Excerpts

INTRODUCTION: "We Love the Idea. It's Just Too Darn Depressing to Publish." If you hit me over the head long enough, the message will finally get through. That, in fifteen words, sums up the long, roundabout trip I took in order to bring this book into being. But it was well worth the journey. Let me explain. A couple of years ago Len Schlesinger, Charlie Kiefer, and I wrote a book called Just Start: Take Action, Embrace Uncertainty, Create the Future . We addressed what organizations and people should do when they don't know what to do, and laid out a course of action to follow when you or your organization are faced with uncertainty. Today, one of the most uncertain things imaginable is trying to predict whether you're going to have a job in five years. So, that's our focus this time around. Specifically, we set off to answer this question: How can you create a prosperous career in an economic world that is being radically reshaped in real time? It turns out to be an extremely important question because it looks to us like there are only three types of people who can depend on continuing employment. They are: 1. Skilled tradesmen. For people working in a skilled trade, like plumbers and electricians, the only concern, other than the overall health of the economy--which, of course, is no small thing--is the increasing trend toward using plug-in parts. (When customers can do the work themselves--quickly, safely, and for less cost--there is little reason to hire you.) 2. People who can live with how their profession is evolving. There is always going to be a demand for nurses and teachers, for example. And if you can accept the trends--heavier workloads and more online (as opposed to face-to-face) interactions-- then you can continue as you are. You might grow progressively unhappy in the job ("This is not why I signed up to be a nurse"; "I hate teaching to the test"), but if you are good, you will have a job in a field that will sort of, kind of resemble the one you entered. 3. People who can coast safely into the sunset. This scenario used to be far more prevalent than it is today. There were employees who would, in essence, retire in place five or even sometimes ten years before their official retirement age. Today, some companies are still nice enough to allow long-time valued employees to coast, but it is likely going to be for five or ten months (and it is far from being a guarantee). But these are the only exceptions we found. If you work in an industry that is in total flux (publishing or music) or starting to unravel (finance), or one that you suspect might soon change radically--or, if your career has recently been upended (or soon might be) or has never really gotten going, or you feel stuck and frustrated-- your job is probably going away. But it doesn't have to be that depressing. The Good News . . . Talking to people who are coping successfully with all this turmoil-- and reading the research being done, especially the work of Saras Sarasvathy, who teaches at the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia--turned up some extremely good news. There is a way to deal with all this upheaval and come out in a potentially much better place than you are today. The solution is to act the way successful entrepreneurs do. Not by necessarily starting your own company-- although as we will discuss, that is certainly an option--but by approaching your career the way successful entrepreneurs handle the unknown. When people write about entrepreneurs, they invariably focus on their behavior: What did Howard Schultz or Michael Dell or Martha Stewart do to build their companies? If you take that approach, you probably would conclude that every entrepreneur is unique, and so there is little to be learned from studying them; that is, you would have to be Howard Schultz to start Starbucks, Michael Dell to create Dell, and Martha Stewart to begin the company she did. And, you'd be right. But--and it is a huge but--if instead of looking at their behavior, you look at how the most successful entrepreneurs think, you will find amazing similarities in how they reason, approach obstacles, and take advantage of opportunities. And it's from examining that pattern that we can all benefit, because it will give us a set of tools we can use to deal with the increasing amount of uncertainty we face. Excerpted from Own Your Future: How to Think Like an Entrepreneur and Thrive in an Unpredictable Economy by Paul B. Brown All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.