Heroic Chat with Gretchen Rubin: Starting With Self-Knowledge

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It is 1:01pm plus 2 central time, which means it is day one today. I am thrilled to be connecting with Gretchen Rubin as one of our heroic chats with Masters. As I shared with Gretchen before we came on, if Alexander doesn't talk about Gretchen at least every other day, it is certainly once a week. We have every single one of your books. You've been a part of our family culture for a while. She literally just told me. She's just like you.

She's just all in.

It's so great. So bless you. I'll give you a deeper introduction in a moment, but I'm so happy to be here with you today.

I'm so happy to be talking to you. Thank you so much.

All right. I like to say hi to everybody before we jump in. Sophia, Coach, Lanny, Alex, Sharon, Alejandro, Robin, Anissa. Great to see you all on the first screen. Excited to learn more about you, Gretchen, and hear more about your hero's story, because I know it is a fascinating one and I'm excited to chat with you about that. If you don't know about Gretchen yet, I would be surprised. But Gretchen has sold millions of copies of her books. She's one of the leading influencers and thought leaders in the self development space, coming from a really, really grounded, practical, intellectually solid framework. And so much more we can talk about there, but I'll leave it at that. And I would love for you to tell us about you and kind of what you're up to these days, but also the path that led you here. Then I'd like to chat with you about some of your. Your guides. A hero gets a guide on their quest, you know, so who have been some of your inspirational guides? Who are some of your heroes? And then we'll talk about some of the distinctions you've made and what we call the big three, energy, work, and love that have been most transformative. But that's the basic gestalt. So if you can share more about who you are, what brought you here, and any dragons you can include in your heroic quest story would be wonderful.

Okay, well, I'll start with the present. Right now, I am a writer. I have a book, my 10th book just came out called Life in Five Senses, which is all about sort of, I was very stuck in my head. So how I got out of my head and into the world through my five senses, which was every book I write. I think it'll never be this good again. I'll never have such a great subject. And then I do so this was such a joy to write. And I also have a podcast called Happier with Gretchen Rubin, which is a weekly podcast, which I also take a very practical approach. So it's very much the practical strategies and tips for being happier. I do that with my sister, who. Elizabeth Crush Kraft, who is a. A TV showrunner from Hollywood. So. So that's what I do now. I started my career in law. I was star. I was at Yale Law School, where I was, like, editor in chief of the law journal, went to clerk, went on to clerk for, as you mentioned, Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day o'. Connor. So I was very solidly in the law track, but I drifted there. I did it because I was like, I don't know what else to do. And it's a great education, and I'll keep my options open, and I can always change my mind later, and I can't turn down this terrific opportunity. But while I was clerking, I went for a walk on Capitol Hill during my lunch hour. And I will often ask myself rhetorical questions. And I asked myself, what am I interested in that everybody in the world is interested in? And I thought, well, power, money, fame, sex. And it was like, power, money, fame, sex. And I became intensely interested in this subject. And this happens to me all the time. This has happened to me since I was 8 years old. I'll get intensely interested in something, do a huge amount of research, take a ton of notes. So I was doing that, but just deeper and deeper and deeper, and it got bigger and bigger. And finally it occurred to me, this is the kind of thing a person would do if they were going to write a book. And then I thought, well, maybe I could write a book. So I went to the bookstore and got a book called how to Write and Sell your nonfiction book Proposal and just followed the directions, and that became my first book. Yep. And that's how I made the switch to being a writer.

Wow. The Happiness Project.

No, no, no. That was Power, Money, Fame, Sex.

Of course.

It's funny, because many people assume that the Happiness Project was my first book because that book was, like, a number one New York Times bestseller. But like many people, I worked for 10 years to become an overnight sensation. That was actually my fourth book. I wrote Power, Money, Fame, Sex, and then I wrote a biography of Winston Churchill and a biography of jfk. And then I wrote the Happiest, which also started with a rhetorical question, which was, what do I want from life? Anyway, I thought, well, I want to be happier, but I don't even know what that is. And so that's how I started that book. And. Yeah, so that was my fourth book. Wow.

Okay. Well, there's already about 20 threads I want to pull. Winston Churchill, let's just go right there he is above me. So I've got, you know, raised Catholics. I've got Jesus as my kind of foundational. Remember where you came from? Then I got Gandhi. Then I have Churchill, Mr. Rogers, and then Eleanor Roosevelt, after whom we named our daughter.

I have an Eleanor, too. Do you?

I did not know that. Oh, my goodness. That is so good. Eleanor Roosevelt, I imagine, is the inspiration.

No, I just like the name, but it's a beautiful name. There are a lot of good Eleanors. Yes.

Okay, cool. That's fantastic. Well, Eleanor Roosevelt, we named our daughter Emerson, our son, after Ralph Waldo Emerson. So two American heroes name also, etymologically, you may know, means bright shining one, which we thought was just so cool. Eleanor, which she has become so Winston Churchill. Let's just go straight there, then. I want to come back to your story and learn about that moment in which you decided, and I want to hear about the challenges inherent to that decision making.

But.

But Winston Churchill biography. How did I miss this memo? Go there?

Yeah. Well, what a joy it was, right, that book. So, you know, really, when you look at all my books, to some people, they look very like. Like all over the place. But to me, they're very coherent, because what I'm really interested in is human nature. And so all of my books, in one way or another, explore human nature. And someone like Winston Churchill or JFK is really exciting to study because they're so gigantic. They cast such a large shadow. We have so much access to information about them. You can really study them. And, of course, Churchill, he had every role. He was involved in everything. He took every position. He himself was just the most brilliant writer, just from a writerly standpoint. I admire him so much. But it's funny, because a lot of my books start with sort of an epiphany moment and with Winston Churchill, as I'm sure, if you're a fan of Winston Churchill. I was extremely fast. I was doing all this research about Winston Churchill, and I said to my husband, you know, you could write a biography of Winston Churchill that would be utterly laudatory. It would be completely, factually accurate, and you could write a biography of Winston Churchill that would be extremely critical, and that would also be very accurate. And he said, you could write a biography like that. And I was like, yes, I could. And I'm going to. And I did. And so 41 ways to look at Winston Churchill is looking at how complex he is and how you can look at him from all these different ways. Because I feel like he does have so much to teach everyone from the example of his. You know, even if you have a lot of criticisms of him, he certainly had an enormous life.

Oh, my goodness. I'm going to come back to the epiphany moments because I've had a number of them as well that have been completely life changing. But I just want to hear about you and your. What the process was through which you decided to go all in. Because it's a big difference between having an epiphany moment. I got goosebumps when you shared that moment. I could feel it. But before we go there, Winston Churchill, one thing you really admire and one example of how there are no perfect human beings, as Abraham Maslow says. But what's the quality in Churchill you most admire and perhaps the quality you think may have afforded a little bit more attention that we want to be mindful of as we aspire to do important work?

Well, in a way, they're both. This one answer would be that it's the same quality which was his love of war. His love of war. His embrace of war, of course, was extraordinarily important in 1940. But then he, he had a, he, he had a warlike temperament. The thing I admire about him so much is his absolute certainty about sort of like his vision for what he would call, you know, he's such a creature of his time too. It's, it's, you know, there, there are many things. It's very complicated to get into it. I feel like let's. We'll do that for two hours.

Yeah.

No, but actually much to criticize and much to admire.

I actually really like that because it shows that any virtue can be expressed virtuously, you know, at its mean, or it can be expressed viciously, either in its deficiency or its excess. So I actually love the. The frame of this is what made Churchill Churchill, and it's what made Churchill Churchill. So it's great. I mean, the embodiment of virtue is what heroic is all about, ultimately. So we frame the whole discussion of our app around. Aristotle's idea of the summum bonum is to live with eudaimonia. And you do that by living with arete, which is the other tattoo I have, being your best self. But this ability to find that golden mean of an expression of a virtue where too much of a good thing is no longer a good thing. Nor is its deficiency, I actually think is goosebumps. Again, spot on. Let's go back to your quest. So I've already heard two epiphany moments, and I'm sure each book was preceded by its own more or less amplified or intense epiphany moment. But let's actually go to the, to the Churchill, because it's, I think, a little bit easier. So you've already written a book, you know, but Churchill, you had the insight, but what within your consciousness led you to have the confidence of I'm going to go do this and then you go do it. There's something special there that you mentioned as an 8 year old. And it feels like a through line that you've embodied throughout your life that I want to hear more about.

Well, at that point that was much easier because I already had an agent, I'd already published a book. I think it's much different the first time because, you know, it's sort of like, can I, can I do this? So that was the moment.

Let's go there. So let's go there. So let's go. You're. I mean, you're. And for those who don't know to stay the obvious, you're going to Yale undergrad, you're going to Yale Law School, you're the editor in chief of the law journal at Yale. I dropped out of Berkeley, so I went to Bold. I didn't make it through a semester, but I had the, oh, I'll go get a stamp, I'm a smart guy, let's go to a decent school. And all these other things threw up on my way into my moving into my apartment. I'm like, no, that's not what I want to do. Drop down. But for those who may not be aware, being at Yale and being the editor in chief and then being a clerk for a Supreme Court justice is the pinnacle, goosebumps of success in the law world, period. There's no more greater success than in that world than that. Now you're doing that. So walk us through that. You know, you get to this epiphany moment. How in the heck does the hero decide that that wasn't her calling? And then tell us about what that felt like, what courage needed to be embodied and all that stuff.

What was interesting, There were several moments that that sort of contributed to me deciding to make the switch. One was, first of all, was my realization of the people around me. These people loved law. They wanted to talk about law morning, noon and night. They were reading law journals on the weekend. Like they brought to it an enthusiasm and engagement that I couldn't match. Like I was doing a great job for Justice o', Connor, but I didn't do one more minute than I had to. And I just thought, I can't keep up because in the end, if you don't have that enthusiasm, you can't engage at the same level. So I'm like, these people love it and I do not. So that was a realization. And then I had a similar realization where I went over to a friend's house and she had this very boring looking kind of policy book about education on her coffee table. She was in an education graduate program at the time. And I said kind of dismissively, I'm like, oh, do you have to read that stuff for your program? And she said, oh, yeah, but that's the stuff that I read in my free time anyway. And I thought, wow, that's what I want. I want a job where I'm. What I do in my free time is the same thing that I do in my work. And then I thought, well, what do I do in my free time? I'm. I'm doing a ton of research on tower, money, fame, sex, which to me was like this one big subject. And then I thought, well, maybe, you know, maybe I could write a book about that. And then, you know, at a certain point I was like, I had to decide what to do next. A Supreme court clerkship is a year long gig, so it's not. You don't stay there for long. I had to decide what to do next. And at a certain point I thought, you know, I'd rather fail as a writer than succeed as a lawyer. And I have an idea for a book. Let me just take my shot, you know, if I don't. And I knew that if I kept taking legal jobs, you know, at a certain point it's just very hard to contemplate a shift. And I thought, this is my opening. This is the time that it would make sense. So I did, you know, I really, I just thought, let me just take my shot. And you know, unfortunately for me, yeah, got that through. But I feel fortunate when I did it because I think a lot of times people know what they don't want to do, but they're not sure yet what they want to do. And that can be very intimidating and hard to understand, like, well, what do I want? Whereas for me, the shift was made much easier by the fact that, like, not only did I want to be a writer, I wanted to write this specific book. So I actually, and I felt this tremendous. It was like the Death Star pulling in the Millennium Falcon. I could feel everything was pulling me toward it. And so I was just like, okay, let me just do this. So that made it more clear than I think for some people, that kind of big shift is.

Yeah, that's beautiful. And again, the first step in the hero's journey is answering the call. Nothing happens unless you answer the call. So there's a scenario in which you didn't pay attention to it many, many times before that. And then here you are, you know, as a successful attorney x decades later, wondering what the heck happened. But yet as a young woman, you had the insight and the wisdom and the self mastery and the courage and the love and all the other virtues we talk about a lot to go for it. And you had the proven success. You have proved yourself capable of setting very ambitious targets and then going out and hitting them. And it sounds like that started at a very young age with that eight year old version of you getting intensely into something. And just as a parental aside, I have a 10 year old son who just got into chess and he's demonstrating and I'm like you in that regard too. When I get into something, I get into something. And that's been my practice for a while. But to watch him do that and to just fully immerse himself in this particular context now is super inspiring. So beautiful. I love the word you used, enthusiasm, which makes me think of Joseph Campbell, who's back there kind of partially there's. And his follow your bliss. So same idea, this joy that we feel. Follow that. We talk a lot about that in the context of a documentary I happen to be in called Find Joe, which we'll leave for another time. So awesome heroes and guides who has inspired you in your life from a heroic. Wow, I really admire that individual. And then perhaps a more practical guide that's really shaped your essence of who you are.

Well, I love this question because I'm always thinking like, who are my spiritual teachers? Like, you know, who are my models? So one is Winston Churchill, who we talked about who in his kind of his life, but then also his writing because he's just. I learned so much just about writing from Winston Churchill. So he's sort of like a double teacher. You're Catholic, you mentioned Saint Therese of Lucille. I am not Catholic, but I read her memoir, Story of a Soul and I mean, I probably read it, I don't know, 15 times. I'm going to Read it again this summer. I'm like a mini expert on the life of St. Therese. So much about St. Therese. I think about her every day. Another one is Julia Child because of her enthusiasm. I love that word. And I think Julia Child changed the world with her enthusiasm for French cooking. Love it. George Orwell is kind of my writer model. Not that I would compare myself to George Orwell, but his clarity of thought and his willingness to say the unexpected. I feel like George Orwell often doesn't say what I. He doesn't go where I think he will go, which shows that he can think thoughts that are surprising. And I feel like one of the things that I always want to do is to be open to learning something or seeing something. That's not what I expect to see. I think that's in the kind of writing that I do and the kind of thinking that I do. That's a big trap, which is just, you know, seeing what you expect to see. Benjamin Franklin. Love Benjamin Franklin. Anybody working on self improvement? I mean, Benjamin Franklin. Oh, my gosh. His autobiography. He's very practical. You know what I mean? He did everything. That's a guy who got a lot done. So I love that Samuel Johnson, he, you know, he's not for everyone, but Dr. Johnson. I love his work. Again, his clarity of thinking. He can say in a sentence what other people will write a whole book about. So those are some of my. Those are some of my teachers.

Again, so much we can discuss there. Saint Therese, what are you thinking about her every day? What qualities does she embody that you admire?

Saint Therese? Well, Therese is known as the little flower because she compared herself to a little flower, meaning not a rose or a lily, but like a little violet. And so the question is. So she was very focused on everyday virtues. Not her. She. She wanted to be heroic, but she said that's. That's not her way. Her way is the little way. So it's. It's kind of like, how would you do life? Well, just part of your ordinary day, I think that's the lesson for me, is like, starting tomorrow without taking a lot of time, energy, or money. Just in the little things of life. What. What would it mean to elevate it? And then. And she, she. She's also very funny. She's a doctor of the church, so she's like a super saint. So you don't think a super saint is going to be funny? She's very funny. She died at the age of 23 in a cloistered convent. So her life was in France. Her life is nothing like mine, but when I read her, I just identify. She has this. This whole description of how the sweat was pouring down her face because she was trying so hard not to be annoyed and at a fellow nun who was making clicking sounds during prayer. And, I mean, we've all been there, you know, when you're like, oh, my gosh, if you don't stop clicking your pen, like, I'm gonna lose. I'm gonna lose it. And anyway, so I. Again, story of a Soul. It's not for everyone, but I highly recommend it to people who like a spiritual memoir. It's. It's not like anything I've ever read in my life.

Oh, my goodness. All right, cool. I want to celebrate you and the embodiment of those virtues that you just highlighted. So Julia Child's enthusiasm, the clarity and the originality in your thinking that George Orwell embodies Benjamin Franklin's rigorous practical application of virtue, the everyday kind of sainthood or heroism through virtue of Therese. It's a beautiful thing to see you so embody those ideals from my perspective, right in your own. Idiosyncratic, enthusiastic, funny, like, understated. Even when you said violet, I'm like, yeah, that's your flower. I could feel that you got that charismatic, charming. You don't see it every day. It's a very cool visual for me, and I share that and highlight it. A, to share it and highlight it, and B, to encourage our community. This is why I have these heroes behind me. So I have Epictetus and Aurelius, because those are the two heroes who most inspire me in the sense of me integrating the philosopher who's intense and unapologetic and direct and practical in Epictetus, with the reluctant emperor who wanted to be a philosopher. I feel very much like that and being called to be a CEO and a leader of our Public Benefit Corporation. So when I look at my wall, I see these qualities and aspire to embody them and to see that embodiment that you're demonstrating, and then to encourage our community. Who are your favorite heroes? What qualities do you admire? Let's get to work on embodying them.

Book.

Well, go ahead.

But I. And I think sometimes people think that these people have to be very sort of, like, lofty or historical or erudite. But like Dolly Parton, I would say, is another one of my teachers, because Dolly Parton has such a clear vision of herself and what she wants and how to be herself and put herself into the world and that I so admire it. So, you know, there's a lot of. You know, it could be Paul McCartney. I mean, there. There's. I think sometimes people are. It could be somebody that, you know, that you just really. It could be a fictional character, somebody who you see that you. That has. Has qualities that you. That you really aspire to emulate. So I think, you know, you and I kind of have a certain kind of taste, but they can come from anywhere, 100%.

And literally, I just had a chat a few hours ago with a woman who's part of our community, who helps train special forces operators and their mental, you know, cognition and toughness, et cetera, and she. She talked about the same thing, but she beautifully captured that for her now it is less the individuals on the wall and more her mom, you know, who embodies these qualities and her wife embodies these other qualities and these idiosyncratic expressions of her colleagues and whatnot. And there was just this beautiful humanity and this beautiful humility in that. And then I connected it briefly to Walt Whitman's idea that in the faces of men and women, he said, I see God. So one of our mantras is in the faces of men and women, we see heroes. So can we see the heroic within each of the individuals in our lives and then strive to be the embodiment, humbly yet heroically, of our own ideals while seeing it and celebrating it in others? So I really appreciate you reflecting that back and literally just had a similar chat, so. Amen. Well said. Books. You mentioned a couple already. What other books are on the. Gretchen Rubin approved. And I realize that's. Trust me, I understand the impossibility of that question. Yet what comes up when you think about, and particularly with the theory to practice, tenet to mastery side of things, for one who wants to more consistently show up as their best, most heroic self?

Wow, that's such a big question. I love so many books. So much. So what book do? Well, I think if I. I think Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning. If I had to pick one book that I would say everybody should read, this is a page turner. This is an extraordinary, compelling book. It's not that long, you know, sort of like 40 million copies. It's an extraordinary book. I think that that is a book that is a call to a greater life. For sure. I would say that book.

What about it? What specifically did you find so powerful within that book?

Well, it's called Man's Search for Meaning, and Viktor Frankl studied how People's search for meaning can transform their lives. But he also endured the Holocaust and suffered in a concentration camp. So he wrote about that. He has a passage in there where he and another man are stumbling down a road kind of in the icy winter, and they start talking about their wives. And the image of his wife comes to his mind, encouraging him. And he writes about how for the first time, he understands the idea of the angels in heaven praising God and that what would it mean to just reflect on love? Of course, he writes about it beautifully. This is. This is my terrible version of it, but there are just several points in it. Oh, and he has a beautiful story where he's counseling. This is later. He's counseling a man who's devastated by the death of his wife. He's just beside himself. He. He doesn't know how to live because they were so, so close. And the man says. I mean. And then Viktor Frankl says to the man, but how would your wife had felt if you had died first? And he said, she wouldn't have been able to live. She couldn't have lived without me. She would have just been distraught. And Viktor Frankl said, well, you have saved her. That by you being the one that is the surviving one. And the man went away comforted, because there's meaning in sacrifice and understanding that what he was going through was really saving this. This experience for. For his wife. And again, it's just the whole book. Again, I'm not doing it justice. But anyway, this. This is a book, and again, it's a page turner. I mean, I don't want to make it sound like this. This. This thing you have to force your way through. You will sit down and you will, like, stand up six hours later because it is so compelling, beautiful.

And I love your George Elwellian spontaneity of what you chose to share. Profound. Like that. That's those two moments of having an angel. In this case, exactly what we just talked about. The hero who was his wife being there as a guide for him and then stepping in. He's actually. Viktor Frankl is behind Eisenhower. I just put Eisenhower in front of him before I did that. What are we. Days ago, Viktor Frankl was staring at us. And that man is just.

Happy minds think alike.

Yeah, right. And just stimulus, response. In that gap exists your freedom. Choose your response to any circumstance. And when I used to look at.

Him, his description of how sometimes the only. The only freedom that you have is the freedom to suffer in the right way. Yes. Okay. Yeah, yeah.

Nobody. And then Again, the way, the way I frame it up is. And he was a practicing stoic for all intents and purposes, had been studied, studied and influenced by. And his humility and his wisdom and self mastery and love and courage. To play his role well as a therapist in a concentration camp is something I come back to so often for each of us to find our own idiosyncratic roles. And as he says, you're often. You're not the one choosing what role you're going to play, but having been chosen to play a certain role, play it as well as you possibly can. And his embodiment of that. I can't think of anyone more heroically, humbly, heroically engaged in that practice and embodiment of his philosophy. So love it. And again, I love where you went with that. There's so many things we could talk about about that and that you shared that is poignant. If we had to pick a second book, what would the second book be.

That I think would help people live their own lives better? That I think I like a lot of really strange books. I'm trying to think of one that's as universal as man's search for meaning. Well, maybe Benjamin Franklin's book that's so charming. And it's a towering classic of American literature, at least. And it's. And he also has like a good sense of humor, which I really like. You don't always see that. So, yeah, maybe I'd say the autobiography.

Of Benjamin Franklin, let's go there. I love it as well. Why, what's the.

This is very practical. I mean, and you see him struggling with this. I mean, it's hilarious because he has like this list of virtues that he wants to acquire. And one of them is like, be humble like Jesus. And I was like, that's hilarious because it's like, how humble is it to say that I'm going to be like Jesus? You know what I mean? Anyway, there's just sort of a charming quality to it. And again, you think of this as a guy that's inventing the postal service and bifocal glasses and discovering electricity and being a founding father and being a diplomat, you think, how could that all have happened in one person's lifetime? And he was writing books. And I love aphorisms. I love aphorisms. I write them myself. I collect them from other people. Of course, Poor Richard's Almanac, you know, which. A lot of those he didn't write, he collected. But still he had. He, you know, gave his own flavor to them. So There. I guess there's. There's a theme here that a lot of the people that I are, my teachers are, are writers as well. So, yeah, I'm realizing that they're writers.

But they're also iconoclast who are integrated human beings. And in addition to everything you said, he was also an incredibly successful entrepreneur, of course, which allowed him to pursue all these other paths.

Absolutely.

You can feel the epiphany moments in his life. I'm running away. There's no way I'm doing that. And then I'm going to write these little. He's got that rogue, that rascal too, that Churchill had and others I admire had, of the willingness to negotiate with France in a certain style, which is the same way that he was showing up writing the letters he was writing for his brother's paper. I love it and I love the highlights of qualities. And then one of our jokes is the entire app is basically built around the idea of helping you. You can't really see it, but live with eudaimonia by putting your virtues in action. Ancient wisdom, Aristotle, modern science says the same thing. Flourish by putting your virtues in action. Of course, positive psychology was founded on all the ancient cardinal virtues, et cetera. So anyway, the app is created around, and I'm sharing this in this context because I think. And the aspiration is Benjamin Frankwood would have used it. So what we've done is we've architected it such that we encourage you to get clarity on your identity. Who are you at your best in your energy, your work and your love. And to set a little more context, you know, Stephen Covey talks about roles and goals. So you got different roles, you got different goals. Tony Robbins calls them categories of improvement. But I got overwhelmed by that. There were so many different things I wanted to really be really good at that I'm like, I gave up after a week. And then Freud said, a good life comes down to work and love. And it was one of those epiphany moments. That's exactly right. It's work and it's love. If we can get those two things right, we're 80% there with a big asterisk. If your energy sucks because of poor lifestyle choices, good luck showing up in either your work or your love. So we call that the big three. Energy, work and love. And then we systematically help you create an identity, who you are at your best. And energy, work and. Well, and that's now a long way to get to the virtues. So who does and how does that version of you show up. And in our app, which we design with the same company that built Slack and Tinder and Uber Eats and Neuralink to try to make self development like Tesla sexy and fun, to actually engage in your virtues. So anyway, every morning we have our community members recommit to embodying the virtues that they feel are in integrity with that identity in energy, work and love. So mind and energy are disciplined, calm, confident, poised, strong, et cetera. But our aspiration is if Benjamin Franklin was alive, he'd be using the app to recommit to these virtues and then to specifically hit targets and behaviors to create the habits that could change his life. Let's come back to you and let's actually talk about habits because this is one of the many things that you have shared some very, very powerful practical wisdom on from your experience personally and what you've taught to now a lot of people, what do you think is the most important thing to have in mind if we want to recraft our identity by consistently showing up and creating the habits that will best serve us?

Well, I wrote a book called Better than Before that's all about the 21 strategies that you can use to make or break habits. Because that's a huge question. A lot of times people know perfectly well what would make them happier, what would help them in work, life or love. But I mean, energy, energy, work or love. But they're just not following, they're not doing it. And so I as when I was writing better than before, I'm like, well, why aren't they like, what are the strategies people could use? But what I found is that there are, there's what I call the four tendencies, which are four per. It's a personality framework that divides people into four categories, upholders, questioners, obligers and rebels that really influence what strategies are most likely to work for you and anybody who wants to take this quiz, it's@gretchenrubin.com quiz and you can take it and you'll get a little report that tells you what it means. And like three and a half million people have taken the quiz. But what's significant is that sometimes the strategy will work very well for some people, but it doesn't work at all for someone else. So let's say that one of the things you want to do for your energy is you want to exercise consistently. Well, if you're what I would call an obliger, you need some kind of outer accountability. Like you need to work out with a trainer or you need to work out with a friend who's annoyed if you don't show up or you think of your duty to be a role model for someone else, or you raise money for a charity or whatever. You need outer accountability even for that inner expectation. But then there are people who are rebels in my framework. Rebels don't like people looking over their shoulder. They don't like being told what to do. They don't like putting things onto their calendar. They like to choose what they want to do, when they want to do it, in however they want to do it. And so if you. If somebody said to me, well, what's the best way for me to get myself to exercise consistently? I would say you have to begin with self knowledge. Because with self knowledge, you can say, hey, I know I need outer accountability if I'm going to stick to it. Or you say, hey, I know if I put something on my calendar, I'll never feel like doing it. So I'm not going to try that strategy. Even if everybody in my life keeps telling me to sign up for a class, I know myself, I'm not going to do it. And then there's questioners and upholders and they also. Everybody has kind of different ways that tend to work the best for them because there's many ways that we can achieve our aim. Many roads to the top of the mountain, but we all might take a different road to get there.

Absolutely brilliant. If someone can share the link in here to the quiz, that'd be fantastic. We're seeing people name themselves Rebel. Alexandra, my wife, is very much a rebel. I believe that you and I are both upholders.

Yeah, that's an. That. You definitely give out the upholder vibe. So I'm not surprised. But it's. It's pretty unusual for upholders and rebels. Can I ask or do you. Do you go way back?

And you could also ask, do you argue a lot about these things? The answer would be yes and yes. Gretchen, let's go. One of the sparks is that I'm so disciplined and, you know, I get some flex in there, but my tendency is to. To flood into overstructure, into rigidity, et cetera. But when I say I'm going to do something, I do it. You know, I get the consistency. Reduce. This is why she's like, you guys are twins. Reduce the variability of your behavior. Yeah, baby. Nasal ganglia is programmed. I'm not thinking about this ever again. What's up yet? She's the spontaneous, creative, spontaneous. You know, what do I feel like doing today? I don't feel like doing it or whatever. So yeah, we, yes, it is a, it's a beautiful blend ultimately because I get so much from her of the spontaneity and the powerful opportunities. Yet it's also often a place of conflict of not just with the exercise and all that, but just really like who can't schedule that? Like you said, you're gonna do this. And then if I as you know, but to playfully say it out loud, encourage her to consider doing what she said she would do. Right. Then the rebel really comes up. And even if she said it to us yesterday. But anyway, yes, rebel that rebels.

It doesn't matter if they said they would do it.

Yeah.

And even things like a lot of times you're not, it's not a good idea to praise a rebel for doing something because praise is an attempt to control. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I feel like as an upholder we have so much to learn from rebels because they remind us like we have a lot more choices than we think. Yeah. All the tendencies have enormous strengths and also they have weaknesses. Like you were saying before, often a strength is they, they, they go together. But yeah, that's fun that you're an upholder married to a rebel.

Oh my goodness. So please do good. I'm going to take this up as an opportunity for some brief one on one coaching. Give me the number one tip. As a man who just celebrated his 16th anniversary with his beloved wife, who is committed to being with her for 51 plus years, what's the number one pro tip as a husband? To support my wife who is a rebel upholder, to rebel. Back off, back off.

Just let her do her thing in her own way, in her own time. If something's really important to you to get done, do it yourself or automate it. Because asking her, telling her to do something is probably just going to create conflict. So like, and then it's for the things that she does. They either happen or don't happen and she can deal with the consequences of them. But usually with rebels it's better off just like, just, you know, don't, don't try to get them to do something. Even, even things that they say they want to do. It's like let them do their own thing in their own way, in their own time. I feel like rebel is the most misunderstood tendency. It's the most unlike the other three tendencies. And so I think, I think we upholders, questioners and obligers, we don't realize how often we're interfering with rebels. We're like Actually making things harder and worse by trying to get in there and muck around. Just let them do their thing. They'll do it in their own way, in their own time.

That's brilliant. I'm slightly nervous. I have two rebel kids as well. But the oppositional behavior.

You've got three. You're an upholder surrounded with three rebels.

I see. They're only 10 and 6, but they desire a high degree of autonomy, shall we say. And it's fantastic. Even my son I mentioned got into chess and I'm being an upholder about it. I'm like, all right, well we want to. How many games we're going to do, how many puzzles we're going to do, how many? All the other things you got to do if you want to do it well.

Yeah. And I want to say sometimes people think that rebels, it's like it's, it's irresponsible or they, they, they don't have a high minded ideals. Rebels can be extraordinarily high minded and, and ideal. Focused and idealistic and, and effective. Sometimes the most effective leaders are rebels. Enormous power in the rebel tendency. But what you don't want to do is get in there and tell them how to do their thing because they want to do it their own way. But, but sometimes I worry that people, like people will say to me like, oh, it's just like being a, it's like being a perpetual teenager. And I'm like, it's really not, I mean it could be, but it's not inherent in the rebel tendency. It's that what is at the essence of the rebel tendency is they're, they're, they're, they resist outer and inner expectations. They want to do what they want to do. But if they, what they want to do is be a respected leader or a multi million dollar entrepreneur or you know, a loving responsible parent, then that is, that is the, that is the identity.

Yeah, goosebumps. Or for my son right now, a grandmaster in chess.

There you go. Right, exactly.

So then, you know, we, we stumbled upon this watching Magnus Carlson's documentary of his dad did not do any of the traditional things. So now it's literally, dude, you just do what you have the most fun doing. He became very, very skilled quickly because he loved it. He just did this and he did that and we homeschool him. So he's six, seven, eight hours a day. And when the structure came in, a little bit of the joy was gone for literally a day or two. And now it's helping him get clarity on who he aspires to be. Again, truly autonomously independent of any shoulds. And then it's joy, it's enthusiasm, it's that self directed, autonomous expression we all have. Obviously each of these qualities. But so good, so helpful. Alexandra, on behalf of her, I thank you. So good. For so many reasons. Even your delegate, briefly, your delegate. We got something going on with the house. Do we have mold or not? Whatever. It's a very complex thing. Make the call, delegate. Just get it out of her consciousness that the 92 second phone call, it would have become this paralyzing nine days later. It's so fun. All right.

And I have a whole book about the four tendencies, if people want to learn more.

Yeah, 100 remind us of the title and we'll drop the four.

It's called the Four Tendencies. And it talks about how to use your tendency, like in work and in life, and also how to use it with other people, like as a parent or. It comes up a lot in healthcare and in education because this is where people are in the workplace and in relation to romantic relationships and families. It turns out it comes up a lot.

All of it.

Game of Thrones. We could do the Game of Thrones characters. So many great upholders at Game of Thrones, but. And also great rebels, but anyway, brilliant.

So good. And again, another Orwellian moment of just that deep creativity of. Let's not say what everyone else has said. Let's see if we can make a differentiated creative contribution. So amazing. All right. Wow. Time flies when you're having fun with friends. Let's. Let's go through the energy, work and love real quick. And if you have a question, please raise your hand. Gretchen. We have another about 15 minutes together, but briefly, we covered exactly what I was hoping for. Heroic quest, epiphany moments, heroes, guides, et cetera. Energy, work and love. The personally most transformative distinctions you made, intellectually or theoretically, that you then put into practice that have led to a higher degree of flourishing because you have embodied these ideas in the number one, if you can. In energy, work and love or whatever comes to mind. If it's a constellation of things.

So for energy, it's sleep. I think for me, sleep is like the foundation of energy. So really make sure to get enough sleep for work. This is maybe counterintuitive, but I think you'll understand this as an upholder. Now I go to the. One of the exercises I did in Life in Five Senses is I go to the Metropolitan Museum every day because I'm so Fortunate I live close enough to go to the museum. And for me, this goes into my work life because it's recess. Because I think sometimes some people, and especially upholders maybe can get too focused on the to do list and find it hard to step away and give themselves like that open free time that is so important for productivity and creativity. So I had to put that on my calendar as an upholder. It's like I can't just play every day. I'm like, I have to have something that I go do that. It's like something to be on my list. So I go to the Met. And that, that is what I think has, has really helped me open up my mind in a, in a very consistent way. But that's also very freeing. It's the recess that I needed. And then in love. One of the, one of the things that I worked on in life in five senses was listening. I. Listening sounds easy. It's actually very arduous and important. And I realized that, that I needed to do a better job of really listening, like, you know, giving someone my full attention. Now when I here's a hack. When you're having a difficult conversation with someone, like, if it's appropriate, try to touch them. Like when I'm with my husband, like I make sure our knees are touching or I put my hand on his back. It's a lot harder to be angry with somebody or to have like, you know, an annoying conversation when you're touching. And also like, I had to learn how to listen better. I realized that even unconsciously I. When people started talking about things that were very charged, very emotionally charged, I would start just moving it away onto safer ground. Often for me, this took the form of recommending a book for them to read. Like, oh, I'm getting a divorce. I'd say, oh, I have an amazing book about divorce for you to read. This is why you should read it. Instead of saying, staying in the moment, letting awkward, awkward pauses fall, you know, paraphrasing really staying with people in a difficult conversation. So that's what I've been working on in love is. Is really listening.

Hmm, Beautiful. Again, for so many reasons, we are twins. First of all, the number one habit I commit to, as in my energy protocol, is to be in bed for nine to 10 hours. So this is what I've learned. And I've had this app for about 423 days. I've hit it 419 times. It's not a target I missed. So we're aligned on that I love your distinction. On. We call it oscillating just that intensely on, then intensely off, and the play and the art and being at the Met and then how beautiful. On the listening. And I love the pro tip on connect physically. It's difficult to have that real animosity when you're, you know, in a. In a. Physically connected. Physically connected. And then I love, love, love, love, love the staying in those pauses and being comfortable with the uncomfortable.

Well, I was. If people know the work of Lori Gottlieb, she was telling me that she had a couple that she was seeing, and so she told them they had to lie down on the floor next to each other from shoulder to ankle touching, so totally lined up. And then that's how they had to yell at each other. And. And I thought, well, first of all, it's hard to yell at somebody when you're touching them so much. But then also, like, can you even physically yell if you're lying on the floor? Like, I can't even imagine doing that. You feel like you have to stand up to yell. I thought that was hilarious. Like, put them in a physical position that is just going to be so counterproductive to being, like, in this angry yelling state. I thought that was just a brilliant. A brilliant approach.

If we can remember to step in between the stimulus and the response.

There you go.

Foster in the moments in which it.

Matters most, which may involve lying down on a linoleum floor, but, yeah, whatever it takes.

Yeah, that's so good. Okay. Gretchenrubin.com and we've got links to the books, We've got links to the survey. Anything else you want to share before we transition to the questions?

The Happier with Gretchen Rubin podcast, if people like their podcast.

Okay, cool. Nat, if you can link that up too, that'd be great. Wonderful. Anything else?

Nope.

All right. That was fun. My goodness, that went quickly. Lisa, I see you with a hand up. I believe that you would like to connect with Gretchen. If anyone else would like to, please raise your hand, and we'll frame it up as we try to, as concisely as we can. And then excited for you to connect with Gretchen.

Hi, Gretchen. Hi, Brian. Nice to see you. So my question is. So I joined the heroic coaching program a little bit more than two months ago, I think. I. I had never experienced change as much as the last trimester. And so I'm definitely a rebel. And I was wondering if we are wired to be rebels or to. To be the tendency we are, or if it's something that's evolving because I feel like I'm really, really changing. And I was wondering if it's something that evolves or if you're just wired that way and you're going to stay that way all your life and you just have to deal with it.

Well, from my. In my observation, it is something that's hardwired. It's something that you bring into the world with you. You're often can tell the tendencies of very young children. Not always because children aren't autonomous the way adults are. But I don't think that you're. From my observation, you're not one at 20 and one at 40. You're not one at work and one at home. With time and experience, I think people learn to manage their tendencies. And so sometimes it looks like they're changing tendencies or maybe they didn't have the freedom to express a tendency or maybe they characterize it. But when I talk to people like that, I always feel like, yeah, that's the same time. It's interesting because I have another quiz. What's your Neglected Sense quiz which tells people they're in most neglected sense. That's also@gretchenrubin.com quiz and I think with Neglected Sense it absolutely changes over time. I think you might be really into music and your sense of hearing when you're a young adult and then you drift away from it, but you could go back to it. So that I think you go changes over life. But if I. If you say that you're a rebel now, I think you're probably either a rebel or you might be an obliger, because obligers can fall into Obliger rebellion where they look like they're rebels, but it's actually an aspect of the, of the Obliger tendency. So that may be what you're experiencing. That's just for me from like two sentences. That's just my. That's my. That's my.

That's great.

What I wonder. But yeah, if you take the quiz and see what you get, that's great.

And then just to play on that for a moment, then we'll go to RJ and I see Dan's hand up too. We'll see if we can get through both of them. I wonder. I was thinking like Enneagram, you know that, that you have a dominant. I'm a three in the Enneagram. My hunters were both a three in that one as well. You know, and you got your wings and all this. But the healthiest of humans are the ones that healthfully integrate Each of the aspects of these different qualities. So I'm wondering if there's a dominant tendency yet. The flourishing individual is one in which the self awareness exists to know where they are dominant but also to make sure that anyone isn't kind of bringing them down, if you will. As a upholder, I'd want to involve some more spontaneity that the rebel would have. Is that reflective of your thinking or is it different?

Well, well, there is the kind of wing aspect. So each of the four tendencies overlaps with two tendencies. So you and I are both upholders. So in one way we're like questioners because we both keep inner expectations, but we're also like obligers because we both beat outer expectations. So you can be an upholder who tips to obliger or an upholder who tips to questioner and that will color how it comes out, especially with obligers. Some obligers tip to rebel, some obligers tip to upholder, and that makes a big difference. But that's also with question, with all of them. It makes a big difference what you tip. It really flavors your tendency. And I think you're absolutely right that what you want to do is not to deny the strengths and weaknesses of your tendency. And when people say, well, what's the best tendency or the most creative tendency or the most effective tendency? It's no one tendency. It's the people who have really figured out themselves their own strengths and, and have figured out how to deal with the limitations or weaknesses of their tendency. So if you're an obliger, you're going to need to get outer accountability. If you're an upholder, you're going to need to figure out a way to deal with the rigidity that can come from that or the tightening that can sometimes come with upholders. Questioners can fall into analysis paralysis where they just, they can't stop researching and so they get stuck. And, and, and then in rebels it's like, well, you know, you know, you can't make me and neither can I. How does a rebel achieve their aims for themselves if they can't tell themselves what to do? They got to figure out how to do that in a rebel way, which they can do. But so you're exactly right. It's like, it's how do you achieve what you want using your tendency rather than saying I want to switch tendencies or I would, I want to deny tendencies or I want to outgrow a tendency, which as I said, I think you get what you get with tendencies Perfect.

Thank you for, for sharing that. Great question, Lisa. R.J. i see you would love to connect you with Gretchen.

Thank you. Thank you, Brian. Welcome everybody. And Gretchen, I. I've been using your app a little bit.

Good.

So I've been also using the heroic app that we've been using and trying to find commonalities with it. And then in addition to where we can continue to improve the heroic app. And so what made you. Here's first question. There's two questions. What made you want to do the app? Was it just profitability or trying to follow your, your herd or, or what? And then secondly, what have you been able to get statistically from the people who have been using your app? What, what have you noticed? What trend do you notice?

Yeah, interesting. The reason that I wanted to do it is that because I had written better than before and the four tendencies and I talked to people so much about their aims, I really felt like a lot of times people would really be down on themselves and very discouraged because they would, they would feel like they were trying and failing and they couldn't keep their promises to themselves and things weren't working. And what I felt was like that was a disconnect. That was because you weren't using the right tool for you. And so I wanted to create an app that would help guide you to the kind of tool that I thought would work for you. So like I don't, I would not say to a rebel, hey, you should use scheduling because that's not going to work for them. So I wanted to create an app that would help to do that matching and that seems to work, work really well. That said, when to your second point, one of the things that was kind of interesting to me is that the most popular tool because there are all these different tools on the app is don't break the chain. This is a very powerful tool. I love this tool as an upholder, but I've been sort of surprised at how popular it is and I think it's because now reflecting on it, that each of the four tendencies can use don't break the chain in their own way. It kind of works for each of the four tendencies in a different way. Like for a rebel, you might think, well, would a rebel like don't break the chain. But rebels often like challenge. Like you don't think that I can go to bed by 10pm every day for 365 days. I'll show you. You know what I mean? So they kind of often like that. Kind of that. Don't Break the chain, where other tendencies kind of have a different thing that they bring to it. So it was really about trying to help people more effectively match up with the kind of tools that would tend to work for them. And then that's what I. That's what's kind of been surprising to me is the popularity of don't break the chain.

And I'll just say one more thing before they mute me is are you willing to maybe do a podcast or like an article on that, what you've been able to say? See, because I think that would be helpful to the people who are using your app, that they can actually see that there's certain trends. I think that's. The insights that you provide on it would be very helpful, I think, to the people that use it.

That is a great idea. I am writing myself a note right now because I remember nothing if I don't write it down. So I'm going to write myself a note because I think. I think you're. It's always interesting, even if you don't care. It's always interesting to see what works for other people or what other people like. It's like, I don't know.

It's just.

It's just always interesting to see. It kind of helps you decide, like, well, am I like other people or I'm different from other people? So that. That's a great suggestion. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Gretchen.

Yeah. Great to see you, rj. And RJ does important work with the recovery community, and we talk, we call it consistency. So the universality of the streaks and the consistency, that, to me is what really struck me is I don't care where you're coming from. It seems that each of these styles really celebrates the. The streak, the fun gaming of the consistency. And Alexander just did her own challenge after doing another. She's exactly what you just described. It is fantastic.

But, you know, one of the things that's interesting and rj, I don't know if you have any thoughts, but I did the Dax. I talked to Dax Shepard for his podcast, and one of the things I asked him was because he. When he had his, you know, he. He had like 17 years, and then he fell off the wagon. And one of the things that was really hard for him was to sort of lose the chain. And he talked about how sometimes, like, the pain of breaking the chain makes you, like, not want to admit it. And so in a way, it's like, very powerful, but it can almost become a block. And I had never thought about that, that the, that the chain itself becomes so important that you have to think about, okay, it has. I don't, I don't want to break the chain, but if I do break the chain, that's okay. Like, you have to have both those things in your mind at the same time. So I just thought that was really interesting to hear him struggle with that tension, which he. He said was something that is. Is not uncommon, which I had not realized. For, for don't break the chain. Yeah.

And then, I mean, there's so much we can talk about there. I want to respect your time. It's 2 o' clock central, 3 o' clock your time. Dan, bless you. We'll come back if I can support. Let's connect in our next available spot. Gretchen, thank you so much.

I love this. We could talk all day. I feel like we are interested in all the same things.

We're going to need to have a part two if you're up for it. And bless you really, really appreciate not just the time today, but you following your enthusiasm, doing the hard work to show up and give us all you've got. So I admire you. I'm inspired by you and I'm grateful for you. Thank you.

Well, thank you. I so enjoyed it.

All right, see you soon. Have a great rest of your day. Well, there you go. Time does fly when you're having fun, doesn't it? How fun? What a good human being. So much we can unpack there, but we will leave it at that. Great to see you. If you would like to connect with one another, then please do stay, no matter your style. If you would like to join me for a quick breath and reconnection to our best idiosyncratic, we expressed heroic selves. Let's do it.

Foreign.

I'm feeling tons of gratitude for the opportunity to be with you today, and I look forward to seeing you tomorrow. Tomorrow's gonna be a roadshow. We are going to the is. No, tomorrow's. Tomorrow's Thursday. Tomorrow is Friday. This week is weird holidays just getting me going tomorrow. See you from the studio at 101 on Saturday. We are going to be on the road. We're going to the Astros Angels game. It's official. We get to go on the field before the game. The little boy and me is just fired up and excited for my kids to experience that as well. Of course, Brandon Guyer's the host who's working with the Angels, so that's going to be fun. And then Sunday, we've got the Screening with Phil. So Stutz, 101pm Central on Sunday. Nat, if you would, please support us in connecting, that'd be wonderful.