Disrupt Yourself Podcast with Whitney Johnson
by Whitney Johnson
Best-selling author Whitney Johnson ("Disrupt Yourself") explores her passion for personal disruption through engaging conversations with disruptors. Each episode of this podcast reveals new insights about how we work, learn, and live.
Episodes
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392 Orit Gadiesh: The Amazing Longtime Chairman of Bain You May Not Know About
Confidence and curiosity make a powerful tandem. Individually, either could be a positive catalyst or, if misplaced, prove to be a distraction to meaningful progress. But as a combination, they often create a mindset where even failures become learning opportunities and stepping stones along the…
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391 Asheesh Advani: Embracing Naive Audacity within a Fixed, Flexible, and Freestyle Framework
Asheesh Advani isn't just the CEO of Junior Achievement Worldwide—he was also a participant. The program changed his life when he experienced it in middle school, and as CEO, he has guided the global NGO into more than 115 countries, involving more than 3,500 employees and 500,000 volunteers...
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390 Tina Vatanka Murphy: The Shift From Understudy to Lead is Merely a Matter of Mindset
Imposter syndrome is something to which most of us can relate. The idea of doubting our own skills and abilities, even in the face of myriad accomplishments. It's a common human experience. It's easier to have faith in others than buy into ourselves. When Tina Vatanka Murphy was called into a...
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389 Jeanette Bennett: Dating Your Dream and the Art of the Reframe
It's often fascinating to pinpoint when someone received the first inkling of what their eventual career would be. For many, of course—thinking of all the kids who grew up wanting to be professional athletes, movie stars, astronauts, or firemen—their idealized career path often follows a long and...
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388 Yamini Rangan: How To Gain Credibility, Wherever You Are, By Being Curious
There's a reason we call it a mental rut – this deep groove in the mud. It's a pattern of behavior that we've dug into our brains, and when we go down this road, it's where our mental wheels get stuck. When have you been stuck in a rut? Maybe it's coming back day after day to a job you hate.…
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387 Tarsha Joyner: To Manifest Your Dreams, Put Them Into Words, Say It Out Loud, And Say It Often
The power of manifesting something into reality might seem… well, a bit silly at times. It's all over social media, for better or for worse. It can seem silly because we all know it's not as simple as saying it out loud, or creating a Pinterest board. Getting what you want, reaching mastery on a...
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386 Betty Lu: A Diversity Of Perspectives Means A Diversity Of Possibilities
Do you know that feeling, when you've been on a roadtrip for however many hours – or even, days – and you just can't bring yourself to eat another bite of fast food? The food all looks the same, the landscape outside your window starts blending together, and you just crave something… different?...
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385 Nina Tandon: When You're Disrupting The World With Your Dream, Remember To Disrupt Yourself Too
What does it mean to turn a dream into a business plan? How do you take your vision of a better future, whatever that looks like, and translate that into a company? It's a difficult leap! This grand vision has to be broken down into steps, arranged on a timeline. Then your dream becomes tied to…
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384 Jonathan Haidt: Between TikTok And Helicopter Parents, What Happens To A Childhood Deferred (And Depressed)?
In 2022, 46 percent of American teens said they were online almost constantly. Around 80 percent of high school seniors said they use social media nearly every day, but only 30 percent say they meet up with friends every day. Since 2010 – roughly the year touch-screen smartphones and social media...
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383 Melissa Stockwell: How Perseverance Nurtures The Human Spirit, From Baghdad To Paris
CLICK HERE TO VOTE IN THE PEOPLE'S CHOICE PODCAST AWARDS: https://www.podcastawards.com/app/signup We all have an idea of what we want our future to look like. Maybe it's very grounded, and concrete – or maybe it's just a vague idea of how we want to feel when we get there. But what happens when...
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382 Rob Allen: How To Be A Better Caregiver For The People Who Are Counting On You
CLICK HERE TO VOTE IN THE PEOPLE'S CHOICE PODCAST AWARDS: https://www.podcastawards.com/app/signup In your day-to-day, who counts on you? We're all interconnected in these webs of care, everyone leaning on someone else for support. Even Henry David Thoreau, who chose to live the hermit life at...
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381 Matt Sharrers: How To Follow In Someone's Footsteps Without Getting In Your Own Way
Ask any comedian what the hardest part of their job is, and they'll probably tell you it's being the second act in a show where the person before you just brought the house down. Suddenly you're backstage, doubting your material, listening to this thunderous applause and wondering if you can even...
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380 ENCORE General Stanley McChrystal: How To Strengthen Your Risk Immune System And Stop Imagining The Worst
Risk is all around us. It's baked into everything we do, into every day of our lives, a feeling that danger – and loss – lurks around every corner. It's even baked into our brains, back when we were scanning every branch and every bush for something that wanted to eat us. So now that our world is...
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379 ENCORE Apolo Ohno: When Your Last Closing Ceremony Is Over, What Does Life After The Olympics Look Like?
In just about a month, on the 26th of July, 10 thousand athletes from all over the world will gather in Paris for the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics. Being an Olympian has a way of consuming a person's image. Olympians dedicate their body and their mind to the perfect backstroke, or...
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378 Lisa Shalett: Every S Curve In Your Life Has Prepared You For This Moment (Whether You Realize It Or Not)
How many times have you looked back across your whole life, looked at all those S Curves you've taken on and thought – wow. "I guess things do come together in the end," even though, in the moment, those S Curves seemed so treacherous, and we felt so lost and afraid climbing them. There's an...
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377 ENCORE Brené Brown: How Are You Holding Yourself Back From Feeling – And Why?
Is there a particular conversation you've had with someone, that keeps resurfacing as you grow and get older? In difficult moments, you find yourself traveling back to that day at the cafe or whatever it was, sitting down for a conversation you didn't know would shape you as much as it has. For…
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376 Cathy Carroll: When You're Facing Generational Loggerheads, Turn Your Tug Of War Into A "Hug Of War"
It's not a pretty truth of life, but we all argue with family, eventually. In fact, those arguments can be some of the most explosive moments of our lives. But why? Is it just that the folks closest to us know how to push our buttons? If so, how can we overcome that to grow? And grow alongside…
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375 Steve Lebowitz and Eli Manning: The Plays, On And Off The Field, That Make Private Equity A Little Kinder
Think of a relationship in your life that you'd describe as a true partnership. Why did that person come to mind? There are words and phrases that come easily when you're describing a partnership that works: feeling supported, encouraged, the sense that when I have my back turned, you've still…
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374 Coaching Roundtable: What Does The Call To Coaching Mean To You?
Back in July, we tried something a little new for this show – episode 329 was all about hearing from the listeners of Disrupt Yourself. What was important to you while you were listening, what insights you wanted to bring back from older episodes and refresh. It was a lovely experiment, so today...
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373 Nathan Tanner: Are You Neglecting Your Internal Game To Succeed At The External Game?
Self-fulfilling prophecies – and falling into their trap – are part and parcel of being human. From ancient Greek tragedies to television like Breaking Bad, they've popped up time and time again. We just can't escape our flaw of telling ourselves stories about the future, and then making them...
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372 ENCORE Michael Bungay Stanier: How You Can Turn Coaching Into An Automatic Reflex
Today, we wanted to bring back a conversation I had with Michael Bungay Stanier back in 2018, where we explored what it really means to be a coach. His self-published book The Coaching Habit had only been out for two years, and it had already sold 300 thousand copies. Bringing the philosophy of...
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371 Eduardo Briceno: When You're Not Seeing Growth, Learn To Change How You're Changing
So much of what we talk about on here is change – navigating change, embracing change, creating change. I think it's fair to say that if you're listening, change of some form is on your mind. We're no strangers when it comes to figuring out how to get from A to B. But what happens when we have to...
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370 Roger L. Martin: How To Turn Around A Failing Business School – Without Doing A Whole Lot Of Anything
This week we've got a special episode, a longer one than we normally do. But when you have an opportunity, to talk to the person who built the Rotman School of Management into the powerhouse it is today, you have to use every minute you get. Roger L. Martin was told that the Toronto's Rotman…
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369 Ruth McKeaney: To Make A House A Home, Tailor Your Family Systems With Intention
Ask a thousand people how to make a house a home, and you might get a thousand different answers. Some will say it's family; others say it's all in the interior decor – neighborhood pride, or a furry friend, maybe. Regardless of how you answer the question, you can't just sit back and wait for it...
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368 Cal Newport: Why The Factory Model Of Work Doesn't Work In The Modern Age
How many of us have mastered the skill of looking busy, at some point in our professional lives? It's an art, really – moving from one tab to another with lightspeed, peering at the screen and making that face that you think communicates determination, drive, intent. Our guest today says that…
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367 Chris Dixon: (Re)learning The Streets And Signs Of Our Virtual City
Many of us feel comfortable navigating a city. Whether it's New York or Kyoto, the rules remain mostly the same. Count the amount of blocks you've walked, remember that the E train runs express to Manhattan, if you see the Duane Reade, you've gone too far. We can get lost, for sure, but there's a...
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366 ENCORE Brooke Romney: Falling Into The Comparison Trap (And How To Get Out)
In this episode, we wanted to bring you a redux of a conversation I had back in 2022. As a new mom, Brooke Romney left behind her roots on Capitol Hill to move to a new community, new friend –– a new S Curve. But instead of making new connections, a normally extroverted person, Brooke found…
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365 Donald Miller: How To Write Your Own Story With Intention
What makes a good story? Characters, plot, setting, sure – you can boil it down to those elements – but what makes a good story? Is it the moment where you're up all night burning the midnight oil, because you're dying to find out how it ends? Is a good story one you believe in? Our guest today...
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364 Jerry Colonna: It's Not Enough To Be An Ally – You Have To Be A Co-Conspirator
"True transformation, begins with a broken heart." It's something you'll hear our guest today say a couple of times, this idea that a real crucible moment begins when something inside you breaks. When a force fundamental to you and your soul says – no more. Jerry Colonna has taken that message…
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363 Peter Sims: A Practical Guide To Sparking Your Humanity "In An Inhuman Time"
When's the last time you felt out of place? I'm sure a lot of us have sat with that feeling, whether that's professionally or personally. It can hit you just as easily in a boardroom meeting as when you're out with friends. So now that you feel like an alien that's crash-landed, what do you do?…
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362 Carol Fishman Cohen: Disrupting Yourself When You've Been Disrupted
At DA, we're all about discovering and harnessing disruption, but sometimes, disruption finds you. It's a fact of life – our car skids on ice we didn't see on the road up ahead. Your boat hits a reef at night. A business deal falls through out of nowhere, and there's nothing you can or could have...
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361 Paul Allen: How AI Can Supplement Our Humanity Instead Of Supplanting It
When we talk about robots, machines, artificial intelligence, it's usually within the context of something theorists call the singularity. That's the moment when AI figures out how to upgrade itself, and leaves us in the dust. After all, it can learn a library in an instant – the AI doesn't need…
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360 Sam Cooprider: Leave Behind Your Ego And Pave Your Own Path
"If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend." Famous words by Bruce Lee, sure, but when we've felt like a stone our whole lives…
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359 Dr. Michael Gervais: Why We Betray Ourselves For The Approval Of Others
After 49 days fasting under the Bodhi tree, Siddhartha Guatama was struck by an idea. We suffer because we are attached to things, to people, to desires. When we can't have it, we feel an emptiness. But what if we never wanted it in the first place? Guatama taught his philosophy for the next few...
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358 Robert Sutton: How To Spot Bad Friction And Create Good Friction In Your Workplace
When's the last time a customer service phone menu left you… genuinely angry? We build these systems to make things easier, layer systems on top of other systems, but who's doing the gardening and pruning – the upkeep? Our guest today calls this phenomenon friction. Robert Sutton has taught at...
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357 Gov. Spencer Cox: Lessons On Inclusive Leadership, From The Farm To The Governor's Mansion
What does it take, day in and day out, to lead a group of people effectively? It's not easy, that's for sure. On a very granular level, leading is balancing a thousand decisions, huge and small, every day. So what guides your hand? Republican Governor of Utah Spencer Cox is an anomaly in a time…
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356 Keith Allred: Meeting Folks Halfway Is A Virtue, Not A Weakness
We find ourselves compromising every day – it's how things get done in a society where we all want something else. But what's the root of compromise? Isn't it this idea that solving the issue, whatever it is, is more important than checking off everything we want? It can seem that those ideals…
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355 Ashley Smith: The Hidden River Of Energy Flowing Through All We Do
In middle school physics, we learned that an object at rest has potential energy – an amount of currency it has to spend, if it wants to move. When you pull back an arrow, the potential energy flows from your muscles, to the bow, to the string, and then the string pays all that money in one go to...
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354 Chip Conley: On Finding Your Love Of Life, Even In Midlife
Do you know that feeling when you're cooking, and you've got all your ingredients chopped and ready to go, spices measured, oven pre-heated? All that's left is for you to spin your magic as a cook. In the kitchen, the French call it mise en place, everything in its place. In that same vein, to...
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353 ENCORE Tara Swart: Your Neurons Are Much More Nimble Than You Realize
Isn't it frustrating when we feel like a passenger to our own thoughts and actions? In Buddhist thought, we're supposed to watch our thoughts pass by like clouds in the sky… but that's the ideal, after all. It's a hard truth to swallow, that the human mind is much more mysterious than we'd hope…
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352 Ken Woolley: Saving Space In Your Career For Trust And Love
What does it mean to have a friend? What does it mean to be a friend? Someone you can rely on. Someone who understands you, not just the "you" that you project into the world. A friend is someone who knows they can rely on you, too. How many times a week, a day, do you lean on your friends when…
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351 Jennifer McCollum: How Can Women In The Workplace Find Their Own Voice?
When's the last time you got caught in the expectations others had for you? One person wants one thing, one version of you – another needs you to be someone else entirely… And who do you want to be? Do you even have time to think about that? The things people expect from us has a profound effect…
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350 Scott K. Edinger: Ask Yourself, 'Would You Pay For Your Own Sales Call?'
There's an allure around the idea of sales. It's the same allure they packaged so neatly in the show Mad Men, all confidence and charisma. But take it from the other perspective – have you ever had such a pushy car salesman, that you just left the lot? Our guest today says that's because charisma...
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349 ENCORE Alex Osterwalder: Finding The Beauty In Your Company's Organizational Chart
Growing your people to grow your organization – it makes sense, right? But what about approaching the problem from the other direction – growing your organization, to grow your people? When's the last time you looked at the state of your org chart? And how willing are you to experiment with it?...
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348 Scott Osman and Jacquelyn Lane: Learning To Make The Most Of The Hard Truths
Coaching often involves speaking a truth the other person doesn't really want to hear. Even when we're lost for direction, being pointed in the right way can feel like this indictment on being lost in the first place. But a lot of clients will describe this idea of the unlock – the a-ha – when…
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347 Austin Hillam: Lessons From A 22-Year-Old Garage Entrepreneur
It's just the nature of our show that we often talk to folks in the mastery part of their professional S-Curve. It's easy to talk to a CEO about leadership. It's also another fact that our guests tend to be older – at least, out of college. But it is rare that we come across an entrepreneur in…
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346 Dr. Bill Kapp: So You Want To Become A Leader In Your Health. How Do You Start?
If we're being honest, we've all felt the toll of going into a meeting on a couple hours sleep and a double espresso. The work can often come first, and the body comes second. But as leaders, we can't do our job effectively if we're jittery and wiped. We can't do our job if we've got the worry of...
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345 Melissa Werneck: It's Not Just Strength In Numbers, It's Growth Too
The last time you had to navigate change – real, structural change – who did you turn to? When we're working from a place of ambiguity, when we're stuck inside our own head, another person can make all the difference. But let's be honest, sometimes, painfully… that person is no one at all. We can...
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344 Stuart Crainer and Des Dearlove: How Do We Think About Top Thinkers?
We throw around this term a lot in the management profession, in the coaching profession, really everywhere in business – top thinker. But how often do we really interrogate that title? Because, really, wouldn't we all like to think of ourselves as top thinkers? In politics, it's the journalists...
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343 James E. Dixon: Finding 'Absolute Motivation' By Showing Your Scars
For all the credit Superman gets, for being the Man of Steel, do you think he ever cries? When he's Clark Kent, working at the paper, do you think Superman's ever broken down in a bathroom stall? When he's flying folks out of a burning building, it's easy to forget that his parents are dead, his...
About this show
Best-selling author Whitney Johnson ("Disrupt Yourself") explores her passion for personal disruption through engaging conversations with disruptors. Each episode of this podcast reveals new insights about how we work, learn, and live.
Hosted by
Whitney Johnson
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