Habits, Happiness and Human Nature – Gretchen Rubin – #636

So let's just use happiness as, like, a loose term that, you know, we all can have our own definition. How can we be happy today, tomorrow, next month, next year? What can we do to be happier? Because, like, what am I, a six or a seven or an eight right now? And like, okay, I'm one in the morning and one at night. What does it mean? I'm happy in one way but unhappy in another. My mother's in the hospital. Do I want to be happy? No, I'm not going to be happy. I mean, to me, I'm just like, I get all tangled up in that, but I'm like, could I be happier if I did this? Would I be if I went to sleep earlier? Would I be happier if I read novels, more than looked at Instagram? Would I be happier, joined a book group? Would I be happier if I go to my college reunion? Will I be happier if I quit sugar? Will I be happier if I exercise regularly? Will I be happier if I get a dog? Will I be happier? That to me seems much clearer and more straightforward rather than being like, what? Where am I? Because most people, it's like, would you like to be happier? They're like, yeah, I'd like to be happier. Whether that are. Whether they're at a 7 or a 4. Bulletproof radio. A state of high performance.

You're listening to Bulletproof Radio with Dave Asprey. Today's cool fact of the day is that it turns out if you give your kids fewer toys, you might have more creative kids. And this research comes from the University of Toledo in Ohio. And they looked at 36 toddlers between 18 and 30 months in free play sessions.

And.

And they just said, lower quality play comes from an abundance of toys. So when there were only a few toys, the kids played with them in different ways. More variety and longer periods of time. When they had lots of toys, they kind of flitted from one to the other, but never really got engaged. So if you want to teach a kid to focus and engage, maybe put a fewer toys in front of them and put the other ones in a cabinet. I don't know. But it seems kind of interesting because this study also applies to adults. If you have way too many distractions in your life, maybe you won't spend much time on any of them, and that won't make you very happy. It turns out that the guest on the show today is kind of an expert on happiness. In fact, a really big expert on happiness, as well as some things about clutter. Today's Guest knows so much about happiness habits. She's been on my list of people to interview for two years and we finally made our calendars line up. I'm talking about Gretchen Rubin, who's one of today's most influential and thought provoking observers of human nature. And she's got this amazing ability to take complex ideas, make them funny and clear and really accessible to the point that Oprah interviewed her. She's walked arm in arm with a Dalai Lama. She's had her work in the medical written up in a medical journal. She's been the talk of the town in the New Yorker magazine. Oh, and also was, I believe, editor in chief of the Yale Law Journal in another life. So this is a big brain. She's also written New York Times bestsellers, the Four Tendencies, Better Than before and the Happiness Project, which spent two years on the New York Times bestseller list. So super thought provoking and intelligent person who's just someone worth your time to listen to. Gretchen, welcome to the show.

Well, I'm so happy to be talking to you. Yes. We've been wanting to do this for a long time, so I'm so happy to be talking to you last. We're interested in so many of the same things.

We are. And I have to congratulate you. You just started on CBS THIS morning, which is, so how did you go from Yale Law Journal to expert on happiness through to CBS THIS morning? It's the most unlikely journey I can imagine. How'd you do that?

Well, I was actually clerking for Justice Sandra Day o' Connor when I got the idea for my first book and became very preoccupied with wanting to write a book. And so then I was like, okay, well, I gotta get an agent. I gotta write a book. And I went to the bookstore and bought something called like how to Write and Sell youl Nonfiction Book Proposal. And I followed the directions. And so that's how I went from a lot of writing. And then I had written three books before I wrote the Happiness Project, which got me so interested in happiness and human nature. Really, all my books are about human nature. But that's when I realized that that was my subject, that human nature was my subject. And I've been writing about that ever since with good habits and the four tendencies, which is all about sort of personality. And then from CVS this morning, they just wanted to have a little happiness moment a minute at the end of the show every week. And so I was like, I got a million ideas about how to be happy. So we set that up that is so cool.

I think I read that same book about how to be an author. I did all that stuff for my very first book and after maybe 20 publishers rejected it, I got a $13,000 offer for my advance. I'm like, woohoo, there you go. That was my entry to professional authorhood. Since then I've gotten it up a little bit from there, but yeah, it's hard to break in. So you just decided to do it and went off and did it. And apparently your quality of thinking and writing is what it needed to be. I like to look at what you've done and I say you've figured out how to hack your own happiness and you've written about that. Look, you weren't depressed. You described it as like malaise or discontent. It feels like almost everyone I know, with very few exceptions, has some of that going on. Did you have more of that than the rest of us or were you just more annoyed by it? Or is this just a normal human thing?

I think it's a normal human thing, absolutely. And I don't think that I did have more of it than the average person. But I think that what was helpful is I really stepped back and for me it took the form of saying like, well, am I happy? And I realized, well, I didn't spend any time thinking about whether I was happy or not. And then I was like, well, are there ways to be happier? And I was like, well, what are the ways to be happier? Can you make yourself happier? What would you do if you wanted to make yourself happier? And so then I became very entranced with that kind of research question. What does ancient philosophy say? What does contemporary science say? What does popular culture say? Are there things I could try and if I tried them, would they work? And so I think that for most people, you know, most people all around the world say they're either pretty happy or very happy. Most people are pretty happy. But I think at the same time, for most people there's a lot of low hanging fruit. There's a lot of things that are well within our reach without spending a lot of time, energy or money that can make us happier. And to me, I think, why would you not do that if there are these fairly straightforward, easy, concrete, manageable things to do that are going to boost your happiness? Well, it's worth the time to try to think about what those things would be, which takes a little time and self reflection and then put them into action, which then that takes effort and a little bit often habit formation, which is why I Ended up writing better than before, which is all about habits. Because I'm like, all the. We know these things would make us happier, why don't we do them? And that's often a problem of habit formation. So I think that, you know, I think that I kind of have a very, a very common experience of feeling like, you know, is this all there is? Am I really a grown up? Is this my life? Is this my beautiful house? Can there be more?

If you ask them, 90% of people will say they're above average.

Yeah, that's the Lake Wobegon effect.

Now if you ask people, are you happy? It's kind of like, well, how are you doing? Fine. Actually, maybe not. Do you believe most people when they say that they're happy, or are they just telling themselves they're happy, but they're actually secretly laced with malaise and discontent?

Well, this is research that's widely reported and they have very scientific ways of. There's something like 15 academic definitions of happiness, measuring subjective well being and all this kind of thing. So I mean, for what it's worth, I think the research shows. What the research shows, you know, are people honest when researchers ask them questions? I don't know. That's. That, that's a question about the validity of people's response to researchers, I guess, whether they say. But I think that there is a lot of actual research to try to really figure that out.

Okay, and in your reading of the research, though, most people are generally pretty happy.

That's what the research shows. Most people say they're pretty happy or very happy or like, you know, well, like more than half of people, you know, this idea that most people leave lives of quiet desperation, that's not the case. Most people don't leave lives of quiet desperation.

It's a, it's a definite thing. The quiet desperation is way overstated. And I kind of wonder if the research from 10 years ago is still relevant because we've changed our brains so much with social media and with just using devices and all. And I know with kids, the numbers are kids being teenagers, even the numbers are pretty staggering. The depression and anxiety, it seems like they're just climbing through the roof.

Well, you know, recent research suggests that social media doesn't affect the mental health of children, that it doesn't lead to high levels of distress and anxiety. You know, for everyone, medicine can become poison, for sure. And certainly certain people are more susceptible to the negative aspects of it and are more vulnerable to it and, you know, are in tough situations that could be could lead any. Any tool that you have. But it does seem like some of the. Some of the concerns about the use of social media in, you know, children and teenagers is not. It's not the dire situation that people thought.

It's not as bad as we thought. All right, well, you just gave everyone per permission to download another episode of your podcast and listen to it on iPhones. So there you go. By the way, if you don't know about Gretchen's work, her podcast, Happier with Gretchen Rubin is a really good show, and it's worth listening. You should add that to your itunes, whatever you call it, when you add.

Something on itunes, your playlist or your. Yeah, now.

Okay, so you're not that worried about social media and you're really interested in the habits that can make people happy. If someone's listening to this going, well, I think I'm pretty happy, but I'm not really that sure. What are the steps that you'd recommend to sort of take an inventory? Like, okay, should I believe my happiness level, or am I sort of telling myself I'm happy even though actually you have that creeping discontent?

Well, see, I kind of think that's not a very interesting question to me because I had a friend when I started on the happiest project, a friend who's a scientist. He's like, what you should do. You need to have your husband rank you on a 1 to 10 scale twice a day, and then you can measure whether you're changing and everything. I'm like, oh, my gosh, I can't think of anything more boring. And also, my husband will never do it. And so we'll just have conflict. So. So I think what's it. What I think is the interesting question. Of course, people are very different. Some people, obviously. There's a huge amount of research on exactly the kind of thing you're talking about that people like. But the way I like to think about it is whatever happiness is, maybe you think it's calm or peace or well being or joy or bliss or whatever word you want to use. Okay, so let's just use happiness as, like, a loose term that we all can have our own definition. How can we be happier today, tomorrow, next month, next year? What can we do to be happier? Because, like, what am I, a six or a seven or an eight right now? And like, okay, I'm one in the morning and one at night. What does it mean? I'm happy in one way, but unhappy in another. My mother's in the hospital. Do I want to be Happy? No, I'm not going to be happy. I mean, to me, I'm just like. I get all tangled up in that, but I'm like, could I be happier if I did this? Would I be happier if I went to sleep earlier? Would I be happier if I read novels more than looked at Instagram? Would I be happier if I joined a book group? Would I be happier if I go to my college reunion? Will I be happier if I quit sugar? Will I be happier if I exercise regularly? Will I be happier if I get a dog? Will I be happier? That to me, seems much clearer and more straightforward. And rather than being like, what? Where am I? Because most people, it's like, would you like to be happier? They're like, yeah, I'd like to be happier whether they're at a 7 or a 4. And then of course, there's genetic. You know, there's the genetic component. Like, 50% of happiness is genetically determined, and 10 to 20% is life circumstances, which is things like health, education, income, occupation, marital status, things like that. So there's some things that we can't really affect, and then there's some things that we really can affect with our conscious thoughts and actions. And so to me, it's much more interesting to think like, well, whoever I am, wherever I'm coming from, can I be happier? Rather than being like, well, I'm a four and you're a six, and what does it mean to be a six, and what does it mean to be happy? Like, I went to law school, so, like, that kind of definition probing is so familiar to me. Like, we spent a whole semester talking about what is a tort, And I still don't really know what a tort is because it's so complicated, you know? So I think to me, that's just a more helpful frame rather than worrying about immediate measurement and definitions, which I find to be fairly sterile.

You mentioned a lot of things like, if I do this, will I be happy? If I have this, will I be happy? Sort of things, happier, will I be happier? That's a really important point. So when I was 16, I said, what's going to make me happy is having a million dollars. So I did the think and grow rich and I wrote my little thing on the mirror and all that stuff totally didn't work because I didn't make a million until I was 26. I actually made $6 million. It didn't make me happier. In fact, I told a friend at the company where everyone made more money than they should have. I'll be happy. I didn't say happier, but just, I'll be happy when I make. When I have $10 million. And it seemed like each of those things, I'll be happy when I do this. I'll be happy when I, you know, master handstands or whatever else it feels like. That's the very fleeting forms of happiness where, oh, I got it and it was. Made me happy for two minutes and now I want the next sports car or whatever the deal is. And.

Right. That's called the arrival fallacy.

Right.

But I'll be happy when I'll arrive in a certain place and then the happiness will kick in. That's not how happiness most of your.

List was, you know, I'll be happy or when I'll be happy or when. But is. Is that actually something that.

No, I didn't say. Well, it's like when I exercise. Like, you don't get to, like, that's not something. Like, I hit a mark and now I'm done. You exercise, book, quitting sugar. These are all things that you know. And. But you're exactly right. The thing about money is, money is like health in that it has a very negative effect when we don't have not having money, having debt, having insecurity, worrying about money, worrying about your health, feeling low energy, having pain. These drag you down. But then once we have enough, it's very easy to take it for granted. This is why people need gratitude practices, because it's very easy when you can write the rent check and when you can get out of bed without your, you know, you feel like your knees are going to collapse under you. It's very easy to forget how much it contributes to your happiness. So you kind of, we kind of have to remind ourselves of that. But then, of course, it's how you use it, because you could, you could use your money to take yoga, a yoga class that's going to, like, blow your mind. Or you could buy cocaine, which is probably not going to be good for you. Or you could, you know, buy the 10th pair of black boots, which you're going to become like, you're not even going to notice it the next day. Or you could buy a guitar and learn to play the guitar, and that would be great. So a lot of it is choosing wisely. Money can buy us many things that would contribute mightily to happiness. Giving to causes that we believe in, supporting people who need our help. These are huge sources of happiness. Um, if we spend our money that way, if you're just like, oh, I'm going to buy my. Another sports car, a new sports car. It's like that. Then you get into the hedonic treadmill, which is when after two weeks of driving that car, it's like, well, that's just my car. It's hard to be excited about it. But, like, if you really love music, maybe a really amazing music system, you would appreciate it. Every day, another person, they're like, I don't like, now that I'm used to it, like, I don't even hear the difference from, like, listening to my phone, you know?

So it's about just being aware and doing, choosing to do things. Wise choices that are likely to support happiness.

All right, yeah.

Let's talk about the four tendencies. I love personality profiling. I run it on my employees, on myself, to help us understand what's going on. And I've had so much benefits from it. Okay, tell me about your four tendencies. And then I want you to tell me your favorite, like, survey of anything like this. I don't know if you have a survey for the four tendencies, but there's love language tests and there's Myers Briggs, and there's scores and all kinds of stuff. I want to get your. I want you to sort of tell me which ones you think are really good. But first, tell me about your four tendencies in your book.

Okay. Yeah, so mine is a very narrow one. So unlike something like the Myers Briggs or the Enneagram, where it's sort of trying to paint a big picture of like, sort of your whole personality, this is a very, very narrow aspect of your personality. But it turns out to be a very significant, like, it. It. It has. Makes a big difference. So what it looks at is how do you respond to expectations? Which sounds super boring, but actually it's interesting. So we all face two kinds of expectations. Outer expectations, which is like a work deadline or request from a friend. And then there are inner expectations. My own desire to quit sugar, My own desire to keep a New Year's resolution. And so depending on how you respond to outer and inner, that is what determines whether you're an upholder, a questioner, an obliger, or a rebel. And I'll briefly describe them. And frankly, most people know what they are right away and probably can also know what many people in their life are just from a brief description. But there is. If you want to take a quiz that will, like, give you an answer, you can go to quiz.gretchenrubin.com and there's a free quick quiz like, I Don't know. Two million people have taken this quiz. Now. Okay, so if you want to have an answer spit out. But here it is in a nutshell. So upholders are people who readily meet outer and inner expectations. They meet the work deadline, they keep the new year's resolution without much fuss. They want to know what other people expect from them. But their expectations for themselves are just as important. They're just, they're very good at executing. 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 do it, no problem. If it fails their inner standard, they will resist. They hate anything arbitrary, unjustified, irrational, inefficient. So their motto is all comply. If you convinced me. Why?

They're very cognitive, like they're rational minded.

I wouldn't say that. Because a lot of times crackpots are questioners. But what they are looking for is rationale and reasons. They really trust their own judgment, their own research. So in a sense they are looking for justification. But they don't always look rational to other people because I mean, like a friend of mine, it's like you are trying to design your own chemo. Why do you think you know more than the cancer doctors? It's like, well, I did my own research on the Internet and I believe it. So not all questioners are like that. But questioners, they will always look for their look for reasons that seem valid to them and they ask a lot of questions. Then there are obligers. Obligers readily meet outer expectations, but they struggle to meet inner expectations. So I got my insight into this where a friend of mine said, I don't know what my issue is. 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, but, so why can't I go running now? And I thought, well, why can't she? It's the same person, it's the same behavior, what's the difference? And now I know she's an obliger. She readily meets outer expectations. So when she had a team and a coach expecting her to show up, she did, no problem. But when she was just trying to go on her own, she struggled. And the motto of the obliger is, you can count on me. And I'm counting on you to count on me. Because the secret for obligers is if there's an inner expectation that they want to meet. Like they want to read more or they want to exercise. They have to create outer expectations. If you want to meet an inner expectation, you have to create outer expectation. You want to read more, Join a book group. You want to exercise more, Work out with a trainer, work out with a class, work out with a friend who's going to be annoyed if you don't show up. Then the final one is rebel and rebels resist outer and inner expectations 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 very often they don't like to tell themselves what to do. Like they don't want to sign up for a 10am woodworking class on Saturdays because they're like, I don't know what I'm going to want to do at 10am on Saturday. Like, I want to just do what I want to do. And their motto is, you can't make me and neither can I. So those are the four.

So it's pretty much just the ratio of outer versus inner expectations. Help people listening understand a little bit more about the difference between what is an outer expectation versus an inner expectation.

So an outer expectation is something that comes to us from the outside. So someone else is expecting it of me, my boss, my sweetheart, my dog. But here's the interesting thing is sometimes outer expectations, we can kind of have almost imaginary expectations. My future self. So sometimes an obliger can say, well, Gretchen right now doesn't want to exercise. But future Gretchen is going to be so disappointed. Or like now Gretchen feels like I should stay late because my boss asked me to. But future Gretchen is going to be really mad if I don't go to that. Take time for myself or whatever. And so outer and inner. An inner is really like the New Year's resolution. It's the thing that you're doing because it's what you want. And so for some people, they call it self care. Like they can't. Anytime somebody talks about self care, it's a huge sign that someone is an obliger. Because the other three tendencies don't have a problem with self care. It's obligers who have a problem with self care because what they're experiencing is, oh, I'm, I'm, I'm meeting everybody else's expectations. Why am I not meeting my expectations for myself? Whereas, like I'm an upholder. I don't have trouble meeting, expect making time for myself. That was one of the things that tipped me off. A journalist said, why is it the busy parents like us don't have time for ourselves? And I'm like, I don't have any trouble taking time for myself because I'm an upholder. And so I meet inner expectations. For me, inner expectations almost matter more than outer expectations. And so you start to understand why certain things work for certain people. Like with a rebel. Like, if you're a rebel and you want to exercise, well, you wouldn't. If somebody's like, oh, you got to sign up for class. You need accountability. You got to work out with a trainer. It's like, no, that probably won't work for a rebel. A rebel might do something like join a giant gym that's got a million classes. And like, today I do feel like yoga. Today I feel like cardio. Today I feel like doing Zumba. Today I feel like doing weightlifting. You can do whatever you want, whenever you want. Like, you make the rules, you do what you feel like. That might be more appealing to a rebel or for rebels, identity is very important. So they might be more like, I'm an athlete. I'm working out because I'm an athlete. Or, you know, I work out in my lunch hour. They try to keep me trapped behind my screen, but I'm out there with the sun in my face. So once you know your tendency, you can sort of set up situations in a way that harnesses the strength of that tendency and also offsets the weaknesses and the limitations of the tendency. Because all of them have great strengths, but they all have weaknesses as well.

Which one is the best to hire?

Well, it depends on what you want. Depends on what you want? No, because so often, I mean, I think almost any profession, any tendency could do in their own way. Like, sometimes people are like, well, of course I'm a journalist. Of course I'm a questioner. And I'm like, holder could be a great journalist. An obliger could be a great journalist. A rebel could be a great journalist. They'd all bring something different to it. But for instance, if you're in a profession where, hey, man, you do whatever it takes, you got to bend the rules, that's okay with us. Like, sales rebels tend to do well with that because they're like, I'll do it my own way. If you want somebody to be like an SEC regulator, you probably are going to want someone who's. Who's going to be comfortable and maybe even take energy from learning the rules and executing the rules. Now, questioners are interesting because they resist anything arbitrary. And so if you put them into a workplace where it's like, hey, we hear what corporate wants and we do what corporate wants, or, we're a team here. But the questioners are always like, wait, that doesn't make sense to me. Or like, you need to explain that to me. Or, I'm not doing something just because corporate told me to do it, because this works for me. They will often say things like, oh, yeah, I'm supposed to use this software, but I'm not convinced it's better, so I'm not going to use it. And I'm like, well, that's hard to run an office that way if everybody's using, like, different software. But so if you know you're dealing with a question, it's like, well, you're going to have to take time to bring those, to bring those people up to speed. It depends. Many people have said to me they only want to hire obligers or they think in their professional obligers would succeed the best. So, like, certainly client services, there's a lot about obligers that work in that kind of thing. So it really depends on what you're looking for.

All right, that, that's a fair answer. It seems, though, that having a lot of upholders would be pretty useful because they would meet the expectations that you and their colleagues set on them, and they aren't going to fight themselves along the way.

Okay, but here are the weaknesses of the upholder. And I know them well because I'm an upholder, which is they can be very rigid. It's hard for them to succeed when it's not clear what the rules are or what it. What success looks like. It's hard for them to be spontaneous and change on a dime. So, like, if you're a rebel, you probably don't want an upholder working under you because you're like, hey, I have a new vision for this company. And they're like, wait, what? Because we are totally dedicated to the vision that I, like, I have a spreadsheet. I, you know, I've planned out my whole year. Or, you know, it's like, we're gonna take the afternoon off. It's like, no, I got 10 things planned. I can't just walk out the door because you want to, like, have an outdoor meeting. I've got call. Like, they can be like that. And they can sometimes become kind of the bureaucrats. Who are like, well, it's two minutes late, it's late, so I'm rejecting your application. I'm not saying that's all upholders, but I'm saying that can kind of come up. That's sort of what an upholder can look like. And so given a situation, given a task, given a team, you would want to know that that could become an issue. And as an upholder myself, I always am very aware that that's where I. Am I rigid? Am I not seeing that I can turn things down? Am I. Am I agreeing too readily to things? You know, questioners are always like, why are people such lemmings? What tendency do you think you are?

I pretty clearly the rebel one.

Mm. Yeah. Well, a lot of people who work for themselves are rebels because they're like, I can't do what anybody else tells me to do. Like, it's just like, it makes me crazy and I can't succeed like that. I'll make the rules for myself.

I had oppositional defiant disorder when I was a kid, so that pretty much.

See, I think that. I think a lot of people have oppositional defiant disorder may be rebels. But the fact is, if with a rebel, if you know that someone's a rebel and you talk to them in a rebel way and you sort of frame things, then, I mean, one of the things that I love most about the tendencies is talking to the parents of rebels. Because when you understand where they're coming from, you can communicate with them in a way that really takes away a lot of tension and conflict and really helps the rebel get where they want to go. Because a lot of times rebels are very ambitious. They want to achieve things and we're actually making everything worse and slowing them down and getting in their way. Because if we tell them to do something, even if it's something they want to do, they will often push back. So a lot of times I'm like, just say nothing. Don't tell them what to do. You may be the very reason that this rebel is resisting because you keep reminding them or giving them helpful suggestions. I'm like, just back away. What does that look like if you have a five year old? So I've talked to a lot of people who are the parents of rebels.

About that very fascinating stuff. And it makes sense. I do find though that if I don't have some upholders around, people will drop balls because.

So I think you probably have obligers, because most rebels who are partnered up either in romance or in work situations, when they are working with other people. They work with obligers. That is overwhelmingly the case. I would anticipate that you don't really have that many upholders because upholders tend not to want to work with rebels because it's just like such a different way. But obligers work well with rebels.

I can say I don't think I've ever hired anyone who used to work at the DMV or that if I did that they would be happy working for me. So.

All right, well, I don't think the DMV probably is a place where I think you would see. I don't think people are attracted to that because of their tendency. I don't think that's a high.

I'm just thinking that occupation. What's the most rigid profession I could think of would be like, the person at the DMV be like, okay, like this is the rules and you have to follow the rules and so stereotypes.

But actually that would suit a rebel very well. Probably because it's not. Well, anyway. But what's interesting about rebels too, some rebels are very attracted to areas of high regulation, like the police, the clerks.

Interesting.

The military. High regulation corporations. Yeah. Because they need something to resist if they're. If they're just like you are, kind of self generated. A lot of rebels are like that. But some rebels need to be in a place where there's rules for them to like kind of push against.

Okay.

They feel like that gives them energy.

Is this tied to brain structure? I mean, Daniel Amen has been on the show. I've had spec scans, I run an EEG facility, and you mentioned odd, but there's also a ton of entrepreneurs with adhd and there's people with anxiety and other tendencies. Does this correlate well to neuroscience imaging kind of stuff?

I'm sure. Well, I'm a big believer in the genetic roots of personality. So, yeah, I think this is. You're born with this into the world. It's part of what you bring. It explains some of the kind of anomalies in the big five because it's like conscientiousness. One of the things that was weird to me as an upholder, it's like I'm like, I don't understand people who are kind of conscientious. Like, I'm always conscientious. And I was like, but what's the pattern that explains people who are kind of halfway conscientious? Well, it turns out they're obligers or they're questioners or, you know, I Mean, it doesn't. Conscientiousness doesn't sort of get into the fact that people are not. It's not a universal thing because it depends on, like, what is being asked of you. So I think this is just part of what's brought into you. So, sure, it'd be in your. It'd be in your brain, it's in all your DNA. It's part of who you are. It's part of what you bring to the world.

Can you change it? Can you just say, you know what? I'm going to do brain surgery. I'm going to do extensive brain training. I'm going to do CRISPR gene editing. Do you think I could go from being a rebel to being an upholder, or is this just an impossibility?

Well, I mean, CRISPR aside, a lot of times people will say, like, could you become one? Could you change your tendency? And. And to my mind, again, it's like, can you change your inborn nature? If it's even possible? It's extremely difficult. What I think is a more interesting and much more manageable question is, okay, there's aspects of my tendency that I don't like, and that's why I feel like I would prefer to be in a different tendency. So I don't need to change myself. There's not. Whoever you are, there's many people in the same situation who have the same challenges. What are the solutions where they can get where they want? You don't care what your tendency is as long as you're achieving your aims for yourself. So it's like, achieve those aims in a rebel way and you'll get where you're going just the way any other tendency would. If you achieve your aims in an obliger way and you'll get your what you want just like any other Tennessee. So don't change yourself, which would require, like, advanced technology. Change your circumstances. That's easy once you know what to do. People get frustrated because they, like, throw spaghetti against the wall and it doesn't work. Or they're like, oh, it worked for my brother. It worked for Dave. Why, if Dave can do it, why can't I do it? I'm like, well, let's look at why. Maybe you need to set it up in a different way. Rebels often don't like accountability. Obligers depend on accountability. Maybe you need more accountability structures in your life. That is super easy because many, many, many people require accountability. There's a bug. There's like a thousand thousands of ways to give yourself Accountability, once you realize that, that's the missing piece. But a lot of times people are like, I just need to get motivated. I need to make time for myself. I just need to get clear on my priorities. And I'm like, if you're an obliger, no, that's not going to work. I'm like, I'm just sorry to tell you that's not gonna work. But something else would work overnight. Do that. Don't change yourself, change your setup.

Well, you sound an awful lot like a biohacker. The definition there is change the environment around you and inside of you so that you have control of your biology and your behavior, obviously. Yeah, okay, so it's true. Changing your circumstances and what's around you is, heck, a lot easier because self change takes work.

Well. And if it's even possible. Yeah, yeah, but remember, I'm a rebel.

I'll make it possible. I'm just kidding.

You can do anything you want to do.

Yeah, totally, totally joking. I do want to point people listening to the bonus episode you did on your happier podcast, you did an episode that was a deep dive into the four tendencies.

Yes.

I think there's real value in this line of thinking, this work. And so I would just say you should go listen to that and I'll put a link in the show notes.

Great. Yeah.

Now, are there personality tests like Myers Briggs or a Neogram or something like that that work well with the four tendencies, or are you a fan of those? Do you think they're all a waste of time?

I mean, I love them all because I feel like you do get insight into yourself by using them. And some people say, if you define me, you can find me. But I think I like this shorthand. I think it's very helpful. I think all of them have sort of their own nuance and their own vocabulary. And you kind of lose that if you try to cram them all into like one frame. So I kind of like, let them all be what they are. Except the one thing that I absolutely resist, which people often will suggest to me as, like, what correlates with what is that is the Houses of Hogwarts. And I'm here to tell you, the four tendencies do not line up with the Houses of Hogwarts. And I can prove that with three names. Hermione, Fred, George, they are all the same House of Hogwarts, they're all Gryffindors, but they are not the same tendency. Clearly. Hermione Granger is probably the most famous upholder in the world. So that one I reject, but the other ones, I think they all have their own power, though. I like all of them, but they don't match up neatly.

And if you had to pick one of those tests as your first favorite, which one would it be?

I like the five love languages. It's totally unscientific. It's just like a guy who's like, I've been talking to married couples for years and totally see. Yeah, it's like. It's very specific. I feel like sometimes what I get frustrated with personality things is they're trying to describe too much. So you feel like part of it is helpful, but part of it. Then you're like, I don't know. Or there's so many categories. You're like, who can even keep track? Or is this the same as that? I don't know. I don't know. I feel kind of. I can get kind of overwhelmed by them. But I do think they can be useful when they're used, you know? And I think also sometimes it's like when the student is ready, the teacher appears, and it crosses your path at the right time, and it really shines a spotlight on some aspect of your character, your nature that is very, very helpful. So I think sometimes it's just that, you know, showing you something about yourself that maybe you didn't. You weren't keyed into.

Okay, that makes. That makes so much sense. I want to talk about more of this. Change the situation around you. Because you wrote Outer Order, Inner Calm, which is a book about happiness and decluttering. And I'm a little bit skeptical, to be perfectly honest.

Yeah, I write about that in the.

Book my wife read. Conduing is a verb. Nashvant. She read condos, but. And immediately took all of my coffee making equipment and put it under the counter. Now, if you want to block marital bliss, you hide a person's coffee making equipment every single day. And so that only lasted for three days of intense unhappiness. Because I'm like, I don't care if it's cluttered, like, this is my space. But what it led to. In fact, we ended up hiring an expert on organizing just to help advise us for half a day. And what we learned is that my wife likes tidy things. And so she wants things put away, but she doesn't necessarily care if they're put in the same place each time. She just wants them out of sight. And I'm happy to have stuff everywhere as long as I know where it all is, because it doesn't look organized. But in my mind, I know exactly where everything is on my desk. So when people say you should declutter, I'm like, but it's organized, even if it's, quote, cluttered. What's the difference between disorganized and cluttered and decluttered? How do you go through that difference? Einstein's desk was a mess, but he could find that paper 20 down and walk me through your thoughts on that.

So first, with someone like Marie Kondo, I mean, I really believe that there's no magic, one size fits all solution for anything, for how to exercise, how to eat right, or, like, how to clean up. And so the idea that we need to put everything away and have a very clear counter, I'm like, maybe you do, maybe you don't. Maybe that's important to you. Maybe it's not. I mean, one of the differences that you're sort of pointing to is the difference between simplicity lovers and abundance lovers. Simplicity lovers tend to like a lot of bare space, a lot of room on the shelf, not that much going on. You know, one little vase with one little rosebud. And then abundance lovers, like choice and profusion and buzz and a lot going on, a lot of stimulation. There's not one that's right and one that's wrong and one that stimulates creativity and one. You know what I mean? The problem comes. I love that its problem comes is when I'm the boss and I say a cluttered desk means a cluttered mind, and everybody has to have a clean desk policy. Well, that wouldn't work for you, Dave, because that's not how you roll. And so it's like. It's sort of like, well, we have to come. So if you're married to somebody or you work in an open office, you have to maybe come to something that everyone can manage. But it's not that one person's right and one person's wrong. Now there are people who are truly clutterblind. Like, my sister's like this. And we talk about this a lot on the happier podcast. She doesn't care. You know, I mean, the cabinets are open, the stuff, the mail from two weeks ago, it's all on the counter. It's all there. She doesn't care. It doesn't bother her. It doesn't weigh her down. It doesn't slow her down. If I come over as I do, and I come to her house in Los Angeles and I clean everything up, she's happy about that. She doesn't really care. I enjoy it. Because I love clearing other people's clutter more than anything else. It's like my favorite hobby, but she kind of lets me do it because she knows I enjoy it, but she doesn't really care. So some people don't even care. And then like you say some people, it's like, it's very organized. So clutter is something that you don't need, don't use, don't love. So just because something is out to me does not make it clutter. Clutter is. We have a mixing bowl that we haven't used in 10 years. Why is that there? We don't need it, we don't use it, we don't love it. I have seven black cardigans. I wear the same two. Why do I have the other five? That's clutter. I don't need it, I don't use it, I don't love it. I have a magic eye postcard. That's one of those things where you go like this. And every three years I get it out and I'm like, woo. I see like, you know, the Big Ben popping out of like this weird, you know, thing. I love it. I almost never look at it. I forget it's there. I come across it and I have, and I totally enjoy it. I'm like, that's not clutter, because I love it. And so I think the idea that if everything looks a certain way, that's right or that's what everyone should be aiming for is kind of is very misleading. And I also think that the problem that comes when you have people trying to share space is that a lot of times people are like, well, I'm right and you're wrong. You need to do it my way because I'm right. And what I think is like, there is no right or wrong. There are only preferences. And I can talk about my preference and you can talk about your preference, and we can try to arrive in something that we can both live with. It's not that one person's right and one person's wrong. It's just a preference. And so I think that also takes some of the heat out of it because a lot of times people feel very righteous or they feel guilty. And I'm like, you don't feel righteous, you don't feel guilty. It's just a preference.

Some people, you know, I felt pretty righteous about my coffee. I really have to, I have to say that.

But it's a preference. It is a preference she wants to put away. I mean, you know, and then you get into the whole thing. Well, it's mine. And it's like, yeah, but it's out on my counter. You can play, you know, that can go put it in your office. I can't make coffee in my office. I need to sink. Blah, blah, blah. So again, it's like, it's.

It's like compromise.

When you have comrades, you're like, who's it more important to? And you're like, it's really important to me to have the coffee machine out, because it's such a nuisance to get it out every day. I'm not going to do it. Or you could say to her, you can keep it there if you want, but I expect you to get it out every morning before I come down, because that's your preference. My preference is that it's out. You can keep it where you want, but just take it out before I need it because I don't want to do it. Why should I do it? It's your preference.

Ooh, I like that. Stealing that one.

But she might agree to that. I mean, or it's like, maybe we could. Maybe we could build a hutch. And it's behind closed doors, but it's still out. I have that in my kitchen. Like, you can close it off.

That's actually getting built, but it's still out. We're building the hutch.

See, there you go. So then you're like, we can both be right. It's not like, I'm right, you're wrong, or you're right, I'm wrong. It's like, okay, given that we have different preferences. Is there? Is there? Is there. Are we thinking of this as a false choice? Is there another solution? The other solution is how do we make it look orderly and have a coffee machine out? That's easy. But a lot of times people have stuff out. It's like, oh, I have a bagel slicer out. I haven't sliced a bagel in six months. Okay, well, you can put that away. Okay. Because we're not. But if you slice a bagel every morning, I gotcha. You know, So I think part of it is just thinking about it.

You talk about actual steps. One thing I like about your work is that you break it down so it's actionable. You talk about steps to attaining out in order to. And you've got five stages to doing this. What are the stages? Just kind of quick, me. Walk me through what you do with those.

Well, and they aren't stages in that you have to pass through them in Any order, they're just sort of what you go through. And one is to just figure out what it is you want and what it is you can get rid of. Because a lot of times people are sort of like, but I'm going to get organized, right? And they make this big declaration. It's like, don't get organized. Ask yourself, do I need it? Do I use it? Do I love it? Because it could just be that you, you don't even need it. Like, if you get. If you get rid of all the paperwork that you don't need to keep, maybe you don't need a filing cabinet, you know, because it's like, you know, that stuff's all online. Why do I even have the paper copies? You don't need that. Or, you know, oh, you know, we've got all this stuff falling out of our kitchen cabinets. But when we got rid of all the stuff we didn't use, it's like, we don't really have to organize it. We could just put it in there any way we want because it just fits. So if you get rid of all that stuff. So you want to do that first if you can, because that makes everything else easier is to just go through and ask yourself, do I need it? Do I use it to. I love it. And then it's finding the places for things, because you mentioned something, looking for things. So annoying. One of the things is to have a place for things so that everything's put away and you can get it out again. So to have that organization. A step that is kind of my favorite step is to add beauty. Because part of, like, feeling like your surroundings, like, you know, give you comfort and energy, is beauty. And whether that for one person is like bringing nature inside, like having a bowl of pine cones or having a plant, or maybe it's arranging your bookshelf by color. You know, there's all kinds of things that people do to add beauty. And that's the stage that you don't want to overlook, because nobody wants to live in a place that feels sterile or stripped, you know, so. But a lot of it also is thinking about how can you create habits that will allow you to maintain order once you've created it? Because we've all had that experience of like, you spend the entire day cleaning out your office, and then two weeks later, it's like it never changed. What are some of the little habits that you can put into place? Like the one minute rule? Anything you can do in less than a minute, do without delay. You know, if you can hang up your coat instead of throwing it over a chair, you can print out a document and file it instead of, like, leaving it in your inbox. And that gets rid of, like, sort of the little scum on the surface of life. And so there's a lot of little habits like that that can help you maintain order without setting aside an afternoon or a weekend or, you know, a big chunk of time.

I still want to name this episode how to Be Happier than the Scum on the Surface of Life. Because that's just funny. I won't name it that, but scum.

Is a good word. It's a good. It's a very evocative word. Scum on the surface of the sky.

What a word artist there. All right. I like this idea. So adding some beauty. And for me, you're very prescient in that. I'm fine if it's put away. I just have to be able to find it again. But if it's put away in a different place each time, I want to stab myself in the eyeballs. But maybe that's because of my tendencies and things that I haven't necessarily, because I can't conceive of why it would make sense to always put something in a different place so you could search for it later. But clearly other people can do that, and apparently they like it.

But why don't they. Why don't you put it back in the same place?

Well, that was what I asked myself, like, wouldn't that be easier for all of us? But I don't know. It's a different cabinet each time, so I have to open all the cabinets to find whatever the heck I want.

Well, maybe what you need to do is, like, decide where things go and why they go there, because then you don't have to remember where something is. So I was helping a friend clean out his apartment, and this is a guy who I've known for years, so I know he loves to travel. And I was like, well, where's your travel stuff? Well, his passport was in one place. His foreign currency was in another place. His, like, his, like, money belt was in another place. His guidebook. And I was like, maybe for you, you should put all the travel stuff together, because it's like you need them together. It's like, oh, you need your electrical converters when you need your foreign currency. And so then he was like, okay. And then they are all just on a. They're not organized nicely in this cabinet. They're just, like, on a shelf. But it's like, like, that's where they go. And it's like anytime there's something that's related to travel, oh, I have a pound coin from my trip to the uk I know where it goes. Or it's like, you know, it's things like batteries or, you know, or like tools. And where do tools go? Or where does stationary go?

It doesn't just have, like a home area.

But you need to kind of agree, like, where is that? Because then people know where to find. Or like, where is something like your palace passport. Because if somebody says, like, oh, I just put it in a drawer, okay, that could be a day. I know how many people have spent hours and hours looking for a passport. But it's like, if there's a place where the passports go. But you sort of have to communicate that. So maybe you want to, like, talk about. This is the closet for office supplies. This is the closet for household goods. This is the place where it's. Anything related to, you know, I don't know everybody's. But everybody has to do this for themselves because everybody has sort of a different logic, a different user interface with their stuff.

I connect way more with what you're saying than make sure your socks are happy.

Oh, yes.

You know what I mean? And I meditate. I do energy work and whatever. But this seems just so pragmatic and something that could work in almost any situation for removing clutter in a way that creates peace in relationships and in your brain. Because if you always know where something is, you don't have to think about it anymore.

Well, and I. Or buy another one. I mean, how many times do you buy. You're like, I desperately need a stapler. I can't take the time. I'm just. It's just easier to buy a stapler on my way home. And it's like, okay, but now you've got five staplers. Wherever we have.

We have 16 pairs of scissors. Because I got so tired of people stealing scissors from the kitchen, I just said, every time it's gone, I order two more. And after we got enough scissors in the house that it became a problem.

Right.

They stopped getting misplaced.

That's great. Well, and that's one thing I learned because I was an over consolidator. So I would put all the scissors together instead of realizing, what you want is to have scissors in every place. I need scissors in my office, scissors in the bedroom, scissors in the bathroom, scissors in the kitchen. You know, so then it's like, don't keep them all in one place. That's where they go. Put them around. Same thing with, like, something like tape or highlighters maybe, you know, but so again, it takes a little bit of time to think these things through. And also if you're going to communicate with somebody else in your household, but then it can save you so much time. My parents were staying in our apartment while we were out of town, and they were like, oh, we need a bat. We need batteries. And I was like, okay, go to the pantry. And on the left side of the shelf that's second from the bottom, you will see a basket. And in that basket you will see batteries. And it's like, okay. And it's like. That's so satisfying. It's like a surgeon being handed an instrument. I like that feeling of being able to just go get anything. I need a band aid. Where are the band aids? I need sunscreen. Where's the sunscreen?

Yeah, it's so satisfying. I love that we're talking about this. And Lana, I'm going to play this episode.

Oh, good. Yes. You can come together and have a place for everything. All right.

I feel justified in wanting things to be where they live. I hope that this has been as therapeutic for everyone listening as it is for me. I knew there was a reason to put everything where it goes. And I think that you've done some really cool things around happiness with your podcast that are really noteworthy, and I really appreciate the way you think about things, Gretchen.

Oh, well, thanks. It's so fun to talk to you. I so appreciate you having me on Now.

I think that people should definitely listen to your show, but I have to ask you one final question before it's time to go. And that's one having to do with anti aging. My new book, Superhuman. Yeah, I've been really open. I'm planning to live to at least 180 years old because I think the science is actually coming and there's stuff you can do now, et cetera, et cetera. But how long do you think you can live? What's your number?

I don't think about it.

Oh, that's interesting. Not at all.

Nope.

Is that because.

Because who can know? You know, it's like an. It's a question without an answer, I think. So. I do everything that I can to be as healthy as I can and as strong as I can be for as long as I can be. But I don't. I haven't really asked myself how long I think that would be.

Is that because you're an upholder?

No, I Think it's because it's a question without an answer. It's like it doesn't matter what I think, so I don't worry about it.

But all right, I get.

Because deciding to live to 180 doesn't. Doesn't make it any less or more likely. It's what you do right now with your choices that's important.

But if you meet your inner expectations, and your inner expectation is that you're going to live a very long and healthy life, is that not beneficial from a placebo perspective, at least?

Ooh, placebo. If we're going to talk about placebo. Well, it could be. But on the other hand, one of the. Some research suggests that older people are happier in part because they feel like their time is coming to an end. And so they. They don't make time for things that aren't important. They have a shorter horizon, and so they prioritize things that are the people and the activities that really make them happier. So, arguably, you thinking that you live to 180 might make you squander your time because you feel like, oh, I have. I have 40 years in which to learn to play an instrument, or I have 40 years to get connected back to my, you know, back to my childhood friends, or so I have plenty of time. And, you know, and the thing is, it's not knowable how much time we have. And so arguably, that might distort your choices in a way that might undermine your happiness. That's one way of thinking. That's another way of thinking about it.

You sound like you might be a rebel.

No, no, no, no, no. It's funny. Some rebels think they're upholders, but all upholders know that they are not rebels. But I've learned so much from rebels. Rebels have so much to teach all of us who are not rebels.

Well, being a rebel, I like to think I have a thing or two, but who knows? It could just be my ego. Gretchen, thanks for a fantastic and fun interview. I think everyone on the show knows they can pick up your books. And if you want to study happiness, you want to learn more about it, listen to Happier with Gretchen Rubin. It's a good show. So thank you.

Thank you. It's so fun to talk to you. I feel like we could talk all.

Day if you liked today's episode. You know what to do. Pick up a copy of one of Gretchen's books. Or heck, pick up a copy of one of my books or anyone else that you like and read it. Because we all know that reading will actually make you happier. And if not, it's because you're a bad person. And the one thing that is scientifically proven beyond a shadow of a doubt for all, all four of these types is leaving reviews of the books you've read will make you happier.

Yes. Do a good deed for someone else. Their research is there. You will feel happier if you do a small good deed.

It totally works, Gretchen. Have a beautiful day.

It totally works.