Pivot with Jenny Blake Jenny Blake

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 admire 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 passers-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 Contacts, 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



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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
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Have you ever considered teaching for a university? Even if you don’t take the path of Ph.D. student pursuing a tenure-track position, you can land adjunct roles after reaching a certain point in your professional career.
Today’s guest Alex Budak—who happens to be someone I went to high school and college with (and someone who gave me hope that I could succeed in the earliest days of self-employment!)—is taking us behind-the-scenes of pivoting into a professorship.
Alex shares how he got his foot in the door at UC Berkeley; going from googling “how to write a syllabus” to improving and curating his curriculum; how much time teaching requires; his process for revising materials after class based on how they land among students; and most of all, the “magic alchemy” rewards of teaching in a university setting even when the pay is lower than other opportunities.
More About Alex: Alex Budak is a UC Berkeley faculty member, social entrepreneur, author, and speaker. At UC Berkeley, Alex teaches his wildly-popular course “Becoming a Changemaker,” directs the Berkeley Haas Global Access Program, and teaches in Berkeley Executive Education programs. Alex co-founded StartSomeGood in 2011, which has helped over 1,200 changemakers in over 50 countries raise millions of dollars to launch and scale new change initiatives. His book, Becoming a Changemaker: An Actionable, Inclusive Guide to Leading Positive Change at Any Level, has been endorsed by Nobel Prize winners, Olympic athletes, and most meaningful of all—his students. He is a graduate of UCLA and Georgetown University.

🌟 3 Key Takeaways



The academic flywheel, as described by professor Morten Hansen at UC Berkeley: Teach a class, refine that material into a book, share it with a variety of audiences, collect new case studies, then repeat those steps so that each builds upon the one before it, improving the content that follows.


Teaching can be all-consuming at the beginning, but it does get easier and smooth out over time, especially as you get specific feedback from each round of students.


“One person teaches, two people learn.” The magic and serendipity of teaching is that every single class is different, due to the alchemy of who is in the room. Teaching can help you stay connected to younger generations, and stretch you to keep your thinking fresh.


✅ Try This Next: Write a list of three classes you’d be excited to teach—don’t be afraid to dream! Ignore the constraints of disciplines and what currently exists, just capture titles and a description of what at least one course could look like. Bonus: consider running it as a 45- to 90-minute virtual workshop to pilot the material.

🔗 Resources Mentioned



Alex on the web, Twitter, LinkedIn



Articles: NYT Magazine’s Interview with Laurie Santos, Inc—The Way We Count Our Time At Work Isn't Working: Instead of a 40-plus hour-per-week sprint, think of it as a relay race.


People: Seth Godin, Allison Kluger, Morten Hansen, Jim Collins



Jenny’s Pivot in the Classroom: Sample syllabi and case studies


📚 Books Mentioned

Becoming a Changemaker: An Actionable, Inclusive Guide to Leading Positive Change at Any Level


Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck


Multipliers, Revised and Updated: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smart by Liz Weisman


The Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact by the Heath Brothers


Different: Escaping the Competitive Herd by Youngme Moon

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 Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos

324: Six Golden Shadows of the Imposter Complex with Tanya Geisler

251: Listener Q&A on (Furry) Imposter Monsters

310: When the Career Grass Really is Greener — On Job Crafting with Rebecca Fraser-Thill


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“When there’s a fork in the road, take it.” That’s one of my favorite Yogi Berra classics of paradoxical wisdom. Pivoting is defined by its own set of paradoxes and tricky decision points, so today I invited a special guest to the pod to share two of her frameworks that I fell instantly in love with, and that I know you will too!
We’re also celebrating the one-year bookiversary and recent Audiobook release of Sarah’s wonderful book, Expansive Impact: An Invitation to Lead in Everyday Moments.
If you haven’t already, be sure to listen to our earlier conversation in episode 277 on Spacious Scheduling, and subscribe to her fantastic Friday Favorites newsletter! It’s one of my favorite messages every week, always chock full of great resources and links—from yummy French cookies and lemon loaf tea to playlists for any mood or season :)
More About Sarah: Sarah Young is the Founder and CEO of Zing Collaborative and author of Expansive Impact: An Invitation to Lead in Everyday Moments. She works with conscious and committed clients who want to elevate and expand their leadership capacity. She has a deep appreciation for nature, travel, sunshine, warm weather, paddle boarding, rescue dogs, cooking, coffee, and the precious hours of the early morning.

🌟 3 Key Takeaways



Grounding—Connect to your highest self. Who are you when you are at your best? When you are operating from love, versus fear? What would your highest self do?


Exploring—Try on the different options. Imagine yourself there. What does each option feel like? What do you see in each scenario? What is happening, and how do you feel?


Clean energy is clear and flowing, with a natural feeling of psychological safety. You aren't wasting time or energy thinking about whether something is off. You can simply show up and be in relationship with the other person.


✅ Try This Next: As Oprah says, “Your life is whispering to you.” Sit with this as an inquiry—what is yours saying about a tricky decision or relationship?

🔗 Resources Mentioned



Sarah on the web, IG: @zingcollaborative



Newsletter: Friday Favorites



Playlist: Big Energy (Spotify)


Apps for asynchronous communication Marco Polo, Voxer, Telegram (iOS, Android)


Articles: Sarah’s blog posts on Tips for Making Tough Decisions and Clean, Clean Energy; Martha Beck on Victory by Surrender (clean vs. dirty pain), and Cheryl Strayed via Dear Sugar—The Ghost Ship That Didn’t Carry Us



📚 Books Mentioned


Expansive Impact: An Invitation to Lead in Everyday Moments by Sarah Young


Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strayed


Finding Your Own North Star and Steering by Starlight by Martha Beck

Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business

Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One

Life After College


🎧 Related Episodes


Pivot: 277 on Expansive Impact and Spacious Scheduling, 292: True Fun vs Fake Fun with Catherine Price, [Best Of] Penney & Jenny 9: Truth and Making "Good Choices" (July 2019)



Free Time: 174: What Glass Blowing has to do with Book Marketing — Celebrating Free Time’s One-Year Bookiversary



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“Cultivate 12 people who love you, because they are worth more than 12 million people who like you.”
That’s just one of many gems from Kevin Kelly’s new book Excellent Advice for Living: Wisdom I Wish I’d Known Earlier, bits of wisdom that he thinks of like handrails to grab when he needs a quick reminder about what is most important.
In this conversation, we revisit our 2016 discussion about the power of human-AI partnerships, give you permission not to become a billionaire, help you lean into serendipity and embrace paradox, and encourage you to buy your time (through delegation) so that you can focus on doing the work that only you can do. As Kevin says, “Don’t be the best, be the only.”
More About Kevin: Kevin Kelly helped launch WIRED magazine in 1993. He is a renowned technology and science writer, futurist, and thinker who has been at the forefront of digital culture for decades. Kelly's work explores the intersection of technology, culture, and society, and he is known for his thought-provoking insights on the future of innovation and the impact of technology on our lives. He has authored multiple books including The Inevitable, Out of Control, The Silver Cord, and What Technology Wants. His newest is Excellent Advice for Living: Wisdom I Wish I’d Known Earlier (May 2023). He lives in Pacifica, California with his family.

🌟 5 Favorite Takeaways from Excellent Advice for Living


ChatGPT and generative AI tools are becoming the intern that everybody can have; you’ll still need to check their work, but you no longer need to start from scratch.

You really don’t want to be famous. Read the biography of any famous person.

Measure your wealth, not buy the things you can buy, but buy the things that no money can buy. Delegate what you can.

Ask anyone you admire: Their lucky breaks happened on a detour from their main goal. So embrace detours. Life is not a straight line for anyone.

Be generous. Give ideas (and compliments!) away, and even more will return to you.


✅ Try this experiment: You’ll get invited to an argument in the next week or two. Decline the invitation; don’t attend!

🔗 Resources Mentioned


Kevin on the web, Instagram: @kevin2kelly, Twitter: @kevin2kelly, YouTube, podcast: Cool Tools



Articles: WIRED’s Picture Limitless Creativity at Your Fingertips, NYT—Bing’s AI Chat” I want to be alive,” and A Conversation with Bing’s AI Chatbot Left Me Deeply Unsettled



Video: TED—The Future Will be Shaped by Optimists


OpenAI’s ChatGPT



📚 Books Mentioned


Excellent Advice for Living: Wisdom I Wish I’d Known Earlier by Kevin Kelly


The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future and What Technology Wants by Kevin Kelly

Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business

Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One

Life After College


🎧 Related Episodes


Pivot:


36: Kevin Kelly on Techno Literacy, Systems Thinking, Artificial Intelligence and Virtual Reality (July 2016)

305: Is What You Are Wanting Actually What’s Best For You? With Luke Burgis

264: Embrace Your Onlyness with Nilofer Merchant

61: Virtual Freedom: Overcome Superhero Syndrome and Start Outsourcing with Chris Ducker

270: Free Time Framework for Moving from Friction to Flow in 2022


Free Time: 153: Behind the Podcast — Increasing Serendipity Surface Area — Mic Flip with Matthew Thompson, 084: Sprinkling the First 1,000 Serendipity Seeds of a Launch, 017: Serendipity as Business Strategy with Leanne Hughes



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📝 Check out full show notes at http://pivotmethod.com/321
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How ambitious are you? More importantly, how ambitious do you want to be in different areas of life and work? Today’s guest, Kathy Oneto, takes the long view on goals, especially for those of us who are naturally inclined to overwork until we burn out. Instead, we can be more intentional by toggling the dials of right ambition, right effort, and right time up and down as we move through different seasons.
In this conversation, Kathy and I discuss managing ambition anxiety, how to know if you’re bumping up against what Gay Hendricks calls an “Upper Limit Problem” versus your “truest fit reduced ambition,” mapping energy vs. urgency, and how to know when ambitions or life seasons have truly shifted versus handling a short-term setback.
More About Kathy: Kathy Oneto is a strategy executive and life-work coach who is passionate about helping people succeed on their terms at work and in life. She is the host of the Sustainable Ambition podcast. Kathy champions being consciously ambitious and crafting fulfilling work from decade to decade without sacrificing your life or yourself. She is the author of the Sustainable Ambition 12-Month Workbook and Planner: Your Life plus Work Resilience Prescription and My Little Book of Curiosity: 26 Inquiries to Inspire What’s Next for Your Life and Work.

🌟 3 Key Takeaways



For any area creating stress, ask "Is this an ambition I still want?" If so, how much effort do I want to put into it? What you wanted at once time might not match where you are now. As a result, you may need to dial the effort you are putting towards that area up or down.


Sometimes ambition can clash with what you're capable of, and that can contribute to not feeling like it’s worth the effort. Add structure to support your ambition and current capabilities.


Four areas to consider if it’s becoming harder to move along a certain path: Your vision for your life and your work, your core values, what you want to give and contribute in the world and your community, and what you love.


✅ Try This Next: Dial-in your ambition. For any given goal, task, project, or area of your life, decide: How good do I want to be? Good, very good, the best? How much effort do I want to put into this? Be discerning as you recalibrate your ambition and the level of effort required to match.

🔗 Resources Mentioned


Kathy on the web, IG: @sustainableambition, LinkedIn, YouTube


Kathy’s podcast: Sustainable Ambition


Article: Reclaim Ambition on Your Terms


Jenny’s private BFF Community for Heart-Based Business owners


📚 Books Mentioned

Kathy’s book: Sustainable Ambition 12-Month Workbook and Planner: Your Life plus Work Resilience Prescription, My Little Book of Curiosity: 26 Inquiries to Inspire What’s Next for Your Life and Work



Get It Done: Surprising Lessons from the Science of Motivation by Ayelet Fishbach


Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business

Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One


🎧 Related Episodes


Sustainable Ambition: 93 on Dialing in Your Ambitions with Kathy Oneto, 48. On Yes! to Free Time & High Net Freedom with Jenny Blake, 60. On The Success Factor: A Blueprint for High Performance with Ruth Gotian



Pivot: Pivot x Career Pathfinder Playlist, 281: Feeling Impostery? Become a Qualified Curator Instead of an End-All-Be-All Expert



Free Time: 181: Be Irreplaceable with My Creative Coach Jay Acunzo, 035: The Long Game with Dorie Clark, 143: Exploring Time, Money, and Energy Capacity with Tara McMullin and Charlie Gilkey (Replay), 141: Process, Permission Slips, and Business Pivots with Tara McMullin



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📝 Check out full show notes at http://pivotmethod.com/320
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