THIS IS FOR YOU Welcome to the Transformation Zone Four Questions That Could Change Your Life and Business A What It Takes Radio / Transformation Zone Special

September 1 was Transformation Day. September 3 may be even more important.

Because declaring a day is relatively easy. Living a transformed life is something else entirely.

In this special edition of What It Takes Radio, broadcaster, coach and entrepreneur Stan Hustad follows the first annual Transformation Day with a very personal invitation:

THIS IS FOR YOU.

It is an invitation to enter what Hustad calls The Transformation Zone — a growing community and conversation for people who are no longer satisfied merely making things a little better. They want to become different. And perhaps help make their businesses, organizations, communities and world different as well.

From Transformation Day to the Transformation Zone

On September 1, Hustad and a colleague informally declared the first Transformation Day — a day intended to become an annual opportunity to stop, think and ask whether this might finally be the time to pursue meaningful transformation.

Transformation in a life.

Transformation in a business.

Transformation in relationships.

Transformation within a person's circle of influence.

Perhaps even transformation that reaches far beyond that circle.

It is an ambitious idea. Hustad readily admits that declaring a new international observance with two people may sound slightly audacious. But then again, most movements don't begin with a committee of 10,000. They begin with somebody. Sometimes two somebodies. And then somebody else decides to join them. That is the invitation of this program.

Better Is Good. Transformation Is Different.

Hustad makes an important distinction between four ideas that are often treated as though they mean the same thing:

BETTER  →  IMPROVEMENT  →  CHANGE  →  TRANSFORMATION

Almost everyone wants something to be better. Most people are willing to consider improvement. Change becomes more difficult because change usually costs something. It interrupts routines, challenges assumptions and occasionally moves the furniture in our lives without asking permission.

But transformation goes considerably further. Transformation is not simply becoming different by degree. It is becoming different in kind.

A transformed business doesn't simply sell 5 percent more of the same thing. It may discover an entirely new way to create value. A transformed professional doesn't merely become slightly more efficient. That person may discover an entirely different understanding of his or her work. And a transformed life isn't merely a better-organized version of yesterday.

Transformation is difficult. But difficult things have an annoying habit of being where many of life's most important opportunities are hiding.

Four Questions at the Entrance

Hustad has spent many years coaching people who wanted something to change in their lives or businesses. Before getting very far into strategies, techniques, goals and plans, he learned to ask more fundamental questions. In this program he offers four of them as a kind of entrance examination for the Transformation Zone — not one that anyone passes or fails, but one that requires an honest answer.

1. Are You Serious?

This is where transformation begins. Not: “Wouldn't that be nice?” Not: “I've been thinking about doing something someday.” But: Are you serious?

Transformation requires intention. It requires enough commitment to move an idea from something interesting into something important.

Hustad's coaching experience taught him that he could not do the work for another person. He could encourage, challenge, teach, coach and accompany them. But ultimately the person seeking transformation had to decide: I am serious about this.

2. Who Are You?

Years ago, when teaching people to become broadcasters, Hustad would tell students that there was one person they absolutely had to meet if they wanted to become successful communicators. Naturally, they wanted the name. Who was this important broadcasting personality? The answer was: You.

Before someone can communicate authentically, lead effectively or create something genuinely new, that person needs to begin understanding himself or herself.

Most of us know our job titles. We know our schedules. We know what other people expect from us. But those aren't necessarily answers to the question: Who are you?

Transformation requires self-knowledge — sometimes uncomfortable self-knowledge — because it is difficult to intentionally transform a life one has never seriously examined.

3. What Is True?

Then comes a question that has occupied philosophers, theologians, leaders and ordinary people for thousands of years: What is true?

What do you believe so deeply that you are willing to build your life around it? What principles are not negotiable? What would you defend? What would you advocate? What have experience, faith, wisdom and reflection taught you to trust?

A transformed life cannot be built entirely on whatever happens to be fashionable this week. It needs foundations. And that requires deciding what is true.

4. What Do You Want?

Finally comes a deceptively simple question: What do you want?

Hustad points to this as one of the powerful questions Jesus repeatedly asked people who approached him. It is powerful precisely because many people cannot answer it clearly.

They know what happened to them. They know what they're supposed to do Monday morning. They know what other people want from them. But what do they really want their life to become? What do they want to create? What difference do they want to make? What relationships do they want to deepen? What work matters enough to deserve part of their remaining lifetime?

Transformation requires direction. If you don't know what you want, it becomes remarkably difficult to recognize whether you're moving toward it.

Transformation Is Already Coming

There is another reason these questions matter. Transformation is not politely waiting for us to decide whether we're interested. It is already happening.

Artificial intelligence is transforming industries and professions. Streaming media has transformed broadcasting. Communication bears remarkably little resemblance to the industry Hustad entered decades ago. Businesses are discovering that assumptions that worked yesterday may not work tomorrow.

Some transformations are chosen. Others arrive without an invitation. Sometimes they even arrive through disruption, disappointment or trauma.

Will transformation merely happen to us, or will we participate in shaping it intentionally?

That is what the Transformation Zone is intended to explore.

Welcome to the Transformation Zone

The Transformation Zone is not being presented as a place for spectators. It is for people willing to become change makers, difference makers and transformation makers.

People who want to make more money — and make more meaning. People who want greater influence — and greater impact. People who would like to have more fun while doing work that actually matters.

And people humble enough to recognize that genuine transformation rarely happens alone. We need teachers. We need coaches. We need friends. We need colleagues. We need communities. We need people willing to challenge our comfortable assumptions. Sometimes we simply need somebody to ask us the right question at the right time.

THINGS TO REMEMBER

Transformation is not the same as improvement. Better is worthwhile. Improvement is valuable. Change is often necessary. But transformation asks whether something needs to become different not merely by degree, but different in kind.

Transformation begins with seriousness. Interest alone rarely transforms anything.

You are part of the transformation. Before transforming a business, organization or community, spend serious time discovering the person doing the transforming.

Know what you believe is true. Transformation without foundations can simply become motion.

Know what you want. You cannot intentionally travel toward a destination you refuse to identify.

Transformation is already happening. The question is whether you will merely react to it or participate in shaping it.

THINGS TO SHARE

Are you serious?

Who are you?

What is true?

What do you want?

Share these questions with a friend, colleague, spouse, business partner or team. Don't rush the answers. Spend an hour discussing them honestly. The conversation could be uncomfortable. Good. It might also be transformational.

THINGS TO DO RIGHT NOW

Take a blank sheet of paper and write four headings: SERIOUS — SELF — TRUTH — WANT.

Under each heading, write one honest paragraph.

Identify one transformation you want to begin during the next 30 days. Not twelve. One.

Name it. Write it down. Tell somebody.

Take one visible action toward it within the next 24 hours. Transformation becomes real when intention finally becomes action.

THIS REALLY IS FOR YOU

There was a reason Stan Hustad began this program with those four simple words: This is for you.

After decades in broadcasting, business and coaching, he has learned that communication becomes powerful when it stops speaking vaguely to everybody and begins speaking intentionally to somebody.

If something in your life, work, business, relationships or calling needs more than another small improvement, perhaps it is time to enter the Transformation Zone.

Hustad and the developing Transformation Zone community are inviting serious people to begin exploring how they can live transformed lives, build transformed businesses, create meaningful work, increase their influence and help bring worthwhile transformation to others.

READY TO BEGIN? Contact Stan Hustad [e-mail]

Tell him what you want to transform. Better yet, be prepared to answer four questions when he responds:

Are you serious?  •  Who are you?  •  What is true?  •  What do you want?

September 1 was Transformation Day.
September 3 is an invitation to do something about it.

WELCOME TO THE TRANSFORMATION ZONE.
THIS IS FOR YOU.