The Rich Roll Podcast - Where Do You Thrive? Gretchen Rubin On Playing To Your Strengths & Building Better Habits

Episode Date: September 25, 2017

Today I sit down with New York Times bestselling author Gretchen Rubin to find out what happened when she asked a large number of people one singular question: how do you respond to expectations? The answers led Gretchen to an epiphany — that four distinct human tendencies intrinsically underlie how each and every one of us approach our interior and exterior lives. Understanding your tendency changes how you perceive yourself and others. It informs better communication. It provides the structure to create better habits. And ultimately it serves to support the purposeful pursuit of the personal and professional life experience you most seek. This is the terrain of today's exploration. A member of Oprah’s Super Soul 100 who was named one of the Most Creative People in Business by Fast Company, Gretchen is an über-author who has sold over 3 million books on the subject of habits, happiness and human nature. You may know Gretchen from her wildly popular blog, her runaway bestseller The Happiness Project*, or from one of her other many titles such as Happiness At Home* and Better Than Before*. An exploration of the aforementioned architecture of human motivation, Gretchen's new book is entitled The Four Tendencies: The Indispensable Personality Profiles That Reveal How To Make Your Life Better (and Other People's Lives Better, Too)*. When she isn't writing, Gretchen hosts the wildly popular Happier With Gretchen Rubin podcast (along with her sister, TV writer Elizabeth Craft), awarded “Best Podcasts of 2015” honors by iTunes and named one of the “Best Podcasts of 2016″ by the Academy of Podcasters (I didn't even know podcasting had an academy, but there ya go). In addition, Gretchen is the creator of Better, a free mobile app that connects you with others to harness the Four Tendencies and create a better life. This conversation is jam packed with super helpful amazing takeaways. A former editor-in-chief of the Yale Law Journal who clerked for Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, we track Gretchen's leap from high-powered lawyer to pursue a career in writing. We talk about how her revelation about “expectations” led to The Four Tendencies, then unpack the specifics, tracking how these core archetypes can better inform our habits, our understanding of others and how we structure our professional and personal lives. I learned a lot about myself in this one. Enjoy! Rich

We all have to construct the life that's right for us. There is no one best way. There's no magic one-size-fits-all solution because what works for you isn't going to be what works for me because you and I are different. And so if we want to be happier, healthier, more productive, more creative, it's like, okay, well, what kind of person are you? Where do you thrive? What works for you? And not to try to jam ourselves into somebody else's conception of what we should be able to do or what is the best thing to do. It's like it doesn't matter what works for somebody else or what you should be able to do.

It's like it only matters what works for you. You don't have to feel bad about yourself. You just have to figure out how to work with yourself. The upside is the downside. The strength is the weakness. It just depends on sort of what the context is. That's Gretchen Rubin, and this is The Rich Roll Podcast. The Rich Roll Podcast.

Hey, everybody. How are you guys doing? What's happening? My name is Rich Roll, in case it was not already immediately apparent. I am your host. This is my podcast. Welcome to it. Thanks for dropping by. Today, I sit down with the amazing Gretchen Rubin. Gretchen is a former lawyer turned Uber author and blogger. She is somebody who has sold over 3 million books on the subject of habits, happiness, and human nature. You may know Gretchen from her runaway bestseller, The Happiness Project, or one of her many other titles, which include Happiness at Home and Better Than Before, or from her wildly popular blog at GretchenRubin.com. Well, Gretchen has a new book out. It's called The Four Tendencies. It's an amazing read. It basically parses

fundamental personality types based upon how we as humans respond to one singular question. How do you respond to expectations? In other words, what motivates you? How do you go about doing what you claim you want to do? And extrapolating from this and supported by a huge data set based on a simple quiz that she constructed that has been taken by millions of people, which you too can take. I'll put the link up to that in the show notes. Gretchen discovered that pretty much everybody falls into one of four general tendencies. And when you understand your tendency, it changes how you see yourself, how you relate to others and the world around you, and how you better structure

your life to consistently meet the expectations that you set for yourself and in turn support the life experience that you seek. And it is this terrain that we will be exploring today. Fast Company named Gretchen Rubin to its list of most creative people in business. She's a member of Oprah's Super Soul 100. And she's also the host, along with her sister, TV writer Elizabeth Kraft, of the wildly popular Happier with Gretchen Rubin podcast, which was named to iTunes list of best podcasts of 2015 and in the Academy of Podcasters best podcasts of 2016.

I didn't even know that there was an Academy of Podcasters. I guess I should know that, but I didn't. In any event, Gretchen is also the creator of Better, which is a free app where you can connect with others to harness the four tendencies to create a better life. We're brought to you today by recovery.com. I've been in recovery for a long time. It's not hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety. And it all began with treatment and experience that I had that quite literally saved my life. And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment.

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option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. Okay, Gretchen Rubin. Gretchen was great. I met up with her at her sister's office on the Disney lot, which was cool. I love going to movie studios. And this one is packed with super helpful, amazing takeaways. We track her previous career in law. And to give you an idea of how accomplished Gretchen is, she was editor-in-chief of the Yale Law Journal before clerking for Sandra Day O'Connor, and then serving as chief advisor to the chairman of the FCC. Like, she had a huge career in law and then walked away from it all to become a writer, which is kind of an amazingly courageous leap of faith, which obviously worked out for her. We talk about how her revelation about expectations led her to write The Four Tendencies.

And we then unpack these four tendencies, tracking how they can inform our habits, our patterns, our communication, and how we fundamentally structure our lives. And I learned a lot about myself in this one. structure our lives. And I learned a lot about myself in this one. It's already helping me reframe certain aspects of how I approach myself and others. And I think you guys are going to really enjoy it. One final note before we get into it, as you may recall, a couple months ago, I put the word out on this podcast looking for a filmmaker to help create a visual arm to the work that I do. Well, I think I found my guy. His name is David Zamet. He is a young and quite talented photographer, editor, and filmmaker hailing

from Malta. And our collaboration has already begun. Last week, we posted a short film called Let's Celebrate. And today, we just posted a video that takes you behind the scenes of this very podcast with Gretchen, essentially how I bake the bread, so to speak. And our intention is to create at least a few videos every single week going forward, including eventually filming entire podcasts. We've got to kind of solve that equation. We're looking into it.

We have filmed a couple already. We're trying to figure out if they're worthy of putting up because we don't have the editing all dialed in yet. This is all an experiment that's kind of unfolding in real time. In any event, you can find all of this content on my YouTube page at youtube.com forward slash richroll. So check it out. And if you enjoy it, please subscribe to the channel. I'd appreciate it. All right. Let's talk to Gretchen. So it's an absolute delight to finally meet you. I'm just I'm so excited to talk to you.

Thank you for making the time. Oh, I'm so happy to be talking to you. It's great to see you face to face. I'm glad that the person who is the forward facing person of happiness is happy. Yes. And I feel very entertainment-y doing this over at happy. Yes, yes, yes. And I feel very entertainment-y doing this over at Disney. Yes.

Which is cool. We're in Burbank, California. We are. Fancy Burbank. And we have a ton of mutual friends, a lot of my favorite people. I know are friends of yours, Chris Gillibaugh. Yes.

Jonathan Fields. Yes. I adore those guys. Louis introduced us, of course. Yes, yeah. I'm going to see Chris tomorrow night, actually. Or no, Wednesday night. Terrific, and I'm seeing him Monday. introduced us, of course. I'm going to see Chris tomorrow night, actually. Or no, Wednesday night. Terrific.

And I'm seeing him Monday. Oh, cool. Yeah. All right. Well, it's a big Chris love fest. Yes, it is. It always is. There's so many things I want to talk to you about.

Of course, the new book. We're going to unpack all of the archetypes that you have determined that are helping so many people. But I think what I wanted to kind of explore a little bit with you first, myself being a recovering lawyer, a writer and a podcaster. Yeah, there's a lot of us. Do people ask you about how you transitioned out of this law practice you went? Because, I mean, you weren't just some lawyer. I mean, you had like a big career in law,

Supreme Court clerk and FCC, and there's a whole trajectory built into that. Yeah, it's interesting. In hindsight, it all feels very simple, but I'm sure it wasn't as simple at the time. But, you know, I had started working on researching a subject that just absolutely had me obsessed which was power many fame sex like this i was like what am i interested in the world that everybody else is interested in power many fame sex and so i was like struck by wanting to do massive amounts of research on that subject which is something just in your free time yes in my free time you were at the fcc yes because you had so much free time well Well, it's funny because, yeah, I mean, you think,

oh, gosh, all I did all day was read and write. And then I would go home and read and write. And I often get obsessed with subjects. This is something that's happening to me my whole life. But it just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And finally, it occurred to me, you know, this is something that some people do as a job. They don't just do it in their free time. And maybe I could do it as my work. And that feeling sort of grew and grew until I realized, you know, I'd rather fail as a writer than succeed as a lawyer. So, I should try it and see if I can succeed or fail. I need to put it to the test. And I think I was lucky because I don't know about you and the people that you know, maybe who've transitioned out of law or out of anything.

Sometimes people know where they want to leave, but they don't know yet where they want to go. And so they have to figure out where to go. And that's hard. That was me. Yeah. But so I was lucky because I had this project that was pulling me so hard. I wanted, it wasn't so much that I wanted to leave law, but that I just wanted to devote

myself to this writing project totally. But it's not exactly like there was a clear-cut path as to how that was going to work out. Well, you know what I did is I went to the bookstore and I bought a book. I don't remember the exact title, but it was called something like How to Write and Sell Your Nonfiction Book Proposal. So I bought the book and followed the directions. That book was maybe that was the best money you ever spent.

Probably, right? And i don't even remember the title yeah you're right it's true it's funny um i just did what it said and and and so was you but you you wrote these biographies for those came first so power many fames sex was my first book and then i wrote two biographies yeah good memory um one of win of Winston Churchill, one of JFK. And I wrote a strange little book called Profane Waste. And sometimes people look at those earlier books and think, oh, wow, they look so different from the books that I wrote, The Happiness Project or The Four Tendencies. But really, my subject is human nature. That's what I'm always thinking about and writing about. So, to me, all my books feel very unified, even if they don't look that way from the outside.

Right. It's human behavior. Yes. You're unpacking human behavior. Yes. You're trying to sort of go behind the curtain in what motivates people. And looking at someone like Winston Churchill, for instance, he's such an exaggerated figure. He's so enormous that you can see human nature more clearly because he just cast such a tremendous shadow.

Right. As does JFK. As does JFK, yeah. Of course. I just saw the grassy knoll for the first time when I was in Dallas for my book tour, and I was like, oh my gosh, here it is. Here it is, wow. Yeah. But what do you think, what's behind this desire, this impulse, this drive to, you know,

really delve deep into human behavior? Like, Where do you think that's coming from? It's always been a subject that's fascinated me my whole life, but I sort of didn't isolate it as a subject. It just seemed to me like the thing that was most interesting in the world. And it took me a while to realize that that's what I was researching and trying to figure out, trying to look at it from every different angle and trying to penetrate the mysteries of who we are. And when you were at the FCC, was that your last law job?

That was my last law job. That was. And you're like, I'm going to walk away from this and I'm going to write a book now. I mean, how was that received by your coworkers? Well, you know, it was interesting. Well, you know, it was interesting. What was probably more influential to me was like, how did my friends, my family, and my husband think about it? And I was really lucky because first of all, my husband was making a transition at the same time. We were going to move from Washington, D.C. to New York. We met in law school. He was also working at the FCC,

totally coincidentally, and he was going to go into finance. So we were both going to make the change together. We were going to move to a new city and we were going to start new careers so that was really good and i remember the day when we got a notice from the new york bar association and i said to him are we going to pay our bar fees just kind of hedge our bets and he's like no yeah because it's expensive to pay your bar i know so he's like no we're not i'm like okay we're really we're really doing this we're not paying our bar fees. That's when it becomes real. I remember when I got that email and I was like, I'm not doing it.

I'm cutting that cord. I'm cutting it. But you find out later that if you just like pay your back fees and like, you know, you can pretty much do it. They still send me stuff all the time. Do they? It's like, hello. Every nine years we get some kind of weird warning letter, which I just.

Right, you're in trouble. Yeah, you're not in good standing. I think I paused it or did something, I don't know. But I was really lucky because everybody who was closest to me was very tolerant of me taking a big risk. And I think I would have done it anyway, but it would have been much more difficult if everybody had really been saying like,

oh, it's not a safe bet. And it's such a tough career. And you've done put so much time and effort and money into it. And you know, given, you know, you have all these options now. But they were really like, you know, if this is what you want to do, okay. Now, and my sister, my younger sister, Elizabeth, was already working as a professional writer. So I was lucky in that somebody very close to me was already a professional writer. And so I think that that also played a role in my willingness to take a risk. That's cool to have that level of support. I mean, it could have gone the other way. I mean, you could have a sibling who's like, what do you mean you're going to be a writer? Like,

that's my thing. That's true. And also, I see people often, from the deepest sense of love, try to protect people from failure and risk. And so to say, do the safe thing, don't risk failure, don't risk being embarrassed, don't risk not being able to get a job, take the safe path. But the fact is, there is no safe path. So many people do things thinking that they're safe, and then those things blow up. Right. And the lawyers are those safety seekers, right? yeah these are the people that are that are seeking out that that supposedly that that elusive more secure route

and look man it's tough you know when you're going to new york oh well there's davis polk and there's you know they're dangling huge paychecks in front of you and and having clerked for sandra day o'connor i mean you could have done whatever you wanted to do. Well, I had an interesting experience. And so now, because I write about happiness and sort of self-knowledge all the time, one of the questions that I suggest to people, if you want to increase your self-knowledge, because it's hard to know ourselves, surprisingly hard. One question I say, I often suggest is, whom do you envy?

Because when you think about whom you envy, then you're like, that person is something that you want. And maybe you could get that for yourself, you know, but often we don't want to admit to ourselves what we really want. And one of the things for me was that when I would read the alumni notes from my law school, when I read about people who had really cool law jobs, I felt like a kind of mild interest. And when I read about people who had cool writing jobs, I felt sick with envy. So I thought, well, they, like, I guess that's what I really wish that I had, because that's what I really envy.

Yeah, that's a good, that's a good litmus test. Yeah, it's painful. I definitely can relate to that. It's painful to admit to envy. Yeah, well, it's baked into us as human beings, I suppose. Yeah. So let's get into the the tendencies yeah i took the quiz by the way okay not that i didn't already kind of know where you know how i how it

would work out for me yeah i think we're going to get along swimmingly because i'm definitely an upholder all right we're rare a rare breed so we can like you know get into each other on the back or whatever. But I think I have a light dusting of, of, of rebel in me. But I also have first, by the way, I'm going to use this as like a personal counseling session. I love that. It's my favorite thing. Okay, good. A light dusting of rebel, but also a definite strain of people pleasing that when I was kind of going through the tendencies and trying to understand them and these four archetypes felt a little bit at odds with being an upholder. So, I don't know. But maybe even before answering that, we should describe what we're talking about. Yeah. So, the four tendencies are whether you're an upholder,

a questioner, obliger, or rebel. So, you and I are both upholders. So, and this has to do with how you respond to expectations. And all of us face two kinds of expectations. So, there's outer expectations like meeting a work deadline, meeting a request from a friend. And then there's inner expectations. So, your own desire to keep a New Year's resolution, your own desire to start lifting weights again. 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 and meet those expectations, but their expectations for themselves are just as important. Then 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, yeah, this makes sense, then they will do it, no problem.

If it fails their inner standard, they will reject it. They tend to hate anything arbitrary, inefficient, unjustified. So they always want to know why they should do something. Then there are obligers. Obligers readily meet outer expectations, but they struggle to meet inner expectations. And I got my insight into this when a friend of mine said, I don't understand it. I really want to go running. 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? Well, when she had a team and a coach waiting for her, she had no trouble showing up. But when she was just trying to go on her own, she struggled. And then finally, 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 time. If you ask or tell them to do something, they are very likely to resist. And typically, they don't even like to tell themselves what to do.

Like, they wouldn't sign up for a 10 a.m. yoga class because they're like, I don't know what I'm going to want to do at 10 a.m. So, those are the four tendencies. Now, you and I are upholders, and that's pretty unusual because the biggest tendency for both men and women, the one the biggest number of people belong to is a blighter. That's big. Second to them is questioner, also very big. Rebel is the smallest tendency. It's the longest chapter in the book, but it's the smallest tendency. It's the one the fewest people belong to. But our tendency, a polder tendency, only slightly larger.

Those are the two kind of extreme polar tendencies, and they're pretty small. Not that many people are rebels or upholders. Right. So before we get into the particulars of these four different personality types and the pros and the cons and kind of what we're supposed to do with this information. How did you arrive at this? Like, how did it dawn upon you? Is this the result of just a continuing pursuit into the depths of what make people tick? Did you have like an epiphany? Did it come to you slowly? Well, both. I started picking up these patterns. So my friend said that thing about the track team and that really got me thinking like, well, what's going on? Because it's the same person,

it's the same behavior. Like why was it at one time effortless and now she can't do it? And let me just interrupt you to ask you this. When you hear that as an upholder, what is your reaction when somebody tells you that? See, that's what's interesting. And that's why I think it was an advantage to me to be an upholder in figuring out this framework. Because to me, I was like, I don't understand that. That didn't make, like, I'm like, huh. Just get on with it. Yeah.

It's like, I'm like, that's interesting because I don't experience that. And also, people were saying other things that I was like, I don't experience that. So, like, when I would talk to people about New Year's resolutions, because I wrote this book better than before that's all about habit change. So, I was talking to people about, I would also often ask people about New Year's resolutions as a way to get into their habits. And a certain number of people would give exactly the same answer. They would say, I would keep a resolution whenever it made sense to me, but I wouldn't do it on January 1st because January 1st is an arbitrary date.

And that really struck me because I was like, well, the arbitrariness of January 1st never bothered me. Then there were people who would say things like, well, why is it that busy parents like us can't take time for ourselves? And I would think, well, I'm a busy parent, but I don't have any trouble taking time for myself. And then there were some people who just, like when I talked about habits, to me, the idea of habits is energizing and freeing.

I love the idea of a life full of habits. But some people were repelled by the idea of a life full of habits. But some people were repelled by the idea of habits. You could tell that the whole idea of trying to form habits was repugnant to them. I was like, so weird. They see the world so differently from me. So, all these things were sort of running through my head simultaneously. I had no idea how they fit together or if they were part of a pattern. And then one day, I was just glancing down at my to-do list, which was like, you know, all messy, half things crossed off, half things that I still needed to do. And all of a sudden, this idea jumped out at me, expectations. And I realized that was at the core of all these things.

And once I saw, once I focused on expectations, and I saw that it was outer expectations and inner expectations, then everything started sliding into place. All these patterns began to fit together and make sense. And so, it was like I was pondering, pondering, pondering, kind of wandering around my head for months, and then suddenly it just clicked when I thought of the word expectation. And there can only be four, right? Because there's only four permutations of expectations that are either motivated, stimulated internally or externally. Yes. It's sort of like inner-inner, outer-outer, inner-outer, outer-inner. There can only be four because those are the four combinations.

Did you wake up in the middle of the night and jump up and down? Well, you know, I was sitting there and part of it too was at first I was trying to make it into a two-by-two. And I couldn't get it to work out two-by-two. Because it's like, how do they fit together that way? When I realized it was a Venn diagram of the overlapping circles, that showed me how they all fit together. Because, like, they touch each other. So, you and I are both upholders. Well, upholders are like questioners in that we both resist, that we both meet inner expectations.

But upholders are also like obligers in that we both meet inner expectations, but upholders are also like obligers and that we also meet outer expectations. So it showed me the relationship of the four, how they really intersect with each other. So that was another big breakthrough is when I realized it was a Venn diagram and a diamond shape of circles. It was like the visual.

And then you constructed this test, this quiz. Yes. And how many people have taken this test? I mean, I'm coming up on a million people. That's so crazy. Soon, yeah. Happiercast.com slash quiz if you want to take the quiz. Everybody should take it if you're not sure where you fall on this.

And so you have this massive data set. Yeah. And I'm interested in, you know, as you kind of dig into that, are most people some combination of the two? Or are there people that are just purely, you know, in one camp? Like, how does that look and break down? Well, from my observation, people, almost everybody really is within one core tendency. But like you say, you can kind of tip because you could be, like, say my husband's a questioner, he's a questioner. Now, some questioners kind of tip to upholders because upholders and questioners both meet inner expectations. But some questioners

tip toward rebel because like rebels, they both resist outer expectations. And so, the flavor of your questionerness can change depending on whether you tipped one way or the other. So, it's not that you're a mix, but you sort of are leaning in one direction. You're tipping towards an adjacent tendency. But I really do think that people fit within a core tendency. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And let's talk a little bit about the pros and cons of each of these. I mean, to me, like if I take rebel,

or let's take questioner, like it's kind of easy to discern the pros. I mean, to me, tell me if I'm wrong, but a questioner who's gonna ask a lot of questions, that's good because they wanna make sure they're making the right decision. And that's gonna be based on logic and what's best for them.

But questioners, I would imagine, can also end up in some form of paralysis as a result of not being able they just keep asking questions yeah analysis paralysis allow that you know questions can be fear yeah right yeah they're just afraid to move forward as long as they keep asking questions they have an excuse to not actually do anything yeah well you see this in something like exercise where it's like well i have like i don't know what the most efficient the very best thing so i'm going to do this exercise and this should i get yeah yeah i feel these questions all the time which watch what's the heart you know and

it's like in there and they're going to research that forever and days are going by where they could just go outside and at least go for a walk so if you're a questioner who's dealing with this or you or you're or you're around a questioner one of the things you can do is you can remind them at a certain point it's not efficient. So, you know, because efficiency is such a deep core value for questioners, remind them. At some point, it's better to just start exercising than to find, like, the mythical perfect form of exercise

or it's better to just get a shoe. You don't need to get the perfect shoe. You can also do things like set deadlines, like I'm going to decide by Friday, like best guess by Friday, or I'm going to visit, I'm going to go to these three stores where the people, you know, I'm going to look at this, I'm going to look at these choices. I'm not going to go every single place in the city. Or you could go to a trusted authority. You could say like, okay, this person I know really

thinks things through, does their research. If something is good enough for this person, it's probably going to be good enough for me. I'm not going to just slavishly do what they say, but I'm going to be very guided by their judgment. I don't have to research this from the ground up. I can take what they say and think about whether that's good enough for me. So there's ways to sort of intervene in this analysis paralysis once questioners realize that they're experiencing it.

Because sometimes they don't realize that they've fallen into this black hole of of why why why why why but getting somebody like that to respond to a boundary requires them to be responsive to external uh external motivators right well what what they're really responding to is their own inner sense of efficiency like at a certain point you're just like you know what like you're just you haven't exercised in a year like you you've been researching it for a long time like you know you really need to start exercising so why don't you say that by the end of the week you're going to pick a shoe you're going to pick a class you're going to pick a mechanism and also what you can remind um questioners tend to love to customize and they love to experiment on themselves so you can say, you know, this is the way people typically do it.

But if you want to tweak it, tweak it the way you want. Or, you know, why don't you try it as an experiment? And then you're going to learn something about yourself. Okay, try this form of training. If it doesn't work, then you can move on to something else. But you'll have learned something about yourself. These are the kinds of things that appeal to questioners. And so they can get them moving past that starting point if they're getting stalled out. Interesting. Did you do any probing into kind of the emotional

underpinnings that create these archetypes, like the psychology behind it? Like, is it nurture? Is it nature? I think it's nature. Can these things be changed? Like, they're just set in stone? I think that they're genetically hardwired. I think we bring them into the world with us. I don't think they're a function of upbringing or culture or birth order or anything like that. Now, the question about whether you can change, I think what you can do is with time and experience and wisdom, you can learn how to harness the strengths of your tendency and then offset the weaknesses and limitations. Because all of these tendencies have strengths and weaknesses, and they're the same. It's like the strength is the weakness.

So you can figure out ways to kind of hack yourself so that you're not hobbled by the weaknesses of your tendency. I think it's very... Is it possible to change your inner nature? I mean, people dispute that. I think if it is even possible, it's extremely difficult. But it's very easy to change your circumstances. So I'm like, don't worry about trying to change your inner nature and trying to change your fundamental tendency.

If that's even possible, it would be extremely difficult and take a long time. Take the simple, easy way and just figure out a way to deal with it. Like if you're a questioner and you're stalling out, don't try to turn yourself into a different tendency. Just say like, hey, man, decide by Friday. Or, you know, I'm going to just, you know, here, my brother-in-law is like been doing this for years. I'm just going to do whatever my brother-in-law does and take it from there. Like, I'll start, I'll try it that way.

If it doesn't work, then I'll have learned something, but I just need to get myself going, you know, rather than trying to fundamentally change your, you know, relationship to the world. Right. Yeah, I think that's, I think that's right. you know relationship to the world right yeah i think that's i think that's right and you know as i was you know kind of absorbing these ideas it made me reflect back on my own path like i've undergone a tremendous amount of change professionally emotional like a lot of change in my life over the last 10 20 years um but i didn't change my core fundamental nature right

right but i think what i was doing and i think this might be something that's common to a lot of people is i was structuring my life in accordance with a tendency that was not my you know what i mean i put myself in a situation that didn't allow me yes to fully embody and express the positive aspects of that core nature and that tendency. But see, this is the most important thing. Like you put your finger right on the key thing, which is we all have to construct the life that's right for us. There is no one best way. There's no magic one size fits all solution because like what works for you isn't going to be what works for me because you and I are different. And so we always have to begin if we want to be happier, healthier,

more productive, more creative. It's like, okay, well, what kind of person are you? Where do you thrive? What works for you? And not to try to jam ourselves into somebody else's conception of what we should be able to do or what is the best thing to do. It's like, it doesn't matter what works for somebody else or what you should be able to do. It's like, it only matters what works for you. And sometimes it makes me sad because people will say, well, I don't like being my tendency. And I'm like, all these tendencies have huge numbers of people in them. There's nothing wrong with you. You don't lack self-control or willpower.

You don't need to change who you are. You just need to set things up in a different way. And then you'll get to be able to go wherever you want to go. It's like, you don't need to change yourself. I bet the rebels all like being rebels, though. Interesting. Some do, some don't. Really? Yes. Well, rebels get frustrated because they can't make themselves do things. And so, it's

like, if you have a rebel who really wants to be healthy or wants to eat better and exercise, they'll get frustrated because they'll be like, well, the minute I make a to-do list, I refuse to do it. The minute I say to myself, I'm not going to eat bread anymore, I go out and buy a loaf of sourdough bread. The minute I promise myself that I'm going to train for the marathon, I refuse to get off the couch. This is something that many- A natural resistance to any kind of rules or boundaries.

Yes. Even when self-imposed. Even when self-imposed. They don't want to impose. So there are ways to harness the tremendous powers of the rebel tendency, but they have to do it in a rebel way. They can't try to impose those rules on them. You know, you need accountability.

You need to put it on the calendar. No, no, no. Those don't work for rebels. Don't do that. Don't let people try to convince you that you should try these tools. If they work, now rebels can do anything they want to do. If you'd like to do that, some rebels do like to-do lists. Some rebels do like to, you know, go to classes.

If you like to do it, then do it. But if it doesn't work for you, like, okay, there's a lot of things that rebels have come up with to get themselves to that same place. You don't have to feel bad about yourself. You just have to figure out how to work with yourself. And the positive side of that is there's a lot of spontaneous creative energy. And, you know, these are world-changing kind of people, right? Because they do tend to see the world a little bit differently, I would imagine, or just they're less afraid to try different things or just push

the boundaries of whatever edges they're, you know, they're bumping up against. I don't want to suggest that they are more likely than the other tendencies to be creative or world-changing because I don't think those things are at the core of a tendency. So being creative, that's independent of your tendency. Being willing to buck convention is at the core of the rebel tendency. They're definitely more likely to be willing to buck convention because they don't care about inner or outer expectations.

That's going to allow you to buck convention, to ignore it or even to enjoy flouting it. So they absolutely will do that. But sometimes one of the things about the four tendencies is it's a very narrow aspect of your personality. So you and I are both upholders. We could line up 50 upholders. And depending on how ambitious we were, how considerate of other people's feelings we were, how adventurous we were, how introverted or extroverted we were, how, you know, controlling we were, how neurotic we were, all these things would be very different. How intellectual we were, we would add up to completely different people, but as to how we meet expectations, we would be the same.

So, sometimes people are like to me like, oh, the rebels are the creative, artistic, you know, and I'm like, no, because creative and artistic, those are different. They don't necessarily correlate to the tendencies, but it's going to color the way these things are expressed. It's going to come out in a way that takes on a flavor of the tendency. But it's not like, oh, upholders lack creativity because they're rule bound. It's like, no, there's a lot of creative people who are upholders. creativity because they're rule bound it's like no there's a lot of creative people yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah and and and this idea that the strength is also the weakness like these things can't be parsed from it's not like you have strengths on this side

and weakness these things are the same thing exactly and that's what a lot of people don't understand it's like oh yeah i meet internet outer expectations, and therefore I also can seem rigid and inflexible because that's like the two sides of the same coin. And just like you were saying with questioners, questioners, it's great that they ask so many questions. It can also drain and overwhelm people that they ask so many questions. It's great that they flout convention, but it's also hard to work with somebody who will resist if you ask or tell them to do something. The upside is the downside. The strength is the weakness. It just depends on sort of what the context is. We got to talk about obligers, though. That's the biggest group. The biggest group. Oh, the obligers are the rock of the world.

obligers though that's the biggest group the biggest group oh the obligers are the rock of the world um they're type o but they are the universal they they pair up the best with the other three tendencies you either are an obliger you have many obligers in your life um and here's the key thing for obligers this is like if there's anything in the four tendencies book that i think has like been the most helpful to the most people here it. If you are dealing with yourself or someone else who's an obliger, who's struggling to meet an inner expectation, which by definition you are, that is the definition of an obliger. The answer, the solution, the very, very easy fix is outer accountability. If you want to meet an inner expectation, you must create a form of outer accountability to do it. If you want to read a book, join a book group. If you want to meet an inner expectation you must create a form of outer accountability to do it if you want to read a book join a book group if you want to go running or you want to exercise you

would like my friend on the track team what would i say to her about how she could exercise i would say take a class where they where the instructor takes attendance or sign up um with a trainer or work out with a friend who's going to be annoyed if you don't show up or think about how disappointed your dog's going to be if he doesn't get to go for his daily run. Or say that you're going to run for a 5K for a charity that's going to make less money if you don't follow through with it. Think of your duty to be a role model for other people in your family. I'm going to model good behavior, healthy behavior. I'm going to keep my promises to myself.

I'm going to show you me doing that. These are all forms of outer accountability. And there's a million ways to build in outer accountability. Once you realize that that's what you need, a lot of times, sometimes obligers sort of instinctively realize like, oh, if I'm going to do this, I need, you know, if I'm going to study for the SAT, I need to take a class. But sometimes they don't realize that that's what they need. And so then it's a huge revelation to realize, you just plug in outer accountability, and then you can do whatever you want. Yeah.

So, for the obliger, the quality of your environment becomes paramount. Whereas somebody who is internally motivated, what that kind of, what your surroundings are, become less instructive in terms of what your behavior looks like. Right. Is that correct? Yes. So, I would think that for the obliger, there are people that not only,

yeah, they got to breed community. They have to breed accountability for sure. Accountability, yeah. And those things have to be, there has to be an emphasis or a priority on making both of those two things convenient so that they're the easy arm's length choice. Yeah.

Well, it's interesting that you mentioned community because one of the things I've heard from a lot of obligers is, oh, well, what happens if you're a very introverted obliger and you don't like the idea of going to an exercise class or you don't want to go to Weight Watchers because you don't like the idea of, it's not that you dislike the accountability. It's a problem. The introverted obliger. Yeah, no, it's a big issue. And so there's, but there's a lot of solutions for that.

Like I have this app, the Better app, where, you know, if you search for Better Guts from Ruben, and you can form an accountability group. And a lot of people prefer the face-to-face, but it's more inconvenient and it takes more time. It's very powerful. But some people don't like face-to-face. And so if you do it in an app,

then it gives you a little bit more distance. Or you might be able to try, and obligers vary dramatically on what makes them feel accountable. Some obligers can feel accountable is to their future self. Like, okay, today Rich doesn't want to do this, but future Rich is going to be very disappointed if now Rich doesn't do it. So, you have to do it for future Rich. I've been amazed by for how many obligers this works, the future self. To me, I'm like, that seems very advanced. Yeah, that's bizarre.

It's also like a weird Trojan horse to bring internal motivation and kind of like re-costume it up. No, no, no. I mean, I'm like, how does this work as outer motivation? Because it's really just an inner expectation, like, yeah, like in a costume. But for a lot of people, it works. And so, I think one of the things, and one of the things I try to do in the book, The Four Tendencies, But for a lot of people, it works. And so I think one of the things for and one of the things I try to do in the book, The Four Tendencies, is to give lots and lots and lots of examples.

Because it's definitely true that for some obligers, a running club would be great. But for many, it wouldn't work for whatever reason. And so you have to think like, again, what kind of person are you? If you're a very introverted person, the idea of going to meet eight other people and talking about something is going to be a real turnoff to you, wholly apart from whatever the behavior is. So you need to think about, okay, well, that's okay. Given that that's who I am, how do I work with myself to get that outer accountability? Because there's a lot of ways to do it once you realize that's what you need. Right. And so what is the strength of the obliger? I mean, they're the rock of the world.

They're the ones who come through. They're extremely great team members. Because they show up for everyone else. Yeah. And they can be visionary leaders. I mean, sometimes somebody asks me like, oh, I don't want my son to be an obliger. I want him to be a leader. I'm like, that's a false choice.

Many obligers are great leaders. They feel compelled to lead because of feeling an obligation to others. I'm like, I need to do this for my people. Or I need to do this. I need to help others. So they can be very powerful leaders. But here's something that can come out of that. So when obliger, because obligers are often so valuable and so helpful, they can be taken

advantage of. They can be exploited. They can fail to be heard. Sometimes expectations just become too pressing on them because they do feel that weight of outer expectation very keenly. They can suffer from obliger rebellion. And this is when an obliger will meet, meet, meet, meet an expectation, and then suddenly they snap. And they're like, this I won't do. And sometimes it's small and symbolic, but sometimes it's very

destructive. I just got an email this morning from somebody saying, I had a friend for like 17 years. She was just very, very demanding and need needy and one day i was like i'm done with you and i haven't spoken to her since and that's obliger rebellion it's like it builds it builds it builds and then suddenly there's this eruption often the obliger will say that they feel like they're acting out of character um and it can be very destructive because the people around are like why didn't you say anything? Right. It's all right. Sorry about that.

Do you need to get that? No, it's okay. Don't worry about it. It's the main office. Well, that's interesting. I mean, I think what I hear in that is, I mean, that explosion comes from a lack of self-care. Like when you're so focused on meeting the needs of others and you're not attending to your own self, right? And that's out of whack?

That's an important, subtle distinction. I would say that they are meeting outer expectations. I wouldn't say that they're like putting others in front of them. So they're meeting outer expectations, but they're not meeting inner expectations. But you're right. But it's a boundary thing. It is. is that is 100 correct and um and the fact is obliger rebellion is meant to be a safeguard it's meant to be the emergency ripcord that

gets an obliger out of a situation that's no longer sustainable like i can't take it anymore so this is gonna i'm gonna blow this up to preserve myself. So, it's meant to save them from something that's become unsustainable. But it can sometimes be very destructive, and others don't understand. They're like, well, if you didn't want to do it, why did you say you would? You know, that's what an upholder would say. Like, if you don't want to do it, don't do it. But, like, why are you mad at me?

You know, or like, why didn't you say something? This is something that's very puzzling to people who aren't obligers. And it also, but sometimes obligers don't understand this outer accountability, inner accountability thing, and they think what's going on. They misconceive the situation, and they think that what's going on is that they are meeting, they are putting others first. This is a dangerous mistake, because it suggests that they are putting others first. This is a dangerous mistake, because it suggests that if I put others first and I put myself last, if others' needs vanished and the expectations from others went away, then I would meet my own desires. So, if I quit my demanding job, then I would be able to keep my New Year's resolutions. If I took early retirement,

then I would have time for everything on my bucket list. But what I found is that doesn't happen. Well, life is never going to line up like that. Well, but sometimes people do this. They will do things like quit a job, thinking like, oh, I've always wanted to write a novel. If I quit my job, then I'll write my novel.

It's like, no, you won't. Not if you're an obliger, not if you don't have outer accountability. And so over and over, obligers have said to me, I didn't understand because I took early retirement. I gave up money

in order to make time for myself, but I'm still not doing anything. I'm like, yeah, because what you need is outer accountability. So if you want to write your novel, it's like, take a writing class or join a writer's group where everybody holds each other accountable. Say that you're going to write an e-book and tell people to sign up. And so they're waiting for you. So you have to write it in order to be able to give it to them because they're waiting for you. Like there's a million ways to create that outer accountability. But sometimes obligers think, well, if other people didn't make demands on me, then I would meet my demands on myself. It doesn't work like that.

Makes sense. It's hard to crawl inside the brain of somebody who has a tendency that is not your own. I'm like, okay, I can kind of intellectually understand that, but I just see the world so fundamentally differently. Yes. Yes. I'm so glad to hear you say that because it really has been an exercise for me. And I've been fortunate because I've heard so many readers and listeners have told me their examples and their insights, and it's been so helpful. But as upholders, you know, the opposite for us is rebel. And it really took me a long time to feel like I understood how rebels see the world. But here's what I've learned. This is the super powerful thing that we can all learn from rebels is we're more free than we think.

Way more free than we think. There's a lot of things we think we have to do. We don't have to do them. I mean, if I wanted to wear running shoes and yoga pants every day for the rest of my life, I could do that. There's no one who could stop me. And I probably wouldn't even really get in trouble. You have a lot more freedom than you think.

And so that's been very powerful for me to realize. I know that it's sort of unusual for an upholder to be with a rebel, right? My wife is a rebel. Interesting. So how does it come out? Well, we've been together for almost 20 years. And we've worked it out. I. And we've worked it out. I mean, we've worked out,

we're very aware that we're different in these regards. Like I want structure. I need, you know, I need personal accountability to myself. I need to have the schedule. The calendar has to be locked in. Like I need to know what I'm doing. And I find freedom in that. Like I'm able to be creative and be more productive

and feel good about the direction that i'm heading in and all those when i have those things yeah juliet my wife she doesn't forget it you know like that's you know she's a whirling dervish and you know she's all over the place and she's doing 10 things at once and she's a powerhouse and she's unbelievably you know capable in so many different ways and and i just remember when we first got together i was like this is like a strange being from a different planet like i don't even understand how this person functions you know but i was fascinated by it and you know there's a there's a chemistry and all of that that that has you know that attracted us to each other. And I found that I've learned a lot from observing her.

And maybe that was fertilizer on my, you know, innate little dusting of rebel that I have within me, because it's exactly what you just said. It's like, oh, wait, like this rule that I've erected in front of me my whole life, that's actually like an illusion. Like I don't have to, it's, and so I tiptoed, you know, in that direction a little bit to my benefit. Like I've learned a lot about myself and I think I've broadened my, my perspective on my, my capabilities by observing her and how she functions. And I think similarly, she's learned some structural habits from me, but innately we're, you know, it's like, all you have to do is look at our desk, you know, what my desk looks like versus what hers looks like, and it's very evident.

But we found a way to make it work by respecting that in each other and not trying to change that in each other. I get frustrated. I'm like, she'll commit me to something. I'm like, did you look at the calendar? She's like, no, I don't look at that. Well, let me ask you this because I am fascinated by upholder-rebel combinations, because it is unusual. Do you, is one of the ways that you manage it that you don't put very many expectations

on each other? We definitely put expectations on each other. You do. But we've had to learn a language for communicating that in a way that it can be heard and received and processed without coming off like a judgment you know what i mean i think that took that took a lot of time like that took a lot of frustration on her part as much as mine there's no right or wrong or better or worse here right it's just understanding that we have fundamentally different operating systems right um and you know i can try to be like her

and she can try to be like me but it's it's it's a square peg jamming into a round hole yeah and so you know she does what she does and i do what i do but we also come together and we we create together in certain projects that we work on and that's required like you know she's learned to she's learned to know like she can't just't just, you know, roll up on me and say, we got to talk about this now. Like, when you have time, can you tell me when you have a half an hour so that we can sit down and talk about that. And that's a learned behavior on her part. And, you know, similarly, I don't expect her to put every appointment in the calendar, right? Like, that's my job, right? So we've So we've kind of figured out what our roles are

so that we can make it work as a cohesive whole. But I mean, I think you put your finger right on it, which is that it's about sort of recognizing that you're just coming from different places. And it's not that one person's right and one person's wrong and one person should change. It's just like, this is how you work. This is how I work. And if we want to work together how do we figure out a way to do that um just sort of accepting that we have that in many ways this is a very positive combination we're both gaining from learning from each other but then there are certain things that have to be managed it's not enough to just be like well obviously it's more efficient if everybody just writes everything down on the calendar i don't know why you can't do that like well that's a

recipe for disaster right it is but i mean how many people have had that conversation? A hundred million times. Yeah, it requires a little bit of awareness and consciousness and not just communication, but the right kind of communication and the right intention, the right delivery. There's a lot that gets packed into that so that you can make it work. And it's just something that we've learned to be able to accommodate. I have a friend who's married to a rebel and she said i finally realized that the less i asked for the more i get and i thought wow that's a lot of that's a lot of experience yeah that's interesting yeah so she's the obliger she's an obliger obliger married to a rebel all

right so me as an upholder like here's my thing very self-motivated you know when i it takes me a long time to kind of inch up on a on a goal or a project and it takes me a long time to um you know become immersed in that but once i'm in i'm like all in and i don't need anybody to like motivate me i need none of that but see and that's you're pointing out something that's very typical of upholders which is they often they don't jump in to expect inner expectations because they know once they commit to it they will commit so often they will take their time and think like well do i really want to do this because once i say i'm in i'm in right so they're very thoughtful about it often they don't lightly do it. But I think it's sometimes procrastination.

Maybe I'm just ruminating on it. Like a perfect example, I have a book deadline on Thursday. Oh my gosh. Now I had like- Wow, that's big. I'm so happy to be out of the writing room right now. Oh yeah, okay, excellent. This is my big moment for the day.

But it's- I know the feeling. It's a second edition on a book I've already written. So it's not like quite as crazy as turning in like, you know, a brand new book, but it's been second edition on a book I've already written. So it's not like quite as crazy as turning in like, you know, a brand new book, but it's been a lot of work, but I've had like nine months, I don't know, 10 months to do this. And I just didn't, you know, I, I procrastinated. I didn't focus on it. I was focusing on other things. I, you know, I, I'm well aware that I can't multitask very well. And I was very invested in another thing that I was working on. And I set myself up for, you know, an insane couple weeks. And I've just been in the hole

around the clock. And it took me forever to like, maybe, you know, maybe I needed that external deadline as the motivator. But once I'm in, it's like, there's, you can't pull me away from my desk, because I'm totally in right now. And I will not be disturbed. But did you know that you would meet the deadline? I mean, I think I always have little fears like, oh, this is the time it's not going to happen. But, you know, in my experience, I always meet them. Yeah. I always meet them.

So I think I knew that I would. I knew it was going to be a very immersive, intense two-week period or whatever. But I guess the greater point that I'm getting at is this distinction between, okay, so I have this strong internal motivator impulse and I don't really need the external world to push me. In fact, I find that annoying in most cases, but I'm also, when it comes to external external um uh i keep wanting to say

motivation it's not motivation it's what's the word expectation expectation um that that i end up being a bit of a people pleaser and i'm not great about sending setting boundaries around that and that's where i get into trouble because I will commit or I'll make a commitment to somebody that even in my heart of hearts, I know I'm probably not going to be able to fulfill. And then rather than being clear and just saying, look, I can't do that. Or, or as it notches up upon the arrival date of whatever that thing is to say, it's not going to happen. Like I, I just delay dealing with it and delay dealing with it. And then it becomes a big problem and it gets me into trouble with people. So, can I make a suggestion?

Yeah, please. This is why I'm asking you. So, always when you're struggling with something, try to harness the strengths of your tendency. So, one of the things about upholders is that inner expectations can be met only if they're clearly articulated. And a lot of times when upholders get into trouble is when they haven't clearly articulated an inner expectation because outer expectations are often extremely clearly articulated. Like people are marching around saying what they want all the time. But so if you feel like that's happening, you might say like,

well, let me sit down and think about, well, what's really important to me? How do I really want to be spending my time? What are the expectations that I put on myself? Because the clearer that is, the more that will counterbalance outer expectations. I mean, this is why, like, if you're the parent of either an obliger child or an upholder child, you want to help the child understand what are the inner expectations. So if it's an obliger child, you want to help them create outer accountability for it. But even for an upholder child, it's like, yeah, you might be happy that your child is just doing what you say and what the teacher says, but what does that child want for himself

or herself? Help them understand, well, what is it that you like to do? What is it that you want to do? I get that you're doing what others want to do, but if you decide for yourself what you want to do, you're going to be able to do that. So let's make sure that you understand that. And that's just as true for adults. If you really clearly have it in mind, you know, I need to have an hour to read novels every day. I just have to have that hour to myself. Once you make that decision, you can stick to it. Upholders are great at that, but you have to have that thought. Because if you don't, it doesn't happen if it's not articulated. So really think in your mind, what do you want for yourself?

Yeah, I mean, that's helpful, but I think we can't really have this conversation without talking about the emotional scars that we all carry around and what that landscape looks like because I have self-awareness that I have insecurities and I want people to like me. And so that's why that motivates that behavior that gets me into trouble because it's a lack of self-esteem in some regard that remains, you know, where I still need to grow.

Right. Right. So unless you are willing to roll up your sleeves and get into that, that thing is going to persist. No, that's exactly right. And, you know And I was saying earlier how you could have 50 upholders and they'd all be very different. And one of the things where people are very different is anxiety. How anxious are you? That makes a big difference. How much social anxiety do you have? How important is it to fit in? Somebody was saying to me, well, obligers act that way because they want to fit in. I'm like, no, not all obligers want to fit in. A lot of obligers want to fit in. A lot of obligers don't really care about fitting in.

But like, that's an important part of your personality. Or like, do you feel, do you have insecurity? Do you have anxiety? That's going to play into your tendency. That's going to, exactly right. That's going to influence its expression. Because that's just part of who you are. You're right.

And it's like, just thinking about your tendency isn't going to fix everything else about your personality because you have to think about all these things. You're exactly right. This kind of deep, broad self-knowledge is the great task of our lives because you're right. You just like you have to grapple with that. Yeah. And beyond the self-knowledge, the actions that are required to reconfigure how you're living. So having self-awareness about your tendencies is one thing.

Then creating structure in your life that will serve the positive aspects of that and minimize the negative outcomes is important. Yes. But then it doesn't end. It's like, okay. Oh, it keeps going. Yeah, there's no magic answer, unfortunately.

It's like you still have to do the work to get there. I'm also interested in how this works when you have somebody who is dealing with addiction. You know, I'm in recovery for a long time that's a part you know of my story and my struggle and all that kind of stuff and it definitely influences you know a lot it's the prism through which I see the world it informs everything right so if somebody you know regardless of whatever tendency you know whatever category of tendencies someone might find themselves if they're clouded you know if their category of tendency someone might find themselves, if they're clouded,

you know, if their perception is clouded by the haze of addiction, whether to a behavior or substance or, you know, whatever it is, that's going to derail, you know, the predictability of their behavior. But I think often people can think about their tendency in thinking about how they might fight addiction if they're trying to sort of get out of it. So, for like, let's say you're a rebel and let's say you're addicted to smoking, just to pick a very common thing. So, rebels really value choice and freedom and they want to be true to their authentic self. That to them is their highest value. So, if you say to a rebel, well, you promised me you'd quit smoking. You have to quit smoking.

Look at all this research about why you should quit smoking. You're setting a bad example for our kids if you don't quit smoking. You know, you have to quit smoking. It's like, I don't have to quit smoking, right? You're igniting that spirit of resistance. But let's say you're a rebel. You could say, you know, do you want to be free from addiction? You're chained to nicotine.

You know, the big tobacco companies have you right where they want you. You're pouring money into their pockets. You know, you go to an airport, you go to a restaurant, they're telling you where you can stand and where you can sit. You know, I don't know that somebody like you can quit smoking. You've been stuck so long, I don't know if you can get free. i've seen you make big changes before when you make up your mind to do something i've seen you do some crazy stuff if you ever decide you want to quit i don't know maybe you could quit it's like okay that's like you know the button you know how to yeah it's like you know what how to push that button in that person's very targeted messaging

intended to provoke a very certain particular kind of person. Because it's appealing to their deep sense of like who they want to be. So take questioner then. So questioners you might be, because my father told me about how he quit smoking. He's a questioner, how he quit smoking many years ago. So you might think with a questioner, oh, I'm going to give them all this information about health. I mean, there's overwhelming research about why you should quit smoking for your health. But let's say that's not working, right? Okay, you're like, well, I'm giving them all this information. I'm telling them why it's important that they quit. And yet they're oblivious to it.

So try a different argument. So when my father quit smoking, the way he did it was he figured out how much money he was spending on cigarettes. And then he figured out like over a month, over a year, how much would he save? And then if he invested it and he got a standard rate of return, how much money would he make? And every time he felt like quitting smoking, he ran the numbers. And he was like, oh my gosh, it's so much money. I want the money. So then he quit because it was more efficient, like it made more sense for him to have them. So he found a different way to tap into like sort of

the information, the research, you know, that aspect of questioning. And, you know, for an obliger, I have talked to people who have been addicted to so many things. And it's like, and I had a friend who's a doctor, and he worked for the very high risk population. And he said to me, you know, I've seen people quit stuff that I thought they could never quit. And they did it overnight. And I'm like, how? What's the secret? And he goes, you know, you can guess. What is it? And I was like, I don't know. What is it?

He says, no. Pain. Pregnant. Oh, pregnant. When people are pregnant. Pregnant. He said it doesn't always work. But he said, I have seen people quit stuff that they swore to me that they could not quit.

Because they're like, now I have to quit. You know, so not that that's always going to work for somebody, but it's like, that is something that, like, now someone else is completely involved in this. For some people, that's going to be enough, you know. And so, I think you're absolutely right. Addiction is a terrible challenge. It's a huge challenge. But I think that thinking about the tendencies can sometimes suggest avenues. And it can also show you why certain messages aren't working.

You know, if you keep saying to a rebel, you have to, you have to, you have to, they're going to keep saying, you're not the boss of me. You know, if you remind them, hey, you're a healthy, energetic, athletic person. Like, right? Aren't you? You've always been that way. Like, why now are you like this? And they're like, wait, I am a healthy, energetic, athletic person who's always taking good care

of my body. What am I? Why? This isn't who I really am. Yeah, I think that determining the appropriate strategy that is going to connect with that archetype is important. But I think you definitely also have to understand, I'm sure you do, like that it transcends logic, like appealing to the logical, like what is the argument that's going to trigger the logical response? Like addiction, the rules kind of go out the window.

Like logic doesn't necessarily apply because there is this, you know, this biological compulsion that's driven by, you know, a physical addiction to something in the case of substances so sometimes it's trickier i mean for me it was just you know i did just be and i was i had to be in so much pain that there was just nowhere else to go you know and in my experience that happens you know that's that's a common thing yeah you know it's it's more uncommon that someone wakes up and says i can't believe i'm spending all this money on this i'm done with it you know god bless them. I wish that was me. Well, it's worth a try.

Yeah. Worth a shot. But I think what's great about it. Yeah, yeah. You know, it's like, you're right. I mean, sometimes you have to just get to that point. But it's nice to have something to try. Of course.

Yeah. No, I think it's really helpful and instructive to understand, like, look, this line of questioning or your approach with this person or with yourself is not doing you any favors. Right. Right. Yeah. Well, part of it is I think people are like, well, this is what should work. So I'm just going to keep doing it and doing it and doing it, even if it doesn't work. And it's like, no, there's a lot of different ways that we can think about this.

If something's not working, let's move on and try something else. Because you're right. Maybe nothing's going to work. Nothing's going to push that button until you get to that point. Hey, and some people never get to that point. Yeah, unfortunately. They never, you know. I think also, like, we're all addicts at some point on the spectrum to something.

You know, we all have obsessive tendencies. Even if they're muted and really not that invasive in our life like we all are sort of we kind of gravitate towards things we know aren't so good yeah even if it's like world of warcraft or yeah yeah whatever it is right yeah yeah like developing an awareness around cable news things and saying well how can i use you know my you know how can i think about my tendency to perhaps approach that thing that I know I should let go of, but I don't really want to because isn't it harmless and, you know, and the like. Well, I mean, the thing that you keep coming back to is self-awareness. And I really

think that that's, that's absolutely correct. I think that that's where everything has to begin is like, what are you doing and why? Like, what are you doing? Like, are you spending hours and hours and hours a day watching cable news? Like, you need to know that and then you can think about it you know it's mindful specifically but you know it's all about just sort of like self-awareness and mindfulness and then and then you can think about whether you would want your if your life could be happier healthier more productive and more creative if you made. But if you're not even aware of what you're actually doing, which is super easy. Like, I say this as somebody who's like the least mindful person in the world. It's very easy to really be very disconnected from who you are, what you want. It's very easy to be led to who do you think you are,

who do other people want you to be, who do you expect yourself to be, who do you wish you were? It's distracting. Yeah, I think it's never been easier to adopt that mindset because we are, it's very easy to live reactive to the world around you, especially when you have a phone that can entertain you and the prospect of being bored is now something of the past. We can constantly just be ping-ponging off the stimuli that we're incessantly exposing ourselves to, whether it's through television or Netflix or billboards that we see when we're driving and, of course, our cell phone.

All these things move us away from even thinking about pondering, let alone cultivating that sense of self-awareness. And that's the one thing that's keeping, I think, in my opinion, I'm interested in what you think, that's keeping people stuck. Like you have to start there before you can then go, okay, well, this is my tendency. Now what do I do about it?

There has to be some base level of commitment to at least like trying to like probe yourself a little bit. Yeah. Well, it's interesting because some people are very uneasy with the idea that there's like these four categories and that you sort of fit into a category and there's like, there's a word attached to that. And I've heard people say that if you define yourself, you confine yourself. But I feel like rebels. yeah but i think that vocabulary is helpful or like patterns are helpful in that they help illuminate hidden aspects of your nature or hidden patterns and like what's worked for you and what hasn't worked for you because it is hard to know ourselves because we are so distracted by all this stuff and so sometimes if you're like and then also

it's easier to understand other people because you're like well i don't understand why somebody's behaving the way they're there it doesn't make any sense to me it's easier to understand other people because you're like, well, I don't understand why somebody's behaving the way that they are. It doesn't make any sense to me. It's like, oh, well, maybe it makes sense to them because they fit into this large category of people. So, it's just sort of a shortcut of understanding. But it's not meant to circumvent the process of self-knowledge because like you say um it's very easy to be distracted from that but in the end it's it's just it has to be grappled with of course so do you walk around now like trying to determine everybody that you encounter in the elevator and starbucks you know what kind

of person is this i do or like i'll be watching game of thrones and i'm like i had a long conversation with my sister about like what is cersei's tendency i don't think you can tell from the show but some people you can really tell um you know like stannis baratheon is obviously in a polder um and so it's yeah so and i'll be talking to people and i will often be like like i'm getting a strong sense of what you are yeah yeah so that's fun for me or like how to communicate with that person. Oh, 100%. And so I have a couple people that I work with

who are rebels and I absolutely am always like, when you have the time and the inclination, if this works for you, this is why I think this would be a good idea, but totally up to you.

And I've also, like with obligers, it's like I, as an upholder, I don't know if you've experienced this, but sometimes with upholders, because we readily resist

outer and inner expectations if they conflict with what we want to do, we're sometimes too demanding. Because we're just like, well, if you don't want to do it, just tell me. Just push back. But obligers find it hard to push back. And I've learned, like, one of the things that I was doing, and it literally never crossed my mind. It wasn't like I had decided that this was okay.

It never occurred to me to question whether it was okay, was to send work emails over the weekend. I was just like, well, answer over the weekend or not. I do that all the time. Do whatever you want. I don't care. Wait till Monday, do it on Saturday, whatever works for you. I don't care. But it's on my mind. I want to just get it off my plate. Finally, I realized for an obliger, that feels like an expectation that has to be met. And if I'm spending a lot of emails to somebody who feels resentful, that could blow up. So what I learned to do was to use delay delivery.

And when I know somebody is an obliger or when I'm not sure, I use delay delivery and have it go like 7 a.m. Monday morning. I didn't even know there was such a thing. I didn't either until like six months ago. Yes. See, this is the thing. Because in a poll, you're like, well, do it or don't do it. It's up to you. You set it for yourself. I do that all the time.

But that's not realistic. Like, that is just not the way to work most effectively with other people. And it's really helped me to see how I wasn't setting up the situations to be successful. setting up the situations to be successful. Now, one of the, my sister and I have a podcast, Happier with Gretchen Rubin, and she's an obliger. And it's been really helpful for me to have her say to me like, hey, that's not everyone's experience. Or hey, you know, you sound kind of like a killjoy when you say that.

Or hey, you're a little bit nuts, you know, because she has a different perspective for me. And so, that's one of the things that's fun about talking to her is I realized like, okay, like this work email thing, because I said to her, well, do you think this is like something that I really need to tackle? And she said, yes, absolutely. You should use delay delivery. Don't send all these emails over there. I was like, well, okay. I'm going to start doing that yeah it's very easy here's one more for you from something that i'm i'm trying to work through myself is traditionally i've been kind of a lone wolf like i kind of i like my solitary time i you know i i like to write by myself I like to go on long runs by myself. You know, like, I like that. I like being alone and I like being self-reliant. And I'm in a position now where I've

had to let go of a lot of that and bring people in to help me in order to continue to, you know, grow what I'm doing. And it's been good, but it's been bumpy because it's uncomfortable for me. Yes. It's hard to delegate. And this is only like increasing a little bit more. And so it's causing me to have to confront that. Like I have to learn to let go of that a little bit. Like I can have boundaries and all that. That's all fine. But on some level, like I have to loosen up about this

if I want to achieve my goals and grow what I'm doing to the extent that I think I'm capable of doing. Like, is that something that you have? Yeah, no, I know exactly the feeling. So I think there's two things going on. One is that you have a high need for restorative solitude, which I completely identify with, because I need a tremendous amount of solitude myself, I need to have time by myself. So I would say to you, you need, it sounds like you have a high need for that. So you need to build that into your schedule. Like, when are you getting that restorative solitude? The issue with working with other people is that upholders often are reluctant to delegate because they don't trust

that other people will do as good a job as they would, which often they won't because upholders are really good at meeting outer and inner expectations. So they are good at that, you know? And so part of it is learning to say to yourself, people might have different standards. People may let me down. I can only control so much. I have to just trust that the people around me are going to do their best. I have to create systems of accountability. Maybe I need to answer more questions than I think is necessary. Maybe I need to give people freedom in the way that they execute because of their tendency. But then in the end, remind yourself, if I want to meet these outer and inner expectations, I have to expand.

And I've gone through this exactly. I know exactly what you're talking about. Because you're just like, in the end, isn't it just faster and easier if I do it for myself? Because then I know it's done perfectly and I know that it'll get done on time. Because I, but it's like. And then you can just stay very small in your little room. Then you stay, exactly. And so again, for upholders, it's like and then you can just stay very small in your then you stay exactly and so again for upholders it's like articulate that inner expectation if i want to if i want to grow i have to allow others to help which means that i have to delegate and i have to

let others do work and i can't do work i can't i can't do that work for them and it's it is very hard for upholders and that's something that comes up in the workplace a lot with upholder bosses, is they don't delegate sufficiently, or they're too micromanaging. So, it is, but I think that the restorative solitude is related, but it could be separate. So, you could be feeling maybe a little bit panicky, because you feel like you're like, there's too many, there's all these people in your life they're crowding out your time for yourself and they're also needing your trust and that's a lot to go on and they're also moving you forward no it's fantastic it's necessary yeah yeah it's it's exciting it's empowering but there are the but you need to think about okay well as i'm doing this as i'm making

this change i have to think about how I'm going to think through what I need, both as part of my tendency, my appalachian, and then other parts of my nature, which is like my need for kind of contemplative solitude. Yeah, that's super helpful. I mean, I have been doing that, and I have been, you know, trying to, you know, let go and do all that kind of stuff. And I think part of it for me has also been like detaching a little bit more from expectations. Like, is it really that important? Yeah. That it be exactly the way that I would do it?

You know what I mean? Like, this is not that important. Can I tell you? The more I can like remind myself of that, then it's cool. Can I tell you an exact example where I went through this very thing? Yes, please. So, I just did this gigantic blog redesign, which is like, it is such a difficult, I don't know if you've done this, but it's a hugely difficult task. And it's complex. There's many, many people, at least with mine, I have this

giant site that has like, you know, almost, you know, like a decade's worth of content. There's lots of moving pieces. It's very complex. I've worked with the same team. Now, this is the third time that I've worked with them. And I have absolute trust in them. So I think they're great. And when I have done redesigns in the past, I've spent a lot of time really thinking about every decision. Like, oh, well, what about this?

And maybe this is like a little bit too small or a little bit too big, or maybe that's a little bit squished, or maybe I want to have this slightly different thing. And then I said, you know, this phrase that you hear, like, you're just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. and i had to say to myself let go trust them they're experts i could spend hours and hours and hours like making tiny differences that will make make no the curling on this font is yeah no that is i mean you're reading my mind um or i could just say i'm

going to trust to their expertise i'm going to like take a big look at it, but I'm not going to drive myself crazy looking at every single decision. Because in the end, I need to move forward with bigger things. And the typeface on this, it's not a good use of your time and your energy. You need to like trust to others, let go of the need to like make everything exactly the way you would want it. Because in the end, you just get used to it anyway. I mean, and that's one of the things I've learned is like a lot of things. This is one of my secrets of adulthood. Most decisions don't require extensive research. You don't have to think like everything doesn't like they're thinking through and that's why they're who they are they're thinking very carefully about all this stuff they're bringing way more expertise to it than i am so then i'm weighing it at the last minute i think that yellow is a little bit too acid it's like whatever you know what i mean move on um so but it's hard right it's hard because you know you can actually understand it yeah you know it's been repeatedly reminded you know people saying come on man this is what you got to do you know it's been repeatedly reminded you know people

saying come on man this is what you got to do you know it's like yeah yeah yeah i know i know i know and i keep doing the same thing so it's it's about like taking that and going okay well how am i modifying my behavior how am i going to handle this situation differently how am i going to create a dynamic that i can let these people do the best work and allow them to flourish and give them the space but also give them the feedback and let go so I can focus on what's important. Well, and I think part of it is thinking like, well, what is it that only I can do? Like, what is my unique- And that's what you should be doing.

That's what I should be doing. But deciding whether that should be 12 point or 14 point, like in the right sidebar, it's like somebody else I can trust. But you don't understand. Yeah, I know, see? But it was like, I had to really mindfully say to myself, let them do their thing and i will like check it at a broad level um but the things that are uniquely mine i will spend hours and hours and hours like tight with the tiny like my how many

times did i edit my book a million bazillion times i mean i edited it's countless times but that's something that only I can do. Only I can write that book. Yeah, so it's fine for you to go down the rabbit hole on that. That is the right place. Right, exactly. But you're right. It's hard when you're like,

maybe I should just do everything myself. It's like, okay, that's not going to work. Yeah. So all of these, everything that we've been talking about, developing self-awareness and getting a greater understanding of how these tendencies play out in our life

and how we communicate with the people around us, lead us towards living more productively, more efficiently, hopefully more consciously and more aware. And really where that road leads is to a life that is more satisfying, right? And so we can't have this conversation without talking about happiness a little bit. Oh, my favorite subject. How does this play into the greater scheme of what we're all trying to, you know, more express in our lives or experience?

No, I mean, I think you're right. The reason that this stuff matters is like, is it going to help you be happier, healthier, more productive and more creative? And the thing that's funny, ever since I wrote The Happiness Project, one of the things that really struck me is that often it's not that people don't know

what would make them happier. They know perfectly well what would make them happier. They would be happier if they exercise. They would be happier if they spent more time with their friends. They would be happier if they got more sleep. They would be happier if they quit sugar. They would be happier if they spent more time with their friends. They would be happier if they got more sleep. They would be happier if they quit sugar. They would be happier if they went for a run in the park with their dog every morning, whatever it is.

So, the question is, why aren't they? And that's where the frustration comes in because people will be like, well, I know that would make me happier and yet I'm not doing it. That's where the four tendencies can come into play. So, if there's something that's frustrating you, if you're thinking, well, I would be happier if I did this, you know, if you're doing it already, well, then great. It's working for you. Fine. But if you're running into like a stumbling block, well, maybe the tendencies will help you figure out how you can overcome that. And how do you specifically define and think about happiness? Well, that's very interesting because and I think you will identify with this as a former lawyer. So as a lawyer, I have fond memories of spending an entire semester arguing about the

definition of contract. And if anything, the definition of happiness is more elusive. There are something like 15 or 17 academic definitions of happiness. And I, so I never define it. I'm like, whatever you think, it's like as a lay person, like if you're a scientist doing research, you have to be very specific about what you mean. But I think for a lay person, if the term happiness is loose enough for, if you think of its peace or contentment or bliss or joy or satisfaction, whatever it is for you, it's, so for me, it's less about what is it to be happy? What is happiness is less important than how can you be happier. It's all about moving in the right direction in whatever that would be for you. Because I think if you think to yourself, well, if I did this, would I be happier in a month? Would this make me happier? People have

a very clear sense of that. But if you said, what is happiness? All of a sudden, everything becomes extremely confusing. But I think it's also worth pointing out that people are confused about what they think is going to make them happy. I mean, people think this, the new, the promotion or the new car or the thing is going to serve that end. And it does for that, you know, for five minutes, and then they're, they realize, like, they're still them not like momentary pleasure but you want a lifetime of of happiness and so it's sort of like well you could use your money to buy a new pair of boots or you could buy your money to buy um a trip to france like what's what's more likely to pay off um well probably the trip to france is going to be more fun than just like another pair of shoes now it's interesting because one of the things people talk about in the research a lot is this idea that experiences bring more happiness than objects. But the problem, I think, with that is that often the line between a possession

and an experience is hard to draw. So, for instance, is a camera an experience or a possession? Is a dining room table an experience or a possession if having a dining room table means that you can have your friends over for dinner parties and you're like, oh my gosh, now I can do this. Is a dog a possession or an experience? So sometimes it's hard to tell

and it really depends. You have to contextualize that person's relationship with it to understand that. I mean, an iPhone is an experience as much as it is depending upon your use, your relationship with that use. Or even something as simple as like knives. If you bought a, let's say you bought a fancy set of knives. Well, for one person, it's just like kind of a trophy thing that they would have in their kitchen and they would never use. It's just like, oh, look, I have this fancy set of knives.

Like, aren't I cool? But then for somebody who's like a real cook who cooks every day, excellent tools would make work a joy and they would use the that would be like the best money they ever spent because they're like oh my gosh i have this most amazing set of knives and i use them all the time and it's like i love cooking so much more so it's sort of like yeah do you do you have this fancy thing because you just want some fancy thing or is it does it actually make a difference to you because you really use it you know like yourself like your cell phone for most people it's like a major tool of their lives so it's an it's important um or i always think like your glasses you know because i'm like wear contact lenses all the time

but when i was wearing glasses i'm like i wear them every single day all the time if there's ever anything i'm going to spend money on it should be my glasses because they are literally i mean i wear them it's your freaking face face single moment of every single day you know um and now same thing with contact lenses i'm like uh whatever contact lenses fit i will get because they just dominate my experience now could i buy it so it makes you know so that's part of it is thinking about like well why are you why are you making this decision is it meant to just be an empty signal to other people, or is this something that's really going to be something that's going to change your own experience of the world? Yeah. That being said, though, you've written extensively about

decluttering, uncluttering. So, you know, you're down with the minimalist vibe or the ethos, you know, that lurks beneath that well but here's an interesting thing how people are different so some people are simplicity lovers and some people are abundance lovers so simplicity lovers like less they want to get they like clear shelves they like bare surfaces they don't like a lot of buzz they don't like a lot of profusion but abundance lovers they like stuff they like stuff on the walls they like choices they like collections they they like things around so i don't think that it's like minimalism brings happiness. It's like, well, minimalism can bring happiness to you if that's what you like. But for some people, it's like they love having a bunch of stuff on the

walls and like a bunch of stuff on the tables. And that to them feels creative and energizing. But what I mean, clutter is, I think, is things that you don't use, you don't need, and you don't love. So, I think some people have a you don't use, you don't need, and you don't love. So I think some people have a capacity to love and use and appreciate lots of things. And some people, it's like, I just want nothing on my, like, I have an empty shelf, which I'm like, I just love my empty shelf, because I just want nothing on it. I don't have a very high tolerance for stuff. And I don't appreciate stuff very much.

But in a way, I think that my life is more cramped. And I do see that some people just, they appreciate the beauty of the world and the beauty of objects. And for them, having a table full of fernware would be beautiful and something that they would appreciate and love. Am I better than they are? Are they better than I am? It's just we're different. How do you think about where things like a sense of purpose and this idea that gets thrown around you know that you know you should be living your life you're you're living a life of passion you should be passionate about what you do like how do you i feel like

that's a lot i feel like a lot of people get kind of overwhelmed by that idea of fashion i think it's it can be almost shame provoking yes because it's like well i don't feel like i'm supposed to be passionate and like i'm not and so like i'm doing something wrong yes well i almost feel like my own example um reinforces that idea because i really am the example of somebody who like was just overwhelmed with an idea and was almost felt compelled to follow it beyond all reason and it turned out great so people are like oh see you're a proof that like a light living a life of passion but i'm like i don't i don't i wouldn't say that that's always going to work for everybody you know it's it can make people feel like there's

something wrong with them but i think finding finding something that gives your life a sense of personal meaning and thus in turn infuses it with a purposefulness is important. I think that's distinct from passion. Yes. And I think everybody has the capacity to kind of figure out first steps with that. It's not like a lightning bolt kind of thing for most people at least. But I think that is important. And I think that is fundamentally an aspect of trying to bring greater satisfaction into your life experience. What do you think?

Well, when I was writing The Happiness Project, instead of defining happiness, was like okay what what is how do you think about having a happy life what what are the aspects of it so the first two are obvious so you want to have more feeling good so you want to have more love more enthusiasm more fun and you want to have less feeling bad so you want less boredom less anger less guilt less remorse so you want more of the things that make you feel good you want less of the things that make you feel good. You want less of the things that make you feel bad. Then the next two are a little bit more complicated. One, so you want feeling good, feeling bad and feeling right. So feeling right is feeling like your life is in accordance with your values. And the thing is feeling right doesn't always make

you feel good. So like it might be a tremendous pain for you to do the recycling and you're like, every single time I deal with my recycling, it's a tremendous pain. It does not make me feel good, but it makes me feel right because it's a way of living in accordance with my values. Or like one of the things that they often say in the happiness research is they point out the fact that, which is very true, that a long commute, you know, you're a guy who lives in LA. A long commute is something that makes people unhappy

every single day. You don't adjust to it. It's a real burden on happiness. So their answer is live closer to your job so you don't have a long commute. But the fact is most people have a long commute because like maybe they want their children to be in a certain school district or they want their children to like have a big yard to play in. So it's not like they don't realize that they're just deciding like in order to be a certain kind of parent, I choose to do something to feel right,

even though it's not going to make me feel good. So there's feeling good, feeling bad, and feeling right in an atmosphere of growth. And this is the idea that we're happier when we're growing, when we're learning something, when we're teaching something, when we're making something better, when we're helping someone, when somehow in some aspect of our life we're making a positive change in the world, whether with ourselves, like I'm gonna I'm gonna get back into playing the cello as an adult or I'm gonna volunteer at this non-profit and help them

like figure out how to balance their books or I'm gonna you know um clean my closet I mean whatever that atmosphere of growth can be small and it can be huge but I think if you don't have an aspect of growth in your life you can feel very stagnant um and like creativity have an aspect of growth in your life, you can feel very stagnant. And like creativity brings a feeling of growth. Volunteering brings a feeling of growth. You know, doing things where you feel like you're helping the world. And I think if you think about those four aspects, they don't always make you feel good. You're not always like skipping down the street because of these things.

No, it can be a pain in the ass. Yes. No, like learning to do something new can make you feel dumb, resentful, insecure, incompetent. It's like, it's hard. But that's where you get the feeling of growth. And ultimately the feeling of growth is a big element of happiness.

Yeah. So I think all these things fit together. There's something magical about stepping outside your own little world and investing yourself in the well-being of others that are less fortunate that really can just change not only your perspective, but how you feel about yourself and your place in the world. And for me, that didn't come easy or natural it's not

a default state but you know i've learned to embrace that and it's amazing like how much you know i don't know i just like i'm just a happier person doing that more contented and more fulfilled person with a sense of direction and purpose that you know i previously lacked but i also like to go do crazy things like jump in the freezing water in the Baltic Sea and do wild races. It's like stuff that people would think, why are you doing that?

And that makes me feel, it's difficult. The preparation for doing it is difficult. The participation in doing it is difficult. But it makes me feel alive. It gives me this deep sense of satisfaction and happiness that i can't even articulate i don't know why that is sort of two aspects of atmosphere growth one outer directed and then one sort of like challenging yourself pushing yourself yeah i don't know well we got to wrap this up. But I think, you know, a nice way to kind of bring it around and put a cap on it is to, you know, perhaps leave the listener with a little, you know, for somebody who's listening who does feel stuck and they're struggling and, you know, maybe they don't know what their tendency is, but they will soon because they're going to take the quiz.

he is, but they will soon because they're going to take the quiz. But they just have this sense of paralysis or an incapacity to create inertia in a new direction. What is the thing that you say to that person to kind of help them maybe shake up how they're perceiving themselves and get moving? Well, don't accept what other people tell you should work for you. If you're trying something and it's not working or if you feel stuck, don't assume that it's because you, there's something wrong with you,

you lack self-control, you lack willpower, you are insecure, you have no self-esteem, you can't put yourself first, all these things. Just think, let me just think about myself. When have I succeeded in the past? What feels right to me? No matter what other people are telling me I should do. What feels right for me? Because a lot of times that's what gets people unstuck is when they stop trying to do something that's not suited to them and they try something else. Because there's no one right way there's no

magic solution there's no buzzfeed list of the you know listicle yeah you know i'm like it just depends i think most people don't even know but so many people don't even know you know they're like i don't know what i i don't know yeah you know that that back to that disconnection yeah well that's i mean that's what I do in all my writing is I try to sort of point out ways that you can think about yourself and to say, like, are you a morning person or a night person? Are you an abstainer or moderator? Are you a simplicity lover and abundance lover? You know, I mean, there's like a million ways that people are like each other and different from each other. And I think when people are stuck, it's like, I'm going

to get up at 6am and go for a run every day. And every day, I'm not going to do not gonna do it and every day i'm gonna sleep through my snooze alarm and every day i'm gonna vow tomorrow i'm gonna do it and i'm like maybe you're a night person and actually you should try running at 4 p.m and you should try to sleep until 10 a.m and not try to get up at 6 a.m anyway because you're a night person and that's largely genetically determined in a function of age like and a lot of people are night people so there's no reason that you should be getting up at 6 a.m if you're at your most energetic later in the day do it when it's right for you you're not failing because there's something wrong with you you're failing because somebody's tried to convince you that there's one right way to do this and like there's just there's a lot of ways

to do things i think it's amazing that you were able to kind of figure out this crazy Rubik's Cube and come up with these, you know, but here's the thing, like, I'm also left with this, like, this, this, what is the emotion? Like, coming to understand that there are these four tendencies, and that, like, everybody can kind of fall into them almost makes me feel like, like, and that like everybody can kind of fall into them almost makes me feel like, it makes me feel like the human race is more like sort of rudimentary. Like we all wanna think we're original creations.

You know, I'm different. I can't be, you know, I'm who I am and I can't be categorized by this. And then you go, actually everybody pretty much falls into this category. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. You're like, oh, it's kind of a bummer.

But it's also, there's freedom in that too. And it's so instructive, you know? Yeah, I know what i mean yeah you're like oh it's kind of a bummer yeah it's also i there's freedom in that too and it's so instructive yeah you know yeah i know what you mean it is kind of strange when you're like well there's four categories and everybody's in one of them and people are like there can't just be four i'm like well there's a million ways that we're like each other and different from each other but in this way there really are these very dominant four patterns but um yeah i know what you mean because in a lot of ways we're alike but the differences are very important and it's like thinking about that and what's alike what's different it's a puzzle yeah i think we did it thank you thank you so fun to talk to you

thanks so much for having me on your show we do we do okay? This is so fun. I feel like we could talk all day long. No, it was awesome. Thank you so much, Gretchen. Absolutely delightful to talk to you. Definitely pick up the new book, The Four Tendencies. Check out all her books. You can find her at GretchenRubin.com and at Gretchen Rubin basically everywhere, right? Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, all that kind of good stuff.

And are you still touring around and doing the book tour thing? Or what's going on right now? I've got the book tour going. I did a recording of Happier in here in Los Angeles, which is fine. Getting out of these two. We'll have to do it next time. But I wanted to talk to you about your podcasting experience. Yeah.

So maybe you'll come back. Excellent. Yes, I'd love to um but yeah the the podcast for sure it's the podcast is huge it's fun yeah it's been really great to see like you guys sailing in that that's really awesome yeah it's fun to do it you like doing it oh yeah well it's fun to do it with my sister elizabeth craft so yeah yes happier with Gretchen Rubin for people who like to listen to their, get some happiness vibes through their podcasts. And I assume you have appearances coming up. Yes. If people want to come in.

Yes. Check you out. Yeah. Yeah. Everything's on Gretchen Rubin.com. The brand new designed website. Yes. Yes.

Yes. With the appropriate shade of yellow. Font size. Yes. You'll, you'll appreciate the font size when you visit Gretchen Rubin.com. Cool. All right. That's it. Font size. Yes. You'll, you will appreciate the font size when you visit GretchenRubin.com. Cool. Um, all right. That's it, you guys. Thank you so much. Uh, appreciate it. Come back and talk to me again sometime. Yes. I would love to. Thanks Gretchen.

Peace. How cool is Gretchen, right? I told you guys, she was amazing. That was packed with so much fascinating information. So definitely pick up her new book, The Four Tendencies. Check out her further writings at GretchenRubin.com. While you're there, please take that Four Tendencies quiz. I'll put the link up in the show notes to where you go exactly for that. I think you'll find it revelatory. Are you an upholder? Are you an obliger? Are you a rebel? Are you a questioner? How does this inform how you perceive your own reality and interact with other people?

Also, go to youtube.com forward slash richroll. Check out the video that we made behind the scenes of this experience. I think you guys will enjoy that. And if you would like to support this show and my work, share it with your friends and on social media, leave a review on iTunes, hit that subscribe button on iTunes. And we have a Patreon for people who want to support my work financially. And thank you to everybody who has done that. If you would like to receive a free, short weekly email from me, I send one out every Thursday. It's called Roll Call.

It's basically a newsletter, five or six things I came across that I found informative or inspiring. Basically a couple articles, maybe a podcast I'd listen to, a book I'm reading, that kind of stuff. No affiliate links. I'm not trying to sell you anything,

just good stuff. If you are interested in that, you can sign up for it by just entering your email address and any of those email capture windows on my website. I want to thank everybody who helped put on the show today. Jason Camiolo for audio engineering and production, for work on the show notes and the WordPress page. Sean Patterson for all his graphic wizardry

and theme music, as always, by Analema. Thanks for the love, you guys. See you back here soon. Have a great week. Peace, plants, and namaste. Thank you.