We want to make an assertion that how you adapt to change, both in terms of how you think about change and the actions you take based on that thinking, can be your greatest source of power . . . or your downfall.
With today’s challenges, adaptability is key. It’s your key!
Your ability to notice the small cues that signal the need to adapt, your ability to make sense of those cues, and then to decide specifically what you need to do is like the ability to do the right thing when your car goes into a skid on an icy road.
Steer into the skid or away from the skid? Accelerate? Or, apply the brakes?
There’s no one answer because it depends on several critical factors. But without recognizing the cues and responding appropriately, it’s like you’re strapped into a steel bullet speeding down the highway without a steering wheel, gas pedal, or brake. Which means you could die.
We know those are strong words, but consider this: Everything that is hard to do is only hard because you haven’t adapted.
Even when things seem like they couldn’t get worse and every bit of control is wrested out of your hands, you still have a choice. And recognizing that you have choice, and then exercising that choice are what adaptability is all about.
We often share this quote from Holocaust survivor, psychiatrist and author, Viktor Frankl, because it reveals a profound truth at the heart of adaptability:
Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.
If you knew exactly how to think about a given circumstance, how to discover the options available to you--even if it’s only to choose your attitude, or what we call mindset--what to do in the circumstance, when, how, and with whom to do it, wouldn’t you take just one decisive step, and then another, and another until you achieved what was just right for you in the moment?
Concepts like low self-esteem, lack of willpower, procrastination, distraction, and stress are just symptoms underlying a failure to adapt..
Around the world, the level of distress, demoralization, and the sense of a lack of empowerment is skyrocketing. Whether you are 25 or 95, as Deborah’s mother is, no one has experienced such a universal and all-encompassing crisis. No aspect of life has been left untouched. From the moment you get up in the morning until your head hits the pillow at night, almost everything has changed: how you work, if you work, how you connect with family and friends, where and how you worship; and the simple and mundane, like shopping for groceries, doing something for entertainment, or even using a public restroom.
If presented with this scenario just 10 months ago, most everyone would respond with a blank stare communicating one thing: incomprehensible.
We haven’t shared with you all our own stories of adaptability and change, but with more than 100 years’ of shared experience between us (wow! 100 years . . . pretty crazy!), one thing is crystal clear to us.
That is, each person has tremendous, seemingly unlimited potential to become the best version of themselves possible. To live a life worth living, and crafted in a unique way that works and fits for that individual, and that individual alone.
That crafting process means looking inward, respecting your own insights, honoring that you are the only true expert of yourself, and gaining proven, science-based skills that enable you to amplify and harness your unique strengths, skills, and resources.
We want to tell you what we’ve concluded from our 100 years’ experience: We will never rely solely on outside experts, no matter how accomplished and recognized they are, what awards they’ve won, or how many books they have gotten on the New York Times bestseller list.
Ultimately, each person is truly their own best coach.
Understanding that truth is what has enabled us to navigate the treacherous waters of today’s crises. That truth has allowed us to start a business while maintaining peace of mind. It’s enabled us to be more creative, take on new projects, chart new paths, and nurture big ambitions.
And now, during this global pandemic, it allows us to be fully present, taking one day at a time, while still keeping our eye on the prize of helping other people help themselves by developing their own capacity to be their own best coach.
Being your own best coach is the key that unlocks the power to adapt. You are able to manage whatever chaos comes your way by recognizing the tremendous power you have in your ability to choose your mindset and actions that are driven by that mindset.
We hate to say that there is a “silver lining” or that you should “look on the bright side.”
It’s heart wrenching to face the news every day that describes the tragedies that have touched so many people around the entire world. From loss of homes, jobs, connection with others, to actual loss of life, there are no words to describe it.
But we would be doing you a disservice if we didn’t also say that this time offers you both the challenge and opportunity to grow, learn, and be renewed.
When we’ve worked with young people on managing negative feelings, they sometimes ask why we focus on the negative. Why not the positive feelings? That’s a valid question. And it has an obvious answer: No one has any problem when they’re feeling happy, when things are going well, when the good times roll. We bask in a golden glow of joy and satisfaction.
But when a crisis hits, all that focus on the good feelings and the good times, don’t serve us. We are pushed to the wall, often without what we need to make it through.
Suddenly we wonder, “Who am I really?” “What do I really want?” and “Will I make it?”
It’s confusing. And it can be distressing.
But when we are slammed in the face with change, adapting is the answer. We always have a choice about how to respond. We get to decide that. And we get to decide how to exercise that choice.
What we have learned about the neurobiology of stress in the brain is that stress damages parts of the brain. That is certain. What else is clear is that we may not be able to restore the brain to its original state after damaging stress.
We’re not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy. And we can’t go back. Returning to “normal” is simply not an option.
But what neurobiology does reveal is that while we can’t restore function, we can recover..
Recovery is about building new pathways to get to where we want.
It’s not giving up on our dreams and hopes. It’s reaching them in a different way, a way that is consonant with this moment, with this set of circumstances.
It’s the new normal.
We would never wish this current crisis on anyone no matter what. But it has allowed us to hone in on a way to help people adapt and recover in ways that are much better suited to who they are, what they stand for, how they want to live their lives, and what they want to be able to say they accomplished.
So here we are -- in the midst of the most profound global crisis of our time. And our question to you is: What are you going to do to recover?
It’s the first time ever that so many of us are stuck at home, cut off from all the usual activities that take our attention and fill our time.
It’s also the first time that millions of people around the world have to work, study, learn, and collaborate together.
While we certainly don’t think that this is the moment we’ve been waiting for, it is a moment we embrace as an opportunity-- a privilege, really--to guide others on the path to recovering their sense of self, purpose, and even joy.
It’s not just a matter of connecting to a Zoom call, downloading articles and other resources, or joining an online forum.
The new normal is a paradigm shift. It has completely stripped away any kind of myths and allusions we’ve held about how things work and what really matters to us.
Be Your Own Best Coach is a system with a step-by-step guide to help you boost your creativity and imagination, harness the deep expertise you already have about yourself, and polish the strengths, skills, and resources you possess so you can live a life worth living, the life you want for yourself.
In the Be Your Own Best Coach program, we’ll take you through a series of experiential exercises to help you shift your mindset about who you are and what you’re capable of. Then, we’ll do a deep dive into the science of change to show you how you can adapt to the new normal in a way that brings the best version of yourself to the table.
To be clear: adapting to the new normal is not a matter of tiny incremental steps, although exactly how to take the right tiny steps are a method you’ll learn in the course. Shifting your mindset and changing behavior through being your own best coach is a paradigm shift.
That term, paradigm shift, was introduced in 1962 by Thomas Kuhn, a well-known physicist, philosopher and historian of science. Inspired by Jean Piaget, a psychologist who studied child development, Kuhn posited that there are two kinds of scientific change: “Normal” science in which advances occur incrementally, and a change so far reaching that it transforms “normal” to something wholly new and different.
This is why we can’t deliver this program as a PDF or simple self-paced course. We are social animals, so paradigm shifts happen within community. We learn, we explore, we discover, we are inspired and are inspired by others. Together, we support each other as we travel down our own unique paths.
Enrollment for Be Your Own Best Coach opened just a few days ago and we’ll be closing in just nine, on October 13th at noon.
And we won’t open again until next spring.
When you join now you’ll get access to all future versions of the material and can join any future course as an active participant. It’s like a lifetime all-access membership pass that you only have to pay for once.
>>> Click here to join <<<
We hope you’ll jump aboard. Our mission is to help each person help themselves in a way that’s just right for them. At the same time, each of you contributes to making the vision of wellbeing for all a reality.
Join us!
Glen and Deborah
P.S. If you haven’t seen it yet, sign up to get a copy of your Action Guide: 52 Easy Things that Will Build Your Sense of Agency and Empowerment
It's YOUR Key