Parrish spends two to three days preparing for each podcast episode
Shane Parrish · Shane Parrish – Learning to Learn at Farnam Street (Capital Allocators, EP.164) · Nov 16, 2020 · at 30:30
Shane Parrish, host of The Knowledge Project, describes his extensive research and preparation process to Ted Seides.
0:00 / 0:29exact quote · 29.5s
720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“Like, it's two or three days per podcast, especially if I'm unfamiliar with the topic, and I think that part of what I do is I try to read their most recent book or article, obviously, but also I want to listen to other people interview them. Why? Because then I know what they're going to say, and I know where I want to go deeper, and I know what questions they're clicking play on, and what questions are not, and that really gives me a fast track for sort of themes”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Shane Parrish
Parrish: Reading synthesis notes should be handwritten on paper, not typed
“You also don't want to put them on the computer. You want a pen and paper. So I think that if you had them at your desk, you could totally make it work for online reading.”
Parrish: Interview guests need safety to provide nuance and spontaneous thinking
“If we want nuance and detail and we want them thinking on the fly, they need to feel safe. We're not there to make them look bad in any way, shape or form. We're just there to suck their brain as my kids call it with as much information as we can in a little p…”
Parrish: Six-page memos are far more effective than PowerPoints for decision-making
“When you think about what would be more effective for making decisions in a meeting or getting input into people's heads, it would clearly be the Amazon approach of doing these six-page memos.”
Parrish: Remote work will make difficult organizational skill transfer much harder
“The most difficult skills to transfer are now going to be incredibly more difficult to transfer, especially for new employees, let alone existing employees.”
Parrish: Adults must think for themselves because nobody will save them
“You have to think for yourself, and you can't default to what other people tell you. Even during the pandemic, I mean, there's tons of public health guidelines out there. People are telling you what to think, how to think, and you need to filter that and diges…”
Parrish: Individuals control the slope of their own life trajectory
“We all get put on this trajectory, right? So you're born in a certain country to certain parents. You have no control over any of that. Your parents have a certain socioeconomic status. You don't have any control over that. You get opportunities based on all o…”