This week I am super excited to be talking with writer, podcaster, multiple New York Times-bestselling author, A.J. Jacobs.
A.J.’s books are a mix of memoir, science, humor and a smidge of self-help. They include The Year of Living Constitutionally, The Year of Living Biblically, Drop Dead Healthy, and The Know It All, which chronicled the year and half A.J. spent reading the Enyclopedia Brittanica from A to Z.
A.J. also hosts “The Puzzler” daily podcast, is a frequent contributor to NPR’s “Weekend Edition,” and has given several Ted talks that have been viewed over 10 million times. A.J. also hosts a Substack called Experimental Living.
A.J. does something that I have heard referred to as guinea pig journalism, which is not reporting on the habits of guinea pigs, as I initially thought, but living through self-imposed experiments, and then reporting on them. Pretty creative, right?
And that is how I found A.J. during this whole conversation—a very creative yet still pragmatic thinker who is very willing to share his thoughts and insights.
Definitely a lot of things we talked about that made me go, “Hmmm.” Such as, the very free-form yet still regimented way he comes up with ideas, the tools he uses to turn those ideas into a finished piece (whether that’s a book, podcast episode, essay, or Facebook post), and why he is devoted to interviewing people in person.
Get ready to have your brain tickled. And thank you, as ever, for supporting this work!
Photo credit: Sharon Schuur
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