Try A New Thing

Ah, 2017. A year that was great for us, personally, but that was a tire fire in most other respects. But! With the year ending, we decided to wrap up Year One™ with a chat about self help as a genre, the books we (didn't) read for December, and our plans for Year Two™. We wish you all a better 2018! Talking points include: samesies typography, personal highs of 2017, maybe just publish articles, guys. Comments? Questions? Contact us at tryanewpodcast@gmail.com or call YALL-TRY-NEW (925-587-9638).

Whew, it's been a month. But! We've been satisficing as much as we can, we've been gratitude journaling, and we've been doing home repairs, and now we're ready to tell you all about it! Join us for a post-holiday expression of things we love and things we're grateful for. Talking points include: just listen to Barry's TED talk, mechas are actually good, end-of-year plans. Comments? Questions? Contact us at tryanewpodcast@gmail.com or call YALL-TRY-NEW (925-587-9638).

After a too-long break, Cassi and Braeden are back at it again with the new books. Well, just one book: The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz. We dig into the ways in which being middle-class in Late Capitalism can create a tyranny of decisions that weigh heavy on us. Quite literally, this is an episode filled with First World Problems™. Talking points include: Delilah After Dark, how to pronounce "satisficer", counterfactuals. Comments? Questions? Contact us at tryanewpodcast@gmail.com or call YALL-TRY-NEW (925-587-9638).

After two weeks of a complete love-in, how much more do Cassi and Braeden love each other? Or do they hate each other? Or . . . are things basically the same? (What a thrilling possibility.) They talk about their own love languages and how they've tried to engage with each other in those langauges. Spoiler: they share the same basic love language. Talking points include: go to marriage counseling, Chums™, nighttime snuggling. Comments? Questions? Contact us at tryanewpodcast@gmail.com or call YALL-TRY-NEW (925-587-9638).

Snuggle on down next to the fire, cozy up in a blanket with a cup of your favorite relaxing hot beverage, it's time to talk . . . love. Cassi and Braeden break down all the barriers and chat about Gary Chapman's The Five Love Languages. Is this a useful framework? How can couples communicate more effectively? What is love? (Baby, don't hurt me.) Talking points include: car canoodling, "limerance", just talk to each other, guys. Comments? Questions? Contact us at tryanewpodcast@gmail.com or call YALL-TRY-NEW (925-587-9638).

We KonMari'ed our stuff. Joy was sparked. Thanks were given. Class issues were discussed. The ways in which ethical consumption is impossible under capitalism were expounded upon. Cassi has lots of tools. Braeden offered up the pie-in-the-sky solution of anarcho-syndicalism. Basically, this one has it all, people. Talking points include: can supplies spark joy?, unicorn art, Black Friday shaming as classist nonsense. Comments? Questions? Contact us at tryanewpodcast@gmail.com or call YALL-TRY-NEW (925-587-9638).

It's time. It's here. Braeden and Cassi are gonna talk all about the KonMari method, its underlying spirituality, the ways in which minimalism can become a secular religion for its adherents, and why Braeden still thinks the whole thing is middle-class bougie nonsense. Talking points include: imaginary math, things are things not friends, surreptitious voicemails. Comments? Questions? Contact us at tryanewpodcast@gmail.com or call YALL-TRY-NEW (925-587-9638).

So . . . Braeden hasn't finished reading Marie Kondo's book yet. For lots of reasons! But he's working on it. In the meantime and to tide you over between episodes, please enjoy this conversation Cassi had with her mom, aunts, and cousins this summer about hoarding, clutter, minimalism, and what to do with the things you don't want. We promise we'll be back next week with hot minimalism takes. Talking points include: violin vases and fur coats, trash diving, THE CLOSET™. Comments? Questions? Contact us at tryanewpodcast@gmail.com or call YALL-TRY-NEW (925-587-9638).

Thanks to some technical errors with the first recording of the podcast, this one's coming to you new and improved (to use that most contradictory of marketing speak)! We chat about questions we should ask ourselves when we're de-cluttering and ways in which we tried to decrease and avoid clutter in our lives. Talking points include: camarones a la diablada, fanny packs, non-office space. Stay tuned after the episode proper for a fun glimpse at part of the fabled lost episode! Comments? Questions? Contact us at tryanewpodcast@gmail.com or call YALL-TRY-NEW (925-587-9638).

Piles of stuff everywhere. The smell of decomposing leftovers. A danger to yourself and others. That's probably not you, and it's not us, but it is the case of people with compulsive hoarding issues. But maybe, just maybe, there's a little bit of hoarder hidden inside each of us. That's the premise of this week's book, Dr. Robin Zazio's great read The Hoarder In You. We break down the book and talk all about clutter catastrophes and continua. Talking points include: what kind of clutter creature are you?, how to help a hoarder, Braeden's problems with minimalism. Comments? Questions? Contact us at tryanewpodcast@gmail.com or call YALL-TRY-NEW (925-587-9638).

This week's episode is full of the type of hard-hitting commentary you've come to expect from your two intrepid hosts, as they revisit some of the ideas from Adam Alter's Irresistible, talk about their own experiences with trying to measure and meter their media consumption, and as they chat about an older book, Neil Postman's Seminal Amusing Ourselves To Death: Public Discourse in the Age of show Business, which is maybe a little too prescient in the ways in which it predicts internet culture as TV culture turned to 11. Talking points include: behavior vs. substance addiction, Mark Zuckerberg running for president, Futurama as fact. Comments? Questions? Contact us at tryanewpodcast@gmail.com or call YALL-TRY-NEW (925-587-9638).

We're back with our next book, Adam Alter's brand-new book Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked. We delve into behavioral addictions, their growing prevalence, and the ways in which we all seem to suffer from some of these maladies. We'll chat about where they come from, how they're perpetuated, and what we can do to avoid them. Talking points include: obsession and compulsion vs. addiction, marathon runners' times, the Dollar Auction Game. Comments? Questions? Contact us at tryanewpodcast@gmail.com or call YALL-TRY-NEW (925-587-9638).

Just a quick explanation as to why our next episode will be late. It'll be worth it, we promise!

After two weeks spent trying new things about how, where, and why we eat, Cassi and Braeden sit down to assess the new things they've tried. What were their three food goals? Did they do them? And perhaps most importantly, will they keep doing them? Special appearance by Brian Wansink himself via a mid-2000s interview from the Today Show, thanks to the internet's way of archiving everything. Talking points include: the battle of Jakku, the perils of changing behaviors, how can you change your snack if you just don't snack? Comments? Questions? Contact us at tryanewpodcast@gmail.com or call YALL-TRY-NEW (925-587-9638).

We're back to reading and gabbing this week, with Brian Wansink's really quite interesting 2006 book, Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think. We chat all about the "mindless margin" and ways in which small, not-really-noticeable changes can make for lasting, meaningful dietary improvements. Seriously, though; this book made us both ponder a lot on our eating habits and gave us a bunch of new things to try in the next couple of weeks. Talking points include: fruit person vs. vegetable person, how to name your dishes to get people to eat them, just use smaller plates or something, okay? Comments? Questions? Contact us at tryanewpodcast@gmail.com or call YALL-TRY-NEW (925-587-9638). Content warning: this episode contains talk about eating disorders.

In their first minisode (to help tide over the extra-long space between episodes due to extra Sundays in April), Cassi and Braeden sum up the new things they've tried so far this year, inspired by the books they've read. Long story short: some of us are better at sticking with new behaviors than others. (It's Braeden. Braeden is bad at making and keeping new habits.) This episode powered by licorice and sleepytime vanilla teas. Talking points include: noise canceling headphones, the freedom of free time, Cassi is still obsessed with fiscal fasts. Contact us at tryanewpodcast@gmail.com or 925-5-TRY-NEW.

So fiscal fasts: what are they good for? Lots of things, apparently. Join Cassi and Braeden as they talk about jobs, money, spending it, not spending it, etc. Did they really not buy anything for a whole week? Cassi loves spreadsheets. Braeden loves Cassi. Also: Braeden was sick during recording, and it shows. He's such a bummer. Talking points include: monthly money sabbaticals, LEGO and Transformers, 50/30/20. Contact us at tryanewpodcast@gmail.com or 925-5-TRY-NEW.

April: spring showers, blossoming daffodils, and everyone's favorite holiday: tax day. Join Cassi and Braeden as they dive into their latest book, The Ultimate Cheapskate's Road Map to True Riches by Jeff Yeager, and hear them chat about the concept of Return on Non-Investment, whether you really have to spend money to make money or if that's just something your stock broker tells you to get you to pay them more, and how this one book changed the way Braeden thought about finances all those years ago. Talking points include: fiscal fasts, the pitfalls of working in vending machine refilling, alphorn closets. Also: our contest continues! Send us a story of how you tried a new thing this year to tryanewpodcast@gmail.com and enter to win a copy of each of the first three books we read for the podcast!

So our last book was pretty heavy. So heavy, in fact, that we found it difficult to find substantive, meaningful ways to put its precepts into practice - but we find some anyway, because this is Try A New Thing™ and that's what you're here for. We talk about some of our problems with the book on reflection, ways we've talked politics and religion with family and friends, and our own moral foundations. Talking points include: Lauren Duca is amazing and Teen Vogue is on point, party conventions are the worst, we're not too big on purity. Also: we're having our very first contest for a copy of the first books we read! Listen to the end of the episode for info about how to enter to win all three books, shipped to you with a smile. Comments? Questions? Reach out to us at tryanewpodcast@gmail.com or leave us a voicemail at 925-5-TRY-NEW.  

This week, we read Johnathan Haidt's 2012 book, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion. We grapple with tough concepts like how to talk with people you vehemently disagree with, the importance of intuition, and how we're basically all just big, ambulatory bags of post hoc rationalizations. Hopefully we'll be better about talking politics with people now? Fingers crossed. Talking points include: morality taste buds, why ants are so powerful, this book was a hard read but we're glad we did it.