Pivot Podcast with Jenny Blake 5h4d6e

I love celebrating big milestones here on the pod, so in honor of my 40th birthday tomorrow, I decided to do something a little different for today's solo episode. In lieu of a “40 things I’ve learned in 40 years listicle,” since I am only sure of less as time es, I asked my husband Michael if he could think of four questions for me to answer. He threw in a bonus in the middle that nearly made me spit out my coffee :) 🌟 Michael’s Five Questions In this new world full of daily disasters, how do you find the courage to be vulnerable? Systems play a big role in freeing up your time. What is THE system you implemented that had the most significant positive impact on your life? Do you still love Tim Ferriss more than me? Why or why not? (See also: Michael’s googley-eyed book g interaction at SXSW) What are you most looking forward to in this new decade of your life? Who are the 3 people, dead or alive you’d love to have on your podcasts? 🔗 Resources Mentioned Articles: Oprah.com—What is Your Happiness Formula? (Jenny’s guest post after Pivot launched!) and The Oprah Winfrey Show Finale. Quote mentioned: "I've talked to nearly 30,000 people on this show, and all 30,000 had one thing in common: They all wanted validation. If I could reach through this television and sit on your sofa or sit on a stool in your kitchen right now, I would tell you that every single person you will ever meet shares that common desire. They want to know: 'Do you see me? Do you hear me? Does what I say mean anything to you?’” Newsletter: Tim Ferriss’ Five-Bullet Friday Coffee: Tim’s and I also love my monthly surprise bag via Trade Rolling in D🤦🏻‍♀️h: Fearing the Other Shoe—Part One, Part Two; Getaway Car The Mount in Lenox, MA (Edith Wharton’s Estate) Loom Video: Walkthrough of Jenny’s Idea Collection bucket (Notion) Tools: Readwise, Notion, Done-for-you Free Time Operations Dashboard, Substack 📚 Books Mentioned Building a Second Brain by Tiago Forte The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke Three Novels of New York: The House of Mirth, The Custom of the Country, The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One Life After College 🎧 Related Episodes BFF Bonuses: 098: Moving Through Vulnerability Hangovers The Writing Practice That Changed My Life Free Time: 031: Eleventh-Hour Creative Gremlins 111: Building a Second Brain with Tiago Forte Pivot: 220: Protect Your Flame with Michael Karsouny + Adventure Meditation! 127: Live from the Vulnerability Hangover! Launching @LifeOfALebaneseArtist with Michael Karsouny 342: “Whatever Comes Through Me Comes for Me First,” with Nicole Antoinette 158: Trip Report—Oprah's 2020 Vision Tour ✍️ Connect with me on Substack: http://substack.com/@jennyblake ❤️ Enjoying the show? I'd be grateful for a rating and/or review! Even better? Share this episode with a friend :) 💌 Get my curated twice monthly PivotList newsletter 💻 Check out Pivot courses on LinkedIn Learning: Figuring Out Your Next Move, Holding 1:1 Career Conversations, Managing Introverts, Coaching New Hires, and Coaching New Managers 💬 I’d love to hear what’s on your mind! Take the Pivot listener survey ☎️ Submit a question or comment for future episodes 🎧 Make sure you’re subscribed wherever you listen to ‘casts 📝 Check out full show notes at http://pivotmethod.com/343 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“So many things in my past were painful because I stayed on too long.” How do you know when it’s time to say goodbye to something, no matter how good it may seem or how hard it is to leave? For today’s guest, Nicole Antoinette, staying too long created a pattern of “scorched earth change,” where dramatic moves became the only way out. In this conversation, we discuss where she thinks the creator economy is heading, why she shut down her successful Patreon, and how she makes tough decisions about what to leave behind: whether it’s a romantic relationship, a job, a friendship, alcohol, or one of her biggest income streams. More About Nicole: Nicole Antoinette is a writer, long-distance hiker, and former indoor kid who never imagined she’d wind up spending months of each year pooping in the woods. In 2017, stuck in a loop of codependency and people-pleasing, Nicole set off to find her self-belief and inner resilience by doing something she did not for one second believe she could actually do. The results are two adventure memoirs, How To Be Alone: An 800-mile hike on the Arizona Trail, and What We Owe to Ourselves, and a weekly newsletter on Substack called Wild Letters. 🌟 3 Key Takeaways Think of your creative light on a dimmer switch: Is your work helping you feel alive and vibrant? Notice when the dimmer starts going down. As Nicole says, “I start have a sense that the heat or light is leaving something, I am not as energetically pulled any longer.” Dig deeper to break the burnout cycle: While in a period of creative recovery, consider not just what a more sustainable business model looks like, but a more regenerative one. Just because you can handle something, doesn’t mean it’s what is best for you. “Over and over again, I have been shown that wanting to change is reason enough, wanting to walk away from something is reason enough,” Nicole says. “98 plus percent of the time, it's not that I don't know what I want, it's just that it's easier to say I don't know than it is to say, ‘I know exactly what I want, but I'm afraid that I can't have it, or I don't know how to get it.’” ✅ Try This Next: Break out of the all-or-nothing mindset. Give yourself permission to end things early, with grace—and no other “good” reason than you want to—before you reach “scorched earth” burn-it-all-down mode from staying too long. 🔗 Resources Mentioned Nicole on the web, IG: @nic.antoinette Substack: Wild Letters Adventure writing: Backpacking Books Patreon: Honest Conversation Club Coworking: Get Sh*t Done Club Jenny’s BFF Community 📚 Books Mentioned How To Be Alone: an 800-mile hike on the Arizona Trail Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One Life After College 🎧 Related Episodes Nicole’s podcasts: Real Talk Radio and The Pop-Up Pod Good Life Project: Ann Patchett | On Solitude, Writing & Indie Bookstores Pivot: 327: 🐺The Wolf You Feed — On Addiction, Recovery & Codependency — and What We Get Wrong About All Three with Eric Zimmer 302: Moving Beyond Burnout with Dr. Susan Biali Haas 338: Is Midlife Messing With Your Enoughness? With Mandy Lehto 305: Is What You Are Wanting Actually What’s Best For You? With Luke Burgis Free Time: 141: Process, Permission Slips, and Business Pivots with Tara McMullin 042: How I Run My Business Without Social Media 183: Letting Go of Productivity Guilt with Madeleine Dore 205: Why Paul Millerd Turned Down a $200K Two-Book Traditional Publishing Deal ❤️ Enjoying the show? I'd be grateful for a rating and/or review! Even better? Share this episode with a friend :) 📝 Check out full show notes at http://pivotmethod.com/342 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“I was in the wrong environment, playing the wrong game . . . so I started self-sabotaging.” That’s how today’s guest, Paul Millerd, knew it was time to opt out of conventional thinking about his career, and turn slowly but deliberately in a new direction. In this conversation we talk about how important it is to define enough, develop an immunity to what other people are doing, and his mantra, “coming alive over getting ahead.” Be sure to listen to our Free Time conversation 205: Why Paul Millerd Turned Down a $200K Two-Book Traditional Publishing Deal, and our conversation for Paul’s podcast, Pathless Path on 156: Saying "no" to something good. More About Paul: Paul Millerd is an independent writer, freelancer, coach, and digital creator. He is the author of The Pathless Path: Imagining a New Story for Work and Life, in which he explores the invisible scripts that constrain our lives. He is also the host of The Pathless Path podcast where he talks with the most interesting people on unconventional paths**.** 🌟 3 Key Takeaways Be wary of the achievement narrative: If you don’t define “enough” for yourself, it’s easy to default to more, which makes it impossible to understand when to say no. The trap of prestigious career paths: Instead of thinking about what you want to do with your life, you default to the options, norms, and desires most ired by your peers. Embracing the pathless path requires grappling with the feeling of being a bad egg ✅ Try This Next Paul’s process for new ideas: ship, quit, and learn. What small experiments can you set up that you can quit quickly? How can you take action in the next week, and design it for quitting? 🔗 Resources Mentioned Paul on the web, IG: @pathlesspaul, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube Articles: Paul’s Substack, essays, Ben Hunt’s Epsilon Theory—The Industrially Necessary Egg, Rad Reads—The $645,099 Business Pivot Reflections on Saying No to a Book Deal & Betting on Myself #219, Original Twitter thread, and From Blog to Book: How to Self-Publish on Your Own Swag: StickerMule (Bubble Envelopes) Tools and Templates: Jenny’s Author Toolkit 📚 Books Mentioned The Pathless Path: Imagining a New Story for Work and Life Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One Life After College 🎧 Related Episodes **The Pathless Path with Paul Millerd:** Ben Hunt on Industrially Necessary Paths & How To Live In The Now Free Time’s full Behind-the-Book Playlist (Spotify), 205: Why Paul Millerd Turned Down a $200K Two-Book Traditional Publishing Deal, 173: Cut Your Losses—Even While Pivoting in Public—with Khe Hy Pivot: Rad Reads x Pivot (Spotify playlist) ❤️ Enjoying the show? I'd be grateful for a rating and/or review! Even better? Share with a friend :) 💌 Get my curated weekly(ish) PivotList newsletter ✍️ Connect with me on Substack: http://substack.com/@jennyblake 💻 Check out Jenny’s Pivot courses on LinkedIn Learning: Figuring Out Your Next Move, Holding 1:1 Career Conversations With Your Team, Managing Introverts, Coaching New Hires, and Coaching New Managers 💬 I’d love to hear what’s on your mind! Take the Pivot listener survey ☎️ Submit a question or comment for future episodes 🎧 Make sure you’re subscribed wherever you listen to ‘casts 📝 Check out full show notes at http://pivotmethod.com/341 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We are celebrating a very special milestone today—the Pivot podcast’s eighth birthday! It's a veritable third-grader by now. This podcast first launched in September 2015 as a teeny tiny scrappy side project to supplement the *Pivot* book while I was writing it. I had so much fun interviewing people and hitting record that by the time the book launched in the fall of 2016 one year later, the podcast had almost eclipsed it as the favorite thing that I do on a day-to-day basis. Now, thanks to you, we have over 2 million s and 340 episodes (not including another 230 on the Free Time podcast). There have been many ups and downs along the way, where I wondered if I should stop doing this podcast. Today, I'm sharing eight things that help me stay in the game. 🌟 8 Key Takeaways Ride out the inevitable dips and plateaus: Ask, how can I fall in love with this again? Keep the bar high—strive for jump-out-of-the-chair-with-glee-to-record level of guests and topics. (Re)connect with the even more meaningful metrics: Don’t obsess over numbers or charts. They can be instructive, but they don’t have to be the one-and-only indicator of whether or not to continue. 51/49: My antidote to inexplicable nerves and overthinking: 49% fear and anxiety, 51% take one small step forward. Just tip the scale toward action by two percent. Eyes on your own paper: Don’t get lost in what other people are doing or how fast they are going. Remind yourself what’s in it for you, regardless of what “the competition” is up to. There may even be downstream benefits of having others in the same space. Keep up with new software, don’t worry too much about sunk costs: While you want to avoid chasing shiny software objects, don’t be afraid to jump from one lily pad to the next when it improves your systems and process. Hire help! To truly achieve consistency escape velocity, hire a team so that someone else owns the outcome and you can show up and do what only you can do. Go your own way: Be aware of diminishing returns on shiny shoulds that, if you were to chase them, would stop you from doing the creative thing you enjoy altogether. Keep experimenting—one might say pivoting! There is no there there. The project will evolve alongside you, even when you lose steam for a little bit. You will always find a new way forward. And if you’re so stuck you truly can’t see straight, it’s okay to call it quits too. 🔗 Resources Mentioned Articles: Rolling in D🤦🏻‍♀️h—The Business Yips & 51/49 Tools: Substack app, Kajabi, Notion, Riverside.fm, Descript Loom Walkthrough: Day in the Life of a Podcast Episode 📚 Books Mentioned Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One Life After College 🎧 Related Episodes Pivot: 281: Feeling Impostery? Become a Qualified Curator Instead of an End-All-Be-All Expert, 346: Title with Marc Lesser (coming soon!), Pivot x Career Pathfinder podcast episodes with Adrian (Spotify playlist) Free Time: 181: Be Irreplaceable with My Creative Coach Jay Acunzo, 223: The Confidence Trap: Why You Don’t Need It to Do Big Things (SPARKED Crossover), 180: 📉 Diminishing Returns and the True Costs of Shiny Shoulds, 138: ⛵️Stop Sailing the Sea of Shiny Shoulds, 196: 🍩 What Do Donuts, Coffee, Conversation, and Energy Cliffs Have in Common?, 130: Day in the Life of a Podcast Episode + How I Prepare for Guests ❤️ Enjoying the show? I'd be grateful for a rating and/or review! Even better? Share this episode with a friend :) 💌 Get my curated twice monthly PivotList newsletter ✍️ Connect with me on Substack: http://substack.com/@jennyblake 📝 Check out full show notes at http://pivotmethod.com/340 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“To live a rich, joyful, and connected life . . . achieve less.” That’s the counterintuitive path to MoneyZen that this week’s guest Manisha Thakor shares. For the first half of her life, money represented a scorecard of self-worth and a sense of safety. She says, “For a long time, the equation I operated on was net worth = self worth (which has no end in sight).” Even with abundant salaries from her financial services roles, Manisha fell into The Cult of Never Enough, often displayed in “the peacock feathers of possessions.” Listen to learn more about the powerful shifts she made toward joy-based spending instead. More About Manisha: Manisha Thakor is the author of MoneyZen: The Secret to Finding Your "Enough” and has worked in financial services for over thirty years, helping individuals of all ages to balance financial health and emotional wealth. 🌟 3 Key Takeaways Societal forces are constantly telling us we should earn more, so we can buy more, in order to be more, “the peacock feathers of possessions” Buy few, but buy the best you can afford at that time MoneyZen (calm, confidence, clarity) = Financial Health + Emotional Wealth ✅ Try This Next Try joy-based spending. Take a piece of paper, and every time you spend money, write down the item and the amount. At the end of the week or month, highlight anything you spent money on that didn’t bring you joy, what Manisha calls money leaks. Bonus: Every day, eliminate one thing you no longer need from your life (either clutter around the house or even obligations or meetings you no longer want to keep). 🔗 Resources Mentioned Manisha on the web, IG: @manishathakor, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook Quiz: Are You Trapped in The Cult of Never Enough? Articles: What If You Already Have Enough Money"Enough” by Manisha Thackor Your Money or Your Life by Vicki Robin and Joe Dominguez Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One Life After College 🎧 Related Episodes Pivot: 338: Is Midlife Messing with Your Enoughness? with Mandy Lehto Free Time: 028: When the Financial Tides Recede ❤️ Enjoying the show? I'd be grateful for a rating and/or review! Even better? Share this episode with a friend :) 💌 Get my curated weekly(ish) PivotList newsletter 💻 Check out Jenny’s Pivot courses on LinkedIn Learning: Figuring Out Your Next Move, Holding 1:1 Career Conversations With Your Team, Managing Introverts, Coaching New Hires, and Coaching New Managers 💬 I’d love to hear what’s on your mind! Take the Pivot listener survey ☎️ Submit a question or comment for future episodes 🎧 Make sure you’re subscribed wherever you listen to ‘casts 📝 Check out full show notes at http://pivotmethod.com/339 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“Legacy isn’t something you leave, it’s something you live.” These are just some of the wise words from this week’s guest, Mandy Lehto, who shares strategies for letting go of being a hard-o-holic, nexting, navigating mid-career pivots, and busting all manner of other “not enough” scams. More About Mandy: Mandy Lehto is a speaker, writer and coach with a Doctorate from Cambridge University and in her former career she was a director at a global investment bank. Mandy is the host of Enough, the podcast, a show for recovering perfectionists and overachievers. When Mandy isn't coaching leaders, she's parenting her two musical teenagers with her husband, or walking Herbie, her toy poodle, on Wimbledon Common. 🌟 3 Key Takeaways “Legacy isn’t something you leave, it’s something you live.” What if you embraced more of who you are, quirks and all, rather than trying to please or achieve? Not-enough scams are false beliefs, that once we play through them enough times, becomes automated. Our mind wants to automate as much as it can. Nexting is our compulsion to continue being dazzled by the mirage shimmering on the horizon that the next thing for sure will fill the void inside us. ✅ Try This Next Pick your inner critic that hogs the mic and name it, even something provocative (Mandy’s is Judgy Janet). And also name your inner champion, the wise voice that’s always rooting for you. Give them fun names so you don’t take this all too seriously :) 📚 Books Mentioned From Strength to Strength by Arthur Brooks Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One Life After College 🔗 Resources Mentioned Mandy on the web, Instagram: @mandylehto, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest People: Arthur Brooks Articles: Jennifer Lopez article in Vogue Video: Mark Hyman’s podcast with Robert Waldinger 🎧 Related Episodes Enough, the podcast: 50: Is Middle-Age Messing with your Enoughness?, 36: Busting your not-enough scams, I’m burnt out but I keep pushing Pivot: 319: Who’s Sitting in the Board Room of Your Brain? with Adrian Klaphaak, 329: Five Types of People-Pleasers from The Joy of Saying No with Natalie Lue, 282: The Honor Roll Hangover with Melody Wilding, 056: Perfection Detox with Petra Kolber Free Time: 180: 📉 Diminishing Returns and the True Costs of Shiny Shoulds, 166: Crashing into Quiet Time ❤️ Enjoying the show? I'd be grateful for a rating and/or review! Even better? Share this episode with a friend :) 💌 Get my curated weekly(ish) PivotList newsletter 💬 I’d love to hear what’s on your mind! Take the Pivot listener survey ☎️ Submit a question or comment for future episodes 🎧 Make sure you’re subscribed wherever you listen to ‘casts 📝 Check out full show notes at http://pivotmethod.com/338 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“How did you go bankrupt?" Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.” —Ernest Hemingway That’s the kick-off quote from returning guest Khe Hy’s recent pivot-in-progress big reveal, taking us behind the scenes of his business in a recent post titled, “The $645,099 business pivot.” Khe is the founder of RadReads and former Wall Street managing director. Khe returns to the pod today (as our first three-peat Free Time guest) to share his experience from the belly of the Pivot beast. If you haven’t already, be sure to check out Khe’s earlier Free Time appearances, linked in the Resources section below and in this Spotify playlist: RadReads x Pivot x Free Time. This crossover episode originally aired on the Free Time podcast on March 21, 2023. More About Khe: Khe Hy is the founder and CEO of RadReads, an online education company that helps professionals lead productive, examined, and joyful lives. Khe is creator of the $10K Work productivity method and teaches the popular cohort-based course Supercharge Your Productivity. RadReads provides guides, trainings, and coaching for over 36,000 professionals to help them gain back free time, scale their impact and make their little dent in the universe. 🌟3 Key Takeaways: You’re not alone: Don’t feel bad if you caught a momentum wave during the pandemic that has vanished since. It can feel like you’ve captured success in a bottle, and it will continue just the way you’re experiencing it now, but the same circumstances rarely last. Borrowing other people’s goals can lead to chasing arbitrary success metrics and other people’s work-life balance. Instead, follow the fun! Ultimately, it will be much more sustainable. There’s freedom and surrender in openly sharing your process. Many entrepreneurs are not straightforward about how difficult it can be to maintain and grow a business, and being outwardly transparent helps you be inwardly honest about what you really want to accomplish. 📝Permission: To feel. To cry. To fully experience and talk about what you’re going through. Your humanity in the situation is not at odds with who and how you want to be as a founder and CEO—they are perfectly intertwined. ✅Do (or Delegate) This Next: Get quiet: What is it that you truly want? What part of my business is driven by ego and “borrowing other people’s goals,” and what part is driven by the pure magic of it? For any friction area where you feel stuck or drained, take a page out of Khe’s business playbook and “follow the fun.” What would following the fun tell you to do next?   📘Books Mentioned: Free Time: Lose The Busywork, Love Your Business Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One We Should All Be Millionaires: A Woman’s Guide to Earning More, Building Wealth, and Gaining Economic Power by Rachel Rodgers 🔗Resources Mentioned: Khe on the web, Instagram: @radreadsco, TikTok: @radreadsco, Twitter, LinkedIn Courses: Supercharge Your Productivity, $10K Work Accelerator, Life Operating System, Jenny’s Free Time Business Operations Dashboard Rad Reads: The Magic of Doing $10,000 Per Hour Work 🎧Related Podcast Episodes: Spotify playlist: RadReads x Pivot x Free Time 145: Tips for Training Part-Time Team with Kaneisha Grayson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“You have to live spherically—in many directions. Never lose your childish enthusiasm—and things will come your way.” —Federico Fellini This week’s delightful guest, Madeleine Dore, reminded me of this wonderful quote while reading her book, one that I know you will love as much as I did: I Didn’t Do The Thing Today: Letting Go of Productivity Guilt. We talk about widening the measure and meaning of a day beyond our to-do lists, discovering the call of a new topic, shaping a big idea “blob of clay,” how she collects all the great quotes and stories for her book, why she sees herself as more of a guinea pig than an expert (and freelancer valuing independence even more than business owner), and how she decides when to sunset a project, rather than “maintaining something at all costs.” This crossover episode originally aired on the Free Time podcast on April 25, 2023. More About Madeleine: Madeleine Dore is a writer and interviewer exploring how we can broaden the definition of a day well spent. As a labor of love, Madeleine spent over five years asking creative thinkers how they navigate their days on her popular blog Extraordinary Routines and podcast Routines & Ruts. The lessons culminated in her first book, I Didn’t Do The Thing Today: Letting Go of Productivity Guilt. Madeleine continues to write, speak and ask questions—but mostly tries to hold things lightly. 🌟 3 Key Takeaways We all go through creative phases of being a sponge vs. squeezing it: the former is a time to absorb the world and take in inspiration, even if it might look from the outside like we’re not doing anything. When caught in a deflating comparison spiral: Get up close, use it as a guide, return to what you want to do, and do it! Identify what is most important to you, and change the questions you ask as a result. For example, Madeleine’s decision to favor more time over more money means when considering a new project or direction, asking not “How much will this earn?” but “How much [free] time will this enable?” 📝 Permission: Stop measuring the day by how productive you were. Be curious and expansive when reviewing your day, including your internal accomplishments, moments of connection, or even moments of idleness. Instead of trying to optimize your day only through the lens of productivity, occupy and embrace your day for what it wants to be. ✅ Do (or Delegate) This Next: Identify one area of your business or creative projects that may be languishing. What would happen if you gave yourself permission to close it out completely to create space for what’s next? 🔗 Resources Mentioned Madeleine on the web, Instagram: @madeline_dore, Facebook Substack: On Things Madeleine’s podcast: Routines & Ruts 📚 Books Mentioned Madeleine’s book: I Didn’t Do The Thing Today: Letting Go of Productivity Guilt Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One 🎧 Related Episodes 2 Pages with MBS: How to Be Alive: Madeleine Dore [reads] Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life Free Time: 170: 🌈 “Imagine a World of Abundance” ✨, 169: Running a Goal-Free Business with Stephen Shapiro, 057: You+ vs. You 2.0 with MBS, 036: Shaping Big Ideas — Notion Walkthrough #2 Pivot: 287: Solving Pivot Puzzles with A.J. Jacobs, 305: Is What You Are Wanting Actually What’s Best For You? With Luke Burgis Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

One thing I love about Jay Acunzo is that his body of work is a love letter to craft and quality. We talk about mindset shifts and practices to help you focus more on resonance than reach; how to do work that matters to you so that your work can matter more; how he worked through his own existential creative crisis upon hitting the 200th episode milestone of his podcast; thinking like an explorer, not an expert; and “making the leap from what best practices say you should do to what your intuition is urging you to try.” This crossover episode originally aired on the Free Time podcast on April 18 2023. More About Jay: Jay Acunzo is one of the world’s most sought-after business storytellers and brand consultants. He’s worked in marketing for Google, HubSpot, and ESPN before launching his award-winning podcast, Unthinkable, and authoring multiple books on creativity. Today he helps creators learn to increase the power of their creative work, not just the volume, through his hip platform, the Creator Kitchen. 🌟 3 Key Takeaways Reach vs. Resonance: Reach is how many people see something. Resonance is how much they care. No amount of reach will ensure that people care. As David Bowie’s says, “Don’t play to the gallery.” “Don’t be the best, be their favorite”: Create resonance with the audience relevance pyramid, starting with the base—how relevant you are in topic and theme. Moving up, your content should be enjoyable and entertaining, then impactful, where you are helping people reflect or take action. At the top of the pyramid is personal, where you (and your content) truly becomes irreplaceable. Jay’s Mastery 3 P’s: Posture, Practice and Process. Posture is how you see yourself in the world. Practice is the cadence you are creating and shipping on (aim for consistent and purposeful), then process emerges. 📝 Permission: Focus on resonance before—or even at the expense of—reach. Let go of the idea of adding more people until you have a small group reacting in a big way. ✅ Do (or Delegate) This Next: Define your Even More Meaningful Metrics. For example, Jay’s Unsolicited Response Rate (URR): When he publishes something and someone feels urged to respond in some way without being prompted, or Cackles Per Piece (P): points during the process of creating that cause so much joy he cackles out loud. 🔗 Resources Mentioned Jay on the web, Instagram: @jacunzo, Twitter, LinkedIn, Medium People: Andrew Davis, Hrishikesh Hirway TV Series: Song Exploder on Netflix Video: David Bowie on why you should never play to the gallery, and AJ Jacobs: The Importance of Self-Delusion in the Creative Process Article: The Surprising Thing About Expectations by Seth Godin 📚 Books Mentioned Jay’s Books: Break the Wheel: Question Best Practices, Hone Your Intuition, and Do Your Best Work Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain 🎧 Related Episodes Unthinkable: Fine, I’ll Talk About AI; Song Exploder Exploded, Welcome to the Jumble Podcasts: Mike Birbiglia’s Working it Out, Song Exploder, Radiolab 2 Pages with MBS: Making What Matters Most: Jay Acunzo [reads] ‘Kitchen Confidential’ The Tim Ferriss Show: Managing Procrastination, Predicting the Future, and Finding Happiness with Tim Urban Free Time: 127: Protect Your Idea Factory, Build a Creative Flywheel, and Go Behind-the-Scenes of Book Publishing with Todd Henry, 014: Why It Matters to Celebrate Wins Pivot: 287: Solving Pivot Puzzles with A.J. Jacobs, 254: The Practice—On Generosity, Peculiarity, and Showing Up with Seth Godin Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What’s it like to be at a conference with “fancy” people, when you’re the one feeling like you snuck in a side door as a seat filler? Okay, okay — that’s just my imposter monster talking. In today’s experimental episode, I’m taking you behind-the-scenes of the recent 5-day main TED conference in Vancouver, building on Pivot episode 325: 10+ Conference Networking Strategies with Alisa Cohn. In full-on morning voice with a travel mic, I do a daily check-in about what I was nervous about, spontaneous serendipitous invites, fan-girling my favorite authors and podcasters, falling off the energy cliff, what gave me FOMO and JOMO, and my daily quest for coffee. Always. Find. The. Coffee. This crossover episode originally aired on the Free Time podcast on June 9, 2023. 🌟 3 Key Takeaways Identify when you’re at your conversation-sparking best: time of day and format (1:1, small group, big group; format vs. informal gatherings) Trust that less can be more: Fewer, deeper conversations can be just as powerful, if not even longer lasting than more, shorter ones. Resist the pressure to maximize every single element of being at the event. Put yourself in the path of people: Even when you’re not invited to the fancy formal events, place yourself in a central place — like the hotel lobby or a coffee station — to attract random conversation from other people who are also looking to meet someone new, but may be similarly unsure about how to break the ice of conversation. 📝 Permission: Embrace JOMO, knowing you’ll be at your best if you say no to situations that tend to bring out your worst. ✅ Do (or Delegate) This Next: Send a follow-up note to reconnect with someone you met in the last year. Bonus: schedule a small group reunion event over brunch or dinner (or Zoom). 🔗 Resources Mentioned Apply to attend the TED Conference in Vancouver Travel: Athletic Greens, TripIt Pro, Peloton, Tonal, my favorite Tumi carry-on bag People: Alexandra Franzen, Alisa Cohn, Jon Levy, Cameron Herold, Gina Bianchini, Amy Cuddy, Dan Harris, Scott Belsky, Krista Tippett, Jacob Weisburg Articles: Jon Levy Influencer Dinners 📚 Books Mentioned From Start-up to Grown Up: Grow Your Leadership to Grow Your Business by Alisa Cohn You're Invited: The Art and Science of Connection, Trust, and Belonging by Jon Levy Presence: Bringing Your Boldest Self to Your Biggest Challenges by Amy Cuddy The Messy Middle: Finding Your Way Through the Hardest and Most Crucial Part of Any Bold Venture by Scott Belsky 10% Happier Revised Edition: How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Actually Works--A True Story by Dan Harris Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One Life After College 🎧 Related Episodes The Sensitive CEO Show with Rose Cox: An HSP’s Guide to Podcasting with Jenny Blake Free Time: 043: From Start-Up to Grown-Up (and Coach to Author) with Alisa Cohn 166: Crashing into Quiet Time 🏝️ 126: Creating Time Buffer—7 Strategies for Spacious Scheduling 084: Sprinkling the First 1,000 Serendipity Seeds of a Launch 167: Transform Your Approach to Community-Building with Gina Bianchini Pivot: 325: 10+ Conference Networking Strategies with Alisa Cohn 298: Networking in a New Niche and Becoming Broadway Investors with Dorie Clark and Alisa Cohn 251: Listener Q&A on (Furry) Imposter Monsters 324: Six Golden Shadows of the Imposter Complex with Tanya Geisler 77: 21+ Travel Tips, Tools and Apps — with Jenny Blake 302: Moving Beyond Burnout with Dr. Susan Biali Haas Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today’s guest, New York Times bestselling author Rachel May Stafford, confided to her friend that the fruits of her successful career were starting to sour. She had become stressed, depleted, and was feeling used—all of it contaminating her joy and sense of purpose. Her friend Shannon replied with a wise reminder, the way only our truest friends can: “Rachel, you’re a mapmaker, not a baggage carrier, not a tour operator, and not a travel agent. You are there to guide and accompany people through their own journey; you are not responsible for carrying stuff that does not belong to you.” The relief in releasing roles that were no longer serving her is one of many powerful Soul Shifts that Rachel and I discuss in today’s conversation. Listen in for strategies to drop self-judgement and the masks we wear for others, stepping more fully into authentic joy. More About Rachel: Rachel Macy Stafford is the New York Times bestselling author of Hands Free Mama, Hands Free Life, Only Love Today, and Live Love Now. Her new book, Soul Shift: The Weary Human’s Guide to Getting Unstuck and Reclaiming Your Path to Joy. Rachel is a sought-after speaker and creator of her perennially popular course, Soul Shift Lift. 🌟 3 Key Takeaways Try shifting “I can’t do this” to “I can’t do this today.” Accept where you are: It’s okay to say, “I’m not where I want to be.” Role Reflection: How do you want to show up in the world? Write your “I am not a ______” list. A few examples from Rachel: “I’m a connector, not an influencer,” and “I am an encourager, not an advice giver or problem fixer.” ✅ Try This Next: For a thought that’s causing you stress, especially one where you’re being hard on yourself, try Dr. Lisa Firestone’s exercise, starting with dividing a piece of paper in half. Write negative thoughts down the left side. On the right side, translate the same statement into the second person. On a second piece of paper beside the first, write a realistic and impartial view of yourself, your qualities, and your situation, using your name. “We have a choice each day. We can work against ourselves or for ourselves; we can push through life or ease through life.” 🔗 Resources Mentioned Rachel on the web Social: @handsfreerevolution (IG), Twitter, Facebook Person: Dr. Lisa Firestone 📚 Books Mentioned Soul Shift: The Weary Human's Guide to Getting Unstuck and Reclaiming Your Path to Joy Conquer Your Critical Inner Voice by Dr. Robert Firestone Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One Life After College 🎧 Related Episodes The Tim Ferriss Show: 430: Elizabeth Gilbert’s Amazing Creative Toolkit: Saying No, Trusting Intuition, Seeking Awe, Bathing in Grief, and Index Cards (Full transcript here) Good Life Project: Ann Patchett on Solitude, Writing, and Indie Bookstores Free Time: 178: 📕Book Club — 3 Big Ideas from SAVING TIME by Jenny Odell Pivot: 329: Five Types of People-Pleasers from The Joy of Saying No with Natalie Lue 327: 🐺The Wolf You Feed — On Addiction, Recovery & Codependency — and What We Get Wrong About All Three with Eric Zimmer 320: Sustainable Ambition with Kathy Oneto ❤️ Enjoying the show? I'd be grateful for a rating and/or review! Even better? Share this episode with a friend :) 💌 Get my curated weekly(ish) PivotList newsletter 💬 I’d love to hear what’s on your mind! Take the Pivot listener survey ☎️ Submit a question or comment for future episodes 🎧 Make sure you’re subscribed wherever you listen to ‘casts 📝 Check out full show notes at http://pivotmethod.com/333 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today we’re building on 319: Who’s Sitting in the Board Room of Your Brain? With Adrian Klaphaak . . . and 328: Accessing Your True Self Through IFS, full Pivot x Career Pathfinder podcast episodes (Spotify playlist). If you are looking for a little and guidance on finding your purpose, or best next step, check out Adrian’s Career Pathfinder Program and apply promo code PIVOT for a special offer on his group training. If you’d like to work with him one-on-one, he just opened up a few new spots—book a free consultation here. More about Adrian: Adrian Klaphaak is a coach, purpose guide, entrepreneur, and founder of A Path That Fits Career and Life Coaching. His coaching approach is holistic—a constant balance between getting results and a quest for meaning and fulfillment. He describes himself as “a deep seeker with a constant itch to make things happen.” ✅ Try This Next: Be curious. Imagine your “not good enough” exiled part, and start a dialogue. At what age did it form? Ask: What do you want me to know about you? You can even journal around this, as if you’re writing a play. Ex: “Write from your core self to this part: I see you ____, and I can tell you’re feeling bad about yourself. Can I come hang out for a little bit?” Bonus challenge: 🔗 Resources Mentioned Adrian on the web, Yelp, Facebook, LinkedIn Course: Career Pathfinder, promo code PIVOT Video: Finding Your Calling TV Show: Couples Therapy (New Yorker profile on Orna Guralnik, The Therapist Remaking Our Love Lives on TV) 📚 Books Mentioned Introduction to Internal Family Systems and No Bad Parts by Richard Schwartz Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One Life After College 🎧 Related Episodes Pivot: 319: Who’s Sitting in the Board Room of Your Brain? With Adrian Klaphaak 328: Accessing Your True Self Through IFS Pivot x Career Pathfinder podcast episodes with Adrian (Spotify playlist) Free Time: 031: Eleventh Hour Creative Gremlins ❤️ Enjoying the show? I'd be grateful for a rating and/or review! 🗣️ Even better? Share this episode with a friend :) 💌 Get my curated weekly(ish) PivotList newsletter 💬 I’d love to hear what’s on your mind! Take the Pivot listener survey ☎️ Submit a question or comment for future episodes 🎧 Make sure you’re subscribed wherever you listen to ‘casts 📝 Check out full show notes at http://pivotmethod.com/332 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Research shows that negative interactions take a significant toll on all of us, carrying as much as five times the impact of positive ones. And yet, most people don’t realize how much microstress they’re under. As today’s guest helps reveal, we’re not just affected by the big, obvious stressors, but by the little moments throughout each day rippling beneath the surface. Karen Dillon and her co-author Rob Cross call this an “unrecognized epidemic,” one that’s invisible and relentless—in this conversation you’ll learn strategies for reducing even just a few microstresses in your life that can have a profound impact. More About Karen: Karen Dillon is an author and former editor at Harvard Business Review magazine and the coauthor of three books with Clayton Christensen, including the New York Times bestseller How Will You Measure Your Life? Today we’re talking about her new book, co-authored with Babson College professor Rob Cross, The Microstress Effect: How Little Things Pile Up and Create Big Problems—and What to Do About It. 🌟 3 Key Takeaways Microstress comes at us quickly and in small moments: it doesn't set off the typical fight-or flight vigilance systems that help us survive other, more noticeable forms of stress. Our bodies experience the cumulative impact of the microstress, but the cause of that stress remains invisible to us. Secondhand stress: Our brains are highly sensitive to the emotions we pick up from others in our orbit. We become stressed or anxious because other people are. When our mind is consumed with this form of microstress, we worry, we ruminate, and we absorb the microstress and, in turn, it on. Ten percenters are the one-out-of-ten interviewees (of 300 high-performers studied) who successfully navigate their microstress while maintaining full and satisfying personal and professional lives, especially having moments of connection with others and maintaining vibrant, joyful movement routines. ✅ Try This Next: With dozens of microstresses coming at you daily, how do you know where to begin? Do what the ten percenters do: think small. Take a page out of The Good Life by Robert Waldinger: Reconnect with people you’ve fallen out of touch with by suggesting an 8-minute phone call (not Zoom!) — even setting a timer to ensure it doesn’t go over. 🔗 Resources Mentioned Karen on the web, Twitter, LinkedIn Article: Quartz—There's a kind of stress our brains don't notice—and it's burning us out Video: TED—Do You Have a Strategy for Your Life? 📚 Books Mentioned The Microstress Effect by Karen Dillon and Rob Cross Karen’s books co-authored with Clayton Christensen: How Will You Measure Your Life?, Competing Against Luck, and The Prosperity Paradox The Good Life by Robert Waldinger Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One Life After College 🎧 Related Episodes Pivot: 316: “Don’t Suffer Twice” and 312: Are You Future-Tripping? Free Time: 184:🚂Train Tracks vs. Tightrope🩰 ❤️ Enjoying the show? I'd be grateful for a rating and/or review! Even better? Share this episode with a friend :) 💌 Get my curated weekly(ish) PivotList newsletter 💻 Check out Jenny’s Pivot course on LinkedIn Learning: Figuring Out Your Next Move 💬 I’d love to hear what’s on your mind! Take the Pivot listener survey ☎️ Submit a question or comment for future episodes 🎧 Make sure you’re subscribed wherever you listen to ‘casts 📝 Check out full show notes at http://pivotmethod.com/331 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Raise your hand if you love Reality TV! Now it to that in public. Now choose that as your academic discipline—to study and teach sociology through the voyeuristically fabulous (and often fabulously fringe) lens of reality TV—and you’ve got today’s wonderful guest, associate professor Danielle Lindemann. If you, too, let these shows wash over you at the end of a hard day, binge-watching dating shows with increasingly quirky premises or even hate-watching famous families bicker and then make-up, you’re not alone. “We want to peek into the lives of these interesting people,” Danielle writes. “But it’s their similarity to us that keeps us riveted. We’re voyeurs, but part of what tantalizes us about these freak shows is that the freaks are ourselves.” More About Danielle: Danielle Lindemann is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Lehigh University who studies gender, sexuality, the family, and culture – particularly as they relate to occupations. Her third book, True Story: What Reality TV Says , is the topic of today’s conversation. She’s also the author of Dominatrix: Gender, Eroticism, and Control in the Dungeon, and Commuter Spouses: New Families in a Changing World. Her work has also been published in scholarly journals such as Social Science & Medicine and featured in media outlets such as The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, The Economist, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, U.S. News & World Report, CNN, Jezebel, USA Today, and Rolling Stone. 🌟 3 Reasons We Love Reality TV (Excerpted from True Story) Reality TV is couch-potato fodder, and we shouldn’t apologize for it! “Part of its allure, for many of us, is that we can switch off our brains and let the content rush over us in a relaxing and anesthetic wave.” Voyeurism and vicarious decision-making: “Yet, paradoxically, in some ways, we can more actively consume these shows than we can scripted TV. Their characters, often, are heightened versions of ourselves placed in more intriguing scenarios than we will typically encounter. You’re not just imagining yourself in the shoes of the ‘smart one,’ you’re imagining yourself in the shoes of the smart one sailing over Tuscany in a hot-air balloon as two men vie for your hand in marriage. The experience of watching these shows, like looking in any mirror, is interactive. We see ourselves, and then we groom ourselves accordingly.” Hyper-versions of ourselves seen through a fun-house mirror: “In following the contours of our own caricatures, we come to a greater understanding of the forces that society exerts on us—how we organize our lives around beliefs that stem from and reinforce entrenched social hierarchies. From debutantes to doomsday preppers, and from homemakers to hoarders, these programs cast a searchlight on the center as well as the nooks and crannies of society.” 🔗 Resources Mentioned Danielle on the web, Twitter Articles: NYT—Reality Stars Are Just Like Us, Inside the Pods With ‘Love Is Blind,’ the Reality TV Juggernaut, Modern Love: Marooned on Love Island; New Yorker—How “Love Is Blind” Transcends the Norms of Reality Television, Literary Hub—Reality TV Is Getting Boring Again– And Maybe That’s a Good Thing Shows: RuPaul’s Drag Race, Below Deck, Love Island, Love is Blind, Harry & Meghan, Vanderpump Rules, ROHNY, The Kardashians, IMPACT x Nightline S1 E29: Anatomy of a Scandoval: Our Obsession with Gossip and Scandal (Hulu), Farmer Wants a Wife 📚 Books Mentioned True Story: What Reality TV Says by Danielle Lindemann Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion by Jia Tolentino Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One Life After College 🎧 Related Episodes Podcasts: We Have the Receipts, Decoding Reality, The Ringer Reality TV Podcast, It Was All a Stream Pivot: 142: Creative Economy Lessons from “The Great Race to Rule Streaming TV” and 209: On Seinfeld, Sensitivity, and Trend Spotting Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As “recovering people pleaser” Natalie Lue opens her book, The Joy of Saying No, “Suppressing and repressing my needs, desires, expectations, feelings, and opinions to try to influence and control other people’s feelings and behavior was as natural to me as breathing. I thought it was normal to tell people what they want to hear (read: lie) to make them feel better. I believed I was ticking the boxes of being a Good Person by being kind, generous, hardworking, conscientious, loving, eager to help, attractive, and intelligent, and doing what others needed and wanted.” If you, too, are ticking “Good Person” boxes while making yourself miserable, this episode is for you. Natalie and I discuss the five types of people pleasers, what we continue to struggle with today despite decades of awareness-building, and how to build the skill of saying no. More About Natalie: Natalie Lue used to have very low self-esteem, a litany of problems including bad boundaries, toxic relationships with emotionally unavailable and shady folk, and a crippling immune system disease, but this all changed in the summer of 2005. Now, she is a recovering people pleaser. She’s the author of The Joy of Saying No: A Simple Plan to Stop People Pleasing, Reclaim Boundaries, and Say Yes to the Life You Want and for 8 years hosted The Baggage Reclaim Sessions podcast. Natalie helps people learn how to reclaim themselves from their emotional baggage and increase emotional availability through self-care, making a profound difference in their lives via her substack On Knowing Yourself. 🌟 3 Key Takeaways When “resentment enters the room” that’s a sure sign that you’re caught in people-pleasing. Natalie says, “People pleasing is code for I am (or was) anxious about something. It’s an anxiety-management habit that ironically keeps you locked in a cycle of anxiety because it’s hyper-vigilance.” Natalie’s five types of people-pleasing: Gooding, Efforting, Avoiding, Saving, and Suffering. Saying no, and finding the joy in it, is a skill: You can’t change what you don’t know, and until you know your no, you can’t know your yes. , “Boundaries are not miracle workers.” You may still need to call it at some point with a toxic relationship and let go. love care trust and respect make d ✅ Try This Next: Check in with yourself when you feel pressure to be or do something in a certain way—is this a preference or is this programming? 🔗 Resources Mentioned Natalie on the web, Instagram: @natlue, Twitter, Facebook, Substack: On Knowing Yourself Take the Quiz: Are You a People-Pleaser? Video: Natalie’s TV Show appearance on How To Stop People Pleasing & Start Saying No With Author Natalie Lue! | Lorraine 📚 Books Mentioned The Joy of Saying No: A Simple Plan to Stop People Pleasing, Reclaim Boundaries, and Say Yes to the Life You Want Natalie’s earlier books: Mr Unavailable and the Fallback Girl, The No Rule, The Dreamer and the Fantasy Relationship, and Love, Care, Trust and Respect: Reclaim your relationships from the jaws of pain, fear and guilt Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One Life After College 🎧 Related Episodes Podcast: The Baggage Reclaim Sessions with Natalie Lue Nat on Good Life Project: How to Stop Pleasing Everyone but Yourself | Natalie Lue Pivot: 338: Is Midlife Messing with Your Enough-ness? + Busting Other “Not Enough” Scams with Mandy Lehto 282: The Honor Roll Hangover with Melody Wilding 56: Perfection Detox with Petra Kolber 112: Whose Voice is in Your Head? Perfection Detox Round Two with Petra Kolber Free Time: 54: The Hard No ❌ and 152: Do Less — On Entropic Bloat & Business Haircuts ✂️ 📝 Check out full show notes at http://pivotmethod.com/329 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“There are no bad parts.” That’s a core idea behind Internal Family Systems, a form of psychotherapy that helps guide hidden parts of ourselves to the fore so they can be acknowledged and integrated. Today, recurring co-host Adrian Klaphaak and I are building on episode 319: Who’s Sitting in the Board Room of Your Brain? by talking about how IFS can clear blocks when navigating change, and modeling the process with JB in the hotseat. Are you looking for a little and guidance on finding your purpose, or best next step? Check out Adrian’s Career Pathfinder Program and apply promo code PIVOT for a special offer on his group training. If you’d like to work with him 1:1, he just opened up a few new spots—book a free consultation here. More about Adrian: Adrian Klaphaak is a coach, purpose guide, entrepreneur, and founder of A Path That Fits Career and Life Coaching. His coaching approach is holistic—a constant balance between getting results and a quest for meaning and fulfillment. He describes himself as “a deep seeker with a constant itch to make things happen.” 🌟 3 Key Takeaways IFS is a form of psychotherapy that says we’re all made up of multiple parts that serve to protect us and a core self—who we are beneath those protective mechanisms. Exiles, Managers, and Firefighters: Our exiles are the parts of us that experience anxiety, fear, and trauma (often when we’re very young); managers dictate how we interact with the world to protect us from those fears; firefighters seek to protect us by pushing us toward distraction to numb our pain. Unburdening: A process for helping an active, stuck exile re the core, true self by reminding it that you have new tools now, compared to when you were a child. ✅ Try This Next: There is genius in our parts, and we can apply their gifts in our adult life. Try to identify how at least one of your manager parts and one firefighter might be stepping in to avoid feeling the pain of an exile (most likely formed in early childhood as an adaptive measure). 🔗 Resources Mentioned Adrian on the web, Yelp, Facebook, LinkedIn Course: Career Pathfinder, promo code PIVOT Video: Finding Your Calling Articles: Academy of Ideas—Carl Jung and the Shadow: The Hidden Power of Our Dark Side 📚 Books Mentioned Introduction to Internal Family Systems and No Bad Parts by Richard Schwartz On Our Best Behavior by Elise Loehnen Dark Side of the Light Chasers by Debbie Ford Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One Life After College 🎧 Related Episodes Pulling the Thread: Recovering Every Part of Ourselves (Richard Schwartz, PhD) Pivot: 319: Who’s Sitting in the Board Room of Your Brain? With Adrian Klaphaak, previous Pivot x Career Pathfinder podcast episodes with Adrian (Spotify playlist) Free Time: 031: Eleventh-Hour Creative Gremlins and 064: The Vulnerability of Launching ❤️ Enjoying the show? I'd be grateful for a rating and/or review! Even better? Share this episode with a friend :) 💌 Get my curated weekly(ish) PivotList newsletter 💬 I’d love to hear what’s on your mind! Take the Pivot listener survey ☎️ Submit a question or comment for future episodes 🎧 Make sure you’re subscribed wherever you listen to ‘casts 📝 Check out full show notes at http://pivotmethod.com/328 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

At 24 years old, Eric Zimmer was homeless, addicted to heroin, and facing jail time. In the decades since, he has found a way to recover from addiction and build a life worth living for himself, while coaching others through his programs and award-winning podcast The One You Feed, based on an old parable about two wolves at battle within us (a story I also share in Pivot). We had the great pleasure of recording in person—while meeting for the first time! This was extra special because of how much Eric generously shares about his pivots through addiction and recovery, the deeper needs beneath destructive coping habits, how challenging addiction can be on friends and family, and what the literature often gets wrong about codependency. More About Eric: For the past 20 years, Eric Zimmer has worked as a behavior coach. He’s also a Certified Interfaith Spiritual Director, podcaster, and writer, who is endlessly inspired by the quest for a greater understanding of how our minds work and how to intellectually create the lives we want to live. Since 2014, he has been hosting the award-winning podcast, The One You Feed, based on an old parable about two wolves at battle within us. His story and his work have been featured in the media including TEDx, Mind Body Green, Elephant Journal, the BBC, and Brain Pickings. 🌟 3 Key Takeaways Gabor Maté says addiction is often “a person’s attempted solution to a deeper problem” of connection and love. Giving up behaviors that comfort us, numb us, or artificially connect us is possible if we seek true assurance, acceptance, and real connection—those are the ingredients that lead to human thriving—but only in their true forms. Anxiety and trying to “fix” things takes a lot of energy. If you have a loved one who is stuck in a cycle of addiction, start by shifting your focus from worrying to discovering what you can control, and what actions will allow you to refuel, so you can take care of yourself and others. ✅ Try This Next: Sometimes, in the moment, there isn’t anything to do about it other than be upset, and that’s okay. When you’re in a dark space, recognize it and feel what you’re feeling, while keeping your mind open to change. 🔗 Resources Mentioned Eric on the web, IG: @one_you_feed, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook Eric’s podcast: The One You Feed Articles: Behavior Change Components, Life’s “Dark Hallways”: Where Transformation Happens, Emotional First Aid: Uncertainty, Fear, and Anxiety, Fogg Behavior Model: What Causes Behavior Change? Video: TEDxColumbus: The Battle of Changing Your Behavior 📚 Books Mentioned The Wisdom of Anxiety by Sheryl Paul Self-Comion by Kristin Neff In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, When the Body Says No, and The Myth of Normal by Gabor Maté Future Tense: Why Anxiety Is Good for You (Even Though It Feels Bad) by Tracy Dennis-Tiwary Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One Life After College 🎧 Related Episodes The One You Feed: How to Create a Spiritual Principal Centered Life with Eric Zimmer Free Time: 077: Happy Launch Day! Antonio Neves Guest Hosts (Part 1) and 079 (Part 2) Pivot: 124: Penney & Jenny Show — Embracing Liminal Space (the In-Between) 317: “We are the Refresh Generation” — Shifting Out of Reality Escape Artist Mode with Paul Angone 92: Adulting to Win: Powerful Questions and Pivotal Plot Points with Paul Angone 305: Is What You Are Wanting Actually What’s Best For You? With Luke Burgis 316: “Don’t Suffer Twice” 312: Are you Future-Tripping? 📝 Check out full show notes at http://pivotmethod.com/327 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.” —Anthony Weldon in The Court and Character in King James (1651) Are you an accidental fraudster? An unknowing victim? A righteous whistleblower? The possibilities are closer than you think. Today’s guest, forensic ing professor Dr. Kelly Richmond Pope, is here to remind us that fraud can happen to—and be committed by—any of us. Among companies with over $10 billion in global annual revenues, 52% experienced fraud during the past 24 months. Since the pandemic hit, global online fraud has increased by 46%. Even worse, “We regularly miss the red flags that are swatting us in the face.” Listen in to this conversation to learn why business is a victim hallmark, what makes us susceptible to fraudsters or to committing accidental fraud, and how to get better at spotting red flags. More About Kelly: Dr. Kelly Richmond Pope is a nationally recognized expert in risk, forensic ing, and white-collar crime research, and an award-winning educator, researcher, author, and award-winning documentary filmmaker. She is the Dr. Barry Jay Epstein Endowed Professor of Forensic ing at DePaul University in Chicago, IL. Her TED Talk entitled "How Whistle-blowers Shape History” has been viewed over 1.6 million times, translated into 20 languages, and serves as a resource to help organizations and individuals embrace internal whistleblowing. She is the author of Fool Me Once: Scams, Stories, and Secrets from the Trillion-Dollar Fraud Industry. 🌟 3 Key Takeaways There are three key players in the fraud universe, each with several sub-types: perps (intentional, accidental, righteous), prey (innocent bystanders and organizational targets), and whistleblowers (accidental, noble, vigilante, crossover). “Busyness is a victim hallmark,” especially among clients who are laser-focused on their businesses and not remotely interested in ing. You might cut corners, miss details, review bills as thoroughly. The Fraud Triangle: Opportunity, pressure, rationalization (created by criminologist Donald Cressey in the 1950s). ✅ Try This Next: Sign up for an ing class so you know how to read a financial statement, and can spot red flags more easily. Ignorance is not bliss! 📚 Books Mentioned Fool Me Once: Scams, Stories, and Secrets from the Trillion-Dollar Fraud Industry Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One 🔗 Resources Mentioned Kelly on the web, IG: @kellyrpope, Twitter, LinkedIn Fool Me Once Fraud Experience (Quiz) Documentary: All the Queen's Horses (2018, Amazon Prime) TEDx Talk: How Whistle-blowers Shape History Articles: NYT—The Harvard Job Offer No One at Harvard Ever Heard Of 🎧 Related Episodes 84: Former CIA Agent Michele Assad Returns: On Transforming Insecurities Into Intuition and Faith 71: Finding Faith, Courage and Confidence as a Secret Agent—Michele Rigby Assad's Pivot from CIA to Author 148: Penney & Jenny Show—Pivoting From Toxic Situations Toward Self-Entertainment Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Attending conferences can be overwhelming — even for the most excited extroverts among us—let alone the introverts who challenge their comfort zone in the registration process alone. Today, my friend Alisa and I do an in-person debrief of our recent week-long adventure at the TED global conference in Vancouver (my second time attending, her fifth). We cover conversation openers, the power of a genuine compliment, trying (and sometimes failing) to approach people we ire as a peer, handling the inevitable FOMO and big feelings that arise, when to call it quits (what I call “falling off the cliff”), and so much more. Be sure to also keep an eye out on the Free Time podcast (even better, subscribe!) for Friday’s episode #196, where I share a mini daily audio diary that I kept on each day of the conference, with some additional reflections at the end. More About Alisa: Alisa Cohn has been coaching startup founders to grow into world-class CEOs for nearly 20 years. She is the author of From Start-Up to Grown-Up, and hosts a podcast of the same name. A onetime startup CFO, strategy consultant, and current angel investor and advisor, she has worked with startup companies such as Venmo, Etsy, and more. 🌟 10 Key Takeaways Have a repertoire of different openers to approach people with. Wear a “talk piece” clothing item that invites people to comment on. Approach as a peer vs. fangirling (which might occur anyway!) Sit in a central public place to catch conference ers-by. Message people right after you meet them about something you spoke about. Text a “wish you were here!” selfie to mutual friends as a way to keep in loose touch. Prepare for the emotional ups and downs you’re going to feel when you’re in large groups. Embrace JOMO when you need a break, knowing when you’re at your best. Don’t be afraid to call it early in the evening if/when you’re feeling New Friend Fatigue. Follow up with connections after you return home by scheduling a dinner reunion. ✅ Try This Next: Alisa: Go and meet one new person—strike up a conversation with someone you wouldn’t normally speak to and see what happens. Jenny: Put yourself in the path of people. Is there an event, a book reading, even a bench in the park where you can encounter people you normally wouldn’t? 🔗 Resources Mentioned Alisa on the web, Twitter: @AlisaCohn, LinkedIn: @AlisaCohn Articles: Andrew Wilkinson on Medium (founder of Tiny capital) Video: Lizzo thanking Beyoncé at the Grammy’s 📚 Books Mentioned From Start-Up to Grown-Up by Alisa Cohn The Long Game by Dorie Clark The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin Presence by Amy Cuddy The Courage to be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One Life After College 🎧 Related Episodes Other Shows: The Tim Ferriss Show — Alisa Cohn on Prenups for Startup Founders, How to Reinvent Your Career, the Importance of “Pre-Mortems,” and the Three Selves (#539) Pivot: 298: Networking in a New Niche and Becoming Broadway Investors with Dorie Clark and Alisa Cohn, 285: Cultivating Influence with Jon Levy, 293: 🍝 Are you a Spaghetti-Twirler or a Spaghetti-Thrower? Free Time:192: 📲 5 Creative Ways to Better Organize Your Phone s, 196: What do Donuts, Coffee, Conversation, and Energy Cliffs Have in Common? (Coming soon!), 043: From Start-Up to Grown-Up (and Coach to Author) with Alisa Cohn, 035: The Long Game with Dorie Clark Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As today’s guest—imposter complex expert Tanya Geisler—notes, the global self-development industry is worth $41 billion as of 2021. She says, “That is a lot of money invested in making people feel terrible about themselves…and like they need to be fixed. (Think diet industry but for confidence.)” In this episode, we’re talking about the six ways imposter complex manifests, the ways that trying to eliminate it can paradoxically exacerbate feelings of unworthiness, and even more importantly: the six illuminating values behind imposter-y habits that can help you step into your fullest expression. More About Tanya: Tanya Geisler is a celebrated women's leadership expert, mentor coach, keynote and TEDx Women speaker, writer, and Ready Enough podcast host. After a successful career in advertising, she entered the world of coaching two decades ago and has worked with thousands of changemakers, innovators, and leaders to dislodge that not-good-enough feeling, perfectionism, procrastination, diminishment, people-pleasing, comparison, and leaky boundaries. 🌟 3 Key Takeaways Six ways imposter complex manifests: perfectionism, procrastination, diminishment, people-pleasing, comparison, and leaky boundaries. The more we spend time in the six habits of impostor syndrome, the more like imposters we feel. When we identify and resolve one imposter-related habit, stay curious, as another related manifestation will often rear up in its place. Imposter complex arrives on the precipice of expansion: If you’re feeling it, you may be about to experience something new and meaningful. Think of it as a canary in the coal mine for your personal growth. ✅ Try This Next: Get curious about what is underneath your imposter complex: What beautiful value is it revealing? For guidance with this, take the quiz to discover your Iconic Identity. 🔗 Resources Mentioned Tanya on the web, IG: @tanyageisler, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Pinterest Free course: Five ICONIC Shifts Leaders Use to Overcome Imposter Complex Quiz: What’s your ICONIC identity? Video: Tanya at TEDxIsfieldWomen—Owning Our Authority, The Art of Being Yourself - Caroline McHugh Coach Training: Co-Active Training Institute 📰 Articles Mentioned Tanya: The 12 Lies of the Imposter Complex, What’s the Difference Between Imposter Syndrome and Imposter Complex, The Sin of (Out)Shining, Yes, I Saw the Article in the New Yorker on the Imposter Syndrome re: the February 2023 New Yorker article by Leslie Jamison, Not Fooling Anyone: The dubious rise of imposter syndrome (online title is Why Everyone Feels Like They’re Faking It) Siri Liv Myhrom (referencing Caroline McHugh) To Be Yourself Completely: The Collective Grief of Losing Prince Tim Ferriss on 11 Reasons Not to Become Famous Concept: Tall Poppy Syndrome 📚 Books Mentioned The Big Leap: Conquer Your Hidden Fear and Take Life to the Next Level by Gay Hendricks Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One Life After College 🎧 Related Episodes Tanya’s podcast: Ready Enough Free Time: 039: Permission to Glow with Kristoffer (KC) Carter Pivot: 251: Listener Q&A on (Furry) Imposter Monsters 112: Whose Voice is in Your Head? Perfection Detox Round Two with Petra Kolber 73: What's more important to you than perfection? With Jenny Blake 56: Perfection Detox with Petra Kolber 188: The Pondering Method (for Rebels) with Michael Karsouny 282: The Honor Roll Hangover with Melody Wilding 📝 Check out full show notes at http://pivotmethod.com/324 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices