Mind the Gap
by Michael Comyn
Latest episode
What I Heard When I Listened Back
What I Heard When I Listened Back
About this podcast
You already know my voice.
For twenty-five years, I've been telling you to mind the gap on trains across Ireland. This is the same instruction. The gap is just different now.
Mind the Gap is a podcast about the space between what we think we're doing and what we're actually doing. Between intention and impact. Between the behaviour we display and the one we'd choose if we were paying attention.
Each episode is a short reflection — drawn from psychology, philosophy, and the texture of everyday life — on one of those gaps. Why do we give advice nobody asked for? Why do we lie more after the mistake than during it? Why do we perform contentment, perform listening, perform strength? And what it costs us when we do.
I'm Michael Comyn — coach, broadcaster, and the voice on the platform. New episodes weekly.
Episodes
The newest 20 of 90 episodes
- What I Heard When I Listened Back · 10 min · Season 5 Episode 90Episode 90 of Mind the Gap is a pause rather than a conclusion. Looking back through the archive, Michael listens again to the ideas, questions, certainties and contradictions…
- The Effect Nobody Read Properly · 8 min · Season 5 Episode 8You know the Dunning-Kruger effect. "The dumbest people are the most confident." Except that's not what the 1999 study actually found — and the correction most people haven't…
- Not That Kind of Family · 6 min · Season 5 Episode 7"We're a family here." You've heard it, probably from someone who meant it warmly. This week, Michael Comyn takes the phrase more seriously than it usually gets taken — and asks…
- Nobody Noticed the Bend · 7 min · Season 5 Episode 6The Space Shuttle Challenger disaster wasn't a surprise. Engineers had seen the same O-ring damage on earlier, successful flights — reviewed, discussed, waved through. Nobody…
- The Shape of the Story You're In · 8 min · Season 5 Episode 5You already know the voice. This week, a different kind of gap — the one between the life you're living and the plot you never actually chose. Michael Comyn draws on…
- Can't You Take a Joke? · 13 min · Season 5 Episode 4The sentence arrives about a second and a half after the remark, and it is always delivered lightly: I'm only joking. Notice where it sits. It doesn't withdraw what was said —…
- The Authority Gradient · 11 min · Season 5 Episode 3Last week, Michael Comyn made the case for silence. This week, the exception — because there's a second kind of silence, the sentence that was formed, weighed, and then never…
- Dead Air · 8 min · Season 5 Episode 2The voice that tells Ireland to mind the gap spent thirty years being trained never to let silence happen. In radio, they call it dead air — eight seconds of quiet and alarms…
- Two Takes · 8 min · Season 5 Episode 1Twenty-six years ago, a voice was recorded in a studio in Manchester. Two takes. The first was used. The second was a safety copy. Nobody thought it would matter. That voice now…
- Shut Up. Let It Land. · 7 min · Season 4 Episode 12Sometimes the most intelligent thing in the room is the thing left unsaid. We had a friend called Bob. When someone was being foolish — not malicious, just foolish — Bob…
- The Good Student Leaves · 8 min · Season 4 Episode 12There’s a railway station in Ireland that exists for one purpose only, not to arrive, not to stay, but to move on. In this episode of Mind the Gap, Michael Comyn explores a…
- When Conversation Stops Being Shared- When bores bore each other. · 10 min · Season 4 Episode 11We’ve all met them. The person who can hold the floor without drawing breath. The one who doesn’t quite notice when someone else is trying to speak. The conversation that…
- When did we stop looking? · 11 min · Season 4 Episode 10You walk into a café. The coffee is perfect. The service is efficient. And not once does anyone look at you. This episode starts with that small absence — and follows it…
- You Know What You Should Do! · 8 min · Season 4 Episode 9Before offering advice, ask a quieter question “You know what you should do.” Five familiar words, usually offered with kindness, sometimes with genuine care. Yet when we hear…
- Contentment in a Burning World · 18 min · Season 4 Episode 8In this episode of Mind the Gap, Michael Comyn explores a quiet but uncomfortable question. Is it acceptable to feel content while the world around us seems unsettled? With…
- When the System Decides You’re Old · 10 min · Season 4 Episode 6Mind the Age Gap | Retirement Age, Identity and the Psychology of Ageing What does retirement age really mean in modern life? In this episode of Mind the Gap, Michael Comyn…
- Whatever the Mistake, It’s the Lie Afterwards That Hurts More · 12 min · Season 4 Episode 5This week, during a leadership course, a participant shared a line from her father that stopped the room: “Whatever the mistake, it’s the lie afterwards that hurts more.” In…
- Living with Fewer Filters · 9 min · Season 4 Episode 4Here’s the thing. Most of us spend our lives editing ourselves in real time. Softening opinions. Swallowing reactions. Running everything through an internal risk assessment…
- How We Heal in Ordinary Ways · 10 min · Season 4 Episode 3How do people really heal? Not through dramatic breakthroughs, but through small, ordinary moments. In this episode, Michael Comyn reflects on personal recovery from a recent…
- Stoicism Is Not a Weapon · 10 min · Season 4 Episode 2In this episode of Mind the Gap, Michael Comyn returns to Stoic philosophy to address how Stoicism is being simplified and misused in some online spaces, particularly where…
