Pivot with Jenny Blake

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:

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.

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.

Is there a common thread, either stylistically or philosophically, that ties them together?

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?

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