The Bittersweet Life

Latest Episodes:

Episode 359: Diffused Art Mar 08, 2021

Show notes

Walking through the halls of a museum like the Uffizi Gallery in Florence—when we're not in the middle of a pandemic, that is—is generally about as artistic an experience as rush hour at Grand Central Station. Florence, a relatively small city, is overwhelmed by the number of tourists who visit it (in a normal year) and almost all of those tourists visit the Uffizi Gallery.

The director of the Gallery is already thinking ahead to when mass tourism inevitably returns to Florence, and he's come up with a brilliant and original idea to prevent the museum (one of the most important in the world) from being overrun with visitors, leading to a less-than-ideal experience for everyone.

Listen to the episode to hear about his daring new idea.

The article mentioned in this episode can be found here.

**This episode was sponsored by Clyde Hill Publishing—partner and publisher for founders, innovators, thinkers, and tinkerers. Check out their upcoming release, I Had No Idea You Were Black, by Ronald Crutcher. Pre-order your copy here.

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NEW TO THE SHOW? Don't be afraid to start with Episode 1: OUTSET

BOOK: Want to read Tiffany's book, Midnight in the Piazza? Learn more here or order on Amazon.

TOUR ROME: If you're traveling to Rome, don't miss the chance to tour the city with Tiffany as your guide!

Bittersweet Moment #99: Feedback, Good or Bad? (with Therese Huston) Mar 04, 2021

Show notes

Katy gets into the nitty-gritty of feedback from her own point of view, digging into her own past as a senior radio producer. Today's mini-episode features part of the conversation that was cut from Monday's full-length episode, an interview with Dr. Therese Huston, author of Let's Talk: Make Effective Feedback Your Superpower. Katy looks back at her former job and wonders: did I give good feedback? Did I give enough feedback at all?

If you haven't listened to Monday's episode, The Art of Feedback (with Therese Huston) yet, make sure you listen to that first.

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ADVERTISE WITH US: Reach expats, future expats, and travelers all over the world. Send us an email to get the conversation started.

BECOME A PATRON: Pledge your monthly support of The Bittersweet Life and receive awesome prizes in return for your generosity! Visit our Patreon site to find out more.

SUBSCRIBE: Subscribe to the podcast to make sure you never miss an episode. Click here to find us on a variety of podcast apps.

WRITE A REVIEW: Leave us a rating and a written review on iTunes so more listeners can find us.

NEW TO THE SHOW? Don't be afraid to start with Episode 1: OUTSET

BOOK: Want to read Tiffany's book, Midnight in the Piazza? Learn more here or order on Amazon.

TOUR ROME: If you're traveling to Rome, don't miss the chance to tour the city with Tiffany as your guide!

Episode 358: The Art of Feedback (with Therese Huston) Mar 01, 2021

Show notes

How can effective feedback change your life? Today, we sit down with Dr. Theresa Huston, author of the new book Let's Talk: Make Effective Feedback Your Superpower, a "game-changing model for giving effective feedback to peers, employees, or even your boss—without offending or demotivating." In it, she explains how to tell someone that they're not meeting expectations without crushing their spirit, a skill which, when delivered skillfully, can turn average performers into the hardest workers and stars into superstars.

Dr. Therese Huston received her MS and PhD in cognitive psychology from Carnegie Mellon University and is currently completing a post graduate program at the University of Oxford. She's is also the author of Teaching What You Don't Know and How Women Decide.

Find Therese Huston on Twitter or at her website.

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ADVERTISE WITH US: Reach expats, future expats, and travelers all over the world. Send us an email to get the conversation started.

BECOME A PATRON: Pledge your monthly support of The Bittersweet Life and receive awesome prizes in return for your generosity! Visit our Patreon site to find out more.

SUBSCRIBE: Subscribe to the podcast to make sure you never miss an episode. Click here to find us on a variety of podcast apps.

WRITE A REVIEW: Leave us a rating and a written review on iTunes so more listeners can find us.

NEW TO THE SHOW? Don't be afraid to start with Episode 1: OUTSET

BOOK: Want to read Tiffany's book, Midnight in the Piazza? Learn more here or order on Amazon.

TOUR ROME: If you're traveling to Rome, don't miss the chance to tour the city with Tiffany as your guide!

Bittersweet Moment #98: The Holiest Place in Rome Feb 25, 2021

Show notes

Oscar Wilde called it the "holiest place in Rome" and Percy Shelley said it would make someone apt to fall in love with death to think of being buried in so sweet a place...and not soon later he was buried there at only 29.

But the most famous resident of Rome's Non-Catholic Cemetery is of course John Keats, who was interred there exactly 200 years ago today. Inspired by Katy's essay on his death and the death of her friend Susan, Tiffany visits the cemetery in her mind (it's still closed at present). Listen to the end to find out how to be buried there (it's still possible!)

Find Katy's essay on the death of John Keats in Catapult literary magazine.

Find out more about how to be buried in the Non-Catholic Cemetery in Rome.

Don't miss Episode 357: Literary Travel, that was partly inspired by Keat's grave and the Keats-Shelley Museum in Rome.

Hear Tiffany talk about memorizing poetry on Bittersweet Moment #55: Memorizing Poetry.

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ADVERTISE WITH US: Reach expats, future expats, and travelers all over the world. Send us an email to get the conversation started.

BECOME A PATRON: Pledge your monthly support of The Bittersweet Life and receive awesome prizes in return for your generosity! Visit our Patreon site to find out more.

TIP YOUR PODCASTER: Say thanks with a one-time donation to the podcast hosts you know and love. Click here to send financial support via PayPal. (You can also find a Donate button on our website.) The show needs your support to continue.

SUBSCRIBE: Subscribe to the podcast to make sure you never miss an episode. Click here to find us on a variety of podcast apps.

WRITE A REVIEW: Leave us a rating and a written review on iTunes so more listeners can find us.

NEW TO THE SHOW? Don't be afraid to start with Episode 1: OUTSET

BOOK: Want to read Tiffany's book, Midnight in the Piazza? Learn more here or order on Amazon.

TOUR ROME: If you're traveling to Rome, don't miss the chance to tour the city with Tiffany as your guide!

Episode 357: Literary Travel Feb 22, 2021

Show notes

Reading books can inspire you to travel, and travel can inspire you to read books. It's what we call a delicious cycle.

Today we talk about the books (and other types of art) that have inspired not only particular trips, but the things that we have sought out when on that trip, or even things we have made a point to see in our own cities.

But this inspiration goes both ways, and sometimes the things we see when traveling inspire us to read more about them, whether in fiction or non-fiction. Listen in to our conversation about travel-inspired reading and our reading-inspired travel.

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ADVERTISE WITH US: Reach expats, future expats, and travelers all over the world. Send us an email to get the conversation started.

BECOME A PATRON: Pledge your monthly support of The Bittersweet Life and receive awesome prizes in return for your generosity! Visit our Patreon site to find out more.

SUBSCRIBE: Subscribe to the podcast to make sure you never miss an episode. Click here to find us on a variety of podcast apps.

WRITE A REVIEW: Leave us a rating and a written review on iTunes so more listeners can find us.

NEW TO THE SHOW? Don't be afraid to start with Episode 1: OUTSET

BOOK: Want to read Tiffany's book, Midnight in the Piazza? Learn more here or order on Amazon.

TOUR ROME: If you're traveling to Rome, don't miss the chance to tour the city with Tiffany as your guide!

Bittersweet Moment #97: The Scariest Cold Call Feb 18, 2021

Show notes

On our "super secret" Truth or Dare episode from a few years ago (available only to our Patreon patrons and long-time donors), Katy did something incredibly scary, heart-poundingly so: she called someone she'd had a brief but electrifying encounter with—completely out of the blue, 20 years later.

As a hint of what the bonus content that our patrons and regular donors receive every single month, we are broadcasting this very scary call in all its nail-biting glory.

If you'd like more bonus content like this, join us on Patreon, or donate via PayPal. Your support is so so appreciated.