My guest, Dr. Laura Gallaher, is very familiar with change. She is an organizational psychologist turned executive coach who works with clients globally as she travels the world. (I talked to her while she was in Serbia.) Laura is the founder of Gallaher Insider Edge, a micro-learning site that teaches leadership and communication skills towards building positive corporate culture. All her clients are growing their companies, so change is constant for them and their teams.

As a coach, Laura helps her clients become self-aware, emotionally intelligent leaders. Self-concepts can get in the way of change, whether on an individual level or an organizational one. In understanding themselves, they can get out of their own way.

Devotion

Three major changes stand out for Laura in her life. The first was her choice to leave her NASA job and focus on her company, Gallaher Edge. It was a hard decision, eight years into her career as a permanent federal civil servant, making six figures, with so many reasons to stay.

In leaving, she learned there’s a difference between devotion and discipline. While a lot of hard work and discipline goes into running a company, when she’s devoted to it, all decisions become easier. It’s more like running towards something good instead of away from disaster.

Small Steps

Another factor that helped her make a smooth change or transition was making many small decisions that ultimately made the big decision easier. Starting her business in 2013 while working full-time, she slowly built it up over 10 months, on the side, taking on teaching engagements that exposed her to clients. At some point, it became more painful to not make the change than to change.

Most people resist change because they anticipate loss, which is painful. Change can seem like a huge mountain from the distance, but with many small steps, it’s easier when you reach the threshold.

Another huge change Laura made was leaving Orlando, Florida, to explore the world. Again, she made small decisions to position herself to make the leap to travel easier. In January 2017, she gave away most of her belongings and moved to southeast Asia for three months. It was a huge leap to give up her apartment, the region she knew, and move to almost exactly the other side of the planet. Clients who worked with her in person were mystified at the move and afraid for her (and said so). But she felt confident that she would figure it out.

A Safety Net

When we change, the people who love us often project their fears onto us and share their fearful opinions. In her decision to leave NASA, Laura simply asked herself: “Do I have confidence in myself that if this doesn’t work out, I could get another job?” The answer was: of course I can! Feeling this implied safety net helped her make the leap into entrepreneurship.

Most decisions we make in life are not permanent. We have the option to change our minds. For her, that calmed her fears. She left NASA, struggled a bit, and took another permanent job for 10 months before leaping again into her business full-time in 2015.

Innate Resilience for Coping

Laura believes only one fear underlies everything: “I cannot cope with this.” It’s not fear about what will happen, but about being unable to deal with it. The reality is, however, that we cope all the time: with big changes, heartache, loss and pain, disappointment, rejection and more. We have each coped with and survived incredible changes, from our first day.

To endure change, Laura taps her inner resilience. She says: we are all so much more resilient than we realize. We don’t need to build up our resilience as much as remind ourselves that it’s there. Looking back to those times of resilience, in the depths of discouragement, can remind you: “I have been able to cope with this before. I can cope with this again.”

In a crisis, an exercise she does for herself or her coaching...