Cameron - SAS CLASSIC

Transcript

This isn't your average business podcast, and he's not your average host. This is the James Altucher Show on the choose yourself network. Today on the James Altucher Show. We all see the world through our own lens, and people have called genealogy the museum of me. Like, it's all about me. Do you think that's the fascination with genealogy in general? Because, obviously, genealogy is one of the most kind of obsessive topics on the planet. I mean, think about who you interviewed, when you were first beginning the project. You know, former president George h w Bush, you start off saying, hey. Here's how we're related. Right. Next thing you know, you're going down to Texas and interviewing him. Exactly. He never would say yes to anybody else, and you're hanging out in the Bush mansion. Exactly. I pitched his chief of staff, and she's like, well, he's not doing interviews anymore. And I said, well, let me tell you, we are distant cousins. So you think that he would do it as a favor for family? And she's like, well, I guess, if you're distant cousins, let me see. And next thing I know, I'm on a plane to Houston. Once again, I have one of my all time favorite guests on The James Altucher Show, AJ Jacobs, author of 4 New York Times bestsellers, and just started your own podcast, Twice Removed, also broke all world records for the world's largest family reunion last year, which I was privileged to speak at because we're 3rd cousins. Welcome to my 3rd cousin, AJ Jacobs. Thank you, cousin James. As always, a delight to be here. I mean, you've been on is this your 3rd or 4th time on? But each time's a different subject, so I don't feel like we're going over the same ground any at all anytime. Nope. Totally no. And, yeah, I barely remember what we talked about, so I can't imagine other people do. You know, that's so funny. I can't remember my podcast. Like, I I've been doing this this is this this is now year 4. I'm beginning year 4 of doing a podcast. I've been doing it for 3 years now, and I have to look back and see even like, also, I'll give you an example. The other day, I thought of an idea for a post that I would write an article I would write, how to succeed in business without really crying. And I thought that was a fun title, and then I googled it to see if anyone else has ever used that title. Not only has the title been used in a book, but the author of that book came on my podcast 2 years ago. So I've totally forgotten. And she was a great guest. I really tried hard to get her on this. Carol Leifer. Oh, yeah. I like her. Yeah. She wrote a bunch of episodes of Seinfeld. Really funny woman. She was on on the Right. She was a great guest. Talked about both business and comedy and Seinfeld and and Larry David and and all her experiences. And, I learned a lot of life lessons from that, and it started to rush back to me. But, at the time, I totally forgot. That is interesting. I have the same experience where I came up with an idea that I thought was so witty, and then it turned out that I had come up with the same idea 5 years before. So so What do you think this means? Like, do you think this means, we'll get into that heart of this podcast, but this has been fascinating me lately because I realize I forget a lot of things. And is it a function of aging, or is it a function of, really only retaining stuff that I need to retain, knowing that I could kind of get the inform other information I need later even if I had already had once had it? Yeah. I think it's, I think human memory is just disastrous. We remember so little, and what we do remember is usually wrong. So I, that was actually the basis of one of my experiments I did about 5 years ago where I videotaped every moment of my life for, like, 4 months. I had a tiny video camera in my ear, and, the idea was, like, otherwise, I would not remember anything. Part of the inspiration was that my wife and I, like, 70% of our arguments are, you never told me that. That's not what you said. So I thought, okay. Now, here we have we can go back and rewind and say, what really happened? That I did. That did not turn out to be a good marital strategy, FYI. I don't recommend. Yeah. Because were you always wrong? She said, you said this, and you were, like, oh, no. I didn't. Let's get let's take it to the videotape, and it turns out you did say it? Right. Well, if it was it was bad either way, because if I was if I was wrong and I didn't say what I thought I said, then I looked like an idiot. But if I was right, then she would just get angrier. So Here here here's a question I have. Well, one question is about your experiment. Did you find that the act of doing that caused you to actually remember more? It's almost like this quantum mechanics thing. Like, did observing your memory Right. Cause you to remember more? It wasn't. It did affect my behavior, I will say, love just knowing that this was all being recorded, which I think they turned it there's a, a Black Mirror episode with the same premise, but how will it affect our behavior in the future when we know that everything is being recorded? And it did like, it affected in small ways. I don't know. This is probably not appropriate. I can't think of a different example, but No. Give me give give the inappropriate example. Alright. And I apologize in advance if you're, you know, if you're eating lunch, please pause it. But sometimes I'm so lazy, I'll just pee in the sink, which What? Yeah. I'm not eating dinner over your house ever again. Not in the kitchen sink, The bathroom sink. And I actually read an article pro peeing in the kitchen sink because it saves water. You're not, like, flushing every time. Alright. I believe it. And it's sterile. It's sterile. It's not like I'm pooping in the sink. I I yeah. Pooping would be another story. Would be hugely different. But, anyway, like, when I was videotaping myself, I'm like, you know, I I can't have this on on tape. So, yeah, it changed my life. It made me, like, a little more, I don't know, ethical or a little because imagine, in the future, which I do believe, 20 years, everything will be videotaped. We'll all have contact lenses that are videotaped. How is that gonna affect crime, for instance? How are you gonna mug someone when they you know that it's immediately going into the cloud? Well well, I would argue though, you know, people who because you're a writer and because you write about your life and such personal things that happen in your life, people who interact with you risk the danger of you writing about them. Now you're not you never say anything bad about anybody in your writing, so I think that's kind of the the fail safe you can always say. Like, don't worry how you behave. I only your approach to writing is similar to mine. I I only write poorly about myself, never about anybody else. I'll say the worst things about myself, like you just said about being in the sink, but I never say anything bad about anyone else. I'll never say, oh, so and so peed in the sink. AJ peed in the sink, so don't go near that guy. So true. Well, yeah, I'm as I'm sure you have, I've had people be like, wait. Is this on the record? And Yeah. Sometimes I have people sometimes I get worried people change their behavior around me because they're afraid I'll I'll write about it. Right. And sometimes they do. Sometimes they do. Well, it is interest then there is a study. I incorporated this into one of my books that if there if there are photos of eyes, like, somewhere, you know, in your room, then it affects your behavior because suddenly, unconsciously, you think someone is watching you. And so I did that once, I put up, like, photos of, like, 50 pairs of eyes. It was very creepy, like, all over my my walls. I had all these eyes watching me, because I was spending so much time on these, like, gossip websites like TMZ. I wasn't getting any any work done. Why were you spending so much time on on a gossip website? Were they just was it the addictive quality, or did you really care about, I don't know, Lindsay Lohan or Kim Kardashian or whatever? No. It was totally the addictive quality. It was, like, you know, bright colors, and they were talking about I barely knew who these people were. Like, I can't picture you on a gossip website. I can't remember the last time I've been on a gossip website. I know. It was terrible. Yeah. I didn't I didn't know any of the there were a lot of reality stars I never heard of. So so to stop, you you how did you come up with the strategy? Let's put eyes up all over my room. Well, because I had read on a couple of studies, for instance, where they would, they would set up, like, an honor system, like, you know, you leave a quarter if you're gonna take a napkin or whatever it is. And they found that if they had pictures of eyes on the wall, they had a photograph with the eyes looking at you, people acted more ethically. So I'm like, alright. Well, let me try this. Let me see if I can force myself to act more ethically by having all these eyes staring at me. And I think it worked. It might have been a placebo effect, but it I it helped me kick that habit. If it worked and it's the placebo effect, then it worked. The placebo effect sort of cancels itself out. You're right. I am a big fan of the placebo effect. But this this brings me this brings to mind, though, just all of this creativity. It's not just that you come up with these ideas. It's then you figure out relatively simple ways to to execute on these ideas that that produce results. So for instance, putting all the eyes up so that you live ethically and so maybe also you don't go to the gossip sites. So you don't you know, you get a sense of what it feels like to have all eyes looking at you, and it doesn't always feel so good. And then the other thing, like, recording everything around you so you're so to to kind of counterbalance your memory, that's sort of like a fairly easy to do experiment you could do and then see what happens 3 months later. Like, it seems like your mind is constantly practicing this muscle, this experiment muscle, like, how to come up with the idea and then how to execute on it in a very simple way. Like, what's what's some other experiments maybe that you've never written about that you've done? Sure. Well well, first of all, I'm glad you bring up the muscle because one of my favorite writers, James Altucher, talks about this a lot. And I did not know I was one of your favorite writers. I'm honored. Absolutely. And, yeah, I love what you said about how you, you have to brainstorm, keep that brain muscle flexible and strong by constantly coming up with new ideas even though well, in my case, I can't speak for you, 99% of them suck. Yeah. 99% have to suck or else you're actually you're trying to execute on too many ideas. Right. There you go. So, yeah, I love what you say about that. And I still think about this all the time about when you were at one of your low points, and I love that I actually wanna talk about a little about talking about failure because that plays into my new project. But, anyway, you talk about one of your low points. You just emailed 40 people that you admired and gave them each 10 Yeah. Ten ideas of how they can make their businesses or lives better. That's amazing. And it was because I had written to them before and said the typical thing with which was, hey. Can I take you out for a cup of coffee and pick your brain? You're one of my heroes. And I got zero responses because it it's not like Warren Buffett's gonna say, oh my gosh. I just got this email. You know, Gladys, hold all calls. James Altucher is gonna take me out for a 60¢ cup of coffee. Like, you have to actually be selfless. You have to make their lives better. To to get anything done for yourself, you have to make someone else's life better. Right. I love that. Yeah. And I think even with your experiments, it's sort of like a process, like, problem and then, ideas come up with ideas to experiment how to deal with that problem, then then actually execute on the experiment, which is difficult. Most people will stop at the idea point. I often just stop at the idea point. You then actually execute on the experiment, and then you share. Right. Because if you do an experiment, chances are you share it either in an article or a post or a book or, now a podcast, whatever. Right. It's true. And I think, well, first, one thing occurred to me is that, I I do occasionally get emails about picking my brain, and I would just recommend that is a very alarming phrase. Like, it doesn't sound pleasant. It sounds like, you know, you're getting some sort of lobotomy or surgery, so maybe if I were a a young person emailing someone, don't suggest a, like, an anatomical invasion of their brain. Which, by the way and and I I'm sorry if I'm interrupting you in the middle of of your lecture to young people. I I don't wanna interrupt that. But but, you also have another style of your kind of humor, which is to take apart language and look at things in a different way. So when I say the phrase picking your brain, it it's almost, like, glom together like one word. Like, I understand what that phrase means, picking your brain. But you, much like another comedian, Jerry Seinfeld, tends to pick apart the words and sort of look at them from a slightly different viewpoint and say, yeah. Where did what does that phrase actually mean? Where does it come from? And and make fun of it. And so you did that so well with, this was, like, a year ago or more, a year and a half ago, with the Ann Coulter comment Oh, thanks. Yeah. About Jews where you got, like, you got, like, 60,000 shares on a face on a simple Facebook post where you did the math about how many Jews were having sex at that moment. What was the Ann Coulter phrase? That was she had tweeted during the Republican debate, and I get she thought that the rep the politicians were pandering to Israel, so she said, how many effing Jews? You know, she spelled it out, how many f**king Jews, are there and do they think are there in the United States? And I was, like, well, that's an interesting question, Anne. How many effing Jews are there? And so I figured out how many Jews are sexually active, and then I figured out how many were actually having sex while she said that statement. And it was it was crazy. It was something that took me literally, like, 2 and a half minutes to write, and I got more feedback from that than books I've written spent a year and a half on. So it was also a real lesson in this, sort of the the new digital, information age. Right. So this this, gosh, AJ, there's so many things I wanna talk about. And I do wanna talk about your brand new podcast, which is Ingenious, plus our new miniseries that we're gonna do. But I wanna I wanna pick unpack what you just said there, which is that, a, again, there's no there's it's very funny, but there's no joke. There's no punch line. Right? Like, you simply took what she said and looked at it in a different way. And then what's funny is going through you know, it's almost like you removed knowledge from yourself. Like, obviously, she meant something else, but you kinda took it very literally as if you didn't understand what she was saying. Right. And so that's where the humor is. And then you go through the whole exercise of figuring out this obscure statistic which has a little bit of informational content to it, but it underlines how kind of silly the the phrase is and Well, I appreciate that. Yeah. I think a lot of what I do is taking things literally, like with I wrote a book about the Bible, as you know, and I try to The Year of Living Biblically. Exactly. The New York Times bestseller, great book. Maybe your most best sold book, I would. Definitely. And, but the whole premise was to take what the bible said and follow it literally. So when the bible says you should stone adulterers, I'm gonna go out there and throw little pebbles at adulterers. And and I think there's something very powerful about that because it just it does reveal the language and how much we take for granted. It's I realize it's a very, you know, it's it's a very simple joke that my kids tell all the time. They'll say they'll come home from school and they'll I'll say, what's up? And they'll say, the sky. And I'm, like, okay. That's the same It's so funny because they're in the in that that beautiful age of language learning and retention. And so it's sort of like when you take things literally in this humorous way, it's like going back to childhood. And, you know, it's an interesting statistics. Maybe we've talked about it before, but, children laugh on average 300 times a day. And guess how often adults laugh on average per day? Interesting. 30? 5. 5. Yeah. Wow. And That's remarkable. Look at myself on days when I laugh 5 times a day or or less or whatever. And it's not necessarily because like, I I've asked a lot of people this. Some people say, oh, it's because adults have more responsibilities. They have this, that. It's not really true. I mean, kids have a lot of responsibilities too. They have homework. They have to they have to be kids and listen to all these adults who are yelling at them all the time. Like, kids have it rough. Right. But, adults just forget to I think because we we don't understand, you know, how to how to take a joke or how to turn language into humor anyway. Interesting. Well, that reminds me. This is, again, a little off topic, but we'll get back. We'll get back. I'm still unpacking, like, I've got 3 other things to unpack. But Yeah. Me too. I've got the, like, the sort of the control tower at the airport, all these airlines airplanes lined up. But the one is I once talked to a great, daily show writer about Which one? Some of his, Kevin Plyer. Do you know Kevin? No. Lovely man, but he I you know, we talked about his writing process, and he talked about how important it is to surprise yourself as a writer and make yourself laugh, which, at the time, I didn't really understand. Like, how can you surprise yourself? That's a that's a weird concept. But then, as I was writing, I tried to do it, and and you can. You can surprise yourself, and it really helps your writing. It keeps your writing so much fresher. So so in the same coulter case, you surprise yourself by, a, asking the question out like, flipping what she said to take it a little bit literally. You removed a little bit of knowledge. You you it's as if you told your brain, oh, I don't really understand what she said, so let's let's actually do the math in this other direction that she didn't mean at all. And then, I guess, you surprise yourself with the actual answer? Right. And you surprise yourself as you're writing. Like, as you're writing a sentence, take a left turn that your brain didn't expect. Like, what's another example? That's a good question. Well, I think, let me get back to you on that because, yeah. It's, I could think of examples from your recent podcast. We'll bring it up when we start talking about that, because I'm sure you were surprised many times then. And, also, I liked how you surprised your guests, during the podcast. They Right. You know, you had Dan Savage almost to the point of tears. I think did he actually cry? He did cry. He cried. That was the thing. Moment where he was choking up. And that, you know, it was a mixed blessing. I love you know, it makes for a great radio slash podcasting, but, of course, you know, I'm very, awkward around emotions. So it was, but I think overall, it was a great thing. You are awkward around emotions. He's, like, crying, and you're, like, okay. So then on to the next round. But but, okay, the other thing I wanna unpack about the Ann Coulter thing, like I said, you got, like, I don't know, 50, 60,000 shares. You got so many comments. It's ridiculous. I was really I I felt that kind of social media anxiety. Like, oh, he wrote, I write every day. He wrote, like, this little post. It's hilarious. He got, like it's everywhere. It's on fire. But you mentioned how it got more attention than books you spend a year and a half writing. And yet, I don't think that detracts from the meaningfulness of books. Like, at the end of the day, people remember and were impacted by your books, which are real events of you taking a year and a half of your of your life curated by this prism of, let's say, living biblically or living healthily or reading Encyclopedia Britannica, and this is the event. The book comes out, and that's it. So I think people are much more impacted even if less people, quote unquote, hit a like button on it. I hope so. I hope that's the case. I mean, I told you this last time I was on I I was talking about one of my projects, the family reunion for the entire world, and I went on your show, and then I had an article in The New York Times. And your show generated so much more feedback. It was astounding. So, to me, that was just an interesting lesson in the the new media. You know, what you think is going to be big, it's not necessarily. Well, it's funny because I remember, when when Judy Blum wrote her latest novel, it's about a year and a half ago, her I contacted her publicist and said, I would really love to have Judy Blum on. Like, I grew up on Judy Blum, as did you, I'm sure. Sure. And, I mean That's where I read my first dirty passages from her book Wifey. Wifey and Forever, of course. Right. So, but, so I contact her publicist, and she's written her books have sold a 150,000,000 copies, mostly to people at our age group when we were little kids. But now she writes adult novels. And I contacted her publicist, and she was on some kind of 70 city book tour. And she's in her seventies. And I said to the publicist, you know, if she if she just goes on my podcast once, she's gonna hit double the audience of all 70 cities that she goes to. So she came on my podcast, and it was great. She gave she Judy Blume gave me relationship advice. I feel I could, like, die. What was the advice? Was it on air, or was it on air? On air. Yeah. On air. Basically well, I'll I'll just tell you, like People should listen to the Judy Vuitton podcast. But, but the other thing I wanted to unpack was, now I'm going up another level, about memory. When you read a book, I always find after I finish the book, I can hardly remember any of it, even if I've just finished it. Unless I'm preparing for a podcast guest, then I, like, take lots of notes, and I remember a lot. But then after the podcast is over, I start to forget. What percentage of a book of a non fiction book do you think you remember? Well, it's interesting. When I go into reading a book, I make a pledge to myself that I'm gonna try to remember the three most interesting things. Because if you just try to passively, absorb the information, like you say, it's just gonna dissipate. You're never gonna remember anything. So I do. I'm like, alright. I'm gonna make an effort to remember and say, here are the 3 things I wanna take away from this book. I still forget most of the time. Do do you write the 3 things down afterwards? I should. Sometimes I do. Sometimes I do. Because that's what I do. I will write I I do something called the one takeaway. I will write down the one thing I got out of the book. But after a podcast Right. Like, immediately after this podcast, I do this after all the podcasts, I'll go and write down the 10 things I I learned from this podcast. Interesting. And then because then it's useful for me, but also maybe it'll feed, like, an article or whatever. So but if I don't write it down, I'll forget, a 100% of the time. I wanna know what you'll write down after this one. I'm interested. Many things. I've already got I've already got a few in in the can ready to go. Well, that was a tip I learned from doing this podcast because a lot of these people trained with Ira Glass, from This American Life and and They weren't trained? Well, not trained. They, they worked for This American Life. The guy who founded Gimlet, Alex Bloomberg, was at This American Life, and one of the one of the tips that they gave me is after you do an interview with someone, write down those the 5 most things that struck you most because that's what is going to be most interesting to the listener if it if it really affects you, and you're just gonna forget it unless you write it down immediately. Yeah. It it proves to be particularly and we'll we'll get in let's get into your podcast in a second because, there's a lot of things about it that that fascinate me. Well, let's let's get into it right now. So so so you just launched this podcast, Twice Removed, with Gimlet Media. Now Gimlet Media was started by Alex Blumberg who did, The Startup Podcast. Alex has also been a guest on my podcast. He's a super nice guy. Lovely man. And, The Startup Podcast itself was fascinating because his startup was Gimlet Media, and and the whole initial, at least, first season of his podcast was him raising money for his own podcast. Very meta. Very meta. Yeah. It was it was like Jerry Seinfeld pitching within his show a show about nothing. Exactly. So so it was very good. And, now you're last time where you were on, we discussed how, you know, you had the world's largest family reunion. You were writing a book on your latest experiment, which was to basically create the world's family tree. And I think the idea is everybody is at least, what, 30th cousin? Like, me and if I went to the most far flung tribe in the the the islands in the Pacific, am I at most, like, 30th cousin? 50th. Some say 70th, but, yes, you are you are definitely blood related to those people and, and everyone in the world. Like, you know, you're not just pick anyone, Kanye West, you know, Donald Trump, for whatever it's worth you are. I I wanna I wanna just mention, one time I had to give a talk, and I I knew you would have the answer. So since we're 3rd cousins, I just needed to know how you were related to Donald Trump. And then ever and you gave me the whole connection. It's like this huge connection. And, ever since then, I've used that as my opening joke when I give a talk, and it works every single time. Before that, I was using our connection to Barack Obama. Right. Now that one I remembered. Barack Obama is well, he's my 5th great aunt's husband's brother's wife's 7th great nephew. So add another cousin to 3rd cousin to that, and you're in. Yeah. So I always say my 3rd cousin's boom, boom, boom. Exactly. Perfect. Yeah. And Donald Trump, for, for good or ill, is is in our family. Do you have a connection that's not through Jared Kushner, his son-in-law? That's the one that that's the closest one because Jared Kushner is obviously an Ashkenazi Jew like us. But, but I'm sure there's, like, there's a thousand ways to connect to Donald. It's like 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon, but everyone's Kevin Bacon. And, so that's sort of the premise of my book and my show is that we're all connected. And the idea being is that, I guess, even though most people kind of hate their family, the idea is that we realize we're all in some ways connected, not just by being in the same species, but somehow in this familial way that maybe we'll be a little nicer to each other. There you go. That's sort of the big theme. And the good part is, for for those who do not like their family, once you realize that everyone is family, you can just choose your family members that you want to be close to. So, you're you're not stuck with just your immediate family. You've got the whole world to choose from. Let's stop to take a quick break. We'll be right back. So your new podcast, hosted by Gillette Media, is called Twice Removed, and it's a fascinating structure. It's basically you bring on a guest. Like, you brought on for your first episode, Dan Savage, who's the sex columnist, I believe, for The Village Voice. Right. And maybe other places. And, he's a fascinating guy. He's written a bunch of books. He's very, very interesting person, very smart. And you had a hidden person in another room who was a relative of his. And you told him there's 41, lines. I guess, what do you call it? Like, if if if I'm related to my father, what's that? One line? Right. A degree is my So there's 41 degrees between him and this person in the other room, but they were still related through these 41 degrees, and they could either be by blood or by marriage. Right. And you and you made him guess, who is it he didn't know. And then you went through well, along the way, here's your great great grandfather, then here's your cousin from that, and then your cousin from that, and your cousin from that. And finally, you reached who who the the, you know, you know, you went through all 41 connections, and, really, you you kind of stood out with 4 stories. And then he still couldn't figure out who the person sitting in the room was. You brought him out. It turned out to be someone very close to him, who was a pivotal part of his life. And it was amazing to him that they were related. But there's a lot of a lot of things in here. First off, how's the podcast doing? It's a fascinating structure. Well, thank you. Yeah. I think it's doing well. I'm no expert, but, yeah, I'm it's, you know, it's been in the top 10 on, on iTunes. When did you officially launch? We launched about a month ago, so I think, what was it, early January? But you had an episode or 2 in the can? Yeah. We had an and it's only 5 episodes for this first season. And, yeah, it's been fascinating to work on. I mean, first of all, I, I there's there are these producers who are amazing at their job, and they do I get the pleasure of just interviewing interesting people and the but they're the ones who do the research and they shape the story, so I've learned a lot from them, the whole production team. What'd you learn? Well, one thing is one thing is, you know, the whole kill your darlings. Is that the phrase? Yeah. Yeah. Just you've got to. There is so much material that I love that we just had to to kill because it just first episode with Dan Savage, you you in the 41 degrees of separation between him familial degrees of separation between him and his mystery guest, and I won't reveal the mystery guest for so people should listen to it. But you you highlighted 4 stories of very fascinating relatives he had that he didn't even know he had, and he didn't know their stories. Right. 1 was a gangster, and one was, you know, started the, AIDS, activism. Which was fascinating because he, you know, Dan Savage himself is gay, and I'm sure this is an important issue of his growing up, and he didn't know he was related to this guy. Another woman was also a big, activist who'd been in marches and arrested and Right. And so on. Well, let me tell you one of my favorite facts that will never see the air, The the light of air, the something of air. But then we we, found this woman who was in the 1936 Berlin Olympics, so the same one that Jesse Owens, and she won the, a gold medal. And this was, related to Dan Savage? This was actually a future guest, Abby Jacobson, who is a comedian on Broad City, who is hilarious. It's it's her relative. And this woman won, and Adolf Hitler called her over and, after she won the gold, and he told her how impressed he was and he grabbed in her words, he grabbed her fanny. So he, like, pawned her. He grabbed her fanny and said that she should come with him to his country house. And and this is a relative of someone named Jacobson. Exactly. So, clearly, she the relative was probably Jewish. Well, it was actually this was a marriage inn. So it was but and this was happening right as they were talking about Trump grabbing private parts of women. I'm like, oh my god. This is the craziest thing. And how did you find that research? Like, was that written somewhere about this woman? It was in an obscure biography, and they found it. The producer, Kimmy Regler, found it. But, and it's an amazing story. That story. I never hear any sexual stories about Hitler. No. He's married. LeBron, it's unclear whether they ever consummated their marriage. This is the first I've heard too that he was a a grabbing perv. So I I love that. But in the end, we we did cut it because it just didn't fit into the the narrative. It was too far off, too far afield. It didn't connect her to her hidden guest? Right. And it didn't you know, each episode has a theme. It didn't really fit into the theme. So I love that, and I'm sure we'll use it sometime because, you know, I I I love it so much. But Do a do a an episode of just weird relatives connected to Hitler. So that would be a fascinating That would be. Just take a random person and find all their familial connections with Hitler. I like that. I like that. Hitler is the mystery guest. Oh, man. So but what's what's fascinating to me there, and this is related to the idea of why everyone not everyone, but I think why podcast is such an interesting genre, is that as opposed to writing where you're kind of, like, on your own and in your room, and you're limited to your resources and the amount of research you're gonna go out and get, a podcast kinda forces you to step out of your zone and really explore and discover things that you wouldn't otherwise discover. So you had some producer who worked with you find this fact of a guest that you wouldn't normally do this kind of genealogical research of. And so all these things together gave you this really sort of interesting light into Hitler and then World War 2. Yeah. Well, one thing you had to kill it. When we killed it. Well, that has, on a related note, one of the things I've learned is to be in you know, I am the anti Steve Jobs. I am so hands off because my my theory is work with talented people who know what they're doing, but let them do their thing, and it may not be what I would have done. A lot of these these episodes are much different than if I had full control, but they're they're interesting and they're good, and I think in terms of my sanity and their sanity, it's a much, better deal. That's true. You're a professional storyteller, though. Do you ever feel like your ability to tell a story via a podcast so this is your 1st major podcast or or or nonwriting storytelling. But do you feel, though, your ability to tell a great story and, obviously, you know, 4 times New York Times bestseller, you know what you're doing. Do you ever feel like you should outweigh the producer's opinion in terms of the best way to form a narrative arc in these podcasts? Well, sometimes, if I feel like I'm I'm really passionate about something, then I'll, I'll fight for it. But I also think that, you know, there are different ways to tell a story, and mine may be great, but theirs may be great as well. Like, there's no to me, I've given up the idea that there is the perfect way to execute an idea. There are different ways, and they may appeal to different people, but there's no perfect way. So it was very liberating. It's a very liberating feeling because Well, you know, one one theory I always have, like, you know, we talk about kind of the the arc of the story, and most podcasts are like this one, an interview podcast. And your podcast, as well as other ones done by Gimlet Media, you know, startup in particular. And I forget, is Serial part of Gimlet Media? No. That's, I think, part of the This American Life and But also spun out of Ira Glass' Right. Kind of training or whatever, who's Ira is obviously a great storyteller himself. And, you know, I always think you know, when I first started doing an interview podcast, my audience was x. When I added, now we're doing this in person, and they're we're in a professional studio, so the audio quality is higher. My downloads went to 3 times x because audio someone might like the podcast, but they're not gonna share it with their friends unless the audio quality is great. So now, suddenly, the podcast becomes shareable, and so audience went up 3 times x. And I always sort of thought the next level is if you add production quality, it's 3 times x above that. And, I do think that's true in the case of yours or Freakonomics or StartUp. The production quality is so amazingly high. It's just it's gonna be rewarded with people saying, oh my gosh, this is amazing. And I think that the amazing factor comes through in in Twice More More. That's great to hear. Yeah. These they put so much production into it. That's sort of the the the model of Gimlet is, like, produced, overproduced, just, you know, for every flew to Chicago Right. To see a a gangster hang out from 1905 to see what it looks like now. Like, why didn't you just use Google Earth No. Or something? No. It is ridiculous in public. All these people, and somebody sent you poker chips and For every minute of that makes the air, there's, like, you know, hours that don't. And Well, like in a documentary, for every, hour shot, maybe, a a minute makes it to the air. Right. So or even less, you know, because so much gets edited out in the editing process. So is it similar to that? Absolutely. Yeah. And it's fascinating to see. And you can make, you know, 18 different shows using the same material. But, I think the one thing that that I've really, been thinking about a lot, you know, the book Made to Stick? You know that? I I love that book, and I think just on oh, no. No. I was on I I was gonna say I was just on his podcast, but it's another guy who made the stick as Chip Heath. Yeah. Exactly. I was on John Jansch's podcast, which is duct tape marketing. Oh. So I think of duct tape made the stick. Yeah. Like, I can't Adhesive, metaphors. Yes. Well, some of the things he talks about is is, like, a highly unexpected outcome, a lot of emotion, very vivid details. These are the things that make stories stick. And so, I think that this That's fascinating. Yeah. This show, I've I've tried to incorporate that because we have this mystery guest at the beginning, and that I do think if I were a listener, I would stay tuned just to see, what is this mystery? Just teasing that mystery, I think, is very, very powerful. That's exactly the case with when I was listening to your podcasts. Sometimes I like so, basically, what you do is you you you along the and I said this before, but along the genealogical path to the mystery guest, you find stories along the way of, oh, I'm related to so and so. Here's their story. And you find the most fascinating stories that might relate to both guests. And not every story was exciting to me, just for what not that you told it in an exciting way, but just my own personal preferences. But I always stay tuned because I wanted to listen to how this connected to the mystery guest. I wanted to see the mystery guest. I wanted to see how it connected to your main guest. So there was a lot of kind of things in there. But what was fascinating to me too though was it's not just the family tree. Like, it's one thing to know that, oh, I have 60 connections, and then I'm related to Donald Trump. It's the the it's the stories along the way that really make a family tree, it seems, when I listen to your podcast. And I never thought of it that way before. It's not just like, oh, here's so and so, and here's this amazing way you're related, and let's celebrate that you 2 are related. It's like, did you know your great grandfather owned this saloon that was this big gangster and gambling hangout? And he didn't Dan Savage didn't know. His grandparents were, like, you know, nice Catholic boys, and and, he was totally unaware that their his their father and uncle were these total hoods. Yeah. I think that is the key, and that that's what the producers are so good at is is finding that one story that people can really dive into. And what's interesting about it is, they not know that his great grandparents were, like, you know, his grandparents never told him, oh, you should've seen your dad. Well, they just, well, a lot of times, people don't wanna talk about that stuff in their family. And and in that case, Dan Savage's, I guess it was great grandfather, owned this underground illegal gambling joint in Chicago. It was, like, right out of the musical Chicago. In fact, some of the characters in Chicago the Musical would go to that, to that bar, the people they were based on. And even down to the fact that there were all these crimes committed at the bar, there was, like, you know, attempted murder, there was, a huge heist of $250,000, which at the time but even within that so you have to choose, I think, which of those crimes to focus on. Because if you just touch on all of them and say, can you believe this having this having this, that doesn't draw the listener in as much as going deep on one story. Well, you went you went deep on on that particular substory of the larger story. You went deep on, the gambling aspect, and then you contacted a gambling historian who, just by coincidence I don't know if you talked to 50 gambling historians before you came to this guy, but you talked to a gambling historian who, by coincidence, also collected poker chips and found an obscure set of poker chips from this club that had been torn down 80 years ago. And it was a poker we gave a poker chip to Dan Savage of, a poker chip from his great grandpa's club. And that was another lesson, like, having this sort of, very tangible thing to give to people. I think that in in anything, not just in storytelling, but in business, if you can give something, like an actual physical thing, it makes such a difference because he could hold it in his hand. He's like, this is amazing. I wonder if this is an art that we, as Americans, in our rush for the frontier, for success, for whatever, have forgotten. Because, like, if you meet if you ever have a a business meeting with traditional Japanese businessmen, for instance, they'll give you a gift in the beginning of the meeting. And, like, I guess many cultures do that. We don't do that. And I wonder if that giving the gift, you know, provokes, a, reciprocity, and, b, there's a story. It begins the storytelling process, which any relationship has. I love that. I should've brought a gift today. I feel really should've brought a gift to you. I actually had intended you know what? I just realized I had intended to bring you my latest book, but Dang. Just came out last week, but I did not bring it. Well, as one of my experiments, I, it was it was actually an experiment suggested by readers because they said that I had put my wife through so much. She had endured so much, misery and annoyance from my experiments that I should try to be the ultimate husband. So I tried, and one of the things I did was, every day, I would bring her a little gift, and it was so powerful. I couldn't believe it. It was powerful for me because it convinced me, like, oh, I'm giving my wife a little gift. It's a little trinket, like, you know, a little key chain or whatever, but I'm like, oh my god. I must love her so much that I'm bringing her this gift. So it worked on my mind, and and she loved it as well. So That reminds me of the, Benjamin Franklin trick. Do you know that one where No. What's that? He he was in the Pennsylvania legislature, a young guy, and he had an enemy who always shot him down. And he realized that he he he did some research, and he found out that this arch enemy of his had an extensive library. So he he said to this guy, hey. Do you have x y z book? Can I borrow it? And the guy, was taken aback, and he and he said, sure. Here's here's the book. And so Benjamin Franklin took the book, and then a week later I don't even know if he read it or not. A week later, he returned it and said thank you. That guy never again argued with Benjamin Franklin because his brain tells him, if I'm if I think highly enough of Benjamin Franklin to lend him this book, he must be a good guy. Your brain it's a cognitive bias. I love it. So how can we apply this to our lives? Like, should we Well, you ask ask for favors from people who hate you. Yeah. I like that a lot. Ask for yeah. Or what about your boss? If you ask your boss for favors and see if, you know, then you get promoted. Or ex friends or family members who hate you or whatever. Yeah. Good for Ben Franklin. So so so, you know, doing doing these kind of narrative high production value podcasts, like you said, you really have to kind of find not only what is the I mean, when I'll I'll focus in on the first episode with with Dan Savage. But when you finally get to the mystery guest, you realize, oh, AJ has been setting us up. There's a full story here that started in the first few minutes that ends with this mystery guest. But and then along the way, you take us on this journey. The journey, kind of the, what do you call it? The trope of the journey is this genealogical path, but, really, it's these stories that you tell along the way. And I find that there was a reaction in Dan that was almost astrological. So, like, when when whenever you hear your, oh, here's your your astrological reading for today, you're, like, oh, that's so me, even though it could be for anyone. But you told these stories, and each one, you could almost hear it in the podcast. Like, he related so much to each one. Like, he's Dan is definitely a rebel, like, a born rebel. So he hears about his great grandfather with the saloon, and he's like, you know, go for it, great granddad. And and then he hears about, you know, the woman who's an activist, and he's like, yeah. I've been chained to a building before and been arrested. Then he hears about, you know, the relative who's the AIDS, you know, activist, and he's like, oh, this affected me so deeply. Like, these stories connected with him. It it made him feel like this is why I am who I am because these stories are somehow related to me. Whether or not that's true or not Right. Because the some of these people were distantly related. It's obviously no connection to who he is now. But but hearing it and having the genealogical connection made him feel like this is a part of me. Ah, I love that insight, and I think that's true. I think, it plays into we all see the world through our own lens, and people have called genealogy the museum of me. Like, it's all about me. And, and then you hear about a relative and you interpret it, how does how is this like even though it probably has nothing to do with you. Right? Because, like, you know, you have hundreds of great great great grandparents, but then you hear one is, you know, maybe A musician. I mean And that's where I got it from. Yeah. Exactly. Even though you you totally ignore the embezzlers and the, yeah, you know, pimps and the all the horrible people. Simply the the mediocre, boring people who farmed the field for 80 years. Which is 95% of your ancestors. So, yeah, it is, it is interesting that we we totally shape the stories to, our own needs. Do you think that's the fascination with genealogy in general? Because, obviously, genealogy is one of the most kind of obsessive topics on the planet. Like, I remember when I think this was about 12 years ago, the site genii.com, g e genii.com, which you've probably dealt with that. Right. That's how I know that we're related. Oh, right. Because well, no. We know we're related because of 23 and90. Exactly. The the DNA test was our was our first inclination. But, genie.com, at the time of their release, within 5 days, I think it was, they had over a 100,000,000 sign ups because it spreads. Like, you you put in your family tree, and then emails get sent out to everybody in your family tree. And then they are encouraged to put their family tree, and then emails get sent out. So it was the fastest growing social network ever, faster than Facebook, Twitter, anything. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. It's such an interesting lesson and and one you can definitely use. Like, when I was promoting this huge family reunion and I wanted to get media, I would find a reporter or a producer for a TV show, and I would figure out how I was related to them, and then I would say, hey. It was like the ultimate LinkedIn. I was like, hey, you know, we're we're 14 cousins 3 times removed. Could you do me a favor and write an article about this? You know, we're family. So and how like, what percentage of the like, if you had just if you had just randomly reached out Right. Even at your status and your level, like, your Oh, yeah. No. No. It's just totally ignored. Yeah. You You you I'll get I bet you have a 1 out of 20 success rate in general. Exactly. What was your success rate with this? This was, you know, like, 50%. It was crazy. I mean, part some people were freaked out and let you know, like, please never email me. Really? I I I don't think I don't know how serious they were, but, yeah, they were they thought, like, this is weird. But a significant number were so intrigued because it appeals to them. It's like you gotta think about when you're pitching someone, what is going to interest them. It's not about, I'm so fascinating. How are you going to interest them? It it's so true, and I think a lesson out of that is if you're doing something out of self interest, you will get a higher degree of success the more selfless you are. Right. So if you if you even if it's out of your purely out of your own self interest, take yourself out of it and do it out of their make it their interest rather than your interest. Well, that's like what we were talking about when you sent those free ideas to those 40 people. That's why they responded. I mean, I find that that is when I when I'm trying to pitch someone or appeal to someone, it's always like, take myself out of it. What will what will they get out of this? But the the genealogical thing is like this built in societal mechanism of doing someone a favor simply by showing them how you're related to them. It's not like you have to give the the guy an idea for a story. You just have to say, we're family. Right. I know. It's like LinkedIn on steroids. It's really remarkable. It's the ultimate social network. I mean, think about who you interviewed. I mean, we've discussed this before, but who you interviewed, when you were first beginning the project. You know, former president, George h w Bush, you you start off saying, hey. Here's how we're related. Right. Next thing you know, you're going down to Texas and interviewing him. Exactly. Yeah. I could. Never say he's, you know, 80 plus years old. He never would say yes to anybody else, and you're hanging out in the Busch mansion. That's how exactly. I pitched his, his chief of staff, and she's like, well, he's not doing interviews anymore. And I said, well, let me tell you. We are distant cousins, so you think that he would do it as a favor for family. And she's like, well, I guess if you're distant cousins, let me see. And next thing I know, I'm on a plane to Houston. So so so let's let's piece together how that must have worked. So you said you were distant cousins. In In the South, I think genealogy this is just my gut. But in the South, I think genealogy is much bigger than it is in the North. Because I think North, everybody's, you know, gets out of the house, flies across the country, and families disappear much more quickly. So maybe somehow family was important to the chief of staff, and so she thought it was important enough to mention it to him. Because usually, probably, she doesn't even out of the hundreds of quarries that come in, she probably doesn't mention any of them to Right. An 80 year old man who's just enjoying himself. Exactly. And I think that it's a it's a very powerful tool. I think if people are interested in using it, they better use it now because in, like, 4 years, there'll be apps where you can just press a button and see how you're related to anyone on Earth. So now it's sort of a novelty. In, like, 5 years, people will be like, of course, we're related. It reminds me of, something our our mutual friend, Jillian Zoe Siegel told me when she wrote the book, Getting There. Mhmm. You know, and she interviewed people like Warren Buffett and and many other, like, unbelievable people. And and I think we were at the same dinner, you, me, Jillian, Dory, and a few other people. And I asked her, how did you get these people to say yes? And she said she was very persistent, but she said she said something which always stuck with me, which is, don't take a no from someone who can't say yes. Uh-huh. So the chief of staff couldn't say yes. So you didn't take a no from her. You said, look, here's how we're related. Can you please ask him, you know, does this make a difference that you know, and, can you please ask him if I could interview him? So you didn't take a no. You threw in that extra thing, and you got your yes. Right. I love that tip from Jillian. Yeah. Because she got remarkable people. Like, she got the the top people. She got and you do too. You are able to access these people that should not be returning anyone's calls. I don't take an I take her advice. I don't take a no from someone who can't say yes. Yeah. But it takes persistence. It could take years. Yeah. So, so so so far, how are you enjoying the podcast process? Like, do you like it? I do. I find it fascinating, and What have you learned from it? I mean, so you so far, it sounds like you've learned, you you you've probably relearned Kill Your Darlings because I'm sure you've as a writer, you've learned that before. You you learned, try to take things in an unexpected way. Right. Like, mystery is a huge, awe, a huge lure for for people. You you just to repeat, you've learned, after you do an interview, immediately write down the 5 things that struck you? I am I learned to be hands off and that find talented people to work with and then let them do their thing. By the way, I wanna correct you on that, on Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs was a was like you, a big picture idea guy, and would come up with very beautiful ideas, like the iPhone and the iPad, and and the Macintosh were beautiful ideas. But, you know, Ed Catmull and John Lasseter produced and directed all the Pixar movies. Steve Jobs didn't say a single word about them. And Jony Ive did all the designs for the iPhone, the iPad, and so on. Just Steve Jobs had a design aesthetic, but he wasn't himself a designer. Well, that's a huge relief because, yeah, I always thought that he was on top of everything and that I should be more like him, but that's good to know. In fact, when, when Apple was having logistics problems, Steve Jobs didn't know how to solve it. He hired a young man by the name of Tim Cook, who's now the CEO of Apple, to solve all their logistics problems. So Steve was very good at hiring talented people. He but we know him because the lesser talented people that he would scream at are the ones who would then write the book. God. I don't think that means well, another thing about it. Like, why would Johnny Ive and John Lasseter, who are multibillionaires from their relationship with Steve Jobs, why are they still going to work every day? It's because of the the loyalty and the freedom that that Jobs gave them. Right. That's so interesting. Well, that's good to know. That's good to know that I know. You're just like Steve Jobs' background. That's what I've always thought. Another lesson I learned is is sacrificing myself for the greater good. So a lot of times when I'm interviewing someone, the best, the best tape, the best, audio is when I look like an idiot. So I'll ask a question that I know is dumb, but that listeners might be thinking or that I might be thinking, and the interviewee will yell at me and be like, that is such a dumb question. And that makes for great, audio and storytelling is when because there's conflict, there's excitement, and they're yelling at me, and I look like an idiot, but it's better for the show. So I always think better for the storyteller to look like an idiot. I agree. Yeah. You do that all the time in your, oh, which brings me to, another point. One of the big lessons I've learned, in researching this family history is, one of the most important things is to tell your kids about the struggles that your family has undergone and that you emerged okay, and that you you have survived. And then so it's basically the James Altucher method because you are so open about your failures, and yet you're incredibly successful. Well well, the thing is, think about, in general, the the arc of the story. It is it always starts off, I have a problem. You know? So Bruce Wayne's parents were killed in the first few panels of the first Batman. You know, Luke Skywalker wanted to, you know, go abroad, but he couldn't until his aunt and uncle were killed by Stormtroopers. So there's always some problem that kicks off, you know, an otherwise reluctant hero. Right. And I think that happens in I think that happens it it's the arc of the story because, it happens to all of us in some form or other. And so you're right. Kids should be reminded of that that that you're not it's you have to have you have permission to have an imperfect life. Right. You know? And that is, there there are studies on this. There's an Emory University study on how kids who are told about their family's failures are happier and better adjusted than those who are either told, you know, there's a narrative where we were always successful, there's a narrative where we're always losers, but then there's the reality where families are oscillating. You know, you go through some at times when things are going well and other times where it's total failure. And that's the truth and that's what you should tell your kids, because they're gonna experience they're gonna experience heart. So I love to tell my kids about my family's failures, my failure. I mean, I honestly, I think they're like they think I'm a total loser because I tell them I focus too much on, like, yeah, I had, like, all these great ideas for books and the publishers told me they were so dumb. What's what's an idea you got rejected on that you never picked up? Well, let's see. I I've had a few quite confusing sales. You have pretty much car blanche when you go to publisher. No. No. No. No. I don't think so. I mean, you do since you publish, you know, you know, you're your Since I self published. Yeah. Since I'm my own publisher. I definitely have carte blanche. That is the way to go. Yeah. I'm trying to think of, well, I did one. I did pitch one about what it would be like to be a kid in the 21st century. So, like, almost like, you know, Billy Madison, the the movie was it Billy Madison? Where Adam Sandler went back to, like, 3rd grade and had I forgot. With some premise. Really? Madison wasn't the one where the kid who wanted to be a ballet dancer? No. That was another. That was Billy Elliot. Yeah. Always. Another great another great premise. But my my thinking was that, one of my big themes in life is how lucky we are to to live in the era we do and how much we take for granted and how horrible the past was. The good old days were not good. They were horrible. They were painful and disease ridden and sexist or racist. If it was you who wrote about this or Matt Ridley who wrote about this, that we kind of glamorize sort of, let's say, people on the frontier or whatever, or people who lived in the 18 early 1800 or 1700. And yet it was just lice ridden, disease ridden. Your kids would die. The food was horrible. It had no flavor. You know, everything was bad. Oh, yeah. And we don't remember that. But when you say that though, it almost sounds, like, superficial because, of course, I don't wanna live in that time, and, of course, times were bad, but I want times to be better for me right now. Like, how do you how do you kind of remind yourself that, oh, I've got it good because it's all relative? But right right now, for anybody in the world, someone's got it better and someone's got it worse. Right. So I'm privileged in some ways. I'm underprivileged in other ways all the time. Well, I think the key is and I learned this. One of the places I learned it was in the Bible book because the Bible says that you should be say thanks for everything, and so I took that literally. So I was giving thanks. I would press the elevator button, and I would be thankful the elevator came, and then I'd get in the elevator and be thankful it didn't plummet to the basement and break my collarbone, and there were I was doing this non stop, and it was a weird way to live, but it was also wonderful because you realize there are hundreds of things that go right every day that we totally take for granted, and we focus on the 3 or 4 that go wrong. So that, I find, is a very helpful frame, to try to focus on the the amazing number of things that go right and we take for granted. So this also is a muscle, like, this thank you muscle or not taking things for granted muscle. Like, you have to constantly remind yourself of the things that could go wrong, and a, you could probably handle the worst case scenario or a much worst case scenario, which is a very stoic way of thinking. But b, this kind of gratitude for just the basic simple things, like the elevator didn't crash. Yeah. You know, the invention of the elevator has essentially created this vertical vertical cities where so much innovation, takes place. Like, so many inventions wouldn't have happened if we didn't weren't able to all aggregate into urban areas because the invention of the elevator. I love that. And you're right. It is totally a muscle, and I have to, be very conscious in doing that every day, because, otherwise, you just fall in and you you take for granted. And you know that great Louis c k, bit Yeah. About the plane? Yeah. Everything. You're in a chair flying through space Right. Like a Greek god, and you're complaining about Wi Fi, something you didn't even know existed 10 seconds earlier. Exactly. I really think that that is a good way to look at life. It definitely makes my life By the way, you know in that joke, he talks about the guy sitting across from him. Right? So he say the joke is basically, the the plane announces, oh, we just got Wi Fi. Please enjoy. And then after a few minutes, it it crashes, and they say, oh, we're sorry. The Wi Fi didn't work. We we won't have it for the rest of this flight. And the guy sitting across from him says, that's bulls**t. And Louis CK is like, how could you you didn't even know existed, you know, 10 seconds ago. Why don't you just enjoy the pleasure of flight? Like, you're in a chair, you know, flying through the sky. But the secret of that joke was, by the way, is that he was the one who said, he he tells us later, I think, on Letterman or Conan O'Brien. Oh, I see. He was the one who actually said this is bulls**t. He's making fun of himself, really. Although, for some reason, for the structure of the joke, he thought it was important to make it another person. I don't know why. Oh, that's fascinating. Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting. I like to figure out, like, humor, but I I I forget what the reason why he separated out, the other person. But it sounds like you have a couple of muscles that you work on, which is, A, this kind of kind of microscopic gratitude muscle, like everything we should be thankful for, which is a hard muscle to to to do. Then also kind of this muscle of, like, how can you come up with these experiments, because that seems very hard, as we'll get to in a little bit. And then this muscle of how do you take language and sort of look at things very quickly in this literal way, almost like a child would. And then there's this muscle of how do you find the unexpected in so that you even surprise yourself in the middle of you either writing or producing a story. Like, that's a muscle too. Right. Well, I think that's it. I think you have to, you have to work hard. I forget. There's this one, great comedy writer that I did a panel with once, whose name I can't remember. He was one of the founding writers on SNL, but he said that your writers and and artists have to have 2 heads. So you have the one head where you're experiencing life and then the other head where you're looking at it and saying, what the heck is going on? Do we know what's funny about this? What's weird about this? So I love that idea, like, not just passively sitting back and letting life happen, but always exercising that muscle, always looking around and saying, what's weird about this? What could be I think Jerry Seinfeld talks about that too, and that's a muscle as well. But, basically, you know, a regular person will go to a party and say, okay. Where's the alcohol? I'm gonna start enjoying the party. Whereas a comedian will go to a party and say, what's weird about this party? And and that's the difference between the 2, is constantly exercising that weird muscle, you know, finding the weird in in in the obvious. Right. And, and it's interesting. So I actually what we're gonna do is we'll do a part 2, which is, we're gonna challenge each other to an experiment, but that'll be on the very next episode, because now this is long enough. I'm gonna we're gonna make this a part 2. But I do wanna recommend, please check out AJ's podcast, Twice Removed. There's only 5 episodes in this season. I like how you're making your podcast a season. I'm gonna learn from that. It's it's massively produced. I think you can make it into a TV show. Are you gonna include it the, ideas from these episodes in your book? Some of them. Yeah. There's some obviously gonna do a book about, you know, the world's largest family reunion? Exact and Dan Savage had a great quote that I I I that really resonated, which was that you have your biological family and then you have your logical family, and they're not always the same. So you have your what if you don't get along with your parents or your sister or your brother, that's fine, but find a group of people that you can really bond with. And, and so both are both are important. You don't you don't need both. You you do but you do need a family of some sort, whether it's logical or biological. Well, AJ Jacobs, producer of the and and star of the podcast, Twice Removed. Look for it on Itunes or Stitcher or Spotify or wherever you get podcasts, and author of I'm gonna try to name them all. The Year of Living Biblically, Drop Dead Healthy, The Know It All, My Life as an Experiment. You got them. That's it. That's it? Yeah. There's a lot of many of them in a number of books. And let I wanna hear just very quickly your new book. Give it wanna hear just a little bit more about that. Reinvent Yourself, and, you know, we live in a in a in a hard time where where kind of the economy and life itself changes, you know, constantly. And for many people, they're reinventing them they're they're being forced to be in a situation where they're reinventing themselves for the first time, or they feel stuck in their jobs or dissatisfied in some way, and they wanna pursue some dream of theirs that they've always had. And this I look at, basically, 100 of people who have reinvented themselves and, tell stories of reinvention and kind of, pick out the skill sets required to reinvent yourself. I would say it's actually, my biggest and and best book. It's the book I've worked the hardest on, so I'm very, very proud of it, and, and it's going well. So thank you for asking. Oh, I love it. I can't wait to read. You know, I'm a fan. I said it on the air. I said it on record. I I I have you. I'm recording it right now. For more from James, check out the James Altiger Show on the choose yourself network at jamesaltiger.com, and get yourself on the free insiders list today. Hey. Thanks for listening. Listen. 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