Pivot Leader Kit
This toolkit has everything you need to set up your own accountability group for the Pivot process:
Your Next Steps
How to recruit your group
Setting up recurring calls
Getting Started with your group
Additional Resources
A Note on Notes
Email Templates
Three-Month Content Roadmap
Of course, you will know your group best, so feel free to add, subtract, and adjust these steps to best suit your needs.
1. Your Next Steps
If you haven't already, pick up a copy of Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One. This will help you guide conversation as you go.
Brainstorm who you want to invite to your group. We recommend inviting one to three others (to make sure everyone has maximum air time on the calls).
Alternatively, you can recruit a larger group of 10 or more, then assign them to smaller breakouts of 3-person triads (three is an ideal number in case one person can’t make the call that day).
You can also check out the Pivot Toolkit (in your member library) for templates, podcasts, and other recommended resources for each stage of the Pivot Method:
2. Recruit your group
When you’re ready to invite your group, scroll down to the bottom of this page for email templates that you can borrow from as a jumping off point
Decide on call frequency and duration. I prefer 45 to 90 minutes every other week.
Run a Doodle poll to determine group members’ availability for recurring calls.
Optional: invite your team to purchase Pivot workbooks to go through the key exercises
3. Set-up recurring calls
Make a copy of the Mastermind Group Discussion Template and rename it for your group; share with group members.
Optional: Make a copy of the Quarterly Focus Tracker Template and rename it for your group; share with group members.
Schedule a recurring day/time for meetings in calendar. Decide whether you’ll hold meetings via Zoom, Google Hangout (video) or phone.
If phone, I recommend DialPad Meetings so that you can record calls, and so that you keep the same dial-in number every week. If you upgrade to pro ($10/mo) you will get your own personal phone number (no passcode required).
Below the email templates on this page, you’ll find a suggested discussion guide, split into three months (one quarter or season): Month 1: Plant, Month 2: Scan, and Month 3: Pilot.
You’ll also see a sample week-by-week agenda of suggested Pivot topics to cover in addition to your regular check-ins and brainstorming.
You can repeat this sequence of topics quarterly, just applied to each person's new set of goals.
4. Getting started with your group:
Hold your first call! Send out an agenda beforehand.
Start the call by each doing a check-in: High, low and something you learned this week. (Some call this process rose, thorn, and bud). Celebrate each other’s wins!
Take turns with a focused brainstorm: Succinctly share one challenge you’re facing, and brainstorm with the group for 10-15 minutes. Rotate as time allows.
Closing: each person identifies one insight or aha from today’s session, and shares 1-2 key next steps they will take between now and the next call.
Conduct reviews: On a quarterly basis, review focus areas (tracker template here). Optional if you want to set (and check-in on) monthly focus areas as well.
A note on notes: Notes are optional, but I find them unnecessary. What I do love is having a shared spreadsheet or tracker. Notes are a transcript of what was said; I find it more helpful to create accountability structures (action items, ways of holding ourselves to what we say we’re going to do).
🔗 Additional Resources
If you don’t already have one, grab your copy of Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One
Optional: invite your team to purchase Pivot workbooks to go through exercises
Check out the free Pivot Toolkit resources
Listen and subscribe to the Pivot podcast
Take the Pivotability Index Assessment, which will help you understand your current level of pivotability: how open, flexible and agile you are to change.
Pivot Jumpstart Coaching: personalized, one-on-one support to help kickstart your pivot with a member of the Pivot Coaching team.
📝 A Note on Notes
Notes (what we said) vs. Accountability Structure (holding ourselves to what we say we’re going to do)
Notes are optional, but I find them unnecessary. What I do love is having a shared accountability spreadsheet or tracker. When my friend Alexis Grant and I were writing books at the same time, we set-up a shared daily writing tracker. It was fun to see each other’s entries and cheer each other on.
When November rolled around, we made a similar spreadsheet public and invited people to join us for a “NaNoBlogMo” challenge of writing 50,000 words in one month (modeled after the popular National Novel Writing Month). Nearly 100 people joined and we wrote a combined 556,000 words, with four people hitting the target of 50,000! Knowing that my peers would see a goose egg if I didn’t write motivated me to at least get a little bit done each day. For the first time in my life, I wrote consistently every day, even when I didn’t feel “struck with inspiration,” as I had been used to waiting for.
📧 Email Templates
Invitation to Join Group
Hello [Name],
I hope this email finds you well! I’m reaching out because I would love to have you join a Pivot Mastermind group I’m putting together.
In a Pivot Mastermind, people who do similar work or who share similar goals set up a recurring check-in call to generate accountability, encouragement, and brainstorming support. We’ll structure our calls loosely around Jenny Blake’s Pivot book and method—a strategic process for navigating change and mapping your next move.
I’m really looking forward to this as a great way to generate momentum for our goals, exchange ideas and expertise, and help each other bust through any bottlenecks or challenges that come up along the way.
Let me know if you're interested, and happy to answer any questions you might have!
Warmly,
[Your Name]
Welcome! Next Steps
Hey [Name],
Welcome! I’m thrilled to have you in our Pivot Mastermind!
First order of business, I created a Doodle poll so that we can find a time to meet that works well for everyone. When you get a chance, please vote on the best times that work for you. [Insert your Doodle poll link]
In the meantime, check out this introduction chapter from Pivot on what it means to be High Net Growth. To jumpstart creativity and vision-setting, I also recommend filling out the Ideal Day Mad Lib. Bonus: send your filled-out mad lib to everyone else in the group! It’s a fun way for us to get to know each other.)
Here are some additional resources:
Pick up a copy of Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One and/or the optional Pivot Workbook if you prefer completing exercises by hand.
Sign up for Jenny’s PivotList newsletter—her curated twice monthly round-up of the best of the web—what she’s reading, watching, listening to, and awesome new tools that you’ve gotta know about.
Bookmark this Pivot Toolkit for templates, podcasts, and other recommended resources for each PIVOT stage.
Looking forward to getting started!
Warmly,
[Your Name]
Prep for First Call
Hi Everyone,
I’m so excited for our first call on [Date and Time].
Here are instructions to join the call:
In addition to the recommended resources in my previous email, next up is familiarizing yourself with our Quarterly Focus Tracker [Insert your own customized copy of the Quarterly Focus Tracker Template with everyone’s names].
Think about a change or challenge you’d like to take on this quarter, and fill it in next to your name. We’ll use this to track our progress and stay organized.
Let me know if you have any questions!
[Your Name]
To send after the call
Hi Everyone,
Thanks for a great call today! You can access the recording here: [Call recording link]
New week we will [insert brief agenda for next week]
In preparation for our next meeting, please:
[Instruction or Template 1]
[Instruction or Template 2]
[Instruction or Template 3]
As always, let me know if you have any questions! Hope you have a fantastic week.
Onward!
[Your Name]
3-Month Content Roadmap
Month 1: Plant
Plant by creating a foundation from your values, strengths, and interests, and your vision for the future. The most successful pivots start from a strong base of who you already are, what is already working, and how you will define success for this next phase of your life.
Week 1: Calibrate Your Compass
When pivoting, your values create boundaries and benchmarks for big decisions. They distill the possibilities of what to pursue, help determine next steps, and reveal how to structure day-to-day activities for maximum happiness and productivity.
Discussion prompts:
What are your guiding principles?
What is your happiness formula?
Suggested templates for post-call homework:
Ideal Day Mad Lib to jumpstart creativity and vision-setting.
Time Tracker and Schedule Blocker Template (3 Tabs): Especially great for those with flexible schedules, the time tracker and schedule blocker template will help you analyze where your time is currently going and help you put your ideal average day plan into tangible weekly terms.
Week 2: Put a Pin In It
If your values are your compass, your vision is your desired destination. Once you know where you are going, the Pivot process can take you there—but first, you need to pinpoint where you want to end up. Your vision attaches a specific future-based form to your values. Both will help you course-correct as you experiment throughout your pivot, while you steer toward a motivating future.
Discussion prompts:
What excites you most?
What does success look like one year from now?
Suggested template for post-call homework:
Knowns vs. Unknowns Template: Before moving on to the Scan stage, summarize your known variables for your one-year vision, as well as remaining questions.
Week 3: Fuel Your Engine
Your career portfolio is the aggregate of your strengths, prior work experience, and existing connections. Just as investment portfolios can be diversified by asset class, such as stocks and bonds, your career portfolio includes a blend of assets that are already working in your favor. This week will help you understand what your biggest inner resources are, and how you can apply them to accelerate the next stages of the Pivot process.
Discussion prompts:
What is working?
Where do you excel?
Suggested template for post-call homework:
Hotter/Colder Template
Week 4: Fund Your Runway
With rare exception, pivots require financial resources, or at least sound planning for a number of scenarios that may play out. The more you can clarify your resource needs and bolster your financial reserves, the more options you have for making your next move.
Discussion prompts:
What is your timeline?
How can you earn extra income?
Suggested template for post-call homework:
Four-Step Budget Template: Most budgets are too cumbersome to be useful. Check-out this handy 4-step budget: After filling in income, must-have expenses & nice-to-have expenses, you’ll get a “monthly allowance” for you to spend on discretionary items as you’d like.
Financial Modeling Template: Get a bird’s-eye view of your business model, and track your business income and expenses with this template. This more robust template helps you assess baseline expenses for living and for running your own business. It also includes simple financial modeling tables to map out potential income sources, such as the number of clients needed at specific rates.
Month 2: Scan
Scan by researching new and related skills, talking to others, and mapping out potential opportunities. This is the exploration phase: identifying and plugging knowledge and skill gaps, and having a wide variety of conversations.
Week 1: Bolster Your Bench
You have probably heard phrases like “connections are currency,” and “your network is your net worth”—clichés repeated so often that they are easy to cast aside. Yet it remains true that authentically connecting with others is a far superior opportunity-building strategy than “spray-and-pray” outreach or résumé blasting across online marketplaces.
Discussion prompts:
Who do you already know?
Who can provide advice?
What can you give in return?
Suggested template for post-call homework:
Mentor/Network Tracker: Track contact info of people you meet that you want to follow-up with. No need to refer back to business cards – info is easily accessible online (& centralized). Skim through your list every few months & follow-up.
Week 2: Bridge the Gaps
As the adage goes, “Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime.” We must now adjust the second directive to: “Teach a man to teach himself how to fish, feed him for a lifetime.” The most agile pivoters improve upon the learning process itself so they can adjust quickly as new technologies are introduced.
You can accelerate how quickly you spot skills that are needed, and how rapidly you learn them. While the Plant stage helped you identify strengths already under your belt, you will now learn to effectively scan for new marketable skills, to determine what areas are worth an investment of further learning and research.
Discussion prompts:
What skills and expertise will take you to the next level?
Suggested template for post-call homework:
Opportunity Grid Brainstorm: Scan and pilot with a plan; this template will help you brainstorm potential skills, people and projects.
Week 3: Mid-Point Review
Check in with your group to see how things are going so far—what's working best, what progress can you celebrate, and what's next?
Discussion prompts:
What have you accomplished so far, both inner shifts and outer-world steps?
What aspects of your strategy might you want to shift or do differently moving forward?
What advice would you give yourself for the next few months?
Suggested template for post-call homework:
Ideal Business Design and Action Plan Template: This template will help you outline your high-level business goals (schedule, finances, “red carpet” offering) and guide you to create an action-plan to make it happen.
Week 4: Make Yourself Discoverable
Now it is time to hone in on specific opportunities and platform-building activities to round out your Pivot portfolio. This third Scan step is about investing your searching time wisely and getting your story straight: making your desired direction known to others, and developing a strategy that enables opportunities to find you by increasing your visibility and reputation.
Discussion prompts:
How can you add unique value to your desired audience?
What steps would help you build visibility?
How can you add what Jenny describes as "Public Original Thinking" to the marketplace to demonstrate expertise, help others, and attract your ideal clients or community? I.e. articles, podcasts, short ebook, etc.
Suggested template for post-call homework:
Network Email Mad-Lib Template: This template outlines exactly how to reach out to your network once you’re clear on what you want to do next, and what you bring to the table. Simply fill-in the blanks, personalize, and voilà! You’re ready to send to your inner circle so they can help keep feelers out for you.
Month 3: Pilot
Run a series of pilots—small, low-risk experiments to test your new direction. Pilots help gather real-time data and feedback, allowing you to adjust incrementally as you go, instead of relying on big leaps.
Week 1: Get Scrappy
During my time at Google we loved “being scrappy.” We knew the conditions or output of our work would not be perfect, but it was important to release anyway, to “launch and iterate.” Just get something out, then test it, get feedback, revise, and do it over again.
Holding a mindset of launch and iterate encouraged us to get minimum viable products out to the company then have our peers test the programs, letting their feedback guide future versions. Getting a program out, even a scrappy, imperfect, 70-percent version, was better than waiting for 100-percent perfection. That ideal state may never happen, and by that point users’ needs would likely have shifted.
Discussion prompts:
What small experiments can you run?
What real-world data can you collect?
What's one next step you can take?
Suggested template for post-call homework:
Pilot Risk Map — Evaluation Spreadsheet: Full of ideas but not sure which one to pursue next? This spreadsheet will help you map opportunities across four categories, ranging from high risk, high reward to low risk, low reward.
30-Day Decision Tracker: Without the proper perspective on a situation, it’s all-too-easy to get mired in the weeds of emotion, hope, future worry and past regret. Choose one area you’d like more clarity on and rate how you feel about it each day. This template will certainly encourage you to take a more objective stance on a big question you’re grappling with and see how you feel over time, not just in the heat of the moment.
Week 2: Pause, Review, Repeat
Just like the TV pilot, a career pilot is an experiment that is meant to be evaluated, and quickly. Drop your attachment to the outcome and stay curious: What can I learn here? How might this inform my next move? How can I expand my original vision?
Once you have completed a pilot, or even several concurrently, the next step is to evaluate what worked and what didn’t. What would you do differently? What has potential for greater opportunity? After that, you will identify another round of experiments and repeat the Pilot process.
Piloting is not a one-and-done proposition. It is likely that you will run several pilots until you figure out what sticks. What smaller bets might you want to expand upon? Each time you go through this process, you will learn about yourself and refine ideas about who you want to work with and what you want to work on.
Discussion prompts:
What worked?
What didn't?
What could you do differently?
Run through the Pivot process on your pilot: what can you double-down on next time? What new resources might you need to scan for, whether people, skills or projects?
Suggested template for post-call homework:
Decision-Making Template: Weighing a big decision? Pro/con list not doing the trick? This template will help you break down fears/concerns and brainstorm next steps to move you forward.
Bottleneck Buster Template: You might feel a vague sense of where you’re operating inefficiently, but if you already knew exactly what was clogging up the works, you probably would have fixed it by now! As with many habit changes, awareness is the first step. This template will help you pinpoint bottlenecks and brainstorm ways to improve your systems.
Week 3: Transitioning to Launch
While piloting involves a series of continual, small experiments that provide information about your next move, the Launch stage is when you make the big decision that completes your pivot. These decisions do not have a guaranteed successful outcome, though you will have reduced risk throughout the Pilot stage.
Your group will likely be at different stages of a pivot at this point—some still piloting, some recalibrating, and others ready to launch. Take this week to lightly discuss the transition from pilot to launch.
Discussion prompts:
When will you make your big move?
What are your linchpin decision criteria?
Suggested template for post-call homework:
Launch Timing Criteria Checklist: You have reduced risk by cycling through the first three stage of the Pivot Method (Plant, Scan, Pilot), but how do you know when it is time to go all in? This template, excerpted from the book, will help you identify and prioritize your most important launch criteria.
Week 4: Quarterly Review
That's a wrap! Time to check-in with your mastermind crew, celebrate how far you've come, and set goals for the following quarter.
Discussion prompts:
What have you accomplished this quarter?
Beyond the accomplishments themselves, what are you most proud of?
What were your biggest challenges? How did you overcome them?
Your new Guiding Principles: mindsets / mantras / approaches to life?
What are one or two key focus areas for next quarter
What additional systems/support do you want to build for yourself moving forward?
Suggested template for post-call homework: