We live in a time where there are endless ways we could approach how we grow and how we define success. Yet when it comes to careers, we often only talk about one type of growth path. While the conventional path is not inherently bad, it’s also not necessarily authentic or accessible to everyone.

I believe in collecting models of possibility and find that more often than not, society fails to make the many different approaches to life and work explicit. The more we can distill, articulate and discuss these different approaches, however, the more maps we’ll have at our disposal.

The framework above was inspired by a conversation with a friend who is a self-declared climber. It’s limited and largely informed by my own experience in tech, design and innovation. There are many other types of growth paths out there though and I’d love to hear of any others that come to mind.