Interviewing has always been second nature to journalist, author and host of How To Fail, Elizabeth Day. But after going through a divorce, in 2018 she felt inspired to connect with how her subjects picked themselves up from their failures and what it taught them.

“I eBayed my wedding dress to hire a sound engineer, recorded eight episodes and hand-drew my rosette logo with felt-tip pens,” Elizabeth says of her burgeoning podcast’s DIY beginnings. “When I put that first season onto Apple Podcasts, I had no idea of what it would become. Now, here we are, seven years later!”

With listeners often telling her how episodes help them through dark times, Elizabeth says she feels honoured to try to help people feel empowered and less alone. “Failure happens to us all. The true test of character is in how we respond to it. All failure, in the fullness of time, will teach us something meaningful if we let it. It might be tough to go through and it might be that the only thing you learn is that you’re strong enough to survive it, but all failure is valuable data acquisition.”

Elizabeth’s picks range from history to tech, business and politics, as well as episodes by pre-eminent relationships expert Esther Perel—who she calls “one of my most revered podcasting OGs”—onto “deconstructing our unexamined prejudices” in You’re Wrong About, and then Begin Again hosted by Davina McCall (“I bow to no one in my adoration of her”).