Petra Kolber radiates. When she walks into a room, it lights all the way up with her positivity, passion for life and joie de vivre.
But that doesn't mean she hasn't wrestled with her own dragons, particularly around perfectionism (as have so many of us). Coming from decades in the fitness industry, Petra struggled with the pressure to be perfect—looks, body, business, and beyond.
As a two-time cancer survivor, Petra is passionate about waking people up to the precious gift of time. Her mission is to inspire people to move more and to fear less, so they can stretch their dreams, strengthen their courage muscle, and build an inspired life full of joy and gratitude. In this week's show we explore how to dissolve the pressure to be perfect so that you can do the same.
I'm also thrilled to share that Petra recently launched her own podcast, Perfection Detox (woohoo!!), and I got the honor of being one of her first guests! Check out her episode on The Powerful Pivot Process and this Friday Five snippet on doubling down on your strengths.
More About Petra Kolber
Petra is a happiness guide, inspirational speaker, and movement motivator. She has 25 years of experience presenting around the world, and has led workshops in over 20 countries. She has consulted for many companies including Reebok, Gatorade, California Walnuts, and Health Magazine. Canadian Fitness Professionals named her the 2016 International Presenter of the Year, and she is the guest host for the live online show Daily Burn 365.
Topics We Cover
The mission behind Perfection Detox
Inner and outer ideas of what we should look like
Giving yourself permission to be human
How to live a joyful, prosperous life without having to be perfect
The extent to which perfectionism seems to be helpful - the difference between healthy values around excellence versus debilitating feelings of not-good-enough
Re-defining what perfect means
How to reframe failure: F.A.I.L as First Attempts in Learning
Resources Mentioned
Jenny on Petra's podcast: The Powerful Pivot Process
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.
![[Best Of] Trip Report—Oprah's Vision Tour: Your Life In Focus](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54414faee4b03de3b679d82a/1518802175302-07RF5VNCG9WPVBNRCIB3/Audiogram_NoGuest.jpg)
Aired 3/8/20 — just before the pandemic hit! This is the last major event I attended live . . . replaying now for some thought-starters to help shape our 2021 new year visioning :)
This week’s Pivot Podcast is a field report from seeing one of my heroes live! I attended Oprah’s 2020 Vision Tour: Your Life in Focus in Brooklyn in early February, and I was so curious going into this event that I thought you might like to hear about the experience and key takeaways.
Oprah is inviting a different headliner from each stop on the tour (ours was Michelle Obama), so if you want a peek into other cities and guests, listen to her Super Soul Conversations podcast — she’s had equally wonderful conversations with Jennifer Lopez, Lady Gaga, Kate Hudson, Tracee Ellis Ross, and more.
Check out full show notes from this episode with links to resources mentioned at http://PivotMethod.com/158.
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. Next up: We’ll be kicking-off the new year together on January 13 and I’d love for you to join us!
“Your smile is your shield and your sword.” That’s just one of many wisdom gems from today’s guest and longtime Pivot advocate, Sensei Ando Mierzwa. He’s sharing many of the principles from his free self-defense basics course on turning intuition into action, the importance of projecting (and feeling!) confident, ignoring social niceties when it comes to making “bad guys” uncomfortable, and how to maintain a zen state even in tense situations. I hope you love this conversation as much as I did!
Ando’s Free Course: Self-Defense Basics
❤️ 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
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🎧 Make sure you’re subscribed wherever you listen to ‘casts: https://pod.link/1054817076
📝 Check out full show notes from this episode with links to resources mentioned at http://pivotmethod.com/249
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 »
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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.
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
💌 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
🎧 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
Pivot Insider and creativity expert Kathryn Haydon is back to discuss her emerging studies of Deep Souls, building upon her background in education and creativity. As she describes in her article, 7 Strengths of Deep Souls: The Thinkers We Need But Rarely Understand:
"Is Everyone a Deep Soul? The underlying traits that fuel deep soul strengths are universal characteristics of creative thinking. Research shows that nearly all of us have an intense combination of these strengths in early childhood, but they get dulled over time—especially during our school years. Deep souls, however, have resisted this dulling. They can't help it. The intensity of their ability to think differently cannot and will not be stopped.”
Listen in as we discuss the seven strengths, and how to best support and encourage the deep souls around you in life and work.
View full show notes from this episode at http://pivotmethod.com/194
What’s on your mind? Submit follow-up questions for a future conversation at http://pivotmethod.com/ask
If you ever feel like a sponge for the energy (and moods) of people around you, particularly during times of massive change or crisis; if you feel flooded by emotion, overwhelmed with empathy, more sensitive than usual to sights, sounds, and media; and/or hit with powerful bursts of intuition, this episode is for you.
Sarah Santacroce and I recorded a two-way conversation for Pivot and her podcast, Gentle Business Revolution (be sure to also check out the PDF of her manifesto, Gentle Business Revolution Manifesto).
View full show notes from this episode at http://pivotmethod.com/172 »
What’s on your mind? Submit follow-up questions for a future conversation at http://pivotmethod.com/ask »
This week’s Pivot Podcast is a field report from seeing one of my heroes live! I attended Oprah’s 2020 Vision Tour: Your Life in Focus in Brooklyn in early February, and I was so curious going into this event that I thought you might like to hear about the experience and key takeaways.
Oprah is inviting a different headliner from each stop on the tour (ours was Michelle Obama), so if you want a peek into other cities and guests, listen to her Super Soul Conversations podcast — she’s had equally wonderful conversations with Jennifer Lopez, Lady Gaga, Kate Hudson, Tracee Ellis Ross, and more.
Check out full show notes from this episode with links to resources mentioned at http://PivotMethod.com/158.
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 coming right up on Wednesday, March 11 — I’d love for you to join us!
Originally posted March 2018 — part of a “Best Of” series as I get caught up from a round of travel and puppy-adjusting :)
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.
This week’s episode is another one of my favorite formats, just two new (soul) friends shooting the breeze in what we’ve dubbed a “podcast tango” :) Given that we both have podcasts, we decided to just hit record and do this joint conversation, neither of us officially interviewing the other. I hope you enjoy this conversation jam with insta-BFF Kristoffer “KC” Carter (shout-out to our mutual mensch mentor Jonathan Fields who introduced us!), whose new podcast This Epic Life is one I know you’ll also love. We deepen our budding BFF-ship and discuss the BIG topics of life—including death, dips, permission to shine, business pivots, his yogic and meditation practices, and much more.
Check out full show notes from this episode with links to resources mentioned at PivotMethod.com/152.
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.
“I don’t even care if we talk about the new book,” Neil said as we started our Skype call, while I thumbed through dog-eared, underlined, and marked-up pages of the You Are Awesome galley. Ooh, fun!
Knowing I have a tendency to focus too much on the paper artifact in front of me while interviewing authors, rather than what’s True and present in the moment, I decided to chuck all my potential questions and just shoot the breeze with a longtime blog-friend (February marks our ten year friendiversary!).
Neil was on the Pivot Podcast in the early days (check out 44: Want Nothing, Have Everything: The Happiness Equation with Neil Pasricha), and that episode has been a long-time listener favorite. I think you’re going to love this unfiltered, unplanned conversation every bit as much!
Check out full show notes from this episode with links to resources mentioned at PivotMethod.com/143.