Spread Great Ideas: The Podcast - James Swanwick: Creating Accountability, Affirming the Truth vs. Becoming Delusional, and Tailoring Communication Styles

James Swanwick: Creating Accountability, Affirming the Truth vs. Becoming Delusional, and Tailoring Communication Styles

Explicit content warning

02/19/20 • 100 min

Spread Great Ideas: The Podcast

James Swanwick is an Australian-American entrepreneur who owns three successful businesses all designed to help people improve their lives, a former ESPN Sportscenter anchor, a fascinating conversationalist, and a well-rounded self-made man with a big heart.

Our chat ran the gamut. We covered relationships, politics (including Trump!), business, philosophy, self-help courses we recommend (and those we don’t), our thoughts on living in California and Bali, the best ways we’ve found for creating accountability, affirming the truth vs. becoming delusional, how to tailor your communication style for men and women, people’s quest for identity in a post-religious world, and what is (and isn’t) your responsibility.

This was a really fun, wide-ranging discussion.

Favorite Quote:

"I’m trying to avoid the pain of mediocrity, which is the most painful thing for me ever...I have an absolute disdain for knowing what I could be and am not."

James’ Links:

Previous Episode

Lavinia Iosub: Work Style Personality Types, Remote Team Management & Being a Successful Digital Nomad

Lavinia Iosub is a fellow expat entrepreneur who originally hails from Romania and now runs a unique combo of a business incubator, remote team management, coworking space, and consultancy service here in Bali called Livit.

(Basically, if you're looking to build a remote team, scale your existing remote team, learn how to properly be a digital nomad, or just get a cool, calm place to work from in Bali so you can actually get some things done whilst you're here - then Lavinia and Livit are going to be interesting for you.)

We talk about hiring in Indonesia vs. the Western democracies, synchronous vs. asynchronous communication, how to scale successfully, the different work style personality types, her take on the future of remote work and being a long-term, successful digital nomad, finding and maintaining a healthy work/life balance, an obscure Dutch social scientist who classified why people from certain cultures act the way they do, what holacracy is all about (a new term to me), and more.

Favorite Quote:

"Rewards can have very different natures, they can be tangible or intangible...Somebody who works in our welcoming and hospitality part just recently said to me, 'This is the first company I’ve ever been employed at where I can save money and have vacation time to visit other countries.' To me, I live for things like that. I want people to travel, I want people to develop themselves, they’ll come back as better contributors."

Lavinia’s Links:

Next Episode

Tom Kineshanko: Crypto Countries and Crypto Fund Management

Tom Kineshanko is the co-founder of the Swiss cryptocurrency hedge fund, Protos, which utilizes an interesting (and proprietary!) trading strategy for those HODLers who want to hold a long-term position in the top 10 cryptocurrencies.

We talk about his experience in crypto, including the current threats and opportunities, the macro environment we find ourselves living in with QE, MMT, the weaponization of the U.S. dollar by Washington, etc., how crypto stacks up against gold, who is (and isn’t) talking their own book in the crypto world, which countries are the most crypto friendly (hello Zug, Switzerland!), how much someone should allocate to crypto in their portfolio, and part of the philosophy of liberty underpinning Satoshi Nakamoto’s vision for bitcoin.

If you want to know more about crypto, professional money management, and why Switzerland is such a desirable locale then this episode is for you.

Favorite Tom Kineshanko Quote

“Life is super short. I want to spend time serving people who I like, doing something that I think is interesting and matters. I think crypto matters because we need a new financial system. We need a new way of collaborating.” - Tom Kineshanko

Tom’s Links