3 years ago to the day the Make It Count Podcast was birthed, and 156 episodes later it is time for a break. Thanks for being with us these past few years and contributing to the many and varied conversations we've enjoyed. We're looking forward to many more fascinating conversations in the future, but for now they'll be in person, and likely round a table. It's been a blast, thanks for tuning in. Whatever it is you're doing, don't forget to make it count. Send us a Message via "Fan Mail" (What is there to lose?) Watch the latest episodes on YouTube . ________________________________________________________________ Join us as we move from the daily drift to positive purpose. We love hearing from you and your ideas for episodes. What questions and comments do you have? Get in touch at: makeitcount.pod@gmail.com…

As an epilogue to the August series "Being Real in an Artificial World" we're discussing a counter point David read about, someone was arguing that our online self is our most authentic self because it reveals our ideal self. Jump on into this conversation and let us know what you think! Send us a Message via "Fan Mail" (What is there to lose?) Watch the latest episodes on YouTube . ________________________________________________________________ Join us as we move from the daily drift to positive purpose. We love hearing from you and your ideas for episodes. What questions and comments do you have? Get in touch at: makeitcount.pod@gmail.com…

Welcome to the final episode of our Summer Series: Being Real in an Artificial World. This week we focus on the irreplaceable value of face-to-face interactions and the emotional benefits of maintaining strong personal relationships in an increasingly digital world. Some further reading: The Human Touch: Why social media can’t replace real human connection The Human Touch in a Digital World: Balancing Technology with Personal Connection Send us a Message via "Fan Mail" (What is there to lose?) Watch the latest episodes on YouTube . ________________________________________________________________ Join us as we move from the daily drift to positive purpose. We love hearing from you and your ideas for episodes. What questions and comments do you have? Get in touch at: makeitcount.pod@gmail.com…

Welcome to our Summer Series: Being Real in an Artificial World. This week we delve into the impact of social media and digital communication on friendships and touch on how to foster genuine connections in a world of superficial interactions. Technology can be both a bridge and a barrier to real interactions, how can we best use the tools at hand to facilitate healthy and meaningful connections? Resources mentioned in this episode: Research showing impact of loneliness on DNA: Cacioppo's findings also show that prolonged loneliness can be as harmful to your health as smoking or obesity… for our primitive ancestors, survival depended not on greater brawn but on greater commitments to and from one another. Serving as a prompt to repair frayed social bonds, the pain of loneliness engendered a fear response so powerfully disruptive that even now, millions of years later, a persistent sense of rejection or isolation can impair DNA transcription in our immune cells. Bridges and barriers Send us a Message via "Fan Mail" (What is there to lose?) Watch the latest episodes on YouTube . ________________________________________________________________ Join us as we move from the daily drift to positive purpose. We love hearing from you and your ideas for episodes. What questions and comments do you have? Get in touch at: makeitcount.pod@gmail.com…

Welcome to the Make it Count Podcast, our August Summer Series: Being Real in an Artificial World. This week we're continuing with the 2nd episode in the series and we're aiming our sights at authenticity in a world filled with filters: Can We Be Authentic If We’re Always Putting Our Best Side Forward? Here's a couple articles you might find interesting: Can anyone be honest online? In technology we trust, or do we? Send us a Message via "Fan Mail" (What is there to lose?) Watch the latest episodes on YouTube . ________________________________________________________________ Join us as we move from the daily drift to positive purpose. We love hearing from you and your ideas for episodes. What questions and comments do you have? Get in touch at: makeitcount.pod@gmail.com…

Welcome to the Make it Count Podcast, for our August Summer Series: Being Real in an Artificial World. This week we're kicking off with the 1st of 4 episodes in the series and we're looking at Discernment in a DeepFake World - Can we even trust our own eyes now? Remember when people used to say “I’ll believe it when I see it”? That kinda seems like a quaint notion now. Here's a couple articles you might find interesting: Can anyone be honest online? In technology we trust, or do we? Send us a Message via "Fan Mail" (What is there to lose?) Watch the latest episodes on YouTube . ________________________________________________________________ Join us as we move from the daily drift to positive purpose. We love hearing from you and your ideas for episodes. What questions and comments do you have? Get in touch at: makeitcount.pod@gmail.com…

This week we're going off script (not that we ever actually have a script), and looking at the theme of story once again, but from the perspective of Worldview. It's not a question of whether or not we have a Worldview (or story we believe about the world), but rather, what it is, and where it comes from. Have we thought carefully and with intention about what we believe about the world? Send us a Message via "Fan Mail" (What is there to lose?) Watch the latest episodes on YouTube . ________________________________________________________________ Join us as we move from the daily drift to positive purpose. We love hearing from you and your ideas for episodes. What questions and comments do you have? Get in touch at: makeitcount.pod@gmail.com…

We're back with another book review, this week: A Non-Anxious Presence by Mark Sayers. Find out more about the book here . Send us a Message via "Fan Mail" (What is there to lose?) Watch the latest episodes on YouTube . ________________________________________________________________ Join us as we move from the daily drift to positive purpose. We love hearing from you and your ideas for episodes. What questions and comments do you have? Get in touch at: makeitcount.pod@gmail.com…

This week we're going to classroom of Mr Taylor, to hear what he's learned about learning on his journey to becoming a qualified maths teacher. (For those who have maths anxiety, don't worry, maths doesn't really feature much in this episode!) Send us a Message via "Fan Mail" (What is there to lose?) Watch the latest episodes on YouTube . ________________________________________________________________ Join us as we move from the daily drift to positive purpose. We love hearing from you and your ideas for episodes. What questions and comments do you have? Get in touch at: makeitcount.pod@gmail.com…

Following on from our episode last week about the benefits of reading fiction, David felt it important that we give a balanced view, and so this episode was born! Welcome to episode 148 where we delve into the value of reading non-fiction, and you may not be surprised that we do end up talking about habits. Listen in as we talk about some of the books that have impacted our lives and we also discuss how you can become an expert* on any topic. Again, if you want to catch up on our book reviews check them out on Spotify or YouTube . *used in a broad sense of the word Send us a Message via "Fan Mail" (What is there to lose?) Watch the latest episodes on YouTube . ________________________________________________________________ Join us as we move from the daily drift to positive purpose. We love hearing from you and your ideas for episodes. What questions and comments do you have? Get in touch at: makeitcount.pod@gmail.com…

It is no secret that we love reading here at the Make It Count Podcast, you may have seen our book reviews (Check them out on Spotify or YouTube ) for example. But we tend to stick to Non-fiction books and some of you may be wondering what our thoughts on fiction are. In fact, Matt was wondering what his thoughts were too, and so did some research. By reading about reading of course! Listen along to hear what we definitively say about fiction, once and for all!* Also here's a couple quotes that didn't make it into the episode but Matt liked: “Do not read non-fiction prior to bed, which encourages projection into the future and preoccupation/planning. Read fiction that engages the imagination and demands present-state attention.” - Tim Ferriss “The quality of our reading” stands as “an index to the quality of our thought.” - Maryanne Wolf, cognitive scientist and author of Reader, Come Home. Articles we read in the forging of this episode: Does reading fiction make us better people? The Case for Reading Fiction Reading fiction: the benefits are numerous *Opinions subject to future updates Send us a Message via "Fan Mail" (What is there to lose?) Watch the latest episodes on YouTube . ________________________________________________________________ Join us as we move from the daily drift to positive purpose. We love hearing from you and your ideas for episodes. What questions and comments do you have? Get in touch at: makeitcount.pod@gmail.com…

This week we're back with a book review! David's been reading a short book by Katharine Hill and he can't remember much about it, or he forgot what he was supposed to remember, or he remembered not to forget everything...? Oh forget it! Here's what the book is supposedly about: Married life is full of trials and blessings, no matter what season of marriage you are in. One day you're saying your wedding vows, enjoying the honeymoon, making a home together ... and the next you're working through domestic challenges, paying the mortgage and struggling to remember the anniversary. Sometimes just a little wisdom and encouragement is needed to help along the way. Help is here! Katharine Hill offers her wisdom and guidance in stories and bite-sized chapters to help navigate the different seasons of marriage. In the busyness of life, this encouraging book is great for those who want to focus on what matters the most, to have the very best for their marriage. P.S. As per usual here's a little disclaimer: We have no affiliation, we just read a book and thought it was worth reviewing. Send us a Message via "Fan Mail" (What is there to lose?) Watch the latest episodes on YouTube . ________________________________________________________________ Join us as we move from the daily drift to positive purpose. We love hearing from you and your ideas for episodes. What questions and comments do you have? Get in touch at: makeitcount.pod@gmail.com…

We’ve all heard phrases like “Time is money” and “Life is too short for…” but how do you actually value your time? On the one hand we know that time is something we cannot buy back once it has passed, but on the other hand the passing of time feels slow. One moment feels very much like the next, one day seems no different from the previous. We can easily be lulled into the sense that there’s always going to be more and it’s going to be very much the same. Join us this week as we wrestle with the idea of how to value our time, and perhaps it involves viewing that time as discrete, not continuous… Here's the poem/quote David reads out in the episode: If you want to know the value of one year, just ask a student who failed a course. If you want to know the value of one month, ask a mother who gave birth to a premature baby. If you want to know the value of one hour, ask the lovers waiting to meet. If you want to know the value of one minute, ask the person who just missed the bus. If you want to know the value of one second, ask the person who just escaped death in a car accident. And if you want to know the value of one-hundredth of a second, ask the athlete who won a silver medal in the Olympics. ― Marc Levy, Et si c'était vrai..., Vous revoir, édition complète 2 en 1 Send us a Message via "Fan Mail" (What is there to lose?) Watch the latest episodes on YouTube . ________________________________________________________________ Join us as we move from the daily drift to positive purpose. We love hearing from you and your ideas for episodes. What questions and comments do you have? Get in touch at: makeitcount.pod@gmail.com…

When you are going on a journey and you have a destination you're aiming for it's important to first know where you are. Likewise, life is a journey and we're all going somewhere. We are strong believers in the value of, well... values! They have an large impact on the decisions we make and the way we live our lives, so it is important to be aware of what they are. This week we're discussing three things that can reveal to you what values you're currently living by, your: - bank statement - calendar - day dreams Check out the YouTube channel, we have faces as well as voices! http://www.youtube.com/@MakeItCount-Podcast Send us a Message via "Fan Mail" (What is there to lose?) Watch the latest episodes on YouTube . ________________________________________________________________ Join us as we move from the daily drift to positive purpose. We love hearing from you and your ideas for episodes. What questions and comments do you have? Get in touch at: makeitcount.pod@gmail.com…

We’re all about living with purpose and intentionality wherever you are and in every area of life. “Join us as we move from the daily drift to positive purpose.” is our common invitation, which often means facing up to the reality of our situation and not avoiding the challenges. So we can often come across as being pretty down on escaping our lives into media and entertainment, which is why Matt decided we had to have a conversation about a rather intriguing quote from the famed author of The Hobbit and The Lord of The Rings: “I have claimed that Escape is one of the main functions of fairy-stories, and since I do not disapprove of them, it is plain that I do not accept the tone of scorn or pity with which 'Escape' is now so often used. Why should a man be scorned if, finding himself in prison, he tries to get out and go home? Or if he cannot do so, he thinks and talks about other topics than jailers and prison-walls?” ― J.R.R. Tolkien Send us a Message via "Fan Mail" (What is there to lose?) Watch the latest episodes on YouTube . ________________________________________________________________ Join us as we move from the daily drift to positive purpose. We love hearing from you and your ideas for episodes. What questions and comments do you have? Get in touch at: makeitcount.pod@gmail.com…