Hey everybody, welcome.

Thank you for listening to this episode of Marriage Therapy Radio.

My name is Zach Riddle.

Laura is not with us today.

I'm here all by myself today, except that I'm not.

I'm here with AJ Jacobs.

This has got to be one of my favorite interviews I've ever done.

AJ wrote a book called The Puzzler, which is all about, well, it's all about puzzles,

including crossword puzzles and jigsaw

puzzles and mazes and the puzzle of life. And we talk about the puzzle of marriage and relationships.

AJ has really incredible insights. I was really pleased to get to talk to him. I learned a ton.

I hope that we are going to be friends. And I think you really enjoy it. This is a very cool conversation. Stick around. It's nice to greet you and to say hi and see your face. I feel like I've been listening to the book on Audible. I love listening to people who read their own books. Well, thank. But I've been listening on like 1.7. So now I have to like slow down and realize that you go. Well, I'll try to talk quickly. How's that? I'm going to do it. I think I can do it. I can, maybe not 1.7, but 1.5. That's pretty fun. Well, I'm very flattered that you're liking the book. That is just delightful. And are you a puzzle fan yourself? A little bit. I didn't know it was a book that I needed, to be honest. Kind of like everybody else, I got into something new during COVID. I learned how to play chess. And I found the crossword puzzles. And I'm like hooked. Like I bought the New York Times subscription. and now I'm archiving like all the way back. I think I'm into like 2018 now. I might be do three a day. But wow. And then I just, the book, I don't know how it came across my desk. And I was like, wait, I think I need to read this one. So I kind of put it off, put it off, put it off. and then I started listening to it on a road trip, and I couldn't get enough. I was like, I want my road trip to be longer

because I wanted to finish it. That was a huge compliment. Well, I love it. Yeah. I've been working on the New York Times crossword. I can do Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday consistently. Gotcha. And now I'm kind of starting to get into Thursday and sort of figure out how.

Yeah.

It took me a lot.

I'd say five years before I could do a Saturday consistently.

Yeah.

So now, and now I'm always terrified because the moment that I can't do the Saturday will be objective proof that my brain is in decline.

So it's a little too much, you know, a little too much objectivity for me.

Well, I, you know, so the podcast, we'll talk about whatever we want today, but I'm a big fan of just sort of thinking about like, what does the brain do? Why does the brain do it? What is it? You know, so I'm having the opposite experience, which is once I kind of got Tuesday down, I was like, okay, I'm going to try Wednesday and I was learning. And now I feel like better and better about Wednesday. so now I'm going to like lean into Thursday.

So I'm having the, my brain is actually learning how to do new things and it's growing.

I encourage it.

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