The good advice you least want (with Cate Hall)
Cate Hall, author of "You Can Just Do Things," discusses how to cultivate personal agency by overcoming fear and challenging default mindsets. She explores the utility of personality systems like the Enneagram and critiques the pitfalls of strict utilitarianism.
Deep Dive Analysis
11 Topic Outline
Critique of Conventional Self-Help Approaches
Recognizing Your Default Psychological Lens
Impact of Life Circumstances on Internal State
The Enneagram as a Personality System
Critiques and Utility of the Enneagram
Personal Transformation Through Enneagram Insight
Shifting from Utilitarianism to Virtue Ethics
Defining and Understanding Personal Agency
High Agency Examples and Bystander Effect
Misconceptions About High Agency Traits
Learning and Cultivating Personal Agency
7 Key Concepts
Default Lens
An inherent way individuals interpret the world, leading them to gravitate towards self-help strategies that align with their existing strengths and perspectives, often overlooking areas where they could benefit most from counter-intuitive advice.
Hedonic Treadmill
The observed tendency for humans to quickly return to a relatively stable level of happiness despite major positive or negative life changes. This means significant events often have only a temporary impact on one's overall internal state.
Enneagram
A personality typing system that categorizes individuals into nine types, each driven by a core fear that shapes their coping strategies, strengths, and vulnerabilities. It helps people understand their underlying psychological motivations.
Useful Fictions
A framework suggesting that certain systems or models, even if not perfectly accurate or empirically derived (like the Enneagram's nine types), can still be highly valuable for understanding and navigating reality due to their memetic fitness and ability to chunk complex information.
Personal Agency
The ability to perceive and act upon opportunities or choices that others might not recognize, effectively challenging perceived constraints. It is about increasing freedom and optionality in one's life.
Bystander Effect
A social psychological phenomenon where individuals are less likely to offer help to a victim when other people are present. The presence of others diffuses responsibility and creates social proof that no action is needed.
Berkson's Paradox
A statistical phenomenon where a selection bias can create an apparent negative correlation between two independent traits within a selected subpopulation. For example, if you only observe successful individuals, you might falsely conclude that positive traits are negatively correlated.
7 Questions Answered
People tend to gravitate towards self-help that aligns with their existing strengths and default ways of seeing the world, rather than seeking out counter-intuitive advice that could lead to more transformative growth.
Your internal state, such as anxiety or stress levels, often has surprisingly little to do with external circumstances, as people quickly return to a baseline due to the hedonic treadmill, making internal reactions feel more optional.
The Enneagram is a personality system with nine types, each based on a core fear that shapes one's life; it can be useful for gaining insight into your default psychological shape, acknowledging weaknesses, and guiding personal development.
Strict utilitarianism can lead to individuals becoming worse people, justifying self-serving actions through seemingly objective calculations, and stifling natural emotional responses, as humans are not well-equipped for perfectly executing consequentialist calculus.
Personal agency is the dual capacity to both perceive opportunities or choices that others miss and to act on those degrees of freedom, ultimately leading to greater personal freedom and optionality rather than just achievement.
Yes, personal agency is a learnable set of behaviors and an approach to life, not a fixed trait, and can be developed through intentional effort and a shift in perspective.
Overcoming fear of failure, embarrassment, or rejection, which often limits agency, can be achieved through systematic exposure to low-stakes situations where rejection is expected, thereby decoupling the emotional pain from the act of asking.
11 Actionable Insights
1. See and Act on Freedom
Cultivate agency by actively looking for constraints that are actually optional and then having the courage to act on those realizations, rather than passively accepting perceived limitations.
2. Agency is a Learnable Skill
Recognize that agency is a learnable set of behaviors and an approach to life, not a fixed trait, and actively work to develop it to increase your personal freedom and optionality.
3. Choose Counter-Intuitive Self-Help
Actively seek self-help advice that challenges your natural inclinations and strengths, as these are the areas where you are most likely to achieve transformative growth, rather than reinforcing existing comfortable strategies.
4. Notice Your Default Internal State
Pay attention to your persistent internal state (e.g., anxiety, stress, connection) across varying life circumstances, as recognizing its independence from external events can create more optionality in how you respond to situations.
5. Leverage Personality Systems
Utilize personality typing systems like the Enneagram to gain insight into your default psychological shape, which can help you identify both your strengths and vulnerabilities, guiding you towards areas for personal growth.
6. Align Work with Enjoyment
Choose work that you genuinely enjoy and feel excited to do, as aligning your efforts with your self-interest will ultimately lead to greater personal effectiveness and a more positive impact on the world.
7. Solve Unaddressed Problems
Develop high agency by identifying problems in the world that others are overlooking and proactively taking the initiative to address them yourself, rather than waiting for someone else.
8. Be the First to Act
When you observe a situation where help is needed and others are passive, be the first to act or inquire, as your initiative can dissolve the bystander effect and prompt others to assist.
9. Practice Low-Stakes Rejection
Systematically expose yourself to situations where you expect rejection, such as asking for unreasonable things or applying for jobs you’re unqualified for, to decouple the emotional pain of rejection from the act itself and reduce anticipation.
10. Make Ambitious Requests
Don’t hesitate to ask for ambitious things, as people are often more willing to say yes than you anticipate, leading to surprisingly positive outcomes.
11. Balance Utilitarian Thinking
If you are a hardcore utilitarian, consider tempering your approach with other ethical frameworks, as strict adherence can lead to self-justification and a warped sense of self-worth; if not, consider incorporating more consequentialist thinking into your decisions.
6 Key Quotes
I think most self-help is useless... because people pick the things that are actually less helpful for them.
Cate Hall
You are ruined by your gifts.
Richard Rohr (quoted by Cate Hall)
I'm a deontologist that cares a lot about consequences.
Cate Hall
Agency is the capacity to both see and act on degrees of freedom that other people overlook.
Cate Hall
I think most people could stand to be more utilitarian, except for the people who are hardcore utilitarian, and then they should be a little bit less.
Spencer Greenberg
I think about it as starting to notice hidden doors in the walls of life.
Cate Hall