In this Matthews Mentality Podcast episode, host Kyle Matthews interviews Dr. Debra Clary, founder and CEO of the Clary Group and author of The Curiosity Curve (launching with Fast Company in October 2025). Clary shares how she grew up feeling like an underdog and used that mindset to outwork others, beginning her career as a 4:00 AM Frito-Lay route driver in Detroit before moving into leadership roles at major organizations including Coca-Cola, Jack Daniels, Papa John’s, and Humana. She recounts learning credibility through discipline, building trust with backdoor receivers to increase route sales, earning a promotion to manager in nine months, and discovering the “power of a question” after being publicly accused of damaging truck tires that weren’t hers. Clary describes being fired after a corporate shakeup at Frito-Lay, landing at Coca-Cola through a recruiter connection, saving the Papa John’s account by gathering franchisee feedback and securing a video from Coca-Cola president Jack Stahl, then later being hired—and fired—by Papa John’s. After joining Jack Daniels as VP of strategy, she earned a doctorate at George Washington University and later moved to Humana, where she founded and ran a Leadership Institute developing the top 600 leaders, then supported enterprise-wide onboarding and performance efforts under a new CEO. The conversation centers on her 2019 “joke, question, and puzzle” that led her to commission MIT researchers to study curiosity and performance, ultimately prompting her to leave corporate life, start her firm, and build a framework for balancing curiosity and decisiveness. Clary explains the book’s “optimal amount of curiosity” and the four drivers of curiosity—exploration, openness, inspirational creativity, and focused engagement—while also discussing working motherhood, getting help to scale at home, women supporting women in leadership, and the realities of entrepreneurship, including taxes, hiring support, and the long sales cycle before momentum arrived in her third year.

00:00 Underdog Mindset

02:26 Why Curiosity Matters

03:03 The Italy Train Moment

05:07 MIT Research Breakthrough

06:03 Writing the Curiosity Curve

09:16 Growing Up in Michigan

12:35 Frito Lay Route Driver

15:32 Hacking Route Sales

18:21 Union Rules and Weekends

19:23 CEO Notices the Spike

24:52 From Driver to Manager

25:45 Leading Different People

33:15 Hard Lessons on Firing

35:57 Women in Corporate America

37:26 Women Supporting Women

39:48 Women Supporting Women

40:11 Fired at Frito Lay

42:57 Risk Taking Lessons

43:32 Reebok Storm Connection

44:30 Coke GM to Global

45:05 Saving Papa Johns

46:30 Calling the President

48:05 Leaving Coke Reflection

48:59 Hired Then Fired Again

50:53 Jack Daniels Lifeline

53:18 Working Mom Survival

56:15 Family Business Culture

57:24 Doctorate Grind

59:37 Curiosity as Driver

01:02:59 Humana Leadership Institute

01:06:19 Called to Entrepreneurship

01:09:13 Founder Reality Check

01:11:02 When It Finally Clicked

01:13:20 Craziest Investor Day

01:15:51 Legacy and Curiosity Curve

01:18:02 Curiosity Framework

01:19:39 Closing and Where to Find

E99 - Debra Clary | From Truck Driver to C-Suite