A while back my counselor Eleanor said something simple but profound to me: “Nothing changes until you do.” She went on to say, “Mike, you keep trying to control and manipulate the situations, relationships, and outcomes in your life—thinking that if they changed in the way you want them to, you’d then change and things would be better. It actually works the other way around.”
The truth of Eleanor’s feedback resonated deeply with me when she first said it and, of course, inspired the title of this book. She continues to remind me of this all the time, which I appreciate, as it helps me catch myself when I focus too much of my attention on changing the world around me instead of focusing on the only thing I can really change—me.
I’ve had a number of important examples of an internal change resulting in an external/tangible change in my own life. One of the most significant times this happened was when I got the contract for my first book, Focus on the Good Stuff, in 2006. From the time I was in college, I had dreamed of writing a book. In those days, it was more of a fantasy than an actual goal. But after my baseball career ended, after my short stint in the dot-com world was over, and I started my speaking and coaching business, this fantasy became a dream that I wanted to make come true.
Writing and publishing a book now felt like a big, but also practical, goal given my new business and career path. Thanks to some great help and mentoring over the next couple years, by mid-2003 I had a full book proposal and a literary agent, which was quite a big deal for me—especially given my age at the time (29) and my fear of writing.
My agent started submitting the proposal for my book, which at the time, we were calling The Power of Appreciation, to various publishers in New York. The first round of submissions went out to ten different publishers, all of whom rejected it. The second round of submissions, which we sent out a few months later after some tweaks and adjustments, went out to seven more publishers; again, all rejections. By the end of 2003, I was feeling pretty disappointed and disheartened. The following year, my agent and I parted ways, and I didn’t think my dream of becoming an author was anywhere close to coming true.
In 2005, I decided to take another crack at it. I got a new agent, made a few more tweaks to the proposal, and changed the title to Focus on the Good Stuff. And, at the beginning of 2006, we were ready to start submitting the updated proposal. After seven more submissions and seven more rejections, I hit what felt like my rejection limit.
In late February, my new agent said to me, “Mike, you’re a nice guy, and this appreciation message is a good one, but I’m not sure it’s going to happen.” I trusted my agent and took her feedback to heart, but that same night something just snapped in me. I got angry and had a big realization, so the next day I called her back and said, “Listen, I realized after our conversation yesterday that I’ve been waiting for permission from you, from these publishers, or from some outside authority to tell me that I’m ready to be an author and that this book is worthy of being published. I’ve decided that I’m not waiting for permission anymore. I’ve been scared to write this book and haven’t been sure if I could even do it, but I’m ready now, and if no publisher wants it, that’s fine; I’ll just publish it myself.”
My agent said, “Okay, I hear you. Before you do that, there are three more publishers on my list. I will send it out to them and see if there’s any interest. But, if they’re not interested, I don’t know what else to tell you.” She sent the proposal out and within just a few days she got back to me and said, “Guess what? All three are interested!” And within a few weeks, I had a contract in place to write and publish my first book!
Although I had made some changes, the proposal was essentially the same one that had been rejected 25 other times total and 7 times within the previous month. There really wasn’t anything different with the book idea itself; something had just changed within me. I shifted and was finally ready, which, at the deepest level, is what I believe allowed it to happen.
In hindsight, I can see that it happened at just the right time, when I was actually ready—mentally, emotionally, and practically. It seemed like it took a very long time, from 2001 when I first started working on the proposal, to 2006 when I finally got the contract. And, even though those five years were filled with a lot of rejection and doubt, the manifestation of this specific goal was less about all of the practical things that were involved in making it happen and more about my internal shift and change—once I was truly ready, it happened.
We’ve all had this experience in our lives in both big and small ways. Do you ever notice that when you’re having a bad day or a rough time in life, even the people and activities you normally love don’t bring you the same amount of joy? On the flip side, when you’re having a great day or things are going really well in life, even the people or circumstances that might normally annoy you somehow seem much less stressful. In those simple situations, your perspective and your own internal state have a big impact on how you experience life, not the other way around.
What if we put more attention on our own growth, evolution, and transformation—and less attention on trying to change the people and circumstances around us? This doesn’t mean that we’d stop caring about what other people do or say. It also doesn’t mean we wouldn’t give feedback to or make requests of those around us. We also wouldn’t stop working toward specific changes, goals, and dreams related to the most important aspects of our lives.
However, by letting go of our insatiable desire to fix, change, and control everyone and everything around us, we give ourselves the space to focus our attention on the true source of our own happiness, success, and fulfillment—ourselves!