I've written this blog for a long time now, getting towards 10 years, and we're well on our way towards 3500 posts but I wonder how many of those words have been dedicated to Malcolm Gladwell and his extraordinary writing and idea sharing.
And so, imagine my surprise (shame of a fan) when I realised that Malcolm Gladwell has a podcast (he actually has two podcasts), one of which has been running for seven years.
With that in mind and when I discovered it, I went straight into revisionist history and I was not disappointed.
What is the opposite of disappointed?
In the first episode, he goes into basketball and the shooting of free throws and he changes your perception of that entirely, as Gladwell does.
So, the word Gladwellian is now a verb and to be Gladwellian is to question assumptions and to question paradigms and to think differently.
And so, for each of the 10 episodes of each of the seven seasons, Gladwell does this on countless and multiple subjects.
In the blog, I wrote this week about the loss of my father-in-law and the subsequent celebration we had at his funeral; it was Gladwell's words which touched me most on the subject of what a child owes their parents once they've lost them.
This is the type of thing that Gladwell has in spades, but the beauty of the podcast is that he talks in it and explains it and interacts with his team who write it and has countless interviews and media snippets and brings things alive.
For any of you guys who have done talking to strangers by Gladwell on audiobook, his podcast is exactly like that.
And so, when you have space this Christmas and you're out walking in the cold or walking your dog or driving to relatives or any of that stuff, then I dare you to start at revisionist history part one.
It will make you think differently about things you have thought deeply about before and it will change you and make you better as a person, I honestly believe that.
If we could encourage more people to read this stuff, then more people would be able to be more tolerant and more empathic and generally things would just be a little bit better.
That is what I would have for Christmas, if anyone was buying me a present, not a bottle of wine or whiskey or even more chocolate.
What I would have is the ability to just be a little bit of a better version of me for 2023.
Blog Post Number - 3306
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