Johanna Faries on Intentional Identity
Johanna Faries is currently the General Manager of Call of Duty. She is highly involved, especially with their Esport league, where she is head of the league. She was also the commissioner of Call of Duty Esports before transitioning to this role. Prior to that, she worked at the National Football League where she was Vice President, she was involved in business development and marketing strategy and fan development, and she was on a pathway to continue to rise up that corporate “ladder.” She’s also a musician. When she graduated from Harvard, she moved to California and started writing songs and making music. I think what makes Johanna really unique is that she’s got multiple sides to her. She is a complex person. She’s highly driven, she’s highly ambitious, but she also has a lightness to her that is really likable and is really refreshing. She’s clearly very smart and very bright, but she’s also someone who seems to be trying to be grounded.
Johanna had a number of amazing insights during our conversation. Some of them include:
“I’ve always been thinking about spirituality, thinking about relationships with larger forces than ourselves… why are we here type questions” (7:15).
“I often have felt burdened by my obsession with theology and the spiritual path” (9:10).
“I balance those questions, that are often never-ending and open-ended questions, with very tactical work day-to-day as a business executive” (10:00).
“I’m fascinated by all of us because I think we’re all wrestling with the same question” (10:45).
“It is a very scary part of the process to actually stop and reflect and really think about how fulfilled your soul might be” (13:15).
“If I could spend 30 minutes a day interviewing people like you’re interviewing me and ask them ‘Where are you in the faith journey?’, no matter what the response is, I find it fascinating” (13:30).
“It’s where I’m at now, I don’t know where I’m going to be at 3 years from now” (15:10).
“It’s not just this time of great resignation or the great pandemic, it’s also this moment of great permission to pause collectively and reflect” (18:00).
“What does great leadership look like going forward? What level of empathy needs to come through each and every day to enable people to do their best work?” (19:05).
“I am so goal-oriented as a leader, I’m so big-picture, so vision-setter, I sometimes lose sight of the intricacies of the people doing the detailed work actually enabling you to summit in the first place” (22:00).
“I have really learned how important it is to stop and check in with all of those parts of somebody on my team. It matters. It matters to building trust, it matters to seeing them as more than just getting to the top of Mount Everest” (23:40).
“I’ve learned how to not under-express my tendencies around introversion because my version of being an introvert means that solitude is my happy space” (26:30).
“I exert high extroverted energy in my roles as a business leader, but I also need these moments of solitude to really recharge” (26:50).
“I have to really think about how I’m going to spend my time for maximum impact” (29:15).
“Every day cannot be so rote that the predictability undermines creativity” (30:00).
“Every great leader thinks about time, energy, focus, and the triangulation of those things” (31:05).
“I feel very blessed in this moment in time because these passions have all intersected and interwoven in ways that feel very balanced” (31:45).
“Creativity and art have this power that goes beyond language, nationality, our indoctrinations, and our individual choices” (35:45).
“I’m a both/and kind of a gal” (41:40).
“There’s nothing more powerful than great storytelling to move people” (50:40).
“Everything is timing. What isn’t timing?” (52:30).
“What an amazing time because of the convergence that’s happening” (57:30).
“We’re connecting dots all the time” (1:06:40).
“We’ve created a societal normality around perfectionism” (1:10:35).
“We are inundated with the self-talk and the external factors that are pouring into us to feel insecure, to feel imperfect, to feel not enough” (1:11:00).
“I’m not secure because life isn’t secure and it’s always changing” (1:12:45).
“It changed my life in so many ways for the better to get curious about industries that I knew very little about” (1:14:25).
Additionally, make sure to check out Johanna on LinkedIn!
Thank you so much to Johanna for coming on the podcast!
Lastly, if you liked this episode and/or any others, please follow me on Twitter: @brianlevenson or Instagram: @Intentional_Performers.
Thanks for listening.
-Brian
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