Here’s the charming story of how this project was born…

A few years ago I was arguing with my (then 4 year old) step daughter about something ridiculous… probably wearing pants. (Kiddo… I hear you. Nobody really WANTS to wear pants).

As I tried to sympathize with her perspective, in the hopes to sway her point of view I heard myself saying, “Look I get it. Change is hard.”

And then I paused.

“Is what I’m saying true?” I thought…”Or am I just setting this child up for failure in life?”

The truth is that to say that Change is hard is a gross generalization. It would be equally disingenuous to say that change is easy. But as the owner of a business called The Art of Change Skills for Life, I felt like I had to do better than simply telling her that even when change is hard, you just suck it up and put on pants.

By the way, it’s not wrong to say that… I just believe that it’s incomplete, and that would not be helpful to her as she moves through the world.

I regrouped and told her “Amelia, I’m sorry I said that. I get that this change feels hard to you right now. Sometimes changes you go through might feel that way. BUT they don’t have to, and not all change will. If you think about it change happens all the time! You’re taller today than you were yesterday (which is why we’re even talking about pants). You used to wear diapers, and now you don’t! The truth is that how difficult, or how easy a change is… depends on how you choose to respond at that time.”

Fast forward to now… she still refuses to wear a variety of pants (but she does have one pair of black stretchy pants that she loves… A TRIUMPH!).

It was that interaction with my kiddo that got me thinking about how we as people on the planet think about CHANGE.

The word itself is what I like to call a FAT word. Meaning this one word is one that we pump full of meaning from very specific to very broad. We use the same word to refer to how we handle broad sweeping political movements, diapers, dietary choices, career paths and furniture.

And everyone handles every possible circumstance where that word shows up… differently.

Some people are eager for change, all the time, big and small. After all variety, as we are often told, is the spice of life! Some people resist change at all costs. They’ll eat the same food, wear the same clothes, and sit in the same chair again and again and again. Most of us are a mix of those two things.

Why this podcast?

My colleague Gary Hirsch at On Your Feet is a big believer that to give something meaning, instead of looking for a definition, one should listen to, and tell stories.

So it is in the interest of understanding ‘CHANGE’ and what it means in all its definitions that I invite my guests to tell stories of pivotal moments in their lives.

I am curious.

I want to know what it means for people to change… to be changed… to deal with change…

3 years of pondering and a few months of action, I am proud to bring you The Changed Podcast.

Who doesn’t love a great story?

Happy Listening!

Not sure which episode to start with? Why not start at the beginning?

Episode 1 features MST3K fan-favorite Pearl Forrester. It’s Mary Jo Pehl!!

Episode 2 features ‘Every Anxious Wave’ author, Mo Daviau!

AND Episode 3 features the founder of the Art of Change (and my dad) Dr. Rick Kirschner!