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Understand the human motivations behind groundbreaking business decisions with host Amy Keene.

Listen to The Closer,cast from Harvard Business Review. I'm Sarah Green Carmichael. Today I'm

talking with Whitney Johnson frequent HBO contributor and author of the new book

Disrupt Yourself. She's also the author of-R magazine article of the same name.

Whitney, thank you so much for talking with us today.

Thank you, it's great to be here.

So Whitney, when you first started writing for Harvard Business Review about

disruption, you were still at Clay Christensen's investment

from Rose Park Advisors and now you're still an investor but you're leading a

very different career as a speaker, author, coach. This kind of big transition is

really at the core of the themes in the book and I thought before we dive into that book I thought you could tell us a bit about your own career path and how it led you to think about careers differently?

Sure, absolutely.

Well, my career path actually started 25 years ago.

I had arrived in New York with my husband back in 1989 so that he could get his PhD at Columbia.

I had really gone there to be with him.

I would never have gone to New York on my own and I, as I arrived in New York I decided because I was a music major

that I was going to work on Wall Street the absolute obvious choice and so I

started as a as a secretary working for a retail sales broker because I never set foot in a business course. I had no connections in New York and really just didn't have much confidence.

And so as I started working on Wall Street, this was 1989. It was an

exciting time to be in New York. You had bonfire of the vanities and Liars poker and

working girl and I just got swept up and decided you know what I want to work on Wall Street I don't want just a job I want to work here and so I started taking business courses at night and then I had a boss who was willing to sponsor me that allowed me to move

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