The Failure Hypothesis

This week Vivian is joined by Christopher Hitchins, UK Managing Partner of ‘Transatlantic firm of the year’, at Katten.  As well as being one of the UK’s top employment lawyers and leading one of the city’s fastest-growing firms, Chris is also that rarest of beasts; a straight-talking lawyer who isn’t afraid to be brutally honest about his own privilege, his personal failings and the sometimes-toxic culture of top law firms.  Like many lawyers, Chris feared his biggest failure was (initially) not making partner, but the real ‘failure’ came after he’d made partner when, at a previous firm, he found himself presiding over the very type of toxic culture he’d strived to avoid.  At that point, Chris’s story took a dramatic turn when a health crisis threatened to destroy his career but also left him with a strange ‘superpower’ and new sense of perspective. Follow Christopher Hitchins on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopherhitchins Find out more about Katten here: https://katten.comOriginal theme music composed by Lee Olivier Hall. Listen in full here: https://spoti.fi/3Qefe2H  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, Vivian is joined by Webby-award winning writer and director Jamie Morton, the creator of the cultural phenomenon, the podcast ‘My Dad Wrote a Porno’, to share a truly unique ‘bootstrap’ start-up story for the ages. It’s a story which has captured the imagination of the world and fascinated the world’s media.The story goes that Jamie and his partners in crime, Alice Levine and James Cooper, turned his dad’s unorthodox career choice into a globally successful entertainment brand. A brand beloved by millions around the world including some of the biggest names in showbusiness from Emma Thompson to Lin Manuel Miranda. The stats speak for themselves. 430 million downloads and counting, a HBO special, hundreds of thousands of followers on social media and 2 sold-out world tours taking in iconic venues such as the Sydney Opera House and Radio City Music Hall, New York. That’s the better-known part of the story but as with all great leaders, it’s only half the story. Because before he made it, as Jamie puts it, he was ‘quite literally f****d’ and his career seemed over before it had even really begun when his dream job working alongside a Hollywood legend turned into a nightmare. It’s a long way back from the brink and Jamie doesn’t flinch in sharing that journey and what it taught him about failure and the true meaning of creative success.Follow Jamie Morton on:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/uncleegor Twitter: https://twitter.com/uncleegorAnd find out more about the upcoming musical directed by Jamie and written by James Cooper: https://twitter.com/lovestuckmusicOriginal theme music composed by Lee Olivier Hall. Listen in full here: https://spoti.fi/3Qefe2H Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, Vivian is joined by fellow #STEM trailblazer, top scientist at global science and tech company 3M and subject of the docuseries that premiered during Tribeca film festival ‘Not the Science Type’ Jayshree Seth, Ph.D. A glance at Jayshree’s CV would provide no evidence of failure - she certainly doesn’t look like the ‘failure type’ - but underlying the glittering CV, sharp analysis and fearless advocacy is a long and sometimes tough personal journey. Where outward success masked inner feelings of self-doubt and failure. Born in one great scientific nation and rising to prominence in another on the opposite side of the world, Jayshree didn’t follow the path laid out for her when she was young. Instead, she carved out her own and as with so many successful leaders, it was the unexpected path that took her to the most interesting places. In Jayshree’s case, amongst other things, to being the first woman engineer to be appointed 3M’s most senior scientist and Chief Science Advocate. A position she uses to pay it forward and champion other women in STEM. Jayshree’s story is a reminder that you often have to lose your way to find your true calling and that ‘rock bottom’ is often a painful but necessary pit stop on your way to the top. Follow Jayshree on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3PT5ytZ Read 'The Heart of Science: Engineering Fine Print' by Jayshree Seth, Ph.D here: https://amzn.to/3zQC620 Read 'The Heart of Science: Engineering Footprints, Fingerprints, & Imprints" by Jayshree Seth, Ph.D here: https://amzn.to/3vB3ZIV Find out more about 3M here: https://www.3m.com Read the 3M State Of Science Index here: https://bit.ly/3zToG5D Link to 3M docuseries Not the Science Type: https://bit.ly/3zonNAq Original theme music composed by Lee Olivier Hall. Listen in full here: https://spoti.fi/3Qefe2H Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Roberta Lucca, the BAFTA-winning founder of leading games developer Bossa Studios, host of the podcast ‘Hyper Curious’ and ‘The Apprentice’ guest judge, joins Vivian to share the story of her ‘difficult second album’. From the high of winning that BAFTA with Bossa (which Roberta says taught her nothing except that it was possible!) to the painful and personal lows of having to close down her next business. As you’d expect from someone chosen to advise Lord Sugar and a self-described ‘entrepreneurial anarchist’, Roberta doesn’t hold back in challenging traditional thinking or cosy assumptions. Whether it’s the need for founders to be honest with themselves about where their strengths lie, how leaders can become trapped by job titles or her thought-provoking take on the failure hypothesis.  As Roberta says ‘low moments happen in slow motion, high moments happen on fast forward’ which is why recording this episode flew by for us. To find out more and be inspired to be a MULTI entrepreneur follow Roberta Lucca on:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertaluccaInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/beta.lucca  Listen to the Hyper Curious Podcast HEREFor public speaking inquiries visit: https://www.betalucca.com/speakerOriginal theme music composed by Lee Olivier Hall. Listen in full here: https://spoti.fi/3Qefe2H Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Scott Mackin is the Managing Partner of Denham Capital, the former CEO of energy company Covanta and, most recently, a published novelist. In this episode, with a novelist’s flair for narrative and a lawyer’s cool head for detail, Scott traces his remarkable rise from a difficult childhood to being made CEO of a Fortune-500 company at just 42 to the moment when it all threatened to fall apart.Appointed CEO as a hurricane bore down on New York and just before the Enron scandal shook the foundations of corporate America, what should have been the crowning glory of Scott’s career quickly turned into ‘the lowest moment of [Scott’s] life’ as he faced bankruptcy, divorce and the prospect of fatal heart disease.Scott shares the lessons of this life-changing period and from a long career spent at the sharp-end of one of the most critical sectors for the future of our planet. Covering everything from how the ‘responsibility gene’ shaped him as a leader to how to navigate overlapping crises with competing stakeholders to how executives can harness their personal creativity to stay present and stay focused.Find out more about Scott Mackin here:Find out more about Denham Capital here: https://www.denhamcapital.comFollow Scott Mackin here: https://bit.ly/3NNlR9J Original theme music composed by Lee Olivier Hall. Listen in full here: https://spoti.fi/3Qefe2H Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Recognised by MIT as one of the top ‘35 under 35’ innovators in tech, Dr Vivian Chan is the founder and CEO of Sparrow, a business revolutionizing access to the latest science news by transforming complex scientific research on the topics shaping our world into bite-size summaries everyone can understand.  As host of the Failure Hypothesis, she’s on a similar mission to give you access to the usually inaccessible. This time; the hidden failure stories behind the success stories of some of the world’s most interesting leaders. And, in this episode, she takes up her own challenge to get brutally honest about failure by going first in the hot-seat.  Sharing a personal journey that spans 3 continents and 3 careers (investor, scientist and entrepreneur), Vivian opens up about how neglecting her health and personal relationships in the pursuit of entrepreneurial perfection led to a crisis point when an old friend asked her a simple question. Are you happy? This led to some life-changing realisations. You can’t change the world if you’re not alive and if you become your job then you end up feeling like no one.Follow Vivian here: https://linktr.ee/vivian_chan  Find out more about Sparrow here: https://linktr.ee/sparrow.science  Follow The Failure Hypothesis here: https://linktr.ee/thefailurehypothesis  Produced by Moledro Digital: http://moledrodigital.com   Theme music composed by Lee Olivier-Hall: https://www.leeolivierhall.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Bringing you the hidden failure stories behind the success stories. Award-winning scientist-entrepreneur Dr Vivian Chan gets some of the world’s most interesting leaders to open-up and share their brutally honest ‘failure stories’ before weighing in on the age-old question of whether we should reflect on failure or just move on. Season 1 guests include a private equity titan, a BAFTA-winning Apprentice judge, a renowned scientist and a Webby-award winning podcast legend sharing their experiences of facing, amongst other things, death, divorce, bankruptcy, family disappointment, burnout and hopelessness. What they learned, how they recovered and what the future holds. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.