There are waves of heat travelling in front of his eyes while his body sweats from every pore and his back drips with sweat. He stares blankly at the seat in front momentarily wondering what his life would be like if all those cars stationary in front him did not exists. And then blankness once more. This is a most common occurrence among the readers of this blog; sitting in impossible jams, hours on end in the blood searing heat. Once upon a time the TV was called the idiot box, now its cars and buses that have taken that coveted title.
But, what if someone told you that while you were wasting away in you tin can of choice, you could be downloading the world’s information to your brain just like in the matrix; whether it be goofy and amazing science experiments (Radiolab), the wonderful and philosophical world of economics (Freakonomics, Econtalk), a collection of the best TED talks (TED Radio Hour), tricks to making your startup work (Fizzle Show) or the miraculous Quranic Tafseer (Bayyinah)? You’d probably think the concept is straight out of the matrix and impossible in reality.
Well, you would be wrong. I hereby introduce you to ‘podcasts’. Weekly Audio Documentaries on every subject you can imagine, produced by people with passion for them. The topics range from astrophysics to anesthesia and from cats to cardiology; meaning there is something for absolutely everyone in the world of podcasts. Now, you may be thinking that you’d get bored listening to these because after all, they are just radio shows. But you will not believe the kind of production values of these podcasts and the amount of work that goes into these. It will get you hooked like cocaine (I’m sorry but there has to be at least one reference to drugs in my personal development articles).
Freakonomics: An awesome podcast that uses the tools of economics and applies it to everyday problems ranging from traffic jams to taxation. Produced by the people behind the Freakonomics books, it is one of the most popular podcasts out there, hooking people to their show with high production values and amazing content.
NPR TED Radio Hour: TED talks are 20 minute talks by inspirational people on never thought of before ideas. This podcast from National Public Radio (NPR) takes the best TED talks on a particular topic and produces an episode on them.
Radiolab: It’s about science. Science that is so weird that they cannot be put into words.
Stuff you should know: This podcast comes straight from HowStuffWorks.com and explores all topics everywhere. Literally. From 3 D printers to the American Revolution to Eid. Everything.
Econtalk: If you like economics, you’ll love this podcast. It is a one on one interview with the top economists of the world at present and some from the past. Greats like Milton Friedman, Garry Becker and Ronald Coase have appeared on it. It is heaven for an economics nerd.
NPR Planet Money: Don’t know much about finance? Baffled by all the terminology in stocks, international trade and overall business? This podcast is a back to basics view of the world of finance which simultaneously and beautifully manages to capture the complexity of the current issues in the field.
The Fizzle Show: Bangladesh is currently experiencing a flood of startups as the use of internet mushrooms and people with great ideas try to solve our society’s challenges. This show is about them and how they can increase their chances of making their startups work. These guys are fun, knowledgeable and approachable (because they replied to my emails).
So why is this the first time many of you are hearing about podcasts? And why aren’t more people listening to these shows? This is the question that all avid listeners of podcasts have. The answer I believe is that there are barriers to entry into the podcast world; the barrier being that most people with smartphones are not aware of the process of subscribing to and listening to podcasts.
Now that you have the tools and are aware, hopefully you will use it to enrich your knowledge about the things that interest you and utilize the wasted time that you are forced to have every day in the form of traffic jams, long queues and boring classes.
