PART I
CLARITY
Changing Your Pivot Beliefs
This then is the real key to life: if you change your mind, your conditions must change too.
âEmmet Fox
The Windshield: An Introduction to Clarity
RIGHT NOW, youâre blind and you donât know it.
Itâs a selective blindness that only affects your ability to see yourself. You canât see just how unhappy youâve become. How far your health or your relationships or your enthusiasm have fallen. Thatâs why you know somethingâs wrong but you canât articulate it: Your ability to clearly see your life is severely compromised.
Worse still, not only can you not see yourself in the present, but you canât see the future, either. Youâve lost the ability to dream about days and years to come, to envision a life thatâs different from the one you lead now, and to feel that sense of possibility that we all felt at one time in our lives.
You are, in effect, functionally blind.
Sure, you can still get around, do your job, and fulfill your responsibilitiesâin fact, youâve probably become a master of âgetting by.â But itâs as if youâre trying to do it while staring at the world through a dirty windshield. Your vision is so narrow and compromised that youâre relying on habits, memories, and sheer dumb luck to get you from A to B.
Over time, our experiencesâthe millions of moments that pass through our livesâchange the way we see things. Our relationships, our emotions, the impressions of our childhoodâall leave behind traces. They build up like dirt on a windshield, and they change how we see the world and, in turn, how we navigate through it.
Your parentsâ attitudes about money and the work they did changed your windshield, adding a layer through which you try to see the world.
Your most emotionally charged momentsâthe good and the badâhave tinted your vision.
Your daily habits limit the scope of your vision, narrowing it from the wide-open gaze of youth to the tunnel vision of the daily grind.
The people you spend your time with. The culture you grew up in. The books you read, the things you study, the content you watchâeverything adds to the windshield.
A news article adds a speck here.
A comment from a friend adds a smear there.
A bankruptcy throws a wave of mud.
A betrayal leaves a layer of silt.
We try to clear those things awayâwe try to shake them off, hold to our own vision, make our own decisions. But no one gets through clean. The great giftâand the great curseâof life is that it changes you. And over time you begin to see the world differently.
You still catch glimpses of the ârealâ world through the tiny clear areas left on your windshield, but as you push ahead, you see less reality and more a view of the world thatâs distorted, blurred, and obstructed by the grime of life.
Most of these changes happen over time, beneath the level of conscious awarenessââlife windshieldsâ get dirty over decades, a gradual buildup that happens so slowly we donât even realize it. Just as you donât notice that your arteries are half clogged or that your weight is drifting up, the loss of clarity is so subtle you have no idea itâs even happening.
But it is. And it has a profound impact on your life.
The dirtier your windshield becomes, the more you tend to run on autopilot. You rely on regular routines and habits to get through the day. Up to 45 percent of our daily actions are habitualâwe do them without any conscious thought. We get up at the same time. Eat the same thing. Drive the same routes. Do our work the same way. The result is that we live our lives almost completely unconsciously. Although we donât realize it, weâre not actually thinking about what it is that we do or what it is that we want.
When your vision is blurred, itâs difficult to get your bearings. You lose your sense of direction. The distant dreams and goals you once had become indistinct and eventually disappear from view. You may try occasionally to get reoriented, but by the time you realize that youâve lost your way, you canât even tell which direction youâre driving anymore. You are, in effect, lost.
Finally, at some point, you simply stop moving altogether. Like a basketball player whoâs stopped dribbling, youâre no longer making any progress.
The first and most important challenge of your pivot is to clear your vision and rediscover clarity.
The first part of this book is about clearing the windshield of life. Itâs about removing the grime and dirt, polishing the scratches, and sealing the cracks left behind by a lifetime of . . . well, life . . . so that, perhaps for the first time, you can really see.
Because once you can see clearly, you can decide where you want to go and just go there.
Sure, it may be a long drive. There may be unexpected detours and breakdowns. But as long as you keep clearing the windshieldâkeep reaching for clarityâyou can keep driving.
Because the one thing Iâve learned in working with thousands of people is this: No clarity, no pivot.
Getting Clear: Six Steps to Clarity
No clarity, no pivot. Thatâs our mantra for Part I of this book and for the six chapters that follow. You need to reach a new level of clarity before you can create a new type of life.
PIVOT POINT: You need to reach a new level of clarity before you can create a new type of life.
But how can you get there? How can you clear your windshield and find clarity?
There are six steps on the path to clarity. Think of each one as a way of removing another layer of vision-limiting grime on your windshield. In the following chapters, weâll travel those six steps and tackle the obstacles to clarity head-on.
Chapter 1: Un-believe. Most people canât even take the smallest of steps toward a new life because they believe they canât. Your first stop on the road to clarity is to un-believe the myths that are keeping you stuck right where you are.
Chapter 2: Let Go. To move past where you are now, you need to be able to release past hurts and detach from the need to know exactly how your pivot will unfold.
Chapter 3: Face Your Fear. Pivoting requires you to leave your comfort zone. To do that, youâll have to tackle your fear. You donât have to eliminate fear to pivot, but you do have to be able to take action in the face of it.
Chapter 4: Enter the Pivot Phone Booth. Changing your life means changing yourself. For that, you need the seeds of a new identity. Youâre going to enter the pivot phone booth as Clark Kent and emerge as not a new you but the real you.
Chapter 5: Envision Your Future: Finding Your Lifeâs Purpose. Even a clear windshield wonât help if you donât know where youâre going. In this chapter, youâll develop a clear vision for your new direction and the life you want.
Chapter 6: Big-D Decide. This is the goal of Part I of Pivot: to reach a âBig-Dâ decisionâa commitment to take action thatâs so powerful that you simply must take action.
Knowing Clarity When You See It
If Iâve done my job right, by the end of these six chapters youâll have a very different view of your past, your current life, and your choices for the path ahead. Youâll become so clear and so committed that the next stepsâthe actual act of pivoting toward your new lifeâbecome simple. They may not be easy, but they will be clear.
Most important, the idea of pivoting is going to feel much different. With true clarity youâll find that:
⢠You have a feeling of confidence and possibility. Things will seem âobvious.â Youâll find a new confidence in making the shifts toward your new life and a sense that more things seem possible than ever before.
⢠Fear moves to the background. I wonât promise you that it will vanishâalthough it mightâbut most people discover that the fears holding them back are no longer in control.
⢠You have more energy. Your energy level will improve dramatically, and you will discover new capabilities and resources within you and around you that you never knew existed.
⢠Your mood is better. Clarity has a tendency to make you feel happier. The people around you may notice it before you do, but rest assured itâs there.
Be forewarned: Those things combined may make you feel very different indeed. In fact, theyâre likely to release a sensation you may not have felt in a long time. Itâs called hope.
With clarity, the path ahead becomes clear. It becomes so obvious, so inspiring, and so empowering that taking action (see Part II) will transform your goals from something you could never do into something you must.
So letâs get started.
1
Un-believe
Remember, you can have anything you want if you will give up the belief that you canât have it.
âDR. ROBERT ANTHONY, AUTHOR
A QUICK question: What do you think the purpose of this book is?
Itâs a simple question, and I ask a similar one at seminars around the world: Whatâs the purpose of our time here today?
So what is it? After all, I know why you picked up this bookâitâs because something is wrong. Now I want to know how you think this book will help. Whatâs its purpose? What do you expect from it?
If youâre like most first-time participants in one of our training events (the veterans know better), your answer will likely be: To learn something. Itâs a natural responseâmost people think that the purpose of a book or a seminar is to learn something. To gain knowledge.
Well, most people are wrong.
The vast majority of what happens in great seminars, and in great books, is unlearning. Those aha! moments you feel in a great training program or during a particularly enlightening passage of a book? They donât happen because you learned something. They happen because you unlearnedâthat flash of insight was realizing that something you thought you knew just wasnât true.
Iâm not talking about unlearning facts. Discovering that a tomato is a fruit and not a vegetable wonât change your life much. The unlearning that matters for your pivot is much deeper. Itâs not about changing your knowledge.
Itâs about changing your beliefs.
Facing the Truth
When I was working as a full-time attorne...