 Hi, this is Alan Stein Jr., Performance Coach, Consultant, Speaker, and Author, and welcome to the Power of Positive Summit. I'm very appreciative that John gave me an opportunity to speak to you all, as John has had a profound impact on my life. As I'm sure you're aware, if you've seen his talks and read his books and followed him on social, he's an incredibly powerful influencer and leader. I'm going to share with you some thoughts on change, and the reason I want to talk about change for the Power of Positive Summit is because most people tend to think of change as negative. It's almost as if it's an automatic default button that we're all wired with. The moment most people hear the word change, their heart rate accelerates, their blood pressure goes up, their palms and their armpits start to sweat, and they get a bit of anxiety. And there's a few reasons for that that we'll dive into. But I want you to know that you control your thoughts and you control your mindset and you can choose to look at change and embrace change from a positive angle. Now when we look at change, we have to appreciate the fact that it is unavoidable. Change is happening every moment of every day. And as I like to say, you can't stop the waves, but you can learn to surf. There's no reason that we should be spending our mental, emotional and physical energy and currency trying to resist something that's unavoidable. Change is a part of life. And it's also important to note that the happiest, most fulfilled, most influential and best leaders that I've ever been around not only tolerate change, they embrace it. They welcome it. They search for it. And that's because they know change is the only thing that will lead to growth, development and improvement. I'm a quote nerd and have been since high school. And one of my favorite quotes is so simple yet still so profound. If nothing changes, nothing changes. Wherever you are in your life right now, it's a culmination of every decision and every choice that you've ever made. So if there's any area of your life, maybe your health and fitness, maybe your relationships, maybe your finances that you're not happy with, then clearly something needs to change. Because if you keep doing what you've been doing, you'll keep getting what you've been getting. If you don't like what you've been getting, you need to change what you've been doing. And when I dig back and try and figure out, why are most people so opposed to change? It's because as human beings, we are creatures of habit. We love our routine. And anytime we are removed from our routine or we have to change our routine, what's comfortable and familiar, there's some discomfort. And most people have been wired to believe that discomfort is bad. Well, that's the part of the equation I hope that you'll consider reframing. Discomfort is not bad. In fact, discomfort is a prerequisite to growth. It's a prerequisite to getting better in any area of your life. Now I know a lot of the cliche phrases, you know, life starts outside of your comfort zone and you have to learn how to be comfortable being uncomfortable. We hear those all the time. There's a reason we hear them all the time. They're true. We have to learn how to embrace change and be comfortable with the uncomfortable. Now when it comes to change, there are three specific steps that we have to go through. One is awareness. Two is understanding. And three is reconditioning. I'm willing to bet you have an awareness that something right now in your life needs to change. Again, it could be in a specific area of your life. It could be finances or fitness or relationships, but you're probably aware of what needs to be changed. So we go right to step two, which is an understanding. But what we have to have an understanding of is the impact that this change will have on your life. Or in many cases, what is the impact or what's at risk if you don't change. And then and only then, once you have a strong feeling of the impact, then we move on to the reconditioning, which is where we'll actually develop a new habit. Let's use health and fitness as an example as we go through the three steps. You're probably aware that you might not be eating as well as you should or that you're not working out as often or as hard as you're capable of. If that's the case, then you already have the awareness. Now what we need to do is move to step two, where we can actually tie this to some meaning. And what you need to do is you need to have an understanding of the impact of not being healthy and as fit as you're capable of is having on your life. And we can look at that at short-term and we can look at that long-term. But either way, we need to find a compelling enough reason to actually change because change is so difficult. Well, some of the short-term negative effects of not working out and of not eating a healthy diet is low energy. And if you're a parent or a business owner, you realize that energy is one of your most important currencies. So you have to have high energy. But if you really want to dig deeper, what are some of the long-term effects of not being as healthy or as well as you're capable of? Yeah, you could actually die earlier. And I don't say that to be morbid. I say that because I want you to connect that thought with things like not seeing your children or grandchildren go up or not seeing them get married or graduate high school. The whole point of the understanding is to tie the meaning to something so compelling that you'll do whatever it takes to go through the discomfort and actually change the habit. And then once you've attached that meaning, then we go to number three, which is the reconditioning and realize that the reconditioning, as I mentioned before, will cause discomfort. But you have to realize that discomfort is temporary and that discomfort is a requirement. It's not a nice to have. It's a need to have in order for you to make that change. I had a chance to meet Kevin Durant when he was 15 years old. It was after his sophomore year of high school. And after watching Kevin play for just a couple of minutes, it was clear to me that he had a very high basketball IQ. He was fundamentally sound. He played incredibly hard and he had all the talent to be a great player. But it was also clear to me that he was slight of frame and that he was going to need to get stronger and more powerful and gain body weight if he was going to be able to play at the highest level. Because that was my wheelhouse, I was a basketball performance coach at the time. I immediately reached out to him and his wonderful mom, Wanda, to see if he could come in for a workout. And at this point in time, Kevin had never touched a weight and never done any type of formalized or structured training. Well, after a few months of convincing, he finally came in. And within 30 minutes, absolutely hammered him. Kevin was on the floor. And if you know what Kevin Durant looks like, he's still fairly wiry. He's 6'10". So he was kind of coiled up like a snake on the gym floor. And his body was shaking and he was profusely sweating. And Kevin was very quiet and introverted back in high school. So he didn't really say much during the workout. So it was hard for me to gauge whether or not he liked it. And I knew that I had just thrown everything at him and that he was incredibly uncomfortable. But I still wanted to get a gauge on whether he liked the workout. So I simply asked him. And he said with all seriousness, no, I didn't. But I know this is what I need to do to get to the NBA. So when can we meet again, coach? And still to this day, I remember vividly how impressed I was with this young man understanding that one, he was going to have to make a change. But two, this change was going to come with a tremendous amount of physical, mental, and even emotional discomfort. But he was willing to make that sacrifice because of what he wanted to achieve. I realized that everything I'm saying to you right now is very basic. I'm making it sound very simple, which in theory it is. But none of this stuff is easy. Please don't think for one second that I think changing a habit or changing your routine or behavior is easy. It's not. So it's important that you know that ahead of time. This stuff is basic, but not easy. And there's a reason for that. There's lots of barriers that we have when it comes to change. So I'm going to give you a three-step process right now, how you can successfully change any behavior or habit. And that way we can start framing all of these changes as positive. First and foremost, I want you to have razor sharp focus, and I want you to pick one thing. Just one thing that you want to change. One easy exercise to help you whittle down and figure out what to change is you can make a list of things that you need to start doing to help improve a behavior or habit. And you can also make a list of things you need to stop doing, because they're a barrier to this change or this habit. And once you have this list, then you need to circle what you think would be the most impactful thing to start and the most impactful thing to stop. And once you have it down to those two, you're only going to pick one. You're going to pick the one that you believe would be most impactful in your life. And the reason you're doing that is because as human beings, we're not wired for a lot of change. We're actually wired to have hyper focus. That's one of the reasons why I love John Gordon's one word concept when it comes to New Year's resolutions. Instead of coming up with a long list of things that you want to change, just focus your entire life and all of your behavior and habits and routines around the one word. It's why John's concept is so brilliant. And there was actually some research done and this research said, and this was by John Berardi, a gentleman that started a company called Precision Nutrition and he found through an expansive study that if you focus on changing one behavior at a time with relentless commitment, you have an 85% chance of making that change. I'm not a betting guy, but I like those odds. But here's what I found remarkable. As soon as you split in half, this is through John's research. As soon as you split and try to change two behaviors at once, the percentage of success drops down to 35 or 40%. And if you're really ambitious, which I know a lot of you are, which is why you're watching this video and you try and change three things, percentage drops down to four or five percent. Clearly no one should like those odds. So it's in all of our best interests to have hyper focus and find the one thing that we want to change. Next, I want you to think of 66 days. Why 66 days? The latest research that I've read says that it takes approximately 66 consecutive days to form a new habit behavior or routine. I know there's some other research out there that says it takes 21 days to build a habit. But the best research that I found recently says it takes approximately 66 days. Clearly this will be plus or minus a few days depending on what the habit or routine is and depending on how long you've had it. But I like 66 days. One, it's easy to remember because it's kind of a weird number. But the other reason I like it, it's a finite amount of time. It's a hair over two months. You just need to be committed to your one thing for 66 straight days. And again, the research will be in your favor. And then lastly, you need to keep the spotlight on. Just like I have light shining on me right now as I'm recording this video, you need to keep the spotlight of accountability on yourself. And there's a few ways you can do this. One, I highly recommend that you go to your inner circle, your family, your friends, your colleagues, and you tell them about this behavior that you're going to change. And you ask them, beg them, plead with them to hold you accountable and to check in with you as often as possible for the 66 days. Ask how you're doing with it. If and when you slip up, which you inevitably will, you need someone that's going to hold your backside to the fire. You need someone that's going to tell you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear. Because we're not going to accept excuses. You need to stay focused on this one thing for the entire 66 days. I also recommend if you can find an unbiased third party to help hold you accountable. For many people, this is using social media. There is nothing wrong with using the peer pressure from social media to help hold you accountable. So for example, my one thing is that I'm going to go for a 30 minute walk every morning before I do anything else. Then it's okay for me to put that out on Facebook. Let people know that that's what I'm going to be doing. Because then people that don't even know you that well will try and hold you accountable. They will check in and ask and you will feel obligated to report to them and to your inner circle and let them know how everything's going. So in summary, if you're looking to make a change, let's whittle it down to one thing. Let's have relentless commitment to do that for 66 straight days. And let's tell everyone our inner circle and our outer circle so that they can keep the spotlight on us. I hope this helps and thanks again for watching. I'm so thankful to have an opportunity to share with you all and I want to treat this video. The same way I treat my keynotes and my interactive workshops. That I have an opportunity to travel the world and deliver to different companies and teams. And that's to make sure that I eliminate all fluff and that I give you tangible, practical, actionable takeaways that you can implement immediately to start to have an impact on your life. Like our positive leader, John Gordon. I do my best to use social media platforms as a way to spread information like this. So if there's ever anything I can do for you or to help you out or if you want a steady stream of additional positivity or even someone to help hold you accountable. Please follow me on all of the different major social platforms.