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A counterintuitive way to become more clear, creative, and persistent, via a writer who calls himself a "human guinea pig."

A.J. Jacobs is an author, journalist, podcaster, and human guinea pig. His new podcast "The Puzzler" is produced by iHeart and is in the Top 20 Apple Podcasts. He has written four New York Times bestsellers that combine memoir, science, humor and a dash of self-help. Among his books are "The Year of Living Biblically" and "The Know-It-All." He has told several Moth stories, has given several TED talks that have amassed over 10 million views. His latest book is "The Puzzler," which Booklist called "ridiculously entertaining," and The New York Times called "a romp, both fun and funny."

In this episode we talk about:

The "puzzle mindset" and how it can change the way you approach your problems
Creating a puzzle that will take billions of years to solve
How puzzles can help us during dark times
The dark side of the puzzling world
How his gratitude project made him better at talking to himself
Learning to appreciate everyday objects and people he sees all the time
How pretending to be a good person helped him actually learn to be one – most of the time

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