Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - From The Puzzler with A.J. Jacobs | Dan Harris

Episode Date: February 2, 2024

We’re dropping a fun little treat in your feed today: it’s an episode of The Puzzler, a new podcast from writer A.J. Jacobs, who was my guest on Ten Percent Happier at the beginning of December. His new book, also called The Puzzler, is all about his exploration of the world of puzzles – everything from word games to jigsaw puzzles to Sudoku and beyond – and how what he calls “the puzzle mindset” can really improve your life.So then he asked me to be his guest on The Puzzler, a daily podcast that he hosts, with so-called “celebrity” guests trying to do puzzles. I’ve said before that I’m not really a puzzle guy, but A.J. is a delight and it was a lot of fun getting to be on his show – and that’s the episode we’re sharing with you today. You can find “The Puzzler with A.J. Jacobs” wherever you get your podcasts. And thanks, A.J., for having me. Sign up for Dan’s weekly newsletter hereFollow Dan on social: Instagram, TikTokTen Percent Happier online bookstoreSubscribe to our YouTube ChannelOur favorite playlists on: Anxiety, Sleep, Relationships, Most Popular EpisodesFor tickets to Dan Harris: Celebrating 10 Years of 10% Happier at Symphony Space: click hereAdditional Resources:Download the Ten Percent Happier app today: https://10percenthappier.app.link/installSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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featuring Brendan Fraser and Luke Kirby, or Mistletoe Murders 2, a cozy mystery featuring Kobe Smulders. A first listen is waiting for you when you start your free trial at audible.ca. Hello, Dan here. We're dropping a fun little treat into the feed today. It's an episode of The Puzzler, which is a new podcast from the writer AJ Jacobs, who was a guest on this podcast at the beginning of December. We talked about his new book, which is called The Puzzler, which is all about how to turn your problems into puzzles and how that can have a really positive effect on your mental health. He calls it the puzzle mindset. After the interview, he asked me to come on his new show, which is called The Puzzler. It's a daily podcast where he has quote, unquote, celebrities. I don't know if I meet that bar, but anyway, quote, unquote, celebrities come on and they do a

puzzle. I'm not really that into puzzles, but I find AJ so delightful that I agreed to do it. So you can hear AJ interviewing slash quizzing me in this episode of his show. AJ, thanks for having me on. Here we go. Hello, puzzlers. Welcome to the Puzzler podcast, the fondant tulip in your custom puzzle anniversary cake. custom puzzle anniversary cake. I am your host AJ Jacobs and I am here with our guest, the wonderful Dan Harris, author,

journalist and host of the great podcast 10% Happier. Welcome Dan. Thanks for having me. We are delighted. I was honored to be a guest on your podcast this week Which is a podcast. I think we all need more than ever in these stressful times It is a great tool for making people happier including meditation for fidgety skeptics Which describes me it lines up with my personality perfectly. You're my target audience. Exactly. And you have plenty of other tools. How to avoid the negative bias.

What am I missing? I'm missing hundreds. Oh, we do basically whatever you're suffering from, we try to address it. Anxiety, depression, stress, how to get into better arguments, what else do we talk about? Money, how to handle your anxiety and weirdness around money, how to, we call it how to get fit sanely, how to get fit without losing your mind. I know you wrote a whole book about this,

so we talked about a lot of similar issues. I did, and I talked about how a whole book about this, so we talked about a lot of similar issues. And I talked about how puzzles can make you happy. And I do. I believe puzzles can make you maybe not 10% happier, maybe 11% happier, maybe 4% happier. But I do believe they are a tool for happiness. Yeah, you came on the show and talked about how to like reframe your quote-unquote problems as puzzles Which can be a relief and can can you know make you less stressed and more creative and a clearer thinker and yeah?

Absolutely, I think that makes a lot of sense and I should also say that we've spent a lot of time on the show talking about Buddhism because I'm Practicing secular Buddhist and so it's all all ways to do your life better Excellent well Buddhist and so it's all all ways to do your life better. Excellent. Well, we want to make you slightly happier with a puzzle that we wrote just for you and it is themed to happiness. We thought that might be appropriate. So I'm going to give you a few clues and the answer to every clue is a two word phrase starting with the word happy. So if I said a cheerful 60 minutes you might say happy hour. Hour, exactly.

They're not all quite that easy but they are. You do know how many minutes in an hour, so you got the first one. Okay, are you ready? Yes. The first one is, joyous toes, arches, and heels. Well there was a movie. That's it. That's the one. Yes. All right. Happy feet.

Happy feet. Yes. Part of that wave of penguin movies in the early 2000s. So the dancing penguin. All right, what about, next up, jubilant fender benders. Well, we often talk about the upsides of experimentation on my show, so I suspect you're talking about happy accidents? I am exactly, yes. So two for two. Alright, what about this one? An elated RV. An elated RV. Recreational vehicle. Hmm, this one, could be a Winnebago, a van, a trailer. Those are some other ones.

Yeah, I'm struggling with this, like happy car, happy vehicle. You're in the right area, but it's a particular type of vehicle. It's also, it's something that kids do during the summer, then they go, Oh, I thought I was going to, when you said kids, I was going to happy meal,

but that kids do that. Well, that may come up later, so you might have scooped it. Okay. Kids do during the summer. Bunks and the overnight and uh... Summer camp? Yeah, I get that. But Happy Camper.

Oh, right. Happy Camper. Exactly. Got it. Got it. Got it. Okay. It's an interesting phrase, because do you like camping? Is that something you enjoy?

Well, I have a conflicted relationship to camping. First of all, summer camp, I went to when I was a kid, and I was desperately homesick many of the summers. I made it through all, back then there were eight weeks, not now, they're often seven weeks. And I made it through all back then there were eight weeks not now they're often seven weeks and I made it through the whole thing multiple times but I would often get struck by this big wave of homesickness and interestingly when I do meditation retreats now I'm often hit by the same feelings I don't exactly know why. But being something about being unmoored from my daily life, I find a little disruptive. Maybe then there's

something in there. I was miserable at summer camp as well. Well, you didn't say you were miserable, but I was. I was miserable. Not the whole time. I learned to love it eventually, but yeah. In terms of camping now, I love nature. You know, we moved out of New York City to the suburbs, in part because our kid really likes being outside and I like being outside. I don't love sleeping outside. And my parents were hippies and they used to make us go camping and I was resented them for that. So I like nature, but I also like my bed. them for that. So I like nature, but I also like my bed. Nature during the day. Yeah. All right. I'm with you. I'm with you. I am not a huge camper. And in fact, I looked up the origin of Happy Camper. And one linguist who seems to be quite a

camping skeptic says that the reason it's called Happy Camper is because camping is so miserable that the reason it's called Happy Camper is because camping is so miserable with the mosquitoes and that if you're a happy camper like you must be a super happy person. I'm not sure that's that's correct but anyway let me get you to the next one we got two or three more. Yeah. Murthful Rory or Lorelai that's the mother daughter duo from a TV series set in Connecticut, a delightful series from maybe 10 years ago. I haven't, I mean, I've never, I'm guessing here about the, oh, it's a Happy Gilmore, but Gilmore Girls

is the name of the show, which I've never seen, Happy Gilmore is a movie with Adam Sandler, am I right? You got it, exactly. Okay, I've never seen. Happy Gilmore is a movie with Adam Sandler. Am I right? You got it, exactly. Nice, okay, I've never seen that show. It was just one girl we were talking about because we said Morphil Brewery or it's good, I recommend it. It's a good dialogue, very fast-paced.

All right, two more, ready? One is, what about a contented movie star Doris on her way to the premiere of Pillow Talk, accompanied by It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia actor Charlie? Happy Day. Exactly. Happy Day. Well, there are two of them, so we thought Happy Days. Doris Day. Happy Days. Happy Days in the TV show. Sorry. Okay, so Doris Day, the movie star, Charlie Day from...

Who's amazing in that sitcom It's always hilarious hilarious I my guilty pleasure in life is tiktok and tiktok has figured out that I like clips from that show as well So yeah, that was good one happy days got it excellent Which by the way, it's kind of ironic because it's it's always sunny in Philadelphia even though it's an incredibly dark show And so but you having a happy show it all fits together somehow Our last one is a merry fortune teller a merry fortune teller Or a psychic clairvoyant type

Oh, I'm struggling with this. Okay. Mary Fortune teller. So happy psychic, happy. It is a synonym for that, right? Less or no on a maybe. Well, let me just throw one out at you while I got you. So if you go into McDonald's is too much, you might get a... Oh, okay. Got it. Happy medium. I would not have gotten that. Well, that's why we're here.

We're here to help. Well, you did fantastic. Thank you, Dan. Where can people hear more of you? Wherever you're listening to this podcast, I'm sure 10% happier will be available. And you can hear AJ come on and talk about establishing a puzzle mindset, how doing what we've just done actually can reorient you towards lots of things in your life. There you go. I feel happier already.

Well, before we wrap up, as always, a quick puzzle for you puzzlers at home. Here it is. Joyous coarsely ground grains. Joyous coarsely ground grains. And there might have been a little bit of a spoiler earlier in the episode from Dan. I hope you have a short memory. Please don't forget to subscribe to the Puzzler Podcast if you're enjoying a tele-friend, an acquaintance, whoever, and we'll meet you here tomorrow for more puzzling puzzles that will puzzle you puzzlingly.

Hello, puzzlers, This is Greg Pliska. I've been released from the Puzzle Lab one more time to share with you the extra credit answer from our previous show. We played contradictions with Giuliana Pace. These were all words that have opposite meanings, and we gave you a clue to each of them. Your extra-credit clue is, the king could not pass a blank, banning public gatherings without the blank of parliament. The answer, of course, is the word sanction, which means both something that bans and something that gives the approval for. I hope you all got that one, and I hope you're listening to The Puzzler every day. We look forward to playing with you again soon. ["Puzzler"]

Thanks for playing along with the team here at The Puzzler. I'm Greg Plisca, your chief puzzle officer. Our executive producers are Nealey Lohman and Adam Newhouse of Newhouse Ideas and Lindsey Hoffman of iHeart Podcasts. The show is produced by Jody Avergan and Brittany Brown of Roulette Productions. Our associate producer is Andrea Schoenberg. The puzzler with AJ Jacobs is a co-production with Newhouse Ideas and is distributed by

Stop This Arcade! Nah, rearrange the letters. Distributed by iHeart Podcast. If you want to know more about puzzling puzzles, please check out the book The Puzzler by AJ Jacobs, a history of puzzles that The New York Times called fun and funny. It features an original puzzle hunt by yours truly and is available wherever you get your books. And puzzlers, for all your puzzling needs, go visit thepuzzler.com. See you there.

["The Puzzler"] If you like 10% happier, I hope you do, you can listen early and ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus and the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at Wondery.com.