There is something about the intimacy of listening to a podcast that makes the experience more personal and memorable. I suspect I often absorb more from a one-hour interview than from reading the book, which takes much longer.

I find myself better able to run the parallel processes of hearing and evaluating while listening than I do while reading. When I think about what I’m reading I stop hearing the author. Yet we seem to be able to listen, evaluate and talk at the same time. I wonder whether this is an evolutionary consequence of having listened to each other for so much longer than we’ve been reading.

We’re told that we are the average of the five people we spend the most time with. I’m a better man for spending time with Russ Roberts, Patrick O’Shaughnessy, Stephen Dubner, Alex Blumberg and my wife!

Clever interviewers like Russ Roberts draw out nuances that I would otherwise miss reading a book.

Small differences between interest rates are trivial in the short-term but immense over longer terms. That’s the power of exponential growth. And the same applies to learning. Snatching small opportunities to read or listen is trivial in the short term – but the compound learning created is enormous over a lifetime.

This site focuses on timeless listening that adds to your mental toolkit, creating wisdom through the power of compound learning.