Since I discovered the magic of podcasts several months ago, I’ve been an avid listener. The habit has now been hardwired in to my brain, so much so that the moment I find myself doing a mindless task, working out or in a moving vehicle, a podcast will be playing in my ears.
My podcasts list has changed thanks to some great suggestions from friends. Here’ what I’m listening to right now.
1. Stuff You Should Know
This podcast from HowStuffWorks.com is about all kinds of interesting things. They put out so many episodes and it’s generally pretty hard to keep up with all of them.
Listen to Stuff You Should Know
2. Invisibilia
Perhaps one of the best discoveries I made in the past months was that NPR has an amazing directory of podcasts. Invisibilia is one of them. As the name suggests, the discussions revolve around invisble forces that control human behaviour — ideas, beliefs, assumptions and emotions (no, not those other baseless pseudoscience-y stuff.)
3. The GaryVee Audio Experience
Gary Vaynerchuk drops the truth bombs I need to stay rooted in reality. Since I started my own business his content has been even more relevant and inspiring. Since I don’t have enough time to consume him in video form, I default to the podcast.
Listen to The GaryVee Audio Experience
4. From Scratch
From Scratch is a podcast from NPR about building businesses. It features successful entrepreneurs every week in interview format.
5. How I Built This
This is another podcast from NPR and is quite similar to From Scratch. Same format, same theme, different hosts.
6. Planet Money
NPR again, because they’re so good. This particular podcast is about money, and economics, and how they generally work. And no, it’s not boring at all.
7. Up First
This is the only news podcast I listen to, and it’s from — yes, you guessed right — NPR. There’s a new episode every day and it’s only 10-minutes long. It’s a perfect, byte-sized update of what’s happening around the world.
8. Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History
Dan Carlin does an amazing job at making history fun. The episodes are pretty long — with some running up to 6 hours — but they only come out once every few months. Carlin’s take on some topics has been known to be a bit unconventional, that makes it all the more fun.
9. Waking Up
Because Sam Harris. WARNING: Staunch atheism (yay!), enlightening debate and expansive vocabulary. Listen at your own peril.
10. TED Radio Hour
This is my way of consuming more than one TED Talk at once. NPR’s TED Radio Hour centers around a particular theme each week, and feature TED Speakers who are associated with that theme. They dive in to the interesting backstories and intimate details of how each TED Talk came aboout. It’s fascinating.
11. You Are Not So Smart
Nope, you aren’t. The more you listen to this podcast, the more you realise that. This interview-heavy podcast by David McRaney is about self delusion and how to overcome it.
Listent to You Are Not So Smart
12. StarTalk All Stars
This podcast is a spinoff of the all-time favourite StarTalk Radio by Neil DeGrasse Tyson. ‘All Stars’ is the name given to the team of scientists who collaborate with Neil at StarTalk. This is a podcast hosted exclusively by them.
13. The Tim Ferriss Show
Tim Ferris is a force of nature. Often called the Human Guinea Pig Tim is all about self experimentation and self improvement. His podcast focuses on interviewing whom he calls world-class performers — successful practitioners across many disciplines such as sports, acting, business, military, etc. — and distilling their habits and routines.
Listen to The Tim Ferriss Show
14. Tell Me Something I Don’t Know
TMSIDK is a game show. But it’s not one you’d listen to just fro comic relief. The game is for people to come up and present the judge panel with something that they’d not know. It is indeed fun, and comical in all respects. But it’s also inofrmative.
15. Freakonomic Radio
If you’ve read the Freakonomics books, you’d know what this podcast is about. Economics plays a part in almost all things in our lives, sometimes in freakish ways. The podcast (as do the books) explores these freakish ways every week.
16. Seriously…
BBC’s Seriously… is a documentary podcast. There is no overarching theme. The documentaries span a wide range of topics such as wartime experiences, immigration, terrorism, success and many more aspects of th human experience.
17. StarTalk Radio
Neil DeGrasse Tyson. Astrophysics. Cosmology. Science. All with a pinch of pop culture. No more explanations needed.
18. The Infinite Monkey Cage
As impressive as StarTalk Radio, and covering a similar range of topics, with the indefatigable Brian Cox.
Listen to The Infinite Monkey Cage
That concludes the update. I will post another one like this at the end of this year.
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