One thing I love about Jay Acunzo is that his body of work is a love letter to craft and quality. We talk about mindset shifts and practices to help you focus more on resonance than reach; how to do work that matters to you so that your work can matter more; how he worked through his own existential creative crisis upon hitting the 200th episode milestone of his podcast; thinking like an explorer, not an expert; and “making the leap from what best practices say you should do to what your intuition is urging you to try.”
This crossover episode originally aired on the Free Time podcast on April 18 2023.
More About Jay: Jay Acunzo is one of the world’s most sought-after business storytellers and brand consultants. He’s worked in marketing for Google, HubSpot, and ESPN before launching his award-winning podcast, Unthinkable, and authoring multiple books on creativity. Today he helps creators learn to increase the power of their creative work, not just the volume, through his membership platform, the Creator Kitchen.



335: Be Irreplaceable with My Creative Coach Jay Acunzo (Free Time Crossover)

What’s next for your career and creative projects? Pivot with Jenny Blake launched in 2015 to help us better embrace fear, insecurity, imperfection, and intuition as the superpowers they are while pivoting. Join Jenny Blake, award-winning author of Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One, Life After College, and Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business, for intimate conversations with authors and friends on finding opportunities in unexpected places through practical tips and tools. Jenny’s motto? If change is the only constant, let’s get better at it. Subscribe now so you don’t miss an episode (released every Sunday) at pod.link/pivotmethod, view show notes at http://PivotMethod.com/podcast, and learn more about Jenny’s private community at http://itsfreetime.com/bff ❤️ If you're looking Pivot with Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway, visit https://podcasts.voxmedia.com/show/pivot. Check out Jenny's other award-winning podcast Free Time for Heart-Based Business owners at pod.link/freetime.

Business

Investing

Careers

Management & Marketing

Business News

Shopping

Religion & Spirituality

Other

Spirituality

Christianity

Buddhism

Hinduism

Judaism

Islam

Entrepreneurship

As I round the corner into this ninth year of podcasting and after over 700 episodes, today I’m announcing a pause for both shows.
Listen in to hear what factors helped me reach this decision across time, money, energy, depressing industry articles, the pace of both shows’ growth, and mix of additional business factors that make this an important moment to pause and regroup. You might also appreciate the even deeper dive with my longtime friend (and first coach) Adrian Klaphaak in Pivot episode 360: 

363: 

“Expectations are the enemy to the creative process. Sometimes you have to let go of the known to see the unknown.”
Today I’m speaking with James McCrae, an author, poet, and meme artist based in Austin, Texas. He is the founder of 

362: Setting Creative Intentions Instead of Expectations with James McCrae

Good decision-making is not about omniscience or clairvoyance—it's more about resilience, according to today’s guest, decision engineer Michelle Florendo. “Decision-making is harder than ever before, and it's not your fault,” Michelle says. “People feel like they ‘should just know’ how to decide.”
More About Michelle: Michelle Florendo is a decision engineer and executive coach who is passionate about teaching people how to make decisions with less stress and more clarity, from the small, consistent microdecisions over time that governs how you show up as a leader to the big macrodecisions you make about what direction to take next in business or life. Over the past decade, she has shown hundreds of driven professionals how to use the principles of decision science to grow their impact and fulfillment. She served on the inaugural coaching team for Seth Godin's altMBA, was a founding member of the Forbes Coaches Council, and helps train new coaches as a Faculty Coach at Berkeley Executive Coaching Institute. Michelle helped redesign the decision-making module in Stanford's famous Designing Your Life course and has taught courses on decision making for Stanford Continuing Studies, and hosts the podcast Ask a Decision Engineer.



361: On Decision Engineering and Evaluating Quality instead of Outcomes with Michelle Florendo

What happens when you make a big decision but still have lingering doubt, fear, and even despair? How do you know when a “download” from the universe is worth following, and what does test-driving a decision look like? What happens on the other side or when a pivot is taking far longer than planned?
We’re unpacking all these topics in today’s twelfth and final (for now) conversation for the Pivot x Career Pathfinder series with Adrian Klaphaak.
More About Adrian: Adrian Klaphaak is a coach, purpose guide, entrepreneur, and founder of A Path That Fits Career and Life Coaching. His coaching approach is holistic—a constant balance between getting results and a quest for meaning and fulfillment. He describes himself as “a deep seeker with a constant itch to make things happen.”

✅ Try This Next
Examine your own relationship to rest and taking extended breaks. Ask yourself: What do I really need? How am I really doing? Where am I in the cycle of death, birth, creation, and rest?



360: 

“You can’t give what you don’t have.” That’s just one of the powerful lessons that Nataly Kogan learned the hard way seven years ago, after suffering a debilitating phase of burnout. As a former refugee from the former Soviet Union, she began her American journey in the projects and on welfare, then going on to build an impressive career as a finance and tech executive and serial entrepreneur over the next 25 years. Until she crashed at thirty-eight years old and needed to find a new way of moving forward.
Today we’re talking about how she got through that tough burnout period, the ways she practices putting her full self into the world, why it’s never too late to start something new, and how to drop the self-care guilt when filling your own energy reserves.
More About Nataly: Nataly Kogan, a leading expert on emotional fitness and leadership, is a dynamic entrepreneur, best-selling author, and sought-after international keynote speaker. Despite starting from challenging circumstances, Nataly achieved remarkable success in her career, reaching top positions at McKinsey, Microsoft, a venture capital fund, and founding/executing five startups and tech companies.
Her influential books, including HAPPIER NOW, GRATITUDE DAILY, THE AWESOME HUMAN PROJECT, THE AWESOME HUMAN JOURNAL, reflect her mission to help others thrive. Nataly hosts The Awesome Human Podcast, recognized as a transformative "best-self hour."



335: Be Irreplaceable with My Creative Coach Jay Acunzo (Free Time Crossover)

Download our free app to listen on your phone