Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee - #181 How Understanding Your Personality Will Make Your Life Better with Gretchen Rubin

Episode Date: May 11, 2021

Today I talk to one of the most thought-provoking and influential writers on the subjects of happiness, habits and human nature. Gretchen Rubin has sold over 3 million books worldwide and also hosts the Happier with Gretchen podcast. We begin the conversation discussing what happiness really means and why so many of us struggle with it. Happiness is such an elusive concept and Gretchen believes that it’s more helpful to think about being happier – to ask ourselves things like ‘if I do this, will I be happier next month or next year?’ or ‘will this bring me more love and less things like guilt, anger, resentment?’ These are simple questions that can actually make a profound difference to our lives. We also talk about the fact that happiness does not mean that we will feel good all of the time. Sometimes we do things because they're meaningful, or because they serve a higher value even though they don’t make us feel good in that moment. If you are stuck in your life and feel as though you are not getting nourished by either your work or life situation but don’t know what to do, Gretchen shares some brilliant strategies to help guide you onto the right path. We also discuss how we can encourage our kids to find the right path for them. We move on to talk about Gretchen’s insightful book, The Four Tendencies: The Indispensable Personality Profiles That Reveal How to Make Your Life Better (and Other People's Lives Better, Too). When researching human nature, Gretchen realised that by asking the simple question 'How do I respond to expectations?', we can gain life changing self-knowledge. She discovered that based on their answer to this question, people fit into Four Tendencies: Upholders, Questioners, Obligers, and Rebels. I think you will love discovering what tendency you and those around you have. We discuss exactly what those tendencies are and how knowing them gives us six key benefits - we’re more likely to achieve our aims, make better decisions, meet deadlines, meet promises to ourselves, suffer less stress, and engage more deeply with others. The wonderful thing about understanding these tendencies is that not only do we get the best from ourselves, we get the best out of other people as well. I really think that everyone will see themselves (and those around them) in one of these tendencies and that understanding them will improve the way you interact with yourself and others. Thanks to our sponsors: http://blublox.com/livemore http://www.vivobarefoot.com/uk/livemore http://www.athleticgreens.com/livemore Show notes available at https://drchatterjee.com/181 DISCLAIMER: The content in the podcast and on this webpage is not intended to constitute or be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your doctor or other qualified health care provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on the podcast or on my website.

What fascinates me is human nature. Like, why are we the way we are? Who are we? How can we change if we want to change? Trying to look at it in a different way and try to understand how people are the same, how they're different. You know, I'm unique, just like everybody else. We need to think about how to create environments where everyone can thrive. Hi, my name is Rangan Chasji. Welcome to Feel Better, Live More. Hello, how are you doing this week? Today's conversation is a really, really good one that I am certain is going to give you a lot of value. Now my guest is Gretchen

Rubin. She is one of the most thought-provoking and influential writers on the subjects of happiness, habit formation and human nature. She has sold over 3 million books worldwide and also hosts the Happier with Gretchen podcast. And in today's conversation, we cover so many different topics that are relevant to each and every single one of us, no matter who we are, no matter what we do. We begin talking about happiness, what it really means, and why do so many of us struggle with it? You see, happiness is such an elusive concept, isn't it? And Gretchen believes that it's actually more helpful to think about being happier and to ask ourselves questions like, if I do this, will I be happier next year? Or will this bring me more love and less guilt,

anger and resentment? Simple questions that can actually be really profound. We also talk about the fact that happiness does not mean we will feel good all of the time. Sometimes we do things because they're meaningful or because they serve a higher value, even though they don't make us feel good in that moment. So if you are stuck in your life and feel as though you are not getting nourished by your work or life situation, but don't know what to do, well Gretchen shares some brilliant strategies to help guide you onto the right path. Of course, as is typical with me, we also discuss how we can encourage our kids to find the right path for them. Now, we then move on to talk about Gretchen's insightful

book, The Four Tendencies, the indispensable personality profiles that reveal how to make your life better and other people's lives better too. You see, when researching human nature, Gretchen realized that by asking the simple question, how do I respond to expectations, we can gain life-changing self-knowledge. And she discovered that based on their answer to this question, people fit into four different tendencies. Upholders, questioners, obligers and rebels. questioners, obligers, and rebels. Now you are going to love finding out what tendency you have and those around you have. We discuss exactly what those tendencies are and how knowing them gives us six key benefits. We're more likely to achieve our aims, make better decisions, our aims, make better decisions, meet deadlines, meet promises to ourselves, suffer less stress,

and engage more deeply with others. So who would not want these benefits in their life? I really think that every single person who listens in will see themselves and those around them in one of these tendencies, and that understanding them will improve the way you interact with others as well as yourself. So, time to relax, put in your headphones, and enjoy. Now, my conversation with the wonderful, the inspirational, Gretchen Rubin. the inspirational Gretchen Rubin. So I thought we'd start by talking about happiness. So what does happiness mean to you? And why do you think so many people struggle with it?

Well, you know, when it comes to like, what is the definition of happiness? I started my career in law. And so I spent a lot of time arguing about like the definition of contract. And happiness is even more elusive concept to define. There's something like 15 or 17 academic definitions of happiness. And I actually like the looseness of kind of the layman's term happiness, because I think for different people can have different meanings. It can be joy, bliss, contentment, fulfillment, satisfaction. And so I think we can all bring our own kind of our own values and connotations to it. And I actually think it's more helpful to think about being happier. If I do this, well, next month, next year, do I think I'd be happier because I find that sometimes the

word happiness can get very transcendent and complicated and it's like am I happy I don't know what would it mean to have a happy life how would I stay there I find it very confusing to think about myself but if you say would this make me happier usually that's crystal clear and it's really more about the process than about some arrival point. So usually I think about being happier, just, you know, is it giving me more of what I love, more that is good? Is it bringing me less of things like guilt, anger, resentment, negative emotions? Is my life in harmony with my values?

And am I growing in some way? I think the atmosphere of growth is very important for happiness. So if those are the four factors of happiness, then there's ways for people to stumble. Maybe they don't have enough love. They don't have enough fun. They don't have enough adventure if they want adventure. Maybe they have too much guilt, anger, boredom, resentment, righteous indignation. Maybe they feel like their life isn't in harmony with their values. That's a very bad feeling. Or maybe they feel stagnant. Maybe they feel like there's nothing in their life that's where they're moving or growing or helping or fixing or teaching. And so that's the element that they need. Do you see happiness as having a different

meaning for people if it's in their personal life or if it's in their work life or if it's in their relationships or do you feel that you know the same underlying themes encompass all three of those areas i think you know i think it's different in different areas different things come to the fore but i mean I think the basics are basically going to be the same. Like, you know, ancient philosophers and contemporary scientists agree that to be happy, we have to have strong relationships. We have to have intimate, enduring bonds. We need to feel like we belong. We need to feel like we confide. We need to feel like we can get support and just as important, give support. And that's true at home. And then when they look at who's happy in the workplace, it's the people who say, I have a friend at work. Someone's got

my back. I know I can trust somebody. I feel good about somebody. Not just somebody I'm joking around with, but a true friend. And does my boss care about my progress? Does my boss, not the big boss at the top who maybe has got the big exciting vision, but my personal boss, not the big boss at the top who maybe he's got the big exciting vision, but my personal boss, does that person care about seeing me succeed and seeing me grow? So that's relationships. It looks different in the workplace, but it's still that core value of relationships and connection. Yeah. I mean, relationships is so fundamental, is so fundamental, isn't it, to the quality of our lives? And yeah, I think it's very hard to be or to feel happy in your life when there's a complete absence of good quality, sort of nourishing relationships. You mentioned, Gretchen, that, you know, am I happier? You know, will this make me happier? That seems like it could be a

very useful question for things that maybe come up in our life from day to day. But it could also lead us down the wrong path, I guess, in certain instances. So for example, will this bottle of wine help me happier right now when I'm feeling low and stressed? Oh, well, you can't do things that make you feel good right now that are going to make you feel bad in the long run. So you got it. Yeah, Dad, you're exactly right. I think that's one of the great tensions within happiness, which is I have to think about now. Now is all I have, the present moment. But I also have to think about the future because a present-oriented life would not be a good life. But a future or a totally future oriented life wouldn't be a good life either. So I think that's

one of the challenges we always have to be thinking, is this is this something that's going to be good for me in the short run and the long run? Or am I going to take a long run hit for this one? Yeah, I mean, later on in the conversation, we're going to dive deep into these four tendencies that you come up with, which are just fantastic. And I think everyone is going to find and learn aspects of their own personality when we go through them. So really looking forward to that. But, you know, happiness is something that I think many people in society are moving away from now saying, oh, you know, we shouldn't be chasing happiness, you know, it's more about meaning and purpose. And I'm not convinced, I actually think we

all do want happiness in our lives. I think we've just mistaken what it is we think it's about the sugar high we get from a chocolate bar when that's kind of not the sort of happiness I think you're talking about, is it? Well, you know, I'm not a scientist, so I can say things like happiness doesn't always make you feel happy. And I think that sometimes we do things because they're meaningful or because they serve a higher value, even though they don't make us feel good in the moment. So maybe I'm, I had a terrible relationship with one of my parents. This person's sick in the hospital. I don't like to go to the hospital. I don't get along well with my parent.

I dread it. I don't look forward to it. I don't like it while I'm there. And yet I do it because I'm like, that's part of what it means to be a good son or a good daughter is I'm going to go visit that parent. And that's my value. And so it doesn't make me feel good. It might make me feel bad, but it makes me feel happy and that my life is reflecting my values. And so I think sometimes people think like, well,

happiness must make you feel good all the time. Happiness doesn't make us feel good all the time. I mean, you and I both have children. Children are a major source of happiness. And sometimes the researchers kind of scratch their heads and say, why is it the parents report all these feelings of not feeling very happy? And yet parents say they're very happy? I'm like, that's not hard for me to understand. You can be very happy and just not be feeling very good, you know, when your kid is getting you up at 5 a.m. every morning for years upon years. And yet it's a life that's that's meaningful to you. that's meaningful to you. And also I think, you know, sometimes people are, they have this idea that if you, if you seek to be happy, that must mean that you're sort of a spoiled brat or that

you're very ungrateful. They may feel that with all the suffering and injustice in the world, it's not morally appropriate to seek to be happier. And yet the research shows that when you look at people who are happier, they are more interested in the problems of other people. And they're more interested in the problems of the world. They donate more money. They volunteer more time. They're more likely to vote. They're more likely to help out if a friend or a family member or colleague or a neighbor lends a hand. You know, it's not like being happy makes you want to drink margaritas by the beach. It makes people think, can't we come up with a better way to distribute malaria nets around here? Like, I think I need to get involved in that, you know, and it makes us it gives us the emotional wherewithal to turn

outward and to think about the pain of the world and other people. Yeah, a few episodes ago on the podcast, I spoke to David and Carol from Stanford's MBA business school where they've been teaching a course on interpersonal dynamics called the Touchy Feely course for I think 50, 60 years. We had a brilliant conversation about exceptional relationships and they were defining the six qualities of exceptional relationships. And one of them was saying that you manage conflict productively. And what I feel is so interesting about that in relation to our conversation is that many of us feel that when we've got a brilliant, perfect relationship, there's not going to be any conflict in it. But they're saying, no, it's part of the great relationship. And you're saying that actually, to live a life full of happiness means you are going to have some bad days,

you are going to feel negative and stressful at times, but that doesn't mean you're not happy in your life. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. And you can see, I mean, to their point, you can see that a happier person probably would be better able to handle conflict because they have a better sense of perspective. They have more energy. They have more sense of calm. And someone who's feeling unhappy might be very overwhelmed and find it hard to manage a difficult conversation as productively. And so you see that like, I mean, everybody quotes the cliche about like put on your own oxygen mask first, but it's a cliche because I think everybody kind of gets it that if you take care of yourself, then you are more able to take care of other people.

And so it's not an either or I think, you know, we should be if you know, if it's selfish to be happier, we should be selfish, if only for selfless reasons. Because it helps us and it helps other people and those things work together. They're not it's not an either. It's not a choice. Many of us, I think, certainly, I know, this is true for me, have in the past mistaken success for happiness. You know, we listen to what society tells us is successful and we often spend our lives chasing that to get to that apparent destination and realize, well, kind of that's not making me happy.

So I'm very passionate that we need to think about success and happiness as different things. Potentially they can overlap, but they're not necessarily the same things. And then I think about your life story and you're now this internationally famous, best-selling author, I think over three and a half million books you've now sold. But you started off as a lawyer. So I'm interested, you know, what was going on there? And did you ever mistake success for happiness? Well, you know, I went into law because I really didn't know what else to do. And I was sort of good at research and writing. And my father's a very happy lawyer. And he didn't put any pressure on me to be a lawyer. But I just was like, oh, well, you know, it's a great education. It'll give me a lot of options.

I'll just do it. So I went into law and I did very well in law. And so I was clerking on the United States Supreme Court for Justice Sandra Day O'Connor when I got an idea for, I just became passionately interested in, of all things, the subject power, money, fame, sex. I was like, what is everybody in the world interested in? Well, power, money, fame, sex. So I started researching it and researching it. And this is something I do all the time. I get really interested in something and take a ton of notes and kind of read all about it.

But this just kept getting bigger and bigger. And finally, I thought, well, this is what a person would do if they were going to write a book. And then for the very first time, it occurred to me, maybe I could write a book. And I had been you know, I'd been a huge reader and writer my whole life, but I never thought of myself as being a professional writer. But with this project, it it just I saw for the first time that I how how that would, how that would, I would fit into that world. And so for me, leaving law was less about not liking law. It was more about feeling this intense draw to this project that I was already doing. So, and I, and I think a lot of people in their profession, and maybe you feel this as a doctor, you almost feel a compulsion to

do it. You feel like this is the path that you must be on. And once I had that in my mind, I was like, I have to do this. I'd rather fail as a writer than succeed as a lawyer. I have to try. I have to see if I can do this. I have to write this book, even if no one else wants to read it. And that's an exciting feeling, but it's kind of an overwhelming feeling too, because it's sort of like, this is the path, deal with it. And that's how exciting feeling, but it's kind of an overwhelming feeling too, because it's sort of like, this is the path, like deal with it. And that's how I felt for sure. So that's how I made that switch. Yeah, I mean, it's interesting.

There's a lot of people out there. I'm sure there's many people listening and watching this conversation right now who feel stuck, who perhaps aren't getting nourished in their day-to-day work. You mentioned medicine. Look, the truth is, it is meant to be the noble profession that people go in for a variety of reasons. But the truth is, I know many doctors who went in because their family were doctors and they were good at school. And so it's like, well, what do I do? I kind of do medicine, law or, you know, it's often people end up in these paths and these roles without conscious thoughts. So I know a lot of doctors who are really unhappy in their jobs, but they feel trapped because they've got,

you know, the salary, the mortgage, the kids in a particular school and like, they don't have anywhere to go. So what was it about you that allowed you to go from, you know, and let's be clear, you know, I've done my research on you. It wasn't just any career in law. You were, you know, you were at the Supreme Court working, you had a really big time career ahead of you as a lawyer, from what I understand. What can we learn from you? You were compelled to writing. If someone's listening to this and they're stuck, is there anything that they can learn from you to help them in their lives? Well, one thing, and I talk about this all the time, is to beware of drift. So this doesn't solve the problem, but maybe makes you

realize that you're heading towards an issue. So drift is the decision that you make by not deciding. You don't want to deal with uncertainty. You don't want to deal with conflicts. And so you sort of do the obvious thing, the thing that people around you approve of or expect or kind of what's going to save you problems. And as you say, every year I talk to a group of first year medical students and I will, and it's very true. Medical students often drift into it. Both my parents are doctors. I'm really good at science. Everybody tells me I should be a doctor. I don't know what else to do with myself. I guess I'll just go to medicals. You know, first it's like, first I'll take the MCAT, you know, I'll take the test to see if I can, oh, I did really well on the MCAT. I guess

I'll apply and see what happens. And that, and that's exactly what happened to me with law. I just got, I just drifted toward a path. And the thing about the word drift is it implies that it's easy or that it's effortless, but it's not. Drift is often incredibly hard. Medical school is so hard. Law school was hard. Everything about it was hard from beginning to end. And yet it was drifting because I was not intentionally, purposefully making decisions, thinking about what I wanted, thinking about what I was good at, what I was bad at, what I valued. I just was like, gosh, you know, everybody seems to think it would be a good idea for me to go to law school and keep my options open. I'll just go. That's drift. So if you if you see yourself drifting, if you're making like there's some warning signs of drift, like if you're doing something because everybody else in your life is doing it, like you feel like you should get married because everybody else is getting married. Or if you're being reactive, you take a job because somebody offers you a job. You know, it seems like the thing that everybody else thinks you should do, like going to medical school or law school.

Those can be signs of drift. thinks you should do, like going to medical school or law school, those can be signs of drift. And I think where there's drift, then you often will see people who are not happy because they ended up there just kind of arbitrarily. It's like, you don't go to sound engineering school if you're not interested in sound. So the people who go to sound engineering school, like they want to be there. But in some things, it kind of attracts people who are drifting. And sometimes drifting drift can work out great. So that some things, it kind of attracts people who are drifting. And sometimes drifting drift can work out great. So that's what makes it confusing. Because some people will drift into something and it turns out it suits them very well. So then the question becomes, okay, what

if you realize, oh, my goodness, I've drifted into something or for whatever reason, I'm in the wrong place? What do I do? That's a huge question. And I think one thing that is really helpful is to say, well, what do you do with your free time? Because often there are clues in your free time. What did I do with my free time? Did I read law journal articles like all the people who are clerking with me on the Supreme Court? And did I like on my lunch hour, did I want to debate fine points of law like they did?

No, I did not. I did a great job for Justice O'Connor, but I did, you know, but no more. I wasn't passionate about law like the people around me. In my free time, I was reading and writing. And then when I got the idea for this book, I was reading and writing for that book. So that was a clue. But then there are people where you're like, oh, well, you know, do you spend all your time? Like I had a friend who like was always volunteering to do video projects people. Like, oh, at her children's school, I'll do a video project for you. And everybody would say how amazing they were. And it's like, maybe that's what you should do because that's what you're choosing to approach it in a different way to make it a professional choice a work choice but there might be clues there for the kind of thing that might appeal to you if you're really if you're really just puzzled you know sometimes people just like

they know they want to leave but they don't know where they want to go and that's hard yeah i mean hard. Yeah. I mean, a big theme in what you're talking about is, first of all, awareness. Simply being aware that you are in the midst of drift. Yes. Even if you can't do anything about it just yet. Self-knowledge. That's massive. So hard. But it's then, you know, from awareness, it's that intention behind what you're doing. It's as you say, it's that self-knowledge. It's understanding. OK, cool. I'm in this career.

I don't like it. But at least I'm aware now. This is why I ended up here. Now, with this new intention and this new awareness, let me now take steps little by little if needed be to start undrifting and actually get back on track. But, you know, you said your dad was a lawyer, you ended up in law. I'm really interested, does that impact the way you parent and how you talk to your children about what is possible for them when they grow up? That's really interesting. I've thought about that a lot. And I mean,

I think you and I probably both avoid the obvious, which is like, you've got to go to, you know, you've got to become a lawyer, you've got to become a doctor. That's easy, right? Not telling them what to do. What I try to do is I try to point out to them when I see a pattern. Because I think, you know, we were talking, you were talking about self-knowledge, self-awareness. Sometimes it's very hard to look in the mirror and see ourselves. And it can be helpful when someone says, wow, you're really interested in blah, blah. Wow. You really have interesting things. You've really thought about that a lot, or, well, you've really like learned a lot. Like my daughter, like one of my daughters just strangely got really interested in kind of like period fashion. This was like a phase for her. And she was so expert in it. She was like 14 years old. She watched a numeral

movie. And I was like, you really have educated yourself on this. And I'm like, I'm just pointing it out to her. Like, you have like a little expertise here. I feel like you could go on, you know, public television and like give a little lecture. Cause you really know your stuff pointing that out or you're really good with people. You handled that, that situation was tricky and you handled that really well. Or one of my daughters really good kind of being like almost an arbitrator with people. She's very attracted to situations where there's conflict and she feels like she can play a role. Again, it's kind of a weird thing in a kid, right?

And I'm just trying to help her not to say, oh, you should do this, but more like, I see that you're good at this or I see that you're drawn to it. What do you say? And sometimes they say, oh, no, you don't really understand what's going on. But then sometimes I think they do feel like, oh, you know, I am good at that. Or I'll say, oh, I really, you're using very, this is an unusual point. You're surprising. In this paper, you surprised me. I felt like that's a really subtle point. Your analysis is really good there. Yeah, I guess I'm really analytical. So pointing out more like strengths and interests more than pointing in a direction, because I feel like, how do we know? I feel like my kids will probably have jobs that haven't even been invented yet. Like I don't even know what

they are. So how could I possibly advise them? But I do feel like as parents, we can help them understand what they're good at or what they, or what kind of like shine a spotlight on that for them. So, and partly then I think they do feel more confident in their abilities when they feel like oh you know he's right my dad's right I am really good I am really funny people really do kind of laugh at me I'm good I'm good at telling a joke it's like yeah what is it I'm good I think I'd be good talking in front of people I think I could do that well you know it gives them that feeling of I have skills that could pay off for me. Yeah, I love that. It's instead of telling our children what to do. You're just being that mirror, aren't you reflecting back onto them. And actually,

for the long term, that's going to help give them that self knowledge, you know, little by little, it's just going to keep giving them that boost of self-knowledge and think yeah I kind of know that and I guess the natural the consequence of that might be and let's see let's see what happens but the consequence uh hopefully would be that maybe they will avoid drift or drifting in life because they have a they have a they have a more of a sense of who they are I mean did you feel you had a sense of who you are or who you, do you feel you had a sense of who you are or who you were when you went to law school? Because I tell you, when I was in med school, I didn't have a clue who I was.

Like I was just doing what I was doing. You know, I had an inkling I wanted to do this, but I didn't really know. I mean, does anyone know at 18 when I went to med school really what you want to do? Yeah. You know, in a way I didn't, but I didn't know what I wanted. I didn't know what I was interested in. I had no self-reflection. Absolutely. I didn't. It's kind

of surprising to me now, like how little I even thought about it. That's maybe part of why I wrote the happiness project. I'm like, I need to stop and like think about the big things in life. Cause I'm just like really just skating through. But one of the things that I did know in this kind of, this, we can get into this more when we talk about the four tendencies. One thing I did know about myself is I was really good at following through with a plan. I knew that if I set myself a big, ambitious goal, even if no one else cared, I knew that I could do it. And I was like, you know what? I'm going to go to the bookstore. I'm going to buy a book called how to write and sell your nonfiction book proposal. And I'm just going to follow the directions called How to Write and Sell Your Nonfiction Book Proposal, and I'm just

going to follow the directions. I don't know what else to do. I always just go look it up in a book. I'm going to go do that, and I'll see if I can do it. And people have said to me, well, how did you get yourself to do all that? You wrote this huge thing. You wrote this outline. You wrote this proposal. You had to get an agent. You had to get a, you know. And I was like, I knew that I might fail, but I knew that I could follow through for myself. So that was something that was very comforting to me. I knew that I could do it. I could execute to the point of success or failure. Whereas I think some people are like, I can't even get myself to even do enough to even get to that point.

So I knew I could count on that. And I did have a big idea that I was super excited. And that made it a lot easier because I was so so excited to work on it. We keep mentioning the four tendencies. I'm I'm literally itching to get to them. But I'm holding myself back only because I know once we start, yes, I don't think we'll be leaving for some time because I'm just buried into that book at the moment. But just before we do that, you mentioned the happiness projects and you're regarded as an expert on happiness. And I said this a couple of times on the podcast before that, you know, there's a beautiful phrase that authors often write the books they need for themselves. Yes. Research is me search.

Exactly. Which, of course, then kind of makes sense based on what you're saying. Like if there's a struggle or an obstacle you're trying to overcome, it's like, well, why don't I just research it heavily? It's going to help my life and it's going to help me write a book. So the question is, did the happiness project help you gain more happiness in your life? Well, you know, on the one hand, I'm still the same person I always was, you know, like if I'm lying awake at night, you know, trying to fall asleep, or I'm riding the subway, and I'm just kind of staring into space. I feel like I'm the same. The difference is that my life is so much happier. I have so much more fun and, and, and pleasure and contentment and satisfaction. And I have so much less guilt and

anger and boredom and resentment. And I just, I'm much better able to make choices. Like, you know, now a lot, a lot of times when I'm faced with a choice, I'm like, well, is this going to deepen or broaden my relationships? And I'm like, if the answer is yes, I'm inclined to say yes. And if the answer is no, then I'm going to be like, maybe not. So I feel like I just, I make decisions much better. I know like what matters in the long run much better. And I've added a lot of things that maybe before I wouldn't have thought were so important. But now I realize are really crucial can can really change. So absolutely, my life is much happier. And with every book that I write, I feel like I go deeper and deeper into this inexhaustible subject. Yeah, for sure. I mean, I'm deep in the hole at the moment on my next book,

and I've got to deliver a first manuscripts in about three weeks. So I'm, I am literally in the hole and, but I love it. You know, there is that struggle, but I'm growing, you know, I'm ordering my thoughts. I was like, Oh, I understand this better now. It is, it is. And you know, it will be satisfying when it's done, but it can feel like a bit of a struggle at times. You mentioned you know now more. It helps you make better decisions and it helps you decide, is this going to help me in the long run rather than just make those short-term decisions?

But you also said it helps you add in one or two things into your life that perhaps you hadn't appreciated the importance of before. Can you share a couple of those things, what you've added in? Just taking a quick break to give a shout out to AG1, one of the sponsors of today's show. Now, if you're looking for something at this time of year to kickstart your health, I'd highly recommend that you consider AG1. AG1 has been in my own life for over five years now. It's a science-driven daily health drink with over 70 essential nutrients to support your overall health.

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Usually, they offer my listeners a one-year supply of vitamin D and K2 and five free travel packs with their first order. But until the end of January, they are doubling the five free travel packs with their first order. But until the end of January, they are doubling the five free travel packs to 10. And these packs are perfect for keeping in your backpack, office or car. If you want to take advantage of this limited time offer, all you have to do is go to drinkag1.com forward slash live more. That's drinkag1.com forward slash live more. Well, one big thing is we got a dog and my family, my children really wanted a dog and I was

very much on the fence because it's a big responsibility to get a dog. And, you know, I to me, the pros and cons felt very well balanced. But the fact is, the research is very clear. People who have pets are happier. They're also healthier. So there's a lot of kind of research. But, you know, in your own life, you're like, well, the research can say what the research says, but I'm the one who's going to have to be taking this dog to the vet. You're like, well, the research can say what the research says, but I'm the one who's going to have to be taking this dog to the vet. And then I and then one of my questions that I often are kind of mantras for happiness is I think choose the bigger life. And I thought, well, what is the bigger life for my family? Is it to get a dog or is it not to get a dog?

Because you could imagine that for some people not spending the money, being able to travel more freely, not having that responsibility would actually be a bigger life. But for my family, it was obvious that the bigger life was to get a dog. So we got our dog Barnaby and we're, we're so happy. I can't believe that I was ever on the fence. But that was something where I think before I would have really weighed in things like convenience much more heavily and not weighed in things like just like love and fun and just like the relationship and just the life, having the life of a dog in your house is really wonderful. How comforting it is. It's just like a whole different kind of relationship. This kind of silent companionship is, and something to love, something to take care of, which is so important for happiness. And so I think I just analyzed it a different way because I ordered my priorities in a different way, having studied happiness. I like that, the bigger life. I've not heard that before. It's such a beautiful concept.

What is that that you mean by bigger life? Well, see, that's what I love about the phrase. And I think it's so useful because it goes right to your gut, right to your core, and everybody would feel like it was different. And I remember talking to somebody, and it's really helpful when you're making a big decision and you feel like either it's apples and oranges and you can't weigh them against each other, or you feel like the pros and cons are just perfectly imbalanced. So I was talking to a friend, and she and her husband were thinking about moving back to their hometown. They were getting ready to start a family, and they thought, well, maybe it'd be easier. But then they had really great jobs where they were living and it was a

big city and it was exciting and they could imagine a great life there. And so they were going back and forth, the pros, the cons. And I said, well, choose the bigger life. And you can imagine for many people, the bigger life would be to stay in the big city, but instantly she's like, well, for us, the bigger life is to move home. Because it was like, we have family there. We have friends there. We, you know, we could have our, we could make our jobs be just as interesting if we like worked at it. Like we could have a bigger house.

That's important to us. She wanted a garden. He was really into fishing. It's like, that's the bigger life for us. And it was like, in an instant, she saw, even though before that she'd been just like tormented by indecision. And so I do think that sometimes it's like the kind of in the, the ineffable, what is bigger, kind of helps you put aside rational thought and go like straight to the

heart of whatever is at the core of your indecision. Yeah. No, I love it. Right. I can't hold myself back anymore. Four tendencies. Let's do it. We're going in. And there's a section where it says, and we're going to go through the four tendencies, but I just want to make the sell right at the top. You've said, knowing our tendency can help us set up situations in the ways that make it more likely that we'll achieve our aims. We'll make better decisions, meet deadlines, meet promises to ourselves, suffer less stress,

and engage more deeply with others. So who wouldn't want those five incredible benefits? Sounds like a big claim, but I stand by it. So tell us, what are these four tendencies? Excellent. Okay. So the four tendencies, it's a personality framework that I came up with that divides people into four tendencies, upholders, questioners, obligers, and rebels. And they say there are two kinds of people in the world, the kind of people who like to divide the world into two kinds of people and the kind of people who don't. And I'm the kind of people who does. And so I was very eager to come up with a framework to explain something that I kept when I was studying habits for my book better than before, I kept encountering a certain kind of

certain patterns. And tell me if you've heard somebody say this to you, something similar. A friend of mine said, you know, I know I'm happier when I exercise. And when I was in high school, I was on the track team and I never missed track practice. So I don't understand why I can't go running now. Yeah. Okay. Well, it's the same person. It's the same behavior. At one time it was effortless. Now she can't do it. How do you explain that? time it was effortless. Now she can't do it. How do you explain that? So I was looking at all these patterns about when people did or didn't successfully master a habit. And I realized, and it like melted my brain, it was so hard to figure it out. But ultimately, I realized that it comes down to a very, very simple question, which has to do with how you meet or resist expectations, which sounds dry, but it's really juicy.

So we all face two kinds of expectations, outer expectations, like a work deadline or request from a friend, and inner expectations, my own desire to keep a New Year's resolution, my own desire to get back into meditation. So depending on whether you meet or resist outer and inner expectations, that's what makes you an upholder, a questioner, a blizer, a rebel. So now I'll define them quickly. And if people want to take a quiz, like I think people can tell very quickly what they are. You can do the Game of Thrones characters. Like these are very obvious.

I want to say, I think everyone should do this quiz. It's fun to do. It's super quick. And once you do it, you'll want the people in your life around you to do it as well. As my wife and I have been doing this week. So yeah, talk us through it. You don't need to speed through it. You know, we've got plenty of time. I mean, I actually, I really think what you have given to the world here is so, so powerful and transformative for

people. So I really do. So let's go through them. What are they and what do they mean? Yeah. Well, if people do want to take the quiz, it's at quiz.gretchenrubin.com. And like you said, like 3 million people have taken the quiz and it's very quick and free. But so I'll describe them. I think a lot of people will know what they are. So the first tendency is the upholder tendency. So upholders readily meet outer and inner expectations. They meet the work deadline. They keep the New Year's resolution without much fuss. They want to know what other people expect from them, but their expectations for themselves are just as important.

So they tend to like things like schedules, to-do lists, calendars. They're very good at execution. They don't need a lot of supervision. So their motto is discipline is my freedom. But with all the tendencies, the upsides are also the downsides. So downsides you can see with upholders, and I say this as an upholder myself, so I own all this, is that they can seem rigid because they get an idea in their head like, well, this is how the day is supposed to go. And if you're in a place where there's a lot of need for flexibility or when things change suddenly,

they can become very uneasy and very unwilling to change or like, listen, I go for a three mile run every day. Like I can't I can't not do that just because it's inconvenient for you. So so sometimes they can seem rigid and that can also make them seem cold because it's like, oh, you know, you need me to proofread your work report that's due on Friday, but I don't have time to help you because I have to proofread my own report. So I don't have time to help. And to an upholder, that seems appropriate because inner expectations must be met, but it can seem cold to others. And sometimes upholders get tightening. And this is when the rules get tighter and tighter. Like I'm one of these low carb people who eats a very low carb diet. I used to be pretty

low carb. Now I'm very low carb because the rules have gotten tighter and tighter, which for me has been fine. I feel like that's healthy for me. But there are situations where upholders can kind of become bureaucrats of their own red tape. Like I was talking to a medical student, maybe you'll identify with this, where she said, at first I didn't review my notes before class. Then a few times I reviewed my notes before class. And now I feel like I have to review my notes before every class, even though I know it's not a good use of my time. And I'm like, okay, you're experiencing tightening. As an upholder, you have to like really get in touch with that inner expectation that this isn't good for you and it's not helping you. So then there are

questioners and questioners question all expectations. They'll do it if they think it makes sense. So they're everything, if they turn everything into an inner expectation, if they decide to do it because they think it's justified, they'll do it. But they hate anything arbitrary, inefficient, that doesn't have good reasoning. And so they need to be convinced. They're the ones that always ask why. And so their motto is, I'll comply if you convince me why. And so questioners are great because they're the ones who save all of us from wasting our time, energy and money on things that aren't good for us. They're really, they don't need a lot of supervision. They're very self-directed, but it can be draining and overwhelming sometimes for to be like confronted with a questioner's

constant questioning and um questioner children and adults have to learn how to manage that so that they their questions seem constructive so they don't seem like a bottleneck or obstructionist or you know or like uh like uh insolent you know if you're if i keep asking my teacher questions maybe i that that the teacher thinks that i'm not being respectful or if I'm a thin skin boss and you keep asking me questions, I may start to feel like, you know what? You don't trust my authority. You're constantly questioning my judgment. You're not a team player. I don't want to work with you. So you have to learn how to manage that. And then sometimes questioners get

analysis paralysis. I wonder if you've run into this with health, where their desire for perfect information and research makes it hard for them to move forward. So they're like, what's the best, healthiest way to eat? This says this, this says that, this says this. I bet a lot of people come to your podcast and they're like, here's a trusted authority. If it's good enough for him, it's good enough for me. And so I can act because otherwise I was, I was stuck in analysis paralysis. Yeah. I mean, I think, yeah, I'm interested in the

percentage breakdown on, on how this, you know, how many are in each group, you know, from your research, but you know, so far we've gone through the upholders. You say you are an upholder. Um, then the question is, uh, we discovered a few days ago that my wife is a questioner. Interesting. Okay. I'm married to a questioner too. Okay. Well, we'll get to that for sure. But what you said then just about questioners is, where do I see this in health? It's funny, as I was reading the book, I kind of felt that as a doctor, I kind of feel, you know, I feel that I've intuitively taken different approaches with different patients. Like I've always... Kind of taking the lead from...

Yeah, but I didn't have a framework. Like when I now look at your book, I think, oh, she sort of put the code there as to why various things worked or didn't work for various people. So I find that really, really interesting. But I do feel with some people, like you see this all the time. I mean, I get this on my Instagram DMs all the time. Like, yeah, you know, I want to get walking or want to get running, but you know, which running shoes should I get? Like, I can't decide. I mean, this one's got good reviews. This one has, this one has. Would that typically be a questioner where they're researching, they're asking why, and they have this paralysis where they actually are not doing it because they want to know more? Well, that can be a stalling technique

for any tendency, which is like, oh, but I think you're right that that's a very questioner thing because they always want to make the most efficient choice and they often like to customize things to themselves. And so something like, well, what's the very best, what's going to be for me, the very best running shoe could be something that could really consume them. And so I think often for questioners, like we were saying earlier, sometimes just self-knowledge, just recognizing that something is happening. And many questioners will say like, oh, well, now that I know about analysis paralysis, when I feel myself drifting toward the black hole of research, which they often find very satisfying, it's like, but you could research that forever.

The best running shoe for you. So one thing I would say is you can always make an appeal to efficiency and experimentation. Those tend to be very convincing to questioners. So you say, this one's really good. This one sounds like a great choice. Try it. And if it doesn't work for you, you've learned something. And now you'll know that like you pronate or whatever it is, and then you can learn and iterate and from this this information but you need to experiment you need to start in order to learn and improve because um because the like don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good don't get it perfect get it going you know at a questioners get it like at some point it's not efficient to keep puzzling over the the the start you have to get started. So so upholders, just to recap, are people who very much trying to get this clear now in terms of this outer expectation and inner expectation, right? So the upholders, inner expectation, and outer, inner and outer, so both. So they're accountable to themselves and accountable to the world around them.

Yes. Question it. But wait, here's an interesting thing about upholders. You might think that upholders would feel the most burdened because you're like, oh my gosh, they're meeting inner expectations and outer expectations. Like, doesn't that drive them bonkers? But upholders are really good at things like, I'm sorry, I have to leave work because I have a yoga class.

Or I've decided that I need to leave work because I have a yoga class, or I've decided that I need to spend three hours reading on the couch today. They're very good at taking time for themselves. And if they decide that they need to take a break or that they need to draw some kind of boundary, they're very good at sticking to it. So often it kind of is a protective mechanism for them because they do meet those inner expectations for themselves. And you said for upholders, the discipline gives them the freedom. Yes. Okay. So I want everyone listening to start trying to think.

Let me do the quiz as well, but just try to start to see which one do you think. So that's upholders. We're doing questions, asking a ton of questions, like always trying to meet, they're happy to do something. They're always asking, why should I? That's the key thing. Why should I? And I'm sure you see this in your practice that some people are like, why 20 minutes? Why in the morning? Why with a meal? Why am I listening to you? You know, where this is particularly interesting for me is yes, certainly as a way of helping determine the best approach with a particular patient

um it says how to communicate i kind of feel that's very helpful but the real one for me is or the big one for me at the moment is you know over the last couple of years i now have a team of people i work with uh which i never used to you, I used to just get on with my job as a doctor by myself. But since, you know, writing books and having a podcast and putting out a lot of content online, I work with people. And I mean, we'll get into my tendency, you know, my tendency, we've not described it yet. But yeah, I was a definite rebel, which we can get into in a second. But I kind of feel that I've, well, let's, I'll tell you what, why don't you, why don't you outline the final two? Okay. And then we'll dive into this a little bit, because I think in work teams, this could be incredibly beneficial. It's hugely, it's hugely important. Well, and it's interesting, because the two that are left are the biggest and

the smallest. So obliger is the biggest tendency for both men and women, you definitely either are an obliger or you have many obligers in your life and rebel is the smallest. So I'll start with the obliger and then we'll get to your tendencies next. So obligers readily meet outer expectations, but they struggle to meet inner expectations. And the thing about obligers is they are the rock of the world. These are the people who are most likely to come through. If you ask them to lend a hand or go the extra mile. They are the type O. They are the ones that work most easily with the other three tendencies. And really, the issue with the obliger tendency really falls mostly on the obligers themselves because they get frustrated that they're meeting their promises to everybody else, but then why aren't they meeting their promises to themselves?

They get very frustrated. And they can often get discouraged because they think, well, other people can just like get up in the morning and go for a run or other people can just like, you know, have a side hustle and get that thing going. Why can't I? What's wrong with me? But the key for obligers to remember is that they need outer accountability,

even to meet an inner expectation. So if you want to read more, join a book group or think of your duty to be a role model for your children of somebody reading all the time instead of watching TV. If you want to exercise more, you work out with a trainer. Again, you work out with a friend who's going to be annoyed if you don't show up. You take your dog for a run who's going to be so disappointed if he doesn't get to go for his run. You raise money for a charity because you're doing a, you know, a 5k. There's a million ways to get outer accountability once you realize that that's what you need. But often obligers think they need self care or priorities or getting clear putting themselves first.

No, they need outer accountability. Yeah, yeah, that's so interesting. So obligers are the biggest group. Yes. And these are people who are always very good at meeting outer expectation, but they're not good at meeting inner expectation. And I'm wondering if there's a, you know, a different sex breakdown here. It's the biggest for both men and women. Is it? That's super interesting, because... But you know, it's interesting, because sometimes it can kind of present different, sort of through a cultural lens. Like you might think... So like one person...

You might think there's more women obligers than men, for example. Okay, but let me do it. Like what I'm sure you know people like this. Listen, you think I got time to exercise? I give everything to my patients, 100%. I'm on the phone. I'm at the hospital. I'm meeting people. I'm talking to people. You think I have time to like watch what 100%. I'm on the phone. I'm at the hospital. I'm meeting people.

I'm talking to people. You think I have time to watch what I eat and go to the gym? No, because I'm 100% there for my patients. To me, that's a pleasure, right? Because it's I'm meeting the outer expectations, but I'm not taking time for the inner expectations. As an upholder, I'd be like, yes, I have to give to my patients, but I have to take care of myself too. To me, that wouldn't be in conflict or it wouldn't be one wouldn't, one wouldn't

matter to the other. They would have to both be attended to. So that's very obligor. So sometimes people are like, Oh, I'm, you know, I'm such a hardcore. I'm always there for my, I have a friend where he's an obliger. His whole thing was like, while his son was being boring, he was on the phone with a client and I'm like, yeah, it's obliger. And, and, and there are, and all the tendencies include people who are wildly successful and also big losers. It's all a question of managing your tendency. That's what I loved about this, this, this whole concept that you can't really just know from someone you can't get, Oh, they do that job that that role, that's what they are. That's not it. There's, there's, there's complexity there, but there's a beautiful simplicity as well in what

you've done, which I think is genius, actually. It's gorgeous. And what I was thinking about patients there, you said about obligers, because we talk a lot about, oh, if you want to make a change, you need an accountability partner, make yourself accountable. But maybe that doesn't work for everyone, but maybe it works particularly well for obligers where they can't meet their own expectations. But as you say, well, okay, we'll make the outer expectation work for the inner expectation. And then bingo, you kind of, you're working with your tendency rather than trying to fight it. I think that's the beauty of it. Right. Well, and then the fact is accountability partners can be actually counterproductive for rebels because they don't like people looking

over their shoulders. So they don't like checking in. And so that could be very bad advice for a rebel, whereas for an obliger, an accountability partner could be essential. And then you also want to think about things like, well, sweethearts and spouses usually don't make good accountability partners because they're too inner. Oh, honey, I'm going to ignore you because you're like me. So then you might have to, and some people are very accountable to things like, well, if I paid, then I have to do it. But then I talked to somebody who was like, well, I realized with my trainer that like if I pay him, he still gets paid and he gets the time free. And I was like, OK, that's not a good accountability for you because you feel like you're doing him a good deed by not showing up. But no,

some obligers can be accountable to their future selves. Some can feel accountable to an app or like a chart. People are really different in what they can feel accountable to. So even with obligers, sometimes they have to experiment, but they're wildly ingenious in how they create outer accountability. It's so fun for me to hear what people dream up to give themselves that crucial accountability. Once they know that's what they need, because once you know that's the missing piece, then it's just a question of like, okay, how do I plug that in?

The problem a lot of times obligers don't realize that's what they need. So they're throwing spaghetti against the wall and doing things that don't have that element to them. Yeah, I mean, this completely plays into the happiness conversation we were having before, doesn't it, about self-knowledge. This allows you to understand yourself, and as you say in the title, the tendencies, your own particular tendencies. And there's freedom in that knowledge. I really feel lots of pennies have dropped in the

last few days as I've been researching in preparation for this uh conversation which has been really interesting you could just start to see where friction can come up in a work setting in a personal setting and also then how you might manage things better going forward. But I also think it, I think it allows us to be more compassionate, you know, Gretchen, because would you agree? No, because you understand it's like, it's not that you're right and I'm wrong or that, you know, that we, you know,

that one of us has to like prove to the other our way or we don't have to take it personally. It's just like oh okay you're asking a lot of questions because you're a questioner my husband's like that it's like he's not going to do anything if i don't tell him why and i used to get annoyed by that and now i'm like that's just the way he is he's like that with everyone a lot of times it benefits me um sometimes it annoys me but sometimes it benefits me and it's just the way he is and i think it does give me a lot more compassion. There's also not,

there's not a judgment really, which is beautiful. It's not like this is a good tendency and this is a bad tendency. This is like, this is what they are. Just understand that. And then you can take some steps around it. Well, and I think that's why it lets you, it lets people show more compassion to themselves too, because instead of thinking like, well, why can everybody else do that? And I can't, you say, you know what? Now that I look around, I see that a lot of people can't use a to-do list or a lot of people can't, you know, do whatever. And there are ways to deal with that. And so I don't have to like, I don't have to change.

I just have to set things up differently. But, you know, speaking of teams, one thing when, because speaking of obligers, because there's so many obligers, a really important pattern to know about in teams at work, but in life too, but it comes up a lot at work as well, is obliger rebellion. And this is when obligers meet, meet, meet, meet expectations. And then suddenly they snap and they say, this I will not do. And maybe it's something like, you know what? I'm just not going to answer your emails for a couple of weeks. Cause I've had it with you. Or maybe it's like, I'm going to get a divorce, break up a 30 year friendship, or like quit this job right now. I'm just going to walk out right now. I'm just quitting. And it's very explosive. Obligers often feel like they're

acting out of character. They don't understand what just happened. It's very mysterious to them. Like they're acting out of character. They don't understand what just happened. It's very mysterious to them. It's meant to blow up a situation where obligers feel unheard or neglected or exploited or taken advantage of. And sometimes it is really beneficial. It blows up the situation. It lets them escape from whatever has become unsustainable. But it can be very destructive.

And it can have reputational consequences because it's like look i asked you if you wanted to work on that project and you said yes so i don't understand why you're so mad at me now because it's like but so i think like in terms of teams and compassion i think it's on all of us to say we shouldn't take advantage of the people just because they're the ones that are willing to say help out things should be fair it shouldn't be that one person's taking all the night shifts it shouldn't be that one person's on two projects and one person's on 11 projects like if somebody's not taking their vacation time you as their manager have to say i want you to come in here and give me your plan about when you're taking vacation i don't want you to burn out

because when you know it seems mysterious but when you know, it seems mysterious, but if you know to look for it, you see obliger rebellion coming a mile away, the building resentment, the anger, the frustration, the feeling of being taken advantage of, you will see it coming. So you want to head that off. You do not want obliger rebellion to set in. And that's why I think understanding these tendencies

is, it's beneficial for us to understand what our own one is. Yes. But it's also really beneficial to understand the other three, the ones which you are not, because it allows you to, to, to, to understand and interact with the world around you, I think in a much more harmonious, and interact with the world around you, I think in a much more harmonious, a less divisive way, a more, you know, it's, you can just see it, whether it's a, you know, a personal love relationship, a work relationship, but even, I don't know, even on the school parent council meeting, whatever, because these are just human tendencies, aren't they? So, okay, let's get on to the fourth one. Before we get back to this week's episode, I just wanted to let you know that I am doing my very first national UK theatre tour. I am planning a really special evening where I share how you can

break free from the habits that are holding you back and make meaningful changes in your life that truly last. It is called the Thrive Tour. Be the architect of your health and happiness. So many people tell me that health feels really complicated, but it really doesn't need to be. In my live event, I'm going to simplify health and together we're going to learn the skill of happiness, the secrets to optimal health, how to break free from the habits that are holding you back in your life, and I'm going to teach you how to make changes that actually last. Sound good? All you have to do is go to drchatterjee.com forward slash tour. I can't wait to see you there. This episode is also brought to

you by the Three Question Journal, the journal that I designed and created in partnership with Intelligent Change. Now, journaling is something that I've been recommending to my patients for years. It can help improve sleep, lead to better decision making and reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression It's also been shown to decrease emotional stress, make it easier to turn new behaviours into long-term habits and improve our relationships There are of course many different ways to journal and as with most things it's important that you find the method that works best for you. One method that you may want to consider is the one that I outline in the three question journal.

In it, you will find a really simple and structured way of answering the three most impactful questions I believe that we can all ask ourselves every morning and every evening. Answering these questions will take you less than five minutes, but the practice of answering them regularly will be transformative. Since the journal was published in January, I have received hundreds of messages from people telling me how much it has helped them and how much more in control of their lives they now feel. Now, if you already have a journal or you don't actually want to buy a journal, that is completely fine. I go through in detail all of the questions within the three

question journal completely free on episode 413 of this podcast. But if you are keen to check it out, all you have to do is go to drchatterjee.com forward slash journal or click on the link in your podcast app. When I emailed you to tell you I was a rebel, did that surprise you? Not really. Not really. I think you're a rebel who tips to questioner, meaning that you're very much like, I want to do my own thing. You do your thing, but I'm going to do my thing. And I don't really care what you think of my thing. I want to be the boss. I don't want other people telling me what to do. I like to set my own priorities. I have my own ideas of where this should go. I don't necessarily care if other people agree. Maybe it's interesting to me if they don't. Like, I don't mind surprising people. That's called the biggest smile on my face.

And you're wildly productive. And often, if rebels are doing what they want to do, they're wildly productive because they can do anything they want to do. And if they want to do a lot, they get a lot done. Yeah. I mean, I don't know where to start with rebels. So what percentage of people are rebels? Like 17% of people are rebels.

One seven. 17. And 19% are upholders. So those are the two smallest ones. Those are kind of the extreme personality types. Yeah. So rebels resist all expectations, outer and inner alike. They want to do what they want to do in their own way, in their own time. So, and often rebels are very focused on identity. Like they want to put themselves out into the world. I'm a, I'm a,

I'm an artist. I'm an athlete. I'm a responsible parent. I'm a responsive boss. Identity is very important to them. And often they do love a challenge. They will often be interested. Interesting, a lot of rebels are attracted to areas of high regulation, like the police, the clergy, the military, big corporations with a lot of rules. Not all rebels, military, like big corporations with a lot of rules, not all rebels, but there is kind of a subset of rebels who they kind of get energy from pushing up against a lot of regulation. They need that to kind of give them, it's like somebody pushing off the side of a swimming pool. They need those rules to push against, but not all rebels do. Some rebels are fine. They just make up the rules for themselves. Yeah. I mean, you sort of picked right. I mean, I feel I'm, well, the quiz spat out

rebel as my predominant tendency. And I'm pretty clear from reading that that's what my main tendency is. But I think, yeah, there's a sort of hint of question there as well. That's, I think, my combination. There were so many things in the rebel section I just underlined and I thought, oh, you're kidding me. Let me find that bit in the book. But one thing I did write down is you put in the book, rebels often frustrate others. Sometimes they even frustrate themselves. Could you just explain that a little bit?

Well, sometimes I'd be curious to hear what you say. But like sometimes rebels, they don't want to follow rules, even rules that they've set for themselves. So like I was talking to a rebel who's like, you know, I just decided I'm going to give up bread. And the next day I ate an entire loaf of cinnamon bread because I'm like, nobody tells me what to do. Not even me. with great success. Like, you know, people will say to you, oh, get an accountability partner or just sign up for a class and go every week or make a to-do list and just march through, you know, from top to bottom. They're like, what's wrong? Like, I can't do those things. Those things like actually make things worse for me. And if they don't understand, like, yeah, those are things that often don't work well for rebels. I never say never with a rebel. They can make anything work if they want. But often those things, rebels often don't like to feel trapped and confined by their schedule. So the idea of signing up for a weekly class might kind of be a turnoff

for them they might be better off joining a big gym where it's like today i feel like yoga today i feel like strength training today i feel like cardio like i'm just going to do what i feel like and i can go whenever i want and like i'm not i'm not no one's looking over my shoulder or telling me what to do you know if someone says, we put a date in for two weeks, I don't know how I'm going to feel in two weeks. I don't know what I'm going to do that week. See, there you go. Yeah, so I'm like...

See, it's an upholder. I'm like, let's get every single thing on the calendar. Yeah, and you know, the interesting thing is, I think I've had to adapt. I think, I don't know if this is true for all rebels. I'd be interested as to what you think of this, but if you are a rebel, and of course, I don't want to only speak to a certain section of the listenership, but at the same time, 17%, although it's small, it's still nearly one in five people

are rebels. And therefore you're probably interacting with a rebel somewhere in your life. and therefore you're probably interacting with a rebel somewhere in your life. Do rebels prefer to work by themselves? You know, I think that I've always been drawn to individual sports, because I think it's sort of, yeah, it's down to me. If I do well, it's because I showed up, I did the training, I performed when I needed to. Whereas team sports, I'm never really,

it's like, yeah, then you've got to kind of rely on other people. That's a fascinating question. Gosh, I wish I had the big data on that. Like, yeah, like are rebels not drawn to teams? Well, also, there's just a lot more having to do what everybody else is doing. But I'm also a people pleaser or I have been. So where does that fit into this? Well, see, the thing is, is like the, the, the tendency is kind of a, it's significant, but it's very, very narrow. It doesn't tell you, sometimes people are like, oh, all rebels are creative or all questioners are scientists. No, it, all it tells you is if somebody asks or tells you to do something, how do you respond?

So it doesn't tell you how introverted or extroverted you are or how adventurous you are, how curious you are, or how scientifically oriented you are, how analytical you are, how smart you are. It doesn't tell you anything. And it doesn't tell you your values because values have a huge effect on how the, how a tendency comes out into the world. So if you have a rebel who's highly principled, who really has ideals for themselves about what they do and how they behave and that's their identity, well, they're going to behave very differently from a rebel who really doesn't care about how other people, what other people think or how other people feel like. And so the values make a huge, so what I would say to you is you,

you're a rebel, but that's a big value to you. Like getting along with other people feel like and so the values make a huge so what i would say to you is you you're a rebel but that's a big value to you like getting along with other people cooperating like good team good like good relationships with other people being like like like playing the vital role in your own family being a good friend this is a value that you are choosing to live up to um but that's and that's just but but that's not necessarily part of being a rebel um it's just an aspect of your nature and you're and it's kind of coming out through your rebel side maybe there's a um a subsection maybe i'd like to think of myself as a compassionate rebel sure well absolutely yes i think many can yeah i think rebels sometimes i worry that people kind of have a bad association with rebels. And they really shouldn't because because it's, you know, there's outstanding principled. Yeah, yeah.

I think what I one of the themes that underpins this whole concept of tendencies is that the strengths are often the weaknesses. It just depends on the setting. Right? Yes, yes. Where are you in the world? Yes, exactly. It's super interesting. And I guess these things will show up in different ways in different relationships, but potentially. Staying on Rebels for a moment, there's a couple of things I found, well, there's more than a couple of things I found fascinating, but there was something about, you know, rebels don't really like being told what to do. And, you know, I've noticed this, like if I get a work email, careful how much I reveal here, but hey, let's just go for it. The spirit of vulnerability and honestly, let's just go for it. But I kind of feel if someone is putting pressure on me and saying, you have to do this this way in an email, I don't think I consciously was aware until I read your

book that, yeah, you know what? I push away. I sort of, I won't read that email. I'll read it and I won't do anything with it. Then I'll end up forgetting about it because it doesn't, it doesn't penetrate the shield. It doesn't get through where I actually go, oh, I need to do something here. It's, I feel, I feel I repel back when I feel this pressure being put on me, but I can withstand huge amounts of pressure that I put on myself. Do you know, I can crank it right up and deliver. So is this something you see with rebels a lot? Yes, absolutely. So what you're talking about is when people accidentally ignite the spirit of resistance, just from the way that they're phrasing things or whatever, they can ignite the spirit of resistance in rebels. And this is why if you're dealing with a rebel, it's really,

really helpful to know. Like I work with a lot of rebels and I will absolutely write an email differently when I know that I'm writing to an E when I'm writing to a rebel, like somebody, the rebel told me that he got an email that was like, um, re it was like titled read immediately. And he deleted it without opening it. Cause he's like, you know what? No, I'm not going to do that. But so with the rebel, I'm always like, Hey, this is something that seems like it could be fun for you. And it would work. And I think it would be great. I think it would work for you. If you feel like it, like, let me know. So it's always much more like, this would be good for you. This would be something you would choose if you choose when you choose how you

choose. Yeah. And to stay away from, because you can very accidentally say oh well you have to do i mean this comes up with doctors doctors orders i somebody was saying that her father was a rebel and uh he he never took his medication then he started taking his medication and she said i'm so glad to hear that you're finally following doctor's orders and he's like you think i'm doing it because the doctor told me to and he stopped right so you don't want to accidentally trip that spirit of resistance it's always like it's what you, it's what you choose. It's what you want. Also, you know, it's like, they don't, they want it's the consequences. It's like, let them experience the consequences, whether it's good or bad. And then, and just because once they decide, oh, I don't want these negative

consequences, then they're, then they're absolutely able to follow through. Just like you're absolutely able to crank out the work when you decide, this is what I want, this works for me. Yeah. You know, this idea that you would write an email differently, depending on what the tendency is of the person you're communicating with, I think is huge. This personalization, I think this is where we run into a lot of problems in our life, whether it's in our personal life, or even when it's on social media trying to say, well, this is the one way to do it. This worked for me. It's kind of like what you're clearly showing with your work, which is something I'm very passionate about, is that there is no one

size fits all. Different people need different approaches, whether you're talking about a diet or different people need different approaches, whether you're talking about a diet or workout regime, a way to get them to be more productive. It's really fascinating. Now, someone might say, Gretchen, you're writing an email in a slightly different tone and different way to different people. Could someone misinterpret that as being manipulative?

I don't think it is. I think it's really insightful. But has anyone ever said to you, that sounds manipulative. I don't think it is. I think it's really insightful. But has anyone ever said to you, that sounds manipulative to me? They haven't said it about that. But the way the manipulation comes up is like, one thing that sometimes works with certain rebels is just saying you don't think they can do something. So like somebody said that her husband refused to quit smoking. And then their 18 year old son said, I don't even know why you guys are talking about this.

Like there's no way he could quit. An old guy like him could never quit smoking. And the father was like, you think? Watch me. And he did it. That you could feel like if you just sort of deliberately tried to challenge somebody in that way, maybe that would feel manipulative. But maybe it's just, but maybe it's just,

but sometimes it's just like, it's just the way that it is. But I don't, but I also think it's not really manipulation. It's just like, I want to work with you most effectively. So I want to tailor my, my, my words so that they can be heard by you without creating unnecessary noise. Because it's always up to you. It's always your choice. I'm just going to frame it in a way that shows that I'm acknowledging that it's your choice if it's something that you choose to do. I do not think it's manipulative at all. Actually, I think it shows a lot of wisdom and intelligence. And I think it's that emotional intelligence that we can then start to be, you know, subtly, you know, alter and reframe how we're interacting in situations to get the best out of other people as well, as well as what you want,

you're getting the best out of the person around you. Because let's say someone's sending me an email that needs a response. But for some reason, maybe unconsciously that my back's been, I've got my back up because of the way it was said, right? And I don't do it. Then I'm not sure who that's serving. It's not serving me if I actually do need to do that. It's not serving the person who's emailed me because they presumably want, they feel that they need me to do what they're asking me to do. So it's, I think it's about productivity, happiness, calm, you know, better interpersonal dynamics. I feel it could be really, really

helpful. Well, and somebody was just telling me, I thought this was an interesting example, because what something that cannot happen sometimes is like, you're working for a rebel. So you need like, you need to work, you know, you need a back and forth in order to work for them. And yet they're not responding to you because in a way you're telling them what to do. Like, I need I need you to give me this information. But you really do need them to get that information. And so somebody was saying that she realized that when she had rebel clients who were not she was like worked in finance, who weren't giving her paperwork instead of being like, I really have to have this. You need to give this to me. It's like if you submit the paperwork by the end of the week, then I'll submit it by the end of

the month. And then, you know, then there will be no late fee. If it comes in after Friday, then there'll be a $300 fine. Just like, do you want to pay an extra $300 and not give me the paperwork? Because if that's what you choose, you're the boss. But if you want to give it to me now, then it's like, that's $ not, that's $300. You don't have to pay. So it's just much more like, Hey, Hey, you know, give me now or give it to me later and pay the fine. And, um, and so again, it's like, it's just letting people have the information that they know and like allowing that engagement to happen in a way that doesn't make get people sort of sidetracked with unnecessary friction before we started the conversation today you said oh you're rebels so are you married to a and i can't remember what the time was

an obliger now i'm not so not. Yes, we must discuss. We must discuss. So do rebels and obligers get on, not better together, is it? I've used my words carefully here. Well, yeah. Why don't you tell me what they tend to? Yeah. When you see a rebel, either in work, like let's say you had a partner, like a, you know, founding team kind of situation, or in romance, typically, if one person is a rebel, the other person is an obliger. When you see a rebel, you tend to see a lot of obligers around them. And that is because obligers do pair up the most successfully with the other three tendencies. And that's true for rebel as well. rebel as well. Upholders and questioners, typically, I would never say never, but typically they don't, they have more, they have more friction with, with rebels just because there's,

they just see the world in, in, in a, in a more different way. And also the thing about obligers is like obligers feel enormous pressure of outer expectations. And so if you have an obliger and a rebel, the rebels like your family is way too demanding. Like they expect you have an obliger and a rebel, the rebel's like, your family is way too demanding. Like they expect you to be there every Friday. No, we don't have to do that. Come with me. We're going to go off and do something else. And the obliger's like, this is great. Like, yeah, I'm with you. So they kind of get, they get a balance from the rebel that's very helpful to them. Whereas upholders and questioners often feel more conflict with rebels. very helpful to them. Whereas upholders and questioners often feel more conflict with rebels.

Okay. So my wife's predominant tendency is questioner. It does not oblige her. But you are a rebel who tips to questioners. So that's good. Okay, that's good. Well, I think we got a pretty happy, secure relationship. So something's working for sure. Now, I was obviously, as we all are, when we go through these, we're fascinated about these, we're fascinated about ourselves. We're fascinated about the people around us. And the questioner section was incredibly fascinating. There was one part of it where you were saying where the interesting sort of paradox with questioners is that they love to ask a lot of questions of others, but they don't like being questioned themselves. Oh, my husband, does your wife do this?

I think that's fair to say. I think she doesn't like being asked many questions by me. And I, you know, I'm a rebel. You know, I've got a question and tendency. So I do ask a lot of questions. So yeah, I really don't think she likes it much. And it can often be a slight source of friction between us. But I think it won't be anymore now that I know that that's just a tendency, right? I think with my husband, it's so pronounced that even before I came up with a tendencies framework, we had a joke and it was called Y2K, no N2K. And it was need to know basis because my husband will only answer, he only answers questions on a need to know basis. So I'd be like, what time are we leaving for brunch later?

What are you making for dinner? Food. I mean, seriously. And I used to think this is true for me as well. This is, oh, there's no question. Right. I thought he was just teasing me or like, and just driving me crazy because he thought it was funny.

And it was just like, why are you doing this? It really annoyed me. And then there was one day I was still, I had one of those boring bureaucratic forms to fill out. And so I was starting to fill it out a pulled her than I am. And, and, uh, but I didn't know his work address. He had just gotten a new job. So I called him up and I'm like, Jamie, what's your work address? And he's like, why do you want to know? And I'm like, can't you just answer a question? Like, why does everything have to be a discussion? Just like, obviously, I have a reason if I'm calling you. It's not idle curiosity. But then I'm like, you know what? He's a questioner. He's not going to do anything unless he needs to know why. And so I should have said, Jamie, I'm filling out that boring bureaucratic form. What's your work address? And then he would have told me because he's understand why I'm asking. And so for us, it's massively, it's increased my lack of annoyance with him because I get where he's coming from. And so if I said something to him, hey, what time are we leaving for brunch?

Because I'm wondering if I have time to work out. Then he would answer me. What has this show up with your wife? Well, that phrase you use, I can't stop thinking about. It's increased my lack of annoyance it's like it's decreased my annoyance yes now I thought and I'm gonna guess that's and some level must have contributed to increased happiness right on some sort of base level um No, that need to know basis, that absolutely reminds me of something I said to my wife

in the early years of our marriage. I can't remember the exact words, but it was kind of like, yeah, you're quite sort of, you know, it's like giving out a load of information. It's like, it was very much need to know basis. And you're like, can't you just like film, give me like a backgrounder on this. Like what is going on?

It's like, why are you just feeding me dribs and drabs? But we've always put it down to her. You know, she used to be a criminal barrister. So I was like, is she very particular and careful with her words? And I've always said, you know, you will only use four words if four words is necessary. Well, I'll use 40 if I can. Yeah. Well, it's probably that too but i mean it is funny how often people say that that is and it's and it's it's ironic

like everybody gets why it's ironic that questioners don't like to answer questions um but often they they will say like they feel like they do so much thorough thinking about things they don't want to have to explain their reasoning or, or have their, their, their judgments question. I feel like sometimes my husband's like, he doesn't want to tell me cause he doesn't want to like have to argue with me about whether the decision should be different or like explain why he did what he did. He's just like, I'll just tell you when you need to know.

And then like, then we can just go do it. But it's funny, right? When you see these patterns, it's really striking. It's, you know, Gretchen, I think I've already mentioned this, but there's freedom in knowing there really is. I think it is that self knowledge about us and the people around us that can, you know, going back to happiness, relationships are such a big part of that. How many of us have friction in our personal relationships, our professional relationships? You know, every day all of us face some sort of friction or many of us do. And I really feel this framework really gives us that compassionate understanding that actually, you know what, we've all got slightly different tendencies.

that compassionate understanding that actually, you know what, we've all got slightly different tendencies. We all like to, you know, interact with other people and expectations in subtly different ways. So if you know that, you can do something about it. But if you don't know this stuff, you can literally be banging your head against the wall, getting frustrated that somebody else doesn't see the world in the same way that you do. No, and I think that's exactly the problem. And I mean, I certainly did this for a long time until I understood this framework myself, which is that you assume that what works for you will work for everyone if they would just like deal with it, you know, because you think, well, you know, as an upholder, I would say to people like, well, I don't need to be your babysitter, do your own

work in your own way. Like, that's not helpful for obligers, you know, or questioners are like, and maybe you see this in the medical profession. If I just gave you more and more and more data, then you will quit smoking. If I, if I give you so much information about how important it is for you to take your medication, then you will. And it's like, that doesn't work for everybody. Right. And we know it doesn't work for everybody. Cause clearly it does not. And as rebels, it's kind of like just you do you, once you get clear in your mind about who you are and what you want, like your actions will follow. And people are like, no, it won't. And so a lot of times I think the tendencies we get in each other's way because we try to convince each other or we try to deal with each other in a way that would be right for us. And sometimes that just doesn't work very well, even though it's

extremely well-intentioned, it's just not effective. It almost feels that it should be mandatory for leaders and companies and managers to understand this stuff because it could probably reduce conflict and increase productivity for so many different people. Like to make it really specific, okay, so we spoke a lot about individually what we might be and hopefully throughout this conversation, people will start to see some of their own tendencies through what we've been discussing. But what about the next stage of this conversation

to help people when they have to interact with someone who is not of the same tendency as theirs, or actually maybe it's hard to interact with someone who's of of the same tendency as theirs. Or actually, maybe it's hard to interact with someone who's of the same tendency as well, potentially. But let's go through it step by step. So let's say, let's start with rebels, because we've, you know, I'm slightly biased, because I do have the rebel tendency. If someone is around a rebel, and they want to get the best out of them or sort of interact with them productively and harmoniously, what strategies might they adopt? Well, they would want to make sure that they keep in mind the rebel values of identity, freedom and choice. And so whenever you're

talking about something, you would want to put it like you might think about putting it in terms of identity. You know, when you don't come to the weekly staff meeting, it makes the staff feel like their boss doesn't care about their views. Okay, well, that goes to my identity as a good boss. So maybe I do want to come to the meeting because I care that, because I want to be a good boss. That's who I am. So you could talk about identity. Another thing that can work with rebels is information consequences choice,

which is when you tell them the information they need, the consequences of their action or inaction, and then you just let them choose. So you could say, you know, we have this weekly 10 a.m. staff meeting on Wednesday that you haven't been coming to. And do you know what we do at the weekly staff meeting? All the people who are in the meeting, we take the good projects for ourselves and we leave the boring projects for the people who aren't in the meeting. So the meeting is at 10 a.m. on Wednesday. It's like, or you can see this in the medical profession when you're like, oh, you've had the surgery and we know very well what to expect from the surgery. The people who do their follow-up exercises, they get off pain medication. They don't need a cane or wheelchair. They're very independent. They don't need help,

you know, getting dressed or moving around. They're traveling. They're just like doing anything they want. People who don't stick with the regimen, well, they're stuck on pain medication. They're dependent on others, like for their basic, you know, just living. They can't really travel, you know, like they can't like climb the stairs or get on the plane. So, you know, they're really kind of stuck. climb the stairs or get on the plane. So, you know, they're really kind of stuck. Drop mic, right? No nudging, no encouraging, no badgering, no, you know, it's just like, what do you want? And then you can be like, oh, here's some pamphlets if you're curious or whatever. And then you just let them choose. So with a rebel, and you just want to make sure that they understand, like, this is up to you. This is what you want, whatever way you choose. And another thing with rebels is they like to do things in their own

time. And so if a rebel is like, Hey, it's 2am and I feel like cleaning out the basement. Don't say, Oh honey, why would you do it now? Let's do it in the morning and I'll help you or something like that. Cause in the morning they're gonna be like, yeah, I don't feel like cleaning out the basement. It's like, let them just do it when they want. Don't get in their way. A lot of times with rebels, other people get it. Theyudge they remind they they send the emails they ignite that as period of resistance whereas if they were just like hey look the deadline is in six months you know let me know when you're ready if you run into any roadblocks and i can help let me know otherwise like i can't wait to see what you come up with. It's like, and just let them do it.

Yeah. That's often, often less is more with rebels. Yeah. I can imagine why that would be the case. And yeah, that whole spontaneity of suddenly you get this idea, right? This has to be done now and I'm doing it now. And that's what my mind is on. I'm not doing anything else.

Right. It's, it must be. And do you feel like people interfere with that? Like they kind of try to derail you or like kind of make you more optimized and you're like, just get out of my way. I don't think I'd use the word interfere. That implies to me a sort of deliberate intention to sort of get in the way. But I think I know what I'm like. Yeah, I think so. I think this might be a very helpful part of the conversation for people who work with me and interact with me. I'm guessing. But I know I kind of I just I know what I want. And when I'm into something, it's like I want to go all in

and I feel I can prioritize and like, okay, in order for me to get this book done now, I'm in the hole and I'm shutting myself off from pretty much anything that I deem non-essential to that goal. But maybe all writers do that at book deadline time. No, they don't. Oh, really? No, no, no. If you had an obligerate, a big book

deadline, but then how that had a lot of outside pressure from other, they might, they might delay, they might miss their deadline. They might be extremely stressed out by that. Like you sound like you're pretty comfortable. Like this is a situation I am, and this is what it takes. And so, so be it. Whereas an obligerate might feel really, really like anguished about that, or they might just simply not be able to balance it in the same way. And so they blow through their deadline, which happens all the time, by the way. Well, that's fascinating for me, because I would have, again, that bias we all have that because because kind of I do it this way, everyone must do it that way. But but it's

clearly not the case. And it makes me feel that actually, Rangan, now that you're aware of this, how can you ensure that you're not being, you know, I don't think I'm erratic. To me, I'm not erratic. But, you know, there is an obliger on my team, I'm pretty sure like this has been my perception. And so it's kind of like, well, maybe I need to be mindful of that and mindful of what works for an obliger. The thing is, right, you say this, I've got a tendency to be quite hard on myself, I'd like to think I'm quite aware of other people and their needs. And I try my best to make sure I'm meeting those needs. And I think I've got a lot better at it over the years. But I think your framework really helps just go a bit deeper and really understand and maybe prevent problems before they even arise in the first place. So I think that's pretty helpful. So,

okay, you mentioned tips to help if you have rebels in your life. What about if you have questions around you in your life, who are asking a lot of questions, which potentially is getting frustrating or tiring? How would you handle, what sort of advice would you have for that? Well, the thing to remember with questioners is for them, it's a huge value and kind of like efficiency and reasons. And so if you ask a questioner to do something, it's very helpful to explain why you're asking. And also to know that just as rebels often value spontaneities, that's kind of a buzzword for rebels. The buzzword for questioners, which they do not like, is arbitrariness. So anything that feels arbitrary or unjustified, they won't do. So let's say you want your spouse to help you clean out the

basement and you're like, Hey honey, we've got to clean out the basement this weekend. Now you might think that sounds totally reasonable and you, and like justified, but to the, the questioner might be like, well, why do we have to do it this weekend? Why, why are we cleaning out the basement? We never use the basement. So why am I doing that? Like, I'm not going to get on board with that. And so I'm not going to cooperate with you Because there's no reason for me to do that But if you said hey, honey, you know what in two weeks your family is going to come stay with us We're going to have 10 kids in the house If we clean out the basement this weekend, the kids can play in the basement and that'll give the adults

More time and quiet for us to just hang out Um, but we really we're not going to be able to do it during the week So if we do it this weekend, we'll have that space and then we'll have it next weekend. It's like, okay, why are we doing it this weekend? Why are we doing it at all? Why are we using the basement? You've explained it. Now you're going to have a lot more cooperation from that questioner. people are getting because people do get drained and overwhelmed by information. And a lot of times people don't need as much and they get very like frustrated that they have to sit through it. Like, you know, we've all been in like a conference call or a meeting where someone's hand keeps going up and everybody else is rolling their eyes. So like, let's say you were going to roll out a new software program. You could say, you know, you're the manager. You could say, hey, you know, here's my spiel on why I feel like we're going to use this new software.

If you feel like you understand, like, why the company is moving in this direction, feel free to return to your desk, you know, once you're back at your desk. But if you feel like, but if you still have questions and you want to understand, like, the reasoning about why we're making this change, I'd be happy to stay here and answer all your questions. So some people can get up and go. They don't need all that information, but then some people can stay there. Because one thing that's really surprised me in the workplace is questioners will often be like, well, if something doesn't make sense for me, I won't do it. And I'm like, how does that work in a company where you're off on your own using some other software program? A lot of times you really want those questioners to get on board and they may be asking very valuable questions that may guide you to a better solution, but you

might want to create a situation where not everybody has to sit through that. Same thing with medicine. Some people want to know why, why, why, why, why. Some people just want you to, they just want you to tell them what to do. And so don't make everybody sit through it, but you have to have a way to answer the questions for the people who need it maybe you can't tell them but you could give them links or you there's other ways once you realize they need and that's why these generic uh societal maxims just don't work all the time you know everyone likes to be told what to do it's like well no they don't no they don't some people don't some people do so and i definitely as a doctor,

I can relate. Some people just want to know what you recommend and they will do it. Yes. Other people, no chance. You know, they want to, and that's completely fine with me as well. It's always fine. It's like, okay, cool. No worries. If you need to know more before you want to like, okay, cool. No worries. If you need to know more before you want to engage, go for it. I imagine questions, I know this from chatting to some of my colleagues, that they often get frustrated when patients ask loads of questions. And I've always been like, well, why wouldn't they ask questions? I mean, I'd ask questions. I'd want to know, why are you recommending this to me? What's your rationale for this? Why is this better than that approach? Do you know what I mean? But I think all the healthcare professionals should have some degree of this training to understand

that you need to, you know, articulate your advice to people in different ways, depending on their tendency. Yes, not not what how you deliver it, but how they hear it. But you know, your point about like how an email, like the way the email is written can just kind of like get your backup. This can happen with questioners when people don't, won't answer their questions and it can be really life-changing. And I thought a very sad story that I heard was from a questioner friend of mine who, when he was young, he loved to play soccer. I was on a soccer team for years, played the goalie and they got a new coach and he went to play soccer, was on a soccer team for years, played the goalie, and they got a new coach. And he went to the coach and the coach had like this whole like,

okay, this is what we're going to do, you know, for, you know, to work out. And he went to the coach and he said, I think I should have a different routine because I'm a goalie. So, you know, I should have a set of specific goalie exercises, right? So what do we hear? goalie exercises, right? So what do we hear? Customization, right? Very, very customer. And the coach said, I'm the coach and everybody on this team does the same workout. So the guy quit because he's not going to do something just because the coach tells him to do it. It doesn't make any sense for a goalie. But if that coach had taken five minutes and said, hey, I see why you might think you need special exercises, but I have studied the training schedules of all the top soccer teams. And what I found is the same skill set works for every position, cardio, speed, whatever.

And the kid would have been like, cool. Just wanted to know there was a reason for this. Just tell me why. I know you thought this through. Now I respect you, coach, even more because i know you're doing the thinking and it like it derailed his whole like he never you know he got out of soccer this could even help us parent right in terms of how we interact with our kids and this is i'm fascinated as you know we've not gone into the nature nurture conversation yet, which I hope to towards

the end of this conversation go there. For children, do they have these tendencies? You know, at what age are they? Is it clear? Does it become clear later? And then, you know, have you had much experience with that? Because you can see with some kids, I think it's quite clear. What is their natural tendency. Yeah. It is sometimes harder to tell children because, you know, they're not autonomous in the way that adults are. So it can be hard. With one of my children, she was really in college before I was absolutely sure. Usually you can get it down to two, but it's not clear which one of two. But then with many children, like you say, it's obvious from a very, very young age. I mean,

I hadn't even come up with the framework when my younger daughter was little, but like looking back, it's crystal clear to me that she was an upholder from the first minute she could talk. I can think back to things and I'm an upholder myself. And I think usually we're, we're better able to spot our own tendency because we kind of get it from the inside. So I really do believe in the genetic roots of personality. And I think this is part of what's hardwired. I think we bring these into the world with us. And of course, time and experience and culture and all that will shape how it comes out. But I do think that this is something that, you know, it's not your birth order or, you know, what country you live in or anything like that. Yeah, I mean, it's fascinating. I guess my natural perspective

on that would be, you know, I guess, which is where a huge interest of mine is these days is the kind of emotional baggage we pick up throughout our lives. You know, what happens to us in childhood? What are the stories we tell ourselves? And therefore, you know, sometimes I feel some of our personality traits are are almost adaptive mechanisms to get us through yeah exactly i i think like with many things there's a genetic predisposition and then our environment can really determine how that gets played out so i you know i don't know the answer i'm just i just welcome this sort of uh and forth conversation. I wonder how much that plays in, you know, can one change personality type? You know, do people say to you,

Gretchen, you know, I don't want to be this tendency. I want to be a different tendency. I mean, does that question come up much? And how do you answer that if it does? Well, yeah, some people love the tendency they are in and some people really wish they were in a different tendency. But the fact is, it's like what they're expressing with that is they're like, I want to achieve my aims for myself and I'm feeling frustrated. And I think if I were in a different tendency, it would be easier. So I want to switch. And my thing is, you don't need to change.

Whatever you are, a lot of people are in the same boat with you. And a lot of them are achieving their aims in that way. They're harnessing their tendency. And so instead of wishing that you were somebody different, let's figure out how to make this work with you. And a lot of them are achieving their aims in that way. They're harnessing their tendency. And so instead of wishing that you were somebody different, let's figure out how to make this work for you. And one thing I often hear is I used to be an obliger, but I've learned to be an upholder. And I'm like, no, let's look at your life. You've figured out unconsciously that you are able to achieve your aims for yourself when you have outer accountability. So you've joined the book group and you take the exercise class and you're in a job with a boss. You know, you're not trying

to freelance anymore and you've got deadlines and a boss and a team who have, who are holding you accountable. You go for a walk with your neighbor, you know, you built in the outer accountability that you need. And so it doesn't matter if you're an upholder or obligerator because you're meeting your aims. And so whenever people want to, I'm just like, you don't need to change. There's no tendency that's better or worse. So it's like, you know, just, just make the most of what you have, harness the strength, and then offset the weaknesses and the limitations, because they all have weaknesses and limitations. Just kind of figure out the workarounds and get where you want to go, because that's what you want. You want, do you just want to get to where you want to go? Even if you could change,

A, it's going to take time to change. Oh, it could, yeah. And B, I think, well, whilst you're going through that process, why not make your life a bit easier and more productive and more friction-free whilst you're going through that?

I think whichever way you cut it, whichever way you want to argue it, it's like, it's still kind of worth knowing about so you can take steps to mitigate. Yeah, because it's much more like within your reach. Now, I will say there are a few occasions where people seem to change tendencies, but it's not even like they switch

from one tendency to another. It's kind of like they float out of the framework altogether. This is rare. It's when people people maybe they went through some gigantic you know life-altering life-threatening transformation like they had a brush with death um or they had a very serious uh struggle with addiction or they're taking medication that is truly changing the way that their personality is coming out into the world um the kind of thing where you would say just about somebody like that their personality is coming out into the world.

The kind of thing where you would say that somebody like that person is a different person from the person that they were. That's rare. But it's rare enough that it's been hard for me to kind of like even observe it because there's just not enough people to see the pattern since that's what I do. I'm an observational, you know, I'm doing this through observation and engagement with people. So they kind of just fall out of the tendencies altogether and they're kind of doing their own thing in a way that I can't really understand what the pattern of that is. But that is rare. And whereas most people fit very solidly within a tendency. So we've spoken about how to deal with rebels. We've not deal with, you know,

interact in a more productive way with rebels. We've spoken about how to do the same with questioners. Let's then go to upholders and obligers. If you have upholders and obligers in your life, how can you interact with them in a way that is more helpful perhaps well with obligers you just want to remember that they need outer accountability and and it's it can be burdensome to provide outer accountability to someone but if they need it they need to get it and so saying things like i don't need to be your babysitter or just make up your mind to do it or if it's important enough you will that's not helpful or saying like we don't need to pay for you to take an exercise class because you should just be able to work out from a video in our living room. It's like, no, I can't. So if people are seeking to get accountability, you

want to help them get it. Even if you can't provide it, maybe you want to help them like puzzle out the ways that they would get out of accountability. And you certainly don't want to persuade them that they don't need it. Sometimes obligers are sort of told like, well, these are the training wheels and maybe you'll do it like this. And then at some point that you won't need all this outer accountability. Now they need outer accountability. They just do. That's fine.

So don't think that some questioners, especially somehow think like at some point you should just like get rid of it because they see it as kind of like like why why have all this inefficient keeping of charts and entering of things and like check-ins it's like why are we wasting our time it's like it's not a waste of time it's really valuable um and so you just want to help them help them get that and and i think it's on all of us to make sure that things are fair i mean the obligers of the rock of the world because they are the ones who are most likely to pitch in don't't take advantage of that. Upholders, questioners, rebels, we all go running for the obliger when we need somebody to help us out, because they're the ones that are the most likely. And it's on all of us not to exploit that. I think it's really

important to look around. And sometimes obligers can do this for each other. Like, maybe you wouldn't go to the boss and say, like, I don't think it's fair that I might. But you could go in and say about your buddy. You could say, hey, do you know what's going on? Because I really don't think it's a good idea that Jim is like, you know, stretched so thin. What do you think? You know, I mean, like help help things stay fair. This is true for parents, too. Like if you have an obliger child, sometimes it's easy to lean on that obliger child because the other ones just like argue so much, right? Like they better be, they got a million reasons why they shouldn't have to do this or that. And so you're like, oh, well, that's the obliger to do it because that's the one who's probably most likely to do it

without giving me a lot of grief. That's not fair. That's not fair. So you, we got it. Like everybody, like you say say you may have to tailor your parenting to be different for different children because they need different a different kind of parenting style absolutely but for one kid to do all the errands or all the chores because the other ones are just like better at putting up a fight that's not fair um so i think that's what we need to watch out for with obligers yeah super interesting and interesting. And then for upholders. And just remind us what percent are upholders because you are an upholder. Yes, 19%. So just slightly larger than rebels. So the thing to keep in mind with upholders is they can be rigid. And so you want to give them

as much notice as possible when things are going to change. And they will like have a whole plan of execution. And so you want to be very like execution. If something's going to be disruptive, they don't like spontaneity and they don't like a lot of flexibility. You want to give that. One thing that has come up a lot, I was always aware of this, but it became much clearer to me during the pandemic period, is with the other tendencies. I'd be curious to see what you saw in your own, in your own experience. Like, I think when people are under a lot of stress, a very common reaction, like, let's say you've got your healthy habits, you know, that you're trying to do in normal life. And then I think a lot of people are sort of like, well, you know what? I'm under a lot of

pressure. Like things are kind of like unprecedented. I'm kind of going to lighten up on myself. I'm going to, I'm going to ask a little bit less of myself, or maybe I'm going to light my load, whether that's a good idea or bad bad idea, that's what I think a lot of people's inclination is to kind of lighten up on themselves. And I think when people see people under pressure, they will often say things like, you shouldn't be hard on yourself. You need to take it easy. You need to take a break. You need to back off from that because it's too much pressure on you. What you see from upholders is that they are actually comforted and reassured by sticking to their habits and their routines.

And they will often go deeper into it. And they actually did fascinating research with college students. Some college students during exam period were less likely to read the newspaper, which was their usual habit. Some college students were more likely to read the newspaper, which was their habit. And I'm like, I think that's the upholders. Because for us, sticking to our routines, executing on a plan is very reassuring. And so you saying to your kids something like, oh, you know, I know your teacher wants you to read for a half an hour every night. But like,

we went to go see grandma and grandpa. So you need to take a night off. Or, oh, you're so tired from practice. I say you should have the night off. That can be very, make a child very any and a polder child, very uneasy. Or like they tend to like get really anxious that they're going to be late. Cause it's like, I'm supposed to be at work at eight Oh five. You know, I'm supposed to be at school at eight Oh five. But we might be late. We might be late. And you as an adult are like, look, you're in kindergarten. It's like, it doesn't matter if you're 10 minutes late, nobody cares. But to that child, it's like, but that, you know, like they want, that's the plan.

They want to execute on that plan. And so you don't, you don't comfort them by trying to like, you think like, oh, I'm making things easier for you, but you actually make them more stressed out. You know, what came up for me then is like, I've realized over the last few years, particularly when I was doing in-person podcasts, I realized that a lot of guests wanted to be back at the station to go home, the train station, you know, 20, 25 minutes before their train was leaving. And like, I was totally confused because I'm very comfortable turning up for three minutes, getting my ticket and, you know, literally running up and getting on the train. Very,

very comfortable doing that. But I've realized there's many people in the world who don't like doing that. And I've had to learn. I've been like, Oh, this is really interesting. This is really stressing people out. That's cool. No worries. I'll just take them super early. So there's no stress. Do you think that may be people with upholder tendencies? I mean, that's quite an extreme example I gave, but I certainly feel it's something I've seen time and time again. And I've noticed that's very different from me. No, and I think obligers also might be like, hey, look, I got to get home because I told so and so I'd be there at 330. You know, I mean, it's that outer expectation. And yeah, because

the questioner might be like, oh, yeah, it's not. Why would I waste my time? It's totally inefficient for me to be hanging around a train station for 20 minutes. They also might be very inclined to cut it short. Yeah, no, I think that's a great example of how and again, and sort of like it doesn't even matter what the tendency is. Yeah, it doesn't matter. When, I think that's a great example of how, and again, and sort of like, it doesn't even matter what the tendency is when you see, when you see that there's a pattern where it's like, well, it doesn't really make sense to me, but I'm noticing that with other people, it's funny. I do high intensity strength training and I was just talking to my trainer cause he trains, you know, I don't know, does hundreds of people over the years.

And he said, people are either 20 minutes early on time or, or like eight minutes late. They're one of those three things. And I'm like one of the 20 minutes early on time or like eight minutes late. They're one of those three things. And I'm like one of the 20 minutes early people. And he said, it doesn't matter. And so he had somebody who was late, late, late, late, late. And he said, like, well, would it be better if you came at a different part of the time of day? It didn't make any difference because it was it was about the person. I said to Gareth, the videographer who's sitting in with me,

I said, Gareth, Gretchen will be on time, on the dot. And you were like literally on the dot, Gretchen Rubin wanted to enter the room. And again, I could have been wrong, but from what I'm gleaning from all this research into you and the fact that you were in that pod, I thought Gretchen's going to be bang on time for this. But see, that's a great example of how these like little things can just like help things

work smoothly, you know? Because if you're like, it just can give you an insight into why people are doing what they're doing, especially when you're like, what's your deal? Like you being like, why would you want to go hang out in a train station for 25 minutes? But it's like, for some people, that's the right thing for them to do. What are the frustrations for upholders? Because if upholders are finding it no problem to meet outer expectation, no problem to meet inner expectation, I'm thinking, that sounds like a pretty rock and roll life where actually there's no problems at all. So, you know, enlighten me.

One of the signs of being an upholder is like whenever you get upholders together, they inevitably start talking about like, why can't other people just do what there's, like, why can't people just get it together? I've got a friend in mind at the moment who I can just imagine who's an upholder. And it's funny because I was talking, I was, I had this exact conversation. I was getting ready to talk to a big group and like ahead of time, I was talking, I was, I had this exact conversation.

I was getting ready to talk to a big group and like ahead of time, I was talking to just a few people and somebody said, it sounds like a polder is great. Well, you know, what's, what do people, what don't people like about a polders? And so it was, I was, I was in the conversation and another upholder. And I said, well, the thing is a polders, we can be pretty cold. And the other woman said, Oh, I am so cold. I'm like so cold. I don like, I'm like, so cold.

I don't, I don't want to hear it. Like, I just want to do my thing. I want you to do your thing. Like, why? Like, what's all this conversation? So they can be kind of judgmental. And they can, you know, if they don't understand that people need different kind of setups and circumstances, they can be they can get impatient. And so I think think it's really good as an upholder to realize like, just because something works for you, doesn't mean it's going to, it's going to work for everyone. And you need to think about how to create environments where everyone can thrive. And then they can be, they can really experience tightening. I mean, they can become horribly, tattletales, you know, the bureaucrats where if it's one minute late and it doesn't matter, it's still late and I'm rejecting it., you know, the bureaucrats where if it's one minute late and it doesn't matter, it's still late and I'm rejecting it. Or you wrote in black pen instead of blue pen,

even though it doesn't matter to the coffee machine, picks it up just as well. It's still wrong. You know, all these things, if you take, you know, there's the inquisitor, you know, is very upholder. So all these things can, every medicine can become poison. And so upholders too can be very, um, if you do the game of thrones, like game of thrones, I love game of thrones, four tendencies all over game of thrones. And I thought, um, Tywin Lannister was a great upholder. And cause he was always marching around being like, why can't anybody in this family do what they're supposed to? Why can't anybody just execute on a plan?

He was so annoyed all the time. And for him, it was just like effortless discipline and i thought he's a good he shows you what like how you can be bad there were a lot of a lot of upholders in that show i found it very fascinating i mean this this is very enlightening it's also i think it's really humbling gretchen that it just we realize our sort of, our humanity and the way that everyone's different. Everyone needs a different approach. Everyone needs a different level of handholding, if at all they need any handholding. And we cannot expect the approach that works for us to work for the world around us. And I think's that's as i say it's really

enlightening it's really freeing you know gretchen you train as a lawyer yet you're writing these beautiful books uh coming up with these gorgeously simple but but very complex really on that there's complexness on you know beneath it but there's this beautiful simplicity at the top. Where does this come from? What is it that makes you tick? What gets you up each day? Because this is truly brilliant work. Oh, how nice to say so.

For me, human nature, that's always been my subject. I wrote a book about Winston Churchill. I wrote that book, Power of Any Famed Sex, which to other people seem very much not like part of what I do now. But to me, that is what fascinates me is human nature. Like, why are we the way we are? Who are we? How can we change if we want to change? Like, that's what I think about all the time. And so each of my books is really kind of, is trying to look at it in a different way and try to understand how people are the same, how they're different. You know, I'm unique just like everybody else. How do I understand? And I study myself all the time because, you know, who do I know better? And one

of the things that was really helpful to me with understanding the framework was after I wrote the Happiness Project, people kept saying to me, but how did you get yourself to follow all those resolutions? And I would say, well, I just, I thought they would make me happier. So I did them. And they would say even more puzzled, but how did you get yourself to do them? And I was like, I truly don't understand what you mean by that question. Like, what are you talking about? But it, it kind of stuck with me. And I was like, that's a really important question. What is the answer to that question? And the answer to that question is I'm an upholder. And that's what upholders are good at. It's setting a name and following through with it.

And so, so to me, it's really understanding human nature. Myself as kind of like the, the, the, the, the guinea pig that's closest to me and always available. But then also any other information that I can get to try to understand what's going on in the world. Yeah, absolutely incredible, Gretchen. Look, I think your work's amazing. I think you're helping so many people. I think everyone should go and do that quiz.

Gretchen's mentioned the link. I'll make sure the link is in the show notes as well for anyone who wants to jump on and do that quiz to find out what their predominant tendency is. Gretchen, to finish off this podcast is called Feel Better, Live More. When we feel better in ourselves, we get more out of our lives. ourselves, we get more out of our lives. And, you know, I love people coming to the show to learn about themselves, how to think differently, how to act differently, how to really get more out of their lives. So I'd love someone with all your wisdom. I wonder if you could share some sort of practical tips here at the end so that people who've been inspired can actually think, okay, you know what? I like those two things. I'm going to try and apply them in my life right now. Well, I know you're with me on this one, sleep. I really do believe you have to get enough sleep.

And it's one of these things where you adjust to thinking that you trained yourself to get by on four or five hours, but you really need to get your sleep. And no matter what your tendency, if you are exhausted, everything is going to be harder. You're going to have less patience. You're going to have a weaker immune system, less focus. It's just all the things that would make you happy that you know you should do, and they would make you happier, feel like just too much work. And so you get caught in this downward spiral. So one of the things I would say is to sleep. And another one is figure out some way to just deepen your connection with other people. So like a few ideas to try. In my house, everybody gives warm hellos and goodbyes, meaning if you come or go, everybody like stands up, gives you like a hug or

a kiss, says goodbye or says hello if you're coming back. Because it's easy to fall into a thing where people just sort of grunt out from, you know, without even looking up from what they're doing. And that doesn't create that kind of tender atmosphere and attentiveness that you want at home. Or another thing that I do with my my my parents and my sister, my sister lives in Los Angeles and I live in New York and my parents live in Kansas City. So we're all spread out. It's from time to like every five or seven days, we send an update email and it's called update. And you just write in the most boring things, like just what's going on in your life on the most basic level. And the motto of update is it's okay to be boring. But what you realize, and we all know

this in everyday life, when you see people all the time, you have a ton to tell them. But when you see people rarely, it's like, how are you? I'm fine. What's new? Not much. And I find that like, I have so much more to say to my parents and my sister, when I really know just on a, you know, very, very granular level, like, did they go to Costco today? You know, it's funny how much that matters. So sometimes you really can find these little things that can move the needle for you. Oh, fantastic. You know, great words of wisdom, great insights for people to reflect on. Gretchen, you've obviously got your podcast as well, which, of course, I think people should listen to

i think it's really really great um thank you so much for making some time for me today and i look forward to chatting to you again at some point in the future oh absolutely i love talking to you so thanks so much for having me really hope you enjoyed that conversation. As always, please do have a think about one thing that you can take away from this episode and apply into your own life. Inspiration is not enough on its own. We simply have to take action if we want something to change. And if you want to learn more about Gretchen, her books, her incredible blogs, her quiz, you really, really want to take that quiz, you can see all the details on the show notes page for this episode on my website, drchatterjee.com. Before we finish,

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