YouSaid · the spoken record

A.J. Jacobs

lines on the record: 128
first: 2016-12-24
most recent: 2016-12-24
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“The podcast is called Twice Removed, and it is on iTunes, Gimlet Media. And my website is ajacobs.com at ajacobs on Twitter. And my book about family, not genealogy, is coming out in the fall of 2017.”
2016-12-24 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #211: A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Totally. Yeah. And the quote is, which is not mine, but yeah, it's easier to act your way into a new way of thinking than to think your way into a new way of acting. I do love that.”
2016-12-24 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #211: A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And it can be, as I said, it could be just trying a different toothpaste every month. There's millions. I used Crest for like... 28 years because some kid at my camp used Crest and I thought he was cool so I kept buying it and like you know I actually don't like it I don't like it but it took me 28 years to be like you know what let me try some other stuff”
2016-12-24 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #211: A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I definitely think we both talk about this, the idea of experimenting with your life is so important because I think if you do the same, routines are good in some ways because Routines cause you to get in a rut. Like the neurons actually get in a neural rut. So doing simple tricks to just shake up your life. I found it incredibly enriching. I think you have.”
2016-12-24 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #211: A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Emotion really does that. And that's one of the big lessons of this podcast that I'm doing with Gimlet is like getting those emotional moments. Really makes a difference.”
2016-12-24 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #211: A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Definitely that took it to a different level. And I had written a couple of other books before, but they were sort of novelty short books. Like, you know, one was called America Offline about this wonderful world outside of the internet where you could actually meet people face to face. And it's all like four copies. It came out, I think, it would probably suck, but it was also ahead of its time. So that probably both played. But that, I think the key was that that was the first one with real emotion and sort of an emotional arc. And I talked about my father. I talked about the meaning of life and a lame way. I tried. And that connected with people, I think.”
2016-12-24 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #211: A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's a good part of it, exactly. He is just Jack. So anyway, I thought that was, I did not pay for it, luckily. Esquire paid for it. So I guess one of my first books was about reading the Encyclopedia Britannica when they still actually printed that. So there were like 40, 33 volumes. And I read them all. That costs $1,500 to buy that set. Which is an absurd amount for a book, but it turned out it paid off.”
2016-12-24 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #211: A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“There you go. So, yeah, it was fascinating. I mean, that's how he does it. It's, and he'll look at your skull for like five minutes like an artist.”
2016-12-24 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #211: A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And it was a fascinating learning experience because, of course, it's not worth $800. It's like that's insane. It's like, you know, 20% better than my supercuts, which cost 20 bucks. But just learning, he gets clients. He is booked all the time. Like, how does he do this? And, you know, he's got Goldman Sachs guys who come in every week for an $800 haircut. It's all about the experience because the actual cutting, it's not that different, right? But the cappuccino and the music and he'll talk to you, stare you deep in the eyes and talk to you about what your hair means to you and how it can change your life.”
2016-12-24 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #211: A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“To be analogous Well, can I go the other way? I have two ideas. One is about a month ago, I wrote an article for Esquire where I got the most expensive haircut. In the world, in New York City, an $800 haircut. And it was crazy because, you know, it was this guy who was on Park Avenue. His name is Julian Farrell, and he was very French. She said, Ericot. And I was like”
2016-12-24 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #211: A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And it was just a blast. And I would go into meetings and I would be like, you know, what if the main character who was named AJ? What if he did this? And they're like, oh, AJ would never do that. I'd be like, huh, well, maybe he would. But it was just so much fun. And there's one producer who I read a book of hers and she's like, yeah, if you cannot enjoy the process, then you're screwed because the chances of getting a movie actually made are so infinitesimal. So enjoy the process, enjoy the walk up the mountain, not just the summit. That was a big lesson.”
2016-12-24 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #211: A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But the lesson I learned was I actually made a conscious effort. I was like, you know what? This may or may not get picked up, but I am going to consciously enjoy this experience and get everything I can out of it. I got to meet Donald Sutherland, played my father-in-law, my wife was played by this woman who had much bigger boobs than she did, so she loved it”
2016-12-24 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #211: A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I have had many, many failures as we've discussed. And I am a big fan of them. And rejection. That's one of the things I try to teach my kids all the time. You're going to get rejected 98% of the time. You just got to keep going. One, I don't know if this falls into the right category, but NVC couple of years ago optioned my life, one of my books, and it was going to be a comedy where every week it was this writer did another wacky experiment and chaos ensued. And it was a total failure. It didn't get picked up.”
2016-12-24 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #211: A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, hopefully. Fingers crossed that continues. And I guess I battle this even today is don't be so opinionated. Don't have such strongly held beliefs that they can't be changed with evidence. I think that this society is a weird fetish.”
2016-12-24 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #211: A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That is a good one. I like that twist. I think, and I try to do this, I think my 82-year-old self hopefully will be wiser and happier. I do think overall my level of happiness has risen, which is nice. So hopefully.”
2016-12-24 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #211: A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, something like that. Yeah, it was interesting because you got to use guilt very, guilt will only get you so far. That might get you in the door. But then this feeling. Of empowerment, of helping others, I think is. A better motivator for altruism”
2016-12-24 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #211: A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, and I am a fan of that way of thinking just, you know, how lucky we are and trying to give that. So maybe like, you know, that would be an advertisement.”
2016-12-24 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #211: A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I was thinking about this because I know you ask it. I mean, one thought that occurred to me is... Something like life is too complicated and subtle and filled with grays to be summed up on a billboard. So don't pay attention to billboards. Something meta like that. I did a piece on effective altruism. I know you interviewed.”
2016-12-24 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #211: A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“If you think about this a little more a little less flippantly, I think there are things that are very deep in us. If you're gay, you're gay. Don't try to change that. But there are aspects of our personality that we think are ingrained, but that can be changed. Like, I don't think I'm a very outgoing person naturally. I think I would spend most days just indoors reading, but I force myself to be social. I sort of force myself to be out there. And it's made my life better because you interact with people, you're happier. So don't just be yourself. Try to, you know, be the best parts of yourself, but then take the worst parts of yourself and try to change those. Which I think you do, right?”
2016-12-24 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #211: A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I do have one. I have one that's like a pet peeve of mine, which is be yourself. Because, you know, what if yourself is an asshole? Like Stalin, he was being himself. Just let Stalin be Stalin. That guy was really being himself. So I think.”
2016-12-24 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #211: A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“My gazet list, I'm trying to think. I would say, I guess. Aye, that I'm I do have the fear of missing out, not on parties, but on ideas. Like I'm always nervous that I haven't read enough and that there's great ideas and I'm just woefully ignorant. So that's, I guess, something.”
2016-12-24 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #211: A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Oh, that's a good one. That's a good one. Let me think. I don't know if this might be repetitive, but just talking about all of the horrible, the ways that the past is horrible. I think I could go on for like, I know you only have 20 minutes of repet talk, but I could go on for like four hours.”
2016-12-24 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #211: A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“One we talked about is sort of the mental calisthenics. I find that helpful. Another, you talk about in your books, which is the sort of restricting information information diet. And I have tried sometimes successfully to stop reading the newspaper or any news in the morning because then I just get depressed and spiral. I find it good to read news right before I go to bed because then I get depressed and I'm able to fall asleep. So that for me, keeping your mind clear away from news in the morning is crucial.”
2016-12-24 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #211: A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, so you just replace the cloth shoelaces with these last, I think it's called lace lock is the brand I use. And yeah, shoelaces seem like such 18th century technology. It's so crazy we still use them. And these ones, you just slip them on and they, for me at least, they're just as tight.”
2016-12-24 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #211: A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I did a great TED talk. He wrote a book called The Righteous Mind. And it's all about trying to figure out the gap between the red and blue states Republican and Democrat. And it's really interesting. And he likens it to almost taste buds. Republicans have different moral taste buds than Democrats.”
2016-12-24 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #211: A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“One last one, which is multiverses. I know a lot of physicists believe in multiverses. But it really hit me with this election cycle because it is so like I can see at the convention of universes, all of the multiverses and our universe is going to be like getting just a ton of crap. Like guys, this is the universe where Donald Trump is president. Like, can you believe that?”
2016-12-24 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #211: A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“My feeling is there's a difference between fatalism and determinism. So you can believe that you don't have free will, but of course our decisions make a difference. Like if I just, for the rest of the month, lay here on this couch, you know, my life would fall apart. I realize that. So I'm not saying our decisions make a difference. It's just those decisions are predetermined.”
2016-12-24 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #211: A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Another one. I like Sam Harris. I don't believe in free will, which I think is, some people see that as depressing, but I actually find it liberating because it's so much easier to forgive yourself for doing stupid things if you realize that you really didn't have, there was no other.”
2016-12-24 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #211: A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, human verb. Well, I was thinking like, yeah, giraffe or endangered animals, but yeah, take it to the extreme. You get what is the harm in eating another human, a human burger. And this is my idea for a startup. I know, I think you've pulled back on angel investing.”
2016-12-24 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #211: A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You're a proponent? I am a proponent of ethical cannibalism. I'm very interested and excited about in vitro meat, lab-grown meat. Like you take a little cell from a chicken and grow a chicken breast. So I'm very excited that, and I think in 10 or 20 years it's going to be reality and it's going to open up. You don't have to just eat cows or chickens.”
2016-12-24 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #211: A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I love this question. And there are many, many things. So let me just go over a couple of them quickly without trying to alienate too many of your listeners.”
2016-12-24 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #211: A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, this is a little schmaltzy of an answer, but I would say my dad. He is a lawyer who loves his job. He literally has no hobbies because all he loves is spending time with his family and his job. So if you can derive that much pleasure from your job, I think that's a success. I mean, to me, there are two criterion for success. One is that you're happy and the other is that you're making the world a better place. And I think he does both. And he's also like, he is definitely in our genre of taking things to the ridiculous extreme. He writes law books and he holds the world record for the most number of footnotes in a law article 4,280.”
2016-12-24 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #211: A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“For a very well-known celebrity photographer, and it was quite humiliating and vulnerable, and also highly insulting because I was, you know, he was a big photographer, so he had like 10 assistants, like gorgeous 20-something female assistants. And I was like, oh my God, this is so embarrassing. But they could not care less. They were like, no interest in my nude form. So that was tough for my ego. And then it came out, and they actually published the picture and we got some. Subscription cancellations, I believe. So it was overall, it was a dark time.”
2016-12-24 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #211: A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's gold. Yeah. So I may not look that sound that good on the podcast, but I think it's entertaining. But yeah, I would say many humiliations. I don't know if this counts, but this is the first one that comes to mind is I was working at Esquire magazine and we asked the actress Mary Louise Parker to pose nude. And I was tasked with asking her. And she said, well, I will pose nude, but only if the editor of the piece also poses nude. And I was the editor. So I went to my editor-in-chief and he was like, all right, well, do it. Take off your pants. That's your job.”
2016-12-24 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #211: A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, exactly. Because I also think that makes better copy is, you know, and that is actually one thing I was thinking about that I learned doing this podcast is that being humiliated on radio is actually sometimes makes for better radio. So when I'm doing interviews and I ask a question and the person is like, God, that's a dumb question. That is beautiful.”
2016-12-24 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #211: A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Than you would expect. And also, if you get something good out of it for your own life, then it's probably worth it unless you inflict massive pain on others with radical honesty.”
2016-12-24 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #211: A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That is awesome. Well, and I also think calling it an experiment gives you permission to fail because it's an experiment. Sometimes experiments fail. So if you do a change in your life and say, I'm experimenting with this, and it reminds me of, uh, I'm probably going to get this wrong, but I think it was a French writer named Montagna who came up with the word essay, which means to try. So that's what I find that so freeing. Like when you write something, you're just trying. It may work. It may not.”
2016-12-24 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #211: A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Oh, what a great idea. Absolutely. I think that's it. I mean, I think if you almost see yourself as a method writer or instead of a method actor and just get into character, I often do that. I'm like, I'm going to get into character now. And, you know, this is not me. This is me. And I think that you don't have to be a writer to do that, actually. I think the idea of experimenting on your own life, even if you're not writing a book, I think it's great to just try eight different toothpaste and see which works. But there is a sense where you have to commit and you're like, you know what? I'm going to force myself to do this. I'm going to take on a character and I'm going to do it. So that I find very helpful.”
2016-12-24 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #211: A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Interesting. I did, yes, there was in Orlando there's a theme park called the Holy Land Experience, which is the Disney version of ancient Jerusalem. And so you've got, and instead of mascots like Disney World, you've got Jesus, you've got this guy with robes and a beard, and he's got a little Madonna Ted face mic, and he's talking. And you've got these guys like left. It could have been a funny chapter in that it was I found it very ridiculous, but it was also like shooting fish in a barrel. It was like, or I think PJ O'Rourke said, you know, shooting cows with a sawed off shotgun. It was just too easy. And there are people I'm sure that it was meaningful too. So why ruin their lives just for a cheap laugh? So that didn't make it.”
2016-12-24 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #211: A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And it was his idea. He was like the show about the lie catcher. You can tell who's lying based on their facial expressions So I interviewed him. Great interview, and I tried it, and I just couldn't do it. I don't know whether it's because it's a pseudoscience or whether because it's my failure, probably the latter. But it just, and it's fun to write about failures, but not when there's just nothing but failure.”
2016-12-24 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #211: A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I did start, and you probably will remember this guy's name, but the man who invented the idea of microexpressions, where you...”
2016-12-24 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #211: A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I had a similar experience. I actually have, I'm finishing my book on the family now. But as part of it, last summer I threw the biggest worldwide family reunion ever. And that was financially not a great idea. But it was It was so fun and so interesting, and I hope raised the profile enough that it will pay off in the end. But yeah, because it was like 4,000 people in New York, but then there were 40 simultaneous reunions around the world. And Sister Sledge came and saying, we are family. One thing, this was a revelation. We our family. I'm like, this is the perfect. But it turns out like one of the sisters is not talking to the others. So their family, in the sense that every family is dysfunctional.”
2016-12-24 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #211: A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's it. Now, if you had to rank the different parts of your job in terms of enjoyment that they give you, what would you say?”
2016-12-24 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #211: A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Different audiences. So I wrote a piece for a music magazine about music in the Bible. I did for glamour magazine. I wrote sex advice in the Bible because there's a good amount of sex in the Bible. And it was actually very interesting. I became a fan of this way of thinking as opposed to being. And the same thing with speeches. I used to hate giving speeches. But like we said before, the whole fake it till you make it. I forced myself to do every speech I could. And now I just, you know, I love, I actually... I'm not a fan of sitting down in front of the keyboard, but I'd much rather be on stage talking.”
2016-12-24 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #211: A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Arches and he had to deal with city bureaucracy for 24 years. So I asked him, you know, God, that must have been so frustrating. And he said, well, yes, and no. He said, I actually see dealing with the bureaucracy and as part of my art as like all part of one big art project. So I don't separate it from the actual designing of the pieces. And I was like, that's an interesting way to look at it. So I tried to apply that to marketing and instead of seeing it as this horrible pain in the ash, like, what can I do that's creative with it? And one of the things when I was doing the year of living biblically, for instance, I was like, how can I section this off so I can appeal to like 50”
2016-12-24 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #211: A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I did well, you know, partly inspired by Tim Ferris, but partly it was I reframed marketing and tried to think of it not as the sullying my art, but as something that could be creative and its own right. And part of this was I interviewed the artist Cristo, you know, the guy who wraps islands and the gates in Central Park, a really interesting guy. And he was working on this one project for... 24 years. He was trying to put up these gates in Central Park, these like these curtains and arches in Central Park, like 10,000 orange.”
2016-12-24 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #211: A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“JFK's great grandma came over and opened a button shop, and the Kennedys would not have existed if she hadn't been an entrepreneur and funded her kids' education and then they, whatever, got into liquor, and then that spawned the political dynasty.”
2016-12-24 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #211: A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And we actually had one that's sort of related to some of the stuff you do. We had... Abby Jacobson, who's on Broad City. She's a hilarious comedian. But one of her ancestors was this entrepreneur, a woman entrepreneur. So we did a whole segment on female entrepreneurs through history, including Betsy Ross. We all think of her just like sowing the flag, but apparently she was like, she had like a team. She was a titan. Yeah. And same with...”
2016-12-24 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #211: A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And he gives me, I'm sure since you interviewed him, like, yeah, the silence, he's like brilliant at using the silence, just like waiting.”
2016-12-24 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #211: A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“As you might know, your listeners might know it's like it was a podcast about starting a podcast company. Very meta So they are doing it and they are amazing because they are all like this American life alums. And so they are just so good at editing and crafting the story and music. And I know nothing about it, so it's been a fascinating learning experience. And learning also how to tell stories in an audio way, which is different. So I found it's fascinating. It's been... We'll see how it does, but I'm excited for”
2016-12-24 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #211: A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT