Gretchen Rubin ON: How Understanding Your Habits Allows You to Thrive in Work, Love and Life
On Purpose with Jay Shetty- 1,547 views
- 11 Jan 2021
You love On Purpose because it inspires your life. Have you tried Jay’s Genius workshops and meditations to access even deeper well-being? Learn more at https://shetty.cc/OnPurposeGenius
Gretchen is an “Upholder”. She views inner and outer expectations as helpful and ease to maintain. An “Upholder” is one of the four “Rubin Tendencies” outlined in Gretchen Rubin’s book The Four Tendencies.
On this episode of On Purpose with Jay Shetty, Jay talks with author and speaker Gretchen Rubin about how understanding your own personality tendency can help you become more successful at work, love and life. Grethcen is the vastly popular author of The Happiness Project, Better Than Before, and The Four Tendencies. Take her Four Tendencies Quiz and let Jay and Gretchen know on Instagram which one you relate to most! PS. Jay is a rebel.
Four Tendencies Quiz!: https://quiz.gretchenrubin.com/
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Hey, everyone, welcome back to you on purpose. I am so excited for you to be listening to the show right now. Thank you so much for tuning back in. It means the world to me that you come back every single week to listen, learn and grow.
And I love inviting guests onto the show that I really believe are going to expand our minds, give us new insights and especially people to help us structure the craziness that's going on now. Today's guest is going to do just that. I've been a long term fan and follower of her work. Today's guest is Gretchen Rubin, the author of several books, including The New York Times Best Sellers Out to Order in a calm, better than before The Happiness Project, Happier at home and the four tendencies which will be diving into today.
She has an enormous readership in print and online, and her books have sold more than three and a half million copies worldwide in more than 30 languages. She makes frequent TV appearances and is an incredible speaker that I've been following for a long time. She's also a CBS News contributor. Every Monday on CBS This Morning, The Final Before We Go segment features her solutions and tips for living a happier, healthier, more productive life on a weekly podcast, Happier with Gretchen Rubin, which I really recommend you check out, she discusses good habits and happiness with her sister, Elizabeth Krofft.
Gretchen started her career in law and now has gone on to become an incredible writer. Today, I'm excited to talk to her about learning about personality types tendencies and see how we can immediately and rapidly improve our life, our communication and our relationships. Gretchen Rubin, everyone. Gretchen, thank you for doing this.
Oh, I'm so happy to be talking to you. I'm a huge fan of your work and we're interested in so many of the same things. I'm really looking forward to our conversation. Thank you for having me.
I know. I know. And I remember when this book came out, I was so excited to read it because I'm so fascinated by personality types, tendencies, how we think styles and and how we're different. And the fact that I get to sit here with you today and dissect it is is a real treat enjoyed for me. But I wanted to start more on the personal side. I actually wanted to start off by asking you what the last adventure you went on with your two daughters, considering it's been such an insular time and over time, what's what's something you've done with your daughters recently?
Oh, my goodness. Well, I think our adventures have been very home, home bound adventures. But I decided I wanted to learn how to play poker. I wanted to do something with a beginning, middle and an end. And so we were like, we're going to learn to play poker. My husband knew how to play with my two daughters and I did not know how to play. So I rallied them. And that was kind of that was an adventure.
And I realized, like, I've been misunderstanding the plots of so many movies and books because I had a complete misconception about how poker worked. And so that's been kind of an adventure that we did under our own roof. I love that one.
Tell me what your perception of poker was and how it differed from reality.
Well, I thought it was like a long, complex game where there a lot of, like, trading cards back and forth. One of my daughter said she said that they thought, I don't like about poker as it doesn't feel like a game. It feels like the prelude to a different game. And I was like, I don't usually like games. I think that's what I like about it. It's kind of it just sort of unrolls and you deal with what you have and then you move on.
So I thought it was very I think I thought it was more like bridge, whatever my conception of bridge is. I also know how to play bridge.
But I didn't realize like like sort of what it's sort of an instant gratification game more than some some games love this line that you say really, really stuck me every time you said it, you said that I rather fail as a writer than succeed as a lawyer.
And I think that's such a powerful message and and that one line has so much depth to it. Tell us about that journey of becoming a lawyer to then realize that it wasn't your path, because I think a lot of our listeners are either on that point, on their path or getting to that point on that. Some of them have already made the switch over. And hearing about your journey, I think will help a lot of people because this isn't what you set out to do in the beginning.
Right?
Well, you know, I went to law school for the same reason a lot of people go to law school because I was like, it's a great education. I'm good at research and writing, and I'll keep my options open and I can always change my mind later. My father's a really happy lawyer. He didn't put any pressure on me, but he was definitely an example of someone who loved being a lawyer. So I went for all the wrong reasons, which I called drift.
So drift is the decision you make by not deciding or by doing that kind of path of least resistance. You know, you get married because your friends are getting married. You become a doctor because your parents are doctors and you're good at science or you take a job because somebody offers you that job. So I just kind of drifted into law. And the fact is, I had a great experience, a law. I was editor in chief of the law review at Yale where I was I was a clerk for Supreme Court.
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, but while I was clerking for her, I got an idea for a book and at the time I didn't even know it was a book, I just was obsessed with that idea. And I was and this happens to me all the time in my life. I get really interested in something and do a lot of research and writing. But this was I was just doing so much research and so much writing and finally I thought, well, this is the way somebody would prepare to write a book.
And then I thought, well, maybe I could write a book about this. And then I went to the book store and bought a book that was called Something like How to Write and Sell Your Nonfiction book proposal. And it just followed the directions. But as you say, it was like it felt very risky. But I did say to myself, I would rather fail as a writer than succeed as a lawyer. And I have to give it a shot.
I have to allow myself to either succeed or fail, because if I don't try, I think I'm going to be haunted by this. And so I did. I love that, I love how simple it is and how practical it is, because I know that so many people will be listening or watching right now, that's often what it takes. Like you you get a feeling and then you go and do the research and then you follow the steps.
And of course, there's so much more hard work. And that's why I said everything and all the all the other ingredients that are really important. But the methodology is usually aligned. It's very similar to wanting to break into this particular industry or whatever it may be. The methodology can be similar, but it's the hard work.
Tell us a bit about that side aggression around the sort of pain or sacrifice or some of the pressure that you felt because you were successful. You were doing well for yourself. You've obviously worked. And there's so much some cost bias. Yes. Of the drift of like you worked so hard to get into this incredible institution and you get so much respect for it and people think you're great at it. And then all of a sudden you're starting out with like basically zero.
It's almost like starting from the bottom again, in which you have no reputation and you have you have no qualification in. Tell us about what that feels like and and what was it that helped you kind of build your way up from that? Well, you're exactly right.
I didn't have a clip. I hadn't worked on the college newspaper or, you know, I hadn't published a short story, whereas in law I had all these feathers in my cap. But if anything, I think a lawyer turned writer sounds so boring. I was like I even hated to tell people that I was a lawyer because I thought that would make them run screaming for my proposal. But, you know, I had something that at the time I didn't even think about that.
Then looking back and talking to other people who are similarly situated, I realize how fortunate I was, which was how the people around me were so tolerant of me taking a risk and so encouraging. And I think sometimes the people around us out of the deepest love and the desire to protect us, they don't want to see us disappointed. They don't want to see us fail. They don't want to see our feelings get hurt. They don't want to see us frustrated.
They want us to be safe, that there is no path of safety. I mean, if anything at the last 10 years have shown us anything, 15 years, there is no safe profession. And I was really lucky because my parents were like, great, you want to start all over from scratch after having just completed this long thing, which, by the way, we paid for. Fine, great. Excellent. Go for it. My husband was also switching from law to right from law to finance.
And so he was also going through a big switch. So we were doing that together. I remember there was a day when I had decided that I was going to try to get an agent and he was going to try to get a job in finance. And we had moved to New York City. And the note came from the New York Bar Association. It was time for us to pay our bar fees. And these are not inconsequential fees like you have to pay a lot for a member of the bar.
And I said to my husband, are we going to care about our fees? And he said, are you kidding? No way. And I was like, OK, we are doing this. We are committed now, now, now I find out you can always get readmitted to the work. You just do a few things. But at the time it felt like this massive step. So I was very fortunate that the people around me were really encouraging.
And my father said something to me that others I repeated it because it was so meaningful to me. And people have said, oh, that sounds discouraging. But actually it was very encouraging. So I said to my brother, OK, I have this idea for a book, I'm going to write it. And he said, Well, look, darling, you might not hit it out of the park the first time, but you'll get there. And people said, but that's that's telling him he didn't think you could succeed.
I was like, no, it was him telling me, if you don't fail the first time, that doesn't mean you're a failure. You don't have to succeed right away in order for this to have been the right decision. And that was very comforting to me because I was like, this could take time, you know? And here my father is reminding me sometimes things take time, but that doesn't mean that they're the wrong thing to do. It's incredible, isn't it?
You're just kind of hit a hit a point for me while I'm listening to you that it's amazing how how old were you when you became a qualified, like, twenty five?
Is it. But I took the bar. I was probably twenty six. Twenty seven. Right. OK, so you took the bar. Twenty six. Twenty seven. And if you think about it, you've been in education or in the educational system since like three or four years old, which means to become a lawyer and which is an incredible profession.
It took twenty three to twenty four years and I think we almost forget that, that it took X amount. So I went to Cash Business School where I studied management science with a focus on behaviour science and I graduated at twenty one twenty two. I was the eldest in my year and it's like people forget that. That means I've spent 18 years to get this qualification, which means getting to something I didn't one eighteen to twenty four years. But it's funny that we expect all of a sudden that when we do something we're passionate about, that it helps happen on the first time.
And we forget that we spend eighteen to twenty four years trying to get good at something we didn't even.
Love, yet we expect ourselves to be perfect at something the day we try it and not realize that it may take sometimes another 10, 20, even 30 years in some case.
Yeah, and I think sometimes that's the way that people deal with the fear of it is by saying, well, if I if it's not an immediate success, then I know that I should give up because to struggle to flail around, to make mistakes, to learn things the hard way is tough and it's it can be no fun. And so sometimes it feels good to be like, well, I tried it. And so now I've learned my lesson instead of sort of staying in it and kind of allowing yourself to feel that frustration.
It's funny because sometimes when people talk about a happy life, they talk about they talk about it as if a happy life would be a life. When you feel ten on the one to ten scale 24/7. And that's not realistic and it's not even a good life. There's many reasons why we feel sad or we feel angry or we feel resentful or we feel outraged or we feel insecure or we feel scared. And these are all really important emotions. We can learn a lot from them and they can direct our behavior in really, really positive ways.
But it's not always so fun to feel those emotions. Envy is a really powerful, helpful emotion that it is no fun to feel it. But we can learn a lot from these negative emotions.
Yeah, it's funny how we've created a viewpoint in our minds that we're almost broke.
And if we have those emotions, yeah, no one there and they're extraordinarily important and useful. Yeah. And we feel like we have to fix ourselves to feel that emotion and fixing can kind of lead to so much more pain, because every time we fix something, there's another thing and then there's another thing. And it can be a never ending cycle. Tell us about how you discovered the four tendency first was where you were like, oh, this is this is a really big idea that's going to help people.
Well, I was sitting right where I'm sitting right now. I remember it. I mean, it hit me like a lightning bolt because it was something I had been struggling about with for months, months and months, maybe years. And and there were all these I had been writing a book called Better Than Before, that was all about how to change, how we make or break our habits. And I'd been noticing patterns in what people said and how they behaved and certain challenges that they face that I couldn't make sense of.
But somehow I intuited that they were somehow connected. But I couldn't understand the pattern. It was just my brain was melting, trying to figure this out. And one of the most significant examples was when a friend said to me, you know, I would be happy. I know I would be happier if I exercised. And when I was at high school, I was on the track team and I never miss track practice, so why can't I go running on my own now?
And I thought I've heard so many people say something like that, what's going on? And you can think of a hundred different reasons maybe that could explain that. But what's really going on? And then there were certain, I would always say to people, how do you feel about New Year's resolutions? Because that's sort of a good habits related question to get people talking and certain people would give me exactly the same answer. They say I would keep a habit or start a resolution whenever it made sense to me.
I would not wait for January 1st, because January 1st is an arbitrary date. And they always said arbitrary. And it's like, that's interesting because the arbitrariness never really bothered me. Then I was at a party and I was talking to a woman and who I now know what tendency she has. But I was telling her I was writing a book about habits. She literally took a step back for me because she was so repelled by the idea of writing a book.
She was like, why would you write about such a terrible subject? I was like, I love the idea of having to be there energizing and freeing. I love the subject of habit. And so one day I was sitting there and I was just thinking and these were just running through my mind and I was trying to understand how were they connected? And I realized that the idea was expectations. How do people respond to expectations? And when I got to the word expectations, I quickly realized that there are two kinds of expectations out or expectations like meeting a deadline or meeting a request from a friend.
And then there are inter expectations, like my own desire to become a writer and write a book proposal, my own desire to keep in year resolution. And I realized that when I looked at how people responded to outer and inner expectations, that's what made someone an upholder, a questioner and oblige are now. Of course, I didn't have those terms right away. It took me a long time to figure out the terms, but I saw the pattern and it was like a pattern of nature where everything fit in.
Every example I could think of fit in some way. So it felt like the periodic table of the elements where you're like this just works like it's got that solidity that you get in nature. And I was like and it was just the most exciting moment of my intellectual life, I have to say.
I love it, I really enjoy that same feeling of how psychology helps us group and understand, yes, understand ourselves. I think there's such a need for it. And as much as we understand that everyone is genuinely very unique and diverse and different. There are these kind of foundational principles and aspects that kind of keep us in certain groups with others. Tell us a bit about where these tendencies come from. Like are they manufactured through school and family or are they things that we develop?
Where does it where do they actually come from? Well, I really do believe the four tendencies are hardwired. Like I'm a big believer in the genetic roots of personality generally. And I think that you're an upholder question or by trouble, you bring that into the world with you. Now, obviously, your culture is going to affect it. Like if you're a questioner who's always questioning and you're in North Korea, you maybe learn to keep your mouth shut.
But if you're in Silicon Valley, that might be one of your greatest assets, greatest strengths. And I think with time and experience, we all learn how to manage our tendency so that we at least we would hope that we would be able to gain from the strength of it and offset the weakness and the limitations of it, because we'd sort of learn about ourselves and how to manage ourselves. But I do think it is something that you're born with.
You're not one at 20 and one at 40. You're not one at work and one at home. These are consistent aspects of your of your nature. Yeah, absolutely.
And do you find that sometimes that I agree with you to do I believe personality types are hardwired to do and the way they behave, do you find that sometimes almost that because one type of personality is demanding to us from work that often you find people jostling between two in terms of pretending and acting as opposed to being?
You know, I think actually it's really hard to be inconsistent with your tendency that it's pretty in that and that that will either either you'll steer yourself to a place where your tendency works for you or it's going to be a major source of conflict. And so maybe I should go through the tendencies. So there's there is a quiz that people want to take, a quiz that gives you an answer and spits out a report because some people get a kick out of that.
If you're just going to quiz Gretchen Rubin Dotcom, it's like 11 questions.
Quiz Gretchen Rubin on Third Down that I love quizzes. And I guess like two point eight million people have taken this quiz and it's free so you can get your little report. But the fact is, most people know what they are. Just from the brief description that I'll give right now, it's pretty these are very blatant. These are not subtle tendencies. You'll know what you are. You'll know the people at your workplace, people in your family, Game of Thrones characters, people in Parks and Recreation, TV shows, movies, if they're all around us anyway.
So it looks at how you respond to outer and inner expectations. So get outer is like a work deadline interest like a New Year's resolution. So upholders readily meet outer and inner expectations. They want to do what others expect from them, but their expectations for themselves are just as important. And so their motto is, discipline is my freedom. They want to execute and follow through. Then there are questioners. Questioners question all expectations. They'll do something if they think it makes sense.
So they want justification, research, rationale reasons. They resist anything arbitrary, inefficient, unjustified. So if something meets their own inner standard, they will do it. No problem. If it fails their inner standard, they will push back. So their motto is, I will comply. If you convince me why, then there are obliged. Years obliges readily meet outer expectations, but they struggle to meet inner expectations. So this is my friend on the track team.
When she had a team and a coach expecting her to show up, she had no trouble showing up. But when she was just trying to go on her own, it was her inner expectation she struggled. And so the key thing for a blighters to realize is if they want to meet an inner expectation, they have to create a system of outer expectation. If you want to read more, join a book group. If you want to exercise more, take a class exercise with a friend who's going to be annoyed.
If you don't show up, think of your duty to be a role model to somebody else. There's a million ways to create accountability once you realize that's what you need. 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 an inner like they want to do what they want to do in their own way, in their own time. They can do anything they want to do, anything they choose to do.
But if you ask or tell them to do something, they are very likely to resist. And typically they don't tell themselves what to do. They won't sign up for a 10 a.m. spin class on Saturday because they think, I don't know what I want to do on Saturday. And just the idea that it's on my calendar, it's going to annoy me. So their motto is, you can't make me and neither can I. And obliges the biggest tendency for both men and women.
You either are the library, a bunch of lectures in your life, and rebel is the smallest. It's conspicuous, but it's a small tendency.
OK, good to know. Great, great foundation setting for all of these areas everyone upholders question is, obliges the rebels and Gretchen to quiz as well. Quiz Gretchen Rubin dot com is where you can take that quiz. So let's let's dive into all of them a bit more, because I want people to understand how they connect. One of one of the big ones for me is what I find is how.
We we think everyone we have to kind of we have the mirror believe where we think everyone thinks like us, right? Yes. And then and then sometimes we run into the other extreme where it's like, well, no one thinks like me. And I think differently. One hundred percent. I completely agree with you, either in one or the other either. Everyone is like me or no one is like me. Yes.
Which whereas with this framework, we've got to understand that there are some people that think like me and there are some people that tell us about how to communicate with each type in a way so that they understand, because I feel like that's where we really see this come alive. I know in my life where I've seen these tools become the most applicable is when I change the language and the way I speak to certain people, because that's the language that they understand and resonate with.
Can you tell us a bit about those? Yes.
And I'll tell you where you can see this play out. Not now because of the pandemic, but in general, if you go to the office kitchen and you look at the signage, you will see all the tendencies like in full blossom because everybody is coming to it from their own perspective and they don't understand why people disagree. And you're exactly right. You can use the tendencies to really minimize conflict and procrastination and also just to show more compassion to yourself and more compassion to other people.
So I'll start with a blinder, because that's the biggest tendency. So bludgers need accountability and a lot of times other tendencies, like I'm in upholders my tendency, we'll say things like, well, I don't want to be your babysitter, do it whatever it's right for you. Like, I don't want to have to check on you, but but but a blighters do much better work when they do have accountability and when they do have deadlines and deliverables and check ins.
On the other hand, Revel's don't like that. They don't like somebody looking over their shoulder. They don't like somebody checking in. They want to do what they want to do in their own way. And if they feel like you're telling them what to do, even if you're praising them for what you're doing, they may start to resist. And so the kind of behavior that might be very effective, even necessary within a bludge could be counterproductive with a rebel like I know a rebel who is working as a as a consultant, you need a boss who said this is a really hard problem.
I don't know what to do. You've got the chops to deal with this. Go away, figure it out in a month. If you run into roadblocks, let me know otherwise come back to me with the solution. And he's like, that's how I do my best work. But you an sure, they'd be like, what is happening? Like, I have no like I need a little more structure. So blighters said to me when I, when I try to apply for a new job, I say I work best with a tough boss.
Are you a tough demanding boss? Because that's how I give my best work. A questioner's need reasons. When I talk to health care professionals, they know they know this kind of person very well with. They're like. You're telling me to walk a mile before breakfast every day? Why am I like you for breakfast? Why am I walking out running? What if I take a bike? What if it's in the evening? I don't understand. And it's like they will get on board, but they have to have their questions answered.
And if you say because we've always done it this way or because I'm the doctor and I say so or because you said you would or that's the law, they're like, I don't understand. Like, this doesn't make any sense and therefore it's illegitimate. So with questionnaires, you have to take the time to take them through. And so let's say you're in a work situation. You want to think about, well, how can I how could I give everybody what they need but not burdened everybody with what they need?
So, like, let's say you are going to implement a new software program, you might say to a group, oh, we're switching to a different software program. I'm going to give you a 20 minute presentation about why we're doing this. And then if you feel like you've heard enough, please feel free to return to your desk. If you would like to stay here and ask me further questions about why we feel like this is the right decision, I'm happy to stay here until you really understand why we think this is the right course for our company.
The questioners get their questions answered because, by the way, they often will just silently not go along with what people tell them to do. And that can cause a lot of conflict and a lot of inefficiency. They need to have their questions answered. But, you know, maybe the maybe the villagers like whatever. That's not my problem. Like, just tell me what you want me to do. And I got other stuff on my to do list.
So when you know the tendencies, you can you can think cleverly about how to give people what they need and not burden them with a lot of stuff they don't need.
Yeah, those those are such great insights, whether it's workplace, whether it's family, you know, it's just we often wonder why people are motivated just where we are.
Yes. How do you know it's like. Yes, no, that's exactly what happens with the tendencies everybody does what would work with their tendency to questioners deluged people with with research and articles and data. And I get very tiresome. People are like too many, too many questions, too much information obliges. Everybody is like you keep saying this is important to you. I don't understand why you're not doing it. Like you keep saying you want to exercise.
Why can't you why can't you keep your promise to yourself? Rebels people are like, why don't you ever do what I want you to do? And then upholders well, they get rigid. They're like, oh, I'm sorry, I have to go to bed at 10:00 p.m. every night. And I don't care if it's your anniversary party. I get to go home because I'm going running at eight a.m. So when you understand that other people have a different perspective, a lot of times it makes you might think, well, it's kind of annoying the way you are, but I'm not going to take it personally and I'm not going to feel like you're a jerk.
I just understand how you're bringing a different perspective to it. In your perspective, what are the recommended occupation instead? Because I feel like often people may reflect and be like, oh, wait, I don't get to be this in my job or role or I'm not really paying as well. Tell us a bit about what are the other recommended jobs? Does it mean you can't be a job? How do you how do you almost create a pathway to success knowing your tendency to leave?
There's so many qualities that make somebody good at a particular profession. I think that just about any tendency could do just about any profession. Well, like I could imagine being a lawyer, as an upholder, as a questioner, as an agent, I think they would all do that really well. But I also think that you're right that certain professions tend to value certain aspects of nature more highly. And so people tend to do well, like I would say that question asking professions, maybe scientists, journalists might be particularly appealing to questioners because it just scratches that itch that they have.
It kind of gives them permission of rebels. Interestingly, often our entrepreneurs, because they want to do things their own way, they don't want to take advice or direction from anybody else. They also often thrive in sales because with sales, a lot of times it's like, listen, whatever you got to do to make that sound like, OK, fine, you know? And so they have that freedom. They often do better in in positions where every day is different.
Like I talked to somebody who was a restaurant manager, so they he was like, I'm on the road all the time. Every day is different. I'm always with different people. Nobody really knows where I am. They're not taking keeping track of me. There was a lot of freedom and choice, and that's really important to a rebel. However, some rebels are very attracted to areas of high regulation, like the clergy, the military, the police, because they like to have something to resist.
They need the energy of kind of pushing back. Upholders tend to thrive in places where it's pretty clear what a success look like. What are the rules? They tend not to like things where there's a lot of emphasis on flexibility and sudden shifts, like I'm working for a visionary leader who every day has a different plan. It's like as an upholder, I don't like working that way or where it's ambiguous what the rules are or what success looks like.
They tend to want to make a plan and execute it. And questioners do not like to be in a place where things are not justified. Again, like a visionary leader, where you're supposed to just like do what that person wants without justification, can be very annoying and obliges really need that outer accountability. Now, what's good is that usually the workplace is kind of an easy place to get accountability because you automatically have deadlines and deliverables and a boss and a team and clients and students and all that.
So often of leaders will do very well at work and then they don't understand why they can't do equally well at home. They don't understand what work I have, all this accountability, this architecture that's keeping me going. If I would create the same architecture for myself in my private life, I would also succeed with my private aims. But I don't understand that I need to figure out how to create that kind of accountability at home as well as in the office.
And so for many of us, that's like a huge light bulb to understand why can I keep my promises to other people, but I can't keep my promises to myself. It's like that's just a thing that obliges experience. Like there's no shame in that. There's no weakness in that you just fix it and then you're done. It's very simple. It's not it's not easy, but it's straightforward.
How do you improve the natural weaknesses that come up in each and which weaknesses do you focus on? Because. Yeah, let's talk then then I'll follow up. I don't want to get us like three questions in one. Let's go. No, I know what I think. You're exactly right. This is the question because this is where we have the opportunity to to grow is like to see the weakness. So like my my tendency is upholder. And so I would say the weakness is that you often see with upholders is rigidity, like we get it in our mind that something supposed to happen a certain way.
And it's very hard to get off of that. It's like I remember I got invited to a wedding in there, like the bus is leaving for the church at five. And then the bride's mother was like, no, we're actually leaving at four thirty. And I was like, well, see, that's not possible because I have a card and it's like, well, know that kind of rigidity and upholders can be kind of judgmental and cold because I'm like, Hey, Jay, we both have a report to do on Friday and you want me to proofread your report.
But like, I got to proofread my own report, I don't have time to help you to to to to Polder. That seems right, because I'm meeting my inner expectation. But to other people, you can seem cold like you need to make an effort to extend yourself. And upholders can be judgmental because things tend to come certain things come more easily to them than they do to other people. Questioners need to learn how to ask questions in a constructive way.
They can seem disrespectful or like not team players. If I'm a thin skinned boss and you're asking me question after question, I start to think you don't trust my judgment. You're questioning my authority. You're not a team player. I don't want to work for you. So questioners need to learn how to ask questions in a way that don't make other people feel like they're on the stand or that they're being grilled or that there's cheekiness. You know, a lot of times questioner children get in trouble because they're like, well, why should I do this dumb book report?
It's like they're really are saying. Why should I do it on book report? So they need to do that and also questioners can sometimes have analysis paralysis. This is when their desire for perfect information makes it hard to move forward and to make a decision, because sometimes in this world, we have to we can't wait for perfect information. You can. What kind of email platform should I use? I can research that for the next year. You know, at a certain point, they have to say it's more efficient to decide and learn and experiment than to keep than to keep researching paragliders.
Their weakness is this. It's not even a weakness. It's just a fact. They need better accountability and they have to get that out of accountability. And so whether that's taking a class or teaching a class or thinking of your duty to your future self or your duty to be a role model or hiring a coach, joining AA or Weight Watchers, all these things are ways to create better accountability, that blighters have an interesting phenomenon where they can fall into obliging rebellion.
Yes, I'm going to ask you about that. So they they meet, meet, meet expectations and then suddenly they snap and they say this I will not do. It happens when they feel like exploited or taken advantage of or unheard. And sometimes it's more like, I'm not going to answer your emails for two weeks and sometimes it's huge, like I'm going to quit this job and walk out today and it's done to kind of blow up a situation that's become just kind of untenable for the Alija.
But it can have very serious reputational consequences because to the other tendencies, it doesn't make sense. I like Jay. I asked you if you wanted to be on this committee and you said, OK, so I don't understand why you're so mad. I don't understand that. What you're already on seven committees and nobody else in this company that's on more than two. And that's not fair. And so now you're rebelling because that's that's how a bloody rebellion gets started.
And then so for rebels. They can do whatever they want to do, and so with the rebel, you just can't tell them what to do and that is hard. It can be frustrating to live or work with somebody who isn't going to do what you tell them to do. So if you're dealing with a rebel, you either want to remind them of how it fits into their identity. You're doing this because you're an athlete, you're an animal lover, you're a musician, you're a poet, you're a writer.
This is who you are or you give them information, consequences, choice. Look, if you do your physical therapy, this happens. If you don't do your physical therapy, that happens. Up to you, that's what tends to work best with rebels because they want it, and then sometimes also they will work with a challenge, like I know a guy who quit smoking because his 18 year old son, guy like you could never quit smoking. He's like, watch me.
So. That's great. I love that one. That's what I think when I'm when I'm listening to all the descriptions, I definitely feel myself to be in the rebel category. Interesting. I definitely find myself. And it's interesting that you brought out the both examples of the rebel category of the book. You spoke about the army and the clergy, and then you also talk about entrepreneurs. And it's interesting that obviously my life previously is living as a monk and that I was doing what I do today.
It's it's I like how you're able to I think we look at tendencies is so singular. When you hear the word rebel, you wouldn't necessarily think of Monk. But I often talk about how Monk life was like the ultimate rebellion. Yes. Because he was literally saying, well, this version of the world doesn't work like this is I'm going to go find a completely extreme and different. Yes. A path to. And I'll tell you if you want to do some rebel monk reading Thomas Merton, who was a very famous Carthusian monk who lived several decades ago, you read his journals because it is like Diary of a Rebel as a monk.
And it is really fascinating and exactly that thing like I'm going to do the extreme unexpected thing, the thing people think I can't do, kind of going all the way. And it's very fascinating how those how those and another thing and maybe this will resonate with other parts of your career. I was talking to a guy who is a rebel who worked for I won't say the name of the company, but let's just say it's like a very big famous tech company that's well known for being very controlling.
And I said, how does a rebel like you work for a place like this? He's like, oh, they're working for me. I'm going to start my own company. They're training me. I'm getting paid to learn how to do all this stuff. And then I'm going to go up and I'm going to start my own company. So to him, they were all working for him and this is what he wanted. And I was like, right, he's doing it in a rebel way, but it's allowing him to get wonderful experience at a really, really big prestigious company and that he did it in a rebel way.
He found the rebel mindset that allowed him to do it.
That's what I love about what you're saying. It's all about the mindset. It's not what you're externally doing. That's and that's the beauty of that is, is that no matter where you are, if you go all in on the mindset that you naturally are, the tendency that you actually are, then you're guaranteed to find in that space where you want. And so what you just said to me resonates so strongly with me because I often living as my colleagues who worked at Accenture, for example, big corporate.
That's what made me think of a thousand people. And the most amazing thing is that was completely irrelevant inside the company. And so it was the mindset that you had. I never I don't think I have the I don't think I had the element of thinking people work for me, but I definitely had that complete understanding of I'm here to learn. Yes. Growing I might you carving out a career path in the company that is so rare and unique that existed for 90 percent of people inside the company before.
And I'm going to go all in on that. I don't believe I have to become the generalist. I don't believe I have to become what they want me to become. I believe I can create my own path.
But see, and your example is perfect for why we need all of the tendencies in a workplace, because it's very when you're hiring, of course, you gravitate to people of your tendency because they think the way you think they had the same responses that you have. Everything seems very sensible. But think of how your company would have lost out if they hadn't had your rebel entrepreneurial spirit and the way that you were able to see and be attracted to an opportunity that nobody else saw or wanted to pursue.
Right. Maybe for whatever reason, they're like, oh, why would I take that risk? Why would I do that? Nobody's done that before. Work for you. That's like catnip for other people. That maybe was a turnoff, but they needed you there because they needed what you could bring. And so I think when you're hiring or you're putting together a team, you need to be very careful. Look, I've had people say to me, I only want to hire bludgers, teach me how to screen for Elijah.
And I'm like, obliges are wonderful. They're the rock of the world. But you don't want only a blighters because you need the questioners to be like, what the heck are we doing this? You need the rebels to be like, let's do something completely out of the box. You need the upholders who are like this. We're going to we're going to execute. We are going to surpass and we have our eye on that excellence. They all bring so much to it.
And I think that your your your your history is a perfect example of why even somebody who's like and I like working with a rebel, it's like, well, suck it up because you need that. Yeah, no, that's it's as if all these examples you're giving me are making it more and more clear to me why I'm definitely a rebel and it makes so much sense and completely. You know, it's it's almost like there's a beautiful verse that I quote in in my book Think Like a Man, but it comes from the money Smithey and it says that when you protect your purpose, your purpose protects you.
And and it's almost like when when we're using the dharma of purpose in the Hmong context, it very much applies to a tendency or a personality type. And what I mean by that is it's almost like I feel like the working world is constantly trying to get or at least maybe this is just a rebel experience. So you can tell me if it's just a revelation. I feel like I've I've always felt like everyone is always trying to get me to not be a rebel.
I feel like I've always being trying to be bold enough to be every person. I just feels that. So I'm not saying it's just me, but I've always felt that. And I've had people openly tell me that. I had one executive who said to me, you know, when you were at Accenture and you were dabbling in like social media and meditation and all that kind of stuff, you just think, I was like, who's this kid doesn't know what he's doing?
Like he's going to ruin his career. And, you know, he came up to me afterwards, probably earlier on in my media career, which is like this is how I felt about you when I first saw you. But it's really amazing that you proved me wrong and you found your own path. And I was just thinking that I always come across that resistance, which is really do you really want to do that? Is that something that all tendencies experience or is that something specifically?
You know, I think that everybody feels that in their own way. And it's so I think questioners are like, who are these lemmings? Everybody is just going along without asking what? Like, who are you? People like this makes no sense. And the obliges are like, why is everybody telling me what to do? Why are they why am I always the one saying yes? Why is why am I the one struggling with boundaries? Why why can't other people just act like civilized people and do their part?
And I'm always the one picking up the slack. And then the rebels are like, why is everybody trying to tell me what to do? Just get out of my way and stop talking to me and I will do it. And so I think that and then upholders of course, when you get upholders together, we're just like, why can't anybody else get their stuff done? Like, we just are all, you know? And so I do feel like there is that aspect to it where you sort of feel like everybody's experiencing it, but people are experiencing kind of slightly different versions of it.
Now, you're a rebel, but it's interesting because all the tendencies kind of tip in one direction or another, because all the tendencies overlap. So there's rebels who tip to oblige her and there's rebels who tip to question her. So rebels who tip to oblige her tend to have more of a spirit of resistance. They're like, you can't tell me what to do. And even if it's something I want to do, if you tell me to do it now, I won't do it because I'm not going to let you think that you're telling me what to do.
Then there are rebels who have to question her and they're more like, I'm marching to the beat of my own drummer. I don't care what you want me to do. I'm going to do what I want you want to do. What do you want me to do it or not? I don't care. I think you're a rebel who tips to question her, which, by the way, is what Steve Jobs was, which is like I have my own path, doesn't like what I've got to do things my own way.
But if you weigh in, it's not going to ignite the spirit of resistance to me one way or another. Whereas rebels who attempt to oblige are really feel like if somebody tells them what to do, it's like they just have to resist and in a way that they become controlled in the negative. So then they have to manage that. I think a little bit. I think you're I think you're a rebel.
It's even more crazy because unless unless you really and I don't know if you do know this, so I am like a huge Steve Jobs that.
Oh, well, there you go. Probably because you're like everything he says makes so much sense. Literally when you said that I was just that's so funny because no one ever understands how I can be a Steve Jobs then. And I'm fascinated by so much about him as a human, including his spiritual quest to he. He spent a lot of time with monks and spiritual traditions and and and at the same time had so many other complexities in his life, of course, like we all do.
But, yeah, I would agree with you on that definition. I've never felt the resistance. I was bringing up the resistance because I think it's such an important thing to protect your tendency in the sense of I feel like there's such a need for you to know truly what your tendency is so that you can go all in on that tendency with confidence. Because I think sometimes we we on tendencies, we doubt whether it's the right thing or we doubt whether it's a good thing.
Tell us about that. Like looking at it from a good or a bad thing sometimes. Yeah, we can train to believe that certain qualities we actually have as a tendency are actually negative in the world. But good for us.
Well, I think you're exactly right. And it really saddens me when people say, well, I don't like my tendency, I want to be this tendency, how do I change? And the thing is, it's like there all have strengths. They all have weaknesses. They all include people who. Her wildly successful and also people who are big losers and really, when you look at the people who are the most successful, the happiest, the healthiest, they're really the people who have figured out how to harness the strength of their tendencies the most effectively, and then also how to offset the limitations or the weaknesses of their of their tendencies most effectively.
Now, what do you see? This a lot is with the blighters, because villagers, they say, well, it's weak that I rely on accountability. I don't want to have to do that. Why is it weak? It's a huge percentage of people need our accountability. Just put it in there and then you can get you can achieve your aim. I don't I don't think that you need to transcend it or transform it. It's just embrace it.
And like you say, go with it. And then because you're going with the kind of the natural course of your of your stream, you're going to just your little boat is going to float much faster. And so and so obliges will often say that sometimes rebels say that because they can really get frustrated with themselves if they haven't figured out how to get themselves to do what they want. So if you're an entrepreneur but you can't get yourself to do the drudge work, well, that's going to that's going to slow you down.
Or maybe every time you decide that you're going to exercise every day, then you immediately refuse to do it. I have somebody who is like I decided I was going to give up carbohydrates and I went out the next day about a big loaf of bread because no one tells me what to do, including me. So part of it is figuring out, OK, well, how do I do it? And I've heard from so many rebels who are like everybody told me that there was something wrong with me, that I wasn't a real grown up.
I couldn't get things done in the normal way. And now that I know who I am, I I can embrace it and take pride in it and see the power of it. Enormously powerful tendency. And I can set things up in a way that will allow me to succeed in my own way. And here's the thing about rebels. It's a lot of times people make it worse. I mean, I just if you're the parent of a rebel or the spouse of a rebel or the boss of a rebel, you think, oh, I'll make a list, I'll give helpful, I'll make a star chart, I'll give helpful hints and reminders.
You know, every time you do that, you get the spirit of resistance. If you would just shut up and stay away, then the rebel would be like, oh, I do need to apply for a job or I do need to make my bed or I do want to get an A on the chem exam and then will do it. But people trying to be helpful often do exactly the wrong thing. And then again, then that creates the spiral of why can't I do the things that others tell me I want to do and maybe that I want to do for myself.
And yet there's something that keeps tripping me up in my own head. Once you understand the pattern, it's very easy to say, oh, oh, you can't use it to do list. A lot of rebels don't like to use to do list. This is a very common pattern. So what do you do? Here's these other things the rebels do to kind of get to the place that other people use it to do list war or obliges. It's like people say, I don't understand it, I do really well in Weight Watchers.
And then I say to myself, why would I pay to go? I know the whole routine. I don't need to do that. I don't need the time and the money. And then I get all the way back and it's like, oh, because I need the accountability. So maybe there's many ways to create that accountability once I realize that that's the key thing for me. So do I have a lot more freedom to get where I want to go?
Because I understand what I need. And there isn't a magic one size fits all solution. Like you say, we're all different and we need to take a different path, but we can all achieve our aim even if we go different ways there.
Yeah, that's a great answer. This is this is revelatory. I feel like I'm getting a personal for tendencies. Masterclasses. Oh, good. Yes. And I'm learning so much more about myself. And that's how I've always felt that I've become more confident about my tendency as life has gone on. Exercise do. And I feel like often, even if we are a tendency, we may not be exercising enough consciously enough where we develop a confidence around that.
No, I think you're exactly right. And I think probably it's because you've figured out how to succeed. And so you have faith in yourself because you're like, I've I've figured things out in the past. I'll probably figure this out. I know what's worked for me in the past so I can figure out, like, how to sort of replicate that. I think what happens for some people is they've tried and they've gotten discouraged or they see other people around them using a certain method or a certain process or a certain curriculum and having great success.
And then they think, well, if my brother in law can do it, if my boss can do it, what's wrong with me? Instead of saying, well, that's something that works for my brother in law, but maybe I'll try it, it might be useful to think about if it worked for him. Maybe it'll work for me. I love a data point of one, but maybe it's not. And I think knowing your tendency makes you don't have to just throw spaghetti against the wall.
You can sort of be you can be targeted and say this sounds like the kind of thing that would work for a questioner, because there's a lot of justification. There's a lot of data here. This is really like answering all my questions. I feel like I can really get on board with this program. I love that. Yeah.
And that's also helps us have more compassion for other people. Exactly. I think that that's what's missing in the world right now in so many areas where we kind of just don't realize that for some people it's going to take a year and for some people it's going to take a day. And somebody was going to take a book and somebody was going to take an overseas trip or whatever it is like. It's just it's it helps you put so much compassion because you go, oh, I get it.
Why I learn this quickly and you learn it slowly and you learn that it.
Well, I had this exact experience with my husband, so my husband's a questioner and I was filling out some boring form that we had to fill out as a couple. And that's why it's nice to be married to Polder, because I'm the one that's just going to go ahead and get it done to get it off the list. And he had changed jobs recently, so I didn't know his office address. So I called him and I said, hey, Jamie, what's your office address?
And what did he say? Why do you want it out? And I would have said years ago, before I came up with this, I would have been like, why can't you just answer a simple question? Why does everything have to be a long drawn out? I'm the one doing all this work. You're just slowing things down. Are you jerking my chain? Why are you so annoying? And now I'm like, he doesn't do anything unless he understands why that it's like he's like that with me.
He's like that with everybody I might be annoyed by, but I don't have to be hurt by it. It's a reflection on our relationship. And I know what should I have said? I should have said, hey, Jamie, I filling out that boring bureaucratic form, what's your work address? And he would have told me, no problem. He just needs to know why. And so, again, it's like I don't take it personally anymore because I know that's just that's just where he's coming from.
And a lot of times I benefit from it. It's great for me in many ways to have a questioner in my life. I'll say to him, I feel like I have to do this. I have to do this. He'd be like, why would you do that? You're right. I'm not going to do that. It's very freeing for me to consult with them.
Yeah, I love what you just said, that you you said I'm allowed to be annoyed, but but I've never hurt that. Yeah. And I think that that's what I do know. And eventually what you explained, you realize you don't even need to be annoyed by it can actually help me. Yes. It's a refreshing perspective because of the things we argue about, whether it's with our spouses or with partners or girlfriends away from the people in the workplace is usually just because we're speaking in different tendencies.
Yeah, it's usually not that much deeper than that. And the problem is that we take it to be hurt and emotional connection, emotional distance. Tell me about is there a recommended partner or friendship type like are you should you marry someone or should you? Obviously, you've told us how we can adapt, but is there a recommended friend type or married? Well, here's the most striking pattern. If there is a right and you can tell me if this is true for you, when you have a rebel who's paired up either in romance or in a work life, like a founding team, if one person is a rebel, almost always the other person isn't obliged.
Now, there are exceptions and they usually study the exceptions themselves for the very distinct categories. But almost always, if there's a rebel, they're paired up with an Alija because questioners in upholders tend not to work well with rebels, but obliged to work well with rebels. And it actually obliges. Are there the kind of typo? Appropriately, they are the ones that team up the most easily with all other three tendencies, which is good. They're the biggest tendency and they do the best with the other three upholders tend to do very well with questioners.
I'm in a polder married to a questionnaire and that tends to be very consistent. Again, they can work with the bludgers, they can work with rebels. But rebels in upholders are kind of the two opposite. They're the most extreme personality types. They tend not to work well together because just what they value is so different. So like maybe it's a rebel. You experience this. There's a lot of value in spontaneity. There's a lot of value.
Let's let's keep things open. Let's let things play out. Let's see how we feel as a table, as an upholder. I put no value on spontaneity. I want to have a plan for everything. I just like to live that way. Well, that's hard for us to work together because I'm trying to plan out six months and you're trying to keep our days open or you might like have a vision and be like, let's rethink the priorities of this company.
And I'm like, but I think I've have such an extensive execution plan, it's distressing to me to throw it all away. Whereas you find that very liberating and freeing and creative. I find it creative to dig deep and execute over the long term. So it's not that they can't, but it's often that they like to work in such different ways that they end up just not not enjoying working with each other as much in a big team. You could you could have it.
But if it's just like a pair, it can be hard.
Yeah, that's it. Yeah. That's that's a really that's that's really good to know, I think for people, because, you know, obviously me and Gretchen are not sitting here saying don't marry someone who's not.
Right. No, no. And there are many, many of them break up with. So we're not saying that at all, but you've got to know what you're working with, whether you're dating or already married. You've got to know what to adapt to. The great example that you gave, which by. You and your husband having a conversation, you know, it's it's it can be so beneficial, actually, and if we don't just look at that difference as emotional and I think sometimes we take it too personally, too emotionally to realize that it's.
Well, like, I collaborate with a lot of rebels and believe me, whenever I write an email, it's like if this works for you, if this sounds fun, whenever it's convenient for you, something that you could do if you thought it would help you. Is this because I know I don't I want wanted to be like, this sounds fun. This works for me. This gives me what I want. I will do it in my own way.
I don't want to accidentally push their buttons. I like could you please do this by Friday? Because they're going to be like, yeah, I don't want to do it by Friday because, like, I don't want to get in their way or my way. So it's everything is the same. I just I just am careful to frame it in a way that will be sweet to their ears. It's it's totally easy to do once I know that that's the way to communicate more effectively.
And that's true of everybody in our lives.
Yeah. How does it work in terms of conflict in relationships? So if there's a conflict in a relationship, do some of these tendencies in all the tendencies, do we tend to close off or open up? Is it different? How does it work for the different tendencies?
Well, one point of conflict that comes up sometimes with a blighters is the other tendencies will say. Why do you keep talking about this and you don't follow through and they get very kind of exasperated, you keep saying you want to exercise, you say you want to switch careers. You say you want to write a novel in your free time. Do it. Don't do it. I don't care. But I don't I'm I don't like seeing you just keep talking about it.
And so they get frustrated and they don't understand. Now, sometimes often sweethearts don't make good accountability partners. And it's also very burdensome to be an accountability partner. That's why many people hire coaches. And, you know, people like you hire somebody to do it. So they're trained at it and they're really good at it. But if you understand, that's what's necessary. A lot of times, again, the emotion drains out of it. You're like, well, let's get you what you need instead of like, why am I good?
I'm getting frustrated with you or feeling like you're you're somehow not keeping your promises to yourself with questioners. The conflict often comes from them feeling like people are asking to do things that are arbitrary. So here's an example. Like somebody like if I said to my husband, like, we don't have a suburban house, but like something a friend wife is just saying, she said her husband, let's clean out the basement this weekend. And he's like, we never use the basement.
Why would we clean it out? It's like that just doesn't make any sense to him. But if she said something and then she gets irritated because he'll never do it, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But if she said, oh, we're having company come in two weeks and their kids need some place to sleep, if we clean out the basement, they can have a whole room to themselves. Let's do it by by the time they come.
It's like I see why I'm being asked to do this and I see the timeline in this makes sense to me. You're going to have a lot less conflict if you present the reasons. And then with the rubble, again, it's like a lot of times it's because I'm trying to tell you what to do. And I mean, we are not the happier podcast. We had two people call in with questions like in the same two weeks where they had sweethearts who needed to look for jobs.
One guy had been laid off and one guy was moving to a new city to be with his girlfriend. And this one was the question, what was it like for there? Like, what do I do to help my boyfriend look for a job? And it's like nothing these guys know they need a job. Like if you make a list and remind them, make a list of phone numbers, circle things in the newspaper, you're going to ignite that spirit of resistance.
Let them do it in their own way. They got this just just let them do it in their own way. Now, it might not be your way. You know, this is like when someone decides to clean out the basement at two o'clock in the morning because that's what they feel like. Don't get in their way. Let them do it when they want to. Spontaneity when they feel like it's their choice, their freedom. But once you recognize that and what a high value it is, you can let the do it.
I love that. That's amazing. I actually love that. Yeah, no, it's I really believe everyone needs to at some point dive deep into this work in their life because it's just it can solve so many issues in so many areas of our lives simply by deeply understanding people and wanting to communicate with them in a way that actually. And that is compassion. That is empathy. That is real connection. It's not a technique. It's not a manipulation strategy.
It's not a tool. It's it's not to take advantage of someone. It's to deeply speak to someone's wiring in their heart without without making it so difficult to understand someone.
And I hear this a lot from doctors and nurses, physical therapists, occupational therapists, people like that, where they do want to connect with their patients. They they want so much to be helpful, to be of service, to help help people get out of pain and get towards good health. And they're very frustrated because they know that in many cases they are not successfully communicating and reaching those patients. And so they're very excited to have a tool. As you say, it's not about manipulation, it's not about tricking somebody.
It's about speaking in a way that it's going to strike a chord with them in a way that's going to allow their actions to follow their thoughts. You write about this all the time. How do we put our our values and ideas into the world? That's not always as easy as it sounds. And so this is a way to kind of make that match more effective.
This has been amazing. I love this conversation. It's it's so great. It's something that I get a real personal. It's probably one of my favorite topics in the world, actually, because it's just so I feel like this this understanding has made the biggest impact to where I am today and how I feel, because in the in the money teaching, it's called Dharma. And the cyclical nature is called Dharma. And that's that's what I study. And when you look at the four tendencies, it so brilliantly explained that I love the detail.
You go into a really helping someone understand which one they are. So anyone who's listening and watching I highly recommend the four tendencies is a great way of getting some self awareness. Take the quiz and really dive into the people that you spend the most time with in your life at work, at home. At least start by knowing that you don't need to walk around with a full tendency radar like you would know anyone. She meets in two seconds and will know what they are.
And, you know, you may not be at that stage and you may not want to, but it's pretty important that you understand your family in your work environment. You know, there's two environments and you know their tendencies. It's going to make a world of difference. I know that we've been using these tools in our recruitment as well. So I use a lot of these tools in recruiting people onto my teams because I want to build, like Gretchen said, a a complete holistic team.
Well, we have people allowing us and I when I'm speaking at companies and if we ever use tools like this, we're always looking at like you want a company that ideally has an equal split rather than be too far off in one way or another. So granted, this is amazing. I want to ask you your final five. These are usually questions that are answered in one word or one sentence. I'm asking you some really questions I'm curious about. You may go slightly over the bottom five of them to be concise, but I give you permission in advance to know that I'm asking someone really curious about, OK, so these are all picked up from things you said.
I love this piece of advice. I'm intrigued by it. You said it's better to have frequent, boring, mundane communication than to save it up. I before I understood what you meant by that. It took me a while to wrap my head around it. But I love your explanation.
Can you explain why when we talk to people often we have a lot to say and we don't want to talk to them. Very often we're sort of like, I'm fine, how are you? I am also fine. And so, like these little mundane details of our lives help us stay connected and kind of keep our our relationships more alive.
Another great answer. So anyone is wondering whether you should talk to someone regularly or not regularly. Regularly will be better. Second question. I absolutely love the saying that you said the days are long, but the years are short extend on that front.
I think everything that I've ever written in my whole life, like I did a little video about a story called The Days Are Long, but the years are short. And it just really resonates with people, you know, sometimes getting from morning to night. It feels like an eternity. But then you're like, where did they go? Where did twenty nineteen go? Especially, I think for the parents of young children, the days can seem very long, but the years seem very short.
I love that. Yeah, it's such a beautiful reminder for us as well. And it has so much meaning too. I love it. OK, question of increase. What are some of the common small challenges you've had people made in their lives that significantly boosted their overall happiness? And I love the one minute rule that you speak about.
Oh yeah. The one minute rule is that. Anything you can do in less than a minute, you do without delay. So if you can hang up a coat or put a dish in the dishwasher or file something you do and that gets rid of the scum on the clutter of life. Another quick lift, if you need it, is to jump up and down. Do jumping jacks, run down the stairs, jump over a puddle. It's quick.
It's lively. It's kind of childlike. And another one of the easiest, quickest ways to intervene in your mood is to listen to one of your favorite upbeat songs. It just it's one of the quickest ways to give yourself a boost and love it.
OK, awesome question. Before I know you love children's books. Yes, I've heard that reading them before bed is a great way to unwind. I've actually been reading my friends have a six month old and I go over once a week or something and I read a bedtime story for his book and we sit. Then we lie on our backs on the floor. And I read and he loves like he's six months old. So yeah, he loves like grabbing the book.
And and it's really I mean children's books are written so beautifully and I don't have a child yet, but I've definitely connected with them. So I resonate with you. Tell us some of the best children's books. You mean picture books or do you mean like chapter books. Yeah. Yeah, picture books. Anything, anything. OK, so picture books. I love The Lonely Doll. I love the seven silly ITRs. Goodnight Moon. Of course.
Crazy strange where the wild things are. Oh yeah. Yeah. Mr.. Mr. Rabbit in the gift. Yeah, those are picture books and then for chapter books, if you haven't read children's literature lately, you are missing out because there are so many great books you should read. His Dark Materials, the trilogy and subsequent books by Philip Pullman. Christy Kershaw's Grayslake trilogy, The Hunger Games is amazing by Suzanne Collins. I really I can't even my mind is staggering because I love children's literature so much.
There's so much great stuff right now. Jason Reynolds is a fantastic writer who's writing today one every kind of a word, Jacqueline Woodson, anyone.
There's so many great writers I love. And fifth and final question, I've heard you say people know they don't want what they have, but they don't know what they want. Have you do you remember saying this? Yes, I mean, it's hard, and I think you raised this at the beginning of the conversation, which is sometimes we don't know ourselves. We think we know ourselves, but we we know what other people expect from us or we know what we wish we expected from ourselves.
And so sometimes you we are you know, what you you don't want, but you don't know what you do want. In back to my my career transition, I feel really lucky because I wanted to write a book so desperately. It was like the Death Star pulling me in and it's tractor beam like it was very clear to me what I wanted was a lot of times when people are making a career shift, they know what they don't want, but they haven't figured out what they do want.
And that's when you have to, like, read what color is your parachute and like do all that soul searching. And that's painful and hard because people know what they don't want, but they don't know what they do on.
Thank you, Gretchen. And that's your final five. Thank you for being an on purpose. Everyone has been listening. Go and grab a copy of the four tendencies. Have you enjoyed this conversation? Keep listening on purpose and make sure you tag me and Gretchen on Instagram with your biggest insights, anything that she shared or said that really resonated or connected with you. Please do. Tell us. I love seeing one of the messages that you're really getting from these podcasts.
I'm sure she'll be happy to see them as well and keep coming back to us. Thank you so much, Gretchen. Thank you for coming. Thank you. It's so fun to talk to you. I so appreciate it.
This podcast was produced by Dust Light Productions, our executive producer from Dust Light is Michelle Yousef. Our senior producer is Juliana Bradley. Our associate producer is Jacqueline Castillo. Valentino Rivera is our engineer. Our music is from Blue Dot Sessions and special thanks to Rachel Garcia, the dust like development and operations coordinator.