My Worst Investment Ever Podcast

BIO: Austin Belcak is the founder of CultivatedCulture.com, where he helps people land jobs they love without traditional experience and without applying online. STORY: Austin made two mistakes. One was to take a terrible job without evaluating if it was indeed a good fit. Two, he spent so much time following jobseeking advice from family and friends who had no experience in the field he was inter...

BIO: Ibrahim Kocagoz is the Technical Director at SODEXO Thailand, responsible for Innovation, Smart City & Systems, and Sustainability. STORY: Ibrahim and his wife bought several apartments in Istanbul. The plan was to retire soon at a vineyard, making wine while receiving income from the apartments. However, the Turkish currency started devaluing, throwing off the value of the flats. Ibrahim...

BIO: Jeff Nischwitz is known as a Snow Globe Shaker who’s on a mission to help people shift how they lead and thereby shift their leadership impact. STORY: Jeff’s parents sold their business and gave the money to their grandchildren for a college education. Jeff decided to invest his kids’ money as advised by a financial advisor who knew his dad. This was during the Dotcom boom, and at first, the...

Recently, I posed this question to some of my prior guests, “How would you advise a young person to reduce risk in their life?” The answers rolled in from 40 guests! I grouped the responses into five categories: Building valuable relationships, managing finances, personal growth, risk management, and having awareness. There are tremendous pearls of wisdom! Valuable relationships – Communication wi...

BIO: Shashank Randev has acquired a depth and breadth of experience from working in large companies, being the founding member for a SaaS startup (acquired by a Fortune 500 Company), to an early-stage fund investing in technology-enabled startups. STORY: Shashank was the lead investor of his angel network and was advocating for a startup looking for funding. They had an impressive conversational a...

BIO: Mark Morris is an expert at building developer relationships and helping housebuilders achieve discreet volume sales at speed. STORY: Mark bought an off-plan property for $200,000 with the hopes of selling it for a profit. Unfortunately, a project that was supposed to take 12 months took two years to complete. The US financial crisis hit just a few months after completion, and now Mark could...

BIO: Roshan Cariappa has over 12 years of experience as an entrepreneur and operator at early and growth-stage startups, specializing in going from zero to one and setting up cross-functional teams. Currently, he heads Marketing at Vymo, one of the fastest-growing SaaS startups in India. STORY:  Roshan started his business in 2012, offering marketing services to startups and small businesses....

BIO: Marc Cirera is a business ethics and CSR specialist with a clear vision: a world where companies operate more sustainably and responsibly. It is for this reason he founded Companies for Good. STORY: Marc was traveling across South America when he realized just how much the process of booking a bus, the most popular mode of transportation, was. He decided to create an application that would ma...

BIO: J. Money is an award-winning personal finance blogger. He’s founded several popular projects over the past decade, including Budgets Are Sexy and Rockstar Finance. STORY: J went looking for a 2-bedroom apartment to rent in 2007. He got lost and ended up buying a $350,000 house on a whim 48 hours later, with no idea of what he was getting into. A few months later, the property market went bust...

BIO: Chuen Chuen Yeo is an executive coach specializing in developing the agile mindset in professionals, thereby raising the quality of leadership in every organization. STORY: Chuen Chuen quit working as a public servant and set up a coaching business. She then put her heart and soul into creating an online course. After three weeks of ignoring everything else, including her husband and kids, Ch...

BIO: Bushy Martin helps others to work less and live more. He is a highly respected property investment and finance expert, an author, and an anchor on Australia’s number one and longest-running property program ‘Real Estate Talk. He is also the host of the Get Invested podcast. STORY: Bushy always believed that hard work was all a successful man needed. This made him self-obsessed with his career...

BIO: Steve Faktor is a former Fortune-100 executive—turned entrepreneur. As Managing Director of IdeaFaktory Innovation, he helps tech, financial services, and consumer goods clients see and build the future. The McFuture Podcast features Steve’s provocative predictions and prescriptions. STORY: Steve’s lifelong dream was to be a comedian and radio personality just like Howard Stern. His parents,...

BIO: Lisa Goldenthal is an expert concierge lifestyle coach, creating customized meal and exercise plans for clients to combat sleep deprivation, stress, and unhealthy eating. Lisa recently launched The WholeCEO Podcast, where she sits down with industry leaders to discuss their insider secrets to being unstoppable. STORY: Lisa, for a long time, assumed that she could eat anything she wanted over...

BIO: Shane Torres is the CEO & Founder of Road to $20 Million. He is committed to helping people achieve real estate business success with life balance through valuable resources, business planning, and consulting for both entrepreneurs and real estate professionals. STORY: Shane started a home building company and roped in his wife as the designer and his friend as the project manager. He got...

BIO: Tyron Giuliani is an Australian entrepreneur who moved to Tokyo on a whim, where he went on to work with 67 Fortune 500 companies to build their management teams in Asia. He hosted Vice President Al Gore in Japan after winning his Nobel Peace Prize. STORY: Tyron got introduced to two celebrity business moguls by his big shot CFO friend. The two were starting a new company and asked Tyron to i...

BIO: Russ Johns is a producer at The Pirate Syndicate. He helps people be SEEN, be HEARD & TALKED ABOUT... using LiveStreaming Media. STORY: Russ spent 15 years dedicating all his time to his job at the expense of his family and health. The company went through a merger and acquisition, and Russ’s role was made redundant, leaving him jobless. Russ’s biggest regret is spending so much time buil...

BIO: Jonaed Iqbal is set on shattering the stigma associated with hiring people without college degrees. It is no surprise that he founded NoDegree.com, a platform with job listings that do not require college degrees. STORY: Jonaed invested $800 in Bitcoin when he was in college. He was lucky enough to sell when the price was high and just before it crashed. Fast-forward to 2017, Jonaed decided t...

BIO: Patrick Metzger is the CEO/Founder of PM and Associates and one of less than 450 Professional EOS Implementers in the world. Patrick and his team help businesses get the most out of their organizations and people by helping get everyone on the same page and executing the company vision, as well as by creating healthier, more cohesive, and higher functioning leadership teams. STORY: Patrick gr...

BIO: Nina Sharil Khan is the Founder & CEO of PopCon, International Speaker & Host of the #JustLanggar PopCast live show. Nina is also Marketing in Asia’s Top 100 Inspirational LinkedIn Icons for both 2019 & 2020. STORY: Nina quit her job to start selling unit trusts. In the process, she met a hedge fund manager who recruited her to his fund, which she blindly joined and started sellin...

BIO: Dror Tamir is a serial food and nutrition entrepreneur with a passion is to improve the health of children and families through better nutrition. He is the CEO & co-founder of a startup, Hargol FoodTech, the world’s first commercial grasshopper protein producer. STORY: Dror was looking for investors when one particular one showed interest in being the lead investor. He was super excited a...

BIO: Marko Höynälä is the Founder and CEO of Kipuwex Ltd and has invented three game-changing IoT products. Kipuwex is a medical device that wirelessly and continuously measures a person’s biomarkers which can then be accessed by health care professionals from anywhere in the world. STORY: Marko jumped blindly into an opportunity to partner with a Pakistani company to distribute his medical device...

BIO: Rise, fall, rise again. Along the way, get divorced, get turned over by a friend on a new business idea, get ripped off in the sale of another. Get married again, become a father again, build again. STORY: David had this excellent novel business that he shared with a trusted friend who went on to stab him in the back by taking the idea and making it hers. LEARNING: Always have an NDA or any o...

BIO: Scott Buss lives his life and runs his business based on the principles of TRUST and TRANSPARENCY. He is an aviation expert who explores and connects the synergies between the private jet industry and the unlimited number of luxury lifestyle VIP brands. STORY: Scott found himself on the wrong side of Arizona’s law and landed in jail for four months. During his time in jail, Scott chose to foc...

BIO: Paulina Tenner is an entrepreneur, angel investor, TEDx speaker, and author. Her company, GrantTree, specializes in research and development tax credits and grants. She is passionate about burlesque and used to perform as a showgirl! STORY: Paulina’s company ventured into a new business area of renting out office space, a venture that almost killed the company. LEARNING: Focus on your core bu...

Christopher Elliott is an award-winning consumer advocate, multimedia journalist, and customer service expert. He is known for his practical advice and creative solutions to customer-service problems. He’s the author of Scammed: How to Save Your Money and Find Better Service in a World of Schemes, Swindles, and Shady Deals and How to Be the World’s Smartest Traveler (and Save Time, Money, and Hass...