Pivot with Jenny Blake

I can hardly believe it, but the Pivot manuscript is DONE! D-O-N-E, done. It didn’t sink in until after I reviewed the copy edit and made my most recent round of changes. After I turned it in, my editor told me I wouldn’t be touching the Word file again. Huh?! Are you sure you don’t need me to take just oooooone more look? Says the perfectionist afraid to let go. Nope.The next (and final) time I get to review the book, it will be printed on 11×17 pages for hand edits before the advance copies get printed, also known as galleys.The relief started to sink in slowly, over several days, when I realized that for three years this project had taken up residence in a very large portion of my brain. Only when it was out of my consciousness did I realize how all-consuming it had been, churning in my sleep, my waking hours, my walks, and my showers.Check out full show notes and links from this episode and share it with a friend! http://itsfreetime.com/episodes/24 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“The effort to try to feel happy is often precisely the thing that makes us miserable. It is our constant efforts to eliminate the negative — insecurity, uncertainty, failure, or sadness — that causes us to feel so insecure, anxious, uncertain, or unhappy.”—Oliver Burkeman, The AntidoteI read Oliver Burkeman’s The Antidote a few years after it came out, and it quickly ascended to the top of my all-time favorite books list. At one point during the most intense part of my tumultuous pivot year, I gave up on trying to be happy and focused on equanimity instead. Ah, the sweet relief! I no longer felt the self-imposed pressure to meet some benchmark of bliss every day, and instead surrendered into how I was really feeling: sad, confused, and tired.📝 Check out full show notes and links from this episode and share it with a friend! http://itsfreetime.com/episodes/23 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“To have something (a finished recording, a business, or millions of dollars) is the means, not the end. To be something (a good singer, a skilled entrepreneur, or just plain happy) is the real point. When you sign up to run a marathon, you don’t want a taxi to take you to the finish line.”—Derek Sivers, Ask Me AnythingMy dad started a band called Mr. Gasoline that he ran for 25 years, and recalls uploading his Mr. Gasoline albums to CD Baby “back when Derek was still sleeping on a couch in the office.” I smiled when I heard that story—Derek’s dedication and humility are two of the traits I most admire about him, and what compelled me to follow his work more closely and start my own /now page. In his recently released book, Anything You Want, he shares the story and mindset behind the rise of his smashingly successful CD Baby venture, and the tough years leading up to his exit. What first attracted me to Derek was not that he built a $22 million business—but that when he sold the company, he gave all the proceeds to a charitable trust. Who does that? Someone who defines success on their own terms. 📝 Check out full show notes and links from this episode and share it with a friend! http://itsfreetime.com/episodes/22 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Happy New Year Everyone!! Greetings from Tulum, Mexico where I’m taking a (solo) week of R&R with yoga, reading, and hanging out by the ocean. Gotta get myself prepped to head back to snowy NYC! I am also celebrating (and decompressing from!) ten years of running Life After College, and turning in the final draft of Pivot mid-December. After 14+ months of working on the manuscript, we are now moving on to a final copy edit and page layout this month. Read more and get my latest book and tool recommendations in my twice monthly behind-the-business newsletter. 📝 Check out full show notes and links from this episode and share it with a friend! http://itsfreetime.com/episodes/21 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It’s the final countdown! Time to wrap-up the final days of 2015 then dream-and-scheme for what’s to come. I don’t set New Years Resolutions, but I do choose a theme for the year, do fun mind-mapping exercises, set quarterly targets, and hold myself accountable with mastermind groups.In today’s final Pivot Podcast of the year, I share practical tips to help you set a 2016 strategy by doubling-down on what’s working, and setting up small experiments to test what’s next. AKA, the Pivot Method!A quick favor: I can’t believe this is episode 15 already! If you have gotten value from the episodes so far, I would be very grateful for a rating and/or review in these early days of getting it off the ground. Thank you in advance! One of my top goals in 2016 is to continue bringing you awesome content, experts and ideas.  📝 Check out full show notes and links from this episode and share it with a friend! http://itsfreetime.com/episodes/20 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I woke up and the room was spinning clockwise.Am I wasted? No . . . I haven’t had a sip of alcohol in weeks. Is this some kind of immaculately conceived hangover?After an hour of laying in bed hoping it would pass, I stood up and stumbled. Grabbed for a nearby wall to prop me up. I felt nauseous.Do I have food poisoning? No . . . I haven’t eaten anything different this week, or any typical poisoning potential foods.Maybe I just need something to eat . . . a bagel. That will soak up these symptoms.It was hard to get dressed, I felt so nauseous, but I had no food in the house.I walked down the street, into a local cafe. Every step was a challenge. If a cop pulled me over for walking under the influence, I would not have passed his straight line test.I ordered my bagel. I don’t think I can even make it through this transaction . . . Before I could pay, I ran outside to throw up.Thank goodness for New York City and its trash cans on every corner. I crouched nearby the trash can for a few more minutes just in case. Two very friendly delivery guys got out of their truck and brought me a cup of water.📝 Check out full show notes and links from this episode and share it with a friend! http://itsfreetime.com/episodes/19 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Get your geek on! This week’s Pivot Podcast is all about robots, artificial intelligence, and automation. How can we become more agile in an economy that is increasingly transformed by these areas? What skills and mindset will best position us for success in the future? How can you become a “robot whisperer” like today’s guest, professor Tom Guarriello? I could talk with Tom about all this for hours, but we contained ourself (for now!) in keeping this week’s episode to one jam-packed 60-minute conversation.Tom Guarriello has a Ph.D. in psychology and have spent most of his career helping individuals and organizations to improve the quality of their lives and relationships. Fifteen years ago, he co-founded a consulting firm called TrueTalk, Inc., and in 2009, he became a Founding Faculty member in the Master’s in Branding program at New York City’s School of Visual Arts. Over the past few years, he became fascinated with the ways in which modern technologies, especially robots, were changing the psychological landscape, leading him to create a new platform and field of study called RoboPsych.📝 Check out full show notes from this episode with links to resources mentioned at http://pivotmethod.com/16 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Don’t bite the hand that feeds you. That’s the gremlin I hear behind the slight nerves I feel about sharing today’s conversation with my good friend Nicole Antoinette.As we both hit eight years of blogging this year (ten since I started Life After College), we decided to take an honest look at the social media fatigue that sometimes washes over a life lived online.These periods of being public versus private ebb and flow, just as any creative journey will. While blogging and social media are mediums we credit for countless blessings in our lives (including our friendship!), we also wanted to share openly and honestly about the pressure to write, blog, tweet, insta—you name it—regularly, for . . . well, who knows how long?I hope you enjoy today’s episode, and I look forward to hearing how you set yourself up for long-term success and sustainability around these topics in the comments!📝 Check out full show notes and links from this episode and share it with a friend! http://itsfreetime.com/episodes/17 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Did you know that just the way you sit might be causing anxiety? Or that by straightening your spine and scanning the horizon you can calm your central nervous system, just as deer in the savannah do?Stacy Sims, founder of True Body Project, is an expert on somatics, or how our physical and psychological bodies relate to one another. I had the great fortune of stumbling across her workshop in Bali when we were both there in 2013, and we have kept in touch since.📝 Check out full show notes and links from this episode and share it with a friend! http://itsfreetime.com/episodes/16 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“The explorer is the person who is lost.”—Tim CahillI rode the high of hitting my 50,000-words-in-a-month NaNoBlogMo goal for exactly one day last week.For one day I was over the moon! I did it! I wrote almost every morning for one month, and came out with 50,000 words by the end of November. It was like running a mental marathon! Combined with my October practice of trying to write for 30 minutes each day, I had amassed 100,000 words of a book draft. For those who aren’t word nerds, that’s about 350 pages double-spaced. Definitely cause for celebration!📝 Check out full show notes and links from this episode and share it with a friend! http://itsfreetime.com/episodes/15 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices