Change: Six science-backed strategies to transform your brain, body, and behavior

by Michael J. Lopez

Transform your life with groundbreaking science-backed strategies that make lasting change possible. In this revolutionary book, transformative coach Michael J. López combines cutting-edge neuroscience with practical techniques to help you create real, sustainable change in your life, career, and relationships.

Drawing from decades of experience coaching individuals and organizations through transformation, López reveals why traditional approaches to change often fail. He presents a comprehensive framework that actually works. Whether you're looking to advance your career, improve your health, strengthen your relationships, or simply become a more adaptable person, this book provides the blueprint.

You
• Master the six science-backed strategies that unlock your brain's natural ability to change
• Learn why willpower alone fails and discover how to create the right conditions for lasting transformation
• Understand how to work with (not against) your brain's natural resistance to change
• Develop practical techniques to break old habits and establish new beneficial patterns
• Build resilience and adaptability as core skills you can apply to any life challenge
• Create a personalized system for initiating and sustaining positive change
• Learn how to turn change itself into a habit, making continuous growth natural and effortless

Perfect for anyone feeling stuck, seeking personal growth, or leading others through transformation, Change provides both the science and the practical strategies needed to create lasting positive change. Stop struggling with temporary fixes and discover how to make meaningful, sustainable transformation possible.

180 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 2, 2025

About the author

Michael J. Lopez helps organizations solve one of their hardest problems: how to make change actually stick.

As the founder of Michael J. Lopez Consulting, he brings over 20 years of experience leading transformation across industries—including healthcare, energy, financial services, technology, government, and consumer goods. His clients include Entergy, Clorox, Vanguard, Meta, Lyft, Compass One, Southwest Gas, CalHFA and other mission-driven public agencies.

Michael’s approach combines the neuroscience of behavior with hands-on execution. He’s known for bridging the gap between strategy and action—guiding organizations through complex transitions, cultural resets, and performance turnarounds with clarity, empathy, and results.

He is the author of CHANGE: Six Science-Backed Strategies to Transform Your Brain, Body, and Behavior, a LinkedIn Top Voice, and the host of the Top Voice Podcast—a fast-growing LinkedIn Live series and podcast that brings together thought leaders to explore the real, contemporary challenges facing today’s businesses.

Before founding his firm, Michael held senior roles at Booz Allen Hamilton, EY, KPMG, Prophet Brand Strategy, and Smiths Interconnect. He began his career as an Intelligence Officer in the U.S. Intelligence Community.

Whether he’s advising Fortune 500 executives or public sector leaders, Michael brings the same focus: science-backed insight, straight talk, and strategies that work in the real world.

As a former college athlete, Michael is a member of the Positive Coaching Alliance Leadership Council and remains engaged with sports as a high school football coach.

Reviews

[Tom Langemo]

Lopez does an excellent job bundling complex ideas into simplified frameworks. And I appreciate very much that for each idea, there’s both science and practicality - and looping in examples and quotes to establish the ideas. Well done - lots of sticky notes used while reading.

[John]

There are two things cops hate: change and the way things are. As a police executive and administrator with three decades of military and law enforcement of experience, I have both affected organizational change and, if I am being honest, resisted it. This book provides the fundamental knowledge necessary for understanding the science-backed psychology and physiology of change. Lopéz not only provides practical strategies for implementing successful organizational and personal change, he provides a roadmap for transformation. Insightful, practical, and compelling, this book is a leadership primer.

[Katie O'Brien]

I listened to this first on audiobook and then got the paperback so I can mark up and dogear all the most memorable elements.

First, Michael does a nice job of going just enough into the science to help you understand the why, but not so deep that it’s overwhelming.

The pieces that have really stuck with me:
- Your brain is a prediction machine, and yet this machine can be rewired
- A proper level of stress and discomfort are prerequisites for making change
- The importance of repetition and making errors in truly changing behavior and habits

Grateful for this work to be out in the world and I’m already playing with ways to use these concepts to inform my work in management and leadership development.