245: Radical Reimagining—Everything is Up For Grabs

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What's next? This is a question we're all having to ask and answer more frequently. I'm Jenny Blake, your host of the Pivot podcast and author of Pivot. The only move that matters is your next.

Notes from this episode. Visit pivotmethod.com podcast if Change is the only constant, then let's get better at it. Here we go.

Hello my friends. Long time no talk. This is the first episode I'm recording since early July. I ended up running the Penny and Jenny show consecutively that Penny and I have recorded over these last four years as Best of Epis in the month of July. And then July turned to August, August rolled around of this crazy year, this Corona coaster of 2020, and I just couldn't bring myself to do much of anything.

This episode is probably for longtime listeners. I can't imagine if you're new to the show, I don't know how you would even find it right now if you were, but but you might not be so interested in this. I really want to give longtime Pivot listeners some updates. This might be a bit of a ramble, a bit of a wander, but if I keep holding myself to this standard of being ready, or as we all know, of being somehow perfect or even approaching complete and total imperfection, I would never record in this moment. I probably have Morning Voice. It's early, but I'm discovering that all the days that I had on my list record a podcast and I saved it till even midday, it never happened. So that's what the trade off is. I think this is truly a year of trade offs. So is it better for me to record an episode and have Morning Voice and have it be imperfect but get something out? Hopefully. So you will have to be the judge of that.

I have been noting this as the summer of radical reimagining. So much of 2020 for all of us has been about adapting to tremendous change, tremendous uncertainty, and then this low grade, if not extreme anxiety of a disaster that doesn't end. A disaster that's just ongoing. I'm going to link to an article in the show Notes called your surge capacity is depleted. It's why you feel awful. It's written by Tara Hale. Not exactly sure how you pronounce her name, but this article was such an aha for me and pretty much describes exactly how I've been feeling as it got to summer, and for so many people I know as well. The author of the piece is a science journalist, and she has written about infectious disease and medical research for nearly a decade. So at the beginning of the pandemic, she writes, I was on fire, cranking out stories, explaining epidemiological concepts in my social networks, trying to help everyone around me make sense of the frightening circumstances of a pandemic and the anxiety surrounding the virus, she writes. I knew it wouldn't last. It never does. But even knowing I would eventually crash, I didn't appreciate how hard the crash would be, or how long it would last, or how hard it would be to try to get back up over and over again, or what getting up even looked like. She cites a psychologist, Ann Masten, who helped enlighten her that along with most of the rest of the country, she was using surge capacity to operate. Surge capacity is a collection of adaptive systems, mental and physical, that humans draw on for short term survival in acutely stressful situations such as natural disasters, she continues. But natural disasters occur over a short period, even if recovery is long. Pandemics are different. The disaster itself stretches out indefinitely, she says. I know depression, but this wasn't quite that. It was, as I'd soon describe in an emotional post in a social media group of professional colleagues, an anxiety tainted depression mixed with ennui that I can't kick along with a complete inability to concentrate.

Part of the reason that I haven't recorded a podcast is not knowing what to say, not wanting to complain. During this time. I have so much to be thankful for and also straight up, just not having the energy.

By the way, I'm going to let this podcast kind of be in a little bit of a raw form so you might hear noises you might hear. I don't plan to edit this one very intensely because if I wait to do that, it will not get out, will not reach your earbuds. So here we go, a little context on how our summer has gone. Now I say this with just full gratitude for how much we we have and acknowledgement that each of us almost has, like a uniquely custom tailored torture device. Somehow with what this year is bringing. And there's a lot of good and you know, if you've been listening here for years you know that I am generally quite optimistic. I try to see the silver lining. I try to see the best in people and situations, look for opportunities, take full ownership of what's going on, turn stressful thoughts around for Byron, Katie, the works, the works. And yet there is still so much going on that I believe that it is challenging me and others that I know in every way possible.

On, on our end, when I, when I say our, I'm pretty much referring to my husband Michael and I, because we are in our pandemic pod of two. Um, it started in the summer. There started to be fireworks all night every night. And it didn't happen all over New York City, but certain neighborhoods just wasn't, it was more prevalent than others. And part of the reason for this is people were locked inside, everything was still closed, they couldn't go outside. And there's a lot of pent up fire kind of frustration and energy. And especially neighborhoods where you have younger, let's say teenage or 20s kids, people around, they want something to do. So these street fireworks, or bespoke fireworks as I started calling them, came out weeks before 4th of July. I mean, this started in June where, starting around 9pm and then almost every hour all night. We never knew which side of the street or backyard where it would be coming from. And we were just waking up almost every hour or two all night. And this happened for two months and with one week of reprieve where we went away on a vacation, dog friendly vacation with Ryder. And so adding to the noise is the situation that Ryder is still a puppy at the time of this recording. He's just about 11 months old, but he didn't know what the hell was going on. He sleeps on this little tiny terrace we have. He sleeps outside and the poor guy just, you know, he'd be mid sleep and then boom, all these scary noises and he would start barking and running in and out of the house and just, it's really traumatic for dogs, fireworks in general. And if any of you have a dog, you know that the 4th of July is not necessarily the most fun night. You're actually just sitting, comforting your dog. And imagine if that happens then for two, if not three months in a row. And so, you know, a lot of friends were saying this is, it's like psychological torture. And the thing is it wasn't coming from any one organization or official fireworks for the city where, you know, okay, it's happening on this night and then it's over. And if you notice the correlation that the last live podcasts I recorded were in June. I think at that time I was still kind of trying to just adapt and figure it out. And I probably had some leftover search capacity that I was was drawing upon. But by the time that we were one month in, two months in, I was just a zombie, just a shell of myself. I have always known that sleep is fundamental to my health, my happiness, my creativity, my strategic thinking, my motivation, my joy. It starts with sleep. And I've never been an entrepreneur. In fact, I've often critiqued the line I'll sleep when I'm dead. And now I hear, oh, now I hear all these athletes and people saying on podcasts, yeah, it's a terrible mantra. I'll sleep when I'm dead. And the sleep expert, Matt Walker, I think his name is, wrote the book why We Sleep. And he was saying as well, that's just the worst possible mantra you could have as a person kind of striving for anything in your life because sleep is so fundamental to repairing our body. This I have known for many, many years. But nonetheless, here we are in 2020, which, by the way, you know, since March, already adapting to losing at least 80% of my income. My mainstream of income at the moment is momentum with some corporate projects here and there, but certainly not many. And for a couple months I was really kind of grateful actually, not to be traveling and on the road every two weeks and home for a long stretch of time. That is what allowed me to pivot to a daily podcast for the first three months of the Pand. And much like the article I read, I felt very motivated and driven. I had my strive to be of service, this drive to serve, and not only this feeling which is my life purpose is to serve. I live for that. I live for that. To try to understand things, wrap my head around them, simplify them, systematize them, share them. Or in the case of the many conversations with Dr. Consuelos MJC, Dr. MJC, as I call him, to be processing and try to bring some amount of calm and, or confidence and or different perspective to those of you who are listening or some kind of permission to let go of something that isn't serving you or that isn't working or a way of being that just isn't going to work for 2020. So for those, those daily episodes for three months, I loved the challenge. And I even in the moment I questioned, oh, is this going to lead to burnout? Am I going to regret this somehow? Because I too could feel the surge capacity if you will that I was applying, but it really felt like the right thing to do and it energized me. It feels good, I think in certain situations to leap into action. Not to mention the fact that since 2013 I had been starting to think about Pivot and write about Pivot. I got the book deal for Pivot in 2014. So in my first book that came out in 2011, Life After College was also about transition. Now is a crazy time for people who are graduating. Shout out to my sister in law sister who I count as a sister as well, Marissa, who just completed eight years of her PhD program this year in self compassion. I mean, how incredible to wrap up that amount of work and dedication and effort. And we did her graduation over Zoom. So it was very beautiful. And she had such beautiful remarks about, she talked about the metaphor of a rainbow, that rainbows are ephemeral and they inherently, they show up and they, they disappear, but they're so beautiful and present and of the moment and incorporate, you know, all colors on the spectrum. It was just really, really beautiful. So I've been studying change and how do we get better at navigating change and then also throw in a pandemic that not just requires us to pivot daily, but that is affecting so much of how we work and our careers. So that's what Pivot is. It was meant to be the lean startup, but for individuals. So how do we pivot in our own lives and careers? And I will say that when I started writing pivot in 2013, 2014, nobody was talking about career pivots and pivoting in the sense of changing your career as a next move. There was no word for it. It always was describ described as some kind of crisis. So of course 2020 arrives. I'm going to leap into action. This is what I've been studying for. This is what I've been thinking about. And it was such a way to try to leap in and make sense of what's going on. At the same time, I didn't feel like doubling down on pursuing client work. I didn't go hard after companies and say, oh, let me, I let me try to get the most clients that I ever have because now's my time. I really, I'm more.

Receiver in a sense. I like to do my thing here on the podcast, in my books, in my newsletter, and let opportunities and clients sort of more organically come to me. And so for a lot of this year, 2020, that was, that was really working for me. Then you have we had this shift in the summer where with the fireworks every single night. Not. And, and then heat and humidity. I do not do well in heat and humidity. So no sleep. Heat and humidity and raising a puppy during a pandemic. He has energy. By the time I was doing the basics of my day, just struggling to get sleep, walking him once or twice a day, sometimes with Michael, sometimes without.

Taking care of just basic health things. I just, I could have barely do the minimum. And I've had many crises of confidence in terms of just feeling like I'm not cut out for this. Like I'm, you know, I don't know. That's a hard thing to say and that it's not true and I could turn it around, but I've had many moments of just saying, like I.

Trying to, Trying to juggle the puppy, the pandemic, the weather, and then you throw in a curveball like fireworks and. And also rising crime in New York City.

It's been so intense and there's been a lot of articles about even. Even the most die hard New Yorkers are rattled or it's enough to shake even the most die hard New Yorkers. I signed up for the Citizen app, which, I mean, it's up to you if you want to dive into that or not, depending on where you live. I read a book called the Gift of Fear. Gavin de Becker, so, so, so good. And I was afraid to read it for many years because I didn't want to be paranoid walking down the street. But he says, you know, it's better to read it and know what's going on and be aware and tell yourself that you can handle the situations that come your way than to pretend that ignorance is bliss. Shout out to Dori Clark, who recommended that book to me many years ago. So in an effort to kind of like strengthen my own just day to day resilience, I signed up for Citizen. And it is crazy. I mean, just the other day, it's like, oh, man, robbed by axe. Point man carrying an axe robs another man. And this was like one tiny block away or shootings or any number of crazy things. Not to mention what we're seeing day to day. I mean, Michael and I see crazy things every single day. And it's just how it is right now. It is a very weird time for New York City, for the country, for the world. And there were moments where I thought, how the hell can we go even to the country? Or just we needed a break. Like my nervous system needed some kind of break. I was truly having nervous breakdowns. And yet I just couldn't seem to figure it out. I didn't know where to go. Things in New York, we're late to this train, like by the end of summer, by August, I mean, everyone that could have kind of gone somewhere out of the city had already figured that out. So there wasn't a lot available. We look on Airbnb and things are $300 a night. And it just. How do you justify something like that? So I always try to just put out the intention and then if stars align, you know, and we may still find a way to do some kind of home exchange or maybe someone's going to leave their house for a month or more and we can go just decompress a little bit, but we don't really. We don't have plans yet to move out of New York City. It's just how to manage so much intensity with, with life and family and dog care and, and energy.

And then try to get any semblance of work done. So I'm not, I don't want to just come here and complain. I'm. That that's really not my goal. But it's just to try to share one story, one perspective, and that even with someone, you know, like in our situation, Michael and I are getting along, we're doing okay. You know, we have a roof over our heads. We have food to eat, good food to eat. We love our dog, Mr. Pup Pup Ryder. And still I'm finding it almost impossible to get anything done. So I know there are so many of you that you have kids at home, you have kids that aren't going back to school. You must be losing your minds as well. I mean, I know we're not the only ones, and I'm really not here to say that we are or to try to. You know the term comparative suffering or comparative grief. I think it's we, we trap ourselves if we don't allow ourselves to have whatever experience it is that we're having and say, per Kristin Neff's work on self compassion, you know, to say to ourselves, this is a moment of suffering. Already in recording this, I have had to stop at least five times for various interruptions. Toilet flushing, dog is scratching the door, there is noise. I mean, this is one attempt at one podcast. And it's, it's has, you know, five, six, seven stops and starts. And that's, it's perfect that it's going down like that because that is how this year has felt. Just so tricky, so difficult to get traction and then to start something and feel good about something and then boom. Just.

That it doesn't stick. I'll give you a kind of. It's not a silly example, but for Michael's birthday in mid August, we did a family day. We did a staycation down to downtown, which meant going to the West Village, walking through along the west side highway, going down to Tribeca, Battery Park City. Had a great meal at this little restaurant outdoors. It's so nice that so much in New York is al fresco now. Dining outside. And then on the way back up, we stopped at Washington Square park and there's the famous fountain, if you know it, right in front of the ar. And so we let Ryder run through the fountain. He loves water and he loves fountains. And it was just pure joy. I mean, even other people were stopping and taking video and watching him. It was just pure bliss. Ryder running through the fountains at Washington Square park. And he had so much fun. We got the cutest videos. It was just this moment of reprieve, this day, this delightful day of being what felt like a movie set downtown because there weren't that many people out. And we just had such delightful experiences the whole way through. And then boom. Ryder has digestion issues slash diarrhea. We don't know why. Sorry to say it, this is a little gross for a podcast, but. And it means we're up all night again taking him out multiple times a night. It turns out he got giardia, which those of you who are longtime dog owners, you're probably like, yeah, you idiots, you should never have let him in that water. And because if he drinks contaminated water, that's where it comes from. It's a parasite. So this moment of joy is like met by two weeks of paying for it, if not more, because we're still not, not all the way through it at the time of this recording. So that's. That's it. And what it has meant is that it's just extremely difficult to put myself in a place where I can think creatively or strategically and even have the energy to want to record a podcast. I don't. I have three episodes in the can that I don't have the energy to re listen and edit. It's just, it's.

So why am I recording this if I don't have the energy? I just felt is important to check in and to speak to this. I am going to go back to weekly episodes. I still love the podcast. I'm just struggling to find my. My footing, my voice, my again My. Myself, Myself. So I'm going to go back to weekly, partly because when I did the listener survey, by far the most people voted for weekly. So you, I heard you, you said you don't need daily. You don't even need multiple times a week. Many, the majority said weekly is great. What I find very challenging with family life and routine and, and rider and everything is just, it's been, it's been tricky to find what small energy windows exist. And one thing that this year has made clear for me is that.

My ability to think and create, to read books, to think deeply, to do deep work, as Cal Newport says, to be creative, to record something like this podcast, to use my voice, to serve in some small way, this is fundamental to who I am and to my joy. Not because I need some certain identity like, oh, my work is my life, because I have no life and you know, some psychological issue. It's not like that. This feels intrinsic to my spirit, that for me personally to create it for, makes me feel alive. It makes me feel like my best self, my most joyful, purposeful, engaged self. And.

It'S very challenging to find that in the midst of day to day and routine and the dog walks and feeling tired from those and then what are we going to eat? And constant interruptions. And that's just the truth of my reality right now. And I.

I know there's so many parents out there, so many people do this better than I do. Straight up. I'm, I'm.

I don't even know what to say because I know there are so many of you that have figured out how to have a family or have routines and have work and get things done and whatever, but I'm not there yet. Just, just haven't figured it out. And I also, I don't know that so many people are having this conversation of saying, listen, if you value your mind and your ability to think and focus and work deeply and have deep work periods and creativity, yeah, family, family life is going to be real tough for you unless you have a stay at home partner that's like actually handling so much of that. And Michael and I are both creatives. Any of you who listen to the podcast for a long time, you know that we've had conversations together. I have so much fun when we record together. So it's not gonna, it's not gonna work where one of us just handles all the kind of like house and house care and whatever. We both crave this amount of deep work and creative output. So it is, it is challenging it's challenging and it's a conversation I just have not heard as much.

So that takes us back to how I started this episode around radical reimagining. That's been my theme for the last few months. And in momentum, I mean, momentum has been such a lifeline for me in so many ways. Emotionally, spiritually, business wise. That community, we are stronger than ever. And I feel that we are, we are helping each other, we are bootstrapping each other during this time. The fact that it's around heart based business is so beautiful. I had no idea that when I shifted momentum last summer and really made it clear and specific that it's for heart based business owners, solopreneurs who are designing their ideal six figure business, that the level of care and generosity and kindness that everybody has that comes with being a heart based business owner is so beautiful. So we've been talking about this theme of radical reimagining. We just did our first member led summit. We had so many volunteers to teach 20 minute workshops that we expanded it to two days. I ended up doing another staycation where I actually stayed in a hotel downtown South Sea, South Street Seaport. I had a couple in person meetings in a row and I knew I would have this summit for two days. So I let it from a hotel room. And hotels are pretty inexpensive right now because they're not operating at capacity. I didn't feel worried about catching the virus or anything. The hotel's so pristine and sanitized and you wear masks when you're inside. But that felt so good to just be in a quiet space, lead the summit every session. My cheeks were hurting, I was smiling so broadly and everybody just gave so much. It was, it was beautiful. If you want to check out Momentum, go to Pivot. Love momentum and you'll get access to the summit as well. But mostly I just wanted to highlight this, this theme of radical reimagining. And also I'm looking at radical no. So part of radical reimagining, my tagline for that is everything is up for grabs. Given the way this year has unfolded, given the fact that every next step brings who even knows what, more confusion. It's just so hard to say what, what normal. There is no normal. That's gone. That's out the window. We know that. I don't have to tell you that. But the fact that just even to find some basic stability or basic rest and recharging is so difficult for me, that's where radical reimagining comes from. Everything is up for grabs. Including this podcast. I needed over a month to not record something new, to not follow when I'm. It's very hard. You know the saying, build a plane while flying it or rebuild the plane while flying it. It's really hard to radically reimagine systems, processes, content, concepts. I still am committed to a listener supported model, but I needed to not be putting out new episodes because then you get so caught up in the production that it's very hard to at the same exact time be radically reimagining what it can look like. So there are, there are going to be new things coming for the podcast. I still, I still have this urge to pivot the.

Subject matter somehow, or at least the intended audience. I'm really trying to find. And that doesn't mean all of you listening. If you're here, you're the intended audience. You know what I mean? But it's, it's not clear. I don't think it's very clear who the podcast is for, since it's been five years now. And I always have a hard time saying, someone will say, what's your podcast about? To this day, I don't know what to say. And I feel like the book Pivot is so broad. It could be for entrepreneurs, it could be for people looking to make career changes within a company. And yet, at the same time, if you're a longtime listener, you know that I almost never talk about stories of like, career change. I don't really do that. I love, like, you know, I've had penny on 12 times to talk about things like intuition and frequency. But I also don't want to go all in on a spiritual direction. I like talking about systems.

I just, I don't know. And there are podcasts that I admire that are just based on the person's name. And I guess that's the total true evergreen, right? If it's just your name, it just will grow with you forever. But I can't imagine creating something like the Jenny Blake Show.

I'm laughing because I'm just. It's not my style either to just put my name front and center necessarily. I say Pivot with Jenny Blake is the name of the show because there's so many Pivot podcasts that exist. So I just want to make it easier for people to find this one. And now there's the other Pivot podcast with Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway that I watched that launch in 2018, thinking, oh, no, because here are two people that have a really big name. I listen to their show. I love their show. And now sometimes I feel silly when I say, oh yeah, you know, I'll fill out an application for something like the Podcast Academy. It just launched. And I feel kind of silly because I'm like, yeah, I'm the host of the Pivot Podcast. And they're probably thinking, no you're not. That's Gara Swisher and Scott Galloway. But what are you going to do? So I'm exploring. I still feel passionately that I don't want to take sponsors, at least not yet for so many reasons. I don't want to deal with the rigmarole, I don't want to deal with any bureaucracy, I don't want to be told what to say. And most importantly, I don't want you, my beloved listeners, to question anything that I'm saying because maybe I'm being incentivized to say it. So if I read an ad for something I don't give a shit about, what does that say for the rest of what happens in the episode? I just think it's really bizarre. And part of Heart Based business is just total integrity. So I cannot imagine reading ad copy for something that I, I'm kind of non plussed about now. That leaves the possibility that I could only accept, I could do something where I only accept sponsors or ads based on things I genuinely love. But that gave me a new idea that maybe what I'll do, maybe what you might see me do is bring like Jenny's favorites and my raves and, and just use, you know, how you can refer a friend to various services you use and you get a little promo code and so do they maybe do something like that? So I will genuinely be proactively not working with these companies. They will not be reaching out to me. But I'll find the things I love and I'll tell you about them. And we'll both get a little bonus if you sign up for one and if I share my link with you, something like that, that feels reasonable because it is important to me there. I do want it. Let me tell you my dream of dreams, my big secret dream is that the podcast could actually prop up my business. Can you imagine? Wouldn't it be so cool? At least I feel this way that if, if my podcast was my main activity because I realized that I have so many streams of income in my business. Licensing, pivot programs to companies, keynote speaking, hahaha, that's out in 2020. But even virtual keynotes, momentum first, heart based business owners, pivot coaching. Even though I don't do one on one coaching anymore. I have some, a couple of pivot coaches who do that. That it's. It's actually challenging to try to get massive momentum in any one of those because there's so many now. That's a good thing to be so diversified. But I also, maybe, maybe it's a grass is greener situation, but there is a part of me that feels called to simplify, especially now and ah, wouldn't it be amazing like so many people who have a podcast. Not so many. Scratch that. Because a lot of podcasts don't make money and it's a lot of work and you got to do it for other reasons than earning income. But I. There is a part of me that looks to a few friends I have where the podcast is our main activity and their main source of income. And I do feel that that would really align with what brings me joy, which is using my voice and specifically my speaking voice. Writing is not as joyful for me. Big ideas are joyful. Research, simplifying, systematizing, sharing that back out is joyful and that is what will motivate me to do the work that a book requires. But I love podcasting and so I do want to figure out a listener supported model that actually works. And I may. I might be launching a listener supported model where you'll get a private feed and every week there would be. It would be. You'd subscribe in your podcast player, same one where you listen to these episodes, but there would be an ask me anything feature and those episodes would be private on the private feed released weekly, something like that for $5 a month. So if you're interested in that, let me know. You can email helloivittmethod.com you don't have to. That would just be. If you want to say yes, do that. I'm interested. But otherwise of course I'll give you updates on this podcast and hopefully you're subscribed to Pivot List. I also haven't sent a Pivot List newsletter in over two months. I just could not bring myself to do it. But that's pivotmethod.com pivotlist that's where I round up my favorite things around the web. Omg things like there's a show, a French show called Call my agent on Netflix. Please go watch that. It is so good. Michael and I are loving this show and he speaks French so it's easier for him. But I don't even mind the subtitles. It's so good. Call my agent. See, they didn't pay me to say that. I love it so much. It has brought us so much joy that I'm sharing it with you.

Speaking of things that I love and what has gone well this summer, in addition to still wrapping our heads around just adapting to life with a puppy and his energy and all that, I have a renewed commitment to health and fitness. For a lot of the summer, I told myself, working out is your job. And I let that be my mantra because it allowed me to prioritize working out, whereas I really hadn't. I will say, for the year and a half prior and certainly with the daily podcast, when I was doing that from March to May, my workouts really fell off. I would be like, do I. Should I do a yoga class or should I go record tomorrow's podcast? And the podcast was constantly taking preced.

So a little ways into the year, I got this bug that I should buy a peloton. And I know some of you that's going to make you groan and roll your eyes because, oh, what is it with this peloton thing? It's like what yoga and meditation were a few years ago, where everyone would rave about it. You're like, enough already. Okay, I get it. I never thought of myself as a spin person. I even went to the peloton Launch party in 2014 in New York City and I thought, yeah, this is cool, but who on earth is going to pay $2,500 for a bike? And certainly not me. And at the time I was living in a studio downtown. So of course I'm not going to. Well, no, now I would. Now I would tell my past self, hey, you should have gotten that bike. It. It was getting midway through the year, I wasn't doing any cardio. I was barely doing my workouts. I have the mirror, which now having a peloton, I would not necessarily recommend the mirror. It doesn't add enough value. But I was doing yoga and pilates sometimes on the mirror. I got a whoop tracker and I'm going to put. If you happen to get a peloton after listening to this or the whoop tracker, I'm going to put the links. I do have affiliate links for those or referral codes that you could get a little something and so will I. Although it's escaping me right now, just make sure you check out the show notes pivotmethod.com podcast. So I will put those links in case you can get a promo code from them as well as the meals that We've been eating that are really good, so look at the show notes for those. But I got the Whoop Tracker thanks to my friend Julie and I started tracking in May. That's what inspired the Peloton, because the Whoop tracker tracks your sleep, your recovery, how many interruptions you had throughout the night. But the key thing about tracking your recovery is then it tells you what your strain should be or could be for the day ahead. So let's say on a day where I'm 98% recovered, it says you have the capacity to take on high strain today and go get em, you know, and they have a strain coach. Where if I'm gonna start an activity like a walk or a run or a bike ride, you see the strain coach, and you see, okay, keep going, keep going. Or push harder, push harder. And this helps build fitness over time. Similarly, on a day where recovery. There was a day last week where it was 3% and I was a mess. I was crying. I was like, oh my God. I was practically catatonic. And of course we, you know, looked at my recovery. It's 3%. That's like, don't you dare do anything today. And it just gives some data. And especially it gets more and more powerful over time. I was not into the WHOOP the first, like three months. I just thought, this is so annoying to have this thing on my wrist. What's the point? And you have to Pay, and it's 35amonth. So I was like, why am I doing this? Just to track my sleep. The whoop is supposedly, I think, best for athletes, and you really want to build optimal fitness and strain and recovery. There's also the Oura ring that seems very similar and there's no monthly charge for that one. But I think there's slightly less kind of real time coaching, if you will, on how hard to push yourself. But I realized with the Whoop that I was not. I was not straining myself enough. Actually, during the day I felt very fatigued, I felt very low energy. I didn't even want to do a yoga class. But at the same time, I was recovered enough and I wasn't really working out and I certainly wasn't doing any cardio. So in a fit of inspiration, I decided I'm doing it. We should get the peloton. If I use it even three times a week or four times a week, it's worth it and it will get me to do cardio and I won't even have to leave the house. And so I purchased it. I Think at that time there was an eight week delay. So the bike arrived mid June and I got on a streak. Because I do really well with streaks. I'm kind of an all or nothing person in that way. Like with sugar, it's all or nothing. I. I'm not one of those, like, just eat a bite of a cookie and then put it away. Or even just eat one cookie and then you won't eat the rest. It's getting better, actually. There's something about now. I don't know if it's age or what. I can actually just have one. There's these cookie dough bites at Whole Foods. Oh my goodness. They're so good. I can have one. But there would be a time where if we had chips in the house or cookies or popcorn or whatever, I would just eat the whole bag. I almost like wanted to make it go away. How did I get to talking about binging? Oh, yeah, because the peloton. I started a daily streak and I now I'm three months in exactly on my 12th week of this streak. I ride the bike every single day. If I have high recovery, I'll do a ride where I push myself. Maybe a longer ride, 45 minutes or power zones. And if I'm on a day where I have very low recovery, maybe I'll do. They have even called recovery rides or low impact rides. Maybe a handful less than five days. I haven't done a bike at all. I've done a yoga class or something through Peloton and it has just energized me so much. I feel my heart, my strength building and getting that cardio back and prioritizing these bike rides and getting those endorphins again. I'm so happy. This has been the best thing I did for myself this year. And it is expensive. But part of what tipped me over was my brother told me you can do three year financing for zero percent. So I'm paying something like $70 a month for the bike and then 39amonth for the subscription to their classes. It's a little over a hundred dollars a month. 110. It's so worth it. Again, if you do, if it's a little over 100 and you do 10 rides or workouts, then it's $10 a class. I mean, that's definitely cheaper than a lot of New York City stuff. Not renting a city bike, but it's been so energizing. So the Peloton plus the Whoop tracker have been a real game changer. And can you imagine Like I described what a tough summer that I've had with no sleep and no energy and no motivation. And that's with giving myself endorphins every day, with working out, with doing the best I can to take care of my health. So I don't even know where I would be without that. And it does, it does make me a little more tired.

But it has felt good in 2020 to say my health is my job, my health is my top priority. And also with COVID P.S. so I do feel like part of. I don't know if we can call it prevention. And I am not a medical doctor. Don't listen to me. As such, I do feel that one of the best things I can do for myself with COVID flying around is improve my immune system and my lung capacity and my cardiovascular fitness. And so I do feel that all of this is actually quite important for having and maintaining a strong immune system. Now, lack of sleep and crazy spikes of stress is not going to help. So that's, that's what I got to work on. The other thing I mentioned, meals. I'm going to put these links in the notes as well in case you can get something good from using them. I think you can. They always do that. But Michael and I, Michael did a lot of research.

Earlier in the year because we moved about a year ago. No, a year and a half. We're constantly trying to solve our food situation. He is an incredible chef. Like he is a chef. He cooks like he paints. I honestly, when he makes a meal, I feel like I live in a restaurant. But at the same time, as described, we have a lot of routines, Rider stuff. We're tired. Neither of us is the type that loves to just go the kitchen and cook a full meal for dinner every day. So we have done these long going tests of getting different meal kits delivered. Either the meal prep kits, like Blue Apron, my favorite of those was plated, but I tried every single one. Sun basket, hellofresh. Every single one we landed on plated. But that's still a lot of work. And there came a time where they would just sit in the fridge in their meal kit bags and we wouldn't do anything. So then we started trying frozen stuff. Now we have two services of frozen meals that are so good that I'll end up sprucing up with some almonds, salt and olive oil. Michael is Lebanese, so his family motto for us is everything needs olive oil. It goes on everything. And these meals. So one of them is mosaic. I'm going to put that in the show notes because I'm not sure if they deliver to where you are, wherever you are listening, but hopefully they do. And then the other one is brand new. We just started it. Trifecta. They're both frozen. They're yummy. We do the vegetarian, if not vegan option for them and they're just easy to spruce up. Maybe you put almonds, olive oil, salt, and then some cold tomatoes or something. And it might be lentil, cauliflower or something or other. Who knows? Trifecta has a lot of beyond meat burger stuff in there. Mosaic has risotto, like mushroom something risotto. And so you can tell that, that they're not like paying me. I don't have a script because I don't have the perfectly crafted commentary on these meals. But they are good. So those will go in the notes. And then sure enough, because I heard an ad on various podcasts, I have did a first order of Laird Hamilton's superfood products. And there is. They're all kind of healthy coconut based creamer for your coffee. Or they have one really good instant coffee that has coconut oil, coconut creamer and coffee. So it's like just add water. Good stuff. So that's been making me happy these days too. It's been bringing some joy to an otherwise overwhelming routine of trying to feed ourselves in a healthy way. Because I just mentioned Michael and Lebanon, many of you reached out. It was really kind, really sweet of you to ask because, well, part of hashtag 2020 was the big ass explosion that happened in Beirut. And it's 10 minutes from where Michael's family lives, his mom and his sister. Hallelujah. They are okay. They're healthy. His mom was playing cards with friends and heard a noise that had a signature to it that reminded her of war times. And she very quickly got everyone away from the window. If she hadn't done that, they could have easily been injured or worse from the glass that blew in the house, her home, their home had all the glass blown in metal twisted up there. And they're the lucky ones. And there's so much tragedy that happened around that it's been quite devastating. Beirut and Lebanon were already in massive unrest, civil unrest, government corruption, hyperinflation, famine. It's. It is really tough right now. And that blast, I mean, it happened again. Like Michael had just been starting to get momentum with his art making. And then boom, this happens to Beirut. And I've been trying to explain to people, it's. It's as if, if you're familiar with New York City at least as if the West Village and the Meatpacking district and pick your other favorite neighborhood, soho were just demolished, just ash. So there's all the people who were injured and killed who to this day are, are injured, maimed. One of his friends, they lost their three and a half year old. His friend from school, one of his best friends and you know, as Michael put it all his memories when he was growing up, it's, it's the, the downtown, the port. The port. So the port where he and I had many meals when I was there visiting, sitting, watching the Mediterranean, watching the, with fruit and glass of wine. Gone. The downtown with all the cute little restaurants, coffee shops, art galleries, bookstores, gyms. Gone. Gone. It is gone. It is ash. The again, like I'm, I'm using New York City because it's top of mind but pick a city that you love and imagine that the most bustling, the cutest part, the, the, you know, the, the downtown, the nightlife area, the, the daytime, it's gone, it's ash still. There's so much rubble and that doesn't even speak to the hyperinflation that's happening and the government corruption and it's, there's so many seemingly intractable issues there and there's a lot of relief efforts happening, but there's also a lot of foreign governments that won't contribute funds because the government is so corrupt they've been offshoring billions of dollars. So that's been really tough. But, but if you're somebody that reached out and sent us a note and asked if Michael's okay and if his family's okay, we're grateful. If we are grateful that they are, they are at least physically in that sense unscathed and their house is okay. And Michael's mom and sister shout out because I know sometimes his sister listens. Are just so resilient. I admire them so much. I talk about resilience. I mean this is why let me hate. Even the things that I spoke about on this podcast that I'm struggling with are, are like nothing in comparison to what they're dealing with. And again, you know, I think it's so important we try not to compare. We, we're each having our own experience.

Of this year. But.

I admire them so much. I just admire. I have my sister in law, Jill who's with her two kids. Like there's so many people in my life, my, my mom, my grandma, my dad, you know, like I, I see what everyone is juggling at this time. And I'm just in awe, really. And maybe that's. Maybe that's where we can leave this podcast is I am in awe of you, of what you're carrying, every single one of you. We're all caring a lot differently. And collectively, there is so much conflict and so much effing chaos that is projected in the media and in politics. And that alone, that toxic energy in the air is a lot to absorb, not to mention the stress and economic unease that so many people are feeling right now. It's in the air. It's thick in the air. And if you're a highly sensitive, empathic.

Intuitive person, you're feeling it as a baseline. Even if you think things in your life are relatively fine. That's a lot of energy to be surrounded by, adapting to and trying to still live as light in the world. It's a lot. If you're here, you're at what my friend Neil calls the end of the podcast club. Thank you for being here. If you listen this far, just, I hope this was helpful for you in some way. Not because I have any brilliant ideas or any advice to give right now, but just to connect from person to person to say, what WTF is this year? And we're going through it together. Here's hoping 2021 can bring us something different. But as Wade and Momentum, she. She did a workshop for the summit on Envisioning Fall, and she, she asked us to think, how do you want to feel this fall? And that gave me such an aha moment, because.

Maybe there's a way to shift where we don't have to feel such heaviness and anxiety and fear and dreading election season. So she had words like cozy, safe, healthy, happy, and how could you start taking some steps toward feeling that way now? If you want to check out more of Wade's work, I encourage you to check out her podcast centered in the city. Her name is Wade Brill. She does a ton of great workshops, especially toward the end of the year as well. So you can go to wadebrill.com and I'll put her the link to her website in the show notes as well. And stay tuned because we have some exciting interviews coming up, including. Drumroll, please. One with my longtime friend, friendor mentor from afar, Seth Godin. I can't wait. I'm preparing to interview him tomorrow at the time of this recording, and it's a first. He's never been on the Pivot podcast. I think it's one where I saved it for so long because I was intimidated to interview him, but I love him so much. I love his work. We're going to be talking about his forthcoming book the Practice and it is so good. I'm just loving everything about it. Thank you for being here. Thank you for listening. More changes coming and.

In the podcast and the world and I invite you to Radical Reimagining Everything except for grabs.

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Remember, build first, then your courage will follow. Hasn't it always.