One of the questions that I’ve been asked is how I find the time to travel as frequently as I do and still engage in thoughtful debate and conversation. I realized that what I took for granted as a way of life is for a lot of people a radical new way of thinking about their day. For example, by the time it’s 10am every day, I’d have consumed enough of the news that I am going into conversation ready to bounce into relevant issues. By the time it is 4pm, I would have already listened to two podcasts on the commute, sparking the thoughts for a future blog post or perhaps a conversation starter later with a friend. The inbetweens of the day are both times for me to cool down, but also to soak in a bath of new knowledge and ideas. Towards the end, I do ask for more suggestions, so if you’ve been impacted by a really good resource, please comment. Here are some of my key day to day resources I have drawn from:

Email Newsletters

The newsletter is not a new concept. Companies have been using email mailing lists for advertisements and the improvement of brand loyalty since they realized that they could. But the art of producing a news digest that is readable, engaging and fit for the millennial pace of life is not simple. Luckily there is a new brand of digests out there that take the effort to communicate with young professionals in a way that works.

For Business and Markets: Morning Brew

Morning Brew is the first digest to hit my inbox so it has become my de facto bringer of truth on the world. It’s a heavy burden to carry but the team behind this startup seems to realize it.  Morning Brew is business and market focused, so expect 3-4 chunks of big moves in the markets from takeovers to scandals to performance reviews, and a bunch of at-a-glance updates on key indicators and stocks. It’s a good way to know where the market is, although it tends to be very much focused on the Western world. Morning Brew takes itself seriously but not without room for a couple of inside jokes and an invite-only community to keep building knowledge. They’ve been experimenting with some of their formats so there’s a lot of opportunities for users to provide feedback that improves their newsletters.

For Politics and Issues: The Skimm

The Skimm and I have a bit of a love-hate relationship, but it’s growing towards the loving direction. The news ecosystem is a messy place with so many moving pieces that one can find it difficult to navigate it all. The Skimm curates the most important issues of the day lines them up for you and adds a curatorial sass that I’ve never seen in any newspaper ever. The women-driven team behind The Skimm packs an attitude in its delivery of politics and issues and while it can be initially awkward, it gets useful to see that the news is not an unfriendly behemoth. They have a bunch of related products as well including a podcast and a bunch of social-media channels, but the email newsletter is sufficient for the on-the-go millennial who needs the talking points for the day.

For Management and Opinions: Financial Times

Being in the UK, the Financial Times, or the FT as we call it here, is your best friend. While they do have a comprehensive reporting of the news, I draw upon the FT for its remarkable list of columnists and guest writers. The DailyFT hits my inbox every evening with a list of news topics I care about including Brexit, China and the Middle-East, giving me a broader coverage than the UK/US news I’m normally exposed to. Martin Wolf is someone you should listen to with care as he spells out the important movements in the world, and Lunch with the FT provides a rotating view on management topics from key influencers in the world. I’d have to admit that I will miss the subscription provided by my school for the FT, but am very motivated to renew it as I become a working adult.

Podcasts

Where email newsletters give me low-fidelity, high-frequency news, podcasts represent the other side of the coin in providing insights on issues at a much deeper level. It is here where I am trying to slow down the news cycle and understand actually what’s going on, curated by some of the best podcast hosts I’ve met.

For Market and Economics: Planet Money and The Indicator

I really wish I found these guys much earlier in my life because I have never found the market so much more interesting. Planet Money is the main team behind these podcasts, and their namesake tackles one economic phenomenon each episode. From over-fishing in Alaska to the true value of Vodka, the issues this podcast tackles establishes a stronghold for itself amongst the many business-themed podcasts out there. They are all interesting, enthralling and deeply related to core economic concepts most of us learned in the classroom. There are many surprises uncovered through the investigative journalism that Planet Money engages in, and the hosts are really fun to listen to.

The Indicator is all of the above, but on a daily basis and focused on key indicators. Numbers that fly past us in the news but actually convey a much more important sense of the world. From the VIX to the Employment Percentage, The Indicator helps provide a direction of where the world is moving. I’ve definitely enjoyed listening in on these 7-10 minute episodes every day before I start my schedule, and they tend to make them very relevant to the news cycle.

For Liberal Political Conversation: The Ezra Klein Show

Ezra Klein is a polarizing figure. He rose to prominence as the editor-in-chief for Vox, the online magazine, and is now editor-at-large, involved in a number of projects to do with politics in the US. He is a very left-leaning news commentator, slightly more left of my own beliefs but ultimately aligned with most of my values and opinions. His show is mostly him interviewing guests that have either written an interesting book recently or have been important in the politics of the US, dealing with issues such as race, class and identity. He has had the privilege of talking to Melinda Gates about the future of the world, Mark Zuckerburg about Facebook and has even gone head to head with conservative Sam Harris on identity politics.  What I like about the podcast is that he asks some of the questions I have in my head when it comes to liberal perspectives: is this too far, are we oversimplifying things, is human nature just not going to budge? He does have a tendency of rambling at times, but he has admitted to wanting to improve on it and make his episodes tighter. This podcast is my way of dealing with my politics and confronting some of the deeper issues at the heart of it all.

For Feminist Insights: Stuff Mom Never Told You

Regular readers of my blog will recognize my commitment to try to be a better feminist, not just in the promotion of equal rights but also in the deeper investigation of how men can support women. Stuff Mom Never Told You (SMNTY for short) is a great show to get real with these topics. Going through a transition with hosts right now, with Bridget still holding the helm, SMNTY tackles the various facets of womanhood from intersection conversations to how women deal with grief differently.  I’ve personally found myself learning more and more about how men and women have distinct differences as well as similarities in how we engage the world, and how we can be more sensitive to those dynamics. Highly recommend for the casual listener.

For General Knowledge: Stuff You Should Know

For lighter listening, Stuff You Should Known (or SYSN for short) has become one of my favourite podcasts. Hosted by Josh and Chuck, this podcast is very different from the other reporting or interview style podcasts I normally listen to. Here, we find ourselves listening to two friends hitting it off and talking about one interesting topic a day, from subways to vampires to secret CIA projects. You find yourself not just learning a bunch of general knowledge useful for your next trivia night, but also becoming friendly with the delightful hosts who have a way of delivering these topics. It’s quite the community at SYSN.

For Entrepreneurship and Inspiration: How I Built This

Finally, for the entrepreneur in me, I have to admit that How I Built This has been a godsend. Guy Raz is a phenomenal host, inviting big-name guests such as Richard Dyson and Michael Dell to his show to talk about how they went about their entrepreneurial journeys. If there’s one thing I learnt, it’s that there are many ways to start a company, and it really comes down to grit, values and a good team to make it work. Guy Raz knows how to ask the right questions and push on things that entrepreneurs may have taken for granted, and a lot of times he carries the sense of awe that the viewer has right into the recording studio. I really end every episode with a healthy dose of inspiration, ready to tackle the world again.

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One thing I’ve found about from all of this self-improvement is that there’s still so much more to learn. I’m looking for suggestions and recommendations for podcasts and daily reads on the following topics:

1. Moderate-Conservative Opinion
2. Asian Business/ Politics
3. Singapore/ South East Asian Issues

If you have good recommendations outside of these fields, I’d love to hear them as well. I hope my suggestions above get you excited about the kind of deep knowledge that makes all of us better people in engaging the world.