Author Gretchen Rubin on Happiness, Human Nature, Habits

Gretchen Rubin (0:00)

One step in front of the other, it's like people can get very hung up thinking about like, oh, am I happy? What is a happy life? How do I get there? How do I stay there? And it's just like, you know, just today, tomorrow, next week, next month, what could you do to be better than before? You know, like, what could you do to just be happier?

And then I think that kind of makes it seem more like not an insurmountable goal, because you're just like, I just want to be better than before.

Michael Gervais (0:22)

Thanks for.

All right, welcome back or welcome to the Finding Mastery podcast. I am Michael Gervais. And the idea behind these conversations is to learn from people who are on the path of mastery, who are switched on, who have dedicated their life's efforts to figuring out difficult stuff. And what these conversations are designed to do is understand what they've come to understand as best we possibly can, but also work to understand their psychological framework. Like how do they explain events? What is their worldview? How do they make sense of where they're positioned in the world and literally how other people and mother nature and their craft all intertwine to be able to work together.

And then we wanna also understand the mental skills they've used to build and refine the craft that they've invested their life with.

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Now, this week's conversation is with Gretchen Rubin. And she spent the past decade researching and writing about happiness.

And she's the author of several books, including a massive New York Times bestseller, The Four Tendencies. And she's also written Better Than Before and The Happiness Project.

And I wanted to talk to Gretchen about happiness because it's something that every one of us seems to be searching for. Yet, some of us have trouble finding. And when you ask people on the street or in a casual conversation, what are you looking for in life? What does it all come down to?