Ep111 Transcript: You Don’t Need Permission to Pivot – Top Takeaways from Jill Konrath

How do you get permission to pivot into something new in midlife? Well, my friend Jill Konrath went from high school teacher to sales rep to consultant to author and speaker, and now she’s launching a movement with her what’s really possible, blog.

She didn’t get permission from someone to make these big changes and big pivots in her life. She just leaned into them as they were presented to her. She also talked about how she just knew when it was time to pivot into something new.

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In episode 110, she also talked about when she knew it was time to pivot into something new. Stay tuned for my top takeaway aways from Jill Konrath.

In episode 110, I talked to Jill Konrath, who at age 70 is starting some amazing cool things with her, what’s really possible blog, but I knew her from when she was an internationally recognized sales expert. What I didn’t know, is her backstory behind that, where she was a school teacher and sales rep, and I love the things she shared in episode 110 about the way she reframed her thoughts when some of these pivots were coming up.

So for example, when she was launching something new and someone asked her, who is going to sell the thing that she was launching, she thought, I hate sales. I can’t stand it, and you might be feeling the same thing. I’ve often thought that as well, that I don’t like selling. It feels kind of difficult. It feels sometimes people think it’s sleazy and it really isn’t.

As Jill said, selling is really all about helping your client achieve the things that they want. I love that she didn’t even like selling, she had no background in selling, she was a teacher, and yet she was able to lean in to this selling profession and being a sales rep and then being a consultant and expert in the matter without any of this formal training behind her.

She didn’t need permission to pivot into that. She didn’t need a fancy degree or anything like that. She just learned and knew what she needed to do and leaned into it.

The other thing that really caused a reframe for her is when there was a recession and downturn in the economy, she was worried that she was over the hill, that she wasn’t able to serve any longer, and that took a reframe for her, and that’s what this whole podcast is about, is that you are not over the hill. There are people doing amazing things, launching new things at 70, at 80, whatever time you want. Why not? Why? Why do we have something around age like we are too old to serve anymore, but it’s this weird thing in society that we have around age. But it’s this arbitrary number that doesn’t have anything to do with our skills and what we have available to give.

The other thing that I loved about Jill’s interview is she had this aha moment when she kept going around saying that she was fine and that she was doing okay. And when she finally let her guard down and became more vulnerable and told people that she was struggling, she realized this huge community of people who were also feeling the same way.

And I think that. Also brings the right opportunities to us because people then feel safer to connect and share what’s happening with them, and we’re able to then find solutions together or help each other. So we don’t need to have this fake, I’m fine to answer when someone asks, how are you? We can share what’s really going on with us so that people can give us the help that we need.

And yes, being vulnerable is scary. Pivoting into something new is scary, and maybe sales are scary for you, but we don’t need this permission from someone else to do something that we are drawn to. We can do it anyway, so if you haven’t had a chance, go and listen to episode 110. I loved it and thought there were lots of good lessons that Jill shared in it.