These are not business-as-usual times. And this is not a business-as-usual newsletter.

Here, we know business doesn’t exist in its own hermetically sealed world. It is interdependent with—affected by and profoundly affecting—policy, culture, society, environment. The organizations we lead are not separate from the chaos and promise of this moment. They are of it.

And yet, we see so many leaders trying to compartmentalize, heads down, hoping to ride out the turbulence by maintaining the status quo. But there is no status quo. The ground, forever shifting imperceptibly beneath our feet, is now quaking. Pretending otherwise isn’t neutrality, and it’s not even good for business.

But I’m not urging you or your business to perform activism on social media or make grandiose proclamations. We've tried that. It's not a pointless exercise, exactly, but it's not nearly enough.

So what can we do when it feels like there’s nothing we can do?

It’s simpler than we think: We cultivate the team, organization or community we're leading to reflect the world we want to live in. Diverse and inclusive. More collaborative than competitive. Innovative, yes—with human dignity at the core and deep care for the more-than-human world. This isn’t naive idealism. It’s how change actually works. By shifting the microsystems we lead—our corporations, nonprofits, communities, even our families—we shift the macro systems of industries and societies.

For the rest of 2026, this newsletter will offer insights on how to do this, in the form of excerpts from my book-in-progress on the 10 Truths of Radiant Change. These Truths are about your organization, yes, but also about our world. First and foremost, though, they’re about you and me—and what becomes possible when we choose a different relationship to change. (Spoiler alert: Everything. Get ready to hit reply and tell me what you think!)

We start with Truth #1: Change is Inevitable. As you read, you’ll easily recognize the to me mindset not only in yourself, but in today’s headlines, boardrooms and comment sections. You also won't have to look hard to find emergent examples of the through me mindset—in the community solidarity filling the streets of Minneapolis, in the cooperative vision Canadian PM Mark Carney put forth at Davos, in the small acts of responsibility happening in organizations everywhere, including yours.

The question isn’t whether change is coming. Change is here. What matters now is how we meet it.

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“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.”

—Arthur Ashe

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TRUTH #1 OF RADIANT CHANGE

What It Takes to Lead in Transformational Times

[Excerpted from my book-in-progress, How Change (Really) Works: 10 Truths for Living and Leading in Transformational Times]

Since there is no avoiding or escaping the forces of change in our work and in our world, we must decide how we will meet change when—not if—it comes.

This is a matter of mindset: Is change happening to me, or is change happening through me?

The To Me Mindset

The to me mindset will feel familiar. We all slip into it from time to time. Some of us have taken up permanent residence—but it’s not always easy to see.

When we are in a to me mindset, we are playing one (or more) of three roles in the context of that moment: victim, villain or hero. But before we play these roles in relationship with other people, we are playing them in our own minds.

• When we are in the victim role, we believe that change is happening to us, and that we are powerless to do anything about it. As a result, we do plenty of complaining—but take little action. If we are honest with ourselves, we may be able to see the times we slip into the victim role of the to me mindset in response to change, but it feels like we don’t have a choice.
• The villain role is harder to own—no one sees themselves as the villain of their own story! The villain in us believes that the best way to deal with change is to assert our power and dominate the situation. We become critical and/or controlling of others, and our signature villain move is blaming—pointing the finger elsewhere to avoid our own responsibility. Personally, I’ve come to recognize a sense of self-righteousness as a sure sign that I’ve stepped into the villain role.
• We may see ourselves more easily in the hero role, but we may not recognize it as part of the to me mindset. When we are in the hero role, we believe that it is our job to make change happen, to change other people and, perhaps most importantly, to save everyone from the discomfort and messiness of change. Our inner hero does too much in an attempt to save the victims from the villains, and leaves little room for the people around us to do their own work to bring change forward.

It’s important to remember this: We are not choosing these roles consciously. They are ancient survival strategies wired into our nervous systems. And we are adept at switching between them—unconsciously, reactively—as needed to serve our purposes.

In one moment, we might be in full victim mode, feeling overwhelmed by the magnitude of change. Then, when someone (ahem, like me) proposes we can do something about it, we may shift into villain mode, blaming the powers that be for all the good they won’t allow us to do. Or, we might go the other way and take on the weight of the world, convinced that we can solve it—and that we must, because otherwise who will?

In this way, the to me mindset is a vicious cycle. The constant, accelerating forces of change keep us spinning around, feeling helpless, then righteous, then exhausted (while taking everything personally). If we aren’t careful, we can get stuck in it. Especially because our current systems—increasingly polarized politics, media that feed us the superficial and the sensational, social divisions predicated on narratives of race, gender and nationality, to name a few—play into and perpetuate this cycle, making change harder to achieve.

The Through Me Mindset

Ultimately, we cannot lead change with the to me mindset. No matter how powerful it may feel in the moment, it is more corrosive than constructive. The to me mindset narrows our field of vision, separates us from others, drains our energy. It’s no match for the way change really works.

The alternative to the to me mindset is through me.

Where to me tells us…

• There’s nothing I can do. (victim)
• Somebody else is to blame. (villain)
• I need to save the day. (hero)

…through me asks:

• In what small way can I take responsibility?
• What small thing can I do about it right now?
• Who can I do it with?

Through me refuses to play the victim or the hero, and is rarely mistaken for a villain. Through me is open and curious about what is happening, and what might happen next as a result. Through me accepts reality as it is, in order to shape it into what it might be. Through me reaches out to the person on the other side of a divide, at work or in life. Through me doesn’t mean making change happen by sheer force, but rather working with change as the force of nature it is. Through me feels risky, but in truth it offers us the only security there is.

As we move through the 10 Truths, we’ll see that this mindset allows us to do less, so that we can be more. Less micromanaging to control outcomes. Less knowing all the answers to unanswerable questions. Less making everyone happy and wrapping everything in a perfect bow. Through me isn’t an end, it is the means through which we live with and lead change everywhere we go.

In Practice: The Transformational Mindset Shift

A simple practice for making the shift from to me to through me:

1. Notice to me in the body. We start in the body because the mind is brilliant at justifying itself (remember that self-righteousness I mentioned?), but the body always knows. Where is there tightness, tension, feelings of sickness or fatigue? Is the heart racing? Is the face hot? Is the stomach in knots? Get to know these physical sensations as signals that you might be in a to me mindset.
   ​Important: Try not to blame yourself when you find yourself there. That’s how we become our own villain. Remember, we’re wired to resist change in these ways. Give your inner critic a break and get curious about what this mindset feels like, so you can spot it in the future.
2. Ask “What to me story am I telling myself?” Am I the victim of this story, or the hero trying to save the day? Or am I possibly the villain, putting the blame on everybody else so no one tries to put it on me? When we can see the story we’re telling ourselves, we can acknowledge the mindset we’re bringing to it. Only then we can change it.
3. Ask “What is possible through me?” In other words, how might my involvement alter the course of what’s unfolding in a positive way? How do I need to show up in order to bring about the kind of change I want to see? How might I show up that way in this moment?

That last question—“what is possible through me?”—is one that every leader throughout history has had to ask themselves. And you don’t need to have an answer, not yet. What matters is asking the question.

Your life reveals the answer.

[End of excerpt]

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Finding Your Through Me Mindset

The practice of noticing, naming, and shifting our mindset is our focus in the RadiantChange.co community this month.

Not a community member? You can still join us for the Transformation Mindset Mini-Retreat on Friday, February 20.

This 90-minute session will be extra special because we’re welcoming visiting teacher Elisa Haggarty. Elisa will guide us, with her signature care and singular presence, in recognizing and relating skillfully to our inner victim, villain and hero—so they can relax and we can get back to our good work.

Mini-Retreats are free for RadiantChange.co members, who can RSVP here.

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Your Turn

Ok, Reader, now I need your help. As you consider these two mindsets in response to the inevitability of change:

• What clicks or sparks for you? What connections are you making in your work and in your world?
• What questions do you have? What's unclear or what are you curious about?
• What wisdom can you offer? What does your personal experience and understanding add to this reflection?

These aren’t rhetorical questions. Your reflections and reports from the field will shape this book. Your stories of what actually works (and what doesn’t) in the messy reality of leading change—that’s what makes this work useful rather than theoretical.

So I hope you'll reply to this email. Tell me what you’re noticing. Let’s shape the future of change leadership, you and me.

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Onward together.

Kristen Lisanti
​Radiant Change​
​How Change (Really) Works