CB LIVE! Courage to Leap and Lead with Whitney Johnson, Episode 101

Hello, everybody. I am so glad to be back. I missed you guys. It's been a long summer with lots of success. Hey, guess what? I finished my book, and it will be out on the shelves October, November, and I'm super excited to announce that my dear friend Marshall Goldsmith has written the foreword for it. So I'm not going to confirm the title with you yet. You're just going to have to watch and listen. In the meantime, I have, starting off our winter series, a phenomenal guest. But you know that all of my guests are phenomenal. But this lady, hmm, can we talk, right? She has written this great book, Smart Growth, which she's going to tell us all about it. And, you know, I thought this year I would emphasize more about courage, especially with women, because goodness knows we need and use a lot of courage. And so why not look at some very successful people who have used courage for their growth and to support other people. So the first question I'm gonna ask this year, after tell me about yourself, because, you know, we always like to find out the ins and outs, you know, what you can't read on LinkedIn, right? And then I'm gonna ask Whitney about courage experiences she's had, and then we're gonna talk about the book. So hang tight, we're ready to go. Whitney, welcome to Courage to Leap and Lead.

Thank you, CB. I'm delighted to be here.

Great. So Whitney, let's start off by talking about you. Tell us about your life as a child. How did you get to where you are now? Are you married? What's going on? Can we talk?

All right. So my life as a child, I actually was born in Madrid, Spain, and that's important because even though my parents only lived there until I was 6 months old, because I was born there, I felt like I was from Spain. And so throughout my life, I grew up in San Jose, California, and but still always studied Spanish and always felt like I'm part Spanish. So I, I'm, I'm the oldest of 4 children. As I said, I grew up in San Jose, California, very middle-class background. My father was a lawyer, my mother was a schoolteacher. I loved music. And so I actually, in throughout my younger years, I played the piano. I was a cheerleader in high school. I went to college, I majored in music, studied piano. And, and then something interesting happened, because when I Well, let me back up. Before I graduated from college—

Wait, before you start, you know, I just want to remind the audience that the air is very dry here in Colorado. And so I forgot to take out my mints, a whole pack, because I'm going to need a few and I don't want to rustle the— here's my go-to, the one with honey in it. Oh, let me just take that out. And then I'm all prepared, all yours, an audience you know that I keep it real. So I just have to deal with the car and whatever. Yeah, go back. All right, so a little bit about Madrid though, because yeah, so exciting.

Well, what's funny is that, you know, again, I only lived there until I was 6 months old, but, um, you know, I visited there not too long ago. It was fun to go with my daughter and see the place where my parents lived when I was just a baby. So that was a lot of fun. Um, but what's interesting is that when I was in college, I actually went on a mission for my church, and I was hoping I would go to Spain, but instead I went to Uruguay, which is in South America. So I finally got to really, really, really learn Spanish. Um, and so I've always had this absolute love and affinity for the Spanish language and anything Hispanic generally. Now, when I graduated from college, I actually had this thing where I really, really, really wanted to be a flight attendant. And I went and I interviewed at American Airlines down in Dallas, Texas. And I was so certain I had great grades. Of course they're gonna hire me. And they didn't hire me. And I was so disappointed and so dejected. But there's an irony to all that, which I'll get to in a minute.

Wait, we have something in common. I did the same thing.

And you—

I was rejected too. So it just goes to show they didn't know what they were doing. Or maybe they did.

Yeah, maybe they did. Because I think what's so, so ironic, and I guess I'll, I'll scoop it now, but my career, I went on and now I now have over 2 million miles on American Airlines as a passenger because my work took me all around the world or has taken me all around the world. So graduated from college. I've now gotten married. My husband is getting his PhD at Columbia in New York. And so we moved to New York. And because he's in school, I am the designated breadwinner. There are only a number of problems, which are I have majored in music, by the way. I don't have very much confidence, and I am a woman. So my very first job is as a secretary working for a stockbroker on 1345 Avenue of the Americas, because we always all remember the address of our first job, which for the millennials, it will be in our houses. But For me, it was actual physical location. So I—

I actually know that building, by the way.

You do, right? It's right next to the Hilton. Yeah, absolutely. And so I did that. But then something important happened, which was I would go to work every single day, and I would sit across from a bullpen of stockbrokers, all males, aspiring masters of the universe. And they were trying to open up brokerage accounts. And so they would, you know, they were calling people and they would say things like, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that you should buy this stock. And then they would say, throw down your pom-poms and get in the game. And at first I was very offended because, as I said, I was a cheerleader in high school. But eventually something settled in me and I realized I needed to throw down my pom-poms. And I would not have known to call it this then, but that was really the beginning of me disrupting myself, disrupting disrupting what possibilities I saw for myself, disrupting how I thought my life would play out. And I started taking business courses at night— accounting, finance, economics— was able to move from being a secretary to an investment banker. I did that for several years. My boss gets fired, I get disrupted again. I moved to equity research. I've now had a baby, um, and turned out that I was a really good stock picker, and I did that for about 8 years. Now had 2 children, made the decision that I wanted to become an entrepreneur. So I left Wall Street, I thought forever, but then connected with Clayton Christensen at Harvard Business School and eventually co-founded the Disruptive Innovation Fund with him and his son. Did that for a number of years. But in 2012, something very important happened, which was this. I realized that I was much more interested in the momentum of people than of stocks. I had written an article called Disrupt Yourself in the Harvard Business Review, and that set me on this course of— now I've just written my 4th book, Smart Growth, which you just mentioned, CB. And so we now have a company, it's called Disruption Advisors. It's a tech-enabled talent development company, and we have an assessment that allows you to see where you perceive you are in your growth in your current role. And we have coaching and consulting around that. And so I'm I now, instead of picking stocks, I pick people and, and get to help them build momentum. And I really feel like it took me a long time to get here. It was a very circuitous route, as I think most people's careers are, but I really do feel like I have found my calling in doing what I was meant to do in life, which is to help people grow and help their teams grow. And that in turn helps their companies grow.

Okay. You gave us so much. It was more than a mouthful. So I want to go back because, you know, a lot of people feel they have jobs that don't represent their full potential.

Mm-hmm.

And they spiral down. I love what you did. You spiraled up.

Mm.

And one of the things I was going to mention, but you took the wind out of my sail. Was that you probably learned a lot sitting across from the bullpen about sales techniques.

Mm.

And that is so valuable because I think women as a whole, and sisters as a whole, are great connectors.

Mm.

But we're horrible salespeople.

Mm.

So what causes the difference between the two? Right? Because salespeople have to connect to make a deal, right? The art of the deal. But for some reason, women think of it as a relationship builder and stop— we stop there. You know, I've often said to my sales coach, I don't know anything about sales.

Hmm.

And I'll tell you what she said to me this year, which was mind-boggling. She said, CB, stop thinking of it as you're spending your money because you're not.

Mm.

And I thought about that and thought about it. And I said, that's probably one of the most impactful statements anybody has ever said to me that made sales So say more.

You mean when you're talking to someone about buying something, it's not about them spending money? So what did she say it's about?

No, it's not about my spending money.

Oh, okay. Say more. Okay. Now I'm really curious.

So what I was doing is I was empathizing with the buyer to the point that I was thinking, wow, would I spend the money on this? Could not, not so much would I, could I, could I afford to spend the money on this? And she said, why don't you think about would you spend the money on it because of the benefit and understand that you're not writing the check to yourself.

Interesting. I like that. Would you spend the money because of the benefit?

Yes. So it's almost like Simon Sinek's the why. And even down to yesterday— um, no, yeah, yesterday when I had my Women's Power Pack group and we were going over the, the book that I've just written.

Yeah.

And one of the women who had an international bestseller said to me, CB, that's a nice title, but I don't know why I should buy the book. And I said, what are you talking about? Why, why should you buy the book? Because it's about courage to lead and lead, having the courage. She said, no, that's a statement. That's not your why. And I realized I was doing it again.

Oh.

And so therefore, I added the subtitle of Rethinking Failure as a success. That's the outcome I want people to have, right? So we women often don't think about— and I'm not just saying this because it happened to me— you know, think about the outcome as being beneficial to the reader enough to claim that outcome, right? We're just sort of—

Powerful.

Dilly-dallying around it, right? And hoping. that people will get it. And so by sitting across from the bullpen, those men weren't hoping for anything. They were saying, let's do it, right? And if you don't, here's the consequences. And that, I think that thinking you absorbed without even knowing it, because look, look at where you are now.

Yeah, it's so interesting, CB. I've never thought of, I've never thought of that before, of being in that environment. And it is interesting. And as you're talking, I'm also thinking about Sally Helgeson's work, who we both know. And this idea of— she said women are really good, as you said, at building relationships, but then they're not able to leverage them to transact. And one of the things I wondered about is, do women, or have women historically, or maybe even underrepresented groups generally, build relationships as a way to survive? Like, I need to have these relationships because they'll help me survive in some way.

Yes.

As opposed to saying, you know what, I have this relationship. And as you said, I believe that I have created something or built something or can do something that will be of benefit to you. And so let me tell you about it and you can decide if you want it or not, but I believe in it enough that I am going to say it to you, this person I have a relationship with. That takes a lot of confidence. It really does. And, and, and so I think that for women, you know, that we're developing and maturing when we get to the point where there is something that we believe in enough that we're willing to not only have a relationship that allows us to survive, but to be able to go to our relationships and say, I believe in this. Let me share it with you. Would you like it? Do you want this as well? I think it's amazing. I wanted to share it with you. That takes confidence.

It's so perfect. And I'm going to give you 2 really good examples. One is you and I really don't know each other, and I have the audacity to say to you, would you be part of my launch team? Well, that didn't come easy. I had to learn that. And I learned it in my Women's Power Pack group because one of the women who escaped the Ukraine area and has been through like 3 wars, said, you know, CB, where are your recommendations? Where are your references? Where are your testimonials? And I said, oh, I have a few. And she said, you don't ask for them, do you? And I put my head down and I said, no. And she said, men do.

Uh-huh.

And I said, what? Stop, wait, I'm gonna ask for them now. And when I had to fill out my eSpeakers application, you need 20 testimonials to be— 5, 20. And I said, holy cow, maybe I know one or two people. Well, I asked 20 people, and 20 people wrote testimonials so fast, including Sally. It wasn't even funny. And I thought, I would have never had the nerve to do this. Never.

Mm-hmm.

And so we just— we don't think that way. We don't think, how do we— how do we help our friends? Like, men think of friends as people they go to for help. We don't. I'll give you another example. You said very astutely that minorities tend to have relationships with people to survive versus relationships with people to build business.

That is astoundingly truthful.

Because if you go back to the Black history, where was it that we went? We went to church to socialize.

Hmm.

And we had Sunday dinner and Sunday brunch and, you know, everything related around the church. And then we went home and we survived the business world by hit and miss. We didn't network. We didn't ask for the jobs. We didn't prepare for the jobs. We didn't challenge for the jobs, and we didn't get the jobs. So it goes back to not only women, but people of color.

Yeah.

As you said, do the same thing. And it's— I think that has to be our next book.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, it's so interesting, CB, because I thought about that. I thought, why? I remember when I read that from Sally of her commenting about women build these relationships. And again, I think extrapolating, I think it's underrepresented groups, period. These build these relationships, but then they don't leverage it. And I just had this thought of, but why? Why do we do that? Because if you're building a relationship and you're not going to leverage it, Why are you building the relationship? And it might be, you know, in part because there's a sense of nurturing and building community, which I think is partly true. But my other thought was, for in a business context, if you're building all these relationships, it's not just to nurture. I really did think, I think it's because there's a survival instinct built in and we have to get out of that.

It's survival and it's the imposter syndrome. I don't deserve to ask. I haven't proven myself enough. Well, when are you going to prove yourself enough?

Right.

And the other part is, sometimes you have to remind people that you've proven yourself.

Yes, indeed. Well, that's the other thing that is very interesting is that, again, I'm going to say women, but I'm going to say underrepresented groups is that we're judged on track record and represented groups are judged on potential. And so as you just said, sometimes we just have to remind people, I do have a track record. It might not be a track record that you recognize, but it is a track record nonetheless. And, um, and also even pointing out that, that disparity of potential versus track record. And sometimes that can get people thinking. It's awkward and uncomfortable, but it does help us get there.

I think it, it creates a lot of thinking. I remember not so long ago when I first came into MG100, which we are in together.

Yeah.

I thought, wow. These people are— I don't know. I mean, I don't know if I could swim with these sharks, right? And I mean sharks in the nicest sense of the word.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. In these waters.

Right, right. And the more I heard people speak, the more I got angry with myself thinking that. Because then, wait a second. I've done that, and I've done that plus. What is wrong with you, CB? And so, yeah, absolutely, having that realization hit you, it requires a certain push. It requires a certain environment that allows you to nurture yourself. Mm-hmm.

Right?

So I want to jump to— I want to jump to talking about your book, and then let's I'm back to talking about coverage. You've written several books. Your latest book is called Smart Growth. Does that mean we can grow stupidly?

Yes, it does. Well said. So it's called Smart Growth: How to Grow Your People to Grow Your Company. And, you know, back to what you said earlier, the promise of this book is this idea of the more you understand what growth looks like, the more you can can grow. And so, I provide people with a map of what growth looks like. It's a very simple, it's a very visual model. It's based on the S-curve that was popularized by Everett Rogers, a sociologist back in the '60s, where he looked at how groups change over time. And we use the S-curve in the investing that I did with Clayton Christensen. And I had this big aha, this insight that we could use the S-curve to understand how individuals change, that it could help us understand how we learn, And how we grow. And to your question, CB, yes, we can grow in stupid ways. And those stupid ways are when we grow in ways just like a cancer cell metastasizes, where you're growing. Absolutely, you're growing. But you're sucking the life out of everything else around you in order to grow. And so smart growth is understanding what growth looks like for us, whether you're starting a new role, you're starting a new job, you're starting a new hobby, you're even beginning a new relationship. But growing in such a way that you are able to grow more. But also, as you grow, you're growing in and contributing to the ecosystem around you. So yes, you're pulling from the ecosystem, from the people around you, but you're giving back to the ecosystem and the people around you even more than you've taken. So, so when you grow yourself, then because of the contagion effect, you grow the people around you, and that by definition will grow the organization that you're in. So that's the promise of this book, is to give you a map of what growth looks like, um, so that you can increase your capacity to grow.

So I'm a visual person. Maybe you can use your fingers too.

Yeah, absolutely.

So I can see the bell curve. Now, when I think of an S, it's going to go down, around, and up to almost the bell curve, drop down again, and then go back up.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So the, so yeah. So let me map it out. So what's interesting about the bell curve is the bell curve is you can use that to think about, well, we won't focus on bell curve because then we can come back to that. So if you think about the S, what is it? It's, it's shaped like this. And what it does is it says, whenever you start something new, you're at the launch point of that S and your brain is running this predictive model about what is it going to take for me to be successful here. Um, and because you're mapping out this new territory and you're making lots of predictions, many of which are inaccurate, you are growing. But the growth, the experience that you're having is, is not yet apparent, and it feels slow. So the dopamine is dropping. And so it looks like this, even though it's happening, it looks like this.

Mm-hmm.

So that's the initial part. And if you're mapping it against the standard bell curve distribution, that's the initial phase of, like, the innovator and the early influencers. There's a few people, but not a lot. But then what happens is you hit this tipping point, and popularized by Malcolm Gladwell, and that moves into the steep, sleek back of the curve. And what that says there is your brain is continuing to run this predictive model and your predictions are increasingly accurate. And so at this point, this dopamine that was dropping at the launch point because all your predictions were wrong, and that, that's the chemical messenger of delight, now it's Spiking. You're getting all these emotional upside surprises, and your brain is wiring all these neurons together and saying, this works, this works, this works. It feels exhilarating. It feels exciting. Growth not only is fast, it feels fast. So that's the steep part of the curve. That's the second part. And then the third part, that upper plateau, is the place where you've figured it all out. Ta-da! We're done. But because you figured it out, you're not getting any more dopamine. And because you're not getting dopamine, your growth is in fact slow. And the experience that you have is, I feel like I can no longer keep doing it because you're not learning. And so now you have this model that says slow and then fast and slow is how you grow. And it allows you, once you understand that and can trace the emotional arc of growth, it allows you to make meaning and sense of many experiences that you've had, whether, oh, this is really hard to do something new, or this feels great, I'm loving my work, or, oh yeah, I know I'm good, but I got to do something new because I'm bored out of my mind. And then we start that growth cycle all over again.

So in that model, what I envision when you get to, you know, this feels great, and then you're, you're going up again. is really sort of like the Kaizen model, which is, you know, the 5 Whys. You start asking yourself again about what could you do different to even expand and grow and keep that dopamine, you know, moving and stirring and encouraging you to either expand or contract.

Yeah.

Depending upon what's going to support that growth. Is that where you're—

Yeah, I love that. I'm not familiar with that model, but what— the way you're describing it, I think there's an interesting intersection, which is When you're in this sweet spot, if you will ask yourself the question of what else can I do? What else is there to learn? What, what more is there for me to understand about what's happening here? That will allow you to extend out the sweet spot of your growth. But then also it allows you to say, okay, I'm now at a place where I don't know that there is much more for me to learn. And it doesn't mean you're the master of the universe and everything. It might be I wanted to learn 5 songs on the ukulele, and I've learned those 5 songs. And so I'm finished. And so there's that contraction that takes place. But because growth is our default setting, and using the Kaizen model that you just described, you're going to go back to is, where can I find growth? What's that going to look like? I want to do that. And so you make the decision, I'm going to jump to the launch point of a new curve. where I'm going to have all sorts of opportunities to continue to grow, even though it's going to be uncomfortable initially, but I will be able to grow.

So, so for the audience, I think what you're saying is once you— so you learn those 5 songs and you're happy that you've learned them, you're excited. But where do you go from there once you've learned the 5 songs? And it could be, it could be that you think about a remix, right? That nobody else has, has ever done. And then it starts to take off again. Yeah.

Yeah. Or it could be, I wanna learn 10 more songs. Yes. Or it could be, or it could be, you know what? That was interesting. That was fun. Now I'm done. Let me go learn 5 songs on the cello. So it all depends. And it, and it's the same when you're in a, a role at work. It might be, um, you, you know, you and I both know Gary Ridge, who is the CEO of WD-40, and he's about to move to chairman. But You know, he was able to stay in that role for 20 years. So you can stay in the sweet spot for a long time. But we all have this sense, and there's other, you know, sort of indicators, but you have a sense when you're in this place of, I think I've done everything that I set out to do here. And I think everybody on my team has learned what they can learn from me here. It's time for me to keep climbing. And I also know and feel that there's something more for me on this planet. I need to do something new. So we can sense it. We know.

I, you know, just to be selfish, I love how my pending book dovetails with what you're saying. Because, you know, when the dopamine is running fast, you're excited, but there are spikes in that. Yeah, you error and you say, oh, God, what the hell am I doing? Right? And So my book on looking at fear, redefining the fear from the failure, that allows you to look at— gives you a roadmap to taking that and using it as an education point and swing it around so that it becomes success. And then the dopamine starts pouring in again. Right? Yeah.

Yeah. You do the whole reframe and— yeah, exactly. So then that reframe allows you, instead of just being stranded in this place of newness and, oh no, my world's upside down because this thing just didn't work. It allows you to say, oh, here I am. What do I want to do? And your book, it sounds like, is doing that reframe for people.

Absolutely. You know, I was so tired of people saying, and not that this is bad, you have to have courage. You have to be courageous. You have to be. But nobody was telling you how. You know, somehow in this fast-paced world, we skip the hows.

Right. How to be courageous. Yeah.

Right. And we just go to just do it, you know, as Nike says. But, but there are those of us, including me, who would like to have a step-by-step recipe to get there. You know? Yeah. I don't want to be left to my own devices until I know it. And then I could figure it out and change it. You know, I know that you are in a rush for time, and so I really appreciate your taking a moment to talk to us about your new book and about the courageous acts that you had in your life. And I, I just love how you took something, as I said earlier, that could be— that, that you made into a game changer, to put it short. And this is where you are now. And we, as the public, have the opportunity to benefit from it. So thank you.

Thank you.

Tell us a little bit about, before we go, what the names of your previous books and what they were about.

Yes. So my very first book was called Dare Dream Do. And interestingly, sort of seeing through the courage lens, I had gone to Wall Street, as I said, and had this career, and it was exciting and fun. And I was having a lot of conversations with women that were about my age and asking them the question, what's your dream? And many of them would say, I don't have a dream. Or yeah, that was oftentimes, I don't have a dream. But what I found is I really tried to understand why are they saying I don't have a dream? Like, how is that even possible to not have a dream? I realized that many of them had that experience of, I don't believe it's my privilege to dream. And so here I had all these women who were in many ways teaching me, because I was starting to have my children, teaching me how to be a mother, which was so important to figure out how to do that well. You know, they were having 4 and 5 kids and they were really, really strong, good, capable homemakers. And so this was in some ways my homage to them of saying, Here's what a dream, not a dream to be a mother, looks like. So a dream of being a harbor, but here's what a dream of being a ship looks like, and here's how you do it. So that was the first book of that, having that courage to have a dream and, and giving people some tools to do that, women in particular. Um, the second book was called Disrupt Yourself, and that was after I had worked with Clayton Christensen, and we were applying the theory of disruptive innovation to companies and products and services. And I had the aha that this theory actually applied to people. And so I wrote a book called Disrupt Yourself, applying the theory of disruption to individuals. Then the third book was called Build an A-Team. And what had happened is when I wrote Disrupt Yourself, people said, well, that's nice, but I don't want you to come talk to my company because if you do, then everybody on my company is going to leave because they're all going to disrupt themselves. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, you don't understand. This is a mechanism by which you make progress. And so Build an A-Team was using that framework to help people construct a high-performing team. So I went from the very, very personal Dare, Dream, Do to Disrupt Yourself, this framework of disruption, Build an A-Team, applying it to the teams. And then Smart Growth is in many ways an amalgam, but it was really taking this and distilling it down to its essences. I want to give people tools to think about what growth looks like because I know, I believe that each one of us inherently, it's, it's our default setting, wants to make progress. And if I could give people those tools to do that, whether it's personally, um, with their team, et cetera, then they would be able to make more progress. And when we're making progress, we are happy. So those are the, the 4 books.

So I would like to ask you what I think most women would like to ask you. How do you do it? How do you have— be a wife? How do you have children? How do you write 5 books? How do you consult and coach? And how is it that you have it all?

Yeah, well, I think the answer is, and I think for most individuals, women or men, as they, as they start to peel back the layers, Made the decision for 10 years to be the, the primary caregiver. And so while our children were in elementary school and high school, my husband was out of the workforce taking care of our children. And so I was the primary breadwinner, and I had that support of rearing our children. And then when our oldest left on his mission to go to college, my husband actually on-ramped and is now a professor at Southern Virginia University here in, in Shenandoah Valley. So the way I do it all is that I make choices and my husband makes choices and our family, we make choices. And, and I would say careful choices about what we think are the most important things to be doing for us at any given time. And so we don't do it all. We just do what's the best for us and the best we can in the way that we feel like allows us to do what we're Very well said.

And, and one of the things that you said that was really important in the dialogue that you want to share is it's so important to have the right support around you to make decisions When you have that support, that support each other.

Right.

In your goals, setting those goals. Uh, I, you know, I can't speak more highly about that. And I'm not talking about marriage or significant other. It's people in general, having the right people around you, believe in you, that support you, that will That I know it's gonna sound weird to say that will allow you to grow. I don't mean that they're giving you permission. I mean that they're putting coins in the bank.

That's right. That's right. Exactly. And that goes back to the difference between stupid growth and good growth, right? Is you are around people and you are a person when people are around you that you make it possible for them to grow. So you're creating the conditions where you can grow And they can grow. So I, I agree, whether that's family, whether that's friends, whether that's, um, colleagues at work.

Great. Fantastic. I love it. Whitney, thank you so much for being with us this week and sharing yourself.

Thank you, CB, for having me.

We appreciate you so much. I appreciate you. I appreciate knowing you, and I look forward to knowing more about you. Audience, I think that this may air next week. Well, actually, you're— we're airing a week ahead these days, so I'm a little confused with my dyslexia, but you will see it and we'll let you know when it airs. Thank you so much for being here and look for our new lineup for this year. Bye, everybody. Bye.