258: Big Things Brewing + the Power of Tiny Sprints

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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 one.

For show 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. Welcome back to the Pivot Podcast. It has been so long. It's been several months since I did a solo episode. The last one was episode 253 on my word of 2020, which was miracles set prior to the pandemic. And then all craziness ensued. I'm so curious to know, what's your word or theme of 2021? I had the word lucky pop into mind at the end of 2020. And then I reached this point as we turned the corner into the New Year and craziness was still happening. And I realized, you know, the one thing I really want is peace. Just peace. And for a long time, equanimity was a big driving aim. You know, happiness can be fleeting, but equanimity is peace. Within this world, it's order within the chaos, it's the eye at the center of the storm. So that's mine. How about you? This episode I'm just going to share a little bit of what I've been up to. There's actually no agenda. So for some of you that want super crisp, clear talking points and lessons learned, that's not this. This is a peek behind the scenes of big things brewing and some updates what to expect. And I gotta say, I'm feeling into it just like the of you of what this new year is going to bring. I really think 2020 asked us to do such radical reimagining of every area of our lives and for me that leaves no stone unturned. And I've even been experiencing just a sense of fatigue and exhaustion. Someone said to me recently that there's a feeling of collective burnout that we all went through so much and we've been carrying so much and a certain tiredness has set in. The best way I can describe it is that for my creative ambitions, my eyes are bigger than my stomach. My eyes of envisioning what I want to create are a little bigger than my capacity and energy to create them. So for me, it's slow and steady wins the race. Of course there's no race to win, but it's going to be slow and steady and trying to feel into the flow of work and these creative projects without forcing it, but still making a little bit of progress every day. Along those lines, I'll share a series of tiny sprints that have really worked for me and I have to give full kudos and credit to my friend Michael Bungay Stanier, mbs, who has been a two time guest on the Pivot podcast. I'll put those episodes in the show Notes he challenged me in December to start writing because I had a next book idea bubbling and I just felt that writer's block. So he said, okay, send me 1500 word essay twice a week, Tuesday and Friday. And I said, sure, you got it. And then I didn't do it. I wasn't taking any action. So then MBS made an amendment. He said, just write 100 words a day. That's it. That's three sentences. And I thought, okay, that's doable. And so we both committed for at least 30 days to each write 100 words a day. And this was so freeing. It meant that I could record three sentences through a voice memo transcribed on my phone. There was no excuse. I could anywhere on the go come up with these hundred words. And as you know how these things go, sometimes those hundred words turned into 500 at most a thousand. I never usually get to that point of a thousand. But in doing this just 100 words a day for 30 days and typically that takes less than 15 minutes. I actually really got momentum into my next big idea and the next book that I want to write. So at the time of this recording, I'm doing another staycation in a hotel downtown. You can check out episode 250 for my staycation strategy for deep work. I'm watching snow fall almost sideways out the hotel window and I'm here working on a third revision of a book proposal. So I'm gonna keep the topic, exact topic, a secret for now. But this new book goes with a new podcast. They are centered around heart based business. And of course you all here will be the first to know as anything exciting happens right now, it's still very close to the vest because you know, they're not launched yet, there's no book deal yet. But I've been in creation cave mode. That's why you haven't really heard from me. I'm one of these people that I just have to go all in and immerse. It's hard for me to do day to day activities in the business and maintain while pulling back to get into this deep, deep work creation mode. So I'm just emerging. I'm really happy to be here on the mic, sharing with all of you and. And it does get easier, I think, over time, but it's still such a vulnerable process.

You know, I've been self employed now for 10 years. March 2021 will be my 10 year entrepreneuriversary and I've been platform building for 15. So I started working on my first book in 2008, came out in 2011, I started working on pivot in 2013, it came out in 2016. And now here we are, 2021 early and working on this next proposal. And every single time I go through this roller coaster of who am I? Do I have anything original to say? It's already been done. Seeing what's done globally out there, is this going to work? Is this any good? How can I launch with ease and joy? How can I work on this book and this new podcast with ease and joy when sometimes it can feel so heavy, especially with carrying everything else? So I'm in it again and I'm just reminded that every single time, it's an exercise in having great people around you, around me, who can say, keep going, you're onto something, or point out the things that resonate most. Because sometimes just having that mirror is so helpful. And also to keep going and keep refining and know that things are gonna be pretty terrible on their first run out the gate. Whether it's the early podcast, interviews or book writing, it's all going to be messy and scrappy and it gets refined and refined over time. So I'm in the thick of it right now. And for that reason, most likely the Pivot podcast will have a slightly different cadence. Maybe I'll release every other week or once a month, just until I figure it out. I realized that it can be kind of hard to build into the new ideas and new direction while trying to still maintain the previous form of my business and body of work. So I've been doing a lot of reading on systems thinking. This is one of my big passions, as you all know, and I'm excited. The new Projects I'm working on will teach some of this systems thinking and philosophy, but also how do we work with ease and joy while serving the highest good? I'll give you a hint. So the Free Up Founder Time course that I did and my Momentum community, which is now sunsetted Momentum, has become Pivot Insider, my monthly call for those who support the Pivot podcast. These really did spark this new direction. So realizing how passionate I am about small heart based businesses and how we work and how we can earn twice as much in half the time with ease and joy while serving the highest good, this is so interesting to me and it's stuff that I've been tinkering with the last 10 years behind the scenes and for the last five years in momentum. But I'm finally mustering the courage to go more to double down on this direction as I talk about in Pivot. On that note, I am going to raise the price. So Free Up Founder time is a 16 audio lesson mini course. Right now it's free and in a couple weeks I'm going to start charging for that course also while I make improvements behind the scenes. So if you want to get that while it's still complimentary, just head over to pivotmethod.com foundertime and you can enroll. Not only will enrolling get you the free course, but you'll be the first to know about the new direction because it's going to be directly related. For anyone who's interested in that course, I think you'll be interested in what's next. So Again, that's@pivotmethod.com foundertime and I encourage you to just enroll even if you're not going to take the lessons right now. That way you're in, it's free and you'll get any updates that I make along the way. This wouldn't be a JB solo episode if I didn't give you some book recommendations as well. Because I have been reading up a storm. This is my favorite activity. I've often joked that if I could get paid to read books I would as my job and podcasting is the closest thing. Podcasting and working on new books of my own. There is a beautiful and exquisite book called Wintering that I just loved. Hat tip to Sarah who put it back on my radar. I had read some really good reviews. What I love about the book Wintering I believe the author's name is Catherine May and is this idea that winter is more than a season. We go through wintering periods in our Life where we have to pull back from everything, whether it's a grieving process or we get sick, or we just need time, we need to unplug from the matrix and recharge. And that has gotten me thinking about business building as well. You know, some of my favorite books on business systems, books like Clockwork, Built to Sell, Traction, these are all about removing the owner oneself as the bottleneck. And for me it goes with this concept of wintering, because I really admire people who are able to show up very consistently, steady state, day after day as operators in their business, in their life, in their career, in their creative projects. I really admire it. And. And yet, if I'm being realistic and if I'm being honest with myself and with all of you, I work much more seasonally and much more cyclically. If you're a longtime subscriber to this podcast, you know that, that in six years of running this show, there are periods where I may not put out an episode for two months. And it's really hard behind the scenes. Of course, I feel a little guilty. One week passes, then two, and I wonder, I should really get an episode up. And some would say this is a systems problem. Myself, I would probably tell that to myself. But it's also for me a signal that I need to not put anything out and that maybe I need to go back into the goo state that Penny Pierce and I talk about and really let myself be in a cocoon where I'm not producing anything, I'm not doing my public original thinking. And those periods of time are so powerful, they inspire me, they give me the new ideas. It's where I'm reading and harvesting and thinking and grappling and sometimes just for life reasons, I need a break. I'm tired and I need to rest. So I tend to work much less like a machine. You know, we know Tony Schwartz wrote a book called the Power of Full Engagement that we are not machines, we can't work like that, we have circadian rhythms. But I think a lot of times in career and especially in business, we say, you know, your business is a machine. This machine metaphor comes up a lot and you want to get it to be a well oiled machine. And getting to know myself as a business owner these 10 years and a creative and a creator, I just don't work well as a machine as this unfailing, ever consistent, haven't missed a week in 10 years of hitting publish. It ends up not being me as much as I wish sometimes that it was. And the more that I can be honest about working seasonally and cyclically. The more that I can design systems and process and then drop the guilt around the rest. So while I don't think that I'll release podcasts in seasons per se in that specific format, how can I design systems that would support me taking a step back at any time or taking the creative space I need? Or maybe I'm just cultivating a listenership that's all of you who understand and you just go, oh, okay, cool. She's taken a week or a month off and no big deal, she'll be back soon. And in fact, that's really the relationship that I would hope to have, which is there's no judgment. This is a judgment free zone that if you need to take a week off your newsletter or something you're doing or a month, it's no big deal. In fact, I'll be just as happy to see when your next one comes out a month later or two or three, and especially if it's leading to the next thing that I can jump on and support I watched a great TED talk to this end by Stefan Sagmeister. He's an artist and a designer and it's an older one. It's from the early years of ted. It's on his sabbatical that he takes every seven years. I'll put the link in the show notes. He talks about how in that sabbatical that he takes every seven years, that is when he incubates the creative vision and ideas that serve his business and serve his clients for for the next seven years. So I do think there is a lot to be said for working in this way. But we have to change the conversation a little bit from just this. Always on unfailing pressure to produce another book and concept that has helped me take the pressure off and shift how I think about things in this new year and this new direction and especially with a little less energy. Overall is a book and a concept from Strategic Coach called who Not How. Again, I'll put all the links to these in the show notes. The whole idea of who not how is that often we get overwhelmed when we think about how we're going to tackle any new project or goal. And instead the authors, Benjamin Hardy and Dan Sullivan, they say that really our question should be who not how, that if we focus on getting the right who's on board, the hows will take care of themselves. This has been a very freeing concept. It doesn't mean that you have to, let's say, hire a bunch of full time employees. It might just be who can you partner with? Who are some specialists in what you're trying to do? Who can you learn from, who's already traversed the path that you're looking for? And then creating the vision, they call it an impact statement or an impact filter. So they fill out this one pager about their vision for the project and they pass it off to the who. And that in doing so, you can really accelerate and experience so much more expansiveness because you, the creator, are no longer trying to do it all. So who, not how has been just a great read. Thank you to my brother for putting that one on my radar and a great inquiry to ask. You know, we did the episode on Beautiful Questions, which is a concept from David White, that a beautiful question has to be lived. You don't know the answer right away. So even if you don't know the answer right away to who not, how can you sit with this inquiry of what are the parts of your life or work that, first of all, you might just want to stop doing altogether? And maybe it's a little hard to admit, but maybe the events of this last year have shed new light on things, or your energy has shifted, your insights and realizations about what brings you joy has shifted. So, first of all, what do you want to stop doing altogether, even if it's hard? There's a quote, Stephen Mitchell from Pivot, that I quoted him in Pivot, all change involves loss, that sometimes we have to say no to what's good so we can say yes to what's next.

So what can you drop altogether? And then if you're staring down a pile that you do want to tackle, who, not how, who could you get on board? In my case too, I always think about, at least certainly in my business and creative projects, stress is a systems problem. So I like to ask, okay, what is creating stress? And if it's for sure something that I want to do, like put out a new podcast episode, what new systems or process or people can I put in place around me that will ensure that I get to do what I do best and that the rest is taken care of? These are some of the big themes that I'm thinking about, especially as I'm trying to free up space to get this next big book and idea out into the world? I would love to hear from you. I would love to hear what books you're reading, what quotes have inspired you, what's your word of the year, or what's a question you have about any of this. So shoot me a voice memo. You can leave this@pivotmethod.com ask and I'll pull them into a listener Q and A episode. I would love to hear from you. Just it's been a while since we connected and you might think, oh, someone else will submit. I don't need to do it. Or maybe you're a little nervous. I know I would be. I'm rarely the one that will go to the trouble to leave a voice memo, but I'm talking about you. So pivotmethod.com ask and I would love to hear. We'll do a listener Q and A roundup when we get a handful. I hope you're all doing well. Thank you for listening to this catch up episode. Thank you for your support of the new direction and for the creative cave mode. I really appreciate it and I'm wishing you all I know it's a little belated, but I'm wishing you all Such a wonderful start to 2021. May it surprise and delight you. May you find peace within the storm and I can't wait to see what unfolds from here. Thank you so much everybody for being here listening. And again, if you have any requests or feedback for future episodes, leave me a note pivotmethod.com or you can email helloivittmethod.com and don't forget, last reminder, go sign up for free up foundertime, the mini course just so that you're the first to know about the new book and podcast when it launches and maybe you can even help shape one or both of those things. So that's@pivotmethod.com foundertime thank you so much and have a beautiful rest of your day everybody.

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