Jenny Blake
363: 🌈 Taking a Quiet Sabbatical and ...

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.

Jenny Blake
362: Setting Creative Intentions Instead of ...

“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.

Jenny Blake
361: On Decision Engineering and Evaluating ...

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.

Jenny Blake
360: 📦 Unpacking a Big Business Decision ...

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.

Jenny Blake
359: “You can’t give what you don’t have” — ...

“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.

Behind the Book

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123: Peeking Out from the Plateau — My Latest Pivots (and Why Plateaus Actually Signal Progress!)

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123: Peeking Out from the Plateau — My Latest Pivots (and Why Plateaus Actually Signal Progress!)

I’m baaaaaack! Did you miss me? I sincerely apologize for (unintentionally) ghosting out on you. I hit a (Pivot) point of total overload and overwhelm with some BIG personal updates on school and my love life (you’ll have to listen in to get the full deets!).

All while mid-way through second semester at seminary, buying and moving to a new home in Harlem, and traveling every week for speaking busy season this spring. Spotting burnout potential (I know it a mile away), and after hitting a clear decision fork-in-the-road, I gave myself permission to pause on non-essentials. Unfortunately that included the podcast and #PivotList newsletter!

But what looked like a plateau from the outside (seeing as I haven’t released a new show in six months) sparked a mega-business renaissance on the inside. On Friday, July 5 I celebrate my eighth (!!) year of solopreneurship, and I’m getting ready to take things up to a whole new level of joy, revenue, meaning, momentum, and systems-ninjary.

In fact, I’m re-naming what I do Solo+preneurship — putting the plus into my support structure by expanding to a core team of three (part-timers) + podcast production. This will free my time to do more of what I love, such as getting this show out on a regular basis while still honoring Momentum members, and my consulting and 1:1 clients.

Listen to this week’s show (I’m dusting off the rust, so pardon any awkwardness!) for more on all these updates, and how you can become a super special Podcast Insider to geek out with me behind-the-scenes on the latest books, topics, and tools that come up during the episodes. I’ll also talk about why plateaus — at least ones that look that way from the outside — are a good thing, and should be celebrated as a sign of progress.

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100: Ten Lessons Learned in 3+ Years of Podcasting

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100: Ten Lessons Learned in 3+ Years of Podcasting

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. 

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86: Grab Bag! Upcoming NYC Workshop, BookRx on Interviewing Tips, and the Upside of Awkwardness

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86: Grab Bag! Upcoming NYC Workshop, BookRx on Interviewing Tips, and the Upside of Awkwardness

If you're based in NYC or know someone who is, come to my workshop for reluctant writers on Saturday, February 24! Register at http://caveat.nyc/events and use promo code WRITENOW for $5 off. 

Introducing BookRx! Submit Your Question for the Pivot Podcast

I read anywhere from 5-10 books a month, and probably to a fault, I'm the friend that is always throwing out book recs or "cures" for issues that friends are experiencing. In this week's Grab Bag episode I pilot a brand new feature that I've had in mind for a while, called BookRx. It's a listener-submission format where I suggest non-fiction book "prescriptions" for what ails you or what you're most curious about—and riff on the benefits of awkwardness.

Have a question in need of a BookRx? Email me (Jenny@PivotMethod.com) with a short question or send me a voice memo from your phone—just let me know if you prefer to be anonymous or not :)

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80: What Happens After You Pivot? (New Paperback Afterword)

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80: What Happens After You Pivot? (New Paperback Afterword)

What happens after you pivot? In today’s episode I’m sharing the afterword I wrote for the paperback edition of Pivot, that I recently recorded for the audiobook version. That’s right, Pivot is on Audible, read by yours truly in case you want me to read to you as you cook, commute, clean, etc! 

In this short audiobook snippet episode, I share a little bit about the audiobook recording process, then dive in to two post-pivot stages that you might have missed if you read (or listened) to the first edition of the book: the pilot derby and surfing the void. I also share an approach that helps me better navigate both: Don’t-Know Mind, from the Korean Zen tradition. 

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49: The (He)art of Book Publishing Excerpt: Land a Traditional Publishing Deal — Q&A with My Editor at Portfolio/Penguin Random House

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49: The (He)art of Book Publishing Excerpt: Land a Traditional Publishing Deal — Q&A with My Editor at Portfolio/Penguin Random House

"I'm looking for a fresh idea. A clear thesis and a deep question that you're exploring in your work. Why are you the right person to represent this set of ideas to the world?"

—Natalie Horbachevsky, acquiring editor, Portfolio/Penguin Random House

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45: Post-Launch Pivot Point + Visit From the Furry Rest Monster

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45: Post-Launch Pivot Point + Visit From the Furry Rest Monster

What happens just after you pivot? Can you sit at the edge of uncertainty around what's next—and its ensuing discomfort—and not try to fix it? After two very exciting weeks launching PIVOT, I returned home and immediately got sucked into The Void.

The need for rest was all consuming. I was tired to the bone, and not just physically. It was the vacuum created by the energetic release of three years of hustling on a legacy project. The Void is a natural part of the creative process, and yet surfing it still feels disorienting every time. My mantra for this round: faith in flow. Trusting the natural cycles of building and release, hustle and flow, grit and grace.

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45: Happy Launch Day!! Pivot for the Podcast: James Altucher Interviews Jenny

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45: Happy Launch Day!! Pivot for the Podcast: James Altucher Interviews Jenny

HAPPY LAUNCH WEEK!! 

One of my favorite authors, bloggers and good friends—James Altucher, author of Choose Yourself and the Choose Yourself Guide to Wealth—takes over the Pivot Podcast this week to interview yours truly. I couldn't imagine a better way to celebrate the book launch—be sure to grab your copy wherever books are sold!! 

I also took over James' show today—if you don't already subscribe to his podcasts, get on it! They're my favorites that I listen to: The James Altucher Show and Question of the Day (with Freakonomics co-author Stephen Dubner).

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42: Are You High Net Growth?

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42: Are You High Net Growth?

Some people measure their lives in terms of money, orienting their careers around acquiring wealth and material markers of success. Those who have accumulated financial wealth are considered high net worth individuals. But for the vast majority of people I encounter, money is not the number one driver of purpose and fulfillment. It is only a partial means to that end.

High net growth individuals love learning, taking action, tackling new projects, and solving problems. They are generous and cooperative, and have a strong desire to make a difference.

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24: Behind the Business: How Long Does it Take to Write a Book?

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The relief started to sink in slowly, over several days, when I realized that for three years this project had taken up residence in a very large portion of my brain. Only when it was out of my consciousness did I realize how all-consuming it had been, churning in my sleep, my waking hours, my walks, and my showers.

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15: Special, Not Special: How to Work Your Way Out of a Dip

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I rode the high of hitting my 50,000-words-in-a-month NaNoBlogMo goal for exactly one day last week.

For one day I was over the moon! I did it! I wrote almost every morning for one month, and came out with 50,000 words by the end of November. It was like running a mental marathon! Combined with my October practice of trying to write for 30 minutes each day, I had amassed 100,000 words of a book draft. For those who aren’t word nerds, that’s about 350 pages double-spaced. Definitely cause for celebration!

And then, as predictable as ever, the crash came. THE DIP.

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10: Behind the Book: Organizing, Writing and Gremlin-Taming

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“Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life, and it is the main obstacle between you and a shitty first draft. I think perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping-stone just right, you won’t have to die. The truth is that you will die anyway and that a lot of people who aren’t even looking at their feet are going to do a whole lot better than you, and have a lot more fun while they’re doing it.”

―Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

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9: Big News . . . We Have a Book Deal!! Behind the Proposal Process

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Yes, we—there is no way this would be possible without you here reading, and for that I am grateful beyond words.

The Pivot Method will be published in hardcover by Portfolio/Penguin in early 2016, one of the top business and career imprints, and I could not be more thrilled! Their vision for the book blew me away, and I feel very lucky to be in such great hands over this next leg of the JB journey.