Whitney Johnson || Smart Business Growth

recognized thought leader, keynote speaker, executive coach, and consultant. She is a frequent lecturer at Harvard Business Publishing's Corporate Learning Division. She is also the best selling author of Disrupt Yourself and Build an a Team. Her latest book is called Smart Growth, How to Grow Your People to Grow your Company. In this episode, I talked to Whitney Johnson about business growth. According to Whitney, the development of the individual comes first

before the companies. Growth can be better understood using the S curve of learning, which is three phases, the launch point, the sweet spot, and mastery. By comprehending the cycle of growth, we can find ways to move forward when we feel stuck in both our professional and personal lives. We also touch on the topics of flow, creativity, transcendence, success, and leadership. I really like Whitney's approach to business, and I find

it to be a real human approach. We have lots of common interests and common ways and frameworks of seeing the world, and I think you'll really enjoy this episode. So, without further ado, I bring you Whitney Johnson. Whitney Johnson, it is so great to have you on the Psychology Podcast today. Scott. I'm so happy to be here. I would like you to tell our audience a little bit about yourself before we dive into your great work, and maybe tell us a little bit about the work you're

doing with Disruption Advisors. That's always such an open ended question, isn't it tell us a little bit about yourself? Oh? Anywhere you want in that well? In brief, I'm originally from California. I want to my entire life story, but some quick facts. Grew up in San Jose what is now Silicon Valley for people who were familiar with that, and studied music in high school and in college. But when I graduated from college and moved to New York with my husband so he could get his PhD. At Columbia.

I completely disrupted myself and decided that I was not going to pursue music, but instead I wanted to put food on the table, and so I got a job working as a secretary to a retail stockbroker on Wall Street.

First address was thirteen forty five Avenue of the America's because you always remember the address of your very first job, and did that and secretary listening to these stockbrokers saying things like it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know this is a great investment, and throw down your pomp bombs and get in the game, trying to persuade them to open up brokerage accounts, and for me hearing that

over and over again. Initially I was a little bit offended because I was a cheerleader in high school, but then decided I needed to throw down my pom poms.

So I started taking business courses at night, accounting, finance, economics, and then had a boss who gave me a shot and moved me from being a secretary to an investment banker, and that I would not have known to call this then, but that was really the beginning of me disrupting myself of having this sense of there were greater possibilities for me. And so for about fifteen years I worked on actually

closer to twenty years, I worked on Wall Street. I was an investment banking then I was an equity research analyst picking stocks in the emerging markets, and discovered around two thousand, two thousand and one, and this is where our worlds intersect just a little bit, is we were doing this big training of our various stock analyst colleagues, and I spent an inordinate amount of time training my colleagues thinking about if you were on American Idol, what

kind of contestant would you be? Are you the comeback kid? Who are you? What's your brand? And I discovered at that point that I was actually more interested in the momentum of people than I was of stocks. And eventually I did co found the Disruptive Innovation Fund with Clayton Christensen. But more and more found myself thinking about the theory of disruption, thinking about the S curve and how do you apply it not to products and companies, but how

do you apply them to people? And so the work that I do today lo these many years later is We have a company called Disruption Advisors. We advise people companies how to grow their people, to grow their company and do coaching and workshops around that. So that is a reader's digest version of how I came to be where I am today. Lots and lots of personal disruption taking place. I love it. And Clayton Christensen rest in peace. Right Denny passed away in two that twenty Yeah, a

real legend. Yes, religion absolutely disruption and creativity and really inspired inspired me a lot in my own work in creativity. Wait, wait, wait, I want to hear this. How did you get how spar are you? Scott? Oh? Well curious? Well, I mean I wrote a book called Wire to Create, Unraveling the Mysteries of the Creative Mind. And I think that the disruption mindset is is part and parcel of the creative mind.

So in the role of these words, the courage to create is uh And that was the title was of A. Rollmy's book. The courage to create is huge, but it can be very very difficult if you're a people pleaser, and it can be very very difficult if you are the kind of person that can't handle criticism. So most

people just forget about it. You know, it's interesting because I read your book Wired to Create, but I hadn't realized that that Clayton had been an influence on you and thinking about this notion of disruption and that it does take, in fact, courage to step back from who you are and the perception that people have of you in order to slingshot into that creative place. So yeah, so it's nice to hear that tie in. Yeah, good, well, but yeah, big time, and I'm bummed in never had

the opportunity to talk to him. But actually he was a big influence on the creation of the Creativity Post, which I founded with my colleagues in twenty eleven. The whole website and the Creativity Post, we were all big fans of his work. There you have it. It's fun to hear, fun to hear. Yeah, I was wondering to what extent you have studied psychology and have incorporated ideas from psychological research into the work you do. Such a

great question. I would say, I'm an accidental psychologist, if you will. So I have for probably since not even probably since my early twenties, I have worked with a therapist, and so that certainly is a real time application of psychology. I remember coming across Robert Johnson's work and how influential his work was on me fifteen twenty years ago. No relation, no, no relation, but just that was really influential for me, and thinking about the psychological development not only of men

but also of women. I remember reading in a different voice of Carol Gilligans when I was in college and how influential that was as well. So the combination of my own personal experiencing self of psychology, but then reading those very seminal important books by Robert Johnson have very

much influenced the work that I do. And then in thinking about personal disruption and thinking about the S curve of learning my most recent book, you can bet that I consulted with a number of psychologists to make sure that what I was including and what I was saying was backed by actual research and not just some idea that I had had. Love that what is the S curve of learning? You you talk a lot about it.

We might as well double click on that. Yes learning, Yes, Scott, I do, and your name has it S. So I love the name Scott. Yeah. So I discovered the S curve when I was investing with Clayton, so I had co founded a fund with him and his son Matt to invest in disruptive innovation, and we were using the S curve to figure out how quickly an innovation would be adopted and to give us some signals or indicators. Is this a good time to be buying the stock,

as it should be shorting the stock, et cetera. And for those who aren't familiar, probably most people who listen to your podcast are but just a quick refresher popularized by Everett Rodgers back in the sixties, it was around even before that, and what he did is he used the S curve to look at how groups change over time. His seminal study was looking at corn farmers in Iowa and the work that he discovered that there was this

hybrid corn. It had a twenty percent higher yield, it was drought resistant, it was easier to harvest, and yet over the first five years after its introduction, only ten percent of the farmer population adopted this new type of corn. That would have been a really made a lot of sense. But once that first ten percent adopted it, they that over the next three years that penetration or adoption went

from ten percent to forty percent. And so he posited that new ideas are adopted in the shape of an ass. You've got a slow start and then it reaches this tipping point which Malcolm Gladwell popularize, and you move into

hypergrowth and eventually you get to saturation. So we're using this S curve looking at how groups change over time, thinking about this for innovations, and I had this big aha, as I mentioned earlier, back in the early two thousands, I'm thinking, oh, I'm more interested in the momentum of people than i am of stocks. I'm thinking about disruption. It's not just about products and services, but also about people.

So it wasn't too much of a lape for me to say, how does this S curve apply to people? And so the big aha for me was is that it could under help us understand not only how groups change over time, but how do individuals change. It could help us think about what does that what is the emotional growth look like? What is the experience that we're having when we start something new, whether it's a new hobby,

it's a new job, whether it's our life generally. And so the basic idea is this, when you start something new. You're at the launch point of the curve, and the growth is happening, but it is going to feel slow. But then if you put in the effort, you eventually

reach this tipping point. You move into the sweet spot of that S curve where things are fast, and then at some point you're going to reach a plateau, which is this place of mastery where because you're no longer learning, you're no longer enjoying the feel good effects of learning, it's time for you to jump to a new S curve and it answers those questions of why is it hard to start something new, why do you gain momentum

and therefore it's easy to continue? And why can you be really good at something and feel like you can no longer keep doing it? The S curve help helps answer those several questions. Wow, what a powerful idea with so many applications. You talk about the idea of managing your team as a portfolio of S curves. Can you kind of unpack that a little bit more? How does that work? Yeah? Absolutely so. Once you understand that this, you can use this S curve to demystify personal growth.

You can think about where are you in your current role at work on the S curve? Are you at the launch point, are you in the sweet spot? Are you in mastery? And once you know where you are on that curve, then you're going to be able to know how to help people build momentum. At the launch point, you're going to need support, and the sweet spot you need focuses you're going fast and you don't want to derail.

And in master you're going to need a challenge. Well, once you know those things, then you recognize, huh, everybody on my team is actually on an S curve. And if I understand that, then I know this helps me decode talent development, It helps facilitate recruiting, it helps me deal with succession planning. But if I want to zoom out even further, if I understand where people are in their growth and where they perceive themselves to be in

their growth, because that's important. I might think that you are in the sweet spot, but if you have the experience of being mastery, that's going to predict your behavior, not where I think you are. Also, we know that depending on where you are. For example, when you're at the launch point, you ask lots of questions like why do we do it like this? Because you're brand new, you're seeing everything with fresh eyes, and that why do we do it like this? Can lead and open the

door to innovation. And I know you know David Epstein's work very well range He has a Yeah, there's a lot of research in there basically about people moving to a new S curve, that launch point, and they have all sorts of epiphanies about here's where the innovation is. So you do need people on the launch point of that S curve. Then in the sweet spot, people are capable of still asking questions like why do we do it like this? But they're increasingly competent. So this goes

to self termination theory. They're competent, they're autonomous, they feel related to the mission to each other, and so this is that place where they're capable of innovating, capable of asking questions around innovating, but they're also at this point more capable of executing against those innovative ideas. And then in mastery what happens is they're not asking why do we do it like this? They're saying, this is how we do it, which is valuable because it's the institutional

memory it gives you something to bump up against. You have people who can help bring other people along. Do these S curve loops, And so when you're willing to put together a portfolio and a starting point is a standard bill curve distribution with sixty percent of your people in the sweet spot, twenty percent of the launch point, twenty percent in mastery. You have people in different stages of your growth, but also different stages of thinking about innovation.

And so if you can put together that portfolio of S curves, it not only allows you to manage people more effectively, but you're now optimized for growth and innovation in your team and in your organization. Yeah. That I love that question. As someone who wrote a book called Transcendent loves Transcendence. Is there a stage after mastery? Like have you thought beyond mastery into a transcendent purpose stage? Yeah? You know, Scott, I loved your book Transcendence. You read it? Yes,

I read it. I had you on my podcast Everybody. Yeah, and I actually do read the books when I have people. I know, I mean, I think most people do, but I do actually read. I forgot that I was onst Yes, and so it's a great question. And I had not contemplated. I found your work very useful and helpful for me in that. In that sense, what I would say is for me, I think about S curves as almost this escalator.

So when it's very much a fractal so you can have you can be on an S curve in a role, you can have, your day can be an S curve. Your life is an S curve, and so I consider this notion of transcendence. Or if I were trying to put our two ideas together, I would say is that when you get to the top of an S curve, you make the decision I'm at a summit, but I'm

not this at thus summit of my life. If you will, I would also argue, is that when you are in mastery, if you're at the top of that S curve, Yes you need to continue to grow, and yes you need to find new S curves, but if you're really developing as a human being, you're also going to be in that place at the top of the mountain where you're

willing to think bigger. You've got this perspective and you're willing to bring other people along, so you get very much of it both and where you need to continue to grow and to be at the launch point, to be at the base of the mountain. But if you're evolving as a human being, you're also in this place where you're transcending and helping other people grow. So that's how I would put those those two ideas together. Yeah,

you obviously fold in purpose into your into mastery. Obviously you're not just talking about selfish mastery of something devoid of the context of the larger world. Yeah, But I'm just wonrying how how you've thought about yes curve of transcendent experiences, Like what's the S curve of the flow state? You know? Like, is that too nerdy of a question? Ah? No, not at all, And so I have a few thoughts about that. First of all, I think the obvious one is that when you're in the sweet spot, you are

definitely in flow. It's hard, but it's not too hard, and it's easy but not seem so aligned high chickens definition and what you're talking. Yeah, absolutely, So I think that's the first easy obvious definition. I would actually though, also argue and I would be one I'd be curious of how you might want to push back against this.

I would argue that a peak performer is not someone who's only in the sweet spot, but it's a person who can complete this gross cycle over and over again, person who can navigate launch points, who can move into the sweet spot, but who can also get to mastery and not just have that plateau become a precipice, but understand, Okay, I need to do something that either pushes me back into the sweet spot and or also able to say, okay, I know I'm here, I need to continue to grow,

and is willing to self disrupt and move to the launch point of a new curve. And so, for me, a peak performer, someone who is in flow in terms of their life, if we go back to this fractal idea, is able to navigate all aspects of the growth cycle. So yes, sweet spot flow Mehi? She sent me Hi? If I'm pronouncing his name very incorrectly, okay, almost there. But also from a life perspective, I think it's navigating the entire cycle, making rest in peace as well. That's amazing.

Past two years, how many legends have passed away. The trauma, loss, and uncertainty of our world have led many of us to ask life's biggest questions such as who are we, what is our highest purpose? And how do we not only live through, but thrive in the wake of tragedy, division,

and challenges to our fundamental way of living. To help us all address these questions, process what this unique time in human history has meant for us personally and collectively an emerge whole, I've collaborated with my colleague and dear friend, doctor Jordan Feingeld, MD to bring you our forthcoming book. It's called Choose Growth, a workbook for transcending trauma, fear, and self doubt. It's a workbook design to guide you on a journey of committing to growth and the pursuit

of self actualization every day. It's chock full of research from humanistic psychology, positive psychology, developmental psychology, personality psychology, cognitive science, and neuropsychology. So lots of themes that you hear about on this podcast, and it's aimed to help us all integrate the many facets of ourselves and co crete our new normal with a renewed sense of strength, vitality, and hope.

Whether you're healing from loss, adapting to the new normal, or simply looking ahead to life's next year after, Choose Growth will help steer you there two deeper connection to your values, your life vision, and ultimately your most authentic self. Choose Growth will officially hit the shelves September thirteenth, and you can border your copy or the audiobook in the US now on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Indie Bound, and

all major retailers. If you're in the UK and Commonwealth, you can order now at bookshop dot org dot UK. We truly hope this book helps you grow and thrive and become your best self. Okay, now back to the show. Yeah, so I love what you said, and being able to navigate the cycle. Having the flexibility to shift between different modes of thought is my definition of creativity, so we're very well aligned in that way. I also tend to

make the distinction between peak performance and peak experience. Okay, I will. Peak experience, I think is usually tightly aligned with the flow state or transcendent states of con sciousness. But as you said, peak performance often requires lots of different stages. Some stages of peak performance might not be peak experience. It may be the most painful shit, you know what I'm saying, effortful annoying, dealing with annoying people. There are a lot of annoying people on this planet,

Whitney who may not like your ideas. That's not a peak experience. So do you see the distinction I'm making here? Yeah? I really like that, So for sort of kind of

finding a way to have these overlaps. So what you suggest is that when you're in the sweet spot, you are having a peak experience even though you're not at the peak, but as a peak performer, you are capable of navigating all aspects of that growth cycle, including being at that launch point that messy, messy, uncomfortable, gainly, awkward, feel like an imposter sort of space, but you're willing to be there anyway, absolutely being able to tell that

ambiguity is also a key part of the creative process for sure. Amazing. Well, how do you apply the S curve as a retention tool? You know, if managers want to really focus on retention and not have burnt out employees right that are like I'm out, you know this, this this is I can't get past this first phase, you know, I'm stuck in the in the non peak experience stage. Okay, So there's there are a number of things to unpack there, and so I'll talk about complex Yeah,

which is totally fine. So let's start with the first, which is I'm at the launch point and I can't seem to move off the launch point. I think there are two things that can happen. Sometimes we're at the launch point and people want to just give up because it is so messy and we're impatient, and like you said,

we can't tolerate that ambiguity and that uncertainty. One of the reasons that this model, because it's so simple, it's so visual, is useful as you can say to someone, it is true that you may never be good at this. I don't want to dismiss that. What we don't know right now is you haven't been doing this long enough to know. What we do know for certain is that you are in this messy phase of the S curve where growth is actually fast, but it's not a parent

so you don't know. So let's stay here a little bit longer, collect a little bit more data, and if it turns out that in fact, you are not gaining momentum off this curve, then it's the wrong curve, so you're not getting the product market or person curve fit. So I think that that's the first piece, is to be able to distinguish between the two of are you just not good at this or have you not put in enough time yet? That's the first thing. And I

wouldn't I don't know that that's retention so much. That's just giving people support that they need when they're doing something new. From a retention strategy perspective. Something that you can look at is a very simple exam is is Patrick Baschett. He was the CFO of Google for about seven years, and when he was first interviewed for this job, he had already done operations types of roles for a number of years and so from a domain expertise standpoint,

absolutely at the top of that esque curve. And so there was the real risk that he would get in there, be there for six months, maybe a year, figure out the lay of the land. He's like done out of here, bored needs something new to do. So he had a conversation with Eric Schmidt, who was the CEO of Google at the time, and he said he said, basically, Patrick, we've got a problem. So here's what we're going to do.

Every time you start to feel bored. Every time you're at the top of an S curve, which is my language. He said, come talk to me and we'll find something new for you to do. And so basically every eighteen months Patrick went back to Eric and said, hey, kind of got this figured out. I need something new. And so every eighteen months they added something new. They gave him from his portfolio of esque curves, they added some new launch points. So he took over real estate, he

took over Google, Fibror, he took over people. And so by shifting the complexion or the makeup of his composition of his portfolio, he was able to stay in that same role for seven years because they were continually finding ways to adapt and adjust the portfolio. And so that became a retention strategy by understanding, where is this person in his growth, what experience is he having. Now, let's adjust it so that we can retain him. That's great, I really really like that. Do you talk about some

things very interesting? You talk about excavating your shadow values? Holy cow, can you tell our listeners a little bit what that is? Because I'm super super interested in the dark side of the nature. Yeah, aren't we all? Aren't we fascinated by it. Yeah, but so many of us project that and act as though we're the good ones and the other side is the evil one, and we never, we very rarely look within. So that's why I love that you bring that up. So there's lots of different

ways to think about our shadow values. And we know that this comes from again from Union Psychology where he talks about the shadow self and psychologists. Yes, we love psychology. That's this podcast. So this notion of the example that I use in the book, and you might have something that you want to I'd love to hear your thoughts and your reflections on this. But this notion of and this happens a lot where, for example, as a manager,

we want to grow people. I don't think there's a manager on this planet, or at least ninety nine percent of the managers on this planet, who say I want to grow my people. I want to be a great manager. But there's this shadow value which is also I need to preserve myself. I need to make sure that I am safe. I need to make sure that I sitting at the top of this mountain of an s am

not threatened in any way. And so now enter the shadow value, because yes, I want to grow people, but growing people may mean that this person that you are growing eventually gets better at this job than you are. It may mean that eventually you need to give away your legos and let this person take your role and you need to jump to a new S curve. And so when you understand what your shadow values are, which is things like self preservation which we all have, you

can then contend with it and understand. I know I said I wanted him to grow. I know I said I wanted her to grow, but I'm not making it possible for them to grow what else is going on here? Frequently what happens is you think I want them to grow, but you're in this place of scarcity, not abundance, which I know you talk about. At some level, I feel like if I help them grow, there's not going to be an opportunity for me. So what do I need

to do to create opportunities for myself? To create new S curve opportunities for myself, either in this organization or in another organization, so that I feel like there is enough for me so that now I can allow the people on my team to grow. And so that's what I mean by excavating shadow values when there is a disconnect between what I am saying and what I actually

truly believe and what I'm doing. And when you can excavate those values and you bring them out of the shadow, then you can start to address them and you can and act in your purpose, which is I do want to help people grow, but I need to make sure that I'm growing as well, because if I'm growing, then I will be willing to help other people grow. Amazing. And that's what you mean by being smart about growth. Yeah, that's the big part of the process of being smart.

So when you use the word growth, are we talking about different things? When we use the word growth, are you focusing on growth of results in a business context, whereas I'm talking about as a whole person growth from a humanistic existential perspective, which it's it. How can we merge both of our perspectives on growth? Yeah, we absolutely can. So. The publisher from my book is Harvard Business Press. So in having Harvard Business Press publish this book, of course

I need to talk about the organization. That being said, one of my fundamental beliefs is that the fundamental unit of growth in any organization. The fundamental unit of disruption is always the individual. And so I argue that if you will grow yourself, then by definition, because of the contagion effect, you will create the conditions wherein you can grow your people. And if you yourself are growing and your people are growing, then your organization will grow. And

so I think that so that becomes an outcome. I am focusing on growing an individual as the input as the X variable, and the why variable will the dependent variable is the growth of your organization. So we are are very much in alignment. The results happen, but that's not your starting point. It starts with you as the individual. Amazing and in fact, let me share it. Let me share a piece of research I think you'll find really interesting.

So a gun zunder did a study two two and a half years ago and they surveyed CEOs and they said, tell us whether or not you strongly agreed agreed to transform your organization, you need to transform yourself. And two and a half years ago that number strongly agreed was twenty eight percent. Two years later, post pandemic yay, post traumatic growth. What they found when they administered that survey again eighty percent strongly agreed. I think that is so significant.

I think that is so encouraging, this notion that these CEOs now I'll understand that if they want to have this wholesale transformation of their organization, they need to transform themselves. And I think that we have the pandemic at least in part to think for that post traumatic growth. It comes after a period of severe stress. Absolutely, thanks for

sharing that. I appreciate that this is all in line with what you do say in your book, which is people are not just the most valuable resources of the organization, they are the organization. A good quote there, Whitney Johnson. I like that. I like that. So how can companies actively invest in their people? And why is that more important right now than ever? All Right, so let's start with why it's so important. There has been We just talked about post traumatic growth, and I love that the

title of your book is choose growth. One of the things that we discovered in over the past couple of years, and people have taught and described this period of time where people were jumping to new s kurds is the great resignation. And I believe that that is a major misnomer because what we found during these past few years is that people were and are more capable, more resilient. We've discovered a lot about ourselves, and so we discovered

that we want things to be different. We found ways to rebalance our lives and how we approached our world. And so when people look at this and say people are resigning from I think that's inaccurate. I think what we've discovered is that people are aspiring to They're aspiring

to more. They are, in your words, choosing growth. And so what I would encourage any employer to do is to recognize that if you understand that the animating force for people is that they want to grow, they want to grow not only in their role at work, but grow as human beings, then that starts to inform how you're going to develop people, how you're going to recruit people, how you're going to retain people. Now, there's a lot that you can do. Sometimes people will say, well, I'm

just a middle manager. There's not you know, I don't have much control. What I would say is, from an agentic standpoint, you have far more control than you think you do. And it can start with a very simple conversation, which is, let's draw an ask let's see where you think you are in your growth. Do you think you're at the launch point, the sweet spot or mastery? And what can I do to support you in your growth

that you can build momentum. It's a simple thing, but we know from the contagion effect three degrees of separation, if you help that person grow, then they're going to help their children grow. They're going to help a coworker who's three degrees of separation grow. And so you can start with that individual and that allows you as a manager to start to grow your people, which then grows your company. So that's what I would say is it's

not the great resignation, it's the great aspiration. And it can start as simply as drawing an ass on a piece of paper and having a conversation about where do you think you are in your growth? Wow, you see, you're very optimistic about twenty twenty two as being a year of tremendous growth in the workplace. Okay, well, what advice do you have for leaders to energize their team this year, especially amid some people feeling demotivated because of a lot of political things going on in the world

right now. Yeah, So Scott, this starts to come to some of our a priori or foundational assumptions. And so let me tell you some of the things that I believe. And I believe that growth is our default setting, that we are wired to grow, and I think we all know that, but we have the growth mindset until we don't.

And so I think that one of the things that for us to be aware of is that if you believe that about growth and you are willing to have conversations with people about where are they in their growth and to help them build momentum along their s curve regardless of where they are, that will help motivate them. At the same time, what I would say, and I know you said I sound very optimistic. What I do want to put forth is that we make a choice. I very much believe that we are agents. We control

more than we think that we do. And I remember, and I'll share an experience that I had, and I suspect many of your listeners had something similar happen to them. I remember at the beginning of the pandemic back in March of twenty twenty twenty twenty or twenty nineteen, twenty twenty. Oh my goodness, losing track of time. I remember having this experience of when the world was shutting down, and I was very frightened, and I think many of us were of the world are our life as we know

it is changing? What does this mean for my health? Am I going to get sick? What does this mean for my business? Because I own my own business and having this experience. I thought it was two days, but my truth teller daughter tells me it was two weeks where I finally had to make a choice. What am I going to do here? Am I going to succumb to this feeling of fear and helplessness that is threatening to overtake me? Or Am I going to choose hope?

Am I going to choose to be optimistic? Am I going to choose to see this as an opportunity to grow? Am I going to see this as an opportunity to say I've been talking about personal disruption? Am I going to eat my own cooking and disrupt myself and find a way to manage through this? Turn this constraint that I'm experiencing into a tool of creation. And so I think that we as leaders and managers, we need to create the conditions the weather patterns whereby people can grow.

We can play that role because you have to climb and escer by yourself, but you can't do it alone. But ultimately, ultimately, each person that works with us and we ourselves have to make the choice. Am I going to choose to think that I cannot do this? Or am I going to choose to believe that I can? And my hope is is that this ESCER, because it's a simple visual model, gives people a way to say, Okay, yeah, I do feel afraid right now, but I'm just at

the launch point, so I'll figure it out. I believe that I can figure out. It's been done, you know, billions of times before I can do it again. It's a model that I can replicate. I like that. And what if you get to like you're having core life crisis, or you get to middle age and you just don't feel like you're growing as fast as you had expected,

which is everyone most people. You start to hit reality when you get to a certain age that you can't be the NBA player that you thought you were going to be, or you can't be this or that, and you come to start to confront reality a bit. How does that play a role in this? So I have two thoughts here. Number one is that you just got pushed off and now you've got to make a decision about what you're going to do. I'm here, I'm stranded on this desert island? Am I? You know desert island

s curve? That I did not choose? What do I want to do? And it goes back to what we just talked about at the beginning of the pandemic? Am I going to say, Oh, I'm a victim? My life is terrible again? This goes back to a being an agent? Or are we going to figure out how do I make meaning of this? You know? Did this happen to me? Or did this happen for me? This goes back to some of our priori assumptions that we're on this planet to grow and to develop. That growth is our default setting.

What am I going to do with this constraint that's just been handed to me? And how am I going to make something out of it? So that's the near term question that I would would ask yourself. The bigger picture question I would say, going back to your life is if you think about your life and you think about any s curve. It's basically a dopamine management exercise.

So when you're at the launch point of an S curve, you're making lots of predictions about what it's going to take for me to be successful, and many of those predictions are inaccurate. So your dopamine is dropping, which feels terrible because dopamine is a chemical messenger of delight, your d delighting. Then in the sweet spot it's spiking because things are going better than you expected. In it the mastery, it's kind of flatlining. And so that's why you need

a new challenge. So what I would say for those of us who are now at the launch point of a curve that we didn't actually choose, and you're saying, how do I use this dopamine to help me move out of this place that I don't think I want to be? Is you you set these really small goals. You don't think in terms of what am I going to do five years from now. You look for wins today, you look for wins tomorrow. You look for ways to get some dopamine that will allow you to have some

upside surprises that will build momentum again. And what do I mean by little wins. I mean things that you can do even if it's eleven o'clock at night. This goes to some of James Clear's work, of those ridiculously small goals. I'm not exercising it all right now, I'm going to put on my tennis shoes every day for the next week. I don't feel like writing my next book. Okay, well I'll just turn on my computer and look at my screen for thirty seconds every day for the next week.

And so you do these small, small things that allow you to get a little bit of dopamine, start to build your momentum again so that you can move back into the sweet spot of your life. Because you were there at one point, you can be there again. And those are the ways that you move forward when you feel like you've been kicked off the curve and don't quite have the motivation that you need to move forward.

How do you know when to grit and when to quit? Though, because you do talk of in your book about the benefits of a career change, So me, you know what's so wrong with getting middle age and be like, well, that s curve was told totally not what I expected. I'm going to peace out. I mean, well, there's no shame in that, right when to grit and when to quit. I'm sure you've said that before, but I have never heard it. So I just got some delight from that. Yeah,

it's a great question, Scott. So what I would say there are two different places where you're going to experience that. That the launch point that we've talked about already of like, I'm just not very good at this, maybe it is time for me to jump to something new. But there's also the mastery phase, which we haven't talked about. And I think this is that middle life question that you just you just post and here are some of the some of the ways that you know that it's time

to no longer grit. Now, when I'm talking about being in mastery, I don't mean that you are the world's foremost expert on something. It may mean that, but it also may mean I wanted to learn five songs on the ukulele and I'm good. But from a career perspective, here are some things that you're going to start telling yourself. And this is what we see in our diagnostic is that you know it's time to do something new. You've been doing the same thing for several years no significant difference.

So you can look at time and role. For example, you can find yourself saying things like that's not how we do it here. You can find yourself dialing it in. You can find yourself being jealous of other people who are moving along that self preservation people piece where they're growing, but you're not. You're starting to stagnate. You can find yourself saying things like, well, I've paid my dues. All those are starting to give you these signals that maybe

it's time for you to not grit. It's time for you to quit. If you're feeling bored, if you're feeling demotivated. But here's the most important indicator. It is when you have that experience of I feel like there is something more for me to do. I can feel it, and if I don't do something more, I will die inside a little bit. I understand that I am an expert at this, but I can feel that I have more to do on this planet. I need to keep climbing. It's not on this S curve. It's time for me

to do something new. That is the moment where you don't grit, you quit, you move to a new s curve. Okay, I love that. I have a bit of a cheeky question because I can't help myself. Well, if what if you feel like there is less for me on this planet? Like what if you just You're like not, You're you're tired of having such high ambitions. You're like, I want to just I want to spend time with my family, you know, like I'm sick of working like thousand hours

a week. Like you can't work thousand hours a week. But you see my point, Yes I do. Is there any shame in that? Oh no, not at all. But I wouldn't I wouldn't actually call that less. I would call that different. You know, I'm just finishing reading Arthur Brooks book and and I think a lot of it. Well yeah, guy, oh my god, really really good. And so you know he talks about the second curve and that that's been really interesting for me to read. But

thinking about this idea of disruption. So let me give you a way to think about this. So when you're let's say in your career, and you're let's call it forty five years old, and you've you've got sort of your number twelve on the Y axis of success and you're over one up one and it's going along swimmingly. But you make the decision to disrupt yourself. You want to do something new. You want to work twenty hours a week, let's call it if people have the luxury

of doing that. So you move from the y axis of success of prestige in your work down to a ten because you believe that in the future it's going to be over one up three or over one up five. But note that you have now changed the metrics of success. And this goes back to Clayton's work of how will you measure your life? You are changing your metric. It's not more prestige, it's not more stature. It is I

want to cultivate relationships. I want to stay in the sweet spot in perpetuity in the relationships that matter most to me. So it's not about less. And again this goes back to the great resignation versus the great aspiration. It's changing the metrics of success. And so you're jumping to a new S curve. You're changing the composition of your portfolio of S curves. And of course there's no

shame in that. And I think you and I we both argue this is what it means to develop and grow as an entire human being, not just a person who is focused on their career or just focus on their relationships. It's everything in totality. It's so good changing the metrics of success. Boy, do you think that our society has some messed up ideas of what it means

to be successful? Like? Yes, absolutely, yeah, as part of your project to kind of change or broaden people's notions of what even means to succeed or grow in life in your work, yes, I don't know that I would have it stated it that way, I think for for me. You know how, one of the best ways to figure out what it is you stand for is to have someone tell you what they think you stand for and

you say yes. That resonates. And I was having a conversation with Tom Peters, who wrote in Search of Excellence, and he said to me, Whitney, I think what your rezondetra is is you want to help people grow big G and little G. And when I think about that, that's when I say grow, I mean grow as a human being in every aspect of your life, mentally, emotionally, in your relationships, etc. So so yes, the answer is I would like people to change their metrics of success.

And coming back to Clayton, who we talked about at the very beginning, I had the privilege of working with him for the greater part of ten years, and people could say, well, what are all the different things you learned from Clayton, And I would say, one of the most important things I learned from him this idea of metrics of success. But he did something that was so valuable to me, and I find that is staying with me is he didn't separate the secular from the spiritual.

They were. He brought work to church, and he brought church to work. And so I in my work, if I can encourage people to bring their secular and their spiritual together, you're bringing the whole person together, bringing the masculine and the feminine together, however you want to define that. To me, that's what growth, real growth looks like. I love that. And what an honor was for him to work with you as well, you know, I know you and for you to work with him. Yeah, it must

have been a really tremendous collaboration. Yeah. So, how can you become the kind of leader or boss that that people want to work for. Do you have any advice for aspiring leaders who really want to take your work and run with it? Such a big question again, but it really I think it starts very simply. Is that start by focusing on how are you yourself going to grow?

And when I say that, it can be something as simple as going to disrupt myself just a little bit today, I'm going to make a decision that when I look at my list of ten things to do today, maybe all ten of those things right now are a list of tasks to do. And instead of having ten tasks, I'm going to have one thing that says, you know, I'm going to put a who on my to do list and I'm going to have a conversation with a

person about where are you in your growth? And it can start with those very simple micro disruptions creating those new neural pathways, but they start with a cowpath And so anybody who's listening to this and thinking I do want to be different, I do want to be a better leader, start by figuring out where are you and

your growth launch point, sweet spot mastery. Maybe have a simple conversation map out where your people are are and their growth and do one very small, ridiculously small thing, because you aggregate all those small things that all of your listeners are doing across the globe. That starts to aggregate into something pretty meaningful and significant and disruption in a very very positive way. Well, let's end on that note. It's wonderful. Was there anything else you'd like to add

to our conversation. I think I feel like we've covered a lot of the ground of your book. Just thank you for having me. I enjoyed reading your book and being able to talk about your work, and I just appreciate your wanting to talk about talk about my work and just figure out how they overlap. So thank you very much. It's great. It's really great work. I'm so glad we can finally get you on the Psychology Podcast. Thank you so much, Whitney. Thanks for listening to this

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