You Don't Have to be "Type A" to Achieve
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- Опубликовано: 6 сен 2024
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The biggest problem I have with all of this "ambition" and "productive" and "achievement" talk is that I want to be really specific that I do not think that these should be an important part of every person's life. I have friends who are very ambitious and friends who are not ambitious at all and those are both very good ways to be.
I don't know what makes people different from each other, but they definitely are! But I'm stuck being me, and I'm very glad I had the advantages necessary to be able to be me .
I am proud to represent the group of people who is both stressed out AND not accomplishing much!
This 🎉
😂😭 this is me
Glad to know I'm not alone on this 😅
Grad students represent!
Yeah except I'm not proud I'm shit! lol
This feels like i just walked into season 12 of a show i've never heard of
HAHAHAH
i’ve never heard a statement that is more true than this
I think it's a spinoff of Big Bang
I might have recently stumbled upon something.. 🤔
For me it’s like people talking about one piece. Like I heard of it. I wonder what it is. I do nothing about that.
I really see Hank as a model of what a successful life living with ADHD can be, not merely success in spite of one's ADHD
That's what I strive for with both my severe ADHD and mild Asperger's. My dream job is to be a wildlife educator, but my more realistic goal, that I would still very much enjoy, is to be a high school science teacher. My parents don't think that I will end up like/be good at teaching in a school setting because of my disabilities. But I believe the opposite to be true.
@@TylerDollarhideTry and get some experience as a teaching assistant if you can, because sometimes existing is exhausting without the extra push 🤞
@@TylerDollarhide your parents need to learn about the social model of disability. If you found a standard high-school didn't suit you (we had some excellent teachers who, in hindsight, were probably neurodivergent, but also some who left for reasons that might be relevant, like the overwhelm of multitasking and trying to work a chaotic environment) you could specialise in working with ND teens, whose language you are fluent in in a way even the best NT teacher in the world never can be.
I have ADHD and I adore working with teenagers. Most people I know who have taught kids, teens, and adults, feel teens are the least enjoyable, but they are honestly the best.
They are so bored all day they are delighted with an ADHD teacher who comes in a ball of energy and tries to make them laugh and wake them up (unconsciously because we are always trying to keep our own brains in gear) .
You have to balance it with disciple, but you'll get that with time (you won't get the balance right with the first few classes you teach, please remember that is normal).
Teenage classes recognize immediately if a teacher is authentic and likes them. They also smell fear, but some jaded teachers will tell you to cover that fear up with psedo-distain for them. It works, but you and the teens will be miserable if you do that. Find your balance somewhere else and don't worry about the classes that go wrong until then. Every class where someone didn't fall off the table they were defiantly dancing on and hit their head and die is a successful class.
If you can get experience teaching smaller groups of teens, e.g. In TEFL, or volunteering, you'll get to find the balance in an environment where if it goes chaotic there's still only 15 people, instead of 30+ people.
Private classes don't work for experience of anything except how to explain, teens are completely different in groups
AND private classes are another reason your parents are wrong, if you found you didn't like working in a high school, once you had that experience you could still tutor teenagers and college students preparing for exams.
Adam Savage has also talked about this a significant amount. He's also a good example for this.
@@TylerDollarhide Idk if it means something from a stranger but I believe in you :) If it's something you feel strongly about I believe you can! We need a diversity of experience in education. And hopefully if you can find a great workplace they should make accommodations for people with disabilities.
P/S: this is such a douchey thing of me but Asperger is an outdated term that has N4zi connotations so if it's not super important to you to use that specific term, autism would be a more appropriate word.
its kind of sweet that if you ask any of the green brother who's more successful between the 2 of them they'll say eachother's name without any hesitation
And also be very happy and proud about it
It's like the riddle from Labyrinth.
The moment you started with "A group of cardiologists got together and decided to classify people based on their behaviours and achievements" and my first thought was "So people who are not experts in psychology, are trying to classify people using a psychological basis...and we already get dubious results when actual psychologists do this? Yeah this is not going to be a scientifically legitimate form of classification."
In trying to tell a story and frame it Hank glossed over some elements. Type A came about not because they were looking from the direction of personality (that was just a secondary happenstance relative to the main discussion points but gained more attention then the medical associations that were involved) but that they realized there was a group in society with increased risks for hypertension and cardiovascular disease, they are more ‘wound-up’, with agitation, hostility and reactive people, fast talkers and very competitive.
They were essentially looking for patterns in people relative to those who had more coronary heart disease and the data revealed ‘a personality type’.
@@lijohnyoutube101I don't know, imho that sounds less like a pattern of integral personality type and more like some overachievers in stressful workplace cultures having more heart health risks because of overwork. ETA: to be clear, I say this because a lot of those competitive and fast talking traits are encouraged by workplaces that overwork people
Yeah those cardiologists were funded by the tobacco industry. Phillip Morris paid for the study to suggest people prone to heart disease was due to personality - when in fact that "personality type" was just a description of their target market.
@@starsINSPACE And then on top of that people have different tolerances for stress, so high achievers would be the ones with more mental resources, and perhaps more actual resources like money, to go for that promotion and work to impress their boss so the "type B" doesn't have the same carrot in front of them to get them to go that extra mile because they're out of the race that much sooner.
Irony is it's a similar type story with the infamous MTBI 😅
I clicked on a hankschannel video with the full knowledge and understanding that I was, in fact, watching a hankschannel video and not a vlogbrothers video, and yet I still found myself surprised when Hank didn't conclude with "John, I'll see you on Tuesday."
I'm firmly of the opinion that, unless your goal is world domination, anything you can do competitively can be done _better_ cooperatively.
The reason the competitive mindset is everywhere is because it benefits the top of the societal pyramid. In a zero-sum game, _only_ the powerful win, so they naturally always want us to play their game by their rules. But we can do so much more than that.
So well said!
And even world domination probably requires a lot of cooperation! You just have to marry it with a willingness to eventully betray everyone that helped you along the way.
To be fair taking over the world would also require a lot of cooperation. Unless you’re, like, captain marvel or something in which case 🙇♂️
There are lots of communities that think this way, but I always think of speedrunning as a beautiful example of cooperating with a goal of competing individually. I'm not part of that community, but I so often hear about people sharing routes they've discovered, or working together to find the best way to use a glitch, knowing that the other people will be trying to beat them.
It seems like the _real_ goal is to push the limits of the game and of themselves. Like, if someone did better than I did, that means I have room to improve, and that's why I want to beat the time. There's no reason to be unhappy about their achievement; I'm happy for them, happy that progression has been made, and happy for everyone's contribution. I don't know whether this actually characterizes the community as a whole, but at least the segment I see really seems like a fantastic example of what competition usually can and should be.
As always, the biggest blocker to a better world is capitalism, because it's a system designed to be endlessly extractive and infinitely growing (a cancerous behavior if ever there was one), and force everyone to be in competition with others and strive to "win" with the high score, even if the existing high scorers are clearly incredibly unhappy.
Unfortunately, we don't live in a society that prioritizes happiness, otherwise the increases in productivity over the past many decades would have led to 10 hour work weeks, instead of funnelling impossible profits into the pockets of capitalists (the people who own capital, not the capitalist sympathizers who hope one day to be wearing the boot that is stepping on their neck)
Even if your goal is world domination, that can still be done better cooperatively. That's why supervillains need henchmen.
As it happens, I just talked today about how I can never remember what "Type A" and "Type B" are supposed to be. The therapist in me feels like he needs to know because they're concepts that people use but the psychologist in me refuses to because THEY'RE A BOGUS PERSONALITY THEORY INVENTED BY CARDIOLOGISTS.
A bogus term invented by cardiologists funded by the tobacco industry as part of their disinformation efforts. The goal was to link heart disease to personality instead of smoking. Nevermind that the target market for new smokers just happens to be "type A",
Exactly, there are way more than 2 types of people. There's more than 16, but people like to sort themselves.
Isn't it weird how cardiologists decided the best personality type was the one that allowed someone to be a cardiologist.
currently in medical school to become a cardiac surgeon as a VERY type B personality haha so hope to prove that wrong! also just a note: type a was originally meant to denote a higher risk of heart disease rather than being strictly about achievement and has since morphed
Also like… cardiologists are not psychologists
I've heard that the reason type A was promoted and become well known was because the tobacco lobby promoted it as the real cause of heart disease and lung cancer.
Type A was also the type more likely to need cardiac care 🤔
I've always made an effort to NOT be Type A. However, it does seem like the more I achieve, the more other people perceive me to be Type A.
I just try to be me. I've always believed that personality types is no different than astrology.
You're the type C, clickbait.
Please cease your uploads.
The funny thing is that it's more likely them that are more "Type A" as they probably see you as a competitor.
Dude no joke. Type A people usually strongly dislike me tho
No one has ever said the word "cardiologists" with that much skepticism and I for one am living for it.
Hahahaha
Cardiology is a hoax, have you ever seen a human heart pumping blood? Me neither.
12 minutes of Hank describing to me literally how my mind works. It's hard to articulate in a world that expects packaged productivity in measurable units, where sometimes I move mountains in minutes, and sometimes I can't get out of bed. I feel so seen, and so appreciative that I'm not the only one. I needed this.
Seconded.
so much this. it all comes in bursts and waves, and the idea that you need to be consistent in your work to achieve anything has been detrimental to my self image and my productivity
Same. I've always had struggles explaining how it feels, but recently I found an answer. It's like what stands between you and what needs to be done is a wall of ballistic gel. Not impossible to get through, but sometimes I just don't have the strength.
I was gonna comment something like this but less articulate. He basically described me, without the high achieving part ofc.
I work like this too.
My takeaways from this discussion:
1. Prioritize tasks that scare you the most and then tasks that excite you the most, in that order
2. Do what you can with what you have
3. Creating things is more important than wielding influence
4. Defer to others when necessary, sometimes collaborating yields a better output
5. It’s great to achieve things, especially when good people achieve things
Well, on that first point, Hank also warned against that. He said that with this system, he doesn't tend to get to the things that excite him until they're stressing him out, which means he's always stressed. So that might not actually be the right way to do it; he just says it works for him.
This was the chit-chat we needed today. I’ve never felt so limited by an idea. When I think I have a few really good ideas on how I could benefit my local community. And it takes a little confidence to try and reach out to people about those ideas. And sometimes confidence comes from deciding an idea that limits you is bogus.
This is literally the most ADHD thing Hank has ever said. Being motivated by stress, by fun, by novelty, the hyperfocus, just the whole vibe. 😂 Welcome to the club Hank.
This is extremely empowering. I am NOT competitive, and I don't want to be. I don't want the world to be run by aggressors. I'm a god damned pacifist hippie witch and just want people to be more at peace... and this has inspired me that maybe I can succeed. I don't NEED to be cutthroat to be successful.
So I have always considered myself a low achieving Type A... But listening to Hank, I relate - I suddenly have realised that I have achieved so much - just not in the traditional Type A sense of the word 🤗
Exactly. I've got a framed diploma on my wall for catching all 150 Pokémon. Nobody in any profession would care about that, but it's the video game accomplishment I'm proudest of.
The level of shock I feel upon reaching the sponsored part of this video is boundless. So unexpected 😮
This vid is a clear example of why Hank is so likeable. Humble AF, not competitive, open-minded, smart, amusing and thoughtful. So glad you made it through cancer. ❤
He needs another V
Truly, Hank, you (and your brother, and a lot of the people you guys associate with)are the people I still have hope that I can be like. I’m a 32 year old and am going back to school for the first time since dropping out. I feel like I’m part of the Siblinghood of this community that wanna make things better.
@spawnofjaws: That sounds great! I've gone back to school too, and I loved it. I hope you have a similar experience!
Congrats on going back to school! That's a big, difficult decision to make at your age and it's awesome that you're in a place you can do that. Well done and good luck, and remember to take care of yourself and not get too overwhelmed!!
Im so proud of you for going back to school that's so wonderful
I went back to school at 37, and I was a much better student than I was when I furst went to college, just out of high school. I hope it goes well for you, too
the way you describe guilt as a motivator to prove that you "deserve" things is something i experience as a traumatized person often. i don't know if you have a history of trauma, and it isn't my business, but it is nice to see myself in what you're talking about. i feel the same way about personality tests; they determine what you DO but not WHY you do it.
adding on i think part of the issue is that the "personality assessment" is trying to BE the "why". when the reasons you act a certain way is nuanced and not easily determined by your answers on a test
Totally agree about the personality tests, I always have a hard time with those
I agree about personality tests, but I still find them useful. I don't always find it easy to understand myself or notice the patterns of my preferences or the situations in which I do and don't trhive. Myers Briggs in particular has been really helpful for me in pointing out and help me understand my own patterns. Not everything about my assigned personality type applies to me, but a lot of it does, and it's given me some big lightbulb moments that have helped me understand and accept myself better. Even if it doesn't help me with the "why", the "what" is still pretty valuable. But I wouldn't want anyone else to try to judge me by my personality type, it's really only useful for personal inquiry.
That said, I've never gotten anything useful from the enneagram despite having friends who think it's the best ever for understanding themselves and others. The enneagram is supposed to explain what motivates a person--so the "why". I can never figure out which enneagram I am, I feel like I'm parts of like 4 or 5 different types out of 9. Which makes sense! I have many different motivators, and sometimes they are contradictory! Isn't that true for everyone?
Just growing up neurodivergent can be traumatic in and of itself, since the world we currently live in generally isn’t great at accommodating people who don’t fit the typical way of being.
Guilt and shame used to motivate me until one day it just stopped working…
And than I had to learn to be gentle and kind to myself otherwise nothing got done.
The late diagnosed nuerodivergent thing definitely gave me trauma too, but beware shame being your motivator. One day the button might break.
And by button I mean your body.
😵💫😳🫣
At 51, I’ve finally decided I no longer want to feel I have to achieve or serve to have value. That doesn’t mean I don’t want to achieve/serve. I’m just tired of feeling I have no value if I don’t. Learning at 48 that I have ADHD brought a clarity to my struggles and helped me understand (if not overcome) imposter syndrome & why I never felt as competent as other people. And that shame both held me back but also drove me forward to be relatively high-achieving in areas I chose to be so. But I’m not driven. Not very organized. Not on top of things. So thank you, Hank, for challenging some of the ideas and categorization we have to describe ‘successful’ people. This was rambling, but whatever. Hank Green, I like you.
I ❤ the idea that having only the people who are hyper competitive get success is bad. It makes me remember one of my favorite phrases: “I’m not interested in competing with anyone. I hope we all make it.”
I like that phrase. I don't agree with it though. A little competition personally gets me to become active, even if it's just in my head. And of course, I definitely don't think everyone should make it. I've been hurt too many times to ever wish everybody well.
Thank you for the title, "ofcourse you are Taipei" is what the Cc says 😂
I relate too much. Even outside of work, I find a strange side effect of my ADHD is that I'm a completely non-functional adult baby when I need to do basic tasks to look after myself, but when there's a legitimate crisis I'm suddenly Mr Capable. A curse and a blessing.
Holy hell, relatable
ADHD brains are super sensitive to adrenaline. It's why we can do things really well under pressure at the last minute, and it tends to make us really good in an emergency! I'm so indecisive most of the time, but in an emergency situation I suddenly take charge and know exactly what to do and how to delegate.
Of course, much like Hank says in his video, another way of looking at this is that we thrive best when we have lot of stress in our lives which...sigh. This used to work okay for me, until I cam down with a chronic illness that is exacerbated by stress. Le sigh.
"Behold, the apex predator: Human!"
"Sometimes I forget to eat and bathe myself."
100 % agree!
Hank: *says he’s not competitive*
Also Hank: *started brotherhood 2.0 as a challenge*
A challenge that was collaborative, not competitive
I thought it was John's idea?
If you're fighting yourself, is it really competition?
Collaborative achievement is still achievement. It doesn’t have to be domineering or competitive. ❤
A single person's achievement doesn't have to be domineering or competitive either
I would argue that it's generally better when it's collaborative!
Genuinely THANK YOU for making this video today. I was literally crying to my therapist this morning about why other people would be so much better at running my business than me for basically all the reasons you mentioned. To hear that Hank Green is messy and disorganised is incredibly reassuring 🙏💚
Hank, since you're someone who has lots of experience starting companies, would you ever make a video giving people with similar ambitions an idea of how/where to start?
Like, I'm not talking about business advice or legal advice, just a sort of high-level overview of what you need from someone who's already done it.
This would be fantastic. Especially for those of us who are also not the most organised and more into collaboration than competition!
Yes! Would absolutely love this!
+1!
A lot of it is going to be tied to the type of business and the largest chunk is internal motivation. Just go try and go research something if you are stuck etc.
if you go around looking for permission and a push to chase towards your own dreams you will almost always fail as that needs to come from internal.
+1!
“I like to be liked”
My mother had a cross-stitch that said "Start where you are, use what you have, do what you can."
Follow through is not to be underestimated. It's sprinkled throughout society like jimmies on cake. Not everyone has it. Some of us struggle to get things started, nevermind finishing.
Today I learned what jimmies are!
Decisions we make mean next to nothing, the system is geared against us and decisions others have made before we were even born have doomed us already. Just take what you're given and let it suffice.
!!!!
I followed through on my curiosity and learned that Jimmies are specifically the rod shaped form of sprinkles, not to be confused with the tiny ball shaped nonpareils or the flat quins that come in all sorts of shapes. Thanks for prompting me to learn about my cake confectionery.
I have had some limited success improving this by taking very small bites of projects, and by doing it only for myself and not thinking about any application for the project other than I want to be doing it. Ymmv, but at least with art this has kept me producing instead of curled in a corner.
Hank, I just wanted to say. There are countless people who's achievements are numerous and incredibly significant and yet are still widely disliked by the majority of society. What makes you different is your values and commitment to being a better person and that is why I personally count you among the best humanity has to offer.
10:36 "So I'm extremely in favor of not imagining world as only having one kind of person who can be successful, and also finding ways for people who are not super organized, who are not super focused and who are not super competitive to be successful". 😭 Thank you, as a dreamy artistic person stuck among highly-driven logical-thinking programmers lately, I really needed to hear that today.
Okay you run towards the anxiety and stress, slaying it. I spent my life letting it make me hide under a blanket. I'm learning. (not searching for success or achievement, but face the stress so i have more stress-free time with my sewing machine and crochet hook...at 43 years old)
Hank, I truly see a role model in you. This isn't some sort of fridge magnet fuel; i mean it!
I often reflect on my life and think about what I can do to improve things, and I have actively adopted your attitudes towards hope, virtue and living as best as I understood them.
I've been diagnosed with ADHD and Autism this year, and life hasn't been the kindest to me in the past decade, but this year is the best I have ever had in my life, and I would like to give you at least some credit in this. Your optimism and your way of going "I have no clue where we come from, or why we are here. All I know is that I wanna do awesome things and be a good person" have actually genuinely changed my life, and i'm glad I get to live in the same world as you.
You might never read this, but in case you do: Thank you
Hearing Hank say "I like me" warms my heart. It's weirdly uncommon- i feel- for people to be self-aware And Also be nice about themselves. Hank, I like me too 😊
As someone who’s been surrounded by type A people her whole life, I’ve definitely felt out of place numerous times but that didn’t stop me from getting through med school!
describing your MO as doing the thing that's either most interesting or most stressful at the time feels like peak ADHD and we relate so hard
My favorite quip about Type A/B is that we will someday discover that heart disease is a communicable disease, but it's only passed from person to person via the "Close Door" buttons of elevators.
🤣🤣
Type A can get in the way when you have anxiety. I've recently moved on to a higher leadership position, and what I'm focusing on is actually to tell myself to care LESS. So I won't be so anxious and will have the head space to get things done. I already know from experience that I can deliver quality. I just need to trust the process and take it one step at a time. I'm also focusing more on my team rather than myself and prove that I'm performing. If my team is doing well it becomes evident that I'm doing my job right. I do need to be more organized, but I'm also asking more organized people to help me where I can.
Ain't no personality types, only personalities. Underachievers still achieve, overachievers still fail, organised people forget important stuff, forgetful people have long memories for stuff they've failed at.
That 4:24 stress triage is exactly as efficient and stressful as it sounds.
You have one of the most balanced and well thought out moral compasses I have ever seen someone have. I admire you so much for it.
Love this video. I’m a college freshman and I just want to finish my degree, get a decent job that I like and pays me well, and lead an ordinary life. I have interests in content creation but I don’t feel I have the time or money I would need to do it well, so that will have to wait if it happens at all, but my focus is to just lead a normal life and the encouragement of that by someone who has done so much is super cool because many successful people assume that everyone has their definition of success. Very refreshing as always Hank, thank you.
I relate so much to being guilt-driven. Sometimes it's the only way I'll work, no matter how much i want to change.
Thanks David Cross!
Love Hank's stream of consciousness. So personal.
“Creating things is more important than wielding influence “ this is an excellent reminder, I wrote it down in my notes. Thank you.
I hate hate haaaate competition, because it seems like such a wasteful impediment to getting good things done, and getting good things done is all that matters. Stop caring about who wins! The point is for everyone to win! If anybody loses, that is an incomplete victory! Yes it is good to have a process of generating multiple different options and then selecting the best of them, that process of diversification and selection is what drives all progress, but in that kind of process it's strategies, plans, ideas, that should be generated and selected, not the people who put them forth or showed the problems with others. Separate the people from the problem; focus on interests, not positions. The problem to be solved is how to satisfy everyone's interests, not to identify which person had the correct position; the complete solution will probably usually turn out to not have been any person's original position but something new creatively generated along the way.
As someone who just got home from two of the most personally important days of my life that included generally "high achieving" activities despite having a myriad of mental health issues, this video was important for me to watch.
Hi my motivation is getting as good as possible at things so I can do the silliest possible things with my skills. Learn engineering? so I can make unhinged creations. Learn breakdancing? so I can be a goofball on the dance floor and even just by myself.
This video helped make me feel more comfortable and more seen, it feels like the world is pushing people like us towards being the traits tied to type A, so thank you ❤
I felt seen by this, especially the conflict between needing to be an achiever to feel worthy/liked/desirable and being unable to embody the societal archetype of the type-A achiever that excludes my more self-doubting and collaborative ways of navigating and creating. Thanks for the insight!
I'm so glad humans are so easily categorizeable, and human differences dilineated so clearly. Think what a mess it would be if people instead fell on some kind of a spectrum.
Headspace has been so good for helping get to sleep because I have high anxiety after my tumor treatments. Now if I can hack a way to figure out how to attack things that scare me I would be able to finish my citizenship application.
Hank looks more and more like Mr. Show with each successive day.
this entire video is me and autism and adhd and anxiety and i am so normal about this video. Hank how do you say whats in my brain every time!! i dont like hank greens anxiety arc happened but it is sooo relatable
Hank, I know you've had a LOT going on, and it's okay if the answer is no, but are we going to get the census analysis for last year's census?
OH! Thanks for the reminder! With Pizzamas coming up it might still be a while!
Congrats on Remission Hank...Fellow Hodgkin's Survivor. The only thing more emotionally confounding than a near death experience, watching your life flash before your eyes is to slow that down to about .25 Frames per second and watch the life you aren't sure you are going to have tomorrow for the next several weeks, months, or years. It is quite inspiring to watch your response in real time and do the thing I couldn't while I was going through it. I checked out, went into a shell, but when I survived I dedicated my life to making myself happy, which required me to make my wife happy, which in turn requires me to keep my 2 boys happy...and in the middle I did everything I needed to to have a career I enjoy almost as much as you love yours. Sorry for the overshare, be well!!
Hank isn't type A, he is ADHD. I have his exact personality.
I would deeply like to meet more people like you because this kind of energy is what I need in my life. So nice to see someone genuinely nice and with a big heart out there making a difference in an atypical way
regarding the fun things that aren't yet stressful enough to activate focus mode: How to ADHD had a video identifying a category of things called "important but not urgent", aka: IBNU, and i found her advice of having ibnu time for those things so we can enjoy them without the stress of waiting for them to become urgent, or have them fall thru the cracks and never get done personally helpful, sooo, sharing for anyone who might want to hear about that ^_^. (you might have already seen it since i know you had an older video referencing her channel ^_^)
Hank, i have been (mostly silently) following your work for many years (since I was like, 12) and you have been an inspiration to me in many ways. one of those ways is how you manage to be so successful while being generous and kind and goofy. this is not only about types A and B, but also about how masculinity does not have to be aggressive and competitive.
In the 1950's, having a sort of stereotype of a “Military“ personality absolutely made sense. The mistake was assuming this was some sort of innate set of associated traits, when it was actually trained into people as a set by an organization.
I have a friend that is exactly like you in the "being liked" aspect while I am the opposite and I also find that if I just pushed for my ideas instead of second guessing myself I would get much more done. Letting other people execute their ideas never works out of the box. I have most of the "type A" dominance and competitiveness but I am the most disorganized person I know.
Im messy, I procrastinate, I'm ambitious, I recieved honours straight through my masters, but I am not a perfectionist. I work quickly and want excellence not perfection. If it will take twice the time to get 95% on an assignment than it would to get an 85%, I'll take the 85 and move on with my life. I only follow recipes when baking, almost never for cooking. I have a very good memory, which often gets mistaken for being very well organized or good at studying. I am neither. I am somewhat organized and i rarely study (I just complain about it and then decide if I dont know it now I never will and take the test knowing the mark will be fine enough most of the time). I like leading but only once I know what I'm doing in a role and if there's a reason to be doing what we're doing. I look like I'm type A to people from the outside as well.
+
My threshold is 90% on 85%, and I prefer being a deputy to being a leader, (well, depends on context, for my own projects I definitely prefer being leader, but at work, deputy). But otherwise you have described me EXACTLY.
Literally the difference between intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation.
Some people, like Hank, are motivated to be better because they have an internal drive / feeling / want to be better. (Intrinsic motivation)
Other people chase salary, power, titles, resources, lackies, etc. (Extrinsic motivation)
The new fad is the myers briggs personality test with things like INTJ. ENTP, etc. So I have to deal with people telling me they act like X because they are this series of letters. It's annoying.
Yeah, I always felt like that was a little pseudosciencey
That's not a new fad. It's been around for decades.
Imagine your school using this test to do psychoanalysis on students. Puke.
you can get into whatever you want for introspection and learning about yourself (I'm an enneagram guy personally) but if you start using personality types to assume things about other people or excuse your own shitty behavior, you're doing it wrong
yes, this and zodiac signs. both absolutely useless.
Holy shit, this reached something I've felt since I was a kid. I was nodding and "Mhm"ing along to the whole video like it was a sermon! Thank you for putting words to this
I think it's funny that you keep linking organized people with higher stress people, and disorganized with lower stress 😂 Speaking as a disorganized person, disorganization is stressful! (But not as stressful as it would be to try to live the life of an organized person, which I am not capable of). I think of the people I know who are organized as more methodical and calm than I am.
Competitiveness and achievement are other whole dimensions, that I don't think particularly correlates to either of the others.
Good point. I am disorganized but only some of my disorganizations cause me stress
Thank for sharing your insights on this Hank, you are a great example of how nuanced and complex humans are, and we don’t fit neatly into little personality-type boxes. I’m also not competitive and gravitate towards doing things I like. However, you seem to have a great intrinsic motivation to do and accomplish things that I unfortunately lack. I struggle with chronic pain, depression, and ADHD, and unless there’s a really good external motivator at play, I tend to do the bare minimum to survive. Not only am I scattered and disorganized, but sustaining effort to do most tasks feels like a chore that I can’t always push through. I’ve had to unlearn the societal norm that achievement is tied to my value or self worth in order to keep myself alive. I am privileged in a lot of ways, and am grateful for what I have, and try to celebrate small wins. I don’t have a large enough drive to actually follow-through and achieve a lot of good things, but I try my best to support and lift up others who do.
I think it’s funny to assume you know someone’s “personality” type based on accomplishments or career
as a Stage Manager (one of the most organizational focused jobs there is) who also has lived with other SM’s - we can be the quintessential perfectionist organizational pro in our work, and yet when we go home, everything is chaos!
Hank, never would I have thought of you as "Type A". You are very driven but you also seem to be very kind, compassionate, gentile, and just a very genuine human. You are someone who is very easy to like. The relationship you have built with John is incredible, especially the positivity you feed from each other. Thank you both so much for all that you do and being who you are, just as you are! THANK YOU! ❤
Adhd vibes
This video meant a lot to me, my brain makes things hard for me to fit in and succeed in the world. I hope my ideas can be helpful someday and I learn to work with the way my brain is wired
Damn, I didn't even know you had diabetes
No that's type 1
@@Chris_winthersLMAO
@@Chris_winthers+
10:06 This is the tricky part right here when talking about being motivated by achievement as a way to both do good in the world, yes, but also as a way to garner love and admiration from others. I agree that it's a fine way to be motivated, but there has to be a balance. It's important to remember that you are worthy of love and more than enough just as you are right now, no matter how far along you are in the achievement process you are. You don't have to move mountains or shatter ceilings in order to be worthy of love or acceptance. And when we're stressed out that can be really hard to remember.
Anywho, thanks for the video. I've been out of the loop lately, so my heart skipped a beat when I heard you say you're in remission. That's just wonderful, to your health, Hank!
A few things:
First, the line “I would like there to be more of me; of course I would, I like me.” probably wasn't supposed to be a whammy, but oof, sometimes I really gotta take an inventory of my self loathing. Like, my mental health is possibly the best it's been ever. I don't really think of myself as somebody who's all that sick, at least not right now, but I had a visceral I-definitely-don't-feel-that-way-about-myself reaction and I see now that's something I need to work on. Thank you for that insight.
Second: I really appreciate your honesty and admire your perceptiveness that your way of getting things done isn't as much something you do as it is something you are.
Third: Hank, you have always been so good at acknowledging your advantages and also injustice in the world, but I need to point out that those things aren't directly connected. You DO deserve the things you've been given. It needs to be understood that no one, including you, should have access to privileges and resources at the expense of others, especially not on the basis that our present society allocates those privileges and resources, but that doesn't mean that you are undeserving. You didn't create them. You didn't earn them. That doesn't mean you are undeserving. It's just that other folks also deserve that access. These are not mutually exclusive ideas.
Fourth: I feel like the danger in competitiveness is its focus. Like, there's nothing wrong with competition by default, but the weakness of a competitive worldview is ultimately that it equates the failure of others with your own success, and the point at which a person seeks to be competitive and accepts others' downfall as just as good (or necessarily good at all) as their own improvement is the point at which competition becomes an unhealthy impulse.
Fifth: the video inspired other thoughts that I can't seem to work into a useful or communicable shape, so I'll have to keep mulling them over. This will be another one I come back to. Thanks as always, Hank
I’ve seen hank as a remodel in most ways. This helped me understand you better. I hope your drive to help others hasn’t sacrificed your happiness.
The cycle of setting things in motion when youre interested and then having to deal with the stress later. it me. Trudging along one foot at a time in the snow and the rain and sometimes its hard to see and i go in circles. but i’ll get there eventually, always have
Lately, I've always felt like I could do more with my days. I've also never been ambitious or achieved much professionally. That much I've accepted. But I still don't know how to be more ambitious or achieve more with my hobbies. I just want to rest and be content, and I don't know how to do that when there's always another thing I could be doing.
I am VERY high-achieving and also DEEPLY non-competitive, and it is quite the combo for some people to wrap their brains around.
I love you. I desperately want to be "type A" to be liked, respected, considered dependable, and generally to feel in control. I have divergent thinking with time blindness, hyper focus frequently, and am highly emotionally motivated. I am often told I am oblivious to those around me. I want to be confident that I can succeed as I am. It must be possible for someone with my qualities to do so. I am grateful for your kindness
Thank you Hank. You inspire me every time I watch you
Am I the only one who finds personality tests useful? The Myers-Briggs anyway. It's helped me understand myself a lot better, pointing out patterns and preferences that I hadn't noticed about myself before, but that are absoltely true about me. They were pretty big lightbulb moments, and have helped me understand and accepte myself better, and in particular understand some of my needs and the kinds of environements I do/don't thrive in better. Not everything about my type applies to me, and there are a few aspects of other types that do apply to me, but I'm perfectly capable of parsing that and retaining what fits and ignoring that which doesn't. I wouldn't want other people to judge or assess me or put me in boxes based on my personality type, I think it's only really useful or even ethically definsible as a part of self-inquiry, but as such it's been really valuable to me!
Also valuable for finding like-minded people on the internet, where my type is much more prevalent than it is in real life.
I agree, mbti has also helped me quite a bit, especially the cognitive functions that make up the original theory. Preferences in the way you think and behave definitely do exist and it is useful to try and understand those preferences better.
Saying there aren't personality types to me is like saying there aren't colors. They blend into each other and exist on a spectrum yes, but that doesn't mean they don't exist as categories, especially in perception.
I seriously thought you meant some sort of cancer survivour type and was very confused to how it's connected to achieving, because surviving is an incredible achievement on itself.
We also like you and wish there were more of you, Hank.
Hank, I love what you do. And you inspire me to do good with what I can. And. You are valuable as your own self. You are valuable even if you don't "achieve" anything. You just being kind the the people around you is enough. And that's enough to be loved and valued.
I used to try to achieve every single award in school, music, art, grades to try to be "good enough" for my parents. But I learned later that tthere's not really anything I could do to be good enough for my parents, lol. But my friends just loved me for being kind. They are all so much more "successful" than me, but they still love me. Because I'm just nice. And being "just nice" is enough.
THANK YOU for this. You make an amazing point, we absolutely should not think or expect that only competitive people are successful. There are LOTS of people in this world - the Green Brothers included - who are genuinely motivated by doing good, not by enriching themselves. I do not think we should be celebrating "Type A" if it's associated with being competitive.
I actually never really processed that "Type A" was associated with competitiveness. I've considered myself type A (I'm certainly stressed enough about productivity) but I am deeply UNcompetitive, I haaate conflict and the idea of taking opportunities away from others because I am somehow "better" than them makes me feel icky. Especially because I deeply believe that we are ALL worthy, we are all valuable in our own ways, I may be a better writer or faster reader than one person but they in turn may be way better than me in other ways that make them just as good at or deserving of the thing we are "competing" for. Ugh. So yeah, I'm not at all competitive, but I also think I'm successful in my own right. I don't doubt that I would be far MORE successful if I had been MORE competitive - I've learned a lot in my line of work about the opportunities I missed along the way - but I have a good job with good benefits that I enjoy, and I think that is success. All without being cutthroat or tearing others down; my goal in life genuinely is to help others. So yep.
Hank's not Type A; he's type ADHD (like literally everything you were saying is describing what it's like living in an ADHD brain). It's fantastic to see what somebody like me could achieve if given some freedom from capitalist 9-5 wage culture! I would love to do more of what makes me feel successful but unfortunately still gotta pay mortgage and bills and food etc, and getting that wage leaves me so flippin' exhausted. I _wish_ it was feasible to go "full time" on my union organising stuff and my storytelling stuff, because making sure other people are safe and happy is what motivates me the most too!
listening to Hank talk about motivations reminds me of what I think of as my main 3 motivations, which are similar to Hank's, except I have an additional most motivating factor above all else. So from least to most motivating: it's a thing that I enjoy doing, it's a thing that is stressing me out and needs to get done NOW, and most motivatingly -- its a thing that someone told me I cannot achieve. Yes, my main motivation is genuinely, wholeheartedly, spite.
This makes it very hard for me to get things done when people around me are being supportive, which sucks.
Thanks Hank, I've been struggling a lot lately with productivity and feeling that I'm not doing enough, I needed this.
Thank you so much for acknowledging that wanting to be liked like, an okay reason to do things. I was just talking to a friend about how I do some things just because it makes me feel like I'm cool, and I honestly think it's a completely reasonable reason to do a thing. It's part of why I accomplish things, it makes me feel rad
I feel like this is exactly how my brain works, except for one thing. I do consider myself a competitive person, but outside the context of board games, the way it manifests is in competition with myself. I genuinely believe that society benefits far more from collaboration and efforts to improve everyone's performance, but I'm also always trying to outdo my past self. I think what motivates me is the idea of challenging and improvinb myself by learning new things. Not sure if that counts as being motivated by competition.
seriously thank you for this :') I recently took on a job as a programs manager, and I feel such an intense pressure to be a 'type A' person, even though I'm not! this video is such a good reminder of how I got here in the first place
Interesting sub topic in this video. "Deserving" things. Maybe everyone deserves abundance. Not to be confused with "entitlement" or being entitled to everything. We don't earn love, we can't. It is a gift that is given. But we all deserve love. We aren't "entitled" to it. Words are never the whole answer.
this is the first video i've watched on the anxiety of anxiety that both makes me feel better and seems genuinely true. Thank you for being honest yet still helpful, a uniquely Hank-Green-quality
I'd like to posit that your tendency to seek out and 'attack' the thing that's causing you stress and/or fear in your life at any given moment is courage, and that this is something that can be cultivated. Whether or not that's true, people can debate ad infinitum. But it would make sense that it's something habitually baked into your operating system at this point, something that the conscious mind wouldn't actively seek a point of origin for. As the more you prove your resilience to yourself, the more resilient you inherently believe yourself to be, and the less damage fear can threaten your psyche with. Exposure therapy, to risk oversimplification. The former of the two motivations is simply seeking the good feelings. Facing bad feelings and seeking the good feelings, Hank Green ladies and gentlemen.
Human organizations and systems geek here. I found reading Reinventing Organizations to be a super great way of looking at ways of being and GSD. The "technologies" of being together in specific highly productive ways are not possible in zero sum games. Looking at Green and Teal orgs they require kindness, collaboration, understanding etc. Many things beyond extractive capitalism's mandates. And yeah companies that follow these ways of being still make the economy spin. There's so many more examples too.😊
"I believe that creating things is more important than wielding influence" isn't *that* astute an observation but to put it so succinctly and toss it off like you know it's a given is BASED.
The perspective that people just happen to be very complicated is important. I'm glad someone as smart as you realizes that. More of us really should realize it as well because some people just fall in between a lot of these categories, never fitting into any "type" whether it be through a measure of expectation vs reality or looking at things in a detached way. Some of these very similar people do great things and achieve what they want while others struggle to do the same. Circumstance is absolutely the largest issue yet it seems to be the most quickly disregarded aspect of the average person's life. I feel someone's experience growing up, the adversity they face during that pivotal point, and then how they adapt as they transition into adulthood is absolutely the most indicative of someone being "successful"/achieving something that would be deemed "notable" by society at large. Access to resources is also immensely important.
Also as a random person, I have always looked up to you because of the way you think about yourself and the world as a whole as it is very similar to how I think (although you make much better conclusions/arguments with a much more thorough thought process that you can ACTUALLY explain than I) and you expressing that is extremely valuable to those of us who like to see life through a lens of logic and you have continued to be a "grounding" factor in my life since I was young (now 27) and I just wanted to say thank you for that. All the best wishes Hank :)
This brought me out of a strange feeling of shame this AM. Thanks for staying cool and being real, always.