The above charts — taken from a recent Financial Times article by John Burn-Murdoch called "The troubling decline in conscientiousness" — should be viewed as alarming. For some of our key personality traits, it is showing a decline in extroversion for all age groups, a decline in agreeableness (except for the 60+ crowd), a spike in neuroticism (again, except for the 60+ crowd), and a massive decline in conscientiousness, particularly for young people aged 16-39.

Why does this matter?

Well, according to Burn-Murdoch's article (tweet summary here), the two strongest predictors for overall life success are conscientiousness and neuroticism. These traits are more important than a person's socio-economic background and raw cognitive abilities. They predict career success, the likelihood of getting a divorce, health and life expectancy, financial stability, and more.

Conscientiousness is defined as "the quality of wishing to do one's work or duty well and thoroughly." But simply speaking, conscientious people tend to dependable, disciplined, and committed. They are careful and deliberate, rather than careless and impulsive.

Neuroticism, on the other hand, is generally defined around emotional reactivity. Psychologists define it in terms of the degree that someone is prone to things like anxiety, self-doubt, and sadness. Someone with high neuroticism might, for example, feel easily stressed, worry excessively, and/or dwell on past mistakes. This trait predicts outcomes that run in the opposite direction of conscientiousness: lower career satisfaction, higher divorce rates, reduced life expectancy, and so on. It can also heighten risk perception, which makes neurotic people more likely to overlook potential opportunities.

So once again, it is alarming that these two traits are shifting meaningfully in the wrong directions for young people. Burn-Murdoch puts at least part of the blame on our hyper-connected and high-distraction digital lives. He also hypothesizes that AI could exacerbate this problem. If you're a high conscientious person you might use LLMs to supercharge your abilities; whereas if you're a low conscientious person you might use them to further check out.

The good news is that these traits can be trained. We are all products of our habits and environments. And I'm finding it personally helpful to even just write about these findings. It is also reminding me of a good friend of mine from grad school who used to always espouse something that he liked to call "casual intensity." His thinking was that you need to be on top of things and get shit done. But don't stress about it. Be confident in your abilities.

I think that's a good way to try and approach things.

I started a new French class his week. Most of my classmates are regulars, but since we have a new teacher, we were all asked to introduce ourselves. And to spice things up, we were asked to talk about whether we're glass half full or half empty kind of people.

When it came to my turn, and before I could answer, one of my classmates jumped in and said "Brandon est un optimiste." And you know what, this made me happy. I took it as a great compliment.

Because to be a real estate developer, I think you need to be an optimist. I have argued this before on the blog.

This is not to say that you don't need to carefully manage risk, and think about all of the things that can and probably will go wrong. It is say that the inertia working against you is so great, that you really need to believe in the future you are trying to create. If not, you're liable to not make it.

So this morning, when my partner Lucas showed me the below quote from Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman, I immediately thought, "yeah, this is going on the blog."

"If you are allowed one wish for your child, seriously consider wishing him or her optimism. Optimists are normally cheerful and happy, and therefore popular; they are resilient in adapting to failures and hardships, their chances of clinical depression are reduced, their immune system is stronger, they take better care of their health, they feel healthier than others and are in fact likely to live longer.
​
Optimistic individuals play a disproportionate role in shaping our lives. Their decisions make a difference; they are the inventors, the entrepreneurs, the political and military leaders – not average people. They got to where they are by seeking challenges and taking risks. They are talented and they have been lucky, almost certainly luckier than they acknowledge… the people who have the greatest influence on the lives of others are likely to be optimistic and overconfident, and to take more risks than they realize."

This excerpt is from Kahneman's book, Thinking, Fast and Slow. I haven't read it. But now I want to.

The above charts — taken from a recent Financial Times article by John Burn-Murdoch called "The troubling decline in conscientiousness" — should be viewed as alarming. For some of our key personality traits, it is showing a decline in extroversion for all age groups, a decline in agreeableness (except for the 60+ crowd), a spike in neuroticism (again, except for the 60+ crowd), and a massive decline in conscientiousness, particularly for young people aged 16-39.

Why does this matter?

Well, according to Burn-Murdoch's article (tweet summary here), the two strongest predictors for overall life success are conscientiousness and neuroticism. These traits are more important than a person's socio-economic background and raw cognitive abilities. They predict career success, the likelihood of getting a divorce, health and life expectancy, financial stability, and more.

Conscientiousness is defined as "the quality of wishing to do one's work or duty well and thoroughly." But simply speaking, conscientious people tend to dependable, disciplined, and committed. They are careful and deliberate, rather than careless and impulsive.

Neuroticism, on the other hand, is generally defined around emotional reactivity. Psychologists define it in terms of the degree that someone is prone to things like anxiety, self-doubt, and sadness. Someone with high neuroticism might, for example, feel easily stressed, worry excessively, and/or dwell on past mistakes. This trait predicts outcomes that run in the opposite direction of conscientiousness: lower career satisfaction, higher divorce rates, reduced life expectancy, and so on. It can also heighten risk perception, which makes neurotic people more likely to overlook potential opportunities.

So once again, it is alarming that these two traits are shifting meaningfully in the wrong directions for young people. Burn-Murdoch puts at least part of the blame on our hyper-connected and high-distraction digital lives. He also hypothesizes that AI could exacerbate this problem. If you're a high conscientious person you might use LLMs to supercharge your abilities; whereas if you're a low conscientious person you might use them to further check out.

The good news is that these traits can be trained. We are all products of our habits and environments. And I'm finding it personally helpful to even just write about these findings. It is also reminding me of a good friend of mine from grad school who used to always espouse something that he liked to call "casual intensity." His thinking was that you need to be on top of things and get shit done. But don't stress about it. Be confident in your abilities.

I think that's a good way to try and approach things.

I started a new French class his week. Most of my classmates are regulars, but since we have a new teacher, we were all asked to introduce ourselves. And to spice things up, we were asked to talk about whether we're glass half full or half empty kind of people.

When it came to my turn, and before I could answer, one of my classmates jumped in and said "Brandon est un optimiste." And you know what, this made me happy. I took it as a great compliment.

Because to be a real estate developer, I think you need to be an optimist. I have argued this before on the blog.

This is not to say that you don't need to carefully manage risk, and think about all of the things that can and probably will go wrong. It is say that the inertia working against you is so great, that you really need to believe in the future you are trying to create. If not, you're liable to not make it.

So this morning, when my partner Lucas showed me the below quote from Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman, I immediately thought, "yeah, this is going on the blog."

"If you are allowed one wish for your child, seriously consider wishing him or her optimism. Optimists are normally cheerful and happy, and therefore popular; they are resilient in adapting to failures and hardships, their chances of clinical depression are reduced, their immune system is stronger, they take better care of their health, they feel healthier than others and are in fact likely to live longer.
​
Optimistic individuals play a disproportionate role in shaping our lives. Their decisions make a difference; they are the inventors, the entrepreneurs, the political and military leaders – not average people. They got to where they are by seeking challenges and taking risks. They are talented and they have been lucky, almost certainly luckier than they acknowledge… the people who have the greatest influence on the lives of others are likely to be optimistic and overconfident, and to take more risks than they realize."

This excerpt is from Kahneman's book, Thinking, Fast and Slow. I haven't read it. But now I want to.