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The Partner Experience Weekly: Finding Balance as a Creator (Pivot!)

I unexpectedly lost my job last October.

It was a shock as I’d only ever seen these things happen and had never been sucked into one myself. I’m in Ops... who lays off the only person handling a group’s ops needs? (Yes, that’s a rhetorical question, as we now know at least one company that took this route).

Honestly though, I still really like the team, both in RevOps and on the Partnership side, and I really believe in the product’s capabilities and value.

Something in me pushed me forward in this strange experience.

I immediately started writing and built a five-part series for LinkedIn all about PartnerOps. I also pushed more deeply into Partnership Leaders, no longer having professional constraints holding me at bay.

It was my first real foray into intentional content creation, and the results still continue to surprise me.

A week after writing my series, I pushed all that into a new podcast. Several months, and multiple branding attempts later, PartnerOps Partner is a real boy.

These efforts eventually led to my current state:

• Weekly articles on LinkedIn and the amazing people over at PartnerHacker (Read it all here).
• Hosting weekly, member-only office hours for Partnership Leaders, where I met new people and help clear a path for forward movement alongside other ops professionals.
• Weekly drops on the podcast covering all the above.
• My first advisory gig with the amazing team at Fluincy where I’m truly excited to see how our efforts will improve core sales rhythms for building stronger partner relationships.
• Panelist roles for Magentrix (PaaS) and Pronto.
• Much deeper connections and feedback loops with multiple CEOs/Founders across a variety of partner tech.
• Upcoming involvement in conferences for Catalyst and Mopsapalozza.
• 1-2 (or more) new connection meetings every single week with Partnership professionals literally all over the world.

Oh...and we can’t forget the actual, paying, full-time gig at Atlassian that started in December and has been running strong since. I had a fun ride with interviews — hear about all that here — and moral of the story is that #networking wins pretty much every time.

And now, we arrive at the inflection point.

Reaching an inflection point

Creating is a big commitment in time - several hours a week on the low end - and there comes a time when you have to make a critical decision about your next steps. Do you keep moving in the same direction or pursue new avenues and opportunities?

I’ve reached an inflection point and come to the conclusion that it’s time to pivot.

here.