Season One, Episode Nine: Storytelling often feels like a lost art form. Karen Eber, author of The Perfect Story, shows why it’s still important today. Find us on Spotify, Apple, YouTube, and Audible. Our show notes can be found at failingpod.com.

This week, Alex Love and Elliot Volkman shift our focus from people who navigate their own failures and challenges over to an expert who helps others do the same. Soft skills are often easy to neglect because it's hard to evaluate our communication skills when most of us are judged on specific outcomes rather than the work that leads up to it. And that’s where we turn to Karen Eber, author of The Perfect Story, who guides people and teams in mastering the art of storytelling.

Eber is an author, TEDx speaker, keynote speaker, and leadership development whisperer, who was kind enough to discuss the power of storytelling in leadership and communication.

• Build rapport and trust to understand and address real issues in leadership.

• Use storytelling to engage the brain, build empathy, and foster trust.

• Tailor your storytelling to your audience for maximum impact.

• Even in passive roles, you can add value by translating and contextualizing information through storytelling.

Season One, Episode Eight: Before NFTs and blockchain technology, Nicolas Thorne tried to build a business around digital scarcity. The concept didn't quite land its mark.

Web 3, crypto… NFTs. You’ve heard of them. Some of these things have spun off new technology and concepts like blockchain, and others have completely dropped in value. Regardless, before the term NFT truly existed, there was a pioneer who followed a similar vision:

I started a business for, I'm not going to say the wrong or like bad reasons, but probably not the best reasons. I started it largely because I wanted to start a company. And I started around a concept that I thought was really intellectually stimulating.

I still think it's intellectually stimulating, which is. Kind of digital scarcity, which I suppose is what's at the heart of blockchains and NFTs and these things. And, and this kind of contrast of the digital world being abundant and pixels being infinitely reproducible. And yet that there was this feeling that if our lives were moving online, that scarcity was still this like amazing human construct and maybe there was a way to create it.

That was the words of Nicolas Thorne, who is no longer trying to sell what would one day be known as NFTs, and is now the General Partner at New York-based incubator Prehype.

This week on Mastering the Art of Failing, Nicolas shares his story about several instances of failure throughout his entrepreneurial journey, but has overcome it, and has since taken those learnings to help shape new founders and startups.

Season One, Episode Seven: CrossFit Coach Cameron Currie discusses his departure from structured military life into a path he fully paves for himself.

Find us on Spotify, Apple, YouTube, and Audible.

In life, not all moments and memories are predicated by a single momentous point of failure. For many, navigating life is a matter of bumps, turns, and unique challenges that test us each step of the way. This takes us to the start of Coach Cameron Currie’s journey. A pathway that led him to join the military out of high school, travel the world, and find meaning in fitness. It was during his military career that Currie became used to living a strict lifestyle that was chosen for him, and as he transitioned out, he had to discover how to live life on his own terms again.

This week, on Mastering the Art of Failing, Coach Cameron Currie shares his journey from military life to CrossFit entrepreneur and his plans to open a new physical gym.