Owning a business is exciting, rewarding and, of course, challenging. It’s also unique; other jobs might be high-pressure, high-stakes, high-demand in other ways, but there’s nothing quite like carrying the business on your shoulders. But that doesn’t mean you need to feel alone! While you might not have lots of other business owners in your life (or even if you do), there are great podcasts for business owners filled with relatable anecdotes and valuable advice.

If you’re often facing lengthy commutes to work or meetings (something you might be able to avoid…), this list of the best podcast for business owners can make the journeys a little more bearable. Or you could double-up the productivity of your workouts and learn while you exercise! However and wherever you  listen, here are our top picks for business owners looking for stellar podcasts.

For learning from others (and their mistakes): StartUp

If you’re launching a business, or it’s something you aspire to do, you’re in luck. Although it can be a precarious road, there is a wealth of great advice for new business owners, including topics like how to keep costs down without business hindering growth, for example by finding free locations for meetings. And amongst some of the best podcasts for business owners are some great series specifically about start ups – one of which is aptly named StartUp. The first season documented the rise of the company which produces the podcast, giving a great insiders’ meta investigation of the wobbles and triumphs of starting a business. That includes all the personal turbulence that goes along with the professional chaos, too. In the second season, the personal becomes professional, as the podcast explores the birth of an online dating company.

Over different seasons, you get to hear different perspective and personal views. You’ll learn about personal challenges surrounding start-ups, and how they might be different depending on the owners’ genders or ages, as well as the industries. What makes it especially compelling is the podcast’s openness regarding mistakes and what went wrong, as well as top tips to making sure you can get it right.

For stimulating intellectual discussion: HBR IdeaCast

In this podcast, the Harvard Business Review provides advice, information, thoughts and inspiration for anyone interested in the business world. It covers all areas of business, from personal motivation and business philosophy, to strategy and marketing. You’ll hear experts’ views on the latest trends and research, including specific topics of debate like Artificial Intelligence, and broad concepts like the role of authority, and its varied perceptions in different cultures.

For looking after yourself as well as your business: Growth Everywhere and Youpreneur

There’s a reason a lot of people refer to their businesses as their babies (even if only in their heads…). Running your own company can make the same demands on your time (i.e. 24/7 dedication and vigilence) and require the same emotional, psychological devotion as having children. Add in the fact that many business owners do have children, children whose lives depend on the success of said business, and you have a recipe for serious, health-damaging amounts of stress.

So it’s important to remember to look after yourself and your own growth, as well as those of your profit margins. That’s why we think some of the best podcasts for business owners take into account that business owners are people, too. In that spirit, why not take a listen to Growth Everywhere, which supplies a fresh episode each week with a different entrepeneur discussing how they’ve managed their own personal growth alongside their company’s.

Alternatively, learn about building you-time into your business model from Chris Ducker, the host of Youpreneur. Like many people, he didn’t want to have to sacrifice his personal life in the name of business success, so he set about creating a healthier work-life balance. Taking account of all the amazing communication and collaboration technology available to working professionals, he decided he was going to create a new kind of role for himself; he would be a ‘virtual CEO’.

What exactly does that entail? Well, he discovered that (for him at least), six-hour working days can definitely work – even when he’s only working four days a week. But the podcast isn’t all about how he fills his spare time and all the fulfuling, life-affirming activities he’s now able to pursue. It aims to help other people follow in his footsteps and create a working schedule that fits around their lives. Subscribe to get great advice on how to delegate responsibility in the workplace, good ways of outsourcing – something which has proved really valuable in areas like telemarketing – , personal branding, marketing your company, and increasing your productivity.

For all your mentoring needs: Mixergy

They say experience is the best teacher, but we don’t all have the time (or desire) to face a series of failures and difficulties before getting anywhere. Luckily, Mixergy pools the experiences of over a thousand successful entrepeneurs, so you can mine their wisdom to inform your own efforts.

The podcast provides interviews with all these experts, sharing all their top tips and insider knowledge to help you reach your own goals. But Mixergy is also a website you can click onto to learn from experienced mentors and online courses, giving you a full educational experience for all your business efforts.

For getting the word out once your business is built: Duct Tape Marketing

Although it’s a massive triumph, the battle is not won at the business launch. Marketing is, of course, pivotal to any company’s success, and there’s so much that goes into modern-day marketing: you have to consider content creation, and whether and when to make marketing calls, and how to use social media for marketing – as well as the fact that social media means customer service is now almost part of marketing. With so much to think about, it’s no surprise that a list of the best podcast for business owners would include one targeted specifically at widening the audience you’re reaching.

Duct Tape Marketing really breaks down what goes into creating a successful marketing campaign. It considers a wide range of topics, from the importance of branding, to creating content, the impact of smartphone use, to landing pages. Every week brings a fresh perspective from industry experts, giving you the key to unlocking your business’s potential and creating a strategy that collates all of their expertise with your knowledge of your company and field.

Because variety is the spice of life: Fresh Air

Don’t worry, this podcast is still great for business owners! But if you’re running a company, you already probably live and breathe business, so sometimes it’s important to take a bit of an intellectual palette-cleanser. That’s why we’ve excluded this lovely (sorry) breath of fresh air in our list of the best podcasts for business owners. It’s been running for a long time, which is a testament to its enduring popularity and its unwavering interest. The basic format works well: host Terry Gross conducts interviews of a huge range of fascinating, intelligent, experienced individuals from all walks of life. Be it artists, CEOs, comedians, activists – anybody she deems to have something of worth to say – Gross manages to find the rights questions to ask, and the right ways to ask them, to get insightful and personal responses from each one.

Listening to Fresh Air, you’ll learn directly about business when the guests are literally businesspeople, but you’ll learn about all kinds of things which are necessary to running a successful business by listening to other episodes, too. Resilience, courage, ambition, passion, organisation – all these things are vital no matter what your goals are. This is a great podcast for business owners to learn more about themselves and the world, which can only help professional endeavours.