Everyone has pivotal moments in their lives. In my sophomore year of college, my college advisor connected me with a professor in the business school who had a degree in industrial/organizational psychology, a new career direction that I was pretty sure was the one for me. I met with this professor and twenty minutes into the meeting he commented, “What you really need is an internship – just a minute.” He turned around, picked up the phone, talked for a few minutes, and then handed the phone to me. I said hello and before I knew it, I had an interview the following week with Lise Saari, a research scientist in industrial/organizational psychology. That conversation led to a one-year internship and a three-year job at a research institute. After I finished my doctoral training, Lise was offered me a job back in Seattle to work for her at The Boeing Company. All of this happened because of one conversation and one phone call. A colleague of mine tells a similar story. When she was in college, one of her term papers came back with a note from the professor in the margin stating, “Don’t write like this when you go to graduate school.” Her reaction? “He thinks I can go to graduate school!” And, that little comment scrawled in the margin opened up possibilities she had never considered and changed the direction of her life.

What do I believe? I believe that inflection points happen all of the time. A new story is always waiting to emerge. We just miss most of them. Every day, the road divides and we decide which one we want to take. Susan Scott writes in her book Fierce Conversations, “While no single conversation is guaranteed to change the trajectory of a career, a business, a marriage, or a life, any single conversation can.” Change might be just around the corner.

 Now, sometimes we know we’re at a point. We ask someone to marry us, a pregnancy test comes back positive, we accept a job that will move us across the country. Sometimes the choices are small, but add up over time – do we work late or get home for dinner on time? Sometimes we know that the stakes are high. We take the leap. We proceed on faith, hoping that the future will be kind to us, and we will survive. I begin writing a book hoping that the hundreds of hours it will take aren’t wasted of time.

 Our own reflection points are important, but maybe the greatest moments are when we have the privilege of being pivotal points for others. I’m sure that you know some people in your life who are those people. I do. Remember that professor who connected me with my first internship? Remember the professor who wrote that comment about graduate school on my colleague’s paper? It  was the same person. Before you dismiss this, let me add one more fact – my colleague went to school in Illinois and I went to school in Seattle. We didn’t know each other until we met fifteen years later. The only thing in common in these two stories was the person, Doug McKenna, who connected with both of us in a way that opened new horizons in our lives.

 We all have reflection points in our lives. The question then becomes, how do we take advantage of them? Albert Bandura, a famous social psychologist, wrote a now classic article called, “The psychology of chance encounters and life paths”[i] where he made the point that we can never control the chance encounters in our lives, but we can influence how much impact that they will have on us. Two-thousand years earlier, Seneca, the Roman philosopher wrote, “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” Is this true? Mounting evidences suggests that it is. There aren’t many female orchestra conductors in the world, but there are a few. To find out what made the difference in their careers, researchers interviewed several of them to figure out what made the difference. They found that chance did play a role in their lives, but so did something the author called pseudoserendipity, accidentally finding something that you were seeking – where preparedness meets chance. The women who eventually became orchestra conductors were ready when opportunity presented itself. What made the difference? Strong skills, self-confidence, a willingness to take risks, hard work, a drive to succeed, optimism, social support and a bias to seek out opportunities.[ii]

 Taking Action

Reflect on the pivot points in your life. What have been some of the pivotal moments in your life? Make a list of at least five of the moments in your life when everything changed. It might have been a conversation that you had, a decision you made, or a life-changing moment in your journey. Now, select two of the positive inflection points. Now, take some time to think about what made the difference – What about you allowed them to become such defining moments in your life? After all, they might not have been inflection points for someone else.

 Set yourself up for success. Look back over what you just wrote. How can you use those same skills to prepare yourself for your next big leap? Just for fun, picture a significant goal that you would like to accomplish in the next five years (a dream you would like to pursue, a new career direction, a change in your life’s priorities). How can you apply the strategies you identified above to prepare for this future opportunity? What is a small step you can take today to start moving toward that goal?

Do a little detective work. Have lunch with a couple of friends. Ask them to tell you about some of the pivotal moments in their lives. Find out what made the difference for them; that is, what prepared them so they could take advantageous of the opportunities when they emerged?

Remember the people who made a difference in your life. Who have been the people in your life who became inflection points? What did they do for you? Have you ever said thank you?

Become an inflection point for others. Think about how you can be the kind of person who makes a difference in the lives of the people who bump into you. Set aside a day and practice being that kind of person. Practice being the kind of person who Look for the potential in others. Be the kind of person who energizes and brings life to others.

[1] Bandura, A. (1982). The psychology of chance encounters and life paths. American Psychologist, 37, 747-755.

[1] Diaz, C. L., Serendipity and pseudoserendiptity in career paths of successful women: Orchestra conductors. Creativity Research Journal, 16(2/3), 345-356. See also Williams, E. N., Soeprapto, E., Like, K., Touradji, P., Hess, S., & Hill, C. E. (1998). Perceptions of serendipity: Career paths of prominent academic women in counseling psychology. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 45. 379-389.

One of the rules in my fifth grade class was that anyone who falls back in their chair will lose it for the day. This, of course, triggered all sorts of questions in the heart of one eleven-year-old boy, “What would happen if everybody fell over in their chairs on the same day? How would a teacher be able to punish the whole class? Would all the chairs even fit behind the teacher’s desk?” The next day, believe it or not, that very thing happened. First Kelly Cook lost his chair, then Paul Yost fell over in his chair, then everybody but one person in Mr. Olson’s fifth grade class had their chairs topple over before lunchtime. It turned out, if the chairs were stacked on top of each other, all of them did fit behind the teacher’s desk and the whole class could be punished. In fact, the next day when we arrived back at school ready to retrieve our chairs we met a teacher who said that there were still some lessons to be learned about safety. Two weeks later, our chairs were finally returned after everyone had composed an essay about the significant dangers of leaning back in one’s chair. But oh the power that we all felt over those ten days was worth it!

Sometimes we just have to rebel. We shout with our actions – we find our voice. This isn’t the kind of rebellion that is meant to hurt other people. This is rebellion that says we have a choice, we have control, we decide. Just when people think we are boring and predictable, we can choose to follow a different path.

Sometimes, we just have to push the boundaries to assert who we are the world. In his book, Crossing the Unknown Sea, the poet David Whyte writes,

“To live with courage in any work or in any organization, we must know intimately the part of us that does not give a damn about the organization or the work….With a healthy outlaw approach, we are outside the laws of predicable cause and effect and inside the intensity of creative originality. We have a gleam in our eye; we look to the edges of things; no one really knows what we are up to. We see with the eyes of those who do not quite below. We are dangerous again, and glad to be so.”

Psychologists through the decades have reflected on the human need for self-determination. Other research has consistently shown the advantages of having a sense of agency and control. So, take a few minutes and consider where you might want to assert your will, to find your voice, maybe for no other reason than it sounds like fun. It may require you to break a few rules that need to be broken, to dance your own dance, or sing along to a favorite song no matter who is watching in the car next to you. It might require a little bit of risk, a little bit of stupidity.

 When I was a rebel. Reflect back on some of the times early in your life when you were a rebel—not to hurt people—but to exert your own voice.

Shock & awe. Just once this week, say out loud what everyone else is thinking but no one is courageous enough to say out loud. See what happens.

Break a little glass every day. I worked with an executive who made this one of his personal mantras. For him, it meant making sure he wasn’t just going along with the crowd. He was willing to speak the truth as he saw it.

Take back your day. One day this month, clear your calendar. Spend the day on the most important things at work and let the daily fires take care of themselves, just this once. For bonus points, make sure this is day where you skip at least one meeting where people won’t miss you. After all, we miss work all of the time when we are sick and somehow the organization survives without us. Yet, we never give ourselves permission to take a day to focus on the things that really matter in our jobs and lives. What would happen if you did?

Say no. Find something that you won’t do this week. Practice saying no. How did it feel?

Take a day to play. If you have kids, take one day this year to wake them up early in the morning to spend a special day with you. You won’t do it regularly, but this one day might just create a memory that lasts long into the future.

[1] Whyte, D. (2001). Crossing the unknown sea: Work as a pilgrimage of identity. New York: Riverhead Books.

[1] Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (1985). Intrinsic motivation and self determination in human behavior. New Yourk: Plenaum Press.

[1] See Bandura, A. (1982). Self-efficacy mechanism in human agency. American Psychologist, 27, 122-147. See also Ng, T. W. H., Sorensen, K. L., & Eby, L. T. (2006). Locus of control at work: A meta-analysis. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 27, 1057-1087. 

[1] Whyte, D. (2001). Crossing the unknown sea: Work as a pilgrimage of identity. New York: Riverhead Books.

[1] Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (1985). Intrinsic motivation and self determination in human behavior. New Yourk: Plenaum Press.

[1] See Bandura, A. (1982). Self-efficacy mechanism in human agency. American Psychologist, 27, 122-147. See also Ng, T. W. H., Sorensen, K. L., & Eby, L. T. (2006). Locus of control at work: A meta-analysis. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 27, 1057-1087.