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# A Harlem Globetrotter's Rule for Change: Feel It Before You Have It
- URL: https://longtalkshort.com/derick-grant-feel-it-before-you-have-it/
- Published: 2026-10-23T21:24:42.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T23:32:53.000Z
- Description: After eight years with the Harlem Globetrotters and losing everything to fraud, Derick Grant says change is about identity, not willpower. His boldest idea: create the feeling before you get the thing. Here's what holds up, and what doesn't.
- Author: Truman
- Tags: Psychology, Derick Grant

Derick "DG" Grant wrote down a pro basketball dream at 10 and went on to play eight years with the Harlem Globetrotters in 70 countries. Then, in 2018, he lost everything to financial fraud involving a business partner.

Now a mindset coach, he tells Radhi Devlukia that becoming a new person is **less about willpower than identity.** His most provocative idea is what he calls the **law of reversibility:** stop chasing the thing, and start producing the feeling you think it will give you. Here's the five-minute version, plus an honest look at what the evidence says.

*In short: Grant argues that small daily actions build an identity, and that scarcity, reactivity and self-doubt are old nervous-system programs you can retrain. His manifestation advice rests on an untested idea, but its practical core of naming feelings and building habits holds up better.*

## 1\. Change starts when staying hurts more

Grant's parents weren't athletes. They took him to see the Globetrotters when he was seven. After his playing years he trained young players, growing from two brothers to more than 350 kids within a year, plus some NBA and WNBA players.

What separated the best, he decided, was **mental, not hours on the court:** a self-belief "almost we would call it delusional" and permission to transform their identity.

His 2018 collapse taught him the line he now repeats: we won't change "until it's more uncomfortable to stay the same than it would be to change."

## 2\. Habits make the identity

The mistake, he says, is thinking change will be easy. His answer is **"RAC": resilience, accountability and consistency.** With clients he prescribes CDAs, or consistent daily actions:

> Those little habits are what form behaviors and behaviors create identities.

His own anchors are short:

- **A feelings journal** that starts with "I feel \_\_\_" and asks why.
- **A countdown meditation:** count down from 30 on each exhale and notice when your mind wanders.

Over time, he says, life itself becomes the journal.

![Diagram: consistent daily actions lead to habits, behaviors, identity and your life, supported by three pillars Grant calls RAC: resilience, accountability and consistency.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/d7/93/d793216c-cf13-441f-bdae-4f3aef998c0e/content/images/2026/10/fig2-2.png)

Grant's chain from daily actions to identity, and the three pillars he says hold it up.

## 3\. Scarcity is a safety signal

Grant frames scarcity as **a nervous system that doesn't feel safe.** It can't tell a silent treatment from dad from a tiger, he says, so we slip into survival mode and see only what we can't do.

He hears it in language like "this is really hard," so his kids say a task "requires more energy and more focus" instead.

Money works the same way: a cohort told him it represents freedom or safety. "It's never the money," he says. The abundant stance is to be free and safe already.

## 4\. The law of reversibility

This is the heart of the episode. Ask what a goal is, then **what it represents.** Say you want a million followers because it would make you feel fulfilled. "Your job now is to create fulfillment in your life," Grant says.

> If a physical thing would produce a feeling, then that would mean that the feeling would produce the physical thing.

In practice, that means:

- **Do what lights you up,** not what makes you famous or rich, and stop what he calls self-abandonment.
- **Focus on the feeling, not the words.** If you want to be on *Good Morning America*, treat a local TV interview as if it were the real thing.
- **Let go of "how and when,"** which he calls the biggest source of anxiety.

He says he wrote down appearing on a show like this one five years ago, and keeps a journal of desires that "always" come true, though rarely as planned.

![Diagram of the law of reversibility: the usual loop where the thing produces the feeling, and Grant's reversal where you create the feeling first, with three steps: name the goal, ask what it represents, create that feeling daily.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/d7/93/d793216c-cf13-441f-bdae-4f3aef998c0e/content/images/2026/10/fig1-2.png)

The reversal Grant describes: ask what the goal would make you feel, then create that feeling now.

## 5\. Respond, don't react

Reacting, Grant says, is "acting out an old version of you." **Responding comes from the future, more healed you,** so he asks how that version would handle it. A "memento mori" tattoo helps him zoom out.

Accountability is the middle pillar of RAC for a reason: "Either I'm going to be accountable or I'm going to be the victim." He sees the ego as a tool, like a hammer that builds a mansion or a mess.

Confidence, in his view, is the byproduct of **supplying five things yourself instead of outsourcing them:** esteem, acceptance, approval, validation and love.

The same applies to the people around you. Change can't be forced, because "every soul has its time." Instead of nagging his wife, he says, he stopped trying to be the savior and simply embodied the change.

## 6\. Healing the inner child

Grant's book, *The 7 Laws of Healing the Inner Child*, sets out awareness, acceptance, compassion, reparenting, expression, boundaries and integration.

His favorite is **reparenting:** write a letter to a younger you, giving what you didn't get. When an old trigger fires, he names the feeling, takes a slow breath and tells himself he's safe.

## Weighing it: what holds up

**Solid ground:** the strongest parts are the least mystical. Habit research supports small, repeated actions, and the identity framing echoes James Clear's "identity-based habits," though that is more a useful lens than a tested law. Naming a feeling has support in research on affect labeling, and pausing before you react is basic emotion regulation. Expecting to succeed can help through effort and persistence.

**Not a law:** the law of reversibility isn't a law in any scientific sense. Feeling fulfilled may make you more persistent or likable, but there's no evidence it attracts followers or TV bookings. Gabriele Oettingen's research cuts the other way: indulging in positive fantasies of having reached a goal predicted less effort and weaker results than pairing the wish with obstacles, a technique called mental contrasting. Talk of frequencies, a universe that "doesn't understand time" and a nervous system that can't tell future from present goes well beyond the science. Neither does any research back "you're never going to earn more than you believe you're worthy of."

**Anecdote and errors:** his proof is anecdote. A journal of wishes that always come true, but rarely as planned, is open to hindsight bias. And he credits a client for the connection that got him on the show. Some of his word origins are wrong: "manifest" comes from the Latin *manifestus*, not a root meaning "thinker," and "prepare" means to make ready, not "to claim."

**Caveats:** inner-child work is a popular framing rather than an established treatment. He also describes 23 ayahuasca ceremonies as part of his healing. Psychedelics research is early, and these substances carry real medical and legal risks. Finally, the episode promotes his book and his DG Mindset Academy.

## Long Talk Short

- People often change only when staying the same hurts more than changing.
- Build resilience, accountability and consistency through small daily actions.
- Journal from "I feel \_\_\_" and name your emotions; it's the most evidence-friendly tool here.
- Notice scarcity language, and ask what money or a goal really represents for you.
- Respond as your future self instead of reacting as your old one.
- Treat the law of reversibility as a motivational reframe, not a mechanism, and pair it with planning for obstacles.

**The one thing to remember:** ask what a goal would make you feel, then build that feeling into your days now. If it's real, you win either way.

Source: A Really Good Cry with Radhi Devlukia, ["How to Become the Person You Want to Be with Derick Grant"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWdFqC7SysQ&ref=longtalkshort.com). This is an independent summary of that episode and is not affiliated with the show.

*This article is for general information only and is not mental-health, medical, psychological or financial advice. If you are struggling, please talk to a qualified professional.*