Exclusive Interviews
In Steven D. Lavine — Failure is What It’s All About, award-winning German author and journalist Jörn Jacob Rohwer explores the story of the California Institute of the Arts and its legendary twenty-nine year president Dr. Steven D. Lavine.
“From 1988 until 2017, I served as President of the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts). During this time, CalArts distinguished itself as a progressive and internationally influential leader in each of the arts taught at the college—art, dance, theater, music, film/video, and writing—and became a pace-setter in domestic diversity, community engagement, international linkage, and in the production and presentation of cutting edge professional work.”
In an industry that is typically male-dominated and favors Western music sensibilities, many of today’s finest instrumentalists are women of Asian descent. Artists like Bokyung Byun are changing the game and marching to her own beat.
Bokyung Byun is a classical guitarist who enjoys a reputation as one of the most sought-after guitarists of her generation. Born in Seoul, Korea, Bokyung began playing guitar at the age of six. At eleven, she took the stage for her first solo recital, leading to an early start in her teen years performing numerous concert tours around Korea, to enthusiastic response, including millions of views on YouTube.
The line crossing art and reality blurred during what felt like a real life horror movie, the pandemic of 2020. Amidst the Coronavirus, in order to relieve anxiety and cope with fears many people gravitated towards watching thrillers. 2011’s Contagion quickly became one of the most streamed films due to the eerie parallels mirrored onscreen with the global virus playing out in real time offscreen. A new subgenre even emerged called ‘quar-horror’ that probed at what is scary about staying home. For Actor and producer Anis Maknojia, he was able to cope with the pandemic through creating the horror short Jack.
We all have moments where we are faced with challenges. How we face those challenges and move past them is an important process in growing as an individual. This is hard enough as adults, but children may not have the maturity or tools to move beyond their struggles. So, what can they do? This is where Dee Bryant comes in.
Dee Bryant is retired military leader, a motivational speaker, and a two-time published author, with one goal in mind—helping to inspire children towards positive change. Dee is determined to help kids tackle the issues before them, while getting them to understand, that they can move past their fear consisting of self-doubt, fear of failure, or fear of making mistakes.
In order to accomplish what you want in life, the path to success must begin by implementing the right mindset. Through his twenty years of experience in personal development and business, Armand Peri is an expert when it comes to developing a success-orientated mindset. He is dedicated to helping others find their true hidden potential and motivate them to start their lifelong journey towards greatness.
Armand has proven himself in more than one professional field. As his companies and portfolio continue to grow, so does he.
Paul Lamar Hunter grew up in a two-bedroom house with twenty-one siblings, often without enough food, clothes or space to sleep to go around. Despite this, he’s overcome the perils of poverty, neglect, abuse and family dysfunction to become the first in his family to earn a college degree. His story is proof that it’s not how you start, it’s how you finish. The proud father of four shows that neither limits nor lineage determines the quality of one’s life. Though adversity changed the trajectory of his life, his touching story about personal triumph and beating the odds will inspire you to persevere.
“Life is what is happening to you now, so try to live it as best you can, and keep trying to grow and learn.”
Ultra_Eko is an independent hip hop artist from South London, UK. He writes songs based on the message he wants to put into the world, from a place of passion and love for music. His debut album Off the Grid works on several levels in terms of its meaning and can also be interpreted as a call to arms in terms of how we are all living our lives.
Dr. Alan Barnard is a serial entrepreneur, app developer, author, speaker and one of the leading Decision Scientists and Theory of Constraints experts in the world. His life goal is to help people discover and overcome their own limiting assumptions or beliefs that could be blocking them from seeing and unlocking their inherent potential.
For over thirty years, Dr. Barnard’s research has been focused on two simple questions. Firstly, why do good people make, and often repeat bad decisions? And secondly, is it possible to develop simple decision support methods and apps that can help people avoid common decision mistakes to help them make better, faster decisions when it really matters?