#121 Forward’s Adrian Aoun: Being Stubborn and Persuasive, Fiction and Factfulness, Cycling as Meditation, Being Problem Focused, and More | 20 Minute Playbook

In Episode #121, we deconstruct Adrian Aoun's peak performance playbook—from their favorite book to the tiny habit that's had the biggest impact on their life. Adrian Aoun is the CEO and Founder of Forward. We cover why medical wearables don’t work, focusing on impact, and creating companies that can change the world. “Care deeply about the problem, not about your idea.” – Adrian Aoun EPISODE GUIDE (LINKS, QUOTES, NOTES, AND BOOKS MENTIONED) https://www.danielscrivner.com/notes/adrian-aoun-playbook/  FULL TEXT TRANSCRIPT https://www.danielscrivner.com/notes/adrian-aoun-playbook-transcript/  CHAPTERS In this episode, we deconstruct Adrian Aoun’s peak performance playbook—from their favorite book to the tiny habit that's had the biggest impact on their life. In it we cover: (00:00:00) – Introduction (00:02:21) – Creating companies that change the world (00:06:07) – On being stubborn and persistent (00:09:51) – Why medical wearables aren’t working (00:14:03) – It’s just as easy to work on something big as something that’s small (00:16:19) – Everything should relate to the problem (00:17:39) – On fiction and factfulness (00:19:20) – Cycling as meditation (00:20:23) – The only thing that matters is impact ABOUT ADRIAN AOUN Adrian Aoun is the founder and CEO of Forward, which is building an insurance-free healthcare system focused on preventative healthcare from the ground up. Forward was founded in 2017 to invert the typical model of healthcare. Where most healthcare follows the service model, where one patient sees a single doctor only when they need care, Forward is building healthcare focused on health and preventative care. It's productized so you can use it anytime, anywhere. It's scalable so it's affordable for everyone and always on with help available through Forward's app, as well as a network of doctors' offices around the United States, which might sound like, well, how healthcare should have been all along, which is the goal. In this episode, Adrian shares why he's so fanatical about being problem-focused rather than solution-focused and how he runs problem-centric brainstorms at Forward, where the goal is to beat up on other people's ideas in the name of getting to the best ideas. What he learned working with Sergey Brin and Eric Schmidt at Google, as well as the other advisors on the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, why modern fitness wearables are broken, and why Adrian thinks we need to build tools to tell people what to do with that data, not just share the data with them. 💌 FREE NEWSLETTER https://www.outlieracademy.com/newsletter 🎙 LISTEN ON iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/outlier-academy/id1523851182 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/58edVNgqaPNaCSGSxM6pef?si=88f37a5d20434775 Overcast: https://overcast.fm/itunes1523851182 ABOUT OUTLIER ACADEMY Learn timeless lessons on work and life from iconic founders, world-renown investors, and bestselling authors. Outlier Academy is the forever school for those chasing greatness. Past guests include Gokul Rajaram of DoorDash, Scott Belsky of Benchmark and Adobe, Joey Krug of Pantera Capital, Mark Sisson of Primal Kitchen, Luke Gromen of The Forest for the Trees, and Brian Scudamore of 1-800-GOT-JUNK. Website: https://www.outlieracademy.com Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/outlieracademy ABOUT DANIEL SCRIVNER Outlier Academy is hosted by Daniel Scrivner. Over the last 15 years, Daniel has led design teams at Square and Apple, turned around a $3M+ ARR SaaS business, and invested in more than 100 companies. He launched Outlier Academy in 2020 to learn from the world’s best founders, investors, authors, and peak performance experts. Website: https://www.danielscrivner.com Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/danielscrivner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices