New Name, Same Great Content!
The Conscious PIVOT podcast has been renamed the Change Proof podcast to reflect the shift in the constancy of change in our world. Enjoy this inaugural episode as Adam Markel explains more about this shift and why it’s important to all of us.
—
As we all know, change is the only constant thing in this world. Do you get anxious about the changes in your life, or are you embracing them? In this episode, Adam Markel officially announces the podcast’s move from The Conscious Pivot to Change Proof. What does it all mean to be change-proof? Tune in as Adam shares the advantages of adapting to change and utilizing it as a catalyst for long-term growth.
Get the newest Change Proof Podcast episode delivered directly to you – subscribe here. And, if you’re enjoying the podcast, please give us a 5-star rating on iTunes! For instructions click here.
How do we leverage continuous uncertainty to thrive in this unprecedented new world?
The answer is to build the resilience we need to power us through the challenges we face so that we become “Change Proof.” Prepare to tackle the future with confidence by reading Adam’s latest book Change Proof: Leveraging the Power of Uncertainty to Build Long-Term Resilience.
—
Watch the episode here
Listen to the Episode Here
Read the Show Notes Here
Utilizing Change As A Catalyst For Long-Term Growth
I am thrilled to be sitting here with all of you to talk more about change than I have even talked about in the past. This topic has gotten that much more rich given the circumstances that we are all living in that being unprecedented change, unprecedented uncertainty that seems to be the absolute norm for many of us these days, whether it’s a change in our personalized or in our business lives. It was something that I started to deal with very early in my life. For the most part, I always resisted change. That’s our first instinct in some ways. To resist change, to see change as something that is not always beneficial or as potentially a lot of work. Something that, in fact, can even be threatening.
I would approach change from a place of fear. In many ways, that is the default mode for many of us to approach change in that way. In the work that I do, which is primarily speaking to organizations and companies about change. Speaking to them about initially the principles of pivoting and the book that I wrote on that topic and how it is that we are able to pivot elegantly, gracefully, easily, and productively in our personal lives, as well as in our business lives in taking that conversation about pivoting. Now, reframing it in some ways to embrace the state of affairs that we are all living in and get to a deeper level.
As I said at the beginning, where we don’t just accept change and work with change, we embrace change and we are agnostic to change. What do I mean by that? I mean that we don’t see change as something that is threatening but our instantaneous response to change is one of flexibility. There are three steps to this new mindset about pivoting and embracing change.
Those three steps are outlined in a brand new book that I’ve got coming out called Change Proof. This philosophy and this methodology about resolving change and being instantly flexible in the face of change is something that our show is now going to, itself, pivot toward, which is so wonderful to eat the cooking if you will.
We don't just accept change or work with change. We embrace change. Share on XWith this episode, I am officially announcing our teams, re-frame of the show, beautifully done and has taken a village but we are now going to be the becoming Change Proof podcast. Moving from the Conscious Pivot to becoming Change Proof. What does it mean to become change proof? That is the subject that we are going to take up in all of our episodes. Primarily, with business leaders, people who are running organizations, managing people, and leading change in various ways, whether in the for-profit sector or the not-for-profit area, in the private sector or the public area.
Looking at how it is that leaders can be flexible in the face of change and lead others in the same direction. The ability to take three specific actions with regard to change. This is something that we discuss at great length in the new book, Change Proof: Leveraging the Power of Uncertainty to Build Long-term Resilience. Ultimately, it’s why we want to become change proof. Agnostic to change. Not seeing change as a threat. Not being daunted by change but rather embracing change and using it as a catalyst for our long-term growth and resilience.
If we can do those things, if we can see the change in that way, if we can utilize change, then ultimately, we are making use of one of the greatest universal principles that there is. In fact, it may be the ultimate principle of the universe. Everything is in a constant state of flux, of change, of never-ending change. We are either growing from change or shrinking from it. We are either growing ourselves or in our roles as leaders, or we are shrinking from those roles. We are growing or dying in many ways. Like in nature, we see it all the time. It’s the same exact thing.
The three things that I want to introduce you to in this episode, the first episode of becoming Change Proof, is to pause, ask and choose. The show in many ways, we will be interviewing leaders, conversations that I will have with leaders about how it is that they deal with change, what their current methodology is, how it is that they, in fact, are cultivating cultures of resilience, and where it is that they are finding that their cultures are not resilient.
Utilizing Change: The ultimate principle of the universe: Everything is in a constant state of flux and never-ending change.
Much of our research these days has been to discover that people are exhausted. They are exhausted from the unending uncertainty from this marathon of disruption that seems to morph into one marathon after another and it is never-ending. We are seeing tremendous signs of both exhaustion and burnout in the workplace and other places as well regarding people’s personal lives.
The first thing that we want to unpack and we will start that in this first episode is to pause. What does it mean to pause? How is it that we learn to utilize and leverage the power of the pause in our lives? In our lives individually and again, our lives as leaders, whether we are leading a family, teams or ourselves. How is it that we use the power of the pause as a method to reset and ultimately become more resilient in the process?
Pause, ask and then choose. The ask, the power of asking questions so that we ultimately are able to utilize the pause to gain perspective, to be able to ask questions, including questions we don’t even know the answers to. Questions that we can simply research and find the answers to big questions. The ability to ask questions is one of the most powerful things that we have. It’s one of the great freedoms that we enjoy and it is underutilized.
Often it is that we are more trying to prove answers that we have already decided upon. We are defending our sense of what is right and wrong. Often that creates massive blind spots for us in ways that we can understand and acknowledge that in so many ways that are hidden from us, that are literally blind spots, hidden from view. Asking questions is one of the ways that we get greater clarity and visibility.
The ability to ask questions is one of the most powerful things to have. Share on XIt’s in that process of gaining feedback that we find out. Feedback leads to finding out so that ultimately we can choose. We pause, we ask, and ultimately, we choose. This is our greatest freedom of all. The freedom of choice and in so many ways, our lives are a product of the choices we have made, our businesses, and the success of the businesses that we are in. The endeavors that we are involved in are the product of the choices that have been made so far.
What we have at this moment is this powerful opportunity to choose. How do you choose? What are the choices? What’s your process for coming to a decision about certain things? Many people are fatigued at this point by much, including decisions. Decision fatigue is a regular thing these days. It’s part of what is contributing to that collective burnout. As we have seen and what we are experiencing now is something being called the Great Resignation. An episode of the Change Proof show that you will learn from is with the CEO and Chairman of WD-40. His name is Garry Ridge.
In our conversation, we talk about not the Great Resignation but what Garry refers to as the great escape. Why it is that people are escaping the workplace, what it is that they are escaping to and what it is that they are escaping from. How it is that we, as leaders can retain the engagement, the enthusiasm, and the passion of our people so that we are not losing talent but in fact, we are attracting even greater talent in an environment, in a market where people are leaving the corporate world or changing their jobs in droves.
Again, you may be reading this now and you yourself are one of those folks who has decided to resign to escape and to move on to greener pastures. You are pivoting. You may be somebody who is leading others. You are a manager or an executive in your organization. Maybe a small organization, a few people or something quite large. The principles are the same, regardless of the size. For you, you’re in the midst of looking at your own talent and how it is that you can inspire, retain and engage your talent not only to stay but to be living their best lives. To be thriving in the environment that you are helping to create and to curate.
Utilizing Change: We are seeing tremendous signs of both exhaustion and burnout in the workplace and in other places.
This conversation, not only my conversation with Garry Ridge or other CEOs but this entire conversation around becoming change proof is going to be valuable to you, so viable. Hopefully, it’s something that you will be able to put into place because, in each and every episode, we are going to be talking about what are the tangible ways that you help people to better deal with change and to use it as a catalyst for growth.
How it is that each of us individually can be a model for resilience in the office and all of our dealings with people, whether those dealings are in a formal office setting or they are virtual, as is the case. They are remote in many ways now. Where does that translate into our personal lives, our lives at home, our relationships, our relationships with ourselves, our health even, and our finances?
The parameters will be flexible enough to encounter and engage with that content as well because dealing with change is not only something siloed to the officer, to our businesses but it’s something that is ever-present in our lives across the board. I’m excited about being able to introduce this brand-new content from this brand-new book. I hope that you adore and love it.
We would love to hear from you. We would love to get your comments and your engaged response to the conversations that we are cultivating and the questions that we are putting out there. We hope that you will, in fact, leave comments and that you will go to AdamMarkel.com/podcasts. Leave your comment and questions because we would love to engage with you there and that you will share the episodes with other people.
Asking questions is one of the ways we get greater clarity and visibility. Share on XWe would love to engage with people from all over the globe, from every form of business and walk of life. We can’t do that without your assistance as well. Where you can refer episodes to other people, we would love that to happen. We would also love to continue to curate the content that you are looking for. If you have some specific requests of people that we might interview or conversations that we might be able to have, that would be fantastic. The book is due out, Change Proof. We have a website ChangeProof.com that you can go and find out more about it or you can get it on our website, on the Adam Markel site as well. One thing is for sure, as I know my own name is Adam, change is a constant.
There’s one constant C that is important to all of us and that is how is it that we make use of this Universal Law that nothing stays the same. Things that are growing, it’s the direction that we all want to be headed in. We are not looking to bounce back to anything. We have to bounce forward and things that don’t move forward deteriorate. The Law of Entropy is what we are talking about. Things disintegrate. They move from order to chaos. The good news is that they can move from chaos to order as well.
Not knowing where I’m meeting you at this moment in your life, I know one thing is for certain. This show will serve you, meet you where you are and hopefully, it will be fun and entertaining along the way. We are going to cover some cool stuff, lots of case studies, research about brain science, the science of gratitude, and the way that we are built to be resilient. We are in the way of our resilience, how it is that we can cultivate and create brand new rituals for resilience.
We are going to talk about everything from 30-second practices to 30-minute long practices and beyond. How it is that you can toggle between your recovery, reset, rest even, and performance. All that and so much more is what waits and is in store. Again, I know a lot of you have been with us for many years through the Conscious Pivot show and well into 200 plus episodes. I appreciate the time, the love, and the attention that you have given us so far. I look forward to continuing to serve you and having you be a part of what is a vibrant and growing community of people who want to make friends, make change their best friend and, “Make friends with change,” as Ram Dass would say.
Utilizing Change: Our lives are a product of the choices we’ve made.
Without further ado, I will end this episode short and sweet to say again, thank you so much for being a part of our community. I love the fact that it has grown and that we have been able to do something valuable in the world and we are going to continue to strive to do that. Please let us know in any way that we can be of service in that arena.
Remember, when we are talking about resilience, we are talking about how it is that we leverage the power of the chaos, the uncertainty, and the adversity that has not been created by the pandemic but is the normal state of affairs in all honesty, how we leverage that for long-term resilience. That’s the topic. We don’t have to answer that all in a moment.
It’s going to be a series of great answers from great people. I look forward to sharing that all with you very soon. For now, I hope that you are in a wonderful place. That you are warm, safe, healthy and prosperous. Ultimately, as I have written on my sweatshirt, on my hoodie, “I love my life.” That is in many ways, the story of my great pivot out of being an eighteen-year veteran of the legal profession, waking up in the morning and feeling often a great deal of anxiety and even dread at the start of the day. Ultimately, deciding to make a small pivot, a little change in my morning, waking ritual and that was, to begin with, that mantra, those four simple but profound words, “I love my life, my entire life.” That includes the vast challenges that are part of my life and all of our lives.
I realized that’s going to be a tall order for some of you to feel that way but that’s okay. We have to begin exactly where we are and maybe at this moment, the only thing that is a stepping stone, even for me, right this second, is to be in gratitude. Think of one thing right at this moment, as we say goodbye for the first time to our becoming Change Proof podcast. What’s one thing that you can feel good about at this moment? What’s one thing that you can appreciate about yourself or your world now? What’s one thing that you are grateful for at this moment? With that love and wonderful intention, I will say, ciao for now.
