Episode 55: Three Episode Recommendations #1

Transcript

there's something about being a podcast listener enthusiast engaging it all in podcasts
there's something about it that's different i i feel than simply listen than listening to
music or watching tv or watching movies or there's something more personal about it
i've never been able to fully put my finger on this but at least for me listening to podcasts
over time particularly once you become a fan of a particular show or a particular host or whatever
you listen to them over time and you almost feel like you've developed a relationship with them
in some way like you know them in some way when you don't you know i mean obviously unless you've
met them or you do know them or whatever but i'm just talking about from a distance if you if
you've done nothing to engage with this person other than just listen to their show or shows
somehow it feels like a very personal relationship when it when in fact it's completely one-sided
right it's really no different than being a big fan of a musician or being a big fan of an actor
or whatever but for some reason and maybe it's just me for some reason it feels different to me
my best guesses on this really have always come down to two things one you're often listening to
podcasts or at least i'm often listening to podcasts when i'm alone when it's usually when i'm driving in
the car by myself or maybe i'm walking or sitting somewhere or whatever and i have you know a pair of
airpods or headphones or whatever so it becomes this very one-on-one sort of thing where you know
you're driving on your own but now you have voices that you're listening to kind of thing so that's one
piece of it and also the earphone thing right you're putting if you're using earphones listen to
podcasts a lot there that's very intense or or personal you know the other thing that i think it
could come down to is simply the the typical longevity of shows if you listen to long-running
shows they can go for three five ten years putting out weekly content so over time it's it's possible
that you've heard two three four hundred episodes of of the of whoever it is you're listening to
speaking and over time it just kind of sinks into your brain as as a like a staple of your life so
i don't know it's always it's always just seemed a little different to me than considering other
kinds of media this uh episode here this may become i i kind of have a hope that this becomes maybe a
monthly or every a couple month segment of things i don't know there are some problems with trying to
sustain that i think and i'll go into those in a minute but the general idea here is that i listen
to quite a few podcasts i really enjoy them as a medium so i want to put out some recommendations
not of whole podcasts but of specific episodes and then maybe that becomes something of a gateway into
enjoying that particular show maybe you already listen to the show whatever but i'm not going to
do a big long list or anything but but as i listen to shows sometimes one really jumps out at me you
know maybe i listen to the same show every week or whatever but once in a while they just have a
like a hell of an episode you know so that's what that's what this is about
so here here's my three that i've come up with um for for this month or for this period of time or
maybe i only do this once and never do it again who knows the first one i actually talked about i
believe last episode this is a show called you are not so smart episode 317 and by the way these
will be linked in the notes so i talked in last episode a lot about how there was an interesting
study that came out of this um if you want go take a listen to that but the rest of this episode
he had a guest on that was they are talking largely about the ability to discuss things like politics
and how to go about approaching that in a way that works in the modern world regardless of what side of
the fence you're on politically i don't think it's a stretch or a hot take to say that it's become
more and more difficult for people to people with opposing political viewpoints to have conversation
around those viewpoints and i'm not even really talking about the whole topic of trying to change
someone's mind or convince them or debate or anything else i'm just talking about the bare bones of just
being able to discuss things so that among other topics are discussed on this particular episode
it's not a political episode necessarily but it does it sort of goes into conversation about how
to discuss things and also the history of where political discussion came from so it's a sort of a
the reason i like this episode a lot is it's sort of a combination of a few things there's there's
sort of history in it there's some interesting studies called out there's some interesting tips
and tidbits and the guest is really really good so if any of those topics you know jump out to you
i would suggest taking a listen to that one it was a really good episode
second episode is the sunday story from npr i bumped into this on the up first feed i listen to up
first from npr every morning it's about the maximum amount of news that i can tolerate before i you know
it just is just more than i want to deal with um but this on sundays they they bring in some special
stories and things like that that aren't just daily news this episode from july 6th of 2025 was called
when news broke and it was a really interesting dive from my perspective into how news media
particularly political news media and particularly partisan political news media kind of came into
existence and and and spun out of you know not necessarily a position of neutrality
in the past like not not that news was always reported in a neutral way before this but how it
spun out of really some other problematic patterns and how we sort of got to where we are now with
very partisan news sources um and on both sides of the fence and people who really kind of most people
who follow politics largely pay attention to one side or the other and it becomes something of an echo
chamber and again both sides of the fence so that was really interesting uh history deep dive for me i i was
not aware of of most of what it went into it's about as i recall like i don't know half an hour long
something like that really interesting kind of historic dive into how we ended up with news media
and political news media in the way that we sort of approach it and consume it today
the third episode that i would recommend is from a show called reconcilable differences it's episode 262
now this goes back to what i was talking about in the beginning this is a show hosted by two
podcasters who i've been following for well over a decade as it turns out at this point
uh one guy's named merlin mann and one guy who who has largely in the past done topics around
productivity and some other shows that he's done and i've just listened to him for years i find him
both entertaining and really interesting to listen to another another guy john siracusa who has largely
been in the tech space particularly in the apple tech space does a number of podcasts the two of
them do this show together where they tackle any number of topics uh often around personal history
or kids or just whatever i've been kind of in and out with this show over the years so i haven't heard
like every episode ever but i tapped back in because i heard this is a really good episode and i agree
262 it's called everybody's got a tunnel one it goes into a number of things but one of the really
interesting things that it talks about is it sort of starts it tries to examine the the the nuances
between what's a goal what's an accomplishment what's a task it's sort of productivity related
but it also kind of brings up a number of more i don't know personal things that i found very
relatable through time and and this is a good example of like two hosts that i've been following
for a while that and not in a creepy way but i almost feel like i i have a relationship with these
people but i don't i don't know them uh at all i've never met them i i just i find the things that
they that they go through and the things that they bring up very interesting so if you're interested at
all about i don't know you could apply this ep the the reason it's a very abstract episode but the
reason i like it so much is you could apply it to almost anything if you are interested in your
development personally or professionally or you do project management for a living or you do personal
projects for a living or you know whatever whatever your i don't know life scenario is you'll probably
find something in this episode worth considering and worth thinking about plus you know these two hosts
are absolute vets when it comes to podcasting and and just do a great job at keeping both an
entertaining show rolling as well as just uh bringing interesting topics to the table so take a listen if
you get a chance those are are my three here and they will be linked again it's you are not so smart
episode 317 it's the sunday story from july 6th and it's everybody's got a tunnel episode 262
from reconcilable differences now just to close things out here again i kind of have aspirations
of doing this every so often bringing up bringing three what i thought were really great episodes to
the table the problem is there's only so many hours in a day and peep and again podcasting is kind
of interesting because you're only going to bump into often the podcast episodes that you would be
listening to anyway and my catalog is not infinite so i've been trying to think of some ways of
expanding my own podcast horizons like in terms of listening to great episodes because otherwise these
recommendations are just going to become sort of the same you know whatever dozen shows that i recommend
like dozen dozen podcasts with different episodes that i just recommend over and over again
and i i don't know if that's wholly productive for myself or for anyone so i don't know we'll see
where this goes um as i said there they're just there tends to be episodes that that pop up here and
there that really seem exceptional and i think that this is a good avenue to try to recommend some of
those out to other people