WTF do I do now? ( It's not what you think ), with Danielle Sprouls

Speaker 1 (00:02) Welcome to Building Your Leader Brand. Today on the show, Bob is speaking with Danielle Sprouls Speaker 2 (00:10) We do not control the world. We don't. We only control our response to it. And the ability to be adaptable, the ability to be curious, the ability to be teachable, That is what separates a good leader from a great leader. Speaker 1 (00:32) Right? Hi there and welcome to Building Your Leader Brand. I'm Bob Gentle and every week I spend time with incredible people who share their secrets to building, marketing, and monetizing their expertise and the mindset you need for your business to grow and thrive. If you're new to the show, cue confetti cannons, high fives, upbeat music. I'm reading my notes here. I probably should have confetti cannons and upbeat music. And then it says, I want you to imagine the kind of welcome you get at TGI Fridays on your birthday. Take a second, sit back before you start doing anything else. Take a moment and hit the subscribe or the follow button. That way you won't miss a single thing and you will help this show grow, which I really want. Again, if you're here, you're probably going to love the Personal Brand Business Roadmap. It's 50 pages of everything you need to start, scale, or fix your expert business. Visit amplifyme.agency/roadmap or hit the link in the show notes. Now you can start listening. Today's guest is someone who understands leadership when the stakes are real. Danielle Sproles spent more than 25 years in commercial real estate, has a background in law, has been involved in over $20 billion worth of transactions operating in high-pressure environments. Speaker 1 (01:47) Where decisions carry real consequences. Today, as the founder of Unscripted Pivots, she works with executives, founders, and leadership teams navigating the pivotal moments of change using her proprietary framework, the Pivot Advantage. She's also the author of WTF, We Can Talk About That, Women That Flourish, a fresh take on how high performers navigate uncertainty without losing momentum, or credibility. Danielle, welcome to the show. Speaker 2 (02:17) Thank you, Bob. I'm so happy to be here. I appreciate the platform to discuss everything personal branding. Speaker 1 (02:23) I'm looking forward to it. Did you enjoy my introduction? Was I vaguely accurate? Speaker 2 (02:28) Yes, you were 100% correct. And more than that, you said my last name correctly, which rarely happens. So kudos to you. Speaker 1 (02:37) Well, I cannot take credit for that because you briefed me as a host very well, which is awesome. Speaker 2 (02:43) I know it's the magic of TV. Speaker 1 (02:47) But we've known each other for a little while and I, I'm super nosy about other people's businesses and I've really enjoyed looking over your shoulder, finding out a little bit about what you do. But for the listeners, if I'm meeting you for the first time, can you maybe just give us some orientation about who you are, where you are, what it is you actually do? Speaker 2 (03:04) So I have a company called Unscripted Pivots LLC, and that's a leadership advisory firm. And within that framework, I do executive coaching, keynote speaking. Uh, it really was launched by WTF Women That Flourish book and a podcast I had, Bob, called Unscripted Pivots, which is still alive and well on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, all the platforms. I just haven't fed it new material for about a year and a half because this woman has been busy coaching, public speaking, and writing. The second book comes out soon, and, uh, that's where the attention has lied. Yeah. Speaker 1 (03:38) So what's interesting is I meet lots of people who aren't busy and it makes them unhappy. And a lot of these people have worked in leadership and management development and coaching for decades. A large part of your career has been in commercial real estate. Am I right? Am I correct? Speaker 2 (03:59) Yeah, that's correct. It actually still is. Yeah. Speaker 1 (04:03) And so it's always very curious to me how somebody manages to pivot like that and thrive because it's a difficult business to stand out in. It's very, very competitive. And when you meet somebody who's thriving, who hasn't been doing it forever, it's really interesting. So I'm curious to know from you what you think it is that's been that catalyst or that X factor. Speaker 2 (04:26) Well, not just for me, Bob, but what I witness, especially with the people that I coach. And so I get into the messy middle with them and I know the processes that they employ. It really is about looking at your career as more of a calling than an actual job. So the reason I have been able to successfully pivot— and like, let's be clear, this hasn't been easy street every day. There are many challenges when you pivot because you're literally redefining your identity, right, at its core. But this recent pivot and even the pivot before that, all of my pivots when I look at the trajectory of my career, have come from my understanding and acceptance that I should be going in another direction. And none of those decisions, including the most recent one a couple years ago, were made overnight. My ability to surrender is somewhat challenged by my need for control and surety. But today, what I understand better than any other time in my life is that it's okay to be a beginner again, even though you're an expert. On so many other things in your life. And if you feel that intuitive pull and it keeps revisiting you, that that's a message you should explore and possibly honour and dive into. Speaker 2 (05:43) And so I've become a little bit of a yes girl over the course, and I'll say yes to things because I'm being pulled there. At the same time, that requires, it actually demands me to be the no girl as well. And what I mean by that is As I say yes and explore new things in my life, I have to practise what I call selective restraint. You have to say no to a lot of things to say yes to others. And you know, therein lies a secret that I don't think most people, and I for myself, didn't understand for a long time. And it requires discipline. It requires sacrifice. There's a lot of things today that I need to say no to, to continue on the path that I'm on. That I would otherwise want to do or enjoy. That includes people, places, and things. So I'm, I'm just getting better and better at that. And there is a freedom, a liberation, if you will, that I've been experiencing by living in that type of acceptance. And so I'm having a great time doing what I'm doing. I feel more aligned than I ever have before. Speaker 2 (06:48) And it's not because being an attorney at first was wrong or being in title insurance was wrong. It was because those were seasons and they had their purpose. And I'm able to navigate into a new place and take those accumulated skill sets and just use them in a different way. I like to tell people I've gone from transactional to transformational in my work. Speaker 1 (07:12) So one of the things I read when I was getting ready to speak to you, and I can't remember exactly what it was or where it was, but it was talking about there are moments in everybody's life and everybody's business where it's clear something has to change. A pivot is invited. And a lot of people don't really know how to approach this. They don't have a strategy for it. There's no system. And in business and life, I like to pay attention to what you might call moments of impact, where when things happen, if you prepare for those moments, and you have a plan for those moments, you can move through them effectively. The moment where a pivot is invited is one of these moments of impact. And the natural response to them is to wing it or to— apparently winging is something I should stop saying. It's temporise is the word. But most people knee-jerk through a pivot or they just do what seems obvious or they fall back on what they've always done. Or more likely they fight it, they deny it, they try and avoid it. But like any moment of impact, if you can plan for it and if you can go through it effectively, you come out the other side of it better, happier, uh, with more flow. Speaker 1 (08:29) And your pivot framework, I think, is something I'd like to play with a little bit because it does offer what looks like a fairly predictable path through a pivot. So you can Go through the process with some grace rather than panicking, which is what a lot of people end up with. Can you tell me a little bit about that? Speaker 2 (08:49) I can, but I want to just first explore something that occurs before we learn how to pivot. So when you're mentioning disruption, something's happening and you didn't plan for it, right? That's on the regular, right? We experience that daily, whether it's in big or small ways, sometimes in our personal life, more often than not in our professional life, where we feel we have less control of what's occurring. So before we even get to the pivot process though, we have to reframe the moment that's upon us. And that's where the WTF book lies. So you're looking at it and you're saying, what the heck? Like, I didn't expect that. I didn't plan on that. And when we change the language to, well, WTF, where to focus, WTF, wake that flame, WTF, wisdom through failure, you know, being okay with stumbling forward, those kind of things. We change the experience when we change that language, Bob. And, you know, this isn't like a slogan. It, it really is more of neuroscience. When your brain approaches disruption as, you know, just an unplanned event, when it approaches it as an opportunity and not so much a threat, then you can get to the pivot process. Speaker 2 (09:58) The P-I-V-O-T advantage that I'm putting forth is really a decision sequence. That's all it is. A lot of us are already doing this naturally when we're making decisions well. And these are steps that are just— it's an acronym. I'm an acronym nerd. Everything I think about, I think in acronyms, which is how WTF even came to be. So PIVOT. And what I'm putting forth are, okay, we're pivoting. What does that look like? So the first letter is P, it's pause. The second is I, identify. The third step would be to vet. You're vetting your options. O, outreach, consult others. T, test, test and tweak. So this literally is just a 5-step process that embodies the word itself when you're making a pivot, because we're all pivoting, you know, and we're— and especially today, Everybody between the market and the political influences going on and AI, the introduction of how that is changing how we work, who gets a job, who doesn't get a job, all these things. There's so much pivoting. So we see the language constantly, gotta pivot, we should pivot, how are we gonna pivot? You know, it's how, it's not should we? Speaker 2 (11:15) Yeah, we are. We constantly are. How? So I'm putting forth a sequence of thinking that takes a leader from chaos to clarity. That's pretty much what it is. And that's why it's the PIVOT Advantage. This framework on its face is very simplistic, and this is true, but it honestly is genuinely hard because the majority of people, myself included, usually wants to blow past one of those steps. Okay? We might be good at 1 or 2 or 3. Go, yeah, yeah, yeah. I always call friends, I'm good at consulting people. I'm really good at, you know, vetting ideas with the team, whatever. But do I pause? Right? I would say that the first two steps, P and I, are the most critical. And when you skip those, you're more likely than not going to experience the consequences of your decision. And the higher the stakes, the worse it gets if you don't employ something like this. So I'm literally putting steps and words to a process that, you know, if you're deciding well, you're doing this already. I'm just bringing it to the forefront in a nuanced way. Speaker 1 (12:25) I think what's interesting as well is a lot of people probably have a go-to in terms of one of those steps is often the natural response to a crisis. Asking for advice, for example. A lot of people will endlessly ask for advice, but not do anything. Other people will sit. I'm one of these people who face— this is not true. I don't do this, but sit and pause for a very long time. I see this quite often. No action is safer than pivoting. But knowing that, okay, pausing might be, for example, your natural response, but you now have a plan for what's going to follow that. So you don't sit there in fear. Speaker 2 (13:07) Yeah, 100%. 100%. I mean, the pause, when I coach, I tell my clients, okay, you know, how are we pivoting? What's going on? And I'm like, look, we're gonna pause first, but pause leads to paralysis, you know, if you don't have a deadline on it. I mean, there has to be some sort of structure around your pause. The truth is most people, especially highly skilled people, tend to act with a sense of urgency and move too quickly. And now the threat becomes you start solving the wrong problem. So if you don't take hold of like what's going on and give yourself, you know, that pause, maybe it's just 24 hours, you really may not be assessing what's occurring, right? It's very easy to think that you have clarity or to be emotionally, you know, influenced by what has to happen. You know, oh, the client's mad and everything's going wrong. Let me get on the plane and I gotta go quiet this fire when that really wasn't the best move. So the pause is really critical. And when I look back on my own life, there were several times when there was a major decision before me and I didn't pause. Speaker 2 (14:12) I didn't pause. And I would experience a lot of discomfort later because of the decisions I made by not taking a beat. So that is one that's been instilled in me, what we'll call the proverbial hard way. When you learn lessons that are painful, they tend to stick, or you hope they, they stick. So I'm pretty good at pausing today, but I was not the pause girl for most of my life. East Coast, New Jersey native. Add to the fact that, you know, I'm a Leo, I'm one of five. I mean, like, you know, working in Manhattan for a couple decades, like speed was your friend. Okay? Speed was like how you're wired. I mean, that was almost equivalent to success. And it did get me some success moving quickly. That said, when it comes to decision-making, Pause is not stillness, it's strategy. And people have to get comfortable with that. Speaker 1 (15:05) Yeah. Listening to you, I think we often equate fast decision-making with authority and confidence. This is true. And I think, like you said, I mean, pausing requires a discipline. It's quite different when it's intentional, it's strategic. This is an intentional thing that I do to create a space for inspiration, for consultation and reflection in order that when I act, and we timebox this, I act knowing that I gave an honest space to everything. There's a fine line between being an action taker and being impulsive. And when the stakes are high, you don't want to risk being impulsive. And so that's why timeboxing this pause is a really good idea. It's a strong, not just a safeguard, but it's creating a space for the better idea or a little bit of inspiration or anything. Speaker 2 (16:06) No, absolutely. And you know, this isn't something that we learn and we do forever well. This is like something that you have to nurture. So whatever step, and for me it's pause, it's something that I have to protect. So yes, I've become very, familiar with its importance, and I'm pretty darn good at it today, but that doesn't mean I'll be great at it next month unless I practise it. So anything that we do that's new to us in life, right? You don't just get it, graduate, it's over. It's like nurture it. It's like a relationship with yourself, with how you perform. And any relationship, whether it's with a person or, you know, with a process, it requires your nurturing of it, your protection of it, grow it, feed it, understand it, embody it, practise it, practise, practise, practise. Speaker 1 (16:55) So when you're getting involved with people, leaders, organisations, things like that, there's the obvious pivots where we're having an operational or a brand pivot, or we've maybe had a merger or an acquisition and we need to transition from one identity to a new identity. As you were speaking, I was making notes there. Operational pivots, which are kind of obvious. There are identity pivots, which I would see as personal identity pivots. I kind of no longer identify with that past version of myself, but then there's existential pivots, I think is something we see quite often. It's just, I just don't feel right anymore. Then there's obviously the forced transitions in career and things like that. Where do you find you tend to end up? Is there a constant in terms of how you get involved with companies, or does it start one place and end up spreading across a much wider canvas? Speaker 2 (17:55) A lot of times I'm hired or engaged because there's something operational that everybody can tangibly point to, right? But when you start to do the work, you very quickly realise that the identity work is really at the heart of this matter because you have to treat the person who is moving through this shift and not just the shift itself. And to your point about having that like an outside feeling that something's not quite right, what I do is I help people find what that is and then own it, right? So there is a really beautiful intimacy in the honesty that can surface, not because they're being honest with me per se, but they're getting honest with themselves. And I seem to have a really great gift of creating a safe environment where, you know, the teams will lean in, the people will lean in because at the heart of it, there's no judgement. You know, it's like, We all have sides of ourselves when we're performing, and especially within a team that we know isn't the best version, and especially in the context of working together that you need to address and change, you know, just, just, just pivot. Speaker 2 (19:17) And so it's, you know, operationally, you know, you, you'll get there if you can, you know, attack the deeper issues and they always exist. We, we're human beings. You know, within these companies. And I think that we always need to remember that. And it doesn't matter how much, you know, AI will influence how we work. We are still human beings operating that. So it's a lot about alignment at the end of the day, Bob. That's really what it is. Speaker 1 (19:44) Yeah. So listening, I'm visualising a boardroom and this all makes perfect sense. I think having a process. To move through change effectively is a competitive advantage. If a business has process for controlling adjustment. Speaker 2 (20:04) Okay. Are you intentionally using the tagline of my new book? Speaker 1 (20:07) No, sorry. Speaker 2 (20:08) Or you don't know it? No. You don't know it. Okay. I did not tell you. So the book that's coming out is called The PIVOT Advantage. How Leaders Turn Chaos into Their Competitive Edge. Speaker 1 (20:21) Ah. Speaker 2 (20:21) So you're using both the word competitive and advantage in what you just said. And so I lit up and that literally is, that literally is what this is. And so you do have an edge, you do have an advantage when you follow this sequence of decision-making. Mm-hmm. Now the, the book is addressing the business world. That said, any person that follows this sequence is just going to be better off for it. It doesn't mean that your outcome will be what you had hoped it to be, but where you'll be in that outcome will be a better version of you, right? So it's about sound decision-making. Speaker 1 (21:01) Well, this was actually where I was going because like I said, in the boardroom, this makes perfect sense because it's high stakes. And if you can control those pivots or make them more productive, you will see the competitive advantage. But on a— I'm thinking about it from the perspective of a one-man business. That's not to do down anybody that supports my business. You're all awesome. But I meet people all the time where the sales strategy just doesn't seem to be working, or their content strategy doesn't seem to be working, or this product doesn't seem to be landing with my audience properly. 'Or this identity that I've been leaning into doesn't seem to be working,' or 'This vision of who I am doesn't work anymore.' 'This limiting belief I have, it's not helping me.' But that same pivot process we can bring to that and use those same processes to move from that unproductive condition through a decision-making matrix that will guide us towards a much more productive situation. And I reflect on myself, the various stages in the process that you outlined. I think the one that I'm terrible at is looking for advice. I listen to podcasts and things like this all the time, but I know lots of people and never ask, how do you think I could break through here? Speaker 1 (22:23) And it would be so easy, but for some reason I feel like I'm self-contained. So if I simply say I have a standard operating position operating a standard operating procedure for pivot, I can not guarantee the outcome, but I can guarantee I will have given myself every chance to get to the outcome that was going to be productive, which is quite exciting actually. It's not something I've ever really considered before. Speaker 2 (22:58) Well, okay, so then you're referring to the O for Outreach, right? And so you keep using the word advice, and a lot of people are allergic to that, to that, um, idea, because they think that that's like surfacing a fact that they have weakness. And somewhere in the leadership's, you know, storey of leadership, it was like, oh, you know, you can't ask, that means you don't know your own answers. And so there's a vulnerability. But really What O is standing for is perspective. Why not gain perspective? So it doesn't necessarily mean advice. It doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to change, but when we— an informed decision is better than an uninformed decision. So it really is, uh, it's a competitive edge when you lean on the trusted sources. I mean, we know that even from a mental health standpoint, we do better when we're not in isolation. And for those businesses that might be listening to this that are more like, you know, the solopreneurship going on, it behoves us to lean into the wisdom and experience of others. You know, consider who you're asking for any given problem. And you took us from the boardroom, Bob, into, you know, smaller businesses. Speaker 2 (24:11) Okay. But, and you said, well, maybe lower stakes, it's, it, it's less activity and less relationship building. But I will tell you, Anything is high stakes. You can take this into your home and say, oh, should I use this process so that my marriage doesn't fail? Now, it's not gonna save a marriage, but what it will do is improve, improve, vastly improve the form of communication that will occur, especially the pause, Bob. Okay? So anybody out there that has a partner, if you pause before you decide or you say the next thing, you're doing yourself a real service. That's what I'm gonna tell everybody. So You know, and I don't know if my husband would say I use it super well, but you know, I do use it. So the stakes are always high because it's always coming back to us, just who we are and how we feel. And so this is not so much performance as it's just embodying a way of life that can give you peace, clarity, freedom. I mean, that's what it is. That's what I'm always looking for. That's, you know, that's what I want. Speaker 1 (25:12) I think the outreach piece in particular is something I reflect on as well, is reaching out to somebody and telling them you would, you perhaps need help. It's a gift. I think when people ask me for help, it's so self-affirming that somebody would actually consider that I am the person that might offer to help them. Obviously there are constraints to that. But if it's somebody that genuinely knows me, it's, it's truly hard. Speaker 2 (25:44) So, so true. It is. And, you know, I remember a mentor once telling me, you know, along these lines, more in the personal sphere, but they're like, Danielle, how dare you deny somebody the opportunity to be useful or to shine or to recognise their importance to you in, in your life and in your relationship with them. And when you look at it from that perspective, you're saying, okay, that's not, um, that's not really burdensome for me to lean in and ask for some, whether it's perspective or help in any way, shape, or form. But the other part of it too is ego. I mean, you know, especially when we're in the business sphere, people don't want to outreach necessarily because they don't want to look like they don't have the answers. They don't wanna seem weak. And the higher up the chain you go as a leader, You know, let's say all the way to founder of the company, it's like, well, who else is supposed to have the answers but me? And will they question my authority if I look weak here? There's a lot of things that, you know, the self-talk can really kind of spin. Speaker 2 (26:47) And so that's a lot of the coaching work that I do too, because it gives that individual or that smaller team within a company the safe place to let these questions and concerns land, essentially so we can address them See them as true, work through it, and know that this doesn't stop the train. The bus is gonna still keep going, you know? And so without the, sometimes not in within the earshot of somebody they're reporting to, you know, they don't want, oh, is this gonna create job insecurity? You know, I can't let my boss know that I don't know A, B, or C, or that I'm afraid or this or that. You know what I mean? We need a place for these things, these questions to land. And then pick up the tools. We all, we have these toolkits, all, each and every one of us. Sometimes they're missing a couple things we need to add. Oftentimes I experience, because the people that I coach are mostly like, you know, kind of like, you know, mid-level and above, is that they forget how to pick up a couple or what they can use them for. Speaker 2 (27:44) So, you know, we come in and I know you do coaching as well, and we shine a flashlight on these things and there's clarity. So really, now that I think about this out loud, my entire thing is out, my whole career really is about outreach people saying, I need a new perspective. I need some accountability. I need vision. I don't like to use the word plan too much. And people throw that around all the time. I like to have a direction because I think that when we have a plan, a lot of people like, whoa, whoa, whoa, this happened now, the plan's not working. No? What's your vision? How we get there may change. We do not control the world. We don't. We only control our response to it. And the ability to be adaptable, the ability to be curious, the ability to be teachable, that is what separates a good leader from a great leader. Right? So, and person, you know, not person in and of themselves, but just any way you move through the world. Curiosity, being teachable, and looking at what opportunity did this present? You know, the identify step in PIVOT really stands for, you know, asking the better questions. Speaker 2 (29:02) And you have to really take a look at, am I asking the right question here after my pause? Because more often than not, I mean, I encourage anybody listening to this today, you know, it, it could be just a something at home. See if you're asking the right question when something kind of threw you off base. 'Cause more often than not, it's not. Usually it's around how can we stop the bleed? How can I stop this? Oh, so-and-so is probably, oh, I know, you know, he or she or they or whatever want this. And that's, it's, it's deeper than that, you know? So when you start asking the right question, you're moving towards the right solution. Speaker 1 (29:38) So let's, let's run through the, the, the Pivot Advantage framework from start to finish, just in case people are losing track of it. I'll lean on you for this. I'm not gonna risk it myself. Speaker 2 (29:51) Okay. All right. So when we are about to make a decision, and especially when it's in a time of disruption, when there's some that really sense of urgency that exists and we're like, oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, that wasn't supposed to happen. We've got a little chaos, right? The very first thing is we do is we pause. We pause to get grounded and to regain clarity. I mean, because this is where speed actually— there, I think there's an old saying, speed kills. Yeah, speed kills, right? So when you ground yourself even for 24 hours, you can then set the trajectory of the next step, which is identify. So I is identify. Identify what is the right question that's happening here. Identify, you know, the opportunity that exists. When facts change, which they often do, especially in the business world, you have to know how to adapt to those new set of facts. And sometimes the way the play— the playbook that worked a week or year ago no longer applies. There's an opportunity to differentiate yourself in business. If you're taking like that step seriously. So it's almost like developing a new strategy. And V is vet, right? Speaker 2 (31:03) You have to vet what your options are. And when I go into, you know, teams within companies, what we're looking at there is, you know, every idea should go through 3 philtres. The feasibility, you know, do you have the people and resources to accomplish what you, the, you know, the trajectory you want to be on, what your options are? Do you have the alignment? Is this aligned with the mission that you're on? Right? And then look at the impact. What's the impact to the bottom line? Not just to the income and profit, but also to the people. So feasibility, alignment, and impact. That would be for VET. And O. O is so important. O is just gaining perspective. And one of the things that I often talk about is You know, build those relationships before you need them. You know, we all— everybody has a number or two in their phone that they're probably not utilising today for an issue that they're dealing with. And they know somebody who has. And, you know, get outside your own self, park that ego and reach out. If anything, like you alluded before, we help people recognise their worth in our relationship. Speaker 2 (32:19) You're doing them a service. Gain perspective. And then T stands for test. A lot of people will pause, will identify, we're gonna vet, and then, you know, we gain perspective from outside sources, and then it comes time to test. And unless your plan meets contact with reality, that's all it is, is a plan. Okay? There's nothing happening. The people that test quickly are the ones who win. That also means they're the ones willing to fail First. Fail first, fail often. Not everything that we test is a success, but it's putting it into motion. Nothing changes unless there's action around it that does that. You know, we don't— I mean, if anybody finds a crystal ball out there, you know, let's go share it. But nobody gets one. So you have to— you're making an informed decision. By the time you do P-I-V-O-T, you're in a solid place. To move forward, and then you do. Speaker 1 (33:18) What's really interesting, as you run through this earlier today, if, and if you're listening to this podcast, I don't know if this interview comes out before or after the interview that I did with Charlie Curzon. He, he, he recently published a book called Be More Strategic. Okay, a lot of people approach strategy as complex, um, and if you ask most people in the street what strategy They'll tell you it's a plan or specific tactics, but a strategy is, it's a series of decisions and it's a process that we go through to get to the plan. And most people overcomplicate that process. What you've outlined here is essentially a really simple and effective series of steps to go through to build a strategic adjustment or a strategic reset, which is incredibly valuable. Speaker 2 (34:16) I think it has some value because I'm speaking on so many stages right now about it and this book's not even out. And really, I mean, so I do know that this process is of service and that, that just, I mean, that makes my heart sing. But the reason that it was even created wasn't so that I thought, oh, let me teach some people what they know. It was me living through some very hard times over the course and then naturally recognising the sequence of these steps. And then in comes the acronym nerdy brain, uh, you know, and after WTF being, you know, born, which is that book really isn't— that, that book is about pivots. At the core of that book, it's not about the WTF moment, it's about the pivot possibility within the chaos. That's what the WTF book is about. But I recognised that from a corporate America stance, that that message was almost getting buried. And as I was— started coaching and speaking, The Pivot book really came from the need to share it in a simplified way, right? So this is more of the how, you know, WTF talks about The need to pivot and changing the mindset so you can get there, so you can get into motion. Speaker 2 (35:34) Wake That Flame, What's the Fix, Wisdom Through Failure, you know, Worth the Fear, my favourite chapter, WTF, worth the fear. Because there will always be fear when we're shifting and pivoting, right? Because there's how much fear is, is, you know, get, well, depends what, how, what the stakes are. But I'm like, WTF, it's worth the the fear? What is your relationship with fear? Align with fear, harness fear. Fear has got a bad rap. All these four-letter words, they got a bad rap, people. You know, fear is not a bad thing. It's a signal. It's just saying, guess what? This is important. That's, that's all it's telling you. How you treat it is up to you. So the, you know, the Pivot book itself that's coming out, the P-I-V-O-T Advantage says, okay, I've talked about pivoting in WTF. This is the how. Yeah. Okay. And through that, and there'll be a companion workbook that will go with it. And I didn't think I would roll that out right away, the end of this book. And interestingly enough, this book is a fable. This book is contained within a story. So you can see how the pivot process is working in the CEO's life and the woman who's coaching him through it. Speaker 2 (36:46) And then it goes on to like a workbook, like maybe 14 pages. But I'm already out there doing workshops on this. So I thought, let me create a workbook that other people can utilise and do it with their teams. I mean, Danielle, party of one. I'm not gonna be out there teaching the whole world. Hey, you know, there will probably be some licencing around it because I mean, hey, it's my brainchild. But the truth of the matter is I want to see the ripple effect. Nothing gives me greater joy than seeing people learn through this process. And it makes their life better and easier, right? It— that's what it's done for me. And that's what it does when I choose to use it. I am human. On any given day, I'm missing 2 of those steps on any given day, right? Danielle is not an AI figurine. So, you know, there's a lot of outside influences, but when we practise this, this becomes your new leadership style. And when I say leadership, you don't have to own a big company to be a leader. You are your own leader. You're leading through life, period. You're only in charge of yourself. Speaker 2 (37:50) It's the only thing you can control. So yeah. Speaker 1 (37:53) It's really interesting as you're speaking, we often think of a pivot as a binary choice. I can stay as I am, or I can do this. And fear is often an opportunity for a pivot and everything worth having is on the other side of that. And like you said, fear is a beacon. And it's really interesting that I could talk about this for hours, but I'm not going to. Speaker 2 (38:21) No, I know. It really, it opens up so many conversations. When I was writing WTF, I couldn't land the plane with that book. That book could have been its own book. And it was the first thing I wrote. And I was just writing organically about my life and what I was saying. And all of a sudden I'm like, wow, you're at like 50 pages for this one chapter. Like, Stop, you know? But it is a rich, deep topic, you know? And it's worth exploring. It really, really is. Because so much about fear is what holds us back in life. And fear is natural, but overcoming it, it— there is nothing more liberating than addressing your fears and overcoming it. I always had a fear around public speaking. Like, no bueno. You could put me in a room of 5,000 people and I will meet every stranger. I will interrupt every conversation so I can sell title insurance. Like, I just have courage, right? Yeah. And you'd put me on, like, in front of people where they're like, okay, she's presenting. Oh no. Oh no, no, no. Like, like that. Like, you know, no, I had zero interest in that. Speaker 2 (39:24) And today I do that and, you know, yeah, sure, there's butterflies and stuff and I'm just, I'm just honing that process. And that's just a newer part of me. And I'm about to get serious training around that, really at the suggestion, because I keep getting hired. And then some woman who does this, you know, like hires people, she said, you want some zeros after your fee? I said, I'm here for impact more than I am income. And she said, look, you've got everything that is hard to be a speaker. You got it down. You got content, you got flow, you got all. She's like, now it's almost like the persona. Like, let's bring that out. And I thought about that and I said, okay, that would mean that I'm taking the speaker business as a business and not just, you know, as a, a platform for communicating what I'm, you know, what writing about and coaching on. And so this is like the new thing. And I would've told you years ago, no way am I gonna do that. You know, another testament quickly, I jumped out of a plane. You're looking at somebody who is historically so afraid to fly, even commercial airlines. Speaker 2 (40:25) I did it. My work demanded it. But the anxiety around it was, I don't, it, it was unnatural. But lots of people have that with the flying thing and the claustrophobia thing and all that. And now I'm skydiving. I've skydived twice. I am jumping out of perfectly good aeroplanes. Why? Because I'm doing it with the people I love most, which are my adult children. And they're like, hey, we wanna do this. Wouldn't that be cool? And what I'm thinking is, I don't want to jump out of a plane, but I do wanna make that memory with you. Like, that will be funny as heck. And so I've done it twice already. Now, if a girlfriend says, hey, you wanna jump out of a plane tomorrow? I'll just say, no, I'm good. I'm not looking to jump out of planes, but I am looking to say yes to the things that I want to do that otherwise are just tangled in my head. So I look at the barometer. Why do you wanna do this? If the answer's yes, why aren't you doing it? I'm scared. I'm uncomfortable. I don't, you know, okay, let's address that piece. Speaker 2 (41:17) Can we overcome that piece? And that, that is like the single most liberating thing. When you can get real with yourself and be willing to put it in perspective, gosh, it's like there's nothing you can't do if you want to. You, but you have to be willing to not be great at, at new things that you try. Hobbies, public speaking, whatever the heck it is, you have to be willing to be a beginner. And I will tell you, a lot of people who are experts are not willing to do that. They're not willing to look small. Speaker 1 (41:47) Yeah. Speaker 2 (41:47) And you know, yeah. Speaker 1 (41:49) So there's the stuff. And that's the biggest opportunity. You have opened so many doors I would love to go through with you. Speaker 2 (41:55) I know we can. Speaker 1 (41:56) But we'll have to do that another day. Speaker 2 (41:59) Mm-hmm. Speaker 1 (42:00) Danielle, let's move into your amplifiers. 3 things people can go and do, mental models, podcasts you love, frameworks that you adore, practises. It doesn't matter. Anything from journaling to everyone should eat cucumber. I don't know. What's Amplifier Number 1? Speaker 2 (42:15) Hey, Cucumber. I like cucumbers. Firing it off, you know, I mean, not to reiterate what we talked about, but just, you know, whenever you're going through any kind of thing that's throwing your, you know, disrupting your autopilot, reframe it. Take a beat, reframe what's going on. Recognise that this isn't happening to you, it's happening for you, right? You know, leave the self-pity party and see the opportunity that presents. And, you know, along those lines, Number 2, you know, a 24-hour self-audit. I, I like to say to people, you know, take a, take a minute to see what something's going to cost you if you don't make this change. And we're not just talking about money, we're talking about energy, confidence, relationships. All these things cost us. So a 24-hour personal audit is something that I like to use when I'm thinking, mm, I'm being indecisive, you know? And then 3, P-I-V-O-T. I think it's the most valuable thing that I can reiterate. I mean, I listen to a lot of podcasts, I read a lot of books. I don't know that there's one that, that's at the top of mind that I would throw out that would take another 15 minutes of like, oh, isn't this great? Speaker 2 (43:19) Atomic Habits, love that. Okay. But go read WTF. And it's not because I'm trying to sell books. I, I think that that really is a very interesting way and to take what we universally understand to be one thing and shift. It all begins with the language. See it for something different and your world changes. Speaker 1 (43:39) Well, I will put a link to your website and the book in the show notes. When the new book's out, you must come back. Speaker 2 (43:49) I would love to. Speaker 1 (43:51) We can do, we're going to go deep on some of the doors that we didn't go through this time and talk about that book. Speaker 2 (43:57) Thank you. Speaker 1 (43:58) So that does bring us to the end of another episode. Thank you so much for spending some of your time with me today. If you did enjoy the show, I would love if you would leave a 5-star review. That's 5, count them if you're on video, wherever you listen to podcasts. It takes about 10 seconds and it makes a huge difference to me. And if you know just one person who might get something from this, send it their way, please. If today's conversation sparked something for you, you'll want to grab the Personal Brand Business Roadmap. It's completely free, 50 pages of everything you need to start Scale or Fix Your Expert Business. Find a link in the show notes or head straight to amplifyme.agency/roadmap. Thank you at home or wherever you are for listening. And Danielle Sproles, thank you so much for your time. Speaker 2 (44:46) Thank you, Bob. It was a pleasure.