Speaker 1: I believe in life there's no one right answer, like
Speaker 1: you say, there's a series of answers, and some are
Speaker 1: better than others, and part of the puzzle is figuring
Speaker 1: out what is the best answer.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the one you feed. Throughout time, great thinkers
Speaker 2: have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have, quotes
Speaker 2: like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think,
Speaker 2: ring true. And yet for many of us, our thoughts
Speaker 2: don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy,
Speaker 2: or fear. We see what we don't have instead of
Speaker 2: what we do. We think things that hold us back
Speaker 2: and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking.
Speaker 2: Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort
Speaker 2: to make a life worth living. This podcast is about
Speaker 2: how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction,
Speaker 2: how they feed their good wolf. Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 2: Our guest on this episode is Aj Jacobs, the author
Speaker 2: of four New York Times bestsellers, including The Know It All,
Speaker 2: Drop Dead Healthy, and the Year of Living Biblically. Aj
Speaker 2: has given four TED talks to have total views of
Speaker 2: more than ten million. He's a contributor to NPR's weekend
Speaker 2: edition and writes for The New York Times and Esquire magazine,
Speaker 2: among others. Today, AJ and Eric discuss his book The Puzzler,
Speaker 2: One Man's Quest to Solve the most baffling puzzles ever,
Speaker 2: from crosswords to jigsaws to the meaning of life.
Speaker 3: Hey, Aj, welcome back.
Speaker 1: Delighted to be back. Thank you, Eric.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I am really excited to have you on. As
Speaker 3: I was saying to you before the show, so far,
Speaker 3: I've been reading everything that you have written. The book
Speaker 3: that will primarily be focusing on today is called The Puzzler,
Speaker 3: One Man's Quest to Solve the most baffling puzzles ever,
Speaker 3: from crosswords to jigsaws to the meaning of life. So
Speaker 3: we'll get to that as well as some other things
Speaker 3: in a minute. But we're going to start, like we
Speaker 3: always do, with the Parable of the Two Wolves. And
Speaker 3: you answered this not that long ago. I think we
Speaker 3: talked sometime in November, so you've had only a few months.
Speaker 3: But I'll read it and see what you think about
Speaker 3: it this time. So in the parable, there's a grandparent
Speaker 3: who's talking with their grandchild and they say, in life,
Speaker 3: there are two wolves inside of us that are always
Speaker 3: at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things
Speaker 3: like kindness and bravery and love, and the other's a
Speaker 3: bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear.
Speaker 3: And the grandchild stops and they think about it for
Speaker 3: a second, and they look up at their grandparent and
Speaker 3: they say, well, which one wins? And the grandparents says,
Speaker 3: the one you feed. So I'd like to start off
Speaker 3: by asking you what that parable means to you in
Speaker 3: your life and in the work that you do.
Speaker 1: I love that parable. I love that you start off
Speaker 1: every episode with it. Now I can't remember, because I
Speaker 1: have a terrible memory what I said, So this might
Speaker 1: be a repetition, and if it is, just tell me
Speaker 1: and I'll come up with something else on the spot.
Speaker 1: But what it immediately reminds me of is I wrote
Speaker 1: a book about gratitude, and in that book I have
Speaker 1: my own version of the two wolves. That version is
Speaker 1: everyone in them has two sides, the mister Rogers side
Speaker 1: and the Larry David side. And of course the Larry
Speaker 1: David side is the one that is great at finding
Speaker 1: the negative and complaining, and the mister Rogers side is
Speaker 1: the one where you're able to find gratitude, appreciation, kindness.
Speaker 1: And I was born, I believe, with a very big
Speaker 1: Larry David side. I was very good at you know,
Speaker 1: the classic. If you hear ninety nine complements and one insult,
Speaker 1: what do you focus on? And so I think the
Speaker 1: Larry David side, which we all have wired into us,
Speaker 1: is the one that draws us to that. So my
Speaker 1: book on gratitude was trying to build up the mister
Speaker 1: Rogers side, and it is exactly what your parable says.
Speaker 1: The way to make mister Rogers or the kind wolf
Speaker 1: stronger is to feed it, and you feed it with thoughts.
Speaker 1: So I would try to remember the hundreds of things
Speaker 1: that go right every day instead of the three or
Speaker 1: four that go wrong. If I'm online at the pharmacy
Speaker 1: and it's taking twenty five minutes, I just try to
Speaker 1: stop my brain from racing and put a little pause
Speaker 1: in it and say, you know, first of all, the
Speaker 1: fact that we have modern medicine in this pharmacy, that's crazy.
Speaker 1: I've done a lot of historical books, and one of
Speaker 1: the mantras I always say to myself is surgery without anesthesia.
Speaker 1: Because you read about surgery without anesthesia, and you will
Speaker 1: be grateful that you live in current times. As many
Speaker 1: problems as we had, it is still better than two
Speaker 1: hundred years ago. And I'll try to remind myself that,
Speaker 1: you know, I have this brief time on earth. I
Speaker 1: try to notice. I'll try to look around and be like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know that fluorescent light? It's interesting. Look, can you
Speaker 1: believe that someone actually invented that? And people in factories
Speaker 1: made the glass and other people shipped it with a truck,
Speaker 1: And you know, that is pretty remarkable. So that is
Speaker 1: my attempt to feed the good wolf slash mister Rogers.
Speaker 3: So I'm curious about an element of that. You do
Speaker 3: a lot of books where you sort of embark on
Speaker 3: a particular quest for a period of time. I'm going
Speaker 3: to thank a thousand people. I'm going to live biblically
Speaker 3: for a year. I'm sure you could expand the list.
Speaker 3: There's a bunch of them. What I'm curious about is
Speaker 3: how much of what happens in those little experiments sort
Speaker 3: of sticks with you and you know, carries on into
Speaker 3: your life. So for example, like if I was very
Speaker 3: focused on just gratitude for a month, I would be
Speaker 3: very grateful for a month, right, I would get that
Speaker 3: skill down to some degree, and then as my attention
Speaker 3: turned towards all my other things, that would tend to
Speaker 3: sort of flag. So I'm curious, how do you, if
Speaker 3: you do, integrate some of the lessons that come out
Speaker 3: of your different books to make sure that they remain
Speaker 3: sort of in your life.
Speaker 1: Yeah, great question, And I do feel that I take
Speaker 1: away a handful of lessons from every project. As you say,
Speaker 1: I could never continue to live completely biblically. I shaved
Speaker 1: my beard, and I stopped stoning adulters with tiny pebbles.
Speaker 1: But it definitely each one of them has changed my
Speaker 1: life in a small or not so small way, and
Speaker 1: over all they have a profound effect. So I'll just
Speaker 1: give you some examples of takeaways that have stayed with me.
Speaker 1: First of all, following all the rules of the Bible. Again,
Speaker 1: that overlapped with the gratitude because the Bible has a
Speaker 1: lot to say about gratitude, and it kind of spawned
Speaker 1: the gratitude project in a way. The gratitude project, as
Speaker 1: you say, it's a discipline. If you don't pay attention
Speaker 1: to it, it might fade away. If you don't feed
Speaker 1: that wolf. So I have different rituals that I'm very
Speaker 1: conscious of, very intentional about. That could be when I'm
Speaker 1: going to sleep, I try to think of one thing
Speaker 1: that I'm grateful for that day related to every letter
Speaker 1: of the alphabet. So a could be I'm grateful my
Speaker 1: parents named the AJ instead of My full name is Arnold,
Speaker 1: but I like AJ, so I'm grateful for that. I'm
Speaker 1: grateful for I don't know Bear Grills, he's an interesting
Speaker 1: guy on TV. For b you have to work at it,
Speaker 1: but it has definitely stayed with me. The Health Book.
Speaker 1: I wrote a book about trying to be the healthiest
Speaker 1: person alive. Now, of course I can't do everything I
Speaker 1: did during the book because it was literally a twenty
Speaker 1: four hour a day job because I was trying to
Speaker 1: follow every piece of health advice from every doctor and nutritionist.
Speaker 1: And yeah, it's very stressful, which is not healthy. So
Speaker 1: that was actually one of the takeaways is don't get
Speaker 1: overly obsessed with health because stress is not healthy. But
Speaker 1: I have massive takeaways from that. I still write my
Speaker 1: emails on a treadmill desk. I still have these sort
Speaker 1: of rules of thumb, these heuristics, that stay with me. Like,
Speaker 1: if I'm going for a snack, go to the fridge,
Speaker 1: don't go to the cupboard, don't go to the pantry,
Speaker 1: because the fridge has real food, real food rots. And
Speaker 1: what's in your pantry a lot of times is it
Speaker 1: may be chemically stable, but it's not good for you.
Speaker 1: It's going to make you lethargic and fat and all
Speaker 1: those other things. So every project has given me some
Speaker 1: wisdom takeaway, but I just want to stress it's always
Speaker 1: an ongoing process. So it's not like being grateful or
Speaker 1: compassionate automatically becomes natural to me. A little bit, maybe
Speaker 1: a little bit it sinks in, but it's still a discipline.
Speaker 1: I think for any of the good stuff, you still
Speaker 1: have to work at it. You still have to make
Speaker 1: an appointment, you still have to be intentional about it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I think that's you know,
Speaker 3: the other part of the parable is that basic idea
Speaker 3: that we just have to keep sort of choosing again
Speaker 3: and again and again and again what direction do we
Speaker 3: want to go, what's important to us, who's the person
Speaker 3: we want to be?
Speaker 1: Absolutely? Yeah. And the other thing about the parable that
Speaker 1: I think is interesting is in a sense you're saying
Speaker 1: it depends on whom you feed, and feeding is actually
Speaker 1: a very active process. You are actually choosing to give
Speaker 1: food to that wolf. And that is one of the
Speaker 1: themes that I have seen recurring through all of my projects,
Speaker 1: which is action behavior is very powerful. And I think
Speaker 1: we talked about this last time, but I love the
Speaker 1: idea of it's not just thoughts that change your behavior.
Speaker 1: You can change your thoughts by changing your behavior. And
Speaker 1: I might have quoted this. I wish that I came
Speaker 1: up with this quote myself. There's a big debate on
Speaker 1: the internet who came up with it, but it's a
Speaker 1: wonderful quote. It says it's easier to act your way
Speaker 1: into a new way of thinking than to think your
Speaker 1: way into a new way of acting. And I find
Speaker 1: this so often, even with gratitude, just forcing myself to
Speaker 1: thank people, even if I'm in a grumpy mood. You
Speaker 1: do it enough and it sort of tricks your mind
Speaker 1: and your mind catches up. And there's tons of science
Speaker 1: behind it. It's the basis of cognitive behavioral therapy. So
Speaker 1: it's ancient wisdom but also so huge evidence behind it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it may be the phrase I've used the most
Speaker 3: on this show over the years, and I heard it
Speaker 3: very early in recovery. The idea was very sound, which
Speaker 3: was basically, your brain is just going to be thinking
Speaker 3: about Heroin all the time. I mean, that's just what
Speaker 3: it's going to do. That's what it's wired to do.
Speaker 3: That's chemically what's going to happen. Like you may not
Speaker 3: be able to turn that off right now, right right,
Speaker 3: but here are the actions. Do these five things every day.
Speaker 3: Do these things you know, and over time, if you
Speaker 3: do that, then the thinking will come along. And so
Speaker 3: it was a huge lesson for me that was critically
Speaker 3: important in recovery, but turns out to be great advice
Speaker 3: for everything in life.
Speaker 1: I love that because, yeah, I'm not in recovery, so
Speaker 1: i don't know so much about it, but I'm fascinated
Speaker 1: and delighted that this is also powerful in recovery. I
Speaker 1: guess it covers every part of life.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So, speaking of potential addictions, I've got to know
Speaker 3: whether you are up at four in the morning doing
Speaker 3: the spelling Bee this morning.
Speaker 1: It is true I do have an addiction. It's not good.
Speaker 1: I think any addiction is not good. But as far
Speaker 1: as addictions go, this one is perhaps one of the
Speaker 1: less dangerous ones. And I'm addicted to puzzles. I am
Speaker 1: addicted to puzzle. And one of the puzzles that I
Speaker 1: am addicted to is called the spelling Bee, and it
Speaker 1: appears on the New York Times website cruelly at four
Speaker 1: am or at three am. I believe. I don't know
Speaker 1: why they do that, but every day there's a new one.
Speaker 1: And every day when I wake up in the middle
Speaker 1: of the night too go to the restroom, I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: I really should not check the new puzzle, but I
Speaker 1: really want to as well, so I do. And it's
Speaker 1: just it is not healthy. But puzzles give me so
Speaker 1: much joy, and I'm happy to talk about why and why.
Speaker 1: I think they're a force for good. Despite the potential
Speaker 1: for addiction, I do think overall puzzles are a force
Speaker 1: for good.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that is a good puzzle. That's the kind of
Speaker 3: puzzle that I can really solve, And so I like it.
Speaker 1: Do you do it every day?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 3: You know, I did it every day for a while,
Speaker 3: and then I'm not a hardcore puzzler. It just isn't
Speaker 3: for whatever reason in my nature. But yes, for a while,
Speaker 3: I was doing it every day. I was not waking
Speaker 3: up at four am to check it. I suppose they're
Speaker 3: trying to get the London crowd in the morning, right,
Speaker 3: which is why they're doing that. It would be gas right.
Speaker 3: I love that, you know, yeah so, but still not
Speaker 3: so good for their core readership in New York.
Speaker 1: That's right. So I appreciate them trying, but please, next time,
Speaker 1: just save it till eight.
Speaker 3: So I'm going to give you a puzzle for us
Speaker 3: to go into.
Speaker 1: I love it.
Speaker 3: Now. This may not be an actual puzzle, I don't know.
Speaker 3: It's maybe a question, but I'm framing it as a
Speaker 3: puzzle to get your attention. So it is this. What
Speaker 3: does living biblically, tackling the toughest puzzles, and gratitude have
Speaker 3: in common?
Speaker 1: Well, I love that quzz. I have a few answers.
Speaker 1: One I've written books about all of them. Maybe not
Speaker 1: the best answer, Okay. I think that a lot of
Speaker 1: it has to do with my quest for self improvement
Speaker 1: and that I feel I'm quite a fixer upper and
Speaker 1: I can always use help in getting better, and as
Speaker 1: we talked about, it's a process, I don't feel i'm
Speaker 1: anywhere near perfect, But I think just having the quest.
Speaker 1: I love having a quest, and sometimes the quests are
Speaker 1: admittedly a little silly, but I just think the activity
Speaker 1: of having a quest is one as humans we're built for,
Speaker 1: and I think we're built for puzzles in the biggest
Speaker 1: sense of the world. The first puzzle was how do
Speaker 1: I eat? What do I eat? Who do I meet with?
Speaker 1: Those are big puzzles, and that is why I think
Speaker 1: many of us are sort of drawn to these smaller puzzles,
Speaker 1: but which are good training for the big puzzles?
Speaker 3: Good answer, how did I do?
Speaker 1: Did you have a better answer?
Speaker 3: Past? No, I had no answer. I had no answer.
Speaker 3: I just figured they were three things you've written about,
Speaker 3: and I wanted to see how you were going to
Speaker 3: time together. And we're going to get to puzzles in
Speaker 3: a second, I promise. But what you just said about
Speaker 3: quest made me think of something that you wrote for
Speaker 3: Men's Health magazine sometime I think late last year, and
Speaker 3: the title of the article is the life changing power
Speaker 3: of chasing absurd fitness goals, and in it, well, why
Speaker 3: don't you tell us what the goal is or what
Speaker 3: the quest is? In that one?
Speaker 1: Sure? Since I wrote a book on health. I've always
Speaker 1: been a fan of the treadmill desk, so putting my
Speaker 1: laptop on, I just have a little Jerry rigged system
Speaker 1: that I do myself, and I type emails while walking.
Speaker 1: But walking ten thousand steps a day was fine, but
Speaker 1: it kind of got a little boring, so I thought,
Speaker 1: let me try a new one. And I noticed I
Speaker 1: walk on the treadmill at an incline, like a twelve
Speaker 1: degree incline, and my treadmill keeps track of how many
Speaker 1: vertical feet I walk every day. And I said, oh, well,
Speaker 1: that's novel and interesting. And I figured I walked about
Speaker 1: eight hundred vertical feet a day, which is about the
Speaker 1: height of the Eiffel Tower. And I thought, well, what
Speaker 1: if I just kept track and spent the year trying
Speaker 1: to walk as high as I can? Could I walk
Speaker 1: to space? Could I be like Neil Armstrong? And I
Speaker 1: figured yes, because space officially begins about three hundred and
Speaker 1: thirty thousand feet above Earth, so in a year, I
Speaker 1: would walk about to space. It made me laugh because,
Speaker 1: as you say, it's such an absurd quest, but it
Speaker 1: stuck with me, and I put it on Facebook and
Speaker 1: I said, I'm going to walk to space. And what
Speaker 1: I loved is that there were thirty forty people who
Speaker 1: also said that is a great idea. I want to
Speaker 1: walk to space too, So we became a community of
Speaker 1: space walkers and we kept track on Facebook. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm up at the height of hot air balloon. Oh,
Speaker 1: I'm you know where falcons fly? And it was just Kilimanjaro.
Speaker 1: And it was just a blast and an interesting way
Speaker 1: to form a community. And like it said in the headline,
Speaker 1: there is something wonderful about having this absurd goal, whether
Speaker 1: or not you reach it. Just the idea of having
Speaker 1: something that you wake up every morning and I'm walking
Speaker 1: to space. That is interesting. Let me keep going. And
Speaker 1: one of the psychologists I talked to about this had
Speaker 1: a good point. He talked about sort of man's humans
Speaker 1: need for putting meaning on quests. So saying I'm going
Speaker 1: to walk to three hundred and thirty thousand feet that
Speaker 1: is much less appealing than saying I'm going to walk
Speaker 1: to space. The space part gives it a meaning, it
Speaker 1: gives it a reference, a context. So that has been fun.
Speaker 1: I've walked about four hundred vertical feet today and I've
Speaker 1: still got a ways to go.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I love that, And it brought up in me
Speaker 3: some questions because what I do with a lot of
Speaker 3: people that I've done work with and in my Spiritual
Speaker 3: Habits program and all that is talk about the value
Speaker 3: of really small steps, like not taking on too much right,
Speaker 3: because we often come out of the gate too hot, right,
Speaker 3: and we're gonna suddenly work out for two hours a
Speaker 3: day and we're going to start writing in our journal
Speaker 3: and we're going to take up painting, and we fail.
Speaker 3: I wanted to think a little bit about what you're
Speaker 3: saying because I recognize instantly in a truth like yeah,
Speaker 3: of course, like a quest like that, what a great thing.
Speaker 3: We'll see people who say I'm going to train for
Speaker 3: a marathon. It orients their training. And then there's also
Speaker 3: the small step piece. And what I thought a little
Speaker 3: bit about was that what you're talking about is an
Speaker 3: accumulation goal. Yes, And the nature of an accumulation goal
Speaker 3: is a good one because it's not a pass fail.
Speaker 3: It's not I'm going to work out six days a
Speaker 3: week and when I only work out four, I give
Speaker 3: up because I failed. You can't fail. You could not
Speaker 3: hit the goal as quickly you wanted to, but the
Speaker 3: accumulation goal continues to add up. It's like with sobriety.
Speaker 3: You know, in sobriety, abstinence has been the thing that
Speaker 3: everybody's aimed for forever. And there are very good reasons
Speaker 3: for that, right because if you can't get to abstinence,
Speaker 3: you may not get rid of the psychological craving, which
Speaker 3: is torture. Right, So abstinence has a place. But the
Speaker 3: grading ourselves at either zero percent or one hundred percent,
Speaker 3: I think is really detrimental.
Speaker 1: Ah.
Speaker 3: I've got a client who every day that she's sober,
Speaker 3: she puts a marble in a jar. You know, she
Speaker 3: wasn't able to get to you know, one hundred percent
Speaker 3: sobriety all the time, but we're able to look at
Speaker 3: over a month, a year, two years, like, I mean,
Speaker 3: there are a ton of marbles in that jar, and
Speaker 3: so it's allowed her to really see progress and feel progress.
Speaker 3: And that's kind of what your space goal was. When
Speaker 3: I thought about it, I was like, oh, this is
Speaker 3: an accumulation goal that is done by a series of
Speaker 3: daily walks.
Speaker 1: There's a couple of things I want to dig into
Speaker 1: because I just love what you said. First, I love
Speaker 1: the idea. Yes, I agree, goals should not be all
Speaker 1: or nothing. I love the quote most of life is
Speaker 1: not an on off switch, it's a dimmer And so
Speaker 1: this goal walking to space, yes it's a goal, but
Speaker 1: there's so many sub goals along the way, you know, walking,
Speaker 1: I've walked to the top of Everest. I've walked to
Speaker 1: the top of five everests, and so it's fun. Like
Speaker 1: you said, that's very much like the chips or the marbles.
Speaker 1: The second part I loved is that I am also
Speaker 1: a huge fan of micro goals and step by step.
Speaker 1: So it's an interesting balance between having these big, crazy,
Speaker 1: wild goals and the more everyday goal of just doing
Speaker 1: one small thing. And actually I use micro goals all
Speaker 1: the time, including to get on the treadmill, right, because
Speaker 1: if I said I have to walk one thousand vertical
Speaker 1: feet today, that would not be motivating. Instead, I say
Speaker 1: to myself, all right, I'm just going to put on
Speaker 1: my sneakers. I'm not going to guarantee anything after that.
Speaker 1: I put them on, and I've got a little momentum
Speaker 1: and I say, okay, well, you know what, I'm going
Speaker 1: to get on the treadmill, maybe walk for thirty seconds.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to promise myself anything more than that.
Speaker 1: You're on the treadmill, You're like, all right, I'm here.
Speaker 1: I can make it to five to ten minutes. And
Speaker 1: it's the same with writing. I mean, thank god, I
Speaker 1: don't have to sit down every morning and say I'm
Speaker 1: going to write a book because I would be paralyzed, right,
Speaker 1: So instead I say today, I'm going to write a
Speaker 1: third of this section on say, you know I have
Speaker 1: a section on pencils. I'm going to write one third
Speaker 1: of the section on pencils today. That is my goal,
Speaker 1: and that allows me to continue as opposed to the
Speaker 1: big scary goal. But eventually I know my goal. My
Speaker 1: ultimate goal is to write a book.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's interesting. I'm working on a book two and
Speaker 3: it's new for me, so I'm a new writer. So
Speaker 3: for me, I'm not even at the point where I
Speaker 3: can say today I'm going to write X, because I
Speaker 3: have no sense of how long X takes.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: So I always think it's interesting to think about how
Speaker 3: we measure things. Right, So for me, the thing that
Speaker 3: feels important to measure right now is just effort. Did
Speaker 3: I sit down and write for an hour and just
Speaker 3: like you, I often have to ease my way into that,
Speaker 3: like just sit down and just put your fingers on
Speaker 3: the keyboard. Yeah right, Like, okay, get started five minutes
Speaker 3: and you can quit right then. I usually get to
Speaker 3: my ninety minute goal. But it's interesting because knowing what
Speaker 3: to measure it can be really important because if I
Speaker 3: was trying to measure, I mean, I'm actually in a
Speaker 3: book proposal phase, so you know, write you know, four
Speaker 3: chapter summaries, that could be a real way to set
Speaker 3: myself up to fail because I'm not experienced enough to
Speaker 3: know what I'm capable of. Yet. You, on the other hand,
Speaker 3: have been doing this a long time. You're probably a
Speaker 3: little bit better able to say, all right, this is
Speaker 3: what I think I can get done in a writing
Speaker 3: block and have it be a little bit more accurate. So,
Speaker 3: you know, when working with clients or for listeners listening
Speaker 3: to this, I think it's really important to ask yourself,
Speaker 3: like what am I measuring in how because it makes
Speaker 3: a real difference.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that. Well. First of all, I'm very
Speaker 1: excited for your book. If there's anything I can do
Speaker 1: to help, please let me know. Second, I do that
Speaker 1: same thing. Sometimes my goal will not be I'm going
Speaker 1: to write a third of the pencil section. Instead, it's
Speaker 1: I am going to spend twenty five minutes just trying
Speaker 1: to write something, and sometimes it's just nothing's coming to me.
Speaker 1: So I'll write about the pigeon bopping its head outside
Speaker 1: the windowsill, and just the feeling of pushing the keys
Speaker 1: and getting a little momentum gives me a little more
Speaker 1: courage to keep going and eventually write something. But that's
Speaker 1: also a very important strategy I have to myself, is
Speaker 1: I say, I am a kind of writer who it
Speaker 1: takes a while to warm up. So I try to
Speaker 1: block out two hours to write, and I tell myself,
Speaker 1: you know, the first thirty minutes of what you write
Speaker 1: is probably going to be crap. It's going to be unusable,
Speaker 1: and that's okay, that's part of the process. Don't freak out.
Speaker 1: And that is very reassuring because then if I'm not
Speaker 1: typing something masterful in the first three minutes, I'm like,
Speaker 1: I knew this was going to happen. Just keep going,
Speaker 1: It'll get there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yep. It's that lead with the action, the thought
Speaker 3: will follow right right. It's getting started, which is I
Speaker 3: think oftentimes at least eighty percent of the battle is
Speaker 3: getting started. Oh yeah, just getting started it doesn't always
Speaker 3: get you through.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: Then you have to learn to sort of stay in
Speaker 3: it sometimes right, which is often just a variation on
Speaker 3: that right, at least for me, which is like, just
Speaker 3: keep going right, five more minutes, you know, just stay
Speaker 3: with it five more minutes, whether it be on the
Speaker 3: peloton or writing or preparing a talk or anything that
Speaker 3: feels difficult. Yeah, there's a desire to be like, get
Speaker 3: me out of here.
Speaker 1: I agree, And that's why micro goals I think are
Speaker 1: so helpful for just getting started.
Speaker 2: Yep, I did read.
Speaker 1: About I think it was Hemingway who had a good strategy.
Speaker 1: I don't use it, but in case it's helpful to
Speaker 1: any of your listeners or to you. He would at
Speaker 1: the end of the day when he stopped writing, he
Speaker 1: would stop before the last sentence that he had written.
Speaker 1: You might have heard of this, but he would have
Speaker 1: the last sentence in his mind, and that way, when
Speaker 1: he picked up the next day, he would be like,
Speaker 1: all right, I'm not starting from scratch. I know the
Speaker 1: next sentence. Yeah, And then that would give him a
Speaker 1: little momentum.
Speaker 3: That's a great one. Okay, puzzles, I'm actually going to
Speaker 3: get finally two puzzles. And you pose a question early
Speaker 3: in the book, are puzzles inn addictive peril or a
Speaker 3: crucial mind sharpened tools? Did you come to a conclusion.
Speaker 1: Well, my bias, as you might suspect, is I am
Speaker 1: very pro puzzle. So I mean, of course everything is
Speaker 1: a tool and can be abused, but in my opinion,
Speaker 1: puzzles are mostly a force for good. And I love
Speaker 1: that puzzle that you posted earlier because you said I
Speaker 1: don't know if it's a puzzle, like what is the
Speaker 1: connection between But to me, I am very liberal in
Speaker 1: what I consider a puzzle. And one of my favorite
Speaker 1: quotes is from Quincy Jones, the musician, because he's been
Speaker 1: known to say his life philosophy is I don't have problems.
Speaker 1: I have puzzles. And I love that because the word
Speaker 1: problem is very intimidating and very negative. It implies maybe
Speaker 1: there is no solution, whereas a puzzle is very inviting
Speaker 1: and it's like I'm going to roll up my sleeves
Speaker 1: and I'm going to solve this puzzle. And so I
Speaker 1: do try to see you know, I'm having a conflict
Speaker 1: with my wife. All Right, this is a puzzle. Let's
Speaker 1: see if I can make this marriage work better. That's
Speaker 1: the puzzle. If I'm you know, struggling to figure out
Speaker 1: what my book is, it's not a problem. It's a puzzle.
Speaker 1: Let's solve this puzzle. So to me, it's just a
Speaker 1: very motivating frame of a way to look at life.
Speaker 3: I love that quote. I was actually going to ask
Speaker 3: you what's the difference between a problem and a puzzle?
Speaker 3: And when you were talking, it just reminded me of
Speaker 3: something that I often say to clients, which is, this
Speaker 3: is just a puzzle for us to figure out, because
Speaker 3: what I'm trying to get from is an orientation around
Speaker 3: I'm bad or I'm not the kind of person who
Speaker 3: can stick with things, or I'm lazy, or I'm like,
Speaker 3: we just haven't cracked the puzzle yet.
Speaker 1: I love that you yeah, of how.
Speaker 3: You make this work. Actually, until you just said that,
Speaker 3: I hadn't even equated that, even after reading an entire
Speaker 3: book of yours on puzzles. So that's puzzling.
Speaker 2: That's stupid.
Speaker 3: I know, I couldn't resist.
Speaker 1: Listen, I am not going to critique. I'm a fan.
Speaker 1: Anytime you want to say that. Well. One of my
Speaker 1: favorite quotes also that I mentioned in the book is
Speaker 1: I heard it from a child psychologist who is giving
Speaker 1: a lecture on how to raise kids during the pandemic,
Speaker 1: and he said, don't get furious, get curious. And I
Speaker 1: love a good rhyming piece of advice.
Speaker 3: Yes, rhyme's good, they don't always work.
Speaker 1: But this one, I believe is very true and profound,
Speaker 1: and he was just using it for child rearing. You know,
Speaker 1: if your kid is throwing a tantrum, don't get angry
Speaker 1: at them, trying to figure out what's the puzzle, why
Speaker 1: are they doing it? How can we stop it from
Speaker 1: happening in the future. But I apply it to everything.
Speaker 1: So it's so easy to get angry these days. That
Speaker 1: seems to be sort of a favorite emotion. And I
Speaker 1: understand because I'll read the newspaper or the media and
Speaker 1: I'll get angry, or if I'm in a conversation with
Speaker 1: someone from the other side of the political spectrum, my
Speaker 1: default is to get angry, why do you think that?
Speaker 1: But instead I find it much more productive to say,
Speaker 1: all right, this is a puzzle. Let's get curious. Why
Speaker 1: do you believe what you believe. Why do I believe
Speaker 1: what I believe? Is there any evidence that could change
Speaker 1: one of our minds? Where do we go from here?
Speaker 1: Even if we continue to disagree, that is going to
Speaker 1: be much more productive than trying to berate them or
Speaker 1: get berated, which is just going to polarize both of
Speaker 1: us and make us more entrenched in our position and unhappy.
Speaker 1: I mean, I find being angry to be an unpleasant emotion.
Speaker 1: So if I can reframe it as a curious puzzle
Speaker 1: that has a positive solution, then I'm going to be
Speaker 1: much happier in any conversation I have.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it makes me think of I think this is
Speaker 3: from a book called Crucial Conversations, which is a really
Speaker 3: great book about how to communicate that And I feel
Speaker 3: like the question posed in there is what would have
Speaker 3: to be going on in someone's mind for a well
Speaker 3: meaning person to act this way? And so now you've
Speaker 3: created a puzzle for yourself, right, You've created that curiosity?
Speaker 3: Well why? And It's partially what I've always loved about
Speaker 3: the Buddhist framing of the world in that recognizing that
Speaker 3: you know the commonality that we all have as every
Speaker 3: creature wants to avoid pain, and experience more pleasure. It
Speaker 3: is universal at the bottom line, underneath all of it,
Speaker 3: that is what we all want. We all have it
Speaker 3: in common. So if you start from there, then you
Speaker 3: can become curious about all right, that's what this person's
Speaker 3: trying to achieve. Now they're going about it in this way.
Speaker 3: Why would they go about it that way? Why are
Speaker 3: they picking that strategy? For me, it's always a way
Speaker 3: of like you're saying, it's a way of getting curious.
Speaker 1: I love that, and I also love the idea that
Speaker 1: as different as people are, they can still get in
Speaker 1: each other's minds. Yes, and you know, I think that
Speaker 1: we are all humans and we all can understand the
Speaker 1: desire to be happy, are to be fulfilled, to help others,
Speaker 1: and the dislike and the horribleness of pain. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's a great way to remind ourselves what
Speaker 1: we have in common as well.
Speaker 4: Hey everyone, this is Jinny. One of my absolute favorite
Speaker 4: things is when we hear from listeners of the show,
Speaker 4: and something we hear quite often is that one of
Speaker 4: the biggest obstacles to feeding the Good Wolf is remembering.
Speaker 4: Because life is busy and we get caught up in
Speaker 4: routines and we're all on autopilots so much at the time.
Speaker 4: So to help with that, we've started sending a couple
Speaker 4: of text messages after each episode is released to listeners
Speaker 4: who sign up for them, and it's something offering for free.
Speaker 4: A listener wrote us and said, the message has caused
Speaker 4: me to pause, even if just for a moment, and
Speaker 4: help me to remember important bits of wisdom, bringing them
Speaker 4: to the forefront of my mind. Remembering is the hardest part,
Speaker 4: and the text messages are super helpful. So if you'd
Speaker 4: like to hear from us a few times a week
Speaker 4: via text, go to one ufeed dot net slash text
Speaker 4: and sign up for free.
Speaker 3: So I think the answer to your question about whether
Speaker 3: puzzles are a addictive parallel or a crucial mind sharpening
Speaker 3: tool is, of course, it's just in how we use them, right,
Speaker 3: I mean nearly anything. I mean even a substance like alcohol.
Speaker 3: There's plenty of arguments for the good that it does,
Speaker 3: and there's plenty of arguments for the awful that it does.
Speaker 3: You know, when I say the good that it does,
Speaker 3: the benefits it brings people, right, the enjoyment that it
Speaker 3: brings people. So I want to jump ahead to a
Speaker 3: section that you wrote about the Rubik's Cube puzzle, and
Speaker 3: I'm just going to read what you wrote because I
Speaker 3: think it gets to some of what we're talking about here,
Speaker 3: which is this brings up a big question I've been
Speaker 3: wrestling with for years. How many of life's messy problems
Speaker 3: could we solve like a Rubik's cube or a pizza recipe.
Speaker 3: Are there step by step algorithms to happiness and success?
Speaker 3: I desperately want there to be right. I've always been
Speaker 3: a sucker for tools like one, two, three magic that
Speaker 3: give you the recipe for raising kids, or articles like
Speaker 3: ten Steps to Beating Depression.
Speaker 1: Yes, that's action. Just to give some quick background, I
Speaker 1: love all kinds of puzzles, but my true first love
Speaker 1: is crossword and word puzzles. And I'm not very good
Speaker 1: at Rubik's Cubes. But Rubi's Cubes are perhaps the best
Speaker 1: selling toy of all time or puzzle of all time.
Speaker 1: Four hundred million people have bought a Rubik's Cube, and
Speaker 1: I interviewed some of these Rubik's Cube fanatics, including this
Speaker 1: hilarious guy named Jeff Barvanos, who was one of the
Speaker 1: first Rubik's Cube champions way back in nineteen eighty one,
Speaker 1: I believe, early eighties, and he won one of the
Speaker 1: very first tournaments. And he won, as all Rubik's Cube
Speaker 1: champions do with a series of algorithms, which is a
Speaker 1: series of steps. So if the Rubik's cube has you know,
Speaker 1: eight reds and one green, then you do this series
Speaker 1: of steps and he will get all red. Now, he
Speaker 1: did not go on to devote his life solely to
Speaker 1: Ruby's Cubes. Instead, he became one of the great pizza
Speaker 1: chefs in all the world. And he actually wrote a
Speaker 1: manifesto which he says was the number one pizza recipe
Speaker 1: on the Internet for many years, maybe it still is.
Speaker 1: And it's how to make the Perfect Pizza. And it
Speaker 1: is hilarious because it's not short. It's like forty five pages,
Speaker 1: and it is like the most detailed thing you can
Speaker 1: imagine because he tests did everything. He tried forty five
Speaker 1: different types of oregano, He let the dough sit for
Speaker 1: five minutes, for eight and a half minutes, for eleven minutes,
Speaker 1: and so he has through experimentation, figured out what he
Speaker 1: believes is the ultimate piece of pizza. And his argument
Speaker 1: is everything in life can be this, whether it's a marriage,
Speaker 1: whether it's dancing, whether it's your career, there is a
Speaker 1: step by step way. Now my feeling is there are
Speaker 1: ways to improve our lives that involve step by step
Speaker 1: a lot of them, a lot more than people realize.
Speaker 1: But I'm also a little skeptical that everything can be
Speaker 1: boiled down to a step by step routine. But I
Speaker 1: will say I think I do a lot in my
Speaker 1: own life where I have built up a step by
Speaker 1: step routine that makes me happy. And just to give
Speaker 1: you one example that popped into my head is I
Speaker 1: have a little card of everything that I want to
Speaker 1: do every morning, like my morning ritual. And I'm sure
Speaker 1: there's a lot of good stuff on to do lists,
Speaker 1: and those are really helpful. I mean, there's a very
Speaker 1: popular book a few years ago. So this is my
Speaker 1: morning to do list, and I find it very conducive
Speaker 1: to my happiness. So it's got the regular brush your teeth,
Speaker 1: but it's also got and send the note to my
Speaker 1: mom on what I'm grateful for that day. But it's
Speaker 1: also got some mental stuff. I wrote down Memento mori,
Speaker 1: which means remember death, which is a classic Stoics did
Speaker 1: it way back in ancient Greece, to remind yourself life
Speaker 1: is fleeting, try not to get stuck on the small stuff.
Speaker 1: I even, and this might be a little more of
Speaker 1: it for some of your listeners. I even on my computer,
Speaker 1: I have a rotating series of photos. Ninety five percent
Speaker 1: of them are my family and happiest memories, but five
Speaker 1: percent of them are actually friends who I've lost. Cost
Speaker 1: just to remind myself, you know, I lost friends. First
Speaker 1: of all, it's nice to remember them, but secondly, I
Speaker 1: like to remind myself that could be me, that could
Speaker 1: be me any day now.
Speaker 3: And then I was worried you were going to say
Speaker 3: five percent of them are rotting corpses or something, which
Speaker 3: certain Buddhist traditions would meditate in the Charnel grounds, right,
Speaker 3: That's where they would go to do it, you know,
Speaker 3: in the cemetery or where they were burning bodies. So
Speaker 3: I'm happy that you're remembering friends that are gone, not corpses.
Speaker 1: I prefer sort of the happier momento. Mary, Yeah, and
Speaker 1: that's good. I do have on my desktop, I have
Speaker 1: a little picture of a skull, but it's like a fun, psychedelic,
Speaker 1: colorful skull. I didn't want like a scary, depressing skull.
Speaker 1: So yes, I feel there's a room for sort of
Speaker 1: happier momentto Maury. But anyway, that to me is a
Speaker 1: very good way to go through the morning. And it
Speaker 1: is step by step. It's not fool proof. I'm still
Speaker 1: sometimes to rest in the morning, but it structures my
Speaker 1: day and it reminds me of healthier ways to think.
Speaker 3: I love this because I too share this question of
Speaker 3: how much of life can we turn into practical steps
Speaker 3: to creating a better life, and how much of life
Speaker 3: is too complex, too complicated for that. And you know,
Speaker 3: I guess, like most things, I land somewhere in the
Speaker 3: middle that, like, I just think there are some things
Speaker 3: like life is complex, humans are complex, emotions are complex.
Speaker 3: I mean, health is complex. There's so many variables that
Speaker 3: go into so many different things, and we're all different.
Speaker 3: Even the perfect pizza, the flaw there is that I'm
Speaker 3: not going to think the perfect pizza is the pizza
Speaker 3: that he thinks rightful, right, you know, So even there
Speaker 3: on something like that. That's the advantage of puzzles, as
Speaker 3: you often say in the book, which is that there
Speaker 3: is an answer in most of them. There's an actual
Speaker 3: right answer. The jigsaw puzzle goes together one way, the
Speaker 3: crossword puzzle goes together one way, and that is very
Speaker 3: satisfying because I don't think a lot of life is
Speaker 3: that way.
Speaker 1: Well. Absolutely, that is sort of the allure of puzzles.
Speaker 1: They're sort of the platonic ideal and they always have
Speaker 1: that one right answer. And I believe in life there's
Speaker 1: no one right answer. Like you say, there's a series
Speaker 1: of answers, and some are better than others, and part
Speaker 1: of the puzzle is figuring out what is the best answer.
Speaker 1: But having the perspective that there is an answer, whether
Speaker 1: it's perfect or not, I think is very helpful. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm with you on that.
Speaker 3: I was thinking as I was reflecting on you and
Speaker 3: the spelling bee and how I played the spelling bee
Speaker 3: for a while and then stopped, and I did wordle
Speaker 3: for a while and stopped, and waffle for a while
Speaker 3: and stopped. I get a little bit of a thing.
Speaker 3: But there's two things I tend to keep doing, one
Speaker 3: of which I am certain should not qualify as a
Speaker 3: puzzle because it's too mindless, which is play solitary. It's
Speaker 3: just I can't give myself. Credit is just a mindless version.
Speaker 3: But the other one is backgammon. And you bring up
Speaker 3: chess in the book as a type of puzzle, and
Speaker 3: I find back game and a fascinating one because I
Speaker 3: feel like it mirrors life to a certain extent. And
Speaker 3: what I mean by that is that there is skill, right,
Speaker 3: you can be a better or a worse backgammon player,
Speaker 3: but there is also randomness because you are rolling dice.
Speaker 3: You know, if the person you're playing against has much
Speaker 3: better dice rolls than you, doesn't matter how skillfully you
Speaker 3: play that right, You're just gonna win. And so I
Speaker 3: think that to me that mirrors life a little bit
Speaker 3: in that, like, just take health. There's lots that we
Speaker 3: can do to be skillful about our health, and then
Speaker 3: there's just a randomness element to it. You can do
Speaker 3: all the right things and still get lung cancer. You
Speaker 3: can do all the right things and still get hit
Speaker 3: by a card. And so I was just reflecting on
Speaker 3: backgammon as sort of a puzzle but also sort of,
Speaker 3: you know, not exactly a puzzle because there isn't a
Speaker 3: right answer.
Speaker 1: Wow, I love that. First of all, congrats on the
Speaker 1: backgammon that is a wonderful game. I mean the people
Speaker 1: I know who are into games. I like it's underrated.
Speaker 1: It's been around since ancient times. It's had some crazes,
Speaker 1: sort of like the rub excube in the eighties. I
Speaker 1: forget what year there was a particular craze in the
Speaker 1: sixties maybe, But I also love the way you think
Speaker 1: about it as a metaphor for life, and I one
Speaker 1: hundred percent agree that we really, certainly, I did underestimate
Speaker 1: the amount of luck that is involved in life, and
Speaker 1: I think it's very important. It's important to my own
Speaker 1: happiness to remember that luck play. I can do everything right,
Speaker 1: but still something happens to me. I think it's important
Speaker 1: for compassion. Yes, you know, seeing people who are down
Speaker 1: on their luck literally like they might have worked hard,
Speaker 1: they might have done made a lot of great decisions,
Speaker 1: but then a tornado ripped up their house and that's
Speaker 1: not their fault. So have a little compassion. But yes,
Speaker 1: I luck plays a part. And interestingly, I've had this
Speaker 1: debate with my son, who's a big chess player, because
Speaker 1: there are some people who say that even in chess
Speaker 1: there's a lot of luck, and it's a controversial statement,
Speaker 1: but I kind of believe it because chess is so
Speaker 1: complicated you cannot predict the thousands of variables and different lines.
Speaker 1: So you can make a move that seems mediocre, but
Speaker 1: through luck, it turns out to be a brilliant move
Speaker 1: because it opens up these possibilities that no one would
Speaker 1: have predicted. So I think luck is in play everywhere,
Speaker 1: even in those things that seem totally skill based.
Speaker 3: That's interesting. I've never heard of anybody think of chess
Speaker 3: in that way. That's an interesting way to think about it.
Speaker 3: I'd like to turn now and see if we can
Speaker 3: extract some of the lessons that you got out of puzzles.
Speaker 3: The way the book is set up just for readers
Speaker 3: is that you go through a series of different types
Speaker 3: of puzzles, you know, Rubik's cube and jigsaw puzzles and
Speaker 3: crossword puzzles and mazes and all these different kinds, and
Speaker 3: you sort of talk about your adventures with each and
Speaker 3: your attempt to solve the most difficult of each kind,
Speaker 3: which cracks me up not.
Speaker 1: So successfully always, but usually.
Speaker 3: Leads you somewhere interesting in the process.
Speaker 1: Yes, and I love that. And so we've talked about
Speaker 1: one of the benefits of puzzles is sort of the
Speaker 1: meta benefit of curiosity and seeing, but there are also
Speaker 1: many more specific benefits I find, and one is also
Speaker 1: something we've touched on, is flexibility of thinking and not
Speaker 1: falling in love with your hypothesis and saying it's got
Speaker 1: to be this way, and also relatedly, thinking outside the box,
Speaker 1: which is a cliche, but I find with using it
Speaker 1: because that cliche actually comes from a puzzle. Many of
Speaker 1: your listeners have probably seen this puzzle. It's the one
Speaker 1: with nine dots arranged in a square and you have
Speaker 1: to use a pencil to try to connect all the
Speaker 1: dots in as few lines as possible, and the best
Speaker 1: way to do it is to go literally outside the box.
Speaker 1: You have to draw a line so that it's way
Speaker 1: outside of the box, and then diagonally it'll connect. So
Speaker 1: let me give you one example of the importance of
Speaker 1: not being attached to a certain way of thinking, and
Speaker 1: it's you may have seen it in the book, so
Speaker 1: you may know the answer. But there's two girls in
Speaker 1: a classroom sitting in front of the teacher. They were
Speaker 1: born on the same day, in the same week, in
Speaker 1: the same month, in the same year, to the same mother,
Speaker 1: but they are not twins. What's going on here?
Speaker 3: Go back through. I need to listen very closely.
Speaker 1: Yes, and I certainly did not get this. I am
Speaker 1: going to give you a hint, so okay, but I
Speaker 1: would not get this without a hint. Yes, there are
Speaker 1: two girls. They were born same day, same time, same
Speaker 1: to the same mother. But they're not twins. What's going on?
Speaker 1: So just to give you a little strategy or tool
Speaker 1: to cracking these kinds of puzzles is one way is
Speaker 1: look at your assumptions. Your assumptions are always something to examine.
Speaker 1: So in this case, you're thinking, okay, let's look at
Speaker 1: the word twins. A twin is when two people are
Speaker 1: born on the same day. But why does it in
Speaker 1: this scenario there are two people, But maybe you're assuming
Speaker 1: that there are only two people. Maybe there's more than
Speaker 1: two people, So what might be going on there? They're
Speaker 1: triplets or quadruplets or quintuplets. So yes, you sort of
Speaker 1: will fall into this assumption, this default, and we have
Speaker 1: to stay take a step back. Another method I find
Speaker 1: useful in attacking every day life problems is to look
Speaker 1: at the problem upside down, look at it reverse, just
Speaker 1: inside out, and then see what happens. So, for instance,
Speaker 1: there's this classic puzzle, same idea. It's called lateral thinking puzzle.
Speaker 1: There's a man and he's in a room with concrete
Speaker 1: walls on all sides. The floor is dirt, the ceiling
Speaker 1: is also concrete, but there is a skylight. So the
Speaker 1: man starts digging. He has a shovel. He starts digging
Speaker 1: a hole. He knows that the walls go down fifty feet.
Speaker 1: There's no way he's going to dig his way out
Speaker 1: of this room, but he keeps digging. What's going on?
Speaker 1: Why is he digging?
Speaker 3: Well, because he's building a pile tall enough to climb
Speaker 3: on out of.
Speaker 1: The SKYLIGHTE exactly, you nailed it, because.
Speaker 3: Well, but it was in the book. I did solve it.
Speaker 3: I did solve it. Though in the book I did
Speaker 3: solve it, but not that quickly, right right, I don't
Speaker 3: want to give listeners a falsehome depression of my abilities.
Speaker 3: I did solve it, but I had to sit and
Speaker 3: think on it for a little bit of time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, to me, the way to solve that one is
Speaker 1: again to think exactly the opposite. And do you see
Speaker 1: that in a lot of great ideas, even the assembly
Speaker 1: line was kind of that kind of thinking, so instead
Speaker 1: of having everyone go yep to the car, the car
Speaker 1: would come to them as they sat there. Now, of course,
Speaker 1: assembly lines have their down sides. They're not good for
Speaker 1: human meaning, but they are good for creating cars.
Speaker 3: There's a puzzle maker. I am a classic butcher of
Speaker 3: pronunciations of names. So maki kaji.
Speaker 1: Yes, that is an excellent way to say it. I think.
Speaker 1: I mean, our listeners can correct if we get it wrong.
Speaker 3: Yes, Yes, you were on Tim Ferriss's podcast, and he
Speaker 3: would certainly probably have that exactly and he'd be breaking
Speaker 3: down the etymology of the word and we would get
Speaker 3: a whole Japanese lesson there. But for purposes of what
Speaker 3: we're doing today, we're going to move on to his
Speaker 3: expression of you know what happens in a puzzle? Can
Speaker 3: you share that little show? I don't know if you
Speaker 3: call it an equation or an algorithm or what you
Speaker 3: want to call it symbolism.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's a great or was a great puzzle maker.
Speaker 1: Sadly he died about a year ago. He is called
Speaker 1: the godfather of sudoku. Sudoku has actually appeared in an
Speaker 1: American magazine puzzle magazine, but no one really noticed it.
Speaker 1: He noticed it. He gave it a new name, Sudoku,
Speaker 1: and marketed the heck out of it, and it took off.
Speaker 1: And he came to speak in New York City and
Speaker 1: I was writing the book, so I went to go
Speaker 1: meet him, and he didn't speak great English, but he
Speaker 1: was able to get his point across. And one of
Speaker 1: the points I love is he wrote on the whiteboard,
Speaker 1: he said, here is the essence of puzzles. And he
Speaker 1: took out the magic marker and wrote three symbols, a
Speaker 1: question mark, an arrow pointing forward, and an exclamation point.
Speaker 1: And so the question mark refers to the bafflement you
Speaker 1: feel when you first encounter a puzzle. The arrow that
Speaker 1: was where you're solving, that's the struggle, that's the trying
Speaker 1: things out, experimenting. And then the exclamation point is the
Speaker 1: aha moment. Now what I loved is mister Kaji had
Speaker 1: sort of the profound life lesson that you're not always
Speaker 1: going to get to the exclamation point, both in life
Speaker 1: and in a puzzle. So you have got to embrace
Speaker 1: the arrow, you've got to fall in love with the
Speaker 1: process of trying to solve these puzzles, and that is
Speaker 1: where the joy is. The joy is in the arrow.
Speaker 1: He was a mountain climber. He talked about the importance
Speaker 1: of enjoying the journey. That's sort of the traditional way
Speaker 1: of saying, you know, it's not about the destination, it's
Speaker 1: about the journey. I think this is a nice fun
Speaker 1: way to rep that. My only edit on mister Codge's
Speaker 1: brilliant formulation would be that the arrow is rarely, if
Speaker 1: ever straight ahead. Like if I were to draw a
Speaker 1: more accurate arrow, the arrow would go in curly cues.
Speaker 1: It would go backwards, it would go forward, two steps back,
Speaker 1: three steps forward, And that is most journeys to solving
Speaker 1: puzzles or problems. But it's something I think about all
Speaker 1: the time, trying to enjoy the arrow and not just
Speaker 1: the exclamation point.
Speaker 3: I love that, and I love your modification in that. Yeah,
Speaker 3: most puzzle solving journeys, particularly if we want to present
Speaker 3: the things in our lives that we might traditionally call
Speaker 3: problems as puzzles we want to use that framing, are
Speaker 3: certainly not you know, straight ahead. You don't just keep
Speaker 3: making progress. I've referenced recovery a number of times but
Speaker 3: it is a puzzle in a sense, and you know,
Speaker 3: it is one that for me was not a straightforward solve.
Speaker 3: It was like little progress. I had ten days, you know,
Speaker 3: then I'm back out, and then I come back and
Speaker 3: now I got a little bit more this time, and
Speaker 3: this works. But this doesn't work. And you know, and eventually,
Speaker 3: at least in my case, when it comes to just
Speaker 3: you know, physical sobriety, the puzzle has been solved at
Speaker 3: least for a long time now, you know. But it
Speaker 3: was certainly not right like I sat down and studied
Speaker 3: it for five minutes and solved it.
Speaker 4: No.
Speaker 1: I mean on that point that often you have to
Speaker 1: go backwards to go forwards. For one of my adventures,
Speaker 1: I went to Vermont to the hardest corn maze in
Speaker 1: the world, and it's by this guy who's he's very
Speaker 1: friendly but also very sadistic because this going is so
Speaker 1: hard and people take for eight hours. He said. When
Speaker 1: I said, I'm thinking of taking my teenage son, he said, well,
Speaker 1: you might not want to, because you know, teenage boys
Speaker 1: end up so angry and frustrated in tears that it's
Speaker 1: not fun for them.
Speaker 2: So he said, people, and.
Speaker 3: You said, you said that he told about like a
Speaker 3: family that a husband got so mad he ran back
Speaker 3: to the car and drove.
Speaker 1: Off like that's it, I'm out of here, and for
Speaker 1: family was left. But one of the points he told
Speaker 1: me is he used to have a bell that you
Speaker 1: could ring at the end, and he found it was
Speaker 1: very troubling because someone would get finally get to the end,
Speaker 1: they'd ring the bell and everyone would head towards the bell, thinking, Okay,
Speaker 1: that's the way out, but of course it's amaze, so
Speaker 1: that is not the way out. You've got to go
Speaker 1: eight turns backwards before going towards the bell. So it
Speaker 1: was actually confusing. So he then added some other bells
Speaker 1: just to show people don't head towards the bell. And yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's a lovely little metaphor for life that
Speaker 1: sometimes to solve a problem, it's not going to be
Speaker 1: straight ahead. You're going to have to go back. You're
Speaker 1: going to have to backtrack, and maybe then you will
Speaker 1: get to where you want to be.
Speaker 3: One of the things that's solving most puzzles entails, unless
Speaker 3: it's a really easy one that you solve right away,
Speaker 3: is a certain amount of persistence, right, which is why
Speaker 3: I don't think I'm a great puzzler because I can
Speaker 3: be persistent, but I have to feel like I have
Speaker 3: a really good reason to be and I get part
Speaker 3: way through a puzzle, I'm like, I don't think I
Speaker 3: care enough about this to hang in here, right. So
Speaker 3: what I'm curious about, though, is, you know, for you
Speaker 3: is back to that arrow piece, right, What are some
Speaker 3: strategies that you found for being persistent without being frustrated? Right,
Speaker 3: without being like I can't do this, I want to
Speaker 3: give up, because I do think that's a real thing
Speaker 3: that solving puzzles can do. Is, at least for me,
Speaker 3: it's shown like if I stick with this a little
Speaker 3: bit longer, what seemed like I could never figure it out,
Speaker 3: I actually can with enough persistence. But a lot of
Speaker 3: times what happens is I think we get frustrated and
Speaker 3: we think we can't and so then we abandon ships.
Speaker 3: So what are some strategies that you found that allow
Speaker 3: you to stick with something that's difficult like that and
Speaker 3: not get too frustrated or convinced you'll never do it?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: I love that question, and i'd say and response a
Speaker 1: couple of things. First, is what we were talking about
Speaker 1: earlier that you have to embrace the arrow and the
Speaker 1: journey and realize maybe you aren't going to solve it,
Speaker 1: and that's okay, so enjoy the experimentation and the mild
Speaker 1: try not to focus on it as a pain, but
Speaker 1: as an interesting challenge, interesting sensation. Second, often we underestimate ourselves.
Speaker 1: So doing that spelling bee, for instance, I will get
Speaker 1: to a point I'm like, there are no words left.
Speaker 1: There's no way you can arrange these seven letters to
Speaker 1: create more words. But I know that's not true because
Speaker 1: there are fifty points still to be had. And so
Speaker 1: it's this convincing yourself. You know what, I've done this
Speaker 1: one hundred times before I can do it. Don't give up.
Speaker 1: So and then the third part is I just think
Speaker 1: that working on puzzles is, as you say, a great
Speaker 1: way to build up this tenacity, this idea of endurance.
Speaker 1: And one of my favorite examples that I talked about
Speaker 1: in the book is one of the most famous unsolved
Speaker 1: puzzles in the world. It is located at the CIA headquarters.
Speaker 1: Not many people get to go. I was lucky enough
Speaker 1: I got permission to go to the CIA headquarters to
Speaker 1: see it. Most people just see a picture of it,
Speaker 1: and it is a secret code by the skull. Thirty
Speaker 1: years ago he teamed up with a cryptographer and they
Speaker 1: put a secret code in the sculpture. The sculpture is
Speaker 1: basically a wall of metal with a bunch of symbols
Speaker 1: on it, letters and characters, and those letters spell out
Speaker 1: a secret message. Now people have figured out a lot
Speaker 1: of the code, and one part of it is a
Speaker 1: quote from the guy who discovered King Tut's tomb. But
Speaker 1: there is a section that remains after thirty years on Cracked.
Speaker 1: And what I love is that I am on this
Speaker 1: mailing list of thousands of people who every day are
Speaker 1: still trying to crack this code. Every day they're emailing ideas.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's Moby Dick is the key, maybe it's American
Speaker 1: windtalker language. And it's every day they have not given up.
Speaker 1: They sent me all these ideas when they found out
Speaker 1: I was going. I had all of these secret missions
Speaker 1: to do and look for. But when I helped my
Speaker 1: kid with a math homework or whatever, and you know,
Speaker 1: I want to give up. After a minute and a half,
Speaker 1: I try to remember, remind myself, you know, these folks
Speaker 1: have been going for thirty years and they are undeterred.
Speaker 1: And I love that. It's a little crazy, perhaps a
Speaker 1: little obsessive, but I also admire it greatly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that does show a remarkable degree of tenacity.
Speaker 1: But like you said, there's also the danger. It's a balance,
Speaker 1: because you know, it is important if you are in
Speaker 1: some sort of activity that really is never going to
Speaker 1: yield any results that are useful to you or society.
Speaker 1: There is a skill of knowing when to quit, when
Speaker 1: to give up. It's a really hard balance, and I
Speaker 1: don't have the exact equation of when to give up.
Speaker 1: I think in general we probably give up way too
Speaker 1: easily on most things, but sometimes giving up that is important.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was going to say, I think you're right.
Speaker 3: I think most things we give up too easily, and
Speaker 3: there's usually a thing or two that we cling on
Speaker 3: to way beyond its expiration.
Speaker 1: Dat exactly.
Speaker 3: Another puzzle lesson that I really like comes from hide
Speaker 3: and seek puzzles. Tell me a little bit about like
Speaker 3: what a hide and seek puzzle is? First?
Speaker 1: Sure, Well, the most famous one is Where's Waldo? So
Speaker 1: you've got a big scene of people at the beach
Speaker 1: playing volleyball and hidden somewhere is that red and white
Speaker 1: stripes Rascal Waldo. These have a long, long history. They
Speaker 1: were long before Waldough. There was a famous Flemish painter
Speaker 1: in the sixteenth century, I believe, maybe even fifteen, who
Speaker 1: would hide all sorts of secrets in his paintings. And
Speaker 1: I was kind of a snob. I was kind of
Speaker 1: a snob. I thought, oh, this is not, you know,
Speaker 1: a sophisticated form of puzzles. But I am a convert.
Speaker 1: I changed my mind one hundred percent. And I think
Speaker 1: there are two reasons that I love these kinds of
Speaker 1: puzzles now. One is that it's all about noticing. It's
Speaker 1: all about looking at something closely. And that is a
Speaker 1: skill that I have tried to use in my life,
Speaker 1: and I think it makes my life better because say
Speaker 1: I'm standing in line at the coffee shop. You know,
Speaker 1: my first temptation is to look at my phone and
Speaker 1: scroll through. But what if I just stand there and
Speaker 1: try to notice my surroundings and it can be really
Speaker 1: a lovely experience. Look at that purple lamp, I never
Speaker 1: noticed that shade of purple so interesting, And walking down
Speaker 1: the street trying to look at the world like it's
Speaker 1: a big spread of where's Waldo and noticing things, because
Speaker 1: noticing is what leads to gratitude and savoring and all
Speaker 1: those other good things. And it's the same as what
Speaker 1: all those other good things we talked about. Unless you
Speaker 1: make a discipline out of it, unless you try to
Speaker 1: remember to notice, you will go through life noticing very little.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I think that is a fundamental meta skill.
Speaker 3: Is that ability to sort of continue to look closely.
Speaker 3: I think it's what great artists do, It's what poets do.
Speaker 3: I think it is how we turn sort of the
Speaker 3: ordinary into the extraordinary is just by attention, you know,
Speaker 3: by looking more and more closely. I mean, so many
Speaker 3: of the meditative traditions, that's what they're pointing at.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: My primary study and training has been in Zen, and
Speaker 3: that is I mean, that is a core Zen principle.
Speaker 3: It's like just look closer, man, Like, just keep looking.
Speaker 2: Right, you know.
Speaker 3: So I think the hide and seek puzzles really bring
Speaker 3: that out. Now, there's a funny example of a hide
Speaker 3: and seek puzzle that happened with the Baltimore Sun. Do
Speaker 3: you share what happened?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's one of my favorite puzzles ever. The Baltimore
Speaker 1: Sun had a Spot the Difference puzzle, so you probably
Speaker 1: know what those are. They put two images look very similar,
Speaker 1: but they're like little differences. Maybe the socks are red
Speaker 1: instead of green. So they had these two images of
Speaker 1: this boy brushing his teeth, and the next day they
Speaker 1: had to print a correction that said, we apologize to
Speaker 1: our readers. The Spot the Difference puzzle actually was of
Speaker 1: two identical images. We apologize. And part of me was
Speaker 1: just filled with sympathy for the hundreds of people who
Speaker 1: spend thousands of hours looking for non existent differences. But
Speaker 1: part of me just wanted to laugh because you know,
Speaker 1: in my darker moments, I think, well, maybe that's a
Speaker 1: good metaphor for life. Is like we're looking for meaning
Speaker 1: and there is none. I don't really believe that, but
Speaker 1: I do think that that would be an example of
Speaker 1: when it's okay to give up. You know, spend like
Speaker 1: ten minutes and you're like, you know what, I'm not
Speaker 1: getting anything more out of this. I am going to
Speaker 1: give up. I have a list of difficult puzzles and
Speaker 1: that might be the most difficult.
Speaker 3: Well, aj, we are at the end of our time.
Speaker 3: I could do this all day, and we are going
Speaker 3: to do it a little bit longer in the post
Speaker 3: show conversation, and we're going to talk about the difference
Speaker 3: between mazes and labyrinths, and we're also going to talk
Speaker 3: about framing how the way we frame things has a
Speaker 3: lot to do with our experience of life. Listeners, if
Speaker 3: you'd like access to the post show conversation as well
Speaker 3: as ad free episodes and all kinds of other good
Speaker 3: things as well as the joy of supporting something you love,
Speaker 3: go to one u feed dot net slash join AJ.
Speaker 3: Thanks so much for coming on. I'm so happy to
Speaker 3: have had you on again and really enjoyed it.
Speaker 1: I loved it, and I love your show, and thank
Speaker 1: you for doing what you do and making my life
Speaker 1: better with your wisdom.
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