470: Ninth Anniversary! Best Try-This-At-Home Ideas, Happiness Hacks, and Highlights

Update

Join my upcoming “Habits for Happiness” workshop. Celebrate Determination Day and Leap Day by figuring out how to make this year happier.

You can also take the “Habits for Happiness” quiz.

Favorite Try This at Home Suggestions:

Several ideas are five-senses based, because my book Life in Five Senses came out this year.

We mention:

Gretchen’s favorites:


Elizabeth’s favorites:

  • episode 435 —cultivate everyday luxuries — if you want to read many terrific examples, look at this Facebook post
  • episode 436 — use the “Happier Trifecta” (one-word theme; annual challenge; “24 for 24” list)
  • episode 441 —come up with a new metaphor for an “Empty Nest” (I came up with “Open Door”)
  • episode 453 —think of “X is the new Y,” such as “Halloween is the new Christmas.”

Favorite Hacks

We had several terrific hack round-ups in our Very Special Episodes this year:

  • episode 420 — hacks for using our five senses for happier lives
  • episode 430 — hacks for making entertaining easier and more fun
  • episode 450 — hacks for performance


Other great hacks:

  • episode 442 — check the expiration dates on your passport and driver’s license
  • episode 425 — close your eyes in a dressing room so you notice how a garment feels without being distracted by the way it looks
  • episode 451 —Elizabeth gives the brands for running shoes that her podiatrist recommended: Brooks, Hoka, Saucony
  • episode 454 — every time you get up to leave, look behind you to make sure you haven’t left something behind

Highlights

In episode 440 — we talked about regrets

In episode 449 — we talked about the nostalgic fun of sharing a Pop Tart. If you want to see the taste tests we talked about, with Marmite, smelling salts, and more, look here:


We realized that we’ve lived in Los Angeles and New York City longer than we lived in Kansas City!

I gave the commencement address for my daughter Eleanor’s high-school graduation. You can listen to it here.

 If you’d like to listen to an excerpt from my book Life in Five Senses, it’s here.

Take the What’s Your Neglected Sense?” quiz.

Take the “Habits for Happiness” quiz.

Take the “Gift-Giving” quiz.

From Listeners

Listeners wrote to tell us their favorite moments from the last year.

We mention the “Four Tendencies” — take the quiz to find out whether you’re an Upholder, Questioner, Obliger, or Rebel here.

We mention the Happier app, which has the “Don’t Break the Chain” feature, or you can try the Don’t Break the Chain Habit Tracker, if you prefer to keep a written record..

Many, many listeners mentioned episode 443, the “Clear the Decks” episode, as well as the “Deck the Halls” holiday episode.

Featured Resources 

Find all the resources at happiercast.com/resources

I mention Better Than Before, my book about habit change.

Also, to celebrate our ninth anniversary, Elizabeth and I created a bingo card featuring some of our favorite happiness hacks from the past nine years. See you how you do!

Gold Stars

We give a big gold star to listeners for listening and engaging—and an additional gold star for those who have taken the time to rate, review, follow, and unpause.  Need instructions? Click here. 

Resource

Find all the resources at gretchenrubin.com/resources.

What We’re Reading

  • Elizabeth: still reading My Name Is Barbra by Barbra Streisand (Amazon, Bookshop
  • Gretchen: The Essays of Warren Buffett edited by Lawrence Cunningham (Amazon, Bookshop

*This transcript is unedited* 

[470]

 

[music]

 

Gretchen

Hello and welcome to a happier of podcast where we talk about ideas and strategies for how to be happier, healthier, more productive and more creative.

 

Gretchen

This week it’s a very special episode. Every 10th episode is a very special episode, and this is episode 470. And it also coincides with the ninth anniversary of the podcast we launched on February 25th, nine years ago. Very exciting. And I’m Gretchen Rubin, a writer who studies happiness, good habits, the Five Senses, Human Nature. I’m in my little home office here in New York City, and joining me today from L.A. is my sister.

 

Gretchen

And for nine years, my co-host, Elizabeth Craft.

 

Elizabeth

That’s me, Elizabeth Craft, a TV writer and producer living in L.A. And happy anniversary, Gretch.

 

Gretchen

I know it’s hard to believe that we’ve been doing this so long, but it is just the way that this is like a double special, very special episode for 78 and an anniversary episode. It reminds me of how sometimes our father’s birthday falls on Thanksgiving. It doesn’t always, but some years the dates line up, and that’s always kind of special.

 

Elizabeth

Yes, reminds me of that, too.

 

Gretchen

So a reminder, the workshop. I’ve got my workshop coming up on Leap Day, February 29th. Limited spots are available. You can celebrate Determination Day and Leap day by really focusing in on the new habits that you want to create for the new year. It can be habits that are tough because they’re a little bit arduous and it can also be habits that are tough because they’re fun.

 

Gretchen

Sometimes it’s just as hard to form a fun habit as a as a harder habit. I cannot wait to unleash my happiness, bully and talk to everybody about what they’re doing. You can find out more information at happier cars.com slash workshop. Yay! Yay! So now let’s dive in. Okay. It is so much fun to go back through the year.

 

Gretchen

Yes. Let’s talk about some of our favorite. Try this at home from the past year.

 

Elizabeth

Yes. Gretch, hit me with some of your favorite tips from the year.

 

Gretchen

In episode 421, we talked about different ways to look around a museum, which, of course, since I go to the Met every single day, that was really exciting for me. I love that. I also wrote an article with 35 Ways to Look at Art. If people are interested in that, I’ll post a link in the show notes.

 

Elizabeth

And Gretchen, I have been amazed this year at how many people have emailed us about going to museums and specifically going to the Met. Yes. And how now whenever they go to the Met they think of you and there are often looking out to see if they see you there.



Gretchen

And a couple of times people have come up to me, which is always so exciting. I know I love the idea that I’m associated with that, but it’s so much fun.

 

Elizabeth

It is, Yeah. You and the kids from the mixed up filed scratch.

 

Gretchen

my gosh. One of my all time favorite books. Yes. From the mixed files of Mrs. Beasley, Frank Weller, another five senses related hack, because this was the year that my book, Life in Five Senses, came out. There are a lot of sensory hacks. And try this at homes. I love the try this at home of try it by 25 because this is something that I feel like I haven’t really seen elsewhere, which is there is this observation that often if you haven’t tried a cuisine and enjoyed it or you haven’t listened to a kind of music.

 

Gretchen

By the time you’re 25 and enjoyed it, you typically do not develop a taste for it later just because of the way the brain takes on the shapes of what it expects. So I thought that was a very clever. I tried this at home that we suggested, which only works if you’re under 25, but it kind of explains why maybe it’s hard to adopt new tastes later.

 

Gretchen

And then finally, another one that I really loved was the strategy of unpacking, because even better than before my book about habit change, I talk about the strategy of pairing. Listen, you’re a big you’re a big fan of the strategy of pairing. Yes.

 

Elizabeth

I love, for instance, pairing, watching the Real Housewives shows with being on the treadmill or walking a dog and listening to one of my favorite podcasts. Yeah.

 

Gretchen

So I had thought about the strategy of pairing a lot, but then I hadn’t really noticed the obvious counter part, which is there’s also the strategy of unpacking when you very deliberately break a pair. So for instance, I’ve heard from people where they had paired scrolling through their phone with like getting into bed at night, and then once you realize, I’ve paired these two things, you can very deliberately unpair them, for instance, by like, okay, I’m going to put my phone away far from my bed so I can’t be in bed and on my phone.

 

Elizabeth

Yeah. Or there’s like eating ice cream and watching TV. People say, if you want to have ice cream, go sit at the table and have a bowl of ice cream on its own. Don’t do it while you’re eating. That gets into the mindlessness.

 

Gretchen

Yeah, it’s funny because there’s the strategy of convenience and the strategy of inconvenience, and even better than before. I understood that you could use it one way or the other. And for some reason, once the strategy of pairing, I didn’t think about pairing. So that was kind of a new wrinkle for me. But how about you in a sense?

 

Gretchen

What were some of your favorite? Try this at home from from your age.

 

Elizabeth

Well, I loved an episode 435. We talked about cultivating everyday luxuries. yes. And we asked people to send in their ideas of everyday luxuries, which was so much fun because once I thought of something as a luxury, it became more luxurious. Yes, so many people talked about I see different kinds of ice being luxury.

 

Gretchen

So it is a side note. So the best ice in the world clearly is Winstead ice. Right? This is one of the reasons that one.

 

Elizabeth

Person.

 

Gretchen

So great is just the ice. And I said to our mother, I was like, yeah, once that’s ice. And she’s like, I never noticed the ice. I’m like, Are you kidding? It is the best ice in the world.

 

Elizabeth

To not notice.

 

Gretchen

And now she knows that.

 

Elizabeth

She clearly has never chewed ice. Yes. Because that if you’ve ever chewed a you would notice.

 

Gretchen

The best ice. I will post a link we posted about this somewhere on Facebook, so I’ll post a link if people are interested in kind of reviewing a lot of everyday luxuries. Because you’re right, when you identify something as an everyday luxury, it feels more luxurious just by the fact that someone’s pointed it out. Yeah. Okay. What else?

 

Elizabeth

I love Gretchen. For the first time this year, we talked about the happier trifecta.

 

Gretchen

Yeah, we had never had a term.

 

Elizabeth

And the happier trifecta includes three things are word of the year. So, you know, this year mind is book and yours is revisit. Yeah. Another part of the happier trifecta is our 24 for 24 list. Yes. And then the third thing is our yearly challenge, right?

 

Gretchen

For this year, it’s right 24 and 24 with the new angle that you can do 2 to 4 minutes of writing or 24 minutes of writing. There’s two tracks you can follow. We love giving something like a name, like an official term, so I’m very excited about happier trifecta Now has a name. What else?

 

Elizabeth

Well then, Gretchen, I love this is one relating to you I loved. Are talking about metaphors for an empty nest. Yes. So you are now officially a so-called empty nest. Yes. But you decided you wanted to come up with a new term. And again, we asked people to send in ideas. There were so many great ideas like playground and open, see so many different ones.

 

Elizabeth

You landed on open.

 

Gretchen

Doors because the door is open, People are coming, People are going, They’re leaving. We’re leaving. People are coming back. So I like that idea of kind of like in and out. But that was really interesting. I think that was a good creative challenge to think about other ways to frame the empty nest.

 

Elizabeth

And then another one I loved because it was just whimsical, was the sink of ideas for X. Is the new Y like Halloween? Is that.

 

Gretchen

Yes.

 

Elizabeth

Because again, it was just fun with listening to people’s suggestions.

 

Gretchen

Yes. It was just like a sort of a great creative prompt and people came up with such great things, you know, one elicit that came up later that I think we never made it onto the list. Was that Silicon Valley executives are the new Hollywood executives.

 

Elizabeth

So true, So true.

 

Gretchen

Yeah. Those people’s creativity was really wonderful.

 

Elizabeth

Well, and it was very cultural. I mean, it really put a spotlight on different things in culture that were fun to think about. And once people say it, yes, you realize, yeah, Yes. All right, Gretsch. Coming up, we’re going to talk about some of our favorite hacks. And later, we’ll hear what listeners enjoyed this year. But first, this break.

 

[music] 

 

Elizabeth

Okay we’re back with our favorite hacks from this year. You know this year we realized a bunch of very special episodes that included hacks.

 

Gretchen

Yes. We went really far into the hacks. Elizabeth. I kind of hadn’t realized that as we were going along, but looking back on like we had some great hacks round up, yeah, this was a really good year for hack roundups, for instance. Of course, Five Senses Episode 420 was hacks for using the five senses to make our lives happier, healthier, more productive, more creative.

 

Gretchen

Those were super fun and super creative, I think. Of course, I’m a huge fan of that topic, so that was especially fun for me.

 

Elizabeth

Yeah. And then in 430 we talked about hacks for making entertaining easier and more fun, which great, you know, I love because I’m always trying to get in the habit of entertaining. It’s a struggle. So I love all these hacks and I’ve been using these hacks.

 

Gretchen

To Davos advice that we really needed to get. And then in 450, this was also something that I was really excited to hear from listeners as well, was Hacks for Performance. So this is like times when people need to get up in front of an audience and give a report or lead a meeting. There were a lot of hacks about how to be interesting, how to stay calm and that was because I was getting ready to go on my book tour for Life in Five Senses.

 

Gretchen

So I thought, How can I make this easier and better? Yeah.

 

Elizabeth

And then Gretch, one I loved was Check your passport. Yeah, Yeah. And also your driver’s license. It’s like, if you’re planning a trip, make sure that everything is up to date. And remember, that was your passport. It may have to be valid for six months past your traveling date.

 

Gretchen

Yeah, this was episode four for two, and I just heard a terrifying story from a friend who let her driver’s license, which was an out of town driver’s license, expire. And it’s one of these things where had she done it in a timely way, she would have saved herself so much annoyance. And I heard this sort of a critique, immediately looked at my own driver’s license and I’m fine till 2029, which was a huge relief.

 

Gretchen

But everybody’s just like, take a second check every passport and driver’s license of the people in your household. You will not regret it because you may find out that you need to kick it into gear more than you realized.

 

Elizabeth

Yeah. And remember, kids passports only last five years. Yes. I think after 16 last ten years.

 

Gretchen

Passes in a flash. And that’s how I got caught. If you want to hear that whole story, listen to episode four for two. But yes, I had I learned that bitter lesson the hard way. Here’s a hack, Elizabeth, that I love. I invented this hack. It’s related to the five senses. And I just think it’s such an ingenious solution for a problem that I didn’t know I had.

 

Gretchen

So this is an episode for 25 to close your eyes while you’re trying on an outfit in a dressing room. Because what I realized looking at my clothes was that I had a lot of clothes. When I looked at the clothes that I didn’t wear, like failed purchases, they were often a very beautiful color or there was something about it that appealed to me visually, but they either didn’t fit properly or they were like scratchy or too tighter, uncomfortable in some way.

 

Gretchen

And I realized it’s because in the brain sight trumps for most people. We’re more persuaded by the way something looks than by other sensory information. And I realized that’s what was happening to me. I’m actually extremely touch sensitive, but in the kind of flurry of a changing room, I didn’t pause to take in that information. So now when I’m trying something on, I shut my eyes and think to myself, okay, I’m not distracted by I love this beautiful purple color.

 

Gretchen

How does this thing feel on my body? Because if it doesn’t feel right in the end, I won’t wear it. Yeah, I love that one.

 

Elizabeth

Another hack I love Gretchen is in for 51. I talks about brands of running shoes that my podiatrist recommended Joy. And we heard so much. Yes. And people writing and saying, Tell me again, what were those brands? Yes. So I’m going to repeat them one more time. Yes. This is just my because I actress thinks that this will make your feet much more comfortable.

 

Elizabeth

And it worked for me. The brand she recommended were Brooks, Hoka and Saucony and I have Saucony and they have changed my life.

 

Gretchen

That was part of the fun of that discussion. And for 51 it was just it was one of those rare occasions where the simplest, most obvious solution worked like a charm. Yes. And you were bracing yourself for years of.

 

Elizabeth

Yes.

 

Gretchen

Fussing with this and it just went away. So, yes, that was a happiness hack triumph. And then in episode 454, I did this 20 minutes ago this is a hack that everybody should remember at all times, which is every time you get up and leave someplace, it’s a subway car. It’s a restaurant, it’s your desk, it’s a friend, It’s you know, you’re sitting around a friend’s dining table, turn around, look behind you.

 

Gretchen

Just make it a habit because you will find that you’ve your hat fell on the on the ground, which is what just happened to me in the subway. Or you left your sunglasses behind or your reading glasses or your scarf fell off the chair or whatever. Look behind us every single time.

 

Elizabeth

Yes. You will never regret it.

 

Gretchen

You will never regret it. And now for highlights, let’s talk about some of the highlights. Elizabeth, what are some of the highlights of this year?

 

Elizabeth

Well, one, for me, this is another very special episode. I loved our special episodes this year in 440, we talked about regrets, which I just found really moving and interesting, and people had such profound things to say. Yeah, I just enjoyed that made me feel like I was really getting to know people.

 

Gretchen

I wonder if we should do that again. That feels like let a couple of years go by and do it again. That was that would be really worth revisiting. I learned a lot from that and then something just much more light and whimsical. Elizabeth I loved in 449 where we were talking about Pop Tarts. Yes. And our deep nostalgia for Pop Tarts and how fun it was to like we were in the drugstore in Kansas City and like, our eyes bugged wide.

 

Gretchen

It’s like pop tarts, just like our grandparents used to buy for us.

 

Elizabeth

Yes. Which led to us starting this whole thing of doing taste test. Yeah. Which I guess are on social media. Yeah, we did Marmite, Christmas. We.

 

Gretchen

We did Marmite wrong. Turns out we did not understand. We had to one how one.

 

Elizabeth

Too much in our minds. That was very dramatic impact. I tasted memories. This is sort of adjacent to tasting smelling salts. You open this smelling salt in front of my nose. That was also dramatic.

 

Gretchen

I was afraid you were going to look. So I’ve heard share like on the kitchen floor.

 

Elizabeth

I’ve always felt I’ve always wondered, now I get why they wake up.

 

Gretchen

We’ve all we’ve all wondered.

 

Elizabeth

Can people look at those Gretch if they go to your social.

 

Gretchen

Media? sure. I’ll try to find it. I make no guarantees, but if I can find the links, I will put it in the show notes. But yeah, but it is yet another one of the favorites. I don’t even know where this came up, but remember when we were just talking about the fact that you and I both realized for the first time that I have lived in my apartment in New York City, not even just New York City, but this particular apartment.

 

Gretchen

And you have lived in L.A. longer than we lived in Kansas City.

 

Elizabeth

Yes. That’s so bonkers because Kansas City just looms so large.

 

Gretchen

Yes. It feels like half of my life.



Elizabeth

Yes. And then, Gretchen, of course, a highlight for this year, which turned into a bonus episode, was your commencement address at Eleanor’s high school graduation.

 

Gretchen

Yes, that was a personal milestone. That was so fun. Yeah. So I got a recording of that and that’s I’ll post a link to that. It’s in the show if you want to listen to the commencement speech I gave.

 

Elizabeth

Yeah, we were all there for that. Got some great photos. You were my favorite green dress.

 

Gretchen

Yes. Yes, I do love that dress and my gold shoes. That was fun. And then there was another bonus episode. That was an excerpt from my book, Life in five Senses. So if people wanted to get a sense of the book or hear me reading the audio book, I’ll post a link to that as well. It’s funny, I was I was cleaning out my office and I just came across a sheet from what was many, many sheets, which was all of the hard words to pronounce, which my director sent to me in advance so I could practice all the hard to pronounce words.



Gretchen

Turns out there were a lot of hard to pronounce words in that book. I did not realize it. Yeah.

 

Elizabeth

And then, Gretchen, you had two new quizzes this year. You love a quiz. You have two new ones.

 

Gretchen

Well, I actually have three new ones. I had the. What’s your neglected science quiz, which I love tells you you’re neglected sense, which is then you know what to lean in to, to get more pleasure and comfort and adventure out of life. There’s the habits for happiness Quiz Because people always say to me, What’s the one new habit that I should form if I want to be happier?

 

Gretchen

And I’m always like, I don’t know. It depends. And that’s that’s not satisfying. So now they can take this quiz and find out the answer. And then I have kind of for more holiday time, I had the gift giver.

 

Elizabeth

That’s right. Yes. Yeah.

 

Gretchen

That’s not as.

 

Elizabeth

Significant.

 

Gretchen

A quiz, but it’s still a fun quiz. So they’re all on my site. Gretchen Rubin dot com slash cos they were really fun to do.

 

Elizabeth

All of them. Yeah. They’re fun to take as well.

 

Gretchen

Yeah.

 

Elizabeth

All right, great. Coming up we are going to hear what listeners enjoyed this year, but first this break. 

 

[music] 

 

Elizabeth

Okay Gretch we’re back talking about our favorite things from happier with Gretchen Rubin this year. And here is what listeners had to say. This comes from Ronnie who says Finding out I was a rebel helped me to understand so much about myself and my life. We hear that from many rebels.

 

Gretchen

And speaking of quiz, there’s a quiz for that, too. If you don’t know if you’re an upholder, quested or Pleasure Rebel. Take the quiz. The Four Tendencies Quiz. CMA said, Look for something in the most obvious place. my goodness, this is so key. I just had this problem with a set of keys. If you don’t know where something is, look very, very hard where you think it should be because often it’s actually there.

 

Elizabeth

Ali said when you discussed your personality dropping away, that was kind of an eerie moment you had.

 

Gretchen

Gretch Yeah, I just all of a sudden was like the part of my my personality that is has ambition just went away. And it was like being a person without the backpack of ambition on my back. And it was one of the strangest experiences of my life. And then, and then it left and then it came back like 15 seconds later.

 

Gretchen

It was strange. I’m glad to hear that it resonated with her. That’s interesting this Guthrie said. I know it’s not from this year, but the one minute rule has really made such a big difference in my life. that’s nice. We hear that from a lot of people that that’s a really helpful hack.

 

Elizabeth

Yeah, Sarah said I downloaded it. Don’t break the chain app in December and I floss now. Yay! Flossing has been a topic in general. Yes. So yeah, the don’t break the chain is a great way to do a good habit.

 

Gretchen

Which you can do in the have your app. I have the don’t break the chain tracker big big fan because many many people love a streak. And Melissa, I have to give you kind of a drive by Gold Star because it was your struggles with flossing that got me to floss and it seems like maybe you we inspired Sarah to floss.

 

Gretchen

So more flossing for all.

 

Elizabeth

Dentists will be happy.

 

Gretchen

Yes, dentists will be happy. And then we heard from Devin and then from so many people about the Clear the Decks episode in episode four for three and then the Deck the Halls episode later, which was a more happier Elizabeth for people who have not listened to the decks, what are we going to call these like on deck?

 

Gretchen

We’re going to do more of them because they’re so popular. Explain our theory here.

 

Elizabeth

So Clear the Decks was an episode where we asked people to, as they listen to the episode, pause and go do the thing that we were talking about and then come back and keep listening. If they so chose. They could also just listen, obviously. And it was a list of all of the things that you can do. Most of them quit very quickly within a couple of minutes to just get them off your plate.

 

Elizabeth

Right.

 

Gretchen

For instance, a great one for the next time we do it is go around your house and check every expiration date on every passport, right?

 

Elizabeth

Yes.

 

Gretchen

It’s like that’s the kind of thing that it was something. Yes. That you can just like go do and come back.

 

Elizabeth

It would be like go unsubscribe from an email list. You don’t want to be on. Yes. Things that you could do quickly. And people really loved it. And then we had the idea of doing it for Christmas and people suggested calling it Deck the Halls, which is so fun, where before the holiday season we had a list of things to do to prepare for the holiday season and we did the same thing.

 

Elizabeth

And again, it was very popular. Yes.

 

Gretchen

And those were super fun for us to do. We weren’t sure, Elizabeth. You know, we were like, what are people going to think of this? So that was really, really fun. Yes. And then also featured resources. One of the things now that we’ve been doing it for nine years, we’ve talked about a lot of resources. And so just to remind people of things that they can get for free, go to Gretchen Rubin, dot com slash resources or happier cars.com slash resources.

 

Gretchen

There is so much there. So for instance if you’re doing right 24 and 24, you can get just like a one page calendar where you can do it. Don’t break the chain for every date. And thank you to everybody who pointed out that it originally did not have February 29th and 2024 is a leap year, so it is now fixed.

 

Gretchen

So if you like it, don’t break the chain tracker for 24 and 24. You can get that. You can get the calendar of Catalyst. We love a calendar of catalysts. There’s a checklist for habit change. This really goes with better than before. Like if you’ve read better than before and you know about the 21 strategies of habit change, this helps you think through for a particular habit.

 

Gretchen

How can you use multiple strategies? Because often when something is a little bit of a challenging habit, it makes really good sense and it’s actually not that hard to use multiple strategies. And so this kind of makes that easy to think through.

 

Elizabeth

And then we have our bingo card scratch.

 

Gretchen

Okay.

 

Elizabeth

Yes. Speaking of the halls, deck the halls, clear the decks, a kitchen clearing desk, cleaning you all sorts of fun. Bingo cards.

 

Gretchen

If you like the deck of cards or in the happy wrap, if you like the spin, the wheel challenges you like the bingo cards there Discussion guides for my books. There are tips lists for reading better than before and working better than before, because those are practices that a lot of people are always sort of working on. A lot of our listeners want to read more, which we love because we’re always trying to read more and then just working more effectively.

 

Gretchen

I feel like everybody wants to do that. And then of course you can request a signed Bookplate This is us and Canada only because of mailing costs, but there is a place there where if you want a free signed bookplate for yourself or for someone else, you can request them.

 

Elizabeth

There so many resources.

 

Gretchen

And we have a new resource to to celebrate the ninth anniversary. We have another bingo card. Right? When do we hit too many bingo cards? Never. Possibly soon. Never. That’s the spirit. This features some of the really deep listener hacks. If you have really been listening or maybe you’re a new listener and you want to see like, how much do you know?

 

Gretchen

But there are things on this bingo card that I think will resonate with the deaf and listening. I believe the pet egg I have here.

 

Elizabeth

Yes.

 

Gretchen

You can read it off. Yeah. And if you do it, share it on Instagram and Facebook because we really want to know why people have a lot of people done.

 

Elizabeth

Many probably haven’t used the pandemic, but I have, so I get that off my bingo card.

 

Gretchen

But listen, every time we’re in it again back to the drugstore, we often spend time in drugstores together. I’m realizing now every time we walk by a pet, I pull it off the shelf and, like, take a picture of you with a whole gallery.

 

Elizabeth

goodness.

 

Gretchen

Yeah. Let us know if there’s something that particularly resonated with you that we forgot to mention or something that we didn’t mention. Let us know on Instagram threads. Tick tock, Facebook, Drop us an email a podcast to Gretchen Rubin dot com or as always, you can go to the show notes. This is a very special episode in an anniversary episode, it’s episode 470.

 

Gretchen

So go to have your cars.com slash 470 for everything related to this episode and grads.

 

Elizabeth

Finally, we want to give just a big gold star. No demerit this week, just a good star to all of you listeners for listening and for engaging with us, sending in all of your ideas and your questions. We love it. We can’t get enough. And then another gold star for everyone who’s taken the time to rate, review, follow and unpause.

 

Gretchen

Yeah, we so appreciate that. And here’s a challenge. If you want a challenge in honor of our ninth anniversary, if you were a fan of this show, email or text, a link to the show to nine friends or family or coworkers who you think would enjoy the show, because as you hear us say, that is how most people discover the show.

 

Gretchen

If you do it, email us a podcast to Gretchen Rubin dot com and I will personally say Gold star to you. Thank you because we really, really appreciate it If you reach out to nine people. Yes honor system. Yeah and for resources it’s all the resources we were talking about before just go to have your cast dot com slash resource.

 

Gretchen

You get the bingo cards, readings, discussion guides, all the things, the wedding and memorial service readings that we forgot even to mention that. And you can print off the special ninth anniversary bingo card and see how you do. Elizabeth, What are we reading?

 

Elizabeth

I am still reading. My name is Barbra by Barbra Streisand.

 

Gretchen

And I am reading The Essays of Warren Buffett, edited by Lawrence Cunningham. And that’s it for this episode of Happier. Thank you for listening. Listeners, you make us so happy.

 

Elizabeth

So happy. Thanks to our executive producer, Chuck Reed and everyone at Cadence 13. Get in touch. Gretchen’s on Instagram threads, Facebook and Tik at Gretchen Rubin and I’m on Instagram and Threads Atlas Craft or email address is podcasting. Gretchen Rubin dot.

 

Gretchen

And if you like the show, check us up on the ninth anniversary challenge. Tell nine people about the show we will appreciate.

 

Elizabeth

It until next week. I’m Elizabeth Craft.

 

Gretchen

And I am Gretchen Rubin. Thanks for joining us. Onward and upward.

 

Gretchen

So, Elizabeth. Think back to when we started this. Do you think we ever in a million years thought we would be doing it nine years later?

 

Elizabeth

No, I mean, I can remember, as I said, like I was in Hawaii when it debuted and in a million years, I did not think nine years later we would be sitting here having our ninth anniversary episode. But now I am thinking we are going to get to ten. So we have to think, what are we doing for our 10th anniversary?

 

Elizabeth

We have to start thinking about this now.

 

Gretchen

No, I’m so glad you pointed that out. Yes. Okay. Much to ponder 



[music]



from the onward project.



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