Gretchen Rubin Will Teach You to be Happy

About this episode

In this episode, Paul Ollinger interviews Gretchen Rubin about the practices that lead to happiness and self-awareness.

✍️ Follow Paul Ollinger on Substack by clicking here ✍️ “Happiness is a choice that requires effort at times.” -Aeschylus Whenever I go back and re-listen to one of my podcast interviews, I always discover elements of the conversation I didn’t recall. Upon revisiting this 2025 conversation with best-selling author Gretchen Rubin, I of course remembered that she is a warrior for happiness and the practices that help her huge readership attain it. But listening again, I was struck by how cool Gretchen is. Not “cool” in a biker-jacket / beat poetry / clove cigarette way, but in the “I know who I am, what I’m committed to, and how I can add value to the world” way. I don’t claim to know Gretchen, but it seems logical to me that this self-awareness is a by-product of the kind of work she evangelizes. And it is work. As Aeschylus advised in the quote above, happiness is always there if we choose it, but only if—in the hard times—we are willing to get off the couch or smile through the pain. In times like these, Gretchen’s writing can help us find a path through the noise and, as she describes it, “identify ways we can take happiness from the transcendent to the concrete.” A great way…

People in this episode

Host: Paul Ollinger

Guest: Gretchen Rubin

Topics covered

• happiness
• self-awareness
• personal growth
• well-being
• mental health

Keywords

• happiness
• Gretchen Rubin
• self-awareness
• personal growth
• Aeschylus
• well-being
• happiness quiz

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: Secrets of Adulthood

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