The Surprising Science of Six-Figure Thinking

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29:06Welcome back. We've talked about O. We've talked about C. Let's move to that third letter, E, which is extroversion. Extroversion is exactly what you think it is. the person who's the life of the party, loves people, loves talking to people, couldn't wait to get back to working in an office after the pandemic, just out there doing stuff all the time. That's extroversion. And why in terms of success, in terms of financial success, career success, why does extroversion matter? So extroversion is not the most important variable for financial success per se. But what extroversion does is it makes you happier.

29:44And a big part of why it makes you happier is because it expands your social network and the number of people that you socialize with. Socializing makes us happy. Connecting with other people makes us happy. Even very small connections that may seem quite meaningless, talking with your barista, talking with your mailman, things like that can really make you a lot happier. So extroversion tends to kind of create this like positivity and, I don't know, optimism maybe. And in part because of that, in part because it grows your social network, it tends to generate more job opportunities or opportunities in general.

30:21Yeah. I've heard many people say that with a few exceptions, most jobs are sort of made for extroverts or designed for extroverts. There are a few types of jobs that require long periods of deep focused siloed and solo work. But even those require to be able to navigate office politics or workplace politics in the times that you're not doing that deep work. So in pretty much any domain, that level of extroversion and EQ seem to go a long way. Yeah. A lot of introverts don't want to become extroverts. And I totally understand that. I'm not suggesting that they completely flip and become a total partier all the time.

31:01And I do have one of those jobs that requires a lot of deep work by myself most of the time. I actually have to interview people, but when I'm not interviewing people, I'm just sort of writing for hours at a time without interruption from anyone. But all jobs, even my job, like what I'm doing right now is extroverted. All jobs occasionally require extroversion. You wouldn't have gotten your job if you weren't able to occasionally be extroverted at your job interview. It's just something that's part of life, having to connect with people, having to have sort of a gregarious self-presentation. It's just something we all have to do from time to time.

31:38And so for the introverts who are listening to this, how can an introvert practice being more extroverted? Even if they don't necessarily want to be extroverted in all domains of life at all times, how can they practice having this skill set of knowing how to cosplay as an extrovert when it matters. Yeah. Cosplay is a really good way to put it. So what I would do is sign up for an activity that involves other people and that occurs regularly and that is hard to get out of and that you enjoy. And that is hard to get out of. Okay. The reason is because if you're like, I'm just going to get drinks with people more and you're like sitting there on a text thread going, let's get drinks.

32:16How about Tuesday? How about Thursday? How about next Wednesday? I can't. I have to do this. How about next Friday? Oh, that doesn't work for me. Like, it's just never going to happen. It has to be something that occurs on a day, preferably every week, but like, let's say every other week or once a month. And that is hard to not go to. And the reason I say that is because if you're an introvert, you're not going to want to go. Like, it's going to get to 10 minutes before you have to leave. And you're going to be like, I don't know, the couch looks so inviting right now. And you're not going to want to leave the apartment.

32:49So I would definitely pick something that's like other people are counting on you to be there. And is it then that just by virtue of going out more, you will become more extroverted? Is this like exposure theory? Yes, basically. By getting in like reps, essentially, as an extrovert, by like connecting more with other people. First of all, you have more opportunities to practice. So you feel less awkward and uncomfortable whenever you're out socializing. This really happened with me with improv. I was scared to death of improv the first, I don't know, four or five months that I did it. It was really only after that long that I started to feel comfortable doing it.

33:29But it was honestly just because I kind of knew the drill. I would get there. I know what games we're going to play. Then I know we're going to do scenes. Probably one of the scenes will be like roughly this kind of storyline. We might do this kind of scene, which we did last time. Like I kind of became more comfortable with it. And when you have that kind of comfort and familiarity with something, it sort of does become your personality. It doesn't feel so unusual or so strange. You feel like it's something that you can do. Yeah. So it's sort of, it is a little bit like exposure. Yes. In this context, what is the distinction between being outgoing versus being extroverted?

34:07They're very similar. A lot of people who are extroverted are also very outgoing. But because I know there's so much discomfort around the idea of becoming an extrovert for people who are very, very introverted, I talked with Sonia Lubomirsky, who's a psychologist who has studied social connections and happiness. If you are someone who wants to be more extroverted, but you're more of a listener than a talker, what you can do is go somewhere and listen more than you talk. And as long as you're around other people, as long as you're doing an activity, that still counts as extroversion. Those are still social connections, you're still benefiting.

34:43You're still not alone in your apartment, but you're also not having to like come up with like zingers and like jokes or whatever it is you're worried about. Right. Often I have found in those environments that if I'm quiet for a while, then when I do speak, people tend to listen more. Totally. Yeah. I ran a meetup group for a while based around foreign film. And it was interesting because first of all, everyone there was very introverted. So it was like a lot of silence sometimes. But the people who would say the least often had the most knowledge about the film. It's just that like they were kind of like waiting to unleash it.

35:20So that's also a form of extroversion. Right. Are there cases when it comes to success or the pursuit of goals when it could be beneficial to be more on the introverted side? Yeah, definitely. So there definitely are jobs where you do need to really love being by yourself and being quiet and doing deep work. My job is an example. You know, a lot of people who might work in finance or accounting, even like programming, things like that. A lot of those folks are very introverted and it benefits them. Even extreme extroverts, you know, the same could be said that they often have to like practice being introverted.

36:01And they have to live more of an inner life sometimes in order to succeed at their jobs. We've talked OCE. Let's talk about the next one. A, agreeableness. It seems to me that this would be healthy to a degree, but up to a certain threshold, agreeableness is pro-social. But beyond that, agreeableness is actually - It can be like people-pleasing almost. Yeah. Yeah. You don't want to be too agreeable. You Even emotional stability, which is like low anxiety, it seems great. But if you've ever met someone who has no anxiety, they're like late for their flight. Like, I don't know. I didn't book a hotel.

36:41Like, let's just wing it. Like, they're not anxious enough. So you want a little bit of disagreeableness, or at least you want disagreeableness on occasion. I have a child, so I'm making doctor's appointments for him, and the waits for these appointments are always long. Sometimes I've had to be like, hey, no, I need to get in right now. Like, he's really sick. Like, get me in ASAP. Find something. And that kind of like bossy attitude is pretty disagreeable. But it's also like, I would argue, necessary in some cases. Right. It was self-advocacy. Yeah. Self-advocacy can sometimes be non-agreeable.

37:16Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. But it's we all have to do that at times. Right. And that's normal. Right. So how do you know if you are trying to be high on agreeableness? How do you know when it is a healthy dose versus when it's excessive? Yeah. Well, so I actually took a scientific personality test throughout this process that I was working on this book. It's at personalityassessor.com. And it told me where I fall on agreeableness. And I was always like low average. So I was never super high. I was definitely not like too high. I kind of like teetered between low and average basically. So I wanted to kind of be above average, but not like all the way to the end.

37:58I would say that like, if you feel like you have really good friendships, really good relationships, you feel a lot of social support from people around you, but at the same time, you're able to draw boundaries and you're able to not just have people walk all over you, that is good agreeableness. So like what agreeableness is not is just like doing whatever your friends tell you to do because you're trying to be agreeable. I actually had a great conversation with someone, a friendship expert who really talked about how boundaries, they might seem disagreeable, but they really help us maintain our relationships because they kind of, they tell us literally what the bounds of those relationships are.

38:40So I brought to her the example that a friend was telling me I had to text her more often. And you would think that the agreeable way to respond to that would be like, oh, sure, of course, I will text you however often you want. No problem. I'm not a big fan of just texting for fun. I just don't really all day text. I know a lot of people do. And I'm like the only person on earth who doesn't do that. But I just don't. I literally text my friends say I just put on deodorant. Yeah. I mean, honestly, that's probably healthy, but I just never got in the swing and And I don't know. I'm never going to get there.

39:10And so I was like, what should I do about this texting situation? She's like, you could tell your friend, hey, I'm not a big texter, but I want to keep in touch with you in other ways. Could we do a weekly email exchange or a weekly phone call, Zoom, FaceTime, whatever? There's a million ways to keep in touch. And I think that's a healthy form of agreeableness because you're not letting someone just dictate what you're going to do, but you're also letting them know that they're important to you and that, you know, you want to keep the relationship going in a way that works for both of you. What can a person do to increase their level of agreeableness?

39:43How does a person be intentional about this domain? So one super interesting thing that I did was I went to a conversation workshop in London, which was all about how to have more meaningful conversations. And it was really interesting because I thought I was an expert at having conversations because I'm a journalist. But really, I am not. I have conversations the way everyone else does, which is I ask a bunch of questions. What you could do instead of asking people for facts like that is to ask them what a certain situation meant for them, what the meaning behind something was, or why something was important to them.

40:19So if someone's like, oh, I can't hang out tonight because my kids have their school concert or something. So I'd be like, okay, see you some other time. You could be like, oh, cool. What are they performing? And how long did they work on their songs? What was it like the first time you saw them practice their songs for you? Kind of asking more questions about someone's emotional state can actually create feelings of agreeableness because you see them as more of a whole person. You're not just going through the motions of interacting with them. Right, right. Well, and what's interesting to me about that answer is that what you're talking about is the perception of agreeableness.

40:56Because in that particular example, you're not necessarily agreeing to go along with anything. Exactly. You're not necessarily acquiescing to a given demand. Exactly. But you're still increasing perceptions of agreeableness by saying, hey, tell me about the experience of like watching your kid perform on stage. What is that like? Is it exciting? Is it nerve wracking? What does that feel like? Yeah, exactly. What was that like is one of the questions that she suggested that we ask in order to sort of deepen. And it really shows how agreeableness, like, I think people get the wrong impression because it's like, agree.

41:31That means you're agreeing with whatever's going on. But really, I mean, you could ask these questions of someone who's like the polar opposite of you politically, religiously, whatever domain you're kind of worried about. And you could still have a perfectly civil and actually super interesting conversation as long as you are focusing on like why, what's behind some of their thoughts and emotions. Right. Yeah. What are the concerns that led you to think? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And you're not agreeing with anything they're saying. You're just learning about them. It seems to me then that agreeableness is almost like curiosity about a person.

42:08Yeah, exactly. It's warmth and empathy. And a big way that we show warmth and empathy is through curiosity and genuine, the kind of genuine curiosity that some of these conversation prompts foster as opposed to just kind of like small talk questions, which have their place, but you know, are limited. Right, right. Well, I think the reason that small talk questions can be so exhausting is because often it is a recitation of facts. It's, so what do you do? How long have you been doing it? How long have you lived here? When did you move here? What brought you here? It's like, it just seems like a regurgitation of the same set of facts over and over and over.

42:51to a point where I'm like, I could just put all of this on like a world's longest name tag. You know, if you want my bio data, here it is. Yeah. And that's exactly why this woman, Georgie Nightingale, started this whole program is because she was like, I'm so sick of going into networking mixers and having it be like, when did you move here? Where do you live? We're all just exchanging the same five facts. And then we're going home. Why are we doing this? We'll probably never see the people in that workshop again. But I feel like I got to know them so well and the stuff that was important to them and the stuff that they cared about.

43:23I felt so close to them for those two days, even though it was all very scripted, done in a very prescribed way. I don't know. I think it works. I like the icebreaker. What was your favorite part of today? What was the best part of today? That's a good one. Yeah. I might steal that icebreaker from you because I don't have one. So I've thought a lot about that one. And I think the reason that it works is if you say, hey, what was your favorite thing that you've ever done in life? That is such a wide scope of time that it's too big. But your favorite part of today, that is such a narrow window of time.

44:00And it's easy to recall. Like if you think about just ease of recall, salience, like today is at the forefront of your mind already. So you're not asking them to scrape the deep, dark recesses of their memory bank. It's just, hey, what was the best part of today? And it's, of course, it's positive. It wasn't like, what was the worst part of today? Yeah, you know, my mom's group that I'm in does something similar. In the very postpartum period, we would gather, we would ask each other the highs and lows. So that did have a negative element. But I think that part was important because like so much kind of bad stuff happens postpartum, if I'm being honest.

44:36It's like stressful. Babies cry all the time. So it's like nice to give the person that release of this very frustrating thing happened. But then also to have that like positive recovery from it where you're like, but the baby smiled at me for the first time or, you know, whatever happened. So, yeah.

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46:40Finally, let's talk about that last letter, the letter N. This is one where you actually want to be low on it. This is the only one of the acronym where you want to be low. Yes. I should maybe just start saying that the acronym is not ocean and it's ocean. No, no. Well, I've heard ocean from multiple sources. Yeah, I know. It's a common acronym for the big five. It's so confusing. But yes, neuroticism, you want to be low on it. Right. Can you describe what that looks like? What does being low neuroticism look like? And conversely, what does being high neuroticism look like? It's like a woman with low anxiety.

47:12And she's like, oh, a plane just crashed and we're about to take a flight. Oh, well, that means like they must be doing a lot of extra safety checks. It's the first day of my new job tomorrow. I'm sure everyone will love me and everything will go great. I honestly am so high on anxiety that I have trouble even like jokingly describing what that would be like. But yeah, it's someone who just does not really worry much and is not really down in the dumps much. I can see even from your facial expression right now that you find that hard to relate to. So describe what being high in neuroticism is like.

47:48What is that experience? So especially before I started this project, there was a lot more just like dread about the future and worry about the future and getting like all caught up in the worries to the point where like just like Googling stuff a lot, like the same types of things. Just being super nervous about things to the point where you can't think about anything else because you worry almost if you take your eye off the ball of the worry, it'll come true. Never really savoring anything good that happens because you're kind of on to worrying about the next thing. Or you're just very able to find the negative in the good thing that happened.

48:27Not having a ton of hope or optimism about the future or about positive outcomes that might happen. Yeah, that would be high neuroticism. That sounds very stressful. It is. Yeah. Yeah. When you were high neuroticism, were you aware that that's what you were? Or did you think that that was just a normal state? Was it such a baseline that you thought everyone was like that? So I think gradually over time, I came to realize that it is abnormal, that it's like not normal to feel quite as anxious as I felt at the time. Yeah, I think it was just a gradual because for a long time, I kind of thought my life is uniquely stressful.

49:06But then if that is ridiculous, it's not. But people in very poor countries with very meager livings and really stressful circumstances, their lives are stressful. Like my life is actually not that stressful. So, yeah, it was kind of a gradual realization. And how did you work your way out of that? Tell us about that. So the thing to do for neuroticism is basically meditation. So, OK, you could do therapy and medication, which I also do. But meditation and various forms of mindfulness, it can be something more like yoga if you absolutely cannot stand meditation or traditional sitting down meditation.

49:46There's mindful walking as well. There's also meditations where you repeat phrases to yourself as opposed to just following your breath. But basically some form of mindfulness practice seems to be what helps with neuroticism. Are there any other tactics or is that the primary one? That is the main one that I did and that I found useful. And in fact, one of the other strategies that I came across was basically mindfulness by a different name. It was like noting, which is basically just noting the things you're seeing or feeling or hearing. Like literally taking notes? No, no. Just like mentally, mental noting.

50:29Yeah. I found that to be way more challenging than just meditation. I took an intensive meditation class called MBSR. Mindfulness-based stress reduction. It's like the most studied meditation class that's out there. So I think 10 weeks or something like that or maybe, yeah, I think something like 10 weeks and you meditate for 45 minutes a day and you learn about Buddhism. And I would say the learning about Buddhism element was more helpful to me than even the meditation per se. But yeah. Neuroticism is the one attribute in which being high neuroticism, it does or it does not correlate with success?

51:12It does not. It does not. No. So that feels counterintuitive. I know because so many successful people are neurotic, but they're kind of successful despite their neuroticism. And then if you think about things that involve a great deal of financial risk, which often leads to financial success. It requires a low level of neuroticism to even participate in that kind of thing. So like people who do invest, it does involve risk and being too anxious or too unwilling to take risks means that you're not really doing that. So neuroticism can lead to being too conservative with your money. Too cautious or just like unable to make decisions, unable to break free of like analysis paralysis.

51:58Right. Too indecisive, too analysis paralysis, too overly cautious, overly conservative. Okay, that makes sense, actually. It reminds me there's a quote from the finance writer, Morgan Housel, who says, pessimists get to be right, optimists get to be rich. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. And when they look at the personality types of CEOs, It's usually like extroverted, low agreeableness, and then like low neuroticism. Because starting a company involves a lot of risk. And the people willing to take risks are able to at least manage their anxiety and not let it overwhelm them. You said low agreeableness?

52:35Yeah. People who start companies. Yeah. Why is that? Because being sort of dominant and like top of the food chain and getting what you want, it tends to be just a personality type that is low in like the touchy-feely element of agreeableness. Interesting. Okay. High extroversion, low agreeableness, and low neuroticism. So the low neuroticism leads to the confidence to be able to take risks. Yeah. The low agreeableness means that you have strong leadership, you know, strong vision. I'm not saying people are going to love you. The classic example is like Steve Jobs, who was like, he was a difficult person, but like a visionary.

53:18So that's what they're talking about there. Right. And then the high extroversion. So you can be around a large team pretty much 24-7 during all your waking hours and that doesn't drain you. Exactly. So yeah, that makes that the Steve Jobs prototype is actually a perfect example of that because you can really see that in what's been written about him. And you were asking about like other techniques. This doesn't really help with like all consuming anxiety, but if you have a specific worry that is like standing in the way of doing something, making some sort of leap. One strategy that I learned from Tracy Dennis Tiwari is by all means, write down everything bad that could happen.

53:58Like make your little list of all the bad possibilities, but then also take a minute and think about all the good things that could happen. Imagine the positive outcomes that are also possible because really in most situations in life, both are true, right? Bad things and good things can happen. But when we get to be very focused in and dwelling in neuroticism, we can only see that left-hand column of everything bad. Right. So we've now covered all five, the entire OCEAN acronym. Do you have any sort of overarching takeaways for this audience in terms of how to use the concept of understanding the big five personality traits and understanding that these are malleable and that we can choose to move along this spectrum if we want to.

54:45Are there any overarching takeaways for the audience in terms of how to apply this to their own lives? I would basically never tell yourself that you can't do something because you're just not that way. So if an opportunity comes up that requires public speaking and you've never spoken publicly before, and that's just doesn't seem like something you would do, I would not let that stand in your way. I would say the only way to make it something that you would do is to do it. So take small steps every day to get you closer to that goal that you want to achieve. And you will basically be working on that personality trait in question, whether it's conscientiousness, whether it's extroversion, whether it's something else, just changing a few small things every day or every week, going to one new thing, trying to time your shower and eyeliner routine, you know, whatever it is that you're working on, just stacking those building blocks up will make it so that you actually can change your personality in the direction that you want.

55:49Excellent. Well, thank you so much for spending this time with us. Where can people find you if they'd like to know more? Yeah, they can find me, but better anywhere books are sold. They can read my writing at theatlantic.com. And I also have a sub stack at olgahazan.substack.com. Perfect. Thank you. We'll link to all of those in the show notes as well. Yeah. Thank you so much. Thank you, Olga. What are three key takeaways that we got from this conversation? Key takeaway number one, personality is not fixed. It's flexible. We've all heard people say, well, that's just how I am. But science now tells us that this isn't entirely true.

56:26Your personality traits are not set in stone. They can change over time, both naturally as well as through deliberate effort. And this is really big news for anybody who wants to advance their career or step into entrepreneurship. Maybe you've always been really nervous. You think that you're too anxious to take financial risks, or you think that you're not outgoing enough to be in a sales position, or that you're too disorganized to be in management. Understanding that your personality traits are flexible, they're malleable, that opens up a ton of possibilities for growth in exactly the areas that are holding you back professionally.

57:02So this really jives with the notion of having a growth mindset, which comes from Stanford professor Carol Dweck. And the thing about personality change is that initially the changes might be subtle, but you know how compounding works. Really small incremental changes can compound over time. Anything, to quote a previous guest on this podcast, Sahil Bloom, anything greater than zero compounds. So no matter how small the change is, these really small consistent shifts transform you in ways that over time become major. A lot of people do say, I haven't changed. I've been exactly the same since I was a little kid.

57:44I will say that that's pretty unusual. Most of us do change over time. The changes might be kind of subtle. So you might not notice it in someone else. They might not even notice it in themselves. So that's the first key takeaway. Key takeaway number two, work on increasing your conscientiousness. Because if there's one personality trait that is most directly linked to both career advancement and financial success, it's conscientiousness. It's being organized, timely, productive, and following through. And that's the opposite of a lot. This is certainly the opposite of me, right? Like for those of us who struggle with procrastination and with follow through, how do we actually become more conscientious?

58:28Because as we've just established, we can. Personality can change. Where we fall along the conscientiousness spectrum, that can change. So how do we do it? Well, Olga shared a fascinating technique called episodic future thinking, which can help break through procrastination. She recommends vividly visualizing the positive outcome of completing a task. Not just the end result, but everything, the praise, the recognition, the feeling of relief or the feeling of achievement, everything that you can use to motivate yourself through the boring parts. Give yourself that dopamine rush even when the parts are boring.

59:09This type of episodic future thinking, this mental rehearsal, creates a stronger connection between the tedium of today and the rewards of tomorrow, whether those rewards are a promotion or a bigger bank account or simply earning the respect of your colleagues. One strategy that I thought was really interesting is called episodic future thinking. And this is when you envision very, very clearly the end results that you want. Let's say you are procrastinating on a PowerPoint presentation that you're going to present to like a team at work. Episodic future thinking is basically like, okay, take a minute and stop and think about that day.

59:50You're giving the PowerPoint. It's beautifully designed. You're so eloquent. Your boss and everyone else applauds and is like, wow, you're such a star. Finally, key takeaway number three. There are three traits, three key traits that successful entrepreneurs share. If you have ever wondered if you have what it takes to start a business, well, there is actually a specific personality profile that tends to thrive in leadership roles. And that doesn't mean, oh, you're just born with the right traits. I'm putting born with in air quotes. You can't see me, but I'm putting born with in air quotes, right?

1:00:27Nobody is born with the right traits. That's fixed mindset thinking. Instead, there are personality attributes that you can change and you can strengthen if you want to lead a company. And so the winning combination seems to be high extroversion, meaning you have a lot of energy for interacting with others, low agreeableness, which means you need the ability to make tough decisions without excessive people pleasing. You need, to quote the title of an excellent book, you need the courage to be disliked. I'm going to say that again. I'm going to slow down and say that again. And you need the courage to be disliked.

1:01:09And if you want to learn more, there's a great book with that title. High extroversion, which means you're great with people combined with low agreeableness, which means you're not a people pleaser. You don't have a fawning trauma response. And you also need low neuroticism, which means emotional stability, which will allow you to take bigger risks and which will allow you to deal with the anxieties, the stresses, the volatility, the uncertainty. If you think of somebody like Steve Jobs, he was not always the nicest guy in the room, but he had vision, decisiveness, and comfort with risk. That combination of traits created one of the world's most valuable companies.

1:01:55And so the good news, no matter where you fall along the spectrum, is that by understanding these patterns, you know what specific areas you need to work on if your goal is entrepreneurship or even more generally, leadership. When they look at the personality types of CEOs, it's usually like extroverted, low agreeableness, and then like low neuroticism because starting a company involves a lot of risk and the people willing to take risks are able to at least manage their anxiety and not let it overwhelm them. I'm not saying people are going to love you. But the classic example is like Steve Jobs, who was like, he was a difficult person, but like a visionary.

1:02:33Those are three key takeaways from this conversation with Olga Kazan, the author of a book called Me But Better, which is all about the science of personality change. Thank you so much for tuning in. If you enjoyed today's episode, please do three things. First, subscribe to our newsletter, affordanything.com slash newsletter, where we release long, in-depth analyses that you will not find anywhere else. It's not on the podcast. It's not on YouTube. It's certainly not on Instagram or TikTok or Twitter. What we publish in our newsletter, you won't find anywhere else. So affordanything.com slash newsletter.

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