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About 35% of current jobs in the UK are at high risk of computerisation over the following 20 years, according to a study by researchers at Oxford University and Deloitte. Go to http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-34066941 and type your job title into the search box below to find out the likelihood that it could be automated within the …
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Meta AI Mode brings AI-generated answers to Facebook search using public posts, raising questions about reliability and source visibility.
The post Meta’s New Facebook ‘AI Mode’ Pulls From Groups, Reels, and Posts appeared first on TechRepublic.
A new study has found that major AI models on the market routinely fail to comply with ethical and privacy regulations.
The post AI Compliance Failures Put Australian Enterprises on Notice appeared first on TechRepublic.
Apple may still have more Macs planned for 2026, including the rumored Mac Studio, iMac, Mac mini, and high-end OLED MacBook updates.
The post New Apple Macs Coming in 2026: Everything We Know So Far appeared first on TechRepublic.
Neil Cawse: Federal strategy is welcome, but rather than owning every server, we should be more concerned about controlling the data that runs on them
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Most people believe they are far more capable of changing their personality than they actually are. This is hardly surprising. Humans are deeply invested in flattering illusions about themselves. We routinely overestimate our intelligence, morality, attractiveness, and future prospects. Psychologists refer to this as the “better-than-average effect,” though “wishful narcissism” might be more precise. Unsurprisingly, personality is no exception. We like to imagine ourselves as unfinished masterpieces rather than stubbornly repetitive creatures of habit who have already maxed out on their limited potential. (Not sure about you but, in my case, the former is definitely true!)
And yet all it takes is attending one of those excruciating high-school reunions to realize how little people really change. The former class bully may now wear Patagonia vests and discuss real-estate investments, but the same appetite for dominance usually lingers beneath the surface. The class clown still hijacks conversations for attention. The agreeable people remain agreeable, the anxious remain anxious, and the narcissists, now armed with social media and AI, become even more efficient at self-promotion. Physically, of course, many people change quite dramatically, usually in directions that inspire nostalgia rather than envy. Psychologically, however, most remain recognizable versions of their younger selves, both for good and for bad.
Fiction understood this long before psychology did. At the end of The Godfather, Michael Corleone assures Kay that things will be different, that he will become a better man than the one circumstances and ambition have turned him into. By the sequel, personality has won. Shakespeare built entire tragedies around the same premise: Character is destiny. Modern psychology, though less poetic, reaches broadly similar conclusions. Personality traits are remarkably stable across adulthood, especially after the age of 30. Longitudinal research consistently finds that traits such as conscientiousness, emotional stability, extraversion, and agreeableness remain relatively enduring over time.
Why? Because personality is not merely a collection of moods or preferences. It represents deeply ingrained dispositional habits: recurring patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving that shape how we respond to the world. Personality is effectively our psychological operating system. We can update the software slightly, but rewriting the code is considerably harder.
Still, there is no reason for fatalism. In fact, the desire to change is not only admirable but essential for growth. As I argued in Don’t Be Yourself, the most effective leaders and, indeed, the most effective humans are not prisoners of their default tendencies. They develop adaptive range. They learn to activate different versions of themselves depending on context. They become less rigid and more psychologically versatile.
Think of people like Arnold Schwarzenegger, who evolved from bodybuilder to actor to politician to climate advocate, or Madonna, who treated reinvention as an Olympic sport (and is very much still going). Think of Bill Gates, whose evolution from ruthless tech monopolist to global philanthropist and public-health advocate required a remarkable psychological reinvention. The intensely combative, hypercompetitive founder who once treated business like geopolitical warfare gradually cultivated a more reflective, collaborative, and humanitarian identity. Whatever one thinks of Gates today, few would deny that he learned to activate very different versions of himself across different stages of life. Even historically rigid figures often evolved under pressure. Abraham Lincoln became markedly more emotionally intelligent and politically sophisticated during his presidency, shaped by repeated failures and crises. Personality may be stable, but adaptability can still be cultivated.
Think of Oprah Winfrey, whose transformation from a difficult childhood in rural poverty to local news presenter, daytime TV host, media mogul, philanthropist, and global cultural authority required not merely career progression but repeated psychological reinvention. At each stage, she cultivated different dimensions of herself: broadcaster, entrepreneur, interviewer, activist, intellectual tastemaker, and leader. Few modern figures better illustrate the capacity to evolve without entirely abandoning one’s core identity.
How changeable are you, really?
In this sense, some people possess what we might call a more “changeable personality”: not because their core traits magically fluctuate, but because they are better equipped to revise habits, experiment with new behaviors, and respond constructively to feedback. Research suggests that four characteristics are especially important.
The first is curiosity. Curious people are more likely to seek novelty, challenge assumptions, and expose themselves to unfamiliar experiences. They are less attached to defending their current identity because they view learning as intrinsically rewarding. In personality psychology, curiosity overlaps strongly with openness to experience, one of the best predictors of intellectual flexibility and adaptation. Curious individuals are psychologically exploratory. They ask questions rather than protect egos.
This matters enormously because meaningful change almost always begins with discomfort. If you are curious enough to wonder why your relationships fail, why your team avoids honest conversations with you, or why your career has plateaued, you have already crossed a threshold many never reach. Curiosity transforms criticism from a threat into useful data.
The second ingredient is humility. This is increasingly rare in cultures that reward certainty and self-promotion. Humility does not mean low self-esteem or submissiveness. It means accurately understanding your strengths and weaknesses without becoming emotionally defensive about either. Humble people are willing to admit they might be wrong, which is essential for change because self-improvement begins with acknowledging imperfection.
Ironically, many highly successful individuals struggle precisely because achievement reinforces inflexibility. If your arrogance helped you become a billionaire founder, senior executive, or political star, why would you suddenly abandon it? Success can fossilize personality. Humility acts as an antidote by preserving openness to correction.
Third comes emotional intelligence, particularly self-awareness. This is perhaps the most misunderstood dimension of personal growth. Self-awareness is not endless introspection or journaling about your feelings while drinking herbal tea. It is understanding how your behavior affects others. In practice, self-awareness is largely other-awareness.
Research consistently shows that individuals who accurately understand how they are perceived by colleagues, bosses, and direct reports perform better as leaders. The problem is that most people dramatically overestimate their self-awareness. One well-known study found that while around 95% of people believe they are self-aware, only about 10% to 15% actually meet objective criteria.
This gap exists partly because modern workplaces have become extraordinarily polite. Most organizations are now civilized enough to avoid direct confrontation but not courageous enough to provide honest feedback. People, therefore, drift through careers protected from the social consequences of their own behavior. The aggressive executive is described as “passionate.” The narcissist becomes “visionary.” The indecisive leader is “thoughtful.” Euphemism replaces truth.
Which is precisely why tools like 360-degree feedback and psychological assessments matter. Their greatest value is not prediction but revelation. They help individuals see themselves through the eyes of others. Without that external mirror, personality change becomes almost impossible because people continue operating under distorted assumptions about how they come across.
The fourth ingredient is ambition. This may sound surprising because ambition is often associated with ego rather than growth. Also, as the brilliant 17th-century Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza noted, ambition can be interpreted as an unnatural yearning for other people’s approval—which, to most people, sounds like a negative or weakness. Yet ambition frequently compensates for deficits in the previous three traits. Plenty of successful people are not naturally curious, humble, or emotionally intelligent. What they do possess is an overwhelming desire to succeed. That motivation can still drive adaptation and actually turn selfish, socially awkward, arrogant, and uncurious people into great leaders, and even a force for good.
Painfully ambitious executives may force themselves to become more diplomatic simply because they realize abrasive behavior limits promotion prospects. Actors learn emotional sensitivity because audiences demand it. Politicians become more disciplined because electoral survival requires it. Pure self-interest is not morally glamorous, but it can still fuel behavioral evolution. Indeed, some of the most coachable individuals are not naturally reflective saints. They are intensely motivated pragmatists. They change because the status quo becomes too costly.
The Change Paradox: The more you need it, the less you get it
This creates a fascinating paradox: The people most likely to benefit from coaching are often the ones who need it least. Curious, humble, emotionally intelligent, and ambitious individuals tend to improve continuously through ordinary experience because they naturally absorb feedback and adapt. Meanwhile, the leaders who most desperately need coaching are often precisely the least capable of benefiting from it. A leader lacking curiosity, humility, emotional intelligence, and ambition will resist introspection, dismiss criticism, avoid accountability, and ultimately remain unchanged despite expensive developmental interventions. This helps explain why executive coaching sometimes produces transformational results and sometimes resembles pouring Evian onto concrete.
Several broader rules about personality change follow from this.
First, left to their own devices, people generally become either more adjusted or more exaggerated versions of their earlier selves. Traits that are healthy in moderation often become destructive in excess. Confidence morphs into arrogance. Attention to detail becomes perfectionism. Caution becomes paralysis. Charm becomes manipulation. Under stress and over time, personality tends to intensify rather than soften.
Second, coaching only works when individuals genuinely want to change. There is an old joke among psychologists: “How many therapists does it take to change a light bulb?” The answer: “Only one, but the light bulb has to want to change.” Like most good jokes, it survives because it is true. External pressure can create compliance, but meaningful behavioral change requires internal motivation.
Third, self-awareness is foundational. People cannot improve what they cannot see. Unfortunately, most individuals construct identities based not on reality but on self-serving narratives. This is why feedback often feels shocking. People are not discovering who they are so much as discovering how differently others experience them.
Fourth, modern society unintentionally deprives people of the feedback required for growth. Social norms emphasize niceness over honesty. Managers fear conflict. Friends avoid uncomfortable truths. Romantic partners eventually give up trying. As a result, many people spend decades without receiving sufficiently candid information to understand their interpersonal impact.
Fifth, psychological assessments and structured feedback mechanisms are among the few reliable shortcuts to self-awareness. Properly validated personality assessments are not magical truth machines, but they provide something invaluable: comparative data and behavioral insight grounded in evidence rather than intuition.
Sixth, sometimes the smartest way to “change” is not to change at all. Instead, it is to make life choices more compatible with your existing personality. An introvert need not become a charismatic salesperson if they would thrive as an analyst, writer, or engineer. A highly disagreeable person may never excel at consensus-building leadership but could flourish in entrepreneurial or specialist roles requiring independence and bluntness. Good career choices often reflect fit rather than transformation.
Finally, everybody loves change until they personally have to do it. Most people prefer a world in which everyone else adapts to them. They want colleagues to become more reasonable, spouses more understanding, bosses more supportive, and society more accommodating. Unfortunately, this narcissistic model of adaptation rarely produces either career success or relational happiness. The universe remains stubbornly indifferent to our preferred operating instructions.
The good news is that personality is not entirely fixed. The bad news is that meaningful change is difficult, effortful, and uncommon. It requires curiosity to question oneself, humility to accept imperfection, emotional intelligence to recognize interpersonal consequences, and ambition to persist through discomfort. Without those ingredients, people usually remain psychologically familiar versions of who they have always been—merely older, slightly more tired, and considerably more convinced of their own correctness.
In the end, the real mark of maturity is not becoming a completely different person. It is developing enough self-awareness and adaptability to avoid becoming an exaggerated caricature of yourself. You perhaps even develop the necessary skills to appear less predictable than you are and convince others that, even if they know you quite well, they have reason to hope you are able to display the best version of yourself, at least when they need it most.
