Summary: <p><b>BGBS 020: Someday I’ll be an Idea Man</b></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">How adopting other people’s perspectives allowed Michael Ventura to discover that empathy is the secret to success and build a world class strategy and design studio serving the world’s biggest brands.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Michael Ventura is the founder and CEO of the strategy and design firm, Sub Rosa based in New York City. He is also an expert on empathy and practicing empathy in business in order to produce real innovation. Later in the show we’ll hear Michael’s definition of empathy… how most people get it wrong and how applying empathy is the secret weapon for any business looking to innovate.</span></p> <p><b>In this episode we talked about:</b></p> <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Michael’s early aspirations to be an “Idea Man” growing up.</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Background of Michael’s parents, their involvement, and what life was like growing up in suburban New Jersey.</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Where the sense of empathy and perspective taking came from for Michael.</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Michael’s plans to wanting to go to college coming out of high school and landing into a specialty school.</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">The introduction to the business world in Michael’s college years.</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">How Michael and his friend started doing events at bars and nightclubs at the age of 19.</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">The next big move Michael makes coming to the end of his college years, which happened to be at the end of the dot-com boom, finds a job for a bit until he gets laid off at 23, stuck and unsure what to do.</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Michael and a friend of his who was a software engineer team up to build what was essentially a platform that made flash websites: the birthing of Sub Rosa.</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Michael’s insights on how he stayed valuable to his clients who were potentially ready to leave.</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">How Seed came about and how it interwind with Sub Rosa.</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">How Michael knew and learned of the business strategies he practiced with design thinking and a methodology for solving problems.</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Michael’s thoughts on what it’s like running an agency on how hard it is to stay relevant and why he feels strongly on practicing empathy.</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">A powerful conversation between Michael and a three-star general about why Michael was even at the WestPoint Military Academy. </span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">One of Michael’s favorite examples of empathy into an organization revolving around the world of equality for women in the business space.</span></li> </ul> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;"> </span></p> <p><b>Quotes</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">:</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">[7:38] “Then that night she said, when she laid in bed with my dad, the two of them were talking, they were like, what the hell is our kid talking about that he wants to be an idea man, he’s nine years old? What does that even mean?”</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">[18:12] “What I ended up doing pretty quickly, was actually starting a business with a friend of mine where we were doing events at differen</span></p>
