Gretchen Rubin is the author of 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. On her popular blog, The Happiness Project, she reports on her daily adventures in the pursuit of happiness. Happier at Home: Kiss More, Jump More, Abandon a Project, Read Samuel Johnson, and My Other Experiments in the Practice of Everyday Lifewas published in September, 2012.
Q: What’s the most significant risk you’ve taken professionally?
Gretchen: My most significant risk professionally was to switch from law to writing. I was clerking for Justice Sandra Day O’Connor when I finally acknowledged to myself that I really wanted to be a writer. I decided to start all over from zero. It was difficult, but I realized that I would rather fail as a writer than succeed as a lawyer. At the time, I was working on a big research project about power, money, fame, and sex, in my free time, so I decided that it was time to treat that project as my job, not my hobby, and see if I could get an agent and sell the proposal for a book. I did—and that project became my first book, POWER MONEY FAME SEX: A USER’S GUIDE. And I’ve been a full-time writer ever since.