This month, keynote speaker, futurist and A&E columnist John Sanei discusses the importance of change
I want to start by referring to American actor Terrance Howard – he recently went onto Joe Rogan’s show and in a way, challenged everything we know about everything. There has been a range of backlash from this conversation, ranging from the idea that everything he says is incorrect to people highlighting one or two things he didn’t get right and assuming that everything he said was wrong. On the other hand, you have those who completely agree with him. The funny thing is, the people that he’s challenging with his theories are the ones that take the most offence. And this is what familiarity and disruption do. Disruption always offends the people who are so baked into the story that they can’t let go of it.
So this month, I want to talk about disruption and letting go of familiarity. This is a process of reconfiguration that happens, which allows you to approach the future as a better and different person, more aligned with who you want to be.
There is a saying from Dr Joe Dispenza: “Some people become addicted to lives they don’t even like,” he is explaining how we defend familiarity over everything else. The past is not always right, but it doesn’t mean it was wrong either – it just means it was right for that time. This is what we need to get our heads around, and we need to engage with an open mind and disregard what we don’t like or don’t feel to be relevant anymore.
Let’s start off by understanding that your future is shaped by how much you are able to change. If you aren’t able to change, your future stays exactly the same as your past. It is a reflection of your current way of feeling and acting. So, the more familiar your future is, the less you’ve changed.
The common denominator is you.
What you have to realise is that the more unknown your future is, the more you’re in the process of growth. When you are able to release familiarity, you become calm. That calm allows confidence. That confidence allows better decision-making. That better decision-making allows you to arrive into new worlds, access new experiences, elevate and grow. But if we don’t have calm and confidence, we will be stuck in this cycle of familiarity.
It’s your brain wave that allows you to access certainty or uncertainty. In a high beta brain wave, you seek certainty. In an alpha brainwave, you seek the unknown.
Familiarity feels great initially. But eventually, it becomes complacency, and complacency becomes boredom. Once you hit that point, you are falling behind in terms of how the world is evolving, but you are also losing out on growing and reaching your potential.
Familiarity is always going to be part of our lives. But it can’t be the central theme. The moment it becomes the central theme, then it’s time for a growth check-up. The stories that we hold on to in our lives are simply familiar traditions arbitrarily put into society that we believe in.
One way to make this concept relatable is with the simple idea of wearing a suit. For men, the concept of wearing a suit has changed. The suit came out of the idea that French Aristocrats wanted to be far removed from looking like they were working in manual labour jobs. They wanted to express that they work in a factory or office. Today, people still wear suits as though they are giving value to us. But it’s a matter of familiarity and interpretation. Wearing a suit does not mean you’re smart or important. But the familiarity connected to it means this is how we perceive it. I have nothing against suits, but the idea that a suit is smart is about perception.
So, we have to embrace change. But it’s not an easy process. Most of us have a bandwidth within which we can accept change. But the moment it goes beyond that, it becomes too much for us to deal with. Remember, not all change is good change. Some changes might not be the best way forward for us.
And finally, I want to address the concept of sacrifice and resilience. We’ve always been taught that we must sacrifice to become successful, and we must be resilient. Both of those oppose my new approach, which is; to follow your highest excitement every moment of every day, with zero expectation, with maximum enthusiasm. In that equation, there’s no sacrifice. The idea of sacrifice is that you have to do something you don’t like. Why not just do the things you do like more and more, while building towards something?
The only caveat here is that if you haven’t yet discovered what you’re on earth for, you have to find that first. That is almost the gateway, but once you go through that gate, there’s no sacrifice. It’s only exploration. And exploration doesn’t mean sacrifice. Yes, it can be hard, but there is an overarching incredible-ness as you work towards what you want. What you have to do is find your genius and allow that to lead you and inspire you to take the next step. The equation has to change. I’m not saying you shouldn’t work hard, but don’t sacrifice. Enjoy everything you want to enjoy.
To conclude, embracing change takes courage. But I think when you embrace curiosity, courage becomes second nature. Yes, there may be an initial uncomfortable feeling, but slowly and surely, you will accept your courage to make changes, and you will become who you’re meant to be.
