One of my favorite frameworks of thinking about building and breaking habits comes in the words of Elliot Berkman, whom I’ve cited before. He notes that there are three factors to breaking a habit.
- The availability of an alternative habit
- Strength of motivation to change
- Mental and physical ability to break the habit
Of particular note is the second one. The strength of motivation to change. Change is inevitable. But real change is always compelling. There must be a strong enough desire to relieve yourself of the status quo. John C. Maxwell once said, “People change in four different seasons… People change when they hurt enough they have to, when they see enough they’re inspired to, when they learn enough that they want to, and when they receive enough that they’re able to.”
In each of those seasons, the person is compelled to do something outside of their ordinary flow of time. But there’s another interesting way to think about change. One where you have no choice but to.
CIA veteran Richards Heuer once wrote, “When faced with a major paradigm shift, analysts who know the most about a subject have the most to unlearn.” If there’s anything we can gather from historical records, major paradigm shifts are happening every decade (and less) whether we want to or not. On a macro scale, new technologies, like generative AI, the smartphone, and the internet, as well as political and financial eras, like the GFC, the dot com burst, and wars that affect the increasingly interconnected world. On a micro scale, when we go to college, get our first job, start our first company, raise a family, or buy your first house.
At each stage, the more entrenched you are in the behavioral patterns of the status quo, the harder it is to adjust with the next shift. For instance, as a founder, anchoring yourself on 2020-2021 multiples and valuations won’t help you in the world forward. As an investor, anchoring on the past 3-4 years of markups without fully accounting for the current climate won’t help you with your next raise. Anecdotally, I’ve heard great multi-fund managers mark their portfolio down by 25% already before the market verdict comes in. Moreover, jobs are going to look very different in an age of AGI (artificial general intelligence). Just like with the industrial revolution, new jobs will be created. And I can go on on and on. But I digress.
There’s a hero’s arc in each inflection point. Every time the second derivative goes from negative to positive. The way Viola Davis puts it that that at the end of every hero’s journey, you come face-to-face with not a god, but yourself. And that is when the magic happens.
“Somewhere along the line is a voice deep within you that tells you exactly who you are; you just have to have the courage to do that. That’s what the journey of the hero is all about. You’re born into a world where you don’t fit in. You answer the call to adventure. And you deny the call. Then at some point you then set out on your path. You slay dragons, and you do all of that. At some point, you come face-to-face with not a god, but yourself. Somewhere along the line, you get it — your A-ha moment. Your elixir. And you go back to your ordinary world and share it with others. I think that’s the journey. I think that’s the privilege of being absolutely who you are — belonging to yourself and being brave.”
— Viola Davis
Photo by Chris Lawton on Unsplash
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