So you want to learn more about living an uncompromising life and following your why, make sure you tune in for the Disruption Now. We're going to talk more about it with our special guest, Steve White listen on the other side All right, welcome back, everybody. Disruption Now we always, as always, love you to have to click on that like button if you're watching us here on YouTube. If you're listening to us on any other podcast, be it iTunes, be it Google, please give us a like give us a review.
That's how more people can learn about the platform that we're doing here, disruption now, what we're doing to empower people. But without any further ado, Steve White is one of our is our guest here that we're going to talk more about his book Uncompromising. We're also going to talk about his experience from being from the projects literally to the C-suite. And we're going to talk about his experience and everything in between. Steve, how are you doing, man? Good Rob Thanks for having me.
I'm so glad to be here with you today. Look, we are very glad to have you on, so we definitely want to dive into your book and many other things and about your lessons and really talk about your upcoming book and things. You want people to know about that. But before we get into that and the specifics of that, I'd like to learn a little more about you.
So as it's talked about on your website, you you literally grew up in the projects and then you now reach the highest levels of success when it comes to the American Pie, the American Dream, you have achieved that . But I want I want to take your I want. I want to take you back to. Your youth when you're there, you're in the projects and. And you're going through whatever is whatever is going through your mind at that time, I want you to think, think about that young man.
What advice would you give your younger self knowing everything you know now? And what advice would you ignore that was given to you? Well, Rob, first of all, great question. Unfortunately, like a lot of young kids, single mother raised four boys by herself. She was 29 years old when she decided to leave my father, who was. We lived in Florida. Certainly that was not a popular decision with me or my three brothers. But guess what?
She did not run a democratic household, there was one sheriff in town, and we did what we were told. But the advice that I learned because we started supporting her, she was a hotel maid. I'm sorry. Motel maid and then she became a high school janitor for 35 years, and this is a motel with the M, not a hotel with an H, a motel. There's no spa. There's no elevator. You pull your car right up to the door. So we're talking about the absolute bottom of the food chain.
But what I learned in those motels, some of the advice that I got is there are only two things you can control Rob your effort and attitude. I'm going to outwork you. And then from an attitude standpoint, I'm not going to be a victim. Although the circumstances around me might say, Steve, you're a victim. You could give in to that. Everybody would understand that you're a victim.
But when you can talk to yourself and convince yourself that there are opportunities out there while difficult opportunities are there. So that is the advice that I got. You can control two things your effort and your attitude. If you stay in control of those two things, then great things will happen. And then the advice that we received that I don't listen to anymore is you can't do it because when my mother made that difficult decision.
Family members said they're not going to amount to anything these kids need a father, and I agree every child needs two parents, but guess what? That was not the situation. And when people tell you that you can't accomplish something, you ignored them. But here's the piece, Rob I want to highlight for that. I started competing against what people were saying, so I was saying, I'm going to prove to you that I'm better than that. And that is the wrong thing.
I quickly learned that I'm competing against myself. God gave us all a level of talent. Now my job is to reach the highest levels of my potential. And that's where I turn that bad advice into something that fueled me in a very positive way. Yeah. And so how did you that's how do you when you're in this environment? That's great advice, but it's very difficult. I found to navigate outside of the environment that you're in, especially. I mean, there's been studies shown over and over again.
I've said this many times on my show that it's been shown that the environments that you earn literally affect how you think and how you view things, even when you try to fight it. So how did you how did you how were you able to see the perspective that you could achieve more despite your current circumstances? Like what things did you do to keep yourself? Optimistic about the future, despite your current situation. Despite the current situation that wasn't so optimistic.
What a great question, and I didn't know this was happening at the time, but my mother was working hard to surround us with people that were doing positive things, even people that were living in the projects. They're not all bad people know now. That's the stereotype, right, that if you live in the projects, you don't have anything going on. There are a lot of positive people. And so she would always surround us with people that were doing things in a positive way.
She got us enrolled in Big Brother. So there there was an IBM executive, Don Jones, who took an interest in me. And so now the more you start surrounding yourself with people that are doing things in a positive way, see, because Rob, we all have a little light inside of us. Sometimes people turn that light down. When you can surround yourself with people that make that light brighter and brighter. That's how you make it happen. So that's what happened to me.
The more and more I got exposed to people that were making it happen. These weren't corporate executives. They weren't CEOs. These were just men and women that were making a difference. And that started to rub off on me that started to give me confidence. And then when I started, achieving a little success. It just starts to feed on itself. When you have a little success.
Yeah. one of the sayings that one of my earliest mentors told me is that if you show me your friends, I'll show you your future, right? So who you surround yourself with has the most direct effect on what you're going to be like. It is a lot of things that affect it, but essentially who you decide to spend your time with, who you just about, who you decide to hang out with like those are. Those are really important decisions.
And I say to my son all the time, like, you need to be careful who you hang around with, hell who you date. All these things matter because they're going to affect what type of person you become because you eventually like, we are tribal animals. Like, despite everything that people think like, you hang around a tribe, you're going to absorb the essence of that tribe, right?
So if you're hanging around people that are out there trying to do something, it doesn't mean that they all are rich or wealthy. But people that are just trying to do something with their lives improve themselves. You're going to find yourself that, oh, in order to keep with these folks, I have to keep doing what they're doing to be a part of the tribe.
On the other end of that, right, if you got people that are doing the opposite, if you're trying to do well, you're not going to you're not going to stand out in that crowd and they're going to make you literally feel bad about achieving like and that's something that I had to leave friends that would tell me all that B.S. that you're talking white, all that stuff, which I'm sure you heard before. Yeah, all those things, those toxic things that we internalize due to our oppression.
We got oppression and other bad things we've learned. We got to learn to reject. That's exactly right, Rob and one of the things I want to share with our listeners is in my life, there are only twelve decisions that I've made that have really mattered because we all make decisions. We all make mistakes. I certainly have made my share. But the key thing is to get the big decisions right, and one of those twelve decisions are my friends.
You show me somebody that does not have friends, that they've been friends with a long time. I worry who I marry. So who you surround yourself with is probably one of the most important ten or twelve decisions you're going to make in your entire life. You get that right. Your chances of having impact and having a legacy and having success goes up dramatically. All right.
So this is a good transition to tell us a little bit about the book because it sounds like that's some advice that might have come for the book. Is that correct? So tell us a little more about the book Uncompromising why you wrote it and what do you want people to gain from this book? Yeah. Well, the book is called Uncompromising. If you want to learn more, please go to SteveWhitespeaks.com. That's my website. It's got all the book information.
You can follow me on social media, but Rob I was inspired by this quote, and it's attributed to Mark Twain. The two most important days in your life is the day you're born. And the second is when you find out why. And for all of us, we've been placed on this Earth for a purpose and a reason our destiny has been set for us now. It's our responsibility to identify that and live it and make it happen.
And so the title Uncompromising focuses on that second question when you find out why you've been placed on this Earth, when you find out this is your purpose in life, that is what you're uncompromising in your pursuit. You don't let anything get in your way now. You'll get bumped off the road. No question, but you got to get back on that. And that is the focus of the title. And the reason I wrote the book Rob is to go from the housing project to the C-suite where I was.
President of our Comcast West Group. 18 billion dollar business. 30,000 employees. one of the top five executives in one of the top 20 companies in America. You don't get there by yourself. And there were so many men and women that gave me a hand up. I didn't say handout. Now, a hand up a hand up is an opportunity. And I was smart enough to seize those opportunities and pursue them. And so this is my love letter to all those men and women who gave me a hand up.
What better way to recognize them than to share with others? My life lessons. And so in the book, I talk about successes I certainly talked about failures in the book is built around these seven pathways seven pathways that I believe if you adhere to, you can lead a life or impact legacy and success. And so that's why I wrote the book. That's where the title came from, because we're taught. Often compromise is the way to make it, particularly in America. Yeah, and I'm saying that's true.
But when it comes to your purpose in why there's no compromise in there, you're ruthless in your pursuit of pursuing your purpose in why? No. I mean, it brings me back to what I think about my time in a former life. When I ran for public office and one of my favorite books was a book was by the author who wrote who wrote about the life of Lyndon Johnson and Lyndon Johnson has this statement about what convinced what convinces is conviction . People have to believe that you believe in what.
in whatever you're selling and whatever you're putting forward. And I thought about how I evaluate specifically public leaders, but also leaders in general. Like, yes, you have to compromise a lot of a lot of a part of life and moving forward. But then there has to be some things that you will be willing to walk over fire for. And if I don't know what that is for you, I have trouble trusting people that don't have something at least one or two things to say.
These are things that I will not move on. Like a lot of things, like 90% things, you can figure out ways to compromise. But there should be some things that are just part of the core system of your beliefs and who you are. I think to be effective, to be an effective leader because people, even if they don't agree with you, on those core convictions, I found that they respect you because this is a person that actually has some integrity for their beliefs.
They're not just going to say whatever I want to hear in order to get a sale in order to get a vote. So I am definitely with you on that. I'd like to ask you a question, though a couple of questions. As I looked into researching your book, it seems like a lot of your book with Uncompromising. You've indicated this is really about finding that why and you're compelling mission and not moving from that first question. How do you find that?
I have no problem with that, but I found when I tell that to people. I can't tell you how many people have told me they don't know what their why is and they're trying to figure it out. What would you tell those people? Yeah. Well, here's how I think about it. If find out what you're good at and would you do it for free, because then that's what that's passion. And so for me, Rob, I found mine through adversity and heartache.
When I left Indiana University, I started working for a company called American Hospital Supply. I started in sales. I was the rookie of the Year. I was the top quota breaker. I got promoted.
I moved from New Jersey back to Chicago, worked in our home office and then I went to Michigan as the youngest sales manager in the company's history, 23 years old at the time, and I was leading ten to twelve employees and I got fired a year in the job and the reason I got fired, Rob, and it was it was just I didn't think it was just at the time is everything was focused on me. I was looking at everything. What was I getting out of this job?
What could I do to promote myself, to make myself look better? And I was not serving my team and they were not growing. They were not realizing their journey. And so I got fired. And so it became clear to me that leadership is a privilege. And the reason leadership is a privilege is that you're making the difference in the lives of others. So there's a book called Leaders Eat Last. So I started embracing That's exactly right. So when you start serving men and women, what happens, Rob?
They start serving you and they push you up the corporate ladder, not you. They start to push you up. Where I got confused was, I believed that the next step to success was all about what I did and what I did. Got me to that position. But once you're in a position of leadership, it's not about you anymore.
So this idea of serving others the way others had served me and helping me get to where I was going, the way my mother worked in a motel and then as a high school janitor for 35 years, so I could have a better life. That's what started getting me jazzed when I started investing in other people and they were enjoying success. I started to get really excited and I said I would do that for free and what I did. The book is not about making money, the website. It's not about making money.
The social media is not about making money, it's about pouring into other people. And so that crystallized for me. So most people find their why through adversity. But if you're struggling to find your, why carve out some time, every day, every week, even if it's for ten minutes? Think about what makes you happy. Think about what your passion is. Think about what you're good at.
And if you're good at something and you're passionate about it and you would do it for free, I promise you you're starting to narrow in on your why and most whys, involves serving someone else. It's very rarely about you or serving yourself right. It is always about serving and impacting other people. It's only about you in terms of your journey to find it right. Exactly right. It's about you in terms of understanding your personal connection to how you got to that why.
But that why is only a why if it has an impact on others? Because that's. Exactly right. Because there's a song that says you die twice, you die the day they put you in the ground. The second day you die is when the last person mentions your name. We should all be striving for legacy long after we're gone. There are people talking about us in a positive way in how we impacted their life. That is legacy that is living your why.
Yeah, I'm it's so interesting how you looked at your situation and you saw the most you took the most positive aspect and you also did what I believe is the most mature level of self-awareness. You know, self-awareness is not how we hope others to see us, but how others actually do see us. And then being able to see it through that very challenging lens, right? Because if we're honest, there's some things that we can be better at that we don't like.
And so anytime you have these conflicts, it's easy. And I'm sure there also was some merits to when you talked about you were 23 you said that Yeah, like I think about the culture climate, most salespeople, I think or how you describe yourself. So I think there is also some other things that you were held to a higher standard on than other people.
If I can be very direct because I know a lot of salespeople that the only thing that ever matters is how much money you bring in I don't think that should be the case. Yeah, I guess there's a lot of corporations still view it that way sometimes. Give us the additional burden of mean things. But what good does it Do you to view it that way? Right? How could you grow from that experience if you just said, if you just looked at it in terms of I was done wrong, even if you were? The question is.
What can you learn from this situation? That's exactly right, and it's all about finding your purpose and living it because it's hard enough to live one life trying to live somebody else's life. It makes it even harder. So just focus on you being you. Yep, no, I totally agree. So, all right, I want to do a couple lightning round questions, I always ask people, So what is an important conviction you have or truth that very few people agree with you on?
No matter what my circumstances, I'm not going to be a victim. Unfortunately, Rob, there's a lot about what are you going to do for me? It's all about radical responsibility, and I see what's in front of me. I'm a realist. I've got a nine year old son. I'm I got to teach how to live in this world, but I have to do it with the lens that it's about you and what you can accomplish. And let's not worry about somebody else.
Condoleezza Rice. I was at one of her presentations that she said her family taught her. Look, if somebody don't want to sit by, you let them move. Don't you move? I like that. That's good. Actually, that's good in my life. Yeah, it was like, You don't move who you are. You don't move where so it's like metaphorically and actually literally like if they don't want to sit by you. Fine. But also, that means they don't like who you are. You don't have to change who you are.
Because it doesn't matter, because they probably ain't going to like you anyway way even if you try to change for what they want you to be. That's exactly right, so best advice is sometimes people don't always agree with, I'm going to own me, I'm going to take radical responsibility and I'm not going to be a victim no matter what my circumstances are. Yeah, that's powerful. You have a committee of three living or dead to advise you on life, business, personal, whatever.
Tell me who these three people are and why. Wow, that's a hard question. But the two most important women in my life is my Mom and my wife, Barbita. So I got two women. Good answer. So I mean. You better. You better make it both of them And my my nine year old son. But but if I don't have those three, I've got three friends Ron, Teddy and Stanford. Collectively, we've been friends for over 150 years when you take it all together. Those are three what I call road dogs.
I talk about in the book Commit to road dog relationships. Those are three of my road dogs that I would definitely have them as the backup to my wife and my mother and my son. Yep. So final question here you have a. Billboard or or Google ad or saying whatever you want to say that symbolizes what you stand for, what does that say and why? He lived his purpose. He lived his why he achieved the American dream. Why can't I? All right. Stephen White, pleasure having you on the show.
Make sure you check out his new book, Uncompromising Coming out February 22nd, is that correct? That's exactly right and go to the website. SteveWhitespeaks.com If you want to learn more. I appreciate having you on Steve. Thank you.