In Heroes of Change, you explore how meaningful change grows through relationships, repeated choices, and shared purpose. Why was this an important book for you to write?

For a long time, I believed change happened because extraordinary people possessed something the rest of us didn’t. More courage, more confidence, more talent, or simply more certainty. But as I observed people whose lives had transformed schools, neighborhoods, businesses, and even national conversations, I discovered something surprising. They weren’t extraordinary because they had all the answers. They were ordinary people who kept saying yes to the next right step. At the same time, I was wrestling with many of the same questions in my own life. Why do some people continue becoming while others slowly settle into who they think they already are? What allows hope to survive when life becomes difficult? And perhaps the biggest question: what actually changes a person? This book became my attempt to answer those questions. Not with theory alone, but through the stories of people who have lived them. In many ways, writing Heroes of Change changed me as much as I hope it changes its readers.

Many of the people featured in the book work in very different areas, including education, business, justice, spirituality, and community service. What common qualities did you discover among these “heroes of change”?

What surprised me most was how little their résumés mattered. On the surface, the people in this book have almost nothing in common. One founded a nonprofit. Another transformed education. One serves formerly incarcerated men and women. Another spent years on Wall Street before finding a completely different calling. Their careers couldn’t look more different. Underneath, however, they shared a remarkably similar journey. Each experienced an awakening—a moment when they could no longer ignore that something wasn’t quite right. They felt pulled toward a calling that was often unclear and uncomfortable. They eventually reached a point where they had to leap without guarantees. And none of them made that journey alone. Relationships, belonging, and communities of trust were not side stories; they were the very environment where transformation became possible. Perhaps the biggest surprise was that none of them saw themselves as heroes. They simply kept emerging and becoming.

The book combines interviews, personal memories, research, and storytelling. How did you balance sharing other people’s journeys with your own reflections?

That balance evolved over time. When I first began writing, I imagined myself as a narrator standing outside the stories, carefully documenting what these remarkable people had accomplished. But the longer I spent with them, the more I realized that I wasn’t simply observing transformation—I was experiencing it myself. Eventually I understood that the book would be incomplete if I pretended to be objective. My own questions, doubts, failures, and moments of awakening became part of the story because they mirrored what I was seeing in everyone else. The research helped explain why change happens. The interviews and observations showed what change looks like. My own reflections explored what it feels like from the inside. I hope readers finish the book feeling less like they’ve read biographies and more like they’ve joined a conversation that invites them to see their own story differently.

How can readers apply the Heroic Change Model in their own workplaces, families, or communities?

One of my hopes for the Heroic Change Model is that people won’t see it as another leadership framework to memorize. Instead, I hope they’ll recognize where they already are in the journey. Maybe they’re in an awakening, sensing that something needs to change. Maybe they’re wrestling with a calling they keep trying to ignore. Maybe they’re standing at the edge of a leap that feels risky. Or perhaps they’re emerging into a new version of themselves they don’t quite recognize yet. The model reminds us that transformation is rarely a single dramatic moment. It’s a series of small choices made over time, almost always in the company of other people. We often think changing the world begins by finding extraordinary people. I no longer believe that. I think it begins by creating spaces where ordinary people—including ourselves—feel seen, challenged, supported, and courageous enough to keep becoming.

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