Author Talk: ‘Secrets of Adulthood’
The right idea, invoked at the right time, can change our lives. Drawing from her long studies of happiness, and also from the challenges she’s faced herself, #1 New York Times bestselling author GRETCHEN RUBIN has discovered the Secrets of Adulthood that can help us manage the complexities of life.
Perhaps you’re paralyzed by indecision, struggling to navigate a big change, fighting a temptation, or puzzled by the behavior of someone you love; whatever you face, the right aphorism can help. From procrastination to the pursuit of happiness, Secrets of Adulthood is filled with witty and thought-provoking reflections as Rubin distills her key insights into simple truths for living with greater satisfaction, clarity, and happiness.
For anyone undergoing a major life transition, such as graduation, career switch, marriage, or moving, or for those just encountering everyday dilemmas, Secrets of Adulthood will inspire you by articulating truths that you may never have noticed but instantly recognize.
Secrets of Adulthood was chosen by Oprah Daily as one of the most useful guides coming out in 2025.
Information on book buys and signings is available upon request.
The Power of Habit: Unlocking the Science and Secrets of Lasting Change
In this dynamic and insightful talk, GRETCHEN RUBIN, the best-selling author and expert on human behavior, will dive into the fascinating world of habit formation. Drawing on her years of research, including insights from her bestsellers The Happiness Project and Better Than Before, Rubin will show audiences how habits shape our lives, our happiness, and our success.
Through engaging anecdotes and cutting-edge science, Rubin will explore:
Rubin’s evidence-based approach combines practical advice with motivational insights, making this speech an empowering experience for anyone looking to improve their habits and their overall well-being.
Whether in the workplace, at home, or in personal pursuits, Rubin will inspire audiences to take charge of their habits, create lasting positive change, and live a happier, more productive life.
Motivate Your Workforce with the Four Tendencies
Businesses are eager to hear from #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Happiness Project GRETCHEN RUBIN on The Four Tendencies because her framework offers a practical and immediately applicable tool for improving leadership, communication, team dynamics, and productivity. The Four Tendencies categorizes people based on how they respond to expectations, both external (like work deadlines) and internal (personal goals), helping businesses optimize how they motivate employees, manage teams, and enhance workplace culture. Here’s why her insights matter:
Rubin’s framework helps leaders tailor their approach to different personality types:
Understanding these tendencies helps managers lead teams more effectively by aligning tasks and motivation strategies with natural inclinations.
Workplace conflicts often stem from differing tendencies. For instance:
Knowing this reduces misunderstandings, improves collaboration, and enhances communication styles for a smoother workflow.
One-size-fits-all motivation strategies don’t work. Businesses often struggle with keeping employees engaged and productive, but Rubin’s framework helps tailor motivation:
By leveraging these insights, companies can increase employee engagement and performance.
The Four Tendencies don’t just apply to employees—they also influence customer behavior.
For sales, marketing, and customer service teams, understanding how different people make decisions allows for better customer interactions and more effective messaging.
When companies implement new initiatives, understanding how people react to change is critical.
Knowing this helps businesses drive change more effectively by addressing concerns in advance.
Why Businesses Should Hear from Gretchen Rubin
Rubin’s Four Tendencies framework is simple yet deeply insightful, making it easy for organizations to implement immediately. Her approach:
Her insights lead to better leadership, happier employees, and stronger workplace performance, making her a valuable speaker for businesses looking to optimize their teams.
Staying Happier in Tough Times
#1 New York Times bestselling author of The Happiness Project GRETCHEN RUBIN walks audiences through dealing with burnout and navigating permacrisis in this vital conversation on the importance of pursuing happiness. She explains why it is essential to cultivate happiness even during hard times, and explores how and why we can work to make our lives happier, healthier, more productive, and more creative. Rubin gives audiences of all backgrounds the practical, manageable skills they need to find and keep their happiness during turbulent times.
The Pursuit of Happiness
#1 New York Times bestselling author of The Happiness Project GRETCHEN RUBIN walks audiences through dealing with burnout and navigating permacrisis in this vital conversation on the importance of pursuing happiness. She explains why it is essential to cultivate happiness even during hard times, and explores how and why we can work to make our lives happier, healthier, more productive, and more creative. Rubin gives audiences of all backgrounds the practical, manageable skills they need to find and keep their happiness during turbulent times.
As an expert on human nature and the habits that cultivate happiness, Rubin discusses ways we can develop and apply a personalized framework to create happier, more productive, creative lives.
Life in Five Senses
In this lively and uplifting talk, bestselling author GRETCHEN RUBIN shares an absorbing, layered story of discovery filled with profound insights and practical suggestions about how to heighten our senses and use our powers of perception to live fuller, richer lives—and, ultimately, how to move through the world with more vitality and love.
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Gretchen Rubin’s Secrets to Adulthood is the perfect text to guide your next life transition
For anyone undergoing a major life transition, such as graduation, career switch, marriage, or moving, or for those just encountering everyday dilemmas, #1 New York Times bestselling author GRETCHEN RUBIN‘s Secrets of Adulthood can help us manage the complexities of life. Perhaps you’re paralyzed by indecision, struggling to navigate a big change, fighting a temptation, or puzzled by the behavior of someone you love; whatever you face, the right aphorism can help.
Rubin’s presentation style is assuring as well as enlightening. Connecting with individuals facing down the next stage of life, Rubin’s talks are comforting, inspiring, and motivating with her research-backed insights. From procrastination to the pursuit of happiness, Secrets of Adulthood is filled with witty and thought-provoking reflections.
How Gretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project impacts industries
#1 New York Times bestselling author of The Happiness Project GRETCHEN RUBIN navigates permacrisis with her Four Tendencies framework, which tackles stress reduction, resilience, and team cohesion, helping businesses optimize how they motivate employees, manage teams, and enhance workplace culture.
Rubin’s science-backed and uplifting work addresses questions of teamwork, leadership, and overall wellness in the workplace – which she argues is vital to our personal and professional wellbeing. As a happiness expert, Rubin shares the research and strategies that make workplaces happier, which leads to a reduction in stress, conflict, burnout, and procrastination. She gives practical, manageable tips and strategies for organizations, leaders, and teams, and helps us connect and work together to take on any challenge.
How Gretchen Rubin helps audiences find happiness in turbulent times
#1 New York Times bestselling author of The Happiness Project GRETCHEN RUBIN navigates permacrisis with her Four Tendencies framework, which tackles stress reduction, resilience, and team cohesion even during hard times. Rubin’s science-backed and uplifting work addresses questions of teamwork, leadership, and overall wellness in the workplace – which she argues is vital to our personal and professional wellbeing. As a happiness expert, Rubin shares the research and strategies that make workplaces happier, which leads to a reduction in stress, conflict, burnout, and procrastination. She gives practical, manageable tips and strategies for organizations, leaders, and teams, and helps us connect and work together to take on any challenge.
Event Success Story: Gretchen Rubin inspires educators at Big Deal Media
Six-time New York Times bestselling author and happiness expert GRETCHEN RUBIN inspired K-12 educators with her keynote presentation at Big Deal Media’s conference. Rubin spoke on the link between happiness and understanding ourselves, leading audiences through her “Four Tendencies” personality framework and explaining how to tap into our five senses for more energy and engagement. Big Deal Media’s event planner said, “The whole experience was A+. All that I expected it to be.”
Watch Gretchen Rubin in conversation with Penguin Random House >>
Gretchen Rubin’s ‘Life in Five Senses’ – a national bestseller – is an inspiring and practical guide to living in the moment
#1 New York Times bestselling author of The Happiness Project GRETCHEN RUBIN has discovered a surprising path to a life of more energy, creativity, luck, and love – by tuning into the five senses. Her latest book, Life in Five Senses: How Exploring the Senses Got Me Out of My Head and Into the World, is already a national bestseller, and has received significant praise. Bestselling author Glennon Doyle raved, “Life in Five Senses invites us into the seismic shift toward a life grounded in sensation, vitality, and innate intelligence.”
In this journey of self-experimentation, Rubin explores the mysteries and joys of the five senses as a path to a happier, more mindful life. Drawing on cutting-edge science, philosophy, literature, and her own efforts to practice what she learns, she investigates the profound power of tuning in to the physical world. Rubin offers profound insights and practical suggestions in her sought-after talks for groups including SalesForce, BlackRock, Lockheed Martin, Aramark, Zoom, and more.
Watch Gretchen Rubin discuss her new book on Washington Post Live >>
Happiness expert Gretchen Rubin partners with Oracle on The Happiness Report, offering transformative insights for organizations
Six-time New York Times bestselling author and podcaster GRETCHEN RUBIN has partnered with Oracle Fusion Cloud Customer Experience (CX) to release The Happiness Report. This eye-opening new research report offers transformative insights for businesses and organizations looking to connect with their customers, 88% of whom are looking for a new experience to make them smile and laugh. Heralded for her holistic strategies for maximizing productivity by prioritizing happiness, Rubin is frequently tapped by outlets like Forbes to help chart the way forward for individuals and organizations facing adversity in an increasingly dynamic workplace. With her ability to distill and convey complex ideas with humor and clarity, the Happier with Gretchen Rubin award-winning podcast host makes an impact with audiences of all kinds – from GE to Google, LinkedIn to Proctor & Gamble, and headlining conferences such as SXSW, World Domination Summit, the 92nd Street Y, and more.
Including insights from more than 12,000 consumers and business leaders across 14 countries, The Happiness Report found that people will reward brands that embrace humor with loyalty, advocacy, and repeat purchases, and walk away from those that don’t. The happiness expert said of the results, “for brands aiming to contribute to the happiness of their target audience, the process starts with data and knowing your customers. Only then can you bring the appropriate mix of humor, personality, and brand experience that will drive loyalty and brand advocacy.” Rubin’s takeaways resonate in keynotes and conversations, and she is sought after by groups looking to radically transform their approach using the pursuit of happiness as a guiding principle.
Gretchen Rubin is the author of several books, including the blockbuster New York Times bestsellers, Better Than Before, The Happiness Project and Happier at Home. In Better Than Before: Mastering the Habits of Our Everyday Lives, she provides surprising insights and practical advice drawn from cutting-edge research, ancient wisdom, and her own observations, about how we can make our lives better than before. She investigates the multiple strategies she’s identified that help us make and break our habits. After all, habits are the invisible architecture of a happy life, and when we change our habits, we change our lives. The secret to changing a habit? First, we must know ourselves, so we can suit our habits to our own nature. It was Rubin’s longstanding interest in happiness that led her to the study of habits, because when she talked to people about their happiness challenges, they often pointed to a habit that they couldn’t make or break. This pattern made her ask, “When and why can people successfully change a habit—or not?”
Her previous books include the #1 New York Times and international bestseller, The Happiness Project—an account of the year she spent test-driving the wisdom of the ages, the current scientific studies, and the lessons from popular culture about how to be happier. The Happiness Project has sold more than one million copies, has been published in more than thirty languages, and spent more than two years on the New York Times bestseller list.
In her New York Times bestseller Happier at Home, Rubin explores how to make home a happier place, by concentrating on the factors that matter most for home, such as possessions, marriage, time, parenthood, body, neighborhood.
She’s been interviewed by Oprah and walked arm-in-arm with the Dalai Lama.
On Gretchen Rubin’s popular blog, she reports on her daily adventures in the pursuit of happiness and habits. Millions of people read her blog each year. “I’ve become a bit of a happiness bully,” she confessed.
On her popular weekly podcast Happier with Gretchen Rubin, she discusses good habits and happiness with her sister Elizabeth Craft; they’ve been called the “Click and Clack of podcasters.” The podcast hit #6 on iTunes on the first day it launched. It ranks in the top 1% of podcasts and was named in iTunes’s and Vulture’s lists of “Best Podcasts of 2015.” The New Yorker observed, “Their voices remind you that life is a human project that we’re all experimenting with.”
With her work, Rubin has emerged as one of the most thought-provoking and influential writers on habits and happiness to have emerged from the recent explosion of interest in these subjects. Though her conclusions are sometimes counter-intuitive—for example, she finds that rewards play a very tricky role in the formation of habits, and true simplicity is far from simple to attain, and that used rightly, money can do a lot to buy happiness—her insights resonate with readers of all backgrounds.
She’s known for her ability to distill and convey complex ideas in a way that’s accessible to a wide range of readers. Response to Rubin’s writing has been overwhelming. Dozens of blogs have been launched by people following Gretchen’s example. Psychiatrists tell their patients to read her books, professors assign them to their students, book groups discuss them, families pass them around, and people do habits and Happiness Projects together. Exhausted parents and college students, senior citizens and professionals, clergy and social workers, people facing divorce, illness, and drift have written to tell her how she’s influenced them. In the New York Times Book Review, Rubin was described as “the queen of the self-help memoir.” “It’s great to be called the queen, but I’d say my work is ‘self-helpful,’ not ‘self-help.’” Rubin explained. She added, “Really, I’m a moral essayist, but that sounds so dull.”
Rubin is much in demand as a speaker, and she has addressed corporate audiences at places such as GE, Google, LinkedIn, Accenture, Procter & Gamble, as well as university audiences such as Yale Law School, Harvard Business School, and Wharton. She has appeared at numerous conferences as a featured speaker or keynoter, at places such as SXSW, World Domination Summit, the 92nd Street Y, 5×15, TEDx, BlogHer, the Atlantic, Alt Design, Q Cities, Behance’s 99u, Mom 2.0, West Point, Lucid, and the Texas, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania Conferences for Women. She makes frequent TV appearances, for instance, on Today, Kathie Lee & Hoda, CBS Sunday Morning, The Early Show, Katie, "Q" radio, Booknotes with Brian Lamb, and NPR’s "Weekend Edition." The Happiness Project was even an answer on the game-show Jeopardy!
Rubin, an enthusiastic proponent of using technology to engage with readers about ideas, has a wide, active following on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and YouTube (more than 2.3 million views)—not to mention her wildly popular monthly newsletter, book club, and daily email of quotations.
Rubin is a notable example of an author using a blog and social media to create discussion around a subject and her work. Rubin was one of the first people asked to become a LinkedIn “Influencer,” where she has an enormous, active group of followers. She was named one of the “100 Most Influential People in Health and Fitness,” one of Inc.’s Top 50 Leadership and Management Experts, and one of the “22 Brilliant Thinkers Everyone Should Follow on Twitter” by Business Insider. In traditional media, Rubin has written for many national publications, and was columnist in Good Housekeeping magazine. She appeared on the inaugural cover of Live Happy magazine, February 2014, and she appeared on the cover of Parade magazine.
A graduate of Yale and Yale Law School, where she was Editor-in-Chief of the Yale Law Journal and winner of the Edgar M. Cullen Prize, Rubin started her career in law. She clerked for Judge Pierre Leval and was clerking for Justice Sandra Day O’Connor when she realized she really wanted to be a writer. Her bestselling Forty Ways to Look at Winston Churchill and Forty Ways to Look at JFK are succinct, provocative biographies. Power Money Fame Sex: A User’s Guide is biting social criticism in the form of a user’s manual. Profane Waste, a collaboration with artist Dana Hoey, examines the question of why owners choose to destroy their own possessions. She also has three terrible novels safely locked in a desk drawer.
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