20 Secrets of Adulthood

The Art of Manliness

Society & Culture, Education, Philosophy

4.7 • 14.5K Ratings

🗓️ 6 May 2025

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Figuring out the pitfalls and best practices of adulthood can be tricky. It's helpful to have some pearls of wisdom to guide you along the way. My guest today has spent decades collecting these kinds of helpful truths and has crafted her own guiding mantras of maturity. Gretchen Rubin is the author of numerous bestselling books, including The Happiness Project, and her latest, Secrets of Adulthood. Today on the show, Gretchen shares how she came to write hundreds of aphorisms on how to navigate life, and we dig into some of my favorites of these concise, sage sayings. Amongst many topics, we discuss why "happiness doesn't always make us feel happy," the best strategy for changing ourselves, a very useful heuristic for making decisions, why you should wear a favorite sweater more often, and even why big top tables at restaurants are one of my pet peeves.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.
0:11.9	Figuring out the pitfalls and best practices of adulthood can be tricky.
0:15.6	It's helpful to have some pearls of wisdom to guide you along the way.
0:19.1	My guest today has spent decades collecting these
0:20.9	kinds of helpful truths and has crafted her own guiding mantras of maturity. Gretchen Rubin is the
0:26.1	author of numerous bestselling books, including the Happiness Project and her latest Secrets of
0:30.6	Adulthood. Today on the show, Gretchen shares how she came to write hundreds of aphorisms on
0:34.3	how to navigate life, and we dig into some of my favorites of these concise sage sayings.
0:39.1	Amongst many topics, we discuss why happiness doesn't always make us feel happy,
0:42.9	the best strategy for changing ourselves,
0:45.2	a very useful heuristic for making decisions,
0:47.7	why you should wear a favorite sweater more often,
0:49.9	and even why big top tables at restaurants are one of my pet peeves.
1:16.3	After the shows over, welcome to the show.
1:18.8	I'm so happy to be talking to you.
1:19.3	No, likewise.
1:21.2	So we were talking before we got on.
1:22.5	We go way back.
1:24.5	We go way back.
1:25.3	Way back.
1:29.6	So both you and I started off as bloggers. We still blog. They still call it blogging. I call it my site. I'm posting on my site. That's what I say. Because blog, I feel
1:36.6	kind of silly when I say I'm a blogger. Yeah, that feels very retro. So yeah, you have the happiness
	...

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