How to change anything. That's quite a title and quite an aspiration. I actually think I've got an idea solution to this problem. I want to suggest to you three things that if you did each of these three things, you'll be able to change anything. Now, I got to put a little asterisk next to that. I suppose you can come up with some example where you can't change even with these three things. But I'm willing to bet that I'm going to cover 98 percent of the possibilities, which is way more than you usually get for anything. There are three things you need to do if you want to change, and here they are. Number 1, you have to be willing to change. Simple. You have to be willing to change. Lots and lots of people say they're going to change, say they want to change but not really willing to change and we've seen that. You've seen that in lots of situations where people, I've seen it as a part-time executive coach when I'm working with someone and I'm hired to help this executive get to the next level, but they don't want the coaching, they don't want to change. They're just setting whatever it is. It's a simple idea actually. But I have found that we often forget about it because we don't even think it's in the ballpark. We almost assume people are, of course, you're willing to change. Who's not willing to change? Well, I just gave you a lot of examples in the last video of all the reasons why and all the examples of why people don't change or organizations don't change. Step 1 is you got to be really willing and you could ask yourself that. Are you really willing to change? In fact, you could think about any problem or challenge or situation in your professional life and your business life, your organization life, or even in your personal life or home life and think about applying these three steps that I'm sharing with you, so number 1, you got to be willing to change. Number 2, you got to have something better to change to. You have to have a better solution, a better strategy, a new product, a new service, a better system, a new idea. That's essentially if you're going to change, you got to know what you're going to change to. Lose have to change to a different business model, and so they did that. Many retailers that were traditional retailers had to change to a different business model also, meaning e-commerce, and they didn't make that change. You have to have something better. You have to have a better idea. Often people think this is really tough and I'm not going to say it's simple, but there are so many ideas out there. I don't think we want to overestimate the difficulty of this step 2, coming up with a better idea or a better solution. It's not always possible, but it's almost always possible. Then number 3, once you've come up with this great new idea or strategy or solution, or what have you, you have to implement on it. You have to execute, you have to make it happen. You have to bring it to life, and that's not easy to do. I said there are these three things, but they're big things. I acknowledge that. I admit that being willing to change, having something better to change to, and then actually having the discipline and the organizational skills or the personal courage go back to that word to actually implement on those changes. Think about any examples you want to think about. Let's talk about a very personal example or a practical example when I alluded to earlier in the last video. But people that are not feeling well or maybe not living as healthier lifestyle as they could. Actually never mind people in general, I'll tell you about me. In the pre-COVID days, I traveled all the time, and I was working with companies doing research, giving speeches. It was really interesting, it was dynamic, it was fun. But at some point, I was beginning to realize and I was getting worn out. Any one of you have been up and down in planes all the time and it's not simple. It's tiring. I knew that it was starting to affect my mental health to some extent because it was wearing me out. But I didn't do anything about it because this was just what I was doing. I was enjoying it. But there came a point when I finally said, there's been one flight cancellation too many and there's one overnight in a place I never intended to at some airport hotel that I then have to get up super early the next day to get to where I'm going because a flight was canceled or whether happened or what have you. I finally said that's it, I'm going to make this change. I was finally willing. It took me longer than it should have, no doubt, but I was willing to change and that's important. What's the solution? Well, in my case is pretty easy. You travel a little bit less, but it involved a couple of other things as well. Make sure you're eating as healthy as you can. I always been eating well but I up my game. In my case, it meant stop eating all those potato chips which is my one bad addiction in the food department and I did it. Of course, it means going to the gym or working out or doing a bit more exercise. It turns out that's not that complicated of a solution, but that was a solution. Then implementing step 3, I have to have the discipline. This is what happens to so many people in particular for this idea of staying healthy or working out more, doing more exercise, whether you're going to the gym or not. The problem happens, we do our New Year's resolution, we're all energized, we're all excited. Gym memberships, skyrocket, purchases of gym and exercise equipment go up and then who sticks with it? You go two or three months down the line and every health club will tell you this, every gym will tell you this. The number of people that are showing up every day has started to decline because it's hard to stick with something. It's hard to be disciplined, but that's what's required. I'm not saying these are easy things to do, but it is a shorthand that is really valuable and I've found that to be really helpful and many others have as well. Because if you want to change something, you now have your agenda. Are you willing? Do you have something better to change to? Can you implement? Are you willing to stick with the discipline it takes to implement? That's all it is. Three steps needed to change anything.
