Many of you hear me interview thought leaders on our MEA online fireside chats and suggest that we should create a podcast. I appreciate the encouragement, but I also need to draw the line somewhere. My primary medium is this daily blog and, as I’ve learned from my good friend Seth Godin, if you want to communicate with the world, pick one medium and bet big on it. Thus, no podcast….yet.

One of the benefits of not having a podcast is I get to be on other people’s podcast. In a recent MEA workshop, someone asked about my favorite episodes of all-time which got me thinkin’. Here’s my top 10 list of podcasts that both “tickled my fancy” and had a big audience (in order of my favorites). Hope you get to listen to a few of these. 

1. Rich Roll (2024 and 2022). When Teddi, Christine, and Debra on our MEA team all told me pre-Covid that I should be on Rich’s podcast, I frankly didn’t know who the heck he was. And, then, in 2022 at a business conference in Miami, Rich was scheduled to interview me on stage and, man, did we hit it off. He immediately invited me on his show and did again earlier this year when my book “Learning to Love Midlife: 12 Reasons Why Life Gets Better With Age” was launching. As you’ll see in both of these episodes, we’re long-lost soul brothers. 

2. Hoda Kotb’s Making Space (2024). If Rich is my soul brother, Hoda is my soul sister. On January 17 this year - the day after my book launched - I was fortunate to hang out with Hoda three times - on The Today Show, recording an episode for her podcast, and at a swanky book launch party that night on NYC’s Upper East Side that she co-hosted for me. I love this woman and she’s said she’d love to co-lead a workshop at MEA in the future. Stay tuned.

3. Meditative Story (2023). When it comes to unique podcast formats, this is one of my favorites as they helped me tell me life story through the theme of aging. This literate, poetic episode feels like the rawest, most poignant media piece I’ve ever co-created. 

4. Impact Theory (2019). Tom Bilyeu and I may have very different socio-political perspectives, but I have to say his interview with me in his mansion living room (with a live audience) captured my book “Wisdom@Work: The Making of a Modern Elder” better than any book launch event I did in the year after that book came out. 

5. Tim Ferriss (2019). Tim and I have been friends for more than 15 years, so I guess it wasn’t surprising that his first question on this podcast was about my recent cancer diagnosis, so he set the tone for me to let it all hang out. 

6. Tami Simon’s Insights at the Edge (2024). I’ve always admired Tami given that she started the Sounds True publishing house nearly 40 years ago and we’ve been fellow gay & lesbian CEO’s way before that became a thing. She asks provocative questions with a deep spiritual bent. 

7. Ryan Holiday’s Daily Stoic (2024). I was fortunate enough to be invited to his studio in his bookstore outside Austin where we shared our obsession with books and Stoic philosophers. Ryan is a perfect example that wisdom is not purely the possession of older people. 

8. Scott Galloway’s Prof G Pod (2023). To be honest, I thought Scott had an off-day when we recorded our episode as he seemed a little lethargic (I love him and Kara Swisher on their Pivot podcast). But, even so, I’m a big fan of his so it was an honor to shoot the shit with him for an hour.

9. Jonathan Fields’ Good Life Project (2018). What a tender-hearted, sweet man Jonathan is. We recorded this episode in New York the day after I received my cancer biopsy results after my book had launched and right before I was giving a TED talk. So, I was in a seriously liminal place on this podcast but Jonathan did a good job of holding space for me being in a state of shock. 

10. Dave Asprey’s The Human Upgrade (2019). While I loved that Dave brought his kids into the recording room and we had fun with them, I wish I could re-record this podcast because, in many ways, I’m respectfully at odds with Dave. He approaches longevity from a bio-hacking perspective and my approach is socio-emotional. I would love to have intellectually jousted a little more with him.

-Chip