The One You Feed - How to Understand Yourself and Others Better with Anne Bogel

Episode Date: March 1, 2024

In this episode, Anne Bogel uncovers some important truths about the field of personality analysis and self-awareness. She shares how viewing things through the lens of personality can help to understand yourself and others better. This conversation explores the impacts of personality traits on individual behavior and decision making and focuses on how leveraging these traits can lead to positive behavior change. In this episode, you will be able to: Unlock your potential with personalized growth strategies Discover the power of understanding your personality traits Embrace the importance of self-awareness and acceptance for positive change Gain valuable insights and leverage the Enneagram for behavioral growth Learn how to set achievable goals for continuous progress in your personal growth journey To learn more, click here!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If you don't know what you're really like, there's nothing you can do to change. You can't move forward. Welcome to The One You Feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like, garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think, ring true. And yet, for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit.

But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together, our mission on the Really Know Really podcast is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like...

Why the bathroom door doesn't go all the way to the floor? What's in the museum of failure? And does your dog truly love you? We have the answer. Go to reallynoreally.com and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. The Really No Really podcast. Follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We hope you'll enjoy this episode from the archive. Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Anne Bogle, the creator of the popular blog Modern Mrs. Darcy and the podcast What Should I Read Next?

She's the author of many books, including her newest book, Reading People, How Seeing the World Through the Lens of Personality Changes Everything. Hi, Anne. Welcome to the show. Well, thank you for having me. I'm happy to have you on and talk with you about your latest book, which is called Reading People, How Seeing the World Through the Lens of Personality Changes Everything. You're also the host of a podcast called What Should I Read Next? And listeners who closely follow us know that I had a short interview with Anne sometime, I think, around Thanksgiving to sort of cross-promote some of our shows. We're both on the Wondery Network. But now we're going to do a full interview and we're going to talk about reading and her book. But before we get started, let's start like we always do with the parable. There's a grandmother who's talking with her granddaughter and she says, in life there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle.

One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love. And the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the granddaughter stops and thinks about it for a second and looks up at her grandmother and says, Well, grandmother, which one wins? And the grandmother says, The one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do. Well, that's such a great story. And even though I've heard you tell it many times, it never gets old.

Well, that's so interesting. And I know you've had some guests come back to your show. I'm interested to hear if it's the kind of story that means different things to you at different stages of your life. But what I'm hearing now is that it's not just what you choose to pay attention to, but that it really influences what kind of action you take in your life. And what I mean by that is I did write a book about personality. So I spent three years like in it, finding out like what makes us who we are and how much we do or do not have the power to influence that and what things we do have control over. And I've learned that there's an enormous difference between pretending things aren't the way they are and striving to make them different. So now when I listen to you tell that story, I think about the proactive changes or decisions we make in our lives every day to become or act like a certain

kind of person. And I mean that in a good way. I don't mean like pretending. And how that's so very different from sticking your head in the sand or your fingers in your ears and going la, la, la, la, la, and pretending everything is fine. And in my work, I wrote this book about personality, but for eight years now, I've written primarily about what's so important about the reading life in my work, online, in books. And what I've come to believe is that when you have a vibrant reading life, it makes your life better, richer, fuller. You're more self-aware of what you want and the direction you're heading in. And I think that spills over into the rest of your life as well. When you develop a stronger reading life, the rest of your life improves. And so I'm constantly thinking about what we

are putting into our brains, what things we're choosing to think about every day, and just watching how that ought to, if we're paying attention, flow out into our actions when we move into the world. Yeah, there's two things you said there that I think are so useful. The first is about, you know, not sticking your head in the sand. And I occasionally, you know, people will take the parable as you should only have good thoughts, or you should only feel happy, or you should only feel kind or generous. And I think that's not really the point. The point, like you said, is here's what is, right? Whatever that emotion, situation, whatever it is, here's what is. But then I'm going to be conscious and choiceful. Is that a word?

I know what you point that out. And then I also agree with you about reading. My favorite place in the world is probably a library. And second favorite might be a bookstore just in the libraries ahead of it because it has more books usually and they're free. But so I agree with you. I think that reading is so essential. One of the things that I lament a little bit about the current role I'm in is that I'm reading all the time for the show, which I love, but it limits the scope of my reading a little bit. And I'm a huge fiction reader and I do, I do less of it than I would like. It's a worthwhile trade-off, but I do occasionally miss that. So I love when I have a little bit of a lull that I can get into a good

fiction book. So why don't we start there and then we'll head into personality. But what are a couple of fiction books that you have read recently that you have loved? Ooh, a couple. Yeah, I know. Not 26. In book club last night, we talked about Home Fire, a relatively new novel by Kamala Shamsi. It came out, I think, August or September 2017, but we just had our book club discussion last night. And that's a really interesting book because it has a nerdy appeal. And that is that it's a 21st century retelling of Sophocles' play Antigone. But the way she's redone this for the 21st century is she's made this the story about done this for the 21st century is she's made this the story about love and family and citizenship and obligations and terrorism and politics. And she has just created this really fascinating story

that is so interesting to read. And when I first heard an Antigone retelling, like that sounds like a yawner. I was skeptical, but it's so good. And I was really impressed by just knowing the fact that she's retelling this play that came out. It's something like the fourth century BC. It was a really long time ago. And as human beings, we're still struggling with so many of the same issues. Like how do we balance what is legal against what we perceive to be right? And this person we owe a strong loyalty to, but this other person that we also feel committed to and what we do as people when those values are in conflict.

And it was just so interesting. And the fact that she made it about terrorism and politics was just fascinating. I was really impressed with the way she did that. And, oh, let me think. I also love and have read several times this spring, actually, a Maggie O'Farrell novel called This Must Be the Place, which is a really interesting family saga told from many different points of view of all the characters in this story. You get inside everybody's head. She has one chapter that's an auction catalog.

She has one chapter that's an interview in like a gossip magazine that's going very, very badly for the subject involved. And I just love how she tells this family story that has lots and lots of sorrow we've been through. Like everybody in this story has experienced something horrible or they're dealing with this massive encumbrance like addiction or a physical disability or they're grieving the loss of a loved one, but they are working it through some to a better effect than others. It makes me think of your parable, but I just love it so much. I love stories that seem realistic, but are a little more interesting and dramatic, usually in a bad way, than my usual life. I love it when people's stories on the page really have emotional resonance and make me think about my own life and what I want it when people's stories on the page really have emotional resonance and

make me think about my own life and what I want from it and my place in the world and, you know, all that deep thought stuff. Yeah, I think that one of the things I love about literature that can do this is it's a good portal into other people's lives, depending on what you're reading. But in most cases, what that portal tells us at a very broad level is that we all go through really hard crap. And there's just something, I think, that's so normalizing about that. And I think it's one of the things on this show that I've tried to emphasize over and over and work with, which is that suffering is not personal. Pain that happens in life is not a failure. That's part of what's going to happen.

It's not that all life is that way, but it's going to happen. And it's not a personal failing. And people aren't alone in going through that, that everyone goes through stuff like this at some juncture in life. And I think literature can really be a great way to explore that in a more in-depth way than a lot of other methods. Yes, I totally agree. And that's one of the main reasons I like to read. And that's so interesting because now that you articulate that idea about suffering being universal, it's interesting. I can see in the people that I interact with every day when something bad happens, they think, where did I go wrong? Right. But you didn't go wrong. This is life. Yep. This is life. It's just,

which is weirdly encouraging and depressing at the same time. Right, right. I used the word suffering a minute ago and I actually make a real distinction between pain and suffering and listeners have probably heard this a thousand times, but you know, I think that like pain is, you know, we're going to have pain in life. Bad things are going to happen to us. Suffering tends to be, to me, the distinction of all the stuff that we layer on top of that that's optional. And one of those most common sufferings that we add to our burdens is, what did I do wrong? Or why me? Or this shouldn't be happening. And all those thoughts, while perfectly normal and almost probably unavoidable, are also things that make what we're going through worse. And sometimes I think that's almost the best we can do is just not make it worse. But that's a remarkable relief. To not make it worse can be pretty remarkable in how much better it feels. Funny, because it's true.

Yep, yep. Yes, absolutely. I've not looked at all your podcasts or all your blogs, but I've looked through some of them to see some different reading ideas. And there's somebody that I love that seems to be right up your alley that I haven't seen, and maybe it's just because I haven't seen it,

but Kristen Hanna? You know, I have read probably half her works and have enjoyed it over the years, but oh my goodness, I loved The Great Alone. I thought that was an amazing book. Me too. Yeah. The last two of hers, that one, and I think it was The Nightingale, just blew me away, both of them. But it strikes me as that exactly what we're talking about now, which is this view into somebody's life and how they deal with their challenges and just very nuanced, very rich, but also captivating.

And you, on your blog, you've got sections, I think you call it literary fiction that's also easy to read or something. And I think that's what I prefer too, is that there's some depth to it, there's some meaning to it, there's some clear thought and nuance about the human condition, and it's a pleasure to read. You can get lost in it. And so I think we probably would like a lot of the similar books. I'm glad to hear that. And yes, I thought that novel was very well written. I thought the craft was excellent, but I could not wait to find out what happened next. I saw another post on your website about books that I read within like 24 hours. And I think that that book, The Great Alone, is the most recent book. And it's been

a little while of something that kept me up till like four in the morning reading. I could not put it down. I knew I needed to. I kept trying. And I'd lay down for a minute and I'd be like, oh, forget it. And I'd just get back up and start reading it again because it was so compelling to me. And it's a long book. It's 400 something pages. I know. But I did the same thing. Well, I didn't finish it at four in the morning. Luckily, I think I started that early on a Saturday morning. So patting myself on the back. I didn't know what a good decision that was at the time. But I was just so nervous for the characters. I really, I needed to know if they were going to be okay. And if something terrible was going to happen to them, I needed to have it in the past tense and get it over with. So I just kept turning

and turning and turning. Yeah, it's remarkably well done. And I send out each month in our newsletter a book recommendation. I'm trying to think of whether that one was in there in one of the recent ones. I'm pretty sure it was because I loved it so much. Thank you. Do you ever feel like life is just one problem after another? You finally feel like maybe there's a break and then bam, another problem? This is how it is for many of us, but there is a better way to respond. A way of responding that brings greater ease into your life and returns some of the energy that the problems drain from you. We are hosting a free live

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or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's turn and talk about personality, because we could spend the whole interview on books easily. But let's talk about personality, because I think there's a lot of really interesting things. Your book is called Reading People, How Seeing the World Through the Lens of Personality Changes Everything. And what you're really talking about in the book is here are these various types of personality assessments. We all tend to take them, whether they be something incredibly in-depth like the

Myers-Briggs, or as you joke, like the BuzzFeed quiz about like, what kind of cheese am I? Or as you joke, like the BuzzFeed quiz about like, what kind of cheese am I? So we all are intrigued by that stuff. And what I thought about the book that was a different take was, it was your experience with how you used these different assessments to make your life better. And I thought that was really a useful way to look at it. But let's start with, I think the direction we'll take this is what is personality? And then I think a lot of the book was about to what extent, and you mentioned this in your introduction, to what extent are we able to change ourselves and not change ourselves? And what

should we even try to change and not change? And I think it's a really fascinating and nuanced question that I think you address in lots of different places. So let's start with what is personality? Wow. See, that sounds like such a simple question. And that has been debated for hundreds of years, what it really means. So in the book, what I'm talking about when I talk about personality are those things about us that we really can't change. I'm not talking about if you're kind or compassionate or generous, which are character traits that we do. Now, see, psychologists already say like, well, it's actually fairly difficult to become more conscientious or more generous unless you have like a real serious epiphany. You can move the needle, but just a little. But I'm talking about those things that are more or less hardwired. We were born an introvert or an extrovert, or we are someplace on the

spectrum. And while most of us tend to become a little more introverted over time, and while we can train ourselves to behave in ways that make us more comfortable or quote unquote successful in certain situations, those are coping strategies, not real fundamental change. Nobody decides they're going to be an extrovert and becomes one because they willed it to be so. I'm talking about those things about how our mind is inclined to work, how we tend to think about the world, the way we see things. things. And it's hard to capture, but that's why I like the lens of these personality frameworks that lets you systematically approach the way that you are inclined to think, feel, act about certain behaviors with this, a systematic framework that lets you think about one aspect of yourself at a time. Yeah. And you walk through a lot of different personality type tests. And this is

what I'll say about personality tests in me. I find them maddening because I end up, if there's a middle on everything, that's where I end up. Every question I'm like, well, I just feel like none of it feels to me incredibly clear, which I actually think as I step back and look at my personality kind of goes, yeah, I think that's kind of where I gravitate to is, you know, a very, you know, if you take a personality test, I look like I could almost be four different things. You know, it's like, well, where's the nuance in? So I find them to be challenging for me in that regard because some of the questions I'm like, well, the answer is it depends. Can I tell you something, though, Eric?

I do the same thing. depends. Can I tell you something though, Eric? I do the same thing. And I wish I had known at the very beginning before I encounter my first personality test, whether or not those questions on a solid personality assessment, like I'm thinking of something like Myers-Briggs, which psychologists do have some beef with sometimes because they don't think it measures certain things, blah, blah, blah. We won't get into that right now. But some people make quizzes on the internet that really aren't worth anything. But I'm just saying, as opposed to that, it says a lot about your personality. Truly, I'm not being silly about whether or not you can imagine yourself acting in all those different ways. You're not a black and white thinker, I'm guessing.

No, no, very much not. So if what we're talking about when we talk about these personality frameworks is that it captures our characteristic patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, the fact that you're not a binary thinker does say a lot about yours. Yep. And I understand that doesn't help you answer the question, but it might still confirm something that you had a hunch about, which is that you're good at seeing lots of possibilities. Yeah. And there's two things that you put early in the book that I thought were really important, because you talk about the importance of getting these things right.

And you talked about your early mistakes were that you didn't answer the questions exactly as you are, but kind of what you wished you were or what you thought you should be. And that's a really subtle nuance that I think is very, very important because I think we all have a sense of here's the right way to be. Now, I don't think there is, but most of us think there is. And so then we're kind of, you know, we're answering questions in that. And then the other thing that I thought you said that was really helpful in this was that it's easy to type yourself by paying attention to how you're likely to screw up. Yes, it is. The first thing you said about how it's important to pay attention and get it right to identify your personality, not as how you wish you were. And it's true there's not one right way to act.

But in some careers, in some families, in some situations, there is a personality type that is valued more than others. And that's not a good thing, but it's still a true thing in many settings. So it's easy for us to unconsciously take that on. But that idea really goes back to the wolves we were talking about in the parable, how pretending doesn't make it so. And if you don't know how things, if you don't know what you're really like, there's nothing you can do to change. You can't move forward. And really knowing what kind of person you are. And again, I hate to use words like that because they're thrown around as cliches so often, but truly identifying your characteristic patterns of thoughts, feelings,

and behavior can open up the world to you in so many ways. And it would be a shame to pass that by. Yeah. And I think that there's a common, I don't know if it's a criticism, but that, you know, a personality test can be a way to put ourselves in a box, right? And I think we also have to watch for confirmation bias, right? Which is once we think one thing, we see that thing everywhere. And so if I take a personality test that tells me I'm X, and I start looking for examples of me being X, I'm going to be X. But I think you make a very important distinction. And I think the really useful one is that personality are things like introversion, extroversion, highly sensitive people, you

know, whether you have a higher happiness set point or a lower happiness set point. But then you go on to make a distinction of two other key things. And it's interesting because if I were to break down the way we approach things on the show, we would do it very similar to this. I'm always talking about, you know, the serenity prayer. What can you change? What can't you change? And so personality is, okay, let's just say that's the, that's the part that we're

not going to do much with. That's the genetic inheritance to some degree, right? But the two things that, that are much more malleable, and again, we can debate how malleable they are or not malleable. I'm in the more malleable with a lot of effort camp is our character and our behavior. And so as people who listen to the show know that I'm all about behavior all the time. We're always talking about how sometimes we can't think our way into right action. We have to act our way into right thinking. And that's because behaviors are more malleable. And so I think that the way that you're talking about using personality tests is really the opposite of being a way to limit ourselves to say, like, here's the box I put myself in, but much more as a way to understand ourselves in certain cases, to arrange our life and our environment in a way that that is going to work best for us, given who we are. And to also use those things to give us a little bit of a break on being hard on ourselves when we just realize like, you know what, that's the way I'm going to

react to certain things. And, you know, that's what's going to happen. Again, there's degrees of improvement, but maybe the initial reaction, I'm never going to change. Yes, I agree wholeheartedly. And I understand where this impulse comes to reject the whole idea like, oh, I don't want to be put in a box. However, when you go into the store, you probably know about what size you're looking for when you need your new running shoes. Like my hair is brown. It just is. And I can change it with dye if I wanted to. But that is just part of who I am. However, you will hear people say, oh, I'm an INTJ, so I couldn't possibly fill in the blank. Or people will say to me, like, oh, I know you have to be an extrovert because you have a podcast.

An introvert would die if they had to talk to people all day. And that's just not true. And, you know, we can do any number of things. We don't have options for clothes to us because we are or are not a certain personality type according to whatever framework you're going with. However, I do think you're right in that we understand fundamental things about who we are, how our mind tends to operate. We really can enable ourselves to have an easier time changing our behavior, improving our character and the direction we

want to go. Those are not easy things. They are absolutely possible, but it is difficult to change your behavior and it is difficult to change your character. So why not make it easier on yourself by understanding those things that are true about you that you can put to work for you instead of allowing to limit you? Right. I mean, I think there's a few things there. Obviously, the effort that we spend on changing things we can't change is wasted effort. And so it takes a certain amount of effort to make real change. And so let's put that effort where it can actually make a difference. Also, that idea of structuring things. I think we all underestimate, myself included, the importance of our environment around us in who we become, how we act, what we do. I mean, the classic simple explanation, because I work with people on behavior and actually making change and transformation. The classic stupid example,

right, is that if you don't want to eat junk food, don't have it in the house, right? That's your environment. But that's pretty profound. I mean, it sounds simple, but do it. And it makes a big difference. And so there's so many different things that are like that. And you use a phrase in the book, I'm just going to read what you say. You say, I'm the kind of person who blank is a powerful phrase no matter what goes in that blank. Our identities evolve as we move through life. Sometimes this happens without our even noticing. And I think that is such a profound statement that I watch so closely for. I'm the kind of person who X, like I work with people on making changes in their life. And so I'll often hear people say, I'm the kind of person who just can't stick with anything. I'm the kind of person who has no self-control. I'm the kind of person, and my

experience is those are traits that can be, or behaviors that can be changed. I mean, there was a point where, you know, all I did every day was steal and put a needle in my arm, you know. I'm a long, long way from there. So big change is possible in those ways. But I worry about that I'm the kind of person who X. But the flip side of that is one of the things you talk about is like highly sensitive people. And we'll move to that next. A trait of highly sensitive people is the stimulus around them is, you know, up loud. That's the only way I can think to put it. And so I think I have some of those traits. Like if somebody is eating really loudly next to me, I can't ignore it. I know that that's such a trivial thing to care about. I know it's, but yet, despite all my efforts, I mean, you know, all the changes I've made in my life, that one, it's just makes me crazy. If there are five or six people talking at the same time, I can't filter it out. So that's the sort of thing that I think is a useful understanding of personality because I go, oh, okay, that's kind of the way I am. So what do I do with that? First, I don't think I'm an awful person because I can't do it.

And secondly, then I try and limit my exposure to those situations. So I think that's a really useful example of personality. And then you go on to talk about Carol Dweck. And we've had Carol on the show, the fixed versus growth mindset. One of the more fundamental lessons that I think I've gotten from this show is to look in any situation, and where am I being in a fixed versus growth mindset? And so what I liked about your book was it was very clear about here are some things that, you know, probably a fixed mindset makes sense about like how tall I am, you know, being the most obvious example, but in the areas where a growth mindset is, is a more useful tool. But you could wear heels. And so could I. And I do. Oh, well, scratch that from the record, Chris.

And so could I. And I do. Oh, well, scratch that from the record, Chris. Nothing wrong with anybody wearing heels. Don't anybody take that wrong. Nothing wrong. Nothing wrong. Matter of fact, the truth be told, I have worn heels. Okay, it's out there.

Now we're going to move on. I didn't mean that in a gendered kind of way. I know. What I was thinking, though, was that I'm very familiar with Carol Dweck's work. And I think, Eric, that I'm the kind of person who has a growth mindset. But every once in a while, I surprise myself by catching myself in a fixed mindset in a place I didn't realize I was fixed. So all I mean is, if you write something off immediately, like, oh, I'm 5'9", and I will

be forever, and there's nothing I can do about it, You could be forcing yourself to be stuck when that's not necessary. And height may be a silly example, but we also think things like, I'm the kind of person who could never stick with an exercise plan, or I'm the person who could never do a handstand or a pull-up, or I'm the kind of person who, you know, it's funny, the kind of email I get the most about this book and about personality has to do with highly sensitive people. And I get emails that say, I get them every week that say, I thought I was the kind of person who wasn't cut out for family life. But it turns out I'm just a highly sensitive person who limitation we perceive is actually accurate is really important. But if we don't know to ask ourselves those questions, then we are stuck. Yep. It's why, I mean, I do think the wisest three lines ever written are probably that first part of the serenity prayer. I mean, the gold is in that wisdom, you know, what can I change and what can

I? I mean, quality of, I mean, that just is such a huge disclaimer. The thing about Carol Dweck also that really struck me and I thought was such a useful thing was that we can be both in a fixed and growth mindset about different things in our life. It's not a, I'm always like, I'm fixed mindset about everything or I'm growth mindset. It's really interesting to see where I or other people bump up against the fixed mindset. It's really interesting to see where I or other people bump up against the fixed mindset. And I love hearing how other people do encounter that fixed mindset or the growth mindset in ways I didn't expect in their own lives, because it helps me come back and evaluate my own life and think, am I doing that? I love to hear other people's specific examples. Nothing else has

been more effective for me in helping myself get out of the ways I tend to just get stuck in my thinking. Thank you. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really No Really podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer. Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who the way to the floor. We got the answer. Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer.

We talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you. And the one bringing back the woolly mammoth. Plus, does Tom Cruise really do his own stunts? His stuntman reveals the answer. And you never know who's going to drop by. Mr. Bryan Cranston is with us today. How are you, too? Hello, my friend. Wayne Knight about Jurassic Park. Wayne Knight, welcome to Really No Really, sir. Bless you all. Hello, Newman. And you never know when Howie Mandel

might just stop by to talk about judging. Really? That's the opening? Really No Really. Yeah, really. No really. Go to reallynoreally.com and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. It's called Really No Really, and you can find it on the iHeartRadio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So let's move on to highly sensitive people. I touched it very briefly, and the reason I want to move on to it is because I have heard from lots of listeners about, you know, they'd like to hear more about this topic. So now I means you're sensitive, but it doesn't. It refers to your nervous system. And basically it's running at a little bit higher frequency than that of the general population. 15 to 20% of people are highly sensitive. That is true across species. You could have a highly sensitive Labrador or Guinea pig. That is a real thing. And what's funny is that

it's a title of my next novel, The Highly Sensitive Guinea Pig. I'd buy that. So this is a framework developed by Elaine Aron, and I love her books, especially The Highly Sensitive Person. And if you are a highly sensitive type, I might start actually with The Highly Sensitive Child instead, because you will read your own story there as well as a child and teen. If you're highly sensitive as an adult, you were highly sensitive as a kid too. And the highly sensitive person has some information about like sexual abuse and how that may affect highly sensitive people that may be very difficult for highly sensitive people to read. So to, you know, 30 second book plug. But the funny thing is that this is not actually

a personality framework in the traditional sense, but I included it in the book because it has impacted me and so many other people and opened my eyes in similar ways. It gives me that lens through which to understand myself and the way I approach the world and the way I interact with the people around me. So I included it here. To what extent are there variations in being highly sensitive? Can you be highly sensitive in a particular sense, but the other senses don't really trigger you in the same way? What accounts for some variation in that? Because some of the stuff I look at and I go, that is absolutely me. And then others of it, I go, well, I don't think that's really, you know, and looking at other people I know, you know, I look and I go, I can see a couple instances of what seems to be very high sensitivity. And yet everything else I see looks more or less like, you know, less so. So I'm kind of curious, what's the level of variation look like in that? Do they know?

It's pretty high. So highly sensitive people are more sensitive to stimuli than that of the general population. sensitive people are more sensitive to stimuli than that of the general population. While there are common themes, like the different stimuli can be diverse, like noise and sound are common triggers, but clutter can also be, which surprises a lot of people at first. But if you think of a kitchen counter with no white space, it's that lack of white space that is just causing a mental overload in the highly sensitive people. A classic highly sensitive trigger for children is like sock seams or the tags in shirts. I wish when I was a kid that they had those amazing tag-free shirts that they have now that my kids have. People can be overwhelming to highly sensitive people because people are very stimulating. Big feelings can be very stimulating to highly sensitive people.

So can emotional stimuli or like action movies or NPR. So if you see yourself as the type of person who wants to go curl up in a ball in the corner and suck your thumb after watching network news, you might be a highly sensitive person. It's definitely a useful concept. And I recognize, like I said, big parts of it in myself. We'll put in the show notes links to you, obviously your website, your book, and we'll also put a link into the highly sensitive online test. Oh, yes. And Elaine Aron has that great self-assessment.

And the thing about high sensitivity that sets it apart from a lot of other personality frameworks is that most people don't feel ambiguous about this. They'll read the checklist and go like, huh, I didn't know some people were like that. Or that's not me, but that's my brother. Or they'll go like, oh, is that weird? Because that's me. I thought everybody was like this.

Yes, this is me. I get it now. Excellent. So I want to throw in a couple other things here that I just picked out from the book. And one is I love to bring in ideas that have long resonated with me that show up in a book that I have an opportunity then to talk about. And one that I love, I think I first discovered it in Stephen Covey's Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, which

I still claim is a masterpiece. It sounds like you learned it from a couple's group at church, but it's the idea of the emotional bank account. Can you talk to us about what that means? And this also plays into more than just the emotional bank account. It ties into being highly sensitive, or the concept does in some ways. Sure. So we all have things that drain us of energy, and we all have things that fill us with energy. This is often talked about in the context of introversion and extroversion, with introverts recharge their mental and physical batteries by having quiet time alone.

And for extroverts, it's the opposite. Well, the same can really be true about our relationships with other people. So the people we love the most, who we live with, who we see the most, are the ones that will probably bring us the most joy, but also disappoint us the most. And we know that as humans. us the most joy, but also disappoint us the most. And we know that as humans. But problems arise when we don't have a healthy balance in the positive. So when I think about the emotional bank account, emotional gas tank, what we're thinking about is properly balancing or, you know, as much as possible, you want to be in the black and not in the red. You want to have a lot more

deposits into that good feelings bank than you do withdrawals because we're all going to make, hopefully we're all going to make deposits in our loved ones' accounts or our coworkers or bosses or neighbors. But because we're people, we will make withdrawals. We'll do things that hurt them, we'll disappoint them, we'll be deliberately cruel or just casually forgetful in ways that hurt their feelings and make them feel bad. But if we don't keep that balance in the positive or that fuel tank towards the upper end of the gauge, we are going to be in trouble. Yeah, I love that idea because it takes into account the fact that, like you said, inevitably, we are going to do something that disappoints the people we love, but that we also hopefully are doing lots of things that are positive. And so every time we do something kind and we can

debate what other people think is kind, the five love languages you talk about in the book, and I think that's a useful framework. We don't have time to go into it here, but the long and short of it is every time we do something positive for the other person, we're putting money into that bank account, you know, whether it's keeping a promise or doing something extra nice or saying nice things or whatever they are, we, you know, there's that bank account, the balance builds up. And then, you know, when inevitably we do something wrong, you pull out of that. But as long as to your point, there's enough in there, the relationship works. So I think for whatever reason, that struck me as such a useful concept, because it's another way to get away from what I think bedevils a lot of us, which is sort of

very black and white or very extreme thinking that anything we do wrong is a is a catastrophe, you know, that we have to be perfect all the time. I like the model because it sort of shows that like, it's not what you do exactly in one moment, although that matters, but it's what you do consistently over a period of time. And by doing things consistently positive over a period of time, you get a positive result, even if there's some negatives mixed in there. And I think it's a useful perspective exercise in that way. And then it also makes me think you quoted John Gottman in the book, who's a, you know, a marriage family therapist counselor. But he has something that I think is really interesting. He says that, you know, you need about five positive things for every one

negative remark that you make to sort of balance it out. You know, to have a good relationship, you sort of need like five positive experiences for each one negative, because negatives are, you know, so powerful. And we can talk about the negativity bias and all that. I think that's a really interesting concept. I can think of times where I've been in relationships where that ratio is completely flipped, and it is just awful. I mean, it's just miserable. You know, it's five negative things for every positive thing. I just have found that concept to be useful when I'm dealing with people. I found it very useful as my son was growing up because, you know, I'm trying to do really good things and all that. And there would come a time where I'm like, it happened very rarely, but like, I'm going to miss this event of his. And I tried to never miss any of them and blah, blah, blah.

But I'm going to miss this. And I could look at that in a context of overall actions and go, you know what? Okay. I'm in balance here. I'm in the positive here with him because of all these other things. So this one thing isn't, isn't this catastrophic thing. It's just, I think it's a way to sort of help us think about how we interact with people and also to put our interactions with people into a broader context. Yes. And I love how viewing your relationships in this way can positively change the stories you tell yourself. So instead of saying, oh, I'm a terrible father because I wasn't at my kid's game, you can think, look how many deposits I've made in his account. This is a withdrawal and that's fine because I'm the kind of person who continually makes deposits.

And it also, you talked about how sometimes you need to act your way into it. This is something you can do without getting obsessed about, am I the kind of person who will never disappoint my loved ones? You don't have to go into that story. You can be the kind of person who chooses to look for ways to make deposits into their account. So it breaks into tiny pieces. It's very actionable and it turned you into the kind of person who accomplishes that big scary thing that you might not claim right off the bat because it feels a little too audacious. I would never becomes, oh, I do this every day, step by step. I agree. And that makes me think of, you know, we've talked about people and changing behavior and all that. And that's one of the

things I work with people that I'm doing coaching with is that I say, you know, our goal is to get to whatever the thing is you want to change. Like if we can be upwards of 90% consistently, you've won. Like, so let's just say it's, I want to have a exercise or a meditation habit. If you're doing it 90% of the time you want to do it, but you do that one month, three months, six months, three years, you do that, that's a huge victory. But even within that, you'll notice that 90% leaves you with roughly, say, 36 days a year that you will screw up. And I find that just knowing that if you screw up 36 days a year, you can still be winning is such, I mean, it sounds so stupid. Like, of course, we wouldn't think if it was our friend doing it, that achieving 90% of the time was bad. We would think that was amazing. But we can be so hard on ourselves because we just don't have the tools

to picture it in a way that really helps us. Exactly. We can make one of those screw ups into a catastrophe. And that's a way I see a lot of people, myself included, get off track. We're doing well, and then life intervenes. And we suddenly don't do very well for a day or a couple of days. And then the old, you know, back to the fix versus growth mindset, the old story starts up. Here I go again, I'm the kind of person that can't do it. See, I knew I wouldn't be able to do it. I can't stick with anything. And before you know it, we're off track again in a permanent way versus going, oh, that was just a temporary blip on a much bigger picture. And so tying this back to the emotional bank account, it's a way of broadening perspective to realize that. I think

Gretchen Rubin, who you quote in your book says, you know, it's not what we do once that matters. It's what we do every day or consistently. And again, not that once of certain things isn't bad, but it's a perspective. Yes. And I think what the human brain needs on any Tuesday afternoon when we're faced with an emotional crisis or even a small decision is we don't know how to approach that issue. We don't know what matrix to plot it upon. We don't know how to think about it. And what I love about the emotional bank account or like any of the frameworks in the personality books, they give us simple tools for like, oh, this is going on. This is how to think about it in a way

that will help you and not send you into a downward destructive spiral. Yeah. So we're near the end of our time. And the last thing I'm going to say is that the one chapter of your book I didn't read because I was a little bit time limited was the one on the Enneagram. It's so fun. And the Enneagram happens to be the personality test that I have, I most get value out of. And, and the reason I get value out of it, and maybe it's built into some of the other ones and I just haven't gone deep enough. I love what the Enneagram does. And this goes back to your, like, if you want to type yourself well, see where you screw up. I love that the Enneagram shows like, okay, so like I'm a nine, I think, but I'm very close to a three and a seven, but I'm a nine. And it says, you know, a nine who's

functioning well will look like this. And I go, yeah, that's me sometimes most of the time, hopefully. And then a nine who's not doing well will look like this. And I go, oh yeah, those two people look completely opposite in the way they're behaving, in the way they're manifesting. So if you just looked at the outward behavioral symptom, you'd go, well, those people are very, very different, you know? But if you look at it from that perspective of there's this underlying sort of personality traits, and that depending on whether that person is thriving or not thriving, those things are going to go different directions. I've just found that to make that framework

particularly useful for me. Yes, I resonate with you there, maybe especially because I am a nine. And I said the Enneagram was fun and I think it is, but it is also brutal because it's true, the Enneagram more than any other personality framework, your type is confirmed for most people by hearing a story of how that type is likely to self-destruct. So if you can look at how you tend to sabotage yourself and what things tend to send you crying to the corner, you can get your type right. And you know, that's not fun to go through. But like, having those insights about yourself is amazing. I agree. I have found that to be a particularly useful framework. Well, and thank you so much. This has been a fun conversation. I'm sure we could do it for a lot longer. But like I said,

in the show notes, we will have links to your site, your podcast, and a couple of the books and resources we talked about in the interview. So thank you so much. Thank you for having me. All right. Bye. If what you just heard was helpful to you, please consider making a donation to the One You Feed podcast. Head over to oneyoufeed.net slash support. The One You Feed podcast would like to sincerely thank our sponsors for supporting the show. I'm Jason Alexander.

And I'm Peter Tilden. And together, our mission on the Really Know Really podcast is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why the bathroom door doesn't go all the way to the floor, what's in the museum of failure, and does your dog truly love you? We have the answer. Go to reallyknowreally.com and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast,

or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. The Really Know Really podcast. Follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.