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Happier with Gretchen Rubin

Little Happier: My Favorite Formula for a Great Title

Happier with Gretchen Rubin

Lemonada Media

Health & Fitness, Education, Self-improvement

4.7 • 13.2K Ratings

🗓️ 11 May 2026

⏱️ 4 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

A surprising formula to create a compelling title provides the name for a card deck of creative inspiration. Resources & links related to this episode: If you’d like to look at the Muse Machine, and maybe even buy one for yourself, you can check it out here. Get in touch: podcast@gretchenrubin.com Visit Gretchen's website to learn more about Gretchen's best-selling books, products from The Happiness Project Collection, and the Happier app. Find the transcript for this episode on the episode details page in the Apple Podcasts app.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Lemonada.

0:06.2

This message comes from Harvard Business School Executive Education.

0:10.6

Now is the time to invest in yourself and change the world with your voice.

0:15.1

Harvard Business School Executive Education programs connect you with faculty at the forefront of their fields, introduce you to a global

0:22.4

network of leaders, and help you step into your full potential. The next chapter is yours. Let them help

0:29.6

you write it. Apply today to accelerate your future. Learn more at HBS.m.me slash accelerate. That's HBS.m.m. slash accelerate.

0:43.1

I'm Gretchen Rubin, and this is a little happier. As a writer, I spend a lot of time thinking about

0:49.2

titles. For my own projects, I either know the title of a book immediately, or I choose it only after

0:56.1

a great struggle.

0:57.8

For instance, the titles The Happiness Project and Outer Order Inner Calm came very easily.

1:04.4

Better than before, and Life in Five Senses took me months to decide on.

1:10.6

Because I love titles so much, I keep a running list of all my favorite

1:13.9

titles. These go on for pages, a world lit only by fire, to the Finland station, spare, and on and on.

1:31.9

Glancing over these titles the other day, I noticed a pattern. I realized that,

1:38.3

among other things, I really love a title where an industrial term is paired with what might be called a humanities term. For instance, some of my titles include these.

1:45.9

Industrial, Light, and Magic.

1:49.7

This was the studio founded by George Lucas to create visual effects.

1:51.4

Color Factory.

1:57.0

This is an art exhibit with playful participatory installations that celebrate color and the senses.

2:00.6

The Sacred and Profane Love Machine. This is a title of a novel by Iris Murdoch, a novelist

2:04.2

whose work I love. Cohen Pro. That's a software used to create generative music. Metaphysical

2:12.4

milkshake. That's a podcast featuring actor Rain Wilson, who played Dwight on The Office, and scholar Reza Aslam.

...

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