this is always something I've been
interested for something that I've
wanted to enrich myself with I think a
lot of people your your busy guy as far
as I can tell you just speaking
engagement lectures you operate a
YouTube channel presumably you're a
voracious reader I saw you on the couch
you had a book open you're like a moment
you're eating and you're prolific
tweeter you tweet a lot so my question
is how do you how do you organize your
time how do you remain focused and
productive in the face of insurmountable
work lists schedules and I have help I
mean my wife in particular in the last
year has been unbelievably helpful I
mean it's become a full-time job for her
really helping me - my schedule and keep
me on track but a lot of it is like I
get up in the morning I have like
everything scheduled I know exactly what
I'm supposed to do there's a hierarchy
of of priority and and I'm really
operating on a day-to-day level right
now because there's so many things to do
I can't look more than about a day or
two ahead although it's it's it's
basically scheduled no but I learned to
discipline myself when I was in graduate
school when I was writing I wrote a book
called maps of meaning that was
published in 1999 and I worked for that
on that for about 15 years about three
hours a day and I really sort of grabbed
myself by the scruff of the neck and
like forced myself to learn how to
concentrate without without deviation
how do you do that I mean well yeah how
do you how do you focus that intensely
because I I often have trouble like yeah
I get overwhelmed sometimes when I have
a lot of work and the worst feeling is
like when I feel like I have a ton of
work and I do work all day but I still
feel like I didn't get anything done
yeah yeah but you did I'm you probably
did problem are you a conscientious
person do you know I don't even know
okay well okay so that's another thing
we could mention briefly I have a
website called understand myself calm
and I set up a coupon code for your
viewers oh yeah well so it's h3 h3 oh
what's it say or the understand myself
calm okay and you can go there and take
a personality test that was devised in
my lab
the main researcher was dr. Colin
DeYoung who is now a professor at the
University of Minnesota but we took the
standard big five traits the standard
modern personality model so that's
extraversion which is a positive emotion
dimension and extroverted people are
enthusiastic and assertive so you're
both enthusiastic you're really
assertive that would be Mike I can be
yeah yeah well you wouldn't be doing
this sort of thing yeah yeah so because
you know you're you're you're verbally
fluent and and you'd like to engage in
that sort of thing so that's a positive
emotion to mention its associated with
the positive emotion that you feel when
you're moving towards desired things and
the next dimension is sometimes it's
called neuroticism and sometimes it's
called negative emotionality people who
are high in neuroticism have some
anticipatory anxiety you know you know
you have anticipatory anxiety if you're
worried about going somewhere yeah and
it really bugs you and then you get
there in like twenty minutes later
you're calm and it's okay big time okay
okay so that's withdrawal that's that's
an aspect of neuroticism known as
withdrawal and the other aspect is
volatility and volatile people are
touchy and irritable huh so and and
that's that's the second dimension the
third dimension is agreeableness and
agreeable people are compassionate and
polite and disagreeable people are
competitive and blunt and so women are
higher in agreeableness than men so if
you take a random man and a random woman
out of the population general population
and you bet on who is more agreeable if
you bet on the woman you'd be right 60
percent of the time and the other place
where men and women differ is with trait
neuroticism women are more susceptible
to anxiety and depression so how can you
say that if genders don't exist accused
of is that biological essentialism yeah
but what I feel like I experiencing
those different feelings depending on
the day you know sometimes our more
extroverted some days are more reclusive
you know there's a general that's
probably volatility - it's like
variation in mood
yeah yeah so have you ever had periods
of depression yeah how long or you don't
have to tell me I could tell yeah it's
okay in college I'd say a couple years
oh yeah okay so that's a long time well
so that would be an indication well it
could be an indication of many things
but that's often associated with higher
levels of trait neuroticism because you
see it isn't obvious how much negative
emotion you should feel like let's say
you wake up in the morning and you have
an ache in your side it's like well is
that nothing or cancer well you don't
know like you shouldn't jump to the
whole cancer conclusion right but but
you can't tell like it's not necessary
like and you think well if it is cancer
and you miss it well that's not so good
yeah you know so sometimes there's some
utility in being on edge all the time
especially in a dangerous environment
yeah yeah okay so the next dimension is
conscientiousness and conscientious
people are industrious and so they're
guilty if they're not working they have
to work the I have that you're like that
yeah you doodle it's awful or I hate it
yes I'm very self aware of it like I
feel like I can never relax right I feel
like I never got anything done right
right okay so we figured out why that is
okay the reason is is you're
conscientious so that that's associated
often with wealth feelings of shame or
guilt if you haven't got what you should
have got done and then if you're also
high a negative emotion then you worry
about that
so you know so that's that that can be
rough and so and the last dimension is
openness and openness is basically
interesting ideas and creativity
essentially and so if you take this test
at understand myself calm it will tell
you where you are in relationship to
10,000 other people on those dimensions
and it's useful for cut we're gonna make
a couples version of it so that you'll
get it we haven't gotten up yet so
you'll have a report saying well you
know you're really orderly and you're
not and so you're gonna have tension in
your relationship because the orderly
person is always going to be annoyed by
your disorderliness and end up cleaning
up after you all the time and so you're
gonna have to be aware of that because
that's gonna be and you know you're open
and your partner isn't well you're gonna
want to go to plays and movies and read
books and discuss ideas and there
I'm gonna be interested in that at all
and you know you kind of think of those
as opinions but they're really deeply
rooted no it sounds old are we doomed to
just possess these characteristics that
we hate about ourselves even if we're
self-aware of it I don't know how do you
address these issues of self-improvement
okay well people get more conscientious
and more and less neurotic and more
agreeable as they get older so you could
think about that perhaps as the
development of wisdom I also think that
you can you can learn the opposite
traits through practicing micro habits
so for example in my clinical practice
I've often had introverted people who
need to act in an extroverted way in
order to say to be successful lawyers
because they have to go out and drum up
business they have to meet with people
and they can learn the habits of an
extroverted person but they have to
learn them from the bottom up it's not
natural to them and if you're not very
conscientious for example like a
schedule is it learning how to use a
schedule and then learning how to stick
to it can be really useful as can making
a life plan I feel like I've gone
through that with our YouTube channel
and and the podcast because I'm I was
usually not in front of the camera and
I'm very uncomfortable with it and so
I've learned how to be more extroverted
I think yeah by like being on a video
and sheer will of force yeah yeah well I
I've watched a number of your videos and
you're clearly more introverted than
Ethan you know and I can see the way I
can see it in your body language because
you kind of pull back and you're you're
more hesitant to jump into a
conversation yeah and but but but you
have a fair bit of positive emotion you
smile a lot so so that's you know so so
that that might also make it somewhat
easier but my guess is you're far lower
and assertiveness than Ethan so see
that's interesting it could be pretty
she could be pretty scary it's that
Israeli in her yeah but in public or in
private don't push her yeah it could be
in public uh-huh yeah yeah what would be
interesting would be MC
I'll take the test because my she was
like I'm aware of my flaws I'm aware of
the things to drive me crazy but I'm not
really sure how do how to improve it
right I don't know I'm not maybe that's
the problems that I don't know how to
instruct myself to to to improve well
one of the things okay so I have this
other program that's the future
authoring program I mentioned ok so the
way it works is that it first of all
asks you to think about your life along
six or seven dimensions okay so here's
the idea
imagine you were treating yourself like
someone you were taken care of you know
someone you loved and you were taken
care of
hmm okay so you want the best for you
whatever that is so it's not like magic
wishes it's nothing like that it's
you're taking care of yourself like the
responsible person
okay so then it asks you right right a
bit three to five years down the road
what do you want your friendship network
to look like how do you want your
intimate relationship to be going or
what should it look like how are you
gonna stay educated how are you gonna
handle temptations of drugs and alcohol
you're gonna keep yourself healthy
mentally and physically what are your
career goals and what are you gonna do
with life outside of work
no so if if you could have what would be
good for you just what would that look
like
okay people don't aren't encouraged to
take the time to think that through it
really matters if you think it through
okay so then it says okay now you've
warmed up right for 20 minutes about
what your life could look like in three
to five years if it was going the way
that you wanted it to go so be good for
you be good for you good for your family
good for society like it'd be good you
need a vision okay then the next step is
okay now imagine that you let your
weaknesses and character flaws get the
upper hand and like Drive you into the
ground what does that look like in five
years so that's like a horrific vision
right and so that's a good thing because
now you've got something to run away
from and so if you're anxious having
something bad to run away from is really
motivating because you think well you
know like maybe I should watch what I
eat it's like yeah well I'd look better
that's that's not enough motivation I'm
gonna be fat and really unhealthy and
half dead in five years
okay that's not so good you know and so
you can run towards the positive thing
and run away from the negative thing and
that meant that increases your
motivation and then in the next part
you're asked to make that into a
detailed and articulated plan and so
that can help like you say well you're
not sure what habits to change or or or
what what what personality traits to
transform you got to kind of think about
that in relationship to what you want
you
[Music]