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A lot of times people know they want to leave but they don't know where they want to go.
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And for me it was less about leaving law and it was more like wanting to write.
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You know the scene in the original Star Wars where they're in the Millennium Falcon they they they've got the tractor being on be on them and and and Han Solo says we have to [music] stop pulling back because we'll rip the ship apart.
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We have to allow ourselves to be drawn to this destination.
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I just felt like I was in the tractor beam and I was just being drawn so forcibly toward it and I just thought I'd rather fail as a writer than succeed as a lawyer.
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I have a project in mind.
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I'm moving to New York City.
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This is my time to take a shot.
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Welcome to [music] this week's episode of Infinite Loops.
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I am Jimmy Sony, the editor-in chief of Infinite Books, filling in for Jim Oanazy.
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This week's guest is Gretchian Rubin.
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She is the author of multiple bestselling books, [music] probably best known for the number one New York Times bestseller, The Happiness Project.
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[music] Please enjoy this conversation with Gretchen Rubin.
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Well, I have an amazing privilege today, which is I'm here with one of my not just one of my favorite writers, but one of my favorite people in the world, Gretchian Rubin, >> and to to set the scene for people.
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>> This is you and I get together semi-regularly for lunch and >> to talk shop, catch up. >> Yes.
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And the way I describe these lunges to other people is I always tell them that they are like a like a Gretch and Rubin vitamin B shot of of like energy and ideas and inspiration.
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And you you push me to like think more critically about, you know, the platforms I'm on or what I'm doing or talk about this or that.
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And so I'm hoping that our conversation today captures some of that energy because I do think of you as one of these great pushers of ambition and like creativity.
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>> Well, I'm so happy to hear you.
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I feel exactly the same way.
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I feel like I leave our conversations with like homework because I have to go home and like look something up and figure out how to do something.
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And >> she does way less than the first.
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[laughter] >> No, that's the highest praise like I'm actually going to do what you tell me to do. >> Amazing.
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So, I thought what we would do just to give people a sense of, you know, where your your career started and and you know, where your writing career started.
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Um, you were a recovering lawyer.
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Uh, you went to law school.
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So, can you just walk us through kind of how you got from law school to the for the formal work of doing books, but just from from your legal career to your authoral career? >> Okay.
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So, I went to law school for all the classic wrong reasons.
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It was a great education.
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It'll keep my options open.
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I can change my mind later.
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I'm good at research and writing, so I'd probably be good at this. My father's a lawyer.
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Um, so I went to law school.
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Um, did very well in law school.
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I was editor-in chief of the Law Journal, and then I went on to clerk for Sandra Day. Oconor.
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Um but at that time um I was sort of starting to realize that I didn't know what I wanted to do next.
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Um and simultaneously I I have this habit of asking myself theoretical questions just I don't know kind of conversation starters with myself and I was I was out on my lunch break.
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I was looking up at the Capitol dome and I thought what am I interested in that everyone else in the world is interested in.
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And I thought, well, power, money, fame, sex.
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And it was like power, money, fame, sex.
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It was like this one big idea.
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I instantly got incredibly preoccupied with it and started just doing masses and masses of research and note-taking, which is something that happens to me all the time and has happened to me through since I was a child.
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So, this was very familiar.
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So, I was doing all this research, doing all this notetaking, and then finally it occurred to me, this is the kind of thing a person would do if they were going to write a book.
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maybe I could write that book.
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So I went to Kramer Brooks and afterwards in DC and got a book called something like how to write and sell your non-fiction book proposal. >> Oh wow.
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>> And then you know cut to I followed the directions and that's how I got my first agent and that was my first book.
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Power, money, fame, sex, a user's guide. >> Got it. Okay.
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>> So that's and then so that's how I switched from law to writing. >> Got it.
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So what I find interesting about that is the the theoretical question piece.
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How long has that been a habit?
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because you're you're one of the great kind of studyers of habits and you know how do you have you always done that is that something that >> yeah often it will often it will be it will be a question or it might be a word like I went through a period where apocalypse was like a word that I was
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really preoccupied with and I ended up writing this like really bad novel that I have locked in a desk drawer um or um when I was very young I was really interested in the Salem witch trials and so I have like a little notebook that's just my you know, nine-year-old handwriting of sort of like facts about the Salem witch trial. Now, for some
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Now, for some reason, I have this incredible antipathy to any plot having to do with unjust accusation.
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So, I would probably as a result of that, like I would never study the Salem witch trials now, but yeah.
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So, I will and then I got really preoccupied with the subject of color in a way that I really couldn't explain.
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And I was just did enormous amounts of research and I even wrote a little book called My Color Pilgrimage and I would I showed it to a couple editors and they were like, "Well, you really had fun with that, [laughter] didn't you?"
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It's like, "That's not the answer I'm looking for."
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You know, >> you were a child.
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>> So, I turned it into this is okay, Jimmy, you'll appreciate this.
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Like, this is very much a today's solution.
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I was like, I'll adapt that like 30% of that material and I'll make it in for like a bonus for paid subscribers of my substack, right?
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Cuz nobody seems so far nobody wants the entire my color pilgrimage.
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But there's really good stuff in there.
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So, it is something that's happened to me or like I remember with Churchill when I just all of a sudden was just like, oh my gosh, all I wanted to do was think about Churchill morning, noon, and noon, and night.
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And so when I get that, that's when I usually when I start a book. >> That's amazing.
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You reminded me of something which is there are all of these creative people I admire, yourself included, who have projects that they have taken, let's say 40, 60, 80, or even 100% of the way and then haven't had them see the light of day.
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And I do I remember either reading or talking to you about novels that you had unfinished. So that is tantalizing.
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Like what are what are those projects?
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>> Okay, so I they're all finished. They're just bad.
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But one of the things I would warn anybody doing a creative um project is that if you suddenly learn lose interest like call it 80% of the way there if you're all of a sudden like oh I just I'm not interested in this project anymore.
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It's often a fear of failure because if you finish then it becomes like am I going to try to get an agent?
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Am I going to show this to my agent?
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Am I going to show it to anybody?
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Like am I going to admit that this is the best that I can do?
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And so sometimes I think people turn away from it out of self-p protection.
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And so once you get to a certain point and like take it all the way and then let it succeed or fail and like my color pil pilgrimage like let's just say it did not succeed >> in what I wanted for it.
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Um >> but you got a second life now.
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>> I found a as you say you find a second life for things you never know what do they call it saving string where things can end up paying off.
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can end up paying off. But any kind of like I think any for people who are doing creative work anything that you're interested in doing it's like if nothing else it's doing scales if nothing else it's practice if nothing else it's learning and um and not you know every you know the more fail the more success
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means probably the more failures too >> right did the novels come before the non-fiction work or did you like how in what in what sequence were the novels the un the unfinished and I'm sure better than you think >> they're finished they're just Um, you know what it is is I growing up all I read was novels. I was an English major. I was an English major.
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I just read novels all the time and I didn't really I so they were novels of ideas because I didn't really understand that what I wanted to do was write non-fiction.
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So I was trying to channel ideas that I had through fiction.
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>> That's very very hard to do.
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Most good novels are really about character.
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And so once I switched to non-fiction then I sort of stopped writing novels because I found the right vehicle for my the ideas I wanted to express. Yeah.
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I wrote a novel in law school.
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I wrote a novel um about because I was went through a serious period of being absolutely obsessed with the question of why people uh destroy their own possessions.
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>> And I wrote a law school paper about it.
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Then I wrote a novel about it.
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And then I actually published a book called Profane Waste um in as a collaboration with an artist which is all about this question of why people destroy their own possessions.
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So I tried it every which way and then I just ended up with non-fiction.
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>> So this is this is why you will now you are now and will forever be one of my favorite people.
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This is >> because these these are the kinds of rabbit holes that I go down, right?
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>> And I I'll just find myself lost in some some question that possesses you >> and then you ask. >> So delightful. >> Yeah. It's the best.
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And and honestly, I think I think Wikipedia scratched that edge for people who are satisfied with like, you know, 10 to 20%.
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But then there's a whole other level.
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So if you if you rewind the clock, and it may I don't know if you can remember this question of why people destroy their own possessions.
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>> How did you even get to the question itself? >> Oh, I know exactly.
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I was um again I was in DC.
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I was walking my lunch hour.
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This is why it's important to go for walks because you have all these ideas.
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And I went to the one of the I forget the exact title of the museums, but you know how the Smithsonians you can just they're free. You just walk right in.
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>> So I walked in and it was a display about pot latch.
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And pot latch is a tradition of kind of um exorbitant gift giving. It's like the big man.
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giving. It's like the big man. It's it's a like a um we'll give we'll give extravagant gifts and kind of um give away everything as a and and there's a lot of research about why the custom of pot latch existed and then um when trading came in these groups of people
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became had so much wealth that they literally couldn't give it away fast enough and they were throwing like goods into the ocean to because they just anyway but this idea that like people would destroy something as a way to show their possession of it >> just messed with my mind. Okay. Then Okay.
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Then there's another thing that happened. So this is in my mind.
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>> Then something happened where Okay. So I was in law school.
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I was first year of law school.
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So in love with the guy who's now my husband.
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He was an summer associate at a law firm.
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And because I was so in love, I'm like I'll go with you and just like do my own thing while you're doing your, you know, summer associate thing.
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And on our way there there we started we stopped at a corner store and he bought a couple snacks.
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I got a couple snacks and one of the things he got was a piece of cheesecake wrapped in plastic. >> Why? I don't know. So we get there. He does his work.
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We're getting ready to leave and I look in his trash can and I see there's the unopened piece of cheesecake.
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>> And I say, "Oh, I'll fish this out. You never opened it.
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Like you know it's still good."
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And he goes, "No, I don't want it anymore. Just throw it away."
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And this rocked me to my core.
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I'm like, what are you talking about? What just happened?
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>> You just threw it away, >> right?
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>> And I cannot I mean, looking at >> Did he have an explanation or did you >> He's like, "Well, I thought I wanted it. Now I don't want it." >> Oh, wow.
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>> And >> and there was some part of you that was disturbed by this.
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>> Absolutely baffled by it.
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>> Absolutely baffled by it. And so that and then the pot latch this guy and then when I was got to law school and we were talking about property rights and all the bundle of rights that are property I wanted to write a paper about it and a lot and one of my law professors said but people don't want to do that doesn't make any sense why would somebody want to destroy their own property and I was
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like that's exactly my point why do people do this it doesn't make any kind of economic sense anyway so I went talk about a rabbit hole I went deep down there yeah this it's it's it's such an interesting subject
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>> that is that is totally fascinating on a number of levels And did did you at that point you knew you had this curiosity and you knew you had this kind of you you had wanted to sort of take ideas and make them packaged in some way. Novels
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Novels weren't going to be it because novels are based in character.
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So but you also achieved the highest heights of like legal of what someone could do with a legal education like clerking for the Supreme Court.
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That is the that is the NBA of law school graduate edition, right?
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And so so were you ever at any point in your career like surely you were torn to like what might be considered more practical like go down the law like make partner or all of that that track against this following every you know your curiosities.
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How did you how did you deal with that sort of in the tail end of law school and then immediately after?
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>> Well, right after law school I went to work for the Federal Communications Commission.
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So in there I was really like acting as a lawyer.
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Um, I just I didn't know what I wanted.
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>> Um, I noticed that when I would look, you know how you read your alumni notes, you get that like magazine or whatever, and I realized, >> by the way, I don't think most people read their notes.
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I think people like you and I read.
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>> Do you know why I read it, though?
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Do you know the real reason is because I always read it for the It's a It's a It's like the the, you know, momento my because it covers people who are gone. >> It does. It sure does.
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>> And you have this connection to them.
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I'm like I I look at my Duke, >> you know, they're your exact age. >> Exactly.
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And you go back to the end and I always look for the people who are who are un the untimely deceased, the ones who are close to me in age where we had the same experience.
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We lived the same four years at Duke and you know, for some one reason or another, they're here.
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They're not here and I am, right?
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And it kind of invests your time and your life with a bit more significance.
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That's the reason I do it.
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>> That's a great That's a great That's a great reason.
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That's a great I'm going to start doing that, too, because I know exactly what you mean.
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Um, for me it was just curiosity, but I noticed that when people had really interesting law jobs, I felt sort of like mild interest, but when they had really interesting writing jobs, I felt sick with envy.
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So that was one data point.
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But one of the things that really made it easy for me is I think a lot of times people know they want to leave, but they don't know where they want to go.
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>> And for me, it was less about leaving law and it was more like wanting to write.
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And I it wasn't even that I just wanted to be a writer where I think some people are like I'd like to be a writer.
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I'm like I want to write a book called Power, Money, Fame, Sex, and I have done like a thousand hours of research and note-taking about it and I really want to do this project.
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And so it was very clear what it was I was aiming for.
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And I think that made it easier and in my mind it's so you know the scene in the original Star Wars where they're in the Millennium Falcon.
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They they they've got the tractor being on be on them and and and Han Solo says we have to stop pulling back because we'll rip the ship apart.
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We have to allow ourselves to be drawn >> to this destination.
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And I'm like I just felt like I was in the tractor beam and I was just being drawn so forcibly toward it.
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And I just thought I'd rather fail as a writer than succeed as a lawyer.
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I have a project in mind.
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I'm moving to New York City.
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This is my time to take a shot.
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And if I fail, then I'll figure out what I want to do later.
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But if I take another law job now, it might be too hard to switch.
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I will have started to invest so much. >> Yeah.
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>> You already I mean you'd gone and got like you'd run. >> No, I know. Right.
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If I any more investment in it, it starts to become something that you just can't step away from. >> Yeah.
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I like this metaphor of the tractor beam as a way of thinking about creative influences and like things that pull you in.
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Is that something you' consciously thought of in the in the past?
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Like the idea of what's pulling you creatively in a certain direction or another? >> Yeah.
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I mean, I don't know about you, but for me, there is a compulsive element to it, which is incredibly gratifying, but sometimes inconvenient for people or it it's not what they want.
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I think sometimes people feel compelled to do things even though they kind of rationally know it's not a good idea, but they just can't resist it.
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>> I definitely know that feeling.
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>> In your case, though, the the writing of books happens to be a compulsion, but also a positive compulsion.
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It's been very positive for me, but like >> let's say I couldn't afford to take a risk.
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Um then maybe I would have had to make a different choice and then it would have been extremely painful for me not to have been able to write the books that I wanted to write. >> Right?
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So we're going to bounce around a little bit chronologically, but you know, one of the things that that is true of the writers I know is at one point or another their childhood was consumed by books, right?
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Um not everyone, but I would say there's a pretty high overlap. Like it's like 90 plus%.
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What was your childhood relationship to books like?
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Like how did you >> I read all the time but I but I read non-fiction. I mean not non-fiction.
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I read fiction all the time.
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No, I was a huge huge reader. Huge >> read.
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Spark that in you or was that uh how did that start for you?
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>> My whole family are readers and so it's like a very like we would go to the library every week and it was a really big deal but um so I saw people reading for pleasure.
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We had a lot of books in our house.
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But um but it was yeah I I I I remember like they had to um tell me I had to go outside for a certain amount of time when I was little because otherwise I would just stay indoors and read all the time.
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So they were like no you have to go out for you know 45 minutes every every afternoon after school. >> Yeah.
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>> Did you have favorites growing up?
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Do you remember some of your favorite readings? >> A million bazillion.
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And you know I still have a love of children's literature and young adult literature.
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I'm in two adult groups where we read young adult literature and children's literature.
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So, but then but I was also one of those kids who started reading adult books very early.
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Janeire, you know, I remember Janeire being like the first sort of really adult book that I read.
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>> Um, and then, you know, all of the trashy novels that you're not supposed to read when you're young, but yeah, even like and not even really understanding books like, >> you know, David Copperfield, but wanting to read adult books.
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>> And so, for me, the the books that change or that like engrossed me.
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We had a bunch, but it was the the Moss Flower and Madameo series by Brian Jacqu was one that stood out for me and I remember just being able to like lose myself in them for hours and like sometimes I'd like look up and all of a sudden like day had turned to night and I didn't even realize was >> what were the Do you have if you have titles in mind from when you were a kid? What were those for you?
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Did you have anything that like stood out?
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>> It's such a basic answer, but I have to say Narnia. >> Oh, really?
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That's not a basic answer. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
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I love and and the thing is I still admire CS Lewis tremendously as an adult writer too.
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So >> I mean one of the things I love about children's literature is that a lot of them are masterpieces of literature on their own terms and it's you know great great writers doing you look at something like Charlotte's Web.
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It absolutely will stand up to any adult novel you know and just like his adult work does >> his so does his children's work. Yeah.
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>> So fast forward this is a bit of a tangent but you're you know you became a parent.
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How did you encourage this in your daughters?
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How what's their relationship with the reading like?
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Like how do you think about the the parenting parent as reader trying to inculcate a love of reading into kids?
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>> That's such a great question. Asking for a friend. Asking for a friend.
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But your child is a big reader already.
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You don't have to fan those flames.
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I kind of think a little bit as people have to find their way to it.
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>> Um but it's interesting because my two daughters who are now in their 20s, I would say didn't read a lot for pleasure, but now they are much more.
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And even my my 21-year-old was like came home from for college break and was like, I want to read I want to spend the summer reading classics.
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I feel like I haven't read enough of the classics.
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So maybe people come to it later.
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>> But I think >> you didn't you didn't do it.
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You didn't there weren't active steps you do other than having books around and being an author and all >> and talking about it and having people talk about my husband's a huge reader too.
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He reads a lot of policy.
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He reads a lot of very contemporary fiction.
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So it was always like people were always talking about it and you know um but I think the more you sort of try to make people do things then it you you I worry about igniting the spirit of resistance right >> because it's supposed to be fun.
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The reason you do it is because it's fun.
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Oh but one thing I will do is like I I will be like have you read the secret history you know like give them something that you know is going to be like really high payoff like a really really good book.
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>> Did you write as a child? Did you write stories? Did you do that?
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You didn't write for the school paper or anything like that?
19:57
>> Oh, well, I wrote for the school paper, but only just like in a very peruncter way.
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Not like, oh, I'm going to be a journalist or anything.
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I've never had the desire to be a journalist. >> Got it.
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So, it was always ideas and just rabbit holes that you were going down. Yeah.
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And then sort of how to work backwards from there. >> Yeah. Okay. So, just on my own. Yeah.
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>> So, let's go through the first book in in some detail, the process of the first book.
20:17
Um because I think I we're you know we'll recommend your books and people should check them out and we'll talk more about them toward the end of the interview.
20:22
But the the question I have is the first book is like the the big threshold.
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You you don't really these are like so you sort of have these book-like objects you know that theoretically somebody is behind him right like somebody does something. >> Yes.
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>> So you went and bought a book called how to write your first non-fiction book >> book proposal. >> Proposal, right?
20:42
So walk us >> because as you know like one thing I think a lot of people don't understand is like writing a proposal is very different from writing a book and getting an agent is probably harder than actually getting a book deal.
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>> So it's very the the challenge of like being sort of a traditionally published author is very front-loaded. >> Yeah.
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But you're doing this in an era of so I had the equivalent experience.
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So my my story of the first book is I googled how to write a non-fiction book for Russell. Right.
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But you had to go to Kramer's and buy a book buy. Right.
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So what was that what was that like?
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How did you know that the idea had merit?
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You know, now you can test ideas.
21:15
You can put things on Substack, you can put things on Medium, you can put things on LinkedIn, right?
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How did you even know to go down that road?
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>> Just the utter commitment.
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Like I just I it just felt irresistible.
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>> But you know, one thing that's happened to me over and over in my career is I'll have an idea and I'll be like, "This is an amazing idea. This is so fascinating.
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Everybody's gonna love this idea."
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And people will be like, "Yeah, I don't really get it.
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I don't really think so."
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And so I often end up writing almost an entire book before I write a proposal because I feel like I have to have it so well developed in my mind before I can describe it in a way that other people see its potential.
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Like the happiness project, my current project, power, money, fame, sex.
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I really had to do a huge amount of >> it's very hard to describe what you're going to do.
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I think so I often end up which is then I often end up throwing out just a gigantic amount of material because I may have completely changed my entire structure. Yeah.
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>> You know that that has happened to me many times.
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I have many many versions almost complete versions of things that then I was like no this isn't the right approach >> and I've had to recast it.
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>> Have you ever taken a project that far and just abandoned it entirely? Like no. >> No.
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So something's always netted out from the work you've done. Yeah.
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So I think sometime well I wrote a book called life in five senses and >> it's about life in five senses and at first >> it's a beautiful book by the way. >> Well thank you. Thank you.
22:41
I love writing that book.
22:42
But so first there were nine senses and I wrote it for nine senses and I'm like no actually there's 11 senses and I wrote it for 11 senses and I was having all this trouble and I was like do I divide it into sub things and like what about this? What about that?
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Which ones are like which ones are different?
22:54
And then I was I was just sort of like, you know, sometimes you can into it by by extroverting and you just I was just like talking it out with somebody and they said, "Maybe you just want to do five senses."
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And I was like, "Oh my gosh, this is the biggest insight of all time."
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Like went home like really just like re threw away everything that didn't fit.
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Just did five senses, which if I had gotten a board book for a three-year-old, it would have been seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching the five senses.
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And that was the structure I ended up with.
23:20
the structure I ended up with. But it took me so long to sometimes you have to write through that like you have to understand like why is this what you know why am I writing but this and not that >> how does this all >> you know how does proprioception how what are my thoughts and feelings about
23:36
proprioception turns out yeah I don't have to go into that so much >> so when you open up this book how to write your first non-fiction book proposal what was the process like between that and getting an agent just like you know brass tax cuz you're you're not just you Now, if you and I were to work on a proposal, it's we've seen we've seen it done. We know what we're doing. We can
23:55
We know what we're doing.
23:55
We can kind of approach certain we know what the method is like, but you're doing it for the first time.
24:01
>> There is a strange variety like I do feel like there are many many different ways people do proposals.
24:05
There's like do you do 40 pages or do you do four pages?
24:10
Do you do you know anyway? Yes.
24:12
But we know that those questions exist, >> right?
24:14
But you were you're dealing with unknown unknowns then or at least sort of semi-known unknowns.
24:17
I knew no and I [clears throat] knew no writers.
24:20
I remember when it was a huge thing for me.
24:22
I'm like it was like on my list of you know like life goals.
24:25
It was like make friends with writers.
24:26
Of course like now I know so many writers I can't count.
24:31
>> Now you're like I need friends who are not writers because they annoy me and invite me to do podcast like >> this is so exciting. Um, no.
24:35
But, uh, yeah, I felt like but I was lucky.
24:38
I had a few friends from college who were just like starting off in that world themselves is like very very early, but they were able to like give me list of names.
24:49
>> And so I I did have that like I had I had like who would I send it to? Cold. >> Right.
24:55
>> And then did you was it sort of the first you had already written a lot of material and then condense it into a proposal and then sent it off. >> Yeah.
25:02
>> And so what was the moment like when you had your first agent conversation or when the agent said yes?
25:05
Oh my gosh, it was the hugest moment of my life.
25:07
I mean, I think it it was probably the most important moment because it is the moment where you are you're you're not an amateur anymore because even before I got paid, I was like, time is money and this person saying they'll they'll represent me means that they're putting their time in me.
25:25
This means that I am like >> I'm on the first rung of being a professional writer. So, it was huge huge.
25:32
And I still have the same agent now that I >> still the same agent all these years later. >> All these years. All these years. Yeah.
25:37
>> Did they do you remember any of the like specifics of what they kind of told you after they read the proposal like or did they make changes like how much of a gap was there between what you pitched to the publisher and what you ultimately did with the book?
25:51
>> I think it was pretty close. >> It was pretty close.
25:53
In general, my agent is really good at saying something's not good enough, which is a very useful thing.
26:02
It's not always the most welcome thing.
26:04
I'm not always like eager to open her emails.
26:05
Um, but she like, you know, I remember with the Happiness Project, I remember her writing something and she was like, "I'm so sorry to write this, >> but I just don't think it's there yet." >> Wow. >> Yeah. >> Wow.
26:20
>> And has he has her feedback generally as a tuning fork been pretty useful for you? Oh, absolutely. Yeah.
26:23
No, I think she's got a really, really good sense of >> what's missing, which I think is often hardest to see as the writer.
26:31
You don't see what you've left out >> because it Well, you've left it out.
26:37
So, for some reason, it's just like that's something that's in your vision. >> Or tone problems.
26:41
Sometimes you get the tone wrong, like you're trying to be funny, but it's not landing or you're not seeing that you need to find a moment of lightness.
26:50
So, I think that that's where her that's and then she'll do like a line edits and stuff, but um but yeah, it's more those big picture things.
26:59
>> Did you um talk to multiple agents or did you kind of find one that really understood you?
27:04
>> I did talk to multiple agents.
27:04
I was just thinking I was just telling somebody the other day, do you remember Judith Rean? >> Yeah. >> Okay. Yeah. Yeah.
27:12
Like, you know, like huge big personality.
27:14
And so, my first book is called Power Money, Fame, Sexy Users Guide.
27:19
And it's kind of like if you imagine the preppy handbook being combined with Mchavelli, right?
27:22
And it's written like a how-to guide.
27:24
It's very much and I've always been sort of enchanted by the how-to format.
27:27
So it's written and it's kind of like right on the line between is it satire or is it real real like you know and so anyway, but it's very very dense because it's written in this like how to guide book format.
27:40
And Judith Rean said to me, she pointed to a page and she said, "Too many ideas."
27:45
And I remember thinking that is the most preposterous thing.
27:49
It's like that scene in in Amadeus where he's like too many notes.
27:52
I'm like what do you mean too many notes?
27:56
You can't have too many ideas. That's what we all want.
27:58
But now I realized that was actually like a really profound insight. Like I write too tight. I cut too much. I need to loosen. I need to open it.
28:05
Ever since like that's something that I've So um no.
28:07
So I talked to like nine agents I think at that time.
28:12
>> And what made you want to pick the one you went with just to get very tactical?
28:16
>> [sighs] >> If you can think back, >> I think she just felt like she understood what I was trying to do.
28:19
Like she got why it was funny.
28:20
She got why it was interesting.
28:22
She wasn't trying to fundamentally change it.
28:23
You know, sometimes my sister writes for Hollywood and there are these moments where they're like, "We love it.
28:28
It's wizard school, but let's set it in Wall Street, you know, and you're like, okay, I I don't really see."
28:34
So sometimes you do get or just like their taste.
28:35
Like sometimes people have a taste where you're thinking, "I don't want to be fighting their taste."
28:43
Um, so I just felt like we were the most like uh in sync in terms of like her response and everything.
28:49
So, >> and so you you send the proposal to the agent.
28:53
I remember this process and they then you know it at the time especially it was much more of a black box.
28:57
Like you you don't know you don't know what they do.
29:00
You don't know what cocktail part they're going to takes forever. >> It takes forever. What was it like?
29:03
Like did you how did you land on the publisher you found?
29:07
Like what was that process like?
29:09
Like did they did you have multiple offers?
29:10
How did you you remember back to what happened?
29:14
>> Gosh, isn't that crazy?
29:14
I don't even remember if I had multiple operas.
29:16
I'm still really good friends with my first editor, Greer Hendendricks, who now herself is like a very like, you know, like a number one best-selling author of psychological thrillers.
29:24
Um, so she's still in my life as well.
29:26
I might have only gotten one offer for that.
29:28
And I remember like, you know, somebody said like, well, how much did you get?
29:31
And I'm like, I would have done it for free if they if they had said like, we're paying you zero dollars, but we will publish it. I I'll take that deal. >> Yeah.
29:39
I I always tell authors too, just write the proposal.
29:41
Like it it's it's not you don't you don't really lose that much if you're trying to put a non-fiction book project together and you you know you could go one of two ways.
29:51
Your way is far it requires far more like it's actually much more admirable in some ways.
29:55
You sort of write the book fully through.
29:57
But I will say like I'm not in I don't have to do like things like traveling to do interviews like a lot of non-fiction authors there's a huge financial thing whereas I'm really writing more of an essaistic thing where it's my time and it's like money that I don't have in my pocket now but I'm not pay you know >> paying to do the proposal >> because a lot of people they have enormous expenses associated with >> actually writing the book. >> Yeah.
30:21
But I would I tell authors too that the proposal does help you clarify like even if you're going to self-publish, even if you're gonna do anything. >> 100%. Right.
30:27
No, you everybody wants to skip that stage because you're like, why should I waste my time on a proposal?
30:32
Let me just skip to the book.
30:32
But you're right, it can save you.
30:33
A lot of times I think people write a proposal and they realize it just doesn't it just doesn't hold up >> and then you've saved yourself >> tons of grief and you actually are forced to get the structure down.
30:44
I mean, you're forced to do >> like much of the book. >> Yes.
30:49
>> Yes. that you know even getting style advice like I remember >> pacing like you can look and say like oh this book is really out of pace like too much of it is in two chapters but I'm saying there's 10 chapters like I have to that's you can't have a book like that >> and I would say even the comp titles
31:08
then force you to make the argument about why your book is different and I was going to ask you about that book that project in particular because it's not like you're the first person to write about those four themes right so what in your head back then what were you trying how are trying to position it to make it different. >> Well, part of it that it was this really
31:20
>> Well, part of it that it was this really like how to how to do these things >> and it's written and it is it's um it's written in a in a in a particular tone.
31:32
It is very distinctive whether or not you like it.
31:33
It's a it's a distinctive book. Yeah.
31:36
>> When you go back, what was the So, you get the deal.
31:38
Do you remember any of those moments like when you find out that you're going to do it and then because there there is a moment where you figure out you have the deal and you're like, "Uhoh, I'm like the dog that caught the car." >> Right. Right. Right.
31:47
Did you have that feeling at all? >> Oh, no.
31:50
Just like so happy to be just Yeah.
31:52
But you know, I mean to your point about the like kind of the confusion around the the the process.
31:56
One of the things I and I often will say this to people who are on the publishing side, I'm like people know how to be an a writer, but they don't know how to be an author.
32:06
Like they don't know what trim size is.
32:08
They don't know what um trade publishing is.
32:10
They don't know what a pub date is.
32:12
pub date is. they don't know like what first run is or first serial um or like promo copy you know there's all these things that you don't understand and I think a lot of times they don't know what you don't know and I do remember a lot of it just feeling like oh I'm
32:30
supposed to know so much more about this process and feeling like I shouldn't just say oh I don't I I really don't know what that word is or I don't know you're asking me a question but I don't know the I don't know the implications of my answer right >> like I remember somebody who was who
32:43
self-published and they changed the number of pages >> and then when she got the book the quality of the paper was lower than they had agreed to and they said but you raised the page count and that meant the quality of the paper had to change and she's like but I didn't know the implications of that decision so you
33:01
don't know again you don't know what you don't know so now I try to really just admit like >> I don't know what you're asking I don't know what that means even now >> it's an interesting uh you know I had a similar experience because I don't know if you felt this way. I certainly felt
33:14
I certainly felt this way.
33:15
You get the first deal >> and you you do feel a bit like you're like I got away with something, right?
33:22
Like like I sold this thing to you.
33:24
You're about to give me money and you don't know that I have no idea what I'm doing. >> Right. Right. Here I go.
33:29
>> And so then so then you start doing it and they will ping you with things or send you terms of art within the publishing world >> and you don't want to reveal to them that you have no idea what you're doing.
33:41
You just try to figure out just like no the pub date. I got it. Okay, we're good.
33:44
And then you're like furiously trying to look up like what the answer to the question is.
33:46
I think this actually drives a lot of authors to drink.
33:49
Like [laughter] >> it's a pub date for a reason.
33:52
>> Well, it's a good thing.
33:52
You you you do find yourself like having to fake it, especially if you're getting started.
33:57
You don't know what you don't know what you don't know.
33:59
And then worse is you don't know.
34:00
You always have this persistent fear, at least I did with my first book of if I say the wrong thing, they will wake up to me being an imposttor, take the deal away and say, "What business do you have doing this kind of work?" Right. Um, yeah.
34:10
Did you was any of that part of your experience of writing the book?
34:14
So, once you go through the deal, you're done with the deal, we've gotten past the deal, now you're in the writing.
34:18
What was that process like?
34:20
Like, how did you Because this is your first time out.
34:22
>> It was my first time out. Yeah.
34:22
Like I remember not understanding like something like First Pass.
34:27
I don't I still am like remind me what about first pass.
34:31
Um for me a huge thing and I didn't know this until I was like on my third book.
34:37
So this is this is um the kind of thing you learn the hard way is um there is a there there's a point at which you can make lots of changes.
34:44
You can change anything what you want.
34:46
You could add an entire huge chapter.
34:47
You could change the ending.
34:48
You can do anything you want.
34:49
Then there comes a point where your window is starting to close.
34:54
Then there comes a point where you're looking at it, but they're only going to fix a mistake, a typo, a factual error.
35:02
Um, and they might charge you even for that.
35:05
And then there's a point where they're like, if you do it is the hugest, biggest deal.
35:10
And what I also learned is every time you go into a draft and make a change, you introduce an opportunity for error because something goes wrong.
35:20
there's an there's a stray like punctuation piece that doesn't get caught or you use the same word two sentences above but you forgot to check because you just added this one thing and you didn't realize you just used the word pageant or whatever.
35:32
So, one thing I've learned is like you need to watch I need to watch that very carefully.
35:38
Like what what stage of editing am I in?
35:40
Because I will edit edit edit every single thing up until the last minute.
35:44
I would never just say oh it's done pencil's down.
35:48
>> Oh, here's a question for you.
35:48
Somebody just asked me this question.
35:50
Let's say you submit a draft to your editor.
35:52
Okay, so it's with your editor.
35:56
>> Are you like, "Okay, now I am going to take a break for the book, >> right, >> while it's in their hands."
36:00
Are you like, "I will continue to edit myself and then I'll just incorporate their edits into whatever I've done, right?"
36:07
>> It never even occurred to me to stop editing my own work.
36:10
I'm like, "Of course, I'm going to edit every single day.
36:14
I'm not going to wait for them, right?" >> Yeah. >> No.
36:17
Somebody was like, "That's why would you do that? That's bonkers."
36:19
I'm like, I Okay, what what's your fault?
36:23
>> Okay, so this is the thing is that you you and I are wired very similarly in this way, but it is also an editor's nightmare to have this happen, right?
36:30
Like in the sense where the diverging where the diverging well because I'm like you.
36:34
As soon as I turn it into them, >> you're like immediately thinking, >> okay, let's like go back and revise every chapter and like blow things up and twist things around >> because you got this time. You can't wait. Yeah, >> you can't wait.
36:43
And the thing, so I would say one is I know you you probably feel this way as well.
36:48
No one is going to invest the time into my book that I will. Full stop. My name's on the front.
36:54
I live and die by the words in it.
36:56
>> You're thinking about it morning, noon, and night. >> I can't tell you.
36:58
I mean, for most of the books I love, I probably couldn't tell you who published them.
37:01
With a couple exceptions, I know sometimes like just because of the way we're in the industry, I know some of the editors that are putting out the the work I like.
37:07
Like, but for the most part, most listeners aren't going to know who published The Last Grave unless they looked at the smite of the book.
37:12
I know I'm going to live and die by the words.
37:16
And I know that I'm going to obsess over them like nobody's business. And here's the thing.
37:20
I think there's there's there's the way publishers tell you that the editing ought to go, which has a rhyme and reason, by the way.
37:25
Like there's a reason why they do things the way they do.
37:27
And I have found that that process is actually first rate.
37:30
Everything kind of postcopy editing production with traditional publishing is actually phenomenal, right?
37:34
But I have found that like we're ultimately dealing with a PDF and and in 2026 like making those changes is not that big of a deal.
37:44
Like there's ways to around it.
37:46
I edit right up until the goal line.
37:46
I edit until I can edit no more.
37:49
I like if it were possible to edit in the hour before it was sent to China to get I would because you're constantly like that verm is kind of you know uh vague.
38:00
I can I can strengthen that or like oh I thought of a or like for me I use a lot of examples.
38:04
So if I that I get from real life and so sometimes I'll just get a much better example from life.
38:08
So I'm like well I want to swap this example for that example because it's just a stronger more interesting version of the point that I'm trying to make.
38:15
Um or you just have an original idea and you're like oh I want to I I want to layer that in.
38:21
>> And I would frame it differently.
38:21
And this is true of all creative work.
38:22
For me it's it's just a touch different.
38:24
me it's it's just a touch different. the specifics matter what you just said about word choice and about but I actually think what happens is if you have a deadline where you're supposed to send something into an editor you pour an enormous amount of energy into everything leading up to that moment right and you sort of give it your all it can be this like whole body experience of editing your friends can't talk to you like sort of can't
38:43
communicate with the rest of the species your family starts to resent you a little bit you drive and drive and drive and drive and let's say it's like a Monday at 5:00 and you press send Monday at 5 and you send them to draft you're
38:53
so fried at at least for For me, I'm so fried at the end of that process that if I take if I take a day or two, the editing I do after that is better often than the editing I did at the tail end of that crazy marathon. So, I take a day
39:05
So, I take a day or two break, but then I get right back at it because I'm bringing better, you know, energy to it than I was before.
39:13
So, I actually think of it as super important to go back and dive into the draft as opposed to walking away from it because I in that state, I don't know what I was doing in the 72 hours leading up to the deadline.
39:21
Maybe it was good, maybe it was bad.
39:23
I frequently find it wasn't that good.
39:25
And so I think it's an energy management thing.
39:26
My energy goes all the way to the to empty like right up until the deadline and then it sort of fills up in the day or two after and I'm ready to look at the project with fresh eyes and and ultimately I the line I always use like everybody wins like we're going to we're going to sell books will be great. >> No, no, no.
39:43
It's better to have a better book as always.
39:44
Well, one thing I want to do too, um, is read the book aloud, and that takes a lot of time.
39:50
And so, um, like that's the kind of thing that's good.
39:54
Nobody's going to do that other than you.
39:56
Um, and so that's the kind of thing also that you can do when you're sort of in that downtime because it takes a it takes a lot of time to do it.
40:04
>> Um, and a lot of focus, but um, >> you can kind of do it at, you know, in in in that in in that period.
40:11
>> So, you go right back into editing as soon as you turn it in and start to dive right back in.
40:14
Well, and I don't even really have a deadline.
40:15
So, what I'll say to my editor is like, I will edit right up until the time. I'm ready now.
40:21
What I have now is a complete draft, but I will continue to edit it.
40:22
So, when you're ready to read it, tell me and I will give you the most up-to-date draft.
40:28
Because if you're not going to read it for a week, >> it's already going to be changed by the time.
40:31
So, for me, the deadline is always, >> okay, I'm ready to read it now. Tell send it to me.
40:36
And then, so they'll have the most up-to-date one >> and then and then.
40:39
So I So for me the deadline is just a >> suggestion.
40:44
It's it's like now I'm what by when do you need to have it be ready for you?
40:49
And a lot of times I find editors really aren't ready.
40:50
Like they might say I'll be ready in early this month but then they have something that came in that needed a lot more work than they expected.
40:58
Um and so they're not really ready right then.
41:00
So I always feel like it's good to say >> and I think >> when are you ready for me?
41:06
>> Well and I think the the publishing industry is pretty accustomed to delays, right?
41:09
Like it's it's it's like you can always move it back, you can't move it forward.
41:12
I followed that rule sometimes in a reckless way.
41:14
Like I I actually got charged for additional editing.
41:16
I was one of those people because I edited during my first and second and third pass pages.
41:21
Like I was but then but then don't do it at home.
41:25
Really don't there's a point where they get very very cranky. >> Yeah.
41:31
I would say that being on the other side of it, I understand why they get cranky.
41:34
And at the same time, there's a writer I really admire, Eric Larson, who talks about how he edits his first and second and third.
41:39
And I was like, you know, if it's good enough for Eric, it's good enough for me.
41:42
Like, um, because there there was something.
41:44
What I would say is the reason that authors edit the first and second and third pass pages sometimes more aggressively than a word document or a Google doc or something else is because we're finally seeing it laid out on the page.
41:56
>> It makes a huge difference.
41:57
>> I don't know if you've had that experience. It sounds like you have.
41:58
No, I I funnily enough, I think anything that you do that changes the way it looks, like if you print it out, you'll pick up completely different things.
42:04
If you read it out loud, you'll pick up different things.
42:07
You could put it in a different font because I feel like my font kind of looks like my handwriting.
42:11
And if I even But there is something hugely psychologically >> when it it's laid out and it looks like a Xerox of a page of a book.
42:17
No, in fact, that's a really good point.
42:20
I mean, I'm sure now we could easily do that ourselves. >> Oh, yeah. It's a really good idea. I want to do that. >> It's much easier.
42:27
And I actually done it >> just just because, as you say, you pick up a completely you have a completely different sense of your book. >> Well, you do.
42:33
And also, by the way, the the the simplest example, and it happens all the time, is you write a paragraph and you think it's short, but it turns out to be really long.
42:40
The only time you realize it's really long, is when you see it in your first pass pages.
42:43
You look at it and you're like, "This is a giant block of impenetrable text that nobody is going to want to go through in 2026, right?
42:50
Like, this is we don't we don't have these kinds of attention spans.
42:53
I need to take this create an indent and and I'm only going to know that when the first pass pages come around. >> Yeah.
42:59
And the way where where your line edits fall uh I mean your line breaks fall whether your headers are working.
43:03
I think a lot of things do become you just it a lot of stuff sort of that's a really good idea.
43:11
I'm going to do that like figure out how can I make it look or maybe they can do it just like we'll just do it to you as a favor. Yeah.
43:18
>> Like just to kind of fake it. a fake first pass.
43:20
Half fast rag is that would be a real that's a really good stage.
43:26
>> It's it's a great stage and it's also it's >> save them time.
43:29
>> It'll save them time later.
43:29
It's also an important stage.
43:30
Like it it really is like you look at it differently.
43:32
You feel differently about it.
43:34
I've I've actually cut chapters in half.
43:37
>> You've got to publish.
43:37
You've got to introduce the half past pages. >> We've got to Yeah.
43:41
This will be our among our many invasions. It'll be another one.
43:44
another one. The the thing the thing about it though if people don't realize that that when you're when you are have stared at something as often as your own words on the page the change in form matters a great deal >> so much >> it is the only way to see them aresh you
43:59
don't otherwise you're just looking at the same document the same way and so for me I do this thing I have a tracker for every chapter of a book and it has read aloud question mark printed question mark printed edit question mark and like uh what was it Oh, mobile. So, So, I read on my phone.
44:15
So, I also >> I've never done that.
44:19
>> So, let's nerd out for a second. So, here's why.
44:21
There's two there's two or three reasons why.
44:23
The first is people are reading on smaller format devices. That's 100% true.
44:28
>> And so, you have people will download the book to Kindle.
44:29
They'll have their Kindle sync to their phone.
44:32
>> But even a Kindle is a smaller format than reading in a book.
44:34
So, you're already there multiple sizes.
44:37
>> So, that's one reason is PE my reader readers are reading that way.
44:39
The second reason is an interesting one.
44:41
If you're if you're working in Google Docs like I am, but I'm sure this is true of any software you're editing on, you can find a mobile version.
44:47
When you're in your phone, you actually like because of the way we text and because our like thumbs are doing a lot of thinking, I find that I write differently.
44:56
And so when you're reading something on a phone in Google Docs, you're kind of having this experience of like, what if this was being what if this passage was being texted to a friend? Does it work?
45:04
And so it's actually like it's a way to to sort of look at it and be like, you know, this could be tighter, this could be shorter, this could be more succinct.
45:11
It it pushes you in the direction of being succinct. That's reason two.
45:17
>> That's like really because a lot of times I well in my this is the training as a lawyer that I always have to push back is a lot of times my first is like really kind of like long and wordy and it's like pull it back, pull it back, be more succinct, speak more clearly.
45:30
That's a really good point.
45:30
The other reason is if you turn off your notifications, which it should anyway, you you realize that on a computer, it's much easier to be distracted because you have to make an affirmative choice to open up a new tab or like change software to like it's a real choice for some reason to me on on a computer to go and be distracted.
45:48
Like you I'm sorry, it's not it's a much easier choice on a computer to be distracted than it is on a phone.
45:53
Because with a phone, I find that if I've got the notifications off and I'm looking at that document on my phone, there's something about it that's much more it compels me to focus on it as opposed to like, oh, I could just like drift off and do this or drift off and do email or anything.
46:07
The final reason is simple.
46:08
I have my phone with me all the time, so I can always be editing.
46:12
Like you're on the subway, you can edit.
46:13
You're waiting for a friend at a restaurant, you can edit.
46:15
You can edit in all these like little confetti minutes, right, that like you just sort of track during the day.
46:19
And I find that for me, editing on the phone has actually become a big part of getting books to just be snappier, be more succinct.
46:26
It's a totally different way of looking at it.
46:28
>> That is such a good idea.
46:28
I'm going to I'm going to instantly do that.
46:29
I had never thought of that because I know I always read books and paper, >> right? Same.
46:35
>> I always >> and I'm old school in that way.
46:35
Like so it didn't it just it didn't occur to me, but 100% I know you're exactly right.
46:39
Um and it's just any any ch anything that switches it up reveals new problems basically.
46:47
One question I have not about just your first book but about projects in general.
46:51
There are lows in projects, right?
46:53
So you and I have talked about the highs, right? We covered the highs.
46:57
>> Did you have with your first book or with subsequent books, do you have a a method or a way of dealing with the moments when you feel stuck or when you're like, I don't know if this is going to work or that kind of thing or do you just like breeze through? No.
47:06
If I feel stuck, I um I will just get up and walk around.
47:12
Um so I I won't like persist in something that I'm stuck in.
47:17
I'm a big believer of like the unconscious mind will will be working on something.
47:21
Um, so like let's say let's say I'm in a late stage of editing and so like I have five problems left to solve the and these are the hardest problems because they're the ones I do all the easy ones first.
47:31
>> So I might just like look at them and think about them and then walk away or or you know let a day go by and try and try them again and then if I still can't solve them like sort of repeat.
47:42
So, I'm like in the problem and trying to and trying to and really pushing myself to try to solve it.
47:47
But if I haven't solved it, then I'll get up, walk around.
47:49
I'm also really really a morning person.
47:51
So, I get up at 5:30 and from 5:30 to 9:00 is the best time for my thinking.
47:56
So, anything that's hard, I do then.
47:59
So, if I have a hard problem, I'll sort of skip it and save it to do it first so I can do it first thing in the morning because that's my by far my my best time.
48:06
Um, but yeah, I think there's always there's always problems.
48:14
There's always things when you're like, I don't this is something I should incorporate, but I don't see how or where it should go or how you would even broach it or it's like a complicated idea that's hard to succinctly convey.
48:26
You know, when you're when you're in the middle, >> some kind of pervasive issue you got to tackle.
48:31
When you're in the middle of a project, I have the challenge of sometimes you're you sort of, you know, you want to dance with the girl that you brought, but then you have this other project.
48:39
Like there's always the other projects that you're like a hookie book. That's what I have.
48:44
>> That's a great that's a great one.
48:45
>> I often have a hookie book. Yes. No.
48:45
My when I was writing better than my book about habit formation, my hookie book was a book that turned into outer order, inner calm. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. >> Wow.
48:55
So, how do you how do you prevent yourself from going to and turning the hookie book into the the Right. Right. Right.
49:02
That it is you've got to remember it's a hockey book for me.
49:05
It's all about note-taking.
49:07
So note-taking is a big is a big thing for me.
49:08
So I will let myself take notes on it like and I'll I might read for it and take put notes into it but I would never allow myself to like begin to structure it because once I'm structuring then I'm like okay now now I'm really tackling it as a book.
49:21
But because I always start with a bunch of notes, having a bunch of notes, >> then when I'm ready to start writing, then I I have this like huge head start.
49:31
So, it it's a good use of my time.
49:33
>> But you're right, you've got to make sure that it doesn't it doesn't swallow up what your what your main project is.
49:39
>> Well, and on and sometimes, by the way, hookie books can yield something amazing, as you put it, you know, like you you can have a I just I find that that that is a it's tempting because the beginning of these projects is some of the best. >> Yeah. Okay.
49:50
So there's beginners and there's openers and finishers. Okay.
49:52
So openers are people who love to open a project.
49:57
So like they love the beginning stages.
49:58
They love to start something new.
50:00
Like I talked to a professor and he's like I have like h seven halffinish you know new curricula for new classes cuz he loved to open but then there and then finishers are people who love to end. They love to finish.
50:12
And both of them have pros and cons because openers sometimes don't finish and so they don't get like the benefits of their work and they can get distracted because they're pulled in so many directions.
50:21
But finishers sometimes they just want to be done so badly that they might rush at the end >> um because they're just like, "Okay, I just really want to get this crossed off the list."
50:30
A lot of times it's that last work that's really painstaking and difficult that can really make something go to the next level.
50:36
And sometimes they are too cautious about that what what they start because they think well if I can't finish it maybe I shouldn't start it.
50:44
But sometimes with creativity you kind of have to say like well maybe I'll start it and and maybe it won't go anywhere but I need to just kind of like get it started to see.
50:50
And so I think it's good to know like which one do you lean toward so that you kind of can try to offset that.
51:00
>> Are you an opener or finisher?
51:01
>> I'm a finisher for sure. I'm a finisher.
51:03
I love to cross things off the list and it is it's like towards the end I I feel myself like being like let's just let's just say >> oh here's an edit but I'm just going to decide I don't agree with that edit.
51:14
It's like I actually do agree with that edit. I just want to be done. >> Want to finish? >> Yeah. I want to finish.
51:20
>> There's a there's that expression sort of once you're lucky twice you're good. Right.
51:23
And the first time I did a book I really did feel like I was I mean I knew the book was good but I felt like I got lucky.
51:28
It was the second time where I was like okay I can actually this is a real thing. I know how to do this.
51:31
What did you have a similar experience like? How how was it?
51:34
What was the process like from the first to the second project?
51:37
Because you also changed style. Yeah, I changed style.
51:40
My second book was uh like a short unusual biography of Winston Churchill >> which is it's a fantastic book. It's really great. >> I know.
51:49
I love that book for me and this still is a thing which is are you going to be able to write your next book?
51:55
>> If you're a traditionally published person, that's a concern which is >> you know are you going to get published again?
52:01
um are you going to get a deal again?
52:03
You know, is somebody going to want to publish you again?
52:05
So, I do feel like that and I've never done a two book deal.
52:08
So, I've always faced that which is I'm going out there again, >> right?
52:12
And so, how did you go from power I mean from the power book to to Churchill?
52:17
Like what was that process like?
52:19
>> Well, when I was studying power, I kept coming across these references to Churchill.
52:24
So, then I became very preoccupied with Churchill.
52:25
And then a lot of my books have sort of like like an origin moment.
52:29
And so I was standing at the corner of 69th and 3rd Avenue and um and I said to my husband, you know, you could write a book about Winston Churchill that would just be like the most agilatory thing of all time.
52:40
And you could write a book about Winston Churchill that is so critical of him.
52:46
And both of them could be completely factually accurate.
52:47
And he said, "You could write that book."
52:49
And I was like, "Oh my goodness, I am 100% going to write that book."
52:53
And I had been reading all these biographies.
52:55
So I had all these thoughts about the naturebiography.
52:57
naturebiography. That's another unwritten book that I have I have this enormous collection of quotations about the nature of biography which I could work into something >> which I actually I forgot until this minute I had I should go back and look at that because very cool um but anyway
53:12
so uh 40 ways to look at Winston Churchill is both about Winston Churchill and it's also about the nature of biography >> but how this connected with power money fame sex like in my mind they're very closely associated from a book publishing standpoint they're not closely associated with it but I was just able to pull that off. Yeah. And Yeah.
53:28
And how did did you have to convince coax cajul like you know because you're one of the rare people and this is a true gift that you've managed to like jump from idea to idea but they're very they can be very desperate right like it it there like to to quote the church like the pudding has no theme.
53:44
I know it has a theme and I kind of know that you're following your intuitions and your curiosities but it's not as though you're sort of >> they're all about human nature.
53:50
To me, that's the thing is they're all about how do you and one of the ways you understand human nature is you look at someone like Winston Churchill or JFK and they're just so huge and there's such a vast quantity of information about them that you can study them in a way that you can't study somebody who's just like more a more modest player on the world stage.
54:07
Um so to me they feel very very connected but you're right but from a publishing standpoint they're incredibly desperate.
54:13
incredibly desperate. But I'm surprised that nobody pushed back to say could you do another book on you know power or hey could we take one of the verticals and like really go deeper >> I know I know it's yeah now to me yeah because once I started writing about happiness I have they've all been sort of connected with how do you have a
54:28
happier life >> right >> and it is nice to sort of be building around a core subject >> now with 40 so when I wrote so I wrote 40 ways to look at Winston Churchill it did pretty well I wrote 40 ways to look at JFK and you know when a book flops they tell you or at least My my team tells me your book didn't find its audience. >> So my book didn't find its audience. I
54:48
>> So my book didn't find its audience.
54:48
I wanted to write I wanted to write 40 Ways to look at Richard Nixon.
54:53
>> Oh, >> and that wasn't going to happen.
54:54
It's just like this just wasn't a form.
54:56
I probably would have kept going.
54:58
I wanted to do Ben Franklin.
55:00
I wanted to do Leonardo da Vinci. I wanted to do St. Tresia.
55:02
Um it just it wasn't it wasn't supported by the market.
55:07
>> Why do you think why do you think uh Churchill worked but JFK didn't? >> Okay.
55:11
So I think I have a theory about that.
55:13
So let me tell you what what I think.
55:14
So I think the people that that are interested in JFK are they are either hu they adore Kennedy and admire him tremendously and everything that he stands for in their minds >> or they think they really this you know they think Kennedy was like it was such a fake and he was like doing all this stuff and it's like this dark underside and like what was he getting up to? Yeah.
55:38
>> And so a book that talks about >> the Camelot conspiracy. >> Yeah. Exactly. That's perfectly well.
55:41
That would have be great. Cover cover copy. Yeah.
55:45
You're thinking like a publisher.
55:46
So they don't want to see the other sides.
55:48
They want one or the other.
55:48
They don't want to see both.
55:50
And so like people would look at this and they're like, I don't want that.
55:52
Whereas I think the people who come to Churchill.
55:54
So when I wrote the Churchill and this is a good example of the fact that when you write a book, you never know who the true audience for the book is.
55:59
You don't know who it's really going to appeal to.
56:02
So when I wrote the Churchill book, I was thinking there are all these people in the world who have no idea that Winston Churchill is the most fascinating character in history and I will be the gateway drug.
56:11
They will read my short book and then they will go on to the eight volume biographies which I think is absolutely fascinating.
56:17
But they don't yet know that they want to read. >> Yeah.
56:20
>> But that wasn't who the audience for the book was.
56:22
The audience for the book was the people who had already read every single Winston Churchill biography.
56:25
They knew tons about him.
56:26
So they were interested in my take because my take was like look 40 ways to look at Winston Churchill.
56:32
So it was looking at him through all these different lenses often which were like very much in opposition or very surprising and they're meant or paradoxical.
56:38
They were meant to sort of show you what you could the limits of biography.
56:42
>> So people who knew a lot about Churchill were the people who were attracted to that and who and with whom it resonated.
56:48
So it was not at all the audience that I thought I was writing to.
56:50
It was like the opposite.
56:51
Um, but I think that audience didn't exist for JFK because the Churchill people I think that was an audience that that understood like the the triumphs and tragedies, you know, I think that's even like the title of one of the big Yeah.
57:05
Um, they got it that his flaws were his weaknesses and his weaknesses were his strengths and you know, so part of it I think had to do with the nature of the audience for that figure. >> Yeah.
57:16
But somebody told me they they said to me, Gretchen, when most people read a biography, they want an authoritative account with some new information, and that's not what you're writing.
57:26
And it's like, it's not what I'm writing.
57:28
It's like I was writing a book that people weren't that interested in.
57:31
>> It was more of an impressionist painting almost, right? >> 40 Ways, right?
57:34
So, it's like a Monet Haystack painting. Yeah. Right. Right.
57:38
And then, you know, I have a million questions about that we could get into about the Church Hill book, but the one of the one of the I I imagine a criticism or I imagine push back that you could get is Gretchian I mean the shell's grown under the weight of no himself said that's that field has been plowed.
57:58
plowed. I mean even when he was still alive >> and he himself was prolific and like he oh my gosh competing against your subject and people who have written about your subject ad nauseium for 50 years 60 years so how did you did you have to deal with that any of that >> I mean I drove I dealt with it in the introduction I just said yeah like I get it um but
58:18
>> but your publisher still went for it >> yeah but it's just like but there's always a new way to understand him [clears throat] and his own account of himself the biggest problem with the Churchill book was that Churchill himself is such an outstanding writer that I felt like whatever he wrote just like jumped off the page and then my stuff was like h this is yeah meh. Um so
58:33
Um so but I learned so much as a writer from Churchill like that was a thing I didn't expect.
58:40
It's just like because I would type out like all these you know these my favorite speeches and things that he would write my favorite passages and there was so much as a writer like that would be a really fun book which is like writing lessons from Winston Churchill because he was a master.
58:54
So I think there is a book like Church Hill as writer or something.
58:57
I'm sure there is Church Hill as painter leader. Yeah. The wit and wisdom.
59:02
No, I'm sure I probably have that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
59:05
>> You you made a really important point and it's it's an interesting one for anybody who's listening who who is a creative and there are many that you I the way I've heard it described you have to leave a reader sized hole in your work. Right.
59:14
So you you never know it's what you said.
59:17
You never know who is going to find your book and use it or treat it or think about it in a way that you never anticipated. Right.
59:24
you never anticipated. Right. So for you it was oh this is the gateway drug and it turned out to be like this is this is the this is the this is the appetite this is the this is the finishing course for this particular meal right I had a similar experience with my first book which was about an ancient Roman senator named Ko it was called Rome's last citizen and I remember thinking well I'm
59:43
writing this for people who are super nerdy like me really enjoy Roman history they probably read about Caesar they might have read about Cicero this fits that spot on the bookshelf great that's the audience and it turned out that Ko
59:56
was one of the patron saints of stoicism and stoicism had a renaissance like among different people and like people like Tim Ferris like read my book, loved it, let me blog on his site way back in the day, right? And it took off among
1:00:06
And it took off among the sto the sort of contemporary stoicism set, right?
1:00:10
I heard a story about Michael Lewis when he did Liars Poker.
1:00:14
He said he thought he was writing kind of a message in a bottle for people to stay away from lost uh for to stay away from Wall Street.
1:00:19
And what he got were like hundreds of letters like, "I read your how-to guide for how to succeed on Wall Street.
1:00:26
Like is there are there things you left out things I need to know?" Right?
1:00:29
I do think you have to leave a reader sized hole.
1:00:31
Like it's one of the challenging things actually about doing this work is when you see it misinterpreted or you see it kind of like and it's not always a bad thing because if people are reading it, you're happy, right?
1:00:41
But I do find that there's a little bit of like, well, what about that little thing that I put in there that everybody missed that I was so happy about?
1:00:47
Have you had moments like that?
1:00:49
>> Yeah, you have to let go of that.
1:00:49
You have to let go of that.
1:00:51
Well, it's funny because in writing about happiness, like a lot of times people will say to me, well, I know you wrote in your book blah blah blah blah blah blah.
1:00:57
And I'm like, I never wrote that at all, you know?
1:00:58
But I'm just like, if you brought that to it, that's fine.
1:01:02
You know, it's because I think once people start thinking, one of the nicest things that anybody said to me about my work was somebody's it was either better than before or or the happiness project.
1:01:11
They said, "I've never read a book about somebody else that made me think about myself more."
1:01:17
And I'm like, "That's exactly what I'm going for."
1:01:18
But when people are reading a book and they're trying to understand it for themselves, of course, they're going to start seeing things in the book that you never put there, >> you never intended.
1:01:24
And and it's and it's actually also one of the the books are great randomness machines in this way.
1:01:30
>> That's a great way to it's just like just throw a bunch of ideas and know when the student is ready, the teacher appears.
1:01:35
The question is, how do you put yourself >> in the place where the teacher can appear? >> Right. Right.
1:01:41
And it's but it's also one of the most gratifying like I'll you get random notes from people about some little ingredient you included that you didn't think was a big deal or a footnote you threw that a stray footnote that ends up being a thing.
1:01:53
>> Wait, can I tell you an example from our podcast?
1:01:55
Okay, so I have the happier with Gretchen Ruben podcast which is my sister.
1:01:58
>> So sometimes people would would would send in and this is to the point of like you never know what ideas are going to land deep with people.
1:02:03
So, somebody had written in and said, "I lost my engagement ring.
1:02:07
This is really important to me.
1:02:08
We can't afford to replace it. I am just sick about it. I don't know. I've looked everywhere. I just can't find it. I just can't find it."
1:02:13
And my question is, "How do I make my peace with this?
1:02:15
How do I find happiness when I have just like so much when I'm just so upset about this?"
1:02:19
So, the question isn't how to deal with a ring.
1:02:23
The question is, "How do I deal with the negative emotions that I have around the ring?"
1:02:26
So, we had our own answer, whatever.
1:02:29
Then a listener wrote in and her answer people to this day are like what was the episode where the woman talked about this answer?
1:02:37
We've returned to it several times because it people just struck a chord.
1:02:41
She said in Japan we have the belief that a precious object might sacrifice itself for you that to save you from a bad fate it might lose itself.
1:02:55
And she said it's totally a myth, but it might be help comforting for her to think that this precious possession had lost itself >> to save her.
1:03:06
And to us, this was so strange because it's just a reframing, right?
1:03:10
Nothing in the none of the facts have changed.
1:03:12
It's just the reframing in your mind.
1:03:15
>> And people to this day are like, "What what episode was it where that woman talked about the ring losing itself?"
1:03:22
There's just something about it that just And then I was in Japan and I was having some I was with a guide and I mentioned this and she looked at me and she said >> it's very Japanese >> that it sounds very tell the story without cultural context like that sounds Japanese. >> Yeah. Right.
1:03:35
>> Yeah. Right. South Japanese and because the reader herself is in Japan this is we have this thought but so that was an interesting example where to us this was just like oh interesting insight from a listener in response and like we're just like we we have these all the time and then it was just like it just reverberated for years and so sometimes you just don't know and I think for like
1:03:55
for creative people this is why sometimes it's good to just like throw a lot of ideas out there because you don't always know that you've hit a deep seam because like you said there's so many rabbit holes that you're going down all the time you You know, sometimes it's really it's really illuminating to think like, oh, this is an idea that people are really that like somehow is really striking a chord. >> It's also one of the reasons why I tell
1:04:14
>> It's also one of the reasons why I tell people whether they are authors or just readers to write in like to tell the person who created the thing what specific thing stood with you.
1:04:24
Like I I just have that as a default habit now.
1:04:27
If I walk around the world, >> do you really do that with books you read?
1:04:30
[laughter] >> With books I read, with statues I walk by, arts.
1:04:32
I remember I walked by Jane's carousel in Brooklyn and I I was so my daughter was riding it a lot and I remember thinking this is a really nice carousel and it's nicer and I could get in trouble for this.
1:04:42
It's nicer than the Brian Park uh the Sealass the Central Park one.
1:04:46
It's the nicest carousel in New York.
1:04:48
It's very beautifully maintained.
1:04:49
And so I started doing going down the rabbit hole >> and I remember thinking I it it I was like my habit is like I'll find it find the creator write them some kind of note so that they know.
1:04:58
>> It's such a lovely practice >> and it just became a default thing.
1:05:00
But what's great is it it I know how I feel when I get those notes and so I wrote to Jane of Jane's carousel.
1:05:07
One thing led to another.
1:05:09
We became friends and then I ended up doing the coffee table with book with her about Jane's carousel because of that note.
1:05:14
All because of that note.
1:05:16
So I always tell people if something strikes you like if it enters your life's conversation in some way. >> Yes. >> Let the person know.
1:05:22
You and I don't have any sense of what's working or what's we have a vague sense but not really a concrete sense. >> Okay.
1:05:29
And here's what I would add.
1:05:30
There's so much AI slop of all these like AA agents like saying all of these flattering things that it's like can I tell the difference between somebody who's faking it and somebody who's actually like resonating with 100% I can change or even like people are like I I
1:05:44
loved your recent podcast episode where you talked about I'm like yeah that's fake because I can tell when somebody's really you know says like oh I was thinking you know we have this but you can just sort of tell the difference in terms of like how people are you know for 2026 six. One of the items that I
1:05:59
One of the items that I wanted to do was to rate and review podcast and books more because as somebody who's a creator, I know how much it matter.
1:06:06
It just matters for the for all these things.
1:06:08
It it really matters to people and it's gratifying and um and I haven't even really been keeping up with that as much.
1:06:15
And you're going way beyond that, which is to actually track down the contact information, but that's so much more meaningful. >> It it is.
1:06:21
It's also It's not that hard to do.
1:06:23
So, here's how I the way I was the way I think about it is >> also to sharpen your gaze. >> Oh, absolutely.
1:06:29
>> Oh, absolutely. And the other thing is you you know you you like everybody lives a life where you try I think on balance to like leave the world hopefully hopefully you live your life this way like a little bit better a little just a wee bit better right and you can do that in a lot of ways you can raise your kids well you can do creative
1:06:46
work you can just be a human you can volunteer and I do think that like this is my way of of the karmic scales like I need to keep them in balance and you know my work requires a lot of borrowing on karma from other people whether it's editors is investing in you or like time away from certain friends or I kind of think of this as like my way of restoring the karmic scales. >> But but then the other part of it is
1:07:06
>> But but then the other part of it is like it's not a long exercise.
1:07:07
You know, I I finished a book a couple weeks ago and it took me what a minute or two of googling to find the person's contact info.
1:07:14
I had two sentences that I wanted to say to them because there was one chapter that really stood out to me.
1:07:18
Try drop it and drop a note. Send it off.
1:07:22
It's not like I'm not like laboring over this for years and years and years. This is just very quick. But >> so keep it easy. >> But keep it easy.
1:07:27
And also it then sort of puts you in the position of I'm never I may never have contact with that person again ever again.
1:07:32
But they know that something that they spent years on had some kind of effect in the world.
1:07:37
I think that's one of the the things that you know it's it you you do spend years of your life on these projects and like I'm sure especially when your first few books came out anytime anybody wrote you it was like the greatest it was the greatest moment ever. Right. It really was.
1:07:53
And you, and by the way, I think you can be world famous and these things can still affect you, right?
1:07:56
Like you can have fans galore, but it's somebody identifying something specific in your work that still makes a massive difference. A massive difference.
1:08:06
>> No, I think that's really true.
1:08:06
And I think there is something about putting out those like the appreciation >> um for people's efforts. >> Yeah.
1:08:15
And I would say that it extends as well as I said to physical things or like a product you really love or it doesn't have to be a book.
1:08:22
It doesn't have to be some it's some work of art.
1:08:25
It can be something very very simple.
1:08:25
I also find the other effect of this.
1:08:27
It gets you to find the origin story of the thing itself.
1:08:33
>> So you because you look at something and you're like I really like that.
1:08:35
You have to then go dig and figure out how did this thing come into being, right?
1:08:39
And for people who love rabbit holes that's like that's catnip, you know?
1:08:43
There's nothing like that feeling.
1:08:46
>> How did you just to because I want to be conscious of your time.
1:08:48
How did you go from uh JFK and Church Hill to the Happiness Project?
1:08:54
What is the origin story the kind of you know prevent I have I know exactly when and where it happened.
1:08:59
So I was finishing up was probably just after first pass with my JFK book.
1:09:04
So I had this and at that time because writers didn't have all this other stuff that we were doing >> there is kind of a period of inactivity because you can no longer actively edit as we were saying um they've ripped it out of your your your cold hands and um but the book hasn't been published yet so there's kind of this and and and for me it was uh so I just sort of had this open time in my head.
1:09:26
>> So it was during that period and I was stuck on the cross town bus on 79th in the pouring rain.
1:09:31
was going really really slowly and I didn't have anything to read or distract myself with and I just I looked out the window and I thought what do I want from life anyway and I thought I want to be happy but I and I thought well but I don't spend any time thinking about whether I am happy or if I could be happier or like what is happiness anyway and I thought well I should do a happiness project and figure all this out.
1:09:53
So and I instantly became super interested in the idea of happiness.
1:09:57
So I ran to the bookstore and the library and got a giant stack of books, stoics, you know, um, novels, non-fiction, research.
1:10:05
This was right at the time when sort of the positive psychology movement was just getting going.
1:10:09
So there was a lot of interesting research that had just kind of emerged at that time.
1:10:12
And at first it was just for me.
1:10:14
It was just like what do I what could I do to be happier in my own life and um but as I got into it like I just my note takingaking my research got deeper and deeper and there was so many things that I wanted to learn and so many things I wanted to try in my own life. >> Yeah.
1:10:29
>> Um that I thought oh >> maybe this could be my next book project. >> Yeah.
1:10:33
>> And then I've sort of been writing about happiness one way or another ever since.
1:10:36
And it's funny because um I don't know about you for titles but for me titles either come right away or extremely slowly.
1:10:42
And people, many people said, "You shouldn't call it the happiness project because that sounds like homework. Nobody likes to do it."
1:10:47
And I was like, "But >> and you're like, I love homework.
1:10:52
>> I love No, I love a project.
1:10:52
You have made careers doing effectively homework for long periods of time."
1:10:57
>> Seriously, give me a course. I'll sit down. I love a curriculum.
1:10:59
Um, but um but I was like, but that's that's it was I was like it just from the very first minute I had this idea.
1:11:06
It was the happiness project. Yeah. Yeah, >> that's great.
1:11:10
Did you have trouble selling it at all or was it a pretty easy sell after?
1:11:13
Because you said JFK didn't do well.
1:11:15
>> No, it was not an easy sell.
1:11:15
Um, first of all, like I was talking to people about it and they didn't get it.
1:11:20
Like somebody's like cuz I was like, "Oh, yeah."
1:11:22
I kind of mentioned Benjamin Franklin because if you're talking about, you know, he's, you know, OG in this in this space. >> No, he is. He's the godfather. >> The godfather.
1:11:29
Um, and they would be like, "Well, maybe you should do thing where like you um like follow all of Benjamin Franklin's rules." And I'm like, "No." Yeah.
1:11:37
>> Um, this was a time when like doing sort of what what you could dismissively call stunt fiction was like it was or stunt stunt non-fiction was was was more and more and so >> it had a the more august name, right, was the Gonzo journalism like a long time ago. >> Exactly. Exactly. Right.
1:11:53
And so um yeah, everything just keeps being reinvented. Autofiction.
1:11:58
It's like yeah, they've been doing that for a long time. No.
1:11:59
So, first people didn't really get it.
1:12:01
And that's part of why I thought like I think I just have to write a lot of it because people aren't understanding.
1:12:06
And this wasn't me like officially pitching it, but just more me like casually talking to smart people in to sort of pick their brain and they just they were just weren't responding the way I thought that I thought that they should in my vanity.
1:12:19
So, I basically wrote a huge thing and then my my agent was just like, "Yeah, it's not good."
1:12:23
And then I wrote it again and my agent was like, "Yeah, I'm sorry.
1:12:26
It's just still not good enough."
1:12:27
And then and then I kind of figured out how to break it and then and then that's when I went out and then there there was a reasonable amount of interest but not like not like w like wild enthusiasm by by >> any not enthusiasm commensurate to what the book eventually became.
1:12:43
>> No right no not at all because now that's your best known you know for sure. Yeah. I mean it was Yeah. It was number one.
1:12:48
It was on the list for two years, right? Yeah.
1:12:50
No, it was it was no nobody nobody.
1:12:52
But the one thing that I had done, so I had a blog that I had been doing for years, a daily blog.
1:12:57
And I did it um because when I was writing the book, one of the one of the arguments that I was testing because it was all a test on me, all self-experiment, was novelty and challenge make people easier.
1:13:11
>> And I had thought, well, I'm not that kind of person.
1:13:13
Maybe that's true for most people, but I like familiarity and mastery.
1:13:16
But I had to test it for the purposes of the book.
1:13:18
So I decided I would start a blog because I'm like, "This is novel. This is challenging. I don't know tech.
1:13:22
I don't write for deadlines.
1:13:24
I've never been a journalist.
1:13:25
This is going to be really hard."
1:13:25
And and um but I'll do it and just sort of report.
1:13:30
And I thought, "Oh, I'll do it for a month."
1:13:33
>> But then it really really worked.
1:13:33
And so I was fortunate in that at that time not that many people had done something like that, which is to create an audience for a book before the book was published.
1:13:44
and they use it as a way to try to get people interested in a book.
1:13:49
>> Now, of course, pre-order campaigns are like, you know, huge thing and people are constantly talking about this thing.
1:13:56
But at that time, it wasn't as common and um and I didn't do it strategically and cleverly.
1:14:01
I did it accidentally and for my own reasons.
1:14:03
It just sort of ended up that way.
1:14:05
Um but I think that was something that made that really helped.
1:14:08
>> I want to bring things kind of wind things to a close, but I you know, we talked a little bit about your writing habits.
1:14:12
You write in the mornings?
1:14:14
>> Well, I write all day, but I write hard things in the morning.
1:14:17
>> And so, how do you Yeah.
1:14:17
How do you structure your creative life now?
1:14:19
Like what's what is a typical week, a day and then a week kind of in your life look like?
1:14:25
>> So, in my dreams, I'm a Benedicting monk.
1:14:28
And like every day is exactly the same.
1:14:29
And like I know exactly what I'm doing at 10:00 a. m.
1:14:31
every single day, but it's not like that because now I have a p I have podcast happier with Gretch and Rubin.
1:14:36
I have newslet I have a newsletter on Clavio.
1:14:39
I have a newsletter on LinkedIn.
1:14:40
and I have a newsletter on Substack, all of which are different.
1:14:43
I do social media, I have products, um I do speaking.
1:14:46
So I So the one thing that I I go to the Met every day as part of my life in >> part of my creative practice.
1:14:58
Um so as much as I would love to have a very routinized um life, I can't because it's just like it's just it's constantly I have to constantly shift things around.
1:15:08
And I think that's one of the reasons like why I like to do my hardest reading first thing in the morning is from 5:30 to 9 rarely changes like I except for walking my dogs.
1:15:20
It that is very much um I can count on that.
1:15:24
And then everything else it's like I may or may not be able to do it.
1:15:28
I might not be able to do it until 400 p. m.
1:15:30
by which time I'm not at my best.
1:15:33
Um I might only have an hour instead of having a big block.
1:15:35
One thing I have learned to do is not to have a big block.
1:15:39
I think when you're when you're starting out in writing, you're kind of like, I have to have a whole day or I have to have half a day.
1:15:46
>> And now I'm like, I have all kinds of writing tasks and some of them I can do if I am just sitting down for a few minutes.
1:15:51
Um, >> so does the morning time always go to the biggest most important project.
1:15:53
Is that what you try to do?
1:15:56
>> Yes, that's what I always try to do. >> And do you miss that?
1:15:57
Like do you do you miss it when you're on the road?
1:15:58
Do you sort of give yourself breaks or is it seven days a week?
1:16:02
>> I try to do it seven days a week. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
1:16:04
because it is just so precious to me. >> Yeah. >> Yeah.
1:16:07
>> Look, I'm >> But I'm rigid, you know.
1:16:08
I'm rigid in the same way.
1:16:10
And and honestly, I feel off on the days I don't have that time.
1:16:14
>> Doesn't feel like it doesn't feel like a treat. >> Yeah.
1:16:16
It feels like like the way I described it, friends, is like if I don't have that time in the morning where I'm doing a whatever the creative or editorial or writing task is that's most important.
1:16:24
It feels like I didn't brush my teeth. >> Yeah.
1:16:26
Like that's such a good analogy. Exactly. something is off.
1:16:29
>> It's like it's not that it's really a big deal or that it matters in any kind of way or that anybody else cares, but you just feel off. >> You just feel off. Yeah.
1:16:35
And then and then those grooves, they get they get to be the place I'm happiest, right, is like when I'm in that that particular group.
1:16:42
Do you have you ever tried to change up the schedule or has this been the schedule for Time Memorial?
1:16:48
>> I haven't always been able to get up this early.
1:16:50
Um and when I had little kids, of course, I had much less control over my mornings.
1:16:54
Um, so then I but at that time I had fewer other commitments.
1:17:01
Um, you know, I didn't always have the podcast.
1:17:05
I didn't always have the newsletters. I didn't have you.
1:17:06
It just I I feel like as a writer, the kinds of work that you might do just as part of your ordinary >> writing >> writing life have really expanded.
1:17:16
So, I feel like I was fortunate that when my kids were younger and they were taking up a lot of my sort of unpredictable time um and predictable time. >> Yeah.
1:17:26
>> Um I was just more focused. But >> when do you read?
1:17:31
>> If you read, >> I love to read.
1:17:32
I This is a huge question in my life.
1:17:36
It is a huge mystery because I read books like at the end of the month I have a stack and I post a picture of it and these are the books that I read and I see that I read books.
1:17:43
I'm always like I feel like I'm never reading.
1:17:45
I'm constantly fighting to find more time to read.
1:17:47
Uh my favorite thing is the same day book where I like start and finish a book in the same day.
1:17:52
>> Yeah, that's my delicious. I love that. >> I love that feeling.
1:17:55
>> I have to do a lot of work for if I'm doing work for reading, I'll do that during a workday kind of like at the end of the day when I'm tired.
1:18:00
If I'm just reading for pleasure, then I feel like I have to read it in sort of my leisure time, but and I I I feel like I'm not reading nearly enough.
1:18:08
>> Um for the podcast, we always have a challenge tied to the year.
1:18:10
So 25 for 25 was read 25 and 25.
1:18:12
You had to read 25 minutes a day. >> Oh, 25 minutes a day. >> Yes. Okay.
1:18:17
>> Um that and that was >> Yeah. I I just I don't know.
1:18:20
How do you get enough reading done?
1:18:23
It's it's something that's very easy to push >> to the bottom.
1:18:27
You have to fight for it.
1:18:28
>> You have to fight for it.
1:18:28
What I do, you know, part of it, I think, and this is sort of occupational hazard.
1:18:32
I read I I am reading always somewhat opportunistically.
1:18:38
If I'm in the middle of a book project, I'm reading things that are tied to the thing I'm writing.
1:18:42
So I feel like it's it's real work, right?
1:18:44
So then I always have a >> Does that feel different? Yeah. Yeah.
1:18:48
That's like that's a different category.
1:18:50
>> For years when I actually had talked to a friend about this the other day that I at one point I lost the ability to read for pleasure.
1:18:56
I was I cuz you write books and you're obsessed with books and you're working on books all the time and all of a sudden I wake up and I'm like I don't actually enjoy reading anymore.
1:19:01
So I had to go back and start with fiction again and like revive my like childhood love of reading and wonder the wonder of discovery.
1:19:09
I lost all of it because it was all so utilitarian now.
1:19:14
>> And then I would say like I I try to do if I if I'm going on vacation, I try to take only novels and I'll like read stuff that has nothing to do with work, right? But it's actually hard.
1:19:22
It's actually hard to carve out.
1:19:24
There was a period where I was trying to do 15 to 20 minutes every morning before anything else.
1:19:28
That lasted for several months and I finished a bunch of great books in that process. But I it's a challenge.
1:19:33
Like I I will find that actually one thing that's helped is my daughter has 30 minutes of required reading time every day for school.
1:19:38
I just read side by side.
1:19:40
Yeah, that's a great So, it's like that makes it actually very very easy, >> right?
1:19:43
Because you have that accountability. Yeah.
1:19:44
Um, one thing a friend of mine told me and I've completely followed this is that when she's traveling for work, she reads for pleasure.
1:19:51
So, she never tries to work on a plane or like review a document or something.
1:19:56
It's like if you're traveling for work, you just read for fun.
1:19:57
And she's like that way you know that you have that time and it's just the most delicious.
1:20:02
I love reading on airplanes because you're just so focused. >> Yeah.
1:20:06
No, I finished I finished a number of books on airplanes that I wouldn't have finished in any other form or because you always feel like you're robbing Peter to pay Paul, right?
1:20:11
It's like do you work on the substack or do you read?
1:20:14
Do you work on X or do you read? Right.
1:20:15
And I I find that the other the other but for me it's it much more it's much more around choosing books like if I if it's in project mode, I'm choosing books that I have to read anyway.
1:20:26
Hopefully they're enjoyable.
1:20:26
Um but if I'm I try to portion out vacation time and choose my books there so that it's pure pleasure. >> Pure pleasure. Yeah.
1:20:34
I think people don't don't sometimes expect enough like put down a book that's not good, find something that's really good.
1:20:40
Then what I often do is I'll pick a book I I'll pick something to read for the summer to give my summer theme.
1:20:44
So like I had a summer of um P because I had never read all of P.
1:20:49
Um I had a summer of rereading because I love to reread and there were a bunch of like sort of difficult books that I wanted to reread like um the varieties of religious experience.
1:20:56
I'm like I'm like when am I going to reread that?
1:20:59
So I'm like okay I'll have a summer when I just reread these books.
1:21:02
And then my summer this year um which will start June 1st is um the summer of Virginia Wolf's diaries because I love Virginia Wolf.
1:21:09
She's my favorite author, but I have never read her diaries which are extensive and I'm like when am I going to get around to that?
1:21:16
Like I had to turn it into sort of a project.
1:21:19
>> So So that's what I'm going to So that's So I will often do that with the summer if there's something that I kind of want to tackle. >> Yeah.
1:21:27
>> That's how you'll tackle it. >> Yeah. >> Okay.
1:21:28
So, one of the ways we all Infinite Loops uh episodes end with this question, which is you're made emperor for a day, which by the way, I actually think you'd make a great emperor.
1:21:38
Like, if you ever you ever decide to campaign for that office, let me know because you'll have my support.
1:21:42
And you you you have a magical microphone.
1:21:45
You're allowed to share two ideas that everybody in the world will wake up and those two ideas will be implanted in their minds.
1:21:52
Um, and they will they will believe that they are their own, right?
1:21:55
They're not coming from Emperor Gretchen.
1:21:56
coming from their own psyche and they will live live by and adhere to them. What What are those two?
1:22:00
You're you're somebody that's thought about this question extensively.
1:22:05
>> Well, I've never thought of it in this this this iteration, which is a couple of uh couple of ideas.
1:22:10
>> I would say know thyself >> and do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
1:22:17
>> I think that could go pretty far. >> Yeah.
1:22:18
So on the know thyself, that's been your life's work, right?
1:22:20
Or >> it's on the Temple of Apollo Adelfa. Yes. Yeah.
1:22:25
>> Is that is that you is it fair to say that your work is kind of an extension of that question? >> Yes.
1:22:29
I think that's a I think that's Yes.
1:22:31
I think >> and I think that's why it has resonance like it's it's why even >> it's a great challenge of our lives. >> Yeah.
1:22:36
And in the intro to life in five senses you write about how this is like these books are very personal for you, right?
1:22:42
That one seems to be the most personal, right?
1:22:43
You have this kind of moment and I won't spoil it because I think people should go check out that book.
1:22:48
It's um but you have a moment that leads you down these rabbit holes.
1:22:50
It's about knowing yourself. >> Yeah. Yeah.
1:22:53
And the other one is do unto others >> as you would have them do unto you.
1:22:56
And you could quibble and you could say, well, but sometimes they don't want you to do unto them.
1:23:00
They want you to do unto them the way they want it to be done unto you.
1:23:03
I was like, start from there. >> Start from there. >> Amazing.
1:23:06
Well, Gretchian Rubin, you are you remain and you you are one of my favorite authors. I love your work.
1:23:11
I want everybody to check it out.
1:23:13
Where can people find you and just give us give us the list so that it's all everything's there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
1:23:20
Oh, this is such a pleasure.
1:23:20
Thank you for be coming on.
1:23:22
Thank you for taking the time to do this wonderful work.
1:23:24
And um until next >> until next time.