It's YOUR Future... Make it a Good One!

I recommend everyone whom lost in life journey should read this book. You will always find how easy to find a new way out in this book.

I highly recommend this work for those who want to consider their personal or family’s future, and then map a course towards what they want their future to be. Many books teach you how to set goals, or provide motivation towards reaching for them, but this book is different in that it provides the tools you need to examine the possible paths, the preferable path to reach your goal, and an understanding of potential disruptive events and contingency planning to cope with them.A few years ago, I was considering my career and where I wanted it to go. Although I had a respectable job in a good company, I was not enthused about the career path I was on. I was unhappy working in finance, and it showed in my work and personal life. Previously, I had read about the emerging discipline of strategic foresight (futurism) and began to examine a possible career switch. During my study, I came across Dr. Wheelwright’s work which applies the principles of foresight used in academic and organizational settings and applies them to your personal life.Utilizing his work, I examined where I was, the driving forces in my life, and which and when those forces might change. Looking at where I wanted to be, I began to utilize the recommended futures wheel, and scenarios to examine and compare my preferable future with the possible future if I did not make the needed changes. I then brought my wife into the conversation and including her input, we further examined the possible, probable and preferable futures for me, her and us. Not only did I expose my wife to the tools of the futurist, but together we charted a path that has allowed me to pursue what is my life’s passion and new career.Disclosure: After using Dr. Wheelwright’s work, I began my path as a futurist and joined the Association of Professional Futurists where I met him at an event and now consider him a professional colleague.

It was with great pleasure that I received this book as a gift from the author, someone whom other reviewers have pointed out is not only highly respected in his field, but a darned nice person to boot! While I was already familiar with the work of futurists in relation to business and even social and political spheres, I hadn't seen anyone apply the tools and techniques concerned with anticipating and designing the future to one's personal life before.Many of us "live" in the future in terms of dreaming or even planning how we would like it to be. But how often do we do this in any systematic, conscious way? Dr. Wheelwright takes the reader step-by-step through a process for avoiding what so many end up having to face: a future that surprises them at best, shocks them at worst. This isn't a book to skim through, but one to work through. It does require the reader to really think about all the areas that make up a fulfilling and meaningful life, at different life stages. The exercises and examples in particular caused me to pay more attention to the external opportunities and threats (the STEEP categories) that might blindside me--were I not aware of them.It occurred to me while reading that this might make for an interesting, even enjoyable activity for partners to do together. Certainly I'd recommend parents to buy their teenagers a copy and help them work with the various tools so they perhaps feel more in control of their futures.In this VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous) world we live in--which is never going to go back to how things used to be (slower paced; less "disruptive")--the greatest gift we can give ourselves and our loved ones is the ability of foresight. To look at the future not as a single inevitable outcome but as a range of possibilities, plausibilities, and probabilities that we, to the extent we pay attention and actively manage our lives, can often choose and direct. Dr. Wheelwright helps make that possible. For which I am very grateful.

The best way to predict your future is to create it. In it's YOUR Future...: Make it a Good One Dr. Verne Wheelwright teaches you the steps you can take in order to develop a road map for living the life you want to live. Full of thought provoking ideas, this book is well written and an excellent guide for exploring scenarios of what your life could possibly look like in ten years or more.

This book provides a clear framework for thinking about your personal future. Its content is based on the theory and practice of strategic foresight for organisations, translated very effectively for personal use.It's a framework to help you think more deeply about what will matter to you in your future. It's not a template that requires you to fill in every blank box, but rather to consider the issues raised. Like any thinking about the future it requires you to interpret what has been provided for your situation, and your issues and asks you to not just blindly tick boxes or write a few words which many strategic planning books give you - this lets you think you have thought deeply about your future, but you haven't. With this book, you have to spend time thinking - this is not a 'one size fits all' approach and approaching it like that will generate views like the only one star review this book has earned.The author is a nice person; I know Verne from my work in the futures/foresight community and I was spurred on to write this review when I read the one star review. Thinking about the future takes time, deep thinking and an open mind. It seems to meet the one star reviewer didn't want to spend the time thinking deeply to apply the framework to their personal situation rather than taking each word literally, or worse, have an open mind that would allow them to move beyond the tick the box syndrome that now afflicts all planning in organisations.I work with people planning their future all the time - this book is a good one for planning your personal future, and I highly recommend it.

Help me look at my future plans