The Jordan Harbinger Show - 18: Gretchen Rubin | Four Tendencies: The Framework for a Better Life

Episode Date: March 20, 2018

Gretchen Rubin (@gretchenrubin) is a former lawyer turned podcaster and best-selling author. Her latest book is The Four Tendencies: The Indispensable Personality Profiles That Reveal How to Make Your Life Better (and Other People's Lives Better, Too). What We Discuss with Gretchen Rubin: We tend toward one of four archetypes based on how we respond to expectations: Upholders, Questioners, Obligers, and Rebels. Understanding these tendencies improves the ways we motivate and influence ourselves and others. We explore each tendency and how we can optimize our mental models and self-talk to get ourselves on the right track. We learn how to spot these tendencies in others and ensure we're using the right types of incentives and communication to get the best from those around us. Take the quiz 600,000 others have taken to better understand how these frameworks can galvanize significant and lasting change. And much more... Sign up for Six-Minute Networking -- our free networking and relationship development mini course -- at jordanharbinger.com/course!  Like this show? Please leave us a review here -- even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so we can thank you personally! Full show notes and resources can be found here.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

One way to understand human nature is to put a bunch of Stanford undergraduates in a laboratory and feed them marshmallows and see what happens. Absolutely. I love that research. I read it all the time. I think it's fascinating and illuminating. But you can also just begin by looking at what you see all around you. Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger, and as always, I'm here with my producer, Jason DePhilippo. On this episode, we're talking with my friend Gretchen Rubin. She is the host of the Happier Podcast and the author of The Four Tendency's, The Indispensable Personality Profiles that reveal how to make your life better and other people's lives better, too. Today, we'll discover the Four Tendencies Personality archetypes so we can improve our understanding of what motivates others, as well as how to influence and motivate ourselves. For each of these tendencies, we'll explore how we can optimize our mental models and self-talk to get ourselves on the right track, and we'll get some practical insight in how we can spot these tendencies and others and ensure that we're using the right types of incentives and communication to get the best from those around us.

Don't forget, we've got worksheets for today's episode so you can make sure you solidify your understanding and application of all the key takeaways from Gretchen Rubin. That link is in the show notes at Jordan Harbinger.com slash podcast. Now, here's Gretchen Rubin. Gretchen, thanks for coming back on the show. Much appreciated. Oh, I'm so happy to be talking to you again. Thanks for having me. Of course.

I saw the four tendencies, and I read the book, of course, as I always do, and I thought, yes, all right, these look to be some kind of, any sort of, I don't know what you want to call it. Is it heuristic? Is that the right word where we can use to measure people or label people and make them a little bit simpler than humans normally, us complicated humans normally are, always welcome and it seems like you've really figured something out here. Oh, that's great to hear. No, I agree. I feel like it's helpful to have sort of ways that illuminate patterns that instead of just feeling like you're just like this complex person and I'm a complex person, what do we make of

ourselves? Is there vocabulary or definitions that can help us take shortcuts so that we can understand each other better? Shortcuts to understanding humans is always a win in my book. How did you begin to notice these things? What prompted the discovery process for you here? Because it's an extremely difficult undertaking to say, all right, every human fits into one of these four categories. That's like a really gigantic project. Yeah, well, and it's a pretty bold claim, I would say, though I'd really do stand behind it. But yeah, I got to it in a very kind of surprising way.

I realized that there was this thing, the four-tenant. framework, what it eventually turned out to be. When I was researching my book, my previous book called Better Than Before, which is all about habit change, how people make and break habits successfully. And as I was doing that, I was sort of quizzing everyone I knew unmercifully about how they were forming habits. And a friend said something, was something that many people had said similar things to me before, but for some reason when she said it, it just like hit me like a ton of bricks. She said, well, you know, here's the weird thing about me. I know I would be happier if I exercise, and I want to exercise.

And when I was in high school, I was on the track team. And I never missed track practice. So why can't I go running now? And I thought, well, why? Because it's the same person. It's the same behavior. One time she did it with no effort. And now she can't get herself to do it.

So how do you explain that? And so I started thinking about that. And then I started to notice other patterns where people would really say kind of the same thing or have the same reaction. For instance, if I would say to people, well, how do you feel about New Year's resolutions? There was a group of people who would say, almost verbatim, I would keep a resolution when it made sense for me, but I would not wait for January 1st because January 1st is an arbitrary date. So I began searching for, like, how did these patterns fit together? Were they related to each other? Why were people, certain people answering in the same way, and certain people were having different reactions, maybe even opposite reactions.

And so it just about melted my brain, but eventually I did end up with the four tendencies framework. Okay, and there have to be people that are saying, oh, of course, surprise, surprise, some privileged white lady from the suburbs comes up with a way of understanding humanity. In fact, I didn't just make that up. I actually saw that as one of your reviews, and I just thought, okay, you have to be getting some pushback from people who think, are you a scientist? Didn't think so. What gives you the right to come up with four archetypes that encompass human personality types? And so I'm going to ask you that so that people don't ask themselves that and go away disappointed. Well, you know, it's interesting because one way to understand human nature is to put a bunch of Stanford undergraduates in a laboratory and feed them marshmallows and see what happens.

Absolutely. I love that research. I read it all the time. I think it's fascinating and illuminating. But you can also just begin by looking at what you see all around you. You know, that's what William James did. That's what Carl Jung did. They just looked around at people and said, well, what can I observe? What can I see just in the people around me? probably my greatest model in studying human nature is Samuel Johnson. So I really fit myself into kind of the kind of category of great essayists or, you know, not that I'm a great essayist like Samuel Johnson is, but like that's my model. I'm not trying to pretend to be a scientist. I'm trying to pretend to be Samuel Johnson. What I'm trying to do is to identify something that everyone sees, everyone experiences and feels, but no one has really put their finger on it or given it expression in a way that everyone can talk about it. And to me, it's sort of the proof of the pudding is in the eating. If you find these four tendencies to be meaningless and you don't see them in the world around you, then it doesn't work for you.

But what I found, as I've been out in the world talking about it, is that in a way, it's like they're surprisingly blatant. It's like the minute I start talking about them and go through what's an upholder, what's a questioner, what's an obliger, what's a rebel. People instantly kind of know what they are. They start knowing what other people in their lives are. They're like, I can tell you what the characters on Game of Thrones are. You know, I mean, it's like you see it everywhere. It's surprisingly blatant. This framework to me doesn't seem subtle. It seems quite obvious. And so I think a lot of times people who are skeptical when they start thinking through it and think they start thinking like, well, yeah, I can see how my boss does that. And yeah, my daughter does that. And yeah, my spouse does that. And I remember how my college roommate did that. And I remember this is why I got in trouble in middle school because of this problem. Like, it's, it's something that rings true. And that's what I'm trying to do. I'm not trying to prove it in some kind of like, you know, like, you know, like, Like I've had multiple articles published in scientific journals way. That's not my thing.

Right. I'm a writer. I'm trying to prove it in a way that it rings true for you and so that it can solve problems in your life because it kind of illuminates hidden aspects of human nature that you might not have noticed before. Well, I'll tell you, that was my reaction because at first, whenever I see books or knowledge bases that say, look, these are four archetypes. I always go, um, okay, let's figure out what these are. archetypes are and whether or not they're valid. And as soon as I started reading the four tendencies, I was like, okay, this one is me, this one is my mom, this one, and I went, damn it, okay, it's hard to poke holes in this, right? I want to get to what your tendency is. Like,

we cannot overlook that. Oh, yeah. I'm dying to find out what your tendency is. No, we're getting there for sure. And we all have these tendencies in some measure. And I thought that was pretty important because at first I thought, oh, this one's me. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, this one's me. shoot, this one's me too. So the problem that I think comes out of this is when we read this, we might think, all right, well, I have all four of these. So that must mean everybody has all four of these. Or they're just so vague that everyone has all four and they're not useful. But then I started to realize, all right, maybe I fall more into one bucket than the others. And this is something that you addressed in the book as well. Can you explain this concept?

Because I think otherwise people might say, well, yeah, everyone fits into all of these. so it's not useful. Yeah, why don't I explain what they are and then people can sort of be figuring out whether, because I think from what you're saying, I suspect that I know what your tendency is, but we will get to that in a minute. Yeah. So this has to do with how you respond to expectations. And we all face two kinds of expectations. At our expectations, which are things like a work deadline or request from a friend. These are expectations that come to us from the outside. And then there are inner expectations, the expectations that we put on ourselves. So I want to keep a a New Year's resolution. I want to get back into practicing guitar. So there are upholders,

questioners, obligers, and rebels. 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. Then there are questioners. Questioners question all expectations. They'll do something if they think it makes sense. So they make everything an inner expectation. If it meets their inner standard, they will do it no problem. If it fails their inner standard, they will push back. And they tend to object to anything arbitrary, inefficient, irrational. Then there are obligers. Obligers readily meet outer expectations, but they struggle to meet inner expectations. And this is my friend on the track team.

When she had a team and a coach expecting her to show up, she had no trouble going. But when she was just trying to go on her own, she struggled. And then finally there are rebels. Rebels resist all expectations outer and inner alike. They want to do what they want to do in their own way, in their own They can do anything they want to do. They can do anything they choose to do. But if you ask or tell them to do something, they're very likely to resist. And typically they don't even like to tell themselves what to do. Now, there's a quiz that people can take on, like 1.3 million people now have taken my quiz.

It's on my site, Gretchenruven.com. So you can take a quiz that will like spit out an answer. But I have to say most people know what they are just from this brief description or like a little bit of conversation about it. Because like I say, they're pretty blatant. So those are the four. Okay. So upholder, questioner, obliger, and rebel. And I want to break each one of these down in a real detailed fashion in a bit. But we need to definitely go over these briefly so people know what the hell I'm talking about when I'm asking you questions about the same archetypes as well. Right. Those are the definitions. And what's interesting about them is there aren't the same number of all of them. They're not equally represented in the world. Okay. The biggest tendency for both men and women, the one that most number of people belong to is obliger. You either are an obliger or you have many obligers in your life. It's a big.

big, big group of people. After that, questioners, the smallest tendency, it's a very conspicuous tendency, but it's a small tendency, is rebel, and only slightly larger is a polder, which is my tendency. They're not that many rebels, they're not that many upholders. They're kind of like the extreme personality types. Most people that you're going to be dealing with, you're probably going to be dealing with obligers and questioners. Okay. And these are interesting in that they do describe a lot of people's behaviors, but again, we all have these tendencies in some measure. It's just that we have sort of a different, a different bucket that maybe we identify with more, according to the quiz, which of course will link up in the show notes.

I didn't take the quiz itself. I just did it mentally, and it didn't work out as well as it would have if I'd actually taken the quiz on the site. Because what I found, and maybe this has to do with my tendency, I just found myself editing and going, well, sometimes, though, I'm this way, which probably means what? I'm a questioner or something like this? I don't know. What does this mean?

Yeah, well, let me ask you this. If there was something that you wanted to do, like you wanted to get back into bike riding regularly or you wanted to get back into, you know, learning Spanish or something like that, would you be able to do that if you wanted to? Yeah, I just chose to learn Chinese five years ago. So I Googled Learn Chinese on Skype, figured that had to exist, found a place, signed up, tick five years of Chinese lessons, still taking him. Right. So I think you're probably a questioner. And it's interesting. The reason that I thought you were a questioner right at the beginning of the conversation, because one thing that's very big, that's very typical of questioners is they say everybody's a mix of everything. And they don't, they find it very hard to see that, because they sort of resist the idea that anybody could be defined or, you know, that the complexity of human nature could be put into four categories. And also they'll say things like, well, in some ways, I'm like in a polder. Like if, you know, I'll do it very easily because somebody asks me to do it. Like if somebody, I respect, ask me to do something, I do it no problem, like in a polder. Or if somebody, you know, I think as an idiot asked me to do something. I'm going to do it. I'm like a rebel. That's very questioner.

That's what questioners do. Because their whole question is, why should I? It's interesting because upholders, obholders, obligers, and rebels realize they realize they feel their tendency more powerfully. Like obligers, they feel the fact that they're meeting utter expectations, but they're not meeting their own inner expectations. They feel that rebels feel that powerful spirit of resistance, that powerful urge for always having freedom and choice that rebels feel. And, you know, upholders have this, you know, this love of discipline. Discipline is my freedom is the motto of upholders. And they feel how different they are.

But questioners are like, well, doesn't everybody act this way? And I'm like, really, they don't. And saying that kind of thing is the kind of thing that questioners say. But having said that, you're absolutely right. None of us want to do something that's arbitrary or a big waste of time. So in that way, we're all like questioners. And all of us don't want to be totally controlled. We all have reactants.

So in that way, we're like rebels who want freedom and choice in what we do. all of us would sacrifice something that's important to us in order to do something that was very important to somebody who is important to us, like an obliger. So you're right. We all have a little bit of this. But as you say, we're sort of in a core tendency that shapes kind of our instinctual response to situations over and over and over again so that we can see patterns and how somebody acts at work or acts at home or acts at school. You start seeing like, okay, this person is showing obliger patterns or this person showing questioner patterns. Have you ever had a moment where you think, man, someone should really do something about this? Then you realize maybe that someone is you. Well, with the help of GoFundMe, you can change someone's life.

You could start a GoFund me to help a friend pay for school, fund that new community space, or help a local kid finally get to that national competition. I've seen this myself. Last year, a friend of mine launched a GoFundMe to help with medical bills after an unexpected surgery. It was incredible how fast the support rolled in. People want to help. They just need a way to do it. And GoFundMe makes it easy. So do you have a dream, a person, or a cause in your life that could use some support? Don't wait for someone else to bring change. You can be the one who makes a difference. GoFundMe is the world's number one fundraising platform, trusted by over 200 million people. people. Start your GoFundMe today at GoFundMe.com. That's gofundme.com. Gofundme.com. Before we dive into each one of these and sort of outline what each one means and how to identify it,

I'd love to discuss why it's important to find our tendency and also why it's important to find and identify other people's tendencies. Let's start with our own. Why is it important for us to even know this? It seems like I function the way that I do. I'm not trying to. change it? Why do I even need to know this information at all? Well, that's great that you're not trying to change the way you function. That's very questioner and also very upholder. The problem happens is when you run into some kind of frustration or some kind of conflict or when other people don't get you in a way that's very annoying to you. So say obligers, they readily meet outer expectations, but they're often frustrated with themselves because they're not meeting their

expectations for themselves. And the lesson for obligers, so if I were an obliger, you know, It's like if you're not meeting your inner expectations for yourself, the solution to that is outer accountability. You want to create structures of outer accountability for things that are inner expectations. You want to read more Jordan? Join a book group. You want to exercise more Jordan? Well, you want to take a class or work out with a trainer or work out with a friend who's going to be annoyed if you don't show up or volunteer to do a charity fun run. So they're not going to make as much money if you don't show up.

Or you're going to take your dog for a run who's going to be so disappointed if you don't take her for her daily run. by the way, if she's going to chew up the living room furniture, you want to create outer accountability. And so knowing your tendency shows you how to solve it. Because here's the thing. As a questioner, if you were trying to tell and oblige her what to do, like, so let's think of my friend on the track team. Let's say you was a questioner were trying to advise my friend who wanted to go running. As a questioner, you might say something like, you just have to think about what you want

and what's right for you. And once you get it really clear in your head, what's important to you and why you want to do that, you'll be able to do that for yourself. Well, that's what would work for a questioner. That is not what works for an obliger. And so that obligeer who's hearing that is like, well, what's wrong with me? Because Jordan is going running all the time. Jordan is learning Chinese.

Why can't I? Am I, do I lack self-control? Do I lack willpower? Am I lazy? What's wrong with me? It's like, no, there is nothing wrong with you. What you need to do is have outer accountability. Take a class.

Join a group. Tell your kids, when you're doing your homework, I'm going to do my homework. When you're doing your math in English, I'm going to be doing my Chinese. And hey, kids, if I'm not studying Chinese, you don't have to do your homework either. And your kids will act like your policeman because they'll be like, hey, why don't you take a night off of Chinese? You know, we can use a break around here. There's a million ways to fix it once you know what the problem is. So I think the tendency can show you perhaps why you're feeling stuck or why you're feeling frustrated or why other people don't seem to understand the challenge.

challenges that you face. And of course, we can identify other people's tendencies and then use that to persuade them using their language, right? So if I'm the questioner telling you're obligor friend, well, you just need to make a plan and do the research and stick with it. And they say, what the hell? It's like, well, if I know that you're an obliger, I can say, hey, I'll tell you what, why don't you get some and set up that accountability and I can set that or even set that up

for them if I'm their boss at work and say, hey, guess what? We're all going to do this way if I find that I've got a team of people. I don't know. Maybe I would even pair the obligers together on one team and the questioners on another or have them interact with each other in certain ways that use these tendencies. So, of course, these tendencies will help us understand those people and persuade them using their language, which is what really makes these a communications archetype or some sort of modality instead of just a label for people in general. Right, exactly. Like, for instance, one thing that questioners are often criticized for is they're told, well, you ask too many questions. and they can be seen to be disrespectful or not team players or undermining of others' authority or challenging of others' position because they're asking so many questions.

Let's say you're a teacher and you have a kid who's like, why should I have to learn the multiplication tables if I can look it up on my phone? Why should I have to learn to write cursive? If I can just type it out, why do I have to learn about ancient Mesopotamia? It's like if that child understands why you're asking that child to do that, spend that time and energy to do that, that question your child will get with the program, no problem. But if you just say, well, I'm the teacher, all fourth graders have to do it because I say so, well, that questioner is going to find that totally illegitimate. And so once you understand, okay, this child is not trying to be disrespectful. This child is not trying to, like, be a bottleneck of the class or be disruptive.

They're just honestly saying, like, why would a person memorize the multiplication tables if you could just look it up in one second? There's an answer for that, or there should be, or then why are they memorized the multiplication tables? Give them a true answer, and then they can follow on. And so then, yes, it tells you this is not a disrespectful child. This is just a question or child asking what they consider to be perfectly legitimate questions, questions that deserve an answer. Give them the answer and they will get with the program. I love this and I wish my dentist knew this because when I was a kid, I remember my dentist said, and I was friends with his son. And his son always flossed and brushed.

And I was like, what a sucker. This guy's always flossing and brushing. And he was clearly an upholder. And his dad was like, look, Jason's always doing that. Jason's always doing that. That was his son's name. And I said, well, you know, I'm not doing it. And so for a long time, and my teeth were so healthy. And my dentist was like, you have no cavities. This is great. And I was thinking, I never brush and I never floss. And I don't have any cavities. I'm so, I'm winning. I'm winning the teeth. And then years and years and years go by. And of course, here I am 38 years old. I go to my dentist. And he goes, wow, you know, your teeth. You got, what can I say? You got the teeth of somebody your own age. And I went, but I used to have such healthy teeth. And he goes, yeah. But. But. But.

you know, you didn't take care of him for a while. And I went, yeah, I thought I was getting away with it. And he goes, no, you should brush your teeth in the morning because it stimulates the gums and you got to brush your teeth at night because it gets rid of the stuff you ate during the day. And I always went, well, I never brushed in the morning because I didn't know why. I thought it was just a fresh in my breath. So I used mouthwash. And he goes, no, it stimulates your gums and it's good for this. And I went, you know, if somebody had told me that 25 years ago, I would have done it every day. See, this is the thing. And I hear so many poignant stories from questioners when they're like, if somebody had just explained it to me, then fine. But it's like,

if nobody explains it to you, you're like, why am I going to waste my time and my effort? I just heard about somebody my age who loved playing soccer, but quit soccer in high school because he was a goalie and the coach made him run sprints and laps with everybody. And he's like, well, why should I do that? I'm the goalie. I should do goalie specific exercises. And the coach is like, look, I'm the coach and this is how we all train. And he's like, well, then I quit. Because it just didn't make sense to him. But if this coach had taken five minutes and said, hey, listen, I know it might seem like it doesn't make sense, but when you look at the training practices of all the greatest teams and you look at how they train their goalies, what they found is that your reflex time goes up

or whatever. I mean, is there a reason? Give them the reason. And then they will be able to follow. And once they decide it makes sense, then they can follow. It just, it just follows naturally. But you're right. It's like, if somebody just dismisses it and says, well, you should just take my word for it. It's like, that's not good enough. That's not good enough for a question. especially an adult to a kid because of course it's like well take my word for it and I'm like one you're old you don't know anything because you're old and you dress like a dad so I'm never going to listen to you and we like to write kids off and say look at this rebellious kid but I feel like rebel and questioner might get confused all the time especially with kids well they do

sometimes get confused again I think once you know the tendencies you realize that there's a very profound difference but you're right like from the outside because you always have to know someone's tendency from the inside. You have to know how they think. You cannot judge it from how they behave. Like, for somebody said to me, oh, anybody who looked at me in high school would have said I was a rebel, but in fact, I was just doing what all my friends expected me to do, and I'm an obliger. But so like, let's say I'm the teacher and I have two children who are refusing to do homework. One is a child, is a questioner child who's thinking, this is a dumb assignment. It's a big waste of my time. I'm not going to do it. And then the other is a rebel who's saying, you're not the boss of me.

You can't make me. I'm not going to. Now, the way I would talk to the questioner child would be very different from the way that I that I that I that I that I talk to the rebel top the way you can always tell the difference because you're right they do sometimes look the same especially from the outside is if you ask a person to do something is their response why should I why should I is questioner or is their response you you're not the boss of me that is rebel because rebels are like you can't control me I'm not going to follow doctor's orders I'm in I'm the one who's who's making choices and making decisions and deciding what to do so so they they can look alike but they are actually quite quite distinct

But of course, they overlap. They both resist outer expectations. And so in that way, there's a deep affinity among questioners and rebels. It seems like maybe in order to figure out why we think we fall into one bucket more than others, the reasons for our behavior count here, right? So it's not just, well, they're not doing it. So they must be a rebel. It's, well, actually, is the reason they're not doing it because, like you said,

you're not the boss of me or is the reason you're not doing it because it wasn't explained. So therefore, it probably has no value because half the stuff I get assigned in this stupid school is worthless and I'm never going to use it, et cetera, right? Yes, you have to know why people are, like, how do they think? What are they thinking? Because from the outside, it can be, it's easy not to be able to tell what someone is. You have to understand their thinking. So let's run through the archetypes, starting with Upholder, because this is one that I didn't

even know existed. I mean, these, first of all, I guess I didn't know many of these existed. I always had an idea that rebel and questioner we're in there, not surprisingly, because obviously a questioner, and rebels probably, like you said, one of the most conspicuous. But upholder and obliger, they definitely make sense when you talk about them. And I would love to give people this sort of vocabulary of these archetypes so that they can start observing them in others and in themselves. Yeah, well, upholder is, as I said, it's a small tendency, not that many people are upholders. And I'm an upholder myself, so it's my tendency. And the thing about upholders is they are self-starters, they're self-reliant, they don't need a lot of supervision, they're very good at, you know, just going off and getting something done, whether it's something somebody tells them to do or ask them to do or something that they want to do on their own. So this is the person who gets the report done, no problem. This is the kid that remembers to feed a fish. You know, Hermione Granger is probably the most famous upholder. Or if you're a Game of Thrones person, Stanis Barathean is kind of a negative side of an upholder.

All the tendencies have upsides and downsides. They all have strengths that are kind of paired with the corresponding weakness. So one of the weaknesses or limitations you see with the pollers is they can't seem cold because they will meet their inner expectation, even when others it's maybe would wish that they wouldn't. So it's like, well, you know what? I know we got company coming to stay with us this weekend, but you know, I'm training for the marathon. So I got to go for a 15 mile run on Saturday. So I'm afraid that just has to happen. You know, you want me to help you proofread your report before it's due tomorrow morning.

but my report is do as well. I don't have time to help you with your report because I've got to work on my own report. That can seem cold. And upholders can also have something tightening, which is when rules get tighter. Like I'm one of these crazy low-carb people that you read about. I really eat like no carbs. And when I started eating low-carb, I was pretty strict about it. But over time, the rules have become much tighter.

And in that respect, it's good. Like I like being very, very strict about it. But sometimes it can get kind of choking, like the friend of mine who was, you know, trying to hit 10,000 steps on his Apple Watch. And so he was, like, jogging next to the toilet at midnight while his wife was asleep in the bedroom, you know, because he's like, I'm going to get to those 10,000 steps. Now, you might think that's good, but you might also think like, well, maybe that's kind of a pain to, like, feel that much pressure to, like, meet every expectation.

So that's tightening. And upholders want to be very aware of that, very mindful of that so that they, they don't, unconsciously fall into it. Okay. So upholder tightening is when we start making rules like, hey, I'm going to cut down on carbs and then pretty soon you can't even smell rice because it throws your diet off whack and you're going insane. You can't go out to dinner with anybody because there might be carbs in your in your drink, you know, that kind of thing. Yeah. You know, and some like a friend of mine who's

an upholder, his girlfriend was using this budgeting app and she was great for her. She loved it and she was trying to encourage him to use it. And he's like, you know, I can't even, I won't even try something like that because I know I would instantly become so preoccupied with tracking every single penny that I spent that I would spend way too much time and energy doing that. And by the way, I don't really have a problem with spending. So I don't want to get into that territory because I could tighten on me and really just like consume too much of my energy

because I would be sort of overly conscientious. It would tighten. It would become tighter and tighter. So sometimes as in a poll, you're like, okay, I'm just not going to get into that because I just see that that might, you know, I just, I don't want to risk getting carried away. Those are the people that have spreadsheets for every item in their garage. And it's like, you know, you could just dump this out.

No, I want a record of everything. Okay, why? I don't know. I have OCD because I'm an upholder and I gave it to myself through tightening over years and never putting it in a check. Being OCD wouldn't necessarily be an upholder thing. That would be like on a different thing. One of the things that's interesting about upholders is you might think that upholders would be the ones that felt the most pressure or felt like the weight of outer expectations, or the weight of expectations,

the most since they feel both outer and inner. But in fact, it's obligers who feel the greatest weight. It's because upholders have inner expectations. So upholders will say things like, well, I'm sorry, I can't do what you're at. I can't stay late for the team because I've got to go to my yoga class. You know, like, they will make time for themselves. They have that inner, that inner architecture of inner expectations. So they'll be like, like, I'll say, you know, I always like to have a polders tend to like to do lists and calendars and predictability. And I'll say things like, well, on Saturday afternoon, I'm going to read on the couch for three hours. And I'll do that. You know, and it's like, well, yeah,

I can't, I don't have time to do something else for you because I got to read on the couch. Like it's my time for me. I feel like doing some reading. So that's what I'm going to do my reading. So in a way, the weight of inner expectations helps upholders not to not to fall into tightening if they're aware of it or like to make time for themselves. Because they consider meeting inner expectations for themselves like doing leisure things just as important or more important as meeting outer expectations. It's really obligers to feel the weight of expectations the most heavily. So from a practical perspective, the action step if we find ourselves as. as an upholder, what's our key takeaway here? Be aware that tightening might be happening and then try to short-circuit that process.

Yeah, just be mindful of it. In a way, the upholder just can always rally inner expectations. They can just say something like, this isn't good for me. Like, this is a waste of my time. You know, it's not helping me meet my own expectations for myself. I'm going to loosen my grip on this thing. But they have to be, yeah, they have to be aware that it's happening. And how do we work with and communicate with upholders if I find that, okay,

my assistant is an upholder. Are there little, I don't want to say tricks, but is there some sort of communication tactic that might be more effective with somebody who says, nope, I've got this obligation or I've got that obligation and I know that they're an upholder. How can I trick them into doing what I want, Gretchen? The thing about upholders is they're readily meet out of expectations and inner expectations, so you probably aren't running into too many conflicts of that sort with an upholder. I mean, or else they just won't do it.

You know, they would just like a questioner would. They'd just be like, yeah, I'm not going to, like, I'm not going to answer work emails. over the weekend. Like, I'm just not going to. I mean, that's just the way that, you know, but they would be very upfront about that. One of the things if you're dealing with in a pollter is they tend not to be very, they can be perceived as rigid and they can seem not that flexible because they tend to like have an idea of how they want things to go forward, like a to do list or a set of priorities or a schedule. And it's hard for them to move off of that. So they tend not to do well in situations where there's like a high need for flexibility or for

things changing rapidly, like rapidly changing circumstances or schedules or where it's not clear what expectations are, where expectations are ambiguous, that would tend to not be a situation where an upholder would thrive. They do better when it's like very clear when and where and what they're supposed to do and like then they can just, you know, then they can just execute. You mentioned obligers sort of, I don't know, in the Venn diagram, what would you call it, overlapping a little bit with the upholder here or possibly also being the, the, the, negative mirror image of an upholder in which they're fulfilling? Well, you're exactly right. It's a Venn diagram. So it's a Venn diagram of four overlapping

circles. And each tendency overlaps with two tendencies. So like you're a questioner and questioners overlap with upholders on one side because they both readily meet inner expectations. And questioners also overlap with rebels on the other side because they both readily resist outer expectations. And so, and we're all in a core tendency, but whether you tip to one side or the other kind of flavors how your tendency comes out. So like my husband is a questioner who tips to a polder. So it's pretty easy to convince him why certain kinds of rules make sense. Like some questioners are very distressed about like speed limits, which they consider to be totally arbitrary. Like why is it that you and I both drive the same speed when I'm clearly such a better driver than you?

Or five garments to a dressing room. Why five? Like this is just like this doesn't make any sense. To him, it's pretty easy to get him to go along with things like that. Whereas other rebels, I mean, other questioners who tip more to rebels, they really have that spirit of resistance. They're really going to push back against any kind of expectation or rule unless they truly think it's justified. So you're absolutely right. Obligers overlap with upholders on the one side because they both readily meet utter expectations, but obligers also overlap with rebels and that they both resist in our expectation. And whether an obliger tips to upholder or rebel is going to make a very big difference in how that tendency comes out.

Tell us more about obligers because when I think of an obliger, I think of somebody who's always working to, you know, I think of the proverbial mom with two kids who goes, I never have time for myself. And I go, yeah, I understand. That's one. That's one way that an obliger can present. But another, like a very famous obliger is Andre Agassi. Textbook obliger. Absolutely textbook obliger. If you read his memoir open, which is a brilliant book. I don't even care about tennis, but it's a brilliant memoir.

He's this obliger all over every page. you know or somebody who's like you know what I'm there for my patients I'm at the hospital 24 7 like I give 110 percent to my clients I like you expect me to exercise I got no time to exercise because I'm giving 110 percent to them that's oblige you know or like oh I'm managing eight sales teams like every day I'm in a different place like people are calling me all the time like like you know people need so much for me I don't have time to eat healthy right blighter talk when it's like everything is going, everything that I'm doing is because others expect from me, but not because I expect it for myself. That is a bliger. So it can look like that, but like sometimes people think

that obligerers are all people pleasers. Oh no, no, no. Some obligers are people pleasers, but I think for a lot of obligerers, that's just how they explain the obliger pattern. But what's really going on is they're meeting utter expectations. You can very easily be a very curmudgeonly obliger. That for sure. Because the idea that you're a people pleaser might appear with obliger, but might not. Because the four tendencies explained that's a very narrow aspect of your personality. So depending on how ambitious you are, how considerative other people's feelings you are, how extroverted or introverted you are, how adventurous you are, all these things would be different. It's just how do you respond to expectations. That's what makes somebody like an obliger.

Gotcha. So the difference between a people pleaser obliger and like you said, a carmudgeonly obliger is, The people pleaser, it might look like obligers are people pleasers, but sometimes the obliger doesn't really care if the other person is happy. They're still being an obliger. They're just following those outside expectations, but they're not doing it to be liked, per se. Yes, 100%. It's almost like people see the pattern of why they're doing what they're doing and they're like,

why am I doing this? And so they think, well, I guess I'm a people pleaser. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. You're readily meeting outer expectations and struggling to meet inner expectations. That's kind of a much more base level explanation of what's going to. on. It lets a lot of kind of bits and bobs that people attach to it that aren't necessary fall away. And then it's much clearer how to proceed. Because the key thing for obligers, like, and I think this is probably the most important takeaway for any, for like of people reading

the book, is that when obligers are struggling to meet inner expectations, which by definition they are, that is the definition of an obliger, they need outer accountability. That's the whole thing. That is the answer for them. Create outer accountability. Like, don't mess around with your priorities or putting yourself first or taking time for self-care or any of that stuff, give yourself out of accountability. And then you'll do it. I mean, that's just how it works. And I've heard of all kinds of funny things. Like somebody I know really wanted to write an e-book course. Well, he, you know, why can't I do it? I need to learn to make myself a priority. Like, why, you know, and I had all these kind of, you know, emotional and explanations for what he was

doing and a million reasons why his family and his schedule wasn't quite. operating. And then he thought, oh, you know what? I'll just say to the, I'll email my newsletter list and say the first 10 people who sign up for the e-course will get it free. Now there are 10 people waiting for the e-course. They're like, hey, man, where's my e-course? So now he has to create it. Ah, so you have to impose outside accountability as if your own needs are really the needs of other people by maybe even making them the needs of other people. No, like, don't worry about your needs. Create out of accountability. So you could create a client. You could create, you could be a, you could create students. I know people who are like, I will never exercise on my own. So I teach,

I teach spin class because I would never go, I would never just do spin, you know, I would never go. I would never do yoga. So I teach a yoga class. I would never take time to do my genealogical research, even though I love it. So I volunteer each week to help other people with their genealogical research. And when no one's asking for my help, I do my own because I'm stuck there in the library, being available for genealogical research. Or I had, there was a woman, this is my all-time favorite accountability strategy that in the blight, because the blighters have come up with all these brilliant ideas. One was a woman who wanted to get up early, was completely immune to any snooth alarm.

She had tried them all and did not have a dog. So how could she get herself to wake up early? She was an obliger. She had to have out of accountability for this. So she created an embarrassing Facebook post and posted it to automatically post every morning unless she got up and deactivated it. So she had to get up or the Facebook post would go up. So that's a form of outer accountability.

Some obligers are able to do very advanced kind of imaginative things like thinking about the future self. Well, right now Jordan doesn't want to go for a run. But future Jordan's going to be so disappointed if now Jordan breaks the street. Yeah, you've been going 10 days in a row. Jordan tomorrow is going to be so disappointed if now Jordan doesn't do it. Or at the end of the year, future Jordan's going to be so disappointed. I haven't made significant progress in learning Chinese. I really need to do that for future Jordan.

But obligers are very different in what kind of outer accountability works with them. For some people, paying money matters a lot. For some people, you know, they want to show up to a group. Some people are introverted. They don't want to go to a group because they don't want to be face-to-face with people. So they might use a group that meets, you know, in e-space. Like I have an app, the better app where people can start groups and have accountability groups and accountability partners.

you know, but for some people face-to-face works much better. But then for some people, they need the technology. The technology side works better. There's a million ways to do it once you realize that is what you need and that is what obligeers need. Does this ever get unhealthy? It almost seems like it could get there where every time you have to do something for yourself, you've got to construct these gymnastic equipment around how you're going to get

it done by essentially forcing yourself to go through these potentially uncomfortable situations that might, I don't know, it seems like it could be a burnout level thing. I mean, can Obligers just kind of implode after a while and quit their job because they're like, I've had it? Well, that's very interesting that you say that, because there is a very, very prominent pattern of Obligia rebellion. And that is when an obliger will meet, meet, meet expectations. And then suddenly they snap and they're like, this I will not do. And it can be kind of small and funny. Like, I'm just not going to answer your emails for two weeks. Or it can be big. Like, I'm going to divorce you.

I'm going to end a 30-year friendship. I'm going to quit this job and go work for the competitor because you're dead to me. This is over. I have had it. And Obligia Rebellion is really meant to protect obligers because it happens when obligeres feel like exploited or taken advantage of or unheard or ignored or when just the burden of expectations becomes just insupportable. And so it kind of blows up a situation. But it can be very destructive. it's not a controlled pushback.

And so, like, as an upholder or a questioner, we might say to an obligeor, well, if you didn't want to do it, why did you say you would do it? Or if you didn't want to do it when they asked you, why did you volunteer? But to an obliger, that weight of that expectation seems very, very heavy. It's hard for them. And so you want to be very aware of when, if you're an obliger or if you're dealing with obliger, when that deep resentment and burnout is starting to build so that you can intervene to try to make a situation better so that they're not exploits. or they're not feeling ignored. You know, like, let's say I'm a manager and I'm like looking at it and I'm like, okay, why are two people doing all the extra shifts and eight people are doing no extra shifts?

Or I'm looking at my team and I'm like, some people are doing all the unpleasant work travel. And some people haven't done any work travel for a year or like, why isn't this valuable employee hasn't taken a vacation in 18 months? Like, that's not sustainable. Like, don't, we shouldn't leave it to others to fix that. we should be looking for opportunities to intervene because you don't want like a lot of times obligeers are extraordinarily valuable employees because they're the rock of the world they're the ones who are always going to help you out you don't want to lose one of your most valuable employees to

oblige your rebellion because they've just been pushed for so long so hard or things aren't fair that they just all and it's it's very explosive it is something where they they obligeers will describe it as like a volcano exploding or a balloon bursting under pressure it's it's an explosive thing and there can be quite serious fallout or reputational risk from it. But sometimes it's, sometimes it's very beneficial. Sometimes it really works to help the obliger. It's meant to help the obliger. It's meant to protect the obliger. But sometimes it has negative consequences. Is it safe to say that obligers struggle with doing things maybe they need to do to develop themselves? Because if I'm working for other people all the time and fulfilling other people's expectations,

maybe I'm not doing any personal development or going to the gym, networking, or even just smaller things. Like, I can't delegate stuff at work. I can't, like you mentioned, the work travel thing. I would imagine obligers get taken advantage of quite a bit. Yeah, they do get taken advantage of. Well, see, this is the thing about outer accountability. I think many obligers just kind of intuitively realize that they need utter accountability. And so they put it in. And the fact is it's very easy to get out of accountability. The world is really set up to provide outer accountability. You might be an obliger and not even know it because it's like, well, you wanted to exercise and you know you only exercise if you sign up for a class. So you've been going to the

same class for 10 years and you work in an environment where you have a supervisor and deadlines and a team and accountability and benchmarks and reviews. So you get all the accountability you need to work. And when you're at home, you're thinking, like, well, I need to do this for my family and like, oh, I want to read more. So I'm in a book group. And oh, you know, I want to garden more of it. So I'm part of this garden competition every year. And so I have to take care of my garden because, you know, I don't want to let down, you know, everybody who's part of this community with me because they're all going to be coming through my garden. and I want to show them like what I could do. You might never notice that you're an obligeer

because you've just sort of seamlessly created forms of outer accountability so that you have the life that you want. The problem comes when an obliger does feel the sense of frustration when they're like, I want to exercise and I don't understand why I can't. Because I did exercise in high school. Why am I not doing it now? But then when somebody says like, oh, what you need is utter accountability, well, then that's okay.

That's not hard. You know, but a lot of times the pleasures will say things, or rebels or whoever is feeling a conflict, will say, well, it must be that I lack willpower. I'm lazy. I don't have self-controlled or something wrong with me. Is this a thing that people with your tendencies sometimes experience? There's many solutions for it. Just figure out what the problem is. And then, you know, use the right medicine for this. It's just like, because what happens a lot of times is people just throw a bunch of spaghetti against the wall or people give them the advice that would work for them. You know, I can give you all the advice. But, I mean, It's like any advice works for an upholder, any strategy, any device, any system works for upholders, you know. So, of course, you know, I'm going to feel like I can give you good advice. But if you're not my tendency, that advice might not work for you. So how do we work with then and communicate with obligers? Because it seems these are the people where we'll go, ah, work with Gretchen is just so nice. You know, give her something to do and she does it without complaint.

And then one day you implode and quit. I'm like, what the hell happened? So we know what to do if we're an obligatory. obliger, but how do I communicate and work with other obligers once I've spotted their tendency? How do I make sure that I'm not just contributing to the problem? Well, I think that's an excellent question. And what you do is you look out and you say, like, are things fair? And sometimes of what obligerers too is even an obliger who won't like speak up for themselves, obligeers can say like, well, let's speak up for each other. Like I'm going to,

I might not march into my manager's office and say like, this is like a bad situation, but I would do it for you? And I would be like, hey, do you know what they're doing to Jordan? They're saying that Jordan has to be on the seventh committee. He's already on six committees. That is not fair. I'm going to stand up for you, even if I wouldn't stand up for myself. So there's ways that once you know that's going on. But I think it really does help to know that someone's an obliger.

I had this experience recently because I'm an upholder. And one of the things about upholders is we're sort of like, hey, I'm not your babysitter, do it your way. I take care of my business. You take care of your business. Like, all I care is like everybody gets everything done like on time and perfectly executed. Well, I was working with an obliger. And it literally never occurred to me that I should not send work emails over the weekend.

It just never occurred to me because my view was if you'd asked me, but I never even thought about it, was, well, I'm managing my workload in my way, which is I like to send emails whenever something occurs to me. But you can manage your workload as you see fit. You can answer emails over the weekend if that's how you like to manage your workload. Or you can wait until Monday morning. It's up to you. I don't care. I'm not expecting you to answer them, but I just want to get it off my plate. well, what I found out through some sort of securitous roots was this obliger felt very pressured to answer my emails right away and felt resentful of the fact that she was being asked to work over the weekend.

So what's the solution here? It's not for me to change my ways and it's not for her to change her ways. We both have perfectly legitimate views of this, perfectly legitimate perspectives that makes sense from where we sit. But now I use delay delivery. And so if I'm sending her work emails over the weekend, I just set delay delivery. which takes like one second. And so she gets like six emails from me Monday morning at 7.30 a.m. But it's like problem solved.

I'm not sending, I'm not, I am respecting the weekend for her once I realized that she was feeling the burden of expectation. But for me, I'm still managing my workload in the way that makes sense for me, which is like just do it as fast as I can't, just do it as it comes up. So once you realize that this is what's going on. So with an obliger, you want to be very aware of like, am I imposing too much, am I taking advantage? Because the thing is, obligeers feel like they're being taken advantage of.

And they're 100% are. Slowly, they're being taken advantage of. So if you kind of have that feeling like, hmm, you know, am I going to this person again? Because this person is always the one who's nice and says yes. Watch that. I mean, I remember talking to a woman. She was a questioner. She was married to an oblige her husband.

And she said she realized that every weekend, they were doing all the things that she wanted to get done. And she wisely realized that this was not a good situation. Because you might think, like, this is amazing. I love being married to this guy. We just do everything I want all the time. You might take advantage of that. Not a good idea. That's how obliged your rebellion starts.

So what she said is every Friday, they make a list. He makes a list of what he would like to get done. She makes a list of what she would like to get done. He has to make the list because she's expecting, they're both making their lists. And then they make a point of over the weekend doing things from both people's lists. This is a way to make it fair. This is a way to make sure that everybody's desires get articulated and met. it's not a hard problem to solve once you realize that that's what's going on and that's why it's going on because you might say well if he wants to get something done why doesn't he just say it like why does he keep doing all the things she wants to get done well he's not you know you could talk all about what people should do the fact is what do they do and he just wasn't doing that so now she found a solution that works for both of them all right so obliger obviously I feel like any obliger hearing this is like oh my gosh this is me and upholders probably thought yeah

I'm kind of like that. But I think, and this might be your experience, but certainly was for me when I tell people about this and about the book, the four tendencies, people who are obligers, they seem in many ways to be maybe the most unaware of their archetype. Does that match your experience at all? Well, I think that a lot of obligers think that everybody's like that. They think everybody's like this. And they don't understand why other people are not like that.

Like I remember I was talking to a journalist and she said to me, why is it the busy parents like us can't take time for ourselves. And I said, well, actually, I have no trouble taking time for myself. And she said, well, actually, I don't either. And I said, well, then I question the premise of your of your argument. It's not that all busy parents have trouble taking time for themselves. Why do some busy parents have trouble taking time for themselves? I would say, she was a questioner. I'm in a polder. We don't have trouble taking time for ourselves. But people sort of, because because of Elijah is a big group, they send to be like, well, this is just like the human experience or like nobody can get anything done if they don't have accountability. No, that's not

true. Some people don't need accountability. Rebels may find accountability actually counterproductive, but there's a lot of obligers running around. So it kind of looks like this is a universal truth of human nature. So I think obligers don't realize that it's their tendency because they think it's just sort of like universally true. Well, the interesting thing, I'm sitting here listening to this. And as a producer, I'm telling Jordan in the back channel, take notes, take notes. This is me. Learn how to deal with me. And for me, this is a therapy session. This is fantastic. Excellent. Excellent. Excellent.

So Jordan, definitely be taking some notes on this one. Well, I took notes before the show. Yeah. And now, you know, look, the speed with which Gretchen and I are talking right now does not, it's not conducive to me typing while I'm trying to figure out what's going to happen next year. So why don't you take notes, Elijah? Go ahead and take notes, Jason. I already have been, yes. Thank you very much. Good little obliger. That's me. That's me. I quit.

There you go. Yeah. Don't push him. One of the most gratifying things is that I'll get an email for people of all the different tendencies saying like I couldn't. I was the staggered as I was reading. And you were describing my life. And I kept saying, I say that all the time or that's exactly what happened to me. You know, it's like these are very, these patterns are very, they're often, they're very predictable.

And they really do recur. And so I think for a lot of people, it's just. comforting to realize it's not just me. I thought just me experience. It's like obligey rebellion. A lot of times obligeers are like, well, I just thought this was like me kind of like being crazy. I didn't know this was a thing that other people experienced. Or like questioners have analysis paralysis, which is when sometimes their desire for perfect information means they can't make a decision or move forward because they just want more and more and more research. Once you know that's a thing and it has a name and this is a thing that questioners often fall kind of victim to,

you're like, oh, okay, well, I'm feeling this. What's the solution for that? It's like not that hard, but when you just feel like, oh, I have this weird thing that happens to me, sort of unsettling. It's nice to know that, oh, well, this is a thing that some people experience. And here's these strategies that we use to deal with it. And not surprising, totally, you know, within the realm of what we would expect to see from somebody of your tendency. This is very comforting to some people. So let's talk about questioners then. Analysis paralysis. That comes from info collecting. So that's got to be one trait of the questioner. What else are we looking at? So, yeah, analysis paralysis is something that some questioners experience.

Interestingly, often they will experience analysis paralysis with smaller decisions rather than bigger decisions. Like, it's not like what career should I follow, but more like what kind of bike should I buy or like what, you know, where should I, you know, what hotels did we stay at? Like that's when you, it just sort of like locks in and it's like, I've got to do more and more information. Well, and I think we touched on this earlier in, in the conversation, which is sometimes sometimes questioners get into trouble because they're.

persistent questioning can make them seem disrespectful or undermining of others' authority because it's like, well, why are we using the software? You know, if I'm the thin skin manager, I might feel very taken aback by that question. Whereas in fact, the questioners is just like, well, why are we? So I think questioners do better when they learn how to phrase questions in a constructive way. You know, like the questioner said to me, like, oh, I've learned. I always need to say things like, I'm really curious to know why corporate made this decision because I think if I understand their reasoning, I'm really going to be able to execute their vision much better. You know what I mean? that just sounds much more like a team player. And also, questioners need to remember that sometimes their questions can drain and overwhelm others. Like, everybody else is kind of like, you know what? Like, we've talked about this long enough. Our questions have been answered.

And yet you are just heap and asking questions. I gave a talk once where somebody, a guy stood up and said, do you think you could tell a questioner that they're only allowed to ask three questions for conversation? Because it's like, you know, clearly that was a cry for help of like somebody who was just, you know, questioner, question, question, question, question, question, question, question, but you want to remember that with a questioner, they're great at following through once they understand why, but they have to be given those justifications in order to get with the program. So you need to do whatever it takes. And you know, and you can realize, like, you might create situations where different

people get different amounts of information. Like if you're creating a website, instead, you might have a thing like for more information or if you want to understand why we set it up this way, you know, click here. And so people can click through. They feel like they have those deep resources. Because if you're telling me to walk a mile a day, I'm like, why one mile? Why, why every day? Why walk? You know, but you can tell me, oh, this is not an arbitrary thing that we're telling you to do. Here's all the research. But I'm not going to, I'm not going to daze everybody who's coming to my website with this information. Or like, let's say you're giving a presentation. You might say, well, here, I hope that I've given you a good sense of why corporate has decided that we're going to use a new software program. if you would like to return to your desk, you feel like you've heard enough.

Please feel free to return to your desk. And if you would like to stay here and ask more questions, I am pleased to stay here for as long as you like. So then the people who are like, okay, fine, whatever can get up and go back to work. And the people who are like, wait a minute, I still have a lot of questions. You're still available to them. So you showed to them, I have the, I have the justifications and the rationale that you need. I'm happy to answer your questions, but not everybody has to sit through that because they might start to feel overwhelmed or annoyed by that. Gotcha. Okay. And I can identify with that. And yes, I was that guy in law school. Well, hold on. I have 17 more things before we can finally leave the room. Okay, everyone hates you. Story in my life. You know, and I'm sure you've experienced this. Some environments really reward and praise the praise the praise. The questioner drive toward efficiency and understanding and rationale, they really, it's rewarded. It's praised. Not all, though. You know, if you're in a place where it's really like get with the program, it's all about what corporate says. It's all about executing someone else's vision.

that might not work very well for a questioner. So you want to be aware of that as a questioner. Make sure you're getting into the right place for you where all your strengths are rewarded instead of being seen as limitations because they are tremendous strengths, but not everybody, but not in all places and to all audiences. Well, as it turns out, being a questioner was a good kind of set of character traits for me as an interviewer. Go figure. There you go. There you go. I want to know everything. And now I have you trapped on this call and you're going to answer all my questions. Yes, yes, yes, yes, exactly. See, there you go. So you got yourself into a place where it was satisfying to you in this kind of like deep way. Yeah, great. Yeah, especially now that I'm, now I hold all the cards. If you leave, it's just rude, Gretchen, you are stuck answering all of my questions. This is my dream job. Oh, he set it up perfectly. That's right. This is the trap. But let's talk about rebels before I do finally let everyone go from this meeting where everyone's decided this, this guy, who. Who hired this guy? Let's talk about rebels because, yes, we can all sort of point at teenagers and go, yeah, yeah, these are rebels or we've all met a rebel. And as adults, I don't know. When I read about this, I thought, oh, well, I know some rebels that are young. But once rebels grow into adults, they kind of have to hide it or it just looks immature in a way. And I think that rejecting external imposition, look, fine, it's admirable in some cases. We need rebellious thinkers. values doers, but it's got to catch up to you at some point. It's got to be hard for rebels to do

things they actually have to do. So it seems like a almost self-destructive tendency. And we all know that person that's like, yeah, I quit that job because my boss was a jerk. And you're thinking, okay, this is the fifth job you've done that. Either you're terrible at picking bosses and companies to work for, or maybe, I don't know, you just don't want to do what people are assigning you to do. And so it seems like in a way, being a rebel, it's not freedom. It's a lack of compliance. And so you're kind of still responding to peer pressure. You're just doing what, you're just doing the opposite. Instead of, instead of being an obligor, you're just kind of like, well, I'm not going to do that because you want me to. So in a way, it doesn't seem that freeing.

Because at first blush, it's like, oh, cool, rebel. And then it's like, actually, no, this is maybe not the best thing for you. Well, that's a very interesting point and a very astute point. And I would say it's interesting. Some rebels love being rebels and are like rebels of the best. One rebel called everybody else muggles, which I thought was very funny. But then many rebels are very frustrated by it for exactly the reason that you say. Like they keep getting into trouble because they'll just resist. They can't make themselves, they want to do something. But the minute they try to get themselves to do something, they push back even against

themselves, they do feel a very high level of frustration. So I think it's also very, very helpful for rebels to understand, like, where this is coming from because then they can understand how to harness the power of the tendency in order to get themselves where they want. For instance, you gave a great example, very common kind of conflict or frustration that a rebel would feel, which is like, you're telling me to do something so I won't do it. So let's say you're a rebel and you're smoking. And the doctor is telling you, hey, Jordan, you've got to give smoking. And your wife is saying, hey, Jordan, you got to give up smoking. And your kids are like, hey, Jordan, you got to give up smoking. Everybody around you, they're like, you got to give up smoking.

And I'm like, tell my kids, why are you calling me Jordan instead of dad? This is unhealthy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, right. That's That's right. That's right. Yeah, you cheeky monkeys. Yeah. So the, no, but so it's like, I'm free. I'm not going to follow Dr. DeVerdes. You're not the boss of me. I can do it every want. I'm free. I'm free. I'm smoking away. There's nothing you can do to control me. Is that freedom? So what a rebel could do is say, like, well, that's one kind of freedom. But maybe the freedom I want is I want to be free from nicotine. I don't want to be changing to cigarettes. I don't want to be controlled by the big tobacco companies that are just taking my money and pouring it into their pockets. I'm not going to be controlled by their packaging. and their marketing. They can't tell me what to do. Nobody can tell me where to go in an airport. Nobody can tell me that I can't go to this restaurant.

Nobody can make me stand outside on a cold winter's day, 250 feet from an entrance. I'm in control. I am not going to be things. That's freedom too. It's the same thing. But you have to remember that the rebel is always going to choose to be free. They're going to choose.

They're going to make a choice. And so you have to be very careful in how that's framed because both of these are kinds of freedom. both and by the way rebels the minute that they decide to do it they can do it because that's what they want they will often just quit or they'll quit in some kind of unusual way they won't follow kind of the classic like oh this is the conventional wisdom about the right way to quit they'll be like no I'm going to quit my own way and they also tend to love a challenge also you think an old guy like me can't quit I'll show you things like that and so once you understand the rebel tendency

you understand how to think about things in a way that gets you where you're want to go. And you also, as a rebel, can let go of things that don't work for you that work well for other people. For instance, everybody might say to you, hey, you know, if you want to exercise, what you really need to do is sign up for class, put it on your calendar, just now, 10 o'clock Saturday morning, you're going to go. That's terrible advice for a rebel. They hate signing up for things in advance. They won't go. That's not a good idea for them. For them, it's more like, oh, hey, you're just a, what do I think of you as being like kind of a vital athletic person? Like, I think of you as being somebody who, like, loves to go outside, run

around, play games, play sports, like workout. Yeah, that is the kind of person I am. I do like to run outside. I do like to feel strong and healthy. I do like to get to a gym and work out. Like, today I'm going to do the bike. Today I'm going to do weights. Today I'm going to do cardio. I'm going to do whatever I'm in the mood for. And I'm going to do it the middle of the work day when I'm supposed to be working. That's when I'm going to go to the gym. That's the rebel way or to make a to do list. Oh my God, most rebels can't use to do lists. It doesn't work for them. They don't like to see a list. The minute you tell them what they should do, they don't want to do it. So there's ways around that.

Rebels use could do lists. Rubles use Mike could list. I heard of a rebel who would write task down on a piece of paper and put them all in a jar. And then whenever she felt like getting something done, she would just pick a slip of paper out of the jar and do whatever was there. It kind of made it into a game for her. There's a million ways, again, once you understand the spirit of resistance that is such an issue for rebels, then you can work around that you can take it into. account. But when you're just trying to butt up against the rebel spirit of resistance,

you know, you can't make somebody do some. It's very, very, very rare that you can really make somebody do something. You know, with a rebel, it has to be what they choose. Exactly. So the ability for the rebel, the ability to choose is so important that they might even make a choice that's against their own interest just to prove to themselves or you that they had a choice in the first place. So they might even reject something that's good for them for the sake of rejection. Oh, 100%. They might reject something that they want to do, like something that they really want to do. I mean, no, it's a big thing. And you've got to know this when you're dealing with a rebel or if you're a rebel yourself. And in fact, one rebel said to me, I rebel said to me, I rebel, even against my rebel

tendency. And I say to myself, even though people want me to do this, I am going to do it, because that's what I want, even though I want to resist it to show them that I can. I mean, It is a, you really, really have to get into this place of deep paradox in the rebel tendency. So, so from, so one of the things that works for rebels, either if you are a rebel or you're dealing with a rebel is identity. So this is like, I'm an athlete or, you know, I'm a responsible parent. And so I can do the things that might not come easily to me because it's important to me to project this, this identity into the world. I'm a responsive boss. And so I am going to go to the weekly stop meeting, even though I think, I don't, I hate to go, like, show up every Wednesday at 10 a.m. because I want to show the people I work with that I'm listening to them.

It's important to me to be that kind of boss. And the other thing you can do with Rubble is information consequences choice. You give them the information they need. You tell them the consequences of their action or inaction, and then you let them choose. So you could say something like, you know what? You know what, Jordan? I don't know if you know, but we have this mandatory weekly meeting every Wednesday at 10 a.m. And you know what we do with the meeting?

We decide who's going to do what projects that are coming up for the next several weeks. And the people who are in the meeting, well, we take all the good projects. all the interesting projects, and we leave the dregs for the people who skip the meeting. So you know, this meeting is at 10 o'clock on Wednesday mornings. Oh, man. So they're like, crap. It's mandatory, so I don't want to go. But I also want to be able to choose which projects.

So maybe I'll go just to take the good project. So it's information consequences choice. Go or not your choice. What is the consequence of not going? Boring work. It's up to you. But it's like saying you have to go. We're waiting for you.

You're holding everybody up. you know, you're going to get penalized. I mean, none of that works for a rebel. It's much more effective to give them this information consequences. And as a result, and back to your point, the point that they might resist something that's even good for them or that they want, often if a rebel is not doing something that you want them to do or that you think that they should want to do, it might be because you're nudging them, you're reminding them, you're giving them little helpful hints.

Don't do anything. The thing with a rebel is, if you don't know what to do, do nothing. That is much by far the safer bet. Say nothing. Like, you know, I have a podcast happy with Crutch and Rubin. And we had two people who called in asking about, well, their rebel, one had a rebel sweetheart who hadn't looked for work in the new city where he was going to move. And one had a rebel husband who'd been laid off and wasn't looking for work. One woman was a question.

One was an obligeer. And so the question is, what do you do to help these rebels look for work? How can you support them? How can you help them? And what is the answer? What should you do for these rebels? Yeah, it sounds freaking exhausting to deal with somebody like this. No, but you should do nothing because the more you, you know, make a spreadsheet of like what you should do when or you make a helpful list of phone numbers or you say, hey, wouldn't today be a great day to call that place?

The more are they going to be like, no, you're not the bus to me. I'll do it in my own way and my own time. These guys know they need a job. This is not a secret. But the more you remind. And so, you know, or like I've heard I have a lot of child readers and child listeners for some reason, which I love. And several rebels have specifically mentioned the example of making the bed. They'll be like, I was making my bed because I like having my bed made.

I like to be in a room with a made bed, but I hear my parents yelling, oh, hey, don't forget to make your bed. And I will pause back the covers back onto the floor because I was going to do it because I wanted to, but I'm not going to do it because you told me to. So you've got to be very careful with the rebel that you don't ignite that spirit of resistance. Because if they're not doing something, it might be because you keep reminding them to do it or suggesting that they do it or encouraging them to do it or praising them. for doing it. Gotta be very careful with praise. I mean, even something like,

oh my gosh, you've got to read this book. It's great. I'm not going to read that book. Oh, I bought it. Now I got to return it. Thanks a lot.

I can't tell you how many rebels have told me that they refused to read Harry Potter because everybody told them how good it was. I mean, that kind of sounds like me too, but it's subconscious. And then I realize it's dumb

and I do it. But a rebel's like, nope, I'm consciously going to be like, F that book, not doing it. Well, it's interesting

because you know how we were talking before about overlapping kinds, like which way do you tip? So some rebels tip to questioner and that they both resist outer expectation and some rebels tip to oblige her in that they both resist inner expectations. And wrestlers, rebels who tip to questioners are much more like, I want to do what I want to do. I want you to do what you to do what you tell me to do. I've just got my own thing going. And they don't, it doesn't bother them as much. Like that spirit of resistance, like don't read Harry. They'll be like, yeah, I kind of resist Harry Potter. But yeah, but I get that I like that I like

that kind of thing, so I'm going to read it even though everybody tells me to do it. But then Rebels who tip to oblige are very much have that feeling of resentment and being pushed around. They resist. They're the ones that like, oh, I really want to, I really do want to go. I really do want to go. I really do want to go. I really do want to go. I really do want to go. I really do want to go. I like hanging out with my friends. This is a thing that rebels will often say. They don't like being told where to go, even to see people that they really like. They're like, I love hanging out with my friends, but I hate it when they tell me like, you've got it, like we're meeting at this restaurant at this time. It's a hard thing to manage. You have to understand as a rebel or if you're dealing with a rebel how to manage that spirit of resistance because then, then everything becomes much easier.

Yeah. It's kind of like, as Jason says, you're buying this book. You're buying the book the Four tendencies and the store clerk says have a great day and the rebel says don't tell me what to do don't tell me what to do don't tell me what kind of day i'm going to have yeah something like thank you for not smoking oh my gosh that makes rebels crazy yes exactly right so if you're an upholder you should go by the four tendencies if you're a questioner you should go by the four tendencies because you'll learn a lot about yourselves and others if you're an obliger then everybody else really has wants to wants you to read this you'll be a better person for having done it if you're a rebel, definitely do not buy the book The Four Tenancies because it's not what you want.

Do what you want. Never mind. Never mind. Just do whatever the hell you want. Exactly. There you go. Gretchen, thank you very much. This is super informative.

I love archetypes. I'm going to just have a soft spot for anything that helps me read people better, especially if that person is myself. So, nailed it. Well, I'm so glad to hear that you found it illuminating. Oh, that's a good word. I'm going to use that another time. Illuminating. Jason, write that down. Obliger. Okay. Yes, sir. I'm on it. I quit. Yeah, Jason quit. Oh, well.

Damn it. This was a lot of fun. This was tons of fun. Thanks so much. It's so fun to talk to you. Interesting show, Jason. Were you surprised at your category, or did you kind of always know that you were in there? I was very surprised, actually. I thought I was more of a rebel, but as she was described, describing the obligor, it all just clicked. I'm like, yep, I overgive, and I always hit that point where I feel like I'm taking advantage of, and then I just burn the fields. So now we know how to intercept that in the future, and I can look at myself and say, hey, you're getting to that point back off a bit and just, you know, take care of yourself before you take care of others. Rebel Obliger, Jason DePhilippo.

Rebel Obliger. That's like a nerdy super villain name, if I've ever heard one. I was going to say that it doesn't really sound like my stripper. name. No, Rebel Obliger? No, no. That's a terrible stripper name. It's a terrible stripper name. You're the most broke stripper anywhere in America with that name.

Right. Great big thank you to Gretchen Rubin. The book title is The Four Tendencies, the Indispensable Personality Profiles, that reveal how to make your life better and other people's lives better, too. Of course, that will be linked up in the show notes along with her Twitter. Don't forget to thank Gretchen on Twitter. That'll all be linked in the show notes at Jordan Harbinger. com slash podcast. Tweet at me your number one takeaway here from Gretchen. I'm at Jordan Harbinger on

Twitter and Instagram. And don't forget, we have worksheets for today's episode so you can make sure you understand all the practicals and key takeaways here from Gretchen Rubin. That link, as always, in the show notes at Jordan Harbinger.com slash podcast. This episode was produced and edited by Jason DeFilippo. Show notes are by Robert Fogarty, booking, back office, and last minute miracles by Jen Harbinger. And I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger. In iTunes, if you don't know how to do that, we'll subscribe anywhere for that matter. Jordan Harbinger.com slash subscribe. We'll show you pretty much everywhere.

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