Latest / Hurdle with Emily Abbate / REWIND: Gretchen Rubin, Best-Selling Author

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REWIND: Gretchen Rubin, Best-Selling Author · Hurdle with Emily Abbate

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: If I had to pick one thing for being happier,
• 0:01
  Speaker 1: I would say anything. If you're trying to figure out
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: what to do with your time, energy, or money, anything
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: that goes to relationships is something that's likely to make
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: you happier, and it'll make you feel more supported, and
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: it will also make you feel like you're better able
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: to support others, and that is also a tremendous source
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: of happiness. One of the best ways to make yourself
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: happier is to make other people happier, and one of
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: the best ways to make other people happier is to
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  Speaker 1: be happier yourself.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: Hey everyone, Emily Abadi here, Welcome to rewind on Hurdle
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: five days of episodes from the Hurdle Vault. I cannot
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  Speaker 2: even tell you how often I get requests for interviews
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: with some of the amazing, amazing people that I have
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: already had the privilege of sitting down with, and sometimes
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  Speaker 2: I'm able to do a round around three. But that
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: is what this week is all about. It's me bringing
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  Speaker 2: you some of my favorite conversations back to the top
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: of the feed from the last five years.
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: Now. I'll be honest, it's.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: Easy for me to forget that there are new people
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  Speaker 2: joining the Hurdle community every single week, which means that
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  Speaker 2: there is a lot of content to catch up on
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  Speaker 2: helping everyone on their journey to live happier, healthier, more
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  Speaker 2: motivated lives. Today you will be hearing from best selling
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: author Gretchen Rubin. This conversation originally aired in September of
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: twenty twenty one. Make sure you're following along with Hurdle
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: over on social and is at Hurdle Podcast. I am
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: Oliver at Emily a Body and with that, let's rewind.
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: Let's get to hurdling today.
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: I'm sitting down with Gretchen Rubin. I feel like she
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: needs no introduction, but you may all know of her
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: from her slew of blockbuster titles New York Times bestsellers.
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  Speaker 2: I'm talking better than before the Happiness Project, the Four Tendencies,
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  Speaker 2: also podcaster behind Happier Gretchen Rubin, how are we?
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  Speaker 1: I'm so happy to be talking to you.
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  Speaker 2: I hope this brings you happiness. I hope we're both
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  Speaker 2: working on our happiness together.
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  Speaker 1: Absolutely now, I'm really looking forward to the conversation. I
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: know we're interested in so many of the same things
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  Speaker 1: we are.
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  Speaker 2: We are and I also know that we have a
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: mutual interest in I'm just gonna throw this out here,
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: the word juj.
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  Speaker 1: This I for the very first time it came out
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  Speaker 1: of my mouth, and I was like, wait, what, you
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: know what just happened? I didn't even know how to
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: spell it. I'm like, how did I use it? It's
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: this is how culture happens, right, like how you pick
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: these things up without even realizing it. And then it's
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: like it's to like make something look a little more
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: attractive by making like a slight change. And I was like,
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  Speaker 1: I even used it correctly in a sentence, just like
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: in the fourth grade spelling test.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, now, I love Josh is obscenely difficult to spell.
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  Speaker 3: Let it be known.
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  Speaker 2: I'm gonna correctly spell it for the hurdlers who may
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: want to write it down use it in their own sentence.
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  Speaker 3: Z h U z H. Who came up with that?
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  Speaker 2: Just like it sounds anyway? Also, we just need to,
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: you know, double click on this for a second. You
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  Speaker 2: recently spoke with my dear friend Liz Plosser.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, indeed, Wow, small world.
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: Small small world. She was recently on the show.
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  Speaker 2: This is actually my former boss from when I worked
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: at Self magazine. It's been quite some time since since
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: those days, but so excited for her and her new book,
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: Own Your Morning and love to see when all of
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: the circles kind of overlap in the good work that we're.
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  Speaker 3: Both trying to do.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's so fun.
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  Speaker 2: So, Gretchen Rubin, I mean again, like I said, I
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  Speaker 2: feel like you need no introduction. But in order for
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: us to get to a lot of the topics that
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  Speaker 2: we want to talk about, talking about career pivoting and
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  Speaker 2: how people can take steps to be happy in this
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  Speaker 2: quote unquote new version of normal, I think it's really
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  Speaker 2: helpful if we do a little bit of a backstory dive.
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  Speaker 2: So why don't we talk a little bit about how
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  Speaker 2: you got into being the person that people think about
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  Speaker 2: when they want to talk about getting happier.
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  Speaker 1: Well, it was kind of a multi step process. I
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  Speaker 1: started my career in law, and I was actually clerking
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  Speaker 1: for Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme
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  Speaker 1: Court when I got an idea that ended up turning
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  Speaker 1: out to be my first book. But at that time,
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  Speaker 1: I didn't foresee myself becoming a writer. I didn't even
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  Speaker 1: know that I was researching a book. I just one
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  Speaker 1: of the things that's true about me, and it's been
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  Speaker 1: true my whole life is I'll get very interested in
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  Speaker 1: a subject, and I'll do a ton of reading and researching,
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  Speaker 1: and I'll take a lot of notes. That's just sort
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  Speaker 1: of my thing. So I I was out of my
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: lunch break one day, I was walking around the Capitol
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  Speaker 1: and I thought, what am I interested in that everybody
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  Speaker 1: in the world is interested. It's just like a hypothetical
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  Speaker 1: question for me. And I thought, well, power, money, fame, sex.
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  Speaker 1: And it was like power, money, fame sex. And I
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  Speaker 1: instantly just started researching and researching and researching what seemed
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: to me to be like these very linked ideas. And
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: so this was familiar to me to kind of get
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: preoccupied with an idea and really go deep into it.
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  Speaker 1: But this just got bigger and bigger and bigger, and
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: so at a certain point I thought, well, this is
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: the kind of thing a person would be doing if
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  Speaker 1: they were going to write a book. And then I thought, well,
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  Speaker 1: maybe I could write that book. And I went to
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: a bookstore and got a book called something like How
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: to Write and Sell Your Nonfiction Book Proposal, and I
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  Speaker 1: followed the Directions and Power Many Fame. Sex was indeed
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: my first book. A lot of people think that The
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: Happiness Project was my first book, and like many people,
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  Speaker 1: I was an overnight sensation ten yere after ten years
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  Speaker 1: of and so actually The Happiness Project was my fourth book.
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  Speaker 1: So I wrote my first book that I wrote a
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  Speaker 1: biography of Winston Churchill and a biography of John F. Kennedy,
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  Speaker 1: and I wrote a sort of a strange art book
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  Speaker 1: called Profane Waste. And then one day I thought, what
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  Speaker 1: do I want from life? Anyway? I want to be happy,
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  Speaker 1: but I don't spend any time thinking about how I
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  Speaker 1: can be happier or if you can make yourself happier.
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  Speaker 1: Then I got very preoccupied with that question, went to
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  Speaker 1: the running to the library, I got a giant stack
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  Speaker 1: of books, started researching happiness. And then one day it
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  Speaker 1: occurred to me, well, I've just been doing this for myself,
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  Speaker 1: but maybe this should be my next book, my Happiness Project,
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  Speaker 1: And that's how I turn my attention into happiness and
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  Speaker 1: good habits and all the things that flow from the
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  Speaker 1: larger subject of happiness.
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  Speaker 3: Wow.
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  Speaker 2: So I mean, the first question I have is did
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  Speaker 2: you grow up being a super inquisitive person, because it
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  Speaker 2: seems as though this is the kind of behavior that
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  Speaker 2: someone would need to see modeled to kind of act
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  Speaker 2: on it and feel comfortable saying, like, you know what
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  Speaker 2: I'm going to do.
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  Speaker 3: I'm going to do X. Like it seems like you
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  Speaker 3: were so sure in your steps.
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  Speaker 1: Well, I was a huge reader. I mean I've been
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  Speaker 1: a huge reader my whole life, and I majored in English,
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  Speaker 1: and so I did a lot of things that a
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  Speaker 1: person would do. And actually going to law school, there's
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  Speaker 1: a lot you have to unlearn about writing if you're
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  Speaker 1: trained as a lawyer. But there's a lot of good
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  Speaker 1: things that you learn about writing and logical argument and
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  Speaker 1: research from being a lawyer. I didn't have a model
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  Speaker 1: for this, And it's funny you mentioned I have a podcast,
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  Speaker 1: Happier with Gretchen Rubin. My co host is my sister,
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  Speaker 1: Elizabeth Kraft. She's five years younger than I am, and
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: now she's a showrunner and TV producer in Hollywood, so
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  Speaker 1: she's a TV writer. But right out of college she
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  Speaker 1: started writing kind of pulp fiction for teenagers. And so
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  Speaker 1: even though I was five years older, she was really
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  Speaker 1: a model for me of someone who was a professional writer.
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  Speaker 1: That was her job was to write, and at that time,
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  Speaker 1: as funny as it is for me now to think
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  Speaker 1: of this, at that time I didn't know anybody who
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  Speaker 1: wrote books, and so it was very helpful for me
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  Speaker 1: to be like, well, Elizabeth is doing this in a
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  Speaker 1: different way, but you know, same deal. I think that
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  Speaker 1: was very helpful for me to imagine myself moving forward
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  Speaker 1: like that.
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  Speaker 3: So so special.
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  Speaker 2: And then you mentioned obviously clerking and being in Washington,
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  Speaker 2: DC a huge career pivot to go from that trajectory
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  Speaker 2: to deciding, you know what I'm going to write. So
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  Speaker 2: talk to me about perhaps some of the hesitancy, if any,
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  Speaker 2: that you had during that period, and advice that you'd
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  Speaker 2: give for someone else who's interested in making a career
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  Speaker 2: pivot of their own.
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  Speaker 1: Well, you know, it's one of these things where you
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: put one foot in front of the other until looking
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: back it seems like much more not dramatic, but it's
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: more and more abrupt because at the time I was like, well,
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  Speaker 1: why don't I get this book? And like what does
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  Speaker 1: it take? Well, and then I'm like, oh, I guess
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  Speaker 1: I would need to get an agent. How does a
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: person get an agent? You know it put step by step.
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  Speaker 1: So I think one thing is to take it step
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: by step and don't expect yourself to get from A
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: to Z overnight. But I did have a moment where
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  Speaker 1: I was starting to think about this and and I,
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  Speaker 1: you know, and I thought, this, if there was ever
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  Speaker 1: a time when my clerkship comes to an end, And
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: I had taken another really cool job at the Federal
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: Communications Commission, but it was also it was short, and
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: it was also coming to an end. It was like,
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: this is my opening, Like if I'm ever going to
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: take this risk, now is the time to try, because
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: I have this sort of natural opening, And it occurred
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: to me, you know, at this point, I would rather
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: fail as a writer than succeed as a lawyer. This
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: is my time to either succeed or fail. And one
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: of the things about not trying is then you don't
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: risk failure, but then you can't succeed. And I was like,
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: I want to just if I'm going to fail, I
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: want to just like fail and move on. I didn't
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: like sort of being in this liminal state where like
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: where I was sort of neither one thing or the other.
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: And so one thing I would say to people is
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: to like move forward, you know, take steps forward. And
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: a question that I often ask myself when you're sort
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: of like, well should I do this or not? You know,
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: sometimes sometimes it can feel very hard to decide even
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: how to think about a choice that you're facing. I
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: often say to myself, choose the bigger life, and only
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: you know what the bigger life is for you, and
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: different people could have it, you know, the bigger life
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  Speaker 1: for someone and what else would have been a legal career, absolutely,
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  Speaker 1: But when I framed the question for myself that way,
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  Speaker 1: it was obvious to me that if I could make
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: a go of it, the bigger life was to be
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  Speaker 1: the life of to have the life of a writer.
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: And so that's kind of clarifying because sometimes I don't
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: know about you, but like my pros and cons lists
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: are often very evenly balanced, and I'm like, I can't
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: reason my way out of this decision, you know. It's
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: like I can't do it on the on the facts
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: and the numbers. I have to find a way to
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: try to plum my plumb my depths, and that's hard.
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  Speaker 2: And I mean this idea of I would rather be
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  Speaker 2: happy trying something that's unknown versus un happy in you know,
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: the comfortable. I think that so many struggle from leaving
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  Speaker 2: you know, that place of comfort to go towards something
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: else that they want.
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  Speaker 1: Well, but here's the thing about being happy, I think
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: sometimes and I couldn't say this if I were a scientist,
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: but happiness does not always make us feel happy. And
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: so if you say like, I'll be happy if I
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: give up my legal job and try writing, well, you're
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: not probably going to feel very happy. You're probably going
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: to feel insecure and anxious and kind of like uninformed
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: and out of your depth. And everybody knows what's going on,
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: and everybody got the secret memo and what happened to
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: me when I felt like I was on the top
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: of my game and I knew what I was doing.
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  Speaker 1: It might not make you feel happy, like in terms
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: of like, oh I feel good right now. It's more
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: it's a it's a kind of happiness that's more like
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: I'm living up to the life that I want for myself,
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: and that is often very painful.
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  Speaker 2: But I mean as someone and I think that you
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: and I kind of operate in the same way. From
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  Speaker 2: a bit I know about you and from listening to
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: you there's so much thrill in like hunting your own
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: potential when you're willing to take that leap, right, But.
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  Speaker 1: Some people don't like thrills. I don't know that I'm
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: a person who's thrill seeking or adventure seeking, you know.
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: I just think sometimes you do something because you know
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: it's what you want, and you just sort of accept
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: that sometimes things just maybe just don't feel that good,
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: like as they're unfolding for a while. I think for
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: some people it does, and it's really exciting and fun.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: I happen not to be one of those kinds of people,
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: but that doesn't mean it has to stop you from
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: going after what you want.
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: So for you, in those first maybe months or a
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: couple of years after making this pivot, what would you
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: say were the biggest hurdles for you?
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: Well, the biggest hurdles was does I didn't know what
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: to do? You know, I had a book, and I'm
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: the kind of person who's really good at like taking
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: a book and following directions. But it's one thing to
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: read like a paragraph in a book and it's like
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: you know, and another thing to turn that into into action.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: And so part of it was just I was entering
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: an entirely new field, and so I had to try
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: to become more knowledgeable about I mean, I knew tons
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: and tons about literature and books and reading, but I
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: didn't know about the book industry. And so one of
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: the things I would say to anybody is really educate
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: yourself on Like, if you want to have a job
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: in that industry, you have to think about, like, well,
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: how does that industry work? What's everybody in that If
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: you were in that field, what would be the big
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: news that you would be talking about? How do people
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: think about things? Like One mistake I see a lot
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: of new writers making is they think what people care
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: about is how how intensely I want to write or
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: how deeply committed I am to my subject. But you see,
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: if you're an agent or an editor, what you really
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: worry about is is there an audience for this book?
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: Are people going to be excited to read this book?
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: Are you a person who can actually complete this book?
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: So they're thinking about different things. Both of those things
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: are important, but I think sometimes people don't. You know,
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: you have to think about, well, how do I fit
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: my If I want this to be my fashion, how
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: do I think about this in terms of doing it professionally,
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: because there's some things that you do that you love
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: to do that you wouldn't do professionally. But then sometimes
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: maybe you want to think about you know, it's like
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: if you were love to do photography and then you're like,
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: now I want to switch to be a wedding photographer. Well,
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: now you have a whole bunch of new skills that
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: you need, which you can get, but you start needing
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: to think about what's the business of being a wedding photographer,
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: not just like ooh, maybe i'll put another tree in
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: the foreground. It's like, yeah, that's still important, but there's
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: this other thing too.
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: There's this other thing too.
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: And then in this I'm curious to know if you
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: struggled with the idea of feeling like you weren't doing
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: enough while you were trying to figure it out.
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: I mean I was always trying to do more. I
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: was always trying to do whatever whatever I could. So yeah,
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: I think I did have the feeling like is there more?
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: Is there more? What should I be doing? Sometimes it's
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: painful to be like I would do more, but I
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: don't know what to do, you know. I think that's
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: also very frustrating when you think I want to go
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: the extra mile, but I don't even know what direction
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: to go in, Which is why I think getting as
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: educated as you can be kind of can help you
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: manage that kind of anxiety, because the more you know,
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: the more you're like, oh, I see what I could
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: do that would be a good use of my time
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: and my energy, and I see the things that I
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: don't need to worry about. You know, the more the
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: more the more you bring to it, the more you
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: can get from it.
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: And I know in writing The Happiness Project you talked
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: about not necessarily at all becoming an overnight success, but
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: maybe it looking that way. I know, in writing The
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: Happiness Project you did something that a lot of authors
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: don't conventionally do, which is draft a lot of this
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: book about the whole book before really signing a book deal.
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: Correct, Yes, so talk to me about that process.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: Well, this has happened to me more than more than once.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: I will say that where I can't really dis like
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: when you're trying to get somebody to buy a book,
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: and you know, get excited about a book, you have
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: to explain what it is, and you have to do
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: the whole elevator pitch where you can really sum it
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: up and crisply convey it. And a lot of times
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: I'm sort of like, I don't think I can really
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: explain it until I've written it. I don't know what
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: I think until I write it, and I don't know
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: what to think. And by the time I know what
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: I think, the book will be written, and so I
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: have a hard time kind of knowing what I think
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: in advance. I think some people know very very well
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: what they think and then they're just writing what they think,
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: whereas a lot of times I'm sort of trying to
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: figure out and I'm often very surprised by what I find.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: I often find things that I didn't expect to find,
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: or things that I thought were true weren't true. So well,
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: like my book Better Than Before is all about it
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: have it change how we can make or break our habits.
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: That book, I was able to explain what it would be,
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: but I didn't even because I could describe it, even
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: though I didn't know the structure and exactly what my
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: conclusions would be. It's like, Okay, do you want to
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: learn how to master your habits? Because I'm going to
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: figure that out. But I certainly wouldn't have been able
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: to say, what's the framework that I'm going to use
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: to describe that answer because I took me. I had
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: to write a whole book before I really probably had
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: to write two books to get the one book to
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: decide what I thought.
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it makes sense, and especially because of
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: like the concept and the whole framework of the Happiness Project.
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: For those who may be unfamiliar, if there are any
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: listening to the pod, why don't you talk a little
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: bit about what the Happiness Project really is.
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: So it was a year long experiment that I did
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: on myself. I was my own guinea pig to try
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: to see, you know, is it possible to make yourself happier, healthier,
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: more productive, more creative? You know, what is happiness? Could
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: I make myself happier? And if I could make myself happier,
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: what would I do? And what would I try to adjust?
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: Or you know, what would I try to have more
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: of or less of? And so I figured that a
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: year was the kind of the right amount of time
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: for there to be real change, but it felt, you know, manageable,
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: and so I gave every month a theme related to happiness,
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: something that I wanted to work on, so it might
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: have been friendship or energy, and then I would give
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: myself a handful of concrete, manageable resolutions to try that
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: I thought help my happiness in that area. And so
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: it's very practical and very much like what can you
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: do tomorrow without spending a lot of time, energy, or money,
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: you know. So it's not like I'm going to go
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: on a three week silent meditation retreat, because I'm like,
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: I really have to have things that I can do
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: as part of my ordinary day, as part of my
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: ordinary routine. But it turns out that for me and
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: I and since the books come out, I've talked to
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: so many people, for most of us, there's a lot
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: of low hanging fruit. There's plenty of things that we
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: can do to move the needle, to make ourselves happier
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: within the context of our ordinary day, even if we're very,
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: very busy.
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: And I think that that's like what makes the whole
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: concept so accessible, right, I mean, you approached it in
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: such a way that the everyday person or someone who
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: you know relates to you can certainly go and create
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: their own happiness project of sorts. And in setting you know,
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: the themes, so to speak, are choosing each value for
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: every month. How did you settle on those twelve specifics.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: Well, that's a really interesting question because you know, I
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: picked the things where I thought I had the most
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: to gain in terms of happiness, but other people would
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: pick other things. So, for instance, I've never been a
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: person who's particularly inclined toward music, but for some people,
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: music is like an incredibly important element of their life.
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: And I've talked to many people where music what's a
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: whole theme. So they might have had, like their resolutions
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: might have had things like get back into practicing an instrument,
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: or learn a new instrument, or join a group or
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: a choir, or make an effort to listen to new
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: music consistently, or go to life concerts or you know,
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of things you can do if you
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: want to bring that into your life more. For me,
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: it didn't. It wasn't something that for me I wanted
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: to work on. And I would say that that's one
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: of the big things that I learned that surprised me
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: is that there that we all want different things, Like
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: we have different interests and aims and values, and we
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: all need to get there in a different way. Like
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: I love to do something very consistently. If it's important
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: to me, I try to do it every single day.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: For me, it's easier if something happens every single day.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: Other people want to feel more spontaneity. They want to
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: have a different kind of approach and there so there
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: is no magic, one size fits all solution. And it's
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: interesting because I've talked to so many people. I created.
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: I've created these new journals because I realized, like a
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: lot of people have the aim of, like I want
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: to keep a journal. That's a very very common resolution
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: that people have. Whether they want a journal because they
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: want reflection, or they want a journal because they want
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: to like track how many miles they've run in a day,
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: you know, they want to keep some kind of record
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: of their life. And I realize people are very different.
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: Some people want to don't break the chain where they
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: like check it off if they did it, and they
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: write down how many miles and then they have like
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: a little note where they write down all the different
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: roots they did or the different hikes they did, or
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: you know like that. And then some people want to
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: write one sentence every day. They don't want to keep
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: a traditional journal where they're writing a couple of pages.
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: That's too much work, so they want to write just
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: one sentence. That's a great way to keep a journal.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: There's you know, you don't have to Just because something
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: doesn't work for you as a method or a tool
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: doesn't mean that you've failed at an aim. It just
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: means like, Okay, well, is there a different way that
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: I could meet this aim? Because we have different aims
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: and we also have different styles.
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And I mean you're truly talking about the power
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: of habit right here. So for those that struggle to
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: create and maintain habits, they maybe get into something for
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: a week or two and then they fall off the bandwagon,
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: which can totally feel certainly discouraging. What helpful tools or
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: suggestions you have for them to get in the groove
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: and stay in the groove.
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: Right If you're trying, if you're struggling, as many people do,
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: to form a consistent habit, here's a couple things to
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: think about. I have a four tendency s framework that
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: divides people into upholder's questioners, obligers, and rebels. And if
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: you want to take a quiz and find out what
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: you are, you can go to Gretchen Reuben dot com
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: slash four tendencies and take a quick quiz there and
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: find it out and you get a little report on yourself.
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: It's very helpful. I'm being uphold there, Gretchen.
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: Oh, Emily, I knew that ten minutes in, and I
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: love it because I'm an upholder too, so we're on
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: the same life. But so anyway, so that's the quiz
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: if you want to find that out and understand what
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: it means to be an upholder. So it's all there.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: But what I will say, just sort of generally, even
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: if you don't know about those categories, is that for many,
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: many people, they really need outer accountability to meet an
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: inner expectation. So if you said your things said to yourself,
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: things like I always keep my promises to other people,
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: but I have trouble keeping my promises myself. I have
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: trouble making time for self care. I have trouble putting
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: myself first. I always give one hundred and ten percent
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: to my clients or my customers or my family, but
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: I don't have any time for me. Then what I
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: would say you need, I'm saying you're an obliger in
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: my framework and you need outer accountability even to meet
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: an inner expectation. So if you want to read more,
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: join a book group, if you want to go for
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: a run every day, go with a friend who's going
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: to be annoyed if you don't show up. You know,
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: work out with a train or at a gym, raise
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: money for a charity. You want to create a system
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: about our accountability. For some people, that is what is necessary.
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: So one thing to think about is like, do I
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: do better when I have accountability? Because some people do not.
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: Rebels in my framework often do not like to have accountability.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: They don't want somebody looking over their shoulder, they don't
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: want somebody knowing what they're doing or putting things on
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: the calendar particularly. But maybe you know about yourself like,
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: oh wow, I really do do better when I'm in
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: some kind of framework of accounability. So that's one thing
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: to think about, and another thing to think about. There
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: is just hilarious research showing how much more likely we
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: are to do something if it's even the teensiest, tiniest
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: bit more convenient. So I've talked to people who sleep
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: in their workout clothes so they don't have to get
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: dressed in the morning. There's this research showing that if
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: there's a salad bar and people have to use tongs
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: instead of spoons, they take less food because it's just
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: a little bit more effort to use tongues. So anything
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: you can do to shave off, if you can use
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: a hook instead of a hangar, if you can pay
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: a little bit more for a gym that's right across
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: the street from your office, you know, like when everything's
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: back to normal, then one that's like three blocks away.
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: Any little bit of convenience tends to make it easier,
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: and you can also use it on the opposite. Any
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: inconvenience makes it harder to do something. So I've talked
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: to people who wanted to watch less TV. They weren't
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: giving up TV, they wanted to watch less so they
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: put their remote control in a really inconvenient place so
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: they wouldn't just like, you know, be like, oh, I'll
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: just wander by and watch for five minutes because like, oh,
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: it's too much of a house to go get the remote,
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: you know. So anything you don't want yourself to do,
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: make that inconvenient, because a lot of times just that
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: little bit of friction is all you need. To kind
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: of turn your path, and that's when habits become automatic,
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: you know, effortless. There's no decision fatigue.
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: It's just it just happens, product of our environment.
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: It's interesting.
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: I feel like with one of the biggest habits, so
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: to speak, or journeys that I on when I was younger,
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: back in college, I lost a ton of weight with
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: the help of weight watchers. And for me, it was
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: never now obviously called WW. It was never about, really,
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: to be honest with you, using the WW plan, as
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: it was about the fact that I had to show
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: up somewhere on like Tuesday nights and get on a
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: scale in front of another person, and that accountability factor
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: was the thing that helped me stay on track. Now
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: these days, I would say I have a lot more
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: intrinsic motivation. I have progressed along my journey and you know,
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: done my fair share of study reading and book reading
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: and talking and reflecting. And so it's interesting though, because
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: these different you know, archetypes, are these different types of
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: people or types of habit formation. You might be one
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: way for one thing and find that it's a little
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: bit different for something else.
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, it's interesting kind of along those lines. Another
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: distinction that I found when I was studying habits as
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: substainers and moderators, And this is when you're facing a
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: strong temptation, not a weak temptation, a strong temptation. So like,
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: I have a really really strong sweet tooth. And what
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: I found is that if you're an abstainer like me,
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: it's easier to have none, it's easier to give it
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: up altogether, than it is to have a little bit.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: And so I could never understand, like, oh, I just
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: have one little square at fine Chocolate and that's all
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: I need. Who doesn't have half of brownie? That's all
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: you want? I'm like, the minute I have half, I
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: want three.
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: Yeoh same.
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: But moderators are different. They're the kind of people that
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: want the one square. They do better when they have
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: a little bit when they have it sometimes and they
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: get kind of panicky and rebellious if they're told they
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: can never have anything. And so, and like, I'm a
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: moderator when it comes to something like wine. I don't
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: really care about wine, so I can have half a
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: glass of wine. Whereas a friend of mine said, it's
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: none or four glasses. There is no in between. For me.
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: So's so you might be an abstainer about one kind
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: of temptation, but then other things you're like, eeah, it
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: doesn't really matter. But when I realized that I'm an abstainer,
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: because all these moderators were like clearly sincerely giving me
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: the advice that obviously didn't work for me, and I,
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: as an abstainer, was like say to think people like
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: why don't you just give it up cold turkey? Why
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: do you keep breaking the rules? Like just like just
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: get it off your plate. And then finally I realize
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: there's no one right way, there's no one best way.
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: It's just whatever is better for you, And moderators don't
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: understand that for an abstainer like me, abstaining is easier.
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: It's the easier way. And it's hard for me to
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: understand that for a moderator that's easier. It's kind of
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: hard to put yourself in somebody else's shoes. But once
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: you realize like people are different, like, oh, I'm married
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: to somebody who's a moderator, but I'm an abstainer, So
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: now it's not about convincing someone else that I'm right.
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: It's about how do we create a situation where we
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: both thrive.
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: And that's such an important question. Right.
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: My father's the kind of guy that can keep like
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: six different flavors of ice creams in the freezer. Well
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: I'm sure some of them like have been in there,
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: no offend, but like maybe.
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: For a year, like the covered with the crystals, and
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: you're like, how does this happen? Now?
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: Does it?
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: I wouldn't say that way in my home, not at
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: all because again going back to what we were just
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: talking about a product of our environment.
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: But see, for a moderator, it doesn't bother them, whereas
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: like for an abstainer, it calls to you. You're like,
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: there's one just one bite, just two more bites, half
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: a bite of each flavor. You know what I mean.
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: It's Monday, it's my birthday, it's raining outside, I had
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: a terrible day. I've been so good. I'll be so
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: good starting tomorrow. Like there's a million things, But for
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: some people it's like I like knowing that it's there,
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: and if I have a little you know, I want
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: a little something sweet. Oh, it's go get a bite
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: or two. I'm like that works for you, and that's great.
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: But if there's somebody in the house who's like, truly
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: is just going to weigh on my mind in the
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: middle of the night, wake me up, and like I'm
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: going to be dragged in there by like the tractor
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: beam of the death Star. Like we got to figure
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: out how to work that out, you know, because because
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: we're different, and that's that's okay. We don't have to
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: agree on what's the best way. We just have to say, well,
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: this is how, this is what works for me.
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: Let's go back a little bit to your story and
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: talk about after the Happiness Project comes out, how are
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: you feeling at this point, because again we've referenced a
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: couple of times now it's seemingly being this scenario where
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: it was like this woman came out of nowhere and
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: she is brilliant and oh my goodness, and you're like,
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: I've been here, but.
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: Oh it was great. I mean, because you're big here
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: as a writer is that you can't keep going, you know.
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: So you're like, You're like, I want to be able
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: to write, keep writing, And I am so lucky because
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: every book that I write, I say to myself many
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: times when I'm writing it, It'll never be this good again.
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: This is the best it's ever going to get. I'm
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: never going to be so interested in a subject. This
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: is never going to be so juicy, I'm so delicious.
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: I am never going to have this much fun again.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: And then with my next book, I'm like, oh my goodness,
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: this is the best. Now I'm at the top, Now
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: I'm at the most interesting subject. So I'm really fortunate
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: because all my books kind of naturally have led into
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: the next book, and so I'm never sort of like
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: anxiously awaiting some kind of lightning bolt. I'm always sort
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: of like already starting to think about something and get
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: interested in something, and then I poke around and a
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: lot of you know, I have to figure out like
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: what what what my way in is or kind of
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: what my what my what my perspective is on something.
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: But I've always but I always know sort of what
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: the next thing is going to be. And that is
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: one thing when i was growing up, my father would
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: always say to my sister and me, enjoy the process,
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: meaning if you can enjoy the process, outcomes don't matter
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: as much. It's not that they're not important, but it's
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: like everything doesn't stand or fall on an outcome. If
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: you've enjoyed the process. And that's definitely true as a writer,
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: because I've had some books do very well. I've had
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: some book If a book flops, what they tell you
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: is that it fails to failed to find its audience.
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: That's the delicate way they tell you. And that thing
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: was a big flop. I've had books that failed to
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: find their audience. But because I have enjoyed the process
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: so much, I still have enjoyed it. You know, I'm
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: still like I loved that book. I loved writing that book,
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: and now I've got something else that I'm really really
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: excited about. And so and writers will often give that
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: advice to each other. It's like, don't hang all your
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: hopes on this book, like have you your next book?
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: And so you're excited and you're moving forward because you
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: don't want to get too hung up on something that's really,
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: in many ways outside your control, and so you want
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: to you just want to manage your expectations and just
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: keep moving forward. It's a milestone in the life of
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: a writer, but it's not. It's not like everything rises
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: or falls on like what happens like in a particular month.
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I'd love to wrap on this concept
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: for just a second, because I actually it's super applicable
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: to something that I'm going through, and I know something
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: that many individuals struggle with pinning all of your perhaps
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: self proclaimed success on the outcome that is uncontrollable.
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: Like all you can do.
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: Is poor whatever you can and whatever you have into
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: something and hope for the best. Right, do everything you
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: can within your power to. As my family motto is,
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: to do good. Right now, I'm dealing with an injury.
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: I'm supposed to run a marathon in two and a
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: half weeks or I think we're under that now, and
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: I'm at a place actually where I'm quite at peace
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: with whatever decision that I'm going to have to call
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: in the next you know, a week or so, because
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: I like you as you're referencing, really take appreciation for
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: the process that got me here, right and the things
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: that I gained and the opportunity costs that go hand
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: in hand with running the marathon, not basing all the
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: success on that final event. For individuals who struggle with
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: this mindset, perhaps you know, as many would call it
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: at times, a growth mindset, What is it that you
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: tell them to help them kind of get over that hurdle.
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: Well, one thing I'll tell them because I tell it
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: to myself all the time, Like whatever your aim is,
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: Like your aim is to run that marathon, My aim
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: is like writing a book that finds its audience. There
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: are almost always there are many ways for that to succeed.
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: So you're running a marathon. Many ways this for this
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: marathon to succeed for you. One is that you actually
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: run it and you have a wonderful adventure, and that's
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: really exciting, and that's something that you hope will happen.
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: But if you've enjoyed the process, one of the ways
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: that it's succeeded is that it has already succeeded because
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: you've had all the training and all the planning that
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: you've been doing along the way. And another way that
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: it's succeeded is that it's keeping you connected to your
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: identity as a runner and being part of this group
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: of people who are marathoners. And that's like an exciting
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: that's an excite. I'm sure that's a very not part
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: an identity that I identify with, but I sound seems
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: very cool from the outside. It's a really you know,
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: it's a passionate identity. If people are really committed to that,
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: that's a way to succeed. And even the idea that like,
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: you know what, I've come to a point where I
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: am not going to overtrain, and you've probably made that
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: mistake in the past, where like you didn't listen to
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: your body and you took two steps forward and ten
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: steps back. I had a friend who loved running so
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: much that instead of being you know, off on the
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: sidelines for two weeks, it was six months because she
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: like rebroke her toe and it was this whole, big,
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: huge thing. You can be Like, one way that this
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: succeeded is that I handled it in the way that's
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: right for me in the long term. And so I've
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: learned from my mistakes and this is going to help
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: me going forward. Maybe I'll write an article about it,
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: I'll do a podcast about it and talk about going
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: through this, and many many people will benefit from my
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: experience and like their lives will be happier and healthier
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: because of what I learned from going through this. That's
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: a huge success. So there are many ways for something
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: to succeed, And so if you just pick one metric,
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: like on this morning, Am I going to get up
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: and run a marathon? Yes? Or no? Well that's a
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: very narrow window of success. But if you think, well,
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: how are other ways that? What else? There are many
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: ways for this to succeed for me, many many elements
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: of it leading off in all different directions, and some
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: of which I might not even be able to foresee.
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: At this point, I have to kind of go through
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: it and then see what comes of it. A lot
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: of times very unexpected things happen.
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: You know, did you yourself lean into community a lot
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: during those quote unquote flop moments for the books?
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: You know, at that point I didn't really have a
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: community because this was a while back, and so I did.
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: And in fact, but that's a very astute question because
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: when my book it was called It's Forty Ways to
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: Look at JFK. It's a book that I love. I'm
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: very proud of that book. I loved writing and it
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: didn't find its audience for reasons that I understand now
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: learned from that. But one of the things that it
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: taught me, and this is one of those things where
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: what do you know what's good news and what's bad news?
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: Because sometimes that you think is like a big failure
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: ends up being really important to later success or adventure.
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: But I was so I felt so powerless. I'm like,
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: there's so many people who are interested in the life
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: of JFK. I truly believe that I have a book
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: that they would be fascinated by, but I can't tell
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: them about the book. The only way I can do
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: it is if somebody writes a review of it. Because
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: this was like before the Internet and all this kind
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: you know, it was just as there was internet, but
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: like it wasn't where it is now. And then I thought,
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: you know what, I don't want to feel this way again.
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: I want to be in contact with people who are
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: interested in the same subjects that I am. I want
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: to be able to talk to people who share my
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: interests about what I'm excited about and let them know
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: what I've done if I've done something that I think
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: they would be interested in too. And that's what got
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: me to start a blog so far back when I
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: started writing that Happiness. I did that because I'm like,
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: I want to reach out to people now before I
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: even have a book, And so that's when I started
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: to build that community because but it came out of
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: that feeling of I don't have a community, and I
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: wish so much that I did that. Now going forward,
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: I'm really going to figure out how to create that.
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: And of course, and since then, I just have gonne
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper, because I realized
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: just like it's like like this vast, limitless treasure trove resource,
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: you know, source of enthusiasm and engagement. So so I
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: didn't think about it until you post the question, but
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: I think I guess, yes, I guess it was my
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: lack of community that got me to create a community.
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: How indicative of the kind of person that you are, right,
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: because for so many that feeling of loneliness often transfers
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: or transforms into great overwhelm and a little bit of
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: self loathing. So rather than lingering in that malise, so
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: to speak, you were like, Okay, I feel alone and
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: without and I'm going to do something about that.
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: Well, it's very true that this is something that we
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: talk about on the Happier podcast all the time, that
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: that action is the antidote to anxiety. And so often
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: you're exactly right when you feel that anxiety, when you
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: feel overwhelmed or like maybe like oh, oh gosh, like
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: I'm such a loser. It's not when you feel like
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: taking action or reaching out, but if you do, if
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: you can get yourself to take even a small step,
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: it often makes you feel much less anxious because you see,
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: like I'm taking action, I have my self efficacy, like
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: we'll see where this goes. It sort of gets you moving.
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: And I mean I remember very clearly when I started,
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: the first time I was on my blog, I'm like, well,
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: no one will ever see this, so it doesn't matter.
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: You know, stakes are very low. I'm just doing this
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: for like an experiment, and I'm just doing like to
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: poke around. There's no audience, so you know who cares? Well,
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: little did I know. But it all happened very gradually too.
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: I think sometimes people are like, you know, we often
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: create a false choice or like it's either this or this.
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: It's either nowhere or it's overwhelming. I either have no
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: footprint or I'm going to be trolled by internet jerks morning,
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: moon and night for the rest of my life. It's like,
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: you think there's something in between that, because I really
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: don't think those are the only two paths that are
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: in front of you. You know, sometimes people catastrophize, So
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: a little bit of action often goes a long way
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: towards helping people with like when they're feeling anxiety, a.
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: Little bit of action goes a long way.
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: You also mentioned a buzzword before that I just want
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: to touch on quickly, and that is the word identity.
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: For many you know, there are circumstances beyond our control
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: that strip away a part of our identity, whether perhaps
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: you were a wife and now you're not a wife anymore,
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: or back to the example of like, I'm still a runner,
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: but I'm not current running. For individuals who have to
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: struggle with that transition, although at times it might be
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: brief and for times it might be forever, how does
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: someone cope with that loss of identity?
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: This is such a profound question, and I have to
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: admit that I was years into the research on this
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: until I really understood how powerful, how absolutely significant this
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: idea of what what are your ideas? And we all
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: have multiple identities, so what are your identities? And sometimes
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: and I mean, and it comes up in all different
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: complicated ways. And I'm sure you've seen this too with
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: the people you've talked to, Like, sometimes people will be
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: like well, I'm not really a yoga person, you know,
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: I can't claim to be a yoga person. I'm like, well,
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: that's kind of funny because to me, you do yoga
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: three or four times a week and you've been doing
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: that for a couple of years. And they're like, oh,
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: but you know, I can't really say that I'm doing
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: I'm a big yoga person. I'm like, heck, yes you can.
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: Like there's no accrediting body today. You know, yeah, her actions,
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: that is your identity. You should own that identity and
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: feel good about that identity. Then, sometimes people have identities
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: that are not good for them, where they're like they
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: kind of say like, oh, well, I could never do
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: that because you know, I'm so disorganized, I can never
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: put anything away. I'm like, well, don't you don't have
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: to buy into that identity so much, because then maybe
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: you you don't lean in when you feel the urge
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: for organization. That's that's obviously like a very shallow kind
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: of example, but but sometimes people have identities that that
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: sort of are stumbling blocks for them or like make
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: them feel like it's so core to their identity that
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: they have certain kind of behaviors that they couldn't possibly
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: break them. Like, just for an example, I know somebody
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: who said, well, I really identified as a baker, like
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: I'm the person bringing cook cookies and cupcakes and I'm
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: the one, you know, bringing desserts and surprising people on
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: their birthdays. And she said, when I gave up sugar,
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: I had to give up that identity like I could
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: cook in other ways, but that kind of sort of
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: pastry baker, I had to like, oh up. And she
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: said that, like you say, even that's a was painful
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: because it meant rethinking my identity. What does it mean
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: if I can't be like I'm the fun, super fun
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: baker now that I'm doing something that For her, she
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: had developed diabetes. She really really wanted to do that,
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: so she had to grapple with that identity. And it
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: is hard. Sometimes we do it by choice, as in
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: her case, well sort of her choice, sort of not
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: her choice. Sometimes it's not your choice, like you're getting
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: a divorce, like you say. Sometimes it's like, oh, I
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: blew out my knees and so now I can't do
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: mountain climbing anymore because I just you know, so it
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: was taken. You know, it wasn't my choice to change that,
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: and I think it's something to really think about and
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: address and to acknowledge the pain of it, and then
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: to think about, well, are there other identities that might
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: be that might be related to that, or that might
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: give me the same kind of satisfaction. Maybe I can't
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: go mountain climbing anymore, but I could go walking. I
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: could do a gentle hike. And that taps into my
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: other an aspect of my identity, which is that I'd
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: love to be out in nature. I want to be
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: all alone. I feel like there's no one around for
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: miles and it's just me in the natural world. It's like, well,
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: you can do that in other ways other than mountain climbing.
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: That was one way and you can't do that, and
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: that is sad, But there are other ways to claim
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: that identity for yourself in a way that works for
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: you now. But it's surprised you. Like knowing myself is
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: so easy, like who am I just hang out with
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: myself all day long, like super obvious, But it's actually
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: quite hard to know ourselves. And sometimes we don't want
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: to admit things that we identify with or a friend
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: of mine wanted to cut back on drinking. She didn't
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: want to give up drinking, but she wanted to cut back.
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: And she said, it's hard for me because I feel
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: like I'm the fun one. I'm the one that says
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: let's do it. I'm the one that says, let's order
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: another rand. And I'm like, but you're still fun. You
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: would always be fun. You're super fun. And she said,
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: you know what, I am super fun. I'm like, you're
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: super fun at breakfast, like you didn't need you know,
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: it doesn't depend on that, you know, but she had
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: to think that through.
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, no, I totally totally hear you.
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: I could literally talk to you in so many different
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: directions for forever about everything. But you did mention something
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: in here that I feel like is going to be
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: helpful to touch on really quick, which is you were
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: talking about the other woman who was trying to give
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: up sugar. And I know that this is something that
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: you did, So if you have talked to us a
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: little bit about what that experience was like for you
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: and maybe some takeaways that you have from it, because
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: I know that it is something that so many of
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: us think about doing pretty regularly.
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: I love it, I mean and I'm not saying everybody
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: would want to do it, or that everybody should do it,
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: or everybody would do it the way that I did it.
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: I'm just so I'll just talk about my experience. Yeah,
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: as I said, I have a very very strong sweet tooth,
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: and it was just this noise in my head all
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: the time. Now later, more and more one, two, three,
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: does this count? What about this? And it was just
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: sort of always nagging at me. And then I just decided,
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: you don't need to give up sugar, and I basically
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: give up all cards. So I'm one of those I'm
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: one of those bonkers low carb people that you read about,
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: Like I really eat no carbs except for like nuts
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: and vegetables. And I just loved it because then all
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: that noise went out of my head. It was so boring,
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: it was so draining. It's just like it's off the table,
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: and now I can go, I can have ice cream
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: in the freezer and it doesn't bother me. And I
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: can sit, you know, like at a table with the
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: big plate of cookie fresh baked chocolate of cookies in
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: the middle of the table and I'm not resisting it.
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: I don't even notice them because I just gave up sugar.
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: So and so that really really works for me, and
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: it just kind of it just kind of it made
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: me enjoy food more because people were like, but you're
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: giving up so much pleasure, and I'm like, for me,
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: it wasn't like that.
• 44:42
  Speaker 3: For me.
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: It's like I feel more pleasure now in food. It
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: feels much less complicated and much less draining. And I
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: also would have a thing where I would get super
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: hungry because I would have kind of spikes and drops
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: and like shaking hungry. And now it's like a much
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: more even kind of like grab agile hunger mounting, which
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: is just kind of in my day to day life.
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: I just find it much more pleasant to like have
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: that kind of pattern in my in my kind of
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: my rhythm of my day. But what I would say,
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: and again this kind of goes to standard moderator. For
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: me as an abstainer, it was just like okay, that's
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: off the table, and it was not. It was like okay,
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: you know, like once I just knew I wasn't having
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: any it was a lot easier. I will say that
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: for some some people don't want to do it this
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: way and that don't break the chain. Journal that I
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: was talking about. A lot of people use it like
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: that because they're like, well, maybe I don't want to
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: do it every day, but I want to do it
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: most days, So I want to have an easy where
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: I can just like check it off, or like I
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: want to track it, you know. Or sometimes when people
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: are contemplating a big habit chance like this, they want
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: to kind of monitor their behavior in advance, which is
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: often very helpful to see like where am I now,
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: Like maybe I think I do this, but I actually
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: don't do that, Or maybe I actually eat pretty healthy
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: except on the weekends, and so maybe this is really
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: a weekend problem. It's not like a whole week problem.
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: Maybe this is a travel problem, or maybe this is
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: maybe I just maybe what I want to do is
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: stop eating after dinner. Like in the United States, people
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: eat a tremendous amount of like their daily intake after dinner.
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: And so maybe you're like, well, look now that I
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: like I'm tracking my habits, I'm seeing that's a pattern.
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: And so I think sometimes when people want to like
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: tackle really big behavior change, thinking about it kind of
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: like day to day what do I do and what
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: do I want to do? Can be a really really
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: helpful strategy for people who who find it find it
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: easy to do. Like some people they're like, ah, no,
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: like throw that thing away. I do not want to
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: use that. It's like, Okay, that's not gonna work for you. Fine,
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: Like don't try to force it. Find a different tool.
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: But but I've just found over time, this streak approach
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: and the and the kind of reflecting on what I
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: do approach really for many people gives them a lot
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: of insight and a lot of motivation.
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: Right right, And I mean in that you're also saying
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: that it's important to be honest with yourself and ask
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: yourself tough questions.
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: Yes, oh yeah, oh you speak I think you yes,
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: yes people, yes, yes, Well this is why it's really
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: important to do it day to day and and and
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: researchers talk about this problem all the time. They'll do
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: research like yeah, what do you what did where were
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: you eating a month ago? And it's like people are
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: just making that up. We have no idea, and we're
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: wildly more likely to we tip the scales in our
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: in our own favor, Like you know, you remember the
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: things that you're oh, I remember that you know that
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: extremely healthy meal that I cooked after I went to
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: the farmer's market, and then you're like, those other things
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: kind of slide out of my mind. I don't I
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: don't remember that that that particular uh, you know, trip
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: to the to the strip mall. Yes, So absolutely honesty.
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: If you want, if you want to, if you want
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: to improve things or know yourself better, we have to
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: be honest. And it's hard. It's often very hard.
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: It's often very hard.
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: I mean beyond talking to yourself about what you're eating
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: and perhaps not being completely candid about writing all of
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: those things down. The idea of asking tough questions is
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: actually really important, right, not just with yourself but with
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: other people in your life.
• 48:17
  Speaker 3: So why don't we chat a little bit about that.
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: I know that this is a category that you've done
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: a little bit of work in as well.
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: Yes, And so we were talking earlier about how it's
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: kind of hard to know ourselves and one way you
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: can kind of get an insight into yourself is by
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: asking yourself a question that maybe kind of gives you
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: a perspective or or lends into yourself that you that
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: you might not have noticed before. And again, back to
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: these journals, I even know yourself better journal, because a
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: lot of people do find it really helpful to have
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: these sort of reflections to kind of guide their thinking
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: because it's hard to just look in the mirror and
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: see what's there clearly. It's like if somebody, but if
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: somebody asks you, like a really good question. So here's
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: a funny thing. A lot of adults don't know what
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: to do for fun, Like they know what's fun for
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: the whole family, they you know, maybe right, and then
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: they know work and then kind of like the chores.
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: But if you're like, what would you do just for fun?
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: If you had a whole day free, what would you
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: do for fun? Or if you had a hobby, what
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: would your hobby be? Or you know, and so it's like,
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: what do you do for fun? Here's a great question
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: to ask yourself. What did you do for fun when
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: you were ten years old? Emily, what did you do
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: for fun when you were ten years old?
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: I mean I played like zena warrior princess in the
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: backyard with my best friend.
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: So the question is, if that's what you did for fun,
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: what could you do as an adult that would tap
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: into that pleasure? Because what you did, so what I
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: did for fun. When I was ten years old is
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: I would copy out my favorite quotations from books that
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: I was reading into these beautiful books, and then I
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: would illustrate them with magazine pictures. And nowadays, as an adult,
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: I have I have a Moment of Happiness newsletter where
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: like five days a week I send out like a
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: beautiful quotation about happiness serve human nature. And it's so
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: fun for me, and it's just as I was a
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: ten year old, Like sitting on the floor and writing
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: it out with a felt tip marker in a blank
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: book is exactly how I feel now. And I'm like
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: reading a book and typing it into my big document
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: of all my favorite quotations, and I'm like, it's even
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: better because I get to show it to other people.
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: It's not just my book that I can maybe show
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: to a friend. It's like I can send this to
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: as many people who love quotations as much as I do.
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: But it's fun for me in exactly the same way,
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: but it's adapted to my adult situation and so okay,
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: playing like what might that be? Maybe you're gonna start
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: a monthly charade thing. Maybe you're gonna do immersive theater.
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: Maybe you're gonna I mean, where could that lead? But
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: it's probably something that you would find fun.
• 50:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah, No, I mean I hear where you're going with this.
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: I don't necessarily think I need to like pick up
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: a fake sword and like go to for Green Park and.
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: Like Saudia Williamsberg, I'm putting on my a friend and
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna knee in some dough. We're gonna make a candle.
• 51:02
  Speaker 3: Clause for you.
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: I will say, you and I obviously have many things
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: in common, and when I was younger, I did a
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: similar thing. So I think that that's like kind of
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: these different ways that we engage with our respective communities.
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: I mean, I do think that through asking these tough questions.
• 51:15
  Speaker 2: We just had a thirty day challenge with a bunch
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: of the hurdlers and it became something that was a
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: really beautiful opportunity not only for each of the individuals
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: to do some like self inquisition work, but then also
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: to come together and have these conversations because of that
• 51:29
  Speaker 2: connectivity and these things that bring us together. Oftentimes, when
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: you are someone that's willing to do this work, that's
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: willing to do this inquisition, finding like minded people can
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: be a way for us to continue on with that
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: and do more of it.
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: Well a it's it's often accountability be we can all
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: learn from each other and a lot of people you're like, wow,
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: I never thought about sleeping in my work at close.
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: That's amazing. I'm going to do that, you know, or
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: whatever you get, you get ideas and then and it
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: goes to that identity I'm the kind of person who
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: does that. I'm around other people. And one of the
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: things that I found was absolutely striking in my for
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: better than before when I was doing all the habit research.
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: It gives all the twenty one strategies that you can
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: use to make or break your habits. And one of
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: the strategies, and a very universal strategies, is the strategy
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: of other people. And it is really striking how much
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: we pick up habits from other people, good habits. If
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: one spouse gives up smoking, the other one's much more
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: likely to give up smoking, but also to the bad
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: So we're constantly trading habits back and forth. So if
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: you put yourself in a cohort like this thirty day
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: challenge and you're like, these are my people, I'm one
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: of these folks, we're all working on this together. That's
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: going to kind of keep you focused and just that
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: being around other people who were doing that, even without
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: you consciously realizing it, that's going to start to seep
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: in and to shape it and to make it easier
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: to do that. If there's a habit you want, you
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: want to put yourself around people who have that habit,
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: there's a habit you don't want, you want to pull
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: back from people who do have that habit because it's
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: like somebody was saying to me, I want to be
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: I want to learn to be much more frugal, but
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: my friends are definitely the kind that, like, you know,
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: they're ordering appetizers there or you know, and he says,
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: it's hard for me to hold to my hand. They're
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: not pressuring me to spend money. It's not that, it's
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: just that I don't. It's harder for me to keep
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: my habit in this context. And it's like, yeah, that's
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: human nature. So yeah, And so putting yourself in a
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: like in a group of people who are really striving
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: for the same thing that you're striving for is enormously
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: beneficial in a multitude of ways, some of which you're
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: probably not even consciously aware of totally.
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: And then, on the note of tough questions, after a while,
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: maybe someone who starts to ask themselves some of them
• 53:37
  Speaker 2: can get more comfortable continuing to answer them. For someone
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: who's struggling to like open themselves up to that level
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: of inquisition, is there perhaps like a best practice way
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: to ease into that?
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: Well, I think you know, there are questions that you
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: can ask yourself that that you can sort of go through.
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: So one question might be what am I waiting for?
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: So because because a lot of times people are will think, well,
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: I'll start it in the new year, or it's going
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: to be like after after the summer's over and everything
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: calms down, like there's always you know, tomorrow, it's always
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: easier than today. And so sometimes it's like, if I'm
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: just waiting for things to get easier, you know what,
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: it's probably like now now is always a really good time.
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: So if what am I waiting for? Am I kind
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: of putting myself on pause for sort of no good reason,
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: but just sort of out of anxiety. One question that
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: a lot of people say helps them a lot is
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: what would I do if I weren't scared. So if
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: I if I could just imagine like another person doing it,
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: what would you know? And that can often be kind
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: of an interesting way to get at this. What would
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: I do if I weren't scared? Is to say, what
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: would I tell a friend? Right, because you're not scared
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: for your friend, because your friend's the one that's got
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: to do it. So what advice would you give to
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: a friend? Yeah, because you don't feel that fear in
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: relation to someone else, and often you you you trust
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: in your friend, you believe in your friend, and you
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: know you have optimism for your friend. What would you
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: say to your friend? Well, then you know, tell repeated
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: back to.
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: Yourself super helpful, super helpful, and some good visualization like
• 55:12
  Speaker 2: in that as well. Obviously, as we can tell from
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: the last fifty plus minutes we've spent together that you
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: are someone that a lot of people look to for
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: advice and for guidance. You've got almost something like two
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: hundred thousand followers on Instagram and so many beyond that.
• 55:30
  Speaker 3: That's who they see when they look at you. But
• 55:32
  Speaker 3: what is it that you see when you look in
• 55:34
  Speaker 3: the mirror, Gretchen.
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: Well, you know, we try to be very honest. So
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: I hope that it's very consistent. But you know, but
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: that is a great question. I'm constantly thinking, like, what
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: are my blind spots? What am I telling myself is
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: true that isn't true? What do I think are my
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: limitations that are not my limitations? I think I think
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: it's the great I think you put your finger on
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: one of the great questions of our lives, which is
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: you know, who am I? Actually one of the things
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: I realized recently, like right now, I'm working on a
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: book about the five senses and how we can tap
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: into the five senses to really bring ourselves a sense
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: of vitality. And that came from me really looking at
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: myself and thinking, you know, I am really I'm absent minded,
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: I'm absent bodied. I walk around kind of in a fog.
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: I don't tap into my senses as much as I should.
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: I think I'm leaving a lot of opportunity for just
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: like appreciating the moment in the world around me. And
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: it was really acknowledging that limitation of myself that got
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: me very, very excited about trying to systematically address that.
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: So I think it was acknowledging something about myself that
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: I wish were not true but is true.
• 56:45
  Speaker 2: It's so interesting to hear you talk about the premise
• 56:48
  Speaker 2: for this upcoming project. I know the premise for the
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: Happiness Project was like the same kind of level of
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: like self inquisition and asking yourself if there was more that.
• 56:55
  Speaker 3: You could do there?
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: Do you?
• 56:56
  Speaker 2: He's the theme ever take a step back and like,
• 56:58
  Speaker 2: are you ever your own high woman?
• 57:00
  Speaker 3: Or I sort of.
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: Love this Benjamin Franklin kind of constant guinea pig, constant testing.
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: I find it really really fun, Like give me a
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: good try this at home. I love that. So I
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: do not find it exhausting and overwhelming. Now do other
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: people around me feel like they're innocent bystanders? Yes. My
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: sister Listen, who's the co host of Happier with Gretchen Rubind,
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: she calls me a happiness bully too, because I'm not
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: way to myself. But also, if you're close to me
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: and I think that there's a way for you to
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: be happier, like I can get kind of like insistent
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: on that, but it comes from a place of love.
• 57:37
  Speaker 2: So yeah, does anyone around you ever just tell you
• 57:40
  Speaker 2: how magnificent you are so that you can hear it
• 57:42
  Speaker 2: from somebody else.
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: No, I wish they would.
• 57:44
  Speaker 2: No, all right, I'm here to tell you today, Gretcha,
• 57:50
  Speaker 2: you're a pretty awesome, stellar human.
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: Well, thank you, and so are you?
• 57:57
  Speaker 3: Of course. Well, I would be remiss if I did.
• 58:00
  Speaker 2: Before I let you go here, talk a little bit
• 58:02
  Speaker 2: about where we are as a society after the last year.
• 58:06
  Speaker 2: So many people after the last eighteen months in this pandemic,
• 58:09
  Speaker 2: going through some tough spots and dealing with everything from
• 58:13
  Speaker 2: negative self talk to anxieties of just simply walking down
• 58:16
  Speaker 2: the streets. So when it comes to us moving forward
• 58:20
  Speaker 2: with a little bit of optimism and trying to find
• 58:22
  Speaker 2: our happy as we progress, what would you say are
• 58:27
  Speaker 2: some of the steps that people can take in that
• 58:29
  Speaker 2: finding they're happy in this new quote unquote normal.
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: Well, there's been a huge disruption, there's so much uncertainty,
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: there's so much hardship and suffering, certainly, but I would
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: say now more than ever, sort of the advice about happiness,
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: which is like ancient blossers and contemporary scientists agree on this,
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: like if you had to pick one aspect of your life,
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: pick relationships. To be happy, we need to have deep
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: intimate bonds we need to have enduring relationships. We need
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: to be able to confide, we need to be able
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: to get support and allso so give support. We need
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: to be able to We need, you know, we need
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: to feel like someone has our back. And and this
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: is part of what has been so distressing about this
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: time is that so many, so many of our usual
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: ways of connecting have been disrupted or altered and that's
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: been really hard for people to manage. But so thinking about,
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: you know, if you're thinking about, oh gosh, should I
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: get on another zoom call with my college roommate's like
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: I'm so tired of that, or like should I, you know,
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: own next year my college reunion's coming up, Like should
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: I deal with the time and the energy to do that?
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: Like anything like should I, oh gosh, my friend keeps
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: canceling on me for good reason, but should we just
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: keep rescheduling that hike because it's such a nuisance. Anything
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: that deepens our relationships or broadens our relationships, anything where
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: we're we are giving into our community when we feel
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: like we're making things better or we're helping or we're teaching,
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: anything that goes to those bonds with other people. If
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: I had to pick one thing for being happier, I
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: would say anything. If you're trying to figure out what
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: to do with your time, energy, or money. Anything that
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: goes to relationships is something that's likely to make you happier,
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: and it'll make you feel more supported, and it will
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: also make you feel like you're better able to support others,
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: and that is also a tremendous source of happiness. One
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: of the best ways to make yourself happier is to
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: make other people happier. And one of the best ways
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: to make other people happier is to be happier yourself.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 3: I love that. I love that, Gretchen.
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 2: What is one of the things that makes you happy
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 2: right now?
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: Reading? Reading? It's my playground and my cubicle. I love reading,
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: and so that is something now and forever reading well.
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 3: I mean this beckons the question what are you reading
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 3: right now?
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: I am reading The Yellow Room by Sarah Broom, which
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: is more And.
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 2: If you had to recommend a book for the next
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 2: Hurdle book Club, what should we be reading, Gretchen?
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: Ooh, fiction non fiction.
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 2: We're usually leaning into like a nonfiction, like we're talking
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 2: personal development, self help, that kind of stuff, not long
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 2: ago you read Grit, so it's like a hint of
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 2: where we've been.
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 3: The power of habit.
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a good book. I'm trying to think of
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: a great five census book. Oh, this is Your Brain
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: on Music by Daniel Levitton. It's so exciting. You read
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: all about your brain and how you listen to music,
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: and there's a lot in there about how you can
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: use music to pump yourself up and calm yourself down,
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: and it gives you an appreciation for your body. And
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: so I think for people who are interested in kind
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: of self development and self understanding, it's it's really interesting
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: to it just it just fills you with awe about
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: the human body and what our bodies can do without
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: us even noticing the sophistication. It's just it's it's really
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: it's a transcendent thing to think about. And it's also
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: like super interesting and practical.
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 2: If you were to recommend to the hurdlars who have
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 2: never read any of your titles before a good place
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 2: to start, would you tell them to start with the
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 2: Happiness Project.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: Yes, unless they're very focused on changing their habits, in
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: which case I would say better than before. Specifically about habit, change.
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: I think the happiest project is more fun read. It's
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: more on the memoir side, and it's all about happiness,
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: which is great. But if you're like, I don't care
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: about this Gretchen Ruben and how she got happier, I
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: want to know, like how to get myself to go
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: to bed at ten thirty every night, I'm like, well,
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: I better than before. We'll like goes right to the
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: heart of that. So either one of those probably would
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: be good for the hurdlers.
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 2: Perfect well, Gretchen, the way that I close the podcast
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 2: every time, right now, you have an opportunity to offer
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 2: yourself one piece of advice. Going through a big hurdle moment,
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 2: let's say the moment when you decided that you were
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 2: gonna stop clerking and start writing, you have an opportunity
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 2: to offer yourself back then a piece of advice right now,
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 2: looking back on it, what do you tell yourself?
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: I would tell myself something that I've learned now but
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: I did not know then, which is, if you're not failing,
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: you're not trying hard enough. And so go into this
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: thinking it's okay for me to fail, because if I fail,
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: I will know that I am trying hard, and if
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: there is no failure, I need to figure out more
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: things to try so I get my failures in.
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 3: I love it, Gretchen.
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 2: I am so ecstatic just at the opportunity that we
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 2: had here to sit down together. I know that there's
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 2: so many takeaways from this time, and I'm so grateful
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 2: for you and the work that.
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 3: You do, and I know that the community is as
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 3: well well.
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much. I so enjoyed our conversation. I
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: feel like we could talk all day, so I really
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: appreciate it.
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 2: I wish that we could. How do how do the
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 2: hurdlers keep up with you? How do they follow along
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 2: with you? What can they get in on? Give us
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 2: all the details.
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So if you want to go to sort of
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: the hub of all my things, you can go to
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: Gretchenreuben dot com and you can read about my books
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: and there's all kinds of free resources. If you are
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: a podcast listener, which clearly you are, you can listen
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: to Happier with Gretchen Ruben. That's a weekly podcast that
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: I do with my cost and my sister Elizabeth, and
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: it's all about it, like concrete, manageable ways to be happier, healthier,
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: more productive, and more creative. I'm on social media everywhere
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: you would look for Gretchen Rubin and if you're interested
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: in the journals, you go to the Happiness Project and
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: you can find it there.
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 3: Beautiful.
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 2: I'm over at Emily Body and at Hurdle Podcast Another
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 2: Hurdle conquered.
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 3: Catch you guys next time.