Young and Profiting with Hala Taha - Gretchen Rubin: The Dirty Secret of Happiness | Mental Health | E29

Episode Date: June 26, 2019

Declutter your way to happiness! This week on YAP we speak with happiness expert and 4x best-selling author, Gretchen Rubin. Her latest book, "Outer Order, Inner Calmer," uncovers how decluttering and organizing your life can make more room for happiness. Tune into this episode to find out Gretchen's secrets to a happy life including decluttering to positively impact your thoughts and emotions, and understanding the way you react to expectations. If you liked this episode, please write us a review! Get a copy or download Gretchen’s ‘Outer Order, Inner Calmer’: https://amzn.to/2ZvlMyf  Get a copy or download Gretchen’s ‘The Happiness Project’: https://amzn.to/2ZqREZd Want to connect with other YAP listeners? Join the YAP Society on Slack: bit.ly/yapsociety Need marketing services? Check this out: rethink.agency/yap  Earn rewards for inviting your friends to YAP Society: bit.ly/sharethewealthyap Follow YAP on IG: www.instagram.com/youngandprofiting Reach out to Hala directly at [e-mail] Follow Hala on Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/htaha/ Follow Hala on Instagram: www.instagram.com/yapwithhala Check out our website to meet the team, view show notes and transcripts: www.youngandprofiting.com

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agency slash yap. Check them out. You're listening to Yap, Young and Profiting Podcast, a place where you can listen, learn and profit. I'm your host Halit Taha, and today we're speaking with Gretchen Rubin, four-time bestselling author with work covering happiness, health, and productivity. Gretchen has been interviewed by Oprah and has walked arm in arm with the Dalai Lama. She's a relentless explorer of human nature and questions around happiness. Her latest book in focus is all about outer order inner calmer and how to get control of her stuff

and minimize clutter to feel more control in our lives and positively impact our thoughts and moods. Gretchen also hosts an award-winning podcast and even has her own self-help app. So without further ado, let's get happy with Gretchen Rubin. Hey, Gretchen, welcome to Young and Profiting Podcast. It's great to have you on the show. I'm so happy to be talking to you. Likewise. We're super excited for this interview.

So you're an incredibly influential woman. You're a four-time best-selling author, an award-winning podcast host. You've had notable achievements like being interviewed by Oprah and walking arms. an arm with the Dalai Lama. These are things that people can only dream of in terms of life success. But a fun fact about you is that you actually didn't start out as a writer or a happiness guru. You went to Yale Law School and I believe you started your career as a clerk for the Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Yes, that is true. So how did you make the jump from law clerk to becoming a writer and a thought leader on inner growth and happiness? Well, that was

sort of two different steps. So first, I was clerking for Justice O'Connor and I got an idea for what became my first book. And something that I like about myself is that I will often become intensely interested in a subject and sort of can't learn enough about it, can't read enough about it. And often now, when that happens, often I end up wanting to write a book about it. And this had happened to me in the past, but this was unusually intense. I was clerking and I just randomly asked myself the rhetorical question, what am I interested in that everybody else in the world is interested into? And I thought, well, power, money, fame, sex. And then it was like, power, money, fame, sex. And I just became intensely interested in kind of researching this aspect of human nature

and doing tons and tons of research about it and taking copious notes. And then finally I thought, wow, this is the kind of thing a person would do if they were going to write a book. And, you know, maybe I should write that book. So that got me started writing. And I, I literally went to a bookstore and got a book called something like how to write and sell your nonfiction book proposal and just follow the directions. And all my books are about human nature. That is my chief interest. So who are we?

Why do we do what we do? How can we change if we want to change? But I didn't start writing about happiness or sort of emerge into the public mind as somebody writing about happiness and good habits and human nature until the happiness project came out, which was in 2009. So I was a good example of someone who was working hard. for 10 years in order to become an overnight sensation. A lot of people don't know that the happiness project was my fourth book. They assume it was my first book. But I had been writing for some time before

that. Oh, that's very interesting. So when you had decided to switch careers from law track to writer, did you have pushback from your family or friends for doing that? You know, I was really lucky in that everybody closest to me was very supportive. I mean, my parents, you know, here I was. I really, truly had every credential of law a person could have. Like I was editor-in-chief of the law journal. I'd gone to a law school. I'd clerked on the appellate court and on the Supreme Court. Like, it just doesn't get better than that. And I was like, I'm going to throw it all over and start again. And I have nothing. I don't have a clip. I don't have a short story. I don't have an article that I published in the college newspaper. And they were like, that's great. Yeah, if you want to do that. So they were

very, very supportive of that and of risk-taking. And my husband was actually, I met in law school and he was switching out of law at the same time. So he switched into finance. So I was working on my book proposal and he was taking a class in financial accounting at night. So when we move from Washington to New York, we just switched out of law together. So I was very fortunate in that no one around me tried to talk me out of it or tried to make me worried about how it was going to go. Yeah. So you mentioned that you had actually written three books prior to the Happiness Project. I wasn't aware of that. I thought the Happiness Project was your first book. So how old were you when you actually put out your first book and what were your three first books about? How old was I? Let's see, my first book came out in 1999, I think. I can't even really remember. It's a long time ago now. I think it was like 34 when it came out. And then, you know, books take a long time. So I had to sell it. I had to write it. I had to get a agent. So to me, becoming a professional writer happened when I got an agent because I felt like, well, at that point, someone's banking money on me because their time is their money. And now that

this person's representing me, that makes me a professional writer, even though I haven't actually sold my writing yet. So that to me was a huge milestone, was getting an agent. And I would say to anybody now trying to become a writer who wants to be traditionally published, getting an agent is the hardest part. It's much harder than writing the book. And it's harder probably than even selling the book. It's very hard to get an agent. Very important stage. And my first book was called Power, Many Fame, Sex, a user's guide. And it was like a guide to Power, Money, Fame, and Sex, written as a how-to manual. So it's sort of satirical. There's a whole tradition of kind of satirical self-help manuals, which I've always been fascinated, like even, you know, back to ancient

Greece and stuff. So that was such a fun book to write. Oh, my gosh. Then I was very interested in biography and the problems of biography. So I wrote a book called Forty Ways to Look at Winston Churchill. and also a book called 40 Ways to Look at JFK. And I liked writing these biographies because it's a way to look at human nature in a very gigantic form. Someone like Churchill or someone like Kennedy, they're so huge that you can kind of see human nature more clearly because there's so much documentary evidence. They're involved in these kind of tremendous situations, particularly, of course, Churchill, who's just kind of an unimaginably enormous life.

And with those books, I was like, oh, my gosh, I'm never going to have so much fun again. This is like the greatest book of all time. Every book that I write, I'm like, oh my gosh, this is the most fun book. And by the way, I have written like three terrible novels that have never been published. So those are also sitting in a drawer somewhere. So, yeah, I wrote a lot before the Happiness Project. That's awesome. And I think it just goes to show that you can really switch careers at any age because I have friends who just turn 30, for example,

and they think that they're stuck in their career and that, like, there's no time to change. And I just think that's a whole bunch of crap. Yes. Because you can do whatever you want at any age, and it doesn't really matter. You shouldn't let age dictate your dreams. Well, and I think age is one thing, but I think also it's kind of the sunk cost. It's like, oh, I've spent so much money on this education or I've spent so much time on these credentials or these relationships. How can I possibly start over?

But one of the things I've noticed is like so much can happen in a year. You can make a tremendous switch in your life in a year. And I've seen many people do it. So I agree. Like just like the fact that you've hit some kind of age milestone just definitely does not mean that you can't have a wild career change. And and you'll have plenty of runway to excel as well. It's I don't think people sometimes think like, well, I'm so far behind. Well, you know, are you really? Because probably not. I mean, I remember when my sister and I started the podcast happier with Gretchen Rubin. And at the time, it felt like, oh my gosh, we're so late to this game. And now people are like, oh my gosh, you were so early. And we're. And we've felt like, oh, you know, is this ever going to turn into anything? Well, after a year of doing it, we felt transformed by it. It was a whole new identity for both of us, a whole new professional identity with its own set of people and skills and events and, you know, buzzwords. And you're just like, wow, I didn't know my brain could get that much bigger. So I think sometimes people do

underestimate how much change they can accomplish in a fairly short amount of time. Yeah, definitely. I would like to focus this interview on your latest book, Outer Order Intercommer, which dives into how getting control of our stuff makes us feel more control in our lives. So decluttering has become a huge trend, especially for millennials. There's a Netflix mega hit called Tidying Up on the Konmari method, and that's basically all about keeping items that spark joy in your life. And then another example of this trend is the Swedish death cleaning movement, which was first adopted by Swedish people and encourages clearing out your unwanted or unused items so that people won't have to do it for you after you croak. So now you've released this book, and it's another spin on getting our lives in order by decluttering.

So tell us your perspective when it comes to this tidiness movement, and how is it different from things like minimalism and the Konmari method? Well, I think that there's this interest right now in decluttering and organizing and downsizing and all that because, On the one hand, I think people feel very overwhelmed by current events, by things happening in the world. And so they are seeking to establish some kind of personal equilibrium by creating more outer order around them. Because it's like, you know, I can't control the world, but I can clean up my car. And there is a sense of peace and energy that comes from having greater outer order. So I think that's in some ways it's a reaction to feeling like the world is out of order

or out of control. So I'm going to control what I can control. And I also think a lot of people, there's sort of. a demographic moment as well because there are people who are like they're in the season of stuff because they have children but then they also might be getting stuff because someone's died or someone's downsizing and so things are coming down to them and so there's just this feeling that there's so much to manage and it's also true that a lot of things have become much less expensive say over the last 10 or 20 or 30 years I can't remember if it was 1970 or 1980 but it was like the average

American bought five times more clothing because it's just become within reach. And a lot of things have become like better design and better looking and yet they're very affordable. And so we kind of maybe take too much and then we have to manage it. The way my approach differs from someone like Kamari or minimalism is I don't think that there's one magic one size fits all solution for everyone. I don't think there's one right way. So with Marie Kondo, she's like, Do it first thing in the morning. Do it by yourself. Don't listen to music.

Take out every item of clothing that you own and put it in a giant pile. And then take from there. This is a system that works terrifically well for many people. Many, many, many people in the world swear by her method and love it. It's not the only way you can do it. And I think some people would have nervous collapse if they had a giant pile of every book in their house or their apartment in one big pile. It just wouldn't be workable for them. And the idea that you have to do everything in like a big, kind of bold attempts is very attractive.

to some people, but it's not the only way you can do it. And so I want to show that there's lots of ways that people can do it. You can do a big purge, or you can do the one-minute rule and just do anything that you can do in less than a minute you do without delay as you go through your day. You don't have to take a whole afternoon. You can just do it as you go. With minimalism, minimalism often is sort of really aiming to get people down to the most essential. And the fact is Some people love minimalism and some people don't. There are simplicity lovers, and I'm a simplicity lover for sure, but then there are also abundance lovers.

And abundance lovers love choice and profusion and a lot going on and piles that spur their creativity and a lot of choices. You know, not everybody wants a capsule wardrobe. Some people want a lot of choice. And even someone who loves abundance doesn't love clutter. Because to me, clutter is like it's the thing that you don't use, you don't need, you don't love. It's the cord that looks important, but you have no idea what it goes to, or it's the breadmaker that you haven't used in five years, or it's the sweater that's two

sizes too small, and you haven't worn it in 10 years, but maybe you'll wear it one day, but you never even liked it to begin with. That's clutter, but minimalism sort of suggests that everybody should end up in more or less the same place. And I just don't think that's the case. I think some people want to end up with much, much more than I would be comfortable with in my environment. But it's not that I'm right and they're wrong or they're right and I'm wrong. It's just that people thrive in different kinds of surroundings. So it's how do you get to the place you want to go? It's not that I know the right place that you should go. Got it. So your method is more like flexible and you kind of give people their own option of where they want to end up. Yes, because

what I found is that when you tailor your approach to what suits you to accomplish it and maintain it, then you are if you try to jam yourself into someone else's model. Yeah. Okay, so in your book, you say that outer order can offer nine promises. Can you discuss how the way that we act with our space and possessions can impact our thoughts and moods? Well, you know, it's funny, it's kind of disproportionate because we can all agree that in the context of a happy life, something like a crowded coat closet or a messy desk is pretty trivial. And yet over and over people say that when they get control over the stuff in their lives, they feel more in control of their lives generally. And partly it's just on the most superficial level, life is easier when you just got rid of everything you don't need, don't use, don't love. Some research suggests that the average American spends 55 minutes a day. searching for misplaced items.

So imagine what you could do with 505 minutes a day. So it's just life is easier. You can put things away more easily. You can clean more easily. You can find things more easily. But then also our possessions often kind of make us feel bad. They might remind us of a fantasy self. Like, oh, I was totally going to use this stationary bike,

but I never use it. And so I feel guilty every time I look at it, you know. And I never do use it. So why don't I get rid of it? Or an unfinished project. Like I started a thousand, piece puzzle and I've only done 50 pieces, but I leave it out because I should finish it, but I don't really want to finish it, so it just sits out. Or there's errands. I need to take these

library books back. I need to take these shoes to the shoe store. So I'm just going to leave them out on the counter to help me remember. And they're there for weeks, maybe months. And then our home office doesn't feel like a sanctuary. Makes us restless because there's all these sort of tasks that we should do or things out of place. It can affect our sense of hospitality or sense of sanctuary. our sense of focus. There's a lot of reasons why creating outer order helps us with our inner experience. Cool. So let's focus on clutter for a little while. Let's start to really understand the different reasons that people hold onto their unnecessary amount of possessions. Can you just describe why we accumulate clutter? Well, there's a lot of reasons. I mean, one of the biggest ones

is decision fatigue. A lot of times it's just easier to keep something. than it is to decide what to do with it. And so instead of going through these papers and deciding, okay, what can I throw away to the recycling? What do I need to shred? What do I need to file? What should I scan and keep in digital form? I'm just like, I'll just keep all of it.

I'll just keep one big folder. I'll put everything in there. I have no idea where anything is. It's just a big jumble, but it just saves time. If I just keep everything or if I buy a box that'll let me put a bunch of stuff under my bed, I don't have to decide what to do with these things. clothes, I'll just jam them under the bed and worry about it later. So part of it is trying to avoid

making decisions. Sometimes it's emotional attachment. You know, everything that my children played with feels precious to me or every picture of somebody I love feels precious and it feels wrong to throw it away. But now I have seven gigantic boxes full of mediocre photograph. So there's that emotional attachment. You know, I have all this furniture that my grandmother left to me, but I don't really need it or use it, but it feels important to me because it was important to her. So, you know, there's different reasons why different people clutter. Sometimes people have a kind of clutter that I would call preparatory clutter or anticipatory clutter. This is like, oh, well, I could really use this when winter comes.

I don't need this now because it's the spring. But eventually it will be winter. And when it's winter, I might need this. So I should go ahead and get it now. Or this item would make a great birthday present for someone. So I should just go ahead and get it now. And then at some point, I'll need to give somebody a birthday present and then I'll have it. Well, it's like, but nobody needs a birthday present now.

So why are you going out of your way to accumulate these things? Because now you have to manage it. You have to store it. You have to remember that you have it. There's many ways that these things come up. Impulse purchasing, you know, people buy things. It's 11 o'clock at night. These stores make it very easy to just go click, click, click, click.

You've had a glass of wine. Sounds like me. Yeah, there you go. Oh, is that a problem for you? Because I can give you a great solution. Yeah, I'm like an Amazon Prime midnight shopper. Okay, I'll tell you what to do. Delete your account so that every time you shop, you have to shop as a guest.

That means that you have to enter in your billing information, your credit card information, and your shipping information. And it's like if you really need something or want something does not take that long, but it's enough of a hassle that usually you're like, eh, I'll wait and get it in the morning. And then you never think of it again. They make it as easy as possible because they know that that makes the impulse buying so much easier. If you take away the ability to do it so conveniently, you will buy much less. That's a good one. Thank you. You provide a golden rule in your book from William Morris, and it goes like this.

Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or to believe to be beautiful. So how do you suggest that we determine. in what possessions we should keep and which ones we should toss. Well, kind of riffing off of William Morris, I would say, my favorite test is, do you need it, do you use it, do you love it? Because if you don't need it, use it or love it, then why do you have it? Because sometimes we have things that we use. So like I use this pair of scissors, I don't particularly love them or not love them, but I use them so good. Then there are things that you need. And I consider these things that like, you know, I have a super heavy duty set of ski pants.

And I don't ski, but I get very cold. And every couple of years, there will be an incredibly cold day here in New York and I will wear those super heavy ski pants. A year goes by, two years go by when I do not use those ski pants. But I hang on to them because when I need them, I want them. You know, I do have a need for them. Evening clothes. You might not wear a full-length dress for years. But then when you need it, you're like, oh, good, I have one that I like and I'll wear that because I need it.

And then you love, these are the things that maybe you don't need them, maybe you don't use them. But you just love them. You know, you just appreciate them. They're just something that gives you a lot of pleasure just to have. But if you don't need it, use it or love it. And there's a lot of things. And I would say just about everyone's home and office that they don't need user love. Like, for instance, when I was cleaning out my office, I was on a board and every quarter they would send us

a notebook full of materials. And every time I would think, oh, this is a good notebook. And I would take out all the materials when I was done with them and throw them away. But I would keep the binder and I would keep the tabs. And I would stick it on a shelf. But then finally, I had 14 of these things. It's like I don't need 14 one inch binders. I don't even really need one one inch binder.

I don't use binders. But I'm like, maybe I would need it. Then it would be handy. So I'll keep two. And then I'll give away the rest because there's just no conceivable way that I need 14. one-inch binders. And it's taking up half a shelf in my office, which is very small, and this is very precious real estate. So I don't need it. I don't use it. I don't love it. Get rid of those things. Yeah. So if something isn't being used, is it always useless? No, no. Because sometimes

things are not used, but they're beloved. And so just because something's not used doesn't mean it's useless. And then sometimes things fill in need, like you might not be using it right now, but you could use it. I mean, it is something that would be very useful to you in a very foreseeable situation. And I'm not saying living cocktail napkins when you have not had people over to your house for 10 years. I'm talking about something where like, yeah, I can see a situation where I would need a wool hat. It's very likely that in the next five years you will find yourself needing a wool hat. Yeah. Living cocktail napkins, not so much. So you have to be realistic about it. Got it. So you have a lot of hacks when it comes to minimize

clutter. For example, you say that mementos should be carefully curated and if possible, small in size. And you also give a really good tip about taking a photo of your possessions rather than keeping them. Is there any other really good tips that you want to share? Well, one is the one-minute rule. Anything that you can do in less than a minute do without delay. So if you can hang up your coat instead of throwing it over a chair, if you can take a document and put it in the folder instead of just leaving it on the side of your desk. And that gets rid of like those minor bits of clutter. Something that a lot of people like is to consider the X factor when it comes to clothes, which is if you're thinking about whether you want to keep an item of clothing, say to yourself,

well, if I were walking down the street and I ran into my X, would I be happy that I was wearing this item of clothing or not? And if not, maybe that's a sign that you want to get rid of it. One thing that's really helpful to me is the three strikes your out rule. So we have something called the endowment effect. This is a psychological phenomenon where people kind of overvalue their own possessions. So if I saw a mug out in the wild, I would value it a certain amount. But if I own it, then I start valuing it more simply because it's mine. And that means that we sort of have a default desire to hang on to things, which we've all experienced. So three strikes you're out is if three times it's occurred to me to get rid of something, then the third time I'm like,

okay, clearly I should just get rid of this. Because if you really need use or love, something, you don't constantly think about getting rid of it. Because why would you get rid of something you need user love? But when you're like, that metal mixing bowl, we haven't used that maybe forever. I don't remember we ever used it, but maybe we would use it. And then the next time I see it, I'm like, what about that metal mixing bowl? I don't see that we're using it that much, but maybe now that I know that it's there, I'll use it. And then the third time, it's like, okay, get rid of that metal mixing bowl, because clearly the question has been answered. Yeah. So one of the things that I personally struggle with is hanging on to my clothes. So I do go through rounds of donating my clothes. I read Marie

Kwondo's book years ago and did her whole routine. I did start folding my stuff differently, but still continue to shop and accumulate clothes. And, you know, vintage clothes are cool and I love having choices. So do you have any tips on decluttering your closet? Well, one thing is to be very honest about what you actually do wear and do like. So does everything fit? Like, so does everything in your closet fit? Yeah. I've been the same size for like 15 years. Okay.

So that's good because for a lot of people, that's a huge issue. So it all fits. Sometimes what people do, and I certainly fall into this camp, there's certain things that I just am more likely to buy. And so I have too many of a certain kind of thing. Like if you have nine black cardigans, are you ever going to wear your ninth favorite black cardigan? Maybe not. Are you have like eight pairs of khaki pants? Are you going to wear your eighth favorite pair?

Yeah. So sometimes it's like, okay, it's not. that you want to get rid of all but one, but maybe three or four where they each, like, this one's a little cropped and this one's got pockets, and this one's lighter in weight, this one's better for winter. But then you get into the point where you have too many of a certain category, so I think then to get rid of the ones that aren't fungible. Another thing is to pay attention to what you can wear now, because often people will have something and they're like, well, but if I had a pair of the high black boots with heels, then this skirt

would look great. And it's like, okay, but then you'd have to spend hundreds of dollars on a pair of boots in order to wear this skirt. Maybe you should get rid of the skirt because you're not wearing it now because you don't have the pieces. And I have caught myself making a terrible mistake, which is when there's an item of clothing that I don't wear. And I tell myself, I'm not wearing this because it doesn't fit right. Then I finally go get it tailored. And then I'm like, oh, actually, I never like this pair of pants to begin with. So now they fit, but actually, I don't like them. I didn't want to admit to myself that I made a mistake buying them. So I sort of pretended like there was a good reason that I was not wearing them. But now I've spent money to get them tailored. And so I've just

thrown good money after bad. If there's something that you're not wearing, or like you've had something for a really long time without getting it fixed, it's like, okay, well, you've had that pair of pants for six months and you haven't worn it once. Why? And do you realistically think that fixing whatever you say the problem is is really going to solve the problem? because often if you really wanted to wear those pair of pants, you would have gotten them fixed right away. Yeah, definitely. Cool. Well, now I have some good tips to start cleaning out my closet.

Yeah. Just on this topic, the last thing I just kind of want you to unpack for our listeners is this concept of a mock move. I thought that was really interesting. Well, one of the things that people frequently observe is that moving is an excellent time to clear clutter. You almost can't help it because when you're really faced with a decision, like, do I want to pay to put this thing in a box and have it moved and then unpack it at the other end and figure out what to do with it? Do I want to do that or is this thing just not worth it? And also, it forces you to touch everything.

That's one thing that Marie Kondo suggests that I think is very valuable to really handle everything that you own. Because a lot of times, if you kind of pick it up, I'd take it out of its place and handle it, you're like, I don't really like this pair of gray pants or I don't like this metal mixing bowl or why do I have all this gigantic pile of binders? And so moving is a great time for that. And so a mock move is when you try to replicate that in your imagination and really say to yourself, if I were moving, would I move that giant metal vase that we never use that's just sitting in the corner of the closet? Or would I say, eh, we don't need this giant metal vase and get rid of it then? Or if we were moving, would I move this like five years of magazines or would I decide, no, you know,

we never look at these magazines. Now is the time to get rid of it. Well, if you're going to get rid of it when you move, maybe you should just do. go ahead and get rid of it now. A lot of times we settle into place with our possessions. We are not attuned to them because they just feel this is background. So anything that kind of gives us a new way of looking at what we own helps us to clear clutter, see potential to clear clutter, just in the way that you can take a picture of a room and that often will show you clutter, or you can pretend to be someone like a real estate broker, or someone who's

been hired to stage an apartment or a house, or, you know, you imagine yourself as a guest coming over to a party and you just see things in a different way because you're evaluating the space through a different lens. So saying if I were moving, would I move this? A lot of times you're like, yeah, I wouldn't move that. It's just not worth it. I love that. I think that's such great advice. So can you tell us why we really need to be in the habit of getting rid of stuff rather than just getting organized? at Yap, we have a super unique company culture. We're all about obsessive excellence.

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Money movement services are provided by Intuit Payments Incorporated, licensed as a money transmitter by the New York State Department of Financial Services. Yeah, a lot of times people want to start by getting organized. And then often that is accompanied by a rush to the store to buy, you know, complicated sets of containers or hangers to jam more stuff into place. You probably don't need more stuff for your stuff. Just go through. And if you get rid of everything you don't need, don't use, don't love. You may not need to get organized. You may not need containers. You may just have like one thing that sits on a shelf.

Or, you know, you find that you don't need things to help you organize or pack things in more tightly because you've just cleared so much out. You know, you don't need fancy stacked hangers if you have a third less clothes in your closet. So I think it's always best to start by thinking, do I need it? Do I use it? Do I love it? get rid of everything and then evaluate what's left over. And then often, too, you discover that you have possibilities. Like, I was talking to a guy who was saying how he couldn't hang up his coat in his coat closet by his front door because his wife had jammed so many coats into it. It was packed full

so he had to use the upstairs closet. But then as I was talking to him, it emerged that his family had a mudroom. And I was like, well, why aren't you putting your coat in the mud room? And he's like, oh, because it's just too packed full of junk. I'm like, well, clean out your mud room. If you get of everything you don't need in your mud room and your wife really evaluates everything in that closet, there might be plenty of space for you to hang up your coat downstairs. So really push yourself to go through all your environment and take out all this stuff that's accumulated. And you might find, oh, I have plenty of room in this closet. Or I don't need one of these things that clips onto a shelf to extend my shelf one lower shelf. Or I need to get a lazy Susan or this thing that allows

me to stack my spices in this elaborate way. It's like, yeah, if you get rid of all that extra stuff, it may just fit fine without any kind of special efforts. Yeah. And that's probably procrastination doing those kinds of things. Like, oh, if I just get this, I'll be more decluttered when really you're not solving the root of the problem. Well, exactly. That is exactly right. Because sometimes people want to avoid the decision fatigue. So they're just like, I'll just keep everything and I'll buy something that will just allow me to fit more in. Instead of saying, Why don't I get rid of everything I don't really need user love? And then I might have plenty of space.

One of the interesting things about Marie Kondo and the whole folding thing is she's really coming from a Japanese tradition where space is very limited. But in the United States, at least, a lot of people have a fair amount of space. Like, I live in New York City, so people really don't have a lot of space. But a lot of places, people have a space. They just have so much stuff. You know what I mean? It's like, you don't need all those clothes to, like, tackle it that way. Because you may find you don't need to do anything special with your folding to fit it all in if you just got rid of all the t-shirts that you're not wearing now.

Or you got rid of all your like, you know, your unmatched socks. Well, your socks might just fit in your sock drawer just fine without any kind of special. Contraption. Yeah. It's just like, okay, we'll get rid of all the ones that are itchy and the ones that don't fit and the ones that are a weird color and the ones that don't have a mate and the ones that have holes. It's like you may not be left with how many socks. You know, your problem may be solved already. Yeah.

Awesome. Well, continuing along, one of your biggest accomplishments is coming up with the Four Tendencies Framework. And it's a theory you call the most major insight you've had your whole life. You wrote a whole book about it. You mentioned it in this book, Outer Order Intercomer, and you relate it to how we deal with clutter. So can you talk about the Four Tendencies Framework and the people that fall into it, upholders, questioners, rebels, obligers, and just kind of go through that and explain that concept to our listeners? Absolutely. Now, there is a quiz. If you want to take a quiz that will, like,

tell you what you are, you can take this free, quick quiz. I think two million people have taken the quiz at quiz.gretchenrubin.com. You can just take that for free and it will tell you what you are and give you like a little report. But truthfully, a lot of times people don't need to take the quiz because just from the brief description that I will give, it's pretty easy to identify yourself. And also a lot of other people around you probably. So as you say, it's whether you're an upholder, a questioner, an obliger, or a rebel. And what it's looking at is how you respond to expectations, which sounds very boring, I know, but it actually ends up being very juicy information. So we all face two kinds of expectations. Outer expectations, which are things like a work deadline or a request from

a friend, and inner expectations, which is like my own desire to keep an year's resolution, my own desire to get back into practicing meditation. So depending on how you respond to outer and inner, that's your tendency. So upholders readily meet outer and inner expectations. So they meet the work deadline. They keep the New Year's resolution without that much of us. They want to know what other people expect from them, but their expectations for themselves are just as important.

So their motto is discipline is my freedom. Then there are questioners. Questioners question all expectations. They'll do something if they think it makes sense. So they're making everything an inner expectation. If it meets their inner standard, they will do it no problem. If it fails their inner standard, they will push back. And typically they resist anything arbitrary, ineffective, unjustified.

They want to know why. So their motto is, I'll comply if you convince me why. Then there are obligers. Obligers readily meet outer expectations, but they struggle to meet inner expectations. And I got my insight into this tendency when a friend said to me, well, I know I would be happier if I exercised. 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, as an obliger, she readily meets outer expectations but struggles to meet inner.

So when she had a team and a coach expecting her to show up, she had no trouble showing up, but when she's trying to go on her own, it was a challenge. Obligers need outer accountability to meet even inner expectations. If you want to read more, join a book group. That's what works for obligers. And their motto is, you can count on me, and I'm counting on you to count on me.

And then finally, rebels. Rebels resist all expectations outer and in or alike. They want to do what they want to do in their own way, in their own time. They can do anything they want to do. They can do anything they choose to do. But if you ask or tell them to do something, they're very likely to resist.

And typically they don't like to tell them, themselves what to do. Like they don't sign up for a 10 a.m. Saturday spin class because they're like, I don't know what I'm going to want to do on Saturday morning. And just the fact that someone's expecting me to show up at a certain time is going to bug me. And their motto is, you can't make me and neither can I. And so those are the four tendencies. So how do these four tendencies relate to the way that we deal with clutter? So it has a lot of reasons. So like let's say that we're talking about people and their own tendency. Sometimes what you want to do is take somebody else's tendency into account. Like, I want someone else to clean out the basement, you know, but let's just talk

about for ourselves. So upholders, this kind of thing comes pretty easily to upholders. They'll just be like at two o'clock on Saturday, I'm going to clean out the basement. They put it on their calendar, they put it on their to do list. They'll execute. That comes pretty easily to an upholder. To a questioner, it has to be why. Why am I doing this? Why at this time? Why in this way? So, like, a questioner isn't going to be like, you know what, at two o'clock on Saturday, I'm going to clean out the basement. It's like, why am I going to bother to clean out the basement? We never used the basement. Why am I going to do it two o'clock on Saturday?

That's a totally arbitrary time. Why am I doing this at all? Like, what's the purpose of this? But if you think as a questioner, well, someone's coming to fix the boiler on Monday morning. And it occurs to me that if I clean out the basement this weekend, they'll be able to do their work faster. and therefore I will spend less on their hourly rate. And so I want to clean out the basement this weekend to save myself money. That's a reason.

It's not arbitrary. It's justified. They will stick to it. An obliger must have outer accountability. So if an obliger wants to clean out the house, invite guests over and say, I'm going to take you on a tour of my whole house, including my pantry, my closet, under my bed. You're going to see it all. Or they could hire a professional organizer.

Or they could think of their duty to create an environment. that's going to help other people to stay focused. You could think, well, maybe this doesn't matter to me so much, but I know that other members of my family find it a lot easier to settle down and to feel calm and focused if we clear clutter. And so I need to do it as my duty to other people. I can think of my duty and my future self. Look, if we get to the end of 2019 and my house is still a wreck,

I'm going to feel really, really disappointed with myself. This is something that I really want to accomplish. My sister, Elizabeth, on the happier podcast that I do with my sister, she often calls me a happiness bully because I can get pretty insistent if I think there's a way for you to get happier. And one way this manifests is I'm constantly begging my friends to help me come over and help them clear their clutter. And what I've noticed is that for a lot of people, I just kind of sit there and drink coffee and watch while they mutter to themselves and go through their stuff. I'm there as an accountability partner. They know that they're going to clear clutter because I'm over.

Why am I at their house? I'm at their house so they can go through their closet or go through their kitchen. or whatever. So they need to do it because I'm there, but they don't even really need my help. Sometimes I help, like I'll hold up in the garbage bag or I'll move boxes around, but they just need me to hold them accountable. And then rebels will do what they want in their own way. So if you're a rebel, don't say to yourself, oh, I should really clean at the basement or I promised my spouse that I would clean at the basement or my mother-in-law is coming over. I need to clean at the basement. It's like, do you care? Do you want the basement cleared out? You know what? If you clean out the basement, that could be a music room.

Like that could be a place for all your music, that could be a place for your instruments, that could be a place for your music. Or maybe it's a meditation room and you have everything set up so you can just go down there and meditate. It's exactly the way you want it. Or maybe this whole thing is just dragging you down. It just bugs you to see all this mess. You want to clean it up. And if you want to clean it up at 2 a.m., that's fine. Do it whatever you want.

Like don't tell Rebel to do it in a more efficient time or in a better way. Let them do it in their own way, in their own time, including you. If inspiration strikes, do it. If you decide you want to do it, nothing will stop you. If you decide you don't want to do it, nothing can make you because that's the rebel way. So do it to suit yourself. Do it to suit yourself. I actually took your quiz.

Ooh, what are you? An upholder. All right. Me too. Two upholders. Yeah. So if anybody's interested to take that, you can go to quiz. gretchenrubin.com if you want to figure out what your four tendencies personality type is.

Okay. So last question on this book. And then we're going to move on to your general happiness principles. Let's reflect back on the golden rule. It goes, have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful. So one proponent of your philosophy is not just to remove clutter. It's also that our surroundings need to be beautiful as well. Can you share something? some thoughts on that? Yeah, adding beauty is really fun and it can take a lot of different forms. I mean, for one thing people often love is to bring in an element of nature. That is very pleasing. So maybe you want to have a bowl of pine cones or a fern framed and put on the wall. Maybe you want to put things on a tray or in a basket. Things often look better arranged on a tray. Somebody was saying how

they put all their coffee making stuff on a tray and it's like, it looks amazing. Like all of a And it's like, ooh, this looks so like together rather than just having them on a counter. One thing that's really fun is to choose a signature color on the happier podcast. Elisith and I have talked a lot about signature color because people really love this idea. It helps with decision fatigue is one thing because it's like, well, what color phone case you're going to get? Oh, my signature color. And it often kind of can unite an environment together in a very pleasing way. It can be fun to introduce a note of whimsy, like something very oversized or something very

miniature or, you know, something that clearly is kind of ugly or it doesn't belong. That can be really fun. Adding beautiful smells. I'm obsessed with the sense of smell. One thing to do is like in the negative, which is to look for anything in your house that smells bad because that's really off-putting. Like, is there a shower that smells moldy? Is there like something weird going on under your kitchen sink? Are there like areas where there's like, you know, if you're kitty litter, like you want to eliminate that, but then you also maybe want to have an opportunity for something that smells beautiful, whether that's fresh flowers, or you want to just stop and smell a grapefruit when you're walking through the kitchen or you're smelling fresh towels or you have a scented candle. There's a lot of

ways to incorporate beautiful smells. And so adding beauty just makes our environments, again, that feeling of sanctuary, that feeling of just enjoyment. That's so important. Hello, young improfitors. Running my own business has been one of the most rewarding things I've ever done, but I won't lie to you. In those early days of setting it up, I feel like I was jumping on a cliff with no parachute. I'm not really good at that kind of stuff. I'm really good at marketing, sales, growing a business, offers, but I had so many questions and zero idea where to find the answers when it came to starting an official business. I wish I had known about Northwest Registered Agent back when I was starting Yap Media. And if you're an entrepreneur, you need to know what Northwest Registered Agent is.

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and a sense of, even if possibility, a friend of mine said, I finally cleaned up my fridge and now I know I can switch careers. And I thought, I know exactly how that feels. And so I think it really does help us, makes us feel happier because we feel more peaceful and there's more enjoyment. One of the most important things for happiness is strong relationships with other people. And one thing that many people, when they don't have orderly environments, often they don't want to have people over or they're embarrassed to have people come over. And so that checks their hospitality. Whereas if they have a more orderly environment, they might be more open

to a friend coming over unexpectedly or having people over. It doesn't feel like such a big deal. It's interesting too. Like I wrote a book called Better Than Before that's all about habit change, how people can make and break habits. And one of the things that's interesting is an orderly environment makes us feel more in command of ourselves. And when things are in their places and things are kind of put away, it boosts our sense of self-command. And a thought experiment for this is like, imagine yourself, let's say that you want to eat

more healthfully, which is certainly a habit that many, many people report that they want to cultivate. Let's say you walk into your kitchen, it's 10 p.m., the lights are on, the cabinets are open, There's an open bag of potato chips on the counter. The jar of peanut butter's got the lid off, and it's open, and there's a spoon sticking out of it. And there's kind of crumbs on the counter. What are you likely to do? Are you likely to eat a spoonful of peanut butter?

Are you likely to eat at least a couple handfuls of potato chips, or maybe you're going to finish off the bag? Are you going to open up the fridge and just like poke around and see what's in there? Like, oh, the freezer, I forgot. We have my favorite kind of ice cream. Ah, voila. Or imagine your kitchen actually. The lights are off. The door is shut. If you turn on the lights and go through the door, you see that the counters are clean, all the food is put away. There are no crumbs. There's no cabinet that's open. Are you going to reach in and grab a handful of potato chips? Are you going to take a spoonful of peanut butter? Maybe. But you're probably a lot less likely to. Because it just feels like it's just less available. That's sort of just been shut down. It's like the kitchen's closed for the night. And I've already had dinner. And like, why am I going to go like, reenter the space and open everything up again. Everything's put away. And so that orderliness is

helping me be more orderly in my own habits. Having the disorder in my kitchen makes my own habits feel out of order. Like I already had dinner. I'm not hungry. Why am I eating potato chips? Well, they're just here. It's like, okay, well, you could work on that. By changing your environment, you can make it easier or harder to stick to your good habits. Awesome. Well, if anybody's interested, I'll put the link in the show notes for her book Outer Order Intercommer. I read it. It was fantastic. So I highly recommend it. Let's move on to your general expertise. How do you define happiness? I know this is your life's work basically is helping people become happier. So how do you define happiness? Well, it's funny that you say that because as you mentioned, I started my career in law. And I have happy memories of spending an entire semester. arguing about the definition of contract. And if anything, happiness is a more elusive concept. There's something like 15 or 17 academic definitions of happiness.

And really, I've come to believe that for the layperson, it's not that helpful to really start trying to argue through what the proper definition is. Because some people will say it's peace or life satisfaction or hedonic well-being or bliss or contendment. And I just think that I like the fact that the term happiness, is big enough to incorporate or encompass all these notions. And I think for most people, it's more helpful to think about being happier. If you do this, if you do that next month, next week, next year, are you going to be happier?

Whatever your conception of happiness is. I think that is easier than thinking about what is happiness. And also the word happiness kind of gets people in this thought of like, this is this magical finish line that I either achieve or don't achieve. And how do I achieve it? And having achieved it, how do I stay there 24-7? And this is not really the way human nature works. You know, it's not a place where you just get and try to stay. That's not a good life.

It's not realistic. So I think it's more helpful to think about being happier. People tend to have a pretty clear idea of what would make them happier when they stop and think about it. So to that point, what are some ways to make ourselves happier when we need an immediate boost? Well, there's the long game and the short game. So the short game, if you need a boost right now, like it's Wednesday afternoon, you're at work, you're feeling low, you need kind of a jolt of good feeling. One thing you can do, 10 jumping jacks or do anything that gets your feet off the floor, especially if other people can see you because you'll feel very goofy. But it's energetic, it's childlike, you'll get your feet off the floor, you'll get your blood moving.

Another thing to do is to go for a quick walk outside. Having the bright light of the sun in your face helps your mood, your memory, your immune function. it helps your circadian rhythm stay strong. And then if you go for a walk, also the exercise will help you stay focused. It'll help you sleep better tonight. So that's a great thing to do. Connecting with people very briefly, like have a quick conversation with a colleague or a friend or even like a clerk at a store.

If you like stop and buy a pack of gum or a cup of coffee, like have a little exchange with someone that tends to lift our mood. Listen to your favorite upbeat music. Listening to music is one of the quickest and easiest ways to intervene in our mood. mood. So if you need a quick boost, those are some things that you can do very quickly. Think of something nice to do for someone else. Like if you're like, oh, I've been meaning to send my friend that reference to that computer repair person or, oh, that friend asked me for the name of my dentist, or, oh, these are two people who I think should know each other because they're both thinking

about going to the same graduate program. Let me take a minute and make an e-introduction. Doing a little good deed for someone else is often a big mood boost as well. Very cool. And then you mentioned the long game? The long game. So the long game, if you had to say what is the key to happiness, if you had to pick one thing, ancient philosophers and contemporary scientists would agree that it's relationships. We need enduring intimate bonds. We need to feel like we belong.

We need to be able to get support and give support, just as important. And we need to be able to confide important secrets. And so anything that's going to deepen your relationships or broaden your relationships is probably something that's going to make you happier. So whether that's stopping to talk to a colleague in a way that helps you really become true friends and not just work acquaintances, whether that's joining or starting a book group, whether it's planning a party, whether it's sending an email to every member of your family to kind of give them an update on what you're doing.

If it's deciding that you're going to go to your college reunion or go to a friend's wedding out of town, these are the kinds of things that tend to pay off in happiness. But you could also say that very important to happiness is self-knowledge, because we can build a happy life only on the foundation of our own nature, our own interests, our own values. And so the more we think about, well, what's true for me? What kind of person am I? What do I value? Not what other people tell you should make you happier or what you wish made you happier, but really truly thinking about what's important to you. And then trying to make your life a reflection of that.

That's also very important to happiness. reminds me of your famous list called your personal 12 commandments. I think you wrote that over 10 years ago. Is that something you still follow? And can you just explain that to our list? Yeah. So these are my 12 personal commandments. And this is, these are like the overarching principles that I try to use to guide my life. So this is not like make my bed every day or go for a walk every morning. This is like enjoy the process. You know, this is like an overarching idea. Yeah. And as you say, my number one on that list is B. Gretchen. And of course, everybody would have to substitute his or her own name. But yeah, B. Gretchen is just like, what's true for me? Often when I try to do something that is not

really Gretchen, it doesn't really work out. But when I really think about, well, is this something that's true for me? On the one hand, I want to accept myself, but I also want to expect more for myself. So this isn't about being complacent, but it's about like being true to what is really the truth about me. And then I have other ones like enjoy the process. No Calcut. That comes from my spiritual master is St. Teresa of Luzia. And she writes, when one loves, one does not calculate. And I'm a real bean counter. I'm a real scorekeeper.

And so I remind myself no calculation that I should just give and be generous and do the right thing and not keep score. There is only love. That's a friend of mine had a very difficult boss. And she decided she wasn't going to complain. She wasn't going to fret and fume. She was just like, I really want this job. This person's a brilliant leader in many ways. I have only love for this person.

There is only love. And I thought that was so helpful. Like, I'm determined to look on the right side. Yeah, so these 12 personal commandments are really fun as a way to try to distill your own kind of worldview into a very simple list. And then to try to keep it short so that, you know, it's easy to review. It's a really fun, creative undertaking. I highly recommend it as an exercise for people.

It's very creative and fun and it's also very valuable. Yeah, I'm going to try it out, I think. And you have another lighthearted list called The Secrets of Adulthood. Oh, yeah, I got millions of those. What are your favorite secrets there? Because I've got a lot of people listening who are about to be adults. Oh, good. Well, Secrets of Adulthood is like the things that you learn through time and experience, usually the hard way.

And some of these are very obvious, like soap and water removes most stains or turning something on and off often fixes a glitch. Like, I have to remind myself with that constantly. It's like, this isn't working. Oh, you know, or switch browsers. It's like, oh, I can't connect to this podcast with Firefox. Why don't I try Chrome? Oh, problem solved. But then some secrets of adulthood are more profound.

One of my secrets of adulthood was outer order contributes to inner calm. And it was from that secret of adulthood that I took the title of this book because so many people were like, oh, my gosh, that's so true. Or the days are long, but the years are short. It's a very common experience of the way time goes. An individual day can seem like, oh, my gosh, I can't believe, like, how much I have to get through before I get back in bed tonight. And then a year passes in a flash. It's funny that you bring these up because I'm actually thinking that I'm going to do a whole book of Secrets of Adultshood. So I'm constantly collecting them.

And some of them are just sayings, like the stewing is worse than the doing. That's for people who procrastinate because you know how often that's true. like the stewing is worse than the doing. So that's kind of like an American folk saying that I had never heard before. Or one, like, go slow to go fast. You know, because a lot of times if you hurry, then you like, forget something or you break something or you drop your keys. And it's like, okay, go slow to go fast.

Oh, gosh, I just have so many that I love. The body doesn't trust the conscience, meaning like your body isn't counting on you to remember to go to sleep. It will take over at a certain point and force you to do. do what it wants. Those are great. You have so much good content out there. You were just such a great writer. So impressive. It was so lovely to have you on the show. You also host a podcast. It's called The Happier Podcasts alongside your sister. Tell us about this podcast. Where can people go find it and listen? Yeah. Well, it's anywhere you listen to your podcast. It's called Happier with Gretchen Rubin.

And yes, I do it with my sister. My sister Elizabeth has a very fancy job as a Hollywood writer and producer and showrunner. And so each week we talk about how to be happier. So we have like try this at home tips, which is like concrete manageable ideas for things you can do starting today to make yourself happier. And we have happiness hacks and listener questions and know yourself better questions. And we talk about happiness stumbling blocks. We talk about our own demerits and gold stars, like the things that we do right and wrong in our own lives. So we talk about the science and we talk about our own observations and we hear a lot from listeners about what works for them. That's once a week.

And then once a week, I do a little tiny episode that's like two to four minutes long. And that's where I tell some story that has some kind of happiness point to it. And that's called A Little Happier, because that's just to make you a little happier as you start your week. And we love to connect with listeners and readers. I'm all over social media as Gretchen Rubin. And so, yeah, people can listen to the podcast or look on the. I have a website where all my stuff is gathered at Gretchenrubin.com.

Yeah, she's very searchable. It's all over the place, yes. You won't be able to miss her. Yes. Awesome. Well, it was awesome to have you on the show. Had such a great time. Thank you.

I so enjoyed our conversation. Thanks for listening to Young and Profiting Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to write us a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to the show. Follow Yap on Instagram at Young and Profiting and check us out at Young and And now you can chat live with us every single day on Yap Society on Slack. Check out our show notes or young and profiting.com for the registration link. You can find me on Instagram at YAP with Hala or LinkedIn.

Just search for my name, Hala Taha. Big thanks to the YAP team for another successful episode. This week I'd like to give a special shout out to our international YAP team members, Christian and Kayla. They help to keep our website up to date by posting up the latest episodes and writing our fabulous show notes. We appreciate you from across the world. Thanks for all your support.

This is Hala, signing off.