Fall 2020

I have recently been listening to a podcast called, “Presidential.” A podcast, in case you are not familiar, is an audio series that you can listen to on a streaming platform. You can also subscribe to a podcast (at no cost) so that you receive an alert when new episodes become available. People often listen to podcasts to gain knowledge, information or just for entertainment. I listen to several podcasts, but right now, I am plowing through “Presidential.” Let me tell you more about it.

The podcast, “Presidential” was produced in 2016, leading up to the election that year. Yes, it is four years old, and I am just listening to it now. Hey – good things come to those who wait, right? Anyway, each week the podcast highlights a president, starting with Washington and proceeding in chronological order. As of the writing of this post, I am at the start of Richard Nixon, who was incidentally, the only president ever to resign the presidency. In listening to the podcast, I am learning a lot about the presidents as it relates to their upbringing, things that were important to them while being president, and for many life after the presidency. I have learned that more presidents were assassinated and/or died in office than I realized. In fact, many of our current ‘rules’ evolved as a result of untimely deaths of a president. Some of the presidents I have heard about did many great things that I never knew and some didn’t really do much at all. Many of our early presidents didn’t even want to be president, but felt it was their duty as a founding father.

I want to take a step back and mention that this blog post is not a political commentary. I am fascinated with history, and thus I am trying to learn more about the past, to help me understand the present. With that being said, since this is an election year, I thought it was a good time to learn more about our past presidents. I thought the election would be all that we talked about this year, but COVID-19 took care of that concern. 

I listen to some other podcasts too. Mike Rowe (you may know him from the Discovery Channel show “Dirty Jobs”) has a podcast called “The Way I Heard It.” It is reminiscent of the old Paul Harvey segments on the radio. I remember listening to them as a kid in the car, when I would ride with my dad to the hardware store, and probably stop at the corner store for a pop and treat too. I loved the little mysteries Paul Harvey would create about someone famous, and Mike Rowe does the same. Raymond James puts out a podcast too. It’s called “For What It’s Worth.” Different experts in our home office talk about timely topics. They produce the podcast anywhere from every two weeks to once per month. Easy to understand and make sense of different investment topics. I highly recommend it.

I mostly listen to podcasts when I am out walking or running. It keeps my mind from thinking about the exercise and the time goes very quickly. Have you listened to a podcast that you would like to share? I would love to hear what fascinates you! Email me: stacy.caudill@raymondjames.com

My next podcast after “Presidential” will be “Constitutional.” The same woman has created both and I figure that maybe I should learn more about the Constitution too, and be the best citizen I can be – or at least have a better understanding. I guess it goes without saying that I paid more attention to math in school than I did to government…well…maybe.