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.
Are you tuned into radio station WRRY, playing your "downer mind's" favorite hits? If so, Jeffrey Davis is here to help you shift from worry into wonder. Today we're talking about his new book, Tracking Wonder: Reclaiming a Life of Meaning and Possibility in a World Obsessed with Productivity (Sounds True, November 2021).
Ask yourself instead each morning: What am I devoted to? What am I curious about today?
Casper ter Kuile is helping to build a world of joyful belonging. He is the author of The Power of Ritual and the co-host of the award-winning podcast Harry Potter and the Sacred Text. Casper is a Ministry Innovation Fellow at Harvard Divinity School and the co-founder of startup Sacred Design Lab - a research and design consultancy working to create a culture of belonging and becoming. He also co-authored “How We Gather” and collaborated with Holstee on his new Ritual Life Planner.
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📝 Check out full show notes from this episode with links to resources mentioned
Hi Friends! I’m back with another “staycation” solo episode on what I’ve been up to. It’s a quick take on systems to support seasons of retreat for creativity and rest, my favorite books of the year so far, and a peek into my forthcoming projects.
Key questions:
What are you ready to let go of? How can you say no to “good” to say yes to what’s next?
For your new projects, ask: Who Not How? (Strategic Coach, Impact Filter PDF)
How can you design systems to support cyclical work? (Check out Stefan Sagmeister’s TEDx Talk on 7-year sabbaticals)
📘 Books Mentioned: Pivot, Wintering, Who Not How, Clockwork, The Power of Full Engagement
💸 Enroll in the complimentary Free-up Founder Time mini-course before the price goes up
❤️ Enjoying the show? Pivot Podcast is listener supported—consider donating to become a Pivot Insider and you’ll get access to a private monthly Q&A call with Jenny
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🎧 Make sure you’re subscribed wherever you listen to ‘casts
📝 Check out full show notes from this episode with links to resources mentioned
When discussing fraught, divisive, or high-stakes issues it's so easy to get defensive, triggered, and hurt—sometimes even doing irreparable damage to relationships we hold dear. Communications pro Bob Gower returns to Pivot to help us understand something crucial before we engage in our next argument: is this discourse or a debate?
He outlines the difference between the two in his fantastic piece, Rules of Engagement: 5 Steps to Better Arguments: "In discourse, the goal is to eventually align. Debate is discourse's more flamboyant cousin where people with opposing views intend to remain that way at the end of the conversation.”
In this wandering conversational stroll, we explore what it means to be a “good person,” when "agree to disagree" does and doesn't work, intent versus impact, when not to "poke the bear," releasing the urge to have an opinion on everything (or enter into an argument with every person in the first place), why Bob shut-down several of his social media profiles, and how he boils this all down into his day-to-day practices and intentions.
As longtime listeners know well by now, awkward is the name of the game for subjects as tricky as these! For intrepid listeners, our hope is that by hearing us work through (in real-time) some of these more challenging aspects of tough conversations, it will give you a chance to explore where you stand and what approach you want to take—knowing there isn't always just one "right" answer.
Solo episode on a sanity-saving strategy for #2020 on the perks (and quirks!) of staycationing in the city you live in . . . especially when hotel rates are at record lows :) Pardon the mic noises — it’s a travel mic and therefore part of my #PerfectlyImperfect audio that gets the episode out at all.
Key questions: What makes your soul sing? What is most important to your spirit? Remember, Radical Reimagining means everything is up for grabs.
HotelTonight: Use my code JBLAKE9 to get up to $50 back after your first HotelTonight booking.
Heart-Based Business Owners: Join us in the private Momentum Community
❤️ Enjoying the show? Pivot Podcast is listener supported—consider donating to become a Pivot Insider and you’ll get access to a private monthly Q&A call with Jenny: http://pivotmethod.com/insider
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📝 Check out full show notes from this episode with links to resources mentioned at http://pivotmethod.com/podcast/staycation
Happy summer, friends! I’m taking a short break to pause and design what’s next for the podcast content-wise. Please enjoy this series with Penney Peirce, released M/W/Fri in keeping with my latest experiment.
Penney is consistently named as a listener favorite when I get feedback notes, and after our first interview together we jokingly started naming these follow-up conversations “The Penney & Jenny Show.” Until now, these interviews were spread out over the last four years — now they’ll be bingeable as a consecutive series :)
🗣 Want to help shape what’s next? Take the listener survey if you haven’t already! http://pivotmethod.com/survey »
📝 View full show notes from this episode at http://pivotmethod.com/podcast/penney7 »
***
Original air date: July 15, 2018
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 growing set 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 for easier listening, tune in on our SoundCloud playlist.
Named by Fast Company as one of the 100 most creative people in the world, Ayse Birsel is giving us a special preview of her Deconstruction + Reconstruction process to Design the Life You Love at this crucial inflection point of halfway through the madness that is 2020.
In this Momentum Book Club (a live Pivot podcast taping with my private community for heart-based business owners), Ayse walks us through two key exercises: identifying your superpowers and kryptonite, then mapping what to keep and let go of across four key areas as we enter the second half of the year.
📝 Check out full show notes from this episode with links to resources mentioned at http://pivotmethod.com/244
💌 Get my curated weekly(ish) PivotList newsletter at http://pivotmethod.com/pivotlist
💬 I’d love to hear what’s on your mind! Take the Pivot listener survey at http://pivotmethod.com/survey
🗣 Submit a question or comment for future episodes at http://pivotmethod.com/ask
🎙 Make sure you’re subscribed wherever you listen to ‘casts: https://pod.link/1054817076
🎧 Enjoying the show? Pivot Podcast is listener supported—consider donating to become a Pivot Insider and you’ll get access to a private monthly Q&A call with Jenny: http://pivotmethod.com/insider
Nahko is an artist, a seeker, a storyteller, and a medicine man through soulful music. I love that his music sits at the intersection of deep personal introspection with social justice activism.
Although we didn’t discuss it in this conversation, Nakho was born as a result of human trafficking—his birth mother gave him up for adoption when she was fourteen years old; he was nine months old, then raised in Oregon just 20 minutes away. You can learn more about that in these conversations with Untangled: Take Your Power Back and with Rachel Brathen: Believe In The Good Things Coming.
Nahko and Medicine for the People has provided the soundtrack to everything important in my life these last five years: solo journeying, writing and then launching Pivot, meeting my husband, getting married, and navigating the 2020 coronacoaster.
🎵 Listen to the end for a special acoustic performance
📝 Check out full show notes from this episode with links to resources mentioned at http://pivotmethod.com/242
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💬 I’d love to hear what’s on your mind! Take the Pivot listener survey at http://pivotmethod.com/survey
🗣 Submit a question or comment for future episodes at http://pivotmethod.com/ask
🎧 Enjoying the show? Pivot Podcast is listener supported—consider donating to become a Pivot Insider and you’ll get access to a private monthly Q&A call: http://pivotmethod.com/insider
This is one of my favorite conversations in five years of podcasting — AND I made the silly error of not checking my inputs when switching over to Zoom for this one! 🤦🏻♀️ Forgive me, and I hope you’ll bear with the audio on my side to hear the many priceless gems from CrisMarie Campbell and Susan Clarke, two instant friends who I know you will love as much as I do!
We talk about why conflict is necessary to move past mediocrity, tools for tough conversations, calming ourselves when triggered and tempted to use familiar (unhelpful) coping mechanisms, and why courage = vulnerability + curiosity.
Get full show notes from this episode with links to resources mentioned at http://pivotmethod.com/240 »
🎙Last call to join us! My 3-hour live (He)art of Podcasting Masterclass is tomorrow, June 25 at 10am ET. Register for the live masterclass here »
What do you wish you had that doesn’t exist? Whether it’s a podcast episode, an article, or a physical product — innovation requires pausing the “infinite stream” of passive content we consume in receiver mode, and intentionally pausing to ask the question: how can you create what you need?
Your magnet means something . . . pause and pay attention to it.
This episode ties into topics covered in 142: Creative Economy Lessons from “The Great Race to Rule Streaming TV” and episode 219: Swimming Upstream—A tale of two platforms.
Get my curated weekly(ish) PivotList newsletter at http://pivotmethod.com/pivotlist »
I’d love to hear what’s on your mind! Take the Pivot listener survey at http://pivotmethod.com/survey
Submit a question or comment for future episodes at http://pivotmethod.com/ask
Check out full show notes from this episode with links to resources mentioned at
If social media drains you, yet continues to dangle itself as a “sexy should,” this episode is for you. I share my own process—mindset shifts and business focuses—that allow me to keep moving, even without platform-building or posting on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, or Tik Tok.
From a business perspective, social media is a means to two primary ends: social connections and media (consuming and contributing). I share how I work toward both of those in ways that energize me, even without directing my attention toward the platforms above.
This episode ties in to topics covered in 142: Creative Economy Lessons from “The Great Race to Rule Streaming TV” and episode 219: Swimming Upstream—A tale of two platforms.
Subscribe to my weekly(ish) curated PivotList newsletter at http://pivotmethod.com/pivotlist »
I’d love to hear what’s on your mind! Take the Pivot listener survey at http://pivotmethod.com/survey
Submit a question or comment for future episodes at http://pivotmethod.com/ask
Check out full show notes from this episode with links to resources mentioned at http://pivotmethod.com/228
Dr. MJC is back for part two of our most recent installment in the Pivoting Around a Pandemic series (listen to episode 224 first). In this session we riff on not quite feeling ready to leave our pandemic bubbles, the meta skill of self-education, and conscious luck (Gay Hendricks’ new book).
What’s on your mind? Submit follow-up questions for a future conversation at http://pivotmethod.com/ask
Check out show notes from this episode with links to resources mentioned at http://pivotmethod.com/225
Don’t bench yourself before the game begins. Be willing to be the exception. What problems can you solve during this unique time? What skills can you teach yourself? For any disempowering article or statistic, what if the opposite were true?
Systemic inequality, student debt, lack of social support — these are massively broken systems in America. But that doesn’t mean you need to hang your head in defeat from now until forever.
This episode is a message to 2020 grads (and anyone else who needs to hear it): do not let headlines like the one below hang over your head like dark, depressing rain clouds for the rest of your career, no matter how tough the job market might be right now. Shake it off, and be willing to be the exception (even if statistically speaking, we can’t all be).
Just this week The New York Times published on the front page, Facing Adulthood With an Economic Disaster’s Lasting Scars: “Those entering the job market in a downturn may never catch up in pay, opportunities or confidence.” It continues, “The question is what kind of scars this will leave in the hearts, minds and pockets of younger people.”
See this scar as a good thing: how is it uniquely shaping your heart, mind, and pocket? What lessons are you learning that will serve you for the rest of your career?
If you are a recent grad looking for a portable coach to help you hold your highest vision even while navigating the nuts-and-bolts of adulting during these challenging times, check out my first book Life After College (first launched 2011, revised edition launched 2018). Compliment it with Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One, and you’ll be well-equipped to navigate change now and in the future.
Check out full show notes from this episode with links to resources mentioned at http://pivotmethod.com/221
I’d love to hear what’s on your mind! Take the Pivot listener survey at http://pivotmethod.com/survey
Seth Godin recently described Mitch Joel (in celebration of his 700th episode) as “in the pantheon, one of the greats.” I couldn’t agree more.
Mitch is a well-respected friend and colleague to so many of us in the business, writing, and speaking communities. He sees trends and platforms coming long before they hit mainstream, and his output, ideas, and incisive interviewing style consistently leaves me with inspiration and new information.
He was gracious to have me on his Six Pixels of Separation Podcast when Pivot launched, and the conversation (among dozens and dozens) left such a mark on me that I quoted him in the afterword for the paperback edition of Pivot in 2017 the following year. Here’s an excerpt:
"My guiding principle now is faith in flow, a reminder that helps me trust the natural cycles of tension and release, hustle and flow, grit and grace. I listen for what’s next, but try not to rush the answer.
If the Plant stage involves putting a pin in one’s desired destination a year from now, entering my post-pivot rest mode was like hitting the “current location” button in a maps app—it spun me back and helped me zoom in on where I was right now, not someplace off in the future where I should be.
In the words of my friend and fellow author Mitch Joel, instead of only focusing on what’s next, we’d do well to reflect on the equally important question: what’s now?"
Check out full show notes from this episode with links to resources mentioned at http://pivotmethod.com/214
How can virtuous circles (or cycles) help us think more strategically about the highest impact activities in business and career that create self-perpetuating momentum? That’s the topic of this episode; how we can transform even “time for money” or marketing activities into something more.
I’d love to hear what’s on your mind! Take the Pivot listener survey at http://pivotmethod.com/survey
Help us tip Pivot over the 200 reviews on Amazon milestone! At the time of recording, we are just TWO reviews short!! Visit http://bit.ly/Pivotpaperback
Join us in Momentum at http://pivotmethod.com/momentum
Check out full show notes from this episode with links to resources mentioned at http://pivotmethod.com/212
"If you truly are diversified, that means something is underperforming (in the short-term).”
Today’s Pivot conversation is with wealth manager Kathryn Brown, whose mission is changing families’ traditional relationship with money to foster a healthy relationship between money and life for the families she serves.
What’s on your mind? Submit follow-up questions at http://www.pivotmethod.com/ask
Check out full show notes from this episode with links to resources mentioned at http://www.pivotmethod.com/211
A morning riff at the park, taking a page out of Valerie K. Martin’s podcast book ❤️ Thank you for listening!
I’d love to hear what’s on your mind! Take the Pivot listener survey at http://pivotmethod.com/survey
Check out full show notes from this episode with links to resources mentioned at http://pivotmethod.com/206
Joining the Pivot Podcast today are two of my closest friends in NYC, Alex Jamieson and Bob Gower. I spend Friendsgiving with them almost every year, and Bob is actually featured in the Pilot section of Pivot.
Alex and Bob are one of those couples we all admire—they are warm, loving, respectful, and creative. Today we’re talking about their new book, called Radical Alignment: How to Have Game-Changing Conversations That Will Transform Your Business And Your Life. If you want to help them get a big boost of momentum, please consider pre-ordering today!
What’s on your mind? Submit follow-up questions at http://pivotmethod.com/ask
Check out full show notes from this episode with links to resources mentioned at http://pivotmethod.com/204
(Recorded 4/9/20) Join me and business bestie Dorie Clark as we discuss how we’re reinventing and navigating our way through the unknowns of this crisis on a day-by-day basis.
In our recent LinkedIn Live session we covered a range of topics including: When is it time to pause, and when is it time to double-down? How can we create offerings during this time in a way that is sensitive and respectful, not salesy? What about those who are furloughed and feeling in a state of limbo?
If you haven't already, listen to our previous episodes together on how to Find Your Breakthrough Idea and Build a Following, How to Monetize Your Ideas, and Creating Multiple Streams of Income. Check out Dorie's Recognized Expert Evaluation Toolkit and her Entrepreneur Self-Assessment, which we mention in this episode.
Get full show notes and links from this episode at http://pivotmethod.com/184 »
(Recorded April 8) Mori Taheripour is an award-winning educator and globally-recognized executive with over fifteen years of experience leading initiatives at the intersection of sports, social change, and negotiations in both the public and private sectors.
Today we’re talking about her new book, Bring Yourself: How to Harness the Power of Connection to Negotiate Fearlessly. We cover what it’s like launching amidst a global crisis, how negotiation has accelerated for all of us these days, why anyone can be a good negotiator, and strategies for problem-solving and relationship-building during crazy times like these.
Check out full show notes from this episode with links to resources mentioned at http://pivotmethod.com/182
Enjoying the show? Pivot Podcast is listener supported—consider donating to become a Pivot Insider and you’ll get access to a private monthly Q&A call where you can ask me anything, and discuss the latest books, tools and topics I’ve shared in recent episodes. Our next session is May 13th — I’d love for you to join us!
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