No CEO and no entrepreneur knows at all. You don’t have to, in order to succeed. But what you do need is to be comfortable with pivoting and figuring it out as you go. As well as being willing to fail magnificently. So in today’s episode, I’m talking all about how to do all of that really, really well.
Show Links:
- Save 10+Hours A Month By Repurposing Content Masterclass
- Episode 068: Shiny Object Syndrome or Badass Opportunity to Up-level Quicker?
- DM me on Instagram
Show Takeaways:
- Listen in to hear some examples of when it might be time to pivot.
- Discover how a pivot in your business can be a good thing!
- Learn how to execute a pivot that will serve you best.
Rather read before you listen? ⬇️
No CEO, no entrepreneur knows it all. You don’t have to in order to be successful. What you do need is to be comfortable with pivoting and being flexible and figuring it out as you go and being willing to fail magnificently. So in today’s episode, I’m talking all about how to do all of that really well.
Before I get into today’s episode I do want to tell you about an incredible new masterclass that I’m hosting on May 25th. It’s called Save 10+Hours A Month By Repurposing Content and I’m sharing the exact framework that I use to create content for so many platforms every single month without running out of ideas or burning myself out. If you wanna snag your free ticket, head on over to erinhaworth.com/masterclass.
Are you burnt out on the word “pivot” because of 2020, the pandemic shut downs and the friends’ memes? [Thank you, Ross.]
Look I totally get it. When a word gets overused, it really starts to lose its meaning. (Have you ever written a word so many times that you start to question if it is even really a word? That happens all the time to me.)
But whether you are gelling with the word pivoting or not, it’s the concept that I’d love for you to get onboard with. Why?
If it hasn’t already happened, it will. You put alot of time and energy into a project or a big launch or … and stuff comes up that knocks you off balance.
Not too long ago, I was in the middle of a launch and struggling with getting the slides and all the assets for a webinar pulled together. It was a stressful week and I was trying to hold it all together. And then I got a call that my parents’ dog who was 13 years old or so that was really my dog from when I was a teenager had a tumor that was keeping her from being able to eat. She had been struggling with arthritis for awhile and with the decreased appetite and now confirmation of a tumor that was very likely cancerous, we had to make the decision to put her down. It was a Tuesday morning and I dropped everything to go home and spend her few remaining hours with her. While we all took turns saying our goodbyes, I was eating some carrot sticks for lunch and broke one of my molar teeth off at the gum line. Completely sheared off. But I kept going. I sat with my Daisy tears streaming down my face as she drifted off. Then I called the dentist to fix my damn tooth. Then two days later I got a call from my daughter’s school that she was sick and she and I would both need to be tested for covid and she couldn’t return to school until after a mandatory quarantine/negative test result. My launch took a back burner during all of this.
We can create plans for ages but in the end, in order to move forward, you have to take action. And what happens when you take action is sometimes things don’t go as planned.
Inevitably, stuff comes up, clients leave, emergencies happen, & sh%t hits the fan. That’s normal, that’s entrepreneurship.
But the brilliant part about it is while there are plenty of things that can happen to negatively affect you, there are things that actually make it better too.
Unforeseen opportunities arise.
Someone reaches out to offer you are partnership deal. You find out you are going to speak at a huge event that wasn’t even on your radar.
And being flexible means that you can stay on track no matter what + take full advantage of the right opportunities when they show up. (Btw, if you aren’t sure how to tell the true opportunities from distractions, go listen to Episode 068 next titled Shiny Object Syndrome or Badass Opportunity to Up-level Quicker?)
Back to my story, I am sure you are thinking, oh how wonderful, she then had to pivot that next week and overcome the hard stuff and sold out her launch. Hah, nope. I didn’t make on single sale.
But it isn’t all about the sale, or even my serving 30 students right now.
I am in the process of learning as I go. That is a humbling place to be, for sure. But make no mistake, we are all learning as we go.
Be wary of anyone who says they have it all figured out. That may look nice for marketing, but it’s a BS facade.
The pivot is there to serve you. Failure means you are trying and getting closer to where you want to be. It means you are taking in new experiences and information to make better and better decisions all the time and get way more strategic with how you send your resources.
Pivoting is an art (though there is a science aspect to it as well.) and one that you can get really good at. Hell, I’d say I pretty advanced if not yet a master at pivoting because I’ve had plenty of opportunities to do so.
When things go wrong, unexpected things come up, you can get mad or you can get curious. Sometimes it’s both at different times. I won’t sit here and pretend that I don’t mourn when my plans are destroyed or that I never bitch and commiserate about what a crappy launch I had. I do, be sure of that. But I don’t stay there. I look for the lesson.
So what did I learn from that experience?
Be patient with myself and others.
I’ll never regret putting my time into cultivating relationships with others (pets included), especially if I know they have limited time.
My energy is best spent on speaking to those who are listening rather than trying to make people care.
That I need to prepare better.
One is enough, One sign up, one person, one sale, one life.
Check your own beliefs. What do you believe about pivoting and changing course? Is is smart or flaky or naive or whatever? What you believe matters.
But to just tell you to figure out when and how to pivot would just be rude.
When you find yourself in a position where things just aren’t working the way you think they should or something has completely thrown you off track, it’s likely time to pivot.
Here are some good indicators that a pivot is in your near future:
The things you are doing consistently are consistently not producing results.
You are burning out, procrastinating, and avoiding work.
You are reaching for more excuses that solutions.
You feel utterly misaligned with what you are doing on a daily basis.
If you just nodded your head at all or most of these statements, you need to pivot, my dear friend.
But that doesn’t mean throwing your entire plan out the window and starting from scratch. You aren’t starting from zero. you may need to reconcile a plan, or you may need to just make a small tweak to your efforts.
Action Step
I always like to end each episode with an action step that you can take right now to help you move forward and begin to implement immediately. Here is your action step for this episode: Time to journal to decide if a pivot is needed for you right now. Answer these questions: Do I need to pivot? What needs to change? What is most important right now? What is this season demanding of me? What can I learn from this?
