YouSaid · the spoken record

A.J. Jacobs

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128
first
2016-12-24
most recent
2016-12-24
sittings or episodes
1
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podcast

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  1. “That's true, yeah. And I think it'll also, it might make us more tolerant of people's mistakes because we all do something, you know, the YouTube video of people melting down and acting like idiots, everyone will have one of those. So, we're all going to have no one's perfect. We're all going to have our flaws right out there on display. So we have to accept those in ourselves and be a little more tolerant of others. So it's going to be a weird future. I really believe fascinating but weird.”

    2016-12-24 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #211: A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  2. “That never happened. So that was one. I mean, also the implications for the future are fascinating. You know, how is it going to affect crime? Like, how will anyone mug someone when it's all being uploaded immediately to the cloud? It will, I think, help crime, but it'll be terrible for marriages and, you know, I feel for future adulterers. My heart goes out to them because I can't imagine how you're going to get away with sneaking around whenever.”

    2016-12-24 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #211: A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  3. “I think Well, one thing I learned is to Of course, I have hundreds of hours of material, so I'll never be able to watch it because it's just infinite loop. But I think one is to enjoy the small moments. If you do watch it, you just realize that 90% of your day is, you know, when I'm getting my kids ready for school, if you are annoyed during those half hour because it's a pain in the ash, That's a half hour of your way life wasted. Like you have to realize this is it. Like this is what most of life is. So try to enjoy that as well as when you're playing laser tag or whatever because that's very great.”

    2016-12-24 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #211: A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  4. “Yeah, it was great. I love that show. And that was, and in the episode, you know, things go horribly awry with his marriage.”

    2016-12-24 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #211: A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  5. “Rewind and watch the argument and it was so terrible for our marriage. I can't remember. I think I might have been 60% right. The net was that I was 0% right because she was so upset and you don't want to show someone yelling or angry. It just does not. So I don't recommend that as a way to navigate a marriage. In fact, there was a black, you ever see black. I was going to say.”

    2016-12-24 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #211: A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  6. “Yeah, record everything. It's like the self track and quantified self taken to the extreme. So I wore, I had a little tiny camera, like smaller than a GoPro on my ear and I recorded every moment of my life for about three months. And it was fascinating. It really, and I think it's a glimpse of the future. I think we are all going towards that for better or worse. But one of the things was I was like, you know, 70% of my arguments with my wife are about where she says, you didn't tell me that. And I'm like, yeah, I did. I did tell you that. So now I'm like, you know what? Now we can rewind. And we can see what we actually said. So we had a huge argument about something whether I had asked me to order Mexican food, something ridiculously small and trivial, but it blew up. And I was able, I was like, the next day, I'm like, okay, let's.”

    2016-12-24 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #211: A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  7. “I will say probably the worst one for our marriage was You know, the life logging movement where you keep track. It's like...”

    2016-12-24 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #211: A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  8. “It is interesting. I mean, first of all, she has veto power. So there are, like, I'm sure you get this all the time, readers suggesting ideas. One suggested become the greatest lover in the world and do all the positions in the Kama Sutra, which you kind of did in the four inner body. But, you know, I've been married for 12 years. So that was not going to happen. I did pitch it to her, and she's like, no. And I have to say, I was a little relieved because I don't think I can bend my back like that anymore. So she has veto power. That's rule number one. And two, I think she does a lot of reader feedback about how she's so patient. That helps. So please keep sending those in.”

    2016-12-24 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #211: A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  9. “Yeah, those were great. Yeah, they were, you know, they're usually used by people who are, you know, either 83 or 600 pounds, but I found it very useful.”

    2016-12-24 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #211: A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  10. “I can chuck one back at him. So that's how I chucked it off the list. Yeah, I didn't continue that. There were quite a few. I did not continue, including, if you follow Leviticus really strictly, you can't touch a woman when she's menstruating because she's impure. But if you take it really literally, a woman, if she's menstruating, if she sits on something, a chair, that chair becomes impure. And my wife found that offensive. So she sat in every chair in our apartment. And I had to stand for most of the year, which as you know is probably good for you. Probably good for you.”

    2016-12-24 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #211: A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  11. “Yes, exactly. That was the key. I showed it to him and I'm like, you know, they're small stones. You know, I can check it off the list, even if they're small stones. And he was very aggressive adulterer. He grabbed the stones out of my hand and threw them at my face. So I thought... An eye for an eye”

    2016-12-24 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #211: A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  12. “Well, yes, I was doing a lot with the Old Testament, the Hebrew scriptures, and it says over and over again, you have to stone adulterers. So I thought, all right, let me try to get this, check this off the list. So I was, one day I was in Central Park and I was wearing my whole, I had my robe. I had to get up, the sandals, and a man came up to me and he said, Why are you dressed like that? And I said, well, I'm trying to follow all the rules of the Bible from the Ten Commandments to stoning adulterers. And he said Well, I'm an adulterer. Are you going to stone me? And I said, well, that would be fantastic. Thank you for the offer. So I took a handful of stones out of my robe pocket because I had been carrying them around for weeks”

    2016-12-24 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #211: A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  13. “In terms of stuff that I have actually kept, I would say one thing that really has stuck with me is that the Bible talks about that you should be grateful all the time. It says you should be thankful, say prayers of thanksgiving. So when I was doing the book, I took that literally. So I would be thankful for everything. So I would press the elevator button. I'd get in the elevator. I'd be thankful it didn't plummet to the basement. I'd press the elevator button and I'd be thankful the doors opened and I got to my floor. So it was like hundreds of little tiny things a day. And it was a weird way to live, very time consuming. But it was also, there was something wonderful about it because it made you realize very concretely there are hundreds of things that go right every day that you totally take for granted.”

    2016-12-24 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #211: A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  14. “From that experience. I do like the brighter clothes more than I used to. I would say, you know, a lot of it, I did shave the beard because my wife would not, she wouldn't touch me with that thing, even though I kept it very clean. I like moisturized, conditioned it, shampooed.”

    2016-12-24 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #211: A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  15. “And the sandals and the walking stick. Yeah. As he say, you know, getting into it physically really makes a difference. And one of the rules in the Bible, and I think it's Ecclesiastes, says that your garments should always be white. So I took that literally, and I only wore white pants, white shirts, and white robes. And it was weird how it affected my mind, as you know, like it made me feel lighter, more energetic. I felt like, you know, there's just something about wearing white. Like, I'm going to, you know, P Diddy's Hampton's party, or I'm going to play Wimbledon, you know, it's got positive associations. So I felt, and here in New York, people wear dark clothes all the time.”

    2016-12-24 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #211: A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  16. “All right. Imagine how much better this interview would be if you were. And I was wearing white. I'm wearing white socks. Yeah. Well, this book, just to give very quick background for those who don't know, it was, I grew up with no religion at all. As I say in the book, I'm Jewish, but I'm Jewish in the same way the olive garden is Italian. So not very, no offense. But I thought one way to learn about religion would be to dive in and actually follow every rule in the Bible. So the famous ones like the Ten Commandments, but also the less famous ones, like it says you can't shave the corners of your beard. I didn't know where the corners were, so I just let the whole thing grow and I had this huge topiary and I got stopped at airport security so it was a crazy year. But one of the rules...”

    2016-12-24 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #211: A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  17. “the coffee cup or the pigeons on the windowsill or how my elbow itches and just just the fact of moving your fingers like we talked about how much your body affects your mind moving the fingers gets you going and helps but yeah it's a problem it is certainly people who say they don't have writer's block they they drive me crazy too”

    2016-12-24 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #211: A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  18. “Oh, yeah. I get blocked all the time. I actually wrote an article once on Writer's Block. And the way that great writers have overcome it, I remember, I think Ben Franklin wrote in The Nude, a lot of writers wrote Standing Up like Nabakov wrote Standing Up. There is a philosopher, a German philosopher named Schiller, who he needed rotten apples to inspire him. So I tried him. I went like Tim Ferris. I tried him all at the same time, like standing up, naked with runner apples. I don't know if that was successful. But I will say one of them is similar to what I said before, where you just start writing and it doesn't have to be, as long as you accept that it's going to suck, it lowers the pressure. So a lot of times if I'm stuck, I'll just start writing about the...”

    2016-12-24 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #211: A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  19. “He used to be a baseball player in high school. And when he got up to the plate, he wouldn't just say to himself, am I going to hit a home run? He would say, not only am I going to hit a home run, but the only question is, am I going to hit it over the left wall or the right wall? And I loved that. And of course, most of the time, he did it. Most of the time he struck out, but it raised the percentage of times that he did hit a home run because he had that delusional optimism. And I love that. And you have to be careful. I mean, it can lead to terrible things. So you have to have some, especially if you're in an organization, you want the CEO to be delusionally optimistic, and then you want someone else to be sort of the bean counter and be like, I don't know about this balance. But you really do, I think, need that delusional optimism to get things done.”

    2016-12-24 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #211: A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  20. “Yes, I am a fan of delusional optimism, which is very similar to what we've been talking about. I think nothing would get done without delusional optimism. And I actually, one example was I interviewed George Clooney once for Esquire, who, by the way, is as charming as you expect George Clooney to be. He gave me a unsolicited shoulder rub, shoulder massage. Like, I'll always have that. But anyway, so I asked him about his, what are his secrets?”

    2016-12-24 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #211: A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  21. “Oh, yeah, I absolutely I agree. And it's in every part of my life. Like I did one experiment where I tried to be the best husband ever. And I forced myself to buy a present for my wife every day, like just a little trinket, even if I was totally pissed at her and like you wanted nothing to do with her. But just that act of giving it to her, it was like, oh, I'm giving her a present. I must love her. And it really changed my view. So I am a big fan. And we're not the only ones. I read about Teddy Roosevelt when he was for a while he was trying to be a cowboy. Like he was actually in, I think it was Montana. And someone asked him, aren't you terrified? And he's like, of course I'm terrified when the bull is coming at me, but I just act as if I'm courageous and I become a little more courageous.”

    2016-12-24 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #211: A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  22. “Well, for instance, when I wrote a book about health, it was sort of my attempt at the four-hour body. And I was so overwhelmed because it's such a huge topic and I was trying to be the healthiest person alive aside from Tim Farrish. And so there was such an undertaking because there's so many, there's sleep and there's sex and there's food and exercise. So I was all stressed out. But then I acted every morning I would wake up full of despair. But then I would act as if I was confident. So I would call my publisher and say, okay, when we have the release party, let's have Kale Martinis. What do you think of that? So I was acting all cocky as if, you know, this is going to come out and be a big hit. And after two or three hours, your brain catches up. And I actually felt more confident. And I really find it so helpful.”

    2016-12-24 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #211: A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  23. “Trick your brain, your brain catches up. And I've done that. And especially with optimism and confidence. I don't think I'm a naturally confident person, but I act as if I'm confident and eventually you become more confident.”

    2016-12-24 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #211: A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  24. “Yeah, I think a lot of what your work is. And yeah, I wish I could say I made it up. It was the founder of Habitat for Humanity, whose name escaped me right now, but it was a wonderful. And the idea is just, you know, it's basic cognitive behavioral psychology. When you act in a certain way, then your brain will catch up. But that's a lot in terms of change. I find that much easier. Like I wrote a book about the Bible and living by the Bible and one of the things was you had to be more compassionate. And so I had a friend in the hospital. I hate hospital. Hate them. So I was like, I'm not going to visit that guy. But then I thought, what would a compassionate person do? And I acted as if I were compassionate person. I forced myself to go to the hospital and visit him. And then in my brain, I'm like, oh, you know what? I am kind of compassionate.”

    2016-12-24 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #211: A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  25. “I am a day drinker. I actually prefer drinking during the day. But yeah, you know, there are studies that show that you're slightly more creative. After like, I think after one glass, like after two or three glasses. Then it all goes to hell. But one glass, it sort of loosens up the frontal cortex allows you to make more connections.”

    2016-12-24 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #211: A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  26. “I do, well, I have kids, so that makes my life a pain in the ass. So I have had to train myself to write at all hours. So sometimes in the morning, sometimes at night.”

    2016-12-24 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #211: A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  27. “Exactly I know, yeah. There is some warm up. Yeah, I wish it could be more like high intensity interval training. You're in and you're out, but it is more like stretching.”

    2016-12-24 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #211: A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  28. “I'm more comfortable typing. The other thing I like to think about is I know that the first half hour of actual writing my book, that is probably going to suck. And so I just have to accept that and be okay with throwing it out. But you got to do that half hour before your brain clicks in. So that's what I do. I do need like three solid hours. I'm not one. Some people can do it where they can write in spurts of 20 minutes. I'm not one of those people.”

    2016-12-24 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #211: A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT