Gents Journey
Gents Journey
Navigating Life's Changes with Confidence
Discover how to transform change from a daunting foe into a powerful ally. Dive into compelling stories of resilience, like that of Howard Schultz, who turned investor skepticism into a Starbucks empire of 35,000 locations. By reframing rejection as redirection, Schultz demonstrates how staying true to core values amidst adversity can lead to unprecedented triumph. Learn how change can become your tool for growth, innovation, and ultimately, success.
Join me, Anthony, as we journey through the inspiring narratives of individuals who've mastered the art of embracing change. Vera Wang’s story is a testament to the power of having a solid foundation and vision, proving that success in the wedding industry is just the beginning. Whether you're facing career shifts, relocations, or personal transformations, this episode equips you with the mindset to not only navigate but welcome change as a catalyst for becoming a better human being. Uncover the surprising ways to harness change, ensuring you emerge not just successful, but transformed.
"True mastery is found in the details. The way you handle the little things defines the way you handle everything."
Hello and welcome to the Gentleman's Journey podcast. My name is Anthony, your host, and today we're going to talk about something that we always see as a threat, right, but realistically, it's just a skill that we haven't really embraced yet. Now, what is this that I'm talking about? I'm talking about embracing change and how you can really make that a skill for yourself. So let's go ahead and let's talk about it.
Speaker 1:Okay, you know a lot of the times when we're changing. It could be career past, it could be you know a location where we live. It could be a friendship or the end of a relationship. There's a lot of scary feelings to that, right, but the thing about it is a lot of us look at change as an enemy. But change, it really isn't an enemy, you could say. You could say it's like an artist. Right, it's an artist that is constantly reshaping your life, right, but here's the catch, right, but here's the catch. The catch is you get to decide whether this artist change is sculpting something beautiful. We're going to uncover, really, a lot of surprising ways that you can master the art of embracing change, right, I'm going to go over a couple of famous people that have experienced change in their life and made themselves not only massively successful, but just better human beings.
Speaker 1:And at the end of this episode, what my goal is? My goal is for you not to just tolerate change, but you to start to welcome change in your life. So let me just get a quick drink here, let's go ahead and let's talk about it. So we all know who Starbucks is. Right, we all been to Starbucks, and if you haven't, you're lying. Everyone's been to Starbucks once, right? Now a lot of us may not know who started Starbucks, the name or the gentleman who started Starbucks, who created Starbucks. His name is Howard Schultz, right, howard Schultz, just to kind of give you a backstory about him. He came up with a concept of transforming Starbucks into a place where people could connect, not just grab coffee right. But here's the thing as he was going about this, investors doubted his vision, right, investors doubted his vision, right. And during a financial downturn. So this was like 2008, 2009,. Right, when everything was kind of going bad, he faced the reality of store closures and layoffs, right. But here's the thing, and this is where most people would give up. Instead of giving up, he adapted to what was going on, right, and he stayed true to his vision and his purpose and he innovated. Now, starbucks has over 35,000 locations yes, not 1,000, not 2,000, locations yes, not 1,000, not 2,000,. 35,000 locations worldwide, because Howard Schultz embraced change and used it as a tool for growth.
Speaker 1:When you really learn about him, one of the things I always take from him specifically is that he has the ability to reframe rejection. What he does instead. Instead of embracing rejection or, you know, say like, oh, I'm bad and this is never going to work, he uses it as a redirection what can I do better? And hone in on his process, right? And the thing about it is, once you do that, he focuses on his core values and then adapts to circumstances when they happen. Okay, as long as he's always following his core values. So that's one of the biggest things Like when you can't embrace change because you don't have a solid foundation, you don't have a solid core of who you are, what you want to do, right. But if you have a solid vision and a solid focus, change doesn't matter. It's just, it's all short term anyways, right Now, here's going to be the next person I'm going to talk about, and she could be, you could say, relatively unknown, unless you are into fashion, right.
Speaker 1:Or if you've ever bought a wedding dress, or if you're in the process of getting married and you see all these wedding you know things on YouTube or magazines. That's a massive industry. This name comes up all the time. Her name is Vera Wang. Now, the thing about Vera Wang is she's massive in the wedding industry Massive, massive, massive. The thing about her is she didn't even design her first dress, her first wedding dress, until she was 40. So she's already middle-aged at this point. Right until she was 40. So she's already middle-aged at this point, right.
Speaker 1:And before that, she spent years as a competitive figure skater and a journalist for Vogue, which is a fashion magazine, right. And as she was working at Vogue, she was passed over for promotion again and again and again and again, right. And here's the thing she could have stayed there. She could have stayed in her comfort zone, but you know what she's decided to do. She's like you know what I'm tired of being passed up. I know I'm better, and if it's not going to be here, it's going to be somewhere else. Well, it was somewhere else. She decided to follow her passion and creativity and curiosity for design right, and she launched probably a $200-300 million empire now doing this stuff.
Speaker 1:So here's what I'm going to tell you before we really get in the meat of this it's never too late to reinvent yourself. Both of these individuals are in their mid-40s, early 50s, now maybe in their 60s, right? They pivoted when they needed a pivot. They didn't let fear hold them back. Fear is what always hampers you from embracing change, right? So what we're going to do instead? Change, right. So what we're going to do instead, we're going to look at change as an acronym, right? And what an acronym is? It means that each letter in a word means something, right? So I would advise you to write this down, because this literally is going to change your life, right? So we're going to do? I'm going to introduce you to something called the change model.
Speaker 1:So the C in the change model stands for this curiosity over fear. What that does is it shifts your perspective. Instead of fearing the unknown, you become curious about it. Right? You can't be afraid of something if you're curious about it right Now. The H in change have a game plan.
Speaker 1:Break, change into phases, right? What's your immediate phase, short-term and long-term goals? What are they? Here's the next one A and change, Adapt, do not resist. Embrace flexibility. Embrace flexibility. Flexibility and change is going to be your greatest tool when you're navigating uncertainty.
Speaker 1:A lot of times, like we are so scared to adapt what happens, we become overwhelmed, then we don't adapt, then we get run over and then we get upset about being run over, and then we get passed over for run over, and then we get passed over for certain things and then, instead of looking forward, we're always looking back because of the woulda, shoulda, couldas, because of fear, because of doubt. If you apply this change model, those things can't happen okay. Next, the N in the change model Notice what's in your control. When we notice what's in our control, we can take action almost immediately. Right, and by taking action it helps you stay grounded in the sea of change, which sometimes can be chaotic.
Speaker 1:Right Now, the G in change is gratitude for what's possible. Reframe your fear into opportunity by identifying potential positives. When we have an abundant mindset right, when we focus on positives and we focus on. I know that this could happen if I do X, y and Z and we look at that and we look at the negative, as in, this is what has happened already and I can't change this. But if I do X, y and Z, this is what could happen. Those things start to happen because you want to know why your mind is a very powerful tool. It's a very powerful tool. It's a very powerful thing. Actually, you have to understand like I talk about this all the time. At the end of every podcast, I always tell you that you create your reality. I always tell you that you create your reality when you have gratitude for what's possible and you reframe fear into an opportunity by identifying the potential positives and what's going on. That's changing your reality right there. Right there. That is.
Speaker 1:And now the E is engage support systems right, meaning that lean on people. If you can right, you're trusted like you're good friends who are there to support you right, who encourage growth and offer perspective. And let's say you don't have anything like that, I would say reading positive, motivating things, listening to podcasts like this could also be your support system in the beginning. If you don't have anybody and realistically and I tell you this, guys, all the time if you don't have anybody, you know I'll say this at the end too, but there's always three ways you can reach out to me and I'd be more than happy to help you. First way is through text. Say text me here, bam, you send me a message, I'll send it right back to you. My email anthony, at jetsjourneycom. That's another way. Another way, too, is you just DM me at myjetsjourney on Instagram. These are things that you have a support system. Because here's the thing I'm just going to tell you A lot of us don't embrace change, right.
Speaker 1:We don't know how to do it. We don't know how to apply it. Right, because we get so stuck in our emotions and we get so stuck in the negative and we get so stuck in the story that we're telling ourselves that may not be true, that's negative. Right. When you do this, when you apply the change model to your life, this, when you apply the change model to your life, what it really does, to be honest, you become centered in the world of chaos, right. You start to really understand the control that you wield in your life. You understand it. You start to get it right. You start to understand that everything that is going on in your life have you in common Everything, good and bad. Right. And when you have this change model, it's going to propel you forward in such a way, because you become focused, you become intentional about what's going on right, and I know we say this on every podcast, but I'm going to say it again 2025 is whose year. That's right. It's your year. You apply this. This is another step.
Speaker 1:Another piece of the puzzle to you and your path to growth and self-development is by applying this. So embrace change, embrace this model. I don't say you have to be consumed by it, but when you really start this, you will be consumed by it because it's going to give you a freedom that you've probably haven't felt in years. When you truly understand that the world is because of you and you understand what you can and can't control, there's a massive freedom in that, because you can literally change your life in a snap. You really can. It's just how it works right. So you know I can hamper on about that for another 20 minutes, but I'm not going to do that. So I'm going to give you an activity. This is a really fun way to kind of reframe change.
Speaker 1:So what I'm going to have you do if you're driving, don't do this, but later on, when you re-listen to this podcast, I want you to do this. I want you to grab three slips of paper and a small container and what we're going to call this container. We're going to call it the change bucket. So, on the first slip, you're going to fill out what you fear, what scares you the most about change. Write it down whatever it is. Now slip number two right, the second piece of paper, your opportunity. Write down one potential positive outcome that'll come from embracing this change. Write that down. Now, the next piece of paper you're going to write down one action you'll take to move forward.
Speaker 1:Why this is so important and what it does is, whenever you feel stuck, revisit your change bucket. Revisit your change bucket. It's a tangible reminder that fear is only a part of the story, and you'll realize that opportunity and action are always within reach. So, as we're talking about this, here's what I implore you to do after listening to this podcast. Your challenge is create your change bucket. Write down one fear, one opportunity and one action for change that you're navigating right now. That're maybe like I don't know if I want to do. I want you to always have it in front of you, right the best that you can keep it as visible as you can, and the reason why it's visible, a reason why I want you to keep it visible is. I want it to be a reminder that you are in control of your story. Nobody else is. You are in control of your story Because I'm going to tell you something right now Change is not the enemy, it's a blank canvas, so start painting.
Speaker 1:So, guys, I want to thank you so, so, so, so, so very much for listening to this today. I can't tell you how much I sincerely appreciate your guys' feedback, what I get with your emails and text messages. I just want to thank you, guys, so very much for your guys' patronage and always listening. I really, really do appreciate it and remember, if you have a question on this or anything that I talk about on here, there's three ways to reach me. First way, you can text me. Like on the description it'll say text me here. Bam, you text me, I'll text you right back, right. Second way is going to be through my email. My email is anthony atgentsjourneycom. Please, please, please, never hesitate to email me. Okay, and last but not least, you can always DM me. My Instagram handle is mygentsjourney. Please feel free to you know, dm me there, and I'd be more than happy to answer any questions over there too. So again, guys, thank you so very much for listening today. And remember this you create your reality. Take care. Bye.