Pivot Points: Five Decisions Every Successful Leader Must Make

Chapter 9Your Pivotal Five: A New Career Road Map

The framework of five pivotal decisions can help you increase self-awareness by understanding where you’ve been, where you are currently, and how you got here—for better or for worse. Doing a career path checkup that examines your pivotal decisions, motivations, and goals can help you formulate, refine, or overhaul your career goals. This appraisal can illuminate a path into the future—and motivate self-management and inspire self-development for future pivotal decisions.

Clarity about your real aspirations, apart from institutional career advancement paths, will help you look in the right places for your next pivot point. As Sam Phillips, the father of rock and roll, purportedly said to an unknown Elvis Presley imitating Dean Martin in his early auditions, “I don’t record singers, I record souls.” Elvis then delivered what became his signature sound and style. Likewise, pivotal decisions at their best are expressions of souls, what we mean in the phrase “Follow your passion.”

Before taking a look at the questions that will help you construct your career road map, let’s review a few guidelines for answering them.

First, most people would include family responsibilities in their answers; just make sure you also think more broadly and answer these questions about more than just your family goals and commitments. Second, depending on your life situation and priorities for the future, answers can center on income-earning careers ...