As I round the corner into this ninth year of podcasting, after over 700 episodes today, I’m announcing a pause for both shows.
Listen in to hear what factors helped me reach this decision across time, money, energy, depressing industry articles, the pace of both shows’ growth, and mix of additional business factors that make this an important moment to pause and regroup. You might also appreciate the even deeper dive with my longtime friend (and first coach) Adrian Klaphaak in Pivot episode 360: 📦 Unpacking a Big Business Decision and Dissolving Related Doubts.
“Expectations are the enemy to the creative process. Sometimes you have to let go of the known to see the unknown.”
Today I’m speaking with James McCrae, an author, poet, and meme artist based in Austin, Texas. He is the founder of 🌻 Sunflower Club, a global school and community dedicated to conscious creativity.
Good decision-making is not about omniscience or clairvoyance—it's more about resilience, according to today’s guest, decision engineer Michelle Florendo. “Decision-making is harder than ever before, and it's not your fault,” Michelle says. “People feel like they ‘should just know’ how to decide.”
Today we’re talking about a framework more helpful than pro-con lists, tuning into your head, heart and gut; why the quality of your decision is not equal to the outcome—did good or bad things happen; keeping a decision journal to evaluate the quality of your decisions regardless of the outcome; and how to drop the guilt of “bad” past outcomes.
What happens when you make a big decision but still have lingering doubt, fear, and even despair? How do you know when a “download” from the universe is worth following, and what does test-driving a decision look like? What happens on the other side or when a pivot is taking far longer than planned?
We’re unpacking all these topics in today’s twelfth and final (for now) conversation for the Pivot x Career Pathfinder series with Adrian Klaphaak.
“You can’t give what you don’t have.” That’s just one of the powerful lessons that Nataly Kogan learned the hard way seven years ago, after suffering a debilitating phase of burnout. As a former refugee from the former Soviet Union, she began her American journey in the projects and on welfare, then going on to build an impressive career as a finance and tech executive and serial entrepreneur over the next 25 years. Until she crashed at thirty-eight years old and needed to find a new way of moving forward.
As part of her healing process, Nataly began to paint when she was 40 by signing up for a painting retreat in Tuscony (that turned out to be for semi-professional watercolorists), and now her paintings are on the cover of her books—front and center as part of her bold self-expression.
This week I take you behind-the-scenes into my own pivot process around how I arrived at this decision—unpacking tools like intuition, following hits of curiosity, weighing pros and cons, taking just the one next step, and accepting remaining unknowns. As I shared in Episode 100, I have no idea where this will end up, but I'm putting myself in the path of pivot—immersing myself in a new environment and seeing where it takes me :)
I'm delighted to bring you the seventh (!) episode in a side series of this podcast we affectionately call the Penney & Jenny show :) It's a series of conversations with one of my dear friends and mentors (friendtors), Penney Peirce. We had so much fun during our first interview together that we added a second . . . which became a third . . . and so on, until it was a regular feature on the Pivot Podcast!
This week we're riffing on the intersection of spirituality and small business—how we apply intuition, transparency, non-physical realms, and personal practices toward business-building, attracting clients, and earning a living in a way that feels easeful and joyful. You can check out all of our interviews here (and check for future episodes)—and for easier listening, tune in on our SoundCloud playlist.
I'm so grateful to Brooke Siem for opening up and sharing her story with us this week. Not only is she a woman of many talents (ballerina! chef! Chopped champion! bakery owner! crossfitter! writer!), Brooke has spent the last two years sober. Sober from medications that doctors, the assumed authority figures of her life, had been prescribing for the last fifteen years and an estimated 30,000 pills.
It all stemmed from an attempt quell her initial grief at the sudden death of her father when she was just a teenager. Brooke assumed she was broken, that she couldn't function in society without the drugs. It was only recently that she began to question what life would—or could—be without these medications driving modulating her emotions. Listen in to this week's conversation for how Brooke is navigating her newfound life—re-learning what it means and how to be herself, if not truly figuring it out for the very first time.
Check out full show notes from this episode with links to resources mentioned at PivotMethod.com/podcast/brooke-siem. Enjoying the show? Make my week by donating just $1 an episode at Patreon.com/pivot.
Brooke Siem is a speaker, writer, and chef who spent a eight years in the New York City food and wine industry before an opportunity to travel around the world with Remote Year fell into her lap. Despite a career that included honors such as being named one of Zagat's 30 Under 30, becoming a Food Network "Chopped" champion, and co-founding Prohibition Bakery and authoring the book of the same name, Brooke's "successful" Manhattan life also fueled a lifelong battle with depression. Prescribed antidepressant and anti-anxiety drugs at 15 years old after her father's sudden death of pancreatic cancer, the opportunity for a life abroad sparked the realization that she had been heavily medicated for half of her life. She decided to make a massive change.
First, she booked a one-way ticket to Malaysia.
Then, she got off all the prescription drugs.
Two years and 17 countries later, Brooke's primary focus is on advocating for mental health and wellness without the use of antidepressants and anti-anxiety drugs. Though she believes that these sorts of drugs can have their place on the road to healing, her own experience has taught her that these medications are often poorly monitored by doctors, prescribed without thought of the long term consequences, and prioritize the notion of "existing" versus thriving. Brooke's goal is to show that it is possible to live a joyful, centered life without the use of antidepressants, no matter how far down the rabbit hole we once were.
As of May of 2017, Brooke sold her half of Prohibition Bakery in order to continue working and writing remotely. She is currently working on her second book, a memoir, and is currently based in Vancouver, BC. You can also say hi on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.
Deciding to detox after realizing she had been medicated for over half her life
Pivot points of her inner landscape: being put on antidepressants to manage her grief "on a timeline that worked for everybody else.”
Don’t remember much, "living under the impression I was broken”
In her Legacy Show talk she shared, “When they first put you on the drugs, they don’t tell you that you’ll forget how to feel."
Taking 4-7 medications at any given time, 30,000+ pills over the course of her life
New York Times article: Many People Taking Antidepressants Discover They Cannot Quit (and the ensuing backlash)
Detoxing at 30 years old felt much like going through a second puberty; became extremely sensitive to sounds, crowds, pain, tastes, music, clothing, everything - “I have no idea who this person is”
Jealous of children who could express their feelings and anger out loud
Sleep had always been the antidote
What carried her through the down moments of detox when it could’ve been easier to go back to the meds
Buying a one-way ticket to Malaysia, aha of starting to feel again - raindrops on her skin - little things to hold onto, started painting - felt creative for the first time in her life
Finding a spiritual therapist - working with Edward Mannix; compassion key healing process
Growing up in a very spiritual environment - picking angel cards as a child
“He didn’t try to teach me how to cope, that my brain was broken or the solution was in a pill - he told me he thought it was possible to heal. We have all these experiences in this life and past lives that converge together and influence all of our decisions.”
On clearing past karma, wipe off the lens of our life through self-compassion and feeling some of the things we’re feeling
Silver lining doesn’t always work, on wondering about the why of all this
All the issues of my life that I believed were permanent
Self-compassion process: start with the phrase, “I’m so sorry . . .”
Now approaching the two-year anniversary of getting off her last drug
Living in Vancouver with her boyfriend, move around every four weeks or so; priorities have really shifted, don’t feel the need to look for validation in external things when it’s so much more important to spend time with the people who are important to her
Created a much smaller life - love the idea of a tiny house
On winning Chopped with chocolate, crabs and caviar
Chopped - Season 32, Episode 6
New York Times: Many People Taking Antidepressants Discover They Cannot Quit
Edward Mannix and his book Impossible Compassion: Use The Compassion Key to Un-Create Disease, Save the Environment, Transform Relationships. and Do All Sorts of Other Good Things for Ourselves and Everyone Else
Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life by Marshall B. Rosenberg
References: Tosha Silver on breaking coconuts, rage rooms, Outrageous Openness by Tosha Silver
Related Pivot Podcasts: Penney Interviews Jenny—We Are Souls: On Past Lives, Alignment Practices, Conscious Creation and Non-Icky Marketing and Manifestation and What's more important to you than perfection? With Jenny Blake and Strong Inside Out—Pivoting from OCD and Depression toward Mind-Body Alignment with Amy Clover
Check out other episodes of the Pivot Podcast here. Be sure to subscribe wherever you listen, and if you enjoy the show I would be very grateful for a rating and/or review! Sign-up for my weekly(ish) #PivotList newsletter to receive curated round-ups of what I’m reading, watching, listening to, and new tools I’m geeking out on.
Want to support the show and become a founding member of the Pivot Podcast community? Join us on Patreon here.
It was love at first listen when I first heard Mandy Harvey perform at a fundraiser for Erik Weinenmayer's No Barriers summit coming up here in New York City in October. Erik, a previous guest on the Pivot Podcast (Turning Pain Into Purpose: Blind Adventurer Erik Weihenmayer on Kayaking the Grand Canyon, Climbing Everest and Building No Barriers), said Mandy was a must-meet, and he was right. Her performance was exquisite, and I was mesmerized by her signing while singing and sharing her inspiring story with the audience.
With lifelong dreams of being a musician and music teacher, Mandy was devastated to lose her hearing completely ten years ago during college. You might already know her story if you are one of half a billion (with a B!!) people who have watched her America's Got Talent audition—that's a MUST before you even listen to this episode.
I cried when Simon Cowell asked what motivated her to be there, and she said at “After I lost my hearing I gave up. But I want to do more with my life than just give up.” I assure you, there was not a dry eye in the audience either as they give a standing ovation midway through, including the judges! Even Simon came out of his curmudgeonly shell to say, "I’ve done this a long time and that was one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen and heard.” I hope you enjoy this conversation with Mandy as much as I did—which she did with the help of a live captioner while we were on video Skype.
Contrary to popular belief that trolling for a new job or client is the drag of all drags, a process that should be hurried through as quickly as possible, Dev Ajula believes our careers can be avenues for inquiry. His book, 50 Ways to Get a Job has a hidden curriculum that stretches so far beyond the job-search, and is relevant to everyone, including entrepreneurs. “Our careers and the questions they answer are lifelong pursuits,” Dev says.
I thoroughly enjoyed this conversation and learning more about Dev's incredible long-term passion project: building a non-traditional Sorted Library based on the power of inquiry in DUMBO, New York (the Instagram account alone is a must-peruse!).
Emily Bennington and I have been on parallel pivot paths since we first connected online in 2011. So imagine my surprise when I was searching on Google images for a visual depiction of the word "Grace." I downloaded my favorite and lo and behold, it was pointing to Emily's site with a landing page informing readers about her new direction: teaching others to live and lead with grace, based upon her interpretations of the Course in Miracles as it applies to work and careers.
In this episode we talk about what the Course is, how we can apply spiritual intelligence to our day-to-day interactions, how to create miracles through powerful mental shifts, and Emily's pivot from entrepreneur giving mainstream career advice to an exciting new full-time role as Executive Director for the Circle of Atonement.
Check out full show notes from this episode with links to resources mentioned at PivotMethod.com/podcast/miracles-at-work.
Amy Clover has a powerful story to share about pivoting her mindset from one of self-flagellation and control toward acceptance and flexibility in body, mind and spirit. After battling for years with eating disorders, depression and a failed suicide attempt in a fitness industry that grew increasingly oppressive, she now teaches people how to build strength from the inside out. In her own words:
I know what it’s like to look in the mirror and hate who’s looking back, to feel like you have no control whatsoever over your mind or your life, to feel like you’re so broken that you’re beyond healing. I’ve struggled with clinical depression, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and eating disorders throughout my entire life. In fact, they almost killed me. I hit rock bottom in 2005 when I was hospitalized on suicide watch.
Having my freedom stripped from me in that hospital shocked me back to life: it hit me that I’d given up. I’d never even tried to take action to feel better because I just assumed that nothing would ever work for me. With this realization fresh in my mind, I committed to working on myself from the inside out as soon as I was released. After all, the worst had already happened. I figured I had nothing else to lose.
Amy's recovery, and the mindset and methods she developed that created a true sense of freedom, are what we'll cover in this week's show, along with some of her recent business pivots.
Is pivoting just a way of rebranding failure as NYT writer Jacob Silverman would have us believe? I say no way José. In fact, pivots are often a product of our success. As I shared in the #PivotList newsletter I wrote in response to Silverman's somewhat snarky article, Silicon Valley start-ups do tend to talk about pivoting in response to their initial strategy failing. Or in the case of Ross from Friends, when a couch just won't fit around a tight corner :)
But I believe that pivoting is the new crucial skill we must all foster, a far cry from being just another silly PR performance. If you've hit a pivot point or plateau, it means you have outgrown your current career or business and are ready for something new. We should celebrate that, and all the searching and small experiments that follow!
That's why I'm thrilled to bring you this week's Pivot Podcast conversation with my friend Jason Van Orden, a fascinating guy who was early to the podcasting and internet marketing scene, but who began to feel trapped by that very success, unsure about how to redefine himself from a unique perch atop of his industry. He is chock full of wisdom and systems to help you navigate out from under success that you've outgrown, and I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did!
When exploring a branch of highly evolved animal consciousness that evolved in parallel (and completely separate) from our own, Sy Montgomery is sure of one thing: “If I have a soul, an octopus does too.” If you want even the tiniest dose of confirmation, try to keep your eyes dry while watching this octopus thank its rescuer in a two-minute video that has garnered 11 million views and counting: releasing a stranded octopus. (If you have more time, Amazing Octopus: Most Intelligent Animal on Earth is a must-watch too!)
I am over-the-moon to bring you this week's interview with Sy, who became an instant soul-friend the moment we started talking. I'm in awe of her career as a naturalist writing about and befriending pigs, tigers, dolphins, hyenas, and now octopuses (not octopi as many assume for plural form!) around the world. I love her passion for animals, and the heart with which she shares their beautiful stories and spirits.
Sy has been described by the Boston Globe as "Part Emily Dickinson, part Indiana Jones.” Researching articles, films, and her 26 books for adults and children, she has been chased by an angry silverback gorilla in Rwanda, hunted by a tiger in India, and swum with piranhas, electric eels and pink dolphins in the Amazon. Her work has taken her from the cloud forest of Papua New Guinea (for a book on tree kangaroos) to the Altai Mountains of the Gobi (for another on snow leopards.)
For her recent book (the one that inspired me to reach out), The Soul of an Octopus, a National Book Award finalist, Sy befriended octopuses at the New England aquarium and scuba dived and snorkeled with wild octopuses in Mexico and French Polynesia. We also talk in detail about The Good, Good Pig: The Extraordinary Life of Christopher Hogwood (2006), a memoir about her 14-year relationship with her pig who grew to be 750 pounds, famous within her town of Hancock, and beloved by all who met him.
At the end, we briefly dive into her routines for such prolific writing while traveling, and her practice of reflecting beyond the details of what happened to "what that day showed me."
This week marks a big milestone for the Pivot Podcast, as we celebrate the 100th episode! This has been more than three years in the making, from the show's early, scrappy beginnings in late 2014, when I got the book deal for Pivot, to when I started publishing weekly in earnest in 2015.
Podcasting is a labor of love, but the biggest surprises for me have come from the priceless benefits: connecting more deeply with my author heroes, with all of you who are here listening, and learning every day along the way.
In addition to the countless content nuggets of wisdom I’ve taken away from these 100 interviews—on everything from cyber security to finding one's home frequency (check out the full show archive here)—in this week's episode I'm sharing 10 behind-the-scenes lessons from three years of podcasting. As I’ve always said with blogging, which I did for nearly ten years before switching to this format, what you see (and hear) today is the result of 1,000 tiny iterations over time.
Although many of us aspire to rewarding morning routines (and enjoy geeking out on the best of what others come up with), on some days just getting out of bed is a victory. To this end, one of my favorite quotes from Benjamin Spall and Michael Xander's new book, My Morning Routine: How Successful People Start Every Day Inspired, comes from Ana Marie Cox, a political columnist and culture critic.
Cox says, "When you come up with a morning routine, understand that you’re undertaking it in order to do something good for yourself, not to meet some stranger’s standard of productivity."
With that in mind, I invite you to this week's conversation with Ben where we discuss common themes across morning routines, and how to take some pressure off of trying to meet impossibly high Inner Critic Morning Routine Police expectations. I'm also honored to be featured in My Morning Routine, with a subtitle for my chapter that made me chuckle: "When your evening routine starts at 3:00 in the afternoon." Listen in to find out what I do with all that wind-down time :)
Jason Wang knows a thing or two about being an underdog. Growing up as an only child of two immigrant parents living through poverty and abuse, he knows all too well the challenges of overcoming obstacles to transform generational legacies of poverty, crime, and violence.
I had the great pleasure of meeting him earlier this year at a mentoring night for Defy Ventures, an organization that teaches entrepreneurship to men and women with criminal histories to help "transform their hustle." (Find a volunteer opportunity near you here!) Jason's radiance, joy and contagious positive energy blew me away. And then I heard his powerful comeback story and knew I had to share it with all of you. But first, a little context about what brought me to that mentoring night . . .
In the years since Pivot launched, I have developed a strong desire to work with those who aren’t fortunate enough to pivot by choice, or who are perhaps embarking upon one of the greatest pivot opportunities of their lives: rebuilding after poverty, homelessness, and prison.
Earlier this year, I blazed through Defy founder Catherine Hoke’s book, A Second Chance, with an urgency that I couldn’t explain. Simultaneously, I read books on addiction, ADD, and the mind-body stress-disease connection by Dr. Gabor Mate. Next I sought out further reading on our incredibly broken criminal justice system, and read dozens of stories of people who had been wronged or disadvantaged because of their race and economic circumstances in runaway bestsellers like Just Mercy, The Other Wes Moore, The New Jim Crow, and Hillbilly Elegy. I read about Father Gregory Boyle’s inspiring work to employ and empower former gang members in downtown Los Angeles in Tattoos on the Heart and Barking to the Choir.
Many, if not all, of the people described within the pages experienced unthinkable trauma as children. Drugs and criminal activity were not the problem, they were their attempted solution to the pain of disconnection. Their stories made me cry, and cracked my heart open in a thousand new places. Stories of intense physical, mental, and emotional abuse. One parent’s form of childcare for her son? Putting him in the dryer until she was ready to let him out again. Another’s involved asking her six-year-old to “just kill [himself] already,” for being such a burden, before dropping him off at an orphanage saying she had no clue whose child this was. Or like Jason whose father tried to kill him three times before he was ten years old.
As the authors above illuminate, many of these people never had a true first chance at life, let alone a second. Father Boyle describes as “a compassion that stands in awe at what the poor have to carry rather than in judgment at how they carry it.” It is with this reverence for the resilience of these incredible souls that I bring you Jason's story, and hopefully many more like it moving forward.
Check out full show notes from this episode with links to resources mentioned at PivotMethod.com/podcast/defy-jason-wang. Enjoying the show? Make my week by donating just $1 and episode at Patreon.com/pivot.
Although it wouldn't be like him to take much (if any credit), Fred Kofman changed the trajectory of my life. This week I got the privilege of thanking him, live on the Pivot Podcast.
A little backstory: In 2006, while working at Google on the training team under Sheryl Sandberg’s Online Sales & Operations organization, I was fortunate to participate in a three-day immersion called Conscious Business, based on a book by visionary leader, teacher and thinker Fred Kofman.
Just 23 years old at the time, it opened my eyes to powerful principles like taking full responsibility (player versus victim), making and keeping impeccable commitments, integrity in action, success beyond success, and much more. Two small examples: I stopped saying the phrase, “I’ll try” — replacing it instead with what I will (or will not) do and by when — and I aim for total truth in my speech, over even small white lies, such as saying I’m not feeling well as a reason to back out on plans if that’s not true.
As part of the program, I also had three coaching sessions that led to my biggest contributions at Google, and everything I’m doing now. Because of those sessions, I connected with my mission to help others, completed CTI’s coach training and certification, co-created Google’s global Career Guru program to help launch these meaningful conversations for others, started the Life After College blog that became my first book in 2011, then left to pursue my own business, write Pivot . . . and the rest is history—or at least readily available on previous Pivot Podcasts 😃
And this week, nearly twelve years later, I got to connect with Fred to interview him about his new book, The Meaning Revolution: The Power of Transcendent Leadership, diving into his thoughts around “superconscious capitalism” — how business is enhanced through spirituality, meaning and love — and how he decided to make his own pivots from Axialent to LinkedIn and now Google as a leadership development advisor.
Most importantly, to Fred: thank you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for who you are, all that you stand for, and the many fires you light within others.
I have always been curious about solopreneurs who choose to stay small, like me. Seven years into running my own business, I still deliberately choose not to scale in a way that requires hiring any full-time employees or by too much added infrastructure, to support two of my biggest business values of freedom and agility.
But that doesn't mean that I exclude higher earnings as a necessary byproduct. My business mantras: optimize for revenue and joy, look for ways to earn twice as much in half the time (with ease and with even greater impact), and let it be easy, let it be fun.
So I was delighted to stumble upon Elaine Pofeldt, who is similarly obsessed with researching non-employer businesses with 7-figure earnings. In this week's conversation we dive into what she discovered while writing The Million-Dollar, One-Person Business. Related note: I've captured my best strategies for nearly quadrupling my income while working half the time (with no full-time employees) in my Delegation Ninja course.
Kate Swoboda believes that "courage can absolutely be cultivated,” just as we improve other skills with habit-building principles in mind. The problem is that sometimes we apply the cue-routine-reward to our fears instead. We get triggered, fall into familiar patterns, then gloss over it with a reward that's a pale replacement for what our heart really wants.
What's the alternative? Listen to this week's Pivot Podcast conversation to learn Kate's four-step process for avoiding common fear routine traps—perfectionist, saboteur, martyr, or pessimist—and building your courage muscles instead.
On a sunny, spring day in 2016 doctors told Keith McArthur his kidneys were about to fail. Over the next 12 months they continued to break down, no longer able to filter toxins. Poisons built up in his body and brain. He began to feel sick and tired and confused.
After a life-saving transplant from one of his sisters, and despite being a lifelong skeptic, Keith began "ingesting every self-help resource [he] could get [his] hands on." No longer convinced they were all "written by charlatans and mansplainers," he began a journey to discover how to truly live.
As he writes in his new book, 18 Steps to Own Your Life: Simple Powers for a Healthier, Happier You, “It’s not like I was unhappy before…but something was missing. Like most of us, I never really learned how to be human. No really. So, I made a decision to learn the skills I needed to finally own my life.”
In this conversation, we cover Keith's powerful story and insights about life before and after almost dying from kidney failure, lessons from raising a child with severe mental and physical disabilities, how he listens to his body's signals more after the operation, and what it means to "permit the pivot."
You all know how I love serendipity—well, this week's guest, Stanford professor and philanthropist Kathleen Kelly Janus, and I met in one of my favorite ways! Sitting next to each other on an airplane. Kathleen was traveling to New York City to meet with publishers to try to get a book deal, Pivot was about to come out, and I had known her agent Lisa DiMona for many years (she represented Seth Godin at the time I met him).
I'm thrilled to share that in the two years since we met, Kathleen's book, Social Startup Success: How the Best Nonprofits Launch, Scale Up, and Make a Difference, has launched! In this episode we dive into what makes fundraising for non-profits different from for-profit businesses, why so many hit revenue plateaus, why success is based far more on measurable inputs and small experiments than having a "genius" founder, and how to get involved with causes you care about if you find the vast array of volunteering and donating opportunities a bit intimidating.
What is fear keeping you from doing? Is it worth it? Are you afflicted with an additional form of OCD, Obsessive Comparison Disorder? What are the pivotal plot points of your story, the triumphs and the tragedies? What sacrifices are you willing to make to honor your soul values?
These are the powerful questions that my longtime friend Paul Angone asks and collects in his new book, 101 Questions You Need to Ask in Your Twenties. The book covers four categories that we also dive into on the podcast: adulting to win, careerish, relationshipping and finding your signature sauce. I love Paul's humility and humor, and I can't wait for you to see which of the questions we cover might just change your day, your week, or your life :)
When my friend Elizabeth pivoted from time management author and coach to divine time management, her faith-based practice of "trusting God's loving plans for you," and with the release of her new book in November, I wanted to have her on the show. But I was nervous at the same time.
Is it okay to put faith forward in business? On the podcast? I'm not Christian—would that adversely affect the interview? Would it be divisive in any way for listeners? Our culture prides a separation of church and state, but what about spirituality and business?
In the months since Elizabeth's book launched, I have been sloooowly finding the courage to talk about these topics more prominently on the Pivot Podcast. And believe me, coming from an atheist-turned-agnostic, this was not an easy or obvious choice. But my soul's curiosity and passion for finding deeper meaning in our work says YES. I am grateful to now be exploring people and philosophies of many ranging faiths on this show.
With that, let's dive into this week's awesome episode! I love Elizabeth's advice on loosening the reigns of control, paying attention to inner stirrings, and her vulnerability in sharing how she has surrendered her timing around finding love.
Check out full show notes from this episode with links to resources mentioned at PivotMethod.com/podcast/divine-time.
Elizabeth Grace Saunders is an internationally recognized expert on effective time management and the founder of Real Life E Time Coaching and Speaking (www.RealLifeE.com). Her company partners with individuals on the journey from feeling guilty, overwhelmed and frustrated to feeling peaceful, confident and accomplished. Her first two books are The 3 Secrets to Effective Time Investment: How to Achieve More Success with Less Stress and How to Invest Your Time Like Money. Her newest is Divine Time Management: The Joy of Trusting God’s Loving Plans for You.
How the calling for this book came to her, "part desire and part command"
Her process of writing the book proposal as she developed the practices
Being "patient zero" of needing to relinquish control
Finding the courage to put her faith more forward in business
How to pay attention to inner stirrings
Letting go of forcing your storyline
What to do around "sexy shoulds" and how to handle indecision, saying no
Finding right relationship with self and others
Listen below or on iTunes, SoundCloud, YouTube, Overcast, Stitcher, or Google Play Music:
Elizabeth on the web: RealLifeE and DivineTimeBook
Elizabeth's books: The 3 Secrets to Effective Time Investment: How to Achieve More Success with Less Stress, How to Invest Your Time Like Money, and Divine Time Management: The Joy of Trusting God’s Loving Plans for You.
Article: Brené Brown — Gun Reform: Speaking Truth to Bullshit, Practicing Civility, and Effecting Change
Previous Pivot Podcasts: Martha Beck on Enlightenment and Messages our Bodies Send, Create, Serve, Receive, Be Prosperous: Soulful Business with Jeffrey Shaw, Penney Peirce interview series
Check out other episodes of the Pivot Podcast here. Be sure to subscribe via iTunes, Google Play or SoundCloud, and if you enjoy the show I would be very grateful for a rating and/or review! Sign-up for my weekly(ish) #PivotList newsletter to receive curated round-ups of what I'm reading, watching, listening to, and new tools I'm geeking out on.
Want to support the show and become a founding member of the Pivot Podcast community? Join us on Patreon here.
In Pivot I ask what your sliding doors career/s might be: in a parallel universe, if time, money and judgement from others were not a factor, what other career paths could you see yourself taking?
I often play this game with friends even while going about life in New York, calling out alternate reality careers when I see them. For example, in one scenario I’m a book-color-coding consultant for wealthy people's personal libraries, traveling up and down Manhattan and beautifying their bookshelves.
Another title that always fascinated me: Chief Operations Officer. All those logistics and systems and processes, oh my! So I was thrilled to discover this week’s guest, Lauren Letta, who serves in that very role at charity:water. In this conversation we explore what it means to organize an entire rapidly-growing organization, why role labels are overrated, her best strategies for building scalable systems, and how to be open to pivoting within a company even before you can spot specific opportunities.
This episode also coincides with World Water Day, a United Nations observance day to increase global knowledge about water related issues, that's coming up on Wednesday, March 22! World Water Day is a big moment each year for charity: water as the organization continues to raise awareness about the global water crisis.
