As if being trapped, seeking cover from bombs wasn’t scarring enough, just 24 hours later Hao was laid off from his dream job. He found himself across the globe, without a job or a clue what his next step would be. But somehow he’d find opportunity in Vietnam. Today, Hao Tran is the CEO and co-founder of Vietcetera, one of the biggest multimedia digital networks in Vietnam that connects Vietnam with the world, and the world with Vietnam. As a mentor, speaker, and innovative business leader,...

Taku Tanaka’s burgeoning success in the food industry was slowly being torn apart by COVID and the isolation that came with it. So much hinged on the success of this business and it was up to him to save it. Taku proves that he can handle whatever comes across his plate, as today he stands as the CEO of Kamereo, Vietnam’s first tech-powered B2B food sourcing platform. The inspiration behind his company came from a life-long journey with food, from working at Pizzaria to growing up in his...

Marina hat hit bottom. At the start of a global pandemic, she found herself with a broken heart, in another country, isolated from the people she loved most. She had no stability. But it was at this moment she could define her character. The choices we make when we feel the world is against us, those choices define us. In this episode we’ll explore how Marina turned her life around and stands today as the founder and CEO of EQUO, a company that offers 100% plastic free straws, utensils,...

Will hit another roadblock, but this wasn’t the first one he faced. He was told by the best chefs in Paris to get out of the way, that he’ll “never make it as a chef,” and yet today, he stands as the #1 pastry chef in the world, a Rising Star and a nominee for the James Beard Award for Best Pastry Chef in America. So I was in Bali for a month and was lucky enough to be invited to Will’s restaurant Room 4 Dessert. I was greeted with a 15 course meal with a wine pairing – This wasn’t just food,...

Maybe it was Black magic, maybe it was the locals pushing back on the first signs of foreign development. Regardless, it’s a difficult and complicated thing to start a business when you are a foreigner. In spite of countless roadblocks Waterbom stands and Sayan Gulino, current CEO of Waterbom Bali, has pushed his father’s legacy forward. Today, Waterbom has won several awards and is recognized for its dedication to sustainability, but joining the family business doesn’t mean success was just...

Somehow David has repeatedly found himself at the center of disaster. His most life changing trip through Asia was during the Asian financial crisis, his first big writing opportunity was during the 2008 financial crisis (which resulted in him losing his day job), this earthquake in Japan cemented that position as a writer, and now post covid the world needs the kind of community David is building more than ever. I actually think that’s something the best entrepreneurs have in common. Finding...

Ayu Sudana bet everything on that first export of coffee beans; her family’s harvest, her personal savings, and years of hard work. This moment was the culmination of working her family coffee farm, of a shattered dream for higher education, of a desire to learn that took her around the world. From working as a receptionist at a five star hotel, to a waitress at a celebrity chef’s restaurant, to administrative work at a logistics company in Dubai, to finally founding Bali Beans in Bali. Now,...

The french-born Nora Gasparini has dedicated her life to the craft of perfumery and has found her calling in scent. But it wasn’t an easy road to get here. Before establishing her perfumery laboratory, Nora was struggling to find her independence and see the value in herself. She was often stuck at home with her mom while her dad and brother went out, explored and handled the family business. But Nora wouldn’t be on the sideline for long. After igniting her flame in boarding school, tapping...

Jamie was about to risk everything to create a travel towel company in Bali during covid. Maybe not the most opportune time but Jamie takes risks. From Ebay side hustles in his teens to transcontinental moves for new job opportunities, Jamie has learned that taking risks can forge new connections with people who were once strangers. Jamie’s learned that these new relationships have vastly changed the trajectory of his life and now he’s trying to give others that opportunity. Jamie’s company...

This is my Grandpa. He’s 92 and despite the long list of supplements that accompany his breakfast, he’s still got an expansive knowledge of the stock market, most of his hearing, and a full head of hair. More importantly he’s the OTHER co-founder of my family. Previously we spoke to my Grandma about her childhood, her challenges, and the creation of the Donner Family as I know it today but, of course, she didn’t do it alone. And also I didn’t do this podcast episode alone either. This is a...

A 7 page spread in National Geographic; that was the culmination of years of work, years of cold emailing publications, posting to small online forums, and hoping her photos would get noticed. This passion would take her love of nature from a childhood in Germany, to remote nordic villages, cliffside birds nests, and vulnerable populations in Mongolia. Today, Lana is a National Geographic Explorer who specializes in nature conservation, photography, and biology. But before her first...

Linda has experienced a lot. She’s traveled the world as an army brat, played piano and sung in Led Zeppelin's tour bus, explored drugs as an “X rated hippie”, and worked to understand her Latin American, Chicano, and Indigenous roots through her art. Through these various paintings, sculpture, and ceramic work Linda embraces her brownness and the world has taken notice. Her work has been shown globally in major galleries and museums, as well as Chicano and Latino spaces. Today, her artwork...

Laser eye surgery, a seemingly inconsequential, almost routine surgery, that in an instant turned into a nightmare. Sumit Ajwani, who had built a career creating films as head of production for a global ad agency in Canada, discovered he could no longer see. He was a wunderkind. His career was moving fast. He had just been appointed head of the ad agency at 23 years old. But this wouldn’t be the end of his story. Sumit would ultimately create a producer-led collaborative network called...

Jordan had a dream that he thought would take a lifetime, but as he invested all of his energy into making that dream a reality – that reality came more quickly than expected. The crazy thing is… this was just the beginning. Today, Jorden stands at upwards of 345K followers on Instagram, 1M subscribers on YouTube, and a whopping 3M followers on Tiktok – which he firmly believes “anyone can do.” With 8 years worth of traveling, content creation, and friend making in his pocket, Jorden has...

Kyukei Goto was saddled with massive responsibility from birth. He was the first born son to his father of 50, meaning Goto would have to carry the weight of a tradition going back 28 generations. He comes from a lineage that has perfected the art of Kamakura Buri which is a method of carving wood and then coating lacquer to make sculptures, plates, tea sets, cutlery and other household items. But this sentence belies the spiritual and technical intricacies of this art form. Facing the death...

As a photographer David’s eyes are his livelihood. His vision was everything, but somehow David shrugs it off, he takes it stoically, he has this lack of concern for any roadblocks. I mean David has always believed that he would achieve great things. I think that’s why after traveling around the world to 13 countries at 18, he decided to try and make it as a commercial photographer. He started taking classes at New York’s Parsons School of design, and subsequently tried to make it in the biz,...

10,000 subscribers overnight and soaring to 50 thousand a few days later, Rachel Southard was shocked to learn that her Youtube video documenting her first week of medical school was gaining attention so quickly. Growing up, Rachel wanted to try everything and after pushing through feelings of doubt in her early school years and seeing the incredible work doctors do, she began her journey to med school. Wanting to document her experience, Rachel starting vlogging and recording her many weeks...

With 10,000 Chapters, 13 million referrals, and 21 billion dollars in business… just in the last 12 months, it’s safe to say that Ivan Misner has had world wide impact. Ivan jumped from law school, to a government job, to a fateful unrenewed manufacturing contract that would transform a small consulting network into a global organization. BNI now has different chapters spanning the globe, all working to develop meaningful business relationships through referrals and networking. Now a...

What had started as a fun business idea between college friends had spiraled out of control. Saddled with international shipping costs, low student funds, and no way to market their product, Olivier and Rick hit a logistical wall before they fully began. Luckily, that wasn’t the only idea these two twenty year olds had in their pocket. Now, Olivier Momma is the young cofounder of Ekster, the groundbreaking company behind the most successful smart wallet in the world. Generating 25 million...

Utter silence. Dr. Franklin Chang-Diaz felt the pulse of his racing heart, the countdown from ground control, and the sense that he’s been here before. I mean he’s prepared his whole life for this moment, the moment of lifting off into space. He’s been preparing since he was a kid, from sitting in a cardboard spaceship all the way to launching into space more times than any human in history. But how did he get here? Well Dr. Franklin Chang-Diaz is a record breaking NASA astronaut, with 7...

After trying every avenue of corporate life, Michela stood at a crossroads. She could either stay at her steady job and work her way up the corporate ladder, or finally dive full-force into the social media world. Now, we know that Michela Allocca, also known by the handle of Break Your Budget, made the right decision. With over 700,000 followers on Tiktok and 125k instagram followers, a book deal, and a podcast, Michela’s affinity for budgeting has brought her far away from the cubicle and...

 A few inches down and he would have been dead in the front seat of his mom’s Mitsubishi. Yet as Raul weaved in and out of traffic towards his future, untouched and laughing, it seemed like it was just another day in 1990s Los Angeles. Flash forward to the present and Raul Baltazar is still in LA, now an established painter and performance artist working to understand the experiences of Mestizo and Mesoamerican Indigenous communities. With exhibitions held in LA, Mexico, Taiwan, Vienna, and...

You just heard from Heather Smith as she describes the moment where her exhibit built a bridge between past and present. In a heartbreaking instant, she realized that her invention, Storyfile, could really work. But what is Storyfile? This company specializes in conversational video and preserving individual memories, posing fascinating hypotheticals for the future of education. Like…what if we could talk to a younger version of ourselves? What if high schoolers could talk face to face with a...

It’s not every day Barbara Corcoran slides into your dms, but for Caleb Simpson this was suddenly the new normal. Now, if this name is sounding familiar at all, it’s because you’ve probably met Caleb before….on your For You page. Known for his casual house tours and the signature question “how much do you pay for rent,” Caleb has amassed over 7.1 million followers on TikTok and 2 million YouTube subscribers in the past few years. Traveling from house to house in New York to LA, Tokyo, and...

It’s easy to tell stories about our lives. I practice storytelling everyday on the podcast, and on some level, the ability to spin a narrative is what makes us human. But sometimes stories can take us out of a moment—what may seem like harmless escapism can also be a boundary to stillness, a wall between us and the present. You just heard from Henry Mitchell, wellness expert and the co-founder of Still Life. Henry has practiced the act of stillness throughout his academic and professional...