The Best Podcast

Today’s podcast covers the narrative fallacy, a concept that comes up in Nassim Taleb’s book, The Black Swan, along with many other works of cognitive psychology. It’s a fallacy which has significant implications, so I wanted to take some time to discuss it here. As always, I hope you found this podcast to be valuable and interesting. Thank you for listening. Much Love ❤️ and please take care.

Today’s podcast is about something I experienced this morning - waking up on the floor. It’s not common for most of us, and there’s value in it because of that. It’s an experience which would leave most of us with angst, but with the right frame, could be seen in a positive light. I hope you enjoy this message and find some value in it. Thanks for listening. I really appreciate it. As always, Much...

Today’s podcast is a bit of a verbal venting session in which I try to wrap my head around the concepts of luck and genetics. As you’ll see, this is really dense and complicated stuff, but the complexity is in large part what makes it so fascinating and beautiful. I hope this mental journey proves valuable to you. I really appreciate you listening and engaging with my content. It means a lot. As a...

Today’s podcast is a little tip I picked up a while ago that has become second nature to me since implementing it more and more. Given it’s a short episode, I’ll leave you to listen to hear more about it. 👀 It’s an easy change that can have quite the positive effect. I hope you enjoy it and find it to be valuable! As always, Much Love ❤️ and please take care.

Happy Mother’s Day. Today’s podcast is dedicated to my mom. I won’t say much here, as I’d prefer you to listen to hear and feel what she has meant to me throughout my life. This is the first podcast that has driven me to tears. I’m sure you’ll see why. I hope you can resonate with this, even if it’s just a sliver. Thanks for listening. As always, Much Love ❤️ and please take care.

Today’s podcast is a reflection on something I’ve been batting around my head for a bit (which should come as no surprise). Humility of knowledge and advice has grown in importance for me as I’ve started to pay more attention to myself and my life as each day comes and goes. It’s a lesson that has stood the test, so I wanted to take some time to discuss it here today. I hope you enjoy it and find...

I recently started reading Seneca’s Letters from a Stoic, one of the classic works of stoic philosophy. In the book, Seneca discusses his vision of friendship, which I found to be quite profound and meaningful, which brings me here to share it with you. I hope you found it to be valuable and that the reflections it brings are meaningful in some way to you. As always, I appreciate you taking the ti...

Today’s podcast is an introduction to The Black Swan, a book by Nassim Nicholas Taleb that presents the concept represented in its title. It’s a work that has made me think and reflect a tremendous amount, so I wanted to take some time to discuss it, as the ideas around it will likely come up again and again in future episodes. I hope you find it to be a valuable monologue. Thanks for listening. I...

Today’s podcast is about a feeling and a focus. When hiking yesterday, I found myself at many times totally focused on my breathing and the feeling of my heartbeat pulsing through my body. These moments of concentration are moments I cherish, as they give me the space I need to process the world around me in a better way. So I wanted to take some time to break down what that experience is like for...

Today’s podcast stems from a conversation I just had with a friend, in which we spoke about self awareness and understand others. This monologue is a summary of the conclusion I came to about what it means to know oneself through the metaphor of a puzzle. I think that analogies like this can be really useful to make sense of complicated subjects like each of us are. I hope you find it to be a valu...

While preparing dinner today, I looked at my roommate and said “I want to be worse at doing bad.” He laughed, as it is a funny sounding statement. However, when I thought about it some more, I found that there is a lot of wisdom in it. Today’s podcast is a look into how it’s relevant to my life and why I think it’s so important to keep in mind. Thanks for listening. I hope you found it to be valua...

Today’s podcast is about an idea that I’ve come in contact with a couple of times over the past few months. Steve Levitt, coauthor of Freakonomics and a professor at the University of Chicago, had an idea for how we could accelerate the vaccine trial process to save more lives and economic problems. This idea is called the challenge trial, in which people are given the vaccine and then are exposed...

Today’s podcast starts as a reflection on continuing my habit of journaling every night, which turns into a discussion of the importance of showing up. I will admit that it wasn’t my best effort, but I at least gave it a shot, which I think is one of the most important things ultimately. I hope you find some value in what I had to say. Thanks so much for listening. As always, Much Love ❤️ and plea...

What’s a better time to post one’s goals for the year than April 12th? That’s the purpose of today’s podcast. Despite the challenges of a pandemic and the high likelihood that people have given up their resolutions for the year by now, here I am... talking about my goals for the year. My hope is that this serves as an opportunity for you to return to those thoughts about your goals for the year -...

Today’s podcast was a really nostalgic one for me. It’s a reflection on a recurring sense of awe that I have experienced from time to time throughout the many years that I’ve driven the same road home to my parents’ house. I’ll leave it there for you to hear the rest in the episode. I hope you find some value in it. I certainly have. Thanks for listening. It really means a lot to me. As always, Mu...

Today’s podcast is a quick but incisive one. At the end of my time in Brazil, I decided to write letters to the people who I spent a lot of time with and who formed a meaningful part of my experience there. This exercise really did a lot for me, so I wanted to take some time to share those details with you. Perhaps it will inspire you to take it up yourself. Thanks for listening! As always, Much L...

Today’s podcast is a message that frequently enters my mind in a heavy manner. Talking about something without being able to really back it up with the proof of your own actions and habits is empty. Being about it, putting in the work, building the habits... there’s so much gold there. I hope you enjoyed this message and found it to be valuable. Perhaps you’ll take it and apply it in your own life...

Today’s podcast is an article on my blog, The Platform, which you can find at mattbest.net/theplatform. It is a reflection that I wrote following spending 90 days living in Rio de Janeiro, writing a journal on a daily basis. I read through that journal and pulled out some key learnings, which I articulate here. I hope you find these learnings to be valuable and meaningful. I can easily admit that...

Today marks the end of my time in Brazil. Ninety days of change, novelty, learning, humbling... comes to a close. This experience, just like everything else in life, has an ending, which I have now reached. Endings are a brutal and beautiful thing. This fact inspired me to record this episode about endings and what they mean to me. Perhaps you can relate and find this message to be valuable. Thank...

Today’s podcast is a reflection on some key lessons that I’ve taken from one of my favorite thinkers in history - John Stuart Mill - in his book, On Liberty. Choosing your own path, developing the self, and the downsides of conformity are just some of the themes that surface which I wanted to spend some time to discuss with you here. I hope you find these lessons to be as valuable and potent as I...

Gabi and I decided to talk one last time for the podcast to talk through some big picture stuff from our time together at her home in Brazil. As always, it was a really fun conversation that was super enjoyable for me (which I hope you’ll perceive in the dialogue). I hope you enjoy it, too! Thanks so much for listening. As always, Much Love ❤️ and please take care.

Hey. Today’s podcast is about courage and why I’m really happy that you can’t fake it. I take some turns into Star Wars nerd territory, along with some spurious thoughts about what it means to be courageous and some key distinctions. I hope you enjoy it and find it to be valuable despite my ramblings. As always, Much Love ❤️ and please take care.

Today’s podcast, along with the ones ahead, are going to be tough ones for me. In this episode, I reflect on the formation of my new identity in Portuguese through speaking in constantly during my time in Brazil and how that is affecting me. Like I said, not easy stuff to work through mentally. However, I think there’s a happy moral of the story to be taken here, so give it a listen and let me kno...

Yes. That is in fact an odd title. Probably not one you would expect from me at first glance. But I ask you to listen and give the thought a chance, as I think it’s quite a profound one if you can take a step back and grasp it. I hope you find it to be valuable and that it perhaps can shift your thinking a bit. Thanks again for listening. It really means a lot to me. As always, Much Love ❤️ and pl...

Today’s podcast is a reflection on the misalignment between popular media and music’s conception of romance and romance that is more optimal for well-being over time. As you will see, I think that this misalignment is concerning, and I wanted to take some time today to talk through why, plus some related thoughts about romance and relationships in general. I hope you enjoy the episode and find it...