Nilofer Merchant: Big Questions, Deep Faith and Real Power
Good Life Project
Jonathan Fields / Acast
4.5 • 3.4K Ratings
🗓️ 19 May 2015
⏱️ 72 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today's episode is sponsored by Camp GLP, the ultimate summer-camp for entrepreneurs, makers and world-shakers, recently featured in USA Today!
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"Brand is the exhaust fume of the engine of your life."
A show of defiance at the age of 18, Nilofer Merchant packed a box, declared she was leaving home and walked out the front door. She though her departure would last an hour, it turned into a lifetime.
Since then, her fierce intellect, bundled with a relentless curiosity and drive to learn, uplift and serve has fueled an astonishing career and life. Working in some of the largest companies in technology, she became known as the "Jane Bond of innovation," finding ways to not only generate more than $18 billion in revenue for those businesses, but also rebuild teams and ventures deemed unsave-able.
She's written numerous books, spoken all over the world, taught at Stanford and even inspired millions to trade sitting for walking in her famed TED talk. In fact, this entire podcast was recorded standing up in our Manhattan studios.
Maybe more impressive than the depth of her curiosity and the quality of her ideas, though, is the size of her heart and her willingness to be real. To walk the walk of someone who is committed to inciting profound change in the world and to sharing her vulnerability and humanity along the way.
This is a conversation you will likely want to listen to a few times over and share with friends and colleagues.
Links we mention:
Follow Nilofer: Website | Twitter
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Okay, you have choices every day. |
| 0:05.9 | It doesn't matter what's happened to you, all matters is the choice you make that day. |
| 0:09.7 | And what you make of it. |
| 0:11.2 | And I think if there is a lesson I've learned, it's to just show up. |
| 0:14.5 | Show up and live the day you have today, not based off your demons in the past, but off |
| 0:18.8 | of your joy for today. |
| 0:24.8 | If you do that, you're going to totally destroy your career. |
| 0:31.2 | That's what today's guest, Nilla for Merchant, was told when she decided that the topic of |
| 0:36.6 | her TED Talk would be the damage that's done by sitting and the power of walking during |
| 0:44.2 | your work, especially walking meetings. |
| 0:46.8 | Why was she told that? |
| 0:48.2 | Because behind her, she had a stunning career as a mover and shaker in some of the most |
| 0:54.7 | powerful startups in some of the largest organizations in Silicon Valley and in technology. |
| 1:00.2 | She was known as a thinker and intellect. |
| 1:02.9 | She was known as the Jane Bond of innovation for her ability to really guide companies through |
| 1:09.0 | impossible scenarios. |
| 1:11.4 | And now she was going to take one of the biggest stages in the world and talk about not |
| 1:17.1 | sitting. |
| 1:18.1 | Well, that's exactly what she did. |
| 1:20.4 | And why she made that choice is something that we dive into and her extraordinary career, |
| 1:26.3 | her lens on the world is really something that blew my mind. |
| 1:31.7 | Now there's another interesting first, which you guys actually won't be able to see, but |
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