Pivot with Jenny Blake

Have you ever considered teaching for a university? Even if you don’t take the path of Ph.D. student pursuing a tenure-track position, you can land adjunct roles after reaching a certain point in your professional career.

Today’s guest Alex Budak—who happens to be someone I went to high school and college with (and someone who gave me hope that I could succeed in the earliest days of self-employment!)—is taking us behind-the-scenes of pivoting into a professorship.

Alex shares how he got his foot in the door at UC Berkeley; going from googling “how to write a syllabus” to improving and curating his curriculum; how much time teaching requires; his process for revising materials after class based on how they land among students; and most of all, the “magic alchemy” rewards of teaching in a university setting even when the pay is lower than other opportunities.

More About Alex: Alex Budak is a UC Berkeley faculty member, social entrepreneur, author, and speaker. At UC Berkeley, Alex teaches his wildly-popular course “Becoming a Changemaker,” directs the Berkeley Haas Global Access Program, and teaches in Berkeley Executive Education programs. Alex co-founded StartSomeGood in 2011, which has helped over 1,200 changemakers in over 50 countries raise millions of dollars to launch and scale new change initiatives. His book, Becoming a Changemaker: An Actionable, Inclusive Guide to Leading Positive Change at Any Level, has been endorsed by Nobel Prize winners, Olympic athletes, and most meaningful of all—his students. He is a graduate of UCLA and Georgetown University.

✅ Try This Next: Write a list of three classes you’d be excited to teach—don’t be afraid to dream! Ignore the constraints of disciplines and what currently exists, just capture titles and a description of what at least one course could look like. Bonus: consider running it as a 45- to 90-minute virtual workshop to pilot the material.

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“When there’s a fork in the road, take it.” That’s one of my favorite Yogi Berra classics of paradoxical wisdom. Pivoting is defined by its own set of paradoxes and tricky decision points, so today I invited a special guest to the pod to share two of her frameworks that I fell instantly in love with, and that I know you will too!

We’re also celebrating the one-year bookiversary and recent Audiobook release of Sarah’s wonderful book, Expansive Impact: An Invitation to Lead in Everyday Moments.

If you haven’t already, be sure to listen to our earlier conversation in episode 277 on Spacious Scheduling, and subscribe to her fantastic Friday Favorites newsletter! It’s one of my favorite messages every week, always chock full of great resources and links—from yummy French cookies and lemon loaf tea to playlists for any mood or season :)

More About Sarah: Sarah Young is the Founder and CEO of Zing Collaborative and author of Expansive Impact: An Invitation to Lead in Everyday Moments. She works with conscious and committed clients who want to elevate and expand their leadership capacity. 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.

✅ Try This Next: As Oprah says, “Your life is whispering to you.” Sit with this as an inquiry—what is yours saying about a tricky decision or relationship?

❤️ Enjoying the show? I'd be grateful for a rating and/or review!

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“Cultivate 12 people who love you, because they are worth more than 12 million people who like you.”

That’s just one of many gems from Kevin Kelly’s new book Excellent Advice for Living: Wisdom I Wish I’d Known Earlier, bits of wisdom that he thinks of like handrails to grab when he needs a quick reminder about what is most important.

In this conversation, we revisit our 2016 discussion about the power of human-AI partnerships, give you permission not to become a billionaire, help you lean into serendipity and embrace paradox, and encourage you to buy your time (through delegation) so that you can focus on doing the work that only you can do. As Kevin says, “Don’t be the best, be the only.”

More About Kevin: Kevin Kelly helped launch WIRED magazine in 1993. He is a renowned technology and science writer, futurist, and thinker who has been at the forefront of digital culture for decades. Kelly's work explores the intersection of technology, culture, and society, and he is known for his thought-provoking insights on the future of innovation and the impact of technology on our lives. He has authored multiple books including The Inevitable, Out of Control, The Silver Cord, and What Technology Wants. His newest is Excellent Advice for Living: Wisdom I Wish I’d Known Earlier (May 2023). He lives in Pacifica, California with his family.

✅ Try this experiment: You’ll get invited to an argument in the next week or two. Decline the invitation; don’t attend!

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📝 Check out full show notes at http://pivotmethod.com/321

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How ambitious are you? More importantly, how ambitious do you want to be in different areas of life and work? Today’s guest, Kathy Oneto, takes the long view on goals, especially for those of us who are naturally inclined to overwork until we burn out. Instead, we can be more intentional by toggling the dials of right ambition, right effort, and right time up and down as we move through different seasons.

In this conversation, Kathy and I discuss managing ambition anxiety, how to know if you’re bumping up against what Gay Hendricks calls an “Upper Limit Problem” versus your “truest fit reduced ambition,” mapping energy vs. urgency, and how to know when ambitions or life seasons have truly shifted versus handling a short-term setback.

More About Kathy: Kathy Oneto is a strategy executive and life-work coach who is passionate about helping people succeed on their terms at work and in life. She is the host of the Sustainable Ambition podcast. Kathy champions being consciously ambitious and crafting fulfilling work from decade to decade without sacrificing your life or yourself. She is the author of the Sustainable Ambition 12-Month Workbook and Planner: Your Life plus Work Resilience Prescription and My Little Book of Curiosity: 26 Inquiries to Inspire What’s Next for Your Life and Work.

✅ Try This Next: Dial-in your ambition. For any given goal, task, project, or area of your life, decide: How good do I want to be? Good, very good, the best? How much effort do I want to put into this? Be discerning as you recalibrate your ambition and the level of effort required to match.

❤️ Enjoying the show? I'd be grateful for a rating and/or review! Even better? Share this episode with a friend :)

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📝 Check out full show notes at http://pivotmethod.com/320

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Who is sitting in the boardroom of your brain? Who is sitting around the table, challenging your decisions, making noise, and offering critiques?

Today Adrian and I are walking through one of our favorite coaching exercises by offering up (and coaching each other through) identifying and describing three of our current loudest board members and who we want to hire moving forward. This work connects to a therapy tool called Internal Family Systems which Adrian will share more about in our next episode together.

We want to hear from you! Leave us a voice memo about this episode or to request a future topic for us to cover at http://pivotmethod.com/ask.

Are you working on a pivot-in-progress? For guidance on reconnecting with what lights you up and creating an action plan to move forward, check out Adrian’s flagship Career Pathfinder Program and apply promo code PIVOT at checkout.

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: Brainstorm your current board members, either on a piece of paper or together with a friend. Make a list of as many as you’d like, and build out the description by personifying them: What are they wearing? How are they acting? What is their primary fear and their primary motivation? What do you want to say to each one? Bonus: Who are the three board members you’d like to hire moving forward to help bring out your best self?

❤️ Enjoying the show? I'd be grateful for a rating and/or review! Even better? Share this episode with a friend :)

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💻 Check out Jenny’s Pivot courses on LinkedIn Learning: Figuring Out Your Next Move, Holding 1:1 Career Conversations With Your Team, Managing Introverts, Coaching New Hires, and Coaching New Managers

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📝 Check out full show notes at http://pivotmethod.com/319

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Hi Friends! I'm re-airing this announcement from the Free Time podcast as a friendly reminder that we made it to the nomination stage of the Webby Awards, the "Oscars of the Internet!"

The Webbys celebrate the best and most innovative online content across websites, podcasts, games, apps, and videos. This nomination alone is a major achievement, putting us in the top 12% of nearly 14,000 projects entered.

Please visit itsfreetime.com/webby and cast your vote for Free Time!

We're up for best individual episode in the Business category. I did a double-take when I saw the other nominees, as we're by far the smallest show and the only indie that's not part of a larger network. So if you want to cast a vote not just for me, but for independent creators everywhere, I would be incredibly grateful if you could . . .

After that, you'll see the results of where we currently stand :) You do have to go through a small registration process (just a few questions), but after that you can peruse other categories and vote for your favorite show among those too :)

THANK YOU!! For being you, for being here, and for helping Free Time stay afloat through accolades like this one :) I also want to thank the One Stone Creative production team for making both of these shows possible. Without them, there's no way we would have landed this nomination. They help the trains run on time, ensuring every single one of 12 episodes goes live across these two shows—Pivot and Free Time—every single month.

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“It’s OK to be a late bloomer as long as you don’t miss the flower show.” —Jane Fonda

That’s a quote that today’s guest, Jenna Valovic, pulled to remind herself that not all of us are what she calls straight arrows when it comes to career paths, landing on a singular purpose early without wavering, and experiencing success and achievement from a young age.

Late bloomers, on the other hand, can learn to embrace the winding road—at least once they stop shaming and blaming themselves for not having it all figured out yet.

After all, as Jenna says, “Few things make you appreciate achievement more than waiting years to experience it. Consequently, many late bloomers find success to be even more savory when it comes.”

Listen in to this week’s conversation for strategies on embracing the best parts of being a late bloomer, while having patience in the process of self-discovery and self-expression.

More About Jenna: Jenna Valovic is a Certified Professional Co-Active Career Coach (CPCC) who brings an open mind and holistic lens to help clients build a life that feels impactful, aligned, and fully in integrity. She is one of our Pivot coaches, and holds a masters degree in leadership and organizational development, with a background in positive psychology, breathwork, and vinyasa yoga. We met many years ago through Google, where Jenna has worked for nearly a decade, most recently in executive recruiting.

✅ Try This Next: Set up a small, low-stakes pilot (even at an hour a week) for something sparking your curiosity. Park your insecurities on the side while embracing a “willful suspension of disbelief.”

❤️ Enjoying the show? I'd be grateful for a rating and/or review! Even better? Share this episode with a friend :)

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💻 Check out Jenny’s Pivot courses on LinkedIn Learning: Figuring Out Your Next Move, Holding 1:1 Career Conversations With Your Team, Managing Introverts, Coaching New Hires, and Coaching New Managers

💬 I’d love to hear what’s on your mind! Take the Pivot listener survey

☎️ Submit a question or comment for future episodes

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📝 Check out full show notes at http://pivotmethod.com/318

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Are you feeling trapped by the infinite scroll of distractions? According to today’s returning guest, Paul Angone, we have all become cultural escape artists, what he dubs the “Refresh Generation.” Paul writes, “We are constantly getting a hit from our phone for the latest update. The iPhone is our cigarette, and too many of us are chain-smoking our phones."

It’s time to get off the dizzying carousel of phone addiction, and relearn how to listen to ourselves and our day for aha moments instead. Paul believes that “the most successful and fulfilled people on this Earth are simply better at paying attention to what's important.”

More About Paul: Paul Angone is one of the most trusted and sought-after voices in the nation to college students, young professionals, and those going through career change. Paul is the bestselling author of 101 Secrets for Your Twenties, 101 Questions You Need to Ask in Your Twenties, 25 Lies Twentysomethings Need to Stop Believing, and today we’re talking about his new book, Listen to Your Day: The Life-Changing Practice of Paying Attention. He is also the creator of AllGroanUp.com and the All Groan Up podcast, and a dynamic keynote speaker at universities, corporations, and churches nationwide. He was previously on the show in April 2018, episode 92: Adulting to Win: Powerful Questions and Pivotal Plot Points.

✅ Try This Next: Practice different ways of paying attention: How would a monk consider this problem? What about a farmer or an entrepreneur?

❤️ Enjoying the show? I'd be grateful for a rating and/or review! Even better? Share this episode with a friend :)

💌 Get my curated weekly(ish) PivotList newsletter

💻 Check out Jenny’s Pivot courses on LinkedIn Learning: Figuring Out Your Next Move, Holding 1:1 Career Conversations With Your Team, Managing Introverts, Coaching New Hires, and Coaching New Managers

💬 I’d love to hear what’s on your mind! Take the Pivot listener survey

☎️ Submit a question or comment for future episodes

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📝 Check out full show notes from this episode with links to resources mentioned at http://pivotmethod.com/317

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Today’s solo riff is on a three-word phrase that has helped quell countless waves of anxiety in the decade since I first heard it, wisdom passed from my friend Monica McCarthy's (aka MonBon’s) mom then to the pages of Pivot. Pardon the occasional panting (lol) and background noise—err New York City soundscape—as I recorded this one on a big hill at the park, running up and down while throwing a giant log for Ryder to chase. He chases sticks, I chase ideas!

🌟 3 Key Takeaways:

✅ Next Action: If you notice yourself worrying or anxious, try to remind yourself of those three little words from MonBon's mom: Don't suffer twice.

❤️ Enjoying the show? I'd be grateful for a rating and/or review! Even better? Share this episode with a friend :)

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💻 Check out Jenny’s Pivot courses on LinkedIn Learning: Figuring Out Your Next Move, Holding 1:1 Career Conversations With Your Team, Managing Introverts, Coaching New Hires, and Coaching New Managers

💬 I’d love to hear what’s on your mind! Take the Pivot listener survey

☎️ Submit a question or comment for future episodes

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📝 Check out full show notes from this episode with links to resources mentioned at http://pivotmethod.com/316

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What would you do if you had more confidence? Today’s guest, Kelli Thompson, polled over 500 people with this question and received answers that were equal parts inspiring and heartbreaking.

In this conversation, Kelli shares the story of walking down the aisle at her first wedding when her intuition was whispering that the relationship wasn’t right, but she didn’t yet have the confidence to listen.

We discuss strategies for listening to that still, small voice within; how to stop “box-checking” for external validation; the flip side of the imposter monster: pedestal syndrome; and working through the “poop soup” of liminal space between major changes. As Kelli says, “You can’t criticize yourself into more confidence.”

More About Kelli: Kelli Thompson is a women’s leadership coach and speaker who helps women advance to the rooms where decisions are made. She has coached and trained hundreds of women to trust themselves, lead with more confidence, and create a career they love. She is the founder of the Clarity & Confidence Women's Leadership Program and a Stevie Award winner for Women in Business—Coach of the Year. She is the author of Closing The Confidence Gap: Boost Your Peace, Your Potential & Your Paycheck, which was selected as a must-read by The Next Big Idea Club.

🌟 3 Key Takeaways:

Try This Next: Write down 3-5 things in your life that you no longer want. Where do you feel resentment? What is out of alignment? Choose one to have a conversation about or draw a boundary around as a next step.

📘Books:

🔗Resources:

🎧Related Podcast Episodes

❤️ Enjoying the show? I'd be grateful for a rating and/or review! Even better? Share this episode with a friend :)

💌 Get my curated weekly(ish) PivotList newsletter

💻 Check out Jenny’s Pivot courses on LinkedIn Learning: Figuring Out Your Next Move, Holding 1:1 Career Conversations With Your Team, Managing Introverts, Coaching New Hires, and Coaching New Managers

💬 I’d love to hear what’s on your mind! Take the Pivot listener survey

☎️ Submit a question or comment for future episodes

**🎧 **Make sure you’re subscribed wherever you listen to ‘casts

📝 Check out full show notes from this episode with links to resources mentioned at

http://pivotmethod.com/315

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