A.J. Jacobs: Habits, Health, and Human Connection [GREATEST HITS WEEK]

0:28Welcome to the Afford Anything Podcast. author of multiple New York Times bestselling books, and whose three TED Talks have collectively garnered more than 3 million views. In this interview, A.J. Jacobs describes how he manages his motivation and habits. He shares some of the behavioral tactics that have come from the research that he's done for stories at Esquire magazine, including acting in a certain way until your mind catches up, and finding the initial momentum to act your way into a new mode of thinking. This interview originally aired in 2017. Back then, our audience was much smaller, so you might not have caught it the first time it aired, which is why this week, Greatest Hits Week, we are pulling it out of our early days archives to share it with you.

1:16Please note, while there is no profanity in this interview, we do discuss certain adult topics. So if you're listening with kids in the car, please be aware that there are certain elements of this interview that are not totally kid safe. So please enjoy this interview with AJ Jacobs, which originally aired in 2017.

1:38Hey, Cousin AJ. Hello, Cousin. How are you? I'm fantastic. It's good to be talking to a long-lost cousin like yourself, a cousin I've never met. I know. I feel we are very close cousins, probably like 14th or 15th. Absolutely. For all the listeners who are wondering what we're talking about. We'll get to that at the end. But first, AJ, I actually wanted you to know, in order to facilitate a better interview today, I tried as close as I could to dress head to toe in white. Oh, fantastic. Thank you, Paula. I wish I were. I'm wearing blue, but I wish I were wearing white. I know everyone who's listening is wondering what on earth we're talking about.

2:19That concept came from one of your many books in which you completely dove into a new culture to figure out how it would change your headspace. And so that concept, the concept of wearing white was from your book called A Year of Living Biblically. Will you talk about that for a little bit? Sure. That's what I like to do is sort of do these experiments, radical self-improvement. I need a lot of improvement. I grew up with no religion at all. As I say in my book, I'm Jewish, but I'm Jewish in the same way the Olive Garden is Italian. So not very, but I wanted to see if there was anything in the Bible that would make my life better.

2:58So I thought I would follow it as literally as possible. So I followed the famous ones, the Ten Commandments, but I also grew this huge beard because the Bible says to grow a beard. I didn't wear clothes made of mixed fibers, no polycotton blends. That's in the Bible, weirdly enough. And speaking of clothes, there is a line in the Bible that says you should only wear white garments. So there's a lot of stuff people don't know or remember in the Bible. And I started to do that. And the weird thing about it was, it actually was a lovely practice, because I felt much lighter, I felt like I was, you know, off to play Wimbledon or go to P.

3:42Diddy's party. And it was a real lesson. And this is throughout all of my books, I found that the outer affects the inner, that the way you act or dress or behave eventually sinks in with your brain. And that I found to be one of the most useful things in my life. Not necessarily wearing white, which I do endorse, but just acting in a certain way until your mind catches up. One of the examples that you gave that always stood out to me was when you bought your wife a present every day for 30 days. And by the end of the month, you discovered that you felt more loving towards her because you were acting that way.

4:27Oh, yeah. I totally tricked my brain. I was like, oh, I'm buying her all of these little books and magnets. I must really love her. And then you start to. Your brain is not very smart. Or mine isn't. I can't speak for yours. But yeah, it could be anything. It could be. Another one I find very useful is I don't think I was born very confident, but I do believe you need confidence and optimism to get things done. So I'll try to act in a confident way. I was writing a book about health, and I woke up every day full of despair. You know, this book is too big. I can't get my handle on it. It was about trying to be the healthiest person alive, by the way.

5:10But then I said, OK, I'm going to act as if I'm confident. So I would call my publisher and say, OK, when the book comes out, let's have a big party and serve kale martinis. And, you know, I would just pretend that it was going to be a hit. And after a couple of hours of this, my brain caught up with my actions. And I was like, you know what? I feel good about this book. And I was finally able to write it because of that feeling. How did you deal with, because I remember in interviews, you talked about how there was some part of you that wondered, like, wait a minute, what if I go on book tour for a book in which I'm supposed to be the healthiest man in the world?

5:49And what if on that book tour, I'm like a little bit overweight and also sick? That was a very stressful book, exactly. I sort of made my bed. And luckily, I did not get sick on the tour. But yet, I think that's just a risk. Every project, whether you're a writer or an accountant or whatever, there's going to be an element of risk. And I'm pretty conservative. I don't like to take too huge a risk. But I thought that was a risk worth taking. You dealt with that by being confident, like pretending that you were confident until you actually felt that way? Exactly. And also, you know, acting in a healthy way, even if I didn't feel healthy.

6:32So I did do the eating and relatively healthy exercise and also the stress. Stress, I think, is people talk about exercise and food, but really stress is just as important. So trying not to be stressed. And I figured out all of these little hacks. Some work better than others. But just to give you one example, human touch is actually very good at stress relief. I think we were evolutionarily meant to sort of groom each other. So even holding my wife's hand is good for stress. There are studies that say holding strangers' hands does lower your stress level. I did not find that. Like trying to hold a stranger's hand just caused a very awkward and unpleasant situation.

7:23So I don't recommend that. But there is evidence that it does if you can get over the awkwardness and sexual harassment claims. That would be a bad day on the New York City subway. Exactly. Very dangerous. I've also heard you in interviews quote the founder of Habitat for Humanity saying, it's easier to act your way into a new way of feeling. And I've heard you in interviews talk about how you have found time and time again with all of your experiments, whether it's living biblically or outsourcing every aspect of your life or all of these different assignments, you have always acted your way into a new type of thinking and feeling.

8:07Right. How do you kickstart that? Like, how do you get that initial momentum, even when you don't feel like it? That's a great question. And I do believe that it is extremely effective. I love that quote you had. 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 mean, there are shorter versions, fake it till you make it or fake it till you become it, which is Amy Cuddy's version. I like that. Deed before Creed is another one, they say. But anyway, I think, yeah, the kickstarting is an interesting conundrum. I would say one thing I do is almost just convince myself I'm an actor.

8:48It's almost like, you know, there's method acting. So what about method writing or method living? So you say, you know, this is just an experiment. Keep in mind, I can always go back. But let's see what happens if this makes my life better. And that's also one of my big themes is that you don't have to be writing about this stuff to do it. I do think that everyone doing little experiments with their lives can improve their happiness. And it could be trying a new toothpaste. You know, I had been using the same toothpaste for 30 years because some kid at camp liked Crest. And I was like, OK, he's cool.

9:29I guess I'll do Crest. But, you know, change it up. See if you like something better. Take a different way to work. I do think the experimental mindset is really important to happiness. I want to dive into that a little bit. Since you've started running all these experiments in your life, have you found that your overall life satisfaction has increased? Or do you have more moments of peak happiness during the day? I do think I am certainly much happier than I was 20 years ago. I mean, it's a little bit of a correlation causation problem because I am. The books actually have done relatively well, so I've been able to make a living at doing something I love.

10:13So it's possible that I would have been, without that, I would still be miserable. But I do think I am happier. I'm certainly not perfectly happy, but happier. And part of it is just, yeah, this mindset of trying things out. And also another big theme that I think affects my happiness is the idea of gratitude. For instance, in the Bible, it says you got to be thankful for everything. I took that quite literally and I started being grateful for the tiniest things like pressing the elevator button. I was grateful the elevator came or I get in the elevator. I'm grateful it doesn't plummet and break my pelvis.

10:54So there are hundreds of things every day that we just take for granted. I try to start to be aware of them instead of focusing on the three or four that went wrong, which is sort of my default mode. And that has genuinely improved my life, just being so aware. Anytime you're on a line that's short at the pharmacy, just make a note of that. So the next time you're on a long line, be like, you know what? It balances out. So I would say these hacks have made my life better overall. Your example about the line also reminds me of the time that you tried to be the most rational person in the world, because that's also a cognitive bias that we have, a negativity bias.

11:36Right. I love that experiment. I'm glad you read that. Thank you, Paula. But yeah, that one, as you say, it was all about the hundreds of cognitive biases we have in our brain. And they are just terrible. Like our brain, it's got some good parts, but it was built for caveman times. So I don't trust my brain. I feel I have to be a babysitter to my brain and make sure it doesn't go into these negative places. So as you're trying these different experiments, how do you stick with it? Like, you know, you might decide that you're going to chew every bite very slowly. And sure, you'll do that for the first or second meal.

12:16But how do you stick with it meal after meal? And how frequently do you fall off the wagon? Oh, well, certainly I fall off the wagon quite a bit. I mean, one very effective method, I think, is public humiliation. So telling everyone you know that you're doing this, you know, I'm going to be a vegetarian for a week. and then if you go out to dinner with friends they can mock you if you're not so a little bit of accountability is good I mean I found that too when I was I do try to still get 10 ,000 steps a day and I was on this board where people could friends could see how many steps I did and and mock me relentlessly if I did not achieve them I found that very very motivating so yeah Getting it out into the public is a good thing.

13:09When you do fall off the wagon, have you noticed any common triggers that precede that? Well, that's interesting. I mean, one thing is I find I am more motivated by the idea that whatever I'm doing could be helpful to others. Like with health, for instance. If I'm just thinking about I want to be healthy because I want to have abs, which I've never had and never will, that's not very motivating to me. But if I'm thinking, you know what, I want to be healthy because I want to live to be around for my kids, you know, so I can see them, you know, join a band or get married or whatever they end up doing.

13:50I want to be around for them. So trying to see that your motivation is not just for you, but for other people, that helps me stay on course. And it's interesting, I've noticed this. I listened to an interview with Kanye West a long time ago, and it was very surprising because I don't think he's a very, I'm not a big fan because I think he's an egomaniac. But I did like that he said his music makes people happy and that's what motivates him. So it was a little break in what I had always thought of his extreme egomedia. So, yeah, trying to do it for other people. Can you describe a day in the life?

14:38Like, what's your morning routine? Give me some insight into the world of A.J. Jacobs. Oh, I'm happy to. I hope that I'm not sure it's interesting, but I'm happy to share. Excuse me. I'm talking about health and I'm coughing. That's not good. Well, I have a tiny little office because I do find like a rented shared workspace. I do find if I try to work from home, there is no way that anything gets done because it's just too distracting. Although I will say the sad part is I used to write more on my treadmill desk when I worked at home. Now I can't fit a treadmill into this office. But I walk to work listening to podcasts like yours, which I love.

15:21I listen on double speed. So this is the first time I've ever heard you talking at a normal rate. I'm worried that there's something wrong with you. Are you feeling okay? okay so uh but yeah no i'm actually i have a big fan of and this does not go over well with people who make movies or tv shows but i like to you can there's a hack where you can download movies from youtube and watch them in double speed i recently watched manchester by the sea in double speed and I thought it was slow and double speed. So I don't know how people could sit through that in the theater, but more power to them. All right, so anyway, I get to my office.

16:07And in terms of my job, there are parts that I like and parts that I don't. The part I don't like is writing. I am a writer who does not like to write. I don't think any writers like writing. I think writers enjoy having had written. Exactly. I am with you, Paula. Yeah, I know. A friend of mine who's a writer says he thinks of it as sort of like a stomach flu, like you have to upchuck it and then you feel better. So but yeah, I do love the researching part. That is what I find. And also, weirdly, the marketing, which I know is not usual for writers. I do like marketing. but yeah researching for instance i'm working on a book that that won't come out for another year but it's called um thank you all and it's about i take my one of my joys my morning cup of coffee and i try to thank every single person in the world who helped make it a reality so not just the barista but i went to columbia and thanked the farmers and the the truckers the people who designed the logo.

17:21And you can go as far as, you know, could be the people who make the tires for the trucks and who got the rubber to make the tires. The idea was just to show that there are thousands of people involved in every little thing that we do. And we kind of take that for granted, or certainly I did. That's amazing. When I hear that, I think of kind of a combination between this concept of how we're all family, as well as the concept of being grateful when you press an elevator button. I hear a merging of those two ideas. That's true. I have my themes that I seem to gravitate towards. But hopefully it's different enough from anything else.

18:00I think it's a beautiful synthesis of those ideas. It's taking it to the next level. So I'm very excited to read that book. Oh, thanks, Paula. Yeah, I'm excited. I'm in the midst of writing it. I'm trying to be grateful to the people who, you know, make my power book. But I still hate writing. Right. So I've gotten off track. All right. So you get to the office and you hate writing. I hate writing, but hopefully I'm doing something more interesting, like researching. Like I went for this book, I went to the reservoir in the New York City reservoir, which is like 90 miles north to thank everyone.

18:40And you just forget how amazing it is that we can turn a little knob and have fresh, safe water. That's like shocking. That is not true for 99 % of the history and certainly not for a lot of the world. But if I'm not doing that, I'm writing. And then, Yeah, I just get home and I am on call as a homework helper slash cleaner slash other boring fatherly duties. And then I put the kids to bed and then I start working again because I do find it's a constant struggle because I do. And as any entrepreneur, I feel that you could always be doing more. You could always be doing more. and I feel that guilt.

19:28And I don't know, I think it's probably not healthy, I should learn to turn it off a little more. But I do find those hours between six and 10, I totally turn it off. And I'm like, you know what, this is devoted to family, I'm not going to work. And there's something very liberating about that. Because I used to try to be like, okay, I'm going to help them. And then I'll take a break and send some emails. And it was very stressful and not efficient because I was always looking for the. So now I'm just I have this. It's almost like a Sabbath. I'm like from six to ten. No work. Just devoted to the family.

20:06Nice. What time do you normally go to bed and wake up? Well, this is not healthy either because sleep. Sleep is so hugely important to our health. But I go to bed at about I would say one and I wake up at about seven thirty.

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24:09well i will tell you this anecdote i you know i write for esquire magazine sometimes and i had to do this uh story on scarlett johansson i didn't have to i mean it wasn't a chore she's a lovely person but i was you know asking her questions and she's like god you know oh, you're asking a lot of questions about my personal life. And I was like, well, listen, if you want to ask me about my personal life, I'm open. I'm an open book. And so she took my notebook and my pen and just started grilling me about the most like, you know, have you ever had an STD? When did you lose your virginity? And like really going at it.

24:49I was like, all right. So did you answer all of her questions? I did. You know, why not? I believe in transparency most of the time. So, I mean, the good thing is I had control over what went in the article. So that helped. If she had her own magazine, then it might have been a little more tricky. There was that one time you had to pose nude, didn't you, for one of the models? Didn't one of the models request that? Yes, that was a humiliating experience, but enlightening at the same time. Yeah, one of the – this was at Esquire magazine. my boss wanted me to write an article about Mary Louise Parker the actress or edit an article he said well can you ask her to pose nude tastefully nude but we do enjoy nude photography I was like oh boy so I asked her and she said all right I'll do it but only if the editor of the piece also poses nude so he can see what it feels like and go through the experience himself and that was me i was the editor of the piece so my boss was like all right she said she challenged you so i did i took you know i took off my clothes and i was tastefully photographed by a professional like hollywood photographer i did cover up my my privates and i did suck in my gut he kept telling me suck in your gut and it did appear you know there's this beautiful uh uh series of pages of her naked and then there's a page of me naked and uh i think it was a shock to some of our readers we did get a couple of cancellations i believe but i did love her uh i love i loved her moxie i loved her the idea you know what But this is something if you're going to ask other people to do, you should have to do it yourself.

26:46Yeah, absolutely. That's totally fair. Totally fair, right? Yeah. Tell me about how we're all cousins. Oh, yeah. Well, this is my new project. My book, It's All Relative, is coming out. And this one started a couple of years ago. And I got this weird email that said, you don't know me, but I've read your books and you're my eighth cousin. And I figured, as you probably would, as you probably advise your listeners, that there's a lot of scammers. So this guy was going to ask me to send$10 ,000 to Nigeria. But it turns out he was legit. And he is my cousin. And he and a group of other people are building these huge family trees.

27:30But they're not just trees. They're like forests, interlocking jungles of family. And it turns out because of DNA and the Internet, it's this revolution where we are going to have eventually a family tree of every single person on Earth. And it's already quite large. It's already about 200 million people, all related. So it's sort of like a Kevin Bacon. You can figure out how you're linked to almost everyone. For instance, Barack Obama is my fifth great aunt's husband's father's wife's seventh great nephew. So he's quite close to me. And, Paul, hopefully after this interview, I'll go on the tree and figure out how you and I are linked.

28:18But it's sort of the ultimate social network, and I was fascinated by it. So I wrote a whole book about family and all the amazing things happening in family, the huge changes, the DNA. And also, since you are a sort of a business finance podcast, there was an interesting business angle to it because these family trees turned out to be like better than LinkedIn because I wanted to get people's attention. So I would try to get TV producers or reporters. And what I would do is I would figure out how they were related to me and then say, this may sound weird, but you're my distant cousin. would you be interested in talking to me about uh and you know 20 of them were like you know don't ever bother me again but 80 weirdly were like you know that's that's interesting people like a connection whether even if it's a distant one and i remember i wanted to interview george hw bush the elder bush about family because he's got such a large and famous one and so i I emailed this chief of staff and she's like, well, the president doesn't do interviews anymore.

29:33And I said, well, yeah, but I am his cousin and here's how. So maybe for a family. And she laughed and she's like, OK. And I went down there and had a lovely time with the former president. That's fantastic. You know, and when I reached out to you, my opening line was, hey, I'm probably your cousin, but I bet you get that a lot. Well, no, it totally worked. I was like, you know what? I'm really better to respond. I do not want to anger my family. There's an MIT study that says even people who are from very niche and sort of insular backgrounds, even they are far more integrated than they think, because some of your cousins have no doubt married outside of that system, even if you don't know it.