Disrupt Yourself Podcast With Whitney Johnson

Isn’t it frustrating when you just can’t say what you want to say? You have all the words ready in your head, you’ve practiced what you’re going to say, but you… just… can’t? It’s frustrating in part because it seems like we’re failing at the basics. Communication? Saying words out loud? Didn’t we figure that out around the same time we figured out farming, and the wheel? So why are we sweating and stuttering in a conference room in 2023? Matt Abrahams has an idea. His new book, Think Faster Talk Smarter, speaks for itself. And his podcast, Think Fast Talk Smart – naturally – is dedicated to figuring out why our minds go blank and our feet start pacing. So let’s talk with Matt about talking well.   

To give to another is to give up something you have. It’s the basis of the world philanthropy, “phila,” meaning love for one another. Two episodes ago we talked with Alan Mulally, about how that kind of love isn’t wired anywhere in our brains. We are not that far from our hunter-gatherer ancestors – why would we ever give up our food to strangers? Aren’t we hungry too? Our guest today is a philanthropist, to no surprise. Gail Miller is the wealthiest person in the state of Utah, having taken on leadership of her late husband’s foundation after he passed in 2009. In the time since, Gail’s reorganized almost all of the company’s assets, selling off the Utah Jazz, moving money and effort into real estate, healthcare, homelessness services.  What does philanthropy mean to Gail? I hope you enjoy.  

With ChatGPT now released in a usable format, the world’s been abuzz with the potentials – and pitfalls – of artificial intelligence.  Our guest today says that the word – artificial intelligence – is misleading. Artificial anything, artificial turf, sweeteners, they all try to get as close to the real thing as possible. Chris Duffey, strategic development manager for Adobe, says that isn’t the goal. This tech revolution isn’t so much about replacing us, as amplifying the magical powers we already have. Through art school and the fast world of advertising, Chris has spent his professional life weaving that magic. So what does AI really mean for us?  

What does it mean to advocate for something? We all know what it’s like to give a nervous presentation. But to adjust the question a bit – what does it mean to advocate for someONE? Specifically, yourself? Joining us today is Jayshree Seth, Chief Science Advocate at 3M. Her role today involves clearing away the brush and undergrowth of misinformation to show the world that science is not a scary monolith. She's also coming up with new ways to show us that we’re all scientists in our own way. But Jayshree couldn’t have found herself in this unique role without the experience of advocating for herself.

Today, we’ve got a special episode. You’ve probably sat in a Boeing 737 before. He helped design that. You might have a Ford sitting out in your driveway. He’s the reason Ford was the only major American car company that didn’t take a bailout in 2008.  Alan Mulally has sat in many seats -- Executive Vice President at Boeing, President and CEO of Ford -- but you have to hear it from him personally, how you put together four million plane parts, thousands of employees and even more shareholders to get around 188 passengers (and their bags) from New York to LA.  Funny enough, it all comes down to love. Link to Alan's Working Together Principles –– and a P.S. We just heard from one of our listeners who said, "Your conversation with Alan gave me GOOSEBUMPS. Whoa! He has a greater understanding of human dynamics than just anybody alive today...Perhaps your all time best."

Attention is the real currency of all advertising. It’s how many seconds they can keep your eyes glued on whatever billboard or TV ad is in front of you at that moment. And then there’s the science of why exactly it caught your attention, in the first place. Advertisers represent this fascinating intersection of business and psychology, so today we want to find out what we can glean from this unique industry.  Today we're joined by Sam Horn, CEO and founder of the Intrigue Agency, where she helps brands craft their communication. She’s also an author focusing on how we can navigate conflict in our everyday lives, including Tongue Fu and Sam’s latest, Talking on Eggshells.  

For almost as long as humans have been using coins and dollars to trade and grow, we’ve also been using them as weapons.  It’s almost a magical thing, one thing that can be traded for anything you want. And the people in charge of that currency control the magic. The idea of a common currency is intertwined in just about every facet of our lives, up to the very top on Capitol Hill. It seems natural that someone should be in charge of this huge power. But this is where a cryptocurrency butts in and says, why does anyone have to be in charge? Today we’re going to focus on the practical promise of this emerging tech with Jamie Leverton, CEO of Hut 8. Practical, like two billion unbanked people getting access to a stable bank account. Hut 8 is one of the largest crypto mining operations today, and we’ll hear from Jamie how her background in everything from IBM to Blackberry enabled her to take the lead on this new project.   

We form teams every day. Boarding a plane, figuring out the best place for overhead bags. On the highway, we form impromptu caravans to squeeze through traffic. There are the more formal teams, too, the ones we occupy at work or at home. We’re all teammates. So how can we be better? David Burkus has the answer. The best-selling author of Leading From Anywhere and Friend of a Friend is out with a new book – Best Team Ever, The Surprising Science of High-Performing Teams. NASA, Adobe, everyone wants to know what David knows about good teams.

Were we born with our instincts, or were they imprinted on us as at an early age? How do turtles know to lay their eggs in the exact spot they themselves were hatched? It's part of a field called evolutionary psychology -- evolving in ways that influence our behaviors as much as whether or not we walk on two legs. Shade Zahrai is a master of unpacking that hindbrain thinking. Shade is a behavioral strategist and leadership coach, and the founder of Influenceo Global Inc, where she works to strengthen the leadership of companies from Microsoft to McDonalds. With one-point-two million followers on Instagram and almost a million on Youtube, Shade’s bringing her unique take on building confidence and team compatibility to new audiences.  

We start every episode of this show with those words -- the building block of that growth is you. Today, we want to bring our focus back to that philosophy, that change begins with the individual. Every question for our guests, and every show itself, is structured around that core idea.  So we’ve got a special episode – a roundtable discussion of business leaders from around the world, as well as big fans of the podcast. We want to turn the mic back to the individuals listening to us, to hear how they're changing and disrupting. Thank you to Alice Kirk, Gary Stockton, Jane Barratt and Molly Cantrell for joining us on this experimental format.  

A rat learns to cook. A trash compactor learns to love. Two office workers -- who are the monsters under your bed, mind you -- discover a new source of renewable energy. The possibilities at Pixar are infinite. But how do you shoot a movie entirely on computers? And who’s going to make the software for all of this? Ed Catmull took on those questions in the early 70s, inventing many of the early computer techniques that got a 3D image on the big screen. With funding from fellow visionary Steve Jobs, Ed and his team at Pixar did what was impossible just a few decades earlier. In 1995, Toy Story -- the first computer-animated feature film -- was on the big screen. But it wasn’t just money or software that made Pixar into the storytelling, tear-jerking behemoth that it is today. Out this month is an expanded edition of Ed's manual to success, Creativity Inc. In the book and in our conversation, Ed details his careful, cultural maintenance over 40 years at Pixar.

If this show was about medicine, we do a lot of classroom learning. But today we’re going to hear from the equivalent of a front-line Army medic, hitting the ground to get an idea of how all these theories about leadership actually get used.  Sudha Ranganathan is the Director of Product Marketing at LinkedIn. In that role, ecosystems are at the heart of what she does. She creates the conditions that allow these ideas like the s-curve thrive in the ecosystems she builds. From the University of Mumbai, she’s brought her systems-engineer mindset to Singapore, to San Francisco, to companies like Proctor and Gamble and Paypal.

When sales are down and overhead costs are skyrocketing, what’s the instinct? Cut costs, maybe? Fire some folks? Trim down, get leaner? Zeynep Ton says that instinct is shortsighted. It’s outdated. More than just old, it’s a deadly cycle, because cutting costs continues to come at the expense of the foundational unit – the employee. Zeynep is a professor at MIT’s Sloan School of Business, and her new book – The Case for Good Jobs – is out next month. By turning almost 40 years of Jack Welch-ian thinking on its head, Zeynep builds the argument that the only way to grow in those crucible moments is to spend more – on the employee. Shortsightedness will kill us, Zeynep says. Nothing beats a good job.

Representation is the basis of our political system. We can’t get everyone’s vote on every issue – folks are busy, and that would take way too much time. So we pick someone we trust. Have you ever represented someone else? It's terrifying. You have to make decisions on behalf of all those people, and those decisions could impact their home, their business, their politics, their whole way of life. But in that way, representation can be one of the highest callings a human can achieve. Our guest today has put the representation of others at the center of her life. Her Royal Highness, Ambassador Reema Bandar is the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s representative to the United States. In every conference room and congressional office, she’s speaking for about 38 million people. From a museum curator to a champion of women's rights, the ambassador has learned to center her own voice, and in the process, the voices of millions.

What does it mean to be the only one in the room who knows something is wrong? You're the only one in your company who sees the number they missed. What do you do? Do you speak up? Try this on -- is anything really that bad going to happen if you keep it to yourself? All those little decisions, to sit on some information, or fudge a number, they add up to the tune of about one trillion dollars of fraud a year.  Kelly Richmond Pope is a forensic accountant, a professor at DePaul University and an award-winning documentarian and filmmaker. Her documentary on the not-too-distant world of fraudsters and whistleblowers is called “All The Queen’s Horses,” out on Netflix. And now Kelly is out with a book, "Fool Me Once," diving deep into that same world. She’s covered everyone from Madoff, to Elizabeth Holmes, to the embezzler of a grill from Lowes. We’ll talk about what makes a predator in this world, what makes prey, and how the line isn't as distinct as we'd hope. That's where the third path -- whistleblowing --

It’s said that cliches become cliches for a reason. There’s at least a bit of truth to them. So try this one on - you are your own worst enemy. There’s a reason it gets repeated. Everyone finds a moment where you just can't get out of your own way, no matter how good your intentions are and how strong your will is. So how does the founder and CEO of Positive Intelligence fight back against his own saboteurs? Shirzad Chamine is the mind behind democratizing Positive Intelligence, sometimes abbreviated as PQ. And your PQ score is a test of how strong your mental fitness is -- how you bounce back after something negative. Before his work with Positive Intelligence, Shirzad was CEO of the Coach Training Institute, the biggest coach-training organization in the world. He's a New York Times bestselling author, and an electrical engineer -- which you'll hear informs a lot of his perspective. We'll talk about Shirzad's life, his own worst enemies, and how he learned to be his own best friend.  

Have you ever had trouble saying something simple, like "no?" No, I can’t do that. What about all the times you might have said yes, when in your heart all you wanted to say was, no? Vanessa Patrick is an award-winning consumer psychologist, she's currently the associate dean at the Bauer School of Business, and now she’s out with her new book, “The Power of Saying No.”  Have you ever said no, and it felt like you discovered a superpower you didn’t know you even had? You have to learn how to say no so you can say yes to your life. Vanessa’s got the secret – she calls it an “empowered refusal” – and we'll speak with her this episode.  

The temptation to compromise on our values is always there. Compromising could make things easier for us. Not only can it get you out of a hole, compromising could even make the number on your paycheck bigger.  Sometimes we have to. Sometimes those expectations were ridiculous to begin with. But when it comes to compromising on the core of who we are, why would you ever meet yourself in the middle? Magdalena Mook, CEO and executive director of the International Coaching Federation, joins us this week. From the Warsaw School of Economics in Poland to the top of the coaching movement, Magda embodies that idea, that investing in yourself means refusing to compromising with yourself.  

You know that little bright red wagon, with the long front handle? Maybe, you might have even sat in one, careening down a hill. The wagon, and the company that makes them, is called Radio Flyer.  Over a hundred years since that first stamped metal wagon, that same company now makes a Radio Flyer Tesla S for Kids, in that same bright red. Right next to the classic wagon on their website, you can now buy Radio Flyer e-bikes, Radio Flyer go-karts, even a Radio Flyer trampoline. Behind the company’s sustained success is one family – the Pasins. Three generations have sat behind the wheel of Radio Flyer, starting with Antonio Pasin coming over from Italy in 1914, all the way to Antonio’s grandson, Robert. Robert became Chief Wagon Officer at Radio Flyer when he was just 23, taking on the burden of legacy. He joins us this week to talk about turning around a floundering family company, and remembering why you're in the business to begin with.  

Joining us this week is Executive Advisor and Diversity Strategist Stacey Gordon. Stacey is the Founder and Principal Consultant of Rework Work, and author of UNBIAS: Addressing Unconscious Bias at Work.