187 Create Powerful Habits That Make You Happy with Gretchen Rubin

"It doesn't matter what you're thinking. It matters what you're doing." - Gretchen Rubin If you enjoyed this episode, check out show notes and more at lewishowes.com/187. Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  This is episode number 187 with New York Times bestselling author Gretchen Rubin.

• 0:07Lewis Howes?

  Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

• 0:33Lewis Howes?

  Now today's episode is with the one and only Gretchen Rubin. And for those that don't know who she is, she's really taken off in the last half decade with her books and her blog. She's a New York Times bestselling author of several books, including The Happiness Project and her newest, Better Than Before: Mastering the Habits of Our Everyday Lives. She is also a host of a very popular podcast that came out this year called Happier with Gretchen Rubin. And she's on there with her sister, talking about similar topics that she covers in her books and her blog. And she's an extremely popular blogger and has been described by the New York Times as the queen of the self-help memoir.

• 1:14Lewis Howes?

  She's an incredible person. We had an amazing time on this interview. I'm very excited to introduce you to the one, the only Gretchen Rubin.

• 1:26Lewis Howes?

  Welcome everyone back to the School of Greatness podcast. We've got a very special guest on today. Her name is Gretchen Rubin. How are you doing Gretchen?

• 1:34Speaker 01

  I'm very happy to be talking to you today.

• 1:36Lewis Howes?

  I am happy that you're here. I've, you know, we have a number of mutual friends you probably not aware of, but we have a number of mutual friends who always talk about you. And I've been wanting to get you on the show for a while, actually. And now you've got a new book out that I can, gives me an excuse to get you on. So I'm very excited to talk about your new book. You're also a new podcaster, which you're joining the wonderful world of podcasts, which I'm excited about, but nervous about as well. Cause now I have a new competitor to stay in the rankings and your audience is extremely passionate and connected. So you're already doing incredibly well over there. So I want to talk about that. Make sure everyone goes and downloads and listens to a couple of episodes of your podcast. It's called Happier with Gretchen Rubin. Is that right?

• 2:20Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 2:21Lewis Howes?

  And you can get it over at her website, gretchenruman.com/podcast or iTunes and everywhere the podcasts are. And what are the podcasts specifically about? Obviously, it's called Happier, but it's with you and your sister, correct?

• 2:34Speaker 01

  Yes. My sister is a TV writer who lives in LA. And so we talk about, we have a try this at home, which, because it's all about how to have more happiness, more good habits in your life. A try this at home, which is like a small actionable thing you could do as part of your everyday life. We talk about the questions that help you know yourself better, because it turns out that if you know yourself better, you can shape your life to get you so that you're happier and healthier and more productive. We talk about happiness stumbling blocks, which are the things that get in your way when you're trying to be happier. And we give ourselves demerits and gold stars for the things that we've done that have either tripped us up as we've been trying to be happier, or helped us. And because we're sisters, we don't really let each other get away with much. So really fun.

• 3:19Lewis Howes?

  That's cool. What are some of these questions that we can ask ourselves to discover who we are to be more happier?

• 3:26Speaker 01

  Well, the one that we just talked about most recently on Happier was, what did you do for fun when you were 10 years old? Because what you did for fun when you were 10 years old is often something that you would enjoy as an adult. And, but people sometimes lose track of the kinds of things they did for fun. So whether you like doing art project, or you like cooking, or you like going, walking through the woods with your dog, or you like going for a bike ride, or you like fishing. A lot of times as adults, we lose connection with those things. And so thinking about what you like to do when you were a kid often can remind you of the sort of thing that you like to do as an adult.

• 4:00Lewis Howes?

  Now, when people are really busy and overwhelmed and feeling so stressed, and they're not doing the things they loved when they were a kid, because they feel like they have no time, or they feel like their daily habits and rituals don't allow them the time or the structure to do that. What advice do you give to someone who, to get back into those things? Again, if they're, you know, 10, 12 hour workdays, kids, there's no time for themselves, how do they create the time for themselves?

• 4:28Speaker 01

  Well, that's an excellent question. And so in the book, I come up with twenty-one different strategies. I identify the twenty-one strategies that we can use to make or break our habits and use the same strategies whether you're making them or breaking them. And these are the ones, and twenty-one might sound like a lot, but it's good because it means that all of us have a bunch from which to choose because some work better for some people and don't work at all for others. So you, you know, you need to see the whole range. And one of the things, the strategy of scheduling is one of the strategies. It's one of the most familiar and really powerful strategies, which is if something's important to you, actually put it on your calendar because something that can be done at no time, I mean, at any time is often done at no time. And so you might say to yourself like, oh, it's Saturday.

• 5:11Speaker 01

  I'm going to go for a bike ride today. But then you never go because you never said, but if you said, at ten AM, I'm going to go for a bike ride, then you'd go. So by scheduling it, you make time for it. One of the things that I found was I, I, I divided the whole world into four categories. This is the four tendencies. And one thing that I've noticed is that for many people, and I call these people obligers, they readily meet outer expectations, but they have trouble meeting their own expectations for themselves. So like, maybe they love to read, but they never make time for reading for themselves because that's just an inner expectation. That's just something they want to do for themselves and they're too busy meeting outer expectations. So the secret, if you're like that, is to create outer expectations. So for example, a friend of mine

• 5:55Speaker 01

  who was like, I love to read, but I never make time to read. Why don't I make time to read? Well, she joined a book group where you were really expected to read the book. And now she reads all the time because now she has this external accountability. So for some people, they need to find, like, take a class, do something with a friend, you know, find a way, go for a walk with your dog, a dog that's going to, you know, like pee on the furniture if you don't go out. I mean, if you have somebody that you're externally accountable, then you can meet that thing, even things that are fun for you.

• 6:22Lewis Howes?

  Hmm. Was that one tendency or two tendencies?

• 6:26Speaker 01

  The obliger tendency is

• 6:27Lewis Howes?

  Obliger tendency.

• 6:29Speaker 01

  They readily meet outer expectations, but they struggle to meet their expectations for themselves.

• 6:34Lewis Howes?

  Gotcha. Yeah. I mean, just to back up on the scheduling thing, as a former athlete, I used to play professional football. And we had an itinerary every day and the itinerary told us exactly every 10, 15 minutes, what we were doing, how we were working out, what drills we were running. So I never had to think, I just showed up to practice and then we knew what was happening next.

• 6:56Speaker 01

  Right.

• 6:56Lewis Howes?

  And I got sidetracked for a couple of years after playing, after I retired of not working out because I didn't have an itinerary and I never scheduled it. Now, I, and I can get easily caught up with just waking up and going right into work mode because I love it, you know? And then it's seven o'clock at night and I'm going out to dinner and then it's nine o'clock and I'm like, well, I'm not going to work out because I'm going to relax. So now I schedule it with a trainer five days a week in the morning and I have that time blocked off and I know exactly what I'm doing. And then I just feel happier because I'm completed something that I know makes me happier every single day. As opposed to, you know, getting upset at myself for not doing it.

• 7:36Speaker 01

  Well, you've combined the strategy of scheduling with the strategy of accountability because you're also working out with a trainer. So there's somebody who's holding you to that. So in a lot of times when people successfully change a challenging habit, often they're using more than one strategy because it's very easy to use multiple strategies and that really helps to cement the habit in place.

• 7:57Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. What are some other powerful strategies?

• 8:00Speaker 01

  Well, one strategy that to me seems so obvious, I almost didn't even include it. It turns out like for a lot of people, it's like this huge revelation is the strategy of pairing, which is when you, you pair something that you really like with something that you don't like. So for instance, this comes up all the time with like watching television and, and, and being on the treadmill or being on the stationary bike. It's like, if you want to watch Game of Thrones, then the only way you get to watch Game of Thrones is if you're on the treadmill. It's not a reward because it's that those two things only go together. Or you want to listen to the School of Greatness podcast. Well, you're only going to do that when you're out for a walk. If you're going for a walk, you can listen to it. Other than that, you can't have that. You can't do that.

• 8:39Speaker 01

  And so it's a way to create a positive, you know, you're doing something that you really want to do and sort of carried along with that is something that you less want to do. I mean, another very common one is monitoring. With anything, if we monitor it, even if we're not consciously trying to change, we tend to do a better job. So if you're trying to eat healthier, you keep a food journal. If you wanna exercise more, you use a step counter. If you wanna keep a budget, you, you know, track your dollars and cents very closely. There's, when we know what we're doing, we tend to do a better job. And so just monitoring something is, is very powerful.

• 9:15Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I mean, whenever I journal my, I mean, even my journal, my, my happiness or my gratitude throughout the day, I feel like I'm happier when I'm journaling what I'm grateful for, that process, but also when I'm journaling my workouts and I see the progress, I definitely feel, you know, like I'm more committed, like I'm, I'm ready to go the next time because I can see the growth. And I don't know how powerful that is. Seeing the growth, I feel like is, is really powerful for me. Very cool. What, so can we go into the other three tendencies then?

• 9:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. So these tendencies have to do with how a person meets an expectation. An outer expectation, which is something like a work deadline or a request from a spouse or a traffic regulation. And an inner expectation, which is like your own year's resolution or your own desire to get back into exercise every day. So my tendency is the upholder tendency, tendency. So upholders readily meet outer and inner expectations alike. So they meet a work deadline, they keep a year's resolution without much fuss. Next are questioners. Questioners question all expectations. They'll do something if they think it makes sense, but they need, they hate anything arbitrary or unfair or unjustified. They need a lot of reasons for what they're doing. But once they make, once they've decided that they wanna do it, they can do it. So in a way, they make everything an inner expectation.

• 10:31Speaker 01

  Then obligers, we talked about, they readily meet outer expectations, but struggle to meet their own expectations for themselves. And then rebels resist all expectations, outer and inner alike. They wanna do what they wanna do in their own way, when they feel like it. They, there was, if you ask or tell them to do something, they're very likely to do the opposite. They don't even wanna tell themselves what to do. And, and in fact, if you, most people can kind of, that one of these rings true for them pretty quickly, but if you, if you wanna take a quiz on my, on my site, GretchenRubin.com, there's a quiz that you can take that will help you figure out what your tendency is and tell you a little bit more about it.

• 11:06Lewis Howes?

  I gotta take that quiz. I feel like I'm somewhere between a rebel and a questioner, but maybe I need to take the quiz and, and see, see what the truth is.

• 11:14Speaker 01

  If somebody asks or tells you to do something, how do you feel about it?

• 11:18Lewis Howes?

  Well, it depends because I hire coaches all the time to coach me on what's, you know, to help me get to the next level on things. So if they give me feedback and I believe in them and trust them, then I'm going to go 100% in what they're doing.

• 11:30Speaker 01

  That's definitely not rebel.

• 11:32Lewis Howes?

  Okay, but if it's not a coach, then I'll be, I'll, you know, I'll question all, everyone. And I'm going to, you know, I'm going to trust in myself and I do the opposite a lot of times of what people ask me to do. Um, or I'd say I go against what society is always all about. Or when I feel like the pressures of society, I go against that.

• 11:50Speaker 01

  Well, that could be questioner too.

• 11:52Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 11:53Speaker 01

  Hiring a coach, hiring a coach is definitely not something a rebel would do.

• 11:56Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 11:57Speaker 01

  They don't, because they wouldn't even, they, they don't even like if you, if, if, because it's a coach, if a, if a, if a coach said, oh, let's meet at 10 o'clock in the morning, they'd be like, I, I don't want to meet you at 10. I want to do something else. Like the very fact we're supposed to meet at 10 is going to make me not show up at 10.

• 12:10Lewis Howes?

  So is that more a questioner then?

• 12:12Speaker 01

  That's more, that's more question, that's more questioner or obliger. If you feel like you need to have the coach there to get you to follow through, um, that's obliger.

• 12:21Lewis Howes?

  Gotcha.

• 12:22Speaker 01

  But if you feel like you're using a coach because you feel like they have expertise that you're drawing from, then that's more questioner.

• 12:27Lewis Howes?

  Gotcha. Okay. Yeah. Now for me, it's more about, I'm always looking for the greatest advantage to get to the next level of whatever I'm doing, you know, health, relationships, business. And so I understand the importance of hiring an expert or hiring a coach who can...

• 12:39Speaker 01

  How, how do you feel about New Year's resolutions?

• 12:42Lewis Howes?

  Uh, I don't really, nah, I mean, they don't really work for me. I'm, I'm kind of, I, because I don't, I mean, I kind of like create my own resolutions whenever I feel like something's off.

• 12:52Speaker 01

  You're a questioner.

• 12:53Lewis Howes?

  Anytime in the, you know, I could do it right. You know what I mean? Yeah.

• 12:57Speaker 01

  You're a questioner. Cause questioners are like, why would I wait for January 1st? That's arbitrary.

• 13:01Lewis Howes?

  I can start right now if I'm like, it's not working for me. Okay.

• 13:05Speaker 01

  That's questioner or an upholder and you're, it sounds like you're a questioner. Okay. Okay. We got that figured out.

• 13:10Lewis Howes?

  We got that established. I don't need to take the quiz.

• 13:12Speaker 01

  Well, take the quiz and see if you get the same answer. That's curious to know. But these obviously have a lot of implications for habits because it turns out that if you're an obliger, what you need is external accountability. If you're a questioner, what you need is a lot, and those are by far the biggest tendencies, questioner and obliger. And if you're a questioner, it's really about rationale. Like, for you, it's like knowing that this coach is the person who's, you trust their judgment, they're going to give you the edge. Like, you sort of like, you endorse their authority to tell you what to do. You're gonna, you've chosen to listen to them because you think they have a special expertise that's useful to you. So you need to be convinced. If somebody doesn't convince you, like, if you walk into a doctor and you're like, oh, man, he doesn't know what he's talking about, then you're not going to do what he tells you to do because you're like, meh, I reject that, you know?

• 13:55Speaker 01

  And that turns out to be really important, like with healthcare professionals and teachers and all this. It's like, you've got to convince a questioner that this is, this thing is worth doing. Because if they don't think it's worth doing, they won't do it.

• 14:08Lewis Howes?

  Exactly. That's me, for sure. Very cool. Well, I'm curious, what is, what's your definition of a habit?

• 14:18Speaker 01

  Well, it's interesting because a lot of times with habits, people focus on frequency or repetition or the familiarity of cues around a behavior. But I really think that the key thing about habit is decision-making, or rather, a lack of decision-making. And something is a habit when it's a behavior that's an automatic pilot. We're not deciding whether to do something, we just do it. I don't decide to get up at 6 o'clock AM. I don't decide to skip dessert. I don't decide to wear a seatbelt. I just do those things. I don't, I don't debate them. I don't give myself a break. I don't give myself a reward. I don't use justifications to get out of it. It's just like, I, this is just, this is what I do.

• 15:01Speaker 01

  And that's why habits can be freeing and energizing, because they get us out of the very draining and difficult business of using decision, decision-making, which is hard. And every time you make a decision, you have the opportunity to make the wrong decision, and self-control, which is exhausting. And so, anything that's a habit means we don't have to use decision-making, we don't have to use self-control, because that's, that behavior is on automatic.

• 15:24Lewis Howes?

  And can there, can we have too many habits throughout the day? Can we be on too, too much autopilot or is there never, never too many?

• 15:32Speaker 01

  Well, it's interesting because people definitely have very different attitudes towards habit and a, and a different comfort level with how much habit they have. Um, like my tendency of holders, we really embrace habits and I would say things like discipline brings freedom. Not everybody feels as positively about habits. Um, and, and habits do have very negative uh, count consequences. One is that they speed time. And we've all had the experience of like, kind of all of a sudden we're at work and we don't even remember driving there and you're like, oh my gosh, did I even stop at the red light? Or, you know, the first month at a job seems rich and slow and full. And then your fifth year at that same job feels like it goes by in a flash and you can barely remember it. So they speak, habits speed time. Because the brain isn't processing information. When there's something novel

• 16:18Speaker 01

  and complex, then the brain slows down and time becomes rich. And most of us want time to feel rich. Um, and then they also deaden experience. Now sometimes deadening experience can be good. If there's something that makes you anxious. If you make a habit of it, your anx, your anxious feelings will dissipate and, and deaden and that can be good. But often we want pleasure from something and as it becomes a habit, we no longer get much pleasure from it. So when I first had a cup of coffee every morning, it was like ecstasy. And now I'm just like, I don't even taste it, but if I don't get it, I'm frantic because I'm in the habit of having a cup of coffee first thing. So they do speed time, they do deaden. And so you, you wanna, they're a good servant and a bad master. You wanna use habits in a way that's gonna free you and energize you, but not so much that you become just like this mindless bureaucrat of your own life.

• 17:04Lewis Howes?

  What should the ratio be?

• 17:07Speaker 01

  Oh, it's just depends.

• 17:08Lewis Howes?

  At a day of using habits versus, you know, being open to making your own decisions?

• 17:14Speaker 01

  Well, it just depends.

• 17:15Lewis Howes?

  Depends, yeah.

• 17:16Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, I think some people, it just about what kind of person you are, what kind of life you have.

• 17:21Lewis Howes?

  Would you say?

• 17:21Speaker 01

  That's, that's, you know, it just depends. Yeah.

• 17:25Lewis Howes?

  Got you. How, what would you say your issue is on an average day of using habits?

• 17:30Speaker 01

  You know, I embrace habits. I love them. I would have more if I could. Um, my life is pretty irregular and so it's hard for me to have um, as many habits as my sister said that I would have been a good monk. Cause to me, like, the idea that you do everything exactly the same way every day sounds incredibly appealing. Um, but I can't do that. So I, but I, I have a lot of habits. And I like that. And as I say, some people don't want a lot of, they, they want fewer habits. Um.

• 17:57Lewis Howes?

  What are the habits that you have every day that are, um, have always been there or that are the most beneficial to you?

• 18:03Speaker 01

  Well, I get up every morning at six AM. I work every day. Um, I don't eat carbs. I mean, like, I'll eat nuts and little cheese, but I'm basically one of these low carb fanatics that you read about. So I don't eat sugar, flour, rice, turkey, vegetables, potatoes, all that stuff. Um, that's pretty, and I love that. I love, love, love that. Um, cause I have a sweet tooth and now I'm free from it, you know? I don't, I don't worry about sweets anymore. Um, and uh, yeah, I work every day. And I have a blog and a podcast, so I'm very regular in terms of um, keeping up to, you know, am I posting? Am I, am I recording? Is, are these things happening regularly? Um, I kiss my husb- I mean, some people think it's funny. I kiss my husband every morning and every night.

• 18:49Speaker 01

  Same thing with my kids. Give a warm hello and goodbye every time they come and go. And sometimes people feel like, well, it's inauthentic if you're making a habit of it. But my view is sort of like, well, it's better to do it as a habit than not to do it at all.

• 19:00Lewis Howes?

  True.

• 19:00Speaker 01

  And it turns out if you're kissing somebody, um, you tend to feel more tender and affectionate toward them than if you don't, um, even if you're doing it out of habit. Um, so I got a million habits. Um.

• 19:11Lewis Howes?

  And what about working out? Is that a habit?

• 19:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, I work out. Um, so every Friday I do like an extreme strength training thing, um, once a week. Once a week I do a yoga class and then a couple of times I do a cardio, I do like a cardio workout and then, um, once a week I go on a long walk. Uh, with a friend and um, and but it was interesting because I've been traveling so much for better than before my book tour and I really had to say to myself, my habit is to exercise every day, but during this period, I'm not going to be able to because it just isn't just get, I was just looking at my schedule and the flights and the times and the speaking and everything. It just was, it like there were just big chunks when I wasn't going to be able to do it. And so I did what is, you know, what I talk about in the book, which is during this period, I'm not able to do my usual habit, but when

• 19:55Speaker 01

  I get back, then I'm starting right away. Like the minute I hit the ground back, um, I'm not going to be like, oh, I'll wait till I get in the mood to go back to the gym. It's like, no, the first time, the first, you know, I go to, I do my strength training on Fridays, the first Friday I'm back, I'm back in that gym, you know, like it just picks up right where it left off.

• 20:13Lewis Howes?

  What would you say is the one habit that gives you the most freedom in your day of life?

• 20:18Speaker 01

  Eating a low carb because I just don't worry about food. You know, I used to be a person, I had a really big sweet tooth. Um, you know, it's always like, oh, can I have this? Should I have that more or less now, later, you know, and now I just, I

• 20:32Lewis Howes?

  Eliminate it completely.

• 20:34Speaker 01

  It's just the whole, but yeah, it's just gone.

• 20:36Lewis Howes?

  When did, when did you eliminate that? Or when did you add this habit?

• 20:39Speaker 01

  What did I what?

• 20:40Lewis Howes?

  When did you eliminate sweets and, and bad foods?

• 20:43Speaker 01

  Um, well, um, and I call this the strategy of the lightning bolt, which is this, this thing i- it's, you know, and it is definitely where the people change their habits and it's like an incredibly powerful, effortless way to change habits, but it's almost something that happens to you. It's not something that you can induce, which is too bad because it's a really easy way to change your habits. But the strategy of the lightning bolt is when you're hit with some new idea or some realization and all of a sudden your habits change. So I was on vaca- I was on spring break, March three years ago, and I read this book by Gary Taubes called Why We Get Fat, where he talks about basically insulin. My sister is a type one diabetic, so I've always been very in- interested in insulin

• 21:24Speaker 01

  ever since she was diagnosed. And um, I was just completely convinced. I was like, this explains everything that I've never understood about. The science of eating and the patterns that I've observed in the people around me and in my own experience. This explains it all. I'm totally changing my eating habits overnight and I did. I like, except for leafy green vegetables, I ate the opposite of what I used to eat. And it was, I saw, I made, you know, great consequences in my own body. Uh, my father started doing it. He like, lost all this weight, all like, all his blood work, you know, his, he got so much better. He like, his statins and his blood pressure medication were totally changed for the better. Um, and so, yeah, it's been three years.

• 22:07Lewis Howes?

  So you, do you ever cheat on this at all? Do you have like a cheat week, cheat day or?

• 22:11Speaker 01

  No.

• 22:11Lewis Howes?

  Nothing. No sugar.

• 22:13Speaker 01

  But I have to say, most people don't do it the way that I do it. Like, I am pretty extreme.

• 22:17Lewis Howes?

  You're extreme as hell.

• 22:18Speaker 01

  I'm very, I'm, I'm pretty extreme on it. And for me, it's also part of the fun of it. Like, to me, it's kind of like the bragging rights. Like, no, I never. But for a lot of people, you know, like my father who does it, yeah, he, you know, like, if we're in from out of town, he'll have dessert. Or he's on vacation, he'll have this, he'll have that. It's more about what does he do most days? But the thing is, you know, that's what works for him. And when you're talking about habit change, it's really like, what can you do indefinitely? It's not about like, giving up sugar for Lent. It's not about exercising to train for the marathon. It's about, how can I eat healthfully forever? How can I exercise forever? And so you have to find what is the right balance for you. And, you know, some people find, I just find it easier to have none. I'm an abstainer. That's the difference between abstainers and moderators. Abstainers find it easier to have none.

• 23:00Speaker 01

  For me, that's what works. I'm not saying that's what would work for everyone. Um, but that's what I found worked for me. And, you know, and, and, uh, and I've heard from a bunch of different people who do it all different ways. Um, cause again, there is no magic one size fits all solution. It's, we all have to kind of find the approach that works for us, given our circumstances, or, you know, our aims, our nature. Um, but I think sometimes people think like, oh, the secret is the eighty twenty rule, you know? Some of the time and, and treat yourself twenty percent of the time. And like, for me, that doesn't work. You know, like, that's harder actually than just giving up something together. It's easier for me to have no Halloween candy than like, one piece of Halloween candy.

• 23:42Lewis Howes?

  If I have one piece, I'm gonna have the whole bag.

• 23:44Speaker 01

  But see, that's the thing. Somebody said to me, it's like, I ate forty pieces of Halloween candy. He's like, and you think I'm just saying that because like, forty is a big number. I'm saying like, literally, I counted and I eat forty.

• 23:52Lewis Howes?

  Oh my gosh.

• 23:53Speaker 01

  Bite sized Snickers. But like you wouldn't sit down and eat eight Snickers bars, you know, but they're these little bite sized. And so you think, oh, you just pop one in, pop one in, but you know. So I was like, oh, brother, I mean, I'm, I'm with you there. I know exactly, I know exactly that that's it's like, once you're starting, it's hard to stop. But it's easier to say then. But that's for me. And again, that's the distinction. And in the book, I talk about the strategy of abstaining. It's a strategy that works extremely well for some people, but does not work out for other people. Moderators do not do well using that strategy. So they, they need to be moderators. And so, but it just comes back to this idea, well, whatever works for you is, is the right thing to do. There's no right way or wrong ways. It's just whatever works for you.

• 24:33Lewis Howes?

  And what is the, you know, I've heard so many different theories and research about how long it takes to form a habit.

• 24:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:41Lewis Howes?

  Is there an actual day or time amount that it takes to form one or break one?

• 24:46Speaker 01

  No.

• 24:47Lewis Howes?

  No.

• 24:47Speaker 01

  No, there, there's an, there's sort of an urban legend that it takes 21 days or 28 days. And there was a study done in University of College London that said, on average, it took 66 days.

• 24:57Lewis Howes?

  I saw that one, yeah.

• 24:58Speaker 01

  But that doesn't make, but that doesn't tell you anything because what it means is that on average, some habits were faster and some habits were slower. And some people got them faster and some people got them slower. And it's like saying that the best height for a human being is five foot seven. I mean, it's like according to what, what, like, what do you want? I mean, it, it's sort of like whatever. So the fact is, it, it, mere repetition, mere frequency. There is no, it is true that the more consistent you are, especially at the beginning, the more, the better chance you're going to have that that habit is going to solidify. Um, but you know, in the book, I try to show how there's a lot of different ways that we can think about habit formation. That's going to help that habit, um, kind of settle in and like get that concrete around it that's going to protect it.

• 25:40Speaker 01

  Um, it, it's not just about sheer repetition. I think that can be a distraction for some people.

• 25:46Lewis Howes?

  Hmm. Do you think it's harder to create a new habit or to break an old one?

• 25:51Speaker 01

  You know, it's the same strategies either way. It's the same strategies and often a habit can be conceived of either way. Are you going to eat healthfully or, um, you know, stop eating fast food?

• 26:01Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 26:02Speaker 01

  To, you know, get more sleep or stop staying up, staying up so late. You know what I mean? So a lot of times it just depends. And that's, that's another distinction. Some people are prevention focused and some people are promotion focused. And so even the way you frame a habit to yourself can make it seem more or less appealing. Um, that's another thing that I talked about.

• 26:19Lewis Howes?

  What do you think's the most critical components for, you know, deciding to create a new habit? You know, like you said, you just decided overnight, like I'm not having sugar anymore. But is there like a framework for, okay, here's how I'm going to set the stage. I'm not, I'm not going to smoke anymore and here's the steps I need to do. Or is it just a decision?

• 26:39Speaker 01

  Well, you know, this is, that's a, that's an excellent question. And, and, and, and I realize that my whole approach to both happiness and habits is very much on the concrete and the, and, and the tangible. Because people get very caught up in things like, what is my decision? What's my motivation? Do I have enough self-esteem to put myself first?

• 27:00Lewis Howes?

  Willpower, yeah.

• 27:02Speaker 01

  Willpower, what's my self-control? I need to boost my self-control. These things are all very abstract. They're in your head. Have you decided? I don't know if you've decided. I don't know. Like, what does it take to decide? I have no, it's like, that's just in your head. It's like happening. You have no access to it. What you can control is your behavior. This is concrete. Did you do it? Yes, you did. Did you do it? No, you didn't. That we know. Like, and so I think the thing is to say, is not to try to work on your mental state, but to work on your behavior. And so if there's something that you want, you want to exercise more. Okay. So you go through all the strategies, strategy monitoring, what are you going to monitor? Strategy clarity. What exactly are you asking of yourself? Don't just exercise more. You've got to say, I'm going to go to the 7:30 AM and from 7:30 to 8 o'clock AM, I'm going to walk around my neighborhood. With my dog, okay, that's clear. Now I'm gonna monitor it. Did I do this today?

• 27:46Speaker 01

  Yes, I did. I'm going to have somebody hold me accountable. I'm gonna join accountability group where they're gonna say, "Hey, how is it going without walking? You've been walking every day. Maybe you're gonna pair it. Oh, I'm gonna listen to an excellent podcast while I do it, so it's fun for me." Um, you know, um, I'm going to, uh, make sure that I go to bed earlier. That's the strategy of foundation. It's gonna be easier for me to get, get up at seven thirty AM and go for a walk if I go to sleep at eleven every night, instead of staying up until three AM, watching, you know, Netflix, the way I have been doing, you know? So there's, there's, there's all these different things that we can do to help increase the chances that we can make it. Or one is the strategy of the clean slate. This is the strategy that isn't often open to us, which is every time we go through a major transition,

• 28:29Speaker 01

  old habits are wiped clean and new habits can crowd in much more easily. So anytime you move or start a new job, switch schools, have a new relationship, that's a time when you can really change your habits much more easily than you can at the time. And so you're like, okay, I'm moving to a new house, or like, I've got a new job and there's a gym right across the street. I'm gonna join that gym. I'm not gonna pay, I'm not gonna save a little money by going to the gym five blocks away. I'm gonna blonde, join the gym. When I join, when I start that new job, in the very first week of that job, I'm gonna go to the gym before work every single morning, so that I set my new habit into place. What time do I get up? Well, I gotta get up at seven thirty, cause I gotta get to the gym before work. Okay, that's just, that's just the day. That's an easy.

• 29:09Speaker 01

  So there's a million different things to do, um, when we think about it in a very strategic way. Um, cause a lot of times people are just like, "Oh yeah, I totally wanna do that. Yeah, uh, tomorrow I'm out." So it doesn't matter what I do today, cause starting tomorrow, I'm gonna so do that, you know, and then

• 29:25Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 29:26Speaker 01

  It's hard.

• 29:27Lewis Howes?

  It's hard.

• 29:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, you find it hard. So there's a lot, so instead of focusing on your decision making and your mental state, focus on like, what are you actually gonna do differently? Even if, even, and then it doesn't matter how you, what you're thinking. It just matters what you're doing.

• 29:40Lewis Howes?

  Right, right. Wow, okay. Now, I'm curious, because I, I firmly believe that we're all born in this world to be happy. That's like, our basis is love and happiness is kind of where we come from. Now, do you believe that society, let's say, uh, in America in general, is, um,

• 30:01Lewis Howes?

  Mostly unhappy, or would you say that is mostly is happy?

• 30:05Speaker 01

  Well, it's interesting because when they've done research all around the world, most people say they're either pretty happy or very happy. So most people are pretty happy.

• 30:13Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. Okay, cool. But why did you decide to, you know, start this kind of movement and talking about happiness in the first place? Was it more for yourself, or did you see that there was a lot of people who were unhappy?

• 30:26Speaker 01

  You know, when I started, it was all for myself. I was finishing up another book and I had this moment of sort of introspection when I was staring out the window of a bus. And I thought, well, what do I want anyway? I thought, well, I want to be happy. And I realized I didn't spend any time thinking about whether I was happier or if I could be happier. And I thought, well, I should have a happiness project and really like do the research and figure out like, what are you supposed to do to be happy? And can I, if I did it, would I be happier? And so I just started it just for myself. I ran out the next day and got a giant stack of books from the library. I often will do research, just like tons of research on something just for myself. So that was very familiar.

• 31:06Speaker 01

  But the subject was so rich and so fascinating and I just kept, you know, wanting to go through more and more and more. Finally, it dawned on me, I was like, wow, this is, this could be a book. This isn't just something that I'm doing as a lark on the side. This should be my next big project. And so that's how I got the idea of doing the happiest project.

• 31:23Lewis Howes?

  And with the worldwide success of it now, do you, and people saying that you changed their lives, and I'm sure you have millions of emails and messages from people coming up to you and say that you've changed their lives from this information. After that, did you realize that like, wow, okay, there are actually a lot of people who aren't happy?

• 31:41Speaker 01

  Well, that's interesting because, you know, when I wrote the book, one of the things that, that a lot of people sort of were like gently telling me might be a huge problem, was the fact that I wasn't coming from a place of deep unhappiness. I was pretty happy when I started. And one of the things that I wanted to do was to appreciate how happy I was. I felt like I was often not. Feeling it as deeply as I should, you know, and sometimes it's only when we've lost something that we realize how happy we were, and I didn't want that to happen to me. And so I, and, and I worried that people who were very unhappy might find my book kind of flippant, you know, because it wasn't talking about deep unhappiness. But since then, I've heard from a lot of people who are pretty unhappy, or have gone

• 32:25Speaker 01

  through big happiness challenges, and they have found it helpful to think about things according to this framework. So I have heard from a lot of people who are unhappy. And then I've heard from a lot of people who are like, well, you know what, when I read this book, I wasn't sure that I should even bother you because I was pretty happy. And then I realized you were pretty happy too. So I think happiness is something that it's, it's sort of like, it's, it's like money. It's good to think about money when you're worried about money, and it's good to think about money when you're not worried about money, because that's also a good time to be thinking about money. It's like, this is, it's, or health. You want to think about health when you're not in good health, but when you're in good health, you also want to think about your health, because you've still got to be doing stuff that's gonna protect that health. You don't want to take it for granted. And I feel like happiness is the same way.

• 33:08Speaker 01

  When we don't, we need to think about it, but then when we do have it, I think we need to think about it then as well. And so I, I think that the risk for most of us is not that we overthink it, but that we, just sort of in the turmoil of everyday life, we don't think about it, and we don't do the things that we could do to make, that we, to make ourselves as happy and healthy and as productive as we can be, given our circumstances.

• 33:32Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. And, and in your research, what is, or how does money play with happiness?

• 33:38Speaker 01

  Well, it's interesting. This is definitely one of the most complex and emotionally charged areas with happiness. And I would say that money can't buy happiness, but money can buy many things that contribute powerfully to happiness.

• 33:52Lewis Howes?

  Sure, yeah.

• 33:53Speaker 01

  So, you know,

• 33:57Speaker 01

  It's easier to be in good health if you've got money to pay for a gym. Or to pay for doctor's visits. Or, you know, divide healthier food. It's, and you know, and sometimes people, there's a lot of people who say like, whoa, money, money, it like, you shouldn't buy things, you should buy experiences. Because experiences are what make you happy. But you know, the line between experiences and things, possessions is often kind of difficult to draw. So like a dog, is a dog a possession or an experience? Is a camera a possession or an experience? Is a book a possession or an experience? Is a set of knives, that means it's so much more fun to cook, a possession or an experience? You know, and so sometimes I think we get, we sort of wanna say, money doesn't matter.

• 34:43Speaker 01

  But the fact is, if it's spent wisely, if it's spent in ways that are going to take you closer to the things that actually do bring happiness, like relationships. You know, if you have enough money to go to your friend's wedding, and you have a ton of fun and you see all your old friends. Well, that's gonna add a lot to your happiness. But it's expensive to go to a wedding, you know? Like, you gotta buy a present, you gotta buy a ticket, you gotta stay at a hotel, all that business. And so, so sometimes, um, so it's, but, but like, if you're buying cocaine, that's probably not gonna make you happier. So it's, it's really a, it's really a matter of using it wisely. It's a, you know, like habits, uh, it's, it's a good servant and a bad master.

• 35:24Speaker 01

  So if you're using money in the right way, and of course, the greatest luxury that money can buy is not to worry about money. You know, and so, if you're worried about money, that's, that isn't, that's a big happiness challenge. You know, if you're worried about paying your rent, if you're worried about paying for food, if you're worried about whether you're gonna lose your job, that's really rough. And so, money can buy that, that kind of.

• 35:45Lewis Howes?

  Sense of mind, yeah.

• 35:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, sense of security. And so, knowing that you're gonna be, you're saving for your retirement regularly so that you're not, you know, gripped with fear every time you think about getting older. You know, so, I, I think it's a matter of being wise and thoughtful about how you spend your money. But if you're just like running out and like, you know. Buying something that you don't even need and don't care about, well, that's not gonna, that's not, that's not going to be um a good thing. And of course, you know, spending money on other people, giving away to charity, like giving back to the institutions that have made a difference for you. Um, helping other people enormously satisfying. And so there's, it it's just, it's, it's, it's a tool.

• 36:25Lewis Howes?

  What would you think, what would you say is the number one um component of unhappiness for people?

• 36:32Speaker 01

  Oh, that's interesting. You know, if you said like, what is the key to happiness? There's a lot of ways you can answer that, but one is relationships, that people are happy when they have relationships. And a big happiness challenge that I think is under discussed is loneliness. You know, it's people being lonely, that's a very, very big happiness challenge. Um, and so you really want to do whatever you can to deepen and broaden your relationships. Um, another thing, another way to answer the question of what is the key to happiness is self-knowledge. Because I really do believe that you can build a happy life only on the foundation of your own nature, your own experience, your own values. And so I think people are often unhappy when they've built a life that's not around their own nature and their own values or their own interests.

• 37:16Speaker 01

  And so they have a job, oh, I'm a doctor because both my parents were doctors, but I'm not interested in being a doctor. And so I, I, I feel totally unfulfilled by my work, or I have a job where I feel like my work is meaningless. Like, oh, yeah, if you were a doctor, you'd be saving people's lives, but my job's pointless, you know, or um, or I'm constantly trying to make myself different. Oh, everybody loves to go out to bars and drink with their friends. That's so fun, right? Except I don't enjoy it. So I feel like I'm not having any fun. I'm not, I'm not doing anything that's fun for me. Or, you know, I am, I'm exhausted all the time because I don't, I don't make sure that I take care of my body. And so um, I'm not, I'm not being, I'm not being true to like what I need to be healthy. Like, oh, wow, my sister only needs five hours of sleep. I guess I can get by on five hours of sleep.

• 38:00Speaker 01

  No, actually, I need to have seven and a half hours of sleep. Um, so I think those are two things that come up a lot in unhappiness. Having a life that doesn't reflect what's true about you and um, and having a life that doesn't have the kind of relationships that make you feel like. You can get support and give support that make you feel like you're you belong and make you feel like you have people that you know you can confide in that you're intimate with. You have long, you know, enduring bonds. Those are two big things that cause unhappiness.

• 38:29Lewis Howes?

  Would you say that money adds more happiness for people or because I know a lot of people that have a lot of money that are actually even more stressed out with the money?

• 38:37Speaker 01

  Really? Because I find that mostly people, you know, and that's what the research shows is that as people have more money, they tend to become happier.

• 38:44Lewis Howes?

  They become happier. Gotcha.

• 38:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:46Lewis Howes?

  So I guess just understanding how to manage it and not how to feel stressed out about it with responsibility or people asking you for money or whatever it may be then.

• 38:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:54Lewis Howes?

  Very cool. Okay. Well, I've got a couple of questions left for you before we wrap things up. And one of the questions I'm curious about is what are you most grateful for in your life recently?

• 39:04Speaker 01

  What am I most grateful for? Well, I'm so grateful for my home. You know, I was away on my book tour and I was away for like, at one point I was away for 10 days, which is a long time for me to be away. I think it's the longest time I've been away at a stretch. I did get to see with I get to get to stay with my sister and her family in the middle. So I did have like a touchdown with family and it was a treat to get to see her. She lives in Los Angeles, so I don't get to see her that much. That was great, but it was a long time to do it from home. And then like I was home for two days and I left again. Then I came back, then I was then I immediately left the next day. And so I just like what this morning I was just walking or, you know, I got up to get my have my two daughters and I was getting them up to go to school the way I always do back in my old habits, my old, you know, the habit of I'm going to get up at six and at 6:50 I wake them up

• 39:47Speaker 01

  and then I make breakfast and then I walk my younger daughter to school and here's my husband and I'll and I was just like I, there is nothing more precious to me than that ordinary day. I am just so glad to be back, wearing my yoga pants and my running shoes and making my, you know, making breakfast and everything is is so dear to me. So I'm very grateful. And I wrote a whole book, Happier at Home, which is all about the experience of home. So I thought a lot about the importance of home and the idea of, you know, being happy at home. There are very few universals in life, but almost everybody has an ideal of home. And I am and I'm a real homebody. And so I love being home. I was very happy to be home.

• 40:32Lewis Howes?

  That's great. Very cool. What do you think is one thing that you don't talk about that much or that most people don't know about you that they might be surprised about?

• 40:43Speaker 01

  Oh, that's interesting, um, that I don't talk about that much.

• 40:49Lewis Howes?

  Um. Or maybe never. Maybe something some people don't know about you that they'd be surprised about.

• 40:54Speaker 01

  Hmm. What do I have? I not told people that they would be surprised about? Uh, I'm left-handed, but that's not so surprising. It's a pretty good chance people are left-handed. Um, I'm from Kansas City, Missouri. I don't know if people know that or not.

• 41:11Lewis Howes?

  I knew that.

• 41:12Speaker 01

  About Kansas City.

• 41:13Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 41:14Speaker 01

  Um, I, I'm, I love children's literature. Um, I'm like in three children's literature reading groups, which is a lot. Yeah. These are all groups of adults. By the way, there are no children involved. We never talk about children. It's for adults who love children's literature. Um, so I'm a children's literature fanatic. Um, in young adult literature. So those are some things that maybe people maybe don't know about me.

• 41:39Lewis Howes?

  What's, um, what's the thing you've done that you're most proud of?

• 41:42Speaker 01

  Switch from being a lawyer to a writer, probably, which I did several, many years ago, but I was, uh, you know, I was, I was very successful as a lawyer. Um, and, uh, coming out, you know, in law school and coming out of law school. I was editor chief of the Law Review at Yale, at Yale Law School, a clerk for Sandra Day O'Connor. Um, so I was really on the law track. And I realized that I really wanted to be a writer. And so I started over from with nothing. I had not written a clip in college for the college newspaper. I had not written a short story. Um, I had to really start from the beginning and, uh, it actually wasn't as hard as I would now looking back on it. I'm amazed.

• 42:27Speaker 01

  At the time, I don't think I realized that I should have been more intimidated than I was. Um, but that was good. That was good. Um, and I made.

• 42:39Lewis Howes?

  Fearless.

• 42:40Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, I wasn't fearless, but I was, I was cautiously optimistic.

• 42:44Lewis Howes?

  There you go.

• 42:46Speaker 01

  That was, that's where.

• 42:48Lewis Howes?

  I like it. Well, you've had a, you've had a ton of success over the last, you know, the number of years with all the books you've had coming out. You've got millions of readers. I'm curious, with all this success and, um, you know, fame, uh, what has been the biggest blessing that's come from that? And what's been the biggest challenge for you with all of the things that have come your way?

• 43:09Speaker 01

  Well, the biggest blessing, I think, is just the feeling that my book is bigger than I am. My, you know, that, that whether it's better than before, and I'm hearing from people who are changing a habit that they felt like they could never change, that's really important to them. Or my books about happiness, where, you know, that I've heard from a lot of people where it's clear that, you know, and the book is meaningful, not because of what I put in there, but what they put in there. You know what I mean? It's their own, what they bring to it that makes the book so powerful for them. And so that is a very great blessing, but I think that's also a very great challenge, because it has taken me a while to under, like, it's hard to,

• 43:50Speaker 01

  it's hard to be the in-real-life person who represents that for, for someone, you know, and that is hard sometimes to really know how to, um, like, it's such a big thing for them, and to show, like, the intensity of that is, um, it's interesting, you know, it's interesting, and it's, it's, it's to, to know how to handle it, was, has taken me a while to, to just sort of, how to acknowledge the power of what someone has gone through.

• 44:23Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 44:24Speaker 01

  Um, and so it's, it's exciting, um, but it's, it's new, it's different, you know, I mean, now, now I've been experiencing it for many years, but it still feels kind of new, I have to say.

• 44:37Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 44:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's still, it still feels big.

• 44:40Lewis Howes?

  Sure, okay. What's the one thing that you haven't accomplished that you still want to accomplish?

• 44:46Speaker 01

  Oh, I don't know. That's an interesting question. I'd have to ponder that.

• 44:49Lewis Howes?

  Okay, well, email me later, let me know.

• 44:52Speaker 01

  Okay, yeah. I've sent the cover of a magazine, that was pretty cool. I had never put that on my bucket list, but I'm like, I'm glad I can, I can, I can cross that off my list, even though I never even thought to put it on my list. And I was a question on Jeopardy. Those are two things that I-

• 45:06Lewis Howes?

  That's cool.

• 45:07Speaker 01

  Wanted, I never knew that I wanted them until I had them, and I'm like, that's so awesome.

• 45:13Lewis Howes?

  That's really cool.

• 45:14Speaker 01

  There's maybe something like that. I'm like, I want to be in a crossword puzzle or whatever.

• 45:17Lewis Howes?

  Sure, that's cool. Okay. Now, it's a hundred years from now and it's your, it's your last day, or however many more hundreds of years it takes if we can advance.

• 45:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:26Lewis Howes?

  Living longer. And for some strange reason, everything you've ever written has been deleted and erased.

• 45:33Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 45:34Lewis Howes?

  And your, your website's down forever. The information is gone. And you're on your deathbed and you're, you know, looking at your family, you're having these great conversations and stories about how grateful you are. And they put, they tell you, you know, everything's been deleted, but here's a pen and a, and a piece of paper. And we want you to write down three truths, the three truths about what you know that's true in life from your own experience. And this is the three things that you get to leave behind to your family, your friends, to the world. Because nothing else they're gonna learn, they're gonna know about you. What would you write down are those three truths?

• 46:14Speaker 01

  Well, the first would be be Gretchen, because I, and everybody has to substitute their own name, of course. But it's this idea that you have to be, you have to understand yourself, know yourself and be true to yourself. So that would be Gretchen. One is enjoy the process, because if you can enjoy the process, then you enjoy life. And if you don't enjoy the process and you're just waiting for results, then you're, it all depends on how it turns out. And often things don't turn out the way we want. And, but if you enjoy the process, then that's, then that's not a bitter experience. Because you enjoy the process. And also sometimes we get so busy sort of crossing things off our to-do list.

• 46:54Speaker 01

  That we lose sight of the fact that, um, that this is, that this is the thing itself. I wrote, I did a little one minute video called The, The Days Are Long But The Years Are Short, about this kind of epiphany I had about that, which is like of everything I've ever written. I think that's the, uh, the thing that rings truest to people. So, um, if you want to watch that, that's called, uh, The Years Are Short, um, dot com. Um, and what did, what would the third thing be? Because this is big. Three is, three is not many. 10 I can do, 12 I can do, but three. Um, oh, okay. One is, one of the best ways to make yourself happy is to make other people happy. One of the best ways to make other people happy is to be happy yourself.

• 47:38Lewis Howes?

  Ooh, I like that. Okay.

• 47:42Lewis Howes?

  Very cool. I like those three. Before I ask the final question, I want to take a moment Gretchen to acknowledge you because I'm very grateful that I have the opportunity to connect with you and that you've created all the work that you've created in the world because you've inspired millions of people. You've helped people get happier. You've helped them form better habits, which in return has made them, you know, treat people better. And I think a lot of the reason why we're here is to, like you said, make other people happier, but be happier ourselves. And I'm just so grateful for all the work you've done, for all the commitment that you've had to going through your own process and creating these great works of art, because really they're masterpieces in their own way. And I'm just very grateful and I acknowledge you for your commitment

• 48:27Lewis Howes?

  to your mission and your vision for helping people be happier. So, thank you for that.

• 48:32Speaker 01

  Well, thank you so much. That's so nice to hear. Thank you.

• 48:36Lewis Howes?

  And my final question is, what's your definition of greatness?

• 48:40Speaker 01

  My definition of greatness is to be as happy, as healthy, and as productive as you can be, given your circumstances and your nature. Because if all of us lived up to everything that we can be, given our circumstances and our nature, then I think that we're living a great life.

• 49:00Lewis Howes?

  Gretchen Rubin, thanks so much for coming on. I appreciate it.

• 49:03Speaker 01

  Thank you. Great to talk to you.

• 49:07Lewis Howes?

  There you have it, guys. I hope you enjoyed this episode with Gretchen and make sure to check out her new book. We will have everything linked up on our show notes over at lewishouse.com/187. Again, make sure to go to lewishouse.com/187 to check out all the resources and information that we talked about today on today's interview. And share this with your friends. Get the word out about this. I loved connecting with Gretchen and want to make sure a lot of people hear this interview. So, please share this with your friends over on Facebook and Twitter and social media and tag me over on Instagram, letting me know where you are listening to this episode in the world. Thank you again so much, everyone, for listening. I really appreciate you all for all of your support. And you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.