Speaker 1: So that's what I would say is it's not the
Speaker 1: great resignation, it's the great aspiration. And it can start
Speaker 1: as simply as drawing an ass on a piece of
Speaker 1: paper and having a conversation about where do you think
Speaker 1: you are in your growth? Hello, and welcome to the
Speaker 1: Psychology Podcast. Today we welcome Whitney Johnson to the show.
Speaker 1: Whitney is the CEO and co founder of the tech
Speaker 1: enabled talent development company, Disruption Advisors. Whitney is a globally
Speaker 1: recognized thought leader, keynote speaker, executive coach, and consultant. She
Speaker 1: is a frequent lecturer at Harvard Business Publishing's Corporate Learning Division.
Speaker 1: She is also the best selling author of Disrupt Yourself
Speaker 1: and Build an a Team. Her latest book is called
Speaker 1: Smart Growth, How to Grow Your People to Grow your Company.
Speaker 1: In this episode, I talked to Whitney Johnson about business growth.
Speaker 1: According to Whitney, the development of the individual comes first
Speaker 1: before the companies. Growth can be better understood using the
Speaker 1: S curve of learning, which is three phases, the launch point,
Speaker 1: the sweet spot, and mastery. By comprehending the cycle of growth,
Speaker 1: we can find ways to move forward when we feel
Speaker 1: stuck in both our professional and personal lives. We also
Speaker 1: touch on the topics of flow, creativity, transcendence, success, and leadership.
Speaker 1: I really like Whitney's approach to business, and I find
Speaker 1: it to be a real human approach. We have lots
Speaker 1: of common interests and common ways and frameworks of seeing
Speaker 1: the world, and I think you'll really enjoy this episode. So,
Speaker 1: without further ado, I bring you Whitney Johnson. Whitney Johnson,
Speaker 1: it is so great to have you on the Psychology
Speaker 1: Podcast today. Scott. I'm so happy to be here. I
Speaker 1: would like you to tell our audience a little bit
Speaker 1: about yourself before we dive into your great work, and
Speaker 1: maybe tell us a little bit about the work you're
Speaker 1: doing with Disruption Advisors. That's always such an open ended question,
Speaker 1: isn't it tell us a little bit about yourself? Oh?
Speaker 1: Anywhere you want in that well? In brief, I'm originally
Speaker 1: from California. I want to my entire life story, but
Speaker 1: some quick facts. Grew up in San Jose what is
Speaker 1: now Silicon Valley for people who were familiar with that,
Speaker 1: and studied music in high school and in college. But
Speaker 1: when I graduated from college and moved to New York
Speaker 1: with my husband so he could get his PhD. At Columbia.
Speaker 1: I completely disrupted myself and decided that I was not
Speaker 1: going to pursue music, but instead I wanted to put
Speaker 1: food on the table, and so I got a job
Speaker 1: working as a secretary to a retail stockbroker on Wall Street.
Speaker 1: First address was thirteen forty five Avenue of the America's
Speaker 1: because you always remember the address of your very first job,
Speaker 1: and did that and secretary listening to these stockbrokers saying
Speaker 1: things like it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know
Speaker 1: this is a great investment, and throw down your pomp
Speaker 1: bombs and get in the game, trying to persuade them
Speaker 1: to open up brokerage accounts, and for me hearing that
Speaker 1: over and over again. Initially I was a little bit
Speaker 1: offended because I was a cheerleader in high school, but
Speaker 1: then decided I needed to throw down my pom poms.
Speaker 1: So I started taking business courses at night, accounting, finance, economics,
Speaker 1: and then had a boss who gave me a shot
Speaker 1: and moved me from being a secretary to an investment banker,
Speaker 1: and that I would not have known to call this then,
Speaker 1: but that was really the beginning of me disrupting myself
Speaker 1: of having this sense of there were greater possibilities for me.
Speaker 1: And so for about fifteen years I worked on actually
Speaker 1: closer to twenty years, I worked on Wall Street. I
Speaker 1: was an investment banking then I was an equity research
Speaker 1: analyst picking stocks in the emerging markets, and discovered around
Speaker 1: two thousand, two thousand and one, and this is where
Speaker 1: our worlds intersect just a little bit, is we were
Speaker 1: doing this big training of our various stock analyst colleagues,
Speaker 1: and I spent an inordinate amount of time training my
Speaker 1: colleagues thinking about if you were on American Idol, what
Speaker 1: kind of contestant would you be? Are you the comeback kid?
Speaker 1: Who are you? What's your brand? And I discovered at
Speaker 1: that point that I was actually more interested in the
Speaker 1: momentum of people than I was of stocks. And eventually
Speaker 1: I did co found the Disruptive Innovation Fund with Clayton Christensen.
Speaker 1: But more and more found myself thinking about the theory
Speaker 1: of disruption, thinking about the S curve and how do
Speaker 1: you apply it not to products and companies, but how
Speaker 1: do you apply them to people? And so the work
Speaker 1: that I do today lo these many years later is
Speaker 1: We have a company called Disruption Advisors. We advise people
Speaker 1: companies how to grow their people, to grow their company
Speaker 1: and do coaching and workshops around that. So that is
Speaker 1: a reader's digest version of how I came to be
Speaker 1: where I am today. Lots and lots of personal disruption
Speaker 1: taking place. I love it. And Clayton Christensen rest in peace.
Speaker 1: Right Denny passed away in two that twenty Yeah, a
Speaker 1: real legend. Yes, religion absolutely disruption and creativity and really
Speaker 1: inspired inspired me a lot in my own work in creativity. Wait, wait, wait,
Speaker 1: I want to hear this. How did you get how
Speaker 1: spar are you? Scott? Oh? Well curious? Well, I mean
Speaker 1: I wrote a book called Wire to Create, Unraveling the
Speaker 1: Mysteries of the Creative Mind. And I think that the
Speaker 1: disruption mindset is is part and parcel of the creative mind.
Speaker 1: So in the role of these words, the courage to
Speaker 1: create is uh And that was the title was of A.
Speaker 1: Rollmy's book. The courage to create is huge, but it
Speaker 1: can be very very difficult if you're a people pleaser,
Speaker 1: and it can be very very difficult if you are
Speaker 1: the kind of person that can't handle criticism. So most
Speaker 1: people just forget about it. You know, it's interesting because
Speaker 1: I read your book Wired to Create, but I hadn't
Speaker 1: realized that that Clayton had been an influence on you
Speaker 1: and thinking about this notion of disruption and that it
Speaker 1: does take, in fact, courage to step back from who
Speaker 1: you are and the perception that people have of you
Speaker 1: in order to slingshot into that creative place. So yeah,
Speaker 1: so it's nice to hear that tie in. Yeah, good, well,
Speaker 1: but yeah, big time, and I'm bummed in never had
Speaker 1: the opportunity to talk to him. But actually he was
Speaker 1: a big influence on the creation of the Creativity Post,
Speaker 1: which I founded with my colleagues in twenty eleven. The
Speaker 1: whole website and the Creativity Post, we were all big
Speaker 1: fans of his work. There you have it. It's fun
Speaker 1: to hear, fun to hear. Yeah, I was wondering to
Speaker 1: what extent you have studied psychology and have incorporated ideas
Speaker 1: from psychological research into the work you do. Such a
Speaker 1: great question. I would say, I'm an accidental psychologist, if
Speaker 1: you will. So I have for probably since not even
Speaker 1: probably since my early twenties, I have worked with a therapist,
Speaker 1: and so that certainly is a real time application of psychology.
Speaker 1: I remember coming across Robert Johnson's work and how influential
Speaker 1: his work was on me fifteen twenty years ago. No relation, no,
Speaker 1: no relation, but just that was really influential for me,
Speaker 1: and thinking about the psychological development not only of men
Speaker 1: but also of women. I remember reading in a different
Speaker 1: voice of Carol Gilligans when I was in college and
Speaker 1: how influential that was as well. So the combination of
Speaker 1: my own personal experiencing self of psychology, but then reading
Speaker 1: those very seminal important books by Robert Johnson have very
Speaker 1: much influenced the work that I do. And then in
Speaker 1: thinking about personal disruption and thinking about the S curve
Speaker 1: of learning my most recent book, you can bet that
Speaker 1: I consulted with a number of psychologists to make sure
Speaker 1: that what I was including and what I was saying
Speaker 1: was backed by actual research and not just some idea
Speaker 1: that I had had. Love that what is the S
Speaker 1: curve of learning? You you talk a lot about it.
Speaker 1: We might as well double click on that. Yes learning, Yes, Scott,
Speaker 1: I do, and your name has it S. So I
Speaker 1: love the name Scott. Yeah. So I discovered the S
Speaker 1: curve when I was investing with Clayton, so I had
Speaker 1: co founded a fund with him and his son Matt
Speaker 1: to invest in disruptive innovation, and we were using the
Speaker 1: S curve to figure out how quickly an innovation would
Speaker 1: be adopted and to give us some signals or indicators.
Speaker 1: Is this a good time to be buying the stock,
Speaker 1: as it should be shorting the stock, et cetera. And
Speaker 1: for those who aren't familiar, probably most people who listen
Speaker 1: to your podcast are but just a quick refresher popularized
Speaker 1: by Everett Rodgers back in the sixties, it was around
Speaker 1: even before that, and what he did is he used
Speaker 1: the S curve to look at how groups change over time.
Speaker 1: His seminal study was looking at corn farmers in Iowa
Speaker 1: and the work that he discovered that there was this
Speaker 1: hybrid corn. It had a twenty percent higher yield, it
Speaker 1: was drought resistant, it was easier to harvest, and yet
Speaker 1: over the first five years after its introduction, only ten
Speaker 1: percent of the farmer population adopted this new type of corn.
Speaker 1: That would have been a really made a lot of sense.
Speaker 1: But once that first ten percent adopted it, they that
Speaker 1: over the next three years that penetration or adoption went
Speaker 1: from ten percent to forty percent. And so he posited
Speaker 1: that new ideas are adopted in the shape of an ass.
Speaker 1: You've got a slow start and then it reaches this
Speaker 1: tipping point which Malcolm Gladwell popularize, and you move into
Speaker 1: hypergrowth and eventually you get to saturation. So we're using
Speaker 1: this S curve looking at how groups change over time,
Speaker 1: thinking about this for innovations, and I had this big aha,
Speaker 1: as I mentioned earlier, back in the early two thousands,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, oh, I'm more interested in the momentum of
Speaker 1: people than i am of stocks. I'm thinking about disruption.
Speaker 1: It's not just about products and services, but also about people.
Speaker 1: So it wasn't too much of a lape for me
Speaker 1: to say, how does this S curve apply to people?
Speaker 1: And so the big aha for me was is that
Speaker 1: it could under help us understand not only how groups
Speaker 1: change over time, but how do individuals change. It could
Speaker 1: help us think about what does that what is the
Speaker 1: emotional growth look like? What is the experience that we're
Speaker 1: having when we start something new, whether it's a new hobby,
Speaker 1: it's a new job, whether it's our life generally. And
Speaker 1: so the basic idea is this, when you start something new.
Speaker 1: You're at the launch point of the curve, and the
Speaker 1: growth is happening, but it is going to feel slow.
Speaker 1: But then if you put in the effort, you eventually
Speaker 1: reach this tipping point. You move into the sweet spot
Speaker 1: of that S curve where things are fast, and then
Speaker 1: at some point you're going to reach a plateau, which
Speaker 1: is this place of mastery where because you're no longer learning,
Speaker 1: you're no longer enjoying the feel good effects of learning,
Speaker 1: it's time for you to jump to a new S
Speaker 1: curve and it answers those questions of why is it
Speaker 1: hard to start something new, why do you gain momentum
Speaker 1: and therefore it's easy to continue? And why can you
Speaker 1: be really good at something and feel like you can
Speaker 1: no longer keep doing it? The S curve help helps
Speaker 1: answer those several questions. Wow, what a powerful idea with
Speaker 1: so many applications. You talk about the idea of managing
Speaker 1: your team as a portfolio of S curves. Can you
Speaker 1: kind of unpack that a little bit more? How does
Speaker 1: that work? Yeah? Absolutely so. Once you understand that this,
Speaker 1: you can use this S curve to demystify personal growth.
Speaker 1: You can think about where are you in your current
Speaker 1: role at work on the S curve? Are you at
Speaker 1: the launch point, are you in the sweet spot? Are
Speaker 1: you in mastery? And once you know where you are
Speaker 1: on that curve, then you're going to be able to
Speaker 1: know how to help people build momentum. At the launch point,
Speaker 1: you're going to need support, and the sweet spot you
Speaker 1: need focuses you're going fast and you don't want to derail.
Speaker 1: And in master you're going to need a challenge. Well,
Speaker 1: once you know those things, then you recognize, huh, everybody
Speaker 1: on my team is actually on an S curve. And
Speaker 1: if I understand that, then I know this helps me
Speaker 1: decode talent development, It helps facilitate recruiting, it helps me
Speaker 1: deal with succession planning. But if I want to zoom
Speaker 1: out even further, if I understand where people are in
Speaker 1: their growth and where they perceive themselves to be in
Speaker 1: their growth, because that's important. I might think that you
Speaker 1: are in the sweet spot, but if you have the
Speaker 1: experience of being mastery, that's going to predict your behavior,
Speaker 1: not where I think you are. Also, we know that
Speaker 1: depending on where you are. For example, when you're at
Speaker 1: the launch point, you ask lots of questions like why
Speaker 1: do we do it like this? Because you're brand new,
Speaker 1: you're seeing everything with fresh eyes, and that why do
Speaker 1: we do it like this? Can lead and open the
Speaker 1: door to innovation. And I know you know David Epstein's
Speaker 1: work very well range He has a Yeah, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of research in there basically about people moving to
Speaker 1: a new S curve, that launch point, and they have
Speaker 1: all sorts of epiphanies about here's where the innovation is.
Speaker 1: So you do need people on the launch point of
Speaker 1: that S curve. Then in the sweet spot, people are
Speaker 1: capable of still asking questions like why do we do
Speaker 1: it like this? But they're increasingly competent. So this goes
Speaker 1: to self termination theory. They're competent, they're autonomous, they feel
Speaker 1: related to the mission to each other, and so this
Speaker 1: is that place where they're capable of innovating, capable of
Speaker 1: asking questions around innovating, but they're also at this point
Speaker 1: more capable of executing against those innovative ideas. And then
Speaker 1: in mastery what happens is they're not asking why do
Speaker 1: we do it like this? They're saying, this is how
Speaker 1: we do it, which is valuable because it's the institutional
Speaker 1: memory it gives you something to bump up against. You
Speaker 1: have people who can help bring other people along. Do
Speaker 1: these S curve loops, And so when you're willing to
Speaker 1: put together a portfolio and a starting point is a
Speaker 1: standard bill curve distribution with sixty percent of your people
Speaker 1: in the sweet spot, twenty percent of the launch point,
Speaker 1: twenty percent in mastery. You have people in different stages
Speaker 1: of your growth, but also different stages of thinking about innovation.
Speaker 1: And so if you can put together that portfolio of
Speaker 1: S curves, it not only allows you to manage people
Speaker 1: more effectively, but you're now optimized for growth and innovation
Speaker 1: in your team and in your organization. Yeah. That I
Speaker 1: love that question. As someone who wrote a book called
Speaker 1: Transcendent loves Transcendence. Is there a stage after mastery? Like
Speaker 1: have you thought beyond mastery into a transcendent purpose stage? Yeah?
Speaker 1: You know, Scott, I loved your book Transcendence. You read it? Yes,
Speaker 1: I read it. I had you on my podcast Everybody. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I actually do read the books when I have people.
Speaker 1: I know, I mean, I think most people do, but
Speaker 1: I do actually read. I forgot that I was onst Yes,
Speaker 1: and so it's a great question. And I had not contemplated.
Speaker 1: I found your work very useful and helpful for me
Speaker 1: in that. In that sense, what I would say is
Speaker 1: for me, I think about S curves as almost this escalator.
Speaker 1: So when it's very much a fractal so you can
Speaker 1: have you can be on an S curve in a role,
Speaker 1: you can have, your day can be an S curve.
Speaker 1: Your life is an S curve, and so I consider
Speaker 1: this notion of transcendence. Or if I were trying to
Speaker 1: put our two ideas together, I would say is that
Speaker 1: when you get to the top of an S curve,
Speaker 1: you make the decision I'm at a summit, but I'm
Speaker 1: not this at thus summit of my life. If you will,
Speaker 1: I would also argue, is that when you are in mastery,
Speaker 1: if you're at the top of that S curve, Yes
Speaker 1: you need to continue to grow, and yes you need
Speaker 1: to find new S curves, but if you're really developing
Speaker 1: as a human being, you're also going to be in
Speaker 1: that place at the top of the mountain where you're
Speaker 1: willing to think bigger. You've got this perspective and you're
Speaker 1: willing to bring other people along, so you get very
Speaker 1: much of it both and where you need to continue
Speaker 1: to grow and to be at the launch point, to
Speaker 1: be at the base of the mountain. But if you're
Speaker 1: evolving as a human being, you're also in this place
Speaker 1: where you're transcending and helping other people grow. So that's
Speaker 1: how I would put those those two ideas together. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you obviously fold in purpose into your into mastery. Obviously
Speaker 1: you're not just talking about selfish mastery of something devoid
Speaker 1: of the context of the larger world. Yeah, But I'm
Speaker 1: just wonrying how how you've thought about yes curve of
Speaker 1: transcendent experiences, Like what's the S curve of the flow state?
Speaker 1: You know? Like, is that too nerdy of a question? Ah? No,
Speaker 1: not at all, And so I have a few thoughts
Speaker 1: about that. First of all, I think the obvious one
Speaker 1: is that when you're in the sweet spot, you are
Speaker 1: definitely in flow. It's hard, but it's not too hard,
Speaker 1: and it's easy but not seem so aligned high chickens
Speaker 1: definition and what you're talking. Yeah, absolutely, So I think
Speaker 1: that's the first easy obvious definition. I would actually though,
Speaker 1: also argue and I would be one I'd be curious
Speaker 1: of how you might want to push back against this.
Speaker 1: I would argue that a peak performer is not someone
Speaker 1: who's only in the sweet spot, but it's a person
Speaker 1: who can complete this gross cycle over and over again,
Speaker 1: person who can navigate launch points, who can move into
Speaker 1: the sweet spot, but who can also get to mastery
Speaker 1: and not just have that plateau become a precipice, but understand, Okay,
Speaker 1: I need to do something that either pushes me back
Speaker 1: into the sweet spot and or also able to say, okay,
Speaker 1: I know I'm here, I need to continue to grow,
Speaker 1: and is willing to self disrupt and move to the
Speaker 1: launch point of a new curve. And so, for me,
Speaker 1: a peak performer, someone who is in flow in terms
Speaker 1: of their life, if we go back to this fractal idea,
Speaker 1: is able to navigate all aspects of the growth cycle.
Speaker 1: So yes, sweet spot flow Mehi? She sent me Hi?
Speaker 1: If I'm pronouncing his name very incorrectly, okay, almost there.
Speaker 1: But also from a life perspective, I think it's navigating
Speaker 1: the entire cycle, making rest in peace as well. That's amazing.
Speaker 1: Past two years, how many legends have passed away. The trauma, loss,
Speaker 1: and uncertainty of our world have led many of us
Speaker 1: to ask life's biggest questions such as who are we,
Speaker 1: what is our highest purpose? And how do we not
Speaker 1: only live through, but thrive in the wake of tragedy, division,
Speaker 1: and challenges to our fundamental way of living. To help
Speaker 1: us all address these questions, process what this unique time
Speaker 1: in human history has meant for us personally and collectively
Speaker 1: an emerge whole, I've collaborated with my colleague and dear friend,
Speaker 1: doctor Jordan Feingeld, MD to bring you our forthcoming book.
Speaker 1: It's called Choose Growth, a workbook for transcending trauma, fear,
Speaker 1: and self doubt. It's a workbook design to guide you
Speaker 1: on a journey of committing to growth and the pursuit
Speaker 1: of self actualization every day. It's chock full of research
Speaker 1: from humanistic psychology, positive psychology, developmental psychology, personality psychology, cognitive science,
Speaker 1: and neuropsychology. So lots of themes that you hear about
Speaker 1: on this podcast, and it's aimed to help us all
Speaker 1: integrate the many facets of ourselves and co crete our
Speaker 1: new normal with a renewed sense of strength, vitality, and hope.
Speaker 1: Whether you're healing from loss, adapting to the new normal,
Speaker 1: or simply looking ahead to life's next year after, Choose
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Speaker 1: your values, your life vision, and ultimately your most authentic self.
Speaker 1: Choose Growth will officially hit the shelves September thirteenth, and
Speaker 1: you can border your copy or the audiobook in the
Speaker 1: US now on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Indie Bound, and
Speaker 1: all major retailers. If you're in the UK and Commonwealth,
Speaker 1: you can order now at bookshop dot org dot UK.
Speaker 1: We truly hope this book helps you grow and thrive
Speaker 1: and become your best self. Okay, now back to the show. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I love what you said, and being able to
Speaker 1: navigate the cycle. Having the flexibility to shift between different
Speaker 1: modes of thought is my definition of creativity, so we're
Speaker 1: very well aligned in that way. I also tend to
Speaker 1: make the distinction between peak performance and peak experience. Okay,
Speaker 1: I will. Peak experience, I think is usually tightly aligned
Speaker 1: with the flow state or transcendent states of con sciousness.
Speaker 1: But as you said, peak performance often requires lots of
Speaker 1: different stages. Some stages of peak performance might not be
Speaker 1: peak experience. It may be the most painful shit, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, effortful annoying, dealing with annoying people.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of annoying people on this planet,
Speaker 1: Whitney who may not like your ideas. That's not a
Speaker 1: peak experience. So do you see the distinction I'm making here? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I really like that, So for sort of kind of
Speaker 1: finding a way to have these overlaps. So what you
Speaker 1: suggest is that when you're in the sweet spot, you
Speaker 1: are having a peak experience even though you're not at
Speaker 1: the peak, but as a peak performer, you are capable
Speaker 1: of navigating all aspects of that growth cycle, including being
Speaker 1: at that launch point that messy, messy, uncomfortable, gainly, awkward,
Speaker 1: feel like an imposter sort of space, but you're willing
Speaker 1: to be there anyway, absolutely being able to tell that
Speaker 1: ambiguity is also a key part of the creative process
Speaker 1: for sure. Amazing. Well, how do you apply the S
Speaker 1: curve as a retention tool? You know, if managers want
Speaker 1: to really focus on retention and not have burnt out
Speaker 1: employees right that are like I'm out, you know this,
Speaker 1: this this is I can't get past this first phase,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm stuck in the in the non peak
Speaker 1: experience stage. Okay, So there's there are a number of
Speaker 1: things to unpack there, and so I'll talk about complex Yeah,
Speaker 1: which is totally fine. So let's start with the first,
Speaker 1: which is I'm at the launch point and I can't
Speaker 1: seem to move off the launch point. I think there
Speaker 1: are two things that can happen. Sometimes we're at the
Speaker 1: launch point and people want to just give up because
Speaker 1: it is so messy and we're impatient, and like you said,
Speaker 1: we can't tolerate that ambiguity and that uncertainty. One of
Speaker 1: the reasons that this model, because it's so simple, it's
Speaker 1: so visual, is useful as you can say to someone,
Speaker 1: it is true that you may never be good at this.
Speaker 1: I don't want to dismiss that. What we don't know
Speaker 1: right now is you haven't been doing this long enough
Speaker 1: to know. What we do know for certain is that
Speaker 1: you are in this messy phase of the S curve
Speaker 1: where growth is actually fast, but it's not a parent
Speaker 1: so you don't know. So let's stay here a little
Speaker 1: bit longer, collect a little bit more data, and if
Speaker 1: it turns out that in fact, you are not gaining
Speaker 1: momentum off this curve, then it's the wrong curve, so
Speaker 1: you're not getting the product market or person curve fit.
Speaker 1: So I think that that's the first piece, is to
Speaker 1: be able to distinguish between the two of are you
Speaker 1: just not good at this or have you not put
Speaker 1: in enough time yet? That's the first thing. And I
Speaker 1: wouldn't I don't know that that's retention so much. That's
Speaker 1: just giving people support that they need when they're doing
Speaker 1: something new. From a retention strategy perspective. Something that you
Speaker 1: can look at is a very simple exam is is
Speaker 1: Patrick Baschett. He was the CFO of Google for about
Speaker 1: seven years, and when he was first interviewed for this job,
Speaker 1: he had already done operations types of roles for a
Speaker 1: number of years and so from a domain expertise standpoint,
Speaker 1: absolutely at the top of that esque curve. And so
Speaker 1: there was the real risk that he would get in there,
Speaker 1: be there for six months, maybe a year, figure out
Speaker 1: the lay of the land. He's like done out of here,
Speaker 1: bored needs something new to do. So he had a
Speaker 1: conversation with Eric Schmidt, who was the CEO of Google
Speaker 1: at the time, and he said he said, basically, Patrick,
Speaker 1: we've got a problem. So here's what we're going to do.
Speaker 1: Every time you start to feel bored. Every time you're
Speaker 1: at the top of an S curve, which is my language.
Speaker 1: He said, come talk to me and we'll find something
Speaker 1: new for you to do. And so basically every eighteen
Speaker 1: months Patrick went back to Eric and said, hey, kind
Speaker 1: of got this figured out. I need something new. And
Speaker 1: so every eighteen months they added something new. They gave
Speaker 1: him from his portfolio of esque curves, they added some
Speaker 1: new launch points. So he took over real estate, he
Speaker 1: took over Google, Fibror, he took over people. And so
Speaker 1: by shifting the complexion or the makeup of his composition
Speaker 1: of his portfolio, he was able to stay in that
Speaker 1: same role for seven years because they were continually finding
Speaker 1: ways to adapt and adjust the portfolio. And so that
Speaker 1: became a retention strategy by understanding, where is this person
Speaker 1: in his growth, what experience is he having. Now, let's
Speaker 1: adjust it so that we can retain him. That's great,
Speaker 1: I really really like that. Do you talk about some
Speaker 1: things very interesting? You talk about excavating your shadow values?
Speaker 1: Holy cow, can you tell our listeners a little bit
Speaker 1: what that is? Because I'm super super interested in the
Speaker 1: dark side of the nature. Yeah, aren't we all? Aren't
Speaker 1: we fascinated by it. Yeah, but so many of us
Speaker 1: project that and act as though we're the good ones
Speaker 1: and the other side is the evil one, and we never,
Speaker 1: we very rarely look within. So that's why I love
Speaker 1: that you bring that up. So there's lots of different
Speaker 1: ways to think about our shadow values. And we know
Speaker 1: that this comes from again from Union Psychology where he
Speaker 1: talks about the shadow self and psychologists. Yes, we love psychology.
Speaker 1: That's this podcast. So this notion of the example that
Speaker 1: I use in the book, and you might have something
Speaker 1: that you want to I'd love to hear your thoughts
Speaker 1: and your reflections on this. But this notion of and
Speaker 1: this happens a lot where, for example, as a manager,
Speaker 1: we want to grow people. I don't think there's a
Speaker 1: manager on this planet, or at least ninety nine percent
Speaker 1: of the managers on this planet, who say I want
Speaker 1: to grow my people. I want to be a great manager.
Speaker 1: But there's this shadow value which is also I need
Speaker 1: to preserve myself. I need to make sure that I
Speaker 1: am safe. I need to make sure that I sitting
Speaker 1: at the top of this mountain of an s am
Speaker 1: not threatened in any way. And so now enter the
Speaker 1: shadow value, because yes, I want to grow people, but
Speaker 1: growing people may mean that this person that you are
Speaker 1: growing eventually gets better at this job than you are.
Speaker 1: It may mean that eventually you need to give away
Speaker 1: your legos and let this person take your role and
Speaker 1: you need to jump to a new S curve. And
Speaker 1: so when you understand what your shadow values are, which
Speaker 1: is things like self preservation which we all have, you
Speaker 1: can then contend with it and understand. I know I
Speaker 1: said I wanted him to grow. I know I said
Speaker 1: I wanted her to grow, but I'm not making it
Speaker 1: possible for them to grow what else is going on here?
Speaker 1: Frequently what happens is you think I want them to grow,
Speaker 1: but you're in this place of scarcity, not abundance, which
Speaker 1: I know you talk about. At some level, I feel
Speaker 1: like if I help them grow, there's not going to
Speaker 1: be an opportunity for me. So what do I need
Speaker 1: to do to create opportunities for myself? To create new
Speaker 1: S curve opportunities for myself, either in this organization or
Speaker 1: in another organization, so that I feel like there is
Speaker 1: enough for me so that now I can allow the
Speaker 1: people on my team to grow. And so that's what
Speaker 1: I mean by excavating shadow values when there is a
Speaker 1: disconnect between what I am saying and what I actually
Speaker 1: truly believe and what I'm doing. And when you can
Speaker 1: excavate those values and you bring them out of the shadow,
Speaker 1: then you can start to address them and you can
Speaker 1: and act in your purpose, which is I do want
Speaker 1: to help people grow, but I need to make sure
Speaker 1: that I'm growing as well, because if I'm growing, then
Speaker 1: I will be willing to help other people grow. Amazing.
Speaker 1: And that's what you mean by being smart about growth. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the big part of the process of being smart.
Speaker 1: So when you use the word growth, are we talking
Speaker 1: about different things? When we use the word growth, are
Speaker 1: you focusing on growth of results in a business context,
Speaker 1: whereas I'm talking about as a whole person growth from
Speaker 1: a humanistic existential perspective, which it's it. How can we
Speaker 1: merge both of our perspectives on growth? Yeah, we absolutely can. So.
Speaker 1: The publisher from my book is Harvard Business Press. So
Speaker 1: in having Harvard Business Press publish this book, of course
Speaker 1: I need to talk about the organization. That being said,
Speaker 1: one of my fundamental beliefs is that the fundamental unit
Speaker 1: of growth in any organization. The fundamental unit of disruption
Speaker 1: is always the individual. And so I argue that if
Speaker 1: you will grow yourself, then by definition, because of the
Speaker 1: contagion effect, you will create the conditions wherein you can
Speaker 1: grow your people. And if you yourself are growing and
Speaker 1: your people are growing, then your organization will grow. And
Speaker 1: so I think that so that becomes an outcome. I
Speaker 1: am focusing on growing an individual as the input as
Speaker 1: the X variable, and the why variable will the dependent
Speaker 1: variable is the growth of your organization. So we are
Speaker 1: are very much in alignment. The results happen, but that's
Speaker 1: not your starting point. It starts with you as the individual.
Speaker 1: Amazing and in fact, let me share it. Let me
Speaker 1: share a piece of research I think you'll find really interesting.
Speaker 1: So a gun zunder did a study two two and
Speaker 1: a half years ago and they surveyed CEOs and they said,
Speaker 1: tell us whether or not you strongly agreed agreed to
Speaker 1: transform your organization, you need to transform yourself. And two
Speaker 1: and a half years ago that number strongly agreed was
Speaker 1: twenty eight percent. Two years later, post pandemic yay, post
Speaker 1: traumatic growth. What they found when they administered that survey
Speaker 1: again eighty percent strongly agreed. I think that is so significant.
Speaker 1: I think that is so encouraging, this notion that these
Speaker 1: CEOs now I'll understand that if they want to have
Speaker 1: this wholesale transformation of their organization, they need to transform themselves.
Speaker 1: And I think that we have the pandemic at least
Speaker 1: in part to think for that post traumatic growth. It
Speaker 1: comes after a period of severe stress. Absolutely, thanks for
Speaker 1: sharing that. I appreciate that this is all in line
Speaker 1: with what you do say in your book, which is
Speaker 1: people are not just the most valuable resources of the organization,
Speaker 1: they are the organization. A good quote there, Whitney Johnson.
Speaker 1: I like that. I like that. So how can companies
Speaker 1: actively invest in their people? And why is that more
Speaker 1: important right now than ever? All Right, so let's start
Speaker 1: with why it's so important. There has been We just
Speaker 1: talked about post traumatic growth, and I love that the
Speaker 1: title of your book is choose growth. One of the
Speaker 1: things that we discovered in over the past couple of years,
Speaker 1: and people have taught and described this period of time
Speaker 1: where people were jumping to new s kurds is the
Speaker 1: great resignation. And I believe that that is a major
Speaker 1: misnomer because what we found during these past few years
Speaker 1: is that people were and are more capable, more resilient.
Speaker 1: We've discovered a lot about ourselves, and so we discovered
Speaker 1: that we want things to be different. We found ways
Speaker 1: to rebalance our lives and how we approached our world.
Speaker 1: And so when people look at this and say people
Speaker 1: are resigning from I think that's inaccurate. I think what
Speaker 1: we've discovered is that people are aspiring to They're aspiring
Speaker 1: to more. They are, in your words, choosing growth. And
Speaker 1: so what I would encourage any employer to do is
Speaker 1: to recognize that if you understand that the animating force
Speaker 1: for people is that they want to grow, they want
Speaker 1: to grow not only in their role at work, but
Speaker 1: grow as human beings, then that starts to inform how
Speaker 1: you're going to develop people, how you're going to recruit people,
Speaker 1: how you're going to retain people. Now, there's a lot
Speaker 1: that you can do. Sometimes people will say, well, I'm
Speaker 1: just a middle manager. There's not you know, I don't
Speaker 1: have much control. What I would say is, from an
Speaker 1: agentic standpoint, you have far more control than you think
Speaker 1: you do. And it can start with a very simple conversation,
Speaker 1: which is, let's draw an ask let's see where you
Speaker 1: think you are in your growth. Do you think you're
Speaker 1: at the launch point, the sweet spot or mastery? And
Speaker 1: what can I do to support you in your growth
Speaker 1: that you can build momentum. It's a simple thing, but
Speaker 1: we know from the contagion effect three degrees of separation,
Speaker 1: if you help that person grow, then they're going to
Speaker 1: help their children grow. They're going to help a coworker
Speaker 1: who's three degrees of separation grow. And so you can
Speaker 1: start with that individual and that allows you as a
Speaker 1: manager to start to grow your people, which then grows
Speaker 1: your company. So that's what I would say is it's
Speaker 1: not the great resignation, it's the great aspiration. And it
Speaker 1: can start as simply as drawing an ass on a
Speaker 1: piece of paper and having a conversation about where do
Speaker 1: you think you are in your growth? Wow, you see,
Speaker 1: you're very optimistic about twenty twenty two as being a
Speaker 1: year of tremendous growth in the workplace. Okay, well, what
Speaker 1: advice do you have for leaders to energize their team
Speaker 1: this year, especially amid some people feeling demotivated because of
Speaker 1: a lot of political things going on in the world
Speaker 1: right now. Yeah, So Scott, this starts to come to
Speaker 1: some of our a priori or foundational assumptions. And so
Speaker 1: let me tell you some of the things that I believe.
Speaker 1: And I believe that growth is our default setting, that
Speaker 1: we are wired to grow, and I think we all
Speaker 1: know that, but we have the growth mindset until we don't.
Speaker 1: And so I think that one of the things that
Speaker 1: for us to be aware of is that if you
Speaker 1: believe that about growth and you are willing to have
Speaker 1: conversations with people about where are they in their growth
Speaker 1: and to help them build momentum along their s curve
Speaker 1: regardless of where they are, that will help motivate them.
Speaker 1: At the same time, what I would say, and I
Speaker 1: know you said I sound very optimistic. What I do
Speaker 1: want to put forth is that we make a choice.
Speaker 1: I very much believe that we are agents. We control
Speaker 1: more than we think that we do. And I remember,
Speaker 1: and I'll share an experience that I had, and I
Speaker 1: suspect many of your listeners had something similar happen to them.
Speaker 1: I remember at the beginning of the pandemic back in
Speaker 1: March of twenty twenty twenty twenty or twenty nineteen, twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, losing track of time. I remember having
Speaker 1: this experience of when the world was shutting down, and
Speaker 1: I was very frightened, and I think many of us
Speaker 1: were of the world are our life as we know
Speaker 1: it is changing? What does this mean for my health?
Speaker 1: Am I going to get sick? What does this mean
Speaker 1: for my business? Because I own my own business and
Speaker 1: having this experience. I thought it was two days, but
Speaker 1: my truth teller daughter tells me it was two weeks
Speaker 1: where I finally had to make a choice. What am
Speaker 1: I going to do here? Am I going to succumb
Speaker 1: to this feeling of fear and helplessness that is threatening
Speaker 1: to overtake me? Or Am I going to choose hope?
Speaker 1: Am I going to choose to be optimistic? Am I
Speaker 1: going to choose to see this as an opportunity to grow?
Speaker 1: Am I going to see this as an opportunity to
Speaker 1: say I've been talking about personal disruption? Am I going
Speaker 1: to eat my own cooking and disrupt myself and find
Speaker 1: a way to manage through this? Turn this constraint that
Speaker 1: I'm experiencing into a tool of creation. And so I
Speaker 1: think that we as leaders and managers, we need to
Speaker 1: create the conditions the weather patterns whereby people can grow.
Speaker 1: We can play that role because you have to climb
Speaker 1: and escer by yourself, but you can't do it alone.
Speaker 1: But ultimately, ultimately, each person that works with us and
Speaker 1: we ourselves have to make the choice. Am I going
Speaker 1: to choose to think that I cannot do this? Or
Speaker 1: am I going to choose to believe that I can?
Speaker 1: And my hope is is that this ESCER, because it's
Speaker 1: a simple visual model, gives people a way to say, Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: I do feel afraid right now, but I'm just at
Speaker 1: the launch point, so I'll figure it out. I believe
Speaker 1: that I can figure out. It's been done, you know,
Speaker 1: billions of times before I can do it again. It's
Speaker 1: a model that I can replicate. I like that. And
Speaker 1: what if you get to like you're having core life crisis,
Speaker 1: or you get to middle age and you just don't
Speaker 1: feel like you're growing as fast as you had expected,
Speaker 1: which is everyone most people. You start to hit reality
Speaker 1: when you get to a certain age that you can't
Speaker 1: be the NBA player that you thought you were going
Speaker 1: to be, or you can't be this or that, and
Speaker 1: you come to start to confront reality a bit. How
Speaker 1: does that play a role in this? So I have
Speaker 1: two thoughts here. Number one is that you just got
Speaker 1: pushed off and now you've got to make a decision
Speaker 1: about what you're going to do. I'm here, I'm stranded
Speaker 1: on this desert island? Am I? You know desert island
Speaker 1: s curve? That I did not choose? What do I
Speaker 1: want to do? And it goes back to what we
Speaker 1: just talked about at the beginning of the pandemic? Am
Speaker 1: I going to say, Oh, I'm a victim? My life
Speaker 1: is terrible again? This goes back to a being an agent?
Speaker 1: Or are we going to figure out how do I
Speaker 1: make meaning of this? You know? Did this happen to me?
Speaker 1: Or did this happen for me? This goes back to
Speaker 1: some of our priori assumptions that we're on this planet
Speaker 1: to grow and to develop. That growth is our default setting.
Speaker 1: What am I going to do with this constraint that's
Speaker 1: just been handed to me? And how am I going
Speaker 1: to make something out of it? So that's the near
Speaker 1: term question that I would would ask yourself. The bigger
Speaker 1: picture question I would say, going back to your life
Speaker 1: is if you think about your life and you think
Speaker 1: about any s curve. It's basically a dopamine management exercise.
Speaker 1: So when you're at the launch point of an S curve,
Speaker 1: you're making lots of predictions about what it's going to
Speaker 1: take for me to be successful, and many of those
Speaker 1: predictions are inaccurate. So your dopamine is dropping, which feels
Speaker 1: terrible because dopamine is a chemical messenger of delight, your
Speaker 1: d delighting. Then in the sweet spot it's spiking because
Speaker 1: things are going better than you expected. In it the mastery,
Speaker 1: it's kind of flatlining. And so that's why you need
Speaker 1: a new challenge. So what I would say for those
Speaker 1: of us who are now at the launch point of
Speaker 1: a curve that we didn't actually choose, and you're saying,
Speaker 1: how do I use this dopamine to help me move
Speaker 1: out of this place that I don't think I want
Speaker 1: to be? Is you you set these really small goals.
Speaker 1: You don't think in terms of what am I going
Speaker 1: to do five years from now. You look for wins today,
Speaker 1: you look for wins tomorrow. You look for ways to
Speaker 1: get some dopamine that will allow you to have some
Speaker 1: upside surprises that will build momentum again. And what do
Speaker 1: I mean by little wins. I mean things that you
Speaker 1: can do even if it's eleven o'clock at night. This
Speaker 1: goes to some of James Clear's work, of those ridiculously
Speaker 1: small goals. I'm not exercising it all right now, I'm
Speaker 1: going to put on my tennis shoes every day for
Speaker 1: the next week. I don't feel like writing my next book. Okay,
Speaker 1: well I'll just turn on my computer and look at
Speaker 1: my screen for thirty seconds every day for the next week.
Speaker 1: And so you do these small, small things that allow
Speaker 1: you to get a little bit of dopamine, start to
Speaker 1: build your momentum again so that you can move back
Speaker 1: into the sweet spot of your life. Because you were
Speaker 1: there at one point, you can be there again. And
Speaker 1: those are the ways that you move forward when you
Speaker 1: feel like you've been kicked off the curve and don't
Speaker 1: quite have the motivation that you need to move forward.
Speaker 1: How do you know when to grit and when to quit? Though,
Speaker 1: because you do talk of in your book about the
Speaker 1: benefits of a career change, So me, you know what's
Speaker 1: so wrong with getting middle age and be like, well,
Speaker 1: that s curve was told totally not what I expected.
Speaker 1: I'm going to peace out. I mean, well, there's no
Speaker 1: shame in that, right when to grit and when to quit.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you've said that before, but I have never
Speaker 1: heard it. So I just got some delight from that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a great question, Scott. So what I would say
Speaker 1: there are two different places where you're going to experience that.
Speaker 1: That the launch point that we've talked about already of like,
Speaker 1: I'm just not very good at this, maybe it is
Speaker 1: time for me to jump to something new. But there's
Speaker 1: also the mastery phase, which we haven't talked about. And
Speaker 1: I think this is that middle life question that you
Speaker 1: just you just post and here are some of the
Speaker 1: some of the ways that you know that it's time
Speaker 1: to no longer grit. Now, when I'm talking about being
Speaker 1: in mastery, I don't mean that you are the world's
Speaker 1: foremost expert on something. It may mean that, but it
Speaker 1: also may mean I wanted to learn five songs on
Speaker 1: the ukulele and I'm good. But from a career perspective,
Speaker 1: here are some things that you're going to start telling yourself.
Speaker 1: And this is what we see in our diagnostic is
Speaker 1: that you know it's time to do something new. You've
Speaker 1: been doing the same thing for several years no significant difference.
Speaker 1: So you can look at time and role. For example,
Speaker 1: you can find yourself saying things like that's not how
Speaker 1: we do it here. You can find yourself dialing it in.
Speaker 1: You can find yourself being jealous of other people who
Speaker 1: are moving along that self preservation people piece where they're growing,
Speaker 1: but you're not. You're starting to stagnate. You can find
Speaker 1: yourself saying things like, well, I've paid my dues. All
Speaker 1: those are starting to give you these signals that maybe
Speaker 1: it's time for you to not grit. It's time for
Speaker 1: you to quit. If you're feeling bored, if you're feeling demotivated.
Speaker 1: But here's the most important indicator. It is when you
Speaker 1: have that experience of I feel like there is something
Speaker 1: more for me to do. I can feel it, and
Speaker 1: if I don't do something more, I will die inside
Speaker 1: a little bit. I understand that I am an expert
Speaker 1: at this, but I can feel that I have more
Speaker 1: to do on this planet. I need to keep climbing.
Speaker 1: It's not on this S curve. It's time for me
Speaker 1: to do something new. That is the moment where you
Speaker 1: don't grit, you quit, you move to a new s curve. Okay,
Speaker 1: I love that. I have a bit of a cheeky
Speaker 1: question because I can't help myself. Well, if what if
Speaker 1: you feel like there is less for me on this planet?
Speaker 1: Like what if you just You're like not, You're you're
Speaker 1: tired of having such high ambitions. You're like, I want
Speaker 1: to just I want to spend time with my family,
Speaker 1: you know, like I'm sick of working like thousand hours
Speaker 1: a week. Like you can't work thousand hours a week.
Speaker 1: But you see my point, Yes I do. Is there
Speaker 1: any shame in that? Oh no, not at all. But
Speaker 1: I wouldn't I wouldn't actually call that less. I would
Speaker 1: call that different. You know, I'm just finishing reading Arthur
Speaker 1: Brooks book and and I think a lot of it.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, guy, oh my god, really really good. And
Speaker 1: so you know he talks about the second curve and
Speaker 1: that that's been really interesting for me to read. But
Speaker 1: thinking about this idea of disruption. So let me give
Speaker 1: you a way to think about this. So when you're
Speaker 1: let's say in your career, and you're let's call it
Speaker 1: forty five years old, and you've you've got sort of
Speaker 1: your number twelve on the Y axis of success and
Speaker 1: you're over one up one and it's going along swimmingly.
Speaker 1: But you make the decision to disrupt yourself. You want
Speaker 1: to do something new. You want to work twenty hours
Speaker 1: a week, let's call it if people have the luxury
Speaker 1: of doing that. So you move from the y axis
Speaker 1: of success of prestige in your work down to a
Speaker 1: ten because you believe that in the future it's going
Speaker 1: to be over one up three or over one up five.
Speaker 1: But note that you have now changed the metrics of success.
Speaker 1: And this goes back to Clayton's work of how will
Speaker 1: you measure your life? You are changing your metric. It's
Speaker 1: not more prestige, it's not more stature. It is I
Speaker 1: want to cultivate relationships. I want to stay in the
Speaker 1: sweet spot in perpetuity in the relationships that matter most
Speaker 1: to me. So it's not about less. And again this
Speaker 1: goes back to the great resignation versus the great aspiration.
Speaker 1: It's changing the metrics of success. And so you're jumping
Speaker 1: to a new S curve. You're changing the composition of
Speaker 1: your portfolio of S curves. And of course there's no
Speaker 1: shame in that. And I think you and I we
Speaker 1: both argue this is what it means to develop and
Speaker 1: grow as an entire human being, not just a person
Speaker 1: who is focused on their career or just focus on
Speaker 1: their relationships. It's everything in totality. It's so good changing
Speaker 1: the metrics of success. Boy, do you think that our
Speaker 1: society has some messed up ideas of what it means
Speaker 1: to be successful? Like? Yes, absolutely, yeah, as part of
Speaker 1: your project to kind of change or broaden people's notions
Speaker 1: of what even means to succeed or grow in life
Speaker 1: in your work, yes, I don't know that I would
Speaker 1: have it stated it that way, I think for for me.
Speaker 1: You know how, one of the best ways to figure
Speaker 1: out what it is you stand for is to have
Speaker 1: someone tell you what they think you stand for and
Speaker 1: you say yes. That resonates. And I was having a
Speaker 1: conversation with Tom Peters, who wrote in Search of Excellence,
Speaker 1: and he said to me, Whitney, I think what your
Speaker 1: rezondetra is is you want to help people grow big
Speaker 1: G and little G. And when I think about that,
Speaker 1: that's when I say grow, I mean grow as a
Speaker 1: human being in every aspect of your life, mentally, emotionally,
Speaker 1: in your relationships, etc. So so yes, the answer is
Speaker 1: I would like people to change their metrics of success.
Speaker 1: And coming back to Clayton, who we talked about at
Speaker 1: the very beginning, I had the privilege of working with
Speaker 1: him for the greater part of ten years, and people
Speaker 1: could say, well, what are all the different things you
Speaker 1: learned from Clayton, And I would say, one of the
Speaker 1: most important things I learned from him this idea of
Speaker 1: metrics of success. But he did something that was so
Speaker 1: valuable to me, and I find that is staying with
Speaker 1: me is he didn't separate the secular from the spiritual.
Speaker 1: They were. He brought work to church, and he brought
Speaker 1: church to work. And so I in my work, if
Speaker 1: I can encourage people to bring their secular and their
Speaker 1: spiritual together, you're bringing the whole person together, bringing the
Speaker 1: masculine and the feminine together, however you want to define that.
Speaker 1: To me, that's what growth, real growth looks like. I
Speaker 1: love that. And what an honor was for him to
Speaker 1: work with you as well, you know, I know you
Speaker 1: and for you to work with him. Yeah, it must
Speaker 1: have been a really tremendous collaboration. Yeah. So, how can
Speaker 1: you become the kind of leader or boss that that
Speaker 1: people want to work for. Do you have any advice
Speaker 1: for aspiring leaders who really want to take your work
Speaker 1: and run with it? Such a big question again, but
Speaker 1: it really I think it starts very simply. Is that
Speaker 1: start by focusing on how are you yourself going to grow?
Speaker 1: And when I say that, it can be something as
Speaker 1: simple as going to disrupt myself just a little bit today,
Speaker 1: I'm going to make a decision that when I look
Speaker 1: at my list of ten things to do today, maybe
Speaker 1: all ten of those things right now are a list
Speaker 1: of tasks to do. And instead of having ten tasks,
Speaker 1: I'm going to have one thing that says, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm going to put a who on my to do
Speaker 1: list and I'm going to have a conversation with a
Speaker 1: person about where are you in your growth? And it
Speaker 1: can start with those very simple micro disruptions creating those
Speaker 1: new neural pathways, but they start with a cowpath And
Speaker 1: so anybody who's listening to this and thinking I do
Speaker 1: want to be different, I do want to be a
Speaker 1: better leader, start by figuring out where are you and
Speaker 1: your growth launch point, sweet spot mastery. Maybe have a
Speaker 1: simple conversation map out where your people are are and
Speaker 1: their growth and do one very small, ridiculously small thing,
Speaker 1: because you aggregate all those small things that all of
Speaker 1: your listeners are doing across the globe. That starts to
Speaker 1: aggregate into something pretty meaningful and significant and disruption in
Speaker 1: a very very positive way. Well, let's end on that note.
Speaker 1: It's wonderful. Was there anything else you'd like to add
Speaker 1: to our conversation. I think I feel like we've covered
Speaker 1: a lot of the ground of your book. Just thank
Speaker 1: you for having me. I enjoyed reading your book and
Speaker 1: being able to talk about your work, and I just
Speaker 1: appreciate your wanting to talk about talk about my work
Speaker 1: and just figure out how they overlap. So thank you
Speaker 1: very much. It's great. It's really great work. I'm so
Speaker 1: glad we can finally get you on the Psychology Podcast.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Whitney. Thanks for listening to this
Speaker 1: episode of the Psychology Podcast. If you'd like to react
Speaker 1: in some way to something you heard, I encourage you
Speaker 1: to join in the discussion at the Psychology podcast dot com.
Speaker 1: We're on our YouTube page the Psychology Podcast. We also
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Speaker 1: page as well, so you'll want to check that out.
Speaker 1: Thanks for being such a great supporter of the show,
Speaker 1: and tune in next time for more on the mind,
Speaker 1: brain behavior and creativity.