Behind the Stigma
Hosted and produced by Seiara Imanova, a PhD student from University of Birmingham, Behind the Stigma is a pioneering podcast that bridges the gap between the general public and the fields of Psychology, Psychiatry and Mental Health.
Each episode offers a deep dive into cutting-edge research, featuring conversations with leading experts and top researchers in the field. Take a listen, as we uncover the science, challenge misconceptions, and bridge the crucial gap between academia and the everyday.
Behind the Stigma
Personality Traits with Dr. Alex Curmi
What does your personality reveal about you, and how does it shape the way you interact with the world? In this week's episode, we dive into the fascinating realm of personality traits with Dr. Alex Curmi, psychiatrist and host of The Thinking Mind podcast.
We discuss the Five Factor Model and how traits like Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, and Openness predispose our behavior and outlook on life. We also discuss the nature vs. nurture debate, dangerous combination of traits, personality disorders, and how we can expand our personalities. Tune in now!
5 Factor Model Personality Test: https://www.thepersonalitylab.org/
The Thinking Mind Podcast: https://maudsleylearningpodcast.buzzsprout.com
Hey everyone and welcome back to another episode on the Behind the Stigma podcast. I'm your host, sierra Minova, and today's topic is on understanding personality, essentially what makes you you. We'll be discussing what personality is, some of the most popular theories, in particular, the five factor model personality and mental health And, of course, the big question can we truly change and expand our personality? Let's get started. Our guest speaker today, who I'm so happy to welcome back, is Dr Alex Kermi. If you don't know him already from some of our previous episodes, Dr Kermi is a trained psychiatrist who completed his core psychiatric training in South London and Modsley NHS Foundation Trust in 2019 and is a member of the Royal College of Psychiatrists in the UK as well. Aside from general adult psychiatry, dr Alex has special interest in psychotherapy, mindfulness, meditation and medical education. He is also the host of the amazing Thinking Mind podcast, which was recently renamed from the Modsley Learning podcast. Dr Alex, how's it going? Welcome back. I think you can tell from my smile how excited I am to have you.
Speaker 2:I'm very well, thank you. Thank you for having me back. I'm glad I haven't bored your listeners enough so that I get to be invited back. It's an honor and a privilege.
Speaker 1:Totally. This is actually going into our sixth episode together, sixth and counting. Clearly it's been delivering very well and very well received Well.
Speaker 1:I feel like this is going to be such a cool episode because our personality is such a big part of how we describe ourselves, how we view ourselves, and also how we view and describe others as well. We do all sorts of things to understand personality, from Myers-Briggs personality test to horoscope compatibilities to Buzzfeed quizzes. Although I would not recommend that, i would not rely on that. We're constantly using our personality as a reference point to what makes us who we are and a sense of who we are. What actually is personality. Perhaps we can start with that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you. I'm also really happy to be talking about the topic of personality, just because I think it's one of these things that for the everyday person, if they can grasp even they don't have to have a perfect understanding, but if they have a reasonable model for understanding their own personality and other people's personality can really give you, can really put you ahead of the curve in terms of understanding people and understanding relationships. I don't think it's that hard once you get to grasp of it. So to your question what is personality?
Speaker 2:The technical definition of personality I use is really it's a set of traits that allow you to navigate problems in the world, navigate social relationships, other people, but also it's a way you relate to yourself. By trait I mean a set of feelings, a set of ways of thinking about things, a set of behaviors and, very importantly, a way of seeing the world. Really, people with different personalities really do perceive the world very differently and have very different expectations, and I think that's what makes humanity kind of a very dynamic species, because we have everyone has their own unique personality. But it's also a source of a lot of conflict, and it's a source of a lot of micro level conflict between individuals, but also broader social conflict, political conflict. So having an understanding of the fact that people do have different personalities, why that might be the case, really just put you in an excellent position to navigate problems and the social landscape.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. I got to ask you this because I know a lot of people might be thinking this right off the bat. Can personality be inherited? Can I be introverted due to a gene variation, or is it because I modeled it from a parent? Is it rooted in our biology or deeply intertwined with the society and environment, or both? What shapes these traits that you were talking about?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so the age old debate of is it nature, is it nurture And.
Speaker 2:I think in general people are reluctant to feel that their personality has a genetic basis because biological determinism is frightening, you know. But based on my conversations I've had conversations with my, on my podcast, with Robert Ploman, a professor of genetics at Kings, and I have a podcast coming out with Professor Catherine Lewis, who is a genetic epidemiologist My understanding from talking to them is there's certainly a genetic basis to personality traits In general. If you take psychological traits in general, including personality traits and other things, about 50% are considered to be 50% heritable on average, meaning 50% of the differences, psychological traits between people seem to be explained by genetic differences rather than environmental differences, and they do this doing very well run adoption studies. We take twins, so people have identical genetics, separate them they'll be adopted into, adopted into different families, and you study their outcomes and do tests and so forth. So, on average, personality differences or psychological differences seem to be about 50% explained by genetic differences. So definitely huge genetic influence.
Speaker 2:But that doesn't mean that it has to be a prison or a trap and perhaps, as we can talk about later, there are things you can do in order to expand the range of your personality. But also, i think, before getting to that point it's important to, i think, have a degree of acceptance that you have a nature And obviously we understand that when it comes to our more hardcore biological makeup, when you're given a biological vehicle, a set of organs, to some degree it is what it is and you have to accept that you have that nature on a biological and psychological level. And then there's lots you can do to construct your life, to take advantage of the strengths of your nature And, as we'll also talk about personality traits come with tremendous strengths as well as weaknesses. There's a lot you can do to construct a life that complements your personality, whatever happens to be. But, as I mentioned earlier, there's also things you can do to expand the range of your personality. There are things that you want to cultivate as well. So the short answer to your question is yes, there's a genetic, there's a strong genetic influence, but that doesn't mean that it's a life sentence.
Speaker 1:For sure. Yeah, i had Professor Othalia Eley from King's College also come on the podcast for her work on twin studies, and you're right, i think the field of epigenetics has taught us that things like personality and each individual's personality has an interplay between our biology and our environment, and basically that's what makes us unique in that sense, although I do believe that there are some traits that may have a stronger genetic basis or predisposition, while others may be more influenced by environmental factors, but I guess it again varies on the person.
Speaker 2:I think that's true. So, for example, you take a trait like body weight body weight is 70%. terrible, Body weight is highly, highly heritable. But other traits I'm not an expert on the degree to which different traits are heritable, but other traits are certainly far less than 70%. So there's definitely a variance there.
Speaker 1:Right. Why is it important to understand personality? Why do we need to know or be aware of what kind of traits we have? Does it serve any sort of purpose? Would it help inform of anything or highlight something about ourselves, or even just about the way we view the world and others around us?
Speaker 2:So once you understand that you have a personality and that you have a personality that's different to every other person's personality, obviously you will find people are very similar to you and people are very different, but you have a unique personality.
Speaker 2:What this means is that has a unique effect on your thoughts, your emotional patterns, your behaviors and the specific way that you see the world, as well as your strengths and weaknesses, what you're good at and what you're vulnerable to.
Speaker 2:So understanding your personality, first and foremost, allows you to understand your own psychological context and allows you to understand the things, the specific way which you're going to relate yourself, the world and other people Thank you And the and the advantages that you bring to bear.
Speaker 2:but then, as we discuss also, each advantage is tied in Extricably to a disadvantage or a weakness, and this obviously it's going to help you understand, for example, what work you should probably be pursuing, what you should be studying academically, if you choose to study. it can help you understand who should be the, what friendships you should form and To the degree to which you should surround yourself with people are similar to you but also different to you. It can help you understand romantic relationships And, again, within romantic relationships to the degree to which your romantic partner should be similar to you, but also what polarities to be on the lookout for, and So all of those things that that's all unfolds as a result of understanding that you have a personality, and an understanding in a Bit more depth what that's the nature of your own personality 100%.
Speaker 1:I definitely agree with you that it can just impact the way we even live our lives, like, as you said, what careers we choose, where we need to grow, but also things like how we cope with, you know, different stressors or even emotional turbulence in our life, like where our strengths and weaknesses lay, which We can talk a little bit about in more detail. There have been, you know, a number of theories on personality. We can go, you know, all the way back to like humors, where in ancient Greece They thought like blood flam and yellow bile and black bile like determined our personalities. But of course there was also like psychodynamic theory of Freud and social cognitive theory, humanistic. There's quite a list of it, but perhaps for this episode We can focus on the most prominent one, that is, today, which I believe is the five factor model.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, like I said, there's lots of different Theories of personality and even the theory which we're going to go into depth on, the fire factor model, is just a theory. It is just a model, right. So I don't want to this needs to come away with the idea that this is the truth. This is still a model of thinking about, right, but I think it's a very good model and before I talk about to tell, explain why it's a good model. Most theories of personality forged because clinicians or philosophers or researchers who are very smart and observant Basically come up with a den of all theory of how they think human personality works.
Speaker 2:And because they're smart and Observant and experience, their theories are good and have a lot of truth in them, and I think the psychodynamic theory you mentioned Relates is a good example. My as breaks is a good example. Social cognitive theories are all good examples. I think that what makes the five factor model stand out is The fact that it's not a theory that someone came up with and which they then sought out to prove with data. And again, if you're a smart, talented, observant person, you can come up with a theory and then find proof. You can find data that's supported. This is the opposite.
Speaker 2:So with the five factor model, what they did was ask loads of people, personality questions, and Then they did a statistical technique called factor analysis, which is a technique which allows you to see which answers correlate with which answers, and what they found was that answers Organically grouped into five dimensions or five factors or five spectrums, and then they constructed the theory based on the data. So, scientifically speaking and empirically speaking, it's a lot more convincing and I think now you know the. The five factor model has been around for decades And my understanding is it's been studied across cultures and is really one of the most empirical Theories we have so what contributes in those five factors?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you can think of the five factor models. Basically, everyone's personality Exists some five spectrums. So imagine you belong at a very particular Point anywhere on five different spectrums. And those spectrums are firstly, extraversion, introversion, which most people intuitively understand. Are you an introvert, are you an extrovert? Are you somewhere in between Openness, being high and openness, or low and openness? People who are high in openness, they tend to be really interested in ideas, innovation, seeking out new concepts and new ways of understanding things. They tend to be really interested in art, philosophy. They're the kind of people who wouldn't like mainstream music or mainstream TV, that's, each other cult TV programs or the new or the interesting ways of doing or performing different forms of art. People are low and openness are the are the opposite. They tend to like order more they tend to like boundaries more They tend to be more risk averse. Interestingly, being high in openness predisposes you, predisposes you to having a politically left orientation.
Speaker 1:Really.
Speaker 2:Yeah, whereas being low predisposes you to having a politically conservative Predisposition, which you can understand. You know the right tends to be focused on. What are the ideas we already have that work? Yeah, and stick to that. Let's figure out a new way of tackling this problem, and they both have their place, as we'll discuss. And then there's emotionally sensitivity. Emotional sensitivity also called neuroticism, which is not the best marketing and.
Speaker 1:Right, they need to really change that one.
Speaker 2:They need to rebrand that one.
Speaker 1:Definitely.
Speaker 2:The way you can understand that is, how much, how, what emotional Response to have per unit stress. So if one person loses their job and another person lose the job, that have different, a different emotional reaction. One will probably have a higher emotional reaction than the other one. So I think emotional sensitivity is easy to class as just a weakness, but it's not, because I think Being emotionally sensitive is very useful for helping to maintain social relationships and helping to care for people 100%. So the third one. The fourth one is conscientiousness. So if you're high in conscientiousness, you tend to be very Hardworking and you tend to be very orderly. You like things in a certain order, you tend to be very good at delaying gratification and you, you tend to be very industrious. So so you, you, you think ahead, you plan ahead, you're very duty oriented and you're very, you tend to be very orderly and you like everything in its right place. So, as you can imagine, conscientiousness also predisposes to being politically right in your orientation. People are low in conscientiousness. It's not all a bad thing, you know.
Speaker 2:You're not as hardworking, you're not as orderly but you can relax more, you can be more Present, focused, you can take things as they come, you can take things more in your stride. So again you can imagine, being hardworking is great. Obviously being hardworking It's one of the biggest predictors of life success. But everyone knows that person who works too hard and can't relax at the party or be.
Speaker 2:You know, in the present moment, for example, right Or be in the present moment, yeah, and I can talk about my own experience with conscientiousness, because Before I am just about finishing my medical training. So I graduated medical school 10 years ago, almost August 2013, about to finish 10 years of medical training, august 2023 And for me, that's been a massive shift in my level of conscientiousness. People tend to become conscientious as they become older, as you can imagine, but it's also practice. So, obviously, being in medical training, i went from not necessarily working that hard at university to working extremely hard all the time.
Speaker 2:And that builds in that software in your brain and I noticed in myself The trade-off that I've had to make, even though I have a much stronger work ethic. I have noticed that the sacrifice, that it is actually harder for me to be in the present moment And I have to be much more proactive about it. It's harder for me to get into a carefree state of mind.
Speaker 2:Right, right, there's a. there's an economist named Thomas Sowell who says Referring to economics, but I think this applies He says there are no Solutions, only trade-offs, and I think that's true with personality. as you swap one personality, trade for another, you, you gain something, but you also lose something.
Speaker 2:So that's the fourth one conscientious. Conscientiousness There's a fifth one is agreeableness, which subdivides into compassion And politeness. So really, degree to which you care for others. If you're highly agreeable, you tend to Be more likely to put others before yourself. Again, very adaptive for caring for people, caring for infants, caring for all the people, you're more empathic. If you're disagreeable, on the opposite end, you have stronger boundaries. Usually you're better at putting yourself first, you're better at prioritizing your own needs And you can see how both of those have advantages.
Speaker 2:Often agreeable people form relationships with disagreeable people because they have a lot to teach each other. Sometimes it can be a toxic dynamic but sometimes it can be a very healthy dynamic where you know one person helps the other person form boundaries, the other person helps the other person be more compassionate Towards other people. So all of those so those are a broad encapsulation of the traits. And again, at the point I really want to have my home today is if you're high in a particular trade, that really colors the way you perceive the world. So if you're high in conscientiousness, you see the world as a place where there's opportunity and work to be done. If you're an extrovert, if you're high, an extraversion say 90th percentile You see the world as a social landscape. If you're very sensitive, you see the world as a fearful place that's full of Problems and things which are frightening. And if you're agreeable, you see the world as a place full of people to be cared for or full of you know Social groups.
Speaker 1:So that's, that's kind of an overview How can someone know where they stand on the scale? Is there any test that one can take to know that, or is it more of just like assessing themselves?
Speaker 2:So I'm sure, i'm sure having an understanding and reading about the trades you can start to piece together Informally. You know where you're likely to sit. Like, do I really? am I really compassionate And am I big on politeness, my really hard-working and my duty bound? am I not, do I?
Speaker 2:tend to leave things in a mess or not. You know, am I really into art or not, that's. I'm sure you can get a really good idea from understanding what we've discussed and reading a bit about it. But you can't just take a test online. There are a number of tests. I'm sure there are free ones and ones that put across the small bit of money. It kind of depends how interested you are in this sort of thing. I think if you're like semi interested Thinking about it, writing stuff, some stuff down, asking some friends or family, you can probably get most of the way there. If you're really interested and you want to go that extra mile, i'm sure there are a number of tests you can find online, either free or, for us, for nominal Amount of money.
Speaker 1:Yeah, super interesting when you were talking about the quality of agreeableness.
Speaker 1:I read a study recently. It was about like misbeliefs and misconceptions, sharing news and like Fake, like all different types of news, like happy news, sad news, fake news, like and you know, misbelief and things like that. And I think the study formulated that people who are high in communion So basically like so, who are like, i guess, high in agreeableness, if we want to put in that context are more likely to Believe and share happy beliefs and even if they're misbeliefs but they're happy, information like, let's say, for example, you know a cat Save their owner or whatever like it's clearly like it's not like accurate fake news, but they would rather share that. They would be more likely just because they want to appear nice and They want people to like, like them more and be more agreeableness in that sense. So it's so interesting how knowing where we kind of stand in the scale can determine What we share, what we say, how we act, how we react.
Speaker 1:You mentioned something that Every trait, like being on each end of the scale, can be both Good and bad. Can you elaborate that a little bit?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I think this really speaks to the fact that life throws you. I think the reason we all have different personalities, why evolution bestowed upon us different personalities in so many different, unique combinations, is because life throws Wild, new, unpredictable problems at you and you need to have a variety of ways of tackling those problems. So let's take what you just mentioned, that's agreeable people are more likely to share Stuff. That isn't necessarily true but, you know, shows them to be a good person, more likely to promote good relationships for them. That really speaks to a very important part of the agreeableness Disagreeableness dynamic, which that agreeableness are more agreeable people are more likely to prioritize Social harmony over rationality, over what's true, object in some objective sense, or over what's reasonable or rational. Disagreeable people Much more likely to care about what is the truth, fair or what's rational Over social harmony.
Speaker 2:And now you can, let's, if we think about it, we could probably imagine situations where you would want to prioritize rationality over social harmony.
Speaker 2:So if you, if your child is sick and you're looking for the best doctor, you're not really prioritizing social harmony and you're much more likely to tell, for example, the first doctor that you see. Listen, i'm sorry, i don't mean to be rude, but I'm gonna seek a second opinion for a, b and C reasons. You're prioritizing Rationality and truth and some sort of objective understanding in that instance, because that takes priority. You can imagine An opposite situation So someone hasn't paid their fair share of the bill at a restaurant and it's Irons out to a two pound difference and there's a really disagreeable person there Who's like no, we need to figure out who didn't pay their two pounds share to make sure that everything Even and that situation it's not so rational. Maybe in that situation for two pounds if they're really good friends, maybe, and even especially if they're not actually, maybe you want to be prioritizing social harmony, because social harmony is actually not a trivial thing, it's extra.
Speaker 2:They'll never call you again for dinner so What this boils down to is the, the strength. Whether a trait represents a strength or a weakness Comes down to the context and the situation you find yourself in, which is why, whatever your personality is, it's so useful to be proactive in constructing a life for yourself that complements it. And it's also helpful Although much harder, i would say, but still helpful to expand the range of your personality, because that's that way, you're literally expanding your, your toolkit, and You're giving yourself different choices on how to act, see the world or thing, in whatever context life happens to Throw at you like. Another example might be the classic introvert, who needs to become a lot more extroverted. This is very common because our society rewards extroversion, and there's been a lot of fuss made about the fact that we're often prioritizing extroverts over introverts, and actually introverts have a lot of strength as well, and there's a good book Has been written about this, called quiet, about introversion, and it's true.
Speaker 2:You know, there is a lot of usefulness, there's a lot of utility in being introverted, but if you're an introvert who can also Learn how to be extroverted, and then, when you're in a particular situation, you can decide To whether or not to be your usual self, which might be more introverted, or to have a bit of software, you know, like in the matrix, where he downloads how to do kung fu in his brain and now he knows kung fu. If you download Extroversion into your brain it takes a lot longer than it does in the matrix, but if you learn how to cultivate that trait it makes you a much more dynamic Individual, and I do think people who are exceptionally successful typically have really done a lot of work to build a life that complements their strengths, but they've also probably done a bit of work to expand their range as well. So yeah, it's really the weather. Whether Trait is a strength or a weakness depends on the context, i think.
Speaker 1:Yeah, those are some great examples. It really puts it into perspective. We change throughout our lives. Is it possible as well that our personality changes as we Grow older? but also, i think there have been times when people can go through a major personality shift based on either a good experience or a really bad experience, right, a good experience being that, let's say, you've always wanted to get accepted into a certain college and you do, and that pushes you and gives you the confidence to pursue a lot of things that perhaps you know wasn't in your personal life, wasn't in your personality or wasn't in you, whereas, let's say, you were always an extrovert. And then a really traumatic experience that happened on. All of a sudden, you become a very different person and you no longer prioritize or find interesting the things that you did in the past. So I guess that goes again back to the spectrum, but that we also change.
Speaker 2:Yeah, i think the broad trends that are recognized empirically from studying it are that people tend to become more conscientious as they get older, which you can understand, because as as your life gets longer and you've lived more, you tend to realize the importance of the future and the importance of delayed gratification. And so people broadly become a little bit more conscientious and they also become more emotionally stable, and that's probably a result of the fact that they have constructed lives which would help to regulate their emotions. So they probably have a job, they'll probably have a stable place where they live, they'll probably have stable friendships and relationships I'm speaking broadly, of course and that all helps to regulate one's emotions. They've established their preferences and they and they meet their preferences and they meet their needs. So their, their world is just a little bit less in flux. You know they might have kids and that's then is very destabilizing, but then as those kids grow up and get older and their lives become more stable, their parents lives become more stable. So I believe those are the two, the two trends which are generally recognized.
Speaker 2:Speaking anecdotally this is my own speculation, not from my empirical understanding I do think such a thing as having life events happen to you can radically probably transform your personality and just I'm even from my own experience, as I mentioned me becoming more conscientious as a result of my work, but I'm sure other radical events that are sudden and abrupt, possibly traumatic, and can transform your personality in radical ways. And then I also think, as I've already mentioned, that you can proactively work on cultivating a new personality trait for yourself. I don't believe this has been studied well, but this is something that you often do in psychotherapy.
Speaker 2:So, for example, someone's highly in agreeableness people are highly agreeable often come to psychotherapy because they like relationships and they're empathic and they see the inherent value of relationships so they come to psychotherapy. They're people pleases. So I did a podcast about that, about the book normal, mr Nice Guy, which is really about helping men, but also women, really become less people pleasing, and that's, that's real. You can also call that assertiveness training and that happens a lot in psychotherapy, because you help people establish stronger boundaries, essentially become more disagreeable, to become more rational advocates for their wants and their needs.
Speaker 1:So I definitely believe personality transformation is possible and desirable, actually would you classify yourself on the scale of, you know, extraversion, introversion, more on the introversion side, and had that always been the case?
Speaker 2:so I can tell you I did them, i did, i tested myself. If I. The good thing about testing yourself is that you get a percentile which means you know where you rank in comparison to other people have done the test. So I think I was emotional sensitivity I was like 30th percentile, hmm. Conscientiousness I think I was only like 65th percentile. Openness I was like 95, 99 percentile. Fire member, correctly. Agreeableness 70th percentile. And introversion, extraversion, which is the thing I've debated the most in my own mind, how introverted, extroverted I am. I was actually 50, 50 interesting.
Speaker 1:Okay, it's crazy because I see myself as an introvert, but everyone who sees me thinks I'm an extrovert so what's your?
Speaker 2:have you actively worked on becoming more extroverted, because people perceive extraversion in you on some level?
Speaker 1:I think my my best friend from childhood. We've known each other since we're four. She is like the definition of extrovert and I think, because I've spent my whole life with her, it could be that she really shaped my personality as well and how I react to things, how I act, even how you know, just like little nuances. You know I'm always a little bit extra and I am an ENFJ, so even when I do the Meyerbricks test I am an extrovert. So maybe I'm an extrovert in denial who thinks they're an introvert. You never know, you know.
Speaker 2:But it can be hard to tell. It can be hard to tell these things aren't set in stone, yeah not set in stone, rock, cut and dry. You know that and you're on a spectrum, so it's not like you're either an introvert or an extrovert. You're on a spectrum somewhere totally.
Speaker 1:But I found it so interesting that you also said introversion, and extroversion was the one that you were quite unsure of yeah, and I think it's an interesting.
Speaker 2:The introvert extrovert dynamic is interesting because I think people interpret it as, whether you like people or not, which I think is wrong.
Speaker 2:I think introversion extroversion really relates to depth and breadth of social relationships. So if you're an extrovert, you're very good at making lots of social relationships and maintaining them, but they tend to be more superficial. So if you're at a party, you're gonna have and there are 20 people at the party, you'll have 25 minutes conversations and you'll be really good at flowing from one conversation to another and I was speaking to Robin.
Speaker 2:Dunbar, the evolutionary psychologist, recently and he said you make it so that the person you're talking to doesn't even know you've left the conversation. You've got that social grace. If you're introverted, you'll be the person that will probably have one or two conversations at the party and you stick to them the whole night it's a really in depth conversation and you really learn something about that person.
Speaker 2:So, if you like, look at my career. There are aspects of it where introversion for doing psychotherapies obviously highly functional because you're having really in depth one-on-one interactions, so introversion comes in handy. But then things like podcasting and being a doctor actually extroversion is very useful as well because you often have very small fleeting relationships with a lot of people where you have to communicate very quickly and effectively and maintain a lot of superficial relationships. So it's kind of a complex landscape absolutely so true.
Speaker 1:Are there any dangerous combination of personality traits?
Speaker 2:yeah. So I think the caveat I would say is, just before I go into it is that if you have the combination that I might mention, it doesn't make you a dangerous person necessarily, because it really depends how your personality manifests itself. But I think it's useful to have an understanding of what combinations could be dangerous, could predispose you to having more of a psychopathic, for example, social pathic tendency, so that when you meet different people in your life you know we're constantly meeting new people and trying to evaluate which people might be safer to invest in or not. And that could be investment, you know, socially, financially, etc. So to have an understanding of what combinations might be dangerous is helpful, i think. So we know the five traits now. So now imagine someone who's like really extroverted, really emotionally insensitive, really low in conscientiousness and really someone who's really high in openness and really disagreeable, for example, So low in conscientiousness would mean like that they're impulsive a little and that they kind of lack any sort of discipline.
Speaker 2:Yeah, i mean they're not so duty-bound, they don't think about the future, they're not so rule-oriented. And that can be a good thing, it could be fine, it could be great. But imagine that combination with someone who's really good, who's charming, who's good at establishing superficial relationships, someone who doesn't really, isn't really into rules. They're high in openness, and I also should mention openness tends to be associated with intelligence, so they're intelligent and they're good at finding new ideas and implementing them.
Speaker 2:They're low in emotional sensitivity, so they don't tend to feel things like regret. They're low they're disagreeable, so they're low in empathy. Right, so they don't really see the value of people and relationships so much. You can easily see who someone has that predisposition.
Speaker 1:How much selfishness, in a way, when you combine some of these traits, when you combine them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you can have someone who's you know they're good at charming people and they're not so. They don't care so much about the future, they don't care so much about rules, they don't care so much about people. They're not that compassionate, they're not that polite. You can see how that could predispose to someone having a dangerous character, maybe throwing some childhood trauma, yeah, and you could have someone who is who you might want to stay away from. So if you meet someone you know.
Speaker 2:Again, understanding personality is useful because when you meet someone, even in a rudimentary way, you can start to think okay, is this kind of a duty-oriented person or not? Is this an extrovert or an introvert? Is this someone who is quite emotional or not? Is this someone who cares about people or not? And you can start to run the algorithm a little bit in your brain. Obviously, it still takes time. It really does take time to get to know people. So I don't want to advertise knowing personality as a kind of a quick fix, but I do think having an understanding of personality still makes it faster and makes the process a bit more coherent And you can maybe get a grasp of what someone is like.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. It also helps you accept people because you know, sometimes people can be, like you said, a little bit more on the impulsive side and rule-breaking side, and I've seen relationships where a person could be so-called classified as a little bit disruptive, but if they feel like you're a team player with them, somehow that dynamic and even relationship can change within you and that other person, simply because you're coming from a place of understanding and not from a place of judgment, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, i think what you said is a really important point because at the end of the day, most people are going to be psychopaths, but most people are going to be different from us And one of the most important lessons after understanding that people have different personalities, is that you must learn basically to accept them for who they are, because in general people aren't going to transform their personalities for you. They might be willing to make small compromises, and good communication and healthy conflict is important for that, but I think in general people take things too personally. So imagine an agreeable person who's really polite and compassionate and they encounter and they make a friendship with someone who's disagreeable and the disagreeable person is kind of a bit rude and a bit. It's not that they don't care, but they're willing to be rude And the agreeable person thinks the disagreeable person is being rude to them and they take it personally And they think other people are being exed to them. He's being rude to me, he's neglecting me, he's forming other relationships in response to me, but actually they're just being who they are And most people most of the time are just being who they are.
Speaker 2:So coming to accept that and then accept out of the wide the huge pool of people you could form relationships with. You now want to form. You want to pick some of them and form deeper relationships. Some will be acquaintances, some will be friends. You have your family, obviously, and then you might have a romantic partner. Having the understanding allows you to narrow the field and actually decide who do I want to be close friends with, who do I want to be romantically involved with, and then, once you are, how to negotiate that, because they will be different to you in some important ways, even if they have a lot of similarities. We tend to make friends and relationships with people who are similar to us Really.
Speaker 2:But that doesn't mean there won't be important differences. One of you will be messier than the other, one of you will be more right leaning than the other. It has to be like that. One of you will be more polite, one of you will be more extroverted, in all probability. So you need to know how to navigate these small chasms.
Speaker 1:You're right. At the core, i think we do pull towards people that are similar to us, and it could be similar to us in very little details. I'm someone who's extremely punctual. I seem to get along very well with my friends who are punctual, and those are the friends that I love to see again and again and again, because we have a same level of the way that we approach life and just time in general. So that tends to pull you towards someone who would have those same characteristics as you. So then you would say the whole opposite attract thing is that BS?
Speaker 2:I think just on your point, because again what you said brings to mind something really important that really what a relationship is? what is a relationship friendship, romantic, whatever? A relationship is a series of reiterated interactions that really repeat themselves over and, over and over again. Unfortunately, relationships aren't always about novelty. Then relationships are mostly about repetition, and so we tend to find people where we can have these repeated games with.
Speaker 2:If you're an extrovert who likes to go clubbing, you'll find someone else who likes to go clubbing and go clubbing 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 times, or you play chess any number of times, or you'll have sex any number of times. It is repeated activities over a long period of time And that's why we gravitate towards people who are similar to us. So, in terms of opposites attract. I think there's truth in it And that often, when we find people who are different to us in some important way, that can create attraction.
Speaker 1:Bingo.
Speaker 2:I think there are two traits we want. Maybe traits we want, like agreeable people, are often attracted to disagreeable people.
Speaker 1:People who are?
Speaker 2:anxiously attached are often attracted to people who are avoidantly attached Because on some level we know it's a deficit. So when we see someone embody it, it's logical that there will be an attraction. There are two caveats. The first caveat is you might be very different on one trait, but then very similar on all a bunch of different traits. So true, so you might be one of, you might be extroverted, one of you might be introverted, but then you'd be similar on all the others. So the similarities allow you to form a cohesive bond And the difference forms that kind of polarity, attraction. And then the other caveat is you might be different on all sorts of traits And that might generate huge attraction, friendship, romantic attraction, a huge connection and chemistry. But that can be very unstable.
Speaker 2:So everyone knows the relationship that clearly there's a lot of chemistry but it could never last. But, in this case I'm just talking about personality difference. That is a huge polarity attraction, but there just isn't enough stable cohesion for the two people to last. One of them loves to go out, one of them loves to stay in. One of them super messy, the other one likes everything neat and tidy And it just there isn't enough there to form to put in the floorboards of the relationship you feel?
Speaker 2:like the pillars on which the relationship can rest, because most relationships, because they're iterated across time, require a huge amount of stability.
Speaker 1:That's why they always say you should live with your partner first. living the day to day actually brings out the true nature, the true personality, and then you will see if you align in many things or clash.
Speaker 2:Yeah, i mean, when relationships first start, you tend to and I think this is basically inescapable you tend to idealize them, and that's what falling in love is, And there's the chemical cascade that comes with that.
Speaker 2:I'm no expert in that, I don't really understand what's happening, But there's a chemical cascade And psychologically you idealize them and you project all your needs and desires onto them And you project everything you think a man or a woman should be onto them. And then with time and this should just be allowed to happen, it shouldn't be resisted the idealization fades, It fades away. You start to realize you're in a relationship with a person who has tremendous strengths and weaknesses and flaws, and amazing things and bad things. And then the question begins can you form that iterated series of negotiations with them? Can you negotiate with this person? Is it feasible? their fault or not? Can you turn the short game into a long game?
Speaker 1:I do want to talk a little bit about the mental health aspect of it. How would a personality disorder differ from someone, let's say, who has a combination of different or difficult, excuse me personality traits? Because essentially a personality disorder is characterized by certain patterns of thoughts, emotions, behaviors that cause us distress or impairment and functioning. So how does that differ from just personality? I mean, we can have those combinations.
Speaker 2:So this relates kind of to the conversation. We did a podcast a long time ago about diagnosis.
Speaker 1:Diagnosis.
Speaker 2:So if people are interested in that sort of thing, they should definitely refer to that. Personality disorders are a set of diagnoses that exist in the DSM, the Psychiatric Manual in America, and the ICD, the Psychiatric Manual in Europe, and their constructs. So there are diagnoses that mental health professionals have constructed based on largely clinical observation and research, and this is separate to the Fire Factor model And it basically says that some people the idea is that some people have a set of personality traits that are unhelpful and that are intense enough that they disrupt their psychological and social functioning, and I think you can look at the Fire Factor model and see what traits might do that. And I do think any trait in extreme and uncontrolled, unbalanced by other traits or unbalanced by the opposite end of the spectrum, can disrupt your psychological and social functioning So extreme.
Speaker 2:If you're extremely socially sensitive and emotional sensitivity subdivides into volatility and withdrawal, then you're much more likely to be volatile and you're much more likely to withdraw from situations. You might be really high in volatility and lower in withdrawal, or the opposite, but you can see how that would be unhelpful. So you have a job interview and you don't show up. That's withdrawal. Or you're in a tense situation with a friend and you get very angry at them. That's volatility. You can see how that can disrupt your life in a serious way. If you're really, really low on conscientiousness such that you can't do any form of work because work is really based on a consideration of the future and a consideration of duty and delayed gratification If you can't do any work, that's obviously going to disrupt your psychosocial functioning. If you're so introverted, you can't make a friend or meet someone. If you're so extroverted, everyone considers you to be.
Speaker 1:That you go missing for five days.
Speaker 2:And your extroversion might, for example, predispose you to harmful drug and alcohol use because you tend to be more enthusiastic in social situations.
Speaker 2:not necessarily, but it can. So any trait in extreme and maybe, if you have a few traits, what we talked about So psychopathy in the ICD would be antisocial personality disorder. So if you're, like I mentioned, really low in emotion, sensitivity, really high in disagreeableness, really low in conscientiousness those three in particular it doesn't necessarily mean you have it, but it might predispose you to be having an antisocial personality disorder. So, in summary, if you have any trait in extremis, so you have a few traits in an extreme way, it's much more likely to disrupt your psychosocial function.
Speaker 2:There's no trait that you have in an extreme way that isn't going to carry a huge disadvantage, which is why it's important, if you do tend to be extreme in one trait or another, that you try and balance it out. So again, i can use myself as an example. I'm in a 95th percentile or whatever, in openness, lower in conscientiousness. When I was younger I certainly felt a lot lower And that was very difficult because it means I'm interested in lots of things, but I didn't have the hard work engine that I needed necessarily to focus on any one thing long enough to get benefit from it, because you can be interested.
Speaker 2:Everyone knows people who are interested in things, that are interested in music but they never pick up a guitar. They're interested in medicine but they don't go to the biology class, right. So hard work is kind of the engine that's necessary to make your interests alive and self-actualize. The other problem of being high in openness is you're so interested in everything it's really hard to pick, and even now I have three jobs, you know, because I do psychiatry, psychotherapy and I make podcasts. It's really hard.
Speaker 1:Because I have a lot of interest is actually. And you're curious, you're naturally curious.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so obviously huge advantage, huge disadvantage. So developing more conscientiousness as I got older meant I could delay gratification more, be less impulsive and I could focus, and so I could actually make things happen, rather than just being a deletante of everything You can focus on a few things and actually make something happen.
Speaker 1:What you just said made such a great point. Because if we have the From what I'm understanding and I guess we can go a bit more into that but if you have the right resources and tools, even to help you go from one spectrum to the another which can actually be helpful for your life, then that in itself can just be so beneficial for you. As you were saying, when you were younger you tended to be more, i would probably just say a little bit more wild than you are today, but having a direction. So for you I guess it was your psychiatry training and other. It helped you streamline that, i guess, energy and that curiosity into that, which in turn helped you become more disciplined as the time progressed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, we can talk about other personality disorders if you like. So histrionic personality disorder again is one where typified by personalities that are very dramatic, superficial relationships, a bit more attention seeking, a bit more emotionally volatile. So again you can see someone who's You can relate that to the five factor model. So a histrionic personality might be probably really high in extroversion probably high in emotional sensitivity, probably lower in conscientiousness, that kind of thing.
Speaker 2:There are anxious avoidance personality disorders. So, again, probably really high in sensitivity, probably low in conscientiousness, possibly higher in agreeableness if they tend to be more dependent. They tend to latch on to people more, for example. So there's all sorts of combinations. But it's important to point out that people who meet the criteria for a diagnosis of personality disorder aren't very common. The threshold is actually quite high. Each personality disorder diagnosis might represent 1% 2% of the population And I really do think that the diagnosis should be patient led, in that it should be up to them really to decide, as long as no one's being harmed, what constitutes psychosocial dysfunction. It's not really for the clinician to decide that your psychological or social life is being dysfunctional because someone could have a life that, to an outward observer, is quite dysfunctional but it works for them And they feel that subjectively that the quality of life is good, and if that's the case then I think that's fine.
Speaker 2:So personality disorder is pretty controversial, but it's a useful construct And often when I have talked to people and made diagnoses of personality disorder, kind of collaboratively with the patient, they're often pretty frank and transparent And they're like yeah, actually I am really emotionally sensitive, i can see how this disrupts my ability to hold down a job, for example, or form long-term relationships. And, as I mentioned earlier, it doesn't have to be a prison, doesn't mean you, especially if you're motivated and you're aware.
Speaker 1:It can be liberating, almost to push you.
Speaker 2:You have a starting point, and there's a starting point means you also have a direction to go in which is useful, so it doesn't have to be a life sentence 100%.
Speaker 1:Hearing that from you as a psychiatrist is very refreshing, that it's a collaborative approach and it just shows how dynamic it is, which I think is excellent. When we look at certain mental health disorder classification so for example, obsessive, compulsive or attention deficit, hyperactivity, adhd do they also play part in your personality And, like certain conditions, play a part in your traits? Does it work like that?
Speaker 2:I don't know the literature on this, i'm sure studies have been done to try and figure out. You know, are there personality traits which are more likely to be correlated with obsessive compulsive disorder for instance, because personality is so all-encompassing? I'm sure there are correlations And I'm sure the correlation might be bi-directional, where having certain traits might predispose it, maybe to some extent develop your condition might affect your personality. I don't know the literature but speculating from my anecdotal experience, i'm sure there's some correlation, like I'm sure that having OCD may very well correlate with being very high in conscientiousness, because people who have OCD tend to be quite preoccupied with the future And they tend to care a lot about rules And they often their obsessions might have to have a moral component and people who are high in conscientiousness tend to be more moralistic And they're probably more emotionally sensitive as well, because OCD is an anxiety disorder. So again, i don't want to say definitively, but almost certainly there are going to be correlations And I'd be interested to see those studies have been done.
Speaker 1:I think we all want to live fulfilling lives right. We all want to have that scenario that we have created in our heads The good ones, of course where we want to be the best version of ourselves. So let's say, for example, an introvert, someone who's a bit shy to present, would dream about being the top presenter or being super confident in front of a crowd and being able to public speak. We all have these dream scenarios that we want to get to. But we can limit ourselves and say, well, it's just not within my personality to do that. Or we want to be more open, or we want to be more firm. But we say, oh, but we're very people pleasing and it goes against our norm. It might even go against our culture, who knows? There's so many factors. How can you expand your personality?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I think the research literature on this is actually quite pessimistic, really, because personalities do tend to remain stable for most people. Most of the time There are those broad changes I referred to earlier. So the first thing I want to say is cultivating a new personality trait is really really difficult. That doesn't mean it's not possible, it's hard. It's hard to swim upstream from your personality. If you're an introvert, it's going to be difficult to cultivate extroversion. However, i think as human beings we're a very dynamic species. I suspect we have the possibility of basically all personality traits dormant, even if they're not active. I think the neural software, if you pardon my language, is there, dormant, but it needs to be activated by behavior which is focused and consistent. And I think the timeframe, if you did want to cultivate a new personality trait, should be in the months years range, which, interestingly, is not that different from the timeframe you would use if you wanted to say, put on a lot of muscle.
Speaker 2:And I think you can think about it in a very similar way. You need to apply very regular, intense stimulus to put on muscle, in that case through weight training, And if you want to cultivate a new trait, it takes a lot of practice because you're literally developing a new facet of yourself. Yeah, That's the first thing to mention. It's very possible, but it's difficult and you should think about it with the same level of intensity as getting in really good shape or doing a new project at work or starting a new relationship.
Speaker 2:It's learning an instrument Learning an instrument And you are kind of learning a new instrument. You know you're developing a new facet of yourself, so it's not something you want to take lightly. I think the next thing to consider is what personality traits you want to develop and why And I think you need to because it is hard, it's not something you should do flippantly and you should really interrogate yourself a little and introspect which personality traits you want and why, and make sure you want it for the right reasons, because you think it will actually help you self-actualize, or it's something that you really truly want, as opposed to maybe for a more superficial reason, or and this is important for a reason that's kind of been implanted in you by someone else, like your parents or your friends, people telling you that you should be a certain way, you should be extroverted, for instance.
Speaker 1:Nailed it.
Speaker 2:yeah, You should be really present, focused. So actually, you just love working hard and this happens, you know. So you it really should if you're going to develop a new trait, conform with your values and conform with actually what you really want in life, i think because it's not easy to do So. Then, once you've picked your trait, how do you do it? The answer is you start very small and you make small, like everything else, very unglamorous, very unsexy. You make small, incremental, consistent changes in that direction And you basically try out that trait and keep trying it in different iterations until it starts to work.
Speaker 2:So, if you're an introvert, you start socializing more. You start starting conversations with people that are outside of your comfort zone. If you're buying stuff at the grocery store, try having a bit of an extra conversation with the cashier. Make yourself go to events and parties And when you go to those events and parties, get out of your comfort zone, talk to more people than you might otherwise do, make the conversation go longer than you might otherwise do, take social risks, ask for the person's number, ask for the person's Instagram, ask people out for social events, throw parties. So these are all the things you do And, again, you don't do it all at once.
Speaker 2:You start really small, so your starting point might be I'm going to ask the cashier at the grocery store how her day is going And then in six months you might be the life of the party, right, but there's a six-month growth period of incremental, more intense tasks in that period And other things that I have for probably finding role models, and that might be a role model online. There's a lot of YouTube channels devoted to different ways you can do things differently and expand the range of your personality. Like, if you want to be more extrovert, find extroverts online, and there's so much you can find broken down explicitly now. If you want to be more hardworking, you can find entrepreneurs, for example, on YouTube, can show you how to work harder and how to make a plan, and then what you'll find is initially it would be very tough, but the more you pursue it, the more it'll have its own rewards built into it, because really it's the rewards and the dopamine hits that keep you going along the path.
Speaker 2:So, for example, when you go along the path of becoming more extroverted and say you do start making some friends, or you are in a romantic relationship and you haven't been in a romantic relationship for a long time, or you start to become better at work as a result of your extroversion, those rewards will unconsciously and very intensely propel you down the path more, which doesn't mean you shouldn't be still proactive along the whole journey, but it becomes a self-sustaining cycle And the danger, as I alluded to at the beginning of the interview, is you have to be aware that it will have a downside. So you might, if you go hard on being extroverted for five years, you might find that you lose maybe your ability to have depth in your relationships. So caution is kind of always advised, but role models are really really helpful. And then you find it becomes this self-sustaining cycle And then I guess the ideal spot you want to get to is where you presented the situation. Say you're an introvert, you became more extroverted, you dedicated a period of time in your life to doing that, and then you're presented the situation. You can choose and maybe you're at a party and maybe you want to talk to one person in depth all night. But you know in your heart of hearts it's a choice, it's not a compulsion, because you don't have the ability to be extroverted, get to decide, and that's what's really wonderful about expanding the range of your personality. Let's say, you become more conscientious and then you go on vacation. You can decide okay, i'm going to. And it's really helped to be conscious about these things. You're like I want to put the hardworking part of myself down for a week because actually relaxation is really important, and so on and so forth.
Speaker 2:So it's not for the faint of heart, i think, people who aren't super interested in self-development. You might be content with figuring out how your personality works, how personality in general works and how people are different, and that can get you a long way because you can build your life in a way that complements your personality. But if you want to go that extra step, cultivating new traits can be truly transformative and it can really be extremely liberating. And then what you realize is the reward isn't the thing you get. So if you become more extroverted and you get loads of friends, or you become more conscientious and you get a really good job with a really good salary, make loads of money or whatever the thing is, the reward isn't necessarily the actual concrete thing you get. The reward is the deep confidence you get from knowing that you can expand your nature and that you can become a more dynamic person, and that gives you. You know, i think in the last podcast we did, we mentioned confidence. That gives a huge amount of core.
Speaker 2:Self-esteem one right, Yeah, that gives you huge core confidence, you know, because you're really awakening the degree to which you can be dynamic in your life. So I think it's a very valuable thing to do for that reason.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this actually made me think of something I always thought, like being a chameleon was a bad thing, but you've opened my eyes. Maybe it just means that some people can switch in a sense and be a little bit more dynamic, to know that you have the ability to actually shift certain traits and become more on one side of the spectrum and then the other depend.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I think being a chameleon can mean many things. I would say like the worst version of being a chameleon is if you radically change your values from depending on your social context such that you have no integrity, you know. So you basically make it up on the fly to match wherever you're with.
Speaker 2:But being a chameleon in the sense that you can be extrovert when you need to, be introverted when you need to is wonderful, and I think people who are high in openness tend to be comedians, because they're open to novelty and new ideas. I think people who are high in openness are more common in actors, for example, so they're good at inhabiting other mental states and other ways of seeing the world.
Speaker 2:So, it can be tremendously useful. But then the disadvantages, and there's always a disadvantage this is another take home point is that you can get lost in that and you can lose that core sense of what you value as a result. So always important to be aware of that.
Speaker 1:I think what's truly remarkable, though, is that our personalities are not fixed and they can evolve over and adapt over time, as you gave an example of you, for example and that they can be influenced by the interactions that we have in the world.
Speaker 1:So what we do and who we surround ourselves with is also important, so we can ask ourselves questions like is my current environment and the people in my environment allowing me to grow or move towards the type of person that I want to be or the thing that I want to achieve, let's say, if they want to be more grounded, or they want to spend more time reading books and they want to pursue their academia further, but they always end up hanging out with people who are constantly out, drinking and partying And on that end of the spectrum that may not allow them to be that other version that they aspire to be, and so these can be very important questions to ask, based on this model. Even that, where am I currently and what could I do, or even the people that I can surround myself with that could get me to that personality expansion that I want to be. A role model, for example, you said was a very good example of that right. The role model pushes you to become that version or have that growth that you want to have.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and your point is important because people tend to like people who are similar to them, people who pursue a path of self development and who might change their personality in some important way. It's often it's really disruptive of social relationships and people. Again, they often make it about them. I have some friends who, for example, who take breaks from drinking alcohol and they report it just constantly. The negative feedback they get from other people who try to tempt them with alcohol, Like why are you doing this? Why would you stop drinking alcohol? I'm fine, I don't have a problem, And they're like projected onto them.
Speaker 2:People often resist people's changing, even if that changes in a healthy direction And it's really. It helps you understand who your real friends are, because you're. I think the best definition of friendship is someone who's interested in your growth and well-being fundamentally. So if someone can't accommodate that change, it might not be a relationship that you choose to invest in long term.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's so true, absolutely true, dr Alex. As a final question, you mentioned that there are some people who are happy with the personality that they have, which, fyi, is like absolutely fine And it's great because it actually gives them the opportunity to get to know their strengths and their weaknesses, as you implied before as well, get to know their kind of like, their core, what works best for them, what doesn't. And then in the beginning you even mentioned things like what career they choose, what path they choose, etc. So how can you, how can one structure their life to kind of work around their personality?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I think, as I mentioned, personality transformation is really really hard, and I don't even think it's necessarily for everyone. I think that you can do a huge amount by just aligning your life with your personality to a large degree and taking advantage of your strengths, and you can get a huge amount of success, i think, with that career success, social success. So to do that, obviously you first need to figure out what your personality structure is, and you can do that, as I said before, either by thinking about it informally or doing a formal test. Doing a formal test is obviously going to be better. And then, in the case of work or career, for example, just taking some time to think what careers actually suit my personality structure. And you can do that by formally researching it, but even by thinking about it intuitively.
Speaker 2:So, for example, if you're really high in conscientiousness and really high in openness, that is really good. If you want to be an entrepreneur, for example, because it means you're really willing to work hard, you really want to pursue success, but you're also high in openness, so you don't want to kind of do something that's not been done, you want to do something new. So hard work, innovation that's the center of the. That's really the core of an entrepreneurial spirit. And then you can obviously, depending on the other traits, it might alter what kind of entrepreneur you are. So if you're really high in extroversion, maybe you should be an events manager company, because that's you know, you'd be very well suited for that. If you're really high in openness, really high in agreeableness, low in emotional sensitivity or maybe medium in emotional sensitivity, maybe you should be a therapist, because you're empathic, compassionate, you love new ideas.
Speaker 2:You're emotionally sensitive enough to care for your clients, but not so sensitive that you'd be overwhelmed by working with them. So you make a great therapist. So it's really down to just having an understanding of what personality traits complement which jobs and careers the best and then making that match for yourself. And what you tend to find is that when there is that match, you get that feeling of really loving doing the thing. So often if you're doing something, you know and people say this colloquially they say I was made for this, i was built for this job. Totally, i'll do this job for free.
Speaker 2:So those are the kinds of sentiments you're looking for when you're looking for your ideal career. You want to do. You want to find something that you love to do that engenders a sense of fascination that you would even do for free, because that gives you an unfair advantage over someone else doing that same job, because it means you're going to be willing to put in that extra couple of hours, you're going to be willing to work on weekends, you're going to be willing to go out of your way to accrue the skills and knowledge and experience to make you outstanding And that career. And then I think you know, because careers aren't just broad categories, you know, people can especially nowadays they can make really niche careers.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and as I said earlier, you know, every personality, everyone's personality, is really a very unique combination. So as you go higher and higher resolution with this, it can help you to say not just broadly what you're going to do, but in a more higher resolution sense what niche am I going to occupy? And I really think that, because everyone has a unique personality. What that means is everyone has a unique way of seeing the world and everyone has something unique to contribute. So then, even within your field, you can go deeper and start to figure out what precise niche can I occupy that really allows me to bring value to this world, and that that itself is a very satisfying and fulfilling process.
Speaker 1:Wow, dr Alex, this has been absolutely awesome, very useful one to take home, So I thank you so much once again for taking the time to come on the podcast.
Speaker 2:Thank you very much for the opportunity.
Speaker 1:Thank you everyone for tuning in and listening. If you did like this episode, then please do support by subscribing to your favorite podcast hosting site or by sharing with your friends, family or anyone who you think might benefit from this episode of personality. I highly also recommend you check out the Thinking Mind podcast. Dr Alex, along with two other training psychiatrists, discuss mental health, psychology, psychotherapy, self-development and much more. I'll link their website to this episode description as well, so do feel free to check it out. Thank you once again and we'll catch you in the next episode. Thank you.