🦠180: Pivot-in-Progress—12 Reflection Questions

Here in the U.S., a record 10 million people have filed for unemployment in the last two weeks, and employment estimates are at a mind-boggling 13%—which doesn’t even include gig economy workers.

I have friends who are pregnant, slated to get married, and who have family members who are sick that they can’t visit. On a personal level, I am staying buoyant, although in the last few weeks I have lost 90% of my projected income for Q2, including money that I had been planning on putting directly into a six-month business reserves account long before the pandemic hit.

I did end up applying for the Small Business Association’s COVID-19 Economic Injury Disaster Loan (also called the Payroll Protection Plan), despite initial hesitations that there were people who needed it more than me. 

We are all feeling it. I have been trying to journal through this, both in my 5 Star Spiral Notebook (a 15+ year staple) and my new One Line a Day: Five-Year Memory Book.

Along those lines, today I’m sharing some reflection questions that have been helpful for me and others. We’re still early in all this, so I recommend revisiting these even on a monthly basis (as well as episode 173 with Steven Morris on beautiful questions that reorient one’s life trajectory).

I am purposefully not going through my analysis on the podcast yet, because I want to give you the space to reflect on your own without influence from my responses, but I’m happy to share in a future episode. 

❤️ Finally, remember the Buddhist saying: nothing is permanent, personal, or perfect.

What’s on your mind? Submit follow-up questions for a future conversation at http://pivotmethod.com/ask

Check out full show notes from this episode with links to resources mentioned at http://pivotmethod.com/180

Background on the Pivoting Around a Pandemic Podcast Series

Background from our kick-off to this Pivoting Around A Pandemic series: With so much happening daily in the world and global economy around coronavirus, we’re all dealing with massive amounts of uncertainty, pivots at work, and for many—fear and anxiety that comes with not only the health concerns, but questions around how to maintain our livelihoods moving forward.

When Momentum member and pandemic expert Dr. Michael J. Consuelos reached out to offer himself as a resource to the JBE team and the MoMo community, I jumped at the chance to record a conversation for all of you as well, which has now turned into a full-blown series—listen to all episodes and watch replays of my Pivoting Around a Pandemic workshops at PivotMethod.com/pandemic »

Reflection Questions

Personal 

1. What did you do well personally to prepare / be prepared? Financial, health, pantry, emergency supplies, mentally, emotionally

2. What did you miss? 

3. What would you do differently next time, for a pandemic, major economic contraction, or other emergency? 

Professional

Black swan event—unexpected, unpredictable, with extreme consequences— but even still we can reflect:

1. How were you well prepared / well set-up for this, professionally? What are you proud of?

2. What did you miss? What would you do differently next time? 

3. What can you shift right now? 

4. What is this time calling you toward professionally? 

Moving Forward

1. How can you be even kinder / take better care of yourself? 

2. What change or personal evolution are you still resisting?

3. What lesson/s does life continue delivering? 

4. At the end of April, what will make you proud to look back on in terms of how you handle things and take care of yourself this month? 

5. What is your intuition guiding you toward? Just one next step (and trust you’ll always know and be shown the one next step after that). 

Resources Mentioned

Resources Mentioned

• Small Business Association’s COVID-19 Economic Injury Disaster Loan

• New York Times:

  • Unemployment rate probably around 13%

  • A Record 10 Million Sought Jobless Benefits

  • “This Thing Is Going to Come For Us All”

  • NYT real-time case tracker

  • Interactive: How the Virus Got Out

• Submit a question for the Pivot Podcast

• Articles:

  • Dr. Susan Biali’s COVID-19—It’s okay to feel overwhelmed and underproductive

• Pivot Programs: 

  • Pivot Insider: Monthly Q&A with Jenny — 4/8 features Penney Peirce!

  • Upcoming Live Events »

  • Free Pivot Toolkit & Pivot Mastermind Kit

  • Free Mini-Course: Free-up Founder Time

  • Jenny’s Private Momentum Community for heart-based small business owners

• Books:

  • Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One

  • Black Swan by Nassim Taleb

  • Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron

• Journals: 

  • 5 Star Spiral Notebook: 1 Subject, College-Ruled

  • One Line a Day: A Five-Year Memory Book

• Related Pivot Podcasts:

  • 🌺 Penney & Jenny Show »

  • 🦠 Pivoting Around a Pandemic Series »

  • 🦠173: Beautiful Questions for Challenging Times with Steve Morris

  • 🦠172: Self-Care for Empaths and HSPs with Sarah Santacroce

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