377: A.J. Jacobs - Stop Obsessing About Your Health, Gratitude Leads To Happiness, Radical Honesty
The Ultimate Health Podcast
Jesse Chappus
4.5 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 3 November 2020
⏱️ 77 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
A.J. Jacobs (@ajjacobs) is an author, journalist, lecturer and human guinea pig. He has written four New York Times bestsellers that combine memoir, science, humor and a dash of self-help.
A.J. is also editor at large at Esquire magazine, a commentator on NPR and a columnist for Mental Floss magazine.
He has appeared on Oprah, The Today Show, Good Morning America, CNN, The Dr. Oz Show and The Colbert Report and has given several TED talks.
In this episode, we discuss:
- A gratitude journey thanking a thousand people
- Gratitude leads to happiness
- Thank you for thanking me
- The six degrees of gratitude
- It doesn't take a village to make a cup of coffee, it takes the world
- What is the luck factor?
- When you are grateful, you pay it forward
- Savor the moment
- The 30-Day Meditation Challenge
- The alphabet gratitude practice
- Before you use social media, take a moment to say “What am I grateful for?”
- The year of living biblically
- Focus on the good and make the world better
- How much the outer affects the inner
- When you act confident, you become confident
- Not gossiping makes you happier
- The month of being the greatest husband experiment
- A.J. outsourcing an argument with his wife
- The downsides of outsourcing
- The radical honesty movement
- It’s not healthy to be obsessed with your health
- The meaning of orthorexia
- How to set micro goals
- The importance of community
- Puzzles can save the world
- We should all be experimenting more
Show sponsors:
Organifi <== 20% off all Organifi products
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Related links:
A.J. Jacobs - Thanks A Thousand (book)
Follow A.J. Jacobs on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter
A.J. Jacobs - The Year of Living Biblically (book)
A.J. Jacobs - Drop Dead Healthy (book)
David Steindl-Rast - Gratefulness, The Heart of Prayer (book)
Listen to Dr. Pedram Shojai previously on TUHP (episode #182)
Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg
A.J. Jacobs - George H.W. and Barbara Bush (article)
A.J. Jacobs - My Outsourced Life (article)
Tim Ferriss – The 4-Hour Workweek (book)
A.J. Jacobs - I Think You're Fat (article)
Brad Blanton - Radical Honesty (book)
The Invention of Lying (movie)
Join The Ultimate Health Podcast Facebook Community & participate in The 30-Day Meditation Challenge
Related episodes:
321: Neil Pasricha – You Are Awesome, Intentional Living, Becoming Anti-Fragile
375: James Sebastiano – Chasing The Present
312: James Altucher – Reinvent Yourself, Defining Freedom, Comedians See The Truth
293: Mark Manson – We All Need Hope • Meditation Makes You Stronger • Happiness Is Overrated
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Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Coming up on the Ultimate Health Podcast. |
| 0:02.8 | A lot of my projects have taught me that action leads to changing your mental state. |
| 0:10.3 | There's a phrase I wish I had come up with it that it's easier to act your way into a new way of thinking |
| 0:16.4 | than to think your way into a new way of acting. I believe that because I would wake up you know in my default grumpy mood, but I would force myself to act as if I was grateful, |
| 0:28.0 | force myself to make these calls or write these letters. |
| 0:31.0 | And after a couple of hours your mind catches up you trick your |
| 0:35.4 | mind in a good way and you start to feel more grateful. Hello and |
| 0:45.0 | welcome to the Ultimate Health Podcast episode 377. |
| 0:49.0 | I'm Jesse Chappas and I'm here to take your health to the next level. |
| 0:53.2 | Each week I'll bring you in-depth conversations with health and wellness leaders from |
| 0:56.5 | around the world. |
| 0:58.0 | This week I'm chatting with A.J. Jacobs. |
| 1:00.1 | He's an author, journalist, lecturer in Human Guinea Pig. |
| 1:03.6 | He's written four New York Times bestsellers that combined memoir, |
| 1:07.1 | science, humor, and a dash to self-help. |
| 1:09.6 | A.J. is also the editor at large at Esquire magazine, a commentator on NPR, and a columnist for Mental |
| 1:16.2 | Philosophy magazine. He's appeared on Oprah, The Today Show, Good Morning America, |
| 1:21.1 | CNN, The Dr. Oz Show and the Colbert Report, and he's given several |
| 1:25.2 | TED Talks. A.J is just such a fascinating guy. I know you're going to pick up on that right |
| 1:30.3 | away when we get into the conversation and he does these really extreme |
| 1:33.8 | experiments and then writes about the results and we talk about a number of these |
| 1:38.4 | experiments in our conversation you hear about some in the highlights here in a |
... |
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