Try This at Home
For more productivity and focus, tap into your five senses.
I mention my book Outer Order, Inner Calm. And I also mention Michael Pollan’s book This Is Your Mind on Plants.
Elizabeth and I talk about Ice Breaker sugar-free mints.
For more ideas, see my article.
How to Increase Focus and Productivity Using the Five Senses
And, of course, my new book Life in Five Senses offers many ideas.
Happiness Hack
A listener’s husband surprised her with a celebration of her 20,000th-day birthday.
Interview
We talk to Will Schwalbe, an editor who has worked at several publishing houses and who has written terrific books such as The End of Your Life Book Club and Books for Living.
His new memoir is We Should Not Be Friends: The Story of a Friendship:
By the time Will Schwalbe was a junior at college, he had already met everyone he cared to know: the theater people, the writers, a handful of visual artists and comp lit majors, and the six other students who shared his own major, Latin and Greek. He also knew exactly who he wanted to avoid: the jocks.
All this changed dramatically when Will collided with Chris Maxey, known to just about everyone as Maxey. Maxey was physically imposing, loud, and a star wrestler, and thanks to the strangely liberating circumstances of a little-known secret society at Yale, the two forged a bond that would become a mainstay of each other’s lives for forty years.
From New Haven to New York City, from Hong Kong and London to a remote Bahamian island—through marriages and a divorce, triumphs and devastating losses—We Should Not Be Friends tracks an extraordinary friendship through decades of challenge and change. Schwalbe’s marvelous new work is a testament to the miracle of human connection.
We talk about friendship, memories, being judgemental, writing about your friends and family, and more.
Will’s Try This at Home: Every day, contact one friend you haven’t talked to recently.
Demerits & Gold Stars
Gretchen’s Demerit: I didn’t remember to display our Valentine’s gallery until well after Valentine’s Day.
Elizabeth’s Gold Star: She gives a gold star to her friend Roxy for organizing a family “glamping” trip and encouraging Elizabeth to go.
Resources
If you’d like to get personalized, signed bookplates for this book, or any of my books, request them here. U.S. and Canada only, sorry (mailing costs).
Pre-order my new book, Life in Five Senses!
What we’re reading
Gretchen:
Hello and welcome to Happier, a podcast where we talk about ideas for how to be happier, healthier, more productive, and more creative. This week we’ll talk about how we can tap into our five senses for more productivity and focus. And we’ll talk to Will Schwalbe about friendship, time, and his new memoir, “We Should Not Be Friends.”
[Music]
I’m Gretchen Rubin, a writer who studies happiness, the five senses, 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. My sister, the sage.
Elizabeth:
That’s me, Elizabeth Craft, a T.V. writer and producer living in L.A. And Gretch, I would say we we’re friends and sisters.
Gretchen:
Indeed. Yes. Now, before we jump into the Try This at Home, we got some great responses from listeners. One listener added her own response to Elizabeth’s observation that becoming a parent helped you as a writer because you just couldn’t have writer’s block anymore, so that helped your career. Lauren said something similar.
Elizabeth:
Yeah, she said, “Liz, yes. Becoming a parent helped my career too. I am confident that having my first kid led to my first promotion. When I returned to work, I was sitting in swirling meetings with no outcomes. In my mind I was thinking, I don’t have time for this. I need to go.” As a result, I started to propel meetings forward, facilitating to conclusion, etc. The goal at the time was just to get home, but I was promoted shortly thereafter and it is now a defining part of my leadership style. Not a bug, a feature.”
Gretchen:
Love that.
Elizabeth:
Yes.
Gretchen:
And then we got some responses to our suggestion in episode 358 about choosing a code word if you want to send a secret signal to someone during a conversation without everybody else knowing that you’re doing it. And different listeners had different twists on the idea of a code word.
Elizabeth:
Yeah, Sarah said, “A different way we use code words in our family is that since the children were small, we told them any time they felt uncomfortable in a situation, for example, on a playdate or sleepover, but couldn’t say so, for example, if someone was standing right there listening. They would text or call and reference a food we never eat and we all hate.
“I’m not telling what it is because then our secret is out. As the kids hate this food, it’s stuck in their minds and on the phone. Even with someone else’s parent hovering or a peer listening, they could say something like, Oh, we had X for lunch at school today, or are you cooking X when grandma comes over, etc. And it didn’t sound too weird for a child to ask.
“We told them if they use this word, we would come immediately and rescue them, no questions asked, and we would make necessary excuses with any adults about why they needed to leave suddenly so they didn’t have to handle that themselves. They can also use this at social events when we were there as a signal that they don’t feel comfortable. Something’s not right. Help. It’s been used twice. Once in a situation I was glad to remove my child from and the kids are glad we have it and feel safer knowing they have a get out of here now signal when needed.”
Gretchen:
Yeah. Eliza and I had a signal that was purple. If she said purple, because often she would be in a situation where someone would be saying, oh, can you come over? Can you come over? Can you stay? And she didn’t really want to. She’s sort of like, I’ve had my fun, I’m ready for this playdate to be over or something. And that was the way for me to say, even if she’s saying, oh, I want to do it, Yeah, I would say, no, you have to come home.
Elizabeth:
Oh, that’s great.
Gretchen:
And then Amy had one. She said, “My husband has a tendency to talk very loudly when he’s telling a story in a social situation, especially if alcohol is involved. His booming voice can blow your hair back and he doesn’t always realize it. We developed a code so I can subtly tell him to take it down a notch. I simply run my finger from the top of his spine to the middle. To the outsider, it looks just like I’m being affectionate, rubbing his back. My favorite thing is it doesn’t draw attention to or embarrass my husband.” So it’s a nice secret signal.
Elizabeth:
Yes. And then Emily said, “My husband is a really thoughtful, interesting guy that can tend to go on a bit. He likes to explain the details if he’s getting a little long-winded. I use blueberry to short-circuit his explanations. In fairness, he could equally use it back at me. If I’m being argumentative, I’m an Upholder.”
Oh, this is good. I like these secrets, I guess. So this week’s Try This at Home Tip is to tap into your five senses for more productivity and focus. And in writing my book, Life in Five Senses, I found there’s so many ways we can tap into our five senses to achieve so many different aims. And one of the aims is that it is something that can help us to buckle down, concentrate in a world where a lot of times there’s a lot of things pulling our attention and our focus away.
Elizabeth:
Yeah. So, Gretchen, let’s go through the five senses and talk about it.
Gretchen:
Okay, well, starting with seeing, seeing is like the sense that takes up the most real estate in the brain. As I’ve commented many times, for many people, outer order contributes to inner calm. Not for everyone. Elizabeth, you are clutter blind. It doesn’t apply so much to you, but for a lot of people, outer order really does help with focusing on productivity.
And so if you find that you’re having trouble concentrating. One thing to do is say, am I in a messy, cluttered environment? Are there too many things jarring my eyeballs? And if so, maybe I need to take the time to establish order. You don’t want to do procrasti-clearing, right? You know, you spend too much time cleaning up as a way to procrastinate. But sometimes it’s like, let me just take a little bit of time. And in that way, I will actually set myself up for more success by creating an environment that feels more inviting to me.
Elizabeth:
Okay. And then next is hearing. And I have to say, I am someone, I cannot write, for instance, with music on. I need quiet.
Gretchen:
Well, and just as you clear clutter, you can clear clatter. And one of the things you can do is just like you look for, like, the messy areas that might be catching your eye. You can think like, are there noises that are distracting me? Notification sounds? Elizabeth, do you have notification sounds on your phone?
Elizabeth:
Oh, no.
Gretchen:
Neither do I. Jamie has notification sounds, and I’m like, how can you stand that? Some people want them, but that’s an easy thing to do it. And then, as you said, like neither you nor I ever work to music. But like, I know Adam likes to work in coffee shops, right? So is he a person who likes that kind of busy hum?
Elizabeth:
Yes. He needs a din. He likes… It’s really hard for him to work in quiet. He needs, he says, the sound he focuses because he’s blocking out the sound and that makes him focus on what he’s doing. Whereas for me, I just, I need total quiet or as quiet as it can be.
Gretchen:
Yeah. Yeah. And then some people to block out noise, if you’re having a lot of people use white noise or pink noise or brown noise to create… or the sound of a fan or the sound of ocean sounds, but I think this is a great know yourself better question because people really do thrive in different environments. And so and this is like for your children, you might say turn off the music because so you can focus.
Whereas if you’ve got a child who really focuses better with music, you want to be aware that just because you and I need silence doesn’t mean that everybody likes that. But here’s something interesting that I did not realize before I did the research for Life in Five Senses are brains are very focused on other people. The brain is like, that’s what it values.
And that’s what’s most important to us is what are other people, what are they doing? What are they saying? What’s interesting to them? What’s scaring them? Like people, people, people. And so it can be, for some people, very distracting if they can hear people’s voices, especially if it’s people they know like they’re in the workplace and you’re like, oh, I want to eavesdrop on that conversation.
So that’s also something to be aware of as something that could potentially be distracting. If you’re working from home and you can hear family members talking, is that something that you find very distracting? You want to be aware of that. Some people, they don’t… it doesn’t bother them, but for some people it can help to take care of that.
Elizabeth:
This is interesting, Gretch, smelling. I don’t think of smelling as being something kind of related to focusing. Explain how this works.
Gretchen:
Well, this is really fun. And Elizabeth, you actually facilitated this free unbeknownst to you. So do you remember I think two Christmases ago you gave me this beautiful little wooden box that had, like, a clay stand, and then these leaves made of incense paper. So you light one and it’s like a leaf that burns, and it has this really kind of beautiful, smoky, kind of autumnal smell.
And so I love that, but I kind of use those sparingly. I also have this gardenia-scented candle that I love. And so sometimes when I really need to focus like I’m working on something that’s really hard as kind of a ritual of like, okay, like this is Maxeymum effort or like, I’m really going to, like, buckle down, I’ll light that smell.
And then, of course, if you associate it with this feeling of concentration and focus and energy, that starts to help induce that feeling in you and it’s just pleasant. It just feels more indulgent and delightful, than like filing your papers. It’s a more fun.
Elizabeth:
I love this idea because I feel like we all have our special candles, but you’re never sure when to light them. Like how do I light it? Do I light it now? When people are here? Yeah, when people aren’t here because not everybody likes the scented candle. Yes, it’s a whole thing. So this is like it gives you that time to spend out, as we say, on your, you know, beloved candles. I’m going to start doing this. I have never done that, but I’m going to.
Gretchen:
Oh, good. Well, I’m excited to see if it works for you. Yeah, you’re right. Because now you have, like, this special reason to burn a candle at a particular time. Okay, I’m going to go for the obvious one here. Okay? This is not going to come as a surprise to anyone. But the classic way to harness taste for focus and productivity is to drink some coffee.
And if you’re like, hey, this caffeine really affect people. Oh my gosh, it is bonkers. Read Michael Pollan’s fascinating book called This Is Your Mind on Plants. He talks about how we’re all… unless you’re somebody who just really does not drink coffee, most people are really much more powerfully affected by caffeine than they realize. But what I have found talking to people is that, because our cultural norm of like associating coffee with productivity and focus is so strong that even when people are drinking decaf, it still tends to give them a lift, like it’s an action that we associate with like, okay, buckling down.
Elizabeth:
Yes. And the smell of it. Yeah. It’s like, okay, we’re starting something now. We’re having a cup of coffee.
Gretchen:
And even if you have a coffee break, it’s often about like recharging in order to do more work. So even in terms of like kicking back with coffee, it’s often about using it for more productivity.
Elizabeth:
Well, in Gretch, to the taste of it all, you know, I associate the taste of icebreakers with writing because I always have some icebreakers next to me when I write. So very much that helps me go, okay, I’m focusing in, I gotta eat my icebreakers.
Gretchen:
Well, you got me hooked on icebreakers for sure, but describe what they are to people who don’t know what this.
Elizabeth:
Oh, yeah. They come in a round a little tub and they’re mints. Basically pretty mild. It’s not. They’re much more mild than, like, Altoids, for instance. They come in all sorts of flavors, and so I have an assortment. Sugar free. Sometimes I’m in the mood for the sour, and sometimes I’m in the mood for the spearmint. And, you know, I keep a selection.
Gretchen:
Yeah, yeah. I love I love icebreakers. And then you help me to discover those.
Elizabeth:
Okay, touching, Gretchen.
Gretchen:
More and more, I think people are aware of how to turn to the sense of touch for productivity and focus. You hear about this a lot with children in classrooms using things like pop toys, therapy dough. I have a fidget spinner that I use all the time. When I find it’s really useful is when I’m on a long video call because there’s kind of that restlessness that sets. And you sort of… it’s hard to stay focused and there’s something about using this fidget spinner. No one on the screen can see me doing it, but that activity in my hand helps me to concentrate my mind.
Elizabeth:
Oh yeah, I’m going to try that. I’ve never done that.
Gretchen:
Yeah, because you suffer through a lot of Zoom calls. Well, you’ve got your treadmill desk, so sometimes you can be on your treadmill desk, but this is kind of the next best thing. It’s still that movement that’s kind of an outlet.
Elizabeth:
Yes, absolutely.
Gretchen:
Well, if you want more ideas, I did write an article about this and I’ll post a link in the show notes or you can just go to gretchenrubin.com and look for how to increase focus and productivity. But it’s really… it’s a great example of how we can tap into our five senses to just engage with the world in a way that helps us to achieve our aims for ourselves.
Elizabeth:
Gretch, I cannot wait to try my candle.
Gretchen:
Okay. Yeah, well, let us know if you Try This at Home and what you’ve done to tune into your five senses for more productivity and focus. Let us know on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, TikTok. Drop us an email at podcast@gretchenrubin.com. Or as always, go to the shownotes. This is episode 419. Go to happiercast.com/419 for everything related to this episode.
Elizabeth:
Coming up, we’ve got a whimsical minor holiday celebration hack. But first this break.
[Music]
Gretchen:
Okay, Elizabeth, the Happiness Hack? We love whimsy. We love using the calendar as a catalyst. And we’ve got a great imaginative example from a listener.
Elizabeth:
Yes, Tracy said, “One day recently when I came home from work, my husband had a surprise waiting for me. He had a large paper with many columns of dots printed on it. He asked me how many dots I thought were on the paper, then revealed the answer to be 20,000. He then led me into the dining room to find a cake with candles, 20,000 on it, flowers, a gift bag and a happy birthday banner.
Turns out it was my 20,000th day birthday. He had purchased a birthday card from the children’s section. It said, ‘You are 2,’ but he had added zeros to get you for 20,000. What a surprise, and it brought so much joy to my day. A whimsical minor holiday celebration. It also makes one stop and think: all those dots on the paper representing days I have lived.
Elizabeth:
What have I done with all those days? What happened on this day/dot? And that day/dot?”
Gretchen:
This is such a lovely idea. I did do the math. This is sometime in like a 54th year, if you’re wondering how many, what that turns into. You’d have to figure it out exactly because of the leap days. And I didn’t, I didn’t do that. But this is, this is so fun. Yeah.
Elizabeth:
What a nice husband, huh?
Gretchen:
What a nice husband. Yes. And speaking of hacks, for the very special episode coming up in 420, we are gathering hacks about using the five senses in however you use them: productivity and focus or whimsy or however it might be. So if you have a great hack about tapping into your five senses, send it in and the next episode will round those up. And you know, Elizabeth, we love a hack round up. I can’t wait for that.
We sure do.
And now for an interview with Will Schwalbe. Will Schwalbe, for most of his career, has worked in publishing as an editor and an editor-in-chief of publishing houses such as William Morrow, Hyperion and Macmillan. He also founded a startup called cookstr.com.
Elizabeth:
He’s also the writer of books and a true book lover, as his previous books show, The End of Your Life Book Club and Books for a Living. And Gretchen, he’s in your children’s literature book club.
Gretchen:
Yes, absolutely. It’s so fun to have him there. And Will now has a new book that has just hit the shelves called “We Should Not Be Friends: The Story of a Friendship.”
Elizabeth:
Here’s the description. By the time Will Schwalbe was a junior in college, he had already met everyone he cared to know. The theater people, the writers, a handful of visual artists and comp-lit majors, and the six other students who shared his own major, Latin and Greek. He also knew exactly who he wanted to avoid: the jocks. All this changed dramatically when Will collided with Chris Maxey, known to just about everyone as Maxey.
Elizabeth:
Maxey was physically imposing, loud, and a star wrestler. And thanks to the strangely liberating circumstances of a little known secret society at Yale, the two forged a bond that would become a mainstay of each other’s lives for 40 years. From New Haven to New York City, from Hong Kong and London to a remote island through marriages and a divorce triumphs and devastating losses, We Should Not Be Friends tracks an extraordinary friendship through decades of challenge and change. Will’s marvelous new work is a testament to the miracle of human connection.
Will:
Hi. Hi, Gretchen. Hi, Liz.
Gretchen:
Hi. It’s so great to have you here talking to us.
Will:
I’m so happy to be here. I’ve been really looking forward to this conversation, so I just am delighted.
Gretchen:
Well, there’s so many things I love about this memoir, Will. And one of the things that really struck me was how you really captured the fun and the excitement, but also kind of the panic of being in college, being a young adult, not knowing exactly who you are, what you should do with your life, how you fit in. It was all this really vivid in your memory like that. It brought it all back for me, but I kind of forgot I remembered it. Is it vivid in your mind, or did you recapture that as part of working through the memoir?
Will:
College is so vivid in my mind, where my keys are, where my wallet was. What I did with a beloved sweater is not a question I could answer, but I remember college incredibly well because it was exciting, it was new, it was scary, and it imprinted in my mind. That said, it was a real joy writing this book because I connected with all sorts of old friends and tested my memories against theirs. And sometimes they said, oh, you’re spot on. And sometimes they said, yeah, that didn’t happen.
Gretchen:
Interesting.
Elizabeth:
We remember things differently. Well, so will you write about Maxey and your husband. So how did you handle it with Maxey? Did you get his permission to write certain things? Did he have to approve it? I’m so curious about that process. And also your husband.
Will:
So Maxey and his wife Pam, opened up their entire lives to me. They told me everything. Maxey found a journal that he had kept in college. He shared with me the entire journal. He allowed me to talk to his kids and ask them anything. And the rules we set up were when I had finally written the book, I would show it to them and they had carte blanche to take anything out, anything they wanted out. And I also said to them, look, if you’ve changed your mind about this project and you don’t want it to happen, it doesn’t happen. And my thinking was there is no book that’s more important than a friendship.
Elizabeth:
Hmm.
Gretchen:
I guess that’s sort of the point of the book… Is that…
Elizabeth:
The book…
Will:
Yeah, exactly. They read it and there were some things that they were uncomfortable about, maybe because they were… wish they hadn’t done them or were embarrassed. But at the end, they said, look, it’s going to be warts and all or it’s not going to be at all. And they didn’t take out one single thing.
Elizabeth:
Oh, wow. They seemed like those kind of people, sort of just open and honest and not a coincidence.
Will:
Not a coincidence, that oddly, that didn’t surprise me at all. As for my husband, I read him the passages that related to him, and he was sort of slightly snoozing on the couch. And he said, yeah, fine, fine, fine, fine. But I think he’s fine with it all. So I think we’re good.
Gretchen:
Yeah, I guess it’s a tricky thing to write your perspective on what happened. It’s intimate for them and it’s intimate for you. It kind of breaks down a wall that’s usually between people. It’s kind of unsettling.
Will:
It is. But it turned out to be enormous fun and it really further cemented our friendship. And we did do the remembering together. We would sit around for hours and hours and reconstruct our conversations and remember funny details, and we were able to reconstruct the scenes, I think, really accurately, because we had each other as a check. And it was so fun to spend time back in college, really, and become our goofy college selves.
Gretchen:
Yeah. Well, another one of the interesting things about the book is you write about how especially in the early days, but it persisted for a while, you felt very judged by Maxey and you felt like he had all these assumptions about you that he was imposing on you. But then over time, you realized that it was actually you who was the more judgmental one, and you were the one that was bringing a lot of assumptions to kind of your connection. This is the kind of thing that’s really hard to see in ourselves, I think. Is like how we’re judging or, you know, how we’re imposing assumptions. How did you get there?
Will:
It took me a very long time to get there. And one of the things was I was so defensive, understandably so, because I was a young gay man in the early eighties and the situation was in some ways similar to today, but in some ways very different. And it was at the dawn of AIDS and there was an enormous amount of prejudice against gay people and gay men in particular.
So I meet this loud, obnoxious, swaggering jock at college who never knowingly has met a gay person before. So he says a lot of stupid stuff. And I was understandably defensive. But I made all of these assumptions about him and what I found out over the course of our year of having dinner twice a week together in this secret society, and then over the course of decades of friendship, was that while he was prejudiced against me, I was way more prejudiced against him. And that I made a lot of assumptions based on the kinds of activities he did and the clothes he wore and the fact that he hung out with a lot of other jocks. And they weren’t fair, that he has an amazing heart, great values, and he wanted to change.
And so part of the point I want to get across in this book is we can be friends with so much… such a wider circle than we might think, and that even if we judge someone correctly, it doesn’t mean that’s who they really are in their heart and it doesn’t mean that they might not want to change.
Elizabeth:
So do you think now when you meet people based on this knowledge, you’re more open? Can you sort of be present with that or do you have to remind yourself?
Will:
I have to remind myself it’s so built in this thing we do where we look at someone and we make a snap decision, Oh yeah, we should be friends or we should not be friends. And I have to talk myself over that. I have to say, how do you know, you haven’t talked to them yet. And I also really believe that how people behave is much more important than what they say. So I really try to observe how people move through the world, especially how do they treat other people. And if they treat other people with kindness and generosity, we should be friends.
Elizabeth:
Well, the subtitle of the memoir is The Story of a Friendship. So what are some of the lessons about friendship that you would recommend to others?
Gretchen:
One is this “Look at what people do.” That’s a really good strategy, which is look beyond words to actions.
Will:
Look beyond words to actions. When we’re trying to decide, you know, who should be our friends. Look how people behave. But keeping up a 40 year friendship takes work. It’s like keeping up any other 40 year relationship, whether it’s a marriage or a colleague or friendship. You have to work at it. And one of the lessons that I’ve learned through life that I really want to remind myself and others is it’s better to say something than nothing.
Elizabeth:
Mm hmm.
Will:
And that people are often so scared of saying the wrong thing that they say nothing at all. And there were times in Maxey’s life when he was really going through some tough times. And I sometimes was so scared of saying the wrong thing that I didn’t say anything or I didn’t reach out to him and I should have.
And that’s something we had to get over. And another really powerful lesson I learned, probably the most powerful for me is I loved being a good friend. And I really prided myself on being there at some really key points when Maxey needed me. For example, he had a big operation and I was there for him in the hospital. But I kept my own problems to myself, and I didn’t let him be there for me. And I think one of the ways that you really can be a great friend is by letting your friends help you. Not always trying to help them.
Gretchen:
Yeah, I thought that was one of the most moving and kind of most insightful passages was how you have to be able to be vulnerable or you have to be able to show that side of yourself or there’s just like a limit to the closeness. And he’s very upset with you when he finds that out, like he feels like that wasn’t being a good friend, even though it sort of fit your idea of what being a good friend would be.
Will:
Yeah, that’s the angriest he’s ever gotten at me. And he was really angry. I was dealing with a chronic illness and I didn’t tell him and he found out through another friend and he was absolutely right. I should share that with him and allowed him to help me. And actually, when I did share it with him, Maxey is this incredible guy who went from being a Navy Seal to an eco warrior and practicing yoga. And he taught me breathing exercises that really helped me with my chronic illness. And he was able to help me and give me that gift. And that further strengthened our friendship.
Gretchen:
Mm hmm. But one thing that you talk about is you were in the secret society, so you had this kind of mandatory time together. And then even after college, it sort of created this natural group that would meet. And so you were forced to spend time with him even at the beginning when you didn’t want to. And then it turned into this incredibly important friendship over the decades.
Do you feel like it seems like this kind of a lot of times these mandatory relationships do turn into unlikely friendships. And so do you think this has implications for things like the remote workplace, like maybe people will lose certain kinds of friends that they would have just had? You know, we all have workplace friends that we would never have otherwise been friends with. It seems like maybe that there was value to being forced to spend time with him.
Will:
Enormous value. I just read a study that fascinated me, which is, they did a study of friendships in classrooms with school children, and if the kids were allowed to choose their own seats, they became friends with people who were exactly like them or they perceived to be exactly like them in very superficial ways. If they assigned the seats in the classroom, the kids became friends with the kids who sat around them, whether they were alike at all or not.
And those became really powerful friendships. And so I think being forced to get together is great, like we do in the workplace, and being forced in proximity to people who might not be the people we chose to be near is terrific. So I really do worry about going to an all Zoom world because we won’t have those forced proximities that give us these great friendships.
Gretchen:
Right. Okay, last question. Will, we ask all our guests, do you have a Try This at Home suggestion that you would suggest to listeners for something they can do as part of their ordinary day to be happier?
Will:
So might Try This at Home ordinary day happiness suggestion (which is related to friendship) is really just put in your diary every day the name of a friend that you haven’t spoken to in a while and contact them. If it’s just a text, it’s just a text. If it’s on Facebook, that’s fine if it’s giving them a call. But call a friend, contact a friend every day, and I think that will add immeasurably to your happiness.
Gretchen:
Well, it’s interesting that you like… the very project of writing this book got you to connect with people. And that itself brought happiness.
Will:
Absolutely.
Gretchen:
Well, thank you so much. Will, it was such a pleasure to get to talk to you about this beautiful memoir.
Elizabeth:
Thanks, Will.
Will:
Thanks so much, Liz. Thank you, Gretchen. I really appreciate it.
Elizabeth:
Coming up, Gretchen gives herself a Valentine’s Day related Demerit. But first, this break.
[Music]
Elizabeth:
Okay, Gretchen, it is time for Demerits and Gold Stars, and you’re up this week with the Demerit.
Gretchen:
Okay, so this is related to Valentine’s day. So every year for Valentine’s Day, we send a holiday… that’s our holiday card is a Valentine’s Day card, because I had the brilliant insight that it’s better to do it for Valentine’s Day because that’s after all of the hustle and bustle of the holidays. It’s easier to get the cards made because the people who make the cards are not so overwhelmed with orders and it’s just easier to get it done.
So but every year it’s a scramble, right? Because I leave it at the last minute and it’s a whole to do, as one does. This year, I really got it in gear early. Like I got the picture taken of Eliza and Eleanor. I got them ordered, I cleaned up my address list, which is a list that you and I have talked about… the address list is its own kind of ongoing process. Got it all done. Got the cards in the mail. Had ordered the love stamps, everything. And iI’m like patting myself on the back. And then I realized the other thing that I do for Valentine’s Day is I have our Valentine’s Day gallery. Every year I take this Valentine’s Day photos, put it in a pink, white, or red frame, and I make a gallery and it’s only out for a week or two.
So we really see the pictures. We really appreciate them. They’re not just like the other photographs that we have up all the time that we never look at because they’re so familiar. So I always love this. It adds so much, kind of like holiday cheer. But it’s really easy. I just like, take out a bunch of frames and on from the box and, you know, put them out.
And this year, I didn’t think about it until after Valentine’s Day, which is like 100% just forgot about that whole part of how I celebrate Valentine’s Day in my family. So I was like, I don’t care. We’ll just do it late. So I put them up. Well after Valentine’s Day and now I probably should take them down. But I was just like, how did I…I’ve done this every day for every year for years of years, and I just forgot.
Elizabeth:
You know, sometimes the dates just fly by.
Gretchen:
I guess so. I guess so. Elizabeth, what’s your Gold Star?
Elizabeth:
So Gretch, I am giving a Gold Star to my friend Roxy because. So let me back up and say that last weekend, Adam and Jack and I went with a group of other families on a glamping trip. Where, you know where you go. We were at a place where we had cottages, and we were all staying in the cottages, but it was glamping, you know?
So upscale camping, not something I would normally do. But this was all in support of a charity called the Five Ventures, and it included golfing. And Adam loves to golf but hadn’t gone for at least ten years. And my friend Roxy really pushed me to join on this weekend. She’s like, it’s a great charity. You’re going to have a great time.
She kept texting me. Did you sign up? Did you sign up? And finally I caved and I signed up to do something I would normally never do, which is glamping. And we had such a great time, Gretch, and it was such a great charity. We had a fantastic time. And I would not have gone there, had Roxy really not pushed me.
And I mean, you know, she was a happiness bully, Gretch, the way you can at times. And you know what? I admire people who are just willing to do that. Willing to kind of, like, not only take the time, but also put themselves out. And she said she knew that we would love it. And she was also wanting to get as many people as she could. And so, you know, Gold Star to Roxy and also Gold Star to us for, you know, going and taking part.
Gretchen:
No, I was just going to say, I think that I want to give a Gold Star to you and Jack and Adam as well, because it isn’t the kind of thing that you would naturally do. And I can imagine all the hesitations that would come into your mind and all the kind of last minute, what have we done?
What are we signing up for here? And so you just have to take a risk. And then those times sometimes end up being the most fun of all. And you have to remember that. Yeah. Yeah. So Gold Star all around. And it’s so lovely that you had such a great time. The resources for this week. Okay, I have fresh new bookplates to go with Life in Five Senses, though they can go in any books, they don’t have the words Life in Five Senses on them or anything, but they’re new. I’m excited about them. If you want a bookplate for any of my books, but especially if you are thinking like, okay, I’m going to get the book and give it as a gift, say for Mother’s Day when it comes out, I want to go ahead and get that organized. You can request a signed, personalized bookplate for free within reason.
I will send these to you. I can only do it in U.S. and Canada. Unfortunately. This is an actual physical thing that I will mail to you. You can go to happiercast.com/bookplate to put in your order. And again, because there’s sort of a process here, it’s always nice to have as much lead time as possible, which is why mentioning it now, even though the book has been out for a while. So I can get that squared away.
And if you want to preorder the book, preorder early and often, you can go to happiercast.com/fivesenses and you can get the book served and the preorder bonus and everything you want to see about the book there. And I don’t need to say it again how valuable it is for people to preorder. So I’m not going to say that. I’m just not even going to mention that. But speaking of books, Elizabeth, what are we reading? What are you reading?
Elizabeth:
I’m reading Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourn.
Gretchen:
And I’m reading Easy Beauty, a memoir by Chloe Cooper Jones. And that’s it for this episode of Happier. Remember to Try This at Home: Tap into your five senses for more focus and productivity. Let us know if you tried it and if it works for you.
Elizabeth:
Thank you to our guest, Will Schwalbe. You can read his beautiful memoir, We Should Not Be Friends. Thank you to our executive producer, Chuck Reed, and everyone at Cadence 13. Get in touch. Gretchen’s on Instagram and Tik Tok @gretchenrubin and I’m on Instagram @lizcraft. Our email address is podcast@gretchenrubin.com.
Gretchen:
And if you like the show, please be sure to tell a friend and review and follow us wherever you get your podcasts.
Elizabeth:
Until next week, I’m ElizabethCraft
Gretchen:
And I’m Gretchen Rubin. Thanks for joining us.
[Music]
Onward and upward.
[Music]
Gretchen:
Elizabeth, speaking of clearing clutter, when I come to L.A. for the book tour, I really hope that we can carve out a few hours to tackle your office. You know, I love clearing out your office.
Elizabeth:
I know. I was thinking about that, Gretchen. I was thinking that’s going to happen. Yeah.
Gretchen:
Step back.
[Music]
From the Onward Project.