More Happier: How Do We Know Ourselves and Our Values? A Short Quiz Reveals So Much

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Happier with Gretchen Rubin"
Episode: More Happier: How Do We Know Ourselves and Our Values? A Short Quiz Reveals So Much
Release Date: May 10, 2025

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Introduction

In this engaging episode of "Happier with Gretchen Rubin," host Gretchen Rubin teams up with her sister, Elizabeth Craft, to delve deep into the realms of self-knowledge and personal values. The episode features a special guest, Susie Welch, a distinguished professor at NYU Stern School of Business, bestselling author, and creator of the Welch Bristol Values Inventory. Together, they explore how understanding one's values can significantly enhance happiness and life satisfaction.

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Guest Introduction: Susie Welch

Elizabeth Craft introduces Susie Welch, highlighting her impressive credentials:

• Position: Professor at NYU Stern School of Business
• Initiative: Leads the NYU Stern initiative on purpose and flourishing
• Teaching: Conducts the highly popular class, "Becoming You"
• Authorship: Penned several New York Times bestselling books
• Consulting & Podcasting: Consultant for major American companies and hosts the rapidly growing podcast, "Becoming You"
• Latest Work: Authored a new book titled "Becoming Youg," focusing on discovering one's true self to craft a fulfilling life and career.

Elizabeth Craft:
"Susie is my new friend. Susie, you and I are double neighbors."
(02:07)

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Susie’s PhD Achievement

A significant highlight of the conversation is Susie Welch's triumphant achievement of completing her PhD at the age of 65. She shares the emotional journey of her oral defense at the University of Bristol, England.

Susie Welch:
"My happiness is a shocker, which is that at the ripe old age of 65, I finally finished my PhD."
(06:42)

She recounts the intense moments during her defense, the camaraderie with examiners, and the overwhelming joy upon being awarded her doctorate.

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The Importance of Values and Self-Knowledge

Gretchen Rubin emphasizes the transformative impact of understanding personal values on happiness.

Gretchen Rubin:
"Learning my values really did make me happier. I feel selfishly like it's really made me happier, but I feel like it's going to help a lot of people."
(05:45)

Susie concurs, highlighting the philosophical underpinnings of her work.

Susie Welch:
"When you have a language of values, it's so liberating."
(06:42)

They discuss how self-knowledge serves as a cornerstone for making informed life choices, enhancing personal fulfillment, and navigating complexities in relationships.

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The Welch Bristol Values Inventory

At the heart of the episode is Susie Welch's development of the Welch Bristol Values Inventory, a modern, non-judgmental tool designed to help individuals identify and prioritize their values.

Susie Welch:
"I created a new values inventory, which I think is very modern and not judgy, which is called the Welch Bristol Values Inventory."
(17:14)

Key Features:

• Top Five Values: Provides users with their top five values with specificity.
• Conflict Identification: Highlights values that are in conflict.
• Values Gap Analysis: Illustrates the gap between held values and expressed values.

Susie Welch:
"The most powerful thing that it does that everyone should know is it tells you the gap between the values you hold and the values you're expressing."
(17:14)

The tool aims to offer actionable insights, enabling individuals to align their lives more closely with their core values.

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Application of the Values Inventory

The discussion delves into practical applications of the Values Inventory, showcasing real-life scenarios where understanding values can resolve conflicts and enhance decision-making.

Susie Welch:
"If you have a very high value of say, scope, but you're in a job that's very routine... your variance could be up to 100%."
(18:15)

They explore how discrepancies between values and actions lead to feelings of dissatisfaction and how the inventory can help bridge that gap.

Elizabeth Craft:
"I took it and I was amazed at how many things became clear as I answered the questions which I had just never considered before."
(18:47)

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Impact on Relationships and Personal Growth

Understanding and prioritizing values play a crucial role in interpersonal relationships and personal development. The hosts discuss how conflicting values can strain relationships and how clear communication about values can foster understanding.

Susie Welch:
"My husband's a workaholic... but it's actually about his high work centrism and my low work centrism."
(35:57)

They emphasize that recognizing and respecting differing values prevents misunderstandings and promotes harmonious relationships.

Gretchen Rubin:
"This gives you a way to say nobody's right and nobody's wrong. It's just that people have different values."
(34:23)

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Susie Welch on Self-Knowledge:
  "When you have a language of values, it's so liberating."
  (06:52)

• Gretchen Rubin on Values and Happiness:
  "Learning my values really did make me happier."
  (05:45)

• Susie Welch on PhD Achievement:
  "At the ripe old age of 65, I finally finished my PhD."
  (06:42)

• Susie Welch on Value Conflicts:
  "Place is part of the values list because it can drive everything."
  (22:01)

• Gretchen Rubin on Value Prioritization:
  "To what degree do you organize your life around your values?"
  (22:05)

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Conclusion and Final Thoughts

As the episode wraps up, both hosts express their increased happiness and gratitude for Susie's contributions.

Susie Welch:
"I'm feeling so happy speaking to you. I feel great."
(38:36)

Elizabeth Craft:
"You can read her new book 'Becoming Youg' and take her online quiz to learn more about your values."
(39:06)

Gretchen Rubin closes with an inspiring quote, reinforcing the episode's theme.

Gretchen Rubin:
"The best time to start a happiness project is 20 years ago. The second best time is now."
(38:08)

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Key Takeaways

• Self-Knowledge Through Values: Understanding and prioritizing personal values is pivotal for achieving happiness and fulfillment.

• Welch Bristol Values Inventory: A modern tool that helps individuals identify, prioritize, and align their lived experiences with their core values.

• Resolving Value Conflicts: Clear communication and understanding of differing values can mitigate conflicts in personal and professional relationships.

• Practical Applications: The Values Inventory offers actionable insights, enabling individuals to make informed life choices that resonate with their true selves.

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For those seeking to enhance their self-awareness and align their lives with their core values, Susie Welch's "Becoming Youg" and the Welch Bristol Values Inventory present invaluable resources.

Transcript

[Susie Welch]

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[Elizabeth Craft]

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[Gretchen Rubin]

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[Elizabeth Craft]

Lemonada.

[Gretchen Rubin]

Hello, we're here for more Happier, a podcast where we talk about getting happier. It's the weekend, it's a little bit of a looser vibe. Hey, Elizabeth.

[Elizabeth Craft]

Hi, Gretch.

[Gretchen Rubin]

Today in this episode, we are joined by my new friend, Susie Welch. Hey, Susie.

[Susie Welch]

Hello. Hi.

[Elizabeth Craft]

Hi Susie.

[Gretchen Rubin]

We're so happy to have you here joining us today.

[Susie Welch]

I'm very happy to be here. Thanks for having me on.

[Elizabeth Craft]

Susie is a professor at the NYU Stern School of Business where she leads the NYU Stern initiative on purpose and flourishing and where she teaches the phenomenally popular class Becoming you. Also, among other things, Susie has written several New York Times best selling books. She is a consultant for some of America's biggest companies and she has a fast growing podcast, becoming you. She has a brand new book called Becoming you that's all about how we can discover our true selves and create a fulfilling career and life that's just right for us.

[Gretchen Rubin]

And Susie is my new friend. Susie, you and I are double neighbors.

[Susie Welch]

I know.

[Gretchen Rubin]

We live two blocks apart in New York City and we have this lake house and you have a house that's just a few miles away from us at our lake house.

[Susie Welch]

I love it. When are we going to start playing together? That's what I want to know. If we're, if we're friends when the play date. Although we had a good, we had a good play date. Let's have another.

[Gretchen Rubin]

Well, this is the thing. We met for coffee. We were talking. You told me, oh, I'm creating all these scientifically validated digital tools for your becoming you method. And I have to say I was kind of skeptical because people have these tools and these frameworks and these And I mean, I love a category and everything, but I'm always a little bit skeptical about is something really fresh and original. But you were telling me about it and I was like, oh my gosh, I have to learn every single thing about it. And it was like, magically. You had this three day seminar which I took and my daughter Eliza took to learn all about these methods that you've created for becoming you. And we talk about self knowledge all the time, about why self knowledge is such a key to happiness. And the thing that is so valuable in this one is it is about your values. And now you've created this amazing online tool so that everybody can kind of get this values bridge tool access to learn about their values. So congratulations. This just launched.

[Susie Welch]

I can't believe it. And you know, I like you. I'm also very skeptical of every kind of one of these tests and all of these frameworks. I always say, you know, you could put your hand through them, they're so thin and fuzzy. And I'm like, I'm the biggest eye roller in the world on it. And it was really only when I became a professor and started to get real research chops that I was able to do the kind of research that allowed me to create something that was really meaningful. And it grew out of my PhD thesis work and so forth. So I was like really proud of it because I found, you know, my problem was I found my students couldn't accurately describe their values. But since you took the class and you're now one of my students, you know that's not the problem anymore, right? You like your values.

[Elizabeth Craft]

That's cool.

[Gretchen Rubin]

No, and it's so powerful. So we're going to do a deep dive into this self knowledge system that you've created. But first, let's quickly talk about something making us happier. Elizabeth, what? Is something making you happier?

[Elizabeth Craft]

Gretch and Susie, what's making me more happier is that Sarah, my writing partner, and I are out pitching a show. We have been working on this show for months. We finally have the pitch completely done and we are out. We've done two pitches, we have three more next week. Hopefully we'll sell it. But even if we don't sell it, I'm glad that we are going through the process and something will happen. So that is making me happier.

[Gretchen Rubin]

You're happy because it shows that Hollywood is slowly creaking back into action or will like, either go or not go, but we will have our fate clearer.

[Elizabeth Craft]

Yes. I think having fate clear, I mean, you work and Work on something and you just want to know that it's going to be heard. And sometimes you can have a pitch and no one even wants to hear it.

[Gretchen Rubin]

Yeah.

[Elizabeth Craft]

So I'm very happy that at least so many people want to hear the pitch. That's exciting and we're connecting with people and look, I'm obviously hoping it sells well.

[Gretchen Rubin]

I mean. Yeah.

[Susie Welch]

Yeah.

[Gretchen Rubin]

Do you feel like it gets better as you do it more, or do you lose the freshness? Or maybe you shouldn't even say that. Maybe that's not a question that we should talk about. It's excellent every time.

[Elizabeth Craft]

Exactly. I was just going to say it's great every time. But the only problem with pitching on Zoom now is there can be technical difficulties, which is very frustrating.

[Gretchen Rubin]

Yeah.

[Susie Welch]

What's the premise? Is it like your life?

[Elizabeth Craft]

No, it's a mystery set on a Caribbean island.

[Susie Welch]

Oh, I like the filming of that.

[Elizabeth Craft]

Yeah. Yes. Well, I wouldn't mind going to a Caribbean island for a few weeks or months. So we'll see. Hopefully it will sell. What about you, Gretchen? Go next. What's making you more happier?

[Gretchen Rubin]

Well, I gotta say, and this is right on the nose is learning my values really did make me happier. I am so hungry for anything, giving me insight into my self knowledge. I love. Are you a book person or a tree person? Are you a snapshot person or a movie person? Are you in a Polar Question or Obliger Rebel? I'm constantly looking for these because I feel like it's just so hard to know ourselves. And it just. Why is it so hard to know ourselves? It's just really, really confusing. And I do think that having this sense of, like, here are these values, here's a way to understand them. And now I just feel like I understand, like, well, this is why I like doing this kind of work better than that. Or this is why this kind of person always resists this kind of advice. And it just brings that clarity. So I'm really happy that this is out into the world because I feel selfishly like it's really made me happier, but I feel like it's going to help a lot of people. Anything that helps with sel knowledge, I feel like, is so precious and valuable. Susie, what's something making you happier?

[Susie Welch]

Well, I want to just say that what you just said about making you happier prompts me to quote the German philosopher Wittgenstein, who said, the limits of my language are the limits of my world.

[Gretchen Rubin]

Yes.

[Susie Welch]

And therefore, like, when you have a language of values, it's so Liberating. That's what you're feeling? Is that like, oh, I can explain myself. I mean, that's the beauty of it. All right, what's making me happy? You will not believe this. Okay, My happiness is a shocker, which is that at the ripe old age of 65, I finally finished my PhD. I defended my thesis in the oral defense literally yesterday and I was awarded my PhD at last. So it was a long time coming. And I'm so proud of the work that I did. And although I'm only. I'm supposed to say things like my modest contribution to the field of values, one of my thesis examiners warned me to continually use the word modest contribution. But I feel like it's kick ass and I'm sorry, super proud of it. And I'm. And I'm much, much more happier that it's done.

[Elizabeth Craft]

Well, congratulations.

[Gretchen Rubin]

I picture you sitting in a straight back chair with like three people behind, like a long table. What is that process?

[Susie Welch]

So I got my PhD at the University of Bristol in England, which is like Hogwarts. It's like being in a Harry Potter movie. It's crazy. Okay. And so it was. I mean the business school is in a relatively modern facility, but it is a long table and there are examiners. And actually one of my examiners was calling in from Stanford, so he was on a very modern screen. And they had actually met to prepare their list of questions. And when I walked in with my stack of prepared papers and like I had a thick book of all these like academic papers that I had reviewed before I went in, they had their own thick stacks of papers and they just came at me and you know, there was a moment in it, no lie, where I thought, oh, darn. Although darn was not the exact operative word. I thought to myself, oh, this is not going to actually happen for me. All of this led to this. And then they were like, yeah, but this is just fun to talk about, isn't it? And I was like, not for me. And. But it went on for a couple hours and then I left the room and they let you stand outside the room and then they call you back into the room.

[Elizabeth Craft]

Wow.

[Gretchen Rubin]

How long did you wait?

[Susie Welch]

I was out for about 15 minutes and actually I was with my thesis adviser and I said, this is going on longer than I like. And he said, they're just, they're just slagging you here, Susie. Then the, one of the examiners came and got me and I went back in and he said, it is my great honor and Delight to tell you that you have been awarded PhD at the University of Bristol. And my. Believe it or not, my thesis advisor had the presence of mind to snap a photograph. And I threw my head into my hands and I wept. And I have a picture of it to prove it. I mean, I didn't know he was taking a picture. I just burst into tears. It's been a long road.

[Gretchen Rubin]

Yeah, well, it must have been just the adrenaline must have just been like charging through your body. Did they let you have a snack or caffeine?

[Susie Welch]

I did not eat up until it like a day beforehand. I was so wound up. But then we went over to a friend's house, another academic at University of Bristol. We all know each other at this point. I know everybody there. And we had. We killed some bottles of champagne and I got much, much. So everything went very well.

[Gretchen Rubin]

Well, and now do you, like, if you were ever like, in an academic procession, do you get like a fur cape or like a funny hat?

[Susie Welch]

I get the fabulous velvet hat. I get the. Really? And Bristol, being very British, has fabulous robes.

[Gretchen Rubin]

Yeah.

[Susie Welch]

So I throw out my NBA sash and I get the PhD sash and I get the very fancy pants hat that goes with it.

[Elizabeth Craft]

Now you're a doctor.

[Gretchen Rubin]

Yeah.

[Susie Welch]

That's what it was all about. I guess that. Wow.

[Gretchen Rubin]

Well, congratulations. That is huge.

[Susie Welch]

It feels huge. It feels huge. Thank you for letting me share it with you.

[Gretchen Rubin]

Now, do you have like a giant stack papers that you can now toss? You're like, no, I. I don't think.

[Susie Welch]

I'm ever going to toss them. I don't think I'm ever going to toss. Like, I have a gigantic stack of papers and I've got like a lot of books that no other person in the world has ever read but me, because they're in this very. I'm in this area called values expression. And you know, there's not a lot of us in values expression, but. But Gretchen, you seem very interested in it. Maybe you should come on over to it.

[Gretchen Rubin]

Oh, okay. Yeah, but this reminds me of. I remember talking to somebody and she said, oh, I left my job to go back to graduate school. School. I'm studying the Scottish Enlightenment. And then feeling like I probably was feeling devastated by just longing and envy, she said, don't worry, it's not as glamorous as it sounds. And I was like, oh, the Scottish Enlightenment, it's not as glamorous as it sounds.

[Susie Welch]

That's a good quote.

[Gretchen Rubin]

For her, it was like, what could be more desirable? Clearly everybody in the world so you're like values, expression.

[Susie Welch]

Honestly, I don't know what could be more interesting because it drives every single decision and thing that we do. So I do think it's kind of, you know, at one point one of the examiners said to me, this is all very existential, isn't it? Yeah. The meaning of life, which is what we're talking about. Yeah, I'd say so.

[Gretchen Rubin]

Oh, that's so fun.

[Elizabeth Craft]

All right. Well, coming up, we've been wanting to talk to Susie about her amazing new book. But first, this break.

[Gretchen Rubin]

Mother's Day is coming up and it can be hard to think of a fresh idea for a Mother's Day gift. I mean, so often it's the same thing. It's a sweater, it's a really nice box of stationery. But how fast are you using up your stationery? So the challenge is to think of something interesting and good. And one great idea is the digital photo frame Aura, which is named the best digital photo frame by Wirecutter. It's guaranteed to mix things up.

[Elizabeth Craft]

This year, Aura frames come with unlimited storage so you can share as many photos as you want from your phone to mom's Aura frame. Not only will she be grateful it's not another sweater, she'll also love that an Aura frame means she gets to see more of you. Aura has a great deal for Mother's Day. For a limited time, listeners can save on the perfect gift by visiting auraframes.com to get 35 off plus free shipping on their best selling Carver Mat frame. That's a U R A frames.com promo code Happier Support the show by mentioning us at checkout. Terms and conditions apply.

[Gretchen Rubin]

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[Elizabeth Craft]

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[Gretchen Rubin]

Susie, we've been wanting to talk to you about your new book, Becoming youg. But in the book, you open with something that you talked about in your seminar. And I have to say, this just stopped me in my tracks. I know, because you read from the very famous Mary Oliver poem, the Summer Day, and it ends with two lines that are, I would say, probably among the most quoted lines right now in culture. You see people quoting these, referring to these. Everybody knows these lines. I will read them. But you pointed out something that I had never noticed in these very familiar lines. So the last two lines of the poem are, tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? So what is it that you point out about that. That everybody else kind of misses?

[Susie Welch]

People love these lines. I love it when students come up to me and say, I had those lines read at my wedding. And I'm like, huh? Not the way I read them.

[Gretchen Rubin]

Not the way you read them. Yes.

[Susie Welch]

I point out. And your reaction's not unusual. I point out that everybody loves that part. Wild and precious life. That's what people fixate on. And I say, it's all well and good. Yes, we all have one wild and precious life. I'm in the planning business.

[Gretchen Rubin]

Yes.

[Susie Welch]

Okay. What I talk about is the planning part. She says two things there. She says, tell me, what is it you plan to do with your own wild and precious life? And I think we all. Okay, yeah, we get it, it's wild and precious. But otherwise, if we don't plan, then we're going to end up living by default. And we all live by default. Plenty. Anyway, you can't get away from it because life comes at you too fast. But I did that for too long. And I learned the hard way, it's no way to live. And so I like the planning part of it. And living by deliberation, that's an improvement. And then finally, by design, if you can swing it. And even then, you're never gonna be able to live by design. Nobody lives by design all the time. You can't, because children and spouses and life and jobs and so forth. So I talk to my students and I say to them, I wanna talk to you about the planning part. I wanna give you a methodology so that you can think about planning and a really flexible methodology so that you can come back to it again and again and again. Every single time, you and your wild and precious life go off the rails.

[Gretchen Rubin]

Right. Sometimes People think, well, wild impression is like, how can you plan? But it's all there. So there's so much information on the book, there's so many valuable insights that a person can get into themselves. So we can't talk about it all now. So because this is the part that I found most interesting, let's focus on the values bridge test. So this is the values bridge test. It also called the Welch Bristol Inventory. You just launched a quiz so that people can take a version that you write about it in the book, but they can take a version of it online, right?

[Susie Welch]

Yes, exactly. So, you know, part of the look very briefly into two sentences. The premise of the methodology is that your purpose lies at the intersection of your values, your aptitudes, and your interests. An aptitude you can test for. Interest people generally know, but values people do not know. And so I, with my students for years, did six different exercises that I had developed myself to help them figure out what their values were. And I lost my everlasting mind every semester after going through all these exercises. And at the end, the students would say their values were family and financial security. And I'd be like, there's a lot more values then too. Yes. And so I finally, there's a lot of. Not a lot. There's four standard academic values inventories, and I thought they were dated and judgy, to be quite blunt about it. Don't tell my academic advisors you heard me say that, but I think they're. They're dated and they're judgy. I mean, self care is called hedonism.

[Gretchen Rubin]

Yes.

[Susie Welch]

And there's no value for flexibility. Excuse me, Flexibility happens to be a value in 2025. And so I created a new values inventory, which I think is very modern and not judgy, which is called the Welch Bristol Values Inventory. And because I created it at the University of Bristol and then I created. I mean, this started off with me on a yellow pad creating a test and eventually became my life's work. So now there's a free version of it and there's a souped up version, but the free version will give you your top five values in great specificity and clarity, and it will tell you which values you have that are in conflict. But the most powerful thing that it does that everyone should know is it tells you the gap between the values you hold and the values you're expressing. I mean, this is the thing we have value. Say we have a value of achievement, or we have a value of fun. Okay, These are all values we may hold that value dearly, but not be living it, not expressing it. Why? Because of the four horsemen of values. Destruction, expectations, you know, expedients. And we don't live our values. So it gives you that data also. And this is powerful data to have. It's mind blowing actually.

[Elizabeth Craft]

And if you don't really look at yourself and just stop and think about it for a minute, you really have no idea what your values are. I mean, yes, as you said, we all know, oh, I value my family. But more specifically, how you're gonna spend your time you just may not have thought of. And this really crystallizes it. I took it and I was amazed at how many things became clear as I answered the questions which I had just never considered before. Even though we spend so much time talking about self knowledge on this podcast.

[Susie Welch]

This was the gap I was dying to fill. I mean, I was like on a mission from God because I struggled every semester with my dear students who I love, and they would just struggle like they were making gigantic decisions about their life, having paid a huge amount of money to go to school. And they didn't, they couldn't put names to what mattered to them, what their values were. And they couldn't explain why they felt uncomfortable about certain things. And I was like, yeah, the limits of your language are the limits of your world. Let's give some words to this and then let's measure it. I mean, was it on my bingo card to create a digital values measuring tool in my 60s? It was not, but it has now.

[Gretchen Rubin]

You've got your velvet hat.

[Susie Welch]

So it's all been worth was all for the velvet. Look, there were times when I was writing my thesis and it was so brutal that I had a photograph saved on my phone of the velvet hat. And I'd call up the velvet hat and I would just stare at it.

[Gretchen Rubin]

That's very manifesty, Elizabeth. That's the kind of thing you would do. Yeah.

[Elizabeth Craft]

Yes, I love manifesting one of the.

[Gretchen Rubin]

Things that was interesting to me in terms of the value, because I think you're like, all the values are good. I like all values. But you point out to what degree is this a life organizing principle for you? Because like I remember you were saying of yourself, I love my family dearly. I'm a loyal, loving person. And it's clear just from talking to you for 15 minutes, you're incredibly loving, incredibly loyal. But in terms of family centrism being a life organizing principle for you, it's not in your top five.

[Susie Welch]

No, it's number 11. Okay. And I'm like. I'm a total values agnostic. It's like, if you're not hurting anybody, you can have any level of all 15 of these values that you want. I'm not in the business to judge. None of us should be judging each other. The only people we should be judging are ourselves. Okay. And so I. You're. You came by your values honestly. If you're not hurting anybody, you've got to write to them. And so I am like, none is better. These are not virtues. These are values.

[Gretchen Rubin]

Yeah. To what degree do you. Are you organizing your life around that?

[Susie Welch]

That's right. They galvanize your actions and decisions. Again, though, you can have a very high value of family centrism and not be able to express it because of a job or because of. Of some. Something going on in your life or a spouse who has different values. And sometimes we end up living by our partner's values, and we have to be careful of that. I mean, one of the beautiful things about the tool is it allows you to check a box, and if your partner has taken it, also your values come up right next to each other, and they're so may.

[Gretchen Rubin]

I know that I want to do that.

[Susie Welch]

I know. I think that that's a.

[Gretchen Rubin]

Just to talk about, like, a very. Like a very obvious example of that. One of the values that surprised me was the value of place, because that seems so specific or, I guess, concrete, because some of the others are achievement or luminance. But places like, how important is place to you? And that was a very high value for me. But I have a friend who. She got married. She really, really wanted to live in New York City, and her husband basically kind of tricked her into moving to another city, a much smaller city in the Midwest, saying, like, oh, but we can always move back. But he made it so she really couldn't. And she just said to me, I just feel like I'm in the wrong place. She's like, I've joined a book club. I've done this, I've done that. I've made friends, I've done everything, but I still feel like I'm in the wrong place. And I've always remembered that. And when I saw this value of yours, I was like. Like, it must have been a really high value of hers.

[Susie Welch]

It was.

[Gretchen Rubin]

Maybe it was a really high value of his. And that's what dragged her there.

[Susie Welch]

That's right. And this can destroy relationships. And that's why place is part of the values list, because it can Drive everything. If you've got two digital nomads who are together and they just agree that they have no sort of value of place, they can go everywhere. But if you've got two people who have high specific place, it causes, you know, where you want to live and how strongly you want to live there. Those are values, and we've got to name them. So I'm not surprised. It's also super high value for me. You couldn't get me out of New York City with a crane. You just could not.

[Elizabeth Craft]

Well, Gretchen, as I was taking your quiz, Suzy, it reminded me of taking the Four Tendencies quiz. Totally different set of things that you're learning about yourself, but something that opens your eyes to a whole new way of thinking that can really have an impact on the choices you make.

[Susie Welch]

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think that they're very aligned in this way. And one of my great dreams is to teach that framework in my class. I think it's more incredibly valuable data to have about yourself standing still. We never know who we are standing still. We're always trying to figure out who we are on the fly. And I think that's exactly what your framework does as well. Gretchen is. It says, this is data about yourself. You need to know.

[Elizabeth Craft]

Yeah. Okay, Gretchen, before we ask Susie more about her book, what is our spotlight on a tool this week?

[Gretchen Rubin]

Okay. Well, June is graduation season. It's the start of the summer. There is so much to celebrate. And if you are looking for a gift for a graduating student, a classic choice is a book, of course. Secrets of Adulthood, I think would make a great graduation gift. And many people are giving it as a graduation gift. But there are many terrific books that you could give to a graduate. So I made a list of some of the books that I really like to give for graduates as they start their next chapter of their life. You can look at the recommendations there. Susie's book is on the list Becoming youg, because I really do think it is so valuable. And then there are other ones. I mean, I've talked many times, say, about Meg J's the Defining Decade. But my other favorites are on that list. So I will post.

[Susie Welch]

That's a great book.

[Gretchen Rubin]

Yeah, right?

[Susie Welch]

That's a great book.

[Gretchen Rubin]

Terrifying title.

[Susie Welch]

Yeah, But a great book. A great book.

[Gretchen Rubin]

But a great book. She's a great writer. So I'll post a link in the show notes. You can go onto my site if you would like to see that list.

[Elizabeth Craft]

Okay. Coming up, we're gonna add Ask Susie More about Becoming you. But first, this break.

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[Gretchen Rubin]

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[Susie Welch]

Yeah, the thing about it is you can hold all the values super intensely all at the same time, all 15 of them. But you're going to be a hot mess. And most people, and most people don't do that. Most people sort of have four or five values because we have to live. You have to wake up every morning and make decisions. And if you are. If you find every single value of equal strength in you, you are a disaster. Okay? You just have. You can't function that way. So most people have four to five top values. That's the way it generally falls out. Almost every social SC would agree there's four or five that compete for the top. And then you are going to have some generally that are in conflict with each other. That's just the way life goes. But some are moderate values and some are peripheral values. And it doesn't mean you don't have any of them. Okay? So there's a value for stimulation, excitement. It's called scope. How big and exciting a life do you want? And there's a continuum. I want a life where I'm like Bianca Jagger going into Studio 54 on a white stallion. Okay. I want this, like, super exciting life. I, like, want to take safaris on my vacation. And then all the way at the other end of the continuum is having a very calm, predictable life. You're willing to give up everything so that you know where you're gonna be at 2 o' clock a year from now and everything in between, which Elizabeth.

[Gretchen Rubin]

Often says that I would have been a good monk. Yes, I'm very low on scope.

[Susie Welch]

Yeah, my sister's very low in scope. And I'm super high on scope. And I always say that my late husband was the highest person who ever could live on scope. Where we would be getting ready to go to bed at 11 o' clock at night and I'd just be thinking, oh, how great we're about to turn in. And I would be like about to turn off lights and he'd look over at me with glee in his eye and say, let's go for a pub crawl. Okay. Starting, like, I mean, because he hadn't had enough stimulation for the day. Okay. And I know. And off we would go. But luckily I'm very high scope also. But if you're low scope, that would be a living hell. So one of the things is we do two things. Either we realize that the fighting over which ones of our values are the highest for us is too hard and we sort of naturally start to prioritize ones over the other. We quit a job, or we take a second job if money is the thing, or we make some choice choices. But most of the time what we end up doing is we end up getting every single day and we end up trying to litigate all of our conflicting values. We try to make all of them sort of equal in our minds. And I think part of what understanding what your values are and their rank ordering to you is to help you figure out how you want to live. So if you take the values quiz and you find out that you've got three that are tied for number one, which happens, most people look at that result and say, oh my God, this explains my kind of daily agony. Agony. So since the beginning of values inventories, there's been a value around what's usually called aesthetics. And the term I use for this is beholderism, because it's a value that represents how much you care about how things look, including yourself. Okay. You know, a lot of times people want to judge people who have high beholderism. I happen to have it and people feel very judgy about it. But I actually think it might be a proxy for wanting harmony in your life. Like you can't control a lot of things, but you can control how your house looks or you can control how you look, or maybe I'm just, just, you know, finding a fancy explanation for it. But for me, I just think the joy of decorating a home is just delicious. And I, when I was traveling with Jack and we went to Yaroslava, Finland, and I found the Alvar Aalto Museum of Furniture was there. My father was an architect. We found the mayor to open this museum so I could look at the chairs. This is my beholderism. But sometimes beholderism presents in a really funny way where we choose one job over another because how beautiful the offices are to us. Uh huh.

[Gretchen Rubin]

It's interesting because Elizabeth and I score low on beholderism. But our mother is very. I'm sure she hasn't taken your quiz. We will tell her to do that. But she clearly scores high in beholderism. And my two daughters score very high in beholderism.

[Susie Welch]

Yes.

[Gretchen Rubin]

And so it's funny because I'm always like, what's wrong with me? Like, I see that they get this immense pleasure and I admire it and I respect it.

[Susie Welch]

I'm not sure you admire it or respect it from the sound of it.

[Gretchen Rubin]

No, I do. Like, I wish that I wanted to. To spend the time to like, really. It's just not something that is guiding my. It's not an organizing principle of my life. Yes. And Elizabeth too though, she is getting into tablescapes. But I would say as you can.

[Elizabeth Craft]

See from the office behind me, it is not high on my list.

[Susie Welch]

That's right. And for some people and look at the office behind me, you can tell it's very high on my list. Right. And so I think it's. When I was over giving a speech at Google the other day, I said to a friend who I was with, who's big into values like I am, I said my beholderism is off the charts. I want to quit my job and come work at Google because these offices are so beautiful. It just is data to help you understand. I mean, I've made so many better decisions since I have come to be able to speak about my values with clarity because I stop myself from doing dumb things sometimes because I think, well, that's just that particular value on steroids and I need to just listen to myself and ask is this the right time to be applying it? And so I think it's just self understanding. It's self understanding.

[Elizabeth Craft]

And then can you explain what the variance means? You talk about variance.

[Susie Welch]

Yeah, I try not to call this the happiness score because. But it sort of ends up being that. But the variance is a very, this is the one tool that does this. It, it assesses what your actual held fundamental values are and then it tests how much you're currently expressing them. So you might have a very high value of say, scope. You want excitement, you want newness, you want to travel, you want change, and you have a very high value scope. But you're in a job that's very routine or you are in a lifestyle right now. Say you have partner who's not well and your life has been constrained by that. You may have scope as your number one value, but you're not able to express it at all. For different life constraints, your variance could be up to 100%. And I'll tell you something interesting that I see. There's a value called voice, which is creative self expression. How much you demonstrate your authenticity. Some people want to let their freak flag fly. Voice is number one. They want to be out there self expressing. They want to express themselves through their hair and their tattoos and their, and their political activism. And they've voice is number one and they have a lot of creativity in them. They want to let it out. And I have a lot of young women come up to me with voice as their number one or two value with a variance in the 80s or 90s because they, they, I mean, it is stunning to me because when I was a young woman, I was very self expressive. I was an extrovert. I don't know if it was self confidence or what was going on. And they say to me with a great deal of poignancy, how do I fix this score? How do I show more of my voice? And I say, well, this is the work of your life. The first step is understanding that the discomfort you're feeling is that you have voice and you're not expressing it right.

[Gretchen Rubin]

But even knowing that, we often say, identify the problem.

[Susie Welch]

Yeah.

[Gretchen Rubin]

You can't figure out how to address a situation if you don't understand what, what the issue is. And so the more that you can have, well, this is why I have this uneasiness. It's because there's this specific variance that's better than just being like, I feel like I'm living the wrong life.

[Susie Welch]

That's right.

[Gretchen Rubin]

Or I hate everything. Well, that's not helpful.

[Susie Welch]

Right. Generalized ennui. I mean, that's what it ends up showing up as, is just angst, you know, and. But now we've got a name for.

[Elizabeth Craft]

It and that makes sense. Makes it feel much easier to get in alignment.

[Gretchen Rubin]

Yes.

[Elizabeth Craft]

It makes it seem like less of a big deal in a sense, because you know what it is. And therefore you can take steps.

[Susie Welch]

We could start to take steps. Yeah, exactly. You could start to take steps.

[Gretchen Rubin]

Well, and also when you see people disagree, like you're saying in a couple, or maybe it's a parent child, where the parent or even with yourself in terms of what your expectations for yourself are, where you're like, what's wrong with me? What's wrong with you? Why don't you think this is important? Why aren't you taking this action? Why aren't you taking advantage of this opportunity? And this gives you a way to, to say nobody's right and nobody's wrong. It's just that people have, are putting different values in different orders and that's gonna take them to a different place.

[Susie Welch]

I mean, this reminds me of the woman who came up to me and she said, my husband's a workaholic. And it, and I, it's driving me crazy. And I said, you know the word aholic is a disease. Right. Do you think it's possible, I said, there's a value called work centrism of how much you'd like to work for work's sake? Is it possible he has high work centrism and you have low work centrism and she's like. She literally was one of those moments where, you know, the scales fell from their eyes. She said, I never thought of it this way. And I said, do you think that's what it is? And she said, well, he loves his work, and he hates it when I call him a workaholic. And I said, that's right, because he doesn't think he's an aholic. He thinks he loves work. He has high work centrism, and you have low work centrism. And then she said an interesting thing. She said, actually, I don't think I have low work centrism. I think I'm jealous of his high work centrism. Oh, yes, yes. And then after that con. Yeah, I know. It was a stunning conversation. And it was in the moment. It was how the language of values helps you stop picking on people for their values and having a conversation about the value. Right. Instead of saying she'd been calling him a workaholic for years. Whereas, in fact, it was the completely wrong conversation to have.

[Gretchen Rubin]

Wow.

[Susie Welch]

And, you know, I've had conversations with, like, a woman. Came to the same workshop you went to, Gretchen, and she went home, and she. She called me later to say I went home and was able to have the first conversation with my adult children in, like, 14 years. Because we had just become so in the corners against each other. We had no language to talk about our different values. But now we had a language. It was very gratifying.

[Gretchen Rubin]

Right. And it's an impersonal language. It's like, here's this thing. And like, you say, no judgment. It's just like, let's just use this vocabulary.

[Susie Welch]

Yep, exactly.

[Elizabeth Craft]

Well, and I think the timing for this quiz is so good because as we're going to more of a gig economy or people having to have their own small business and all of that. This is a way to help us make choices when we're creating something rather than just like flowing into a system.

[Susie Welch]

With the rate of change, the accelerated change, and the churn in the economy and everything being upside down, I think people are gonna have to figure out more and more who they are so that they can figure out where they fit in. It used to be you just say, okay, that part of the. Oh, tech's growing. I'm gonna go find a job in tech. And now you need. You need more data to plan a life.

[Gretchen Rubin]

Well, Susie, one of your exercises that you had us do was to write our signature. Signature with our non dominant hand to illustrate, like, how much harder it is to do something as simple as writing your signature if you're using your non dominant hand. I'm left handed and sometimes I'll be at a public computer and the mouse is on the right side and it'll take me a minute to realize, why is everything so hard? It's like, because I'm not using my right hand to use the mouse.

[Susie Welch]

That's right.

[Gretchen Rubin]

And so at a time where you really have to be able to keep up, the more you're with your natural.

[Susie Welch]

Why not do everything with the dominant hand of your brain and of your. Of your soul? I mean, you just, it makes it so much easier and you're just gonna have so much more comfort and thrive and be happier. I mean, it's just. It's so hard to work against yourself. And now when the environment is hard, why would you double down on it? You know, just let lean into what you're good at.

[Gretchen Rubin]

Yeah.

[Elizabeth Craft]

Well, this has been such a fascinating conversation and every single person needs to take this quiz and then have long conversations about it and put their lives into a life. Gretch, finally, what is our quote this week?

[Gretchen Rubin]

This is very appropriate for this discussion. It's from Publilius. The greatest of empires is the empire over oneself.

[Susie Welch]

I mean, that is good. That's. I may have to put that on a slide in my class right after Mary Oliver. That is very, very.

[Gretchen Rubin]

You love a quotation, Susie. I now know that about you. So, yes, I will start throwing quotations your way. Be careful. Yeah. So Elizabeth and Susie, are you feeling happier?

[Susie Welch]

I'm feeling so happy. I'm very happy speaking to you. I feel great. I love being with you both and just happy in general that the book is finally out. You know what? It feels like you've been sort of holding your breath for a while and here it is. And I'm ready to hear people talk about and react to it and I'll learn from them.

[Gretchen Rubin]

That's so great. How about you, Elizabeth?

[Elizabeth Craft]

I am way happier. Want to thank Susie Welch. You can read her new book Becoming youg and take her on online quiz to learn more about your values. Suzy, where should everyone take the quiz?

[Susie Welch]

They can find it on my website, susiewelch.com and you can look for the values bridge quiz right there.

[Elizabeth Craft]

Perfect. Thank you to Chuck. Bye, Gretchen and bye Susie.

[Susie Welch]

Bye.

[Gretchen Rubin]

Bye, Elizabeth. Bye, Susie. The best time to start a happiness project is 20 years ago. The second best time is now. Susie, I heard your dog Sparky, because you love dogs. I heard a little bit of a dog there.

[Susie Welch]

Now there's dogs everywhere, actually. Dogs every. I mean, I'm. I'm overrun by dogs. I mean, I've got the shepherds and I've got the dachshund and I. And I'm holding off the desire to get a fourth dog. Man. It's hard, though. It's hard.

[Gretchen Rubin]

Well, Elizabeth, for once, your corgis did not bark this time.

[Elizabeth Craft]

Yes.

[Susie Welch]

Do you have corgis?

[Elizabeth Craft]

Yeah, two corgis.

[Susie Welch]

You know, I've been interested in corgis. I think they're a little more difficult than the. They're quite opinionated, aren't they?

[Elizabeth Craft]

Yes. And extremely loud. They have a loud, piercing, non stop bark.

[Susie Welch]

Yeah, well, like, I got shepherd, so I got you on that one there. They're like bark.

[Gretchen Rubin]

From the onward project.