In our local village is a most unusual crossroads. There are no traffic lights though there is a slightly raised bump in the middle. On each of the four roads leading into the junction is a Give Way sign. So nobody has priority and everybody has to be considerate and give way to others. It actually works surprisingly well. This sort of crossroads is “an intersection of two or more roads”. However, it also has another meaning: “a point at which a crucial decision must be made which will have far-reaching consequences.” We will all have experienced these crossroads in life and in our professional world – choosing what to study, which profession or career to follow, where to work. Whether to work in house or in private practice. I have moved from inhouse to private practice and then back again with each move being some form of “crossroads”.

I suggest that rather like crossing the village intersection these are times to really focus and do everything possible to recognise the importance of the shift. Even consciously acknowledging you are at a crossroads and need to take particular care. If you tried to ignore our village junction and putting your foot down drive straight through, you would almost certainly cause an accident and fail to traverse the crossroads at all. I wrote a short blog on this topic back in 2017 Walk the Week - Concentrate at Crossroads in which I commented “If you can identify the times when there is more potential risk (and reward) and recognise and pay more attention to them you will tend to ride these crises and opportunities more effectively and indeed achieve a successful outcome.”

I like this on topic blog from 2023 8 powerful questions to ask yourself when you arrive at a crossroads in life which contains some good insight and advice including:

• “The first thing to ask yourself when you find yourself standing at a crossroads is …. what really matters to you. What are your core values and beliefs? What are you most passionate about? And what are your top priorities in life?
• … sometimes, it’s the path that feels most daunting, and that really pushes us outside of our comfort zone, that gives us the greatest opportunity to grow and develop.
• It’s easy for decisions (even small ones) to sometimes get blown out of proportion and feel like they carry much more weight than they really do.”

It concludes with a great quote from the musician Jon Bon Jovi “Don't get too comfortable with who you are at any given time - you may miss the opportunity to become who you want to be.”

I also found a book on managing career change When to Jump summarised in this Forbes article At A Crossroads In Life, Consider A Jump To A Different Future Of Opportunity which counsels:

• “Listen to the little voice in your head. If it doesn’t go away, it’s there for a reason. 
• Make a Plan. Jumps aren’t usually huge, dramatic leaps, but more often a series of small steps..
• Let yourself be lucky. 
• Once you jump, don’t look back.”

 And recognising when we are actually at a crossroads and navigating across is not just relevant to “macro decisions” like a career change. There are also “micro crossroads”, for example, on a deal  when certain approaches, decisions or meetings are critical to the success of the transaction. Recognising these enables the extra focus and attention that they merit and deserve to ensure the transaction is successful. As Hilary Clinton once observed “Every day is a crossroads. Every day is a chance to change your life and our world for the better.”

I recall working on a critical and complicated contract reset in private practice involving intricate and vital intellectual property issues and with the real threat of the company on the other side of the deal going bankrupt. There came a time when both sides recognised they needed each other and had to do a deal. Once we were past that point, whilst it was by no means plain sailing, we knew we would eventually reach agreement and duly did though only after spending a week in Dallas to conclude matters. 

While this blog The Crossroads of Decision-Making: Safe or Risky – Navigating a Business Dilemma says that “And at some point, you'll inevitably face a crossroads where you must choose between a safe option and a more daring, yet potentially rewarding one.” It cites a great quote from John D Rockefeller "Don't be afraid to give up the good to go for the great." And asks “Do we take the Comfort of the Safe Path” – which is “familiar, predictable and offers stability” “Or opt for the Allure of the Risky Road” when “with higher potential rewards come higher risks”.

So what we I suggest should avoid is the sentiment in the concluding line from the rock group Cream’s song Crossroads “And I'm standing at the crossroads believe I'm sinking down”.

Instead, and coming more up to date Taylor Swift has a different musical take: “Everybody has that point in their life where you hit a crossroads and you've had a bunch of bad days and there's different ways you can deal with it and the way I dealt with it was I just turned completely to music.”

Though as Ernest Hemingway notes “We have to get used to the idea that at the most important crossroads in our life there are no signs”.
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But ultimately it is how we react to these key moments that really counts. As the American author and speaker Tony Robins advises: "You are now at a crossroads. This is your opportunity to make the most important decision you will ever make. Forget your past. Who are you now? Who have you decided you really are now? Don't think about who you have been. Who are you now? Who have you decided to become? Make this decision consciously. Make it carefully. Make it powerfully." 

In life and in work it’s very easy to be affected by events that you cannot influence. The unexpected senior management intervention in a negotiation that undermines a carefully planned tactical approach. A policy shift at a parent company level that alters a local company’s business plan and future operations. An unexpected resignation from a key colleague at a law firm right on the middle of a transaction they are running. These are things that can all happen to any of us in our professional life despite our best personal efforts.
I found this apposite definition – “Event Beyond Your Control means an unusual and unforeseeable circumstance outside your control and the consequences of which you could not have avoided (even if you had taken all due care).” However, it is not the fact that these events happen – because they inevitably will – it is how best to react and deal with the situation that then arises.

See this on message blog 8 Keys to Accepting Things that Are Out of Your Control which proposes “focus on the events we can control” and advises “If we can’t change a situation or an outcome our best option is to learn how to accept it and deal with it.” It advocates acceptance and coping skills. “Sometimes these events are beyond our current ability to cope. So, part of the acceptance process is learning new ways to cope with a crisis. Keep your emotions in check so you can make a more conscious decision about how to deal with a difficult situation.”

While this blog How to let go of control and free up some headspace observes that “Letting go of control is hard. In times of uncertainty, people feel safer when they have a sense of control.” Whereas the opposite is true: “To experience the greatest sense of calm, peace of mind, and agency over one’s destiny, there is a shift needed in this thinking. The shift is toward a mindset that focuses on self-efficacy rather than on controlling external factors.” Then “Once you realize you cannot control external events, your energies can be placed elsewhere. You can focus on the only thing you do have control over your responses, your mindset, your attitude, your outlook.”

And unexpected events beyond our control have a tendency to occur just when we really do not need or expect them to. When I was in private practice, I was leading the closing of one of the most complex high value outsourcing arrangements I have been involved with. The customer was a major public sector organisation and the “supplier” who we acted for was actually a joint venture consortium which had formed a corporate vehicle to contract with the customer. This would in turn subcontract the work to the member companies – all significant businesses in their own right. We had carried out all the work negotiating the contracts and establishing the consortium and were camped out for several days in a central London hotel to bring the transaction to a conclusion. 

I was sitting in a meeting room at the hotel with all the supplier parties and their (many) lawyers when the customer lawyer came and told us that they were really sorry but after all the hard effort and weeks of working there was a potential public procurement problem that meant the deal might not proceed. There was a shocked silence around the room followed by everybody trying to speak at once. Then an experienced corporate partner in my firm who had been advising on the joint venture took control of the meeting and brought us back to a sense of reality and a focus on what we could actually do in these unexpected circumstances. First, we considered whether we would have grounds to contest any such decision and started determining what documentation we might require should we decide to litigate. At the same time we engaged our own public procurement legal experts to examine the legal question posed by the customer. A sense of normality very quickly took over as we got back to work. In the end the customer was able to overcome the challenges and we completed.

This Harvard Business Review article To Control Your Life, Control What You Pay Attention To summarises this approach of focusing on what you can nicely “Your attention determines the experiences you have, and the experiences you have determine the life you live. Rather than allowing distractions to derail you, choose where you direct your attention at any given moment, based on an understanding of your priorities.” It points out that this is not a recent problem, although it may be exacerbated by our “frenzied work environment” and all the technology we now use: 
 “One of the best insights on what true productivity means in the 21st century dates back to 1890. In his book The Principles of Psychology, Vol.1, William James wrote a simple statement that’s packed with meaning: “My experience is what I agree to attend to.”
Your attention determines the experiences you have, and the experiences you have determine the life you live. Or said another way: you must control your attention to control your life.”

Another analogy I learned (sometimes the hard way by capsizing!) is that if you are sailing a boat, even a large 45 foot yacht, and the wind increases dramatically you cannot make it reduce in force – it is a natural phenomenon. But what you can do is to react to this changed circumstance and reef  which means to reduce the sail area. This is something that whilst you cannot control you can be proactive about and mitigate the impact.

To quote from the Golden Sayings of Epictetus, the ancient Greek philosopher, “all external events are determined by fate, and are thus beyond our control, but we can accept whatever happens calmly and dispassionately. Individuals, however, are responsible for their own actions which they can examine and control through rigorous self-discipline.”

While Benjamin Disraeli observed “Circumstances are beyond our human control, but our conduct is in our own power”.
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Coming back into the Twenty First Century the author Brain Tracy pithily commented “You cannot control what happens to you, but you can control your attitude toward what happens to you, and in that, you will be mastering change rather than allowing it to master you.”
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