Hey all. Coming up from a deep dive into the science around how people change, and wanted to share some thoughts. We can start a company as we are, but shepherding that company as it grows up requires us to grow up, too.But we usually don’t like it.How leaders grow into who they want to beThe path of leadership is one of change. Of growth. That’s why I love the work of coaching so much. I get to accompany incredibly talented and driven people on the journey through the wilderness and mess between who they are, and who they want to become.Most leaders, they think that this is a thinking exercise. That change is simply a matter of deciding what we want and then systematically working toward it. As comforting as it is to think of ourselves as these incredibly logical, empirically efficient creatures (particularly as we make decisions with millions of dollars and hundreds of jobs in the balance), unfortunately that’s simply not the case.Reams of neuropsychological research (here’s a decent summary out of Harvard and Carnegie-Mellon) indicates that people, even the most calculating leaders, make decisions emotionally and then rationalize that decision with logic. In other words, what we now know empirically is that the work of our conscious mind is to rationalize, not to be rational. And so it is with change. It’s not enough to logically understand the benefit of change — we must also reach the same conclusion emotionally.This is relatively straightforward. When change happens, it’s because changing feels better than staying the same. Simple as that. And then afterward we come up with logical reasons in support of the change.Simple yes. But this is an incredibly high bar. We’re evolutionarily wired to prefer the status quo because no matter how bad it is, we know we will live through it. We can of course take steps to make changing feel better — visualization, the law of attraction, etc — but overcoming our evolutionary bias against change is often too difficult, and we end up frustrated despite our at times herculean efforts.When change does finally happen, it’s most often the result of pain. Whether that’s the physical pain of touching a hot stove, or the emotional pain of having our work rejected by a customer or investor, we change most effectively and reliably when staying the same hurts too bad.“We can ignore even pleasure. But pain insists upon being attended to.”- C.S. LewisGreat. Pain drives change. Pain still sucks. So what?Understanding this, we can take an active (although unpleasant) role in our own transformation.The reason that so many leaders evolve slower than they’d like, is that humans don’t like pain. So when the pain comes we look away, numbing ourselves to the very catalyst to our transformation. We might ignore the pain of rejection by quickly jumping to the next task, or distract ourselves from the pain of an unworkable co-founder relationship with TV or food. We might just shove the feeling down in the name of “compartmentalizing.”And in so doing we stay comfortable, and stuck, robbing ourselves of the transformation we say we want. We don’t evolve, not because it’s actually comfortable where we are, but because we aren’t willing to face the actual pain of our situation. To feel it, unmitigated, without reflexively looking away.It’s normal to avoid pain. It’s part of the evolutionary wiring that lead to us being here to talk about it. Pain sucks, and it makes sense to avoid it in most circumstances.But if you’re trying to change, to grow, as so many leaders are, the specific pain caused by your current situation can also be an incredible catalyst for change. If you welcome it.If you’re playing to win, all of life is an obstacle.If you’re playing to grow, all of life is an ally.“Life is a thorough university; pain and hardship are its distinguished professors.” ― Matshona Dhliwayo—From Second Mountain Startup, the weekly newsletter for purpose driven entrepreneurship.Thank you for reading, and I would love your feedback. see hubwealthy.com/wealthy
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