Famous Failures

Nadya Okamoto is the Executive Director of PERIOD (period.org), an organization she founded at the age of sixteen to provide menstrual hygiene products to those in need. PERIOD is now the largest youth-run NGO in women’s health, and one of the fastest growing in the United States. 

In 2017, Nadya ran for office in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Although she did not win, her campaign made historic waves in mobilizing young people both on the ground and at the polls.

Nadya’s debut book, Period Power: A Manifesto for the Menstrual Movement, made the Kirkus Reviews list for Best Young Adult Nonfiction of 2018. Earlier this year she made InStyle Magazine’s The Badass 50: Meet the Women Who Are Changing the World list along with Michelle Obama and Ariana Grande.

Today Nadya is also the Chief Brand Officer of JUV Consulting, a Generation Z marketing agency based in New York City.

Keep in touch with Nadya on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nadyaokamoto/

In this episode Nadya and I discuss:

• Why receiving a lifetime achievement award made her feel inadequate
• How she stays true to herself while in the media spotlight
• How she handled pushback from family, peers and trolls during her city council campaign
• How Nadya found success in a political campaign that she ended up losing
• What Nadya does to avoid spiraling into self-doubt and getting lost in negative thoughts
• How Nadya finds balance through late night workouts and Netflix

Resources mentioned

Follow the national campaign to repeal the Tampon Tax on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/periodmovement/

Christine Carter is a sociologist, columnist and speaker. She’s the author of the books Raising Happiness: 10 Simple Steps for More Joyful Kids and Happier Parents, as well as The Sweet Spot: How to Achieve More by Doing Less. She is also a Senior Fellow at the Greater Good Science Center where she explores the science of happiness and researches how to thrive in our stress-filled, fast-paced modern world.

Christine has appeared on the “Oprah Winfrey Show,” the “Dr. Oz Show”, the “TODAY” show, the “Rachael Ray Show,” “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” and many others. She has been quoted or featured in The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, and other media outlets.

You can subscribe to Christine’s monthly newsletter at christinecarter.com/free-updates/.

In the episode, Christine and I discuss:

• Why Christine began to fantasize about being hospitalized
• What drove Christine to cancel a keynote speaking engagement at the last minute 
• Why the opposite of busyness is not laziness
• How the first industrial revolution created our notions of workplace productivity which we still mistakenly believe today
• How you can schedule rest in your day to increase productivity
• How a multitasking brain consumes energy and ways to retrain ourselves to stick to one thing at a time
• The importance of experiencing stillness and how it improves brain function
• Why Christine began leaving her phone in the car when she went grocery shopping
• The one personal failure Christine continues to experience
• Why we should allow our kids to experience boredom and disappointment

Christine also responds to Inner Circle member Cathy Cheng’s question: What are the one or two most consistent attributes of organizations where workers are happiest, most productive, and least likely to leave?

Resources mentioned

In a land of workaholics, burned-out South Koreans go to 'prison' to relax

The Art of Noticing by Rob Walker

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Tiago Forte is one of the world’s foremost experts on productivity. He writes and speaks on how knowledge workers can revolutionize their personal effectiveness using technology, and has taught more than 20,000 people around the world through his online courses and live workshops.

Tiago’s online course Building a Second Brain has been taken by more than 1,000 people from more than 60 countries.

You can learn more about Building a Second Brain at https://www.buildingasecondbrain.com/.

In the interview, Tiago and I discuss:

• How Tiago quit his consulting position to pursue a career as an entrepreneur
• What you can do to prepare for being an entrepreneur 
• Why Tiago’s first business venture was a massive success. 
• How that massive success was followed by a colossal failure and the lessons Tiago learned from that failure
• How Tiago validated his next business idea, the Building a Second Brain course, before launching it
• Why showing your failures and vulnerability can make you more appealing

Resources mentioned:

Tagging is Broken

How to Use Evernote for Your Creative Workflow

The “beautiful mess” effect

This is a special episode of Famous Failures. Instead of doing an interview, I recount the story of the first three failures that SpaceX experienced on the launchpad, which brought the company to the brink of collapse. 

You’ll learn how SpaceX leveraged these failures for later success and how you can implement the same strategies in your own life. 

The content of the episode is based on the following sources:

Tim Fernholz, Rocket Billionaires: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and the New Space Race (2018);

Shane Snow, Smartcuts: The Breakthrough Power of Lateral Thinking (2014);

Chris Bergin, Falcon I flight – preliminary assessment positive for SpaceX, Spaceflight.com (March 24, 2007) https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2007/03/falcon-i-flight-preliminary-assessment-positive-for-spacex/;

Tim Fernholz, What it took for Elon Musk’s SpaceX to disrupt Boeing, leapfrog NASA, and become a serious space company, QZ (Oct. 21, 2014) https://qz.com/281619/what-it-took-for-elon-musks-spacex-to-disrupt-boeing-leapfrog-nasa-and-become-a-serious-space-company/;

Max Chafkin, SpaceX’s Secret Weapon Is Gwynne Shotwell, Bloomberg Quint (July 26, 2018) https://www.bloombergquint.com/businessweek/she-launches-spaceships-sells-rockets-and-deals-with-elon-musk;

Elon Musk, Falcon 1, Flight 3 Mission Summary, SpaceX (Aug. 6, 2008) https://www.spacex.com/news/2013/02/11/falcon-1-flight-3-mission-summary;

Dolly Singh, What Is It Like to Work With Elon Musk?, Slate (Aug. 14, 2013) https://slate.com/human-interest/2013/08/elon-musk-what-is-it-like-to-work-for-the-spacex-tesla-chief.html;

Tom Junod, Elon Musk: Triumph of His Will, Esquire (Nov. 15, 2012) https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a16681/elon-musk-interview-1212/.

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Get your FREE copy of my e-book. Text OZAN to 345345 or navigate to weeklycontrarian.com to download a free copy of my e-book, The Contrarian Handbook: 8 Principles for Innovating Your Thinking. Along with your free e-book, you’ll get the Weekly Contrarian — a newsletter that challenges conventional wisdom and changes the way we look at the world (plus access to exclusive content for subscribers only).

Don’t want to miss future episodes? Be sure to subscribe to the podcast and leave a review on iTunes or Google Play.

As always, thanks for listening. 

Ryan Levesque is the CEO of The ASK Method ® Company, and the #1 national best-selling author of Ask: The Counterintuitive Online Method to Discover Exactly What Your Customers Want to Buy, which was named by Inc. as the #1 Marketing Book of the Year. Ryan’s work has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Forbes, and Entrepreneur and over 250,000 entrepreneurs subscribe to his email newsletter offering business advice.

His latest book, Choose, helps readers avoid making the single biggest mistake when starting a business and guides people through answering the all important question: What type of business should you start?

You can get a free copy of Choose (just pay S&H) plus over $200 in bonuses (including the audiobook) by visiting http://choosethebook.com/famousfailures. This isn’t an affiliate link—if you choose to buy Ryan’s book, I don’t make a dime.

In the interview, Ryan and I discuss:

• How Ryan quit his dream job at AIG Insurance to pursue a career as an entrepreneur
• Why people are afraid to give up “good” to go for “great” (and what to do about it)
• The one advice Ryan would give to an aspiring entrepreneur
• Why one of Ryan’s earliest businesses flopped and what he learned from that failure
• How Ryan found the idea for a massively successful business centered on growing orchids
• Why Ryan ended up in the ICU in 2012 after overworking and how he bounced back to write a bestselling book.

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Get your FREE copy of my e-book. Text OZAN to 345345 or navigate to weeklycontrarian.com to download a free copy of my e-book, The Contrarian Handbook: 8 Principles for Innovating Your Thinking. Along with your free e-book, you’ll get the Weekly Contrarian — a newsletter that challenges conventional wisdom and changes the way we look at the world (plus access to exclusive content for subscribers only).

Don’t want to miss future episodes? Be sure to subscribe to the podcast and leave a review on iTunes or Google Play.

As always, thanks for listening. 

Khe Hy is the founder of RadReads, which is a community of 20,000 professionals seeking to reexamine their relationship to money, ambition, and ultimately themselves. Khe has been called Oprah for Millennials by CNN and the Wall Street Guru by Bloomberg. He spent the first fifteen years of his career in the financial services industry researching hedge fund investments. He was one of the youngest Managing Directors at BlackRock where he oversaw the New York Research Team.

You can sign up for Khe’s newsletter, RadReads, at https://radreads.co/.

In the episode, Khe and I discuss:

• Why Khe did the unthinkable and quit his job at a Wall Street investment firm without a plan
• How Khe coped with the self-doubt and fear of failure in leaving a prestigious job and strike out on his own
• What advice Khe would give to people contemplating a similar career transition
• How he grew his newsletter, RadReads, from 0 to 16,000 subscribers
• How you can stop caring about what other people think
• What the scarcity mindset is and why more isn’t necessarily better

Resources mentioned

• How to overcome the “scarcity mindset”
• An Instagram star with 2 million followers couldn't sell 36 T-shirts, and a marketing expert says her case isn't rare

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Get your FREE copy of my e-book. Text OZAN to 345345 or navigate to weeklycontrarian.com to download a free copy of my e-book, The Contrarian Handbook: 8 Principles for Innovating Your Thinking. Along with your free e-book, you’ll get the Weekly Contrarian — a newsletter that challenges conventional wisdom and changes the way we look at the world (plus access to exclusive content for subscribers only).

Don’t want to miss future episodes? Be sure to subscribe to the podcast and leave a review on iTunes or Google Play.

As always, thanks for listening. 

Tali Sharot is a professor of cognitive neuroscience and a leading expert on the neural basis of emotion, decision making and optimism. She has been featured in numerous media outlets,including The New York Times, Time magazine, The Washington Post, CNN, BBC, and more. Her TED talk on the optimism bias was viewed over 2 million times.

Her latest book, The Influential Mind: What the Brain Reveals About Our Power to Change Others, tackles the neuroscience behind influence -- what we so often get wrong about it, how we can learn to influence others, and how to understand when we are being influenced.

In the interview, Tali and I discuss:

• How our brains are wired to look on the bright side, and why that tendency can both help and hurt us.
• Why stress can diminish our bias toward optimism
• How we can remain optimistic in the face of failure or fear of failure
• Why a failure in Tali’s own life ended up giving her the idea for her research on the optimism bias
• Why facts and data don’t tend to change minds once we form a belief.
• When hope can be a better influencer than fear — and the other way around.
• How Tali would advise the Democratic party leading up to the 2020 presidential elections.

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Get your FREE copy of my e-book. Text OZAN to 345345 or navigate to weeklycontrarian.com to download a free copy of my e-book, The Contrarian Handbook: 8 Principles for Innovating Your Thinking. Along with your free e-book, you’ll get the Weekly Contrarian — a newsletter that challenges conventional wisdom and changes the way we look at the world (plus access to exclusive content for subscribers only).

Don’t want to miss future episodes? Be sure to subscribe to the podcast and leave a review on iTunes or Google Play.

As always, thanks for listening. 

SUSAN CAIN is the author of Quiet: The Secret Strengths of Introverts, and Quiet: The Power of Introverts in A World That Can’t Stop Talking, which has been translated into 40 languages, is in its seventh year on the New York Times best seller list, and was named the #1 best book of the year by Fast Company magazine, which also named Susan one of its Most Creative People in Business. Susan’s writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, and many other publications. Her record-smashing TED talk has been viewed over 20 million times and was named by Bill Gates one of his all-time favorite talks.

You can join Susan’s newsletter at this link, and follow her on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

In the interview, Susan and I discuss:

• Why Susan left a high-powered career as a Wall Street attorney to become a writer
• What advice she has for others who are contemplating a career transition
• How she decided to write a book about introversion
• Why all literary agents, except one, Susan approached turned down her book idea
• What Susan did after her editor told her that her book was terrible and advised her to start over from scratch  
• How Susan copes with the demands of publicity as an introvert
• How introverts can survive and thrive in networking events and conferences
• How to move beyond small talk to deeper conversation

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Get your FREE copy of my e-book. Text OZAN to 345345 or navigate to weeklycontrarian.com to download a free copy of my e-book, The Contrarian Handbook: 8 Principles for Innovating Your Thinking. Along with your free e-book, you’ll get the Weekly Contrarian — a newsletter that challenges conventional wisdom and changes the way we look at the world (plus access to exclusive content for subscribers only).

Don’t want to miss future episodes? Be sure to subscribe to the podcast and leave a review on iTunes or Google Play.

As always, thanks for listening. 

Rob Walker is an author and journalist covering design, technology, business, the arts, and other subjects. He writes the Human Resource column for Lifehacker, and has contributed to The New York Times, Bloomberg Businessweek, The Atlantic, TheNewYorker.com, and many others. He is on the faculty of the Products of Design program at the School of Visual Arts.

His new book is called The Art of Noticing: 131 Ways to Spark Creativity, Find Inspiration, and Discover Joy in the Everyday. If you live in New York City, you can attend free event on May 7th where Rob will discuss his book (details here).

You can sign up for the Art of Noticing newsletter at this link and follow Rob on Twitter.

In the interview, Rob and I discuss:

• How a broken coffee mug sent Rob on a creative path to launch the Significant Objects project
• Why a meaningless object purchased on average for $1.50 can sell for $36 on average on eBay if it has a story attached to it
• Where Rob’s creative ideas come from
• How Rob bombed a news interview with Steve Jobs and why this failure was a blessing in disguise
• Why we fail to pay attention to the world around us and the dangers associated with the war against seeing
• How you can awaken your senses and see the world anew
• What three strategies Rob uses most regularly from his latest book on the Art of Noticing

Resources mentioned:

• Significant Objects Project
• Jimmy Breslin, Digging JFK Grave Was His Honor
• Rob Walker, New York Times Magazine, The Guts of a New Machine (based on Rob’s personal interview with Steve Jobs)

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Get your FREE copy of my e-book. Text OZAN to 345345 or navigate to weeklycontrarian.com to download a free copy of my e-book, The Contrarian Handbook: 8 Principles for Innovating Your Thinking. Along with your free e-book, you’ll get the Weekly Contrarian — a newsletter that challenges conventional wisdom and changes the way we look at the world (plus access to exclusive content for subscribers only).

Don’t want to miss future episodes? Be sure to subscribe to the podcast and leave a review on iTunes or Google Play.

As always, thanks for listening. 

Julian Guthrie is an award-winning journalist, New York Times best-selling author, and all around adventurer who loves underdog stories. Her new book, due out April 30, is Alpha Girls: The Women Upstarts Who Took On Silicon Valley's Male Culture and Made the Deals of a Lifetime. Julian has interviewed some of the world's most dynamic leaders and loves improbable stories and contrarian thinkers.

You can say hello to Julian on Twitter or on her website.

In the interview, Julian and I discuss:

• What attracts Julian to the stories of underdogs, ordinary people doing extraordinary things
• How Peter Diamandis, the entrepreneur best known for being the founder and chairman of the X Prize Foundation, was rejected over 150 times in raising funds for the X Prize, yet managed to keep pursuing his goal.
• The surprising strategy Julian used to get an interview with Larry Ellison, the co-founder and former CEO of Oracle
• The critical difference between rejection and failure
• Why infiltrating a system can be the best way to changing it
• How adopting multiple identities can help you cope with failure
• The common denominators of the four pioneering women whom Julian featured in her latest book, Alpha Girls, and how they managed to take on Silicon Valley’s male culture and make the deals of a lifetime.

Resources mentioned:

• How to Get Ahead by Diversifying Your Identity
• How to Make a Spaceship: A Band of Renegades, an Epic Race, and the Birth of Private Spaceflight
• The Billionaire and the Mechanic: How Larry Ellison and a Car Mechanic Teamed up to Win Sailing's Greatest Race, the Americas Cup, Twice