The Truth About Your Personality | Dr Benjamin Hardy | Modern Wisdom Podcast 185

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   Your personality should be…

   1. BHBenjamin Hardy0:00

      Your personality should be something that you design yourself. You know, that's obviously the core argument of the book is that it can be a choice. The research is pretty clear that over time your personality is going to change. You, as an example, are not the same person you were 5 or 10 years ago.

   2. CWChris Williamson0:17

      (wind blowing) Benjamin Hardy in the building. How are you doing, man?

   3. BHBenjamin Hardy0:23

      Doing good. Happy to be with you, man. Really happy to be with you.

   4. CWChris Williamson0:25

      Very happy to be with you. Talking about personality today. How do we define it? What is a personality?

   5. BHBenjamin Hardy0:32

      (laughs) Well, there's a lot of different ways to look at it, but I think kind of the most surface level, just basic way of looking at it is that it's your consistent attitudes and behaviors, you know, just a per- a person's consistent way of being.

   6. CWChris Williamson0:44

      Okay, so the way that you act in the world.

   7. BHBenjamin Hardy0:47

      Yeah. A way... Yeah, very much act, you know, and how you kind of... And your attitudes, so it's how you show up regularly in situations.

   8. CWChris Williamson0:54

      Okay. That seems pretty basic. That doesn't seem like there should be any debate about what's going on with it.

   9. BHBenjamin Hardy0:59

      (laughs)

   10. CWChris Williamson1:00

       You know? This is what you do, that's your personality. Okay. So, what are the biggest myths about personality?

   11. BHBenjamin Hardy1:08

       Uh, one being that it's hardwired, that it's innate, that it can't change, um, that the best way to understand your personality is by looking to the past and, you know, uh, which makes sense. I mean, if, if you're trying to understand who a person's going to be, it makes sense to go and look to the past and be like, "Oh, well, that's how that person's been, so that's probably how they're always gonna be." Um, other kind of general views are that it's something you can discover. Because it's innate, because it's viewed as hardwired, your, your job is to discover it. And then once you've finally discovered who you truly are, then you can finally go and create that life that's tailor-made and fit perfectly for you, and you can find your perfect spouse and perfect friends so it all fits nice and neat, and you don't have to go through any change or grinding, you know. Just your life will be perfect once you've found that out.

   12. CWChris Williamson1:51

       Just falls into place?

   13. BHBenjamin Hardy1:53

       Exactly.

   14. CWChris Williamson1:54

       Okay. So if you're not... or if that's a myth, if one of the myths is that you discover your personality, which by the definition that we came up with earlier on is the way that you act in the world, if you don't discover that by looking backwards, how do you discover what your personality is? Is there anything to discover?

   15. BHBenjamin Hardy2:16

       Uh, I mean, it depends on how you wanna look at it. I think that there are things you can learn about yourself without question, um, but ultimately, your personality should be something you desi- you design yourself. You know, that's obviously the core argument of the book is that it can be a choice. The research is pretty clear that over time your personality is going to change. You, as an example, are not the same person you were 5 or 10 years ago. You know, you're, you actually have changed. Even... You've actually probably changed more than you think you have because we see the world through the lens of our identity, and so we think we've actually probably changed less than we actually have because we see the world through, through our identity. One, one important crucial thing here, just to clarify, is that identity and personality are two different things. Identity is how you define and describe yourself. It's your self-concept, whereas personality is how you consistently act in the world, but your identity is way more important. Your identity, again, is how you define and describe yourself. So if you said, "I'm an introvert," that's a statement about your identity. It may not actually be true. In fact, I would say it's not always true, but your, your self-concept drives your behavior, and your behavior over time becomes your personality. And so a big problem with identity is, is that we, we get very fixated on our identity, you know. We define ourselves certain ways. "This is the type of person I am." It's, it's shaped by the stories we tell about ourselves, and those stories are usually either pre- present-based or past-based. Very rarely will you hear someone talk about who they aspire to be.

   16. CWChris Williamson3:47

       Mm. Well, I suppose if you've got either overconfidence or imposter syndrome, you're either going to underpitch or overpitch what you presume that you will be in the future, right? You-

   17. BHBenjamin Hardy4:01

       Sure, sure.

   18. CWChris Williamson4:01

       So are we saying that what most people do is take a couple of traits or perhaps a few experiences, a few, uh, dispositions, proclivities that they have in the way that they operate within the world, and then drawing some much grander conclusions from that, and then saying, "This is my personality and/or identity"?

   19. BHBenjamin Hardy4:24

       That's a big one. Yeah, that, that has a lot to do with it, yes. We, we tend to really give a lot of weight to various instances. Some of them could have been traumatic, as an example, you know, but we give, we give weight to a lot of former experiences, and those former experiences shape how we see the world. So for example, if you failed a math test, and it was just, you know, it wasn't that great for you, you may then just say that that one instance really proves that you can't do math, so therefore that is not something you can do. You know, you have a bad experience giving a speech in front of a class, you're... Therefore, you can't be someone who could be good at speaking. We, we tend to define ourselves very strongly by former experiences, particularly the negative ones, um, and then we tend to avoid those negative experiences and try to find something that feels a little easier. Your comfort zone and your personality are, are very similar concepts. Uh, I would actually lump them into a very similar category, where you do what's comfortable, and you don't do what's uncomfortable, and to step outside your comfort zone would be to probably act outside of your way of typically doing things. But that's where obviously growth and learning are, and that's where new experiences are. That's where change is. Just as one other quick example, like our, our two twins. I've got 2 18-month-old girls. We live in Florida where there's a lot of swimming pools, so we're having our two girls do swimming lessons, right? First several times you put them in the swimming pool, these two little girls who can't even talk, you know, it's pretty tough. They're screaming, they're yelling.

   20. CWChris Williamson5:48

       (laughs)

   21. BHBenjamin Hardy5:48

       A month and a half, two months later, these girls are freaking amazing swimmers.

   22. CWChris Williamson5:51

       Yeah.

   23. BHBenjamin Hardy5:52

       Um, the question is though as adults, how often do we put ourselves into such immersive learning experiences? We stop doing that over time because often as people get older, they...... they stop wanting to deal with such emotional learning experiences. They prefer to be able to predict the outcomes of their behavior, so they don't want to put themselves into situations that are unpredictable or difficult or challenging or emotionally stimulating.

   24. CWChris Williamson6:14

       Yeah. I, I, I find it interesting how it relates to the comfort zone thing, that you're ... It's kind of a little bit like putting the cart before the horse or putting the horse before the cart here, right? That the actions that you tend toward are restricted by your own view of your own identity and your personality, which further drills you into that particular pigeonhole. "I am the person who is bad at maths, therefore I'll always let the friend get the bill or whatever, because that's how I self-identify," which then makes you, cyclically makes you worse at maths. (laughs)

   25. BHBenjamin Hardy6:46

       Exactly. No, it's true. It's, what's i- what's interesting about identity, if you think about how people define and describe themselves, identity feels very sacred and personal. And so because it's your identity, you seek to defend it and to confirm it. So, if you're telling someone you're bad at math, you're actually going to try to confirm that by proving that you're bad at maths.

   26. CWChris Williamson7:03

       "Look at how bad at maths I am."

   27. BHBenjamin Hardy7:04

       Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Like- (laughs)

   28. CWChris Williamson7:06

       (laughs)

   29. BHBenjamin Hardy7:07

       And, and, and so we're very, we, we, we really like to define, define our current identity. What's ... So, there's a really good TED Talk by, uh, Daniel Gilbert. He's at Harvard. He gave a TED talk called The Psychology of Your Future Self. Have you seen that one?

   30. CWChris Williamson7:20

       No.
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   So your personality, in…

   1. BHBenjamin Hardy15:00

      true you, it has a lot to do with decision-making, choices, attention, you know, wherever you draw your... You know, it could even have to do with consciousness. But like, it's where you draw your attention, it's your ability to make choices, to choose, to m- you know, to make decisions. That's more fundamental than just whatever you are right now, 'cause who you are right now is different from who you were when you were 10 years old. You know, so how you're represented in the outside world is not the full picture.

   2. CWChris Williamson15:27

      So your personality, in a very real sense, is actually your capacity to make choices to change your personality. Would that be one way to think about it?

   3. BHBenjamin Hardy15:36

      Uh, I wouldn't say it as personality. I mean, you could u- you could use a different word. Personality, I would rather use, I mean, e- personality is just how you show up.

   4. CWChris Williamson15:45

      Okay.

   5. BHBenjamin Hardy15:45

      You know, actually the word comes from persona, like which is back in the day was like viewed as a mask. You know, like you have a different mask in different situations. Like Shakespeare said, "All the world's a stage," and all of us come and go. We've got different roles that we play, right? Yeah, so right now you're a podcaster in one situation, you might be, you know, I'm gonna go home and I'm gonna go be a dad, you know? I'm gonna actually-

   6. CWChris Williamson16:04

      Dad mask goes on, podcast mask goes off, yeah.

   7. BHBenjamin Hardy16:07

      To some degree. I mean, I'm in a different role, I'm still me, it's not like I'm pretending to be someone different, I'm just in a different situation. And if you actually followed me in all those situations, I wouldn't actually be the exact same dude in every situation, (laughs) you know? Like I've gotta actually be a little different from context to context, you know, from situation to situation. Um, so yeah, I, I think what it, what... Yeah, so personality is just how you're showing up.

   8. CWChris Williamson16:31

      Okay. Let's-

   9. BHBenjamin Hardy16:32

      Very temporary.

   10. CWChris Williamson16:33

       Let's talk about personality tests, 'cause I've got a story from last year, um-

   11. BHBenjamin Hardy16:38

       Let's hear it.

   12. CWChris Williamson16:39

       I was speaking to a girl, um, sort of slightly well, slightly well-known girl, and before we started getting even close to serious, she made me take a big five personality test.

   13. BHBenjamin Hardy16:53

       She had you take the big five?

   14. CWChris Williamson16:55

       Yeah.

   15. BHBenjamin Hardy16:56

       Cool. What, what happened?

   16. CWChris Williamson16:57

       Uh, I, I've done it a number of times before. (clears throat) Took the test, sent it to her, 'cause I just thought, "Well, this is fun." I was like, "You do it as well. You take it as well, 'cause I wanna see what yours are." And, um, I already knew what my results would be. It actually s- had moved a little bit, um, from the last time, but I knew what my results would be, and, um, that, that apparently passed whatever particular criteria she'd had for, uh, someone that she was sort of speaking to. And she had a fairly good justification. We can get into the, uh, accuracy of personality tests in a second, but her justification was, it's a very expedient way to work out what sort of person someone is. And as someone that likes, (laughs) likes efficiency, I actually found it, I found it interesting. I wasn't too sure what it meant about her worldview, but I actually found it quite, quite an interesting way to kind of begin a dialogue with a girl.

   17. BHBenjamin Hardy17:58

       Are you still with her?

   18. CWChris Williamson17:59

       No.

   19. BHBenjamin Hardy18:01

       So it didn't work? (laughs)

   20. CWChris Williamson18:02

       Didn't work. Didn't work, no. But I don't know whether that was due to the personality tr-

   21. BHBenjamin Hardy18:05

       It didn't predict, it didn't, it didn't predict, it didn't predict success in the relationship?

   22. CWChris Williamson18:07

       It did not. It did not at all, no. Can you tell us this-

   23. BHBenjamin Hardy18:10

       I'm gonna give her credit, I'm gonna give her, I'm gonna give her huge kudos though, 'cause the big five is actually a better way of looking at personality.... um, Big Five is more of a scientific way of looking at personality. So, you got... and I, I, I wasn't, I'm not actually sure which test you took, you know, 'cause there's a lot of them on the Big Five. But on that test, you'd be s- you'd got, you, you'd get a score on, on the five, right? One out of 100, right?

   24. CWChris Williamson18:36

       Correct.

   25. BHBenjamin Hardy18:37

       So, you got a score one out of 100 on introversion versus extroversion. You would never actually be called an introvert or an extrovert. You'd just say that, "I'm like a 36 on the scale"-

   26. CWChris Williamson18:44

       Yeah.

   27. BHBenjamin Hardy18:44

       ... "or something," right?

   28. CWChris Williamson18:45

       X percentile.

   29. BHBenjamin Hardy18:46

       That's the key. That is the key, um, is that the research on Big Five shows that in different situations, you're going to be a little different. It's going to change over time no matter what. Um, Big Five, good for your, that lady, 'cause that's, that's the best way of looking at personality. Um, most of the tests are not like that.

   30. CWChris Williamson19:06

       Interesting.
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   I mean, I, I'd…

   1. CWChris Williamson30:00

      use to understanding where your strengths and weaknesses lie, but is a personality test the best way to go about that? Is there another way to do it? Can we just, like, reflect, iteratively reflect on the way that we operate day-to-day?

   2. BHBenjamin Hardy30:15

      I mean, I, I'd ask you, how have you, well, let's just say, either decided, honed, figured out the strengths and weaknesses that you either like to develop or not develop, and is there a way that you've done it?

   3. CWChris Williamson30:27

      A lot of introspective work, a lot of reflection. Um-... a three and a bit years of consistent meditation practice with a meditation coach, a lot of daily journaling. I've got-

   4. BHBenjamin Hardy30:39

      So what you've just described is enormously more valuable than anything you would ever get from a personality test. Um, yeah, meditation, journaling, also decision-making. Um, yeah, so journaling obviously about your past and present, you know, journaling about who you want to be, journaling about what you're dealing with, that is such an incredible, what, what I would consider an emotional regulation tool. You know, uh, it allows you to be clear on your emotions, give them picture. It allows you to choose the meanings that you give to your former experiences. It allows you to think very clearly about who you want to be. It gives you space to think, reflect, meditate. So yeah, that, that is a much better place of understanding who you are and what you're dealing with and also integrating. You know, just as an example, um, you know, we all have strengths and weaknesses. We all have a personality. I'm not declining that. But what, you know, the extent to which that's fluid or flexible in many ways is up to our own practices, such as meditation. You know what, what I mean? And so as an example, my, one of my sons, he, you know, because we adopted three from the foster system, we, uh, he, he, he's semi-extreme sometimes when he's with his friends. You know, like he'll sometimes, like, throw, like, little emotional outbursts, and that's what a- literally happened yesterday. So one of our neighbors was over and they were swimming in our backyard. My son, who's eight years old, started kind of freaking out a little bit, and so our neighbor left. (laughs) Like, he was just like, "I'm not hanging out with you. Screw this." He peaced out. And so then my son was all mad because his friend left, and we're like, "Well, what happened?" And he was like, "Well, he was talking to you and was saying blah, blah, blah." Like, he was being rude, you know? And, but he was sad that the friend left, and then we kicked him out of the pool because he was being a jerk. And so I'm like, "All right, you've got to pull out your journal." And this is about an hour, about 30 minutes later after he-

   5. CWChris Williamson32:26

      How old, how old's your son?

   6. BHBenjamin Hardy32:27

      Eight years old. And I said, "Just write." Because this was after he'd got kicked out of the pool and he was pretty bummed out and he was feeling sad. And usually when we're sad, we, we, we suppress it. We don't, we don't clear it up. Uh, you know, and w- the way to clear it up ... So what Viktor Frankl said in Man's Search for Meaning, have you ever read that one?

   7. CWChris Williamson32:44

      Yeah.

   8. BHBenjamin Hardy32:44

      Isn't that killer?

   9. CWChris Williamson32:45

      Oh, bro. Let me interject there before you go on and tell us what you've done.

   10. BHBenjamin Hardy32:49

       Go. Interject.

   11. CWChris Williamson32:51

       (clears throat) Um, The Forgotten Highlander by Alistair Urquhart.

   12. BHBenjamin Hardy32:56

       I'll read it.

   13. CWChris Williamson32:57

       Bro.

   14. BHBenjamin Hardy32:57

       Never read it.

   15. CWChris Williamson32:58

       Bro.

   16. BHBenjamin Hardy32:59

       Okay.

   17. CWChris Williamson32:59

       Oh, my days.

   18. BHBenjamin Hardy33:01

       Okay.

   19. CWChris Williamson33:01

       Um, remove all of the psychology, remove the, the, the understanding and the, and kind of the, um, uh, that transparency that, that Frankl brings to it where he's actually able to see what's going on, but just take his experience and turn it up to 11 for about six years. Dude, that's-

   20. BHBenjamin Hardy33:21

       Okay.

   21. CWChris Williamson33:21

       I'll leave you with that.

   22. BHBenjamin Hardy33:22

       The Forgotten Highlander?

   23. CWChris Williamson33:23

       Forgotten Highlander by Alistair Urquhart.

   24. BHBenjamin Hardy33:24

       Okay.

   25. CWChris Williamson33:24

       Yeah, it'll take your head off. So good. So good.

   26. BHBenjamin Hardy33:27

       Okay. Well, so let me just give two quick Frankl insights and then I'll go back to my son.

   27. CWChris Williamson33:30

       Please.

   28. BHBenjamin Hardy33:31

       (inhales) Insight number one, and this is goes to my son, is that emotion ceases to be suffering the minute you give a clear picture of it.

   29. CWChris Williamson33:39

       What's that mean?

   30. BHBenjamin Hardy33:40

       Emotion ceases to be suffering when you give a clear picture of it. You give a clear picture to your emotions by turning them into words. So for example, if you write about ... and it can turn it into a story. So my son was feeling sad and overwhelmed. And I said, "Write about what happened." "Well, I was swimming in the backyard with Rowan and I was being a, a jerk to him and then he left. And now I feel bad because I got kicked out of the pool." Now we have a picture of it. "Oh, so that's what happened, and this is why you don't feel very good. Um, what should we do about it? Like, how do you feel because this happened?" "I don't feel very good about it. I just feel pretty bummed." "What, what else do you feel?" "Well, I'm sad that I made Rowan leave because I wish I was out there swimming with him and now I got kicked out of the pool." "Okay. Well, what do you want to do about this? You know, do you want to swim with Rowan in the future and do you want to have good experiences in the future?" "Yeah." "So what, what needs to happen? Do you need to do anything to Rowan? Do you need to apologize or any..." You know, this is like literally turning emotions into a picture so that you can then know what to do with it so it's less overwhelming. The problem is that a lot of people, they don't have an emotional regulation technique so that they can get clear. Um, the other thing Frankl said real quick, and I'll just throw this out there, but then we can continue forward, is that Frankl said that the on- you know, the moment a person loses hope and per- per- purpose for their future, the present becomes meaningless. And as a result, the suffering in the present becomes unbearable. So if you're in the freaking ho- Holocaust, what that means is you die. If you lose hope in the fu- future, you die in the Holocaust. You know, that's why he said that circums- he said the, he said circumstances ... He said life is not unbearable by circumstance, it's un- it's unbearable by la- having a lack of meaning and purpose for your life. And so he said you have to have a hope and meaning for your future in order to actually have a healthy present. You can't live in the present without a future. And that makes so much sense when you think about Hal Hershfield's research on future self and making decisions based on what your future self would want. You can't make good decisions in the present without having a quality future to wor- work towards. Frankl said that. So anyways, yeah, but the only reason I brought up my son with you and journaling is that journaling and meditation and decision-making and moving forward, setting goals, moving forward, learning, those are the best ways that you're going to learn about yourself.
4. 45:00 – 56:15

   ... the, the practical…

   1. BHBenjamin Hardy45:00

      challenge my (laughs) my emotional assessment, you know. Then ultimately, it takes courage. All progress starts by telling the truth. I told the guy who runs the group, I said, "Dude, I'm sorry first off I gave a really horrible speech at your event. Uh, also, I don't know if I can be in this group anymore because I don't know if I'm providing value to this group, and I'm not even sure if the group's providing value to me." I was just very open, and I think that this is a gr- crucial key to reframing your past, is that you need to be open about it. You need to be willing to talk about some things, and also in real time talk about it. But he was like, "Dude, Ben, it wasn't that bad. Plus, also, that one didn't work out very well, but we, we've got other options. There's other ways to do this." And so I'm like, I just ma- it made me realize, okay, I was coming to some rash decisions, right? And that's usually what happens with trauma, is a negative thing happens and you make rash decisions. And so the goal is this, and this will be the last thing I say about the past. First off, the past is just a meaning, it's a memory, and you can change your memories. You can change the meaning and the emotions. So rather than now, and literally this was only three or four days ago, I wa- I had a horrible three or four days where I was caught up in my emotions. Now, I've proactively chosen to view the past, that ex- that episode as, that was the best meeting I've ever been to. I didn't have to view it that way, but I'm choosing to view it that way. Literally. And I do- and I'm not saying I'm, I'm not being naive. Like, literally, that event happened for me, not to me. And that's really how you want to view the past, is it happened for me, not to me. If you can say that and you can believe it and you can say, "I, if I learn from this, my future's gonna be a lot better," it's like turning the obstacle into the way, right? Like what Ryan Holiday would say. It's choosing to look at the past and saying, "I can turn this into something better." Or you can say, "I'm defined by this, therefore I suck." So, that's just step one, is that you have to choose better meanings and better story for your past. And you can do that with anything. Me as an 11-year-old kid, me last week. It's choosing a better narration and viewing the past from a positive perspective that it happened for you. And the- That is-

   2. CWChris Williamson47:01

      ... the, the practical steps to do that are to perhaps journal, perhaps speak to somebody about it. Are those the, the two-

   3. BHBenjamin Hardy47:07

      Get alternative perspec- Tho- tho- th- those two things neutralize the emotions, right?

   4. CWChris Williamson47:11

      Okay.

   5. BHBenjamin Hardy47:12

      Get more information. Yeah, you actually want the past to be information and emotion, but yeah, journaling about it, writing about it, learning about it. Asking questions, being curious, getting more information. That's what I had to do with my dad, getting more information about the situation 'cause the more context you have, the more empathy you'll have, the more understanding you'll have. I have empathy, a lot of empathy towards my former self. I was really mad at my for- myself two days ago, but now I'm like, "You know what? If I really think about it, I did the absolute best I could." I wasn't good enough for the task at the time, but I can, but I'm not defined by where I am right now. You know what I mean? And there's still plenty of potential in that group and in that situation if I choose to go that way. I don't have to be defined, in other words, by what happened. I can still be defined by my goals. And that's actually the key, is that you don't want to be defined by the past. You want to be defined by your goals. And so... And you don't want your behavior to be predicted by your past. You want your behavior to be predicted by your future self, the person you want to be. So rather than being defined by that thing and letting my, that thing drive my behavior, I should be thinking in a more flexible way, "What, what is my ultimate goal? Who's my future self?" That's the thing that should drive how I handle the situation, which may require me to courageously come up to the group and say, "Look, guys, I kind of flopped that last talk, but I still want help with this launch. Is there anything we can do?" Like, I could go back to being flexible towards the goal versus defined by the past. So, that's just the thing that we need to all do with our past. As far as future self, here are the steps, and this is a lot more linear. You need to think about who you really want to be in the future. Your future self is a decision you make, not a discovery you make. You don't discover your future self. You decide who you want to be. (laughs) Um, and that has a lot to do with thinking about where do you want to be in your life. Like-... where do you want to ... I, I think two to three years out is a great timeframe. You know, you might know beyond that. Like, obviously, me, myself as an example with five kids, I knew five, 10 years ago that I was going to have kids. And so, I had a future self, but on a very practical scale, where do you want to be in two to three years from now? What do you want your circumstances to be? Who do you want, like, who do you want to be in a relationship with? How do you want those relationships to be? What do you want your health to be like? What do you want your income ... Like, how do you want your day-to-day life to be like? What do you want your focus to be on? What do you want to be doing? Um, you know, just really clarifying your future self. Once you've clarified it, and I would say through journaling, and daily morning journaling really helps. You know, it's a drafting process. You never actually finish this. And by the way, your current future self is based on a few things. It's based on your current knowledge, 'cause once you learn new things, you prob- you might have new and better goals. It's also based on your current level of confidence, right? Like, you, you know, you and I may not have the future self to go make a billion dollars. (laughs) Y- you know, maybe yours is in three years. Maybe you have the capacity to make a billion dollars in three years from now. I don't ... I, I wouldn't project that right now. (laughs)

   6. CWChris Williamson49:56

      I, I think, I think me and you are in the same camp. Yeah.

   7. BHBenjamin Hardy49:59

      Okay. So like, I don't have the confidence or the resources or the skills to do that right now. Um, and so I probably wouldn't have that as my future self. But as I build more confidence through gaining more experiences, through building better relationships, I can then project out a higher level future self. Um, but anyways, once you've decided your future self, you need to then change your narrative, your identity narrative. Rather than being so definitive in who you are and also overly describing your past, it becomes very powerful when you start telling people about your future self, telling people about your goals. A lot of people s- say you shouldn't tell people about your goals 'cause you're going to get negative feedback. (laughs) But you should, but you need to get ... That, if that's who you really want to be and if that's what you want to do, then you're actually living a lie if you don't tell people who you're trying to be. Now, this isn't fake it till you make it. This isn't pretending to be your future self, because your future self is not you. They're a different person. This is saying, "This is where I want to go, and this is what I'm up to and this is what I'm trying for." That allows you to, first off, believe it more because you're now telling people who you want to be, which hits you at the subconscious level. But then when you start telling people about your future self, you will start to feel compelled to start organizing your behavior, start acting more congruently with your story. If I started telling people, "Look, I really want to start a podcast," and I started telling everyone I wanted to start a podcast, or I told everyone I wanted to run a marathon, if I didn't start running, they'd be like, "Dude, what the freak? Why are you telling us this?"

   8. CWChris Williamson51:21

      (laughs) You said that you were going to do that thing.

   9. BHBenjamin Hardy51:22

      Yeah. So you start to feel compelled to act according to your story, and therefore your behavior starts aligning with your future self rather than your former self. And in psychology, we call it self-signaling, but basically, your behavior signals back to your identity or your subconscious the type of person you are. So this gets back to James Clear. Your i- your behavior signals back to you or, or creates votes to the type of person you think you are. Behavior s- solidifies identity. So when you start telling people, "I want to do X, Y, and Z," or, "This is where I want to be in the future," and then you start acting that way, it, it really solidifies who you are and that's how your personality gets shaped. Um, one last thought. Aside from obviously, like, organizing environment around your things like that, investing money into your future identity creates an extreme amount of commitment. The more money ... And, and obviously you can start with small investments, but for myself as an example, when I started investing money into my goal to be a writer, I got really serious. I bought a domain name back, like, in 2015. Cost 800 bucks. My wife was like, "Are you sure about this?"

   10. CWChris Williamson52:23

       (laughs)

   11. BHBenjamin Hardy52:23

       You know? But I've since made bigger and bigger investments because when you do that, what you're doing is you're actually saying, "I believe in my future self. This is who I am and I'm going to start putting money towards it in the present. In the present, I'm going to make an investment towards that future self." And that really gets you committed. Um, like from a psychological standpoint, we call it sunk cost bias. We also call it escalation of commitment. But as you invest in things, you start to really get committed to it on an emotional level, and you identify with the things you spend money on. And so if you're serious about something, like let's just say you're serious about really getting into shape, get a freaking personal trainer or something like that. Invest in health products or whatever. Like, that really convinces your identity that this is the direction you're going.

   12. CWChris Williamson53:03

       It really feels like a lot of this stuff, both backward facing and forward facing, is to do with taking the notions that we have inside of our heads, the, uh, sentiment of the person that I was or the idea of being the person that I'm going to become, uh, and concreting them, forcing them either through a linguistic commitment or through a social commitment or through a financial commitment. It gives them form. And, um, I feel like I-

   13. BHBenjamin Hardy53:31

       At least the future self, yeah.

   14. CWChris Williamson53:32

       Yeah, for sure. Uh, your newsletter has like half a million subs or something, is that right? Yeah. Where can-

   15. BHBenjamin Hardy53:41

       Close to, yeah. Close to 400,000.

   16. CWChris Williamson53:43

       Where can people, where can people go to subscribe to that? Because I'm sure that there'll be a lot of people very interested in your work after today's discussion.

   17. BHBenjamin Hardy53:50

       Oh, cool, man. Thank you. Uh, yeah, if you go to Benjamin Hardi, benjaminhardy.com, you can find my newsletter.

   18. CWChris Williamson53:54

       Good domain name. Worth, worth $800, man.

   19. BHBenjamin Hardy53:58

       Yeah. It's usually my name, right? (laughs)

   20. CWChris Williamson53:59

       Yeah. That, but y- y- you know, it's, it's challenging. You gotta, you gotta do that thing. Uh, Benjamin-

   21. BHBenjamin Hardy54:04

       I mean, if I hadn't gotten it by now, it would've been gone.

   22. CWChris Williamson54:06

       Oh, it would've, dude. I'm, I'm currently in the process of, like, choosing what mine's going to be, and there's some guy that makes movies in Hollywood that has just chewed up every Chris Williamson iteration available and I'm like, "You d- you didn't even leave a, like, .co. Leave a .co, dude. Come on." But, uh-

   23. BHBenjamin Hardy54:26

       (laughs) He didn't leave you anything, dude.

   24. CWChris Williamson54:28

       Oh, dude, he's, he's eating ... And then there's some guy that's just got Christopher Williamson on holding. Oh, don't, don't get me into it.

   25. BHBenjamin Hardy54:33

       Dude, I know, but it's like that, that's the new real estate. (laughs)

   26. CWChris Williamson54:36

       It is. Motherfuckers parking, parking themselves on this thing. Look, Personality Isn't Permanent will be linked in the show notes below. I think, y- you know, this is real ground sort of shaking, scary stuff, man.

   27. BHBenjamin Hardy54:49

       It is. It's gon- it's gonna, it's gonna shake a lot of people, for sure.

   28. CWChris Williamson54:54

       I love it, man. I love when stuff like this happens. I think it's really, really cool. Um, if you've enjoyed this discussion, make sure that you subscribe to Ben's, uh, his newsletter. Personality Isn't Permanent will be linked in the show notes below. If you follow it through that, you will be supporting the podcast at no extra cost to yourself. Where else can people get you, man? You're on Twitter and stuff like that?

   29. BHBenjamin Hardy55:13

       Yeah. Yeah, but I mean, you can find all that stuff at benjaminhardy.com. I would mostly say just get the book, Personality Isn't Permanent, um, and go to benjaminhardy.com. There's actually a lot of free online courses where I break you through the concepts in the book. This book actually has about 150 journal prompts throughout it to help you reframe the past, help you really get clear on your future self. It takes you step by step, like literally how you can change the narrative of the past, get really clear on the narrative of the future, um, change your environment, change your subconscious. I mean, yeah, so, but also has-

   30. CWChris Williamson55:42

       Seems like a pretty good deal to me, man. I mean, you know it do- it doesn't seem like that bad of a book. Dude, uh, it's awesome. A handbook for change. How fantastic. Look-

Episode duration: 56:15