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Steve is president, special counsel to the CEO of Comcast Cable. He works with executives on a number of important initiatives, including leadership development, strategic planning, diversity, equality, and inclusion
A podcast to disrupt common narratives and constructs to empower diverse communities. We provide inspirational content from entrepreneurs and leaders who are disrupting the status quo.
So you want to learn more
about living an uncompromising life
and following your why,
make sure you tune in
for the Disruption Now.
We're going to talk more about it
with our special guest, Steve White
listen on the other side
All right, welcome back, everybody.
Disruption Now
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But without any further ado,
Steve White is
one of our is our guest here
that we're going to talk more
about his book Uncompromising.
We're also going to talk
about his experience
from being from the projects
literally to the C-suite.
And we're going to talk
about his experience
and everything in between.
Steve, how are you doing, man?
Good Rob
Thanks for having me.
I'm so glad to be here with you today.
Look, we are very glad to
have you on,
so we definitely want
to dive into your book
and many other things
and about your lessons
and really talk about your upcoming book
and things.
You want people to know about that.
But before we get into that
and the specifics of that,
I'd like to learn
a little more about you.
So
as it's talked about on your website, you
you literally grew up in the projects
and then
you now reach the
highest levels of success
when it comes to
the American Pie,
the American Dream,
you have achieved that .
But I want I want to take your I want.
I want to take you back to.
Your youth when you're there,
you're in the projects and. And
you're going through whatever
is whatever is going through your mind
at that time, I want you to think,
think about that young man.
What advice
would you give your younger self
knowing everything you know now?
And what advice
would you ignore that was given to you?
Well, Rob, first of all, great question.
Unfortunately, like a lot of young kids,
single mother raised
four boys by herself.
She was 29 years old
when she decided to leave
my father, who was. We lived in Florida.
Certainly that was not a popular decision
with me or my three brothers.
But guess what?
She did not run a democratic household,
there was one sheriff in town,
and we did what we were told.
But the advice that I learned
because we started supporting her,
she was a hotel maid.
I'm sorry.
Motel maid
and then she became a high school janitor
for 35 years,
and this is a motel with the M,
not a hotel with an H, a motel.
There's no spa. There's no elevator.
You pull your car right up to the door.
So we're talking about the absolute
bottom of the food chain.
But what I learned in those motels,
some of the advice that I got is
there are only two things
you can control Rob your effort and attitude.
I'm going to outwork you.
And then from an attitude standpoint,
I'm not going to be a victim.
Although the circumstances around me
might say, Steve, you're a victim.
You could give in to that.
Everybody would understand
that you're a victim.
But when you can talk to yourself
and convince yourself
that there are opportunities out there
while difficult opportunities are there.
So that is the advice that I got.
You can control two things your effort
and your attitude.
If you stay in control
of those two things,
then great things will happen.
And then the advice
that we received
that I don't listen to anymore is
you can't do it
because when my mother made
that difficult decision.
Family members said
they're not going to amount to anything
these kids need a father,
and I agree
every child needs two parents,
but guess what?
That was not the situation.
And when people tell you
that you can't accomplish something,
you ignored them.
But here's the piece, Rob
I want to highlight for that.
I started competing
against what people were saying,
so I was saying, I'm
going to prove to you
that I'm better than that.
And that is the wrong thing.
I quickly learned
that I'm competing against myself.
God gave us all a level of talent.
Now my job is to reach the highest levels
of my potential.
And that's where I turn that bad advice
into something that fueled me
in a very positive way.
Yeah.
And so how did you that's
how do you
when you're in this environment?
That's great advice,
but it's very difficult.
I found to navigate outside
of the environment
that you're in, especially.
I mean, there's been studies
shown over and over again.
I've said this many times on my show
that it's been shown
that the environments
that you earn literally affect
how you think and how you view things,
even when you try to fight it.
So how did you
how did you
how were you able to see
the perspective
that you could achieve more
despite your current circumstances?
Like what things did you do
to keep yourself?
Optimistic about the future,
despite your current situation.
Despite the current situation
that wasn't so optimistic.
What a great question,
and I didn't know
this was happening at the time,
but my mother was working
hard to surround us with people
that were doing positive things,
even people
that were living in the projects.
They're not all bad people know now.
That's the stereotype, right,
that if you live in the projects,
you don't have anything going on.
There are a lot of positive people.
And so she would always surround us
with people
that were doing things in a positive way.
She got us enrolled in Big Brother.
So there there was an IBM executive,
Don Jones, who took an interest in me.
And so now the more you start
surrounding yourself
with people that are doing things
in a positive way,
see, because Rob,
we all have a little light inside of us.
Sometimes people turn that light down.
When you can surround yourself
with people that make that light
brighter and brighter.
That's how you make it happen.
So that's what happened to me.
The more and more
I got exposed to people
that were making it happen.
These weren't corporate executives.
They weren't CEOs.
These were just
men and women
that were making a difference.
And that started to rub off on me
that started to give me confidence.
And then when I started,
achieving a little success.
It just starts to feed on itself.
When you have a little success.
Yeah.
one of the sayings that
one of my earliest mentors told me
is that if you show me your friends,
I'll show you your future, right?
So who you surround yourself with
has the most direct effect
on what you're going to be like.
It is a lot of things
that affect it,
but essentially
who you decide to spend your time with,
who you just about,
who you decide to hang out
with like those are.
Those are really important decisions.
And I say to my son all the time, like,
you need to be careful
who you hang around with, hell
who you date.
All these things matter
because they're going to affect
what type of person you become
because you eventually like,
we are tribal animals.
Like,
despite everything that people think
like,
you hang around a tribe,
you're going to absorb
the essence of that tribe, right?
So if you're hanging around
people that are out there
trying to do something,
it doesn't mean that
they all are rich or wealthy.
But people that are just trying
to do something with their lives
improve themselves.
You're going to find yourself that,
oh, in order
to keep with these folks,
I have to keep doing
what they're doing to
be a part of the tribe.
On the other end of that, right,
if you got people
that are doing the opposite,
if you're trying to do well,
you're not going to
you're not going
to stand out in that crowd
and they're going to make you literally
feel bad about achieving
like and that's something that
I had to leave friends
that would tell me all that B.S.
that you're talking
white, all that stuff,
which I'm sure you heard before.
Yeah, all those things,
those toxic things that we internalize
due to our oppression.
We got oppression
and other bad things we've learned.
We got to learn to reject.
That's exactly right, Rob and
one of the things I want to share with
our listeners is in my life,
there are only twelve decisions
that I've made that have really mattered
because we all make decisions.
We all make mistakes.
I certainly have made my share.
But the key thing is to
get the big decisions
right,
and one of those twelve
decisions are my friends.
You show me somebody
that does not have friends,
that they've been friends
with a long time. I worry
who I marry.
So who
you surround yourself with
is probably one of the most important ten
or twelve decisions
you're going to make in your entire life.
You get that right.
Your chances of having impact
and having a legacy and having success
goes up dramatically.
All right.
So this is a good transition
to tell us a little bit about the book
because it sounds like that's
some advice that might have come for
the book. Is that correct?
So tell us a little more
about the book Uncompromising
why you wrote it
and what do you want
people to gain from this book?
Yeah.
Well, the book is called Uncompromising.
If you want to learn more, please
go to SteveWhitespeaks.com.
That's my website.
It's got all the book information.
You can follow me on social media,
but Rob I was
inspired by this quote,
and it's attributed to Mark Twain.
The two most important days
in your life is the day you're born.
And the second is when you find out why.
And for all of us,
we've been placed on this Earth
for a purpose
and a reason
our destiny has been set for us now.
It's our responsibility to identify
that and live it and make it happen.
And so the title Uncompromising focuses
on that second question
when you find out
why you've been placed on this Earth,
when you find out
this is your purpose in life,
that is what you're
uncompromising in your pursuit.
You don't let anything
get in your way now.
You'll get bumped off the road.
No question,
but you got to get back on that.
And that is the focus of the title.
And the reason I wrote the book
Rob is to go from the housing project
to the C-suite where I was.
President of our Comcast West Group.
18 billion dollar business.
30,000 employees.
one of the top
five executives in one of the top
20 companies in America.
You don't get there by yourself.
And there were so many men
and women that gave me a hand up.
I didn't say handout.
Now, a hand up
a hand up is an opportunity.
And I was smart enough
to seize those opportunities
and pursue them.
And so this is my love
letter to all those men and women
who gave me a hand up.
What better way to recognize them
than to share with others?
My life lessons.
And so in the book,
I talk about successes
I certainly talked about failures
in the book
is built around these seven pathways
seven pathways
that I believe if you adhere to,
you can lead a life
or impact legacy and success.
And so that's why I wrote the book.
That's where the title came from,
because we're taught.
Often compromise is the way to make it,
particularly in America.
Yeah, and I'm saying that's true.
But when it comes to your purpose in why
there's no compromise in there,
you're ruthless in your pursuit
of pursuing your purpose in why?
No.
I mean,
it brings me back to what
I think about my time in a former life.
When I ran for public office
and one of my favorite books was a book
was by the author who wrote
who wrote about the life of Lyndon
Johnson and Lyndon Johnson
has this statement
about what convinced
what convinces is conviction .
People have to believe
that you believe in what.
in whatever you're selling
and whatever you're putting forward.
And I thought
about how I evaluate specifically
public leaders,
but also leaders in general.
Like,
yes, you have to compromise
a lot of a lot of a part of life
and moving forward.
But then there has to be some things
that you will be willing to
walk over fire for.
And if I don't know what that is for you,
I have trouble trusting people
that don't have something
at least one or two things to say.
These are things that I will not move on.
Like a lot of things, like 90% things,
you can figure out ways to compromise.
But there should be some things
that are just
part of the core system of your beliefs
and who you are.
I think to be effective,
to be an effective leader because people,
even if they don't agree with you,
on those core convictions,
I found that they respect you
because this is a person
that actually has some integrity
for their beliefs.
They're not just going to
say whatever
I want to hear in order
to get a sale in order to get a vote.
So I am definitely with you on that.
I'd like to ask you a question, though
a couple of questions.
As I looked
into researching your book,
it seems like a lot of your book
with Uncompromising.
You've indicated
this is really about finding that
why and you're compelling mission
and not moving from that first question.
How do you find that?
I have no problem with that,
but I found when I tell that to people.
I can't tell you how many people
have told me
they don't know what their why is
and they're trying to figure it out.
What would you tell those people?
Yeah.
Well, here's how I think about it.
If find out what you're good at
and would you do it for free,
because then that's what that's passion.
And so for me, Rob,
I found mine through
adversity and heartache.
When I left Indiana
University,
I started working for a company
called American Hospital Supply.
I started in sales.
I was the rookie of the Year.
I was the top quota breaker.
I got promoted.
I moved from New Jersey back
to Chicago, worked in our home office
and then I went to Michigan
as the youngest sales manager
in the company's history,
23 years old at the time,
and I was leading ten to twelve employees
and I got fired a year in the job
and the reason I got fired, Rob,
and it was
it was just
I didn't think it was just at
the time is everything was focused on me.
I was looking at everything.
What was I getting out of this job?
What could I do
to promote myself,
to make myself look better?
And I was not serving my team
and they were not growing.
They were not realizing their journey.
And so I got fired.
And so it became clear to me
that leadership is a privilege.
And the reason leadership is a privilege
is that you're making the difference
in the lives of others.
So there's a book called Leaders
Eat Last.
So I started embracing
That's exactly right.
So when you start serving men and women,
what happens, Rob?
They start serving you
and they push you up
the corporate ladder, not you.
They start to push you up.
Where I got confused was,
I believed that the next step to success
was all about what I did and what I did.
Got me to that position.
But once you're in a position
of leadership, it's
not about you anymore.
So this idea of serving others
the way others had served me
and helping me get to where I was going,
the way my mother worked in a motel
and then as a high school janitor
for 35 years,
so I could have a better life.
That's what started getting me jazzed
when I started investing in other people
and they were enjoying success.
I started to get really
excited
and I said I would do that for free
and what I did.
The book is not about making money,
the website. It's not about making money.
The social media
is not about making money,
it's about pouring into other people.
And so that crystallized for me.
So most people
find their why through adversity.
But if you're struggling to find your,
why carve out some time,
every day,
every week, even if it's for ten minutes?
Think about what makes you happy.
Think about what your passion is.
Think about what you're good at.
And if you're good at something
and you're passionate about it
and you would do it for free, I promise
you you're starting to narrow in
on your why
and most whys, involves
serving someone else.
It's very rarely about you
or serving yourself right.
It is always about serving
and impacting other people.
It's only about you
in terms of your journey
to find it right.
Exactly right.
It's about you
in terms of understanding
your personal connection
to how you got to that why.
But that why is only a
why if it has an impact on others?
Because that's. Exactly right.
Because there's a song
that says you die twice,
you die the day
they put you in the ground.
The second day you die is
when the last person mentions your name.
We should all be striving for legacy
long after we're gone.
There are people talking about us
in a positive way in
how we impacted their life.
That is legacy that is living your why.
Yeah, I'm
it's so interesting
how you looked at your situation
and you saw the most
you took the most positive aspect
and you also did
what I believe is the most mature
level of self-awareness.
You know, self-awareness is not
how we hope others to see us,
but how others actually do see us.
And then being able
to see it through that
very challenging lens, right?
Because if we're honest,
there's some things that
we can be better at that we don't like.
And so anytime
you have these conflicts, it's easy.
And I'm sure there also was some merits
to when you talked about
you were 23 you said that
Yeah, like
I think about the culture climate,
most salespeople,
I think or how you describe yourself.
So I think there
is also some other things
that you were held
to a higher standard on
than other people.
If I can be very direct
because I know a lot of salespeople
that the only thing that ever matters
is how much money you bring in
I don't think that should be the case.
Yeah,
I guess
there's a lot of corporations
still view it that way sometimes.
Give us the additional burden
of mean things.
But what good does it
Do you to view it that way? Right?
How could you grow from that experience
if you just said,
if you just looked at it
in terms of I was done wrong,
even if you were?
The question is.
What can you learn from this situation?
That's exactly right, and it's all about
finding your purpose and living it
because it's hard enough to live one life
trying to live somebody else's life.
It makes it even harder.
So just focus on you being you.
Yep, no, I totally agree.
So, all right,
I want to do a couple lightning
round questions,
I always ask people,
So what is an important conviction
you have or truth
that very few people agree with you on?
No matter what my circumstances,
I'm not going to be a victim.
Unfortunately, Rob, there's a lot about
what are you going to do for me?
It's all about radical responsibility,
and I see what's in front of me.
I'm a realist.
I've got a nine year old son.
I'm
I got to teach how to live in this world,
but I have to do it
with the lens that it's about you
and what you can accomplish.
And let's not worry about somebody else.
Condoleezza Rice.
I was at one of her presentations
that she said her family taught her.
Look, if somebody don't want to sit by,
you let them move. Don't you move?
I like that.
That's good.
Actually, that's good in my life.
Yeah, it was like,
You don't move who you are.
You don't move
where so it's like metaphorically
and actually literally
like if they don't want to sit by you. Fine.
But also,
that means they don't like who you are.
You don't have to change who you are.
Because it doesn't matter,
because they probably ain't going to like you
anyway way
even if you try to change
for what they want you to be.
That's exactly right,
so best advice is sometimes
people don't always agree with,
I'm going to own me,
I'm going to take radical responsibility
and I'm not going to be a victim
no matter what my circumstances are.
Yeah, that's powerful.
You have a committee of three
living or dead to advise you
on life, business, personal, whatever.
Tell me who these three people are and why.
Wow, that's a hard question.
But the two most important
women in my life is my Mom
and my wife, Barbita.
So I got two women. Good answer.
So I mean.
You better.
You better make it both of them
And my
my nine year old son.
But but if I don't have those three,
I've got three friends Ron, Teddy
and Stanford.
Collectively,
we've been friends for over 150 years
when you take it all together.
Those are three what I call road dogs.
I talk about in the book Commit
to road dog relationships.
Those are three of my road dogs
that I would definitely have them
as the backup to my wife
and my mother and my son.
Yep.
So final question here you have a.
Billboard or
or Google ad or saying
whatever you want to say that symbolizes
what you stand for,
what does that say and why?
He lived his purpose.
He lived his why
he achieved the American dream.
Why can't I?
All right.
Stephen White,
pleasure having you on the show.
Make sure you check out his new book,
Uncompromising Coming out
February 22nd, is that correct?
That's exactly right
and go to the website.
SteveWhitespeaks.com
If you want to learn more.
I appreciate having you on Steve. Thank you.