ANDREW ABELA: The Habits That Change Everything

26:12It's something you learn from others. And you look at people who are more virtuous and say, how do they do this? and you learn from them. But also from reflection, I know you did it yourself. You said, I've gone too deep into this. It's distracting me from other things that I need to do, you know, and so this is too much. And so I've left the path of diligence and I'm falling into some more kind of specious curiosity. Does that make sense? Yes. And I think to your point there, I think it's been my family that has helped point this out that you've gone too overboard because, you know, I think one trait of really good leaders is that they're self-aware, but that's not a destination.

26:50It is a journey. And I often find that I think of myself as a self-aware person, but I can sometimes be profoundly unself-aware about certain habits. And it takes reflection and it takes especially feedback from people that love us to just say, hey, you know, you might want to rethink that or dial it back a couple of clicks. I have a question about another virtue. And I don't know if this is an ally to one of the core four, but it's orderliness. Because that's not a term that you hear much. And yet I can tell you, I love order. Me too. And I think part of it is that I was raised in a family with an alcoholic father.

27:36And so there was a lot of chaos. And so I have a compulsion for things to be ordered. And so I just want to talk about the virtue of that. Like when it's a virtue and when it becomes maladaptive. Yeah, exactly. Well, first, I am not at all surprised to hear you say that you like it. Because I've been following your work for years. And you bring order to people's lives. That's what you do with the whole goal setting and best year and so on. A lot of that is about bringing, right? So I'm not surprised. I'm not surprised. But yes, it is one of the 15 virtues that roll up to self-discipline. So it's a type of self-discipline.

28:13And what it disciplines is the desire to do something. Most people, if left alone with no obligations, would not just sit there, right? They would go and do something. Scroll on social media, go for a walk, annoy their baby brother. People always do something. And so orderliness is the habit of making sure that the thing that we do is the thing that we most want to or need to get done now. So it includes things like setting up a to-do list and then following through that to-do list and so on. The two extremes, the obvious opposite is to have no order at all and just doing whatever you feel like doing next.

28:51But the other is to be compulsive, to be just completely obsessed about what you're doing so that there's no room for flexibility or that the human relationships are sort of squeezed out of it. So those would be the two extremes. In the book, I talk about the different Myers-Briggs personality types and how orderliness might look different in different personality types. I haven't yet found any research on this. And if anybody listening to this knows of any, I would appreciate an email. But I am convinced that people talk about habits being a result of the neuroplasticity of our brains. You were talking about neuropathways before.

29:37As you repeat a certain behavior, you create a new pathway in your brain. I'm convinced that there's a very basic difference between the super habits being very very neuroplastic. And then the personality types, you mentioned the Gallup StrengthsFinder before, Michael, far less neuroplastic, I think. The strengths tend to be durable across decades of a life. Whereas a habit, you may be the most fraidy cat, cowardly person around, but over some number of months, you could grow in the virtue of courage through practice. So there's a very big difference, I think. Yeah. This is very hopeful. Yeah, I think this is such an important thing to drill down on because we are two people who have never met a personality assessment we didn't love.

30:22It's so fun to dig into those. But I think one of the weaknesses of the personality assessments is that they sort of implicitly say, this is who you are. And there are things that you're going to be good at. And there are things that you're not going to be good at. And for the most part, I would say the messaging around those assessments is just be who you are and lean into the things that you're good at. And don't worry too much about the stuff you're not good at because other people will be good at those things. And it takes all of us. And, you know, some of that is good, right? But the negative is if we apply that to our character, we have a real problem on our hands.

31:01You know, we're kind of left with what we rolled into life with, which, you know, I have, I know you have a bunch of kids. I have five kids. My oldest is 23. My youngest is five. And I've got young adults and teenagers in the middle. And that's such a sharp relief of what it looks like to not yet have your character formed. I mean, there are things that they're learning and developing, and there are things that they are completely deficient in, like taking showers regularly enough to not stink at the dinner table. We're still working on that with the teenagers. And I think as adults, we have the same version of that.

31:35And I worry sometimes that we've created kind of a worldview that says that character is sort of like this old thing that we used to think about when we didn't know a lot about ourselves very precisely. And now that we do, we don't need to worry about developing all that stuff. And I mean, I think we get to see the fruit of that all the time and it's not very pretty. So will you talk a little bit about the relationship of personality and character and how they're the same and how they're definitely not the same? I would love to draw a very sharp distinction between personality as the more fixed traits, you know, like the StrengthsFinder, which I love.

32:13I love the StrengthsFinder work, and character as being completely malleable. Your character is basically made up of the virtues. So the 50 virtues, that's a map of a human character, right? And any part of that can be updated at any time. And I use the word update because at times I've described this as the human operating system. Because the analogy to a phone operating system or a laptop one is so great, especially when you see all the problems happening in our society today. I think it's because we're desperately in need of a major upgrade to our characters, to our human operating system through the practice of virtue.

32:47So I totally agree with you. The danger when you conflate personality and character, and actually some, I think it's a pity, but some of the biggest guilty parties here are those who should know better, which is the positive psychology movement. These are brilliant researchers doing really important work studying the virtues, but they persist on calling them character strengths. Character, yes, but not strengths. And when you do their surveys, they're delivered in a rank order. And here are your strengths, presumably in here, don't worry about those. So, well, maybe I have a weakness in the air of honesty.

33:22And so what, am I going to go be a liar for the rest of my life? That's not helpful. I don't like the idea of calling them character strengths. They are virtues or they are habits of excellence that anyone can acquire. And they say, well, now that you know your strengths, you should play to them. Yes, by all means, but even more important is fix the ones that need to be fixed. If you're lacking in perseverance or lacking in honesty or lacking in diligence, goodness, pick one of those and work on it and your life will get so much better than saying, well, I happen to be strong and resilient, so I'm just going to go around and be resilient all the time.

33:55Well, that's great, but don't ignore this other stuff because a happy life is going to be a well-rounded kind of across all of the virtues. This is so fascinating. And I said a moment ago, it's hopeful. I have personal coaching clients that will occasionally say to me something like, I'm just not a disciplined person. As though that's a pass, I don't have to be disciplined. And what this gives me is a framework for differentiating between personality and character and offer them hope that just because they have not been disciplined to this point, it's still something they can acquire as a habit and as a virtue that could change the whole trajectory of their life.

34:35It would be like saying, I don't have cardiovascular capacity. I don't have any cardiovascular capacity. I guess I'll have to stay on the couch. That would be so nonsensical as though you were just born with a certain VO2 max. Good job. You've got a high VO2 max or low, whatever way it's supposed to go. You're exactly right. You're exactly right. It is a hopeful message. And it's part of the problem with the word virtue is people think of things like diligence or discipline and so on as personality traits that I say that you're born with or not born with. Like, oh, so-and-so is creative. Oh, so-and-so is very organized.

35:11No, any one of us can grow in any one of these. It's really, really good news because not only can any one of us do it, but it's relatively easy given the payoff, just little steps each day. This is where we come back to say atomic habits of James Clear. Like the little changes make a big difference, especially if those little changes are in the direction of any one of these super habits. It's kind of like the difference between skills and talents. I talk to my kids about this sometimes because I have one of my sons is a football player and he wants to be recruited for college. And we talk about, you know, he has natural talent for football.

35:49It'll be pretty difficult to play at the next level. He's a high school sophomore right now. It'd be difficult to play at the next level if you don't have talent, but he has to develop the skill around things like work ethic and self-discipline and mindset and things that are not innate. You know, he didn't come preloaded with those. Those have to be developed and strengthened within himself, you know, and yeah, he has natural athleticism, but if he didn't work out and train, it would be kind of pointless. And so I think maybe that's analogous here a little bit. It is in the sense that, yes, he's working out his physical muscles to become stronger.

36:27He needs to work out the character muscles as well, so the self-discipline and so on, to make those stronger. But then that's separate, as you say, from talent, which I think, and I think there's some evidence on this, that talent, the root issue there is personal preference. Things that some of us like, Therefore, we have a tendency in that direction. Therefore, we get better and so on. So at the root of these, I think, these personality strengths in many cases is different kinds of personal preferences. I enjoy thinking big picture kind of – I have big picture debates. And so one of my Gallup strengths is strategic.

37:04Me too. Same. Way at the very bottom of my Gallup list is anything to do with details because I just don't like details. We're all the same. All right. I say preference, I think, is a big part of that. But those preferences don't change. I mean, you can sort of force yourself to change your preferences, but you'll be uncomfortable versus you can practice the different habits or super habits and get comfortable. So somebody who is uncomfortable, my wife always thought she wasn't very creative. I'm super creative. And over the years, I think she's learned that you can learn to because that's one of the super habits.

37:40You can learn to become creative. She's much more comfortable now throwing out ideas, you know, and just sort of, whereas before, until she kind of analyzed something to death, she wouldn't even propose it. But those are things we can grow in. I love that. I can't source this, but I've heard it said that you are what you habitually do. Do you agree with that? Yes, yes. I know that Clear quotes it, but I think the original source is one of the Stoic philosophers. So going back 3 ,000 some years. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. You know, there's new research out this summer that really emphasizes. I mean, one of the things I love and joke about social science, and I can do that because I'm, as a business professor, I am a social scientist, that we go to great lengths to prove what everybody knew all along.

38:25That's what we do in social science, right? But at least we prove it. So what social scientists are starting to prove is exactly what Doohy called the power of habit, that there was a study that came out this summer, meta-analysis, where they look at hundreds of other studies and draw conclusions, and they found of all the different ways to drive behavior change from things like incentives or behavioral reinforcement or education or whatever, habit comes out on top. You can change someone's habits, you will change their behavior for the reason that you said. We do something repetitively. There's something about the way we're constituted as human beings that we are habitual beings, you know, which I think kind of makes sense cognitively because it's so much more efficient cognitively when you have habits, right?

39:16They're like computer programs, right? That just, if you had to think through, like we would just die if we had to think through every moment of like, breathe now, swallow now, you know, pump some more blood, you know, it's like, who would do that? Yeah. Another question I have is the relationship between identity and habits. Because I've found and have taught that if you can change your identity, then you will make it easier to acquire the habit. So for example, if I perceive myself to be a writer, then what do writers do? Well, they write. And so it's easier for me to follow through. Or if I think of myself as a runner, then I run because that's what runners do.

40:00So James Clear talks about this as well in Atomic Habits. The way I look at it, and this is in part why I wrote the book, because what I wanted to do was paint a picture of every human identity, that these 50 habits are part of every human being's identity, and that being creative or being courageous or being self-disciplined or being generous is not the province of a privileged few who are sort of genetically lucky. every human being can aspire to and achieve all of these. So it's a different level of identity where it's just the human identity, if you will. So yes, I agree that having a vision of who you are is going to help you kind of reinforce those habits.

40:44I'm trying to show, I say, the broader picture.

40:54I want to just talk a little bit about how the whole framework comes together. I call it the anatomy of virtue. Amazing. And so I'll take credit for the design. My teenage daughters will take credit for the color scheme, but Aquinas takes credit for the logic behind it all. What What I was trying to do is visualize his system. Very orderly. The way it works is you look in the center of the chart where it says human life, and then each concentric circle as you move out is a further distinction that Aquinas is making. And the most important distinction he makes is between thoughts, actions, and feelings.

41:31That's one of the earlier rings. Basically, if you think about everyday life, our everyday life is comprised of our thoughts, our actions, and our feelings. What else is there? I mean, anything that goes on is something we're thinking about doing, feeling. And then he makes a further distinction with feelings between feelings of attraction or desires and feelings of repulsion or fears, which answers the question, why do we have those four cardinal virtues, prudence, justice, fortitude, temperance? There's your answer. Because prudence, also called practical wisdom, is the virtue for making decisions, which is all about our thoughts.

42:06When we're thinking day to day, it's usually because we need to make a decision. What shall I have for lunch? What shall I do next? What shall I say? You know, so that's the one. So that's our thoughts. For our actions is the virtue of justice, because most of our actions are interactions with others, and we do those best when we act justly. And then for our fears and desires, that's courage and self-discipline, respectively. So the idea is if you have those four cardinal virtues, you have your everyday life taken care of. Your thoughts, actions, and feelings are all in order, all managed, all easier because they're done by habit.

42:38And then you can see the subsequent circles further differentiate. So you've got the 15 virtues of self-discipline. There are eight of practical wisdom, four for courage. And so that's the map. And that's why there's no gaps in between. So that's why when I say any problem you have, somewhere on that wheel is the habit that's going to help you deal with it. This is so cool. I think I need to frame this and put it up in my kitchen as an object lesson for my kids when they're always in the kitchen doing everything. I'm going to get a tattoo. Oh, wow. Okay. I don't know if anyone's ever tattooed this before, Andrew, but today might be the day.

43:14I have heard many people put up in the kitchen. I have never heard of someone tattooing, but that is the new one. This is your very first tattoo, you know, at almost 70 years old. That's pretty exciting. Oh my gosh. This is so neat. And I, you know, for all of you listening who aren't quite sure what we're looking at, this looks a little bit like if you've ever seen a feelings wheel for therapy, you know, with all the pretty colors and it organizes the feelings. This is like that, but on steroids, you know? It's amazing. It's really amazing. And I'm going to spend some time just looking at it closely after we're finished.

43:45And it's kind of simultaneously, I was going to say complex, but comprehensive is probably a better word. But at the same time, very simple. Like when you understand the internal logic that you just explained and you look at this and you go, yeah, that pretty much sums up everything. Yeah. We will definitely link to this so that if you're listening, you can go ahead and download it and know what it looks like. But I also think the book is just critically important to understanding and sort of decoding the whole thing. So I want to talk about leisure, because I think this maps to our concept of the double win.

44:18But I'd like you to explain that, because I think that particularly in contemporary society, we have a very misguided notion of what that is. So the virtue goes by the Greek name eutropelia, because even the English word leisure doesn't quite mean the same thing. So utropelia is the habit of spending some time on a regular basis, maybe weekly, doing something just for the love of it, not to achieve something else. And so much of what we do is ordered to achievement without even thinking about it. We socialize in order to network. We read to improve ourselves. We exercise to look better or to be fit.

44:55When do we do something just for the fun of it? Now, why is that important? Aquinas, again, filled with insights. His insight is this. And again, modern science confirms this. Leisure, or utropelia in particular, is necessary to rest our minds. Because when our bodies are tired, all we have to do is stop moving, sit down or lie down. Have you ever tried to stop your mind from moving? Not easy. Even when we sleep, it's the ticking over with dreams and so on, REM sleep and so on. but Aquinas explains our brains are our minds are problem-solving machines and so they're always trying to solve problems and the only time they stop in a sense their own time they're at rest is when you're doing something where there is no problem to be solved it's just fun I'm reading a work of fiction just because I love it I'm going for a walk just because I love doing that a favorite movie or playing a sport it's true there's cognitive ability exercised in say playing a sport and if you're really truly trying to win, then it's not actually utropelia.

45:58But if you're generally playing just for the fun of it, then it's restful to the mind. And if we don't rest our minds, we get cranky, our life isn't as fun as it could be. This is a virtue that everybody needs and our society desperately needs. Emphasize, it is a virtue. It is a really good thing to do. And I won't get into it here, but it's the only chapter in the book that is quite autobiographical. I talk about how in my days as a management consultant, I was going down a fairly dark path, becoming a serious workaholic. And it was, in my case, through learning to sail that I discovered the virtue of eutropelia, totally turned my life around.

46:39As a result, that's when I met my wife, got married. I had sort of closed myself off to relationships, you know, so I wouldn't, but for that virtue, wouldn't have put myself in a position to meet her. And then we got married, et cetera. But I leave that for people who want to read the chapter. Yeah. Beautiful. What I love about that is I think for the people who are in our community who are listening to this show, this may be the most difficult virtue for them to cultivate. You know, the other ones, it's sort of like they have transferable skills that maybe they can draw on. They're good at doing things that are difficult, you know, those kinds of things.

47:11but doing something that is just for fun, that is play even, and not somehow gamifying that into achievement. It's like, you know, you think about playing pickleball, but then you start playing it competitively and it's, it all of a sudden becomes a whole thing. You know, I think that those are our people. Those are, that's us. And the ability to just enjoy something for its own sake and the necessity of that for the health of our mind and heart. I love that. And I love the challenge of it. And I love the definition around it because I think it frames it up in a way that is ultimately both difficult and life-giving.

47:47We have a chapter in our book, When at Work and Succeed at Life, where we talk about the value of non-achievement. But I can tell you from personal experience, I know it better than I do it. And it's very difficult for me not to put an achievement part of it in there. Like if I play golf, which I love, I want to get better at it. If I fish, which I love, you know, I'm trying to get better at it. It just really challenges me again to let it be a non-achievement activity. Can I give you a suggestion? Please. So one of the things that I talk about is the, what I call the, do you remember the easy button?

48:30Yeah. Staples. Yeah. Staples, yeah, yeah. that imagine you had such a button and you pick fishing or golf and you had a choice you could either play the game of golf or push the button and at the end of just by pushing the button you will have achieved the improvement in the game and the win say that you were going for without actually having to play it it's a bit of a stretch with golf but think about going to the gym you could go to the gym and work out and say well i do that because i just enjoy it but if you could push the button and get the physical benefits from going to the gym without having to go, would you push the button?

49:05And if the answer is yes, I would push the button, then that activity is not utropelia for you. It is a means to enact. Because we have mixed motives, right? But this is the ultimate test. If you could push that button, would you? And if you would, it's not utropelia. But if you would go through it anyway, then it truly is refreshing. That is fascinating. I love that. Well, this segues to our question. So Andrew, today, what is your biggest obstacle in getting the double win, meaning you're truly winning at work and succeeding at life? Wow, that's a really good one. I think my biggest obstacle is too many things that I want to do, which is another way of saying I'm not satisfied yet.

49:52Yeah. And that's not necessarily a good thing. And there's actually a virtue I'm working on, the virtue of foresight, which is part of practical wisdom, which is all about, I think you guys know a little bit about this, that is goal setting. So my goals are out of proportion with the 24 hours a day that I have. I'm working on that to try to bring them in proportion. That I think is right now my biggest obstacle. May I offer you a suggestion on that? Yeah. So I've been struggling with this very thing myself. And I think, and I said to Megan at lunch today, I think it's because I have a scarcity mindset around time.

50:30And the older I get, the more acutely I feel it. It's like I'm running out of runway and there's still so much left that I want to do that I feel like I have to cram my days with so much activity that it wars against the double win. Makes sense? Yeah, it makes complete sense. It makes complete sense. I'm slightly younger than you. I turned 60 this summer, but I've been feeling that sense of time's running. Yeah. What I think about that is we're not even believing our own theology. It's true. You know, because as Christians, and we understand not everybody listening to the show is a Christian, and that's totally fine.

51:07Everybody's welcome. But as Christians, we believe in eternity, and we believe in eternity, at least in our traditions, that there will be work in the best sense. There'll be meaningful development of humanity and growth and all the things we love about life will continue. And yet we practically act as though that weren't true. And I think that's a real challenge to our faith. I mean, I feel that too. It's like it's abstract and kind of difficult to connect with. And so we just act like the time is running out, but actually the time is not running out. That's a good point. Got all the time in the world.

51:44Literally all the time in the world. Okay, my second question. How do you personally know when you're getting the double win? For somebody who is so analytical, it pains me to admit, but it's a feeling. First, before I start to analyze, I have a feeling sometimes that things are working, and then other times a feeling that things are not working. And when I'm winning at work and winning at home, at life, everything together, there seems to be music in the universe. I can hear it more clearly. They're not my idea. I got that from a priest friend. That's a beautiful way of saying it. Yeah. But I tend to be fairly intuitive.

52:26So I think that my intuition says things are working. Other times my intuition is saying something's wrong here. Something's out of whack. That's a good answer. That is a good answer. Okay. Last question. What is one ritual or routine that you rely on to do what you do? we should say or habit. I feel like that would only be fair in this context. And that's paralyzing because there's like a lot, you know, but let me, let me sneak this in because with the book, there's an app that we've developed, the super habits app. It's actually, there's, you probably see the QR code in the book, but it's also, even if someone doesn't buy the book, super habits.app is the website.

53:05We're about to release a big upgrade. And my, My son runs that company, which is kind of fun. It's a family business. And he's a computer whiz. And he's trained the app. It's an AI tool that's trained on the super habits material. It helps you reflect on which super habits should I be working on right now. That's cool. Love it. My answer to your question is that regular reflection of, because I think the answer is not, I used to think, even when I was writing the book, pick one and just kind of keep going after that habit until you get it right. I have come to see, in part from my wife, who is so much smarter than I am, that it's more a matter of playing kind of tweak here, tweak there, tweak there.

53:47Okay, I need a little bit better in terms of foresight and goal setting, but my diligence could be amped up a little bit. And so this regular reflection in conversation with this device, this AI device, you know, has been really, really helpful in terms of just fine-tuning my, how I focus my efforts. I love that. Beautiful. That's great. Andrew, thank you so much. This has been a fascinating conversation. And I feel like we say this with almost every guest, but you in particular, I could talk all afternoon. You don't have that much time. I don't have that much time. But this has been enormously stimulating.

54:21Thank you. Thank you. I feel the same way. My pleasure. show.

54:35That was stimulating. You and I were both like, if y 'all could see us, it was kind of like smoke is coming out of our head because there's so much activity in our brains right now. It's like we're nearly on fire. Well, you know, it's not like habits is a new idea to us. Right. Like We've written about it. We've taught about it. It's a key part of the framework for the smarter goal system, but we've never thought about it in the context of the virtues. And that takes it from being a really helpful idea to being kind of an organizing principle for everything. Yeah. I think my biggest takeaway was the distinction that virtue and super habits, to use the title of the book, are something that everybody can cultivate.

55:19Nobody comes preloaded with. I mean, this is sort of our work as human beings is to build our character and to become who we're made to be. And I think I have been for so long, not that I would have said, you know, character is optional, but I've leaned so heavily into the personality assessments and to the idea of strengths, which I think are all great and helpful, but without the context of character, we can really become self-indulgent and we can rationalize character deficiencies or bad habits as being just who we are. And the truth is, if you look at the historical church and the faith traditions and all that, nobody actually thinks that.

56:05That's not a thing. No. Well, it is a thing in contemporary society, I think. Absolutely. But it's not a thing historically. Like no one has thought that until relatively recently. And I said this twice in the interview, but I just want to reiterate it. To me, it's hopeful because it means I can really change the things that are important, that I can become more than I am, that I can develop and grow in substantive ways that could really have an impact, not only in my own life, but in the lives of other people. That I just don't have to say, hey, well, I guess I'm just not disciplined or I guess I'm just not orderly or whatever it is, that I can actually work on those things.

56:44And if I turn it into a habit, suddenly that becomes accessible. And what makes it a super habit is that it is connected to a virtue, that there's this transcendent purpose that goes beyond the habit per se. And I love that. That really resonated with me. I think what we know about goal research, for example, is the part of it that's rewarding is the pursuit of the goal. It's really about who we're becoming. Like the achievement itself, we're kind of like, once we've achieved the thing, which we think is going to be the big payoff, it's actually not. And people typically don't experience more happiness, like when they've achieved a goal, for example.

57:20But what does make us happy is feeling like we're making progress and becoming better than we were yesterday and having that sense of growth and progress in our life. And it's kind of like everything is new again. Everything old is new again, you know, like virtues, you know, that's like the least sexy topic of all time. And it's ancient. And it's ancient, but it's also so true and so relevant. And I think, you know, for all of us who have kind of been watching the world for the last decade or so and just thinking, what a hot mess, you know, like why people are so. And we're the leaders of character.

57:54Yeah. No leaders with character. People are hateful to each other. the polarization, the kind of viciousness of the kind of default of how people behave toward one another has degraded so significantly. It's like, what's the answer to that? And I think these virtues are a big piece of that. And like you said, it's hopeful. Guys, the book is called Super Habits, The Universal System for a Successful Life. We highly recommend that you read the book, that you also go to the website and download this incredible poster that organizes all the virtues and that you also download the app. I haven't downloaded the app.

58:34I'm eager to do that, but I was hoping there was something like that that would kind of help me prioritize which ones to work on first. And all of this is in the show notes. So if you're driving right now, don't worry, we're not going to give you anything you have to write down, but it's in the show notes. Well, guys, thanks so much for listening and for joining us in this conversation. Hopefully it's been as helpful for you as it has been for us. And if that's the case, we'd love to ask you to leave us a review to go ahead and rate the show. You can do that in just a minute or two, wherever you're listening to podcasts.

59:07And that helps us get conversations like this into the hands of others who need it. And we want to have as many people as possible win at work and succeed at life. But they've got to know that it's an option. So helping to raise the visibility of the show helps to make that possible. And you can be a part of that. So thanks so much in advance for rating the show and leaving a review. We'll see you next week.