Latest / Success Story with Scott Clary / Gretchen Rubin - NYT Bestselling Author, Podcaster & Speaker | Simple Truths For Our Complex Lives

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Gretchen Rubin - NYT Bestselling Author, Podcaster & Speaker | Simple Truths For Our Complex Lives · Success Story with Scott Clary

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  Somebody that wants to see you succeed, those are the kinds of things that make people.
• 0:04
  Gretchen Ruben, one of the most influential voices on human nature,
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  reveals how we can unlock the happiness we're all searching for.
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  Happiness is an elusive concept to define.
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  Being about relationships is always a great place to start.
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  But here's the catch, it's not the same for everyone.
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  Somebody that is connected with you who like wants to see you succeed,
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  those are the kinds of things that make people happy.
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  From dining with Nobel Prize winners to being interviewed by Oprah,
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  Gretchen has spent her career breaking down the complexities of happiness.
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  In this episode, she shares the surprising truths about what really makes us happy,
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  and why your path to joy might look completely different from mine.
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  But there's one key lesson that changes everything, and you'll want to hear it.
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  This conversation will challenge your assumptions about what true happiness means.
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  And negative information will catch our attention faster than positive information,
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  just understanding...
• 0:53
  Welcome to Success Story. I'm your host, Scott Clary.
• 1:01
  The Success Story podcast is part of the HubSpot podcast network.
• 1:05
  I am a huge fan of HubSpot because they support entrepreneurs.
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  Gretchen, I'm very excited to chat with you today. Thank you for coming on. I want to start off
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  just jumping into it. So after years, you studied happiness, you studied habits, you studied
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  human nature. You studied a lot of good, but what are some maybe unsettling or uncomfortable truths
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  that you've discovered about what makes people happy?
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  Well, I think one thing that's really interesting to think about is how our attention is
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  attracted by anything negative. This is called the negativity bias, and you can see why from an
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  evolutionary standpoint, why this would make sense. If something is dangerous, we want to pay attention
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  to it. But what this means in ordinary life is that it's like news casters say if it bleeds,
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  it leads, and negative information will catch our attention faster than positive information or
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  like negative feedback from our boss will be seared into our memory while we'll forget all the
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  positive feedback that we got. And so one of the things about happiness is it's very helpful to
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  be aware of this negativity bias and to sort of fight against it. Because when you think back on,
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  okay, oh, I had this weekend, sometimes the negative things might stand out to you or I had
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  this encounter with my coworker. So you have to consciously think about the positive. I think
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  this is why gratitude practices are so popular because they help their practice to think about
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  the positive instead of focusing on the negative, which is our natural inclination. I have to say,
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  I'm a person who was deeply annoyed by a gratitude journal. This is like advice that they often
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  give and I found that I was very irritated by a gratitude journal. That particular approach
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  did not work for me, but it is certainly something that many people find helpful and I found other
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  ways to stay focused on gratitude because it is important because otherwise we do tend to
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  really concentrate on what's going wrong. I think that I mean, I don't want to put words in your
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  mouth, but it kind of seems like half the battle is just understanding our own biological
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  like proclivities to negativity. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, and then just more broadly on your
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  point, just understanding ourselves, you know, really having self knowledge and doing that personal
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  reflection because I think it's very easy to think like, well, if it's true for me, it's true for
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  everyone or if it's true for someone else, it's true for me. And so part of it is our biology,
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  like what is biologically wired into us. And then also in what way are we different or alike other
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  people? I mean, one way this comes up that's funny to me is, you know, you know how you see that
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  advice like, you know, if you're going to exercise, you should get up at 7 a.m. and go for a run
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  before work. And I'm like, well, that's good advice if you're a morning person like me,
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  but if you're a night person and like 30% of people are night people, it's largely genetic and
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  a function of age. If you're a night person, you're not setting yourself up for success because
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  you're at your most productive and energetic later in the day. So it's not that there's anything
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  wrong with that advice. It's just that it might not be the right advice for you. And so we have to
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  get past these sort of boilerplate answers because we're all different from each other.
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  Well, what was the, what was the, what was the inflection point in your list? Such an interesting
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  topic to study into into research. It's like, because it, it's crazy because it affects everyone so
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  much. Yet outside of you, I can probably count on like half a hand of how many people put a lot
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  of effort and energy into studying this phenomenon that impacts our entire life to such a degree where
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  I mean, it can make or break us. It can cause depression. It can cause suicide. It can cause,
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  like, it's so impacting. So it talked to me about that point in your life where you're like,
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  listen, I got to figure this, this happiness thing out. Well, I can tell you exactly when and
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  where it happened. I'm very subject to epiphany. It's one of my favorite things about myself.
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  And I live in New York City. You might be able to hear a siren going off in the background right
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  now. And I was, it was the pouring rain. I was in a cross-town bus moving very slowly. And so I had
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  one of those rare opportunities for reflection. Because you know, in the tumult of everyday life,
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  it's hard to step back and take the big look at the big picture. So I was there and I was
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  worried. So I did. I thought, well, you know, what do I want from life anyway? And I thought, well,
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  I want to be happy. And I realized at that moment that here I was saying that happiness was so
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  important to me, but I didn't spend any time thinking about, was I happy? Was it possible to make
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  yourself happier? If you could make yourself happier, what would you do? And I thought, you know,
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  I should have a happiness project. And I was hit by this idea the next day. I ran to the library
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  got a giant stack of books, contemporary science, ancient philosophy, pop culture, memoirs,
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  novels, biographies, anything I could get my hands on to study happiness. And at first,
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  it was just for me, it was just for my own happiness. But the subject was so fascinating. And there
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  was so much that I wanted to learn and that I wanted to try in my own life that I thought, well,
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  maybe this could be my next book. And so that I did write a book called The Happiness Project,
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  because that's how the idea for struck me. But it's turned out that it's such a vast,
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  fascinating subject that basically I've been studying different sub topics within happiness ever
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  since. Yeah. So there's so many sub thoughts. Okay. So let's first back up a little bit and just
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  maybe define because you had your own preconceived ideas and notions about what happiness was.
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  I'm sure a lot of those are probably disproved when you started to research. So what is happiness
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  as a concept? Okay. Well, I started my career in law. I was actually clerking for Supreme Court
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  Justice Sandra Day O'Connor when I decided that I wanted to be a writer. And we spent an entire
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  semester arguing about the definition of contract. And if happiness is an even more elusive concept
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  to define, there are something like 17 academic definitions of happiness. And what I've
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  decided is that if you're not a scientist, if you're a lay person, you can have your own definition
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  of happiness. It can be peace, joy, contentment, satisfaction, well-being. Everybody can bring
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  their own definition to it. And we don't have to spend a lot of time arguing about definitions
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  because to me that just goes round and round. What's peace versus joy? What's contentment versus
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  satisfaction? Whatever you want happiness to be, what I found is that it's really more productive
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  to think about, how could you be happier? For you, Scott, however you define happiness for yourself
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  that might be the way I define it for myself or different. Next week, next month, next year,
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  if you did this or you did that, is that going to make you happier? Because I think when people
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  ask themselves, what is happiness? Am I happy? It's really hard to figure out. But if you say, well,
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  if you did this, do you think it would make you happier? That we understand and know.
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  And so that's why I always talk about my podcast is called happier. Because I think it's easier
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  to think about being happier than to achieving happiness, which suggests kind of a reach
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  end result. And right, which is realistic, right? That's not how human life is.
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  That makes a lot of sense. And I think that that scenario you described, especially in New York,
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  where like I'm in Miami right now. And I do find that people in Miami do slow down once in a
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  while and enjoy life. But I actually go to New York, I enjoy it. I enjoy the fast paced and I enjoy
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  the hustle and I enjoy the just all of it. It's just it's it's it's it lights a fire, right? And
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  and that's good. At the same time on the flip side of that, you never your mind never slows down.
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  You never really stop to think in this little rat race and rat race could be nine to five,
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  rat race could be entrepreneurship, rat race could be whatever it is. And rat race is not
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  including just your work. It's your work, your family, your parents, your friends, your extra
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  cricket, like the stack of things that you've built into your day to day. And we have a really good
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  as humans, we have this great way of just including more and more and more and not taking time
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  down or taking time away to just think about is this like what we're everything we're doing?
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  Is this what we enjoy? Is this really what we want our life to look like? And I think that that's
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  the that's the reason why people don't understand. Are they happy? Is there a benchmark that they
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  can say this is where I'm at? And this is where I want to go. And I think that we're just always
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  in this constant this constant race. And I and I'm curious as part of your research or as part of
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  the insights or the lessons that you teach over what would be the first step for the average person
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  that what I just described is like, yes, that's my life. Okay. What is the practice that allows me
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  to really reflect? Is it meditation? Is it going on a trip and not opening up email? Because now
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  we're always connected. What is the thing to start somebody on that journey? Well, I have to give
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  us. I don't I never do either of those things. I am a person who's tried meditation three times
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  including a silent meditation retreat. It is not a tool that works for me. I get that many people
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  find meditation useful. It doesn't work for me. And I never want to connect. I never like step
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  away from my email for 24 hours. I would find that more stressful than less stressful. So that's not
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  a practice that I would do not to say that other people don't find that really useful. But again,
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  that's not a tool that I would embrace. But here's what I would say because I think it's very
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  confusing even to think about happiness. I want to get it black and white. So here's a way
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  to think about it. If you're thinking about creating a happier life, you need to think about
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  feeling good, feeling bad, feeling right in an atmosphere of growth. So what you want to do
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  is you want to look at your life and you say, where could I have more of feeling good? Where could
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  I have more love, more enthusiasm, more fun, more time with friends, more feelings of connection
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  with the people who matter to me? I want to have more of whatever makes me feel good.
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  Then you could say, well, I also want less of whatever makes me feel bad. I want less of what
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  makes me feel guilty or angry or resentful or bored. What do I need to address so that I have less
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  feeling bad? And I have to say in my happiness project, this was the area that I worked in the most.
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  Then there's feeling right and feeling right is a little different because sometimes the things
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  that we do to feel right don't make us feel good. Like a friend of mine said to me, like he had a
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  really bad relationship with his father who was a very kind of mean person, very inattentive father.
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  He was in the hospital. He was dying and my friend was going to the hospital every day to see him
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  and he was saying, I hate going. I dread it. I don't enjoy seeing him. And when I leave, you know,
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  I don't feel good about it at all. And I was like, right, but you feel right because this is your
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  idea of like what it means to be a son, even though it wasn't, you know, you don't have a great
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  relationship. That's still what you do to feel right. Or like you might volunteer even though it's
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  a lot of time and energy and inconvenience and uncomfortable feelings or whatever, but you're like,
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  this is what I do to feel right. So sometimes you do things to feel right that don't make you feel
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  good, but you do that because living a life that reflects our values is very important to having
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  a happier life overall. So it's not just the moment to moment feeling good. It's feeling good about
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  our life overall. And then the final one is the atmosphere of growth. And I have to say this took
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  me a while to understand, but in our lives, we're happier when we have a feeling of growth. When we're
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  learning or teaching or improving something or helping, when we see that like what we're doing
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  is creating growth in ourselves or in other people. And so whether that's, you know, volunteering
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  for a nonprofit and helping them like get their finances, find its other control or you're raising
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  a child or you're picking up trash in your neighborhood as you walk by and you see a bunch of
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  wrappers on the sidewalk and you're like, okay, I'm just going to pick this stuff up and throw it
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  away since I'm out here. This atmosphere of growth is really important for our happiness. And it's
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  good because even when a lot of things are going wrong in our lives, this is something where we can
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  create that feeling, we can control that. And so you're like, okay, everything in my life is like
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  going wrong, but I'm going to stick to learning three words of Italian every day. And at the
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  end of the year, I'm going to be so much better at Italian and that's going to make me feel good.
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  Well, like you said about like being too focused on getting things done, you're exactly right too
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  often we focus on the to-do and we don't think about the ta-da, but the atmosphere of growth is
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  part of what helps us feeling like we are like we're improving ourselves or the world in some way.
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  So feeling good, feeling bad, feeling right in an atmosphere of growth. And for each person,
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  they might have to work on on different elements of that. But I think that that makes it easier to
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  sort of pick apart what's working and not working and what you want to further work on in your life.
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  I think that's phenomenal advice. One of the things that like I'm really hearing you say is this
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  value alignment because that's the feeling good piece of it, feeling good about what you're doing.
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  And I think that's so important because I think that not to say that your life is structured
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  around doing things ethically incorrect. And people are not bad, but are they really
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  in a job for a company that champions what they believe in? Or are they building,
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  are they even building their own company that aligns with what they believe in? And so it's not
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  just your personal life. It's not, are you teaching your kids, are you spending your, you know,
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  are your kids doing things in activities that that you are proud of them doing? Like it permeates
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  everything. So it's a lot. It's a lot to think about, oh my God, are my values actually in every single
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  activity that I take on in my day to day? Is that aligned with who I am? And I bet, I mean, you
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  do the research. I bet a lot of people don't even know what their values are. They're just going
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  through life. No, you think, well, I just have good values and everybody that has good values has
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  the same values as I do. And then you're like, actually, no, like a funny example of this
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  is spontaneity. Somebody said to me, like, you know, as a journalist, he was like, why is it the
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  people today? Can't be spontaneous and like, life is like, blah, you know, and I'm like, I don't
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  value spontaneity. I dislike spontaneity. I go out of my way and I have spontaneity. I reject
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  it as a value. But for this part, for the person I was talking to, like, that was a super important
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  value to her. Now, spontaneity is not the most, you know, let's say it's not the most transcendent
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  value, but it's a funny example where you're like, yeah, some people want it. Some people don't.
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  It's, you know, it isn't a one-size-fits-all thing when it comes to values.
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  Have you done like a lot of, um, because I'd like to look at the author of the work as the case
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  study for everyone else? So maybe even like, I mean, because you've done this work on your
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  research and research when it comes to, hey, I'm my own guinea pig for sure. So what have you
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  discovered as you go through this exercise and you figure out, like, if you apply all these
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  items to your own life, what have you discovered was misaligned? What have you discovered in terms of
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  your own growth? Oh, well, one of the things I learned is that, especially when my daughters were
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  younger is that I just was way too quick to lose my temper and very irritable. I'm one of these
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  people that wants to go, go, go. And I just was, I just was not the kind of parent that I wanted to be
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  and that I imagined myself to be. And so I, when I did my first happiness project, I did a huge
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  amount of work and eat on just basic things, like making sure that I got enough sleep,
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  making sure that I got up early enough that like I can get my, I can have my cup of coffee and get
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  myself organized before like the all family life started, um, working on how to fight right with
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  my husband so that I could like maintain like, you know, not perfectly, I will admit. But better,
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  like having a lighthearted tone, being able to joke around, being able to poke fun at myself,
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  um, you know, I, I did a ton to make sure that, you know, you know, here I am a happiness expert
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  and I'm like, you know, yelling, you know, being snarky or, or it's happened. Well, it's easy,
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  it's easy to research it. It's easy to, but it's, it's, it's, that's the thing. It's hard,
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  it's hard to implement. Oh, well, this is what I learned is that it is so easy to give people advice
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  and then, and it makes so many things, it's like the meditation, right? All these people
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  recommend meditation. I'm like, well, do you meditate because I gotta say it doesn't work for me.
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  Um, because when you really try things, sometimes you find out, well, it is a really useful tool,
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  but it's not a tool that works for everyone. Um, and so I really do think that, um, yeah,
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  I always have my own guinea pig. Well, you know, one of the things that I'm, that I talk about
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  the most is this four tendencies personality framework that I, that I developed. And one of the
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  reasons that I developed it is that I was, as I was writing my book better than before,
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  that's all about habit formation. I started to get the understanding that I was a real outlier
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  that I wasn't average like that. My experience was not difficult.
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  Ex, no, but explain that explain explain explain. Yeah. Okay. So let me explain the four tendencies.
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  And then I was going to go to four tendencies and a sec. Okay. But the only question I had and
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  then we'll go there because then I want to understand your own experience. I just wanted,
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  I mean, if people know your work, if they're listening to this podcast before we go into the
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  four tendencies, somebody wants to do their own happiness project, very tacked with like,
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  think of some tactics that they can do to start this process. Okay. I'll give you some quick answers,
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  but if people really want a specific answer, because I get this exact question all the time,
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  and it's kind of unsatisfying for me to give broad strokes because really it is very different
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  for everyone. I created a quiz. It's called habits for happiness. Go to gretchenrubin.com slash quiz
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  and it will kind of remarkably in just like 11 questions tell you the habit that you should focus on.
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  Not just you like a person, but like you Scott, what is the specific habit that for you is the one
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  that is going to most move the needle. It asks you a series of questions that will remarkably get
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  you to that answer. So go to gretchenrubin.com slash quiz, and you can get a very specific answer.
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  But if I was getting given answer, if you were going to be like, Gava Gretchen, what's the answer
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  that like is the most universal answer? That's clear. You want to do it. You want to do things that
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  are going to deepen and broaden your relationships with other people. We are social creatures. You
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  were mentioning kind of biology before it. Like we are very social species. We rely on other people,
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  and to be happy, we need to be able to confide. We need to be able to get support. And just as
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  important for happiness, we need to be able to give support. We need to feel like we belong.
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  We need to have deep intimate bonds. And so if you're thinking about how to use your precious
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  time, energy or money, anything that is going to deepen a relationship, like should I go to my
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  college reunion, right? Yes. Probably that's going to make you happier because that's going to
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  deepen an old relationship or broadening relationship. Hey, should I join that poker group?
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  Yeah, probably because you'll meet some new people and hang out with them, and that'll broaden
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  your social relationships. And that's probably going to make you happier. And this is ancient
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  philosophers and contemporary scientists agree. If there's one thing it's relationships. When they
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  look at people who say they're the happiest, they tend to have more friends. If they ask somebody
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  at work, are you happy at work? They're people who say, I have a friend at work, not just like a
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  friendly acquaintance that I'm like, you know, talking about sports and pop culture with, but
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  someone who has my back, someone I could tell a secret to. Or do you have a manager like the person
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  you report to directly who cares about you and helping you to achieve your aims for yourself?
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  Not some visionary boss who's standing at the top of the pyramid, but somebody that is connected
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  with you who like wants to see you succeed. Those are the kinds of things that make people happy
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  at work and at home and in life. So thinking about relationships is always a great place to start.
• 23:17
  Where no one has to reinvent the wheel. We're all in this together, learning and growing. And
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  here's my ask. If you love this show, it's made a difference for you. Please share it with
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  somebody who needs it. Hella friend, host on social, whatever works. It's the best way to keep
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  this thing going strong. Bring on even better guests and share more life changing wisdom.
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  And you can find us on all the spots. So you can go to successstorypodcast.com if you like listening
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  to podcasts. If you like video, you can go to youtube. It's youtube.com slash c slash Scott
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  Declary or the newsletter newsletter dot Scott Declary.com just spread the word. I'm eternally
• 23:56
  grateful for each and every one of you. Let's keep learning. Let's keep growing and let's keep
• 24:01
  making this world a little bit better together. All right, let's get back to the show. I would
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  assume then post COVID. You saw massive decline in happiness. Yeah, I mean, it's really interesting
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  and we're still kind of working through it, right? Because what does it mean to connect with
• 24:16
  people virtually when we're really designed, you know, IRL is better than URL. And we're still
• 24:23
  trying to figure that out. How do you work for and you're seeing so much conversation about
• 24:27
  companies struggling to balance employees value of flexibility with the employers, you know,
• 24:36
  conviction that office culture and office cohesion are built on face to face. It's like how do we
• 24:42
  reconcile these two values? It's still being worked out. And yeah, COVID was really, really rough
• 24:52
  because I was going to say I was going to say it's interesting because if employers want you to
• 24:57
  come back into the office, I think that just happened. Amazon just asked people come in five days
• 25:01
  a week and people are pushing back on that because they want to stay home. But then the question is,
• 25:08
  are they actually jeopardizing their own happiness by cutting off the only social connections they have
• 25:14
  through their nine to five? Well, it depends because maybe that they might have all kinds of other
• 25:18
  values that are being served by working flexibly. And that's part of the problem is that people are
• 25:23
  very are in very different situations. If you look at what makes people unhappy, I'll tell you what
• 25:28
  they know makes people unhappy consistently and they never adjust to it because often we're really,
• 25:33
  we're very flexible and we can really adjust to a lot of things and be pretty happy with
• 25:39
  circumstances that are tough, but you never adjust to a bad commute. It will bum you out every
• 25:47
  single time and one of the things that people want from flexible work as they want to commute spend
• 25:52
  less time commuting. So that's very understandable, you know, like if you live, if you can walk to
• 25:58
  work, that's very different from like if you've got, you know, an hour and 15 minute drive,
• 26:04
  or you're fighting traffic for an hour to go just across town. So anyway, these things are
• 26:09
  complicated because they hit different people very differently in different stages of their lives
• 26:14
  and in different circumstances. And so, you know, we just never questioned it before. It was always
• 26:20
  just like, well, of course you have to go in five days. Nobody even ever thought it was very,
• 26:24
  it was very edge for people to talk about remote or work from home. And it was, you know, it wasn't,
• 26:30
  most people didn't know. So now we're dealing with a whole set of, yeah, new,
• 26:35
  a whole set of problems because now there's so many options. So now you're balancing. Okay, so you
• 26:39
  don't want somebody to press to be depressed and lonely at home, but they also hate the commute.
• 26:44
  That's time and energy and money. And then okay, so coming to the office is good for the work,
• 26:48
  it's good for the employer, but it's a good for the worker. And now you're balancing all these
• 26:53
  different dynamics. This makes work more complicated. Then you have to think of like, how much
• 26:57
  office space do we have? What's the experience when you show up? I mean, there's just, there's a
• 27:01
  million things that we're still in the very early stages of grappling with the long-term
• 27:08
  implications. So it's complicated. Well, that's why that's why you have to keep doing research.
• 27:13
  So we understand more. That's exactly what we got about. That's right. It's always,
• 27:18
  it was something new, right? Yeah. Okay, so let's go back to four tendencies. First of all,
• 27:24
  before we even get there, why did these tendencies come up? Where did they come from? Okay, I
• 27:30
  created them because so I was working on my book about how to change. And I started seeing
• 27:37
  patterns emerge that I couldn't explain. Like, certain people would say like exactly the same thing
• 27:45
  and exactly the same words. Like, people would say, well, I'll keep a near resolution when it,
• 27:50
  when I, when I think it's important, but I wouldn't wait for January first because January first
• 27:55
  is an arbitrary date. And they would always say that arbitrary. And I was like, that's interesting
• 28:00
  because the fact that January first is an arbitrary date really doesn't bother me. So, but to this
• 28:05
  class of people, that's clearly very important. But my big moment of revelation came when I was,
• 28:10
  my sister calls me a happiness bully because if I think there's a way for you to get happier,
• 28:14
  I can't get insistent. So I was drilling a friend about her happiness and her habits. And she
• 28:20
  said something that just blew my mind. She said, because I'd heard many people say something like
• 28:24
  this. She said, when I was in high school, I was on the track team and I never mistracked practice.
• 28:30
  So why can't I go running on my own now? So why? So I can come up with a lot of different theories.
• 28:38
  But why? And I started thinking about that and all the arbitrary people, all these different
• 28:43
  patterns that I've observed. And then finally, I was sitting right here right in this
• 28:47
  theory where I'm talking to you this moment. And it was like the word expectation just
• 28:51
  burst off the page to me. And I realized that the idea of expectation, how we respond to
• 28:58
  expectations, whether we meet expectations or whether we resist expectations, has this huge
• 29:04
  consequence on our behavior on how we form habits successfully or not successfully. And also
• 29:10
  many, many aspects of our life. And so that's what, and it took a long time. I mean, I was just like
• 29:15
  the hardest intellectual undertaking. I've rid of because I, you know, now I can see
• 29:20
  other these four categories. And they fit together in a diamond, then diagram, and it's super
• 29:25
  elegant. It's like the, it's like a, I feel like I, it was like the periodic table of the elements,
• 29:29
  right? It's got this kind of the elegance of nature. But of course, I didn't know that when I was
• 29:33
  coming up with that, I was like, are there farmed? Maybe there are six. Like, you're figuring out
• 29:37
  like, like, like, equals mc squared for the first time. That is exactly what it felt like.
• 29:45
  And then I remember like, when I saw how they all fit, because I was trying to do a two by two,
• 29:50
  but it's actually an interlocking bend diagram. And once I saw that, it was like every single
• 29:55
  like example that I could think of all fit in into these four categories. And it was so elegant.
• 30:02
  It's so straightforward. And the thing is about the fork, the four tendencies. And the four
• 30:06
  tendencies are uphold or question or obliger or rebel. They are so obvious. Once you say that,
• 30:11
  once you hear them, you will see them in the people around you. You can see them on TV. I can tell
• 30:16
  you the tendencies of the Game of Thrones characters. I can do the characters on the office.
• 30:22
  They're madmen. They're really obvious to say. Because these are just like deep, deep,
• 30:30
  just aspects of human nature. So anyway, I'm super proud of you should be. That's impressive.
• 30:37
  I know. I sort of can't believe I figured it out. And of course, I was terrified for like the first
• 30:42
  three. I was like, and surely I'm not the first person to figure this out. So I was like,
• 30:46
  worried that I would find out that somebody else had figured it out long before. As far as I know,
• 30:51
  I'm the first person to figure this out. So explain, explain people who have done,
• 30:58
  let's think of like a business, a now like a disc profile, or like a Myers-Briggs,
• 31:05
  all these different like all these. So what are those versus the four tendencies? What does the
• 31:12
  four tendency framework show you about yourself that the other ones would not? You know, I think all
• 31:19
  the frameworks have their own power, their own strength, their own vocabulary. They're all looking
• 31:24
  at human nature in a little bit of a different way. But the four tendencies is it describes a very
• 31:31
  narrow aspect of your nature, but a very significant aspect of your nature. And so I think it's
• 31:38
  more precise because it's just more specific in what it's trying to explain. And yet what it
• 31:44
  explains is very important. So I would say that is what I would say is different. And it's very
• 31:49
  predictive. Like I can often say like, well, if you're a questioner, did you, did people say this
• 31:54
  to you when you were in grade school? Do you have this kind of argument with your sweetheart?
• 31:58
  Do you run into this kind of problem at work? Do you find yourself saying these words? And people
• 32:03
  will often just like burst in laughing and say like, oh my, or like, I'll give a talk and everybody
• 32:09
  in the audience will start pointing to one coworker and just like cracking up because they're so far.
• 32:14
  This is the person like we get it. Like here, here it's exhibit A, you know, because it's very
• 32:19
  easy to spot. Whereas I think something like the, you know, Myers-Briggs, you're kind of like, well,
• 32:24
  I'm a little bit of this. I'm a little bit of that. Maybe on that, it's kind of, I don't know,
• 32:28
  I can, I can get there. But they're all valuable, I think, because they help us with self knowledge.
• 32:33
  But I think that's, I think that's really the goal, right? Like I think, first of all,
• 32:37
  if you even know what any of these tests are good for you because that's already a level of
• 32:42
  self awareness that I don't even think enough people pay attention to. Like I knew of these tests,
• 32:47
  I mean, disk is a very common hiring test, right? Now people use Myers-Briggs as well. But I think
• 32:53
  that just having these tools at your disposal and being able to look inside and understand how you
• 32:58
  operate in this world is very important. It's so powerful. Because you're not leaving life the
• 33:02
  chance. You know exactly what, what scenarios you should be putting yourself in or moving yourself
• 33:08
  from who you can work with, how you operate, how you work, what stresses you out, what makes you
• 33:13
  happy, what makes you not so happy. I think these are great tools. I mean, so I want you to, I want
• 33:18
  you to just sort of walk through if you can, like the four tendencies, what, what they are at a high
• 33:23
  level. So people can start to wrap their mind around and they're going to listen to, oh, that's me,
• 33:27
  that's me, that's not me, is so on yet. Yeah, listen to all four of you before you decide what you
• 33:32
  are. So I'm going to describe it and the truth is most people will know exactly what they are
• 33:37
  from this brief description. But if you want to take a quiz that will spit out an answer and give
• 33:41
  you a report, you can go to Gretchenreuben.com slash quiz. Again, like three million people have
• 33:46
  taken this quiz. It's free. But again, I'll just describe it briefly. Most people will know what they
• 33:51
  are. And I will say this, be honest. Because sometimes people sort of answer the way they wish
• 34:01
  they were. But this is all of these tendencies have include people who are wildly successful and
• 34:07
  also people who struggle. They all have strengths and weaknesses. So, you know, be honest. Okay, so what
• 34:13
  the four tendencies looks at is how you respond to expectations. And we all face two kinds of
• 34:20
  expectations, outer expectations, like a work deadline, an inner expectation, like a request from a
• 34:28
  no, like a work deadline, an inner expectation, like your own desire to keep a New Year's resolution.
• 34:34
  So depending on whether you meet or resist, outer and inner expectations, that's what makes you
• 34:40
  an appolder, a questioner, and a blager, or a rebel. So, appolders are people who readily meet
• 34:48
  both outer and inner expectations. So, they meet the work deadline, they keep the New Year's
• 34:53
  resolution without much fuss. They're very focused on execution. They love schedules and to do
• 34:58
  this. They don't need a lot of supervision. They're very disciplined. They, once they make up their
• 35:06
  mind to do something, they'll do it. They tend to love like reviewing rules. So their motto is
• 35:13
  discipline is life freedom. Then there are questioners. Who has dinners? Who has general expectations?
• 35:20
  They'll do something if they think it makes sense. So they're making everything an inner expectation.
• 35:26
  If something makes sense to them, they'll do it no problem. If it doesn't make sense to them,
• 35:31
  they will push back. So they love customization. They love reason. They're always asking for more
• 35:38
  justification. They can sometimes, in fact, suffer from analysis paralysis when their desire for
• 35:45
  perfect information makes it hard for them to make a decision or move forward. Strangely,
• 35:50
  a lot of times, questioners don't like to answer questions. Funnily enough, they like to teach,
• 35:55
  but they don't like to be questioned themselves. Ironic for true. I married to a questioner. I
• 35:59
  experienced this myself. So their motto is, I'll comply if you convince me why. Then there are
• 36:08
  old blighters. A blighter is the biggest tendency for both men and women. You either earn a blighter
• 36:15
  or you have many of blighters in your life. So a blighter needs a lot of attention because it's
• 36:20
  a big big category of blighters readily meet outer expectations, but they struggle to meet inner
• 36:25
  expectations. So these are the people who say things like, why can I keep my promises to other
• 36:30
  people? But I can't keep my promises to myself. This is my friend on the track team. When she had a
• 36:35
  team and a coach waiting for her, she showed up with no problem. But when she was trying to go on
• 36:40
  her own, she struggled. These are people who talk about the problem of self care. These are people
• 36:46
  who talk about why can't I make myself a priority? The solution, and it's a very simple solution,
• 36:52
  for a blighter is even to meet an inner expectation and a blighter must have a system of outer
• 36:59
  accountability. If you want to read more, join a book group. If you want to exercise,
• 37:03
  work out with a friend who's going to be annoyed if you don't show up, pay a trainer,
• 37:07
  take your dog for a run who's going to be disappointed if she doesn't get to go for a run,
• 37:11
  raise money for a charity that's important to you. Think about your duty to be a role model,
• 37:15
  to other people. There's a lot of ways to have outer accountability, but it has to be a form
• 37:21
  of outer accountability, even for an inner expectations. And that's just what works for a blighters.
• 37:29
  And of blighters, but the one thing is spouses and sweethearts often don't make good accountability
• 37:34
  partners for a very romantic reason. It's like, oh, honey, I'm so close to you that you're like me.
• 37:40
  And so I'm going to ignore you just the way I would ignore me. So you got to get that outer
• 37:45
  accountability if you were an abliger. Then the smallest tendency is the rebel. It's a conspicuous
• 37:51
  tendency, but this is the one that the fewest people fall into. Rebels resist outer and inner
• 37:56
  expectations alike. They want to do what they want to do in their own way and in their own time.
• 38:04
  They can do anything they want to do anything they choose to do. But if you ask them to do something
• 38:10
  they are very likely to resist. And typically they don't tell themselves what to do. Like they don't
• 38:14
  sign up for the 10 a.m. spin class on Saturday because they think, I don't want to put something
• 38:21
  on my calendar. And just the idea that somebody's expecting me to show up is going to annoy me.
• 38:26
  So their motto is, you can't make me. And neither can I. And I will say this as you're thinking
• 38:33
  about this, if you're thinking to yourself, I question the validity of this framework. You're
• 38:37
  probably a questioner. And also if you were thinking to yourself, I fit all four categories.
• 38:43
  I'm equally all for that is also a questioner because what you're doing is you're saying,
• 38:49
  well, if it's appropriate to act like a rebel, I'll act like a rebel. But if it's appropriate to act
• 38:53
  like an appolder, I'll act like an appolder because you're saying, why would I act that way?
• 38:57
  That is a big sign of questioner. Appolders, obligers, and rebels recognize they are firmly
• 39:04
  in that tendency. So if you're not sure, that's the sign of questioner.
• 39:09
  Is there is there benefit to trying or is it even possible to change your category if you recognize
• 39:17
  who you are? Well, I don't think so. I don't think you can change your tent. I'm a firm believer
• 39:23
  in the genetic roots of personality. And I really think that this is something that's hard wired.
• 39:28
  But also I don't know why you don't need to change your tendency because every tendency has
• 39:32
  strengths and weaknesses. And if you're experiencing like a downside or limitation of your tendency,
• 39:37
  rather than trying to change your inner nature, which is very hard if even possible,
• 39:43
  it's like fix the problem. So if you're in a bliger, like a bliger's will say, well, I want to be
• 39:47
  an appolder because I want to exercise regularly. I'm like, well, you don't have to be an appolder
• 39:52
  to do that. You just have to have outer accountability to do that. So you understand the levers that you
• 39:56
  pull in your particular circumstance. Right. You just have to like use what you know about your
• 40:02
  tendency to get to achieve your aim for yourself. Because that's much more straightforward.
• 40:08
  I'm like, that's the easy solution, which is just like, get what you want. Don't try to change
• 40:14
  your whole personality because that's like, is that even possible? And like, that's not even what
• 40:20
  you want. You want to achieve certain as certain aim for yourself. And you think, well, if I were
• 40:24
  a different tendency, it would be easier. Well, you just just fix it for your tendency because all
• 40:29
  these tendencies have strengths and weaknesses. Why? How does expectation play such a big role
• 40:37
  in how we go through life? Just part of life. I mean, that's part of, if you're work, you're
• 40:43
  surrounded by expectations. If you're at home and it just weighs on us, it just weighs on us,
• 40:47
  it forces our hand. But it's part of the type. I mean, a life of that expectations would be a life
• 40:52
  of of meaninglessness because it would mean nobody's counting on you for anything. I can't even
• 40:58
  imagine what that would be. I mean, even interesting. It's such a novel concept coming into
• 41:03
  it fresh and not living in it. Like, it makes so much sense when you say it, but then you don't.
• 41:08
  I think it's almost a little jarring to understand how much expectation, both internal and external
• 41:14
  plays on how you navigate through life. Like, it's not comfortable. It's not a comfortable thought.
• 41:19
  Because you never, I've never thought about that. I know expectation exists, but I've never
• 41:23
  thought about how much it impacts every little thing that I do. Yes. No, it does. That's true.
• 41:30
  Well, let's see. This goes to my point. Like, I'm in a polder. So I'm part in a polder is the
• 41:35
  second smallest. So rubble is the smallest and a polder is only slightly bigger. We're like the
• 41:41
  fringe personality types. And like, as I was saying, when I was studying habits, I realized,
• 41:45
  I'm not typical because I realize that like, when you say that about expectations as an
• 41:49
  a polder, we're very comfortable with expectations. Like, we kind of thrive on expectations.
• 41:54
  So for me, that's a very kind of almost reassuring, like way of thinking about things. But see,
• 42:00
  you're saying, whoa, back up. Like, what it, what it is. So this is interesting, right? Because it's
• 42:05
  showing that we have different perspectives. And this is one of the, I remember I was talking to
• 42:09
  somebody. I hadn't come up with my framework yet. So I didn't know that this person was a rubble.
• 42:13
  But as it turns out, she's like one of my OG rebels. This is a super important conversation that
• 42:18
  I had with her that showed me how differently an a polder and a rebel think. Because when I told her,
• 42:24
  I was writing a book about habits, which to me was like a super exciting and energizing topic.
• 42:28
  She literally took a step back from me because the idea was so low that some to her. And she's like,
• 42:33
  why in the world would you like volunteer to write a book about a subject that's just like,
• 42:38
  so awful? I was like, whoa, that's interesting. I love the idea of habits. To me,
• 42:45
  a life full of habits is a life of freedom and possibility. But you don't feel that way.
• 42:52
  That's interesting. So that was a really important conversation because I was like, whoa,
• 42:56
  there's a totally different perspective here that I hadn't realized.
• 43:00
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• 43:04
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• 43:09
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• 43:33
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• 43:38
  And when you now go through life, I mean, with family, spouse, I mean, children, peers,
• 43:47
  how does out of these frameworks, should they impact how you go through life and it?
• 43:53
  That's right. No, you can save yourself so much time and energy and conflict and procrastination
• 44:00
  and misunderstanding. If you know about the tendencies, so okay, like I said that I'm married to
• 44:04
  a questioner. As an appolder, I'm like, if he asked me to do something, I just do it. And I'm like,
• 44:09
  it must be important if he asked me to do it. Like, I don't even really care. Like, whatever,
• 44:13
  I'll just take your word for it. You know, if you want this phone number, I'll just give it to you.
• 44:18
  But with my husband, it's not like that. It's like, he's got to know why. And so I've learned that I'm like,
• 44:24
  hey, what time are we leaving in the morning? Because I want to know if I have time to work out.
• 44:28
  Because oh, he just said, what time are we leaving in the morning? He won't answer me. Or he'll say,
• 44:32
  what do you need to know? And I'm like, why do you care? Just answer me. But I always now
• 44:38
  am trying to give him the reason. Like, we need to get the guest room cleared out because my
• 44:43
  parents are coming on Friday and we're not going to have time on Thursday to move the peloton.
• 44:49
  So we need to do it tonight because we're not going to have time tomorrow and then they're coming
• 44:52
  the next morning. It's like, okay, so I understand. You're not asking me to do it just arbitrarily.
• 44:56
  It's like, Matt, you're asking me to do it for a reason. And this is why now is the time. I just
• 45:01
  have to give him those reasons. Within a blighter, it's always creating that outer accountability.
• 45:06
  Something that as an upholder, I used to say to people and now I realize how unhelpful it was,
• 45:10
  is I would say things like, well, I don't need to be your babysitter. Just do it when it makes
• 45:15
  sense for you and get it to me when you're ready. Or if something's important to you, you'll make
• 45:19
  time for it. And if not, not, or, you know, not understanding why other people really need
• 45:26
  outer accountability. And then when I'm communicating with rebels, oh, wow, I have a friend that I do
• 45:30
  collaborate with who's a rebel. And it's always like, hey, man, I'm doing this thing. If this
• 45:35
  sounds fun for you, this is the kind of thing that works for your audience. I was thinking that
• 45:39
  this could be something that would be fun for us to do. But don't, you know, but if you've got
• 45:43
  the time and this seems like the kind of thing that's interesting because it's like the more I'm like,
• 45:48
  hey, is this what you want? Is this something that is interesting to you? That's going to be
• 45:53
  interesting to him to him. If I'm something like, hey, I just read this newsletter and we should
• 45:57
  really do this thing. Why don't we get something on the calendar? That's this like going to be an
• 46:02
  immediate turn off for him. Not that he can't maybe get himself to do it. But it's like, it's
• 46:06
  just going to rub in the wrong way. It's going to like set his teeth on it. It's like, you're telling
• 46:10
  me I should do something. You're telling you're giving me a deadline instead of opening up the idea
• 46:14
  that this is a possibility that someone might be excited about. That's just, and the thing is,
• 46:19
  it sounds effortful when I say this, but it's like, once you start thinking this way, you can just
• 46:23
  communicate just much more easily with people. And then you're just speaking their language, you
• 46:28
  know, and that's just, then you're just communicating more effectively. And that's really exciting.
• 46:34
  I mean, it just removes all the friction and all your relationships because you don't even realize
• 46:39
  your put friction in. You don't realize you're creating problems for people. And there's all kinds
• 46:44
  of ways of miscommunication can occur. Okay, so here's an example. So I collaborate with people,
• 46:50
  I have my happier podcast and I collaborate with people sometimes. And there was somebody I worked
• 46:56
  with. And I'm the kind of person where if I have an idea in the middle of the night, or like,
• 47:00
  I get up at 5 a.m. to work, and if I think of a question for you or I need some piece of
• 47:04
  information, I'll just spire off an email. But I'm not saying, oh, you got to answer me right away.
• 47:08
  I just want to get it off my mind, right? I just want to get it done. And now it's on your to-do list
• 47:11
  on my to-do list. But this person that I worked with had a very different view. She was in a bliger,
• 47:16
  and she felt like the minute that I sent an email, I created an expectation that she would reply.
• 47:21
  And she felt very much, I shouldn't tell me this directly, but I heard about it indirectly.
• 47:25
  That I was ignoring office hours that I was really pushing boundaries that I was being very,
• 47:33
  very inconsiderate of her by peppering her with these emails at all hours. And she was getting
• 47:38
  very, very resentful. So what happens? Okay, so did the two of us go into HR and say, okay,
• 47:45
  what is in the policy handbook? Do we sit down and we say, I'm right, you're wrong, you're wrong,
• 47:50
  I'm right, whatever. Do we pull rank? What do we do? No, I learned to use delayed delivery
• 47:57
  in Outlook. And so whenever I have an email at 5 a.m., I just put it in and then I put, you know,
• 48:03
  delayed delivery till 9 a.m., Monday morning. And then I'm respecting the way I like to work.
• 48:09
  And I'm also respecting the way that she likes to work because it's not that one of us is right
• 48:13
  and one of us is wrong. It's just that we have different perspectives and we respond differently
• 48:17
  to circumstances. And so when we can talk about it openly, instead of like feeling upset about
• 48:22
  it or that it's a personal attack or that people are being inconsiderate, you're just like,
• 48:26
  hey, you know, this is how it makes me feel, you know, or questioners question, often drain and
• 48:32
  overwhelm people with their constant questioning. And they have to learn like, hey, you know,
• 48:36
  it makes me feel very defensive when you question all of my judgments. I feel like you're really
• 48:41
  undermining my authority, like instead of raising your hand, you know, and making a meeting
• 48:47
  pick three times as long as everybody else wants to take it. Why don't you like summarize your
• 48:51
  questions in an email that I can gather my thoughts and I can answer you like in a way where you
• 48:58
  get the information that you want, but we keep the meeting moving and we don't have like this
• 49:03
  protracted thing that's just a pain for everyone. And again, it's like, there's something wrong
• 49:10
  that there's a lot of value in the questions that questioners ask, but they can be draining
• 49:14
  and overwhelming for people. And so again, it's like, okay, let me get you what you want, but in a
• 49:19
  way that works for me. And so again, it's just like, it's just, it's just creating a frictionless
• 49:24
  your exactly right. It's like removing the friction that doesn't even need to be there. It's just
• 49:29
  that we don't understand why it's there because we can't articulate, we can't articulate why
• 49:35
  there's this friction. And that's exactly it. We always think that everybody else sees the world
• 49:39
  the same way as us. It's so hard not to be seeing the world that you see it. The way that you
• 49:46
  just are assuming that people are bringing the same energy to things. But that's why I like,
• 49:53
  and sometimes people will say, well, I don't like categories because also questioners often say this
• 49:58
  because, you know, people are so nuanced and like you can these categories are so broad and
• 50:04
  crude. And how can you say that all of humanity fits into one of four categories? And then like,
• 50:09
  the thing is, it's helpful to have these generalizations because then we have a vocabulary where we
• 50:14
  can agree on. We have a shorthand. So we can kind of communicate quickly. If somebody says to me, like,
• 50:18
  hey, I'm an obliged or I need a deadline. I'm like, hey, I gotcha. You know, like, let's,
• 50:22
  let's figure this out or like, I hate deadlines because it's an upholder. They make me feel like so
• 50:27
  so much pressure that I feel like I have to do the work right away. And you can't do everything
• 50:31
  right away. It turns out. So I was just working with an editor and she said, well, what's what
• 50:35
  let's agree on a deadline? And I was like, here's the thing. I'm super conscientious and I hate
• 50:39
  deadlines. Can we just not have a deadline? Because it will just stress me out and it won't make me,
• 50:44
  it won't help me work any better. And she's like a thousand percent. I understand that. But see,
• 50:48
  if I know I had been an obliged or I might have said, and she said, oh, you don't need a deadline.
• 50:52
  Just get it to me when you're ready. As if I knew that I were in a blight, I might say, hey,
• 50:56
  you know what? I work much better with a deadline. Why don't we agree on a deadline? And then when I
• 51:00
  know that you're expecting it in two weeks, that's going to help me like pace my work and get it to
• 51:04
  you because otherwise, I might always just flip to the bottom of the of the to do list. I'm not
• 51:08
  going to do it in a timely way. You know, and that's going to let you down. And I'm going to let
• 51:12
  myself down. So again, it's like just know you're we're coming back to this over and over again.
• 51:17
  Know yourself. Begin with what's true for you. So okay. So this, I hope it's not a stretch. I don't
• 51:24
  think it's going to be a stretch because when you were writing better than before, this is when
• 51:27
  you started to understand this whole, this whole four quad, four quad. And then I went on and
• 51:32
  wrote a whole book about it because I want anybody wanted to ask what's the first. But yeah,
• 51:36
  I others, I got my glimpse into it when I was trying to understand patterns and habit formation.
• 51:41
  Well, that's what I was going to ask. So we just spoke about how to apply these habits so that you
• 51:45
  understand how you work, how to interact with your peers, your family, your friends, whatever,
• 51:50
  anyone in your life. From the lens of habit formation, how do you apply these four
• 51:58
  tendencies to build better habits or to build better routines? Absolutely. Yeah. And that's one
• 52:03
  of the, that's one of the main reasons people use it. Okay. So let's say you want to have the habit
• 52:07
  of going for a 30 minute walk every day, right? So if you're in a holder, what you would want to do
• 52:12
  is you'd want to put it on the calendar because for upholders, there's some things on the calendar,
• 52:16
  it happens. Like you just say, I'm going to go every morning, 730 or get up before breakfast or
• 52:21
  whatever it is. And if it's on the calendar, it will happen. And that for upholders is very,
• 52:25
  that's very easy. Like that is one of the things that's nice about being upholders.
• 52:29
  Pretty easy to make habits for questioners. It's all about the reasons they need the strategy
• 52:34
  of clarity, which is why? So they need to be very clear. Like, why is it a half an hour and like,
• 52:39
  why is it 10,000 steps instead of 15 or 8,000 steps? Like why 10? Why in the morning? If you have a
• 52:45
  doctor's that, okay, you should take this medication with meals. It's like, well, why with meals?
• 52:50
  It would be more convenient for me to customize it and take all my medication together before bed.
• 52:54
  It's like, you've got to give them a reason. So if you're a questioner and you want,
• 52:58
  and this is often what paralyzes questioners when it comes to exercise because they're like,
• 53:02
  well, maybe I should be going a walk for a walk, but maybe I should be doing high-intensity
• 53:06
  weight training or maybe I should be doing more intense cardio or you know, maybe, you know,
• 53:10
  there's, I heard about this. I heard stretching. It was really important. And I'm like, if you're not
• 53:13
  making, but questioners are really good at meeting their inner expectations. So I'm like, if
• 53:17
  you're not meeting in their expectations, it's because you're not clear on why this is the
• 53:22
  right thing for you. Get the clarity and then your actions will follow. Obligers, the answer is
• 53:28
  outer accountability. There's a lot of ways to create outer accountability. That is what you need.
• 53:32
  You could pay for a class, pay for a trainer. Think of your, some, some of lighters can even have
• 53:38
  like imaginary, but I would consider imaginary accountability, like accountability to do their
• 53:45
  future self or like to an app. I have an app, the happier app and like just like having a don't
• 53:50
  break the chain for some of lighters, don't break the chain tracker is enough or like,
• 53:54
  have an accountability partner, my sister's an obliger and she has a friend where every day they
• 53:59
  try to get to 10,000 steps and along the way they'll just say like 6,000 or 7,500. I said that it's
• 54:05
  like, okay, we got it and then we got to get to 10,000. So she just knows that somebody's checking
• 54:09
  in on her for an obliger. That is the key thing. It's the outer accountability. Again, there's
• 54:14
  a million ways to create it. That's what they need. With the rebel, it's really, there's two kinds
• 54:18
  of things that work for rebels. One is identity. This is the kind of person you are. You're not doing
• 54:23
  it because you're supposed to or because somebody told you to or even because you promised that you
• 54:27
  would, it's the kind of person you are. You're an athlete. You're a person who respects your body.
• 54:33
  You're a bicyclist. And then often they kind of like to do things that are a little bit like,
• 54:40
  you know, you're kind of meeting a challenge. You say I can't run the marathon in 2025, watch me.
• 54:47
  Or maybe they like to get around the rules a little bit. I know a friend who's like, I exercise
• 54:52
  during my work day. They're trying to keep me behind my screens. I'm like, I'm out there. You
• 54:58
  can go in for a hike. So for him, it was like kind of that feeling of like, you're not the boss of
• 55:02
  me. Even if you are the boss of me or information consequences choice. And this, this often works
• 55:09
  if you're dealing with a rebel. So like, let's say this often comes up with healthcare providers.
• 55:13
  Let's say you're a doctor and you have a rebel and it's really important that that rebel begin
• 55:18
  to exercise or do physical therapy after surgery. Say, right? Now, if you say you have to do it
• 55:23
  or it's doctors orders that you do it, that's not going to be useful to them. But what you can
• 55:28
  give them is information consequences choice. You've given the information they need to make a
• 55:32
  decision. You tell them the consequences of their action or an action and then you let them decide.
• 55:36
  So you could say something like, okay, but let me just tell you what we see. So with people who
• 55:40
  did your surgery, the people who do the exercises, you know, after six months, they're off the pain
• 55:46
  medication. They're out there traveling. They're dressing themselves. They're getting around like
• 55:51
  there doing anything they want. You know, we see really good results for the people who
• 55:54
  follow through with physical therapy. The people that don't have the physical therapy,
• 55:58
  well, we see that they're stuck on pain medication. They are not, they are not independent.
• 56:02
  They've got people who may be are helping them dress or helping them bathe. They're not worth,
• 56:06
  they're not, they're not jumping on a bus or a plane. They're very limited in their in their movements.
• 56:11
  You know, so up to you, you can do the physical therapy or not. That's your choice.
• 56:18
  Here's a pamphlet. If you want a pamphlet, that works. If that's interesting to you,
• 56:21
  if you think that's useful, I got this pamphlet. We're not. It's up to you because the more you push,
• 56:28
  the more you nudge, the more you remind, the more you rescue, a rebel, the more you ignite their
• 56:34
  spirit of resistance. And with some rebels, even if you praise them, they feel like you're trying
• 56:40
  to control them. So it's for some rebels, if you even said something like, oh, Scott, it's so great
• 56:44
  that you've been following your doctor's orders and you've been doing your physical therapy so
• 56:47
  conscientiously, some rebels will be like, what? You think that I'm doing what that guy's told
• 56:52
  me to do? No way. I'm not doing that. You got to be careful with rebels because I do make
• 56:57
  things worse, like let them do their thing in their way. They can do anything they want to do.
• 57:04
  Like a lot of times we mess them up. You have to know that so, you know, when you lay out these
• 57:11
  personality types and the tendencies, like, if you want to change your habit, like, this is why
• 57:17
  people have such a high failure rate. They don't, they don't even know, they don't even know how they
• 57:22
  respond to external internal stimuli expectation. And if you knew your, your chance of actually adopting
• 57:30
  a new habit or taking on a new routine, it probably goes up 100x. If you actually know how you go
• 57:35
  through this world, though, well, that's why in the happier app, my app, it like, it takes you
• 57:39
  through the four tendencies quiz so that it can like, you can use any tool you want, but it'll
• 57:43
  suggest the ones that are propped that are going to suit you best for your tendency because you're
• 57:48
  exactly right because here's the thing. Certain approaches work really well for some tendencies,
• 57:53
  but they're counterproductive for other tendencies. So if you keep saying to somebody, you just need
• 57:58
  to sign up for a class, well, a rebel is going to resist that. That's terrible advice for a rebel.
• 58:03
  But if you say to somebody, if you say to an obliger, well, you just need to get clear on what you
• 58:07
  want. And when you're, when you know what's important to you, your actions will follow, that's not
• 58:12
  going to happen. They can sit around and think about what's important to them or how motivated they
• 58:15
  are all day long. It's not that that's a bad idea to have that kind of clarity. It's not going to
• 58:20
  move the needle for them. What an oblige your needs is outer accountability. That's all it works.
• 58:24
  And you're, and this is what to me is so powerful about the pretendants. It's kind of like,
• 58:29
  you can throw spaghetti against the wall. All you want. And maybe you'll get lucky and you'll
• 58:33
  hit the match. And a lot of times people do sort of intuitively start to understand what they
• 58:37
  need. Like you'll see that obligers will kind of figure out ways to create outer accountability.
• 58:42
  Because they kind of, they kind of have been tweeted that that's what works for them.
• 58:46
  But this is just, this way you just know. And you're just like, okay, let me just plug that in.
• 58:52
  Yeah, I feel like it's just so much easier. Or you know, accountability is very burdensome.
• 58:57
  As an upholder, I realize I don't need accountability. And so I don't need to worry about having it.
• 59:02
  Because I don't really need it. Because otherwise, it's kind of a pain to have accountability.
• 59:07
  It can be super valuable. And it's worth it if you need it.
• 59:10
  It actually, it could actually upset you. If you're, if you're an upholder and you have no problem
• 59:15
  going to the gym, but you know that everybody else is getting a trainer. And then you do get a trainer.
• 59:21
  And then they're harping on you to finish the workout or to stick to the diet plan.
• 59:25
  That could actually, it won't throw you off or stop you from doing it. But you could
• 59:31
  like the activity less because you're, you're now getting this external stimuli. You didn't even need.
• 59:37
  So you're like, F you buddy, you don't need to tell me I'm already doing it.
• 59:41
  Well, and at the very least, you're paying for something that you don't need. Because you
• 59:45
  know, everybody needs a trainer. It's like, but do you need a trainer? That's what a lot of people
• 59:49
  are saying to me, like, oh, I just thought everybody had to have it. I'm like, some people absolutely
• 59:53
  do. And some people benefit it. Like with some things for me, even though I'm an upholder,
• 59:57
  for some ways, accountability is helpful. But you're exactly right. Like it can mess with you.
• 1:00:03
  If you're just like kind of cool, just assuming that everything that works for everybody
• 1:00:07
  else will work for you, but it could end up like really just messing with what you would do on
• 1:00:12
  your what comes naturally to you. Yeah. And like questioners, they might feel like, okay,
• 1:00:18
  this person is telling me things, but it doesn't make sense. And so now I'm just irritated with
• 1:00:23
  this person who I feel like is like, why are they arbitrarily changing this thing? Or I want to
• 1:00:29
  customize it. And they insist that I need to do it their way. Yeah, you're it's true. It's like
• 1:00:35
  do it's right for you. And don't assume that that just more is better.
• 1:00:41
  Are there ways is last question I have on this. I find it fascinating. But I want to ask one
• 1:00:46
  more one more topic about habits, which I think is interesting. But before we go into that, are there
• 1:00:50
  ways when you just go into a net new conversation with somebody you've never met before to understand
• 1:00:57
  kind of where they fit? You know where I'm going with it. Obviously, because I want to make sure that
• 1:01:02
  I'm the evaluation. Yeah. Okay. So on my website, Richard Rubinakon, there is like a thing where
• 1:01:08
  flash evaluation. I love they I love that you put all this stuff on your website because this
• 1:01:13
  is actually very helpful. And I love testing quizzes. It's just like very simply because not everybody
• 1:01:18
  has access to you, right? Not everyone has access to you directly. So it's good to be able to go.
• 1:01:23
  But there are, but what's funny is that there really are tells. There really are things that you
• 1:01:27
  can tell are like, I'm in conversation with somebody and I'm like, I'm just starting to be like,
• 1:01:30
  okay. So one is the word arbitrary. It is amazing. How often questioners will mention that
• 1:01:37
  something is arbitrary by requirements to address the room. It's arbitrary 65 miles per hour.
• 1:01:43
  It's arbitrary. My boss says that we all have to use the same software. I don't see the rationale
• 1:01:49
  for that. So and so that is a top that's a cool. And then if you feel like somebody is is is is
• 1:01:54
  overloading you with questions, even about things that like maybe you're like, why are you even
• 1:01:59
  asking me that? Like, oh, let's have let's have I picked. I made a reservation in Italian restaurant.
• 1:02:04
  Why? And you're like, because why reasons, you know, that's the sign of questioner. A bliger,
• 1:02:11
  a bliger is the easiest to spot because these are the people that say, why do I keep my promises
• 1:02:15
  to other people? But I can't keep my promises myself. Whenever you hear about somebody about like,
• 1:02:20
  I don't understand why I can't make myself a priority. A priority. Whenever you when people will
• 1:02:25
  even say pridefully, I give a thousand percent to other people. So of course, I have nothing for
• 1:02:29
  myself. Like, I give 110 percent to my patients. So who could have time to exercise? That is always
• 1:02:35
  the sign that it's in a bliger. And remember, those are the two obligers, the biggest tendency and
• 1:02:41
  the second biggest is questioner. So if you're talking to somebody, if you're guessing that someone is
• 1:02:45
  in a bliger questioner, the numbers are on your on your side. It's very easy to it's easier to spot
• 1:02:50
  up holders of rebels because they are more extreme with rebels. It's people where they do what they
• 1:02:55
  want when they want. They will not, if you ask your tell them to do something, they're very likely
• 1:03:01
  to resist. They will often, like, if you tell them to do something that they were going to do
• 1:03:06
  anyway, they might not do it. Like a rebel said to me, a rebel teenager said to me, like, I like
• 1:03:12
  having my room neat. And sometimes like, I'm making my bed and my mother says, don't forget to make
• 1:03:17
  your bed. And then I like, I make my bed because I just like, I'm not going to let her tell me what to do.
• 1:03:21
  So that kind of behavior is rebel. And then the upholder is really when you do, and I will say,
• 1:03:25
  this is a rebel. We are often called rigid. We are often called judgmental because, like, we
• 1:03:32
  get an idea in our head of how things are supposed to go. And then we will start to execute. So
• 1:03:36
  when you see that kind of, like, sort of, you know, like the kid that remembers to bring their
• 1:03:42
  homework in every day and, and, and, and, and be their pet without reminders. That's the, that's kind
• 1:03:47
  of the upholder vibe. Once the more you know about it, you start to get a feeling for people
• 1:03:52
  really quickly. It's funny how people just do communicate a certain vibe. But they're, but
• 1:04:00
  there is the flash evaluation. And a lot of times people want this for clients because they want
• 1:04:05
  to communicate more effectively with clients. And then also it comes up a lot for teachers. And
• 1:04:09
  then also in healthcare. Because these are issues. These are really professions where you're trying
• 1:04:14
  to get people to do what you want them to do. But willingly, you know, and, and how do you get them
• 1:04:20
  to buy in? So, so that's why I created that because so many people were sort of like, I can't make
• 1:04:25
  this person take the quiz. But can you give me any, are there any signs? So yeah, that's, no,
• 1:04:31
  that's great. That's, and I, like, I'm just thinking from like a work context. If I jumped on a
• 1:04:36
  Zoom call with a new client or somebody who was like a peer and I'm like, Hey, can you book a,
• 1:04:41
  can you, can you send me a kindly invite for a meeting next week at so and so a time. And you
• 1:04:47
  see if they do it or if they don't, or if they push back, like just like a little, like a little
• 1:04:51
  ask, a little ask, like a little, like, it's just like such a, I never thought of that. Yeah.
• 1:04:59
  An interesting idea. Like, wrote something out of like a minor request out and see if they're like
• 1:05:04
  done or do you need it by or like, why are you asking me to do this? Or like, somebody who's like,
• 1:05:11
  no, because I know some people, you'll ask them to say, because you know, when you, you're going
• 1:05:17
  and booking a meeting and then you like, Hey, can you send a kindly invite? And some people send
• 1:05:22
  it right away. Because they're so enthusiastic. And other times that meeting invite never comes
• 1:05:26
  because in their head, they're like, why is this guy asking me? Why didn't you just send it
• 1:05:30
  himself? And there's some sort of hesitation there. So you can start to categorize people as the,
• 1:05:37
  as that where they fit the very, very little, little, little ask, right? Almost like trivial
• 1:05:42
  nothing thing. I'm, yeah, I would, under that, that, I don't know if I'm right or not,
• 1:05:46
  but you, you, you, you know, like, does somebody have an assistant? Like, there could be confounding
• 1:05:53
  things there, but it is interesting like to see how somebody would respond. It like, one thing
• 1:05:59
  people often say is like, well, how do I communicate so that it reaches all four tendencies?
• 1:06:03
  And that's very hard to do. You know, and, and you can't, I can get into like the how you would
• 1:06:07
  communicate, but like one of the things that I think of as there's like one message that's so short
• 1:06:12
  and so powerful, this message has not been promulgated in decades. And yet we all know it. And I
• 1:06:19
  think it's because it works so beautifully with all four tendencies. It's so elegant, a solution.
• 1:06:24
  And that is the message only you can prevent forest fires. Because think about it. It works
• 1:06:30
  with the holders. It works with questioners. It works with obligers. And it works with rebels.
• 1:06:36
  And so in one very short phrase, like, all of those tendencies are, are, are hearing that message.
• 1:06:43
  Only you can prevent forest fires. It's really beautiful. That's very hard. Usually you can't do it.
• 1:06:49
  That's exactly for sure. Um, but what you did there, I was going to say what you did there is,
• 1:06:56
  what you did is you positioned it so that it doesn't, it doesn't offend anyone's expectations and
• 1:07:05
  each four tendency would interpret that sentence differently. Exactly. Yes. Exactly. Exactly.
• 1:07:13
  But you could find ways to structure commands or require, it's very hard. It's yes. I don't know.
• 1:07:21
  But it's a useful exercise or you can just think about like, I'm going to set something up.
• 1:07:25
  I'm going to make sure that I have the reasons. I'm going to make sure that I have a deadline.
• 1:07:28
  I'm going to make sure that I have an out for people who want to do something a different way.
• 1:07:31
  I mean, you can think about as you're communicating, um, how you could, uh, make sure that you're,
• 1:07:40
  you're communicating effectively with all four. It might not be that, that, in that, with such
• 1:07:45
  brevity, that is certainly something that you can think of. Or if you're dealing like with a client,
• 1:07:49
  you know, you can start thinking like, okay, this person is asking me questions.
• 1:07:52
  I need to really come forward with all of the reasons and all my justifications and all my
• 1:07:57
  rash now and all my science and my research and let you do you want to go through like the
• 1:08:01
  pricing structure and explain like why the pricing structure is exactly this way. Whereas with
• 1:08:05
  somebody else, they're like, oh my god, I don't want to know the details. You know, if this is going
• 1:08:09
  to get me the result I want, if so, yes. It's like, hey, I know you're an innovator. I know you like
• 1:08:15
  the newest thing. Hey, I think this is going to be interesting to you. See if you think this could
• 1:08:19
  solve your problem. Maybe, maybe not. I don't know. You know your customer. You know your client,
• 1:08:24
  but we find that for people like you, this kind of thing often works. Check it out. If you want,
• 1:08:29
  I'll give you a free month. Yeah. The rebel, but that's not going to work for the quesadar.
• 1:08:34
  That's fast. Yeah. I think that the answer really is you start to understand how to
• 1:08:39
  figure out this, this, this tendency, the, like the person who's speaking to which tendency they are
• 1:08:46
  and then you start to tailor. I don't think I think it's actually easier to do that
• 1:08:50
  than to play this game of I'm trying to say one thing that's going to be received well by everyone.
• 1:08:56
  I don't need that's the answer. Yeah. Because you're right. It's just so hard. It's so hard. Yeah.
• 1:09:02
  Well, the one thing I wanted to ask you just on the topic of habits, you mentioned foundational
• 1:09:07
  habits. I find that interesting. So what are foundational habits and from somebody who's trying
• 1:09:13
  to improve anything in their life, their marriage, their relationship with their kids, their work,
• 1:09:20
  their health, wellness, what are foundational habits and why are they so important?
• 1:09:24
  Right. Well, and you're exactly right. So what I found in my study of habits is that there are,
• 1:09:31
  there are sort of four areas of habit formation that are that are the foundation and there are
• 1:09:36
  particularly important because if we get these habits under control, we're much better equipped to go
• 1:09:41
  on to do other habits like working on our, you know, like stop yelling in our spouse so much or
• 1:09:47
  whatever it might be. And so if you're going to start, you want to start with these and what you'll
• 1:09:52
  notice is these have to do a lot with like the body and the physical experience and like your
• 1:09:57
  physical surroundings. And it's, it's very easy sometimes to get up in our heads and forget that
• 1:10:02
  we're actually in bodies, but our physical experience will always color our emotional experience.
• 1:10:07
  So the foundational habits are sleeping, moving, eating and drinking and uncluttering. So sleeping is
• 1:10:14
  most adults need seven and a half hours of sleep. So maybe you need to set an alarm just like you
• 1:10:18
  set an alarm in the morning. Maybe you set an alarm to help you go to bed. Maybe you have a
• 1:10:22
  snooze alarm that's like, okay, 10 minutes for now. I got to turn out the light. So getting enough
• 1:10:27
  sleep, that makes a huge difference. People who don't get enough sleep tend to think that they
• 1:10:30
  aren't really affected by it, but research shows that they're really affected by it. So you want to
• 1:10:35
  get enough sleep, then moving exercise. And this is not to be, you don't have to be training for
• 1:10:41
  marathon. Research shows that 20 minutes of walking a day, especially if you're on the sunshine,
• 1:10:47
  will do immense benefits for you. Mood, memory, immune function, it fights to pride. It just,
• 1:10:55
  it's the magical elixir of life. So you really want to figure out how to get more moving into your
• 1:11:00
  day. And then eating and drinking right, you don't want to let yourself get to hungry or thirsty,
• 1:11:05
  because often what happens is people will like, they'll skip breakfast, they skip lunch, and then
• 1:11:09
  at 3 p.m., they're so hungry that they just like are ripping, ripping open the plastic crinkly
• 1:11:14
  bags and they can't, you know, so making sure that you're eating and drinking enough so that you're
• 1:11:19
  in command of making healthy choices. And then I'm cluttering, so I'm cluttering isn't as universal.
• 1:11:26
  There truly are people like my sister, who are clutter blind, and they do not care,
• 1:11:31
  like on balance, they'd like things to be neat, but they, it doesn't bother them.
• 1:11:36
  All every cabinet door is open, junk mail is piled on the counter, they just don't see it.
• 1:11:41
  But so there are those people, and we know those people, you can, you know,
• 1:11:45
  those people are, but for most people, it is true that outer order contributes to inner calm more
• 1:11:50
  than you would think. And often people will say like, once I got my, my, my physical surroundings,
• 1:11:55
  my office, my desk, my car, my bedroom, like orderly, got rid of like things that were broken,
• 1:12:03
  things that were in the wrong place, things I don't use anymore, things I can't even identify,
• 1:12:08
  trash, got that out of the way. You just feel more in command of yourself. It's just easier to have
• 1:12:13
  that self-discipline when the things around you are orderly. And I find this to be so mysterious,
• 1:12:19
  like it's kind of a disproportionate effect. Like somebody said to me, I finally cleaned out my fridge,
• 1:12:25
  and now I know I can switch careers. And I'm like, I get it, but why? So I wrote a whole book,
• 1:12:30
  outer, outer order, inner calm, which is sort of looking at this and like how to, how to get
• 1:12:35
  create order in an easy way, because I'm like, it's just puzzling why not for everybody, but for
• 1:12:41
  most people, it really helps with like other habits to get like that uncluttering done.
• 1:12:49
  Well, I was, you know, the reason why I brought up foundational habits, because you've,
• 1:12:52
  like even in this podcast, we've spoken a whole bunch of different topics, but I was trying to
• 1:12:56
  figure out a through line between habit formation and happiness. And I was curious, it seems like
• 1:13:05
  foundational habits are the prerequisite to achieving any sort of happiness. I don't think you
• 1:13:10
  can have happiness if you don't have your foundational habits. And then just interested to hear
• 1:13:15
  your thoughts on that. But were there any other through lines between happiness and habit formation?
• 1:13:22
  Are they two very separate topics? No, they're very much related. You're exactly right. And the reason
• 1:13:28
  that I got led into habit formation is I realized that a lot of times when you're talking to people
• 1:13:34
  about happiness, it's not that they don't know what to do to be happier. They know perfectly well
• 1:13:39
  what would make them happier. They'd be happier if they read more, or if they got more sleep,
• 1:13:44
  or if they got back into fly fishing, or if they meditated, or whatever it is. But what they have
• 1:13:51
  is they have a challenge in habit formation, because a lot of the things that make us happier
• 1:13:56
  are really about positive habits. It's not about like doing 30 days of yoga. It's about doing yoga
• 1:14:02
  kind of for years to come. And that's about habit formation. And so that's what led it to me,
• 1:14:09
  because so often people would say, well, but I know it would be happier if I exercise. Why can't I
• 1:14:14
  exercise? And then I'm like, well, you don't have a happiness question. You have a habit question.
• 1:14:18
  So how would you do it? And so what I figured out is there are 21 strategies that people use to
• 1:14:24
  make or break habits. And everybody uses a different set. And some of them aren't even available
• 1:14:29
  to us at all times. Some are kind of almost universal or maybe really universal. Some are very
• 1:14:36
  work really well for some people and not for others. But it's good to have all 21, because so often
• 1:14:41
  when we are thinking about how we would be happier, what's really affecting us is we're frustrated
• 1:14:49
  because we're not able to make a habit. That makes a lot of sense. And as you know, now I'm
• 1:14:56
  looking at all the different topics that you've written about and spoke about habits and happiness
• 1:15:01
  and you know, you even did a piece on declutterings, you even dove and gone a step deeper into some
• 1:15:06
  of the topics that you've done research on. What would be the next thing that you would tie into
• 1:15:13
  all your work? What's the next thing that's, you know, it's almost like all the stuff that you
• 1:15:17
  speak about is on the human condition to a degree. That is my subject is human nature, human
• 1:15:24
  condition. Well, my next book that I haven't even mentioned though, it's very relevant is Life
• 1:15:28
  in Five Senses, which is my book that just came out, which is all about tapping into the five
• 1:15:32
  senses because it turns out that we can use our five senses or however many senses that we personally
• 1:15:37
  have to achieve so many aims for happiness and even things that are sort of contradictory. Like
• 1:15:42
  you can use your five senses to like give yourself more energy or also to calm down and to do
• 1:15:46
  creative work, but also to do dredge work. And anyway, so that was all about exploring the five
• 1:15:50
  senses. That's an amazingly fun book. Then I have a book coming out in April of 2025, which is called
• 1:15:56
  Secrets of Adulthood. This is a little playbook. I love aphorisms and proverbs and cullens and
• 1:16:03
  paradoxes. So I wrote my own little book of secrets of adulthood. So that is just like a little book
• 1:16:08
  that was just such a light as a writer. And then my next big project is going to be about the
• 1:16:14
  empty nest phase, which I am rebranding as open door because I just dropped off my daughter.
• 1:16:23
  Yeah, for a freshman year of college. And you know, you said this at the very beginning. I think
• 1:16:26
  you said something very profound, which is a lot of times we just we don't take the time like
• 1:16:32
  nothing prompts us to ask the big questions. And so it's very easy to just not ask them and not
• 1:16:39
  think about them. And then we don't make changes that would allow us to make our lives happier.
• 1:16:43
  But one thing you find out is the empty nest open door. It's a big life transition for many,
• 1:16:50
  many people, which almost forces you to reflect. And because there's such dramatic change to
• 1:16:59
  your routine, to your space, to your identity, to your purpose, to your relationships,
• 1:17:04
  it's a it's a moment of reckoning. And that to me is very exciting because I'm like, I love
• 1:17:09
  a moment of reckoning. So, and again, research is me search for me. And so I'm going through this.
• 1:17:15
  I'm like, wow, okay, like this is going to be my book. And I'm going to write about all the things
• 1:17:19
  I try and do and that I learn. And it's so fascinating. So that's my next big project. But sick
• 1:17:25
  to adulthood is the next one that's like, you know, that in the in the can. And that's a delightful
• 1:17:31
  book. Yeah. Well, I think I mean, I think the topics that you write about your research are so
• 1:17:38
  important to research because there are things that affect everybody, but they're not things that
• 1:17:42
  we really understand. Like, when was the last time you heard about any research about how senses,
• 1:17:48
  how you leverage your senses for performance or relaxation or I don't like that stuff very closely.
• 1:17:58
  I read a lot and I don't think there's a lot of content out there on that. Okay, when is that
• 1:18:04
  when is that one coming out? Life in five senses came out. It's out. It's out now. Okay.
• 1:18:11
  So I have a question for you. And we can totally do another podcast in the future. Do you want to
• 1:18:17
  give over one bit of information or wisdom from that book while people are listening now so they
• 1:18:22
  can go check it out on Amazon? And I mean, in the future, if you do want to do a whole podcast,
• 1:18:28
  stuff that you've done in some of the works that are to be released in the life in five senses,
• 1:18:33
  life in five senses, excuse me, happy to do that as well. So you let me know. But I love it. Yeah,
• 1:18:39
  a little bit. Give me give me one bit from it. One thing I would say, wow, I'll give you a silly
• 1:18:45
  little thing that's just very fun. And then I'll give you like the transcendent point. Okay,
• 1:18:49
  so here's something that I thought was really funny. And people were so enchanted by this detail
• 1:18:54
  that I almost called the book, why ketchup is magic? Because ketchup is magic. Heinz ketchup
• 1:18:59
  is magic. And the reason is Heinz ketchup is incredibly popular. If you're an American,
• 1:19:04
  you like huge percentage Americans have Heinz ketchup in their refrigerator right now. And I
• 1:19:09
  will say to you, this is an amazing thing. Go put just like a little drop of Heinz ketchup in
• 1:19:15
  your mouth and experience how sophisticated and complex it is. There's a reason that it is the
• 1:19:21
  secret ingredient of so many foods where you would not expect it like American Pad Thai is ketchup
• 1:19:27
  has tons of ketchup in it. Lots of sauces have ketchup in them. People put it on things because
• 1:19:33
  it is magic. Why? Because of the five sense the five tastes. Heinz ketchup has all five. That is
• 1:19:42
  almost impossible. So it's sweet. It's sour. It's bitter. It's salty. And it's umami. Now it's
• 1:19:52
  very hard to get all five. Now you can get four. But often it's with something that's like a
• 1:19:59
  combination like it's like a margarita with salt on the rim. Or it's a piece of apple pie with
• 1:20:06
  cheese on it. You know, but like Heinz ketchup. It's just the Heinz ketchup and it's got all five.
• 1:20:11
  And so but but everybody's like everybody's like I must go try it. And then they try it. And they're
• 1:20:15
  like this is mind blowing. It is so sophisticated and complex. But we just take it for granted. So
• 1:20:20
  no, I would say go taste and catch up. You will love it. And you will understand why it is so
• 1:20:25
  popular because it's so powerful. But the more transcendent point is just the point that I made
• 1:20:29
  before. Whatever aim it is that you're trying to achieve in your life. If you're trying to calm
• 1:20:33
  down. If you're trying to connect with other people. If you're trying to like connect with your
• 1:20:38
  past or maybe you're trying to be more present in the in the moment or you're trying to boost your
• 1:20:43
  creativity or you're trying to find more serenity. There are you're trying to just get more work done.
• 1:20:50
  We can tap into our five senses for that. And this is very easy for us because I said to you,
• 1:20:55
  hey Scott, think about using your sense of hearing to increase your productivity. Like what might
• 1:20:59
  you do to do that? Well, like you'd probably think of things like you'd say things like, oh,
• 1:21:04
  well, there's this really annoying worrying. Like my door has this annoying squeak. Maybe I need
• 1:21:10
  to think here of that or maybe I really find that I work better like in a busy chatter. So I'm
• 1:21:14
  going to start working in a coffee shop instead of like isolated in my house or maybe I'm going to
• 1:21:19
  talk to my co-workers like, can we have music playing because I find that really helpful. Maybe
• 1:21:23
  they find it helpful too or maybe they don't. So we I can't just turn on the music and assume that
• 1:21:28
  everybody will like it. So it really it's like kind of the Swiss army knife that we can we have.
• 1:21:33
  And and there's something energizing about the five senses. He goes through our body. And so this
• 1:21:37
  is something that like you it can help you achieve your happiness. Ames, but it also just like is
• 1:21:41
  revitalizing like smelling like I'm just like I love smell. Um, I why have another quiz. It's called
• 1:21:49
  what's your neglected sense. Again, Gretchen River dot hom slash quiz. If you're like, well,
• 1:21:52
  what's my most neglected sense and what's my most appreciated sense? Like one of my most appreciated
• 1:21:57
  sense is smell, which is, you know, like I love this sense of smell. And I every single day I do
• 1:22:03
  something to like really like bring that into my life and it makes me so happy. So that's what I would
• 1:22:09
  say turn to your five senses. They're amazing. And you can optimize and I think that anything that
• 1:22:14
  you're trying to achieve, you can find a way to create your environment where it taps into your five
• 1:22:19
  senses. So music. Um, I mean, uh, you could have an incense or I've heard that like cinnamon,
• 1:22:27
  the smell of cinnamon can do something with your brain. It's a positive or maybe it's just
• 1:22:32
  something a nice smelling aroma in the room where you want to study your work. Right. We're the light
• 1:22:37
  and dining in your eyes. Yeah. And you want to dim that city. Yeah. Yeah. That's fascinating.
• 1:22:43
  Absolutely fascinating. Okay. Maybe you're sitting in a dining room chair because you work from
• 1:22:46
  home and you haven't wanted to spring for like a comfortable chair. Like, oh, yeah, it's time to
• 1:22:51
  deal with that. Yeah. There's a million things that come to mind. Um, where can people connect with
• 1:22:57
  you? So you dropped your website. I'll make sure that goes in the show notes. Uh, where else can
• 1:23:02
  people go connect with you? You have a podcast. All your beer breached and ruined. Yeah. Yes. Uh,
• 1:23:07
  and books are on Amazon or wherever you get your books. I'm assuming. Okay. I have a newsletter.
• 1:23:12
  I have a weekly newsletter called five things making me happy where I talk about research and
• 1:23:17
  things that I've observed and, you know, five things making me happy. Um, and I have like more than
• 1:23:23
  a million people subscribed to my newsletter, which is very, um, I'm on all the socials,
• 1:23:28
  just a Gretchen Rubin. And I love connecting with people. I feel like the world is my research
• 1:23:32
  assistance. So if you have examples or resources or questions or insights or observations,
• 1:23:37
  like I love being in connection with people, being in contact with people who are interested in
• 1:23:42
  the same things that I'm interested in. Yeah. So I have the pockets, I have the newsletter,
• 1:23:45
  the books, I have the website, I have the quizzes, I have an app, the happier app. What else?
• 1:23:49
  I've got products. If you like journals, um, I can go book the things. I go to your website,
• 1:23:54
  go down the rabbit hole. GretchenRuba.com. That is the hub for everything. Yes. I love it. I
• 1:24:00
  wanted to say, I want to say thank you because I love the work that you're doing. I love self-awareness
• 1:24:04
  is a concept. I'm very much a fan of it. I think more people have to be more self-aware because
• 1:24:10
  it's just been like a net positive in my life. And before I even met you, like the stuff that you
• 1:24:16
  speak about and you teach on, it resonates in a really, really big way for me, definitely,
• 1:24:23
  because I've always been focused on how do I understand myself? So I can best figure out how to
• 1:24:28
  navigate this world and navigate my relationships, navigate my work and navigate everything. And if
• 1:24:34
  if you're blind to yourself and you're just on autopilot, life's going to be tough, but it doesn't
• 1:24:38
  really have to be because you start to understand how you take. So I want to say, I want to say thank you.
• 1:24:42
  That's a really, really good work. Thank you. I so enjoyed the conversation. It was a lot of fun.
• 1:24:48
  I have one last, one last question. It's very important. We always close out with this.
• 1:24:51
  Had a great career. My goodness, you've written a lot of books. Good for you.
• 1:24:57
  You have written so many books and you keep pranking them out and they keep becoming best authors.
• 1:25:00
  And I have books that I've never been published to. I have no doubt. Yeah, yeah. I have three novels
• 1:25:05
  in a desk drawer. I've got this weird little book called My Color Pilgrimage. I got all kinds of
• 1:25:10
  stuff. Yeah. When you look back, what would be the one lesson out of all the lessons you've learned
• 1:25:16
  that you try to tell your younger self? Be Gretchen. That's my number one personal commandment.
• 1:25:23
  Be Gretchen. And that means accept myself and also expect more for myself. And that's not always
• 1:25:30
  easy to discern that line, but that's what I would say.