Evoke Greatness Podcast
Do you have an insatiable hunger for growth and knowledge?
Are you interested in hearing the stories of how successful people have navigated their journey towards greatness…all while stumbling through valuable lessons along the way?
My name is Sonnie and I am the host of Evoke Greatness, the weekly podcast driven by my curious nature and fascination with the champion mindset. I am a HUGE book nerd and a wee bit of a "control enthusiast" with an obsession for motivational coffee cups.
On this podcast, we share the ups and the downs, the highs and lows and all the lessons learned in between. It's my most sincere hope you hear something in one or maybe many of these episodes that resonates with you and reminds you that you’re not in this alone.
I believe that a rising tide raises all ships and I invite you along in this journey to Evoke Greatness!
Evoke Greatness Podcast
How to Build Executive Presence, Resilience & Real Influence with Whitney Faires (Part 1)
🎧 Episode 173: How to Build Executive Presence, Resilience, and Real Influence with Whitney Faires (Part 1)
In Part 1 of this conversation, Whitney Faires shares her journey from collegiate athlete to executive leader to globally recognized coach—and the self-doubt, grit, and intentionality that shaped her path along the way.
With two decades of experience leading high-performing teams in healthcare, Whitney opens up about the mindset shifts that transformed her leadership—and how she now helps others do the same through her Courageous Leader Roadmap and Excellence Equation frameworks.
We explore:
- The identity crisis that came with becoming a working mom—and how Whitney redefined what success looked like
- The most overlooked but critical step in her Excellence Equation framework
- How to perform a “readiness reality” check before a big leap
- Whitney’s personal battle with self-doubt—and how mentors and mindset helped her rise
- The truth about managing negative thought spirals (and why mindset mastery is like going to the gym)
- How to separate emotion from action in moments of adversity
- The 5 components of courageous leadership—and why fearless communication is a skill, not a personality trait
🔑 Key takeaways:
- Leadership isn’t about titles—it’s about showing up with courage and conviction
- You don’t need to feel ready to be ready
- Self-doubt doesn’t disqualify you—inaction does
- Resilience isn’t about avoiding emotion, it’s about channeling it into forward motion
đź’ˇ Quotes to remember:
“Courage and belief will ultimately fuel your success.”
“Sometimes our minds just tell us lies.”
“Don’t wait for the title. You can lead from wherever you are.”
“Fearless communication isn’t about saying anything—it’s about saying the right thing in a way that can be heard.”
đź“š Resources mentioned:
✨ Learn more about Whitney’s work and coaching:
www.whitneyfaires.com
📲 Connect with Whitney:
Instagram – @whitney_faires
LinkedIn – Whitney Faires
A rising tide raises all ships, and I invite you along on this journey to Evoke Greatness!
Check out my website: www.evokegreatness.com
Follow me on:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/sonnie-linebarger-899b9a52/
https://www.instagram.com/evoke.greatness/
https://www.tiktok.com/@evoke.greatness
http://www.youtube.com/@evokegreatness
Courage and belief will ultimately fuel your success. We all learn all these skills but at the end of the day, our ability to lead at a higher level comes from our ability to do some of the hard things with courage and a deep sense of belief that we can do this, even if it doesn't go perfectly.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Evoke Greatness, the podcast for bold leaders and big dreamers who refuse to settle. I'm your host, sunny. I started in scrubs over 20 years ago doing the gritty, unseen work and climbed my way to CEO. Every rung of that ladder taught me something worth passing on lessons in leadership, resilience and what it really takes to rise. You'll hear raw conversations, unfiltered truths and the kind of wisdom that ignites something deeper in you your courage, your conviction, your calling. This show will help you think bigger, lead better and show up bolder in every part of your life. This is your place to grow. Let's rise together.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to another episode of Evoke Greatness, the podcast for game changers, fire starters and legacy builders who refuse to play small. I'm excited to introduce my guest, whitney Farris, an internationally recognized executive coach, speaker and leadership expert with two decades of experience leading high-performing teams across sales and finance in the healthcare industry. She's made it her life's work to turn adversity into opportunity. But Whitney's true genius isn't just metrics and management. It's in people. She's helped countless mid-level leaders and corporate executives break through barriers, accelerate their careers and cultivate resilience that sticks far beyond the workplace. Her mission To empower impact-driven professionals to lead with intention, own their voice and rise with confidence, even in the face of challenge. She's also a wife, a mom and living proof that you can lead powerfully and personally. Whitney, welcome to the show.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you for having me, Sunny. I'm excited to have a robust conversation on all things leadership and career.
Speaker 2:I always like to dive in and talk a little bit about what shaped your path to where it is today. So I'd love to almost go back in time a little bit and have you share some of your story and what really did shape you kind of into the version of you who you are today.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, I will start with growing up. I promise I won't take you year by year through my life story, but you know I'm from a pretty small town in Indiana and great family. My dad owned a small business, my mom was a teacher and you know I think I was a bit sheltered. And when I was growing up I found I fell in love with sports and I played volleyball from really third grade through college, where I went to college on a scholarship, and I think it was when I got to college and I had this first dream, kind of come true, of becoming a college athlete.
Speaker 1:After having a number of injuries that gave me, you know, some pretty significant setbacks, my mind was just open to this whole new world. You kind of realize, wow, like I come from a pretty small place and there's all this opportunity out there and you meet all different types of people and different experiences and it really intrigued me. I just thought there's this whole world out there and I was just so inspired to learn and grow and figure out what my path was in the world and it definitely was a place where my self-doubt hit me head on. You know, when you go to school as an athlete. Yes, you have to be smart enough to get in. But at the University of Virginia, where I went, it was a lot of really high pedigree, incredibly intelligent kids that grew up in a very different environment, and so I often wondered to myself, like when are they gonna figure out that I only got in because I was an athlete and thought to myself I don't know if I can actually make it. I wanted to get into their business school it's one of the top in the country and I did. I did all those things, but every step of the way I was plagued by self-doubt and all this confidence I had had.
Speaker 1:Kind of being in my little bubble of where I grew up, I realized the world was much more competitive and challenging and bigger than I had ever realized, much bigger than even the injuries I had faced that I had to overcome to get to where I was.
Speaker 1:And I think that really kind of hung with me, that self-doubt, through, I would say honestly, my 30s, and so it was constantly something I was working towards and I felt the pain of always being your worst critic and wondering if I'm good enough to do it, am I ready to do it?
Speaker 1:But the good news is I had some phenomenal mentors that each step of the way, I either had a great leader or I sought out people who were ahead of me in my career, that I aspired to be like, and so I engaged those people and, while my self-doubt really took a toll on me as a person, it didn't necessarily hold me back in significant ways, and I just felt such a deep sense of gratitude to the leaders who had shaped me in all of these ways, knowing that I wouldn't be where I was without the adversity that got me here, but also the people that encouraged me to press on.
Speaker 1:That made me see the value in myself in the moments where I was just filled with doubt, and that's really what created my purpose in the work that I do, which is I wanna do that for other people, and I realize how hard it can be when you're counting yourself out or when you're underestimated, and I think that we all have so much more to give and do and impact to make, and so my journey as a coach, as a leadership advisor and someone who runs programs for people to expand their skillsets and grow that all comes from a place of wanting to help people have the best experience in life, personally and professionally.
Speaker 2:It even goes back to probably the high-level collegiate athlete into professional. But when you think about moving from executive to entrepreneur and coach, what do you remember being the most unexpected identity shift that you had to navigate along the way, that is one of the best questions I've been asked in a podcast.
Speaker 1:Well, let me actually throw a little wrench in that question. I'm gonna answer it. But I think the biggest identity shift I experienced in my career in general was a shift from a just being a professional to being a working mom, and the reason why I say that is because I think so often we hit anyone men, women we hit a career crisis, which is a point in which things in our life don't align where the things that we want in our career. Maybe we don't get a job, or we get fired or laid off, maybe we have some sort of a personal pull, whether it's kids or relationship changes or family dynamics that are now taking two things we love, that we deeply care about and they're clashing. And for me, I had to learn that my identity was going to evolve, that I didn't have to be ashamed, that I wanted to have my career too and I could have the confidence to tell people I can be a great mom and I can have my career. But here's the catch is that in that experience for me it was pivoting my career to a slightly different path than I had always envisioned, and that was so hard because you have this vision and you have goals and you've been working towards them. And I was standing right at the footsteps of the next job I wanted to have, realizing that it would require me to be gone two to three days a week, almost every week, with a little baby, and one that I knew we would try for a second one soon. And I said that's just not what I want right now. So how do I still have my robust career, not quit on my career and do something completely out of the realm of what's gonna serve me down the road? But how do I pivot and do it strategically? So I'm growing, I'm fulfilled and I have the dynamics that I want so I can balance being a wife and a mom. And so I think identity is so wrapped up in where we're putting our effort, you know, and too often we wrap it up in our title, in our job, in our kids. You know we focus too much on one or two things, and so when I think about your question now I go back to.
Speaker 1:I had a little bit of a heads up that this was going to be identity shift. I had a little bit of a heads up that this was going to be identity shift. I had to do the deep work for years to say I'm going to leave a job, a corporate job that I love, a company I had been at for almost 17 years. I wasn't unhappy, I had career runway, I loved my team, but I felt this pull to do this work and so I did a lot of the identity work up front of saying this isn't me doing something lesser because I'm stepping out of leading a big org and into my own business.
Speaker 1:This isn't me, you know, playing it safe. In fact, it's the opposite. This is me standing up and serving the people that I feel most passionate about serving. And so I was really intentional about defining the identity before it defined me, and it's not. It sounds easy, it's not easy work, but I think most things we do as people, as leaders, it's not easy, and that's what makes us great and more prepared for the next thing.
Speaker 2:I think even just the sense of self-awareness around what we have our identity wrapped up in, that can really help us navigate that path, because it's oftentimes when we lose something that we then go through like this grieving process of identity, like this wasn't how I saw it happening, but I love how you were very intentional in that path of like okay, these are the things that I'm going to need to almost prepare for along the way so that you can show up in your best in this new chapter. It's not a lesser chapter, it's just a next chapter.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think so much of what influences our feelings around our identity are the things that are around us. You know what's the cultural expectations or what our friends or family think or do, or how it's always been done. And there were so many people that were very far in the periphery that when I said I was going to work towards building what I built and having my own company, thought well, why I mean? But you have this big job and you're going to go do that and you know, at first it kind of took me back because in my mind I thought, well, they surely understand this is a huge risk and it's it's takes courage and it's it's purpose driven.
Speaker 1:Who doesndriven? Who doesn't respect that? But we only know what we know. And so when you have a career that looks one way and then you're going to create one that looks differently, there's going to be multiple opinions weighing it Like does this make sense financially? What are you going to do if this happens? And I think that's where you have to be really anchored in your why and your purpose, because anything that we do that's hard in life, there's going to be unexpected things thrown at us and when we're anchored deeply in those things. It doesn't mean it doesn't affect us, but we're able to overcome it and move past it in the best way possible.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think, even as you, with the intentionality that you went into that next chapter of really wanting to serve in a different way, I think and wanting to help leaders at different levels. Based on what you had learned, based on the things that really lit you up, you created a couple of tools or resources, roadmaps, if you will, for clients that you work with and to be able to serve that population. When you think about the excellence equation as one of them and, when you have to, if you were to distill down the elements of what that is, what are two to three, just non-negotiables that you think every high-performing leader really needs to master high-performing leader really needs to master.
Speaker 1:Yeah, first of all, I would say that there's a step in the excellence equation which, just at a high level, it's an eight-part framework that's meant to give high-achieving, ambitious people a tried-and-true process to go to envision their biggest goals and go from ideation to execution. That's what it's all about, because we get stuck in uncertainty and doubt in what next and all the hiccups that adversity brings, and so this gives you a process you can trust. That's proven in years of using this myself and with my clients. But one of the key pieces to that is what I call the readiness reality step, and it is the ability for someone to do a quick analysis. I mean, you got to have awareness and you got to be willing to be honest with yourself as I march towards this big thing one. What are the skills and the experiences and the attributes I have that make me ready for this, that tee me up to be successful? Because I want to draw upon those. I want to use this as confidence and as momentum. But then, on the flip side, is, what are the skills that I don't have? Maybe I have transferable skills, but they're not exactly what I need to be successful. Maybe I have huge gaps that I have to close. That's okay, you can close those, but being eyes wide open to those so you can work strategically to get yourself more and more prepared for when you make that next step.
Speaker 1:And the other piece in the readiness reality is the ability to know the things that are going to confront you along the way. So for me, you know, in my story I gave, where I stepped into, different experiences that were out of my comfort zone career-wise. You know personally, and I oftentimes found myself thinking I'm not good enough to do this, like what if I fail? And so I know, every time I do something hard, those thoughts are going to go through my head and I know how to counteract those with the right mindset and thought process and actions to quell that negative narrative and put myself in the driver's seat of a more positive one. So I think our ability to do this quick audit of ourselves is so empowering because we now have perspective over the things we don't have and we can develop a plan we can move into being able to control what we can control and start closing those gaps, but we also get reconnected with all the things that make us ready for it that fuel us to keep pushing along on the journey.
Speaker 2:Something that you had said. Really, I think a lot of people struggle with around being able to control that cycle of negative thoughts. That is a really big issue that not everybody can just easily rein in, and so I'd be curious, I think about. It used to be something that I battled really badly. I forget where I heard it, but it was like creating something that interrupted your pattern. And so I literally started saying out loud to myself was pattern interrupt?
Speaker 2:Be in the middle of my brain was swirling, going down a rabbit hole that was not going to serve me or anyone around me, and I'm like all right, pattern interrupt, pattern interrupt. Be in the middle of my brain was swirling, going down a rabbit hole that was not going to serve me or anyone around me, and I'm like, all right, pattern interrupt, pattern interrupt. And so that's been something that I have used to number one, make myself aware. Number two, to remove the emotion out of it, like, okay, we're just going to hit the stop button here for a moment. It's something that I do with my family. If somebody starts going on a tangent, I'm like pattern interrupt, which they don't love. But again, in the moment, it's like it's a calling a timeout on yourself or in your surrounding. I'd be curious like how have you, how have you managed to be able to kind of call that timeout with yourself, or how do you guide your clients in that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, the strategy that you have is great, Because the goal is that you want to interrupt that thought pattern, as you said, and then get some space between the emotions and what's happening to be able to decide how you move forward. One of the things I love to ask myself, or encourage clients to ask themselves, is what evidence do I have to make me believe that this is true? So if I'm thinking gosh, like I can't do that job, I'm not ready, I only have, you know, two years of experience in this role, Then you know you'll usually feel the emotions. You'll feel it before you're cognizant of the mental churn that's going on. And so I just encourage people take two minutes, take a step back.
Speaker 1:What evidence shows I'm not ready for it? Because my last role I was in it for two years and got promoted and was successful, and I've done a lot of things where I didn't have all the skills and I've still managed to be a good performer. So what's the evidence? And when you actually look at the you know, quote, unquote facts right, they're not exactly facts, they're a little bit more subjective. But you look at the history, then you can say you know, there's a little bit of truth to this. I'm light here and there, but what am I going to do about it? Because there's a lot of you know false thoughts in there, and I tell people all the time. Sometimes our minds just tell us lies.
Speaker 1:And in really mentally resilient people have that ability to have hyper level of awareness to what's happening in their inner narrative. And two, they have developed a set of strategies to be able to work around it or work through it. And whether it's having that verbal cue, whether it's asking the questions, whether it's just giving yourself time to five minutes to think about plan A, plan B, plan C, Okay, if this is true, then what? What if it's not true? Well, what's the middle of the road thing? Like I'm not quite ready, but I go do it and this is what it looks like, and that just gives you some sort of comfort that you're prepared no matter what it brings, but you're not going to let it stop you because you can do it no matter what.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think those are helpful pieces for someone to, in the moment, be able to say, okay, even if you're not good at it, right, nobody starts out good at it, nobody starts out being able to stop themselves immediately where they should, or we'd never have those automatic negative thought patterns that happen, but we do have them. We know that we have more negative thoughts than positive thoughts that impact our psyche on a day-to-day basis, and it's taking the tools and then actually implementing them. I would really really encourage people to think about when you're starting to get flustered or emotional or when you know you're going down that rabbit hole. Try some of these things and see if you can't stop yourself in the moment. Remove that emotion, put a little more logic or facts in there to be able to temper it and say, ok, now wait a second. That will serve you much more than going down and spiraling down the rabbit hole, absolutely.
Speaker 1:You know the data shows. This is not my data. It's out there in multiple sources that the average person has about 65,000 thoughts per day, which I laugh about because I feel like I have 60,000, 65,000 before 1 pm. You know, my mind's like going so fast so I'm like that seems a little low to me. But of those, 75% are negative and 90% are repetitive.
Speaker 1:So you are telling yourself a story all the time in different aspects of your life, and you can either decide do I wanna push that down and be like no, I'm good, I said yes, I'm not gonna listen to that. It may just makes me uncomfortable to really think about what's happening in my mind. Or or do I lean into it? And you got to lean in and I think what stops people is the tip that you have the ideas I share. They try it once and like this doesn't work. I'm so stressed out I still don't think I can do this.
Speaker 1:It's not like it's a foolproof concept, it's actually practice. It's a discipline that you develop over time and so when you embark on the journey of really trying to manage your inner narrative and come from an empowered mindset, it is like going to the gym to get in shape. You start it. It's painful, some things work, some things don't, but over time you get stronger, it's not as difficult, you're not as sore and you see the results. And you got to get through that initial part of it.
Speaker 1:And there's a big piece of mindset management that comes from choosing how you're going to think and be, and what I mean by that is when you have those negative thoughts. Oftentimes I just say to myself do I really believe this? Do I really believe what my mind is telling me? Do I really think it's true? And your gut's gonna tell you, yeah, maybe it is, and other times it's gonna be like no, this is just me being my worst critic. You have to commit to moving forward Like I know this isn't true. I know this is my fear, I know this is the perfectionist in me.
Speaker 2:And I'm going to move ahead because this is unproductive. And I thought, oh, what you're saying right now, or what you're feeling right now, I want you to think about, is that the truth? Is this true or is this something that? Is this a story that you're starting to create in your mind because you're fearful of something?
Speaker 2:And it's interesting that first couple of times doing that, it's maybe like a little bit of a shock factor, like, oh, and when someone can really lean into being self-aware and saying, oh, you know what? And so now it's kind of become not a running joke, but it's like, oh, no, you know, sonny will ask us. No, sonny, you're right, this is a fear that I'm creating in my mind. But I think, as a leader, when we set the tone for being able to call each other up in that way, to say I'm not going to let you go down the rabbit hole, like I'm going to call you back to what this is and let's, let's address. If it's a fear, let's address that. But I think creating an environment like that is one of the kindest things you can do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, because I think in those environments people they're, they're afraid or they don't know how to ask for help and it's very vulnerable to share what goes on in your mind. I mean I don't want the world to know what goes on in my mind. Just because I do this work doesn't mean my mind is any prettier than anyone else's. It probably means I have more strategies and so that's so vulnerable and that's why you know the executive coaching part of my practice is all about that. It was because for so many years in corporate America you know 20 plus years of working in big corporations I found that there were all these really talented people that are having great success that are struggling with either how do I get to the next thing, how do I have more fulfillment in my job? How do I believe in myself so I go for the job that I really want? And they don't want to go to their leader.
Speaker 1:It's not because they don't trust them, but that vulnerability is hard when the person is giving you a performance rating and deciding your bonus right. So in coaching you get that confidential space for you to work on the hard stuff and a lot of companies say well, it's the leader's job to develop their people, and it absolutely is. It would be great if every leader gave a solid amount of time to development. That's not realistic and coaching is about the work below the surface. A lot of leadership is about fixing the things that are manifesting in our jobs and how we're showing up. But there are drivers of those things and that's usually where sustainable change happens. But it requires what you said is people really opening up and talking about the things that they don't want necessarily to be shared broadly.
Speaker 2:Which is perfect to lead into another resource that you have created, which is the Courageous Leader Roadmap Share a little bit about that and how that can serve people in teams.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely so. My fundamental belief, first of all, for leadership is anybody can be a leader. You can be one of the youngest people in your organization and still lead. Leadership is about a desire to influence broadly, to raise the bar, to be somebody that is driving meaningful change, and that change can be small or big. Now, people leadership is a whole different level of doing that. But don't wait for the title. To be a leader is what I tell people, because you can expand your impact just by stepping up your game and coming from a place of leadership versus contributor.
Speaker 1:But the Courageous Leader Roadmap is really five key components and it all stems from this. Courage and belief will ultimately fuel your success. We all learn all these skills, but at the end of the day, our ability to lead at a higher level comes from our ability to do some of the hard things with courage and a deep sense of belief that we can do this, even if it doesn't go perfectly. And so the first piece is about defining your leadership identity. And so the first piece is about defining your leadership identity. Now, we all have values I'm, at least assume so as people, things that really drive how we make decisions and how we act and what we do and what we think, and the reality is those follow us a lot of times into the workplace. But we really need a set of leadership principles that guide us in our day-to-day jobs, that are our commitments to ourselves and our teams or the people that we work with, for who we're going to be and what they can expect from us. And so part of it is first helping people define their leadership identity and the principles that will guide how they act and integrate in the workplace. The second piece is all about connection, and too often in the professional space connection is seen as soft, and I disagree with that, and I can tell you I once would have said the same thing for many, many years of my career, but as I got to higher levels of leadership, I realized that connection is a must If you wanna be transformational in helping people develop and grow and driving big results in organizations or in whatever you do. You have to connect, because people want to know that you care, that you see them for who they are and that you're in it for more than the outcome of whatever the relationship dynamic is, and so courage is required because, again, you're kind of opening the door to a more vulnerable side of you and the people. When you are trying to connect and get to know them and go that next layer deeper, then it's activate your power zone.
Speaker 1:And I love this topic because you know we often talk about people being in the zone or you know they're in beast mode and that's actually a practice. It doesn't just happen, it may just happen. You know a time or two when we're too young to really define what's happening to us, where we flip that mental switch. But you can actually recreate your power zone, the place where you are at your best, where you're mentally tough, you're functioning from your peak performance I don't mean physically, I mean mentally and that practice is so incredibly powerful if you want to lead at any level, and then adversity is all around us. So the next part is all about resilience and executing with the resilience on a daily basis.
Speaker 1:And I actually have a whole model around adversity that hits on what you talked about, which is the ability to separate emotion from what's happening. And it's not that we want to subdue the emotion or push it aside, but we want to park it just enough to make sure we can assess what's happening and develop a plan forward, so we're not sitting in the emotion, paralyzed, unable to get ourselves in whatever's happening, in a better spot. And ultimately, I believe, through all the adversity that I've experienced, I've seen people around me experience that there's always a silver lining, and so there's a mindset shift that adversity really is opportunity. It's just a process of really seeing that and looking for how you've grown and evolved and gotten stronger from whatever adversity you face.
Speaker 1:And then, finally, the last component is fearless communication, and this is all about not letting fear dictate what gets said. It is not about saying anything and everything and not caring, because that is the furthest thing from fearless. That's reckless. It is about knowing your tendencies as a communicator and then having strategies to say the hard thing in a way that it can be heard. And so I work a lot with leaders in that segment of the Courageous Leader Roadmap on how they do that, and you can see with any of these they take courage, they take us really digging deep and being like I'm going to do the hard thing instead of stepping back and always doing what's safe. I love that.
Speaker 2:This is where we hit the pause button. I hope you enjoyed part one of how to build executive presence, resilience and real influence with my guest Whitney Ferris. Up next in part two, what does executive presence really mean and how do you cultivate it when self-doubt, distractions and imposter syndrome threaten to steal the spotlight? In part two, whitney gets even more tactical as we dive into how to decode vague feedback like you need more executive presence. The hidden downside of unchecked ambition and how it might be sabotaging your leadership, and how to coach even the most resistant high achievers through ego burnout and blind spots. Plus, she shares one daily cut check every leader should be asking and the advice she'd give the world if she only had one chance. Trust me, you're going to want to hear this. Check back next week for part two. Check back next week for part two.
Speaker 2:If today's episode challenged you, moved you or lit a fire in your soul, don't keep it to yourself. Share it with somebody who's ready to rise. Could I ask you to take 30 seconds to leave a review? It's the best way to say thank you and help this show reach more bold leaders like you, because this isn't just a podcast, it's a movement. We're not here to play small. We're here to lead loud, one bold and unapologetic step at a time. Until next time, stay bold, stay grounded and make moves that make mediocre, uncomfortable Music.
