Magic Minds

"The most exciting new podcast in the startup world.” - Eric Ries, Founder, and NYTimes bestselling author  A R I Z O N A, the band not the state, is one of the top 100 streamed bands in the world in the last two years, with over a billion streams of their music since their first album in 2017. Today they will talk about what the journey has been like as artists and musicians.  We covered many topics like where they were 10 years ago, the path they took to form their band and what it's like to be musicians touring around the world. They just released their second album so be sure to check it out.  You can email James questions directly at askbelowtheline@gmail.com or follow us on Twitter @ twitter.com/gobelowtheline — “Below the Line with James Beshara" is brought to you by Straight Up Podcasts LLC

"The most exciting new podcast in the startup world.” - Eric Ries, Founder and NYTimes bestselling author Today's episode is with Paul Austin, a social entrepreneur in a very unique space, the psychedelic space. He has been featured in Rolling Stone, The New York Times, The Economist, Forbes, and others for his pioneering work regarding microdosing, and his work with a psilocybin retreat center that he co-founded in the Netherlands last year, called Synthesis. I want to point out up front that I don't microdose. I never have and I'm not advocating psychedelic usage. But what interests me about this space, similar to what interests a lot of people when it comes to mental health about the space, is that we've had about 20-25 years of stagnation in treatments for mental health. A sibling of mine has tried basically every treatment there is over the last 20 years with very minimal results and psychedelic therapy is perhaps the most scientifically and effectively interesting approach that we've seen in these last two decades around new discoveries for the treatment of mental illnesses like PTSD or major depression. Therefore, it made complete sense to me to want to follow this space closely. Paul, who is a friend, is one of the earliest educators on the space starting, perhaps the most widely used and most responsible educational courses on microdosing called The Third Wave. It's also an interesting conversation with the founder that has had to blaze a trail in a highly controversial, highly stigmatized, and poorly understood space. He also talks about how this has affected him over the years... I think you’ll enjoy this conversation with Paul Austin. You can email James questions directly at askbelowtheline@gmail.com or follow us on Twitter @ twitter.com/gobelowtheline — “Below the Line with James Beshara" is brought to you by Straight Up Podcasts LLC.

"The most exciting new podcast in the startup world.” - Eric Ries, Founder and NYTimes bestselling author Welcome back to another episode of Below The Line. Today's episode is with Leah Busque Solivan who is the founder of TaskRabbit and now a venture capitalist in Fuel Capital. We talk about the low points of her eight year journey as a founder, running her own startup TaskRabbit, sparing no details of the reality of that role, and how she transitioned to becoming a venture capitalist after handing off the reigns. We also talked about why she sees herself being an investor for the foreseeable future and not doing her own startup again along with some real talk on her lowest 24 hours she experienced as CEO. Her candor is so refreshing. And that candor along with her experience is what is making her one of the best investors out there in my opinion. Her story and our conversation is one that I haven't heard anyone share — not quite like this on below the line. I think you’re really going to enjoy today’s honest and open conversation with Leah. You can email James questions directly at askbelowtheline@gmail.com or follow us on Twitter @ twitter.com/gobelowtheline — “Below the Line with James Beshara" is brought to you by Straight Up Podcasts LLC.

"The most exciting new podcast in the startup world.” - Eric Ries, Founder and NYTimes bestselling author Today's episode is one of my favorite conversations I’ve had. It’s with Nir Eyal, who is a founder, an investor, and a best-selling author. His first book “Hooked” came out about five years ago and pretty much every tech founder became familiar with his insights in that book. But his latest book “Indistractible”, which came out this month, talks about how to control your attention and intentionally choose your life. It’s not necessarily just for the tech and startup ecosystem, it's for anyone who cares about life — making the most of it and trying to work on not becoming so distractible. We talked about what is distraction, what motivates us, how to prevent distraction, and what is the opposite of distraction. We talk about all of those things, including building indistractable workplaces and so much more. Hope you enjoy this one as much as I did. You can email James questions directly at askbelowtheline@gmail.com or follow us on Twitter @ twitter.com/gobelowtheline — “Below the Line with James Beshara" is brought to you by Straight Up Podcasts LLC.

"The most exciting new podcast in the startup world.” - Eric Ries, Founder and NYTimes bestselling author Today's episode is with Ann Miura-Ko a co-founder of Floodgate, one of the original seed stage investment funds here in Silicon Valley. Floodgate has been an investor in Twitter, Twitch, Lyft, Cruise, Okta, TaskRabbit, and a bunch of amazing world-changing companies. We talked about a number of things with Ann including her path to becoming a VC, what she thinks about today as an early stage investor, the things that have shaped her in her life, as well as what's changing about investing today that makes it quite different 11 years after founding Floodgate in 2008. You can email James questions directly at askbelowtheline@gmail.com or follow us on Twitter @ twitter.com/gobelowtheline — “Below the Line with James Beshara" is brought to you by Straight Up Podcasts LLC.

"The most exciting new podcast in the startup world.” - Eric Ries, Founder and NYTimes bestselling author Today's episode is with Christopher Lochhead, a marketing legend and best selling author of “Play Bigger” and “Niche Down”. He is also the podcast host of “Follow Your Different” and “Lochhead on Marketing”. This episode is a really great insight into different views that his books cover from “category design” to the things that legendary companies have done to become dominant in their respective fields when it comes to marketing (and when it comes to decisions made right in the beginning of their “story”). We talk about how the things that you might think are your weaknesses can actually be your superpowers, the things that Chris personally has had to overcome in his own journey, and how thinking differently (and giving himself permission to think *really* differently) became the biggest reason for his success as a founder, CMO, author, and more. This podcast is an insightful one with viewpoints that I've never heard before, and I think you’ll enjoy it too — even if you’ve never thought much about the marketing side of creation. You can email James questions directly at askbelowtheline@gmail.com or follow us on Twitter @ twitter.com/gobelowtheline — “Below the Line with James Beshara" is brought to you by Straight Up Podcasts LLC.

"The most exciting new podcast in the startup world.” - Eric Ries, Founder and NYTimes bestselling author  Today's episode is with the founder and lead pastor of Reality SF, a church where my wife and I attend in San Francisco. Unlike the many founders that I've invited here on Below The Line, what Dave Lomas started was a church, not a company, right in the heart of San Francisco. The Bay Area is known for the tech scene... not necessarily the church scene. But his story is not unlike many other unpredictable paths toward impact.  Dave and his church know their followers, their doubts, the daily influences of being in the Bay Area, and he speaks to the audience each Sunday with a captivating awareness of all of this. You can listen to any of his lectures and sermons online on their own podcast and they are truly mind blowing.  It's a really nice grounding wire for me as a creator to regularly go and listen to someone talk about something that has nothing to do with entrepreneurship, but has everything to do with being useful in one's community. I love this specific conversation more than any other interaction I've had with Dave. It's by far the longest, focused conversation of ours, and easily the most honest interaction I've had with him or any pastor. So I cannot overstate the gratitude I have for how open he is with his life with his congregation, and I think it has something to do with it being one of the fastest growing churches in California.  I think you're going to really enjoy this episode. So let's get into it with Dave Lomas.  You can email James questions directly at askbelowtheline@gmail.com or follow us on Twitter @ twitter.com/gobelowtheline — “Below the Line with James Beshara" is brought to you by Straight Up Podcasts LLC.

"The most exciting new podcast in the startup world.” - Eric Ries, Founder and NYTimes bestselling author Today we chat with Sam Parr, founder of “The Hustle” one of the fastest growing media companies here in America. They have talented writers who create amazing newsletters and compelling content on the most important business news and trends. It covers some really interesting topics outside of what you would normally find in a business-focused media company. I met Sam in 2015 when I was invited to speak at their convention, Hustle Con. Actually, I'm going to be speaking again on December 2nd and 3rd of this year at Hustle Con here in the Bay Area. Sam and I touched on a handful of interesting topics. He's not the conventional founder that raises VC funding in the Bay Area — He's done it completely differently and this conversation is just as unique as Sam has built his business. We chat about him giving up alcohol 6 years ago, getting started in the hotdog stand business, and the way he built The Hustle with very little money. We also talked about him hitting moments with The Hustle that made him want to quit (despite its growth trajectory) and before hitting a new stride in the last 12 months. All of that and more on today’s episode with Sam. You can email James questions directly at askbelowtheline@gmail.com or follow us on Twitter @ twitter.com/gobelowtheline — “Below the Line with James Beshara" is brought to you by Straight Up Podcasts LLC.

"The most exciting new podcast in the startup world.” - Eric Ries, Founder and NYTimes bestselling author Calvin “Cal” Fussman is a world famous interviewer, a New York Times bestselling author, public speaker, and the creator of the podcast called Big Questions. He was the Writer-at-Large of Esquire, interviewing everyone from Richard Branson to Muhammad Ali to Serena Williams to Robert De Niro. He's on a mission to increase our collective curiosity and inspire storytelling everywhere he goes. We talked about his story of becoming a journalist and the moments of honesty with people like Muhammad Ali that has stuck with him ever since. We cover the rules of storytelling which is a phrase I never heard before but certainly, there are principles that I think we all know deep down, and he articulates them pretty powerfully. We cover all those with other topics and our time together, and I really hope he enjoyed it as much as I did. You can email James questions directly at askbelowtheline@gmail.com or follow us on Twitter @ twitter.com/gobelowtheline — “Below the Line with James Beshara" is brought to you by Straight Up Podcasts LLC.

"The most exciting new podcast in the startup world.” - Eric Ries, Founder and NYTimes bestselling author “Attach, you lose, detach, you gain”. That simple phrase and along with the phrase “Yoga for the intellect” on a little pamphlet in a hotel in Southern California caught my eye. I was there with my wife for a weekend and got lured into a session with a guy that looked like one of those folks at the airports dressed in orange monk garb, with few possessions, and maybe some wooden beads. That's what I was looking at on this pamphlet. I was so intrigued that I ended up going to the seminar as it promised to include free yoga as well. We met Joseph, a modern day monk from Houston, Texas that had spent 10 years studying Vedanta in India. We started chatting and it was so fascinating because as a creator, there were so many things that he pointed out, that I have knowledge about but never articulated — like the way he did. That concept of whatever you're attached to, that attachment actually repels it from you — like holding something you love in your hands too tightly and actually restricting it. It was an entire afternoon filled with very simple explanations of simple concepts that were just deep beneath so many other thoughts and things that have gone through my mind for years and years. And when I started to think about the concept of the podcast, following the mental journey of creation, and thinking about things that have caused me so much stress in life, I immediately thought of the living antithesis, Joseph. He is the most carefree and stress free individual I’ve ever met. But that's just the beginning of what makes him so interesting. You can email James questions directly at askbelowtheline@gmail.com or follow us on Twitter @ twitter.com/gobelowtheline — “Below the Line with James Beshara" is brought to you by Straight Up Podcasts LLC.