The Power of Pause

Does your calendar reflect your values and priorities? Do you pause before responding to requests, or are you saying yes to things out of fear, pressure, or obligation?

I’m delighted to be in conversation with my dear friend Sarah Young this week on creating clear containers, clean vs. dirty energy, navigating “spiritual tornados of leadership,” handling inevitable criticism, and moving past people-pleasing toward acting in the path of highest integrity.

Be sure to check out Sarah’s brand new beautiful book, Expansive Impact: An Invitation to Lead in Everyday Moments, and subscribe to her fantastic Friday Favorites newsletter! It’s one of my favorite messages in my inbox every week :)

More About Sarah: Sarah Young is the Founder and CEO of Zing Collaborative and the author of Expansive Impact: An Invitation to Lead in Everyday Moments. She works with a handful of highly conscious and committed clients who want to elevate and expand their leadership capacity. Sarah runs retreats, workshops, and speaking events to help leaders further develop through an approach that blends corporate experience, research, mindfulness, leadership, coaching, and experiential learning. She has a deep appreciation for nature, travel, sunshine, warm weather, paddle boarding, rescue dogs, cooking, coffee, and the precious hours of the early morning.

🌟 3 Key Takeaways:

• If you find it hard to create time for yourself, building time for personal projects and R&R right into your calendar. Ask to meet over the phone or while walking, instead of screen-fatigue inducing video calls.
• Use a decision filter before saying yes. Ask yourself: “is this fully in line with my values and priorities?” 
• Remember that you can do everything right to communicate clearly and with integrity, and sometimes it still may not work if the other person doesn't have the desire to meet you halfway.  

📝 Permission: Skip the comment section. You don’t need to engage where the energy doesn’t feel right. Sometimes people are just waiting to pounce, and you don’t have to provide the opportunity.

✅ Do or Delegate This Next: Pause. Find a moment in the day where you can pause before you respond to something, reflecting on whether it connects with your values and how you want to engage in the world.

📘 Books Mentioned: 

• Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One
• Free Time: Lose The Busywork, Love Your Business 
• Expansive Impact: An Invitation to Lead in Everyday Moments
• The Four Tendencies: The Indispensable Personality Profiles That Reveal How to Make Your Life Better (and Other People's Lives Better, Too)

🔗 Resources Mentioned: 

• Sarah Young on the web, Instagram, LinkedIn
• Sarah’s book: Expansive Impact: An Invitation to Lead in Everyday Moments
• Articles: 999 Problems, Why I don’t have Comments by Seth Godin, An Ex-Google Career Coach Tells Why Pleasing Everyone Will Never Help You in Your Career
• Quiz: Gretchen Rubin’s Four Tendencies

Related Podcast Episodes:

• Free Time 077: Happy Launch Day! Antonio Neves Guest Hosts (Part 1)
• Pivot Episode 132: The Making of a Manager with Julie Zhuo

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📝 Check out full show notes from this episode with links to resources mentioned at http://pivotmethod.com/277

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