Podcast of the Month: Infinite Postivities

I found out about this podcast through Nina Dobrev’s Instagram, proving that, despite the somewhat rocky terrain that has been season 7, my continued obsession with The Vampire Diaries can still bring some goodness into my life*.

Infinite Positivities is Jenna Ushkowitz’s companion podcast to her self-help book, Choosing Glee: 10 Rules to Finding Inspiration, Happiness and the Real You. I have not read the book, but I just did look inside on Amazon and within the first few pages there’s a picture of her with Bill Cosby she probably feels some regret about now.

Each podcast takes the form of an interview with a different celebrity, loosely based around a chapter of her book. This podcast, like most of the shows I regularly listen to, is all about getting a little inspiration of a morning (or whenever your regularly scheduled podcast time happens to fall). Even though it’s a little bit shorter than I would like (episodes very from twenty minutes to half an hour), it’s very effective. Jenna is a funny and charming host, and the positivity with which she seems to approach her life absolutely translates. Her guests are varied and interesting. After week one and Nina’s treatise on not taking anything too seriously (which was awesome, by the way), Jenna interviewed A.J. Jacobs about continuously experimenting in life (he is one of those who takes on an insane challenge every couple years then writes a book about it). Most recently she chatted with Julie Plec, Queen and Master of vampire television, about working hard to make shit happen, and the good and bad of being the Big Boss (she also talked about firing people. She doesn’t like doing it, which explains… a lot, frankly (Matt and Enzo)).

Far and away my favourite episode, and the one that I think everybody should listen to, was episode 5 with Kristen Chenoweth. Everything about Kristen Chenoweth makes you feel better. She is hilarious and open hearted and exudes this totally infectious joy that has made me listen to her interview at least three times now. She talks about the good and shitty parts of her life with the same level of humour and bemusement. She is the only person I have ever experienced who can burst in to song in conversation and not be annoying. By the end of her painfully short twenty minutes I wanted nothing more than to sit down with her about talk about the universe. Also about that time she was Peter Pan and almost killed herself on stage.

This is a sweet, low commitment podcast (it’s bi-weekly and as I have mentioned, very short) for anyone needing a little pick-me-up before a day of working in retail (or whatever sucky job you have right now).

 

 

*I actually don’t think the lack of Elena is the problem, TVD side. I know that’s not what this post is about, but I felt the need to say it anyway. I have many theories on what would fix The Vampire Diaries (not Matt Donovan meeting Elijah Mikalson. Honestly I can’t even talk about that development), but resurrecting Elena isn’t one of them. Co-dependent relationships bore me almost as much as contrived pregnancy storylines.