The Daily Stoic - Maya Smart on Transforming Education and the Power of Reading

Episode Date: October 22, 2022

This episode comes out for free on 10/22/22.Ryan talks to Maya Smart about her new book Reading for Our Lives: A Literacy Action Plan from Birth to Six (which you can pick up at the Painted Porch Bookshop), how she developed the ideas in the book over a span of 10 years, how she fell in love with reading, and more.Maya Smart is an author and journalist. Throughout her career, she’s written hundreds of articles, including breaking news stories, book reviews, features, and op-eds for a wide range of publications. She’s addressed audiences ranging from 200 to 2,000 at conventions, commencements, and literary events. Along the way, Maya interviewed NY Times bestselling authors like Zadie Smith, Jacqueline Woodson, Angie Thomas, Salman Rushdie, and Colson Whitehead; been a community fellow with the Center for Innovation in Race, Teaching, and Curriculum at the University of Texas; and served on the boards of book festivals, library foundations, and literacy initiatives. Maya holds workshops and speaks publicly on topics that revolve around reading, education, and advocating in support of literacy for all. She also publishes book lists, literacy activities, and other free family resources weekly on MayaSmart.com.✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more.📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoke podcast early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Stoke. Each weekday we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stokes. Something to help you live up to those four Stoke virtues of courage, justice, temperance, and wisdom. And then here on the weekend, we take a deeper dive into those same topics. We interview stoic philosophers. We explore at length how these stoic ideas can be applied to our actual lives and the challenging issues of our time. Here on the weekend, when you have. Here on the weekend when you have a

little bit more space when things have slowed down be sure to take some time to think to go for a walk to sit with your journal and most importantly to prepare for what the week ahead may bring. Hi I'm David Brown the host of Wunderree's podcast business wars. And in our new season, Walmart must fight off target, the new discounter that's both savvy and fashion forward. Listen to business wars on Amazon music or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, it's Ryan Holiday.

Welcome to another episode of The Daily Stoke Podcast. I would say that this episode almost didn't happen. It almost didn't happen because we were switching podcast platforms and I was frustrated and tired with the old one, which I won't say we were using, so we switched to the new one. And then I thought switching to the new one would be better, but I forgot to hit record when we started. But what did the stoic say? The stoic say pre-meditashumalorm have a plan in advance pre-meditate on the evils. And that is why I almost always ask, not always, but I try to always ask my guess to record a backup. And I, myself, had recorded a backup.

And so that is how this episode even came to exist. We don't have video of it, but we do have wonderful audio. Because I took a minute to think about the worst case scenario, the thing you don't want to happen, which is you spend an hour having a wonderful conversation. And there's no record of it, and you can't release it as a podcast. So I am happy to say that I'm bringing you today's episode with someone who I have known and

liked for a very long time. I met her husband first. He reached out when he moved to Austin to become the head basketball coach at the University of Texas, Shaka Smart. And I met him. He and I became friends through him. I met his wife, Maya Smart. And I just adore both of them. And I met him. He and I became friends through him. I met his wife, Maya smart. And I just adore both of them. And I probably actually have bored common with Maya, who is a writer and a lover of books, not that Chaka isn't. But we've just become friends, all of us. And Chaka introduced me to George Ravling, who is a mentor and friend of mine. I introduced Maya to her book, Agent Lisa D'Amona. It's just become this wonderful, mutually beneficial friendship, which has born fruit in today's episode

because Maya is here with her first book, reading for our Lives, a literacy action plan from birth to six. If you have young kids, or you're thinking about having kids, you wanna teach them how to read. If you're a teacher, or you're thinking about having kids, you want to teach them how to read. If you're a teacher, you're, and you want to instill this love of reading, you should definitely read this book. If you're a person who loves books, you will love this conversation because that's more of what we talk about. Maya is a writer's

writer, a lover of reading. She's interviewed everyone from Zadie Smith to Jacqueline Woodson and G. Thomas, Salman Rushdie and Colson Whitehead. She was a community fellow for the Center for Innovation in Race, Teaching and Curriculum at the University of Texas. She's served on many boards of book festivals, library foundations and literacy initiatives. And she also publishes book lists, literacy activities and other free family resources weekly on myasmard.com. You can follow her on Twitter at myasmard. You'll follow her on Instagram at myasmard.com. You can follow her on Twitter at myasmard. You'll follow her on

Instagram at myasmardy. But I think you're really going to like this interview. We nerd out about reading. We nerd out about books. We nerd out about philosophy. And I'm just so happy for her to be putting this book out in the world. I'll read you my blur above it, which is on the top of the back cover. It says, an amazing book for perhaps the most important job parents have getting our kids to love to read. And there's actually a bunch of signed copies of this book at the painted porch, which I'll link to in today's show notes. You can grab that at thepaintedpourch.com.

Also, but pick it up anywhere. Books are sold. I think you're really going to like this interview. And thankfully, I'm able to bring it to you and that our backup plan saved us. Enjoy! So your your first book it's done and it exists how does that feel? It is extraordinarily exciting so if I may've gotten this project done. It was many, as you know, many years in the midgame. How many? I would say my daughter turned 11 a few days ago, so I think

the project's have been brewing for at least 10 years. Wow. Why do you think it took so long? I think some of it was getting my head around the subject matter. I knew when she was a toddler, I read a number of news reports about vast disparities in reading achievement among black students and white students at lower socioeconomic students and higher socioeconomic students. And it really just bothered me. So that started the quest to figure out, well, what exactly is it that's contributing to these differences?

Because we know those are averages, right? So within any demographic, there are great readers and poor readers. So I wanted to pinpoint what are the difference makers. And I didn't find a lot of good answers to that in my initial search. I mean, you've been, it's, it sounds like you've been a writer for a long time, though, was, was writing a book harder than you expected? Subject matter aside. Yes. So I had gone to graduate school in journalism at the Medellin School of Journalism at Northwestern.

So it was very well versed in reporting and interviewing and all of the things that you would think go into creating a book. But a book is not a string of articles, it's its own entity, its own dynamics. And I think also because of the length of time, it took me to do it.

I probably broke the book multiple times and it became something different. Right. Yeah, I think it's hard. It's like every field or medium or kind of art has its own sort of logic and Politics and all of that and and sometimes it's like people are really passionate about doing something So they think like oh, well, just do it or I'll just figure it out But then there's often a lot of painful lessons along the way because you you don't know

The things that you're doing that you shouldn't be doing and you don't know the things that you're supposed to be doing that you're not doing. Right and I think more so than articles with books you really have to keep your reader in mind and how they would benefit from what you're writing it so it's pretty simple with something that 500 thousand words to have a single point and kind of deliver the information and evidence, but I feel like a book demands writing something that can spark transformation in the reader. And so it's, I felt like it was a wader, wadier responsibility, and I had to build some new skills to do it. Yeah, it's, I mean, it's a much bigger hurdle if, if only because, um, almost every other form of writing is given away for free, right? So like not only are you asking for hours and hours of someone's time, but unlike say a video or this podcast, which hopefully lots of people are listening to, but they're

what we asked of them. First off is only an hour, but then we didn't ask them to pay for anything. Most of all, we didn't ask them to pay for anything before they knew whether it was worth all that time and money, right? And that's to me, the really difficult hurdle of writing a book, which is that you're asking for the most valuable thing there is, which is time.

And then you're saying, hey, I want you to pay me for the privilege up front. Absolutely. And I know as a reader, I've had so many experiences where you're into a book, a chapter or two, and you want to quit. You don't feel like it, it's worth those investments of those life units. I'm not really going to sit with this for another six or seven hours of my life. What do you think about the process challenged you the most? Where do you think it forced you to grow the most? In making a clear statement of what I believe on a subject.

As a journalist, there can be a lot of, well, some people say this and some people say this. There are merits to this argument and merits to that argument. And there's sort of attempt at being objective. So in a lot of these points, I had to really go round and round with myself to say, well, what do you think, Maya? Your name is on the cover of this book. And an early reader of the book actually told me that at one point, because I had written a whole chapter about how

parents could research the topics that were essentially the subject of my book. And she's like, no, no, no, they're just paying you, they're paying you to do that. They want to know where you've landed. No, that's actually a great insight. And I find writers, but then also sort of entrepreneurs of entrepreneurs and business people, anyone trying to like get people to do stuff, right? Even politicians, right? The least sellable message in the world is it's complicated, right? Which is tricky. It's a bias too, right? Because people want you to tell them that you figured it out, that it's very simple. And the reality is most things are not figured out and most things are not simple.

And yet, you can't, no one wants to sit down, or fewer people want to sit down for an open-ended intellectual exploration of an idea from which no clear conclusions can be drawn. Right. Again, we've invested all these life units, these hours with this book and we're more, we're more informed.

But people want to know you take. Yeah. I mean, I think about this when I read biographies and I'm like, it's very clear to me that the author has not figured the person out. Right? Like, I don't even say like them or not, right? Which is also a critical thing. But it's like, you haven't figured out what makes this person tick. And that's the only reason I'm reading this book. It, when they were born, where they were born, you know, whether they really did X, Y, or Z, there's very little that I can do with that information and that I'm not a college student trying to pass a test, right?

The only reason to read a biography is to figure a person out. And so it's like, if your message to the reader is, well, I'm still figuring it out. It's like, the reader's going to come back to you and go, well, why don't you come back to me when you have the answers? I have a post-it note. I'm a monitor now that says, take action, not notes, because I'm a big note-taker, but there are a lot of instances when I need to act on the information and not compile information. So there's this process when you're writing the book, also, where you have to sort of separate

details from insights. I know I was with readers value. I was, you know, I guess I sort of had some semblance of what the, some idea of what the word meant, but I was actually just reading about this yesterday. So orthodoxy means like the right knowledge, right? And which I guess I never really thought about what that word meant.

And then I guess there's this word orthoproxy, which means right action. And then I guess there's a Christian concept, although I don't see why it needs to be religious, but it's like orthocardia, something like that, which basically means right heart. And it struck me as the necessity of how necessary it is to have all three of these things. of how necessary it is to have all three of these things, and that just one or two of them by themselves, whether you're writing a project or launching some, you know, political cause or you're trying to do something,

you really need all three of those things. Yes, this sounds like a new three-legged stool. Yes. If you only have the information and the sort of harder intention. You don't take action. That's not enough or any other pairings of the three. I see that all the time with writers where they have an interesting idea, but they have no... They haven't done what it sounds like you spent 10 years figuring out, which is, okay, you identified this idea that

there should be a book about how to teach your children to love to read. Not, not, or the idea that there weren't enough good books about children and reading. And then you spent, it sounds like you spent 10 years figuring out what book you wanted to write in, where those two things intersected, but also what the best way to do that book was. Right. And the best way, the best way for me to do it. Yes. So there were lots of workbooks, and I'm bored by workbooks.

I have a lot of friends who taught their kids to read using a book called Teacher Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. And they swear by it, they've had great results. And I couldn't, I maybe got through two and a half lessons because I'm just not a workbook person. I'm like, so I wanna know why they chose to put those things in the workbook. It wasn't enough for me just to have the action

of setting these things out. And then there were other books that were just treasuries of wonderful children's literature. And I felt like there were a lot of those and each of them reflected that individual author's bias, you know, what kind of picture books they let me or what types of morals and the stories and all those things. And I wanted to do something different that spoke to the individual parents journey of figuring out what to do with your child and something that was about reading but wasn't primarily about books.

Because I think that's part of what's missing in the discussion because there are kids need so many things in addition to books to become readers. Yeah, and it's, it seems really basic, but I don't think people do that work. Like there's that Lincoln quote, I don't know if it's real, but he says, you know, if I had to, if I had six hours to cut down a tree, I'd spend like five sharpening the ax or something like that. Which is that like, I think people often think they're passion or their belief,

or even their proven track record, like in a subject matter or in a space, that that's like the critical variable. But really the critical variable is like, where are you directing that? How are you doing it? And yeah, figuring out what in this case, what the best book, there is to write. And then what's the best book I am capable of writing and where those things overlap? That's like, that's kind of the hard, but also unsexy work because it requires a certain amount of self-awareness, a certain amount of humility, a certain amount of pragmatism and compromise. When I wanted to write about

Stoicism, I would have loved to write a really nerdy book about the ins and outs of the philosophy, but I also had this sense that very few people other than me were dying to read said book. So, there definitely is that almost near constant negotiation with yourself about what you want to do, what actually is a book, and what someone else wants to read. Well then the gatekeepers of like, well, who, if you decide to go through a certain way, like let's say you have some idea for a company, but like, what are venture capitalist willing to fund at this moment, right?

What are, you know, what, what are the media covering at this moment? Like, there's all these, there's multiple hoops that you have to jump through and you can't just skip the ones that you don't like, right? And so, I mean, obviously, I know your agent like and I know your publisher is like you're having to have him to figure out how to thread these different needles. That's that's the art of it. It was really eye opening as the first time time author the process of settling on a title. Because I had thought about this book and worked on it for so long.

In my mind, the project had a number of different titles. One was 101 Ways to Read the Reader. And then you think about that. No one wants 101 Ways. That's a lot of ways. I was like, narrow it down. Right. They want to know the five or seven things

they can do that will really have an impact. And when to do them, right? And so there was just a lot of negotiation and my title was, could be interpreted in many ways. Reading for our lives could mean anything. So then there were negotiations around that and we all like that. Has it seemed evocative and compelling and had a sense of urgency and then you, but you also have to tell people what the book is about.

And so in this case, that showed up in the subtitle. Do you feel like, I mean, I know you were a writer before, but did publishing a book, did it change how you see yourself and all those years of work? Yes, it definitely gave me a stronger sense of being in a community. So I'm very introverted and totally fine being left alone by myself for days and weeks at a time if I didn't have to participate in family life and just reading me and my books.

And so had that sort of sense of being in conversation with the authors of books that I read, I'm highlighting, I'm underlining, I'm writing in the margins. But when you publish a book, then you have readers and people, even people who haven't read it yet, who have come to your book event, and you're talking about it, and you get a better sense of the impact that words can have. And so that was, and then all of the people

involved in the publishing process, I didn't have a good feel for, you know, there are dozens of people who touched that book. Sure. Before, before it lands in the world. So for me, it created a greater sense of connectedness and community. I imagine being a coach's wife is a weird, a weird place to occupy in life because not a lot is expected and then also an impossible amount is expected. And then people have a lot of, you know, sort of stereotype or you know what I mean, I'm sure it's a strange role to occupy.

It is weird in the sense that I don't have any direct impact on the outcomes of games and yet I'm associated with them or a camera might be on me when I'm reacting as any other member of the crowd. As an author, it's been interesting. Some media coverage will say, you know, market, basketball, coaches, wife, rights book, or in your life, yeah. So it's just, it's an element of my identity, you know, my family, my life, but it is a weird one. Yeah, I imagine there's a lot of unpaid labor involved. It varies through the years. So when we were first married before I had my daughter,

we were married, I'm gonna say five or six years before we had her married before I had my daughter, we were married. I'm going to say five or six years before we had her. And then I was all in. I thought I was part of the staff. I remember when he got his first head coaching job. I was in the office all the time. I was hanging out. It was me, the assistant coaches, and they're all head coaches now since the funny. It's fine looking back on that time. But then once I had my daughter and had the mom titled that, that in my mind diminished the basketball wife role. Yeah, and I imagine when you have a spouse whose job can essentially expand to fill an infinite amount of space, right?

Like not just for him, but I mean, think about the number of people that are following it, you think about the number of coaches that are required. Like it's just, it's unlimited, right? It expands to fill the space left for it. I imagine there had to be a certain amount of, especially as you're working on a project for 10 years, that's not well defined, only towards the latter half of that process did, it have a direction, a light at the end of the tunnel,

a name, a deal behind it. I imagine, maybe I'm wrong, but was there a part of you that kind of had to fight to protect this space or this thing that wasn't defined, but if you weren't careful, could get overwhelmed or trampled on by the blob of the career and the life? That was certainly part of it, but I think even more than sort of the shadow of his career were boundaries that I had in terms of my other activities. So there's a certain amount of basketball time.

I go to all the home games. I'll go to tournaments and all those sorts of things. I don't make plans in March because I don't remember, you know, deep in the tournament. So there are those sorts of things. But then I also, because of my interest in this topic, was very involved in a lot of library foundation words, literacy coalition words, and sort of like an excessive volunteering that was sort of related to the topic of the book,

but not writing. And so it's even press-filled, I think, rights about this. This idea that you do this sort of shadow work for me, it was volunteering. I'm not writing my book about raising a reader. I'm volunteering. I'm planning this event. I'm doing this thing.

I'm doing that. So it was a few months, I think, before COVID, I had started resigning for boards and telling people, I'm no longer able to do this thing that I used to do because I'm focused on this book. And then COVID for me was an interesting time because it created a greater sense of urgency about getting the information out because I saw so many parents struggling at home with kids.

So, and then March, pretty much after that point, there was a year where Shaka and my husband was home for a year. You know everything shut down. Some ways it simplified life and it gave me a focus and so I think I got my agent May 1st 2020 and then with the agent then there's more pressure to really polish and wrap up the proposal and then she sold it by July and And then I had a deadline of August 2021 or whatever the date was. And so then I had that external accountability, but definitely there was a process of saying, this is what I'm doing. And in order to do that, I have to say no to this range of things. So COVID helped. You're right, because he does talk about that in the

War of Art. And I I've thought about it often, he talks about like conferences being the embodiment of the resistance, right? You think, well, I'm going, I'm learning, I'm networking, I'm, you know, whatever. But really what you're what you're doing is not writing or not doing the thing, right? And the idea, I think we often think of procrastination as, you know, just putting something off, but we fail to see that, yeah, busyness, even like researching can be a kind of way of putting off the inevitable of like having to actually put, as he says, put your ass where your heart wants to be, which is like, sit in the

chair and do the thing. Absolutely. I had a lot of phases, even after I had the, the book deal and the deadline of phases of weeks that were lost to experimentation with different kinds of writing technology. So trying to figure out, it's a script or how to figure out this in note reference software

how to figure out all these things when it's not, it's just open a document, any document and type. Preferably word because that's the format that the publisher wants it in. So. No, I've said that to people before that, that amateurs spend a lot of time thinking about tools and pros just sort of do it. And there's a, there's a centric quote that I love. He says, the one thing that fools all have in common is that they're,

they're all getting ready to start, right? And so it's this idea of, well, I can't start yet because I have to optimize, but you can't optimize something that isn't ongoing, you know? Right. At certain point, at a certain point, you're, you're, yeah, I was actually talking to my wife about this yesterday. We just got this cold plunge, and we were doing it. And she was like, now, someone said, like, you don't wanna go on the cold plunge right after you work out and she was like, you know what? I don't think any of us, any of our workouts

are at an elite enough level that the cold plunge is going to be like not optimizing. The point is, most of the time, just do the fucking thing and don't think about are you using the right tool, especially if it takes you a while to figure out how to use said tool. Absolutely. And I read a lot of books about how to organize your research, note cards, and this, that, and the other.

And I'm creating these, I'm using Zapier to integrate this and that and send my handwritten notes to this, and it's just a complete mess. But then, when this is how basketball does happen to affect my life, my husband took a different job. So we moved from Austin, Texas to Milwaukee, Wisconsin months before, well, let's see, we moved in. I stayed in Austin till my daughter's school year ended in May.

Look was due August 4th. I didn't realize how much spatial arrangements affect your memory. And so all of my files, notes, books, and things got shuffled in the move. And I think it was ultimately beneficial because it made me take a fresh look. And again focus on, well, what am I trying to say? As opposed to what everyone, what all the sides of this issue are, it's like, we're about landed and then just sit there and you type it into the document at that point.

It just got to a point where you just had to tell my story, write my book. Raising kids can be one of the greatest rewards of a parent's life. But come on, someday, parenting is unbearable. I love my kid, but is a new parenting podcast from Wondry that shares a refreshingly honest and insightful take on parenting. Hosted by myself, Megan Galey, Chris Garcia, and Kurt Brown-Oller, we will be your resident

not-so- so expert experts. Each week we'll share a parenting story that'll have you laughing, nodding and thinking. Oh yeah, I have absolutely been there. We'll talk about what went right and wrong. What would we do differently? And the next time you step on yet another stray Lego in the middle of the night, you'll feel less alone. So if you like to laugh with us as we talk about

the hardest job in the world, listen to, I love my kid, but wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app. Yeah, it's weird like these books behind me, they're not in any sort of order because these are the books I use, but then I had someone on my team take them all down to take a picture of them for something,

then they put them back. And so they're in similarly random order, but the random order before I had a fingertip feel for, like I knew where each thing was, and now on a very regular basis, and I probably should take the time to just organize it, but I have to bring someone up and go, okay, I'm looking for a book and I swear I've looked at every single one of these titles. I know this year. Can you please help me find it?

And so yeah, like the the the environment that you have or the system you it's weird. Yeah, people probably over invest in specific tools like I use this software, that software, and then under-invest in setting up in environments or an office or a sacred place that they go to do the thing that they're supposed to do. Absolutely. Now I have a much more minimalist setup than I had previously because now I understand I'm going to figure it out as I write.

So anything that's not writing is probably a waste of time. So like just sit down, grapple with the thoughts, figure it out, ask yourself the questions, and then everything else is sort of secondary to that. So you're named after a writer, but did you always love reading or did that come like later for you? I always loved reading. It was a very early reader. And this is part of why I had, as a parent, had to research how you raise a reader, because

I didn't remember being taught to read. I didn't remember my parents' dreams. You're like a natural athlete. My dad said, when I was really little, they would try to read to me and I would get frustrated and want to do it myself. And then I figured out, did that was, that's his version of the story. In reality, I'm sure maybe someone at preschool taught me or who knows the details of it. But normally we learn things that were taught.

So somehow I've heard. But have always, my mom's bookshelf was actually in my bedroom as a child. So I remember seeing, like, my into the books on the shelves and poetry and things from the 70s and history books. And my mom, there was a Virginia Hamilton who's a great children's author conference at Kent State where my mom worked and she'd bring those books. So I always was surrounded by books.

And so I had that bias as a book lover that kids learned through immersion. They learned from being surrounded by books. And so I had that bias as a book lover that kids learned through immersion. They learned from being surrounded by books, being taken to the library and being read to, and then as a researcher digging into it further, I'm like, yes, all of those things and some more specific pre-literacy skills. Did your parents have good taste?

In books. Yeah. My mom had more varied taste. So it seemed like the books that were in my room were older, so in like 80, 70, 60s. I know like in her just every day reading, she was reading the paper backs from, you know, romances or whatever. My dad, I only remember having three books. One, he had just a giant, and he's a lawyer, so I know he read. But in his office, he had a giant, battered, webster's dictionary that he had taken

from apartment to apartment and landed on this big podium in his office. And then he had the power of positive thinking and how to win friends and influence people. Those are the three books. And if you knew him and his personality, those are not the two books that you would have thought he had because he could speak to so many issues related to history and all these things, but his actual bookshelf had those two books in the giant dictionary. Did he have those books because those were things he had to work on or was he naturally like an extroverted, gregarious person?

I think now looking back on it, I think he probably had to work on it. I think he probably was introverted. He definitely was a showman in the courtroom. He had been a prosecutor when I was little, and people would tell me stories of people calling him jury gem, and these demonstrations and kind of performances that he would put on. little and people would tell me stories of people calling him jury gem and you know these demonstrations and kind of performances that he would put on but by the time I was born an old enough to pay attention he was the deputy director

of law for our city and so it was more of an administrative thing wasn't in the courtroom so I imagine those were and again those two books were old and better too so maybe there were things that he really didn't over and over right or maybe just the like I feel like some of the books that I have closest to me two books were old and battered too, so maybe there were things that he reread, things that it did over and over. Right. Or maybe just the, like, I feel like some of the books that I have closest to me are not books that I read often, but that I have read and were so influential to me when I did read them, that it's almost more like a painting that, like, just seeing it, bring evokes back to a certain place or an idea or it's like a totem or a symbol of the idea

as opposed to like a handy wreck like the dictionary you're probably using the other books maybe that it's just the spine that's doing the heavy lifting. Right, it's just a reminder. Touchdown. Yeah, I remember like in my like I remember liking well I remember first not liking reading my grandmother as a reading teacher and I remember not in my like I remember liking well, I remember first not liking reading my grandmother was a reading teacher and I remember not liking going to her house because she always made me read a lot and like as work, you know, um, and then and then I remember falling in love with books, but it was, you know, like in cyclopedia brown and the hearty boys and you know, like just any

any book they would let you check out of the library for like kids. And then, you know, as I got a little bit older, it was more like, you know, climb custard books or like spy novels and stuff. But then it was probably later in high school that I, and this is somewhat hoity, toity distinction. But then I fell in love with literature, right? Like, and I know all books are literature. But then I guess what what this why I'm asking about taste is like I wonder how it would have evolved for me had I been pointed to different books earlier. Because once I got pointed to the books

and once I met people who could be like, you know what the next book you should read is? This one, I was really off off to the races, but there was kind of a a fallow period where I was just, you know, not super discerning in what I read. I had a similar experience. I remember reading a lot of Arles Dine had fear street books where people would die in the scuba diving accidents and they would get the bins and then there was an author.

And again, these were series. There was an author named Lurling McDaniels, who wrote all these books about children like dying terminal illnesses. And so when I looked at it now, it was like, how did they sell? But there were several, so remember going to that we only had

Walden books and the little B-Daltons inside of malls at that point. It was before the big bucks, bookstores that have come and gone before Amazon. And so you had a little limited selection. It was Sweet Valley High of Baby City's Club. Yeah. Yes.

And so for me, in high school, the junior and senior year, I did the IV program, which at my school at that time in the 90s, we were the guinea pigs, we were the first class to do it. that was when I read their eyes are watching God I Zora no hersid who I later named my daughter after and Anna Karinna and also that was when I'll say I started to reading to your point literature for me it was in school and junior senior year. Yeah I remember I loved Western so I read like every Louis Lamore book and then I read a bunch of others and then I remember

I said I remember there used to be books at the grocery store like we go to railies where I lived in Northern California. There was a section of books like usually near the register wherever and I would get books and I remember just oh here's so this looks like another Western and I remember for I might I guess my parents were not discerning either. They were probably just happy I was reading. But I got I grabbed I grabbed a bunch of these books and I read them and it was like they were definitely westerns but they were like Smutty Women's Romance westerns and it was fair.

It was a very scarring experience at like 10 or 11 years old. It's like what was supposed to be a gun battle turned into a, you know, a scene in our foredele very quickly? And it's just, it's important for parents to remember that, that our own journey is to reading and the garbage that we waited through to get wherever we've ended up. Yes. Yes. No, it was, you know, it was very, it was very surreal. I don't know. I think when I think about reading, I think about interest first. You talk about this a little bit in the book, which is wonderful,

and we'll talk a little bit more about it. But I was reading this study. I think the Atlantic was talking about it, and they were talking about how, if you just give a paragraph to a child to read, you know, their reading comprehension will be whatever your reading comprehension is. But if you give a paragraph about baseball to a child who likes baseball, their reading comprehension will be a lot higher because they're interested and engaged,

but also they bring a certain amount of background knowledge to the paragraph they're interested and engaged, but also they bring a certain amount of background knowledge to the paragraph they're reading that allows them to like read slightly above their level. And obviously being into westerns that helped me learn to read because I actually cared about what was happening, but I was just talking to someone I know who still lives in Sacramento where I grew up. And I was like, we were talking about Joan Didian who wrote about the town that I grew up in. That's where she was from. And, you know, I read a lot of garbage books in high school English.

And no one bothered to point us to a great writer who was writing about where we lived. And I wonder how much more engaged I and other people would have been were the reading we were given was actually tailored to some semblance of reality or lived experience or how we saw the world as opposed to just being like high school school kids should read The Great Gatsby, which is an exception that I loved, but you get my point. Absolutely. There's so much that goes in reading. There's a decoding, just matching the sounds

to the letters and print, but there's so much that we grasp through the vocabulary that we have and the background experiences that we have. So if you were given that book about your city, you would recognize landmarks and it would just come alive in a different way. And so that's another bit of advice I would give parents to talk to your kids more than you think.

You need to because all of those conversations are introducing words and concepts and ideas and background knowledge that will help them make sense of what they're reading in print. Yeah, that's actually something you talk a lot about in the book that it's like, don't, and I'll go into this after, but don't get to, even though books are amazing and books might be the best thing to read,

don't be so snooty that you ignore other forms of storytelling and other forms of reading. Like, reading is reading. It doesn't really matter whether it's the back of a cereal box, a comic book, or, you know, a story you are telling them. Right. Because once they can read, they will read. Yes.

And they'll have a greater ability to find more of what they like. So if the child is into something that you don't really understand, if they love roblox or Minecraft or whatever, get them some books on that topic. So they can keep in their aversion and that thing and reading is reading. That's what I'm doing with my five year old right now, which is like he loves Minecraft. And it's not just, oh, we're reading him, I'm reading out loud every night, this series on Minecraft that he loves. But I was blown away, like it occurred to me

as I was reading this book that this was the first thing that I had read to him that he knew more about than me, right? And so his level of excitement and interest, where it's not me stopping and going, here, let me tell you what this thing is. I'm like, what is it cast? Or, you know, what is a pillager? What, I'm asking,

because I know what I'm reading, but I have no idea what they're talking about. And the converse is true for him, and that was super engaging for him. That is so powerful and a reading experience that two few parents of young children have because we think we're the holders of all this knowledge and experience and we're not willing to kind of look at it from it to enter their world, meet them where they are. And so you've given him this phenomenal opportunity to educate you on something.

And asking questions is a great way to engage kids. It helps them build all the things we've been talking about, particularly even younger kids, building brain connections and forging brain structure that will support futureing. But it's just, it's powerful. We can have an authentic conversation where you're both learning.

Yes, even though I have no interest in learning, what I'm learning. But I assume the same is true for the important things that I think I'm reading to him. Exactly. Well, no, and it's funny then when he's playing Minecraft, he has to come to us and go, like, I guess you have this inventory in Minecraft where you have

to type, you're like, I want to use this gem or whatever. He doesn't know how to spell, right? But he has to come to us and he goes, I need you to type this in for me. You can notice that once the word is typed in, it'll pull up the pictures and he knows what he wants. But then again, it's this force not very often is he coming to us and asking how to spell things about regular life because that doesn't improve. He doesn't get anything out of this.

You don't make me in like, like, he's not like, how do I spell cat? Because knowing how to spell cat doesn't make the cat do tricks for him. But like, if he knows how to spell a word in Minecraft, it can allow him to do something in the game that he wants to play. Same, same, I know the screen is supposed to be the enemy, but if he wants to search for a video in YouTube, like, there is an a hurdle he has to get over that right now we're the only ones that can help him with that. Absolutely. It reminds me of something else I talked about. A book was kind of the three levels of personal relevance. So kids, and that was, I think I mentioned this in terms

of picking the types of books to share with kids. But if they're interested in a topic, it helps them get something they want, which is the power you've tapped into with Minecraft. And now you're getting into spelling and writing and all kinds of other literacy skills and critical thinking and all all the things and then sort of identity. So when little kids like, oh, Z, that's my letter. So it's good to find these different hooks kind of to give them. Sure. So a book about Z.

Brezer, whatever is going to be interesting because like they have some affinity for things that start with zero or this also probably goes into, you know, issues of representation and diversity in books. Like I did this book, The Boy Who Would Be King about the boyhood of Mark Sures which you gave me a bunch of amazing notes on. And then I did, I wanted to write about Epictetus, but I made Epictetus a girl, even though in real life, Epictetus was a man. And people were very upset. And they were like, well, why did you have to change the gender of this historical character?

And I said, well, if I want to teach my daughter, which I don't have about stoicism, she should feel like there's characters that represent her in that story. And if I already have a boy one, why wouldn't I seek out additional representation? Absolutely. And I hadn't thought of it that way. I'm thinking in terms of subject matter, but absolutely. In the same way, when we spoke earlier about the Joan Didian book being set in the community that you're familiar with.

Yes. Well, I mean, I took that too. One of my favorite novelists is John Fonte wrote this book, Ask the Dust. And I discovered him much later. I actually discovered him when I lived in LA because he sort of, like, he's considered kind of like the, he and Bukowski are considered like the poet Lori. It's a downtown Los Angeles. And I lived in downtown Los Angeles. And that's how I first heard about John Fonte. I was walking down the street and was it fifth and, fifth and all of, I don't know, there's an intersection in downtown LA called John Fonte

Square. And I, you know, Google did a, read this book, became my favorite novel. As I read more and more of his novels, I'm reading one of them and it's set in Roseville, which is also the town that I grew up in, right? And so, that like, I remember being like viscerally upset that like, it's not like a lot of novelists hail from Roseville, California. And at no point did any of my teachers,

did any of the local media, did any, did any, did this ever come up in any way, right? And I think about, well, I'm lucky that I ended up growing up as someone who loved books and reading anyway. But how much more might I have been sucked in to reading had I known that there was a novelist that came from where I came from. And more importantly, how much more empowered might I have felt as a kid from this random suburban town that I could do that thing professionally? Do you know what I mean? It's definitely a missed opportunity in schools, libraries, and even in bookstores in some of

these communities. I grew up in Akron, Ohio. I mentioned in the book this historical figure, the first black speller to make it to the finals of the national spelling base. I've never heard of this person, but that might have sparked an interest in spelling. Read it down.

I actually hang on, hang on one second. I'm gonna get something out of my bag to show you. Okay. And then don't you mention her in the book also in that same paragraph? Yes, because she gave amazing speech in Afro-Hio. You've got everything on hand. I just, I want to say that I have a woman book. And this is actually a really cool penguin translation that is like a collection of her letters.

The title is really awesome too. The crazy thing that I took from it as a digression, which is like she never would have spoken in this dialect. It's like a heinous, racial stereotype that they projected on her. Not just because she wasn't from the South, we just assumed that all former slaves were from the South. She was from New York, but that she, her first language was Dutch, right?

Like, you don't realize how off your stereotypes can be sometimes until you're like, fundament, like you would never have guessed. Like, not only did Sojourner Chouth not talk in this sort of slave dialect, but she was Dutch. That doesn't make sense. That's what, that's what a prejudice does. Is it narrows even the possibilities of what you might consider? Absolutely. And this is why it's so important, big picture to help kids get these strong

reading foundations so that they can get to the point where they're skilled and fluent enough that they can read a diversity of things on any topic and learn and grow. Like you get to that point. Initially, the words that they're recognizing print are words that parents or caregivers teachers have spoken to them, but then you get to the point where you're learning from the reading itself and you're learning so many more words. Some people feel terrible when they run. I feel terrible when I don't run. When I run now, I wear 10,000's training gear. I love their stuff.

I just got some in the mail yesterday. 10,000 is a men's performance active wear brand built for serious training. I think they're aligned with this stoic idea of daily, continuous improvement. Their collection is just focused on the essentials delivering everything you need and nothing you don't. Everything's designed with function durability and minimalism in mind. The gear helps you function at the highest level, it's supposed to last forever. 10,000 works with top strength and endurance athletes to co-design tests and develop their gear. So you know, it's heavily vetted before you show up.

Kid up now and get 15% off your purchase. Go to 10,000.cc slash stoic. That's T-E-N-T-H-O-U-S-A-N-D. C-C slash stoic. STO-I-C to get 15% off. 10,000.cc slash stoic. Free shipping, free returns, lifetime guarantee. It's the most comfortable training shirt you've ever worn from 10,000.

Yeah, you're learning, there's that, that famous, it's not like a meme, but it was like, never makes fun of someone for mispronouncing a word because it means that they probably learned it reading. You want to get to a point where you're so widely read that you're regularly reading and comprehending words that never come up in the course of conversation. I listened to the Michelle Obama audiobook of Becoming and there were so many words. I was like oh is that how you say that like I always said indie fatigable and learned it was like indie fatigable or something and even when I recorded my own audiobook I had to re-record mostly

names but it's a great point like you're just you're learning from the text in isolation and you're not hearing it. These are words that are not spoken in everyday conversation. Well, I no longer go into a studio to record my audio books. I just do them like here with my setup and then they send me like a, they're like, here's a 14 page document of all the words that you mispronounced.

And there, it invades what indifit, tagable. I can't even do it, but that is always on there because it's a word you would write, but you would probably not say in the course of a conversation unless you were being pretentious. Right, exactly. Now, it is funny to think about representation because I think it's not just, oh, you should see people like you. There's a great, is it Fran Liebuitz? She said a book is a door, not a window. I think as we sort of get in these debates about, you know, what's it called? What's the shit? What's the thing everyone's mad about in school? It's the 13th.

Critical race theory? Yeah, critical race theory. Like, I never read about Frederick Douglass in school, right? I read Frederick Douglass's memoirs after I'd left college because someone I know recommended it to me. But like, when I read Frederick Douglass's story or Malcolm X's story, I much more relate to that coming of age story than I do hold

in coffee old who seems like a little bitch to me basically. Like, like, hold it like a rich kid going to private school, you know, like, I had no conception of what that experience was. But then this other person who you wouldn't, so by increasing the representation, some people are maybe reading Frederick Douglass and going, he looks like me, I'm empowered by that. But also by making things diverse, you're matching experiences between people

who maybe on the surface don't look or seem alike at all? Absolutely, because we're so layered and multifaceted and when we're reading, there are all of these different points of connection, whether it's place or race or gender or time or whatever, the things, there could be a thousand things that anyone could connect with in any story and to your point. Yeah, we just need more stories so that more people can have those experiences. Yeah, and then more people can go, oh, this is the experience that we have when you read a book, and you know, this speaks to me. A lot of people had never had that experience, right?

I see this all the time with my books where people will come to me and they'll say, I see this all the time with my books where people will come to me and they'll say, I haven't read a book since high school and I read your book and it helped me with something I was dealing with. And there's a part of me that's very excited and a part of me that's sad when I see that because that it's coming to them in their 40s that books can help you with things. coming to them in their 40s that books can help you with things. Strikes me as a profound injustice that someone inflicted on them at an early age by teaching them that books work things that help you with things. Or not building a strong enough foundation for them to become the kind of skilled fluent reader that can read more than one book and several books. So you'll even in your people even interact with,

even people of similar education levels, there are these major differences in the volume of books that people read. And as a book lover, when we were in Austin, loved going to book people, all the signings, all the people loved the Texas Book Festival, but then there were a number of other smaller,

independent book shops. I felt like it was just a very literary town in some ways that people don't recognize. And now your book store is nearby. So adds to that vibe, but there are people who read, and there are people who read occasionally. Yes. Right. And the more you read, the higher your chances of second investment portfolio, the chances of really hitting something big are higher.

And so if you haven't read a book since high school, you haven't read a book that's changed your life since high school. But if you've read 100 books in high school, chances are one or two of them are not going to not only be life changing, but are going to encourage you to keep reading more books. Absolutely. And I think that that is one of the the tragedies of the way reading instruction is going in our country has been this way for some time, but it's just more on my personal radar and radar of more people that we aren't giving enough people a shot, even, at becoming skilled fluent readers. And there is a great cost to that. It's not just literate enough to fill out a job application

or read a bus map. It's like literate enough to find all these amazing books and authors that speak to you. Yeah, General Mattis has a quote that I love. He's talking to young servicemen and women and he said, if you haven't read hundreds of books about like what you do, whether it's, you know, you're an artillery specialist or you're a leader or, you know, a pilot, if you haven't read a lot about your subject matter, he said, you're functionally illiterate. And I think about that phrase all the time.

There's lots of people who are illiterate that are also functionally illiterate. They can read, but they don't. Right. It's, there are so many layers to the issue, but I think that what, I think the biggest takeaway and thing that left me most optimistic after going through the years long process of digging into the issue

and then writing a book about it is that the things we as parents and as a society need to do to lay a foundation that gives kids a shot at becoming super readers or whatever we want to call them, Those things are simple and doable. It's, and I don't know, there's a quote or someone says, like illiteracy is one of the most addressable problems. Yeah. No, no, that's very true. And yeah, having met a lot of these people,

like the quickness and obviously the better the foundation set early, which is the premise of the book. But the amount of the book, but the amount of people that I've met that went from never reading to can't stop reading and how quickly that can happen is really a magical encouraging thing, right? It's not like, let's say if you're morbidly obese to suddenly be in great shape, That is a very long, difficult journey or to go from being addicted to, you know, drugs to being sober. That's an extremely arduous journey that you can fall off at any time. But the amount of people that I talked to that like went from not reading

to getting an audible subscription and it changing their life, you know, it's a pretty doable thing. And especially when you're not snobbish, we were a little snobbish earlier, but especially when you're like, reading is reading, I don't care what you read, I care that you read. It can be transformed, transform it. Absolutely and there are another thing to be optimistic about. There have never been more books to read of all kinds. And I think recommendation engines, ways of finding things you might be interested in are getting better. And so some of that is technological but it's also going to a bookstore talking to a bookseller who says, if you like this, I think you'll like that. I love the little cards with handwritten notes from booksellers and independent books sort. Like that means something to me that like seeing someone tan-righting

that personal endorsement. So I think there are more ways for anyone who reads anything to find. If you like this one thing, there's something similar in that topic area, that author or something, you know, adjacent to it that to get you hooked and develop the skills. And there's a point also where you become a better reader through reading.

Yes. Well, these algorithms are very, you know, people don't, a lot of readers, let's say a lot of people in the industry don't like Amazon, but readers love Amazon because Amazon's algorithms very powerfully direct them to things that they otherwise wouldn't have heard of or otherwise wouldn't be able to access, you know, a book that sells six copies a year is not going to be available at your local independent bookstore, but you can get it next day from Amazon and. And you know, audible in these ebooks, anything that reduces the technological hurdles to reading is important. And Amazon has an overwhelming amount of data too that shows that cheaper books are the more people read books. And you know, as an independent bookseller,

I basically have to or I can't afford to sell the books for less than, you know, let's look at your book here. Your book is 26 bucks in the US and I bet on Amazon. It's like 17. Let's see. Oh, it's 25 on Amazon, but it's 14 bucks on Kindle, right? And it's free as an audiobook, right? And so like these these these tools make it easier for people to take chances on books, which is really important too. It is. There are so many layers of this issue. There's, I was on a podcast earlier this year called

in book deserts. And book deserts was a phrase that I hadn't thought of. You hear about food deserts all the time, but there are even more book deserts. And the statistics that they cited about children with no books in their home at all, it's just mind-boggling. So access, alter, a number of amazing book donation programs,

and of course you all have libraries and so many ways, but just getting, recommending, people should think that it is a good deed to recommend a book to someone. Give someone a book, a child, an adult. If you're giving people books, it's a good thing in the world. Well, look, the foundation of stoicism is built around two such instances. The first one, Zeno washes up in Athens. He's penniless. He's a merchant, he loses everything, he ends up in this bookstore. And he walks into a bookstore again,

this 23 centuries ago, those bookstores. And the bookseller is reading probably a work of Zedithin, who's telling a story from Socrates about the choice of Hercules, which is what I opened the new book with. And afterwards, he says, where can I find more stuff like that? And that's what sends him on this philosophical journey that found stoicism. But Marcus really, his life has changed.

He thinks, rusticist, actually, let me see if I can find it. It's pretty funny, just because it's such perfect language. He thinks his philosophy teacher, Rusticist, he says, he thinks him for teaching me to read attentively, not to be satisfied with just getting the gist of it and not to fall for every smooth talker. And then he says, and for introducing me to Epic Titus and loaning me his own copy. And so you have the emperor of Rome, you know, 2000 years ago, getting a recommendation from a teacher to a book that he might write from from a slave, right? So the most the future most powerful man in the world reading, you know, the works of what was thought to be, you know, in a literate slave.

And it changes the course of his life and meditations. He clearly isn't satisfied with just getting the gist of meditations. I mean, he reads it so many times. He quotes epitetus from memory throughout the book. Like, that is the power of somebody paying it forward, saying, hey, this book worked for me. It might work for you. Absolutely. And there's a bit in there that was about how to read, how to read critically, how to grapple with the text and form your own opinions and separate this from that. And there was a lot in there.

Yeah. No, in two sentences, for sure. You got to, you got to a mad like what I make up from that is that he didn't just loan him the copy, but it sounds like he probably quizzed him on the copy. And they had discussions about it, right? Like he didn't just say, oh, maybe you'll like this book, but it sounds like that book was something they pondered over and it became a valuable thing to both of them.

And that is the point. I hope I made in the book as well, this idea of the talk around the text. And often as parents, you think the book is the magic when you're trying to raise the reader, and so you'll hear the stories of the sleepy parent rushing through a picture book or skipping pages, because they think they're giving them something just with the act of turning the pages and reading the words.

But it's the relationship that is magical, that conversation, that community, that grappling together towards something. No, that's right. It's the conversation that comes during and after, and I try to do this with my kids all the time, which is then when something happens, I try to draw it back to things that we've read.

I go, this is like what so-, what so and so said in this book, or like, you recommended each kindness, which we've read a bunch of times, which is a wonderful little book. And, you know, when my kids do something kind, I try to be like, this is like in each kindness, or when they do something meet, like, you know, if they're talking about someone

or something at school that's also, you know, that they're talking about someone or something at school that's also, you know, that very easy casual way you could hurt someone by not being kind. I try to call it back to the things that we've read too. And the idea that books are an ongoing resource or reference, like they were on your father's desk is something you have to teach. It's really powerful and then when they're older you'll have this just bank of shared stories and memories. You know, they'll be 35 and they'll bring up, you know, the ripple of kindness from that story. And that is something like you didn't get with the Smutty Westerns. You know, it creates a different,

just a different relationship dynamic. I think books win red in that way, just add another dimension to your family life. Yeah, well, clearly my parents were also reading the Smutty Westerns, or they wouldn't allow me to continue to read that. Okay. Yeah, no, there's,

and you might not think that they understand what's happening, but they do. There's a story, there's a book called My First Coach, which is about NFL quarterbacks in their, their relationship with their father. And there's a story. I think it was John Harbaugh was telling about his father, Jack Harbaugh, and, and then I guess every day as he would drop their kids off to school, he would say some weird expression about like, attack the day and don't take any plug nickels or some weird expression. And, you know, he'd said it every day for like 20 years and his

kid, or 10 years and his kids never acknowledged it, rolled their eyes every time. And, you know, he forgets about it. And on, you know, the. And on the first day his son becomes head coach, maybe it was at Stanford or whatever I forget where it was. But the first day his son gives a press conference for this new job. He says that line. He's like, I'm going to, and the sun doesn't even remember where he gets it from.

The dad rings, you know, so you never know what you're kind of pluggingugging into the subconscious either. Absolutely. My dad would always say, work as hard as you can and learn as much as you can as fast as you can. So that one stuck with me. And anytime I was leaving the house, he would say, what's your name? And I'd say, my RNA pain, and he'd say, it's a good name. Keep it that way.

That's a good one too. I like that. So just like if you, he was very, very, very did active repetitive person. So there are these grooves in my head. That's what meditations is also people at sometimes academics will go. There's, it's not much of an original work of philosophy. And there's a lot of repetition in it.

And that's because it's not a work of philosophy. It's not a book. It's a journal where he is repeating things like that that he heard from other people and trying to apply them and work them out and add to them. And that conversation has a lot of resonance because it's so sort of authentic and real. And that's the kind of conversation I think you want to have with your your kids through your books and the conversations that you have with them. And one thing I think parents struggle with in this just time where you're

overloaded with all kinds of information. And then when if you're a super reader yourself, you're subjecting yourself to all kinds of additional information is when you get those nuggets, the things you really want to hold on to, how do you remember them in a concrete way? How do you kind of embody the lesson or the insight that you've picked up from reading or conversation or whatever it is? I talk also in the book about habits and you know, tying things to triggers and whatever. But I often ask myself, when there's something I really want to remember, okay, how do I make this stick in the flow of my day?

Yeah, it's like, go write them down, put them on a frame, and put them on the wall. You got to create room, just like I'm sure in the locker room at Marquette, a bunch of shockers favorite quotes and favorite rules are put up on display so people can't get away from them. Absolutely. They have the fancy graphics on the wall, the core values, all the things. No, I think people think that that's cheesy. And it might be cheesy, but if it didn't work,

you wouldn't see it in every single one of these lockers. Absolutely. Well, I love the book and I'm so excited that it's out in the world. And I hope you are following it up by or celebrating it by starting the next one. Is that that's a recommendation? That's always the recommendation. Start the next one. Let this one sit and do whatever it's going to do while you stay very busy on the next one. Okay, got it.

Amazing. Okay, got it. Amazing. Hey, it's Ryan. Thank you for listening to the Daily Stoic Podcast. I just wanted to say we so appreciate it. We love serving you. It's amazing to us that over 30 million people have downloaded these episodes in the couple years we've been doing it. It's an honor. Please spread the word, tell people about it,

and this isn't to sell anything. I just wanted to say thank you. Hey, Prime Members! You can listen to the Daily Stoic Early and Add Free on Amazon Music, download the Amazon Music App today, or you can listen early and add free with Wondery Plus in Apple podcasts.