Something You Should Know
How to Awaken Your Genius & Is Personality Change Possible? - SYSK Choice
Sat, 19 Apr 2025
There is probably something you are worrying about right now. After all, that’s what we do – we worry. This episode begins with some optimistic news about whatever you are worrying about https://www.huffpost.com/entry/85-of-what-we-worry-about_b_8028368 Advice on success isn’t hard to find. The problem is, there are a lot of different ways to become successful and you have to find out which way works for you. That is why you should listen to my guest Ozan Varol. Ozan has some interesting insight into what will make you more successful in whatever you choose to do it. Ozan is a former rocket scientist, lawyer, and professor and he is author of a book called Awaken Your Genius: Escape Conformity, Ignite Creativity, and Become Extraordinary (https://amzn.to/3Gx4qtl). If you could change any part of your personality, what would it be? Or maybe you are perfect just the way you are. Still, most people have at least one thing about their personality they would change, and the good news is, you can! That’s according to my guest Christian Jarrett a cognitive neuroscientist and author of the book Be Who You Want to Be: Unlocking the Science of Personality Change (https://amzn.to/40Y5BKD). When you want to pitch an idea to someone, perhaps you shouldn’t call it an idea. There is another word that tends to get people to pay more attention to you. Listen and I will tell you what it is. Source: Dan O’Connor author of Say This Not That https://amzn.to/3Gx4qtl PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS!!! FACTOR: Eat smart with Factor! Get 50% off at https://FactorMeals.com/something50off TIMELINE: Get 10% off your order of Mitopure! Go to https://Timeline.com/SOMETHING INDEED: Get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at https://Indeed.com/SOMETHING right now! SHOPIFY: Nobody does selling better than Shopify! Sign up for a $1 per-month trial period at https://Shopify.com/sysk and upgrade your selling today! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: What optimistic news is there about worrying?
But here's something to consider. 85% of the things people worry about never happen. And in the 15% of the time when the things we worry about do happen, 80% of people say they handled the problem better than they thought they would.
Experts say that the best thing to do if you're worried is to write down what it is you're worried about and then decide which things you can actually do something about and which ones you cannot. Then create a plan to do something about the things you can actually impact. Because it seems to be universally true that doing something usually lessens the worry. And that is something you should know.
As you travel through life in search of success, there's a lot of conventional wisdom you hear. Things like persistence is the key to success. There are no stupid questions. Find someone successful in your field and do what they do. That's how you'll be successful.
All these things may sound good and maybe they work for some people, but maybe we need to question some of these ideas rather than just seek to follow them blindly. And here to do that is Ozan Virol. Ozan is a former rocket scientist, lawyer, and professor.
He's been a guest here before, and he is the author of a book called Awaken Your Genius, Escape Conformity, Ignite Creativity, and Become Extraordinary. Hi, Ozan. Welcome back. Thanks for having me on, Mike. So I've always found it interesting that there's all these cliches about success that we're all supposed to follow. But often when you look at successful people, they take a different path.
They find a different way of doing it. And that's what makes them successful. And yet all of these cliches about success persist and kind of makes you wonder why.
We live in a world where there's so much conformity, so much copying and pasting, and much of conformity is genetically programmed. We are conditioned to follow the herd. Thousands of years ago, conformity was essential to your survival. If you didn't conform, if you didn't fit in, then you would be rejected, ostracized, or worse, left for dead.
Which is good, or it was good back in the day, but that's not such a problem anymore that you're going to be left for dead. So why do we still feel the need to conform?
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Chapter 2: What unconventional advice does Ozan Varol give about success?
Number one, our education system in many ways conditions us to look externally for answers. So in school, we're taught that there is one right answer that's been determined by someone far smarter than you are. And your only job is to memorize that answer and spit that back out on a standardized test.
And that conditioning gets reinforced year after year after year, and then we move on to the workforce.
Well, it's interesting today that we have so much information available. I mean, you can ask Google anything and get an answer and get thousands of answers. That that becomes our default method of figuring out, you know, what to do.
The tendency that most people have isn't to just ask, well, what do I actually think about this? The tendency is to jump on Google and start searching for answers on Google instead of looking first within to see what we actually think.
Chapter 3: Why do we conform and how does it affect creativity?
Yeah, well, I mean, that sounds right. I do that. A lot of people do that. You hear about something and you go to Google and search it, I guess, to kind of figure out what you're supposed to think. How do you not do that?
Step one is to think before you research. Let's say you're curious about, for example, where good ideas come from. Instead of jumping on Google or instead of reading the latest hottest book on that topic, think for yourself first. That would mean you take out a notepad or you open up a new Word document on your computer,
And you jot down some theories about where good ideas might come from, what might boost creativity. Once you've done that, then you can turn to what other people have read. But if you switch the order, if you go immediately to the research, then other people's opinions will end up anchoring your own and your own ideas will end up deviating only marginally from what you've read.
So it's much better to first think yourself and then turn to the research.
Well, I like that idea, but sometimes there are people who are smarter than you. Sometimes there is only one right answer. Sometimes doing a little research is a good idea to get some sense of the lay of the land. So how do you know when to do it and when not to do it?
Research is important for sure. And I'm not saying don't research at all or don't read what other people have written or don't listen to smart people. That's not what I'm saying at all. The only thing I'm saying with respect to this topic is to start by thinking for yourself first. before reading what others have written on it.
And yes, to some answers or to some questions, there is a single right answer, but those questions tend not to be very interesting or very relevant because there is only one right answer and the answer has already been determined. But for life's harder questions, especially the type of personal questions that we struggle with, like what should I do with my life?
Or have I chosen the right career for myself? What do I think about this important personal topic? On those questions particularly and on the life's more interesting questions where there isn't a single right answer and the answer depends on
the perspective that you have, the experiences you've had in your life, then it makes sense to start by thinking about it first yourself and then absolutely turn to what other people have written and read them and turn to get advice from others as well. But don't pause your own thinking.
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Chapter 4: How can changing your environment boost creativity?
that what was once the right path for me is no longer the right one. And I leaned in with curiosity to that voice. And over the next several years, I experimented with different futures and ended up picking a career as an author and speaker and ended up doing what many of my colleagues thought would be the unthinkable, which is to leave a tenured job, the ultimate safety net.
But that was absolutely the right path for me. And if I had said grit and persistence and keep doing what you're doing, you probably would not be listening to this conversation right now.
One of the things I worry about when, and you just said the word, that was the right thing for me. Well, that doesn't mean it's right for me. It's just you. It's your story. And it worked for you. But I don't know that you can apply that to the general population and say, because it worked for me, it will work for you.
Well, that's the whole point, right? And that's the reason why I write that grit and persistence can backfire. And that's how I led the answer by saying some people need more grit in their lives. Others need less. So it's all personal. But I'm sharing that story because you often don't hear stories like that. You hear stories of grit and perseverance and how you're never supposed to quit.
because winners never quit, but you don't often hear the stories of leaving the path, of abandoning grit and persistence and going off and doing something else. And yeah, that was the right thing for me to do at the time. Doesn't mean it's the right thing for you, which is why personal reflection and thinking for yourself
instead of blindly copying and pasting somebody else's path to success becomes really important.
So you say that there are stupid questions and we've all heard that there are no stupid questions. So explain what you mean by that.
When I first became a professor, I would pause from time to time during class and ask, Does anyone have any questions? Now, nine times out of 10, no one would raise their hands and I would move on confident that I'd done a stellar job of explaining the material. Well, I was wrong. The exam answers made it clear that there were plenty of students who weren't getting it.
So I decided to run an experiment. Instead of asking, does anyone have any questions? I began to say, I will now take your questions. Or even better, I would say something like, The material we just covered was really confusing. I'm confident there are plenty of you with questions. Now is a great time to ask them. the number of hands that went up increased dramatically.
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Chapter 5: What role does play have in enhancing creativity?
And I'm Paul Scheer, an actor, writer, and director. You might know me from The League, Veep, or my non-eligible for Academy Award role in Twisters.
We come together to host Unspooled, a podcast where we talk about good movies, critical hits, fan favorites, must-sees, and in case you missed them. We're talking Parasite to Home Alone.
From Grease to the Dark Knight.
So if you love movies like we do, come along on our cinematic adventure.
Listen to Unspooled wherever you get your podcasts.
And don't forget to hit the follow button.
Hello, I'm Robin Ince. And I'm Brian Cox, and we would like to tell you about the new series of The Infinite Monkey Cage. We're going to have a planet off. Jupiter versus Saturn! It's very well done, that, because in the script, it does say wrestling voice. After all of that, it's going to kind of chill out a bit and talk about ice.
And also in this series, we're discussing history of music, recording with Brian Eno, and looking at nature's shapes. So, listen wherever you get your podcasts.
So Ozan, let's talk about creativity because, I mean, how many times have you heard, you know, you have to be more creative, you have to find creative ways to do things. How can people be more creative?
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Chapter 6: What does 'look where others don’t look' mean for finding unique ideas?
Chapter 7: Is persistence always the key to success?
Chapter 8: Can personality be changed according to experts?
All this today on Something You Should Know.
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something you should know fascinating intel the world's top experts and practical advice you can use in your life today something you should know with Mike Carruthers hello welcome to something you should know I wouldn't be surprised if right now there's something on your mind that you're worried about because worrying is normal it's what people do and some of us worry a lot more than others
But here's something to consider. 85% of the things people worry about never happen. And in the 15% of the time when the things we worry about do happen, 80% of people say they handled the problem better than they thought they would.
Experts say that the best thing to do if you're worried is to write down what it is you're worried about and then decide which things you can actually do something about and which ones you cannot. Then create a plan to do something about the things you can actually impact. Because it seems to be universally true that doing something usually lessens the worry. And that is something you should know.
As you travel through life in search of success, there's a lot of conventional wisdom you hear. Things like persistence is the key to success. There are no stupid questions. Find someone successful in your field and do what they do. That's how you'll be successful.
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