Adam Markel - Pivot: The Art and Science of Reinventing Your Career and Life

Praise for Pivot

Whether you are reclaiming your optimal health, reinventing yourself, or rediscovering your passions and joy, Pivot is the perfect book to catapult you into the next stratosphere of your life and new possibility. Markel has done a brilliant job of converging all of his wisdom and genius into a magnificent body of work that we all can benefit from. Simply a MUST-read.

Lisa Nichols, author of the New York Times bestseller No Matter What!, and CEO of Motivating the Masses, Inc.

In Pivot , Markel has created a road map for honoring the ordinary life by finding ones extraordinary gifts. I was inspired to more courageously embrace my own reinvention story and trust that Im on the right trackeven when it doesnt feel that way.

Karen Leland, author of The Brand Mapping Strategy

With the extraordinary information and practical focus of Pivot , this is a must-read for anyone who is reinventing their lifeor even thinking about it! Adam has made the reinvention process simple!

Jill Lublin, three-time bestselling author, international speaker, and radical influence expert

Pivot in your life, pivot in your body and your business. This book will show you how. It all starts with the first step.

Bob Proctor, author of You Were Born Rich

Pivot over to the bookstore and let Markel show you how just a tiny change in your thinking will create a massive transformation in your career and life.

Phil Town, financial adviser and author of the number one New York Times bestseller Rule #1

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This book is dedicated to my loving wife, Randi, who has always believed in me unconditionally; our amazing children Chelsea, Lindsay, Max, and Eden, who inspired this book to be a reference guide for their lifes journey; and my real-brother, Keith, and my parents, Irene and Kenneth, who gave me freedom to express my own voice.

Begin by knowing that you have already arrived.

RICHARD BACH, AUTHOR

Youre on a cruise ship, one of the largest in the world. Youre traveling from exotic port to exotic port, enjoying fine dining, dancing, and every luxury.

And then the unthinkable happens.

One night, youre startled awake in your cabin to the harsh clang of alarms. You can hear doors slamming, loud voices in the passageway outside. A fist pounds against your door. Get out now! a voice shouts.

You stand up from your bed, then lose your balance and fall right back down againthe floor is sloping away, and you realize...

The ship is sinking.

You scramble into your clothes and rush into the passage, and are immediately swept along by a tide of panicking passengers. You fight to stay upright and eventually make it to an emergency exit and up to the upper deck.

Sometime later, you find yourself floating in a small lifeboat with four other people. There is no land in sight. No sign of your ship, its crew, or any other passengers.

You take stock of supplies and scan the horizon for hours. Nothing.

Eventually you settle into your new reality. The five of you hunker down in the raft and do what people always do when there is nothing else to do: You talk.

You share a little about who you are. Your work. Your skills. Your family. What excites you. Your hopes and dreams for home.

Time moves on. What began, you were sure, as a short wait for rescue has turned into three days at sea. With no end in sight.

A scenario much like this one kicks off the New Peaks Life Directions training program that I teach. Its called the Lifeboat Game.

As the game proceeds, the participants get a new set of instructions: There are enough supplies on the boat for only two people to survive at sea.

You must now make your case for why you should be one of the two people to be saved.

Many participants speak from their hearts and share who they are and why they are a valuable asset to their families, their friends, their business associates, and the world. Just as many speak from their heads, making logical arguments about their abilities and why they should be saved.

Some participants sacrifice themselves by giving up their seats to others on the boat. They do this because they believe someone else has more to offer the world, or they feel their sacrifice is an act of greater value or that they have already lived a rich and full life.

Eventually the participants are given the painful task of deciding who will stay and who must die, and they must explain why they voted as they did.

What starts as a game quickly becomes a powerful emotional experience. Its not uncommon for participants to raise their voices and for emotions such as anger, resentment, and hurt to come to the surface.

Its not uncommon, in fact, for people to begin to cry as a new, perhaps previously unrealized emotion rises within them: regret. The sudden, unexpected reality that theyre not living the life they hoped they would, or knew they could, can be a shattering experience.

Because if theres one thing the Lifeboat Game is good for, its revealing when something is fundamentally wrong with your life.

Youre not in a lifeboat at sea right now, but I suspect youve picked up this book for a very similar reason: Something is wrong.

You might know what that something is. Your work, your health, your relationship, and your business are all pretty safe bets.

But theres an equally good chance you dont know whats wrong. You cant articulate what the problem is. But you can feel it.

Cant you?

I know, because Ive been there. By my late thirties, I could definitely feel that something was wrong.

I was living a successful life by most standards. Id been married for seventeen years to the love of my life. We had four beautiful children. Id built a successful law practice and was enjoying all the perks that came with it. Sure, I was working seventy to eighty hours a week in my law firm, occasionally even sleeping in the office, but I was making bags of money and life was good.

But something was wrong.

I would wake up in the morning with a sense of dread about the day. I started losing my hair, and my body began to change in ways that I didnt like. Once a fit, healthy athlete, I was losing energy and vitality almost by the day.

Worse, though, was the increasing sense that something was missing. Even though I was earning great money, I was unhappy with the daily grind. I was always working. And every day it seemed as though my soul was shriveling. Some part of me, some spark, some purpose, was dying on the vine.

I couldnt quite put my finger on it, but I began to believe, for the first time, that my life was not my own.

I started to wonder: Is this all there is?

I wasnt nursing the hurt of missing out on a dream of being a rock star or an athlete or an animal trainer or a missionary. I didnt know what I wanted or what I was missing. I just knew I was missing something.