As I round the corner into this ninth year of podcasting and 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.

While I will be sad not to bring fresh episodes to your earbuds every week, I truly want to say thank you so much for being here. This only represents a small fraction of listeners, but I was genuinely touched receiving the Spotify Wrapped for Podcasters stats at the end of 2023, after I knew I would be pausing once all the episodes “in the can” went live.

• Among Pivot listeners: for 681 this show is in your top ten on Spotify, for 373 it’s in your top five, and for 65 of you, this is your number one show (again, at least in Spotify’s podcast player)!
• Among Free Time listeners: for 423 of you this show is in your top ten on Spotify, for 247 it’s in the top five, and for 57 it is your number one show in Spotify—the highest honor!! I was shocked to see even one, truly, with so much other incredible audio content out there.

There’s one thing I know for sure: I will miss you during this break 🥹

🌟 ;TLDR/L (Too Long Didn’t Listen) Top Takeaways:

• In addition to pausing my private community, I am pausing both podcasts for a bit (duration TBD) so I can clear financial and energetic space to listen to what my broader business wants to become.
• 🎧 Stay subscribed to both shows: Pivot with Jenny Blake and Free Time with Jenny Blake so that you still get episodes when I release them, even if a bit more sporadically (for now); I may switch to seasons if/when I resume
• 📧 Subscribe to any/all of my three Substacks if you’re not already: I hope to experiment with live tapings with interesting friends and guests, ones that are for paying subscribers where we can go into even more nitty gritty detail behind-the-scenes.

📝 Permission

Pause and regroup on any of your creative projects so you can create space to hear what’s next.

🔗 Resources Mentioned

• Rolling in D🤦🏻‍♀️h: 🏆 Time to Put the Trophies Away
• Do What You Love and the Money Will Follow . . . IF
• Rebuilding from Rubble
• 👟 A Strange and Wonderful Morning: Walking Photo Essay
• Dear 2024: A Letter and From 2024: A Reply
• What Works: Making the Content Math Work
• Edison Research: Podcasting’s Big Hits and Long Tail
• Adam Davidson: The Rise and Fall of Podcasting
• The Daily Beast: Malcolm Gladwell’s Media Empire is Being Torn Apart
• Podcast Production: One Stone Creative
• ListenNotes: Pivot, Free Time

📚 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

• SPARKED: Jenny in Conversation with Jonathan Fields (Spotify Playlist)
• BFF Bonus: Upcoming Quiet Sabbatical + Important Membership Updates
• Pivot: 329: Five Types of People-Pleasers from The Joy of Saying No with Natalie Lue
• 342: “Whatever Comes Through Me Comes For Me First,” With Nicole Antoinette
• 360: 📦 Unpacking a Big Business Decision and Dissolving Related Doubts with Adrian Klaphaak
• Free Time: 042: How I Run My Business Without Social Media (Pivot Replay)
• 203: 🎢 Riding the Emotional Rollercoaster of Launching with Natalie Lue
• 250: Do what you love and the money will follow . . . IF you meet at least 3 of these 20 criteria
• 🦧 What to Do When You Lose Your Biggest Client, Part One and Part Two

📝 Check out full show notes at http://pivotmethod.com/363

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“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.

As a creative strategist, he has worked with top brands and startups. James is the author of Sh#t Your Ego Says and How to Laugh in Ironic Amusement During Your Existential Crisis, and today we’re talking about his new book, The Art of You: The Essential Guidebook for Reclaiming Your Creativity.

🌟 3 Key Takeaways

• Life falling apart is an opportunity to surrender: we all have ideas of where we want to go and where we want to be, but sometimes our higher self has other plans that are better than the ones we can see.
• Set intentions, not expectations: It’s about orienting your consciousness in a certain direction. It’s about knowing your purpose and how you want to show up so that you aren’t just reacting to the external world. Expectations are the enemy to the creative process.
• Look for your golden thread of teachers: Each of your teachers was taught by another teacher that goes back through time.

✅ Try This Next: Find Your Creative Lineage

Excerpted from The Art of You:

1. Think back to the people who were influential on your creative journey. They could be a novelist, a musician, a poet, an artist, a spiritual guide, a teacher, or even a friend.
2. Consider different types of guides. Who first inspired you to be creative? Who taught you the most about style and technique? Who helped to expand your cultural and artistic horizons? Who continues to push you to be better? Make a list of five to ten creative guides.
3. Is there a common thread, either stylistically or philosophically, that ties them together?
4. Now revisit their work with fresh eyes. Read their books. Listen to their music. Search YouTube and watch any talks or interviews available. See what you notice. What do you like? What don't you like?
5. Write down what you learned from each guide in a few sentences each.

🔗 Resources Mentioned

• James on the web, IG, Twitter, LinkedIn
• Website: Know Your Meme
• Video: Interview with Danny Miranda—Creatives are Explorers

📚 Books Mentioned

• The Art of You: The Essential Guidebook for Reclaiming Your Creativity by James McCrae
• Sh#t Your Ego Says
• How to Laugh in Ironic Amusement During Your Existential Crisis
• The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins
• The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin
• Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business
• Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One
• Life After College

🎧 Related Episodes

• James’ show: 🌻 Sunflower Club
• Spotify Playlists: Pivot x Career Pathfinder podcast episodes with Adrian Klaphaak
• SPARKED with Jonathan Fields x Jenny Blake
• Pivot: 85: Musician Trevor Hall on Karma, Healing, Soul Maps From the Stars + Fruitful Darkness Song Premiere
• 342: “Whatever Comes Through Me Comes for Me First,” with Nicole Antoinette
• Free Time: 223: The Confidence Trap: Why You Don’t Need It to Do Big Things
• 198: Book Club ✨ OUTRAGEOUS OPENNESS: Letting the Divine Take the Lead
• 003: Liberate Your Life Force with Christine Arylo

❤️ Enjoying the show? I'd be grateful for a rating and/or review!

💌 Get my curated twice monthly PivotList newsletter

✍️ Connect with me on Substack: http://substack.com/@jennyblake

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

📝 Check out full show notes at http://pivotmethod.com/362

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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.”

More About Michelle: Michelle Florendo is a decision engineer and executive coach who is passionate about teaching people how to make decisions with less stress and more clarity, from the small, consistent microdecisions over time that governs how you show up as a leader to the big macrodecisions you make about what direction to take next in business or life. Over the past decade, she has shown hundreds of driven professionals how to use the principles of decision science to grow their impact and fulfillment. She served on the inaugural coaching team for Seth Godin's altMBA, was a founding member of the Forbes Coaches Council, and helps train new coaches as a Faculty Coach at Berkeley Executive Coaching Institute. Michelle helped redesign the decision-making module in Stanford's famous Designing Your Life course and has taught courses on decision making for Stanford Continuing Studies, and hosts the podcast Ask a Decision Engineer.

🌟 4 Key Takeaways

• Saying no to something “good” — What makes it good? How is it delivering the things you want? It might look good on paper to your peers or family or to society, but does it still work for you?
• Every decision has three components: objectives (what is it you care about?), options (what are you choosing among), and information (about how those options might play out).
• Intuition is the sum of our internal wisdom: It’s not separate; rather, it’s a quick synthesis of our inputs and rational processes. If you can’t explain a decision, remind yourself that “I just haven’t built the bridge . . . yet.”

✅ Try This Next

Tune into multiple sources of data: head+heart+body. Pro-con lists tend to mostly activate rational thinking. As an alternative, try an attractive-concerning table. Draw a 2x2 with a column for each option. What is attractive about each option? What is concerning? Look for themes that bubble up.

🔗 Resources Mentioned

• Michelle on the web, IG, Twitter, LinkedIn
• Articles: Stanford Decision Engineer Shares 5 Mistakes People Make When Facing Hard Choices, DEAR SUGAR: The Ghost Ship That Didn’t Carry Us
• 15 Ways To Help Coaching Clients View Themselves Objectively
• Video: How to make a decision
• People: Stanford Professor Ronald Howard
• Stanford’s Life Design Lab
• Template: Michelle’s Decision Inventory Exercise

📚 Books Mentioned

• Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans
• Thinking in Bets by Annie Duke
• Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business
• Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One
• Life After College

🎧 Related Episodes

• Michelle’s Ask a Decision Engineer
• My First Million: The Decision Register, Newsletter Woes and An Audience of One
• Pivot: 322: Tips for Making Tough Decisions — Solo Spotlight with Sarah Young
• 360: 📦 Unpacking a Big Business Decision and Dissolving Related Doubts with Adrian Klaphaak
• Free Time: 154: The Hard No ❌
• 138: ⛵️ Stop Sailing the Sea of Shiny Shoulds

📝 Check out full show notes at http://pivotmethod.com/361

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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.

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

Examine your own relationship to rest and taking extended breaks. Ask yourself: What do I really need? How am I really doing? Where am I in the cycle of death, birth, creation, and rest?

🔗 Resources Mentioned

• Adrian on the web, Yelp, Facebook, LinkedIn
• Course: Career Pathfinder (promo code PIVOT)
• Video: Finding Your Calling
• Substack: Rolling in D🤦🏻‍♀️h
• Articles: 👟 A Strange and Wonderful Morning: Walking Photo Essay
• 🏆 Time to Put the Trophies Away
• Tools: Substack
• Song: You Can’t Rush Your Healing by Trevor Hall

📚 Books Mentioned

• The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks
• The Examined Life by Stephen Grosz
• Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business
• Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One
• Life After College

🎧 Related Episodes

• Spotify Playlists: Pivot x Career Pathfinder podcast episodes with Adrian Klaphaak
• SPARKED with Jonathan Fields x Jenny Blake
• Pivot: 329: Five Types of People-Pleasers from The Joy of Saying No with Natalie Lue
• 85: Musician Trevor Hall on Karma, Healing, Soul Maps From the Stars + Fruitful Darkness Song Premiere
• 342: “Whatever Comes Through Me Comes for Me First,” with Nicole Antoinette
• Free Time: 223: The Confidence Trap: Why You Don’t Need It to Do Big Things
• 198: Book Club ✨ OUTRAGEOUS OPENNESS: Letting the Divine Take the Lead by Tosha Silver
• 193: Sabbatical Planning with DJ DiDonna
• 252: Taking an Accidental Sabbatical with Mel Dizon
• 241: Finding Freedom and Financial Reciprocity through a Paid Newsletter with Nic Antoinette

❤️ 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 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/360

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“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.

Today we’re talking about how she got through that tough burnout period, the ways she practices putting her full self into the world, why it’s never too late to start something new, and how to drop the self-care guilt when filling your own energy reserves.

More About Nataly: Nataly Kogan, a leading expert on emotional fitness and leadership, is a dynamic entrepreneur, best-selling author, and sought-after international keynote speaker. Despite starting from challenging circumstances, Nataly achieved remarkable success in her career, reaching top positions at McKinsey, Microsoft, a venture capital fund, and founding/executing five startups and tech companies.

Her influential books, including HAPPIER NOW, GRATITUDE DAILY, THE AWESOME HUMAN PROJECT, THE AWESOME HUMAN JOURNAL, reflect her mission to help others thrive. Nataly hosts The Awesome Human Podcast, recognized as a transformative "best-self hour."

🌟 3 Key Takeaways

• You can either spend energy talking about why you are where you are, or spend that energy taking steps toward where you want to go.
• Don’t try to be anything you’re not. Embody the fullness of who you are, boldly and openly. Part of the reason, Nataly says, is that “We don’t expect enough of ourselves; we are capable of so much. In some ways we don’t expect enough greatness from ourselves.”
• You can’t give what you don’t have. A holon is something that is both a whole in itself (like a bicycle wheel) and part of another whole (the bicycle; without the wheels, it can’t function). Get rid of the self-care guilt by recognizing the gifts that self-care gives you.

✅ Try This Next

“Don’t let the leftovers of yesterday spoil the freshness of today.” Fill-in this sentence: I am an awesome human because: ______________.

🔗 Resources Mentioned

• Nataly on the web, IG, Twitter, LinkedIn
• Articles: Entrepreneur Nataly Kogan Discovered That Well-Being Is Key to Success
• 6 Science-Backed Ways to Improve Your Well-Being at Work
• Malcolm Gladwell's O, MG newsletter on being instrumentally difficult versus malignantly difficult when referencing this much discussed and debated New Yorker profile of Succession actor Jeremy Strong.
• Videos: TEDxBoston—Sharer of Joy: Nataly Kogan, Author Nataly Kogan Shares No. 1 Tip To Live A Happier Life
• Tools: Procreate for iPad

📚 Books Mentioned

• The Awesome Human Journal: A Tool Kit for the Tough Days, the Good Days, and All the Days in Between
• The Awesome Human Project: Break Free from Daily Burnout, Struggle Less, and Thrive More in Work and Life
• Happier Now: How to Stop Chasing Perfection and Embrace Everyday Moments (Even the Difficult Ones)
• Gratitude Daily: 21 Days to More Joy and Less Stress
• Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business
• Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One
• Life After College

🎧 Related Episodes

• Nataly’s The Awesome Human Podcast
• Pivot: 282: The Honor Roll Hangover with Melody Wilding
• Pivot x Career Pathfinder Series with Adrian (Spotify playlist)
• 329: Five Types of People-Pleasers from The Joy of Saying No with Natalie Lue
• Free Time: 191: Structuring Free Time as a Single Parent while Grieving and Rebuilding with Karen Allen

📝 Check out full show notes at http://pivotmethod.com/359

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bravery requires being off balance. You will only find the courage to “cross the cringe chasm” by remembering that the risk of losing your identity is greater than the risk of losing approval.

As today’s guest Henna Pryor writes in her wonderful debut book, Good Awkward:

“The idea of releasing this book into the world without knowing how you’ll receive it makes me cringe. But it makes me cringe even more to imagine walking through life as a person who doesn’t write and release the book that matters so much to her because she’s worried how it will land. Either one is a risk.”

The Approval Paradox that we all confront is that we are social, communal creatures; for most of us, what other people think of us does matter. And yet, we can’t allow others’ approval to outweigh whether we personally improve. Cheers to the real reel, and I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did! Awkward bits and all :)

More About Henna: Henna Pryor, PCC is a highly sought after Workplace Performance Expert and an award-winning keynote speaker, author, and executive coach. Her clients call her their “secret weapon for impossible change,” an honor she wears proudly. She’s known for her science-backed approach to improving the performance, habits, and actions of hungry high achievers – in her fun, no-nonsense, no-jargon way – to move them from their first level of success to their next one. Today we’re talking about her bestselling book, Good Awkward: How to Embrace the Embarrassing and Celebrate the Cringe to Become The Bravest You, which received the rare Kirkus Star for excellence in writing.

🌟 3 Key Takeaways

• Awkwardness is a social emotion (we don’t normally feel it by ourselves), and it’s one of discomfort: there is a momentary gap between our internal identity (the person we want to be), and the person people see on display. Awkwardness lives in uncertainty.
• Crossing the Cringe Chasm: Remember ICC—improvement comes after cringe. In these moments, if your self-improvement and even self-identity is more important to you than other people’s approval, it’s time to jump.
• There are two main kinds of stories we tell about ourselves: “All of our stories tend to focus on standout events, both good and bad, because those are the experiences that shape us, that our brain uses to make sense of our lives. People who are driven to contribute to society, embrace friction, and take braver risks are more likely to tell redemption stories about their lives—transitioning from a bad situation or downturn to good end result or upturn. The opposite of a redemption story is a contamination story, interpreting the situation as going from good to bad.”

🔗 Resources Mentioned

• Henna on the web, IG, Twitter, LinkedIn
• Take the Self-Consciousness Scale: http://pryoritygroup.com/goodawkward
• Articles: HuffPo—How To Embrace Your Inner Cringe And Make Awkwardness an Advantage
• Research Studies: The Pratfall Effect, The Spotlight Effect
• Rolling in D🤦🏻‍♀️h: The Business Yips and 51/49
• Henna’s TEDx Talks: Why awkwardness is your secret weapon for risk-taking at work and The new way to brag in the modern world - and feel good doing it
• Video: Vanessa Van Edwards interviewing Guy Raz—Successful People Can Be Awkward

📚 Books Mentioned

• Good Awkward: How to Embrace the Embarrassing and Celebrate the Cringe to Become The Bravest You
• Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business
• Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One
• Life After College

🎧 Related Episodes

• Pivot: 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 and 112: Whose Voice is in Your Head?
• 275: Cues—On Charisma with Vanessa Van Edwards
• Free Time: 031: Eleventh-Hour Gremlins
• 246: The Unsustainability of Inauthenticity with Erin Weed

📝 Check out full show notes at http://pivotmethod.com/358

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Holding space for thousands of others, primarily those who have experienced unspeakable trauma, is not for the faint of heart, nor should it be swept under the rug as simply par for the course of doing social work.

Today’s guest, Dimple Dhabalia has written a forthcoming book that’s part memoir, part manifesto—Tell Me My Story—Challenging the Narrative of Service Before Self—a must-read for humanitarian professionals. While working in the field in Zambia interviewing asylum-seekers from the Rwandan Genocide, she experienced autoimmune disease and recurring nightmares that she spent the last decade figuring out how to heal and solve for fellow service-oriented professionals.

In this conversation, Dimple shines an important light on what it’s really like to serve in this capacity, and how to do it sustainably. Only by addressing the debilitating side effects of burnout, compassion fatigue, and vicarious trauma, can humanitarian workers heal themselves while so generously serving others.

More About Dimple: Dimple Dhabalia is the founder of Roots in the Clouds, a boutique consulting firm specializing in using the power of story to heal individual and organizational trauma and moral injury. She is also a writer, podcaster, coach, and facilitator who brings over twenty years of public service experience working at the intersection of leadership, mindful awareness, and storytelling. Her first book, Tell Me My Story—Challenging the Narrative of Service Before Self launches in February 2024, and you can find her podcasts Service Without Sacrifice and What Would Ted Lasso Do? wherever you listen.

🌟 3 Key Takeaways

• There are five nervous-system survival reactions: fight, flight, freeze, fix, and fake.
• Moral injury: making choices that go against our own deeply held moral beliefs.
• There is a five-step process for moving through service-oriented work more sustainably: shaping, surviving, seeing, shifting, and sharing.

✅ Try This Next

Notice one moment of your day where you’re trying to push through. Allow yourself to stop and take three nice, deep breaths. Come back and see how you feel.

🔗 Resources Mentioned

• Dimple on the web, IG, Twitter, LinkedIn
• Substack: Dear Humanitarian
• Video: Leading Through Crisis—Human-Centered Leadership
• Article: Why selectively muting your pain isn't an option
• TV Show: Ted Lasso on Apple TV+
• Kajal Dhabalia’s Wholesome Soul

📚 Books Mentioned

• Tell Me My Story—Challenging the Narrative of Service Before Self
• Expressive Writing: Words That Heal by James W. Pennebaker
• Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business
• Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One
• Life After College

🎧 Related Episodes

• Dimple’s podcasts: What Would Ted Lasso Do? and Service Without Sacrifice
• Pivot: 173: Beautiful Questions for Challenging Times with Steve Morris
• 172: Self-Care for Empaths and HSPs with Sarah Santacroce
• Free Time: 063: On Burnout and Business Intuition with Azul Terronez of Authors Who Lead

❤️ 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 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/357

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Are you running a Franken-Brand? A quick, inexpensive logo here. And then someone a few months later tries to write the brand strategy. And then another junior hire adds in graphics and you don’t even know where they came from. Suddenly, you have this brand that is cobbled together, and no one on the team is feeling compelled.

In part two of today’s Free Time crossover episode, returning guest Adam Chaloeicheep and I are diving into the four personas of clients who are ready to do brand work.

🌟 4 Brand Stages

• Blank Canvas—You have a business idea and nothing else. A branding exercise is helpful at this stage because you’re getting down, on paper, the core of what this business is and how it’s showing up in the world. It’s a really nice opportunity to align from the very beginning in a brand-forward way, from the name, to the strategy, to the identity.
• Jeckyll/Hyde—Your brand has only gotten you so far, and now it’s holding you back. You’ve got some traction, got something really special, but you are losing out on bigger opportunities and need that rebrand to launch your business to the next phase.
• Frankenstein—Piecemeal elements from different contractors, but no cohesive strategy. You have a brand that is cobbled together, and no one on the team is feeling inspired by it. It’s confusing, not inspiring and everyone hates working with it because there’s no clear way in how to use it.
• Tune-up—The foundational strategy is strong, now there is an opportunity to see what is out of date, what elements can be refreshed or tightened up.

✅ Try This Next

Sit with one of the creative questions from Together Agency’s client intake/exploration survey: What texture is your brand? If your brand were a plant, which one would it be? A song?

🔗 Resources Mentioned

• Adam on the web, IG, Twitter, LinkedIn
• Agency: Together, Instagram, LinkedIn
• Together Portfolio: Free Time Brand Strategy
• Substacks: Mind Brew, Re:Brand
• Articles: Free Time feature in Print Magazine, Activate Your Brand: From Idea to Reality, Missing Missy, Worst Client Comments Turned Into Posters
• Feature: Free Time brand on Behance’s Illustrator homepage
• Jenny’s Substack: Rolling in D🤦🏻‍♀️h, Rebuilding from Rubble
• Apparel: my favorite cozy cashmere sweats by Naadam
• Tools: Upwork, Behance, Canva, Working Not Working, ChatGPT, Substack

📚 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

• BFF Bonus: Certification and Licensing Workshop with Pamela Slim
• Pivot: 12: Belly of the Pivot Beast: On Bouncing Back from Zero with Adam Chaloeicheep
• Free Time: 005: Brand Obsessed with Emily Heyward
• 140: How to License Your IP (Intellectual Property)
• 186: Licensing 201 — Q&A (Part One) on Product Development, Attracting Clients, and Sales Process
• 187: Licensing 201 — Q&A (Part Two) on Pricing + Packaging, Train-the-Trainer, Delivery, and Legal

❤️ 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 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/356

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What do a flying money emoji, a stray takeaway coffee cup, and a heart have in common? Those were the starting clues I brought to Adam Chaloeicheep and his cofounder Marisol at Together Agency before starting work on the Free Time brand—as now expressed in my latest podcast, website, and book.

This is a two-part crossover from the Free Time podcast; this episode originally aired in November 2021. We’re discussing the strategic thinking that goes into brand strategy long before the visual assets are produced, the biggest misconceptions clients have about the investment and process, and why brand is so important for a business.

More About Adam: Adam Chaloeicheep is co-founder of Together agency with his wife, Marisol Dahl, who I had the great pleasure of working with for five years in the early days of JBE. Adam is a creative business leader with over a decade of experience in a variety of startup areas including product and service concepting, building teams, operations, and brand-focused design and digital solutions.

He is one of my closest friends (12 years and counting!), and a creative business leader with over a decade of experience in product and service concepting, building teams, and brand strategy. Together Agency is behind every big brand I have launched into the world including Pivot and Free Time.

✅ Try This Next

Sit with one of the creative questions from Together Agency’s client intake/exploration survey: What texture is your brand? If your brand were a plant, which one would it be? A song?

🔗 Resources Mentioned

• Adam on the web, IG, Twitter, LinkedIn
• Agency: Together, Instagram, LinkedIn
• Together Portfolio: Free Time Brand Strategy
• Substacks: Mind Brew, Re:Brand
• Articles: Free Time feature in Print Magazine, Activate Your Brand: From Idea to Reality, recent feature on Behance
• Jenny’s Substack: Rolling in D🤦🏻‍♀️h
• Tools: Upwork, Behance, Canva, Working Not Working, ChatGPT, Substack

📚 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: 12: Belly of the Pivot Beast: On Bouncing Back from Zero with Adam Chaloeicheep
• Free Time: 005: Brand Obsessed with Emily Heyward

❤️ 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 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/355

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How do you “un-rut” yourself? If you want to say yes to exploring a pivot, what do you need to say no to? What's the secret dream? These are just some of the questions that recurring guest host Adrian Klaphaak and I answer in today’s live Pivot podcast taping.

Are you looking for a little support 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.”

💬 Quotes

"But it's no use now," thought poor Alice, "to pretend to be two people! Why, there's hardly enough of me left to make one respectable person!"

—Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

“The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.

Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven?”

—Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet—On Joy and Sorrow

🌟 Questions We Tackle

• Who are you ready to stop pretending to be?
• How do you know when you need to pivot versus chasing shiny objects?
• How do you measure and even define success when you go out on your own?
• How do you un-rut yourself when you’re stuck?

✅ Try This Next

Let yourself be moved by genuine, embodied, resonant excitement. Put yourself in the room with your experiments.

🔗 Resources Mentioned

• Adrian on the web, Yelp, Facebook, LinkedIn
• Course: Career Pathfinder, promo code PIVOT
• Video: Finding Your Calling
• Substacks: Rolling in D🤦🏻‍♀️h, Intuitive Writing School
• Articles: Taffy Brodesser-Ackner
• Tools: Substack, ChatGPT
• Song: You Can’t Rush Your Healing by Trevor Hall

📚 Books Mentioned

• Intuitive Writing by Jacqueline Fisch
• The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron
• Outrageous Openness by Tosha Silver
• Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business
• Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One
• Life After College

🎧 Related Episodes

• Pivot: Pivot x Career Pathfinder podcast episodes with Adrian (Spotify playlist)
• 329: Five Types of People-Pleasers from The Joy of Saying No with Natalie Lue
• 123: Peeking out from the plateau (put yourself in the path of pivot)
• 321: ChatGPT as Universal Intern and Permission Not to Be a Billionaire with Kevin Kelly
• 85: Musician Trevor Hall on Karma, Healing, Soul Maps From the Stars + Fruitful Darkness Song Premiere
• Free Time: 223: The Confidence Trap: Why You Don’t Need It to Do Big Things
• 244: Asking Better Questions and Designing Your Ideal Day with Claire Giovino
• 181: Be Irreplaceable with My Creative Coach Jay Acunzo
• 198: Book Club ✨ OUTRAGEOUS OPENNESS: Letting the Divine Take the Lead by Tosha Silver

❤️ 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 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/354

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“You have to condition your nervous system to feel free, to access and hold that state, no matter the context.”

In this conversation, we talk about leadership advisor John O’Connor’s pivot from masseuse to executive coach. He shares strategies for listening to your true calling, which often emerges from friction and frustration, and how those manifest physically in our bodies. John describes how we can tune into yearnings in different dimensions such as health, finances, relationships, community, and business; and how to create portals for new opportunities while noticing who is already orbiting around you.

More About John: John O’Connor is a leadership advisor to high performers looking to go deeper, find their calling, and align with their higher purpose. With over 10,000 hours under his belt coaching CEO’s, social impact entrepreneurs, athletes and post-exit founders, he is skilled at guiding people to uncover the things that are blocking them from creating a sense of freedom and fulfillment.

🌟 3 Key Takeaways

• Calling often emerges out of friction and frustration, and can manifest physically. Reflect: what’s the desire under the frustration?
• Swap out the word purpose with: What is meaningful? And what is most important? What are the most meaningful, important dimensions of life? What wants to emerge? What wants to come through my life in each dimension?
• The Core Five: Health and wellness, finances, intimate relationships, community, business. In each of those, there is a calling—something that wants to come through, a yearning.

✅ Try This Next: When you find yourself complaining or irritated by something, honor how you’ve been, i.e. “The way this is happening doesn’t work for me.” That’s how it has been; then ask, “How would I like it to be different?” What are the three to five steps to make that happen? Write it down, and remember: you’re only a few simple moves away.

🔗 Resources Mentioned

• John on the web, IG, Twitter, LinkedIn
• The ManKind Project

📚 Books Mentioned

• Healing Back Pain: The Mind-Body Connection by John Sarno
• The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles by Steven Pressfield & Shawn Coyne
• Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business
• Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One
• Life After College

🎧 Related Episodes

• Pivot: 325: 10+ Conference Networking Strategies with Alisa Cohn
• 328: Accessing Your True Self Through IFS with Adrian Klaphaak, 332: IFS Part(s) Two—Understanding Our “Not Enough” Exiles with Adrian Klaphaak
• 72: BREATHE. From Burned-Out Bodybuilder to Yin Strength Trainer with Anders Varner
• Free Time: 196: 🍩 What Do Donuts, Coffee, Conversation, and Energy Cliffs Have in Common? (My Mini Daily Audio Diary from Attending TED 2023)

❤️ 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/353

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices