Gretchen Rubin: Optimizing Your Senses

0:08I'm Guy Kawasaki and this is Remarkable People. We're on a mission to make you remarkable. Helping me in this episode is Gretchen Rubin. She is an authority on happiness and personal growth and a recovered Supreme Court law clerk. Gretchen's ability to distill complex ideas with levity and clarity has captivated millions of people. She hosts the very popular Happier with Gretchen Rubin podcast and created the Happiness Project, a platform that empowers people to become happier, healthier, more productive, and more creative. Over 3 million people have taken her four tendencies quiz. They discovered whether they're upholders, questioners, obligers, or rebels.

1:02For the record, I am an upholder. Now she invites us on a sensory journey with her newest book, Life in Five Senses, How Exploring the Senses Got Me Out of My Head and Into the World. I'm Guy Kawasaki. This is Remarkable People. And now, here's the remarkable Gretchen Rubin. First, I have to tell you that I felt an instant connection to you because you quit your law career. after your clerking in the Supreme Court. I quit law school after two weeks. So we quit at different points, obviously, but that's why you're Gretchen Rubin and I'm an unknown podcaster on the internet. And by the way, I took your happiness test and I'm an upholder.

1:50Oh, are you? So am I. Interesting. Yes, my four tendencies quiz. Maybe upholders just don't like law. Yeah, that's interesting. I would think that they would be more inclined to law, actually because they like order yeah they like execution and things of full unfolding but maybe i should mention that if people are wondering if they're upholders they can find out at gretchenrubin.com slash quiz it's a quiz that divides people into upholders questioners obligers and rebels but guy you know upholders we're the second smallest group they're not that many of us only 19 of people are upholders so there's not a lot of upholders running around Who's even smaller?

2:33Rebels. The rebel is the smallest tendency. Huh. Yep. I have something to shoot for. I also want you to know that based on your most recent book, I changed my phone to monochrome. And now I feel like I'm Henri Cartier-Bresson with an iPhone and I'm looking at everything monochrome. So I kind of agree with your conclusion that it makes your phone less enticing. So maybe you want to explain this theory. I found this to be a very interesting theory in your book. A habit that a lot of people struggle with is they're too attracted to their phone. And so the sensory pleasures of the phone, of looking at photographs, scrolling around, some people just feel that they get sucked into it and find it hard to put down.

3:22So what you can do is you can switch your phone to grayscale so that it just shows up in black, white, and gray instead of being in full color. And if you're looking at life as a black and white photograph, it's like watching your grandparents' black and white TV set. And it's less enticing, and it's also much more difficult to use because we use color to navigate and to find things quickly. Like you're looking for an app. Part of what you're looking for is a color. Websites will use color to help you identify what button you're supposed to push or what's most important. And we see color because it's helpful to us to be able to see color, to be able to distinguish things more easily.

3:57So if you make it black, white, and gray, it's a lot more cumbersome, a lot less fun to use. And that makes it easier for some people to put down their phone. And by the way, if you have a child who really wants to use one of your devices, you can turn it to grayscale and just tell them, oh, it's broken. And we don't know how to fix it. And then they don't like to use it as much either. Okay, good to know. I'll let you know how long I last in this monochrome world. Before we get to the book about senses, a little bit more about the happiness project. There's this big Harvard study, longitudinal study, 75, 80 years.

4:34We had the current person running that on this podcast. And basically the gist of his answer was that what makes people happy are relationships. Yeah. It seems that your happiness project has a little different conclusion, like more emphasis on self-care. Is that a correct perception of mine that there's a difference between the Harvard study and your study? Oh, well, I definitely agree. And I mean, that's nothing new. Ancient philosophers, as well as contemporary scientists, say that if you had to pick one element to a happy life, you'd pick relationships. But one of the things that gets in the way of relationships is people.

5:11And it can be you. And one of the things I do think is that one of the best ways to make other people happy is to be happy yourself. And one of the best ways to make yourself happy is to make other people happy. And one of the things we cannot do is we cannot change other people. But if I change, a relationship changes. And if I change, the atmosphere around me changes. And so I am very interested in what the individual can do. Like, what could what could you do starting tomorrow as part of your ordinary life without spending a lot of time, energy or money to make your life happier, healthier, more productive, more creative?

5:44To my mind, that's probably going to make a lot of your relationships better. And it will also make it easier to do the things to pursue relationships. because what I found is that often people are like, yeah, I know I'd be happier if I made time for friends and I know I'd be happier if I went to my reunion or I know I'd be happier if I planned a Super Bowl party, but I'm too exhausted to do it. Or I'm so overwhelmed, I can't handle it. Or I can't figure out how to do something consistently. So it's not that people don't understand that relationships are so important to them, but that for whatever reason, they're finding it challenging to put that into use.

6:18It's an execution problem. So I'm very interested in the execution part of it. Ladies and gentlemen, now you understand why Gretchen Rubin was a clerk for the Supreme Court. Oh my God, what a great answer. I have a real tactical question as we do this interview. So Madison and I interview people 50, 60 a year, three, four years now. And I will tell you that nobody makes as good eye contact on this virtual recording as you. So what is the setup you're using that lets you have such great eye contact? Oh, I'm just looking into the camera because I know that that gives me eye contact. So I just have a camera on the top of my computer monitor.

7:08So you have nothing special, no teleprompter, no mirrors, nothing. No. Gretchen, let me tell you something. You are the most disciplined person we have ever interviewed on this podcast. Oh, wow. That's nice. Madison, is that not true? Have you ever seen someone have such great eye contact? It's very true. Yeah, usually people are looking down. Interesting. Well, this is a whole new skill that we've all had to grapple with, which is the video call. Maybe it's because you're so attuned to your senses. A few years have gone by in the Happiness Project. Are there any updates about what makes happiness, what the qualities of self-care and helping others and gratitude and forgiveness?

7:55Is there anything new you want to add to this, bring us up to speed? The one thing that I think that my understanding has really deepened sort of in the 10 plus years since I wrote the happiness project is I really more and more believe that there is no one magic, one size fits all solution for happiness. And that each of us has to do a happiness project for ourselves. And that when people are to say things like, well, the secret is meditation or, well, if something's important to you, you have to get up early and do it first thing in the morning. I'm always like, that's probably good advice for some people, but I doubt that it's good advice for everyone.

8:30Some people are like, just give yourself accountability. But I know perfectly well, back to the four tendencies that we were talking about before, people who are in the category of obligers need outer accountability even to meet inner expectations for themselves. But rebels resist outer accountability. And if somebody is looking over their shoulder and telling them what to do or giving them check-ins or holding them accountable, they will actually resist. It makes them less likely to do something. And so a lot of times you really have to say, what is true for you? What is true for me? Instead of thinking, well, what is the right way or the best way?

9:04When I started out in trying to research happiness, I really thought I could find like the best way. And the fact is there can be no best way because people are so different. It's like, what's the best way to cook an egg? Well, it depends on how you like your eggs. Maybe you don't even eat eggs. So there can be no one right way. But I think people love a one pager. They like the idea of being told the answer or giving the answer. And now I really, more and more, I think, people can tell you a lot of ideas and possibilities and we can all learn from each other, but no one can figure it out for somebody else.

9:42You just blew my next question. My next question was going to be, what are your favorite, most powerful happiness hacks? But almost by definition, you just said that you can't answer that. It changes for each person. There's certain things, there's kind of principles that are true, like accept yourself and expect more from yourself. But what guy would accept for himself and expect more from himself would be very different from what aggression would choose. So it's a principle that everybody would apply to themselves differently. Another thing, if you're trying to decide between two possibilities and you can't decide, sometimes it's like, well, should I move or should I stay?

10:22Should I take the big job or should I stay in the job I love? You know, and you've made your pros and cons list and it's very hard to decide. You can tell yourself to choose the bigger life. Again, I can't tell you what's the bigger life. Maybe the bigger life for you is the new job. Maybe the bigger life is the job, is moving forward in the job you have. Maybe it's moving. Maybe it's staying. Maybe it's getting a dog. maybe it's not getting a dog. Choose the bigger life. So again, sometimes these hacks are things where it's an approach, but then everybody uses it for themselves. It's almost as if you're reading my script here.

10:55You just touched on this. One of my favorite quotes is this, quote, to be Gretchen, I must both accept myself and expect more from myself. This is kind of like Julia Cameron has an inner critic that she has named Nigel. And she kind of beats Nigel down all the time because Nigel is so negative. On the other hand, you're pointing out that the Nigel, the self-doubt can also help you because it drives you to a higher standard or to accomplish more. So could you just provide more information about this concept of how do you accept yourself and yet expect more from yourself? I think that for each of us, there are the limitations which are just built into our nature, which I am some things and not other things.

11:48And that's the reality. And there are certain aims that are not realistic for me and that aren't right for me. I could spend a lot of time and energy striving for them, but in the end, they're not the right aims for me. Maybe I'm doing something because other people want me to do it, or I think that I should, but it's not the right aim for me. But then there are things where, yeah, that's an aim. It's right for me, but it makes me uncomfortable. I'm going out of my comfort zone, but I know in my heart, this is something I should ask of myself. So for instance, I had a friend when I was just starting out in work, I had a work friend who got a big promotion.

12:22And one of the responsibilities that came with that big promotion was that you were the person who gave a big weekly presentation to a large group of people. And this was a guy who really hated public speaking, like up all night, you know, really, really didn't want, really disliked public speaking. So he confided this to his boss. It was a really good, really good boss. And his boss said, like, look, that doesn't have to be part of the responsibilities of this job. If you don't want to do that, I can move things around. You don't have to give that presentation. So then my friend has to decide.

12:55Does he say to himself, hey, that's not me. I'm not going to do the public speaking. Or does he say to himself, you know what? I really don't like public speaking, but I should get out of my comfort zone. I should deal with this. This is a skill that I want to acquire. And I'm going to keep it as part of this job. And I'm going to deal with it. Now, who's to say what the right decision is? Only he can know. I can imagine many people where they're like, you know what? Public speaking is never going to be my thing. I got other skills. I'm going to focus on other things at the job. That's just going to distract me away from what I really think I want to turn this job into.

13:31That could be the right answer for one person. But another person might be like, look, this is a skill I'll need for the rest of my career. This is my time. I got to deal with this. I got to get comfortable with the public speaking. I got a great boss right now. Let me do this right now. Again, accept yourself. Expect more from yourself. It's for you to decide. Not that it's easy to decide. This can often be really, really hard to tell, especially because a lot of times we want to let ourselves up the hook. and say, ooh, that's really uncomfortable. I don't want to do it. How do I let myself off the hook?

14:01But I think a lot of times we know. We're like, oh, yeah, that's probably something that I should ask myself to do.

14:17So is it a matter of just understanding this dichotomy and not just defaulting to the easy way out or the hard way out, but to understand there is this dichotomy and you have to make this decision perhaps based on what's the bigger life. Exactly. Like I remember when I was starting out in writing, when I was starting out in writing, I thought like everybody was either a journalist or they were like a novelist, playwright, poet, or they were an academic writer. and I didn't want to do any of those things. So I had to figure out, and it took me a long time. That's part of why I went to law school.

14:58And part of the reason I went to law school is I didn't know what else to do with myself. And then finally I was like, okay, I see a way for me to do this in my way. Now, would it have been the right thing to be like, Gretchen, you just have to deal with it and force yourself to be a journalist, even though that feels really uncomfortable to you and that isn't something that you like, because if you want to be a writer, you just have to do it that way. Or do I say, well, I'm going to accept myself and think, is there a way for me to do this in the way that feels right for me? And it took me a while to figure out how to do it in a way that was right for me.

15:29But I have never been a journalist because that's not something that it's not something I want to do. It can be very hard, but it's a really important question to consider. But Gretchen, it's one thing for Guy to quit law school after two weeks. It's another thing when you're in Sandra Day O 'Connor's office as a clerk. Like, how did you pull that off? And, you know, weren't your family members telling you, are you kidding me? Do you know how many people would love to be a clerk for the Supreme Court? Maybe not now, but back then. Have you lost your mind, Gretchen? You stick it out. I'm really fortunate because the people in my life are very tolerant of risk.

16:09And they were very much of the view, like, if you want to do this, great, do it. And now that I'm a parent myself, I realize that it's very easy to think, oh, I want someone to fall. I don't want this person to risk failure or risk disappointment or discouragement. I want them to be safe. But of course, you don't know what's safe. You don't know how to protect someone from failure or disappointment. And so, you know, in the end, you don't know. You can't advise them. But I was very fortunate that everybody in my life was like, if you want to do this, great. and how I made the shift. It's funny because for me, it was less about leaving law and more about really, really wanting to write and not even just wanting to write in general, but wanting to write a specific book.

16:54While I was clerking, I had an idea for a book that I, and I didn't even know it was a book. I was just, and this happens to me all the time. I'll get intensely interested in a subject and I'll read a huge amount and I'll take huge amounts of notes. This is just something that I do all the time. And I've done it since I was like eight years old. So this is very familiar. But with this one project, it was getting bigger and bigger. And I was spending all my free time researching, taking notes. And finally, it occurred to me, this is the kind of work that a person would do if they were going to write a book about something.

17:21And then I thought, I can be the person to write that book. And I went to a bookstore and bought a book called something like How to Write and Sell Your Nonfiction Book Proposal. And I just followed the directions, which makes it sound easier than it was, obviously. But, and this is true, I think, of a lot of people, is they feel almost a compulsion to do something. And in a way, this is exciting and freeing because you know exactly what you want. But on the other hand, it's constraining because it's like, this is what you want. And even if you don't want what you want. And so I feel very fortunate that for me, like this thing that I was feeling so compelled to do also worked out for me to do it as my work.

18:00That was the project that became my first book, which was called Power, Money, Fame, Sex, A User's Guide, which was such a fun project. Loved writing that book. Power, Money, Fame, Sex. Yeah, yeah. It's like the opposite of a happiness project book, but such a fun book to write. Oh my gosh, love that book. Okay, now let's switch over to your latest book, all right? So is this practice of recognizing and paying attention to your senses, is it just sort of a Gretchen Ruman take on mindfulness?

18:42perhaps and maybe it's part of the associations because I think sometimes when people talk about mindfulness they think about disciplining their mind and slowing down and like really you know appreciating a sip of coffee and my approach I did those things I did the five four three two one meditation but for the most part I am taking a much more playful active energetic fun kind of exercises and doing things with my friends and my family and really enjoying the playfulness of the five senses and how we can tap into them to boost our energy and our creativity, connect with other people, evoke memories, just focus and be productive.

19:27So it is mindfulness. And I think one of the great things about the five senses is it's something that we're appreciating in the present moment. It really takes us into that present moment. But I think a lot of times when people talk about a mindfulness practice, they're really thinking about something that's more disciplined approach to the mind, which many people are very attracted to and seek to cultivate. That wasn't what I was seeking to cultivate with this book. And it is not as simple as slowing down, right? Because slowing down could mean you reduce input. You are, in fact, saying increase input for specific things, right?

20:04That's interesting because I think one of the things that I found is that sometimes people want more sensory information, but then sometimes you want less. And part of what I'm arguing is really be aware of that. Don't just be this passive recipient of everything that's happening around you, but really understand how your senses are coming in and how you could dial them up or dial them down or shape your sensory surroundings in a way that's going to be better for you. So one of the things that surprised me, and this is something I hadn't even really noticed about myself because I was so in a fog of my own mind was that when I'm feeling overwhelmed or drained or very stressed out, I will bring down sensory information.

20:42Like if my husband's playing music in the kitchen, I'll turn it off without thinking. Or I usually wear perfume to bed, but I love perfume. I'll stop wearing perfume to bed. Instead of reading a new book, I'll reread an old book that I've already read because I'm bringing down sensory load as a way to calm myself. But then I've talked to people where they do just the opposite. They play music really loud. They take a really hot shower, a really cold shower, or they plunge their hands into ice water. They hold an ice cube in their mouth or they eat really spicy food. And for them, that kind of relieves tension and makes them feel sort of calmer.

21:17And so maybe you want to raise, maybe you want to lower. But what I'm saying is pay attention to whatever's happening. It's just like you talking about your phone on grayscale. You don't have to use your phone the way it's set up. You don't have to use the factory settings. Do you feel distracted by all those pings and buzzes? Turn off your notification sounds. My husband has so many notification sounds. I'm like, how can you live like this? But I have no notification sounds. But it's something that you can control. And so I think a lot of times we don't think about, why do I just accept the fact that this thing is really smelly?

21:55Just get rid of it if it's really smelly. or fix it or do something about it instead of just letting it happen. You mentioned in the book the Dan Simons video about the invisible gorilla. Dan, by the way, is also on this podcast. And it seems to me that taking your approach to the senses, wouldn't people be more susceptible to not seeing the gorilla? Because they're paying attention to something, they're not paying attention to something else. Yeah. Yeah, could be. Could be. Yeah, if you're like in a restaurant and you're starting to pay a lot of close attention to the music that's playing, perhaps you wouldn't be as focused on the taste of the food.

22:39Or vice versa. Or vice versa. Yeah. I mean, it's interesting. One of the things I did this after the book came out because I just couldn't stop sort of engaging with the subject. it's called the what's your neglected sense quiz and you and it's at gretchenrubin.com slash quiz too and it's this a free quiz and it tells you your most neglected sense because a lot of time what i found was that in general people we have foreground senses or appreciated senses and these are the senses that we're excited about we look for adventures we like to talk to other people about them we reminisce we turn to that pleasure for that sense for pleasure or comfort and then we have neglected senses.

23:15And these are senses that we don't tap into as much. And we're not that interested in learning about them or having adventures. And maybe and we don't turn to them for pleasure or comfort. And maybe we're more attuned to the negative of the senses than the positive of the senses. And so I think, you know, one of the things like the person in the restaurant, like one of my most neglected senses taste. And so for me now, when I'm it sounds funny to say, like, well, when you're in a restaurant, pay a lot of attention to your sense of taste. but I actually do a much better job when I'm in a restaurant and paying attention to my sense of taste but I don't pay any attention to the music that's my second most neglected sense but I think for other people those are two of the most appreciated senses is taste and hearing so they're probably having a very much tuning into that restaurant in a different way from the way I am by any chance have you seen the follow-on video to the invisible gorilla the one with the curtain yeah yeah i don't know if we want to give spoilers to people because it part but i think it works even if you know what the illusion is right i was familiar with invisible gorilla so i knew dan's making me watch this video so something is going to change right and so i was paying attention i did not notice either of the changes at all not even close i was shocked and maybe we should tell people that if you want to see this yourself, you should just search for monkey business illusion online and it will ask you to do something and it will tell you something surprising at the end of it.

24:46And it shows you how when we're paying very close attention to one thing, then we don't notice other things. And we've all experienced this. If you're driving down the road and you're really, really looking for a street sign, you don't notice when there's like a huge bouncy castle on the side of the road because you're so busy looking for the street signs. It's like, how could I notice the giant pink bouncy castle? Even though it's so big, you think who could miss it? But you did because you were looking so hard for something else. Yeah. It's really surprising to realize how much you can miss.

25:18I was shocked, Gretchen. And you also write about how, and I thought about this, even with Waze or navigation, Google Maps, Apple Maps, Even if I got everything going, when I'm trying to find a place, I turn off the radio. It just helps you find something with your eyes if your ears are not listening to something. I swear to God that's true. Yep. Well, it is true because when one of our senses comes down, then the others can be more acute. So that's why lights go down when we're going to listen to a concert. You can hear better when it's dark. And like you say, you can see better when there's no music.

25:58Yeah, so that's one thing you can do is you can play with your senses in order to give yourself the experience that you want. And it's interesting because when there is a conflict among the senses, sight usually trumps. We're hardwired for sight. Sight has more, the most real estate in the brain. And I realized, kind of like you turning off the radio when you're trying to get someplace, I realized when I looked in my closet that I had some items of clothing that I never wore. And when I tried to figure out why, I realized it's because I really liked the way they looked, but I didn't like the way they felt.