THE INSPIRATION PLACE PODCAST
Miriam Schulman:
Hello, this is your host, artist Miriam Schulman and you’re listening to episode number 94 of the Inspiration Place Podcast. I am so thrilled that you’re here. Today we’re talking all about the four tendencies. Now the four tendencies hold practical answers. If you’ve ever wondered, people can rely on me, but I can’t rely on myself. How can I help someone follow good advice? Or people say I ask too many questions, or how do I work with someone who refuses to do what I ask? Or maybe you have the other problem where people keep telling you what to do.
Before we get there, and there’s so much to talk about, I wanted to make sure you knew that I’m still accepting applications for the artists’ incubator program. If you want to turn your passion for art into profit, but you’re lacking a solid strategy and a winning mindset, I can help you. If you’ve been listening to this podcast and you found my tips helpful, then maybe it’s time to take the next logical step and work with me on a deeper level.
The artists’ incubator program is for artists who are serious about earning a living from their art. I’ll consider applications from those who are just starting out, but you have to be ready to be fully committed in order to grow your art business. There’s no fee or commitment to apply and those who qualify will get a free strategy call with me. Just go to schulmanart.com/biz, that’s B-I-Z. Now back to the show.
Today’s guest is one of the most influential and thought provoking observers of happiness and human nature.
Crackling with intelligence, she’s the author of many books, including several blockbuster New York Times bestsellers such as The Four Tendencies, Better Than Before, and The Happiness Project. In her books she draws from cutting edge science, the wisdom of the ages, lessons from popular culture and her own experiences to explore how we can make our lives happier, healthier and more productive and creative. The award winning podcast she co hosts with her hilarious sister Liz Craft consistently tops the iTunes charts, and recently won the 2020 Weebly Award for Best of the Internet, but more importantly, it’s one of my personal favorites. Please welcome to the Inspiration Place, Gretchen Rubin.
Gretchen Rubin:
Hello. I’m so happy to be talking to you.
Miriam Schulman:
I’m so excited that you’re here. I’m like you. I’m in New York and I’ve actually heard you speak a few times in person but little known fact. My husband has heard your husband speak.
Gretchen Rubin:
That’s fun.
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah, because my husband was in housing for 30 years and your husband was the president of HFA and for those who don’t know, that’s like a huge housing body.
Gretchen Rubin:
He was Mr. Housing. Now, he’s Mr. Infrastructure but yes, he will talk housing as much as you want to talk housing.
Miriam Schulman:
My husband said he had a good sense of humor. He’d never met him in person because I was like, do you know him? It’s like, well, not really. Like basically, as much as you know Gretchen Rubin.
Gretchen Rubin:
Wow, such a simple [inaudible 00:04:17] I get a big kick out of that.
Miriam Schulman:
I always like to start with banter topics with my guests, but I actually went on to your podcast manifesto and it said beware of banter. So I’m trying to limit the banter right now. So the first thing I asked you, I’ve already got out of the way was the husband question. So the second thing is New York, we’re still in lock-down and one thing I was actually kind of curious about is what is the first cultural institution you’re going to visit when we fully reopen?
Gretchen Rubin:
Well, that is a tie because one is the library. My library list has become just gigantic, and so I’m dying to get back to the library and check out some books and return the books that have been languishing on the shelf for months. I cannot wait to go back to the Metropolitan Museum because I had decided this year that I was going to go to the Met every single day, starting in March, did they close on the 16th or the 13th?
They closed, I stopped going I think two days before they officially closed the doors. The minute it opens, I’ll be there with my mask and whatever else they want from me. I cannot wait to go back to the Met.
Miriam Schulman:
That’s mine, too.
Gretchen Rubin:
There you go. We’ll be there when the doors open.
Miriam Schulman:
I’ll look for you. So I took upon myself March 13, 15th, whatever day it was that we all closed down, that I was going to reread the entire Harry Potter series from the beginning. That was my COVID project.
Gretchen Rubin:
What a delightful project that is.
Miriam Schulman:
So delicious. It’s because the thing is, it was so comforting not only to escape into fantasy world, but because I know how it ends.
Gretchen Rubin:
Yes. It’s lot of suspense but you know how, well, it’s interesting because research shows that people often enjoy things the second time, much more than they expect. We’re very concerned with spoilers and suspense and things but actually people often enjoy things the second time much more than they think they will. I think it’s because you get more out of it the second time and-
Miriam Schulman:
Well, now I got to find all the little Easter eggs that she actually planted in there all along the way.
Gretchen Rubin:
There’s huge foreshadowing. It’s brilliant how she lays the groundwork, especially Book Two, let’s not get too deep into Harry Potter but book two at the time I didn’t like but then you get to Book Five, Book Six, Book Seven you realize, she’s created all of the groundwork that she needs to pay off in the later books. It’s just brilliant.
Miriam Schulman:
I will make you by the way, the four tendencies, tell me which character most fits each tendency. Also my kids are taking this project on with me, they’re all in various stages but he loved how in Book Two, Dumbledore just says, screw it, just send the bird. You know that he knows Harry’s probably down there and he just like, I can’t be bothered. I’m just sending the bird down.
Gretchen Rubin:
Yeah, the Phoenix.
Miriam Schulman:
I want to share a little story about how these tendencies play out. I know we haven’t defined them yet, but I thought it’d be fun to play this little game first. So one Sunday. My husband and I were just sitting around the table, and my kids who are 20 and 22 brought their laundry downstairs and we were like, they’re doing that without anybody asking them. So I asked them what’s going on? My daughter said, “Of course, I’m doing my laundry. It’s Sunday.” My son said, “Of course, I’m doing my laundry. I have no clean clothes.” So any guesses about which is each of their tendency?
Gretchen Rubin:
Well, I think that your son is either a questioner or a rebel and your daughter is either an upholder or an obliger.
Miriam Schulman:
Very good. Yeah, she’s an upholder.
Gretchen Rubin:
Okay, there you go.
Miriam Schulman:
My son’s the questioner. Then from my tendency, I took your quiz twice, and I changed a few answers, just to be sure. So that makes me a…
Gretchen Rubin:
Questioner, probably.
Miriam Schulman:
100%.
Gretchen Rubin:
There you go.
Miriam Schulman:
There we go.
Gretchen Rubin:
How can you distill all of human nature into just four categories? I question the validity of this framework.
Miriam Schulman:
That’s right. So I don’t want to keep my listeners who don’t know what we’re talking about in suspense any longer. So why don’t we walk through the four tendencies and like I requested, if we can give an example for Harry Potter characters.
Gretchen Rubin:
So I’ll go through them and we’ll do Harry Potter at the end. So the four tendencies and this has a lot of relevance, I think to people who are trying to do art and make a business out of art, has to do with how we meet expectations. How we meet expectations is what makes us an upholder, a questioner like you, an obliger or a rebel. We all face two kinds of expectations, outer expectations, which is something like a work deadline or a request from a friend and inner expectations, which is something like I want to keep a New Year’s resolution or I want to get back into meditation.
So depending on how you meet outer and inner expectations in combination, that’s what makes you an upholder, a questioner, an obliger or rebel. So I’m going to go through very briefly and most people know exactly what they are and the people in their household and if you’re Harry Potter characters just from a brief description. If you do want to take a quiz that spits out an answer, if you go to quiz.gretchenrubin.com, you can take a very quick free quiz, like 2.8 million people have taken the quiz, and it will tell you and give you a little report.
Most people just know what they are from the description. These are very blatant once you know them, like with your kids, you can tell pretty quickly. So upholders readily meet outer and inner expectations. They meet the work deadline, they keep the New Year’s resolution without much fuss. They want to know what other people expect from them, but their expectations for themselves are just as important. So their motto is discipline is my freedom.
Then there are questioners. Questioners question expectations, they’ll do something if they think it makes sense. They resist anything arbitrary, ineffective, irrational, they need to know why, they tend to love research. If something meets their inner standard and makes sense to them, they will do it, no problem.
Miriam Schulman:
Like my son who was doing his laundry-
Gretchen Rubin:
I can do it on Sunday because Sunday’s an arbitrary day. So I’ll need my laundry done because that makes good sense. So their motto is I’ll comply if you convince me why.
Miriam Schulman:
Then with my daughter with it being on Sunday, it’s because that’s her discipline that she always did it on Sunday.
Gretchen Rubin:
Yes, and upholders tend to love a calendar. They love a schedule, they like to execute on a plan and a to do list. So the idea of like, every Sunday I do my laundry, very appealing to an upholder, and she wouldn’t need anybody checking on her, she’d just do it. Then there are obligers. Obligers readily meet outer expectations, but they struggle to meet inner expectations.
So I forgot my first insight into this tendency, when a friend of mine said, I don’t understand it. When I was in high school, I was on the track team and I never missed track practice. So why can’t I go running on my own now? Well, when she had a team and a coach expecting her to show up, she had no trouble, but when she was trying to go running on her own, it was a challenge. So obligers are great at coming through for other people.
They keep their promises to other people, but they struggle to meet their expectations for themselves. The care for this is outer accountability. If you want to read more, join a book group. If you want to exercise more, join a class where they charge you, work out with a friend who’s going to be annoyed if you don’t show up, take your dog for a run who just loves going for the run so much, raise money for a charity. There’s a million ways to create outer accountability but obligers need that outer accountability to meet an inner expectation. So their motto is, you can count on me, and I’m counting on you to count on me.
Miriam Schulman:
Now, questioners and book groups don’t do so well, right?
Gretchen Rubin:
Maybe. Okay, we must explore that. Rebels resist all expectations, outer and inner alike. 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, they love to act from identity and freedom. If you ask or tell them to do something, they’re very likely to resist and typically, they don’t even tell themselves what to do.
Like they don’t say at 10AM on Saturday, I’m going to go to a spin class because they’re like, I don’t know what I’m going to want to do on Saturday morning, and just the idea that somebody is expecting me to show up is going to annoy me. So their motto is you can’t make me and neither can I. So those are the four tendencies. They’re not the same size. Obliger is the biggest tendency for both men and women. You either are an obliger or you have many obligers in your life, and the smallest tendency is rebels. Rebels resist all expectations and that’s a very small group, but a conspicuous group.
Miriam Schulman:
I did all right in my book group for a while and then I had to withdraw. I formed the secret book group of two women. So we could take turns more frequently, it was like three of us. Then I withdrew from that with the secret, secret book group where I was the only member, so I could pick my own books.
Gretchen Rubin:
It wasn’t because you didn’t like, you’re like, why would I read a book just because other people have assigned it to me?
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah, I feel like I can pick my own books.
Gretchen Rubin:
There you go.
Miriam Schulman:
I didn’t need to join a Harry Potter book group, for example.
Gretchen Rubin:
Whereas for an obliger, or they might be like, well, I’ll read it and set a good example for my children. If I want them to read, I have to read myself. So therefore, I’m doing it to be a role model for other people. That might work for an obliger, but you didn’t need that. You’re like, I’ll do it. Because that’s what I want to do for myself,
Miriam Schulman:
Nurture or nature. Are we born this way or is it because of the way we’re raised?
Gretchen Rubin:
I think it’s nature. I’m a big believer in the genetic roots of personality and I really think that this is something that’s hardwired into us. Now obviously, your context, your time, your circumstance is going to influence it. If you’re a questioner and you’re born in North Korea, you’re going to shut it down. If you’re a questioner in Silicon Valley, it can be one of your greatest assets, but I do think that we’re born with these. It’s often very easy with like a two or three year old to tell what tendency they are, not always but often it’s very clear, very early what their tendency is.
Miriam Schulman:
You said rebels were the smallest or upholders?
Gretchen Rubin:
Rebels.
Miriam Schulman:
Rebels. Okay, so my daughter’s an upholder. My husband’s an upholder, which is great because like he does the housework. He’ll say to me, we got to do something about this. I go, yeah.
Gretchen Rubin:
If your husband’s an upholder in your question, that’s what we are too. I’m an upholder. My husband’s a questioner. I think it’s a really great combination.
Miriam Schulman:
He doesn’t always like that I don’t uphold everything that he wants to uphold.
Gretchen Rubin:
I’m in touch with that emotion. I know exactly how you feel.
Miriam Schulman:
Things have to get really bad before I notice and then do something about it. With our kids, it’s the same split. We have my upholder daughter and I questioner son and so I understand my son very well because we’re both questioners.
Gretchen Rubin:
The hard combination is an upholder parent and a rebel child or vice versa because they just see the world in very different ways and it’s particularly difficult in the parent child relationship in either combination. I think for people who have rebel children, it’s really helpful to understand the tendencies because a lot of times what you would do with a rebel child is different from what you would do with the child of the other three tendencies.
I think a lot of times we kind of get it wrong and make life harder for rebels than it needs to be because we’re trying, but we’re kind of pushing the wrong buttons, really pushing the wrong buttons for them. So I think it’s good, it’s helpful that you have both parent and child is like represented, because I think we do understand our own tendency the best. I have a child who’s an upholder, and I just get it. I understand where she’s coming from.
Miriam Schulman:
It’s very stressful to be an upholder, I’ve noticed. It’s a lot of anxiety around doing the right thing.
Gretchen Rubin:
It can be, it can be and it can also be stressful when people are constantly trying to get you to relax. One thing that’s interesting to know about upholders is that often other times tendencies feel comforted and kind of re energized by loosening up the rules or kind of taking a break. Often with upholders, they feel comforted and energized by really keeping to their habits and keeping to their routines and really sticking to their to do list.
It’s actually paradoxically very stressful when people are like, take it easy or let’s not do it or let’s blow that off. It’s like, no, no, no, no, I want to do it. I want to stick to my plan. So probably that’s why it’s handy to have like an upholder because it’s like, they get it that like, okay, it’s stressing you out that we’re running late. Okay, well, we’re going to hurry up because you don’t want to risk being late. That’s making you anxious.
Miriam Schulman:
It’s really hard for my daughter in quarantine now too, because her summer job was canceled and she can’t do school. She’s just been reorganizing the photo albums. She’s moving into very, these are very typical upholder activities, I imagine, right?
Gretchen Rubin:
Yeah. She might do something like an online class, you might think about is there a way for her to channel her desire to execute in a way where there’s sort of a big project that she could do that she would find very satisfying. She might find that really energizing. There’s so many cool classes online now. Something like that or I don’t know, write a novel or whatever. Train your dog to do 10 new tricks.
Miriam Schulman:
She was thinking about maybe starting a blog or something like that. I know that your children but mine are really burnt out from the online spring that they had.
Gretchen Rubin:
That was tough.
Miriam Schulman:
I coach artists, so of course, I have all the types in there. Questioners, obligers, rebels, and I find it very difficult as a question or sometimes to coach because to me, I feel like well, this makes sense. Why don’t you just do it? This is what makes sense. Getting them to motivate especially the rebels because I have one client who’s a rebel, I’m afraid to tell her what to do, because then she’s going to resist.
Gretchen Rubin:
So what are the kind of things that you’re trying to get them to do? I’ll say kind of some things that I think might work.
Miriam Schulman:
Okay. So I know you’re a big believer in this because you do it. They need to send the weekly email to their collectors. I can tell who are the upholders and the obligers in the group and the questioners because I tell them to, but the rebels, depends.
Gretchen Rubin:
Okay, what’s something else?
Miriam Schulman:
Not so difficult with getting the rebel to pay, and I know you’ll agree with this because I think the rebel sees herself as an artist that’s very tied up with her identity. The challenge for me as trying to help her with the business end is to try to see herself as an artist to markets. Like let that be her identity.
Gretchen Rubin:
Exactly. I hear versions of this with everything. With coaches, with teachers with healthcare professionals like this is kind of like the way things come up. For the second part, the rebel who needs to market, so you hit the first thing exactly on the head. The identity is a supreme value to the rebel. So I’m a creative person. I’m an artist, what does an artist do? An artist creates. That is what it means to be an artist. So what you might do is try to hit on also the ideas of freedom and opportunity and choice.
If you get paid for your work, you’re going to have more opportunities. Maybe you’re going to go live in Italy for a year. If you have the money to do that, you could go to Japan and study golden joinery. These are opportunities that you will have, if you get paid. You’ll have more freedom, you’ll have more choices, you’ll have more security and with more security that’s going to allow your creativity to flourish, because you’re not going to be worried about paying the bills. So that’s the idea of freedom and choice.
Then there’s also the idea of like, I want to get paid for this. It’s like, well, what do you want? I want to get paid. I’m an artist, what does an artist do? An artist gets paid. Pablo Picasso. Was he watching how much he got paid? Oh, yes, he was. That is part of it. It’s like getting paid for it is part of what it means to be an artist and it’s part of what’s owed to you, for the people who appreciate your art.
So it’s like that is also part of art. So to take that into that identity. With the idea of sending the email marketing, one of the things rebels don’t like to do is they don’t like to do things on a schedule. So it could be that the idea that you’re setting at once a week is the thing that’s setting the rebel up for resistance.
So you might just talk about why this is something that the rebel might want to do. If you stay in close contact with your collectors, they’re more likely to buy your stuff and that means more money and more freedom and more opportunity for you. Another thing about rebels, if they have the money, a great solution for rebels is to delegate and to throw money at a problem. If there’s anything that’s like auto pay, do it because rebels don’t like to write a check and they don’t like to pay their bills.
Fine. So use auto pay. Maybe it’s like, okay, I’m just going to pay somebody, I’m going to get a college intern who’s going to send out my newsletter. So I’ll sit with that person, I’ll create a template or I’ll work with you and create a template, that person will just send it out. Maybe I don’t even review it because just somebody asking me to review something that’s going to annoy me. I’m just going to do something where I don’t even need to review it. I just want to have that contact point.
It’s worth it to me to pay to have it done. A lot of times that works for rebels because they’ve really just resist. Now of course, this doesn’t work if you can’t afford it, but it might even be something to say to a rebel. Well, you could pay to have somebody do it, or if you don’t want to use your money that way, then you could do it, but then there’s a choice. It’s like, well, I could use my money that way, but why am I going to pay somebody good money? What I could do this thing myself in 20 minutes a week?
I would rather have the money, then I’m making a choice. Also, you can tie something like that into an identity, which is like, I like to have an influence with collectors. I want them to know what I’m thinking and what I’m interested in. I want to be a tastemaker. I want to be on the forefront, and the way that I do that is I influence what people are looking at, where they’re going, how do I get into their heads? By getting into their inbox, and that’s how I tell them what I think is good, what I think it’s worthwhile.
That’s how I shine a spotlight on the works of other artists who I think are worth illuminating and then I also get a chance to make a plug for my own work. So again, this is what I want. This is what I choose. The more they feel like you’re telling me I have to do this and now I have to do this, they’re going to be like, yeah, I don’t have to do that.
They’re not doing it because they have to, they’re not doing it because they said they would, they’re not doing it because somebody told them to and they’re not doing it because it makes good sense. They’re doing it because that’s what they want, that’s what they choose for their own reasons. The more they tied into like, this is what I want. This is the kind of person I am. This is what works for me, then the more that they will choose to do it.
Miriam Schulman:
That’s really good advice, Gretchen. So I have to keep in mind that they need choice.
Gretchen Rubin:
Yes. Lots of choice is good for a rebel. Even something like, do you envision yourself more like a once a week person or twice a week person or once a month person. Kind of layout, which one you think is better maybe, because one things rebels will pay a lot of attention to is information consequences choice. So you can give them the information. There’s a lot of research one week, every two weeks every month, what the research shows is that you get this result with one week, you get this research if it’s every two weeks, you get this result with it’s once a month, totally up to you.
Consequences are whatever you choose. Then they’re like, you know what, actually, I think I like the once a week thing now that I understand what my choices are, because I like that consequence better. Or maybe they’re like, once a month is fine, and then they’re choosing to accept the consequences of whatever that decision is.
Miriam Schulman:
I would want to use this opportunity right now to say I kind of tip towards rebel.
Gretchen Rubin:
Well, that’s what Steve Jobs was. Steve Jobs was a questioner who tipped to rebel. So you’re in good company.
Miriam Schulman:
So I’m going to ask a question that I bet you get asked a lot. Can you be a mix of tendencies?
Gretchen Rubin:
Well, one thing is if you feel very strongly that you are equal parts of all, that’s a very strong sign that your questioner, because questioners are like, well, if it makes sense, and somebody I respect asked me to do something, I’ll do it, like an upholder. If somebody I think is an idiot asked me to do something, I’ll refuse to do it, like a rebel. It’s like I’m doing what makes sense in the situation. So it’s actually very questioner to feel like that.
So feeling like you’re equal parts of all of them is the sign of questioner. For all the tendencies I do believe that everybody falls squarely within one tendency, but each tendency overlaps with two tendencies. So you’re a questioner well, questioners, in one sense, are like upholders in that they both readily meet inner expectations. Questioners are also like rebels in that they both readily resist outer expectations.
So you can be a questioner, who tips to upholder, which is what my husband is, or you can be a questioner who tips to rebel which sounds like that’s what you are and what Steve Jobs is. You’re a questioner but it kind of takes a flavor from whatever you’re overlapping. So with questioner what I would typically say, I would typically expect is that a questioner tips to upholder. Pretty easy to convince you that something like five garments to a dressing room or a 65 mile per hour speed limit because yeah, that’s arbitrary, but they’re like, I sort of get it.
Questioners who tip to rebel, they’re like, are you kidding me? Five, that’s such an arbitrary number or I’m a great driver. I don’t understand why I should drive same as you. You’re a terrible driver. Or I had a questioner say to me, “I got a ticket for parking on the alternate side of the street, but I don’t think that rule furthers vehicular safety. So I refused to pay.” I was like, “Well, good luck with that man, because that’s how parking tickets work,” but he was just so outraged. He’s like, this is just such an arbitrary dumb rule. I’m not going to participate in it.
Miriam Schulman:
I don’t participate in certain things, like have you ever been to Caramoor? That’s just outside New York City. You don’t need to go there. You have the Philharmonic and Carnegie Hall. So this is what people who live in Westchester do when they don’t feel like going into the city. We go to Caramoor, but for people who don’t know, Caramoor it’s like this music plays and after an intermission, I had my coffee [inaudible 00:24:04] and I was walking in and they said, “You can’t bring beverages in here.”
I said, “Yes, I can. There’s a lid on top.” I was telling them what my reason was and the person was so shocked that I was questioning the rule and giving my justification, she didn’t even know what to say to me.
Gretchen Rubin:
That’s a perfect example of questioner which is like, why are you making this rule? There’s no way this beverage is going to spill. Whereas as an upholder, I’m like, if I see a sign that says no beverages, I’m like, frantic.
Miriam Schulman:
Oh, my daughter was so embarrassed that I was doing this because she was with me. She was like, why are you breaking the rules?
Gretchen Rubin:
That’s a perfect example of that.
Miriam Schulman:
I was convinced I was an obliger because of the obliger rebellion, felt like it fit me so well. Could you explain obligers rebellion because obligers don’t always apply.
Gretchen Rubin:
This is a really important phenomenon to know about because it’s actually quite common, and it’s sort of mysterious. Obliger rebellion is when obligers meet expectations and then suddenly they snap and they say, well, this I will not do. Sometimes it’s small and funny like, I’m not going to answer your emails for two weeks, but sometimes it’s really big and dramatic. Like, I’m going to end a 30 year friendship, I’m going to divorce you, I’m going to quit this job this morning and walk over to a competitor’s office this afternoon.
The feeling of obliger rebellion is like, this is over. I have had it, you’re dead to me. The thing about obliger rebellion is it happens when obligers feel taken advantage of, or exploited or overlooked or neglected, and it’s meant to help the obliger because it blows up a situation that feels unsustainable, like they just they need to escape. So they blow things up and they do escape, but it can have serious reputational consequences, because to the other tendencies, it doesn’t really make sense because I say to you, well, I don’t understand why you’re so angry about being on that committee, because I asked you if you wanted to be on that committee, and you said yes.
So, why are you so resentful of me now? It doesn’t make sense. So here’s the thing. It happens that obligers feel exploited or overlooked and the fact is, they are exploited. That is true because when an upholder or a questioner a rebel needs someone to go the extra mile, they go straight to the obliger. Because the obliger is the person who’s most likely to say yes and that is why they are the rock of the world. They make great leaders, great team members, great family members, great friends.
They are the ones who go that extra mile. So it’s great, but obliger rebellion, it’s like an explosion. Obligers will often say they’re acting out of character, they don’t understand what’s happening, or why they’re behaving the way they do. One of the things I found is that once obliger rebellion sets in, it has to run its course. You can’t stop it once it starts. So if you’re an obliger or you’re around an obliger, you really want to be watching out for these signs.
There’s a lot of warning signs, there’s brewing resentment, there’s growing anger, there’s kind of small resistances where people are like, usually I’m so good, and I have no problem handing things in on time. I don’t understand why I’m consistently late. I’ve always been so good about sending out my newsletters every week, but all of a sudden, I can’t make myself do it. It’s like, okay, that sounds like obliger rebellion. There’s a documentary that I know a lot of people watch that I’m watching, called The Last Dance, which is about Michael Jordan and all his teammates.
There’s a very, very striking example of what looks like to me, from Scottie Pippen, of obliger rebellion. Now, I have to say I know nothing about basketball. So the only thing I know about Scottie Pippen is what I saw in that documentary, and that was clearly Michael Jordan’s view of the world. So I don’t know if this is actually accurate, but within that documentary, it really looked like Scottie Pippen had applied to rebellion.
Michael Jordan had retired at that point, Scottie Pippen was like sort of picking up the slack and taking the lead for the team. There was a crucial moment at the very end of the game where he really felt like he should have an opportunity. The coach said, “No, I don’t want you to have the opportunity. That opportunity I want it to go someone else.” Scottie Pippen is like, I’m not leaving the bench. I’m not going to play and everybody is shocked.
They’re absolutely dumbstruck and his teammates later when they’re like, are you furious with Scottie Pippen? They all said, I don’t understand it. It’s totally out of character for him. They’re almost not even angry because they’re like, this is just not something, I don’t understand. What happened? That to me looks like obliger rebellion. It’s out of character. It’s out of nowhere. Scottie Pippen himself seemed like he regretted it and it was in this moment of like, with everything you’re asking me to do, with everything that I have accomplished, you’re not doing this.
I’m not getting this. I feel exploited. I feel neglected. I feel overlooked. I’m exploding. It was like only a few seconds of his life but Michael Jordan was like, I think that’s going to be with Scottie Pippen forever that that happened. To me, that sure looked like obliger rebellion.
Miriam Schulman:
See, now you got me nervous because I like to hire obligers in my company. I actually made them take the quiz.
Gretchen Rubin:
I’ve spoken to many employers who only want to hire obligers.
Miriam Schulman:
I do not like working with a questioner.
Gretchen Rubin:
Oh, really? Why? Too many questions?
Miriam Schulman:
Especially interns, like I’m not paying them and then I can’t fire them. They’re asking me so many questions. Well, that’s the thing. Questioners don’t like to be questioned.
Gretchen Rubin:
This is very ironic, but it’s a very common pattern. Questioners do not like-
Miriam Schulman:
No way.
Gretchen Rubin:
They often like to teach, like you like to teach but you don’t like, and I think it’s just like I spend all my time thinking through everything. I just cannot be bothered to explain myself to you and also kind of a feeling of like, don’t question my judgment or my decisions. So, why do I have to explain it, but there is just sort of this exhaustion. My husband is like that. He will not answer questions to a comical degree. It’s super annoying, and it was very reassuring for me to realize it wasn’t like he was just jerking my chain to be annoying to me. It’s a questioner thing. So you got too. You don’t like to answer questions.
Miriam Schulman:
I think what you have done with this framework, Gretchen, is so brilliant. It’s really helped me have compassion with a lot of people in my life. I know you must hear that all the time but it’s really been so helpful for me, having compassion for not just other people, but also myself sometimes. When I understand why I do things and what motivates me. So, now that brings us though to another question. Which tendency is the happiest?
Gretchen Rubin:
That’s a really important question, and what I found is that it isn’t that one tendency is the happiest or the most productive or the most creative or the most successful. What you see is that the people who are the happiest and the most productive, et cetera, are the people who have really figured out themselves and they understand their strengths and they also understand their weaknesses and their limitations.
They’ve constructed an environment and circumstances that allow them to do their best work. So obligers, who have figured out how to give themselves the outer accountability they need to follow through [inaudible 00:30:34] themselves, do great. Rebels who have figured out you know what, I don’t do well, with somebody looking over my shoulder. I don’t do well with deadlines. I don’t like to be supervised. I like to have a lot of freedom of choice and spontaneity. Let me get myself to a place where that works for me, well, then they do very well.
Questioners who are in an environment where their questioning is really valued and rewarded, do extremely well. If a questioner gets to a place where it’s like, hey, we’re all here as a team. We have a visionary leader and we are here to execute on that vision. It’s like, well, but I don’t understand why this is being done, and just because we did this this way last year doesn’t mean we should do it this way this year. I don’t understand why corporate is telling us to use the software, because it just seems dumb. That might not be a good place for the questioner.
So it’s really about figuring out a fit. In the artistic realm, I was very struck by a rebel I knew who was writing a book. In nonfiction, typically you don’t write the whole book before you try to sell it, you write like a couple chapters and a table of contents. This guy had decided to write the entire book. I said to him, “Well, why did you decide to do all that work before you tried to sell it?” Because usually people wouldn’t put all that time and effort in until they knew that they were going to get a book contract.
He said, “Oh, I know myself. If I have an editor and an agent looking over my shoulder and being like, this is due in a year and where’s that chapter, then I won’t want to do it, but right now I feel like writing a book. So I’ll write a book and then when the books written, I’ll feel like getting paid for it. So I’ll write it first, and then I’ll try to sell it.” So it’s like, this is brilliant. He’s not doing what most people do. He’s doing what’s right for him and what allows him to creatively succeed and in the end, he sold it and it was fine.
If he tried to fit himself into a different mold, he might have ended up just never even fulfilling his book contract because he doesn’t want anybody to tell him what to do.
Miriam Schulman:
I love that. Okay, so before we move on, we do have to close the loop because we promised that we would share which Harry Potter character, we all know who the upholder is.
Gretchen Rubin:
Hermione is probably the most famous upholder alive today. She is a classic upholder and she has the faults and the strengths. She’s definitely rigid. She’s definitely got a clipboard. She’s definitely shaking her finger at people, but she’s also kind of unstoppable, shows a lot of forethought, extraordinary preparation. I thought a lot for a long time about Fred and George, because are they questioners or are they rebels because they certainly get into a lot of mischief.
In the end, they’re questioners. They’re questioners who tip to rebel, much like yourself, because when you look at it, it’s not that they’re, if somebody tells them to do something, it’s not like they just won’t do it. They’re like, why would I do it? When it makes sense to them, why they would do something, they really very easily stick to the rules and follow through.
With Dumbledore’s Army, they do all of the exercises, they follow direction because they believe they’re like, I want to learn from Harry. So we’re going to do what he tells us. Or like when they want to start their business. It’s like they clearly and very methodically went about it. So their mischief is just comes from a sense of mischief not from, and even when they leave school, it’s because, well, we feel like we’re not going to learn here anymore.
Our education is over, our time would be better spent starting our business. It’s not like you can’t tell me what to do, Umbridge. I’m leaving because I don’t want to stay. It was very thoughtful. Harry is an obliger. Sometimes people have an idea that obligers can’t be heroic. Well, obligers are often heroic. Harry Potter is an obliger. Look at Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games. She’s an obliger. Look at Daenerys Targaryen, Jon Snow and Jamie Lannister, all from Game of Thrones world. They’re all obligers. Look at George Bailey from It’s a Wonderful Life, that old Christmas movie. He’s also in obligers. Oprah Winfrey is an obliger, Andre Agassi is an obliger, Tiger Woods is an obliger. Lot of power in the obliger tendency.
Miriam Schulman:
I would have thought that Harry was a questioner, but now that you say obliger, I’m like, Okay, yeah, because in Book Seven, he’s going for the Horcruxes because Dumbledore told him to.
Gretchen Rubin:
His kind of saving people is because that’s what he’s supposed to do. He doesn’t really question very much.
Miriam Schulman:
No, that’s true.
Gretchen Rubin:
He doesn’t really say like, well, why is this this way or could this be different or Dumbledore, why are you asking me to do this? He acts out of his sense of responsibility to others and of course that is what makes them heroic. So this idea that obliger isn’t like a heroic or dramatic hugely but it’s funny. In that world I don’t really see a rebel. Voldemort, he’s inhuman, sort of the incarnation of pure evil. So I think he’s just like, not even in the tendencies, but I don’t really see a rebel there.
Miriam Schulman:
What about Ron? He walks out on but that’s more like obliger rebellion, right?
Gretchen Rubin:
I think he’s an obliger. Yeah. He’s enchanted by the locket and he’s very much under the spell of the locket and so I don’t know if it’s true obliger rebellion because I think part of it, it was just like the Horcrux and it was beating on him. Because he says at the time, it’s worse for me, it affects me more, but it certainly could be a kind of a obliger rebellion. It kind of looks like that and often too, obligers get along really, really well. I know many, many happy couples, married couples and teams and things who are two obligers and that, of course, is what Harry and Ron are.
Miriam Schulman:
Then Hermione with Ron, it’s the upholder-obliger combo. So rebels and upholders, oil and water?
Gretchen Rubin:
I would never say never because you always see some examples of anything, but it typically is a very difficult combination. Partly because upholders just they like to be in different environments. Upholders typically like schedules, and routines and calendars and long runways and to do lists, and rebels don’t like to work like that. They really put much more value on spontaneity and flexibility. They might come in and say, listen, I had a great idea, clear your calendars for the afternoon. We’re going to go outside, we’re going to have a picnic and I’m going to talk to you about my exciting new vision for this company and the upholder is like what?
Because I have three things that I was going to get done before three o’clock and then at four o’clock, I’m supposed to exercise and then at five o’clock, I’m coming back to my desk and I have a call and I’ve got to be out of here for six o’clock. So they just don’t like to be in the same environment. The rebel and the upholder sort of don’t value the way the other one sees the world. It’s kind of like I’ve had rebels step away from me in horror when I described what I consider to be a good life, which is like, I would be a Benedictine monk, if I could be.
That sounds so attractive to me. Like rebel, make it up every day, who wants to do that? Exercise when you feel like it, it’s too much trouble. I want to do it the same way every day and not have to think about it. So they just kind of see the world differently. Now there can be great power in that that can be very complimentary, but in just in pairing up, it can lead to a lot of conflict, especially as you say, if you don’t understand it.
I think once you understand it, there’s more compassion and more kind of appreciation for what they’re bringing to the table. Certainly as an upholder, I have gained the most from studying rebels because what rebels show us is we’re all way more free than we think. I’ve learned an incredible amount from studying the rebels and how they see the world.
Miriam Schulman:
Famous rebels?
Gretchen Rubin:
Oh, so many famous rebels. Pablo Picasso’s a rebel. Donald Trump is a rebel. I think his supporters and his critics alike would agree that if you ask or tell him to do something he’s very likely to resist. Anytime there’s somebody who’s like the first woman who works on an oil rig. I’m like, that’s probably a rebel. Because rebels often like that, they like to stand out. They like to do things in their own way.
Miriam Schulman:
If you want to find out what your tendency is, it’s quiz.gretchen rubin.com. We’ll make sure a link to that is in the show notes. So that’s schulmanart.com/94. I just wanted to do a quick lightning round with Gretchen. So one of the wonderful things that I love that you and Liz do on their podcast is the Happier podcast is you come up with terms. So this is a lightning round of terms that I love in your podcast. Okay, you ready?
Gretchen Rubin:
Yes.
Miriam Schulman:
Over buyer versus under buyer?
Gretchen Rubin:
Okay, so over buyers are people who love to buy, they love to prepare, they make long lists of everything they need before a trip, they often buy multiple versions of things like the same shirt in three colors or they’ll buy deep stores of things. So their tendency is to buy.
Miriam Schulman:
So thank God, thank God, I’m an under buyer. Thank God my husband’s an over buyer and we had enough toilet paper.
Gretchen Rubin:
Several people when the pandemic started said, hey Gretchen, you’re an under buyer. How’s your toilet paper situation? Under buyers are the opposite. They don’t like to buy, they don’t like to even have the moment of purchase. They often will purchase the minimum amount. Instead of buying three tubes of toothpaste to just have some in the cabinet, they’ll buy one, get half a tank of gas.
Miriam Schulman:
So with the whole thing toilet paper situation, it used to annoy me how much extra he would buy. So I would put it into his closet, like his clothes closet. So then when we start to actually run low on toilet paper, my husband was very happy that he found some toilet paper behind his sweaters that I had put in there when I was pissed.
Gretchen Rubin:
See, this is a good example of why we all need, like we can’t all be the same.
Miriam Schulman:
That’s right.
Gretchen Rubin:
I get the same way. I get really annoyed when my husband buys, we have too much ketchup. It’s weighing on my mind the ketchup we have. He’s like, we’ll eat it and I’m like, ah, I feel like just enough with the ketchup. We had like four boxes of brown sugar and I was irate because I was like, it just bums me out to see it there.
Miriam Schulman:
My daughter gets upset about the overbuying as well, which just shows that your tendencies and these other things that you can have combinations of so many things. Maximizer versus satisficer.
Gretchen Rubin:
Maximizers are people who want to make the best decision possible. So, let’s say you’re buying a bike. It’s like, I want to do my research and buy the very, very best bike that I can. Satisficers are people who say well, I have certain criteria and once those criteria are met, I will stop looking and I’ll just buy the first bike that meets my standards. What’s interesting is you would think that maximizers would be happier with their decisions, because they feel like they got the very best thing, but actually, research shows that satisficers are more satisfied, they have less regret and they certainly use a lot less energy and time on their decisions, because they’re sort of like, this is what I wanted and this is what I got so fine, whereas maximizers are kind of haunted by like, ooh, maybe there was a better bike or maybe I should have gone out of town to that other store. So they often experience more regret.
Miriam Schulman:
I imagine that questioners have a tendency to be maximizers, like do more research.
Gretchen Rubin:
Sometimes questioners can get analysis paralysis, and that is when their desire for perfect information makes it hard for them to make a decision or move forward because they just want perfect information. A lot of times in this world, we just have to act without perfect information. So yeah, that would definitely be something that you could see.
Miriam Schulman:
My solution, by the way for other questioners out there who might be doing [procrastalearning 00:40:58] is find another questioner who you trust and ask them what they think. So that’s usually my solution for certain things. Like, with this podcast, I went to another questioner and I was like, okay, what mic do I get?
Gretchen Rubin:
Yeah, in my framework, I call that trusted authority, which is like, I can go to a trusted authority, I don’t have to do my own research because I’m satisfied that I can be guided by someone else’s judgment and that’s a big time saver.
Miriam Schulman:
Perfect. Speaking of time, Power Hour.
Gretchen Rubin:
So Power Hour is a great exercise where it’s for all the tasks that you indefinitely put off because things that can be done at any time are often done at no time. So if you keep a list of like, I need to change that light bulb, I need to run to the drugstore and pick up this one weird thing, I need to look around and see where I misplaced my hammer, instead of just indefinitely pushing those things off where they kind of drains us and overwhelms us, just put it on the list and then once a week, just say, I’m going to spend an hour tackling these tasks. What you find is that a lot of times you can get a lot more done in an hour than you think and then you get those things off the running to do list that can really start to drain our energy.
Miriam Schulman:
Can you define what the power after hour is?
Gretchen Rubin:
Power Hour After is the list of everything that you’re going to do once you can come out of safer at home. So like on mine, I got the first half of a shingles vaccine, I need to get the second half of the shingles vaccine, both my daughters need to go to the dentist and have their annual checkup. I need to go to the dentist, I need to get my haircut, I need to go to the library. My daughter needs to get a driver’s license, like when is DMV opening up.
All these kind of nagging tasks that for a while you’re like, well, I don’t have to worry about that right now but at some point, it’s like okay, now’s the time I got to deal with all these things. So it’s good to just have them ready so that you can start knocking them off the list and not just feel like, oh my gosh, my mind is just like I’ve got a million things I’ve got to do. You don’t have a million things. Might have a lot of things, but if you see them written down, you can start working your way through them.
Miriam Schulman:
Brilliant. Finally, design your summer.
Gretchen Rubin:
Design your summers who do that you want to think about what you want from your summer. What makes it summer for you and make sure that you make it happen because if summer for you is having picnics, you don’t want the whole summer to go by without having a picnic. If summer for you is going to an outdoor concert, well, you might not be able to go to an outdoor concert this year, so you want to think about like, well, what could I do to give myself that outdoor concert feeling?
Is there’s something that I could do that would give me that same feeling so I’d feel like I really had a summer? Maybe it’s ice cream, maybe it’s barbecuing, maybe it’s going to the beach, maybe it’s camping. Maybe it’s rereading one of your favorite books. You want to think about, well, what do I want to get out of my summer? We each want the seasons to have like their special flavor. So by thinking about like, what do I want that to be? You make sure that you make room for it, because sometimes things happen very easily and naturally and automatically, but especially like the summer that we’re facing, where a lot of usual habits and routines are disrupted, we might have to think about it a little bit more carefully and make sure that we get what we want to have a summer or we think of a substitute to give us that summer feeling that we want.
Miriam Schulman:
That’s brilliant. All right. Well, we’re about to wrap up. We’ve included links to all of Gretchen’s books about human nature. I had to say about human nature because you actually have books besides the human nature, but those are the ones I included in the show notes. So there’s Better Than Before, there’s Outer Order, Inner Calm. To me the best part of that was the title. I just like to say that as a mantra. I’m not high and cleaning, but it is true.
It is true. Of course The Four Tendencies and then I’ve also included some of the related journals that you offer for like the one-sentence journal, and I don’t remember the whole list but I’ve included all those in the show notes, schulmanart.com/94. I’ve included The Four Tendencies is part of my favorite books inside schulmanart.com/bookclub. That’s the place to go.
Don’t forget, you can find out your tendency, quiz.gretchenrubin.com to find out your tenancy. If you find out it would be so much fun if you can tag us on Instagram and let us know what your tendency is. I’m @schulmanart and are you @gretchenrubin?
Gretchen Rubin:
Yes.
Miriam Schulman:
Perfect. Of course, you should listen to her podcast. It’s the Happier podcast with her sister. Absolutely hilarious. Alrighty, Gretchen, do you have any last words for my listeners before we call this podcast complete?
Gretchen Rubin:
I would just reiterate something that we’ve talked about through the whole conversation, which is, there’s no magic one size fits all solution to being happier, healthier, more productive and more creative. We each have to figure it out for ourselves, because we each have our own interests, our own values, our own temperament, our own tendency. So when we set things up in the way that’s right for us, then we’re much more likely to achieve our aims, rather than trying to fit ourselves into the model of what somebody else says is the right way or the best way. Whatever works for us is the best way and the right way.
Miriam Schulman:
Beautiful. Thank you so much for joining me here today. I really appreciate it.
Gretchen Rubin:
Thank you. It was so much fun to talk to you.
Miriam Schulman:
All right. So no matter what your tendency, if you crave accountability, or justifications to make the right choices of how to move your art business forward, I invite you to apply for an absolutely free 20 minute Passion to Profit strategy call. All you have to do is go to schulmanart.com/biz, that’s biz as in B-I-Z. You do have to apply but those who qualify get a free one on one call with me. All right guys, thanks so much for being with me here today. I’ll see you Same time, same place next week. Make it a great one.
Thank you for listening to the Inspiration Place podcast. Connect with us on Facebook, facebook.com/schulmanart, on Instagram @schulmanart and of course, on schulmanart.com
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