Afleveringen
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As I round the corner into this ninth year of podcasting and after over 700 episodes, today I’m announcing a pause for both shows.
Listen in to hear what factors helped me reach this decision across time, money, energy, depressing industry articles, the pace of both shows’ growth, and mix of additional business factors that make this an important moment to pause and regroup. You might also appreciate the even deeper dive with my longtime friend (and first coach) Adrian Klaphaak in Pivot episode 360: 📦 Unpacking a Big Business Decision and Dissolving Related Doubts.
While I will be sad not to bring fresh episodes to your earbuds every week, I truly want to say thank you so much for being here. This only represents a small fraction of listeners, but I was genuinely touched receiving the Spotify Wrapped for Podcasters stats at the end of 2023 after I knew I would be pausing once all the episodes “in the can” went live.
Among Pivot listeners: for 681 this show is in your top ten on Spotify, for 373 it’s in your top five, and for 65 of you, this is your number one show (again, at least in Spotify’s podcast player)!
Among Free Time listeners: for 423 of you this show is in your top ten on Spotify, for 247 it’s in the top five, and for 57 it is your number one show in Spotify—the highest honor!! I was shocked to see even one, truly, with so much other incredible audio content out there.
There’s one thing I know for sure: I will miss you during this break 🥹
🌟 ;TLDR/L (Too Long Didn’t Listen) Top Takeaways:
In addition to pausing my private community, I am pausing both podcasts for a bit (duration TBD) so I can clear financial and energetic space to listen to what my broader business wants to become.
🎧 Stay subscribed to both shows: Pivot with Jenny Blake and Free Time with Jenny Blake so that you still get episodes when I release them, even if a bit more sporadically (for now); I may switch to seasons if/when I resume
📧 Subscribe to any/all of my three Substacks if you’re not already: I hope to experiment with live tapings with interesting friends and guests, ones that are for paying subscribers where we can go into even more nitty gritty detail behind-the-scenes.
📝 Permission
Pause and regroup on any of your creative projects so you can create space to hear what’s next.
🔗 Resources Mentioned
Rolling in D🤦🏻♀️h: 🏆 Time to Put the Trophies Away
Do What You Love and the Money Will Follow . . . IF
Rebuilding from Rubble
👟 A Strange and Wonderful Morning: Walking Photo Essay
Dear 2024: A Letter and From 2024: A Reply
What Works: Making the Content Math Work
Edison Research: Podcasting’s Big Hits and Long Tail
Adam Davidson: The Rise and Fall of Podcasting
The Daily Beast: Malcolm Gladwell’s Media Empire is Being Torn Apart
Podcast Production: One Stone Creative
ListenNotes: Pivot, Free Time
📚 Books Mentioned
Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business
Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One
Life After College
🎧 Related Episodes
SPARKED: Jenny in Conversation with Jonathan Fields (Spotify Playlist)
BFF Bonus: Upcoming Quiet Sabbatical + Important Membership Updates
Pivot: 329: Five Types of People-Pleasers from The Joy of Saying No with Natalie Lue
342: “Whatever Comes Through Me Comes For Me First,” With Nicole Antoinette
360: 📦 Unpacking a Big Business Decision and Dissolving Related Doubts with Adrian Klaphaak
Free Time: 042: How I Run My Business Without Social Media (Pivot Replay)
203: 🎢 Riding the Emotional Rollercoaster of Launching with Natalie Lue
250: Do what you love and the money will follow . . . IF you meet at least 3 of these 20 criteria
🦧 What to Do When You Lose Your Biggest Client, Part One and Part Two
📝 Check out full show notes and share with friends: https://itsfreetime.com/episodes/270
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“I don’t get on the airplane—and definitely not the stage—unless all invoices are paid in full.”
When my friend and fellow keynote speaker Joey Coleman said this to me over coffee, I started drilling him for details: Really?! How do you have the nerve to say that to a speaking client?! How do you avoid caving in to make sure their event doesn’t fall apart if they haven’t paid in time? What about clients who work for highly bureaucratic companies that insist on their “standard” net-120 terms?
In this illuminating conversation, Joey shares his best practices for getting paid on time—every time by setting, stating, and upholding better boundaries (and contracts) with clients.
More About Joey: As an award-winning speaker for over twenty years, Joey Coleman works with organizations around the world ranging from small startups to major brands such as Volkswagen Australia, Zappos, and Whirlpool. His First 100 Days® methodology fuels the remarkable experiences his clients deliver and dramatically improves their profits.
🌟 4 Key Takeaways
“You should care a lot about what a few people think.” For Joey, it’s his wife, his children, his closest business advisors, longstanding clients. “I don’t want my creativity hampered by one person’s feedback.”
“You need to know how to ask for the money.” Gem from Joey’s dad growing up on the most important thing to know when running your own business, about having confidence when you state the price and terms of your services without wavering.
Don’t raise your prices just for the sake of raising them; however, as your expertise and capabilities and the cost of living and costs of running your business increase, there is a necessary understanding that prices will go up. Right before he hit send on a proposal, he would stop, go back to the original contract and raise the fee by ten percent.
Price is something you pay at the grocery store; investment is something you are going to do to grow your operation and make it better. You will invest with me to grow your returns, and it will continue to pay dividends. As a speaker, you need to be clear on the return on investment that you’re promising.
📝 Permission
It is unbelievably challenging to start and run your own business. Because you are so bold to do that, give yourself permission to courageously set your boundaries. The more clear and comfortable you are stating how to work with you and holding firm when pushed, the happier you will be as a business owner, and the longer you will be in business.
✅ Do (or Delegate) This Next
Try Joey’s approach to sharing the investment for working together. List a range on your website, and the first time your desired client learns how much it costs to work with you should be hearing it from you, not reading a document.
🔗 Resources and Books Mentioned 📚
Joey on the web, X (Twitter), LinkedIn
Never Lose an Employee Again: The Simple Path to Remarkable Retention
Never Lose a Customer Again: Turn Any Sale into Lifelong Loyalty in 100 Days
Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business
Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One
🎧 Related Episodes
Joey’s podcast: Experience This!
Free Time: 083: Breaking through Buyer’s Remorse—Never Lose a Customer Again
201: Never Lose a Team Member Again with Joey Coleman
Pivot: 155: Becoming a Successful Speaker with Grant Baldwin
📝 Check out full show notes and share with friends: https://itsfreetime.com/episodes/269
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Zijn er afleveringen die ontbreken?
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What mysterious ingredients make a book launch successful? What number of first-week and first-year sales truly make a difference to a book’s longevity? What can you do to turn lagging numbers around?
In a flagship illuminating post for the industry, Todd Sattersten, publisher and owner of Bard Press, shared his findings in The Magic Number. In this behind-the-business conversation from October 2023, you’ll hear him generously talk me through how I could help Free Time get there—with a much-needed morale boost at the end.
More About Todd: Todd Sattersten is the publisher and owner of Bard Press, a book publisher that works with authors to create best-selling books in business, personal development and technology. Before Bard Press, Todd served as general manager of IT Revolution and president of business book retailer 800-CEO-READ. He is the author of Every Book Is a Startup and the co-author of The 100 Best Business Books of All Time (Portfolio, 2009). Todd lives in Portland, Oregon with his wife Amy and their three awesome kids.
🌟 3 Key Takeaways
A book launch is a set of activities to engage people and create momentum, and there is no common blueprint for success. “Each book is different—in its approach to a problem and delivery of solution. Each author is different—in what they bring to the launch. And the world itself is different every time you bring a book into the world.”
The Magic Number: The data says is that if you can get into the 10,000 to 25,000 copy range for first year sales, you have a 42% chance of selling more than 25,000 copies in lifetime sales. If you get past that 10K mark, there is a 4 in 10 chance of getting beyond 25K copies sold.
Endorsements should triangulate the reader to think this book is for them. Who is the highest comp author? A practitioner (someone doing the work or even a related recognizable company), a reader who demonstrates utility.
📝 Permission
Put your ego down. Remember, you want your readers to be better, to improve their lives. Our job is to find more people to help, and there are still so many opportunities for that. You don’t actually have to stop promoting the book after it’s launched—there is nobody stopping you!
✅ Do (or Delegate) This Next
Send a survey out to your readers and community, ideally 90 to 120 days after the book comes out. Check out the one Jenny sent here—and please take it if you can at the same time!
🔗 Resources Mentioned
Todd on the web, IG, X, LinkedIn
Publisher: Bard Press
Take the Free Time reader survey Jenny sent here, whether you’ve read the book or not!
Bard Press Articles: The Magic Number and The Few, The Many, and the Reality of Power Laws
Net Promoter Score (NPS): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_promoter_score
Technology Adoption Life Cycle: Innovators → early adopters → early majority → late majority → laggards
BookBub and The Fussy Librarian for ebook promotions
Jenny’s Author Toolkit and Free Time Leader Kit
📚 Books Mentioned
The One Thing by Jay Papasan and Gary Keller
Atomic Habits by James Clear
Your First 1000 Copies by Tim Grahl
Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business
Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One
Life After College
🎧 Related Episodes
Self-Publishing School: The Engineer Approach to Millions of Copies Sold with Todd Sattersten
Billion Dollar Creator: 018: How to Write a Book That Sells for Decades with Tim Grahl
Free Time: 249: Systems for Selling Over One Million Books and 012: Generating Personal MBA Momentum with Josh Kaufman
117: Tiny Marketing Actions with Pamela Slim
Pivot: 207: How to Develop Your Book and Big Idea (Part 1) and 208: Your Book and Big Idea (Part 2)
49: The (He)art of Book Publishing Excerpt: Land a Traditional Publishing Deal — Q&A with My Editor at Portfolio/Penguin Random House
📝 Check out full show notes and share: https://itsfreetime.com/episodes/268
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Laura Mae Martin has a fascinating role as the Executive Productivity Advisor at Google in the Office of the CEO—one that she helped create six years ago (with big thanks to Jenny Wood for introducing us!). ****She coaches Google’s top executives on the best ways to manage their time and energy and sends out a weekly productivity newsletter that reaches over fifty thousand employees.
Today we’re talking about her forthcoming book, Uptime: A Practical Guide to Personal Productivity and Wellbeing. We discuss what the most senior-level executives do differently when it comes to time management (and what they still struggle with), five strategies for saying no, taming inbox stress with The Laundry Method, cozy corners, pairing activities with certain locations (hot spots and not spots), and what differentiates truly excellent executive assistants.
More About Laura: During her nearly fourteen-year tenure at Google, Laura Mae Martin has worked in sales, product operations, event planning, and now executive coaching. She holds a bachelor of science in business administration from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, with her husband and three children under five.
🌟 3 Key Takeaways
Laura’s 5 C’s of Productivity: Calm, Create, Capture, Consolidate, Close. Create a system that you truly trust: where new tasks get captured and where you know you will see them again. No matter when or where a loop comes from (i.e. on a walk), ensure you have systems in place for the entire loop lifecycle from capturing to closing.
Five Ways to Say No to Incoming Requests: ask more questions to better understand the time commitment and see if it aligns with your top three priorities; say you’ll think about it or don’t respond right away to buy yourself time and prevent a knee-jerk response; imagine two scenarios playing out for yes and for no (to help you decide); say no, but _______ (send helpful resources); say no, because _______ (give a little context).
The Laundry Method: Think about your inbox the way you think about your dryer. You would never process clothes one item at a time—whether drying, folding or putting away—and yet that’s how many people tackle email. Process in batches instead. Treat sorting, reading, and answering as separate activities. If you have only twenty minutes, pick one of those activities.
📝 Permission
Give yourself plenty of down time in order to have highly productive uptime; drop the guilt! Rest leads to better overall productivity.
✅ Do (or Delegate) This Next
Stop wasting energy points! Eliminate any emails from your inbox that you don’t need to see: the unread, notifications, newsletters (Jenny uses SaneBox for this), and make sure you help the things you need to see stick out.
🔗 Resources Mentioned
Laura on the web, IG, LinkedIn
Articles: Business Insider—6 tips a productivity advisor gives Google executives to better manage their email, meetings, and workload
Google Blog—5 things I learned from Google’s productivity expert
CNN—She helps Google workers be productive. Here are her pro tips.
Video: Top 3 Google Workspace tips
Apps: SaneBox, TextExpander, HelpScout
📚 Books Mentioned
Uptime: A Practical Guide to Personal Productivity and Wellbeing
Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business
Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One
Life After College
🎧 Related Episodes
Free Time: 019: Most Valuable Activities with Dave Crenshaw
154: The Hard No
027: Time Management for Mortals with Oliver Burkeman
Pivot: 289: Stealing Wi-Fi as Career Strategy with Jenny Wood
307: Pivoting from Google to Launching People Playbook with Tony McGaharan
318: The Beauty of Late Bloomers with Jenna Valovic
309: Wayfinding and Developing Identity Agency with Ciela Hartanov
📝 Check out full show notes and share with friends: https://itsfreetime.com/episodes/267
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While the title of this episode, The Framework Framework™ is tongue-in-cheek, I’m pulling this out of the BFF bonus vault because it’s one of the community’s favorites.I’m sharing the first steps to how you can set up a framework to help bolster your IP and your business; either by scaling through programs like certification and licensing, and to make your material more memorable and accessible to the groups you care most about reaching.I shared this in June 2023 as a follow-up to the fantastic workshop that Pamela Slim did for us on Certification and Licensing. You can access over 100 bonus episodes and that workshop by joining Free Time as a paying subscriber. You’ll get instant access to Stephanie Huston’s How to Batch Create and Customize Your Annual Content Calendar, with an epic multi-tab template in Google Sheets. Be sure to also check out the resources below, including Wes Kao’s detailed LinkedIn post on how to turn your ideas into frameworks.🌟 3 Key Takeaways of the Framework Framework™Solves a problem (people know they have), answers a question (BookRx)Action-oriented → Transformation Journey or Comprehensive (Whole body/self/org). Name your processMemorable, concise name and stages (ideally 3 to 4 stages)Bonus: Tie-in a metaphor, hook, and/or story📘 From Built to Sell:TED’S TIP # 3 Owning a process makes it easier to pitch and puts you in control. Be clear about what you’re selling, and potential customers will be more likely to buy your product.TED’S TIP # 6 Don’t be afraid to say no to projects. Prove that you’re serious about specialization by turning down work that falls outside your area of expertise. The more people you say no to, the more referrals you’ll get to people who need your product or service.🔗 Resources MentionedHere's a photo of my journal where I first started trying to piece the Free Time Framework together, brainstorming themes before eventually shifting from Mind/Time/Team to Align -> Design -> Assign :)Articles: Martha Beck’s Growing Wings: The Power of ChangeTED—The 7 types of rest that every person needsWes Kao’s detailed LinkedIn post on how to turn your ideas into frameworks📚 Books MentionedBuilt to SellThe Referral EngineFinding Your Own North StarE-Myth RevisitedThe Power of Full EngagementThe Lean Start-upFree Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your BusinessPivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next OneLife After College🎧 Related EpisodesBFF Bonus Workshops: Pamela Slim’s Certification and LicensingStephanie Huston’s How to Batch Create and Customize Your Annual Content CalendarFree Time: 189: Jay Acunzo's walkthrough of his Intellectual Property (IP) Development OS — check out the diagram here256: Behind-the-Business: 1:1 Voxer Coaching Summer Pop-Up—Structure, Systems & Pricing135: How to Rapidly Prototype a Course (Pivot Replay from Dec. 2019)187: Licensing 201 — Q&A on Pricing + Packaging, Train-the-Trainer, Delivery, and Legal186: Licensing 201 — Q&A on Product Development, Attracting Clients, and Sales Process185: How Licensing Helps Serve the Queen Bee Role + Stop Keeping up with the EntrepreJoneses with Mike Michalowicz140: How to License Your IP (Intellectual Property)Pivot: 281: Feeling Impostery? Become a Qualified Curator Instead of an End-All-Be-All Expert🌟Enjoying the show? The best way to thank us is by leaving a rating or review✍️ Check out Jenny’s personal business essays on Substack, Rolling in D🤦🏻♀️h💌 Subscribe to the Time Well Spent newsletter for access to the Free Time Toolkit💬 I’d love to hear what’s on your mind! Take the Free Time listener survey🎧 Make sure you’re subscribed wherever you listen to podcasts📝 Check out full show notes and share with friends: https://itsfreetime.com/episodes/266Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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What do you do when you lose your biggest client? If you haven’t already, listen to part one for some answers—264: What to Do When You Lose Your Biggest Client— and save these links for a rainy day :)The next time you’re going through something challenging in your business, remember: you are not alone! I hope you find comfort through the voices of some of my dearest friends, former podcast guests, and favorite Heart-Based Business owners who are speaking from experience about how they've handled situations just like this.If you want the full scoop on what founding BFF member Leanne Hughes calls “business reality TV” on how I have been handling losing my biggest favorite client, I encourage you to check out the full series of posts at Rolling in D🤦🏻♀️h. Thank you for listening, and huge thanks to our contributors to this series!📝 Contributors & Permission Slips:Stephanie Polen, founder of The Polen Group: “Give yourself permission to be emotional and recognize that that's your humanity - that is the thing that makes you special and the work that you do. And it's probably why that big client hired you in the first place.”Khe Hy, founder of RadReads: “View these challenges not as a death of identity, but an opportunity to recalibrate your emotional resilience.”Marisol Dahl, cofounder of Together Agency: “When you part ways with a big client, give yourself permission to take a beat so that you can reflect and digest on your own experience with this client.”Chris Wilson, founder of Simplify Your Why: “Try more experiments with your business; give yourself the chance to iterate and fail (it helps if you live below your means!). It's rare that your first business model will work.”Maya Middlemiss, founder of Remote Work Europe: “Give yourself permission to do something for yourself in terms of your interests and professional development. Don't let anybody own so much of your time.”Check out the other half here, from Kelli Thompson, Kristoffer Carter, Pamela Slim, and Charlie Gilkey: 264: What to Do When You Lose Your Biggest Client (Part One)🔗 Articles MentionedRolling in D🤦🏻♀️hThis is a Wonderful DayAn Honest Accounting: Part One, Part Two, Part ThreeAm I Running a Zombie Business? Part One and Part TwoGhost Self: Part One, Part Two, Part Three📚 Books MentionedThe Big Leap by Gay Hendricks (mentioned by Chris Wilson)Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your BusinessPivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next OneLife After College🎧 Related EpisodesFree Time: 264: What to Do When You Lose Your Biggest Client (Part One)173: Cut Your Losses—Even While Pivoting in Public—with Khe HyCheck out our full Rad Reads x Pivot Spotify PlaylistPivot: 355: Building a Brand Strategy from Scratch with Adam Chaloeicheep of Together Agency and 356: Four Brand Personas with Adam ChaloeicheepFuture is Freelance with Maya Middlemiss: From Freelancing to Delightfully Tiny Teams: Embracing Automation, Empowerment, and Emojis with Jenny Blake🌟Enjoying the show? The best way to thank us is by leaving a rating or review✍️ Check out Jenny’s personal business essays on Substack, Rolling in D🤦🏻♀️h💌 Subscribe to the Time Well Spent newsletter for access to the Free Time Toolkit💬 I’d love to hear what’s on your mind! Take the Free Time listener survey☎️ Submit a voice question or comment: http://itsfreetime.com/ask🎧 Make sure you’re subscribed wherever you listen to podcasts📝 Check out full show notes and share with friends: https://itsfreetime.com/episodes/265Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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What do you do when you lose your biggest client? That was my Spotify search query for podcast episodes on this topic in the summer of 2023. It came up empty—there was not a single podcast episode on this topic. Of course not. Who wants to admit out loud and in their archives that they've lost their biggest client? In the past, I probably wouldn't have fessed up to this either. Except for the fact that now it's what I wish I could see, read, and hear. Today’s compilation episode is here to fix that!
If you've been reading Rolling in D🤦🏻♀️h, you know that the origin story for my new-ish paid Substack was losing my biggest, most beloved corporate client in the summer of 2023. Getting The News shook me up so much because not only was it one of my longest-running favorite licensing clients, but it also represented at least six figures of income for the next six months being instantly wiped off the table.
Now, at least, we will all have something to turn to (and return to). My goal is not to provide advice but rather to offer some comfort through the voices of some of my dearest friends and favorite Heart-Based Business owners who are speaking from experience about how they've handled situations just like this.
Maybe you don't need this episode right now, but if something does happen in the future (even if we hope not), you'll remember that you can come back and listen on a proverbial rainy day.
Please share with any fellow business owner friends who might be going through a tough time, and enormous thanks to the wonderful group of friends and former podcast guests who shared their stories for this two-part episode!
📝 Contributors & Permission Slips:
Kelli Thompson, author of Closing the Confidence Gap: “Diversify your business income and give yourself permission that you can do a lot of things that align with your mission, but offer it in many different ways that feel good for you.”
Kristoffer ‘KC’ Carter, author of Permission to Glow: “Drop the self-judgment, give yourself more self-compassion, and just get back to work with creating the next even better client.”
Pamela Slim, author of The Widest Net: “Give up the idea that you are in control of the success of your business. When you release that idea, then you can be more curious about how to step in and fix things that aren't working.”
Charlie Gilkey, author of Team Habits: “Do not take the client loss personally. Stand tall, take care of yourself, and go get your next client.”
🔗 Articles Mentioned
Rolling in D🤦🏻♀️h
This is a Wonderful Day
An Honest Accounting: Part One, Part Two, Part Three
Am I Running a Zombie Business? Part One and Part Two
Ghost Self: Part One, Part Two, Part Three
📚 Books Mentioned
Closing the Confidence Gap by Kelli Thompson
Permission to Glow by Kristoffer ‘KC’ Carter
Escape from Cubicle Nation, Body of Work, and The Widest Net by Pamela Slim
Start Finishing and Team Habits by Charlie Gilkey
Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business
Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One
Life After College
🎧 Related Episodes — Part One
Free Time: 188: Energy Capacity Planning, Pricing, and Finding Resonant Masterminds with Kelli Thompson
039: Permission to Glow with Kristoffer (KC) Carter
117: Tiny Marketing Actions with Pamela Slim
143: Exploring Time, Money, and Energy Capacity with Tara McMullin and Charlie Gilkey
091: Quarterly Planning with Charlie Gilkey
Pivot: 315: Intuition-Building, Spotting Pedestal Syndrome, and Closing the Confidence Gap with Kelli Thompson
136: Start Finishing—Pricing, Projects, and Momentum Planning with Charlie Gilkey
📝 Check out full show notes and share with friends: https://itsfreetime.com/episodes/264
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“I am great in the early, messy days and I know that about myself, so I designed my business around serving others in that stage.”In this conversation with business strategist (genius!) Michelle Warner, we cover the three growth stages most relevant to tiny business owners, how to fix broken business models, validating product-market-founder fit, the difference between traffic-based versus relationship-based sales and marketing, borrowing aligned audiences, leading a free monthly Q&A to “catch” their interest afterward, imagining sales as a downhill snowball, and how to scale while still staying Delightfully Tiny.More About Michelle: Michelle Warner designs tiny companies that are built to last. With an MBA from one of the world’s top business schools and 15+ years experience growing small businesses, Michelle focuses on layering real world experience on top of classic business fundamentals to design businesses that are sustainable and scalable in the long term and resilient and adaptable in the short term.It’s the way she grew her first business to 7+ figures, and it’s what she’s used to help 300+ CEO's create businesses that work for the important stuff: profit, energy, passion + time. She’s also the creator of Networking That Pays, the introvert-friendly, always awkward-free connection system that brings in reliable leads, consistent referrals and meaningful connections for your business - in 5 minutes a day.🌟 3 Key TakeawaysThree small business stages most relevant to tiny business owners (adapted from HBR): Validate—product-market-founder fit; Sell—repeatable and predictable marketing and sales; Foundation—process, team, culture)Relationship- versus traffic-based sales and metrics: Relationship-based business are going for smaller reach, with ideally at least a fifty-percent conversion rate on sales calls. Traffic-based marketing aims at bringing in much bigger audiences, with smaller conversion rates for things like selling digital products (pushing a boulder up hill).Three marketing stages: Awareness (imagine a snowball running downhill—people need to have a really big moment with you; you’ve made 80% of the sale by blowing their mind during the awareness stage) engagement, and sales.📝 PermissionFocus on sequence over strategy: you can execute strategies perfectly, but if you’re doing them in the wrong order, it’s not going to do a thing for you.✅ Do (or Delegate) This NextTake five minutes a day to reach out to one person across any of these four themes: thank you’s (be specific!), connections, asks, and catch-ups.🔗 Resources MentionedMichelle on the web, IG, Twitter, LinkedInArticles: HBR—The Five Stages of Small-Business GrowthRolling in D🤦🏻♀️h—Climbing Down the Entrepreneurial Ladder, An Honest Accounting (Part One)People: Margo Aaron, Pamela Slim, Jay AcunzoTiny + Strong Table Talk: Michelle’s free monthly Q&A if you need a good idea, fresh perspective or to get inspired by what others are thinking and doing. Register here.📚 Books MentionedFree Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your BusinessPivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next OneLife After College🎧 Related EpisodesOff the Grid: Leaving Social Media Without Losing All Your Clients — Relationship Marketing with Michelle WarnerFree Time: 042: How I Run My Business Without Social Media181: Be Irreplaceable with My Creative Coach Jay Acunzo117: Tiny Marketing Actions with Pamela Slim261: Cringe-Free Launches and Evergreen Sales Considerations with Anne Samoilov165: Are your clients bringing out the best in you? Engineering the Evolution of Your Business and 229: How (and When) to Trust Yourself and Others with Ilise Benun138: ⛵️Stop Sailing the Sea of Shiny Shoulds136: Why I Stopped Exploring Selling the Pivot Brand and Business📝 Check out full show notes and share with friends: https://itsfreetime.com/episodes/263Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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“Things today are waaayyyyy better than Things have ever been. Cavemen had sticks. In the Middle ages they had typhoid. We have iPhones and Hermann Miller chairs and shoes with air in the soles. Inside the soles! How do they get the air inside the soles??? We are living in the Golden Age of Things, in the Golden Empire of Things.”
—Shalom Auslander's Fetal Position via Beckett Drove a Deux Chevaux
I first encountered the Apple billboard a few days after Christmas. I was walking down Fourteenth Street in the Meatpacking district, and there it was—an Apple ad declaring “Newphoria!” in enormous print.
We don’t need newphoria. We need oldphoria, the joy in what already exists. We need simplephoria, the joy in streamlining. We need enoughphoria, the celebration that what we have and who we are is already enough. Newphoria, at least as it relates to running a small business, is not always all it’s cracked up to be.
Today’s post is a crossover from Rolling in D🤦🏻♀️h—you can read the post and reply in the comments here: Climbing Down the Entrepreneurial Ladder.
📝 Permission
Celebrate your own -phoria, the joy in running your business in the way that works best for you!
🔗 Resources Mentioned
D🤦🏻♀️h Articles: Love That! For You 🙄, COnTenT cReaToRs exist and subsist in the verrrrrrry looooooooooooong tail’s trough, 🤬 Rant From the Wound: Why This Platitude Meme Engraged Me, Serendipity signage
Katherine Raz on closing the second location of her Fernseed business in Tacoma
Emily McDowell’s experience of running a small business that blew up—in a good way—but also led to burnout: The truth about going mega-viral, part one and part two.
Nathan Barry’s The Ladders of Wealth Creation
Jonathan Field’s The Unfortunate Middle
JB for CNBC: Treat your career like a smart phone, not a ladder
NYT: Climbing Down the Corporate Ladder. Big thanks to Rob Walker for including me in this Workologist column! It’s still a career highlight. He’s now here on Substack at The Art of Noticing
Video: If you want to geek out further on idea gathering process: here’s a Loom walkthrough of my Collection Bucket in Notion.
Recent Free Time workshop by Stephanie Huston with a template for creating and batching content for the year ahead.
Apps: Substack
📚 Books Mentioned
I’m not immune from status-chasing—none of us are. In his book, The Status Game, Will Storr categorizes these games into three types: dominance, success, and virtue. My two all-time favorite books on this topic are Alain de Botton’s Status Anxiety and Wanting by Luke Burgis who is on Substack at Ride or Drive and Anti-Mimetic.
Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business
Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One
Life After College
🎧 Related Episodes
Listen to the audio version of Jonathan Fields reading “The Unfortunate Middle” here, and check out our series of 12 SPARKED episodes (Spotify Playlist).
Pivot: 305: Is What You’re Wanting Actually What’s Best For You? With Luke Burgis
Pivot x RadReads conversations on status with Khe Hy (Spotify Playlist)
Free Time: Here are some of my favorite Free Time conversations with small business owners who downsized their operations:
016: IP Licensing and “No Full-Time Employees” with Lee LeFever
131: Scaling Joy While Streamlining Business Overhead with Kaneisha Grayson
157: Downshifting to a Delightfully Part-Team Team with Laura Roeder
173: Cut Your Losses—Even While Pivoting in Public with Khe Hy
205: Turning Down a $200K Two-Book Traditional Publishing Deal with Paul Millerd
241: Finding Freedom and Financial Reciprocity through a Paid Newsletter
📝 Check out full show notes and share with friends: https://itsfreetime.com/episodes/262
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If you’re anything like me, you may find conducting online launches for your programs or events exhausting and sometimes even cringe-inducing. Thankfully, today’s guest, Anne Samoilov, is here to help!Anne is a long-time expert in the space who has helmed product launches for Laura Roeder, Marie Forleo, and Jonathan Fields. Today, we’re talking about why some of us find big, splashy launches so draining; how to set up automated or evergreen launches (and her take on the pros and cons of these); how to find non-cringey launch strategies; be willing to take on clients or projects that have nothing to do with your business.More About Anne: Anne Samoilov is a launch strategist and VFX Producer. She started her work online as the creator of Fearless Launching, an online training program that teaches impact-driven entrepreneurs how to create simple, streamlined, and standout launches without relying on templates or cookie-cutter strategies. She has also led the VFX teams for TV shows on Paramount Plus and Starz. Check out Anne’s podcast, The Fearless Launching Show, where she shares insights and tips on how to have an amazing product or business launch—your way.🌟 3 Key TakeawaysEvergreen or Automated Launches: a person who is interested in what you do → signs up for a free interactive event (a webinar, challenge, email series, video series, etc.) → at some point, you make an offer by sending them to a sales page. They can do all this on their own schedule.Do people actually know what you offer? Three ways to make sure: communication (webinar, mini-course, offer in your thank you pages, newsletter P.S.), website updates (bio, announcement bar, pop-up, work with me page), other people (free workshop for their audience, podcast guesting)Get in front of other audiences by doing a workshop (webinar) tour: You can offer the host an affiliate commission for sales. Give both audiences a heads-up that you have a relationship.📝 PermissionTo take on clients or projects that have nothing to do with your business; it can bring in revenue and reconnect you with latent skills.✅ Do (or Delegate) This NextSpruce up your thank you pages! Put your bio, mention ways to work with you, offer a freebie. Bonus: create a launch library with some of the copy that has worked best from previous launches.🔗 Resources MentionedAnne on the web, IG, Twitter, LinkedIn, FacebookContent Sprints: Stephanie HustonBFF Workshop: How to Batch + Create Your Annual Content Calendar with Stephanie HustonPeople: Catherine Just, Marie Forleo, Jeff WalkerTools: Notion, Deadline Funnel📚 Books MentionedThe White Space Solution: Make Room For Your Best Life & WorkFree Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your BusinessPivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next OneLife After College🎧 Related EpisodesAnne’s Fearless Launching ShowBFF Workshop: How to Batch + Create Your Annual Content Calendar with Stephanie HustonFree Time: 064: The Vulnerability of Launching157: Downshifting to a Delightfully Part-Team Team with Laura Roeder107: How to Know When You’ve Gotten Pricing Wrong and 020: Pricing Psychology with Jacquette M. Timmons084: Sprinkling the First 1,000 Serendipity Seeds of a Launch069: Evergreen Email Sequences with Allan DibPivot: 047: Live Fiercely, Study Deeply . . . While Earning a Living — with Jonathan Fields358: Crossing the Cringe Chasm when Taking Career and Creative Risks with Henna Pryor📝 Check out full show notes and share with friends: https://itsfreetime.com/episodes/261Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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“Whenever you have a choice of what to do, choose the more interesting path."
In honor of our upcoming Free Time x Long Game IRL event in Miami on February 1 and 2 (it’s not too late to join!), today I’m bringing you a favorite episode from the earliest days of the Free Time pod. In this conversation with Dorie Clark—aka “DC”—one of my closest friendtors, we discuss how she "optimizes for interesting," says no to good opportunities, builds relationships by following her "no asks for a year" rule, and when to call on trusted advisors to ensure you don't quit something too soon.
We're discussing her bestselling fourth book, The Long Game: How to Be a Long-Term Thinker in a Short-Term World—be sure to grab your copy for even more insights on how to apply strategic thinking to your biggest vision.
This episode originally aired on September 28, 2021.
More About Dorie: Dorie Clark helps individuals and companies get their best ideas heard in a crowded, noisy world. She has been named one of the Top 50 business thinkers in the world by Thinkers50, and was honored as the #1 Communication Coach in the world by the Marshall Goldsmith Leading Global Coaches Awards. She is a keynote speaker and teaches executive education for Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and Columbia Business School. Dorie is the author of The Long Game: How to Be a Long-Term Thinker in a Short-Term World, Reinventing You, Stand Out, Entrepreneurial You.
🌟 3 Key Takeaways
Building and Maintaining Relationships: Dorie doesn’t make any significant asks from new connections for at least a year. This strategy is aimed at building genuine, agenda-free relationships, nurturing them over time, rather than using them for immediate benefits.
Optimizing for Interesting Opportunities: Pursue what genuinely interests you rather than feeling pressured to follow a predetermined passion or path.
Balancing Opportunities and Saying: It’s a skill to decline opportunities, especially alluring seemingly “free” ones. Evaluate opportunities based on alignment with your long-term goals and the true cost of saying yes, including opportunity cost, time, and energy.
📝 Permission
“You don’t have to do this,” for types of events that you hate attending! Decline joyfully.
✅ Do (or Delegate) This Next
What decision would you make about a current or future project if you were optimizing for interesting?
🔗 Resources Mentioned
Dorie on the web, Instagram: @dorieclark, LinkedIn
Articles: Dorie on HBR
Video: TEDx—How to Future-Proof Your Career
Free Time Miami on Feb 1 and 2: Learn more and register here »
📚 Books Mentioned
Dorie’s Books: The Long Game, Reinventing You, Stand Out, Entrepreneurial You
Decoding Greatness by Ron Friedman
Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business
Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One
Life After College
🎧 Related Episodes
Russel Brunson's The Marketing Secrets Show
Pivot: 298: Building a New Network and Becoming Broadway Investors with Dorie Clark and Alisa Cohn
268: Decoding Greatness with Ron Friedman
58: Monetize Your Ideas with Dorie Clark
66: Create Multiple Streams of Income with Dorie Clark
33: Find Your Breakthrough Idea and Build a Following with Dorie Clark
🌟Enjoying the show? The best way to thank us is by leaving a rating or review
✍️ Check out Jenny’s personal business essays on Substack, Rolling in D🤦🏻♀️h
💌 Subscribe to the Time Well Spent newsletter for access to the Free Time Toolkit
💬 I’d love to hear what’s on your mind! Take the Free Time listener survey
☎️ Submit a voice question or comment: http://itsfreetime.com/ask
🎧 Make sure you’re subscribed wherever you listen to podcasts
📝 Check out full show notes and share with friends: https://itsfreetime.com/episodes/260
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Before you post anything, ask: Why am I posting this? Is this within my brand guardrails? Even still, you may find yourself in hot water someday, and it’s important to think through how you will respond (and the pop-up team you will assemble to help) in advance. Today, we’re breaking down the tricky art of crisis communications and apologies with Aliza Licht, author of On Brand, who brings two decades of PR experience to the conversation.
More About Aliza: Aliza Licht is an award-winning marketer, bestselling author, podcaster, personal branding expert, and the founder of LEAVE YOUR MARK, a multimedia brand and consultancy. She advises businesses and mentors individuals on brand building and career development. Licht leverages over two decades of expertise in marketing, communications, and digital strategy in the fashion industry. She was named one of "America's Next Top Mentors" by The New York Times.
Her new book, On Brand: Shape Your Narrative. Share Your Vision. Shift Their Perception is a comprehensive roadmap to building your personal brand. As a social media pioneer and one of the first fashion influencers, Licht created and was the voice of the anonymous social media phenomenon DKNY PR GIRL.
🌟 3 Key Takeaways
Brand Guardrails: What kind of point of view do you have? What will and won’t you stand behind? What is central to who you are?
Plan for Crisis Communications before you have a crisis: What team will be involved? An attorney, an HR person (if a bigger business), certain savvy friends. Put that “bat team” together, almost like your to-go bag in an emergency. You won’t be thinking clearly in the middle of a crisis when your brand is everywhere, and not in a good way.
Social media is very siloed: If a fire starts on one platform, don’t spread your own wildfire by responding to it across every channel. Contain a fire where it started first.
✅ Do (or Delegate) This Next
If you are faced with a crisis, first understand where you messed up. What did you do that pissed off your community? Second, how quickly can you respond to that? Finally, are there actions you need to take in addition to your words?
📚 Books Mentioned
On Brand: Shape Your Narrative. Share Your Vision. Shift Their Perception
Humans of New York and Humans of New York: Stories by Brandon Stanton
The Journalist and the Murderer by Janet Malcolm
Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business
Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One
Life After College
🔗 Resources Mentioned
Aliza on the web, IG, Twitter, LinkedIn
Humans of New York: web, IG, book
Articles: DKNY Responds to Accusations that it Stole Photos from ‘Humans of New York’ Photographer, CBS New York—DKNY, Photographer Settle After Store Uses 'Humans Of New York' Photos Without Permission
Streisand effect: An unintended consequence of attempts to hide, remove, or censor information, where the effort instead backfires by increasing awareness of that information.
The New York Times—Is Empowering Corporate Women Enough?
The New Yorker—The Journalist and the Murderer by Janet Malcolm
🎧 Related Podcast Episodes
Leave Your Mark: Jenny Blake on Quietly Unsubscribing From Burnout, Harnessing Free Time, and Why We Should Stop Sailing the Sea of Shiny Shoulds
Free Time: 005: Brand Obsessed with Emily Heyward
Pivot: 236: We're All In This Together—From Blame to Belonging with Mike Robbins
📝 Check out full show notes and share with friends: https://itsfreetime.com/episodes/259
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What’s on your business owner to-do list? Here’s a peek at mine, full of items large, small, and existential. This is another crossover from Rolling in D🤦🏻♀️h, a recent essay that was an unexpected runaway hit—the most popular to date in the six months since I started on Substack.
I had no idea (as usual) whether it would resonate or not when I hit “publish,” until my friend Adam texted to say how much he could relate. “Your comments are blowing up!” he said, sending a screenshot of other people letting me know that I wasn’t alone in my itemized anxiety.
Enormous thanks to those of you who have already subscribed, read, commented, and shared—it means the world to me!
📝 Permission
To reward yourself with something fun after you complete the most annoying #adulting item on your to-do list.
✅ Do (or Delegate) This Next
Delegate one thing you are dreading on your own to-do list.
🔗 Resources Mentioned
NaNoWriMo cofounder Grant Faulkner
Rolling in Doh: To Do—One Small Business Owner’s Checklist; An Honest Accounting Part One, Part Two, Part Three—Emojij Balance Sheet
Articles: Jennifer Egan’s “To Do”, Todd Sattersten’s publishing magic number for book sales, Julia Cameron’s Artist Dates
Cartoon: “Alice in Responsibilityland” by Liana Finck for The New Yorker
Apps: Substack
📚 Books Mentioned
The Art of Brevity by Grant Faulkner
Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business
Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One
Life After College
🎧 Related Episodes
Free Time: 238: Why Revenue Goals Don’t Work (For Me)
226: Is your business a hot mess? If yes, let's celebrate — Rolling in D🤦🏻♀️h
236: Ignore the Odds — Rolling in D🤦🏻♀️h
250: Do what you love and the money will follow . . . IF you meet at least 3 of these 20 criteria
🌟Enjoying the show? The best way to thank us is by leaving a rating or review
✍️ Check out Jenny’s personal business essays on Substack, Rolling in D🤦🏻♀️h
❤️ Join our private BFF community for Heart-Based Business owners
💌 Subscribe to the Time Well Spent newsletter for access to the Free Time Toolkit
💬 I’d love to hear what’s on your mind! Take the Free Time listener survey
☎️ Submit a voice question or comment: http://itsfreetime.com/ask
🎧 Make sure you’re subscribed wherever you listen to podcasts
📝 Check out full show notes and share with friends: https://itsfreetime.com/episodes/258
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“We don’t want our time to be spread thin like peanut butter on a slice of toast. You will have greater impact when you concentrate your efforts on work that is closely tied to winning—however you define it.”
Are you working in a frustration factory? If so, it’s important to recognize that not all friction is created equal. Some is good, to slow down decision-making in crucial moments, and some is bad, getting in the way of progress. You’ll need to tap into your inner “grease” and “gunk” sides to address both.
In the introduction to their book, The Friction Project, coauthors Huggy Rao and Bob Sutton share a quote from Ed Catmull, former president of Pixar. He believes that if Pixar followed overreaching executives’ advice to wring maximum efficiency and scale out of the organization, it would “kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.”
"The goal isn't efficiency, it is to make something good or even great,” Catmull says. “We iterate seven to nine times, with friction in the process.”
More About Huggy: Huggy Rao is the Atholl McBean professor of Organizational Behavior at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in Behavioral Science, the Sociological Research Association, and the Academy of Management. He has written for Harvard Business Review, Business Week, and the Wall Street Journal. He is the author of Market Rebels and coauthor of the bestselling book Scaling Up Excellence. Today we’re talking about his new book, also coauthored with Bob Sutton, The Friction Project: How Smart Leaders Make the Right Things Easier and the Wrong Things Harder.
🌟 3 Key Takeaways
Think of yourself as a trustee of others’ time: Don’t forget that your company is a product too. Be intentional about how customers (and team members) interact with your business at every step.
Grease people vs. gunk people: Grease people are connectors—like WD40—they like to make things easier. Gunk people are more rule and procedure-bound. These are two different aspects of ourselves.
Think of your role as Editor-in-Chief of a newspaper: Take away stuff that bores and distracts readers. You also need to do your due dilligence: fact check, interview sources. What’s the cost of serving a large, friction-filled client? Is it really worth it? Are they the right people for you to serve? Don’t be customer compelled, thinking you have to chase every customer. A great company says yes to some customers, and no to others.
📝 Permission
Start simple: get rid of stupid stuff. How will you do this every day? Can you have one decision-making rule that a ten year-old would understand?
✅ Do (or Delegate) This Next
Do a simple test of friction forensics. Ask: is this a one-way door decision I’m making, one that’s very costly to reverse? There are other decisions where the cost of failure is very low. When you’re making a one-way door decision, put in good friction to slow you down. For the latter, make things very easy for people to do.
🔗 Resources Mentioned
Huggy on the web, Twitter, LinkedIn
Articles: Our to-do lists can’t grow forever. It’s time to try subtraction
Video: Huggy Rao on Scaling Up Excellence
📚 Books Mentioned
The Friction Project: How Smart Leaders Make the Right Things Easier and the Wrong Things Harder by Huggy Rao & Robert Sutton
Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull
Subtract: The Untapped Science of Less by Leidy Klotz
Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business
Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One
Life After College
🎧 Related Episodes
Friction with Bob Sutton and Huggy Rao
Free Time: 169: Running a Goal-Free Business with Stephen Shapiro
Pivot: 326: Fool Me Once—How to Avoid Accidental and Righteous Fraud with Kelly Pope
📝 Check out full show notes and share with friends: https://itsfreetime.com/episodes/257
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I'm so excited to bring you a listener submission today from Renee Rubin Ross about my summer Voxer coaching pop-up. I've done these two summers in a row now, and I've learned so much every subsequent time. In this episode, I’ll share the structure, systems, and pricing that help me create a joyful asynchronous program that keeps our calendars free of “tiny boxes” (as my friend Sarah calls them).
More about Renee: Dr. Renee Rubin Ross is a recognized leader on board and organizational development and strategy and the founder of The Ross Collective, a consulting firm that designs and leads inclusive, participatory processes for social sector boards and staff.
🌟 3 Key Takeaways
Structure: Cohorts are nice so that you can make yourself energetically available (and make extra space on your calendar for replying) for the program duration. Ask participants to put their one question for the week in big blinking lights! Ideally as text underneath their voice memo (Voxer caps memos at 15 minutes, which is a good thing!)
Systems: Create a “how this works” program overview page that participants can reference throughout the program. Keep a participant tracker where you note their question and your answer each week, so you don’t repeat yourself (and so you can easily reference resource links that another participant might ask about later).
Pricing: Offer your current active, paying clients and community members the first chance at enrollment and at a discounted rate. I also grandfather in their pricing for life.
📝 Permission
Design programs that are as joyful for you to facilitate as they are for others to join! At the inaugural Business Bestie Brunch we came up with the mantra, “We get to call this work.” What is your ideal “I get to call this work” format for delivering client services?
✅ Do (or Delegate) This Next
Consider your own Voxer coaching experiment! Make sure it’s limited in scope (ie not rolling admission) and that you set clear parameters up front.
🔗 Resources Mentioned
Join the waitlist: Voxer Coaching with Jenny and Business Bestie Brunch
Apps: Notion, Substack, Loom, Voxer
📚 Books Mentioned
Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business
Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One
Life After College
🎧 Related Episodes
BFF Bonus: 100: Three Ingredients to Fill a Program Faster
Free Time: 023: Determine Your True Capacity with Ashley Gartland
100: Top Ten Lessons from 💯 Episodes
106: Splatology—On Clearing Time Clutter
Pivot: 277: Expansive Impact and Spacious Scheduling with Sarah Young
🌟Enjoying the show? The best way to thank us is by leaving a rating or review
✍️ Check out Jenny’s personal business essays on Substack, Rolling in D🤦🏻♀️h
❤️ Join our private BFF community for Heart-Based Business owners
💌 Subscribe to the Time Well Spent newsletter for access to the Free Time Toolkit
💬 I’d love to hear what’s on your mind! Take the Free Time listener survey
☎️ Submit a voice question or comment: http://itsfreetime.com/ask
🎧 Make sure you’re subscribed wherever you listen to podcasts
📝 Check out full show notes and share with friends: https://itsfreetime.com/episodes/256
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“It wasn’t about being better than others, it was being ourselves, and true to our ideals in our work.” That’s just one of many gems from today’s guest, Birch Coffee co-founder Paul Schlader, who says, “I don’t accept anything less than absolute excellence.”
In this conversation we talk about how he stands out in the New York City noise by hiring for kindness; getting bought out when the Gershwin Hotel closed and thereby ending the lease on their first location, then parlaying those funds into two new stores (and the growing pains that followed); and the moment he had to tell his entire team they were furloughed indefinitely when New York City delivered the shut-down order; losing four stores but bouncing back to 14 (when so many other coffee shops closed down).
More About Paul: Paul Schlader co-founded Birch Coffee, a New York City-based coffee company, in 2009. Since then, the company has grown to fourteen locations and is doing 10x the revenue by the end of year three. Paul and his business partner Jeremy have been focused on bettering the industry through their work in coffee and service over the past fifteen years.
Paul's work directly focuses on quality of product. As a licensed Q grader, he manages all of Birch's green coffee purchases, and oversees their roasting, wholesale program, and espresso training. Though the coffee side is important, leadership is where Paul spends most of his time, building teams and working to teach their leaders to follow the mission, "Serve our customers every need, every time, knowing every moment counts.”
🌟 3 Key Takeaways
A sample interview question to screen for kindness: What do you like most about working in the coffee industry, and what has drawn you to this industry? Individual has to talk about something positive. Through their tone, what they are sharing, we make an assessment about whether they are being truthful, honest, and open—or whether they are blowing smoke.
From one store to two was far more challenging than two stores to four: Building trust, and making sure all systems are written out and tracked, everything memorialized. “One of our core values is ownership, up and down the chain of command. We all do the dishes, we all do what is called upon us at any time in the business.”
Learn along the way: “Not knowing is the best part of the adventure of entrepreneurship, and the greatest teacher. There’s no button you can press to accelerate your ability to be better. You can’t do it until you go through it.
📝 Permission
Drop being hard on yourself—give yourself grace as you learn and grow, and make mistakes.
✅ Do (or Delegate) This Next
Operationalize one of your business values by crafting an interview question or manager manual entry that describes how you show up as {quality}.
🔗 Resources Mentioned
Paul on the web, IG, LinkedIn
HQ: Birch Coffee
Blend: Emma’s Espresso
Articles: Eater—4,000+ Restaurant Closings in New York City since the pandemic, Forbes—Nvidia Founder Admits: ‘Wouldn’t Start Company If I Had To Do It Over Again’
Video: Acquired—Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang
📚 Books Mentioned
Thanks a Thousand: A Gratitude Journey by A.J. Jacobs
Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business
Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One
Life After College
🎧 Related Episodes
Free Time: 177: “Don’t scale too soon” — On Books and Mission-Based Business-Building with Readwise Cofounder Daniel Doyon
Pivot: 353: Pain, Purpose, and Portals—Pivoting from Massage Therapist to Coach with John O'Connor
Acquired: Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang
📝 Check out full show notes and share with friends: https://itsfreetime.com/episodes/255
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Today is a crossover episode from the Pivot podcast celebrating eight lessons learned from over eight years of podcasting.
The Free Time podcast is now approaching its third birthday—I launched it on March 21, 2021—a year prior to the book coming out. I encourage you to grab your copy if you haven’t already, or even better—🎁 give the gift of free time to a loved one in your life for 2024!
As we start to plan the year ahead, I hope that you can apply some of these pointers to the creative projects that you're working on. Happy New Year, and I'll see you on the other side!
🌟 8 Key Takeaways
Ride out the inevitable dips and plateaus: Ask, how can I fall in love with this again? Keep the bar high—strive for jump-out-of-the-chair-with-glee-to-record level of guests and topics.
(Re)connect with the even more meaningful metrics: Don’t obsess over download numbers or charts. They can be instructive, but they don’t have to be the one-and-only indicator of whether or not to continue.
51/49: My antidote to inexplicable nerves and overthinking: 49% fear and anxiety, 51% take one small step forward. Just tip the scale toward action by two percent.
Eyes on your own paper: Don’t get lost in what other people are doing or how fast they are going. Remind yourself what’s in it for you, regardless of what “the competition” is up to. There may even be downstream benefits of having others in the same space.
Keep up with new software, don’t worry too much about sunk costs: While you want to avoid chasing shiny software objects, don’t be afraid to jump from one lily pad to the next when it improves your systems and process.
Hire help! To truly achieve consistency escape velocity, hire a team so that someone else owns the outcome and you can show up and do what only you can do.
Go your own way: Be aware of diminishing returns on shiny shoulds that, if you were to chase them, would stop you from doing the creative thing you enjoy altogether.
Keep experimenting—one might say pivoting! There is no there there. The project will evolve alongside you, even when you lose steam for a little bit. You will always find a new way forward. And if you’re so stuck you truly can’t see straight, it’s okay to call it quits too.
🔗 Resources Mentioned
Articles: Rolling in D🤦🏻♀️h—The Business Yips & 51/49
Tools: Substack app, Kajabi, Notion, Riverside.fm, Descript
Loom Walkthrough: Day in the Life of a Podcast Episode
📚 Books Mentioned
Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business
Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One
Life After College
🎧 Related Episodes
Pivot: 281: Feeling Impostery? Become a Qualified Curator Instead of an End-All-Be-All Expert
Pivot x Career Pathfinder podcast episodes with Adrian (Spotify playlist)
346: Finding Clarity While Navigating Change with Marc Lesser
342: “Whatever Comes Through Me Comes for Me First,” with Nicole Antoinette
Free Time: 241: Finding Freedom and Financial Reciprocity through a Paid Newsletter with Nic Antoinette
181: Be Irreplaceable with My Creative Coach Jay Acunzo
223: The Confidence Trap: Why You Don’t Need It to Do Big Things (SPARKED Crossover)
180: 📉 Diminishing Returns and the True Costs of Shiny Shoulds
138: ⛵️Stop Sailing the Sea of Shiny Shoulds
196: 🍩 What Do Donuts, Coffee, Conversation, and Energy Cliffs Have in Common?
130: Day in the Life of a Podcast Episode + How I Prepare for Guests
📝 Check out full show notes and share with friends: https://itsfreetime.com/episodes/254
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“’Something I always say: at the very least, do it for the plot. Do it for the story. Be bold in life, mostly because not being bold is boring as hell.’ Margot tipped her head back in glittery laughter and I felt my chest expand in hope.”
That’s just one of many glittering conversations that the main character of Jamie Varon’s debut novel, Main Character Energy, has with her Aunt, a guiding light who helps her find her voice and pursue her publishing dream. In today’s conversation, Jamie and I go behind the book to talk about how fiction differs from nonfiction, working with a writing coach, the importance of giving yourself permission for a “zero” draft, moving past the mental machinations of envy and the desire for logical explanations for others’ success, and so much more.
Be sure to check out our previous conversation for the Pivot podcast 278: Radically Content with Jamie Varon.
More About Jamie: Jamie Varon’s writing has been seen across the internet for over a decade, from her early days of personal blogging all the way to features in publications such as Teen Vogue, HuffPost, GOOD, Complex, and many more. Over the years, both her long-form essays and short-form prose have garnered millions of reads and views, using her signature style of combining personal story with universal themes.
🌟 3 Key Takeaways
Where are you holding yourself back before you even try? Part of Jamie’s motivation for focusing so much on the interior journey within Main Character Energy was her own experience as an aspiring author: “I was the first person to reject myself, to tell myself no.”
Read your draft out loud to see what feels natural and what doesn’t, especially for dialogue.
What excites you to do the work, not just for the results? Recognize that writing the book may be every day for three years, while releasing a book happens on a single day.
📝 Permission
Drop the perfectionism. Let it be messy and uncertain. Let yourself discover how you work, what you’re good at, and what you need to improve upon. There’s so much wisdom in action. Give yourself permission to write Novel Zero.
✅ Do (or Delegate) This Next
Envy and comparison doesn’t go away through logic, even though our mind craves answers and formulas to “figure it out.” Return to your spiritual practices. I do my best, at my pace; I accept and love where I’m at; it always makes sense, it’s always working in my favor. Trust that. Bonus: Take a break from social media.
🔗 Resources Mentioned
Jamie on the web, IG, Twitter, LinkedIn, Substack
Articles: Jamie’s writing for publication
Plot Twist: Being offline
Rolling in Doh—Ignore the Odds
Writing Coach: Savannah Gilbo
📚 Books Mentioned
Authors: Blake Crouch, Ann Patchett, Rebecca Yaros
Main Character Energy: A Novel by Jamie Varon
Radically Content and Radically Content: The Journal by Jamie Varon
Jamie’s favorite craft books: Save the Cat Writes a Novel by Jessica Brody
Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maass
Before and After the Book Deal by Courtney Maum
Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business
Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One
Life After College
🎧 Related Episodes
Fiction Writing Made Easy: 91: Student Spotlight: How She Went from First Draft to Landing Her Dream Agent with Jamie Varon
Barbara Kingsolver on Armchair Expert, The Shift, The Ezra Klein Show
Free Time: 203: 🎢 Riding the Emotional Rollercoaster of Launching with Natalie Lue
Pivot: 278: Radically Content with Jamie Varon
📝 Check out full show notes and share with friends: https://itsfreetime.com/episodes/253
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”In a society that glorifies titles, visibility, reach, and the grind, taking a beat to opt out of all that isn’t easy,” today’s guest Mel Dizon writes in the origin story to her pop-up Substack.Mel shares how she defines an accidental sabbatical; the energetic urgency and pent up ambition that let her know it was time to leave her job; the permission she needed to give herself; navigating the fears that followed; how publishing her process out loud has helped with courage and accountability; and trusting herself to make important decisions when it’s time, while also not rushing that process.More About Mel: Mel Dizon is a writer and editor; a runner, CrossFitter, pickleballer, and efficiency fanatic; a former therapist, consultant, and coach; a dog, pool, and scalding-hot-dirty-chai lover. She started writing words for dollars back in 1993. She’s written thousands of articles, ghostwritten many books and essays, facilitated hundreds of video interviews, and written copy for everyone from NYT best-selling authors to companies like Google. Melani dreamed about taking a sabbatical for years, and the universe finally conspired to light the way. Turns out she’s a big fan. She currently writes life & dying on Substack for those in the middle of the reinvention mess, seeking to “live a life worth writing about.”🌟 3 Key TakeawaysAn Accidental Sabbatical is about not knowing what's next and how to live more comfortably in the void or liminal space.When you feel blocked by fear or worry, ask yourself: What if X were no longer important to you, what would you do?Don’t babysit your work (or your budget): “Don’t do it. Write the thing, publish it, post it, paint it on a mural, or do whatever you need to do with it and move on. Forgive yourself for being terrible or unreadable, or boring or derivative and just keep going.”📝 PermissionWho am I doing this for? If it’s for anybody other than yourself, pause and reconsider.✅ Do (or Delegate) This NextTake a page out of Mel’s post, On Calling People Out for Being Awesome and her book, The Hand Written Letter Project:Go to your favorite stationary store and pick out at least 30 notecards or long-form letter pages and envelopes. Or make your own.Buy a pen that will make you feel smarter, funnier, and more brilliant each time you touch it to the page.Sit down in your favorite chair with your dashing new pen and a piece of paper, and write down the names of the first 30 people that come to your mind. Don’t overthink it. The first time I did this, someone I had not talked to in 10 years came to my mind. When she received my letter, she called me immediately and told me that receiving my letter was one of the best moments of her entire year. We talked and laughed for hours. Just go with whoever comes to mind. There’s a reason they will.Address all of your envelopes. I recommend doing this a few days before the start date because, inevitably, you’ll be missing some addresses, and you’ll need time to track them down, send emails, ask friends and family, etc. Then, put a cool stamp on each one—there are plenty to choose from here. Now go ahead, make someone’s day!🔗 Resources MentionedMel on Substack, IG, LinkedInArticles: Babysitting the Rusty NailIs your sabbatical on the chopping block?Rolling in D🤦🏻♀️h: A Strange and Wonderful Morning: Walking Photo EssayElizabeth Gilbert’s Letters from LoveBFF December Mailer: Important Community Announcement—Please Read!Tools: Substack, Future Me📚 Books MentionedThe Handwritten Letter Project by Mel DizonFree Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your BusinessPivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One🎧 Related EpisodesFree Time: 193: Sabbatical Planning with DJ DiDonnaBFF Bonus: My Upcoming Quiet Sabbatical📝 Check out full show notes and share with friends: https://itsfreetime.com/episodes/252Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Just because you use pretty words that sound nice doesn’t mean they are effective. Although we know what we do because we do it all the time; it’s hard to separate that from what your audience wants and experiences. Thankfully, today’s guest is here to help.
Ben Guttmann is a marketing and communications expert and author of Simply Put: Why Clear Messages Win — and How to Design Them.
We discuss why business owners often muck up their sales pages (what I call invitation letters), how to reduce friction when attracting clients and customers, and the toll that writing too much takes on the receiver.
More About Ben: Ben is former co-founder and managing partner at Digital Natives Group, an award-winning agency that worked with the NFL, I Love NY, Comcast NBCUniversal, Hachette Book Group, The Nature Conservancy, and other major clients. He’s an experienced marketing executive and educator on a mission to get leaders to more effectively connect by simplifying their message. Currently, Ben teaches digital marketing at Baruch College in New York City and consults with a range of thought leaders, venture-backed startups, and other brands.
🌟 3 Key Takeaways
It’s most effective to communicate to one person, rather than imagining an ambiguous thousand (or ten thousand).
Strong communication is not about how many (or few) words you use; it’s about reducing friction, or offramps, from your message.
“This and that” versus “this so that”: Test the cohesiveness of your message by replacing and with so.
📝 Permission
Not to spend money on paid advertising. Focus on making your business more referable instead.
✅ Do (or Delegate) This Next
Look at one of the most important pages of your website. If each word costs you $10, how many can you cut? What about $1,000? If you had to distill your message down to a road sign, what would it look like?
🔗 Resources Mentioned
Ben on the web, IG, Twitter, LinkedIn
Articles: NYT—My Delirious Trip to the Heart of Swiftiedom
Meme: I aint reading all that
📚 Books Mentioned
Simply Put: Why Clear Messages Win―and How to Design Them
Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business
Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One
Life After College
🎧 Related Episodes
The Tim Ferriss Show: Managing Procrastination, Predicting the Future, and Finding Happiness with Tim Urban
Reply All: Email Debt Forgiveness Day
Free Time: 181: Be Irreplaceable with My Creative Coach Jay Acunzo
227: 🎁 The Best Gifting Strategies and Biggest Mistakes with John Ruhlin
Pivot: 70: Build a Referral Engine with John Jantsch
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✍️ Check out Jenny’s personal business essays on Substack, Rolling in D🤦🏻♀️h
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📝 Check out full show notes and share with friends: https://itsfreetime.com/episodes/251
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