Ro's Recz

I recently listened to an episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, and the guest for episode was Dax Shepard. I know Shepard because of his career as an actor (and also that he is married to Kristen Bell), but I had only heard a little bit about his podcast before. After listening to the episode with Tim Ferriss though, I thought Shepard seemed like a really interesting person to listen to, so I started listening to his podcast Armchair Expert.

Armchair Expert is always among the most popular podcasts on Apple, and I had seen it on the top lists (but had never actually listened to it). I have started listening to some of the episodes, and a lot of them are really interesting. One I personally really enjoyed was an episode with Daniel Riccardio. Riccardio is an F1 driver, and it was great to hear an actual conversation with him (rather than just seeing him on TV and in the Netflix series Drive to Survive). Having this type of guest is unique to most podcasts, as I had never really listened to an episode before with an athlete.

I would say that Armchair Expert follows a similar format to The Tim Ferriss Show, in that Dax Shepard interviews guests and goes into detail about their backgrounds and lessons they have learned over time. However, Armchair Expert is a bit different because it actually has two hosts, Shepard and Monica Padman. I think that Ferriss is a better interviewer because he is a better listener, and he does a great job of letting guests share their stories (and rarely interrupts them). Still, Shepard is good himself because he asks great questions and it is clear he has done his research beforehand; however, sometimes he could do better with letting his guests be the stars rather than himself. Also, at least into most of the episodes I have listened to, Padman rarely participates, so I would not consider her to be a co-host (she is in charge of managing a lot of the business side of the podcast though).

Overall, I definitely enjoy listening to Armchair Expert and the diversity of guests it is able to bring in. I would not listen to all of the episodes, but I plan on listening to ones with guests I am interested in learning more about!