Whitney Johnson was one of the top analysts on Wall Street. Yet when she met Clayton Christensen, she realized her fate path would lead somewhere else. As she would later write in a landmark in Harvard Business Review, she would disrupt herself and leave her top job at a Wall Street firm.

Today, Whitney is regularly ranked as one of the top 50 business thinkers in the world and is one of the most widely sought after executive coaches. Where she once climbed the ladder as a woman in the male-dominated world of Wall Street, now she focuses on empowering others to climb their own s-curve from novice to mastery.

Yet she also learned something else along the way: To truly embrace disruption, you must first find safety. It is only from a sense of security and well being that you can embrace the risks you need to reach your full potential!

Whitney’s Website: https://thedisruptionadvisors.com/

Whitney’s “Disrupt Yourself” article in Harvard Business Review: https://hbr.org/2012/07/disrupt-yourself-3

Whitney’s “Thinkers 50” profile: https://thinkers50.com/biographies/whitney-johnson/

Whitney’s latest book: https://www.amazon.com/Smart-Growth-Grow-People-Company/dp/1647821150/

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We are in the midst of an upskilling crisis. Rapid industrial changes and an increasingly competitive global environment, with countries like China and India emerging as technology superpowers, mean millions of workers need to upskill to remain economically viable.

Community colleges play a crucial role in this transformation. Aspen Award winner Russell Lowery-Hart, Chancellor of the 50,000-student Aspen Community College system, believes educators must move beyond being mere gatekeepers.

He believes that educators need to love their students to success.

If this sounds idealistic or naive, consider Russell’s impressive track record. As President of Amarillo College, he boosted completion rates from 19% to 62% in just five years. Now at Austin, he faces an even greater challenge: preparing the workforce to meet the skill demands of one of the world’s leading technology hubs.

Russell’s Biography: https://offices.austincc.edu/chancellor/biography/

About the AustinCommunity College system: https://www.austincc.edu/about-acc/

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As a professional rugby player for Europe’s top team, Aidan McCullen knew the value of showing up. He wasn’t born with the most talent, but he made sure he had the most discipline.

Yet his biggest challenge was to overcome the disruption of ending his career, to shed his rugby identity and become something else.

Today, Aidan helps some of the world’s top organisations to do the same—overcome disruption by shedding old identities to allow them to do something new and different, increasing their competitiveness and tackling new challenges.

Aidan McCullen’s website: https://aidanmccullen.com/

The Innovation Show: https://theinnovationshow.io/

Aidan’s book: https://www.amazon.com/Undisruptable-Permanent-Reinvention-Individuals-Organisations/dp/1119770483

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What do you do when you achieve your dreams…and then lose it all.

At the age of 25, Yassmin Abdel-Magied was an unbridled success. She achieved prominence at a young age, garnering awards and recognition as a teenager in Australia. She had been a successful engineer, author and TV personality. Her TED talk had millions of views and was named one of the top ten ideas of 2014.

Then it all changed in an instant. Ambushed by a Senator attacking her religion on live TV, she lost her cool and the video went viral. That was followed by a few ill-advised words on her personal Facebook page and suddenly she was a pariah. Vilified by Internet trolls and hounded by death threats, she left the only country she had ever really known.

Her shaming was so complete that her name became a verb. To be Yassmin-ed in Australia today means to be “canceled” as a woman of color. Yet she didn’t let it break her. She moved to London, continued to write and became a global force for inclusion, inspiring others to overcome adversity that the world so often subjects so many.

Yassmin’s website: https://www.yassminam.com/

Yassmin’s TED talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/yassmin_abdel_magied_what_does_my_headscarf_mean_to_you?subtitle=en

Send us your questions at: questions@ChangemakerMindset.net

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Every successful changemaker thrives on connection. It is their ability to connect to different people, places and institutions that makes it that much more likely that they will come across that seemingly random piece of information or insight that helps to crack a really tough problem.

Nobody personifies that more than Robert C. Wolcott. As Co-Founder & Chairman of The World Innovation Network (TWIN), he leads a global community of 4,000 innovation and growth leaders from over 30 countries that meet and connect to tackle some of the world’s toughest problems. It is through these connections that Rob formed the vision that became his new book, Proximity.

Rob is one of the most talented and engaging people you can imagine and we learned a lot from our conversation with him. We know you will too.

Links:

Robs biography: https://www.twinglobal.org/twin-global/speakers/robert-c-wolcott

Rob’s LinkedIn Page: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-c-wolcott-4a624a/

The World Innovation Network (TWIN): https://www.twinglobal.org/

Proximity: How Coming Breakthroughs in Just-in-Time Transform Business, Society, and Daily Life: Www.proximitybook.net

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Alister Martin's Journey To Make The World Just A Little Bit More Fair

When human potential is wasted, we all lose something.

Most people who look at Alister Martin’s resume would assume he’s led a charmed life. A medical doctor as well as a White House fellow, he holds dual appointments on the faculty of Harvard Medical School and Harvard Medical School, he excels in just about every way you can imagine. He even has a mean tennis serve.

Yet his life has not been charmed, at least not in the ways most people would imagine. He grew up rough, he had struggles and his life very nearly went sideways. He also had some luck, had some good mentors, was able to push through and make it. Many of those he grew up with did not.

Struggle and hardship can make people feel bitter. Some, once they make it to the top, want to pull the ladder up behind them. But Alister feels a sense of gratitude and responsibility to those who got left behind and works to help the ones that still have a chance at a better life.

So he established his organization, A Healthier Democracy, to leverage the healthcare system to deliver crucial services to people in marginalized communities. One of these, Vote-ER, has helped almost 100,000 people to register to vote at over 700 facilities.

See the impact that Alister is making at the websites below:

A Healthier Democracy: https://ahealthierdemocracy.org/

Vot-ER: https://vot-er.org/

His LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alister-martin-41b1369a/

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How Stephen Shapiro Turned Away From Downsizing And Started Helping Companies Grow

Stephen Shapiro was a superstar. With an Ivy League degree and a hot job at a big consulting form, he spent most days jet-setting around the world, re-engineering business processes to help firms become more productive and efficient.

He liked the work, and he was good at it. Then one day a news story changed his path. A project he had worked on had resulted in 10,000 layoffs and there, on the TV, he saw first-hand how the executives' lives were still shattered a year later.

Steve was devastated. He took a 6-month leave of absence during which he made a decision: He would no longer help companies shrink, he would help them grow.

https://stephenshapiro.com/

https://www.amazon.com/Pivotal-Creating-Stability-Uncertain-World-ebook/dp/B0CW1C6HKX

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