Speaker 1: Hello, Puzzlers, Welcome to the Puzzler podcast The Fondant Tulip
Speaker 1: in your custom puzzle anniversary cake. I'm your host, AJ Jacobs,
Speaker 1: and I am here with our guest, the wonderful Dan Harris, author,
Speaker 1: journalist and host of the great podcast ten Percent Happier.
Speaker 2: Welcome Dan, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: We are delighted. I was honored to be a guest
Speaker 1: on your podcast this week, which is a podcast I
Speaker 1: think we all need more than ever in these stressful times.
Speaker 1: It is a great tool for making people happier, including
Speaker 1: meditation for fidgety skeptics, which describes me. It lines up
Speaker 1: with my personality perfectly.
Speaker 2: You're my target audience exactly.
Speaker 1: And you have plenty of other tools how to avoid
Speaker 1: the negative bias. What am I missing? I'm missing hundreds?
Speaker 2: Oh, we do basically whatever you're suffering from, we try
Speaker 2: to address it. Anxiety, depression, stress, how to get into
Speaker 2: better arguments? What else do we talk about? Money? How
Speaker 2: to handle your anxiety and weirdness around money, how to
Speaker 2: we call it? How to get fit sanely? How to
Speaker 2: get fit without losing your mind. I know you wrote
Speaker 2: a whole book about this, so we love the similar issues.
Speaker 1: I did, and I talked about how puzzles can make
Speaker 1: you happy, and I do. I believe puzzles can make
Speaker 1: you maybe not ten percent happier, maybe eleven percent happier,
Speaker 1: maybe four percent happier, but I do believe they are
Speaker 1: a tool for happiness.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you came on the show and talked about how
Speaker 2: to reframe your quote unquote problems as puzzles, which can
Speaker 2: be your relief and can can you know, make you
Speaker 2: less stressed and more creative and a clearer thinker. And yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 2: I think that makes a lot of sense. And I
Speaker 2: should also say that we spent a lot of time
Speaker 2: on the show talking about Buddhism because I'm a practicing
Speaker 2: secular Buddhist and so it's all always to do your
Speaker 2: life better.
Speaker 1: Excellent. Well, we want to make you slightly happier with
Speaker 1: a puzzle that we wrote just for you, and it
Speaker 1: is themed to happiness. We thought that might be appropriate.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to give you a few clues, and
Speaker 1: the answer to every clue is a two word phrase
Speaker 1: starting with the word happy. So if I said a
Speaker 1: cheerful sixty minutes, you might say happy our hour exactly.
Speaker 1: They're not all quite that easy, but they are. You
Speaker 1: do know how many minutes in an hour? So you
Speaker 1: got the first one, okay, are you ready? Yes, the
Speaker 1: first one is Joyous toes, arches and heels.
Speaker 2: Well, there was a movie.
Speaker 1: That's it. That's the one.
Speaker 2: Yes, all right, happy Feet.
Speaker 1: Happy Feet, Yes, part of that wave of penguin movies
Speaker 1: in the early two thousands, and so the Dancing Penguin.
Speaker 1: All right, what about next up, jubilant fender benders.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, we often talk about the upsides of
Speaker 2: experimentation on my show. So I suspect you're talking about
Speaker 2: happy accidents.
Speaker 1: I am exactly yes, So two for two, all right?
Speaker 1: What about this one? An elated RV an elated RV
Speaker 1: recreational vehicle?
Speaker 2: Hmm, this one.
Speaker 1: Could be a Winnebago, a van, a trailer. Those are
Speaker 1: some other ones.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm struggling with this. Like a happy car, happy vehicle.
Speaker 1: You're in the right area. It's but it's a particular
Speaker 1: type of vehicle. It's also it's something that kids do
Speaker 1: during the summer.
Speaker 2: Then they go, oh, oh, I thought you thought I
Speaker 2: was going to when you said kids, I was going
Speaker 2: to happy meal. But that kids do.
Speaker 1: Well, that may come up later, so you might scoop to.
Speaker 2: Kids do during the summer.
Speaker 1: Bunks and the overnight and summer camp.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I get that, but so happy camper, oh right by.
Speaker 1: Camper exactly got it? Got it. It's an interesting phrase,
Speaker 1: because do you like camping? Is that something you enjoy?
Speaker 2: Well? I have a conflicted relationship to camping. First of all,
Speaker 2: summer camp I went to when I was a kid,
Speaker 2: and I was desperately homesick. Many of the summers I
Speaker 2: made it through all Back then there were eight weeks,
Speaker 2: not now they're often seven weeks, and I made it
Speaker 2: through the whole thing multiple times, but I would often
Speaker 2: get struck by this big wave of homesickness. And interestingly,
Speaker 2: when I do meditation retreats now, I'm often hit by
Speaker 2: the same feelings. I don't exactly know why, but being
Speaker 2: something about being unmoored from my daily life I find
Speaker 2: a little disruptive. Maybe there's something in there.
Speaker 1: I was miserable at summer camp as well. Well, you
Speaker 1: didn't say you were miserable, but I was.
Speaker 2: I was miserable. No, not the whole time. I learned
Speaker 2: to love it eventually, But yeah, in terms of camping now,
Speaker 2: I love nature.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: We moved out of New York City to the suburbs
Speaker 2: in part because our kid really likes being outside and
Speaker 2: I like being outside. I don't love sleeping outside. And
Speaker 2: my parents were hippies and they used to make us
Speaker 2: go camping and I always resented.
Speaker 4: Them for that.
Speaker 2: So I like nature, but I like I also like my.
Speaker 1: Bed nature during the day. Yeah, all right, I'm with you.
Speaker 1: I'm with you. I am not a huge, huge camper,
Speaker 1: And in fact, I looked up the origin of happy Camper,
Speaker 1: and one linguist who seems to be quite a camping skeptic,
Speaker 1: says that the reason it's called happy camper is because
Speaker 1: camping is so miserable with the mosquitos, and that if
Speaker 1: you're a happy camper, like you must be a super
Speaker 1: happy person. I'm not sure that's that's correct, but anyway,
Speaker 1: let me get you to the next one. We got
Speaker 1: two or three more. Yeah, mirthful Rory or Laureli. That's
Speaker 1: the mother daughter duo from a TV series set in Connecticut,
Speaker 1: a delightful series from maybe ten years ago.
Speaker 2: I haven't, I mean, I've never I'm guessing here, but
Speaker 2: the oh, it's a happy Gilmore, but Gilmore Girls is
Speaker 2: the name of the show, which I've never seen. Happy
Speaker 2: Gilmore is a movie with Adam Sandler.
Speaker 1: I am, I right, you got it exactly.
Speaker 2: Okay, I've never seen that show.
Speaker 1: It was just one girl we were talking about because
Speaker 1: we said mordful brory or it's good. I recommend it.
Speaker 1: It's good dialogue, very fast paced.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 1: Two more ready? One is what about a contented movie
Speaker 1: star Doris on her way to the premiere of pillow
Speaker 1: Talk accompanied by It's always Sonny in Philadelphia actor.
Speaker 2: Charlie Happy Day.
Speaker 1: Exactly Happy Day. Well, there are two of them, so
Speaker 1: we found had.
Speaker 2: Doris Day, Happy Days, Happy Days the TV show. Sorry, okay,
Speaker 2: so Doris Day, the movie star Charlie Day from Who's
Speaker 2: She's Amazing in that sitcom It's always like Philadelphia, hilarious.
Speaker 2: I My guilty pleasure in life is TikTok, and TikTok
Speaker 2: has figured out that I like clips from that show
Speaker 2: as well as So, yeah, that was a good one.
Speaker 2: Happy Days got it.
Speaker 1: Excellent, which, by the way, is kind of ironic because
Speaker 1: it's it's always sunny in Philadelphia even though it's an
Speaker 1: incredibly dark show, and so but you having a happy show.
Speaker 1: It all fits together some all right. Last one is
Speaker 1: a Mary fortune teller, a Mary fortune teller or a
Speaker 1: psychic clairvoyant type.
Speaker 2: Oh I'm struggling with this. Okay, Mary fortune teller, so
Speaker 2: happy psychic happy.
Speaker 1: It is a synonym for that right lesser known. Maybe. Well,
Speaker 1: let me just throw one out at you. Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: I got you say. If you go into McDonald's in
Speaker 1: order fries, you might you don't want a small large
Speaker 1: as too much. You might get.
Speaker 2: A okay, got it, happy medium. I would not have
Speaker 2: gotten that.
Speaker 1: Well, that's why we're here. We're here to help. Well,
Speaker 1: you did fantastic, Thank you, Dan. Where can people hear
Speaker 1: more of you?
Speaker 2: Oh, wherever you're listening to this podcast, I'm sure ten
Speaker 2: percent happier will be available and you can hear a
Speaker 2: Jay come on and talk about establishing a puzzle mindset,
Speaker 2: how doing what we've just done actually can reorient you
Speaker 2: towards lots of things in your life.
Speaker 1: There you go, I feel happier already. Well, before we
Speaker 1: wrap up, as always a quick puzzle for you puzzlers
Speaker 1: at home. Here it is joyous, coarsely ground greens, joyous
Speaker 1: coarsely ground greens, and there might have been a little
Speaker 1: bit of a spoiler earlier in the episode from dam
Speaker 1: I I hope you have a short memory. Please don't
Speaker 1: forget to subscribe to the Puzzler podcast. If you're enjoying
Speaker 1: a tell a friend, an acquaintance, whoever, and we'll meet
Speaker 1: you here tomorrow for more puzzling puzzles that will puzzle
Speaker 1: you puzzlingly.
Speaker 4: Hello puzzlers, this is Greg Pliska. I've been released from
Speaker 4: the Puzzle Lab. Time to share with you the extra
Speaker 4: credit answer from our previous show. We played contradictions with
Speaker 4: Juliana pache. These were all words that have opposite meanings,
Speaker 4: and we gave you a clue to each of them.
Speaker 4: Your extra credit clue is the King could not pass
Speaker 4: a blank banning public gatherings without the blank of parliament.
Speaker 4: The answer, of course, is the word sanction, which means
Speaker 4: both something that bans and something that gives the approval
Speaker 4: for I hope you all got that one, and I
Speaker 4: hope you're listening to the Puzzler every day. We look
Speaker 4: forward to playing with you again soon.
Speaker 3: Thanks for playing along with the team here at the Puzzler.
Speaker 3: I'm Greg Kliska, your Chief Puzzle Officer. Our executive producers
Speaker 3: are Neelie Lohman and Adam Neuhause of New House Ideas
Speaker 3: and Lindsay Hoffman of iHeart Podcasts. The show is produced
Speaker 3: by Jody Abergant and Brittany Brown of Roulette Productions. Our
Speaker 3: associate producer is Andrea Schoenberg. The Puzzler with Aj Jacobs
Speaker 3: is a co production with New House Ideas and is
Speaker 3: distributed by Stop This Arcade, Nah Rearrange the Letters distributed
Speaker 3: by iHeart Podcasts. If you want to know more about
Speaker 3: puzzling puzzles, please check out the book The Puzzler by
Speaker 3: AJ Jacobs, a history of puzzles that The New York
Speaker 3: Times called fun and funny. It features an original puzzle
Speaker 3: hunt by Yours Truly, and is available wherever you get
Speaker 3: your books and puzzlers. For all your puzzling needs, go
Speaker 3: visit the Puzzler dot com. See you there,