Who: Daniel Gilbert

Claim To Fame: Daniel Gilbert is the Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. He has won numerous awards for his research and teaching.  His popular book, Stumbling on Happiness, spent 6 months on the New York Times bestseller list, sold over a million copies worldwide, and was awarded the Royal Society’s General Book Prize for best science book of the year.  He hosted and co-wrote the award-winning NOVA television series This Emotional Life which was seen by more than 10 million viewers in its first airing. In 2017 he was named one of the 50 Most Influential Living Psychologists in the World. He is a contributor to Time, The New York Times, and NPR’s All Things Considered, and his TED talks have been seen by more than 15 million people and remain among the most popular of all time.

Where To Find Daniel: His Website, Amazon, Twitter

Praise For Daniel: “[Stumbling on Happiness] is a brilliant book, a useful book, and a book that could quite possibly change the way you look at just about everything. And as a bonus, Gilbert writes like a cross between Malcolm Gladwell and David Sedaris.” — Seth Godin, 18-time bestselling author

When do you like to write? Are you regimented about your routine?

Early in the morning. A good writing day starts at 4 AM. By 11 AM the rest of the world is fully awake and so the day goes downhill from there. And no, I am not regimented. Everyone says you should be, but I just LIKE writing too much to make a bunch of rules about it.

Where do you like to write? What does your ideal writing environment look like?

I don’t care if I am in my study or my office, or on the couch with a laptop, as long as (a) it is perfectly quiet, (b) I am alone, and (c) there is either natural daylight or the warm glow of just one low-wattage incandescent bulb. Noise, other humans, and/or overhead lights make it impossible for me to write. The light part is weird, I know.

Do you have any rituals or superstitions before you sit down to write that help you get into the zone?

No. Writing isn’t a ritual. It is a conversation with yourself, so you just shut up and talk.

What do you do when the writing isn’t coming easy?

Write harder. I mainly write scientific papers in which I am trying to convince the reader that there is an interesting problem and that I have solved it. If the writing isn’t easy, that usually means I haven’t really solved it. Writing is the best way to discover the weakness in your own argument and then remedy it.

As I understand it, you stumbled into psychology at a time when you were wanting to more seriously pursue a creative writing career. Can you talk about what happened and then how studying psychology directly or indirectly helped you evolve as a writer?

I dropped out of high school and became a science fiction writer. I wasn’t earning much but I was publishing my stories. One day I went downtown to the local community college to sign up for a writing course, but by the time I got there the course was closed. The only course that was open and that met at the right time was psychology. I figured that taking a course on human behavior might help me create better characters, so on a whim, I signed up. Within a year or two, I had stopped writing fiction and had decided to keep taking courses and to become a psychologist. Now, more than 40 years later, I am still a writer but I write non-fiction. Fiction and non-fiction writing have much more in common than most people think. Whether you are telling a story about a real idea or a fictional character, you are TELLING A STORY! And the elements of good storytelling are constant.

If you were to teach a writing class, what would be the first assignment?

Write something. Then ask yourself whose voice it is in. Then ask yourself why your answer isn’t “mine.” The greatest compliment I ever received about my book STUMBLING ON HAPPINESS was from a friend who said: “It’s just like hearing you talk.” Unless and until you can sound like yourself, you don’t have a chance of producing something really good.

All of your work is very research intensive. What is your method for researching and organizing material you might want to use for your future writing?

I store a great deal of information in my graduate students.

Your research concludes that the best predictor of human happiness is human relationships and the amount of time that people spend with family and friends. The writer’s life can tend to lead to quite a bit of time in isolation. How do you strike that balance?

First, research suggests this, but it isn’t MY research. One of the great liberations of my life as a writer was when I discovered that I could write about other people’s research as well as my own. Does the solitude of a writer’s life compromise his or her relationships? I don’t see why it should, unless you write 16 hours a day. Write all day, then go have a martini with your mom, or your cat. How hard is that?

Writers have to be master prioritizers – juggling all sorts of projects and deadlines at the same time. That’s certainly the case for you. Do you have any methods for managing tasks and time so to not let overwhelm sneak in?

Sorry, but the premise of your question is wrong. I have no prioritizing struggles and I am rarely juggling. That’s because I learned to say no very early in my career. I turn down almost every invitation I receive. Why? Because I’ve found that if you put your entire heart into something, it is a joy. It is play. It is art. If you don’t put your entire heart into it, it is just work. I hate working, so I carefully select a very small number of projects and then do them as well as they can possibly be done (by me). As a result, I publish far less than almost anyone else I know. But that’s okay. Words are to be read, not counted. Most of the scientists I know publish a few good papers and a whole lot of crap. I just try to skip the crap.

What are the best pieces of writing advice that you’ve ever received, read, or heard?

[*] Make an outline.

[*] Strive for clarity.

[*] See #2.

What would you say to aspiring writers?

I always liked Harlan Ellison’s advice: “If you can imagine doing something else, you should.” In other words, if you are trying to decide whether or not to be a writer, then you are not a writer. Writers are people who will write no matter what. The only decision they have to make is whether to do something in addition to writing that pays their rent.

What writers and/or books do you consider to be gold standards?

There are so many, many wonderful writers that I don’t know where to begin. Maybe instead I’ll name two writers who consistently make me jealous. They make me want to give up writing for the same reason that eating at Arpege in Paris makes me want to give up cooking. For the same reason that listening to John McLaughlin makes me want to give up playing guitar. There is simply no chance that I will ever do what they are doing. Those two writers are the novelist T. C. Boyle and the essayist Tim Kreider. Both of them write sentences that make me stop and re-read them, and then compel me to find someone else to read them to. I just sit there and wonder how the world managed to exist for millennia without this particular sentence in it. Man, I wish I could do that!

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