Jenny Blake is author of “Pivot: The Only Move That Matters is Your Next One.” She is a former Google employee and has a perspective that everyone can learn something from, especially if you feel like you are at a plateau in life. Michael and Jenny start the conversation off with the benefits of yoga. Jenny says that “Your body is your business.” She quickly realized that when her body was operating at 50% then her business was operating at 50%. Yoga has always been her outlet and her source of strength, flexibility, and one of her biggest accelerators of focus. Michael asks, “How did we get to this point where everyone thinks that life goes in a straight line?” Jenny says we are all hungry for a sense of adventure, however we so often resist change. 2008 was a game changer that made many realize that anything can happen at any time. Social media has contributed to this also by creating a sense of restlessness and what Jenny refers to as “cognitive junk food”. Jenny talks about the word “plateau” next. Plateau is the word she uses for when one thinks things/life are generally OK and then things start to gradually decline. When you hit a plateau, it is usually a case of mastering the job that you are doing at hand. It isn’t about personal failure. Plateau’s are more about figuring out what is next, how you can continue to grow, and how you can make the most impact on the world, Jenny interviewed a wide variety of people from peak performers to others who peak in some other way. She found that pivots were the most successful when the answer was already within someone. When it doesn’t work out is when people try to pivot too sharply. We can’t always know 100% if a pivot is going to work or if it is right but you need to put yourself outside of your comfort zone and take the risk. Jenny moves on to explain what she calls “the pivot method”, which is comprised of a four step process. Plant, is the first step: One foot stays planted and the other foot pivots and scans the other options. It is about where you want to end up one year from now. The second step is scan: As you plant your feet you scan all the options. The third step is piloting: This is the experimentation phase. The last step is launch: This step is exactly how it sounds, you are launching into whatever that pivot is that you have been experimenting with. Michael and Jenny give lots of personal examples of all of these steps and go into great detail. In this episode of Trend Following Radio: Ditching the cognitive junk food Efficiency The pivot method Mindfulness practice The happiness formula Rejection is a stepping stone