Olga Khazan is an author and staff writer at The Atlantic, where she publishes stories on health, social science, psychology, and other thought-provoking topics. In 2020, she published her first book, Weird: The Power of Being an Outsider in an Insider World, which draws on her experiences as both an immigrant and a natural introvert. Olga’s latest book, Me, But Better: The Science and Promise of Personality Change, chronicles her year-long personal experiment to reshape her personality. Olga joins the podcast to discuss how she intentionally became more extroverted and how becoming a parent can change our personalities.
Transcripts of our episodes are made available as soon as possible. They are not fully edited for grammar or spelling.
Tom: Olga, welcome to the show.
Olga: Hi. Thanks so much for having me.
Tom: So, I’m going to start by asking, I think when, I imagine when people hear your name for the first time. They imagined you’re from another country, from another culture with a different language. Uh, did you immigrate here or were you born in the United States?
Olga: I am from another country with a different culture, uh, and I, did immigrate here. I was not born in the United States.
Tom: Yeah. So yeah, imagine. So, uh, this culture was, was new for you, new for your parents. Are there some, like indelible memories from your childhood of growing up as an outsider in an insider’s world?
Olga: Yeah. Yeah. So, my first book, was kind of sparked by the fact that I grew up in West Texas, uh, as a Russian immigrant. I would say just the overwhelming feeling that I had was that, uh, everyone was deeply, deeply religious, and, um, my family was not. so yeah, that was sort of my first kind of like, like foray into like one of these things is not like the others and sort of like trying, trying to fit in and not it, not really working.
Tom: Did you have, uh, any teachers or mentors that sort of steered you into writing in journalism? At a certain point?
Olga: Yeah, I mean, like, it was just something where I, I spent a lot of time on my, like, by myself because, uh, no one liked me because I wasn’t American
Tom: Yeah.
Olga: and uh, um, so I think that led to me reading a lot and, uh, kind of just, I don’t know, living in my own world a little bit. And then, um, trying to express myself through writing. And so, it was just something where I, I got a lot of practice at it and then teachers would kind of like praise me for it and then I would kind of do more of it because I noticed that it got me a lot of praise.
And then that sort of just continued to the present day.
Tom: for our listeners who don’t read your stories regularly, uh, could you tell them, uh, maybe what, what topic, areas and, and subjects that you’re most. passionately focused on.
Olga: focused on. I read a lot about human behavior, psychology, but also just demographic trends and where people are moving, what people are doing. Are people working from home, are they not? Um, and then lately I’ve also been writing a lot about parenting and motherhood.
Tom: Well, I want to turn my attention now to the subject of your new book about personality change, in which you are the subject of an experiment. I have followed your career for a long time, and I don’t think of you as a flamboyant self-promoter. So how did it happen that you had a feature story in the Atlantic a few years ago about yourself?
Olga: Yeah. So, um, I had sort of come across some research on personality change and written like a short article about it, uh, for the New York Times. Um, and then my editor she was like, you could, you could write this out with you as like the person trying to change her personality. Um, and at first it was like, I don’t know. Um, but then I. Kind of like learned more about it and more about the phenomenon. And I was like, I think this could be a fun and, it could, possibly help me,
Tom: Mm-hmm.
Olga: uh, in, in some pretty significant ways. Um, and so it kind of went from there. And then, because the article was pretty like first person-Ish, the book also became that way. and, um. Yeah, it was at times hard to be super vulnerable, but, um, in some ways, like this stuff was so personal, like, like personality change so depends on what’s going on inside of you that I think it, it. Your kind of must open and like tell people what you were thinking at the time, because if, if you just talk to someone, it’s like, oh yeah, then I like went to a bunch of parties and then I became more extroverted. like, that doesn’t show you like the, the many layers underneath that.
Tom: Right. Yeah. how would you describe your per personality before you? undertook the experiment? Or maybe how would other people have described you?
Olga: okay, so I was a bridesmaid at my friend’s wedding and, um, she wrote something about
me that was like, she’s extremely straightforward and she doesn’t tolerate
any bullshit. And I was like, Oh my God. Like I am your, like your best friend. And like the, the nice thing you can say about me is that, uh, I don’t tolerate any bullshit. And then, in grad school we did this project where we like wrote fake obituaries about each other, like as practice. So, we had to interview each other’s like friends and family and my, my writing partner like interviewed everyone I knew, and they were like, he really enjoys grocery shopping.
Tom: Well, that’s very diplomatic.
Olga: And I was like, okay, so I like don’t tolerate any bullshit and I really enjoy grocery shopping. I don’t know. I was like, the overwhelming impression that I got is that people feared me, and thought I was mean. And That I was so stressed out that my stress like infected everyone else.
Tom: it’d be hard to include that in obituary. I feel like it would just, uh, be better left unsaid. Right. You might get the, you might have had the shortest obituary of all time.
Olga: Yeah. She lived and then she died.
Tom: Um, from, from your own vantage point, what was your primary motivation for, experimenting with personality change and, and trying to change it.
Olga: Yeah, so I, it’s true that I was very stressed out. I mean, honestly, I still am quite stressed out often. Um, but I really had no way of managing my stress. I was so anxious. Worried all the time, that it was honestly like I wasn’t really enjoying my life. like I would worry about something and worry about something, and worry about something, and then the, it would happen or not happen and then I would just like snap into worrying about the next thing.
so really like when, when people talk about happiness, a lot of it comes down
to, and this is going to sound cheesy, but like living in the present moment because. Your happiness is kind of decided moment to moment It’s; it’s not decided by some magical future where like you won’t have any problems, and you’ll get to just have days and days of happiness. Um, so it, I, but I really wasn’t soaking up
those moments. I, I. I was never in the present moment, and I never appreciated what I had. And so, it was sort of like, I mean, that was sort of like the big, big reason. And then the other thing was that I was just very socially isolated.
Tom: Gotcha. Uh, what were the primary activities that you tried to generate Uh, a personality change?
Olga: Um, so it depends on the trait, um, that I was working on at the time. But for me, I was mostly working on extroversion, neuroticism and agreeableness and, for each of those it was different things. But basically, I, what I ended up having to do is sign up for an activity that would, um, force me to do something regularly. and that it was hard to back out of, like that was like the key thing for me because I could always find something better to do than to like, you know, socialize
Tom: Yeah. were there certain classes or groups that you, that you joined?
Olga: Yeah, so, so, um, for extrovert, so one of my things was that I wanted to be more extroverted. Um, and so for that one, I signed up for improv and for sailing club. And I also went on a bunch of hiking meetup groups. so, like just groups of strangers hiking through the parks of DC together.
Tom: I can imagine for someone who isn’t extroverted. It’s you’re putting yourself in a no escape situation if you’re in a sailboat. Or out somewhere far from vehicles. If you’re not having a good time, you’re still there. Cause you’re all, you’re all, together. So.
Olga: Yeah. And some of these I would not have a good time really. I would have awkward conversations with people. We wouldn’t have anything in common. sometimes I was wondering if they were like even understanding me, what I was saying. Um, uh, but the sailing was a little bit better because being on a boat, I saw a New Yorker cartoon recently where it was like, two people in a sailboat and they were like, just us and the open sea and a million tiny little tasks. It’s
like now move the rope this way, now move the sheet this way. it’s like a bunch of little steps so that one was a little bit easier just because you could always just focus on the steps instead um, like talk to people.
Tom: yeah. yeah. the awkward pause can be addressed by trimming the sail or
Olga: Right, right, right. yeah. Whatever.
Tom: you talked about there’s different personality traits that you would address differently. could you just kind of run through how psychologists think about personality now? Um, sort of tick off what those categories are.
Olga: are. Yeah. So, most psychologists today measure personality with something called the big five test. and that purports that there are five personality traits, openness to experiences, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism, and. The test that I took measured you on these big five traits. I did a test, uh, on this website called personalityassessor.com, um, which was, uh, designed by Nate Hudson, who’s one of the main researchers whose work I followed for the book. But you can really take any version of the Big five.
Tom: Gotcha. Yeah, the term neuroticism just sounds foreboding and terrible. Can you describe what, what that means and what it’s measuring?
Olga: Yeah. So, neuroticism is, um, basically just depression and anxiety. It’s like how well you handle the slings and arrows of life basically. Um, and it, the opposite of neuroticism is the one that you want, which is emotional stability.
Um, and this is like the people who can shake off the bad job interview and. Something bad happens and maybe they feel it for like a day or two, but then they bounce back. the like sort of happy, stress-free people,
Tom: So, of these, of these different traits, uh, are certain ones more amenable to tinkering and change than other ones?
Olga: So, what we know so far about that is that, um, extroversion, conscientiousness, and neuroticism seem to be the most able to change quickly, like with effort. Mm-hmm. Uh, like a regular person without any pharmaceuticals.
Agreeableness is hard to change. And, not a lot of people want to become more agreeable. When you ask people, they tend to say they don’t want to be more agreeable. I have a feeling that that’s because people don’t understand what
Agreeableness is often misunderstood as being a pushover, but it refers to having better social relationships, which includes maintaining strong boundaries.
And then, openness, is also one where not a lot of people want to become more open. And, it can be hard to change because. Oh, people who are not open don’t want to do the stuff that makes you more open and there can also be an element of neuroticism with low openness. There’s like kind of an element of like, mm, I don’t like that. I don’t want to do that. like weariness almost. Yeah.
Tom: if I remember correctly, you did something like a three-month experiment for the Atlantic story and then like a year experiment for your book. how did that sort of impact and how did those efforts stick over time? I.
Olga: yeah, I feel like the three month I was kind of just dipping my toe in and kind of like learning about it. And like some of the stuff that I tried for the three month was like talking to a stranger at a bar and that I really hated. And, the stranger really hated. Um, so I, I like didn’t do this stuff where I was like, this is horrible, and this is like making me not want to have this personality trait after all.
So, I, it kind of allowed me to fine tune also what I was going to be doing, doing.
Tom: Gotcha. I was wondering after me embarking on, on these experiments, do you feel like personality change is more like cosmetic surgery where at least something sticks or more like exercise where you do get better while you do it, but once you stop, then you kind of fade back to a, a default.
Olga: yeah. So, it’s kind of more like exercise, unfortunately. I think some of the stuff maybe like mindset wise is a little bit more like, plastic surgery. So
like. I now have the mindset that I need more social interaction than I was getting before. and that’s more of like a permanent change that’s probably not going to snap back. but as far as like my Interest and ability and how much socializing helps me. I must keep doing it. I can’t just like look back on that memory of the improv class and like get those benefits. Um, so, uh, yeah, you do kind of have to keep up the behaviors.
Tom: Okay. I’m thinking too about the, the mechanism of change, and I’m wondering should we think of personality change largely as driven by our individual efforts or more of.
Through the influence of others,
Olga: Yeah.
Yeah. Uh, great question. so, what makes up personality is sort of all the above. it is partly your genes, right? Like everything somewhat comes from our genes. personality is about half influenced by your genes. Um, but the other half is like a bunch of. Really random stuff. Um, they call it like environment, but it’s not just like how your parents raised you. It’s like, who are your friends? What kind of job do you have? Where do you live? Are you married? Do you have kids? Like, it’s like all these different influences on your personality. so yeah, like if you want to be a certain way, you can surround yourself with people who like, are. What you want to be like, um, that will exert a force on your personality. Um, you could also do stuff like what I did to actively change your personality. Um, it’s kind of just depends on like what’s available to you and, you know, you could also do both. I mean, this is why people in AA hang out with other people who don’t drink and so, um, yeah, it’s, it’s both.
Tom: Okay. Do personalities naturally change over time? I mean, over years and decades. Uh, even if you’re, even if someone is not trying at all to change their personality as, as you did, I.
Olga: Yeah. Yeah. So, everyone changes over time. first, life events that happen to you will change you. like someone dying, you know, a baby being born, uh, new job, et cetera. and just like beyond that, all of us, become less neurotic and more conscientious over time. and, uh, generally more agreeable as well. And so that’s called the maturity principle.
so, we all kind of end up changing and, becoming different as we get older.
Tom: Yeah. Yeah. As I was reading your book, I was thinking about maturity and the idea that Likes you know, what does maturity consist of, right?
And I think I had thought about, oh, it’s like growing in wisdom, but I thought there’s probably like a personality component too, of maturation. did you spend some time reflecting on that kind of idea of either maturity or growth?
Olga: Yeah, so some psychologists think one thing that kind
of molds personality over time is that we all have social roles that we must step into, like when you become a parent is Like, the most obvious one where everyone is like, okay, you’re not going to go out and
party anymore on weekends. like.
you suddenly become super conscientious. cause you must keep track of like how many ounces at what time and
like how many diapers and like how many hours did they sleep? Oh my God. Like we’re supposed to give them a
bottle every three hours and it’s been four. so, you suddenly, you do learn conscientiousness, uh, really
quickly. with the first job that you get, if you get a job in like your dream field, even if you were a total slacker in college, you suddenly are getting there five minutes early and, asking your boss if there’s anything you can help with. And,
you’re being super conscientious, uh, because that job is important to
you. So, we, we all have things in our lives that happen that cause us to change our personality.
Tom: I’m wondering as we, as we think about personality change, and the kind of person we’d like to be, the kind of traits we’d have, whether we should think of them as like static. Like there’s a goal to arrive at, or more like adaptable
Olga: Yeah, I think it’s going to depend on the trait and kind of on the person. I’m sorry to give you a wishy-washy answer, but, um, so for me, like for example with neuroticism, that’s really something where I wanted to turn it down pretty much permanently and like. Just be less neurotic. In general, over time and in across multiple situations. but there are a lot of people, and this is something called Free Trait Theory, who really feel like, okay, I’m an introvert. That’s just who I am inside. I’m not interested in changing that. I, I like
being an introvert. but they really want to be able, like, so the
one, one person that I talked to with this, uh, situation is a college professor, and he really likes to give really engaging talks to his students. and it’s important
that they be animated and interesting. Um. So, because of that, he really feels like he switches into being an extrovert for those moments. like he
finds it in himself, he gets like all his extroversion juices flowing, and he is an extrovert for that hour and a half or whatever it is. And then he must go, you know, pet the cat in a corner by himself, like, because he’s still an introvert inside. And that I think is valid. I mean, that is also a type of personality change
is just like. Finding it in yourself to like to have these traits and adapt, but, you know, adopt them for certain situations. Musical breath to indicate conversational pivot Yeah. I want to turn us attention next to uh, one of these life experiences that Absolutely assaults our personality and, and way of being. And that’s parenthood. So, you undertook your big
experiments before you had kids, but with a sense that maybe you’d become a parent someday.
Tom: I imagine a lot of people think about becoming a parent and maybe wonder, does someone need to have certain personality traits or at least exhibit certain personality traits to be a good parent? I.
Olga: Okay, this is a good question. And the studies that they’ve done find that people who become parents tend tube more extroverted and more agreeable. however, I think that these studies are flawed for a pretty big reason, which is that extroverted people are more likely to find partners and. people who are partnered end up having kids.
Like a lot of single people obviously also have kids, but like, this is just like the chain of events that leads you into parenthood.
So, it’s not, it’s like a correlation, causation problem, right? so I actually
don’t think that you need to have certain personality traits to become a mom. I had probably the world’s worst personality for becoming a mom that you could. Possibly imagine and it’s very weird, but the kid would like to bring it out in you will be so motivated to be a good parent to them
that you will adopt whatever traits you need to have
to like parent, them will. I think for like 98% of the population
Tom: So, the encouragement might, might be if Olga could do it, you could
Olga: I know, yeah. You can do anything. Yeah.
Tom: kind of stepping back a little bit, lessons learned, reflecting I. on your journey through these experiments, through becoming a parent, do you think there is a, like a, an ideal personality that, our listeners Or, or people generally could aspire to I’m just trying to think What a singular kind of optimizing personality would be.
Olga: Yeah, so most scientists think that being higher on all five traits and lower, of course on
neuroticism is best. So, you want to be
pretty agreeable, extroverted, conscientious, open, and pretty emotionally stable, right? So not neurotic. Do you want to be a 10, outate 10 on all of those? No, that would be weird, right? Like if you, if you’ve ever met someone who’s like ultra super-duper conscientious, you know, that can start to cross the line into perfectionism and kind of, you know, obsession and kind, you know, so you, you want to be like an eight or a nine? Um, is anyone an eight or a nine across all five traits all the time? No. to me really, like a lot of these. tools are kind of like strategies for getting out of a rut or shaking up your life, or,
kind of learning new skills to help you, live life better and be happier. It’s, it’s not necessarily about being the perfect person, so everyone loves you.
It’s about, um, having ways to change your current reality.
Tom: I read a lot of fiction, science fiction novels, all kinds of imaginary worlds. I’m, I’m kind of wondering,
uh, would the world be a better place if we could banish emotional instability? Like is that something that we would strive for the world necessarily be better without, people who are emotionally
unstable?
Olga: So, I don’t think so. In fact, I think you need a little bit of neuroticism. I think this is one where you don’t want to be a zero on neuroticism, because if you think about it, like anxiety also reminds us to do things, right? to be a parent. Like a lot of what’s motivating you to get up at 2:00 AM and 3:00 AM and 4:00 AM is anxiety. Like you want your baby to do well and to thrive and to be healthy, and you’re anxious
about it. And like
that is. Okay. Like that’s healthy, right? you don’t want to be that way for
18 years, but it’s okay to have that short period of time where you are
quite anxious. It’s adaptive. Like the reason we all are all here today is because we’re descended from the people who were like a little bit anxious and we’re
like, guys, I think that saber-tooth
tiger is going to get us, so, we should run. you know what I mean? Like, those were all our ancestors. so, you, you do want a little bit, I wouldn’t
say that you want to eliminate it.
Tom: Yeah. Um, I’m wondering, are there some, I mean, you forced yourself to do a lot of unnatural, uncomfortable things through your personality change experiment. Are there certain things that you find yourself just doing or wanting to continue to do? Uh, because once you start did them long enough, they became, either more enjoyable or just kind of ingrained as habits.
Olga: I would say one big thing is, um, just extroversion and being part of a group or a community. I don’t know why I got to be this way, but I just kind of. reflexively declined every social invitation for years. Um, and honestly with New Parenthood in particular, I really try to make it a point to like to reach out to other moms and if there’s, if a weekend goes by and I haven’t done it, I feel like all out of sorts, like I’m just like, the week isn’t complete. cause I haven’t had my like mom connection.
Tom: One thing we haven’t. talked about yet really is, uh, kind of where humor and, and laughter comes into things. One thing I’ve really enjoyed following your career is your self-effacing. Humor it delights me. Where do you think,
um, like humor, whether it’s, you know, directed at one’s, you know, self-effacing or just that ability to get people to laugh, uh, where does that kind of fit into to personality and, and social interaction?
Olga: you know, it’s interesting humor. I did not research it that much. I, it’s kind of part of extroversion, so, like a desire for other, to make others laugh. And like someone who just laughs a lot and like kind of seeks out funny things
is part of extroversion. But then a lot of comedians, I just did a story about comedians, where I interviewed like Jim Gaffigan and
other comedians They’re kind of introverted. Like they’re kind of
like when you talk to them like a, they’re not funny, like,
in normal conversation, and B, like they’re kind of reserved and
I don’t know. I, I think it’s something where that
is a free trait where they switch it on for other people
Tom: Yeah. Well, I think as we come to the end of our interview, I want to kind of pull ourselves full, full, circle to, uh, coming back, growing up in
West Texas, a family of immigrants, we’ve all got our social roles to play within our, Homes and households with our parents, with siblings. Um, you’ve changed a lot in the last few years.
Do you find the interaction you have with your closest family members that kind of know the old Olga, has that changed or do you feel, feel yourself kind of playing the same personality that you did, um, in the, you know, 18 years that you live with them?
Olga: It has changed, so I had to set many boundaries with my family when I got pregnant. My parents, I think this is kind of Russian culture, had always dictated to me what I would be doing, like, we will be coming to visit you at this time, and we will be staying in your house, and you will prepare a meal of X, Y, Z. Once I got pregnant, I realized I didn’t have the capacity to do that, and, we didn’t have space, and we were redecorating the. whole house for the baby. And I was just like, you’re coming at this time or you’re not coming, you’re staying in a hotel or you’re not coming. we’re eating out because I can’t cook for you. and, um. That really caused a lot of strain. But, you know, part of extroversion is assertiveness. I don’t know. I think I did become more assertive with them through kind of my forays into extroversion.
Tom: Yeah. Um, I’m thinking last in terms of, uh, practical tips. Some of our listeners, might have heard our conversation and think. one, I need to go take that personality test and remember you, you mentioned it. We can put in the show notes of, where that URL is that they can take, and then two, they get some scores. Maybe they will be totally as expected or maybe they’ll just be, very disappointed and think, okay, I need to embark on my own personality change. Do you have some general guidance for someone just wanting to kind of gear up, and just the wisdom you’ve learned from trying it yourself?
Olga: Yeah. So, I would just, kind of like what I said in the beginning, I would, whatever trait you’re working on, I would sign up for an activity that addresses that trait, and I would have it be with a group of people that is recurring that you don’t have to organize anything via text. Don’t fall into the trap of like. Let’s get drinks next Tuesday. Wait, I’m busy. Let’s do it next Wednesday. Wait, I’m busy. Like just pick a thing that it happens every month at the same time on the same day you show up. You don’t have to. Talk. If you’re not a huge talker, you can do a book club where you just kind of listen to everyone else’s thoughts. Maybe you jump in, maybe you don’t. That’s also extroversion. I would just sign up for something and, try to go next time and see what it does for you. And if you don’t like it, you can try something else.
Tom: Yeah. Well, I want to plug your book, just for this practical utility, cause I, we didn’t in this conversation really drill down so much into each of these five personality traits. But I think when our listeners do take the test and they see certain areas of improvement, reading your book will be helpful.
Those chapters where you address particular trait. And then a particular strategy of like what you worked on. and I think that’s a good place, to turn to for moving forward. So, I want to thank you Olga for two things. One, I. Using yourself as a Guinea pig to try to experiment with, all these different changes because I imagine, it was fraught with lots of peril. And two, just thank you for sharing these experiences with me today.
Olga: Yeah, absolutely. Thanks so much for having me.
