Inaugural Book Salon! Unlock What's Holding You Back: An Immunity to Change Deep Dive
Inaugural Book Salon! Unlock What's Holding You Back: An Immunity to Change Deep Dive
What if the biggest obstacle to change isn't willpower but hidden beliefs you don't even know you have?
Our inaugural Book Salon will explore Kegan and Lahey's groundbreaking Immunity to Change to uncover the psychological forces that sabotage our best intentions. You don't need to have read the book, just bring one change you've been struggling to make.
In this session, you will:
Analyze real examples of overcoming change resistance
Identify your competing commitments and limiting assumptions
Create practical strategies to close your intention-action gap
Leave with concrete next steps to break through what's been holding you back
Session was run on Wednesday, Jul 30, 2025, at 9 am PT/Noon ET/18 CEST
I’m excited to discuss transformative approaches to change. Figuring out what’s holding us back can be a huge step in being able to make change.
What’s one big thing you’ve been wanting to work on?
If you asked your friends, family, and colleagues, what’s one big thing they wish you would work on?
Immunity To Change book review
——- next section added post session——
Takeaways and a brief summary from our session:
Foundation Concepts
Technical vs. Adaptive Solutions
Technical: Solutions to clearly defined problems (e.g., "there's an app for that")
Adaptive changes: Require exploring underlying reasons why change isn't happening to find deeper solutions.
Adult Development Stages
Three developmental stages that affect how we approach the world:
Socialized Mind: Seeks direction from others, follows what others tell them
Self-Authoring Mind: Internally driven, filters information based on personal goals
Self-Transforming Mind: Welcomes diverse perspectives, comfortable with contradictions and paradox (only 1% of adults live here consistently)
Key Takeaways
Most adults are at the Self-Authoring Mind stage. The Immunity X-ray exercise requires adopting a self-transforming mindset, which can feel uncomfortable.
The Immunity X-ray reveals internal contradictions that keep us stuck despite conscious desires to change.
Our internal contradictions (competing commitments) serve as protective mechanisms; they’re the positive things we do to manage anxiety and protect ourselves from our fears.
Revealing our competing commitments helps normalize our struggle - understanding why change is difficult can reduce self-criticism.
Testing assumptions through small experiments, analyzing the outcome, and creating new experiments is more effective than trying to overcome fears or make difficult changes through willpower.
The Immunity X-ray Process
Four-Column Framework (I am updating this to make it 5 rows instead):
Commitment: What you want to change or achieve
Behaviors: What you're doing instead of your commitment
Worries: The deeply uncomfortable fear you feel when you think about doing the opposite of what you are doing
Hidden Competing Commitment: What you're actually committed to (derived from your fears)
Big Assumptions: Underlying beliefs that support the competing commitment
Testing Phase
Once big assumptions are identified, choose the one that would make the most positive difference if changed. Then start with a safe, modest, actionable, research-oriented test to challenge that big assumption (we are collecting data, not looking for a strategy for change). Record the facts and your interpretations for each small test so you can use your learnings to create the next test.
There is no magic pill. Change is hard.
I will send an updated workbook with improved formatting and clearer instructions once I have the next version.
