Has this scene happened to you? Your boss approaches you in the morning on a typical workday and says, "Caitlin, can you see me in my office before you leave today?" If that simple request sends tremors of anxiety, fear, catastrophizing, overthinking, and doomscrolling into your very essence, then you should listen to the Magical Overthinkers podcast.
Before we discuss the podcast, let's cover the short history of books becoming podcasts because Magical Overthinkers started as a book.
Surveys of podcast listeners have found that they tend to read more than the general population and listen to audiobooks at a much higher rate.
“Not everyone who writes a successful non-fiction book can start a podcast,” says podcast consultant George Witt.
“The author must be articulate, have a voice that attracts listeners, and sustain the podcast through multiple episodes and seasons,” Witt adds.
For example, Wharton professor and organizational psychologist Adam Grant is the author of such best-selling books as Originals, Give And Take, and Option B. He then became the creator and host of a popular podcast called Worklife, which takes listeners inside the minds of some of the world's most unusual professionals to explore the science of making work not suck. Produced by TED, the podcast's guests have included former Daily Show host Trevor Noah, bestselling authors Malcolm Gladwell, Susan Cain, Michael Lewis, and Angela Duckworth.
In 2010, science reporter Sam Kean published the best-selling book The Disappearing Spoon, which spins incredible stories of science, history, finance, mythology, the arts, medicine, and more, as told by the Periodic Table of elements. In late 2019, Kean started a podcast of the same name with stories like how Teflon is related to the atomic bombs dropped in 1945 and how American women sacrificed for Marie Curie’s radium.
Another example is Gretchen Rubin, who has tapped a vein for our desire for happiness with three best-selling books, including Better Than Before. She then became the co-host of Happier with Gretchen Rubin–naturally, a podcast about achieving happiness. She just celebrated her 10th anniversary in podcasting.
One of the most popular books and podcasts in the last two decades began as a book and made a gradual transition to a podcast.
Freakonomics was published and sold millions of copies. Its ability to explode firmly held beliefs and posit novel solutions to societal dilemmas captured the attention of millions.
The Hidden Brain podcast with Shankar Vedantam is an intriguing case and, if you'll excuse the pun, is bookended by books. In 2010, Vedantam published a book called The Hidden Brain: How Our Unconscious Minds Elect Presidents, Control Markets, Wage Wars, and Save Our Lives.
What, exactly, is the "hidden brain"? It’s a term Vedantam created to describe a range of influences that manipulate us without our awareness. Some aspects of the hidden brain have to do with mental shortcuts or heuristics; others are related to errors in the way memory and attention work. Some deal with social dynamics and relationships.
Vedantam and NPR then launched the podcast in 2015 from the 2010 book concept. In 2019, he launched Hidden Brain Media “to allow us to connect more deeply with our audience and to experiment with new ways of telling Hidden Brain stories across a range of different platforms.”
Having explained all that, now let's look at the latest bestselling book turned podcast, Magical Overthinkers.
“Magical thinking” can be broadly defined as the belief that one’s internal thoughts can affect unrelated events in the external world: think of the conviction that one can manifest their way out of poverty, stave off cancer with positive vibes, thwart the apocalypse by learning to can their own peaches, or transform an unhealthy relationship to a glorious one with loyalty alone. In all its forms, magical thinking works in service of restoring agency amid chaos, but in the book, The Age of Magical Overthinking, author Amanda Montell argues that in the modern information age, our brain’s coping mechanisms have been overloaded, and our irrationality turned up to an eleven.
Here's the book summary: "In a series of razor sharp, deeply funny chapters, Montell delves into a cornucopia of the cognitive biases that run rampant in our brains, from how the “halo effect” cultivates worship (and hatred) of larger-than-life celebrities, to how the 'sunk cost fallacy' can keep us in detrimental relationships long after we’ve realized they’re not serving us. As she illuminates these concepts with her signature brilliance and wit, Montell’s prevailing message is one of hope, empathy, and ultimately forgiveness for our anxiety-addled human selves.
Amanda Montell is a writer, linguist, and podcast host living in Los Angeles. She is the critically acclaimed author of three nonfiction books, Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism, Wordslut: A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language, and The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality.
Sounds Like A Cult won “Best Emerging Podcast” at the 2023 iHeart Radio Podcast Awards and was named best podcast of 2022 by Vulture, Esquire, Marie Claire, and others.
Amanda Montell's essays and reporting have appeared in The New York Times, Harper’s Bazaar, Marie Claire, and elsewhere. She was born and raised in Baltimore, MD and holds a degree in linguistics from NYU.
Montell says: "As soon as I began writing The Age of Magical Overthinking, I knew I’d run into a similar conundrum as Cultish, where I’d simply come across too many interesting topics to be able to cover them all in the book. So, the way that Sounds Like A Cult was born out of a desire to continue talking about groups along the cultish spectrum, I decided pretty early that I’d want to spin a podcast off of The Age of Magical Overthinking. The result is MAGICAL OVERTHINKERS, a show about digital-age delusion, where every episode is dedicated to a subject I can’t stop overthinking about—from narcissism to nostalgia."
Montell adds: "Each week’s show will open with a heart-on-its-sleeve mini audio essay from yours truly, followed by an interview with an expert guest, where I’ll ask the unfiltered questions that only an overthinker would ask. The podcast is basically an overthinker’s guide to the zeitgeist’s buzziest, most curious and anxiety-provoking topics. Bottom line: It’s a show for people who want to think less about the things that don’t matter and more about the things that do."
The show, which began in May 2024, also has a Substack newsletter that offers listeners more detailed information on overthinking and over-spiraling. Montell, it turns out, is as good a podcast interviewer as she is an author. Some of my favorite episodes include Overthinking About Monogamy, Overthinking About Narcissism, and Overthinking About Death.
Montell empathizes with us: "If you identify as an overthinker, a thought-spiraler, or someone who’s just always asking what the hell is wrong with people’s brains (including and especially your own), then welcome to the club: The MAGICAL OVERTHINKERS club. This podcast is here to make some sense of the senseless. To help quiet the cacophony in our heads for a while. Or even hear a melody in it."
I highly recommend Magical Overthinkers. The podcast aims to make some sense of the senseless. To, as Montell says, "crack open a window in our minds, and let a warm breeze in. To help quiet the cacophony for a while, or even hear a melody in it."
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