Ear Biscuits with Rhett & Link - Rhett & Jessie Take the ONLY Scientific Personality Test | Ear Biscuits Ep. 420

Episode Date: April 1, 2024

Link’s on spring break, so Rhett’s wife has returned to the round table of dim lighting! In this episode, Rhett and Jessie dive deep into personality traits, as well as telling a tale of how they changed the course of an entire restaurant in one date night. Visit BetterHelp dot com slash EAR today to get 10% off your first month. Join the Mythical Society 3rd Degree monthly by 4/30 to get your own Epic Rap Battle Vinyl! mythicalsociety.com. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This, this, this, this is Mythical. We interrupt your podcast to bring you breaking news. Tim's Classic Breakfast Sandwiches are just $3 when you buy any size coffee. You heard that right, $3. Your mornings will never be the same. Plus tax, Canada only, limited time only, terms apply, see app for details. It's time for Tim's. Welcome to Ear Biscuits, the podcast where two lifelong friends talk about life for a long time.

I'm Rhett. And I'm Jessie. You gotta say, this week at the round table of dinner. I knew you weren't paying attention. Welcome to Ear Biscuits, the podcast where two lifelong friends talk about life for a long time. I'm Rhett. And I'm Jessie. And this week we are...

Sorry. Welcome to Ear Biscuits, the podcast where two lifelong friends talk about life for a long time. I'm Rhett. And I'm Jessie. And today at the round table of dim lighting. Well, it's really this week, but you can say today because technically it is today. Today at the round table of dim lighting, we are going to be talking about personality characteristics. That's right.

We don't have any of those. None. Zero. Personality less. Both of us. Quality less, both of us. And it didn't take us about 12 minutes of recording to get to this point. No, that didn't happen.

And we're not going to show you any of that. It's a good day. It's a good day to be here, Rhett. This is the day the Lord has made. It is. And we will rejoice and be glad in it. Let us rejoice and be glad in it. An interesting thing happened, right? First of all, Jesse is here because Link has retired.

No, Link is on vacation. He'll probably talk about this when he comes back. It's spring break. He's on vacation by himself. Not the whole time. It's Lando's spring break. He and Christy and Lando did some stuff. Now he's doing some stuff alone that I'm sure he's generating all kinds of great podcast fodder as we speak.

But I thought you could join me again for the second time. I thought it was a good—when you asked me to come on, I was like, wait, I'm going to get to see you and talk to you in the middle of a work day, and I was excited about that. But now, after the way it started, I don't know if I'm as excited about that. It started great. And one of the things that happened right before it started was we printed some things out. And the tension got a little bit high as Jessie was trying to send me the thing for me to print out because my computer is like connected to the network here.

And the first thing that I ended up printing out, she texted me... This was not my fault. I would like to make that clear. She texted me a PDF. Yes fault I would like to make that clear She texted me a PDF Yes I did text you a PDF And then I clicked on it To print And all it did was print Our text history

For the past week And that went out Into the bullpen And the very first I'm just gonna show you You can see right here Purple hearts I don't think you need to read it.

I think it's good. I think the story is good enough. Recently, when Jessie was out of town on Monday, she texted me, I love you. Oh. And then there was a follow-up text. These came in quick succession. That was sweet.

I miss you. Nice, again. I want to kiss you. Oh, well. And then there was a- Jessie! There was about an hour, and then she said, are you there? Do you like how I wasn't aggressive?

I didn't say, do you not want to kiss me? I just asked if you were there. And I said, I was in therapy. Oh. I love and miss and want to kiss you. I just ask if you were there. And I said, I was in therapy. Oh. I love and miss and want to kiss you too. That was sweet. And then you said, how did it go? And I said, good.

How many of these are you going to read? And then you said, that's all I get. And the reason is that I had moved on to something else I don't have that I don't know what Anyway That's a little insight Into our relationship

I don't have anything To say about that I'm so glad that you're here I like spending time with you Our son is out of town right now Yep We're like little empty nesters This is what it's gonna be be like in a few years.

Us just doing podcasts? Well, just like last night, we went out to eat together. We did. And tonight, we've made plans to sit out by the fire and just talk about life for a long time. But we're going to do that right now. for a long time, but we're going to do that right now. I did want to tell the story because I think given where we're going to go on this podcast and talking about these personality characteristics, I'm refraining from using the term personality test because I know that's a turnoff for a lot of people. And I promise you that this conversation and the test that we're going to be talking about

stands the best chance at being the personality test for people who do not like personality tests and people who do not trust personality tests. It's true. I am one of the people who implicitly trust. I shouldn't say implicitly trust, but I do love personality tests. I've tried them all, love them all. Of course, the Enneagram is my favorite, even if people do have all kinds of issues with the Enneagram. But I thought, let's talk personality tests, but let's talk about the personality test that is actually scientifically backed, data-driven. So people who value that, which I'm one of those people, will be cool with it. There's evidence-based reasons to believe that anyone can benefit from the conversation we're going to have. But before that, it's been a while, but since you don't come on the podcast very often.

This is my second time. This is a fresh story to everyone else. And I want to talk a little bit about our Valentine's Day night date, our little dinner date that we went on. And I don't know what the term for this is, but you know how sometimes you show up at a restaurant and the seating arrangement, is it called French cafe seating? No, it's family style. Well, I'm talking about French cafe where there's tables and you're sitting across from each other, but you feel like you're closer to the person next to you than the person you're with, right? You know what I'm talking about? That is my least favorite seating arrangement.

I didn't go to the restaurant to meet new people. I went to the restaurant to spend time with the person that I went to the restaurant with. That's me in this case. To have a conversation with them, not to hear the conversation of the people next to me. I don't know what it is about French people I've only been to France one time And I don't even know if I'm saying the right thing

About French cafe style seating But y'all gotta get If you're a restaurateur And you are making your floor plan For how people are gonna sit together Do not do that crap Well you get more people in I mean that is one of the reasons

More dissatisfied people. They're trying to make a buck, which is what restaurants are, one of the things restaurants are supposed to do. And I know this about you. And so every time we go to a restaurant, there's, I don't love that style of seating either. Like, I would never choose that style. You don't love it? Don't you hate it too? I don't love it.

Well, I hate it. Right. I'm aware of that. Don't you hate it too? I don't love it. Well, I hate it. I'm aware of that. And every time we go to a restaurant, I have, like when we walk in, there's a little bit of like, uh-oh, are they going to put us at a, put us besides, like very close to another couple? And is Rhett going to be okay?

Just so you know, I'm managing your anxiety when we go to restaurants. I'm trying to. Well, this restaurant, which will remain nameless, and also I will never return to again. Maybe just not on Valentine's Day. Maybe that's specifically why this

was the way it was. I didn't like anything about it. Okay. But the main thing I didn't like about it was they didn't just put us at French Cafe CD. So you got to set it up. We walk in. We get into the front door. The outside was beautiful. Yeah.

There was, you know, a host and hostess. Everybody was dressed up. Why are you laughing at that? You're really setting it up. I'm trying to. Everybody was dressed up. I'm trying to. Everybody was dressed up. I'm painting a picture. You know, we had dressed up more than normal.

I think I was wearing a dress. I had on my pink and red suit. Yes. It was Valentine's Day. I actually was wearing an almost red dress. And we come into the entrance. They're leading us to our table. You know when they're leading you to your table and you're like, hey, what table is it going to be?

What kind of seating is it going to be? How am I going to feel about this table? And so we go through the front room. And I'm like, okay, maybe they're taking us to like a special table towards the back. It was a special table, all right. And as we approach this one table, I'm like, good thing we're not sitting there. And then they turn and say, you can sit here and here. Now, let me describe this table to you.

Picture the biggest table that could possibly fit in a restaurant. And then when I say, like, this a table from like a medieval castle, right? This giant wooden table that's probably 20 feet long, but it's also eight feet wide, like eight feet across. Like I could lie on this table and not hang off. It was a ridiculous, most tables are about, what, 30 inches across. I don't know. You're the designer.

If I'm sitting on this side, the person across from me is going to be around 30 inches away. I don't know if I trust you. Not at a round table, obviously. It depends on the size of the table. This was way more than 30 inches. This was, it felt like the person was in another room. Yeah. You were twice, well, okay, there's people on, there was only one couple on the left.

There was openness on the right, which comes into play in a second. I was so close to this woman that anyone who walked in would assume that she was my date. Not the woman I'm yelling at. I'm like. Well, and it was loud, too. And then we had to talk about the seating. I was like, I don't know about this seating arrangement. I'm speaking this loud just to have a discussion with you about it.

No, we barely, we sat down for maybe like 20 seconds. We were sitting down for 20 seconds. And we were next to a couple that was doing the same thing, and I was hearing their conversation because they were also yelling at each other. And at this point, we had a decision to make. Well, I don't think I made an executive decision. You did make an executive decision. I can make those.

That's the relative point here as it relates to these personality characteristics. So what do you, how do you remember? Well, I just was like, look, we have one opportunity to have Valentine's Day 2024. And I don't want to help this couple solve their relational problems. Right. And I don't want to. I want us to talk. their relational problems. Right. And I don't want to. I want us to talk.

And this whole meal, I'm going to be thinking about how annoyed I am with how far you are. And it was dimly lit. And so I couldn't even really see you very well. I didn't know if it was you or not. I was guessing. I was guessing. So I got up and I went to the hostess or host and said, this seating arrangement isn't going to work for us. I don't know how I said it. No, you have a way.

You would never say something like that. You probably came in softer than that. I don't know what it was. I didn't hear you because you were too far from me. And also you got up and went to the front. I did. But whatever you said, she kind of got a little bit. She had to go check with someone. Well.

And she did check with someone. And then she came back and said, okay. And so at that point, you came around and got next to me. I was hoping she would take us to a different table, but she didn't. So she basically just said, yes, it's okay if you want to sit beside each other. But that had an incredible effect on what would unfold from that point. Because after that, the couple next to us saw what we did, and they talked to her, and then they got next to each other.

And then every couple that came in sat next to each other. It was a large table. We changed the course of so many relationships. You changed the course of so many relationships. Who knows what would have happened if you hadn't stood up and said that. Other people could have fallen in love with other couples because they were closer to the other people. We could have broken up relationships

if you hadn't stepped in. Thanks babes. And the ironic thing about this is that based on one of your scores, on one of these characteristics, you would not expect that you would have been the one to stand up and say something so quickly. You would have expected that I would have been the one to stand up before you, but I didn't, and that's interesting. And we're going to talk about that personality test, these characteristics that everybody

has to some degree in a second. But before we do that, I do want to remind you about something. I want to remind you about, yes, please act like you are very impressed by this, Jessie. Beautiful. This is the Epic Rap Battle Collection vinyl, which is exclusive to Third Degree Mythical Society members. Now, this thing, you know, probably the most popular songs we've ever written and recorded and released on the internet are these epic rap battles. Nerd vs. Geek, Epic Rap Battle of Manliness, the original Epic Rap Battle. So they're all on here, but then our longtime friend and music producer for many things mythical throughout the years, Mark Byers,

music producer for many things mythical throughout the years, Mark Byers, actually did 20, 24 remixes of all three. So you got side A that's got the original, side B that's got the remixes. Again, we do a vinyl every single year over there on The Society. The only way to get it is to be a third degree Mythical Society member. You should sign up for a monthly membership before April 30th if you want to get this. MythicalSociety.com.

Wherever you're going, you better believe American Express will be right there with you. Heading for adventure? We'll help you breeze through security. Meeting friends a world away? You can use your travel credit. Squeezing every drop out of the last day how about a 4 p.m late checkout just need a nice place to settle in enjoy your room upgrade wherever you go we'll go together that's the powerful backing of american express visit amex.ca slash ymx benefits vary by card terms apply um why do you think that you are so interested in personality tests it's a great question i we were talking about this a little bit yesterday i don't

i don't really know exactly why i think i'm fascinated by people there was a time actually where i considered i thought i might go back to school to be a therapist. But that didn't happen. We'll see. I mean, I guess it could still happen. But I like talking to people. I like hearing people's stories. I like talking myself, which maybe that's not a great idea if you're a therapist to be a super talkative therapist.

But, yeah, I don't know. I think people are like puzzles, little things to kind of solve, which maybe that's not a great way to think about people. But I like knowing what makes people tick well i i think i'm into them i'm not as into them as you are not i'm interested in them and i think that you know obviously we've talked about the enneagram quite a bit on this podcast and i know that it's it's very polarizing because first of all there's a lot of people who just don't people just hear the name and think it's just like astrology or something, you know.

And then it's not. It is a, you know, it is based on observations about people. And I do think that it has some really powerful benefits. Yeah. I mean, for me, I think it has helped me most just to understand myself, parts of myself that I would be kind of blind to and to understand how I relate to other people and other people, why other people relate in the way that they do. Well, to me, the thing that's useful about some of these personality tests that are not scientific, meaning that they don't really, they're a framework, right? It's a framework to kind of understand people. But the mistake or the one potential pitfall of traditional personality tests like the Enneagram, Myers-Briggs. StrengthsFinder.

Is that it puts you as an individual into a category. It gives you a number. It gives you a number, and then you start thinking, I am that number, or I am this collection of four letters that represent these things. And it can begin to, I don't know, you can take it a little too personally. You can shape things a little too much. scientists have observed is it's essentially a measurement of five different personality characteristics or attributes that everyone has to some degree. Like if you were to take any one of these characteristics, there would be a bell curve. There would be a distribution of the population. And what it does is through a series of questions, it places you on that bell curve

for each one of these personality characteristics. So you kind of see how you compare to the average in this one area, and then what your score in that area might suggest, like what kind of observations have been made about people? Because there's been all these meta-analysis and all these studies, observational studies that have been done based on all this data that's been collected where people are like, oh, if you score high in this, it actually correlates to this thing scientifically. So we're going to talk about, well, we both took the test at Truity, truity.com, not a

sponsor, but they have like every one of the personality tests. And if you want your full report, you have to pay for it. So that's up to you. There might be a place to take this for free. There's lots of places. I've taken it multiple places. There are lots of places you can take it for free. Of course, I wanted to get the most information I could about it. So, you know, I did pay for the full report.

I'm sorry to admit. But yeah, I think it's interesting, like scientists, these, this idea of traits, these personality traits that are present across the board and people has, scientists have been looking at that since like, I think it was the 1940s that they started kind of. It's been a long time. And then in the 80s, they really kind of drilled down and realized that even across cultures, these five personality traits seem to be enduring. So why don't you tell us about the five traits? I will tell y'all. And, you know, I'm just going to read straight from my

report because I can't say it better than they did. So there's two different acronyms that you can use to remember the five traits, either ocean or canoe, whichever you prefer. I'm going to go with ocean because that's the order that I've got it in. That's the order that Truity puts it in. Okay, so the first one is openness. Openness describes an individual's tendency to think in complex, abstract ways. So people high in openness are abstract thinkers, but people who are lower in openness are going to be more concrete thinkers.

All right. Next, we have got conscientiousness. Conscientiousness. That's a little tough to say, conscientiousness. Well, you did it. Thanks. This one is the one that's a little misleading because you might think you know what it means, but the way that they're talking about it, it means something a little more specific. Yeah, I definitely was surprised by their definition of conscientiousness. And each category, there are really subcategories that they used to come to that are underneath this overarching main category. So there'll be a few different traits that go into the overall trait of conscientiousness. And that's just that a person's tendency to be persistent and determined

in achieving their goals. So these people tend to work hard to put their plans into action. You know, they're not going to be procrastinators. People who don't have this quality might tend to get distracted easily. Okay. The next one is extroversion. This is what you think it is. Yes. Well, I think it's a little bit more complex than that because it's not just, are you energized by people? not just are you energized by people. I think, yes, that's part of it, but it's also like your energy level, which is something I don't think about a lot. But that does make sense. The introverts tend to sometimes be lower in energy, be calmer,

lower in energy not being a negative thing, but they just present as a more calm, reserved person than somebody who is extroverted and wanting to meet people and talk to people. Yep. Social butterfly versus wallflower. That's right. The next one is agreeableness. So agreeableness describes an individual's tendencies to put the needs of others ahead of their own needs. an individual's tendencies to put the needs of others ahead of their own needs. Sometimes they may say that altruism, self-sacrifice is being helpful, accommodating, sympathetic. So empathy is a big part of agreeableness.

Okay. And the final one is going to be neuroticism. Neuroticism. I like how you're saying it's going to be because that's how, have you noticed, have you noticed that's what waiters do now? If you go to a nice restaurant, they tell you that it's like, I say, tell me about the, tell me about the mahi-mahi. And they say, well, that's going to be a so-and-so.

They do because you're not eating the mahi-mahi yet. I know, but somebody somewhere came up with that's what y'all should do. You don't have to tell me it's going to be. I know that I'm about to eat it. And first of all, depending on what you say, I might not eat it. Did I offend you by saying that the fifth one is going to be neuroticism? I'm sorry. The fifth one is, present tense, neuroticism.

Link's not here. He's the one who likes to make a big deal about which camera we look into. You're doing the same thing that I do, which is I often look at this camera for emphasis. But at some point right after the intro, we start talking to these cameras, and so I'm reminding myself. So should I look into this camera? So if you want to say something like... The fifth trait is...

No, you don't need to look at the camera. Neuroticism. I'm just saying if you say something for emphasis. Also, talk into your microphone. We're going to have to put a Gar Brooks mic mic on this girl. So she can stick with her. The fifth trait is... No, no, too close. Too close. Neuroticism, which neither of us have yet.

You want to hear what neuroticism is currently? I think I know what it is, yeah. It can be thought of as the alarm system of the brain. It's negative emotions, your response to stress. So throughout the day, how many negative emotions do you feel if something stressful happens? How do you deal with that? Anxiety, depression, anger. Yes, yeah.

People low in neuroticism resist stress. They tend not to experience many negative emotions. Okay. So let's get into some of our scores. We're going to talk about our scores. We're going to kind of go through maybe where we're the same, where we're different. And then one of the most interesting things we're going to do is talk about these very specific observations that have been made from people who score really high in this area. Oh, it turns out that there's, this is tends to be true about them, which is kind of fascinating. And again, this is a measurement of you against the average to sort of on a bell curve, right? So like around 50 would be kind of in the middle. It's not low. 50 is average. Yeah. Well, and they kind of give you the specific average score.

That score kind of changes over time because, as you'll see, like some averages are 58. Some are 55. You know, some are 51. But anyway, let's start with openness because this is, we're a bit of an outlier, both of us. My score on the openness scale is a 98. What is yours? 98. Oh, look at that, Jessie. So I think you could potentially be 100, maybe. I don't know. On one test I took, I was 100, but that seems ridiculous. I'm clearly not 100% open. So

I went with the 98. ridiculous i'm clearly not a hundred percent open so i went with the 98 um we are you know there's good and here's the thing there's there's good and there's bad in each one of those things well and that is you know these while yes you can make extrapolations these are not supposed to be positive and negative there's not like a value judgment. It doesn't make you better. This isn't a score, and I have to remind myself of that as a competitive person. It's like, I got a 98 on the first one! Not necessarily a good thing. But if you want to characterize it in a way that sounds positive, people who are high in openness are comfortable with abstract ideas. They enjoy talking and thinking about theories and concepts, even if the concepts are unproven.

Now, I think that this is not surprising to either one of us that we scored high in the openness category. Yes. It's about the networking of the brain and how connected ideas are. And, you know, this is something very interesting as it relates to ADHD, which I definitely have. My therapist has said I absolutely have it. I'm not medicated for it. You do not have it. But I have described, you know, a lot of times people will talk about brains like this that are more like spaghetti because every idea is connected to another idea. And that's why sometimes you might, I might have trouble telling a story because like this, this is not really about ADHD.

Openness has nothing to do, is not about ADHD, but in my mind, they're connected. Wow. Well, the way that I relate to this is that one of the things that openness sort of represents is this tendency to accept a new idea yeah and kind of and so i've noticed this um this tendency in in in myself that when i read a book like a non-fiction book that's about something and the author has a certain perspective the way that i explore that perspective is while i'm reading the book for all intents and purposes, I just adopt the perspective. Like I don't approach this case that this person is making for this thing, even if it's something that I initially disagree with, right?

Like, for instance, I'm reading a book about the resurrection of Jesus Christ, which I do not believe. You are? That's surprising. Which I do not believe happened, right? Right. And I have pretty strong convictions about that. However, the guy writing the book, because I like to read people who think differently,

does believe it happened. And so as I'm reading it, I am giving him all the benefit of the doubt. And I'm like, my mind becomes a person who believes in the resurrection while I'm reading the book. Like I don't, I just noticed, and I'm not trying to do that.

It's not an intentional thing. It's just something about my brain is I don't, when you give me a new idea, I don't immediately become skeptical and try to take it down. I'm sort of like, all right, let's see where you're going with this. And then that doesn't mean that at the end of the book,

I will kind of come out of it and then be like, okay, what do I actually think about this? But I'm just saying the way new ideas go into my brain is that there's a receptivity to them. And you can see how that could be to your detriment at the same time, right? It's interesting. There's a benefit to it, but there could be a detriment to it at the same time. Yeah. You don't approach the world with skepticism, which is absolutely I'm the same in that, like skepticism or suspicion. And so whether it's reading a book, whether it's thinking about a new idea, this trait is also really related to creativity.

And I think an ability for art and music, writing, that kind of thing to really affect you. I think one of the questions on one of the many tests that I took was, how do you feel when you go into a museum and you look at a piece of art? So, yeah, it is. I think it is an openness to new ideas, and openness to original thought. Not having to follow a tradition can be kind of connected to this. Yeah, I'm trying to think of – I think for me, I am working on being more suspicious because it can be dangerous. It can lead to trusting people.

Yes. Like I tend to have this, like somebody comes in and they're a little bit weird or something and it's just interesting to me rather than like the alarms go off, right? Right, yep. And so you can be taken advantage of in that way. Yes, like people who have or high in openness probably wouldn't be good at securing a movie theater so that all of the exits are in the right place in case something bad happened. You know what I mean? People who are low in openness are more likely to be concerned about what could go wrong.

And this is probably why it's good that I'm not an engineer. Mm-hmm. Right? So I tend to be – it's weird because I've got – there is some, like, there's a lot of systematic thinking, which we'll get to in a second. But, like, I think that you want your – you want the person building your bridge out of concrete to have concrete thinking. It's true.

You know, not to be too open. I'm not trying to make an architectural statement with this bridge as much as I'm trying to make sure. There has to be people who are, there's the artistic side, there's the designer side, and then there's the engineer side to make that bridge serve humanity well, right? Well, we're going to come back to how those really, really high scores and openness, some of the things they might mean. So let's just, let's kind of get through our scores. That one, we spent a lot of time on just because our scores were so high.

But tell me about your conscientiousness score. So this one hurt me a little bit. It like hurt my heart. Okay. Because I tend to think of myself as a conscientious person. I care about how my actions affect other people. But that's not really what this is a measure of. It's not. It's not. So I was 44 in conscientiousness. So I was below average. Oh, and I didn't say it with Eddie. The average of openness is 58. Okay. So the average of conscientiousness across everyone who's ever been analyzed, 55.

And you're what? 44. Okay. And I'm a 62 and a half. So this is like moderate. We're both kind of moderate. Does it call yours moderate? No, I think it calls me low in conscientiousness.

Yeah, I'm moderate and conscientiousness and this is uh related to your prefrontal cortex or your pfc as uh we like to say um what's your impulse control do Do you have good impulse control? So like the test, what was the gummy bear M&M test? What was the piece of candy? I mean, you just sit a kid in a room with a piece of candy or whatever. That would be related to conscientiousness. Can you look forward and plan for something way down the road? Can you choose to not engage in things that do not move you towards that final goal?

And this is, you know, I think that you thought that I might score higher on this than I did. I was really doing my best to be honest in the answers and not to try to like shape, you know, like what I wanted the results to be. And I think that the reality is that I feel like there are two people inside of me. There's one very driven, very systematic, really cares about order like, I'm super driven, you know, and people who are conscientious. Yeah, which ambition is one of these things. So I have this like high level of ambition. I'm very driven, self-motivated. But then I'm also easily distracted.

And if I were to say that, if I were to say that I wasn't easily distracted, I would be lying. So I think that I'll sit down to work on something and to write something, and then I kind of just find myself all of a sudden. And again, I realize that that could be like a symptom of some sort of ADHD or whatever. You don't think that I have that. I think, I don't know.

I've never been diagnosed. I'm able to usually get back to the task at hand, but I do get kind of bored with kind of zeroing in on one thing. And I get my interest takes me to a different place. And so my consciousness can only, I also cannot say the word, can only be so high because of that tendency to kind of get distracted. And also, this is like people who are super organized. I'm not, I'll make a lot of lists. And if you ask me to like come up with an outline for something or come up with a strategy for something, I'll spend a lot of time coming up with really, really developed strategy for things.

I can do that kind of thing. But if you ask me to organize a drawer, I hate it. And I think you're the same way. Actually, I don't mind organizing a drawer. I think I'm very easily distracted. I don't think my ambition is low. And I think most people who know me would consider me dependable. But I do think like, I can, I can be disorganized if it's not something I'm interested in. Like, where did

that receipt go? I have no idea. And that's one of the reasons that when I started my business, I knew the first thing I had to do was hire somebody who could help me out with administrative stuff, which that's why I hired Lindsay. If something is important to me, I will be dependable. I will be determined. But I think things that in my heart I haven't really committed to, it's a little bit harder for me to make them happen. Yeah. Okay. Let's get to one that we have a pretty stark difference in, extraversion.

Mine's really low, right? Mine is a 44. The average is a 51. Yeah. The average is a 51. Yeah, I think that's something that people are usually surprised about you by because of your GMM persona. Is gregarious, is boisterous, does seem to be extroverted. to be extroverted. But in reality, interpersonally, you tend to be more reserved. And, you know, I have met, definitely met comedians who, as soon as you meet them, they're cracking jokes, and you can't get a sentence out without them saying something funny, which can be good or bad.

And that is not how I interact socially. I've thought a lot about this. Well, first of all, what's your score? My score is 92. Oh, dang, girl. Dang it. I'm not surprised. So I've thought a lot about this tendency,

and this makes this test kind of difficult for me because it's do you like being the center of attention? It's like one of the questions. There was a question that kind of got at that. And this is such a complex question to me because professionally, yes, And socially, no. Like, I don't like, like, if I go to a party, like, I kind of fade into the background a little bit. I'm not, I don't try to be the life of the party. I am not the life of the party. But I am drawing attention to myself for a living. I don't have a problem with getting up in front of a large crowd and trying to be funny. And I don't have a, like, you know, obviously, Link and I have done that together for a really long time. But I don't have a problem with getting up in front of a large crowd and trying to be funny.

And I don't have a, like, you know, obviously Link and I have done that together for a really long time, but I don't have a problem with doing that by myself. Like, right. I love doing it with Link. I love doing it by myself, whatever. And it was funny the way you described it, we were talking about this on our walk the other night, you were like like you like being the center of attention on your own terms and that's true that was insightful of me um like if you give me a second to like if it's one of those things where even if it's something as simple as it's thanksgiving day and and everybody's like we're gonna go around and everyone say what they're thankful for. It's like, I tense up a little. I mean, I think the average person probably tenses up a little bit. Me, who can get up in front of a couple thousand people and be funny and not have a care in the world,

get nervous about saying what I'm thankful for in front of 12 people on Thanksgiving. I'm still trying to get to the bottom of what that is. Interesting. I don't, I'm still trying to get to the bottom of what, what that is. But because it feels like it's not like, well, I, you know, somebody else came up with this idea and I'm having to respond to it and I'm having to say something in this moment versus I'm going off into a corner and writing this routine and like having this idea of what I'm doing. I love giving a speech, you know, because I can like plan it.

And I know like you're supposed to be paying attention to me right now. I'm not vying for your attention. When I have to vie for attention, there's something that breaks down. It's funny because I wouldn't think of it as vying for attention as much as I would more of an interpersonal nature to that. Like if you're standing in a small group you're kind of welcoming feedback um you're looking directly at facial expressions not that you're not doing that i guess from stage but it does feel much more interpersonal

um in a small group than it does if you're performing less performative and more interpersonal if you're performing, less performative and more interpersonal. But you, I think there's a big, one of the things that illustrates the stark difference here is the way we interact with an Uber driver. Okay. So, if I'm- Are you about to throw me under the Uber? No. It can be a wonderful thing.

I do not like to talk to the Uber driver. You know, if they start talking to me, I'm like... I'm nice. I'm not an asshole to them. But I kind of don't want, and I know you can like set that conversational preference, but because I'm a people pleaser, I don't set the conversational preference. Like I don't say no conversation because I think maybe I'll get a bad rating and I'm always competing. So then I just don't talk. But you, Jessie, you make like a lifetime connection with somebody.

Like we know everything about this person, and they know a lot about you by the time we get to wherever we're going. Not always, but I would say most of the time. I think there's some, it's just like if there's a person, a whole ass human being sitting there driving the car that I'm putting my body into, then it seems like I should acknowledge them and interact with them. And that, there might be something like ultimately selfish about that. Maybe they don't want to be interacted with. No, I think, I mean, in my experience, they do. They love you. And if we're at a party of people that we don't know, and we'll often not, you know, we'll not stay together the whole time we're at a party, right? And I will see that you're talking to somebody, and I'll go up.

And, like, I feel like I've only been away from you for like eight minutes. And the thing that you were talking about when I get to this conversation is like, she's already talking about that. She's already talking about her, you know, deconstruction or what, you know, which something kind of heavy or the person and and more often than not, is like, this is why you could have been and maybe should have been and maybe will be at some point a therapist

because these people just open up to you and just begin talking about, I'm like, wow, y'all aren't talking about that. And I'm getting caught up. And then she's like, I already told her that. I already told her that. She already knows about your story. And I'm like, well, first of all,

play it a little closer to the chest, baby. I don't know if we should trust this person. But that combination of openness and extroversion means that you go for it in those conversations. Yeah. And you know that again, not always healthy. Like clearly you can't trust everybody you can't everybody doesn't need to know your life story and one thing I really am trying to be like you and I are um in some ways so entangled is not the right word and enmeshed is also not the right word. Connected. I'm fine with that. Connected.

I'm fine with that. I'm fine with being enmeshed with you. That, you know, I think I pretty much know what I can share and what I can't share. But, like, even with our kids, I'm trying to really, really be very careful about, okay, is this yours to share? And I think I do keep confidences and that kind of thing. But just in general, I'm trying to like, why do I need, I've talked about this in therapy, why do I need to immediately start sharing my life story with somebody? Like, what is that about? Is that a need for affirmation? Is that a need, with somebody. What is that about? Is that a need for affirmation? Is that a need, like,

what am I looking for there? And maybe it's just a really desperate need for connection. I don't know. I feel very connected. I think I have a rich life in terms of friendships and connection and that kind of thing. But I do like to connect. You do. And you know what? I feel like I benefit from this quite a bit. I benefit from your extroversion and I benefit from Link's extroversion as well, like in social settings. And I take full advantage of those things.

It's like, well, I don't want to start a conversation, but they will. So I just kind of come up and join and then decide if I want to leave. I have quite a system. So, yeah, I mean, like just recently I saw Link was talking to Quavo at an event. And I was like, well, I'll go up and see what he's talking to Quavo about. And literally as I arrived at the conversation, he was like, so what kind of pillow do you use? And Quavo looked at him like, who is this guy? No, but then he answered, right?

Or no? He basically said, whatever pillow is there. The same answer that I have. And Link was like, well, I travel with my own pillow. It's a cylindrical pillow that's got buckweed in it. That doesn't sound like Link. Well that's what he sounded like to Quavo, trust me. Anyway, but again, I'm not gonna go up to Quavo.

Cause I don't know what to say, like hey. Like what do you? You also don't, you don't wanna what to say. Like, hey. You also don't. You don't want to be an imposition. What do you say? I don't know how to start a conversation with somebody. It definitely isn't, hey. Sometimes that's the only thing I can think of.

I know you can go up with a question. But again, I haven't had to develop this skill because the people that I am closest with in all my social situations are always there to start conversations. Well, maybe the next party we go to, I should purposefully shut my mouth. No. I'll just be walking out and people say, hey. Hey. Now, once the conversation gets going, I'm good. Yeah, you are.

You know what I'm saying? You are. It's like I can have a conversation with anybody. I'm interested in a lot of things. I know a little bit about a lot of things. I don't know a lot about many things, but I know a little bit about a lot of things, enough to have a good conversation. But that initial sort of like the social awkwardness or whatever. So I appreciate that about you. I mean, that is, it's, I don't, when I'm doing that, I don't ever feel, rarely do I feel super confident in that moment.

But it's just kind of like if I want to talk to this person, this intro part is something I got to get through. So I just kind of. Well, you do a good job of it. Well, you do a good job of it. Your mom hates it when you leave six half-full glasses on your nightstand. It's a good thing mom lives on the other side of the country. And it's an even better thing that you can get six IKEA 365 Plus glasses for just $9.99.

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But let's get through these last two. Agreeableness. Again, so this is basically, how is this described again? It's an individual's need to put the tendencies of others ahead of their – the tendency to put the needs of others ahead of themselves. Okay. The average of this is 63. So most people are pretty high in agreeableness. I'm a 54.

Explains a lot. I am considered low in agreeableness. No, I was actually shocked by you being lower in agreeableness because I think of you as an agreeable person. I don't feel like if I come up with an idea or I'm like, hey, let's go do this tonight, usually your first response is going to be, okay, that sounds good. I don't experience you as somebody who is constantly looking for an opportunity to disagree. Well, let's hear it. What are you? I am an 85. Yeah, that's high.

Mm-hmm. That's high. Okay. So I don't know how – again, this is – I'm trying to look at some of this information here. It's like agreeableness is very closely related to empathy. Yeah. Or the ability to understand and feel another person's emotions. Highly agreeable people are highly empathetic, which you're highly empathetic.

And I have to focus on empathy to be empathetic. And I think there is a – this is one of those things where I feel like I've got two people in me. I've got this person that is kind of prioritizing themselves and their own needs and the things that I have to do. One of the questions in it was, do you often stop what you're doing to help other people? And I think I put a slight disagreement with that because I'm just trying to be as honest as I can be. And that's the kind of thing that if a friend comes to me

and is like, I have this need, I do drop everything. You do. I've seen you do it. I help in whatever way I can, and I kind of put that into action. But, like, if they don't come to me and I just know about something that somebody's going through, but they haven't asked me, my tendency to focus on my own stuff sort of prevails. And I think that's one of the reasons why I got kind of a low score here. And also, you know, I'm sort of at this point publicly known as the guy who rejected the religion of his youth and talked about it on the Internet, which is not a particularly agreeable thing to do.

Now, you also do that. I do that. And I have, it's funny because I think there have been moments in my life. I mean, one that I thought of when I was very, when I was the opposite of agreeable, which is kind of a, this is some personal lore of mine. Do we have time for me to tell this? Yeah, baby. Was my, between my, I guess, between my junior, sophomore and junior year,

there was a summer program. They do this in North Carolina. I don't know if they do it in other states. I'm sure there's something similar called Governor's School. And so you had to audition to get into this program. And it was kind of like a mini college experience. So you go in a specific area. Mine was like a choral performance. So I was with about 50 other kids in choir for the summer. But then you take classes in philosophy and a few other things. So one of the songs that our choir was supposed to sing was Imagine by John Lennon. And I felt, which it's a great song. I mean, can't we all agree? But it says, imagine there's no heaven. It does.

It says, imagine there's no heaven. It's easy if you try. No hell below us, above us only sky. You know, and I felt like if I were to get up there and sing this, so interesting, that I would be basically lying about what I actually believed, which was there is a heaven and there is a hell. I don't want to imagine. Right. So I got up in front of the 50 students in my choir and gave an impassioned speech about how I could not deny my Savior by singing Imagine.

And looking back, I mean, I'm embarrassed, but that was who I was. You stood up for what you believed in. I did. I did. I did. And so there is, while I am 85% agreeable, sometimes I will strongly disagree if I feel like it is a counter to who I am. And I, so, yeah. And actually, and we didn't end up, myself and a group of other kids sat out of the match. Yes, and it was a huge thing. They wrote an article in the governor's school paper about it.

Well, mission accomplished. Took a stand for the Lord, and he got noticed for it. But I think that, to me, I think about agreeableness is more on the interpersonal level, less than the, like, I'm going to take a stand based on principles because you've always been a very principled person. Okay. Very justice oriented person. And so I think that sometimes your sort of moral compass and your justice meter are so active that you end up being, I'm going to make myself uncomfortable and I'm going to make these people feel uncomfortable.

But when it comes to the way you interact with individuals, like you are so conscious of other people's needs and their comfort that that's why you score high in this area. And that's why I don't score very high because like I have to be kind of told, you know? I feel like now that I don't have the ability to recognize someone's needs, but there's a part of me that's sort of like, well, well just tell me until you tell me, I'm just going to assume you're all right, which is wrong.

But anyway, now let's move to the last one, because again, like I said, there's these correlations that they've observed about these things that are even more interesting than everything we're talking about right now. Neuroticism. The average is 54. So which makes sense. I'm a 50. So slightly below average.

What are you? I scored 33. Wow. Yeah, I was actually shocked by that. Maybe it's because I'm medicated. Maybe the Zoloft is doing some heavy lifting on that 33. But it is, it's, there's, neurotic people are susceptible to anxiety depression anger and other negative emotions when subjected to stressful conditions and something you know

with my I don't I don't know if I guess there wouldn't have been a time when I would have talked about it you wrote a song about OCD and And some people got mad at you, but your wife, you've dealt with OCD a lot. So, you know, if anybody knows about dealing with, and you know what, you're really good at dealing with OCD. Like you actually helped me a lot by being funny about it, by not taking anything I said seriously. I mean, I think the last thing an OCD person wants is for you to actually believe all their compulsions and obsessions and to tell them that they've got a good point. Right.

I mean, maybe they think they want that, but ultimately that's not what's best for them. So anyway, yeah, I guess I don't think I struggle with negative emotions as much. I definitely have them, but I can often kind of talk myself out of it, which means that I need to make sure I am actually feeling my feelings. To me, this is a testimony to a combination of therapy and medication being very beneficial to you. I mean, I know that you're a strong proponent of both of those things for people who legitimately need them. And the net result is your neuroticism is lower than mine. This is one of those things where, as I recently said on the podcast, I'm getting more in touch with my anxiety. But at the same time, I'm stable.

I am resilient. I have a lot of self-confidence. I'm optimistic. I'm not a pessimistic person. I'm optimistic. I'm not a pessimistic person. In fact, my optimism is often what is the way that I internally answer the anxiety. And so I think that, like, again, it's these two feel like very strong forces. Like my anxiety in certain situations feels very strong, but my sort of optimism and self-confidence and resilience feels very strong at the same time. And I think the net result is you end up somewhere in the middle. Yeah. Something that I thought was really interesting on one of the podcasts that I listen to that I'll wreck at the end about the big five is that lots of people, I think 70 percent of people don't like one of their scores, are ashamed.

It's like, yeah, I'm a little bit ashamed of my conscientiousness score. But does that mean, okay, you're stuck with this. This is who you are forever. And the good news is that you can change your scores. And this involves, I mean, if you were going to do it really aggressively, I think it would be a type of like cognitive behavioral therapy. But even making small decisions to do something that is different than what you would normally do can change. So even as you're dealing with your anxiety, I think recognizing your anxiety, seeing it for what it is,

is you're dealing with your anxiety. I think recognizing your anxiety, seeing it for what it is, and then deciding, you know, what am I going to do? What's my answer to that anxiety? Extroversion isn't like at the next party. That's a big one.

Yeah. Maybe I should make you go up to people if you want to, but maybe you're happy with your extroversion score. No, I'd like to be better at it. Okay. Let's talk about some of these observations that have been made. Just start with a weird one.

A preference for bitter tastes. This is people with high openness. An interesting and somewhat unexpected correlation has been found between high openness and a preference for bitter tastes, including black coffee and dark chocolate. The preference contrasts with more universally palatable tastes and might reflect a broader openness

to a wide variety of sensory experiences. I love black licorice. You do. I do not. I love, you know, people know the weird stuff that I like, things that taste weird and taste challenging is the way that I would describe them or challenging unusual tastes. Like olives is not really that challenging unless you're Link.

But there's a lot of people who don't like it, right? Because it's the only thing that tastes like that. And I think that this must be, it just totally tracks. And you don't like black licorice, but you like basically everything. I do now. I mean, another interesting thing, I've said interesting, fascinating thing is that you can, with age, a lot of these characteristics typically shift in people. So I think people become more conscientious. It's like, and that is just brain science. Like your prefrontal cortex comes online as you age. People become more conscientious. I think people become less open. So I do feel like I have become more open to different tastes. I actually crave different tastes now. I kind of get sick of the same taste. So, yeah.

Cryptocurrency investment. Some research suggests that people high in openness may be more inclined to invest in cryptocurrencies. Their attraction to novel and innovative financial products can be seen as an extension of their general openness. Well, their openness to new ideas and technologies, despite the risks. So this is pretty funny because I don't, thankfully at this point, I'm not very like day-to- day involved when it comes to my finances. Right.

But when everybody started talking about crypto a couple of years ago, I felt this compulsion to be like, I need to understand this. And if I need and I need to get in on this. And because that is on me to do and the people in like the, you know, the people who help me with my finances are like really fiscally conservative people who are like, when I asked them a question about it, they were like, you know, we may invest in some cryptocurrency technologies that help, you know, on the investment side. But in terms of just buying individual different cryptocurrencies, like if you want to do that, that's something you need to do on your own. And because for my own sanity and also because of the things I want to actually spend my time on, that is a big barrier for me to be like, I'm going to be on my phone on some app or whatever. But eventually I did figure it out, but I figured it out so late that it was like one month before all the bottom completely fell out. So it didn't go well for me.

But that was, that was, yeah, there is funny. Cause I don't, I think it's good to know these things about yourself because it's just like a new shiny idea. Like, okay, AI starts getting pretty scary and everybody starts talking about it. And then immediately I have this tendency to want to, well, where can I use this in my life? What do I need to do about this? Like I just have a receptivity to it is my first instinct versus a skepticism and sort of an alienation. versus a skepticism and sort of an alienation. But this also relates to values and beliefs, which this might explain one particular event in our lives.

Individuals with high levels of openness often hold unconventional beliefs and values. They might be more questioning of traditional norms and more receptive to new and diverse ideologies. This can extend to religion, politics, and personal values. So again, the way that I often retrospectively tell the story of my deconstruction and deconversion is that like, okay, it was, and I don't try to over, I try not to oversimplify it, but it was like, it's characterized by primarily a search for the truth and the discovery of these things not being true, which I still believe to be mostly the case, but I also am more willing to admit that like our brains are limited in their capacity to determine truth you know but i can definitely see that like this tendency to be open like i was

obviously open to the idea that what we had sort of gone so hard at for so long and given ourselves so fully to might be wrong. Yeah, I mean, I think it explains a lot of the cognitive dissonance I felt as I would lay in bed from a very early age trying to wrap my head around the problem of evil or how God could send most of the world to hell. And I knew what I had to believe, what I was supposed to believe, and I kept trying to make myself believe it.

And I think I had convinced myself that I did believe it. But in the same way, looking back again, hindsight is 20-20, but looking back, in the same way that my OCD always felt like it was almost something outside of me, didn't really feel like me. It was like a voice that I had to listen to, even though it didn't feel like it was authentically me. I think some of those, the more stringent or more the ultra-traditional conservative aspects of our faith caused me a lot of anguish, mental anguish. Because that's not how – I was not – I did not come into the world wired to look at the world that way. Personality types that gravitate towards systematic sort of traditional systems that are unchanging, right? One of the things that makes religion, traditional religion, what it is, is this idea that God has settled all these issues, right?

There's no new information, right? It was all revealed through Jesus, through the Bible, if you're a Christian. And we need to keep going back to those traditional ideas and the things that God revealed versus a tendency to want to believe that there is, there's information and truth that's yet to be revealed. There's sort of an evolution that is happening and we're headed towards some new future. And it's funny because my personality was always, was thinking that.

However, it was happening very much like in the context of just within the church and so it would be like i think that's why i got so into this idea of relational evangelism in the late 90s and then decided to go into doing this full-time and teaching people about it right because relational evangelism or friendship evangelism the idea that you actually become connected to people versus like create a series of public events or go out on the street corner and tell people about jesus or go on a college campus and argue with people in the brickyard um i hated that type of evangelism. It seemed confrontational. And that felt like a new idea, right? When like a speaker would talk about it at Christmas conference, I was like, or had a

new book, I'd be like, oh, this is, I like this. This is a new idea. Those new ideas lived within the context of this sort of unchanging religion. But eventually that tendency to want there to be something new kind of just like the system couldn't hold anymore, if that makes sense. Okay, this is a funny one. An intriguing study found that people who are more conscientious and open to experiences And open to experiences, tend to walk faster. Now, walking speed is a point of contention in our relationship. Why don't you tell us your perspective on that, Jessie? Well, why don't you tell the people how tall you are, Rhett?

That might help. They know. I know you've never mentioned that before. It's actually 6'6 and 3 quarters. It's listed 6'7 some places, six, six, other places two meters. How tall is the wife that you love and married, the wife of your youth, your bride, who's sitting across, beside you? She's not very tall. I'd say five, three. Five, three, five, in between five, three and five, four. Oh, we'll say five,4. Okay, 5'4. It's better to my point for me to be 5'3.

5'3, okay. So inherently in our heights, there's going to be a difference in how fast we walk because your legs are longer and you can cover more ground, even though for somebody who loves science, you refuse to admit that truth. I don't know what the studies show about tallness and speed of walking, but I tend to think that a lot of tall guys, while they are tall, they sort of move like gentle giants. And so it all comes out in the wash. Like I think if you go to an airport and you just independently observe people walking,

I don't think all the tall people will be walking faster. I just don't believe it. No, but they are covering more ground. I understand they have the capacity to go faster. But think about it. The fastest people in the world, you go to like the 100-meter dash, it's not a bunch of 6'7 people. Maybe it should be.

I mean, Usain Bolt was actually really tall for a sprinter. So anyway, you can see this is a point of contention because I walk faster than my wife. And it's not my height. It's the fact that we're both open to experiences, but I'm a little bit more conscientious than you. Well, you win. That's what it is.

Congratulations. You get the fast walker prize. I think that there should be, what we should do is we should start our own test, and it's just the walking speed test. And all you got to do is you just press a button on your phone, and then you walk. And then it tells you how fast you're walking,

and then where you land in the average. And I know that you're in the single digits. I don't, okay, if I go to the airport with Link, he's walking faster than me. I like, if I have to keep up, like I have to keep up with him. He, I feel like I'm kind of ambling and I'm like, oh, he's really, he's going for it. And so I like try to catch up with him. If I go to the airport with you, I feel like I have to stop, look backwards. Sometimes I have to walk backwards. What kind of shoes are you wearing? Because I'm not always, while I'm not wearing like stilettos,

I'm not always wearing shoes that are conducive to fast-paced walking. Yeah, I agree with that. But sometimes you're in your tennis shoes and you're going slow. Well, I'm absorbing. I'm just saying now we know why. Right, yes. And if I could just be more agreeable. It's because you're more neurotic.

Is that right? Was that why? I'll be more agreeable and empathetic and just walk slower. I like that. Which I have been doing. I don't like to leave you empathetic and just walk slower. I like that. Which I have been doing. I don't like leave you. I've never left you. I mean, sometimes I forget that you're there and I don't look back and then you're gone.

But that's very rare. I would say 70% of the time you walk ahead of me. And you know what? I'm protecting you. I realized you are like preparing the way. Who knows what we're going to run into out there. You don't know that you're doing it. I'm a big man.

I'm like a shield. And that is something that I have decided is not the hill I want to die on in our relationship. Okay. Maybe we should get a harness that connects us side by side. We'll sell that on our walking speed website. Don't make a promise you can't keep. We do that all the time. We also make websites we have to buy.

That's why I'm not coming up with a dot com. Don't do it because we have to buy it. This is interesting. This can be our last little thing. Okay. And then we'll go on about our day. Pet preference. A study shows that dog people

are about 15% more extroverted and 13% more agreeable than cat people. So you are extremely high in both of these and you are a really, really big dog person. I am.

I am. I love the little doggies. I love my little Barbara and Sean and other people's dogs as well. I love your dog. But this is the problem. I am low on extroversion and low on agreeableness, which means that scientifically speaking, I'm a cat person. I'm actually supposed to be a cat person. This is like paradigm shifting, groundbreaking stuff.

You're going to have to sit with that. But I'm allergic. I can't sit with a cat. I'm allergic to it. That's true. Maybe we need more cat art in our house. Or maybe we need to visit a cat cafe. Well, here's the thing.

I'm not as against cats as my internet persona would have you believe, right? I also don't like beans as much as my internet persona would have you believe. I really like beans. You really like beans. I like beans a lot more than the average person, but you would think that there's always a bean in my mouth based on the way that people talk about it. There's always beans in your house. There's not a bean in my mouth right now. And I don't really hate cats. I just prefer dogs because I like, because I have pets, not for them.

I have pets for me, right? I have pets for what they do for me emotionally. But you are all about those kittens. When we were in North Carolina and we went to that sofa store. I love kittens, they're not cats. Sofa manufacturer. And they happened to have a stray cat who had had a little, what's it?

Litter? Thank you. Yeah. Because they're just trash. I'm kidding. I love kittens. I love kittens. I love kittens.

That's a delayed response, Brady. I love kittens. I love kittens. That's a delayed response, buddy. I love kittens. Yeah, they had a litter of kittens, and you were picking up those kittens. I made an overture. The gentle giant that you were. I made an overture. Is that the right word? I extended an olive branch to a cat in our neighborhood, and then he died.

Well, he went missing. We don't know if he died. He became a meal for a coyote. That little orange cat, he would greet us and I would pet him. You love that cat. I love that cat. So I think that maybe that's where I'm heading. Maybe I'm heading to be a person that can start conversations. I'm heading to be a person who walks slowly, conversations. I'm heading to be a person who walks slowly, has a cat. But the allergy thing is a real problem though. It is. It is. Yeah. You can't, there's nothing you can do about that. It's not like an intense allergy. Well, our son has an intense cat allergy. Yeah, he does. So there you go. You're off the hook, babes. Okay. And I'm headed towards being a person who

And I'm headed towards being a person who is more organized, who plans ahead, who is super, super driven. And like you said, that is one of the things that has been observed about all of these traits is that you can change them. It takes intention. Yeah. So answering, you know, going to one of these sites, taking the big five personality test, being as honest as you can, and then taking a look at the scores,

it just lets you, I think anything that gives you this sort of sense of who you are and who you are in comparison to other people, not to compete, but to kind of know from a self-awareness standpoint, this is how I show up for people. I may not realize that this is how I'm showing up for people. For me, I would have always said to you, probably up until my late 20s, that I was extroverted because I was kind of like always signing up for stuff and I'll leave this or I'll do that without any hesitation. But I wasn't really stopping to think about

the way I actually was interacting with people socially. So you can learn stuff about yourself and then you can have an intention to change it if you so choose. Do you have a rec for us? Oh, yeah. The podcast that – one of the podcasts I listened to that was one of the initial reasons I wanted to talk about this today. It was Science Versus. They have an episode on personality tests, but they focus on the big five a lot.

And there's lots of – they're always great about citing their sources. Is that the one where they talk about like the origin of Myers-Briggs and how it's not scientific and like how they came up with it? I think they talk about some of the frustrations people have or reasons that some of these other personality tests are not as scientifically rigorous or scientifically rigorous at all as the big five. That's a great podcast in general. It is.

About any subject that you might be interested in. They probably have talked about it. Well, thank you for joining me, Jessie. Thanks for inviting me, Brett. I like being this close to you and not having to shout at you across the table. Yeah. But next time, let's do it without microphones. No, we're going to get you a Clark Brooks mic.

So you can do whatever you want. You can go wherever you want. Thanks for listening. Remember, we want you to be a part of the conversation. You can call us at 1-888-EAR-POD-1. And we appreciate it if you enjoy this podcast. It helps a lot if you go and rate it and review it wherever you listen to this podcast. We'll talk to you next week.

Hey, Rhett and Link. New fan here. Somebody really great turned me on to you guys. And I listen to you every single day the good thing about being a late to the game fan is that i've got like years and years of content to get caught up on and i just love it