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What's it like to be the best in the entire world at something? And how do you view failure along the way? Today, we dive into the world of elite athletes. Finely-tuned human machines. My guest is Olympic Gold Medalist, Joey Cheek. Joey has won a gold, silver, and bronze in long track speed skating.  It’s less chaotic than it’s cousin short track speed skating. Joey took home the Bronze in Salt Lake City in the 1000 meters in 2002, then the Silver and Gold in 2006 – in the 1000m and 500m respectively. He’s got the whole set.  In addition to winning medals, he was selected by his USA teammates in 2006 to carry the US flag in the closing ceremonies. I can’t imagine what a cool honor that would have been.  After Joey was done competing, he spoke out publicly against the atrocities happening in Darfur and was denied entrance into China for the 2008 Olympic games because of it. We talk about that drama.  Joey now lives in Denver and we caught up recently. Welcome to the Botchcast, Mr. Joey Cheek. 

What if we stopped fearing failure? My guest today is a friend: Tricia Halsey. She runs a nonprofit called The Big Idea Project. Their program, among many things, helps high school students develop leadership skills through large, audacious community projects. I’ve seen some of this work first hand and its impactful stuff not only for the community and recipients but the exact thing I want my kids doing as they get older too. One project I saw recently was an initiative to encourage teens to fast from social media for five days. Cool results came out of it.  Tricia’s story is what we on the Botchcast call “the heart”. But with a unique twist related to fear of failure. She ran so hard from failure that it was starting to affect her health in big ways.  The thing I want you to listen for is her intentionality. She knew life needed to change, that she was headed for big calamity, and proactively did something about it including moving her family half-way around the globe.  Welcome to the Botchcast, Mrs. Tricia Halsey. 

Mr. David Cohen joins me today. David is a serial tech entrepreneur, advisor, investor – and founded Techstars, an accelerator based in Boulder. If you’re not familiar with accelerators, here’s the gist.   Imagine You’re a new startup company and need some juice to get going. you apply for and join an accelerator for their 90-day intensive program. Usually 90 days. Includes other companies in your cohort and you’re put through a rigorous curriculum and deep mentorship. At the end, the accelerator invites investors in for what they call a demo day. Many get funded on the spot (or in the days immediately following) In exchange for all this, you give the accelerator an equity stake in the business. Many of these accelerators also give you cash at the end of the program as well. Techstars gives its startups $120k after demo day. Good luck getting accepted though—the acceptance rate is lower than most ivy league undergrad programs.   Techstars is considered one of the largest and most prominent accelerators in the world. Depending on how exactly you measure accelerators, they’re considered as high as number 2. They’re huge and awesome and have helped literally thousands of companies go to market. According to their website, 2157 companies that have been funded with over $9b in capital. Cool stuff.  Oh, and by the way, a previous guest Brad Feld is one of the founders of Techstars with David. So is our governor here in Colorado: Jared Polis. Also a Techstars founder.  I tend to find entrepreneurs and venture capitalists like David to have a unique perspective. Success, failure, risk, reward, downside, upside, wasting money, making millions – it’s the daily world they swim in. Failure isn’t some distant villain, it’s a story they’re trying to avoid day-in and day-out, especially in today’s economic environment. David’s is a discussion I put into the category we call “the head.”   Welcome to the Botchcast, Mr. David Cohen. 

The Japanese art of Kintsugi begins when something breaks. In the first experimental solo episode, Jesse explores the ancient art form that can teach us that maybe our best life comes on the other side of being shattered to pieces. 

Overcoming writer's block? Today’s guest is Geraldine DeRuiter.  We recorded this a couple of months ago, in what seemed in hindsight --  like much simpler times.  Geraldine is an award-winning author, public speaker, and the voice behind the award-winning Everywhereist blog. It’s a travel blog. She wrote a book called: All Over the Place: Adventures in Travel, True Love, and petty theft. Available where you purchase books.   Geraldine’s conversation falls into the episode category that I call “the heart”. She doesn’t have some singular epic public failure per se, like some guests -- but has lots to share in her own life and journey. We talk about online trolls and harassment – something she’s dealt with a ton—as well as writer's block. Imagine being an industry that has a name for short-term failure. Writers get writer's block. But it’s kind of like talking about a no-hitter in baseball. It’s taboo for me to bring it up, but I will anyway! By the way, one of her blog posts went viral – it was about baking the cinnamon rolls that were at the bottom of Mario Batali’s sexual assault apology letter. We talk about that too.  Welcome to the Botchcast, Geraldine DeRuiter. 

What is it like to study and manage entrepreneurial risk + failure for a living? Today's guest is Mr. Brad Feld.  Brad's a venture capitalist, and he has a really unique perspective on failure. As a venture capitalist, he thinks a lot about failure and how companies fail. Quick primer: Venture Capitalists invest in startup companies with lots of risk involved, especially during a season like this. A VC has to acknowledge risk, assess companies, support their entrepreneurs well, but ensure that really only a small percentage of their companies fail.  This whole: “Yay! Failure is cool”, vibe that I tend to highlight on The Botchcast is not quite accurate for guys like Brad. He has a particularly nuanced way to talk about that and I want you to listen for that in the conversation. For more of a formal bio, Brad's venture firms called Foundry Group based in Boulder. It did the most investment deals in the state of Colorado over the last five years, according to CB insights. Brad's an advisor, speaker and he's written several books, including a quite popular book called: Venture Deals. It's a great, plain English guide for how to raise money into startup companies. It's really great. Brad's also co-founder of Techstars, one of the top accelerators in the whole world, also based in Boulder. 

How do people approaching the end of life tend to process failure and regret? Today’s guest is Jill Vitale-Aussem. Yes, it's literally pronounced, "Awesome."  Jill is the CEO of a non-profit called The Eden Alternative. She has her master’s from Cornell and is the author of a book called Disrupting the Status Quo of Senior Living. Jill has a unique perspective: she’s run senior living communities for years.  So many people process their lives with vivid clarity as they come near the end. Joys and regrets and everything in between. She’s been present in countless moments like that – and her macro view of death and living brings so much nuance to her stories and convictions.  Listen for her unique perspective on complaining and why it can be a great thing. 

What if you designed your life the same way experts design products?  Bill Burnett is the Executive Director of the Design Program at Stanford, where he got his BS and MS in Product Design.  In his career, he designed everything from laptops at Apple to Star Wars toys. He holds a number of mechanical and design patents. He also gave a talk to TedXStanford that has over a million views. After you listen – go find it. Google Bill Burnett Designing your life ted talk – you’ll love it.  The heart of our conversation today is centered on the theme of his book, co-authored with Dave Evans its called “Designing your life”.  Bill talks pointedly about how to design a life you’d want to live, and how important our framing of failure is to that process. He distinguishes between several categories of botches --  which ones to work through, which ones to work around, and which ones to just let go. 

Katherine is a woman undaunted, and she stays powerfully vulnerable, and human despite her drive and success. Katherine is the co-founder and CEO of an exciting startup called Serenity. Her style is accessible, friendly and smart. What you'll hear is how she takes a loving but aggressive approach to being a woman in the tech industry. She definitely takes her seat at the table. And we discussed where that drive started when she was a child, and how it's grown and developed. I talked to Katherine about startup culture, her experiences trying succeeding and failing as a female founder in tech. And she gives me excellent advice for how to encourage my own daughters to be undaunted. Please welcome to the Botchcast, Katherine Wells.

Jeremy Bloom is the only human to ski in the Olympics and play in the NFL. He was expected by many to win the Gold Medal in Torino at the Winter Games in 2006 and narrowly missed the podium. In this conversation, he shares his experiences of that heartbreak, how he rebounded, and how he relies on failure to propel him forward. Jeremy is genuine and humble as he shares his journey. He wrote a book called Fueled By Failure, and doesn't shy away from talking about his harder moments. 

Rand is a highly-successful tech entrepreneur, author, and speaker who loves talking about the hard stuff too. Rand is a perfect guest for The Botchcast. He's open, he's honest, he takes a realistic view of life and entrepreneurship. But most importantly, he loves talking about failure.

In 2000, Mike sold a company for tens of millions of dollars. Then the FBI put him in prison for it. Mike is not only a natural storyteller, as you'll hear, but has the stories to back it up. As an entrepreneur, he has quite the doozy. Mike is friendly, happy, and you'll love hearing his story. 

What is The Botchcast about? Why did we make it? Who are our guests? Who is The Botchcast for? Listen to a quick introduction by Jesse Marble explaining the genesis of this conversation and community.