50: Life Experimentation

have Aj Jacobs on the show. Aj is a journalist, lecturer, human guinea pig, and author of four New York Times bestsellers that combine memoir, science, humor, and a dash of self help. He's also editor at large at a Squire magazine, a commentator on NPR, and a columnist for Mental Floss magazine. He is currently helping to build a family tree of the entire world world and holding the biggest family reunion ever. Have you held that biggest family reunion ever yet? Aj? Yes,

that was in June and you were invited. You were absolutely because you are my cousin. Did I miss the Facebook event invite? Maybe maybe it was out there. It was out there, but it was fine. We'll have you next time. We had four thousand of your other cousins there, so it was it was a lovely event. You could literally, you know, be my brother here. I mean, we don't we don't look fundamentally dissimwhere Oh no, no, I mean the thesis of my new project is that we're all related.

But I have a feeling I'm Jewish, you're Jewish, so we're probably are brothers or like you know, four iring to the model looks aspect simularity, but I'll go with the Jewish thing. Either one. They're kind of related. I like that. I like that. So we have so much we we could talk about common theme uniting a lot of things. You do is that you kind of treat your life as an experiment, or at least you did for a certain chunk of your life. Do you still

view that as an ongoing thing? I do. I love that way of living, just trying new things and sometimes succeeding, sometimes failing. Being okay with either one. You're kind of like doing that before, Like Tim Ferriss even you know, said I'm treating my life as an experiment. You're kind of like the original life as an experimenter. I guess that's true, and Tim and I are friends from way back, and actually when he was writing his first book, The Four Hour work Week, I got a call from him

and he's like, I'm a first time writer. I don't know what I'm doing. And he said, but he liked an article I had written an esquire called my Outsource to Life, where I had hired a team of people in Bangalore, India to do everything for me. So they answered my phone, answered my email, they argued with my wife for me. They read bedtime stories to my son. So it was a fantastic experience. So he said his book was on a similar topic. Could he reprint my article?

He'd give me credit, but could he just reprint it? And I said, well, he seems like he's a nice young man. He's gonna sell like fourteen copies. I'm not going to charge him. I'm not going to charge him to reprint my article. And then cut to a year later and he calls me and he says, by the way, my notebook is number one on Amazon, and I'm like, what out of that? But it's actually turned out to be a great thing because a lot of his fans now know me as that guy in his book. Yeah,

And I actually I remember that story about outsourcing. That was it Bangladesh? Where was it Bangalore? Oh? Bangalore? Yeah, so yeah, it was a very it was a very nice experience. So let's talk. Let's do a little bit of a tour through the books of AJ Jacobs. So your first one is when I first encountered you. I was a first year grad student at Yale working under the mentorship of Robert Sternberg, and your book came out

exactly that year. Yes, that was a book called The Know It All, and it was about how I decided my to read the Encyclopedia Britannica from A to Z and try to learn everything in the world. So that's what I did, and I've forgotten ninety nine percent of it, maybe ninety nine point five. But there's still some facts rattling around in my brain. So but yeah, especially all there encoded in some neuron somewhere. Oh really, you know it comes out in your dreams. Oh, okay, good to know.

I mean, yeah, I remember in my conscious memory. I don't know if it's the most useful fact, Like I remember that the possums have thirteen nipples, that kind of thing. So I wish you know what actually did stick though. From that experience reading all of human history, I realized that the good old days were not good. The good old days were terrible. They were a disease ridden and life span was short, and they were smelly, They were sexist, homophobic,

they were racid. They it was just horrible. And our nostalgia for this time, golden time, is totally misplaced. And that makes me feel bad. It's for me, it's very life affirming to realize, you know, I would now want to go back to the eighteen hundreds and get a smoke enema. That's just one example that that sounds horrible. Yeah it is. It's basically, you know, the phrase blows smoke up here, but yeah, this is where it came from.

It was a procedure to like cure stomach aches and whatever, and they would literally blow tobacco smoke up up the butt. That's amazing. I don't know if amazing it was the right adjective of that. That's horrifying. Did you read all the volumes of these cycle? Did you literally read the whole thing? I did? I mean there was some skimming involved, Okay, I'll say that, yea, Well, you committed the whole thing to memory. It's not like your rain man. That's right exactly.

I laid my eyes on every single word. I'm not saying every word was processed. Gotcha. Gotcha? So how were you fundamentally changed from that immediately after it was over? Like, you know, you said you've forgotten some things now, But how did you change for that experience? Well, the one I mentioned before where I became much more grateful for what I do have because seeing as the horrors of human history, that we've got a pretty good and we

tend to forget that. I also, during the year, I got a little carried away because I was ingesting so much knowledge that my wife started to penalize me one dollar for every year relevant fact I inserted in conversation. So you know, she'd say, oh, I have a headache, and I would say, oh, did you know that the bay Or Aspirin Company invented heroin in eighteen ninety eight? And she would say, all right, that's a dollar. So after the project, I was able to cut way down

on that kind of behavior. So, okay, So that was your first book, and you emailed my advisor, Robert Scherberg Greater, you know, in twenty thirteen, I think, or so maybe yes. That was one of my favorite interactions was your advisor is the expert on intelligence, and so I asked him what he thought of my project of trying to get smarter by reading the encyclopedia. He wrote back that it was one of the stupidest ideas he'd ever heard, and

that just made my day. And I was able to put that in the book because she wants to hear like, oh, it's wonderful, you know, you know, want conflict for the book, so which I actually agree with. You know, that is not the best way to become intelligent. And what I like about him and others like him is that they don't say intelligence is one thing. That they're different types of intelligence. And you know far better than they what he said, because I'm not smart enough to remember it,

but I do remember there's different types. It's not all the IQ. The IQ is way overrated. Well, Sternberg has a theory of all those theories have threes or in three parts. So his theory of creativity is you know, creative intelligence, practical and analytical. But then he has a theory of love, which is those three composents you just mentioned as well that hele and he is a theory of hate, which is the negation of those three. So

on are the three parts of hate? Oh? I don't remember off the top of my head, unfortunately, but it's they literally are like the opposite adjectives for what, you know, like friendship the opposite of friendship, you know, attraction the opposite of yes, look up his theory. All right, well, I hope he doesn't hate me in any of those ways. Sure he doesn't. I'm trying to remember. I think I may have assessinated to him once something about you, and

I think you're for you as well intentioned. That is such a delightfully condescending think to say, I'm but I can't pull it completely or don't quote me on that. But all right, well if he did say if he did say that, then I love it seemed to something like that. You might not have all said you're nice. But that's boring, right, So okay, so we why do you do that? First of all? Why do you do that? Book? That was partly because there was a bit of an

edible component. My father started to read the encyclopedia when I was a kid, but he didn't quite finish. He made up to the middle of the letter B around Bolivia, and so I thought, why not try to finish what he began and remove that black marks from our family history. So that was part of it, and he was a big character in the book. But part of it was just to try to figure out what does it mean to be smart? What is the difference between knowledge and wisdom?

Oh that's a good one too, yeah, Stuber guy's a theory of wisdom as well. Oh yeah, parts, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, do you remember what those are? Yeah, but his theory of wiz so one central component is your ability to balance your own personal needs versus the needs of society in general. And some people have argue with, oh good, I'm glad you like that. A lot of some people argue that doesn't really capture what is like people tend

to really think of wisdom, you know, in the everyday parlance. Huh. But for him, that's the important part of the balancing act. Well, I think that that is one of the secrets to being an ethical person is to be so I would I don't know if that's wisdom, but I like it. I think about it a lot because, yeah, you know, I think for the first thirty years of my life, I was obsessed with my own personal happiness. Oh interesting, thirty years, thirty years, maybe forty, maybe forty seven, forty

I'm forty seven now. But I think I'm hoping to I'm attempting to think about more than just my own happiness. And the irony is I'm sure I'm not the first to point this out, that the more you think about other people's happiness, the more personally happy you are. That's right,

that's true. That's true. Well, I feel that when you think about other people's happiness and you force yourself to do that, you're less obsessed with yourself, and so there's less pressure on you to have the perfect life because you know it's not just all about you. Okay, So after you were attempted to improve your mind, you then turned to the spirits world. Why did you decide to live a year biblically? Well, this came about because I grew up with no religion at all, so not bar

mitsvad nothing, no satyrs. No. I am Jewish, as you know, but as I say in the book, I'm Jewish, but I'm Jewish in the same way the Olive garden is Italian? Do you say that in the book, I do no offense to the olive garden? No, that makes so much sense. Yeah, it's very much the water down cultural person. So yeah, I knew nothing about it. But I had a kid and I wanted to know what to teach him about my heritage. But am I missing anything by not having

this or is it all a bunch of hooey? So I thought, why not live like the Bible says, like actually follow in the footsteps, the santal steps of our forefathers, and see what improves my life and what does the opposite? So tell me one from each category like he's still viewers or the ass and they're not viewers listeners. Well, what I did was I followed every rule, so I wasn't. I followed the ten commandments and loved your neighbor. But I also followed the Bible says you cannot shave the

corners of your beard. I didn't know where the corners were, so I just let the whole thing grow. I saw pictures of that. Yeah, yeah, I had some topiary on my chow. I spent time at airport security. That is the truth. But to your question, one thing I think that did help me that actually ties into positive psychology, which is your expertise. It's just the idea of gratitude,

which was in the Bible. So this is one from the helpful, and then I'll go to the not helpful, because the Bible is very clear it says you should be grateful for everything, and I took that very literally. So I would set every little moment in my life, I would try to get in the elevator and I'd be grateful that it didn't plummet to the basement. That's me every day. I guess I've been unknowingly living biblically being neurotic. Well, yeah, and I think you are. You

are living biblically. But I would say there's a little difference between being neurotic and being grateful, like they're kind of the opposite. Like focusing on the being grateful. I mean, every second that goes by, I haven't died. I'm grateful I haven't died. I mean that's I feel like that's the great way to live. Though that's not neurotic. I don't know you're you're the expert, but yeah, I actually think that that is a fun way to live. I'm going to reframe that. I'm going to reframe that as

a gratitude. You know, I used to teach, you know, when I used to be a professor in NYU, I used to joke around my students like I'd feel like my heart like like heartburn or something like everyone, I think this is it. I think it's it. And then I'd be like, wait, no, it wasn't it. Okay, I'm very grateful, very grateful lot. You know, like my students kind of found that hilarious, Like every little thing. I'm like, hey, guys, I think this is it, and then you know, I

love it. Maybe there you need to be scared every day. You need to have like a fake heart attack every day, just remind yourself, well, you know what actually Maslow? Ye are you familiar with Abraham Maslow. I've been bringing a lot of his work in his unpublished journals, and he wrote about that. He talked, he talked. He called them plateau experiences. He said, you know, we get to a point in life where not everything has to be so this kind of like transcend an amazing sort of feeling.

But we can have these plateaux experiences where we just are constantly, you know, like appreciative of that moment in a way that we like think to ourselves, like what would it be if we didn't have that person in our life? For what would be if? You know? I like that. He called it like he wishes we could kill people and have them come back and they would appreciate life so much more and stuff like that. I love that idea. Well, yeah, I mean I think that's it.

Appreciating the really mundane moments and turning them into the sacred moments. That's one of the things I learned. And by the way, I was just I don't think I can do it because I can't travel, but a magazine editor wanted to assign me a piece. Apparently in Korea they have these You can spend ten thousand dollars and have a fake funeral for yourself no way. And the idea is that once you finish the funeral, you'll be

more grateful for life. So there's Maslow's idea in practice. Wait, wait, do you fool everyone like friends and family and you're thinking you're really dead too? No, that would be horrible, But I mean that's an idea. If you want to pursue that I think it would. Technically it would be horrible. It would be horrible, but it would give you a chance to really see what people think of you. That's so true. That's so true. Well, yeah, actually I do remember.

I think this was in the Encyclopedia. P. T. Barnum faked his own death so that he could read his obituary. He wanted what it was like, so he died and then came back to life. Amazing. That sounds so Pet, was it? T. Barnham? Yeah, it sounds it is. Absolutely Yeah. I bet everyone was just like, oh, PT. Like when he came back and he's like, I'm back, Everyone's like, oh Pet again, a new stick. PT. That guy like every day I knew a new stick, right. But he

was fascinating character. I mean in terms of inventing, helping to invent modern celebrity and reality. Tell him he's basically doing real reality television. One hundred years ago, you probably would have run for president of the United States and excellent, And I'd say once he got elected as suckers born every minute. That sounds familiar, That sounds very familiar. Yes, I think that he has had a big influence on our current political states. Perhaps. Okay, so let's move on

from the spirit world. Did I ask you what major lessons you learned from that, Well, the one was gratitude, another was well, one was that not to take the Bible completely literally. We learn from taking it literally. That's kind of an important lesson, And honestly, that was part of the motivation. Is because there are millions of people around the world who take the Bible literally. So they say that the Bible says that homosexuality is evil, so

therefore it is evil. And my point was, well, yeah, you're taking parts of the Bible literally, but let's take what if you the whole thing literally. The Bible also says that, you know, shrimp is an abomination, so you can't eat shrimp. The Bible says you can't wear clothes of mixed fibers, so get rid of all of your polycotton blends. The Bible says, stone adulterer. So that's what I did. I went out and I stoned an adulterer. I uh, you end up in jail. No, because I

use very very small stones like pebbles. Okay, So that's that was my work around. So in twenty and twelve, you publish Drop Dead Healthy one man's humble All these are humble quests, by the way, very humble for bodily perfection. Now, what did you do to your body between before and after? Do we have before and after pictures? We do? We do? Can I google that right now and see that. I'm afraid you can. You don't want to though, you don't

want to see them before it's not pleasant. Before and after? Yeah, trap dead healthy. So as we talk about this, I want to look at this on the screen. Okay, So tell me what pounds to What pounds did you go to? What else changed? Cholesterol levels changed, things like that. Yeah, that whole traditional, But I actually I didn't just want to focus on that. I wanted to revamp every part of my life. So it was diet and exercise, of course, but also stress levels and sleep and my sex life.

But yeah, my posture, the way I went to the bathroom that changed. So yeah, every aspect. How much have you kept from that? I have kept not everything, because if I kept everything, like that's basically your entire life is staying healthy if you follow everything that doctors recommend. So but I have kept a few. I still do love the idea of walking as much as possible. So I have a treadmill and I write on my treadmill. So I'm a treadmill desker, you know that movement. And

I do. I do eat. You know, I'm not crazy about it, but I try to not eat processed foods. One little good heuristic rule of thumb is eat from the fridge, not from the cabinet, because the fridge has the real food that rots. Anything that rots is good for you. So I do try to stay away from my cabinet. How much weight did you lose? I think I lost like twenty five pounds. Nothing crazy, I mean I am about five eleven. But yeah, you're looking the before picture picture and you don't. I mean, you stuck

your stomach out, but you still look skinny. To me, you look skinny, I mean even before. Well you're nice to say, but no, I was. You know, my wife called me like four months pregnant. I looked like I was skinny fat, So I looked like a snake that has swallowed a goat. Right, you were skinny, but you looked like you swallowed. It's exactly right, exactly what you said. Yeah, it's like a big like bell curve right in the middle of it's tummy. Absolutely, but what a great thing.

I mean by doing all these things, you're doing self improvement. You're what a great excuse to improve yourself, right, And that is the idea. Yeah, and I don't keep you know. That's the idea is I try all these things and some improve my life, some make my life much more miserable. But then after the book I can get rid of the ones that make my life miserable. But you are keeping some of the healthy habits. Oh yeah, I definitely do. I mean I also you know there are studies about alcohol.

One drink a day is correlated to a longer life. Now we know correlation doesn't imply causation, but still I like the correlation. So I have at least one drink a day. Wow. Well that's that's good, good justification there, Yes, that is part of it. So now I basically I'm browsing Google all Google images pictures of you, and Justin Bieber just popped up. I don't know why that happened. I think I did once write a tweet about him and got some angry tweets from his followers. You know,

I try to remain very positive. That was one of the lessons of the Bible book. But sometimes you know, like I'm only human, I had to I had to make some comment from love, from the point position of love about justin exactly. Okay, so let's let's move on to not your latest book, but a book that may people may not be aware of, which I loved and that it was what it feels like. Wow, I'm impressed. I bought it for literally a penny used on Amazon.

I'm just being honest. I love your honesty about five six years ago in New York, and I devoured it because I thought, wow, I actually I don't know, You're probably not gonna believe me. But before I saw that book, I thought to myself, how cool would it be to do a book where I go around and ask people like what it's like to do very wow? I know, I know, I thought it would be such a cool idea.

And then I saw that book. I wasn't in the least like like Jacobs, you know, like I was just like so excited that you did it, and that like that someone did it. You know, Well, there's like hundreds of more experiences, So feel free to do a follow up, because I just always think to myself, you know, like I don't want to really do some of those things, but I would love to know what I'm missing out on. Right.

It is fascinating. It's very voyeuristic, but it's a wonderful, as you say, it's wonderful to see what it really is like. And they ranged from the most extreme experiences and they could be either good or they could be bad. So what it feels like to be in an avalanche, what it feels like to be shot, to walk on the moon, shot in the head, shot in the head.

That is right, it doesn't feel great, apparently. One that I loved I still think about all the time is what it feels like to be almost eight feet tall this basketball player who is like seven foot nine, And I just loved it because he said that it's a dirty world up there, like when you look at the top of people's fridges that they never clean, and the ledges over doorways, and I just love that because it's

like something you'd never think about. But yeah, of course he's seeing the world from a totally different point of view, and it's dirty. It's so funny. Yeah, that's a good one. I'm trying to remember if any other one stuck out to me. Yeah, this thing of winning the lottery that stuck up. Oh, yes, I think it didn't work out so well for him, which I think, is it? Well? That was consistent with a lot of positive psychology, like

we returned to baseline, you know, right, right? But also everyone wants did you say something like everyone would just want something from me? Yes? I spend way too much time thinking about what I would do if I won the lottery, and I think I've figured it out. What is it? Well? I would say, right up front, I am keeping ten percent and the rest of the ninety percent is going into a charitable foundation run by this guy,

and then I'd hire someone like you. I'll hire you to run it so that no one can ask me for money. I'm like, they asked me for money. I'm like, I don't have any control over it. This guy got talked to this guy brilliant and then sort a foundation. Yeah. Foundation. I don't know why I didn't think of that work, but yes, the foundation, and then like you could enjoy your ten percent, right without having feeling guilt or having

people you know asking you for it. You know, I just got another thought, and as I hear like someone like basically like stealing our car outside your window or something was this New York City. Yeah, it's real life. Or maybe it's just sound effects. I have a it' sound like like smashing open the window and then like the alarm going off and like driving away like that. I have my headphones on, so I can't even hear. Oh. Yeah, no,

I hear it now, I hear it now. Well, yeah, I wanted to give you give the audience like some some background environment. Yeah, okay, so let's talk about your next book, which is your newest book. It's not out yet, correct, that's right. I am writing it as we speak. As we speak, and you're on a treadmill as well. Yeah, I like to. Yeah. You know, what I often fantasize about is that dolphins sleep with half their brain at a time, so they can still function while they're sleeping.

So that's been my fantasy forever. It's like to be able to sleep and still write my books. But that hasn't happened. That sounds amazing. That makes So your new book is about how we're all related, that's right. And this one started because I got about two years ago, I got an email from this guy, and he said, you don't know me, but I'm your twelfth cousin. And of course I thought the next line's going to be, here's my bank account in Nigeria, please send ten thousand

dollars immediately, But he didn't. You know, he was for real and he's part of this group of people who are building a family tree of the entire world. It's just a wild revolution happening. And it's happening because of DNA testing. It's happening because of the Internet where people are combining their trees, sort of like a Wikipedia version of family trees, where millions are working on it at

the same time. And I love it. So I'm on the biggest tree, which is right now about one hundred and five million people, and I'm related to I can see how I'm related to almost anyone in the world, like Barack Obama. He is my fifth grade aunt's husband's brothers wife's seventh great nephew. So serious. Yeah, that's the one I memorized memoriz the wall. But yeah, you related to Stephen Pinker. I am. I'm actually very close to Stephen Pinker because we both did DNA tests. So I

think we're about third or fourth cousins. Wow, he just recently did one of our imagination retreats, did eight. Yeah, we're having we'll be releasing a video about that soon. But I want to watch that. Yeah, I'll tell you when it's up. But yeah, well that's that's cool. You know, there're the whole Jewish thing there. Yeah, that makes it easier. But even non Jews, Barbara Bush, what about Barbara Bush? Barbara Bush is my relative for sure. I can't remember our exact I can look it up right now if

you want. But yeah, we're all the farthest. According to an MIT study, the farthest cousin you have on Earth by blood is about a seventieth cousin. So we share ninety nine point nine percent of our DNA and that and that's kind of the big message, is that we are so remarkably similar that this tribal mentality we have is kind of crazy, and that there is no us versus them. It's just us. It's just that's it. So I like that, and I like the spirit of that.

But why is it that even with such genetic similarity, even that one percent of genetic variation called at that point, well, how is it that point one percent of differences causes some seemingly dramatic delete different personality traits from like Stalin to mother Teresa, Like, explain that for me, that is a great point. Yes they are, they are, maybe not Stalin is is part of the family, but maybe he

didn't realize it. I think we've got if he had, maybe if we had just showed him how similar he was, then maybe he would have acted a little better. And maybe not. But I actually think, you know, it's not going to cure all racism and war. There's still going to be tribalism, but I do think that it might nudge us in the right direction. And I'm not alone in this. There's one of my real cousins. There's a

behavioral economists and professor named Cass Sunstein. Do you know Cass too, And we're trying to get him to be actually in one of our retreats as well. Oh, you would be sad, like he's a genius. But anyway, he came up with this idea of the family bias, where you do treat people who you know our family, even if they're distant relatives, you treat them better than you treat a stranger. So the idea would be to hijack this family bias and apply it to everyone in the world.

But you're right, it's not going to solve everything. You're still going to have psychotics like Stalin, but it's not going to hurt. It's going to hope. Not psychotics, I mean psychopaths, psycho Well, what that is interesting is what is a psychotic psychotic that's to doue with more schizophrenia. Those are people who have hallucinations. But it's very What about what's the difference between psychopath and sociopath? Now that's a good question, and a lot of that has to

do with just how the term has been used. You know, Vernacorn, sociopath is not used in modern day science anymore. It's psychopath because it's acknowledged that a psychopath is who they are as a mix of nature and nurture. The sociopath idea is an old idea that there are these people that strictly because they were abused, you know, they grew up to be who they are, you know, or because of horrible experiences. But we really have increased our knowledge

of psychopaths at this point. By the way, I recommend those who are interest in this. Listeners to listen to the podcast I do with Ken kil called What Is It Like to Be a Psychopath? So but is it really? Yeah? Yeah, I thought I plugged that. I talk about everything that whole topic with him in the early podcast. Yeah. Wow, all right, I'm going to go listen. Awesome. Yeah, And he's he's like the world's leading expert on the neuroscience of psychopathy and so that's fascinating. Now can we sall?

Do you think and if humans survive for five hundred years, will we be able to rewire the brain so that anyone who is born with psychopathic tendencies will be able to be rewired and be just fine. Well, the broader question about whether or not we can get to the point where we can use technologies to change traits that we have, so not just psychopathy. Like, once we crack the nut of being able to change traits, then that opens it up. We can include psychopathy in that, right, Right,

that's an interesting question and we're already doing that. We've already found what you know, what do you think SSRIs are doing? Right? Like at a smaller scale, not as dramatically, but there's a technique called DSc where you can stimulate the brain and shut off half the brain basically, and and it's it's supposedly cures depression, you know. And now which one is that? Is that the trans cranial GDS transcernal drug stimulation? Yeah? And is that is that real?

Does that have science? Yeah? We're funding you know, we're funding on a project right now. We'll get with two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to use tDSC to see if people were more creative after afterwards. Now do you do? You do it yourself? I've never tried it. No, I've never tried it. What would be the downside? It sounds like if no, there is no doubt I would try it. It's it's non invasive, it's not long lasting. I certainly

would try it. And the idea is that maybe someday that it would be like a thinking cap you could buy a Walmart or something. I love it all right, I'm in cool. So this new book I'm in in terms of buying that book sounds absolutely fascinating. And do you have a title for it yet? It's tentatively called It's all relative? Yeah, I know that's good. I'm not a big fun fan but one man's humble quest to

what unite the world in one big family. So it'll be it'll be about that, but it'll also be about you know, the idea we're all one family, but also family structures, like is there an ideal family structure is or I just spent a couple of days hanging out with Polyamory Support Group of New York, which is this idea of having multiple parents and multiple kids like sort of a group family? And is that better worse? The same?

As complicated? Well, you know what I they say, It's the hardest part is the logistics, like you have to seriously know your Google calendar, like if you've got multiple lovers, Like you know, that's where it gets complicated if you have multiple lovers. But it's not as complicated if it's a family, is what you're saying. No, No, it is definitely it's complicated because yeah, you know, there's even the terminology like you've got mom and dad, but then you've

there's Mema and Poppy and so everyone has their own name. Yeah, I mean, what's the fun in having such a complicated family situation where you can barely even like have meaning in one person? Well, I am not their spokesman, but I will say what I think they would say is that it takes a village. You know, the more, the merrier, and the more love in the house, the better. The more people you have guiding you the better. Why arbitrarily just choose two people to raise you when you can

have seven? Okay, okay, let's move on. Let's move on from that. Okay, okay, okay, cool. So is there anything else you know? We can conclude this. You've been so gracious with your time, and I really, gosh, I really enjoy chatting with you, Aj. We could go on and on. I know, I'm it's late so that I feel I'm I'm rambling, But you didn't. You were worried that you would ramble, but you were sharp. Well, thanks, but I found you non rambling. I just enjoyed it. I enjoyed it.

Is there anything we you know, we kind of did a tour of AJ Jacobs and your books and stuff. Is there anything else you want to add at this point about what you're currently working on or anything. I'm trying to think. No, I don't think. So I wrote. Let's say my latest base in Esquire was about how I was in the hospital. I tripped and fell and

fell on my face like an idiot. But the big lesson from my stay at the hospital was to be a little more proactive because they put you in that hospital gown that barely covers your butt, and I found it's so dehumanizing. And I said, do I have to put this on? And they're like, well, it's strongly recommended, and I was like, yeah, but legally I have to put it on. And they're like, well, now I can't make you. And I was like great, And I wore my sweatshirt and I wore my sweatpants and I felt

one hundred times better. And there's a movement, it turns out of doctors who say, got to get rid of the hospital gown. For most patients. Some patients need it because they need the doctors, need immediate access to their back or whatever. But for a lot of patients, you don't need it, and you feel so much better. So that's that hashtag hashtag for this. No, but let's start one ditch the gown. But anyway, AJ was absolutely delightful talking to you. Thank you. I loved it. Thank you.

Thanks for listening to the Psychology podcast. With doctor Scott Barak Kaufman. I hope you found this episode just to stop for booking and interesting as I did. If you'd like to read the show notes for this episode or hear past episodes, you can visit the Psychology Podcast dot com