One of the common themes I often speak about is transition. Every organization faces moments of transition—shifting from one phase of growth to the next, from crisis to stability, or from one strategic focus to another.
Recently, I had the opportunity to work with a multinational consumer packaged goods (CPG) company in the hydration space that was navigating such a transition. After years of focusing on expanding their retail footprint, the company had reached an impressive milestone: distribution in nearly 200,000 retail doors. But with this phase of growth complete, they faced a new challenge—shifting from “selling in” to “selling through.”
Transitions like this require more than just strategy; they demand a shift in mindset and action across the organization. That’s where my experience with similar challenges, like those at Perfect Fitness, allowed me to provide actionable insights and inspiration for their team.
Understanding the Challenges of Transition
Transitioning from one phase to another is never easy. One of the reasons they hired me is that at Perfect Fitness I had experience dealing with exactly this transition. There are the three key challenges organizations often face during such periods:
- Awareness: Recognizing that the organization is in transition is the first hurdle. Many teams find themselves frustrated when they continue old behaviors while expecting new results.
- Adaptability: Getting people to embrace new roles and responsibilities is critical. For this CPG company, that meant shifting sales efforts toward relationship building and focusing on marketing to drive sell-through. Not everyone adapts easily to these changes.
- Action: Building new behaviors to support the transition is essential. Whether it’s implementing better point-of-sale displays or developing regional and national marketing campaigns, these actions require focused effort and persistence.
The Action Loop: A Framework for Change
To navigate any transition, I encourage audiences to embrace what I call the Action Loop, which consists of three phases:
- Aware: Recognize the change and its implications.
- Act: Take deliberate actions toward the new objective.
- Assess: Evaluate progress, learn from setbacks, and refine your approach.
Transitions push people out of their comfort zones, and trying something new often leads to frustration and failure before it leads to success. By focusing on the actions—the “verbs” of progress—rather than the “nouns” of the destination, individuals and teams can build the momentum needed to achieve their goals.
Stories that Inspire Action
I am in the business of inspiring action. A great keynote doesn’t just tell people what to do—it inspires them to act.
When I am asked to help an audience to embrace taking new actions, I share a series of stories from my experiences. I use storytelling to connect emotionally with audiences and demonstrate the principles of the Action Loop in action.
For this keynote, I shared two stories:
- The Gateway Story: My experience with Navy SEAL drownproofing, where I learned to swim with my feet tied together and my hands bound behind my back. I love using this story because it highlights an extreme example of learning to do something new that should not even be possible let alone reasonable. This story captures attention and opens the audience’s minds to the idea of achieving what seems impossible.
- The Bridge Story: My time as CEO of Perfect Fitness, when we transitioned from selling individual products to managing eight feet of shelf space at major retailers like Walmart. This story connected directly to the CPG company’s challenge of shifting from selling “in” to selling “through.”
By pairing these stories with practical tools, I helped the audience see that they could overcome their own challenges with the same mindset and actions.
Tailoring the Message to the Moment
Every keynote I deliver is customized to align with the audience’s unique goals. For the CPG company, I worked closely with the CEO to tailor a message that supported her opening remarks and the conference’s key objective: embracing new strategies to achieve fresh goals.
Drawing from my books, Unstoppable Teams and Unstoppable Mindset, I demonstrated how individuals can lead themselves through change and, in turn, lead their teams to success. I equipped the audience with tools to embrace transitions, navigate change, and take actionable steps toward their objectives.
The Takeaway: Transitions Are Opportunities
Change is constant, and transitions are opportunities to grow stronger, smarter, and more successful. By understanding the three phases of the Action Loop—Aware, Act, Assess—teams can confidently navigate these shifts and achieve goals they once thought out of reach.
Ultimately, transitions are nothing more than dealing with change. Change is constant and the more comfortable (i.e. confident) you can be with change the more success with you and your teams will achieve. The tools I offer audiences work. I have learned them over 40 years of trying, failing and succeeding. The key is weaving compelling “gateway” and “bridge” stories with proven tools so audiences will not only listen but also feel confident to take the next action required to embrace the transition.
This is what I love to do: help audiences Be Unstoppable at achieving things they originally did not think they could achieve.
As I often say, “Unstoppable is our choice.” If you are seeking a speaker to help your organization embrace a transition, reach out to me and I will be happy to discuss how I would approach inspiring your audience to take action.
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It is our Choice to Be Unstoppable. Check out my Books and our Resources and Courses to develop the mindset and actions required to thrive and accomplish more than you originally thought possible. And if you have any questions about motivational speaking, just drop me a line!
