“Dude…Have you started listening to podcasts on 2X speed? It will change your life!”
Free advice from a good friend and intelligent dude.
COVID lockdowns were all the rage at the time. And we needed to process mountains information to push back the tide.
There were skills to be learned. Studies to speed read. Connections to make. And an endless parade of health summits to absorb.
How else was I going to be a project engineer, investor, marketer, business owner, and family man when I’m defending my rights?
Faster speed helped. But it also gave me shiny object syndrome.
Sending out an SOS
For those of you not familiar, the internet is overflowing with information.
Much of it looks good. And it comes at you all at once.
It’s tempting to pursue everything instead of mastering one at a time. I followed the next shiny object as soon as it popped up.
But when I tried to master everything at once?
I couldn’t swallow. I dropped weight I can’t afford to lose.
My head explodes with the information I take in. Results escape me.
It doesn’t make me a pleasant companion.
And when I threw a bunch of premium programs on top that I’ll get to later (but never do), I floundered and grew jaded.
I had burned out.
But all that motivation to change my life and the world was a worthwhile pursuit.
It just takes some slowing down to reignite the passion.
1X FOMO
If it feels like you’re missing something…
When your podcast queue and backlog of online courses keep growing…
But you don’t feel any closer to where you want to be…
Recognize what you’re missing on normal speed.
Emotion
Listening to podcasts on double speed glosses over the wholeness of people’s experiences.
That may not be important when an AI expert rattles off facts and figures on how trends will shape the next 10 years.
But there’s something different to learn from a nun describing how used she felt in relationships until she fell in love with Jesus, who saw her as a loved person first.
I did need dry facts to defend my family from overreaching mandates. But whole stories are full of nuance.
As much as I needed more information to execute, losing the emotional side of it kept me from getting clients. And led to a downward spiral of frustration.
Space to listen
Jim Kwik famously compares how people can hear 400 words per minute. But the fastest of us can only talk up to 125.
He claims the gap leaves room for boredom. But boredom leaves space to make your own associations, which enrich your experience.
Information is no good in a vacuum. It has to be compared to other sources and tested for a richer experience.
That gives you something interesting and unique to talk about. Without taking in so much information your head explodes.
Bring in other senses
Analog lets everything in. With that extra space, you can do more than just listen.
When podcast hosts describe an exercise you can do to solidify the learning, take the time to write it down with your own experiences.
This lets you see and touch the words, building a full picture of how the content fits into your life.
Digital may sound clearer, but it limits our experience.
Bring it all together
2X speed makes it easy to copy and paste. And that’s great if all you want to do is amplify a point you agree with.
But we lose our agency doing this blindly.
And we lose our unique contributions to conversations.
That’s led us to a point where there is no growth. We can repeat brutal reality until everyone accepts it.
Or we can slow down to interject joy from our own experiences. That creates something new and beautiful.
So take that free advice with a grain of salt and listen as slow as you need.
Affiliate Corner
Don’t try slowing down on your own. Join an accountability group at Tom Woods’ School of Life for the best paths on getting where you want to go.
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Check out these related posts before you go:
Liberty Begins At Home 
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