I talk about my life in pieces. Today, I talked about pivots.
Startups demand pivots, is something I learned through osmosis. Some pivots are actually kind of tempting. Some sound boring. But never did I expect to be talking about pivots, down in the weeds of the business world.
The first time we talked about pivots, I panicked. How could we even joke about throwing everything away?
There are times I think about what my life was supposed to be like. I remember what my life used to be. What’s happened to my handwriting? Do I remember how to use a synecdoche? On the other, a part of me is kind of proud. Look at me, I know what a pivot is.
I’m used to moving writing around. You delete half of it or all of it. If there is only a sentence, a phrase, or a word that is right, that’s more than enough to start a second draft. I don’t think I’m making up my days from nothing. But these days, I’m actually excepted to color outside the lines.
It’s actually harder to be creative on demand. Could I pull off a pivot in practice, if I was asked to? A part of me feels like I pivot all the time. One day, my job is looking at selfie spots and researching hashtags. Other days I need dedicate solely to spreadsheets and pivot tables.
It’s all pivots, but the startup pivot is different. You have to care to make it work, more than what you cared about what you were doing before. It’s bad to care too much about something because you may be disappointed. It’s also bad not to care about pivots, because you might just need one to get somewhere.
