Shobukai Shift

Tolerating Unexpected Change

• Mary Schaub • Season 1 • Episode 5

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A deeply personal discussion of change management, self-discovery, and transforming unexpected challenges into opportunities for growth. The episode delves into personal change appetite, mindset flexibility, and the power of embracing life's unpredictable moments.


Takeaways:

💡 Change can be uncomfortable, but it often leads to unexpected insights and opportunities

💡 Our reaction to unexpected changes often stems from past experiences and learned behaviors

💡 Developing a flexible mindset is crucial for personal and professional growth

💡 Mistakes and unexpected events can be reframed as valuable learning experiences

💡 Self-awareness is key to understanding and managing our emotional responses to change

 

Compelling Quotes:

🎤  "The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance." - Alan Watts

🎤  "We don't make mistakes, we just have happy accidents." - Bob Ross

🎤  "We can only contribute positively to the outside world if we're operating positively from within." - Mary Schaub

🎤  "Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell." - Edward Abbey

🎤  "Each one of us is the writer and protagonist of our story, of our lives. I hope you're writing something amazing for your lead character to experience." - Mary Schaub

Keywords:

✅ Personal transformation  ✅Change management  ✅Mindset resilience

✅Self-discovery  ✅Emotional intelligence  ✅Personal growth  ✅Adaptability

✅Mistake learning

Disclaimer:

***The information, opinions, and recommendations presented in this Podcast are for general information only and any reliance on the information provided in this Podcast is done at your own risk. This Podcast should not be considered professional advice.***

Credits: Written, produced and hosted by: Mary Schaub. Theme song written by: Mary Schaub. Mixing Engineer: Dylan Yauch

Contact: Shobukai_Shift@mschaubadvisory.com

Website: M. Schaub Advisory (MSA)

** Shobukai Shift is a MSA Production **

Mary Schaub (00:10) Hello, peaceful warriors. At the end of my last solo episode, I threw out a few questions for you to ponder. I asked whether you were ready to know yourself on the deepest level possible. If you felt you were strong enough to see and accept difficult things about who you are. I asked whether you could imagine loving and accepting yourself even in light of your imperfections and if you were motivated to create a life filled with meaning and purpose, even if it meant abandoning your attachments.

 I want to read two very different responses from you guys. TinyT33 wrote, yes, this is what I'm doing instead of signing up for a life, chasing money at a company who will fire me in a second. My generation, Gen Z, is all about this. Unquote. Cool. Good for you, TinyT, and I'm happy to hear you're not waiting for a midlife crisis to do this kind of work. My first reaction is not to underestimate how many people are out there actually trying to do both. They are at that shit job at the big toxic corporate place, not because they desire to become a powerful, greedy CEO, but because they have school loans to repay. I did that. Other people have families to support, maybe kids, maybe elderly parents, maybe both. So go work at that corporate gig for 10 years.

 Learn as much as you can. Sure, live at home, save your money. But at the same time, focus on learning about yourself. Figure out what moves you and where you can do things you love and maybe contribute positively.

Bill B wrote, this is a question for those with privilege. Many people are in difficult situations and don't have the means to spend time philosophizing about these woke ideas. Everyone should go to work and contribute positively to society. Okay. I hear you, Bill B.

I hear you, grateful that you took the time to express your feelings. So my sense is that we can only contribute positively to the outside world if we're operating positively from within. Now, I know that's not what you're talking about, Bill. I assume by contribute positively, you mean to the economy of one's country. And I don't disagree that it is healthy to contribute to society, even from an economic point of view.

But this is just one facet of a healthy society, or it should be one facet. Economic growth cannot be the only priority. Otherwise, growth becomes toxic and predatory, executed at other people's expense. Edward Abbey, an environmental writer, wrote, growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.

Also, Bill B, throughout history, there were many people who were not privileged, who led profound philosophical and spiritual lives anchored in the idea of self-knowledge and service to others. You know all the big names, Buddha, Jesus, Francis of Assisi, Socrates, Gandhi, Mother Teresa. Okay, my turn. Yes, I am committing to this practice and to a life focused on doing deep inner work.

It sucks at times. It hurts my feelings a good deal. It's a lot easier to write and talk about it than to experience it, which is why I'm trying to hold myself accountable to do more than just talk about it. And attachments? Of course, I still have many. Some are unconscious. Others are very tangible. I recently deleted all social media apps from my phone. I still have them on my iPad and maybe at some point I delete them entirely but as a first step, I needed to get them off my phone because it had become impossible for me to even wait for a train for five minutes without looking at them. Stillness and mindfulness started to become uncomfortable and I didn't like that. So while the phone and social media is a small, tangible attachment, it's a conscious step toward creating a more present and intentional mindset because that's really necessary in order to be more conscious about my thoughts and actions.

So I had wanted to use this show to tug about uncertainty and how it can paralyze us and keep us from our life's work. I had put together all my notes and was ready to record. And then something happened, which derailed me, something unexpected. And it pissed me off. And I was sitting here feeling frustrated and upset. And I thought, well, damn, this is actually pretty relevant to the show. So I put uncertainty on the back burner and I thought,

Maybe I'd use this show to practice what I preach. You may have noticed that I like talking from an intellectual point of view about change, whether it's personal or professional transformation. But what I've learned, sometimes the hard way, is that lessons and insights usually come from emotional experiences, not from fancy frameworks or academic research. Okay, take a step back. Weeks ago, when I started to think about launching another podcast,

I knew I wanted it to be about change and transformation. I just didn't quite know the angle. Do I keep it super professional and talk about helping organizations design and execute complex change? Or my work advising executives? Or maybe I play in more psychological and philosophical waters and talk about personal change and growth. Then I realized that I wanted to talk about where all this stuff intersects.

So I played around with a bunch of different names for the podcast and I hit wall after wall. First of all, there are a shitload of podcasts out there, like bazillions. And while most aren't actively producing, the fact is a lot of the cute names I liked other people had already snagged. So long story short, it took a few weeks and after talking with different friends, I landed on the name Shokubai Shift.

I wanted to use the word catalyst in the title and shokubai is the Japanese word for catalyst. I thought it would be fun to use that word in a transformational context because in English, American English, catalyst can mean both a chemical reaction and a person or thing that precipitates an event. So I was trying to be cute, basically. Most of my friends were supportive, but one, a former chemistry professor threw up all over it.

She pointed out that the word catalyst has a very precise meaning in the chemistry world and I respected it. But on another level, I was still attached to the name and making it work. I thought, okay, well, I might piss off all the scientists out there, but maybe they could see past it. But then I got feedback from a friend of a friend living in Japan who was working literally as a language expert and translator there.

And her feedback was like, no, nope, that's not the right word. It doesn't work how you want it to. And immediately I felt all these feelings come up because here's the thing. I had already recorded three episodes by this time. I had done all my podcast art. I had literally written a theme song with the name in it. I was a far way down the road and I didn't want to have to deal with changing.

Many of the positive feelings I had been having up to then evaporated. I felt angry, like the kind that comes with self-pity maybe, but also mad at myself. I noticed I started to try to negotiate a way out of not dealing with the change. I thought maybe, F it, leave it as is, or maybe just hold off doing the show entirely. This one email completely upended me and put the brakes on everything I was working on. All very fitting for a podcast about accepting and thriving and change.

In the corporate world, there's a term change appetite, which refers to an individual, teams or organizations willingness and capacity to embrace and adapt to change. It's a way of gauging the level of readiness and enthusiasm for taking on new initiatives, processes, technologies or transformations. My reaction to needing to deal with changing the name of this show made me reflect on my own personal change appetite.

And what did I discover? Well, that in some situations and contexts, I get really pissed off about unexpected change. Listen, I'll admit to you, I'm the sort of person that when we make dinner plans, I'm going to go check out the menu. I'm going to decide what I'm going to order. I'm going to check out the directions to get to the restaurant. I'm going to plan what I'm going to wear. I know, I know it's a, it's a quirky me thing. And it's fine that I do that stuff but it does introduce the risk of being frustrated should plans change. So my change appetite isn't as healthy as it could be. Now I've gotten a lot better about tolerating small unexpected changes and I credit the personal development work for this. There was a time long ago when I would have had a very negative emotional reaction to a last minute change. As a kid, I grew up in an unpredictable environment. It was chaotic and inconsistent. And as a little girl, this felt scary and overwhelming. I know through doing my personal work that some of the intense feelings that come up for me relate to this feeling I had when I was little. They come up even in situations where they aren't really warranted. Learning this about myself hasn't entirely stopped my dislike for unexpected changes, but it has enabled me to pause before reacting unconsciously. And that's something.

A week before this whole name change thing came up, I just reposted an article I wrote called Mastering Mistakes. It was all about having a mindset that's open and flexible to making mistakes so you can experience them as helpful lessons versus failures and frustrations. Shifting this mindset takes the sting and exasperation out of messing up.

It helps us reframe our personal narrative about things not going as we want them to. This sounds minor, but it's actually a game changer. It will literally change how you feel in your own skin. And it's critical for healthy self-esteem. It helps us feel more confident to explore, play, innovate. Stoic philosopher Heraclades said, life is change. And one of my favorite thinkers, Alan Watts, said the only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance. Going back to the podcast name and my email to this woman living in Japan as an English translator, in the email, I had included a typo of shokubai, misspelling it as shobukai shift. Well, get this, turns out shobukai, the typo one, roughly translates into the gathering of empty-handed warriors. Symbolically, it's a group of people fighting with wisdom rather than physical force. Their emptiness suggests not a physical battle, but a moral, psychological, and philosophical one. The typo title ended up nailing what I wanted to convey 10 times better than the original. By leaning into this mistake, I ended up finding a much better podcast name

My ability to reflect on the entire process taught me a lesson and gave me a more personal topic for the show. Artist Bob Ross famously said, we don't make mistakes, we just have happy accidents.

Each one of us is the writer and protagonist of our story, of our lives. I hope you're writing something amazing for your lead character to experience. Here are some protagonist ponderings to leave you with today. How do you personally experience small unexpected changes that come up in your life? What feelings arise for you and plans unexpectedly change? How do you react? Where do you think this comes from?

Share your answers in the comments or by email and I'll read some of them on our next show along with my answers. Until next time, remember you are the change you and the world are waiting for.