Be the Change You Were Born to Be (Even When Things Don't Settle Down)

By Lori Sue Netherda

Last week I told my mug, "Once things settle down, I'll really give it my all."

I've heard that sentence come out of a lot of mouths. Mine included. And I think it might be the most expensive sentence in the English language.

In our Grow Rich Mastermind, we've been wrestling with this idea for weeks, and a few golden nuggets keep rising to the top. I want to share them with you, because every one of them has changed how I show up in my noisy, wonderful, two-grandsons-and-a-baby life.

Nugget 1: "Settling down" is just self-gossip

Our enemy of character this month is gossip. Most of us think gossip is talking about other people. Stephanie asked a brilliant question: is it gossip if you say something untrue about yourself, like "I can't do that" before you've even tried?

Yes. A resounding yes. Slandering your own potential is self-gossip.

"I'll start when things settle down" is a story about yourself that isn't true. You're not someone who can only perform in perfect conditions. You're someone who has simply been waiting for permission. Covey taught us to be loyal to those who aren't in the room. Let's also be loyal to the version of ourselves who hasn't shown up yet.

Nugget 2: It's not the number of things, it's the efficiency of each one

Wallace Wattles said it plainly: do, every day, all that you can do that day, and do each act in an efficient manner.

Notice what he did not say. He didn't say do everything. He didn't say do tomorrow's work today. He said that what makes the difference is the quality of each separate action. We don't advance by wishing we were somewhere else. We advance by being larger than our present place and putting our whole power into the step in front of us.

One email written with full attention beats twenty things half-touched. Every time.

Nugget 3: You don't have to do it all at once

One of my mastermind friends works a full week and batches her videos and posts on a single day. She reminded us, "I don't have to do everything all at once." Another shared that when she stopped trying to be everything to everyone, things started falling into place.

Frenzy feels like progress. It isn't. Presence is progress.

Nugget 4: Don't wait to know everything. Jump.

Paul put it so well on one of our calls: the thing that stops new people from taking action is the feeling that they need to know it all first. There's no way to do that. It's a false assumption. We learn as we're jumping. Build your wings on the way down.

And in all his years, he said, there has never been a day they hit a problem they weren't able to solve. Perfection isn't required. Motion is.

Nugget 5: Growth demands friction (and the eaglet story was a myth)

I have a confession. For years I believed the story that father eagles fly their eaglets high and swoop down to catch them on their backs. I trusted the leader who told it so completely that I never fact-checked it.

Turns out it's a myth. Real eaglets practice "branching," and the parents coax them out by withholding food and making the nest uncomfortable.

That's actually a more powerful lesson: you can't have the strength of flight without giving up the comfort of the nest. When the discomfort hits, don't retreat into the old story. It may be the exact tension your wings need.

Nugget 6: When it feels like it's not working, it's working in you

Booker said something that went straight to my soul: even when it feels like it isn't working, it is working. It's working in you. It's working on you.

So many of us quit one step before the breakthrough because nobody clapped. Our mastermind friends reminded me that a setback is often a setup, and a closed door is often redirection and protection. Take your time. Do your daily method of operation. Share value each day. Show up.

Nugget 7: Catch yourself in the act of thinking

We read in As a Man Thinketh that good thoughts can never produce bad results, and bad thoughts can never produce good results. Nothing comes from corn but corn. Nothing comes from thistles but thistles.

Your mind is the soil. Every thought is a seed. So here is the practice I keep coming back to, the same one I used to teach my second graders:

1. Hand on your heart.
2. Three slow breaths.
3. Remind yourself: I have a choice.
4. Pick ONE thing and do it all the way.
5. Then pick the next one.

The science backs this up. Harsh self-criticism triggers the same threat response in the body as a physical predator, and it shuts down creative thinking. Meeting yourself with grace flips you back into calm, connected, creative mode. Staying in environments where you flourish and loving yourself is, quite literally, biological coherence.

Nugget 8: Say thank you before the outcome

Most of us brace. The unfamiliar phone number. The "stop by my desk later." We call it being realistic, but bracing is just using our creative energy backwards.

Try this instead: before the meeting, before the errand, before the hard conversation, pause and whisper, "Thank you for the magnificent outcome." Your job is to bring the five loaves and two fish: your best energy and your gratitude. Gratitude handles the multiplication.

Nugget 9: Regrets are mostly about what we didn't do

A chalkboard experiment on a New York City sidewalk asked people to write their biggest regret. Almost none were about things they did. They were about things they never did: never said I love you, never pursued the dream, stayed in the comfort zone.

So try the four-step reset:

1. Name it. Write down one regret honestly.
2. Wipe it. Cross it out and say, "Every day is a clean slate."
3. Turn the NOT into a NOW. "Not pursuing my dream" becomes "I am building it daily."
4. Hold it with gratitude and take one action this week.

Faith without work makes you just a dreamer.

Nugget 10: Spirit is stronger than circumstance

One poem a member shared stuck with me: that failure finds its false content in the word "environment," but spirit scorns it, and is free. That the human will can hew a way to any goal, "though walls of granite intervene." And that circumstance can only be a tyrant if we allow it. We can dethrone it.

You can use your environment as an excuse, or you can use it as a reason.

Be the change you were born to be

A friend on our call put it simply: think love, think light, think life, and keep being the change you were born to be.

You don't need perfect conditions. You need to show up larger than the ones you have. Today. With what you have.

My song "The Certain Way" was written to help you settle into that frequency. Press play, take three breaths, and pick your ONE thing.

Your turn: What is one thing you've been saving for "once things settle down"? Tell me in the comments. Speaking it out loud turns a wish into a decision.

Whatever you do, breathe deep, seek peace & stay grateful,

Lori Sue