023 Brian Kurth: PivotPlanet

Career Tips & Trends with Tom McDonough & Deborah Burkholder

Internet radio for savvy professionals –
doing work you love, work that matters.

Our guest today is Brian Kurth CEO of PivotPlanet, a service providing one-on-one mentorship conversations with successful people doing work they love. Would such a conversation be a way for you to take that next step forward in your career.

PivotPlanet is the next iteration of Kurth’s VocationVacations model which offers face-to-face career mentorships. The model has been referenced in books like Daniel Pink’s DRIVE, and in The Start-up of YOU, by LinkedIn’s co-founder and chairman, Reid Hoffman.

We’d love to hear from you in terms of your actionable takeaways from this episode.

Leave a comment or send us an email.

Listen to the full interview by clicking player above.

Here are some exurps from today’s interview…

From the show

I moved to Portland Oregon from Chicago and stared VocationVacations as a hobby business in 2004 and it took off like wild fire, very quickly. We launched with 10 mentors in Oregon and we rapidly moved into 100’s across the United States. That was over the course of about 6 years or so and then something happened called the recession.

The demand for VocationVacations was higher than ever but the ability and willingness to pay was a problem for people. At the same time we were beginning to realize people were asking if they could have a video session with a mentor first. So we said why not – that is where we should be heading.

Hence that is where PivotPlanet came from.

Vocation Vacation morphed into PivotPlanet and we renamed it because an hour video is not really a VocationVacation. The word vacation became a misnomer.

We just launched on October 4 and we are thrilled to have 100s of advisers across 100s of professions. We are already truly global. We have several advisers coming on board in a few countries. So we now provide the in person mentorship that VocationVacations used to provide but now the majority of our sessions are live one on one video sessions so people can test the waters remotely then decide if they want to go live with this and do they want to pursue this career.

You get a lot out of an hour… it is a weather vane that provides you a level of knowledge if this career is something that you want to pursue further. Do you want to go back to school? Do you want to set up an in person mentorship?

Listen to the full interview by clicking player above.

We’d love to hear from you in terms of your actionable takeaways from this episode.

Leave a comment or send us an email.

Contact PivotPlanet

Website: Pivotplanet.com

Twitter: @pivotplanet

Facebook: facebook.com/PivotPlanet

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What do you want?

80% of finding work you love, work that fits you is knowing what you want. If you don’t know or aren’t quite sure – just start with what you think you might want. Take small smart steps and follow your gut. Talk to people who are already doing the work you’re interested in. Connect with them on LinkedIn.

To learn more about the Just Start Program check out our Just Start Page.

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Tom & Deborah help creative engaged professionals turn their dream job into a reality.

We’ll be launching our Job Search the Smart Way, online training program in November.

Contact: Deborah Burkholder – Tom McDonough

Continued Learning

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Listen to the full interview by clicking player above.