Episode #64: Radical Curiosity, Mentoring 250 Start Up Founders, and Crossing the English Channel on an Inflatable Standup Paddleboard with Jonny Miller

Episode Summary

Jonny Miler shares his start-up journey building “Maptia” which took him and his team across five continents from “Start-Up Chile” in Santiago to “TechStars” in Seattle and then on to Morocco, Switzerland, Bali, and the UK.  He then shares his experience becoming a start-up mentor with “Escape the City” and the biggest lessons from mentoring over 250 start-ups.  Jonny then shares his reflections on the importance of emotional resilience in life and entrepreneurship, and breaks it down into 3 different areas—recovery strategies, capacity increasing strategies, and resiliency.  He then discusses his reflections on processing intense and traumatic events, including extreme grief. He opens up about losing his fiancé to suicide and reflects on his journey of grief which recently culminated in his 2019 TedX talk entitled “The Gifts of Grief”.  He then explains the concepts of ‘radical curiosity’, ‘the art of surrender’ and the importance of being a ‘curious human’. He then shares the most powerful lessons he has learned from his guests on the “Curious Humans” podcast, as well as his lessons on becoming a better interviewer and what makes a great podcast. He also reflects on why he travels, and what world travel has meant to him over the years. And he explains how Maptia works as an interactive map and online story-telling platform of crowd-sourced photo stories that allow you to explore the world thematically through lenses such as surfing or food or indigenous people. FULL SHOW NOTES AVAILABLE at www.TheMaverickShow.com

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What You'll Learn
  • The importance of radical curiosity for adults
  • Lessons from mentoring 250 startup founders
  • Techniques for emotional resilience and “the art of surrender”
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WATCH JONNY’S TEDx TALK

LISTEN TO JONNY’S PODCAST

THE #1 BOOK JONNY RECOMMENDS

THE #1 PRODUCTIVITY TOOL JONNY RECOMMENDS

THE #1 PODCAST THAT JONNY RECOMMENDS

THE #1 PERSON WITH WHOM JONNY WOULD LIKE TO HAVE DINNER 

PLACE WHERE THE INTERVIEW TOOK PLACE

JONNY’S TOP 3 FAVORITE TRAVEL DESTINATIONS 

JONNY’S TOP 3 BUCKET LIST DESTINATIONS

OTHER PLACES MENTIONED

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CONTACT JONNY

Time Stamped Show Notes

[3:26] Jonny’s Entrepreneurial Journey

  • Founding Maptia
  • Jonny’s experience with start-up accelerator programs
  • Traveling the world while building Maptia
  • Selecting a low cost of living based in Morocco 

[8:56] Lessons from Mentoring 250 Startups

  • Jonny’s role at “Escape the City”
  • What Jonny learned in his role as a start-up mentor
  • The biggest challenges that startup founders face 
  • Breaking down “Emotional resilience” into 3 parts

[14:39] Radical Curiosity and the Art of Surrender 

  • Defining radical curiosity 
  • Learning the art of surrender
  • Freediving as underwater meditation 
  • What it means to be a “curious human”
  • Why curiosity is so important for adults 
  • Learning to ask good questions 

[21:48] Reflections on Hosting the “Curious Humans” podcast

  • Highlights and top takeaways from his podcast guests
  • Reflections on what makes a great podcast interviewer 

[28:29] Adventures and Reflections on World Travel 

  • Crossing the English Channel on an Inflatable Standup Paddle Board
  • How the idea came about and describing the experience 
  • What travel means to Jonny
  • Jonny’s biggest lessons from traveling the world 
  • Why Jonny has chosen to base himself in Bali 
  • Building Maptia as an online storytelling platform with crowd-sourced photo-stories

[35:36] The Lightning Round

  • Jonny’s #1 Book Recommendation 
  • Jonny’s #1 Productivity Tool
  • The #1 Person with whom Jonny would most like to have dinner
  • The Top Podcasts Jonny Recommends 
  • Jonny’s Top 3 favorite travel destinations 
  • Jonny’s Top 3 bucket list destinations 
man in a denim shirt smiling

Jonny Miller

Jonny Miller has been a start-up mentor to over 250 early-stage founders around the world.  He is also a growth marketer, TEDx speaker, author, surf coach, emotional resilience coach, world traveler and host of the “Curious Humans” podcast. After losing his fiancé to suicide, Jonny delivered a powerful TedX talk in 2019 entitled “The Gifts of Grief” where he shares his grieving process and his profound reflections on death, mental health and radical curiosity about grief and its impact. In 2012 Jonny co-founded Maptia, whose mission is to foster empathy through storytelling, by providing a platform for travelers, writers, and photographers to document and capture the world around us and create a living archive of inspiring and impactful stories from around the globeJonny’s writing on global innovation has been featured in Forbes, the Huffington Post, and many other publications but Jonny disproportionately proud of once crossing the English Channel on an inflatable standup paddleboard.

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