Podcast
PIVOT & GRIT
Hosted by Vaughan Broderick · EN
Starting and growing a business is really, really hard. That’s my experience anyway.
Being an entrepreneur takes a lot of resilience, optimism and determination to overcome some of the biggest challenges all while keeping a healthy balance in life.
This is Pivot and Grit and I am your host Vaughan Broderick.
I've learned how to start and grow a successful business (aka failing a lot), kickstart new careers and achieve academically all while in midlife. I'm also a design thinking coach, MBA graduate, entrepreneur, business mentor, speaker and a proud Dad of two.
And, I want to share everything I've learned with you on my podcast.
Listen in as I share all the mistakes I've made and what I've learned so that you can get on the right path faster. We'll cut through the noise and get to the point on topics like entrepreneurship, MBA content, design thinking, innovation, strategy and the mindsets that matter. I want you to walk away with everything you need to be successful.
Pivot and Grit is for entrepreneurs, startup owners, busy professionals and anyone who's trying to up their game.
I'll be giving you actionable advice in under fifteen minutes once a week. Think of this show as your entrepreneurship MBA in your pocket!
If you give me your time, I promise I won't take it for granted.
It's never too late to pivot and grit! So, let’s get to work!
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10episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
Innovation by Design - The Resourcing Phase
Sep 12, 202200:07:00Tap to summarizeWelcome back today, what we're going to be talking about is resourcing your project.Once you've come up with the innovation, tested it and you've got enough confidence that it's a great product.You will need to resource it.And, we aren't just talking about money.There are other forms of capital that you will need to be successful.Listen in and find out what you need to do.Including the framework for ensuring the project doesn't fail.Enjoy and here's to your success.If you liked this episode, check out these:Podcast: Design Thinking 101Podcast: Brains, Bravery and BeliefBlog: Design Thinking for Innovation – Ultimate Guide and DownloadMore about the show: Pivot & GritLet’s connect!LinkedInTwitterWebsite
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Why Create a Podcast?
Aug 18, 202200:06:25Tap to summarizeWelcome back to the show everyone.Why create a podcast?There are three reasons that I’ll share with you today, they are purpose, creativity and confidence. I want to help busy entrepreneurs and executives unlock value using design thinking. And, help people make a change in their life with the knowledge that I have built up.I am someone that has been in business for many years and found that while I am good at traditional business skills, creativity is something that is not common in that domain.The opportunity to bring creativity into the business world has been a wonderful experience and something that I connected with immediately - such as design thinking, user research, service design, business and strategic designI’m also certain that creative skills are more and more valuable in this VUCA world that we live in. As an introvert sharing publicly has taken a while to get to.In reality though the hardest things was the first step (just like most things) and now that I’ve started it helps to stretch my comfort zone, live with the ambiguity and the messiness of design. While I continue to learn more and share more.So for me this podcast is serving 3 main things:It’s helping people to learn skills and change their lifeIt helps me to remain creative and put something into the worldIt gives me confidence by nurturing positive habitsThat’s all for this week - If you liked this episode - please share it with one person that needs to hear the message and leave a 5 star review.Don’t forget to head over to the website and grab the list of 101+ innovation resources as a free download from my website - link in the description.Until next time, thank you for listening in.Here’s to your success!101+ Innovation Resources FREE download available hereIf you liked this episode, check out these:Podcast: Design Thinking 101Podcast: Brains, Bravery and BeliefBlog: Design Thinking for Innovation – Ultimate Guide and DownloadMore about the show: Pivot & GritLet’s connect!LinkedInTwitterWebsite
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Innovation by Design - The Testing Phase
Aug 15, 202200:07:12Tap to summarizeWelcome back to the show everyone.This week we’re letting our inner mad scientist loose by prototyping and testing our ideas.You'll learn techniques to prototype and test ideas, why low fidelity, failing often and early is critical and mindsets that matter.Some common pitfalls are:Not dedicating the time for testingOver analysing instead of doingWeak data - what people say instead of doLooking for evidence that only confirms your hypothesisNot doing enough experimentsFailing to learn from insights and iterateGetting others to do the testingTop tips are:Don’t fall in love with your ideaStart low fidelity and increase as you gain evidenceExpose the concept or prototype early and let people be criticalFail, early, often and low costTrack feedback, insights and progressThat’s all for this week - If you liked this episode - please share it with one person that needs to hear the message and leave a 5 star review.Don’t forget to head over to the website and grab the list of 101+ innovation resources as a free download from my website - link in the description.Until next time, thank you for listening in.Here’s to your success!101+ Innovation Resources FREE download available hereIf you liked this episode, check out these:Podcast: Design Thinking 101Podcast: Brains, Bravery and BeliefBlog: Design Thinking for Innovation – Ultimate Guide and DownloadMore about the show: Pivot & GritLet’s connect!LinkedInTwitterWebsite
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Innovation by Design - The Creating Phase
Aug 6, 202200:10:39Tap to summarizeWelcome back everyone.Today’s show we get back to innovation by design.After validating desirability, we now work on feasibility, starting with the creating phase.Before we lean into that, just a reminder about last weeks episode on Brains, bravery and belief - a model from Dr. Christian Walsh used to help entrepreneurs learn from failure, which is something that we need to adapt to during feasibility. Check that show out for more context into failure than simply failing fast.Let’s get back to creating. I think what’s helpful is to understand that creativity is introducing something new into the world, your organisation or yourself that is novel and useful.Which means that there are various levels of innovation and innovation doesn’t have to be the next Air B’n’B.When I started thinking and learning about innovation , I thought that it was beyond my skill set. The reality is that anyone can learn to be creative.We unpack 10 common myths surrounding innovation, learn about 'the tortoise and the hare' and plenty of tools for generating ideas.Until next time, thank you for listening in.Here’s to your success!101+ Innovation Resources FREE download available hereIf you liked this episode, check out these:Podcast: Design Thinking 101Podcast: Brains, Bravery and BeliefBlog: Design Thinking for Innovation – Ultimate Guide and DownloadMore about the show: Pivot & GritLet’s connect!LinkedInTwitterWebsite
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Brains, Bravery and Belief - An Antidote to Failure
Jul 29, 202200:06:24Tap to summarizeBrains, Bravery and Belief - An Antidote to Failure.The framework to overcome failure is:Brains - learning from failure - experimentation basedBravery - whole person learning, self-compassion and emotional resilienceBelief - reflection, double-loop learning, and rethinking*Credit to Dr. Christian Walsh for developing this frameworkAs we head into learning about Creating and Testing - this framework will be super useful.Every entrepreneur and innovator needs Brains, Bravery and Belief.Don’t forget to head over to the website and grab the list of 101+ innovation resources as a free download from my website - link in the description.If you liked this episode - please share it with one person that needs to hear the message and leave a 5 star review.Until next time, thank you for listening in.Here’s to your success!101+ Innovation Resources FREE download available hereIf you liked this episode, check out these:Podcast: Design Thinking 101Podcast: Innovation by Design - The Discovering PhaseBlog: Design Thinking for Innovation – Ultimate Guide and DownloadMore about the show: Pivot & GritLet’s connect!LinkedInTwitterWebsite
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Innovation by Design - Understanding Phase
Jul 22, 202200:12:08Tap to summarizeWelcome back everyone.Today’s show we're talking about the understanding phase.Understanding is all about sense-making and getting to 'the why' of a problem after we have gathered the user data from interviews and observations.We learn about some useful tools in this phase to reduce biases and draw insight.Then we talk about how to present the work for maximum impact.Listen in for tips and tools to understand the problem space in a human-centred way .To help with your design thinking and innovation journey, I’ve put together a list of 101+ innovation resources as a free download from my website - link in the description.If you liked this episode - please share it with one person that needs to hear the message and leave a 5 star review.Until next time, thank you for listening in.101+ Innovation Resources FREE download available hereCheck out my Design Thinking Ultimate Guide Blog hereBook recommendation - Userpalooza by Nick BowmastIf you liked this episode, check out these:Podcast: Design Thinking 101Podcast: Innovation by Design - The Discovering PhaseBlog: Design Thinking for Innovation – Ultimate Guide and DownloadMore about the show: Pivot & GritLet’s connect!LinkedInTwitterWebsite
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Innovation by Design - The Discovering Phase
Jul 15, 202200:14:44Tap to summarizeToday's show, we follow on from last week's overview of design thinking and we will deep dive into the basics of the discovering phase.The discovering phase is about building empathy, being curious and exploring the problem space.The most useful tools are interviewing and observation. We'll unpack how to select interviewees, interview techniques and how to improve your design thinking craft.The key takeaways that I want to leave you with today are number one, leave your own baggage and biases behind. Remain curious to learn and explore the problem space.And secondly, practice your interview technique and self reflect in order to master it.If you liked this episode - please share it with one person that needs to hear the message / leave a 5 star review.Check out my Design Thinking Ultimate Guide Blogpost - link in descriptionUntil next time, thank you for listening in.If you liked this episode, check out these:Podcast: Design Thinking 101Podcast: The Power of Yet, Failure and Conquering Imposter SyndromeBlog: Design Thinking for Innovation – Ultimate Guide and DownloadMore about the show: Pivot & GritLet’s connect!LinkedInTwitterWebsite
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Design Thinking 101 - What is design thinking?
Jul 8, 202200:06:21Tap to summarizeHi and welcome back. In today's episode, I'm going to provide an overview of design thinking.Design thinking is a process for solving problems.According to PwC innovation, problem solving and creativity are some of the most highly sought after skills in today's modern world. And when we combine the fact that the world is changing faster than ever, it compels companies to reinvent and innovate in order to remain competitive.Design thinking process can unlock imagination to envision what does not already exist, generate ideas and innovate by implementing creative ideas.At its core, design thinking is humancentered. First of all, it seeks to understand what is desirable by people and then validate that and determine whether there is something that is technologically feasible or feasible within the setting of that organization and lastly, whether the idea is commercially viable.The design thinking model has often five phases, empathize, define, ideate prototyping testing and iterating.One of the best models that I've come across is the DUCTRI model and that was created by Dr. Christian Walsh. Sounds funny, but it is an acronym for Discovery, Understanding, Creating, Testing, Resourcing and Implementation.We're going to be discovering a lot of that in the upcoming episodes.The design thinking principles, of which there are four, are firstly, people centric. After all, it's all about people. People solving problems for people in the real world. Diverse collaboration. So in collaborating with people of many varied backgrounds, viewpoints and cognitive styles in order to increase the chances of more robust insights and solutions emerging. And we do that all with an optimistic growth mindset. Being optimistic has proved to allow more creative thinking, whereas constraints are seen as creative opportunities and problems are embraced and viewed as solvable, no matter how big the problem is or how small.Underpinning everything is a design thinking mindset. Design thinking itself is a philosophy. It has an overarching way of thinking about problem solving in a human centric way. And it's these mindsets that are essential.The key takeaway for today about design thinking is that design thinking has the power to transform businesses and solve big and small problems. While you don't need to be a creative person, following and trusting the process and the techniques that we're going to explore in later episodes is essential to uncover customer needs, to consider possible solutions and deliver desirable, feasible and viable solutions.If you enjoyed today's episode then please share it with one other person who needs to hear the message.Until next time, here's to your success.If you liked this episode, check out these:Podcast: https://vaughanbroderick.com/podcast/what-is-pivot-grit/Podcast: https://vaughanbroderick.com/podcast/the-power-of-yet-failure-and-conquering-imposter-syndrome/Blog: https://vaughanbroderick.com/innovation-and-entrepreneurship-books/More about the show: https://vaughanbroderick.com/podcasts/Let’s connect!LinkedInWebsite
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The Power of Yet, Failure and Conquering Imposter Syndrome
Jun 30, 202200:06:21Tap to summarizeHi and welcome back. In today’s episode we’re going to talk about how a simple three letter word has the power to change your mindset, your business, your life -YET.If you listened to my last episode about pivot and grit, then you would have also learned about Grit. We’re going to tale this thinking a step forward today and talk about growth mindset, the importance of failure, YET and also how these can help combating imposter syndrome.Let’s start with failure. We’ve probably all got a fear of failure, fear of being embarrassed or shown up - I know that I did. The thing that we have to realise is that failure is learning.When we’re building a business or innovating, failure is not only going to happen, in fact it’s necessary! The key here though is that we want to be building our capabilities to detect and analyse failure while promoting experimentation. Something that underpins this approach is what’s called a growth mindset. People often have either a fixed mindset, in that they view themselves and there place in the world as fixed - such as their skills and place are unable to be developed or change. Then there are those that have a growth mindset and believe that you can develop new interests, skills, behaviours. This is where curiosity and our subject in the last episode Grit come into play. Being curious and trying new things with intentional practice you can grow and change over time.So, I ask you - what type of mindset do you have? A fixed or growth mindset?Now let’s talk about Imposter Syndrome. I’ve certainly suffered from imposter syndrome at times (and occasionally still do). I’ve sometimes thought that I’m not competent enough, or skilled enough to be doing some of the things I have done. And, at the same time viewed others as more competent.Then when you combine, curiosity, Grit, experimentation and failure you become less judgemental of myself, more open to new challenges and that is where life’s surprises and growth happens.If you liked this episode, please share it with one other person that needs to hear the message.Let’s connect!LinkedInWebsite
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What is Pivot & Grit?
Jun 30, 202200:05:38Tap to summarizeHi, today’s episode is about two of the most valuable concepts that I have learned as an entrepreneur and while completing my MBA - Pivot & Grit.So what is a Pivot? As the name suggests it’s a change in direction. Within innovation a pivot is a course correction when you have decided that you are not making sufficient progress towards your original hypothesis around your product, service, strategy or growth engine.Now, let’s talk about Grit. Grit is a word that I identified with when I read Angela Duckworth’s book of the same name. A bit of the back story is that Angela researched high achievers from West Point cadets to olympic athletes to spelling bee champions and found that the number one indicator of success is what she calls Grit - which is passion and perseverance. And, the formula for grist is talent x effort = skill, skill x effort = achievementWhat Angela is saying is that the number one factor for success is effort - not talent, not situation, IQ or physical attributes but effort.Have you always wanted to master a skill?Listen in to find out the secret to developing mastery!Highly recommended:Angela Duckworth Youtube: Grit: the power of passion and perseverance | Angela Lee DuckworthLet’s connect!LinkedInWebsite
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