When a Pivot Feels Personal

A client once shared with me that she needed to make a pivot. Strategies that had reliably grown her thriving business for years had stopped working, no matter how she adjusted them. She was moving in a new direction, and it was becoming clear she was going to need to let go of the sales team she had brought on earlier that year.

I sensed some hesitancy, so I asked her if she had any real or perceived barriers to releasing them. She said she was concerned about what people would think. Would everyone see this as the end for her business?

She paused for a few moments with a curious expression on her face. Then she admitted it was probably a little bit of her own pride getting in the way. "I really thought this was the direction that we needed to go at the time," she said. Underneath it was a question that often goes unspoken: if I reverse this decision, what does that say about me?

I don't think she's unusual. She just said the quiet part out loud.

Today's article is the first in a series I'm calling Rooted in Grace. It's all about Ground, the starting point of The Grace Effect framework. Ground is where you build the foundation that makes everything else work harmoniously. It’s how you begin to consistently access grace – power beyond you – that produces flourishing in you, your team, and results.

When your worth gets built on being right, being in control, or never having to backtrack, every necessary pivot starts to feel like a referendum on who you are. That’s what my client was experiencing, and it's an exhausting place to lead from.

The truth is that each of us has great inherent worth that is completely separate from our performance. Said another way, your work is not your worth.

Yet even when you embrace that truth, the lie that your identity is tied to your productivity and results can still show up repeatedly like those pesky and relentless mosquitoes we deal with down here in South Florida.

My client knew the truth. Earlier in that same conversation, she told me that in her head, she was fine. She could strategize and work a plan. But in her heart, it was a different story. The setbacks had her questioning herself, her abilities, and her value. "I just don't feel like I'm that valuable anymore," she said. And in the very next breath, she reminded herself that her value hadn't gone anywhere.

That's what it looks like to know the truth and still feel the sting.

So what can you do?

You can anchor on something bigger than you.

If you're like many leaders, you do the opposite. When results start slipping, you grip tighter, work longer hours, and try to become your own anchor through sheer effort and willpower.

The problem is that being your own anchor requires a level of control you simply don’t have. You have real influence over your inputs: what you do and how you show up. But you don't control your outputs. And quite frankly, you don't even fully control your business inputs, because you lead people, and those people are not you.

Which brings me back to the sustaining power of grace. It’s divine enablement that fuels your efforts and offers way more than what you’re able to bring to the table on your own. When your identity rests there instead of on your results, a decision that didn't work out the way you planned stops being a statement about who you are.

My client made a sound decision with the information and insight she had at the time. Then things changed. She decided to make the pivot. She's still in the middle of it right now, and while neither of us knows yet exactly how it will all play out, she knows wholeheartedly that her worth isn’t waiting on the outcome.

One of my go-to practices, for myself and the leaders I work with, is what I call the lie-truth exchange. When the old script starts playing, you interrupt it and replace it with a new and true one.

The lie might sound like: "I'm not that valuable anymore."

The truth sounds like: "My worth is not tied to my productivity or my results."

If you're not used to doing it, it may feel a little strange at first, but try saying these truths out loud:

I am fully known and fully loved.

I lead from sufficiency, not from scarcity or fear of falling behind.

My leadership is anchored in something bigger than what I'm responsible for producing.

I am sustained by grace, not by my effort and willpower alone.

Think about the decision you keep replaying in your mind, or perhaps the place you've been trying to be your own anchor lately.

What's the lie underneath it? Write it down, then write the truth that replaces it; one that doesn't change when your circumstances do. Say it out loud as often as you need to.

Your work matters. It's just not where your worth lives.