287: Solving Pivot Puzzles with A.J. Jacobs

Hi, this is Charles Michael Davis. Toyotathon is on. So stop by your local Toyota dealer for incredible year end deals on the cars, trucks and SUVs known for their legendary reliability. Like the stylish and efficient Camry. The ready for anything rav4.

Or check out a rough and rugged Tacoma or Tundra.

All with great financing and lease options available to qualified customers. Visit buyatoyota.com to find out more. Toyota. Let's go places.

I mean, the monsters are nothing shocking. They're career people who have number one bestsellers and I've never hit number one. The problem is you can always find someone to compare to.

What's next. This is a question we're all having to ask and answer more frequently. I'm Jenny Blake, your host of the Pivot podcast and author of Pivot. The only move that matters is your next one.

For show notes from this episode, visit pivotmethod.com podcast. If change is the only constant, then let's get better at it. Here we go.

Wow. Welcome, aj.

Thank you, Jenny. I am so excited to be here. I feel I should be interviewing you because you've given me so much wisdom.

Oh my goodness. I can't wait to hear. I can't wait to hear. Cause I'm kind of flabbergasted.

I'm gonna repeat your wisdom back to you so that you'll remember it. Well.

I was gonna say welcome to your city. We're in your hometown of New York City, but I'm welcoming you to midtown. We're recording in person, which is very rare for me.

Very unusual. Yes. And we'll see. If we both get Covid, we'll know it was a bad idea.

I actually thought about that.

Me too. I was like, wait, should we be doing this?

No.

Hopefully it'll be such a great podcast that is worth us risking.

Seriously.

I know it will be.

I do too. I was in the bathroom, I was washing my hands and I go, are we just acting like this isn't a thing now? And it's so strange that something like a podcast conversation both of us had a moment before hitting record where we're like, are we gonna get terribly sick and fall ill for three weeks or three months as a result of.

Right, yeah, there's that problem.

Hour long conversation.

Still don't go to places where there are a lot of people. But you are not a lot. You are just Jamie.

Thank you. Yeah, I don't go places where there are a lot of people in general. Although we did have to crawl through like midtown crowds. This is kind of just south of Stanis time.

But it's outside. I'm okay with the outside.

Yeah, that's true. Well, thank you for starting with such kind words. It's very full circle because as you mentioned to me when you emailed, we were kind of brainstorming what we could talk about. Astute listeners will know that you wrote the outsourcing kind of guest essay in the four hour work week that I read that. I think that essay blew a lot of people's minds. Like, was a complete paradigm shift that came from that book. And we're gonna talk about the delegation journey that you've been on since then.

And out since then. Yes. I need your advice on that, myself included. Good.

But first I have to know, could you have even seen that coming? That writing that snippet for the book would have become what it became?

Well, here's the story, because it's a bizarre one. I was writing for Esquire magazine and I came up with this idea. What if I outsource my life? This was a long time ago. So outsourcing was new and it was only banks and law firms were doing it. I'm a writer. So I was like, this sounds great, but I don't have huge amounts of employees, but maybe I could outsource my life. I hired this team of people in Bangalore, India, who had never been personal assistants who didn't exist. And I said, can you answer my phone for me and answer my email and argue with my wife?

That was the funniest part.

Oh, it was great. It turned out great for everyone. They were much more polite than I was. And so I wrote it up and then it became a thing. It was weird that people were like, oh, this actually is a good idea. And Tim Ferriss called me out of the blue and he said, I'm a first time writer. I'm writing my book. He said, it's called Drug Dealing for Fun and Profit. That was the original title.

That's right.

He said, I don't know how to write a book. A can you give me some advice? And I was like, that's some good chutzpah there. I appreciate that. He said, also, can I just print your article as my chapter on outsourcing? I was like, he's going to sell 14 copies. He's a first time writer. I'm not going to be a jerk and ask him for a bunch of money. And then cut to a year later, he calls me and he says, I just want to let you know My book is coming out next week and it's number one on Amazon. And I'm like, you mean number one in 20 something career advice? And he's like, nope, number one on Amazon. And I'm like, you are a genius. How did you do that? First time writing. So anyway, he taught me as well as I taught him. But it's funny, I am glad I gave it to him. I don't regret it at all because it worked out for me. He's got millions of followers and a lot of them know me from that.

So the article ran in Esquire, right? Did it take off? I mean, it was harder for things to go viral back then. Back when we held magazines with our hands. But could you already tell that that article and that topic was gonna become a bit of a sensation?

It definitely went viral in the like 15 year ago version of viral. And I got on Good Morning America and all this. And what was weird was the people in India, the company that I had hired, which had previously only worked for businesses, started a VA arm called I think it's Get Friday. I think it's still that. But yeah, like it actually spawned businesses. So it might be the most influential article I've ever written.

Seriously, because I think you were the one who made that connection. But I love how you go on these personal quests and you get a bug in your bonnet. You know, you get an idea. If I say that right, I always mess up aphorisms. A bee in your bonnet.

A bee is a bug, so it's technically correct.

It's like a bug in your ear and a bee in your bonnet. Oh, See, I always just amalgamate these things. So, like, it's now a bug in your bonnet.

You're creative.

I just, I don't know, it's my puzzler mind that just mashes things together. But I love how you get this kind of itch and you go on a quest. And the thing with the Esquire that became in four Hour Workweek article is you really showed people the connection that any of us. It was almost like what Uber did for transportation, where I remember when early days, a friend would be like, yeah, I push a button and a black car rolls up. And we thought, oh, that's only for the richest people on Earth. And the same thing with a personal assistant. That would have been for the 1%. When you wrote that article, nobody would have dared to dream that each one of us could have our very own personal assistant to get help with adulting.

It was not expensive and this is what I wanted to ask you. I know we're here to talk about my other book, but what happened was I was one of the first, you know, I sort of broke this idea and then I fell off and I went from being one of the best delegators in the world to now I'm one of the worst. And actually reading your book has inspired me to try again and you've given me a lot of tips. But I find it, and I want to know your opinion. I find it hard to delegate because there's the problem of perfectionism. There is the problem of I need someone to delegate my delegating to.

Yes.

I don't have time to figure out what to delegate. And you've given me awesome tips on how to do it. But have you also struggled with that?

Oh, 100%. And I go through waves with it. And so I'm so glad you brought this up because. Right. People might think that once you write an article or you run an experiment like that, that you just brush your hands and you have it solved. It's not really the case. And it does go in waves. And I find that there are times I'm really inspired to build and maintain the infrastructure of delegation and outsourcing. I guess those are sort of related ideas, not necessarily one and the same. And. And then there are times where I get fatigued from it almost. And right now I'm in a period of team sort of transition and I keep stripping things away and I keep simplifying and in doing so I'm taking more on my plate. But I just had a conversation this morning with Julian Smith that will air on the Free Time podcast where I told him that software is my first employee. Like software is the first place I look because it's not the same kind of hands on management that delegation involves.

And by software you mean like automating?

Yeah, automation, documentation. Things that I know are going to make things much easier. Checklist without a person involved. Yes. Writing everything down like this is so simple. But just keeping a record of doctor's appointments and vet appointments and keeping track in one place so that it's much easier to know when the next one's needed. I find the job role as a manager doesn't energize me that much.

Interesting.

I much more enjoy just kind of solo creative projects and playing around like what we're doing now. What do you think for you, having written the kind of starter piece on this for so many people, what roadblocks did you run into after that? Where you know, the knowing doing gap. Like you could know what's possible with delegating and outsourcing. But then there must have been a part of you, and you're a super smart guy, that it wasn't that you didn't know what to do, but some aspect of it must been experiencing friction somehow with it.

There were a couple of points of friction, one which I think is misguided. I felt sometimes kind of like a jerk giving these really boring tasks to people. And I'm like, what kind of a privileged asshole am I? But it's a complicated issue because they were delighted to have the work. So I don't know where I stand on that. Still, I think that the one way to reframe it, which I learned from you, is that you're not freeing up time to watch sitcoms or Netflix. You can free up time to do something even more productive. How can you earn more in that hour that you free up than you are spending on outsourcing? So that I think is a good reframe that is going to motivate me. But yeah, part of it was guilt. Part of it was that, like you, I don't love managing, especially my research. I wish I could outsource some of my research because it is super time consuming. And yet I am glad I can't because research for me takes me down so many unexpected byways. And I don't think that, you know, what interests me may not interest other people. And they just wouldn't follow the same trails and come up with the same material that I did. So I find that very hard to outsource. But like you suggested, make a list. Every time I'm doing something that could be outsourced, write it down so I have a whole list before I go approach someone.

Yeah, because you're so creative and I want to talk about you shared in one of our author calls how you generate ideas. And I'm so curious about your process. I do think that's what makes your writing so unique, is that you are a true journalist in the sense that you don't just hire and outsource your research. Okay, so the new book's on puzzles and problem solving and games and stuff, but you don't just hire a team, have them basically ghostwrite the book, and then you put your name on it. You actually go on these adventures. You go on a quest for two years and you pick up these little tiny nuggets about being in somebody's home or what they say on a Skype call. And I Think that adds so much depth and richness.

Well, thank. Yeah, I definitely could not outsource a lot of my job because my books tend to be these first person adventures. So for this book on my love of puzzles, I went to Spain and competed in the World Jigsaw Puzzle Championship, which was a disaster, but a delight at the same time. Or I went to the headquarters of the CIA to see one of the most famous unsolved puzzles ever. And that, yeah, you can outsource. And I'm very flattered you think I'm able to pick out interesting details because something I'm very aware of while it's going on. I sort of have to have two minds. I have to be in the experience and experiencing, but I have to be also looking and saying, oh, that would make a good detail, that would make a good sentence. And even trying to structure it. Like, how is this going to look in a chapter? What's it going to be the beginning and what's going to be the end, even as I'm experiencing it. So I have that sort of dual.

Mind because writing a book is a big puzzle. How many books have you written now?

I've written six or it depends how you count them. Some of them are like half books.

And I've heard people say both ways that it gets easier. And some people say, no, it doesn't. It's just as hard every time. What's your take? Because it is a sort of. It's a big complex thing. A book is just this. I don't know, something about the scope of it really stretches the human mind to the edges of trying to organize that much complexity and hold it and know how to structure. So has it gotten easier for you?

It has gotten a little easier, mostly because of what you said, which is structure. I will not start a book unless I have a very clear structure and the skeleton that I can then fill in with the flesh. For instance, I wrote a book about trying to be as healthy as possible. And I knew I wanted to write a book about health for many years, but I didn't know the structure. It just seemed overwhelming. But then I don't know when, maybe during one of my daily brainstorming sessions, I said, well, what if I break it down into body part, like even absurdly specific body parts. So you've got the stomach health can be your diet and the lung health. Heart health can be exercise. But what about hand health? There are people who specialize in hand exercises. What about eye health? All of these unexpected body parts to balance the More expected ones. And that is what cracked it open for me and allowed me to write it. So as long as I have a structure. And this puzzle book is about my love of puzzles. And what allowed me to write it is there are so many types of puzzles I never even thought about that I could explore. So everyone knows jigsaw, crosswares, sudoku, but there's also Japanese puzzle boxes, and there's secret ciphers from Victorian newspapers. There's just so many things to explore. And I could break it up into.

Those sections.

I loved reading. They're so funny about how you're addicted to spelling bee.

Oh, are you. Are you a spelling bee fan?

No. I kind of put it down. My dad loves spelling bee, and he works on it all week. And as I read your book, I took screenshots of the book and I sent it to him and I said, I look, there's genius level and this Easter egg of queen bee. If you get everything.

He didn't know about it. Queen bee.

He didn't know about queen bee because he does it by hand. He doesn't use the app, so there would be nothing that flashes and goes, you are a queen bee. But my dad, he doesn't stop until he gets genius level every week. And I asked him, your book sparked a great conversation where I got to ask him about his love of spelling bee. And my dad said to me, I have a system. And I thought it was so interesting how he talking about structure. He has a system. So he has it out. It's by his desk. He comes back to it, he'll do things like write all the letters across the X axis and the y and then make one of those grids and then try to match words. He'll go clockwise, he'll go counter. And so just hearing about tips and tricks that our mind devises to crack a puzzle, it's very interesting because it does apply to writing a book, pivoting, career change, running a business, delegating.

It's all a puzzle, right? I love that you say that. And that is the way I tried to reframe my book, because I do think puzzles. There's something more fun about solving a puzzle than tackling a problem. And in fact, Quincy Jones, the great musician, says his quote is, I don't have problems. I have puzzles. And I love that quote. It's so good because it is so motivating problems to me, if I hear that word, it's like, oh, they're intractable. They're a pain in the ass. Whereas puzzles Is like, oh, this is a challenge. I'm going to solve it. It's solution oriented. I'm going to figure this out. So even just a simple reframe like that can make a huge difference.

I agree. Just turning things. I talk about this in pivot, of just turning a challenge into a question creates the puzzle. It's almost like instead of just stopping at a dead end, like, oh, I don't know how to do this. It's how can. Or how can I improve? Or just turning it into an inquiry. I love. David White calls them beautiful questions. They're the kind that you have to live with, you can't answer in the moment. It's not just a math problem.

Right.

You have to.

Wild problems, I've heard also wild puzzles. We should call them wild puzzles.

AJ Jacobs, the wild puzzler. I picture you dancing on tables at 3am I like it.

I am a wild and crazy puzzler. Well, it's interesting. You bring up pivot and I want to pivot for a second because I thought there are so many overlaps between our work. And one of them is in the Puzzler. My book is all about pivoting your mind. So being cognitively flexible, not necessarily changing your job, but it's the same muscle of being able to. Because to solve a problem, you can't go with your first thought. Your first thought is usually wrong. I mean on purpose. These people design it so that you need to look at it from all angles. And I'll give you an example. There's some very, very tricky British crossword puzzles. They love to mess with your mind even more than American crosswords. So you'll get clues such as gegs. That's the entire clue. G, E, G, S. This kind of.

Thing drives me nuts.

Yeah.

That's why I don't do crosswords. But I admire the people who do love them. This just drives me nuts. The clue, it will drive me nuts.

But hopefully in a good way. Hopefully you'll get the aha moment, which is what we want. But yes. So the clue was just those four letters, G, E, G, S. And I was like, what the heck is a gag? And I even googled it, which I don't like to do. The airport in Portland, airport code is gag. So is that anything? No, it was only when I walked away, which is also another important tip. I walked away, took an hour off, came back and I was like, maybe it has nothing to do with the word gag. And I had to pivot my mind. Well, it's actually the letters E G.G. s. But they're scrambled, so it's scrambled eggs. So that's the answer to the clue is scrambled eggs. So that is a totally different way of looking at the puzzle. And that is, I think, the secret, not just as cracking puzzles, but to cracking life and like you talk about in your books.

We'll be right back just after this.

The Uniswap Wallet makes it easier and safer to own and use crypto. Created by pioneers of the crypto economy, the Uniswap protocol has powered over $3 trillion in trading volume, and it's trusted by tens of millions worldwide. With the Uniswap Wallet, you can discover, swap, and manage your crypto all from your phone. Buy your first crypto assets in just a few taps and start exploring the freedom of decentralized finance with Uniswap. Tap the banner to get started.

When the holidays start to feel a bit repetitive, reach for a Sprite Winter Spiced Cranberry and put your twist on tradition. A bold cranberry and winter spice Flavor Fusion Sprite Winter Spice Cranberry is a refreshing way to shake things up this sipping season, and only for a limited time. Sprite obey your thirst.

It's so interesting, that connection between, well, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, he's like, probably second to Yuen. Tim Ferriss, one of the most quoted authors, like every book is going to cite flow. But what I find so interesting, he says that we find a flow state at the intersection of challenge and skill. And we need to be right at the edge of our skill level, not too much, and we get frustrated. We have to have just enough skill to meet the challenge, and then the challenge has to stretch us just enough. If it stretches us too much, we might quit or give up. And so this dynamic of challenge and skill in that intersection and what you describe with the best puzzles involving this other ingredient, which is insight. And I love how you quote, oh, what's their name, the Japanese Makikaji.

Yes. This man, he's called the godfather of Sudoku because he popularized Sudoku.

Yes. And who just articulated the whole crux of your book, which is with three little punctuation marks, question mark, arrow, exclamation point.

I loved it. I went to go see.

That's a tattoo.

Oh, yeah. That is a good tattoo. If I were going to get one. And he summed up all of puzzles on the whiteboard by drawing those three symbols. Question mark, arrow, exclamation point. And he explained the question mark is when you get to a situation, and you're baffled. And then the arrow is the struggle, the figuring out, the trying different methods. And the exclamation point is that aha moment. And it's not just puzzles. That's the structure of many stories. You know, conflict resolution. So it applies to all sorts of things in life. And the other important piece of wisdom that he imparted was that you have to embrace the arrow. You have to embrace that middle part, the struggle, and start to enjoy it, because you may never get to the exclamation point.

And the exclamation point is so short in comparison to the journey.

That's a great point.

It's funny because the way I say this in pivot is that the punctuated moments of success. And they are. They're short compared to the process of working toward them.

Right? Yeah. So you were saying it.

I just like how you've really described that. It's much more rewarding when we solve puzzles where there's a shift in paradigm.

I do love that.

And that's where I think life change is so interesting. I mean, I met my husband walking down the street, opposite directions. And I say, when I tell the story, it's as if the universe spun on its axis. And I know that's cliche, but it was a true legitimate. New York City, meet cute. We're walking opposite ways. And I saw his sparkling brown eyes, and time slowed. And it was as if the whole universe just shifted in that moment. And as soon as he passed, and then all of a sudden, everything was different after that. And it's true, because I ended up marrying this person, and I never even thought I would get married.

Just what happened? I know you've told him before, but what happened after?

So he is a painter, and he and his friend were looking for overalls. And I joke that funny that his request to the universe was, I'm looking for overalls. Or at least let's say the universe planted in his mind, you are looking for overalls. But then the wink of it was, there's a girl in overalls, you know, because he didn't want a girlfriend at that time. But sure enough, I'm walking. I was almost home, 20ft from my apartment. He mouthed the words, nice overalls. He didn't say it, but he mouthed it. And as I passed, I always liked to be polite. So I turned around and I said, thank you so much. And then he and his friend yelled because we had passed already. They had yelled like, where'd you get them? And I'm like yelling, Agnes. And so we came back together and then started talking.

That is a great story. Yeah.

And then I sat on a bench, I was like, I texted my friends, I said, overalls are the new Tinder. Cause this is the second time that I had met someone while wearing these. And I said my overall ROI on these. I was all about the puns because they were really excited. Expensive. At a time where I should not have spent $400 on overalls.

Wow.

I know. But they had. They landed me a date the week prior. I was browsing in McNally Jackson books on Prince street and I was browsing and that guy just came over and was like, do you want to get tea? I'm like, okay, sure. These overalls, they're like magic. Too bad they don't fit anymore. Frigging pandemic.

The real puzzle is how I'm going to fit these overalls again.

That is fantastic. Oh my gosh.

Yeah. So why did I get on that tangent? Oh, just kind of seeing things in a new light. The shift, the insight around it.

And seeing overalls are not usually considered like magnets. So that's a good shift right there.

These were form fitting overalls.

All right.

Well, let's put it that way. Oh, my goodness. At the time of this recording, I'm on a duolingo streak. So I go on and off with duolingo and I'm two thirds of the way through learning Arabic.

Wow.

I don't know if it counts in anywhere near the realm of puzzles or what you describe in your book, which I did read. I loved your book.

Thank you.

But as I was reading your book, I was thinking about my daily duolingoing and how well they gamify. First of all, they gamify language learning like no other. It's incredibly sticky. But particularly learning Arabic is so interesting because it's kind of a puzzle. And especially the more complex the sentences get, I'm having to process all these characters that I'm not used to.

Oh, yeah, that's like a code. Sure.

Yeah. And it's kind of feel that every day I'm kind of cracking the code and it's incredibly rewarding. And I think that's partly what makes language learning so sticky and compelling, is that it actually unlocks part of the universe. It unlocks part of the world.

Right.

People communicating ideas, even the way things are phrased in Arabic is so beautiful oftentimes compared to English. And I'll just give one example. One time, Michael, my husband, told me, he said, I Have roses in my cheeks. And I thought, what? Roses in your cheeks? Oh, he was saying, he's blushing. And Michael's fluent. He grew up speaking fluent English, French, and Arabic. So it's not like, oh. He didn't know how to say blushing in English, but for a moment, he could only recall the Arabic. And look how much more beautiful. I have roses on my cheeks compared to the translation.

Yeah, that's great.

So where does language learn fit with this notion of puzzles?

Well, I had not thought about it, but you're absolutely right. It is a puzzle in so many ways. And it's like a code unlocking a code and a revelation. And there is some science that puzzles are good for your brain, for slowing down cognitive decline. But it's not just puzzles. It is any intellectual activity that keeps you challenged. And the other big one that people talk about is learning languages. So they are very linked in that way.

It's almost. It kind of reminds me, I know jigsaw puzzles weren't your favorite. Maybe you came to like them a little more.

I did. I did.

I'm a convert, I think, of language learning is like this ginormous jigsaw puzzle, and you can only fill in the edges. And if you know 10 words, that's better than zero words. And I know not all jigsaws. We don't always start with the edges, as I learned from your book. But it is this sense that slowly but surely, you plug tiny piece and one tiny piece, and that there is a moment of escape velocity, which I'm not quite there with Arabic, but where you're like, I can communicate in Spanish. I can speak to a taxi driver about existential ideas for an hour or two, and that makes me happy. I'm very awkward, and I sound terrible, but, hey, we're able to cover some ground.

Wow, that's amazing. I love that. I find that. But word puzzles in particular, have made me so much more aware of language, of the English language, and have changed the way I read the news, because word puzzles are all about one word having multiple meanings. So, like the word trunk, is it the trunk of an elephant? Is it the trunk of luggage? Is it the trunk of your torso? And you have to look at it from all different angles, and it makes you realize the English language is quite slippery. There are these, what my friend calls them suitcase words that have multiple. Multiple meanings you can pack into one word. And it makes me a little more. I wouldn't say suspicious. A little more aware, in a good way, of how language can be Manipulated. Like the word freedom can mean tons of different things. So just saying the word freedom is sort of like a Pavlovian reflex. Oh, that's good. Freedom is good. But you know, there are tons of ways that it has drawbacks and tons of uses that are not so good. So anyway, that has been a huge boon to my life is just being more aware of language.

That reminds me of PAC's Political Action Committees where they'll be like the American Society of Freedom and Beauty. And it's like, oh, we're the gun lobby or whatever. It is just how they name things. The word mishmash.

Exactly. Yeah. Like all of those industry lobbying groups, like you say, they all sound great.

Speaking of play on words, I love puns. I love them, I love a good pun, I appreciate them. Why do people rag on puns so much?

Well, it's interesting, I became a little more of a convert of puns because I was a little snobby about puns.

Because people do say they're pun derful.

It's punishing.

Yeah, there you go.

But yeah, people would always say it's the lowest form of humor. But some of the puns that you run across in the puzzle world, because they are obsessed with puns, are just so sophisticated and ridiculous that I have to admire them. And like I say, they have this bigger lesson, which is that words are slippery and you have to really look at them from many different angles. So I am much more pro pun than I used to be.

Speaking of words, I want to talk about idea generation and how you solve the puzzle of what to write next. Because a book, and your quests in particular that become your books are a big commitment.

Yes.

So tell us a little bit about your daily brainstorm and idea generation practices and then how the heck do you puzzle out what you want to tackle next?

Great question. Like you said, I love having 15 minutes and I still do. I did it this morning, 15 minutes that I allot. I turn off my computer and my iPhone and I just brainstorm. And it could be about anything. It could be about book ideas, article ideas. A lot of the time it's just freeform. So I'll look around and I'll see something like, you know, maybe I see a snowman outside my window and I'll think, what can I do with that? How can I play with that idea? Maybe it's a snow woman or a snow non binary person. Or instead of a pipe, they have a vape now. So as you can see, 99% of these ideas are crap and they are never going to be used for anything. But I find it so helpful because I do believe to a certain extent the brain is a muscle and that the more you're able to be creative, the more creative you'll become. The more new pathways in your brain that you're able to create, then you're not going to get stuck in the same kind of thinking. So I do honestly think it helps me enormously. Even if 99% of those ideas are never going to be used, then there is that 1% that is used. As to your second part of the question, how do I know which one? It's a little bit of a challenge. I would say two things. When I keep thinking of an idea like two weeks later, three weeks later, that is a hint that maybe it's important. Another is I love to tell people ideas and look at their faces. Now you can tell when their eyes light up or they kind of glaze over. I will say that I don't have a perfect record because, for instance, this book only came about because I was writing a completely different book for three months. I had a contract for a whole other book that I still think is an interesting idea. And I'll just tell you briefly, it was all about fact. How do we know what we know? The whole post truth crisis. So it was fact checking my life. How do I know the world is round? How do I know the New York Times is more reliable than Newsmax? How do I know my wife loves me? She says she loves me, but I'm not in her mind. And it was an interesting idea, but it came down to the structure that we talked about. I didn't have a good structure on it and I felt lost and overwhelmed. And my agent knew that I loved puzzles. And he said, why don't you just devote a little time to thinking about some pivoting?

Wow, Nice product placement.

Yeah.

That'S what I'm here for. So that is how this came about. And once I thought about and figured out the structure and I convinced the editor to let me switch topics completely and it was a much more pleasant two years of research.

Oh my gosh. Can you imagine just the. The vibe and the milieu of your life, like diving into facts and truth and the current climate versus the puzzles, this passion that you have.

Exactly. And puzzles can touch on the deep and profound things too. But yeah, this. I would have had to spend time with a lot of conspiracy theorists and flat earthers and it would have been fascinating but also stressful.

People who don't believe in birds, you.

Know, I love it. I love the Birds aren't real movement. That is a great one.

Oh, my gosh, it's really wild. And isn't it funny how, as with the puzzler, like, it's right under your feet? I think that's something that I found with pivoting and people who I spoke to where they said, in hindsight, everything was leading me to this or. It seems so obvious. I'm sure that's with any individual puzzle you're working on, but also you landing on this topic for the book, it's right under your nose. You're working on puzzles every morning. It's so true, you know, but it's so close sometimes it's hard to see.

Yeah, it was funny. Someone once interviewed me a few years ago and said, what are your hobbies? What are your passions? And I was like, I don't know, I don't think I have any. But I had puzzles. They were so part of my life that I didn't even consider it.

Like you said, I find this hobby question so funny because I'm like, I don't know. Just silence, reading, sleeping. Do these count? You know, like going out to heat. In New York, when you spoke about idea generation before, you were giving these kind of rules of thumb about what you do and, you know, you shared things like alter something that exists, do the opposite, look for the opposite or the inverse. Push things to the extreme. So when you're sitting there every morning, are you literally looking around and you see what's in your environment? Or does something drop from the sky into your mind and then once the thing drops, like the snow person example or something conceptual? Do you have these almost like calisthenics, these little exercises? What's the opposite? What's. What's the inverse? What's the extreme?

I've never gone into so much detail, but you're absolutely right. And I think I want to teach my sons this because I found it so helpful. First of all, I do sometimes try to have magazines, old style magazines around, like the Week, and I'll flip through it and I'll get to an article I don't know about windmills. And then that's a spark for me to start brainstorming about that. And weirdly, yes, I do sometimes very consciously employ these. Like you said, to think about it upside down, think about it backwards, take it to the extreme. That's kind of how the outsourcing came out. I was like, what can I do with outsourcing? What If I outsource everything in my life, like push it to the extreme, not just outsourcing my low end work, outsourcing my reading bedtime stories to my kids. So those ones you mentioned, combining it with other ideas, you mentioned some of the great ones, I got them all from you.

I took them right from you. They're just something you said. And I thought the interesting thing about let's say outsourcing, I don't know that anyone else would have thought to outsource a fight with their wife. I don't know how you have this sense of humor or the level of detail. I guess that the heuristic in that case would be something completely unexpected. We're back to the puzzle and the paradigm shift. Because what you did there was really work. An angle that I just don't even think. Like I don't even think Tim Ferriss would have thought to outsource a fight with his girlfriend, quote unquote. You did like your mind worked in a kind of tricky, sneaky way where that's really outside of the scope. But then it made us all laugh.

Thank you, Jenny. Yeah, well, I think part of it is, yeah, that. But I'm sure I don't even remember, but I'm sure I did 10 things and nine of them didn't work. But the one with outsourcing my argument to my wife, that worked spectacularly. So that's the one I'm going to write about.

And I guess it makes for a good story to tell. I mean the book project where everyone is your cousin, right? Which by the way, your editor for this project has the same name. I won't say it on the podcast, but the same exact name as my sister in law. And I just thought, but there it is, we're all somehow connected.

Wait, the same first and last name?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

How has your experience been with editors? Because I know you've done some traditional publishing and some on your own, right?

At every book project, while my dad is always very hands on editing because we both just like you, love words, love puzzles, love problem solving. My dad is really good about concision. We have a shortcut. See, it's too many words to even say Occam's Razor. But Occam's Razor is like the simpler the better. You know, if something can be said in fewer words, it should be. And that efficiency is the essence of Occam's Razor. So my dad will just write Occam now. And he literally there were all these places in the book where he Would eliminate three words at a time and just put an adverb. So instead of I will go to the store. It's like I'm going. I don't know. Anyway, just a. I love that I'm.

Going to have him read my book.

You should. He's ruthless. Which is a good thing.

That's good.

Do you want a gloves off edit? That means that he is not going to hold back. He's going to spelling bee that thing. He is going to look at it with a closest read and the red ink like every page. But it will be so much better for it. He catches everything. And you know what? The mind of a puzzler. Because he's very well read and knows that factoids about absolutely everything. He catches things no editor would ever catch because it's just the depth of sort of the edges of knowledge or how things work or metaphors, science, biology. So he catches all kinds of stuff.

That nobody else finds amazing. All right, I'm in.

Just as a test run a manuscript by.

Well, I will say I love your writing and I can't remember if this was you or one of your guests, but I quoted you this morning or one of our guests.

So honored. Wow.

Because it was such a concise way of saying it. Which was compare leads to despair. I love that.

I know that I can't take the credit. I do say compare and despair a lot. It's great. Yeah.

I feel that it happens to rhyme, but it also happens to be true.

Do you experience compare and despair?

Oh yeah. Comparison is the thief of joy is what I want.

That's another good one.

But I actually like compare and despair. Like that's stickier. Oh yeah. No, it is terrible. I have to.

What's your comparison? Monster. I think of these like the Monsters Inc. Monsters. Like they're generally friendly but they're just kind of like hovering around causing a ruckus.

Oh yeah. I don't think they're generally friendly. I hate them.

I guess I try to befriend mine and just say you.

Well, that's a good way to do it. I mean I can tell you what the monsters are and then how my strategies for trying to focus on them. I mean the monsters are nothing shocking their career. People who have number one bestsellers and I've never hit number one. The problem is you can always find someone to compare to.

Especially now where everything's global and hyper connected.

Right.

It'll only take a few seconds.

Yeah. Jeff Bezos. I'm not in his mind, but he's probably really pissed that Elon Musk has $8 billion more than he thought about that.

I actually thought about that because like in Duolingo I battle with these people. It makes you weirdly competitive and it's like, oh, Jeff just took your number one spot in the Bronze league. And then you're like, what are you doing, Jeff? I'm gonna get you. And then it's like very competitive. But I find myself getting sort of antagonistic with Jeff and like, oh, I'll show you Jeff. And then like kind of working with psychology of when I'm gonna use my Turbo boost. It's really weird cause that there's a.

Turbo boost in there.

Oh yeah, that's hilarious. I don't have the side of me outside of it, but it's. And I thought, I bet Jeff Bezos was like, I'm going to get you, Elon.

Right. It's definitely a double edged sword competition. It sometimes is really great for motivating, but it can also make you miserable. I will say one that has been good for me because it's very low level competition. It's more support group type competition. Because I decided at the beginning of the year that my fitness goal would be I had been doing the 10,000 steps, which there's no real science behind. It could be 7,000, 8,000, but it made me feel like I had a nice goal. So 10,000 steps. But I was getting bored of it. I happen to from my book on health. I have been walking on my treadmill while I type my emails for many years. And I do it at an angle. So I'm sort of walking up a hill and it keeps track of your vertical climb. And it turned out I was walking about 1,000ft a day, like the height of the Eiffel Tower. And I looked it up and I was like, I think that I could walk to space in the year in 2022, I could walk to space because it's only 330,000 miles to the edge of space. So I could be like Bezos and I don't even need a rocket. And I put it on Facebook and it was delightful because I got. But dozens of people were like, I want to walk to space too. So we have this Facebook group of all these people and then there's a spreadsheet and we're all semi competing, but semi cheering each other on as we walk to space. And I think that what I also like about it is there is research on when you try a new. Instead of just having the same goals all the time. If you stretch. If you pivot to an stretch, then.

Yeah, okay, Stretch a pivot. Yeah. Well, the problem is now the word became totally ubiquitous. Like, we can't not use it.

Right. You were ahead of the curve. That was great.

Just a little bit. And lean startup, because they talk about pivoting, I want it to be, what's the lean startup for people? So we have to give Eric Ries full credit.

Okay. Can I tell you, I have written about my favorite pivot in the business world.

Oh, yeah? Which one?

My first book was reading the encyclopedia, so I read like the history of everything. And I read the history of this guy named Welch, who was a Presbyterian minister, I believe. Anyway, he was very religious, but he was also anti alcohol. So he decided he wanted to make non alcoholic communion wine so people could be religious, but they wouldn't have to drink wine when they went to mass. And he made this grape juice that was non alcoholic and maybe it sold a little, but no one really cared. And so then his son came along and his son totally pivoted the organization. It's like, forget this wine business. Let's sell it to kids as a treat. Grape juice is like a little treat. And that's how Welches became the Grape Juice Kings.

Whoa. Amazing. Never knew.

Yeah, that was smart, right?

That is smart. I find these stories very interesting and looking at.

Exactly.

Well, there we go again. Just a paradigm shift looking at a problem from another angle. So we were talking about compare and despair, and you said you had some solutions or some ways that you get out of that particular thinking trap. What else has worked for you when you find yourself falling into that?

Well, I guess two come to mind. I'm sure I have others that are going to come to mind later. But the first is, I do love that story about Holland. Do you know that story?

No.

It's a fable. It's not real. It was written by a woman whose kid, I think, had down syndrome. But it was a fable where she talked about, imagine if you plan on going to Italy and you've planned this trip for years and you've mapped out all of these wonderful restaurants and gondolas that you're going to go on. And you get on the plane and it lands in Holland instead. You got on the wrong plane and there's no way to get out of it for a week. Maybe you can't afford to go. And she says, so the key is, learn to love Holland. There are some wonderful things about Holland. It's not Italy. Maybe it's a Little duller. Maybe it's not as exciting and sexy, but Holland has its own charms. If you end up in Holland, learn to love Holland.

Right? And then maybe some completely surprising and unexpected thing will happen in Holland. So we'll change the trajectory of your life. You don't know exactly. That wasn't going to happen in Italy.

It could be the greatest thing that happened.

You never know. And then sometimes I think about. I know not everybody believes that things happen for a reason because there's so many terrible things that happen on the planet. But we don't know what we missed. Like, Michael recently traveled to Beirut and he, gosh, so many flight delays and missed a flight, missed a connection, yada, yada, yada, lots of delays and drama. And you can complain about all that, which is complainable. You know, it's an annoying situation. And I had that happen recently too. On the other hand, who knows? Maybe you were gonna sit next to someone who had Covid on the original flight. And the fact that you missed it was a good thing. So even though you got in 12 hours later, there's some missed thing. You know, I don't know. We can never know. I love the parable, the Zen parable. We'll see. You cannot judge a situation.

Is that the one where the kid breaks his leg and the horse. Yeah, I love that one too.

Yes, exactly. I always forget the exact details, but like, his son is riding the horse, breaks his leg. How terrible. We'll see. Military comes to recruit, the sun can't go. How wonderful. We'll see. The sun falls ill, you know, and so on, so on. There's always a will see mindset. And I love what you said with the Holland story of appreciate, where you did end up with what is here.

Yeah. I mean, someone once asked me because my kids are now teenagers and they had just had twins and I have twins. And they said, is there a light at the end of the tunnel? And I said, not really, not for me. But I've gotten used to the light in the tunnel. Sometimes that light in the tunnel can be quite nice. It could be fluorescent. So you gotta. Yeah. Appreciate the light in the tunnel as well as out of the tunnel.

I mean, that seems like a perfect response of parenting in general. I'm not a parent, I don't have kids. But like, the tunnel changes, right? Because I've heard parents say each age group brings the next set of challenges and problems. You can't even imagine when you were in the previous one. So you might get through one tunnel just to have that next tunnel start.

Exactly. And so, yeah, it's like we said, the arrow between the question mark and the exclamation point. You gotta learn. You gotta learn to love the arrow, the tunnel, whatever the metaphor.

Right. Okay. This is less a compare and despair of my own, but more a curiosity. You have landed on some big podcasts. I know you're friends with Tim, of course, after all these years, Dax Shepard. You were on Sam Harris. I'm just so curious. A, do you ever get nervous going on these big shows for these interviews? And then B, is it a different experience with all these different hosts? Like, does each show these big shows that I think many of us subscribe or listen to?

Right.

What's it like for you? Because you actually landed them. I only dream about them. I only prepare for them as a conceptual.

Well, I first have to say I am a huge fan of your podcast. Oh, thank you, Neville. And so this is just. This is great. An honor for me.

Oh, thank you.

Secondly, yeah, I totally get nervous and I over prepare. Maybe not over prepare, but I definitely come up. Like you saw. I have. Yeah.

AJ Brought paper. It's like papers, pencils.

I haven't had to use them at all. Because you're such a good interviewer.

But does it help you? Let's say, like, you were on Dax Shepard. That's a big deal. And you probably didn't know Dax personally. Right.

As you had mentioned, a lot of it is serendipity. He is a big fan of Sam Harris. Just like Tim, who I met very early on Sam Harris. I had emailed when he wrote his very first book. So we had a relationship, and he had me on a couple of times. And then Dax had heard me on Sam Harris, and that led to me being on Dax. And I was nervous about Dax Hubbard because he's a loose cannon. Like, you don't know what he's going to have.

You don't know where it's going to go.

So you just have to let go and hope and actually talking about things that could have turned out badly, that turned out okay. He like you when I go on, we have a little chat beforehand, and then you start to record. That's like 99% of podcasts. So I was waiting on Zoom. He comes and sits down. He's like, hey, what's up? And I thought this was pre talk. So I'm like, my office is super hot. So I took an ice pack and I put it down my pants and we talk about that for like two minutes. And then I'm like, so when are we starting? He's like, oh, we've been recording. I'm like, what the hell?

It could have been a disaster. But people found it charming.

I found it really funny. Yeah. I was like, go, aj. I'm like, way to just meet him at that little fun factoid. You know, I actually gave you a hat tip because I'm like, I don't have the courage. So it's funny that you didn't know you were recording.

I did not have the courage.

It was really funny. A little funny.

And the thing is, I could so relate because yesterday in New York city, it was 91 degrees and humid. Our AC doesn't work, and I thought about you in that moment. I'm like, AJ Sat there with an ice pack to record, and I would have done the same thing. Yeah.

It's good to see you turn on.

The AC when you're doing a podcast.

Right, Right. So that was some puzzle solving right there. How to keep cool.

You actually did bring notes today, and I said before we were actually recording, I said, I just want to know about the notes.

Sure.

Does it help you to have notes in front of you for me that would probably delay me, like, if I had to be referencing notes or something.

Well, I'll tell you two things. One, if it's a good podcast like this one, I don't have to look at the notes. It's more of a life raft. And it's the same thing when I've given some TED talks and told stories at the moth. And those are super stressful because they don't want you to write things down. But I always write it down and keep it in my back pocket, so it's always there. And I've never had to use it, but I just know. And then this. When I write things down. You are so good that you.

I'm just, like, peeking over them. Well, you can take those notes. It's so cool.

You would do it better than me. But to me, the key is to break it up into sections so that they're easy to find. I always forget to mention what's in the book.

Yeah, what's in the book? Big themes. What else? Adventures.

Adventures.

So fun.

And then, like, reception so far so I can tout that other people like it.

The social proof, such as the New York Times calls it a romp.

Both fun and funny.

We use the nom.

Thank you.

I liked that. Your nom de puzzle is one down.

One down.

Yes, one down. Is there more to it? One down. Saturday.

Well, another thing about writing a book is how do I start it? That's always a puzzle. And this crazy situation happened and when it happened, I'm like, okay, this could work as a start. And I'll just tell the anecdote quickly.

Tell the anecdote and tell what qualifies as a starting quote to a book. Like, what criteria does it need to meet?

Oh, interesting. Okay, so both the anecdote is that a few years ago I appeared as the answer to a clue in the New York Times Kronzer puzzle. And as a word nerd, this was like the highlight of my life. My wedding was pretty good, but this was the holy grail. And then my brother in law emailed me and he did congratulate me, I will give him that. But then he pointed out correctly that it was the Saturday New York Times puzzle that I appeared in. And if you know the puzzles, they get harder and harder throughout the week.

So here's the compare and despair.

Compare and despair. Great point.

Because Saturday's not good enough. Now that's like a life achievement. You're in the Saturday crowd.

I should have been so over the moon. And yet I'm like, oh yeah, all these answers are totally obscure and no one knows who they are. And that was his point. It's like, this is not a compliment. So I actually told that story on a podcast and it happened. One of the New York Times crossword makers was listening and so coincidentally listening.

What podcast was that?

It was a Stephen Dubner, not Freakonomics, but he had like a game show about what do you know? So this guy heard it and decided to save me and put me in a Tuesday puzzle, which is not Monday, but Tuesday is huge, you know, much better than Saturday. And I don't belong there.

But he put you there. The grass is greener on Tuesdays.

I guess grass is greener now, it's.

Gonna be greener on Monday. Will, if you're listening.

I need my Monday.

I will not die happy in feeling.

Oh, okay, you're going to tell me about the opening anecdote, what bar it has to cross.

That's a great question and I've never been asked it. We'll talk about systematizing. When I was working in a magazine, I had sort of a list of 10 ways that make for interesting openings. And one of them is almost a list. So when I wrote a book about the encyclopedia, reading the encyclopedia, when encyclopedia still existed, and so it was like a page long list of all of the crazy things that I had Learned just in chapter A. Like about aardvarks and Abbott and Costello and Abyssinia. Just like the weirdest facts from a. And that I thought could grab people because it's like a list. I will say this is slightly related. What I find works in writing in general is you've got to mix it up. So you've got to mix up the length of the sentences, long and short. You want to mix up the type of sentences, questions, declarative sentences, commands. And you want to mix up whether you're writing a list or stable, more traditional prose, which you do beautifully in your books.

Funny, I think about the same things. It's like a little potpourri. We used to have some little facts, little anecdotes, little metaphor here and there, like sprinkling.

Right. Especially now when our brains are very much wired to look for changes. So, yeah, that's a key for me. It has to grab the reader. Possibly it's a mix. Possibly it's one where it's sort of a twist, like a puzz. You know, you think you're reading about something else.

It's very Gladwellian as well. Like, you start an open question and then all of a sudden it's Steve's jobs when he was a kid and he had a different name. And they're like, wow, exactly. You know that style, how he just puts like 1, 2, 3, and then the puzzle unfolds.

Right. That's very attractive. Yeah, that is very engaging. I like that.

We'll be right back, just after this.

Welcome to Walgreens. What can I help you with today? Hi, I need a last minute gift.

For a secret Santa.

Something thoughtful, impressive, not a fruitcake. We've got Ferrero chocolates, artisan coffees, even a spa kit. Any vibe you're going for? Whatever says, wow, this guy's great at giving gifts. How about this premium skincare gift set? Just needs a bow. Will look like you planned it weeks ago.

Well, happy holidays gifts, holiday decor and more.

The holiday road is long. We're with you all the way. Walgreens. So good, so good, so good. New markdowns are on at your Nordstrom Rack store. Save even more. Up to 70% on dresses, tops, boots and handbags to give and get because I always find something amazing.

Just so many good brands I get.

An extra 5% off with with my Nordstrom credit card Total queen treatment. Join the Nordy Club at Nordstrom Rack to unlock our best deals. Big gifts, big perks. That's why you rack.

I like how you have a list of 10 that even when you were writing articles, because the articles, it's intense and you have to churn them out. You have to keep coming up with ideas.

Right.

That to have your framework of 10 ways you could start an article that you had developed.

And I don't even remember what they are. Two of them were the ones we talked about, but I don't remember what the others are.

You gotta solve that puzzle because you gotta pass that to your sons as well.

Yeah. And what about you and how you start a book? What do you think of when you start one?

I like to start the book. Funny, no one's ever asked me that, A.J.

Well, I got the idea. Wow. I got the idea from someone else.

It's true, though. No one's asked. I like to start with the moment of being in the problem and its dialogue. Both pivot and. And free time at least started with this moment of being in the belly of the beast, the belly of the problem beast. So with pivot, it was a series of internal monologue of I must be crazy. I don't know what's wrong with me. Why can't I figure out what's next? I'm never going to be happy. And it was just this chain of thoughts that one might have when they have a perfect on paper job but feel restless. And then with free time, I just knew very early on how it was going to open, which is this text exchange I had with my friend of like, I wanna burn it all down. And I literally describe, I'm sitting there on a Tuesday and I tell my friend, I wanna burn it all down, and I'm eating ice cream and I'm depressed and I'm on the couch and just I feel that I wanna highlight the moment that I know so many people can relate to. Yes. And I always, with my books, I look for the thing that a person is gonna say to their friend. So it has to be not in author speak, not in biz speak. It has to be the language somebody uses with a friend, where the friend goes, I call it Book Rx. What book will the friend prescribe? So if somebody says, God, I just don't know what's next. Oh, well, you got to read Pivot by Jenny Blake. Or if they say, ugh, I just want to burn it all down in my business, or I'm totally overwhelmed, oh, you got to read free time. And so I try to identify in their language what the problem that they would tell their friend. And it just cannot be in marketing biz speak that's so crucial.

I love that. Yeah, that is huge. I think that was one of the other times, like an anecdote, a moment that the reader can relate to completely, and that exemplifies the problem.

I love that there's another skill that you have just as we start to wind our way down, sadly. Because I could just sit here all day with you.

Why? Not until we get Covid.

No, we're at our isolation chamber now.

That's right.

A windowless room where Covid's hanging out.

You are really courageous, it seems, about reaching out to people. And I appreciate, with all your books, the level of access that you achieve in terms of who you're able to interview. So I just love that you went straight to the top of interviewing Will Schwartz, the New York Times. I'm not going to mess up his official title, but I don't even know.

New York Times Puzzle Master is what I'm called.

All these legends. Do you ever have. I don't know if it's imposter syndrome or just a shyness about reaching out to these people, or are you pretty bold about you'll reach out to anybody? How do you get them to actually agree to talk to you?

Yes, I definitely have the imposter syndrome sometimes. And I have to do the acting as if. Like, as if I'm bold. And then I become a little more bold. I do try to also convince myself, which is partly a delusion, that. That this is good for them. I try to remind myself, you know what they want to get their word out, and hopefully a lot of people will read this book. So I try to convince myself this is not necessarily an imposition. Maybe I'm doing them a favor, even though sometimes not. And then just being okay with rejection because I'm lucky enough that I got some great people for this book and others, but I got a bunch of people who said no. So what you see is just the yeses. So you're a biased view of. Because I don't write about all the people who said no.

That's the next book.

Actually, it's funny because I wrote a book about gratitude and I had this long acknowledgments, pages long of all the people who know.

Naturally, you would need to. It even goes in an appendix online or something.

But I thought if I were in a grumpy mood, I could have written a no thanks. Like an anti Acknowledgements. Like no thanks to all the people who didn't return my calls. Funny, right?

Or you would need to thank them for not returning your call because.

Right.

It led to this, it led to something else.

Great point.

Do you think you're going to stick with the quest format? You landed on this a while ago. It sounds like maybe even your Esquire pieces were these personal quests. Have you always had this in you? How did this become your style?

I'd always loved the genre because there's a writer named George Plimpton who did it with sports a lot. He would join a professional baseball or football team. I loved a book called Nickeled and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich. She worked as a waitress and a hotel maid. So I've always loved it. A lot of times people say write what you know, but I felt I didn't know very much. I'm highly curious, but I didn't have like, you know, if I were going to write a memoir about my parents. They're quirky characters, but no, they weren't spies or that you know of. That's true. Maybe that will be the next book.

That's for the fact finding book.

So yeah, I felt I had to sort of create interesting circumstances and explore it that way and then write about that.

And then your wife seems pretty good humored too, that she kind of goes along with many things.

I'm so grateful for her because I get lots of emails. Luckily, readers say your wife is a saint because she's a great balance. You know, it's almost like if I could have written a character that would be the straight person, you know, the sort of. No, I'm not going to act like, you know, we're in biblical times. So it creates a contrast.

Yeah. Well, okay. I don't know why that took me back full circle to the beginning, but. Oh, because your wife thinking about delegation, did you get a whole influx of inquiries after you were in four hour work week? And even times after you've been on these big podcasts, do you get a whole flurry of stuff that comes in.

Yeah. I am glad I did this. For a while I had on my website I get, I'm sorry if I can't answer all my emails. And then I decided there's only so.

Much treadmill time you can do.

Yeah. But I also decided that was kind of a snobby. It wasn't a good look. So I do actually try to respond to every email, even if it's only, you know, thanks so much. You made my day. So that's probably something I should be outsourcing. I don't know.

I really can see it Both ways. I know people. It means something to them to respond to each one, no matter how short.

Well, I'm in a lucky position because I could, if I have one of the outsourcers, do it. It's almost like, you know. Right.

You're living your message.

When I wrote about outsourcing, like, this is exciting to get an email. I don't know exciting, but it fits in with the brand of outsourcing.

It does. Yeah, that's true. Especially if it was warm. If it was. It was warmly crafted.

Yeah. Even better than something I would write.

Can you imagine if your VA was like, hi, Jo, thanks so much for writing. I checked out your website. I love what you're up to. And you actually gave them the assignment to add warmth.

That's a good one. Thanks, Jenny. I'm gonna do that.

That's a good experiment.

Yeah. They're gonna be the best correspondence with readers ever. Like, take it to a new level.

A next level. Yes. And then I always like to say, and part of their charge would be to say, I'll make sure AJ sees this. And, like, I'm going to personally carry your email to AJ and by the way, like, oh, and I found this article for you related to what you asked him about. I mean, it would just so interesting, like to roll out the red carpet. But you're not the one doing it. But you're the one.

Right.

As far as creating that feeling for them to email.

That is fun. Well, I will say, when I wrote the Thanks a Thousand book, which was about gratitude, as part of the marketing, I announced on my website I was going to write 1000 handwritten thank you notes. I didn't really think through how much 1000 is.

That's a lot. Did you do it?

It took me a year and a half, and I personalized them all so they had, you know, I asked them to write about themselves so I could personalize it. So I could only do like three or four a day. It was a pain in the ass. Pain in the hand.

Pain in the hand.

It was also awesome. I felt so connected to the readers, and I loved learning about what they responded to and about their lives and their weird requests, like, draw a dog eating a taco. I'm like, all right, I'll try. I'm not an artist, but I have.

To say, one of my best friends to this day is because I sent her a postcard 10 years ago. She said, thank you for one of the books.

So you responded back.

I used to send postcards. Yeah. I Used to.

And then she responded and then. Yeah.

And then later, like, just through a whole string. But there was this origin point of a postcard that made her kind of pause and say, I love that, and I want to run a business like that that involves these nice touches, you know?

Oh, so you inspired her.

Yeah, I mean, I think so. And now she inspires me all the time. And it's very reciprocal. She's as incredible of a person, but it's like the power of a postcard. You don't know.

That's a great story. What's the name of her business?

Zing Collaborative. Her name is Sarah Young. She's a guest on this podcast.

Yes, I think I've heard.

Yeah. But I feel a little sad because now I'm not necessarily sending postcards.

Well, you did your job. You inspired someone.

Oh, it goes in waves. It goes in waves sometimes.

And doing other things.

I noticed that. I mean, I sent our friend Dori, you know, a thank you card with my wax seal. I love analog old school things. I still read the inky newspaper and I love using a wax seal. It just is a moment of surprise. It's like the exclamation mark.

Well, can I make a connection for you? Sure. My friend David Sacks, I don't know.

If you know him, sounds very familiar.

He's a fantastic writer and he wrote a book on analog stuff and he's got a new one coming out in a couple of months. It's called Analog is the Future. And I think you and him would have a great time.

I would love to interview him if.

You don't want to. David Sachs.

I think I tagged his book as yes, and it has little cutouts on the front cover. I just stumbled across it and I thought it would be fun to talk about that. That'd be amazing. Thank you so much.

She's a great guy.

Well, this is so fun. If you could leave people, let's leave them with one. Some experiment to try a microquest.

Oh, I love that idea. Like you say, you don't need to do a macro quest. A microquest is fine. I might try one. That really had an impact on me from the year of living Biblically was just trying to go a week without gossiping. I mean, some gossip is good for evolutionary reasons, like to warn people against really bad actors. But 90% of the gossip I was doing or still do is not helpful. And it makes you feel good in the moment, but it makes you feel icky in the long term. So, yeah, try not saying negative things. About other people for a week and see how you feel.

That's such a good one. Oh, I love it. I even try New York City. It was many years ago, but I realized I was being very judgmental and critical. In my mind, it wasn't gossip, but I was looking at people and not thinking very good thoughts. And then now I try to just, like, see the good. See the good and not just critique people in my head, because that means that's how we're treating ourselves.

Right? That's a good one.

And then, just in case, I don't know why this has been so fun to cover so much ground for pivot and possibly free time. So with free time, the final question, as you may know, is if you could give people permission to do something differently or drop something altogether, what would it be? In addition to dropping gossip, I like.

To give myself permission not to keep up with the details of every news story because I think it's bad for my mental health and productivity and it's bad for the world because if I'm following every in and out of a news story, I'm not looking at the big picture of how I can help the world best. So you might think that you're doing your civic duty, and I do think you've got to keep up in the big picture stuff. But, yeah, like, following every twist and turn of the Amber Heard and Johnny Depp child.

Oh, my God, talk about gossip.

Yeah, I know. It feels so good in the moment.

I was actually so shocked that I felt dirty. I felt gross watching it. This is disgusting. Like, this is just two people throwing each other under the bus. Like, I couldn't stand it.

I know.

What do we know? We don't know what really happened. And it just feels so. Oh, yeah, that one's really.

I know. And it's so tempting, you know, salacious. It's like, as if it's really.

Someone said there was this meta commentary that it's as if you're watching a scripted show as it's being developed. Like, it's as if the reality is already creating the scripted drama that is going to follow. Do you know what I mean?

It does seem like that.

So weird.

Yeah, I know. It's going to be on Netflix in, like, three months as a drama, you.

Know, it will be.

Of course. How could it not be possible?

Oh, my gosh. Well, aj, this is. This was such a joy. Thank you for being here in person.

Pleasure. Thank you.

Risking your life to podcast with me.

That is right. It's worth it.

Highest compliment on Earth. Thank you so much.

Thank you Jenny. Such a delight.

Likewise, and big thanks to everybody who's here listening.

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Pivot Podcast. Make sure you don't miss an episode or my insider tips and templates by signing up for Pivot List, a curated twice monthly newsletter where I share the inside scoop on what I'm reading, watching, listening to, and the latest tools I'm geeking out on. Sign up@pivotmethod.com pivotlist get show notes from this episode@pivotmethod.com podcast and connect with me on Twitter @jennyblake.

Remember, build first, then your courage will follow. Hasn't it always.

This episode is brought to you by Marketa. When it comes to your payments provider, you can't afford to compromise. Marketa's modern payment solutions flex with your business without the trade offs. Stable and agile. Secure and innovative. Scalable and configurable. If they say you can't have it all, don't believe them. Your business demands more. Choose a payments provider that delivers more. Choose Marketa. Visit Marketa.com Spotify to learn more.