Posts tagged leadership
Rookie startup mistakes with Dream Teams author and Contently co-Founder Shane Snow
SHANE SNOW instagram white border.png

Shane Snow and his Contently Co-Founders had a booming business- that almost completely crashed after they found themselves strapped for cash and struggling to meet payroll. Plus the nutritional bang-for-the buck of popular diets, including the Keto diet and ramen noodles. 

 

In Shane’s money story you will learn:

-How he and his partners overlooked a key metric as they grew their business, Contently

-The importance of cash flow vs receivables

-The solution the company came up with that saved them, when they only had 2 weeks of cash left on hand

-How the experience impacted Shane’s personal financial plans and habits

In Shane’s money lesson you will learn:

-To pay attention to revenue, but also when it received as well as the net profit

-How to apply his business lessons to your personal financial life

In Shane’s every day money tip you will learn:

-Why Shane made a nutritional change for health and efficiency

-The financial benefits that came along with the experiment

In my take you will learn:

-Why reading at least a book a week is a habit of many successful people

-My advice on how to read a book a week, starting with Shane Snow’s “Dream Teams” 

-How removing every day decisions, like food and clothing choices, can free up your mind to be more focused on other things

Episode Links

Learn more about Shane Snow at shanesnow.com

Buy (and Review!)  Shane’s book “Dream Teams” 

Buy Shane’s book “Smart Cuts

Follow Shane!

Twitter: @shanesnow

LinkedIn ShanedSnow

Instagram: @ManEatingRobot

To win one of the promo video’s you see- be sure to share them on social media when you see them on my feeds!

Twitter @bobbirebell

Instagram @bobbirebell1

Facebook: Bobbi Rebell

Want to share your money story? Write to us and tell us about it at info@financialgrownup.com


Transcription

Shane Snow:
We made this enormous mistake that almost killed the company a year or so into the business. We looked at our bank account and realized that we had two weeks of cash left.

Bobbi Rebell:
You're listening to Financial Grown Up, with me, Certified Financial Planner, Bobbi Rebell, author of How To Be a Financial Grownup. And you know what? Being a grown up is really hard, especially when it comes to money. But it's okay, we're going to get there together. I'm going to bring you one money story from a financial grownup, one lesson, and then my take on how you can make it your own. We got this.

Bobbi Rebell:
Close call for our guest but, spoiler alert, they did escape that near-death experience. The company, Contently. The voice you were hearing was co-founder, Shane Snow, who just released his latest book, Dream Teams. Before we get to more about Shane and the book, a quick welcome to our new listeners and welcome back to those who are returning. We try to keep our episodes to just around 15 minutes because we know you guys are so busy, but you can also, of course, binge if you're a commuter or you just have a little bit more time some days. The idea is that you invest the time and get an inspiring money story from a high achiever that gives you value and you also get an everyday money tip that you can put to work in your life or your work, right away.

Bobbi Rebell:
All right, you're going to get that here. Shane Snow is an entrepreneur, a journalist, an author, so much more. I wanted to have him on to talk about his most recent bestseller and that is, Dream Teams: Working Together Without Falling Apart. It's tough to get along, teams are hard. It's sometimes just easier to work alone and he talks a lot about that. Shane jokes that he hates business books, but this book is really more about people and stories and things that we can really integrate into our own lives. I learned a lot of things about history and the world that I thought I knew about, but there were nuances that people have never really shared publicly. And Shane is a master at research and revealing the full story when we didn't even know that we had part of the story. Here is Shane Snow.

Bobbi Rebell:
Hey, Shane Snow. You're a financial grownup, welcome to the podcast.

Shane Snow:
Thank you, I feel like a grownup.

Bobbi Rebell:
You're definitely a grownup, you have so many accomplishments. The latest one, and we're going to get to all of them later but the latest one is your new book, Dream Teams: Working Together Without Falling Apart. And you've had quite a week promoting it, lots of accolades. Congrats.

Shane Snow:
Thank you. Yeah, it's been a lot, a long journey.

Bobbi Rebell:
And it's basically of stories about how different teams work together, and often don't work together.

Shane Snow:
Yes, it's about that paradox. That normally group work is much, much harder than we think it's going to be, to the point that actually working by yourself is often more productive than group work. And yet sometimes we change the world when we work together.

Bobbi Rebell:
And one thing that changed the world is your company that you started eight years ago, part of team, you're a co-founder. Tell us about the company. And your money story has to do with what happened when you weren't really watching all the numbers, just some of the numbers.

Shane Snow:
Yeah. So the company started about eight years ago. The business model changed, it grew into something-

Bobbi Rebell:
And the name of the company is?

Shane Snow:
Contently.

Bobbi Rebell:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Shane Snow:
And it grew into a much bigger business than we thought it would, which is great. And initially the first piece of the business that we build was this marketplace for getting freelance journalists and photographers work and getting them paid. And a lot of the clients were brands, so it was this new branded content marketing thing. So Pepsi wants to hire some reporters to go cover a conference and write about it for their blog, that sort of thing.

Shane Snow:
So what happened, we started getting excited because the business was working. We're getting lots of work for these journalists and lots of clients, and we made this enormous mistake that almost killed the company a year or so into the business. We were looking at all the money that our clients were on the hook for paying us and realized that we had this runway for six months before we would need to raise money from investors again, or maybe figure out how to get profitable by then. So things were going great, but we then looked at our bank account and realized that we had two weeks of cash left. Nobody had been paying attention to cash flow. The fact that we actually pay these creative people who do the work for the clients and the clients take a long time to pay us, basically we were floating all of this money. And nobody had bothered to ... We didn't have a finance person, we were a start up.

Bobbi Rebell:
So basically there was a lag between the receivables and the cash that you were actually paying out.

Shane Snow:
Yes.

Bobbi Rebell:
You were basically acting like a bank.

Shane Snow:
Yeah. And the more successful we were, the worse it got. And so thank god someone checked and we were like, "Oh, no. We have two weeks left before we literally got out of business because of this problem." And so we founders cut our salaries so that we could put that toward payroll for our employees and we just sort of prayed for a miracle. And the miracle did come, but basically we asked our customers if they'd be willing to pay us upfront for what they excepted to be paying these freelancers. And basically everyone said yes and then we actually got a positive cash float, like a cash carry I guess?

Bobbi Rebell:
Yeah.

Shane Snow:
Where our cash flow was so good that we could grow the company even better. But that was just sort of this miracle. Also we-

Bobbi Rebell:
Well, you worked together as a team. You worked together as a team and figured it out, right?

Shane Snow:
Right. Yeah.

Bobbi Rebell:
And investors.

Shane Snow:
Yes, yeah. We asked the clients if they would do that and they all said yes and we got our investors to sort of float us for a few more weeks. But I learned this as sort of a personal lesson, that even through it's sort of obvious, that cash flow can kill you basically. And so I've started paying a lot more attention to my cash flow and my personal finances, as a result of this.

Bobbi Rebell:
So what is the lesson for our listeners, regarding your money story?

Shane Snow:
Pay attention to all of the numbers, not just the fun ones. The profit number and their income, that's the funnest number, but you really need to pay attention to-

Bobbi Rebell:
Well, it's really not profit, it was revenue was coming.

Shane Snow:
Right.

Bobbi Rebell:
The revenue.

Shane Snow:
[inaudible 00:06:20].

Bobbi Rebell:
Yes.

Shane Snow:
Right. The revenue number, exactly. But even in your personal finances I think, paying attention to just the salary number is not actually the one to pay attention to. And when you're getting money in and when you're paying money out is sometimes more important.

Bobbi Rebell:
I want to get to your everyday money tip because this is a really good one. I am personally very curious about this because I keep hearing about this and it's a little bit experimental. But let me let you tell it, go ahead.

Shane Snow:
Okay. So I really like doing personal experiments and gonzo journalism, so one time for GQ I ate only this "healthy", in quotes, ice cream for ten days and lost a bunch of weight. And anyways, so I like doing stuff like that. And there's this stuff called Soylent that came out maybe five, six years ago, that's basically like a meal replacement drink, kind of like the goop on the Matrix. It's not supposed to taste like really anything and it's supposed to have everything your body needs.

Bobbi Rebell:
Pure efficiency.

Shane Snow:
Exactly. And the guy who made it, I actually interviewed him about it years ago. The guy who made it, his reason for doing it was so that he wouldn't have to think about cooking or food. It sounds like the most boring thing ever, he was like, "I don't want to think about food, so I made this replacement food." It's interesting. But there's a version of it, I think a competitive company, called Ketolent, which is that, it's like a drink that instead of eating food you just drink this drink all day. And it's chocolate flavored, which is more delicious, but it also puts you in ketosis, which is like a low-carb basically, where your metabolism changes and it's very good for-

Bobbi Rebell:
Are you hungry?

Shane Snow:
No. So that's the thing is ketosis, it changes your metabolism. So that instead of burning basically sugar, it burns lipids, fat, and that's a much more stable energy source. The upside of this, so I started doing this for working out and it's good for blood sugar levels and all that, but the upside of drinking Ketolent instead of food is it's a lot cheaper than going to lunch every day. And you know, you need to take like-

Bobbi Rebell:
Do you eat it for every meal? Is it like a full on thing?

Shane Snow:
Yeah. I mix up two big bottles of it every day. Like on weekends, I'll go to brunch, you can't do it every day or you'd go out of your mind. But you eat it every day or-

Bobbi Rebell:
And how much does it cost?

Shane Snow:
It ends up being something like eight buck a day. If you want to do the pre-mixed ones, which is even more convenient, then it's a little bit more but it's still ... It actually reminds me, I had this friend, one of my best friends in the world, in college he was trying to micro-optimize calories for percent, or whatever, in his diet. And he figured out this optimum combination of oatmeal and rice and he was miserable but he saved so much money.

Bobbi Rebell:
People stereotype that people that want to save money, they eat only ramen noodles while they're paying down their debt. I wonder what the nutritional value per serving, per cost, is for ramen noodles versus this keto diet and all the other diets. That's just, I don't know, interesnting.

Shane Snow:
Yeah. Well, getting it right, because you don't want your brain to not function.

Bobbi Rebell:
Right.

Shane Snow:
I imagine that eating only ramen noodles is very bad also for your digestion I bet.

Bobbi Rebell:
All right, wait. Let's talk about your book.

Shane Snow:
Okay.

Bobbi Rebell:
Because I'm obsessed, I literally meant to just read enough to kind of get through the interview but I read the whole thing. I spent a little over four hours, you spent four years writing Dream Teams. One of my many favorite things about this is that it's almost like a suspense thriller because it told these stories where there's always these zingers at the end of each story.

Shane Snow:
Yeah. So I wanted to explore that paradox, that we say that two heads are better than one and, yeah, all of these things that you just said. And it turns out that research shows that's usually not true, and anyone that has worked in a group project at school knows that sometimes it's much easier to just do it on your own rather than in the group. And the bigger a team gets in business, the slower things get, the more communication is a pain, but there's all sorts of other psychology that basically says that group dynamics get in the way of productivity and progress. And so I wanted to explore that and kind of what does science and research tell us about our common conceptions about working together, so that we can actually fulfill that promise of becoming better than the sum of our parts.

Shane Snow:
So it's a non-fiction, science, and business book, essentially. But I hate business books and I-

Bobbi Rebell:
Well, I don't feel like this seems like a business book because you have everywhere from Wu-tang Clan ... Did I say that right?

Shane Snow:
Yeah, you did.

Bobbi Rebell:
The Russian hockey team, which, by the way, there's a zinger in there that I did not know. This whole miracle on ice with the US team.

Shane Snow:
Oh, yeah.

Bobbi Rebell:
I don't know if people knew what really happened on the Russian side but let's not spoil it for them, but you gotta read that one.

Shane Snow:
Okay.

Bobbi Rebell:
The Wright Brothers, the importance of play in being successful, and why a lot of mergers fail. And even you've got George Takei in there and how pop culture and people seeing things be normal changed our cultural expectations.

Shane Snow:
Well, thank you. What I wanted to do is talk about these things and the real research and the real science that can change our minds and, in some cases, blow our minds, about this. But I wanted to do it through stories that are fun, even if you don't care about the lessons. That for me, I wanted to write the kind of book that I would like to read, which would be more cinematic with surprises and twists and stories that I was excited enough to learn about that I would actually want to write about them too. So I'm glad that ... It is a nice compliment that you got through it so fast and enjoyed the stories.

Bobbi Rebell:
I think everyone will get through it so fast and then they can read your previous book, Smartcuts, so it's all good. So Shane, tell us where people can find out more about you and where they can follow you on social media, because I know your selective in your social media.

Shane Snow:
I'm pretty selective in my social media. So shanesnow.com has links to everything. And well, anyone that's listening to your podcast, I can give them my Instagram. It's not Shane Snow, it's maneatingrobot.

Bobbi Rebell:
Of course.

Shane Snow:
Yeah, of course. It's self-explanatory, I think.

Bobbi Rebell:
Of course.

Shane Snow:
I actually really like maneatingrobot because depending on the punctuation it's either a man eating a robot or it's a robot eating a man.

Bobbi Rebell:
Okay. I have to about about that.

Shane Snow:
Man, eating robot.

Bobbi Rebell:
Ah, ah. I'm a little slow on the uptake. All right, Shane. Thank you so much, this has been great.

Shane Snow:
Thank you for having me.

Bobbi Rebell:
And congratulations on the book and all your success.

Shane Snow:
I appreciate it.

Bobbi Rebell:
Wow, pretty rare to go from bad cash flow management at start ups to the financial versus nutritional value of keto diets and ramen noodles. Bu there you have it, the wonderful Shane Snow, so much fun.

Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grownup tip number one. In Shane's book, Dream Teams, Shane has a lot of data. One of the data points that he talks about is statistics linking the fact that the most successful people in the world are also what I would call intentional readers, meaning they read at least a book a week and make a point of it. They really carve that time out of their day to make sure that they read because that's where they feel that they learn about the world and become interesting people. You're busy, I'm busy, we're all busy, but they're busy and they find time. I'm right there with you, I know it's hard, but try an experiment, maybe with Shane's book. I read it on my Kindle and it said, for example, that it would be over five hours, but because there were so many notes from Shane's research at the end it was really maybe four and a half, let's say.

Bobbi Rebell:
So this week, this is my challenge to you guys, pick up Dream Teams, you can do it with another book but Dream Teams was good. On your calendar, block 45 minutes either early morning or before bedtime, do it before you turn on the TV, before you reach for the phone and start going through social media, set it an alarm, book it as an appointment in whatever you use to book your appointments. By dedicating 45 minutes-ish, a night, for the week, you'll be done by the end of the week and you'll probably have some interesting takeaways from the book as well and feel like you really got value from that time, versus just mindlessly scrolling through your feeds on your social media. Maybe then go write a nice review for Shane, authors love reviews. I love reviews, you could write a review for the podcast too. But consider making it a habit to go through and read a book a week, once you do it, you might really enjoy it and it'll stick and it'll be a great thing adding to your life.

Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grownup tip number two. Shane talked about how his keto-loving friend liked the idea of not having to think about what to eat, it just removed a decision. So removing decisions that are discretionary is something that a lot of leaders do. Consider that, maybe have the same breakfast every day, or buy all the same socks. Whatever it is that removes a decision, that removes having to do that one more thing each day. My son's school, for example, next year has uniforms, so that's going to be a new thing for us. He's pretty good in the mornings anyway, but it's going to be interesting to see how removing the decision of what to wear in the morning impacts his morning routine and, in turn, impacts my morning routine.

Bobbi Rebell:
On that note, we hope that you are making Financial Grownup part of your routine. If you like the promo videos that you see on social media, share them, you may even win one for your company or yourself. And just tell a friend if you like the show, and let them know so we can grow our community. If you want to be a guest, you have a great money story or money tip you want to share, tell us by emailing at info@gfinancialgrownup.com, that's info@financialgrownup.com, and you may be a guest on the show. Follow us on Twitter @bobbirebell, on Instagram @bobbirebell1, and on Facebook I am @bobbirebell.

Bobbi Rebell:
Shane Snow has come a long way from his cash flow crunch, so thank you Shane for helping us all get one step closer to being financial grownups.

Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grownup, with Bobbi Rebell, is edited and produced by Steve Stewart and is a BRK Media Production.

How a 10 percent goal got "Build an A Team" and "Disrupt Yourself"'s Whitney Johnson to disrupt her entire life
Whitney Johnson instagram white border.png

 

Whitney Johnson, author of "Disrupt Yourself” and her new book “Build an A Team” finds out from her financial planner that her overspending is impacting her ability to tithe 10 percent and support her church. She and her family plan a self-disruption, downsizing their life so they can deploy their money in a more intentional way. 

 

In Whitney’s story you will learn

-How a phone call from Whitney’s financial planner got Whitney’s attention about her finances

-Why Whitney was not going to be able to reach her financial goals, despite a relatively high income

-The shifts that Whitney made in terms of her spending and savings habits

-How her ties to her church and her belief in God inspire her financial planning

-How she spends differently as an entrepreneur compared to her previous career working on Wall Street

-Her belief that money is meant to be a servant, not a master

-How she uses money to support her values

 

In Whitney’s lesson you will learn:

-Every tie you spend money you are voting on the kind of world you want

-The importance of modeling financial spending for your children

 

In Whitney’s money tip you will learn:

-Ways to teach kids about investing

-How to buy fractions of a share of stock

-Whitney recommends an app called Stockpile

-How Whitney looks to the theories of Peter Lynch and advocates buying what you know and use and value, and to couple your investing behavior with your consumer behavior. 

 

In my take you will learn:

-How allowing your values to guide your financial life can be rewarding

-Why disrupting your life to better align it with your financial values is something people at any income level should consider

-How you can be pro-active in taking down barriers for your bosses, to create better odds of them giving a green light to your goals

-How I got my bosses to allow me to work a 4-day week for years, by removing barriers and creating solutions before I approached them. 

Episode Links

Twitter - @johnsonwhitney

Facebook - facebook.com/johnsonwhitneyauthor

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/whitneyjohnson/

Get Whitney’s new book: Build an A Team: Play to Their Strengths and Lead Them Up the Learning Curve. Free chapter download available at https://whitneyjohnson.com/ateam

Stockpile

 

Transcription

Bobbi Rebell:
Support for Financial Grownup with Bobbi Rebell and the following message come from TransferWise, the cheaper way to send money internationally. TransferWise takes a machete to the hefty fees that come with sending money abroad. Test it out for free at transferwise.com/podcast, or download the app.

Whitney Johnson:
"I tithe, I pay 10% of our gross income to God, to our church," and he was just like, "Okay, you've got a problem here because this isn't going to happen in addition to some of your other financial goals that you have." That was a really important wake-up call for me.

Bobbi Rebell:
You're listening to Financial Grownup with me, certified financial planner Bobbi Rebell, author of How to Be a Financial Grownup, but you know what? Being a grownup is really hard, especially when it comes to money, but it's okay. We're going to get there together. I'm going to bring you one money story from a financial grownup, one lesson, and then my take on how you can make it your own. We got this.

Bobbi Rebell:
Hey, friends. Well, despite the clip you heard at the top of this episode, today's podcast is not about religion, but it is about values, and leveraging your money and your financial resources to support what you and your family believe in. Whitney Johnson's new book is called Build an A-Team: Play to Their Strengths and Lead Them Up the Learning Curve. She is also the author of the bestseller Disrupt Yourself: Putting the Power of Disruptive Innovation to Work, and she hosts, you get the theme here, the Disrupt Yourself Podcast.

Bobbi Rebell:
In this case, the story that she's going to share, Whitney disrupted her entire family life, downsizing everything to get to her financial goals and to have the financial resources to support what she and her family value. She lives what she preaches. Here is Whitney Johnson. Whitney Johnson, you are a financial grownup. Welcome to the podcast.

Whitney Johnson:
Thank you for having me, Bobbi.

Bobbi Rebell:
First of all, I do want to congratulate you on your new book. It is Build an A-Team and we're going to talk more about that going forward, but just high level, what's it about?

Whitney Johnson:
Build an A-Team is about helping you as a manager build a team that can manage through change, that can be innovative and high performing, and the key is to let your people learn. When you allow them to learn, leap, and repeat, they are engaged and therefore happy, they love coming to work, they're more productive, and they love working for you, so you become a great place to work and a boss people love.

Bobbi Rebell:
That's great. For your money story, though, we're going talk about you and your team, which includes your husband and includes your financial planner, and an incident that happened when you got a call from your financial planner. You weren't achieving a goal that was really important to you. Tell us your money story.

Whitney Johnson:
Yeah. This happened about 15 years ago. I got a call from my financial planner and he said to me, "You are spending way too much money." It was really a wake-up call for me, because I was having the conversation with him of like, "I tithe, I pay 10% of our gross income to God, to our church," and he was just like, "Okay, you've got a problem here because this isn't going to happen in addition to some of your other financial goals that you have." That was a really important wake-up call for me, that I really needed to think about, "Okay, it's really great that you can earn lots of money, but you have to also basically manage your money and not just think about what you're earning. You have to also think about what you're spending and spend less than you're actually earning." That was a really important lesson for me and really started to shift how I was thinking about money, not only what I was earning, but also what I was saving.

Bobbi Rebell:
What was important to you was that 10%. I want to pick up on that, because in your heart one of the things that you really prioritize is giving to causes that you believe in, to religious causes, to God, as you say. That was really your priority and you weren't able to accomplish that, or you would not have been able to continue to accomplish that if you didn't change your ways.

Whitney Johnson:
Absolutely. It's such a great point because when I was thinking about the fact that I wasn't managing my money, a lot of times it was exactly to causes or people or things that I cared about, so it's not like I was being profligate, and yet if I didn't manage my money, those things that were deeply important to me, education for my children, et cetera, were not going to be a possibility, and that was a very important wake-up call for me.

Bobbi Rebell:
Were there things that you could pull out that you were able to change? What did you do to pivot from there?

Whitney Johnson:
I had become an entrepreneur at this point and I was still spending like I wasn't an entrepreneur. I was still working on Wall Street, and so one of the things that we did is we made some really tough decisions. Over the next year, we decided to downsize and to sell our house, and to really pare back on how we were spending our money in that interim so that we could still buy the things that mattered to us, but then also undertake these entrepreneurial ventures that were also important to us.

Bobbi Rebell:
And maintain a culture and a family life and setting an example, for the rest of your family, of giving.

Whitney Johnson:
Absolutely, 100%, because that is a high, high priority for me and for my husband and for our entire family, is to be able to give to others.

Bobbi Rebell:
So what is the lesson for our listeners from that?

Whitney Johnson:
Most of us have a pretty ... not most, many, probably including myself, have a fairly froth relationship with money. We're like, "Is it good? Is it bad?" And it's not either, and so a couple of lessons that I've learned is that money is meant to be a servant, not a master, and that I, and this is a gradual lesson that I've been learning throughout my life, is to remember that that's the case. And that also the more money we're able to not only earn, but the more we extend our ability to do good beyond our physical presence, and so those are becoming mantras for me, but really guiding principles in terms of how I think about money saving tactically day-to-day, and spending, I should say, as well.

Bobbi Rebell:
And the importance of not only thinking about growing your business and buying things, but also the values that money can help you support.

Whitney Johnson:
Absolutely. I mean, one of the things, there was a quote that I remember reading probably about seven or eight years ago now, which is really, again, a bit of a watchword for me. It was Anna Lappé and she said that every time you spend money, you're voting on the kind of world that you want. That has been a really powerful thing for me. One, a dollar, $10, what kind of world am I saying I want with this money that I've just spent or allocated to whatever I allocated it to? That's just a really important thing to me and something that we're trying to instill in our children as well.

Bobbi Rebell:
You also have a wonderful money tip, and this is great especially when you talk about children. It's always hard to teach children to invest because sometimes stocks are really expensive and you can't always buy. I can think of Berkshire Hathaway, obviously as the most extreme example perhaps, but a lot of stocks, they don't split and they're very expensive to buy individual stocks. They just start buying 100 shares of a stock, so talk to me about your money tip, because it has to do with investing. It's something that is often applicable when children want to start learning about investing.

Whitney Johnson:
Yeah. One of the really wonderful boons of the last couple of years is you can buy fractional shares. You don't have to buy 100 shares. You don't even have to buy 10 shares. You can buy a half a share. There's something called Stockpile, stockpile.com, that you can go on there and say, "Okay, I want to spend $300," and so you can spend $300 on Apple or $300 on Tesla. Or just to other day for my son, for his birthday, he wanted to buy Spotify, and so I was like, "Okay, $300. We'll buy some Spotify stock." I don't actually know how much it costs, but you can buy a half a share, a quarter of a share, a tenth of a share, but it's just based on how much money you want to spend.

Whitney Johnson:
So it's a great way to start investing in the stock market and really building on an idea that Peter Lynch pioneered 20, 30 years ago now, which is to buy what it is you know and use and value, and couple your investing behavior with your consumer behavior, and fractional shares, and Stockpile specifically, allows you to do that.

Bobbi Rebell:
Wonderful. All right. Let's talk about your new book because it is coming out pretty much now. It's called Build an A-Team. It's a follow up to Disrupt Yourself, which was a huge, huge hit and relatable to so many people, especially myself, having disrupted myself in the last few years professionally. Tell me more about Build an A-Team.

Whitney Johnson:
Well, Build an A-Team came about because people had read Disrupt Yourself and said, "Okay. I get it. I got it. I'm willing to disrupt myself, but what about the people around me? How do I create an ecosystem that makes that possible?" So in Build an A-Team I make it possible for you to think about, "Okay, how do I create a workplace or an environment, a team where personal disruption is possible?" Then I flip it on its head and say, "Okay, so to you, the manager, you don't want just your people to be disputing themselves willy-nilly. What's in it for you?"

Whitney Johnson:
So I make the case that every single person is on a learning curve, including you, the manager, and you build that team that can innovate, that can manage through change by managing your team as a collection of S curves or learning curves, and optimize by having about 70% of your people in the middle at any given time, 15% at the low end, and 15% of your people at the high end. And when they get to the high of their learning curve, you allow them to disrupt themselves because by doing that, they start over that cycle of learn, leap, and repeat, and whenever people are learning, they're able to be innovative. When they're learning, they're innovative, and so you as a company can stay competitive, and because they're so happy at work, they love working for you as a boss, and so you become a talent magnet.

Bobbi Rebell:
Let me just ask you, if you are the employee, because a lot of our listeners are younger and starting out in their careers, if you are on the curve and you recognize that you're at the top of your curve, do you approach your manager and say, "I basically want a different job within the organization"? I mean, what do you do?

Whitney Johnson:
Obviously there are going to be risks in doing that. You've got to really suss out your boss. I think one of the ways that you can do that is, "Does it make sense for me to have this conversation with my boss?" What's that boss' track record? Do they have a history of people who have worked for them in the past, it's been possible for them to move on to other opportunities for which the boss advocated, that they've sponsored them into those opportunities? Then you can be pretty comfortable that having that conversation with them is a safe thing to do. You also, before you have that conversation, want to make sure that in fact you are ready to ... sometimes we overestimate our abilities. We all do it. We think we really want it, and so therefore it's time for us to have it.

Whitney Johnson:
So in having that conversation, what I would encourage you to do is go to your boss and say, "I've been in this role for about three years. It feels like I'm starting to peak and I've really hit my stride, and it's time for me to try something new, so here's what I would propose and here's the business case for why it makes sense for me to do it, because it's not just about me. It's going to help our organization be more innovative, and in the process I've identified this person over here that I think can really step into this role nicely, so you will not be left in the lurch. I will help train that successor so that they're able to continue to grow and develop. And at the same time I'm able to grow and develop as well as help our organization and our team be more innovative, and so that would be my suggestion to you."

Bobbi Rebell:
Anticipate what's going to go wrong and make sure you have a solution for every possible iteration. All right. Whitney Johnson, where can people find you?

Whitney Johnson:
You can find me at whitneyjohnson.com. If you want to email me, it's wj@whitneyjohnson.com. I would love to hear from you.

Bobbi Rebell:
And you have, by the way, a million, I heard a million LinkedIn followers.

Whitney Johnson:
I do, 1.2 million, actually, but I'm not counting.

Bobbi Rebell:
Oh my gosh. You are our hero, Whitney Johnson. I will leave all of your social media links in the show notes, but just so we have them here, Twitter, Instagram, all that stuff?

Whitney Johnson:
Yeah. Johnson Whitney, actually. It's Johnson Whitney.

Bobbi Rebell:
Okay. Good to know. Exactly. That's why we ask. All right. You're wonderful. Thank you so much, and congratulations on the new book.

Whitney Johnson:
Thank you, Bobbi, for having me.

Bobbi Rebell:
Hey, friends. Don't you feel so motivated by Whitney, like anything is possible if you know think it through and get really intentional?

Bobbi Rebell:
Financial grownup tip number one, let your values be a guide to how you want to not just spend your money, but spend your life. Whitney literally disrupted her entire life, her family downsized, and I don't have Whitney's personal financial info, but I'm guessing she does pretty well, so this is not really about income level. It's about allocation of your resources, whatever they are, to support the way you want to live your life and the role model you want to be for your family. In Whitney's case, it was about tithing to her church and other things that her family valued, like education and financial security and financial freedom.

Bobbi Rebell:
Financial grownup tip number two, get intentional about your career goals. You probably think you are, but be honest. Are you proactively doing something to remove barriers? Put yourself in your bosses' position and think about what they need to get you what you want. If you own a business, your clients are basically your bosses. Yeah, sorry, but kind of. Right? So come with solutions.

Bobbi Rebell:
When I wanted to work, for example, four days a week after having my son, I presented my bosses with the solution. My colleague, who was, fun fact, Manoush Zomorodi that many of you may know as the host of the Note to Self podcast, was also having her son. We gave birth, in fact, two days apart in the same hospital. Manoush agreed to be my Friday fill in. We presented a complete solution, and it was tough for the bosses to turn down something that was already good to go, especially with someone as wonderful as Manoush.

Bobbi Rebell:
Now Whitney is giving us the first chapter of her new book Build an A-Team: Play to Their Strengths and Lead Them Up the Learning Curve for free to download. Just go to whitneyjohnson.com/ateam and you can get that download, so start there for free and then go pick up a copy of the whole book ASAP. Build an A-Team has tons of specific examples in it that will give you a lot of aha moments of how bosses think and need to think, and it is well worth the time you will invest in reading it.

Bobbi Rebell:
Just a reminder, we are excited to start our once a month listener episode, so if you want to be a guest on Financial Grownup, email us with your money story and your money tip to info@financialgrownup.com. Make sure you are on our mailing list. Go to our website, bobbirebell.com/financialgrownuppodcast. You'll get a pop up and you can sign up. Be in touch on Twitter, @bobbirebell, and on Instagram, at bobbirebell1. Whitney Johnson gave us so much to think about. Here is to us all getting one step closer to being financial grownups.

Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grownup with Bobbi Rebell is edited and produced by Steve Stewart and is a BRK Media production.