The Long and The Short Of It

Episode 327 - Favo(u)rite Things: 2024

Transcript:

Pete: Hey, Jen.

Jen: Hey, Pete.

Pete: Happy end of year.

Jen: Woohoo!

Pete: I'm doing jazz hands. What do we do?

Jen: Ho-ho-ho, to you.

Pete: Ah, ho-ho-ho, indeed. So this time of year, every year for the last I want to say three or four years (I don't think we've done it every year) we have done a Favorite Things episode where we recap, where we reflect on some of our favorite things that we consumed, experienced, thought about, and were part of in what has been the year of 2024, so I feel like we should do the same thing this year.

Jen: I am so here for it. I'm doing a quick fact check. We started Favorite Things...I can't wait to see your face...as Episode 8.

Pete: What? 8?

Jen: Yeah, we've done it every single year. Yep.

Pete: Oh my gosh, we have done it every single year. I stand corrected.

Jen: Yeah.

Pete: This is The Long and The Short Of It.

Jen: I love this tradition, I have to say.

Pete: Me too.

Jen: It's really fun to prepare for it.

Pete: It's fun because it's like forced reflection. And I don't know if you have this experience, but I write down the books that I read, for example, and I go back and look at it and go, "Wow, I read that book this year? I thought that was two years ago."

Jen: I know.

Pete: So fun.

Jen: Should we give a quick rundown of the categories we're going to hit today?

Pete: Yeah, we shall. I think we've added a couple of newies, maybe, and we've got some old favorites that we always answer. So, my notepad says...and sometimes you're prone to throwing in a rogue one, so I can see a little smirk. I feel like there might be a rogue one coming. My notepad says, "Favorite fiction book. Favorite non-fiction book. Favorite podcast. Favorite podcast of ours. Favorite documentary / film / TV show."

Jen: So basically, anything that we watched on the television or in a movie theater.

Pete: Which, by the way, I still haven't got an answer for yet, so I'm hoping something will occur to me. "Favorite, aha. And then, the favorite thing you changed your mind about," which I thought was a fun addition.

Jen: Yeah, I'm excited. That one took a lot of self-reflection. Okay, you're right. I did have a little smirk in my eye because I thought, "What kind of a theater person am I if I don't also at least just say the titles of my favorite theatrical events of the year?" So I have to say those, before we wrap.

Pete: Fair enough. Fair enough, I'll let you throw in a bonus one. Maybe I'll think of a bonus one, in the meantime.

Jen: Let's start with favorite fiction. I have a feeling you and I have the same one.

Pete: I was going to say, I want to go first because I think we've got the same one.

Jen: Okay, you go first.

Pete: Favorite fiction, hands down, without question, might just be one of my favorite fiction books of all time alongside saythe Harry Potter series, and that is a book called Shantaram.

Jen: Mmm-hmm.

Pete: Which, is enormous. It's long. And it must be consumed by audiobook. I think it's one of those books that just has to be listened to. I had this experience of listening to thirty-three, I think it is? Thirty-three hours of...

Jen: I think it's forty-three.

Pete: Forty-three hours, this book took for the narrator to read. And I promise you, I know that sounds like a lot, listener. I promise you, at the end of those forty-three hours, you'll wish it kept going.

Jen: Yep.

Pete: Like, it is so unbelievably good and captivating and fascinating and emotional. And I would stop out on my walk, dead in my spot, and like have to listen and rewind and go, "What just happened? Can I believe they just said that?" Like, it was, hands down, one of the most captivating books I've "read" / listened to. And I cannot recommend it enough. I ran from wherever I was at the time, I must have been like halfway through it, and I was like, "Jen Waldman, get out your iPhone right now and download this book. You must listen to this book." So Shantaram, without question.

Jen: Yep, I second it. Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts, read by Humphrey Bower. It is, I think, the greatest audiobook narration of a fiction book I have ever heard.

Pete: Mmm-hmm.

Jen: Extraordinary.

Pete: Agreed. It took me, for you to point out to me, that it was the same narrator...

Jen: Yes.

Pete: ...for every character. I had, when I was listening to it, I was like, "Oh, they must have a cast of like seven different narrators for each of the characters in this book."

Jen: Nope.

Pete: Same person. Same person. Wild.

Jen: He plays every single role. And the thing that is so wild is most of the main characters hail from different countries.

Pete: Mmm, yeah.

Jen: So, the number of dialects and accents this man had to do is actually mind-blowing.

Pete: Yes.

Jen: Because in a forty-three hour audiobook, you meet a lot of characters.

Pete: Oh gosh, you do. You sure do.

Jen: Yeah, absolutely stunning. Loved it. Loved every second of it.

Pete: Shantaram. So good. Alright, what about non-fiction? Favorite non-fiction? I feel like this is always hard for us to pick one.

Jen: Oh, it's so hard. Okay, I had...I couldn't pick one, so I had to pick two.

Pete: So did I.

Jen: Okay, great. Oh, that makes me feel better. So the first one is Shane Parrish's book, Clear Thinking: Turning Ordinary Moments Into Extraordinary Results.

Pete: Mmm-hmm.

Jen: Shane Parrish is the host of The Knowledge Project podcast, and he's also the Farnam Street blog.

Pete: So good.

Jen: He's just such an amazing intellectual and a super curious person. So, I loved that book. And then strangely, Pete, the other day, I sent you an episode of Shane Parrish's podcast, which was about writing books. And in it, he talks about how if he had to do it over, he would write the book differently. I was like, what?

Pete: I know. Crazy.

Jen: So good.

Pete: Yeah. Which, that, to me, says everything you need to know about Shane Parrish. He's already got this amazing, best-selling book. And he, to I'm assuming hundreds of thousands of people who listen to his podcast, is saying very vulnerably or very honestly, like, "I would have rewritten it. I wish I had met you before I wrote this book." And like, yeah, that was a brilliant interview.

Jen: Yeah. And James Clear, who wrote Atomic Habits, has called Clear Thinking a masterpiece.

Pete: I mean, come on. Come on.

Jen: So, we know how that goes. And then, the second book I read really early in the year, and I just haven't stopped thinking about it. And as I was reading it, I found myself finishing a chapter and then needing to talk about it like right away. It's called Biased: Uncovering The Hidden Prejudice That Shapes What We See, Think, and Do, by Jennifer L. Eberhardt. It is an incredibly written Venn Diagram of sciencey stuff and personal stories, like her own personal relationship to the scientific ideas that she's unpacking through her own lived experience.

Pete: Very cool.

Jen: And I just think it is really compelling. I learned a lot. I was really moved. And it changed the way I see the world.

Pete: Well, that's what we can ask from a great book, just a cheeky changing of the way that I'm looking at the world. No worries.

Jen: Yep.

Pete: Okay, I feel like we're very aligned this year. Because my favorite non-fiction, I brought it down to two. And the first one was also Clear Thinking by Shane Parrish.

Jen: Oh my gosh, that's so funny.

Pete: I don't know if I need to say any more than you have, other than this is the kind of book that there are concepts from it that I interact with or think about every day, which is crazy.

Jen: Yep.

Pete: Which we've actually talked about in a few episodes, around setting rules and various other things. So that book also re-introduced me to the podcast, because I hadn't listened to it for a while. And I just, Shane Parrish is so brilliant. I just love listening to him think out loud.

Jen: He's also so humble. Like, he never assumes he's right about anything.

Pete: I know. I think that's part of the reason I love him so much, yeah. Yeah, so that one. And then, I was looking through my list. (It's so hard to pick.) And I went for the book that I remember exactly where I was during certain parts of this, because it was so memorable. This one was also an audio book, actually, and it is a biography by Michael Richards, who was the actor who played Kramer in Seinfeld, one of my favorite shows. The book is called Entrances and Exits, an autobiography, which he reads unbelievably honest and vulnerable. I didn't quite realize the controversy he ended up in at some point in his career, which he was very open about sharing, and all of his regrets, and all of this. It's a masterclass in owning your story, all parts of it.

Jen: Mmm.

Pete: And he speaks a lot about Seinfeld, which I just love, because that whole experience of being an actor on that show sounded amazing, and that show was amazing. And not to the same degree of Shantaram, but like picture Kramer narrating a book, that's kind of what it's like. It's funny. It's hilarious. It's like wacky. It's just, it's a whole experience. And I remember I used to listen to this on an airplane when I was traveling to New Zealand for work, and I just distinctly remember being in the back of a taxi and listening to one particular chapter. It is so ingrained in my memory, that I think that is one of my favorite reads of the year / listens. So, Entrances and Exits by Michael Richards.

Jen: Love it. Okay, well, I'm going to go first on favorite podcast. Because you're right, we are very aligned this year.

Pete: We're going to say the same one, I know. I know, I know.

Jen: My favorite podcast actually is Julia Louis Dreyfus' podcast, Wiser Than Me, which, on the day that we're recording this, released its final episode of Season 3. She essentially interviews women over the age of seventy, iconic women over the age of seventy who, because they are over the age of seventy, have no fucks left to give, and they just lay it all out on the table.

Pete: Oh my gosh.

Jen: And it's inspiring. It's enlightening. It's motivating. And it makes you angry. It makes you joyful. And there's not even one specific episode I should tell someone to start with. Just go look at the guests and pick the one that sounds most interesting to you, and start there. You can't go wrong. It's so good.

Pete: Oh my gosh. I did not think that you were going to say that, because I've not heard of this. This is great. I'm going to listen to that. After we finish recording, I'm going to download that. So, my...I had a trouble, I had a trouble, I had a trouble. So, I've got two-ish. Firstly, favorite podcast as a series is The Witch Trials of JK Rowling.

Jen: So good.

Pete: Which was put together by The Free Press. One of the most...I feel like there's a theme in a lot of mine, the way the audio and the story is put together, and captures you, and forces you to flip-flop with who you're sort of...not what side you're taking, but just, it's such an emotional and intellectual roller coaster that is so well-crafted and no conclusions are drawn. Which I love, because you're kind of left with all of this fodder to just consider. And I think it's a really excellent commentary on sort of modern culture in many ways, which is so fascinating, so fascinating. Yeah, so I recommend it. I mean, the whole podcast or the premise of it is that she's become quite a divisive figure in many parts of the world, but I think exploring why and how is fascinating, so I recommend it strongly: The Witch Trials of JK Rowling.

Jen: I agree with you, that was so incredible. And I don't know if this reference resonates internationally, but American listeners will understand this. The host of the podcast is Megan Phelps-Roper, the granddaughter of Fred Phelps of the infamous hate group Westboro Baptist Church. She grew up in the Westboro Baptist Church, and then left after having to struggle with all of the teachings she had learned and come to her own conclusions. So as the host, that is the lens she's applying as she speaks to JK Rowling about changing of minds.

Pete: Right. Which, and I didn't even know that. You had to explain that to me. And I still found the podcast compelling. Now that I know that, and had that, and went down that rabbit hole, I was like, "Wow, this is a whole different layer to this podcast.

Jen: Yeah, it's a whole other layer. Amazing.

Pete: The other, real quick, I have to shout out an episode, which is one of the few episodes that made me honestly like cry my eyes out, because of the vulnerability shared in this episode. It's from one of my favorite Australian podcasts, called The Imperfects. It's an interview with, I wouldn't say he's a friend but I know this person and have met this person, someone by the name of Jack Post, and he does an episode about being a dad and having postnatal depression. And it is indescribable. It is so, so good. So powerful. He's in a really great place now, so he reflects on it with such honesty and authenticity. It's just, it feels like a gift that you get to hear someone say these things out loud that they experienced and came out the other side of. So like, wow. What an episode.

Jen: Mmm.

Pete: Okay, what about favorite podcast of ours?

Jen: Okay, this was really hard.

Pete: It was. It was, it was.

Jen: And ultimately, I had to pick two.

Pete: We do this every time.

Jen: I picked the two that, the titles of the episode are repeated to me constantly in casual conversation.

Pete: Oh, I love that.

Jen: So I'm like, "Oh, those landed." And the two are The Cringe Test and Go Slow To Go Fast. And they're my favorites because they landed. They made an impact, to the point where I don't even think people realize they're referencing our podcast when they say "the cringe test", it just feels so ingrained in how we're talking about things now.

Pete: Oh, that's cool. It's become part of the vernacular in your community. That's wild. Wild. I had a hard time with this too, so I went with the episode that I remember really enjoying while we were recording...which happens 99% of the time. But this one in particular, because we had a live audience. We did Episode 300 on Zoom with a bunch of people that were there watching and asking us questions.

Jen: Oh my gosh, why didn't I pick that? Yeah.

Pete: And that was so fun. It was a format we haven't done, virtually (I don't think) watch us record. And it was really fun, and made me think we should do it more.

Jen: Yeah.

Pete: Because, yeah, it reminded me that people listen. They were watching and listening. I was like, "This is fun." So, that was mine.

Jen: Oh, that's so great. Love that.

Pete: Okay. What about your favorite...have you got a favorite documentary / film / TV show / did you watch anything that's worth shouting out?

Jen: Well, my husband and I are really obsessed with British TV, and that is really all we watch together. So I think our favorite show of the year was Trigger Point, which stars one of our favorite actors, Vicky McClure, who any Line of Duty fans will recognize. It is, ooh, edge of your seat.

Pete: Oh, wow.

Jen: Bite all of your fingernails off. You need to, I don't know, plan to be up all night worrying about these characters. It's really good, and so well acted.

Pete: Oh, wow.

Jen: So well acted. It's called Trigger Point, and there really should be a trigger warning on the show, because if you are someone who is afraid of things exploding, it is not a good fit. I actually can't believe that I could stomach it, really, but the acting is so good that I did. But it's scary. It's scary.

Pete: Oh, I'm not great with scary but I'm willing to give it a crack. Maybe in broad daylight when it's like a Tuesday afternoon at 1pm, I might watch it.

Jen: Yeah, she plays a bomb diffuser.

Pete: Oh, wow. Oh, yeah, I can feel my heart rate rising already.

Jen: Yeah, it's intense. What about you?

Pete: Well, I got so excited for the first time ever with this category, because I was like, "Oh my god, I finally have one to contribute. I finally remember a great show that Tracey and I watched." And I wrote it down, and I got really excited to talk about it. And then, I was like, "I wonder what I said last year?"

Jen: No. Oh, no.

Pete: And I looked back at our episode, and I already shared it last year. It was Succession, which apparently I didn't watch this year, I watched last year.

Jen: But it's so good, it deserves two years in a row mention.

Pete: It's so good, it deserves another shout out. So I will give a name-TBD documentary to come, that I've been lucky enough to watch the very, very first rough cut of. My friend Josh Janssen, who runs a video production company here, just got back earlier this year from a few months in America, making a documentary about the Second Amendment through the lens of an Australian who doesn't really know what the Second Amendment is. I've seen the rough cut. It is so fascinating and brilliant. And he's a friend of mine, so I have a soft spot for anything that he puts together. And it's, I think it's going to be awesome when it finally comes out. So that is TBD, and I mean, I made it through a two-hour documentary, so that's something. That's got to be saying something.

Jen: Yeah, that is definitely saying something. Okay, Pete, what about your favorite aha moment of 2024?

Pete: Always so hard. How do you remember your ahas? The one that came to mind for me was multiple times I've had an aha that relates to the use of Gen AI or ChatGPT or Google Gemini, whatever you want to call it, Generative AI technology. I've had a bunch of moments over the last twelve months where I've gone, "Oh, I could ask it this question and see what happens." And then, you get the response, and you go, "Huh, that's pretty cool. What if I gave it a persona? Like, 'You're a marketing executive, and I want you to critique this website,'" and it critiques you. And you go, "Oh, that's interesting if you give it a persona." And then, the one I heard recently, which actually came from Shane Parrish who we shouted out earlier, is, "What if you asked the AI for a prompt to prompt the Gen AI?"

Jen: Right.

Pete: "Because it's better at prompting itself than you are." And I was like, that's genius.

Jen: It's genius.

Pete: The other ones that I've used, I mean, I've used it for like, "I want you to take on the role of executive coach." I've fed Gen AI blog posts of mine and said, "I want you to coach based on these blog posts," to try and see if it would sound like me...which it sort of does, sort of doesn't. I've used it as a strength coach, to come up with programs for me to follow based on existing programs and physios that I've seen and books that I've read. And like, there's been multiple ahas over the year of different use cases for these tools. And so, that's mine, I think. In summary, one of my ahas about this whole thing is I think it can enable more humanity, which feels counterintuitive but I think is true, because I can understand and build empathy for people through these tools that enables me to have better human connections with them when I meet them, for example.

Jen: Mmm. Love it.

Pete: How about you? Favorite aha moment?

Jen: My favorite aha moment, I'm still in the middle of right now, but I thought I would share it because I think I don't understand its potential yet.

Pete: Okay.

Jen: So out of what I would say is left field, I got a message from a major global company, could I come in and talk about leadership as it overlaps with my experiences doing Wicked on Broadway?

Pete: Yes, I'm pretty sure you can.

Jen: Right? I mean, that is like a very broad way to describe what I'm doing. But I've since realized that since Wicked is having this huge cultural phenomenon moment right now...

Pete: Right.

Jen: ...this is the moment for organizations to tap into this cultural moment and mine the learnings. And maybe I'm overstating this, Pete, but I might be the only person, literally the only person, who has more than ten years of leadership coaching experience who has also played a witch in Wicked, mmm,

Pete: Mmm. Wild.

Jen: Right?

Pete: Yeah, it's like someone created a role just for you that you didn't even know was a role that needed to be created.

Jen: And I'm like, "Oh my gosh, I need to do something about this. Because it would give me a chance to talk about all the things that I love, and make an impact in a way that I've never considered before." So anyway, this is my big aha moment. I've got to figure out how to build this out. There's a second movie coming out in November 2025, so I could ride this wave for a lot longer. But it's kind of exciting to me to think about going around to large companies or even small companies and talking about leadership lessons based on my experience in Wicked.

Pete: This is like, I feel like, the ultimate intersection of all your interests. This is so good.

Jen: Right?

Pete: So good. Oh my gosh, I'm excited for you. That's great. Okay, what about...have you changed your mind about anything in 2024? What's your favorite thing that you changed your mind about?

Jen: I did change my mind about something, but I haven't figured out what I've changed it to.

Pete: Alright. No, I get that. Like, you've opened to changing it to something, but you don't know what the something is.

Jen: Yeah. So, I think our listeners know I am an avid reader. And for, I don't know, decades, I read in the morning. That's just, that's what I do.

Pete: She does this.

Jen: And in May, I went back to my gym that I love so much, Mark Fisher Fitness, and I have been doing a 7:30am workout with them every weekday, which means I can't do my morning reading. And I changed my mind about sacrificing all other things in favor of the morning reading.

Pete: Yeah.

Jen: I haven't yet figured out the consistent place for my reading now that I'm not doing it in the morning, so I don't know what I've changed my mind to about the reading, but I definitely have changed up my morning routine.

Pete: Nice. That's a good one. I like that.

Jen: What about you?

Pete: Well, I think my answer to this question is, I've changed my mind about self-paced video courses.

Jen: Hmm.

Pete: And how...this sounds so obvious, I'm sure, to so many people. But how they can actually be really effective at creating change. I have for the longest time (and I still have this assertion in some respects) pushed back on pre-recorded video courses that you might find on platforms like Udemy or LinkedIn Learning or just any other platform that people put these courses out. Because I know, especially on Udemy, at one point, the average completion rate was 2%, which means 98% of people start these things and never finish them.

Jen: Ooh, yikes.

Pete: So if you were to say to me, "Pete, can you create a learning product or thing that will create the most impact and the most change immediately," I would go, "Well, it's definitely not a pre-recorded course, because that doesn't create change because no one makes it through." Cut to earlier this year, for various reasons, I went down a rabbit hole of wanting to build a home studio and experiment with creating some video content of my own for a client and a really cool opportunity. And I, ironically, found this great pre-recorded course on how to create a studio so that you too can create pre-recorded courses. It got pretty meta. And I made it through to the end, and it was brilliant. And there was so much information. It saved me so much time. And it enabled me to create these leadership courses, that is pre-recorded leadership courses, which I've been testing with various corporates. And they've now gone out to thousands of people. And the feedback I'm getting from those that make it (which is the asterisks, make it through to the end), is like, "This was so helpful, so brilliant. Thank you so much. I am now going to be more coach-like and curious, or more empathetic, or I'm going to tell more stories," various commitments that have been made because people made it through to the end. And one of my prompts at the end is, "Send me your commitment." And every now and then, I get these emails from people committing. And I'm going, "Alright, you need to change your tune as to, they're not blanket-rule ineffective. They can actually be really helpful and effective, not just for you having taken them, but also for people that maybe take yours." So I'm changing my mind on self-paced learning, changing my mind.

Jen: Alright. Well, maybe you're changing the experience for people as well. That's what it sounds like.

Pete: I am doing my best to, you know, embrace a bit of Seth Godin's Purple Cow in this content.

Jen: Love it. Okay, time for the bonus.

Pete: Alright, bonus one.

Jen: I'll be quick about it. I just, I feel like, who am I if I don't say these things out loud?

Pete: I discovered a bonus one too. I'm going to come up with one too.

Jen: Okay, great. So, my favorite Broadway play of 2024: The Hills of California, starring Laura Donnelly in what I think is the greatest live performance by an actor I've ever seen on a stage in a play. Period. Full stop.

Pete: Whoa.

Jen: Yeah.

Pete: Wow.

Jen: Extraordinary. Unfortunately, it closes December 22nd, so by the time this comes out, it will be closed. That makes me sad. Favorite Broadway musical of 2024: Suffs, by the incomparable Shaina Taub, who won two Tonys for Suffs.

Pete: Wow.

Jen: The amazing true story of Alice Paul and the women in America who fought for women's suffrage, our right to vote. And finally, favorite off-Broadway musical of 2024: Dead Outlaw. And there's rumors that it's coming to Broadway next year. And if that is true, friends, doesn't matter where you are in the world, buy your ticket. Get to New York City and see it. It will blow your mind.

Pete: Oh my gosh, maybe this is the excuse I need. I feel sad because I don't have an answer for any of these, and I didn't go to New York this year, and that's my excuse.

Jen: What's your wild card?

Pete: I did come up with a wild card, which was my favorite question. Now, I don't actually know if this is my favorite question of the year, but twenty minutes before we started recording, I was having a walk. And I don't know where the hell this came from in my brain, all of a sudden this question appeared out of seemingly thin air. I mean, I was listening to music, so I don't know where it came from. And I texted myself this question because I was like, "This feels important for me to consider, but also just as a question to share with people." So, it's pretty fresh. The question I came up with is, "What are you resisting despite evidence that it's true?"

Jen: Ooh.

Pete: And so, you can take that in many different directions. I'm already thinking about, like for me, I was thinking about, "I've had a sore lower back for a while, and maybe I'm resisting the fact that there is something that I'm doing every day that is contributing to that. Like, the truth is the back is not getting better."

Jen: You mean bending down from six-foot-seven to pick up a small child?

Pete: Look, it probably has something to do with it, I'm sure. But that is just like a lightweight answer to this question. I think there's some real merit in wanting to explore this question. So: What are you resisting despite evidence that it's true?

Jen: Wow. Well, what I'm resisting despite evidence it's true is that it's the end of 2024, Pete.

Pete: I know, it's wild.

Jen: And we just recorded our...well, I'm not that great at maths in the moment...sixth Favorite Things episode.

Pete: Yeah. We did.

Jen: Amazing. Well, listeners, it's been fun strolling down memory lane with you. Of course, all of the things we talked about in this week's episode will appear in the Box O' Goodies, to make it easy for you to find them. And if you're not subscribed to our Box O' Goodies, what are you waiting for? Head over to thelongandtheshortpodcast.com and subscribe. It's free.

Pete: Come on, listeners, get over there. And thank you so much for tuning in over the last twelve months. We love to know that you're out there listening, and would love to hear some of your favorite things. Send us an email and let us know: hello@thelongandtheshortpodcast.com. Otherwise, have a happy, have a safe, have a festive holiday period, and we'll see you next year.

Jen: And that is The Long and The Short Of It.