Today’s solo riff is on a three-word phrase that has helped quell countless waves of anxiety in the decade since I first heard it, wisdom passed from my friend Monica McCarthy's (aka MonBon’s) mom then to the pages of Pivot. Pardon the occasional panting (lol) and background noise—err New York City soundscape—as I recorded this one on a big hill at the park, running up and down while throwing a giant log for Ryder to chase. He chases sticks, I chase ideas! This crossover episode originally aired...
Aug 11, 2023•14 min•Ep. 214
Who is sitting in the boardroom of your brain? Who is sitting around the table, challenging your decisions, making noise, and offering critiques? Today Adrian and I are walking through one of our favorite coaching exercises by offering up (and coaching each other through) identifying and describing three of our current loudest board members and who we want to hire moving forward. This work connects to a therapy tool called Internal Family Systems which Adrian will share more about in our next ep...
Aug 08, 2023•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 213
As the saying goes, “Worrying is praying for what you don’t want.” A close cousin is future-tripping: projecting and living in the future instead of being present with what is actually happening, keeping an open mind about whatever might happen next. If you are inclined to catastrophize, you’re not alone! But getting caught in a fictional movie can mean missing out on important opportunities, ideas, and relationships. Today, I’m talking about why we do this, how future-tripping manifests, and st...
Aug 04, 2023•40 min•Ep. 212
Attending conferences can be overwhelming — even for the most excited extroverts among us—let alone the introverts who challenge their comfort zone in the registration process alone. Today, my friend Alisa and I do an in-person debrief of our recent week-long adventure at the TED global conference in Vancouver (my second time attending, her fifth). We cover conversation openers, the power of a genuine compliment, trying (and sometimes failing) to approach people we admire as a peer, handling the...
Aug 01, 2023•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 211
“My little pirate.” That’s the nickname Michael has given me this summer, as it feels like many of my corporate (client) income boats have burned these last few years. At the same time, he says he has never seen me so happy and free. “You’re not in a raft anymore,” he said. “You’re in a sailboat. You don’t want to be in the big cruiseliner anyway.” Not to be confused with Sailing the Sea of Shiny Shoulds (I clearly love ocean metaphors!), today’s episode is all about embracing the agility and fr...
Jul 28, 2023•26 min•Ep. 210
“When you’re in debt to the truth, the interest rate sucks.” That’s just one of many so-true-it-hurts gems in Rand Fishkin’s 2018 book Lost and Founder, an accounting of his leadership journey through the often-Faustian bargain of building a company through venture funding, for all but a select few types of start-ups who do benefit from that route. In this conversation, he shares why he dislikes the term lifestyle business, how he views some of his biggest business regrets in hindsight, his defi...
Jul 25, 2023•56 min•Ep. 209
What do Manuka honey, brown M&Ms, chocolate milk, vanilla gelato, rose petals, fair trade bananas, and Twizzlers have in common? No, they’re not ingredients for a bizarre ice cream sundae. Listen to today’s episode to find out . . . 🌟 3 Key Takeaways Botching the basics: **A term my friend and I use for companies who fail to deliver the baseline minimum expected customer experience. See also: unforced errors in Chapter 3 of Free Time, “Systematize the Spirit of Your Business.” “God is in th...
Jul 21, 2023•26 min•Ep. 208
The best systems aren’t cumbersome sources of frustration collecting dust in the cloud—they save you so much time, that creating even more streamlined solutions becomes a personal passion. That’s the case for me and today’s returning guest, Karen Allen. We’re going behind-the-business, swapping ideas for client-facing pages, client tracking databases, course resources pages, personal journaling, and more. Although we are talking specifically about Notion (this isn’t #sponcon, I swear!), any soft...
Jul 18, 2023•46 min•Ep. 207
In 2021, I paid nearly a thousand dollars to hire a plumber to fix something that wasn't absolutely necessary and that no one would ever see. Why did I do that? And what on earth does it have to do with running your business? More on that in today’s episode, along with twelve examples of tiny things to celebrate in your business operations, even if they forever remain a secret to the outside world. Outside of big launches, awards, and accomplishments. 🌟 3 Key Questions What’s one tiny thorn in ...
Jul 14, 2023•22 min•Ep. 206
From a certain outside perspective, turning down a $200,000 two-book deal from a traditional publishing house makes no sense. But for today's guest, Paul Millerd, it fits perfectly into his operating paradigm of what David Whyte calls the pathless path. After climbing the ranks in corporate consulting but feeling increasingly empty, Paul shifted away from chasing status and approval, and started his own business his own way. Now the mantra he lives (and writes) by is “coming alive over getting a...
Jul 11, 2023•55 min•Ep. 205
Today, I’m sharing eight reasons I really appreciate having a team inbox using HelpScout. They’re not paying for this episode; I just can’t help but share software solutions that help me move from friction to flow in my business, especially when I have already spent a lot of time and money on ones that don’t work. 📝 Permission: Stop managing a zillion inboxes and narrow them down to one centralized inbox for you and your team. ✅ Do (or Delegate) This Next: Set-up a shared inbox for your busines...
Jul 07, 2023•27 min•Ep. 204
Today we’re going behind the scenes of book launching, sharing the good, the bad, and the ugly (cries) resulting from the emotional rollercoaster that often surrounds the process of setting big projects loose into the world, including exhaustion, comparison, dashed hopes, and grief. 🎧 If you haven’t already, be sure to listen to Natalie on the Pivot podcast in episode 329: Five Types of People-Pleasers from The Joy of Saying No. More About Natalie: Natalie Lue is the author of The Joy of Saying...
Jul 04, 2023•56 min•Ep. 203
Welcome to our #200 celebration...part two! 🎉 These next 20 permission slips all about mindset, staying in the game, and the spiritual aspects of running a Heart-Based Business. Make sure to catch last week’s episode which had 20 of my favorites about doing less, charging more, and working in your zone of genius. 📝 #202 Permission Slips 🎧 027: Time Management for Mortals with Oliver Burkeman — 📝 Admit that you are never going to get everything done. You're never going to get on top of everyt...
Jun 30, 2023•24 min•Ep. 202
You’ve heard of buyers remorse—but what about new hire’s remorse? That is the feeling of worry, regret or uncertainty that a new team member might have when taking a new role with your team. Today, returning guest Joey Coleman shares insights his new book, Never Lose an Employee Again: The Simple Path to Remarkable Retention. Make sure to also check out our previous conversation **083: Breaking through Buyer’s Remorse—Never Lose a Customer Again with Joey Coleman. More About Joey: Joey Coleman, ...
Jun 27, 2023•48 min•Ep. 201
Hey, hey, Free Timers, we have arrived at episode 200! 🎉 To celebrate, I’m giving you the ultimate permission slip compilation (two in fact). At the end of every episode, I ask our guests to give fellow business owners a permission slip to do something differently or drop something altogether. 📝 Permission Slips 🎧 123: “Pricing is Branding” — Anti-Time Management with Richie Norton — 📝 Rethink projects with too many steps or obstacles toward creating the lifestyle you want. How can you bake ...
Jun 23, 2023•27 min•Ep. 200
What’s the daily free time sweet spot? Between two to five hours, according to today’s guest, professor and researcher Cassie Holmes. In this conversation, you’ll hear about the wedding that wasn’t — sparking Cassie’s quest to determine the areas of highest agency for improving our own happiness, why time well spent is such a big factor to that end, the powerful question her now husband opened with on their first date, and how to buy better time. More About Cassie: Cassie Holmes is a professor a...
Jun 20, 2023•48 min•Ep. 197
When you catch a wishie, what do you yearn for? Today’s book club episode might shift your “wish” hereafter to just one powerful offering. Tosha Silver’s grassroots-to-bestselling book Outrageous Openness: Letting the Divine Take the Lead is a cornerstone of my collection, one that changed my life when I first read it nearly a decade ago. The stories from this book were adapted from two years of Tosha’s columns for the San Francisco Examiner, after she spent 25 years giving nearly 30,000 reading...
Jun 16, 2023•25 min•Ep. 198
“Liking is the great fog of the mind.”—Todd Herman You’ve heard the adage that people need to know, like, and trust you to want to do business with you. But is that really true? Today’s guest, longtime entrepreneur and peak performance coach Todd Herman, believes liking is not nearly as important as respect, and can even prevent us from making strong decisions. We also cover how to organize your work according to your strengths, creating growth loops for growing the business, and making key adju...
Jun 13, 2023•47 min•Ep. 197
What’s it like to be at a conference with “fancy” people, when you’re the one feeling like you snuck in a side door as a seat filler? Okay, okay — that’s just my imposter monster talking. In today’s experimental episode, I’m taking you behind-the-scenes of the recent 5-day main TED conference in Vancouver, building on Pivot episode 325: 10+ Conference Networking Strategies with Alisa Cohn. In full-on morning voice with a travel mic, I do a daily check-in about what I was nervous about, spontaneo...
Jun 09, 2023•50 min•Ep. 196
Does the world really need this? This is one of the inevitable existential dilemmas of creative work. You have to decide that your work is worth your time and energy, because no one is asking you for it. Today’s guest, Jessica Abel, is someone whose work I have long admired for its richness and depth. In this conversation, we talk about navigating the “Dark Forests” of creativity; go behind-the-business when one of her most successful books, Out on the Wire, was taking off; the causes behind cyc...
Jun 06, 2023•55 min•Ep. 195
Today I'm sharing ten more of my favorite recent GPT4 prompts and experiments for creative business owners. This episode originally aired as a bonus episode for the private BFF community, as a follow-up to a case study on how ChatGPT has helped me draft a few solo podcast episodes. Want more where this came from? Join us in the private BFF community and/or Free Time Operations Dashboard with promo code PODCAST. 🏝️ I’m also opening up ten Voxer coaching spots to work with me 1:1. Enrollment clos...
Jun 02, 2023•33 min•Ep. 194
The average American worker gets 11 days of paid vacation per year. Among those with unlimited paid time off (PTO), the average person takes 19 days off per year, yet 48% of Americans say they still check their work email while away. What about business owners? Although it seems like we have more free time, the reality is that life as a business owner can be a 24/7 unceasing, all-consuming task. Even if you’re not at the computer, your passing thoughts probably drift toward what you need to do, ...
May 30, 2023•46 min•Ep. 193
Today I'm sharing five creative ways to better organize your phone contacts. I hope it’s helpful and time-saving toward a very important end: feeling less overwhelmed by relationships! 🏝️ Friendly Reminder: I’m opening up ten Voxer coaching spots to work with me 1:1 (asynchronously). I’d love to help you take a step back from the day-to-day operations of your business and set even more of your time free this summer! Enrollment closes when the 10 spots are filled or by EOD June 4, whichever come...
May 26, 2023•20 min•Ep. 192
“Small hinges move big doors.” That one thought helped Karen Allen pick herself up from the depths of grief after losing her husband in a tragic, senseless act of violence nearly a decade ago. Shortly afterward, she lost her house, her car, and then one year later — her job. Getting fired followed just a few months after an intuitive hit that corporate wasn’t the best fit for her any longer was a blessing in disguise that precipitated the founding of her now-thriving business, one where she puts...
May 23, 2023•52 min•Ep. 191
Hi friends! A quick in-beteween-isode to let you know about a special opportunity to work with me 1:1 :) Back by popular demand, I'm opening doors again for my 1:1 Voxer coaching pop-up. Summer is the perfect time to take a step back from your business and set even more time free through smarter systems—while freeing yourself from screens and coordinating extra calendar entries. We piloted this program last year with members from my private BFF community, and it was a big hit! It was so nice to ...
May 19, 2023•2 min
Time- and money-based targets don’t always serve the purpose we intend. In fact, sometimes, they actively work against us. Today we’re spelunking into a few related principles like Goodhart’s Law, The Cobra Effect, and why vanity metrics are often no more than a hungry ghost lurking in the shadows of your business. I couldn’t resist sprinkling pop culture clips throughout to illustrate these concepts, so I hope you enjoy the ride :) 🌟 3 Key Takeaways: Be mindful when implementing specific numer...
May 19, 2023•31 min•Ep. 190
In episode 181: Be Irreplaceable, you heard from my creative coach, Jay Acunzo about how to prioritize resonanceover reach. I’ve been working with Jay for about six months now, and it has transformed the way I think about creating content. One of the videos he shared with us in his new community, Creator Kitchen, is a walkthrough of his Intellectual Property (IP) Development OS: how he collects ideas, chooses which one/s to pursue, and decides which channel they belong in. I loved it so much — a...
May 16, 2023•29 min•Ep. 189
When today’s guest, Kelli Thompson, was overwhelmed by opportunity—a level of success she had been dreaming of and working diligently toward—she knew she needed a roadmap to better manage her time and energy, stat. In this conversation, we unpack how she created an Energy Capacity Plan (a woman after my own spreadsheet-loving heart!), how to create yours, why it doesn’t need to be a detailed calendar grid sliced into specific 15-minute increments, and how that plan can inform your pricing. In th...
May 12, 2023•48 min•Ep. 188
Today’s episode is the second half of an in-depth Licensing Q&A prompted by BFF Al Dea, host of the MBA Insider podcast. If you haven’t already, listen first to 140: How to Licensing Your IP (Intellectual Property), followed by 186: Licensing 201 — Q&A (Part One) on Product Development, Attracting Clients, and Sales Process. Al submitted a series of wonderful questions that span five categories; in this episode I’ll be addressing the latter three: selling and packaging, delivery (includi...
May 09, 2023•49 min•Ep. 187
“A shoe is just a shoe until my son steps into it.” —Deloris Jordan When negotiating Michael Jordan's famous shoe deal with Nike, his mom Deloris “made an additional demand: Her son must receive not only a $250,000 fee, but also a cut from every sneaker sold,” making her case with that mic drop moment above (as retold in the movie Air via The New York Times article ‘Air’ and the Argument for Letting the Talent Share in the Profits). That, my friends, is the power of licensing :) Today’s episode ...
May 05, 2023•49 min•Ep. 186
