THE BEST OF: The Secret to Being Happier Based on Your Personality Type
Renowned Happiness expert Gretchen Rubin explains how she cracked the code to finding inner-peace and bliss. In this episode, Gretchen reveals her brand-new personality test that allows everyone to ignite their potential just by answering two simple questions! Learn how to manage others and live your happiest life without feeling guilty. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
We have to have strong relationships with other people.
We have to feel like we can confide.
We need to feel like we belong.
We need to be able to get support, and just as important, we need to be able to give support.
I told you, Lisa.
Yeah, there you go.
I'm saying that because she always tells me that.
Oh yeah, there you go.
Well, you're very right.
Steal her ideas and deliver them back in a very convincing way.
There you go.
Hey everyone, I'm Dr. Oz and this is the Dr. Oz Podcast.
Podcast.
Alright, there are two kinds of people in the world.
I always tell it to my kids.
Those who divide the world into two kinds of people and those that don't.
My next guest is an expert in dividing people, identifying their habits and patterns, and using what she's learned about our different personality types to help everybody unlock the secret to happiness.
Gresham Rubin joins me now in her book, which is beautifully titled The Four Tendencies, The Indispensable Personality Profiles to Reveal How to Make Your Life Better and Other People's Lives Better Too.
We have fought, Gresham, with my family over this...
Countless.
Is it true, Lisa?
It is, actually.
It's almost cliche.
As soon as I start to say something, usually mine are like, they're winners and they're losers, they're splitters.
But it's classic stuff I heard from my parents, from my coaches, whatever.
But it immediately seemed to turn them off, although every once in a while it seems to have impacted them.
No, they just think it's hysterical.
Because he's the divider into two types of people.
At least you have four types of people.
What made you want to divide things up?
Well, you know, I had this conversation with a friend, and she said something that I'd heard many people say similar things over the years, and it just got me very focused on differences among people.
And as I pursued it, that's when I figured out there were four differences.
But what she said was...
I was quizzing her about her happiness habits, and my sister, Elizabeth, calls me a happiness bully, so I was pushing her pretty hard.
And she said, you know, I know I would be happier if I exercised.
And the weird thing is, 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 now?
And I thought, well, why?
What's different between now and when she was in high school?
And how would you account for the fact that at one time it was effortless and now she's really struggling?
Yeah.
And that got me interested in looking at patterns of how people did or did not successfully change their habits.
And eventually that is what led me to understanding the four tendencies.
So I was really trying to...
I didn't know there were going to be four.
There could have been two.
There could have been seven.
I was just trying to figure out how all these people's patterns fit together.
How did you explain their behavior?
What are the four types?
So there are upholders, questioners, obligers, and rebels.
Did it ever dawn on you, since you are the uber-happiness expert, did you want to make people unhappy by putting them in a category they don't want to be in?
No, no, that's a very serious question, and a lot of people say, if you define me, you can find me.
And they worry that giving labels to people will kind of cramp their sense of possibility, make them feel limited, or become a justification.
Well, of course you can't ask me to do that.
I'm a rebel, so, you know, forget it.
But I think, and maybe you think the same thing since you're a category person too, is that a lot of times these vocabulary terms, these categories can be shorthand.
They can kind of illuminate hidden aspects of our nature and make it easier to sort of say, hey, I'm one way and you're another.
And it's like, I think, you know, with the four tendencies, it allows you to be more, take things less personally.
Because it's just like, it's not that you're right and I'm wrong, or that I'm right and you're wrong, it's just that we're both kind of coming from different places.
Okay, you get up early, I stay up late.
It's not that one's better or worse, but you're a lark, I'm an owl, how do we work things out?
So I think that labels can be very useful, but you're right, you have to be careful that they don't make people feel constricted.
Gretchen, I have to be honest about this personal bias, which is when I divide things into two categories, one is a good category, one is not a good category.
You just mentioned that there's the night owls who don't do as well as the early bird, because early bird gets to worm.
Guess what you remembered it.
But the fact is, that's because the world is set up for larks.
And the world isn't set up for owls.
Unless you're a DJ. That's right.
That's right.
Well, some people very wisely will organize their life in a way that works for them.
And that's what I think, in terms of how to be happier, healthier, more productive, more creative, I think...
Instead of saying, like, I should be a certain way, I should force myself to get up earlier, even though it doesn't come naturally to me, you should say, how do I set up my life, how do I set up my circumstances so that things work for me, so that I succeed?
And that's what I try to do with the Four Tendencies, is show people, like, well, some people really...
Can do well with to-do lists.
Some people love schedules, but some people aren't like that.
And there's nothing wrong with you if you can't use a to-do list.
There's other things for you to try.
So what would those things be?
How early do these types manifest?
I mean, like if you have a five-year-old kid, do you know what type they are?
Are they born with this or is it your parenting?
Well, that's an interesting question.
I'm a big believer in the genetic roots of personality, and I do think that people bring this into the world with them.
For some children, it takes a long time to figure it out because children aren't autonomous in the way that adults are.
But for some children, it's as early as, like, three.
And I will often, like if I'm speaking, I will have people in the audience being like, I have a three-year-old, I have a four-year-old, I know they're a rebel, I know they're a questioner, I know that they're an obliger, I know that they're an upholder.
I have a daughter who's an upholder, and I knew she was an upholder from the time she was like three and a half or four.
So it depends on the child, yeah.
So before we get into these four types, and I know the audience is...
Anxiously awaiting your definition.
The reveal.
The reveal.
Tell them, who am I? Just give me the answer.
Let's get back to the happiness roots, which is, again, how I first heard about you.
And I want to applaud you for tackling a seemingly amorphous process, being happy.
That's so vital to all of us and putting a little bit of oomph into it.
Define happiness.
Well, so I started my career in law.
You're kidding me.
Are you a lawyer?
Oh, yeah.
I went to Yale Law School.
I clerked for Sandra Day O'Connor.
A happy lawyer?
Yeah, well, I'm not a lawyer now.
And one of the things you do in law school, you spend an entire semester trying to define contract.
And it just drove me crazy.
And if anything, happiness is more elusive.
There's happiness, joy, bliss, satisfaction, well-being, peace, hedonic, you know, all this stuff.
And there's something like 15 academic definitions of happiness, so I never try to define it.
I'm like, if for you it's contentment and for you it's bliss, that's okay.
It's a word that's big enough for a lot of different conceptions, and I think that's a good thing.
I think it's more helpful for the average person to think about being happier, because happiness suggests kind of a magical destination, and then it's like, how do you get there?
How would you know if you're there?
Can you stay there?
But happier is like, well, if you did this...
Next week, next month, next year, do you think you'd be happier?
And I feel like for most people, that's much clearer than, like, is this going to help me achieve happiness?
Like, when I start thinking about that, my brain starts just kind of, like, melting.
Let me see if I can push a little on this, because I've always thought about happiness as different from joy.
So, you know, people are happy that the operation went well.
They're unhappy they got sick and needed the operation back and forth.
So, happiness to me always seemed like the bubbly fizz in a soda pop.
It tickles your tongue.
It's joyful.
I like it.
We're laughing.
We're smiling.
It's, you know, commercials show happiness.
You can have really bad things happening and still feel joy because something redeeming was experienced because of it.
And it doesn't have, to me anyway, the same depth.
It doesn't have the same connotation as happiness, but it has more depth than it.
And again, this may just be word and semantics, but I'm trying to establish a concept for me, which is that you can go around the world and I remember when Lisa and I went to India, we saw these folks who...
I mean, I don't know why they were laughing.
They're sitting on the corner of the street.
They don't have anything that I can see anyway, but they have connection with each other, which is maybe more valuable than anything else.
And they seem sort of happy.
And people that we were with would say, well, you know, in their world, that is the joy that they seek.
And I was troubled by that because your initial instinct is to intervene, but that wasn't the natural instinct of the person that we were with who seemed like a pretty good person.
Well, one of the things that's interesting is that when you go around the world and you ask people if they're happy, most people say they're either pretty happy or very happy.
And of course, people are in dramatically different circumstances.
And we might say, in that situation, I don't think that I would be happy.
But the fact is, people are resilient.
And they take their cues from the people around them.
And people find a way to be pretty happy or very happy in a lot of very different circumstances.
Sure.
So why isn't there a one-size-fit-all answer?
You were very clear in the book that there isn't.
And I thought, well, you know, here's the five secrets to happiness.
Sounds like a good title.
Forget about the four tendencies.
The four secrets to happiness.
Right, right, right.
Well, you know, I mean, there's certain things that you can say are true for just about everyone.
Like, if you had to say, what is the secret to happiness?
I think you would say relationships.
Because for everyone...
Relationships are key.
We have to have strong relationships with other people.
We have to feel like we can confide.
We need to feel like we belong.
We need to be able to get support.
And just as important, we need to be able to give support.
I told you, Lisa.
There you go.
I'm saying that because she always tells me that.
Oh yeah, there you go.
Well, you're very right.
She's going to steal her ideas and deliver them back in a very convincing way.
I just read Gresham's book.
I'm parroting those ideas to you.
So something like relationships, I think, is practically universal.
But what a lot of people try to do is they try to say things like, you know, do your most important intellectual work first thing in the day when you're freshest.
Well, that's not true for everyone.
Or if you want to quit an important habit, you should just give it up cold turkey.
Well, that works for me because I'm an abstainer.
But then other people get kind of panicky and rebellious if they're told they can never do something.
They do better when they have it a little bit or sometimes.
So they're moderators.
But then I have people saying to me, like, it's not healthy for you to be so rigid.
Like, you shouldn't say you're never going to eat sugar.
And I'm like, why is that?
If it's right for me, that's what works for me.
It can be different for you.
That doesn't mean that we don't, there's not one best way.
And I think sometimes people get They're frustrated with themselves.
They beat themselves up.
They feel defeated.
They say things like, I'm lazy.
I have no self-control.
I have no willpower because something's not working for them.
Something's coming easily to someone else.
It's not coming easily to them.
And they blame themselves instead of just saying, well, you know what?
I tried this.
It didn't work for me.
Is there another way that I could achieve that same aim?
A lot of times there's many ways to skin a cat.
There's a lot of ways to do things like exercise more or get more sleep or quit sugar or whatever it is you're trying to do.
And if one way doesn't work for you, try something else instead of feeling like you, you know, you need to beat yourself up.
Coming up, you're 10 and C-type.
Good finding out.
make your life happier.
Talking to Gretchen Rubin, The Four Tendencies of his title of her newest book.
I think it's time we begin to get into it.
This has all been preamble.
All right, The Four Tendencies.
The cornerstone of the analysis comes down to a simple question.
I'm going to ask it for everybody.
How do you respond to expectations?
It sounds very boring, but it's actually really important.
Why is it so crucial?
Because meeting expectations is such a ubiquitous aspect of our lives.
So we all face two kinds of expectations.
We all have outer expectations, which is a work deadline or a request from a friend, expectations that come to us from the outside.
And then we all have inner expectations, what we are asking of ourselves.
So I want to keep a New Year's resolution.
And depending on how you respond to outer and inner expectations, the combination, whether you respond to them or you reject them, that's what makes you either an upholder, a questioner, an obliger, or a rebel.
So, if you can, go through the four...
So, go through.
I know this is something that's hard on the radio, guys.
Go buy the book, The Four Time Minutes.
Give one to a friend, too.
But there's a quiz online.
Yes, happiercast.com slash quiz.
Say it again?
happiercast.com slash quiz.
Like, 1.3 million people have taken this.
It's free.
It's quick.
And it will, like, spit out an answer for you.
But you know what?
Most people don't even need to take the quiz if they hear just a brief description.
But there is the quiz at happiercast.com slash quiz.
So we took it, and I'll reveal my answer.
It's such a shocker.
Okay.
First, I want to understand.
I'll go through the definition.
I want to pick the best one.
Who's going to win?
Can you tell us already?
No, there's a couple that I feel like I'd have to do a few diagnostic quiz questions.
A brain boxy.
We'll see.
So, upholders readily meet outer and inner expectations.
So, they meet the work deadline, they keep the nearest resolution without much fuss.
They want to know what other people expect from them, but their expectations for themselves are just as important.
Then there are questioners.
Questioners question all expectations.
They'll do something if they think it makes sense.
So they actually make everything an inner expectation.
If it meets their standard, they'll do it no problem.
If it fails their standard, they will push back.
And they typically object to anything arbitrary, inefficient, irrational.
Then there are obligers.
Obligers readily meet outer expectations, but they struggle to meet inner expectations.
And so earlier I mentioned my epiphany with my friend on the track team.
Well, she's an obliger, I realized.
When she had a team and a coach expecting her to show up, she had no trouble going.
But when she was just trying to go on her own, she struggled.
And then there are rebels.
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.
They can do anything they choose to do.
But if you ask or tell them to do something, they're very likely to resist.
So those are the four.
But interestingly, there aren't the same number of people in the tendencies.
The biggest tendency for both men and women is obliger.
Like, obligers matter in this world because you either are an obliger or you have many obligers in your life.
It's a big tendency.
Ben, questioner.
The smallest tendency is rebel.
There are not that many rebels.
It's conspicuous, but it's small.
And my tendency, which is the upholder tendency, is only slightly larger.
So those are kind of the two polar, kind of extreme tendency types, upholder and rebel.
There aren't that many upholders and rebels.
So Lisa, what do you think you are?
Okay, let's hear it.
Well, mine is way more complicated.
You are clearly an upholder.
I'm surrounded by these hyper-performing...
I'm such an upholder.
You are.
I got a hundred on the upholder test.
Literally.
Me too.
Excellent.
Yeah.
You, me, and Hermione Granger.
Exactly.
Absolutely.
Zoe, our third daughter.
Same way.
I mean, in fact, our kids are sort of spread out.
Well, you have...
I mean, you could have one of everything, right?
So...
We might actually, because our youngest one, the boy Oliver, I think he's a rebel.
He seems it anyway.
First of all, he doesn't do anything I tell him to do.
But he'll subsequently agree that what I suggested was rational, then he'll do it.
He's more a questioner, though.
He does whatever he puts his mind to.
Everything.
Remember when he gave up gluten or decided to go out on the rugby team?
Oh, but wait.
So let me interrupt you with a question.
So a lot of times rebels and questioners do look alike.
And here's the question for you to tell if he's a questioner or a rebel.
If you ask him to do something, is his response, why should I? Or is his response, you can't tell me what to do?
He's a rebel.
You can't tell me what to do.
I tell him what to do all the time.
He just doesn't do it.
No.
No, but he doesn't.
It has to make sense to him to do it.
Well, that's the question.
But he doesn't rebel against his inner.
See, with the rebels, it looks like they resist both outer and inner expectations.
He doesn't resist the inner.
He only resists the outer expectations.
Okay.
So he's probably either a questioner who tips—so all of the tendencies overlap with two other tendencies.
And so you can tip in the direction of one of your overlapping tendencies.
So he's probably either a questioner who tips to rebel or a rebel who tips to questioner.
So he's right in that questioner-rebel zone.
Do you feel like he is—like, would it surprise you if he said something like, well, I was going to do that, but now that you've told me to do it, I won't?
No, he never doesn't do it in order to be honorary.
He won't do it to spite you.
Okay, he won't do it just out of a sense.
No, but he's...
He also, you can't rely on him to do it if you tell him to do it.
Like, call your coach.
If it's not important to him, it's not getting done.
Well, see, maybe he's more of a questioner than him, because if he's like, I don't see why I should, then he won't do it.
Because a questioner's always like, I'm married to a questioner, so I'm very familiar with this, but they're always like, why should I? Gretchen.
Yes, Gretchen.
Nisa puts the boy on a pedestal.
He loves his mother back so closely that that's a little unique relationship.
If I were to tell Oliver, he is clearly a rebel.
I'm going to have to take the quiz.
This boy is a rebel.
Our second daughter, Arabella, I think she's a questioner.
Probably, yes.
Oh, that's interesting.
You can compare and contrast among your own children.
They're different.
First of all, they reject what I say, period.
But how they reject it differs.
Yes!
So I can put them in buckets here.
Yeah.
Now, my wife...
What's Lisa?
I'm going to guess.
Do you have a guess?
You want to throw it out?
No, go ahead.
Guess.
So please, if you don't mind, define the obliger again one more time.
Okay.
Okay.
So an obliger readily meets outer expectations, but they struggle to meet inner expectations.
So people who say things like they have trouble with boundaries, they have trouble saying no.
The people who give 110%, like something an obliger might say is like, I give 110% to my clients, or I give 110% to my patients, I give 110% to my family, so of course I don't have time to exercise or to do XYZ thing for myself.
I rest my case.
Okay.
Is that about perfect?
Yeah.
Yes, and I wouldn't say I fit in any others.
I'm just kind of like, probably not a unique form of obliger, probably a pretty popular form of obliger where it's a resistant obliger so that you, let's put it this way, I still have papers outstanding from college.
Uh-huh.
So there was...
If there's a way to...
She hasn't returned to...
I'm incredibly conscientious.
We've been married 33 years.
There's still thank-you notes that haven't gone out to the presence.
So, but I'm very...
Like, if you need me to do something for you, I am...
Do you know anyone more reliable than I am?
But it's an external thing.
But that's what I'm saying.
What do people say about me?
I'm very reliable, but if you have an expectation of me, I may not do it.
Okay, so here's an interesting pattern, which it sounds like you might be describing, which is obliger rebellion.
An obliger rebellion is when there's an obliger who will meet, meet, meet, meet expectations, and then suddenly they kind of snap, and they're like, well, this I'm not going to do.
And it can be small and symbolic, like, I'm not going to finish that thank you note from my wedding 33 years ago, or...
I've heard surprisingly a lot of obligers will stay late.
They will stay in their cars in the morning to be deliberately late for work as like a minor form of rebellion.
Or it can be like, you know, they're at a job and they're like, you know what?
I've had it.
This is over.
I'm out.
Or they'll get a divorce or end a 20-year friendship of somebody who's due-demanding.
And it happens when obligers feel overwhelmed, drained, taken advantage of, exploited, unheard.
And so somewhere in their lives, there'll be this kind of moment of rebellion where they just won't refuse.
That's not me.
That's not you.
No, not at all.
I'm not a self-sacrificing obliger.
Right.
I take care of people.
For me, it's the self-sabotaging obliger.
It's more about perfectionism.
I don't do things where I can be judged.
And so I resist the performance.
So writing thank you notes, like, this is so trivial.
You gave me this beautiful note.
I'm just saying thank you very much.
I wanted to make the perfect thank you note, so I didn't do it.
Same thing with anything that is expected of me that is a performance metric, that's where I don't perform.
But that's so interesting that you say that.
That clarifies something that's always been sort of puzzling to me.
So the key thing for obligers, if an obliger needs to meet an inner expectation, they need outer accountability.
So if you want to exercise, don't try to go on your own.
Take a class, work out with a friend who will be annoyed.
Think of your duty to be a role model for someone else.
If you want to read more, join a book group.
But what some obligers say is that if there's accountability, it has to be positive accountability.
It can't have a feeling of scolding or a failure.
It has to be like, that's amazing!
You went to the gym five times in one week?
That's excellent!
It's a positive kind of accountability.
So someone's counting, but it's all in the positive.
And they're like, if I start feeling criticized or attacked or judged, then I will go into that spirit of rebellion that obligers can often go into.
So it sounds like Maybe you're like that.
Probably.
You don't want to have a feeling of people are judging you.
And if there is that judgment, then you have this feeling of like, well, then you just can't make me.
She's an obliger slash stubborn.
I noticed you missed the stubborn category.
Questioners, obligers, upholders, rebels.
Where are the stubborns?
Yeah, well, they're all over the place.
Upholders are very stubborn, don't you think, Lisa?
Oh, my gosh.
Yeah.
Nice, nice pot calling.
Get all black hair.
Yeah.
No, I mean, they all have their core of stubbornness.
But so here's something.
As a fellow upholder, Lisa, you tell us, don't you think that upholders can sometimes seem cold?
Because it's like, we've got to do what we've got to do, and it's kind of like, well, I've got to go on a 15-mile run because I'm training for the marathon, and just because we have company doesn't mean that I'm going to skip my run, or you want me to help you proofread your report, but I've got to proofread my own report because it's due tomorrow, so I don't have time to help you.
That can make us seem cold.
It's not just cold.
I would say narcissistic.
But see, here's the thing.
This is where...
Okay, so this is a perfect example, I think, of why the four tendencies can help people deal with conflict better.
And how you can help you in your relationships, whether at work or in romance or whatever.
Partly, it can make it seem less personal.
Like with my questioner husband, I was like, why are you just jerking my chain?
I didn't understand.
He's like, this is with everyone.
But also, it's like, what it helps you see is that from someone else's perspective, it makes sense.
So you might say, like, well, it's pretty cold of you to go on your run when we have guests for the weekend.
But to an upholder, that's an important expectation that must be met.
And the sense of, like, loss or of letting down yourself is so powerful that to an upholder, it really feels appropriate and right.
You're just giving him fear.
No, no, no.
Of course I am.
Keep going.
Stop interrupting Gresham.
Keep going, Gresham.
Because I'm an upholder, too, so I get it.
But now, it's funny, having studied the poor tendencies, I understand why upholders can be really annoying to other people.
And all the tendencies.
They all have strengths and weaknesses.
And if you understand them, you have a lot more compassion for why, to someone else, what they're doing makes sense.
And they're not doing something else because of you, but because it's reflecting their fundamental values.
And so you don't have, so it's just, everything just feels easier.
It's easier to communicate in a way that's going to lead to a successful result.
And it also just takes the sting out of things because you're just like, okay, well, I see why you think that.
Let me tell you why I see things in a different way.
There's a lot more where that came from, but first, a quick break.
And we're back with Gretchen Rubin, host of the very popular podcast, Happier.
Can you evolve from one category to the next?
Is there an Uber category?
No, not an Uber category.
In all seriousness, I appreciate that there are four equals, and you want all four.
The Bula base won't taste good unless you get a little bit of everything.
That is true.
But I suspect people might not want to be an obliger, and they could move into an upholder or vice versa.
How often does that happen?
Well, so I think that really, I mean, can you change your fundamental nature?
Of course, this is a much disgusting thing.
But I think what's easier is to change your circumstances and to change your surroundings rather than to change yourself.
And the thing about an obliger is if an obliger says, I'm an obliger and I want to be an upholder, what they're saying is, I want to meet inner expectations.
And so to me, it's like, rather than trying to change your fundamental personality, which would be a lot of work and take forever if it were even possible, just set up your environment, set up your situation so that you get where you want to go.
If you're saying to yourself, like, why is it that for years I've wanted to write my novel and I've never made any progress on it, instead of saying, like, let me try to turn myself into an upholder, why don't you say, how do I get the outer accountability that I need to write that novel?
And there's, like, once that's the question, there's 15 obvious answers, easy things that you could start tomorrow to To give yourself outer accountability.
And I love, like, some obligers have come up with the most crazy and genius ways to give themselves outer accountability.
That's an easy solution.
That's quick.
I'm like, who cares about, like, I mean, just get where you want to go.
Take the quick and easy way.
So let's say you're married to an obliger and she has a screenplay in her, but she can't write it down.
What's an example of an external, just pretend, it's.
Oh, a million things.
Okay, so one, you could work with a writing coach who's going to be paid to hold you accountable and to have deadlines.
She tried that already.
The person to your left, by the way.
Okay, okay.
Let's see.
Ooh, okay.
This is like speed round.
One is, okay, and you need positive.
Okay, one thing you could do is tell your kids, I have homework the way you have homework.
If I don't do my homework, you don't have to do your homework.
And believe me, your kids will watch you like a hawk.
Are you making progress?
Are you working on this?
Because this is the time when everybody's doing their work.
If you're not doing your work, we don't have to do our work.
Right?
Because you've got to set a good example.
You've got to think of your duty to be a role model for other people.
And you also want to show your children that it's important that people keep their promises to themselves.
And you are going to show them how you're keeping your promise to yourself.
You could also think about joining NaNoWriMo, which is National Novel Writing Month, and there's one for screenplays, there's one for plays, and this is when a bunch of people, like for novels, it's November, I don't know what the other disciplines are, and everybody joins together, and there's this whole kind of cool movement all over the country where people sign up, and they cheer each other on, and every day you have to report how much you've accomplished.
I like that.
You could join a writer group where it's like, I know some people who did this, writing their PhD thesis, because that's a thing a lot of people can't get done.
And it's like, they would meet, I think, every two weeks, and you had to show what you'd done.
And the fact is, if you didn't make progress, then everybody else would feel like, oh, we can just blow this off.
And then it's like, okay, well, maybe you'd blow off your own PhD thesis, but everybody else really needs to get theirs done.
And so you've got to hold up your end in order that you don't suck the energy out of what everybody else is doing.
doing.
So join a writer's group where people, and you could just say, we're all really going to be committed to this because that's how we're going to hold ourselves accountable.
Now, I even started an app.
It's called the Better App, and it's this free app, and one of the things people can do there is form accountability groups.
So if you're too busy so you can't meet in person or you're introverted so you don't want to take a class or work out with a trainer or something, you can join a group online.
And again, it's like we all have this goal.
We're all going to hold each other accountable, maybe in a very positive way.
You could even say, like, I don't want to be scolded.
I want positive only.
That's very common among obligers.
But once that outer accountability is there, then the action can follow.
It's when there's this constant attempt to self-generate, that just doesn't work for obligers.
And I say that without judgment.
It just isn't effective, and it can waste a ton of time.
Because it's like, I need to learn to make myself the priority.
I need to put myself first.
It's like, okay, that just doesn't work very well for obligers.
If you had the 410C's colon the dating app, what would you see?
Exactly.
Who gets along with it?
The best example is the dog in the morning.
So Khaleesi's beautiful mother of dragons.
So she wants to eat and then go out to the bathroom around 6.30 in the morning.
And if I go down at 6.35, I figure she'll be okay for the five minutes.
No, no.
To 8'10", he thinks she's okay.
And the poor dog's sitting there with her legs crossed, holding her bladder.
Well, I can't tell the anecdote because it's very specific.
There's this thing in my book where a woman is talking to somebody, a husband who's an upholder.
She's an obliger.
And she put him through medical school and his residency and all that.
And she was saying, like, I always thought that, like, once he got through this stage and then he got through that stage and then he got through that stage, that then he would be there.
And she's like, well, the thing is, he'll do what he needs to do, and he's a great father, but...
He always puts his own, like, his physical dream first, and I'm like, I see both perspectives, because to an upholder, that seems laudable.
But I can also see to an obliger how that doesn't seem laudable, or how a different choice would seem laudable.
So again, so anyway, there's an example that's very close to the kind of thing you're talking about.
But you don't have any support groups for...
We can start one!
Excellent!
Because no one wants to change when they're an upholder.
It's interesting.
Ooh, is there one tendency that's less likely to want to change?
Well, questioners are very committed to being questioners, and rebels are very committed to being rebels.
But some rebels do not like being rebels, and some rebels love being rebels.
It's interesting.
One rebel called other people muggles, which I thought was very funny.
Yes, perfect.
But then some rebels get very frustrated because one thing about rebels is they can't tell themselves what to do.
And so they'll say things like, I decided I'm going to give up bread, and then tomorrow I ran out and ate a whole loaf of sourdough.
I bet you, you said this, and I'm just wandering, dipping my toe into the deep well of work you've done here.
But it would seem to me that because upholders are societally endorsed, And other than our spouses who know us well, they can call us out, but for some reason stick around us.
In general, because you sort of get away with it, it doesn't sabotage us.
Like, for example, an upholder, or rather an obliger, would be upset and frustrated that they didn't finish their screenplay, right?
A rebel might have picked enough problem fights that they irritate people.
A questioner might be questioning so much they're not actually getting things done.
Whereas the upholder, at least in the modern world, where a task accomplishment is so vital or rewarded, might actually seem like they're happy or may not want to change or be open to change.
Well, but see, that's a good point.
All the tendencies have upsides and downsides.
And so all of them have sort of the positive manifestation of it and then the negative manifestation.
So let me paint a picture of a different kind of upholder.
Rigid.
This is my schedule.
I can't do it.
I'm at work and we need to do things.
work and we need to do things, I'm sorry, I have to do things my way.
I'm sorry.
I have to do things my way.
Oh, I'm a government official and you've handed in your report 20 minutes late.
Oh, I'm a government official.
And you've handed in your report 20 minutes late.
It makes no difference, but I'm going to reject it because 20 minutes is the rule.
It makes no difference, but I'm going to reject it because 20 minutes is the rule.
I'm going to be the great inquisitor.
I'm going to be the great inquisitor.
I'm going to be the person who's so committed to holding up the rules that I kind of destroy the humanity that's there.
I'm going to be the person who's so committed to holding up the rules that I kind of destroy the humanity that's there.
It's so hard for me to let go of it or to see how things need to be sometimes ambiguous or sometimes you need to bend the rules.
That can be very hard for upholders.
They can get very rigid.
They're very, they can get very committed or they don't even realize that they could let go of something.
I mean, I've literally had things, a friend of mine who's a really, really strong upholder, she was in labor and her husband was driving her to the hospital.
She would not let him speed and then she wouldn't let him park illegally so she could go in, but forced him to park in the regular parking lot.
And then she had, she gave birth like 15 minutes after she did it.
And they're like, that's high stakes.
And she's like, man, you know, we are not going to park in an emergency parking, you know?
And I was like, I get it.
I 100% get it.
So sometimes they kind of lose sight of the big picture.
So this is why I think you said earlier, like the boyabees needs all the ingredients.
Like, I feel like as an upholder, I need somebody who's not an upholder around me to remind me there's another way to see things.
Like, there could be a different solution here.
Like, my husband's a questioner, and I'll say, like, I'll say to him, or I even think in my head, well, what would Jamie say?
And Jamie would be, if I feel like I have to do this, what would Jamie say?
And Jamie would be like, why would you do that?
I'm like, that's a good question for me to remember.
Just because I can do something doesn't actually mean I should do something, even though that's my instinct.
So you just brought up the litmus test of Mehmet's actual personality?
There's two kinds of people.
No, no.
This is really...
This is why...
I feel like I've tapped a nerve here!
No, not at all.
We just blew up the whole theory.
He is not an upholder at all.
Why?
He might be a rebel.
No, he's not a rebel either.
He is a questioner.
He's a questioner.
Because he's very self-motivated.
He does exactly what he wants.
He only follows rules that he's made up.
That he makes sense to himself.
So if he's driving down the road at 7 o'clock and there are no cars, he will run a red light.
Okay.
And he will go through every stop sign.
Okay.
He does not believe in external rules.
That's a questioner.
That's a questioner.
He is not an upholder.
That is so untrue.
Hold on a second.
Please, it's all in the context.
In the last month, how many stop signs have we run when you're driving?
A lot.
But here's the story.
This is actually what goes down.
Zoe is an upholder.
Okay, so you're in the middle of the heartland of this great country on the plains.
Okay, I'm from Missouri.
You can see as far in every direction as possible.
This is literally an example in the book.
Do you go through?
The light's blinking.
The light's not blinking.
The light's red.
The light is red, and if you want, you can go through the red light.
There's no cars coming in any direction.
Assume that I'm right on that.
It's a four-way intersection.
There's a red light, and it's red for you, and it's broken.
It's not broken.
It's just longer than you like it.
It's a long red light.
Forget about being broken.
It's just a red light.
You come there, and you realize that light was put there to keep you safe.
That's a questioner.
But it is no longer doing that.
That's a questioner.
Should you cross the light?
That's a questioner.
He will always go through it.
It doesn't matter.
He says Missouri, whatever, Nebraska.
Literally Manhattan, if it's four in the morning.
That's a questioner.
Yeah.
Because a questioner is, why should I? But see, the thing is, because questioners and upholders both readily meet inner expectations.
So they have a lot in common, because they both can meet inner expectations.
The question is, how much do they feel like they need to observe outer expectations?
Zero.
Okay, so for instance, here, let me give you another example.
That's a good point.
You and I are in a coffee shop, and there's like a back room, and there's no waitstaff back there, and we're just alone.
It's like 4 o'clock in the afternoon.
No one's come by, and there's a big sign on the wall that says, no cell phone use.
And I pull out my cell phone and start using it.
How would you feel?
I probably wouldn't mind that much, because what the heck?
More importantly, he'll already be on his cell phone.
I'll already be on my cell phone.
Okay, yeah.
So, usually an upholder would feel uneasy about that.
Because it's like, oh, there's a sign that says no upholder.
You're not an upholder.
See, he took the test all wrong.
I'm a questioner.
You know what threw me up there?
A couple questions in the middle where you have, there's like four words, and you've got to apply it to yourself.
Well, see, questioners often, first of all, questioners often take the quiz multiple times because they're like, I don't know what I would have answered.
It's very context-specific.
It's hard.
Exactly.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And also, questioners often feel like they fit in no category because they're like, well, in this situation, I would react like an apholder.
That's exactly what I felt.
In this situation, I would react like a rebel.
Like questions 11 through 15 where I felt like that, where I can't.
But see, but the thing is, I think it's really helpful to sort of see, okay, so now we know that you're a questioner who tips to upholder, because you're close to that kind of upholder way.
Some questioners look much more like rebels.
But anyway, so I would say to you, one of the things, if you feel like he's not doing what you want, is to give him a reason.
So like with my husband, I remember I would say to him, like, can you stop off at the grocery store and get smoked turkey?
And he would be like...
He wouldn't, because he'd be like, well, why should I? We've got plenty of food at home, and I don't like waiting in the line to get smoked turkey, and if you want smoked turkey, you get wait in the line.
I like your husband.
But if I said to him, our daughter's going on a field trip and needs to pack a brown bag lunch, can you please pick up turkey on the way home?
He would, because he's like...
That's a reason.
That is a perfect example.
That's literally exactly what happens.
If it's an abstract who buy ice and it's winter, why am I going to buy ice?
Just go outside and collect it.
There you go.
We need ice because so-and-so is coming over today.
All right, anyway.
On that note, Gretchen Rubin, her book is called The Four Tendencies.
These are indispensable personality profiles that reveal how to make your life better.
