Mastering The Personal Pivot

Mastering The Personal Pivot
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Over the past few months, I've watched as five of my friends turned in high profile jobs for new directions. In the past, the ritual of "moving on" would have been done discreetly, behind closed doors, and whispered among close friends. But the power of social media, combined with the changing dynamics of work, gave each of them the freedom and power to embrace the newly emerging trend of the Personal Pivot. Each of their stories is different as you might expect, but they share some themes that I suspect will be valuable to explore.

So first, the stories of Robert Scoble, Stephanie Agresta, Bonin Bough, Rob Barnett and Sree Sreenivasan.

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Robert Scoble
, after seven years as the Futurist at Rackspace, announced to his 5,000 Facebook friends and his blog readership that he was heading out on his own. His passion for Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality had convinced him that he'd seen the future of technology. He got a spot as an Entrepreneur in Residence at UploadVR and explained rather publicly about the complexity of piecing together a financial base as an independent. He's now traveling the world, speaking and learning, and working on his next book with his writing partner Shel Israel.

Stephanie Agresta was global social media and digital leader at MSLGroup - a high-powered PR executive who was spending her life on airplanes. PRWeek named her #6 among digital creators in public relations and Business Insider called her one of the top 25 advertising executives on Twitter. But here too, the power of her personal brand and her network gave her the freedom to launch her own company. Now she's working with startups and innovative entrepreneurs, closer to the companies where her experience can make a meaningful difference in their rapid growth.

Bonin Bough was the chief media and e-commerce officer at Mondelez, the global snack company. After four years at the Kraft spin-off, and years before that at Pepsi - Bough's drive was focused on startups and innovation. With a book about to be published, and television show with LeBron James called the "Cleveland Hustle" about to have it's premiere on CNBC - Bough turned in his corporate lifestyle for a job closer to his passions and his beliefs. And he's just released the book "Txt Me: Your Phone Has Changed Your Life. Let's Talk About It"

Rob Barnett has been in the media and entertainment business his whole career. In 2006, long before anyone talked about web video or 'over the top' channels, he launched My Damn Channel to give talented creators more control over the way they got to make content. Now he's launching his talent and client focused business with Rob Barnett Media.

Sree Sreenivasan
was for three years the Chief Digital Officer of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. When that gig came to an end, he shared his job search in a very public way and even went to so far as to publish a page where friends could suggest what gig Sree 3.0 should be looking for. Then, he announced he'd been named New York's Chief Digital Officer.

While each of their situations is different - there's a pattern in each of their situations that make for some useful rules that anyone can deploy.

The Five Elements of a Personal Pivot:

  1. Your Network Is Your Most Valuable Asset
  2. Share Passion - Early And Often
  3. Be Humble About Who You Are
  4. Be Honest About What You Need
  5. Be Open To Others, And Their Needs
So, here's how the Personal Pivot works -

Your Network Is Your Most Valuable Asset. You're friends and followers are the connecting points to your next potential gig, and their network can be activated to help you find new opportunities, new relationships, and new contacts. So don't forget you need to be willing to reach out and ask your network to advocate for you - and at the same time always be willing to do the same for anyone in your network. An active network works two ways.

Share Passion - Early And Often. It's really not possible to overshare within your network, as long as what you're sharing is relevant to your brand. But putting yourself out there, on Facebook, on Twitter, on Instagram, on Facebook Live, Periscope, and fast growing networks like SnapChat and Musical.ly. In a world with content becoming more nitchified and fractured - you might think that tweeting a comment once is enough - but it's not. You can fire off the same tweet four times in a day and have little risk of oversharing.

Be Humble About Who You Are. While sharing is critical - it's also important that you don't turn sharing into bragging. It's easy to make your social sharing about what you've done, rather than engaging in a conversation with your friends and followers. So rather than pitching yourself, use your engagement with your community to ask questions, get feedback, and share observations.

Be Honest About What You Need. If you're thinking about joining startup boards, or mentoring young CEO's, or working with emerging clients - then make sure to let people know what you're thinking. You can't get introductions, connections, leads or opportunities if you're community doesn't know what you're looking for.

Be Open To Others And Their Needs. Asking your friends and followers what you can do for them - who they need to be introduced to, and what kinds of support and feedback they need is a great way to build a connection and put some credits in the favor bank.

The new connected world we live in gives you the power to share. Sharing your career goals, and engaging with your friends to help them, is a new behavior. It wasn't long ago that these kinds of pursuits were kept private. But as I'm learning from watching my friends - being open and honest can be the most effective way to find opportunities. So don't worry that sharing your next step will turn people off. Far from it - being open and honest in the new world of the Personal Pivot is the surest way to turn people on.

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