Build in Public: How I'm Pivoting in Week 2

Your business needs to work for you AND those you serve.

It’s only week two of the Bizorca Pod curriculum, and I’ve decided to pivot.

When I designed the entire 12-month curriculum for Bizorca Pod back in November, there was a strategic arc for the participants. Basically, I built it out as an integrated full-year program with weekly live workshops.

Then I hit a wall this past Sunday, both in my personal journey and in preparation for the live workshop on Monday.

On the business side, just one week in, the entire curriculum felt forced and performative.

I didn’t like that. It didn’t honor some of my own needs and preferences, and based on the practitioners that are actually joining the program, it didn’t feel like it was going to meet their needs, either.

So yesterday, I took a knee, for both personal and business reasons. I cancelled the live workshop, cancelled my local appointments, and took space for self-reflection and catching up on much needed sleep.

This morning, with a clearer head and sans exhaustion, I attended to my duties as an audio engineer at our local community radio station, recording the February episode of our local Master Gardener In the Garden radio show. Then, I turned my attention to evaluating and reformulating what the Bizorca Pod curriculum could look like.

Taking space for myself yesterday allowed me to do exactly what the oracle card I drew this morning says to do: Don’t make decisions in the heat of the moment.

I recognized there was a structural challenge for both myself and for those whom I serve. I created a day of separation from that challenge, so that I could come back to it the next day with the proper energy and brainpower, and address the challenge in a way that — hopefully — balances my own needs with yours.

Even though I’ve gone through this process many times before — the process of developing a business model that suits my desired lifestyle while still properly serving clients — it’s never easy. Finding balance and harmony across your personal and business lives is extremely challenging, and it’s easy for one side to begin overshadowing the other

For me, I needed to get clarity on the sequence of topics that would benefit business owners, while also developing a live Zoom meeting cadence that was sustainable for myself. Beginning with that end in mind, I’m remapping the curriculum around a central topic, and taking a hybrid approach to live vs pre-recorded content. Instead of completely changing the topic each month, I’ve decided to operate from the paradigm of a topic “arc”, show “season”, or subject “semester” — choose the metaphor that works for you.

This semester, or season, the arc is Business, On Purpose. This 12-week arc will be intended to help you clarify the intent behind your purpose, and help you design the business you’re willing to sustain.

Yep, it’s kinda meta for me. Funny how that works, eh? :)

I’m going to package the exercises that would have been in yesterday’s workshop into short videos and encourage completion of the exercises at your own pace, over the course of this week and next week, and we’ll proceed from there.

Over this 12-week arc, we’ll incorporate lessons learned from what was our book club read for this month, The E-Myth Revisited. So keep reading that, it’s going to be integrated into this semester at sea.

Hopefully this approach will create a more cohesive course that benefits you, and it inherently also makes instructional design better for me. There will continue to be live sessions, just spread out a little bit over the course of the semester/season/adventure.

If you’re not already enrolled, you can join in right now at https://pod.bizorca.com/invitation?code=B82D8E.

Lastly, if you have any anxiety or heartache about some structural element of your business, I actively encourage you to do what I just did: Take space to process what it is about the business that is creating the distress.

Then, address it immediately. Don’t let it fester into something that causes even more distress, guilt, shame, or frustration. Transform it into something that you can be excited about doing, that honors yourself. Your clients will see that you are happier with your business, and that will make them happier to be working with you.