In this powerful podcast, Todd White delves into the essence of leadership, drawing from his rich experience across continents and sectors. With a focus on the transformation from a technical expert to an influential leader, White emphasizes the pivotal role of adaptability, cultural sensitivity, and continuous learning. He shares personal anecdotes that highlight the importance of staying focused, embracing change, and leading with empathy.

White's journey illustrates that true leadership transcends borders and industries, requiring a deep understanding of people and the ability to inspire and guide them towards a common goal. His insights offer valuable lessons for aspiring leaders, showcasing that leadership is not just about directing but also about listening, learning, and evolving.

Want to learn more about Todd's work? Check out their website at https://clearpeg.com.

Connect with Todd on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/todd-white-mnr/.

Key Points

• 00:01:15-00:02:46 - Todd shares his origin story, growing up in Virginia/West Virginia, and early life influences.
• 00:04:18-00:05:21 - Discussion on career transitions, including moving from engineering to leadership roles and global experiences.
• 00:07:05-00:07:32 - Todd talks about reinventing himself multiple times throughout his career and shifting from engineering to sales, marketing, and eventually consulting.
• 00:14:13-00:15:21 - Focus on the importance of focusing on one's strengths and passions, leading to the foundation of Clear Peg, aimed at professional development.
• 00:16:06-00:17:25 - Todd emphasizes the concept of achieving effortlessness through focused practice and mastery.

Transcript

00:00:15:20 - 00:00:49:10
Craig Andrews
Today I want to welcome Todd White. Todd's Katie, an amazing background that started engineering and software and management roles across 20 different, industries and continents. And, and then he moved into the world of of coaching. but all this started with a bachelor's of science in mechanical engineering. but his real passion today is about, developing high potential employees into strong leaders who are trusted and critical thinkers and problem solvers.

00:00:49:12 - 00:01:13:00
Craig Andrews
He leverages his unique perspective and storytelling to effect change. He excels at navigating the complexity and ambiguity of today's dynamic resource demands. Todd's passion is to help executive leaders build the A-Team of their dreams. Todd. Welcome to Leaders and Legacies.

00:01:13:02 - 00:01:15:22
Todd White
Thank you for having me today, Greg.

00:01:15:24 - 00:01:31:21
Craig Andrews
So, you know, we were chatting a little bit in the, in the green room. before we got started, you started tell me a story. That sounds pretty important. Did you grow up in West Virginia?

00:01:31:23 - 00:01:41:09
Todd White
I grew up, I'm a hillbilly. Was born in West Virginia. Grew up in Virginia. twin Cities, in in the Bluefield, Virginia, West Virginia area.

00:01:41:11 - 00:01:51:23
Craig Andrews
Okay. Bluefield. So for those that aren't familiar with the geography, is that is that, like southwestern Virginia, southern West Virginia itself?

00:01:52:00 - 00:02:02:02
Todd White
It's southwestern Virginia. If you know where Virginia Tech Blacksburg is, get on 460 and drive drive West about 45 minutes.

00:02:02:04 - 00:02:10:04
Craig Andrews
You know, there's, there's a fella, what's his name? Oliver. Anthony or something like that. He just released a Sony Oliver.

00:02:10:06 - 00:02:19:06
Todd White
Yeah, he's in Franklin. That's. That's closer to Lynchburg. Lynchburg? Three and a half to four hours east of where I grew up.

00:02:19:08 - 00:02:20:08
Craig Andrews
Okay.

00:02:20:10 - 00:02:27:11
Todd White
I'm right. Right in the Appalachian Mountains. Bluefield, like, 30 500ft above sea level.

00:02:27:13 - 00:02:35:13
Craig Andrews
What was what was that song he released? Just to kind of jog people's memories? I forgot the name of it, but it it kind of took off by a storm.

00:02:35:15 - 00:02:46:08
Todd White
I think it's something about, north of Richmond. the the something north of Richmond. He was he was gangbusters there for a while.

00:02:46:10 - 00:03:00:04
Craig Andrews
yeah. Now that you mentioned, I think it was Richmond, north of Richmond. I think it was a commentary on people in DC looking out for themselves, but not necessarily the people in Southern Virginia.

00:03:00:06 - 00:03:12:22
Todd White
It. Well, pretty much anywhere you get, you get between the two coast lines, the East or the West, you find out how the normal Americans live, and they're just caught up in day to day and getting by. And that's that's his story.

00:03:12:24 - 00:03:21:10
Craig Andrews
Yeah. So, so anyway, this is where you grew up and and what would your dad do?

00:03:21:12 - 00:03:39:15
Todd White
Well, my dad had his own business. He started in 1966 selling used cars. I actually grew up under his desk. I took my naps under his desk. So I grew up in the business meeting people, talking people just. Just working in his business. Up, up. Through my teenage years.

00:03:39:17 - 00:03:54:04
Craig Andrews
Okay? And way, so obviously now you live in, in the outskirts of Houston, you live in Sugarland. what? You know, what got you from there to here?

00:03:54:06 - 00:04:18:14
Todd White
That is a dangerous story. I went to school in eastern Virginia, Old Dominion. That's right. You get you get an engineering degree. Four different schools in Virginia. Anyway, I wound up at Old Dominion. got my engineering degree. once I got my engineering degree, I've lived in North Carolina, South Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas time, and Taiwan.

00:04:18:16 - 00:04:44:05
Todd White
I've lost time. Track of how many different times I've moved. But what got me into Sugarland was Accenture recruited me from Dubai so that I could live in Texas, Chicago or Atlanta, Georgia. I chose Houston area because I'd been here quite a few times doing work in the oil and gas industry sector, and when they brought me in for a go to market lead to run that advisory that I chose Houston.

00:04:44:07 - 00:04:58:09
Craig Andrews
Yeah. So why not? I mean, so a lot of people that grew up in southern, Virginia and West Virginia, they just live their whole lives there. What what prompted you to move away? What happened?

00:04:58:11 - 00:05:21:18
Todd White
Well, it's a great place to be from, and it's absolutely terrific people. But when you look to that region, pretty much everything that made it has dwindled out, been bought up, merged or just absolutely killed. So I watched that happen when I was in my in in the 80s, when I was in high school, I watched unemployment in certain areas, 60% plus interest rates, 19, 20%.

00:05:21:18 - 00:05:45:05
Todd White
Plus I watched my dad lose his business after all of those years. And I was I was really determined to get out of there. I had the capability to get out of there because I, you know, pursued my education at that level. But I made a conscious choice to move on. Now, I just did my 40 year high school reunion and went back and still see the same people are still there.

00:05:45:07 - 00:05:50:01
Todd White
There's still great people, but they're still trying to figure out how to how to navigate right?

00:05:50:03 - 00:06:17:19
Craig Andrews
Yeah, yeah. So you got a you started off with a bachelor's in mechanical engineering, right? And, the so when my I hear some of the places you meant, well, when I hear Dubai, I immediately think of oil, but, you know, probably shouldn't. I know there's a lot of things going on in Dubai. What? You know what what did you do with your engineering degree originally?

00:06:17:21 - 00:06:46:03
Todd White
No. right out of school. I interviewed with the electron accelerator over in Newport News. Interviewed three times with them to be told I had the job, only to find out I didn't. So that up ended me right out of the blocks. Then I moved to Winston-Salem, North Carolina, got a job, a job, and, and in pure later facet where they make, you know, they make elements for, for filters, all those, those different things.

00:06:46:03 - 00:07:05:20
Todd White
After six months, they said, we love you, but you don't work here anymore. So then during that time, I'd been sending out resumes, CVS, that led me to being one of five engineers that were hired to go to Taiwan, learn everything about a new facility, come back to Lake City, South Carolina, and build that, then that progressed.

00:07:05:20 - 00:07:31:24
Todd White
But if we keep going on here, we'll run through, 20, 30 years of me moving and and jabbing and poking. I've reinvented myself no less than five times. But, at a certain level, when I was with Sony, with head of engineering and operations, moved from there into software so that that was really my first transition away, getting into sales and marketing and technical delivery and training.

00:07:32:01 - 00:07:58:23
Todd White
And then the next phase of that was being recruited out of an organization in Connecticut, Southbury, Connecticut, getting into strategy consulting, working all over the working all over the United States specifically, but also globally doing business assessments and moving organizations forward. Now, if you really want to go further, we can do that. But it all opens up a can of worms at each step, at each stretch.

00:07:59:00 - 00:08:03:14
Craig Andrews
Let's talk a little bit about Taiwan. Where where in Taiwan were you?

00:08:03:16 - 00:08:17:08
Todd White
Tai Pei, we lived in, Tai Su to Ma Bay Lu, which was, the top of it's a it's a large building. It's headquarters for Nanyang. I worked for Nanyang Plastics.

00:08:17:10 - 00:08:26:20
Craig Andrews
Okay. Is that so? If you're if you go from the center of Tai Pei, which direction would you go to go to that?

00:08:26:22 - 00:08:41:04
Todd White
Well, that was right. It literally right in the center of of Tai Pei. That's where that building is. And then for us, they sent us to the factories to, to learn everything. So it was about a 25 minute drive south of there.

00:08:41:06 - 00:08:43:17
Craig Andrews
Okay. Down towards Talion.

00:08:43:19 - 00:08:48:00
Todd White
Exactly. Yeah. You've you've been there.

00:08:48:02 - 00:08:52:06
Craig Andrews
I've. I've spent a lot of time in Taiwan.

00:08:52:08 - 00:08:57:23
Todd White
my wife, my wife is Taiwanese, and she was my Chinese teacher. That's a whole nother story.

00:08:58:00 - 00:09:29:24
Craig Andrews
You know, one of the things, I'll tell you, Taiwan is one of my favorite places to do business in the entire world. If not my favorite. Because in Thai, you know, I can stay in a nice hotel in Taipei and I can do three meetings, even if some of the meetings were ever in Shinshu, and I can do three meetings in one day and get more done, and one day in Taiwan than I can in three days in China.

00:09:30:01 - 00:09:33:07
Todd White
Well, you have to explain that one, because I've lived in both.

00:09:33:09 - 00:09:45:24
Craig Andrews
Okay, well, anyway, that was my experience, but, I, I loved it. I loved doing business in China and Taiwan. So you lived in China as well, right?

00:09:46:01 - 00:10:05:06
Todd White
with, Well, it's, we're doing some work out, and I'd move some of my team members to California to do some work with, with the systems integrator. And the CEO was out there and we struck up a conversation. What are you doing out here? And anyway, that led to a conversation about them looking to expand into China.

00:10:05:08 - 00:10:18:23
Todd White
And and he said, would you be interested in let's have a conversation. So that was in November of 2017 and January 2018. I'm in the middle of Beijing for three months on my own, setting up operations over there.

00:10:19:00 - 00:10:26:14
Craig Andrews
Oh my goodness. And, and was your wife with you during that time?

00:10:26:16 - 00:10:48:06
Todd White
No, no, it's just me. And you probably picked up my Chinese is enough to maybe communicate with the 3 or 4 year old. So I wound up in Beijing and, set a corporate, I guess, corporate style living apartments that were furnished. But you can imagine being there in January. It's cold. You got to get bundled up. You got to walk out, find yourself something to eat, all those elements.

00:10:48:06 - 00:11:06:03
Todd White
So if you were within a few blocks of that Western style community, you're okay. But you learn very quickly. You venture out too far. You have to kind of point in a menu and ask, are you done? At that point you don't have English. All you got to the Chinese, those characters. And it's, it's it was a bit of a gamesmanship.

00:11:06:03 - 00:11:15:07
Todd White
And then you figure out where you can go and what you can get at your fingertips. KFC was one of my favorite places. KFC and John is actually pretty good.

00:11:15:09 - 00:11:53:01
Craig Andrews
Yeah, yeah. What was, you know, so a lot of people never experience that. You know, it's one thing, if you go to a Western country, you know, there's at least some norms, some common commonalities that you would expect that kind of anchor you, but although Beijing is a very international city, as you say, you know, you get away from the international pockets and you're, you're you're in China with how would you know if you knew somebody that was going to Beijing and had to navigate what you navigate?

00:11:53:01 - 00:11:57:10
Craig Andrews
What what advice would you give to them?

00:11:57:12 - 00:12:17:01
Todd White
find yourself somebody that speaks Chinese and we'll let you we'll let you snot around on their sleeve so you don't have to figure it out for yourself. But, you know, when you're when you're out on your own and you get to, you know, learn how to say hello. How are you? just learn how to engage on a basic human level.

00:12:17:01 - 00:12:40:06
Todd White
And most people, if you're trying to figure out how to, how do we engage with you? but fundamentally be respectful, attempt to speak the language. And at a certain level, you'll find you'll find some people that will speak Chinese or they'll obviously speak Chinese, but you'll find they speak English and can tolerate your inability to meet the intonations with with Chinese.

00:12:40:08 - 00:12:45:11
Craig Andrews
Yeah. were there any sandstorms when you were there.

00:12:45:13 - 00:12:56:02
Todd White
In China or. Definitely not China, but we had those in Dubai. I know in Dubai there were sandstorms that came in. Just shut everything down. We were in Abu Dhabi one day.

00:12:56:04 - 00:12:59:21
Craig Andrews
What's that like to be in the middle of one of those?

00:12:59:23 - 00:13:19:00
Todd White
It's not. Well, I was in. I was inside, a tall building when it happened. I was relatively isolated. my wife and daughter were at the pool at the apartment complex. We were staying in Dubai, and everybody started grabbing things and running in. They didn't know what was going on, but it's literally you're just being pelted, like you're in a sand blaster.

00:13:19:05 - 00:13:23:04
Todd White
So the best thing you can do is get out of the way, hunker down and get inside.

00:13:23:06 - 00:13:30:20
Craig Andrews
You know, I'm surprised, especially with all those tall glass buildings. I'm surprised the glass weathers it as well as it does.

00:13:30:22 - 00:13:41:08
Todd White
All those buildings are constructed to withstand a lot when it comes to to wind. Another glass looks like it's not very strong, but it's actually quite strong.

00:13:41:10 - 00:13:57:00
Craig Andrews
Yeah. Interesting. So anyway, so that's, you know, so that's, that's what you were doing in engineering. But today you're not doing engineering. What was it we do for folks these days.

00:13:57:02 - 00:14:13:20
Todd White
I used when I started clear peg, I made a conscious decision. And based on all of my experience, I would go into, well, I'm an engineer. I do business assessments, I do strategy, I do consulting, I do professional development. I felt again, I was talking to a guy one day, kind of like, basically you're a pretty good, pretty cool guy.

00:14:13:20 - 00:14:34:07
Todd White
I like talking to you, but I'd have no idea what to argue for. And I was like, ooh, that is true. I better I better get focused. We've talked about focus is the price of success, and I was on site with a client traveling in a hotel jacked up in a hotel, recognizing I'm here again. I am working with a client that really probably doesn't care more.

00:14:34:09 - 00:14:55:08
Todd White
I care more about the success of their project than I do. I said, what am I doing? I really love building growing teams, developing people, seeing, seeing that, light up moment when when you're working with young professional or whatever, people that are just looking to go to the next step and I'm, I actually I told the client, I said, I was working through the I said, listen, this isn't for me.

00:14:55:08 - 00:15:21:21
Todd White
And we're not going to continue to do this. I'm not just going to leave you high and dry. Let's work this one through. And and I do not want any more engagements like this. And so we kind of sunset and I keep up with, keep up with that organization to this day, you know, you don't I don't like to burn bridges, but that for me, it's when you start recognizing the first time you say no to something is very, it's very enlightening because you develop that point of focus.

00:15:21:23 - 00:15:25:02
Todd White
And that's where clear back is being intentional.

00:15:25:04 - 00:15:44:14
Craig Andrews
You know, I love what you said. Focus is the price of success. Yeah. I you know, I don't think I've ever heard that before. I mean, intuitively, it makes sense what is that something you coach others in, or is that just a principle that drives you? I'm running clear, Peg.

00:15:44:16 - 00:16:06:08
Todd White
I do get to other people. It really it comes to having a perspective, a point of view. And it's I, I equate it to, like, trying to teach a child to tie shoes. I can not have a consultative conversation with them. It's very prescriptive. And eventually that becomes effortless. So that level of folk, as you watch them, they're really focused on it.

00:16:06:10 - 00:16:27:10
Todd White
Eventually it gets too effortless. You just get up, put your shoes on and tie them. and then, you know, at some point you might have a consultative relationship with that child or they're running track or other different events or hiking. So you might get into a consultative, but it really focuses about what are you making a conscious choice to take to a level of effortless?

00:16:27:10 - 00:16:46:20
Todd White
I like to use the analogy of a musician. I've, I've, I've noodled around with guitars for more than ten, ten, 15 years now, but I've never taken it to an exact level of ever. When you watch a professional musician. I was at a blues bar here in Houston. It's been a year or two ago now, but I'm watching this young lady.

00:16:46:22 - 00:16:57:13
Todd White
Yeah, she's playing the guitar. She's singing. You know, there's people in the bar that are her friends. They're getting up to exit and she's nodding at them, and.

00:16:57:15 - 00:16:58:02
Craig Andrews
And.

00:16:58:04 - 00:17:20:22
Todd White
She's doing all of this at a level of effortless. You don't get there without having the focus, the time, the attention. And a lot of people, they have a lot of wants and desires, but they never put in the level of effort to actually achieve the results that they want. So those things have to be congruent, which is being intentional, being focused and and taking something to effortless.

00:17:20:22 - 00:17:25:00
Todd White
Effortless doesn't mean you're lazy, it just means you've mastered it right.

00:17:25:01 - 00:17:55:06
Craig Andrews
You know? And that's another point that I really like. And I just want to make sure we catch, catch, capture that the, focus gets you to the point of effortlessness. And, you know, you in the context of music, I was watching an interview with kid Rock, and he was sitting around talking to a couple other people, and one plane just picked up a guitar and started tuning it, and then took a beer can and played slide guitar, with with a beer can.

00:17:55:08 - 00:18:14:08
Craig Andrews
And I'm watching him. And, you know, for a second I'm sitting there thinking, wow, that looks really hard. But he's making it look easy. And then I realize, oh, this is a guy who's had a guitar in his hand most of his waking hours for, you know, 20 or 30 years.

00:18:14:10 - 00:18:34:08
Todd White
It's like, Stevie Ray Vaughan, his brother Jimmy had a guitar, and he told Stevie he could never touch it. And Stevie, he just. When he was in high school, he was sneaking out playing gigs. Right. And he just took it to an extreme level. But I heard stories. He would play till his fingertips would bleed, and maybe he'd superglue and keep going on.

00:18:34:10 - 00:18:55:15
Todd White
But that level of passion, Eddie Van Halen, while his friends were out partying and he's at 14 years old, staying home. Just absolute focus, relentless focus. But if you do something, you know, ten, 12, 15 hours a day, you're going to get good at. And as Alex for Moses says, you got to get your number of bad and recognize you kind gonna suck.

00:18:55:15 - 00:19:18:16
Todd White
Initially, but you got to keep doing it. You don't step up to, you don't step into the major leagues playing baseball and think you're going to hit a home run. You got to put in your time, your due diligence, your energy and the level these sports professionals play at. Now, they've got not one coach but multiple coaches. And you know, Patrick Holmes, I was watching the A thing on him on Netflix.

00:19:18:18 - 00:19:36:01
Todd White
He's had a professional coach since he was in the fourth grade. Yeah not just one but multiple do you can't somebody if I do 10 or 15 hours a day of investment and focus you can't compete with that PR. You better be able to do the time the EQ and put in that effort. Right.

00:19:36:03 - 00:20:09:10
Craig Andrews
Well, and you brought in the idea of, you know, the concept of baseball. There's, there's a statistic that fascinates me. so last year, last last year's season, there were exactly nine people that batted over 300. Oh, yeah. And only two that batted below 200. And the the difference between being the absolute best in the league and fired is the difference at one at bat out of ten.

00:20:09:12 - 00:20:09:23
Craig Andrews


00:20:10:00 - 00:20:32:19
Todd White
It's that's you know, how do you even start to digest the and, you know, living living in, in China, you recognize these people have people working for me. I have PhDs, multiple degrees, working ten, 12, 15 hours a day. And we're working on proposals and other things. And they're like, oh, by the way, we're gonna have to work this week.

00:20:32:22 - 00:20:54:06
Todd White
And I'm like, all right, you're telling me we gotta work this weekend? I'm all in. Let's go. Yeah. So you got that level of grit, energy, passion and determined to be successful. And that's what people in the United States don't get. We've been, we just don't understand the level of drive and and going after things that's going to happen.

00:20:54:06 - 00:21:11:17
Todd White
Like, I've got I have coaches in Indy or what have you. But if you think about that 1.5 billion people in India and, and Chinese, you some 1 in 1,000,001 if you're 1 in 1,000,000 sport, there's 1500 more just like you trying to differentiate and working to differentiate themselves.

00:21:11:19 - 00:21:24:16
Craig Andrews
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Well, we're, we're almost out of time here, and I want to make sure that before we wrap up, people know who Claire Pegg is and what you do for people.

00:21:24:18 - 00:21:46:16
Todd White
We're focused on professional development. We work with growth minded individuals, which means everything that we just touted, they they're on fire. They're going for it. They're not afraid of failure. They're becoming subject matter experts. we're really focused on getting people to the next level. I spent a whole lot of time trying to say, I'm not a coach.

00:21:46:18 - 00:22:10:12
Todd White
Well, we are coaches are looking for a better word than that. but literally, it's about people don't want to buy a coach. They want to buy an advantage. And that's what we did. The old thing, you don't buy a shovel, you buy a whole. We're we're into giving people the advantage that they need to ramp them quickly, let them build out and grow their point of view on their career, what they need, how they want to get there.

00:22:10:14 - 00:22:19:21
Todd White
We never tell people what to do. We don't tell them how to do their functional role. But we do engage and we share, you know, how we can ramp them quickly.

00:22:19:23 - 00:22:24:20
Craig Andrews
Well, excellent. And how how did people reach you? if they want to do that.

00:22:24:22 - 00:22:46:14
Todd White
Easiest way to reach me is by email. And that's Todd at Clear P&G. All one word.com. You can also go to our website P&G dot com. if you can reach out to me on LinkedIn. Happy to to get network that way and you'll find me Todd White on LinkedIn. there's, there's more Todd Whites than you than you would think about.

00:22:46:14 - 00:22:57:03
Todd White
But just type in hashtag clear big, and you'll find me in my, my shtick, I guess, where I'm a creator on there. So you'll find multiple things from me.

00:22:57:05 - 00:23:07:03
Craig Andrews
Well, excellent. I do hope people reach out to you. Todd, thank you for being on Layers and Legacies and, sharing these interesting stories from all around the world.

00:23:07:05 - 00:23:11:23
Todd White
I am a storyteller, love telling a story that connects with people really quick.

00:23:12:00 - 00:23:15:03
Craig Andrews
Yeah. All right. Thanks again.

00:23:15:05 - 00:23:16:11
Todd White
Thanks, Craig. Appreciate it.