The Process Of Pivoting And Reinvention With Penny Zenker - Replay

Life happens, and not always the way we expect it to. Every single day we face change, stress, and uncertainty. What if you could learn to thrive no matter what life throws your way? Resilience expert Adam Barkel and his inspiring guests explore breakthrough strategies to fully embrace change and build the resilience required to become change. Proof. Penny's anchor is a business strateg, strategy coach and best selling author. Her clients tell her that her gift is cutting through the clutter and helping them to focus on the most important and relevant areas to sustainably grow their businesses. In today's Replay episode, we discussed how we learn through pivots, learning by feedback and experience, how trying to control things actually stops us micromanagement, the importance of choosing to respond rather than to react, and Penny's unique rituals for taking care of herself and creating resilience. Enjoy. Penny, welcome to the show.

Hey, Adam, thanks for having me. I'm also extremely grateful and excited.

Wonderful. So would you fill in the blanks on just a little bit about your background? I love to ask our guests this too. What is it that's got you jazzed up right now? What are you excited and enthusiastic about in your business? What are you or even in your personal life? Happy to have you share that too.

Sure. It's important to always have something to jazz you up, right. And it's funny how things get connected from a simple thought and how the energy of that thought turns into something bigger. So what I'm really excited about right now came from a little thought. I was at a self development event and I had like an aha moment where I realized I wanted to be a conduit for other people's voice, including my my voice. But it came from a weird story where I didn't get up and say my name. I went through this whole thing of what I wanted, what was important to me, but I didn't say my name in the beginning. And I thought, what does that mean? I really reflected on that and I came to the fact that I think it means that I don't want to be seen as the only voice. I want to be a collective. And so getting to what I'm excited about, I know you're like, well, what is it? So I started to think I wanted to write a story that was going to be then put into film, so designed to be in film form, where it was kind of coming from, how we can each be our own hero. Right. When we think of hero, we think of someone else coming to our rescue. But the truth is, is that we all have a hero within us. And so putting that story together is something. I'm excited about it. And I have recently come into contact with the resources or producer who's also excited about bringing some type of story like this together. And funny as it may seem, with this thought that was in my head, so I came into contact with Greg Reed, who I know that, you know, who's doing an amazing movie called Wish, and it's about Frank Shankwitz. And I got involved in that project as well, so kind of like building the momentum. So I'm excited to be part of Wishman, and that's going to come out in 2018, and then in 2018 to get this movie written and produced.

Wow, that's exciting. I get jazzed up about that, for sure. If you could share with us a little bit about your history, then what's the process that led you to where you are? I mean, and I know that's a big question. So if you want to create some milestones along the way, that's fine. Like, where'd you grow up?

Well, I grew up in Wilmington, Delaware. Now, it's funny, we think about all the pieces of the puzzle, right, that fit together. And I think Steve Jobs did an amazing Stanford address that talked about how you don't realize how those pieces come together until later. And when I first got out of college, I was in accounting, and I don't know, kind of like, I know you were in the law field before and you were like, something just came up. And I never really loved it. It was kind of like that was practical, and I've always been a practical person. So I went for something that was practical, professional.

Yeah, exactly.

And I didn't love it. And interesting enough, I was always drawn to technology. So even when I was working for the accounting firms, I was auditing, like, accounting software systems, like, analyzing trades and looking at the software. And so started to get into some software development. And that jazzed me because I love to create solutions, to listen to people and hear what's not working or what possibilities there are to make things better, you know? So technology became my thing. I accidentally started a company in 1996.

That's a great title for something. The Accidental Company. I know there was a movie called the Accidental Tourist.

Right, right, right, exactly. So this is the Accidental Company. Right. I started it with, like, four other people. They all bailed out, and then it was like, just me. But I built it up, was in the right place at the right time, and built up from myself to a multimillion dollar business and sold it to a public company while living in Europe. So if it's not hard enough to run in your own language in your own country, let's do it somewhere else, because why not?

Hey, listen, you don't strike me as the kind of person who shies away from a tough challenge, so. That's right.

It's funny. Somebody used to told me that I'm a challenge magnet.

That's pretty Good. Yeah. So 95% of businesses fail, and then you decide to just. Why not create one remotely from a different country and see if I can pull that off. Right?

Yeah, exactly. Well, actually, I think that was to my advantage. Anyway. Everything happens for you. I mean, I learned a ton if I never thought I understood what culture was. I see it from a completely different perspective now. Having I actually lived in Zurich, Switzerland, for 16 years, so I got a completely different perspective on American culture as well as even company culture as I worked for a large company to start out with. I moved over to Switzerland with JP Morgan, and you could see what it's like being in a satellite office versus being in the headquarters. Very different. Right. And really, I think there was a pivot there for me in terms of opening up to new perspectives and really starting to look at things in a completely different way. Like really being open, more open than ever, into other people's perspectives and seeing that they see things differently.

Yeah, that makes sense. I love how you dropped in the word pivot when you say there's a pivot there. What were you really referring to? How are you defining pivot in that context?

I'd say a shift in my life, a shift in thinking.

I feel like what you've done is you put your finger on the essential pivot point, which is that it's about awareness and perception. How do we see the world? What's the lens that we're looking at things through? Whether it's context is business or it's personal, we're seeing through this lens, and that's shifting. Like, if you've ever been to the eye doctor to get your eyes checked. I've worn glasses since I'm like a teenager, but it was these multiple rings of new lenses in. And they still do it that way. It's remarkable. After all these years, they're still sticking those lenses in the machine to see, you know, is that clearer or is it less.

Right.

That kind of thing. More clear. Less clear. And I think that's very much what a pivot, on a basic level, that's what pivoting is ability to change that lens or have a shift in the way that lens is adjusting it, recalibrating or calibrating it differently so that you see things differently. And so going to Europe and working for a European company and being a part of European companies culture change the way you perceive business, is that correct?

Yeah, absolutely. The way that I perceive business, the way that I perceive people, I think that wasn't only in one context. Right. It really opened it up to all contexts and areas of my life.

Bridge us from that point to you came back to the United States, you ended up coming back and doing other things. So yeah, walk us through that path a little bit. And then along the way is another significant pivot. I know there have been several pivots. You could pick any one of them. The people who are watching and listening to this are used to sometimes the messiest of the stories because often that's the one that's we try to hide or keep or maybe you don't feel like it's an area that we want to share even. I've had a lot of people get quite vulnerable on this show speaking about some of those things because they learned so much through the process and now it's their gift to be able to share that learning with other people. And I think it's just really beautiful. We're not judging ourselves by the pivots or those opportunities we've had to learn from feedback, let's call it Totally.

Well, I'll see how messy I can get.

Be as messy as you want. That's the point. You have to.

I guess the challenge is there's so many, many pivots in our lives and I'm open to share them. I actually share a lot of my personal stories in my book because I feel that it helps people to connect to theirs. Right. So I totally appreciate the stories. So I think if we were going to go chronological, one of the pivot point that comes out is. So when I did start my own business after leaving JP Morgan, I ran that business for a number of years and you know, it ran me there. I can be messy and be honest in the context of I had no idea what I was doing. I was just a couple years out of school, worked at a big company, working in a small company and doing everything and wearing so many hats was crazy. And I have this like, some people have it, some people don't, but I take things very seriously. I'm a very responsible person. So integrity is really important. If I say I'm going To do something, I do it, or if I make a commitment, I'm all in to make it happen for the most part. And so with my business, I took on way too much. Like I'm sure everybody can appreciate who's an entrepreneur. And because I take things so seriously, I think that's part of what was also killing me in the context of I couldn't let go of things. I'd worked 24 hour days because I was also doing application development. And God, it takes so long to get like, problem happens and then you've got to fix it and then there's another problem. So debugging something. I just couldn't let it go. I couldn't stop without fixing it.

Yeah.

So you were in.

Yeah, you were in the tech space, is that correct?

I did. That's the type of company that I started, was a technology company.

Yeah, got it, got it, yeah. So you could let go of it.

I couldn't let go. And this wasn't my history. Like here I was an accounting major, right. And kind of got into technology without the formal background. And anyway, so I had an awareness point where I was like, well, I can't do this anymore. So instead of what smart people would do is learn how to let go, I thought I would just sell the company and it would change if I went to work for a bigger company again.

Right.

Everything would be better. So I sold the company. That worked great. It was half decent timing. But where the pivot comes in is I went to work for a large market research company that owns a number of other companies, direct marketing companies and so forth. And they hired me to be chief technology officer at their direct marketing arm. And I thought, this is great, I'm going to a 9 to 5 job. They've got loads of money behind them, so I don't have to worry about where the next paycheck is coming from. And all the things that we tend to worry about as entrepreneurs going from paycheck to paycheck with paying our people and all of that. So I thought, this is going to be easy. So two weeks before I start, I was brought into a reorganization and I was given my boss's job who was responsible for the holding company, which was responsible for five companies across four countries. And as I was in Zurich, Switzerland, they moved me to an area that was only German speaking. So now my first day, I'm going to fire 50 people in a foreign language and I'm going to manage this much bigger organization that I've ever been responsible for. And so it didn't take me long before I was completely overwhelmed, overloaded, questioning myself whether I was right for this, whether I have the skills, totally in a funk and completely stuck in a rut. And so I went into my boss's office and the pivot came with what he said to me. I went into his office and I said, peter, I'm just not the right person for this position. I thought I was taking on something else and this is just way too big for me and I'm out of my league. And he said, listen, Penny, I interviewed you really thoroughly and I watched you, how you structured things, how you made decisions. He said, I hired you to make decisions, and what you do with the rest of your time is up to you. At first, I didn't appreciate the brilliance of that. I thought, what? But when I let that sink in, it was a real pivot point for me because I was thinking so tactically and operating at such a low level or micro level. Micro, yeah. I mean, in my thinking, which is.

You, you wear all the hats, you lick the stamps and. Or when you used to lick stamps.

Right. Not just that, but even as an entrepreneur now I run my business differently because I operate from a strategic perspective. I'm constantly taking a step back and looking at things strategically. Where do I focus strategically, not what's the latest urgency. And so that really made a huge shift for me to understand that running a business, whether you're a one person business or you're in a bigger business, you're still building a team of sorts, and you still have to be able to focus in the most important areas. So it was a huge shift for me to get out of that. Also that pattern of thinking that I was in. Right. Because that's what that was.

Right. So the thinking, I just want to make sure I track this. The thinking before the statement that Peter made to you, which was, I hired you to make decisions. What you do with the rest of your time is up to you. Before that, having had the experience of being a business owner and an entrepreneur, you were involved in the weeds. You were in the weeds things, Right. So working classically in the business type.

Of thing, in the business, micromanagement, like, because of that sense of responsibility, I needed to control it. And everything stops when you try to control it. People stop. Things don't work. You have to see, you have to direct it and not control it. So just some huge lessons as to how to think differently.

Beautiful. That's a significant pivot. So you didn't appreciate the brilliance in the words at the time is what I heard you say.

No, I did not. Right. I thought, easy for you to say, like you're sitting here, but he had so many wonderful words of wisdom and nuggets for me that were just like that, that they were so simple, that the more you thought about it, the more you saw its clarity. Sometimes the most important messages are the simplest and the shortest. Right. They don't have to be like these big things.

So to me, my inclination is to ask where you applied that or how you applied that.

So I applied it in the way that I managed. People going forward is giving them responsibility and authority to bring their genius to their tasks, to make sure that I clearly communicated vision and then created more of a collaborative environment, created more ownership from the people, because I think that gave me a sense of freedom, of knowing they were part of it. Therefore, people support what they create. So then I felt more comfortable to be able to let go and leave it in their hands. And, you know, I had to bite my tongue a few times and stay out of it when I wanted to get in it. But I've always been kind of good at stepping back and reflecting upon myself. And so as you do it more and more, it's like a muscle. So you recognize things before you actually make the mistake after time. Right. First you make the mistake, you make the mistake, and then you're like, oh, I just made a mistake. And then I shouldn't have said that to them. I should just give them the flexibility, or that was whatever. And then after time, you hear it in your head before it actually comes out and you catch it, and you're like, nope, I'm not going to say that. So I've started to get better at catching it before it comes out and then just letting it go. Kind of like a yoga practice, right? Let that thought come in. And then you go, okay, that's interesting. I could do that, but I'm not going to. And you let it go.

Yeah, that's beautiful. It's a practice. Now, we haven't talked about practices, but it sounds to me like you develop some new practice, some new habit around the way you were taking in information and processing it before you react or respond to it more. You trained yourself to respond versus react in the sense that reaction might have been sort of leaning on what was familiar, which was the micromanagement versus the response being something leaning towards something that required you to have faith in something new that made sense to you that you wish to adopt. That was different, which is A pivot to make that kind of a change in not only your mindset, but then ultimately what it led to. An action form for you. Is that accurate?

Yeah, absolutely. And I think it developed over time, but I think it was a question that I kind of asked myself when something happens to check in on how I want to respond, and that's very simple. And then later, somebody used it in a process, and I was like, that's it. Like, sometimes you don't know what you do until someone else presents it to you. And you're like, yeah, that's my strategy. So ever since my father passed away when I was young in an accident, I was 18, and he was traveling on vacation. And I think it was ever since that moment that I asked myself, what does this mean? Because I could have dealt with his death in a lot of different ways. And I think that in anything that we do, it's an unconscious question that we ask ourselves. And the more conscious of it that you become, that you can choose other meanings. So my brother laughs at me, but I always choose the meaning that best supports me, that puts me in a good mood, and that is good for me, because I can. And I think that really came from when my father passed, because I can remember doing it ever since then. And I think it was a conscious choice that I took then.

So I'm going to repeat the question so everybody gets it, which is a really powerful question. And that question is, what does this mean? Yeah. And it's so interesting because right behind me, I have a list of different questions or statements or things that in the time that I. I'm called to pull them out and use them and, you know, for teaching or for a reminder for myself, I do. And one of those questions is, what am I making this mean? So it's interesting because your question is, what does this mean? And that puts you in a space of, among other things, curiosity.

Yeah. And then here's the kicker. So I learned this from Steve Linder, who teaches nlp. And this is where I realized that that was the question. And then the kicker is, just like Byron Katie does, you ask it again and again. Right. Because then that's where you get the other perspectives. What does this mean? The first answer that comes up is going to be often not a great one. So you have to keep asking it to get a little deeper into what does this mean? What else could this mean? And then you really open up to options to make a choice.

Exactly. And that's what, to me, the way I interpret that other question, the one that what am I making this mean? It's the discovery of something internally, something even on a programming level has us create meaning around things. So we're meaning making machines. And so there's the objective, what does this mean? And then there's the what, what do I make this mean?

Yeah.

So that's fascinating. So what I'm hearing you say too is that you use this. You've been using this ongoingly ever since. And that's a part of your pause, your healthy pause before you react. You respond differently because you've asked the question internally, what does this mean?

Yeah, absolutely. And then those other pivots that built on top of it help me to be that much more flexible in that practice.

Yeah, that's fantastic. Really useful. I'm getting a tremendous hit out of what Penny is sharing. I think this is really valuable. And on the level of both, I'm a fan of integrating business development conversation with personal development conversation.

Me too. Yeah.

So we're in that space. We're in the soup.

In the soup. I like that. That's a good impression. We're in the soup.

Is there some other pivot or sort of area of your life which caused you some great awareness similar to what you've just shared? It could be business or personal related.

Yeah, I think that it would be beneficial for everybody who's maybe been through a similar type situation. So I also have been through a divorce and I believe that divorce can be harder to deal with than death in some cases because somebody who dies didn't choose to leave you. So I got the I don't love you anymore. So that's really hard to hear and hard to accept and hard to move on from or figure out where to go from here type of thing.

What does this mean?

What does this mean? And I asked that. And actually I believe that I had a very healthy positive, as positive as a divorce experience can go, that I had because I asked that question. That's not to say that I didn't go through a lot of pain and anguish and frustration and all of those other messy emotions that come up. It's part of the process. Right. When you love, you also are going to have part of love is pain. But I do believe when we can ask that question, it did shift me. One of the big, let's say distinctions or pivot points in that was I had always like, whether it was my mom or whether it was my ex husband, that I was always rewarded for achievement. And so I kind of had connection with achievement. And love that if I would achieve, I would be loved. Because one of the reasons, or it was just timing, but it brought up an understanding for me was I was being offered the CEO position of that market research company. My boss was retiring and he wanted me to stand into that role and I declined it because I have at that time had a one year old and a three year old and it just wasn't juicing me. I know I can do the job, but that wasn't what I wanted to see my next five or ten years with. And my ex husband was disappointed. Disappointed. Well, I don't feel like I have anything that I can give you anymore, you know, mentor you. That it was about achievement. And I thought, wow, maybe that's what I had been seeking and maybe that's why this pivot, because a lot of things happen at the same time as they do. So at the same time I was getting divorced, I knew that if I declined that position that I would be out of a job. And so after we sold the division that we were selling, then I was going to go with that process. And so then it was like, okay, well what am I going to do with my life from this point forward? Right. If I'm not, if I don't want to do this, what do I want to do? So it was kind of like one of those moments which looking back, of course I can be really grateful for that. It opened everything up. And I think that that's what I recognized through that process. There was a book called Broken Open and it was about divorce. And I love that expression because it's kind of reflects the pain in it that there is some pain with it, but it's opening up a whole new world. And it really did for me, open up a new world in terms of love. I feel like I love much deeper now. And I feel like I'm more alive with the passion in my work of what I do. Probably because I switched into something that I'm more passionate about in coaching and speaking and bringing a positive message across. But that's kind of what was in it for me.

Yeah, use the word process, which I love the term process in connection with the topic of, of reinvention, pivoting, changing things. So what process did you have, if you can identify what that was?

Okay, well that's interesting. So the process was. Starts with whatever the conflict or situation is. And then I think the first step is, what does this mean? What's the meaning that you give it? Because everything that happens in your process after that is going to be reflected by that choice that you make. And I would call that than awareness. Right. What awareness have you opened up to or not? Because that happens too. Right. Sometimes the process, it takes more time to get the awareness that it's not right after the event, but it's later.

So for you, your marriage is ending and your business marriage is ending at the same time or sort of in proximity to one another. And so you're asking yourself, you're curious about what does this mean, and then you're gaining awareness about what it means. So I'm putting you on the spot just to sort of see if we can dig up some of the process pieces of it, because I like it. Yeah. This is what's really helpful to people to see how you dealt with it. Like, we have our pivot process, but it's not the thing that everybody will necessarily use. And I'm always curious what someone else's process has been to navigate from what could have been a devastating time and could have had devastating consequences. I mean, it could have taken you out for some length of time, having very important personal relationship that we dissolving, as well as a business relationship that was going to be dissolving as well.

Absolutely. I think it's a great question because I've never really thought about the steps. So let me think this through. So it was deciding what that meant. So to me, it meant, let's put it like this. At first I challenged it in that. Like in my divorce, I said, is this really true? So first I went through a period of saying, well, maybe this is a midlife crisis. How can I show up in a different way to be supportive, to see if this is just a phase or if it's real? So I kind of challenged it, and I probably do that a lot. This is really fun. This is really fun because this is how I think. Right. So I challenged it. And then when I got the result, I kind of looked at, what does this mean from the result again? And in my case, it was, yes, this isn't here anymore. Like, this isn't going to happen. Then I look at my options, what's available to me.

So that second piece, a coming to a moment of realization, saying, the reality is, my job is I'm no longer going to be working with this company. The reality is that I am getting divorced.

Yeah. So I guess it's a decision. Moment of reality and a decision, or it depends on where the decision is. I was part of the decision. So I'd say there it was a Decision. It could be the acceptance. Right. You could call it a decision or an acceptance.

Okay, good. So questioning and the challenging of it and then acceptance.

Yeah, yeah.

That this is what it is.

Yeah, exactly.

Or it is what it appears to be.

I'm laughing because a friend of mine, we have this phrase that when people say it is what it is, we say, or it is what it isn't.

Yeah, I get it because I also resist that it is what it is thing because I always feel like what a cop out to say that. Sometimes it's like a way to say, oh, it is what it is. But in reality, maybe it's just what we're copping out about or what we're willing to tolerate or you know.

Right. That kind of thing. That's true. Absolutely.

Interesting. Okay, so questioning, challenging it. Then there's this acceptance. Is there a few more steps in the process?

Well, then there's what's next.

Ah, okay. So this is a sort of a looking outward, looking forward.

Yeah. Once there's a clarity inside. So that initial part is a clarity inside what's happening here. Is this what I really want? Is this what is going to be and so forth.

Yeah.

Then it's when a decision is made for me, I don't look back like it's a decision and I move forward. Now it could be new information comes into play and I can pivot, you know, I can change and pick a different direction. But I'm looking forward from that point forward. So it's what's next? What can I create?

Beautiful. So Randy, my wife, she loves to ask this question, what's the creative opportunity? So that what's next? Is that the opportunity that's on the horizon? And so you said that you asked that question and then what was the process from there? Did you get an answer right away? Did you try some things? What did that look like for you?

I almost always try some things. I always call it, I plant some seeds and I water them and I see which ones pop up and which ones I like to water, which ones get dry. Got it.

So you put some things in the ground to see whether they would take what they would look like. All that kind of stuff. Is that what you're saying?

Yeah, I'm always somebody who likes to experience things. I was just telling somebody earlier, they wanted me to make some changes in some writing that I did. And I said, can you take a little piece and give me an example? Because I learned from experience. So if I can experience a couple different things, then I can Get a feel for is this right for me? Is this the direction? Does it feel, feel right? Do I get the external response that I'm looking for and that kind of thing. So, yeah, I like to see what fits.

Beautiful. So you're trying some things on, in other words, lots of ways to describe what we're talking about.

Yeah, exactly.

Okay, cool. So that trying on period, how long.

Did that happen to last for you in that context? Not that long. I'm pretty like, you know, like to move through the phases quickly.

So I said it was like mouths to feed. Right. You had two children to support and your own life. Right.

That's true too. I was in a fortunate position at that point. Finances weren't an issue. So that was great. I should add in there in my coping mechanism through this whole thing. Like that's what I was doing in my head immediately through this process. I took care of myself. I want everybody to know that is that I joined a class, I have a trainer and I continue to this day to have a trainer. I went to bed earlier. I really took care of myself because I knew that I needed to do that because that was going to aid in my resilience.

Yes. Oh, you're talking our language here. Beautiful. Okay. Way cool. So good. We're going to insert that in there. So it's this questioning period, even a challenging period, you're challenging it type thing. There's a period of acceptance. There's a conscious movement toward taking better care or taking care of self. There's this period of what's next? Questioning what's the creative opportunity, what's next? And then this planting or trying things on. Right.

And then process took about six months for me.

And that end to end was about.

Six months land into where I entered into then a coaching training with the International Coaching Academy and was going through my certification. So I had found what it is that I really wanted to do.

Got it. So you. Then you got the answer, this is it?

Yeah.

At that point, yeah.

I'm laughing because, you know, sometimes like these answers come in the weirdest places. Like I was watching a movie and that's what helped me to decide. You said earlier on, you said, tell us when you came back to the US So I came back seven years ago and I was able to make a decision for the move. And some of this process was supported by I'd see a movie and something in the movie that had nothing to do with that spoke to me in a way that gave me clarity that said, that's it. That's what you need to do because this happened for anybody else. You might be interacting with somebody on the bus or somebody that you meet and they say something and it didn't have to do with that, that thing that you were challenged with, but it gave you an answer for it. So yes, that seems to always come to play for me is that somewhere an answer comes to me and it's in weird places. Might be while I'm taking a shower probably. If you know now you think of it, it's when you're not focused on it.

Yeah, it's interesting. I don't ascribe to the belief that there's anything random in the universe. So I just feel like when those things happen it synchronistic, call it whatever you want, but it's the seeing there's just relevance and connection with points to things that would seem to be random. If you believed in randomness and if you believe in everything being connected on some level and oneness. Yeah. Then for sure it makes total sense that you would get that awareness in the least expected. Wow. Way cool. I really love this conversation, Penny and I want to ask you on the level of creating resilience. So you've sort of already started the answer to this, so I just want to dive a little deeper with it. We really believe that that's been my experience and think in our community. We really believe that resilience, cultivating resilience is so important in life. But especially when you become aware of the fact that we are pivoting all the time. And in many ways the pivots are painful on a certain level until you can really know what they mean at 30,000ft. They mean growth, they mean our evolution versus not pivoting and playing it safe or just having the status quo be the thing that we put our energy into creating safety, not making mistakes. So that ultimately we can get to the end of the line having made the fewest mistakes and having had sort of the straightest path. But I really believe that what Henry David Thoreau wrote so long ago that everywhere people lead lives of quiet desperation, that that's really the greatest pain body in our world is this fear based way of living so as to avoid making mistakes, as to avoid. So as to avoid pain. So pivoting involves pain. There's no two ways about it. But through that pain also comes this grand opportunity for growth. And at the same time that we can acknowledge that like I've pivoted so many different times that it's not like looking at I Go, oh, I really want to pivot. I really want to pivot because I really want to experience that pain again. No, it's quite the opposite. But rather than resist it, I know there's a way to make the process not only tolerable, that it doesn't have to emotionally or mentally, Physically take me out in the process. Right. And that we call that resilience, the way we bounce back, come back even stronger from setback and things like that. So what you were describing earlier about taking care of yourself sounds like a practice, a conscious practice, a conscious way of being. And we refer to those, I refer to those things as rituals. You can call them habits or what have you. But do you have some very specific things you do to cultivate resilience, rituals to create resilience?

I do. That's one of them, is I look to take care of myself physically because I know that when I fall off the wagon. Because sometimes we do. Right, We. Other things more important. Yes, we do. I have a note on my mirror that says everything is better when I work out. And just to remind me that I need to work out today, even if it's something small, if I just get down and do 20 push ups or whatever, I've done something right. I think that it's really important to move our bodies and take care of our bodies. Next week I'm doing a cleanse. So I really believe that helps in so many ways. I also, ever since that divorce process, I practice gratitude. So somebody had said to me, you should get a journal and you should write down all the terrible things that he said and done to you and da, da, da, da. And I said, oh God, that sounds awful. All I'm doing is filling myself with negativity. I said, I'm going to do the opposite was in conjunction with me having just listened to some Oprah program where she was interviewing somebody who was talking about a gratitude journal. And I'm like, that's what I'm going to do. And so I practice gratitude on a daily basis. Sometimes I'm journaling it, sometimes I'm doing it in my head. I try to continue doing it always in a journal, but sometimes I'm doing it in my head or I'm asking my kids over our meal or before they go to bed. I think that it is so important to practice gratitude. It shifts the energy of our thought completely.

I have so enjoyed and I'm so grateful for you, for our friendship, for you being on this podcast. So I appreciate what you've shared so Much. And I will remind myself and remind our community as well of the practice. Just Been such a joy that we get to share this in so many places around the world. It's three simple steps that start tomorrow morning. So for those of you that are wondering whether how you will start the day tomorrow, we're going to lock in the win right now. First of all, the biggest win is that you wake up. And I mean that. And I'm joking, but at the same time, it's not a guarantee. So truthfully, to wake up and to recognize in those first few moments that you are in fact waking up, that you've been given another day for whatever reason, I truly believe it's because there's something here for you to do. There's an assignment, and that's the reason that you are given another day. And I get to, you know, this morning, wake up and acknowledge I was given another day and be grateful for that. So part one is to wake up. Part two is what Penny has just shared with us, how important it is to create that energy of gratitude right out of the gate and then throughout the day, fantastic. So wake up, be in gratitude. And then the third piece of this is to declare if you are inclined to do this, and I love doing this, say, I love my life. I love my life. I love my life. And that's the three part ritual for starting a day. And you can create your own rituals. It's so much fun to play with those things. Just see whether it's sometimes it's mantras or it's declarations or it's. It's other things. But over the years, I think what has really gotten grounded for me is that just something simple, basic. There's not a lot of, you know, ways for me to take myself out or have other things kind of get in the way. So simple as usable. I love so many things that you've shared. I've written some great notes, Penny, so I know we're wrapping up here, but I want to remind our folks of some of the things that you've said. I really love this one. Everything is better when I work out. And you have that printed and put on your mirror. Right. So you see that sticky note?

Yeah.

Wow. Way cool.

My favorite color. Yep.

Yeah. There's a book by Augmentino that's called, well, several books he's. He wrote. But one of them is called the Greatest Salesman in the World. And there's a really beautiful section in that book where he talks about that. It's the idea that we want to control our thoughts because our thoughts will control our actions is actually backwards, he says. And this really caught me off guard because I have for so long been teaching that our thoughts do control, or our emotions control our thoughts that control our actions that lead to our results. But he's talking and I'm still processing this information. So I'm going to share it now, even though I'm not completely set with it myself, that it's our actions. It's our actions that actually create our thoughts, or that's the opportunity that we have to have our actions then lead to our thoughts.

And what I have a really fun conversation around that.

Right? No kidding. That's this everything is better when I work out piece is that you're putting the action first. And that action will change your thoughts. It will create better thoughts. It's cultivating something that, you know, the net result of what it is you're doing will be better than the absence of that thing.

And you have to fight the thought that says you don't have the time. There's something else more important. So there is a tug of war, right? It is. It's a little bit of a tug of war there. It's chicken egg. But I do believe that if you can get into action, it will change your thoughts. That I believe it'll happen faster when you get into the right actions, that it'll change your thoughts faster than like willpower trying to do like an affirmation. Like, I'm the great, you know, whatever affirmation if you don't believe it when you're in action. So that's interesting. I like that. Yeah. Yeah.

Really cool. So Ogman Dino, the Greatest Salesman in the World, is actually a great book on so many levels. So the other thing that I loved you saying was, everything happens to serve. So for a while, I've been fascinated with this idea. You know, everything happens for a reason. And that never satisfied me. I was like, well, what is the freaking reason? Like, are you kidding me? The reason is to cause me suffering and pain. Is that the reason? Right. Or to teach me a lesson or to punish me or whatever. And it dawned on me that it's everything happens for a reason. This is just from the way I reframe that everything happens for a reason, comma, not period, comma. And that reason is there to serve. And so your statement condenses that down to everything happens to serve. I think that's what you said earlier.

I don't even know. I don't remember saying that. But it sounds good and I do believe that I do.

No, it's beautiful. I get, I love to get to reflect this back to you. And then you've also shared an incredible question with us which is what does this mean? So this is a real, was a part of your development, your growth as a strategic thinker, as a strategic leader in a business, to ask that question when you are boss at the time, your mentor at the time was asking you, saying, hey, listen, I hired you to make decisions. What you do the rest of your time is up to you. And that led to this powerful question for you to pause and ask what something meant so that you could respond more from that place of strategy or strategic thinking versus micromanagement. And then lastly, and this is obviously not in the order that we discuss these things, but I asked you about your process for reinvention, the process for pivoting and what we distilled it down to, which is really cool. I've got six things down here. One was this questioning. So the questioning that's natural at the beginning and even the challenging of what is, is this real? Is this reality? And then of course the hello, duh, this is reality that leads to something that we call acceptance, which is also what creates peace. I believe when we can accept acceptance leads to peace. So you're in this place of acceptance and then again, I'm not sure this is the exact order of it, but you' focusing on self care. So step three is self care. So step one is questioning. Step two is acceptance. Step three was focusing on care of self. Step four was asking the question, well, what's next? So what is the creative opportunity there? Step five is trying things on so that you can establish what do I want the new normal to look like. But I'm going to try some things on and see what fits. And then lastly, step six was, well, this is it. You found something. You said, okay, now I'm going to put my stake in the ground and take a stand for this thing which ultimately became you being a speaker and a world renowned author and trainer and all that, and coach. So in the last couple of moments that we've got here, would you share the title of your book and where it is? People can find out more information too if they would love to just follow you and learn more.

Yeah, sure. It'd be my pleasure. My book is called, I actually have one right here. It's called the Productivity Stop the Tug of War with Time. So it's funny that we said it's a tug of war right. You said earlier with the chicken and the egg. So it is with what our relationship with with time is. So you can find information about my book and I also have an assessment that goes with it because the book covers 10 core drivers that I believe help us to shift from that tactical thinking to more strategic thinking. So that's what productivity is for me, is more strategic thinking. You know, define it. We're all talking about the same thing. And you can find that on my website, which is www.ptenapp.com. so it's P as in productivity. 10 is in the number. App.com beautiful.

Penny, thank you so much. What a pleasure.

Thank you. It was fun to be here. Thank you so much.

Thanks for listening, everyone. We hope you now have even more tools and greater insights to build resilience and become change proof. Help us inspire others by sharing this episode and leaving your comments over@adammarkelle.com podcast for more resilience tips and strategies, including support for building change proof teams, visit AdamMarkel.com BecomeChange Proof.