Pivot with Jenny Blake

“Even when you think something is set in stone—literal, actual stone—it changes.” Take it from actor-turned-entrepreneur and rock-climbing aficionado Ryan Devlin: successful pivots involve constant micro-adjustments. Even when you feel most stuck, you can find a new way forward, but you’ll need to double down on your unique skills and abilities.

I had so much fun chatting with Ryan about starting his give-back company, This Saves Lives, and his journey from a successful actor living the Hollywood life to an experimental entrepreneur piloting a new podcast based on his passion.

Ryan shares why chasing celebrity can be a slippery slope, how getting used to rejection helps with business-building, contributing to something bigger than you, finding flow, and why getting bored in your career isn’t always bad.

More About Ryan: Ryan Devlin is a social entrepreneur, rock climbing enthusiast, and actor known for roles on shows like Brothers & Sisters, Veronica Mars, Cougar Town, Jane the Virgin, and Grey’s Anatomy. He hosts The Struggle Climbing podcast, where climbers share their struggles and breakthroughs in nutrition, training, tactics, and the mental game. He is also co-founder of This Saves Lives, a company dedicated to feeding children and helping them thrive.

🌟3 Key Takeaways:

✅Next Action: Pick a niche passion of yours that has a zing of energy and excitement to it; what is one creative project you might be able to tackle in and for this area? Bonus: go to a local climbing wall!

📘Books: 

🔗Resources:

🎧Related Podcast Episodes:

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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 from this episode with links to resources mentioned at http://pivotmethod.com/304

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🎉 Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business celebrates its one year bookiversary on 3/22/23! 

In this episode I'm walking you through the Free Time Framework—Align, Design, Assign—so you have a technique to move from friction to flow in any project or area of your life and work in 2022.

Resources Mentioned:

This episode originally aired in December 2022.

🎁 Give the gift of free time to yourself and others in 2023 by participating in our Buy One, Get One, Give One bonus, back for a limited time. Here's how it works:

Thank you for listening! I can't wait to hear how you start freeing up time, and what you do with it :)

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Happy new year, my friends!! Transitioning from holiday time off to the frenetic energy of returning to work and regular life can be rough — so today, recurring guest (and my first career coach) Adrian Klaphaak joins me back on the pod to jam about calmer ways of reentering a new year, and recentering to decide what kind of planning and tracking is the most joyful for you. 

More about Adrian: Adrian Klaphaak is a coach, purpose guide, entrepreneur, therapist, 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.”

🌟3 Key Takeaways:

✅Next Action: Take a breath before launching into a new goal or declaration for the year. Rest and recharge, then came back to the questions of: What do I really want? What is most exciting to me? What do I most want to give my energy to? What is a project that aligns with my soul’s path?

📘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

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📝 Check out full show notes from this episode with links to resources mentioned at http://pivotmethod.com/303

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This episode originally aired on April 4, 2021.

Casper ter Kuile is helping to build a world of joyful belonging. He is the author of The Power of Ritual and the co-host of the award-winning podcast Harry Potter and the Sacred Text. Casper is a Ministry Innovation Fellow at Harvard Divinity School and the co-founder of startup Sacred Design Lab - a research and design consultancy working to create a culture of belonging and becoming. He also co-authored “How We Gather” and collaborated with Holstee on his Ritual Life Planner.

Books:

Authors:

Related Pivot Podcasts:

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💸 Enroll in the complimentary Free-up Founder Time mini-course before the price goes up

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🗣 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: https://pivotmethod.com/260

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“I don’t want fans, I want friends.” This is one of many approaches to relationship-building that I admire in this week’s guest, super-connector Jon Levy. I learned that when Jon texts with “free for dinner tonight?” you cancel all plans and say YES. Both times I did, I ended up at one of his influencer dinners with famous actors, public figures, pro athletes, and C-suite executives. 

Jon’s secret? Designing experiences to facilitate a shared sense of awe, connection, and accomplishment—with job titles revealed only at the end of the evening. Today we’re talking about these principles and more behind his bestselling book, You’re Invited: The Art and Science of Cultivating Influence. I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did!

This episode originally aired on July 24, 2022.

More about Jon: Jon Levy is a behavioral scientist and New York Times bestselling author known for his work in trust, human connection, belonging, and influence. More than a decade ago, Jon founded The Influencers Dinner, a secret dining experience for industry leaders ranging from Nobel laureates, Olympians, celebrities, and executives, to artists and musicians. Guests cook dinner together, but can’t discuss their career or give their last name, and once seated to eat, they reveal who they are. Over time, these dinners developed into a community. With thousands of members, Influencers is the largest community of its type worldwide.

🌟3 Key Takeaways:

✅Next Action: What next group invitation can you send? How can you create a memorable experience around it? 

📘Books Mentioned:

🔗Resources Mentioned: 

🎧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

💬 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/285

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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 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 :)

This episode originally aired on April 3, 2022.

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:

📝 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: 

🔗 Resources Mentioned: 

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

💬 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/277

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"For generations, we’ve been taught there are two ways to succeed—either from talent or practice." My guest today, Ron Friedman, shares a powerful third path: reverse engineering. In this conversation you will learn how to unpack others' success to spark breakthrough ideas of your own, with an original twist.

This episode originally aired on November 28, 2021.

More About Ron: Ron Friedman is an award-winning social psychologist who specializes in human motivation. His first book, The Best Place to Work, was named an Inc. Magazine Best Business Book of the Year. His new book, *Decoding Greatness: How the Best in the World Reverse Engineer Success,* was selected by Amazon's editors as one of this year's best non-fiction books.

Resources Mentioned:

❤️ Enjoying the show? Pivot Podcast is listener supported—consider donating to become a podcast BFF Insider and you’ll get access to a monthly Q&A call with Jenny and private feed.

💸 Enroll in the complimentary Free-up Founder Time mini-course before the price goes up

💌 Get my curated weekly(ish) PivotList newsletter

💬 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

Check out other episodes of the Pivot Podcast here. Be sure to subscribe wherever you listen, and if you enjoy the show I would be very grateful for a rating and/or review! Sign-up for my weekly(ish) #PivotList newsletter to receive curated round-ups of what I’m reading, watching, listening to, and new tools I’m geeking out on.

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“When life takes you down, it changes you. You’re not the same after,” says Dr. Susan Biali in her new book, The Resilient Life. “When I look back on my career, my most cherished accomplishments all came with significant stress.”

And yet, sometimes, that work-related stress can tip into burnout if we’re not careful—something particularly prominent these last few years. Susan is one of my longest-time friendtors (fifteen years and counting!), and in this long-overdue Pivot conversation, we talk about what personality traits make someone most prone to burnout, social overwhelm the power of small doses of relaxation response activities, and more.

More About Susan: Dr. Susan Biali Haas is an award-winning medical doctor, internationally recognized for her expertise in mental health, stress management, burnout prevention, and resilience. Today we’re talking about her new book, The Resilient Life: Manage stress, prevent burnout, improve your physical and mental health, and live with more resilience. ****

In addition to her twenty years of primary care experience, she also coaches a broad range of clients — from senior executives to physicians and other health professionals — to take control of their mental and physical well-being. Dr. Susan’s popular Psychology Today blog has over 10 million views, and she has been featured in media such as the Today Show, Forbes, BBC World Service, Oprah.com, and others.

🌟3 Key Takeaways:

✅Do This Next: What do you need and want most? Create a social inventory of the different people in your life and interactions you want to have with them, and reflect on how those relationships are showing up or present in your life and if you are happy with that, or want to make changes. 

📘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/302

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What happens when you write a book called The Revenge of Analog, only to find a pandemic relentlessly converting everything to virtual a few years later?

David Sax answered the call with a follow-up book, the only one he could write from the confines of home, describing the malaise of digital pushed to its extremes, again making the case for RR: Real Reality (and you know we couldn’t resist a few pirate jokes to follow).

I know you’ll love this conversation as much as I did about the timeless nature of our most meaningful moments; the future of books, book clubs, and bookstores; and why the metaverse has nothing to do with our salvation as a species.

More About David: David Sax is a technology critic and bestselling author of five books, including Save the Deli, The Tastemakers, The Revenge of Analog, and The Soul of an Entrepreneur. His new book, The Future Is Analog: How to Create a More Human World, highlights the resurgence of analog goods and ideas in a digitally proliferated world. He reminds us all that we should look for community and humanity, not convenience and technology.

🌟Key Takeaway: There are things that are just better in AR: Actual Reality (as opposed to digital). Books, speaking engagements, school, bookstores. There’s nothing saying we have to choose the metaverse despite how relentlessly it’s marketed to us.

✅Next Action: When someone asks you about your plans for the future, consider: What makes you feel the most human? What kind of connection do you crave and desire? How can you bring more of that into your life? Take something back that has gone digital and return to analog, whether it’s buying a hardcover book or sending a handwritten thank you note.

📘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/301

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Since launching this show in September 2015, the podcasting landscape has grown and changed tremendously. What was once a niche sandbox of independent producers pursuing passion projects has blossomed into an abundant field where it seems as though every major media property, celebrity, side hustler, and business owner decided to throw their hat (mic?) into the audio arena.

Since I’m not nearly ambitious or prolific enough to share three hundred lessons learned in honor of today’s major milestone, or even thirty, I thought I’d boil it down to my top three creative lessons learned in seven years of creating content in a constantly changing space.

Before going any further, thank you from the bottom of my heart—this show wouldn’t be nearly what it is without you here listening and sharing with friends. Thank you for listening these last seven years, and I’m looking forward to seeing what the years ahead bring us!

🌟3 Key Takeaways:

📘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/300

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices