102: Personality Isn't Permanent with Benjamin Hardy
The Addicted Mind Podcast
Duane Osterlind, LMFT
4.7 • 655 Ratings
🗓️ 30 July 2020
⏱️ 46 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On today’s episode of The Addicted Mind Podcast, Duane talks with author Benjamin Hardy about his personal experience with addiction and the chaos that comes along with it. Benjamin describes the process overcoming his own addictions involved going through a “redemptive process,” which involved forgiving his father and rebuilding the relationship there. With trauma, you’re always looking in the rear-view mirror, but you need to make meaning going forward. Meaning is not going to strike you—you have to make it yourself. The beauty of this is that you can change the meaning of your past, Benjamin says. It’s key to have empathy for your old self.
Calming The Addicted Mind - 6 Day Mindfulness Email Series
theaddictedmind.com/mindfulness
Benjamin also talks about how writing about your trauma can really help. Turning away from the past, you can have hope for the future. Without a hope for the future, Benjamin says, the present becomes meaningless. You can also choose to ascribe a meaning to your past. We call it “meaning-making,” Benjamin says. Part of becoming emotionally-developed includes this idea of choosing the meaning of your past.
Join The Addicted Mind Podcast Facebook Group>>>
He shares a story about how you can actively work to a solution for something that didn’t go exactly how you planned instead of snapping to a quick decision. You can choose to frame it in a new way instead of being defined by a failure. Choosing the meaning going forward can change how you store that forever. In his story, Benjamin points to the fact that he was vulnerable enough to share his feelings with the people in question as part of the process.
Episode Link
Moving onto his book, Benjamin unpacks the idea that your personality is going to change, and that you have the power to choose who you want to be in the future. Your personality is just how you consistently show up. It’s crucial to have your identity based on who you actually want to be in the future. The same courage that moves you to say “I need help” is the courage it takes to tell people who you want to be in the future. It takes courage, as Benjamin says, because it’s uncertain. You’ll realize you might be rejected, but that you also need to do some “rejecting” to get you where you ultimately want to be. When you are open and honest, nothing is hiding anymore.
Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-addicted-mind-podcast/donations
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Addicted Mind podcast. We are on to episode 102. My name is Dwayne Austerlund and I'm your host. And our guest today is Benjamin Hardy. He is the author of several books. One of them is Will Power Does Not |
| 0:22.7 | Work. And he is also the author of his upcoming book, which is personality isn't permanent. And so on |
| 0:31.0 | today's episode, I talk with Benjamin about how we can actively pursue the change process and why it is really |
| 0:42.5 | important for us to be able to see our former self and our current self and our future |
| 0:49.0 | self as distinct individuals in a way and how that can help us frame our goals and make meaning out of |
| 0:58.6 | all of our experiences and facilitate the change process. So Benjamin really goes into a lot of |
| 1:04.6 | details and give some practical information that we can do now in the current moment to make some of the changes |
| 1:11.8 | we want. So I really enjoyed the conversation with Benjamin. He just was so generous in sharing |
| 1:17.5 | his story and sharing his knowledge and just really enjoyed talking with him. And so I hope |
| 1:24.0 | you enjoy this episode as well. So before we start the episode, don't forget, rate and review us in iTunes. |
| 1:31.6 | That really does help get the addicted mind a lot of exposure or share the podcast with a friend. |
| 1:37.7 | I'd really appreciate it. |
| 1:39.0 | And don't forget, you can also join our Facebook group. |
| 1:41.4 | Just go to Facebook and type in the Addicted Mind podcast, click |
| 1:45.7 | join and continue the conversation online. All right, let's start this episode. |
| 1:54.9 | Hello everyone. Welcome to the Addicted Mind podcast. My guest today is Benjamin Hardy, and he is going to talk about his |
| 2:06.6 | upcoming book. Personality isn't permanent. And Benjamin, I'm excited to have you on the show. I really want to |
| 2:14.8 | talk about, as we were kind of talking about earlier, talking about |
| 2:18.6 | science-based change. So before we do that, you want to introduce yourself and tell us a little |
| 2:23.8 | bit about your story? Yeah, absolutely, man. Yeah, I guess the beginning of it really, |
| 2:28.7 | or at least the major kind of huge event that started my journey was my parents getting |
| 2:33.5 | divorced at age 11. And I came from |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Duane Osterlind, LMFT, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Duane Osterlind, LMFT and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.