290. Wes Carter: Small Changes Become Huge Results

Share this post:

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.

Continued below…

Subscribe on iTunes
Subscribe on Stitcher
Subscribe on Spotify
Subscribe on Google Play
OTHER WAYS TO ENJOY THIS POST:

Listen to the episode in the player below or download and enjoy it on Apple Podcasts. If you found this or other episodes of Disrupt Yourself useful, please leave us a review!

Share this post:

289. Steve Young: Choose Selflessness in a Transactional World

Share this post:

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.

Continued below…

Subscribe on iTunes
Subscribe on Stitcher
Subscribe on Spotify
Subscribe on Google Play
OTHER WAYS TO ENJOY THIS POST:

Listen to the episode in the player below or download and enjoy it on Apple Podcasts. If you found this or other episodes of Disrupt Yourself useful, please leave us a review!

Share this post:

The Rough Start

Share this post:

Last weekend, my son and I went to Washington & Lee (W&L) University to watch the Southern Virginia University (SVU) Women's Volleyball team play in a tournament.

When we got there, the tournament was nowhere to be found. My son could tell I was disappointed; I wanted to show up for, and to support these athletes.

He said to me, “We tried.”

We did try. And in retrospect, that is more important than I thought at the time.

A week earlier, I had planned to go to an SVU football game and didn't manage to leave the house. It was a Thursday evening and the end of a long day with my emotional and physical bandwidth depleted.

But this time, I had shown up, even if I missed the match.

I could interpret this apparent failure as an “oh well, don't even bother trying next time. It’s not worth it.” That's one signal I can send my brain.

Or there's a different, better signal: even though we didn't see the match, and we were disappointed, I also activated, albeit slightly, a neural pathway that I do go to sporting / extracurricular activities at SVU. I am making efforts to be a supporter.

It is so easy to focus on outcome versus process. That’s why we often default to that.

The outcome I was expecting, to go to the volleyball tournament and actually cheer for our young women in their match, didn't work out, so the process needs some work.

In retrospect, the process was off, at least in part, because I didn’t ask more questions. I could have done that once we arrived there and were stymied. Is there possibly another gym? I could have double-checked where the match was being held before we left home. Those, and others, are the process questions I want to be asking.

Those process questions aside, if I want my life process to include going to these events, I am choosing to reframe the actual experience last weekend. Like this:

I planned to go to a sporting event for SVU. Instead of not going as had happened previously, I got in the car, arrived at the venue, and sat in the gym. I allocated time, mental, physical, and emotional capacity to be there. This means that I have started to create a neural pathway (it's a cow path at this point, I know), but it is the start of a path, nonetheless, that says I show up for students at SVU. Starting something new can be rough. But it’s still a start.

What about you? What is something that you set off to do this past week that didn't result in the outcome you hoped for or expected? What about that initiative did go right? What small neural pathway started to form, the unfulfilled outcome notwithstanding?

This week’s podcast episode is with Becky Robinson, founder of an online PR agency focusing on PR for book launches and author of the book Reach, for which I had the privilege of writing the foreword. 

If you have an idea that you believe is important and want to share with the world, perhaps through a book, you will want to listen to this podcast episode.  

As always, thanks for being here!

My best,
Whitney

P.S. Next week is a big week! We are doing a LinkedIn Live on Monday, September 19th, and launching a LinkedIn Learning course that will be free for 24 hours. It's focused on creating conditions where growth can occur –– a deep dive into the Ecosystem chapter of Smart Growth

Share this post:

288. Becky Robinson: Your Network Is Bigger (and More Generous) Than You Think

Share this post:

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.

Continued below…

Subscribe on iTunes
Subscribe on Stitcher
Subscribe on Spotify
Subscribe on Google Play
OTHER WAYS TO ENJOY THIS POST:

Listen to the episode in the player below or download and enjoy it on Apple Podcasts. If you found this or other episodes of Disrupt Yourself useful, please leave us a review!

Share this post:

The Soul of the Universe

Share this post:

Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and life to everything.––Plato

You don't really listen to very much music,” my son commented to me a few weeks ago.

That might not be a surprising thing for some people. But, for me, a person who majored in music, practiced the piano at least three hours a day for years, attended 16 concerts every semester in college, and was involved in music all day long, to now only listen to or make music maybe an hour or two a week, it’s a big change.

Am I ok with this new S Curve – the one where music is not much a part of my life?

I suppose I thought I was. 

But that question, combined with several experiences over the past few months, has caused me to reconsider.

During the pandemic, we started watching K-Dramas. A powerful story combined with music (like Mr. Sunshine) has helped me feel a broader range of emotions:  bittersweetnesslonginghappiness, and delight.

Over the past couple of years, I’ve started playing the piano again, at least a bit. In truth, it’s a little daunting because I know how accomplished I once was, and it’s difficult not to compare. Nevertheless, there are moments of delight like yesterday when I sight-read a few simple Bach minuets.

I've also been taking voice lessons. I started because I needed to improve how I speak for podcasts and speaking engagements, but the speech lessons involve singing as cross-training. It’s helping me find my literal but also figurative voice.

But I think the musical tipping point for me has occurred during the past few weeks while I’ve been studying the Biblical Psalms. These are ancient lyrics to songs of praise. Having read them and listened to several commentaries around them like this, I found myself overcome with happiness, joy, and tears by this song, and I love this song too.  

Maybe you will like my music; perhaps you won't.

What matters is that music helps us feel and live life more deeply, more profoundly.  And building on my dominant question, how do I find joy today, that Jason Feifer and I discussed on the podcast a few weeks ago, music helps me find joy.

In his book This Is Your Brain On Music, Daniel Levitin talks about how we love music from our teenage years the most because these growing-up years are so emotional, and our still-developing brains tag the music we listen to as important.

But listening to music can play an essential role in our continuing growth and development beyond our adolescent years. I think we need to be open to listening to new music. Maybe we perform music, or maybe not, but almost all of us can listen to music, and most of us do. The soundtrack of our youth may continue to be very important to us, but as we listen to new, different music, we can create and tag new memories. We can continue to grow and find ways to utter things that we otherwise couldn’t express.

This week's podcast guests are Stephen M.R. Covey and McKinlee Covey. We’ll talk about the importance of not only being trustworthy ourselves but also trusting others.

Do we trust that others will show up as their best selves? That they will do their best work? Do we extend that trust to other people? I wonder if how much we trust others correlates to how much we trust ourselves.

Hoping you will now listen to a song that delights you!

My best,
Whitney

P.S. A music-related podcast episode I especially love is our episode with Livingston Taylor

Share this post:

287. Stephen M. R. Covey & McKinlee Covey: Manage Things, Lead People

Share this post:

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.

Continued below…

Subscribe on iTunes
Subscribe on Stitcher
Subscribe on Spotify
Subscribe on Google Play
OTHER WAYS TO ENJOY THIS POST:

Listen to the episode in the player below or download and enjoy it on Apple Podcasts. If you found this or other episodes of Disrupt Yourself useful, please leave us a review!

Share this post:

The Bridge

Share this post:

Bridges symbolize change and flexibility! They show us this simple philosophy: When you are on one side, you can easily move to the other side.––Mehmet Murat Ildan

Last weekend my family and I went to visit the Natural Bridge –– a place that Thomas Jefferson described as “ the most sublime of nature’s works.” He bought it and the surrounding property and kept it throughout his life, even when other possessions were sold to bolster his finances. The bridge is indeed sublime.

We’ve lived in Rockbridge County, Virginia, for seven years. The Natural Bridge that the county name derives from is no more than 15 minutes from our home. But I had never visited it until this week.

After a few moves over the years, I've noticed that when I arrive in a new place, if I don’t visit the historical sites –– the local attractions––fairly soon after getting settled, the likelihood that I will ever visit those things decreases over time. Perhaps I get too settled, and the routine supplants the curiosity and wonder that should accompany living in a new place, the curiosity and wonder that an attraction like the Natural Bridge should elicit.

I think the same might also be true if we make a point of getting out to discover our new environment. The more things we see and experience, the more likely we are to maintain our curiosity and keep visiting new things. Our friends, the Jones’, made a point of getting out to see the sights when they first moved here, and now, many years later, they still do.

What motivated me to finally visit Natural Bridge?

Our son has been home from college for a few months and said, “What is there to see? What is there to do?” He’s never lived here; he left on a mission the same week we moved here and was off to college right after that.

He asked, “What about the Natural Bridge?” And so, we went.

Not only is the rock bridge awe-inspiring, but we got some exercise en route and enjoyed an opportunity to spend time together.

Whenever someone new is in our life, family, or team, they ask questions like, “Why do you do X like this? Why don’t you do Y like this?

I could have shut our son down—I could have said, “I have too much to do.” And I’ve done that before. So, I know that the more often we say no, the more often we are too busy to do something different, the easier it is to say no the next time. And the next. This time, I instead took it as an invitation to break out of my routine and experience something I should have experienced before I ever settled into that routine here seven years ago.

“Why don’t I do it like this, this time?”

I think I will.

There’s a new memory created—a new neural pathway and a bridge in the brain that could become increasingly natural.

All because of an invitation to do something different, to jump to a tiny new S Curve.

This coming Saturday, we’ll check out the Appalachian Trail. Not all 2200 miles of it stretching from Georgia to Maine, but the length that runs through Rockbridge County, only a few miles from our home.

This week's podcast also inspired our trip to Natural Bridge. My dear friend, Richie Norton, has a book out this week titled Anti-Time Management. He has a moving personal story (you will want to listen) which led him to the acronym TIME (Today Is My Everything!). If today is your everything, what will you do?


If you respond with one thing you are doing differently because you listened to this interview with Richie Norton, you will be eligible for 1 of 10 free copies of his book. It doesn't need to be a big thing or a lengthy response. One sentence is ENOUGH!

Today really is your everything!

My best,
Whitney

Share this post:

286. Richie Norton: Value Your Time and Stop Timing Your Values

Share this post:

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.

Continued below…

Subscribe on iTunes
Subscribe on Stitcher
Subscribe on Spotify
Subscribe on Google Play
OTHER WAYS TO ENJOY THIS POST:

Listen to the episode in the player below or download and enjoy it on Apple Podcasts. If you found this or other episodes of Disrupt Yourself useful, please leave us a review!

Share this post:

To See or Not to See

Share this post:

I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. Maya Angelou

I was in Orlando, Florida, last week for work.

I happened to be there over the weekend, so I went to church. 

My plan was to slip quietly in and out, to smile at people but not necessarily engage. 

Most of us are somewhat reluctant to say hello to people we don't know. Maybe we internalize the stranger danger training of childhood a little too much. 

And yet, when someone does say hello to us, as a few people did to me (one couple even offered me a ride when they saw me waiting for an Uber back to my hotel after the services), what initially feels like an emotional threat becomes an emotional balm instead.

With that simple hello, I felt seen. Like I belonged. And that felt good!! 

Being seen is more on my mind than usual this week because it's my birthday week. In our family, we celebrate for a week to relieve the stress of trying to create a perfect, singular day. I also get to share this birthday week with our son. He was our first child and the best birthday present, a gift that keeps on giving.

While there is a small percentage of the population that doesn't want to celebrate their birthdays, I think most people do; most people like being told, “Happy Birthday.” We like a little remembrance of the day we arrived on the planet, and for some of the people in our orbit, it was a joyous day!

When people tell me Happy Birthday, I am thrilled (so feel free!). I feel seen, I feel like I matter, I feel special.

But even though I KNOW that about myself, I have (I don't know how many times) thought, “Oh, so and so, won't care whether I wish them a happy birthday or not.”

Why wouldn't they? I have no answer to that. Of course, they would.

So, I’ve downloaded a Birthday app and started tracking people's birthdays. It's very ad hoc, and I am confident I am missing many, possibly yours. As an action, acknowledging birthdays seems like a little thing for me to do, but big to others: I can make them feel seen and a little special. All the small things cumulatively help us feel like we matter and belong.

But in fact, it’s big to me too. It means I’m trying to be more open to my fellow humans, and that’s significant growth I want for myself.

Is there a person (or two) that isn’t on your birthday list that you could add and start wishing a happy birthday? AKA, people who you are going to start “seeing” more than you presently do?

This week's podcast guest is Jason Feifer, CEO of Entrepreneur magazine and author of the book Build For Tomorrow

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


We had an interesting conversation about change and how he thinks about it, among other things. There are a lot of great takeaways, including identifying and thinking about your governing question. I know I had an important a-ha.

As always, thanks for being here.

My best,
Whitney

Share this post:

285. Jason Feifer: Want to Succeed? Be Adaptable

Share this post:

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).

Continued below…

Subscribe on iTunes
Subscribe on Stitcher
Subscribe on Spotify
Subscribe on Google Play
OTHER WAYS TO ENJOY THIS POST:

Listen to the episode in the player below or download and enjoy it on Apple Podcasts. If you found this or other episodes of Disrupt Yourself useful, please leave us a review!

Share this post:

Contact Us

Fill out this form and we will follow up to create a customized plan to help you build a smart growth organization.

Media & Press Inquiries

including requesting Whitney as a guest on your podcast

Media & Press Inquiries arrow_forward

Gain insight into growth, adaptability and agility

Download our free resources outlining the Accelerants of Growth—including books, podcasts and TEDtalks to help you move up your S Curve of Learning.