Hello, everybody, Welcome back to the show. Welcome back to the podcast, new listeners, old listeners, Wherever you are in the world, it is so great to have you here. Back for another episode as we, of course break down the psychology of our twenties today, let's talk about destiny or something that feels strangely attached to it. Let's talk about personality, whether it's fixed or it can be changed, How it shapes our future, our beliefs, maybe even how
happy we are. Personality is like a little bit of a black box. Like we know it's shaped by nature and nurture. We know that genetics are involved. How we were raised is kind of involved. But I think as we get older, we become more aware of the parts of ourselves that are holding us back and that you know, we really would wish for something different. Well, today I have the honor of interviewing someone who has investigated that very possibility. What if we could be ourselves bit better
by rewiring our personality? And want to welcome on author and journalist Olga Hazan. Thank you for.
Joining absolutely, thanks for having me.
I'm very very excited for this episode and this topic in general. But before we kind of jump into it. Can you briefly introduce yourself to the audience and your work. Sure.
My name's Olga Hasan and I'm a staff writer at the Atlantic magazine and I'm also an author of books. This is my second book, and it is actually kind of stems from a cover story I did for The Atlantic a few years ago.
So that's that's my backstory.
And you're not gonna give us any spoilers. I feel like the cover story, like you go into it kind of in the book, right, Yeah, yeah.
I can, Yeah, I can, I can. I can give you a spoiler. So the cover story, I kind of experimented very lightly with changing my personality, but then I kind of realized that I needed to do more and that it you know, kind of letting up on the experiment. I backtracked. I noticed that I was sort of falling
back into old patterns. So the book is really an overview of the five traits of personality, my personal attempts to change on three of them, and because the other two I actually don't need to change, they're find they're very high in me as it is. But I do interview other people who increased on those traits through various methods.
We're going to get to that because I feel like it's such an interesting premise, But I do also want to talk about how you became a journalist, how you became a writer. I think as much as I love interviewing people about the very you know, amazing niche things that they're doing, and they're like whether it's psychology or neuroscience or anything like that, you know, this podcast is for people in their twenties, and a lot of people
probably aspire to do what you do. Can you kind of talk us through how you got from maybe graduating high school to where you are now? Sure?
Yeah, wow, that's a long time ago.
Yeah, if you were entire life please and thinks.
Graduated from high school like twenty years ago. Then I went to college, did not major in journalism, but really found myself drawn to journalism. I did an internship in journalism, and then I went to graduate school after I graduated from college, which is not like a necessary step for anyone listening at home, but it is something that I did.
Then I got a job at the Washington Post out of graduate school, and I worked there for a brief time, and then I moved to the Atlantic in twenty thirteen, and I've worked at the Atlantic ever since, and I've done a couple of different jobs there, but I've mostly been a writer covering like health and human behavior.
Well that's that's the perfect topic for this. Do you remember, like what your first big piece of writing was, like your first article where you were like, oh my gosh, like I'm a journalist.
Yeah, that probably was. So when I did my internship in college. I wrote one story during that internship. It was complex why I only wrote one, but that was like the amount that I was allowed to write, and it was about online gaming addiction, and I remember when it.
Came out, I felt so.
Just accomplished, Like I was like, yes, like my life is all coming together. And of course, like I wouldn't be a full time writer for I think eight years after that, but it was it was like very good motivation to keep going.
You know. I love stories like that where it's like, Okay, just because your dream isn't happening right now doesn't mean that it's not going to come true eventually. Like, as you said, you had this like what sounds like this big accomplished moment, and you know it really didn't come full circle until what did you say, like ten years ago, almost maybe twelve years ago, which, Yeah, we love hearing those stories on the show. Let's talk about this book.
The premise of this book was basically that coup of story and this idea that you wanted to change your personality? Why did you feel like it was necessary? Like, why did you feel like you had to do that?
Yeah, so your personality.
You know, a lot of people think it's sort of like what you like or dislike, or sort of the kinds of things you say or whatever, but it's really a lot about your reactions to situations and kind of like something comes across your way and are you like, yes, let's do it. Are you like, oh, I don't know about that, or you know, It's kind of like how how you interact.
With the world.
And I noticed that a lot of how I was interacting with the world was not helping me really, So the intro to the book kind of gives a good overview of this.
But I had this day.
This is before I had a kid, and it was like, now, having had a kid, I'm like, wow, this was actually like a fantastic day. I should have just appreciated. But you know, it was like I got stuck in traffic, I got a bad haircut, I got photos taken that looked really bad. I had a stressful thing where I had to like pick my mom up at the airport, but I had to go grocery shopping before. But the like there was like a delay at the grocery store and then I was gonna be late to pick up
my mom. And it was like this whole thing and I just had a meltdown. I got back to my Rbnb that I was staying in and I like drank wine and like cried to my boyfriend at the time and.
Was just like I hate everything.
And then I kind of got to thinking and I was like, even like me saying that now to you, I'm like, wow, that is so whiny and like unappreciative of the fact that like that day, you know, I was able to buy groceries. I was in Miami, like I got myself to Miami, uh, I you know, was getting a haircut, like spa day for me, you know, I got professional photos taken, like you know, and it was sort of like I had this realization that like, wow, I can take anything good and positive and maybe or
maybe even just like mediocre. Right, Like a lot of things that happen in life are kind of like, eh, that was whatever, you know, And I have a tendency to dwell on the negatives and to like emphasize the negatives and create these stories out of the negatives that were not serving me. And it was made me like not enjoy my life like to the extent that I that it could have and should have been enjoyed. And so that's kind of the long and the short of it. Why I decided to change.
That's actually really interesting, and can I be honest, maybe I'm like, maybe I need to change my personality because I had a day like that, like literally yesterday, like sorry, no, I literally even got my hair cut, and like I didn't like my haircut, and like my mom was literally in town yesterday as well, and that's like honestly crazy. So like, yo, I'm like hearing that story and like no, like you just feel your emotions go, there's a.
Time and a place to feel your you can feel your emotions. And also like look at the.
Bright side, you know, Yeah, I know it's just really funny. And I think like what you're really pointing at is like this wasn't like a one off situation, like you had seen this pattern of not being able to enjoy your life. And what I'm hearing is that you were like, Okay, well something needs to change in me. Why did you hone in on personality and like specific building blocks of personality rather than something else. Why didn't you like speak
spiritual enlightenment. Why didn't you like say to yourself, oh, I need to change something about my lifestyle. Like did you feel? Yeah, what was like the focus on changing what I'm guessing is like neuroticism, right, like as a building block.
Yeah, So neuroticism was one of the things I wanted to change. The neuroticism is one of the five traits, and it's just anxiety and depression, right, And I had a lot of that. I had a lot of anxiety and a lot of kind of negativity as I mentioned, But there are other elements of personality and they sort
of encompass those other things that you mentioned. So actually, as far as like improving my neuroticism, a big thing I actually looked to was Buddhism and a lot of Buddhist teachings because a lot of neuroticism it's not about like reducing the number of things that happen to you that are bad. It's I mean, although, like if you're like addicted to drugs and like that's why bad things keep happening to you, Like that's something.
To look to.
But let's say you're like a like a functional person who's who's you know, living like a basically normal life. It's gonna be a lot easier to change your reactions to the things that happened to you than it is to like make every single thing in the world go your way.
So that's why I kind of.
Like looked inward and and and personality does encompass a lot of those things that you mentioned, so like spirituality, Buddhism has a lot to say about depression and anxiety.
Uh.
And you know, as far as like lifestyle, that was really more extroversion, Like I wanted to become more extroverted, and that was a big part. Lifestyle was a big part of that is sort of how often do you go out to socialize and do you make an effort to do that? You know, not just like do you sit by the phone and wait for people to contact you, but do you make connections do you try to get
out there? So those those are things that I did, but I called it personality change because personality includes all that.
Okay, that makes a lot more sense. So in this like endeavor to change your personality, did you figure out like who the happiest kinds of people were? Like, was there an assumption that like the happiest kinds of people are extroverted and are low and neuroticism and like high and openness to experience. Its like thinking about like the big five. What did you come across in your research?
Yeah, so people are not going to be thrilled to hear this, but the happiest people are like high in all the traits except for neuroticism. So so there's five traits. I will just briefly say what they are. It's so openness to experience. Happy people are high on that because that's like yeah, spiritual but not religious, like creative, imaginative conscientiousness, which is like getting stuff done. So it's like being places on time and being like healthy and exercising. Happy
people tend to be high in that extroversion. Extroverts are happier. That's like a really consistent finding in psychology.
Unfortunately I was.
I'm an introvert, and I was not thrilled to hear that agreeableness. Agreeable people are are happier. They're always like making friends and going to baby showers and what have you. And then neuroticism is the one that's correlated with unhappiness. And so the opposite of it is emotional stability, that's what it's called, and people who are high in that are happier.
Kind of rough, not gonna lie h Like, I'm an introvert and I have anxiety. I think like maybe caveat, Like I'll put the caveat in. Like, sometimes I think that it's like our introverts less happy, or the scales by which we measure happiness just obviously overly influenced by extroverts, right, because who's going to participate in those early studies that
like created indicators of happiness. It's going to be the people who have a lot of friends so we can invite them to participate, and who were like, yeah, I'll do this, I'll go out, like I'll get paid to like sit in a room with a stranger for an hour.
Like So sometimes I think that, and I also do think that, like what we'll get to is, even if you don't think you can change your personality, you can most certainly manage it, and you can manage like medications, and you can manage lifestyle factors and routine and therapists. So don't see this as like a curve upon your name if you kind of associate with some of those other traits. But this kind of leads me to my next question, like what age do you think our personality
really starts to stick at? What age do you think we really feel like stuck in who we are?
Yeah, so I would say there's not an age at which we start to stick and who we are. So that used to be the thinking this, Like influential psychologist named William James had this infamous sort of quote that like the characters set like plaster by the age of thirty, and which is relevant for your podcasts for people in
their twenties. So, I mean even he said, like in your twenties, you can still change, but kind of more recent research has found that that's not really true, that people kind of continue to change throughout their lives even naturally, even if you don't really do anything to try to change your personality. Is gonna kind of shift from decade
to decade. You're going to be a different person. And you know when you have kids and like a job than you were in college then you were in high school, you know, And that is like freeing and it's kind of scary, but it's also kind of nice that like you're not gonna be like if you're not crazy about something you know about yourself or about your life, you're not stuck with it forever.
That is very very free and even like as we get into like older age as well. Something that I like, the statistic that I really like to talk about is how by the time people reach like sixty and seventy, symptoms of mental illness really decline, which I don't know. I've always like thought about that and been like, oh, that sounds great, like way for that, wait for that, like maybe I'll have ten years of just like bliss. But it is like a really beautiful thing that you
mentioned this. I hear this a lot. Like another myth about personality change slash personality stuckness is by the time you reach twenty five, like your frontal lobe is fully developed. And I think we kind of think like I, hey, so like that's it, Like, this is who I'm always going to be. What evidence did you find like on the contrary before I like really dive into your personal experiment.
Yeah, So so there's two kind of branches of evidence to the contrary. So first, uh, your frontal lobe being fully formed doesn't really mean anything about your personality because we don't have like a lobe in our brain that is where the personality lives. So like even if they study like brain changes or you know, like those like fMRI studies where it's like brains lighting up, those don't necessarily correlate perfectly with personality necessarily. So there's kind of
two elements to this. The first is that when researchers have followed people you know, and given them personality tests over and over across the years, they do find that people change, you know, they tend to change in certain ways over time. So, like you mentioned that people become kind of mentally healthier in old age, neuroticism does go
down naturally across your life. So if you feel like you're very anxious and depressed, usually in older age people become less so so that sort of just naturally happens. You don't have to do anything. You don't have to like take any lexipro that naturally happens for most people. The other element of this is that if you actually
try to change, it can happen even faster. So there's been studies that show the people who get therapy, for example, become less neurotic, and in a short period of time they become a lot less neurotic neurotic than you would expect them to having, just like naturally, you know, decline and neuroticism. And the same with some of the studies that I cover with my in my book, researchers who have given people these like challenges. You know, people will say,
I'd really like to become more extroverted. I'd like to make more friends, and they're like, okay, every day for or whatever, every week for a month, reach out to someone new and have coffee with them or have you know, lunch with them or whatever. And they do maybe like five to ten challenges like that over a period of time, they actually find that they do grow an extraversion based on personality tests that they take at the beginning and
the end. So not only do you naturally change, you can also change through effort.
So a things like introversion, like I always thought that they were vary, and they like it's a genetic Oh my, I don't know, like genetic predisposition, it's temperament, but you're saying that, actually, no, it's more of a nuts effecta well being like environment.
Sorry, yeah, so it's both. So, so genetics is responsible for about forty to sixty percent of our personality. And even it's not like direct like if you think about either of your parents, you're probably not exactly like either of them, right, You're probably like you have like elements of them, but you're not like they're twin like you. You kind of most people are. I mean usually people are relieved to hear this, like not exactly like either either parent, right, so you get a little bit like
you get some ingredients. So I have like a natural proclivity toward anxiety because both my parents are very anxious, right. But at the same time, there's other there's like this you know, forty to sixty other percent of personality that we don't really know where specifically it comes from. It's not necessarily like the way your parents raised you. It's like it's like kind of that, but it's also like your friends. It's like, did you go to college, what kind of job do you have? You know, do you
make an effort to like read self help books. It's kind of like the stuff that you do and absorb into yourself that create that other part of personality. So that's the kind of element that I'm talking about, is that like, yeah, if you have two parents who are totally bookish and hate talking to people, you're gonna naturally
be kind of like I feel really introverted. But if but if you, you know, go into a job in sales and you talk to people you know all day and everyone around you is extroverted and you get like high fives and promotions for being extroverted, like you're gonna be a little bit more extroverted than you naturally would.
Be, if that makes sense.
So it's kind of like at some point reinforcement does kind of work, Like yeah, yeah, absolutely rewarded. See. I find this really interesting because like my parents are so totally opposite each other, Like they are the perfect definition of like opposites attract. Like my dad is like a stay at home dad and like we call him like
a charity wife. Like he runs like a non for profit like giving bags to refugee children in Australia, and like, then my mom is like a like badass like Cee R and like she has like she is older, like she is the lowest person, like the lowest neuroticism levels I've ever seen in an individual, Like I have never seen that woman break a sweat. She is not anxious
at all, like nothing phases her. And then my dad is like the complete opposite, and it's like completely like he's not completely anxious, but he's very anxious and very existential and very like in his own head about very deep things. And it's really funny like seeing like me and my sister's always joked that it was like, you know, one of us got my mom's jeans and my other me and my other sister got my dad's jeans, and it was like damn, like if I could switch, like I totally.
So yeah yeah yeah yeah.
But then again it's like me and my sister like not to like tell her story, but had had very different approaches to like how he faced neuroticism and like and other things as well, and like agreeable and all those things, and like there's definitely has been a difference in like how we've approached it and how we've changed as people. So I'm ranting. Really, what I want to get to is what you found in yourself. But we're going to take a tiny break and we'll be back
in just a second. Stay tuned. We are back with Oga Hazan talking about can we change our personality? This is kind of the crux of this whole interview. What happened? Firstly, what did you do? And secondly what did you find?
Yeah, so that's like the whole book, So let me just break it down into let's talk about extraversion first, because I think that is like the easiest to wrap your head around and also has had the clearest results.
Okay, so extraversion.
Basically the secret to increasing extraversion is to socialize with people. Some of the other traits are more existential and more like mindset oriented and kind of like how you think about things. Extraversion is like very clear cut, go talk to people, like go do activities. So I signed up for a bunch of stuff. I signed up for Improv Sailing Club, a bunch of meetup groups, so which is like groups of strangers meeting up. Literally, I like throw a party at my house. I just went out all
the time. I went from basically going out maybe once a week to going out like pretty much every night or like not and not like going out drinking, like although there was a lot of drinking, I get like like just being around people. And I found that like almost every time before I went, I dreaded it.
I did not want to go.
I was like, I hate improv I don't even know why I'm doing this, it's stupid, Like I don't want to go. And then almost every time after I would do it, I felt better. I was like that was super fun, or like that person in the sailing my sailboat today was really interesting, or like that was cool, or like hey, like I got to get whatever a burger on the way back home, like there was something that came out of it. Usually that I was like, huh,
that was like a nice break from the day. That was like a nice way to like liven up the day a little bit. And I think that's kind of like the when I talk about increasing extraversion or like changing your introversion. You can remain an introvert, but just do like twenty percent more stuff like connect with people twenty percent more, and there's a little bit of a
mood boost there. Like researchers who are introverts have studied this concept and have found that like even just connecting with people a little bit, and it doesn't mean that you have to be like the life of the party. Like I think people assume extraversion means like you're super talkative and like can't shut up and you know, or
you're always telling jokes. You can like go hang out with two close friends and like you know, listen more than you talk and like knit the whole time, and uh, that's still extraversion, that's you know, still being around people. So yeah, I for that one, my introversion, my extraversion did go up. And I think what I took away from that is that like I do enjoy having fun, I need to sometimes force myself to have fun, but it's.
Okay to do that.
Like it's okay to be like commit, you know, kind of to an exercise class or to something else that doesn't sound super appealing all the time but ends up being rewarding.
This is what I always say, Like people will people will dan maybe like how do I make any friends? Or like how do I stop feeling like everything is an effort and I'm like, pick two things to do awake and do them in the same place at the same time, and you will meet other people who are doing this same thing as you, like, whether it is it an exercise class or like an improv class or
a life drawn class or like social sport. There are so many people out there who also want to make friends and who also are like seeking connection, and there's like no shame about it, either of being like, Okay, I'm trying to train my brain to like this more, because you do fall into a habit, like I'm such
an extroverted person. And last week I spent the entire day at my house and like the entire week like indoors working, and I had such cabin fever and I was like, I've just I'm just so depressed, like I just don't know who I am anymore. And then I went and did like barefootballs with my friends and I was like, wow, like life is so beautiful, Like look at those flowers. It's like, yeah, yeah, giving your brain what it needs. So extraversion was the one that you saw an improvement in.
What about neuroticism, Yeah, so neuroticism I also saw an improvement.
So neuroticism.
I will cut to the chase. I meditated a whole lot. I and meditation is also something that I did not enjoy. I didn't even enjoy it while I was doing it, and I did not enjoy it after I was done.
It was not like that was really nice. Was like, thank God, I don't have to do that for another twenty four hours.
I signed up for a class where we had to meditate for forty five minutes every day, which is so long it's literally the longest forty five minutes of your life. However, it did work. My neuroticism went down, and my anxiety went down a little bit, but my depression went down a ton. It went down a lot, like to basically like not being depressed anymore.
And why that.
Happened, as sort of anyone's guess if I had to like pose it.
Why that occurred.
It's that I did a lot of what's called loving kindness meditation, which is where you're just like really nice to yourself for however long.
And it's usually I do it to like a guide. It at like a tape. Basically, people don't use tape anymore, like a recording, like.
A guided.
Yeah, exactly like a guided recording, and it's like, you know, like like there's like the line that always makes me cry is like there's you can search the whole universe for someone who is more deserving of love and happiness than you are yourself and not find anyone.
And it's like like oh yeah, you're.
Just like, oh my god, what this tape is.
So it's it's Sharon Salzburg and I use the ten Percent Happier app for meditation.
Oh I love that app. Yeah, yeah, up from the Yale Is it from the Yale person?
No, I think you're thinking of jud Brewer. The the ten percent Happier is Dan Harris.
Oh yeah Dan Harris. Yes, yes, yes, he does a podcast as well.
I think, yes, yeah, I mean everyone, yeah.
Everyone has a podcast. Is so embarrassed.
Yeah, but but he Yeah, but it actually like really worked, and I think like there's something about like repeating that I don't know. And my meditation teacher also really tried to like hammer home the self compassion.
And I think it worked. Yeah.
Wow, see I get this like meditation. I've never met someone who's been like I'm really into it all the time. Like I do feel like you kind of have to drag yourself into it, kicking and screaming. It's like when you have to like get a needle when you're like I really don't want to do this, or like go to the dentist to like go to the doctor, and then you feel amazing, like oh wow, that pain's gone.
Like that's what meditation sounds like. And it's just like discipline towards your soul, right in the same way to exercise your body, like you're exercising your mind, even if it's like tense and uncomfortable and stressful or whatever in the moment, like it feels gives you strength later on, I think it.
What it did is made me less afraid of my negative emotions. So you're sitting there like sometimes for hours and you're just like your mind is like going and going, and it's silence, you know. And I think what it does is like for me at least, I don't know if this is like correct, but for me at least, it made me like inevitably like negative feelings will come up during that, but it was sort of just like it's okay, Like nothing bad is really happening right now.
You're literally sitting in a room in your house on a cushion, like meditating, but you kind of have you still have your same negative, you know, strong emotions if you're someone who's prone to neuroticism.
But I don't know, it just lets you like kind of not be as.
Thrown off by them or like because bad things are still I mean my meditation teacher would say this all the time, like things happen that you don't like, which is like very simple, but it's like oh yeah, and like you're just you're gonna have to deal with that for the rest of your life and it's all about you, know you. You know your mom you mentioned is like so not neurotic. I'm sure bad things happen to her, but she thinks about them in a like somehow more zen
way than the average person. I'd love to know her secret.
I would love to as well. It's crazy and she's had a tough life, like not to give her story, and I have done an episode with her where she talks about it, but not even the full extent, like not an easy life. And sometimes I just look at her and I can see like there'll be a time that like me or my my sister will like be panicking about something or being like, don't you just see
like how terrible this is? And I can literally just see her looking at me being like no, like trying really hard to have empathy for me and being like I just can't do it. Like she she's incredible, and like she has obviously like learnt what to say, but she doesn't like feel it in her bones the way that like my dad would or my sister would, So she honestly needs to do like some kind of life course.
Like she's pretty incredible. Okay. I want to ask this question that I think everyone is probably thinking at this point, you did all these amazing exercises. How long did this last? As well? Like six months?
This lasted it a year?
Okay, A yeah? And when did that experiment end?
I honestly only had a year of book leaves, so it was just like June of twenty twenty two to June of twenty twenty three.
Okay, cool, So like a year, a solid year. Have you found that you've gone back to your old self since?
So in some ways but not in others. Since I did that, I had a baby, and that necessarily like changes a lot about how you're thinking about things, especially in the beginning. But I would say that there are still a lot of things that I carried through into even my life as a I guess I'm still a new parent technically. So one example is like just reaching out to other moms.
So it's a very.
Stressful time when you first have a baby, Like it's just is there's no getting around it. You don't know what you're doing, and they're very tiny and they cannot speak to you, and so you're just like, ah, what do you want? So I kind of made a point of reaching out to other moms, and like I'm in a mom's group that's been really supportive.
I also just like.
Really really try to even in day to day life, if I meet another mom with kids the same age, I really try to like reach out and at least see if she's open to the possibility of friendship. And sometimes that means that I and this is not something I would have done previously. I actually do a lot of reaching out repeatedly. So like if someone, let's say, I reach out to someone and they're like, yeah, let's have coffee, and we have coffee and we both have
a good time. I and then some time elapses and no one follows up. I might reach out again, even though it was me the last time too, and then I might do that like a third time. Like there are some relationships where I'm just always the person who organizes things, and that used to really bother me, Like I was like, that person doesn't want to be friends, Like I'm gonna move on because they're not putting an equal effort into organizing things, and like I don't I
don't want that. But I kind of just realized through this that like everyone has stuff going on, and like people just don't think about things the same way. They are maybe swamped in other ways. They're may be like not as comfortable with reaching out, Like I don't know. It just made me like a lot less sensitive. I guess about these like rules of social interaction that I had previously thought were like iron.
Like laws, you know. So that's been one thing that I've noticed.
Like yesterday, we went on a playdate to this woman who I barely knew, just because I was like, I'm really bored in if I have to like sing Baby Beluga one more time, and I might, so it's like let's go over to you Chan's house and yeah, that's what we did and it was great, you know, So I don't know.
I think it's like a really interesting like how you can it's quite personal, but like whether you would have been a different kind of mother if you hadn't done this experiment like the year before you had a baby, and like maybe the answer is no, but maybe it's like wow, like in this weird way, like maybe you were preparing your personality for like literally the biggest challenge
on planet Earth. Like I heard this quotes like when you become a parent, you have to use every single skill that you've ever put on a resume, like and the ones that you haven't. So it be interesting to see that. Not that you wouldn't have been a very confident, capable mother if you hadn't have done this, but it's yeah, it's fascinating, Like I would have loved to see a control group.
I know I'm not very confident or capable as it is, but I will say that I think that doing.
This experiment helped me decide to have a baby.
Okay, cool, interesting.
Like it helped me get more comfortable with the idea of having a baby.
Yeah, because babies, listen, I don't have one. But they seem like a lot of work, and they seem like they will put you in like a state, like they will bring up all those challenges. So you know, the other day, this is like so funny, But I didn't realize you can't give babies.
Water, not until six months.
See, guys, I don't know if any of you did know that listener to the podcast, but I was like, wow, if I had a kid right now and no one had told me that, like that would have been real problem. Like what are the other things that I don't know about this? Like? Ready, you end up?
You end up googling. Don't worry about that stuff. Don't don't worry about it right now. It's honestly you will.
Let you will be googling. You will google.
The internet has answers, you google everything. No one knows any of this stuff before they start.
Let me hear you, guys, And I think it will be a long time. But I've got one final question for you. I'm gonna ask every single guest on the podcast the same question. What advice would you have for listeners in their twenties, Like, what's one thing that you'd wish you'd known earlier? And it doesn't have to be about what we talked about today.
I would say that my advice for people in their twenties is that it's okay to just pursue what you want. You don't have to do something that seems practical or like what other people want you to do, or just because you've always been doing it. You can It's a time of life when you can completely pick the thing that is your biggest goal, the thing you most want in the world, and just go at it with full force. That's what I would I would recommend doing.
I also love that. I love that piece of advice. I would give that advice myself. Oh good, which is brilliant. Which is so brilliant. I want to thank you for coming on the podcast. Where can the listeners find you? Actually, I want to give a shout out to an article that you wrote that I think is really would be
really amazing. It's called the Joy of Underperforming. I think you wrote it like a couple of years ago, maybe, But if you guys are looking for further listening, for further reading, I'm sorry Olgraman and not even let you give your own recommendations. I will in a second, but I remember reading that article that you wrote and being like, wow, this is incredible for people in their twenties. But well, it's great, but where else can can they find you?
Yeah? So our website is the Atlantic dot com and I'm a writer there. I can find me and all my brilliant colleagues there, and you can find my book, which is called Me but Better wherever books are sold.
I'm very excited for it to come out. Comes out today. If you're listening to this the day that this is released, you can literally go and pre order a copy. And I know we had quite a few spoilers, but having already read a few chapters slash pages of this book, like, there's much more there and so much more science and research and just like fascinating tidbits. So thank you so
much Olga for coming on the show. And as always, if there is someone that you know who would like to listen to this episode who you think would be interested in this topic, feel free to send them a link. Make sure that you are following along. If you want to read us five stars, that would be very much appreciated. Until next time, thank you for listening, and stay kind, be safe, be gentle to yourself. We will talk very very soon