Meet the happiness guru who has Alpha women hooked
Interviewed by Oprah, pictured with the Dalai Lama, ‘Alpha Whisperer’ Gretchen Rubin is a self-help icon, says Hannah Betts
Iam stress-eating breath mints in a stationary cab, watching the clock tick by at the time I should have been at my interview with the world’s greatest self-help icon; five minutes, 10; 15. I am late for the happiness and habit guru who has changed what passed for my life, who – by her own reckoning – is a super rule-abiding “upholder” to my badass “rebel”. This “Alpha Whisperer”, as some have dubbed her, has made it on time, jetting in from New York; I’ve failed to move across a small patch of central London. As nightmare scenarios go, this is the real – and infuriatingly predictable – deal. Will my heroine even deign to speak to me? Or will she swat me away with a wave of her ultra-upholder hand?
I should have had more faith. Gretchen Rubin has delved into human types – elucidated in her most recent global bestseller, The Four Tendencies – which has given her a depth of understanding of, and compassion for, her fellow humans, which encompasses even the most irredeemable rebel. She greets me with enthusiasm; not least when I confess to being her superfan-cum-stalker.
Having listened to 100-plus hours of Rubin’s oeuvre on the Audible app and via podcast, this chic American has the status of an imaginary friend. A Yale-educated, 51-year-old former lawyer transplanted from New York’s Upper East Side she lives there with her husband and two daughters – she is exactly the kind of person her “upholder” designation could have been invented for.
If the terms “upholder”, “questioner”, “obliger” and “rebel” mean nothing to you, then, dear reader, where have you been? Rubin is an international phenomenon with book sales of around 3.5million in more than 30 languages, and downloads for
Happier, her award-winning podcast, of 35million. She has an app, a hotly followed blog, and boasts her own calendars and mug merchandise. She’s been interviewed by Oprah, had dinner with Nobel-prize winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman, and has strolled arm in arm with the Dalai Lama.
Here in Blighty, she is the figurehead of the alpha woman’s secret cult, her books passed between go-getter to go-getter. I was introduced to her by an uber-upholder human rights lawyer; I, in turn, have passed on Rubin lore to artists, academics and city slickers.
None of us regarded ourselves as self-help-book material, yet all of us have seen our lives transformed. “My friends refer to her as the ‘Alpha Whisperer’,” one giddyingly successful individual confides. “Her path to action via self-knowledge works for women who would never take advice from anyone else and gives them a life that is not only functional, but happy.”
I ask Gretchen for a brief run through her four archetypes. “Upholders readily meet outer and inner expectations,” she explains. “They need the work deadline, they keep the New Year’s resolution, they want to know what others expect of them, but their expectations for themselves are just as important. Questioners query all expectations. They’ll do it if they think something makes sense. If they buy into it, they will do it, no trouble; if they don’t accept it, they will resist.”
When it comes to obligers, they “readily meet outer expectations imposed by others, but they struggle to meet inner ones they want to impose on themselves. Obligers respond to external accountability from a boss, family member, or doctor, but fail to follow through for themselves. Rebels resist all expectations, outer and inner alike. They want to do what they want to do in their own way, in their own time. They can do anything they want to do, but if you ask or tell them to do something, they’re very likely to resist.”
“So prissy, dithering, passiveaggressive and cool?” I translate, and am proud to say that my mentor types this into her phone for future rebel reference. Most people immediately know which they are, but for those who can’t work it out
there’s a quiz, which has, so far, been completed by more than a million Rubinites. If you do it and still can’t work out what you are, then you’re likely to be a questioner.
In a nationally representative sample, Rubin found that 41 per cent of people were obligers, 24 per cent questioners, 19 per cent upholders, and 17 per cent rebels. Rebels and upholders are, thus, the rarest groups. They’re also the most extreme and mutually incompatible, which is obviously why I find myself in a relationship with an upholder. She can’t spot each tendency on sight, but their language will contain hints. “Questioners will use the word ‘arbitrary’, rebels ‘spontaneity’, obligers show a preference for ‘self-care’-type vocabulary, while upholders will talk about discipline in a way that shows that they like it.” (This sounds a lot less racy when said by an upholder.)
Rubin came up with her tendencies when she was researching her book on habits,
Better Than Before, and realised how difficult it was for some people to make changes. Rubin-fervour is such that acolytes come up with heresies, such as imagining tendencies can be changed (they can’t), and demanding to know the best archetype. There isn’t one, although obliger issues are more easily addressed by inserting accountability. And, before I get too complacent about rebel cool, Rubin identifies Donald Trump as a classic case, only doing what he’s told not to.
The reason the tendency model has proved so successful is that knowledge is power, and Rubin reveals the way for everybody to achieve type-specific changes. Personally, having always resisted being told to exercise, I have found a means to do so via the mantra: “F--ageing”. Obviously, I began this in the first week of November, since only upholders can deal with New Year’s resolutions. (Questioners find the date arbitrary, obligers have to be guilted into them, while rebels despise such lemming-like banalities.) A questioner colleague has been jerked out of her “analysis paralysis” by the Rubin method, while my upholder accountant has realised why some clients have such difficulty with tasks that she finds to be self-evident.
There’s something rather profound going on here: an advancing of self-knowledge, and mutual human understanding, which could surely be harnessed as a recipe for world peace. So, I wonder, do Rubinites collapse at their oracle’s feet? “I do meet with a lot of enthusiastic readers,” she beams, modestly. “It’s really fun, really exciting, because it’s so very personal – dealing with what’s most important to people in a non-judgmental way; offering acceptance, but with the possibility for change.”
That evening, I find myself among a group of well-heeled, predominantly female fellow believers, massing to hear their idol speak at a packed Bloomsbury lecture hall. My journey is pure Groundhog Day. Kick-off is 6.30pm for 7pm. I arrive at 7.23pm. My upholder boyfriend got there at 6.20pm sharp and has been taking notes.
All about us, the types are endearingly visible: questioners asking all the questions, upholders writing down every word, obligers allowing others to go ahead of them in the queue, rebels continuing to arrive until 10 minutes before the end. My prissy, Mba-boasting, upholder beloved notes with robotic approval: “This theory seems to be extremely helpful to people,” before adding that the preponderance of Alpha women makes it “a brilliant place to pull”.
The Four Tendencies: The Indispensable Personality Profiles That Reveal How to Make Your Life Better (and Other People’s
Lives Better, Too) is published by Two Roads (£14.99). To order your copy for £12.99 plus p&p call 0844 871 1514 or visit books.telegraph.co.uk gretchenrubin.com
A questioner colleague has been jerked out of her ‘analysis paralysis’