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The James Altucher Show

Can You Solve These Puzzles with Me and A.J.?

The James Altucher Show

James Altucher

Education, Business

4.62.7K Ratings

🗓️ 19 October 2023

⏱️ 53 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Unleashing a realm of curiosity and amusement, this episode of the James Altucher Show welcomes the ever-inventive A.J. Jacobs, who brings along a treasure trove of puzzles from his new daily podcast, "The Puzzler". As A.J. shares the essence behind his latest venture, James steps into the playful challenge, answering sample anagrams and audio rebuses on the spot.The episode kicks off with a lively discussion about A.J.'s upcoming book on living according to the U.S. Constitution, offering a quick glimpse into his boundless exploratory spirit. Soon, the spotlight shifts to "The Puzzler," where A.J. and James immerse themselves in a playful yet insightful interaction. The fun escalates as the episode extends into two bonus segments of "The Puzzler." In the first bonus episode, "Pan in Panama", Jeopardy! legend Ken Jennings - host of the "Omnibus" podcast and lots more - joins as the special guest puzzle solver.Following suit, the second bonus episode, "Moment of Zen", features writer and activist Baratunde Thurston, formerly of the Daily Show, founding editor of Puck and host of the PBS series "America Outdoors." Be sure to subscribe to "The Puzzler" wherever you get your podcasts, or at thepuzzler.com------------What do YOU think of the show? Head to JamesAltucherShow.com/listeners and fill out a short survey that will help us better tailor the podcast to our audience!Are you interested in getting direct answers from James about your question on a podcast? Go to JamesAltucherShow.com/AskAltucher and send in your questions to be answered on the air!------------Visit Notepd.com to read our idea lists & sign up to create your own!My new book, Skip the Line, is out! Make sure you get a copy wherever books are sold!Join the You Should Run for President 2.0 Facebook Group, where we discuss why you should run for President.I write about all my podcasts! Check out the full post and learn what I learned at jamesaltucher.com/podcast.------------Thank you so much for listening! If you like this episode, please rate, review, and subscribe  to "The James Altucher Show" wherever you get your podcasts: Apple PodcastsStitcheriHeart RadioSpotifyFollow me on Social Media:YouTubeTwitterFacebook ------------What do YOU think of the show? Head to JamesAltucherShow.com/listeners and fill out a short survey that will help us better tailor the podcast to our audience!Are you interested in getting direct answers from James about your question on a podcast? Go to JamesAltucherShow.com/AskAltucher and send in your questions to be answered on the air!------------Visit Notepd.com to read our idea lists & sign up to create your own!My new book, Skip the Line, is out! Make sure you get a copy wherever books are sold!Join the You Should Run for President 2.0 Facebook Group, where we discuss why you should run for President.I write about all my podcasts! Check out the full post and learn what I learned at jamesaltuchershow.com------------Thank you so much for listening! If you like this episode, please rate, review, and subscribe to "The James Altucher Show" wherever you get your podcasts: Apple PodcastsiHeart RadioSpotifyFollow me on social media:YouTubeTwitterFacebookLinkedIn See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Transcript

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0:00.0

People love solving puzzles. First off, it's like a challenge to yourself. Here's an intriguing

0:13.1

thing, can I solve it? And a puzzle has to be done just right. Like, if it's too hard,

0:17.3

you lose interest, if it's too easy, you lose interest. So puzzles are like this fascinating

0:22.3

form of entertainment that is existed for thousands of years. And I think I like puzzles

0:27.3

also for two other reasons. One is, I feel like it exercises my brain. So the more puzzles

0:33.3

I solve, the more I could, I don't know, avoid eventual dementia or whatever. I don't

0:38.8

know if that's true or not. I don't know if there's any evidence of that. But it feels

0:42.4

like I'm exercising my brain. Number two, I think I'm insecure. I want to think of myself

0:48.6

as smart. I want other people to think I'm smart. And so doing puzzles is a way for me

0:56.3

to see that I'm smart. I think part of that is the reason why I play chess too. Like

1:00.4

chess is viewed throughout culture as this intelligent thing. You have to be intelligent

1:05.3

to play chess. I can assure you, having known a lot of chess players, that is the opposite

1:10.3

of true, that some, I know some chess players that are very much not smart. And I also know

1:17.0

my own intelligence is greatly in question when I do puzzles. I'm not really as good at

1:23.8

them as I would like to be. I don't know. So I'm fascinated by the whole issue of puzzles.

1:28.4

And of course, we've had on AJ Jacobs before to talk about puzzles. He wrote a book called

1:33.6

The Puzzler. And where he explores the world, finding the most interesting puzzles, fascinating

1:39.3

book, you should read it. But now he has started a podcast called The Puzzler. So he's

1:45.4

coming on today. He's got a bunch of puzzles for me, which I hope they're audio puzzles.

1:49.5

So even if you're driving in your car at the gym, listen and see if you can solve the

1:53.4

puzzles. And at the end of this episode, we release, so each one of AJ's puzzler podcast

2:02.7

episodes are seven minutes. So at the end of this podcast, we have two, never before

...

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