This episode marks the end of Season 1 of Famous Failures. If you’d like to stay in touch with me, please sign up for my weekly email list at weeklycontrarian.com . My emails go out every Thursday to 21,000+ subscribers and share 1 idea you can read in less than 3 minutes that will help you reimagine the status quo. Readers call it the “one email I look forward to each week.” Thank you to my podcast producer, Chris Mottram of Podcastily , and to my operations assistant, Brendan Seibel, for his r...
May 19, 2020•4 min
Derek Sivers has lived many lives. He has been a musician, producer, circus performer, entrepreneur, speaker, and book publisher. His TED Talk, “ Weird, or just different? ”, has been viewed more than 3.5 million times. His book Anything You Want: 40 Lessons for a New Kind of Entrepreneur shares everything he learned from starting, growing, and selling the company CD Baby. You can say hello to Derek at https://sivers.org/contact . In this episode Derek and I discuss: How Derek cultivated a pract...
May 05, 2020•51 min
Cathy Heller is the host of the popular podcast Don’t Keep Your Day Job , which was given the #1 spot on iTunes recommended list of shows for the New Year in 2018 and 2019. She started out as a singer songwriter and first found success licensing her music to TV, films and ads. After making a multi six figure living with her music, Cathy started a music agency, and began teaching other artists to grow their own careers. You can subscribe to Cathy’s podcast at https://www.dontkeepyourdayjob.com/po...
Apr 21, 2020•32 min
Today is the official launch date of my new book, Think Like a Rocket Scientist. In this special episode, I share with you three key insights from the book that will help you make giant leaps in work and life. If you order the book by Tuesday, April 21st ( Amazon , Barnes & Noble , Indiebound ), you’ll get two special bonuses. The first is a video training with a behind-the-scenes look at my productivity system . You’ll find tips on how to defeat procrastination and get more done in less tim...
Apr 14, 2020•13 min
Baya Voce has produced “magic touch” experiences ranging from two-person rituals to elaborate 1,000+-person immersive-theater productions. Whether 20-person Jeffersonian-style dinners or high-end finance conferences at Lincoln Center (and everything in between), Baya’s focus is engineering unforgettable moments. With more than 4 million views, her TEDx talk on loneliness is one of the most-viewed of all time. She has been featured by Forbes, ABC, Fox, MTV, and SXSW for her perspective on experie...
Apr 07, 2020•46 min
Dorie Clark is a consultant and keynote speaker, and the author of the books Entrepreneurial You, Reinventing You, and Stand Out, which was named the #1 Leadership Book of 2015 by Inc. magazine. A former presidential campaign spokeswoman, Dorie has been described by the New York Times as an “expert at self-reinvention and helping others make changes in their lives.” Dorie consults and speaks for a diverse range of clients, and teaches executive education. A former award-winning journalist, she d...
Mar 24, 2020•32 min
Dr. Jessica Kriegel is a researcher and expert in generational dynamics. Her insights and solutions offer a roadmap for how you can most effectively transform your culture to attract, retain, and engage all generations in the workplace. Jessica’s book, Unfairly Labeled: How Your Workplace Can Benefit From Ditching Generational Stereotypes , challenges the very concept of "generational differences" as an unfair generalization, and offers a roadmap to intergenerational understanding. She also spea...
Mar 10, 2020•35 min
Neil Pasricha is the author of five New York Times bestsellers including: The Book of Awesome, a catalog of simple pleasures based on his 50-million hit, award-winning blog, and The Happiness Equation, a nine-step guidebook to happiness based on new research. His latest book is You Are Awesome: How to Navigate Change, Wrestle with Failure, and Live an Intentional Life. Neil is also one of the most popular TED speakers with his first TED Talk “The 3 A’s of Awesome” ranked as one of the ten most i...
Feb 25, 2020•32 min
Tara Schuster is an author, playwright, and accomplished entertainment executive, currently serving as the Vice President of Talent and Development at Comedy Central. She was the Executive in Charge of the Emmy and Peabody Award-winning Key & Peele, the Emmy Award winning @Midnight, and numerous other shows. Tara’s first book, Buy Yourself the F*cking Lilies: And Other Rituals to Fix Your Life from Someone Who has Been There , will be released on February 18, 2020. The hilarious and relatabl...
Feb 11, 2020•38 min
An entrepreneur, creative thinker, and acclaimed international speaker, Frans Johansson has lived all his life at the intersection. He has started a health-care business, a software company, a hedge fund, and an innovation firm. Frans is the author of The Medici Effect and The Click Moment , and is the founder and CEO of The Medici Group. Reach out and connect with Frans on LinkedIn or Twitter . To learn more about his company The Medici Group, visit their website at https://www.themedicigroup.c...
Jan 28, 2020•36 min
Scott Harrison is the founder and CEO of charity: water, and the New York Times Bestselling author of Thirst: A Story of Redemption, Compassion, and a Mission to Bring Clean Water to the World . In 13 years, with the help of more than 1 million donors worldwide, charity: water has raised more than $400 million and funded more than 44,000 water projects in 28 countries. When completed, those projects will provide over 10 million people with clean, safe drinking water. If you would like to help br...
Jan 14, 2020•39 min
BJ Fogg is a behavioral scientist with deep experience in innovation and teaching. At Stanford University he runs the Behavior Design Lab and also teaches his models and methods in graduate seminars. On the industry side, he trains innovators to use his work so they can create solutions that influence behavior. The focus areas include health, financial wellbeing, learning, productivity, and more. BJ has a new book, Tiny Habits: The Small Changes that Change Everything , which came out today, on ...
Dec 31, 2019•34 min
Laura Vanderkam is the author of several time management and productivity books, including Juliet’s School of Possibilities , Off the Clock , I Know How She Does It , What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast , and 168 Hours . Her work has appeared in publications including the New York Times , the Wall Street Journal, Fast Company , and Fortune . If you’d like to keep in touch with Laura, you can check out her short daily podcast, Before Breakfast , to start your morning with producti...
Dec 17, 2019•34 min
This is a short, solo episode of Famous Failures. Instead of doing an interview, I speak about what you should do when you make a mistake. The episode is based on a blog post I wrote a few months ago, which you can find here . If you enjoyed this episode, you’d love my forthcoming book, Think Like a Rocket Scientist: Simple Strategies You Can Use to Make Giant Leaps in Work and Life . The book was named a “must read” by Susan Cain (NYT Bestselling Author of Quiet), “endlessly fascinating” by Dan...
Dec 03, 2019•8 min
Rene Denfeld is the author of the acclaimed novels The Child Finder , The Enchanted , and The Butterfly Girl . Her literary thrillers have earned glowing reviews from the New York Times Book Review, among other venues. Margaret Atwood, who is the renowned author of Handmaid’s Tale (among other books), has described Rene’s work as “astonishing,” and Rene’s latest novel, The Butterfly Girl , a “heartbreaking, finger-gnawing, yet ultimately hopeful novel.” Rene was the Chief Investigator at a publi...
Nov 19, 2019•30 min
This is a short, solo episode of Famous Failures. Instead of doing an interview, I go on a riff on why the popular “fail fast, fail often” mantra is misguided. I offer an alternative that produces better results and explain how you can use it to your advantage in your personal and professional life. The discussion is based in part on my forthcoming book, Think Like a Rocket Scientist: Simple Strategies You Can Use to Make Giant Leaps in Work and Life . The book was named a “must read” by Susan C...
Nov 05, 2019•9 min
Whitney Johnson is a leading business thinker and expert on disruptive innovation and personal disruption. She covers the framework for personal disruption in the critically-acclaimed book Disrupt Yourself: Putting the Power of Disruptive Innovation to Work . Originally an award-winning stock analyst, Whitney chose to leave her Wall Street career behind at the height of her career. This bold act of personal disruption and the following years of entrepreneurial exploration led to her new career a...
Oct 22, 2019•39 min
In this special episode of Famous Failures, I read a never-before-released excerpt from my forthcoming book, Think Like a Rocket Scientist: Simple Strategies You Can Use to Make Giant Leaps in Work and Life . If you pre-order the book, you’ll get amazing bonuses that are worth 10x the cost of the book(s). What’s more, if you pre-order the book in any format, you can download and read the digital version NOW, before the book is released to the public. Click here to learn more. I’ve been ecstatic ...
Oct 08, 2019•14 min
Tim Urban is best known as the writer and illustrator behind the incredibly popular blog Wait But Why , which has garnered millions of unique page views and famous fans like Elon Musk. His deeply researched long-form posts on everything from artificial intelligence to procrastination buck the conventional wisdom that internet writing should be short or SEO optimized to be successful. A former film composer and professional tutor, Tim has parlayed his conversational writing style into a sideline ...
Sep 24, 2019•36 min
In 2012, eighteen-year-old soccer player Lindsey Horan defied conventional wisdom when she turned down a scholarship from soccer powerhouse University of North Carolina. UNC is almost a guaranteed path to the big leagues for talented and hardworking women, but Lindsey decided to skip a step and move halfway around the world to sign with Paris Saint-Germain. She was the first American woman to go pro directly out of high school. Today Lindsey is a National Women’s Soccer League player with the Po...
Sep 10, 2019•37 min
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 ...
Aug 27, 2019•29 min
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,...
Aug 13, 2019•39 min
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 int...
Jul 30, 2019•32 min
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);...
Jul 16, 2019•11 min
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 singl...
Jul 02, 2019•43 min
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...
Jun 18, 2019•45 min
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 ...
Jun 04, 2019•38 min
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 publi...
May 21, 2019•38 min
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 ...
May 07, 2019•38 min
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: Wh...
Apr 23, 2019•42 min
