<p>This month it’s a very special episode of Serendipity Soup because, although I haven’t completely decided yet, I think this is probably going to be the last one.&nbsp;It’s possible I will take a break and come back with a second series, but right now that’s not the plan, so how to round off the Serendipity Soup story neatly? </p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Well, when I floated the idea of ending the podcast in the previous episode, several listeners suggested the idea of me giving my story as the final episode so I asked my editor Anna if she would interview me and she agreed.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>You may disagree once you listen but I’d say there’s two themes to this one.&nbsp;The first is the idea of having respect for the stories that people tell me and how difficult it is to make sure that I do justice to something so personal.&nbsp;It’s shown me what a skill really good quality journalism is.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Second, I think the podcast itself rather neatly sums up the very idea I’ve been wrestling with: what is success?&nbsp;I recently read that Dick Fuld the disgraced head of Lehman Brothers – the bank whose collapse nearly took down the entire global financial system in 2008 – once publicly shredded the tie of the second best trader in the bank, saying essentially that “second place is first loser”.&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>This is the key message of the celebrity success industry, so in podcast audience terms I should probably have my entire suit, socks, pants and probably my house shredded.&nbsp;After all, if a podcast can only be deemed a success when it has the highest listener numbers then everyone other than Joe Rogan might as well just pack up and go home.&nbsp;Obviously they don’t, which shows there’s more to it than that and so I talk a fair bit with Anna about how successful or otherwise I think Serendipity Soup has been.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Huge thanks to all of you who’ve listened to the podcast and got in touch to say how much you enjoyed it.&nbsp;I really appreciate your support.&nbsp;Here are the links for this episode:</p><ul><li>Joe Rogan - <a href="https://www.joerogan.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.joerogan.com/</a></li><li>Adam Buxton - <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-adam-buxton-podcast/id1040481893" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-adam-buxton-podcast/id1040481893</a></li><li>Wolf and Owl - <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/wolf-and-owl/id1540826523" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/wolf-and-owl/id1540826523</a></li><li>Bill George ‘True North’ - <a href="https://www.billgeorge.org/book/true-north" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.billgeorge.org/book/true-north</a></li></ul><br /><hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>