Try This at Home
Use the upcoming Labor Day holiday to reflect on your own labor—paid or unpaid.
Here are two questions to ponder:
- What’s the most important value about work that you learned from your parents—and what, if any, value do you want to un-learn?
- If you were going to give yourself some great advice, you’d tell yourself to ______.
I mention different journals that can help with self-reflection. You can view them all here.
Happiness Hack
A listener suggests nominating people for awards.
Happiness Stumbling Block
We discuss the challenge of having days when work and leisure feel muddled together. It’s not the “9 to 5” work/life split that used to exist.
We mention the discussion in episode 101 of “compartmentalizers vs. integrators.”
Listener Question
A listener asks for advice for helping her Rebel son manage the challenges of college.
To learn whether you’re an Upholder, Questioner, Obliger, or Rebel, and to learn more about the “Four Tendencies” personality framework, go here.
Demerits & Gold Stars
Gretchen’s Demerit: Yes, I wrote the book Outer Order, Inner Calm, but right now my clutter feels out of control.
Elizabeth’s Gold Star: She gives a gold star to dog-friendly hotels, restaurants, and the town of Carmel.
Resource
There’s a new premium feature in the Happier app—the #1 most-requested feature!
In One-Sentence Journal in the app, you can edit and archive your responses for easy reference as you experiment with your aims to find what works best for you.
You can unlock this feature with a subscription. If you’re a first-time, you can sign up today and try the first month for free! Head to thehappierapp.com to learn more or download it from the App Store or Google Play.
What We’re Reading
445
[Music]
Gretchen
Hello and welcome to Happier! A podcast where we talk about ideas for how to make our lives happier, healthier, more productive and more creative. This week, in honor of Labor Day, we’ll talk about two questions to help you think about your own labor, and we’ll talk about an easy way to make someone happier at work. I’m Gretchen Rubin, a writer who studies happiness, good habits, the five senses, human nature.
Gretchen
I’m in my little home office in New York City, and joining me today from L.A. is somebody who I love to work with, my sister Elizabeth Craft.
Elizabeth
That’s me, Elizabeth Craft, a TV writer and producer living in L.A. and Gretchen right now. I’m not doing a lot of work because I am on strike along with the rest of the WGA, hoping that will end soon.
Gretchen
Yes, hoping it will come to an end soon. Before we launch and we have an update, we got a response from a listener to our episode 442, which was about taking over someone else’s irrationally disliked task.
Elizabeth
Yes, this comes from Meredith. She says: “Your discussion in episode 442 about taking over someone else’s irrational dislike task immediately made me think of my last visit with my father before he passed away. In early 2020, my mother fell and broke her tailbone, leaving many household tasks she usually handled to my father and brother. Because of the pandemic, I wasn’t able to be there to help until September.
Elizabeth
During that visit, I found an absolutely enormous pile of laundry in the guest room where it had been left, some of it still slightly damp and becoming mildewed for what was clearly a few weeks. When I asked about it, my dad, a rebel if there ever was one, said that he just despised doing laundry and couldn’t bring himself to finish.
Elizabeth
I said that I would take care of it while I was there. He immediately responded that he could handle it. To which I replied, “Of course you can, but you hate doing it and I don’t mind. So why wouldn’t I take it off your hands?” He was visibly surprised by that idea, but let me take over. Washing, drying and sorting Mount St laundry.
Elizabeth
And as a bonus, while I did the laundry, he tackled the dishes, a chore he actually liked and one that I will avoid at all costs. He died a couple of months later of a massive stroke and it has always comforted me that I was able to make his life a tiny bit easier during a difficult time when I otherwise couldn’t be around to offer support.”
Gretchen
This is such a beautiful story and it’s a great example of sometimes I really dislike one thing. You really dislike something else. I’ll take it off your hands and it just makes the distribution of tasks feel lighter. And also it’s a way to do a good deed for somebody in a way that can be surprisingly meaningful.
Elizabeth
Yes, it’s a way to show love. So that’s wonderful.
Gretchen
And also, before we launch in, people are loving the clear the decks exercise. I have to say, you and I weren’t sure what people would make of that. We were sort of like, this seems fun to us, but are people going to like the idea of you stopping and starting and doing it along with us? And we thought it would seem like a fun way to tackle those annoying tasks.
Gretchen
So it has been very delightful to realize that other people get a kick out of it too. And in fact, many people have suggested that we do it again, even like once a quarter, which seems right, but we’ll do it again. And also we have had requests to do a Deck the Halls version for the holidays, get it Clear the Decks and Deck the Halls.
Gretchen
Little deck humor there. And so what we need are ideas. What are your ideas for things that would make good tasks to do? Because these are meant to be tasks that you really could do in a minute or two. Elizabeth many people pointed out that we snuck wash your car onto the last list, which is not a one minute task.
Gretchen
So next time we will be more rigorous about making sure they truly are all things that you could do in just a few minutes. These are just blasting them out, getting them done, getting that that quick burst of energy and cheer that comes from getting things crossed off the list. But we want ideas of interesting, fresh ideas that people might not have thought about that would be very, very satisfying to tackle and just clear.
Gretchen
Also, send us those ideas for Deck the Halls or Clear the Decks Volume two.
Elizabeth
Cannot wait.
Gretchen
And this week our Try This At Home suggestion is #HappierLaborDay. Here in the United States. Labor Day is coming up. It is September 4th, which, as you know, is my wedding anniversary.
Elizabeth
Yes.
Gretchen
But it’s the Labor Day holiday and we talk often about using a holiday as a catalyst for reflection. It’s just a reminder to step back and think about some big aspect of our life. It’s so easy in the tumult of everyday life, just not to ask ourselves these big questions or to ponder. And so Labor Day is a good day to think about your labor.
Gretchen
What is our work life like? Our paid work, our unpaid work? How can we think about what we want to do, what we want to stop doing? What are our aims? What are our values related to our own work life?
Elizabeth
Yeah. So, Gretchen, we have a couple of specific questions to think about. Yes. One is, what’s the most important value about work that you learn from your parents and what, if any, value do you want to unlearn?
Gretchen
Yeah, I think this is such a thought provoking question.
Elizabeth
I do too. It was interesting to discuss this being that we’re sisters obviously have the same parents. I think we had learned a lot of the same things from our parents about work. I think from our parents we definitely learned that work can be very satisfying.
Gretchen
Yes, we learn to think of work as a place of satisfaction and gratification. And we should say our mother, when we were growing up, did unpaid work. She didn’t work for money, but she was very involved with major philanthropic projects that took a lot of time and leadership. And so we saw her spending tremendous amounts of time and energy on that.
Gretchen
And our father is a lawyer. But yeah, we saw that this was a place to turn to for satisfaction, engagement, positive relationships with other people, interesting adventures. They would often talk about things that happened in a way that was very, very positive for us to see.
Elizabeth
And another thing was to take risks. Now, I think this is a really interesting thing because you and I both really embraced risk ultimately. Yes. In our careers. And I mean, obviously we’re fortunate that we were able to take risks. Yeah, 100 percent. Yes. But, you know, it’s still putting yourself out there. And that was something that our dad did because at one point when we were growing up, he went off on his own, created his own law firm.
Elizabeth
It was a huge risk. Yeah. And I think it really made an impression on me that that’s what one does. You start your career, but, you know, you work hard and then it’s okay to take a big risk.
Gretchen
Well, it’s funny. I mean, now that I’m a parent myself, there’s one thing to take a risk yourself, but then it’s another thing to support your children taking risks. Because I think we really want our children to be safe. We don’t want them to risk being discouraged or failing or feeling open to criticism. And so not only did our father model risk himself, but both our parents were very supportive when we decided to take risks, where I think a lot of times parents would be like, Oh my gosh, like you just finished law school, you just finished all your legal training.
Gretchen
Now’s the time when you decide that you want to just throw it all up in the air and like be a nonfiction writer with literally not one credential to your name, not one clip, not one short story. And they were like, This sounds great. Yeah. So there was the model of taking risk and also supporting us. I mean, you going off to L.A., I mean, that was a yes.
Gretchen
And you decided like overnight too. It wasn’t like this. You spent six months thinking about it and kind of weighing the pros and cons. It was like, Yeah, this is my new plan. And I’m like, okay.
Elizabeth
It was a whim.
Gretchen
Yes, but it was right. And they supported that. Yes. Yes. Now, Elizabeth, I think there are some ways in which we feel like our parents taught us really good values about work. But I could see that other people might disagree with those values. For instance, you and I both identify with our work very much, and some people really think they argue that perhaps one should not identify with their work.
Gretchen
But we do identify with our work.
Elizabeth
We do, and we always have. And I don’t see that ever changing. And you and I are absolutely fine with that. I mean, that is how I identify myself as a TV writer in the introduction. Yes. I mean, yes, that’s my number one way I identify. So but I absolutely I know people who think it’s very sad and unfortunate to identify with your work.
Elizabeth
So this is a know yourself better question.
Gretchen
It’s a know yourself better question. It’s also a way of like as you think about what you learn from your family, you might at different times of your life, feel different about different values that you feel that you learn from them. Different members of your family might feel differently about those values. It’s a know yourself better question and that it’s really a question of what do you think and how does it accord with your values rather than just unthinkingly accepting it without really deciding whether it is a value that you embrace.
Gretchen
So here’s another one, Elizabeth, and you and Sara talk about this all the time. That’s something that’s really important for your writing partnership, which is that you both are very ambitious and you say like it’s important for partners to be the same level of ambition. And you and I are both very ambitious. So we will do things like work during holidays.
Gretchen
I mean, how many times have you worked during a family holiday?
Elizabeth
Yes, countless. Yes.
Gretchen
And everybody’s fine is like, that’s okay. You got to do what you got to do. But again, someone else might have a different view. You might decide this is a family value that I reject. You might decide all different kinds of things.
Elizabeth
Yeah, and it’s interesting, Gretchen, because it’s kind of a family value. Everyone feeds and encourages that value. Yes, In our family it’s not seen as bad to be ambitious. That’s right. Sort of like, of course you’re ambitious, you’re alive, therefore you’re ambitious. But again, not everybody needs to be ambitious. So write about what you want to do.
Gretchen
Yeah. Understanding your own values and how they might be in harmony or in contrast to your family. It’s a really interesting thing to consider.
Elizabeth
Yeah. And Gretchen, I would add to the ambition piece that we don’t have a mantra of others have to fail for you to succeed. I mean, ambition in a midwestern way, which is being polite and hard working, not cut throat, stab others in the back, which is a big thing in Hollywood. Yes. So that that does keep me down at times.
Gretchen
Well, that again, you’re like, this is my value and I’m sticking to it. Yeah.
Elizabeth
Okay. And then, Gretchen, we have a second question to contemplate about work, which is if I were going to give myself some great advice, I would tell myself to what.
Gretchen
Okay, So, Elizabeth, what would you if you were going to give yourself some great advice, what would you tell yourself?
Elizabeth
I would tell myself to ignore my fear and insecurity and move forward anyway.
Gretchen
Well, that is great advice. I’m going to give that advice to myself, too. That is great.
Elizabeth
Advice is something I definitely struggle with. You know, I have a lot of fear and insecurity surrounding writing, surrounding my career, and it can paralyze me, but I need to just move forward anyway. I tell myself that often.
Gretchen
Do you think that having a writing partner helps with that?
Elizabeth
Oh, tremendously. Tremendously, yes. That is one of the greatest values of having a writing partner. She keeps me going. Right. What about you, Gretchen? What advice would you give yourself.
Gretchen
While I agree with you on that one. But I would also say like to keep my eye on the big picture and to keep challenging myself to do sort of big things because you know me like I love lists and little projects and I can spend a lot of time and have a lot of fun doing little things.
Gretchen
If you do too many little things you may not have time for, to do the big things. So I always want to make sure that I’m thinking about what’s something big that I’m going to tackle. So that’s what I would tell myself.
Elizabeth
Everyone should keep their eye on the big picture, really.
Gretchen
So let us know if you do try this at home. How Using Labor Day to think about your own work life works for you. What you think of those two questions, whether those were helpful for you. I will also say if you go to a happiercast.com/shop, I have a lot of tools there that are useful for this kind of thing, like the one sentence journal where if you’re trying to keep track of something like a big project or switching careers, you can keep a one sentence journal.
Gretchen
There’s the Know Yourself Better journals, one of which is embracing change, which might be good if you’re in a career transition or just the other know yourself better journals. There’s a Don’t Break the Chain Tracker or if you’re trying to stick to something in your work life, like doing online training or something. And of course there’s the Happier app for anything related, you know, any kind of habit thing that you’re trying to do that might be related to careers.
Gretchen
So I hope that those tools can be useful resources for people as we all try to be happier in our work lives.
Elizabeth
Yes. All right, guys. It’s coming up. We have a work related happiness hack. But first, this break.
[Music]
So Elizabeth we,
Gretchen
Got a terrific hack that’s appropriate for, well, the workplace and also just generally life in general. But I think for a lot of people, they would think of this in the workplace.
Elizabeth
Yes. This comes from Emily. She says nominate people for awards. Lots of times there are employee of the month or Teacher of the Year awards you can nominate people for. I think it’s natural to feel that your kid’s teachers are about the same as the other ones or that no one cares. But I think people really do get a boost from even just being nominated.
Elizabeth
I’ve been on the awards committees and a lot of the time they either have not enough nominees or the same people over and over. If you want to level up, think about people who are good, but not necessarily the first who come to mind. Like maybe there’s a teacher who’s really fun and popular, but maybe another is really good at explaining things and always returns the grading quickly or at a hospital.
Elizabeth
It’s natural to think of your doctor or nurse, but maybe the front desk person checked you in really efficiently or someone explained the paperwork very thoroughly, or the janitor was very quiet and allowed your child to sleep well.
Gretchen
This is a lovely idea. I mean, first of all, it’s just so good to recognize when people go that extra mile and do great work and also do good, feel good. I think taking that moment to show our gratitude, to show appreciation, to give people recognition, we all want those gold stars.
Elizabeth
Yes.
Gretchen
And to give them is a great source of happiness. Just like getting them is a great source of happiness.
Elizabeth
Absolutely.
Gretchen
And also, I think if you’re feeling unappreciated, something you can do is to show appreciation for others. You know, what’s the next best thing?
Elizabeth
That’s a great idea. Emily, thank you.
Gretchen
And now for a work related Happiness Stumbling Block. And this is something that people are talking about a lot these days. And this is something that I think people have struggled with quite a bit for many years, but it feels like it’s particularly acute now post-pandemic with the growing flexibility in the workplace, which is one of the downsides of a more flexible work schedule, is that many people feel like they’re never working full out and they’re never really quite not working.
Gretchen
It just feels like it’s always a blend of sort of not quite working hard enough and not relaxing hard enough.
Elizabeth
Can feel like everything is running together. Yeah, like your day is just one long kind of workday and that you can never turn it off completely. And that can be draining. It can make it feel very stale. Yes. And it can just be hard to turn on the relax button. Yeah.
Gretchen
Now, it’s funny because you think of like working 9 to 5. Yeah. When you’re sort of focused on work and doing that 9 to 5 or whatever, there’s sort of a clarity to that that feels good. And so now it’s almost like, Ooh, I’m kind of cheating because I’m taking a minute to do online shopping or, you know, a classic thing is having lunch with a friend, which even that is okay, because even in the kind of the old 9 to 5 way because you had your lunch hour.
Gretchen
But I think people just feel uncomfortable about feeling like they’re cheating either way. They’re either cheating work or they’re cheating themselves.
Elizabeth
And Gretchen, I mean, again, it’s been a discussion for a long time that more and more people feel like they have to answer an email at 9 p.m. you have to answer an email Saturday at noon. You have to be willing to get on a conference call Sunday night, whatever it is. People don’t like that. But they also feel like if they don’t do it, suddenly their job can be in jeopardy, right?
Elizabeth
So that’s the encroachment. For me, it doesn’t really bother me, I think, because being a showrunner, that is the job. So I mean, so much of the job is being the person that’s called at any hour of the day or night. Yeah.
Gretchen
You’re like an obstetrician. Yeah, it’s going to come at midnight and that’s just the way it is.
Elizabeth
Yeah. And so I don’t think anything of someone emailing me at 11 I what many times about a you know, whole big text conversation or even a zoom call right at 10 p.m.. But again that’s the job. So I don’t feel put upon because I know that’s the job, that’s what I’m signing up for. Also, what’s nice for me is having a partner because if I need to disconnect for whatever reason, I can just say to Sarah, Hey, I’m not going to be around from 8 to 10:00, so can you answer any calls?
Elizabeth
You have my proxy. We always say to each other, you have my vote. So yeah, during that time, whatever you say goes and I won’t complain about it. Yeah, right. And so that’s helpful to me. But I know other TV writers, for instance, who’ve decided they don’t want to be showrunners because of this exact reason. They’re like, I just want someone calling me at midnight.
Elizabeth
I don’t want to have to do something on Saturday, and that’s fine. Again, it’s whatever works for you.
Gretchen
Well, it’s interesting because obviously I have a very different kind of job the way I do my work, but I am somebody who kind of like is working all the time and not working all the time. Like I’ve been very much control of my time, which I feel incredibly fortunate about. But I am the kind of person where, like, I will get up at 5 a.m. and send people emails and I have to.
Gretchen
With some people, I have learned to use delay delivery because they don’t like getting because and I’ll say to anybody that I work with, I’m like, I send emails all the time. Feel free to ignore them. This is not brain surgery. I just want to get it out of my head and so just do it. Some people don’t like that.
Gretchen
Even when you say, oh, you don’t have to answer until work hours, they still don’t like that feeling. And so I try to use delay delivery and with some people I am better at it. Sometimes I’m better at it than others because sometimes I’ll just forget that. I try to really emphasize that even if I am doing things outside of work hours, that’s because I choose to do that.
Gretchen
And I am not, I am not expecting that others would also choose to work that way. That just happens to be my way of working because everything is a big mishmash. But you know, Elizabeth, what this reminds me of? This way back in episode 101, we talked about the difference between compartmentalizers and integrators and that compartmentalizers are people who like work to be work and leisure to be leisure.
Gretchen
And they like these bright lines and they don’t like things mixing. Whereas integrators, it doesn’t bother them as much if these lines are blurred. And so I think you and I are both clearly integrators.
Elizabeth
Yes, I think so. I think we’re just used to it. I guess at this point it just seems normal to us. I will say if people are really bothered by getting the emails at night, I wonder maybe there’s an automatic response they could use. So, you know, when someone goes out of town, often you email someone to say, I’m out of town.
Elizabeth
I won’t be checking email very often. If this is an emergency, call this person and you could have that on your email where you just say, Oh, hey, I won’t answer this until tomorrow. If you really need me, call my cell phone or something, because I think it’s the idea that something’s just lingering there. Yeah, it makes people feel uncomfortable, like they can’t relax because there’s something out there that they haven’t responded to.
Elizabeth
But if you have an automatic response, then you’ve responded.
Gretchen
Yeah, I don’t know if that might feel pretty aggressive in a lot of workplaces. I don’t know that.
Elizabeth
That would fly. Oh, you think so? Maybe. Maybe. Could be. Yeah. Well, I think it depends.
Gretchen
I also think it’s interesting to think about in terms of other people’s work styles, just remembering that other people might choose to approach this differently from the way that we ourselves might approach it. Because I think sometimes people kind of have an idea that everyone should quit work at 6 p.m. or everybody should be working all the time.
Gretchen
And sometimes you have to do things because that’s the nature of your workplace. But then sometimes it’s sort of like people can work different ways, and as long as it’s not interfering with the work product or leading to bottlenecks or something like we don’t always have to decide other people’s preferences.
Elizabeth
Absolutely. Yeah, I would love to hear how others deal with this issue of never feeling like they’re not working or never quite being totally working. How are you dealing with that?
Gretchen
Yeah, one of the ways I deal with it is by going to the Met every day. It feels like work, especially since it was something that I wrote about for Life in Five Senses, but it also feels like play and leisure, so it was a way to get leisure into my workday in the middle of the day. So it’s an integration, but anyway, I’d be curious to hear what other people do to deal with this.
Elizabeth
Yes.
Gretchen
And then a listener question. We’re throwing this out for listener answers, and this is related to the work of college. It’s a parent asking about a child and student work.
Elizabeth
Yes. And it comes from Susan. She says, I love the show and I wonder if you or your listeners have any advice for helping rebel students who are about to leave home for college. Like many teenagers, my wonderful son is chronically disorganized, but because of his rebel tendency, he does not see this as a problem. He genuinely does not see the point of deadlines for filling or replying to emails.
Elizabeth
So he has no incentive to set up a calendar or to do lists, let alone check them regularly. Your suggestion of information, consequences, choice has been really useful in circumstances where there is a clear immediate consequence, but he needs to actually experience the consequence consistently before he changes his behavior. So he waited on the doorstep on many occasions before learning to remember his house keys. For a rebel,
Elizabeth
A lot of consequences which would upset an obliger like me or an upholder like my daughter, simply wash over his head. I used to let him suffer the consequences of arriving at school late and missing assignments, but he just collected late marks at school and listened to lots of scolding from teachers. He still performed well in the important tests and he knew they were not going to kick him out of school for persistent lateness and disorganization.
Elizabeth
He regularly overspent his budget, but then accepted the generosity of his friends until he’d received his next allowance money. There was one consequence which affected him. Several friends were given positions of responsibility at school, and he said he was disappointed not to be picked. It’s hardly surprising given he’s spent years ignoring the school rules, but I worry he is not aware of the longer term consequences of rebelling against expectations.
Elizabeth
Now he is an adult and will be living independently. I worry that he will miss lectures and social events. College and employers will be less forgiving when he misses deadlines, and the budgeting stakes will be much higher too. But being a rebel, he’s not going to follow my advice about setting up reminders. I’d love to hear listener suggestions either from parents of rebel students or from rebels themselves.
Gretchen
Okay. Rebels. Rebel parents. Friends of rebels. Teachers of rebels. What is your advice? This is a very thoughtful question. Information, consequences, choice. Yeah, it works when there’s the consequences. Sometimes young people don’t, and even adults don’t realize that there are longer term consequences that are coming down. So I would be fascinated to hear what suggestions do people have for rebels going off to college?
Elizabeth
I can’t wait to hear that.
Gretchen
And as always, if you don’t know what we’re talking about, go to gretchenrubin.com and search for the Four Tendencies and you can take the quiz and find out more than you ever wanted to know about the Four Tendencies.
Elizabeth
Coming up, Gretchen gives herself a clutter clearing demerit. But first, this break.
[Music]
Okay, Gretchen, it is time for demerits and gold stars. And this week you’re up with a clutter clearing demerit.
Gretchen
Okay, so clutter. I call myself the happiness bully, and I love to come to your house Elizabeth and clean out your office and your closet. And I wrote a book, Outer Order, Inner Calm, which is all about suggestions and hacks and tips for how to clear clutter. But I was looking around our apartment and it is just out of control.
Gretchen
There are stacks of books. There’s just stuff that has drifted into various countertops and corners that stuck there. There’s clothes I don’t wear. There’s just there’s we’ve got this costume box. This thing is like on my conscience now, like, all this, like, costume stuff. But I haven’t looked in there. There could be, like, a tutu there that could fit a three year old.
Gretchen
Like, why do we have that costume box? I will say my daughters do go into the costume box, but not everything. It just creeps up on us. I think of myself as someone who really doesn’t like clutter, but I turn my back and now it’s all over the place. And I need to like this weekend. I need to just buckle down and take some time and tackle some piles.
Elizabeth
Yes. Well, you’ll love doing it once you start. You know that.
Gretchen
But see, here’s the thing. It’s so much easier when it’s someone else’s clutter. Yes, true. I would much rather clear your clutter than my clutter.
Elizabeth
Well, now that you’ve said it as a demerit, you have to yes.
Gretchen
Act. And that’s why I did it. Because now I will. You got to ask me. Maybe I’ll report in in a couple of days and tell you what progress I’ve made. But listen, tell us the Gold Star lift us.
Elizabeth
All right, so my Gold star is about my recent trip, so on More Happier, Gretchen, and I talked about how excited I was about taking our two corgis, Nacho and Daisy, on a trip to Carmel, California.
Gretchen
And you brought Jack and Adam as well? Yeah. Your. Yes. Your husband and son also came with the Corgis. Yes.
Elizabeth
Yes. All five of us. Yeah. And I just wanted to give a gold star to all of the dog friendly hotels out there. So we stayed at a dog friendly hotel. And this is something, again, that was just so not on my radar a few years ago. I would not have cared about a dog friendly hotel whatsoever. Now that I have dogs and I have learned the fun of sometimes traveling with the dogs, taking them on an adventure, we so appreciate how many hotels are allowing people to have dogs.
Elizabeth
You do usually have to pay a fee, which seems fair because it’s extra cleaning with all the shedding. But it just, it’s so fun to stay at a hotel where you can have your little dogs. And I love it because I just love seeing them in a new environment. It’s so good for them. It’s good for us because it gets us out of the hotel to walk them.
Elizabeth
It sort of gives us something to do to find a dog friendly activities. In Carmel, we went to the beach where you can have dogs. So anyway, just a gold star to all the dog friendly hotels and I’ll say added Gold Star to all the restaurants.
Gretchen
That.
Elizabeth
Allow you to have your dogs on the patio. Our dogs, who Gretch, you see them run around, bark, jump on people for some reason, knock on wood at restaurants, they just lie under our feet and really help.
Gretchen
Isn’t that fascinating?
Elizabeth
I don’t know what it is, but I am very grateful for it.
Gretchen
Well, that is interesting because they are very active. Yes. Barking. Yes.
Elizabeth
Not at a restaurant. So far, so good.
Gretchen
There you go. I love it. The resource for this week in the app, in the Happier app, there is a new premium feature. It’s a great way to personalize the app experience. You can build on what you’ve learned, you can save and easily access what you’ve put in. You can edit an archive, your responses so you have easy reference as you’re experimenting with your aims.
Gretchen
This is like the number one thing people have asked for. So here it is. You can unlock this feature with the subscription. If you’re a first timer, you can sign up today and try it for the first month for free. So go to thehappierapp.com to learn more. Or you can download it from the App Store or Google Play.
Gretchen
So Elizabeth, what are we reading? What are you reading?
Elizabeth
I am reading The Younger Wife by Sally Hepworth.
Gretchen
And I am reading a novel by Steven Millhauser and the name of the novel is Edwin Mullhouse: The Life and Death of an American Writer 1943 to 1951 by Jeffrey Cartwright.
Elizabeth
That is an interesting title.
Gretchen
It’s an interesting book. And that’s it for this episode of Happier. Remember to try this at home. Use the holiday of Labor Day to reflect on your own labor. Think about those two questions that we posed. Let us know what you concluded and what insights you gained.
Elizabeth
Thank you to our executive producer Chuck Reed and everyone at Cadence 13. Get in touch. Gretchen’s on Instagram and Tik Tok and Threads at Gretchen Rubin and I’m on Instagram and Threads at Liz Craft. Our email address is podcdast@gretchenrubin.com.
Gretchen
If you enjoy the show, if you have a friend who’s going through a work transition trying to figure out what to do in their work life, pondering what they’re doing with their career, forward them this episode or any episode in rate review and follow us, that really is how people discover the show.
Elizabeth
Until next week, I’m Elizabeth Craft.
Gretchen
And I’m Gretchen Rubin. Thanks for joining us. Onward and upward. So, Elizabeth, speaking of the corgis, I got such a kick in the Facebook group for Happier in Hollywood of seeing Daisy and Nacho in their little raincoats waddling around out in the rain and just sort of, there’s something so funny about seeing them in raincoats.
Elizabeth
I know.
Gretchen
Do they like the rain?
Elizabeth
They seem, they do like the rain. Yes, they are hesitant at first, but then once they are into it, they love rolling around and getting wet.
Gretchen
Oh, so fun. Yes.
[music]
From the Onward Project.