Most Interesting Man

When I was in high school, I would set challenges for myself: practice the piano 45 minutes a day, give up soda for a year, witness to so many people each month, learn a new word every day. Basically, I was a lot cooler of a person in high school than I am now.

I was listening to another new podcast last week (Aaron and I drive an hour to our doctor every week so podcasts are a great way to spend the time). This one is called "Part Time Genius" and they are fairly new and a lot of fun to listen to.

During an episode about rats, they were interviewing a man named AJ Jacobs. This man should be the new most interesting man in the world. He is an author who writes about goals he set for himself.

In his first book, The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World, he writes about how he took 18 months to read the entire encyclopedia Britannica. In the podcast, he says he remembers like 2% of what he learned.

He also took the challenge of following all the rules in the Bible for a year. I can't imagine this was easy, as God sent Jesus as a atonement for the fact that we do not have the ability to follow rules set by God. The title of this book is The Year of Living Biblically: One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible. In the interview, he said he was telling an acquaintance his quest. The acquaintance asked if AJ was going to stone him because he was an adulterer. I'm assuming it is in the book if AJ was able to stone someone or not. 

After taking care of the mind and spirit, AJ took on the challenge of living as healthy as possible. He wrote Drop Dead Healthy: One Man’s Humble Quest for Bodily Perfection while on a treadmill desk. It took 1200 miles. 

He is now working on making the largest family tree possible, trying to prove how we are all related. 

He has given TED talks and writes articles, but I have already summarized his biography enough.If you are interested in learning more, here is a link to his biography. AJ JACOBS

His wife also sounds interesting as she works for a company that creates scavenger hunts, um... dream job!

I haven't read any of his books, yet I learned about him last week. I am too busy forcing myself to read a cheesy summer book I am not enjoying that much, but I paid money so I am going to read it, dang it.

I'm always inspired to set goals for myself after hearing about these people. Inspired, but maybe not motivated enough.