79: Set Your 2018 Pivot Strategy with Jenny Blake

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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 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 friends. Happy New Year. Can you believe it? 2018 is upon us. In what has become a Pivot Podcast tradition, I am recording another Set yout Strategy episode, this one for 2018. I always have new tips and tricks and tools that I'm throwing into the mix. So today I'm going to share a bunch of resources upfront at varying levels of investment, just in case you don't want to listen to the whole episode. And then I'll take you through the meat of the Pivot Method and how to apply that to map your next moves. Even if you're staying within your current role or staying within your business, it's a way to look at what's working, double down on it, figure out where you generally want to end up, and then how to work to close that gap and with some small experiments and next steps. So before we jump in first, one of my favorite New Year's episodes was with James Altucher. He was one of the very first people to say yes to be on this show, so I'll put that in the show notes. I encourage you to go back and listen. That was for 2015 New Year's and we just had so much fun talking about his tips for reinvention. Some Resources Pivot Sprint we are doing a four week Pivot Sprint. You can join us now. Go to pivotmethod.com sprint and you'll get one email a week that will walk you through the Pivot Method and help you set your strategy one step at a time. So that's a really great compliment to go with this podcast. If you listen to this podcast, I encourage you to pause after every prompt and write things down. But if you miss that or you're on the go. And you don't want to do that. Just head on over to pivotmethod.com sprint and you'll get this via email. Another tool if you want to create a Pivot Mastermind, the Mastermind Leader Kit is totally free and it allows you to create a mastermind with your friend tours that can. It will walk you through three months of material to have weekly calls and it will give you exactly what you need to facilitate those calls. It also walks you through a more detailed version of the pivot method. So this is great if you want to kick off the year right and have some accountability and support. I am telling you, friend tours. Working with my peers has been the bread and butter of my people strategy. Yes, networking is amazing. Yes, it's great to meet mentors who are so much farther ahead and can be really helpful or make connections, but it's also been awesome to connect with people at my level doing similar things or even not doing similar things. And we're just motivated to to help each other and get on the phone every week or every two weeks and say, how are things going for you? What are you working on? What are you struggling with? What's next? So if you want to facilitate your own Mastermind group, head over to pivotmethod.com mastermind and you'll get the leader kit. Again, that's totally free. I would recommend that you check out the book Pivots. If you don't already have it, that's now a little bit of an investment, but well worth it. Again, pivots are not just these massive leaps. That's actually the opposite of a. A pivot is a methodical change in a new direction based on what's already working. And I don't even say change, I say shift. So it's a methodical shift in a new related direction based on what's already working. So from wherever you are, pivots start right under your feet. They're not about reaching so far outside of yourself that you're in your panic zone and you have complete analysis paralysis. No, Pivots start right where you are. And it's just about saying, hey, what's already working? What can I double down on? And what are some related small experiments that I can try? For all of you who are side hustlers and solopreneurs, I encourage you to join us in momentum. This is my private community. I do Q and A calls every two weeks where you can submit questions. So let's say you don't Want to sign up for one on one coaching? This is a great way to just get your questions answered and have a ton of peer support as well from other people who are building and working on creative projects. I love this group. It's about 70 people total and I'd say 20 are active. So it's very small, it's very tight knit. You can jump jump in and really be a part of it. It's up to you, of course, how much you want to put into this, but you also get three plus years of archives of every course I've ever created, every Q and A call, webinars that I've done on how I built my business, exactly how much money I've made in the last five years, and I'm going to do another one soon on Scalable solopreneur Income Part two. I did one before Pivot came out, so there's all kinds of meaty stuff that you can really wrap your mind around. And even if you just join us for a quarter, it's 125 for three months and I encourage you to come check it out. That's pivotmethod.com momentum or you can join for varying other levels of Support on Patreon patreon.com pivot if you want private one on one support, we have an amazing team of Pivot coaches. This is just a two session jumpstart that kickstarts your pivot. So let's say you do the sprint or you listen to this episode and then you just want somebody to bounce ideas around with and generate some of that momentum. Snowball. Sign up for a jumpstart. Again, it's two sessions. We wanted to make it really easy for you to just try out coaching without any long term commitment because that can be kind of awkward where some coaches want you to sign up for three or six months up front and you barely even know them or if the relationship is going to work out. I can tell you right now, these are some of my favorite people. So you'll be in great hands with any single one of them. Check them out. Pivotmethod.com coaching and then finally I've opened up five spots in 2018 for a private pivot to profit VIP strategy day with me in New York City. This is definitely the highest level of investment. But for those of you who want to come hang with me, you got luxury travel, hotel, you just have to book your flight. I will take care of everything else because I want to give you that luxury experience that I love when Traveling. And together, we will roll up our sleeves and spend a day together building whatever it is that you want, whether it's a website, personal brand, honing in on a keynote speech, figuring out your business mod, designing your ideal business. However, we can dive in and just get shit done together. That's what I love to do, and I would love to work with you. So if you want to apply for one of those spots, head on over to pivotmethod.com VIP all right, that's a ton of stuff, but I just wanted to make sure you had all the options for this year, because there are so many ways that my team and I can support you in 2018. You are not doing this alone, and your pivot is. This is an exciting time. I love talking about pivot because change can be so overwhelming, and I wanted to create a process. That's what this podcast is all about, is, if change is the only constant, let's get better at it. And I've created all these tools, and I really wanted to make sure that you had options at all these different levels to get the support and momentum and energy that you deserve to have when working on your big creative projects. And I know for me, I've been in business now six and a half years, even a little more, and I figured out so much stuff the hard way as far as how to build a side hustle and a solopreneurship that really suits my style, that honors my health and wellness, where I'm not running myself into the ground, where I'm working 20 to 30 hours a week and earning three or four times as much as I did when I was at Google. It took a while to get here, but I'm here, and I'm so grateful. And I want to share with you what I've learned, because I don't want you to have to take six and a half years if you don't have to. If I can, through any one of these channels, give you some tools and advice and coaching that shortcuts that for you and helps you get there in six months, in a year, oh, my goodness, I am so happy to do that. So I feel like my calling in life is go through something that might feel very challenging or inefficient, build some tools and templates, and then share it with all of you. And that's why I'm so glad that you're here on this podcast. So, without further ado, let's really get into the 2018 strategy portion again. Grab a piece of paper. I Encourage you to take notes. I encourage you to pause whenever I ask a big, juicy question and do the work here. So maybe this is an episode. You listen through once and just get some ideas, and then you can do work afterward, or listen once and then go through a second time, really hit pause and do these exercises.

Whenever I'm thinking about a new year, I like to really zoom out. The first thing that I do is come up with a word or a theme. What is my intention for this year? What do I want to focus on? I've had themes like Freedom, the year that I was leaving Google and building my own business. One year, my theme was Radiate. That was about finding my inner glow, my inner calm and peace. In 2015, my word of the year was delight. And I started the year off in Bali. And the delight, it was like, let's put the fun back into my work. I'd been hustling so hard behind the scenes, I'd been just starting work on Pivot, and Delight helped me remember to have fun and to appreciate things and to savor Life. And then 2016, my word of the year was serendipity. And I just wanted. I just. I remember thinking that when Pivot was launching, I wanted to market the book with serendipity. Not marketing muscle and pushing and forcing, just the magic. It was actually serendipity and magic. And sure enough, although it wasn't related to the book, I met my partner Michael, walking down the street in opposite directions. So that was the ultimate manifestation of serendipity that we met. Just, you know, there's just passing seconds to say something and get to know each other. And here we are. Now it's. Man, it's coming up. It's over a year and a half from that moment, that epic moment. And that was proof to me that anything truly can happen at any time. And also the power of just saying what's important to me this year. Let's say you're playing a video game. What's a badge that you want to acquire? Or what's a theme that's going to help you stay grounded? One year it was surrender. I've had friends who've chosen a word like faith or focus. So what is it for you? What's the big theme? I don't even have mine yet for 2018, so I'm going to have to hit pause and take my own advice here and come up with my word. But that really starts me off and gives me a touchstone throughout the year, something to come back to something to check in on. And it just. Every year, they build. They're cumulative. So the words that you choose builds. And then for me, you know, I now absorb these messages of freedom and radiate and delight and serendipity and surrender, and they all add up to this bigger picture of how are you being and who are you being as you go through your year? I really don't. As many of you probably know, I don't like the word goals. I don't really like the word resolutions. And I'm a big fan of Tosha Silver's notion that even trying to manifest certain things like vision boards and manifestation, I think some of it's cool, and if it's helpful for you, definitely do it. But some of it can end up, as she calls it, a grocery list for God. Where you're like, I want this and then this and then this and then this. And we become so attached to these specific things.

And this brings me to part two. So once you have your theme, I encourage you to focus on what are your soul goals for this year? That's different than goals or a grocery list for God. Soul goals are things that you feel called to that they're deep in your soul. You just feel called. You've had something kind of drop out of the sky, and it gives you that aha feeling, that eureka moment, that that's what I really want to pursue where this is really important to me. I have a sole goal of buying an apartment in New York City. And how did I know? Because when my friend Julie bought hers three years ago, I had this super powerful body flash of, like, that's possible. I've called it the jealousies, which I didn't make up. My friends Nicole and Jamie made up that term, but I had the jealousies where I was like, what? She's buying an apartment that's even possible? And it had that feeling. It was so powerful, like, yes, I want that too. I love New York. It is my sole city. And I figure this is my retirement plan that, you know, even if I don't stay living in this apartment, I want to know when I'm 80 years old that I have a roof over my head in this awesome city. And I really fully plan on being that old lady, like, walking down the street with her grocery bags.

So much more than being, like, out in the suburbs. I don't know. For some reason, this is just a retirement vision that I have. So that set in motion for me a soul goal where at that time, I had no money I was living paycheck to solopreneur paycheck. Believe me, it was like right in the thick of coming out of my apocalypse year. I had no money and I was just thinking, I don't know, but I'm going to write it down. And I wrote it in my Evernote Moleskine notebook. Highly recommend these. I'll put a link in the show notes. It's bigger than little Moleskine's, but anyway, I write all kinds of notes in these throughout the year. And I just wrote what my dream apartment would be like. And every year I just thought, well, how can I move this a little closer? I even last year started looking at listings on Street Easy and going to open houses and just acting as if this was within the realm of possibility for me. And then part of it is the surrender of, okay, I have a hunch that this is a sole goal, but I'm not sure. So I surrender this process and if it's in the cards, I'm letting the universe show me. I'm letting my business show me. How does the income come in to match? Does the income come in that allows me to save a down payment? And I can tell you I saved way more in 2016 and 2017 after the book came out than I was ever able to save in the first five years of self employment. So things did hit a tipping point for me finally after working toward how to scale myself and my income. And I'm so grateful. And so now I do have a nest egg. And I'm still not 100% if it's going to happen or when, but it's starting to become more and more real with every micro step that I take, starting from, damn, this seems completely impossible. So that's how you know that it's a soul goal that you don't know if it's possible. And it might even seem impossible or out of reach or just like what on earth. I know a lot of times when a soul goal drops in, you may have an inner critic voice that says, who do you think you are to think that that's impossible? You can't do that. You're not smart enough, rich enough, young enough, old enough. Hear that voice, Write it down anyway. That voice just means you're expanding beyond what you previously thought was possible.

Keeping on with soul goals and the theme of the year. Another practice that I really love to do at the beginning of every year I've been doing these since 2012, is a mind map for the year. I'll put a link in the show notes. But I did a video interview for CNBC on mind maps and I did like 15 videos for them and this one went super viral. Within the first few months it had over a hundred thousand views. By now I could wasn't able to find the count online, but then they later uploaded one to YouTube that has 10,000 views. This thing just went nuts on the Internet. And people were emailing me through LinkedIn saying, oh, I saw your mind map video and I just had no clue that it would resonate so much. But the way that you do a New Year's mind map is you put the year in the center of the page. This is also in pivot, by the way, those of you who have the book or you want to get the book, you put the year in the center of the page and put a circle around it. By the way, this is an 8 1/2 by 11 sheet of paper or bigger if you're feeling fancy and creative. And then from the year, you draw spokes for different themes of the year. So it might be business, creativity, relationships, personal learning, health and fitness, mindset, whatever is important to you. And then from each of those themes, you just riff again. And the goal is don't put too much pressure. This doesn't have to be perfect, but draw spokes for anything that comes to mind. So let's say personal learning. For me, it's going to be continuing with Arabic, maybe starting to learn French, maybe continuing to learn how to cook. I'm using those delivery services, HelloFresh and Sunbath. I have them in a little basket off competition where I alternate weeks, but that's for another show. Anyway, it's really helping me love how to cook. I'm loving it. For me, personal learning will continue improving my interviewing skills. I may even hire a voice coach. I want to get better at podcasting on every level, so I'm going to think about that. Under business, I would draw spokes for how I want to grow my business, continuing to scale my income, doing more pivot licensing deals, continuing with two speaking gigs a month on average, raising my rates, you know, whatever it is, growing the momentum. Community, I invite all of you to join us. I'd love to have you things like that. So you end up filling the page with stuff that's important to you and it might even be part of this. How are you being so what practices, what rituals, what routines? Maybe there's a whole section on just being. And you draw things like gratitude, reverence, acceptance, practicing things like Byron, Katie's the work turnarounds, whatever it is. These are not, these are not shoulds. I'll say that, that when you draw your mind map, it's what would spark joy. To return to that Marie Kondo phrase from her book, the Life Changing Magic of Tidying up, what sparks joy, that's what goes on your mind map. I really encourage you throughout this process, do not, do not get stuck in shoulds. It's so easy at the beginning of the year to have the shoulds rear their head. Like, I should do this. Let's say I have a lot of author friends, let's say, or new authors reach out to me. You have a book coming out. Well, I should market it this way. I should hire a publicist for four or five grand a month. Not necessarily. Does it spark joy? If so, it stays. If not, keep moving or think, well, how else could I get to the same aim? In a way that is authentic to me, in a way that really feels good. I did another podcast really early on called how to Optimize for Revenue and Joy. So I really encourage you to ask combinatorial questions, meaning a lot of times when you're making big decisions, it's kind of like, you know, I give the example of how can I leave my job without going broke? Well, that's a little limiting because you're just including the fear of going broke. But it's like, how can I earn twice as much half the time? That's a combinatorial question that opens up possibilities. When Pivot was coming out, I asked myself, how can I market this way, this book in a way that feels completely joyful? And the answer that emerged was do as many podcasts as possible. Like, I love doing podcasts. And that's what encouraged me to start this podcast back in 2014. I had no idea where the hell it was going, but as soon as I started, I could tell that I really enjoyed it. And so that became a way that I would connect with all of you and connect with people who are already in the JB community and orbit and, and then new people coming in. So if you're new, welcome and thank you for being here. And if you're old, well, not old, but if you're, if you're a founding listener of the Pivot podcast, huge thanks to you because I know I say this a lot, but I wouldn't be here without you. Okay, after you've done the mind map, now let's really get into the Pivot method. The Pivot method is a four stage process to Map what's next Plant Scan Pilot launch I'm not going to give you my whole spiel about every stage because I've done it a million trillion times on various podcasts and I don't want to bore you to tears if you've been around or you've read the book. So I'm really going to stay focused on the prompts. This is a version of what I do in my interactive keynote speeches in case you want to bring me into your organization this year. And even if not, if you want to run a pivot workshop with your team. Forgot to mention, there's also a facilitator kit. Just go to pivotmethod.com actionable and you can run this exactly what we're about to do with your own team. Okay, so I'm just going to dive in the very first stage. The most important part of pivoting and planning your strategy is plant. In the basketball analogy, I talk about how the plant foot stays grounded. That's your stability and your foundation. Then your pivot foot can scan for options for what's next. One of the biggest mistakes people make and that I made is not having a plant foot, not being grounded in anything, just already looking at what's out there. 2018's here. What's out there? What can I do? Who can I talk to? What's next? And you look so far outside of yourself that you miss what's right under your feet.

So the first part of plant, it's two parts is what's working, what is already working. This is a great time to jot things down and pause. So as you look back on 2017, what did you enjoy the most?

When did you feel most in the zone?

What were your biggest strengths that you leveraged in 2017?

What did people come to you for advice on most often? Or what did you get complimented on most frequently?

Consider what you were the go to person for among friends, family or co workers. And again, this doesn't have to just be professional. I encourage you to do personal and professional because often they inform the other.

When you look back on 2017, what are you proudest of?

How did you learn and grow? Man, you could spend an hour just writing down 10, 20, 30 lessons you learned in 2017, and I encourage you to do that. What did you learn about yourself?

What did you learn about tactical, practical things, tips, tools, hacks, things that made you better professionally?

What challenges did you face in 2017 and how did you overcome them?

Similar to when were you most in the zone what made time fly? What did you actually look forward to when you saw it on your to do list?

What brought you the most joy in 2017?

Maybe it was not doing, but not doing. Maybe it was things that you said no to.

So once you've really explored what's already working, your strengths, what you are enjoying most, how you grew, what you learned, then the second part of Plant is we look at where do you generally want to end up one year from now? What does smash success look like one year from now? So picture yourself at the end of 2018. I really believe that any farther out is just too challenging. The five year question is completely irrelevant. There's no way to know. Things are changing far too quickly for that. But we can generally know six to six months to a year out. So maybe a year is too overwhelming for you. Maybe you're in the midst of a big change and you just want to focus on by June of 2018. But either way, imagine what smashing success looks like. How do you want to feel?

What does your ideal average day include?

Think about your environment. Where do you want to live? Where do you want to work? Maybe it's the same as where you are now. Maybe you're making tweaks to one or both.

Who do you want to be surrounded by?

What types of projects would you be most excited to work on?

How do you want to learn and grow in 2018? So anytime you're pivoting or just looking toward what's next, there's usually a gap and there are ways that it's helpful. What would you just be the most excited to become the go to expert for.

Taking a moment to think about impact? Imagine you were to win an award at the end of 2018 or even get a glowing thank you note. What would it be for?

What kind of impact do you want to have on your family, friends, community, clients, co workers? The global community?

If you want a really fun way to walk through all of these vision exercises, check out the Ideal Day Mad Lib. It's a template of mine. It's totally free. It's my favorite one. Go to pivotmethod.com idealday and it's five pages and you get to just fill in the blanks. And this is a great way to just flesh out your vision because often when pivoting or mapping next moves, it can be easy to just focus on what you don't know. And of course, part of a pivot, part of what makes growth exciting, is that we don't know exactly what's gonna happen. But by doing this ideal day exercise, you really start to flesh out what excites you and what you do know. Because even if you don't know how, you're gonna get there and actually you shouldn't know how yet. You don't need to get into the how yet because that usually just kind of bogs things down. But the more resonant your vision is, the more it carries you forward through the pivot stages that follow.

And I encourage you, you will have some inner critic y stuff coming in. Also by this point, a lot of people generally write down things that are safe and reasonable and pragmatic. Like, okay, yeah, I can generally do these things that I've written down. Take 30 seconds, 10 minutes, and write down stuff that's going to stretch you. Really write down stuff that feels wildly exciting that you would just go bananas if this stuff could happen by this time next year. So do yourself a favor, write that stuff down. You know, you don't have to pursue it all, but just know what it is. Just get it on paper. What would really stretch you this coming year?

Next, we move on to the scan stage. Scanning. So once you know where you are, what's working, and where you generally want to end up, you can start scanning for three things. People skills and projects. And the best way to scan is to connect them to what you just came up with in the plant stage. That way you don't fall prey if you, if you fall into analysis, paralysis or compare and despair, it means you've jumped to scanning too early. It means that you're scanning. And this is common. Most people do it. But you start scanning before you're really grounded in who you are, what's already working, and what you specifically want, what success looks like for you. So from that foundation now start to think about people. Who would you be most excited to connect with in 2018?

Maybe you know their specific names or maybe it's just the idea of a person. So I want to connect with somebody who is an expert at or I want to hire a career coach. And you don't know who yet, but you know that, okay, this is someone you want to work with, with.

Think about relationships you already have in your orbit. Who would you want to get to know better in 2018? And these can be friend tours, peers of yours, mentors. Try to write down a list of 10 people that you would love to deepen your relationship with or get to know better.

On the people front, think about who do you most enjoy learning from, from afar? Who is what you want to do in your one year vision.

And these don't have to all be the same person, but maybe different people are doing different aspects of it and how can you learn from them? There are so many ways to learn from people now. Books, podcasts, website, many people have various programs. So I love. There are so many people that I learn from from afar without ever interacting with one on one. So make a list of those types of people, people that you could just kind of draft behind and see what they're doing and learn from afar.

And then if you haven't already, write down someone that feels stretchy and edgy to reach out to.

The next part of scanning is for skills. So you maybe did a little bit of this when you were coming up with your one year vision, but really reconnect with that vision statement and look at what would be most beneficial for you to learn this coming year. And that's. It's actually probably two questions. So what's beneficial? What's related, let's say professionally to where you want to end up?

And what are you insanely curious about? What would you love to learn, even if it seems to have nothing to do with your work?

So I gave some examples earlier. Personal things, learning a language, cooking, dance classes. I have friends. One of my friends, Petra, is getting tutoring to be a dj. She has a private tutor to learn how to dj. She comes, she came up through the fitness world and this is, you know, I, I don't know, maybe she'll become a full time dj. She has a book coming out called the Perfection Detox later in the year. So you can see that DJing isn't directly tied. But that's so awesome. My friend Dorie got a tutor to help her get into a musical theater program. You guys have heard Dori on the podcast several times. And so you know, Dori isn't yet a musical theater. She's going to write a musical. She hasn't. I mean she has a draft of one, but any. She hired a tutor and I don't know if she would mind me telling this story. Hopefully not Dory, but she got rejected the first year, hired a tutor and got in the second year. You've heard me say a bunch of times I'm learning Arabic because I got the jealousies. That's how I knew it was a soul goal. That when I found out Michael's ex girlfriend had learned Arabic, I got this feeling of like what she did that you can do that. And I hadn't had jealousy feelings toward her. Until that moment. And that's when I realized, oh my goodness, I think I want to learn Arabic. I just didn't even think that that was possible for me. And so I hired a tutor for that. So skills can also connect to people of who can you work with to learn what you want to learn? And we have so many ways to learn online. There are even services like Italki, where you can just connect with people in other countries either for tutoring or for language exchange, where you're each trying to learn each other's language. And that's just on the language learning front. I mean. And by the way, if you're learning a language, check out Fluent Forever. It is an amazing book. You gotta read it. Okay, but I'm on a tangent now. Point is, there are so many ways. What classes do you want to take in 2018? Whether it's maybe you join ClassPass and you're trying out a bunch of fitness classes in your area, or maybe you're doing skillshare or general assembly things that are online, Maybe you're going to go to a coding boot camp. Have a blast with this. Just brainstorm anything and everything you would want to learn.

Another question I ask when I'm giving keynotes on this front is where do you beeline when you walk into a bookstore?

What is the subject matter that you are just so drawn to right now? What's piling up on your Amazon wish list? What types of podcasts are you most excited to go listen to and what is it about them? Even what TV shows do you binge on and why? What themes are in those shows that just draws you to them? Or what is it about the characters or the storyline or the creativity behind them? So really study yourself and look at because the clues are already there. I guarantee it. The clues are already there about what excites you and what you're feeling drawn to.

That brings us now to the third stage pilot. This is where things really start to get fun. So implant you figured out what's working. Where do you generally want to end up? Scan is about what's out there. People, skills and projects takes us into pilot, which is about what small experiments can you run to test the three E's So a good pilot will help you understand for any of your hypotheses about what to learn or what to pursue. Three E's Do I enjoy this new area? Can I become an expert at it? And is there room to expand in your role in your team, at work, in the marketplace, in your business? So Enjoyment, expertise, expansion. Now, pilots, this is really key. You do not have to know the answer to your pivots or your guesses about what to pursue up front. This is so crucial. So often we think that everything has to happen in our head. Like, oh, I need to have my whole business model figured out in my head, or my next career move figured out in my head. It doesn't work like that. Instead, think of pivots as racehorses at the Kentucky Derby. I share this in the afterword of the paperback edition that your job is to line up these racehorses at the starting game gate. Lift up the gates and say go. And your pilots will then inform you about which ones start taking on the most momentum and a good pilot. Think of it as like, what can you do with 5 to 10% of your time? Maybe it's taking one intro class to something you might want to pursue more. Maybe it's setting up a lunch with someone. Maybe it's just changing your pricing on a service that you offer or introducing a new product or service, having no clue if it's going to work or not. So many ways to pilot. What it means is that you're experimenting in a really low key, low cost, low time, low energy way and that if it starts to gain traction, you can blow it up more. So you heard me mention at the beginning of this show that I'm doing VIP days in New York. I have no clue how this is going to go. Even launching Patreon, I had no clue. It's so vulnerable to put out something like Patreon and say, hey, come support the show. And I think currently, at the time of this recording, we have three or four patrons. And I remember someone saying to me, oh man, how do you do it? I'd be so bummed or something like, it's a low number. And all I could think was, wow, someone signed up. Amazing. And I thanked each of those people personally, gave them a little extras and I just am so grateful because it's taking something from zero to one. And there's a book called that by Peter Thiel. And it's always nerve wracking and vulnerable to go from 0 to 1, to put up a page, to put up a service or an offering and say, hey, this is available now and have no clue what's going to happen. But I'm willing to do that. I'm willing to feel vulnerable to not know, but to at least get something public, as Seth Godin would call it, to ship something.

And then you never know. And so it's like, I'm going to let you guys tell me what Patreon levels are interesting to you or what what things are interesting. And one of the things that I love about running a business is that there's really, you don't have to take quote failures personally. It's not a personal shortcoming. It's just the market is really a meritocracy that if something doesn't get get traction, it's information for me about maybe I missed the mark somehow or it just needs more time. Sometimes things build really slowly over time, so I'm also willing to be in it for the long haul. This podcast isn't going any how well Patreon works or not, who knows. But it's something that may just take time with momentum. I'm so grateful for the momentum community and we've shifted it and pivoted it many times in those three years based on what everybody really wants and finds most helpful. So those are a few examples and of course in the book I give many for piloting within companies as well. I've seen so many people create entirely new roles for themselves just by starting with a small pilot or experiment. One of the things I used to do at Google when I first started was I just got permission to do a team book club and I would get budget to buy us all one business book a month that we could all talk about together. I had no plans of becoming Google's Chief Books Officer, but it was really rewarding and that just helped me feel like I was taking charge of something and doing something fun for our team. And then later when they needed someone to step in and run the authors at Google team, part of the reason they thought of me was I had done things like that and I came in and led that team for about nine months right before I left and that was really rewarding. And even that it wasn't my full time role at the time, but it was such a fulfilling thing that I got to do. So enough of me jabbering now about piloting time for you. What experiments can you run? Go look at what you've written down or what you thought about for the plant and scan stages. Really look at your one year vision and come up with some really small pilots stuff you could do in the next couple months.

And work backward from your one year vision. So given where you want to end up a year from now, what are some bigger pilots that would really be kind of nerve wracking and exciting to launch, but that would really propel you forward so Maybe you're thinking of launching a podcast. And let me tell you, podcasting, it is a lot of work. I mean, it is. I'm just straight up, it's like equal to everything else of running my business. It's like the podcast itself really could be its own full time endeavor, but it's completely a labor of love. So I'm not complaining. I'm just letting you know if you're going to do one. It is a lot of work, but there are ways to do it creatively. My friend Nicole launches her podcast, Real Talk Radio in seasons where she just does, let's say 10. I don't know the exact number, but 10. They launch it all at the same time, like a Netflix series. And that's a little easier because you can kind of do the whole thing in batches. Whereas when I'm doing launching every week, you know, it's more indefinite. But you can also get help and I'm happy to share. I have tons of resources and templates for this too. They're all in momentum. But feel free, shoot us an email. You can also get the podcast setup template. In any case, let's say you want to start a podcast. Maybe you don't worry yet about having it be completely perfect, but you do one quote album, can you commit to doing 10 interviews? The reason that I said, I kind of feel like everyone should have one, even though it's a lot of work. So yeah, you've got to think about whether you want to put the effort in. But it's the coolest way to connect with all your heroes and add value at the same time and create something based on conversations with people that you are so stoked to reach out to. So what if you just did one album? I have friends. My friend Todd Henry did this for his book Louder Than Words and he kind of launched an album that went with the book. Seth Godin did one, one called Startup School and that I think started as a skillshare class. But Startup School is. It's so great. I encourage you to go listen if you're a side hustler or solopreneur. But it's not ongoing, it's just this. It's essentially like an album that you can access through your podcast app. So maybe you pilot it by doing that and you then at the end of those 10 episodes and interviews, you ask yourself, did I enjoy this? Could I become better at it? And do I want to? And is there room to expand? Do I feel like I could keep going? And yes, there's the energy and the time and the money to expand. And don't worry, it doesn't take nearly as much money as you might think.

All right, so once you've thought about some pilots, technically the fourth stage is launch. But it's a bit of a misnomer because really all you have to do is plant scan pilot over and over and over again and eventually your pilots will start to gain momentum and you'll ditch some of them and you'll double down on others and eventually it may come time for a launch. Launch is that final 10 to 15% when you go all in on something. So ideally you've reduced risk. You've learned a lot about yourself and what you're working on through plant scan pilot, that three stage process. And it's a cycle, it's not a linear one and done situation. It's not like you plant scan pilot, boom, you're done. Now you launch. No, you repeat it over and over. If a pilot doesn't work, it usually means it's grounded enough in the plant stage that it's not grounded enough enough in what you're already good at and where you want to end up. So for some reason it's getting blocked. And how do you know when a pilot's working? Because you start to get momentum and serendipity and starts to build and snowball, or even if it's not working, you're ready to see it through. When my book was coming out, when Pivot was launching, I had so many pilots lined up for various business streams of income. Pivot coaching, momentum, my own coaching licens, workshops for companies. I had all kinds of stuff. I even created a paper Pivot workbook that is on the websites. In the toolkit. I now have a pivot notepad, a planner that you can tear off pivot sheets every time you want to map out this process. And in fact, here. Okay, I'm going to pilot right now. If you want to get that notepad, I'm just going to sell them essentially like market price, including shipping, because I'm curious to know how it goes, if it's helpful, if you're interested in this, if you want to use it, this, it's a paper product. I'm really not used to selling products like this, but I did make one prototype. It is gorgeous. I'm going to use it personally. So if you want to buy one of Those, go to pivotmethod.com notepad and let's make this agreement for at least the next month. I'm Just going to sell it for the cost of again, producing and shipping it and then send me some feedback. Let me know how it goes and if you use it. And let's, let's try it. There's a pilot right now, real time. Okay. And we'll make sure to put all of these links in the show notes. This will be another one where it'll be a good thing to go visit. Let me tell you the link right now. So if you want the show notes, you can either look in your podcast app or go to pivotmethod.com podcast strategy2018. Okay, that's pivotmethod.com podcast strategy2018.

That is a ton of content and a lot of questions. Again, I really encourage you to spend time with every single one of those pivot stages. And here are my parting words of advice. Or it's not really advice. I get the question a lot. But what do you do if you feel a tremendous amount of fear when considering these next steps and these big soul goals? Two things. One, that's totally normal. Sometimes if you feel fear, it means that you're stretching too far, you're in your panic zone and your next steps or your pilots are still too big. So how can you break them down? How can you make them even smaller? How can you come up with. I always like to ask these two questions at the end of a workshop that I deliver. It's just, what one small next step can you take this week? One tiny next step that you can take in the next week? And what one next step would make the biggest impact?

So what's one tiny thing? In fact, answer it for yourself right now. What's one tiny thing you're gonna do when you stop listening to this episode?

And what's one next step that would make the biggest impact? Just start there. It's why the subtitle of the book is the only move that matters is your next one. Because it can intimidating for all of us to think too far out or to put the pressure that any one of these pilots has to succeed. We can't know that up front. So that brings me to part two of this failure question, which is our fear question. They're often intertwined. And when I said to the person who asked this, I said, by all means, of course you're going to have fear. Don't even try to make it go away. That never has worked for me. It never worked. To tell myself, don't be fearful, don't be anxious, don't be worried. Definitely A process of surrender has helped me. I just kind of surrender. I turn over the outcome. I'm not attached for the most part to any specific numbers, metrics, outcomes. I don't feel that that's my business. I mean, I have a vision. I want things to connect. I want things to be helpful. I love when things gain traction and momentum. I'm not ignoring what would actually verify that the work I'm doing is making an impact. But. But on the other hand, I'm just not obsessed with numbers in any way, whether it's how much I'm earning or how many people are listening. I'm curious. I'm curious what works. And of course I want to. You know, I would love to grow the podcast. On that note, please share this episode if you found it helpful. Cause it is one of my sole goals in 2018 to help grow the show. Because I love doing it and I would love to make it more sustainable. And in order to do that, it is helpful to have as many people listening and that I could maybe get a sponsor or two. Only ones that resonate like crazy, of course. Cause I don't wanna pollute your ear earlobes with the ones that don't. But that's a goal. So in that case, it's practical. It's a sole goal because it helps me continue this in a really sustainable way. Um, so. So on the fear, it's like I try to just drop my attachment and then I embrace my fear. I just say, cool, there it is. That must mean I'm doing something big. So if you have that fear, just celebrate it. It means that you are a high net growth individual and you are learning and growing and stretching yourself and you are aiming high. And those are all things to celebrate. And of course you're gonna have fear. So instead of trying to make it go away, embrace that uncertainty and insecurity and any anxiety that you feel, embrace it and keep moving. Thank you all so much for listening. Everything I mentioned is@pivotmethod.com and various crevices around most of these tools and templates are@pivotmethod.com toolkit and again, if you want the show notes from this episode Specifically, go to pivotmethod.com podcast strategy2018. Thank you all so, so much for listening. I would love to hear what your theme of the year is or send me pictures of your mind maps. Most of all, I'm wishing you the most amazing start to this year and one of my personal mantras for anything I undertake is let it be easy, let it be fun. And I encourage you to do the same and ask that question, how can I let it be easy, let it be fun at every step and every time you feel that you get a little stuck. Thank you all so much. Thank you for listening and happy, Happy New Year.

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Pivot Podcast. Make sure you don't miss an episode or my insider tips and templates by signing up for Pivot List, a curated twice monthly newsletter where I share the inside scoop on what I'm reading, watching, listening to, and the latest tools I'm geeking out on. Sign up@pivotmethod.com pivotlist get show notes from this episode at Pivot Method Podcast and connect with me on Twitter @jennyblake.

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