← The Dan Buettner Podcast
The Dan Buettner Podcast
Stacking the Deck for a Longer Life: Small Happiness Habits with Massive Long-Term Payoffs
01:04:18
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- [00:02]
Dan Buettner
Lemonade.
- [00:07]
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- [00:34]
Gretchen Rubin
People think that you act because of the way you feel. But to a very great degree, we feel because of the way that we act. There's really just this, like, core distinction in how people prefer to approach their lives.
- [00:50]
Dan Buettner
What are the three most powerful things that work for most people at Getting happier? I feel like I'm introduced my audience to a true legend. You know, I've been writing about happiness for about as long as you. 2009, I think your big book, the Happiness Project came out and I was sort of muscling away with National Geographic on my own happiness and reading Gretchen Rubin's New York Times bestseller, Two Years on the New York Times Bestseller list and say, I wish I would have thought of that. You know, and here you are and you do such a great job and I the audience is going to love this that you do such a great job of making yourself kind of the character to deliver the science. But the science is consummately usable that our audience here, the Dan Buhner podcast, loves takeaways. And your books are full of things that you can do. You don't have to hire a professional coach. You don't have to get online and spend a bunch of money. There are things right in front of us and they're evidence based. But before we jump into that, your free Happiness Project life a Yale graduate, a clerk for the Supreme Court, Sandra Day o'. Connor. That to me feels like most people's definition of success.
- [02:13]
Gretchen Rubin
Yeah.
- [02:13]
Dan Buettner
Yes, you were. And what happened? Why wasn't that enough?
- [02:19]
Gretchen Rubin
It wasn't that it wasn't enough. It was just that I went to law school for all the wrong reasons. I went because I'm good at research. I can always change my mind later. It's great preparation. It'll keep my options open. So I went there thinking that just because I didn't know what else to do with myself and I did have a great experience, I'm so happy that I went to law school. I loved my law experience, but I was clerking for Sandra Day o'. Connor. And then I had to figure out what I was going to do next. And I couldn't think of anything I wanted to do. But at the same time, I was just frantically researching and taking notes on this subject that to me, seemed like one big subject. Power, money, fame, sex. And I was working on it and working on it, and then finally it occurred to me, this is the kind of thing a person would do if they were gonna write a book. And I thought maybe I could write that book. And then I became instantly focused on the idea of, like, I wanna write this book. So it wasn't even like I wanted to be a writer abstractly, and it wasn't even like I didn't wanna be a lawyer. It's like, I wanna write a book called Name Sex A User's Guide. I'm already hard at work at that book. How do I make that happen? So I bought a book from the bookstore called something like, how to write and Sell your nonfiction book proposal. And I just followed the directions. And then I've been a writer ever since, and I realized I really did want to be a writer. I just. I didn't know what I would write about. And then once I started, I started figuring out how to. I started having a lot of ideas about things that I wanted to write about.
- [03:50]
Dan Buettner
Parenthetically, here. I can't tell you how many people I meet who have a book in them and they have a book idea or they've started writing a book, and you were at that exact same point and you actually did it. What do you say to people out there who feel like they have a book in them? How do you manifest that?
- [04:10]
Gretchen Rubin
Well, I always say, I think that writing a book is the most fun a person has. So I'm constantly trying to get people to write books, but it is a huge. As you know. Well, it's a lot of work. I always start every project thinking, this is going to be easy and fun and. And it's never easy and fun. It might be fun, but it's not easy and fun.
- [04:26]
Dan Buettner
I met Kurt Vonnegut once, the writer, who told me that if he met somebody who said they loved to write, he was pretty sure they weren't a writer.
- [04:36]
Gretchen Rubin
Ah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [04:38]
Dan Buettner
Cause the actual. I'd love to have written, but the actual act of writing. Or I love the research, too.
- [04:43]
Gretchen Rubin
Yeah, love the research.
- [04:44]
Dan Buettner
But to write, I find, is kind of a mental flogging.
- [04:49]
Gretchen Rubin
Yeah. Well, one of the things I do say to people who kind of feel like they have a book in them is I say, well, this sounds so obvious, but then you actually have to be writing. Because I think a lot of people have the idea for a book, but they aren't actually putting it down on paper. I'm like, once you start actually putting something down on paper, you will start realizing whether you have the impulse and kind of the perseverance to write a book. Or maybe it's just a really cool idea that you had. But you don't have to go tweet that idea. Yeah. You don't want to turn it into a book, because that's a very particular kind of process.
- [05:20]
Dan Buettner
Yes. So let's go back to the happiness project. I don't want to dwell too much on it because I know that's over a decade old, but it really did launch you. And I'm wondering what the epiphany was, because I think by most people's definition of success, Yale education, working for a Supreme Court justice, you had a big life, but yet it wasn't enough, or yet it wasn't what you wanted. Well, can you remember the moment where.
- [05:50]
Gretchen Rubin
Oh, well, one of my favorite things about myself is I'm very subject to epiphany. And I always know exactly where I have it. So I was. We're in New York City right now. I was on 79th street on the crosstown bus, and I looked out the window. It was pouring rain, and the bus was moving very slowly. So I had one of those rare opportunities for reflection that, you know, sometimes in the busyness of everyday life, we don't really have. And I looked out the window and I thought, well, what do I want from life anyway? And I thought, well, I wanna be happy. And as I asked myself that, I thought, am I happy? I don't even know if I'm happy. I have all the elements of a happy life. Could I be happier? What would you do to make yourself happier? And I thought, you know, I should do a happiness project. And those were the words that came to me. And I did what I always do when I get really interested in something. It's like I ran to the library and got a giant stack of books. Science, psychology, philosophy, memoirs, novels, anything I could get my hands on about happiness. And I was just researching it for myself. I was my own personal project. And, you know, the thing is, I was pretty happy already. And one of the things I wanted to do was to have more appreciation for all the happiness that I already had. That was one of the aims. And I wanted to know, could I make myself Happier. And as I was reading, it just was so interesting. And there were so many things I wanted to try. Like you say, like, you can read all this stuff, but if you don't figure out how to try it in your own life, that is really the satisfying part is, like, putting it into action. How would you do that? It just got bigger and bigger and bigger. And finally I thought, well, maybe this is my next book project. And people said, don't call it the happiness project. That doesn't sound like fun. That sounds like homework. And I'm like, I kind of have to call it the happiness project. Because in my mind, I was like, I should do a happiness project. And I think a project sounds so fun. I've learned people disagree about that. But it really started out as something for me in my own life just to see, could a person who's pretty happy make themselves happier?
- [07:48]
Dan Buettner
That's interesting, because it wasn't too long ago that Martin Seligman made this sort of shift in the world of psychology from making unhappy people less unhappy to making normal people happier.
- [08:01]
Gretchen Rubin
And you were the positive psychology.
- [08:03]
Dan Buettner
Yes. And you were really on the forefront of that. I mean, it was relatively new in 2000. You must have started in 2007 or 2008. And literature was scant.
- [08:12]
Gretchen Rubin
Yeah. But there was starting to be so much more investigation into, like, what does a happy life look like? And a lot of interest in, yeah, what does that look like?
- [08:22]
Dan Buettner
And I love it that you didn't start with some catastrophe or some. You were.
- [08:28]
Gretchen Rubin
Some editors didn't. When I was trying to sell the book, some people were like, where's your arc?
- [08:32]
Dan Buettner
Yeah. Where's your story? Yeah.
- [08:33]
Gretchen Rubin
Like, you're pretty happy when you start. You're pretty happy.
- [08:35]
Dan Buettner
A little more happy later. What's.
- [08:37]
Gretchen Rubin
No, it's funny.
- [08:37]
Dan Buettner
Where's the drama?
- [08:38]
Gretchen Rubin
There was no drama. And then some people said to me, like, you're so average. You're incredibly boring. And then some people are like, you're so quirky, nobody can identify with you. I'm like, I don't know what this is. You know, like, I am who I am. I'm gonna write about what I learned. And it turns out that a lot of people sort of identify with me. They're like, they're not coming from a place of deep despair that they're like, you know, are there things that I could do to make my life happier? Like, is there low hanging fruit? Are there things that, you know, I could just do? As you think about this all the time, things you could do as part of your ordinary life, just your daily routine that are over time gonna make you happier. And then the interesting thing is in the book I said this isn't written for a person who's suffering from depression, which is like a separate category from ordinary happiness and unhappiness. And I definitely do not wanna speak to that very urgent and serious condition. But then many people say like, well, even though I suffer from depression, I find the same things can be helpful to me too.
- [09:32]
Dan Buettner
You referenced a second ago the low hanging fruit. What did you find was the low hanging fruit and happiness?
- [09:38]
Gretchen Rubin
Oh well, there's so much low hanging fruit. Well, one of them is morning light, right? Try to get morning light. I think for a lot of people that's not that hard to do. Go outside, get a little light in your face, really understanding the absolute essential nature of friendships and relationships, that they are at the heart of a happy life. And so I think it's interesting for people to think like, if you're trying to figure out what to do with your precious time, energy or money, anything that deepens relationships or broadens relationships is probably something that's gonna make you happier. So should you spend the money and the effort to go to your college reunion? Should you drag yourself out of your house to go to your friend's cocktail party? Should you stay, should you go to work instead of working from home so that you can spend some time hanging out with your new coworkers? Anything. That's just a very helpful heuristic, I think, which is if it deepens or broadens relationships, it's probably worth it.
- [10:35]
Dan Buettner
Do you say that even to introverts who assert, oh, I'm happier by myself?
- [10:40]
Gretchen Rubin
Well, it's true that people have very different social needs, but even research shows that even introverts get like a boost from engaging with other people. But I think that's. You point to an excellent, excellent factor, which is you want to always think about, well, what is true for you. And I think a big mistake people make in happiness is they think, okay, just tell me the best way to be happier. Tell me the right way to be happier. Tell me the most scientifically proven way to be happier. And I'm like, but it all depends on you. Like some people say, well, get up at 7am and do everything that's important before breakfast. And that's how you have a happy life. I'm like, that might be true for me cause I'm a morning person. But for night people, they're at their most productive and creative and Energetic later in the day. They shouldn't try to cram something important into the first part of the day. That's not a good time for them. And it's not that it's not a good idea theoretically. It's just that it's not good for that individual person. So I do think that this idea that you really have to begin by knowing what is true for you is something that is a step that many people skip. They think like, well, there must just be some template. You gotta figure it out. With habit change. A lot of people say, start small, keep it simple, build small wins, and that's how you'll keep it going. And I'm like, maybe. But some people are bored by incremental change. They want to go big or go home.
- [12:00]
Dan Buettner
They like a huge New York Times bestseller. My first craft, how do the Happiness Project.
- [12:05]
Gretchen Rubin
Well, you can't do that because that's an outcome you don't control. But you could say, I'm gonna write a novel in a month, you know, and do National Novel Writing Month and be like, okay, I'm gonna write a novel in a month. I'm gonna be able to run a marathon by the end of the year, because those are things that you can control. So some people are very attracted, like, by big aims, big goals, big swings.
- [12:27]
Dan Buettner
I remember from my own research that this Minnesota Twins study showed that about 40. About 40% of happiness is heritable.
- [12:38]
Gretchen Rubin
In other words, I've seen it as high as 50%.
- [12:40]
Dan Buettner
Highest. 50%, yeah. So it. Right away, it starts to. You may be. You may be predisposed to unhappiness, or you may have to do nothing.
- [12:50]
Gretchen Rubin
You're happy, you're an Eeyore or a Tigger, and to some degree.
- [12:55]
Dan Buettner
And, you know, 15% is luck. You know, if you're born with.
- [12:59]
Gretchen Rubin
With life circumstances.
- [13:01]
Dan Buettner
Yeah. You have crushing depression or chronic pain or, you know, you're. You're not a Minnesota Vikings fan. I mean, it's very hard to be happy in life. But the. The other 30 or 40%, it seems you can have some influence. And the metaphor I like to think of is you can stack the deck in favor of happiness. There's nothing that's going to guarantee, to your point about everybody's sort of different, but. So you can't. But there are some things that make it more likely anybody's going to be happy.
- [13:32]
Gretchen Rubin
Right. Well, and it's interesting about stacking the deck. That's an interesting. The way I think about it is the range that, like, your range might be 7 to 10. And somebody else's range might be 5 to 8. But it's like, well, what could you do with your conscious thoughts and actions to push yourself up to the top of your range rather than drift down to the bottom of your range? Because we've all seen situations where somebody just through things that they've done are making themselves more or less happy.
- [14:00]
Dan Buettner
Yes, There are some universals when it comes to happiness. Like good food makes everybody happy, most everybody happier. Good shelter, something to do that's gratifying. The feeling of giving back gives almost everybody pleasure. Laughter, the absence of noise. So there are a few. You know, there is a subset of things you can do, pretty much guarantees you're gonna be a little happier in a. In at least a fleeting sort of way. And then there's these things that are more, I guess, subjective, that work for some people and don't work so well for others. And when you did your happiness project, what were the things that worked best for you at taking kind of an ordinary level of happiness and upgrading it?
- [14:53]
Gretchen Rubin
Well, one of the things that I did that was surprisingly consequential, which was. So I divided into chapters for 12 months, and each month I would sort of focus on a different theme. And one of the themes for me was marriage, because I married. And one of the things that I do is like to kiss my husband good morning and good night every day, just like always. First thing to give him a kiss, and always the last thing to give him a kiss, you know. And there's all this research showing that people think that you act because of the way you feel. But to a very great degree, we feel because of the way that we act. And so if you want to feel more loving and more tender, act in a loving, tender way. With my husband and my two daughters as sort of in the family theme, which is always to give everybody a big hello and goodbye. Because in a family, I think sometimes you can get into the habit of just, like, grunting out, you know, are you hardly looking up from the newspaper or you're not. And so for me, it's really important that I. And say to, like, hello, you know. You know. Well, that's why we like dogs. They're so happy to see you walk in the door. Then they look so longingly at you when you walk out. It feels good when people register that you come and go. And this is true in the workplace, too. It's a very bad feeling when you're, like, walking through the halls and no one is meeting your eye. Or saying hello or looking up from their desk to give you a wave. And what's interesting is one of the sad facts about happiness is that the only person that we can change is ourselves, which is very annoying. But it is true that when we change, relationships change. And so sometimes by changing ourselves, we can change the atmosphere that we live in.
- [16:27]
Dan Buettner
And it's sort of this self perpetuating thing where exactly said hello to me and.
- [16:33]
Gretchen Rubin
Yeah, yeah, well, it just starts being like you're not going to just walk out of the apartment, you're going to wait for somebody. You know, it creates sort of an expectation of connection when you come and go.
- [16:43]
Dan Buettner
Let me test drive something counterintuitive that another podcast guest, AJ Jacobs posits.
- [16:49]
Gretchen Rubin
Oh, huge fan of AJ Jacobs. Brilliant and hilarious. Yes, yes.
- [16:54]
Dan Buettner
He, he advises that you should go to bed angry if you have a fight with go to bed angry.
- [17:01]
Gretchen Rubin
I completely agree.
- [17:02]
Dan Buettner
Really?
- [17:02]
Gretchen Rubin
Yeah, you'll, you'll feel better in the morning. It's like, don't work it out. Like, don't, don't, don't, don't.
- [17:08]
Dan Buettner
I mean the cliche is never go to bed angry. And, but, but he kind of points out that, yeah, yeah, you'll, if you just keep fighting, you're going to be, you're not going to sleep well and you're probably not going to resolve it if you sleep on it, you're more likely to wake up well and at
- [17:23]
Gretchen Rubin
the end of the. Are tired, their reserves are dropped. They're, you know, it's just not you at your best. So. And then also any kind of perspective or distance helps with an argument. And so I think just having that time go by is helpful. Somebody told me the funniest thing where they were like, if somebody was fighting. Because my whole thing is like you have, if you're fighting, like hold hands or touch the person because it's just, it just automatically sort of lowers the temperature because it's hard to like be yelling at somebody when you're holding their hand. But what she did is she, she was a therapist and she would say to couples who are fighting, you know, vehemently lie down on the floor with like your sides touching and now argue. And she said it's just really hard to do. It's like you're lying down, so it's hard to like, you know, you know, like really project and then you feel sort of silly and then you're touching from top to bottom. I thought, yeah, anything that just like puts you in a different place, that gives you perspective, that Makes you feel differently. Often will, like, shake an argument a little bit. Yeah.
- [18:24]
Dan Buettner
Hard. Hard to fall in the default of defects.
- [18:26]
Gretchen Rubin
Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.
- [18:28]
Dan Buettner
I'm right and you're wrong. Damn it.
- [18:29]
Gretchen Rubin
Just sniping in the kitchen, that could go on for hours.
- [18:32]
Dan Buettner
Yeah, yeah. And another one of these feedback loops and you just keep fueling.
- [18:37]
Gretchen Rubin
Yeah. And it just. You. How do you get out of it? You're tired, you're exhausted, you. You don't have any self control and it just goes and goes and goes.
- [18:45]
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- [19:38]
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- [20:28]
Dan Buettner
I'm going to confession to you. I don't believe in habits. Actually, there's only one habit that I know of that people actually a critical mass of people actually follow. You know what that one is on a daily basis?
- [20:42]
Gretchen Rubin
Tooth brushing.
- [20:43]
Dan Buettner
That's right. Exactly. And still only about 55% of people brush their teeth every day. So it's not that. But habits are notoriously fleeting. If you look at if you look
- [20:54]
Gretchen Rubin
at the the or, they are rock solid and almost unbreakable.
- [20:59]
Dan Buettner
Okay.
- [21:00]
Gretchen Rubin
Right. You're doing good habits.
- [21:02]
Dan Buettner
All right.
- [21:04]
Gretchen Rubin
About 40% of everyday behavior is shaped by habit.
- [21:08]
Dan Buettner
Give me. Other than teeth brushing, give me a habit that lasts for more than a year. For if you start with a hundred people today, that you're going to have more than 5% still doing it.
- [21:19]
Gretchen Rubin
Afternoon, having a first cup of coffee, wearing your seatbelt, driving to work the same way, putting on your clothes in the same order.
- [21:26]
Dan Buettner
Seatbelt's a good one. I would argue that's an environmental. Of course, my central thesis when it comes to either longevity or happiness is if you try to change your behavior, you're gonna forget, run out of gas, or you lose the discipline or get distracted over the long run if you shape your surroundings so that it governs your unconscious decision.
- [21:47]
Gretchen Rubin
So I would argue this is the nudge approach. Yep.
- [21:50]
Dan Buettner
Yes.
- [21:51]
Gretchen Rubin
Well, I don't think it's either or. I think they're both great. Use them all. Throw everything at it.
- [21:55]
Dan Buettner
I'll agree with that.
- [21:57]
Gretchen Rubin
But I have my four tendencies personality framework. And just the fact that you're saying that is making me think that you might be a rebel. I don't know.
- [22:05]
Dan Buettner
People call me a disruptor.
- [22:07]
Gretchen Rubin
Well, I wish. I'll have you take the quiz.
- [22:10]
Dan Buettner
I'll be okay.
- [22:11]
Gretchen Rubin
Okay. Or I could, like, do a speed diagnosis of you now, because rebels very usually don't like the idea of habits very much. They resist the idea of habits. Whereas people in my tendency, which is the upholder tendency, love habits and are like very, very, very, like, compelled by habits.
- [22:27]
Dan Buettner
All right, well, so now that we've cracked that in topic, let's talk about the 4 tendency because this is a big focus of yours right now.
- [22:34]
Gretchen Rubin
Yeah.
- [22:35]
Dan Buettner
First of all, what are the four tendencies?
- [22:37]
Gretchen Rubin
Okay, so in a nutshell. And people can go to my website and take this super free, super quick.
- [22:42]
Dan Buettner
Tell people the website a couple times.
- [22:44]
Gretchen Rubin
Just go to GretchenRubin.com quiz or just look on the website, you know, for quizzes. I have a lot of quizzes, but the Four Tendencies quiz. Like three and a half million people have taken this free quiz.
- [22:54]
Dan Buettner
Jesus.
- [22:54]
Gretchen Rubin
But I will describe it to you now, Dan, and you will probably see it all around you. We can do Game of Thrones characters. We can do the office characters. Like, these are so easy to see. This isn't something subtle. They're very easy to see once you know what you're looking for. So I will do them briefly and then I think you're clearly one of two, but we'll see. We'll see what you are. So what it looks at is how you respond to expectations. And we all face two kinds of expectations. Outer expectations, like a work deadline, and inner expectations, like your own desire to get back into meditation. So depending on whether you meet or resist outer and inner expectation, that makes you an upholder, a questioner, an obliger, or a rebel. So upholders are people like me. We readily meet both outer and inner expectations. We meet the work deadline. We keep the New Year's resolution without much fuss. We want to know what other people expect from us and do that. But our expectations for ourselves are just as important. Our motto is discipline is my freedom. Then there are questioners. Questioners question all expectations. They'll do it if they think it makes sense. They need rationale, justification. They're interested in efficiency. They like to customize. They can sometimes fall into analysis paralysis because their desire for perfect information makes it hard for them to move forward. They are always asking why? So they're making everything an inner expectation. If it meets their inner expectation.
- [24:17]
Dan Buettner
What's that person called again?
- [24:18]
Gretchen Rubin
A questioner. If it meets their inner expectation, they'll do it. If it fails their inner expectation, they'll push back. So their motto is, I'll comply if you convince me why.
- [24:28]
Dan Buettner
Show me the data.
- [24:29]
Gretchen Rubin
Yeah. Then there are obligers. Obligers readily meet outer expectations, but they struggle to meet inner expectations. This is the biggest tendency for both men and women. This is the one that most people belong to. So obligers are the people who always keep their promises to other people, but really struggle to keep their promises to themselves. And the secret for an obliger is they have to have utter accountability, even to meet an inner expectation. If you want to exercise, you work out with a trainer. You work out with a friend who's annoyed if you don't show up. You raise money for a charity. You think of your duty to your future self. There's a million ways to create outer accountability. And obligers need that even for inner expectations. They make great team members, great leaders, great friends. They really have to figure out how to handle this for themselves. So their motto is, you can count on me, and I'm counting on you to count on me. And then finally, rebels. Rebels resist all expectations, outer and inner alike. They wanna do what they wanna do in their own way, in their own time, for their own reasons. They can do anything they want to do. They can do anything they choose to do. But if you ask or tell Them to do something they're very likely to resist.
- [25:38]
Dan Buettner
Huh.
- [25:38]
Gretchen Rubin
Is that you?
- [25:39]
Dan Buettner
I would say I am a hybrid of the questioner and the rebel.
- [25:44]
Gretchen Rubin
Okay. So that's very interesting because questioning rebels overlap because they both outer expectations. So my question to you is, let's say you were in a workplace and somebody said, you need to give me this report by Friday. Would you be thinking in your mind, why should I? Or you're not the boss of me,
- [26:03]
Dan Buettner
since I've never had a boss.
- [26:04]
Gretchen Rubin
Well, just imagine, project yourself into that situation.
- [26:07]
Dan Buettner
I would say, you're not the boss of me, probably. If I respected you, I'd do it just because I respect you. I mean, I do it anyway, but I wouldn't want to.
- [26:18]
Gretchen Rubin
Well, so you're either a rebel who tips to question or a questioner who tips to rebel. If I had more time with you, I could get into it deep and really tell the difference between those because they do overlap. So there's very much. But the reason that I thought you might be a rebel is rebels often do not like the idea of habits. They feel like, I don't want to be chained. I like to choose. I don't like to feel trapped.
- [26:37]
Dan Buettner
Yeah, yeah.
- [26:38]
Gretchen Rubin
Whereas questioners often really use habits because they're like, this is efficient, this is. I'm going to like, I'm going to biohack all the best habits for me and then I'm gonna execute on those. And so like tracking metrics, habits often appeal to questioners, whereas rebels just. Even the idea of habits, like, kind of like sets their teeth on edge.
- [26:58]
Dan Buettner
Yeah.
- [26:59]
Gretchen Rubin
Not to say that they can't form habits. They often do and they often choose to, but they just have sort of a. Just a natural sort of pushback against even the idea of habits. So that's what made me think it might be a rubbish.
- [27:11]
Dan Buettner
Well, I mean, it's. I don't hear the word know very well. So, you know, I was told there's no way to bike from Alaska to Argentina because it was my first world record because you can't even get on the first 500 miles of road. And I figured it out and I ended up staking a gold claim in northern Alaska and did it.
- [27:31]
Gretchen Rubin
That's very rubble, which is. I'll show you. Watch me.
- [27:34]
Dan Buettner
Yeah, there's a little bit of that. People said, you can't bike around the world because there's no way to get across the Soviet Union. I recruited a Soviet cyclist and got him to get us the permission and biked around the world. I reverse Engineered longevity, which is blue zones. Well, I don't have a doctorate degree, but that said, if I'm saying no and somebody's kind of pushing me on it, I'll go look at the data, and if the data convinces me, I'll override my natural. You're not going to tell me, right?
- [28:03]
Gretchen Rubin
Because it's just like. You're like, well, I'll do it. If I decide that it makes sense for me, if I want to, I'll do it.
- [28:09]
Dan Buettner
But these four tendencies. It's really brilliant. Gretchen, did you. Did you. How did you come up with these? Is this sort of riffing on somebody else's work or this is all original?
- [28:22]
Gretchen Rubin
No, it's funny because when I created it, once I created it, it was so obvious to me. I'm like, surely I'm not the first one to notice this. But I think I am the first one to notice this. No, it's when I was doing my research for my book, Better than Before, which is all about the 21 strategies we can use to make or break our habits. And I was looking at these patterns that I was noticing where people would say, almost verbatim, the same thing. Like, to the degree that it was almost, like, creepy or eerie. Because, like, people over and over would say something to me like, well, I don't believe in New Year's resolutions. I'll do a resolution when it makes sense to me, but I won't wait for January 1st. January 1st is an arbitrary date. They would say that, like, verbatim. And I think, okay, all these people see the world in a particular way. I don't have a problem with January 1st. What are they seeing that I'm not seeing? And so I was noticing all these patterns, trying to make sense of it, and I couldn't. And then a friend said to me, here's the weird thing about me. I know I'm happier when I exercise. And when I was in high school, I was on the track team, and I never missed track practice. So why can't I go running now? Well, why? I can come up with 50 different reasons why, but what was really at the heart of it? It's the same person. It's the same behavior. At one time, it was effortless. Now she can't do it. How do you explain that? And so I was doing all. And then I remember talking to somebody who now she is my OG rebel. But at the time, I didn't understand that she was a rebel. I just realized that she was seeing the world in such a Different way for me. I said to her, I'm writing a book about habits. And she literally stepped backward from me. The idea was so repugnant to her. And I thought, that's so interesting. I love the idea of habits. Habits to me are energizing and freeing, but to her, it's a loathsome concept. Why? So as I was doing this, and then one day I was sitting at my desk and I was just like, couldn't. I was like, I could sense that something tied these patterns together. And then I realized that the core idea was expectation. That there were these expectations, outer expectations, and inner expectations. And that once you sort of saw how these. How people responded differently, everything started falling into place. And it was like discovering the periodic table of the elements. Because every pattern that I could think of fit like it was like a puzzle paper.
- [30:39]
Dan Buettner
Yes, Everybody fits in there.
- [30:40]
Gretchen Rubin
And then like weird things, like people who will, like, happily, happily, happily, they'll do something, they'll do something, they'll do something, they'll do something. And then suddenly they snap and they're like, this, I won't do. And they walk out the door and they end a 30 year friendship, or they get a divorce, or they do things like do online shopping all day instead of working at a job where they've usually been very conscientious and enthusiastic for years. What's going on? I'm like, that's Obliger rebellion. That's a very common phenomenon that's very easy to spot. But no one had really understood the pattern. So it was the most intellectually satisfying thing to, like, figure that out. It was so exciting.
- [31:14]
Dan Buettner
And once you know which tendency that you possess, what. What do we do with that? How does that make our lives better?
- [31:24]
Gretchen Rubin
Well, Dan, if I know that you're a rebel, I'm gonna speak to you in a very different way. I'm not gonna say, you know, if I were working with you, I'd be like. I would say something like, hey, if this makes sense for you and feels like the kind of thing that would be fun. Would you consider doing xyz? Because it's like, that's how you. Because a rebel is like, what do I choose?
- [31:40]
Wise Sponsor
What do I want?
- [31:41]
Dan Buettner
Well, what if I know I'm a rebel? Well, how can I make without the benefits of my.
- [31:44]
Gretchen Rubin
Okay, this is what I would tell you. If you're a rebel and you're married, you're probably married to an Obliger. Unless you got married very, very young, or you have a ton of money,
- [31:52]
Dan Buettner
or you're not married or you're not married.
- [31:54]
Gretchen Rubin
Okay, Right. If you're gonna date, date an Obliger, or if you have people working around you, there are probably a lot of Obligers in that because the combination of Rebel and Obliger is the more stable. Is the more stable combination than Rebel Questioner and certainly Rebel Upholder. Rebel holders often don't work well together or might have a lot of conflict in a family, say.
- [32:16]
Dan Buettner
Interesting.
- [32:16]
Gretchen Rubin
You probably would want to gravitate to a career where you have a lot of freedom, a lot of variety, where there's things that are changing all the time, where you're meeting challenges. Right? Because so often rebels are attracted to of some things, like sales, where it's like, hey, buddy, whatever it takes to make the sale, that's okay, right? Or it's like somebody who was like, oh, I'm a restaurant manager. And so every day I'm driving to a different restaurant, I'm seeing different people. There's nobody looking over my shoulder. Nobody's telling me what to do. I've got freedom. I've got choice. Surprisingly, rebels are often also attracted to the military, the clergy, and corporations with high rules because they need some. Some rebels want to have something to push against. You know, everybody can be highly successful, but it's just a way of, like, how do you work with your, like, your natural tendency so that you're able to harness all the strengths of your tendency and then offset the weakness because all these tendencies also have weaknesses and limitations. How do you work around that?
- [33:12]
Dan Buettner
You know, one of the many things I admire about you is you write these great books. Happiness Project Better, your four tendencies. I think it would be motivational for people to hear. There's so many people trying to make a living with their own ideas, you know, starting a podcast or on Instagram or a newsletter substack. And you have this Gretchen Rubin industrial complex out there that.
- [33:39]
Gretchen Rubin
Well, you do too.
- [33:42]
Dan Buettner
So what are all the components of it right now?
- [33:45]
Gretchen Rubin
Well, one of the things I would say to people who are just getting started is I really had an advantage because I started out as just a very traditional writer. And that's still the core of my identity and what I spend the most time and mental energy on and love the most. But then as more things got added, I kind of added them as they came. Came into being. So I added a blog, I added social media, I added a podcast, I had a newsletter. Now I have a substack newsletter as well.
- [34:13]
Dan Buettner
So people want to achieve your level of success and you know, making money's nice, but I sense that what you do transcends sort of success, that you're really interested in making people's lives better. And I think that's the impulse for a lot of people. But how do you. How do you become successful at it? How? Well, how. What would you say to people just
- [34:40]
Gretchen Rubin
starting out, Figure out a way to do it so that it's manageable and you can sustain it? Like, I think sometimes with us, like with a newsletter, sometimes people are thinking like, well, once a week I need to write a 2,000 word essay on something that's original and fresh. And like, that is really hard to do week after week after week after week. And so maybe you do that once every six months and then every week you do something small. So think about what can you sustain over the long term? Because what's not useful is to start something in a big way and then abandon it. Because that's sort of. Then that's very discouraging and it doesn't really probably move the ball forward for you.
- [35:18]
Dan Buettner
Yeah, you were starting to allude to it. I don't think there's any way the four tendencies that you write about or these deeper ideas. You didn't start with. Oh, I'm gonna write about four tendencies, exactly. You started writing about it. And I don't think there's any shortcut to the hard work of actually sitting down to a keyboard and writing.
- [35:42]
Gretchen Rubin
Whether it's a hundred percent a book, that's how you know what you're writing.
- [35:45]
Dan Buettner
Or a newsletter. And then that spins off these sort of smaller ideas that become a thousand percent.
- [35:52]
Gretchen Rubin
No. And I'll give you a good example of something that just happened to me. So in writing about it, you start to see things that you would never have otherwise known as silly guy. So my next book is about the empty nest. Right. The empty nest is a forced reckoning of adulthood. And so I started, I was talking to all these parents and I was talking about the conflicts they had in marriage and what people wanted. And then again I started to see a pattern. And once you see this pattern, this pattern is very obvious. But I didn't know it until I was really grappling with the material and working with my draft. And this is the difference. Are you a book person or a tree person? So book people are people who are like, my life is like a book. It is filled with many chapters. I love to turn the page and start a whole new chapter. They like to reinvent. They often will say things like, every Seven years, I completely remake myself. They like to be the book that turns the page. Then there are tree people. Tree people want to be rooted in place. They want to grow and flourish, but they want to come from a stable base. And so one of the things you see in the empty nest is a person might look like a tree person, but the kids leave and one person says, oh, my gosh, this is great. Like, let's move to the beach. And the other person is like, what are you talking about? How can we leave our friends in our community? And it's not that one person's right and one person's wrong. It's not that, like, one person is, like, vital and ready for novelty and the other person is stuck in their ways, or one person is heartless and doesn't care about relationships, and the other person is a person of deep emotion. It's that book people and treat people see the world in a different way. And I never would have noticed that until I really started talking to all these people, reading all this stuff and thinking, you know, there's really just this, like, core distinction in how people prefer to approach their lives. They're book people and treat people.
- [37:34]
Dan Buettner
How do you make sure that this isn't just an idea that I have and kind of an opinion? I'm an n of 1, and that's how I see the world as 3.01. Yes and no. This has got some meat on the bones or some roots in reality. What's the process of sort of blending your original ideas, but yet creating a foundation so those ideas can take root and endure the test of time and rigor?
- [38:05]
Gretchen Rubin
I love reading books, so I'll read books by people who are sort of, like, you know, outstanding in their fields. Like when I wrote my book Life in Five Senses, like, I was reading all these books by people who were, like, hearing scientists or, you know, sensory scientists, whatever. And then, you know, online, you can read tons and tons of papers, and I'm not doing something at such a deep level that there's that. That. That it would be hard for me to feel like I have a pretty good grasp on what's going on. And then I also tried to follow, like, are there any big issues like replication crisis? Right. This is a thing that's happening in science a lot, which is there's a lot of studies that people are like, this just can't be replicated. Like, a lot of these things don't seem. They seem like maybe more was made of a finding that actually science can support. So one Thing now is there's a lot of things where I'm like, do I think that that is a little bit too flashy? Or, like, how big was the. How big was the group that was being looked at? Like, you know, if it was 30 people, I'm going to be like, okay, maybe. But the thing about me is I'm not arguing from research particularly. I'm informed by research. But I don't hold myself out as, like, a scientist. And I remember I was talking to a scientist about the four tendencies, and he was really pushing on me, and he kept. And then he was like, but you're making a scientific claim. And I'm saying, I make no scientific claim. I'm not good for you. I don't have a laboratory with undergraduates eating marshmallows. I'm just saying this is a pattern that I observe in the world. I see it very, very, like, really play out. I feel like I can anticipate. If you tell me one thing, I can say like, well, I bet people tell you this, and I bet you've run into trouble this way. And I bet sometimes this has happened and it feels very predictable and consistent. And I can point, but I'm like, the proof is in the pudding. This is what I think. See if it makes sense to you. But I'm not saying that it's scientific because some things are just observational. And you're interested because somebody has an observation that rings true to you. Now, is that science? It's data.01. It's what I think. So, yeah.
- [40:11]
Dan Buettner
By the way, that's what Malcolm Gladwell does. You know, I mean, he sort of. He synthesizes science and he delivers us a story.
- [40:19]
Gretchen Rubin
Right. And by the way, if you look
- [40:20]
Dan Buettner
at positive psychology and these academic papers that underpin my irrefutable point of view, most of those studies are done with a bunch of college students who've done something for. There's a control group who didn't do it for a month and a study group that did do it for a month. And it's all extrapolated from this, you know, pretty small and ephemeral and shallow group of people. So who's to say that.
- [40:46]
Gretchen Rubin
Yeah.
- [40:47]
Dan Buettner
Gretchen Rubins.
- [40:48]
Gretchen Rubin
Yeah. You've got to really look under the hood sometimes to see research is me. Search for me.
- [40:54]
Dan Buettner
What's the one insight that you've given the world that you most want the world to remember?
- [41:00]
Gretchen Rubin
Can I have two?
- [41:01]
Dan Buettner
You can have, yeah.
- [41:02]
Gretchen Rubin
Okay. So one is the four tendencies. Because I really do love that framework. And I think it's extremely useful. And the other one is, if I could. So I wrote a book called Secrets of Adulthood that was just these aphorisms that sort of like my. The lessons that I learned from life the hard way, summed up in aphorisms. And I would say my most important one. And I just. I think this is so true. But it's easy to get it confused, which is we want to accept ourselves and also expect more from ourselves. Because I think sometimes people get into the accept yourselves, and they're like, okay, I just need to accept myself flaws and all. And, you know, and that's not always a good course. And then there's people that always want to expect more from themselves, and they're pushing and they're challenging, but maybe they're unrealistic and they're trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. That's not helpful. So I think we want to accept ourselves and expect more from ourselves. But it's for. Each of us has to know, am I going to jump on a bike and go across Russia? No, I am not.
- [42:01]
Dan Buettner
That's okay. Well, don't get too far ahead of yourself. You got a long ways to go.
- [42:05]
Gretchen Rubin
I need to accept that that's part of the natural limitations of my character, and that is fine. But there are other things that I could ask myself to do. So I think accept yourself and also expect more from yourself.
- [42:18]
Dan Buettner
I like that.
- [42:19]
Gretchen Rubin
It was surprisingly hard for me to understand that.
- [42:22]
Dan Buettner
We had Dr. Rocio Salas Whalen on. She's the foremost Experts in, in GLP1s and for. For obesity.
- [42:32]
Gretchen Rubin
And my sister is a type 1 diabetic, and it's changed her life.
- [42:37]
Dan Buettner
Oh, I'll tell you, that podcast I did with her flipped me on GLP1s. I was completely against it, but the, the, the conversation came up and sort of positive body type and, and this sort of trend that. Say that again.
- [42:54]
Gretchen Rubin
Body positivity.
- [42:55]
Dan Buettner
Body positivity. You know, I'm. I'm. I'm 50 pounds overweight, but damn it, I'm gonna be. I'm a positive attitude about my body. And actually that might not be healthy, that you're in an inflammation loop, you're probably gonna die younger, you're more likely to get type 2 diabetes, develop cardiovascular disease and dementia. And no, you can't just accept yourself that way. So I like this idea of accepting yourself but expecting more, and you can expect more. It's a good sort of loving yourself.
- [43:33]
Gretchen Rubin
And, And. Right.
- [43:35]
Dan Buettner
So we're in 20, 26 and you've been at this for almost two decades on happiness. You gave us the low hanging fruit. People listening right now. What are the three most powerful things that work for most people at getting happier?
- [43:53]
Gretchen Rubin
Okay. They're so obvious. They're so obvious.
- [43:56]
Dan Buettner
Sometimes people need to call out the obvious.
- [43:57]
Gretchen Rubin
It's the obvious because they're true. Get enough sleep, you know, know how much sleep you need and figure out how to get it consistently. Exercise, move your body in some way. You do not need to train for the marathon. You do not need to bike across the world. You know, even going from being sedentary, which a lot of people are completely sedentary, to a 20 minute, like just 20 minute walk will do huge things,
- [44:22]
Dan Buettner
by the way, that adds three years to your life expectancy.
- [44:25]
Gretchen Rubin
There you go. And it makes you sleep better because people who exercise, especially if you get early morning light, that helps regulate your circadian rhythm, that helps you sleep. So those two things work together. And then the third thing is wherever you can broaden or deepen your relationships, whatever the little thing, you know, join or start a book club, talk to your neighbors, talk to the sales clerk, call your mother, you know, text your college roommate, kiss your husband like I do, like anything that deepens their strengths or broadens relationships.
- [44:59]
Dan Buettner
So none of those cost money.
- [45:03]
Gretchen Rubin
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- [46:01]
Dan Buettner
I want to go into a light debate here. Okay, It's a very light debate.
- [46:05]
Gretchen Rubin
I love that debate and you'll crush
- [46:06]
Dan Buettner
me because you were on Supreme Court, near the supreme Court and so forth. But I know you wrote this book on forming habits and I'm of this general opinion and I'll tell you why when I go. So the general advice we get for getting healthier living long is to pursue something, to find that exercise program, to find that diet, to find that longevity hack, to find that whatever the supplement and go pursue it and go get it. But when you find populations who are verifiably living longer, 10 years longer at middle age, Nicoya, Costa Rica, Sardinia, Italy, Okinawa, Japan, Greece, nobody's pursuing health, nobody's trying to. Nobody's getting online or reading a book or hiring a coach or getting a concierge. They just live their lives and they don't have better genes than us, they don't have better discipline, they don't have a better sense of individual responsibility. But they're living a decade longer with fractions the rate of cardiovascular disease. So, you know, after a long time marinating that, you know, I emerge with longevity isn't something we very successfully pursue. It ensues. And having seen that once, you know, I wrote this book called the Blue Zones of Happiness. I actually argued the same thing about happiness, that if you wanna be happier, trying to shape your conscious decisions on a day to day basis for months, years or decades in order to stay happy is a fool's errand. We're gonna forget. So why not shape your unconscious decisions? But you'll push back on me and
- [47:49]
Gretchen Rubin
say, well, I think what you're saying is true and very, very important.
- [47:57]
Dan Buettner
Good, that's a wrap.
- [47:58]
Gretchen Rubin
No, no, no. Yeah, but I think when it happier, you can look at it in two ways. You could say we need to change individuals or we need to change organizations, institutions and surroundings, Right?
- [48:12]
Dan Buettner
Yes.
- [48:13]
Gretchen Rubin
And both are true. And I think that those solutions attract different people and different attention. Now you're 100% right. I wouldn't say that you're wrong. And I think you've done things to help, if I remember correctly, help communities have more bike paths and walking paths. Because it's like if these are things that are convenient and attractive, people will use them and like, then they'll just do it for fun. They don't have to like, you know, decide to do it. It just can become part of it. So absolutely, I'm interested in the individual because I don't want to wait for New York City to decide. I'm going to, how can we be more like Costa Rica? You know what I mean? It's like that takes time, that takes a lot of cooperation. That's a very systemic change. And I guess I'm too impatient. I'm like, well, what could I do in my own life right now, starting tomorrow morning. That's gonna get me closer to the results that these other people don't have to think about. But maybe I could intentionally bring them into my life. It would be great if they just sort of were automatically there, because even something like, look at work from home. Used to be people were just more social automatically, like what you would say it ensued because they just. They had to go to the office and so there were people around there. So they just. The social. The social aspect of it just ensued. And now they have to pursue it because if they're working from home, they don't have that kind of easy, automatic social. So it's absolutely true. It's just that one is like, what is the pursuit of the individual? And I guess that's the part of it that interests me. But it's not that the other part isn't just as important. It's just that it's perhaps slower progress.
- [49:50]
Dan Buettner
Well, I liked your earlier quote, which I'll try to remember, that one thing could be profoundly true and the opposite could be profoundly true. So I'm willing to take that up with that approach with habits.
- [50:01]
Gretchen Rubin
But I also think you resist habits probably because you're a rebel and don't realize, like, how much people can harness habits in this way. It isn't. When you say it's impossible to do these things, it's totally possible to do these things if you do it the right way.
- [50:13]
Dan Buettner
I know very well that for some people, habits work. I tend to think they have sort of taped personalities. And if you see a room full of highly functioning lawyers, or you go speak to a. A, you know, a room full of millionaires, they. They're probably pretty good at doing, keeping habits. But the average person.
- [50:40]
Gretchen Rubin
You mean good habits, good habits, or
- [50:42]
Dan Buettner
saying, I'm gonna do this right. I'm gonna. They identify what they're gonna do, and they do it in stake. I'm gonna work out every day and they do it. Or, you know, I'm make sure I eat vegetables every day. You know, I admittedly, I have a point of view that's been shaped by the 25 years of marinating in these blue zones. And also I kind of disruptively dismiss the other things only in service of
- [51:08]
Gretchen Rubin
trying to make your point. Yes.
- [51:10]
Dan Buettner
Yeah. Because very few, out of a room of a hundred people, 99 are going to agree with you. Only one of them is going to think about, oh, I'm going to get healthier, happier by changing my environment.
- [51:24]
Gretchen Rubin
Well, it's just that they simply can't do it.
- [51:26]
Dan Buettner
Well, I take issue with that.
- [51:28]
Gretchen Rubin
If everybody moved to that place in Costa Rica, it would change very quickly. It wouldn't be like that.
- [51:33]
Dan Buettner
But there are people, that there are neighborhoods. And I can list out the characteristics of a neighborhood where you're much more likely to be healthy and much more
- [51:44]
Gretchen Rubin
likely to be healthy, 100%.
- [51:45]
Dan Buettner
And the average American moves 11 times in their adult life. That's 11 opportunities to do something that we know over time is going to stack the deck in favor of happiness.
- [51:57]
Gretchen Rubin
And I think. And a really important thing exactly to your point, which is so true, because again, it goes to your conscious thoughts and actions and the decisions that you're making, which is hedonic forecasting, which is the super boring way of are we good at predicting what's going to make us happier? And the answer is, no, we are not. And so for something like this, being in a walkable, like being on a cul de sac, turns out right, to be something that makes people happier because there's less traffic and neighbors are more chatty and it creates a better neighborhood environment, all this kind of thing. And it's like, do you realize when you're looking at houses, like you're moving to a new city, do you think, wow, this would make a really big difference in my life? You might not know, but something like the kind of research that you're doing, you would think like, oh, how do I evaluate this, this environment according to the blue zone principles in order to try to replicate what I can.
- [52:46]
Dan Buettner
Let me give you five things right now that you stack the deck in favor. Have happen a neighborhood, absence of noise. We never adapt to noise.
- [52:55]
Gretchen Rubin
Never adapt to noise.
- [52:56]
Dan Buettner
A walkable neighborhood, sidewalks.
- [52:59]
Gretchen Rubin
Yeah.
- [52:59]
Dan Buettner
So I'm more likely to connect and know my neighbor. A neighborhood that is safe, that has a low crime rate. We can easily find statistics on neighborhood. A neighborhood where I have easy access to recreation. I'm close to a park, and a neighborhood where I have easy recreation or access to nature. All five of those places, if you move to those, you can turn your brain off and you're likely to be significantly happier over time, as opposed to, I got to remember to get out in nature four times this week, or I have to remember to get out and take my walk. When. If you live in a, you live in New York City, the quickest way to go get your cup of coffee is to walk. Or, you know, you almost walked here from 80 today and you might have. If we, you know, no New Yorkers,
- [53:48]
Gretchen Rubin
I think, have Longer lives. And they think it's because we just walk so much more and we're constantly going up and down stairs.
- [53:53]
Dan Buettner
I'll give you an interesting statistic that if you live in a, in a suburban type neighborhood or a city like Houston or Atlanta. Atlanta, you're on average walking between 35 and 4,500 steps a day. If you live in New York City, you're walking between nine, 11,000 steps a day.
- [54:12]
Gretchen Rubin
Yeah.
- [54:13]
Dan Buettner
Mindlessly.
- [54:14]
Gretchen Rubin
Yeah.
- [54:15]
Dan Buettner
And then you look at the obesity
- [54:17]
Gretchen Rubin
rate and it's your point. It's not like, now I'm going to do it. I'm going to make up my mind. I'm going to keep my. Don't break the chain. I'm going, look at my watch. It's like, you just do it because you're like, oh, I need to go get toothpaste. I'm not going to jump in the car and go get toothpaste because there is no car.
- [54:32]
Dan Buettner
Yes.
- [54:32]
Gretchen Rubin
Yeah. And then I think a lot of people would say, like, I would love to live in a neighborhood with those things that's expensive. But then it's like, okay, well then maybe you move to a different place.
- [54:39]
Dan Buettner
But we're relentlessly marketed the idea that your, your, your road to health is through diet or an exercise program or supplement plan or longevity hack, where if, if you were kind of have equally marketed or prompted this idea. Actually, what's going to work in the long run is deciding where you move to, deciding your inner circle of friends curating. Because so much of our habits or our behaviors are mimicked by the people we hang out with.
- [55:11]
Gretchen Rubin
They're so catching. Yes. Yeah. No, it's really true. If you want to be hiking, hang out with people who love to go hiking.
- [55:17]
Dan Buettner
Yes. Yes.
- [55:18]
Gretchen Rubin
Yeah.
- [55:19]
Dan Buettner
So what, what, what are you working on now and what are you excited about now?
- [55:23]
Gretchen Rubin
So I'm working on a book about the empty nest, which is super interesting to me as somebody who studies happiness, because for many people who have children, this is a very important transition. It's a very important milestone of adulthood. And many issues long ignored or perhaps never considered become.
- [55:45]
Dan Buettner
A lot of divorces happen.
- [55:46]
Gretchen Rubin
A lot of divorces. Gray divorce is on the rise. And there's just a lot. There's loss of purpose, loss of identity, people feeling unmoored from time, people losing communities, changing communities, big decisions to make, like, where do we live? What do we do? Do we break up? As you say, it's kind of like, you know, if New Year's Eve is kind of a traditional time for people to step back and reflect and think about their lives. This is another moment where for many adults, whether they want to or not, they kind of are grappling with big issues.
- [56:20]
Dan Buettner
I don't want to preempt your book too much, but what are a few pieces of advice? If my last kid just moved out of the house, I'm with my spouse. What are some pieces of advice to navigate this time?
- [56:35]
Gretchen Rubin
The one thing I would say is really think about friendship. Because the thing that a lot of people discover is that a big part of their community goes away when their child goes. Like all of the. You'd go to games, you'd go to performances, you'd go to school events. You had the kids that were coming to your house to eat all your snack food. You know, just. There's. For a lot of people, that's a really huge transition. And relationships and friendships are so important. So I would say, because this is true for single people, too, think about your friendships. It's also a really good time to draw closer to your own family. Like, a lot of people get closer to their siblings, which is really great because you have more time for each other now and then if you're in a marriage. I would. A note of caution that I would sound again. One of my secrets of adulthood is the place that hurts isn't always the place that's injured. If you are struggling in the emptiness, period, it's easy to blame your spouse. It's easy to. Somebody said to me, my child is gone, and I feel like my life has no meaning. Like, my family was always the most important thing to me. I always knew what my purpose in life was. Now I don't know what to do with myself. My day feels empty. I really think I need to get a divorce. And I was like, that's a leap. That's a leap. So I think you do want to make sure that if you are feeling unhappy with your marriage, to really push yourself to understand what is going on. Because the fact that you feel lonely, that's something that could come up in a lot of different ways. You can't just automatically say, the problem is my marriage. Not to say that many people don't. Now is a good time for them to get divorced or it's the right thing for them to do. But I think sometimes it's an easy thing to point to. Especially I think a lot of people are very. They're very overwhelmed by emotions. One of the things I'm gonna try to do with the book is really help people really have a much more precise understanding of how they're feeling and what they're responding to so that you can really tackle the problem. Because somebody said to me, my husband, you know, he just keeps saying, like, every day's the same. He feels so trapped. Work is really boring. It's the same problem over and over. Our kids are gone, you know, and he just feels like he's just stuck in the same place forever. So I'm thinking that we're gonna get a puppy. And I was like, are you listening to him? Don't get a puppy. This is a guy who wants freedom and novelty and, like, walk out the door and, like, just choose your own adventure. Like, getting stuck at home, taking care of a puppy. That's the right answer for some people, but it's not the right answer for what he's saying. Well, and it's also, like, it's just gonna enforce this feeling of, like, oh, my gosh, my life is just a series of responsibilities. Every day is the same. I'm constantly taking care of other people'. I'm stuck here. You know, it's more like, hey, maybe we should, like, both work from. Let's go to Portugal. Let's just grab our laptops and work from Portugal for a month.
- [59:27]
Dan Buettner
We can do that.
- [59:28]
Gretchen Rubin
And it's like, yeah, that goes to what is. If you're saying, like, what's bothering him, working from Portugal for a month is probably gonna do a lot more from him than a puppy. So you can't just give people, like, a standard answer. You have to understand what is. What's. What's with you. Like, what is causing you pain, uneasiness, loss. Because then you can figure out the right solution.
- [59:52]
Dan Buettner
But I'm guessing, more often than not, the idea of downsizing or moving is not a bad idea to consider.
- [60:00]
Gretchen Rubin
For some people, it is, and for some people, it's not. Yeah. There's a thing now called the trailing parent. Where parents will, like, go and live part time or full time where their children are. That's, like, a growing trend.
- [60:11]
Dan Buettner
Yeah, I love that.
- [60:12]
Gretchen Rubin
So it's very interesting. It's like, it's shown me new aspects of.
- [60:17]
Dan Buettner
And how wonderful that it might be a time of your life where empty nesting might be relevant.
- [60:23]
Gretchen Rubin
But here's the thing, Dan. It's the same thing. Where's my ark? I had a pretty easy time of the empty nest, you know? And I was like, oh, wow, I have no ark. But I'm just kind of an. I guess I'm kind of an arcless. Kind of person. But maybe that helps me from the sidelines understand how other people are feeling.
- [60:40]
Dan Buettner
That's right, yes. Because I mean, most people don't have a huge arc to their life. They, they, you know, it's, it's sort of a, you know, a mild bow.
- [60:48]
Gretchen Rubin
Right.
- [60:50]
Dan Buettner
And you're in a way giving everyday people things that they can use without this extraordinary or I think sometimes what
- [61:00]
Gretchen Rubin
they're experiencing is, is more clear to me since I'm not experiencing it. Like, I don't know. A thing that a lot of people have is tracking. They just can't stop tracking their children. Somebody I know said, oh, I picked up my phone and turned on, you know, life360. And my husband said, oh, it's your favorite. Your favorite show is on. Because she would just like watch her daughter's blue dot. And so, but I don't really have that. And so I think for me, I was like, oh, this is interesting. Whereas I think if you do it, you think, oh, everybody does this. You know how we do have a tendency to like. We think that whatever we do is
- [61:33]
Dan Buettner
kind of like the right thing to do.
- [61:34]
Gretchen Rubin
We think it's like kind of what most people do or experience. In fact, that's like a secret tip. If you ever want somebody to tell you something that you think that they're not inclined to tell you, you ask them what they think most people would do.
- [61:47]
Dan Buettner
Yeah.
- [61:48]
Gretchen Rubin
Because they might not speak truthfully to themselves, but they will speak. But probably what they answer will.
- [61:54]
Dan Buettner
Great line in Uncle Buck. Where Uncle Buck John Candy is, is calling his sister in law above. So if I were feeding a dog, would I feed him three or five times a day? And she's the. No.
- [62:07]
Gretchen Rubin
Once a day. Right, exactly. No, exactly, exactly. That's a per example, right? Yeah. Like asking for a friend kind of thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I think sometimes it's clearer when you're on the outside.
- [62:19]
Dan Buettner
So for somebody who hasn't read one of your books yet, which one should they start with?
- [62:24]
Gretchen Rubin
Well, I'm definitely best known for the Happiness Project. So maybe the Happiness Project, which was
- [62:29]
Dan Buettner
on the New York Times bestselling list for two years. And I say that because people are more likely to read a book when they find out it's been that, that
- [62:37]
Gretchen Rubin
popular for so long that I love all my books. So.
- [62:39]
Dan Buettner
Yes, well, we have here Life in the Five Senses.
- [62:44]
Gretchen Rubin
That was such a fun book to write.
- [62:46]
Dan Buettner
And once again, tell us how to follow you on substack everywhere.
- [62:50]
Gretchen Rubin
You can just follow me by my name, Gretchen Rubin.
- [62:52]
Dan Buettner
So just by my name, just Google Gretchen Rubin and hit follow.
- [62:56]
Gretchen Rubin
Yeah. And from my website, which is also just Gretchen Rubin, you can find the books, the newsletters, the quiz. If you want to take the Four Tendencies quiz, I have other very fun quizzes. I love a quiz.
- [63:05]
Dan Buettner
I'm going to try the Four Tendencies, which I guess is a gradual.
- [63:09]
Gretchen Rubin
And you've got to email me and let me know if you're a rebel or a question. I can see you being either. I'd have to, like, really, like, get in there.
- [63:15]
Dan Buettner
I'm guessing you diagnosed me correctly just here in the podcast, but I think that's a great exercise. Three and a half million people took that test or something like that.
- [63:24]
Gretchen Rubin
Yes.
- [63:24]
Dan Buettner
So. Well, on behalf of ordinary people everywhere who want to be a little or a lot happier, thank you for sharing your wisdom, your research, your 20 years of hard work. And really, you make the world a better place. You've made me a better person. And thank you.
- [63:42]
Gretchen Rubin
Well, thank you. I feel like we could talk all day. We're interested in exactly the same thing, so. It's such a pleasure. Thank you for having me.
- [63:48]
Dan Buettner
To be continued.
- [63:49]
Gretchen Rubin
To be continued.