Chapter 13
The Desire for Change

So, thank you—sincerely. We truly are grateful that you read this book. We put a lot of time and effort into creating something that we thought could help you be your most innovative self, spend more time in the mindset of discovery, and live a deeper and more enriched life. We hope it did.

So here comes a perhaps unpleasant statement of reality: In no way, shape, or form can this book—on its own, at least—enhance your ability to innovate, increase the amount of time you spend in the mindset of discovery, or deepen and enrich your life. As a matter of fact, nothing except you can get that done for you.

It gets worse: It won't be easy. As a matter of fact, as with any long-term sustainable behavioral change, it will probably be quite challenging. But we believe you can do it—and hopefully something in this book has inspired you to believe that you can do it, too.

We've introduced you to our learning model, to the mindset of discovery, and to the Big Five behaviors we recommend practicing to stay more consistently in that mindset. We stated several times that practicing is absolutely the most essential part of the program. We also talked about the conditions that should be in place while you're practicing: to be comfortable being uncomfortable and to be of service to others. Those are both important and necessary to make the practice potent enough to affect long-term behavior change.

So as you end your time with this book—and hopefully begin your time with your innovation fitness plan and practice regimen—it seems appropriate to talk about the third condition of practice, which truly is the first step in all of this. It is the honest, authentic, and personal desire to change. If the desire to change isn't there at the beginning of your journey, you may end up spinning your wheels, going off on tangents, and wondering why changes in your behaviors aren't showing up.

I have struggled with this condition and this desire to change many times in my innovation journey and hundreds of times in other aspects of my life. But what is clear after 49 years of life, 22 years of improvisation, and 15 years of trying to spend most of my time in the mindset of discovery is that without a true desire for change, I simply won't be able to drastically improve, alter who I am for the better, and create habitual and sustainable behaviors and mindsets in my life.

I would like to share two examples of this condition in my life—one of success and one that I'm still trying to accomplish. Let's tackle the hard thing—the one that I have struggled with for years—first.

In 1984 I reported to football camp at St. Norbert College in De Pere, Wisconsin. I was excited that the coach had invited me to come in early as a freshman. I was looking forward to playing a game I loved and had been playing since third grade at this higher level of competition. The first few days were tough: two practices per day in the August heat, weightlifting, and running in between. But it was also tough emotionally; not only wasn't I one of the most talented guys on the team, I was very worried about even making the 48-man roster. This was a group of football players that was faster, stronger, and harder hitting than I had ever experienced. I was truly in another league.

So after the first week I had a difficult conversation with the coaches. They respected my effort, they loved my positive attitude, and I seemed to have found a soft spot in their hearts. They wanted me on the team, but I wasn't good enough at my current position so they suggested I try moving to the nose guard/tackle position. The new position would allow me to make the most out of my toughness and persistence without necessarily needing the speed and strength that my former position required. I would, however, be expected to gain weight, as I was simply too light to hold my ground as a nose guard.

I made the team. I played football at St. Norbert College all the way through my senior year. And I went from 200 pounds to 250 pounds in four months. When I came home for Christmas break many of my high school friends didn't recognize me. I sustained that weight throughout college—although I was in pretty good shape because of the combination of the exercise I was getting on the football team and pure and sweet youthful metabolism.

After college, football ended—and so did the exercise. Working and playing hard seemed to leave no time for a regimen of fitness. Ten years after reporting to my first college football practice I was 250 pounds and not sporting an athletic physique.

Now, at age 49, I still weigh over an eighth of a ton (250 lbs.). My weight has gone up and down, and I have lost and gained more than 50 pounds five times since college. I have tried lots of ways to maintain my weight and fitness, but in the end, I really don't think I have been able to find my sincere and real desire to change. And each year I age, the tougher it gets.

However, there's a different area of my life in which I have been able to find consistency, sustainability, and long-term behavioral change. While writing this book, I will be celebrating my twentieth year of sobriety. It became clear in 1995 that my love of Guinness and Irish whiskey had grown into a problem and was creating circumstances that were clearly outside of my values and my priorities in life. Most importantly, my drinking was getting in the way of the most important thing in my life: my relationship with my then-girlfriend Jenni Lilledahl. With good help, support, and guidance, I was able to start my journey of sobriety on the right foot. I took it day by day and did the simple and small things it took to maintain and build upon each step and upon each new chapter of this new set of behaviors and life.

I have done a good job with my sobriety: I have kept it top of mind; created small and more elaborate processes to make it habitual; and embraced a lifelong, slow, and sometimes hard path. I have found support systems and mentors, I practice each day, and I strive to continue to learn and gain more understanding and wisdom to keep me on the straight and narrow.

The results of my work and practice have produced amazing and miraculous benefits and results. My personal and business lives have grown and been strengthened as a direct result of my sobriety mindset. The biggest manifestation of this life change is my relationship and marriage of 17 years with Jenni, the same person that my drinking almost made me lose forever. Change can happen, behaviors can lead to mindsets, and mindsets can become sustainable.

I share both of these examples with you not because they are unique or spectacular—but because I want you to know that everyone struggles and succeeds in different parts of life. I, too, need to continue to find ways to find the condition of real desire for change.

Throughout this book, both you and our whole writing team have been fortunate to hear wonderful examples, inspirations, wisdom, and tools from all of the amazing people I had the honor and privilege to interview. We have placed their interviews to help you hear and see and understand the underlying point in that chapter of the book—and what it looks like in the reality of that person's life.

For this discussion about finding the courage to have a real desire to change, no one lives it or says it better than our dear Miss Wanda from Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church:

John:

I'm aware that I come from a privileged white background; I've never had to live in a place of fear because of the color of my skin or where I'm from. But I'm also interested in the fact that obviously things weren't perfect after Selma and after 1965, and to this day. I know that just blocks away from where you give your tour there are still police at the civil rights memorial because of bomb threats.

I know you live in a world where people are judgmental. When I talk about fear, I talk about relatively silly fears of sharing ideas and things that happen in the workplace. But you've lived real fear before—and I wonder how you've been able to manage to live a life of service in the face of this fear?

Did your mother leave you with any wisdom on this? Did she talk about what to do when it gets to a point that someone might even harm you—yet you still have to try not to be affected by the fear?

Wanda:

Absolutely. I've learned that if you are fighting for a cause that you truly believe is just and right, it's worth it. I truly believe, and I understand better now, that the Montgomery bus boycott and the civil rights movement were both based on the fact that not just one or two people, but a whole society of black people, had gotten tired of living under the injustices. So whatever the consequences were, it was going to be worth it.

I had a situation in Atlanta some years ago, when a man walked up to me when I was standing at a bus stop and put a knife to my throat. He grabbed my arm and was pulling me down the street, telling me I was going with him.

I yanked my arm back and walked back to the stop where at least 10 people were standing. And I told him, I said, “I don't know you. I'm not going with you.” He put the knife back up to my throat and he said, “I could slit your throat.” And I said, “Well, you go right ahead.” There was something inside of me. Outside of that moment, I never would've known or thought that I would have ever said and been that assured, even if he had hurt me. But I was so determined, and thought, “I don't care what you say, I'm not going with you.”

I was angrier with the 10 people standing there watching who did nothing than I was with the man who put the knife to my throat.

John:

Do you think they were just scared? Is that why they didn't do something?

Wanda:

Yes. And when you look at the civil rights movement, you see much of the same thing. Countless people wouldn't join the movement—attend the marches and protests—because they were afraid. There were enough others who were courageous enough—and determined enough to see change come—to be willing to step forward. Enough people stepped forward in the moment and over the years to make it very effective. And it did make a difference. It made a change.

John:

As you look back, and maybe think of the sacrifice and fear people such as your mother had to undergo—and I know there's lots and lots of work still to be done and it's anything but perfect—but does it feel as if it was worth it? Do people think it was worth it?

Wanda:

That's another thing I say on the tour. I say, “Here we are. Standing in the basement of Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church where 50, 60 years ago, it was unlawful for people of many ethnicities, black people and white people, to be here together.” I say, “Here we are. Now we can ride the bus, we can drink from any fountain, we can go to any restaurant we want to.” I say, “We have inherited many freedoms because many people marched, did sit-ins, and protested until the laws were changed. And now we're the inheritors of these freedoms.”

But I still remind everybody on the tour that the work isn't done. It continues, because freedom work is a work of love against evil. Every day, all of us are confronted with making that decision. Will I love instead of being hateful? Because all racism is to me, is one of those categories that people use to say, “I don't want to like you. I hate you.”

But I say you can flip that same coin and come up with many reasons why I love you instead. So let us be the agents of love rather than hate.

John:

And that's back to your intentional choice, right?

Wanda:

Yes. It starts with self.

It certainly does, Miss Wanda. Thank you for showing us all what that intentional choice of one's self can look like.

I would like to end our time together with a small exercise and then some thoughts on the topic of hope.

The exercise is a simple one. It comes from improvisation and is something you have done a million times as a child. I want you to pretend. Pretend that it is five years from now and that you have undergone a transformation—that you are a slightly different version of the you that you are today. Imagine yourself as a more nimble, more open-minded you. Pretend that you are better at taking risks and thinking differently, that you are a fierce and friendly collaborator and ensemble member. Pretend that ideas flow from you with ease, that you have lost your fear of ambiguity, that you have turned the things you perceive today as obstacles in your life into opportunities. Perhaps this new version of you is a great listener who makes very few judgments. The future you jumps right into things and communicates your point of view in a clear and authentic voice and naturally reframes new information and circumstances that come your way. Pretend that the new you is innovative in everything you do.

Now that you have this version of what you might be like from this exercise, pretend to put this newly found version of you in situations that you commonly face in your business and personal life. How does this version of you react? What different choices do you make? What new outcomes are created by this version of you?

The goal of this book was to give you some small bits of information, a few parts of a plan, and some examples of how you can become the version of you that you just imagined.

And so we end with hope.

Our sincere and deep hope is that you begin—or if you have begun, that you continue to work toward—being your most innovative self. Our hope is that you will define innovation as how you behave and the mindset you live in. Our hope is that you will create a practice plan that allows you to create sustainability in your innovation. Our hope is that you will become your most innovative self, and that you will have a life that is filled with rewarding work, meaningful relationships, and a sense of service to others. That is our hope for you and for us and for all.

Be sure to laugh today.