Pádraig Ó Tuama
I try to walk every day for at least an hour. Although there is much to be said for just walking and being present in the walk, I have come to really love listening to podcasts. I tend to favor podcasts that make me think, that are about ideas, or that help me see something in a new way. Even if you don’t like to listen when you walk, a podcast is a great way to learn while your hands and eyes are otherwise engaged: driving, cooking, or doing something mindless like stuffing envelopes.
Here are some of my favorites that you might enjoy as well. Virtually all of them are available as a transcript on their websites so if listening to stuff is not your thing, they make interesting reading as well. Listen and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts, as they say! For each podcast, I’ve put a link in the title to an episode I thought was particularly interesting.
Ferriss is perhaps best known for his books, The 4-Hour Work Week, The 4-Hour Body, and several others. His podcast are long-form interviews with what he calls “top performers” but are really just super interesting people. He interviews an incredible range of people from athletes, to doctors, to crypto-currency innovators. When I say the interviews are long-form, I mean it. Some are more than 90 minutes. Tim asks great questions and goes deep. There are few that have not left me wanting to learn more about the person or the topic. The infomercials for whatever Ferris is hocking that week are a bit too much but they are at the beginning and the end and thus easy to skip but occasionally I’ve been interested enough in something he has mentioned to check it out. (I’m about to find out if we share similar taste in underwear.)
Hosted by Stephen Dubner who co-authored the book of the same name, these come in at a more reasonable 45-50 min. Each one is a deep dive into some often-obscure topic that is at least remotely related to economics. Last week I listened to a fascinating episode about the history and controversy surrounding the minimum wage. As a liberal (and someone who once worked for minimum wage or less), I have always assumed that regarding the minimum wage, higher is always better. Turns out, it’s complicated, but interesting.
This one is also produced by the Freakonomics team but hosted by the other author, Steven Levitt. This is another long-form interview with one person per episode. A recent episode featured a conversation with Stanford biology professor, Robert Sapolsky. Sapolsky is one of the world’s leading researchers into stress in primates. He spent 25 years studying a tribe of baboons in Kenya. Barbara and I met him in 1986 at the famous Mrs. Roches guest house and campground in Nairobi. He was on his way to the bush and we were on our way to Mt. Kenya and we shared a meal of fast food Indian from the kiosk up the road. He was a nice young man who a few months later would receive a MacArthur fellowship. Since then, I hear of him every year or two. This interview is one of the best, I’ve heard with him. The name of this podcast is funny because invariably Levitt is in absolute and unqualified awe of those he is interviewing as well he should be. They are incredible thinkers and achievers. So the mostly really makes no sense but it is a great podcast notwithstanding.
For Heaven’s Sake, Shalom Hartman Institute
From 2017-2018 I was fortunate to be part of the year-long Shalom Hartman cohort of Hillel professionals. The program included 3 in-person week long seminars in New York and Jerusalem and a year of study in chavruta with the other participants. It had a powerful effect on how I view Israel, American Jews, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Institute is doing profound work around nuanced and deep examinations of political narrative and identity. The podcast takes the form of a conversation among the Hartman President Donniel Hartman, writer and thinker Yossi Klein Halevi and Rabbi Elena Stein Hain. Each of the episodes comes in at a very digestible 30 minutes and each looks at some aspect of Israeli politics or culture and tries to make sense of it (not easy!). Rabbi Hain places the discussion in the context of Jewish tradition and brings insights from classical texts like the Talmud or Rambam. Hartman and Halevi often have very different views (left vs. right) which makes for a lively conversation but they also treat each other with profound respect and affection, which is refreshing and means your blood pressure won’t soar while listening. The recent episode on the current violence will give you a sense of what it might be like to be a person living in Israel during these periodic explosions. I found it very moving and even inspiring but perhaps more so because I know the three presenters personally having learned with them all on multiple occasions.
Before podcasts were a thing, On Being (previously Speaking of Faith) was a radio show usually found on Sunday mornings on your local public radio station. It probably still is. This is another long-form interview program hosted by Krista Tippet. Tippet interviews poets, religious leaders, scientists, and thinkers. The focus is on the spirit and the mind and that which makes us human. The podcast feed features two versions each week. One is the 50 min version produced for radio, the other is the unedited raw audio, which runs around 90 minutes. I favor the later as the guests are so interesting, I want to hear every word they said but the shorter version is a bit more polished. I found the linked episode with Vietnamese-American writer and poet, Ocean Vuong to be profoundly moving. If you do nothing else read or listen to him read his poem, Aubade With Burning City.
Produced by the same folks as On Being, these short episodes, only about 12 minutes each feature a single poem read and discussed by Irish poet Pádraig O’Tuama. Just the sound of O’Tuama’s Irish lilt is soothing and the poems he selects are gorgeous. Try the episode on the poem, “Wonder Woman” by Ada Limón. This podcast is a beautiful way of bringing a tiny bit of poetry into your life. It is the only podcast where I listen to each and every episode without fail.
Do you have a favorite podcast I should check out on my walks? Send me an email or drop a line in the comments below. I am always on the lookout for new ideas that will expand or blow my mind.