Read an Excerpt
I N T R O D U C T I O N
Your World in Transition
‘‘Wherever we are, it is but a stage on the way to somewhere else, and whatever we do, however well we do it, it is only a preparation to do something else that shall be different.’’
—ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON, SCOTTISH NOVELIST AND POET
LET THE GOOD TIMES ROLL!
The future may be uncertain, but as you read this book, one thing I can assure you of is that the rest of your life is going to be the best of your life. Whatever you have accomplished up to now is merely a shadow of what you will be able to achieve in the exciting months and years ahead. Understand and take comfort in knowing that whatever changes are taking place in your life today, they are part of a larger plan to lead you onward and upward to fulfilling your potential.
ALBERT EINSTEIN was teaching at Princeton University and had just administered an exam to an advanced class of physics students. On the way back to his office, the teaching assistant carrying the exams asked him, ‘‘Dr. Einstein, wasn’t this the same exam that you gave to this same class last year?’’
Dr. Einstein responded, ‘‘Yes, it was.’’
The teaching assistant, in awe of perhaps the greatest physicist of the twentieth century, then asked, ‘‘Excuse me for asking, Dr. Einstein. But how could you give the same exam to the same class two years in a row?’’
Einstein replied simply, ‘‘The answers have changed.’’
At that time, in the world of physics, with new breakthroughs and discoveries, the answers were changing at such a rapid rate that the same exam could be given two years in a row and have different answers.
How does this relate to you? The answers in your own life are changing more rapidly today than ever before.
If someone were to ask, ‘‘What was your biggest problem or goal a year ago?’’ you probably wouldn’t even know the answer. The answers have changed so completely.
Researchers at Harvard University once made three predictions about the future. First, they said, there will be more change in the coming year than ever before. Second a there will be more competition in the coming year than ever before. And third, there will be more opportunities in the coming year in your field, whatever it is, than ever before.
But the opportunities will be different than the opportunities and activities of today.
Those Harvard researchers made these predictions in 1952. They are as true today as they were then. And today, once again, the answers have changed.
Here is another prediction: Within the next two years, 72 percent of people working today will be in different jobs in the same or different companies and have different responsibilities requiring different talents and skills to achieve different results. And those people who fail to respond to the challenges of change will be most affected by it.
Because of our fast-moving society, almost everyone is in a state of transition in one or more areas of life all the time. This rapid rate of change is inevitable, unavoidable a and unstoppable. Knowing how to deal with change effectively is a primary requirement for living successfully in perhaps the most exciting time in all of human history.
CHANGING JOBS
Perhaps the most common form of change is the loss or change of a job. Because of the dynamism of the American economy, fully 20 million jobs are lost or restructured each year. The good news is that 22 million more jobs are created each year as well.
No matter how many hundreds of thousands of new workers flood into the job market each year, the economy continues to create opportunities for them. According to the
Department of Labor, there are now more than 100,000 job categories in the United States and many subcategories within that number.
You could be in transition today because of a career change. After all, the average person starting work today will have an average of 11 full-time jobs lasting two years or more, and five or more multiyear careers in different fields.
It is quite common for people to move from one industry to another and from one part of the country to another a to enter a new job. Many people are changing their professions completely. Perhaps the fun or thrill of a particular job, career, or profession has gone and the individual decides to make a major change. Often, because of changing economic conditions, consumer tastes, and national or international competition, entire industries are downsized or eliminated. The demand for people within a particular job classification or career may decline or even disappear within a few short years.
JOBS AND INDUSTRIES BECOME
OBSOLETE
At the beginning of the twentieth century, buggy manufacturing and horse care were major industries employing hundreds of thousands of people. When the automobile was first invented, it was seen as a passing fad. But within a few years, the horse and buggy, and all the jobs associated with those industries, faded into history. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands—and eventually millions—of new jobs were created in the automobile manufacturing and parts indus-tries. Those jobs were cleaner, higher paying, and offered greater opportunities for advancement and higher standards of living than ever before.
In 1990, one of the largest workforces in America was bank employees. But with the dawn of the computer and Internet age, and the advent of the ATM, fewer and fewer bank employees were required. Millions were laid off and made available to work at more interesting, higher-paying jobs in other industries.
During the real estate boom of 2004–2007, hundreds of thousands of people poured into the real estate, mortgage a and title insurance businesses, many of them earning a lot of money in a short amount of time.
But as always happens, the economy changed. The number of attractive long-term jobs full of opportunities to earn high incomes declined precipitously, leaving many people shaking their heads, worse off than before, and wondering what had happened.
LIFESTYLE CHANGES NEVER STOP
Many people go through dramatic changes in the different stages of family formation. Getting married, especially for the first time, requires a major shift in priorities in many areas of life. Getting divorced, especially when children are involved, can require another major set of transitions. The death of a spouse, unexpected or not, often requires that a person change many other aspects of his or her life.
The birth of children and the entry into family life requires a transition as well. At each stage of a child’s growth and development, parents have to adjust and adapt to new pressures and responsibilities. Later in life, when children grow up and leave home, even more transitions are necessary. Sometimes, empty nesters decide that this is an opportunity to change their lives completely, and they do.
Throughout your life, financial changes—especially reversals and even bankruptcy—can require you to change your life in major and minor ways. Sometimes, a major financial loss will require you to completely reevaluate almost every other part of your life.
The rate of change, driven by information explosion a new technologies, and competition of all kinds, is not going to slow down. Knowledge, technology, and competition seem to multiply, increasing the speed of change to almost breathtaking levels.
To ensure that your life stays on a trajectory of increasing success, your goal should be to become a master of change rather than a victim of change. Use these unavoidable and inevitable transition periods in your life to step back and reinvent yourself for the months and years ahead.
THINK ABOUT THE FUTURE
One characteristic of the most successful and happy people is that they are intensely future-oriented. They think about the future most of the time. They refuse to dwell on what has happened and things that cannot be changed. Instead they focus on factors that are under their control and actions they can take to create the kind of future they desire.
Future-oriented people have a special attitude. They believe that their happiest moments and most satisfying experiences lie in the future, waiting to be created or enjoyed.
They look forward to the future like a child looks forward to Christmas: ‘‘I can hardly wait!’’
We are living in the very best time in all of human history. It has never been more possible for more people to earn more money, enjoy higher standards of living, and live longer, healthier lives than it is today. And if anything a these conditions will only improve in the years ahead.
The average life span in America today is about 80
years. As people become more knowledgeable and sensible about health habits, diet, nutrition, and exercise, they can comfortably expect to beat the averages and live to be 90 or even 100 years old in good health.
