Dr. Benjamin Hardy is a best-selling author who has been read by - get this - more than 100 million humans.
His work is featured regularly in Forbes, Fortune Magazine, Psychology Today and other well-known publications and his new book Personality Isn't Permanent debunks the multi-billion dollar personality profile industry as something of an excuse for believing we are stuck with who we are.
In this episode, Ben and I talk about:
I’m grateful for Ben's time and his work that focuses on the science of change.
Dr. Benjamin Hardy is a best-selling author who has been read by - get this - more than 100 million humans.
His work is featured regularly in Forbes, Fortune Magazine, Psychology Today and other well-known publications and his new book Personality Isn't Permanent debunks the multi-billion dollar personality profile industry as something of an excuse for believing we are stuck with who we are.
In this episode, Ben and I talk about:
I’m grateful for Ben's time and his work that focuses on the science of change.
Hey, Ben, thanks for inviting us into your life today. Before we even get started, let's talk about the book. You've got a tremendous book out. And frankly, it looks a lot like you've walked into a Celebrate Recovery meeting a few times.
Ben Hardy :I have studied addiction here and there. Yes, diction has been a big part of my life. So yep, I understand to some degree.
Tracy Winchell :Well, tell me about the book. Where does somebody get a hold of the book, because we're going to talk about that. But we're also going to talk about the book in the context of navigating change and how to decide to make a change, and then what to do.
Ben Hardy :Well, first off, I love your podcast. because change is very interesting and very important to me, and it's something I believe in and believe is a big part of what we're here on this earth to do. So the book is called Personality Isn't Permanent. I think that it's so at my former book was called Willpower Doesn't Work, which actually more directly addressed addiction, but Personality Isn't Permanent. But it is, in my opinion, a book that explains, it explains away a lot of the myths about what what we are, why we're repetitive why we're consistent personality is generally defined as the consistent or stable attitudes or reactions we have to life. And midway through 2018, I actually read a book called The Body Keeps the Score. I don't know if you've ever come across that one. I have it. The body keeps the score is probably the definitive book on trauma. Very important book. That book that book is what led me to writing this book. I wasn't sure what my next book was gonna be one of the things that Bessel Vander kolk wrote about in that book is that trauma creates a frozen personality, where in your personality is stuck in the past. It's stuck in the initial and emotional reaction of whatever occurred to you and it hasn't been resolved. And obviously, from an addiction perspective, when something happens, it can lead to a coping mechanism such as addiction, you become as sick as your secrets, right. And so that helped me realize that one of the reasons why personality can become repetitive for many people is because of traumatic experiences, particularly emotional, traumatic experiences. And so I wanted to come to the conclusion, what are the other reasons why personality may look a little bit more consistent than it really is? And what are some of the ways that it actually can and does change. So that was Kind of what led me to writing this book and, and I knew that this book would be under at least 100 X the scrutiny of my last book because this is a very big subject. You know, personality is the number one subject in psychology, but it's also something that impacts everyone. personality tests are a multi billion dollar industry. And so this was a bigger, deeper harder book to write and easier to fail as well.
Tracy Winchell :Well, you've got an endorsement from Ryan Holliday, who, interestingly enough is one of my favorite recovery off authors. You know, he talks about a lot about recovery and especially in the context of, of a lack of faith and how important it is to surrender to a higher power, whether you believe the way we believe as Christians or not, and I think that's in that's fascinating and that, that he has so much respect for your work and your book gives me an opportunity to just ask you about how, how we in the faith community interact with people who don't believe in order to give them a just an understanding of how faith has changed us, but how science can change all of us.
Ben Hardy :Yeah, yeah. So I mean, I'm definitely a person of faith, believe in Christ. I think it's been interesting watching Ryan's evolution, to be honest with you. I've known him for quite a few years now. And he endorsed my last book as well. And I think it was really cool for him to actually add those elements of faith in his book, even though he's still questioning his own. As far as faith and science, I'm a part of my own belief system is that truth is truth wherever you find it, whether that science philosophy conversation with me and you, I think, you know, the Holy Spirit can be the filtering process that you can use to figure that out. And so I'm, I'm all about truth. I think all truth leads up the same mountain. And so I search for truth wherever I can find it. So I obviously got my PhD in organizational psychology and I study science and, and I like studying the science of change. But my my reasons and one of the things that I discovered in becoming a scientist and I don't really know if I'd consider myself a scientist, to be honest with you, even though I have a doctorate, but in going to the scientific method and process is that science is always viewed through a lens. Like there's a reason particularly in the social sciences, there's a reason that people are studying what they're studying and the lens that I view, science through and that I'm looking for is through through change. I'm looking for that. I'm always seeking that that's, that's so that's my bias. And so that's what I look for. And what I want to believe in and hoping.
Tracy Winchell :Have you have you kind of investigated the Serenity Prayer and how hidden inside that powerful little prayer by Ryan hold nuber are our principles of how we can navigate change like, you know, most of us know the first few lines of this Like, you got to have acceptance and wisdom and courage to know the difference between what we can change and what we can't. And then the courage to change the things we can. And honest to goodness, really, the most powerful thing we control is us. It's kind of the only thing most of the time, right. And your book, your book talks about that change within what's the first thing somebody needs in order to start making a change from within your mind.
Ben Hardy :I think, I mean, it may be that courage to be honest with you, I think the courage to ask for help, or the courage to share your perspective, share your story again, you're sick as your secrets. And so trauma is something you know in again, trauma It's just one of the things impacting you. There's obviously your social group, your environment, other things, your your narrative in the way you describe yourself. But the things that are usually impacting and driving you are many things that you've either suppressed, pushed down. And so I think it takes courage to begin to talk about it. One of my favorite quotes that I use in the book comes from Dr. Peter Levine, he wrote the book, waking the tiger healing trauma. And the quote is, trauma isn't what happens to you. It's what you hold inside in the absence of an empathetic witness. And so I think it's, you know, journaling is a good place to start if that's where you need to go. I think writing about your life, your situation, what's going on, maybe what led you here where you want it to go. Not avoiding the past, not avoiding the truth. Dan Sullivan, a friend of mine and a mentor, he's got a quote that all progress starts by telling the truth, but obviously the truth takes courage. But I think journaling is a great place to start and it's a great ongoing process for emotional Development for emotional regulation for continuing to refine, update your narrative of the past and the future. But I think powerful conversations could be with therapist obviously, you know, could be with a sponsor, but beginning to neutralize the emotion of the story and neutralize the emotion of the past and neutralize the emotions of the most painful experiences you've had. And you do that by talking about exposing yourself to it by getting different perspectives. The goal is, is that the meaning of the experience actually changes so that it's no longer something you're a victim to and blaming. Because that's, that's what keeps you in repetitive cycles. Eventually, you want it to be something that you, you explain the meaning of yourself. Hopefully, it's something you can develop a sense of gratitude and a positive emotion for. And usually that happens through, you know, strategic conversations and being in being willing to open up and I'm big on the past becoming information, not emotion. So the past is something you can use as information but it's not something that's emotionally dictating You'd go one way or another driving you to negative coping behaviors.
Tracy Winchell :And it it seems incredibly intentional that you go from chapter three in your book transform your trauma to number four, which is shift your story. And and I call part of this the Clint Eastwood principle of change navigation where we tell ourselves the good, the bad, and the ugly. And, you're right journaling helps us tell ourselves
Ben Hardy :Journaling is amazing. Healing is powerful.
Tracy Winchell :Yeah, I did a I did a mini series last summer. Just doing really quick 15 minute hits of people who journal asking them to share how they journal and what's fun, is that my listeners were like, Oh, wait, Tracy. I didn't know I journaled. I journal too. I just don't grab my fancy notebook and go on top of mountain and do this solo write a book thing. I'm just making notations right?
Ben Hardy :Yeah, I think it's a healthy practice. I mean, I I journal about five to 15 minutes every morning, but I think it's it's actually the whole narration process. So what they say is, is that identity is shaped through stories. And usually our stories, our reactions, emotional reactions to an event. So if something happens to you, someone tells you you're you know, you're not attractive or something, you believe it, like, whatever it is, an experience happens. And, you know, a story comes into your mind. And the story is based on the emotional reaction rather than based on intentional How do I want this to be framed? How do I want this to be remembered? Because you're, what's great is that your memory is something his memory is flexible, it's fluid. And it's very influenceable. It's something you can influence and so I think narrating the past is just as interesting as narrating the future. So I think that's big and, you know, choosing how you relate to your former self choosing how you relate to, you know, one of the big things that I've continued to find is that as a person actually goes to the change process, they become increasingly compassionate and empathetic towards their former self not judgmental. You got more context, you don't relate to your former self, but you better understand why that person was the way they were. From a psychology perspective, it's really smart for decision making to view your former your current and your future self is three different people. And so, you know, think about who you were 5 - 10 years ago, chances are you are quite a different person, especially if you were seeking change or had changed experiences. And so not having a negative relationship with your former self because you actually always carry your past with you and your future with you and so relieving that relationship may sound weird, but it's it's powerful.
Tracy Winchell :It is one of the one of the things that that I was able to do after a trip Bloss moving in with my mom facing the sudden death of a loved one. I said, I sort of screwed up Sean blocks the note. I mean, just totally messed it up trying to do it to start my own business to write every day. And I ended up with a process that helped me write a note to my next day self and stop beating myself up to show some respect. And I ended up Shawn, let me actually submit a guest post on on how I write a note to my next day self. Just tell myself the truth about today. So sometimes it's an amend. Today Tracy sort of messed up and didn't get all of her work done. And so next day Tracy's really gonna have to work hard, you know, and so it helps me tell myself the truth about myself. And so yeah, you're right, I stumbled onto this idea that I need to separate yesterday today. Today Today and tomorrow Today - they're interrelated. You know, but I need to respect all of those people.
Ben Hardy :Yeah, they're different people, you know who you are and what you'll be dealing with tomorrow is gonna be different from what who, you know, some of it may be repetitive. But, yeah, I love that. And you know, I love that just the journaling process. For me, it's a it's journaling as a way to daily deal with what you're going through and process it. I think a big a big, big aspect of emotional development and also becoming more flexible and and open to emotions, rather than avoidance of them is journaling. Or you start to just journal about your experience and just getting it out there. Yeah.
Tracy Winchell :So can you can you walk me through? What's your 10 to 15 minute practice looks like is it the same every day or do you do go through different phases?
Ben Hardy :Definitely phases. One of the things I've done over the last couple years is I'll actually just pull one of my journals out actually. So on the front inside cover of my journals, what I do is I asked a couple questions. First one is where am i right now? So, and I go through about one of these a month, and they're very hideous when you really some of them, you know, they're just, they are just what they are, you know, whatever you want, wherever you want them to be. But ask myself, where am i right now? And I'll just write like five bullets of what's currently going on in my life. I've gotten into blogging again, you know, you know, thinking about hiring new person, whatever. So I'm just literally writing about where I am in my current life right now. What are the winds from the last 90 days? So I just write what are the things that have happened that have been positive accomplishments in the last 90 days? It could be personal professional, that gives you a sense of momentum and progress and change actually just noticing progress. What are the I want for the next 90 days, where do I want to be in three years? And where do I want to be one year? The reason I think this is a cool thing to cover is because first off, you can see every month how they slightly change. But also, it just allows you to quickly frame your future self and about kind of it gets you back into that state of intention. So that when you're writing your state, you're writing more from an intentional perspective. But as far as the actual practice, I usually end up writing about my goals. I usually write about what I'm trying to accomplish right now I write about what I'm working on. It's it's very unstructured. Sometimes I'll write about experiences that have recently been happening or thoughts that I've been having. But usually it's around. What am I trying to be what am I trying to accomplish? What am I trying to do? What do I need to do right now. It's just as a way of organizing myself, organizing my thoughts, organizing myself so that I can then begin living intentionally and then obviously, intentional living towards something specific and courage, allow you to have more of those peak experiences. And those peak experiences are what allow your identity to start to flex a little bit, you start you stop being so dogmatic and how you see yourself, and you start opening up to new ways of seeing yourself. And those experiences can happen daily for people and they don't have to be huge than a huge epiphany. They can just be small moments where you move forward, you did something hard and you realize oh, like, I can do hard things and you can go that build that little courage which then can allow you to expand your views of yourself. So I think it's just a process for me of getting my thinking right.
Tracy Winchell :We're still talking about shift your story. And one of the things that helped me untangle my thoughts from my feelings and my actions through journaling was to convince myself that I can do hard things. And in this doing of hard things, now starts to shift my story.
Ben Hardy :Yep, it is very much a circular process. So you, you can you know, you can choose a difficult goal, and that goal can then dictate how you see yourself but then once you start acting towards that goal, which is emotional and difficult the act themselves, clarify to yourself who you think you are. So in psychology, we call that self signaling. Basically, your actions or your behaviors signal back to you the type of person you are. So if you're doing hard things, you're like, wow, I must be someone who could do hard things. And that builds courage and courage expands imagination and flexibility, which allows you to pursue bigger and more difficult things. You wouldn't pursue difficult things if you didn't think you could. And so courage allows you to start to build some confidence and confidence expands your vision. And you need to be emotionally flexible, to be able to deal with the the difficulty or the hardness of whatever's involved. The complexity are the ups and downs. But I use my journal for the exact same thing. That's why I write about what I'm trying to accomplish, because I'm literally convincing myself every day that I'm going to do it and that I can do it and then eventually you get to the point where you believe it and you start to build the confidence and the capability to match you know, match the courage, but then hopefully you keep going.
Tracy Winchell :and that takes us back to the surface. Prayer about change, accepting the things we can't change, which sometimes takes courage, and then changing the things we can, which is us. And that kind of goes back to that personality isn't permanent, where you start stepping us through the changes. And you've already kind of talked a little bit about redesigning our environment by making sure that when we are working to make a change, we're sharing with the right people like being as sick as your secrets. If you share that secret with the wrong person, they're going to turn it back on you. If you share it with the right person, the response is, it's okay. God loves you, and I love you. And that's the only response there is and that's an incredibly powerful component of recovery is doing the hard work of the Clint Eastwood principle and then coming in and being told that you're loved. It matters that there may be consequences to your actions that you're loved, period.
Ben Hardy :Yeah, I think you'll know it's the right environment, the right social group of felt genuinely encourage you to courageously make the changes you want. If they're trying to if they're not encouraging you, or if they're discouraging you to do what you believe you should or want to do, then it's definitely the wrong group, if they're trying to keep you from courageously doing what you want to do. So that's why I think that starting to tell people what you want is key starting to tell people this is who I want to be, this is what I want. That's I think the biggest step towards authenticity is telling people your new story, and have you know, shifting the story from your former narrative to your future narrative and that this is the person I want to be. This is the person I am now this is the person I'm going to be and having an environment that supports and encourages you through that. Like you said that they'll say it's okay you know we're here with you God loves you if you stumble and fall but they're encouraging you to keep going and the environment can help and support you and keep you accountable versus an environment that does the opposite.
Tracy Winchell :How important is his habit in becoming the person you want to be and changing that personality like you've got Atomic Habits by James Clear and, and BJ Fogg's Tiny Habits are pretty spectacular and and I'm experimenting with some of that stuff. And they're tiny little things that seemed kind of ridiculous, but it can change the way I see myself. Especially when it comes to a gratitude practice. How important is it to learn a lesson skill for designing habits that help us become the person we want to be?
Ben Hardy :I think it's crucial. I love BJs work. BJs work is really what inspired James's book. I mean, I think James has been studying a ton, you know, habits for a long time. But I know that a lot of the big ideas in James's book actually come from BJs research. And I know BJ personally, I know James to some degree as well. But I think learning how to develop habits is key and learning how to learn learning how to set goals and achieve goals, I think all those things are good because once you master those, those skills, you can target them towards anything, whether it's creating a podcast, getting married, you know, like, whatever it is, like, you can you can take these micro skills and and start to trigger them anywhere. And I think really what it is, is it's just a process of identifying what you want and then learning how to integrate it into your life and into your identity and making small steps forward. Like we said, so that you can start to build confidence. And as you build confidence, you begin to identify and believe it, and see yourself as that thing and it starts to then ripple and make, you know, moving forward. So I think it's key, I think it's great. I think I think learning how we work as human beings is really helpful to making steps forward and and, and I think books like BJ's and James's are supportive of helping people move forward with recovery, you know, why wouldn't you want to learn how to develop better habits, you know, I think I think personality just is a habit, whoever you are, and however you're showing up is just a habit. And so, if you want to become someone new, you just need to develop a different habit. as Joe Polish as you know, that, you know, and Joe is one of my friends and he studies addiction extremely. But he says that, you know, people who are addicts, you know, or just people who are struggling in general, they've got a lot of they're really good at developing habits. They're just, you know, They're not habits that are supporting them in many ways. Yeah, we're all good at building habits. We all we're all great at creating habits.
Tracy Winchell :Yeah, we just struggle with the right ones. You know, one of the things that crushed me and liberated me all in one fell swoop was reading Ryan Holiday's The Obstacle is the Way and I'm butchering this but it but the line is that once we figure out the world is at best indifferent to us. life starts to change. And I mean, that just blew my mind. I was 50 years old man and never had the concept that the world wasn't my friend or my enemy. It just didn't really care.
Ben Hardy :Yeah, yeah. came to realize that when I was actually serving a church mission, it really hit me hard that like, no one was thinking about me, I was not the center of the universe. Even if I did slightly odd things, and people had an opinion of me, they really didn't have a strong opinion. They didn't really care. And it does liberate you, it liberates you to realize you can go do things, I think a lot of the reason we don't do things is because of the social pressure, we think that people are going to care more than they do, or that other people's opinions really matter. But the truth of it is, is that their opinions don't really matter. And also, maybe they don't even have an opinion. So it is very liberating it I mean, we can have this conversation, people, some people will see it, some people won't. Some people will love it, some people won't, but at the end of the day, you know, hopefully it creates a transformation in the people we're looking for. But a lot of the people it just we just realized that the opinion doesn't matter, you know?
Tracy Winchell :So where does that fit into this concept? That helps us break free from the self limiting beliefs because I now that I know that I catch myself realizing, oh, wait, I'm lying to myself there, unintentionally. And there's a better way here. So where does that fit into this system?
Ben Hardy :I love it. Well, one thing is, is just realizing, you know, there's a quote from Stephen Covey, we see the world not as it is, but as we are, you know, so our current self is different from our former and our future self, our future self is gonna see things quite better, hopefully, and have better solutions and be in a better situation. And so don't overly value your current perspective. Because hopefully, it's going to update change and improve. But the freedom there's so there's a lot of freedom that comes from being willing to just honestly say what you want to do and who you want to be. I mean, again, flipping the script, having your future self the person you want to be, let's just say the person who's free of addiction The person who, you know, however you want to describe yourself and your situation in your life, having that be the story that you're telling of who you are and where you're going. And realizing that doesn't really matter. Most people, most people, they're they're busy with their own lives. And and so you don't have to be afraid. And rather than being a, you know, rather than holding in what you genuinely want making that your true story, and making that your true story for people you meet new, telling people you've known for a long time, look, this is not who I am anymore. This is who I am. They may say they may discourage you, you know, again, however they react, the great part about what we're describing is that it doesn't really matter. And so I think it's incredibly liberating. I think in order to go out and start doing stuff and throwing yourself out there and acting courageously, you almost have to realize that, you know, or at least you get to realize it more and more, that the world's not really paying too much attention, you know. And so you get to do whatever you want.
Tracy Winchell :Yeah. And that's so closely connected to the next part of the Serenity Prayer about accepting hardship as a pathway to peace. Like, life is hard. And it can still be good. My friend Ed Saucier, the first time I heard him say this, I thought that was a second dumbest thing I've ever heard. And, and he said, life is meant to be enjoyed even when it must be endured. And so this whole notion of hardship as a pathway to peace, life is just hard. And when we can start to transform the toughness of life, whether it's trauma or we're just learning a new skill, then we shift our story. Right. Does that lead to shifting our environment, or does it help us to know what our environment needs to be to help us redesign it? I mean, they're all kind of wrapped up together.
Ben Hardy :Yeah. Very much or what I was thinking about with what you were just describing as peace and I think what it what was it again, that section of the prayer,
Tracy Winchell :hardship as a pathway to peace.
Ben Hardy :Interesting. I mean, I love it. I mean, the quote that popped in my head is from Douglas Malick, so good timber does not grow with ease...So that sort of so the poem is good timber does not grow with ease, the stronger wind the stronger trees, the further sky The greater length, the more the storm, the more the strength by sun and cold by rain and snow and trees and men good timbers grow. But yeah, I mean, I think - peace and hardship - I think is what's weird is that they do go together. When my wife and I became foster parents of three kids, we were not ready for it by any stretch of the imagination. And there were a lot of non peaceful days, but because we had God with us because we had a sense of purpose, and one of the things I hit really hard is that purpose should trump personality and purpose should be the basis of your decisions, not your personality. But we had peace, and we believed things would work out, we knew things would work out. That's essentially what faith is, in many ways. I think faith and peace go very well together. But But you know, we were in a situation as an example, where we didn't know if we were gonna be able to adopt these kids. And we just had peace, that whatever would happen was going to be right. And we're just going to just move forward regardless. And I think there's a huge lack of peace when you're not doing things that require faith. I think that there's a lack of peace and there may be complacent See, or were temporary derivate pieces a lot deeper than just feeling good piece pieces a lot pieces of stillness that's, you know that you're there. I think peace comes with feeling like you're moving in the right direction.
Tracy Winchell :And that's that's another Serenity Prayer concept is is reasonable happiness like I don't have to be ecstatically happy all the time reasonable
Ben Hardy :happiness is to be
Tracy Winchell :excellent right
Ben Hardy :yeah I love it. Yeah.
Tracy Winchell :So I've got one one more quick concept I'd like to talk about it's not a simple one. But I'm very curious on your take in terms of of getting rid of our self limiting beliefs and changing our personalities, who we are. This is a lot of hard work. I like to work hard on self development. I'm always pushing myself driving myself but oh, my goodness, Ben, there is this concept of surrender that Ryan Holiday is so eloquent in Stillness is the Key. How do we know when we're supposed to let go and surrender of something? And when we're supposed to just keep fighting to make the change we need to make?
Ben Hardy :Yeah. I think I heard I recently heard and I'm not going to get this right that the secret of life is knowing when to do the diff, you know, when to when to when to push, push, push, and when to surrender. I think that that's the secret of life is knowing when? Because they're both they're both right. But I don't know if that's actually true. That's just something I recently heard, and so I was chewing on it.
Tracy Winchell :It is, that's kind of awesome too, is we get to, we get to hear something and then think about it and talk about it and then decide what we believe right? 100 We say I believe this and then later we go, "I don't know."
Ben Hardy :No, I think it's good. I mean, your former self saw things differently than your current self. So I hope that that continues to be the case. Yeah, I think that, to me, it's an ongoing development. I think, for me, it has to do with your relationship with God. And that as you maintain that relationship, you will, you'll get the sense. For me how I go about this is, you know, I believe very much in let's say, praying with real intent, which is not just like, what should I do God, but it's like, God, this is what I want to do, or this is what I'm going to do. To me, it's praying with faith and seeking his help. But then, you know, if this is clearly not right, please, you know, please show me that and if this is something that you are okay with, or an agreement with, then please open the doors or give me the strength and the courage. So I believe that you know, we are here to make choices and to learn to make choices. was like a kid going to college like, you know, like, my father in law says you, you really get to know who your kids are when they go to college or when they get married. And when they leave, you're the constraints of your, you know, your home. And I think that that's part of why we came here is, you know, we needed to leave, leave God's home, and come here so that we could be in an environment where we could actually make choices and act in faith. And so I believe we are here to make choices, I believe we're here and, and to become responsible for our choices and that we become what we choose to be. But I do think that God obviously has far more wisdom and intelligence than us and, and he can guide and direct us but at the same time, I think he supports a lot of our choices and that it's not always just this way or that way, but it's like you get to choose, but if it's obviously going to go a path that you're not that wouldn't maybe serve you or or best serve your best serve his intentions. Then he will he'll provide evidences and I think just being in close communion with God and being in touch with God and Having a genuine relationship with God allows you to develop that confidence in his presence that, you know, to make first off to make choices and and stand by those choices and then to sometimes come to the conclusion and realization. Okay, there's a different path.
Tracy Winchell :So are you sort of suggesting that maybe God's Will isn't always binary? And maybe it's rarely binary?
Ben Hardy :That's my opinion, I think that I think is well for us is that we returned to live with him. I think that there's a lot of flexibility in what we can do and become in this life. And I think that a lot of the particulars are less, less significant, such as, you know, whether I do this or that sometimes it's significant, and I think everything is ultimately spiritual, but I think that the major thing that matters is from his perspective, who we're becoming are we becoming more like Christ. And you know, I you know, Christ was a carpenter, right. Like, He could have been something else. But he was he was still the Savior, even if he had a different career. And so, I think, you know, I think that the main thing he wants is are we developing Christ like attributes? Are we becoming a better person? Sometimes he'll have specific plans or specific people. And I think that I that that, you know, if we're receptive in communication and following and acting, you know, acting and faith and courage, those those experiences will become become obvious, but I think a lot of it is certainly not binary. And that's my that's my take is that he gives us a lot of flexibility and making your own choices and he supports those choices and he collaborates with us in who we become.
Tracy Winchell :Then thank you so much for your time before I before I let you go. I do want to backtrack just a little bit. You talked about how you're blogging again, and I know you you made your way as a writer by writing a lot on Medium. Yes. How how can how much are you writing and where can we access your old stuff and your new stuff?
Ben Hardy :I wrote quite strongly from about 2015 to 2018. And then took a lot second half 2018 off and all of 2019 off, really to write this book. But I am just starting to write again, my new writing is going to be on BenjaminHardy.com my blog. For me, I don't get a lot of value out of medium.com anymore. Even I think it's a great platform, but it's not doesn't align with my future self. I got a great value out of it, when it was a different style platform. So old stuffs on Medium, but I think all my old stuffs also on my website, so just wherever a person prefers to read, and yeah, website Benjamin Hardy dot com is where people can find more information about Personality isn't Permanent obviously people can find that anywhere, Audible etc.
Tracy Winchell :I can't wait to read it. I've got a complimentary copy. I'm gonna wait for the hard back and the audio book.
Ben Hardy :Well, I think that's gonna get you, I think I think I think you'll like it.
Tracy Winchell :I've looked through it, but I really want to devour it.
Ben Hardy :I'm excited for you to devour it. Maybe I do devour it, you'll have some different questions. Sure, and we push deeper. I love it. I love your show. Yeah, you're an amazing person.
Tracy Winchell :Thanks. I appreciate it. I'm gonna let you get to your next interview. And I'm just so grateful for your time and and your work and you inspire a whole lot of us. Thank you brother.