← 10% Happier with Dan Harris
10% Happier with Dan Harris
How To Handle Dilemmas, Drift, Indecision, and Difficult People | Gretchen Rubin
01:04:18
An avalanche of practical advice and brief (but powerful) life lessons. is a New York Times bestselling author and happiness expert who explores human nature and habits. She’s a highly acclaimed writer, host of the podcast and the founder...
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- [00:00]
Gretchen Rubin
Foreign.
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Dan Harris
This is the 10 Happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hello, my fellow suffering beings. How we doing? I say this all the time, but it bears repeating. One of the hardest parts about self improvement or getting happier or spiritual growth, whatever you want to call it. One of the hardest parts is remembering to do all the smart you hear about on podcasts or read about in books. Remembering to actually do all that stuff because we. We listen to a podcast or we watch a great video or we read a great book and then we go back into our lives and we're just, you know, drifting along on the very powerful habit patterns. I suspect you might relate to this. You get your mind blown by a scintillating conversation or a fascinating reading, but then you get sucked back into the habit patterns of daily life and boom, the wisdom evaporates. In my experience, one of the best ways to counteract this is to have memorable little phrases that capture the wisdom and pop it into your mind just at the moment when you need it. This is a technique that my longtime meditation teacher, Joseph Goldstein uses. He has these little catchphrases like dead end or is this useful? And they become earworms in the most positive sense of that term. They arise in my mind, often at exactly the right moment. So now comes my old friend Gretchen Rubin, who's an author and podcaster and entrepreneur, and she's been on the show a million times and she's got a new book filled with her own aphorisms. In other words, little happiness inducing missiles that you can use in all aspects of your life when you're confronting a dilemma, when you're dealing with a difficult person, when you're experiencing drift or indecision, long way of saying brace yourself for an avalanche of practical and profound wisdom from my friend Gretchen. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Gretchen, she's the host of a podcast called Happier, and she's the author of many, many books, including her newest, which is called the Secrets of Adulthood. In this conversation, we talk about what exactly an aphorism is and why it can be so useful. How to make decisions that lead to a quote unquote bigger life, why you should pay special attention to anything you lie about or hide. The dangers of being indecisive, why offering emotional validation can often be more powerful than offering solutions, why you should pay close attention when people repeat themselves over and over, and much more. Just to say before we dive in, mindfulness and meditation can be great ways to help you figure out how to proceed when you're at a crossroads and have a big decision to make. And if you want to get better at that, we've got a guided meditation specifically tailored to this episode and it comes from our daily Teacher of the Month, Kyra Jewel Lingo. It's only available to paying subscribers over@danharris.com as you may know, we're now providing bespoke meditations for all of our Monday Wednesday episodes. And if you sign up@danharris.com you'll get those and you'll get ad free versions of this show and live video sessions with me where we meditate together and I take your questions. So sign up. Join the party dan harris.com we'll get started with Gretchen Rubin right after this.
- [03:20]
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Dan Harris
I always love it when a company that my family and I are already supporting decides to become a supporter of this show. We have been owners of a Defender for many years. Many, many years. I think four or five years. It's the car my wife drives. It makes me very comfortable knowing that she and our son are moving around in a sturdy, reliable vehicle like the Defender. And it looks really, really cool. It's just a great looking car. It really suits my wife better than it does me, given that she's just cooler than I am. And one of the things that the folks who make the Defender want you to know is that it's really about the spirit of adventure and and healthy risk taking. There's a meetup of people who are in this category. It's called Destination Defender. It's an incredible weekend festival in Port Jervis, New York and it was created for people who embrace the impossible and includes a lot of outdoor activities, live music, chef tastings, and more. It sounds really fun. Join the adventure at Destination Defender May 16th through 18th to learn more, please visit DestinationDefenderUSA.com Gretchen Rubin welcome back to the show.
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Gretchen Rubin
I'm so happy to be talking to you, Dan. It's always so fun.
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Dan Harris
The feeling is mutual, I think. I don't know that this is true, but I think you may be the person who's been on this show the most.
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Gretchen Rubin
Really? That's exciting.
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Dan Harris
If it's not you, you're like tied with Sharon Salzberg and Joseph Goldstein or something like that, and I believe you may have been second guest or third guest of all time at the beginning.
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Gretchen Rubin
Wow. You've been in this business a long time, Dan.
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Dan Harris
Well, we both have.
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Gretchen Rubin
Yeah. We both have. Yeah.
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Dan Harris
Okay. Well, congratulations on your new book. I'm going to ask you a really basic question to start here. What is an aphorism?
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Gretchen Rubin
Well, yeah, the book is called Secrets of Adulthood because nobody knows what an aphorism is. So an aphorism is a brief, like a sentence or two, general insight about human nature that is attributed to a person. So. So we all know about proverbs, like, when the student is ready, the teacher appears, or you can't push a rope, or a stumble may prevent a fall. That's folk wisdom that we pass around with an aphorism. You know, that Mark Twain said it, or Oscar Wilde said it, or Dolly Parton said it, or Montaigne said it. It's something that's attributed to a particular person. And so I wanted to write my own.
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Dan Harris
We'll get into your aphorisms and why you wanted to write them as a modality for living life better. Why are aphorisms useful?
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Gretchen Rubin
Well, I think because they're concise, they stay in the brain better, and they kind of clarify our thinking because they are so crystallized, they're so condensed. You know, it's hard to have a thought and to say it very concisely. You really have to get that clarity. And then it's just easier to remember it runs through your mind. And maybe you disagree with an aphorism. Often that's the fun of an aphorism, is if you disagree with it, even that brings more clarity to your thinking. Many famous aphorisms are from the Buddha or attributed to. Because there is something. Like when something is expressed very concisely, it lands harder in our minds. It just. It sticks with us better, influences our thoughts better.
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Dan Harris
I completely agree. I'm gonna give you a somewhat long response here, but my meditation teacher, a guy, you know, Joseph Goldstein, teaches in phrases, or he calls them phrases, but they are aphorisms, some of them his, some of them ones that he has appropriated from others. As he once said to me when I was sheepishly confessing to stealing a lot of stuff from him in my own public utterances, he said, we're part of a lineage of thieves.
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Gretchen Rubin
Oh, nice.
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Dan Harris
Which is a very nice framing. And I find that with Joseph's phrases, again, either of his own coinage or those he has borrowed from others, and they actually surface in my mind at the exact right moment. All the time. And similarly with, as I've been reading yours and we're going to talk about them, they have been surfacing in my mind. I'll give you an example. One of the aphorisms we're going to talk about is how I don't have the exact verbiage in front of me, but the importance of when somebody recommends a TV show or sends a podcast to you, you should watch or listen to it, because it is really a form of not only respect, but of deepening a relationship. And just this morning, a friend of mine, another meditation teacher, Seben A. Selassie, sent me a two hour podcast on the history of astrology, a subject in which I have very limited interest. And at first I was like, I'm not going to listen to this, but now I'm going to listen to it because your aphorism surfaced just at that moment.
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Gretchen Rubin
And I think we've all had that experience where you read a line or two or somebody says, maybe even just an offhand remark, or you encounter an idea somewhere and all of a sudden it's like you see the world more clearly, you understand how should move forward. Like, it's so exciting when you have that. And also when people recommend, when they're, when they're basically saying, like, I'm thinking of you. I think this is something that you'll find interesting when we say, oh, okay, I'm going to follow up on that. It is a way to deepen a relationship. Yeah.
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Dan Harris
Staying at a high level. Before we dive into your aphorisms that I specifically want to talk to you about, one of the riffs I often go on, one of the raps I often find, you know, coming out of my mouth and when I'm in front of a microphone is that I think among the hardest, if not the hardest part of learning how to do life better, getting happier, whatever, is remembering all the smart shit you read or heard. And it seems like aphorisms go right at that. They're like earworms in the best possible way.
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Gretchen Rubin
That is a great analogy. Yes. It's like, how do you get that earworm so that it pops up and helps you to kind of move forward in the right way at the right time. But I'm curious, what are some of the ones that have stuck with you from the teaching phrases?
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Dan Harris
Well, I'm laughing a little bit because, as you know, because we've talked about it a lot offline, I've gone through the last couple of years a very hard business separation. I used to have A meditation app. And I don't anymore. And that's been very, very difficult. And I can, because of my conditioning, probably as a. Or maybe as part of being a man, I can revert to kind of angry inner diatribes, which are often, frankly, unfair, because it took two to tango here. It's not like this was somebody else's fault. I was part of the situation. And there are two phrases that Joseph has directed me to drop into my mind when I'm like, delivering some glorious expletive filled speech to some counterparty or another. One of them is dead end. Like, you know, I've gone down this road a million times. There's nothing. A dead end.
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Gretchen Rubin
So that truly is just a phrase. Yeah, dead end.
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Dan Harris
Dead end. So it's not so much an aphorism. And the other is love no matter what, which is going to sound a little bit like a kind of recipe for being a doormat. But Joseph means it in the sense that you should understand that everybody is just acting out their conditioning, including you. And if you came out of the womb of whatever person you're disagreeing with currently, you would probably be doing the same shit they're doing because of the causes and conditions that are driving all of us all the time. And so love as a form of understanding, love no matter what. So that's the other phrase I drop into my head.
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Gretchen Rubin
Interesting. It is true that if you just runs through your mind like an earworm, then you can remember it at the right time. Because as you say, like so often, I mean, even things that I really love to do or want to do, I'll just sort of forget about them for months on end. I have all kinds of ways that I remind myself of my aims for myself. Because otherwise, because you're like, how can you just forget? And yet you get distracted. It falls to the bottom of the list and somehow months have passed and it's forgotten. So, yeah, I think that anything that helps us really get right back in focus is very useful.
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Dan Harris
Other than aphorisms, what are the other ways that you remind yourself of your aims?
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Gretchen Rubin
Okay, I talk about this a lot on the happier podcast with my sister, but every year, based on the year, just for fun, I'll make a list of 20 things I want to do that year. So it's called 25 for 25 or 26 for 26 or whatever. So I'll make a list of things that I want to do, because again, it's like I might just forget to do it if I don't write it down. And so then I'll check on that periodically. Like, halfway day, which is halfway through the year. It's like, that's one of the times where I pull out my list and remind myself, if something's important to me, I'll often do it every single day. Because I maybe strangely, find it easier to do something every day than to do it some days. So, like, in 2025, I'm doing watercolo every single day. Except I did take two weeks off because we got a new puppy. And I'm like, okay, this is just gonna melt my brain. I have to have Taffy time for the puppy. Take two weeks off. Because I'm like, if I don't do it every day, I'm afraid that it might just drift away from me because it's. You wanna do it most days, but then you do it some days, and then you do it sometimes, and then you do it a few times, and then you don't do it at all. So for me, like, doing something every day is a really good way to make sure that it stays in the uppermost of my mind. And I often pick a theme for the year. One year it was salt, and one year it was bigger. And then this year, it's door, because my younger daughter left. And I'm kind of rebranding the empty nest phase as the open door phase. And we also, my husband and I, as you know, Dan, bought a lake house. And so we have a new door. We have a new puppy. Like, we have all this kind of coming and going. And so my theme is door, because door is a word of transition. It's a word of hospitality, and it's a word of leaving and returning.
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Dan Harris
Can we do a brief digression on Taffy, your new dog?
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Gretchen Rubin
Oh, yeah. Let's do it. Taffy. Yes. My daughters manifested this dog. I was happiness bullied. My husband and I into getting this dog. They just made this dog happen by sheer force of will. But we love her, and she is wonderful.
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Dan Harris
Okay, well, so that's my question. Your sister sometimes calls you a happiness bully. Your sister, who's the co host on your podcast, which is called Happier. And you got happiness bullied into adopting Taffy.
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Gretchen Rubin
Yes.
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Dan Harris
Are you happier?
- [13:52]
Gretchen Rubin
It's interesting, right? Because one of my secrets of adulthood is happiness doesn't always make us feel happy. And one of the things about Taffy is it is a lot more work. She's a puppy, so you kind of have to watch her every minute. Both my husband and I had forgotten about this puppy. Phase where, like, you can't just say, like, oh, I'm gonna be gone for nine hours today. And you're gonna be gone for nine hours, too. And we'll. You know, our older dog is very chill, and he's got his whole routine worked out. And so we have this feeling of being much more tied down than we did. And, you know, and there's all the frustration of training. And it's never the dog's fault. It's your fault. So we gotta figure. We've been bickering a lot because he's like, you just keep telling me I'm doing it wrong. You're being very critical. And I'm like, yes, that's true, but you are doing it wrong and all that kind of thing. But my daughters, they did. They've quoted my own words back to me. They're like, oh, you know that it'll bring so much happiness into our life. And it'll be, you know, the atmosphere of growth. And it is true that all the research shows that, like, having a dog tends to make people happier, also makes them healthier, just because they even get more exercise. I said to my daughters, like, well, I really wanted to have, like, a big family adventure trip. I don't know what that would even be this summer. And my daughter said, having Taffy is a bigger adventure than any trip could ever be. And I thought that that was really true, like having. Having another dog. And she is so cute. And we, like, send pictures back and forth, and everybody's reporting on, like, the adorable things she did. And. And I'm actually. My next book is going to be about the empty nest, which, again, I'm calling the open door phase. Cause I don't like empty nest. But. But one of the things in it is, like, do you have an atmosphere of growth in your life that things are growing or, like, building and getting bigger? Do you have that feeling in your life? And it is definitely true. It has added so much to our lives already. Yeah.
- [15:32]
Dan Harris
Just to get back to Taffy for a second. Because it does lead to another aphorism. And again, I'm going to screw up the exact verbiage here, but something about when you're at a crossroads, you say, make the decision that will lead to a bigger life.
- [15:45]
Gretchen Rubin
Yes. And that is exactly what we did with Taffy. Because, well, originally with my dog, Barn and me, I couldn't decide because my daughters were begging for a dog. My husband was like, fine. But I was like. It seemed so perfectly balanced to me. The pros and the cons. But then when I said, well, let's choose the bigger life, it was instantly clear to me that for our family, the bigger life was to get the dog. And for another family, it might have been not to get a dog, because you have more money, you have more freedom, you have more spontaneity, less responsibility. But for us, it was the bigger life. And the same thing with Taffy. Again, my daughter's begging for the dog. My husband was like, yeah, it could be fun to have a second dog. And again, I was like, okay, but we already have one dog. On and on and on. And then I thought, well, let's choose the bigger life. And again, the bigger life for our family was to get the dog.
- [16:31]
Dan Harris
Okay, so now we're in aphorism territory, firmly. So let's go through some of the aphorisms that I want to talk about from your book. Just to say the book is divided up into five sections with different types of aphorisms for each section. The five are self relationships, making things happen, including at work, confronting life's dilemmas. And then there's a whole section called Simple Secrets of Adulthood.
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Gretchen Rubin
Those are the ones that are not transcendent, you know, are kind of like bigger ideas. They're more like hacks, because I can't resist a hack. So the last section is just the hacks.
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Dan Harris
I love a hack, too. And we'll get to them. Let's go. In order, though, let's start with the self, cultivating the self. I'm just gonna read some of these often at random, and get you to hold forth. The first one that comes to mind is we should pay special attention to anything we lie about or try to hide.
- [17:23]
Gretchen Rubin
Yes. Okay. So a lot of these came out of specific moments in my life. Either something like a conversation I had with somebody or something that I read or something that I saw that made a big impression. And this one, I started thinking about this after a friend of mine said we had little kids then. And she said, oh, my pediatrician asked me how many hours a day my children watch tv, and I lied. And the thing that's interesting about this is, like, she lied because her actions were in conflict with her values. Because if she deeply believed, and some people believe, like, it doesn't matter, let them watch as much TV as they want, that's fine, because then she wouldn't have lied because there wouldn't have been any reason not to just tell the truth. But she lied because there was something that was out of sync with her values. Another guy I was talking to. He was saying, somebody said, how often do you ride your bike to work? And he gave an answer. And then he said to me later, but, like, actually, I've only ridden my bike, like, once or twice or maybe three times. And I'm like, okay, probably that means once, because. But I lied because I really liked the idea of myself as riding the bike to work every day. And so, again, his actions didn't reflect his values. And so the fact is, like, when we catch ourselves in these lies, it's like, well, this is really good information. Because in some way, your values are not aligned with your actions. And so one thing you can do is you could say, like, well, this is just an idea of a fantasy self. I have this fantasy of myself is somebody who's going to ride the bike every day and look, that's just not me. And give up the fantasy self. Or you could say, look, I really want to be the kind of person who rides the bike to work every day. So let me become that kind of person in the most simplest and straightforward way, which is by riding my bike to work every day. You could do either thing, but because you're deceiving, it's a tell that something's out of whack.
- [19:05]
Dan Harris
So you don't have to kick your own ass for noticing that you've been insufficiently truthful. You should view it as a kind of divining rod, pointing to attention in your life that requires attention.
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Gretchen Rubin
It's information. Yeah.
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Dan Harris
Here's another from what I believe to be the self section. One day now will be a long time ago.
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Gretchen Rubin
I find that very reassuring. And it's kind of back to the truth that you were talking about, Dan, that, like, we want to care deeply, but we also want to not care. It's like we want to recognize the urgencies of now, but also to remember that now will be a long time ago. It also makes me appreciate now more because I always want to say to myself, like, remember whatever experience I'm experiencing in the moment, but feels like, well, this is just the way it's going to be forever. But I know now, because of time and experience, that that is absolutely not true. So I should really appreciate now. One of the things that I did as an exercise along these lines is I made something called the album of now. Like, two years ago now, I think I just went around and took pictures of now. I took pictures of every room in our apartment. I took pictures of what was in our fridge and pantry. I took pictures of our street. I Just wanted to have a picture of, like, what do things look like now? Because I realize now when I look back on pictures, say, from my childhood, I'm not interested in seeing my family in front of the Eiffel Tower. I'm like, what did my bedroom look like? What did our kitchen look like? It's, you know. Oh, I remember those shoes. Because it feels like now is boring. Now is so ordinary. I could never forget now, but one day now will be a long time ago. And it's also reassuring because if, like, things seem really bad now, you're like, well, this too shall pass.
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Dan Harris
Yes. No. I love that. I sometimes think about, if I woke up in my bed and in seventh grade, would I know what to do?
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Gretchen Rubin
What do you mean?
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Dan Harris
Like, would I know, like, what my life was like then and how. What time my classes were or how to talk to my parents or, oh.
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Gretchen Rubin
Freaky Friday for yourself? Right?
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Dan Harris
Yes. Yes. Can you inhabit your current life with that spirit to reanimate everything?
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Gretchen Rubin
Yes, exactly. Well, it's interesting. I was talking to a friend of mine who's a novelist, and she writes children's and young adult novels. And I was like, when I read your books, I'm so much back in that way of thinking. And how do you remember it? And she said, I remember it so well. I can go back to any year of my life. And I know what my worries were, who my friends were, what music I listened to, like, what I wanted to do on the weekends. Like, she just has such a recall of that. And I don't have that at all. I call that, are you a movie person or a snapshot person? Because movie people have, like. They have the ongoing movie, but I just have, like, a few intensely vivid snapshots. But they stand out against kind of nothingness. And so I'm always trying to find ways to help myself remember to jog my memory and to, like, try to leave myself information for later so that I can remember the past. And I really envy that because, like, she could drop right back into seventh grade. But I feel like I'm with you. I'm like, what? What? What's going on? It's confusing to think about what that would have been.
- [22:07]
Dan Harris
Like, you and I were speaking at some event together a couple months ago, and you said that whole movie versus snapshot thing, it stuck with me because I'm definitely a snapshot person, too. Let me give you another. It might be an aphorism, it might be a proverb, because I actually don't know who said it, but it seems apropos to the one day now will be a long time ago aphorism from you. These are the good old days.
- [22:30]
Gretchen Rubin
Yes. Right? Yes. I think that's a proverb because I also have heard many people say it. But that's true. That's true. I had a neighbor say it to me just a couple years ago. She's like, just remember, these are the good old days. I'm like, yes, you're right.
- [22:46]
Dan Harris
Coming up, Gretchen talks about why offering emotional validation can be more powerful than offering solutions when somebody's complaining to you about something. A lesson I've learned the hard way, why you should pay close attention when people repeat themselves over and over. Another lesson I've learned the hard way. The argument against task sharing in romantic partnerships, and much more. I always love it when a company that my family and I are already supporting decides to become a supporter of this show. We have been owners of a Defender for many, many years. I think four or five years. It's the car my wife drives. It makes me very comfortable knowing that she and our son are moving around in a sturdy, reliable vehicle like the Defender. And it looks really, really cool. It's just a great looking car. It really suits my wife better than it does me, given that she's just cooler than I am. And one of the things that the folks who make the Defender want you to know is that it's really about the spirit of adventure and healthy risk taking. There's a meetup of people who are in this category. It's called Destination Defender. It's an incredible weekend festival in Port Jervis, New York and it was created for people who embrace the impossible and includes a lot of outdoor activities, live music, chef tastings and more. Sounds really fun. Join the adventure at Destination Defender May 16th through 18th to learn more, please visit DestinationDefender USA. This episode is brought to you by Choiceology, an original podcast from Charles Schwab. It's hosted by Katie Milkman, an award winning behavioral scientist and author of the best selling book how to Change. Choiceology is a show about the psychology and economics behind our decisions. I can say personally that I 1 million percent vouch for Katie. She is an incredible scientist. She's done so much work that informs what we now know about how to make behavior change or habit change in our own lives. She's been a guest on this show. She's not only incredibly smart and accomplished, but also really warm and a great speaker who's able to articulate complex and important ideas in simple ways on the show, which again is called Choiceology. You'll hear true stories from Nobel laureates, authors, athletes, and everyday people about why we do the things we do. You can listen@schwab.com podcast or wherever you're listening to this podcast. The next section. This one is about facing the perplexities of relationships. I love so many of these, but I'll start with this one. We make people happier by acknowledging that they're not feeling happy.
- [25:36]
Gretchen Rubin
This was a really hard one for me to learn because I do have kind of a happiness bully, fix it tendency and kind of look on the bright side. It's not so bad. Like, okay, you're not afraid of clowns. You always have fun at these things, that kind of thing. And, you know, I finally noticed, like, this does not work. It actually makes people feel worse because then they feel like they have to insist on their feelings because you're denying their feelings. It just doesn't make them feel better. It's like telling somebody to calm down almost never works, right? But when you say things like, well, that sounds really frustrating, or, wow, that really hurt your feelings, or I remember one of my daughters took an exam and in the middle of it, sort of misread a chart, had no idea what to do, totally freaked out, had just like a huge reaction. And I said, wow, it really sounds like you got really got jangled nerves in the middle of that exam. I remember it because it was like, never have I felt that I said the perfect thing because she was like, yes, jangled nerves. And it was like that framed it in a way that she's like, yeah, it wasn't such a big deal. My nerves got jangled, you know, because instead of trying to convince her that she hadn't had this feeling or that nothing had happened, I was just trying to help her just say, like, I get it. Yeah, I know what it's like. You're in an exam and you get jangled nerves because you don't know what you're looking at. The impulse to say, like, it's no big deal, or cable guys never come when they say they're going to come. I don't understand why you're so frustrated. You know, it's just like, no, it sounds like it was really frustrating, like you wasted your whole morning and they never showed up. That is just such a bummer. It's like, that's much more satisfying.
- [27:10]
Dan Harris
I will never forget right here on the show interviewing Brene Brown, talking about how to deal with her kids when they were upset and she said, the thing she says to them is, I can't fix it, but I can sit in the dark with you.
- [27:23]
Gretchen Rubin
Yes.
- [27:25]
Dan Harris
You know, it's like people just want to feel validated, not corrected. It's. There's a kind of invalidation when you rush to the fix.
- [27:33]
Gretchen Rubin
Right, right. Well, and even it kind of in a smaller way that sounds like was something that's a big issue, but something that I really love that I did when my K were really little. And this is an idea I got from my all time favorite parenting book, but it actually, it's aimed at like the parents of really little kids. But all of the advice is just as useful with like your boss or your mother in law or whatever. It's just like universally good advice. And one of them was give them their wish and fantasy. So if somebody's like, oh my gosh, we're out of eggs, but I really feel like having eggs today. And you're like, I wish that I were Glinda and I could wave a wand and you would have all the eggs you wanted. Because a lot of times you just want to know that somebody's like, I get it.
- [28:11]
Dan Harris
Yeah.
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Gretchen Rubin
I'm here with you. I understand. I wish that I could, but I can't. I wish that I could make it snow two feet and then you could go sledding all day long, but it's raining instead of snowing or whatever it is. Yeah. Sitting with you in the dark is much more profound.
- [28:27]
Dan Harris
What we're pointing at here. What you're pointing at here, I think is, in my experience, kind of the skeleton key to interpersonal excellence, which is. Is the understanding that what people want, whether they know it or not, is to be understood.
- [28:42]
Gretchen Rubin
Yes.
- [28:43]
Dan Harris
And that is related.
- [28:45]
Gretchen Rubin
Or even to be heard and being. And you're trying to understand.
- [28:48]
Dan Harris
Yes.
- [28:49]
Gretchen Rubin
Even if you haven't gotten there yet.
- [28:51]
Dan Harris
Correct.
- [28:51]
Gretchen Rubin
Yes.
- [28:52]
Dan Harris
I totally agree with that. Correction. It does lead to another aphorism, which is we know what matters to people when they repeat themselves.
- [29:00]
Gretchen Rubin
Yes. Yeah. Right. When somebody tells you a story over and over, you're like, I always am like, oh, that's interesting. Why is that? The story they're telling. It's often very interesting, that.
- [29:13]
Dan Harris
And often when I hear people making a point over and over again, I realize I haven't acknowledged it.
- [29:20]
Gretchen Rubin
Yes. This is like, make people happy by acknowledging that they're not feeling happy. That's exactly right. Because if you don't acknowledge it, they'll just keep repeating it over and over because they need you to acknowledge it. But then if you acknowledge it, then they can move on. Exactly, exactly. For some reason we find this counterintuitive, even though it shouldn't be counterintuitive, because it never works to just deny and deflect, but that the impulse is real.
- [29:45]
Dan Harris
Well, I think it's counterintuitive because we're all in our own movies, so I'm pursuing my own agenda. I'm not fucking thinking about your agenda. And so. But I should be, because actually if I think about your agenda, my agenda will be better able to achieve my agenda. But there is a small mindedness that is very easy to fall into that I personally have fallen into many, many times.
- [30:06]
Gretchen Rubin
Well, and I also think, and a lot of the secrets of adulthood are about this, is that you can't help but think that other people see the world the way you do and that they're framing things the way you're framing them, and they're responding to them more or less the way you would respond to them. Whereas in fact, just like you can't smell your home the way a guest smells it, they could be having a completely different experience. They could be sizing up a situation in a completely different way. And so much of what I do in kind of my study of happiness and human nature is really to understand, like there are movie people and Snapchat people. And so when somebody's telling you about their experience, it's not to say, you're right, I'm wrong, you're better, I'm worse, or whatever. It's just to say, this is interesting. People see they're coming to this with just a very different mind and just understanding that just because something's true for me doesn't mean that it's true for somebody else. I used to be really bad about this. Like, I'd be like, everybody should just get up early and do what's important to them first thing in the day, and if you can't do it, you should just go to bed earlier. That's just such bad advice. That's just not true. You know, 30% of people are night people and it's largely genetically determined and a function of age. So this idea that you're just gonna make yourself be completely different, it's like, no, here's a great example. Just again, digression, because I think this is the most amazing thing. I was talking to somebody who, she was the host of a morning talk show, which she did virtually, and it was really hard for her because she had to get up really early in the morning to do It. And then she moved to Europe. She solved her morning problem by going to a different time zone. Now she has a very leisurely morning because everything happens six hours later. You know, her show, she has to do her work at the show at the same time, but it's much later in her day. And I was like, okay, that is thinking outside of the box of dealing with your chronotype. For sure.
- [31:47]
Dan Harris
I love that. I wish I could have done that when I worked for Good Morning America.
- [31:50]
Gretchen Rubin
Well, I know you. What time did you get up? You had that super punishing morning slot.
- [31:56]
Dan Harris
3:45 in the morning.
- [31:58]
Gretchen Rubin
I mean, that is rough. That is rough. I mean, imagine how different it would have been if you could have done that at 7:45. If you were getting up at 7:45 and your show had gone live at the same time.
- [32:08]
Dan Harris
Yeah, it would have been great. I would have enjoyed it.
- [32:10]
Gretchen Rubin
Yeah.
- [32:11]
Dan Harris
Here's another aphorism that relates to relationships, but relationships broadly understood very in a capacious understanding of the term relationships. And it's also very Buddhist. Here it is. I admire nature, and I'm also nature. I resent traffic, and I am also traffic.
- [32:31]
Gretchen Rubin
Yeah. I mean, often we're part of it. For good or for ill. Yes. I am traffic. I am nature.
- [32:38]
Dan Harris
It speaks to the permeability of the self.
- [32:44]
Gretchen Rubin
Yes.
- [32:44]
Dan Harris
You know, we've been talking about this. Like, we feel separate from the universe, but we are the universe. We're made up of atoms from exploding stars. And all the ideas coursing through our heads, of course, are influenced by or injected by the outside culture. And so there's something really profound about the impersonality and interdependence that this aphorism points to.
- [33:10]
Gretchen Rubin
Well, and then there's a related one which is also that. And I can't remember exactly how I worded it, but it's like we're often part of the problem that we deplore. So it's like the tourist who's saying, like, well, all these tourists are just ruining this place. I reject tourists. I am tourists.
- [33:24]
Dan Harris
Yeah, exactly.
- [33:25]
Gretchen Rubin
Exactly.
- [33:27]
Dan Harris
All right, let's move to section three, which deals with life's dilemmas. The aphorism I'll start with here is the person who works the hardest isn't necessarily doing the best work. Say more.
- [33:39]
Gretchen Rubin
I mean, I have to remind myself of this secret of adulthood all the time. That just because I'm working really, really hard or putting in a lot of hours or grinding it out does not mean that my work is the best or that I'm Making the biggest contribution. Sometimes it can be very startling and kind of annoying when you think you're doing all this work and then somebody kind of marches in, does one or two things, and sets everything to rights. And you think, but I've been working so hard. But that doesn't mean you're doing the best work. And so I'm always trying to figure out not to replace just the grind, not letting that take away from really thinking about what is the essential thing that should be done and to give credit for it. Because sometimes people do something that looks so easy, but you're like, yeah, but if they can do it, nobody else can do it, or nobody else thought to do it, then their contribution is enormous.
- [34:35]
Dan Harris
This can be the source of a lot of tension on work teams.
- [34:39]
Gretchen Rubin
A lot of tension, for sure, because some people think, I've been doing the hardest work, I've been doing the most unpleasant work, I've been doing the most work, therefore my contribution is the greatest. And it's like, well, maybe, but maybe not.
- [34:51]
Dan Harris
There's also the dynamic that I talk about a lot, or I don't want to take credit for this, actually. It's Tony Magyar, the CEO of my team, one of the things that she talks a lot about is that there's a lot of invisible work that happens by which she means invisible to me at the top of the food chain in this company. And this is a bit of a digression again, because not necessarily totally on point with the aphorism, but it's a thing. As a leader, I have really tried to attune myself to, well, this is.
- [35:23]
Gretchen Rubin
One of the things I love about aphorisms is they will often inspire other thoughts or kind of like adjacent or you're trying to think of illustrations. And so I think they spark ideas just in that way. And I think a hundred percent, you're right. Another secret of adulthood is the sharing of tasks often leads to the shirking of tasks. And the way it connects with your observation is that when they look at shared work, work teams, or married couples, research shows that if you ask people, what percentage do you contribute? And you add it all up, It'll be like 167%. Because everybody thinks they're contributing more to the total than they are. And that makes sense because we're very aware of what we're doing. But like you say, what other people do is often invisible to us. And also we tend to do the work that we think matters. And maybe we think other things don't really matter. Like, I don't really care about air conditioning. Jamie, my husband, cares deeply about air conditioning, so he does everything related to air conditioning. But I'm like, well, that's not really that big a deal. But actually, for the height of summer and we had no air conditioning, I think I would be persuaded that his contribution was very significant. We just do have this tendency to overweight our own contribution and not understand, as you say, if you're at the top, you literally do not realize, like, oh, well, actually, the schedule, the substack, these 10 steps have to happen. You don't realize that that's necessary or that that's part of it, or that if you make a sudden change at the last minute, why, that might have a downstream complication for somebody else because you're just not attuned to it. So, yeah, I think it's really important to remember, like, you don't know what you don't know, you don't see what you don't see exactly.
- [36:52]
Dan Harris
What are the practical implications of the aphorism about shared tasks being synonymous with shirked tasks?
- [37:01]
Gretchen Rubin
I'm very much in favor of assignments and not sharing tasks, and certainly not, like, volunteering for tasks because it can lead to so much conflict. And the funniest example of this is, like, now it's not so much a thing because so many people work from home or they're in a hybrid work place. But my favorite thing in the world to do is to go to an office kitchen and just observe and, like, read the signs. Because there is so much about human nature. I feel like I could write a coffee table book or a PhD thesis about the deep secrets of human nature that are revealed in the office kitchen. And one of the places is like, how do we load and unload the dishwasher? Right? Because a lot of people are like, well, just if it's full, empty it. And, like, if your dishes are dirty, put them in the dishwasher. And I'm like, this isn't going to work because some people aren't going to do it, and some people are. And the people who do it are going to get resentful, and they're not going to understand why the people who don't do it and the people who don't do it are like, this is not my job. My job is to be a salesperson. If I'm making sales, that's how I support the company. Any minute that I'm doing unloading a dishwasher is a minute that I'm not making a sale. And that's not good for any. So everybody, like you say, everybody from their own point of view has a reason that why they do make sense. If you want the dishwasher to be unloaded, loaded and loaded, like, make it somebody's job. Like, say, this is part of your responsibility, do it. Or figure out some way to do it. But if you're just like, let's all just share in this task, we're pretty good at thinking of reasons why, well, today I'm not going to step up. Or we step up all the time, cover for other people, and then get bitterly resentful. Sharing of tasks tends to lead to shirking of tasks.
- [38:34]
Dan Harris
But aren't some tasks inevitably inexorably shared? Like Kathy, for example?
- [38:40]
Gretchen Rubin
No, but instead of saying like, okay, on Saturday afternoon, let's both take care of her. In which case both of us are like trying to sneak off and leave the other one holding the bag. It's more like, okay, how about I take the morning shift and you take the afternoon shift just to be on duty? And then it's like, okay, you need to run out to the grocery store or something. Like, I can deal with it. But at least in my observation, it's often easier to just know that something is, it's your responsibility right now rather than expecting people to just sort of chip in, step up. It just, often it's, they're shirking. Maybe not everybody's shirking, but that probably means that somebody else is over compensating, like overworking. Yeah, and that's not fair. And then often that will lead to resentment. But even if it doesn't, it's not really fair. But you can dispute this. That's an aphorism. You may disagree. You may say, I don't believe that sharing of tasks leads to shirking of tasks. And that's great. Then I have room in the back for your own secrets of adulthood. You could write a secret of adulthood about that. This is just what I've learned. But I am not infallible for sure. So that's one where people might disagree.
- [39:48]
Dan Harris
Okay, well, here's an aphorism that may be slightly apropos. The opposite of a profound truth is also true.
- [39:54]
Gretchen Rubin
Well, I think that's very Buddhist. The union of opposites. Or maybe not, I don't know. You know that much better than I do. Is that accurate? To say that that the opposite of a profound truth is also true is.
- [40:05]
Dan Harris
A Buddhist idea in later stage Buddhism, Mahayana Buddhism, about which I don't know that much. There's this talk about emptiness and form being opposites, but also complimentary. And I don't know enough to even explain what that means. So maybe it is a Buddhist idea.
- [40:25]
Gretchen Rubin
Well, okay. I've just often seen that both can be true, that two things can be true at the same time. The ideas can be intentional, but both are true. So, like, to take a proverb that we all know out of sight, out of mind, and absence makes the heart grow fonder. Both are true. And a lot of my secrets of adulthood are like that. Like, love is unconditional and love is demanding. Love accepts you just as you are, and love expects the best from you. Or for ourselves, we want to accept ourselves and expect more from ourselves. Both are true. Hell is other people. That's Sartre famous line. But heaven is other people. Both are true. Yeah. So I think it's often interesting to think of, like, well, could the opposite be true?
- [41:11]
Dan Harris
Okay, so I didn't fully understand you until you just explained. And so I do think it's a Buddhist thing. What you're pointing to, if I understand you correctly, is the power of paradox.
- [41:22]
Gretchen Rubin
Yes. And the aphorism is often. And like Oscar Wilde is one of the exemplars of this. It's often employs paradox.
- [41:31]
Dan Harris
That's very true in Buddhism. So, like, one towering example is that in the Dharma, one of the central ideas is that the self that we spend a lot of time building up and defending is, on a fundamental level, an illusion. Like, if you look really closely for some core nugget of Gretchen, you can't find it. But it's also true that if you look in the mirror, you'll see Gretchen. That's the union of the ultimate truth and the relative truth. So on the level of relative consensual reality, Gretchen's real, but ultimately, there's no Gretchen. That seems to me an example of exactly what you're talking about with this.
- [42:11]
Gretchen Rubin
Aphorism, that it's both real and not real at the same time, that there's a. Yeah, interesting. Interesting, yes.
- [42:17]
Dan Harris
Or as another Paradox comes from T.S. eliot, but the aforementioned Joseph Goldstein talks about it a lot. The idea TS Eliot exhorts us to care and not to care. It's actually playing off of relative and ultimate. Like, yeah, it matters. I don't want Gretchen to be unhappy, so I care. But also, on some fundamental level, it's all an illusion, so I don't care. But these two truths can inform one another so that you can not care too much and also not fall into Nihilism.
- [42:49]
Gretchen Rubin
Exactly. That's a perfect example of the kind of thing that I was thinking about with that aphorism. Yes.
- [42:54]
Dan Harris
Here's another aphorism. I like to make something beautiful. It's often necessary to add a touch of ugly. Beautiful music often features notes of dissonance. A lovely fragrance often incorporates some bad smells. An elegant living room includes a garish green pillow. A hint of sour deepens flavors. Hold forth on that if you will.
- [43:13]
Gretchen Rubin
Yeah, exactly. That, that it's interesting that you kind of have to add a bit of ugly to things to make them more beautiful. I just think that that's interesting to see it work its way into so many different areas. One of the fun aspects of the, of the aphorism is kind of the mic drop quality where you just say something. But there were many where there was a story or examples or illustrations like this one, where I just couldn't resist adding them in because I thought that they were so interesting. I think it was Eugene Delacroix said, to finish a painting, one must spoil it a little. This idea that something has to have a little bit of something that isn't quite right and that that can be more perfect than perfection.
- [43:55]
Dan Harris
Coming up, Gretchen talks about the dangers of being indecisive, how to interact successfully with other human beings, and other nuggets of brilliance in this ongoing avalanche of wisdom.
- [44:15]
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Dan Harris
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- [46:02]
Gretchen Rubin
Yes. I mean, this is just the fact a lot of times if you don't decide, you are deciding. You know, you can't not make a choice because to not choose is a choice. And I'm very wary of this in my life. And I'll even say to people, it's fine not to do this, but I want to mindfully choose not to do this. I don't want just the opportunity to slip away. Let's say, let's take a big family trip this summer. If you just don't decide, it will be decided because it will just be too late. Or like, you think you want to switch careers. Well, at a certain point, you don't know necessarily when exactly that point is. It will become too late. Like, you'll just feel like, I've missed my chance, whatever. Or you might say, well, it's never too late. Maybe it's never too late for you, but maybe for someone else or for a certain kind of training, it would become too late. I remember when I was switching from law to writing, I came to a point where I had to decide whether to get another law job or and continue to work on my book on the side or whether I really should try to do it full time. And I thought, well, at this point, I would rather fail as a writer than succeed as a lawyer. So I really want to, like, try and either fail or succeed and then, like, take it from there. But if I hadn't forced myself to really say, because maybe I would have said, like, oh, I want to take a law job and I will work on this on the side. But then I would have been like, okay, given that I'm doing this on the side, how am I really still committing to this as a project that's really important to me, but just to, like, not decide and just to drift along, and then, like, somebody offers me a job and then I interview and I'm like, wow, this seems really great. I'll take this job. I can always change my mind later. This seems like the safe Choice, you can just drift through, but you're making decisions all the time without realizing it, you know, or like you're in a relationship and it's. You're not moving forward, but you're not moving back, and it's just continuing and continuing and continuing. And at a certain point you're like, I've been making a decision by not deciding.
- [48:01]
Dan Harris
Isn't there an aphorism specifically about drift?
- [48:04]
Gretchen Rubin
Maybe I talk about drift all the time. Do I have another aphorism, or is that the aphorism for it now? I can't remember. Again, I have. You know how it is when you're writing a book? I put in and took out so many times. But yeah, because I talk about drift all the time because I drifted into law school, so I know drift very well. Drifting is when you just kind of go with the flow. So you're making decisions, but you're not really making decisions. You're just doing what the default is or what everybody else around you wants, or the easier choice rather than, like, really mindfully choosing.
- [48:34]
Dan Harris
Isn't the idea of going with the flow often used in a positive way? Aren't there some upsides to that version of drift?
- [48:44]
Gretchen Rubin
Well, it depends on how much you care. If you don't really care about something, go with the flow. And then if other people care more, just be carried along. And then there are situations where we will mindfully refrain from making a decision. Like maybe we don't have enough information, or we're letting events play out, or we're sort of balancing in our mind, but we're mindfully engaged, or we're purposefully saying, I'm not going to move forward. I'm just going to take a break from this point. The thing that I'm warning against is when you are really making a decision, because time is passing, and time will foreclose certain opportunities just by the nature of time passing. And there comes a point where certain things are no longer options, and I just think it's fine for that to happen, but you want to mindfully grapple with it.
- [49:32]
Dan Harris
Yeah, that makes a ton of sense. I'm not a drifter, so I have some trouble relating to it. But I will tell one story about drift in a positive sense. When I was 30, I went to Europe with a bunch of college friends, and we were going around Spain. Everybody was arguing all the time about, like, what to do next, where are we gonna have dinner, where we're going tonight. And my friend Rudy was always on the outside of those scrums. And I went to him one day, I was like, why don't you participate? He's like, cause I know I'm gonna be happy whatever we do.
- [50:01]
Gretchen Rubin
There you go. Because it just didn't matter, right? But if somebody was like, oh, I really wanna go see this one cathedral, because I'm thinking that I'm gonna write my senior the. And it's really, really important for me to go. But we could do it this day, we can do it that day. We'll get to there eventually, blah, blah, blah. And then, okay, we're not gonna go because it turns out it's closed on Wednesday, and so you can't go. And that was, like, the one thing that you really wanted to get done. But because you never sort of decided to make it happen, you lost the opportunity. So, yeah, not caring is fine. Like, if it just really doesn't matter to you, but then sometimes it really will make a difference. And that's what you want to just be careful, you know, that you're not just taking a job because somebody offered you a job, or you become a doctor because both your parents are doctors, or you're just doing things because it's the easier course.
- [50:50]
Dan Harris
Another aphorism from this section, which, again, is confronting life's dilemmas. If we take the credit, we must accept the blame.
- [51:00]
Gretchen Rubin
Well, I think about this with parenting all the time, because I'm like, I don't take the credit. But that also means that I don't. I don't feel that much responsibility, in a way. I mean, I feel a certain kind of responsibility, of course. But I do think the more you take credit for something, it's like, if you take credit for the economy, you have to be like, okay, if we have a bad economy, that's my fault, too. Those two things go together.
- [51:22]
Dan Harris
Yeah. Our current president doesn't necessarily believe in taking blame for the economy or anything else.
- [51:28]
Gretchen Rubin
They're two sides of the same coin because they're about responsibility. If you're responsible, you get the credit and you also get the blame.
- [51:36]
Dan Harris
Yes. If you're responsible. If you're a responsible person. All right, let's just stay with this section. We can be wrong for a very long time without noticing. Bloodletting was a common medical treatment for two millennia.
- [51:48]
Gretchen Rubin
Yes. George Washington died of bloodletting.
- [51:51]
Dan Harris
I didn't know that.
- [51:52]
Gretchen Rubin
Yes, he did. He wasn't that sick. But they were like, look, he's not getting better. We better let out more blood. And then more blood, and my gosh, he's just weaker than Ever. We gotta blood out to more blood. The guy died.
- [52:03]
Dan Harris
It wasn't the wooden teeth that did him in.
- [52:06]
Gretchen Rubin
Apparently not though. I don't know. They could have been a contributing factor, I don't know. But it's just one of these things where it just becomes what everybody assumes and it's hard to notice that it's not the case.
- [52:18]
Dan Harris
So it's the danger of conventional wisdom.
- [52:21]
Gretchen Rubin
Right.
- [52:22]
Dan Harris
And it's a call for consistent reexamination, I would imagine.
- [52:27]
Gretchen Rubin
Well, I'll give you an example with my first daughter and this was many years ago, I was put on bed rest. Even at the time I thought, this is a terrible idea. This just doesn't make like. Just to me intuitively, it doesn't make any sense. It's never good for the body to be just like taken out of action. Right? It's like it's never good. It seemed to me. And so I said to my doctor, what is the evidence that shows that this is like an important thing to do and would be helpful? And she's like, well, there really is no evidence. It was basically like, well, it's an old wives tale. So, you know, better safe than sorry seemed to be kind of the message. And I don't want to sound like a science denier because no one is a bigger fan of science than I am. Like my husband was cured from hepatitis C, which was like a deadly, deadly virus that he got from a blood transfusion when he was a child. So. Absolutely. But it was a very striking exam. And I was just like talking to a renowned obgyn, saying like, oh, would they say that now? And he's like, oh, no, no, we wouldn't say that now. But it is one of these things where it's like you get it in your mind and you're like, well, better safe than sorry. But it is just recognizing that there are things that if we don't have any reason to believe what we think we believe, why do we believe it? Let me see if I can get this right. This is a aphorism from one of the old doctors before they had the scientific method. And it was something like, he always gave the same treatment to a patient. It was the panacea, because if the patient could be cured, he was cured. And if the patient was really beyond help, well then he would die. It's like, okay, then that medicine will work. You know, if it's like either they die or they get well.
- [54:05]
Dan Harris
Exactly. Okay, so section 5 is simple secrets of Adulthood. A lot of these are really, really really practical. Here's one. If you don't know what to do with yourself, go outside or go to sleep.
- [54:20]
Gretchen Rubin
Right? It always works. Because I love a hack. Like, I love a secret of adulthood, I love a transcendent truth, but I also love a hack. And as I was working on the book, I just couldn't resist keeping this kind of side list going. And I submitted them with a manuscript like as it is. And thinking that my editor would say, gretchen, what are you doing? Like, this is goofing around. It doesn't belong in the book. But she really liked them. And I think a lot of people really do like them. They just like the concrete, practical nature of them. So I was really delighted that I got to keep them.
- [54:54]
Dan Harris
I like the hacks too, and I think they exist in a nice relationship with the profound truth.
- [55:00]
Gretchen Rubin
Oh, good.
- [55:01]
Dan Harris
And often are not, not shallow. Here's another one that I think actually is quite profound. And it's this. It's okay to ask for help.
- [55:11]
Gretchen Rubin
Why is this so hard?
- [55:15]
Dan Harris
Is it hard for you?
- [55:16]
Gretchen Rubin
It's so hard. Really, it is so hard. It's so hard to ask for help. I'll be indecisive about something or, you know, I won't know what to do, and then it'll occur to me like, actually what I need is more information. I could just ask somebody who knows about this, or I can just say to somebody, I need help with this. I don't know. Do you find it easy to ask for help? I am perplexed. Not even that it's difficult, meaning that I'm reluctant to do it. It's difficult in that I don't even remember that I can do it. I have to remind myself that it's even possible instead of just figuring everything out myself, which is just nonsense.
- [55:53]
Dan Harris
Do you have this story, subconsciously or otherwise, that if you can't figure everything out yourself, then you're somehow bad or wrong or dysfunctional.
- [56:02]
Gretchen Rubin
It's more like, well, can I just figure this out? Think it through. I don't think it comes from a place of kind of self punishment. I don't know. It doesn't feel negative like that. Maybe it is. Do you find it easy to ask for help?
- [56:13]
Dan Harris
You know, in many ways I'm, to use the term the kids use, a heteronormative male and, you know, like the stereotype about dudes is they won't stop and ask for directions, et cetera, et cetera. But I actually am asking for help all the time. Yeah, I don't suffer in Silence.
- [56:30]
Gretchen Rubin
Well, I think it's the better way for sure.
- [56:32]
Dan Harris
I agree. Here's another hack. If you're dreading a family occasion, bring a guest. Many difficult people behave better in front of outsiders.
- [56:41]
Gretchen Rubin
Yes.
- [56:42]
Dan Harris
Have you tested this?
- [56:43]
Gretchen Rubin
Well, a lot of these things come from my own experience. So I remember I have a long, long, long time friend. We were friends all the way back in high school. Much later in life, I came to understand that her mother was very, very depressed and very, very difficult. But when we were children, this was. I did not know this at all. I saw her as like the super kind of extremely hospitable woman who was like, we were always over at my friend's house, there was like tons of food. You know, it was just. And I said to my friend, I didn't know that, I didn't see that side of her. And I wasn't aware that this whole thing was happening to you as a child. And she said, we always like to have friends over because then our mother, it really brought out the best in our mother. So we were always trying to have people over. And you see this like in family dinners, if somebody brings a guest, then there is a little bit of company manners that can be helpful.
- [57:30]
Dan Harris
Many of these hacks, or at least the ones that stuck out to me, are really about kind of manners, you know, how to conduct yourself in the world in a more skillful way.
- [57:40]
Gretchen Rubin
I did not see that as a theme. That's interesting.
- [57:45]
Dan Harris
Well, let me give you some people probably aren't as interested in your hobby or your travels as they seem to be.
- [57:51]
Gretchen Rubin
Right? I mean, that's just the fact of the matter.
- [57:55]
Dan Harris
The thing is, what some people don't realize, and I'm sure this happens to me, but I'm not realizing in the moment, but I see it with others in my world, is that we have a tendency to humor people. And then as the person being humored, you don't know you're being humored. And so then you bore the shit out of people.
- [58:11]
Gretchen Rubin
Yes, yes, yes, no. And it's all in this very well meaning circle of boredom. Yeah, I mean, there is a certain amount of that. There's a certain amount of that, and there is a certain amount of it just being like away as an icebreaker. Like, one of the nice things about having a new puppy is people like, how is your new puppy? And then you can talk about that for a minute. I always remind myself there's a quite a limit in how interesting someone else's puppy is. You know, have a cute story or two and then let it go. Let's say you've had like a life transforming travel and you really just want to talk about it for like two hours if people are not interested. But I will tell you one of the most, the rudest things I've ever done in my whole life, please. Okay. So we were going on a family trip to Berlin in the summer. It's like our big family trip. And I am not a foodie. I just really do not care that much about food. I'm not interested in restaurants. That's just something that's not. When I wrote Life in Five Senses, it became very clear to me that's the most neglected sense. That's my most neglected sense. I'm having conversation with this person about what we're doing for the summer and said, oh, we're going to Berlin. And somebody who I don't know came zipping over and in a very, very friendly, energetic way said, oh, you're going to Berlin. I have to tell you all the amazing restaurants that we went to. Like, let give you a list of all the places you need to go. And I looked into her face and I was like, I could see my future stretching out in front of my eyes of like a half an hour of her going into great detail about amazing meals that she'd had in places that I would never go and never cared about. And even if I went, it wouldn't even give me that much pleasure, whatever. And I basically was just like, I just, I just looked at her and I said, I'm not really involved in that part of the planning. And just turned and walked away. I just fled because I'm just like, I simply cannot manage even like the five minute like get in, get out that that would have required. I was just overwhelmed. But I've been haunted by it ever since because here was somebody who was really reaching out with pleasure but not recognizing that like hearing about an amazing meal that you had is not something that most people will find that interesting. And if they will, they will ask. But that's me coming from my perspective as a non foodie, which makes me feel like this terrible scrooge. Julia Child said, the people who love to eat are always the best people. And I'm like, well, what does that say about me? But anyway. But yes, I could tell that she was somebody who would not read my cues, that I was not interested. So I fled very rudely. I've repented.
- [60:32]
Dan Harris
You're not extolling the virtues of fleeing here.
- [60:35]
Gretchen Rubin
It's seared in my memory as rudeness. So just, hey, kids, don't do it yourselves.
- [60:41]
Dan Harris
Some others just to back up my point about the fact that the simple secrets of adulthood section of this book do include a lot of secrets that have to do with sort of manners or how to interact successfully with other people. Here's one. If you can't think of a topic of conversation, ask what's keeping you busy these days?
- [60:58]
Gretchen Rubin
So this is a really great question, especially if you don't know what somebody does for a living and you feel like it's not polite to ask. Some people don't like it when you say, what do you do for a living? And so this is, I think, a really good question because people can just answer whatever they feel like talking about. Like, if they've had an amazing trip and they want to tell me all about the restaurants now, I will listen to you. Or they've got an exciting work project. If you kind of can't remember exactly what somebody does, but you really should remember, I don't know about you, but, like, I will often be encountering with people and I'm like, I should really sort of know exactly what they're up to. But I don't. But so if you say that, then they are just like, well, you know, I'm still promoting the book that just came out a month ago. And you're like, oh, right, I forgot you had a book that just came out. Or, you know, it's a question that lets them answer as they like and also will fill in a lot of information. If you're not sure of information that.
- [61:47]
Dan Harris
You think you should remember, I like it a lot. I'm going to use it. Another that I'm going to use. And it really rings true to me, especially right now as I'm about to read it back to you. It rings true because over this past weekend, I was at a bunch of social situations and introducing people to one another, and there were moments where I, even though I knew the person's name, I couldn't recall it because there was just a cognitive overload. And so the aphorism here is, if someone might not remember your name, reintroduce.
- [62:17]
Gretchen Rubin
Yourself, you know, And I will just say, if you do this, which I do this all the time, people often be like, oh, gosh, of course I know who you are. But it's like, it never hurts and you don't know if they're telling the truth or not, you know, And a lot of times you know perfectly well what someone's name is but the typewriter keys are jamming in your brain, especially if you're seeing a ton of people all at one time. I wish we all wore name tags all the time. That would be my dream.
- [62:40]
Dan Harris
Yeah. Yes. Or it had him tattooed into her forehead at birth. Let's end on this one because this one, I think could bear some unpacking. And I, I think it's pointing at something really helpful. If possible, have a challenging conversation while walking.
- [62:58]
Gretchen Rubin
Yes, this is really, really helpful for a lot of reasons. Often people speak more freely when they're side to side instead of face to face. This is why, like, a lot of times people will say the time you can get your teenager to talk to you is when you're driving together someplace. Also, a walk tends to have a beginning, middle, and an end. And so people know that it's kind of got. It's not gonna stretch out endlessly. Whereas if you're just like in your bedroom, you're like, are we trapped here in this kind of no exit argument forever? You know, but people have a sense of like, okay, we're gonna start and we're gonna go, and then we'll end up. We'll be back at the car or whatever. And then also there is like the nervous energy that comes from having a difficult conversation that can be hard to manage. And it can be expressed by sort of elevating your tone or like. But I think, at least for me, when I'm walking, it soothes my kind of. I'm very high strung and very irritable. And when I'm walking that that's an outlet for that nervous energy that is more constructive. And there is just something about walking itself which is just very calm. And especially if you're in a beautiful place, like you're in a park or you're on a hike or like in an interesting neighborhood or something. If things get too intense and you need just like, you want to stay in the conversation, but maybe you need a little break that's like, oh, look at that, should we stop and get a coffee? Or whatever. It lets you stay together. Because another thing that's good about walking is like, no one's going to come in and interrupt you, or someone's not going to be like, their eyes aren't going to be flicking to the TV screen every 10 seconds or, you know, your iPad isn't going to be pinging on the coffee table. There's just a lot of reasons why a walk is, I find, especially if there's something that needs to be kind of talked through. It lends itself to that kind of conversation.
- [64:45]
Dan Harris
Isn't there something also about syncing strides with someone?
- [64:49]
Gretchen Rubin
Oh, I didn't even think of that, but that's exactly right. Yeah. What is that called? That's called. Is it synchronizing even, like your heartbeat will start to synchronize with someone?
- [64:59]
Dan Harris
Yes, yes.
- [65:00]
Gretchen Rubin
Yeah, that's a great point. I never even thought about that aspect of it. That's very true.
- [65:04]
Dan Harris
I would say there's another piece of it, and you may have already covered this, but there's something about being in a wide open space in nature that sparks creativity, allows you to see things from a different perspective, which can be very helpful in a situation of conflict or potential conflict.
- [65:23]
Gretchen Rubin
Absolutely. I think that's exactly right. If you're standing, like, you can also be sort of irritated by, like, little things that you're seeing or that whatever. There's something very calming just about being in nature. And if you have light in your face, that's also good for you. There's all sorts of things, good things happen when you go outside. And if it's a. For a difficult moment now, there are sometimes I do think where you need to be sitting down and like, really with the intensity that just comes from being face to face or right next to each other. And in that case, it's really helpful to hold someone's hand or have your hand on their back or have your knees touching. I have a secret of adulthood, that it's harder to yell at somebody when you're holding their hand, but you can hold hands while you're walking through nature, so you can get a double thing there.
- [66:07]
Dan Harris
Well, this book is like an avalanche of good.
- [66:10]
Gretchen Rubin
Oh, I love that. I love that phrase.
- [66:15]
Dan Harris
Maybe I'll title this podcast episode An Avalanche.
- [66:17]
Gretchen Rubin
I like that. I like that. I feel. I feel like someone's tumbling through the snow with their skis sticking out.
- [66:23]
Dan Harris
But yeah, Two final questions I always ask first. Is there something that you were hoping we would get to that we didn't?
- [66:29]
Gretchen Rubin
No. I feel like we covered so many. It's so interesting for me to know which ones stood out for you. Again, like, that's one of the most interesting things for me, as I've been talking to people about the book, is they're not always the ones that I thought people would focus on.
- [66:42]
Dan Harris
Final question. Can you just remind everybody of the name of this book? And you've written so many other books. I'd love to. And you have a website and you have an app and can you Kind of tell us about the Gretchen Rubin Empire.
- [66:52]
Gretchen Rubin
Yeah, like what is it not the Extended Cinematic Universe. Yeah, the cinematic universe of Gretchen Rubin. Yes, indeed. Everything basically is on my website, GretchenRubin.com and so that's a great place to go because you can read about all my books. My most recent book is called Secrets of Adulthood. Simple Truth for Our Complex Lives. Yeah, it's a little book with all these little secrets of adulthood. And I also have a podcast called Happier with Gretchen Rubin, which is a weekly podcast where I talk about how to be happier with my co host, who is also my sister Elizabeth Elizabeth Craft, who is a TV writer. I have a newsletter, five Things Making Me Happy. I just launched on Substack something called Secrets of Adulthood, which is like teaching stories. Because I really, I love a teaching story. I love a parable. So this is where I share my favorites and write my own. I have an app called Happier. I have a. I have a bunch of like, journals that will help people do different things like track their habits or there's a one wonderful little journal called I Want yout To Know, which is like how kind of to express your feelings about somebody else if you find that hard. A lot of different things, but anything can be found@gretchenrubin.com and I'm all over social media and I love to connect with people with insights or observations, resources. I feel like the world is my research assistant constantly giving me great insights and ideas and things to read and watch. So yeah, I'm in all the places.
- [68:10]
Dan Harris
Always a gigantic pleasure to talk to you, Gretchen.
- [68:13]
Gretchen Rubin
Thank you. Oh, Dan, thank you so much. Much.
- [68:19]
Dan Harris
Thanks again to Gretchen. Always great to talk to her. Don't forget to check out her new book, the Secrets of Adulthood. Also don't forget to check out danharris.com where today we've got a guided meditation that comes with this episode. It's all about how to tune in to your mind and body when you're at a moment of making a big decision. Which of course is something we talked about in the show, Indecision and Drift. Drift. Etc. So we're going to give you the way to counteract indecision and drift. And that guided meditation comes from our teacher of the month, Kyra Jewel Lingo. Check it out. Danharris.com Before I let you go, I just want to thank everybody who worked so hard to make this show. Our producers are Tara Anderson, Caroline Keenan and Eleanor Vasily. Our recording and engineering is handled by the great folks over at Pod People. Lauren Smith is our managing producer Marissa Schneiderman is our senior producer. Producer DJ Cashmere is our executive producer, and Nick Thorburn of the band Islands wrote our theme.