In this kickoff to Season 3, Matt and Jadrian share their personal and professional goals for the new year, focusing on growth and balance. They reflect on lessons learned from the past year and discuss how they aim to improve their teaching, research, and outreach efforts. The duo also unveils exciting podcast plans for 2025, including new guests, deeper dives into economic topics, and interactive segments. We hope this will be a motivational conversation to start the new season.
In this episode, we discuss:
How this academic semester felt different than years past
Personal and professional goals for 2025
Plans for expanding podcast content
And a whole lot more!
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Some show notes:
This may be our first episode of 2025, but we recorded it a few weeks earlier to give ourselves some time off over the winter holidays. The episode was recorded during finals week, so a few drinks were definitely in order. Jadrian reached into the back of his fridge for a Shiner Octoberfest, while Matt opted for a Secret Agent Man from Evergrain Brewery in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania.
Matt and Jadrian aren’t super strict about New Year’s resolutions, but Matt has participated in “damp January” for the past few years and plans to do so again. This means mostly abstaining from alcohol, except for the week he’s on a cruise with his family. Jadrian brought up their mid-year goal of losing 10 pounds by the end of the year. While both have made some progress, they’ll need to reconnect after the show to determine whether they met their deadline.
For Season 3 of the podcast, Matt and Jadrian take a reflective approach by sharing their personal and professional goals for the year ahead. Matt has a sabbatical coming up, and is excited to work on research projects he’s been planning. He’ll also take some time to reflect on his experience as Dean and consider what the next 20 years of his career might look like.
Although Jadrian successfully shed some weight at the end of the semester, he aims to be more consistent with gym visits and hopes to lose another 10 pounds. He also wants to continue his stadium tour by visiting a few new stadiums over the summer. On the professional side, Jadrian has been thinking about what it would take to transition into an administrative role in the future. Maybe 2025 is the year that he explores that a little more intentionally.
The duo also discussed their ambitions for the podcast. They’d love to move from a bi-weekly to a weekly schedule but feel they need more time to maintain the podcast’s quality. One key goal is to get listeners more involved. If something in an episode sparks your curiosity or leaves you with questions, leave a comment, and they’ll tackle it in a future episode.
This week’s pop culture references:
Jadrian revisited House of Cards and shared an episode that caught his attention. In the episode, President Underwood proposes an ambitious policy: reducing entitlements like Social Security and welfare to fund a universal jobs program aimed at achieving full employment. The storyline presents a fascinating opportunity to discuss the unintended consequences of such policies, particularly in addressing unemployment while considering broader economic trade-offs.
Matt shared a project he’s collaborating on with Mike Enz, exploring economic concepts featured in The White Lotus. This “dark comedic series” satirizes the interactions between wealthy guests and the resort employees at a luxurious fictional hotel chain.
The show offers rich examples of economic principles, including sunk costs and game theory, which Matt will drop on Matt’s YouTube channel when Season 3 of the series is released in mid-February.
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