You may not have known it, but I'm a huge podcast fan. I currently subscribe to 28 different podcasts, and have them playing all the time - in the car, at the gym, in the office (with headphones, of course). Dash likes to joke that my favourite phrase to say at home is "so I heard a cool story on a podcast the other day", and she's probably right. 

I really do love listening to podcasts that help me focus on doing better work at camp, and so I thought I would share some of those with you today! In no particular order, here are my top five "because I work at Beacon" podcasts - enjoy! 

CampHacker Podcast (link)
This one should be obvious, right? CampHacker provides a monthly podcast episode about something that applies to camp leaders and directors. It feels like one big happy meeting of all the camp directors whose brains I want to glean information from. Right now, it's one of the only podcasts that specific relates to summer camps (maybe Beacon will fix that someday, who knows?), and so it's a definite go-to for getting information about how the camp world works. (Also, bonus marks because it was started by a couple of Canadians, and I love it when Canadians do cool stuff!)

Canadian Church Leaders Podcast (link)
Each month, CCLP features a new church leader from across Canada (which is awesome, because so much of what we learn about comes from an American context, and so hearing about fellow Canucks is great!). Most recently, Brett Ullman (a former speaker at Beacon) spoke about mental health in a ministry environment. There's something about getting to hear how other believers handle big ministry questions that is very reassuring to me - I'm not alone in wanting to solve the world's problems, nor the only one who wants to do it by following Jesus. 

How I Built This (link)
I'm an entrepreneur at heart, and so it's really fun listening to people who have "been there, done that". How I Built This feels like a masterclass in the mistakes that people have already made, so that I don't have to make them as well (my secret favourite episode is about the creation of the restaurant company Five Guys, if that tells you anything about me). The best part is that the host, Guy Raz, weaves the story of the company into the founder's life, so it's a great glimpse into how the choices that we make in life affect the things we do in business (and vice versa). 

StartUp (link)
StartUp was my first true "business-minded" podcast. Before that, it was mostly human interest and science culture (a la Radiolab, for example). The first season of the show was all about starting up a company that made podcasts (very meta, I know), and it was a great chance to listen in on the host, Alex Blumberg, as he stumbled through the ups and downs of not only starting a business, but also working with venture capitalists and hiring employees. While I'm glad that I don't need to go out and raise rounds of capital for our little camp, there are still great lessons embedded in each episode.

Freakonomics Radio (link)
If you know me, you know that I love random facts. Most of you have probably had to run away in terror as a spout random information that I somehow manage to remember. Freakonomics is where I get a ton of my good stuff - the tag line for the show is "the hidden side of everything", and it couldn't be more awesome! I love data, and the host of the show, Stephen Dubner, does too. We can learn a lot from the information we get, but as Freakonomics points out, it's important to make sure that you understand that data correctly. You can make big mistakes if you don't. 

What's your favourite podcast? Do you have something that is an absolute "must-listen"? Let me know in the comments, and I'll give it a whirl!