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.

Launch

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259: Introducing Free Time with Jenny Blake!

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259: Introducing Free Time with Jenny Blake!

Hi Friends! As I mentioned in the last solo episode, my team and I have been hard at work creating a brand new podcast that will run in parallel to Pivot! I'm thrilled to welcome you to Free Time — your home for Heart-Based Business.

I'm sharing the inaugural episode here with you on Pivot, but be sure you go subscribe to that one too, if the subject matter interests you! Search for "Free Time with Jenny Blake" or visit http://pod.link/freetime to subscribe in your favorite podcasts app.

In this preview episode, I share what inspired me to start the show, how I’m handling the Imposter Monster sitting right next to me, and what’s next for Jenny Blake Enterprises. A pivot for Pivot, if you will :)

❤️ Enjoying the show? The best way to say thank you is leaving a rating or review. Free Time is listener supported—consider donating to become a podcast Insider and you’ll get access to a private monthly Q&A call:

📘 Books Mentioned: Pivot, Essentialism, Finite and Infinite Games

🔗 Links Mentioned: Gimlet Media’s StartUp, Pivot podcast episodes 228 (how I run my business without social media) and 251 (Imposter Monsters)

💌 Subscribe to the Time Well Spent newsletter: http://itsfreetime.com/join

💸 Enroll in the Mini-Course: Free-up Founder Time

💬 I’d love to hear what’s on your mind! Take the Free Time listener survey

🗣 Submit a voice question or comment for future episodes: http://itsfreetime.com/ask

🎧 Make sure you’re subscribed wherever you listen to ‘casts:

📝 Check out full show notes and links from this episode and share it with a friend! http://itsfreetime.com/episodes/001

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257: Gentle Business Revolution with Sarah Santacroce

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257: Gentle Business Revolution with Sarah Santacroce

I’m thrilled to be back from holiday hiatus (and a deep work creation cave on my new book and podcast - more on that soon!) with an episode from someone who inspires me greatly in heart-based business: Sarah Santacroce.

Sarah’s new book is called The Gentle Marketing Revolution: A Radical Business Approach to Get New Clients with Integrity and Kindness. I was honored to co-write the foreword with Penney Pierce in a fun, delightful, in the moment, flowing way. You'll hear more about that and how to launch with serendipity and ease in this episode! Be sure to also check out Sarah’s Gentle Business Revolution Manifesto, and our most recent conversation on her podcast, Kindness in Business.

❤️ 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

💌 Subscribe to the PivotList newsletter, a curated weekly(ish) round-up of my favorite finds ‘round the web: 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

📝 Check out full show notes from this episode with links to resources mentioned at http://pivotmethod.com/257

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[Best Of] Penney & Jenny 1: Intuition and Frequency (April 2016)

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[Best Of] Penney & Jenny 1: Intuition and Frequency (April 2016)

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 »

***

Original air date: April 10, 2016

Intuition is an innate gift, one available to all of us, and a skill—a muscle that you can build with practice and attention. I am thrilled to bring you today’s podcast, an interview with intuition expert Penney Peirce, whose books have had an enormous impact on my life.

Reading The Intuitive Way kicked off two years of coincidence tracking, intuition studying, and surrendering to serendipity—and completely transformed the way I go about my day-to-day life. I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did, and stay tuned: we’ll be doing a follow-up on dream interpretation in a future episode!

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🦠225: Pandemic Bubbles, Talent Trends, Self-Education, and Luck with Dr. MJC (Part 2)

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🦠225: Pandemic Bubbles, Talent Trends, Self-Education, and Luck with Dr. MJC (Part 2)

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

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🦠224: Riffing on Rogan, Education, and Superskills with Dr. MJC (Part 1)

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🦠224: Riffing on Rogan, Education, and Superskills with Dr. MJC (Part 1)

Dr. MJC is back for the first time since episode 203, when we talked about re-opening three weeks ago. Today we riff on a range of timely topics: Joe Rogan’s exclusive Spotify deal and how it mirrors larger pandemic and content-creation trends, “blue” versus “red” ocean when it comes to competition, and the important meta skill of self-education.

And for curious minds! Our new word of the episode: ar·ma·men·tar·i·um (är′mə-mĕn-târ′ē-əm)

  1. The complete equipment of a physician or medical institution, including books, supplies, and instruments.

  2. The complete range of materials available or used for a task.

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/224

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221: Be Willing to Be the Exception (For 2020 Grads)

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221: Be Willing to Be the Exception (For 2020 Grads)

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

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190: The Commitment to Create with Michael Bungay Stanier (Momentum Book Club)

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190: The Commitment to Create with Michael Bungay Stanier (Momentum Book Club)

How lucky are we? One of my favorite friendtors, Michael Bungay Stanier, is back to share his wisdom on creating while pivoting in this special Pivot Podcast + Momentum Book Club.

We talk about his favorite powerful coaching questions, navigating uncertainty, and his new book, The Advice Trap, as it relates to the pandemic—particularly with advice flying fast and furious everywhere these days!

He was recently on the podcast episode 156 talking about pivoting out of the CEO role of Box of Crayons, the company he founded nearly 20 years ago, and before that he helped kick things off waaay back in episode 26. Today you can find him at MBS.works, and check out his new podcast, We Will Get Through This.

Check out full show notes from this episode with links to resources mentioned at PivotMethod.com/190.

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 call is coming up on May 13!

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164: Fix This Next (And Stop Keeping Up With The Entrepre-Joneses) with Mike Michalowicz

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164: Fix This Next (And Stop Keeping Up With The Entrepre-Joneses) with Mike Michalowicz

I’m elated to bring you another one of my favorite friendtors, Mike Michaelowicz. He’s the author of several books that have dramatically improved my business: Profit First, Clockwork, and now this week we’re talking about his latest upcoming release, Fix This Next: Make the Vital Change that Will Level Up Your Business.

Mike was last on the show in episode 37, Surge: How to Spot and Ride Trend Waves.

This is also our second round of the live Pivot Podcast + Momentum Book Club, so you’ll hear a few Mo’ members ask questions at the end.

Reminder that doors for this round of Momentum enrollment close today! Join us here »

Check out full show notes from this episode with links to resources mentioned at PivotMethod.com/161.

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🦠 160: 11 Ways to Maintain Momentum for Solopreneurs

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🦠 160: 11 Ways to Maintain Momentum for Solopreneurs

“Don’t buy in to the fear / media hype” is something I’ve heard more than once this week. No matter how calm you are staying (or not) there is no doubt our lives are already significantly impacted by the spread and precautions around coronavirus, far beyond fear itself.

I feel an urgency to keep this conversation going, with real-time content that addresses what’s going on around us, particularly at the intersection of mind, body, and business (my website mission in 2013-2014 before I started this podcast).

Acting like nothing is happening and it’s all just “business as usual” strikes me as out of touch, and certainly not Truth While It’s Fresh (a JBE team value). It’s not business as usual for any of us, and I don’t have to tell you that. There are very real impacts we are all navigating daily.

For that reason, I have scrapped or postponed several already-scheduled episodes, and am going to release podcasts more frequently for this series, Pivoting Around a Pandemic.

This is something unique in most of our lives — the shuttering of broadway, sports, schools, businesses, — not to mention travel bans, self-quarantine, and the very real possibility our family members or we could get sick before year’s end. This episode is for solopreneurs, but I’ll be doing a range that speak to entrepreneurs, executives, employees, and parents throughout the series.

In odd, but maybe perfect timing for some of you, Momentum doors are opening this week (3/17 - 3/20) — which partly inspired the theme for today’s episode. I debated postponing the launch (one we’ve planned around since the end of 2019) but with all that’s going on, now is the time small businesses need community, smart systems, and support more than ever to weather this storm.

Listen toward the end of the episode for bonuses just for podcast listeners, and there’s a free workshop coming up on Tuesday March 17 on 10 Scalable Streams of Solopreneur Income to learn more. Register to join us here »

For full show notes from this episode, visit http://pivotmethod.com/160

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156: MBS on Tipping Points and Pivoting Out of CEO (From His Own Company)

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156: MBS on Tipping Points and Pivoting Out of CEO (From His Own Company)

I’m so excited to share this week’s Pivot conversation with one of my longtime friends and most important mentors, Michael Bungay Stanier. We talk about tipping points, preparing for TED Talks, and transitioning out of the CEO role from the company he founded nearly 20 years ago, Box of Crayons. We are also celebrating the launch of his latest brilliant book, The Advice Trap: Be Humble, Stay Curious, and Change the Way You Lead Forever.

To enroll in free upcoming workshops on the Pivot Method as a coaching for managers, mentors, and leaders, visit PivotMethod.com/live. Check out full show notes from this episode with links to resources mentioned at PivotMethod.com/156.

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 call is coming up on March 11!

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152: Glowing in the Dark with Kristoffer 'KC' Carter

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152: Glowing in the Dark with Kristoffer 'KC' Carter

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.

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146: How to Rapid-Prototype a Course

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146: How to Rapid-Prototype a Course

Creating online courses does not require huge investment in time or money. Although they certainly can cost tens of thousands of dollars to produce, with professional video editing and branding, they don't have to. In fact, my favorite way to create and launch a course is with my future students!

This follows agile design principles (check out the agile manifesto here). The goal is developing rapidly, with frequent input from key stakeholders, not building so much behind-the-scenes that what you’re working on becomes out-of-date or out of touch with what your audience and potential future students actually need.

I this episode, I break down all the details on how I love launching and creating courses. You can also read a summary of the steps on this page of the Pivot website.

Check out full show notes from this episode with links to resources mentioned at PivotMethod.com/146.

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 last call of the year is coming right up on Friday, December 6!

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138: How Can You Earn Twice as Much in Half the Time with Joy and Ease? Momentum Doors Open!

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138: How Can You Earn Twice as Much in Half the Time with Joy and Ease? Momentum Doors Open!

If you are a heart-based business owner, and you want to learn how to earn twice as in half the time, with ease and joy while serving the highest good, then I invite you to join us as an official Momentum Member! Visit http://PivotMethod.com/Momentum to learn more about my private community for side-hustlers and solopreneurs, and how we can support you with systems and strategies to build your ideal six- (or seven!) figure business in 2020 and beyond.

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136: Start Finishing—Pricing, Projects, and Momentum Planning with Charlie Gilkey

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136: Start Finishing—Pricing, Projects, and Momentum Planning with Charlie Gilkey

Sometimes the Audio Gods just do not shine upon you, and that’s what happened during this super fun experimental interview with my brilliant friend Charlie Gilkey! My mic is “hot” (aka way too loud), but I hope you’ll forgive me and listen anyway, as Charlie shares SO. MUCH. GOLD!! We even go into “extreme coaching” mode together at the end, as we discuss topics from his new book, Start Finishing: How to Go From Idea to Done.

A bit more backstory: we piloted a book club within Momentum for the first time this month, where MoMo’ers were on the podcast interview live with us on mute, then after my interview we opened it up for Q&A and coaching with Charlie. We cover all kinds of topics ranging from his Five Projects Rule, The Project Pyramid, comparisitis, creative constipation (LOL!), his awesome Momentum planning strategy, and pricing our services as a small business owner.

Speaking of which! If you haven’t yet signed up for my free upcoming 90-minute Masterclass on 10 Scalable Streams of Solopreneur Income on 10/10 at 10am ET, you can enroll at http://pivot.love/10streams.

Check out full show notes from this episode with links to resources mentioned at PivotMethod.com/136.

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—our next one is coming right up! On my birthday, 10/9 Shout-out to my fellow Libras :)

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127: Live from the Vulnerability Hangover! Launching @LifeOfALebaneseArtist with Michael Karsouny

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127: Live from the Vulnerability Hangover! Launching @LifeOfALebaneseArtist with Michael Karsouny

As soon as Michael woke up and gave me the “what have I done?!” look after launching his latest project @LifeOfALebaneseArtist on Instagram just 24 hours prior, I knew we had a juicy creative gem on our hands. I also knew that he was experiencing what so many of us do when we release a put-yourself-out-there post or project—a major vulnerability hangover! All the more reason to talk about it, of course, especially in keeping with my new intention of truth while it’s fresh :)

I love seeing someone so enraptured by an idea that they stay up all night to work on it, and that’s exactly what Michael had done. He zipped through conception to launch of his hilarious (and deep!) meme project in a mere few hours, all with joy and ease—clear signals that he was onto a new soul goal endeavor. He’s now one month in, and continues to wake up excited every day bursting with ideas and ways to develop it further.

We’re excited to take you behind-the-scenes of our household (and conversation tangents - LOL) in this episode, and into the earliest moments of launching a creative project that has humor and truth-telling at its core (with a side of Lebanese culture to boot).

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112: Whose Voice is in Your Head? Perfection Detox Round Two with Petra Kolber

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112: Whose Voice is in Your Head? Perfection Detox Round Two with Petra Kolber

I am beyond lucky to have the brilliant Petra Kolber as one of my best friends in New York City, and just delighted to celebrate her book launch this week!! It's been a long journey, and one that forced her to confront the very message of her book: overcoming the inner critic and imposter syndrome because "the world needs your voice, not your perfect silence."

As I wrote in the show notes for our first Pivot Podcast interview in January 2017, Petra just radiates joy and truly walks her talk. When she enters 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 in looks, body, business, and beyond. 

As a two-time cancer survivor, she 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 follow-up show we explore her book publishing process ups and downs, moving past the mirror, the platinum rule (a favorite new concept!) of self-compassion, and much more. 

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109: Personal Pivot Update—My Big News and the Decision-Making Process Behind It

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109: Personal Pivot Update—My Big News and the Decision-Making Process Behind It

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 :) 

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106: Music Without Sound—How Mandy Harvey Rebuilt a Thriving Singing Career after Losing Her Hearing

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106: Music Without Sound—How Mandy Harvey Rebuilt a Thriving Singing Career after Losing Her Hearing

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. 

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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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98: Defying the Odds: Jason Wang's Pivot from Prison to Helping Others Transform Their Hustle

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98: Defying the Odds: Jason Wang's Pivot from Prison to Helping Others Transform Their Hustle

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.