Storytelling
Public speaking was never easy for me. I was the person terrified of speaking in front of people, the fourth grader who cried to get out of a presentation. Then I started a nonprofit, and it became impossible to avoid: I had to pitch it, explain it, and convince donors, teachers and volunteers that it was worth their time. I dealt with the fear by putting myself in progressively bigger rooms, from a classroom, to a workshop, to a panel of educators at SXSW EDU, to a TEDx stage. At Stanford I wanted to give that back, so I TA'd the largest public speaking class on campus. Guiding other students through the same journey was one of the most rewarding things I did there.
TEDx talk
How Youth Can Be Catalysts for Social Entrepreneurship
TEDxYouth@Redmond
(I found out I'd been selected three months before the event and spent about four hours a day preparing while working through the nerves. I remember taping a draft to my shower wall and listening to a recording of it ten times a day just to keep practicing.)
Telling the nonprofit's story
Podcasts
I wanted to understand how young people took an idea that existed only in their heads and turned it into a real company. I found the entire process fascinating: conceptualizing an idea, figuring out the first steps, and bringing it to life. To learn how to produce a show, I joined Seth Godin's podcast fellowship and taught myself Audacity. I later used what I learned to start The Teen Entrepreneur Podcast and produce nine episodes.
Listen to the Teen Entrepreneur Podcast →
My favorite part was having real conversations with people. It is easy to see something impressive from the outside without understanding what the experience was actually like for the person building it. Podcasting created a space where people could be honest and vulnerable about how they got started and the day-to-day realities of building. I also became really interested in asking better questions, especially the ones I could not just Google.
That is still what I love most about podcasts: getting inside someone else's brain and understanding how they see the world. Below are a few episodes from other podcasts that have stayed with me.
Episodes I keep thinking about
REINVENTION
Modern Wisdom · Chris Williamson
The Hidden Art of Reinventing Yourself, with Matthew McConaughey
What I liked: I like how relaxed he seems about life, how much he centers family, and that he wrote a whole book by going back through his own life and asking what it had taught him.
What would I learn if I went back through my own life and treated it like material worth studying?
REINVENTION
Therapuss · Jake Shane
Session 27: Drunk with John Summit
What I liked: Accounting, then DJing on the side, then one of the biggest DJs in the world. The career turn alone is kind of insane.
How many people have another path that fits them better but never take the leap?
BUILDING YOUR OWN THING
The Sachin and Adam Show
The Journey to Becoming a Great Consumer Investor and Creator, with Rex Woodbury
What I liked: What I like is that 'investor' doesn't seem to contain him. He invests, writes, thinks publicly, and stays close to culture and creators.
How much of a career is just realizing you don't have to stay inside the title?
BUILDING YOUR OWN THING
And The Writer Is · Ross Golan
Russ, Building an Indie Empire
What I liked: He puts in the work, owns the relationship with his fans, and keeps trying without waiting for somebody else to validate the plan.
How much becomes possible when you stop waiting for permission and just keep going?
BUILDING YOUR OWN THING
Making Moves with TK · Taylor King
You're On Your Own, Kid: How Being Independent Will Change Your Life
What I liked: She has this go-getter, ambitious, hardworking energy, but she also seems genuinely interested in building community and lifting other people up.
Can you be insanely ambitious without making everything about yourself?
CREATIVITY AND IDENTITY
Anything Goes · Emma Chamberlain
How I Maximize My Creativity
What I liked: I grew up watching Emma Chamberlain on YouTube. Chamberlain Coffee works to me because coffee was genuinely part of her life before it became a brand.
What makes a brand extension feel like a natural expression of a person instead of a commercial add-on?
Spending so much time listening to podcasts on Spotify made me realize how difficult it was to find a new show I actually liked. The podcasts I kept coming back to usually started with a person I found interesting, someone whose way of thinking made me want to hear more. But Spotify's podcast interface felt overwhelming, with too much information and no clear way to find those people or sort through the noise.
So I decided to rethink it. Here is how I would improve Spotify's podcast discovery experience.