Episode 49: Thrive in Chaos with Dr. Nadya Zhexembayeva in Thrive LouD Podcast by Lou Diamond
Welcome to Leadership is Changing!
Each week, we and our guests provide information and insights through exploring leading change.
This is taking your leadership to another level by finding the balance between executive excellence and personal well-being through stories that inspire real change.
It’s time to adapt in our fast-moving world when leadership is changing, with your host, Denis Gianoutsos.
How to Reinvent Before the Crisis Hits
In this inspiring and deeply personal episode, Dr. Nadya Zhexembayeva joins Lou Diamond to explore how growing up in post-Soviet Kazakhstan shaped her life's work on reinvention. From food lines to Fortune 500 boardrooms, she shares why waiting for stability is a losing strategy—and how leaders can build organizations that thrive in uncertainty. Together, they dive into resistance, reinvention, and what it means to look reality in the eye.
What You’ll Learn
You’ll learn how today’s turbulence mirrors—and accelerates—historic cycles of collapse and transformation, and why treating change as an emergency is no longer viable. Dr. Nadya introduces the key difference between innovation and reinvention, outlines why every leader must stop looking for “normal,” and shares the emotional and biological roots of change resistance—plus the practices that help leaders and teams move forward with courage and clarity.
Who This Is For
- Executives leading transformation in complex environments
- Entrepreneurs facing rapid, repeated change
- Consultants, coaches, and facilitators in reinvention spaces
- Anyone who’s felt stuck, scared, or skeptical of change
- Leaders ready to trade control for adaptability
3 Key Takeaways from This Episode
1. Reinvention Is Hygiene, Not Heroics
You wouldn’t wait years to take a shower—so why wait years to refresh your products, processes, or perspective? Dr. Nadya urges leaders to normalize regular reinvention and treat it as a life skill, not a crisis response.
2. Biology Explains Resistance to Change
Whether you're facing a career shift or a company collapse, your brain and body react to disruption the same way. Reinvention isn’t just strategy—it’s neuroscience. Address fear with emotional solutions, not more spreadsheets.
3. You Were Born to Reinvent—But Trained Out of It
Babies don’t quit learning to walk after a few falls. We’re all born adaptable—but traditional education and management systems teach us to fear change. Dr. Nadya invites listeners to reclaim their factory setting: reinvention.
Resources Mentioned
Follow the Reinvention Tour Podcast
Dr. Nadya Zhexembayeva is on a global podcast tour, sharing stories, tools, and field-tested strategies from the frontlines of reinvention. Want her on your show?
Hi, I’m Dr. Nadya Zhexembayeva
10k+ business practitioners already joined
helping deal with changes
.svg)
