Why Change Is So Hard

SPEAKER_01 0:10

Welcome to Philosophy of Life Podcast. I'm your host, Reza Sangeli, with my co-host Yalda Nazarian. Today we're talking about one of the few things that every human being has in common. Change. Whether we welcome it or resist it, change is always present. We grow older. Our relationships evolve. Careers begin and end. Technology transforms the way we live, work, and even think. Sometimes we choose change, and sometimes change chooses us. But here's a deeper question. Why is change so difficult? If we know that exercising is good for us, why don't we do it consistently? If we know a relationship needs attention, why do we postpone the conversation? If we recognize unhealthy habits, why do we continue repeating them? The obstacle is rarely a lack of information. Most of us already know what we should do. The real challenge is turning knowledge into action. Throughout history, philosophers have wrestled with this question. Heraclitus famously said that everything flows and nothing remains the same. The Stoics taught that while we cannot control what happens around us, we can control how we respond. Modern psychology tells us that our habits, emotions, and beliefs often shape our future more than our intentions do. So perhaps change is not simply about becoming someone different. Perhaps it's about discovering who we are beneath our routines, assumptions, and fears. Today's guest has spent decades thinking about this question from a leadership and practical perspective. Jay Reed Durand, known to most people simply as Reed, is a retired US Army leader with more than 40 years of experience developing leaders and helping individuals navigate personal and organizational transformation. He is the author of Train to Change Phase I Self Mastery, a book built on the idea that change isn't something we hope for. It's something we can train for. Today we'll explore what it really takes to change, why so many of us struggle with it, and whether self-mastery is the foundation for becoming better leaders, better partners, and ultimately better human beings.

Reed’s Army Path Into Change

SPEAKER_01 3:14

It is a pleasure to have you with us. Before we want to start and talk about your book, can you introduce yourself to our audience?

SPEAKER_00 3:24

Yes, uh, thank you, Reza and Yalda, for uh having me on your show. I I appreciate it. Um I I did a typical army career as a I I enlisted in the army as a 17-year-old private. My first duty station was in an infantry company at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Very typical, uh, out of high school, didn't know what to do, joined the army. You know, nothing spectacular, extraordinary. But but I found a sense of uh purpose. Uh I liked the camaraderie. I was a good fit in the military. Uh you know, uh being an enlisted guy, you don't make much money, uh, but I did have a career, a very clear career path. Uh, if I worked hard, if I did all the right things, if I conformed, I would have a good, solid 20-year, at least 20-year career. And that's how it worked out, until I uh got a medical condition which disqualified me for continued service. Uh, that's the thing with the Army, like you know, other specialties occupations. I I got where I couldn't serve any longer on active duty because of this uh disqualifying medical condition. So I had to enter the real world. That was quite a scary transition. Uh I I there in the Alexandria area, that's where I where I got out. I worked for uh an insurance company for a while. I was an army contractor for a while, and then I went into uh civil service. And after that, my career took off. It's funny, after 21, 22 years of uh being a specialist, a technology specialist, once I got into Army civil service, is when my career really took off, and I went through the ranks and got promoted. And uh, all of that, in sum, is what I'd learned over more than 40 years total, was it wasn't me and my specialty, my occupation, my education. That all helped, certainly. But what it was mostly was over all those changes, I learned how to manage change. And as a software developer, I picked up on that. Uh was probably the first introduction to managing change with software development. But but I refined that over the years and I applied that to many different aspects of life: personal life, uh, developing others, uh, changing the organization. Um, so Anna, you know, an interesting thing for for your show uh was along the way I started looking back at where'd this come from? Things like know yourself. The army has this uh principle called uh one of the principles is know yourself and seek self-improvement. So along the way, I was wondering, well, where'd that come from? And I started researching back, and it probably goes back to at least Confucius and Lao Tzu, way back 2,500 years ago. And so once I retired and I thought through that's 40 years gone by, what did I learn from all those years? I I was successful, I'm glad I had the opportunity, things worked out great. Uh, but I wanted to, you know, reflect on what I had learned, and is that something that others can learn from? And much of this first phase, phase one, I call it in my in my book, uh phase one, was uh almost all of it is related back to timeless wisdom. And it's nothing new. And it further made me think well, uh, you know, all the self-help and self-improvement out there today, uh, it's people think this is new and improved, or something someone just thought of. A lot of it, I think, is timeless. It's been around since humanity existed. It's been written down for thousands of years. And that's what I tried to show in the book. A lot of this is a lot of this about managing change, self-improvement, uh, what you can control, what you can influence. A lot of that is based on the philosophers and psychologists and uh throughout history. So uh that's all you know. So it started out as a private in an infantry company, ended up writing a book heavy on philosophy. Uh I don't know how I didn't plan it that way. That's just sort of how it worked out.

SPEAKER_01 8:06

That's great. That's great.

Why He Wrote Train To Change

SPEAKER_01 8:08

Um, how did what did you inspire you to write the book, Train Your Change?

SPEAKER_00 8:15

Train to Change. I had the time, you know, so for the first time, uh this goes back to I I I listened to one of your recent podcasts. I think you called it on hold, you know, about what you spend time doing. Uh very, you know, I I connected really with uh many of your thoughts in the podcast about, you know, you you not you don't do some things because it's harder to do. You take the easy way out. I I had written, you know, through college, I've written a lot of papers, uh, all the army leadership schools, uh, two master's degrees. I wrote a lot. Uh it's not like I like to write, but I had to write. I wrote a lot of things. And and over that research, I started forming a lot of ideas. And when I had the time finally retiring the second time, uh, and only because I retired the second time, I had enough time to reflect and get my thoughts together. And and I've really I've got two young kids uh that you know they're starting to ask, they ask questions about uh the economy and what should they do, what's important, uh is it only about money? You know, it's typical teenagers, young adults growing up. You know, I just thought, well, uh, from what I've learned, not that what I've learned is the only way, it's a way, and it's and it's based on evidence and things I've I've seen work over many decades. So I started out thinking, what could I leave them? You know, write down a few notes, and then it just kind of grew and grew and grew into a book. But it was targeted at the young adults and even now mid-career adults, people who just are unsure. Um you know, reading the hacks, uh, we're we're just getting flooded so much by what's on the internet and social media influencers. And a lot of this is shortcutting what I think it takes to succeed and and be happy and have a fulfilling life. So hopefully that's what comes out in the book for for many people who who are interested in this sort of thing. Well, I think the I think older, hopefully, older people will think along the lines of, well, yeah, that I see some truth in that. And then the young ones don't know because they don't have the experience. Um, but uh a lot of this is what I learned in the army. Uh I was uh I was promoted to sergeant at the age of 20, and that's my first experience leading troops. You know, I'm 20-year-old in front of a squad of soldiers, leading soldiers on exercises and deployments. Uh so you start picking up things right away, and uh all the army leadership training and uh strategy, some of it goes back to uh Sun Tzu. You know, we're talking Sun Tzu is a mandatory reading in the Army strategy course. So uh a lot of this is from what I experienced firsthand and what I learned from my military experience plus college.

Self-Mastery Starts With Self-Awareness

SPEAKER_00 11:33

But one example on self-mastery is knowing yourself. Uh so I'll if I can quote Sun Tzu, uh, and again, this is what I am sitting in a military classroom in the U.S. Army learning Sun Tzu. Uh it goes, if you know yourself and you know your enemy, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. That simple statement going back 2,500 years ago resonates today by an army. There's an army saying that that's going around that that says the enemy has a vote. And we further extend that in self-help in this in this program to mean your environment has a vote. So if you know yourself, you know your strengths, you know your weaknesses, and you understand your environment. So internally, you know yourself, your strengths and weaknesses. Externally, you understand the opportunities that you can capitalize on, and the threats you have to be aware of. So with self-mastery, it's constantly being aware of yourself, your limits, uh, what opportunities might exist, the th the threats that are out there. Along with that, and that's the key, that I start with self-awareness, because without self-awareness, none of this, uh, all these other things will not matter. You we must first start with being self-aware, and that then starts building on these other concepts like suspending your preconceptions. You know, we've we're all born with uh biases, and uh, you know, the list is on and on and on about cognitive biases, threats to our expertise, uh, groupthink, and organ, and this starts branching out now into uh organizational change management, organizational behavior. A lot of those concepts that you you go that you hear about in in when you go to classes on org behavior, org theory goes back to Francis Bacon and his idol. So you know, one technique is we're we all have these biases. It's important to not try to ignore them or forget them, just realize we have them, put them out there on a clothesline, just suspend them out there for a while long enough to open our mind and maybe learn something new. That and then the other one goes into focus on control. One of my favorite topics is you know, being self-aware with an open mind. What can you truly do yourself internally? The strengths and weaknesses in your own mind, what can you control? Thoughts, choices, actions. That's about it. Externally, everything else, maybe you can influence, maybe you cannot influence, but and I guess back to that stoic idea of dichotomy of control. It's another one of those components in the framework to help you achieve self-mastery. Uh, then there's the changed mindset. You know, um you have to let things go at some point. This is now this is Buddhist philosophy, right? Yeah, another one of my favorite things, I don't know where I first came across it, but it it just seems to make so much sense today. Uh, that there's this idea that if you cling to something that you wish wouldn't go away, but it's already gone away, you suffer. You know, the idea of suffering because you're holding on to something that you you wish wouldn't go away. And um the idea that it is time to at some point to move on, right? Um, and then purpose. Uh wow, I mean, I could probably write a whole book about purpose. And but my takeaway from the army, and I don't get into politics, and I don't get into religion, and there's that one section that I mentioned philosophy, tradition, and and religion. And uh, you know, one of the things I've learned over the years is I don't talk in public about religion, and I don't talk in public about politics. Absolutely not. That's uh that that brings up those preconceptions. We're trying to clear our mind of preconceptions, but but I mention that because one of the things I've seen over the decades with purpose is a lot of people don't have that, and self-mastery is being guided by something, and a lot of us maybe can't define what purpose is, we don't feel we have a sense of purpose, but we do have values. Everybody values something. Do you value uh a stable career? Do you value having health insurance? Do you value having a family? You know, what what do you value in life? What's the what's the thing that's driving you in a military context? Very often you see people driven by promotions, camaraderie, that 20-year career thing. So that all those things add up to um uh being self-aware first, and then the other components build on the self-awareness to where you reach self-mastery. And once you get there, once you fully understand why you do things or avoid doing things, then we can get into the environment. And you know, the environment is the those opportunities and threats that are out there. Um, but but I think a lot of people don't realize their limits, or they don't maybe don't fully appreciate their strengths, maybe they don't understand their weaknesses, but they go out trying to make a change in life without knowing themselves first, and then that's where you get into failure. You're gonna hit failure because the environment pushes back. It's that Sun Su quote: if you don't know your enemy, you will fail nearly every time. So you have to understand yourself first and then your environment. Once you got those two components, believe it or not, the rest is easy, I think. Uh there are there are very few uh components to managing change of any kind that I think once you have self-mastery, once you understand your environment, executing is really straightforward.

SPEAKER_01 18:43

That comes to the my next question. Actually, you just pointed to one of those failure. Many people want to change, but they fell. Why do you think the change is so difficult?

SPEAKER_00 19:00

Yeah,

When Change Feels Worth It

SPEAKER_00 19:01

you know, the uh I I don't look at change always as something bad. It it can be hard, it can be challenging, and and sometimes people don't want to make a change. As you mentioned in your in your pot your recent podcasts, you know, there's you just rather do other things, right? You don't want to make the effort to change. Uh and a lot of times people look at change as a bad thing, but but here's an example. I'm I'm gonna show my age. You know, I'm an old man now. Uh I've been through a lot of change. Uh here's here's the one example of of change because you wanted to change, and change was good. If you if you've ever played a record, you know, the old 33 albums, or there used to be a we had record players, and we played those small records were 45 uh RPM and the lot the bigger ones were 33s, right? So we had record players. Now the the thing about a record player is you had to be in your house and play the music with the record player plugged in. Along came eight-track tapes. Wow. So again, I'm talking ancient history here, but but the the key thing with the eight-track tape was now you had recorded music that you could bring into your car. And all of us at the time were out there buying eight-track tape players and eight-track tapes to play in our cars as we drove down the street. Because before that, you just you didn't have recorded music to play in your car. You had AM radio and maybe FM radio, and then along came cassettes. Cassettes were a little more convenient, they lasted a little longer. Then along came uh the CD, the compact disc, right? And then now streaming. Well, how many different iterations of listening? Basically, like I'm listening to the same music as when I was playing albums, you know, the same Fleetwood Mac rumors. I mean, wow. I've got Fleetwood Mac rumors on the album. I got it on A-Trag, I got it on a cassette. I'm still listening to the same. I didn't change my taste so much, but the the platform that I played the music on changed, and I changed along with it. How many people used to only have a landline telephone? Along came smartphones, and it's only been around uh 25 years or so. I mean, how many people used to read paper maps? You know, you go this used to be a big thing, you know. You if you're traveling around the country a lot, you go out and yeah, you go out and buy a some some the Rand McNally. Oh, well, you still they're still for sale. Is it a Rand Rand McNally, the the big paper maps? Ah, so so how many people, yeah, my my father was an over the road truck driver and he To have a big stack of those. So before he went out anywhere on his on a on a trip, you know, he'd route almost every single road, every single turn, all the way across. And now we've got GPS, you know, computers and on and on and on. So when there's something that makes our life better, and we we see a benefit from it, it saves money, it saves time, saves effort. There's something about this change that will make our lives better. Even though it might be challenging to learn, even though it might be a little bit expensive, we still make an effort to change because it's a want. Because we want to change. Maybe we want to be like everyone else, or maybe we don't want to play Fleetwood Mac on the eight-track tape anymore, but but we want to change. I

Needs First Stress And Bad Habits

SPEAKER_00 22:52

I start the whole book actually with a need to change because I think people have a need to change that don't address the need. And if you don't address a need that's severe enough, you will not ever achieve the things you want. So you have to achieve, you have to resolve the needs first before you get into the wants. And it's not it's not one for one, it's not do one thing. We do these things simultaneously, but but here's an example of a need, and it's stress. If if the stress is high enough, it destroys you internally, it destroys it, it creates a fog in your brain that you just can't focus on other things. And and the one example I use uh uh on stress is let's say you're married, you have a spouse, and your spouse dies. On one measure of a stress survey, that's worth 100 life change units. It's the high the the most amount of life change units on a scale is you you lose a spouse. And if you've ever lost a spouse, you certainly appreciate that's tough. That so that's a hundred life change units of stress on this stress set scale. But if you get married and you go on a honeymoon, and you from the marriage, you get you have a pregnancy, so you get married, go on a honeymoon, and it results in a pregnancy, those three events add up to more than the loss of your spouse on this scale. I think people don't realize that stress is not only bad stress. Good stress, like getting married, having a honeymoon, pregnancy, buying a house, uh, taking out a loan to go to school, those are good stress uh events, but they accumulate. So whether it's good or bad, if you look at the scale, whether it's a good thing or a bad thing, the key point is it accumulates. And if you if you're not aware of this load you're carrying around, trying to manage the new marriage, trying to integrate, buying a house, here comes a baby, the car breaks down, the dog dies. These these things just add up. And your body needs time to adjust to that and acclimate to change. Uh, so I think for for anyone who wants to change, I would, I would suggest look at that stress load that you're carrying around first and realize if it's a good thing, you just changed jobs, you just moved across country, you just bought a house, you just got married. Those things take time, just like if you just lost your spouse. It takes time to adjust to that. Um, so I think a lot of people want a lot of things and they just can't seem to achieve the change they want because they're carrying around this incredible load of stress that they're not addressing. And and it's obvious, you know, it's an obvious thing, but it's worth you know being aware of, self-aware of, are addictions. You know, you can call them bad habits, you can call them addictions. There's some point where if you're an alcoholic, if you're abusing prescription drugs, certainly if you're on illegal, you know, taking illegal substances, that's an e. That's like, okay, uh, all these other things you want to do, if you if you got some some sort of addiction or really bad habit that is taking all of your thoughts, emotions, capabilities away from the things you want, that's time to stop, address that stress before you start doing the other thing. So it I don't want to oversimplify anything, certainly, but I also don't want to overcomplicate it either. We have needs on Maslow's hierarchy of needs, it's the bottom two layers, you know, the uh food, shelter, water. We we have uh safety and security. We have those physical needs that we might have those wants that you know, way up there on the top of the pyramid uh that we're we want to strive for, uh, but we all we have to address those bottom layers first. So I think a lot of people uh I call it idealism versus realism. Idealism is, you know, in the Army, for example, I want to be a four-star general. That's what I want to be. I want to be a four-star general in the army. There's 12 of them on active duty. Uh, but reality is I'm a second lieutenant that just graduated this year. You know, you're a 22-year-old second lieutenant, just graduated from West Point this year. You want to be a four-star general, great. You got about 25 years ahead of you to work toward that ideal career. And it's certainly not anything to prevent you from going for it, but along the way, there's going to be a lot of ups and downs and the cycles of life that you have to confront. But I would add the fact you're a second lieutenant who just graduated from college demonstrates you have the capability of growing into that. So yeah, it's the idealism is there. That's the driver, that's the compass, that's the the North Star that that should guide us. Uh, but realism is you wake up and who you are and what you face every day is where you start to change to to work toward your ideal life.

SPEAKER_02 29:03

But wanting to change is one thing. Um, and actually changing is another, right? So you I know you mentioned, you know, if there's a need or or a want, or a lot of times maybe the change comes from a place of convenience, because like you said, like things evolve, something better exists, so therefore, you know, you change your alchemy to that new uh thing, the new technology or whatever it may be. Um, but wouldn't you say that a lot of people have a difficult time changing because um number one, uh you briefly actually mentioned like habit, like whatever habit I have now, even though there is something better, I d it's just difficult to change because I have this habit of doing it this way, or I have this habit of uh having things this way. Um and then also the process of changing is just so difficult that you even though you know, you know at the end of the day this is going to be so much better for me, but you don't do it. And so what do you think stops people from actually realizing, okay, this is better for me, I need this, and then also from the perspective of someone that's very young and still discovering themselves um how they're still you know growing and learning and and you know this the self-awareness that you speak of, they they don't have that yet. So it's even more difficult for them, I think, uh, to make any sort of big change.

SPEAKER_00 30:45

Yeah, it's something you're you're oh I got the echo it it's something your father mentioned uh about confidence on his last podcast. I'm gonna

Confidence Comes From Doing

SPEAKER_00 30:58

bring it a little closer. Are you getting the echo? I'm sorry. So it's something your father mentioned on his podcast about confidence. Confidence, I get into that into phase two for motivation. You know, say that uh a lot of self-help books start with motivation. You just got to be motivated. And you see a lot of former military people talking about motivation. Uh uh, I've got some theories about that, in particular the military that I get into a little later in phase two. Uh, but I would say what like what your father said in his podcast, uh uh, I believe it was on hold is the title of that one. It's um, you know, confidence. What gives you confidence? Uh, and this goes back to the philosophy. Another one of my favorite quotes uh of all time goes back to uh Aristotle, who said, in in order to learn, in order to do for the things that we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them. Which, you know, it's kind of just like, is that a circular type statement or what? So for the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them. Great example is music. If you've ever taken music lessons, and and my my kids uh take music, one's of plays the violin with the Suzuki method of violin. You know, learning how to play a violin takes 10 years. Isn't that something? Now you could you could take a few lessons and play a little bit, but I mean, if you want to play classical violin, it takes a long time. It's called the Suzuki method, what she took. And my son on a piano, same thing. You you have the you want to learn it. I think you we all have is something I addressed, you know, again in the first module, self-awareness. We all have aptitudes and we all have personality, and we all have capacity to do things. We have temperament, we have capacity, we have our aptitudes, we have our personality. Uh is everyone capable of playing a violin, is everyone capable of playing a piano? Uh it takes a lot of work, but Suzuki is one that said, yeah, if if if if if you have the basic human capacity, you can learn how to play a violin. If I mean, how many people uh your father mentioned learning how to walk? Uh, learning how to ride a bike. You know, another example going back to the Aristotle quote, if you want to learn how to ride a bike, you can you can watch other people ride a bike, you can watch YouTube videos of people riding a bike. There's probably a book out there, learn how to ride a bike without breaking your neck in in 20 lessons or fewer, you know. Uh, but when it gets down to it, if you want to learn how to ride a bike, what do you got to do? You gotta get on the bicycle and ride. Now, uh, there is so the the point there is you just don't jump on the bike at two years old and ride into the street. It does take some learning, some thought, some safety measures built into there. But if you really want to learn how to ride a bike, uh most people can learn how to ride a bike. And the same thing with swimming, same thing with playing a musical instrument. It takes time. I I think people get frustrated by not making the progress. Maybe they're comparing themselves to others, which which that's a pitfall. Comparing yourself to somebody else is a pitfall because you're not somebody else. And that's this goes back to uh well, it goes back as far as history, you know. But Charles Cooley wrote a book uh where he talks about the um the looking glass self, where when we look in the mirror, we don't see ourselves, we see a reflection of what we perceive others see of us. And I think that's uh immediately uh setting yourself up to be to fall into that trap where you know your brother can do it, your sister can do it, your friends can do it, but you can't. Now we all do that, and to some extent, that's that's a motivator, could be a motivator, if if you're trying to achieve some change. But I would I would go back to being self-aware, you know, realizing we all have our capabilities, we have our aptitudes, we have our personality. Is this something we're capable of doing? And the fact you can't do it is probably you can't do anything when you first start doing something, right? Not you know, things just don't come naturally, you got to work on it. Um, and do you understand your limits? And are you willing to put in the effort to achieve that change? Like, right, like learning how to walk. We all seem to do that quite well. Riding a bike, swimming. You know, another interesting thing about simple examples, again, not to oversimplify it and not to over-complicate it, riding a bike. We learn driving a car. Well, you learn how to drive a car, and at some point you're good, right? I learned how to drive it, I got my license, I'm good. I'm not gonna go, or not, or I seem to get in an accident every six months, and I'm crashing into, you know, at some point, hey, you're crashing into a lot of cars, you probably need to, you know, take some more lessons. But but most people get to a point where they're comfortable, uh they're they're uncomfortable at first. You get in the car, you start up. It's a terrifying ordeal, right? And until you get until you master it. And but at some point, you you you achieve enough competence driving the car, you're good. Now you work on something else, right? Uh, you don't, you know, most of us don't go on to try to be race car drivers and and do donuts in the street and all those things. Uh, we're just we're we reach a point where we're comfortable, we got it. Now on to on to the next thing. So but I think the key again, going back to your question, Yalda, is uh is the confidence. Do it.

Start Small To Build Momentum

SPEAKER_00 37:39

My my suggestion is when you first start out managing change of any kind. You want to change your diet, you want to change your physical fitness routine, you're thinking about a change in your career, uh, you want to get better sleep, whatever it is, as you develop your skill to manage change, and it is a skill like riding a bike, as you develop it, start very small, very incrementally. Understand yourself, put yourself in that environment and change what you can within the environment to achieve a very small goal. Well, another example here is with weight. You know, if you if you want to lose 30 pounds, you can try to lose 30 pounds in a week or two weeks or maybe a month. Or you can try to lose one pound a week for 30 weeks. If you try to lose one pound per week, you are much more tuned in to what you're eating, uh, what seems to work, what's not working. If you try to lose 30 pounds, you might even succeed at losing 30 pounds, but is that sustainable? If you go for one pound per week, one college class at a time, one driving lesson at a time, you incrementally get to that next level safely. It's a little bit challenging, it's you're out of your comfort zone, but it's challenging enough to succeed at a little change, and that builds confidence. And you you get build on from that. But the key point with all of this is you also get better at understanding change, how you change yourself, how you grow, how you achieve things, and that applies organizationally as well. The the same framework, the same components that you use and follow to lose weight, to get better sleep are the same components that I use to make big changes in the army, for example. It's the same sort of thing, it's a much bigger scope, uh, and a lot more people involved at a higher level organizationally, but but again, the components are the same. Know what you're capable of, don't overshoot it. I think a big problem is uh people's people are overconfident often, uh, and their confidence exceeds their capabilities. If you if you've never swam before, you just don't jump in the water on the deep end by yourself with nobody around, right? That's that's crazy. That's insane. That that's an example of your confidence exceeds your capabilities. You have to understand through self-awareness, uh, I've not ever swam before. I'm gonna take my time here. I've not ever driven a car before. On the other extreme of your confidence exceeding your capabilities is avoidance. And maybe maybe you've tried some things and failed at it. It's not because you tried and failed so much, maybe you tried too hard. You you didn't either understand yourself or you didn't understand your environment. You pushed too hard. Going back to Sun Tzu, you know, the Sun Tzu quote, if you know yourself and you know your enemy, you need not fear the result of 100 battles. Now you think about that in your own life. If you know yourself and you know what you're getting into in your change, you might not there are the randomness of things. You know, we might have an earthquake, COVID might come back and totally blow our plans. Uh, there's the environment will always push back. You have to be aware you cannot control your environment. You can influence it, but you can't control it. Uh, so I think people push too hard very very early age. They want to be the big movie star, they want to be the singer, they want to you know start up a business and and make a billion dollars before they're 30. That's the idealism thing, right? That's good. But if you if you constantly go into a big change not understanding yourself and your environment, you're gonna fail. Almost certainly you're going to fail. And the more you fail, the more you start looking at yourself as a failure. It's not yourself who's a failure, it's your method of managing change.

SPEAKER_01 42:27

Read. Um the book is well written. I I was go through a few chapters of it, and then I I like it a lot. It's very easy to read. Although you you really come up with a good plan. And it's and then uh the chapters also the pages are chapteristic, that you can finish one uh page and then you don't you don't have to basically open the book and read over again the whole chapter, because with the ADHD sometimes you forgot things, but the way you've written I think even person with the ADHD can read it. As I am one of them. But the the question I wanna ask you, and I think we are towards the end, I think it's important. If someone read your book, what chapter that you could say is a life-changing effect has on you?

SPEAKER_00 43:21

Yeah,

Personality Insights That Unlock Growth

SPEAKER_00 43:22

the uh probably uh the the first one, self-awareness, was something I didn't learn for a long time. And one example uh that I that I lived through for 20 years was I never knew my personality type. Now, I'm not an advocate, I'm not saying you have to get tested, uh, but I am saying once I started the more senior Army leadership courses, I was assessed. I I had personality profiles, and you know, Army does that at a certain level. Uh you have the 300. 60-degree evaluation, you have a psychological assessment. And I was subject to the uh Myers-Briggs personality type indicator. I think that said that, right? MBTI. But I ended up going through Myers-Briggs three times. So you know that's the typical Army way, right? You know, three courses, three tests, they're all the same test. Every single test I took on the personality test, I came back an introvert. The first time I came back an introvert, I was relieved. Wow, that's it's I don't need therapy. I don't need medication. You know, I'm okay. I'm an introvert. That's that's cool with me. Uh but before I had that test, uh, you know, sometimes I was like, well, I don't want to hang out with people after work. You know, I don't want to go out on the weekend and go to the beach and and you know, barbecue, hammer, you know, you know, cook things on the I I just didn't want to do that, not to be anti-social. I just, you know, what I learned by being assessed was, you know, introverts need time alone to recharge. That's how we recharge. We recharge by being alone and being quiet and reflecting. Extroverts recharge by being around other people. They they draw energy by being in groups and the dynamic dynamics of uh you know, groups and and large groups of friends and things. So it's not that one's better than the other. It's not one's good or not one bad, not at all. What it's saying is we understand we have a tendency uh with personality, and it's the ocean. Ocean is also another one of those tests that's widely accepted. We tend to do things, we have a temperament, we tend to do things. Uh, I think once you know that, you become more self-aware of why you do things, why you avoid things. And for me, it was a life changer. Wow, that you know, and I went on to senior leadership positions as an introvert. It didn't bother me. One of the army classes I was in, we actually had a name tag. You know, it said read, introvert. You know, the MBT, the MBTI was uh INTJ, you know, one of the most extreme versions of a of a personality. Uh, but I'm perfectly okay with that. You know, it's a it was an emotional relief to know that. So I think the self-awareness is the critical thing in that whole book. If you read that one thing and you understand you have a personality, you have tendencies, you have aptitudes. If you're good at math, if you're good at writing, if you're good at speaking, you know, those are your strengths. And if you lean on those to make some change in your life, you might be more successful because you know your strengths. I I think the the second one, it's in order, uh, suspending your preconceptions.

Open Mind Lessons From The South Pole

SPEAKER_00 47:06

You know, the that lesson learned about race to the South Pole. One group went with traditional British polar exploration exploration methods. The other group went up and studied, uh, lived with the Eskimos. So it was kind of funny to me that you know these two groups were racing to be the first ones to get to the South Pole. One group went and lived among the Eskimos and learned, wow, the Eskimos use dogs a lot. They use dogs to pull the sleds, they wear these big fur uh hooded jackets and and so on. And the other group stuck to their traditional scientific, this is what's always worked before uh approach. And that British group perished on the way back. They all died. Uh, while the other, you know, they all died because they were sticking to what they believed worked, and it had worked in a different environment. The the Norwegian group made it to the South Pole first and back because they were open-minded. They they realized just because we think we know, we don't know everything. And they learned from the Eskimos of all people, some of the oldest indigenous groups in Canada, how to survive for a long time, mainly with the dogs. I mean, the dogs are key. So uh, and then that gets into the the philosophical point going back to the Buddha uh about keeping an open mind. You know, the the the quote is in the beginner's mind, there are many possibilities. In the expert's mind, there are few. That's one of those things that stuck with me, like wow. So yeah, self-awareness, um, suspend your preconceptions. And at some point, and lastly, uh I would add uh prove it. The the last module is at some point in your life, you want to do something. I think it's critical to not compare yourself to others, don't measure your success by someone else's success necessarily. It's a good benchmark, maybe, but you're not them, so don't compare yourself directly to them. But key is as as you mentioned in your your podcast about learning how to walk. You got to prove it to yourself. Do it safely, apply the scientific method of experimentation, try one little thing through your self-awareness. Does it work or not? It it sometimes you find out things don't work. That's just as important as knowing what does. You know, but you gotta experiment and prove it to yourself what works for you in your environment to get where you want to.

SPEAKER_02 49:52

Yeah, that's right. I I absolutely agree. And I think uh failures are are not what people think. I think they're lessons, they're not um yeah, they're if you take it away, take away from it a lesson, it's a lot easier um on you as well. So yeah, that's that's a great point.

SPEAKER_01 50:10

Yalda, do you have any other question?

SPEAKER_02 50:14

No, you've actually um answered a lot of mine, and I've been I've enjoyed really listening to you and um uh listening to you speak about all these different uh things and methods and um uh yeah self-discovery is is difficult, but it's a it's a um it's a I think it's a path that we all have to kind of at some point go down on. And you know, I the only other thing I think I I as you were talking, I was thinking, you know, sometimes ignorance is bliss um, you know, when you jump into something just not knowing, uh, because like you said, the quote that you used, you know, if you if the uh the novice person obviously goes in thinking, oh, there's so many possibilities I can do this, you know. Um and some and you know, sometimes that might be motivation enough, and that might be um that might be the confidence that you need in order to get something done. So yeah, I I I've really enjoyed uh listening to you. It's been it's been a pleasure.

SPEAKER_01 51:14

Yeah, me too. Yeah, it was very, very interesting subject. And I uh change is difficult, but we have to go through it and we have to adapt. We have to adapt to the environment, we have to adapt to the and we have to basically uh one thing I really like uh know about you forty years you study change. What belief about human being is is basically a nature of human being that you start and you you don't believe it anymore.

SPEAKER_00 51:50

Oh yeah.

Ideals Versus Reality And Environment

SPEAKER_00 51:52

Well the uh you know there's um there are uh the highest level, there are uh eight billion people on earth in 195 countries, and we can't all do the same thing. So, you know, the example, I was talking with someone from uh Barbados, for example, who's reasonably successful, and I asked the question well, if you and your family, your immediate family and your extended family didn't live in Barbados, if you didn't grow up in Barbados and you didn't live there your whole life, what would life have been different? What would have been different in your life had you lived just a little bit farther away in the Dominican Republic or Haiti or Cuba? You know, these islands, nations are all very close to each other. It's a huge difference. If you're born and raised in Barbados, that's a relatively high standard of living, or you're born and raised in uh Dominican Republic or uh Haiti or Cuba. So we don't all start out equally. Um it it's uh I think I've changed my my mindset because of the environment. On that note, that not everyone, not everyone lives in America. Unfortunately, a lot of people in America don't seem to appreciate just how vast the opportunity is here compared to a place like Cuba or Haiti. Um now, what so part of the book was to drill down to where someone in Haiti or someone in Cuba or someone in the Dominican Republic or the Philippines or you know, South America, anyone, anywhere in the world, hopefully can look at these principles, uh this framework, and and some of that will help them improve their lives. But there is that limit. So that there is a you know, unfortunately, there is the reality that there's a limit on how far you can go. Uh, I wouldn't let that hold anyone back from their ideals. You know, you got that idealism, but the realism puts us in our place right now that that limits uh you know how far we can go in the environment we're in. And that gets into phase two. So do you do you try to influence your environment to help you get where you want to go, or do you leave your environment? You know, that's that whole immigration thing. People pack up and leave, like like you did, um Reza, right? I mean, you went through that, so your life experience could be a certainly could be a book. And I've known a lot of people that have done that. They leave their home country, and in your case, you ended up in Germany, you lived in Germany a while, you came to the United States. You know, so many people do that in in search of a better life with with the hope and the ideals and willingness to work. And not everyone has that ability to just pack up and move uh immediately. I think over time you can do that. But yeah, my my views changed a lot from being that soldier in the infantry company to understanding more on a global level. Uh, there are constraints, not to say that limits you how far you can go in life, but it constrains you today in the reality you're in. Uh and you keep your ideals because that's your that's your northern star, that's what you're shooting for, uh, but be grounded in reality. That's probably my big life less lesson of all the things I've been through personally and all the things I've seen is to stay grounded in reality while still being driven by your ideals.

SPEAKER_01 55:53

Thank you, Reed, uh, for joining us today on our podcast. We truly appreciate your time, your wisdom, and the experience you have shared with us.

SPEAKER_00 56:05

Thank you for inviting me. It's uh been a good experience. Thank you both.

SPEAKER_02 56:10

Thank you. It was wonderful talking to you.

SPEAKER_01 56:23

Thank you, Reed. And

Final Reflections And Listener Challenge

SPEAKER_01 56:26

to all of our listeners, wherever you're joining us from, whether you're listening on your way to work, at home, while exercising, or anywhere else, thank you for spending your valuable time with us. We never take that for granted. One thing I've discovered through hosting this podcast is that every conversation changes me. Sometimes the change is subtle and sometimes it's profound. But I always leave with a new perspective. Every guest teaches me something I didn't know before, or helps me see something familiar in a completely different way. I can honestly say this conversation is one of those. It reminded me that change isn't just something that happens to us. It's something we can prepare for, practice, and embrace. My hope is that this conversation has given you something to think about as well. Maybe it's one idea, one question, or one small step that inspires a change in your own life. After all, meaningful change rarely begins with a giant leap. More often it begins with a single thought, a different perspective, or the courage to take one small step. If you enjoyed today's episode, please subscribe, share it with someone who might benefit from this conversation and leave us a review. Your support helps us continue bringing thoughtful discussions to more people around the world. Until next time, stay curious. Keep asking questions. Don't be afraid to challenge your assumptions and don't be afraid to change. Because every meaningful journey begins with a willingness to become just a little different than we were yesterday. Thank you for listening. And we'll see you in the next episode.