What you realise, the moment you ask “what would it mean to be done for the day?”, is that the answer can’t possibly involve doing all the things that need doing – even though that’s the subconscious goal with which many of us approach life, driving ourselves crazy in the process. If there are a thousand things that need doing, you’re going to need to arrive at some definition of “finished” that doesn’t encompass them all.
And defining “done” for the day is just the first step. How can I be done at the end of this week? …month? I need to keep pulling back to larger timeframes to imagine: How do I ever stop having a, “the next thing I should do is…”?
What influences the approaches and perspectives of podcast creators as they navigate both technical and personal aspects of their craft?
Suzi Nou joins Craig to discuss how passion and curiosity—for podcasting and anesthesiology—intertwine, revealing the depths of medical podcasting and the art of engaging conversations.
There is this breadth of what people recall— what people know. Medicine has advanced, and they might be stuck in their practice that they were doing five, ten years ago, with that technique because it works for them. It works really well. And I don’t want to say it’s a bad technique, but there’s newer techniques coming through, and those new techniques work really well in the hands of those people learning them and practicing them regularly.
~ Suzi Nou, 7:10
Suzi Nou and Craig Constantine meander through the intricacies of medical podcasting, the evolution of an anesthesiologist’s career, and the impact of podcasting on personal and professional growth. Suzi shares her experiences as the president of the Australian Society of Anesthetists during the pandemic, as a podcast host keen on exploring the vast landscape of medical advancements and techniques. She reflects on how podcasting served as an efficient tool to disseminate vital information during the early days of COVID-19, addressing the urgent queries of anesthesiologists nationwide.
I think as long as I am intrigued and curious about anesthetists in Australia, there’ll be something in there that makes me want to do it.
~ Suzi Nou, 26:20
The conversation also explores the creative challenges and opportunities presented by podcasting. Suzi discusses her vision for her podcast as a platform to showcase the depth of talent within the Australian anesthesiology community. Beyond the technicalities of medicine, they touch on the concept of “podfade” and the continuous quest for relevance and engagement in the podcasting space. Suzi expresses curiosity about the future directions of her podcasting endeavors, including a potential sabbatical in Europe and the concept of podcasting 2.0, which intrigues her due to its technical complexities.
Takeaways
The power of podcasting — how it serves as an efficient means to disseminate information rapidly.
Impact on personal and professional growth — podcasting as a tool for learning and improvement, enhancing questioning skills, and better engagement with trainees and patients.
Challenges of staying relevant — the concept of “podfade” and the continuous quest for engaging content and connection with the audience in the ever-evolving podcast landscape.
Creative side projects in podcasting — the potential for branching out into other areas of interest, such as podcasts aimed at children or exploring completely different topics, to keep the creative juices flowing.
The significance of networking — the importance of expanding one’s network through podcasting, which can facilitate connections and provide resources across the globe.
Personal anecdotes as learning tools — using personal experiences and stories to make complex topics more relatable and understandable for a wider audience, including non-specialists.
Vannevar Bush—head of military research during WW2, author of “As We May Think” and “Science, the Endless Frontier”—wrote a memoir late in life, Pieces of the Action. It was out of print and hard to obtain for a long time, but Stripe Press has brought it back in a new edition with a foreword from Ben Reinhardt. […] Here are some of my favorite quotes from the original edition:
There’s a sort of incredulous-eyes, slight shaking of the head, expression that I make when I want to emphasize just how amazing I find it to be when I gape into the maw of All Human Knowledge. Sometimes I find something like this which is so blindingly important to so much of the society and culture upon which I find myself standing, that I’m drawn up short. I feel like I’ve heard the name “Vannevar Bush” but I couldn’t have told you a thing about that person. Then I look at the hundreds of unread books, and the hundreds of digital, read-later things I’ve collected, and I smile, because I think I get it.
I smile when I manage to remember that there’s no goal. The point isn’t to accomplish anything in particular (fix something big in the world, follow every thread of interest, learn the question whose answer is 42.) The point isn’t even to enjoy the ride. The point is, how you answer the question life asks you.
But the nature of man is sufficiently revealed for him to know something of himself and sufficiently veiled to leave much impenetrable darkness, a darkness in which he ever gropes, forever in vain, trying to understand himself.
HONESTY — “I am unafraid as I prepare myself for that day when the artifices and disguises will be stripped away and I shall make judgement of myself. Is it just brave talk, or do I mean what I say? Were they for real, those defiant words I spoke against fortune, or were they just theatre—just acting a part?” ~ Seneca
You’ve put a lot of effort so far into practicing reflection. It’s important that we don’t lose the trees for the forest. The focus of daily reflection is the tree; the forest will take care of itself.
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Arrived in the middle? Visit the first post, Where to begin? (The entire series is available to download as a PDF ebook.)
But won’t other people think I’m weird if I don’t drink? Will they think I’m a goody-two-shoes? A self-righteous killjoy?” Maybe. But I’ve found that those types are bores. So they’re not worth your time anyway. The GOOD news is that the vast majority of people don’t give a rat’s rear-end if you drink or not, if you order a salad or fries, or if your suit fits and your shoes are shined. They don’t care. We’re all wrapped up in our own little worlds that most people don’t even notice. You could walk into a fancy cocktail lounge in a gorilla suit, order a club soda with lime, and no one would notice you or your drink. And if they DO notice? I’ve actually experienced quite a lot of envy from them. Genuinely not wanting a drink is a bit of a superpower. That, and I get funnier and more handsome the drunker they get. Ta-da.
I haven’t linked to anything from Art of Manliness in ages. First, it’s not “manliness” the way you’re [probably] thinking—it’s about what does it really mean to be a man. 10-plus years ago, AoM in general was where I found a bunch of interesting articles that made me start rethinking, well, everything. So it’s fun to link to AoM just for nostalgia’s sake, even if this is a guest post. I digress.
The article is superficially about abstaining from alcohol, and more specifically about the author’s journey back from the brink of alcoholism. It’s got great anecdotes and advice. If you drink, (at all,) you’ll likely enjoy it. But more generally, abstinence is a super-tool for gaining control over anything. I’ve been using fasting and other restrictions to slowly gain control over my relationship with food. If there’s something you think you overindulge in, try flexing your abstinence muscles a bit. Works wonders.
This ongoing series of posts will contain my memories and thoughts from the interviews which I have been doing for the Movers Mindset podcast.
You can—obviously—listen to each interview. But in this series I want to share things about the interviews. I realized that I have begun to tell stories about the interviews, and people are fascinated by those stories as much as by the interviews themselves.
And so I want to share snapshots—imagery and ideas conveyed through storytelling—from the interviews. The podcast is about, among other things, sharing stories and for every interview I have at least one great story I want to tell.
Stories from before the interviews, or after. Or the people in the room you didn’t hear, or beautiful spaces I get to visit, or the time of day, the light, the vibe, the orgin-story of how I first met the guest, how they affected my life or my journey, …
I’m already 27 stories behind and even the most cursory romp down memory lane has brought countless stories to mind.
To test the relationship between exercise and ketosis I decided to examine my blood levels of glucose, B-OHB, and lactate immediately before and after three different types of workouts on three successive days. This interplay is complex and no one knows “everything” about it, including the world’s experts (which I am not pretending to be). I’m going to try to balance a fine line in this post – I want to be rigorous enough to explore the ideas with substance but not too detailed to put you to sleep. I hope I am able to balance these forces adequately.
The more I read about the human body, the more fascinated I become. One of the big dietary changes I started long ago was to just “try to eat fewer refined carbohydrates.” Less cookies, breakfast cereal, that sort of thing. And then I spun off into intermittent fasting and ketosis and on and on.
But this guy, he’s gone way WAY farther down the rabbit hole. This article is a superlative dissection of ketosis, fuels (carbohydrate, protein, fat), wattage, workouts and … well, the best part is after all of it, there’s no strong conclusion. It’s just this wonderful exploration of how one person’s body performed under a bunch of circumstances.
Anyway. File this one under: Human body = amazing.
I believe a big part of the problem can be laid at the doorstep of the US Government, specifically the USDA and their Dietary Guidelines for Americans (Dietary Guidelines).
My point is simply this: unless you are an extreme outlier, you do believe in all three types of human rights; Whether you prefer the term “Natural Law”, “God given rights”, or something else, you think that there are ethical norms that are not merely pragmatic but objective and true. Therefore government is not merely “something we all do together”, but potentially a destructive force that can commit evil. Finally, it is not only meaningful, but almost mandatory – if one is to say anything of interest – to take great care to distinguish between “is” and “ought” when speaking of rights.
