272. Transformational Change: Science-Backed Strategies with Michael Lopez

Why do most transformation efforts fail, even when people are deeply committed? In this thought-provoking episode of The Leadership Project, Michael Lopez, transformation coach and author of Change, unpacks the science behind why change is so hard and what we’ve been getting wrong all along. With over 20 years of experience helping organizations navigate complex change, Lopez challenges the conventional, rational-only approach and introduces six brain-based strategies to make change stick, both personally and systemically.

Rather than focusing on willpower or generic frameworks, Lopez dives into the biology of transformation. He explains how the brain and body respond to change as a perceived threat, which often sabotages even our best intentions. Using real-world examples, including a remarkable case where a failing nuclear plant climbed from the bottom 10 percent to top 10 percent performance in just a year, he reveals how aligning change efforts with our neurobiology unlocks lasting results. His framework begins with understanding what's really going on, fostering individual ownership, and building a movement rather than enforcing compliance.

The episode also flips popular beliefs on stress and failure. Lopez makes a compelling case that stress, when properly framed, is not the enemy but a key ingredient for growth. He unpacks how challenge strengthens the anterior mid-cingulate cortex, the part of t

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Chapters

• 0:01 Why Change Initiatives Typically Fail
• 3:41 Understanding Change at the Microscopic Level
• 9:01 The Time Horizon of Real Transformation
• 15:27 Embracing Stress for Growth
• 17:28 [Ad] A Case Study In Corporate Fear
• 18:08 (Cont.) Embracing Stress for Growth
• 25:37 Creating Shared Reality for Organizational Change
• 31:42 Six Science-Backed Strategies for Change
• 38:07 [Ad] The Ryan Pyle Podcast
• 38:53 (Cont.) Six Science-Backed Strategies for Change
• 40:14 Practical Steps to Embrace Change
• 44:39 Final Thoughts and The Courage to Change

Transcript

Mick Spiers: 0:01

What really stops us from changing ourselves, our teams, our organisations? Is it a lack of willpower or a misunderstanding of how humans actually respond to change at a biological level? And what if we could unlock transformation by working with our brain and our body, instead of against them? Today, we are joined by the brilliant Michael Lopez, a transformation coach, change expert and author of the book Six Science-Backed Strategies to Transform Your Brain, Your Body and Your Behaviour. We're going to discuss why change initiatives fail, even with good intentions, how to move from resistance and fear to curiosity and adaptability, and why leaders must go first in modeling vulnerability in change. This conversation is full of insights, honesty and actionable advice on how you can reframe how you think about change. So grab a pen, take some notes and get ready to transform the way you lead.

Mick Spiers: 1:08

Hey everyone, and welcome back to The Leadership Project. I'm greatly honored today to be joined by Michael Lopez. Michael is a coach who helps organizations, companies, teams and individuals to elevate their performance through transformation. Change can be scary, but it's something that is with us every single day, and that's what our focus is going to be today. It's going to be about change and transformation. Michael is also the author of a book called Change Six Science-Backed Strategies to Transform your Brain, your Body and your Behavior, so I'm really interested to hear Michael's perspective here. It's something that we're all faced with every day and if we can lean into it, we can get amazing results. So, Michael, without any further ado, I'd love to hear from you. I'd love to know a little bit more about your background and what particularly inspired you to do the work that you do to help individuals, companies and teams around change and transformation?

Michael Lopez: 2:09

Yeah, thanks, Mick. It's great to be here with you, thanks for having me on and really do enjoy the opportunity to talk about all the ways in which we try to change. Really there's many layers to it, but I think the most recent one. You know, I spent two decades in big consulting helping companies of all types try to change in different ways whether it's culture, operations, strategy, you name it and what I found was a lot of the techniques and methods that we were using to try to create change in individuals really just simply weren't working, and it wasn't because they weren't well-intentioned, hardworking people trying to drive and create compelling experiences for people and companies. I think we lost our way when it comes to understanding what's happening to us at the microscopic level when we try to change, and the more we understand what's going on internally, the more we can leverage those systems and structures to start to accomplish our goals, because, at the end of the day, change is a personal experience. The only person you can change is you. The only person you can ever change is you, and so I just felt like we needed a different conversation and a new set of tools inside these larger companies to be able to help really create the outcomes that we wanted.

Michael Lopez: 3:32

I'll add another piece, which is I spent my life as an athlete. I played high school football, I played college football, I coach still on a football team and I use strategies. We know so much about the body in terms of driving athletic team and you know I was. I use strategies, we know so much about the body in terms of driving athletic performance, and yet I thought we'd show up into the office and forget all of those strategies. So you know, the most recent experience might've been what I was going through as a consultant, but my heritage as a coach and helping teams and individuals perform it just became a natural blend of kind of the science of performance within the body and now matching it with what we know about the brain to try to help bring a different set of tools to people on their change journey.

Mick Spiers: 4:15

Yeah, really good, Michael. There's a couple of things there I'm curious to unpack One about where you think we've been going wrong in the industry let's call it that. And the second one, this connection about the self and thinking in the mirror going how do I react to change before I start looking to do a change in a team or whatever the case might be. To get back to a bit of basics and fundamentals, I think that's pretty interesting. Let's start with the first one. So you have worked for EY and Booz Allen and KPMG. You've worked with some companies that do go in and do big change programs. Where do you think we've been going wrong? There's a lot of money spent in companies around the world on change and not all of those change initiatives are successful. I remember a stat at one point that 70 to 80% of them are not successful or don't meet their originally intended outcomes. Why are we keep on repeating the same mistakes? Where are we going wrong?

Michael Lopez: 5:16

Yeah, it's a great question, and you know, that stat in and of itself to me was the impetus for wanting to head down a different path, right, and look, I want to say that I've worked with a lot of people in the change management community and that community is full of hardworking, well-intentioned, passionate people who are trying hard to help companies meet their goals, and so it's not about intention or aspiration or anything like that. So it's not about intention or aspiration or anything like that. But, to your point, it sort of struck me as ironic of the methods that were being used were really similar across companies, and yet you'd ask yourself, if 70% of all transformations fail, let's go back and look at the strategies we're using to try to help that change take place, right? So I had a hard time reconciling those two things, and so you know, I think it's just important to acknowledge that it's full of hardworking people. But you know, effort only gets you so far, and so I really wanted to understand some of the things that I think we're missing In terms of what we're getting wrong or maybe not getting right. I'd rather use that phrase. I mentioned it in my opening.

Michael Lopez: 6:30

We do a lot of things in companies at scale, and what that means is we send people to the same training, the same communications, the same experiences, and while there's value in that, the truth is no two brains on planet Earth are the same, and I think it's important to understand and acknowledge that change is a very personal, unpredictable, nonlinear experience. And so I think a lot of times in big companies, for the purposes of being efficient, we tend to take a bit of a paintbrush to groups of people. Hey, there's this stakeholder called middle manager. Let's just treat them all as this unitary group, and we know from the science of change and the science of the brain that two people can have a very different experience going through the same experience. Right, and so I think we were missing the mark on that.

Michael Lopez: 7:15

I think I'd say the second thing that we struggle with is the economics of change are complicated, and in the big consulting world, we're obviously trying to keep costs down.

Michael Lopez: 7:27

Money's being spent on strategy or technology, implementation or whatever the operational driver of that experience is, and we tend to say well, we don't want the change part to be expensive, keep it minimum, let's just do light training, a little bit of communications, and the truth is, all of this sounds great to get actual people involved, right, and so I think we were structuring these engagements in ways that maybe didn't honor the time horizon of what is really required in change. Right, a lot of money spent in the strategy and in the implementation of maybe the more hard experiences. Right, the technology or the bolt-on company we bought or whatever it is. But the truth is a lot of those things are just the beginning of the change experience for most people. So those are two things that I think, again, it's not about getting them wrong as much as maybe a point of emphasis on what's really required to change someone's behavior. So those are two places to start talking about.

Mick Spiers: 8:26

Really good. So I'm hearing two things there, Michael. The first one is that change is very personal, and I'm sure we're going to come back to that in a few moments that, assuming that what works for one person in the business, if you're in a 3000 people business, is it really going to work for the other 2,999? So that's really good. So the cookie cutter approach is not working. The other thing I'm picking up there that I'd like to go to now, before we come back to that topic, is whether we're investing enough and giving it enough time.

Mick Spiers: 8:59

And what I've seen in many organizations, Michael and I think the audience will a lot of them will resonate with this is change du jour. What's the change initiative of today? And the leadership team might be putting out a change initiative and then the results don't come in the first quarter. So they go oh, it didn't work, we better try something else next quarter. But you didn't give it enough time to actually embed or to see any results. But the knock-on effect of what I'm saying is now people now get change-weary. In fact, they might even just ignore the change because they go it's okay, ignore this one because there'll be a new one next quarter. So tell us more about this time and investment element?

Michael Lopez: 9:43

Change always takes longer than you think it will. It's a fundamental principle. I talk about it in my book. I actually dive into some of the science behind our perception of time and particularly how our hormones. When we're going through difficult experiences, they seem to take a lot longer than they actually do. Or when things are fun we've been on a roller coaster seems like it's over in a heartbeat and they're not very long or whatever, right? So there's actually real science behind our perception of time and how our experience of change and stress particularly influences that. If people are curious about how that works. But you're right, change always takes longer than you think and it's one of the reasons why, at the individual level, we give up on our goals, right? So most people, many people, have heard of this thing called Quitter's Day. Quitter's Day is January 19th. That's the day that most people give up on their New Year's resolutions, right? 19 days and part of that.

Michael Lopez: 10:37

And you were mentioning the ROI effect of well, our project isn't returning the money that we thought of it was going to pay off yet. But it's sort of like losing weight, right? You don't lose 30 pounds in a workout, right? It has to happen repetitively, and so you know, first of all, we lose patience with the time horizon that we're trying to kind of get to the outcome that we want, you know. The second thing is, you know, around that is actually the outcome itself. .

Michael Lopez: 11:02

We tend to focus on big numbers, particularly in companies. Right, so much money saved or so much money earned, and those are the things that are used to sell the project. Right, it's a compelling ROI, it's a great business case, and there's nothing wrong with doing that analysis. But the reality of changing thousands of people and then letting their performance grow into a place where you can actually capture that is much more complicated and is a much slower experience. And so companies get the same quitter's day effect as well. Right, oh, we're not earning as much as we thought. Let's stop. And the truth is, the best thing you can do is have a more realistic timeline. And I think that gets to this idea One of the reasons I started my own company.

Michael Lopez: 11:47

I won't say where this was and, again, I think it was done with good intentions. But we sell the easy button a lot in big consulting projects, and it's because of the competitive nature of the industry. We're trying to be the cheapest, we're trying to be the highest ROI. We're trying to help the clients feel good about what they're going through, and I just felt like it's a little bit disingenuous, right. If it was easy, you would have done it already. And this is hard, right, and it's hard times the thousands of people that you have and so I think there's a little bit of intellectual honesty that we need to bring into the conversation. As I tell my clients yeah, this is probably going to be difficult, but I'm going to be here with you every step of the way and I'm going to help you through that journey and keep it realistic and help you understand what's really required.

Mick Spiers: 12:33

Yeah, really good, michael. So absolutely hearing you loud and clear that we need to stop kidding ourselves that it's going to be easy. Change is hard. Acknowledge that up front and acknowledge that it's going to take time. And if I could play back to you, the key lesson I'm taking is a bit of consistency and a bit of patience there. And I'm going to play back to you the same analogy around quitters day and also around let's go with fitness.

Mick Spiers: 12:58

I think that can resonate with most people that, yeah, expecting that if I work out every day from January 1 to January 19, I'm going to see massive results no, no, it takes longer than that. But equally, it's also at the other end of the equation. Having one burger or pizza doesn't also make you unfit. So whilst it's not one workout that makes you fit, it's not one burger and pizza that makes you unfit. But if you eat burgers and pizza every day for three years, guess what it's going to happen over time. So we see that compounding effort of bad habits, but we don't give enough time for the compounding effect of good habits. Is what I'm hearing. Is that a good takeaway? Yeah, no, that's absolutely right. There's three things that I talk about in my book that are sort of essential strategies for change. We're talking about kind of practical tips, right? And so one of the first things to think about is this idea of what I call embracing stress with stress, which means the idea that doing hard things and withstanding that experience is a muscle that you can build. It's a muscle you should build, and if you want to break a habit, start a new habit, build a goal, you're going to absolutely need to have a more productive relationship with stress. The second one I would say is you talked about this idea of consistency with stress. The second one I would say is you talked about this idea of consistency?

Michael Lopez: 14:30

Right, repetition is the way that we learn, particularly as we get older. Right, there's actually, if you want to know the scientific term, it's called long-term potentiation, which is the act of repeating something over and over and over again. You know, the habits that you've formed as an adult are the result of long-term potentiation. There's things that maybe you were aware of. Many of them were not right. They're patterns that you developed over years, in some cases decades. You're not going to break that pattern in a weekend, right, it's going to take you a long time and it's going to take a lot of thoughtful time, and it's also going to take the act of restraint around performing the old action that you'd like to go back to, right. So that's called. Actually, if you want to know the term, it's called long-term depression, not the emotional state, but depressing the action that you're not to perform.

Michael Lopez: 15:21

Most people set goals that are nouns, right, they're outcomes, a certain amount of money, a certain amount of whatever it may be. But the more you can focus on the effort of chasing your goals rather than the outcome of actually getting it, the more success you'll have and the more motivated you'll be along that journey. And so those are things that I help companies with, right, which is this idea of rebuilding goals that are more motivating to people, helping people understand how to do hard things in ways that keep them motivated through that experience, or at least help them bounce back from failure. And then the understanding that it's going to take you a lot of repetitions in a new set of patterns in order to get the outcome that you want anyway. So how do we be realistic about that?

Mick Spiers: 16:05

Yeah, really good, okay. So I'm hearing some key words here the long-term potentiation, the long-term depression or deprecation of a long-term habit that you're trying to break once and for all. That it does take time. And then I'm hearing this word stress in there as well. So, and the balance here? I'm hearing this long-term potentiation, and how am I going to keep myself motivated even through the times where I'm feeling, oh, this is not quite working the way I want. How am I going to show up the next day? The impact or the results are going to take time, so I need to be patient.

Mick Spiers: 16:41

But then I'm hearing this word stress, and the picture that came into my head when I was hearing you, michael, is if I went to the gym every day and I lifted the same amount of weight every day, eventually my results would just plateau. I'd habituate to that weight, but I need to just push myself that little bit further outside my comfort zone. What's 1% better? Look like this week compared to last week, and that's when I'm going to see the growth. Then I'm extrapolating that into the business world and go well, is that what we're trying in the business world Like? If we're trying a transformation in our business, what are we doing to turn the dial 1% every day or every week? What's 1% better than last week, look like, so that we're not just habituating, we're actually potentiating. How does that sit with you?

Michael Lopez: 18:00

Yeah, no, look, there's a real challenge in the business world, which is that efficiency, right, which is the shortest possible distance to deliver a product or process or service or whatever it may be, is really profitable right. I mean companies design processes and then find ways to execute that process as quickly as they can, and so the workers, in all shapes and sizes, and whether that's actually on an assembly line or in knowledge work, are incentivized to be efficient. And that's just like the human body, right, which is designed to be as efficient as possible in allocating resources to, quite frankly, just keep you alive, right. So the challenge becomes in the change world as it relates to companies, is that change is, by definition, inefficient, right, and then, which means it's, by definition, not as profitable, and so what you have to be able to withstand is the dip in performance while you're learning something new, to get to that tipping point where I become able to move from kind of this trough of performance into stabilization and into a next round of efficiency, right. So it's just like learning a new physical skill or playing an instrument or learning a new behavior.

Michael Lopez: 19:15

By definition, at the beginning of that experience, you're not very good at it, right. And what makes most people give up is the stress of making mistakes right. We don't really like that emotional experience. The truth is, mistakes are the single largest contributor to the opportunity for neuroplasticity that you can actually experience. And I use that phrase intentionally, because if you don't learn from the mistake, then of course you know you can't adapt, and that is, at the end of the day, what change is all about.

Michael Lopez: 19:46

It's about attempting new patterns, making mistakes Michael adjusting your behavior and restarting that experience. If you can get your employees to embrace that and, as a leadership team, if you can set reasonable goals that aren't just focused on the quantitative upside of return on investment, your company and your teams will do amazing things. But you've got to strike that balance right, because there's just this reality I'm not good at something new. The first time I try it. It's going to take me a long time, and so I spent a lot of time with leaders helping them be realistic. It's not about not striving. In fact, we know that the science of motivation the farther I strive, the more I actually stay motivated. It's about withstanding mistakes in the path of striving to that ? goal.

Mick Spiers: 20:35

Yeah, really good. So the things I'm taking away if I'm not pushing myself slightly outside my comfort zone, I may not be making mistakes. If I'm not making mistakes, I'm not learning, I'm not growing. Then I'm hearing this dip in performance. I think this is one we forget as well, and I'm going to use a metaphor here of a golf swing. If you make a change to your golf swing, you're trying to improve your golf swing, by the way, but when you make that change, you're going to go backwards first and then you're going to get better as you master that new golf swing.

Michael Lopez: 21:06

And it's going Michael take you tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of swings. It's such a great analogy because I'm not very good at golf. I play only occasionally. You know my first analogy, because I'm not very good at golf, I play only occasionally. My first golf swing is incredible. It's straight down the middle, so good. Then I stop thinking about it and I go watch this and I try to do it again and it's a disaster. It's only then, in the next swing, that I start to go. What happened there? Why did I do that? Then I try and you go through the whole golf experience.

Michael Lopez: 21:36

But that is the experience we need in order to grow. There's actually been some studies done around using things like a dartboard, that people who get closest to the bullseye actually experience less brain reactivity than people who miss farther away, because, of course, that's the goal, right? Is this idea that how was I so far off? Right, but you've got to turn into that experience, not away from it. And that's something particularly for leaders. We hear about imposter syndrome and some of these things. Where do I need to know all the answers? I'm totally sure of our destination. I know exactly everything that's going to transpire. Those are things that actually limit our growth, because we're not open to the experience of being wrong.

Mick Spiers: 22:22

Interesting. Yeah, and what you said there about leaning into it. That's when we can truly learn from the mistake and then turn that into applied learning and do something different next time, which is really interesting.

Michael Lopez: 22:34

And there's actually a part of the brain. This is in the book if you want to really dive into it. Science has actually proven that doing hard things is the pathway to growth. There's a part of your brain called the anterior mid-singulate cortex, and it's a region of the brain that, when you do difficult things and overcome those experiences, it actually gets bigger, meaning your brain doesn't physically grow, but more real estate is dedicated to this part of the brain. Athletes have among the largest AMCCs. People who live a long time have large AMCCs.

Michael Lopez: 23:07

So we've heard this cliche of doing hard things. The truth is, the science demonstrates that the more you do that, the more skill you develop in the experience of doing hard things, which is really what this is all about. Right Change is a skill, and so that's really what the book's about, and that's what we're talking about. Right Is go make mistakes. Of course, there's levels to this. There's catastrophic mistakes and all of that, and I'm not minimizing those kinds of things being unsafe. Nobody's suggesting to go do that, but if there's something that scares the hell out of you, that's a good signal that that's something you should go try to figure out.

Mick Spiers: 23:46

Yeah, that's a powerful message there, michael, and the way I kind of translate what you're saying to us. The picture in my head is allow yourself to scrape your knees a few times. It doesn't mean that you walk in front of traffic, right, but allow yourself to scrape your knees a few times and then learn from it. That's really good. The bit why I wanted to come back in the corporate world is to make sure that yeah, we were talking about ROI before we might be trying this change effort. We need to be ready that the business might actually dip for a bit before it. Hockey sticks, right, and if you give up at the dip, well, you actually just made the business worse, not better, through the change effort, right.

Michael Lopez: 24:25

Yeah, and then you put a bunch of people through a process that they get no retained long-term learning from right and it's going to take them a while. So, so yeah, and you know, look, I think AI we can talk about that is fundamentally influencing this conversation in incredible ways, because companies are now looking at do I use AI as the engine? Because it already knows certain things about, maybe, what I'm trying to accomplish? But the truth is AI, just like a person, has to be trained right. You're not going to get better at using those tools unless you experiment, try a few has to be trained right. You're not going to get better at using those tools unless you experiment. Try a few things. Mess up, right. Have the AI chat bot say something wrong, right. All of those things are still going to be part of the experience.

Mick Spiers: 25:08

Yeah, brilliant, michael. I love it. Now we need to come back to something that we touched on earlier. So there's going to be people in the audience that are trying to do change efforts in organizations. It could be a small team of seven through to an organization of 3,000 people, and what they heard you say before, michael, is that change is individual. So if I am trying to do a change effort across a larger team, how do I do that? How do I set the compass for where we want to go, but then realize let's go with 600 people, realize that there's 600 individuals and 600 different brains that are on this journey together. How do we make it personal? .

Michael Lopez: 33:52

I like this point that you made about sceince depersonalizes it a little bit this a great question. I'll maybe give you a little example of a client of mine. It happens to be a nuclear power station out in Mississippi, one of the worst performing power stations in the US. There's about 100 stations in the US, about 800 people that work there, and they were in the bottom 10%. Historically they're the largest plant actually, but they had been falling downward in performance over about a 10-year period. The goal was to turn it around and how do we get them to be the best performing station? I'll give away a little bit of the punchline, which is they are now in the top 10% of all stations.

Michael Lopez: 26:30

the hows. So the first thing is we took a group of about 40 people that had a natural inclination towards a mindset of growth and what I call a stresses enhancing mindset. It's actually this is in the book as well People that had a natural orientation towards wanting to get better. We put them through a set of experiences. The first experience and this is really important is you have to create a shared reality among that group. Every one of those 40 people and, by definition, all the other 750, 760, all had a different point of view as to why performance had fallen down. They're in different departments, they've been there for different time horizons, maybe different roles in the community, all of this sort of stuff. So the first goal is I have to create a shared reality. I have to get this team to understand why are we all here together and do we all have the same point of view, or at least the same understanding as to how we got here together? And there's ways to do that, as to how we got here together, and there's ways to do that. The second thing that you have to do is, among that first cohort, is you have to get them to take individual responsibility for our collective reality right, which is? It's not just enough to understand why we're here. I've got to be able to get you individually to take ownership of it, not for all of it, but for your portion of it. If I can do that, what I've done is I've aligned the brains in the room. That's what I say.

Michael Lopez: 27:56

First step is, if we're all looking at this problem differently, that I need to find the best common denominator among that experience so that when I ask somebody, why are we here, we get roughly the same answer. Actually, that answer doesn't even have to be perfectly accurate, it just needs to be. When I ask somebody, why are we here, we get roughly the same answer. Right, and actually that answer doesn't even have to be perfectly accurate, it just needs to be shared among that group. Obviously, the more accurate is the better, but we want it to be shared. Then, when I get you to take individual ownership of that, what you stop doing is externalizing the source of why we're here. Remember we talked about change is personal, it's individual. I get you to look inward and say how do I contribute and what can I do differently, and how can I take ownership of my own change responsibility to now get us to a better place.

Michael Lopez: 28:45

The third step is then to say all right, now what is that better place? And how do we start to move and change our patterns the same patterns that got us here. It's why the shared reality is so important. How do we start to break those patterns? Right, and, by the way, we didn't set a goal to become in the top 10%. All that we did was said you're at the bottom and in order to get out of the bottom, we need to change the patterns that we have. And so, once you start getting that group of people to say, here's four or five behaviors that we want to change, how do we do that? And since I've got a shared understanding and I've got a personal commitment, what happens is those 40 people start designing strategies to go change those patterns.

Michael Lopez: 29:30

The last step is getting others involved and we call it creating a movement. Right, change is not a top-down experience, it's a movement. And they started talking to people. We would tell people hey, your job next week is to talk to three people about what you're working on, and the week after that is a new three people. After six weeks they had talked to everyone in the station and by the time of about four months later, everyone knew that there was something new happening here and they actually called themselves the new Grand Gulf, which is the name of the station, and they talk about time before and time after, and it's really, really powerful stuff.

Mick Spiers: 30:06

This is a really powerful framework, Michael. I really like it a lot. And the very first step, the shared reality. I think you will find that people would come into that first meeting thinking they know what's going on, but they need to deeply listen to each other and have some perspective taking to go. Oh, that's interesting. I was seeing this, but Michael was seeing this and George was seeing this and Sally was seeing this and it's that co-created shared reality. Now you're getting a richer picture of the real state of what's going on. So the shared reality is really good. The ownership and responsibility of how did I contribute to today's state and what can I do differently in the future to get a different result. And then, what is the shared vision of? What does it look like after we do all of this activity, before we start proliferating it with others, and what behaviors will get us to that shared vision of the future reality. That's a very powerful framework and everyone listening at home, I think. Well, first of all, get a copy of Michael's book.

Michael Lopez: 31:13

phases that I've just described. I use a little bit different words, but yeah, that's sort of effectively how you can apply it to your own life as well.

Mick Spiers: 31:21

Yeah, really good, all right. So shared reality, ownership and responsibility what does the future look like and what behaviors will get there? That's really good, michael, all right. So I want to give you a chance to talk more about the book. You talk about six science-backed strategies to transform your brain, body and behavior. What's the synopsis here?

Michael Lopez: 31:40

So I talked about three of them already Over the last several years, going back to this idea that we needed to have a different conversation around change. My time as an athlete working in a number of different companies, I wanted to really understand what's happening to us at the microscopic level when we try to change. I think there's value in that, not just because it gives us an understanding of the mechanism, which is important because we can use that to our advantage but I think a lot of times we tend to have negative sort of internal dialogue around failure, not meeting our goals and that sort of thing. And I think what helps with the science is that it kind of depersonalizes a little bit of it. Oh, this is what's happening when I try to do that. This is why I get so frustrated, this is what I'm experiencing, and it allows us to kind of feel a sense of I don't know kinship with our fellow man, of like, we all go through these things. Maybe there's different levels to it, but each of these dynamics, these sort of you know scientific experiences or things that are just part of our shared collective human reality, you know.

Michael Lopez: 32:46

And then the last piece was really around this idea of how do I use it, how do I put those tools into practice? And there's a quote that I say a lot, which is there's a formula for change, but change is not formulaic. We've got to learn how to mix and match these Lego blocks or these variables in this equation to kind of form our own personalized guide, and so that was really the inspiration. I actually started writing the book about companies and realized I need to take a step back. So I am working on another one that'll be out maybe in 18 months or so, but it really is for anyone who is trying to accomplish a goal. It doesn't have to be just in business, it can be in your life, in any dimension. My hope is that it gives you the tools to go accomplish all the goals you've been maybe tried and haven't succeeded, or goals that you never thought of, that now are at your fingertips because you've built this skill of change personalizes it a little bit.

Mick Spiers: 33:52

This is why I study psychology, by the way to try to make rational sense of what is sometimes an irrational world or irrational behavior, even my own behavior I'm talking about here, not just externally, like if I behave in a certain way, if I go, ah okay, now I'm the sense-making of it. When you make sense of the current state, you can then make sense of what you're going to do about it. So you're really good, michael, all right. Well, key question then there's going to be a lot of people listening to this and they might fit anywhere on that spectrum of individual transformation through to big company. What's one step that you could give them? What's the one baby step that you could give them to get them to not be so fearful of change and to lean into it a little bit more?

Michael Lopez: 34:31

get them to not be so fearful of change and to lean into it a little bit more. You know, we talked about it, I mentioned this. You know, among the six maybe it's like having a favorite kid or something like that. I mean, they're all important in their own right. We talked about this idea of embracing stress.

Michael Lopez: 34:49

There's demonized stress in ways that limit our ability to meet our goals and look just like anything else. There's levels to this as well. We know that long-term emotional, physical, stress is debilitating and it's important to get help from someone who's qualified to help you in that situation. That's certainly not me in those situations. But acute, short-term, particularly self-induced stress is essential for growth. You know, muscles grow under stress, bones grow under stress, eyesight performs well under stress and focus, and so all of these things we learn under stress.

Michael Lopez: 35:28

You know, the same behavior or the same almost hormonal reaction that creates stress is the same hormonal reaction that's used when we're learning something new, and so for me, it all starts with that, and there's ways to get better at this. Right, there's the cold plunge craze. I take a cold shower every day. It sucks every time. Right, it never gets better, but it's this idea that, on the other side of this experience, is a version of me that will feel more accomplished, more capable to take on the next hard thing.

Michael Lopez: 36:01

And so, for me, you know, find something and it doesn't have to be the biggest goal that you have, and that's part of our challenge with goals is we set the goal that's in our face every day. That, maybe, is the most like negatively salient right, maybe something we've been struggling with for years, because it's that thing we know we want to stop or change, but we just can't. Don't pick that one because there's a reason it's still there, right? It's tough. Pick something that you know is just beyond. You know something new, something that you're a little bit interested in learning an instrument, learning a language, something that is hard enough for you that you will struggle, but not so hard that you'll give up and put yourself intentionally in that situation. That's really the starting point, I think, of any change journey, because what we're trying to build is the skill of change, right?

Mick Spiers: 36:49

Really good. So leaning into the stress, building a michaeljlopez. coach, of resilience, but stepping just outside your comfort zone. Here there's a thing called I'm sure you're aware of it, michael, but for the audience the Yerkes-Dodson curve, which is the curve of stress to performance, and with no stress it's zero performance and zero change. With moderate stress is moderate change. With too much stress, you capitulate right. So you got to get it right. I'm going to use another sports metaphor here. I really need to work on developing some non-sports metaphors.

Michael Lopez: 37:21

That's all right, I like them.

Mick Spiers: 37:23

I play tennis, Mick. I love tennis. Right, and I'm somewhere between a level four and a level five tennis player on a scale of one to seven. Right, when I play against level five tennis players, Be I play my best tennis and I get better. When I play against level three tennis players, I actually get worse. I actually play really badly right. So pushing myself just outside my comfort zone is level five and I get better. I'm not going to challenge Roger Federer tomorrow because that would be embarrassing for both of us. Right, and I'm not going to learn anything from that experience.

Michael Lopez: 38:34

But just outside my comfort zone is where that growth exists. How does that sit with you? No, I, I tell my son all the time you can see there's a. I played American football. I played quarterback. He plays quarterback. He's way better than I ever was. There's a picture behind me of the two of us superimposed together. And and I've told him his whole life, the only way to get better is to play people better than you, because you have to adjust, right, you have to adapt, you have to try new things and you have to learn to recover from loss. Right, you have to learn to.

Michael Lopez: 39:00

You know, my daughter also plays sports. She rides horses, she plays flag football, she also is a quarterback it's kind of a thing in our family and she had a game on Sunday. They started out on defense. The other team scored on The Because, again, using the sports analogy like let's go watch the tape right, what happened? Where was my foot? Why did I lose this point? What did I assume about my opponent that maybe was wrong? What do I need to work on? Strength-wise or speed-wise or whatever? Right, you've got to get that information into your brain and then you've got to act on it. And so, yeah, it absolutely is true.

Mick Spiers: 39:50

And that comes beautifully back to our mistake learning applied learning curve right. So really good, All right, Thank you so much, Michael. This has been a wonderful conversation. I'd like to now take us to our rapid round. So these are the same four questions we ask all of our guests. So what's the one thing you know now, Michael Lopez, that you wish you knew when you were 20?

Michael Lopez: 40:10

You know, a year and a half ago, two years ago, I started my own company and I had always wanted to be an entrepreneur. I was a little bit afraid to do so. I wish I had the knowledge and understanding that I could be successful financially, economically, socially in running my own company. I wish I had done that really decades ago. Now I'm very grateful for the experiences that I've had because it's led me here, so I certainly don't regret any of it. But I always operated with a mindset that there was safety in working for a company. My parents were very simple people so I thought, hey, you get a good job, you work there for your whole life and you're good. And of course, now I'm in a much different space and I wish I had learned that sooner.

Mick Spiers: 40:55

Yeah, all right, nice one, nice reflection. What's your favorite book?

Michael Lopez: 40:59

I have so many favorite books. Actually, one of them is right behind me, you'll see this book called Outlive by Peter Attia. It's really about the science and art of longevity and living longer. I'm 51, about to be 52 and have little kids, so that book has really spoken to me in many ways, at least recently. But the one I would have to say the most just in terms of longevity of my adulthood is Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. It's a transformative book that if you've never read it, you absolutely need to.

Mick Spiers: 41:32

So I would say that one there's a powerful one there around resilience. And then tapping back into your reason for living, your motivation. You spoke about how you're going to stay motivated at the low times. Well, there's a perfect example with Frankl. Yeah, really good. And what's your favorite quote?

Michael Lopez: 41:50

Yeah, we talked about that. I actually have a new favorite quote which I just found recently and I can't remember how I found it, but it's from George Bernard Shaw. I'll just read it. It's a little long, but it's a famous one from him, which is I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no brief candle. For me, it is a sort of splendid torch which I have got a hold of for the moment and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations. I find real meaning in that. I feel like I'm just getting started in my life in a lot of ways and I'm always working on something and trying to build and create and give, and I just love that one. It really speaks to me.

Mick Spiers: 42:37

Yeah, I love it and I can see how meaningful it is for you. So, yeah, thank you for sharing that with us. Finally, michael, how do people find you? If people are interested either from a corporate change point of view through to individual transformation, how do people find you and take advantage of your work?

Michael Lopez: 42:53

Yeah, my website is a great place to start michaeljlopezcoach Just a kind of nod to my coaching heritage there. You can find all of my social media on there. You can connect with me and contact me. I'm really big on. I spend a my social media on there. You can connect with me and contact me. I'm really big on. I spend a lot of time on LinkedIn, as I mentioned maybe I mentioned I'm a top voice on LinkedIn, which I'm very proud of. I spend a lot of time writing about change there, talking about change. I have a weekly LinkedIn Live series which has become a bit of a quasi podcast, called Top Voice Tuesday, where I meet with other top voices and we talk about a range of contemporary business issues. It's just so many amazing people in that community, so trying to give them a voice. You can order my book on the website, follow me on all my other socials, but that's a great place to start. Everything can be found there.

Mick Spiers: 43:44

Wonderful. Thank you so much, Michael. Thank you for sharing your wisdom today and for sharing your experience and giving us very practical tips on how we might lean into stress and lean into change and to have that resilience and persistence to see the change effort through to something that's meaningful. Thank you so much.

Michael Lopez: 44:04

It's been great, nick. I appreciate it, and if I could leave your listeners with one last thing, I would say that, a I hope you learned something new the day before they closed the casket, and B change isn't just possible, it's necessary, and it's necessary throughout our whole lives, and so my best to everyone on their journey.

Mick Spiers: 44:24

Very powerful. Thank you, Michael. Wow, what an insightful conversation with Michael Lopez. If there's one thing I hope you take from today, it's this Change isn't something to manage, it's something to understand, and when we truly understand what's happening in the brain and the body during times of change, we unlock the power to guide ourselves and others with compassion, clarity and courage. Michael reminded us that transformation is not a checkbox. It's a practice. It's something we show up for every day, and as leaders, we have a responsibility and a privilege to go first, to model change and to create the conditions where others feel safe to evolve too.

Mick Spiers: 45:09

If you found value in the episode, please take a moment to rate and review the show. It helps us reach more people who care about leadership. That matters, and if you're not already part of our growing community, be sure to subscribe to the Leadership Project on your favorite podcast platform and follow us on LinkedIn and YouTube. We've got more great conversations coming your way. In the next episode, it's going to be a solo cast where I reflect on the great conversations we've had this month. I'll reflect on the last four episodes that we've had. So until next time, keep leaning in, keep growing and remember, as Simon Sinek famously said leadership is not about being in charge. It's about taking care of those in your charge.

Mick Spiers: 46:00

Thank you for listening to The Leadership Project, mickspiers. com. A huge call out to Faris Sedek for his video editing of all of our video content and to all of the team at TLP Joan Gozon, Gerald Calibo and my amazing wife Sei Spiers. I could not do this show without you. Don't forget to subscribe to The Leadership Project YouTube channel, where we bring you interesting videos each and every week, and you can follow us on social, particularly on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram. Now, in the meantime, please do take care, look out for each other and join us on this journey as we learn together and lead together.