Disrupt Yourself Podcast with Whitney Johnson – Details, episodes & analysis

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 winding road of self-discovery, full of detours and roadblocks that transport them to an eventual destination that was not on their original radar.

But what if you could date your dream? Get some firsthand experience in your supposed career of choice? Would you remain totally enamored with the opportunity and steadily move toward further engagement? Or, would you, like Seinfeld’s neurotic George Costanza, break things off with a nonchalant, “It’s not you, it’s me”?

Today’s guest, Jeanette Bennett, CEO and founding editor of Utah Valley Magazine and Bennett Communications, had that revelatory experience while working as a camera operator at an Idaho TV station when she was in high school. It turned out to trigger the first of many career reframes for this talented entrepreneur and storyteller.

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. Maybe it’s something small, like knowing you should eat lunch at home but finding yourself in line at the Sweetgreen every morning. Getting stuck is human. But so is shoving the wagon out of the rut and cutting a new path.

On today’s episode, we’re here to talk about what that really looks like. Our guest is Yamini Rangan, CEO of HubSpot. If you’re a small or medium sized business, you’re probably already familiar with HubSpot’s value – helping entrepreneurs track customers, make sales and follow up on those relationships. But the real focus here is Yamini’s journey to the top, from studying engineering in India, to taking her first step into the world of sales, and eventually – the C Suite.

It’s been a journey of rewiring herself, learning how to build new mental roads while staying true to her authentic self. 

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 the perfect arrow release, or this year – even the perfect breakdancing routine. 

So when an Olympic athlete hangs up the towel… who are they? How do you leave behind the biggest S Curve of your life? Although he’s better known for the Winter Olympics, Apolo Ohno has some ideas. The most decorated American in the Olympics’ chillier half, Apolo is known the world over for his gold-medal talent at speed skating.

I wanted to bring back my conversation with Apolo, in light of the Olympic Games on our doorstep, but also as a reminder this summer that although we should honor our past, we are never tied to it when it comes to trailblazing our future. What did retirement look like – what did slowing down look like – for the man who built his career around being the fastest athlete on the ice?

We don't give much thought to consumer packaging — the "stuff" that all our stuff comes in. But the packaging industry has a massive influence on how we perceive products and the companies that make them. It also plays a huge role in what we’re doing to our environment.

Wes Carter is the president of Atlantic Packaging, which is the largest, privately-held packaging company in North America. Chances are, if you’ve bought something recently (and who hasn’t?), it was touched by Atlantic somewhere along the supply chain.

But Wes sees that influence as more than big business. It’s also an opportunity to affect sustainability in ways that individuals, companies, and even governments struggle with. Small, conscious changes across the global supply chain can have huge ramifications for our environment. And these lessons can be applied to our career S Curves as well.

Legendary San Francisco 49ers quarterback Steve Young is a Super Bowl champion, an MVP many times over, and a member of the Football Hall of Fame. His level of elite play required the utmost confidence and perseverance. So why was he going days without sleeping and throwing up before taking the field?

In this very personal conversation, Steve opens about about his childhood social anxiety that he never understood until well into his NFL career, and how these challenges have completely shaped how he views everyone fighting their own battles.

A philosophy of pure selflessness has allowed him to tackle his anxieties head-on and unlock his full potential, on the field, in his businesses, and family life. Even in extremely transactional negotiations, the language of selflessness can eliminate "winners" and "losers," and make business more like a team sport.

His new book is called "The Law of Love," which is full of tactical advice and extremely personal stories.

Launching a project, a product, or a work of art that you've spent years creating is terrifying to say the least. That's the space that Becky Robinson thrives in.

She's the CEO and founder of Weaving Influence, a marketing agency that specializes in book launches and PR. Her new book is called Reach, and
it codifies 10 years of wisdom she’s gained working with brilliant thought leaders from across the business world — many you’ve heard on this podcast.

Becky and Whitney unpack what sustainable influence looks like in an age of social media virality and fractured attention, and why small, in-person connections are more valuable than ever.

Trust is a thorny topic. In business and relationships, we're always assessing whether someone is trustworthy.

But what about our ability to trust others? To delegate those big projects we are so used to doing ourselves? To relinquish control and face the possibility that someone else might do it differently…do it worse…or even do it better than us?

This can be scary, but Stephen M. R. Covey and McKinlee Covey say that overcoming this fear is well-worth it, and can be absolutely life-changing for both the truster, and the trustee.

This father-daughter team have a new book out, entitled "Trust & Inspire: How Truly Great Leaders Unleash the Greatness in Others." It's filled with fantastic examples of how setting up clear expectations and boundaries can form a cycle of trust that inspires teams to greatness. They also argue that the old approach to management, about commanding and controlling, is outdated, especially in an era of hybrid work and high burnout.

The only finite resource in our lives and work is time. We always want more, and there's no way to create it.

But we can radically rethink how we relate to time. That’s the crux of Richie Norton’s captivating philosophy. He says the tools of “time management” are designed to squeeze every drop of productivity out of us. The results – as we’ve discussed – are burnout, career dissatisfaction, and S Curve stagnation.

Richie’s new book is called Anti-time Management, where he illustrates a skill called “time tipping” that can re-prioritize daily tasks at the micro level, and change the trajectory of your life in the macro.

Personal tragedy has compelled Richie to think deeply about the power of “now,” and why the past is not as influential as we might think. He also explains why setting positive constraints, like where you physically live and what devices you use for work, can have an enormous impact on the quality of your life.

This week we cover the one thing we're ALL bad at: Change. Jason Feifer is obsessed with the moral panic we feel when faced with new technologies, trends, and social norms. 19th century musicians despised record players. Elevators would tear apart our social fabric. And Teddy Bears threatened our very children!

What he's learned from these now-laughable examples is that the people who see opportunity in change have more long-term success than those who only see loss.

By day, Jason is the editor-in-chief of Entrepreneur Magazine. By night, his podcast and new book Build For Tomorrow is all about finding ways to strengthen our adaptability in a world where change is inevitable (and accelerating).

If your family's viewing habits changed a bit during the pandemic, you're not alone! One enormous trend was the rise of Korean dramas on U.S. streaming services.

But entertainment journalist Regina Kim says this has actually been happening for years, even decades. She wrote a fantastic piece for Elle Magazine called “The K-Drama Renaissance: How South Korean entertainment took over your TV.”

The South Korean entertainment industry has been enormously disruptive to the media landscape, with pop groups (BTS), hit TV shows ("Squid Game"), and blockbuster movies ("Parasite") that dwarf the global popularity of their U.S. counterparts.

So, what’s their secret? Regina says it a has a lot to do with innovation, iteration, and a generational history of cross-cultural investment that is now paying off in a global way.