Fun With Failure

Joining us for this episode of Fun With Failure is Kristin Winkle Beck. Kristin is a master of the conscious, intentional pivot. In 2018, after two decades in the corporate world, she left her position as Senior Vice President at Bank of America Merchant Services to recharge and refocus her career. In that time, she founded her own coaching and consulting firm, Pivot Point Professionals, LLC. Whil...

Kelly Broderick started her career working as a Color Designer at Reebok and then as a shoe designer for Tommy Hilfiger and StrideRite. She often worked in New York and she traveled internationally to do market research and trend forecasting. After ten years, she and a friend started their own consulting firm to stay closer to home. Beginning in 2017, however, Kelly faced hardship while caring for...

In this episode, Ross & I go DEEP into the power of storytelling! He’s my former student, made his first film in my “Art of Storytelling” course, and his “origin story” is a wild ride. Ross proves that while devastating misfortune may shift our life plans, a growth mindset can take us on adventures we never imagined – like almost getting eaten by a black wolf while shooting a docu-series deep in t...

Most people consider procrastination a form of failure. But what happens when procrastination becomes purpose? Kim Aprill discovered the answer to this question when she began researching “zero food waste” restaurant stickers to delay work on another project. Over four years later, she is now Co-founder and Executive Director of Feeding Charlotte, a non-profit organization that connects donors of...

Dr. Shante William is a healthcare venture capitalist and Co-Founder of Black Pearl Global Investments. Her goal is “to change healthcare worldwide,” and she uses her invisibility as a black woman in the VC space to her advantage.

Garth Moulton talks about the highs and lows of entrepreneurship. He co-founded two companies. One sold for about $140 million to Salesforce. The other failed, and he gave all the money back to investors.

Keith Luedeman sold his company in 2016 and is now a vocal advocate for start-ups in Charlotte, N.C. He’s the Executive Director at Innovate Charlotte, and an active venture investor in the Charlotte Region.

Greg Brown, the President of Cardinal Finance and the Administrator of the Charlotte Angel Fund, talks about funding, failure, and how to pitch investors.

Rob Cummings, Co-Founder of DealCloud, talks about the importance of storytelling, lead investors, and his favorite slide in the pitch deck.

Haley Bohon explains how she left her job in mechanical engineering to become the Founder & CEO of SkillPop.

Meggie Williams, the Founder & CEO of Skipper, shares how the biggest failure in her life led to her proudest accomplishment. 

Samantha C. Smith is the Founder and CEO of Vishion, a color matching & design app. She talks about dropping out of business school to become an entrepreneur, and shares a simple mathematical formula to help you recover from failure. 

Davita Galloway is an artist & co-owner of Dupp & Swat in Charlotte. She studied at Parsons School of Design & shares why one of her worst/best failures helped turn her life around.

Alexis catches up with her cousin Mat Santos, the bassist for Ra Ra Riot. They discuss life, death (and everything in between), and chat about the new album, Superbloom.

Rick Thames is the former executive editor of the Charlotte Observer. He shares a very funny failure story about Barbara Bush (and her body parts) and reveals how he feels about the future of journalism.

Alesha Stegemeyer, owner of Little Spoon restaurant in Charlotte, North Carolina discusses her background in fashion design, the TV industry, and why a debilitating car accident “is one of the best things that ever happened” to her.

Jeff Dugdale Trains Olympic Swimmers. He’s also a 5X Winner of the Division II Swim Coach of the Year.

Brian Formatto is the Founder of two talent development companies: Groove Management and Leadersurf. He's an accomplished leader with 20+ years of corporate experience.

Kelly Finley is the Founder and Executive of Girls Rock Charlotte, a non-profit that empowers girls to make noise and find their voice through music. They're a revolution not a conservatory.

Bruce Clark, Executive Director at Digital Charlotte, joins Dr. Alexis Carreiro in-studio to talk about his journey through tech, what's standing in the way of progress, and breaking his ankle in an embarasing way.

Dr. Alexis Carriero is joined by husband and wife team Adrienne and Emmanuel Threatt from Hope Vibes, to talk about their Charlotte non-profit that provides laundry services to the Queen City's homeless, and the time they pitched their ideate Seed20, and failed to get funding.

Chris Elmore is a hugely successful Charlotte entrepreneur.  He's also failed a lot and is afraid of missed opportunities.  Dr. Alexis Carreiro talks with Chris about his success, the failure that preceded it, and the ones that got away.