You Can Change Yourself—but Not Other People
Every time I walk through Zurich airport, I notice slight changes. A new shop here, a new coffee place there, a gigantic billboard displayed overhead, gleaming new check-in desks arrayed like soldiers. Now and again I drive into a new parking structure; sometimes I find myself frantically scanning a renovated terminal wing for electricity sockets. I traverse the labyrinth of the airport about once a month, on average—and I’ve done so for thirty years. Each time my brain accustoms itself to the fractionally different infrastructure, so next time I find my way to the gate without issue. When I think back to my first visit, however, as a small boy holding my mother’s hand, waiting to welcome my father back from a business trip—I saw him coming down the airplane steps, waving at us across the runway—it strikes me that that airport has virtually nothing in common with the one that exists today. In those days Zurich-Kloten Airport had a single chilly hall through which a monotone voice announced every departure and called every late passenger over the loudspeakers (in German, English, and French). You could hear the periodic rustling of the letters and numbers on the destination board being turned. Today, Zurich International Airport is essentially a bustling shopping center with three runways. I’m sure you can also think of places—train stations, cities, universities—that have changed completely over long periods without you really noticing it on all your visits.
But what about you? How much have you changed over time? Try to imagine who you were twenty years ago. Don’t think about external things (job, home, appearance), but your personality, your character, your temperament, your values and predilections. Compare that person with your current self. How would you rate the amount you’ve changed on a scale from 0 (no change) to 10 (complete change; I’m a totally different person)?
Most people I ask identify several differences in their personality, values and likes and dislikes over the last twenty years. They usually come up with a figure between 2 and 4. Not the drastic remodeling of Zurich airport, but still—they’ve changed a little.
Now for my follow-up question: how much do you think you’ll change over the next twenty years? The usual answers are now much lower—between 0 and 1. In other words, most people don’t believe they will change in the future, not deep down, and if so, it will only be a tiny bit. Unlike airports, train stations and cities. Funny, isn’t it? Can it really be true that today is the day our personalities stop developing? Of course not. Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert calls this the end of history illusion. The reality is that we’ll change almost as much in the future as we have in the past. In what direction? Well, that’s unclear, but it’s safe to say you’ll have a different personality with different values. The research is unambiguous.
But let’s put big concepts like “personality” and “values” on the back burner for a moment. Let’s just take the things you like. Think back twenty years. What was your favorite film? What is it today? Who were your idols? Who are they today? Who were your most important friends? Who are they today? Take a minute to answer these questions.
Gilbert had an ingenious idea about how to measure these changes in people’s likes and dislikes. He asked people two questions: a) What was your favorite band ten years ago, and how much would you pay today for a ticket to one of their concerts; and b) What is your favorite band today, and how much would you pay for a ticket to one of their concerts in ten years? The difference is remarkable. People are willing to pay an average of 61 percent more to hear their current favorite band play in ten years’ time than their former favorite band today. Proof of the end of history illusion and the instability of our preferences.
I have good news and bad news. First, the good: you can exercise some influence over changes in your personality. Not much—the vast majority of these developments will unfold according to the interplay between a genetic program and its environment—but nonetheless you ought to seize your chance. The most efficient way to steer your development is to use your idols. So be careful how you choose the people you admire.
The bad news: you can’t change other people—no, not even your partner or your children. Motivation for personal change must come from within. Neither external pressure nor rational argument will work.
That’s why one of my golden rules for leading a good life is as follows: “Avoid situations in which you have to change other people.” This simple strategy has already spared me a good deal of misery, expense and disappointment. In practical terms, I never employ anybody whose character I have to change—because I know I can’t. I don’t do business with people whose disposition doesn’t suit me—no matter how profitable it might potentially be. And I would never take on leadership of an organization if I had to alter the mindset of the people in it.
Smart businesspeople have always taken that tack. One of Southwest Airlines’ guiding principles since its inception has been “Hire for attitude, train for skill.” Attitudes cannot be altered, at least not in a reasonable amount of time, and certainly not by external pressures. Skills can.
I’m constantly surprised to see how many people disregard this simple rule. A friend of mine—a party animal and social butterfly—married a beautiful, introverted woman and assumed he’d be able to turn this quiet soul into an outgoing party-lover. He failed, of course, and the result was a quick and expensive divorce.
A related life rule is “Only work with people you like and trust.” As Charlie Munger says, “Oh, it’s just so useful dealing with people you can trust and getting all the others the hell out of your life… But wise people want to avoid other people who are just total rat poison, and there are a lot of them.” So how do you rid yourself of these poisonous individuals? One recommendation: every year on December 31 my wife and I write down on slips of paper the names of people who aren’t good for us and whom we no longer want in our lives. Then we cast them solemnly into the fire, one by one. It’s a therapeutic and salutary ritual.