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Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of I Heart Radio.

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Speaker 1: Good Morning, This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.

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Speaker 1: Today's tip is to do a recommendation swap. If you

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Speaker 1: have friends with similar interests or tastes, exchange recommendations so

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Speaker 1: you can point each other to things you'll enjoy and

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Speaker 1: have a fun time sharing the experience of that enjoyment.

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Speaker 1: I have long been fascinated by holiday cookie swaps. The

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Speaker 1: basic idea is to invite let's say six people to

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Speaker 1: your house. Each of you shows up with five dozen

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Speaker 1: of your favorite type of holiday cookies. You exchange the cookies,

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Speaker 1: and I'll go home with a dozen of each of

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Speaker 1: the other five people's baked offerings. It's a lot less

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Speaker 1: effort to bake one kind of cookie versus six, and

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Speaker 1: in addition to a joiga party, you get to try

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Speaker 1: a variety of sweet treats that you might never have

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Speaker 1: begged yourself. A recommendation swap would work in the same way.

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Speaker 1: Figure out a genre of thing that you all are

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Speaker 1: all interested in, get together, bring a list of your favorites,

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Speaker 1: and share details. You all go home enlightened and with

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Speaker 1: more stuff to try. This concept could work for all

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Speaker 1: sorts of things. Maybe you host a recipe swap. Each

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Speaker 1: of you brings copies of your favorite recipes for weeknight dinners.

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Speaker 1: You already know all about grilled cheese, but maybe there's

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Speaker 1: a way of preparing chicken breasts that you haven't thought

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Speaker 1: of yet. Now you've got a ticket out of your

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Speaker 1: Wednesday night rut, or perhaps on your email or text chain.

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Speaker 1: With a circle of friends, you all decide to recommend podcasts.

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Speaker 1: No doubt there's at least one or two in your

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Speaker 1: feed that your friends haven't tried, and they may have

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Speaker 1: found some winners that you would enjoy. Two you could

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Speaker 1: recommend Netflix series our favorite romantic comedies. The Patreon group

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Speaker 1: for my other podcast, Best of Both Worlds recently had

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Speaker 1: a virtual gathering devoted to summer reading. We all exchanged

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Speaker 1: book recommendations, and as a result, plenty of folks have

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Speaker 1: a lot of new stuff in the queue on their

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Speaker 1: library holds list. Now, of course, some of this happens naturally.

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Speaker 1: I am always asking people to tell their friends about

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Speaker 1: my books and podcasts. Word of mouth is one of

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Speaker 1: the most persuasive forms of marketing. I know when I

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Speaker 1: love a book or a destination or a podcast. I

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Speaker 1: want to tell people about it because I want them

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Speaker 1: to experience what I have experienced. But I think that

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Speaker 1: for normalizing it boosts the benefits for starters. People can

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Speaker 1: think about the question more systematically and prepare. Just as

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Speaker 1: you don't randomly show up at someone's house with sixty cookies,

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Speaker 1: you probably aren't walking around with a ranked list of

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Speaker 1: your six favorite podcasts or your five favorite historical fiction novels.

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Speaker 1: When you know that you will be exchanging recommendations, you

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Speaker 1: will think beyond what you just experienced. And second, when

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Speaker 1: you formalize the swap, you vastly increase the chances that

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Speaker 1: people will be in the mood to try out the recommendations.

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Speaker 1: I mean, why participate in a podcast recommendation swap if

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Speaker 1: you don't plan to try out a new podcast? And

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Speaker 1: that means that your friends will be experiencing some of

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Speaker 1: the same things that you have, so you can talk

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Speaker 1: about the shared experience afterwards. As in, thanks so much

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Speaker 1: for recommending that new historical novel Joan about Joan of

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Speaker 1: Arc by Katherine Chen I loved it. What did you

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Speaker 1: think about the section about her childhood? Or my family

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Speaker 1: loved the chicken chili it's on the make Again list.

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Speaker 1: Thanks for the recommendation. If I wanted to make it

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Speaker 1: even spicier for the next time my brother visits, what

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Speaker 1: would you suggest I do? If you try doing a

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Speaker 1: recommendation swap with friends, I'd love to hear about it.

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Speaker 1: You can reach me at Laura at Laura Vanderkam dot com.

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Speaker 1: In the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and

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Speaker 1: here's to making the most of our time. Hey, everybody,

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Speaker 1: I'd love to hear from you. You can send me

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Speaker 1: your tips, your questions, or anything else. Just connect with

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Speaker 1: me on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at Before Breakfast Pod

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Speaker 1: that's B the number four, then Breakfast p o D.

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Speaker 1: You can also shoot me an email at Before Breakfast

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Speaker 1: Podcast at i heeart Media dot com. That Before Breakfast

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Speaker 1: is spelled out with all the letters. Thanks so much,

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Speaker 1: I look forward to staying in touch. Before Breakfast is

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Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from

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Speaker 1: my heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

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Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.