Change is inevitable, but navigating it well is a skill.
In this episode of Pivot with Darryl Lyons, Darryl explores John Kotter’s eight principles for leading change and explains how they apply far beyond the workplace. Whether you’re changing careers, moving your family, building a business, improving your finances, or developing better habits, successful change requires more than motivation. It requires vision, accountability, communication, and resilience.
Drawing from personal experiences, leadership lessons, and financial planning conversations, Darryl shares practical strategies for creating lasting change without creating unnecessary panic. He discusses the importance of building the right support system, communicating a compelling vision, overcoming obstacles, celebrating early wins, and developing the habits that make meaningful change stick.
You’ll learn:
● Why every meaningful change begins with honest self-assessment
● How to create urgency without creating fear
● The importance of building a guiding coalition in business, marriage, and life
● Why you don’t need every answer before taking the first step
● How to manage emotional responses during seasons of change
● The power of celebrating early wins to build long-term momentum
● Why accountability systems are essential for lasting personal growth
● Practical ways to make positive habits stick over time
Whether you’re leading an organization, managing your finances, raising a family, or pursuing personal growth, this episode offers a practical framework for navigating change with confidence and purpose.
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Transcript:
The big things that are changed like again starting a business, moving those, you know, you don’t look back, the bridge has been burnt.
The smaller things, you probably need some accountability in systems to keep it afloat. Keep it going.
When times get difficult, you tend to dissipate. So I want to make sure that you know that you’re not alone in that. So you need some systems in place.
Hey, this is Darryl Lyons, CEO and co-founder of Pax Financial Group, and you’re listening to Pivot with Darryl Lyons, where we’ll talk about wealth, and we’ll talk about leadership and just life in general. Remember, this information is general in nature. It’s not intended to provide specific investment, tax or legal advice. Visit Pax Financial Group for more information. I’m working from a home office today because I had acl, I had a meniscus tear in some home recovering and doing fine, but at the house you get the background and the stories behind me and I’m a I just want to reinforce the idea behind this podcast. It’s my conviction that money decisions, the better money decisions happen in conversation. And so hopefully this is a beginning of a conversation that you might have with somebody else, maybe an advisor, maybe a friend, maybe a trusted confidant in some way to be able to really unpack some of these things.
But I’ll do my best over the next 15 or 20 minutes to kind of curate and launch that conversation. So what I want to talk about today is change. There’s a band in the 90s, Candlebox, if you remember them, you know, love 90s alternative so, but there’s a song called change. So every time I say change, I think of Candlebox and the lead singer.
His name’s Kevin Martin. He says, as I stand here, I ponder greater things. And I love that line, you know? And to think about how today we get so busy scrolling and just the information age, everything at us that we don’t just stand there and ponder, and when we stand there and ponder, we, we do something we recognize that maybe here isn’t as good as we thought it was, and we need to make a change.
So that’s what I’m going to talk about. I’m going to actually use John Carter’s leadership framework. He’s a he has a leadership model. That business is used Carter with a k k I was introduced to it not long ago, but just digested it, looked at all the pros and cons of it’s not a perfect model, but it’s one that I wanted to use.
It has eight eight steps or considerations, and I’m going to use that framework for our conversation today. But when it comes to change, this is just not about money. Money obviously is a part of this equation, of course, because there really isn’t many changes that happen without some economic impact. That’s just how life is. You can deny that all day, but there’s always, almost always an economic consideration.
I, I did want to make sure that you could apply this both personally and professionally though. So, you know, I moved a lot growing up. So this could be applied to the way I approach moving. When I was born in Dallas, moved to canton, moved to Somerset, moved to San Antonio. Moved to Bernie. Moved to Harlingen, moved to Castroville.
So that was a little bit of change there and kind of grow resilient would change. So you just kind of learn to roll with it. But even if I did become resilient to change to a certain degree, it doesn’t mean that I’m good at teaching others how to be resilient as well. The people that I need to come alongside with me.
So we moved from San Antonio to New Braunfels. It was a different kind of change. I was ready to move. That was easy, but I had a family of six that I had to convinced the other five that it made sense. So there was change management there. So change has application in various facets, sometimes as individuals, sometimes as corporate, sometimes it’s family.
But any of this content say, I’m going to I’m going to express in a way that I think you can apply it any, any of those situations. So let’s jump into it. The first one is creating urgency without panic. Bill, who’s a pastor, he was a pastor, Willow Creek Church in Chicago. He had this presentation that he did, and he pointed to the ground with his left index finger and says, here is not good.
When the ground he had any point out to the sky with his right hand, or somewhere out into the to the east or west, and say, there is good. So with one hand here is not good, there is good. And what he is trying to say is that that’s what you’ve got to make sure it comes across. Clearly his, his story that he used was the Exodus.
You know, the Israelites sleeping Egypt and slavery. And, you know, that was pretty clear. Hey, here is not good. But sometimes it’s it’s important if if you want to initiate change for you to be honest with yourself and saying here is not good, it does require just an honest inventory. Sometimes we just cope and at a certain point we got to be honest with ourselves here is not good.
And then we got to tell others, hey, here’s not good, we can’t panic. Got to be like adults. But we got to be honest here is not good. So that’s the first. The first thing is to just create that sense of urgency. The second thing is building a guiding coalition. Now I found this to be something that is critically important both in business and in family.
You know, like I said, when we moved from San Antonio to New Braunfels, needed a guiding coalition. I needed my wife to be able to to get the kids on board, to be excited, to recognize that, hey, they may leave some friends behind. They’re not really behind. But, you know, part of those conversations are hard. So but she was a part of the guiding coalition.
You have to create a guiding coalition in our work. Janice, you know, she’s president, chief operating officer, and she’s often the guiding coalition. So when there’s initiative of change, then she comes around and locks arms and ensures that we see that thing through. We also do this in financial advice, and that’s why I keep reinforcing it so important.
Some clients who are just, you know, old school grumpy old Germans, you know who you are. I love you, but I do these little I do these little card exercises where we unpack some pretty deep stuff and not to go deep, but one of the things that we want to do is try to get the spouse, the husband and wife on the same page.
Because if we can create this guiding coalition, we we almost always get better outcomes. And so the guiding coalition between a husband and wife is really powerful. And so that’s part of our investment thesis, is to be able to do that well and try to cultivate that, because we know we can do great things if we’ve got a guiding coalition on a fragmented one.
The third thing that Carter points out is communicating the vision clearly. So again, high point to the ground here is not good with the left index finger. And out to the east or west is the there is. Good. That’s where we’re going. I don’t think you have it. Have to all have it all figured out. I’m not a history buff by any means, but I’ve read enough over the years about and studied and watched and had, you know, lots of conversations about history.
And it’s interesting, you know, whether it’s Vietnam or Iraq or even today’s Iran war, you know, there’s typically a vision. Oftentimes it’s somewhat, you know, vague. But the process is just never easy to to get to that vision. Sometimes it takes many, many, many years, sometimes decades. So I say that because you can have a vision of what life could be, but it doesn’t have to be perfect.
And so I think that sometimes causes a lot of people hesitation because they feel like they have to have it all dialed in that vision. You do not, you have it have to have it directionally understood. You’ll figure it out as you go. And I think the people that are making a difference that are moving mountain, so to speak, of those people that are comfortable not knowing everything, but knowing that we want to be over there in some capacity.
So yeah, if you just go back to the moving of a family, you know, sometimes you’re like, you’re going to meet kids, you’re going to meet some new friends, and you’re just crossing your fingers as a parent that you do. So it’s that kind of thing. And even in leadership and money in life, there’s just this idea that there is a vision, but it’s okay if it’s not, if it’s not all mapped out.
But I think you do need to have to have it defined to a degree that you can inspire others and encourage others to be able to go through the discomfort, which is what we’re going to talk about next. Number four is manage the response, manage the responses to change, because people are going to get uncomfortable in the journey, and oftentimes they’re going to get emotional sometimes these emotional responses Simon Sinek talks about this.
If they’re 1 to 1010 being, you know, just off the charts emotional one being, you know not non emotional. If it’s above a five. It’s not about the thing. It’s not about the change. It’s not about the disruption. It’s about something else. So in other words if somebody is getting hyper, if they if they open the refrigerator door and the milk falls out and maybe it spills a little bit and they just throw a fit, it’s not about the milk.
There’s something else going on there. So make sure that you can be the adult in the room and listen, respond and not react, because people will have various degrees of motions and they may they may express it that they’re trouble with the change, but there might be something else going on underneath that. The last thing you want to do is make decisions like change your course of action based on their their emotions, and that may not be based on that task.
Like I said, it might be something else. So it’s important that you manage those emotions. And that’s an important part of this process. And to respond thoughtfully by listening and not reacting. The next one, number five, is removing obstacles or friction. There’s going to be stuff in the way. You don’t know what those things are. Bit Hardy talks about hiring somebody called a super who this would be like who can I who can help me?
That’s kind of what you’re thinking. Like, who can help me get through these obstacles? That may be a coach, that could be a financial advisor, that could be your spouse. We have people on our team that are super who’s people that can, you know, they may not be the ones that that want to cast a vision or initiate change, but they’re like, hey, I can if you tell me kind of where we’re going and I see obstacles, I can be the person that can help you get through those obstacles.
So sometimes it’s not you, sometimes it’s not the person casting the vision. And if it’s not just maybe need to bring some of the people in that could help you navigate the obstacles. I mean, it may be you, but but just know that there’s going to be obstacles. You don’t always know what those are going to look like.
I just I think you just have to be real that there it’s not always smooth. Take it from here to there. Number six is something I’m good at in an individual context, but in a corporate setting I have to get better at for sure. And that’s creating early wins. In fact, many times when I was a financial advisor in a lot of early relationships, some of my clients remember this moment.
But I would always try to create early wins. I always felt like having early wins was just a really good way to build confidence. That would last a long time. And.
You know, sometimes it would just be simply, you know, finding, you know, there’s been times where I’d find stuff in their in their, in their bank account, their reoccurring expenses that they didn’t know about that was those were deep financial planning things. But trying to give you the examples real time, I can’t think of a bunch of them.
But, but, but my main point is that when I was engaging with clients, I would try to find early wins because I knew the power of early wins. So does Dave Ramsey. That’s why he does the debt snowball. The math doesn’t always make sense with snowball, but the early wins is the traction that you need to go from one step to another and to get the momentum.
It’s very real now when you’re working with a group of people, it’s one thing to be able for me to lay down my head on the pillow at night and think about all the wins and give myself a pat on the back while I’m in bed. It’s another thing to go to my team and say, hey, I just want to just share these early wins with you guys.
That’s something I need to work on. But it is again, change management is is different because it looks different in different capacities. But when you’re working with a team, trying to be able to share those early wins and continuing to share those wins, I think is really, really important. Number seven, keeping your people engaged. So along with those early wins, I think you need to be the chief reminding officer.
One of the things, again, I’m kind of going back to all my mistakes that I’ve learned over the years. I would have this vision of where we wanted to go as business, and I would get everyone in a room, put together a PowerPoint, try to overcome objections, you know, listen to them, sit in the room for a couple hours and then, like, left in everyone.
Like in my mind, everyone got it. We’re all on the same page. Let’s go. Then I’d realize that nobody heard anything I said. They might have been paying attention to my body language. They might have been hungry. They might have had something that their kid did last night that they were thinking about, but they weren’t listening to me.
And so once I. But then the youth in me would get frustrated, like, I told you this, like, how do you how did you not grasp it? I would even tell them twice, like, how do you not get this? This is where we’re going. These are the problems. This is why we’re doing it. Why do I have to keep telling you?
Well, it’s normal. It is normal to be the chief reminding officer. And it’s okay. I think it’s weak leadership to say, hey, I yelled it loud enough and everyone heard me. I think that’s weak. I think you just have the responsibility to to keep people engaged. And that eighth one from coders Work is making the change stick. Now, if you’re moving houses, that’s going to stick.
If you’re changing CRMs and businesses, that’s going to stick, the stuff that may be harder to stick is like going to bed without your phone in your hand. You know, maybe setting aside or maybe reading a book a month or some of these other things, maybe working out those types of change things, making those stick, that’s a little harder.
And again, there’s a lot of science and a lot of thoughts behind how to do this. Well, I think accountability is a big part of that. There’s lots of new apps. In fact, I just, I just I have some habits I’m always trying to course correct, you know, my life and little nudges to to do things where I’m at in life and age and everything.
So I just program copilot to be a chief of staff for me. So every morning I give it an executive summary of my previous day and it rates me. And so I just it’s really easy to program. When I say that program something, it’s, it’s it’s AI it’s easy. But but but my point is that is that the big things that are changed like again starting a business, moving those, you know, you don’t look back, the bridge has been burnt.
The smaller things you you probably need some accountability in systems to keep it afloat. Keep it going. Because when times get difficult you tend to dissipate. So I want to make sure that you know that you’re not alone in that. So you need some systems in place.
So those are the eight Kotter frameworks for change. Some of them will resonate with you.
Some of the some of them might. But just know being good at change is a skill that I think is worth leaning into. And constantly taking inventory of how good you are at this is is healthy, Candlebox said. Well, Kevin Martin, Candlebox again, I’m going to quote him. He said, I said, he said, I said, I feel so alive now.
And you know, I feel that a change, a change is going to come, he said. I said, I feel so alive now. And, you know, I feel that a change, a change is going to come. So despite the uncomfortableness of change, it is life. It’s a part of life, makes life fun, makes us trust God more and keeps us all alive.
I thank you for listening today. Remember, you think different when you think long term. Have a great Day
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