Episode 7: Featuring BJ Coleman
When BJ Coleman’s coaching staff told him “you’re no longer a member of the Saskatchewan Rough Riders—find your own way home,” he faced the question every professional dreads: Who am I when what I do is taken away?
This wasn’t just a career setback. It was an identity crisis. And BJ discovered something that every leader navigating disruption needs to understand: the skills that get you through a pivot aren’t about toughness—they’re about processing grief, asking for help, and recognizing the invisible value you carry beneath your job title.
In this conversation, BJ shares the eight rules that guided his transition from NFL quarterback to CEO, including why it took him seven years to write the chapter on grief, what the “iceberg principle” reveals about your transferable skills, and how choosing your hard becomes the difference between breaking and bending.
Listen
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What You’ll Discover
The Iceberg Principle: Your Invisible Value
Most of who you are lives below the surface—invisible to others and sometimes even to yourself. BJ breaks down:
- Why your job title is just the tip of the iceberg
- The practical exercise BJ uses to map your “iceberg” and discover the transferable value that exists completely separate from your job title
- How understanding your iceberg helps you make career pivots with confidence
Processing Grief: The Chapter That Took Seven Years
BJ’s most vulnerable chapter almost didn’t make it into the book. Here’s why it matters:
- Why career loss requires real grief processing—not just “moving on”
- The three questions that help you process identity loss constructively
- How leaders can create space for employees to grieve career changes without pathologizing normal human responses
Building Organizations Where Asking for Help Is Normal
Athletes are trained to never show weakness. Sound familiar? BJ explains:
- Why “we over me” culture can actually prevent people from getting the help they need
- The shift from “we” to “me” mindset that makes pivots possible
- Practical ways HR leaders can normalize help-seeking without compromising performance expectations
Choosing Your Hard: The Leadership Reframe
Every path forward is difficult. The question is which hard you choose:
- The concept of “choosing your hard” and why it’s more empowering than pretending change is easy
- How BJ applies this principle at Pivotal Health Partners one year into building the company
- What this means for supporting employees through organizational change
Episode Highlights
[00:00] From Saskatchewan to CEO: The moment everything changed
[08:15] The Iceberg Principle: Discovering your invisible value
[16:30] Why the grief chapter took seven years to write
[24:45] From “we” to “me”: The mindset shift that enables pivots
[32:20] Asking for help: Building vulnerability into organizational culture
[39:50] Choosing your hard: A leadership framework for navigating difficulty
[45:10] Building Pivotal Health Partners: One year of applied pivot principles
Key Takeaways for HR Leaders
- Career transitions trigger real grief. Create space for employees to process identity loss during reorganizations, role eliminations, or major changes—it’s not weakness, it’s how humans work.
- Help employees discover their iceberg. Most people conflate their job title with their entire identity. Tools that help people map their transferable skills, values, and capabilities can ease transitions.
- Normalize asking for help. High-performing cultures often inadvertently punish vulnerability. Look for ways to make help-seeking visible and valued, not career-limiting.
- Name the hard. When communicating change, acknowledge that all paths forward are difficult. Let people choose their hard rather than pretending the transition will be easy.
Take Action
The Pivot: Orchestrating Extraordinary Moves in Work and Life by BJ Coleman
BJ’s book lays out eight practical rules for navigating career pivots, from understanding the iceberg principle to processing grief to choosing your hard. Each rule is grounded in BJ’s personal experience moving from professional sports to entrepreneurship, offering both vulnerability and pragmatic guidance.
About Our Guest
BJ Coleman is the Founder and CEO of Pivotal Health Partners and author of The Pivot: Orchestrating Extraordinary Moves in Work and Life. A former NFL quarterback and CFL player, BJ learned firsthand what it means to navigate career pivots when his football career ended unexpectedly. Rather than simply “bouncing back,” he developed a framework for moving forward that honors the grief, growth, and discovery that come with major transitions.
Through Pivotal Health Partners, BJ now helps individuals and organizations build the resilience and clarity needed to navigate career and life transitions. His eight pivot rules offer practical guidance grounded in both personal experience and deep reflection on what it takes to move from one chapter to the next without losing yourself in the process.
Connect with BJ Coleman
Notable Quotes
“I used to think pivots were about toughness. They’re actually about grief processing, asking for help, and recognizing the value you carry beneath your job title.”
“The iceberg principle changed everything for me. Your job title is just the tip. Most of who you are—your values, skills, character—lives below the surface, invisible to others and sometimes even to yourself.”
“That grief chapter took me seven years to write. I kept taking it out of the book. But it’s the one chapter that can stand completely on its own.”
“Choosing your hard means acknowledging that every path forward is difficult. The question isn’t ‘how do I avoid hard?’—it’s ‘which hard do I choose?'”
Related Context from SparkEffect Trust Research
SparkEffect’s 2024 Trust Study found that 71% of employees experienced at least one crisis in the past 24 months, yet only 36% of organizations emerged with strengthened trust. BJ’s pivot framework offers a parallel lesson for leaders: resilience isn’t about avoiding difficulty—it’s about building the capacity to stretch without breaking. Organizations that help employees process grief, normalize help-seeking, and map their transferable value create the trust elasticity needed to bend through disruption rather than fracture under it.
About Courage to Advance
Courage to Advance features leaders who refuse the tradeoff between performance and humanity. Host Kim Bohr talks with executives and operators who design teams and systems where people can do their best work, and where organizations can bend without breaking.
Courage to Advance is produced by SparkEffect. New episodes drop every Tuesday.
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