The Pivot Dialogues with Dave Schoof

This shows up in leadership, but it shows up everywhere else too, especially right now, with so much shifting under all of us at once. Knowing the difference between an old alarm and something real is one of the quieter skills nobody teaches. 



 In this solo episode, Dave shares the story of turning down a job he wanted because a feeling inside him said no, and he read it as a verdict instead of what it actually was. Years later, sent back to the same city, he finally knew what to do with that alarm instead of obeying it. Along the way: a practice for sorting intuition from an old pattern, and why this distinction matters more now than ever, when most of us are navigating several disruptions at once instead of one.

In this episode:

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🔗 CONNECT WITH DAVE

Website: daveschoof.com

The Pivot on Substack: https://dschoof.substack.com

Pivot Commons: Join our free community for thoughtful conversations, shared exploration, and practical ways to navigate change and uncertainty. [https://www.skool.com/the-pivot-commons-4650/about?ref=99a271ec9e194ed5a83253bc91a78dc6]

Pivot Lab: A nine-week guided experience for people ready to move beyond old maps and develop new ways of navigating what's next. [ https://www.daveschoof.com/pivot-lab]

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 ⏱ CHAPTERS

00:00 — Introduction

02:14 — The call that changed everything

05:14 — Sorting the signal

06:33 — The protector part

07:25 — The raincoat practice

10:18 — Building an anchor on the inside

12:48 — Why this matters more now than ever

14:00 — Old strategies built for one change at a time

15:16 — Old alarm or real signal 15:35 — The inner wilderness guide    

What if nothing is missing — and everything it takes to meet this moment is already here?

Dave sits down with Steve March, founder of Aletheia and creator of Aletheia Unfolding, for a conversation about a different way of being with ourselves and each other. Steve makes the case that we don't develop into wholeness — wholeness unfolds through us — and that every attempt to fix or improve the self tightens the very knot it hopes to release. They get into the exhaustion of continuous improvement, what it means to attune to life poetically rather than technologically, being designed to thrive in complexity, and why none of us makes sense of the world alone.

In this episode:

About Steve March

To learn more about unfoldment — and how to practice it yourself and offer it to clients — visit integralunfoldment.com, where you'll find Steve's writing and his training programs for coaches, therapists, guides, and change agents.

00:00 — What if nothing is missing?

03:13 — Meeting Steve March

07:03 — The tyranny of continuous improvement

12:24 — Innate wholeness: the whole comes first

27:19 — Why self-improvement fails on its own terms

47:09 — Functional freeze, and thriving in complexity

53:59 — Why we don't do this alone

01:07:41 — What if nothing is missing? (the turn) 01:12:34 — Toward a new archetype

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🔗 CONNECT WITH DAVE

What does real leadership require when the old maps stop working? In this conversation, Dave sits down with leadership expert and coach Andy Cahill to explore the fantasy that someone out there has life figured out, and the alternative Andy offers instead: learning to figure yourself in. They get into why so many of us are pulled toward crisis and quests without meaning to be, what it looks like to drop the change agenda in coaching and in relationships, and how strength and gentleness work together rather than against each other.

In this episode:

⏱ CHAPTERS

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Andy Cahill is a leadership development expert who works with purpose-driven executives and entrepreneurs. Past and current clients include Microsoft, Marriott International, Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Patagonia, lululemon athletica, The Obama Foundation, MIT, and a variety of A-to-D series funded startups in the tech and social impact sectors.

Andy earned his master’s degree in leadership from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He is a professionally certified coach (PCC) with the International Coaching Foundation, and he is also a Level 2 certified Internal Family Systems practitioner.

He is also the host of Wonder Dome, a podcast with a global listenership that explores explores the intersections of philosophy, psychology, science, and spirituality. And his critically acclaimed science-fiction novel Gradient brings a mythic frame to the interplay of human and artificial intelligence, surfacing themes of leadership, cultural adaptation, identity formation, technological innovation, and collective resilience in the face of loss.

Website: https://wonderdome.substack.com/

🔗 CONNECT WITH DAVE

We live in a culture that rewards movement. Answer faster. Decide sooner. Keep going.

But movement and navigation aren't the same thing. You can move all day and still become increasingly lost.

What actually makes navigation possible isn't a better map, more information, or greater confidence. It's something that happens before any of that.

Its orientation. Knowing where you are before deciding where to go.

This is a solo episode recorded during an unexpected pause in the south of France — and an inquiry that's been quietly reshaping how I think about The Pivot itself.

🔗 CONNECT WITH DAVE

Website: daveschoof.com

The Pivot Newsletter: https://tinyurl.com/4vn8832a

Substack: https://dschoof.substack.com

Podcast: https://thepivotpodcast.net/?v=zm7s

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daveschoof/

Dr. Rodney King has navigated some of the hardest terrain a person can cross — homelessness on the streets of Johannesburg, a health crisis that ended his career, and the disorienting question that follows when everything you've built around yourself falls away: who am I now?

He came out the other side not with a framework, but with a direction. As a philosopher, coach, and founder of Coaching Philosophia, Rodney now works with people navigating the meaning crisis — the growing gap between what modern life promises and what it actually delivers.

In this conversation, Dave and Rodney get into why the modern world has confused excelling with flourishing. Why the self-help industry is largely a repair mechanism for a broken environment. Why you can be content without being happy. And what it actually looks like to find your way back to something real.

This isn't an optimization conversation. It's a return one.

About This Episode

Dr. Rodney King is a philosopher, coach, and internationally recognized self-preservation expert. Originally from South Africa, he spent decades as a martial arts coach with programs in 15 countries — working with everyone from Tier One Special Forces operators to airline cabin crew. A health crisis in 2020 ended that chapter and opened a new one.

He now lives on the Isle of Man and works under the banner of Coaching Philosophia — bringing lived philosophy, mindfulness, and embodied practice to people navigating uncertainty, reclaiming meaning, and learning to flourish in a world that has largely forgotten how.

What We Explored

The modern world has confused excelling with flourishing. Rodney had the car, the house with the right zip code, the global travel. He'll tell you directly that wasn't the best time of his life.

The self-help industry is largely a repair mechanism for a broken environment. When the chimp is rocking back and forth in the zoo, the problem isn't the chimp. It's the zoo. We've built an unnatural environment, normalized it, and then told people to optimize their way through it.

The meaning crisis is real - and it's structural. We are running ancient hardware in an artificial environment. The evolutionary mismatch between what we're designed for and what modern life asks of us is showing up everywhere.

Happiness and contentment are not the same thing. The Western obsession with constant happiness may be doing significant damage. Contentment is something you can actually build. Happiness comes and goes.

Vulnerability as a practice — from someone who spent his career in a world where it was seen as weakness. Rodney's move from fighter to philosopher-coach carries real weight here.

Viktor Frankl on the streets of Johannesburg. The book ("Man's Search for Meaning" ) Rodney happened to pick up two weeks before becoming homeless — and the passage that kept him going.

A Line Worth Sitting With

"Everything the self-help world advocates as solutions are really just solutions to help you slot back into the mainstream and keep the machine going. And I don't think that's good for us." — Dr. Rodney King

🔗 CONNECT WITH RODNEY Search for Sophia bi-monthly calls: https://www.coachingphilosophia.org/searchforsophia Philosophy-inspired coaching: www.coachingphilosophia.org/coaching

🔗 CONNECT WITH DAVE Website: daveschoof.com | Newsletter: https://tinyurl.com/4vn8832a 

Substack: https://dschoof.substack.com | Podcast: https://thepivotpodcast.net/?v=zm7s |

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daveschoof/

What leadership instrument are you actually navigating with when the information environment breaks down?

In this solo episode, Dave Schoof explores one of the most disorienting challenges facing leaders right now: the gap between what the official story says and what people are actually living. Prices move week to week. Markets say one thing while experienced leaders feel something else entirely. And the default response — consume more, find better sources, read more analysis — isn't producing more clarity.

The problem isn't the data. It's the instrument.

In this episode:

🔗 CONNECT WITH DAVE Website: daveschoof.com Newsletter: [The Pivot: From the Map to the Terrain]

🌀 THE PIVOT COMMONS [Pivot Commons link]

🧪 THE PIVOT LAB Six weeks. Small group. Starting soon. [Pivot Lab sign-up link]

What does leadership look like when the old maps stop working — and the social contracts that guided your career have dissolved?

In this second conversation with JJ Vega, leadership coach and founder of Art of Unfolding, Dave Schoof goes deeper into the territory most leadership development avoids: grief as a necessary passage, natural cycles as an organizational practice, and the embodied awareness that makes a genuinely different kind of leadership possible. Drawing on William Bridges' transition model and their shared background in somatic and consciousness-informed coaching, Dave and JJ explore what it actually takes to lead well through endings — not just survive them.

In this episode:

Guest: JJ Vega is a leadership coach working at the intersection of the inner world and organizational impact. Together, we cover emergence as a leadership practice, somatic intelligence, edge walkers, the disintegrating success template, and whether the Hero's Journey needs a postmodern update.

CONNECT WITH JJ VEGA

Website: artofunfolding.org

Inside Out Leadership: leadinsideout.io

Co-Creation Loft Berlin: co-creation.loft

LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/jj-vega/

🔗 CONNECT WITH DAVE

Website: daveschoof.com

The Pivot Newsletter: [https://tinyurl.com/4vn8832a]

Substack: [https://dschoof.substack.com]

Podcast: [https://thepivotpodcast.net/?v=zm7s]

LinkedIn:  [https://www.linkedin.com/in/daveschoof/ ]

Leadership in a crisis nobody's playbook covers — what happens when the map runs out.

Three weeks into Operation Epic Fury, the Strait of Hormuz effectively closed and crude above $100 a barrel — this episode covers what's happening inside the people running organizations through it. The financial briefings tell you what's happening to the system. I want to talk about the moment leaders reach for their map and find it doesn't cover where they are.

Through the story of a composite leader I call Isabel — a CFO navigating this crisis in real time — I explore what it actually looks like to lead from genuine orientation rather than performed certainty. The difference between managing a situation and actually meeting it. And why the most practical thing in the room right now might be the one nobody's briefing you on.

In this episode:

⏱ CHAPTERS

00:00 — Introduction 01:30 — What the briefings aren't covering 04:00 — The moment leaders reach for the map 06:30 — Why working harder on the map stops working 09:00 — What paralysis actually is 12:00 — Meet Isabel 15:30 — Before — how she used to lead 19:00 — This week — leading differently 24:00 — The board call 27:30 — The Stefan moment 30:00 — The 48-hour decision 33:00 — What actually changed 36:00 — What this crisis is really revealing 38:30 — The question worth sitting with

🔗 CONNECT WITH DAVE

Website: daveschoof.com

The Pivot Newsletter: [https://tinyurl.com/4vn8832a]

Substack: [https://dschoof.substack.com]

Podcast: [https://thepivotpodcast.net/?v=zm7s]

LinkedIn:  [https://www.linkedin.com/in/daveschoof/ ]

Leadership coaching meets consciousness work in this wide-ranging conversation with JJ Vega — exploring what actually guides us when the old maps stop working.

What if desire, not strategy, is the real GPS for navigating complexity? That's where this conversation ended up — and neither of us saw it coming.

JJ Vega is a leadership coach working at the intersection of the inner world and organizational impact. Together, we cover emergence as a leadership practice, somatic intelligence, edge walkers, the disintegrating success template, and whether the Hero's Journey needs a postmodern update.

In this episode:

TIMESTAMPS:

00:00 Introduction & how Dave and JJ connected

01:25 JJ introduces himself — coaching at the intersection of inner world and leadership

03:00 Expat life — Americans who chose another home

03:48 What emergence means — holding experience lightly

06:38 JJ on emergence — complexity theory and the relational field

09:22 Making emergence practical — bridging the esoteric

11:40 Invisible winds of the system — why teams repeat the same patterns

13:51 The body as intelligence — somatic coaching and why leaders aren't machines

16:14 From controlling to holding space — the identity transition

18:32 Intellectually getting it vs. embodying it

20:39 Supporting the destabilization — how transformation actually takes hold

21:11 Case study — the high-performing technician becoming a people leader

23:35 The two axes of transformation — vertical inner work and horizontal skills

25:31 From mechanic to gardener — a new orientation toward people

27:41 The field multiplier — how one leader raises the whole team

28:42 Navigating polycrisis — what JJ is finding in the field right now

29:20 Functional freeze — why people are maxed out and what to do

31:16 Crisis as threshold — the opportunity inside the breakdown

32:15 Check-in — modeling presence in real time

33:19 The coaching relationship as a leadership model

35:10 Behavior is contagious — how leaders infect their systems

38:33 Quantum physics never took off — why the relational field is still too spooky

41:23 Edge walkers — pay attention to people at the margins

 43:51 The prophet not welcome in his own company

45:12 Upgrades to your sensemaking dashboard

46:25 Avoiding confirmation bias and echo chambers

47:22 The edge walker on your team right now — a concrete example 49:27 Polarity navigation — both/and leadership

51:16 Tolerating the unknown — why innovation requires accepting failed bets

53:42 White water was supposed to be temporary — why that story is over

54:03 JJ's life breakdown three years ago — the story of accelerating change

59:00 The new human — new capacities for a new world

01:00:31 Inheriting a template — and what happens when it disintegrates

01:03:58 The old contract is breaking down

01:05:23 Desire as the new GPS — what if spark is your navigation instrument 

CONNECT WITH JJ VEGA

Website: artofunfolding.org

Inside Out Leadership: leadinsideout.io

Co-Creation Loft Berlin: co-creation.loft

LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/jj-vega/

🔗 CONNECT WITH DAVE

Website: daveschoof.com

The Pivot Newsletter: [https://tinyurl.com/4vn8832a]

Substack: [https://dschoof.substack.com]

Podcast: [https://thepivotpodcast.net/?v=zm7s]

LinkedIn:  [https://www.linkedin.com/in/daveschoof/ ]

A conversation about leadership, emergence, and what guides us when the old maps stop working. What happens when the templates disintegrate?

What happens when the maps stop working?

In this conversation, I sit down with JJ Vega — leadership coach, expat, and co-steward of a self-organized community operating out of an old chocolate factory in Berlin — to explore what actually guides leaders when the inherited templates disintegrate.

We cover a lot of ground: emergence as a leadership practice, why the body often knows things the mind hasn't authorized yet, the edge walkers your organization is probably ignoring, and whether desire — not strategy — might be the real GPS for what's coming next.

We also get into the Hero's Journey and whether it needs a postmodern update, the difference between either/or and both/and leadership, and what a "new human blueprint" might actually look like for people navigating accelerating complexity.

JJ brings a rare combination: deep inner work, serious organizational experience, and a genuine appetite for the frontier. This one surprised me. I think it might surprise you too.

In this episode:

Guest: JJ Vega — leadership coach, Art of Unfolding, Inside Out Leadership, Co-Creation Loft Berlin Website:artofunfolding.org

LinkedIn: JJ Vega

JJ Vega is a leadership coach working at the intersection of inner world and organizational impact. Based in Berlin, he works with senior leaders and executives in complex, fast-moving environments — and is part of a pioneering self-organized community called the Co-Creation Loft.

In this conversation we explore emergence, somatic intelligence, edge walkers, the disintegrating success template, and whether desire might be the navigation instrument we've been dismissing as indulgent.

Connect with JJ:

Connect with Dave: