30: You Haven’t Changed A Bit

 [00:00:00]Today, we're going to talk about change this weekend. I ran into an old client who was picking up a few things at home Depot, like I was, and I'll be honest. I didn't recognize him initially. But he called my name while I was standing out in the line.

And yeah. And it was all I could do to figure out who I was actually talking to while only really seeing his forehead in his eyes. But we pulled on our masks a bit and out came that wrote expression that we normally find ourselves saying every time we see a friend after a few years of separation, we said, oh, it's great.

It's great to see you. And wow, it's been forever. And then of course the, you look great. You look exactly the same as you did last time. I saw you. Now naturally the last expression is really the truth. In fact, in this case, it was grossly inaccurate. He looked about 10 years older and I'm pretty sure I had seen him just maybe two years ago, maybe three years ago.

And with that, it got me thinking about how much older I must look to my friend as well. Who of course exchanged that scene. Formality back to me is showing me that I looked younger and healthier than I did even the last time he saw me. So, although I rolled my eyes, I told myself, well, I certainly couldn't look at full 10 years older as he did.

I'll let you be the judge. But a few hours later, I was on a zoom with some friends of ours that moved down to California. Right before the pandemic hit. So I hadn't seen their son for maybe about six, six months or so. They moved from the west coast from Canada. And I've known them for years, but they have a nine year old boy that ran across that zoom screen while we were chatting.

And I have to admit I almost didn't recognize him now. It's been barely six months since I last saw him, but he looked dramatically different. And I realized at that moment, that real we're all changing. Some of us dramatically, some of us less dramatically, some of us very noticeably, some of us less notably.

Some are taller. Some are shorter, some are thinner, some are heavier. Some are a little bit more put together, some, a little bit more of a mess, some stronger, some weaker, some tighter, some more wrinkled. And although both of these instances were an example of physical changes. I began to think about how we're all changing.

We're changing mentally. We're changing emotionally. We're changing metaphysically. The fact remains, we all look different from three or five or 10 years ago. We need to only look at a few pictures or photos of our children from a few months ago to realize how dramatically we change. Even in short periods of time, depending on our age, it's that photo or snapshot in time though, that we can look back on and then compare it to how we look today, that clues us in to that change.

Now Dr. Janie Metso explains that the reason we do not realize the changes that are happening every day is that those changes are incremental. We're just incrementally changing every 24 hours. And we see ourselves and, or our children every single day. So those incremental changes are almost undetectable, but what goes undetected is often uncontrolled.

What goes undetected is often in control. Everyone. Part of your organization, our organization is on a path to a preferred future. We believe that's what leadership is, right? Bringing people down that path to a preferred future. Now that future is preferred because we want something different or we want to become something different.

Believe it or not, the physical changes we experienced along the path. There are actually easier to see than the other changes. So, how do we know if we're growing as a humans over time? How do we know if we're that person that looks better with age or not? Creating white space in the morning or the evening to record your thoughts as a critical step to detected and controlled change.

Take a moment and write about who you are being today. Take a moment and write about what you are thinking today. Take a moment and write about where you are in your journey today. Take a moment and write about how you were feeling today and write about why you are doing what you are doing today.

And that will give you a snapshot in time. See, unless we've taken or have a picture from the past to compare it to our present, it will be difficult to know if we look or are different. In this case, most of us want that snapshot from the past to look dramatically different than our present and our future.

At times we may feel like we're running in place, not making progress, our businesses exactly where it was a year or two ago or worse. We're the same person that we were a year or two go. And that's because we do not have a snapshot or a picture to look back to. And yet does that as I review a snapshot of our business every single week.

And I look at a snapshot of some of our leaders every single week. And I listened to a snapshot of our thinking every single week. And I see a [00:05:00] snapshot of our experiential living every single week. It allows to me to actually help others take steps down that path, to their preferred future, our preferred future.

View those daily entries into your journal or that writing as that snapshot, it'll actually give you an opportunity to look back a few months later or a few years later and see how your thinking has changed. Maybe how your feelings have changed. Maybe what you're doing has changed or how your journey has changed.

Change needs to be detected so that change can be controlled. Again, change has to be detectable. So that change can be controllable. Just seeing ourselves in the mirror every single day, doesn't allow for a good gauge on whether or not we're taking steps down the path to our preferred future.

Looking back on those journal entries a year or two down the road allows us to see who we are becoming. If left to chance we could slowly gaining a few ounces every day. Until one day we looked back and realized that based on our habits or lack of activity, we have had a 10 or 20 or 30 pounds to our physical body.

We could be adding that same weight over time to our mental or emotional being as well, without even noticing, keeping a record of who we are becoming as necessary. If we're going to control that. So as I look across our organization, as I look across so many of our of our subscribers and our listeners and our community so many of you think differently today than you did when we began this journey together, you act differently.

You're at different places in your life. You feel differently about things so many have become different people. Oh, sure. We'll all have those friends. That'll tell us you haven't changed a bit. But I assure you, you have, and change looks good on you.