Hi there,
What’s the Story?
I hope you’re thriving out there. I’ve been deep in sessions and writing, and a theme keeps surfacing in every room I walk into: change isn’t slowing down… and neither can we.
So this week’s edition dives into reinvention — not as a one-off project, but as a daily muscle. Inspired by a powerful conversation with the amazing Dr. Nadya Zhexembayeva, this week’s newsletter unpacks how to build reinvention into your culture, your calendar, and your nervous system so you can lead when the world won’t sit still. You can find more on Dr. Nadya and her reinvention academy here.
Don’t forget to check out this week’s brilliant Changing Minds podcast episode, where we discuss how reinvention is your superpower.
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How to Turn Reinvention into a Purposeful Practice with Dr. Nadya Zhexembayeva
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes 19 seconds
We’re told people “hate change.” It isn’t true.
A healthy baby doesn’t need a bonus scheme to start walking. They try. They fall. They try again. Humans are excellent at adapting; we’re educated out of it. School trained many of us for predictability; business culture rewarded yesterday’s playbook; our language often turns “change” into a threat and “growth” into virtue. No wonder leaders cling to the familiar, even when the familiar is quietly failing.
The solution came through a conversation with Dr. Nadya Zhexembayeva, a leading expert in reinvention. If you want to thrive in a high-disruption world, don’t treat reinvention like a heroic one-off. Build it into how you operate. That shift starts with three resets: beliefs, biology, and a better system.
1) Reset the Belief: From “Change = Loss” to “Reinvention = Renewal”
Most teams unconsciously equate change with loss of status, competence, or control. That belief tightens behavior: people defend old solutions and mistake familiarity for safety.
Reinvention is the alternative; renewal by design. Practically, it aligns three camps that tend to work in silos:
- Anticipate change (strategy, trends, foresight)
- Design change (innovation, R&D, design thinking)
- Implement change (project/change management, HR/OD)
When these operate as a relay, passing the baton at the right moments, the organization stops lurching and starts evolving.
2) Reset the Biology: Regulate First, Brainstorm Second
Many change meetings fail for biological reasons. We throw threats on a screen, new competitors, new tech, shrinking margins, then say, “Okay, let’s ideate.”
The moment a team feels threatened, the body routes blood from clear-thinking regions toward fight/flight. Auditory exclusion rises, perspective narrows, creativity collapses. Then we judge the room for being “resistant.”
Design the meeting for bodies and brains:
- Name the emotion to tame it. Normalize and surface fears/risks instead of pretending they aren’t there.
- Add a brief regulation step before ideation. Calm the nervous system first; then brainstorm.
- Use the Fear → Action drill. List fears/risks. Sort into three columns: what’s within your control, within your influence, and outside both. You’ll find fewer unique fears than it felt like, and more you can act on.
3) Reset the System: Process > Projects
Treating change like a rare project keeps you behind. Treat it as a continuous process.
A practical place to start is subtraction:
- Weekly personal “No Session.” Set aside a short, regular window to kill tasks, meetings, and reports that no longer earn their keep.
- Team “Kill Sessions.” Every few months, gather the group to defend or retire projects. Make it a real debate and a celebration of freeing capacity.
Watch for Titanic Syndrome
Great companies rarely die from a lack of technology. They die from cultural certainty. Two warning lights:
- “We’re too good to fail.” Arrogance and attachment to the status quo.
- Best-practice autopilot. Doing what worked before, even when the game has changed.
Question your own “proven” moves, especially the ones that once saved you.
Reinvention and Identity
When disruption accelerates, identities built on externals (role, company, product, market) get brittle. Build an inner core that can’t be taken away, values you embody, and capacities you bring. From that core, change stops feeling like erasure and begins to feel like expression.
A Playbook You Can Run This Quarter
- Language reset: Frame the work as reinvention and renewal.
- Meeting design: Name emotions; add a short regulation step before ideation; then run Fear → Action (Control / Influence / Outside).
- No/Kill cadence: Personal No Session weekly. Team Kill Sessions every few months.
- Relay alignment: Ensure Strategy → Innovation → Implementation handoffs happen cleanly; pass the baton intentionally.
- Titanic checks: Regularly question whether yesterday’s best practice still fits today.
- Identity work: Build and lead from an unshakable inner core rather than external labels.
You can’t outrun disruption with adrenaline. You outlast it with rhythm, regulation, and renewal by design. Reinvention isn’t a personality trait. It’s a practice.
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The Brain Prompt
- List every fear or risk about a current change.
- Sort into Control / Influence / Outside of control or influence.
- Decide your next actions for the first two columns; agree what to set aside for the third (and move on).
Book a brief No Session and remove at least one thing that no longer earns its keep.
For more content on beliefs, influence, and psychology, subscribe to Inner Propaganda.
Cheers,
Owen.
P.S. You can find the interview with Dr. Nadya Zhexembayeva on the Changing Minds Podcast here.
