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Let's kick off the show now today We're talking with none other than Gretchen Rubin if you are in any form or manner reading about happiness You're probably already familiar with that name Gretchen is one of the most influential writers on happiness and human nature And her books are regularly on the New York Times bestseller list including the happiness project Better than before and the four tendencies which we're going to be talking about today She also hosts a high-ranking podcast happier with Gretchen Rubin together with her sister And we're so happy to have her join the show to help us in these difficult times Find happiness and understand ourselves at a deeper level Welcome to the show Gretchen. It's so great to have you we've thoroughly enjoyed all of your books And we're gonna be talking a lot about the four tendencies today, but it really is an honor to have you on the show Thank you for joining us. Oh, I'm so happy to be here. Thanks for having me Now when it comes to happiness, I know we've talked a lot about it on the show But what originally drew you to studying human nature and happiness and writing about it? Well, you know, it was a very inconspicuous moment of my life I was on a crowded city bus in the pouring rain and I was staring out the window and I thought What do I want from life? Anyway, and I thought well I want to be happy and I realized in that moment. I never thought about was I happy. Could I be happier? Can you make yourself happier? I just never gave it any thought so I ran out to the library the next day as I always do and Got out a giant stack of books about happiness and Started researching it and as I read more and more. I just got more and more excited about I want to try this I'm gonna try that and At first it was just a project for me it was just something I wanted to do for my own benefit, but I soon realized that it was such a Kind of inexhaustibly fascinating subject that I wanted to write a book about it And in fact, I've been writing about it for the last ten years because it turns out it's a very interesting subject Gretchen, I know for myself that The day that I realized that happiness was a choice was the day that I started making large Changes and small changes in my life because it was the first time that I ever realized that it was I had control over that and For a lot of us. Do you do you feel that? There are certain things that push us in that direction to begin asking that question Or is it something that we all naturally just come upon at some point through life? What is your research led you to believe on that idea? Well, it's interesting because you said that happiness is a choice because so many people have told me that and it's clearly like such a profound Realization I have to say for me. It's like that's sort of a confusing idea I feel like I can't choose to be happy and so I focus much more on the things that I think the concrete Actions that I think would make me happier like I think I would be happier if I got more sleep I think I would be happier if I saw my friends more I think I would be happy if I spent more time reading So I think much more about like well What would the consequences of an action be because I feel like for me? I can't go straight into my head like every time I think about like what's my emotional state right now I sort of like get lost in a fog, you know, one of the things that they're saying and happiness resource research It's like rate yourself on a one to ten scale and the minute somebody says that it's like me paying attention to my breath and meditation I'm like I begin I begin suffocating the minute I think about it So I think much more about well What are the concrete things that I think would lead me in the right direction? But so I think each of us sort of needs to approach it with our own metaphors our own vocabulary I think we often get to the same place, but we might take different roads there just because we think about things in a different way Often people will talk about happiness as a journey again. That's not a metaphor that has a lot of Doesn't really strike a chord with me, but for many people to very powerful metaphor I talked about a happiness project and for me, I love that I love the idea of a project, but for many people they're like that sounds like homework. That's no fun Like you can't call your book the happiness project. They really want that so again It's like that's the metaphor that works for me So I think it's fantastic for everyone to kind of think through well. What's the right metaphor for me to use? And I think many of us when we think about happiness, it's easy for us to look at our past Immediately picture those moments, but often when we're actually feeling happy in the moment or projecting it out into the future It's a lot more difficult and it could feel like a dog almost chasing its tail like how do I pinpoint what it is that truly makes me happy and right now we're obviously going through a lot of uncertainty and of course that's gonna lead to some thoughts of Unhappiness and frustration. So what are you? Suggesting a lot of our listeners do right now with all the uncertainty that we're feeling about our future I think happiness in the future for a lot of us is just something we're not even thinking about Right because there's as you say there's so much uncertainty And one of the things that's very tied to happiness is a sense of control and people who have a sense of control of their lives tend to feel much happier if it's control over their time control over how they do their work And the sense now where people like it just it's not knowable It's like nobody knows and so I think one thing that's helpful is to think about well What what can I control? What do I know and I can't control the pandemic, but I can control My email inbox or I can I think this is one of the reasons why you see so many people doing clutter clearing Because I think for most people out-of-order contributes to inter calm To sort of a surprising degree and I think that getting control over our physical Surroundings helps us to feel kind of more In control of ourselves, which is obviously an illusion, but it's a helpful illusion And so I think many people are trying to kind of quiet the noise in their environment to quiet the noise in their head And I think one thing that I tried doing is to create a flow chart to manage uncertainty because sometimes I don't know if you've ever had this experience where There's all these possibilities. They're all swirling around your head One thing leads to another thing But then there's this other thing and then there's this other thing you don't know But then what if this thing happens and it all just kind of spirals out of control So I made a flow chart of like well if the summer looks like this then we could do a or B If the summer looks like that we could do a B or C if the summer looks like this then we could do a or B and Just writing it down on paper gave me a sense of control and that it allowed me to kind of externalize my thoughts and Possibilities and so it didn't feel like this kind of infinite Overwhelming number of choices. It gave me sort of a sense of control and kind of that comfort of making a list and sort of seeing Well, you know in another month, we'll probably know whether, you know, if a B and C We probably will know if a is going to happen. Maybe it won't but we'll know more in a month And it's just hard, you know, it's hard for all of us and to just also it's to acknowledge how you're really feeling and not pretend like How can I be worried about my summer when you know, the entire country is falling into a recession? It's like both things can be true You can be worried about yourself and you can be worried about the country both things can be true You don't have to minimize your own experience in order to Recognize the gravity of what others are going through and as it obliged her I find myself now Confronting dealing with other peoples and happiness and trying to help them find happiness And a lot of us now being cooped up with family members spouses significant others for more time We're really struggling not only to find our own happiness, but to support those around us who are unhappy Well, there is something called emotional contagion. That's what they call it We literally infect each other with emotions and like you say like if you're under the same roof with somebody You're going to pick up those emotions Even on something like a zoom call a phone call looking at a photograph We start picking up that emotional information from from each other because it's such important information for us to have So we definitely do Influence each other and I think it is hard When you feel like you have to sort of support the whole household or create a sense of energy for the household Or kind of be the buffer or the shock absorber Or always the one to look on the bright side or to make a joke That is really important work I mean I think I think that people should get more credit for that I there's a prayer that I read where it says it's like, you know Protect the six help the weary and it says shield your joyous ones And I love that because I think the people that are really concerned at keeping other people spirits high It's like that's really hard work. So gold star if you're the one doing it, but it is very emotionally draining Um And so I think if you're like that you need to try to think of like well What are the healthy treats I could give myself or do I have enough solitude to kind of get a sense of You know regeneration Am I reading a novel? Am I you know doing whatever it is going for a run whatever it is to help me Keep myself feeling calm and energetic and focused It's the old cliche about putting on your own oxygen mask first If you burn yourself out, it's like that's not going to be good for anybody Um, but when you're dealing with a lot of people sometimes it can be hard to say hey guys, I gotta go Um, I'm gonna go take a you know Sit in a bathroom with a door lock for a half an hour and just nobody bang on the door Well, I think for a lot of us, uh, we're used to saying hey, I gotta run But now we don't have anywhere to run to know you gotta come up with a whole new bunch of excuses. Yes Yeah, now you mentioned cliches and I think of happiness as having a lot of cliches and and myths around what we believe And certainly trying to attain happiness. Yeah in your research What was sort of the most shocking or Unusual finding that you didn't really think going in would be important in our happiness Well, I don't know if this is a myth, but it's definitely something that surprised me Which is if you look at the happiness research, it says that Novelty and challenge make people happier that doing something new even something like going to eat at a new restaurant And even in ordinary times or you know That just little new things tend to make people happier and I thought well, that's maybe what the research shows But that's not true for me. I love familiarity and mastery. I I eat the same food all the time I stay in my neighborhood a lot like I like to read and write and that's basically it I don't have a lot of interest So that's not true for me But then because of my project the nature of my project using myself as a guinea pig I tried doing new things and what I found out is that it's absolutely true And I was a hundred percent wrong the research is absolutely correct That novelty and challenge make people happier and again looking at the pandemic I think one of the things people are doing is like I've never baked bread before now is the time or you know people I want to get a guitar and teach myself to play guitar. I think people are seeking to create that feeling of growth Um that a sense of like I can't go outside and have no experiences. I can't travel And maybe I can go somewhere new in my head Maybe I can push myself to learn french and get back into french or whatever it is Um and get make myself feel that sense of happiness and growth You know without leaving my house It's funny that you mentioned the two things that I've been seeing a lot of people post the most of their bread creating and their guitar playing Yeah, there you go. It's like it's the same impulse It's it's there that of course with the joyousness of those people reaching out and learning and Going to new places and making things novel in their life You know social media is also showing us the absolute other side of that the ugly the negativity the everything that comes with with all of of that and it's absurdly One who has been trying to navigate that knowing how easily i'm influenced by those around me and the stimulus that I Consume, so it's certainly a difficult time for everybody to To keep focus on what is going to make them happy any suggestions There for for people who are now coming to to this idea that they have a little bit more control over it than They might think Well, I think you're exactly right and I think a lot of times like looking at Let's just think of technology It's really helpful to think of like is this making me happier or is this not making me happier Is this thing serving me well? Um because something like technology is a wonderful servant But a bad master and you could say you can acknowledge it's great to keep up with everybody on facebook It's great to use zoom, but I realize that i'm spending three hours scrolling through Uh, you know my news updates is and twitter and it's really bringing me down And so to say okay. Well, how can I get control of that? So there's a lot of different things you can do you can turn off notifications You can limit yourself to just sort of checking things twice a day My husband wakes up low like I wake up high I'm a morning person and kind of drift down over the day My husband wakes up low and he realized that he just shouldn't check the news before noon He just wanted to start his day kind of get get on his you know get everything going And then once he was underway, then he would check the news And that and so he had to sort of learn that about his own mental function And I think for a lot of us it's it's thinking okay. How can I change this this experience so that I get the most out of it Um, you do not need to be updated every half an hour You know, it's like nothing's happening that you need to know within a half an hour Or if it is you will know um through some other way than checking twitter Um, there's funny things you could do one thing you could do if you have a smartphone You can change your phone to grayscale so that instead of appearing in color It's in black white and gray and oh boy. It's like watching your grandpa's black of my tv set It's not nearly as much fun to play with your phone when it's in black white and gray um, so I think uh I think part of it is is figuring out um What are the things that I could do? Do I need to like get up and and take my dog for a long walk in the morning to get myself Kind of started with like some sunshine in my face a little physical exercise Is that a time when I really concentrate? So I want to really get my like my serious work out of the day before my household wakes up So I need to like really hold that time very precious for work And so I'm not going to check the news so that I can focus or I need to wake up slow So I like my sister she she wakes up with a coffee cup of coffee and cnn every morning And that she just loves to start her day that way Part of it is just really tuning into our own mental state and creating the circumstances that allow us to be as happy And creative as and healthy as we can be Given these very unusual circumstances that we find ourselves in I think a lot of us right now are spending more time alone with our thoughts and We talk a lot on this show about in order to become better at building relationships You have to raise your own self-awareness and understand yourself at a deeper level And many of us this is the first time we're really confronting some of those thoughts and emotions about ourselves and your book the four tendencies It really outlines these exact things these tendencies that we have how did that come about for you? How did you raise your own self-awareness and and following up on that? How can we use this time to raise our self-awareness? Well, I got my insight into the four tendencies framework When a friend said something very Very kind of typical to me, you know, I've heard many people say something I've heard I'm sure people have said this themselves or heard people say it She said to me I was I am kind of a happiness bully and so if I think there's a way for you to be happier I can kind of get up in your face about it So I was asking her about her happiness habits and she said to me Well, you know the funny thing about me is I know I'd be happier if I exercised and when I was in high school I was on the track team and I never missed track practice So why can't I go running on my own now? And I thought well why it's the same person. It's the same behavior at one time It was effortless now she can't do it. How do you explain that? And then I they noticed other patterns that I couldn't really understand like I would ask people How do you feel about New Year's resolutions because I was writing my book better than before that was all about habit formation So I was very interested in New Year's resolutions And a group of people would say exactly the same thing They would say I will keep a resolution whenever it makes sense to me But I would not do it on January 1st because January 1st is an arbitrary date and they would always say that That's funny because the arbitrariness of January 1st never really bothered me So actually I was thinking about these and other patterns of behavior and trying to understand Were they related to each other? How did they how did they fit together? What did they explain about kind of certain anomalies? I was seeing and How people met, you know kept habits And then finally I stumbled into understanding that the key idea was this idea of expectations Outer and inner expectations and that's what's led me to the four tendencies framework Your discovery of your own tendencies. What was that journey like? I feel like it's a lot easier to see it in others It's often difficult for us to see it in ourselves and when my fiancee Amy read the book She put it down immediately. It was like you're an obliger And I'm like, what are you talking about? And what is she and she's an upholder So a perfect example of what drives her crazy is the seven half open mustard jars in our fridge Because I have every flavor of mustard imaginable for all the different dishes that I'm cooking through quarantine And it drives her crazy that I can't just finish one before opening the next Why do we need seven and I feel for a lot of us recognizing these patterns in others Lot easier than dealing with ourselves. Yeah, well, maybe I should go through all four so we can really get into it I love knowing that you're an obliger. Okay so the four tendencies divides people into holders questioners obligers and rebels And what this looks at is how you respond to expectations And we all face two kinds of expectations Outer expectations like a work deadline or requests from a friend And inner expectations like my own desire to keep a nearest resolution my own desire to get back into meditation So depending on how you respond to outer and inner expectations That's what makes you an upholder a questioner oblige a rebel Now most people I will describe them now and most people know what they are right away They know what the people in their lives are they could do the came of thrones people I could do game of thrones These are very obvious once you hear them, but there is a quiz Quiz dot Gretchen ruben dot com if people just want to be told the answer. It's a very simple quick free quiz Um, so upholders readily meet outer and inner expectations They meet the work deadline they keep the nearest resolution without much fuss They want to know what other people expect from them, but their expectations for themselves are just as important So their motto is discipline is my freedom Then there are questioners questioners question all expectations. They'll do something if if they think it makes sense So they resist anything inefficient arbitrary Unjustified um, if something meets their inner standard, they will do it no problem if it fails their inner standard They will push back. Um, so their motto is I will comply if you convince me why? Then there are obligers like you obligers readily meet outer expectations, but they struggle to meet inner expectations Um, so that explains my friend on the track team when a team and a coach were expecting her to show up She had no trouble showing up when she was trying to go on her own It was a challenge And so what obligers need to keep in mind is they're great at meeting outer expectations If they want to keep inner expectations They have to create a form of outer accountability If you want to read more join a book group if you want to exercise more work out with a trainer Work out with a friend who's going to be annoyed if you don't show up. Think of your duty to your future self Um, take your dog for a run who's going to be so disappointed if he doesn't get to go for a run And he'll tear up the furniture raise money for a charity because you're going to do a charity run You just need that outer accountability to follow through So the motto of the obliter is you can count on me and i'm counting on you to count on me And then finally revels revels resist all expectations outer and inner 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 are very likely to resist And typically they don't like to tell themselves what to do like they don't sign up for like a 10 a.m Webinar on screenwriting on saturday morning because they think i don't know what i When they kind of want to do on saturday morning it's just the idea that i'm supposed to show up some place at some time annoys me um, so their motto is You can't make me and neither can i um Your tendency the obliter tendency is the biggest tendency for both men and women We all either are obligers or we have many obligers in our lives. They are the type o They pair up the most easily with the other tendencies There's a lot of obligers in the world now Listening to that and i know our audience is very analytical a lot of us may hear a bit of ourselves in a couple of those tendencies Is that normal? If you feel very strongly that you are a mix of all of them Then you are probably a questioner because what questioners say to me is well I do whatever makes sense in the situation if I respect you I'll do what you say like so I act like an upholder if I think you're an idiot I'm going to refuse to do what you say because like why am I going to follow some idiot? I'm like, yeah, you're acting like a questioner because your question is why should I that's questioner Questions are also like well, everybody should act like a questioner because that's what makes the most sense And I'm like, but they don't which I'm sure you've noticed is a questioner that people don't act that way all the time Now, of course, all of us have a little bit of you know, all of these all of us Will defer to someone else's needs if it's really important all of us don't want to do something That's totally arbitrary or stupid all of us are a little bit rebel in that we want to be autonomous We want to be self-directed. It's really it's it's so we each have a little bit of this But for most people there really is a dominant tendency That really does explain a lot of the patterns of their behavior For instance, the questioners questioners are often told you ask too many questions If you get that you're probably a questioner Um, you know rebels if you say to somebody, why don't you ever do anything? I ask you to do you're probably dealing with a rebel, you know, so there are ways to tell You know to go along with that when I first got the book I looked at all of the descriptions and I for just Just on a surface level. I thought I was the rebel and I was this was going to be a no-brainer And I just I just thought about just how I go about clothes and music and a lot of things But of course as reading and I was like, oh well I'm I I am the questioner through and through and it's As a questioner My thoughts of well, this is just going to be whatever you want to be during that day When you feel like it and how you answer the questions and it's you can even look at this as Something of astrology where she's write some nice things and some weaknesses about each one And you could sort of gravitate and the more I wanted to prove that the more I was proven wrong that um and And I and I just even the questions as I'm reading it the questions that you were proposing as I was reading the book I had those were already in my head and I was angry that you had it dialled in So well Oh, that's wonderful to hear So anything that you could say in your in your research to To that you had found that really separates these God was For me it was I was so marveled at how such a on the surface of a simple idea could be So well put together And so and so separate Well, thank you very much. I have to say the whole time that I was writing the pretendencies I'm like I cannot be the first person who's noticed this because once you point it out It's very very obvious and it's like and one person is not the other It's like they really they're they're very distinct and it really explains a lot of things that had always kind of made me Curious, for instance, if you study the big five personality Descriptions one of them is conscientiousness now This has always puzzled me when I think about the people that I know because I'm an upholder Which means I readily meet outer and inner expectations So I score very high on conscientiousness, which is not surprising But what puzzled me about the world is that there were many people who to me looked half conscientious they looked split conscientious They would never be late to pick up their kid for carpool But they couldn't go running on their own Or they couldn't like, you know stick to a diet and yet they would never You know like they couldn't make themselves go to the doctor and yet they would never have like let down a patient If they were the doctor So I was like it's funny because they seem 100 conscientious in one way But then like 10 conscious is the other way and that didn't make sense to me as someone who's highly conscientious And and then also when I was writing my book better than before I was I was very excited about writing a book about habits I just thought this was the most delicious fascinating subject of all time Was that a dinner party and I met this woman who now is she was actually one of my like Oh gee rebels because at the time I I didn't even know what a rebel was but this conversation with her like opened my eyes And when I just told her I was writing a book about um habits She literally took a step back for me like in revulsion She was like, why would you want to write a book about such like an awful subject? That's just like who wants to think about habits because she was a rebel who really really didn't like the idea of like constraining herself Um, some rebels love habits, but then often rebels will resist them And so I thought that's interesting because we're having such different reactions to this idea And so it really was just my observation me trying to make sense of things that seemed Very obvious in the world and yet I couldn't figure out how to explain them Um, a lot of times when you read about like habit strategies They'll say well, this works really really well. This is like the 100 way to do it. This is the best way to do it This is the right way to do it now Good 40 of the people just doesn't work for them And I'm like well, okay, but then then you haven't answered the question Which is how does a person change a habit? You can't just be like well my way is the right way And if it doesn't work for you, then there's something wrong with you I'm like well, what about all the other people? Um, so I was really struggling to try to account for How people responded differently and it took me so long to get to this idea of expectations But then that's when it all sort of cracked open and and I remember when I was laying it out It was hard for me if you in my mind It's a Venn diagram with four overlocking locking circles took me a long time I kept trying to do it two by two. It doesn't work as a two by two and I remember when I did it and it was like You know, it was like a fern frond or like, you know, one of these the the the periodic table of the element It was just the it was so perfect and elegant the way nature is like everything was accounted for all of a sudden All these sort of disparate things all of a sudden locked into place and oh my gosh, it was just the most euphoric intellectual moment of my life was when I finally grasped how all these things fit together and almost melted my brain Um, but it was it made me happy when I finally figured it out So you completed the happiness project by figuring out the four tendencies. Yes. Yes, maybe very happy. Yes Now why do you think it's important for us to understand our own tendency? Well, I think when you understand your own tendency, then you don't waste time throwing spaghetti against the wall Like you're an obliger. Obligers need outer accountability. That's what works for them It like if they have outer accountability, they just they can just Do they can cross anything off their list? But a lot of times obligers Beat themselves up and they say I don't understand it Like my husband could just like get up and go for a run every morning. I should be able to do that What's wrong with me and they beat themselves up and they say things like I'm lazy. I have no well willpower. I have no self control I should I why I need to take more time for self-care I need to make myself the priority need to learn to put myself first and I'm just here to say that doesn't work I'm not saying it's not a good idea. I'm just saying that doesn't result in change If if if in fact you say if you're like Instead of trying to go for a run say that you're gonna meet a friend and go for a run or like text a friend and say I'm going now. Are you going your friends like in Austin, Texas? I'm in New York City and if she's like, yeah, I'm yes, I'm going. Are you going and I'm like, okay I have to go because if I don't go she doesn't have to go and I know she really wants to stick to it Um, funnily enough obligers even often need outer accountability even for things that are fun Um to like you said, you know, what if you're putting a lot of pressure on yourself to sort of hold up everybody else or Uh So sometimes the bledgers feel sort of burnt out and resentful for that Well, they need outer accountability even for something like I'm going to sit on the sofa and read for three hours Well I need two sisters in law and they both they both really wanted to get into yoga They knew that would make them happy But they were having a lot of trouble doing it So they made a deal So if I did 30 days straight of yoga My sister-in-law gets a massage If she does 30 days straight of yoga, I get a massage So I can blow off the massage the yoga if I want, but it's my sister-in-law who's going to pay the price So both of them were perfect because they used outer accountability in order to do something that they wanted to do for themselves Which was to do yoga um So, you know, once you real or like if you're um, let's say, uh, you're a rebel and sometimes rebels will say to me How come I can't stick to a schedule? You know people tell me oh sign up for a class and then I do and I go one time and then I never go back Why am I not a real grown-up and I'm like because rebels don't do well with schedules They don't like to they don't like to schedule themselves. They don't like things on their calendar They don't like to do lists. You can make a could do list You can make a might could list You could put slips of paper in a jar with things that you might want to do and you and like everyone So you pull something out of the jar and you do it if you feel like it that works for rebels There's all kinds of workarounds for rebels once you realize there's not that there's anything wrong with me It's just that this approach doesn't suit my tendency Let me try an approach that's more compatible with my tendency And I might find that I have a much easier time sticking to whatever it is that I want is my aim for myself and certainly To to be happier to have that that understanding of what is going to allow you to reach the goals that you've outlined for yourself Is is is is going to be a large part of your happiness and to be able to see how somebody does it And then get frustrated to not think well, I'm not less than this person This has been my friend for years. How is it so easy for them? what I was laughed about so hard on For the weaknesses of the questioner, which was uh It was crackpot and um The other one was analysis paralysis analysis prowess I i'm 46 so in understanding myself so well. I've already created special rules for those two problem areas like what okay, so So for analysis to paralysis There I have a rule that if there's no clear defined right answer then the answer that I choose will be the right one I will put all of my efforts into making that the correct answer So there may not be right or wrong decisions only decisions you make right So that is my rule for that one that gets me through analysis paralysis And for crackpot it is I need to can I use this information in a court of law and not be laughed out of the room? Or can I write a peer reviewed paper on this and not be laughed out? So those are and I've known this about myself and I learned this Late 20s early 30s So those rules were installed for those two problem areas that I had found in my life And they're so pronounced that aj knows these rules because I I state them all the time Well, that's so but see and I think this is a great example of uh a question that people often say which is Well, which tendency is the happiest tendency or which tendency is the most successful tendency or the most productive tendency And what it is it's not that any one tendency is the happiest or the most productive or the healthiest or the most creative or whatever It's the people who have figured out themselves and have figured out. How do I solve my particular limitations? My particular weaknesses And it's like if you're in a blight shirt like a lot of times the blight shirts without realizing it We'll create all kinds of outer accountability because they know they're like I'll do much better if I take a class Why didn't I send up for class or like you knew that you tended to fall into analysis paralysis and and have trouble making decisions Let me come up with a heuristic that's going to allow me to make decisions in an efficient But rational way that's a rational way to solve that problem And so and once you figured it out. Well, then you're fine And so I think those are the people like with age and wisdom. They're the ones who you know, they figure out what it is That that you know, we're like a rebel. It's like maybe you're in a job that doesn't suit your rebel tendency So you've got yourself now you got a job in sales and your boss is like look Anything you need to do to make a sale. Well, that's okay. And you're like, okay I can handle that situation And off you go. And so your rebel tendency then is working for you instead of working against you because you with wisdom You you've got yourself to a place um Where your tendency uh was like harnessed uh for you instead of against you. So I think you're a great example of somebody Intuitively figuring out how to how to fix the issues that come up Even without consciously understanding the labels. Well, that's what's so great about your book It's laid out in plain night and day And so everyone has an opportunity to test those ideas and test those theories For their own happiness. I mean, it's it's great. I just as I said, I just made me laugh that they were Outlined and I was like, oh my god. Those are my two rules There you go Now, have you noticed that certain tendencies tend to pair up when it comes to relationships or forming teams When there is a rebel On whether in like a founding work team or in romance if one person is a rebel almost always the other person is an obliger Um, that is a very very dominant pattern. Um obliger is as I mentioned earlier Is the tendency that tends to pair up the most easily with the other three? Um, but other than that, it's just very there's so many Qualities that make people team up well or fall in love or whatever The tendencies can work But a pairing that typically does not work well Is uh a polder and rebel because they just want to work in a different way. They have different values It's just it's hard for them To get on the same page and stay there because they just their preferences. They're both kind of extreme personality types and um Yeah, they tend not to mesh well. It's a particularly problem with parents and children If you have an upholder or a rebel parent and then upholder or rebel child Uh, that can be tricky, especially people don't know about the tendencies. So they kind of don't understand Where that other tendency is coming from One that a question that I had for this is uh, have you seen a tendency for For the tendencies to marvel or find a different tendency so noble like for myself I always marvel at upholders because how are they so able to set themselves in motion So easily when I have to do all this work in order to make this happen Well, it it is funny how uh the different tendencies are sort of like what's up with those other tendencies and a lot of times It's nice that you admire another tendency because I have to say often it takes the form of like frustration or like, you know eye-rolling Um because questioners are like why are all you people just going along with this like lemmings like This is not satisfactory. We don't know why we're supposed. Why are we listening to this person at all? Why are we doing this this month, you know? So they think other people are not thorough enough and are doing things for no good reason Upholders are just annoyed that other people just like can't like sit down and get stuff done. Yeah, uh Obligers obligers often are very puzzled why Others don't appreciate the weight of expectations that they experience and this can lead to something an obliter is called obliter rebellion And this is when an obliter meets meets meets meets Expectations and then suddenly snaps and says this I will not do and sometimes it's their obliter rebellion is kind of funny Like I'm going to sit in my car and be deliberately late for work which a lot of obliter's do Or it can be like I'm going to end a 30-year friendship. I'm going to I woke up this morning and I decided I'm going to divorce you I'm going to I've had it with you people at this office. I'm walking out the door today Today's my last day. You're dead to me and obliter rebellion happens when obliter's feel ignored or taken advantage of or exploited or unheard And it's meant to blow up a situation that has become kind of um Unsustainably like they just feel so like like a suffocating weight of expectations. So it sort of blows things up So it's meant to be beneficial But obliter rebellion can can cause reputational risk because of the The frustration and the puzzlement of the other tendencies because you say to me Well, I'm quitting because all I I'm the only one in here who does anything I'm on 10 committees and everybody else is only in two committees and I say to you I'm your boss and I asked you if you wanted to be on that committee and you said yes I don't understand why you're so angry. So to the obliter. It's quite obvious How could you expect me to do that? But to the other tendencies? It's like, well, why didn't you say it was too much? and so that disconnect can cause a lot of Friction and so I think think about obliter rebellion is we want to watch out if you're an obliter yourself Or you're dealing with obliter's which all of us are because it's such a big tendency Um for look out for the signs of building anger building resentment the sense that things aren't fair We should look out to make sure that things aren't are fair. Why is one person doing all the unpleasant work travel? Why is one person taking all the night shifts? Why is one person on 10 committees? You know, if you're a manager if you're a co-worker if you're a friend A family member you should help somebody say, you know, this is too much. This isn't right Um, this this needs to be fixed because once a blighter happens I've talked to so many blighters about this once obliter rebellion starts It runs its course. You can't stop it once it starts and sometimes it can be quite quite dramatic um But as I say the other tendencies are often not sympathetic um, and so that's a problem and obviously in conflict Uh, an important part is trying to come to a resolution especially with a spouse or a team member And I'm assuming rebellion is not a good thing. Are there other negative patterns that tendencies These other tendencies show that we need to be aware of Well, yeah, sometimes questioners will just quietly not do something. They're like, uh, I don't you know You're saying everybody in the company has to switch to this new software But yeah, I'm just not going to do that. It doesn't make sense to me. So there's just sort of like quiet refusal That can be that can be very hard to manage Um, obligers often they like they're so busy meeting expectations that sometimes they just allow things to drop Um, in a way that's not it's not like prioritized. It's not like I'm going to do the 10 most important things It's almost kind of seems kind of scattershot from the outside. You have to watch out for that Rebels if you're dealing with a rebel, you always want to emphasize. This is your choice This is what you want This is the kind of person you are and when I deal with rebels because of course I'm always trying to figure out the tendency of everybody I work with I'm always like Hey, if this sounds fun to you and sounds like something that would work for you And would be the kind of thing that would help your platform It would be great if you would think about doing this if you think it's fun If you feel like it whenever you feel like it if you feel like it if it works for you Because I want to emphasize like I'm not telling you what to say rebel told me somebody sent her An email and in the subject line it said please read immediately. So she deleted it without opening it It's like yeah, you're not going to tell me to read something right away. Yeah, you know, um, and so, uh You know when each of the tendencies have so many strengths We all have so much to learn from each other and and we bring so much On to the table and we really compliment each other and so I think it's something that we all want to be aware of You want to make sure that you're not surrounding yourself with people of your tendency just because you sort of get it Because of course Like if you get a whole team of upholders, you're going to have almost no flexibility Right because they're all going to be so just like well, we just have to execute on a plan If you have all questionnaires, it's like, okay, you know, somebody needs you just you need a little bit of everything. Um and uh But if you and and you need to have compassion for what other people um How they might see the world and and and kind of the kind of things that might trip them up And where do you think these tendencies come from and how flexible are they? You know, I'm a big believer in the genetic roots of personality and I do believe that these are hard wired I think you bring them into the world with you, uh for many children their tendency is clear, you know, at like age three or four um And uh, uh, I do as we talked about I think with time and experience people learn how to manage their tendencies But I don't think you're one at 20 and one at 40. I don't think you're one at work and one at home I think if you think that it's probably because like maybe people will say to be something like Well, I'm in a polder at work, but I'm in a blighter at home And I'm like well, it's probably that you're in a polder at work because you have deadlines and supervision and a boss and a team And then at home Well, one of the things I should say about a blighters is often sweethearts and spouses Don't count his outer expectations or outer accountability for a very romantic reason It's like I'm gonna ignore you just like I would ignore me And so okay, I feel completely capable of not doing what my husband asked me to do Or I are not doing the things for myself when he's holding me accountable because he counts as inner inter-accountability Um, so I look like I'm switching between a polder and a blighter, but it's really just the different circumstances Um have kind of elicited a different response for me Um, it is also true that if like if you looked at a Venn diagram of the four tendencies You'd see that each tendency overlaps with two tendencies. So like an oblige you're in a blighter So blighters and I'm in a polder So we have in common that we both readily meet outer expectations because that's part of our definition but a blighter also, uh Overlaps with rebel because they both resist inner expectations So when a blighter can lean to a polder or they can lean to rebel and so that's going to change kind of the flavor of your tendency So even people who are solidly within a tendency might be more or less Kind of leaning towards another tendency that overlaps with their own And How can we outside of giving our spouse our friends our coworkers your quiz to take? How can we start observing these tendencies and others to unlock better communication and harmony? Yeah, if you're trying to people are always like how to if somebody won't take the quiz Or I can't make them take the quiz like how can I tell what they are? Well, here are some clues and again, it's it's not what somebody says. It's how they answer So here are some things to work out watch out for If you find yourself saying to somebody you ask too many questions or they get that a lot That is the sign of questioner If somebody talks about self-care if they talk about make putting making themselves a priority The need to learn to put themselves first or other people say to them like you're a doctor You give 110 percent to your patients You need to like find time to do your own exercise or like you say you can't eat health healthy Because you're you're working a hundred and ten percent for your boss. Okay. That's a blighter. That's a sign of a blighter I mean all outer expectations. There's nothing for me Rebel is you won't do anything. I ask you to do I ask you to do something you do the opposite I know you want to do this anyway, but I remind you to do it Then you don't do it that's a rebel and I don't want to make it sound like rebels Can't be successful or they can't be thoughtful considerate Upstanding highly altruistic high-minded people they absolutely can Because that's who they choose to be and that's what they choose to do They're doing it because that's their identity. That's their choice um you can tell in a polder because um They're the ones that are just like from the time they were in like third grade They fed the fish without anybody reminding them, you know, they they just are very kind of like Self self executing I think is an upholder. No, but a lot of them times it's hard to tell between two like sometimes It's hard to tell between a questioner and an upholder or a questioner and a rebel So if you're trying to decide say between let's say you have a kid who won't do his homework And you're like, well, is this kid a questioner or rebel if the kid is saying Why should I do this dumb book report? This doesn't make any sense. This isn't teaching me anything They're saying why should I that's questioner if the rebel is saying My teacher says she can make me she can't make me. How's she gonna make me do this book report? I don't want to do it. I'm not doing it. That's you can't make me. That's rebel Or or uh, if to the blighter if you feel like the person's gonna follow through if they know that you're watching um, but maybe not if you're not watching And when it comes to traits like perfectionism procrastination Imposter syndrome, do you find that certain tendencies line up with these or can you find them in all of these tendencies? Well, it's interesting about the tendencies because they describe a very narrow aspect of your personality It's a significant aspect But it doesn't like you could have 50 Obligers and they would all be very different on how analytical they were how curious they were how adventurous They were how extroverted they were all these things would be different And really something like perfectionism is about anxiety And impulsivity and or not impulsive and and procrastination is about impulsivity So it's really like how are you dealing with those other things? So if you're a perfectionist, it means that you're very anxious about whether something is going to be good enough Um, so you could be any of the tendencies But if you're very very anxious about your work product that could show up as perfectionism now I would love to have big data because are there associations like do you see certain patterns emerging? More it could very well be But you would need to have just you know giant numbers of people and weighing them against You know all different aspects of their personality um I asked I did a representative sample because questioners always say this I've like 2.8 million people have taken the quiz and this is the percentages and they're like But what about selection bias? I'm like, I know about selection bias. So I did a representative sample Questioner that's why questioners keep us all honest So in my representative sample just for fun just out of curiosity So I'm not saying this is just I just throw this out there for what it's worth I said Have you ever struggled with addiction and I didn't say anything about what is addiction? What are you addicted to and what I've found because many people have proposed to me why Blidgers might be more likely to be addiction like rebels all these things What I found is that all three three were the same But being an upholder tended to make you less likely to say that you had struggled with addiction And when you think about it that makes sense So I could easily imagine that there would be certain kinds of associations that you would see For instance, obligers often have trouble meeting inner expectations That might cause them to feel less self-esteem because if I can't keep my promises to myself That can make me feel bad about myself. Well, that's sort of a natural consequence of being an obliger Without accountability you can you can keep your promises to yourself So it's a fascinating question. I just don't have enough data to answer it And in terms of obviously since the books come out, I'm sure you've heard people unlocking True wisdom changing habits making life change based on their tendencies What have been some of the more exciting stories from people identifying their tendency and changing? Well, one thing is I've heard about a lot of married couples that are getting along better I've heard from a lot of like teachers and doctors who feel like they're much better able to communicate With the way, you know, with what they say So that they're reaching people in kind of in a way that is allowing them to be heard But I think of like all the stories that kind of like, you know Seem most poignant to me As I said, one of the most difficult combinations is when you're having a polder parent and a rebel child or vice versa So my sister and I have a podcast called happier with Gretchen Rubin And this woman wrote in a question and she said I'm in a polder How do I make my five-year-old daughter who's a rebel understand that there's certain things that she just has to do Like she has to wash her hands after she uses the potty And I said, look, she doesn't have to wash her hands after she uses the potty and she's figured that out So unless you plan on standing next to her in the bathroom for the next, you know, 35 years You have to convince her that she wants to do that for her own reasons because of her own identity because of her own choice Because otherwise as a rebel you can't make her do that And so we talked about it on the podcast for a while. Well, the woman wrote back Um after I had talked about identity and talked about choice and all this and she gave what I thought was the most beautiful example So she had taken this little girl to visit the mother's grandmother's house so it was the little girl's great grandmother's house very very elderly frail woman and The little girl was running around wild around this old frail of women and uh, the mother said I realized I I couldn't say to her you have to stop running. I couldn't say to her you have to behave I had to make her decide that that's what she wanted to do So I said to her great grandma is so frail It would be so terrible if she had to go back to the hospital She needs her protectors. Can you be one of her protectors? And the little girl said yes I will be one of her protectors and she quieted down and she held her great grandmother's hand It's like helped her sit down Because it's what she wanted It's what who she chose to be and I thought that moment of transformation because you could imagine that mother saying My daughter is a brat. She doesn't listen. She's selfish. She has no consideration for anybody else The more I tell her to stop running the more she runs around Not understanding how she is contributing to this dynamic the more she tells you what to do the more she's going to resist um But understanding like I just need to speak to her in a way that will reach her and allow her to kind of be the kind of person She wants to be and when she had that choice That's what she chose and so I just thought that was very moving because I just felt like that was sort of a sliding door moment Where you could you could really take it in a completely different direction I could have absolutely seen myself responding in that other way And not getting that happy result And has it changed your behaviors in any way identifying these tendencies? Yes So I married to a questioner and one of the things about questioners is they often don't like to answer questions This is very this is a very striking pattern. It's very annoying to all of us who are not pat questioners I get the irony. We'll leave me. So anyway, my husband's one of these people And so he he just needs to know why so the other day we had this boring bureaucratic for him to fill out and uh as a couple as one does and I I was like, you know what? I'm just going to go ahead and fill this out and get it done I just want to get it like off of our mutual to-do list. So let me just do it Which is why it's nice to be married to an upholder, right? Because they're the ones that are like, let me just get this done So I'm filling it out, but he recently switched jobs. So I didn't know his work address So I called him up and I said, hey, Jamie. What's your work address and what did he say? Why do you want to know and I'm just like why did why is everything a conversation? Like I just want to fill this out. I'm already volunteering my time. It's boring enough already What does this mean about our relationship that you won't just like answer a simple question? But that but that's what I would have thought but now I'm like he just needs to know what If I had said to him, hey, I'm filling out that boring bureaucratic for him What's your work address? He would have told me because it's not that he's a jerk It's not that he's trying to jerk my chain Which is what I thought for a long time, frankly Before I thought he was just trying to like kind of drive me crazy because he thought it was funny No, I'm like he's like this with everybody Not just me. He's like this all the time because he's a questioner And in many ways I benefit from it because as an upholder I'm too likely to do things Too readily and so I'll call him and I'll say, Jamie, do you think I should do this? And he's like, why would you do that? I'm like, good point. Why would I do that? So he saves me a lot of time and energy I gain from it so much having him be a questioner Sometimes it drives me crazy But now I know and so now when I I'll say to him What time are we leaving because I want to know if I have time to go to the gym Because then he'll tell me but like otherwise he won't tell me and people are like your husband literally won't tell you What time you have a brunch reservation and I'm like a hundred percent he will not Because he just doesn't like to answer questions. I don't I can't explain it other than to say It's a questioner thing But if I say to him, hey, I need to schedule an interview. What time is brunch then he'll tell me just needs to know why I'm just hearing that my it's just like well There there is many reasons like what is the root of the question? right there is like There's so many different reasons why you would want to know and We can't go through them all and and some seem to be very nefarious. So why Do we have to play this game? I mean this is the thing once you see where other people are coming from you can be like I get it You know, I just I get it Another example. So I'm in a polder and I was working within a bludger And as a polder, it's like I want to do my work in my way You do your work in your way. I don't want to be your babysitter Like why can't we all just like work do our work? And so I would send emails whenever something occurred to me, you know middle of the night Christmas day Whatever weekends for sure And she never said anything to me directly But I heard indirectly that she was feeling very resentful that she felt like I wasn't respecting work boundaries And she was getting really really annoyed with me She was a very valuable co-worker colleague. And so that mattered to me because I didn't want her to like Be angry So what what do you do? It's like do we go to hr? Do we have to have a sit down and I convince her that I'm right or she convinces me that she's right or we have You know, how do we decide and what I realize is I can use delay delivery in outlook and so I write an email whenever I want and 7 30 in the morning on monday morning. She gets 10 emails from me So she can do her work in her way and I can do my work in my way I can respect what she wants and not contribute to her sense of resentment And I can also work in the way that I like which is if I have an email on my mind I just want to get it out. I don't want to have to like keep it on a to-do list or something Because once I understood that it's not that one of us is right and one of us is wrong and one of us has to convince the other to switch It's just how do we create an environment that works for both of us? And a lot of times that's a lot easier than trying to Argue about who's right and who's wrong. Nobody's right. Nobody's wrong. We just have different preferences Yeah, I certainly after reading the book now understand My fiancee's behavior is better Johnny's behavior is better and and I'm starting to understand my own motivations better Which is pretty exciting. So you've tackled happiness and habits and tendencies. What are you working on next? I'm so excited about what I'm working on now It's a book about the body and the senses and about getting to the mind Uh through the body and so I'm studying the kind of what you would call the five kindergarten senses And then also sort of some additional senses that I think are like add to our sense of the world So I'm learning about things like the wonders of ketchup turns out ketchup is like the reason that it's so popular is it is like a super food Um, but then also things like, you know, very transcendent things like how do we experience time? So it's it's a subject that is just endlessly fascinating. So I'm really excited to be doing that I didn't even know there were extra senses Well, you know, there's there's a lot of uh, there are all kinds of senses that scientists Identify like your sense of balance and you know, they all have your sense of you know There's things like proprioception, but I'm really taking kind of a more poetic sense of the additional senses and calling it things like time and uh pattern Symbol things like that. I'm taking a little bit of license with it. Yeah I'm very excited to to read it when you're finished because I love sensory cues Oh, yeah, and and I've I've just been obsessed with the idea that throughout civilization And philosophy and religion that sensory cues have played a large role in Society coming together being built together around certain symbols and and having that symbol represent an idea It's very fascinating. So that sounds Like a blast of research and Fun writing. Oh, yeah. Thank you. Yes. Yeah, I'm really I'm really loving it And we we thoroughly enjoy the podcast as well. What is the name for our listeners so they can check it out It's called happier with Gretchen Rubin and I my co-host is my sister My sister the sage so yeah, we talk every week about how to be happier healthier and more productive and more creative And now is certainly the time for that. Thank you so much for joining us Gretchen. It's a blast Oh, thank you. I so enjoyed the conversation This week's shout out goes to Nathan Boyer a recent graduate of our core confidence program He took the time to write Johnny and I a beautiful story of his transformation Since joining the course and we thought we'd share it with you. You see when Nathan joined us He was a little socially awkward and reclusive In fact, some of his anxiety was holding him back from even approaching and talking to people And after the first four weeks of the course, we focus on rewriting your story Understanding yourself at a deeper level so you can communicate that with strangers and get more comfortable And he started stretching his comfort zone at the end of the course He says he morphed into celebrity class charisma And he's so excited In fact, his mindset shifted from a place of scarcity and fear to a speedboat filled with curiosity adventure and excitement He's now leaving base camp at Everest and he can't wait to start rewriting that story into something that he's proud of Thank you so much, Nathan for writing that amazing story and sharing it with us And we're so proud of you to learn more about our core confidence program and to become another success story Check out the art of charm.com slash core. That's the art of charm.com slash core to apply today Now if you enjoyed our episode with Gretchen this week's challenge is write up your alley This week, we want you to take Gretchen's quiz at quiz.gretchenrubin.com It's also linked in the show notes and tell us which of those four tendencies you are Johnny's the questioner. I'm the obliger We'd love to hear which category you fall into as always you can write us Give us a shout questions at the art of charm.com Or find us on social media at the art of charm on facebook instagram and twitter And if you enjoy the podcast and you want more specifically of my melodious voice You can follow me on our social the art of charm insta Periscope and youtube where i'm live every weekday morning at 8 30 a.m pst We're talking about self-development concepts and having a little bit of psychology humor to start the day Now if you're new to the show and you want to learn more about what we teach here at the art of charm Listen to our toolbox episodes at the art of charm.com slash toolbox That's where you'll get the fundamentals of networking persuasion and influence As always we have our fantastic free social skills challenge Don't forget to check that out at the art of charm.com slash challenge The challenge is all about improving your networking and connection skills and inspiring those around you to develop a personal and professional relationship with you It's free. It's unisex and it's a great way to get the ball rolling get some forward momentum We'll also send you the fundamentals toolbox that we just talked about This will make you a better connector a better networker and a better thinker the art of charm.com slash challenge Could you do us the entire art of charm team a large favor? Because you go on over to itunes and rate and review this podcast It would really mean the world to aj and i and if you enjoyed it share it with your friends Let them know what you're listening to the art of charm podcast is produced by michael herald and eric mccomery And engineered by sam j and bradley denham at cast media studios. I'm aj and i'm johnny. Have a great week