We recently connected with Viviane Ford and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Viviane, thank you for being such a positive, uplifting person. We’ve noticed that so many of the successful folks we’ve had the good fortune of connecting with have high levels of optimism and so we’d love to hear about your optimism and where you think it comes from.
My grandma used to always say, “say yes to life.” She passed away before I was born but my dad always reminded me and my sister about it (and continues to do so). When I think of optimism, I actually get a little scared. I think there’s this idea of optimism in technology and art that actually stems from a deep fear that the product or service being provided is not enough. Optimistic companies tend to be seen as optimistic and delusional (look at Theranos, Magic Leap, etc.). So, how do I stay optimistic? I define optimistic as simplistic. With simplicity, the focus can be on the shippable aspect of a project (art or tech) so the areas that need more work and focus can be better defined. No matter the issue. A hard technical problem, producing a show, writing a standup set. It’s all based on what is actually shipping and what is actually working.
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
I am in the midst of performing a crypto comedy show I wrote called New Kids on the Blockchain (directed by Elizabeth Bennett). It aims to do two things: poke fun at the crypto world and in doing so, make it much more accessible to people who aren’t in crypto. It’s the true story of when, at the age of 22, I found myself living in a house called the Crypto Castle in San Francisco. One bitcoin was worth $250 and I had 14 male roommates, all very interested in crypto. For context, today, one bitcoin is worth about $70,000. So, it follows my journey over the course of four years (yes, you are correct. Four years is much too long of a time to live at any house that has a name).
My love for crypto really started when I moved to San Francisco immediately after graduating college. I was so intriuged by the tech and crypto startup world but I soon was disturbed with the world of Venture Capital. Investors would give egregious amounts of funding to companies simply because they had a good sales pitch. It didn’t matter if they had a working product or even the team to back it. If they succeeded at capturing a share of the attention economy, that was good enough for the venture capitalists. But then, a few years later, these companies would collapse and it felt like a waste of money and time that could have been prevented from someone telling the truth.
I started wondering, what is actually real? In crypto and in tech. And so, the Crypto Castle show was born. I’ll be taking the show on the road to the Hollywood Fringe Festival as well as the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and will have a few shows in New York City in the summer. Check out the website (https://www.vivford.com/new-kids-on-the-blockchain) for more show details.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
The three skills that are most important are focus, focus, focus. Every project stops being fun at some point and just becomes hard. If there’s a lack of focus, this is when the project becomes a “oh, I tried doing that at one point.” But focus is incredibly hard and something I struggle with often. I was listening to a podcast with the late poet, Mary Oliver, and she had a beautiful question for her audience: who do you give your best self to? I then took a week to understand at what hour of the day my brain worked best and decided that I would reserve that hour for myself, no matter what. I became very strict with that time and would work on the project that was for me. Some days, I got 5 minutes of work done. Others, it was the full hour. But week by week, I had something shippable.
If you knew you only had a decade of life left, how would you spend that decade?
I think I would have to embrace the hedonistic desires of life. I would delete every social media app that exists. I would sell all my belongings. I would buy a nice bike. And I would start biking. I would somehow make my way to Paris where my sister lives, refuel on lots of baguettes, cheese, and wine, then continue on the road, taking in every aspect of this world and its mysteries. I did a year-long backpacking trip a few years back. I lived on different farms around the world (24 countries). And the year felt like it lasted for 5. It was the most wonderful way to slow down time.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.vivford.com/new-kids-on-the-blockchain
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vivford/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vivianeford/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/vivford
Image Credits
Lydia Ciaputa
