The Know-It-All: Behind One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World

In this engaging and delightful talk based on his New York Times best-selling book, speaker A.J. Jacobs gives a behind-the-scenes look at his journey to "become the smartest person in the world" by reading the entire Encyclopedia Britannica from A to Z, all 44 million words of it.

Walking a Mile in Others' Shoes

Want to know what your customer is thinking? Live your life as the customer for a week. It's the same with understanding how your rival thinks. Jacobs stresses the importance of immersing yourself in other points of view to make yourself a better businessperson.

Change Your Behavior, Change Your Mind

Jacobs's year of biblical living taught him that the most powerful way to change his mind was to change his behavior. The mind will catch up. As he says, "fake it till you make it." It's how he claims he learned to be a better person and a better businessman.

My Year of Living Biblically

Raised in a secular family, but increasingly interested in the role of religion in our world, AJ Jacobs decided to learn about the Bible firsthand: by living it. He vowed to spend a year following every single rule in the Bible from the famous ones (the Ten Commandments) to the often-ignored laws (don't shave your beard, do not wear clothes made of mixed fibers -- even stone adulterers). The result is a fascinating look at religion -- one that is both reverent and irreverent, funny but deeply serious.

Drop Dead Healthy: One Man's Humble Quest for Bodily Perfection

A.J. Jacobs lives his life as an experiment. In his New York Times bestsellers The Know-It-All and The Year of Living Biblically, Jacobs tackled mental and spiritual challenges; in his most recent book, Drop Dead Healthy: One Man's Humble Quest for Bodily Perfection, he physically challenged himself to live a healthy life from head to toe.

In this talk, based on his latest book (which he wrote on a treadmill!), Jacobs shares his journey following the latest medical advice to become his healthiest self—which included trying every diet plan, every workout routine, and every self-improvement tip he could find. Armed with a healthier diet and a healthier outlook, Jacobs encourages audiences to be mindful of the steps they can take to find their own "bodily perfection."

The Importance of Self-Delusion in the Creative Process

How can we apply the idea of method-acting to our business lives? This is the question that life-hacker and best-selling author A.J. Jacobs tackles in this insightful (and highly entertaining) talk on the benefits of faking it until you make it. Through a series of examples from his own life, Jacobs shows just how much our behavior shapes our thoughts and our perceptions. Thus, if we want to change our attitude about something, the best way is to “act as if.”