IAM1554 – Speaker and Author Helps Leaders Create Meaningful Connections at the Table
Podcast Interview with Ginger Johnson
Most biographies for speakers are full of credentials, awards, accomplishments, and other unexciting information. Let's say this for now: Everything in life is Powered By Connection. And Connection is Ginger's Jam. It's the art, science, and energy that makes the world go 'round. She works with great executives, associations, organizations, leaders, and teams to help them do their best work by tapping into the incredible possibilities meaningful connection creates, most especially At The Table.
If you want to learn more about her, she invites you to visit gingerjohson.com and if you're really curious you'll likely Google her anyway, finding her book, TEDx talk, events and program, YouTube channel, and various sundry other information.
- CEO Story: When Ginger started her first company 20 years ago, she was at ‘the why in the road’ she asked, ‘Do I risk working for someone else again, or do I invent my own? what mouse trap to make better, what can I do to serve to have fun and make a living? And that's where Ginger stepped into being a CEO.
- Business Service: Educating. Service mindset. Keynote speaking, workshops, dinner parties – the mindset of host and grace.
- Secret Sauce: Empower the lives of other people. Dinner at the table is what Ginger sets apart in the market. Keep your lens clear. Then you can do better work.
- CEO Hack: The framework for connecting. The connector's mindset POW – Positive objective and willing.
- CEO Nugget: Rather than going wide and trying to meet as many people as possible, go deep into that relationship and build that connection.
- CEO Defined: Chief connecting officer – who you want to be, how do you connect with yourself first? True peace of mind.
Articles & Blog: gingerjohnson.com/articles
LinkedIn: gingerjohnsonconnector
Twitter: @gingerjohnson
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCILGZjxOFhI1cbnbP7_scIw
Connectivity Canon (book): gingerjohnson.com/shop
Check out one of our favorite CEO Hack’s Audible. Get your free audiobook and check out more of our favorite CEO Hacks HERE
Transcription
The full transcription is only available to CBNation Library Members. Sign up today!
Please Note: Our team is using the AI CEO Hacks: Exemplary AI and Otter.ai to support our podcast transcription. While we know it's improving there may be some inaccuracies, but we are updating and improving them. Please contact us if you notice any issues, you can also test out Exemplary AI here.
00:23 – Intro
Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkness values your time and is ready to share precisely the information you're searching for. This is the I Am CEO Podcast.
00:50 – Gresham Harkless
Hello, this is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast. I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Ginger Johnson of GingerJohnson.com Ginger, excited to have you on the show.
01:00 – Ginger Johnson
It's great to be here, Gresh. Absolutely.
01:02 – Gresham Harkless
Yes, absolutely. Great to have you and before we jump into the interview, I want to read a little bit more about Ginger so you can hear about some of the awesome things that she's been working on. Most biographies for speakers are full of credentials, awards, accomplishments, and other unexciting information. Let's say this for now, everything in life is powered by connection and connection is Ginger's jam. It's the art, science, and energy that makes the world go round.
She works with great executives, associations, organizations, leaders, and teams to help them do their best work by tapping into the incredible possibilities meaningful connection creates, most especially at the table. If you want to learn more about her, she advises you to visit her site and if you are really curious, you'll likely Google her anyway and find her book, TEDx talk, events, programs, YouTube channel, and various surgery under information. Ginger, excited to have you on the show. Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?
[restrict paid=”true”]
01:58 – Ginger Johnson
Let's do it. Let's serve.
01:59 – Gresham Harkless
Let's make it happen then. So to kind of kick everything off, I know I read your bio and did all the awesome introduction, but I wanted to rewind the clock, and hear a little bit more on how you got started, what I call your CEO story.
02:09 – Ginger Johnson
Those moments in your life, Gresh, where you pause and sometimes you do them intentionally and sometimes they happen. It's almost like you're zooming out of the present reality where you're at physically and you're thinking on a couple of different planes.
When I started my own first company, which is almost 20 years ago, I was at this why in the road and the why Gresh was, do I risk working for someone else again because I had stepped down to the top of a supposed heap, or do I invent my own? What mousetrap can I make better? What can I do to serve, have fun, and make a living? That's where I stepped into the CEO of being my own in my own life.
02:55- Gresham Harkless
Nice. I absolutely love that. I love that phrase, why in the road? I think that's so powerful because I think we can take that fork in the road that you hear all the time and just say we either go left or go right. But I think why it's such a deeper question and really try to answer that. I think it almost ends up being like a magnet towards where you should go anyways, if you answer that in a way that is correct, so to speak.
03:22 – Ginger Johnson
I really appreciate you saying that Why in the Road is part of my connection framework, and it's a literal why. A fork in the original inception had only two tines, but modern forks have a number of them. The last thing CEOs need is too many choices. What we want is clarity and how we get clarity is we make one choice at a time. Just like I talk about when I teach as well as in the book, the why in the road is a stay or a go.
It's a choice point, Gresh and that's what we want to think about when we want to get clarity. I mean, clarity is easy to say, harder to realize. At the same time, it's really not that complex. What we need to do is choose so that literal why in the road is the stay or the go and the go isn't a stop. It's a keep moving because there will always be another option. Opportunity, Choice, chance.
04:14- Gresham Harkless
Awesome. I appreciate you so much, for breaking that down and I almost feel like it seems like a certain ability and talent to be able to understand and I guess, distill down all the choices, all the opportunities to kind of make it simple to be the stay or the go, because I think we can get inundated with so many different options and choices and decisions that we sometimes don't even want to do, staying or going or anything like that.
04:40- Ginger Johnson
What if I have so many opportunities? What if I have a lot of options? I actually teach that, too. Gresh. When I think of options and opportunities, I think the opportunity is something somebody else offers us from their lens. They see it like, you come to me like, hey, I have an opportunity to be on the show. Oh, that's an option I want to take. Based on your previous guest and my friend Tia Graham.
If somebody says it's your opportunity, keep in mind that it's coming from a different angle. We choose it to be our option or not our option. That's our angle and that's how CEOs C suite, anybody really can think, is this an option that fits me right here, right now. Because like ideas if it doesn't, there's going to be more. There's never a lack.
05:26 – Gresham Harkless
Yeah, absolutely. I think that I'm going to call it that reframe is so powerful because a lot of times when you feel and hear opportunities, you're almost like, I have to jump on that. I have to do that. How can I miss out on this? Because this is the only thing that's going to happen. It's the only opportunity that'll be that's just like this. But I love looking at it from an option standpoint because just like the ability to choose to go or to stay, you have that option to choose to do it or to not do it
05:54 – Ginger Johnson
Thank you for your thoughts on that, too, Gresh. The big nugget I would offer is if somebody comes to you and says, this is an extremely limited opportunity, it's only good for the next 30 minutes, three days, whatever. Those are rarely the right choices because that pressure fills up the balloon, but it rarely helps us take flight.
06:18 – Gresham Harkless
Yeah, absolutely. You sound like you have the same mom as mine. Maybe we're long-lost siblings because my mom always says, let me think about it. Just say, let me think about it and take that time to brew it over and see if that's the right decision for me. I think that I agree so much that is so powerful.
So we touched on a little and how you're working with your clients and I know those are some of the, I imagine, decisions and probably reframing of things that you help to do for your clients. But in what ways do you help to kind of work with clients and would love to hear more that's in your book and all the awesome ways that you serve your clients.
06:55 – Ginger Johnson
So education is my golden thread and everything that I bring forth comes from a service mindset. I believe there's a trifecta that we need to listen to its head, heart, guts. When we think about that, how are we serving? Because when we serve, we sell. So if anybody here listening, CEO, any position, you will sell if you serve. So how I serve, my modalities if you will, are speaking, keynote speaking. I'm sometimes invited on panels and to moderate, do different modalities of the speaking itself.
I love the stage not because of my ego Gresh, but because it's the gift of people's time and attention, and it's really powerful to have that. I think that was ingrained in me when I was a middle school teacher in my early 20s. If you can hold an audience like middle schoolers, you can learn how to serve other people as well. So it's the speaking, it's the workshops, the dinner parties, which is my signature with boards, retreats, sales teams, leaders. That is a unique way to come to the table. As you said in my intro, the table is both literal and metaphorical. So that table is a cornerstone of how I frankly differentiate myself in the market.
We're better people when we come to the table, Gresh. We're in the host mindset. We're the CEO of our own life. Because how do we treat people in our homes? Oh, let's do that all the time. You will be the most powerful, the most impactful, memorable, positive force as a CEO. If we live in that mindset of host and grace. There is so much strength in that. So think about it from the table. So it's the speaking, the dinner parties, the connecting experiences, the workshops, the books. There are lots of ways to do it. It all is founded on the power of human connection.
09:03 – Gresham Harkless
I absolutely love that. So I wanted to ask you, and you might have already touched on this for your secret sauce, which could be for yourself and all the awesome things you're working on, but essentially the thing that you feel like kind of sets you apart and makes you unique. But I almost, want to go back to that word reframe, because I almost feel like you have this ability to be able to change the perspective of so many different things that even just as we're talking now.
Whether we're talking about the why in the road and just thinking that we have all these opportunities and rather looking at them as options, do you feel like you can reframe that, to see that in a different way and help people to, for lack of a better term, be empowered in their lives to do all the awesome things that they're capable of doing.
09:42 – Ginger Johnson
Yes is the short answer Gresh and we all have our own unique lenses. It's up to us to keep them clean, to keep them clear for ourselves on what we want our lives to be. Knowing what we want our lives to be, or having an idea of what we want our lives to be. What we want our lives to be, to me is not self-absorbed. That to me is very self-serving in the best possible way.
Because when we think about who we are, that's where the energy really pays off. It's not what we do. We could do anything. We really could. It's about who we are and I do reframe a lot. You're the first person to ask me about that, and I really appreciate that question. To refresh, to reset, to revitalize, to slow your find self down and say, what's really going on here? How do I want to connect with who I am?
The who will always be more important than the do and then once we are clearer, which is a dynamic, ongoing process, you don't stop. That's not a bus. It doesn't have stations. But once we are clearer and we keep that windshield clear, then we can do our better work, do our best work, because we are focused on genuine, deep, meaningful connection.
10:54 – Gresham Harkless
Yeah, that's so powerful. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit, and I know we kind of touched on some of this. So I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an app or book or something from your book. But it might be a habit that you have, but what's something you feel makes you more effective and efficient?
11:11 – Ginger Johnson
When I think about connection and when I wrote the book, the canon, the connectivity canon, one thing that came out of it was a framework for connecting. Because I'd had a lot of people say, oh, Ginger, everybody. You walk into a room, you can talk to anybody. So I really listened to that Gresh. What are they really saying? What is the behavior they're seeing and really what do they want to learn?
So in writing the book, a framework came to light, and a bonus sidebar, like, you can IP protect a framework. You can't just protect words. I'm like, oh, that's a nice thing. Where I'm going with this? Is that the mindset, which is the second of the seven pieces of the framework, the mindset of a connector, and in fact, I call it the connectors mindset is POW? Here's the hack, and here it's permanent. Once you get in here, you won't want to leave because it's the best place to live.
Positive, objective, and willing is what POW stands for. I didn't set out to make another acronym because goodness knows we don't need another acronym. At the same time, it's really easy. Positive, objective, and willing. It's the connector's mindset. When we're positive, we literally cannot be negative,e and being positive doesn't mean you're Pollyanna or that you're naive. It means that you are looking at the possible.
When we are objective, we suspend judgment. Because again, the world doesn't need more judgment. Willing is really what takes us from a couple of base hits to a grand slam. Because willing is, first of all, it's a top trait that CEOs and great entities look for in people. Oh, you're willing to do that? Okay, let's try it.
12:48 – Gresham Harkless
Nice. I absolutely love that. I appreciate you breaking that down. I almost wonder if you feel like this can also be like a perspective or a nugget or even like a mindset where I almost hear you saying too, that rather than going wide, trying to meet as many people as possible, you're going deep and you're really trying to attract those people and you only are able to do that.
I think in many aspects of life, but definitely, obviously related to connection by going deep, to actually truly connect and develop that relationship and to be able to build that. Well, I guess you could say where you can actually have the opportunity to kind of pull from, but also pour into.
13:24 – Ginger Johnson
Choose who you want your people to be. Look for people who are not like you. I actively seek that and to me, it's not a quota base. It's not a Dei. It's because I find so many perspectives that are not mine, thankfully. So, like, that's where I learn. If you're building something, then are you building a house of twigs or are you going to lay down some brick?
Are you going to put down, Are you going to dig a foundation? Like, what are you doing here? Because again, who do you want to be? Therefore, what relationships are you interested in creating? It's really when you see somebody like, wow, who's that guy over there? I just like, all those people are swirling around and there's something about that person. I go to those people in the room.
14:08 – Gresham Harkless
Absolutely. So, Ginger, you touched on this, but I want to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO and our goal is to have different, quote, unquote, CEOs on this show. So, Ginger, what does being a CEO mean to you?
14:22 – Ginger Johnson
My CEO mindset and what it looks like for me is that I'm also a CCO, which is a chief connecting officer. When I think about how I look at being a CEO in my own life and in my own company, I want to have that true peace of mind and look at how can I be my best chief connecting officer. To me and then to my immediate first ripple, and then the second ripple, and out it goes. So that's how I think I would respond to that. That's a great question.
14:55 – Gresham Harkless
Absolutely. Well, Ginger, truly appreciate that definition and of course, I appreciate your time even more. So what I wanted to do now is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know and of course, how best people can get a hold of you, get a copy of your book, find out all the awesome things that you're working on.
15:13 – Ginger Johnson
People can get in touch with me. I'm very accessible. Gingerjohnson.com, that's where the center of this little universe starts and my contact information is on there. I have my own show at the table. I've got my connectivity canon and I would love to be of service to great leaders and teams, C suites, definitely. When you are looking for somebody to come up, light a fire and help stoke it so that you can do better work.
When I do my work, I think just like you, Gresh, I'm going to take this big leap of faith is that it's not about us. We do it because we love it and we know it serves. It's ultimately about who wants to take something and run with it. So I appreciate any contacts and anyway, I can help your fine audience.
15:56 – Gresham Harkless
Absolutely. Ginger, truly appreciate you and to make it even easier, we're going to have the links and information as well in the show. Notes that everybody can hear about the show, follow the show, and engage and of course connect with you and about all the awesome things that you're working on. I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.
16:10 – Ginger Johnson
Thank you so much, Gresh. You too. Come over to the table anytime. Let me know when you're in the neighborhood.
16:14 – Outro
Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.
00:23 - Intro
Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkness values your time and is ready to share precisely the information you're searching for. This is the I Am CEO Podcast.
00:50 - Gresham Harkless
Hello, this is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast. I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Ginger Johnson of GingerJohnson.com Ginger, excited to have you on the show.
01:00 - Ginger Johnson
It's great to be here, Gresh. Absolutely.
01:02 - Gresham Harkless
Yes, absolutely. Great to have you and before we jump into the interview, I want to read a little bit more about Ginger so you can hear about some of the awesome things that she's been working on. Most biographies for speakers are full of credentials, awards, accomplishments, and other unexciting information. Let's say this for now, everything in life is powered by connection and connection is Ginger's jam. It's the art, science, and energy that makes the world go round.
She works with great executives, associations, organizations, leaders, and teams to help them do their best work by tapping into the incredible possibilities meaningful connection creates, most especially at the table. If you want to learn more about her, she advises you to visit her site and if you are really curious, you'll likely Google her anyway and find her book, TEDx talk, events, programs, YouTube channel, and various surgery under information. Ginger, excited to have you on the show. Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?
01:58 - Ginger Johnson
Let's do it. Let's serve.
01:59 - Gresham Harkless
Let's make it happen then. So to kind of kick everything off, I know I read your bio and did all the awesome introduction, but I wanted to rewind the clock, and hear a little bit more on how you got started, what I call your CEO story.
02:09 - Ginger Johnson
Those moments in your life, Gresh, where you pause and sometimes you do them intentionally and sometimes they happen. It's almost like you're zooming out of the present reality where you're at physically and you're thinking on a couple of different planes.
When I started my own first company, which is almost 20 years ago, I was at this why in the road and the why Gresh was, do I risk working for someone else again because I had stepped down to the top of a supposed heap, or do I invent my own? What mousetrap can I make better? What can I do to serve, have fun, and make a living? That's where I stepped into the CEO of being my own in my own life.
02:55- Gresham Harkless
Nice. I absolutely love that. I love that phrase, why in the road? I think that's so powerful because I think we can take that fork in the road that you hear all the time and just say we either go left or go right. But I think why it's such a deeper question and really try to answer that. I think it almost ends up being like a magnet towards where you should go anyways, if you answer that in a way that is correct, so to speak.
03:22 - Ginger Johnson
I really appreciate you saying that Why in the Road is part of my connection framework, and it's a literal why. A fork in the original inception had only two tines, but modern forks have a number of them. The last thing CEOs need is too many choices. What we want is clarity and how we get clarity is we make one choice at a time. Just like I talk about when I teach as well as in the book, the why in the road is a stay or a go.
It's a choice point, Gresh and that's what we want to think about when we want to get clarity. I mean, clarity is easy to say, harder to realize. At the same time, it's really not that complex. What we need to do is choose so that literal why in the road is the stay or the go and the go isn't a stop. It's a keep moving. Because there will always be another option. Opportunity, Choice, chance.
04:14- Gresham Harkless
Awesome. I appreciate you so much, for breaking that down and I almost feel like it seems like a certain ability and talent to be able to understand and I guess, distill down all the choices, all the opportunities to kind of make it simple to be the stay or the go, because I think we can get inundated with so many different options and choices and decisions that we sometimes don't even want to do, staying or going or anything like that.
04:40- Ginger Johnson
What if I have so many opportunities? What if I have a lot of options? I actually teach that, too. Gresh. When I think of options and opportunities, I think the opportunity is something somebody else offers us from their lens. They see it like, you come to me like, hey, I have an opportunity to be on the show. Oh, that's an option I want to take. Based on your previous guest and my friend Tia Graham.
If somebody says it's your opportunity, keep in mind that it's coming from a different angle. We choose it to be our option or not our option. That's our angle and that's how CEOs C suite, anybody really can think, is this an option that fits me right here, right now. Because like ideas if it doesn't, there's going to be more. There's never a lack.
05:26 - Gresham Harkless
Yeah, absolutely. I think that I'm going to call it that reframe is so powerful because a lot of times when you feel and hear opportunities, you're almost like, I have to jump on that. I have to do that. How can I miss out on this? Because this is the only thing that's going to happen. It's the only opportunity that'll be that's just like this. But I love looking at it from an option standpoint because just like the ability to choose to go or to stay, you have that option to choose to do it or to not do it
05:54 - Ginger Johnson
Thank you for your thoughts on that, too, Gresh. The big nugget I would offer is if somebody comes to you and says, this is an extremely limited opportunity, it's only good for the next 30 minutes, three days, whatever. Those are rarely the right choices because that pressure fills up the balloon, but it rarely helps us take flight.
06:18 - Gresham Harkless
Yeah, absolutely. You sound like you have the same mom as mine. Maybe we're long-lost siblings because my mom always says, let me think about it. Just say, let me think about it and take that time to brew it over and see if that's the right decision for me. I think that I agree so much that is so powerful.
So we touched on a little and how you're working with your clients and I know those are some of the, I imagine, decisions and probably reframing of things that you help to do for your clients. But in what ways do you help to kind of work with clients and would love to hear more that's in your book and all the awesome ways that you serve your clients.
06:55 - Ginger Johnson
So education is my golden thread and everything that I bring forth comes from a service mindset. I believe there's a trifecta that we need to listen to its head, heart, guts. When we think about that, how are we serving? Because when we serve, we sell. So if anybody here listening, CEO, any position, you will sell if you serve. So how I serve, my modalities if you will, are speaking, keynote speaking. I'm sometimes invited on panels and to moderate, do different modalities of the speaking itself.
I love the stage not because of my ego Gresh, but because it's the gift of people's time and attention, and it's really powerful to have that. I think that was ingrained in me when I was a middle school teacher in my early 20s. If you can hold an audience like middle schoolers, you can learn how to serve other people as well. So it's the speaking, it's the workshops, the dinner parties, which is my signature with boards, retreats, sales teams, leaders. That is a unique way to come to the table. As you said in my intro, the table is both literal and metaphorical. So that table is a cornerstone of how I frankly differentiate myself in the market.
We're better people when we come to the table, Gresh. We're in the host mindset. We're the CEO of our own life. Because how do we treat people in our homes? Oh, let's do that all the time. You will be the most powerful, the most impactful, memorable, positive force as a CEO. If we live in that mindset of host and grace. There is so much strength in that. So think about it from the table. So it's the speaking, the dinner parties, the connecting experiences, the workshops, the books. There are lots of ways to do it. It all is founded on the power of human connection.
09:03 - Gresham Harkless
I absolutely love that. So I wanted to ask you, and you might have already touched on this for your secret sauce, which could be for yourself and all the awesome things you're working on, but essentially the thing that you feel like kind of sets you apart and makes you unique. But I almost, want to go back to that word reframe, because I almost feel like you have this ability to be able to change the perspective of so many different things that even just as we're talking now.
Whether we're talking about the why in the road and just thinking that we have all these opportunities and rather looking at them as options, do you feel like you can reframe that, to see that in a different way and help people to, for lack of a better term, be empowered in their lives to do all the awesome things that they're capable of doing.
09:42 - Ginger Johnson
Yes is the short answer Gresh and we all have our own unique lenses. It's up to us to keep them clean, to keep them clear for ourselves on what we want our lives to be. Knowing what we want our lives to be, or having an idea of what we want our lives to be. What we want our lives to be, to me is not self-absorbed. That to me is very self-serving in the best possible way.
Because when we think about who we are, that's where the energy really pays off. It's not what we do. We could do anything. We really could. It's about who we are and I do reframe a lot. You're the first person to ask me about that, and I really appreciate that question. To refresh, to reset, to revitalize, to slow your find self down and say, what's really going on here? How do I want to connect with who I am?
The who will always be more important than the do and then once we are clearer, which is a dynamic, ongoing process, you don't stop. That's not a bus. It doesn't have stations. But once we are clearer and we keep that windshield clear, then we can do our better work, do our best work, because we are focused on genuine, deep, meaningful connection.
10:54 - Gresham Harkless
Yeah, that's so powerful. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit, and I know we kind of touched on some of this. So I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an app or book or something from your book. But it might be a habit that you have, but what's something you feel makes you more effective and efficient?
11:11 - Ginger Johnson
When I think about connection and when I wrote the book, the canon, the connectivity canon, one thing that came out of it was a framework for connecting. Because I'd had a lot of people say, oh, Ginger, everybody. You walk into a room, you can talk to anybody. So I really listened to that Gresh. What are they really saying? What is the behavior they're seeing and really what do they want to learn?
So in writing the book, a framework came to light, and a bonus sidebar, like, you can IP protect a framework. You can't just protect words. I'm like, oh, that's a nice thing. Where I'm going with this? Is that the mindset, which is the second of the seven pieces of the framework, the mindset of a connector, and in fact, I call it the connectors mindset is POW? Here's the hack, and here it's permanent. Once you get in here, you won't want to leave because it's the best place to live.
Positive, objective, and willing is what POW stands for. I didn't set out to make another acronym because goodness knows we don't need another acronym. At the same time, it's really easy. Positive, objective, and willing. It's the connector's mindset. When we're positive, we literally cannot be negative,e and being positive doesn't mean you're Pollyanna or that you're naive. It means that you are looking at the possible.
When we are objective, we suspend judgment. Because again, the world doesn't need more judgment. Willing is really what takes us from a couple of base hits to a grand slam. Because willing is, first of all, it's a top trait that CEOs and great entities look for in people. Oh, you're willing to do that? Okay, let's try it.
12:48 - Gresham Harkless
Nice. I absolutely love that. I appreciate you breaking that down. I almost wonder if you feel like this can also be like a perspective or a nugget or even like a mindset where I almost hear you saying too, that rather than going wide, trying to meet as many people as possible, you're going deep and you're really trying to attract those people and you only are able to do that.
I think in many aspects of life, but definitely, obviously related to connection by going deep, to actually truly connect and develop that relationship and to be able to build that. Well, I guess you could say where you can actually have the opportunity to kind of pull from, but also pour into.
13:24 - Ginger Johnson
Choose who you want your people to be. Look for people who are not like you. I actively seek that and to me, it's not a quota base. It's not a Dei. It's because I find so many perspectives that are not mine, thankfully. So, like, that's where I learn. If you're building something, then are you building a house of twigs or are you going to lay down some brick?
Are you going to put down, Are you going to dig a foundation? Like, what are you doing here? Because again, who do you want to be? Therefore, what relationships are you interested in creating? It's really when you see somebody like, wow, who's that guy over there? I just like, all those people are swirling around and there's something about that person. I go to those people in the room.
14:08 - Gresham Harkless
Absolutely. So, Ginger, you touched on this, but I want to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO and our goal is to have different, quote, unquote, CEOs on this show. So, Ginger, what does being a CEO mean to you?
14:22 - Ginger Johnson
My CEO mindset and what it looks like for me is that I'm also a CCO, which is a chief connecting officer. When I think about how I look at being a CEO in my own life and in my own company, I want to have that true peace of mind and look at how can I be my best chief connecting officer. To me and then to my immediate first ripple, and then the second ripple, and out it goes. So that's how I think I would respond to that. That's a great question.
14:55 - Gresham Harkless
Absolutely. Well, Ginger, truly appreciate that definition and of course, I appreciate your time even more. So what I wanted to do now is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know and of course, how best people can get a hold of you, get a copy of your book, find out all the awesome things that you're working on.
15:13 - Ginger Johnson
People can get in touch with me. I'm very accessible. Gingerjohnson.com, that's where the center of this little universe starts and my contact information is on there. I have my own show at the table. I've got my connectivity canon and I would love to be of service to great leaders and teams, C suites, definitely. When you are looking for somebody to come up, light a fire and help stoke it so that you can do better work.
When I do my work, I think just like you, Gresh, I'm going to take this big leap of faith is that it's not about us. We do it because we love it and we know it serves. It's ultimately about who wants to take something and run with it. So I appreciate any contacts and anyway, I can help your fine audience.
15:56 - Gresham Harkless
Absolutely. Ginger, truly appreciate you and to make it even easier, we're going to have the links and information as well in the show. Notes that everybody can hear about the show, follow the show, and engage and of course connect with you and about all the awesome things that you're working on. I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.
16:10 - Ginger Johnson
Thank you so much, Gresh. You too. Come over to the table anytime. Let me know when you're in the neighborhood.
16:14 - Outro
Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.
Sign up to receive email updates
Enter your name and email address below and I'll send you periodic updates about the podcast.
[/restrict]
