Did you ever notice how all the great ideas happen over lunch?
Take Pixar. Four of the studio's most innovative feature films—A Bug's Life, Monster's Inc., Finding Nemo, and WALL-E—were all thought up over one lunch meeting in 1994 (you can read more about it here). I wonder what was on the menu that day; it must have been some serious food for thought!
Guillermo del Toro got his idea for The Shape of Water (the 2018 Best Picture Winner at the Academy Awards) when the other person at the table mentioned an idea that shocked him into high gear: "...in 2011, when del Toro was having breakfast with Daniel Kraus... [del Toro] asked what he was working on, and Kraus replied that he was toying with an idea about a janitor who discovers a creature in a secret government facility and takes it home. "I thought, 'That's the road!'" says del Toro. "I said, 'Can I buy that idea from you? Can I literally buy that paragraph?' And I made a deal to buy the idea and started working on the screenplay" Alright, so this one happened over breakfast, not lunch, but one person's pastrami sandwich is another person's stack of pancakes, and I could definitely see a pattern developing here.
Finally, it was on a lunch date with a friend that Gretchen Rubin received the spark of inspiration that would lead to her discovery of The Four Tendencies: a personality framework through which she explores the ways we can conduct ourselves optimally as individuals and in concert with others by examining one specific (but powerful) component of our innate personalities.
"I didn't realize it at the time, but when I walked through the door of the Atlantic Grill restaurant one blustery winter afternoon, I was heading to one of the most significant conversations of my life.
As I bit into my cheeseburger and my friend picked at her salad, she made a comment that would occupy my mind for years. In an offhand way, she mentioned, "I want to get myself into the habit of running, but I can't, and it really bothers me." Then she added, in a crucial observation, "When I was on the high school track team, I never missed track practice, so why can't I go running now?"
...We started talking about other things, but even after we'd said good-bye, I couldn't stop thinking about our exchange. She was the same person she'd been in high school, and she was aiming to do the same activity. She'd been able to go running in the past, but not now. Why?"
Following this lunch date, Gretchen couldn't get the question out of her head: why couldn't her friend succeed at running now when she had clearly been able to do so before?
Rubin finally had her "eureka moment" when she realized that the answer resides in how people respond to inner and outer expectations; "I felt the same excitement Archimedes must have felt when he stepped out of his bath," she recalls. Gretchen organized the components of her discovery as follows, considering these tendencies to be a genuine law of nature:
Upholders respond readily to outer and inner expectations
Questioners question all expectations, reserving judgment and screening for acceptable inner expectations, which they will then readily meet.
Obligers meet outer expectations but struggle to meet inner expectations
Rebels resist outer and inner expectations alike.
Gretchen's friend was able to run in high school but not now because she is an Obliger. When she had a team who was counting on her (external expectation) she could run regularly, but when it was just herself and a personal desire to institute the habit (inner expectation) she floundered. What she needed was outer accountability.
A Questioner would successfully take up running if the undertaking made sense for them. The Questioner would want to know why running would be worthwhile in their own lives. They'd want the data—to know that running improves physical and mental wellbeing as well as a creative output (for example)—before coming to a decision. Becoming a runner would not be an especially difficult habit to establish so long as the Questioner could deem it a justifiable inner expectation to adopt.
Upholders are fairly good at forming habits and are often self-directed. They like to give themselves clear expectations (such as a specific time of day and precise allotment of running time) and struggle in situations without clear expectations ("I think I'll take up running!"). Upholders feel a real responsibility to excel in response to both outer and inner expectations and as such may wait to start a new exercise regime or to take on another big project until they feel reasonably confident that they can succeed (without burning out).
A Rebel would not do well if they felt obligated to run, even if the expectation was completely internal, nor would they be compelled by people telling them why they should (in fact, this would produce the opposite effect). For a Rebel, the important thing to tap into is how running or not running impacts their identity: who they are as a person. If they can picture themselves in 'the gear', up at five in the morning looking fit and fabulous, and want to see themselves in that image (for example), then it's possible. Rebels can essentially do anything they want to do, but struggle to do anything they feel they have to do, whether those expectations are coming from within or without.
Over the remaining 248 pages of her book, Rubin explores each of these tendencies in real depth, discussing how to best work with your own tendency as well as how to work well with others based on their own unique tendency. A lot of it has to do with helping one another to do our very best by honoring each of our given natures, rather than trying to fit everybody into the same mold. What works well for one person may not work at all for another; knowing what does work for each of us helps us to make better progress towards the things that really matter.
"Our Tendencies are hardwired: they're not the result of birth order, parenting style, religious upbringing, gender. They're not tied to extroversion or introversion. They don't change whether you're at home, at work, with friends. And they don't change as we age. We bring these Tendencies into the world with us."
—Gretchen Rubin, The Four Tendencies
So what is your tendency?
If you're curious and would like to know which of The Four Tendencies describes you, Gretchen has developed a free online quiz to help you sort out where in the framework you belong: https://quiz.gretchenrubin.com/four-tendencies-quiz/
If you know a bit about the many personality frameworks that are out there (like Myers-Briggs and The Big Five) you'll know that while no individual theory tells the whole story, they do each contribute to a meaningful piece to the self-discovery puzzle. As the Greek poet, Pindar, expressed it, "Become who you are by learning who you are." The Four Tendencies is a book I wholeheartedly suggest. Even though it sounds like a potentially minor detail of who we are, the way that we respond to expectations has a major impact on how we engage with the world. What's more, understanding how other tendencies operate helps us to treat others with more compassion, to communicate more effectively, and to help support one another as we strive to reach individual and collaborative goals. The subtitle of the book—The Indispensable Personality Profiles That Reveal How to Make Your Life Better (and Other People's Lives Better, Too)—fairly well sums it up.
The Four Tendencies is available to request or borrow through the Essa Public Library: The Four Tendencies by Gretchen Rubin
—Victoria Murgante
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