Friday Podcast Round Up!
What I'm listening to for health, wealth, and creativity!
Photo by Henry Be on Unsplash
I LOVE a podcast. I listen to them when I work out, or walk, or clean, or drive…
I listen to them a lot.
Here are some fairly recent ones that I’ve found super inspiring, in case you need something new in your queue!
1) The Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos
I first learned about Dr. Santos when I took the Coursera course on Happiness that she offered, which was modeled on her much discussed Yale course. This podcast covers a lot of what she did in that course, and goes into depth (including interviews with experts) on topics like hedonic adaptation (or why we get over both great things and terrible things that happen to us much quicker than we think we will), why FOMO is real and dangerous, and why we can’t stop comparing ourselves to the Joneses (but should really try).
What I like about this podcast is that it sounds woowoo (happiness!) but it’s very, very science-based and it’s really about how we can push back at all of the external influences and internal impulses that make us feel bad about ourselves.
2) Food, We Need to Talk with Juna Gjata and Dr. Eddie Phillips
My grandmother had one trophy. It was for dieting. My mom was on a diet her entire life, as were her sisters. I was put on my first diet at around 9. I neither witnessed nor was taught healthy habits around eating, just extreme diets and fads. So my relationship with food has been…fraught. But that started to change last year, when I finally read Health at Every Size and Intuitive Eating. I buried my scale in a closet and started eating and moving for me, rather than it, and my life has been so much better.
That said I’ve really enjoyed listening to Juna talk about her journey and Dr. Eddie discuss the research. They interview guests like Michael Pollan, who I adore, about topics surrounding health and nutrition. Because even though I’ve stopped dieting, I still want to nurture my energy and creativity, the two things that I know suffer when I’m eating like crap and not moving enough. I find this podcast inspiring for both of these things.
3) The Official Watchmen Podcast with Craig Mazin and Damon Lindelof
I highly recommend this podcast if you’re any kind of writer. I do suggest you watch Watchmen on HBO, too, because it’s amazing. But I think that even if you have no intention of watching it, you can get so much from this podcast because it’s as much about making something as it is the something.
I gleaned so much from the conversations between Mazin and Lindelof about worldbuilding, brainstorming, and questioning obvious narrative choices that I would find myself running to my locker after my workouts to scribble down everything I’d heard. It was like a masterclass in plotting.
It’s also only 3 episodes, which as a type A, hardcore Completionist (I WILL FINISH YOUUUU), I deeply appreciated.
4) Afford Anything with Paula Pant
I’ve been listening to a lot of financial health podcasts as part of my getting-out-of-debt-journey, but this one I like for other reasons. To be honest, I haven’t listened to a ton of her stuff on early retirement and investing, because it seems Next Level to me, still (I need to work on that). But the episodes I’ve loved are her interviews with people about topics that are bigger than finance (although money is a part of these discussions). For example, she had a great talk about the idea of stillness with Ryan Holiday and about “adulting” with Mark Manson. Pant asks GREAT questions of her interviewees, and the discussions are always really in depth and nerdy. That said, she’s been around for a long time, so she’s got a LOT of content, and you might already be listening to her. But she was new to me in 2019 and I’m planning on keeping up with her in 2020.
5) Understand Relationships, Understand Everything with Una Henry and Dr. DeMarquis Clarke
In full disclosure, these two are my frahhhhhnds and colleagues. But I love listening to them talk about their journeys, their passion for both social justice and mental health, and their friendship. I’m also an upcoming guest this season, and Marq calls me “brave” and then I cry, like the big brave girl I am! At least that’s what happened in the session, maybe they edited that out. In which case maybe I should keep it under wraps? #nothowIroll #tmiqueen #honesty #whyamIhashtagginganewsletter #byenow #seeyounextweek #happyfriday