Speaker 1: Last week, I put my name on the waiting list
Speaker 1: for a puppy. It's been a decision I was umming
Speaker 1: and ring over for the better part of a year,
Speaker 1: and I finally made it in part thanks to my
Speaker 1: interview with Gretchen Ruben. I think of Gretchen as my
Speaker 1: own personal happiness guru. She's the host of the popular
Speaker 1: weekly podcast Happier with Gretchen Ruben and is the author
Speaker 1: of several best selling books, including the massive international bestseller
Speaker 1: The Happiness Project. When I spoke to Gretchen earlier this year,
Speaker 1: I wanted to know how one of the world's most
Speaker 1: famous happiness experts makes decisions to lead to a happier life.
Speaker 1: And Gretchen's methods for making better decisions have helped me
Speaker 1: immensely and also led to me getting a puppy, or
Speaker 1: at least being on the waiting list to get one. So,
Speaker 1: if you have some big decisions to make in your life,
Speaker 1: at work, or just in life in general, it turns
Speaker 1: out that asking to write my questions is often the
Speaker 1: key to making decisions that lead to a happier life.
Speaker 1: My name is doctor Amantha Imba. I'm an organizational psychologist
Speaker 1: and the founder of behavioral science consultancy Inventium, And this
Speaker 1: is how I work a show about how to help
Speaker 1: you do your best work. On today is my favorite
Speaker 1: Tip episode, we go back to an interview from the
Speaker 1: past and I pick out my favorite tip from that interview.
Speaker 1: In today's show, I speak with Gretchen Ruben about how
Speaker 1: she makes her biggest decisions.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm a big pros and cons person, so I
Speaker 2: will make that list, but I have found a super
Speaker 2: useful chest when I have a big decision where the
Speaker 2: pros and cons feel very balanced, and sometimes it's sort
Speaker 2: of like an apple and an orange. So nope, a
Speaker 2: pros and cons list doesn't even really help you. So,
Speaker 2: like we were trying to decide it's a family whether
Speaker 2: to get a dog, like five or six years ago,
Speaker 2: and it's sort of like there's all these pros, there's
Speaker 2: all these cons, but in the end, it's just like
Speaker 2: do you want to have a dog or do you
Speaker 2: not want to have a dog? And I couldn't figure
Speaker 2: out how to decide, and then I realized, So my
Speaker 2: test is choose the bigger life. And I think for
Speaker 2: some people a bigger life would be a life without
Speaker 2: a dog, because They're like, I could travel more freely,
Speaker 2: I'd have more disposable income. I can always get a
Speaker 2: dog later. That's the bigger life. But I knew that
Speaker 2: for my family, the bigger life was to get the dog,
Speaker 2: and so we got our dog. We'd love our dog.
Speaker 2: Barnaby was exactly the right decision. And I've talked to
Speaker 2: people like I talked to someone where he and his
Speaker 2: wife were trying to decide whether they should move to
Speaker 2: be closer to family. So it's like, now we're in
Speaker 2: the big city, it's so exciting, but life is harder.
Speaker 2: We could move back home, and like that's a smaller city,
Speaker 2: so maybe we don't have the same opportunities, but we're
Speaker 2: closer to family and friends, and we're thinking about having
Speaker 2: a family, you know. And it's like pros and cons
Speaker 2: and you go back and forth. And I said, Okay,
Speaker 2: what's the bigger life. Choose the bigger life. And he
Speaker 2: was instantly He's like, the bigger life for us is
Speaker 2: to move back. That's just a bigger life for us.
Speaker 2: It's more opportunity, more friends, more family, like and he
Speaker 2: just knew it right away. And then and then he
Speaker 2: was sort of like, Okay, that's kind of like all
Speaker 2: I need to know, because only you know what the
Speaker 2: bigger life is for you. But it's it's clarifying. I
Speaker 2: think I found it very clarifying.
Speaker 1: What is about the questions that you usually ask yourself
Speaker 1: when you're making decisions about how to spend your time
Speaker 1: or energy, your money.
Speaker 2: Well, I always do say is this going to make
Speaker 2: me happier? And that's how I made my decisions. So
Speaker 2: with that, like anything that goes to relationships, anything that
Speaker 2: deep into relationships or broadens relationships is likely to pay
Speaker 2: off in terms of happiness. Anything that helps me learn
Speaker 2: or grow that you know, the atmosphere of growth is
Speaker 2: so important for happiness. So anything like that is something
Speaker 2: that I would be inclined to do, something where I
Speaker 2: feel like, maybe it's the fantasy self, it's like my
Speaker 2: idea of the kind of person I'd like to be.
Speaker 2: I watch out for that. That's a big warning sign
Speaker 2: for me. My big, my big personal commandment is to
Speaker 2: be Gretchen. And then sometimes I'm like, that just feels
Speaker 2: like me kind of wanting to do something that would
Speaker 2: be a good idea if I were a different kind
Speaker 2: of person, Like by Linen Cocktail napkins because they're on sale.
Speaker 2: What am I thinking? There is no that is not
Speaker 2: Gretchen Linen cocktail napkins, that would not be, that would
Speaker 2: not That's not something to spend my time, money or
Speaker 2: energy on.
Speaker 1: I love your twelve personal commandments. I got to say,
Speaker 1: can you can you talk about some of the other
Speaker 1: ones that I guess that you apply in your life?
Speaker 2: My stuff in well, one of them comes from my father.
Speaker 2: That's enjoy the process. And this is really helpful because
Speaker 2: you know sometimes in life, and this goes back to
Speaker 2: decision making that you were talking about. You know, sometimes
Speaker 2: we can decide to do something that we really do
Speaker 2: not want to do at the time, maybe for years,
Speaker 2: but then we think, oh, there's going to be this
Speaker 2: big payoff. So I've got to like put up with
Speaker 2: all this badness in the in the in the process
Speaker 2: because there'll be this payoff. So I don't like being
Speaker 2: a lot lawyer, and I don't like being an associate
Speaker 2: in law firm, but in seven years I'll be a
Speaker 2: partner and that'll be great. Or I don't enjoy writing
Speaker 2: this book, but one day it'll be a bestseller and
Speaker 2: then it'll all be worth it. The problem with you
Speaker 2: when you don't enjoy the process is that a lot
Speaker 2: of times things don't work out the way we wish
Speaker 2: they did. We're not in control of outcomes. We can
Speaker 2: we can focus on process, but we can't. We can't
Speaker 2: control the outcome. And if you enjoy the process, then
Speaker 2: the disappointment if things don't go your way is less.
Speaker 2: So I wrote a book called forty Ways look at JFK.
Speaker 2: I loved writing that book, and it flopped. It flopped
Speaker 2: so hard. It didn't reach an audience, didn't reach its audience.
Speaker 2: That's what they tell you when your books it fails.
Speaker 2: But I loved writing that book, and you know, I'm
Speaker 2: sad that it didn't find its audience. But I don't
Speaker 2: regret it because I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the process
Speaker 2: so much. But if somebody had said, oh, you should
Speaker 2: write a book about X Y Z, and I had
Speaker 2: had no interest in it, and I had just forced
Speaker 2: myself to do it, thinking like, well, there would be
Speaker 2: a big payoff in the end. So if you can
Speaker 2: enjoy the process, then I always just remind myself and
Speaker 2: also just remind myself like I enjoy the process, Like okay,
Speaker 2: maybe today I don't feel like writing this part, but
Speaker 2: I love writing, like as my sister's a TV writer.
Speaker 2: She has a big sign in her office that says
Speaker 2: it's a fun job and I enjoy it to remind
Speaker 2: herself that she picked TV writing, this is what she wants,
Speaker 2: and then I think. One of the most thought provoking
Speaker 2: happiness project resolutions for me has been to imitate a
Speaker 2: spiritual master. One of my spiritual masters is Saint Trez
Speaker 2: of Lziu, which I'm not even Catholic, but I am
Speaker 2: like obsessed with her book Story of a Soul, and
Speaker 2: in there, Saint Terrez says that when one loves, one
Speaker 2: does not calculate. And so one of my personal resolutions
Speaker 2: is no calculation, because I can be a bean counter, like, well,
Speaker 2: if I did this for you, husband, then you should
Speaker 2: do this for me. And you took a nap yesterday,
Speaker 2: so it's my turn today, you know, and that's just
Speaker 2: not good. You should just give and not calculate. So
Speaker 2: no calculation comes from Saint Teres.
Speaker 1: Thank you sorry much for liceing. And if this is
Speaker 1: maybe your first time listening to how I work, you
Speaker 1: might want to hit subscribe or follow wherever you're listening
Speaker 1: to this podcast from because on Thursday, I've got someone
Speaker 1: that I've been trying to get on the show for
Speaker 1: the better part of a year, Phil Libbon, who co
Speaker 1: founded ever Note, one of the world's, if not the world's,
Speaker 1: most popular note taking software. And I've been a fan
Speaker 1: of Phil's and ever notes for so so long, and
Speaker 1: I highly recommend tuning in on Thursday to hear that episode.
Speaker 1: How I Work is produced by Inventium with production support
Speaker 1: from Dead Set Studios, and thank you to Martin Nimba
Speaker 1: who does the audio mix for every episode and makes
Speaker 1: everything sound better than it would have otherwise. See you
Speaker 1: next time.