“How can you squander even one more day not taking advantage of the greatest shifts of our generation? How dare you settle for less when the world has made it so easy for you to be remarkable?”- Seth Godin, sethgodin.com
It’s hard to beat a day when a 50-year old mom teaches her 19-year old daughter something about technology that the daughter didn’t know!
Yesterday was one of those #red-letterdays!
As my daughter headed off for the drive back to her college town, I asked her if she would listen to music on the drive or maybe some sermons (as I would have done, had I been about to take that same drive.)
She replied, “That’s a good idea,” and she proceeded to use Google to find the link to her home church and search for sermons. After a bit of studying microscopic text on the phone, looking for the link to past sermons (text that her eyes could read, but mine could barely make out the color of), she decided to give up, saying, “I really don’t know where to find podcasts, I’ll just do it later.”
Enter my opportunity.
I have been using two Apps on my IPhone for years to listen to sermons from various pastors around the country, and I love that I could share my vast knowledge of podcasting with her. (“Vast”, of course, being a very “relative” term here.)
The answer she needed was: Use an APP specifically designed for podcasts.
Podcasts were a part of iTunes, but they are now so popular they have earned apps of their own. Gone are the days when you needed to search on a church website to locate past sermons or locate them on Itunes and download them. Instead, podcast apps do the work for you. All podcasts download in to one handy place for easy listening. After downloading the app and opening it, you can search for audio or video podcasts, and the topics are immense.
The podcast apps I use are: Downcast ($1.99) or Podcast (free).
I currently have 221 “unlistened to” on Podcast and 21 on Downcast, just waiting for me at my leisure. Now that’s efficiency — and options.
They are not all Sunday sermons. Learn about the latest news, listen to comedy monologues, see the latest tennis drills or view guitar lessons, see/listen to radio and televisions shows, see/listen to TED educational talks and more. Much more. It’s practically limitless. You don’t have enough time to exhaust your options to broaden and expand your mind.
It’s simple to “subscribe” to a podcast of someone you would like to listen to frequently, and the episodes will magically appear in your phone. Downloading a single episode is easy, too. Although I first bought the app “Download” (by Jamawkinaw Enterprises), at the recommendation of a friend, I actually use “Podcast” (by Apple) more often now. It’s user-friendly and simple.
What do you usually listen to on your commute to work? Or listen to while you are in the shower? Or listen to on that long drive? Or listen to during your walk or run?
Don’t waste time searching for talks by using Google and, frankly, just DON’T WASTE TIME. If you have 30 minutes each day to learn something new through a simple podcast, that’s over 10,000 minutes in one year!!!
And, when my daughter reached her destination, I asked if she had actually listened to a sermon I saw her download before she left and she said, “Yes mom, it was awesome. You should listen to it, to.”
I already did — this morning. Can’t wait to discuss it with her the next time we talk!