Speaker 1: Hey, it's Rachel Cook, your Modern mentor.
I'm the founder of Lead Above Noise.
We work with leaders in teams to build capability
and confidence to lead through change
and to drive their best results
while keeping burnout at bay.
And we'd love to partner with your team.
Shoot me a note at rachel@leadabovenoise.com.
We can book a chat. So today, friends, you are in
for a super treat because today I get to share
with you a conversation I've dreamed
of having for quite some time.
And well, serendipity was on my side
and I got to meet the illustrious wise and delightful.
AJ Jacobs, if you are not familiar with aj,
he's been someone I've followed
and admired for at least a decade.
He is, in my very humble opinion, the master of all things,
curious and quirky and wise, so much so.
He's made a career out of these traits.
And I just wanted to learn more about how he's managed to do
so, how he's had the courage to follow whimsy,
how he's been resilient enough to pursue ideas
that on the surface did not scream success.
And how we can all infuse more of these ways of being
and doing into our everyday work experiences.
We talk about following curiosity about being brave
and resilient and so much more.
I hope you enjoyed Okay, AJ Jacobs, author,
podcaster extraordinaire.
Welcome to the Modern Mentor Podcast.
I am so over the moon to have you here today.
Speaker 2: I am over the moon to be here. I am a fan. I am a big fan.
I love your podcast. And I love,
it's got these actionable tips that I take away every time.
So I, I'm feeling stressed.
I need to give some actionable tips to the listener
so they can come away
and be like, oh, there are four things I can do.
So that's my goal. I'm stating it here.
Speaker 1: All right, we have set the bar high.
They've gotta be actionable,
they gotta be quick, they gotta be dirty.
We're gonna make this happen. So AJ uh,
just quick background for the listeners.
Uh, you and I had the great fortune
and by great fortune, I mean all mine , uh,
to meet in person a few weeks ago.
It turns out randomly,
we are sending our children off to college together.
I saw your name on an, on a guest list,
and I said to my husband, I am gonna meet this guy
and I'm gonna get him on my show.
'cause I have been a fan of his
for definitely at least a decade at this point.
So I am so excited that you're here.
And for fans that don't know you, I described you
as an author and you are, uh, by the letter of the law.
But I would also say
that there is very little traditional
about the way that you author.
How would you describe what you do for a living?
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, first just, I was so thrilled
that our kids are both going to the same college.
I don't know if there's a term for that, that are like
relatives, like, uh, Mishka, uh, or something.
But it was great to meet you in person.
And I'm, uh, as for your question, yeah, I,
people have described what I do as method writing,
which I like a method, sort of like method acting.
So I, what I do is I immerse myself in a topic
and then I live it for a year or more, maybe less.
And then I write about what I've learned.
So I've done that with several topics.
Everything from religion.
I tried to follow the Bible as literally
as possible for a year.
I tried to be the healthiest person for a year.
I tried to, uh, be the most grateful person for a year,
which, uh, I think we, we,
we have many overlaps in the way we think,
but one of them is gratitude.
And I also became, uh, the most obsessive puzzle,
uh, solver for a year.
Jigsaws, crosswords, et cetera. So I love it.
I love my job and I feel lucky that I can do it.
And that enough people buy my books
that I can continue doing it
Speaker 1: Well.
I will keep ranting and raving about them,
Speaker 2: Hopefully more raving than ranting
Speaker 1: More, more raving noted, more raving than ranting .
Okay, Speaker 2: .
Speaker 1: Um, so I have described you to people, to my friends
as kind of a blend between a very happy,
grateful Larry, David
and Christopher Guest, the movie director , um,
of method acting or method writing,
because I feel like what you do in your books,
and we're gonna talk about it a little bit in a minute, is
you go really, really deep into something
for anyone who's ever seen a Christopher Guest movie,
he sort of does something similar
where he goes into the world
of like people bringing their dogs to dog shows,
or he goes into this really narrow slice of the world, any
highlights, all of the quirks that are in there
that nobody's ever looked at that closely.
And he helps you see the levity and the humor,
but not at anybody's expense.
And I kind of feel like that's a little bit of
what I have experienced you doing with your books.
I think the first one that I read
was called Drop Dead Healthy.
And it was fascinating
because you spoke to all of these experts across, right,
the entire health spectrum.
I remember there was one doctor
who had never washed his hands, ever,
and another one who washed her hands
after literally every exchange.
And you are trying to figure out kind of what's what here
Speaker 2: First, I just love that description.
I I love both Christopher Guest and Larry David.
I talk about in the gratitude book that I feel
that in my mind it's always a battle between Larry, David
and Mr. Rogers.
You've got the positive side and the negative side.
That's how I, and,
and I do try, I love watching Larry David,
but I don't want to be Larry David.
So I, I always try to bulk up my grateful side.
Um, but yeah, I, uh, I, I also love what you say about,
I like to be the every man and try to learn everything, uh,
and talk to all these experts
and then try to bring back
what I think is the wisdom to the reader.
Speaker 1: That is amazing. Now, my question for you,
my first question for you is how do you,
how do you find your ideas?
And by the way, just to take a step back
and give this some context, some context.
The reason I really wanted to talk to you today, AJ, is
well, 'cause we had so much fun at our college event,
but more so because I'm just talking
to people all over the place, across industries
who are really struggling at work right now.
Um, they are bored, they are disconnected,
they are lonely, they feel stuck.
There's a lot of, um,
they are burned out, they're overwhelmed.
And I just, I feel like people are struggling
to find their spark these days.
Hmm. That's what I feel like I'm sharing over and over.
And you are like a walking spark plug.
And so at least that's my experience of you.
And so that is really what I wanna explore with you today.
I wanna talk about your relationship with, with creativity
and whimsy and risk taking,
because I feel like these are some of the missing elements,
uh, that people are struggling to find.
So I probably should have done
that setup in the beginning, ,
but I'm doing it now better late than never.
So with that said, I would love
to hear a little bit from you about
where your ideas come from.
Like, we're all walking down the same streets,
but you just seem to see things
or your eye seems to get caught by things
that other people's don't.
And I'm curious what you can share about that.
Speaker 2: Well, I can share that I love coming up with ideas.
And I will say that 98%
of my ideas are terrible and they're just crap.
Uh, and so hopefully you see the 2% that are good,
but know that it is just the tip of an iceberg where most
of the ideas are terrible.
I have, I try to be very, uh, disciplined about it.
So I do spend 15 minutes every morning with my, uh,
remarkable tablet writing by hand.
'cause I am a fan of writing by hand.
And I just, I have some magazines around me
and I come up with ideas.
And as I say, most of them are terrible.
I actually am, I've opened up my list of ideas.
I have list of thousands of ideas, good and bad.
And I'll just read you, and you can see most of them.
I'll read like four or five.
And you'll see, I saw a picture of Mona Lisa,
and I thought, well, what if Mona Lisa came alive?
They made a movie about, it's like Splash with the Mermaid,
but Mona Lisa comes outta the Frame .
Uh, and uh, I don't think
that's a great movie idea, but it was interesting.
I enjoyed coming up with it.
Uh, I was thinking about meat
that you can make in a laboratory,
and now there's no boundaries.
So what if you made, took a little meat from every species
on earth, a little, little cheek swab,
and you had an everything burger,
like an everything bagel of ev .
So yes, your face is making,
and uh, you are looking
absolutely grossed out, which is the point.
As I say, most of these are bad ideas, we're never gonna,
but then I thought sometimes they lead to something.
Like, for instance, I was thinking, I don't know,
I saw a picture of a cat and I thought of the word caddy,
and are cat's actually caddy?
And that led to a puzzle that I'm gonna do on my podcast,
which is about puzzles, about adjectives
and verbs related to animals.
So that idea, it was just a seed that planted something.
It may not be the greatest puzzle ever,
but I thought it was interesting enough to pursue.
So that is, um, I come up to me
and I've talked to creativity experts, uh,
because I, I've written about creativity and,
and the general consensus
among the scientists is it's a numbers game.
You know, you don't see a lot of Picasso's terrible stuff,
but he made it, he made terrible stuff
and he might turn it away.
So it is a lot about being okay with coming up
with bad ideas because
that's the only way you're gonna get to the good ideas.
Speaker 1: Okay, so that's really helpful.
And I actually, in the spirit
of making sure we capture actionable tips, I kind
of feel like I heard two in there.
So keep me honest. One thing I heard you say is it's
about volume, right?
So sitting and sitting and thinking and thinking
and waiting for the good idea to rise
to the top is probably a losing person's game.
Agreed. Um, and I have heard, I think it was Seth Godin
who said that people with the most good ideas are just the
ones with the most bad ideas, right?
So love that.
There's definitely something about just generating volume
and, and letting it flow.
I love that you have that daily practice.
But I also heard, and maybe I'm, I am intuiting this
and you can call me out and say that it's wrong,
but what I hear you saying is you're not necessarily
thinking of ideas in service of something.
You're just thinking
of stuff like you're just letting ideas come.
You're not necessarily,
it doesn't sound like you were
trying to come up with a puzzle.
You were just letting ideas come out
and be what they need to be.
And you turned one of them into a puzzle, right?
And so from a creativity standpoint, I feel like
discipline and volume is one thing.
And then what I'm hearing is it doesn't have to be a purpose
or a so what to it.
It's just a creative exercise.
Is that any of that fair and reasonable?
Speaker 2: Not just fair, but super insightful. Thank you for that.
Yes. I think, I think there's room for both.
I think sometimes when I'm in the morning I am just sort
of coming up with ideas
and then later I'm saying, could this be an article?
Could this be a substack? Could this be a book or a puzzle?
Sometimes I am more focused
and say, okay, I need to come up with a book idea.
Let's spend the next half hour on that.
But again, it is a lot about the discipline,
which you mentioned and carving out a half hour,
making an appointment with your creative self,
as some people say, a little cheesy, but there you go.
Like, you do have to. So I, I, that's not true for everyone.
Some people get their best ideas in the shower,
and I've heard scientists talk about how that releases the,
uh, frontal cortex.
So to let you make connections.
Honestly, for me, it is much more productive to do
the half hour and no, even like that first five minutes,
you may not get anything good
'cause you gotta let your brain warm up.
And then the other question, which I think you implied,
but uh, was how do I know are which ideas are good?
Yeah. And that is very tricky.
Uh, I'd say I have two
or three heuristics that I really rely on.
One is, does this idea stick
around in my brain for a couple of months?
And I'm thinking, oh, remember that idea?
That was actually interesting.
And I do like to tell my ideas good
and bad to people so I can see their reaction.
So I saw your reaction to the everything Burger .
So I know not to pursue that,
but if you can tell, you know, friends will often say, oh,
that's a good idea, but you could kind
of see it in their eyes whether
they really believe it or not.
Speaker 1: I love that. So making good use, uh, of the people
around you, the people that you know and trust
and maybe maybe some new, new people.
I know the first time you and I met you shared an idea
with me, and I think I gave you an honest reaction.
I do tend to do that. Um,
and I thought it was really cool that you did that.
Honestly, in the moment I felt honored.
And now I'm pretty sure that you just do that
with everybody, but still ,
Speaker 2: I Speaker 1: Think it's a great technique, right?
There's no reason to keep everything so close to the vest.
The people around you are, are resources.
So, so tap into it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, it's interesting.
I used to be play it very close to the vest,
not share my ideas,
because there is a risk that you,
someone else will take the idea.
So that mm-hmm .
And in some industries that's a bigger risk than others.
I have found over the years that the benefits
of sharing ideas as they, even in the
infant stage outweighs the risks.
And I've, I've seen this, this is an example
from many years ago, but my friend was on Facebook
and he posted, I wish there was a book called Go the F
to Sleep, or he said, I, I'm writing a book.
He said it jokingly,
and everyone on his Facebook feed was like,
that's a great idea, you should really do that.
And, and that became the book.
So, uh, which sold millions of copies.
It was called Go the F to Sleep,
but it, the F was spelled out.
And it was a great way to humorously address the frustration
of trying to get kids to sleep.
Speaker 1: Uh, that book was brilliant
and it really carried me through some
of the early years when yes, I remember the pain.
That is, uh, that's so interesting. I love that. Thank you.
So obviously, or maybe not obviously,
but a a lot of my listeners, um,
are living in professional worlds
that are probably a bit different to yours.
It sounds like you're working in a space where you have the,
the liberty, maybe also the curse of,
but certainly the liberty of the space to be creative.
And, and you have some freedom around that.
And yet, you know, to your point, books are business.
Your work is business.
And so how do you kind of find that balance between
being creative and letting your imagination roam,
but also thinking about, um,
maybe the commercial value of an idea and,
and creating the discipline to actually sit down and,
and write the book or do the work.
Any tips in that realm you can share with us? Oh,
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Well, one thing that comes to mind is trying not to
say, oh, this is a creative job
and this is a non-creative job.
So, for instance, I went into writing
because I thought, you know, I love to write,
which is not actually true.
I don't like to write the actual writing.
Sitting alone is quite unpleasant.
Coming up with ideas, talking about those ideas, researching
that I do find enjoyable.
But I was always afraid of marketing,
but then I had to reframe it.
I, a few years ago, I was like, this is a huge part
of being a writer is the marketing.
So I'm gonna reframe it as something creative instead
of this chore that I dread.
And that made a huge difference.
And I was able to, I,
I realized you can be incredibly creative in marketing.
Uh, and so when I wrote the book about the Bible
where I lived by every rule in the Bible from the 10
Commandments on down to growing a huge beard that came out.
And I said, alright, well I, how can I reach those markets
that normally wouldn't be interested in this book?
And I, the Bible talks about sex.
There's a lot of sex in the Bible, then the Song of Songs,
the Song of Solomon is quite racy.
So I did a, uh, an article, I pitched a glamor magazine,
which at the, it's still pretty big,
but at the time was much bigger.
I said, what if I wrote an article, sex tips from the Bible?
And they said, we, you know, yeah, that's great.
We'll do it. So I was able to get that,
and then I did the same thing, you know,
business tips from the Bible, uh,
and, uh, I was able to market it to both atheists
and religious people
because they were part, the book was about
how there are good parts to religion
and bad parts to religion.
So for those who wanted to focus on the skepticism,
I was there for those who wanted to look at the good parts.
I was there. And that was super fun and creative.
Uh, and uh, so I think that's it a lot about framing
and focusing on how anything can be creative
if you, uh, if you look at it a certain way.
Speaker 1: I love that. So in the context of the work that I do,
so I, I have my,
my background is in organizational psychology,
and there is this concept
that we talk about in the workplace called job crafting,
which is really just kind of a, a nerdy, wonky way
of giving terminology to what you just described, right?
It's, I think the, um,
the analog in the more traditional workplace is that,
you know, when you have a job,
there are certain objectives you need to achieve.
There are certain outcomes you need to get to,
but finding the, the activities that give you joy,
that light you up thinking about your job
through a particular lens
or context can really shift your experience of it, right?
And so I think there's something really powerful in
that If you are a person who is a great talker
and a great connector and a great researcher,
you can really harness that and leverage that.
If you're somebody who loves spreadsheets,
like you can always find a way to, to choose the activities
that give you joy
and find a way to bring them into the, um, the path
of delivering an outcome that you are accountable to.
Speaker 2: Great point. I love that insight.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And, and so you gave us
such a great example of that.
'cause I can appreciate that the idea of marketing a book,
if you're a writer, if you're a creative marketing sounds
like a very kind of wonky discipline.
And there are right ways and wrong ways.
And it sounds like there's a lot of rigor
and you, you kind of brought your own strengths into
how you approached it.
And you've been, I will say,
you've been very successful just by the measure of,
I definitely fall into more of the atheist bucket.
And I read that book and I loved it,
and I thought it was hilarious, and I couldn't wait
to meet your wife because she is definitely the hero of it.
As we, as we have discussed, , um,
I couldn't imagine having had to live with you through
that year long experiment, but
Speaker 2: She did it. She is very
patient. Speaker 1: ,
thank you for that. Thank you for sharing that.
Here's what I would love to ask you next.
So you've talked a little bit about how you love coming up
with ideas, how you have discipline around coming up
with ideas, maybe for people who are feeling a little bit
of like boredom and monotony
and my job, job just kind of feels the same every day.
Is there anything that you do to just kind
of like wet your appetite for curiosity?
Any tips on how to, how to start to build that muscle?
Speaker 2: I love that question. I love that question.
And I would say, yeah, to make curiosity, curiosity
and gratitude are, are sort
of my two favorite human drives or emotions.
And, and yet there are ways to build up both.
One of the ways I find is I love,
I end once interviewed Alex Trebek, the, uh, late host of
Jeopardy, uh, because I was working at Esquire magazine.
I loved him by the way,
he cursed like a sailor off, off screen .
So there you go. But still quite lovable.
And one of the quotes he said, I still think about it
because it's a little paradoxical, but I totally got it.
And he said, I'm curious about everything, even those things
that don't in interest me, I'm curious about everything,
even those things that don't interest me.
And what I think he meant is it's a way
of looking at the world and realizing that those topics
that might on the surface seem dull,
are actually almost always fascinating,
because they almost always deal with human life.
So when I was writing that book on coffee, I had
to do a section on logistics,
how do the coffee gets to me?
And I had never thought about pallets, those wooden sort
of crates that, and I was like,
how am I gonna write even a sentence on that?
But once I started looking into it, I read a quote,
the world runs on pallets.
So my, everything I am looking at right now,
this microphone, this computer, this table
has been on a pallet.
So without pallets, I would have nothing. Okay?
So you've gotta look,
Speaker 1: That's, you've gotta look at it. That's
Speaker 2: A fun fact.
It's, they're billions of them.
80% of merchandise has been on a pallet
and without it.
So I always say, how does it affect humans?
I mean, things can be interesting on their own,
but it, it affects my life in a huge way.
And I never even think about it.
So then I have some sort
of emotional, personal investment in it.
I'm like, I'm thankful for pallets.
Without them, I wouldn't be talking to you.
I wouldn't have my morning coffee.
And that, I think is one way to p your curiosity.
See how does it affect my life?
Because almost we're so interconnected
that almost everything does affect our lives.
Whether that's accounting,
which is seemingly people make fun of it for being boring.
Or even, I've heard podcasts about concrete
and how important concrete is to the world.
It's like, I think it's one, perhaps the most common
manufactured substance.
And uh, and I wouldn't be sitting here without it.
So how does it affect your life?
And then going from there, I think that's an entry point
to pique your curiosity.
Speaker 1: I love that. That's such a different way
of, of looking at things.
And I think sometimes in the workplace,
sometimes the question that can really trigger
for people is, how does this affect the customer
or the patient depending on what kind of business we're in,
you know, depending on what function you're in,
I think if you're in a healthcare organization
and you are a physician, if you're a nurse,
how you affect the patient is pretty obvious.
But if you work in finance,
if you work on the janitorial staff,
sometimes having some curiosity about how a task
that you have to manage in your day can,
will ultimately have that impact.
It might be a, a way to sort of leverage
that principle in a different context.
I love that. Yeah. Thank you.
Speaker 2: Of course. Thank you. I mean,
there's this famous story I think I wrote about in the
gratitude book that turns out to be true.
It sounds apocryphal,
but it's true that John F. Kennedy was touring nasa,
and he asked a janitor who was mopping the hall,
and he said, what's your job here?
And he said, my job is to help put a man on the moon.
And I was like, that is such a great reframe.
Uh, and, uh, and really, yeah, quite inspiring.
The other reframe I love is, uh, as you know,
I love my puzzles.
So I love a quote from Quincy Jones who's the music producer
who says his philosophy of life.
He just died recipes.
He said, I don't have problems, I have puzzles.
So he said, when you look at life, try to see it
as a puzzle at work, you know,
and with, in your relationships,
because it's so much more, uh, invigorating and empowering.
You know, a problem
or a crisis makes you wanna curl up in the corner,
but a puzzle, you're like, okay, let's roll up our sleeves
and see how we can solve this.
Speaker 1: I love that. I'm gonna have to look
that one up. Thank you.
Speaker 2: Of course.
Speaker 1: Okay, so here is my next question for you.
I would describe you, I've already described you a lot,
I know, but , I would describe you as somebody who presents
with this really interesting balance of, uh,
humility and almost a bit of like self-deprecation.
And yet, I have to imagine it takes a lot of confidence
to be doing what you do, to be pitching ideas,
to be pitching Glamor magazine,
to write an article about sex from the Bible.
How do you, how do you do that?
How do you, first of all, does that,
does that resonate with you?
And second of all, if you're willing
to accept my description, how do you strike that balance of,
of being humble and being able to laugh at yourself,
but being able to channel the confidence to take these risks
and put these ideas out there?
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, I would say it's a, it is accurate
with an asterisk.
I act as if I'm confident,
but really often I'm not.
But I think we talked about this, I am a big fan of how
behavior shapes your emotions,
how the outer shapes your inner, the whole idea of acting
as if, and, uh, fake it till you feel it.
Not just fake it till you make, make it,
but fake it till it actually starts to resonate with you.
And, uh, and that's, that's an ancient idea that's been
around for thousands of years.
But it's also a modern idea
because a lot of cognitive behavioral psychology,
which I'm a big fan of, rests on this idea.
So I will pretend that I'm confident,
uh, until I become a little more confident.
So, for instance, you mentioned the health book.
I had to call sort of the top doctors
and experts on health in the world.
And, uh, I was like, I, you know, who am I?
I don't have a PhD. And
so I would wake up sometimes despairing,
this topic is too big.
I, but I would act as if I were confident
and I would call up my publisher.
I'd say, now when this is published, let's have a big party
where we serve kale martinis.
And, you know, I, I would had all these, so I would act
as if I was confident that this was gonna be a mega hit.
And that gave, eventually
after a couple of hours every, every day, I found I had
to restart it every day.
Uh, and I would eventually become more confident
and have the confidence to call up anyone in the world, uh,
and also be okay with being rejected.
That's, um, that's part of it.
So yes, I do feel you need confidence,
but you can sort of fake that confidence
until you gain the real confidence.
Speaker 1: Okay. That's helpful. It just, it takes a lot of reps.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. I think it, I mean, it's also the same
with, with gratitude.
I would wake up and I would be in my Larry David mood
of not being grateful,
but I would force myself to call people or meet people
and say how thankful I was.
And eventually it would sink in your brain
catches up with your behavior.
Speaker 1: So can we talk a little bit about your,
your experience with gratitude? Um, of
Speaker 2: Course Speaker 1: You've written about it,
you've talked about it a lot.
It, it's, it's, um, it's a concept
that I think has become pretty popular in,
in pop culture these days.
What would you say was most surprising to you
as you started kind of forcing yourself to be mindful
of moments of gratitude?
What, what surprised you? What did you learn about yourself?
Speaker 2: Well, a lot. Uh, one thing was, I think, uh,
the quote is from a benedicting monk, but, uh,
and he said, happiness does not lead to gratitude.
Gratitude leads to happiness.
And I really felt that
because I, when I forced myself to be grateful, I actually
was, uh, uh, ha I would become happier.
And I'll give you just one example of this.
The idea of the book was to call or thank in person.
Every single person.
Not every single, oh, a thousand people who had anything
to do with making my morning cup of coffee.
So that meant the obvious, like the barista, I flew
to South America and I thank the farmers of the beans,
but I also thank the truck driver
and, uh, who carried the coffee beans
or the, the people who made the road for the truck driver.
'cause he couldn't have done it. So the idea was
it's all interconnected.
And I remember one day calling the woman who did
pest control for the warehouse
where the coffee beans were stored.
And I said, I know this is a strange call,
but I'd like to thank you for helping
to keep the insects out of my coffee.
And she said, well, that is a little weird, but thank you.
The, I don't get a lot of positive feedback in my line
of work, and this has kind of made my day,
which in turn made my day.
So it was this virtuous cycle where you
actually become happier by thanking other people.
And that was a huge lesson.
Speaker 1: That's amazing. It's amazing.
And you know, one of the conversations I have often in the
workplace is around recognition programs, right?
And we need to, we need to have an online platform
and we need funding and we need to be able to, you know,
give people money and spot bonuses and all that is great.
And I tell organizations, if you, if you manage that,
if you have the the time and the funds, go for it.
But really just regular authentic expressions of thank you.
And I, and I like to tell people, not just thank you for,
for the heroes and not just thank you for the big wins,
but thank you for just behaviors that you appreciate
that you wanna see repeated, you know, expressing gratitude
to somebody because they poked a hole in your plan when
nobody else had the courage to do it right.
Or somebody gave you a piece of advice
that you didn't ask for.
Like the things that we thank people
for, they wanna repeat.
Right? And, and to your point about that virtuous cycle, it,
it sort of, you say thank you, it triggers dopamine
and the other person, they wanna do it again.
And then they wanna say thank you.
And so, you know, I think for anybody who's,
who's not feeling appreciated or,
or recognized in their own lives, they should be mindful of
how can you express that gratitude
and recognize somebody else?
And you, you should start the practice
and create a little bit of a positive contagion around that.
Speaker 2: That is such a great point. Yeah.
If you aren't feeling, uh, recognized, maybe
recognize other people and they'll get the idea
that this is a good thing.
Uh, yeah. That's great.
Speaker 1: So I wanna switch gears.
Um, AJ and I wanna just talk a little bit about your podcast
because like everything else you touch,
it's a little quirky and it's super fun.
Um, could you tell us a little about it and,
and what figured you to started?
Speaker 2: Of course, it's called The Puzzler with a j Jacobs.
It's on iHeart and it's every day a short little burst
of puzzle, audio puzzle, sort of like wordle for your ears.
And uh, I did it
because I wrote a book, as I mentioned on puzzles.
And I do think the puzzles are not a waste of time.
Maybe that is rationalization on my part,
but I genuinely think like Quincy Jones says,
treat your life like a puzzle and it's better.
And it's got, it's all about curiosity,
it all about solutions, which I think we need
to have a solution mindset instead of a problem mindset.
So I'm a huge fan of puzzles
and we'll have on celebrities,
often they're celebrities in quotes,
but sometimes real celebrities like Joseph Gordon Levitt is
coming up next week and he's a real celebrity.
Yeah. And audio puzzles
that are meant to just keep you sharp
and get your brain going in the morning
or at night whenever you listen.
And I'll give you a couple of quick examples just so
that it makes more sense.
One is this puzzle we came up with where it is, uh,
I give a hint of a word, I'm gonna say a word,
but it is occluded, a two word phrase
and you've gotta figure out what that two word phrase is by
the way that I say the first word.
So for instance, if I say tide, then
that answer is gonna be rising tide.
'cause they said it in a rising way.
So if I said for instance, if I said like a takeover,
then that is a clue to hostile
Speaker 1: Takeover. Oh yeah.
Speaker 2: Ha, you are good. That was fast.
, I forget, are you a puzzler? Are you, do you like puzzles?
Speaker 1: I do now. Speaker 2: great.
But another one is banana.
No, banana split.
Speaker 1: Banana split. Speaker 2: Wow.
And what I love is I saw the, the aha moment in your eyes,
you were like puzzled, and then you got it.
And that's what we're going for. So I, I do love it.
And as I say,
I do think puzzles are are not a waste of time.
They're the opposite. They are a very
important way to look at the world.
Speaker 1: I completely agree.
And coming back to this whole idea of creativity,
I am a really big believer in the power of just
engaging different parts of our
brains throughout the day, right?
I'm a big believer in, I love reading.
Um, I read a lot of nonfiction,
I read a lot of business, thank you.
But I also, I read a lot of fiction
and I think that there's power in that.
And I do, I have not listened to a podcast about concrete,
but I do try to listen to things that are kind
of out of my comfort zone.
Not necessarily things that I'm listening to specifically
to learn something, but just to engage parts of my brain
that I wouldn't necessarily engage otherwise.
I just think the more spots we can light up, the more
interesting ideas and the,
the more captivating connections I think we
can make throughout a day. That's
Speaker 2: My hobby.
A hundred percent. I am, you
and I are exactly aligned on that.
Yeah. Reading books about things that you know nothing about
and you might not even be interested in.
And, and also reading articles.
I mean, that is one of the dangers that a lot
of thinkers have been talking about for years, is that
the way the internet works is it figures out what you like
and gives you more and more of that.
Whereas in the old days, which were not perfect,
I don't wanna say we gotta go back,
but there, there was more serendipity in our media.
So if you were looking at the, at the paper
and look reading about something you're interested in, what,
whatever that is, finance, maybe on that same page,
there was an article about India
and you would never get that on your feed,
but you'd say like, oh, this is interesting
and it expanded your mind.
So IJI try to do
that in my information intake is to
not just focus on things I agree with
or that I am, uh, immediately in interested in.
Speaker 1: I think that is really good advice right now in an
outside of the workplace.
I think we all need to be mindful
of not getting stuck in our own bubbles, right?
And just keeping our minds open broadly.
Speaker 2: A hundred percent. I actually,
I use this app called Ground News, uh,
and it has this feature called Blind Spot,
and it has, it'll show,
and I I, I don't think the world can be divided into just
conservative and liberal.
I think that's, but for the purposes of this app, they,
they do classify certain magazines, media
as liberal, some as conservative,
and they'll show you what the, the conservative media is
covering, that the is a blind spot for the liberals.
And they'll show you what the liberal media is covering.
That's a blind spot for the conservatives.
And I find it very helpful to just have more of a,
a finger on the pulse of what is going on,
not just in my bubble, but everywhere.
Speaker 1: That is so interesting. I'm gonna download that.
So thank you for that, Rick. Of
Speaker 2: Course. Ground news.
Speaker 1: All right, I'm getting in there. So aj,
I wanna be respectful of your time.
Um, this has been so much fun for me. Thank you.
Speaker 2: Loving it. Speaker 1: I wanna ask this one last question,
and this, this comes from a place, so obviously,
like I said, you and I are, are getting ready
to launch some kids send 'em to college,
and I'm, I'm in this season right now
because I've had experience in hr, a lot
of my friends are coming to me with concerns and anxiety.
Oh, my kid wants to study music, my kid wants to study this.
It's, it's so impractical.
I, you know, I need them to study business.
I need them to study, you know,
this renaissance poetry, this is crazy .
Um, I have some really strong perspective on that,
but I, I would love to get yours.
So, you know, you and I have talked,
I know you've got three kids, um, you
and your wife have what I can only describe
as some pretty unconventional career paths.
You both do some really interesting things.
And I'm curious, as you think about your kids
as they're growing up and them having watched you, both
of you navigate these very interesting career paths,
what do you hope, what do you hope they've seen?
What do you hope they've taken away from watching the two
of you do what you've done?
Speaker 2: Well, thank you for that. First of all.
I do, before we go, I do wanna hear some
of your insights on this question.
Uh, but I will say a couple of things.
One is, yes, my wife, by the way, just for context,
she has a company that puts on scavenger hunts
for team building.
So you, you talked about whimsy
and how whimsy can be helpful in business.
And so that's sort of the, the premise of her.
Uh, they do these scavenger hunts in museums and,
and neighborhoods, uh, where you, you answer fun questions
and it's team building.
But yes, we both have slightly unusual, i i,
we both work very hard.
I mean, I, I am working maybe too much that is, uh,
I don't, but,
but when my kids, I will say when my kids are there
and wanna do something with me, whatever time of day it is,
I put the work away and I focus.
So I do hope that that's a lesson that they take away is
to be fully present in whatever you're doing, whether
that's being fully present while working
or being fully present in your relationships.
I mean, I always, I once read a biography of JFK
and it talked about how, you know, he was president
of the United States, but if a 8-year-old asked him a
question, he would, you know, lean down.
So he was eye level
and really focus on them
as if they were the most important person in the world.
And I lo I mean, if the president
of the United States can do that, then I can do that.
So I love the, I try to set as a model really
focusing, put the phone away, like look them in the eyes
and be focused on your family
or your friends when you're with them,
and be focused on work.
You know, I'm not, don't, I, I I don't really
phone in my work, I, I do pay a lot of attention.
So that might be one big, uh, lesson
that I want to impart to them.
Nice. But I wanna hear your insight.
You said you had strong thoughts on this.
Speaker 1: I have thoughts whether or not they're insightful,
I don't know, but I, so you,
you are talking about the importance of being really present
and grounded and listening Well, I think
that's spot on for me.
I think the most important thing when it comes to learning
and education is engagement.
Um, and I tell people all the time,
I do think there are certain career paths.
You know, if you at age 18 know with certainty you want
to be a physician, an architect, like there are certain jobs
that if you know, those are what you want,
there probably is a technical path you should start
pursuing sooner than later.
But I think for most of us, what we study
and what we end up doing professionally
don't necessarily have to relate.
And I personally think that the, the best, you know,
to your point, you said earlier, let's,
let's look at problems as puzzles.
I think the most important skill we can all bring into the
workplace is, you know, being a good thinker.
And so I think if you've taken a course of study
that has really engaged your brain in
whatever it is, I don't care.
It could be drumming or renaissance poetry
or business , if you were engaged, if you cared enough
to learn and think and question
and explore whatever the topic,
I think you're gonna be successful.
I think you will find a way to be successful.
And so that's always my advice to parents
or kids who are asking, study something
that really captivates you
and that's gonna ready you
to do whatever you choose to do someday.
Speaker 2: Part, um, that is great.
I mean, they used to do some hand signal in, uh,
elementary school when you agreed with something.
So I can't remember what it was,
but I'm doing that. Whatever.
Speaker 1: It's, I'll take it. I'll take your hand signal
note the corner of the screen. Yes, thank you.
Speaker 2: A hundred percent. And, uh, thinking
critically I think is the most important skill in business,
and hopefully you can, uh,
and I think there are studies that talk about
how liberal arts is, is actually good for, and I think you
and I talked about at that college entry, cocktail party of,
uh, didn't we talk a little about that book range, uh,
and how we are, I, I at least am a fan of,
of young people trying different areas to see
what resonates with them.
So not being locked into one.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. I think we have a lot in common in
how we think about this stuff.
So, aj, before we close, is there anything
that you wanna call our attention to?
Any, any projects of yours?
We, we should be keeping an eye out
for any place you wanna send people
to find out more about you?
Speaker 2: I, I guess one that I would,
I would plug is I have a substack called Experimental Living
with AJ Jacobs.
And I am excited about it
because the premise of that is, you know, I, I am,
I'm a writer so I can do something for a year
and write a book about it.
But I realized most people have
lives and they can't do that.
But I'm a fan of small experiments
and even those can change your life in a big way.
So even if it's just like, I'm gonna commit to writing
by hand for 10 minutes a day, that's an experiment
that anyone can do.
And, and it might have big benefits.
It could be I'm not gonna gossip for a week
and see what that's like.
So I'm a big fan of experimenting,
whether it's big experiments
or small experiments,
I just think it keeps your brain fresh, it keeps life fresh,
and it in the end, uh, hopefully it improves your life.
Speaker 1: Amazing. Aj, thank you so much
for spending this time with me.
I have enjoyed every minute of it.
Speaker 2: Me too. And I was excited to,
'cause I do like to, you know, listen to the podcast
that I'm on and this was a joy to listen to.
I learned so much, like I say.
And so I hope at the end that I've accomplished that.
Hopefully you listeners have found a couple
of actual takeaways from this.
If not, you can email me and complain,
but I tried. Just know that I
tried Speaker 1: .
It was amazing. Thank you, aj.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Rachel. Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed my conversation
with AJ Jacobs.
You can learn more about him, his work,
his books@ajjacobs.com
or check out his podcast, the Puzzler,
wherever you get your podcasts.
It's short, it's quick, it's fun.
And in the spirit of following curiosity,
I'm curious about what you think of the show.
So please leave a rating
or review in your podcast app for the show.
And if you'd like to connect one-on-one, even just to hit me
with a question, reach out anytime at
rachel@leadabovenoise.com.
Join me next week for another great episode.
Until then, visit my website, lead above noise.com.
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