November 5, 2018

The Tim Ferriss Show – A.J. Jacobs on 10 Strategies to Be Happier Through Gratitude

Intro

• A.J. Jacobs (@AJJacobs) is the author of many books, including:
  • The Year of Living Biblically: One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible
  • It’s All Relative: Adventures Up and Down the World’s Family Tree
  • Drop Dead Healthy: One Man’s Humble Quest for Bodily Perfection
• Check out his website
• He is guest hosting this podcast
  • Tim asked him to talk about how to be happier, through gratitude
• A.J. has a new book coming out called Thanks A Thousand: A Gratitude Journey
  • The premise of the book, is that A.J. goes around the world, and tries to thank every single person who had even the smallest role in making his morning coffee
    • This includes the farmer of the coffee beans, the barista, the truck driver who drove the coffee beans, the inventor of the cardboard coffee sleeve, the person who does pest control at the warehouse where the beans are stored…
  • “Every little thing in our lives, involves thousands of people that we take for granted”
• Gratitude is a large key to happiness
• Tim connected with A. .after emailing him before writing The 4-Hour Workweek –  he asked him to chat briefly so he could interview A.J. about his writing process
  • Tim was particularly intrigued by an article A.J. wrote, titled My Outsourced Life
    • In the article, A.J. tells about how he hired a team of people from India to do everything for him – they answered his phone/emails, and even took over the duties of arguing with his wife
    • Tim reprinted the article in the book

Strategy 1 – Declare War on the Negative Bias

• Thinking on an evolutionary scale – the negative bias had value
  • We needed to extra aware of dangers (lions, poisonous mushrooms etc.)
  • But now, that’s not so important
• Focus on the things that go right every day, instead of the things that go wrong
  • One good way – write them down 
  • Get specific – Did the checkout line at the grocery store go quick? Write that down. Did you avoid red lights on your way to work? Write it down.

Strategy 2 – The Art of Savoring

• Savor your experiences 
• Be present, get off your phone, and absorb your surroundings 
• Instead of watching TV or browsing your phone while drinking coffee, take a moment to pause, and savor the coffee’s acidity and taste
• A.J. has a cool practice:
  • He has a file on his computer called “The One Thing”
  • Every night, he adds to it, based on what he did that day – the one thing he wants to remember from every conversation, podcast, TV show, or book

Strategy 3 – Practice 6 Degrees of Thankfulness

• Everything is connected
  • “It takes thousands of people to make any object. It doesn’t take a village to make a cup of coffee, it takes the world.”
  • Remind yourself continuously that you’re part of something bigger
• A.J.’s previous book, It’s All Relative, was about a group of scientists building a family tree of the entire world (all 7 billion people)
  • They have over 100,000,000 connected – they’re not finished
• Realizing we’re all connected, makes it easier to ask for help

Strategy 4 – Don’t Forget You’re Going to Die

• Be grateful you exist at all
• More likely than not, you won’t exist forever
  • “We have a brief flash here on earth, make the most of it”
• Remember you are going to die, is known as “Momento Mori“
• A.J. has a skull as his laptop screensaver to help him remember this

Strategy 5 – Use Gratitude to Fall Asleep

• Instead of counting sheep, count the things you’re grateful for

Strategy 6 – Though Shall Not Have Nostalgia

• Glorifying the past is a thief of joy
• A.J. has a 3 word mantra he finds very helpful – “Surgery without anesthesia”
  • Up until a few decades ago, that’s the way all surgeries were
• Just think about how good we have it now, all things considered
  • There is much less suffering in the world than there used to be
• “Don’t wallow in the past”

Strategy 7 – Try To Discover The Hidden Masterpieces All Around You

• Think about how much engineering, passion, and thought goes into creating a coffee cup lid
• “There are so many masterpieces all around me, that I take for granted”
• Pay attention – if you notice the “masterpieces”, they’ll awe you with wonder

Strategy 8 – Go Analog

• Write hand written thank you notes more often
• “We overestimate the level of awkwardness when we thank people, and underestimate how much impact it will have”
• Side notes
  • A.J. recalls one study that found using the phrase “thank you”, isn’t as effective as saying “I am grateful for..” – “thank you” is too robotic
  • A.J. recalls another study which found that people who hand write thank you notes after job interviews, are more likely to get called back

Strategy 9 – Fake Gratitude Until You Feel It

• When you act in a certain way, it affects your mind
  • The outer, effects the inner
• “It’s easier to act your way to a new way of thinking, than to think your way into a new way of acting”
• Act as if you’re grateful and eventually your mind will catch up

Strategy 10 – Use Gratitude as a Spark to Action

• The more grateful you are, the more likely you are to help others (also the more pro social you are)
• Gratitude makes you want to pay it forward

Wrapping Up

• It’s not the glass half full vs. the glass half empty
  • It’s the fact that we have any water in the glass at all…
  • How f*cking crazy is it, that we can walk to our kitchen, turn the faucet, and have clean water come out
• “Paradoxically but wonderfully, focusing on someone else’s happiness will actually make you happier”

Random

• If everyone involved in the supply chain of your coffee, were paid the minimum wage in the United States, your cup of coffee would cost $25 – and you thought $3 was ridiculous