My 10 favorite podcast episodes and books of 2021

Hey, everybody. Merry Christmas. Happy Almost New Year. As we're wrapping up 2021, I want to do something I haven't done before, on the Call to Mastery, but I thought could be fun. Maybe it won't be. Maybe you guys hate this and nobody downloads it. We never do this again. But, hey, we're going to give it a shot. Placing small bets, right? I wanted to share my 10 favorite episodes of the Call to Mastery from this year, from this calendar year, just in case you missed some of these, because I know most of you guys don't listen to every episode, so I want to make sure you find these gems. And these are not necessarily the most downloaded episodes, although some of them are. These are just my personal favorites. Looking back at the catalog over 2021, these 50ish episodes that we did. Super hard to pick. My first draft of my favorites list from this year was 25 episodes. So had a lot of work to do whittling that down. But without further ado, here we go. And I'm ordering these from oldest to newest. Okay, just in case you guys forgot about some of these from earlier in the year. All right, number one, Janine Uzel, COO of Wikipedia. Actually, she's not at Wikipedia anymore. She just moved on a few months ago to lead the National Society of Black Engineers. But I loved this episode. Just a great conversation about how Christians can be set apart in big institutions that have massive influence throughout the world and throughout culture, like Wikipedia. So I personally love this episode. Did it get the most downloads? But you guys should go check it out. It was aired on March 17th. It's episode number 86. I'll give you the date and the episode numbers for all of these to make it super easy for you guys to find. All right, number two, Ali Llewellyn and Nick Skitland from. From NASA. This is a brilliant conversation. These guys teamed up and wrote a really great book together. But the podcast episode was all about really, the unique advantages that we as Christ followers have for shaping the future of the world. Because we know how the world ends, right? We know what scripture says the eternal kingdom of God is to look like. Or at least we have clues to that. And so we ought to be the ones having the greatest vision and taking the biggest, most innovative swings for the kingdom. It's a terrific episode. I thought these guys were so brilliant that I invited Allie Llewellyn to join my advisory board, which she happily agreed to. So go check it out. The episode aired on April 14th of 2021. It's episode number 90. All right, number three, Amy Downs. In my opinion, top three episodes we've ever had on the show. So good. Amy. If you, if you didn't listen to the story, here's the gist of it. Amy was a college dropout, severely overweight, hated her life, hated her work, saw no meaning in it. And she was trapped in the rubble of the Oklahoma City bombing and had a literal come to Jesus moment that radically changed her life. She talked on the, on the episode about going to the funerals of her friends and how that changed how she thought about her relationships with her co workers. And by God's grace, she's the CEO today of the credit union that was bombed in the Oklahoma City bombing. It was a phenomenal episode of God's Grace. It's terrific. It's episode number 91, aired on April 21. If you haven't listened to it, seriously, stop listening to this bonus episode. Go find episode 91 right now. Okay. Number four, man, my new friend, Sho Baraka. I, I bet I get an email or an Instagram message every single week from you guys about how much you guys loved this episode with Sho Baraka. Sho is a hip hop artist and he's just thinking more deeply about how the gospel shapes the things that we create in this world, especially art, but not exclusively art. Man. Such a brilliant thinker, such an incredible poet. I think the thing I, I think about most from this episode that I really enjoyed talking to show about was studying outside of your lane to hone your craft. So for show as a hip hop artist, he studies Dave Chappelle and comics, right? Comedians, and learns from their habits that help inform his music. I talked about how I love studying the work of musicians like Taylor Swift. Right now I'm reading a biography on Dolly Parton that I'm finding really fascinating, right? To study outside of my lane. Great episode with show baraka. Episode number 95 that aired on May 19th. You can go find it now. Okay, number five, John Eldridge. And I gotta be honest with you guys, this one surprised me because John Eldridge is a big name. He's written big books. Wilder Heart being the biggest of them. And anytime we bring a really big name like that onto the podcast, between us girls, usually I'm a little disappointed. They say, don't meet your heroes, and there's a reason for that. But John cleared the bar. Like, John was more impressive than I thought John was going to be. And I just loved the conversation about his work as a janitor and the dignity of all Work. I loved how we talked about the gospel compelling us to take bigger risks in the world. It's a terrific episode. It's episode 96 if you're looking for it. Aired back on May 26, 2001. Go check it out. All right, number six, Carla Hayden, the COO of Hope writers. This is probably the biggest fan favorite. This and show Baraka. I get comments all the time about how much you guys loved, loved, loved Carla. We just share. She just shared a lot of great questions about how to bring clarity at work, whether you're a leader or a member of a team. Just really helpful stuff there. She talked about how to serve remote teams really well. We talked about personal retreats and what our personal retreats look like. And I also invited Carla to be on my advisory board. So two of my top 10 episodes this year are now on the Jordan Rayna company advisory board. Go listen to Carla's episode. If you haven't. It's episode number 101 that aired on June 30th. All right, number seven, Randy Alcorn. So tough call. I said Amy Downs is in my top three of all time. Randy's in there, too. I don't know who the other one is, but Randy was my number one favorite this year. I just wholeheartedly believe, as I said on that episode, we cannot have a solid theology of work without having a solid theology of heaven and the new Earth. It's impossible, right? And Randy, in my opinion, has written one of the best books on this topic. It's an old book. It's sold millions of copies already. It's a book called Heaven. We dove deep into this topic in the conversation I love. If you listen really carefully to the audio, you can hear Randy and I flipping through the pages of our Bibles, going back and forth between revelation and Isaiah 60 and Isaiah 65, these core passages that give us hope, eternal hope for our work. It's a beautiful episode. I've had a friend here in Tampa who I go to church with who's told me multiple times that episode blew my mind, and I think it'll blow yours, too. So go check it out. I really believe it's the episode most likely to change your life and change your work. And I don't say that lightly. It was episode number 112 that aired on September 15th, if you're trying to find it in whatever podcast app you're listening to on right now. All right, number eight in my top 10 episodes of 2021, Dr. Benjamin Long, the sleep medicine physician. Terrific. Conversation about what scripture says about sleep. And maybe one of the most practical and useful things we heard on the podcast all year. The crazy, simple thing all of us can do right now to get better sleep. Just have a bedtime routine. Very simple bedtime routine. Doing the same things before bed every night, going to bed at the same time every night. Super helpful, super practical. From a physician who all he does is treats patients with sleep disorders. I loved it. And I also can't get over the fact that Dr. Long was in the cast of Pitch Perfect 2 as an extra. And I can't believe that I admitted publicly once and now twice my love of the Pitch Perfect franchise. But there we go. It's episode 113 that aired on September 22nd. Go check it out. All right, number nine, we're getting closer to present day Dr. Michaela O', Donnell, the executive director of the Max Dupree center for Leadership. I think everybody downloaded this episode. It got a ton of downloads. It's such a. A terrific listen. Go listen to it right now. Mikayla articulated probably the best description of calling I've ever heard. But I think what I loved most about the conversation was her distinction between taking really big risks. Bet the farm type risks with what she called the next doable risk. Just that section alone is well worth the listen. That and the deep cuts we took on on Moana and Ted Lasso. Episode 121 aired November 17 Dr. Michaela O'. Donnell, go check it out. All right, last and not least, in my top 10 episodes of 2021. Guys, you missed this one big time. I think this is our. Our lowest number of downloads on the first week all year. And it's because we released it the day before Thanksgiving. It's my episode with Victor Boutros, the CEO of the Human Trafficking Institute. Here's why this is so interesting. Number one, Victor's brilliant, right? Editor of the Chicago Law Review, Oxford scholar, just brilliant guy. But what they're doing is so different in the human trafficking space, so unique. They're not doing survivor care. They are going abroad and helping law enforcement officials in some pretty poor countries prosecute traffickers, right? They're going upstream to help solve this problem. So I just loved how innovatively they're thinking about this problem. I also also loved the conversation that Victor and I had essentially about my book, Master of One, about this idea of specialization and getting really, really masterfully good at one thing and relying on the church, our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, to get good at their one thing and partner together. To do great kingdom work. This episode with Victor was phenomenal. So it was so good. I'm a donor now to his organization. I was so impressed. It's episode 122. It aired on November 24th. Go check it out. All right. One bonus episode. Because I couldn't put my own episode in the top 10. That would be absurd. But I'm gonna do it as a bonus, which I guess is just as bad. But whatever. I think this is the most downloaded episode of this year. It was episode number 100, where we flipped the mic and I had my friend Jenna Fortun, who's also a guest here on the call to Mastery, take me through pretty much the same interview you hear all of our guests on. You guys loved it. Again, it's episode 100, aired on June 23rd, and Jenna just did a phenomenal job. So here's another shout out to my good friend Jenna Fortier, who just got married, so she's Jenna Barrett now. Hey, I want to hear what your favorite episodes were, where we hear it in fits and spurts from your emails and your Instagram messages and your reviews that you leave here on the podcast. But I'd love you to just email me directly@helloordanraynor.com that's J-O R D A N R A Y N O R dot com. And tell me what your favorite episodes were and tell me what we could be doing better as we look forward to the new year. Okay, that's my top 10 episodes of 2021. Let's move on to my top 10 books of 2021. You guys know I love to read. Nonfiction books are pretty much the only type of content that I consume for information. Now, I watch tv, but I do that for entertainment. I don't do that for information. But when it comes to intaking ideas, I pretty much confine myself exclusively to nonfiction books. So I love the medium. Here's my top 10 books this year in order. And I'm not including rereads in this list. Otherwise it would basically just be books by Tim Keller and Randy Alcorn and N.T. wright and of course, Shoe Dog, which, yes, I read again this year, and I'm convinced it's the most joyful read I've ever read. Not the most life changing, not the most helpful necessarily, but man, I love that book. All right, here we go. Number one, 75 masterpieces every Christian should know by Terry Glaspie. This is a phenomenal book, guys. Basically, what Terry did is he took 75 pieces of art across a wide range of forms. Right? There are some movies in there, there's some music in there. Some of that art was created by Christians. A lot of it was created by non Christians. And he talks about how the art communicates spiritual truth. Right. Christian truth. It's terrific. Each chapter is probably, I don't know, you probably read it in seven, eight minutes. I would read a few chapter each Sabbath Sunday for a while. I loved this book. Go check it out. By the way, we'll have links to all of these right here in the show notes for this episode. So again, 75 Masterpieces Every Christian Should Know by Terry Glaspie. Number two, it's an older book and I don't know how it took me so long to read it, but I finally did with by Sky Jathan. I love the premise of this book. Honestly, I was super convicted by it. Basically, Sky's premise, Skye's a pastor. If you don't know Sky Jethani, his premise is that so many of us are doing our work for God instead of doing it with Him. It's not wrong to do our work for God. I mean, that's a huge theme of this podcast, right? We care about doing masterful work because we're doing it for the Lord, as unto the Lord, as Paul says in Colossians 3, 23, 24. But sky reminded us that God doesn't just want us to do work for him, we're his children. He wants us to do our work with him. It's just a really helpful book, helpful framework. I loved it. It's definitely a book I'm going to reread again. The book is just called with that's It W I T H by Sky Jathani. All right, book number three. I read this book. I think I finished it on January 1st, so I kind of bled over from 2020 to 2021. This was just a Sabbath Sunday. Entertaining read, but I loved it. It's called the Splendid and the Vile by Eric Larson, and basically it's a biography of Churchill during his first year as prime minister, which also happened to coincide with the air raids from the Nazis on Great Britain. Terrific read. Really interesting, really entertaining. It's a great book. All right, number four. I already talked about him in my episode Rundown, but John Eldredge's All Things New. I had skimmed this book before. I don't think I had ever read it in full, though. But I read it in full in preparation for him coming on the podcast and man, it's great. So great. I've heard people say it's their least favorite Eldridge book. Yeah, I don't get it. It's basically all about the new heavens and the new earth and the earthy material hope. We have a physical resurrection of our bodies, physical resurrection of our work and the things that you're making with your hands today. It's a beautiful book. Go check it out again. All Things New by John Eldridge. All right, book number five. Also a podcast guest that I already talked about. Amy Downs book Hope is a verb. I told her I can't remember if I told her this on air or off air, but I gave her what coming from me is one of the highest compliments. I said this read like Shoe Dog the Story of Nike by Phil Knight. It was just beautifully written. Her story of the Lord's radical transformation of her heart pre post Oklahoma City bombing. Phenomenal book that I think she said her nephew co wrote or ghost wrote with her. Great read. So if you listen to Amy Downs episode of the Called Mastery you're like man, I want to learn more about this woman's life. You have to read this terrific book. All right, number six for all you people working in a business, Never Lose a Customer Again by Joey Coleman was terrific. Super helpful. 100 day playbook for all right, you got a new customer. They signed on the dotted line. How do you serve them extremely well so that you never lose that customer again. Right. But as a Christian I just, I don't know where Joey Coleman is at spiritually, but it just Ranga is a beautiful representation of Jesus command to love our neighbors as ourselves. Right. To work through the ministry of excellence. We don't just want to take customers money, we want to over serve them. Super. Serve them so that they can smell the aroma of Christ as they're doing business with us and interacting with us. Joey's book will help you do that really really well. Again, it's Never Lose a Customer Again by Joey Coleman. Alright, number seven again, a book I had skimmed before but never read in. So glad I finally did. On Writing by Stephen King. If you consider yourself to be a writer one day, want to be a writer or not. This isn't even just for writers, it's for anyone who's interested in writers, in authors. This book is extraordinary. It is part autobiography. So the book's broken up into if I can remember correctly, three parts. The first part is Stephen King telling his story story, story of childhood, story of how he got into publishing, etc. It's fascinating. The second part of the Book is basically a technical handbook on how to write really, really well, written by one of the most successful writers of our time. And then the third part is, I think he called it On Death. I mean, I may be misremembering that, but Stephen King almost died. He got hit by a car. I didn't realize this. And this is all about kind of his reflections on life and writing. Post that accident. Such a great book. One I will 100% reread in the future on writing by Stephen King. All right, number eight, if you like biographies, Walt Disney An American Original by Bob Thomas. I think I finally read every biography there is on Walt and on the Disney empire. You guys have heard me talk a lot about Disney war before. Great book. I love. This was probably the best biography I've read on Walt Disney. The man I had read a book years ago by, I think his name is Neil Gabler on Walt Disney. But this one by Bob Thomas was truly terrific. Walt Disney, an American Original. If you're interested in Walt's story, go check it out. All right, number nine, this guy's been in the news nonstop for two years. Dr. Francis Collins, who up until recently was the head of the National Institute of Health, directing basically all research dollars on the coronavirus. And in his book, it's an old book called the Language of God, Collins talks about his conversion from a pretty strong atheist to a believer in Christianity. And he talks about how his work as a scientist is part of what led him there. You've heard a couple of scientists on the call to mastery talk about just how influential Dr. Collins has been to modern science. This book is well worth the read because of that and because of his strong Christian faith. All right, finally, number 10 of my 10 favorite books this year, one more podcast guest already talked about him in my top 10 episodes. Sho Baraka's terrific book. He saw that it was good. This book created some controversy. There's some hard things that Sho said in this book, but this is a beautiful. If you loved my book called the Create, Honestly, if you love any of my books or this podcast, go read. He saw that it was good. Beautiful writing on how God is creative and what that means for us as his image bearers. It's phenomenal. Great, great, great read. And I'm so glad Shil Baraka wrote it. Go read it. He saw that it was good by Sho Baraka. All right, that's my top 10 episodes, my top 10 books for the year. One more bonus. You guys know I love TV. I just can't stop talking about this show. I finished it two nights ago with my wife and I'm obsessed with it. There's some strong language and there are a couple of scenes Kara and I fast forwarded through that were that we were not willing to watch. But beyond that, Dopesick on Hulu is a masterpiece. It's a masterpiece. I can't imagine it doesn't bring home three to five Emmys when it's its turn. Here's the story and there's a strong faith and work component to this that I want you guys to hear, so stick with me for a couple of minutes. It's the story of OxyContin and the opioid crisis, which frankly I knew very little about. But what makes the show great, it's super fast paced and it goes between the halls of Purdue Pharma, the manufacturers of OxyContin, showing what happens in workplaces when there aren't faithful Christ followers pushing back and rebuking evil. So it goes from Purdue Pharma and then it goes to the DA and tells the story of the highest ranking woman within the Drug Enforcement Agency. And then it tells the story of these federal prosecutors, okay? One of whom is a strong believer and appears to be motivated by that to call out the evil, prosecute the evil that he sees in Purdue Pharma. And then Michael Keaton plays a small town doctor in Appalachia who is sold on treating his patients with OxyContin. And then of course through the eight episodes you see the ramifications of that. It's an unbelievably well done show. What I loved most, which I've already alluded to, this federal prosecutor talks a decent amount in the show about his faith. It's a drama, right? So the characters talk about his faith. It's drama based on a true story and adaptation of a non fiction book by the same title, Dopesick and I just love this guy. It's this like epic fight between good and evil and a beautiful example of how quote unquote secular work as a federal prosecutor can be God's work and his hands and feet in the world. Go watch it again. Barring my warning about language and a couple scenes you should probably fast forward through, it's a terrific show. All right, I promised in the subtitle of this episode, one surprise that wasn't the surprise. Got one surprise. As we wrap up this year, guys, I'm all in on podcasting. I love the called Mastery. You guys know we recently released a new podcast with Mark Batterson called Redeem the Day. I got news for you. In just a few days, we're launching another new weekly podcast. It's called the Word Before Work. And if you're subscribed to my weekly Devotionals, that brand is going to sound very familiar to you. So for the last four years, I've been publishing a weekly devotional every Monday morning called the Word before work. And come January 3rd, you're going to be able to continue to read those devotionals via email and listen to the exact same content in podcast form and watch the same content on YouTube. All that's coming on January 3rd. Stay tuned. If you want, pull up your favorite podcast app on January 3rd. Just search for the Word Before Work. Actually, hang on a second. Wink, wink. It's already there. None of the episodes are up, but it's already there. You could subscribe right now. Just go search Jordan Raynor or search the Word Before Work. Subscribe to this new podcast again. We're going to be releasing it every single week, just like we have for the last four years. And I've been spending the last month I spent almost 40 hours in front of a camera recording the majority of the backlog of my content. So I've gone back through those four years worth of devotionals, picked out the very best of them, and we're going to be launching with something like 130 episodes for you to listen to on January 3rd. So if you're looking for a good devotional, you know, maybe to do daily for a few months, I mean, you got enough content in the backlog to do it for a few months. The Word Before Work is going to be there for you. Hey guys. I love you guys. I love hearing from you guys. Email me anytime@helloordanrayner.com tell me how I and my team could be serving you better through the call to mastery through the Word Before Work. We love making this content for you because we want to help you respond to the radical yet biblical truth that your work matters for eternity. One of those responses is following the call to mastery. So do that this new year in 2022, not for your own fame and fortune, but for the glory of God and the good of others. I'll see you in the new year.