{"id":281,"date":"2025-07-07T20:13:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-07T15:13:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sagadenov.com\/?p=281"},"modified":"2025-07-07T20:46:58","modified_gmt":"2025-07-07T15:46:58","slug":"the-engineering-model-of-personality-changing-yourself-and-others-by-understanding-the-system-by-mikhail-tsepkov","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sagadenov.com\/?p=281","title":{"rendered":"The Engineering Model of Personality: Changing Yourself and Others \u2014 Understanding the Structure by Mikhail Tsepkov"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Mikhail Tsepkov invites you to look at yourself and your personality as something like a complex mechanism or program. Not just a set of traits, but a system that can be understood, studied, and \u2014 most importantly changed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>&#8220;Emotional markers are a way to remember immediately.<br>The level of the inner &#8216;kitten&#8217; is responsible not only for emotional reactions<br>but also for the mechanism of emotional markers, by which even a single experience can be remembered for a long time.<br>This is ensured by the work of the hippocampus \u2014 the only area of the brain<br>where new neurons actively grow throughout life.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>This is the main idea in Tsepkov&#8217;s model: emotions play a crucial role in how our brain records and retains experiences. The &#8220;kitten&#8221; represents the emotional center that creates these emotional markers, which help transform fleeting experiences into lasting memories. The hippocampus, a brain region essential for memory formation and learning, is unique in its ability to generate new neurons even in adulthood, supporting the brain&#8217;s plasticity and our capacity to adapt and change. This explains why emotional context is key to habit formation and personal transformation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He divides our inner life into three main parts:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>The Crocodile<\/strong> \u2014 our basic instincts and habits that often operate automatically and unconsciously. This is the ancient part of the brain responsible for survival and quick reactions.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>The Kitten (Cat)<\/strong> \u2014 emotions, feelings, motivation. What makes us happy, afraid, angry, and helps us make decisions on the emotional level.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>The Little Human<\/strong> \u2014 our mind, awareness, what thinks, analyzes, and makes conscious decisions.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Understanding how these parts interact allows you to manage yourself: change harmful habits, control emotions, and set the right goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Key ideas<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Habits are not just actions but links between actions and emotions.<\/strong> To change a habit, you need not only to do something differently but also to feel something new and pleasant in the moment of replacement.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Awareness is the ability to notice what\u2019s happening inside and not react automatically.<\/strong> When you become aware of your thoughts and emotions, you gain a choice in how to respond.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Motivation is not just a desire but a chain of goals and values that truly ignite you.<\/strong> If the goal is unclear or not yours, you will quickly get tired and give up.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Other people are complex systems too.<\/strong> To better understand and influence them, it helps to think about what is important to them now and what drives them.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Memory and emotions are connected:<\/strong> habits are consolidated thanks to emotional experiences. The stronger the emotion, the deeper the habit is \u201crecorded\u201d in the subconscious.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Neurons and connections:<\/strong> frequently repeated thoughts and actions form stable neural connections \u2014 this is your behavioral \u201cprogram.\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Brain energy is limited.<\/strong> Conscious thinking consumes a lot of resources, so it\u2019s important to conserve energy, delegate routine, and not try to control everything at once.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">How to apply these ideas in practice?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Change habits through emotions<\/strong><br>Say you want to stop eating sweets after dinner. Simply telling yourself \u201cI won\u2019t eat\u201d often doesn\u2019t help. But if you replace the habit with something pleasant \u2014 like drinking herbal tea and feeling relaxed \u2014 your brain will form a new positive association. Repeat regularly to cement the new habit.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Learn to manage emotions<\/strong><br>When you feel anger or anxiety, don\u2019t suppress or ignore it. Instead, say to yourself aloud or internally: \u201cI\u2019m angry,\u201d or \u201cI\u2019m scared.\u201d Take a deep breath, step back a bit, or shift your attention to something else \u2014 then the emotion will stop controlling you. Use breathing, movement, or changing your environment to reduce emotional tension.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Set real goals<\/strong><br>Goals should be clear and personal. Not \u201cI want to lose weight,\u201d but \u201cI want to feel light and energetic to play with my kids.\u201d Understanding why you want this creates motivation that helps you move forward. Ask yourself: \u201cWhy is this important?\u201d, \u201cWhat will I gain?\u201d, \u201cWhich values does this goal support?\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Develop awareness<\/strong><br>Keeping a journal \u2014 writing down your thoughts and feelings in different situations \u2014 helps you notice recurring patterns and how they affect your behavior. Learn to pause before reacting, so you choose your response rather than act out of habit. Awareness is the \u201cobserver\u201d inside you that helps you choose reactions and avoid autopilot traps.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Understand other people<\/strong><br>When communicating, try to imagine what is important to the other person right now. What worries them? What motivates their actions? This helps find common ground and avoid unnecessary conflicts. Remember everyone has their own perception filters and emotional triggers \u2014 take them into account.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Conserve energy and avoid overload<\/strong><br>Don\u2019t try to control everything or think constantly. Automate simple tasks, delegate what you can, and make sure to rest \u2014 the brain recovers when you switch to something else. Use planning techniques to reduce the load on your \u201clittle human.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Additional useful insights from the book<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Psychological models are tools, not dogmas.<\/strong> MBTI, DISC, Spiral Dynamics, and others are \u201cmaps\u201d that help understand yourself and others but don\u2019t replace reality.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Internal conflicts arise from level struggles:<\/strong> sometimes the \u201ccrocodile\u201d and \u201ckitten\u201d resist the \u201clittle human,\u201d and that\u2019s normal. Change takes time and patience.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Emotional intelligence can be trained.<\/strong> The better you understand and manage your emotions, the more effective you become in life and communication.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>The brain is adaptive and plastic.<\/strong> It can and should be trained by creating new useful neural connections.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>The engineer metaphor:<\/strong> you are the designer of your life. Don\u2019t expect instant changes; work systematically, step by step.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mikhail Tsepkov invites you to look at yourself and your personality as something like a complex mechanism or program. Not just a set of traits, but a system that can be understood, studied, and \u2014 most importantly changed. &#8220;Emotional markers are a way to remember immediately.The level of the inner &#8216;kitten&#8217; is responsible not only [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-about-my-read-books"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sagadenov.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sagadenov.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sagadenov.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sagadenov.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sagadenov.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=281"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sagadenov.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":291,"href":"https:\/\/sagadenov.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281\/revisions\/291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sagadenov.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sagadenov.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sagadenov.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}