This week’s Learning Nugget comes from a special two-guest episode.

Paul Millerd is a former consultant at McKinsey and BCG turned author, writer of a weekly newsletter, and committed solopreneur. He teaches consulting secrets at StrategyU and is best known for hosting hundreds of Curiosity Conversations with strangers online, making friends worldwide.

Joining Paul is Steve Schlafman, a certified professional coach, speaker, newsletter writer, podcaster, angel investor, and recovering venture capitalist inspired to help high performers manifest their next calling.

This conversation originated on Twitter (now X), where Schlaf announced that he was shutting down the fund he was about to launch. He had raised tens of millions of dollars but decided to give all of that back to investors to concentrate on his coaching business.

Schlaf was done with the solopreneur path, or in his case, the solo-capitalist path, and was ready to find his posse.

Paul jumped in and said, “I am whatever the opposite of this is.”

At first it seemed obvious that they have fundamentally different outlooks on work and life. But the more our conversation evolved, the more lessons we unearthed that are applicable to anyone, no matter the path you take.

Please sit back, relax, and enjoy this Learning Nugget with Paul Millerd and Steve Schlafman.

For Paul:

• LinkedIn
• Boundless by Paul Millerd
• StrategyU
• Curiosity Conversations
• X (formerly Twitter)

For Steve:

• LinkedIn
• Website
• Where the Road Bends Podcast
• X (formerly Twitter)

Andrew LinkedIn

Joining me this week is Nicolas Cole.

Nicolas Cole is 1/3 of Category Pirates - together with Eddie Yoon and Christopher Lochhead. This trio is pioneering the work around the concept of Category Design. 

The part that really intrigued me about Category Design is that by creating a category, you can go about credibly marketing the category as opposed to your business, which for many business owners feels more than a little bit uncomfortable. In contrast, talking about the category or the passion that drives the business could be something you do endlessly.

In this conversation with Nicolas, we are able to break apart what it means to create a category, and how to go about category design. 

If you have any interest in understanding how the likes of Steve Jobs and Elon Musk have created massive value as inventors of new products, then this is the episode for you.

Please sit back, relax and enjoy my conversation with Nicolas Cole.

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Joining me this week is Jack Murray.

Jack is the CEO of MediaHQ, a media contacts and press release distribution platform. Jack started his career as a political and media adviser to a political party in Ireland. He released an incredible book called, The Magic Slice: How to Master the Art of Storytelling for Business. You'll realize from listening to this conversation just how powerful it is to reframe what the mission of the company is in that way.

In this episode, we talk through the six steps in the framework for The Magic Slice, which is the intersection between the mission for your company, and what your audience is interested in.

We also spend a lot of time talking about practicing creativity, how creativity is not something that you are born with - it is a discipline, it is a way of doing things. One of the great things he says in the episode is how creativity is about putting yourself in a position where you're forced to do the things that you want to be good at.

Whether you have a company or you're working in a company, you're going to learn a lot from listening to Jack, and you'll learn even more from getting his book.

Please sit back and enjoy my episode with Jack Murray.

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Joining me this week is Harpreet Sahota.

Harpreet is a data scientist at the Machine Learning company, Comet. He's also the host of a podcast called The Artists of Data Science, which has an extraordinary guest list. 

He's also a data science mentor for Data Science Dream Job, an interactive online course, and we talk a lot about mentorship in this episode. 

What I learned is that Data Science or Data Analytics is an umbrella term for a lot of different roles and a lot of different components within the field of Data. While you may think that Data Science is not something that you may need right now - you'll learn that the ability to interpret data and tell meaningful stories with data is actually critical to your job or your business.

Harpreet’s interests are many - he is as much a data scientist as he is a content creator, online writer, avid reader, and philosopher - with all of those interests reflected in this incredibly insightful discussion.

Please sit back and enjoy my conversation with Harpreet.

👉Continue the conversation with me:
https://twitter.com/Bazzaruto

💌Get my 2-week email course on creating your own online course:
http://coursecreator.studio/email

Joining me this week is Nadine Kelly.

Nadine is the founder of NPK Health Integration. She graduated from the University of Chicago and studied Medicine, became a Pathologist, and she worked in the study of disease for many years. Until a quite terrifying experience made her realize that that path was not meant for her. She then got into Taekwondo, and she also went down the path of learning about yoga. 

She now takes this incredible background and experience and teaches mature women how to integrate health.

I think all of us have that feeling of "who am I to have the audacity to be bigger?" at some point. I know, I'm going through that right now. And when faced with the reckoning of what kind of impact you can have on the world - taking the path of bigger things often leads to the most enjoyable outcome.

Please enjoy my conversation with Dr. Nadine Kelly.

👉Continue the conversation with me:
https://twitter.com/Bazzaruto

💌Get my 2-week email course on creating your own online course:
http://coursecreator.studio/email

The first guest joining me for this conversation is Paul Millerd. Paul is a former consultant at both McKinsey and BCG. He is now a committed solopreneur having left the traditional path. He teaches people about strategy and consultation at StrategyU, and is best known for making friends on the internet and hosting hundreds of Curiosity Conversations.

My second guest is Steve Schlafman. Schlaf is a professional certified coach, facilitator, speaker, angel investor, former operator and recovering venture capitalist. He currently operates High Output.

This conversation originated on Twitter, where Schlaf announced that he was shutting down the fund he was about to launch. Paul jumped into this conversation and said “I am whatever the opposite of this is.” At first, it seemed true that these two guys have fundamentally different outlooks on work and life. But the more this conversation evolved, the more we found common ground, and lessons that were applicable to anyone, no matter what path you take - whether it's solo, or working with others.

Please sit back and enjoy my conversation with Paul Millerd and Steve Schlafman.

👉Continue the conversation with me:
https://twitter.com/Bazzaruto

💌Get my 2-week email course on creating your own online course:
http://coursecreator.studio/email

Joining me this week are the guests from the podcast's past.

I am very excited to present a mash-up episode as a way to give thanks to the masterminds who’ve been on the show and offer something special back to the community.

This one is themed around the topic of mentors. I'm super excited to dive in here, I think you're going to learn a lot from my selection of 13 previous guests. In the spirit of thanks - given that it’s Thanksgiving week here in the United States when this has been recorded and released - I would really appreciate it if you could give thanks for any enjoyment that you've had from this podcast, by liking, subscribing, or following the show.

To celebrate the spirit of Thanksgiving, I’m excited to announce a special competition. If you leave a review, take a screenshot of it and send it to [email protected]. I'll be sending one lucky listener a book of their choice from a selection of my favorite books of this year. So please leave a review, take a screenshot and send it to [email protected].

And without further ado, let's learn about mentors.

👉Continue the conversation with me: https://twitter.com/Bazzaruto
💌Get my 2-week email course on creating your own online course: http://coursecreator.studio/email

Joining me this week is Scott Jeffrey Miller.

Scott is an entrepreneur and also a Senior Advisor in Thought Leadership for Franklin Covey, a world leader in consulting and training, enabling individuals and organizations to achieve results that require lasting changes in human behavior. It's a fascinating role and seeing Scott's day-to-day covers a lot of the topics we've talked about on this podcast.

He says that no one can call themselves a “Thought Leader”, many do but those are the people you should avoid - it has to be bestowed upon you. His recent years have been dedicated to building out what it means to be recognized as a Thought Leader.

One of the key takeaways, which we talked about in this episode, is how there aren't really any new ideas out there; and how we all have permission to twist existing ideas into new ones. 

This conversation moves between all of the different transformational insights that Scott has gleaned from his years interviewing incredible personalities for his book, Master Mentors. In fact, one of the topics we discuss in depth is how important it is to protect your brain - to literally be aware of the shock and trauma that our actual brains go through. I guarantee there is something in this episode for you.

Please sit back and enjoy my conversation with Scott Jeffrey Miller.

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Joining me this week is the tea expert, Nicole Wilson.

She has been exploring the world of tea and writing about what she learned on her blog Tea for Me Please since 2008. For the last 13 years she’s been following a passion, following her curiosity, learning everything she can about the topic, building a community, and sharing thoughts, ideas, and value for people.  She’s been navigating the quintessential creative path. What makes it especially fascinating is that it’s in such a specific niche, which made for a very interesting and unique conversation.

If you didn't know anything about tea or thought maybe you weren't that interested in tea, I guarantee you'll find something of interest in this conversation with Nicole.

So please sit back with a cup of tea and enjoy my conversation with Nicole Wilson.

👉Continue the conversation with me: https://twitter.com/Bazzaruto

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My conversation today is with Akira the Don.

He is a musician, artist, creator, and one-man record label, who has created a style of music that he calls Meaningwave.

He takes meaningful lyrics from people like Jocko Willink, Jordan Peterson, Alan Watts, and David Foster Wallace; mixing these lyrics to music that is emotional and melodic. He uses some lo-fi hip hop, to create what he calls psychotechnology - a way to share meaningful ideas with people in a delivery mechanism that is frictionless, enjoyable, and fun to listen to. 

We discuss how important being a consistent producer of content is, regardless of what it is that you're creating.

A lot of the lessons that he's drawn in his life and a lot of our discussion is centered around the ideas that he shares in the music that he puts out.

If you are interested in the world of ideas, the creative process, or how this all comes together to make the world a better place, you're going to love this episode.

👉 Continue the conversation with me: https://twitter.com/Bazzaruto
💌 Get my 2-week email course on creating your own online course: http://coursecreator.studio/email