Show Notes
Dr. Benjamin Hardy is an organizational psychologist, an esteemed author, and a renowned speaker. Host Ross Thornley talks with Dr. Hardy talks about his new book, "Personality Isn’t Permanent", why it’s important to spend time thinking about thinking, and some of the keys of adaptability. The pair also discuss psychological flexibility being essential in order to jump from environment to environment — and not being held to the ideas of the former context.
Timestamps
Full Podcast Transcript
Intro
Hi, and welcome to Decoding AQ, helping you to learn the tools mindsets, and actions to thrive in an ever-changing world.
Ross
Hi and welcome to the next episode of Decoding AQ. I have Dr. Benjamin Hardy with me today. He's an organizational psychologist, he's written some amazing books got new one coming out called personality isn't permanent. And I think coming from a history of blog writing, I think you were number one writer in the world, our most viewed and read writer for three years, you have created a storm of followers for your writing concepts and insight. So it's a pleasure to have you with us, Ben.
Ben
Hey I love your work, I love your premise, you just showed me your breakdown. And I'm like, so on board with everything you're doing. And I love the rigor of it, I just like, I feel like you're isolating what really matters for learning, for letting go of things, for it's just fun, it's fun to see what you're up to.
Ross
You know, it's one of these things where, you know, you're doing something that's quite controversial and breaking up lots of myths into something that's been around for a long time. And so many people have got preconceived ideas. It's a bit like the social experiments where you have people follow something with a load of actors in and you bring someone in, and over time you remove those actors doing that behavior, and see if they still do it. And they have no idea in the connection to why they're doing it you know.
So I see that as kind of personality tests as current is that people don't have any real idea of why they're doing it or that they're rigorous, it's just because it was done before, but it lost the connection to maybe their history and those things. But there we go, you know, the image that we shared is our adapt the periodic table as a geeky nerd that, uh, you know, enjoys science and the periodic table, we have our own view of what adaptability is, and it has all of these different dimensions. So yeah, I just shared that with you. And it's it's kind words. So why don't we start off with just a little bit of what did you get into writing? What drove you into that kind of area for you?
Ben
Yeah. And it's so fun by the way to look at your periodic table, there's various aspects of that thing that like I immediately zoomed in on. Yeah, I got into writing actually, when I was serving at a church mission. So I grew up in a very traumatic, chaotic environment, and did learn how to adapt. In that terrible situation. My father became a drug addict, when I was a 11 year old boy. And basically, I had zero stability or support, essentially, from age 11 to 19. And so I really don't know how I graduated from high school. And basically the environment decayed, decay decayed. And I was kind of reaching that state of meaninglessness or hopelessness to my life, which is often the case with just trauma or just chaotic environments. And so I was reaching a point of unhappiness.
I'm a believer in what Gordon Livingston said, Gordon Livingston's, a famous psychiatrist, he wrote a book called "Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart", but he talks about how happiness requires something to do, someone to love and something to look forward to. And I didn't really have anything to look forward to and you know, Frankl, Viktor Frankl pretty much said the same thing. As far as the Holocaust, you know, like was, as soon as people stopped having something to look forward to, the present became very meaningless. For me, I was looking for that at age 19, I was living at my cousin's house, doing nothing, playing World of Warcraft all day.
So I decided to connect back with my faith, serve the church mission. And while I was there, kind of exposing myself to all sorts of new things, I was in a new role had a new purpose, new identity, just doing all sorts of cool community service, reading tons of books, and journaling. It was through this process of journaling a lot and reading lots of books, and actually just going through new experiences that I learned how to write a stream of consciousness way, and was just mostly detailing my experiences and my thoughts, but I was learning more while writing.
Because I was integrating, I think that journal writing is one of the most fine forms of integration, which is obviously a key aspect of learning, just writing about what you're doing. And then obviously, connecting it into your, your memory web. And so for me, that was it taught me a lot. It made me a much more effective missionary and leader. And so I just fell in love with that. And I just decided that I wanted to write when I came home from that experience. And so, yeah, that's really what got me into it.
Ross
I'm fascinated by journalists. I'm always intrigued as to the method that people use and some of the tools people use, you know. Are you old school pen and paper? Doodler, journaler are you on?
Ben
Yeah, definitely. I don't doodle as much. Although I do like have bullet points, sometimes pictures, like I'll do a bunch of mind maps if I'm really trying to, like, understand or organize an idea. But yeah, mostly it's just bullet points and just paragraphs, you know, just sketchy. I don't have like the five minute journal. I just, I'm actually on top of several my journals right here. I mean, it's very ugly, you know, it's just like, just, you know, just pen and paper, you know, there's nothing fancy about it, but it's just a place to write about your thinking, your thoughts, your feelings, the ideas that come in and starting to organize them. And even organizing your emotions with anything, from an emotional regulation standpoint, just people just don't spend the time doing, they're more chaotic in their head than they need to be.
Ross
I like looking at people's journals, you know, it's cool to share. And we're both members of strategic coach. And I find it fascinating, you know, to look at different people, and you have someone like Dean Jackson, for example, who he uses the electronic ink page. It's like a very dumbed down iPad, and he just likes doing it as the texture of there. And you have Joe Polish, who, you know, writes a lot in his notebooks and things. And the whole premise of it is thinking about your thinking, when you go to coach, you know, and that in itself is a form of, of journaling, and you get your, your workshop, boxes to fill out and all of these things, and it becomes a skill of that, being able to think and reflect and plan that I certainly am very grateful for learning that skill and becoming part of my future life.
Ben
You know, I read the book when I was younger, called "As a Man Thinketh". Have you ever read that one? No, no, it's an old book written like 100 years ago by a guy named James Allen, but he compares the mind to a garden. You know, something that can either just be filled with weeds or something that you can be the tiller and you can plant things and then they can grow. And just about how when you focus your thinking on becomes your character, your your external circumstances, etc.
And so why I like what you're talking about with coaches that from my perspective, it's a way for the gardener of the garden, which is our mind and for the gardener to like, go in and look at the garden to refine the garden to tell it to plant seeds, you know, in the form and tools and begin to, you know, grow as you know, from a subconscious perspective. I like that analogy of just, you know, a lot of people's minds, they haven't really spent that much time thinking about their thinking they don't even know that their garden is overrun and bogged down, which is leading to, you know, terrible external circumstances.
Ross
You know, if we are what we eat, we certainly are what we think.
Ben
Bigwig, yeah huge.
Ross
In terms of your book. That is, depending on when this gets released, it's either just about coming out or it's out more likely that it that it's out. And I was very intrigued by your very personal story at the beginning, where a personality test could have affected your own life quite negatively. Do you want to share just a little, little glimpse into that?
Ben
Yeah, absolutely. So when I was an undergrad, studying psychology, I dated all sorts of girls, I was, you know, I had served that church mission and I was ready to get married, move on. I've done a lot of therapy as well, honestly, better understanding kind of the emotional impact of my parents divorce and traumatic background. By the way, just for listeners to know, while I was serving that church mission, which was from age 20 to 22, my father actually did overcome almost all of his addictions. And he and I are just great friends. I mean, he's in a very great place. I like the Dan Sullivan concept, measure the game, not the gap. Yeah. And from that perspective, my father is actually a hero of mine. And that's actually how I've chosen to frame my full past.
And that's actually a key, is that you get to decide the meaning of former experiences and present experiences and actually think that's a huge aspect of adaptability is meaning making, and choosing positive meanings. So that you're not tied to whatever it was. But back to the story. I dated a lot of girls, but I when I first thought Lauren, who's the girl I now married, I was like, totally just attracted to. I was like, holy cow if I marry that girl, because I was going in one of her classes and I just heard some of her comments. And I was just watching her and I was just totally immediately attracted, because it's like, if I marry that girl, my future self is gonna be amazing, you know, that was the inside.
But yeah, it took a while for us to start dating. And then there was a popular personality test at the time, which was called the "Color Code". And it was a test that she liked, her family liked and it was kind of trendy around the area that we went to school. And so I took the test got a score, and when when I got the score, it was kind of a little bit, it confused her and her family let's just say that. And it made them wonder why Lauren would be interested in someone like me, because she comes from a family that's fairly successful like you know, as far as they're really just kind of an intense but really just successful in general family. You know, really well put together the whole family's very healthy emotionally and also just financially. And they've got like their own beliefs.
But anyways, the reason it was concerning to them is because the color code breaks people into four types one being they call them red, blue, white and yellows. Just to make people seem fancy, I guess but the Reds are your driven type A people which is kind of how they viewed Lauren and that's generally how they even viewed their whole family was that they were a red family. You know, we're very driven, very purposeful. Blues are more heart centered, more just relationship based. Whites are more introspective, passive, aloof, often but peaceful, and then yellows are extroverted party people, life and center of the party. Well, I according to the color code, at the time was a white, at least that's what I mostly measured out as. And Lauren obviously was a red. And that was the reason they were so concerned is because from that perspective, I was a very passive aloof guy whites according to the color code aren't goal driven, they're not goal oriented, really, they're just dreamers who don't really do much.
And I think thinking back on why I would have scaled that way is because definitely at the time, and even still, now, I'm very much into abstract thinking. But there's many more aspects of me. But the bigger concern from them is, is that Lauren had been married before she was in a prior marriage. And she was married, she got married at 19, and was married to a guy who was a red according to the color code, so he was very driven type A, and he happened also to be a jerk, you know. And so he was a very abusive guy abused her and all forms for three years. Barn becomes a shell of herself. Luckily, she gets out of that situation and travels for a few years to kind of reinvent herself. And so multiple years after the divorce, I'm the first guy she seriously dates. And so when her parents find out, I'm a white, they're like, Okay, like, we see what Lauren's up to. She's dating this passive guys, so that she's never manipulated and controlled again.
And although that's all well and good, you still need to marry a real man, like, you need to marry a guy who is going to get somewhere in life. And so Lauren, you should probably shouldn't, you probably shouldn't be his wife. Yeah, you don't take this guy seriously. Like, you know, he's a nice guy, but you shouldn't make a decision out of fear. And marrying a white would be making a decision out of fear. That was their opinion.
Ross
It's fascinating, isn't it? How we can, you talked earlier just a moment ago about being in control of the meaning of something.
Ben
It's big man.
Ross
Yeah, that's big.
Ben
We don't see the world as it is, we see the world as we are.
Ross
Exactly. And we can do that, because someone near us or close to us has that same viewpoint. And you know, the piece of that, or whether some of the five people we spend the most time with, you know, and we find it really interesting in adaptability in that if you take somebody into a different context, a different team, or different environment, so many things are going to shift from their personality to their character.
Ben
To their thinking patterns to their emotion.
Ross
Their thinking patterns, you know, are they supported? Are they going to be experimental? Are they going to be former of their shells? You know, and so we are these very morphable entity.
Ben
In textual beings.
Ross
Yeah, definitely. And I find that even with high intelligence, people aren't able to maybe break free to that way of thinking, it's, it's a bit like a comment, Nick Nanton made on our very first Fee Zone Frontier group coach. And it was the end of the day in the end of the session, and I'm sure it's probably from lots of places, but the setting was perfect for it. And it was, we can't unsee what we've just experienced. And when you discover and have something for that first time, that redefines a viewpoint, you can't then unsee it, you can maybe choose to try and push it away, or whatever.
But it's seen, and I see a lot of what your work is doing is now is going to give people new eyes to see things in an entirely new way. And that is freeing, incredibly freeing work. I think humanity is going to thank you very much for a lot of work. There's one thing academic and science, and then there's the other the real world. How do you feel the difference is that even if you can prove something, and you can show, you know, here's the evidence, here's the science, in the real world of where people in their echo chambers, you know, they only want to look for things that align to what they believe in. How do you think this is going to be found, where it's a huge economy. And you are saying lots of this is debunk lots of these myths, you know, lots of these are actually harmful. And it's an economy.
Ben
Well you can tell why they're harmful. Yeah, I believe, I hope, did I stoke the pot? You know what I mean? I'm poking the bear, essentially. And obviously, we get a lot of backlash. I mean, I've written articles, for example, on Myers Briggs is one example on every time I write an article on these types of profiling, tests, disk, etc, I get all sorts of extreme backlash, because of what we were talking about before we jumped on is when someone has made something sacred to their identity, then they seek to defend it against criticism.
And when someone's taken these types of tests seriously, and they've adopted the label, which now has become a part of themselves. They're seeking to confirm that bias rather than disconfirm it right. And so it is a big economy, a lot of people patch their identity to these tests. And, you know, I'm just hoping to provide perspectives as far as why they're so limiting the one one of the core reasons I believe these these things are really limiting is because of what they do to your identity they really turned into from a psychological perspective and kind of going back to what you were talking about with adaptability being from an environment to environment. What these tests often do is they they'll give you a single score, right, you'll get a label But that label has no reference to context. It's purely focused on content.
So it's like you're an X, you know, I'm a white as an example. But that doesn't tell me in what contexts I would be a white, it just, you know, you assume content matters more than context, which is actually the opposite, context matters way more than content. And context determines the meaning of content. And so these tests ignore that. And so people become very mindless, to the many many times throughout a given day, when they're actually not living according to their label.
But you know, labels become tunnel vision, as we said, you see the world as you are. And so you see the world selectively, selective attention. But my big thought for you, you know, as you're talking about this, and what I love about your work, we actually call it psychological flexibility. According to your model, you call it mental flexibility, which has a lot to do with imagination.
But psychological flexibility is essential to jumping from environment to environment, and not being so held to the ideas of the former context. But being able to pattern recognition, mindfulness being so important. And so one of the reasons why you'd want to hold your current identity more loosely, rather than being so defined by who you think you are, but being more adaptive is it allows you to be mindful.
Ellen Langer, who's a Harvard psychologist, she's been studying mindfulness for 40 years. He says, one of the biggest things that stops people from being mindful is the labels that they've identified with. You then begin to only see the world through the labeled off, so you become very mentally inflexible to anything that seems outside of the label. So you're like, if I'm an introvert as an example, then being in a social situation is not something I can do. So you would be pretty non adaptive in that environment if you've held to that identity. So I think it's very interesting what these things can do to not only your perspective, but to your learning ability.
Ross
And some of it, you know, has been designed to protect us. And at certain points, something that protected us was great. But if the context changes, it can be what then limits us. It's where a springboard more thin to the ball and chain, product and service.
Ben
That's a really good insight.
Ross
That allowed us to grow suddenly becomes the very thing that holds us back. And I think that's the challenge that many organizations are facing is that they've had applause, they've had success, it's not completely failed and wrong. It's not burnt. And they've got no choice but to comply and come up with something else. It's, it's those sneaky ones that are giving a level of success and reward. But they don't know what's just around the corner, if they d-shackled themselves from it. And that's where disruption comes from right, of those kinds of concepts and thinking, and it is hard to disrupt ourselves.
Ben
And I have to know what's coming not only for you, but for the context, you know what I mean? And you've got to not be so claimed. I mean, what Dan says is that growth should always be more important than status, right? Yep. I think what you're talking about is often status that something was happening in the past, therefore you keep doing it. You know, like a lot of people wondered why I stopped writing on medium.com. For so long. I'm like, well, that got me here. But it's definitely not going to get me to my new goals. My future self has different goals than my former self. And it has to therefore have a different process, I'm not going to just keep doing something because it didn't work, because it worked in the past, you know,
Ross
And it's one thing to say, thank you for that in the past, and acknowledge it and move forward and another thing to be vulnerable and confident and courageous enough to say, actually, that was wrong, I need to change now. And what came to my head in the story when you were talking was, I think it's disgusting, blackbox thinking, and it's about the concept of judges, and people going into prison pre and post DNA being used, it was like, 1984 DNA is used. If DNA is present on the gun that did it, then that's the deal breaker that you're being committed. Now, there's a load of people who went to jail before DNA testing was possible, that are now proven that they should be free. But the system of the judges and everything has to accept that it was wrong. But the issue is it, it wasn't wrong. They made the right decision with the data they had at the time. Now, there's new data. But what they feel is that, that erodes their position and identity that they are right all the time. And I think that's a real interesting challenge.
Ben
This brings up such a crazy cool concept. I love where you're thinking of. What's interesting is there's a quote that I have at the beginning of the book, the quote is that, "A painting is never finished, it simply ends in an interesting place". And so just as one example, and there's also a lot of research, and I'd point your listeners to Daniel Gilbert, he's a Harvard psychologist. He has a TED talk called "The Psychology of your Future Self". But essentially, the idea is this kind of pulling these ideas together. A painting is never finished. You should look at your former self as a different person.
Like for example, you 3-5, 10 years ago, most people actually if asked, "Do you think you're the same person you were 10 years ago?" Will say no. And so kind of looking at what you were just saying, just as one example I recently reread "Willpower Doesn't Work", I listened, really listen to the audiobook because I've gone through a lot as a human being. I wrote that book over three years ago, since then finished a PhD adopted kids, and all sorts of crazy stuff written a few books gone through a lot of mentoring, I don't see the world exactly the same way. And so I relistened to it. And for one, I was very critical of the writing style. I think there's a lot of good writing in there and stuff. But I was like, holy cow. It's kind of that quote from Alain de Botton that “If you’re not embarrassed by who you were 12 months ago, you didn’t learn enough.”
But one aspect of all this is to not actually be angry at your former self, because exactly what you're saying, I actually, it's kind of the gain and the gap perspective, again, to see the gains, I was like, wow, because "Willpower Doesn't Work" was never finished, it was just done at some point, I had to end it at an interesting place so that I could move on. And so when I look back on it, I'm like, I'm not the same guy who wrote that book. And the Benjamin Hardy now who has the data I have now, the mindsets, the knowledge, the experience, and even the priorities which are very different from my former selves parties. I wouldn't have written that book today.
But I'm not mad at my former self for having written it, I can just see in my future self is going to be saying the same thing about the books I'm writing right now. My future self is going to look with new data with fresh eyes with a fresh identity at even a book we're talking about today. And I'm going to see many flaws and perspectives. And I think this brings up two things. One is that you shouldn't hold your current identity so tightly, which is what people do when they strongly and definitively label themselves as that your current identity is very temporary. So Carol Dweck with the fixed mindset versus growth mindset says that people with a fixed mindset are defined by who they are today. If they fail, it means that's their cap, whereas growth mindset, they're not defined by who they are today. He says they get to luxuriate in the power of yet, you know, they're not there yet.
And so I think that what's cool about what you're saying is, and I think it takes a lot of humility and courage just to say, I'm wrong. I was wrong, but I don't blame my former self for the decisions. I've got a lot of empathy and love for my former self. But I don't need to do things the same way. And I could admit now from my new eyes, that that's not the meaning I would give to those former experiences, nor the action I would take now.
Ross
I think that's critical. It's not the action I would take now. I'm grateful I took the action that I did before. Now I have new insight.
Ben
Therefore, I shouldn't do things the same way.
Ross
Exactly. Right. Exactly. Right. And yes, it takes courage. It takes bravery, it takes these things and to learn is to be vulnerable to say, I don't know the answer. Knowledge is the opposite.
Ben
Dan Sullivan says our progress starts by telling the truth.
Ross
Truth. Yeah. I love all of these great quotes. And it's the context of when a quote resonates with somebody, and then what meaning do they have it it's like a Lego serious play. I went on the couples connection with the coach does, if you haven't done it, it's amazing. And the context was around Lego serious play. For those who haven't done it you make it, you know, an object that's in a, you then describe the meaning to it. And we had to create a little model of what our goals were, for a year's time as a couple. There was like 40 couples, 80 people in a room all by with Lego create these things, then you describe what that is, you know, and we're describing, oh, that's our garden.
And these are all the animals we've rescued. And, you know, this is all the veg that we grow and all the various things. But I mean to someone looking at it, it's just a few blocks of covered Lego within that. There's a couple of things I wanted to dive into in terms of you mentioned it, this future self, and you talk about it in your book, a conversation with your future self. And I had flashes in my brain of a couple of bits. One was a think it was a Matthew McConaughey old book he gave at a university about heroes.
Ben
It was actually his 2018 Academy Award speech he gave the, it was a speech during the 2018 Academy Award victor, you can watch it on YouTube.
Ross
Is it?
Ben
He might have given an old version of the same talk.
Ross
Yeah, I think he did. I think he did. Because it looked a lot older. And it was basically a bit like you mentioned, your father is a hero of yours. And what Matthew talks about is that one of his heroes is his future self. And that is a beautiful when you think about it, you know, and if you're in the right moment in your own chapter, to understand what that could mean for you. That resonated about the conversation with your future self. So tell us a little bit more about your thinking behind that and some of the concepts in the book about having conversations with your future self.
Ben
Yeah, I really don't know if there's anyone you know can get better advice from. But big, big aspect of this is to view your future self as a different person. So there's a lot of research from how Hershfield who's at UCLA. And he's studied this and it's really helpful to not think that your future self is the same person you are today. Because as we were to talk about they're going to be in a different context. They're gonna have different data and information and they're probably going to have even gone through lots of experiences, good and bad, that will shift potentially their priorities or perspectives.
And so your future self is a different person, they may be focused on even different things or being a different stage of their development. And so rather than assuming them to be who you are today, and even that they would think the same thoughts, you would think it's actually better to say, they're a different person, they've got different preferences and perspectives. And then to start to make decisions based on the preferences, obviously, first, you would need to think about who you want that person to be.
And that's a really good key point isn't that it's who you want them to be your future self isn't someone you discovered, something you decide about your future, the more confidence you develop as a person and even flexibility, the more agency you have to make choices and decisions. And so you would think about who is this person? Who do I want to be? What are the circumstances I want to have? What are the things I want to be focused on, and then you would start to think about the it's actually very difficult, if not impossible, to make intentional decisions today, without a future self in mind, you can't really be intentional without having a direction.
Ross
It becomes your future.
Ben
Yeah, the future self is the filter of what you do today, without having that you have no context for making choices today. And therefore, you would just make decisions based on emotional preferences or circumstantial preferences, or pressures. And so basically, from a decision making standpoint, you need to have a future stuff in mind, so that you can actually know what to do today that would be directed or curated in that direction. Also, from a learning perspective, you know, the concept of deliberate practice, there's a lot of research, you know, on deliberate practice being the way you develop expertise, you can actually have focused, curated process without a specific outcome in mind.
Ross
It kinda mix a little bit to our view of grit, you know, in terms our future self is about our passion and perseverance over the long term very well. Some people confuse always grit, the same as resilience and all of these bits. And of course, people who study can understand the differences. But for most people who can't even understand or see that Myers Briggs is, you know, not a good thing to be doing anymore. Is in terms of that future self.
I had a conversation with somebody once about how would you behave in different situations? What would you do? And the scenarios we had around the dinner table was, Okay, so you've lost your job. What's different? What's the same? So you if you live in the same town, you have the same family, same relationships, all of those things? What would you do in the next day? What would you do in the first 100 days? And we then changed the setting and scenario to say, if you move to a different postcode or a different country, now, what would you do in that day, the first 100 days and those sorts of things, and this was about and it was an experiment to look at how much of what is around you as a support or a hindrance?
How could you reimagine and give yourself permission to be somebody different if they didn't know who you were before. And whereas everyone that's close to us knows who we were yesterday, and therefore, we want to take them along on our journey for our future self. So they can either be the cheerleaders, or they can be the ball and chain. So it's so important to select really carefully when we have our future self defined, who is going to inhibit or who is going to accelerate our journey towards that, because it's hard work, we can't do it alone, with whatever practice, whatever the things there are, we need the cheerleaders for the cheerleader of our future vision of ourselves. So that's why we have to communicate it. And so all of these concepts are so wonderful and so freeing.
Ben
If you don't communicate it, you're never gonna actually be able to build the environment around it right, you're still actually too ashamed to share it. There's actually a quote that "You're as sick as your secrets". That's an alcoholics anonymous quote. But Dan actually has another quote, he says, "Surround yourself with people who remind you more of your future than your past". And actually, the goal of all of this is that your future self is the thing driving your daily behavior, versus your former self being the thing or maybe even you on autopilot being the thing driving your daily behavior.
But I think many people's identity narrative is so rooted in their former self or even so definitive on the labels of today, that their behavior today is a reflection of their behavior yesterday versus their behavior today being a reflection of tomorrow. And that's actually the goal is that your future self is the thing predicting not only your identity narrative, but also your behavior, your actions, your support environment, then you're going to be driving forward and having lots of peak learning experiences. You're gonna be developing a lot of confidence and flexibility.
Ross
I've got a quick story of a family member of mine, that I have been just constantly amazed. You know, I met my wife just over 15 years ago. She has two grown up sons. We now have five grandchildren, and one of her sons was going through a very challenging time in his life early in our relationship with his mom and he had his demons. And what was very interesting, and I'll keep the story short is that he made a decision about who he wanted to be in the future, and recognized that he had to shift a few things.
And some of that was environment. And it's one thing saying, Okay, those friends are no good for me, you know, we're reds, your whites, whatever it may be, you know, they're no good for me, right? They're taking me right down the wrong paths. And to avoid them, or to say, you know, I'm not going to spend any time with them. What I was just tremendously amazed by is he went and had conversations with those people, and told them why he was making a decision not to be around them anymore.
How brave is that when you're at a point of high vulnerability lowness of confidence, all of these things to go and face some of those people that you've grown up with that shaped who he was, then say, I want to be somebody new. And I want to let you know, this is why I'm not going to be spending time with you. I don't want you to be somebody different. I just wanted to say thank you for what is past, but now I'm going somewhere new.
Ben
I think that's a brilliant example of all progress starts by telling the truth. It's also an example of a Tim Ferriss quote where he said that, "Your success in life is often determined by the amount of awkward conversations you're willing to have". You know, and like, I think that that's a truthful and honest way to show respect to those relationships that mattered so much, you know, the whole "What Got You Here Won't Get You There" concept.
But I just think that those friends deserve that conversation. And they don't deserve you just to shun them or to disappear, they deserve an explanation and read to say, look, I've loved everything that's brought us here, I have this new direction. And so I need to go and figure things out, which is going to require the relationship to change. Because my future is now requiring me to do this, because I'm really excited and committed to this. But I just want to thank you for what we've gotten. Who knows if our paths will cross in the future? I think that that's a healthy, powerful, honest way to do something does take courage, but yeah.
Ross
It takes courage and without wanting listeners, or people to maybe end up in padded cells or talking to themselves in the mirror. I wonder how much of this could be so valuable in thinking about us. And this concept of it's different, it's a different person, who we were in our past and a different person in the future. And going and having a conversation with the person in the past and thanking them.
Ben
I actually encourage the conversation of what would your future self say to your former self, you know, especially the broken version, maybe in your most traumatic experiences, and usually it would be incredible love, incredible empathy and support and encouragement. And just to say, look, you've done amazing, you've got a great future ahead of you. You're not broken, you're not hopeless. I mean, one of the big things about grit is honestly hope, you know, like, you have to have hope, you know, that's what Frankl said, Frankl's said those who adapted in the concentration camps had hope for their future. Otherwise, the moment you lose hope everything goes down.
Ross
It does and one of our concepts of we're doing what we're doing to make sure no one's left behind. And key for us, he talks about the concept of co-elevation. And as long as everyone has a better tomorrow than today in their mind. That's hope. And how do you cultivate that it comes back to your garden of the mind, is that feed, feed hope, and that can come sometimes from the right people you choose to be around? I'd like to touch on one bit before we end and wrap up because I could have conversation with you for days.
Ben
We're gonna have to do a round two.
Ross
Yeah, maybe maybe. But I want to talk about an article that you posted quite recently. And it was about another great provocative title of personality as a skill. And you talked about in it a body of work where it was looking at one dimension, one area of personality, a sort of character trait of conscientiousness, and how over a very short period that could be shifted. So just tell us a little bit more about that. And this idea of how can we reframe, and reimagine personality as a skill and something that like you say you actually shape and you can control and define through action. So just share a little bit about that.
Ben
Yeah, well, from a psychological standpoint, kind of the dominant theory is what's called the Big Five. And you and I have talked about that not all of these dimensions predict a data access without question. But what's good about the Big Five, at least as a structure is that rather than giving you a type, what you get is a score on a percentile rank, you'll get a percentile rank versus the majority of the population on for example, extraversion or conscientiousness, which is basically organization and learning, you know, or openness to experience, you get a score on a percentile rank and most people are going to be somewhere in the middle of the bell curve, you know.
To be honest with you, I'm pretty in the middle on most of them. Imagination a little higher than normal, but like, I've got a pretty average personality to be fully honest with you, when it comes to the big five. Obviously, I've got knowledge and environments and goals and purpose that are radically different and confidence which wouldn't be measured in there that you can't scale. But the reason why this study was cool is it just showed that there was a two week purposeful intervention that people could do as far as practicing, as far as deliberate practicing certain skills, you know, in a certain way, becoming a little bit more organized or more self directed to become more conscientiousness, or opening yourself up to new experiences, trying new things in.
Just showing that you can actually increase your percentile rank according to the norm, you know, you might be in the 50th percentile, you might be very average. And after a two week, purposeful intervention or training, you could pop up maybe 55, or 60%. And just does that you can become more conscientious, conscientious, you can become more extroverted, if you want, you can become more emotionally stable, or more imaginative, these are just skills that you can direct your attention towards, and then go through purposeful learning or interventions or practice to get better at. And so rather than saying that this is where I'm at, and this is where I'm at, it's better to have a growth mindset where you say, This is who I am today, but that has nothing to do with who I'm going to be in the future. It's also not who I've been in the past, and it has a lot to do with context. And in many other things.
Ross
Isn't it like, you know when we talk about our concept of adaptability, to many people that are in the, all its categories and types, to we use the analogy of weight, and a weighing scale. And, you know, you can stand on the scales, and the needle tells you where you are, that is not the story other than that moment, and you start a good nutrition or exercise. So, you know, it might be good or bad. It depends on what you're trying to do or achieve. And for each person, each scenario, are you two years old? Are you 20 years old? Are you wanting to do X or Y as your goal, then the needle of where it sits on that scale, is totally relevant.
Ben
It really is relevant to your goal. It's all relevant to your goal.
Ross
100%. And the other thing that I, for many years have actively pursued is first, in the end, "What have I done today for the first time?" you know and we lose it, because things become familiar with routine and time, and also our desire. You know our igniting that muscle and that thing of firsts, if everyone around us is not doing those things, and encouraging us in the way that we were when we were playful children, it kinda doesn't happen. So there's loads of bits. I remember, you know, last year, I turned 40. And somebody bought me 40 Things To Do When You're 40. And they're little cards, and they come out, and I have a look at those things. And I try to look at them with the eyes of how might I change what's in there, if I've done it before, to do it in a way that makes it a first in terms of like, by do it with someone else, or in this way, or whatever, it might just genuinely be something that I haven't done before.
And that builds up this confidence and capability, it comes back to Dan's Four C's model, you know, if you need a commitment first, then the courage then the capability and then the confidence. And I see first as the same sort of thing. So that we can build that muscle to adapt a future that is within our control. And for others. Is there anything that I haven't asked you that you were would have loved? I did.
Ben
Now, I'd love to have this conversation. I think we could go deeper again in around two or three. And just thank you for a fun conversation. I do love talking to you, that's for sure.
Ross
Yeah, it's completely mutual. I am in awe of the work that you do. You know, my skill has never been writing. My skill has always been talking. You know, that's something I love to do is to listen and have conversations. That's my juice that gives me energy. And I look forward to building a deeper relationship and co-elevating our works together. It has been a real pleasure. And if people want to get in touch with you what's the best way or the best place to get hold of your books and things like that.
Ben
So I would encourage people to buy the book anywhere they want Amazon Kindle, wherever you want to buy books, Audible, for example. Then you go to BenjaminHardy.com, that's my website BenjaminHardy.com. If you plug in your information, you can get several free online courses, courses that take you deeper into the book. There's about 150 Journal prompts throughout the book, there's a course I have on journaling which teaches you how to elevate your subconscious, there's even blogging courses that I give away I give away a lot of stuff for free for people who buy the book and also on my blog posts are at BenjaminHardy.com, so just check out BenjaminHardy.com, if personalities aren't permanent then become more adaptable.
Ross
Love it, love it. Love it. Thank you very much.
Ben
Yeah, brother. Thank you.
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