Podcasts are some of the best ways to imbibe information. Unlike reading or watching videos on YouTube, you can listen to it when you’re doing something that doesn’t need your complete attention – like walking or cooking. So if you’re not someone who listens to podcasts, it is something you should try and I assure you, you’ll switch from music to podcasts pretty soon. Here are 5 of my favourite podcast episodes from the podcasting world that offer new insight and perspectives on things that we might think we are familiar with.
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Freakonomics, Episode 268: Bad Medicine, Part 1
Medical science has advanced quite a bit in the past 200 years or so, but you might be overestimating our understanding of human biology. This episode starts with how we might be wrong about the “ideal human body temperature” and goes on to talk about the loopholes in our understanding of our bodies.
I find this particularly insightful as it gets you to realise that even in the realm of healthcare and medicine, we cannot speak in absolute terms. Very often we hear people claim that an x% of body fat is ideal for a human body, but this episode shows you why you should question the validity of such statements and verify facts yourself. And by verify, not just read a few random articles on Google, but actually question the validity of the experiment that led to the result. Yes, I know it sounds like a lot of hard work, but this episode will tell you why it is required.
The Seen And The Unseen, Episode 245: The Dark Side of Indian Pharma
Staying on the topic of healthcare and medicine, do you know about the shady dealings of the Indian pharma industry? You might remember the Ranbaxy fiasco, but there’s more to it than what we’ve heard on the news. In this episode, the host Amit Verma has a conversation with Dinesh Thakur – the very person who exposed the issues with Ranbaxy. Dinesh Thakur talks about the issues with Indian pharma and why India should have tougher drug regulations. It is an episode that will make you a little anxious about the quality of medicines we get in the country and want to take up arms to call for better laws to be in place.
Freakonomics, Episode 232: The True Story of the Gender Pay Gap
Yes, another Freakonomics episode but this is one topic that you might think you’re tired of hearing. You might think that you know everything there is to know about the gender pay gap and that the solution is simple – make sure men and women have equal pay. But does that really solve the issue? Well, if there’s anything the guys at Freakonomics do best, it is shattering conventional wisdom. And in this episode, they’ll show you why “equal pay” isn’t the be-all and end-all to tackle the gender pay gap.
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Hardcore History Addendum, Episode 9: Glimpses of Olympias
Olympias was Alexander the Great’s mother. As with most history, she isn’t talked about as much as she should. But this episode is all about her and through her story, Dan Carlin shows us how women played a vital role in shaping history as we know it. He talks about the biases that ancient writers had while writing the stories of women and also points out mistakes we make as modern observers – superimposing our present understanding of morality and gender-parity on the past. Dan Carlin is a mesmerising storyteller and so you’ll be kept hooked to Olympias’ story from beginning to end.
Masters of Scale, Bonus Episode : The 10 Commandments Of Startup Success
Hosted by Reid Hoffman, co-founder and executive chairman of LinkedIn, Masters of Scale is a podcast that talks about the startup world and provides you with tips and advice on how you can be a successful entrepreneur. And if there is one episode that everyone should listen to, it is this one. This episode was made in collaboration with Tim Ferris and it lists all the major learnings that guests – ranging from Mark Zuckerberg to Brian Chesky – talked about in previous episodes. It’ll give you a sneak peek into the life of an entrepreneur and if you are someone who has entrepreneurial aspirations, give you insight that’ll come in handy when you ‘startup’.
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That was my list of podcast episodes that everyone should check out asap. If you have any recommendations, I’d love to know. So do mention your favourite podcast episodes in the comments section below.
