Chapter Content
Okay, so, like, what's your gear personality? I know it sounds kinda weird, but stick with me, right? You know that saying, "When the going gets tough, the tough get going?" Well, how easily you switch gears, you know, like, from relaxed to focused, it actually depends on your personality. Some people, they've got springy gears. Like, the smallest thing will set them off and get them super energized. Others, like, their gears are super stiff, they need a major push to get going, you know? Most of us are somewhere in the middle, right?
And this actually explains a lot, like, why some people can handle tons of uncertainty, and others, like, they just can't deal. It explains why some people have a hard time getting "in the zone," you know, and why the same situation can make one person totally stressed out and another person completely bored.
You see this, like, big time on trading floors at investment banks. You've got these super calm, like, battle-hardened traders, just staring at all these numbers flashing by on the screens, right? And then you've got these mathematicians who are, like, constantly worried about tiny errors in the code. They're both, like, in gear two, focused, but they need totally different levels of stimulation to get there.
So, to really control your gears, it helps to know where you are on the spectrum. Do you like more stimulation, or less? Do you work better under pressure? Are you more easily stressed by little things than other people are? We are all naturally drawn to places that match our gear personality, unless, you know, other stuff gets in the way. So, you know, tons of doctors go into medicine wanting to help people, right? And entrepreneurs want to change the world. But then, they discover that the job just doesn't fit their personality at all. And understanding your gear personality can help you figure out where you're actually gonna thrive.
So, if you, like, love pressure, need deadlines to get motivated, and you feel energized by challenges, then your gear is probably pretty stiff. You need a bigger push to get to gear two, and to keep from just sliding back down to gear one. I had this friend, right? PNC, he was a trader at a really successful Wall Street bank. He's trading millions, making huge decisions, but he's, like, totally unfazed by it all. He's so chill, he even takes naps after lunch sometimes.
And I remember he told me he wanted to start doing yoga, right? And most people take, like, years to learn the poses. But PNC was all about, like, teaching himself to do a headstand in a few days. He was telling me he doesn't like danger for the danger itself, he likes being in control and preventing it. So, you know, the threshold for uncertainty that bothers him is way higher than most people. So he doesn't really feel the need to be in control under normal circumstances. He needs, like, high-uncertainty environments, like, a trading floor or skiing down a mountain under sketchy conditions to really feel alive. Things that would totally freak most people out. But for him, it's just the right amount of challenge that he can handle by being in control.
And, you know, some people think that some adults with attention deficit disorder, they're just stuck in gear one, and it's hard for them to get to gear two. So they think things like hyperactivity, seeking thrills, and taking risks, those are just ways of trying to crank themselves up to gear two. They need more stimulation to get going. But once they're in gear two, they're, like, laser focused, sometimes even more focused than people without ADHD.
And research has even shown that having people with ADHD around might have helped us survive in the past. They were the risk-takers, right? They explored new places, they wanted to learn things. They didn't waste time overthinking decisions. If everyone was like that, we'd all be taking risks all the time. But if only a few people were, they could protect the whole group without putting everyone in danger. So even though ADHD can be a pain in the neck in, like, the modern world, it might actually make us more resilient as a species, you know, in case something bad happens.
A lot of people with ADHD learn to avoid boring stuff and find things that really grab their attention. This rugby player, James Haskell, he calls his ADHD a "superpower," right? And he says it helped him become a rugby player, and it's why he's so good at it. And, like, Leonardo da Vinci, Richard Branson, Jamie Oliver, Michael Phelps, they are all people believed to have ADHD.
Okay, so, on the other hand, if your gear jumps up at the smallest thing, and you can't bring it back down, then your gear is probably springy. Springy gears, they go up really fast with the tiniest amount of stimulation, and they often overshoot gear two and go all the way to gear three. You react to a whisper like it's a shout, and a text message like it's a fire alarm. And once you're up there, it's really hard to calm down. So people with springy gears feel better in quiet, slower environments, you know?
Now, your gear personality can change over time, depending on what you've been through. Like, a soldier who just came back from combat might need more stimulation for a while. Someone from a small town might be overwhelmed by a big city at first, until they get used to it. A psychologist named Daniel Berlyne said that, like, a New York taxi driver and a farmer, or a town mouse and a country mouse, they're gonna have different levels of excitement they can handle, right?
But sometimes, the environment can change your gear personality in a bad way. Like, if you get used to having your attention grabbed all the time, you start to need it to get going, and you lose the ability to focus by yourself. It gets harder to pay attention to normal stuff if you're always being distracted. Some research says that, like, spending too much time on screens when you're eighteen might be linked to getting diagnosed with ADHD by the time you're twenty-two.
But the good news is, if your gear personality can change in one direction, it can change in the other too, right? You can get better at controlling your gear just by practicing paying attention. Like, focused-attention meditation, it's been used for ages to help people control their attention. And now there are apps for that. One study showed that using a meditation app for six weeks helped people pay attention better, so they could get to gear two more easily.
So, once you figure out what your gear personality is, the next thing to think about is your personal accelerators, right? What really gets to you? What are you afraid of? What pushes your buttons more than anything else? That's gonna tell you what makes your gear jump up too high.
I knew this guy, BK, right? When he was a kid, he had trouble paying attention in school. He would bother the other kids, he wouldn't learn, he'd play games at his desk. His teacher told his parents, and he changed tactics. He would pretend to pay attention, and sit really still, while he imagined all sorts of crazy adventures. But his grades kept getting worse. Then one day, his dad gave him a textbook that was for older kids. And that totally changed his life. All of a sudden, BK, who could never sit still, was totally captivated by the book. He was focused for, like, over an hour. So his teachers started giving him more challenging stuff, and he ended up being one of the top students in his school. He needed a challenge to get going, but once he was in gear two, he was amazing. And it was the same in other parts of his life too. He wasn't scared when he had to face down a burglar, and he was excited to swim with sharks. So, you'd think he had a stiff gear, right? But here's the thing: BK would go from being the calmest person in the room to being super anxious if he had to catch a train or meet a deadline. So his stiff gears would get super springy when it came to working on a time limit.
So now, BK works at an IT company, and he's really good at his job. Early on, he realized that doing things that made him feel more in control, like organizing things, it helped him deal with the anxiety of deadlines. So he would do those things even if it made him work harder. And as he got more senior, he had fewer deadlines, and he was able to thrive by just dealing with difficult problems. Now, he's known as one of the best leaders in his company.
So, you know, we're all wired differently. Part of it's genetics, part of it's how we were raised. And that affects how we react to things. Someone who loves skiing might be terrified of horses because they fell off one as a kid. Someone who gets distracted by their own thoughts might be totally fine with a noisy office.
If we all had the same gear personality, we wouldn't have survived, right? Some people need high-uncertainty jobs, and some people need low-uncertainty jobs. That's what's helped us deal with all sorts of challenges. Being calm when facing danger helped us deal with predators. And being happy with a slower pace of life helped us focus on, like, finding food. And, you know, wanting adventure and excitement led to expeditions to new places. And wanting quiet time helped us come up with, you know, math and science.
So, as the world changes, people with different gear personalities will adapt in different ways. Some will do great in a world with lots of information and uncertainty. But some people might find it really hard.
So, here's a quick way to get a rough idea of what your gear personality is, right? Lie in a quiet, dark room with your eyes closed for twenty minutes, either late in the morning or late in the afternoon, but not after you eat. And, you know, don't be super tired or have caffeine beforehand. If you fall asleep really fast, then you probably have a stiff gear personality. If you're not any more sleepy after twenty minutes, then you might have a springy gear. And most of us will feel drowsy by the end of twenty minutes. So, if that's you, then you're probably somewhere in the middle. You should probably do this a few times over a few days to get a better idea.