Learn to Pivot for Resilience

[00:00:00] We know from elementary school that the shortest path between two points is a straight line. We all saw them draw it out on the chalkboard or the whiteboard or the overhead or whatever age group you are. So we got it in our head really early that a straight line is the logical progression of any path.

In the gym, we even have a progression style called linear periodization. That's pretty straightforward. Yep. I threw in a dad joke and it can be really effective. But let's check in with reality a little bit. When was the last time your plans went perfectly? I'm not talking something simple like your plan to watch the game on Sunday afternoon.

No, no, no, we're talking about larger life shaping plans. I know a lot of high school athletes who plan on playing at the pro level. And though they make serious efforts, statistics tell us that only a few like really small amounts do. We know early on in our childhood, we'd talk about what [00:01:00] we want to be, but there's only so many astronauts.

There's only so many CEOs, firemen, policemen, or whatever kids want to be these days. So how about we bring this in a little more recently? Did your last plan to make a lot of money work as you planned it out to? Are you working the job you always dreamed of working? Is that what you go do every day? One of the most powerful tools for resilience is the ability to pivot and shift.

Now your story's not over. And on today's show, we'll help you hone this concept so that you can keep moving forward, not just in a straight line when life throws something at you unexpectedly. So let's get into it.

Here's the million dollar question. How do men like us reach our full potential, growing to the men we dream of being while taking care of our responsibilities, working, being good husbands, fathers, [00:02:00] and still take care of ourselves? Well, that's the big question. In this podcast, We'll help you answer those questions and more.

My name is Brent and welcome to the Fallible Man podcast.

So a while back, I was having a conversation with a young man one day about where he wanted to go, where he was and how frustrated he was, where he was currently at. His dream was not going according to plan and the lion was not taking him where he wanted to go. His dream had been waylaid by life, honestly.

He had health issues that cut off one path, a mistake at school cut off another, still honesty about some choices he made when he was younger. Cut off another path. He was in a dead end job. That was a pale shade of what he actually wanted to do, but it was as close as he could find a way to come. So I introduced him to a new thought process as a possible [00:03:00] solution to his current situation.

But, you know, more on that in a second. By the way, my name is Brent and welcome to Fallible Man podcast. You're home for all things, man. Big shout out to Fallible Nation. That's our private community. And there's more information about that down below in the show notes and a warm welcome to our first time listeners.

Hey, thanks for giving us a chance and checking us out. I really appreciate it. I hope you enjoy the show. Now we're here talking about resilience today because it's a more relevant topic than ever. The last few years has taught us. All that life can just throw you a few curve balls in case you somehow hadn't already figured that out in your life.

And I talked about resilience a lot because I think it's important enough. So that we're doing our next live conference with a focus of on resilience in February, 2024. That's the Phoenix men's conference. Yep. We're doing a whole live event with multiple speakers on [00:04:00] this thing called resilience. And there's links below in the show notes.

For the Phoenix conference. You can go to my website and check that out. If that's something you're interested in is important. And despite the growing need for resilience, people are struggling with maintaining resilience, but onto this important tool to help you with your resilience. And help you keep moving forward when things just aren't going how you planned.

So what do I mean by pivot? Now, the dictionary actually has seven definitions for the word pivot, but we're going to focus on two today. One of them is the act of turning on a pivot. I think it's hilarious when dictionaries include the term in the definition because I don't think that explains much. The second one I really want to put our finger on today, though, is the situ the stationary foot.

around which a ball handler is allowed to pivot without dribbling. Now, [00:05:00] if you're not a basketball person, I'm not even either. So I'll explain this because I figure I'm not the only one who's not exactly a basketball fan. You may be unfamiliar with the second concept. So this is what it means when a player has been moving and stops dribbling, they cannot move with the ball again, except they can pivot on one fixed foot.

As long as that foot stays in place, it can be either foot. But whatever one they pivot on first is the only one they can pivot on. But as long as that foot stays exactly where it stopped, they can turn, move, they can move the other foot around them. They can spin on that foot. They can shift. They can look whatever direction they want to, as long as they don't pick up that foot.

When you come to an abrupt roadblock, an abrupt, we'll see if I can say that word, an abrupt roadblock on your path. You have two [00:06:00] options. You can run over it. Are. Moreover, run into it over and over and over. There is a third option. You can just quit or you can pivot. Look around, take stock, re evaluate your goals, re evaluate how you got there.

What are your bigger goals? Re evaluate those. Gain some new perspective and then decide to go, where to go from there. This is where my basketball analogy ends because I stink at basketball and I'm, like I said, not a basketball person, but it works for this example. Now, unlike the basketball player who has to shoot or pass at that point, right?

They can't go anywhere. I don't want you to do either. I don't think that's a smart choice. I don't want you to pass. It's still your life. So may I suggest you consider this option is to move on to step two on this [00:07:00] pivot and shift at this moment, you're now armed with data and you know, I'm a big data guy.

You know, what hasn't been working for you? What has been working for you? What is the problem that's stopping you? You can evaluate how you got to that point. What choices you made along the way. What do you want to achieve? Is it still the same thing as it was before you hit this roadblock? Are you still on that same path or has life changed more for you than that?

What options do you have on your current path? Or do you even still have options on said current path? Or is that pathway just done? What's your bigger goal? What has your experience been like so far as you traveled this path? You're armed with all these data points, and as you pivot and look around and contemplate all this data that is now free flowing in your head, you have options.

Process the [00:08:00] data with a focus on the why behind your bigger goals. You're still firmly planted where you are now, but is there a better option to proceed with based on the data that's available? Is it exactly what you envisioned? Probably not, but you can stop. Or you can shift in a new direction. Those are really your choices.

You know, I joke about, you can run into that same barricade over and over again. Sadly, that happens far too often. People just keep banging their head against the wall and then are confused about why it's not working for them. I think you guys are smarter than that. So these are your two options. You can stop or you can shift.

Now that may seem like a no brainer to a lot of you guys. I generally have a very high opinion of my audience. And so I think you guys are going, well, duh, Brent, you have to shift, right? You can't just stop. Well, unfortunately the world is full of people who hit a wall and stop. [00:09:00] You hear all the time. When people talk and it's easy to identify.

You hear people tell stories about the good old days or worse, the glory days. I hate that term. People who cry about life being unfair or just kind of slump and quit when things get rough. And then they never get back up. The world is full of people who hit that roadblock and just stop. And they're stuck in their life.

They're not where they want to be. They're not doing what they want to do. They haven't. Reach their dreams. They haven't reached their goals, but they quit. They just stopped. They hit that roadblock and they didn't have the resilience to keep moving forward. Now, like I said, we talk about resilience a lot.

Let me be clear. It's okay to mourn for a dream for a few minutes. You were working hard towards achieving, achieving that goal. I get it. You put a lot of [00:10:00] effort and time and energy and passion, love into pursuing those bigger dreams and goals. And when it comes up short hard, it's a gut check on that.

That's okay. You can mourn that dream for a few minutes. Let me be really specific for a few minutes. Yes, you put a lot into it. And if you process those data points and this dream is over more than that dream for a few minutes, but learn from it for whatever reason that things didn't go up, work out as planned, identify those reasons.

So you don't make that same mistake twice. And that failure is just a viable teaching moment. For yourself, which is better than just a loss. It's not a loss. If you learn something along the way that will help you on the next leg of the journey, it still stinks. I know firsthand it stinks when you hit that wall and like to not go the direction you wanted [00:11:00] it to.

I've had my big life plans upended more times than I'd like to admit. So I understand the pain when that dream stops, when you hit that wall, but my best days are yet to come. And so are yours because when met with adversity, you can be resilient. You can weather the storm and now you have the tool because you can pivot and shift.

to help you get through that. It may not look like you intended. It may look entirely different, but different may be better than you actually ever dreamed of. Hopefully you've experienced that turn where you were going this direction and you hit that wall and you went ahead and pivoted and like the outcome was way better than what you had actually thought of to start with.

Maybe you haven't dreamed that yet. Maybe you haven't hit that yet. But I, I think you will, this is a valuable skill to be able to [00:12:00] hit that roadblock process, all the data points, and then make a clear, sharp shift in your direction and move in a direction. That's going to serve you even more, even if you're not sure what that looks like now.

So back to our story. In the conversation I had with this young man, I asked him, is that dream actually still a possibility? Can you still achieve it if you go a different direction? And after some soul searching and he had already, it was, it was hard to say, but he had already gone through this in his head.

He told me it wasn't an option that he couldn't, there really was no way to achieve that goal anymore. Uh, things are just stacked wrong and it wasn't gonna, it wasn't gonna pan. So I asked him, what's the next dream? If this one is off the board, what do you want to [00:13:00] achieve now? Where do you want to go?

What's the story? What's the goal? What's the intention? And he thought about it for. A few minutes, like we continued this conversation on over a couple of days and he decided he wanted to follow another dream of his that had kind of taken a back seat. It was like the backup dream. So that's fine. Nothing wrong with backup dream.

I'm glad he actually had a secondary plan. So we weighed the options to help him follow this new path. In his current role in place, it was, it was unrealistic. It was a pipe dream. The job he had wouldn't support cost requirement to help him start on another path like this. Uh, it just didn't provide him the monetary needs to move forward in the direction he wanted to go.

So at the time I had some leverage where I could help him change his career into a new job. And get him started [00:14:00] on a new path that would help him afford his bigger dreams. Right? That was the goal. We just helped him move into a new career path that would actually help him monetarily be able to chase his other dream.

It wasn't what he wanted to do for a job. He had no intention of staying on this temporary path I put him on so he could. Achieved the monetary status. He needed to chase his bigger dream. He needed some training. It was going to cost him a lot. It was a short zig from where he was. To help him obtain that financial resources necessary to then start the new zag to this new path.

He stayed with the new job only for a couple of years, but it was enough to fund the necessary training and schooling and certifications to go on to [00:15:00] that next dream. I can happily say while there was still another zig or zag in the process, I got to follow that one, uh, all the way through the process.

After a few years of putting in the work, he followed that dream. And that's where he's at today. It doesn't look exactly like he originally intended it. It didn't go as smoothly as he hoped. And like I said, there were some zigs and zags that happened along that path as well, but that's where he is. He got to that dream and it took being willing to pivot and shift, go a different direction for a little while to build the base he needed to go the direction he wanted to go and then hard work from there.

But he got to where he wanted to go. And it was awesome to get to witness. I was so blessed to get to know him and be a part of his life as he was [00:16:00] going through that part of his story and see how he handled it. And it was amazing to watch. The path wasn't a straight line. It rarely ever is. The journey looked way different than expected, but because of the ability he had to pivot and shift when faced with adversity, he was able to be resilient.

When things didn't go as planned and he ended up in a great place when life gets rough and things go sideways You have two options guys or pivot and shift to move forward Those are really your only two options because I'm pretty sure stopping just isn't an option for you Are you wouldn't be listening to this show?

Guys, thanks for hanging out with me today. I hope you gotten something out of it. I'd love to get your feedback in the comments. If you enjoyed the show, leave us a review on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to the show that really benefits us. It helps more people see us. I think I'm [00:17:00] actually being shadow banned right now on a couple of my platforms.

And it's really hurting me. So I could really use the help. If you want to dig into resilience in a deep and meaningful way, go to the website, the fallible man. com slash the Phoenix is up on menu options and check out our upcoming conference, 2024, February, it's going to be awesome guys. Until then be better tomorrow because what you do today and I'll see you on the next one This has been the fallible man podcast your home for everything man husband and father Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss a show head over to www.

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