Ep. 44: The Immersive Writing Experience w AJ Jacobs| Mike Up In Your Business Podcast #MUIYB

I had read all the studies about gratitude and how it is so crucial to our mental health and our physical health. There's studies about how it helps with your immune system. And.

I always find in my mind.

It'S a battle between the sort of the Larry David side and the Mr. Rogers side, the good, optimistic side versus the cynical, pessimistic side. And I. I think I was born with a very strong Larry David says.

That'S my default, to sort of find the negative. I hear 100 compliments and one insult. And, you know, I remember the insult.

And I don't think I'm alone.

I think humans do have this evolutionarily. We have a negative bias, and it's.

Great to see again. You know, our mutual friend is Dorie Clark.

Yes. She's fantastic.

And I remember. She's fantastic. I remember she used to host those dinners in New York. I mean, this is, well pre Covid at some, like, Mexican restaurant. She's like, oh, this guy A.J. jacobs is coming. And I wasn't aware of your name or your work at that point. And she's like, I'm telling you, he's gonna steal the show. Like, there's gonna be, like 10 authors around the table. And she was talking about the Year of Living Biblically. And you start talking about that, and it just blew my mind. What inspired you to not just write the book, but to write a. To do an experiential book like that?

Well, I. That's my favorite kind of writing, is trying something out, being a human guinea pig and then writing about what I learned, because my real life, honestly, not that interesting. So, you know, my father is not a spy or, you know, a circus performer. So if I'm gonna do something, write about something interesting, I better go out and do it myself. And I was very interested in religion. I grew up very secular. No religion at all. I say in the book, I'm Jewish, but I'm Jewish in the same way. The Olive Garden's Italian.

I got you.

No offense to the Olive Garden, but. But I was fascinated about religion's continuing influence in our world. And I was like, well, one way to learn about religion would be to live it. To live like they did in biblical times. To wear the robe, put on the sandals, grow a beard, and follow the Ten Commandments and try to stone adulterers, which I did using very small stones so I didn't get thrown in jail and just see how it affected my life.

What were the good parts?

What were the parts that were maybe not so good because all the experiments I do, I just, I try to have takeaways that make my life and hopefully the reader's life better.

So. Okay, so you decide you're going to live a year biblically. How do you go about this process?

Oh, yeah, that was not easy. I mean, first of all, I read a stack of Bibles and wrote down every.

A stack of Bibles?

Yeah, not just one, because, you know, there are all these different translations. I wrote down every piece of advice that I could find in the Bible and that turned out to be a very long list, hundreds of rules. About 700, I got to. And I thought, all right, I'm going to try to follow every single one of them. The famous ones like love your neighbor and the Ten Commandments, but also the lesser known ones, 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. And it was, it goes past your lovely and, and respectable beard. It got down to my, you know, about my navel and. Really? Oh, yeah, it was terrifying. I got Gandalf. People call me ZZ Top. I heard all the time.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And yeah, So I, it was, it was learning experience, you know, and some, some parts were wonderful and have changed my life for the better. Some parts were absolutely just nightmare torture.

And so this is a literal one year, 365 days that you are, I guess, to the best of your ability, adhering to these 700 or so rules.

That's it exactly. So I would, you know, I grew the beard. I had to not lie or covet or gossip, which I live in New York City and I work as a journalist. So right there, that's 80% of my day gone.

Like, what do I do?

So it was a moral makeover element to it. And then, as I say, there were some very bizarre parts about you cannot wear. Two were clothes made of two different kinds of fabric. So no poly cotton clothes. You know, they're just all these bizarre rules that we don't know about. And it was wonderful. You know, as I say, it's wonderful and nightmarish at the same time.

How does it affect your family, your wife, your children? What's the.

Well, there were parts that my wife liked because I do think I became a slightly better person. You know, I, I still gossip and lie and covet, of course, but I think it helped me curb that maybe like 30%. So there, there's some parts that she liked, but other parts in the Old Testament, which I did a Lot of work on. It says that you cannot touch a woman during her time of month, like when she's menstruating, she is off limits. And if you take Leviticus, part of the Bible really seriously, it says that you should not sit in a seat whereas a menstruating woman has sat, because then it's impure. She has made it impure. So my wife found that offensive and sat in every seat in our. So I had to stand for the year. So that was a challenge.

I will say I did a book.

Later on trying to be as healthy as possible, and all this research about standing is healthier than sitting. So in a sense, she did me a favor.

Oh, there you go. Any revelations that you had when. Because I want to have every book but in the year. Living Biblically, anything you said, wow, something I wish humanity was still following, or there were some principles that translated over or something that was just so absurd. I'm just curious about the extremes.

Oh, yeah, well, there were tons. You know, I stopped. I no longer stone adulterers, and I wear clothes.

How do you stone an adultery? Like, how do you. First, someone just say, I'm an adulterer, and you're like, start winging stones at him?

Basically. I was in Central park in New York, where I live, and I was wearing my robe and sandals, and a guy came up to me and said, what's going on? Why are you dressed like that? I said, I'm trying to follow all the rules of the Bible, from the Ten Commandments to stoning adulterers. He says, I'm an adulterer. Are you going to stone me? And I was like, well, that'd be great.

That's awesome.

And I had been carrying around little pebbles for months, hoping to run into an adulterer who I could identify, and there he was. So I actually, to finish the story, I held out the stones in my hand and said, you know, they won't really hurt. He was very aggressive and grabbed them out of my hand and threw them at me. So an eye for an eye is also in the Bible. I thought, all right, I can throw.

One back at him.

So that's how I checked it off the list. As I say, I did not continue that habit, but there were tons of lessons and. And lifestyle changes that I made because of the Bible or the biblical experiment one, which we can talk about a little later, because it. I did a whole book about it about gratitude and how the Bible talks a lot about gratitude. But just one other would be, I love the Bible. Says, you know, one. One day a week you cannot work. It's is the Sabbath. And I think that there is something to be said for that. A lot of people, you know, you might hear about digital fasts, you know, how important it is to just put your iPhone away for a certain. And you know, I am constantly tempted by my iPhone and it's always a. It's a challenge, but it's a great one. The idea of once a week just taking a break, focusing on whatever your friends, your family, well, printed books, I mean, it is such a life changer.

Have you been able to sustain that practice?

I, to some extent, I am. Cannot lie. Exactly. I don't want to lie, but yes, I do. For a long time, for about 10 years, I was really good at it. Recently, I've fallen off a bit because Covid, I think, makes all the days blur together, which is all the more reason I should be doing it to sort of mark off time. But when I do do it, I find it's like, well, there's the phrase a sanctuary in time. It's like this little oasis and. And it is very powerful.

Oh, that's interesting. And you're still in New York City today?

I am.

Okay.

How did the. Your company, because you had a job you're doing this year of living biblically, I assume you're walking into work with your beard down to your navel and your robes. I mean, some people are like, aj's lost it, I presume.

Yeah, I was working at the time at Esquire magazine, the men's magazine. And they knew what I was doing, but they decided to sort of torture me and make my life even more miserable. Yeah. So I remember they're like, let's make him interview a really sexy woman so that, you know, he has covetous feelings. So they sent me out to LA to interview Rosario Dawson, the actress.

And.

Yeah, it was, it was very difficult.

She is quite beautiful.

And worse, I, as a journalist, I.

Had to watch her movies and her.

Work is not for the, you know, it's not generally G rated. So I actually, I found this company, I think it was a Mormon company that, that would pre edit movies for you. So some of her movies, like, I had no idea what was going on. They were like five minutes long.

It just starts and finishes and that was it. So what's your assessment of. There's a lot of orthodox communities and, you know, they go to the extreme. Are they really living biblically in your opinion? If you can opine on that.

Oh, sure. Well, part of the book was to see how these rules and structures could improve my life. Another part of the book was to show that we should not be living.

Literally by the Bible like some people.

Claim they do, because first of all, they're just claiming that they do. But if they were really living literally by the Bible, they wouldn't be wearing clothes made of two different kinds of fabrics. Right. So I wanted to show sort of the absurdity of the so called fundamentalism by showing that they were just cherry picking what parts to follow. And my point is, cherry picking can be fine. Cherries can be delicious. It's all about cherry picking the right cherries. Because the Bible has wonderful passages about loving your neighbor. The golden rule is a very, you know, that's wonderful. There's a lot about embracing outcasts. That's a lot of what you. And forgiveness. So there's all these life changing, positive lessons that hold up today.

But then there's also, you know, ancient.

Stuff that homosexuality is a sin or. Or the world was created in seven days and we should take that literally. So, yeah, cherry pick. That was one big lesson. Cherry pick the good cherries, which is all about compassion and loving your neighbor.

I was sitting at home and I don't recall the time frame a couple years ago, and all of a sudden comes on and there's a new television show coming out that's the year of living biblically. I'm like, oh. To my wife, like, holy shit. I sat with the guy who this is about. What happened? What was that all about?

Like how you free. Well, yes, it was a very bizarre experience because I wrote the book maybe now, like 13 years ago, and it had been optioned by various, all sorts of company. Brad Pitt's company optioned it for a movie. Marlon Wayans was attached at one point and then finally made it to a series on cbs. Now, I don't. The Bible says not to say negative things.

So.

I happen to think the people who put it on, the producers and writers and actors were wonderful. They were very talented. But somehow in the machine that is cbs, it got dumbed down so much.

And they flattened it out.

I knew we were in trouble when CBS said that the actor could not have a beard because it might frighten viewers. And I was like, oh, that's not a good sign. And indeed it became very, you know, this sort of watered down tapioca. And it was a. Yeah, I always talk about being grateful. So I was really grateful for the experience because I got to go to LA and hang out with the actors and eat the, you know, eat the free craft services. But. But I was also quite relieved when it was canceled after 13 episodes.

Tell me about Drop Dead Healthy, which is. Your titles are extraordinary. I love that. So Drop Dead Healthy. The premise is pretty clear from the title, but tell me how that came about and what you did.

Yeah, that one came about because I am not very healthy, or I wasn't. I wasn't traditionally obese. I was more of sort of the skinny.

Fat is what people called me.

So the. I looked like a snake that had swallowed a goat.

So.

And everything else was skinny.

Okay, that's funny. Okay.

And I would get sick all the time. I had just a terrible immune system. And my wife was the one who said, I don't want to be a widow in my 40s. Like, you got to get in shape. And I said, all right, if I'm going to do this, why not make.

A book about it?

And I decided I'm going to go all the way. And I did the same as I.

Did with the Bible.

I wrote down hundreds of pieces of medical advice. And I said, I'm going to try everything. I'm going to reform every part of my life. The sleep, the diet, the exercise, the.

Sex, how do I go to the.

Bathroom, how I walk, how I talk. And it was a remarkable. It was originally just a year, but I was so out of shape, it took me two years. And again, there were parts that were just horrible and parts that have changed my life for the better, including. I would be on it now, but I love my treadmill desk. I really do work on and get my 10,000 steps, especially now during COVID when I can't go out much. So I am a big fan of. Because there are all these studies that say how creativity and attention are linked.

To being physically active.

And I feel that if I try to work all day sitting down, I literally will fall asleep on the keyboard. So that's just one of the changes that that book has had for me.

You know, in recent years. In particular, this concept of biohacking, at least is the phraseology people are using so popular. And I was just surfing the Net and I saw this one guy, he's like, oh, I'm the father of biohacking. And my. I will live for 180 years. Which maybe that's like a medical hack that maybe will. Will manifest. But what have you found? Really does. First of all, what's the definition of health, too? Because for some of those folks, it was longevity, energy, what is the definition of health?

Well, for me, it's not necessarily having.

The abs and being able to bench press £500. For me, it is being able to.

Be energetic and to live a healthy, long life.

You don't want to live a long life if you are unhealthy for the last 30 years. So to me, it's like, it's a combination of that. So, you know, I'm married, so I don't focus as much on, you know, the having the perfect body. But I just, I do want to be around for my kids weddings if they decide to get married. So that's what I.

And I will tell you.

One of my big takeaways of that book is there are. There are no silver bullets in terms of right now secrets that they're not telling you about health. I mean, it is. I could sum it up in a paragraph. 90% of what you should be doing. And it's stuff that you know, which is you should get some exercise, you should eat real food instead of processed food. Don't smoke, don't get a lot of sleep. Stress really is bad for you. Don't hit yourself in the face with an ax. You know, these are very obvious things. So that is not the. To me, the secrets are how to get yourself to follow these very.

Oh, interesting. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

What are the ways to motivate? Since we all know it and so few of us do it, how do we do it? And those I did find some very helpful. I'll just give you two. One is just the idea of micro goals. I think about this every day because.

Every morning when I put on, I'm like, should I.

Should I do my 2000 steps in the morning before while I'm emailing, or should I just relax and I say.

No, you know what?

I'm not going to commit to those 2,000 steps, but I am going to commit to a micro goal of putting on my sneakers, my socks, and that's it. I'm not promising anything more. I put on the sneakers, I got a little momentum. I'm like, all right, I'm just going to get on the treadmill for one minute and see what happens.

And I'm on it for a minute.

And that turns into 20 minutes. So for me, micro goals are huge. Huge.

It sounds like that would play out in all aspects of commitment or self commitment.

Yeah, it worked too. Like, yeah, I'm all, I'm gonna commit.

To writing a paragraph and we'll see what happens. I just need to get that out there.

Or I'm gonna commit to one email.

I'm not gonna have to answer like all 25 emails. Just one email and you get the momentum. And so for me is so powerful.

And then another one is let me.

Think I'll just give you one other because there are a bunch of them I find helpful for me.

But one is there are some studies.

About how thinking about your future self really does have a profound impact. And again not just in health, but in work and in anything.

So I, I try to, you know.

There'S the current self that's like, well I could just sit on the couch and eat Cheetos and have a great time or I could be nice to my future self. That future self wants me to get up because that future self won't be around if you don't do something. So I try to treat my future self almost like a separate person, like a friend or a family member who I would try to do something considerate for. And I actually you don't have to do this. But I, I took it very literally and I there are these apps you can get which will physically aid your face. And so I printed out myself as like a 78 year old and I put it, I have it up on my wall and it is, you know, sometimes I'll look at it and be like, you know what, I should treat that older AJ with the respect that he deserves.

That's interesting.

That's. So.

These, these little. The word hacks is not appropriate but I'm going to use the word hacks because I can't think of anything else. Micro goals, future self. Do you have another. You said you quite a few. I'm just curious if you get one more because I can see now it's not knowing what to do is actually being able to execute on. Is there any other way you convince yourself?

Sure.

Well another big one is, is just.

The Odysseus strategy that you might have heard of. You know how basically it's I don't trust myself and I don't trust my self control. And this is based on Odysseus when he was on his ship and they knew they were going to hit the sirens. Who are these who sing and yeah, and he knew that if he heard them singing he would dive in and they would eat him. So he made his sailors tie him to the mast so he couldn't jump over and put wax in his ears. So I find that an incredibly. You have to plan for and plan to resist temptation. So that could be anything from something simple Like I use freedom on my computer, which is the software where it cuts you off from the Internet. You don't have a choice. You don't have a. You can't get unless you restart, which is a pain in the ass and embarrassing.

So that would be one or even.

Something about four food.

Like, I know that if the chocolate.

Chip cookies are at eye level and I pass them, I am going to dive in like Odysseus would have.

So I put them, you know, I.

Will hide them on the highest shelf. I take my iPhone and I put it in another room. So just planning ahead. So you don't have to resist temptation because the temptation is not even there because we only have a certain amount of energy every day allotted to resisting temptation. That's what the studies have shown and I think they've held up. So yeah, if you are passing by those cookies every day, it's eating away at your budget, your energy budget of resisting temptation. So get it away.

I love it. Did you find as you were going through this experience that I don't know if it's like self psychology, but you're, you're trying to set these micro goals. You're looking your future self, your 78 year old picture. Do you have that self talk that says, I know what I'm doing to myself here. I'm trying to, you know, manipulate myself and it's me, so why the hell am I listening to me?

Well, that is funny. That's an interesting. See, I almost had the opposite view, which was I don't trust myself and I am going to. I don't trust my brain and I'm going to babysit the hell out of my brain.

And, and yeah, you could argue, you.

Know, who's babysitting the babysitter, but. But that just never plays into it to me. Metacognition is such a huge part of.

My life and I try all the time to.

If my mind is going down a dark alley, which often happens, I'll try to step back and have that metacognition. Like, wait, what's going on? Why are you doing this? Is this really helpful to you? Let's rein it in, let's redirect.

So, yeah, I am all for, I.

Guess, the importance of different selves. We all have our different selves and they should monitor each other because we should, you know, it's a team. How about that? The brain is like a team. Make, make it work, you know.

Your next book. Thanks a thousand. You started to, I believe, if I remember correctly, you started Thanking everybody at the most micro level, like someone you know makes you a cup of coffee, you're thanking the person who made the coffee, whoever created the coffee. Tell me what the premise is with this guinea pig experience.

You did well, this one began because.

I had read all the studies about gratitude and how it is so crucial to our mental health and our physical health. There are studies about how it helps with your immune system.

I always find in my mind it's.

A battle between the Larry David side and the Mr. Rogerson, the good, optimistic side versus the cynical, pessimistic side. And I. I think I was born with a very strong Larry David says that's my default is sort of defined. The naked. I hear a hundred compliments and one insult. And, you know, I remember the insult. And I don't think I'm alone.

I think humans do have this evolutionarily.

We have a negative bias. So. But it's not very helpful now. It's very, you know, it's bad for our mental health. So this whole project about gratitude was trying to reverse that. And I began a few years ago doing this little ritual. I'm not particularly religious, but before dinner, I would say I'd like to thank the farmer who grew this tomato for our spaghetti and the cashier who sold me the tomato. And my son said, dad, that's fine, but it's also pretty lame because they can't hear you. So if you really cared, you would go and thank these people in person. And I was like, that is a good idea for a project, a book. He earned his supper, and I set off. I chose coffee just because I can't live without it. And I chose. I decided to thank every person I could figure out who had even the smallest role in my morning cup of coffee. And that soon spiraled out of control because once you start to think about it, there are hundreds of people who have, as I say in the book, it doesn't take a village to make a cup of coffee. It takes the world, because I thank the barista. I went to South America and thanked the coffee growers. But there's the logo designer for the coffee place, the cup designer. There's the truck driver who drove the beams, the people who made the road for the truck. There's. It is hundreds. So I went a little overboard, but it was also quite wonderful because it really was a perspective changer, a great way to battle the negative vibes.

Like you said, you went a little overboard. As the guy who lives biblically, how do you find, like, the truck Driver, how did you find these individuals that actually thank them?

Well, a lot of it was I go to the barista and I would thank her and I'd say, you know, who makes your job possible? And she says, well, you know, this ladder, I couldn't get the coffee down, so I figure out the ladder company and call them. And everyone I called, it was like Six degrees of Kevin Bacon. Everyone I called had people that they couldn't do their job without. And. And I loved it because I would call or visit these people in person. And. And some honestly freaked out. Like, they were like, is this a pyramid scheme? Why are you thanking me? But the majority were actually quite grateful. I remember I called the woman who does pest control for the. For the warehouse where the coffee beans are stored, and I called her out of the blue and I said, I know, I know this is kind of strange, but thanks for keeping the insects out of my coffee. And she said, well, that is strange, but thank you. I don't get a lot of positive feedback in my life. And, you know, this is. She described as an anti crank phone call. And. And the weird thing is it wasn't just benefiting her. It definitely benefited me because when you thank people, you get that little warm glow. And so one of the big themes of all my books is acting your way into a new way of thinking.

Oh, interesting.

Yeah, I love that. That phrase, which I did not make up. But if you act as if you're. Even if you don't feel. Even if you feel grumpy, but you force yourself to thank someone, then you will. If you do it enough, you will trick your mind. And so. Well, go ahead.

Well, has it changed? Has it transformed your sense of gratitude?

Oh, absolutely. I mean, I still struggle. Larry. The Larry David side is still quite strong. Yeah, but.

But I have all of these ritual.

I feel it's got to be like exercise has got to be a practice. You know, it just doesn't come naturally to us. So I have all of these ways, these practices where, you know, I send a note every day to my mom with someone who has made my life better. In a small way. When I'm going to sleep, I go through by alphabetical order. I'm like, I'm grateful for something that starts with G, then something that starts.

With H. And then just writing for.

This book, I pledge to write a thousand thank you notes to readers. And that took. I thought it would take like a month. It took two years. Major pain in the ass. It was also wonderful. It was wonderful and it changed me and I should still do it. I'm going to get back to doing more handwritten notes because they. It is, you know, it's very powerful.

And I wonder if that starts like a butterfly effect, if that pest control woman receives this unexpected gratitude for some impact she's having on you, if she will then reciprocate that it's a pay it forward type mentality.

Yeah, I hope so. And I think the studies do show that, because one of the things I addressed in the book is, you know, what. What is the downside of gratitude? Because some people say, oh, it's actually, you know, it can be used by, by corporate America as sort of a tool to keep people placated. Like Walmart says, you should be. You don't need $15 an hour. You can be. You should just be grateful for your job. You should be grateful to work here. So there are people who make that argument, but the research shows that's actually the opposite. Like, the more grateful you are, the more you want to change the world so that other people are grateful. And I saw this, like, with water, coffee is 98.8% water. So I went to the reservoir, the New York reservoir, where we get our water, and it just. I met hundreds of people who make that happen. The chemists, the people weighed out into the reservoir to test it, and the engineers and. And it made me realize, you know, the fact that I can turn a little metal knob and have drinkable water in my house, that is crazy. That is not something that was true for 99% of humanity, and it's still not true for billions of people around the world in developing countries. And it just made me so grateful for that that I, you know, I looked into the best water charities and I found, and I'm not expecting Nobel Prize, though I will take it if offer.

But I'm saying, you know, being grateful.

I think, makes you more outer directed, more open to helping others. So it's this virtuous cycle when it's working.

So when we were having that dinner with Dorie Clark, it was toward the end, at least as I recall, and we're wrapping things up, and someone asked you, it was likely Dory, maybe one of the other authors there, and they said, hey, you got another project going on, AJ And I was listening, and you said, yeah, I'm doing, and I'm paraphrasing here, the world's biggest family reunion here in New York. And then you literally looked at each person in the eye and said, and you're invited. And you're invited. I'm like, what the f is this guy doing? Do you remember that?

I do. Well, absolutely. And you are my cousin. And, yeah, that was an interesting. Also, it was wonderful and nightmarish at the same time. And that project started because I got this weird email from this guy who said, you don't know me, but I've read your books and I'm your 12th cousin. And I thought he's going to say, you know, here's my Nigerian bank account. But it turned out he is part of this group of scientists and researchers who are building a family tree that's not even a tree. It's like a forest. So we're not talking hundreds or thousands of people. We're talking millions of people. 71. Like, last I checked, it was about 80 or 85 million people all connected on one family tree. And I just was like, this is an awesome undertaking because it's not just cool, but it's profound. You know, it's. You as a kid, hear the cliche, we're one big. Humans are one big family. But here, thanks to DNA and the Internet, people are actually proving it and showing how we are, you know, how we are. I'm a cousin with everyone on Earth with you, with, you know, someone who's a mango farmer in the Philippines. And so I thought, this is wonderful. And it was also fun because I got to figure out how I'm related. So, you know, all these people I admire, like, Barack Obama is my. And this is true, is my fifth great aunt's husband's brother's wife's seventh great nephew. So we're very close, very well connected. But.

But the point is very clear. Regardless of your skin color, your gender, your age, your background, your current situation, we are all of the same genealogy. We're all the same biology. We're all. We're a family.

Absolutely. I mean, that is. It's a very simple and almost childlike thesis, but I think it's super important, especially now when divisiveness is so rampant and people are so obsessed with our differences. And I think it's really crucial to remember that we share 99.5, at least 99.5% DNA, all of us. And. And we really do, you know, as I say, that the biblical version of Adam and Eve is not quite accurate, but there really was a man and a woman. There's mitochondrial Eve and Y chromosome Adam. And these were. They didn't necessarily live the same time, but we all. Every human on Earth has their genetics.

Like, they are the ultimate, you know.

5,000 great grand parents of us all.

And.

And.

And it has an effect on my life. Like, on a really practical day, if someone cuts me off in traffic, I really do try to think. You know, my initial response is, God, I hate that person. And I'm like, you know what they are? They are probably my 14th cousin. Maybe I should just try to give them the benefit of the doubt, like that they're, you know, their kid is. Is really sick, or they're, you know, they just got fired, you know, and it really does help to lessen the hostility that I think comes way too naturally.

Plus, you know, if they're family, you may run into them at Thanksgiving. I can't think of a more poignant way to conclude this. AJ an amazing experience that you've gone through. It was an amazing experience interviewing you. Thank you so much for joining me.

Well, thank you. And thank you for all of your books and all the wisdom that you dispense, and it's great to be your cousin.

Likewise, cousin.