Try This at Home
Shape your space to shape your behavior.
I mention my book Better Than Before (about habit change), Outer Order, Inner Calm, and Life in Five Senses.
Happiness Hack
To help convert temperatures, remember that 16 degrees Celsius is 61 degrees Fahrenheit, and 28 Celsius degrees is 82 degrees Fahrenheit.
Fun with the Five Senses
Listeners provide terrific, creative ways to tapping into our five senses.
I mention my book Life in Five Senses. We also mention the terrific Happier Ladies podcast.
You can take the “What’s Your Neglected Sense?” quiz.
Find the Five-Senses Journal at happiercast.com/shop.
Listener Question
I pose questions to listeners related to the empty nest/open door phase. Send me your thoughts, insights, resources, questions, and observations.
For instance, in this phase, do you seek more abundance or more simplicity? Or both? If you’re an introverted person or extroverted person, does that aspect of your nature affect your response?
Demerits & Gold Stars
Elizabeth’s Demerit: In London, instead of taking that opportunity to get more comfortable navigating using her smartphone, Elizabeth let me do the navigating.
Gretchen’s Gold Star: I give a gold star to my husband, Jamie. Our kitchen sink had a bad smell, and he looked online to figure out how to get rid of the odor. (He ground up salt and ice.)
Resource
To show appreciation for our listeners, we’re offering big summer discounts on Happier podcast merchandise. You can get the Happier podcast mug for $12.91, the “Onward & Upward” Women’s T-Shirt in Blue Lagoon for $13.95, or “The Days Are Long” Canvas Pouch for $9.60, among other items. Visit the-happiness-project.com to browse and stock up on discounted goods through August 10, 2024.
What We’re Reading
*This transcript is unedited*
[494]
[music]
Gretchen
Hello and welcome to happier, a podcast where we talk about ways to become happier, healthier, more productive, and more creative. This week we’ll talk about ways we can shape our surroundings to shape our behavior, and we will also share some listeners ideas for holding on to memories of beloved people who have died.
Gretchen
I’m Gretchen Rubin, writer who studies happiness, good habits, the five senses, secrets of adulthood, all that stuff. Human nature. I’m in my little home office in New York City, and joining me today from Los Angeles is my sister, Elizabeth Craft. And Elizabeth, I will be seeing you very soon in Kansas City.
Elizabeth
That’s me, Elizabeth Craft, a TV writer and producer living in L.A., and we’re going to go back to sharing a room. It’ll be just like our trip to England.
Gretchen
Exactly. Sleepover time. But before we jump in, we got an interesting response from a listener after our very special episode 490, where we had dozens of hacks from listeners about how to get regular exercise.
Elizabeth
Yes, this comes from Sofia. She says, I would like to add a fitness hack that has changed my life that I didn’t hear on your fantastic recent episode, which is choosing to identify as an athlete. I discovered how powerful this can be when I decided to sign up for a triathlon and immediately began referring to myself as a triathlete.
Elizabeth
This naturally trickled down into all sorts of shifts in language, attitude, and habit. Whenever I exercise, I was no longer just working out. I was training. It felt like it was for something, not just another drop in the bottomless exercise bucket. I felt an obligation to train because an athlete doesn’t just skip out on practice when they’re not in the mood.
Elizabeth
I had fun finding an electrolyte mix. I loved optimizing my nutrition for fueling and recovery, and eventually began doing nightly yoga for improved muscle recovery and better sleep because these were all things an athlete would do. And after all, I was one of them. This concept doesn’t need to rely on having a specific event to train for either.
Elizabeth
Seven months ago, I suffered an injury that made me unable to swim and dashed my triathlon dreams for the time being. So now I’m a cyclist and my only goal is to improve my performance and enjoyment of the sport. Any other exercise I do is cross training. I’ve always wanted to be the sort of person who is seen as outdoorsy and athletic, and now that I’ve declared it to be so, my dream has quickly become reality and we think she’s probably a rebel.
Gretchen
We think she’s a rebel because identity appeal to identity is often how rebels change habits. Because exactly as she said, it’s like I’m doing it because this is who I am. What does an athlete do? An athlete trained? She’s not necessarily a rebel because that can work for all four tendencies. I’d be curious to know. And of course, if you don’t know about the four tendencies, you can find out if you’re a rebel or an upholder, a questioner, or an obliger.
Gretchen
Like Gretchen rubin.com/quiz.
Elizabeth
And then Gretchen, we also got this from Haley. She said, I’m a big fan of the happier podcasts. And a few months back I listened to episode 473, which highlighted milestone birthdays and how writer Meghan Verrett approached her 70th. Two days ago, I celebrated my 29th birthday and decided to embark on a 30 before 30 challenge. Following Meghan’s lead, I reached out to 30 of my friends and family members and invited them to propose an experience for us to have together over the upcoming year.
Elizabeth
That way, when I turned 30, I’ll have a smorgasbord of memories to look back fondly on. While turning 30th May not be as momentous as turning 70. I am single and has spent recent years watching loved ones get married and have children whilst feeling like I’m lagging behind them. This idea was so powerful in helping me reframe my thinking and embrace a new decade, as well as take stock of all the love I have in my life.
Elizabeth
I am so excited to get started and thankful to you for sharing this idea.
Gretchen
Well, this is great! I love that it’s all about creating these memories and reframing, and it’s so fun to see people running with this idea.
Elizabeth
Yes, I love it. Happy birthday Hailey.
Gretchen
Yes, this week I tried this at home. Suggestion is to shape your space, to shape your behavior.
Elizabeth
So, Gretch, explain what this means.
Gretchen
Okay, so one of the things that keeps coming up in a lot of the books that I’ve written is the idea that the way that our spaces are affects our behavior, our actions, our attitude. So, for instance, in the book Better Than Before, where I was talking about have information, I talked about a lot about the strategy of convenience.
Gretchen
But, you know, we’re just much more likely to do something if it’s convenient. And so by shaping your surroundings, you can make something more convenient. So let’s say you want to practice the violin. If you’re like, I’m going to set up a chair by a window when I’m and have my music stand set up and I’m going to have this everything feel I’m going to make a beautiful place to read, or I’m going to get all the clothes off of the treadmill and put a television there.
Gretchen
So it’s really easy to exercise. That’s the way you can shape your surroundings, to make your habits better. An outer order. Inner calm I talked about the way that we project our identity into our environment, and how that also shapes our behavior, like if you see things around you, well, like we were just saying with our listener, if everything around you is reminding you, hey, you’re an athlete, if your surroundings reflect that, that’s going to help you live up to that identity.
Gretchen
And then in life in Five senses, there was a lot about our surroundings. So the way things feel like what you hear, what you touch, the smell of environment and how your surroundings can shape your behavior and shape or habits. But it’s not always something that we think about kind of indirectly like, okay, given that I want to get x, y, z done, how might I make decisions related to my space that are going to make it more likely for me to do something that I want to do, or less likely for me to do something I don’t want to do?
Elizabeth
I could see someone who wants to cook more, really changing the shape of their kitchen. Yes, to make it conducive to cooking, for instance.
Gretchen
Or even just changing what’s out on the counter. Yes, because like if you have a lot of stuff out on the counter that you never use, but then it’s a hassle to dig out something that you actually use frequently. You might think about that, or just even having the tools at the ready so that you’re you’re making it easy to follow that.
Gretchen
I was thinking about some examples that I’ve seen in the people around me that I think we’re very clever. So, Elizabeth, you and I, you remember Henry, our founding producer?
Elizabeth
Yes.
Gretchen
I love Henry McCloskey. Brilliant guy. And he loves to surf. And when he moved to Los Angeles, he said, I move near the beach because I would always talk to people in Los Angeles and they would say, oh, the funny thing is, I never go to the beach. And he’s like, I really, really did want to go to the beach.
Gretchen
I really wanted to bring that aspect of Los Angeles into my life. I wanted to surf, I wanted to visit the beach. So I made it easy to go to the beach. So I, I lived so that I would have that behavior. Is that true? Let’s just. Do people in L.A. not go to the beach that many.
Elizabeth
Of us rarely go to the beach Gretch? I don’t remember the last time I went to the beach. I must admit. There you go. It’s the dogs.
Gretchen
Maybe, right? A friend of mine moved into a new apartment. She had to do a big renovation. And in her kitchen, she said she specifically did not include a little table where you could sit and eat breakfast. Or you could sit and eat a casual meal because she’s like, I really don’t like it when people don’t use their dining rooms.
Gretchen
I really wanted us to actually eat all our meals in the dining room, and so I just shaped our surroundings, so there is simply no other choice. That’s the only place that you can eat in her apartment is at the dining room table. And then I did a little happier, which I don’t know if it’s aired yet or not, about Charles Darwin in his sand walk.
Gretchen
He made this quarter of a mile walk around his home, where he would walk a couple times a day, and he would do more or fewer loops, depending on his physical condition and his day, whatever. But this is when he did a lot of his thinking. And he would even sometimes call it like his thinking path because he created that, because he knew that walking was a good way for him to think.
Gretchen
If you went out of his way to build a path in order to have the habit of thinking and walking and, you know, all the research shows that was a really good idea to do, because walking really does promote thinking and creative thinking. So it just got me thinking, well, you know, without building a whole walk or moving to a whole new city, what are the things in my own surroundings that I might think about?
Gretchen
How about you, Elizabeth? Can you think of some examples of this yourself?
Elizabeth
Well, speaking of walking, I mean my treadmill desk, adding a treadmill desk, which was a gift from you to my office that hugely shaped my behavior, I mean, right, I started walking so much, and I think that really set me on my whole walking path. And that was a big thing. But a simple thing that made a huge difference.
Gretchen
But it’s funny because you have a big office and like, my office is so small, I don’t really have room for it in my surroundings. I would love to have it. But you had the room to add it to your surroundings and also you were willing to do it. I think if somebody wanted an extremely elegant office right, they might not want to plunk down a treadmill desk in the middle of it.
Gretchen
But you shaped the surroundings in a way that worked for you.
Elizabeth
Yes. Now, how about you, Gretchen? Have you done this?
Gretchen
Well, I want to do this because this has got me thinking. You know, I keep talking about watercolor, and I’m going to watercolor. Yes, but I was thinking one of the reasons that I don’t is that it takes a lot of effort to get everything out and set it up in the right way because you have water. So, like, I can’t just do it at my desk and watch a YouTube video about how to do watercolor, because I would never want to have like a big open thing of water right near all of my precious computer stuff.
Gretchen
And I’m thinking, what I need to do is just set up a place and leave it set up. I give this advice all the time to people, and I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me to do it, which is if you have to unpack and pack stuff, you’re just not going to do it. So I need to figure out where in my apartment I’m going to just get everything out, set it up so that the water is not a risk and really do it.
Elizabeth
Yes, that will definitely influence your behavior. And the other thing in my life, Gretchen, is our backyard. You know, we have a really nice sized backyard, but when we moved in, it wasn’t a very pleasant space. And Adam really set about making it somewhere you want to be, having very clear, comfortable seating areas. You know, we have our firepit.
Elizabeth
And by shaping that, we have absolutely changed our behavior so much to where we’re out there all the time now. And when we have people over, everybody always ends up in the backyard. Yeah. So that’s a good example of this.
Gretchen
Now, I will say that there is kind of a tension in this, which is you don’t want to do a lot to shape a surroundings if it’s really not going to work. And like I would say, this is my secret of adulthood is like, never pay to have a pair of pants that you really don’t want to wear.
Gretchen
Because if you’re really not going to use a treadmill, if you’re just like, look, I know who I am and I’m not going to use a treadmill desk, don’t buy a treadmill desk thinking that it’s going to fundamentally change your inborn nature like you knew that you would use it, or you feel fairly confident that you would use it.
Gretchen
But I do think sometimes you don’t want to make something better, if really, maybe you want to just abandon it altogether or just go in a completely different direction. And this is something that all of us just individually need to know for ourselves. But it is. It is something to be aware of.
Elizabeth
Yes. Well, I love to hear from people, Gretchen, about what they’ve done to shape their behavior. Yeah.
Gretchen
Yes, exactly. Because I bet a lot of people might get inspiration. So let us know if you do try this at home. And how is shaping your space to shape your behavior has worked for you? Let us know on Instagram threads, TikTok, Facebook. Drop us an email and podcast at Gretchen rubin.com. Or as always, you can go to the show notes.
Gretchen
This is happier Cars.com slash 494 for everything related to this episode.
Elizabeth
Coming up, we have a very simple happiness hack. But first, this break.
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Gretchen
Okay, Elizabeth. This is a happiness hack that we learned on our trip in England. One of the people on our trip, Keith, mentioned this to me, and I thought this was just a handy little hack.
Gretchen
Especially when you’re traveling from the world of Fahrenheit into the world of Celsius. Or back again.
Elizabeth
Yes. So Keith pointed out that 16 Celsius is 61 Fahrenheit. And 28 Celsius is 82 Fahrenheit. So if you can just remember 1661 2882 then if you hear the temperature in Celsius you can kind of gauge where, where it is. You might not know exactly but you have a yes.
Gretchen
But you’re like it’s hot. It’s cold.
Elizabeth
Exactly.
Gretchen
Yeah. And that’s useful. I love a great mnemonic. You love a great name. It. We thought that was really fun. And now for fun with the five senses. So we have recently gotten a lot of suggestions from listeners about how they’ve used the five senses to connect more deeply with other people, to hang on to memories, to pay tribute to beloved people who have died.
Gretchen
And we just wanted to share some of these really kind of creative, beautiful ideas that people have had.
Elizabeth
Yes, Gretchen, this first one comes from Izzy, who’s one of the hosts of the Happier Ladies podcast.
Gretchen
Yes, shout out Happier ladies.
Elizabeth
Yes, we love the happier ladies. Yes, Izzy says, I’m writing to share about a way to use the Five Senses framework that may be unexpected. Last July, I lost my best friend to cancer. It was a long, drawn out journey and her last days were both meaningful and peaceful. I met her during my freshman year in high school, and we remain central in each other’s lives through young adulthood careers, marriage and motherhood.
Elizabeth
Her family asked me to give the eulogy at her memorial a year later, and to say a few words about her life. From my perspective, this was my first time being assigned the important but difficult task of memorializing someone. As you can imagine, I struggled with my own grief, as well as how to capture so many years of memories and experiences.
Elizabeth
One night, as I was journaling, it occurred to me to organize my memories of my friend using the Five Senses framework. I thought about the sounds we heard together Janet Jackson music videos, the sound of her singing to her son, the chickens she attended in her backyard taste eating shabu shabu alongside her family, the vanilla cake with strawberries and whipped cream icing she preferred for her birthdays, touch the feel of wet clay from our ceramics lessons, soaking in the hot springs at Lake Elsinore.
Elizabeth
Also, a smell due to the stinky sulfur of the minerals present. By the time I got through all the senses, I felt so much gratitude, recalling many joyful memories because I use the senses as my guide, I felt the moments captured were even more vivid. When it came time to write my speech, I wove together some of the memories, along with other important milestones in her life, to help the participants at the memorial appreciate the richness of her life.
Elizabeth
That’s so.
Gretchen
Beautiful. Similarly, Melissa writes, I’m writing to say thank you for your great ideas in life in Five senses. I am using the five senses exercise to write notes to my daughter about her late father, who passed away when she was nine. She is now 18. I like to write and I decided to write memories about my late husband to our daughter to help her keep his memory alive and learn more about her dad as time goes on.
Gretchen
The five Senses concept is helping me to brainstorm memories and write them in a more vivid way. Thank you for the inspiration. That’s interesting that she says vivid because that’s also what is said, and I think that is what is special about these kinds of memories is they are so powerfully vivid. I mean, this she also says, thank you for the great idea for college care packages.
Gretchen
I will be using them next year when my daughter is in college. That’s great! I love to hear what is landing with people who are going through that period like me. Empty nest, open door. So that is super fun.
Elizabeth
Yes. And Gretch, here’s a different way. Somebody tapping into the five senses. Stephanie says, my sister just sent me the most thoughtful gift for my 40th birthday, and it felt very five senses, so I had to share. It was a food capsule of our childhood. I live in Missouri and she’s in our home state of California. She doordash a wide variety of foods that played a critical role in our childhood.
Elizabeth
Examples. Goldfish, our standard afternoon snack. Dove bars, the ice cream our grandmother always had stocked for our visits. Waffle mix. Our mom made Belgian waffles every Sunday for us. She also sent an email detailing each item and the memory it was connected to. Of course, most of them I immediately recognized as I unpacked the bags. It was such a whimsical and thoughtful way to celebrate a milestone birthday and bring back wonderful memories.
Elizabeth
How following yes, Gretch this reminds me of when you and I ate Pop-Tarts. Yes, recently to bring back the taste of Pop Tarts at our grandparents.
Gretchen
Absolutely. I wish I had thought to send that to you as a birthday gift. I think like a whole box of things. That would have been super fun. Peter wrote. I wanted to report on what I’ve been doing after I took the what’s Your Neglected Sense quiz? Okay, and side note if you haven’t taken the what your neglected Sense quiz, you can go to Gretchen rubin.com/quiz and take this quiz and it will tell you what is your most neglected sense.
Gretchen
Peter continues I wasn’t surprised by the answer I got. Smell. I’m one of those people who never notices a smell until someone points it out. In your book, you mentioned the hardware store smell, and I decided to try to pay attention to the different smells of stores. I visit target, Home Depot, my favorite liquor store. The indie bookstore I go to all have very distinct smells.
Gretchen
Also, just in a regular grocery store, I try to notice how different sections have different smells. It makes running errands much more interesting. I love this idea.
Elizabeth
Yes, I love the hardware store smell.
Gretchen
I do too, and one of the my most vivid memories of Eliza’s childhood. As we walked into Bloomingdales and she stopped right inside the front door and said, ooh, I love that department store smell. And I realize there is such a department store. But I hadn’t. Of course, I had never noticed it until she pointed out. That’s why I had to write Life in Five Senses, because it’s very hard for me to, like, notice what’s going on around me.
Gretchen
So I thought that was super fun.
Elizabeth
Gretch, that makes me think of the smell of the store better cheddar in Kansas City, which is very specific and also evokes Christmas because we always go there when we’re home for Christmas. Yes.
Gretchen
Just you saying that my mind is flooded with a better cheddar. I would buy a candle.
Elizabeth
That yes, I would love a better cheddar candle.
Gretchen
If people are intrigued by using the five senses in this way, I have a five senses journal where you can keep a journal using the five senses, which is super fun, and it also has places for you to do five senses portraits so it can be for someone who has died, or a portrait to give as a gift to somebody.
Gretchen
Or it can be a portrait of a vacation you took or a place you go every year. So anyway, I’ll post a note to the Five Senses Journal I’ve never seen anything like it. I’m super proud of that journal. It’s really cool. And it’s it’s unusual. I think if you’re a journal person, it’s an unusual kind of journal.
Elizabeth
Yeah. It’s also a great way to capture your child. Like at this age.
Gretchen
Yes, exactly.
Elizabeth
All right. Gretchen. And now, instead of a listener question, we have a question for listeners. You have a question for us?
Gretchen
I have a question. Okay, listeners, hit me up with your insights, observations, resources. Okay. I feel like the world is my research assistant, and I am turning to everybody for ideas related to the open door phase of life, but which most people refer to as the empty nest phase of life. We have a date for Eleanor. We have a time slot, a drop off time slot.
Gretchen
This is coming and I’m thinking a lot about it. And I have some questions for listeners just to respond to, because I’m just trying to cast about and get a sense of how different people think through this. So here’s some questions. If you have something to say, hit me up. Okay, so one question I’m thinking about is as you go into this phase, do you want more abundance in your life or more simplicity?
Gretchen
Are you looking to downsize, to simplify, to empty out, to get rid of things, to clear clutter? Or are you looking to have more abundance, to collect things or renovate or improve or add on? Or you think, ooh, now let’s get a dog? Or you think, oh, it’s so nice not to have anybody to take care of. Do you want something like a garden or plants, which they are abundant, but then they’re also demanding.
Gretchen
So do you want to say no to more things? Do you want to say yes to more things? So I’d be so curious. I want both, I think in different areas. That’s interesting.
Elizabeth
Yes. It’s a lot to think about. Garage.
Gretchen
Okay. Here’s another thing to think about. This stage hits different people differently. And I’m trying to and I know from talking to people that a lot of people are thinking about it well in advance. They have preschoolers and they’re already thinking about, okay, how am I going to handle this period? And so I’m trying to think about how we can know ourselves as we go into it and how it might affect us.
Gretchen
So one thing I’m thinking about is, is it different for people who are introverted and people who are extroverted? But the funny thing is, I could see this playing out in opposite ways. And maybe both things are true for different people, because certainly not all introverted people are the same, and not all extroverted people are the same. Okay, because I could see it working like this.
Gretchen
If you enjoy being alone, you might find this empty nest open door phase less difficult. Because if you’re somebody who just like, always likes to have people around, it might be really hard for you to have, like your house emptying out, right? Because people talk about the loud, quiet. But if you really love being alone, that might be something that would be a gain for you.
Gretchen
Even though you’re sad that your child is gone or whatever that might be something that you would enjoy. So. But I could also see that if you’re an introverted person, maybe you would find it more difficult, because my sense is that for some people who are introverted, they get a lot of social energy from their family. They’re kind of homebodies.
Gretchen
They don’t really enjoy going out. They don’t really seek to do that many social things with people who aren’t really super close to them. And so for them, it might be really hard because they’ve lost the kind of social energy that really suits them. And so I’m just curious, this is just occurred to me in the last few days, and I’m trying to think through how does it affect people?
Gretchen
Also, if you’re a book person or a tree person. Now, I could hypothesize that this would be easier for a book person because it’s turning a new chapter. But maybe circumstances play a role. Let’s say everybody in your family went to the University of Nebraska, and your child is going to the University of Nebraska, even though they’re gone.
Gretchen
It’s like, that’s a tree. Maybe you perceive that as a tree thing to do because now we’re all rooted together. Or if they’re nearby, that might feel tree, but maybe not. Or what if they go away or to a place you don’t know? Does that make it harder for a tree person, or does book versus tree not really play into this in that way?
Gretchen
This is how it is. When I’m starting a project. I’m just throwing spaghetti against the wall and trying to think things through. And so sometimes, you know, I have had many cases where somebody will write an email of three sentences and I’ll just have like a gigantic light bulb go on over my head. So tell me what you’re thinking, what you’re experiencing, or.
Elizabeth
What you experience. Some people may be well past this.
Gretchen
And you know, 100% that might even be better. Yeah, yeah.
Elizabeth
And at the time not have known what they were going through. But now, ten years later, it’s all very clear.
Gretchen
And yes, and don’t worry about of these topics, any observation, any resource, a novel that you read that you felt like shed light on it. I am at that really exciting, fun part where I’m just looking for ideas and trying to come up with the distinctions and frameworks and, you know, I’ve got 11 of these and three of these.
Gretchen
So this is one of the most fun parts for me. And so any thoughts, observations, questions, anecdotes let me know.
Elizabeth
I can’t wait to hear what people have to say. Great.
Gretchen
It’s going to be fascinating.
Elizabeth
All right. Coming up I have a demerit from our time in England. But first, this break.
[music]
Gretchen
Okay, look at demerits and gold stars and this is an even numbered episode. It’s your turn to talk about a demerit.
Elizabeth
All right, Gretel, here is my demerit, which is when you and I were in England, we had a couple of days in London. Yeah. And we were walking around a lot. And we were looking for different neighborhoods and places that we wanted to see. And I let you do all of the navigating with Google Maps, as I am want to do, to turn over a task like that.
Elizabeth
But I wish I had taken the opportunity to really learn how to use Google Maps, because for some reason I find it confounding. And had I just taken the time and learned, I could have navigated us one that would have relieved you of that duty and to now I’d be comfortable. So next time I’m in that position with someone who understands how to do it, I need to embrace the moment.
Gretchen
Here’s my question at the moment. Were you thinking like, oh, I should do this, but I really don’t feel like dealing with this, so I won’t. Or did it occur to you later like, oh wow, that would have been a really good opportunity. I wish I’d thought of it.
Elizabeth
No, I was thinking, oh, I should do this, but I really don’t feel like it.
Gretchen
Well, and I will say, you didn’t mention it to me because you know my happiness. Bullies. I would immediately have been like, no, are over to you. You drive. Haha.
Elizabeth
So, next time we’re in London, Gretch.
Gretchen
Okay, okay, next time I look like an excuse to go on another sisterly adventure.
Elizabeth
Yes. All right. What’s your gold star this week?
Gretchen
Okay, I want to give a gold star and my husband, Jamie, because our kitchen sink had a bad smell, right? And I just said to him, hey, I noticed that our kitchen sink had a bad smell. I didn’t say anything more than that. And I was kind of like, oh, I hope this is one of these situations where a problem just magically goes away on its own, and I’m willing to live with that for a couple of weeks and see if it plays out that way.
Gretchen
Right. Every once in a while it works, but usually it does not work. But so next thing I know, Jamie had gone online and looked up. What do you do with this problem? And as so often is the case when you ask for help, when you identify the problem and see if you can find the answer, he found it and he ground up some salt and ice in some kind of way.
Gretchen
I didn’t really inquire as to exactly what he did, but he fixed it, and I was just so happy that this thing that I was sort of preparing myself to be an unplug, and I do not like that smells, but it does occur to me to just try to fix it. I give him a gold star because he had the impulse to just, let’s just fix this or see if there’s an easy fix.
Gretchen
And there was.
Elizabeth
Thank you, Jamie Gold star.
Gretchen
Thank you Jamie. And the resource for this week. Okay. We are having a sale on our merch, on the happier merch to show appreciation for listeners, we are offering big summer discounts on all the happier podcast merchandise so you can get the mug for 1291. You can get the onward and upward Women’s t shirt and Blue Lagoon for 1395.
Gretchen
You can get the Days Are Long canvas pouch for $9.60, among other items. Listen, you gave me a canvas pouch for Christmas and I use it all the time. You can visit the-happiness-project.com to look around, stock up on whatever’s on sale. And that is through August 10th.
Elizabeth
Yay! And love a good sale.
Gretchen
What are we reading? Elizabeth, what are you reading?
Elizabeth
I am reading Stash My Life in Hiding by Laura Cathcart Robbins.
Gretchen
And I am reading The Radiant Way by Margaret Drabble. And that’s it for this episode of happier. Remember to try this at home. Shape your space to shape your behavior. Let us know if you try it and how it works for you.
Elizabeth
Thanks to our Executive Producer, Chuck Reed and everyone at Audacy. Get in touch Gretchen’s on Instagram threads, Facebook and TikTok at Gretchen Rubin, and I’m on Instagram and threads at Liz Craft.
Gretchen
And if you like this show, please be sure to tell a friend. We really appreciate that. And here’s your rhyming reminder. I think it’s the first time I’ve mentioned this one. If the show sparks joy in your soul and nudge others to enroll.
Elizabeth
I like it. Until next week, I’m Elizabeth Craft.
Gretchen
And I’m Gretchen Rubin. Thanks for joining us. Onward and upwards.
Gretchen
Listen, you know, the thing that I really love of our merch is the case for my AirPods, because, you know, I’m pulling that out of my pocket many, many times a day, and it always gives me, like, a little, little jolt of happiness to see our logo on there. Yes.
Elizabeth
Plus it has that nice slick texture.
Gretchen
It is so satisfying to the touch. Even before Life in five Senses, I was like, I love. Yes, this is so good. It’s such a good feeling in the hand.
Gretchen
From the onward project.