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# Decoding Tomorrow: The Infinite Pivot Series - #33 "Never accept for a moment that you need permission to act."
**URL:** https://jimcarroll.com/2026/05/decoding-tomorrow-the-infinite-pivot-series-33-never-accept-for-a-moment-that-you-need-permission-to-act/
Date: 2026-05-12
Author: JimCarroll
Post Type: post
Summary: “Never accept for a moment that you need permission to act.” – Futurist Jim Carroll Futurist Jim Carroll is writing a series, The Art of the Infinite Pivot, based on 36 lessons from his 36 years as a solo entrepreneur, working as a nomadic worker in the global freelance economy. The series is unfolding here, […]
Categories: ArtofthePivot, Blog, Daily Inspiration, Knowledge, Reinvention
Featured Image: https://jimcarroll.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/InfinitePivot-33Permission.jpg
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*"Never accept for a moment that you need permission to act."* - Futurist Jim Carroll
*Futurist Jim Carroll is writing a series, The Art of the Infinite Pivot, based on 36 lessons from his 36 years as a solo entrepreneur, working as a nomadic worker in the global freelance economy. The series is unfolding here, and at *[*pivot.jimcarroll.com*](https://pivot.jimcarroll.com/)*.*
Most people wait for permission to do anything. It's the absolutely wrong thing to do.
And I've carried this belief into my keynotes and writing - for more than three decades, I have walked on stages and told audiences not to wait for permission.
Don't wait for permission to innovate. Don't wait for permission to launch the side project. Don't wait for permission to chase the trend. Don't wait for permission to bypass the committee, the budget cycle, the layers of approval, or the gatekeepers. I have told the same thing to Fortune 500 CEOs, to manufacturing executives, to healthcare leaders, to agricultural producers, to insurance boards, to startup founders.
Most of them have nodded and have then gone home and continued waiting for permission to change their own lives.
That's the part you need to think about if you are on the cusp of your next pivot or reinvention. Telling yourself not to wait for permission to do it is much harder.
Here's the quiet truth of every solo career, every freelance pivot, every reinvention I have ever made or watched anyone else make: if you wait for permission from someone else, you will be waiting a long time. Nobody is going to send you an email saying it's okay, you can change now. No manager is going to walk into your office and announce that the time has arrived to reinvent yourself. No mentor is going to authorize your pivot for you.
The decision you are waiting for is your own, and often, yours alone.
I once wrote a post — part of a litany I published in a Daily Inspiration entry — that contained dozens of "*Never accept for a moment that..."* lines. Things like: never accept that progress is impossible; never accept that fear should guide your decisions; never accept that giving up is acceptable. Buried in that list was the one I think matters most. *Never accept for a moment that you need permission to act.*
I meant it then. I mean it more now.
In the introduction to my book Dancing in the Rain, I wrote about leaders waiting for "*normal*" to return after a downturn, and the gap that opens between their hesitation and the future's advance. The future happens for them, but they miss out on it. The line that came to my mind as I was writing it was this:
*The future does not pause for our comfort. It does not slow down when we feel overwhelmed. *
*And it certainly does not wait for permission to unfold.*
Read that again.
Your pivot follows the same rule. The future you are aiming at is not waiting either. Every moment you delay because you haven't been given the go-ahead is a moment the future moves further away from where you stand.
A few years ago, my wife and I attended the Celebration of Life for the father of one of our closest friends at our ski club, Cedric Gyles. We had only met him briefly, but the man's life was remarkable. Ced started his career, like me, as a Chartered Accountant. Then he took a leave of absence from his accounting firm to play professional football for the Calgary Stampeders. He won a Canadian championship. He returned to business, eventually becoming CEO of a major insurance firm. He sailed competitively for 80 years, won multiple international yachting trophies, served as Commodore of his yacht club, and helped lead Canada's first America's Cup challenge in over a century. He took up golf. He took up curling.
Oh, and he learned the Red River Jig with Métis dancers in his living room with the carpet rolled back. That detail was in his obituary. He lived 96 years.
What I took away from his Celebration was this: *Ced regularly permitted himself to try new things.* That phrase has stayed with me. That single discipline, one of "self-permission," seems to be something that he applied across decades, across categories, across reinventions. It's what a life of not waiting for permission looks like.
So what can you take from all this? Stop waiting for someone to tell you it's time. Make the decision. Take the step. Walk into the next thing. Most of the regret I have ever heard from people deep into their careers has been about the pivot they didn't take because they were waiting for someone, somewhere, to say it was okay.
Nobody is coming to permit you.
Give it to yourself.
Then move.
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