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Lessons - How Your Personality Drives Success | Gretchen Rubin - Happiness Expert · Success Story with Scott Clary

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  In this lessons episode, discover the four tendencies framework that illuminates how responses to expectations shape behavior.
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  Learn why identifying whether one is an upholder, questioner, a bliger, or rebel is vital for self-awareness,
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  and understand how this insight empowers better decision-making and personal growth.
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  What, uh, okay, so let's, let's go back to four tendencies. First of all, before we even get there,
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  why do these tendencies come up? Where do they come from? Okay. I created them because, so I was
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  working on my book about how to change, and I started seeing patterns emerge that I couldn't
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  explain. Like, certain people would say, like, exactly the same thing and exactly the same words.
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  Like, people would say, well, I'll keep a nearest resolution when it, when I, when I think it's
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  important, but I wouldn't wait for January 1st because January 1st is an arbitrary date, and they
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  would always say that, arbitrary. And I was like, that's interesting because the fact that January
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  1st is an arbitrary date really doesn't bother me. So, but, to this class of people that's
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  clearly very important, but my big moment of revelation came when I was, my sister calls me a
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  happiness bully because if I think there's a way for you to get happier, I can't get insistent.
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  So I was drilling a friend about her happiness and her habits, and she said something that just
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  blew my mind. She said, because I'd heard many people say something like this. She said,
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  when I was in high school, I was on the track team, and I never mistracked practice. So why can't I go
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  running on my own now? So why? So I can come up with a lot of different theories, but why? And I
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  started thinking about that and all the arbitrary people, all these different patterns that I've
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  observed. And if I was sitting right here, right in this see where I'm talking to you this moment,
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  and it was like the word expectation just burst off the page to me, and I realized that the idea
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  of expectation, how we respond to expectations, whether we meet expectations, or whether we resist
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  expectations, has this huge consequence on our behavior, on how we form habits successfully,
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  or not successfully, and also many, many aspects of our life. And so that's what, and it took a
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  long time. I mean, that was just like the hardest intellectual undertaking. I remember because I,
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  you know, now I can see, oh, there are these four categories, and they fit together in a diamond
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  venn diagram, and it's super elegant. It's like the, it's like a, I feel like I, it was like
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  the periodic table of the elements, right? It's got this kind of the elegance of nature. But of course,
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  I didn't know that when I was coming up with that. I was like, are there a fallout? Maybe there
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  are six, like, actually, you're figuring out like, like, like, equals mc squared for the first time.
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  I suck it. That's exactly what it felt like. And then I remember like, when I saw how they all fit
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  to get, because I was trying to do a two by two, but it's actually an interlocking venn diagram.
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  And once I saw that, it was like every single at, like, example that I could think of all
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  bit in into these four categories. And it was so elegant. It's so straightforward. And the thing
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  is about the fork, the four tendencies, and the four tendencies are upholder, questioner,
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  obliger, or rebel. They are so obvious. Once you say that, once you hear them, you will see them
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  in the people around you. You can see them on TV. I can tell you the tendencies of the Game of Thrones
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  characters. I can do the characters on the office. They're mad men. They're, they're really
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  obvious to say, because these are just like deep, deep, just aspects of human nature. So anyway,
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  I'm super proud of you should be. That's impressive. I know. I sort of can't believe I figured it out.
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  Of course, I was terrified for like the first three. I was like, and surely I'm not the first
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  person to figure this out, right? So I was like, worry that I would find out that somebody else
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  had figured it out long before as far as I know. I'm the first person to figure this out.
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  So explain, explain people who have done, let's think of like a business,
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  a now like a disc profile, or like a Myers-Briggs, all these different like, all these.
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  So what is, what are those versus the four tendencies? What does the four tendency framework
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  show you about yourself that the other ones would not? You know, I think all the frameworks have
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  their own power, their own strength, their own vocabulary. They're all looking at human nature
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  in a little bit of a different way. But the four tendencies is it describes a very narrow aspect
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  of your nature, but a very significant aspect of your nature. And so, so I think it's more precise
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  because it's just more specific in what it's trying to explain. And yet what it explains
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  is very important. So I would say that is what I would say is different. And it's very predictive.
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  Like I can often say like, well, if you're a questioner, did you, did people say this to you when
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  you were in grade school? Do you have this kind of argument with your sweetheart? Do you run into
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  this kind of problem at work? Do you find yourself saying these words and people will often just
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  burst in laughing and say like, oh my, or like, I'll give a talk and everybody in the audience will
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  start pointing to one coworker and just like cracking up because they're so far. This is the person,
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  like we get it. Like here, here it's exhibit A, you know, because it's very easy to spot.
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  Whereas I think something like the, you know, Myers-Briggs, you're kind of like, well, I'm a little bit
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  of this. I'm a little bit of that. Maybe I'm that. It's kind of, yeah, I don't know, I can, I can get
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  there, but they're all valuable. I think it, because they help us with self, with self knowledge.
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  But I think that's, I think that's really the goal, right? Like I think, first of all,
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  if you even know what any of these tests are good for you, because that's already a level of
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  self awareness that I don't even think enough people pay attention to. I knew of these tests,
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  I mean, disk is a very common hiring test, right? Now people use Myers-Briggs as well. But I think
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  that just having these tools at your disposal and being able to look inside and understand how you
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  operate in this world is very important. It's so powerful, because you're not leaving life to
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  chance. You know exactly what, what scenarios you should be putting yourself in or moving yourself
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  from who you can work with, how you operate, how you work, what stresses you out, what makes you
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  happy, what makes you not so happy. I think these are great tools. I mean, so I want you to, I want
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  you to just sort of walk through if you can, like the four tendencies, what, what they are at a high
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  level. So people can start to wrap their mind around and they're going to listen to, oh, that's me,
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  that's me, that's not me, it's all on you. Yeah, listen to all four of you before you decide what
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  you are. So like I'm going to describe it and the truth is most people will know exactly what they
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  are from this brief description. But if you want to take a quiz that will spit out and answer and
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  give you a report, you can go to GretchenRubin.com slash quiz again, like three million people are
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  taking this quiz, it's free. But again, I'll just describe it briefly and most people will know what
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  they are. And I will say this, be honest, because sometimes people sort of answer the way they
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  wish they were. But this is all of these tendencies have include people who are wildly successful and
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  also people who struggle. They all have strengths and weaknesses. So, you know, be honest. Okay, so what
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  the four tendencies looks at is how you respond to expectations and we all face two kinds of expectations.
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  Outer expectations like a work deadline, an inner expectation like a request from a
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  no, like a work deadline, an inner expectation like your own desire to keep a new year's resolution.
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  So depending on whether you meet or resist, outer and inner expectations, that's what makes you
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  an upholder, a questioner, and a blager or a rebel. So, upholders are people who readily meet
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  both outer and inner expectations. So, they meet the work deadline, they keep the new year's
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  resolution without much fuss. They're very focused on execution, they love schedules and to do
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  this. They don't need a lot of supervision. They're very disciplined. They once they make up their
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  mind to do something, they'll do it. They tend to love like reviewing rules. So their motto is
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  discipline is my freedom. Then there are questioners, who has
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  dinners? Who has general expectations? They'll do something if they think it makes sense. So,
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  they're making everything an inner expectation. If something makes sense to them, they'll do it no
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  problem. If it doesn't make sense to them, they will push back. So, they love customization.
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  They love reason. They're always asking for more justification. They can sometimes, in fact,
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  suffer from analysis paralysis when their desire for perfect information makes it hard for them to
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  make a decision or move forward. Strangely, a lot of times, questioners don't like the answer
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  questions. Funnily enough, they like to teach, but they don't like to be questioned themselves.
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  Ironic for true. I'm married to a questioner. I experienced this myself. So, their motto is,
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  I'll comply if you convince me why. Then there are obligers. Obligers is the biggest
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  tendency for both men and women. You either aren't obliger or you have many obligers in your life,
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  so obliger needs a lot of attention because it's big category. Obligers readily meet
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  outer expectations, but they struggle to meet inner expectations. So, these are the people who say
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  things like, why can I keep my promises to other people, but I can't keep my promises to myself?
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  This is my friend on the track team. When she had a team and a coach waiting for her,
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  she showed up with no problem, but when she was trying to go on her own, she struggled. These
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  are people who talk about the problem of self-care. These are people who talk about why can't I make
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  myself a priority? The solution, and it's a very simple solution for an obliger, is even to meet
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  an inner expectation, and a obliger must have a system of outer accountability. If you want to
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  read more, join a book group. If you want to exercise, work out with a friend who's going to be
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  annoyed if you don't show up, pay a trainer, take your dog for a run who's going to be disappointed if
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  she doesn't get to go for a run, raise money for a charity that's important to you, think about
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  your duty to be a role model to other people. There's a lot of ways to have outer accountability,
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  but it has to be a form of outer accountability, even for an inner expectations. That's just
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  what works for obligers. The one thing is spouses and sweethearts often don't make good
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  accountability partners for a very romantic reason. It's like, oh, honey, I'm so close to you
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  that you're like me, and so I'm going to ignore you just the way I would ignore me.
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  So you got to get that outer accountability if you were an obliger. Then the smallest
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  tendency is the rebel. It's a conspicuous tendency, but this is the one that the fewest people fall
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  into. Rebels resist outer and inner expectations alike. They want to do what they want to do in their
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  own way and in their own time. They can do anything they want to do, anything they choose to do,
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  but if you ask them to do something there, very likely to resist, and typically they don't tell
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  themselves what to do, like they don't sign up for the 10 a.m. spin class on Saturday because they
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  think, I don't want to put something on my calendar, and just the idea that somebody's expecting
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  me to show up is going to annoy me. So their motto is, you can't make me, and either can I.
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  And I will say this as you're thinking about this, if you're thinking to yourself,
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  I question the validity of this framework. You're probably a questioner. And also, if you
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  were thinking to yourself, I fit all four categories, I'm equally all four. That is also a questioner,
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  because what you're doing is you're saying, well, if it's appropriate to act like a rebel,
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  I'll act like a rebel, but if it's appropriate to act like an appolder, I'll act like an appolder,
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  because you're saying, why would I act that way? That is a big sign of questioner. A pulleders,
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  obligers and rebels recognize they are firmly in that tendency. So if you're not sure,
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  that's the sign of questioner. Is there is there benefit to trying or is it even possible
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  to change your category if you recognize who you are? Well, I don't think so. I don't think you
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  can change your tent. I'm a firm believer in the genetic roots of personality, and I really think
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  that this is something that's hardwired, but also I don't know why you don't need to change
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  your tendency, because every tendency has strengths and weaknesses. And if you're experiencing
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  like a downside or limitation of your tendency, rather than trying to change your inner nature,
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  which is very hard if even possible, it's like fix the problem. So if you're in a blight,
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  like a blight, you're supposed to say, well, I want to be an appolder because I want to exercise
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  regularly. I'm like, well, you don't have to be an appolder to do that. You just have to have
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  outer accountability to do that. So you understand the levers that you pull in this particular circumstance.
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  Right. You just have to like use what you know about your tendency to get to achieve your aim for
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  yourself, because that's much more straightforward. I'm like, that's the easy solution, which is just
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  like, get what you want. Don't try to change your whole personality, because that's like,
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  is that even possible? And like, that's not even what you want. You want to achieve certain
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  as certain aim for yourself. And you think, well, if I were a different tendency, it would be easier.
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  Well, you just fix it for your tendency, because all these tendencies have strengths and weaknesses.
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  Why? How does expectation play such a big role in how we go through life?
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  Just part of life. I mean, that's part of if you're a work, you're surrounded by expectations,
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  and it just weighs on us. It just weighs on us if forces are handed. Of course, I mean, a light
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  of that expectations would be a life of meaninglessness, because it would mean nobody's counting on you
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  for anything. I can't even imagine what that would be. Thanks for tuning in. If you found this
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  valuable, don't forget to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode. And if you want
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  to dive deeper into this conversation, check out the links in the description to watch the full
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  episode. See you in the next one.