January 2020 - Podcast Recommendations
Over many years of listening to podcasts, I've found that discovering new ones can be quite difficult. That is why I'm going to start writing a small list of podcast episode recommendations each month, noting why I enjoyed them. Let's get started...
1. Cortex - 2020 Yearly Themes
For those looking to have a productive 2020...
CGP Grey and Myke Hurley review their yearly themes for 2019, and then announce their upcoming 2020 themes.
They came up with this concept of yearly themes as an alternative to the futile concept of New Year's resolutions.
The idea is that you set an overall theme, a guiding principle for your year that can help frame your decisions and actions throughout the year. CGP Grey for example, as described on their "Theme System Journal" website, previously had the "Year of less". CGP Grey used this as his theme as he set about cutting out superfluous activities, noise, media in his life, allowing him to focus on what was really important to him.
Despite my recommendation, I don't personally set a yearly theme, but over the years listening to their thought processes about how they approach setting goals, structuring systems to build better habits and just generally striving to be more productive, is fascinating and can spurn endless ideas for action for oneself.
2. Office Ladies - Hot Girl
For those who can't get enough of the US Office, this podcast goes behind the scenes of the show, and the lives of hosts Angela Kinsey (Angela) and Jenna Fischer (Pam)...
The US Office is one of my all-time favourite TV sitcoms. Bears, beets, battlestar galactica...
This podcast is pretty new and in each episode Angela and Pam take you behind the scenes of each US Office episode in chronological order. It is so cool to learn about stories from filming particular scenes, Pam and Angela spotting continuity errors on the show, or generally learning about all the cast as actors, actresses and writers.
In this particular episode Pam and Angela take the listener on a digression into when they attended a film premiere for Steve Carrell's (Michael) 40 Year-old Virgin role. Jenna and Angela saw that Helen Mirren was in attendance and wanted to speak to her, and they discuss how nervous they were to go up to her.
As trivial as this story was, I really loved it because it shows how we all feel the same emotions and go through the same challenges in life. Jenna and Angela, 2 actors on one of the best TV sitcoms of all time were still nervous and scared to go speak to a "big-time" hollywood actress.
3. Freakonomics Radio - Why is this man running for president?
Having studied economics at university, you won't be surprised to see Freakonomics Radio on my debut podcast list. I absolutely love the weird and wonderful intellect that this show produces, and I highly recommend any episode, new or old.
In this episode, host Stephen Dubner interviews 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang. I'd heard about him on the periphery, but didn't really know much until this listen.
It was a great interview with someone who seems to genuinely care about the welfare of the people of his country.
What stands out to me is how someone so successful, is openly challenging the very economic structure that made him so successful... Capitalism.
DUBNER: How can you rail against that disparity while also wanting to bask in the benefits of the capitalism that set up those incentives?
YANG: Capitalism is a wonderful, magical, powerful thing. But it optimizes for capital efficiency and capital gains above all else, really. And that worked well for a long time, because in order for capital efficiency, workers needed to benefit, the consumer economy needed to benefit, the middle class needed to benefit. It’s like Henry Ford and his, “How can my workers buy my car?” But we’re now at a point where Ford does not need those humans to build that car and that they can have markets all over the place and don’t really care what’s going on in their own backyard. There are just these big changes afoot, and the question is how we’re going to manage them as a country. And that’s what I’m trying to answer. That’s why I’m running for president.
I think it's great to see a politician be so frank and open about challenging one's own beliefs. Someone who is thinking longer than just a 4 year term, but thinking about tackling wide-reaching issues of AI job automation.
4. Cortex - State of the apps 2020
I know Cortex is on the list twice, but for good reason! The beginning of a new year not only marks another iteration of yearly themes, but it also brings a tradition of Grey and Myke reviewing their iPhone and iPad screens and the apps they are currently using.
This episode is a bit like this blog post, it can serve to show other people what they're using, how they're working, what their taste are... and potentially this light a spark of curiosity for those people.
After a few years of listening, I've downloaded and played around with a myriad of apps. This year I took away 2 cool apps:
Big call from me: this is potentially one of the greatest apps I have discovered in 2020
In the last year I've been flipping between having Reddit, BBC News, Facebook etc. on my phone and mindlessly consuming news and content., or having none of these apps on my phone, gaining focus but arguably missing out on innovative writing and ideas
Scheduling use of this to aggregate my content consumption is a potential game changer for me this year
That’s a wrap!
Hopefully you’ve found 1 or 2 listens from this month’s list! Let me know what piqued your interest, or if you have any of your own recommendations!