Henry Blodgett (4:27)

And what's the key to doing that? And I'll. I'll give you a hint for what I'm looking for, which is because you crystallize it so well. It's a phrase that you hear in professions a lot. Fake it till you make it.

Olga Hazan (4:38)

Yeah. So really, the. That fake it till you make it is a line from a, you know, very dry personality psychology study that I read about personality change. And that's really what it comes down to. It's that you have to behave in the way that you would like to be repeatedly and consistently over time. And gradually, those small behaviors start to add up and become a habit, and that habit starts to become a part of you and shape your mindset and your conception of yourself. And that's when your personality actually starts to change.

Henry Blodgett (5:12)

And you set out in the beginning of the book basically, five traits of personality. And we're going to focus on two today in your journey. But what are those traits?

Olga Hazan (5:24)

Yeah, so you can remember them with the acronym ocean. And so they are openness to experiences, which is sort of like adventurousness and kind of an openness to new ideas and new experiences. And then C for conscientiousness, which is sort of like being timely and organized and planful and diligent. E for extroversion, which is your desire to be around other people and to be very active. A for agreeableness, which is not quite like extraversion. It's more like how kind and empathetic and trusting you are toward other people. And then N for neuroticism, it's the bad one. And that, once again, is anxiety and depression.

Henry Blodgett (6:06)

And you started off in which I assume very conscientiously and gave yourself a test that gives you an actual score in all of these. So how'd you do?

Olga Hazan (6:15)

Yeah, so anyone can take a big five personality test. They are scientifically valid. They're not like, you know, some of the silly Internet quizzes you might come across, they were designed by psychologists. And the one I did was on personalityassessor.com and so I took this personality test, and it showed that I was scorchingly high on neuroticism. I was in the 94th percentile. I was extremely low on extroversion, especially when it came to being friendly and cheerful. And I was also pretty low on agreeableness, especially the trust component of agreeableness. But I did score very high, high on conscientiousness, as you point out, and on openness to experiences. So everyone, you know, even if you. If. If you have. Are high or low in some personality trait, you're going to have some strengths to your personality and some stuff that you maybe want to work on.

Henry Blodgett (7:08)

And you start the book with a lot of history of personality and theories on it, and starting with a theory that it's set in stone. And then other theories come along that it's malleable and you can change it, which is what the whole book's about. And again, we'll talk about extroversion and neuroticism in a second. I say one of the things that I was struck by as I was reading, you had a point where you say a desire to remain authentic is often a real barrier for people here. And I feel like I've seen that in so many different people is if you go out and you actually do try to change who you have gotten very used to being, you feel fake, and it feels forced and I'm just trying to be somebody else. So how do you begin? By getting over that?

Olga Hazan (7:53)

Yeah. So it is gonna feel fake and forced because it feels it is fake and a little bit forced. Right. Like, so if you have a habit of, let's say you're very introverted and you really like to avoid public speaking under any circumstances, and then you get a job that requires public speaking, the first time you get up there to give a presentation to a bunch of CEOs, you're not gonna be like, oh, wow, I'm a natural at this. This is so easy. I should have been doing this all along. You're gonna feel really nervous, really uncertain. Am. You might, you know, fumble with the clicker for the PowerPoint. It's going to feel very fake. And then when you sit down, you're going to feel like, oh, man, did everyone notice that? I was really bad at that. Like, I felt, you know, like such an imposter when I was doing that. And only after you do it, you know, a hundred times, 200 times, are you going to feel like, I'm a natural at this. This is so easy for me. You know, I know how to improve on my presentations. I don't get nervous anymore. I think of myself as someone who can do presentations really well. Everything that you do that's new is going to fake, because on some level, we are all faking it the first time we do something.

Henry Blodgett (9:02)

And so setting out to change your personality is not being inauthentic.

Olga Hazan (9:08)

No, it really is not. I mean, it's really just trying to push the limits of what you're capable of and what you do, and you do that so that you can pursue values that might be authentic to you. So if, say, making more money is a value that you have, and this job that involves public speaking comes with a promotion, then it makes sense to push yourself to do that because you're kind of working toward this. This overall greater value. As long as you're aligned with your. Your goals and your values in life, those individual traits or the individual things that you do day to day, they don't determine authenticity or inauthenticity.

Henry Blodgett (9:49)

And okay, let's start with extroversion. You have a marvelous sentence where you say something to the effect of, extroverts are happier, unfortunately. And I can certainly relate to that. I have my own introverted moments. So, first of all, why are extroverts happier?

Olga Hazan (10:04)

So this is from all of those obnoxious studies that we've all read and written about and come across which is the number one determinant of your happiness level is your social relationships. And extroverts spend more time around people, and they have more social relationships because they just get out more, and so they're happier. And, you know, sometimes they find it challenging. It's like challenging for them to be around other people so much, but it actually is rewarding anyway, so that's kind of the top line there.

Henry Blodgett (10:35)

And so your introversion that stemmed from the pandemic, how did you have to begin to change that?

Olga Hazan (10:41)

Yeah, so what I really had to do is I had to join a bunch of activities that I could not back out of easily because I am someone who would kind of think about joining things. And then if it was too easy for me to not show up or cancel, then that's what I would do, because I'm an introvert. And so what I did is I actually joined an improv class that you can't. You couldn't miss more than two classes or else you. You didn't finish. Like, you were seen as, like, a bad improv improv student, and you didn't miss, you know, graduate from that level. And so my, like, straight A student tendencies kicked in, and I really wanted to. To succeed in this improv class. So I went to every single class, and it was. It was really challenging. And it was also really. I would recommend something like improv that pushes you to give up kind of control over your social interactions, because a lot of people kind of fear what will happen when they get out there and start mingling with people and can't predict what people are going to say and do. And improv is a great exposure therapy for that.

Henry Blodgett (11:50)

So you did that, and what happened?

Olga Hazan (11:53)

Nothing happens. That's the best thing about it. And what I think is so freeing is that a lot of times when we have anxiety about something, we think that if we feel anxious, almost like the anxiety will hurt us somehow, that feeling, that negative feeling of anxiety will be hurtful. And what you really learn doing improv as an introverted person who's not good at improv, is that you can feel really anxious about something and still do it, and it's more or less fine. Even if you don't contribute the funniest line to the scene, and even if your scene isn't overall super funny, it all kind of comes out in the wash. And, you know, I'm sure if you talk to my improv classmates, they all might remember one or two lines that either went super well or super terribly, but no one really remembers every single thing you say and do. And so it's really nice, I think, to have an exposure where you're feeling really anxious, everything turns out okay. And also, the performance is not really that consequential.

Henry Blodgett (12:57)

And I mean, on that, you. You highlighted one thing that you say studies support that I think most of us can relate to. And you talk about how when you get home, oh, you think, I should have said this there. I should have said that there? I mean, I remember being woken up in the middle of the night thinking that I handled a meeting badly. I shouldn't have said this. And yet you talk about something called the spotlight effect, which is effectively, that people don't notice as much about us as we think they do. So talk about that.

Olga Hazan (13:25)

Yeah, that's right. Yeah. So. So a lot of people with social anxiety and myself definitely think that, you know, you get home from the happy hour, and everyone's, you know, sits down and dissects everything you said and did. And that's actually really uncommon. Most people just don't notice you as much as you fear. They did all these experiments where they had the study participants wear a shirt with Barry Manilow's face on it and enter rooms of strangers. And then they were like, okay, how many people do you think noticed that you were wearing this crazy shirt with Barry Manilow on it? And people were like, oh, I bet almost everyone did. You know? And in fact, it was. It was pretty low. It was like 30 or 40% or something. Much lower than what people predicted. And it just goes to show that people are kind of absorbed in their own minds and in what's happening in their lives, and they're not judging you and scrutinizing you as closely as you might fear.

Henry Blodgett (14:20)

And so the improv helped. You talked about sailing and other things that have helped that you joined a lot of meetups. One of the things that you talk about that I've also seen elsewhere in terms of really helping with this is what you describe as weak ties, which a lot of us think. I don't like small talk. I don't like. Why does it matter if I talk to this person that I'm doing business with? Talk about that.

Olga Hazan (14:43)

Yeah. So this was something that also surprised me because. So I moved into my house during the pandemic, and I actually didn't meet my neighbors. And my excuse at the time was, it's the pandemic. But actually, I didn't think you were supposed to meet your neighbors, because I don't like small talk. And I figured I wouldn't have anything in common with them and why would I want to meet them and why would they want to meet me and why would we meet each other? And so I just kind of sat in my house for two years and didn't talk to anyone. And I have since met my neighbors since I started working on this. And honestly, one of them is like a good friend of mine now, and we chat all the time and we actually have more in common than we thought. And even the ones who don't, like, maybe they're at a different stage in life or just we don't have the same job or, you know, there's not a ton of similarity there. That's okay. You can just say hi to people or chit chat with them. You know, it doesn't have to be small talk. It could be about whatever's going on with you. Even if you're not bosom buddies, that's still helpful. People who have more of those weak ties feel better about life and feel better about themselves. You know, you want to feel seen and witnessed as a person. And I think that's why the pandemic was so hard for so many people, was because suddenly you just weren't. It was like, do I exist? You know, do I matter? And those weak ties, which are, it's just, you know, small connections with other people around you kind of remind us that we exist.

Henry Blodgett (16:12)

And so you focus on extroversion. And then after a while you went back and took the test. How did it go?

Olga Hazan (16:18)

Yeah, so my extroversion score went up significantly. And I think I just was telling myself maybe a not true story. I sort of was saying, I think I was telling myself I was more introverted than I truly was. I think I maybe naturally was more extroverted, but because it had been so long since I really socialized or really made any attempt to socialize, I was like, oh, this must just be how I like it. And this must be what's natural for me. And I should just stick to that. So one nice thing about personality change, or at least experimenting with it, is that you can see if these stories that you've been telling to yourself are actually true. Because you might not know if you're an introvert or an extrovert until you hit on that one activity that's just perfect for you. I mean, my improv teacher, who's the funniest guy I know, is such a natural improviser. He described himself as a former introvert or maybe even a current introvert. Who just really likes improv. But it's important to test these theories because as you get older and as you grow, your preferences and your ideas about yourself might change. So you want to update them to see if you're still operating off the correct set of instructions.

Henry Blodgett (17:35)

Yeah. And we go. It was what we were talking about before with authenticity. You get locked into what you think you are and that's it. You can't change. That would be fake and so forth. I was relieved to get to the section though where you said, I still identify as an introvert and I still need the well known elixir, which is quiet time to recharge. Because I have said that so many times myself and I was glad to see, like, okay, maybe that is something that we need as introverts and that's okay that we don't have to fix that.

Olga Hazan (18:04)

Yeah, yeah. So I just, yeah, I want to emphasize, like, introverts are definitely the greatest pushers back against this idea. And I just want to say, like, it's okay to still be an introvert at the end of your journey. And, you know, maybe you have a little carve out for your one club or your one activity that you do and you still need a lot of alone time. I think that's totally valid. And I also need alone time. And I can't just socialize constantly, but it's important to just not have it be so rigid and so extreme that you're. You don't have any social connections or you don't have anything in your life that is, you know, involves other people.

Henry Blodgett (18:40)

All right, let's move on to neuroticism. One of the things you say that really resonated and I feel like I see it in others, and I've felt it myself too, is that worry and anxiety can be a sort of coping mechanism where you feel like, hey, you know, at least I'm worrying, I'm doing something. I'm not just sitting here and letting the world ruin me. I'm worrying about it. And that that makes it hard to let go. And it sounds like in your experiment actually really being willing to let go of it was a big hurdle.

Olga Hazan (19:10)

Yeah. So I had always thought that exactly what you said, that worry is doing something that if you're worried, you're making progress toward a goal. And really that's not really the case. Most psychologists now think that worry is a coping mechanism for anxiety. Much like, you know, eating a bag of potato chips or drinking, you know, a couple glasses of wine or, you know, whatever it is you do to de. Stress that might not be a helpful behavior. Worrying is sort of like that. You kind of think that you're making progress, but you're not. You're just kind of spinning your wheels. And so what would happen with me is I would worry about something so much that it became impossible to make a decision because you can, you know, come up with a horror story for any, you know, any option that you choose. Like, everything could be bad if you look at it a certain way. So the only safe thing to do is to not make a decision. And that it was. I had to realize that I was doing that in order to see that worry was not actually helpful. That to a certain extent, I'm conscientious. And so it's helpful for me to plan and helpful for me to make a to do list and check things off that to do list. But thinking about something over and over and over again is not actually working on the problem.

Henry Blodgett (20:32)

And so you get yourself to a place finally where you're okay, maybe not thinking about it and grinding on it. And then you turn to what everybody seems to turn to meditation.

Olga Hazan (20:44)

Yeah, so I did do meditation, and I. So every podcast has asked me about it, and I feel like I've disappointed every podcast host because meditation is just sitting there and being with whatever thoughts arise. And it's horrible to describe. There's the magic of it is sort of still unclear, like how exactly it works or why it works to pause and meditate. It was still unclear to me, even though it worked for me. It worked really well. I think one. I think a few things about it. The practice itself again, you know, getting back to this idea that sometimes the feeling of anxiety can be very scary to people and can almost feel like the anxiety is going to hurt you. And the most direct example of this is panic attacks. People who have panic attacks, often a panic attack can't hurt you, but people feel like they're going to die or they're like, oh my God, I needed to stop right away. They're very afraid by the physical sensations that they're feeling. So one thing meditation helps you do is to just let your feelings and your thoughts happen and kind of sit see that they are not hurting you. Like, you can feel a certain way, but not then waste a lot of time feeling bad about feeling that way. Like, you can just be like, I'm feeling anxious right now. Like, I'm feeling a wave of anxiety right now. And even that small step is like a big step for people with anxiety because You. You kind of learn to sit with it rather than react to it. So I think that was one thing that was helpful. The other helpful thing about the meditation class I took was the teacher, which I did not imagine ever saying because she was very old and not super efficient in her teaching. But she would say this one thing that I found so mind blowing, which is things happen that you don't like. And you're like, of course, like, everyone knows that things happen that you don't like. But I had been going through life sort of subconsciously thinking that if I did everything perfectly, nothing would happen that I didn't want to happen. And if something happened that I didn't want or didn't like, it was because I had screwed something up somewhere along the way. And if I was a smart and capable person, I wouldn't have screwed it up. So, honestly, just like being in this group and hearing this phrase, things happen that you don't like. We all have things that come up in our lives that we did not wish for and are just kind of dealing with. That was a really freeing message for me. That was very helpful. And to this day, when something, you know, when you get served a shit sandwich, I'm like, things happen that you don't like. This is one of those things.

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Henry Blodgett (26:32)

Meditation seems to work for a lot of people, and it is something that I've always, for whatever reason, been resistant to in myself. You describe a lot of what I feel, which is, I'll fall asleep or I'll get bored or I'll feel like I am not doing it well. And one of the messages where I almost. I laughed out loud. I think in your books you say, oh, your meditation is about not striving. It's like I don't know how to not strive. I'm trying to do something, so maybe it'll work for me eventually. But here's the I'm going to just put to you, and I realize you're not necessarily an expert in this, but can other things in modern life take the place of meditation? For example, I crossword puzzles. My brain. My brain gets turned off from all problems when I do a crossword puzzle. It's a nice 20 minutes or 10 minutes or what have you. Is that a form of meditation? Yeah.

Olga Hazan (27:23)

So the meditation teachers would say, no, you're not supposed to be. You're supposed to be opening your sense doors and not using your conscious mind. And so every high achieving person has this question of like, if I run a marathon, is that meditation? It's okay. So there's a few things that are meditation that are not sitting still. One of them is yoga. So if you do a yoga class that is genuinely meditative, this is probably not going to be your like core power, you know, level three class with like dance music blasting in the background. But if it's, if it's just like a normal yoga class with like the tinkly music and the slow succession, that, that could be meditation. Another is a walking meditation where you're not listening to a podcast or music. You're just kind of like walking and letting your mind wander. I know this because I tried to listen to music during my walking meditation and they got mad at me.

Henry Blodgett (28:23)

And are you allowed to think about something while you're doing that or is it the whole idea just. No, there could be no working through something or worrying or anything like that.

Olga Hazan (28:32)

So you're supposed to, what you're supposed to do. Which was very difficult for me personally, and I think it's difficult for a lot of people, is if you start to notice thoughts or that you're thinking about something specific, you kind of just like let it pass. Kind of like a cloud. Like, okay, I was thinking about that thing. Like you just kind of like let it go. But it's very hard to do. And I mean when I, I talked with Dan Harris a lot in the course of reporting this book and then in the process of rolling out the book. And honestly he's a, he's a seasoned meditator and he only can do this like sometimes like he, he has like a few minutes during each meditation where he's fully present. Most people don't completely clear their minds when they're meditating. It's just like a goal that you have.

Henry Blodgett (29:21)

All right, so games don't count. None of this stuff counts. I know it doesn't count as meditation, but here's the question for you because I know you work incredibly hard and sounds like that contributed to your anxiety at some points. But I can say in myself and others sometimes, and there are some folks who talk about this as a way to address anxiety is just do something, get active. I've taken action of what sort. So can work, be therapy? Can, can work actually ease anxiety?

Olga Hazan (29:52)

That's interesting. I could see if you are stuck in a decision like what, what do I need to be doing? Or like what's like moving on to some other activity that's not grappling with that decision and just letting it work in the background or waiting until you have more information, I think can be a form of managing anxiety. Like, it's. It's not like medit meditation or bust in. If you don't meditate, you're going to be anxious forever. I'm just talking about what is typically recommended and what I tried. But I also work a lot, and it can, you know, it can be helpful as a distraction maybe. Like, you know, at a certain point, your mind's just not going to make more progress on whatever you're anxious about. So it makes sense to watch a TV show or do some work or, you know, go exercise or just, you know, literally take your mind off of it, because, again, worrying about it is not. Not going to help.

Henry Blodgett (30:46)

All right, so you became much more extroverted. Your neuroticism score plummeted. How'd you do in the other three categories? And we know that you're. You score very well in consciousness. There's no. There's no need to improve that one.

Olga Hazan (31:01)

Yeah, so the one that was really challenging for me and that people often find challenging is agreeableness, which is the one where you're trying to be kinder to people and more trusting. And I think part of it is being a journalist. And that even when you're interviewing someone, even if it's for, like, an overall positive story, you're still, like, you're. You're thinking about, oh, I'm gonna have to check this part out. Or, oh, did they really do that? Or, oh, is that really true? And you kind of have this layer of skepticism between you and everyone else. Like, everything people say, you're gonna kind of check out. And I think I was just bringing that to. To other domains of my life. And I was really. I. I had trouble trusting people. Like, I didn't. You know, I maybe had friends who I hung out with, but I wouldn't ever ask them a favor or, like, you know, rely on them to do anything. And so what psychologists actually do for people who have trouble trusting others is come up with this exercise called Dimensions of Trust, which is where you list out everyone in your life and write something that you would trust them to do. So maybe it's not take care of your kid, but maybe it's like, pick up, you know, a package for you. Maybe it's drive you to the airport. Maybe it's something less than that, like water your plants or something. And gradually, you kind of learn that, similar to the weak ties concept, there could be lots of people in your life that you trust to some degree to help fulfill some need in your life, but it's not covering every base. So you don't have, like, maybe a village of people who are going to do everything for you or that you can trust to do literally anything. But you have people in your life who are trustworthy on some level. And between all of those people, you can get many of your needs met. And so, for me, it was really about being in all these groups and interacting with so many people and doing so many activities that I kind of realized that people are basically okay. Like, people are nice. Ish. And after we would wrap up all of our groups, people would be like, oh, this was so fun. Like, it was so nice to meet you guys. And, like, it's so fun sharing. And, like, you know, it wasn't even anger management, which was a. A group of people who were judged by a court to be too angry. They were like, oh, my God, it was so great meeting y'. All, you know, and so most people, like, once you kind of open and start talking and start sharing with each other, you. You do increase the natural level of trust that's there.

Henry Blodgett (33:43)

So you improved on that as well.

Olga Hazan (33:44)

Yes, a little bit. Yeah.

Henry Blodgett (33:46)

All right, so. So, in sum, you changed your personality. It helped make you happier, more meaning, have more meaningful life. One of the things you say, and this coming back around what we were talking about a minute ago, is almost every voice in the world of self transformation warns against quitting because it doesn't feel right. And this goes right back to the feeling inauthentic and wanting to change. So we have to power through. That is what it is.

Olga Hazan (34:14)

Yeah. And it's really, like, if you think about wanting to quit, I would recommend quitting a specific activity rather than quitting working toward a general goal. So if your goal is to make more friends, but you joined a judo class and you're just terrible at judo, it's okay to quit the judo. Like, you can. You can do a book club instead. I would just, you know, try to switch your specific approach, not the overall thing that you're doing. I would not take the failure at the judo to be like, never mind. Like, I'm not gonna try to make more friends after all. Like, this all sucks. Which is something I would do. Like, I would go to one happy hour, and it would be lackluster, or just, like, people ran late or people canceled, and I'd Be like, nevermind, like no more happy hours. You know, maybe that's not the right time or the right venue or the right setting for you. You know, you could pick a different activity. But you know, I would, I would caution against abandoning the whole goal.

Henry Blodgett (35:12)

And you have this concept called I think, free traits, where it was something like that, where you decide, okay, I may not become the world's biggest extrovert, and I'm okay being a little bit introverted, but I can turn on the extrovert switch when I want. That's also very freeing.

Olga Hazan (35:30)

Yeah, so some psychologists, so there's, there's a psychologist who thinks you change your personality and then it's, your whole personality is different. And for some people that's like, whoa, I don't want to do that. That sounds scary. But there are these things I want to do in life that would require me to behave differently sometimes. And that's what I want to do. And I'm like, perfect. Because this other psychologist, Brian Little, has, as you mentioned, this concept called free traits, which is basically that everyone has within them a capacity to occasionally act outside of their nature. So introversion is a perfect example. Brian Little himself is very introverted, but he strives to be this great professor who connects with a lot of students through his lectures and his speeches. So every time he is going out there to give a lecture, he pumps himself up. He's like, I'm an extrovert, I'm an extrovert. He gives a amazing, compelling, very, you know, extrovert type lecture. And then he has to go hide in his office and not talk to anyone for like an hour and a half because he still feels like he's an introvert. He didn't totally change his personality. And that's, I think, totally fine. Like, I think it's, it's okay to act outside of your nature in certain circumstances, you know, and still identify with the earlier, you know, the previous personality trait.

Henry Blodgett (36:53)

And so you have a helpful acronym for those of us who want to change things.

Olga Hazan (36:58)

Act. Yeah, so this is sort of so act. It's, it's a type of therapy. It's accept that negative feelings are going to come up when you're trying to do things differently. Commit toward your goal and take action. Anyway, this is just a fancy way of saying that sometimes you have to persevere despite negative feelings rather than without negative feelings. One guy who I interviewed for that section, he was highly, highly anxious, but he wanted to be the president of his law school class. And it involved a lot of public speaking, campaigning, just like, appearances, all this stuff that is really a nightmare for anxious people. And he was just like, okay, look, I'm going to be anxious. Like, I'm going to be anxious the whole time I'm doing this. I'm going to get out there. I'm going to be campaigning. I'm going to be anxious while I'm giving my speech. And he's like, I don't care. It's more important to me to be the president of my law school class than it is to not have anxiety. And look, the anxiety will gradually go down. Like, he had faith in that, and it did for him. But at that initial first couple months, he was like, I'm just gonna do this even though I'm anxious. And that's really what that ACT acronym is all about.

Henry Blodgett (38:10)

And I will say that there was an acronym for this in my generation that I think was the title of a book way back in the day that helped me a lot, which is Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway.

Olga Hazan (38:19)

Yeah, yeah. What goes around Comes Around, I guess, with the therapy speak.

Henry Blodgett (38:24)

All right. The book's terrific. Everybody should read it. It is such a positive message of our ability to change things for the better in the world and something that we actually do have control over. And as you say, we're not floating around on some ship completely helpless. Let's talk about modern gender roles and specifically some of your frustrations at home as you try to have things be. It seems equal with your husband, who, by the way, sounds marvelous. You wrote an article in January or published an article in the Atlantic called Doomed to be a Trad Wife. What'd you mean?

Olga Hazan (39:00)

Yeah. So this is really something that I noticed after our son was born. You know, Rich and I. My husband. Rich and I had always had a pretty equal relationship, even though I'm much more conscientious than he is. And he is very messy, naturally, as a person. But we had sort of come up with a system and, you know, set things up to where most everything got done, most of the time with minimal reminders. Right. And when we had our son, that really, completely fell apart, and I felt like I was the CEO of the baby and he was my intern or something. Like, I was like, okay, now wash the punk parts. Okay, now we gotta do the bottle. Okay, it's six ounces. You know, whatever. It's. It was so much me and. And so little him. Um, and I was just like, how did I get here? Like, I thought, like, I know all the techniques, and I know all the systems and I thought I set this up to where it would work, but I am the only one who's ever bought my son baby clothes. Like, he has literally never bought baby clothes for him because he doesn't realize that new clothes have to be bought every couple months. And yeah, it was just like kind of born of like, like, how did someone like me who's, you know, not traditional, not conservative, you know, not. I'm a journalist, working journalist. I thought I had this cupboard and it just completely fell apart.

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Olga Hazan (43:21)

So I will say that he does not understand what it means for something to be clean. He grew up in a very messy home. And I realized at some point that he just didn't understand what I was saying when I meant clean. Like he thought I was just saying tidy up. Or like, I was like, or dust or something. You know what I mean? Like, he didn't, he didn't get that you have to put things away and then wipe down the surfaces, which. So I had break it down into those two steps. And then basically what I did, I would say we. But it was. My rule is like you have to wipe, physically wipe down the floor once a week. Like, that is the definition of cleaning the floor is like, this is how often it is done. And like, that way there's not an argument on that day about whether the floor is clean or not. It just gets wiped down either way.

Henry Blodgett (44:07)

And you got him to agree that the floor needs to be cleaned once a week. He was, okay, all right, I will agree to that. And then he still didn't do it.

Olga Hazan (44:17)

Yeah. So this is where. So part of that article was talking about the system called fair play, which we had also tried and which worked for a while until we had Evan and it was, you know, he had the wipe the floor card. And so he had to do it. And that meant that he would have to buy.

Henry Blodgett (44:33)

And what is fair play for those of us.

Olga Hazan (44:35)

So fair play is this idea that every, like you, you assign, you divvy up the chores, right? You, like you, one person gets clean the floors, one person does gets do the dishes. And basically what's supposed to be revolutionary about it is that, is that the person who owns the card has to do everything that that chore entails. So you have to make sure you have enough juice for the Swiffer and you have to make sure you have enough dish soap. Like if you're the dish person, you have to, you know, if you have kids birthday party, then you have to buy the balloons and you have make sure the venue's reserved. Like, you can't. So it doesn't become a joint project, basically. And you should be able to do it without reminders. And so that's what we were aiming for, essentially.

Henry Blodgett (45:23)

And so you divide up the cards. He has his jobs. He's not doing them, or at least he's not doing them to your satisfaction. In a work situation, you might fire him, or you might sit him down and put him on a pipe, and things would cure themselves or not. In this case, you can't fire him. So what do you do?

Olga Hazan (45:43)

Yeah, so it's something we're still working on. We basically don't do fair play anymore, and we've done a couple things, and it. Some of this will only work for us. One thing is that we have a cleaning person. Like, we have a cleaning.

Henry Blodgett (46:00)

Hire somebody else to do it.

Olga Hazan (46:01)

We hire someone to do it. And that. That's only because, like, we make enough to cover that. And I totally understand that. Not everyone does. And that's, like, part of the frustration that women have. And the other thing is that I remind him a lot. Like, I. I do, like, make calendar invites and invite him on his calendar to the things that I want him to do. Like, I just realized that he needs reminders, and he. He's not gonna be someone who's, like, shuffling through his fair play cards, looking at, like, what he needs to be doing. So I do remind him, and then I just do a lot. I do a lot more than he does for Evan.

Henry Blodgett (46:42)

And that's not a situation that you're happy with, presumably, but is the compromise that you're willing to make.

Olga Hazan (46:50)

Yeah, I don't know. Again, this is why the article is called doomed to be a Trad Wife. I don't know a way out of that, because I also read a substack post recently, and I wish I could remember the author so I could give her a shout out, but the title of it was something like, your husband won't pick up the slack if you just let go of things. And I thought that was such a good point, because what I often hear is, like, well, if you just didn't do it, then, you know, he. Rich would step up and get things done, but it's stuff that's too important for me to just not do. Like, pediatrician's appointments or, like, you know, medical stuff that has to happen, or, like, you know, shoes that need to be bought. Like, he can't not have shoes. So, I mean, for, like, kind of, like, nice to have stuff, I do, like, let go and see if Rich will do it. But for the essential things that I end up doing it because I'm not comfortable not letting it be done. And I just, just acknowledge that this is going to be my life during early parenthood. And I, I don't, I don't have a solution to that. Sorry, sorry to mess up your show.

Henry Blodgett (47:58)

No, your solution is great. You compromise. You're very pragmatic. You, you keep things together, you keep the peace. And I, I, you know, again, speaking on behalf of Rich, who's not here to defend himself, I think he might say that some of the things you're describing are subjective and that if Evan needs shoes, eventually he might be motivated to get shoes. Obviously if he needs to go to the doctor. Now that's something that we can all agree has to happen and should happen. Let me, let me step back from it though. And because this is of course playing out in the midst of this, the trad wife movement, which is the conservative viewpoint that women should go back to the kitchen and the home. And part of the problem is that everyone is now career minded and we're not taking care of the house. And that can be source of great pride and, and so forth. So talk about that. Like this is you're describing the way you see the world, which sounds like, you know, hey, I want to be, I want to be everything to be equal. We have two equal careers and we have, we've split the housework and, and the kid work exactly equally as the idea. And yeah, I'll carry you because I have to and I like you, but that's a compromise. So that seems to be the goal. Is that the goal across the spectrum?

Olga Hazan (49:14)

Across the spectrum of what?

Henry Blodgett (49:15)

Well, I mean, certainly across the. Starting with the actual tradwives and also I would say in folks who are more liberal, is that generally the goal today? Is that the ideal gender roles in a marriage?

Olga Hazan (49:31)

So as far as liberals, like, when I tell colleagues about my situation, they are in shock and are wondering when I'll get divorced because they do have partners who do 50% of the work. I. So I think among liberals, it's still the goal that you would divide everything, basically 50, 50. I think that what you have to do for that to be the case, which is something I did not do, is marry someone who's conscientious. Like, to bring it back to personality, you have to marry someone who's about as conscientious as you. You. So if someone's constantly, you know, if the room is a disaster, if they're constantly late, if they forget things really easily, like, you know, how that relationship is going to go once you have kids. And I knew it too. I saw it coming, you know, and I was like, this is going to suck once we have a kid. And it does. But I think for conservatives, they think that women naturally have that more motherly or like home tending gene or something and that they're better at it and so they should just do it and men should just focus on work. You know, I, I think women are, are more conscientious in some ways. I don't, I'm personally not very homeish. Like I, I don't decorate and I don't bake cookies or anything. I just kind of do what needs to get done for us to have a reasonable life. But I, yeah, I, you know, but then again I've talked to some conservatives, like very, very strong conservatives who, whose husbands stay at home and they have high profile jobs. So I think it really, it kind of depends on the person and who you're talking to.

Henry Blodgett (51:15)

I mean, I will say based on your, your cookie comment, I mean obviously this is a discussion that we've had as a society for a long time. My parents generation is very rare to have a woman with a high powered career. Did happen, but rare then. And when I was in school, Hillary Clinton came out and mortified half the country by saying, oh, I could have just stayed home and baked cookies. And suddenly everyone got outraged about that. So it seems like, yes. So what you're describing is we have the ability where each couple can decide ultimately the best arrangement.

Olga Hazan (51:52)

And I will say that this is a point of frustration. Like I'm not saying like, like and we've just worked it out and like this is perfect for us. Like, like men not doing enough housework is like a huge reason why women file for divorce. Like it's, you know, it is a, it is a unsettled, I would say, like question an issue. And yeah, I wouldn't say that, that everyone has, has worked it out perfectly and, and we never, you know, you're talking about like when women didn't have high powered careers, we just got high powered careers and we didn't figure out what was going to happen at home. Like we like every, everyone is now working and like no one is doing the stuff that the women used to do.

Henry Blodgett (52:31)

And if you listen to Scott Galloway and others and there's a lot of talk about how young men particularly are in a rough place right now because women are lapping them in school and women are taking a lot of jobs that men used to do and the quote, manly professions are declining and the female coded professions are rising and so men are feeling totally adrift and they're, they don't have their old role of being the provider. What do you think of that old role? It's like, what is, is there a role for men that balances their incompetence in the home that would be out there providing?

Olga Hazan (53:09)

Yeah. So I think that. Sorry, this is like the worst answer ever. I feel like there has to be like a paradigm shift because the fact is women outnumber men in college now, and in some cases women are breadwinners and women are more likely to be working than men, I think among some demographic groups. So I just don't think we're gonna go back to this time where women are staying at home and men are providing. I think we can pine for that era all we want, but it's just not gonna happen. And a lot of the. I did a story recently with conservative women who are the breadwinner and their husbands stay home. And they were basically like, no one can afford to have a trad wife staying at home, you know, anymore. Like, very few families can get by on one income, you know, at least for their entire lives. And it's not a goal that a lot of women have to not work. So I think we just have to, you know, somehow socialize boys, that there's more ways to be a man than out earning your spouse and that contributing at home is manly. Like it is manly to take care of your house and your family literally in the house. Like not necessarily by just making money. And I, I mean, I hope to teach my son that, but I. He doesn't listen to anything I say. So we'll see how that goes.

Henry Blodgett (54:37)

I don't know that that's going to change. All right, Olga, thank you so much for doing this. It's great to have you. Your work, the Atlantic and the book are terrific. And I'll just say that this is what this world today particularly needs. More of which is really smart, data backed, funny solutions, for lack of a better way of saying it. So I recommend it to everybody and thank you so much for joining us.

Olga Hazan (55:02)

Yeah, thank you so much. This is so fun.

Henry Blodgett (55:07)

Solutions is produced by Megan Cunain. Jim Mackle is our video editor. Our theme music is by Trackademics. Nishat Kurwa is Vox Media's executive producer of podcasts. Thanks for listening to Solutions from the Vox Media podcast Network. I'm your host, Henry Blodgett. We'll see you soon.

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