Disrupt Yourself Podcast with Whitney Johnson

On this week's show we have Annie Duke, professional poker champion turned decision strategist. She's written the best seller "Thinking in Bets" and  her new book is titled "Quit".

David Epstein is an investigative journalist and author who is fascinated by extraordinary people. Are they born this way? Is it their upbringing? A lot of “hard work?” Modern thinking about this, spearheaded by Malcom Gladwell, points to "10,000 hours" of narrow, focused work. Yo-Yo Ma and Serena Williams have been practicing their craft since the womb. But David discovered a different paradigm: That the most successful professionals and entrepreneurs were not narrowly focused on practice, but had spent long portions of childhood “sampling” and exploring. By combining skills from many arenas, they become far more adaptable in the long run than those who stay narrow – and ultimately burn out. David's latest book is called "Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World." His thesis has huge ramifications for education and career training, and as you’ll hear, he even went toe-to-toe with Gladwell on the topic.

Jillian Johnsrud is an author, blogger, podcaster, and coach who covers personal finance. But she’s not just providing stock tips and savings plans. Jillian wants us to rethink our relationship to money itself. This passion is personal for her. When she and her family encountered major medical and student debt, she began to study how the language of finance is passed down – often detrimentally – from one generation to the next. Despite major setbacks, Jillian and her family are now financially independent, and it’s her mission to help others do the same. She puts herself out there online every day, which inevitably invites some detractors. That’s what her new book is about. It’s called “Fire the Haters,” and it’s a study on how to keep online discourse productive, and when to ignore bad-faith arguments.

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.