June 25, 2024 • 18 mins
Author Adam Markel has learned the transformational power of making a professional pivot firsthand, and he shares his tips and tricks with us.
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Welcome to On the Job. Since we're focusing on pivots
this season, we hear at OTJ figured why not check
in with someone who knows all about pivots, the guy
that literally wrote the book on them.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
So on today's.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Episode, we're going to speak with Adam Markel, who, after
a pivot of his own, went on to write a
book called Well What Else?
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Pivot?
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Well more accurately Pivot, The Art and Science of reinventing
your career and life. So stick around to hear some
very useful advice from the pivot guru himself on how
you can best tackle your next pivot. Before Adam Markel
ever thought of becoming an author and keynote speaker, he
(00:50):
was a lawyer in New York City, and a successful
one at that.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Yeah, I mean I liked winning.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
I'm going to be really honest in my answer to you, Avery,
and there's a part of you when you beat somebody
in court that is just an exhilarating experience, especially when
your client is super happy because you helped them out.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
And there were even parts of the job to fulfill them.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
On a psychological level, I was bullied as a kid,
and at a certain point when I decided I wasn't
that wasn't going to be my life experience anymore. I
became the Carnivor's part of why I became a lawyer
to gain the power, to be in control and to
wield power.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
You know, it's like and I think.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
A lot of lawyers are kind of control freaks and
have some aspect of their personality, you know, leans into
that as well.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
And as you can imagine, being a lawyer in Manhattan
was quite lucrative.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
You can make a lot of money, a lot of money,
a tremendous amount of money in a very controlled environment.
Like I'm a business owner now, but on a good day,
business is really difficult.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
And the legal profession is a business.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
But it's a very traditional business with some very traditional parameters.
And so if you're not a complete idiot, and if
you follow the rules and you don't you know, screw people,
you can just like steadily earn a lot of money
for a long period of time in this very conventional
and sort of dependable way.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
So on the surface of things, Adam Markell's life was ideal.
He had the great job, the nice suits, and a
lovely house out in a quiet leafy suburb where he
and his wife could raise their children away from the
noise and mania of the city. In short, Adam Markell's
life was the type of life that so many people
dream of having. And yet despite all the success, all
(02:43):
the money, and all those courtroom wins, Adam could feel
that something was off, or, more accurately, he could hear it.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
I would I could describe it almost like it was
a hum, you know, like this like this noise in
the background is very dull and only.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
And I would say, you know, it's like saying to
somebody do you hear that?
Speaker 3 (03:02):
And they look at you like you're out of your mind,
you know, like because you hear it, but nobody else
hears it. And I say that because it was really
successful in my practice. I made plenty of money and
amazing family and married to my college sweetheart who to
this day is the love of my life, and we
have four healthy kids, and you know, life was really
really good. So for me to say do you hear that?
(03:24):
They go, they go, what are you talking about? I'll go,
it's that home. It's that there's like this dull thing
out that says this sucks.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
This is not right. But nobody heard it except me.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
So each morning he'd leave his house in the suburbs
and make his way into the concrete canyons of New
York City. But before he even got into the city,
that home would start up again. He'd be on the
train and there it'd be that buzzing in his head.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
And I would start to develop feel anxiety.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
I kind of fit well up in me when I
got in the tunnel sometimes, and I'm not claustrophobic, not really,
you know, but I would feel it then.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
So Adam, being the pragmatist that he is, tried different
ways of commuting, wondering if maybe he just needed to
make a change in how he got to work.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
Well, I commuted like most people that live in around
a metro area, but New York in particular. I tried driving.
I tried the train, I tried the bus. The only
thing I didn't do was walk, you know. And I
did each of those things for some period of time,
because at various points they all sucked. I mean, and
I mean truly, because you're just aggravated and you're tense
(04:35):
and anxious.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
So no matter how he made his way into the city,
there was that home and deep down in his gut,
Adam knew that this hum was trying to tell him something,
that he had to make a change.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
But what could he do.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
He had his job, his family, his life was already
set in motion, and so Adam just tried to pretend
this HUM wasn't there, to focus more on his work, or,
as he explained it, to become even more of an
agro aggressive attorney. Until one day.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
You know, I ended up with a serious anxiety attack
at one point, ended up in the hospital, and you know,
the whole I'm thinking, I'm dying of art attack experience.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
Fortunately for Adam, the doctors checked him out and said
it was okay that he's still at his health But
he knew if he didn't make a change soon, it
was only a matter of time, no matter how good
his life looked on paper. But to understand the change
that Adam made, we need to go back a few years,
back to Adam's teenage years when he was a lifeguard
(05:39):
on Long Island.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
I worked at a place called Jones Beach, was really
active beach on the Atlantic Ocean, and we made like
and I kid you not, we made one hundred plus
saves every Saturday or Sunday in the summer, because we
had one hundred thousand people on that beach and they
were rip currents and they were always moving and changing,
and the lifeguards we were or to those recurrencies suck
(06:01):
because it would literally suck everything out to deeper water.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
But more than just being a beautiful place to swim
and work on your tan and make a few bucks,
adam summers at Jones Beach were a transformational time in
his life, a period when he went from being this
kid who was frequently bullied to being this heroic figure
up there in the lifeguard chair, wielding the power of
the whistle and ready to dive into action to save
(06:27):
people in need. And the more Adam thought back on
those times, the more he realized that not only did
he miss the beach, but that he drifted so far
from that version of himself that he loved. How he'd
let himself become something of a bully himself, albeit in
the courtroom.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
I think, as I look at it now, the pendulum
swung quite a distance from being the bullied one to
being the bully. Honestly, as a lawyer, I had that
opportunity too, and I represented a lot of people who
were being believed to be honest and fair. I got
to use my power in a pretty decent way. But
at a certain point I just realized that this was
(07:09):
a bit of a pretense. It really wasn't who I
was inside, and I didn't quite know who was inside,
but I knew there was that divine discontent that was happening.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
So Adam found himself sitting with his wife and admitting
to her that he was tired of being a lawyer,
tired of being a bully, and what he really wanted
was to give up on the big city lawyer life
entirely and once again feel the sand beneath his feet.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
And why I feel so incredibly blessed to be married
to the woman that I am married to is because
she was good with that.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
She was good with you know what the big picture here?
What's the big picture? We love each other. We have
great family, great relationship. Will be great.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
Where we are, no matter what happens, will be great
because we have each other. That's big picture. She's a
much more advanced soul than I am.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
And with the support of his wife, Randy Adam said
goodbye to the rat race of New York City. And
then he and the family packed up all their belongings
and moved way out to San Diego, California.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
I mean, we were uprooting our entire family. I figured
I was going to have some therapy bills down the road.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
You know, we have four kids, like I said, two dogs.
You know, we know a lot going on in our lives.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
And we were literally moving from you know, the East
Coast we were living in Freehold, New Jersey at the time,
to southern California, San Diego, and they're they're very different cultures.
You know, people are people, but culturally speaking, they're different places.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
But moving across the country was just one of the
pivots that Adam made. Because I didn't call up Adam
Markel to talk about legal stuff. I called him to
discuss a book that he wrote called Pivot. So when
we come back from the break, we'll gain some Pivot
advice from the Pivot master himself.
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Speaker 1 (09:31):
We're back with Adam Markel, who, after leaving his job
as a big shot lawyer in New York City, moved
his family out to southern California, where he's now an author,
keynote speaker, and business mentor. And that massive mid career
pivot that Adam made was a big influence on his
decision to write a book all about pivoting.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
It's called pivot. I mean, it's just that simple. That's
why I held it up when you said it.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
I wish I had like a nickel or a dime
or a dollar for every time a person's used word pivots.
Since this book came out, it hit the shelves in
twenty sixteen, assignment and s just the book. It was hardcover,
and now it's the second edition it's a paperback. But yeah, no,
it was a pejorative term, kind of a negative thing
back in the day. I wrote it in part because
I wanted to shift that sort of the vernacular a bit.
(10:20):
And I will not claim any credit for having done.
So there's some pretty big shows with that term now.
But when I wrote the book, honestly, it was pretty
new and different. I felt like we were ahead of
the curve.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
And who pivots? Is it just individuals? Is it businesses
as well? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (10:37):
Everybody pivots And the best businesses, the ones that we
try to position ourselves to work with, are the ones
that are are thinking about those pivots before the marketplace
is forcing them upon that organization or those teams.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
And while pivots take all shapes and sizes, there are
basically two versions of a pivot, those we consciously choose
and those that are forced upon us.
Speaker 3 (11:04):
You have to have a plan. And because we pivot
either by default or by design, I'll say, and the
design pivot is what the book is really about. The
default pivot is when you are forced to make a
change in life. Because I'll give you some examples. Your
spouse or your partner leaves you, or they die, or
your business ghoes bust and you have to file bankruptcy,
(11:25):
or your health takes a turn for the worse and
you get a diagnosis and now, oh wow, I guess
I do have to change what I do and how
I live, etc. Those are default pivots, and I think again,
because people are afraid of change, we have to override
that with design, and that's what the book Pivot is
about designing your changes in life.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
So his advice for you on the job listeners is
the plan ahead to take a proactive approach to your life.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
Listening to you the instincts that you have, paying attention
to them, being having enough time during the day when
you're breathing in a gentle way and your mind is
not racing all over the place, you're not amped up
on caffeine or touringe or you know whatever. In those
moments when you can actually hear yourself think to use
(12:16):
the term I grew up hearing a lot, or hear
yourself feel.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Then you can get instincts.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
And if you follow those instincts, you're rarely ever wrong.
And that's a pretty bold statement because I don't know everybody. Obviously,
I don't know everybody's life experience. But I can say
with almost absolute certainty that when you follow your instincts,
which I could also say is following your heart, I
don't think you go astray. You might pivot off into
(12:44):
the you know off the highway for a bit. You
might be on a road that's unfamiliar and dark and
is it's a bit and it's uncertainty scary for you.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
But all those roads lead to where they're supposed to
lead to.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
So my advice to people that are looking for vice,
you know, from somebody they'd never heard from before, is
that you just pay attention be present in your own life.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Again, great sort of like statement.
Speaker 3 (13:11):
It's not as profound as it sounds, but to actually
be more conscious and aware, self aware and present in
your life means that you will have access to insights
and an inner guidance, a wisdom of sorts, and a
gut instinct you could call it. And for those that
(13:32):
are more spiritually inclined, there's ways to describe it through
that lens as well, where you'll just realize.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
That it's time for something to shift.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
And then when you do feel it's time to make
a change in your life, Adam wants to remind you
that it's all about that first step, however small it
might seem.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
And then you'll be inspired to do the one small thing.
Like in Pivot, I talk about the process, and that
process always starts with the tiniest little step what we
like to refer to as the small domino, the very
smallest domino that you can think of. And a lot
of people don't do that tiny thing because they think
this tiny thing is meaningless in the grand scope. If
(14:14):
I'm unhappy, if I'm in pain, if I'm not making
enough money, if I'm in the wrong relationship, if my
health is south, you know, I can't just start with
one tiny thing. How I need this massive change. So
it's ironic because they're afraid of the massive change at
the same time as they won't take the tiny step
(14:34):
because they think that's insignificant.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
But I should clarify that neither Adam nor I are
saying that you have to drop everything and move across
the country or change careers.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
There's something really amazing when you find yourself in a
role in an organization, in a profession that you could
you could be there for decades and experience it, grow
in it and love it. Not maybe loving it every
second or every day even, but just realistically, the trajectory
is I love what I do. I love the impact
(15:06):
I have, I love the people I get to work with.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
That's the best man. I don't think you pivot for
pivot's sake. That's that would be silly. That's the equivalent
of like when you're.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
Eight years old and you're bored, and so you just
got to go break something or you got to go
do something stupid because you're bored. Well, an eight year
old is not a lot different than when they're you know,
like than a twenty eight year.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
Old or a forty eight year old. Like, we're all
just the same person.
Speaker 3 (15:32):
And so my caution would be if you're thinking of
a pivot because you're bored, be careful of that.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
Whether we realize it or not, we're all pivoting all
the time.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
Every day, we're leaving our old self behind.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
And not to be too philosophical here about it, but
I believe it's true that we are constantly growing and
our cells are replicating in our bodies. Old cells die
and new cells are created. This is the fa this
is the cycle of life.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
This is not and make it up. This is what
it is.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
So you either recognize that that's the truth of who
you are, or you try to stay the same somehow,
thinking that staying the same is more stable, it is
more secure or safe or something. And then you're literally
resisting life, and to live in resistance to life. I
just don't have to say what comes to that. We
(16:24):
all get it, like intuitively, we know it's just not
setting yourself up for success to do that.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
So, whether your next pivot is going to be as
big as Adams or as subtle as a change in
your perspective, make sure that you listen to that voice
in your head, to that gut instinct that we're all
so lucky to have, then make that initial step, however
small it might be. As for Adam, he'll admit that
the first few years of relocating weren't always easy, and
(16:53):
there are days that he's still misses being a lawyer,
But he and his family have pushed through that challenging period, which,
to be fair, is part of any pivot story.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
If I look back today, it's sort of twelve thirteen
years later. Every one of my kids and my wife
and I we would say best decision we ever made,
would never change a thing, So happy we're here.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
I do a lot of research these days.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
For my books as well as for the talks, because
we have a company called work well, and it works
with organizations to create workplaces of well.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Being, and so my life today is not the grind.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
And so when you learn that, then you can create
a day where you can toggle back and forth between
your focus and your productivity and still feel the energy
that when I come home, I have energy for my kids,
I have energy for the people I love. I have
energy for the things I want to do for myself,
whether it's to swim or play tennis, or golf or read, write,
you know whatever.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
Are you living the Southern California lifestyle?
Speaker 2 (17:56):
Brother? I am.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
I love the sun, I love to surf, I love
to play tennis, and I love Southern California.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
I just don't love the taxes. But you know, that's
a whole other bag, you know.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
But it's certainly not all play and no work for
Adam Markel. He's got a thriving business and a new
book out called Change Proof, which you should definitely check out,
but not before you read Pivot, because come on, folks,
haven't you been listening? Pivots are so hot right now
for on the job. I'm Avery Thompson,
Welcome to On the Job. Since we're focusing on pivots
this season, we hear at OTJ figured why not check
in with someone who knows all about pivots, the guy
that literally wrote the book on them.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
So on today's.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Episode, we're going to speak with Adam Markel, who, after
a pivot of his own, went on to write a
book called Well What Else?
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Pivot?
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Well more accurately Pivot, The Art and Science of reinventing
your career and life. So stick around to hear some
very useful advice from the pivot guru himself on how
you can best tackle your next pivot. Before Adam Markel
ever thought of becoming an author and keynote speaker, he
(00:50):
was a lawyer in New York City, and a successful
one at that.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Yeah, I mean I liked winning.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
I'm going to be really honest in my answer to you, Avery,
and there's a part of you when you beat somebody
in court that is just an exhilarating experience, especially when
your client is super happy because you helped them out.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
And there were even parts of the job to fulfill them.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
On a psychological level, I was bullied as a kid,
and at a certain point when I decided I wasn't
that wasn't going to be my life experience anymore. I
became the Carnivor's part of why I became a lawyer
to gain the power, to be in control and to
wield power.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
You know, it's like and I think.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
A lot of lawyers are kind of control freaks and
have some aspect of their personality, you know, leans into
that as well.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
And as you can imagine, being a lawyer in Manhattan
was quite lucrative.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
You can make a lot of money, a lot of money,
a tremendous amount of money in a very controlled environment.
Like I'm a business owner now, but on a good day,
business is really difficult.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
And the legal profession is a business.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
But it's a very traditional business with some very traditional parameters.
And so if you're not a complete idiot, and if
you follow the rules and you don't you know, screw people,
you can just like steadily earn a lot of money
for a long period of time in this very conventional
and sort of dependable way.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
So on the surface of things, Adam Markell's life was ideal.
He had the great job, the nice suits, and a
lovely house out in a quiet leafy suburb where he
and his wife could raise their children away from the
noise and mania of the city. In short, Adam Markell's
life was the type of life that so many people
dream of having. And yet despite all the success, all
(02:43):
the money, and all those courtroom wins, Adam could feel
that something was off, or, more accurately, he could hear it.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
I would I could describe it almost like it was
a hum, you know, like this like this noise in
the background is very dull and only.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
And I would say, you know, it's like saying to
somebody do you hear that?
Speaker 3 (03:02):
And they look at you like you're out of your mind,
you know, like because you hear it, but nobody else
hears it. And I say that because it was really
successful in my practice. I made plenty of money and
amazing family and married to my college sweetheart who to
this day is the love of my life, and we
have four healthy kids, and you know, life was really
really good. So for me to say do you hear that?
(03:24):
They go, they go, what are you talking about? I'll go,
it's that home. It's that there's like this dull thing
out that says this sucks.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
This is not right. But nobody heard it except me.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
So each morning he'd leave his house in the suburbs
and make his way into the concrete canyons of New
York City. But before he even got into the city,
that home would start up again. He'd be on the
train and there it'd be that buzzing in his head.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
And I would start to develop feel anxiety.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
I kind of fit well up in me when I
got in the tunnel sometimes, and I'm not claustrophobic, not really,
you know, but I would feel it then.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
So Adam, being the pragmatist that he is, tried different
ways of commuting, wondering if maybe he just needed to
make a change in how he got to work.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
Well, I commuted like most people that live in around
a metro area, but New York in particular. I tried driving.
I tried the train, I tried the bus. The only
thing I didn't do was walk, you know. And I
did each of those things for some period of time,
because at various points they all sucked. I mean, and
I mean truly, because you're just aggravated and you're tense
(04:35):
and anxious.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
So no matter how he made his way into the city,
there was that home and deep down in his gut,
Adam knew that this hum was trying to tell him something,
that he had to make a change.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
But what could he do.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
He had his job, his family, his life was already
set in motion, and so Adam just tried to pretend
this HUM wasn't there, to focus more on his work, or,
as he explained it, to become even more of an
agro aggressive attorney. Until one day.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
You know, I ended up with a serious anxiety attack
at one point, ended up in the hospital, and you know,
the whole I'm thinking, I'm dying of art attack experience.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
Fortunately for Adam, the doctors checked him out and said
it was okay that he's still at his health But
he knew if he didn't make a change soon, it
was only a matter of time, no matter how good
his life looked on paper. But to understand the change
that Adam made, we need to go back a few years,
back to Adam's teenage years when he was a lifeguard
(05:39):
on Long Island.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
I worked at a place called Jones Beach, was really
active beach on the Atlantic Ocean, and we made like
and I kid you not, we made one hundred plus
saves every Saturday or Sunday in the summer, because we
had one hundred thousand people on that beach and they
were rip currents and they were always moving and changing,
and the lifeguards we were or to those recurrencies suck
(06:01):
because it would literally suck everything out to deeper water.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
But more than just being a beautiful place to swim
and work on your tan and make a few bucks,
adam summers at Jones Beach were a transformational time in
his life, a period when he went from being this
kid who was frequently bullied to being this heroic figure
up there in the lifeguard chair, wielding the power of
the whistle and ready to dive into action to save
(06:27):
people in need. And the more Adam thought back on
those times, the more he realized that not only did
he miss the beach, but that he drifted so far
from that version of himself that he loved. How he'd
let himself become something of a bully himself, albeit in
the courtroom.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
I think, as I look at it now, the pendulum
swung quite a distance from being the bullied one to
being the bully. Honestly, as a lawyer, I had that
opportunity too, and I represented a lot of people who
were being believed to be honest and fair. I got
to use my power in a pretty decent way. But
at a certain point I just realized that this was
(07:09):
a bit of a pretense. It really wasn't who I
was inside, and I didn't quite know who was inside,
but I knew there was that divine discontent that was happening.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
So Adam found himself sitting with his wife and admitting
to her that he was tired of being a lawyer,
tired of being a bully, and what he really wanted
was to give up on the big city lawyer life
entirely and once again feel the sand beneath his feet.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
And why I feel so incredibly blessed to be married
to the woman that I am married to is because
she was good with that.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
She was good with you know what the big picture here?
What's the big picture? We love each other. We have
great family, great relationship. Will be great.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
Where we are, no matter what happens, will be great
because we have each other. That's big picture. She's a
much more advanced soul than I am.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
And with the support of his wife, Randy Adam said
goodbye to the rat race of New York City. And
then he and the family packed up all their belongings
and moved way out to San Diego, California.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
I mean, we were uprooting our entire family. I figured
I was going to have some therapy bills down the road.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
You know, we have four kids, like I said, two dogs.
You know, we know a lot going on in our lives.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
And we were literally moving from you know, the East
Coast we were living in Freehold, New Jersey at the time,
to southern California, San Diego, and they're they're very different cultures.
You know, people are people, but culturally speaking, they're different places.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
But moving across the country was just one of the
pivots that Adam made. Because I didn't call up Adam
Markel to talk about legal stuff. I called him to
discuss a book that he wrote called Pivot. So when
we come back from the break, we'll gain some Pivot
advice from the Pivot master himself.
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Speaker 1 (09:31):
We're back with Adam Markel, who, after leaving his job
as a big shot lawyer in New York City, moved
his family out to southern California, where he's now an author,
keynote speaker, and business mentor. And that massive mid career
pivot that Adam made was a big influence on his
decision to write a book all about pivoting.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
It's called pivot. I mean, it's just that simple. That's
why I held it up when you said it.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
I wish I had like a nickel or a dime
or a dollar for every time a person's used word pivots.
Since this book came out, it hit the shelves in
twenty sixteen, assignment and s just the book. It was hardcover,
and now it's the second edition it's a paperback. But yeah, no,
it was a pejorative term, kind of a negative thing
back in the day. I wrote it in part because
I wanted to shift that sort of the vernacular a bit.
(10:20):
And I will not claim any credit for having done.
So there's some pretty big shows with that term now.
But when I wrote the book, honestly, it was pretty
new and different. I felt like we were ahead of
the curve.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
And who pivots? Is it just individuals? Is it businesses
as well? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (10:37):
Everybody pivots And the best businesses, the ones that we
try to position ourselves to work with, are the ones
that are are thinking about those pivots before the marketplace
is forcing them upon that organization or those teams.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
And while pivots take all shapes and sizes, there are
basically two versions of a pivot, those we consciously choose
and those that are forced upon us.
Speaker 3 (11:04):
You have to have a plan. And because we pivot
either by default or by design, I'll say, and the
design pivot is what the book is really about. The
default pivot is when you are forced to make a
change in life. Because I'll give you some examples. Your
spouse or your partner leaves you, or they die, or
your business ghoes bust and you have to file bankruptcy,
(11:25):
or your health takes a turn for the worse and
you get a diagnosis and now, oh wow, I guess
I do have to change what I do and how
I live, etc. Those are default pivots, and I think again,
because people are afraid of change, we have to override
that with design, and that's what the book Pivot is
about designing your changes in life.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
So his advice for you on the job listeners is
the plan ahead to take a proactive approach to your life.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
Listening to you the instincts that you have, paying attention
to them, being having enough time during the day when
you're breathing in a gentle way and your mind is
not racing all over the place, you're not amped up
on caffeine or touringe or you know whatever. In those
moments when you can actually hear yourself think to use
(12:16):
the term I grew up hearing a lot, or hear
yourself feel.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Then you can get instincts.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
And if you follow those instincts, you're rarely ever wrong.
And that's a pretty bold statement because I don't know everybody. Obviously,
I don't know everybody's life experience. But I can say
with almost absolute certainty that when you follow your instincts,
which I could also say is following your heart, I
don't think you go astray. You might pivot off into
(12:44):
the you know off the highway for a bit. You
might be on a road that's unfamiliar and dark and
is it's a bit and it's uncertainty scary for you.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
But all those roads lead to where they're supposed to
lead to.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
So my advice to people that are looking for vice,
you know, from somebody they'd never heard from before, is
that you just pay attention be present in your own life.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Again, great sort of like statement.
Speaker 3 (13:11):
It's not as profound as it sounds, but to actually
be more conscious and aware, self aware and present in
your life means that you will have access to insights
and an inner guidance, a wisdom of sorts, and a
gut instinct you could call it. And for those that
(13:32):
are more spiritually inclined, there's ways to describe it through
that lens as well, where you'll just realize.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
That it's time for something to shift.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
And then when you do feel it's time to make
a change in your life, Adam wants to remind you
that it's all about that first step, however small it
might seem.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
And then you'll be inspired to do the one small thing.
Like in Pivot, I talk about the process, and that
process always starts with the tiniest little step what we
like to refer to as the small domino, the very
smallest domino that you can think of. And a lot
of people don't do that tiny thing because they think
this tiny thing is meaningless in the grand scope. If
(14:14):
I'm unhappy, if I'm in pain, if I'm not making
enough money, if I'm in the wrong relationship, if my
health is south, you know, I can't just start with
one tiny thing. How I need this massive change. So
it's ironic because they're afraid of the massive change at
the same time as they won't take the tiny step
(14:34):
because they think that's insignificant.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
But I should clarify that neither Adam nor I are
saying that you have to drop everything and move across
the country or change careers.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
There's something really amazing when you find yourself in a
role in an organization, in a profession that you could
you could be there for decades and experience it, grow
in it and love it. Not maybe loving it every
second or every day even, but just realistically, the trajectory
is I love what I do. I love the impact
(15:06):
I have, I love the people I get to work with.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
That's the best man. I don't think you pivot for
pivot's sake. That's that would be silly. That's the equivalent
of like when you're.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
Eight years old and you're bored, and so you just
got to go break something or you got to go
do something stupid because you're bored. Well, an eight year
old is not a lot different than when they're you know,
like than a twenty eight year.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
Old or a forty eight year old. Like, we're all
just the same person.
Speaker 3 (15:32):
And so my caution would be if you're thinking of
a pivot because you're bored, be careful of that.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
Whether we realize it or not, we're all pivoting all
the time.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
Every day, we're leaving our old self behind.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
And not to be too philosophical here about it, but
I believe it's true that we are constantly growing and
our cells are replicating in our bodies. Old cells die
and new cells are created. This is the fa this
is the cycle of life.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
This is not and make it up. This is what
it is.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
So you either recognize that that's the truth of who
you are, or you try to stay the same somehow,
thinking that staying the same is more stable, it is
more secure or safe or something. And then you're literally
resisting life, and to live in resistance to life. I
just don't have to say what comes to that. We
(16:24):
all get it, like intuitively, we know it's just not
setting yourself up for success to do that.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
So, whether your next pivot is going to be as
big as Adams or as subtle as a change in
your perspective, make sure that you listen to that voice
in your head, to that gut instinct that we're all
so lucky to have, then make that initial step, however
small it might be. As for Adam, he'll admit that
the first few years of relocating weren't always easy, and
(16:53):
there are days that he's still misses being a lawyer,
But he and his family have pushed through that challenging period, which,
to be fair, is part of any pivot story.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
If I look back today, it's sort of twelve thirteen
years later. Every one of my kids and my wife
and I we would say best decision we ever made,
would never change a thing, So happy we're here.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
I do a lot of research these days.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
For my books as well as for the talks, because
we have a company called work well, and it works
with organizations to create workplaces of well.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Being, and so my life today is not the grind.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
And so when you learn that, then you can create
a day where you can toggle back and forth between
your focus and your productivity and still feel the energy
that when I come home, I have energy for my kids,
I have energy for the people I love. I have
energy for the things I want to do for myself,
whether it's to swim or play tennis, or golf or read, write,
you know whatever.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
Are you living the Southern California lifestyle?
Speaker 2 (17:56):
Brother? I am.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
I love the sun, I love to surf, I love
to play tennis, and I love Southern California.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
I just don't love the taxes. But you know, that's
a whole other bag, you know.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
But it's certainly not all play and no work for
Adam Markel. He's got a thriving business and a new
book out called Change Proof, which you should definitely check out,
but not before you read Pivot, because come on, folks,
haven't you been listening? Pivots are so hot right now
for on the job. I'm Avery Thompson,
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