Change Activation - How Small Practices Prepare You for Big Transformations

I was huddled in front of a heater on a winter day in Mexico City, when someone asked me:

"Why do you do ice baths if you hate being cold?"

Valid question.

I'm the person who wears a jacket when everyone else is in t-shirts. I've spent most of my life battling against feeling cold.

So why would I voluntarily sit in freezing water for almost 5 minutes at a time?

Because I'm not practicing cold tolerance.

I'm practicing change.

Most people I work with—executives, teams, entire organizations—only experience change when it's forced on them.

A layoff. A market shift. A competitor that disrupts everything overnight.

And when that happens, they freeze.

It's not a character flaw. It's just that they've spent years optimizing for comfort and stability. They've built entire careers around knowing what to expect and running the established process.

Then change shows up—messy, urgent, unavoidable—and suddenly all that expertise doesn't help. Because navigating change isn't about what you know. It's about whether you can move even when you don’t know.

And most of us have never practiced that.

Think about it: when was the last time you deliberately chose discomfort? When did you last put yourself in a situation where you didn't know what you were doing and couldn't fully control the outcome?

We spend our whole lives avoiding exactly that feeling. We set up our organizations to run like clockwork.

Then we wonder why we freeze when change shows up uninvited.

So I started experimenting: What if I deliberately introduced change into my life? Small, iterative, and manageable changes that I could practice with—not to make my life harder for no reason, but to build capacity for when change shows up and I won't get to choose?

Ice baths. Learning Portuguese. Kitesurfing.  Dance lessons. Arranging networking meetups with people I’ve never met before. 

These aren't hobbies.

They're training.

Take learning Portuguese. I started because I wanted to spend some time in Brazil.

But what it actually gave me was constant practice in being uncomfortable. Every time I stumble through a conversation in Portuguese, I'm building tolerance for not having all the answers.

That's exactly what change requires. You don't wait for the perfect solution. You work with what you have and iterate as you go.

Or kitesurfing. Practicing the part where you don't quit after the first (or second or third) attempt, even if it’s frustrating, even if you just drank half of the ocean. 

Dancing has taught me flow—how to respond to something you can't control and stay present instead of forcing your original plan.

Constantly connecting with strangers has taught me to make myself open to possibilities when it would be much easier to stay closed.

Each practice? Small. Iterative. Manageable.

But together, they're building a muscle I didn't have before.

This is what I call changeability—the capacity to proactively navigate uncertainty, to adapt when things shift, to not freeze when you don't know what's coming next.

Building Your Own Change Practice

You don't have to do ice baths.

You don't have to learn a new language or move to another country.

But you do need to find YOUR change activation practice.

Ask yourself:

What do I avoid because it's uncomfortable?

Maybe it's public speaking. Maybe it's having difficult conversations. Maybe it's trying something where you might fail at first.

What small version of that can I try and adjust?

Not the full scary thing. The manageable version.

Not giving a TED talk yet. Just sharing your idea in a small meeting.

Not having the Big Conversation yet. Just saying one true thing you've been avoiding.

Not running a marathon yet. Just going for a run when you really don't want to.

Can I make this a regular practice - a conscious ritual?

This isn't a one-time thing. It's training.

You don't go to the gym once and expect to be strong.

You don't practice change once and expect to be adaptable.

After a few weeks, a few months—notice.

What has changed in how I handle unexpected disruption?

Are you less reactive when something goes wrong?

Do you recover faster from setbacks?

Do you freeze less when faced with uncertainty?

That's the muscle building.

Start Small. Start Now.

I bring this same philosophy to organizations.

When leadership teams are facing reorganization, market shifts, or transformation fatigue—they don't need another training deck. They need to activate their capacity to move through change.

I design experiences that do exactly that. We might combine a strategic session with an ice bath immersion. A team alignment workshop might include conscious hiking or movement. An innovation retreat might have an improv or parkour moment.

When your mind and body learn that they can move through discomfort in one context, you start realizing it can do it in others.

This is the Changeability Activation Workshop—and it's built on four principles:

Map the Reaction — Recognize how you instinctively respond to change. Not how you think you should respond. How you actually do.

Recalibrate the Equation — Shift the perspectives and mindsets that keep you stuck. Change the story so you can change the reality.

Anticipate the Transition — Build readiness, support, and resilience for the most challenging part of change so that you can successfully cross through.

Iterate to Success — Transform experimentation into a continuous habit. Plan to adjust along the way to accomplish your vision.

Teams leave with more than insights. They leave with an activated capacity. With evidence they can handle what's coming. With a shared experience of moving through discomfort and uncertainty together.

And that changes everything about how they approach the next changes.

If you want to bring The Changeability Activation Workshop to your organization, contact us at hello@atrevidea.com