The Email That Changed My Life - Journal Entry 3
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In my previous entry, I explored conscious awareness, subconscious conditioning, and the quiet influence of maladaptive survival strategies. A consistent question follows: How does one truly enact, change, and evolve?
Awareness is a beginning. It illuminates. It reframes. It introduces the possibility of “different.” Yet awareness alone does not singlehandedly alter the trajectory of a life. At some point, understanding must be practiced, repeated with enough intention that it no longer lives solely in thought, but in behavior. (Billy Carson has an equation for manifestation – Conscious Thought × Action = Manifestation.)
That shift came through something I never really expected: an email.
A colleague of mine, and now a close lifelong friend, Ashley, introduced me to “Friday Forward,” a weekly message written by a CEO named Robert Glazer. Each Friday carried something deliberate, reflective, and something that lingered. One very significant email, one that felt like a “bridge” for me, landed in my mailbox on a Friday morning. It was titled:
“The Environmental Effect.”
There was one part of that message that really stayed with me, and I’ll be honest—this is my interpretation of it. It spoke about willpower being limited, and how human beings are heavily influenced by emotion, which ultimately drives behavior. What stood out to me was the idea that our environment plays a significant role in shaping those emotions, and in turn, our actions.
Environment plays a significant role in influencing our actions, but almost in a reverse way—it confines our emotions within a box of exposure, quietly increasing or decreasing the likelihood of what we do. What we are exposed to repeatedly does not just influence us—it shapes what feels natural.
It gave me the opportunity to reframe everything I thought I understood about discipline and choice. When I read that, my mind immediately connected it to something else I had heard before—I can’t remember if it was Mel Robbins or if that was her exact phrasing—but the idea stood: “willpower is bullshit.” The idea that willpower isn’t something you can rely on consistently, and that we are far more likely to act based on what is easy, accessible, and reinforced around us.
We are more likely to go to the gym if we have an easier, less “energetically draining” day. We are more likely to eat healthier if we have access to better food and the financial ability to afford it. The neighborhood we live in (and things like gentrification) play a role—why is there a liquor store or smoke shop on every corner of the “hood,” but in a neighborhood where the average household income is almost double, it becomes harder to find one? We are more likely to make certain decisions when the environment supports those decisions.
It made me understand that motivation may influence behavior, but discipline sustains it—doing what needs to be done regardless of how we feel. And for me, the key to building that discipline was the environment.
If environment influences behavior, and behavior, when repeated, becomes habit, then the real question became: how do I manipulate my environment to increase the likelihood of sustaining a new behavior long enough for it to become a habit—long enough for discipline to take over and no longer rely on motivation?
I started dissecting my environment. I quickly realized that the modern world is built on convenience—delivery services, apps to check into appointments before even arriving, food delivered without movement (avoiding traffic, avoiding effort, satisfying cravings instantly), fast food engineered for immediacy, and convenience stores placed strategically so you don’t have to go out of your way.
Ever notice how convenience stores are usually more expensive than a larger supermarket? That’s not by accident. They are positioned to intercept need before effort is required. Even pricing reflects this structure. A convenience store charges more not for the product itself, but for the absence of effort. The alternative requires distance, time, and inconvenience, but offers a more affordable cost.
The exchange is not solely financial. It is transactional, in effort, in time, in convenience. Most often, the easier option always prevails.
In essence, because the brain is wired for survival, what is easiest—what requires less energy—is prioritized. That conserved energy is redirected toward what feels necessary in the moment. The problem is that many people unknowingly give that mental space, meant for the present moment, to their vices.
So then, maybe obtaining behavior change starts with changing what is convenient, which is influenced by the environment, coupled with taking the time to redefine what convenience means and why.
Instead of confronting behavior at face value, I began adjusting the conditions that supported it. Convenience influences repetition, repetition shapes habits, and habit becomes personal reality, your personality.
I brought that into my own life, into my microenvironment “my home.” Something as simple as donuts sitting on the kitchen table, something I must walk past multiple times a day to either use the restroom or fold laundry in my bedroom, increases the likelihood of me eating them.
Yes, part of that “is” discipline. But more importantly, it made me realize I hadn’t taken the time to truly dissect my behavior. I wasn’t mindful or conscious of what I was doing or why. I wanted to change. I longed for it. But I wasn’t creating the conditions to sustain it.
When I had previously attempted behavior change, it didn’t last long enough. I would revert to what felt normal, what was easy, what had already been practiced. Reversion followed familiarity. Ease overrode intention.
I wasn’t lacking desire. I just hadn’t built anything strong enough to hold it. I was motivated to be disciplined; I just didn’t know how to get there.
So, I made a small change. I moved the donuts from the kitchen table to the pantry, from visibility to obscurity, from immediate access to slight inconvenience. I influenced the probability. Eventually, I took it a step further and stopped buying them altogether. What is not present cannot influence in the same way.
That’s when it became clear: I wasn’t just trying to change behavior. The work wasn’t to eliminate behavior through force, but to alter the environment that influenced it and change the conditions that made the behavior likely in the first place.
The same principle appeared in another pattern “pressing snooze on my alarm”. It had become a conditioned behavior, something I did without thinking, repeated without awareness. Over time, it started affecting real things , making me late to work, creating instability, putting my income and employment at risk, and creating stress that was entirely self-induced.
So, I asked myself again: how do I manipulate my environment to increase the likelihood of getting up on time?
At first, I tried putting my phone across the room. That didn’t work, it increased my anxiety. Responsibility required accessibility for family, my daughter, emergencies. (My daughter’s mother and I co-parent so distance inadvertently created a different kind of risk.) On top of that, I’m a heavy sleeper.
So, I adjusted. I bought an alarm clock, a loud clunky one and placed it across the room. That worked for a while, until It didn’t. I would get up, turn it off, and go back to bed. So, I refined it again. I bought a second alarm and placed it in my bathroom, set a minute apart from the one in my bedroom.
Now I had to get up and then get up again. At that point, I was already moving. That worked long enough to build consistency. Eventually, altogether, I didn’t need them. I no longer needed the alarms to wake me; my body had begun waking naturally at the time I had conditioned it to.
I learned change is not a one-time fix; it is something you refine. Continuously. (This made me think of: “Fall in love with the process, and the results will come.”)
The brain is wired for survival, constantly trying to conserve energy and automate behavior. When something is repeated enough, it becomes subconscious. That is how habits are formed. The opposite is also true—if something is not practiced, those pathways weaken.
If I wasn’t intentionally practicing new behaviors, I was reinforcing old ones. If I wasn’t aware, those patterns would continue subconsciously.
Sometimes behaviors are created to help us survive something. In that moment, they are adaptive. But over time, they become maladaptive because we are no longer the same person we were when they were created, yet they continue operating.
That is why awareness matters. Once you see it, you can start changing it. What once served a purpose may no longer serve the present, yet it remains. That is the nature of conditioning. Awareness introduces the possibility of interruption.
What started working in my microenvironment eventually led me to look at something bigger—my macroenvironment, my social circles. That part was harder. I realized that although the people around me had good intentions, we were often using each other as an escape. Time was shared, energy was exchanged, but nothing was really changing. Comfort replaced growth, and familiarity replaced intention.
So I planned to create distance not out of resentment, out of necessity.
That space gave me clarity. It allowed me to observe my habits, my choices, and the direction I was heading. Once I could see it clearly, I could start making changes.
In that space, I spent more time alone, and I started writing. I wrote poetry, short stories, and ideas—anything that came to mind. I didn’t overthink it or try to make it perfect. I just wrote. Over time, it became consistent.
I also started focusing on a few key areas—how I ate, how I moved, how I spent my time, and how present I was. My actions began to reflect my values. I felt a level of relief I hadn’t experienced before. It showed me that I was doing the work and creating an environment where change could actually last.
I had stripped down my macroenvironment, and I was left with a clean slate. Naturally, I started thinking about how to build one that was productive and aligned with the life I wanted. I knew reciprocity was something I valued. But that led me to realize something deeper—I hadn’t actually taken the time to define what my values were, not clearly or intentionally.
I started thinking about what mattered to me, what I stood for, what was important, and what was non-negotiable. We define things early in life and rarely revisit them. But perspective changes. Experience changes. So, the definitions should change, too.
A simple way to look at it is something like making a quesadilla.
At 8 years old, making a quesadilla might mean throwing cheese on a tortilla, putting it in the microwave, and calling it a day. At 22, that same quesadilla looks completely different. Now there’s more exposure—maybe you’ve eaten at different restaurants, watched someone cook it differently, or experimented on your own. Instead of the microwave, it’s made on a stovetop, in an air fryer, or in the oven. You add protein, seasoning, maybe butter the tortilla, or change how it’s cooked altogether.
Same concept. Different execution. Because understanding has expanded.
The interesting part is I started to wonder “I bet most people don’t do that with their values.” They define them early, store them in their subconscious, and move on, navigating life without ever going back to redefine them through a more experienced lens.
So, before I could build anything around me, I had to understand what I was building from.
I became more selective with whom I allowed into my life. I stopped being overly available. I paid attention to reciprocity. If something wasn’t mutual, it didn’t belong. Relationships stopped being automatic and became intentional. That process changed a lot for me. It allowed me to move with more awareness, more intention, and more control over my direction. I applied “The environmental effect” concept – to every aspect of my life, to increase the likelihood of sustaining new behaviors, Behaviors that represented the new me, Discipline that didn’t care to acknowledge emotion.
It wasn’t perfect. There were failures, difficult attachments, and moments where I had to be honest with myself. Acknowledge my shortcomings, accept things for what they were, adapt and overcome, redefine and revisit my environmental changes...
Failure was and is part of the process, because this wasn’t the end.
Awareness, steered by the knowledge of how to sustain behavior change …Well, that…