Tomorrow, we’re excited to drop our podcast interview with writer and NYU Stern professor Jonathan Haidt, all about how the combined forces of overparenting and smartphones have completely changed childhood for an entire generation of kids. Haidt’s research is riveting and heart-wrenching in equal parts, but as you’ll find out during the episode, his message is ultimately hopeful. The numbers are terrifying to roll around in our heads, but Haidt has full faith in the light at the end of the tunnel, as long as we all work towards it.
As we prepared to release this episode, I was reminded of another talk I had with Luvvie Ajayi Jones – a Nigerian-American author and speaker. She’s featured in episode 166 if you’re curious. Luvvie and I were exploring the power of using our metaphorical (or literal) microphone. When there’s at least one person, who is listening to what we have to say, what exactly… do we want to say?
Maybe your mic looks like a podcast, or a book you’re writing, or a primetime address from the Oval Office – and maybe it’s just the conversations you have as you move about the world. Here’s a statistic for you: if you had a conversation with three new people every day, and you lived to the prime age of 73 years old, that’s 80,000 people you’ll have some influence over in your lifetime. You won’t remember every single name and face, of course, but that’s a lot of moments where we have to work out what we want to say, and what we stand for.
In my case, I’m thinking about Disrupt Yourself and the eight years I’ve been interviewing hundreds of folks. There’s what I say, the questions I ask, but I’m also using my pulpit when I decide who to interview. Even if I’m not speaking, I’m actively voting for the world I want to see. In all our interactions, long or fleeting, we’re putting forward our convictions and our hopes.
But this month’s newsletter isn’t about the specifics of what I believe—rather, I want to drive home the importance of carrying that belief into every time we step behind life’s podium. We must be who we are, wherever we are.
For me, the exemplar of that philosophy is my mentor, Clay Christensen. I’ll often get asked what I admire most about Clay. There is much to say on that, more than I can fit here. But what I admire most about him is that he never separated his secular life from his spiritual life. The two played into each other like a symbiotic relationship, reinforcing the other half – instead of tucking one or the other away to “blend in.” How often have we given in and pocketed a part of our personality when we’re given a chance to speak?
For me, Clay’s example is the aspiration and goal — that we are in touch with what we genuinely care about, the values that fuel the core of our personality, and that these show up whenever we’re behind our podium. Not just when we’re speaking, but also exemplified in who we speak to and how we listen.
If each of us has the chance to impact 80,000 people, then the person we just chatted with on the train will go on to influence more people, lives that might never intersect with our own. Because of the contagion effect, we have far more influence on the world than any of us realize we have, even during something as seemingly insignificant as a layover. When we recognize that we all have that voice and that power, it almost feels like a waste to not show up with your full self.
My best,
Whitney
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