Disrupting Yourself w/ Whitney Johnson of Disruption Advisors

In 1996, a 27-year-old woman walked into Smith Barney for her very first day as a secretary. A recent college grad with a degree in piano and no business experience, Ivy League pedigree, or marketable skills other than typing fast, it wasn't long before she saw the future she wanted: a career as an investment banker. But that future seemed out of reach. Or was it?

That woman was Whitney Johnson, and she's our guest on the very first episode of season 2 of the podcast. Whitney is the CEO of Disruption Advisors, a leadership development company that can help you grow your people to grow your business. She's also the host of the weekly podcast Disrupt Yourself, whose guests have included Alan Mulally, Brené Brown, Adam Grant, Susan Cain, and Stephen M.R. Covey.

In today's episode, Chris and Whitney cover:

• How Whitney learned to embrace, not run from, her origin story
• The massive influence Clayton Christensen and his work on disruption and innovation had on Whitney
• The importance of "throwing down the pom poms and getting in the game"
• How the "S curve" provides a powerful framework for Whitney's work as a disruption advisor
• Whether it's easier to disrupt yourself earlier or later in your career
• The zen of tennis, piano, and fly fishing 

And much more!

Transcript

Whitney Johnson  0:00  
The price of your new self is your old self. It's a willingness to give up where you are, feeling like you're stepping back because you believe that in the future you're going to have, that future self, that center of gravity that's going to pull you to who you want to be and who you, who you can be.

Chris Hare  0:15  
Welcome to the Storied Future Podcast, a show where I interview high-performing CEOs, experts and innovators who have put new narratives out into the world and then used those narratives to shift the future. If you want to create a future where you're celebrated not only for what you've accomplished, but for how you've accomplished it, who you took with you and who you became in the process, this is the show for you. 

In 1996, a 27 year old woman walked into Smith Barney for her very first day as a secretary. She just graduated from college with a degree in piano, and she had zero experience in business, zero Ivy League in her blood, and zero marketable skills other than typing fast. It wasn't long before she saw the future that she wanted, that she had to have: a career as an investment banker. But that future seemed out of reach because she was a secretary. Or was it? That woman was Whitney Johnson, my guest today on the very first episode of season two of the Storied Future Podcast. Whitney is the CEO of Disruption Advisors, a leadership development company that can help you grow your people to grow your business. She's also the host of the weekly disrupt yourself podcast where her guests have included Alan Mulally, Brené Brown, Adam Grant, Susan Cain and Stephen Mr. Covey. I'm proud to say that Whitney is also my coach, and I'm so excited to share her story with you. Let's dive in. 

Whitney, thanks for joining me on the Storied Future Podcast.

Whitney Johnson  1:38  
Chris, thank you for having me.

Chris Hare  1:42  
I've been looking forward to this for a long time. So I'm excited to jump in with you. If you could, I'd love to have you take me back to your very first job in New York.

Whitney Johnson  1:50  
My very first job in New York. I was 27 years old. I took almost a decade to graduate from college, I was a music major. And my very first job my husband and I had moved there for him to get a PhD. I wouldn't have actually gone to New York, I found it rather terrifying. In fact, I remember when we drove across the George Washington Bridge for the first time, I was like, Well, what are we doing here first week, I won't leave the apartment by myself, I was really afraid to be in New York. But we needed to eat. So I did have to leave our apartment and go get a job. So my very first job, I had studied music, but I didn't want to do anything in music. And so I was just kind of casting about I was going to a lot of like temp agencies and they kept on wanting to put me kind of into secretarial type roles and advertising. And then I kind of discovered financial services. And where I ended up landing was I interviewed with a woman who was a retail stockbroker, who was actually focusing on clients in Latin America. And so that was really intriguing to me. Because I had lived in Latin America, I had been a missionary for my church in Latin America for a year and a half. I loved Spanish, I loved everything Latin related, and so to have a job where I could focus on Latin America, working on Wall Street, but I think that was less important, at least initially. But that was my first job. I was working as a basically as a secretary to a stock broker.

Chris Hare  3:23  
And what was your first company? And then what was if you recall, what was your first day like, are the feeling of walking into that?

Whitney Johnson  3:30  
Yeah, so my first company was Smith Barney, 1345 Avenue of the Americas right next door to the Hilton Hotel. I don't remember my first day, but I do remember this feeling over all of it being really exciting. Of once, I wasn't quite so scared anymore. I was excited to be there. But I quickly found myself having thoughts like, Alright, now that I'm here, oh, this is what Wall Street is, well, what's the brass ring when you're on Wall Street? Oh, investment banking, I want that I want to do that. And but I remember trying to apply to be an investment banking analyst and putting on my resume, how fast I could type I could type 80 words a minute, and they're like, Yeah, that's not gonna really get you a job in professional services. They don't care how fast you type. And so there was a bit of this adjustment that was going on of me now that I was oriented knowing what I wanted. I needed to start taking business courses at night accounting, finance, economics, that would put me into a position where I could move on to the professional track. And I did after about a year have a boss so my boss that I was working for, she actually wasn't producing so she was let go. I got another job and it was that boss his name was Caesar bias. So I will always be grateful to him. He's the one who gave me a shot to move from being a secretary to a track where I could become an investment banker.

Chris Hare  5:10  
I love that. And I want to continue on with that thread. But first, I would like to rewind to hear a little bit about your childhood and what you're like as a kid, because oftentimes that or generally does shape our trajectory.

Whitney Johnson  5:22  
Yeah, so I am the oldest of four children. I was actually born in Madrid, Spain. And I think that's relevant, because even though my parents lived there for like, six months, maybe nine months, because I was born there, I always thought I was Spanish. So I would study Spanish in school. And so the love of Latin America that I mentioned earlier, which has pervaded my entire life. I grew up in San Jose, California, what is now known as Silicon Valley, my dad actually grew up in San Jose, California, as well. So my family's been there for several generations. I would say, as a child, I was fairly precocious. I remember going to see the sound of music and coming home and saying I want to figure out how to play doh right me on the piano when I picked it out. And I was three years old, and wanting to take piano wanting to take piano. But then that was a day where you didn't start taking piano until you were seven years old. So all those years lost. I feel very sad about I learned how to sew, I loved playing dodgeball, I was a really good student, very perfectionistic. And oftentimes, as young girls are, and I'm very driven, and tried to figure out how to make my way in the world because I remember being in third grade and I was really good at multiplication tables, and so was Scott macadam, and but it was okay for the boys to be good at multiplication tables, and not quite so okay for girls to be and just kind of wrestling with that sort of girl boy feminine, masculine thing from a pretty young age, very middle class, but my parents, they gave me a lot of opportunities for which I'm very grateful.

Chris Hare  7:05  
And do you recall what role kind of thinking about the future played? Or how you viewed the future? Was it something to look forward to in a positive way? Or was there fear around that you recall?

Whitney Johnson  7:16  
You know, it's interesting. I remember a few years ago, I was in a workshop and someone asked about, what did you want to be when you grew up? I was interesting, because most of the women in the room didn't know what they wanted to be when they grew up. And I was in a similar place. I was like, I'm going to be a concert pianist when I was like, eight years old. Well, I didn't become a concert pianist. I didn't really know what I wanted to be actually, I had this vague notion that I would get married, and I would have children. And that persisted even through college. You know, when I got to college, I'm going to, I'm going to study music, but I had no sense of what am I going to do professionally? What am I going to be? And I would say that in general, your question about fear or optimism. There's kind of this war inside of me that continues to this day, although I would say the optimism is over time winning out. But I think as a child, I was fairly, I think I was somewhat fearful, actually, there was a boldness, but the boldness had to win its way through the fear.

Chris Hare  8:29  
Yeah, that totally resonates. That was my experience, where I had this vision of what was possible in the future. And I believed in it wholeheartedly. But I was also afraid. In the process. It was it was odd. It's an odd thing.

Whitney Johnson  8:43  
Yeah. Don't you love that notion that we're so resilient? And this? Yeah, I love what you just said, You believe in the future wholeheartedly. Like you just know, it's there. You know, you can have it, but for whatever reason, oftentimes, maybe sometimes part of who we are, but oftentimes, the environment in which we grew up, holds us back. And I think a lot of our adult life is figuring out how to break through that and to rip those self limiting beliefs off and I I feel like that's part of the journey of being an adult. And it's an exciting, wonderful journey.

Chris Hare  9:21  
I love that. I want to talk a little bit more about the piano. I don't know if you remember a specific time that you were playing on your own or in a recital, but what was it about piano that lit you up?

Whitney Johnson  9:33  
Because two things come to mind. I remember that playing of the dough ramie on the piano and just being wow, like I heard something. And now I can sit at the piano and do dough Ray me. That was magical. Absolutely. So magical. And I remember having a babysitter coming over and begging her to teach me how to play the spinning sign, I think out of John Thompson's books. And I think that was the most magical moment. But then also having a piano teacher, her name was Mrs. sills and learning how to play some Bach inventions. And those early days, I felt tremendous amount of magic around it, I would say, as I got, you know, nine and 10. And it sort of became something that was important to my family, it didn't feel like it was mine quite as much. But then I rediscovered that magic when I was in college, and I found jazz. And I had in fact, I just the other day, super coincidentally, ran into my piano teacher from college. And I felt myself so emotional of seeing him. And just the gratitude, I felt for how in having learning about jazz and how he taught me it just opened up my love for music again. And then I left piano for a lot of years, because I've been pursuing my professional career, and it's not involving music. But now I'm coming back to piano and coming back to not coming back to learning how to sing. And so bringing in my voice to the music as well. So I'm, I'm kind of on phase three of the musical journey. And it's sometimes discouraging, because I'm like, Oh, I used to be able to play that piece. And now I can't, but I'm gonna stay with it. Because I think it's important. It's an important part of who I am and been something that I've loved since I was a child.

Chris Hare  11:31  
Yeah, that's beautiful. I love that. So coming back to Smith, Barney, you talked about how you eventually made that transition out from that first job. But we'd love to understand a little bit about what that look like. And then kind of what the culture was within that place you were making the leap to and then how your narrative evolved through that?

Whitney Johnson  11:50  
Well, it was a bit painful. I think it was painful for two reasons. One, because I didn't really have the schooling. I mean, I had taken some accounting and finance at night, but I hadn't studied economics. I hadn't studied finance in school. So there was a functional domain expertise. He said, I did not have, I think it was also painful because of what was going on inside my head, like, do I actually deserve to be here? I'm a music major. I didn't go to an Ivy League school. And I was a secretary before. And I remember actually, it's interesting, because once I had become an investment banking analyst, I was at dinner with one of my childhood friends, Liz economy from eighth grade, and her husband had been a lawyer, and now he'd become an investment banker and sort of a number of the people at the dinner had gone through what I would consider the traditional path to be an investment banking. And they were asking me about my backstory. And I started, I was a bit cagey because I was embarrassed, I was ashamed that I hadn't gone to Dartmouth, but that's the school that comes to mind. And so afterward, this fellow asked my friend, Liz, so she was kind of evasive, what's her story? She told him the story. Now how I'd been a music major, and I'd started as a secretary, et cetera, et cetera, what I just recounted to you, and he said, that's her story. If that were my story, I would tell everybody, that was a game changer for me. Because I still didn't have the domain expertise that I needed, then I still needed to get over that script, that narrative that I had in my head, but it gave me permission, and just the awareness that I could think about my experience differently, that it's not where you are. It's always about your trajectory, always, always. And so it took me a while to gain my confidence. But I eventually did, but it took a few years.

Chris Hare  13:57  
And I've remember one of your interviews, you talked about the pom pom story. I'd love to hear about that. Oh,

Whitney Johnson  14:04  
yes. I would love to tell it. Yeah. So this actually is before I became an investment banker, but this was a catalyst for that. So I'm working as the sales assistant. And so I'm basically nine months into work. So first job out of college, nine months into work, and I'm sitting at my desk and then right across from my desk, there's a bullpen of aspiring stockbrokers most of who I would say, aspiring Masters of the Universe, because I think all but you know, out of 10 people, nine out of 10 were men. And so at that time, the way you would open up a brokerage account and basically build a book of business was you would just have these cards and you would just call people, like no one does that anymore, but that's what they did. They would call people and they would try to open up their account. And so pressure selling they would say things like it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that this one Waste Management, WM X is a great stock. And then sometimes they would say you need to just throw down your pom poms and get in the game. And at first I was like super offended because I had been a cheerleader in high school. But as I heard them say that every single day there started to become this meta experience that I was having, which was Whitney, you need to throw down your pom poms. And so that's when I started taking those business courses. And that's when I started thinking about how do I need to think about this differently. I remember reading Sally Helgason is the female advantage where she talked about Francis hasslein, who had started the Girl Scouts and really trying to understand how am I going to navigate this work environment? And how am I going to throw down my pom poms? And how am I going to if I'm going to work? Why am I going to make X when 10x is a possibility? So there's that ambition and drive that I think I'd felt as a little girl. But I had sublimated in order to get through high school because I acted like an airhead in high school. It started to come out again, of like, I want this, I'm driven, I'm going to figure out how to succeed.

Chris Hare  16:12  
It's interesting how you took something that was, as you said, an offensive, almost offensive message. And then were able to through hearing it repeatedly able to process it and translate it into something that was a positive. Right, versus the way that it was being used to manipulative Lee.

Whitney Johnson  16:29  
Right. Well, and actually just to carry that out a little bit further. Because I don't know that we'll get back to it. I know at the time, I felt like it was a pejorative. I mean, it was. And I even felt a little bit like, oh, how come I wasn't an athlete in school, I was a cheerleader. But it's interesting to me how now, as I think about the work that I do today, in all the coaching that I do, I'm actually a cheerleader at heart. Like it brings me great joy, to be a person, yes, I want to be in the game. But I also want to be a cheerleader, and maybe being a cheerleader is actually being in the game. It's a both. And so it's just been interesting for me to kind of take that metaphor and pull that through the thread of my life

Chris Hare  17:10  
and to build your own meaning into it.

So once you became an investment banker, are there any specific successes or failures that you recall that were really transformative for you,

Whitney Johnson  17:27  
I'll tell you what's coming to mind. It may be a red herring, but I'll share it and you can edit it out if you would like. So when I was investment banking, again, still playing with that script in my head. I had my boss brought in a colleague, and basically who was the same age as me, and effectively made him my boss. He had a law degree from University of Michigan was very well educated, his family had lived in Latin America, his dad was a very prominent professor. So all these sorts of Bona feeties that I did not have. And I remember being very upset by that. And it didn't feel fair to me. And the reality is, is that maybe it wasn't fair. But also, maybe I wasn't doing what I needed to do in order for that not to have been the case. But I had this experience recently where his name again came to my mind and thought about him for decades. And I looked him up. And I found out that he had overdosed from heroin 10 years ago. And I look at that experience of thinking of this as such a failure and so discouraging and disappointing. And now in retrospect, I look at that. And I think I had no idea what battles he was fighting, because he had probably been addicted at that age as well. And he was just trying to make his way through. And what if I could have seen him as a person and not felt so threatened by this person in front of me. So? So I know, maybe that's not the question that you're asking. But I think that for me, I think oftentimes the failures come because of an unwillingness to just be in a place and see and stand in my own power and not undermine myself. So again, you may want to edit that out. But that is what came to my mind.

Chris Hare  19:27  
No, not at all. That's beautiful. Because I think, especially we tend to view especially when we're in those formative years, and some people forever view ourselves in isolation, as this is a story about me. And what you discovered when you learn that sad news about him is what if I had seen him and what he was going through at that time, right? And I know for me, I'm from Virginia, and my dream when I was a kid was to go into the military. And so I only applied to one school is Virginia Military Institute, and I got accepted But then I had been diagnosed with a health issue. And so I'm the only person I've ever met who's been dis accepted. That's not even a word. But that's probably because I'm the only one that it's ever happened to. So I got unaccepted. This accepted after it happened and was pretty devastated. And probably about five years ago, I started working with veterans. And that was a huge source of insecurity for me. I'm around people who are doing the thing that I was too weak to do or unable to do in my mind, right. And then one day, there's a veteran that I mentored that said to me said, Chris, if you had gone into the military, you wouldn't be able to serve us in the way that you are right now, because of the experiences that you've gone through. Right. And that really hit me. It goes to that idea of service. And it's not about us in our story, but how are our stories kind of knit together? And how do we serve other people in that right,

Whitney Johnson  20:55  
that's beautiful. And side note, I live five minutes away from Virginia Military Institute.

Chris Hare  21:01  
Oh, wow. Okay, yeah. So, right there. Well, speaking of people who serve others, I would love to hear a little bit about who Clayton Christensen is for listeners who don't know and how you met him and how he impacted you.

Whitney Johnson  21:15  
Yeah. So Clayton Christensen is someone that we all refer to as the gentle giant. He was six foot seven, six foot eight, very large in stature, human being, but also large in stature, physically, but also spiritually and just intellectually. He was a professor at Harvard Business School, and wrote a book called The Innovators Dilemma. Back in the 90s, which was like Steve Jobs, cites it as one of the five most formative books. It was very, very, very influential. And I had the privilege of first coming across him in the early 2000s, so almost 20 years ago, and I heard him speak in church. And I was like, wow, who is this person? I mean, it was just his storytelling and his humility, and I just was absolutely riveted. And that's when I started studying the work that he was doing. And I read The Innovators Dilemma, and I went down to DC to hear him speak. And I was just like, enraptured. And I started looking at his work and thinking, Oh, that Innovators Dilemma, disruption, this is what's happening. I'm an equity analyst. And every quarter, I'm building my financial models, and every quarter, my estimates are too low. And that's because wireless is disrupting wireline. This is amazing. When so I had this explanatory mechanism, his work helped me understand what was going on. It gave me some theory to understand that, but then, the influence went even further. Because around that time, 2003 2004, I had gone to my manager, I had now been institutional investor, ranked as an analyst for seven, eight years. And I said, Hey, I'd really like to do something new. And my boss basically said to me, we like you right where you are. I remember thinking, Okay, I've read the innovators dilemma, I have this kernel of an idea that maybe I might need to disrupt myself. And at that point, no one was thinking of it that way. It was just disruptions about products and services and companies and countries. But I had this thought of if I really want to do what I feel like I'm meant to do on this planet, while I had no idea what that actually was, but we have this sense, we have this feeling this instinct, I'm going to need to disrupt myself. And so I left Wall Street and thought, I'm going to become an entrepreneur. But I also reached out to Clay Christensen. And I said, Hey, I've been an equity analyst. At this point, we've now moved up to Boston. I ended up working with him on some nonprofit church related things. He gets to know me, I get to know him when he wants to start a fund called the disruptive innovation fund with his son, who was just then graduating from business school, he invited me to be a co founder. So he has had I mean, outside of my family, I would say there's probably no one who has been a greater influence on my life, my career, my life's work than Clayton Christensen.

Chris Hare  24:21  
And was there anything that he communicated to you whether through word or through just how he interacted or LED that have helped shape your view of yourself in the future?

Whitney Johnson  24:36  
Yeah, I would say the thing that has stayed with me the most was that he didn't compartmentalize. He didn't separate the secular from the spiritual. He was his work self at church, but it was his church self at work. So he wasn't afraid to talk about God. He wasn't afraid to bring During this intellectual prowess to think about how do we do things better at church? How do we build a better community? What's that going to look like? And so the thing that I have carried with me from him, apart from sort of the intellectual IP, which I talked about personal disruption, so I've built on a lot, I stand on his shoulders. But the thing that stays with me from a day to day basis is how do I make sure that I'm being authentic, that I am showing up and I'm bringing who I really am to every arena, whether I'm at work, whether I'm at church, whether I'm at home, so that's the thing that's most stay with me is the lack of compartmentalization.

Chris Hare  25:38  
Yeah, I grew up going to church. And what I absorbed and was taught was that spiritual things were higher. And then the work world wasn't right. And so that ends up dividing and bifurcating, but then when I truly discovered who I am, and those things can be integrated, that's where the power is. That's really cool that you were able to find that.

Whitney Johnson  26:07  
Yeah, and you know, one of the things he said, and I love this is that management is the noblest of professions, if done well. And Francis house of mine, who I mentioned earlier, the founder, not the founder, but turned the girl scouts around. She said, Work is love made visible. And so they're, like you said the power is when we're able to put both that sort of spiritual, emotional, intellectual when we put all of that together.

Chris Hare  26:36  
Yeah, and as you're talking, I saw this, this is really cool picture of you talked about once this idea of disrupting yourself started to take hold. I like to think of it as kind of this future center of gravity, right? That concept existed in the future, right, and it's pulling you ahead, you don't know fully what it is, right? But it's pulling you ahead, and then you're in it, right. And you've stepped into that that's a but I saw that it was really cool.

Whitney Johnson  27:02  
Your future center of gravity, this planet out there, right, that's just pulling you in, oof, that image is

Chris Hare  27:11  
lovely. And it aligns to that idea of calling as well. Right. So 2011, I believe you gave a TEDx talk, and then later wrote the HBR article that was entitled disrupt yourself? Can you talk about what it means to disrupt yourself? And then how you ultimately came to adopt it?

Whitney Johnson  27:29  
Yeah. Well, so just fun fact, on the 2011 TEDx talk for anybody who watches it, please don't? I mean, you can. It's the first talk that I had given in public, I had talked about stocks, but I had never given a public discourse. So it's very raw. I mean, I guess that's good. You can see the development, the disruption that's taking place along the way. But what do I mean when I say disrupt yourself. So if you think about the theory of disruption, at its simplest, and I want you to think about a piece of graph paper with a Y axis and an X axis, so when you make the decision to disrupt yourself, what's happening? Well, right now, currently, maybe you're on the y axis of success, you started at a 10. And your life is moving along, pretty swimmingly over one up one over one up, one, it's working. When you disrupt yourself, you make a decision to move from that 10, that y axis of success, however you're defining it, and step back from PE or prestige, or just the way you've always done it. And it's going to feel uncomfortable for a while you're gonna go to an eight. So you're disrupting yourself, you're stepping back from who you are, because you believe that in the future, the slope of your line or your trajectory can be steeper, it can be over one up to or over one, up three or over one up for. And so when you disrupt yourself, you're stepping back from who you are, to slingshot into who you can be. And there are big D disruptions where people sometimes change jobs, change careers, moved to a new city, but there are also little D disruptions, which I am, in some ways more intrigued by where I may have had an interchange with someone in my family that wasn't entirely pleasant or kind. And I apologize. So can we do a do over I'm sorry for how I did that. I'm that's a little deep disruption, that stepping back from me being less sensitive to being more sensitive. But again, at its essence, disruption is that decision. The price of your new self is your old self. It's a willingness to give up where you are feeling like you're stepping back because you believe that in the future, you're going to have that future self, that center of gravity that's going to pull you to who you want to be and who you who you can be you

Chris Hare  30:09  
So I know you were a bit critical of your talk back in 2011. But I think what's really, what's really cool is that center of gravity hasn't changed, right? And what was pretty fascinating is looking at that talk versus current interviews, your experience and the stories and things that fuel that, and your understanding of it have grown over time. But the actual narrative itself, that center of gravity hasn't changed. So I think that's pretty interesting in terms of also how that kind of grounds you and gives you certainty as you're going through, I'm sure lots of uncertainty along the way.

Whitney Johnson  30:47  
Yeah. I love that. Yeah. So that the basic narrative is that sense of calling or narrative is intact, it's just that it continues to grow and evolve. Yeah, that's good. And I think this goes back to that the work of What's your why? What's your purpose? Why are you doing the work that you're doing?

Chris Hare  31:08  
And what is that for you? What's the thing that really lights you up most?

Whitney Johnson  31:14  
I think the thing that lights me up most that most animates me is when I can, goes back to what we talked about earlier about being a bit afraid, as a child, when I can give people a map. So thinking about the S curve, I can make it safer, so that people can grow and change. When I can do that I can be a part of that when I can assist in that. That brings me deep, deep satisfaction and joy.

Chris Hare  31:53  
Are there any examples that you can share around companies that you've worked with that have disrupted themselves or people whether you name, you don't have to name names, but whatever you're comfortable sharing?

Whitney Johnson  32:04  
Yeah, absolutely. So I'll give a company example, but then talk about an individual example within that. So one of the companies that we work with, we have the wonderful privilege of working with this Kraft Heinz, they make the ketchup. And so it's been very exciting to be able to introduce to them the S curve, which is a very simple visual way to think about what growth looks like the launch point, you do something new, it feels a little bit scary and overwhelming. But then you move into this sweet spot, you feel the sense of like, I know what I'm doing, I feel competent, I feel exhilarated, then you get into mastering, you're like, Oh, I really know what I'm doing. Now I'm a little bit bored. And now you've got that dilemma. And you have to make the decision, am I going to stay here and get disrupted? Or am I going to disrupt myself and jump to a new curve. And by being able to introduce that language, into Kraft, Heinz, it's been able to help them think more deliberately about talent development, and about succession planning. And I'll give you a specific example. So there was a woman by the name of Yang Chu, who was running Treasury at Kraft Heinz, and very, very good, very competent at what she was doing. But she was getting a little bit bored. This is three years ago, she's getting a little bit bored. Because she's at the top of her S curve. They still needed her to do that job because she was so effective at it. But what they did is they said, All right, well, again, we're going to think of you as having a portfolio of learning curves. And so we need you to stay on this particular curve. So please don't disrupt yourself here. But we're going to bring you people who can work underneath you. They can train, they can grow, they can disrupt themselves. But that will take less of your time. And we're going to introduce you to another S curve, another opportunity where you're going to move to another country, she moved to the Netherlands, and you're going to be responsible for thinking not about Treasury external facing, but how do things work internally operationally. So they gave her a way to disrupt herself by still meeting the needs of the business. And so giving her this portfolio of S curves, and so they had this language, they had this way to talk about talent development. And they had a way to retain talent, because they were understanding and recognizing that we are wired to grow and need to grow, but also still meeting the needs of the business. And so that's one way that it plays out of giving people a language to talk about growth, but then there's some very practical applications of it.

Chris Hare  34:38  
And I really liked the way that they applied it, right? Because it can be easy to look at it from like, Hey, this is about me. And it clearly means I'm out of here. I'm in that new role or I'm in a new company or whatever, versus how do we actually do this within the context in a way that enables what you do best and what you love. What while also enabling you to make that leap.

Whitney Johnson  35:02  
Yeah. So then she ended up taking on m&a and did that for about a year and a two there wonderful credit, she recently got an opportunity to go be a CFO at another organization. And what I love also about this language is that when she got that opportunity, because of that understanding that we have this need to grow, they didn't take it as a Oh, you don't like our company, you don't like us, you just need to continue to grow to grow. And so her bon voyage was so beautiful, and she felt so loved and accepted and supported and encouraged. And I think that's a company at its finest when they can grow people as much as possible. But when they can no longer grow, or there are other opportunities to grow, is to give them a farewell that it feels very full of dignity.

Chris Hare  36:00  
And I think what's interesting is, if you had just gone to market with the term disrupt yourself on its own, without that framework, I think that framework enables gives people that path that they can follow in a way to really conceptualize it. What's the origin of the S curve? And how did you stumble on that? Because I love how combined with disrupt yourself, that gives people just a very clear image.

Whitney Johnson  36:26  
Okay, so Chris, this is really interesting. So okay, we've talked about the framework of personal disruption. And then as I was investing with Clayton, who were also using the S curve that was popularized by Everett Rogers, and he used it with some think about it as the adoption curve to look at how two groups adopt a new idea over time, and he analyzed corn farmers, etc. And so we were using it in our investing to think about how quickly will an innovation be adopted? You may have noticed by now that I like to take management theories and think about how do you apply them to the individual. So how do you take disruption? How do you apply to the individual? How do you take the S curve? How do you apply to the individual? And so I had this aha, that you could also use the S curve to help us understand how individuals grow and change. Now, the reason I'm chuckling just a little bit is that you just said, yeah, you put the disruption, and you put the S curve together. And that puts it all together. But I started with disruption. I didn't have the S curve. When we first started. I had a colleague say to me who's a PhD in evaluation, he's like, it seems like you make these vast intuitive leaps. And then you figure out how to get the theory to put with it. And I do, and I guess that's a creative piece. And so what happened is that I had disruption, I had the S curve and disrupt yourself. But what made me really start focusing on the S curve in a more deliberate way, was when my second book building a team came out. I'm on a pink cast with Dan Pink. And he says to me, we've got 30 seconds to talk about the big idea. He says, let's talk about the S curve. I'm like, what? That's in the background. That's a supporting actor. That's a backup singer. Why do you want to talk about the S curve. And it was at that point, I realized, Oh, the S curve really is meant to be centerstage. Because it is so simple, it is so visual, it helps people feel safe in growth and change, because it gives us a way to think about it. And so putting that together with disruption, which is the mechanism by which you grow. Now I've got something working together, but it wasn't linear. There was a lot of intuition. And the research does now back up the intuition that I had, but we started with disruption. It's like, here's the building. Now, let's build a foundation. And don't you find that a lot of people's stories are that way is that you put the pieces together retrospectively.

Chris Hare  38:57  
Yeah, it's interesting. I'm seeing that more and more of people who, and that's part of what this show is about is you see and have this vision of the future. And there's this narrative that is either going to take you off course to that future, or that you believe will get you there. But there may not be the evidence, right. But what does that do to you as a leader and as a human, when you're in that place where you're the only one that's talking about it potentially? Right?

Whitney Johnson  39:25  
Yeah, I love that. When you say something in there isn't the evidence. And that actually, Chris is why I wrote the last book smart growth, because I knew it that this S curve explained growth. It explained change, but I needed to get the research. I needed to get the data I needed to get the stories and looking at biology and neuroscience and all the anecdotal stories to back it up so that it wasn't just this flimsy Oh, she just had this idea. I needed to be able to make it concrete and have it be more are robust.

Chris Hare  40:01  
And how do you as the champion of this idea of disrupting yourself, how do you ensure that's a discipline where you're continually looking for opportunities to disrupt yourself the big D? Or maybe it's more small d at this point?

Whitney Johnson  40:16  
No, it's both. It's both. That's one of the beauties of having work. I mean, just like for you, where you're talking about the story narrative, when you have work that you feel like is your life's work, at least for me, I know that I have to walk my talk. And part of the reason is, because 1012 years ago, when I was talking about that, I really wanted to focus on people. I remember I had a person who I respected my mom, who said to me, if you're going to do this work, because she had been in this work, in a way, she said, there's a lot of people who talk about developing themselves, but they do not do it themselves. You cannot be a hypocrite. And so I am continually looking at how am I disrupting myself in a big way. But to your point, it's a little bit more than that some of the smaller DS, I will tell you, though, just this morning, before we got on this conversation, I was talking to my husband and I said, I feel a little discouraged this morning. Because I can see how I want to be I can see and even get emotional, I could see how I want to show up in the world. And I sometimes get discouraged because I can't do it fast enough. I can't disrupt myself fast enough. And so the short answer to your question is, all the time, every day, I am trying to think about how to be a better, more effective human being a better, more effective leader, a better, more effective wife and mother and friend and community members. That's how I'm wired.

Chris Hare  41:51  
You have this vision and this narrative that's pulling you forward. How does the idea hit you of being able to just breathe and be in the moment and sit and rest? Oh,

Unknown Speaker  42:03  
oh, and I don't mean No,

Chris Hare  42:04  
by rest? I don't mean not working. But what I mean, yeah, you get what I'm saying? Yes,

Whitney Johnson  42:09  
I completely 100% hear what you're saying. You're Sensing my, okay, I've got to move, Chris. That is something I've been working really hard on the last year or two is, I've been doing meditation, I signed up for this thing called Positive Intelligence Shirzad. To me, and I had him on my podcast, I'm learning about Reiki. And I'm actually making a lot of progress in making space to just breathe to step back. Some people are gonna be able to relate to what I'm about to say, and others are gonna be like, What is she talking about? But I consider it a moment of tremendous pride on a Saturday when I don't open up my computer. I'm like, good job. He didn't work today. And so yeah, I'm making a lot of progress in that area. And it feels really good, because then the rest of life is so much more enjoyable.

Chris Hare  43:02  
Yeah, for me, my mind just is spinning and constantly going and constantly thinking about the future. And friend, remember, probably seven years ago, my wife and I, for date night took a fly fishing class. And what's interesting is, there's so much focus initially on because there's so many moving parts and pieces, right? Like, where's the fish under the water? What's the water doing? What's the wind doing? And then what am I doing and getting tangled? And all these things, right? You become very focused on and I became very frustrated, like, why am I not catching a fish over and over and over and over again. And I read this book, I think it's called the practicing mind. And the focus is on the practice itself versus the end goal. And so every little tiny step, just focus on that for right now. Right. And it ended up becoming this very meditative thing for me when I still didn't catch any fish. But were the rod in the sound of the fly and the rhythm of that, that became kind of the end goal. Right. And being in that was really powerful for me. But yeah, finding rest is tough. Oh, I

Whitney Johnson  44:14  
love that. And you know what you just reminded me. So, what I love to do when I go play tennis, is I don't actually want to play games in tennis. I just love hitting the ball back and forth. The forehand, the backhand. I just love that sound. And so I think that builds on what you just described. It's just that process of the rod and being in the moment it is meditative.

Chris Hare  44:41  
And I think there's a parallel to with your piano and the first time you played Doremi, right? It's a single input, single output. Touch the key here sound right? It's the forehand and the backhand, right? Yeah, I like that. So, would you say that it's easier or harder to To disrupt yourself when you have nothing. And then also when you have are well established and are not at that place, like when you are a secretary.

Whitney Johnson  45:12  
You know what, Chris, it's a both and because I think to your point, when you're younger, I actually think children are very good at disruption, because they're forced to disrupt all the time, it's a muscle, you think about this jumping to new S curves, their parents say, we're gonna go here, you're gonna go there, and they don't have any control over it. So you actually are very good at disrupting yourself, you've got that being disrupted and adapting to it, you've got that muscle. And early in your career, I think that you feel like you have less to lose. And yet, so many people that I talked to that are recent college graduates, and I did this as well, again, that fear piece is that you actually have the muscle, but you don't necessarily do it, because you're afraid to do it. So that is true. But I also find that as you get more seasoned in your career, even though you have more at stake, in some respects and more to lose, if you've developed the muscle, you can actually be very good at it. So it just depends.

Chris Hare  46:19  
Yeah, 100%, you've said that, what holds us back is that which propels us forward. And so I'd love to understand what that means to you, and then how that's played out for you.

Whitney Johnson  46:29  
So there are a lot of different ways you can think about this, in the context of the conversation that we have been having around fear in having a vision of where, for example, I'll speak to my own life. So if I have a vision of where I want to go, but I also know that fear is holding me back. But I really want to get there. Well, I'll start there. So then that's going to put me in a place of, okay, well, how do I overcome my fear? And so that constraint that I have can become a tool of creation, because I'm going to do the work to figure out how do I dispel that fear, I'm going to figure out, I'm going to become more self aware I'm going to become, I'm going to develop all of these tools that will not only help me overcome fear, but they're also going to change my mindset that's going to make what I want to achieve more possible. So that's one way from a mindset perspective. But I also think, I have this running hypothesis. I've lost a job, you said you've lost a job. I oftentimes think that people when they lose their jobs, it's because they know it is time to disrupt themselves. They know it. You know it, but you won't do it for whatever reason. And so the universe just, it gives you a nudge, it pushes you and said okay, you're not going to do it. So I will do it for you. You are now off the cliff, you are on a new S curve. So what are you going to do? And so that thing that held you back that you feel like oh, this is a tragedy, I lost my job and all the identity, difficulty that comes with that. And I do not want to understate that because it is very difficult. But that is that thing and grappling with it. It sets you up to propel you forward.

Chris Hare  48:17  
Well, Whitney, thank you so much. This has been an absolute pleasure.

Unknown Speaker  48:22  
I loved it. Thank you for having me.

Chris Hare  48:25  
Thanks so much for joining me on another episode of The Story future. What part of Whitney story did you find most impactful? Did anything shift and how you're thinking about your future and how you're thinking about your narrative and about how you want to tell your story. I encourage you to find someone today and tell them your story and ask them about theirs. Because when we tell our stories, it can change us. It can change others, and it has the power to change the future. And that's it. Thanks for joining me for another episode. Leave us a review. Be sure to visit TSF pod.com For more information about Whitney her podcast and her company disruption advisors, as well as for show notes and to check out other episodes. The story future podcast is a production of the story future LLC produced and edited by Ray Sylvester audio engineering by Allianz by and fi music by the bruise your host is me Chris hare learn more about how I help leaders use the power of narrative to transform themselves, their companies and their industries at WWW dot the storied future.com