The Best Podcast

American culture frequently encourages the notion of “finishing what you started.” Quitting is often labeled as wrong, useless, weak, and a slew of other negative adjectives. What I want to present here is the frequently missed, positive side of quitting, which I wish more of us pondered and considered. I hope you find it to be a valuable and interesting proposition. It’s an idea that shook me up...

Today’s podcast is an expression of an idea that I’ve been sitting on for some time, but just simply have not expressed fully until now. We are complex beings. Our lives are full of diverse influences, both internal and external. Many of us easily understand this. The piece I want to express today is that we, as complicated as we are as individuals, are all products of other individuals who are as...

After spending some time with family and engaging with them in conversation, I came to a key realization that seems to always come up for me in life. I share these realizations in today’s episode, which I hope you find to be valuable and in line with who I am. Thanks for listening. As always, Much Love ❤️ and please take care.

Today’s podcast is a quick rundown on the value of sleep and some key dimensions of sleep. I tried to keep it short for you to get quick information, rather than going on and on about it. I hope you find it to be packed with value in the short time it lasts! As always, Much Love ❤️ and please take care.

Today’s podcast is my first episode in Portuguese. Gabi and I talk about what a media “empire” could look like if we were to start producing content and attempting to build a following on social media. It was a fun conversation. I will also mention that we recorded this on a walk with cars passing us in the background, so my apologies for the poor audio quality. Espero que você goste do episódio e...

Today’s podcast is a discussion about our tendency to caricature reality. Or in other words, to simplify it and make it more simple and easy than what actually exists in reality. I warn us against caricaturing reality here, along with discussing what life could look like if we were to seek a more complete reality beyond these caricatures. It’s a topic that I’ve stewed on a great deal over the last...

Today’s podcast is the final one of the series with Gabi. This time, we talk about the challenges of making it happen in the long term relationship, or in other words, coming together and building a lasting relationship in person. We touch on ways of thinking about the challenges that lie ahead, along with the reasons for sticking to it and being together. It was a really enjoyable conversation fo...

Today’s podcast is about being together. Gabi and I first dig into the challenging parts of being together, talking about the unique challenges of being at home and in the other’s home while together. We then discuss the good things about being together, which are a bit more obvious but are nevertheless enjoyable to talk about. I hope you find some value in it and perhaps can take something away f...

Today’s podcast is my third conversation in a row with Gabi. This one goes into more details about our relationship and what it’s like to be apart. We talk about the good things, the bad things, and the important things to consider when it comes to a long distance relationship. It was a conversation that inspired both laughs and tears. I hope you find the things we share to be meaningful. As alway...

Today’s podcast is my second conversation in a row with Gabi. This time, we chatted about a quote from Jordan Peterson about not sacrificing what you are capable of becoming. It’s a conversation in which we talk about Gabi’s personal experiences with self improvement, including the challenges she has faced along the way and what she has learned. I think there is a lot to take home from this one. T...

Today’s podcast marks the first of a series of conversations that Gabi and I will be having together. This first episode was about gratitude and luck. Gabi starts off talking about the things she is grateful for and some personal experiences with gratitude, which then opens into a conversation about luck, optimism, the overwhelming nature of gratitude, and the power of receiving others’ gratitude....

Today’s podcast is an explanation of a model of acting / decision making from one of my favorite books - Jonathan Haidt’s The Righteous Mind. It is the model of the rider and the elephant, which I have found to be extremely used and insightful. Perhaps you will too when you hear more about it in this episode. Thanks so much for listening. As always, Much Love ❤️ and please take care.

Today’s podcast is about struggles that I have experienced with a compulsion to consume. Whether that be social media content, text conversations, podcasts, or YouTube, I’ve noticed that I am mentally pulled toward filling my head with content, which I am trying to work on and change. It’s not easy, but it’s a valuable pursuit in my eyes. Perhaps you’ll relate and try to work on it yourself, too....

I’ve recently forgotten some key learnings from earlier parts of my life. I’ve also seen more and more instances of people needing to hear things they have previously learned again. There is so much we need to hold in our heads. It can easily become too much at times. This podcast is for those of us who have lost pieces of ourselves and have had to find them again. It’s not an easy life experience...

Today’s podcast is about local community. As we become more and more of a virtually centered society that is not tied to a geographic location, how will this affect local communities? Will our local charities and organizations deteriorate without a stable and consistent population? Will this more virtual world drive a draining of interest from local politics? These are questions I’ve grappled with...

Today’s podcast is a discussion about my experiences on both sides of and in the middle of the spectrum of humility and action. These experiences have taught me a lot and continue to teach me more and more as I play along that spectrum. I tried to translate those learnings in this episode, which I hope you find to be valuable and informative. Thanks so much for listening. As always, Much Love ❤️ a...

In today’s podcast, I discuss a reflection from my first visit to church in over four years. It was a really cool experience for me which led to some reflections about the connections between religious and non religious activities, which I come to share with you here. I hope you enjoy it and find it to be valuable! As always, Much Love ❤️ and please take care.

Today’s podcast is about greatness. We all have probably done pretty well with our routines and diets for at least small periods of time in our lives, whether that be for a day or a few weeks. This is a good start, yet it’s not what greatness amounts to. Instead, greatness amounts to maintaining that discipline over long periods of time. Months, years, decades… of which I believe we’re all capable...

Today’s podcast marks the return of Gabi to the program. She made the long trip up to the US from Brazil and will be spending some time here with me, my friends, and my family. I’m today’s episode, I check in with her to see how these first few days have been and what she’s looking forward to in the rest of her time here. It was a lot of fun. I hope you enjoy listening to it! As always, Much Love...

Hey everyone. This is a pretty intense podcast. It’s an intense moment in the world. For the many of us outside of Ukraine, it’s quite distant, yet we can sense the tension of it all. In this episode, I encourage us to make some space to imagine what it would be like to be in their shoes and to ask ourselves how we would react if we were dealt that hand. It’s not easy, but I do believe it’s a real...

Today’s podcast is a reflection on a short video I recently came across by Jay Shetty. In the video, he details an interaction he had with a monk when he was training to become a monk himself that taught him a powerful lesson about meditation. I really resonated with the message and wanted to talk about it more here. I hope you find it to be valuable like I did. Thanks so much for listening. As al...

Today’s podcast is a review of the book I just finished (A Way of Being by Carl Rogers) and a reflection on the benefits of reading. Rogers’ psychology is an eye-opening one, so I wanted to take some time to share some key elements of it, as I think he provides some tools that are tremendously helpful for us in our interactions with others. I hope you find it to be useful, along with my comments a...

Today’s podcast is about a struggle I’ve been starting to notice over the last few months. I’ve identified a need for articulating my knowledge and mental models about various subjects, but I haven’t come around to doing them, despite how much value is clearly present in doing this. It’s a bit of a menacing task, which is why I wanted to take some time to talk through it here. Perhaps you’ll find...

I just spent a few minutes on Instagram on my laptop. Every time I find myself back in that space, some interesting reflection tends to come of it. This one led me to a really meaningful reflection about vulnerability and connection. I hope you find it to be meaningful, too. I appreciate you listening. As always, Much Love ❤️ and please take care.

Today’s episode is my final reading of my learnings from quarter four, which you can find on my blog at mattbest.net/theplatform. I dig into a framework for political conversations, self confidence, my interesting relationship with criticism and love, and more topics. These are always a lot of fun for me to write and to think through. I hope you can sense that and find some value in them. It reall...