Renowned business thinker, world-class lecturer, and bestselling author Whitney Johnson spoke on learning, growth, and self-innovation as she delivered the spring 2023 Presidential Lecture at Utah Valley University on Feb. 16.
Renowned business thinker, world-class lecturer, and bestselling author Whitney Johnson spoke on learning, growth, and self-innovation as she delivered the spring 2023 Presidential Lecture at Utah Valley University on Feb. 16.
Throughout her remarks, Johnson shared what she calls “the S curve of learning,” a model that outlines three stages of learning: launch point, sweet spot, and mastery.
“Learning is the oxygen of human growth,” she said. “If you stay [at mastery] for too long, your plateau will become a precipice. What do you do? You keep climbing. You jump to a new curve. Slow, fast, slow. This is a model of what growth looks like.”
Johnson pointed to how the S curve graph resembles an ocean wave, remarking that waves form when energy transfers from wind to water.
“What’s interesting is that the water doesn’t actually travel with the wave; the water just moves up and down,” Johnson said. “It’s the energy that travels, and it’s the same with every individual. Whenever you start something new, you're at the bottom of the wave, and there's very little energy; but with the friction — the challenge — the energy builds until it peaks or crests and eventually crashes.”
Disrupting yourself, she said, is the way one can build momentum along the curve. Her five self-disruption techniques included:
“Personal disruption is a process of deliberate self-innovation,” Johnson said. “When you disrupt yourself, you step back from who you are to slingshot into who you want to be.”
Of “showing up to the messiness,” Johnson urged listeners not to shy away from learning experiences because they are awkward, uncomfortable, or frustrating.
“When we don’t show up to the messiness, when we try to make decisions prematurely, when we don’t spend the time there to explore — that’s how you get the quarter-life crisis. That’s how you get the midlife crisis. We make decisions that aren’t necessarily the best.”
The second self-disruption Johnson prescribed was to “face the bear” or one’s anxieties.
“Your brain has an important job,” she said. “Its job is how to make sure that you don't die. Which means that every time you feel anxious … it feels like there's a bear 50 feet away. Your brain is saying ‘run away.’ If you run away, you will be safe. So, what do you do? You avoid. You avoid writing the paper. You avoid taking the test. You avoid applying for the job. And then [your brain] rewards you. It says, ‘Good job. You escaped.’”
Johnson encouraged viewers to get the help they needed in managing feelings of debilitating anxiety.
“Emotions can’t hurt you, but not dealing with them can,” she said.
In “using your words,” Johnson pointed to a Stanford study that showed that self-identifying phrases like “I am a voter” were more impactful than verb phrases like “I vote.”
“You can use [these words] to change your identity,” she said.
Johnson recommended all students “get coached” and reach out to their professors to mentor them.
“If you were to poll … every single professor in this room, they will say they want to make a difference for you,” Johnson said. “That is why they are here. You might feel uncomfortable asking them for help, but when you do, you help them feel like they're making a difference.”
Her final disruption, “mark the moment,” called upon everyone to celebrate the growth and development they’ve already achieved.
“Celebration draws a symbolic line between the old and the new. It’s a marker for just how much you’ve grown,” Johnson said
Johnson concluded her remarks by stating her unequivocal conviction that human potential is limitless.
“Growth is our default setting,” she said. “We're wired to grow. Human growth is unbounded. And the more we grow, the more we can grow.”
Johnson is the CEO of Disruption Advisors, a leadership development company that helps companies grow their businesses through their people.
