
Growth
Career Crossroads: How These 3 Successful People Pivoted Their Paths
August 22, 2017

Sometimes, you can have a pretty solid job: the work is good, the pay is great, plus the company is reputable. These are all nice things to have – but what if there's something missing?
Enter the career pivot. There's a key difference between it and a career change: pivoting is a shift in direction on a parallel path; a career change is an entirely new path to begin with. Pivoting is switching jobs within the same industry (think: marketing manager to digital marketing manager). Changing is quitting your software engineer job to open up your own bakery.
There are many reasons to pivot (growth, specialization); so in order to navigate your own, read more for how 3 greats chartered theirs and see what works for you.
OPRAH WINFREY
That Pivot Moment
In the fall of 1976, Oprah arrived in Baltimore from Nashville to co-anchor WJZ-TV’s 6’o-clock news with Jerry Turner – a beloved news anchor in the metropolis at the time. Hired as a rookie, Oprah stood out to then-news director Gary Elion due to her strong ability to tell a good story. As Oprah used this skill to report night after night, she found that she couldn’t stop emotionally investing in her subjects – although she was told repeatedly not to. Due to this and other factors, she was fired from the job just after 8 months. Later that spring, she was “demoted” to host a small-time talkshow. From then on, she built a cult following, was invited to go national on A.M. Chicago, then eventually launched The Oprah Winfrey Show. And we all know how that turned out!What You Can Learn
Oprah has stated in several interviews that having the anchor job and being fired from it was one of the best things that ever happened to her. One, because it showed her very clearly what she didn’t want to do; and two, because she was moved in the right direction to meet her destiny. After all: while empathy is what got Oprah fired from her TV reporter job, it's also what built her such a strong following as a talk show host. "From that first day, I knew instantly this is what I was supposed to do," she says. "I felt like I had come home to myself." The main takeway? When you’re deciding to do your career pivot, trust your gut enough to know when it’s time to walk away. If your experience tells you it doesn’t feel right, then trust that there's something better out there. Knowing what you don’t want right now brings you a step closer to what you do want down the line. Just focus on taking “the next right step”, as Oprah says.VERA WANG

That Pivot Moment
Vera Wang was always an achiever. In her teens, she competed at the national level as a professional ice skater. Though she tried out and failed to qualify for the U.S. Olympic team, she bounced back and followed her passion for fashion in Vogue. Promoted at age 23, she became the magazine’s youngest-ever Senior Fashion Editor and held the position for 15 years. After her job at Vogue, she ventured as the design director of accessories for Ralph Lauren. Two years after, she got engaged and immediately started planning her wedding. While she loved fashion, she found that the market for the wedding dress industry was so outdated. So she sketched her own simple, elegant dress and commissioned a dressmaker to make it for her herself. Inspired by this turn, she decided to open up her own bridal boutique of curated brands a year later – featuring other designers and with funding from her father. She eventually launched her own signature line, and today has built the Vera Wang brand as a billion-dollar lifestyle behemoth.What You Can Learn
By the time Vera Wang resigned from Ralph Lauren and pursued her business venture full-time, she was 40 years old. She had undergone 3 career pivots (professional figure skater to magazine editor to design director) before finally becoming a fashion designer – and now, the head of her own empire. As with anything, she’s proof that it’s never too late to find your calling. Another thing we can take from Vera is the fact that sometimes, perhaps your true calling is right around the corner. She was already in the right industry, but it took her 3 tries to finally get the job right. In this case, your unique experiences could very well set you up for fulfilling your destiny. It’s helpful to start thinking of your career trajectory in the same way.ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER
