Episode 09 体能训练师Jillian Michaels对人生意义的见解，也许会出乎你的意料...

Hey, what's up? Liu Yan here. Welcome to a new episode of They Said.

Before we get to the meaty stuff, a quick heads-up. This episode contains some potentially disturbing material. If you don't want to hear about anything remotely related to torture, you might want to skip the first interview and start from the middle of this program. 

OK, now that you've had time to prepare, let's get right to it.

The first clip I'm gonna share today is from Daniel J. Jones. He is the founder and president of ADI, a nonpartisan, non-profit organization that conducts public interest investigations. He is best known for his role in leading the investigation into the CIA's use of torture in the wake of the September 11 attacks. He spent over half a decade writing a 7,000-page report. Thanks to this report, we know that the CIA consulted some so-called experts and decided that tortue was the best way to go about acquiring information.

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If you follow news closely, you know that the report Daniel wrote did make international headlines a few years ago, but once it was out of the news cycle, few people continued to care. Fortunately, with the recent movie adapation of Daniel's real-life story, what happened will not be so easily forgotten. Daniel doesn't consider himself the hero of the story, though. He thinks whistleblowers deserve the credit.

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In case you are wondering, hey, what does that have to do with me? I'm not a terrorist, the CIA will never consider me a person of interest. Why should I care?

The answer may come from a highly unexpected source. This next clip is from Sarah Bessey, a well-known spiritual writer who has published three books so far. She's also a preacher who loves talking about God and Jesus. But above all else, she is a voracious reader who likes reading whatever.

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That is the perfect answer to why you should embrace all kinds of books, and to a greater extent, why you should care about stuff that doesn't directly concern or interet you.

What's especially relevant to me is that I was brought up in a non-religious environment, and I used to have zero interest in any sort of religious figures. Just ten years ago, you couldn't pay me enough to listen to a spiritual writer/preacher. It took me a lot of learning to realize that even though personal interest is not a matter of right or wrong, it never hurts to be a bit more open-minded.

Thank goodness for that realization. Otherwise I would have missed out on the pearls of wisdom Sarah provided.

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And since we are on the topic of books and unexpected sources, here's another prime example. Jillian Michaels is a personal trainer and businesswoman. She rose to fame by appearing on the reality show The Biggest Loser almost two decades ago, and since then, she has helped countless obese people lose weight, get healthy and turn their lives around. 

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Who would have thought a fitness expert can give pointers to a book about the Holocaust and meaning of life? That's really amazing. Also, what Jillian said perfectly ties in with the CIA torture story. Daniel knows that tortune is not only morally wrong, it also doesn't work from a practical standpoint. He has found meaning in making sure people know about the truth, and that's why he persisted. I mean, he wrote a 7000-page report! Just imagine. An average book is 300 plus pages, so that's like 20 books! How committed do you have to be to do something like that? Unbelievable.

All right, that's it for today. If this is your first time listening to They Said, I hope you go back and listen to the previous episodes. I also hope you can share it with your friends, family, colleagues, or whomever. So get on your social media and start sharing. I sincerely thank you. My name is Liu Yan. Let's learn and grow together. See you next time!