Disrupt Yourself Podcast with Whitney Johnson

This week we're bringing you an extra dose of inspiration. It's our conversation from October 2020 with Syd and Shea McGee, founders of Studio McGee, one of the most successful and fastest growing interior design companies in the country. But Syd and Shea didn't start out in the design world. They took a huge risk in jumping to a new S Curve, and it all began with a single Instagram post.

Sometimes the business landscape can be a battlefield, but this week's guest puts all that in perspective. General Stanley McChrystal is a highly decorated U.S. Army veteran who is no stranger to  real  battlefields. He's a retired four-star general, and commanded an enormous contingent of U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. He's also an avid student of history, who acutely observes how the great...

We are excited to share a bonus episode with you this week. It's our conversation with Bob Proctor, originally published in March of 2021. Bob Proctor is a towering figure wherever the mention of self-improvement comes into discussion. For more than 40 years, Bob has focused his entire agenda around helping people create enriched lives, full of rewarding relationships and spiritual awareness. List...

Mental health has never been more top-of-mind than in recent years, and Emma McAdam has built an extraordinary therapeutic resource in an unlikely place: YouTube. Emma is a licensed marriage and family therapist best known for her incredibly popular "Therapy in a Nutshell" videos that demystify things like anxiety, depression, and emotional regulation. This candid conversation will completely chan...

This week, the tables are turned when the host becomes the guest on her own show. Amy Humble, president of Disruption Advisors, interviews Whitney about the challenge and personal growth that comes out of writing a book. Smart Growth , which expounds on the S-Curve of learning for organizations, had a dramatic development curve of its own: unbridled excitement at the beginning, with a plummet to t...

If you're not great at long-term planning, you're not alone. In fact, the human brain is wired to seek short-term gains. Neuroscience even shows that we perceive our "future selves" as strangers — people we're aware of, but don't know personally. These ideas intrigue our guest Tanya Dalton, a productivity expert whose new book "On Purpose" unpacks success and motivation through a variety of lenses...

If your company has too many meetings, this week's episode is a must-listen. Email, Slack, and Zoom are technologies built to make us more productive. But when we use meetings and messages to solve all our problems, it leaves little time to actually get work done. This is "collaboration overload." Our guest Rob Cross, who studies this phenomenon, says that collaborative demands on workers have ris...

John Tesh wears many hats: News reporter, sports commentator, TV host, radio personality, composer, author, and touring musician to name a few. What you may not know is how a variety of mistakes and "crimes" (as he puts it!) lead him to become a household name. In this candid interview, John recounts how disappointing his dad, being homeless, and the kindness of one friend set him on a disruptive...

A healthy amount of stress is so important for personal growth, but chronic stress that demands our attention 24/7 can disconnect us from our work, colleagues, and purpose. This is burnout, and Jennifer Moss observes that we are facing an epidemic. She's an award-winning journalist, columnist, and author of The Burnout Epidemic: The Rise of Chronic Stress and How We Can Fix It. But contrary to pop...

Even if you don't play golf, there's a surprising amount to learn from pro golfers who broke with tradition to "swing their own swing." That's what Steve Bullock learned when he analyzed tons of data for his book  Out of the Box Golf . Think:  Moneyball for the 9-iron crowd. For instance, even holding a club the "traditional" way puts players at a huge disadvantage. Yet even when golfers find clea...

A 21st century career path can take many twists and turns. The skills you learn for one S Curve may not map perfectly to the next. That's why learning is the most important skill of all. That's some wisdom from Ekpedeme "Pamay" Bassey, the Chief Learning and Chief Diversity Officer at Kraft Heinz. And she should know. Before earning her many prestigious titles in the corporate world, she came from...

We all have jobs to pay the bills, but what is your purpose? And what's your company's purpose? Leena Nair asks these questions every day. She's the chief human resources officer at Unilever. She's also the first female, first Asian, and youngest CHRO in the company's history. "Companies with purpose last. And people with purpose thrive," Leena explains. And she has the data to back it up. Ensurin...

Being a leader and teaching leadership are two very different things. Harry Kraemer found this out when he jumped S-curves later in life. Harry is the former chairman and CEO of Baxter International, a $12 billion global healthcare company. But more importantly for this conversation, he now teaches leadership at Northwestern University. Harry explains the importance of self-reflection and genuine...

When we talk about starting a new S-curve, few exemplify this better than Jacqueline Novogratz. She upended her successful career in international banking to focus on addressing global poverty through the impact investment organization Acumen. Her journey is extraordinary, inspiring, and at times heartbreaking. Jacqueline and Whitney talk about what it takes to have a "moral imagination," the foun...

Dr. Astrid Tuminez is the first female president of Utah Valley University, and her journey is incredibly inspiring. Born in the Philippines and raised in extreme poverty, Tuminez made pivotal choices and gained important mentors which led her to the U.S. Her passion for international relations made her an influential voice of peace at the height of the Cold War. In her conversation with Whitney,...

TV host, author, and podcaster Mike Rowe would have been a construction worker if not for advice from his grandfather: "Find a different toolbox." Turns out, Mike wasn't great with his hands, but his grandfather and other mentors recognized different skills. They pushed him out of his comfort zone and in front of microphones and cameras. Today, Mike's wildly popular "Dirty Jobs" TV series has show...

Chris Dancy's life used to be a lot different. Back in 2008, he weighed more than 300 pounds, smoked two packs and drank 36 cans of Diet Coke a day. But he had one disruptive skill in his back pocket. As a database engineer, he's obsessive about tracking information. And when he put the lens on himself, it changed everything. By tracking every aspect of his life (food, feelings, TV, social media p...

The proverbial "glass ceiling" is real, and can block women from reaching their full potential. There is a lot of work to be done here, but not all women are in a position to effect systemic change. So what can women (and their allies) do in their daily lives and careers to close the gap? That's the subject of Sally Helgesen's book, How Women Rise: Break the 12 Habits Holding You Back from your Ne...

If you've already answered the question we posed in episode 80 (Why should you disrupt yourself in the first place?), then it's time to revisit risk, the first accelerant of personal disruption. In this encore episode, Whitney discusses why not all risk is created equal, and why taking the right risks can have huge upsides. If this podcast is valuable to you, email Whitney at wj@whitneyjohnson.com...

There's a lot of common wisdom around building good habits: stick to a schedule, reject constraints, and seek out great advice. But science would like a word. Katy Milkman is an economist and behavioral scientist who has done breakthrough research on how people form (or break) habits. Surprising data from her book,  How to Change , shows that flexibility, not routine, is the key to conquering proc...

Reframing failure as a learning experience is so hard to do. But when you can, it's one of the most powerful tools for personal growth. This week, Whitney explores the value of a discovery-driven mindset through the advice of many past Disrupt Yourself  guests, and her own experience. Knowing where you are on your emotional journey before walking into the unknown removes so much risk. And traditio...

In an economy dominated by tech giants, growing your business to compete with Amazon or Google can feel futile. But Ray Wang thinks differently about this challenge. Wang is the founder and chairman of Constellation Research, a Silicon Valley advisory firm that finds opportunities for businesses to scale — especially in highly competitive climates. He explains why companies that have won the digit...

Brooke Snow is an author, meditation instructor, musician, podcaster, and parent who prefers to define herself by her qualities, rather than any of these roles. Reframing identity as traits (kind, thoughtful, determined) rather than titles allows Brooke to be so much more than the sum of her jobs. Brooke explains why bad days are actually good when you can recognize your wins (however small), putt...

"Listen first" and "Disrupt yourself before you are disrupted." Those are some of the hard-won lessons from Scott Miller on this encore episode.  Scott is the Executive Vice President of the Thought Leadership practice at FranklinCovey and author of  Management Mess to Leadership Success: 30 Challenges to Become the Leader You Would Follow , about becoming the leader you would want to follow. In t...

What does it take to get someone to believe in you? To back you and what you are doing? This episode's guest is Harvard University Visiting Scholar Suneel Gupta, author of the new book Backable . We talk about what you must do, and what you must leave behind, to get people to take a chance on you. For a complete transcript and links from this episode, please visit: https://whitneyjohnson.com/ 222-...