Everything I Learned, I Learned From Podcasts

[everythingilearnedpodcasts]

Nature Heals Us

https://www.npr.org/transcripts/646413667

Another podcast I think of alllll the time. Go camping. Change your desktop wallpaper to the forest. Spend free time in the park.

This podcast episode from Hidden Brain, Our Better Nature came out in 2018. It talks about the undeniable benefits humans receive from being around nature.

Community grows, and there are measurable numbers in crime reduction as well as lasting health benefits that are seen when people spend time around nature.

This podcast episode will blow your mind and hopefully make you want to be outside more often.

[everythingilearnedpodcasts]

No Lose Lotto

I’m here to talk about the American dream. Equality and Life, Liberty and Justice for all, you ask? No, I’m here to talk about the get rich quick (with little to no work involved) part of the American dream. 

I think about this 2010 episode of Freakonomics ALL THE TIME. I don’t play the lotto very often, but we definitely like to play a game called “what would we do if we won the lotto” or “how little would you have to win before you’d quit your job?” regularly. This podcast episode talks about an idea in the American way of finances and playing the lotto that blew my mind, and now anytime the Lotto comes up I can’t help but think “we’re doing it all wrong”.  

The beginning of the episode has a 2017 update, which gives the idea hope.

Details from the episode are below the jump.

The average regular lotto player spends $1000 a year playing the lotto. That’s more than an American household will pay for milk and beer in a whole year.

Most Americans would not be able to come up with $2000 in a month! That’s crazy! $2000 being an average cost of a crisis (unexpected medical bill, car broken down, emergency airplane ticket, etc.) Meaning, “half of Americans are only emergency or crisis away from dire circumstances”

In November 2017 a proposition passed in Texas that allowed banks and credit unions to allow for prize linked savings accounts.

[everythingilearnedpodcasts]

Cemeteries Used to be a Destination for Leisure

In this episode of Curious City (an informational podcast about Chicago) we learn that cycling is banned in many cemeteries, not just in Chicago, but nationwide. The episode discusses how cemeteries used to be a destination for leisure activities, why it became discouraged, and how it might be on the come back.

When I was young I remember my mom showed me of a picture from a class picnic she had in elementary school. The picnic was in a graveyard. How times have changed!

I’ve also visited a couple of cemeteries that are open like parks. I highly recommend Cave Hill Cemetery in Lousiville, KY. According to their website, they are host a variety of entertaining events at the cemetery.

Spoilers and details from the episode are behind the keep reading link

“We were just more comfortable with death back then. The average middle class American home actually had a room to accommodate family funerals. Cemeteries from this era reflected this level of comfort we had with death. In addition to a final resting place for the deceased, they offered people a reprieve from city life, kinda like a park... Cemeteries were America’s first public parks.

Read the accompanying article (Curious City) as well, it has additional information to what is discussed in the 10 minute long episode.

[everythingilearnedpodcasts]

The Most Boring Book Ever

Aziz Ansari was on Freakonomics to talk about his book Modern Romance, which is about love and relationships in the modern times.

This episode of Freakonomics has many interesting facts, so I will just share one story and let you listen to the rest of it for yourself. On a side note, if you haven’t checked out his Netflix original series Master of None, I highly recommend it. It is very well written and thought provoking.

Story after the jump:

“I read the Internet so much I feel like I’m on page a million of the worst book ever. And I just won’t stop reading it. For some reason it’s so addictive.“ -Aziz.

When I heard that I thought “NO WAY, the internet is amazing!” but then he said the following, and I thought, Ok, yeah, that’s true.

“Take, like, your nightly or morning browse of the Internet, right? Your Facebook feed, Instagram feed, Twitter, whatever. OK if someone every morning was like, I’m gonna print this and give you a bound copy of all this stuff you read so you don’t have to use the Internet. You can just get a bound copy of it. Would you read that book? No! You’d be like, this book sucks. There’s a link to some article about a horse that found its owner somehow. It’s not that interesting.” - Aziz

[everythingilearnedpodcasts]

Smiling’s My Favorite

This one is a TedTalk, but I first heard it over the radio.

The benefits of smiling:

https://www.ted.com/talks/ron_gutman_the_hidden_power_of_smiling

Spoilers after the jump

Stats show that major league players without smiles in their portraits live only 72 average years, but athletes with beaming smiles live almost 80 years

Even blind babies smile in response to human interaction

It is difficult to frown when you see someone else smiling. 

Mimicking a smile helps us to determine if a person is actually happy or not and blocking your ability to smile makes it harder for us to read other people.

One smile can generate the same brain stimulation as up to 2,000 bars of chocolate.

[everythingilearnedpodcasts]

Magic Lessons

I think this whole episode is excellent and should be heard by EVERYONE.

https://soundcloud.com/riverheadbooks/ep-12-big-strong-magic

Once I had the idea for keeping this blog of important podcast episodes, I knew this episode had to be the first. It wasn’t so much filled with stuff I learned, as things I already do believe in strongly and wish I could apply more to my own life, and want other people to know, and it’s said perfectly in ways that I would have struggled to express.

It is about creativity and how we feel about ourselves in relation to our creativity.

I’ll hide highlights/spoilers behind the “keep reading” link

Highlights include:

“The thing that you are most afraid of has already happened... and that already occurred in the very worst way that it ever will.”

“What is worth doing even if I fail?”

“You are a born maker. We need what you can bring to us because you are the only one that can”

[everythingilearnedpodcasts]

Welcome!

I just looked it up, and according to wikipedia it appears that in June 2005 Apple added the podcast feature to itunes and the ipod. That means I have been listening to podcasts for over 10 years because I remember when that happened. All the same, “podcasts” as we know now have absolutely EXPLODED (in quality and quantity) in just the last couple years. Everywhere I turn, there’s a new podcasts and my subscription list is so long that I rarely can catch up.

Lately, I’ve been hearing and learning the most amazing things. Things that I want to remember forever and incorporate into my life, Things that I can’t stop telling everyone I know, all about. Sometimes it’s an event, sometimes it’s a concept or idea to apply to life, other times it might just be a great quote. Did you know that expiration dates on food are not FDA regulated, lie detector tests are wildly inaccurate, and Montessori Schools at the middle school level put kids to work on a farm?

All the same, I’ll listen to something SO AMAZING, I’ll think about it all day long, I’ll tell a few people about it, and then poof, the message is gone. I keep happening upon lessons I learned and then forgot, and then I think to myself “I should have written this stuff down” to commit it to memory. Today I heard two podcasts that I thought had great messages that I want to remember, and on the second one, the idea for this podcast was born. I will share podcasts that have at least one message that is worthy of sharing, posting a link and a quick quote or blurb about the message that struck me. Here we go!