start to plant seeds and start to try new things much earlier than we realize. And so, paying attention, starting to lean into curiosity, try new things. And then the final thing I’ll say is to remember that this is a practice. Oftentimes, people can be hard on themselves when things start to go off track.

And that’s a reality and also helps us start to understand where are the boundaries around how do we want to define sustainability for ourselves. So, I encourage people to just embrace the practice of it all and learn along the way.

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

Kathy Oneto
Yes, this is from Benedictine monk brother, David Steindl-Rast, where he said, “The antidote to exhaustion is not necessarily rest. The antidote to exhaustion is wholeheartedness.”

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

Kathy Oneto
One of mine is from Sonja Lyubomirsky and Laura King, which talks about how, if we focus on putting our attention on personal success linked to fulfillment, satisfaction, and happiness, that is more likely to lead to external success than necessarily the other way around.

So, if we are just focused on external success, that is not going to necessarily lead to us being happy. But if we focus on, what the studies have shown, generally, is that if we focus instead on what’s really meaningful and motivating to us first, it’s more likely that that external success is going to follow.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite book?

Kathy Oneto
One is called What You Are Looking For Is in the Library. It’s a novel by Michiko Aoyama.

And then the second is the Monk and Robot books by Becky Chambers. One is called A Psalm for the Wild Built, and the other is A Prayer for the Crown Shy. And I just love these for the philosophical questions that they pose that are, for me, squarely centered around sustainable ambition.

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

Kathy Oneto
“It’s not sustainable if it isn’t yours.”

Pete Mockaitis
Can you elaborate?

Kathy Oneto
Well, it’s really this idea that, again, sustainability is rooted in what’s personally motivating to you and what really matters to you. And so, if you’re pursuing things that are external from you, that are a “should,” or what others want for you, are what society says, at some point, we often reject that and it’s not sustainable.

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

Kathy Oneto
They can find me at my website, SustainableAmbition.com, on LinkedIn, and on my podcast, Sustainable Ambition on their favorite podcast player.

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

Kathy Oneto
I just shared this a little bit earlier, but I’ll reiterate it, which is to really pay attention to how you’re feeling and, again, to be curious and look ahead, and start to think about what might be next much sooner than you think. So, always be learning, always be experimenting, always be taking good risk.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Kathy, thank you.

Kathy Oneto
Thank you so much, Pete.

Pete Mockaitis
Lola, welcome!

Lola Linarte
Hi, Pete.

Pete Mockaitis
I am excited for this conversation. We are talking personal branding, and we’re old friends, so I can just give it to you straight.

Lola Linarte
That’s right.

Pete Mockaitis
I think I’m been a little biased against personal branding because of – what is it – like the first exposure rule, like a first impression rule, because my first exposure to the concept of personal branding came from the movie, I don’t know if you remember this one, is one of those Disney pieces. It’s called “The Kid” from the year 2000, starring Bruce Willis, where he meets a young version of himself, little Rusty, and they have an exchange.

So, Bruce Willis works, and here’s the exchange. Rusty says to older Russ, “So what do you do?” And Russ says, “I’m an image consultant.” Rusty says, “What’s that?” Russ says, “I help people present themselves in the best possible light. I tell them what to say, how to act, and what to wear.” And then Rusty says, “So you help people lie about who they are.”

So, as a young, impressionable fellow, I guess I was 17, I encountered this and I thought, “Oh, man, is that what an image consultant is? Is that what personal branding is? That doesn’t sound like a good thing.” But I know you and you’re an upstanding person. So set the record straight for us, Lola.

Lola Linarte
Yeah, no, I mean, that’s so interesting. So, you’re Rusty in this analogy.

Pete Mockaitis
I was. I mean, I’ve warmed up over time, but, you know, first impressions can stick.

Lola Linarte
No, and I get that, right? And, I mean, that is the common misconception. I hear that all the time, right, about what personal branding is, and I really enjoy that. I love a misconception because I love proving it wrong. But, whether you like it or not, if you spent absolutely any time online, if you’ve sent an email, if you’ve started a social media account, if you’ve done a presentation, so if you spent any time in front of a single human, you have a personal brand.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay.

Lola Linarte
It’s how you pitch yourself. It’s what people think about you. People have impressions of you. So sometimes people ask me, “Well, I’m a plumber. Do I have to have a personal brand?” And I’m like, “They’re not separate things. You are your story.”

So, I think that when people think of a personal brand, they think of like an entity, a business, and your brand is just a story. Your brand is your reputation, and it’s just up to you whether or not you’re going to control it or neglect it.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, so my brand is a story, it’s a reputation, and it exists, just period, because humans are forming impressions of me and saying things about me. So, a story and a reputation attached to me just exists, period, fact.

Lola Linarte
Right. We have interactions with people, and, to your point, we’re already making assumptions about them immediately, good or bad. And one of the things that I ask people, not even my clients, is, “Do you know what happens when we Google you? And if you do, do you like what comes up? And if you don’t, let’s control that.”

And that’s what it is. It’s not lying. It’s just more about controlling the narrative. And what does that mean? Okay, well, are you putting enough work out there that is relevant to where you currently are now, right? I’m sure if I Googled you, I’m sure your podcast would pop up. But, you know, maybe you’re thinking, “Oh, well, maybe my podcast is popping up, but this isn’t. Why?”

And we would ask those questions and then we would come up with those strategies to do that. We wouldn’t take the Bruce Willis approach and lie about it, which I think I’m so glad you started with that because so much of my work is so different, which is why I decided to do what I do because it’s not rooted in aesthetics. It’s not rooted in making you into something you’re not.

It’s bringing out what you already are in a more aligned way and then amplifying that to the world instead of lying it and making it into this pretty thing that’s not sustainable for you because that’s not who you are.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, Lola, you’re really striking some chords, and I’m thinking, you know. I think if you Googled me, it might still be pretty high up there. I should probably take a look. It’s been a while. I recorded a silly video when I was 26 as a speaker reel to do more college keynote speeches, which was fun and silly and cool and was effective. I got some bookings, and shout out to Ian who filmed it and did a great job.

But you’re right in that, for now, 41-year-old Pete Mockaitis, podcaster, professional, business owner, etc., that is not one of the first things I want people to see. That’s more like, “Hey, we’re at a cocktail party. Let me show you this silly thing and we’ll have some laughs about it,” as opposed to, not the ideal first impression, so then, maybe, I should make some efforts to address how that shows up, and say, “Yo, Ian, let’s maybe take my last name off of that so the YouTube video is not so…”

Lola Linarte
“Make it a little more ambiguous.”

Pete Mockaitis
“Not so prominent.” Okay. Understood. So, it makes sense. We have a brand, whether we like it or not, and we may benefit by putting forward some effort into shaping that. So, could you share with us maybe some cool success stories of, “Is this really worth the time and effort? Can I just do me?” Tell us what kinds of good things happen when we put a little bit of effort into this?

Lola Linarte
Yeah, could you go about your day, about your life? Yeah, you can. But any time you put… What’s that’s saying is like, “The grass is green where you water it.” Anytime you put intention behind something, it can’t help but flourish.

So, I have one particular client who is a psychiatrist out of East LA, and up until this point, that’s what she’s done. She’s had a very successful private practice out of East LA, but she got to the point where a lot of my clients do and she thought, “Well, what now? What’s next?”

And she realized, “Okay, I want a new iteration of myself. What does that look like?” She didn’t want to keep coasting. And she could have just kept having a great and successful private practice.

So, she decided to lean in, and say, “Okay, well, I want to see about having trauma-informed businesses and be a speaker. And I also want to help CEOs be better versions of themselves and train them to be better CEOs. But I don’t know exactly how to do that.”

So, we pushed go. And I have a process, I have a framework that I use with my clients that we’ll talk about later, but I brought her through that process where we got really clear on what she wanted to do, and she now has put a backseat to her private practice.

I use the pie of, so she’s now, instead of 90% of her income is coming from that 33% on purpose. And now a majority of her income is coming from her speaking, and that’s giving her so much more fulfillment, much more joy. And that’s something that she’s always wanted to do but didn’t allow herself to do. And through branding herself, unknowingly she leaned into her story.

What the heck does that even mean? That means that she was uncovering that part of herself that she was limiting. And now she’s doing that.

Pete Mockaitis
And that’s really cool, and that makes total sense how that can be super powerful when you’re going to the market as a speaker, “And this is this is what I’m offering.” And because, in many ways, your story is a part of “the product,” “the service,” “the offer” that is a keynote speech from this person, and their story, their background, where they’re coming from, what they’re going to be putting out there.

So, I could see that that 100% makes perfect sense to really think about that carefully and put the thought into it and make it awesome. I’m curious, for regular folks with regular jobs, with regular stories, is it still worthwhile?

Lola Linarte
Absolutely. I think about, I have an attorney who has just decided that she wants to lean into a different form of practice of law. She likes her job. She wants to stay in law. She doesn’t want to create her own business. She just decided that where she’s been for the last nine years served her well, and she’s ready for something different.

So, we optimized her LinkedIn. That was a good first step for her. We did new branding headshots, something she had never done. We decided to take a really good look at her resumes, just simple things, things that people neglect after a while. You’re in your job after two, three, four years, you’re coasting. You don’t really think to “zhuzh it,” you know, why would you? Simple things like that, actionable things like that.

Your headline on your LinkedIn, people don’t even think about, your banner on LinkedIn. And then even buying your own domain on the web, buying your name on there, getting that for yourself. Simple things like that. Just having a landing page for her to control, just taking control of her narrative. And so, that now when she goes to, and she’s actively applying to jobs, she just feels more in the driver’s seat as she’s applying to jobs.

So, she’s not going to start a brick and mortar. She’s not going to be having a TED Talk, but she just feels like she is absolutely in control of her talking points as she’s speaking to the next interviewer for her next job.

Pete Mockaitis
Lola, I really appreciate when you share these things. They feel very practical and sensible and, “Ah, yes, but of course,” as opposed to, sometimes branding can feel a little bit airy-fairy in the sense of color palettes.

Lola Linarte
Sure.

Pete Mockaitis
Which, you know, I’m sure some people look good in certain colors. Okay, that’s a thing. I’m not very good at that, but that whole domain of design. But this is super practical, like straight up, there are people Googling you, seeing your profile on LinkedIn right now. Are they encountering something that is going to be supportive for you and your goals? And I’m thinking about LinkedIn, it’s quite telling. It’ll actually tell you how many people saw your profile recently.

And so, there very well could be dozens or hundreds of occasions in which first impressions of you are occurring that are not even in your conscious awareness, like, “Oh, yeah, I forgot about LinkedIn. I updated that four years ago when I was job hunting and haven’t looked at it since.” That’s a thing that occurs. And yet it’s well worth our time because, I’m thinking, all the time when we haven’t looked at something in a while, it is off.

And I was just speaking with another lawyer who is considering launching a podcast, we were walking through this, and I said, “Hey, on your website, I noticed you had the number for this and the number of cases and the number of damages awarded. If I divide it, it looks like there’s not a whole lot of damages awarded per case. So, if I’m a prospective client, I think, ‘Oh, maybe I’m not going to walk away with much money if I hire these guys.’”

And he’s like, “Wow! Oh, well, thanks. Yeah, we’ll get that updated.” But I’m sure if I went into some nooks and crannies of awesomeatyourjob.com, since it’s been years, I, too, would say, “Oh, geez, why is that still there?” or, “How come I didn’t mention all these awesome things that have happened in these years? Oh, I just haven’t gotten around to it.” And, thusly, I could be missing out on, who knows what opportunities of folks who are sniffing around, it’s like, “Oh, should we book Pete to do this thing? Nah.”

Lola Linarte
I mean, Pete, LinkedIn is how I knew you were doing all these awesome things with your podcasting. It wasn’t through the other forms of social media. It was because you have so many eyeballs on your podcast that the algorithm was like, “Look at this. Look at this thing.” And I thought, “Wow, this is really awesome.”

And people have misconceptions about social media and they have this ick about it, and they don’t want to think about it until they have to think about it, and then it’s too late. Then it’s too late. I mean, not like forever and ever, but you should be just kind of going with it bit by bit by bit by bit. You don’t want to get the facelift at 75. Maybe you get a little bit of work done here and there, here and there along the way.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, so lay it on us. You’ve got a process framework. Can we hear what’s step one, two, three? How does this go down?

Lola Linarte
Yeah. So, like I said, my clients are exceptional people, and I guide them through this three-phase process that I call anchor, refine, and resonate. So, we start by anchoring, and that’s getting crystal clear on who they are.

And this is what I call the soul work. And this is just getting clear on their identity, their purpose, and figuring out what their next chapter looks like, and what they stand for, and really prioritizing long term-goals. But also, I really get down to their limiting beliefs and where they tend to stumble. And this is really important because this helps me understand what’s kept them from elevating and from evolving, and also how they are currently showing up.

And this entire phase is all about alignment and not aesthetics. And then we move into refinement, we go to refine. So now, with all this information we have with anchor, you have all this internal clarity that you can move into external strategy.

Now it doesn’t have to be empty and lies. Like, you actually have something that’s rooted in you and that you can get so abundantly clear on your strategy being for you, and the messaging is clear for all the touch points, and we can have a cohesive message for yourself in person, online, your website, anything tangible, your headshots, absolutely everything.

And then we move into resonate. And so, resonate, what I mean by that is not you’re just posting every day, which is already hard enough. What I mean by that is you’re connecting to your audience, you know at this point what deals you’re saying yes to, what you’re saying no to, and why, and who you’re connecting to, and what opportunities are right for you, and why you’re saying yes or no.

And that’s my favorite part because we’ve distilled it down so much that, at this point, my clients are figuring it out in much faster rate, and they are just, like, happy that they’re not throwing spaghetti at a wall and hoping to see what sticks. They can identify, “Oh, yeah, I can do that and it doesn’t have to be. My version can look like my version and not what I see or what I think I should be.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, so clarity on identity, purpose, what you stand for, limiting beliefs. Mercy. How does one accomplish all that?

Lola Linarte
It’s really, it’s when you ask yourself these questions. I’ve had to do that myself, right? And I do think it’s best to have someone else do it with you. You can’t do it yourself. I don’t recommend anybody brand themselves. You’re too married to your fears. You’re too married to your likes, your dislikes. You kind of have to have someone outside looking in with a 30,000-foot view, just asking you some of these questions that are kind of holding you accountable.

And your identity, right, it’s like, “Well, what are the biggest goals that you’ve had up until this point, but you haven’t?” Like, really, just understanding how you tick and just figuring out why I like certain things and what makes you, you, and being really good with that. Because I often find that my clients are, while they are brilliant and they’re high achievers, high performance, that doesn’t make them immune to being afraid of showing up fully as who they are.

They’ll sometimes hide behind their accolades, behind their degrees, behind the work, so that when it’s time to show it fully as their most aligned and rooted itself, and speak on their point of view, say, online, they are worried about maybe seeming too much, about maybe perhaps nobody wants to hear this, or maybe this is seeming like self-promotion. And I hear that a lot. And I have to remind them that there’s value in sharing their story and their knowledge and working through that.

Pete Mockaitis
I like that a lot. Could you share with us some examples of perhaps posts or statements that give us a feel for, “Hey, this is what it looks like when someone is aligned, rooted, standing for their thing, self-expressed and bold, such that it might feel like too much,” but in your take, it’s just right?

Lola Linarte
Sure. I have this incredible photographer. And she has a completely different take on what boudoir photography should be, but she was so nervous about that because she’s newer into the field and she has a different take on that. And that niche of photography is so small and so specific that people will cut you down and will cut you out.

So, they get very specific on, “It has to be this and it has to be that. If it’s not this, it’s not that.” So, the way that she was defining it was beyond that scope, and she was sort of tiptoeing around that. And she wanted to have it with a couple and she wanted the messaging just to be bolder, and she wanted it to feel cooler. She just wanted it to feel cool.

And when it came down to rebranding her, I just thought, “Man, like, share that, say the thing, say the thing that you want to say. Be bold in absolutely how your experience is.”

And that was very scary for her. She went ahead and, through how she now speaks on her social media, on all her copy, on her website, rather, she’s shown up fully as, like, “My experience is X. Expect this and it’s not that.” And, my God, now, because she’s speaking directly, it’s laser focused to the person who wants that. She’s not trying to be everything for everybody. She’s getting exactly for the person that’s like, “Ah, I found you. Oh, my God. Finally, somebody said the thing.”

And she’s now getting exactly the client that she wants. She’s creating the art that she wants to create in the way that she does.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that’s really interesting in terms of it feels like it’s not what’s done, and it may seem improper to others. And yet that distinctiveness, assuming it’s appealing to a certain segment, will be extra super appealing, like, “Yes, at last, finally, this is what I’ve been looking for.” And I’m thinking, in professional work contexts, could you give us an example of someone living that brand boldly such that other professionals go, “Oh, yeah, that’s our guy. That’s our gal”?

Lola Linarte
So, I recently had a tech, just like a tech whiz, who’s kind of in middle of his career. And he’s kind of ready for the next move. He’s ready for what’s next, but he doesn’t exactly know what that is. And he’s trying to figure out if that means being a speaker. Does that mean just elevating in his career for the next move and getting a promotion?

And so, with him, it’s really exciting because he’s uncovering things about himself that he hasn’t just yet, and same things apply. He hasn’t looked at his LinkedIn. He’s had his website for years. He’s like, “I’ve had this thing for 12 years and I haven’t touched it.” And he’s like, “I’m sure it’s got my college resume on it for goodness sakes.”

And what we’re going to do with him is just make it current to who he is. And the beautiful thing about that is that, once he does that, you can’t help but just uncover things. When you actually spend time with yourself and figuring out next moves, because we tend to just hurry along to the next task with work, with life.

So, with him in particular, he probably does want to speak. He wants to be a speaker. He has so much that he wants to share, but he doesn’t exactly know what he wants to speak on, right? And with our work, he’s going to be untapping what those themes are. They’re already there. He loves to give back to his community. He loves to have an element of being bold.

And so, we’re going to get him out of the theory and platitudes and actually make it applicable to what he’ll end up speaking on.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And speaking of theory and platitudes, I want to hear, when it comes to, let’s say the LinkedIn headline, are there any do’s and don’ts? I noticed there’s a lot of ninjas out there.

Lola Linarte
Oh, God, kill me.

Pete Mockaitis
Is it a good or bad idea to be a ninja or a thought leader? I mean, I want to hear, what are some things that you think are great ideas versus very bad ideas to be placed in the LinkedIn profile?

Lola Linarte
I feel like everyone’s a ninja. Everyone’s a ninja. Everyone’s an architect. Kill me.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. You say no to ninjas and architects. What if someone is literally that, you know, they’re in Japan, and they study these martial arts and they can throw the stars, or they actually design buildings?

Lola Linarte
If you are, please, please share that.

Pete Mockaitis
Little ninjas and architects, we may be called that, otherwise, not.

Lola Linarte
Yeah, no, I think people do that because it’s buzzy, right? People do that because they want to grab attention, because I think it’s something like a max of three seconds that we have before someone is scrolling along and moving past. So, they want to grab your attention and it’s the same old, same old. But beyond titles, that’s what I work with my clients.

It’s, like, don’t tell me what you do. Tell me who you help. Tell me how you’re different. And it’s not going to be because you’re an architect or ninja of marketing or podcasting. Just take some time to think about it. That’s always a really good first step. And something I’ve been telling my clients is maybe you don’t say, “I help my clients do such and such,” but if that’s who you are, that’s what you are, right?

If that’s, like, the first thing that comes to your mind is, “I help my clients uncover the experience of travel in the most luxurious way.” Fine, right? Because that’s something. It’s helping you not just have something generic, right, but that’s also the beauty of AI and ChatGPT. You can have something that you can play with more. But if you spend some time with it, and you curate your voice to it, you’ll come up with something special and different.

But, by God, everyone who’s doing that is just doing that because they feel like they’re unique little snowflakes.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay.

Lola Linarte
Yeah, I don’t like that.

Pete Mockaitis
So, can I hear what amazing sounds like then? If architect and ninjas, not so amazing, and I help X people do Y is okay, what’s awesome sound like?

Lola Linarte
Awesome sounds like just clear, just very clear. Like, I’ll actually pull mine up, what does mine even say? Not to say mine is the best in the world, but mine says, “Elevating influence and personal brands for high-performing entrepreneurs and executives.” And then I say, “I’m the CEO and founder of Alma Feliz Group.” What does yours say, Pete?

Pete Mockaitis
I think it’s my title. I think it’s a…

Lola Linarte
Let me see yours. Podcast host and launch consultant. I love that. How to be awesome at your job. CashflowPodcasting.com, discover and share. Yeah, this is great. Yours is very good. And he did not pay me to say that.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, thank you. Yeah. Well, so, yeah, I think you’re right. Well, now I’m going to go over to it too. It’s like discovering and sharing transformational wisdom.

Lola Linarte
That’s so good.

Pete Mockaitis
What’s interesting is that, I guess it’s tricky because that might feel like a corporate-y descriptor, but, in my heart of hearts, that is really what gets me fired up, like, “Ooh, I just discovered something awesome. I can’t wait to tell everybody about it.” Yeah.

Lola Linarte
And that’s exactly why that works is because, if I’m reading that, and I am, say, your desired audience, your go-to audience, I’m resonating with that. I am thinking, “Hell, yeah, I want to know what he’s discovering. What is he sharing? What is his version of transformational wisdom that he’s curating for me? And I’m locked in. I’m curious.”

You’ve already done that just with your LinkedIn bio, your headline. I want to know more. And so, it’s that easy. It really is that easy for someone. If you just were to post, “consultant” that leaves too much. It’s too much to question. Or, like, if I was just to say, “marketing and strategist.” Of what? Who cares?

Use up those characters that LinkedIn gives you there. With your “About,” you have such an opportunity there to embed key words. You can talk more about yourself in a very specific strategic way so that you tell more of a story that your experience doesn’t.

Yeah, you talk about your positions that you had, and maybe you got a promotion here and there, but yeah, your “About” can be exactly the story that you want to tell. I tell my clients to look at their LinkedIn as a landing page almost, as an extension of their website.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, understood. Well, tell me any other top do’s and don’ts you want to make sure to put out there before we hear about some of your favorite things?

Lola Linarte
I often have people come to me, and they think that personal branding is just about aesthetics. They think brand and they think it’s really just about, like you said, picking colors and taglines. And it’s really not about that. I always tell people, first, to audit where they currently are. I have a five-question audit on my website and it’s very simple. And just to do a checkpoint with themselves and to figuring out where they are, what they want, and the do’s and don’ts.

And if they don’t like where they are, where they can pivot and change. So, don’t hire a PR agent right away. Don’t start making a logo and spending a bunch of money.  Don’t skip the steps of figuring out who you are, and really figuring out your goals. Do the tedious work. Do the work right now. Do the work on your LinkedIn. Buy your website. I know that it seems like it’s antiquated. It’s not.

I know if we learned anything from last year’s TikTok blackout and Instagram blackout, where a lot of people were using that as their portfolios, that can get lost in a second. So, you want to take control of your narrative and make sure that you have complete control of where your work lies. Don’t neglect what happens when you Google you.

And, just be excited. Stay active and excited about the possibilities that can happen when you pour into your brand and your goals and your dreams.

Pete Mockaitis
Any other misconceptions to clarify?

Lola Linarte
Yeah, I hear all the time that once people have figured it out, okay, so you’ve done all the work, then they’re done. And it doesn’t work that way because I remind people that their personal brand, their story, is living and breathing, and it’s a reflection of their growth, and it evolves, just as we do.

And just as you get a new role, or you have a new position, or you’re growing in your goals and new seasons of your life, so should your brand. It should be reflecting as that. Go back to your LinkedIn, we’ve talked about ad nauseum. Go back to your website. Keep updating these things. And just recognizing your brand isn’t static. It’s growing with you and it’s unfolding in real time.

Pete Mockaitis
Alrighty. Thank you. Well, now could you share a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Lola Linarte
So I love this quote by Carlos Castañeda. And it is, “We either make ourselves miserable or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same.”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Lola Linarte
Okay, so back in the day, I thought I was going to be a professor like my parents, and I was studying, I was in a biological anthropology class. And my bioanthropology professor was telling us about symmetry in animals.

And she was saying how, in particular, this study was on peacocks and peahens, and how they had the test of one season of mating – I can’t believe I’m telling you this – on this peacock in this peahen sanctuary, and how they measured the tails, the feathers of this peacock. And nothing else changed from one season to the next. And they trimmed the feathers of this peacock the next season.

So, they tested how many peahens chose this peacock for the next season, and it lessened significantly because of the trimmed feathers on him. And I just thought that was so fascinating how something so simple could make such a significant impact on the, I guess, on the selection for them.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite book?

Lola Linarte
I love The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. And one of my clients right now, she has this book called The Habits of Healing, it’s Nakeia Homer.

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

Lola Linarte
Tool, like a software?

Pete Mockaitis
It could be, yeah.

Lola Linarte
Oh, man, I’m old school, Pete. I am so old school. I love a good fricking journal.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And a favorite habit?

Lola Linarte
Sleep Hygiene 3000. If you can figure out your sleep, your circadian rhythm, and figure out how to sleep, my God, it pays in dividends. You will be so much better for it if you can figure out a more stable rhythm of sleep.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And is there a key nugget you share that really seems to connect and resonate with your clients, you hear them quoted back to you often?

Lola Linarte
“If you don’t define your brand, you’re going to leave it up to other people to do it for you.”

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

Lola Linarte
AlmaFelizGroup.com. Alma Feliz is A-L-M-A, Feliz, F-E-L-I-Z group.com. And it’s Alma Feliz throughout all social media, and then Lola Linarte as well for me.

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

Lola Linarte
Always take inventory of where you are. Always ask yourself if you like where you’re headed, if you like where you’ve been. Ask yourself if you’re settling. If you want more, figure out if you’re the thing that’s holding you back.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Lola, thank you.

Lola Linarte
Thank you so much, Pete.

Pete Mockaitis
Betsy, welcome!

Betsy Wills
Thank you, Pete.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m excited to be chatting about your work, digging into innate talents, aptitude, Your Hidden Genius. Marshall Goldsmith was raving about the book deal you had, so it must be good, Betsy, right?

Betsy Wills
It’s very good and very necessary for people. Very unique.

Pete Mockaitis
Certainly. Well, tell us what is unique? I think people think, “Well, I’ve done a Myers-Briggs. I’ve done a DiSC. I’ve done a StrengthsFinder.” You got another one of these assessments, Betsy. What’s sort of fresh here?

Betsy Wills
Okay, I just love that question more than anything. Actually, the assessment is not new, but what it was, was extremely expensive. The assessment is from Johnson O’Connor, which is a career center that you go to in 12 different cities around the country. It costs about $750 to do it. When you do it, you’re doing these exercises that you cannot game on your aptitudes.

And most people do not understand what aptitudes are, and, basically, they’re hidden from people. You may have an inkling that you have certain abilities that are innate, but this is the scientific way to prove that. So, the book includes the aptitude assessment with a code to take online, and that is what’s unique.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, super. So, now when you say aptitude, this is bringing back memories, SAT. Does that stand for the Standard Aptitude or Scholastic Aptitude Test?

Betsy Wills
Originally, it was called the Scholastic Aptitude Test, and the people that make that test realize it is not an aptitude test. It’s not about your innate abilities. It was actually the Scholastic Achievement Test. And so, the term has kind of stuck and been conflated, if you will. But even the Scholastic Achievement Test rebranded itself to be called just the SAT, if you look into that history.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, inside scoop.

Betsy Wills
Inside scoop. So, we have sort of shifted in and moved in our terminology for these things, but aptitudes you cannot study for. They are innate. So, there’s actually 52 that can be measured and they range from, you know, glare factor. Some certain people are really bothered by glare and other people not so much on a continuum. It’s an actual innate ability. We don’t test that because it only really matters if you’re a truck driver or you’re flying an airplane.

Pete Mockaitis
Or a jet fighter, yeah.

Betsy Wills
Yup, it does matter, and they do test it in the military but it’s not one of the pieces of this particular battery. But what we do assess are things that really matter in the world of work. And these are things that typically school does not recognize, things like your spatial ability. Some people are able to see things in 3D very easily, and other people are more abstract. I know we’re going to talk about that in a minute.

And then there are certain cognitive things, like people’s reasoning skills or memories. But all of these things combined can give us great insight into where we’re going to find satisfaction in our work, as well as our best advocations, which I think are quite important.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, 52 aptitudes that we know about so far from science. Now that’s just incredible.

Betsy Wills
Yeah, and there’s others that are coming, believe me.

Pete Mockaitis
So, where might we go to just find the rundown, the list of these little tidbits from glare factor and more?

Betsy Wills
Another good question. So, the other thing that’s been hidden from people or they didn’t realize is the US government and the Department of Labor and Statistics has been tracking every single job and built, basically, a Rosetta Stone of information with each of the 52 and the amount of each 52 that are ideal for each job. So, think of it as this huge dataset.

But until I know your data on your aptitudes, I can’t really give you great career suggestions, and so that’s the purpose, in many ways, of having your aptitudes assessed because it maps to this enormous database, almost like a Match.com for your jobs. So, just like medicine, which has become extremely personalized using data, now we have the wherewithal, if we can have our aptitudes assessed, to find out where we would best fit in different types of jobs.

Now, let me be clear, there’s not one job for one person. There’s many, many options, but it helps you sort of narrow down what is basically a tyranny of choice and the misguidance of saying to people, “Follow your passion,” or, “Do what you are.” You’ve got to know what you are, and this gives you an enormous amount of data to make better decisions.

Pete Mockaitis
Now, Betsy, we don’t do an NPR-style journalistic narrative situation, but now you got me curious about this secret government conspiracy that has constructed the career Rosetta Stone, and we don’t know about it.

Betsy Wills
Right. Right.

Pete Mockaitis
Is it published somewhere deep in a backwoods site?

Betsy Wills
No, no, anybody can access this, and it’s not nefarious at all. It’s called O*NET, and I talk about it in the book, you can see that, but here’s the rub. When you were in high school, and I was in high school, and since the 1960s, they have been using a survey called the interest survey. You took it, I took it, pretty much every high gave it because it was…

Pete Mockaitis
Yes, I kind of remember that.

Betsy Wills
Yes, and it asked you, Pete, “Like, on a scale of 1 to 5, do you like building cabinets?” Or, “On a scale of 1 to 5, how do you feel about medical terms or something?” Well, at 17, who the heck knows? You know, we’ve been exposed to almost nothing. But they called it career guidance, and that assessment mapped to O*NET.

And when it mapped to O*NET, with very little information that you self-reported, it would give you career suggestions, like be a funeral mortician hairdresser, or a forest ranger, or a doctor, or a lawyer, things like that. But it was using very scant data to do that that you were self-reporting. So, the database has been very refined and it’s very powerful, but the stuff we were putting into it with those high school surveys, that acted like a boomerang because it was just you telling the survey and it you something back, that’s pretty bad.

And now we know that that information was essentially career malpractice. You really need to have much better data. It’s like if you went to the doctor and you told the doctor you have cancer, and the doctor said, “You know what? I agree. Let’s start the chemotherapy.” You’d be like, “What?” You’d say, “Aren’t you going to run some tests or get some information?” I mean, you don’t self-report yourself like that, and this is the same with careers at this point.

So, that’s really what has happened is this is Career Guidance 3.0. Finally, we’re in an era where we can scientifically understand what we’re hardwired to do, where our best opportunities are, and where we’re going to find the most satisfaction by understanding what our aptitudes are. And that’s why this book is so, so important.

Pete Mockaitis

Well, that’s good, and I love that line about the doctor. You tell the doctor what you have, and they say, “Yep, you got it.”

Betsy Wills
“You’re sure right.” Yeah.

Pete Mockaitis
So well, so much good stuff. You said they didn’t have a sense of the ideal amounts of aptitudes of different types for different jobs. So, now when you say ideal amount, that triggers me to think, “Hmm, so it’s not just more of everything is better? We’d be worse off having more aptitude in being in certain jobs?”

Betsy Wills
These are the most miserable people. There’s not very many who basically have powerful aptitudes in all of the things you can measure, and nobody does have that. But what you’re looking for and what’s wonderful about understanding what your aptitudes are is you’re looking for a combination of things as unique as your fingerprint.

So, let me give you an example. Idearate, you took it, Pete, and it told you, you were a brainstormer. We gave you a question and you remembered the assessment. I don’t want to ruin it for your listeners, but your result was you were a brainstormer.

Pete Mockaitis
I didn’t know. I was typing things. Was that a lot of things? I have no context.

Betsy Wills
Yes, that was a lot of things.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, that was a lot of things. Okay. Go, me.

Betsy Wills
People who score like this, they tend to, you know, it’s like ideas come out like a flood. They almost have trouble turning it off, okay?

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that’s right.

Betsy Wills
At night, I need a glass of wine sometimes to turn this off, okay? So, it’s lots and lots of ideas that are coming to you at one time. The other side of the continuum, people who don’t score as if they come up with a lot of ideas, are called concentrated focusers. So, people who score like you do, make great podcast hosts, salespeople, marketers, journalists, writers, teachers. Pete, you don’t want your surgeon or your pilot to have this, okay?

Pete Mockaitis
“Here’s a fun idea. What if, instead, we cut this other part for funsies?”

Betsy Wills
“Yeah, yeah, like, let’s saw him up this way, you know?” So, the point is that is, oftentimes, the things that are not as strong for us are what unlock our best opportunities. So, think of your aptitude scores as looking almost like a soundboard. You’re going to have certain things that are way up here and certain things way down here. It’s that combination that makes the music sound so great, and that’s really how aptitudes work. So, we’re not looking for A+’s, you know.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, it’s so funny, I was just thinking something about myself I’ve noticed kind of recently is, boy, I love designing processes, but I hate following them. It’s, like, does that make me some kind of a hypocrite? Like, “Listen, employees, you do these things that I’ve spelled out, but I don’t want to do these things,” because it gets boring for me. I want to mix it up.”

And to the notion of having optimal levels, not necessarily just more and more and more, we were talking with a Navy SEAL, Rich Diviney, about what he calls attributes. I’m seeing a little bit of overlap here. And he used, for example, the attribute of empathy, we think, “Oh, that’s a good thing. I want to be empathetic.” But he said, “If your role is being a stand-up comic, you don’t want to have high empathy.”

Betsy Wills
That’ll be highly distracting when you’re trying to make that sarcastic remark.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes, you’re going to be offending a segment by necessity in order to be funny. I get maybe it’s possible to be kind to everybody in your jokes, but often those are like fifth-grade pun books, which are not that funny, in my experience with my kiddos. So, I think there’s a lot to be said there. Yes, those aptitudes, it’s intriguing how, if you have a whole lot of a thing, it might not feel like a great fit.

Now, well, you’re making me get all these flashbacks here. I remember I was at a Bain party because I used to do strategy consulting. And so, well, I think there was an event where beverages were flowing liberally, and folks were just sort of speaking their mind. I remember our corporate librarian person said to me, “I don’t know what you’re doing here, Pete.” I was like, “What? That’s not what I want to hear.”

Betsy Wills
“This isn’t a job review, I hope.”

Pete Mockaitis
“I’m trying to advance my career.” And she’s like, “You just have so many creative ideas. The consulting thing, this doesn’t really seem like you.” And I thought, “Hmm, you know, it’s interesting,” because, in a way, I totally vibed with my fellow consultants in, like, the problem-solving, find the insights, communicate it.
But then, boy, once we had to polish that PowerPoint deck for a sixth iteration, I was like, “Aren’t we done? Can’t we just move on?”

Betsy Wills
“No, I’m out.” Well, people, again, that are brainstormers like you, they tend to like to have multiple projects going at one time, and that’s probably what did attract you in Bain Consulting. But I will say, for you and your scores, because I appreciate you taking the assessment and investing in yourself, you scored as a diagnostic problem solver in the inductive reasoning assessment.

Which, if you recall, if anybody out there plays the New York Times Connections game, it’s quite similar the way this is assessed. People who like to draw connections with a lot of ambiguity and not all the information present. And that is how a lot of consultants score because they love problems where not all the information is necessarily in front of them, and they can draw inference well.

So, you scored like that, for example, Pete, and it’s not necessarily that usual to score like you did. In fact, not a high percentage of people score with that diagnostic problem-solving score, and so, congratulations. You should be leaning into that as much as possible.

And some people might tell you, because all of these aptitudes, wherever you score, there’s going to be an Achilles’ heel. And in the book, we talk about the positives and also the challenges for everybody’s course. And in your case, people who score as diagnostic problem solvers, they can tend to procrastinate actually because they work best when there’s urgency. They love when there is kind of a mini crisis or something to solve where they can, you know, the time pressure is on them.

And so, when there’s not enough time pressure, sometimes they create situations where there is time pressure because they like the thrill. I don’t know if that happens to you. I’m not saying you do that because not everybody exhibits the characteristics of some of these Achilles’ heels. I call it aptitudes gone wild, but it is good insight.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, what I really like this notion is you can have a high aptitude on a thing, and that just sounds good, like, “Yeah, I want a bunch of high aptitude. I want to be like limitless, you know, or Jason Bourne. Oh, these guys are so awesome. They can do anything. So capable, speaking all these languages, sniper-ing people far away.”

So, that sounds great, but you’re really highlighting here that you may have a high level of an aptitude, and that does have a shadow side to it. And then, likewise, a low level of an aptitude, things I just sort of felt, ashamed might be a strong word, but in the ballpark of ashamed. So, on the test, there was a “holes being punched into folded paper” situation for spatial reasoning, and I just utterly bombed it.

I could tell, for the first one, which I think was supposed to be easy, I still didn’t understand what I was doing. And I remember I’ve had these experiences.

And I do get lost without GPS, and people say, “Oh, just come back the way you came.” I was like, “That’s not going to be good enough. I’m going to need some more information on how to return from the bathroom to the doctor’s office.” Like, “Oops, which way did I turn on these hallways corridors?”

Betsy Wills
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Pete Mockaitis
I feel, like, embarrassed. Like, I have something wrong with me.

Betsy Wills
Not a bit.

Pete Mockaitis
And you’re saying, “Well, hey, there’s a low aptitude on spatial reasoning.”

Betsy Wills
Spatial reasoning. It’s fine. I mean, that’s actually the one, Pete, that people feel like throwing the computer out the window. And a lot of people, even if they do well at that particular assessment, they don’t realize it in the midst of it. They all kind of come back and go, “That one was so hard.” And I’m like, “Well, you scored as a 3D visualizer.” Or, in your case as an abstract thinker, it wasn’t that easy.

But that fork in the road for people tells us a lot about, for instance, the types of careers we’re going to enjoy. People who score like you do, as an abstract thinker, they tend to be very good at reading emotions of people. They’re very good at so many different things that are more in the idea world, the theory world, the concept world. They like to think in the world of ideas and thoughts and emotions.

Whereas, people who score as 3D thinkers, it’s almost like a scratch that needs to be itched. And when we see that score, we ask them, “You know, what are you doing in your life to use this?” And if you’re a parent, so you know, you can start to see this aptitude emerge very young in children, actually. The kid who’s making the Taj Mahal out of LEGOs at four, and then, you know, me, if I’m trying to do something out of LEGOs, you wouldn’t know what it was even today, you know? It’d be such a mess.

But it’s just fascinating that we can parse these aptitudes and how much they tell us about our satisfaction in our jobs and in our lives.

Pete Mockaitis
And, Betsy, it’s interesting, you’re also illuminating for me, I think, one of the great mysteries of home ownership, which is, “How is it that a contractor or a plumber or an electrician or a carpenter, is just amazing doing things I could not imagine to doing myself?”

Betsy Wills
There you go.

Pete Mockaitis
And yet, I often have a heck of a time getting them to pick up the phone, show up? I was like, “Maybe there’s just too much demand for a limited number of tradespeople, and so we’re all just kind of in this boat.” But I think, Betsy, what you seem to be illuminating, this is my theory, there’s some abstract thinking for you.

Betsy Wills
Yes, that’s right.

Pete Mockaitis
My theory is, “Well, hey, they’re great on an aptitude I’m not good at, and I’ve got an aptitude that they’re not so great at. It’s relatively easy for me to pick up the phone and make an appointment, show up, do the things.

Betsy Wills
Come up with the idea, you know, all those types of things, yes.

Pete Mockaitis
But, actually, showing up and making great cabinets wouldn’t work so well for me.

Betsy Wills
And what a waste of time. And that’s also part of the point here is, you know, whether you’re managing a team or managing yourself, why stay on the struggle bus? There’s no point. We call the book Your Hidden Genius because everyone really does have these hidden abilities that they sometimes have recognized or maybe discounted in their lives because school didn’t reward them for it or they just thought, “Oh, everybody can do that,” and that’s really not the case at all.

Pete Mockaitis
No, that’s a huge takeaway right there. And we talked with some folks who are experts in the StrengthsFinder, and that’s sort of a funny thing about strengths is because they’re easy for us, we just assume, “Oh, this is easy for everybody,” but no, no. It’s because we have these strengths, we have these aptitudes.

And it’s also intriguing, “Why stay on the struggle bus?” I guess this might be hopeful or desolate, Betsy. Is it fixed? Like, there’s just spatial reasoning is not going to be improved by me no matter how what kind of exercises I try to do?

Betsy Wills
Well, that is a great question. No, we can do anything with practice, and that is the other good news about knowing what your aptitudes are. It’s often an indicator of where you may need to spend more time, or, for some people, learning a job is harder than actually doing a job, like acquiring the skill may take them longer and be more of a struggle, but all of us can do anything with practice.

But the point, too, is why would you? We all have things we’ve got to get competent at, but why spend a lot of time trying to perfect it or apologizing for why we’re not the best at it? So, I’ll give you an exercise I gave Marshall as well, and that was, you know, do you have a pen handy?

Pete Mockaitis
I sure do.

Betsy Wills
And if your listeners do, take out a pen and just write your name. Right, Pete?

Pete Mockaitis
I have a feeling I know where this is going.

Betsy Wills
You probably do, but why not? So, now, switch hands.

Pete Mockaitis
Alrighty.

Betsy Wills
Okay. I know you’re going to enjoy this.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah.

Betsy Wills
Okay. So, how does your non-dominant hand signature look?

Pete Mockaitis
You almost said left, which is correct. Well, it’s sloppy, it’s silly, it took longer, it was harder to do.

Betsy Wills
Right. Slow. Okay. Pete, if you lost use of your dominant hand for some terrible accident, I hope that never happens, and you had to use your non-dominant hand for the rest of your life, even by the end of today, you could get better. You would get more relaxed doing it. You could practice and get better. But you’re never going to be a calligrapher, okay, no matter what you do. So, that’s the way aptitudes work. You can become competent, but spend more time on the things that come naturally and easily to you versus constantly being frustrated.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that seems accurate that if something is hard for you to improve on for a long time, the odds are slim you will ever become exceptionally world-class at that thing.

Betsy Wills
Right. Well, think of it as also like you don’t become a musician at 35 years old, all of a sudden, because you work really hard at it. People have natural abilities that allow them to enjoy doing it and to get better and better at it the more they practice. But if your running start is at a different spot, it’s going to take you longer and become more frustrating as you go.

And that, again, doesn’t mean if you’re not a great musician from birth you can’t enjoy music or do well. But we all know, there are certain people who just it comes easily to, and that’s great. And there are things that are easy for you that aren’t easy for me, and that’s okay, too.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. So, with the book Your Hidden Genius, you’ve got the link to the code that lets you do the test and learn these things. And then there’s the O*NET from the government.

Betsy Wills
Matching, yup.

Pete Mockaitis
So, I mean, hey, I think it’s a great move to buy the book, do the assessment. If folks just aren’t going to, how do we take advantage of some of these insights without it?

Betsy Wills
Well, if you read the book, we did design it such that if you didn’t take the assessment, which I don’t know why you wouldn’t, but if you didn’t, we tell stories. And so, we explain these concepts and we talk about, you know, we talked to over 80 different people from ages 75 down to 18, because by the time you go through puberty, your aptitudes are fixed. So, you wouldn’t take an aptitude assessment any earlier than when you’re sort of in high school. But if you take the assessment, you’re going to score the same at 17, 37, 80.

Pete Mockaitis
No kidding?

Betsy Wills
Yes, because, again, we’re not testing what you know. We’re just looking at the baseline. So, it’s kind of fun to take them, but if you get into the book, we’ll go through all the different aptitudes and tell stories and talk about how they come out with different people’s careers and their advocations as well. But you talked about other aptitudes people were discovering. We have a chapter on that which I think is kind of cool. I’ll tell a story if you are interested about smell, which they’re really researching these days.

Certain people can smell things better than other people. This is why certain people enjoy wine or cooking in a different way. And there’s a woman, many people may have read this story, maybe you did, who had a husband with Parkinson’s disease, and he died. And she went to the doctor after and she said, “You know, I could smell it on him,” and he was like, “What do you mean you could smell it on him?” She goes, “I could smell it on him for years.”

And so, they got interested in this, and they gave her 24 T-shirts, and they said, “Tell me which of these people have Alzheimer’s.” I mean, have Parkinson’s, excuse me. And she picked out 12, and they said, “Well, that is remarkable because we have 11 candidates with it, and all 11 were in your pile. That other person not, but that’s remarkable.”

And two months later, the 12th T-shirt wearer was diagnosed. And it’s just phenomenal what they’re able to now study around people being able to smell diseases. And it is actually, I believe, an aptitude. It hasn’t been proven, but it’s things like that that are fascinating to me.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, it is fascinating, and I just can’t let it go. If one smells Parkinson’s on somebody, I am assuming the person with Parkinson’s, biochemically, has a smellable thing going on.

Betsy Wills
A disease.

Pete Mockaitis
And non-Parkinson’s sufferers don’t.

Betsy Wills
That’s the implication.

Pete Mockaitis
But we don’t know what that is yet, like a film on the skin or like a…?

Betsy Wills
I guess. I’m just now yacking away here because I think it’s interesting, but look up the story. But they do a tremendous amount of research on smell. But this is back to what I’m saying. These are science-based, research-based aptitudes that makes this quite different. You can’t self-report that “I’m good at this or good at that,” or have this aptitude. You do have to take these game-like exercises. And as you know, it took 87 minutes to complete, so it’s not a quickie fill-in-the-blank kind of assessment. Did you have fun doing it?

Pete Mockaitis
Most of it.

Betsy Wills
Okay. Well, it wasn’t all fun because it shouldn’t frustrate you, but, yeah.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, interesting. All right. So, let’s just summarize some of these implications. We got these aptitudes. They are not skills or knowledge or abilities. They are things that, dare I say, innate within us. We’ll know, and they’ll be unchanged post-puberty for the rest of our lives, and it behooves us to seek out opportunities that line up nicely with our amounts of aptitudes in different styles, like a Rosetta Stone, it maps just right, and we will struggle more if we are pursuing opportunities that are a mismatch to our aptitudes.

Betsy Wills
Yes. And further, you will be bored and frustrated if you are not using your aptitudes, and that’s really the challenge, is letting things sit dormant. Because a lot of people’s sort of boredom and depression and things like that is, oftentimes, because of an undeveloped aptitude. So, remember, when you discover what your aptitudes are, the onus is on you to apply learning and practice to develop them.

Motivation is sold separately, so you’re understanding what your opportunity set is, where your learning rate is going to be that much faster if you apply the aptitude. So, it’s clues for things you’re going to enjoy. It’s positive news. It’s not a dream killer. It’s all about, “Here are so many opportunities I might have left on the table. Here’s how I can pivot if I need to. Here are the skills I can develop that are going to feel great.”

It’s positive news, and that’s really the purpose of the book is to give people great motivation and excitement around what their possibilities are, rather than, what I would say, is continue to be the walking dead because a lot of us are sort of give up weirdly early about our development, and this will energize you.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, to do a bit of a recap, you mentioned that there’s a core four aptitudes: spatial visualization, idea generation, inductive reasoning, and sequential reasoning. Can you share what makes these the core four, first of all?

Betsy Wills
Well, those are just hugely, again, like forks in the road for people, like big ones that if you’re not using them, it’s going to bother you, or if you’re over taxing them, you’re going to feel burnout and exhaustion. So, knowing where you fall on those continuums is really, really helpful. The others are important, and some people have outliers.

Like, one that can be assessed is certain people can identify color really well, hue discrimination. So those are specialized aptitudes, and those can be super important if you have them. But those core four are going to impact most of us in our decision tree, and then the others are sort of like ornaments on that tree. Very helpful to know.

Pete Mockaitis
I like that, that metaphor there. And, it’s funny, well, hue distinction, I’m thinking about physical therapists. I guess this is my poor spatial visualization going on because I’m talking about Katie will say, “Does it look like this shoulder is higher or lower than this?” I was like, “I couldn’t tell you. I am clueless. They look normal to me.”

And, whereas, physical therapists, I’m often very impressed, like, “Oh, do you see how you’re doing this?” I was like, “No, not at all do I see how I’m doing this,” but they do.

Betsy Wills
See, they do, and there’s a perfect use of their spatial visualization, they just see it, you know?

Pete Mockaitis
So, maybe if you could lay it on us in terms of, if you could archetypically share what might be a great role or a terrible role for someone high and low in each of the core four. So, spatial visualization, we said, hey, great physical therapists, maybe great.

Betsy Wills
Oh, yeah, architect. Okay, let’s get into it. Architect, landscape designer, graphic designer, anybody working with a lot of charts, for sure, crafts people, anybody you know in the building trades, potters, you know, people. Let’s talk about avocations. Like, if you have a spatial visualization, you might enjoy things like sailing or even golf where you’re estimating space or there’s a whole list of things in the book that talk about each aptitude and where you fall but that would be one.

People who score in the abstract world, like I said, they tend to like things that are more theoretical in nature, even the law, a lot of typical types of law, like constitutional law would be an example, maybe not patent law, which would need more spatial visualization, if that helps you understand it. And then, by the way, there are people who score in the middle of each on this continuum. So, we break it down into three groups. And you will learn something in the book about that, too, wherever you score on that continuum. So, that’s spatial.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And idea generation.

Betsy Wills
Okay, idea generation: teachers, journalists, public speakers, comedians, actors, improv, salespeople, certain types of consulting, for sure, appeals to that, that’s brainstormer, strong idea rate. One of the Achilles’ heels of being a brainstormer might be that you may have a habit of interrupting people because you just can’t get all those ideas out at once.

Concentrated focusers, which is the other end of this continuum, tend to be excellent at implementing ideas. They tend to be the “Let’s pick an idea and run with it and go with it.” They tend to enjoy things that take a high amount of concentration, if you will. Anesthesiologists, for example, airline pilots, those would be examples. But there’s many, many things that utilize that concentrated focuser score.

Inductive reasoning is the next one we might pick. So, this is the one I talked about where you’re very comfortable drawing a conclusion under time pressure. Basically, if you’re an inductive reasoner, you need to be on a game show because you love the, you know, got to make a decision under time pressure.

But think of an ER doctor where someone comes in with three symptoms and they’ve got to really make that decision quickly, or a Wall Street trader. Sometimes an investigator might be a diagnostic problem solver. Consultants, for sure, like you were. The other opposite end of that continuum is fact-checking, a fact checker. That’s the people who really are not comfortable making decisions under time pressure.

Oftentimes they need to be pushed into the pool. They’re going to look at a hundred colleges before they’re going to make a decision because they’re looking for that one piece of data they may not have. They make great risk managers. They make wonderful HR managers because, when you’re hiring someone, you can’t infer from three different pieces of information and make a decision, or you shouldn’t. You’re going to need to do the background check, and they’re going to be the people who are going to complete all those steps. So, again, value with every score.

And then the last one is sequential reasoning. I don’t know if you remember that one where you were putting boxes in order. Sequential reasoning is interesting. A lot of people who score as sequential reasoners tend to have messy desks because all of their file cabinets are in their head. They don’t need organizational structures as much. They tend to be able to put things in order. They’re like, if they’re going to write a paper, they don’t need an outline. It’s all kind of organized in their head.

The people on the opposite end of this, we call process supporters, and they’re excellent at maintaining systems. Think about librarians. Think about people who, you know, don’t move their cheese. If you’re going to change a system, you’ve got to really explain it to them. But they’re going to make sure that system is followed to a T, and they’re excellent at it. And we need all types on our teams. If I may, I’ll tell a quick story also about that.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes, please.

Betsy Wills
There was a guy named Charlie Plumb, who was a war hero and he took off from his aircraft carrier and was ejected from his airplane on a parachute and shot down into enemy territory and spent about two years, I think, in solitary or something, and got out and went and made all these speeches.

And one time, he was giving a talk at a restaurant, and a man came up and tapped him on the shoulders, and he was a sequential reasoner, Charlie Plumb was. And he said, “I was on the aircraft carrier with you.” And he said, “Oh, well, soldier, I’m glad to meet you,” Charlie Plumb did. And he said, “You know, I’m the guy who packed your parachute.” He was a process supporter.

He didn’t come up with a new way to pack the parachute. He did it the same way every time, and this is just like teams. We need all different types of people with all different aptitude scores to make us successful. So, in the end, this is all about empathy, and it’s about love. It’s about not seeing other people as a flawed version of us. It’s really valuable information.

Pete Mockaitis
Well said. Yeah, that feels like that’s a transformational key right there for many of our relationships, not to see others as flawed versions of ourselves.

Betsy Wills
Especially your spouse.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, but rather a person who has their own unique profile of different levels of aptitudes. Beautiful. Well, now could you share a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Betsy Wills
“A wink is as good as a nod to a blind mule.” Barney Fife said it.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And a favorite book?

Betsy Wills
I’m reading Hampton Sides’ The Wide Wide Sea right now. So, my favorite book is always my last book that I’m reading. I would recommend it to anyone. It’s about Captain Cook’s travels. Captain Cook ended up being cannibalized on Hawaii in the 1790s, and it’s a fascinating read.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite tool?

Betsy Wills
Right now, it’s ChatGPT.

Pete Mockaitis
All right.

Betsy Wills
It creates images for me, which I think is a lot of fun.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, yeah. And is there a key nugget you share that really seems to connect and resonate with folks, they quote it back to you often?

Betsy Wills
Network.

Pete Mockaitis
One word, okay. Do it! And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Betsy Wills
I would say go to YourHiddenGenius.com and purchase the book, and you can reach out to me that way as well.

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

Betsy Wills
Bring your best opportunities to your jobs and advocate for doing activities that meet your aptitudes and shed the things that don’t.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. Betsy, thank you.

Betsy Wills
Thank you.

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.