Who are your heroes?

I’m a huge fan of Joseph Lister, the man who pioneered the germ theory despite ridicule from colleagues. Can you imagine how many lives he saved? Also, George Plimpton, for his adventurous spirit.

If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be?

Are you making fun of Barbara Walters?  Because she didn’t bring that up.  Katherine Hepburn did.  Katherine Hepburn said that she felt like a tree.  Barbara just asked a good journalistic follow-up question, What kind of tree are you?  And Katherine Hepburn said ‘oak tree.’

You seem passionate about this.

Well, it seems like an injustice. And if you must know, I would be a maple.

Why?

Because I’m sweet on the inside.  Plus, I’m regularly attacked by aphids.

Hm.  Not sure I get that one.  Moving on.  What’s the best advice you ever got?

I once met Mario Cuomo when I was twelve years old.  He took thirty seconds of his day to give me this advice: ‘Read everything you can read.  Go everywhere you can go.  Eat everything you can eat.  Meet everyone you can meet.’  I love that advice.

You’ve done all these life experiments. Have you learned anything from them? Any advice you have?

I learned from my biblical year to be grateful.  I try to focus on the hundreds of things that go right every day as opposed to focusing on the three or four that go wrong.  
I learned from my project on rationality to value humility.  Humans are born to be delusionally arrogant.  Eighty percent of people think they are above-average drivers, which is obviously impossible.  A dose of humility would make our world a lot better.

I try not to gossip (unsuccessfully, but I try): With the Bible experiment, it helped my life because when I stopped speaking negatively about people, I stopped thinking negatively as well. I became much more positive about my species.

What are your regrets?

I shouldn’t have called my last book The Guinea Pig Diaries. People think it’s about rodents.

Any special talents?

I can hand coo. This is not me; it’s some other guy.  But I can do something similar.

TAGS: A.J. Jacobs, authors, Esquire, The Guinea Pig Diaries: My Life as an Experiment, The Know-It-All, The Year of Living Biblically

A.J. JACOBS is a New York Times bestselling author and editor at large of Esquire. He is the author of The Know-It-All, a bestselling memoir of the year he spent reading the entire Encyclopedia Britannica in a quest to become the smartest person in the world; The Year of Living Biblically, a book about his life as the ultimate biblical man who followed every rule of the Bible, from the Ten Commandments to stoning adulterers. His most recent book is The Guinea Pig Diaries, about several monthlong experiments including the time he outsourced his entire life to India. In addition to his position at Esquire, Jacobs has written for The New York Times, New York magazine, Entertainment Weekly, and Dental Economics magazine, one of the top five magazines about the financial side of toothcare. He has also been featured as a commentator on NPR, and has appeared on Oprah, The Today Show, and Good Morning America.

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