When it Mattered

Ep. 32 — An economics reporter is jolted by the 2016 Presidential race and rethinks all his assumptions about the American economy and electorate / Binyamin Appelbaum, Author, The Economist’s Hour.

Binyamin Appelbaum had been reporting and writing about economics for more than a decade when Donald Trump won the 2016 Presidential race.

The shocking outcome led Appelbaum to realize that he must go back to the drawing board, to Macroeconomics 101, in order to understand what had just happened.

What resulted is his terrific book, "The Economists' Hour: False Prophets, Free Markets, and the Fracture of Society."

The Economists' Hour refers to the 40-year period from 1969 to 2008 when a cadré of economists rose from obscurity to household names, shaping government policy and shifting the government's role from actively shaping the economy to allowing the market to largely do so.

Appelbaum concludes that those economists were in essence, "False Prophets.”

“They sold their ideas by representing that if we embrace this approach to public policy, the economy would grow more quickly, all boats would be lifted up, prosperity would be broad and well distributed, and even that democracy would benefit,” says Appelbaum. “And I think in all three of those respects, this change in policy making failed to deliver. Growth has slowed, inequality has increased, and our democracy is in worse shape than ever.”

Now a New York Times editorial board member, Appelbaum offers an eye-popping primer on the economic forces that are shaping the 2020 Presidential elections.

This is a terrific conversation that offers timely context for President Trump’s proposed $4.8 trillion budget that comes with huge safety-net cuts.

Appelbaum’s sweeping history of America’s macro-economic policies in The Economist’s Hour is a must-read for every voter who plans to cast his or her ballot in the 2020 Presidential race.

I know I came away feeling much smarter after reading Appelbaum’s book and having had this deep discussion with him and I can better understand the economic and social consequences of how I cast my ballot this November. And I hope so will you.

Tanscript

Download the PDF

Ragavan:

Binyamin Appelbaum had been writng about economics with considerable success for more than a decade. When Donald Trump was elected President in November 2016. The shocking victory jolted Appelbaum into a humbling realization. Hello everyone. I'm Chitra Ragavan and this is When It Mattered. This episode is brought to you by Goodstory, an advisory firm helping technology start ups find their narrative. After Trump's election in 2016, Appelbaum knew he had to go back to the drawing board and reconnect the dots in his understanding and the public's understanding of the macroeconomic factors that got Trump elected President. What resulted is his terrific book, The Economists' Hour: False Prophets, Free Markets, and the Fracture of Society.

Ragavan:

Joining me now to share what he discovered and the factors that could swing the 2020 Presidential race is Binyamin Appelbaum. He is the lead writer on business and economics for the New York Times editorial board. Before joining the editorial board, Appelbaum was a Washington correspondent for the Times, covering economic policy in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. Appelbaum also worked for the Charlotte Observer where his reporting on the subprime lending crisis won a George Polk Award and was a finalist for the Pulitzer prize. Binyamin, welcome to the podcast.

Appelbaum:

Thank you for having me.

Ragavan:

Were you one of those geeky kids? A wiz at math and head buried in books? Where did you grow up and what were you like?

Appelbaum:

I grew up outside of Boston and yeah. My father is a professor. My mother is a historian. It was very much a family where books were very important. There was a shelf in my living room where my parents' books were read and shelves throughou...

Ep. 31 — A single mother of two young sons takes lessons from her grandfather, a small-time hustler turned big-time property owner, about the value of homeownership / Katrina Jones, VP, Single Family Mortgage Business, Fannie Mae.

When her husband passed away at a young age, Katrina Jones was left to raise two kids, forcing her to drop out of college to confront her new responsibilities. It would prove to be the most challenging time of her life.

What kept Jones going was not just the support she got from her extended family but lessons from her grandfather, a street-smart hustler named George Carter.

Born on a plantation in 1990, Carter was the son of a former slave who knew he was destined for something bigger. So he dropped out of school at age 12 and ran away from home to Washington D.C., determined to make a life for himself.

Strong-willed and stubborn, Carter slept on streets and did a bunch of odd jobs and side hustles, hauling trash and fixing stoops, convincing people to take a chance on him. Unbathed and unkempt as he was, many turned him away. But others gave him a shot.

Little by little, Carter put away the dough to start buying property. His first parcel of land was in Arlington, Virginia, bought for $175, mortgage payment of about $10 a month. Not knowing how to read or write, he signed for it with an X, proud to be able to give his young wife, the woman of his dreams, the home she wanted to raise her family.

“There was nothing traditional about that house, five doors, more than 30 windows,” remembers Jones with a laugh, “There were always two kitchens, one upstairs for the winter and one downstairs for the summer. No central air conditioning. Windows were just open, put in a screen with some netting. It was just what we called, that's a scrappy house to go with the scrappy gentleman, who managed to fulfill his wife's dream of creating a home in Arlington where she could raise her family.”

Over the decades, quietly and confidently, Carter acquired property, lot after lot — bought or a relative pittance by today’s housing prices — working his street hustles and sweat equity. Today those lots are worth millions.

For Jones, it was entirely accidental that she ended up in the housing business. But it’s only made her appreciate even more the priceless legacy her late grandfather left for his family.

A recent Forbes piece says a lack of home equity in black families is one big reason for the racial wealth gap between blacks and whites, analyzing 2016 data. “African-Americans on average had home equity of less than $12,000 in September. White households in comparison had average home equity of almost $189,000 then,” wrote author Christian Weller. “Black households on average own only about six percent the housing wealth of white households.”

Today, Millennials are also struggling with many challenges with homeownership, including lack of savings, debt, and lack of affordable housing.

“I think the way people live is changing, where they want to live is changing, how they want to live is changing and our industry needs a bit of re-imagining to consider, how do we meet the needs of today's generation of future homeowners and tomorrow in a new, different way,” says Jones. “Hopefully we figure that out, but I think affordable housing is a big challenge for us right now. I see it play out in my own family.”

Tanscript

Download the PDF

Chitra Ragavan:   When Katrina Jones' husband passed away at a young age, she was left to raise two kids on her own, forcing her to drop out of college to confront her new responsibilities. It would prove to be the most challenging time of her life.

Chitra Ragavan:   Hello everyone, I'm Chitra Ragavan and this is When It Mattered. This episode is brought to you by Goodstory, an advisory firm helping technology startups find their narrative.

Chitra Ragavan:   When her husband died, what kept Jones going was not just the support she got from her exte...

Ep. 30 — An acting class convinces an engineering student to devote her career to building charismatic, performing, social robots / Heather Knight Associate Professor of Robotics, Oregon State University.

When Heather Knight was working on her Ph.D. in Robotics at Carnegie Mellon University, a two-week class she took in the drama department, called Movement for Actors totally detoured her thesis plans. And it became the heart and soul of her life and work: Helping robots become more like humans.

Little did she know how difficult it would be.

“I literally spent the next three years trying to get a robot to communicate by emotion, in a way that was similar to the first two weeks of that class,” Knight recalls.

But Knight was hooked. Since then, she has devoted her career to becoming a social roboticist. She specializes in building emotional, useful, so-called “charismatic” robots.

These robots are “charismatic” in more ways than one.

Knight’s lab at Oregon State University is called The CHARISMA Robotics Lab. CHARISMA is an acronym for Collaborative Humans and Robots: Interaction Sociability, Machine learning, & Art.

Knight and her team get wildly creative with robots, infusing them not only with smarts but also sociability, charm, humor, practicality, and collaborativeness. In other words, human traits.

If anyone can do it, it’s Knight.  In addition to her Ph.D. in Robotics, Knight also has degrees in Electrical and Mechanical Engineering and Computer Science.

Fiercely smart with a capacity for goofy, artsy and playful, Knight has worked as an engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, helped build wildly popular interactive installations including the crazy Rube Goldberg machine in OK Go’s “This Too Shall Pass” music video, which has nearly 64 million views! She has served as a Robotics Artist in Residence and as an Artist/Engineer. She’s done a TedTalk with her robotic standup comedian, Data. And she’s a sought-after thought leader in her field.

Knight also runs  Marilyn Monrobot, a robot theater company where she does comedy performances with Data and even organizes an annual Robot Film Festival.

The more Knight works with robots, the more she has come to understand an immutable truth: Humans are awesome.

“One of the things that I love about what I do, is that I constantly get to kind of bask in the glory of all of the things that we take for granted. Like it's so hard for autonomous cars to actually make sense of the world. And we can see a path through a forest just because of how the leaves are slightly more beaten down, even though there are pine needles and rocks. Our vision systems are absolutely amazing,” Knight says. “And our ability to feel like that someone isn't trustworthy in like 30 seconds or like judge a job interview or decide who to talk to at a party. It’'s very cool what we're capable of, I mean, I don't know if there's life in the extended universe, but we are very rare and unique and lucky.”

Tanscript

Download the PDF

Chitra Ragavan:   Her dad is a former engineer who built lasers and propulsion systems. Her mom is a multilingual former Peace Corps volunteer. Heather Knight has molded his mind and her heart into a very unique field of robotics, building emotional, playful, social robots. Hello everyone, I'm Chitra Ragavan, and this is When It Mattered. This episode is brought to you by Good Story, an advisory firm helping technology startups find their narrative.

Chitra Ragavan:   Joining me now is Heather Knight, Assistant Professor of Robotics at Oregon State University. Her charisma research group uses methods from entertainment to bootstrap the development of social robots. Knight also runs Marilyn Monrobot, a robot theater company with comedy performances and an annual robot film festival. Knight was named to the Forbes :ist 30 under 30 in science, in 2011 and Ad Week's top 100 creatives in 2017. Heather, welcome to the podcast.

Ep. 29 — A second generation holocaust survivor stops carrying the weight of her father’s suffering and starts living life to the fullest / Helene Johnson, President & CEO, Bid2Win.

When Helene Johnson was just six years old, she decided to get to the bottom of her beloved father’s bouts of anger and sadness.

Johnson demanded a full account of what her dad had been through for five years in Nazi captivity.

Obedient to her command, Johnson’s dad told her not only everything that had happened to him and his family but also what he’d seen happening to others in the Nazi concentration camps.

Neither father nor daughter realized at that moment the devastating impact those stories would have on Johnson. She became captive to fear in all aspects of her daily life, work, and even worship.

“It made me extremely afraid to be in crowds. I'm afraid to go on the Metro, which would have been nice today for work, but I just can't do it,” says Johnson. “I can't take being closed in and not having any chance to escape. When I go into stadiums or concerts or even the movie theater, I have to look for the exit and I have to know that there's a way to escape . . .  To this day, I cannot go into a synagogue on the Jewish holidays. I did when my kids were little and I was freaked out, totally, every time.”

Johnson spent much of her adulthood trapped in her own shadow of fear and self-doubt, all the while building an impressive career  in government contracting.

Recently, after Johnson’s beloved dad passed away, she noticed a gradual change in herself. It’s a change that has given her new life, soul, and spirit.

Johnson’s story is a reminder of the multi-generational toll of the Holocaust. These stories are vital to prevent such events from ever happening again. A Pew Research Center survey released this week shows that, "Most U.S. adults know what the Holocaust was and approximately when it happened, but fewer than half can correctly answer multiple-choice questions about the number of Jews who were murdered or the way Adolf Hitler came to power.” And the survey revealed that fewer than 50% know that nearly 6 million Jews were killed in the Holocaust.

A New York Times story last week reported a disturbing rise in Neo-Nazi threats, “particularly from adherents who cluster in small cells organized under the auspices of a larger group that spreads violent ideology.” The report compared this trend in decentralization of the movement to al-globally dispersed radicalization and terrorism through small cells “or even lone wolves who would be inspired to plot their own attacks.

Tanscript

Download the PDF

Chitra Ragavan:   Helene Johnson was just six years old when she asked her father, a Holocaust survivor, to tell her exactly what he had been through during five years in Nazi captivity. Her dad took her request seriously. He told her everything that had happened to him and his family. It may not have been a very wise move, either for her to ask him or for him to tell her at that young age. His story had a harsh impact on her childhood, and in fact, her whole life. Johnson spent much of her adulthood as a second generation Holocaust Survivor, captive in her own shadow of fear and self-doubt, all the while building an impressive career in government contracting.

Chitra Ragavan:   Hello everyone. I'm Chitra Ragavan and this is When It Mattered. This episode is brought to you by Goodstory, an advisory firm helping technology startups find their narrative.

Chitra Ragavan:   Recently, after Helene Johnson's beloved dad passed away, she noticed a gradual change in herself. It's a change that has given her new life, soul and spirit. Here to tell us more about what happened is Helene Johnson. She's president and CEO of Bid2Win, a Washington D.C. area consulting firm that's helping companies bid for and win federal contracts. Helene, welcome to the podcast.

Helene Johnson:   Hi, thank you. It's nice to be here.

Ep. 28 — A dermatologist from a pedigreed Los Alamos science family fights to break the mold in sports, medicine, and Silicon Valley / Dr. Michelle Longmire, CEO and Co-Founder, Medable.

Her grandfather worked with Robert Oppenheimer on the hydrogen bomb. Her mother is a radiochemist and plutonium expert, her father is an expert in recombinant - DNA technology.

With that pedigree, there was little doubt that Michelle Longmire would embark on a career in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM).

Indeed, when she was young, one of Dr. Longmire’s annual science projects involved breeding multiple generations of hamsters to study Mendelian inheritance patterns.

Today, Michelle Longmire is a rising star in her own right in medicine and technology. But throughout her life, Dr. Longmire has found herself underestimated as she has competed fiercely to break the mold in male-dominated sports and careers.

“When I was first competing in sports, I was also very small. I was playing coed hockey. And I was less than a hundred pounds. So I think people saw me as fairly small and weren't so sure about my capabilities,” Longmire recalls.  “And then I would get on the ice and I was really fast and I was probably meaner than most and loved to compete. And so, being underestimated actually I think is a tremendous advantage because then when you surprise people with what you're capable of, it's really an aha moment that generates a lot of opportunities to reset what's possible.”

In sports, Longmire became a champion soccer player and team leader and in medicine, she is a Stanford-educated practicing dermatologist and expert in the genetic origins of certain fatal diseases.

Now, Dr. Michelle Longmire is breaking the Founder mold in Silicon Valley where female founders are scarce.

She is CEO and Co-Founder of the digital health platform, Medable, a multi-million dollar healthcare startup that’s transforming the way clinical trials are conducted globally.

Longmire says her desire to tackle hard problems comes from her grandfather, Conrad Longmire.

“I think as an entrepreneur and being in Silicon Valley, we can see a number of different opportunities for how we invest our time.” Longmire says. “And I think we should really aim to solve hard problems that bring a lot of value to humanity and what I learned through my grandfather was that through a team, a dedicated team of experts, you really can solve problems.”

Tanscript

Download the PDF

Chitra Ragavan:   Born in a family of scientists, her grandfather worked with Robert Oppenheimer on the hydrogen bomb. Dr. Michelle Longmire is a rising star in the science and technology field, but throughout her life and career, Dr. Longmire has found herself underestimated as she has competed fiercely to break the mold in male dominated sports and careers. In sports, she became a champion soccer player and team leader and in medicine, Dr. Longmire is a Stanford educated practicing dermatologist and expert in the genetic origins of certain fatal diseases.

Chitra Ragavan:   Hello everyone. I'm Chitra Ragavan and this is When It Mattered. This episode is brought to you by Goodstory, an advisory firm helping technology startups find their narrative. Dr. Michelle Longmire also has broken the founder mold in Silicon Valley where female founders are scarce. Her multimillion dollar digital health startup is transforming the way clinical trials are conducted globally. Joining me now is Michelle Longmire, CEO and Co-Founder of the digital health platform, Medable. Dr Longmire, welcome to the podcast.

Dr. Longmire:   Thank you so much. It's really great to be here.

Chitra Ragavan:   You come from an extraordinary family of scientists with deep ties to the Los Alamos National Laboratories, home of the Manhattan project and creation of the atomic bomb. Let's talk with your late grandfather Conrad Longmire. Tell us a little bit about him.

Dr. Longmire:   Sure.

Ep. 27 — A young African American raised on an Arkansas farm overcomes poverty and racial discrimination and finds his voice fighting for the underprivileged / David Branch, Employment Attorney, David Branch Law Firm.

Dear Listeners,

The New Year brings a new season of When It Mattered, my podcast examining how leaders and pioneers are forged from critical moments in their lives.

I’m thrilled to launch Season Two with the inspiring story of Washington D.C. attorney, David Branch, a descendant of the extraordinary Branch family in Arkansas, with a lineage nearly 600-members strong.

The great-great-grandson of a slave from Africa, Victoria Wakefield, Branch was raised on a farm in rural Arkansas with eight siblings on his parent’s meager income of $10,000 a year.

The farm was just two hours from historic Elaine, Arkansas, where, in 1919, a dispute between black farmers attempting to organize a union resulted in the deadly massacre of 200 African American men, women, and children by white Arkansans.

The poverty, racial discrimination and the fearful stories of the Eliane race riots that were passed down through generations of the Branch family, deeply affected David.

But David overcame his insecurities and became one of 70 Branch first cousins to attend college.

It wasn't easy.

“I went to Southern Methodist University and that's a very wealthy school in Dallas,” says Branch, “So from a $10,000-family income to sitting next to millionaires and people who were driving Mercedes and BMWs at campus, that was really difficult to adjust to and just the whole mindset of people from financial means such as that.”

Branch moved to Washington D.C. to go to law school and found his voice as an employment attorney fighting for the underprivileged.

In his free time, Branch is dedicated to giving back to the community in a very big way, through many charitable activities, both in Washington D.C. and around the globe.

I hope you enjoy this heart-warming story of David Branch, a pioneer in a pioneering family.

With Warm Regards,

Chitra Ragavan

Tanscript

Download the PDF

Chitra Ragavan:   David Branch was raised on a farm in rural Arkansas with eight siblings on his parents' meager income of $10,000 a year. The great, great grandson of a slave from Africa who was committed to education, Branch pulled up his Arkansas roots to go to college in Dallas and then law school in Washington, D.C. confronting great adversity in the process.

Chitra Ragavan:   Hello, everyone. I'm Chitra Ragavan, and this is When It Mattered. This episode is brought to you by Goodstory, an advisory firm helping technology startups find their narrative.

Chitra Ragavan:   Today, Branch is a prominent employment attorney and head of the David Branch Law firm. He has a deep commitment to giving back to his community and is passionate about fighting for clients who are confronting racism or other forms of discrimination, much like he did when he set off to get that education and create a life that would do his great-great-grandma proud. David, welcome to the podcast.

David Branch:   Good morning. Welcome. Thank you.

Chitra Ragavan:   You come from an extraordinary lineage, one of 600 descendants of the Branch family. Let's start with your great-great-grandmother, Victoria Wakefield. She was a slave who paved the path for hundreds of Branches to seek education, much of it against the backdrop of the civil rights movement and busing.

David Branch:   Yes, that's correct. My great-great-grandmother Victoria Wakefield was a slave in Florida at first, and then she was later sold into slavery in Vicksburg, Mississippi. And from Vicksburg, Mississippi after the civil war, she moved to Arkansas and it's the part of Arkansas known as the Mississippi Delta.

David Branch:   And my great-great-grandmother married a civil war veteran. His name was Henry Wakefield. And after Mr. Wakefield passed away,

Ep. 26 — A Christian Scientist forsakes her religion after taking meds for the stomach flu and takes a life detour to uncover the science of spiritual experiences / Barbara Bradley Hagerty, Contributing Writer, The Atlantic and Author, Fingerprints of God.

Barbara Bradley Hagerty found herself at a crossroads one day when she got the stomach flu and realized she could no longer abide by the rules of her religion, Christian Science, banning the use of any medications.

“I just lay there and this flashing in my head went off, Tylenol, Tylenol, Tylenol, so I got out of bed and I practically crawled to the medicine cabinet and pulled myself up by the sink, took one Tylenol, not two, just one and crawled back to bed. I lay there and about five minutes later I'm thinking wow I feel pretty good,” Hagerty remembers. “Now that was the beginning of the end for Christian Science for me.”

Though Hagerty’s short-term health conundrum was resolved, it was only the beginning of a long-term spiritual crisis.

She had to confront a much bigger issue that no meds could solve and it had to do not with her body, but with her soul.

So she went on a quest and the answers she found were surprising, even shocking and resulted in her fascinating book, Fingerprints of God, about how what and why of spirituality and spiritual experiences.

Join me on this journey to the center of the soul, with award-winning journalist and author, Barbara Bradley Hagerty.

Transcript

Download the PDF

Chitra Ragavan:   Barbara Bradley Hagerty caught the stomach flu one day. It was no ordinary bug. It was a bug so bad that it set off a short-term health conundrum and a long-term spiritual crisis. Bradley Hagerty was a Christian Scientist and the religion forbids medications, but she felt so awful that she took her first Tylenol ever. Even after Hagerty beat back the stomach flu, there was a bigger issue that no meds could solve. It had to do not with her body, but with her soul. So she went on a quest and the answers she found was surprising, even shocking.

Chitra Ragavan:   Hello everyone I'm Chitra Ragavan and this is When It Mattered. This episode is brought to you by Goodstory, an advisory firm, helping technology startups find their narrative. I'm joined today by Barbara Bradley Hagerty. She is an award-winning formal journalist for the Christian Science Monitor and National Public Radio. Hagerty currently is a contributing writer to The Atlantic Monthly. She's the author of Fingerprints of God: What Science is Learning About the Brain and Spiritual Experience.

Chitra Ragavan:   Barb welcome to the podcast.

Barbara Hagerty:   It's great to be here.

Chitra Ragavan:   There you were. You were 34 years old in a hotel in New Haven, Connecticut, never having taken a pill of any kind as a Christian Scientist and you had the stomach flu.

Barbara Hagerty:   I sure did. It with three days of just being so, so sick. I remember coming home from I think, from exams at Yale. I was on a fellowship there, every year Yale invites five journalists to go through their first year of law school. I was doing this fellowship. I got incredibly sick. I remember going into bed and putting every piece of clothing, blanket, everything I had on top of me because I was so sick. I was shivering. I was shaking. Suddenly, I remembered that my boyfriend at the time who lived in Washington had left a bottle of Tylenol in the medicine cabinet.

Barbara Hagerty:   I just lay there and this flashing in my head went off, Tylenol, Tylenol, Tylenol, so I got out of bed and I practically crawled to the medicine cabinet and pulled myself up by the sink, took one Tylenol, not two, just one and crawled back to bed. I lay there and about five minutes later I'm thinking wow I feel pretty good. I'm getting warm. Let me get all of these covers off of me. I'm hot, hot. About 15 minutes later I'm sitting there. I'm at the stove. I'm making some tomato soup and I feel terrific...

Ep. 25 — A double-leg amputee with a love for running beats back a cocaine addiction and battles Olympic bureaucracy in his quest to become the fastest runner in the world / Blake Leeper, Eight-Time Paralympic Medalist. and 2020 Summer Olympics Aspirant

Born without legs from a congenital birth defect, Blake Leeper discovered his mission and passion in life when he watched South African Paralympic champion sprinter Oscar Pistorius competing in the 2008 Paralympics in Beijing.

It triggered in Leeper a deep desire to run, despite being a double-leg amputee.

“They were saying, ‘Look how this man born without legs...’ I feel like they were talking about me but there were talking about him of course. I was just like, shocked, I was amazed,” remembers Leeper. I was like, ‘Wow, there's something for me.’ And the crowd of Beijing was 90,000 people and they were cheering. It was just a spark of inspiration that was planted inside of me that even though I never ran track and field a day in my life I just felt and knew that's what I need to do with my life.”

Leeper got running blades like Pistorius's and began racing in 2010. With grit and endurance, he became an eight-time Paralympic medalist representing the United States.

But just as Leeper hit his stride professionally, he entered a dark period in his personal life. He tested positive for cocaine and was banned from competing for nearly two years.

It was a devastating blow. But today, at age 26, Leeper says he's back on track, running faster than ever, training better than ever and with one clear goal, to become the fastest runner in the world.

That’s easier said than done. Leeper is struggling to qualify for future Paralympics and the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo because of a dispute over whether his running blades give him an unfair height and speed advantage over able-bodied runners.

Leeper is fighting back with the same legal team that helped Pistorius qualify for the 2012 Summer Olympics.

Don’t miss this fascinating episode with a very different type of Blade Runner.

#Leadership #WhatInspiresMe #Success #WhenItMattered

Tanscript

Download the PDF

Chitra Ragavan:   Although he was born without legs from a congenital birth defect, Blake Leeper has never allowed that to prevent him from winning in sports. When Leeper was a teenager, he watched South African sprinter Oscar Pistorius in the 2008 Paralympics in Beijing. It triggered in him a deep desire to run. Leeper began racing in 2010. Since then he has become an eight-time Paralympic track and field international medalist. He holds many world records, including the sixth-fastest runner in the world in the 400-meter dash.

Chitra Ragavan:   Hello everyone, I'm Chitra Ragavan and this is When It Mattered. This episode is brought to you by Goodstory, an advisory firm helping technology startups find their narrative. I'm joined today by Blake Leeper, who at age 26 has ambitious goals to become one of the fastest runners in the world. But Leeper is struggling to compete in the Paralympics and get accepted into the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. International racing authorities say his running blades give him an unfair height and speed advantage over able-bodied runners. It's a fight he's determined to win.

Chitra Ragavan:   Blake, welcome to the podcast.

Blake Leeper:   Thank you so much for having me. It is an honor and a pleasure, and just thank you so much for allowing me to share my story and just some of the things I've been through in my life that allow me to be in the situation that I am in today.

Chitra Ragavan:   You were born with this extraordinary challenge of being a double amputee, yet you've never let it get in the way. How did you overcome those early years of adversity to start participating both is sports and in life?

Blake Leeper:   I really give it to my parents, my family members. I grew up in East Tennessee, and I had an older Brother,

Ep. 24 — A bored and broke undergraduate has a terrible car crash and uses it as a turning point to pursue wealth and knowledge / Richard Wilson, CEO and founder of the Family Office Club.

Richard Wilson was phoning it in like many undergraduate students, feeling unmotivated and unrewarded. Then, driving home one night from college to his parent's home, Wilson hydroplaned in the rain into a cement barricade.

“The car just kind of crumpled in half and it was the middle of the night, pouring rain. I just kind of stumbled out of the car and several cars stopped because my headlights were facing oncoming traffic. And some people saw my car spinning,” remembers Wilson. “And I just kind of walked away from it, luckily. And it just kind of opened my eyes to that my life could have ended right then.”

That was, literally and figuratively, a turning point in Wilson's life. He started piling on more coursework to graduate early and enter the workforce.

He learned how to work the phones to look for the best jobs and  how to negotiate for higher salaries.

And he started to look for “anomalous opportunities,” searching for “white spaces,” where there wasn’t much competition and where he could create his own brand and niche.

He found it in the Family Office world, helping high net worth families find and make the right investments and connecting Family Offices to each other.

He started a LinkedIn group, bought and quickly monetized a Family Office website, and spoke at 150 events over 14 countries.

Today, Wilson is the author of four books and one of the global authorities on Family Offices and investment strategies for the ultra-wealthy.

Transcript

Download the PDF

Chitra Ragavan:   Richard Wilson was driving home one night from college to his parent's home. Despite his usual pre-drive triple shot latte, Wilson hydroplaned in the rain straight into a cement barricade. That was, literally and figuratively, a turning point in his life. Today, Wilson helps ultra wealthy families create and manage their single family offices.

Chitra Ragavan:   Hello everyone. I'm Chitra Ragavan and this is When It Mattered. This episode is brought to you by Goodstory, an advisory firm helping technology startups find their narrative. I'm joined today by Richard Wilson, CEO and founder of the Family Office Club. Wilson also is the author of four books on family offices. Richard, welcome to the podcast.

Richard Wilson:   Thanks for having me here, Chitra.

Chitra Ragavan:   You were an undergraduate student when that accident happened that put you on this path to wealth building, but you always were a budding entrepreneur. How young were you and what was that path?

Richard Wilson:   Well, just when I was maybe five to seven years old, my parents would pay me a penny per pine cone, pick them up in the yard or they'd pay me a penny per page to read books. We had Christmas wreath sales in the Boy Scouts. We did lemonade stands. I would go along with my dad to his meetings because he had his own business and I'd sit in on his meetings with him. So it was pretty early on that I got exposed to entrepreneurism and I guess capitalism. So I kind of blame my parents for that.

Chitra Ragavan:   And you became more successful at it as you grew older. I mean you had a lot of failed schemes and scams, but you also had some successful ones. What were those? Both of those.

Richard Wilson:   Sure. So I had a yard service business and we had some neighborhood clients for that. I had a radio station, internet advertising business that kind of flopped. I also had a used textbook business when I was in college. I also had a long distance telephone service business where I'd call all the parents in the school directory, and try to sell them on changing their long distance phone provider to the company I was representing, as kind of a commissioned salesperson. So a number of different things. Some worked a little bit,

Ep 23 — A political strategist loses his mojo and becomes one of the greatest comedy writers of our time / Jon Macks, Comedy Writer, Democratic Political Consultant, Author.

Jon Macks thought he was in for a great ride to the top. Having quit law school for a career as a political strategist, Macks won two big state elections for his clients.

But the euphoria quickly wore off and shock set in when Macks then lost 23 straight races in a row.

“It's almost self-fulfilling. What happens is that when you are on a losing streak, no one good will hire you,” says Macks, “And so they don't have much money, they can't win the campaign, they don't have the skills, and so then you rack up another loss. So basically at that point you're in a position where you have to somehow convince one person to take a chance on you.”

And that’s exactly what happened. Macks began his upward trajectory as a political strategist again, traveling tens of thousands of miles for many winning candidates.

To keep himself occupied on those flights, Macks wrote free-lance jokes and sent them in to the rising star stand-up comic, Jay Leno, who was about to become Johnny Carson’s successor on The Tonight Show.

One thing led to another and Leno offered Macks a full-time writer position on the show.

It was the beginning of an amazing career in stand-up comedy.

During his 22 years on The Tonight Show, Macks wrote an estimated 500,000 jokes, getting a record 18,000 on the air.

He’s also written for top comedians including Billy Crystal, Martin Short, Steve Martin, Chris Rock, and famous actors. And Macks has maintained a parallel career as a top strategist and writer for democratic political candidates and even some U.S. Presidents.

In this fascinating interview, Macks talks about how he surmounted his early obstacles in politics and went on to become one of the most prolific and successful comedy writers in history.

The author of five books, including his most recent, Monologue: What Makes America Laugh Before Bed, Macks dissects the anatomy of winning jokes and ruminates on what makes some work so well while others fall totally flat.

Macks shares what it’s like to write for the current slew of democratic political candidates.

And last but not least, he reveals some of his tradecraft on how he is able to write more than 100 jokes a day.

The quintessential Jon Macks, on this episode of When It mattered.

Tanscript

Download the PDF

Chitra Ragavan:   Jon Macks became a comedy writer in a roundabout way. He had quit law to become a political strategist. He won two huge campaigns, but then his luck turned on a dime. Macks started writing jokes when he was on flights, one thing led to another, and he became one of Jay Leno's most successful writers on The Tonight Show for 22 years. Hello, everyone. I'm Chitra Ragavan and this is When It Mattered. This episode is brought to you by Goodstory, an advisory firm helping technology startups find their narrative.

Chitra Ragavan:   Joining me now is Jon Macks. He's considered one of the greatest comedy writers of all time by the likes of Billy Crystal, Steve Martin, Chris Rock, and Martin Short just to name a few. Macks has written for 22 Academy Awards. He's written material for high-profile clients including Helen Mirren, Michael Douglas, Hugh Jackman, Arnold Schwarzenegger and others. The author of five books, Macks also is a sought-after democratic political consultant and a speechwriter for political candidates, and even some US presidents. Jon, welcome to the podcast.

Jon Macks:   It's great to be here.

Chitra Ragavan:   When you told me earlier that you had won two races followed by losing 23 races, my first thought was, "Wow, people really trust this guy. They keep hiring him even when he's consistently losing campaigns." How did you convince people to keep hiring you?

Jon Macks:   Well, it was actually a little bit less of convincing people that I was really g...