We were delighted to host Jenny Blake for an Actionable webinar to discuss her book PIVOT: The Only Move that Matters is your Next One. Alyssa Burkus sat down with Jenny for a live chat with members of the Actionable community.
Jenny is no stranger to career changes. She has worked at a technology start-up as a first employee, worked with Google in times of exponential growth, has written two books, and now runs her own consultancy firm. She looked around her life and saw other young professionals in a similar pattern: one or two years of interest and job satisfaction, followed by a drastic pivot to a new field, job, or adventure.
In the webinar, which you can watch below, Jenny outlines the steps to the Pivot Method, and offers insightful exercises for how to implement it, in a small or big way, in your own life. The method consists of 4 steps: plant, scan, pilot, and launch. Like a basketball player assessing their options, we can utilize this method to plant ourselves in our strengths, scan the field for options, test the waters, and eventually, when the right opportunity becomes clear, launch into our new lives.
I recently made a major pivot in my own life: I accepted an exciting and challenging opportunity as the Managing Editor at Actionable. Though I didn’t have the framework that Jenny lays out as part of my vocabulary when I was pursuing the opportunity, I went through a version of each of these steps in the process. This new role is firmly planted in my expertise and training, and a huge step forward from the work I was doing previously (a big enough step to be a healthy amount of nervous but not at all terrified or anxious). The interview process was a fantastic opportunity to pilot the change, and now I’ve launched into an exciting new chapter in my life.
Careers aren’t the only things that we can pivot. Personal relationships, hobbies and art projects, healthier lifestyles, and all other aspects of our lives that we wish to improve can benefit from the Pivot Method. In the webinar, Jenny asks the viewer a series of reflective questions to jumpstart thinking about their next pivot. Even if only for a few seconds or a minute, they are useful questions for anyone to think about. We all want to live our best lives, but sometimes the work (and the leap of faith that doing the work requires) and uncertainty is overwhelming. Jenny breaks it down into Actionable steps that anyone with a few minutes or few hours can use to their advantage.
Watch the webinar below, and check out our summary of PIVOT. What will your next pivot be?
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