📧 We've Moved! Welcome to Our New Home ✨

+ Latest Curated Links and Q4 Pop-Up Mastermind Invite

Aug 31, 2023

Hi Friends,

You may notice a different look and feel for the PivotList newsletter this week . . .

I’m excited to share that I’m sending it from a new virtual home! We have moved to Substack: my favorite new platform as I writer and reader — more on that below.

This is the sign you've been looking for neon signage — Photo by Austin Chan on Unsplash

Before we get to the curated links . . .

This change will allow you to read from the Substack app, more easily reply and engage with fellow Pivoters in the comments, “restack” snippets you like, browse the archives, and support the work if you feel called to do so.

I will be able to create richer newsletters with fancy content embeds—my husband calls it “upgrading the facilities,” have an archive page with previous issues, and publish the Pivot newsletter and podcast to the same main feed (you can stay subscribed wherever you already listen).

If you no longer want to receive this PivotList round-up:

No hard feelings! Unsubscribe with one click here or at the bottom of this message.

If you prefer to use a different email address for Substack subscriptions, just two quick steps: unsubscribe here in one click, then re-subscribe for free.

If it’s been a while, hi! 👋 You are receiving this because you subscribed to Life After College or PivotList at some point in the last 13 years and have not (yet) unsubscribed. If it’s no longer serving you, I understand the need to clear unwanted inbox clutter! Before you go, check out this week’s round-up below to see if anything resonates :)

Everything you’re currently getting will remain free

That said, I’m at a major pivot point in my business, and your support at this juncture would mean the world to me!

I have been publishing online for nearly twenty years—currently taking the form of three books, three newsletters, two podcasts, a private community 🎵 and a partridge and a pear tree.

To continue publishing sustainably within my Delightfully Tiny media company, I am also now making paid options available. You can read more about why in the personal writing project I launched earlier this summer:

Rolling in D🤦🏻‍♀️h with Jenny Blake

If my work has been meaningful to you at any point in these last two decades, I would love for you to become a paid subscriber here at PivotList.*

The button below offers a one-time discount of 10% off as a thank you for making this transition with me, good through September 9, 2023. You can also gift a subscription to a fellow Pivoter who would appreciate guidance for navigating what’s next.

*For a limited time, there is an option to join as a Founding Member to get a 30-minute 1:1 call with me to talk through your Pivot-in-progress—while availability lasts.

Get 10% off for 1 year

Give a gift subscription

The growing community on Substack has sparked so much joy that for the first time in fifteen years, I feel the camaraderie from my earliest blogging days returning—and I know you will love it too!

As a result, I have moved everything over, including:

PivotList by Jenny Blake
(you’re here now): My twice-monthly round-up of the best of the web—what I’m reading, watching, listening to, and new software I’m geeking out on. This is for you if you’re high net growth and navigating what’s next; it accompanies my 2016 book Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One (+ Life After College before that), and weekly Pivot podcast since 2015.
Time Well Spent with Jenny Blake
: For creative small business owners to help set time free through smarter systems, based on my 2022 book Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business and podcast of the same name since 2021.
Rolling in D🤦🏻‍♀️h with Jenny Blake
: Divine disaster diaries from a breadwinning business owner living in New York City.

The Longer Story: Why Substack? Why Now?

Like me, I bet you’ll find the experience of reading within the mobile app to be joyful — an oasis of calm far away from social media chaos and Sisyphean email systems.

As a reader, due to my own inbox overwhelm I had nearly stopped reading newsletters altogether—my motivation to write them stalling in parallel—until I downloaded the app and could peruse subscriptions peacefully with my morning coffee on my iPad.

As a writer who has been sharing publicly online for so long in the form of personal essays and podcast episodes, I can’t tell you how refreshing it is to create community in the comments again, and to enable readers like you to support this new direction in exchange for extra goodies if my work has been helpful for you.

One person I follow practices artistic tithing, where ten percent of her income goes to supporting other writers on the platform. I now pay for fifteen fellow Substackers, and while at first I feared subscription fatigue (like so many of us!), this combined expense has become the happiest money that leaves my bank account every month.

I love supporting the writers and thinkers whom I respect most, and who have given me so much over the years.

What’s Next?

There’s nothing you need to do—you’ll keep getting my curated PivotList round-up at least twice per month on Thursdays, and weekly Pivot podcast episodes on Sundays.

If you do want to support the work and my ability to continue this newsletter and podcast, I would be super grateful!

Once again, I’m thrilled to invite you to become a paid member, with a discount good through September 9:

Get 10% off for 1 year

Give a gift subscription

🥁 And now, onto the good stuff!

Here’s the latest greatest I’m . . .

🥂 HOSTING

Business Bestie Brunch + Q4 Pop-Up Mastermind — now with a virtual option!

Join me and Sarah Young, founder of Zing Collaborative and author of Expansive Impact, on Sunday, October 22 (in person) or Sunday, October 29 (virtual) for a three-hour brainstorming extravaganza with a small, curated group of Heart-Based Business owners. The VIP day is supported by a three-month program with a mix of 1:1 coaching and group calls to close 2023 strong, and set a joyful strategy for 2024.

📆 Early Bird Enrollment (and special pricing) ends on September 1, and the final deadline to enroll is September 15. If you’re interested in joining:

Learn More and Apply Here »

📚 READING

The pulpy paperback Verity by Colleen Hoover with over 300,000 (!!) reviews.

Whose truth is the lie? Stay up all night reading the sensational psychological thriller that has readers obsessed.

Much like Twilight, the writing is not heralded for literary excellence so much as sexy storylines and sky-high sales figures. Did you know that according to NPR Hoover is currently outselling Stephen King, James Patterson, and John Grisham?!

Check out the NYT’s How Colleen Hoover Rose to Rule the Best-Seller List:

With legions of devoted fans and a knack for high-voltage emotional drama, Hoover has sold more than 20 million books. And she’s done it her way.

🍿 WATCHING

Max’s 90 Day Fiancé UK edition: 🎵 I luuuuuuuhhh you chicken! *
*If you know, you know

🎧 LISTENING

Culturally Determined’s illuminating conversation on “The Enshittification of Online Life” with Aryeh Cohen-Wade and Cory Doctorow.

🥗 EATING

Factor meals have been a life-saver for me and Michael. We have tried at least ten different meal delivery services—both the ones that arrive in boxes of ingredients and those that are reheat-ready (Factor is the latter). For 8 meals, we pay $110 ($13.75/each).

Out of everything we’ve tried, this one is far and above the best. Always healthy and delicious, good for staving off bouts of hangriness in the household on nights we don’t feel like cooking. My favorites include the Shredded Chicken Taco Bowl, Roasted Veggie & Pesto Tortellini, Vegetarian Tamale, Herb-Crusted Chicken, and Smoked Tofu Almond Stir-Fry. This link gets you $150 off your first box »

Although you do pay $10 extra for it, the Grilled Steakhouse Filet Mignon actually tastes like what you’d get from a NYC restaurant—divine!

🧰 TOOLS

If you don’t already have it, one more friendly nudge to get the Substack app—you’ll love the reader experience so much more than your email inbox! You can “heart” and bookmark posts, and see progress markers of what percentage of each article you’ve read if you want to return to finish later. You’ll probably be surprised at how many of your favorite writers/thinkers (and newsletters you receive) are already on Substack—they’ll automatically show up in your app’s feed if so.