The Top Podcasts You Should Be Listening to Right Now

Hey there. You're listening to the Confident Communication Podcast. I'm your host, Molly McPherson, and this week I answer the question that I get asked a lot. Hey Molly, what podcast are you listening to? Want to know the answer? Well, keep listening. Hey, before I jump into this week's episode, did I mention the Confident Leader network yet? Of course I have, but this week it's different because it's finally launched. We are live confidentleader.network online or you can go to my website, mollymcpherson.comnetwork. this is a membership and a place for learning how to be an effective and indestructible leader when communicating in the modern age. All from the comfort of your home or office. There are three pillars of learning that I find when I go out on the road and I'm either in a workshop or I'm giving a speech, a keynote, or I'm sitting down and mentoring a group of people like I did today, a bunch of entrepreneurs. I always focus on these three areas, the how tos of communication, social media and online reputation management. There is not one talk or training or any work I do that doesn't involve one of those three categories. And this is a way for me to bring my training off the road and onto the computer. So any anyone can join. There's an annual membership and a month to month membership and with both memberships you get access to the live online chat that we're going to have once a month where you can ama ask Molly anything. But also, if you're an annual member, you will have access to a special training program I called Calm the Critics and it is your go to guide. It is a playbook for how you can handle any type of attack against your organization and that is free to any annual member. Now back to the podcast. There are three late in life innovations that I am so happy that have been introduced into my life. 1. Dry shampoo. I cannot travel without it. 2. Dazzle Dry Nail polish. It's half the price of gel polish and it lasts just as long safe on the nails. And I know it's a very female centric list so far, but number three are podcasts. I absolutely love podcasts because, well, it did bring my reading to a screeching halt unfortunately, but it's replaced it in a way that's even better than reading in some cases because you can listen to any category and you can listen to anyone about anything in any time frame. You only have 15 minutes and you can download a 15 minute podcast. You want to listen to a serial podcast if you need to listen to something on a cross country drive, it's there. If you have a quick hop from Boston and New York City, you can get one quick podcast in there. I absolutely love them. They're my favorite ways to catch up on news and culture and even some guilty pleasure. So with all the traveling that I do, and it is so easy to download a couple episodes and sit back and listen. Now, I will admit here, I also fake listen to podcasts. I'll put the earbuds in my ear in the car and I'll pretend that I'm not listening to the kids when in fact I am listening to the kids. And other times, I will admit I'll just have my earbuds in when I just don't feel like speaking to someone. But it's, it's a great ruse. But I usually am listening to a podcast. Now, a quick little study, and I mentioned this, this number. I gave a talk today. I was mentoring a group of future entrepreneurs. And one of the questions that I was asked was about blogging, like how, how you can reach out to bloggers. It was a talk about getting press and publicity. And he had asked, well, how do I find influential bloggers? And I told them, you know, blogging is, is a little dated now. Not that many people blog anymore. I mean, there's certainly influential bloggers out there. But podcasts are the new blogging. And podcasts are great because they're easy to listen to, easy to download, but you can be very, very specific in your subject matter. So in the case of the talk I was giving today, it was about how to get press and publicity. And I said, you know, pitch yourself as a guest. But the converse of that is that you can also find any information that you like. I mean, you can pinpoint anything you are particularly in the mood for at that moment. And that's what I love about it. You don't have to go to Amazon and wait for a book, you don't have to go to a library. You just sit on your phone and boom, you can click a podcast and start listening. Right now, 51% of the population in the US listens to a podcast. 49% of that listening is at home. 22% of it is done in the car. Though I have to say, I'm the flip of that. I listen to it more in the car. And the listeners, they're loyal, they're affluent, and they're also educated. But if you had to guess who, who listens to podcasts more, men or women? My guess was women, of course, because it's skewed because I'm a woman. But it's men, and I didn't know why it was men. But here's just my theory is because there's a lot of sport podcasts in there, and I just assume that more men are drawn to a sports podcast. But either way, both of the genders are listening to them a lot, and there are 750 million podcasts out there, so there is definitely a podcast for you. So I'm going to go through the list of podcasts that I mentioned when someone asks me, hey, Molly, what are you listening to? I'll tell them what I'm listening to at that moment, but I'll also recommend other podcasts that I think that they may be interested in. Now. First, we're in the 2020 presidential election cycle right now, even though it's late 2019. So there are a number of podcasts that follow politics. So if you don't get your fix from cable news or from online, you can listen to podcasts. One podcast is called Primary Ride Home. So it is your daily 2020 US presidential primary election podcast. It does go live at 5pm Eastern every day. Now, the beauty of this podcast, it's only 15 minutes long, so it's just enough to keep you updated on the candidates and the issue. So it's perfect if you're heading off for a dinner or meeting someone for drinks, listen to it for 15 minutes and then when the topic comes up, you can jump on in and you're not gonna. You're it will get you through a different dinner conversation or drink, sounding like you're out of touch. Of course, there's Pod Save America, and I'll have to admit here, I don't listen to it. I have, but it's not on heavy rotation by any means. But it is the it's a podcast that has been produced and distributed by Crooked Media, but it's hosted by former Obama staffers Jon Favreau, Tommy Veder, and John Lovett. And of course, there is more of a liberal bend to this, to this podcast, but it's wildly popular and and a lot of people listen to it. Another one is called Slow Burn and say it's a serial version of politics. The last one that I listened to was about Monica Lewinsky and President Clinton, and it was quite interesting to step back in time and we all know the headlines from that story, but to step back in time and go into the details of what Monica Lewinsky was doing the day that she met with Linda Tripp. And then eventually the FBI came and rounded her up and brought her the Ritz Carlton at the Pentagon Mall in Arlington, which used to be my mall when I lived in Old Town Alexandria. And you get that day to day kind of brings you back in time. So it's quite interesting. And there's another podcast in this area called the Press Box that I'll touch. But I know a lot of people listen to it. It's skewed more towards males and it catches up on media stories, sports, politics and kind of everything in between. So it's a nice back and forth banter. I know when I see guys that I know on Facebook when they ask about podcasts, the Press Box comes up a lot. Now the podcast that I do listen to most mornings and it's usually the first one that I listen to. So after I do my morning run and I'm heading out to get coffee or making that first drive of the day, I will listen to the daily so this is the ideal podcast for news junkies. It's from the New York Times and it's hosted by the Times political reporter Michael Babaro. And when he says his names, I'm Michael Barbaro. So I like I said, I listen to it every day and you know, some of it, it goes deep in areas that you don't necessarily need to, you know, need to know about. But again, it's great. It's like listening to or it's like reading an A1 story in the New York Times. It's interesting. All right, the next section is business. Now, it's difficult. I tend not to recommend business podcasts because one, there are so many business podcasts out there. You happen to be listening to one right now. And there are podcasts for any type of business. So I will tell you the, the business ones that I listen to are obviously going to be skewed more from my perspective, which is I'm a female and I'm an entrepreneur and I like news and media and press and speaking and so on and so forth. So some of the podcasts I listen to so Money by Farnous Tarabi. So she speaks about financial members skewed towards women. Of course there is Social Media Marketing World or Social Media Marketing with Michael Stelzner. That's a great podcast if you want know about social media like Quick and Easy. He puts out the Social Media examiner and he also runs the Social Media Marketing World conference every year that I went to in March. My guest from 2 weeks ago Pat Flynn, he has the Smart Passive Income podcast and also ask Pat where it is a coaching call. If you want to get into online marketing, affiliate sales, or how to do podcasting, Pat Flynn is like the guy. An adjacent person to Pat Flynn is Amy Porterfield. Whenever I meet someone that wants to business or online marketing, Amy Porterfield is kind of is considered like the queen of that area. She has an interesting podcast and a wild, wild following. I'm also born to write by Azul Taronis, who's my personal book coach. He has a great podcast where he's speaking to writers. And if you're an ops person, there's Natalie Gingrich, who is my program manager. So she has a podcast called Ops Authority. So there are so many business podcasts for you to Google and hopefully like you're doing right now, you're listening, listening to this one. Now moving on to culture. Ooh, now this one is fun. Everyone needs a good culture podcast in their back pocket. And the culture ones are kind of like the Netflix making a murderer type, you know, type of programming. It's one where everyone is talking about it. Now, I would say here that the podcast that got the whole podcast movement started was this podcast, and it was serial, and Serial came out in 2014, and I felt that was kind of like the first phase of people jumping in to podcast. It was the Netflix making a murder type of a moment that happened with podcasts. The first season, season one was called the Alibi, and it. And it was a story about a murder that took place in Baltimore in 1999. Haley was this popular high school student. She was a field hockey player, I think, and she was allegedly killed by her classmate and ex boyfriend, Adnan Syed. And the serial goes through the. The murder, the aftermath, and then the. And then the trial itself, and he's still in prison. And there was a lot of, you know, stories after the fact, of course, where they want to prove that he is innocent. And a lot of it is based off of this podcast. The next season was season two, called Dust, when that was about Bo Bergdahl. Not quite as interesting, but still worthy of a listen. And it's nice. These are the podcasts. These serial type podcasts are interesting because they kind of. They kind of bring you in, obviously, but they'll draw you in if you have a long trip. So it's perfect for those you're sitting at the beach or you just want to binge on a podcast. Those are the bingeable podcasts. All right. The next one is called Death, sex and money. And this is a podcast. Again, not heavy thinking here, but it builds itself as a podcast that touches, touches on the conversations you usually do not have in mix company. And who wouldn't want that on a podcast, right? Of course, there is the moth. Everyone talks about the moth. I have to admit, I don't listen to it. I should. I know that I would like it, but I don't listen to it. But many, many, many people do. A new one that popped on my radar recently. The first season was called Mobituaries. It's by Mo Rocca. He is a longtime correspondent, you know, witty correspondent, but he's on the CBS Sunday Morning show. He, he has found very interesting stories that he does have on CBS Sunday Morning, and he turns them into a podcast. But a great podcast to listen to when you do have company in the car. It's great for kids. It's, you know, kids love listening to that one as well. So that's Mobituaries. Now the next category is crime. And I'm not a. Like a heavy crime. What? No, I completely take that back. When I was a kid, I was obsessed with crime. I always received a crime book for a birthday, so I don't know why I said that, but I've always loved crime. But I don't spend a lot of time watching it on television. It kind of just is all the same after a while. But in a podcast, there are people that have found different angles to make, you know, a crime podcast quite interesting. Now, one that I listened to that when I jumped into podcasts initially was called Criminal. And it is hosted by a woman named Phoebe Judge. And this is how she speaks. It makes my kids crazy whenever I put it on. But it's a very interesting podcast because she follows the course of a crime. But not every crime is an obvious crime. It could just be a story about anything. But then she'll weave in the crime that took place. So there's. It's always, always interesting. So it's a good one to listen to, especially when you have kids in the car as well. The other one that just popped on my radar is CBS is 48 hours. Of course, that is a show on the weekend. I can't even tell you if it's Friday or Saturday night. I only know it comes on. If I don't have plans, I'll watch it, but I don't know which night it is. But 48 hours now has a podcast, and they take the audio from the television program and put on the podcast. You wouldn't think that it's interesting, but it does translate well into a podcast version. And then you can Google, you know, what people look like after the fact. But it makes for an interesting podcast. So that's 48 hours. The next binge worthy criminal podcast is in the Dark, specifically season one, and it's all about Jacob Wetterling. And, and if you are from the Midwest, specifically if you are from Minnesota, then you know who Jacob Wetterling is. He was probably in terms of child abductions in the news, the Jacob Wetterling story when he was 14. Remember Jacob Wetterling, his brother and another friend, they went down to the Tom Thumb to get a movie and then the man came up and took him. Ugh. It was just horrible. And it just captured all of Minnesota. Happened when I was, I think, my first year of college. But the Jacob Wetterling story is recreated in in the Dark, an excellent, excellent podcast. Now, the recent podcast that I listened to that I consider myself a bit of a junkie, is called, aptly enough, Crime Junkies. So this is the True Crime Fix podcast. I think it is a podcast made for crime, for criminal junkies. And it is named one of the best crime podcasts of 2018 by Rolling Stone. And, and this, the format of this show, two women who are obsessed with crime and they discuss it, and not in an emotional way, but more of a reactionary way of, of recounting. And each week they'll talk about one case. It could be recent or in the past, but it's great for that criminal Fix. It's another one that you could listen to with kids in the car and then have a serious conversation about it. There's a lot of lessons to be learned for sure. Next category, I'll call this the Scandal category. A lot of binge worthy podcasts fall into this category. Of course, I would say the biggie that everyone listened to and I love, I devoured it, was Dirty John. And I listened to it well before the television program came out. But that is a great one if you haven't listened to it. Also, Dr. Death is another good one. I don't want to talk about what it's about, but just, just search it on your podcast. Totally binge worthy. Over My Dead Body was a good one. It was about a crime in Tallahassee where a lawyer was murdered. And I binged on that one when I happened to be working in Florida, so I thought it was appropriate for a location. And another one that I like in the scandal category is called American Scandal. They have great music. Each season focuses on an area. So the last one was on Paola, which I found interesting. Exxon Valdez was another for another season. The Iran Contra affair was, again, super interesting. It's like looking back in the past, but you're getting into the details of what Oliver north and Fawn hall were doing in the office when they were trying to get rid of the papers. Millennials, I'm sure, have no idea what I'm talking about. But for the rest of you, very interesting, but the first season that I binged on with American Scandal was the Belko drug scandal. So binge worthy, Binge worthy, binge worthy. Now I will have one more that I'm going to throw in here. That is a pop culture podcast, but it's no longer. But if you want to go back and listen to it, it's so funny. It's, it's, it's from Vanity Fair. It's called in the in the Limelight. And they just ended it for very suspicious reasons. I don't know the reason why. But if you want to get your royal fix, they go deep into the royal family. They're obsessed with Meghan Markle. So if you're into royalty, that's. That's a great podcast for that area. Now, the final category is the final category, because I don't know what kind of name to give this category other than the if your marriage is in trouble category or you want to be a fly on the wall category. But it's from Esther Perel, and if you haven't heard her name before, go ahead and Google it. She is a therapist and she has a popular TED Talk, which, let's face it, they all say every TED Talks a popular TED Talk, but it is. So she's a marriage therap, and her podcast is called where should we begin? Where it is a recording of a real unscripted therapy session with a real couple. So it is true. Fly on the wall listening. And it's one of those podcasts that no one admits to listening to, but it is fascinating. It's a. It's a fascinating listen. So there's my list. Now, the one podcast that I left off the list is my favorite. And the reason why it's my favorite podcast is because it's informative. It's put out by the Washington Post, and it's just so darn interesting because it's just factoid information packaged up to become binge worthy. And the name of that podcast is Presidential. So there are 44 chronological episodes and I'm sure you can guess what it's about. It goes through a historical journey through each and every president, starting with George Washington. So it takes you through the personality and legacy of each one of the American presidents. And it's hosted by a Washington Post reporter. Her name's Lillian Cunningham, and she also interviews a lot of the greatest experts on presidency in the country. So there's Doris Kearns Goodwin, who is My favorite, David McCullough, John Meacham, Bob Woodward is in there and she will interview them about the presidents. And she's researched it it to a fine detail. And it's great to listen to in the car with kids too, especially if you have kids that are interested in history, because you'll learn very memorable facts about presidents. And also it's good because you never know when a good president factoid is going to fit into a conversation or a presentation or some type of leadership lesson nicely. You can package it it right in so Presidential by the Washington Post all of the podcasts that I have mentioned on this week's episode are listed in the show notes and the show notes are on your phone in the podcast app, but also on the website. So check out the website and you can see all the links to these podcasts. And again, this podcast, I am proud to say, is brought to you by the Confident Leader Network. It is my new membership for leaders to help anyone in a leadership position. You can be an entrepreneur, you can be a director, you can be a small business owner. You could be the head of an organization or head of a family. But it's going to help you learn how to become indestructible when it comes to communicating in the modern age from the comfort of your home or your office. It's all the trainings that I do in person and I am bringing them online. So check it out. The Confident Leader Network. We are live right now. You can find it at my website, Molly mcpherson.comnetwork or confidentleader.network. thanks so much for listening to my podcast this week. We'll see you all next week. Bye for now.