Confessions of an Audio Learning Junkie - Episode #002

Hey everybody, it's John Bischke and I'd like to welcome you to another episode of Confessions

of an Audio Learning Junkie.

I'm back after a couple of weeks off and a lot has happened, so I'm excited to fill you

in on what's going on here at Learn Out Loud, give you some new info about what's going

on in the world of audio and video learning.

For those of you who are listening for the first time, I'd like to extend an official

welcome.

LearnOutLoud.com is your portal for audio and video educational material and our goal

is to serve your needs in terms of finding things that you can use on audio and video

to learn just about anything that you might want to learn about.

So we're going to go over today, definitely had some news this week, or last week actually

with the launch of the video iPod, so we're going to talk a little bit about that, what

that will mean for audio and video.

We've got some new material up on our website, some free stuff, a couple podcasts, some new

audio books, we'd love to fill you in on those, some new blog posts with some links to some

really cool educational audio books and downloadable MP3 files, and we'll also talk a little bit

about a contest that we've got right now where you can win an iPod Nano, so you'll definitely

want to stay tuned for that.

Let's get it, yeah, when she goes, no one knows.

So first off, we'll talk about the video iPod.

Apple launched the video iPod last week at their One More Thing event.

A lot of people going into the event were talking about this, they didn't know if it

was going to be a new line of PowerBooks or if it was going to be another iPod or what

it was going to be, and Steve Jobs dropped the bomb and announced the video iPod.

If you haven't had a chance to see this thing, it's a pretty sweet little device.

You can run it over to apple.com slash iPod and check it out.

It's going to be interesting to see in terms of the next few weeks and few months how much

content comes out, what types of content come out, whether this thing takes off or not.

One of the things, we had a post on one of our forums about this, and somebody said basically,

look, I don't want to watch video on a two and a half inch screen, and I tend to absolutely

agree with the person who posted that message, but I think that part of it is that people

are missing the point with the video iPod.

The video iPod represents the portability of content, much more so than just simply

another device to watch video on.

If I wanted to watch video on a two and a half inch screen, I could run down to Best Buy

or Circuit City and pick up one of those little mini televisions, and nobody's flocking to

those.

Those have gone the way of the dinosaur, so it's obviously not about that.

It's about the fact that now customized content can go with you anywhere and everywhere, and

that was the big shift when the iPod.

The iPod came out is that people were used to lugging around CD cases and cassette tapes

with them, and the iPod came out, along with other portable MP3 players, changed everything,

and now you can put all of your music in one place.

You didn't have to worry about, you know, I've got this CD at home, I've got this CD

at the office.

It was always with you wherever you were.

That's what the video iPod represents.

It represents the ability for you to take video content with you everywhere you go.

Of course, that's going to be limited in the early days.

I think the biggest one is 80 gigabytes.

When you're talking about video, it's not all that much, but as these things grow in

terms of storage capacity, you're going to see people.

It's going to revolutionize people's lives.

They're going to put their entire DVD collections on these devices and take them around with

them everywhere they go.

It's really an interesting thing.

Right now, there's not a lot of content available.

I think you get episodes of Lost and Desperate Housewives, which actually was a really interesting

announcement.

That is the first time I'm aware of that you can actually purchase television shows.

You're going to see a lot of new content, a lot of video podcasts.

It'll be interesting to see how well those do.

I think, to be honest, a lot of people who are really good at audio, myself included,

might not be that great at doing video.

I think what you'll find over the next few months is a lot of interesting things coming

out and be fun to watch.

Apple's always announcing new things.

They just did the Nano about a month ago.

Now, it's the video iPod.

I was reading a couple of days ago about potentially an iPod with Wi-Fi that will allow you to

stream or download music through a wireless connection directly to your iPod.

Without having to go through the computer, apparently, the rumor has it that Apple's

in the works developing that right now.

It's a brave new world.

Apple is definitely at the forefront right now in terms of pushing the technology forward.

We will definitely keep an eye on them.

Stay tuned to this podcast.

Stay tuned to our newsletters.

We'll give you the latest and greatest, what's coming out of Apple.

Also, to other manufacturers, we'll definitely see a lot of other video, portable video players

coming out over the next few weeks and months, especially with the Christmas season rapidly

approaching.

So, definitely stay tuned.

A lot more to come on that front.

So, moving on, I wanted to talk about a new podcast that we've got up on the LearnOutLoud.com

site.

Really honored to bring you a podcast from an author named Dan Millman.

Dan has written a number of books.

His most popular book was a book called The Way of the Peaceful.

The Way of the Peaceful Warrior, which came out in 1980, I believe, and has sold millions

of copies.

It's been translated into dozens of languages.

An absolutely amazing book.

The subtitle to the book is actually The Book That Changes Lives, and that's so true.

I've talked to a number of people who have read that book and just really benefited from

Dan's wisdom.

We are privileged to announce that we've got a new podcast with Dan's content, and I'm

going to play a little clip of it here for you.

Okay.

So, you can get kind of a sense of what the podcast contains.

If you're interested in subscribing to the podcast, you can go to LearnOutLoud.com slash

Millman Podcast.

Again, LearnOutLoud.com slash Millman Podcast.

So, here's about 30 seconds of the Dan Millman Podcast, the first episode that we've produced

here at Learn Out Loud.

Well, you can understand how it does little good to advise tense people to relax if they

don't know what relaxed feels like.

But once they experience a state of deep relaxation, they have a reference.

They can more easily notice tension as it arises and take steps to release it.

And once you know what true balance feels like, you'll begin to notice what's out of

balance in any area of your life.

This serves as an automatic signal to you to return to that centered place within.

That's a bit of Dan's podcast.

It's really wonderful to be able to share his work and his wisdom with more and more

people.

What we've done with the podcast.

His excerpted material from some of his audio books.

And I think you'll really find it's very, it's a breath of fresh air, I guess, is the

best way that I can put it.

There's so many podcasts out there right now that focus on crude humor and all that kind

of stuff.

And that's fine.

I mean, that has its place too, perhaps.

But it's really nice to get some inspiration, to get a podcast where you get done listening

to it and you feel uplifted.

And that's what we've tried to do with the Dan Millman Podcast.

So, we definitely recommend that you check it out.

Again, it's LearnOutLoud.com slash Millman Podcast.

We also have an online podcast.

We have an author page up for Dan.

LearnOutLoud.com slash Dan Millman.

And this author page, in addition to containing a link to his podcast, we also have a number

of other audio books.

Dan has a DVD called The Peaceful Warrior Workout that you may want to check out.

So, head on over there.

You can see all of Dan's material in one spot.

Also, an interesting note too.

Dan's book, Way of the Peaceful Warrior, is going to be made into a movie coming out next

year starring Nick Nolte, actually.

So, it's a fairly high budget Hollywood production.

And we're really excited for Dan.

I think that...

He's got some great material out there, and we're looking to be able to share that material

through Learn Out Loud with more and more people.

So, thanks to Dan for his involvement with the podcast, and Seth on our end put together

a wonderfully sounding podcast, as always.

So, definitely nice work all the way around, and I think that you'll really enjoy it.

I also wanted to call your attention, too, to a couple of blog posts that went up.

The first is a series of audio guides for travelers, and if you're the type of person

who likes to travel, you like to explore, I think you're really going to dig these.

Basically, there's two that I'll be talking about today, and I'll put the blog post URL

link in the show notes at blogoutloud.com.

The first one that I wanted to talk about was the Ride With Me audiobook series.

What Ride With Me is, is essentially an audio series.

It's a series where you can pop these CDs into your car when you're driving around different

parts of the country, and the people will actually give you information, the narrators

will actually give you information about the history and the geography of the area that

you're traveling through.

So, it's a really great way to add a lot of richness to your travel, especially if you're

in an area that you may not be as familiar with.

You can just pop one of these CDs in your vehicle, and you can really get up to speed

very quickly with the surrounding area.

So.

An excellent thing to check out.

The other one that I wanted to talk about a little bit was SoundWalk, and SoundWalk is

a very similar concept to Ride With Me, only rather than being in your vehicle, you're

actually just listening to this while you're walking around places.

So, this works out really good for urban areas.

Most of the SoundWalk titles are based in New York City.

So, they have SoundWalk Chinatown, they have SoundWalk Times Square, and essentially with

this one, what you do is you put on a pair of headphones, listen to the audio while you're

walking around, and they're so detailed that you actually don't even need to listen to

a map.

They'll actually tell you which streets to turn on, they'll tell you to look for different

historical landmarks, talk a little bit about the region, about the area, and again, a great

way, if you're traveling, to understand a little bit more about the places that you're

traveling to.

Kind of replacing the guidebooks, which guidebooks are great, but the fact of the matter is you

don't want to spend your entire trip with your head buried in a guidebook.

So, while you're driving and while you're walking around, this is a perfect opportunity

to get some of the same information that you would get in a guidebook, but get it in audio

form.

So, like I said, I'll give you the link to the blog post where you can go ahead and check

out those URLs and find a little bit more out about the Ride With Me and the SoundWalk

series of titles.

The other blog post that went up that you may be interested in is we put up some links

to sites where you can go to download MP3s of great lecturers and great speakers.

A lot of these are actually very self-development focused, and so if you're interested in self-development,

there's four that I'll actually talk about.

The first one is called What Isn't Learning?

Enlightenment, and some of you may be subscribers to this magazine.

It's wie.org is What Isn't Lightening?

Enlightenment's website.

They have a number of subjects.

They discuss trends in spirituality, psychology, religion, politics, science, you name it.

They have a very deep library there, and for, I think it's $10 a month, you can have access

to that entire library and the ability to download all their content, all their audio

content on MP3.

So, that's something you may want to check.

Another one that is really interesting is the Great Lecture Library.

The Chautauqua Institute, which is based out in New York, has for years, actually for over

35 years, hosted great speakers on a number of different subjects.

What they've done is they've recorded all these and they've made these available via

a website which is greatlecturelibrary.com.

There's over 1,200 lectures and sermons, speakers like Hillary Clinton, Karen Armstrong, there's

a number of notable speakers.

There's a number of notable speakers.

And if you're interested in that type of content, their membership is a steal, actually.

It's $59 a year, I believe.

That allows you to stream all of their material.

If you want to download material, it's just like $6 a lecture.

But there's some really great content there, so I'd definitely advise you to check that

out.

A third one is a company called iAmplify.

And iAmplify is a little bit similar to what is Enlightenment.

They have a lot of, actually, fitness material.

On their website, I downloaded a biking workout MP3, which I haven't had a chance to listen

to yet, but a lot of yoga stuff.

They also have some very big names in self-development, Marianne Williamson, Barbara DeAngelis, and

you may want to check that out, too.

All their titles are available for MP3 download.

And the fourth one is a website called IntegralNaked.com.

And Integral Naked is Ken Wilber's website.

He has interviewed a ton of people, ranging from Michael Crichton to Tony Robbins, Deepak

Chopra.

And so you will definitely love checking this website out.

It's $10 a month for that site.

You can download everything if there's MP3 audio.

It's kind of heavy on the video, so if you're more into audio than video, you know, that's

kind of how I am, and I was hoping for a little bit, actually, more audio.

But if you love video, if you love watching something, it's your case.

Thanks.

Absolutely.

Excellent.

Thank you so much, Brian.

You're welcome.

Thank you.

Oh, you're welcome.

All right, guys.

How long did you take to make this thing?

About a minute.

Oh, okay.

And we'll see you next time.

Bye.

Thanks.

Bye, all right.

And I'll see you in the next episode.

Bye.

We've got a couple more videos coming up.

Check out the show notes, which is a great way to talk to somebody who spent lots of time

on the internet.

A lot of the other listeners are from the internet right now.

We'll see you then.

We'll see you soon.

Bye.

So moving on, I wanted to also talk about some stuff we've got up on our website,

which has been put together by a good friend of mine, Brian Johnson.

Brian is the CEO and philosopher over at Zodds.com.

And to check out Zodds, I'll spell it for you because you probably won't be able to spell it just by guessing.

It is Z as in zebra, double A, D as in dog, Z as in zebra.

Check out Zodds.com, great website.

Love what they're doing over there, and they'll be launching a lot of new stuff soon.

What Brian's been doing with us is recording some of his content and also narrating some free audiobooks.

So we've got As a Man Thinketh by James Allen, which is a classic book,

really revolutionary book in terms of the ideas presented within.

We've got that up on the website right now, totally free to download, totally free to stream.

We've got a series of notes up on the site.

Brian's gone through some of his favorite teachers,

ranging from Rumi to Socrates, Buddha, Martin Seligman,

talking about learned optimism and authentic happiness.

We've also got a podcast that Brian's put together, the Zodds Daily Wisdom,

which is about three to five minutes every day, Monday through Friday.

And it's just a great, it's a quote.

It's a little bit of background on the teacher or on the person that's being quoted,

as well as, you know, it's a little bit of motivation.

It's a great way to kickstart your day.

We've just launched the Zodds Daily Wisdom podcast,

so you can subscribe.

All of this stuff is up at learnoutloud.com slash Brian Johnson,

and that's B-R-I-A-N Johnson.

And I wanted to play for you a little clip of self-reliance.

For those of you who aren't familiar,

self-reliance is Ralph Waldo Emerson's probably most famous essay.

And again, it's a remarkable piece of content.

We've got the entire self-reliance on audio on our site, again, 100% free.

So I'm going to play a little bit of self-reliance,

and I'm going to play a little bit of self-reliance,

and you can see, I think, a little bit of the power

that's contained within this title.

But God will not have his work made manifest by cowards.

A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work

and done his best.

But what he has said or done otherwise shall give him no peace.

It is a deliverance which does not deliver.

In the attempt, his genius deserts him.

No muse befriends, no invention, no hope.

Trust thyself.

Every heart vibrates to that iron string.

Accept the place the divine providence has found for you,

the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events.

Great men have always done so,

and confided themselves childlike to the genius of their age,

betraying their perception that the absolutely trustworthy

was seated at their heart, working through their hands,

predominating in all their being.

I love that passage from self-reliance,

and I definitely would recommend for you to head on over to the site

and download self-reliance, throw it on your iPod, burn it to a CD,

play that once a week.

You'll really benefit from that.

Again, the website for all of that content,

we've got at least a dozen titles up right now.

Probably have a couple dozen by the time you hear this podcast.

It's learnoutloud.com slash brianjohnson.

Again, that'll be the link.

That'll be in the show notes.

Wanted to let you know that we've got a contest going on right now,

an opportunity for you to win a iPod Nano.

If you haven't seen the Nanos, they're amazingly small,

up to 4 gigs of storage capacity.

We're giving away a 2-gig Nano.

If you want to upgrade to the 4-gig, we'll give you a couple hundred bucks off that.

If you want to get a video iPod, we'll give you a couple hundred bucks off that.

Really easy to win.

A couple ways you can enter the contest.

The first is head on over to our forums, post a message.

We're making the rest of October and November our big community month,

and we'd love to hear from you.

Go over to learnoutloud.com slash forums, post a message.

You can just say, hey, this is me.

This is how I found the site.

This is what I love about Learn Out Loud.

Or if you want to, go ahead and post a question.

Ask us something.

Post a comment on something that's already been posted by somebody else.

Any posts count.

The other way that you can enter is if you want to link to us from your website or from your blog.

Just do that.

Then send us an email at linked at learnoutloud.com.

If you link to us and post a message, we'll enter you twice.

We will be giving away the iPod Nano the day after Thanksgiving.

I don't know the date of what that is, but we will be giving it away then.

All the details for that are at learnoutloud.com slash nano.

One more thing.

We have a proposal up on changethis.com.

Change This is a cool website.

If you haven't checked it out yet, you definitely might want to do that.

Basically, what Change This does is,

it offers a platform for people that have new and innovative ideas to share those ideas.

What they do is they gather proposals from a number of people.

Famous authors, sometimes Tom Peters has written one, Seth Godin, Guy Kawasaki.

Then they get the rest of us, those who haven't been published, who haven't sold a million books.

We're able to write proposals.

If the proposal gets enough votes, the proposal is then turned into a manifesto.

I've got a proposal up right now for an audio learning manifesto.

It's a good one.

If you would be so kind and head on over to changethis.com, you can just go to changethis.com

slash proposals, and you can vote for our proposal and any other ones that you think

look good there.

That's pretty much about it for today.

David and Seth are going to be back next week.

They are doing a three-part series overviewing different educational and self-development

podcasts that are out there.

You can check out learnoutloud.com slash revolution to see the previous episodes.

They'll be in the third part of their three-part series.

Next week, you can also check out learnoutloud.com slash revolution for subscription information

to subscribe to this podcast.

If you happen to just download this episode in iTunes or somewhere else, you can go ahead

and subscribe if you'd like.

I mentioned I referenced show notes several times throughout today's podcast.

The show notes for the site are up on blogoutloud.com.

For those of you who aren't familiar with what show notes are, basically, it's a way

that you can easily access all of the links that I may have referenced.

While you're listening to this podcast, you don't have to be writing everything down.

Links to companies like Ride With Me and SoundWalk and What Is Enlightenment and so forth, they

will all be there in the show notes.

Again, it's blogoutloud.com for our blog, which contains our show notes.

It's been a pleasure, as always.

I will be back in a couple of weeks.

Lots of new announcements then as well.

We are working our tails off these days.

Our whole goal is to help you.

It's to help you find...

audio and video material that absolutely enriches your life, makes you more productive,

makes your relationships better, makes you happier, educates you, enlightens you, all

that good stuff.

We always welcome suggestions for things that we can do better, things that we can add to

the site.

Send us an email, suggestions at learnoutloud.com.

Have a fantastic rest of your week.

I'll see you in a couple.

Bye-bye now.

I'll see you in a couple.

Bye-bye now.