Solo-Cast From Adam Markel: How To Undergo A Transformative Self-Disruption

Life happens, and not always the way we expect it to. Every single day we face change, stress, and uncertainty. What if you could learn to thrive no matter what life throws your way? Resilience expert Adam Markel and his inspiring guests explore breakthrough strategies to fully embrace change and build the resilience required to become change-proof.

I am Adam Markel, and welcome Welcome back to another episode of the Change Proof Podcast. I'm not only your host today, but I'm your guest as well. It's just gonna be us talking about stagnation versus self-disruption. And really, I think the, the one thing in all of my years in business, all of my years just on this beautiful blue-green earth, this tiny little speck of dust spinning in infinite space, in the midst of all of that, I'm gonna share some wisdom from my years on the planet. And that is that things Things that stay the same, that stagnate, often disintegrate. It's been my experience that there's not that many things that we really genuinely should have a fear about. In fact, fear is one of those things that often will keep us stuck, will really take away so much of the joy that we would otherwise experience in life, in our pursuits, in our work, everything. But one of the fears that I do think is actually an appropriate fear, if you will, irrational fear is the fear of the status quo. That is something that I think, based on just so many years of being around myself, of course, but around other people and witnessing what it looks like when any person or any system stops evolving. And by that, I mean the system becomes closed, the system becomes locked or fixed, or the mind, the mindset, becomes locked or fixed. Maybe you know somebody like that. I don't know. Maybe they're sitting in your seat right now. I mean, we all go through periods, of course, where we want comfort and where we would prefer to have comfort over doing things that creates discomfort, obviously. But I'm going to say this, and maybe in your experience, maybe not. Comfort is kind of overrated. It's in many ways, highly overrated. I'm not saying I don't like comforts. I don't want to imply that I'm not interested in having, you know, all that life has to offer and even in the way of business success, all the things that financial success can bring. I'm in favor of all those things. And yet when we get comfortable and our comfort is our primary concern, it's very much the case that we stop or we slow down the process of our growth. Most of my growth in my life occurred when I was not so comfortable. And again, you have to check in on your own life experience to see what that's like. I mean, in the moment when we are experiencing the pain of change or the uncertainty slash pain associated with that uncertainty or with change itself, we can't see the growth that's going to be the ROI for that pain that we're experiencing, for that dealing with the unknown and dealing with our fear of the unknown and dealing with our insecurity in that uncertainty. And yet, when we look back, if you look back at periods in your life when you were the most uncomfortable, I venture to say you're going to find that that was the period when you were growing the most. And when things were kind of okay, or they were good, or things were settled and comfortable, there was less growth happening at those times. It's a bit of a riddle, I suppose. It's one of those great paradoxes of life, which life is so filled with. And it's even a spiritual paradox that we really have to be so constantly vigilant about keeping ourselves open to what is new. open to what is fresh and on guard, if you will, about the status quo, about being a person that looks at change as potentially harmful. That's the first reaction to change is that it creates that cortisol moment. It creates that adrenaline rush that you think somehow or another, this potentially could end badly or could impact you in a way that is not positive. And I think that in many ways is that fear I spoke of earlier, the fear that's associated with a process that is so much part, a part of nature. The law of manifestation in the universe is change itself. It's a bit of an oxymoron, I suppose, that the great constant in life is change. And so when we are afraid of change, when we are— would prefer the devil we know to the devil that we don't, we are interfering with that cosmic law for our own growth. And I get it. I know what it's like to sort of be involved in a situation where even though it's not perfect and maybe it's not good, even the change in that situation is more of a scary thing. There's more worry associated with the potential for that situation to change and change radically than there is in just eking out that existence, experiencing that dissatisfaction, that knowing that it's less than it can be. And yet the worry and the fear keeps you still fighting for its existence and for its status quo. I was, just to be specific, so I'm not dancing around the topic too much here. I was running a company for a number of years and not seeing eye to eye with the people that were on the board, my partners and the like. And knowing that the relationship was negative in so many ways, was not serving me, it was not serving them, it was not serving the company. Knew all of that. It was— the writing was on the wall. And by the way, parenthetically, if you've never read that book, Who Moved My Cheese? And so many people I know have, but if you haven't, of course, read it. If you have read it, read it again. I think that's a book we should probably all read just at least once a year because of the sheer wisdom of it and the fact that so many ways, you know, we can always look at our lives and go, where am I settling in this moment? Where am I settling for mediocrity? Where am I settling for the known, for what is certain in some respects, and in the process abandoning And even moving further away from what is better, what could even be great, if you will. So I was in that situation for years, not weeks, not months, but for years, knowing that it was not doing me any good or, and that it was moving me farther away from my most important life goals and business goals. And yet, I was so afraid of what change looked like that I couldn't even think about it. I couldn't allow myself to think about it. And then ultimately, when I did allow myself to think about it, to speak about it, to have conversations with my closest confidants about it, the universe just upped and sped the process up. I mean, it was a beautiful moment because I remember feeling that way, thinking about it, talking about it. discussing it with my wife and getting myself sort of from a mindset standpoint ready to pivot. The name of the book I wrote some years ago was all about this concept of pivoting. Embedded in that was the idea that, you know, you either pivot by design or you pivot by default. And the default pivot is the universe saying, I'm not waiting for you anymore. I'm tired. I'm literally tired. Sick and tired perhaps of waiting for you to do something. And so you're going to get a little boot, a little shove in the direction, and gently so. I think sometimes when we're open to that gentle nudge or shove or what have you, then we can go more smoothly than when we're resistant and when we fight all the signs that are in front of us, all the writing that's on the wall, like Spencer Johnson wrote about. So I was open and willing and ready and able, and all of that good stuff. And then I literally just froze. And I froze long enough for, I would say, 3 months of just being so frozen in fear of not knowing what it would look like on the other side of that decision that the universe just went ahead and gave me that, not so much a nudge at that point, but a real kick and shove out of the status quo. And that's many years ago at this point. So I can look back on it as you all can probably look back on moments where you experienced that disruption of the status quo, whether it was because you chose to disrupt what was, or again, the beauty of, of the world we live in, you know, it just happens however that is. And you look back and you go, wow, that was one of the greatest growth moments in my life. That's one of the most poignant present moments in my life. Literally was just so present. With what was going on. It got my attention. I had to mobilize. I had to be resourceful. I had to think on my feet. I had to follow my own advice, my own cooking. The stuff I wrote about in Pivot had to become my methodology and my practice again, and to renew it and relive it. It was glorious. Couldn't have asked for it to work out any better than it has. And so I guess to me, in bringing this up right now, as we are entering into this brand new beautiful year ahead, I'm suggesting that you look at the places in your life and especially in your business, in your business life or your career life, where there is the need for some fresh air, some fresh water, some newness, new insight. Some change of some kind. I'm not suggesting you need to quit your job or quit your career or change careers or any of that stuff. I'm saying look at the places where things potentially have stagnated, especially if you're leading other people, because as a leader, you have to not only know yourself, know thyself, but you also have to use the wisdom of knowing yourself to be able to know that we're all the same and that things that you're experiencing, things that you're struggling with, Things that you worry about, things that you obsess about are pretty much exactly the same things that we all think about, worry about, obsess about, et cetera. And we're all so similar that you can use your own experience to be empathetic with other people. You can, you can really understand them better so as to also help them to find their growth and to help facilitate that growth. You could be the one to give that little nudge. Instead of waiting for the universe to create a more extreme moment of awareness, for example. So I think it's, you know, it's really important right now that we are proactive, that we disrupt the status quo on purpose in a world where change is so prevalent and so evident, where the pace of the technological changes that are all about us, whether it's AI or it's anything else that's new in the moment, and we'll be new in the next moment and the moment after that. What we have to understand is that uncertainty is something we get to control. When we're constantly in this agile state, this pivot-ready state, I like to call it, something that I talk about a lot in the book Change Proof, which many of you have purchased or have heard about. Maybe you're thinking about it, but in that book Change Proof and in our digital program that goes along with that, the Change Proof program, I talk about how important it is to be agile, to be pivot ready, because the opportunities are all around us. They're, they're everywhere. And if we are again locked in, in a sort of a resistant state, a less open state, we may not see those opportunities. We may be blind to them, at least temporarily speaking. So this is a great year in the midst of this constant and never-ending change to focus your energy on not only leading your own life in a way that is constantly inviting newness, inviting the open state of mind and open mindset to things that are yet to materialize, things that are, you know, not yet known even, and use that open mindset to the future. open mindset to how change is always net positive. So change is good, which is in Japanese, kaizen. You've heard that term before, kaizen. It actually means change good. It's a term that's often used when it comes to creating constant improvement, constant, never-ending improvement to a system or to anything, is to see at its core that whatever it is that is changing, that ultimately that is an evolutionary change, a transformational change, and that is net positive. If you could adopt that philosophy, if you will, that mindset, that mentality, as my father-in-law would always say, you're gonna be able to model that so easily for people around you. It will help you with your leadership in ways that you cannot begin to imagine, including the leadership of friends and family, not just, just the people in your workplace. It will also help you to create greater self-leadership because You will be the one to look in the mirror and go, what's open for examination today? Where in this beautiful world that I'm a part of is there some opportunity for newness, for improvement, for growth? And so that's more than anything what I wish you today. And for the, not just the rest of the year, but the rest of your life is a life that is just filled with constant and never-ending improvement, self-improvement and improvement in all of your conditions, whether they're your financial conditions, your health conditions, your relationship conditions, all of it. And I truly believe that that starts with how we see stagnation and how we see what it means to self-disrupt, to get ahead of the curve and be the one to be proactively looking at where our improvement lies. That's never easy. It is a daily practice for me. It's a mindset that I have to remind myself about frequently, just so we're clear about this. It's not like I adopted that mindset 5 years ago or 10 years ago or something, and I've just been living in the glow of it ever since. I did become aware of these things some time ago, and therefore I'm able to, when I catch myself, and it sometimes takes a minute or more to catch where I'm falling back on that sort of old tendency, which is a human tendency to opt for the things that are known, the things that are comfortable to us, the things that we understand, especially as we get older. And yet I know a few things. I know that that's not the road to growth, and I want to stay on the road to growth. And so that's what inspired me to share some words with you all. Today, this is all to me a way in which we produce our greater resiliency to, again, the world that we have very little control over. I'm a recovering control freak, I can tell you that. And so I have to be resilient in the face of any eventuality. That is a great part of our message today when it comes to resilience and being change-proof is that ability to you know, weather any situation, but not just weather it as in survive it, but actually advance as a result of it to create net positivity out of any negativity, any disruption, any chaos. In fact, chaos is often a sign that there's going to be some great growth ahead. And, you know, again, I know our first instinct is often to just sort of white-knuckle those moments and push back against, fight against them. But you can't fight the currents. As I say at the very beginning of Change Proof, and I tell the story of being a lifeguard and my very first summer at the beach, I learned that example, looking at rip currents and making saves in the midst of these really violent riptides. You just can't fight the current. So don't try. You don't have to. We have a better process, a better method. If you've not yet found out how resilient you are in this moment, which is a snapshot in time to create your own baseline of what your resilience looks like mentally, emotionally, physically, and even spiritually, you can go to rankmyresilience.com, rankmyresilience.com, and get your free assessment. Takes 3 minutes. And again, it's a snapshot in time. You'll get some free resources there, and you can find out more about our Change Proof program as well. We'd love to get your thoughts. Your feedback is wonderful. We live on it, actually. It, it's so vital to us. So you can go to adammarkel.com. And leave a comment. I'll be the one to respond to that there. We appreciate you doing so. And of course, the word is so important that when we find there's something that works for us and the words that work for us, we have to share those words with others. This podcast is just a collection of words, and the way that other people find it is simply through this algorithm. And I have no clue how that algorithm is set up, but I do know one thing, that when we get a 5-star review, more people get to hear that word, whatever the words are for today. So if you wouldn't mind taking the time on the platform that you're listening to this and leaving a 5-star review, that helps other people to get access to it as well. And, of course, if you know somebody that would benefit, please feel free to share this episode with them as well. I'll just say ciao for now.

Thanks for listening. We hope you now have even more tools and greater insights to build resilience And become change-proof. Remember to leave a review on Apple Podcasts, and you may be featured in an upcoming episode. For more resilience tips and strategies, including support for building change-proof teams, visit adammarkel.com. To get your own free resilience assessment, go to rankmyresilience.com.