Get Ahead of 97% of People Who Hate Change.
Why only a few can be it's friend and master.
Change is a great force. Have you ever noticed how great forces don't travel in straight lines—rivers, lightning, even mighty trees?
With enough grit, experience and the right knowledge, we can shape them. With too much disrespect towards them, they shape us.
Before I tell you the how, let me tell you one of the many events in my life that shaped me.
I never thought that one of my super powers in life, would be the power to be a friend of change.
Life’s most painful moments would lead to my greatest breakthroughs.
Looking back, I see how I was born into it. Often moving from home to home, schools and countries.
Before I started to fall in love with my wife, my life was one big mess. I had 99 kinds of jobs before I finally honed in on what I do best: seeing, seeking, and leveraging hidden patterns in chaos.
At that time, my wife and I both use to go to a big church where we were really involved. Once we started dating, people asked us when we will get engaged. Once we got engaged they kept asking when is the wedding. Once we got married, they asked us when we will have a child.
We tried. We really tried for many years. Finally, it happened! But 6 months into the pregnancy, a sudden inexplicable infection, took our precious child away. And during that bloody news, my wife was forced into a natural and painful labor. Stillbirth. All while in shock and fighting for her life, as her organs were failing fast. As a reward for her battle: an immediate heart attack and a coma for 5 days.
Her first pregnancy.
I had received many visits while she fought for her life. One church told another, and before you know it, over a thousand people were praying. At night when I went back into the hospital room where we were suppose to welcome our baby, all I could do is fall asleep, on my knees, exhausted, not knowing if I was going to be a widower. All I could see when I closed my eyes, is this vision of a biblical war. It was the image of how the people were commanded by God to send their musicians and worshipers ahead of the army, in the most vulnerable place of the battlefield - and I was there, signing in a whisper, as everyone else I knew sent us their "positive vibes".
I couldn't change anything. So, I bonded with random people in the dark waiting rooms going through their own tragedies in anxiety.
The impossible: We now have 2 beautiful boys and my wife is 97% healthy.
A lady who checked up on me, on us, wrote in the papers: "The husband seems at peace, almost detached from reality. He is very friendly with everyone and seems spiritual."
No Sh*T. What else was I suppose to do? Plus, this was not my first or only encounter with shocking change. I almost died a few times myself, but enough with the stories:
Is it just me, or the more we get exposed to something, the more resilient or numb to it we become?
Let me show you how I see "friendship" with Change.
I promise to deliver on the "how" right after.
See, change is most often unwelcome and feared. All great forces are dangerous, and it’s okay if you can’t control them fully. This explains why we fear losing control and why our relationship with change is often strained.
Once we stop fearing change, we realize that efficiency isn’t always the answer. Because great forces don't travel in straight lines. Sometimes, resistance leads to true progress and sometimes, to death. We must stop obsessing about efficiency and embrace the path of most resistance that will get us there.
Time: The Abstract Force Born of Change.
Consider the abstract notion of time. Time exists because we measure the distance between events. It’s invisible, even non-existent, until something changes to mark its passage. Without change, time doesn’t exist.
Yet some say that time flies: but who gave it wings? If it flies for you, perhaps you've had little control over change, or maybe too few changes to measure. Either way, It’s not too late to have a good relationship with change. There is still time.
We must not only know how to embrace change but also understand what causes it so we can cause it at will.
In my quest out of the hero's complex, I've often seen myself as a villain, and a victim of my circumstance.
I strongly resonated with Bane, one of the bad guys in Batman who said:
"You merely adopted the dark. I was born in it."
But let me tell you, you can force yourself out of it.
Scientific vs. Poetic Forces.
There are two ways to look at the strongest force in the universe: the scientific and the poetic.
Scientists say the strongest force is the strong nuclear force, binding together everything that exists and creating the building blocks of matter. It’s 100 times stronger than electromagnetism and zillions of times stronger than gravity. Interestingly, It's strength is defined by the ability to cause change.
So, a force isn’t strong unless it causes change.
The Power of Love or Hate - Manifested.
The poetics, like Martin Luther King Jr., say: “Love is the greatest force in the universe,” referring to the power of love to fight injustice, to fight manifested hate.
He saw love as the force behind morality, connecting people to God and fighting injustice. A message that continues to inspire today.
But love, or hate, like any force, must move from belief to action if it is to transform the world. What if love never manifested itself and remained an unmeasurable intent, an invisible internal emotion or just a simple thought, forever? Without action, without words, it would never change anything.
So how do you harness the power of change unlike the 97% of the people who won't?
Here is the playbook.
1. Shut Up, Be Still and Watch.
In the beginning of my turning point in my career, I wasn’t the loudest person in the room. I was the one quietly observing, listening, and understanding the dynamics. I learned more by watching people than by speaking. I forced myself to let talents do what they specialized in, as I observed the patterns. I eventually went from a brand manager to a COO. I slowly introduced creative sessions, frameworks and management methods. We went from 8 freelancers to over 25 fulltime employee's. We hired new chief editors who often failed:
Too many leaders rush into action, assuming they know the answers before even seeing the problem. I’ve walked into rooms where 97% of people tried to change everything all at once, and failed. The ones who succeeded were the ones who took a step back, paid attention, and truly understood the landscape first. The most powerful thing you can do before making your move? Shut up, watch, and learn. Respect the great forces at work, and respect change or it will be resisted, and your relationship with it will be unhealthy.
2. Hack ONE Bold "3% Move".
The best change doesn’t come from overhauling everything at once. When Kanye West's creative director, Virgil Abloh, was approached by NIKE to redo a collection, he only added zip-ties and "quotes" to the shoes. It was seen as revolutionary.
Because it was 3% new and 97% familiar. A totally psychological hack that works!
It's about finding the little 3% opportunity that can shift the momentum. I’ve been in situations where my first move wasn’t revolutionary; it was small, subtle, and impactful. At Narcity, it wasn’t the entire brand strategy that made the difference, it was one small editorial shift, one toxic person reprimanded, one talent allowed to execute on their vision that made the whole team feel more connected. When you change just a small piece of the process, you can reshape the entire environment. So, take that one bold, small step that shifts the tide. It’s the 3% that creates the ripple effect. And the beauty? That’s the stuff people don’t even see coming.
3. Teach Like a Street Professor.
I’ve learned this the hard way: the best way to learn is to teach. I also see it in the enthusiasm of my son how he explains things to someone right after he just learnt it. And it’s not about lecturing from a high horse.
Be the dumbest person in the room. Ask questions like a child. The right question can birth great change in humanity.
Ancient wisdom teach us: The first interaction between evil and Eve was a question that made her act.
It’s about finding people's true values, being relatable, raw, and real. When I worked with the team at Narcity or when implementing new processes elsewhere, I didn’t sit them down for a formal lesson. I’d walk them through the process in an organic, conversational way, asking questions and letting them ask questions and share ideas. I’ve learned more from those moments of informal “teaching” than any conference I’ve been to.
This is the Street Professor mindset—sharing knowledge as a way to not only teach others, but to deepen your own understanding. When you teach in the trenches, it becomes second nature.
4. Break Stuff Without Permission & Fix It.
If you're not breaking stuff, you're not doing anything worth doing. Too many people are paralyzed by the fear of making mistakes. The most successful people I know have one thing in common: they’ve all failed. A lot. In fact, failure is almost guaranteed, but that's the point. They also don't ask permission, or play by the rules, as long as it's not criminal, then it's just the price you have to pay to play and win.
When we were building Narcity on the shoulders of MTLBlog, we made some huge missteps. We pushed the limits. We broke processes. We messed up. But here’s the thing: we fixed it. We embraced that we were the villains of our local media space. Innovation isn’t about playing it safe; it’s about shaking up the status quo and making improvements on the fly. When you fail, you learn. When you learn, you win. And when you win, you own it.
5. Celebrate and Credit LOUDLY Because Victory Fuels Culture.
When things go right, you have to celebrate—loudly, unapologetically, and with everyone who made it happen. During my time as COO at Narcity, we didn’t just recognize the wins—we threw them into the spotlight.
We had a visible chart of live website traffic per post, per author. When we hit big traffic numbers or a major campaign landed, it wasn’t just a “great job” in a meeting. We were public about it. We shared it across the whole company. And when our strategies worked, even other magazines would write about it. That sense of collective pride is what builds culture. You don’t just celebrate the big wins, you also credit the people who made it happen. All great leaders find ways to not credit themselves, (unless they take the book "48 Laws of Power" literally, take credit that is not theirs, and become narcissists.)
One book I consider my business bible, is Good to Great by Jim Collins. This approach fuels motivation, sparks innovation, and builds a culture that doesn’t fear failure because they know success is just around the corner.
6. Cancel Perfection.
97% of people get change wrong because they’re focused on the wrong things. They try to make everything perfect, all at once, or they don’t give themselves permission to fail. But the reality is, perfection is overrated. It's like the fear of not knowing what people will think if they find a mistake, that stops them. Change doesn’t need to be perfect to be effective. It's the 3% that counts. Change that 3%, and you change everything. Ruthlessly pursue that small shift in your process, in your culture, or in your mindset, and the rest will follow. That's how you make an impact. That's how you lead change while everyone else stays stuck.
This playbook isn’t about being perfect, it’s about embracing imperfection, taking action, and hacking the 3% while building a healthy relationship with change. Start small. Move Slow. Break things. Teach others. Celebrate loudly. And make those incremental changes that leave the rest of the world behind.