According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a pivot point is “a point where the situation changes significantly.” In other words: something just hit the fan.

Whether you’re in a foggy lake, following doomed orders or leading a nation out of oppression, the choice is the same — freeze, or pivot like your dignity depends on it.

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Turtles and Logs

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Many summers ago, my friend Julie Fogarty and I decided to tackle distance swimming. A former Peace Corps volunteer, Julie is resilient, athletic and the queen of one-liners. I figured we’d either succeed or die laughing.

Lake Flower in mid-June is roughly the temperature of trauma.

Our first morning, I inched in quietly whimpering; you don’t complain to someone who survived on millet for two years in a Nigerian desert.

We swam to the nearest dock and didn’t regain feeling in our limbs until lunch. Emboldened, in following weeks we added layers of Lycra (useless) and honed our technique (marginally).

June gave way to July, and the early-bird boaters hatched by the dozens. With no desire to become a cautionary tale, we moved to the power-boat-free Ironman course in Lake Placid.

Mirror Lake was zen. Early sunshine sluiced through the sparkling top layer as we swam buoy to buoy following the underwater rope. Our aquatic ID skills were put to the test as we involuntarily scanned the lake’s underbelly: a shadow, a turtle, a log — wait, that is a log, right?

A few years and wetsuits later, on a pea-soup-foggy-morning, we decided to swim the whole mile course non-stop. Let’s work!

Julie and I slipped in, squinting through fog so thick we had to hunt for the first buoy before dropping our heads and following the underwater line.

At the turn-around point, I heard weird noises — not the normal swimming cacophony of gurgles and belching — voices. We usually swam sandwiching the line. It was then I noticed Julie’s wetsuit, flutter kick and bubbles were missing.

Goggles up, I saw chaos: our single swim lane had vanished into a floating octopus of buoys, with kayaks crisscrossing the barely visible shoreline half-a-mile away.

Treading water I heard: “In lane one, the United States; lane two, Canada; lane three, France; lane four, Great Britain.” Cheers.

Chanting “USA! USA!”

A countdown to rival a Cape Canaveral rocket launch boomed: “Ten, nine …” Meanwhile, Julie was about to play a game of aquatic chicken with Team France. Mon Dieu! Could I even catch her? What to do? “Eight, seven …”

Friendship transcended. I took off with the grace of a Lake Colby Swimming School Graduate. The gun echoed. I chopped my way forward in an alarming display of splashing and underwater yelling. Julie was a full buoy ahead. Finally, gasping for air, I hit Julie’s ankle.

Julie embodied the situational awareness and threat assessment of a JSOC commander. I pointed to the oncoming racers. She nodded. We swam hell for leather outside the lane, a French coach shaking his paddle and yelling a stream of Gaelic curses.

Julie didn’t pull off her goggles and ask “How are we now in the middle of an international pop up kayak race?” She just pivoted.

People who pivot demonstrate cognitive flexibility and the emotional regulation to keep calm amidst the not knowing. They act.

I have the cognitive flexibility of peanut brittle. Had the situation been reversed, I would have launched into a Socratic inquiry. What? How did this happen? Where did these lanes come from? Who? This tornado of questions would have gotten me run over by a kayak or at least whacked with a paddle by Sir Swears-a-Lot.

Later, I realized: some pivots happen in a moment, some are forced upon us and others are carved by time.

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Wake Up Giant

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Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto was a brilliant strategist who once studied at Harvard and served as a naval attach in Washington, D.C. Yamamoto understood America in a way few Japanese leaders did. He respected our industry and doubted the wisdom of war with the U.S., but when war was inevitable, he pivoted, from a voice of caution to the reluctant architect of the Pearl Harbor attack. He was in service of a doomed cause, and after the attack failed to destroy our Pacific fleet of naval carriers, Yamamoto said, “I fear all we have done is awaken a sleeping giant …” This reveals the inner fracture of a man who adapted with precision to a duty that defied his better judgment.

But the pivot that truly astounds me? Nelson Mandela.

Nelson Mandela was wrongly branded a terrorist and imprisoned for 27 years under harsh, isolating conditions for his leadership in the organized resistance against South Africa’s brutal apartheid regime. Twenty-seven years.

When he walked free in 1990 at age 71, many expected revenge.

Instead, Mandela pivoted toward peace. Elected South Africa’s first Black president, he helped dismantle apartheid. His pivot, forged over decades, was a vision for South Africa’s future rather than catharsis. He showed that real power lies in emotional regulation.

Your ability to adapt defines you. Sometimes it’s dodging kayaks or navigating duty in the shadow of regret, like Admiral Yamamoto. At its most powerful, a pivot is the one Nelson Mandela made — not just for his country, but for himself, as he put it: “As I walked out the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew if I didn’t leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I’d still be in prison.”