The Rich Roll Podcast · 2025-08-25 · 128 min · 23,803 words

Me, But Better: Olga Khazan On The Science of Personality Change, Challenging Fixed Mindsets, & The Big Five Traits That Shape Your Life

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If there's some challenge in your life or something that you're facing or something unfamiliar that you have it in you to face that challenge, like you probably have the skills and the traits that are necessary to do that and you just need to nurture them. You need to go out and act as if Fake it till you make it and rise to the occasion, and you can. Don't let your personality determine the things that you do in life. Hey people, today we are going to pontificate on

personality, what it is, what's fixed about it, and what's not, and what we can plausibly do when we decide we're done with some part of ours and desire to do something about it. So, insofar as this is a show about change, today's question to ask and answer is, is it possible to actually change your personality? And if so, how and to what extent? Before we do that, I would like to take a moment of gratitude to thank everyone for their enthusiasm for last week's episode with James Frye.

I loved it. I think it will stand the test of time as one of my all-time faves. But, you know, James is a lot and for many, uh, an acquired taste, I imagine. So I can't say I was all that sure how all of you would receive it. So it's been really great to get so much positive feedback and really heartwarming to hear from so many of you how it recalled the kind of conversation that

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