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ABOUT THE AUTHOR Ray Gibson took up professional freelance writing after a successful and varied Air Force career, which included flying and diplomatic posts, recruiting and teaching, the head of a training school for young adults, strategic planning and other senior leadership positions. It was through his extensive working experience with many young adults that he developed a passionate interest in their personal development. He also found that planning and leading people through organisational change was just as relevant to successful life planning, and it was this experience that led him to write Working The Dream.On a personal level, Ray is a good example of what this book is about. From very average beginnings, and against the advice of those who supposedly knew better, he pursued his dream to fly. With single-minded determination he overcame obstacles and through progressively setting goals, he succeeded in turning his dream into reality, eventually reaching the senior leadership level of the Air Force. As a parent, he encouraged the same philosophy in his three daughters, all of whom are living their dreams in adulthood.
INTRODUCTION
‘The
only thing lucky about successful people is that they
are dreamers who never give up’ As a teenager, you’ve probably heard a million
times, usually from older adults, that kids today are so lucky. ‘They’ve got
it all – and then some. Compared to previous generations, they’re so much
better off – more choices and opportunities, more freedom, easier life –
yada, yada, yada.’ Don’t you just hate hearing this stuff? How would they
know anyway? They’re not tuned into today’s teenagers. They don’t
understand what cookies have to do with computers, they don’t know what’s
cool and what’s not, and they haven’t a clue about the problems of leaping
from teenhood to adulthood in today’s world. It’s Too Damn Hard! Sure, there’s a lot more stuff out there now than
there probably was in your parents
’ day – lots more information
around and lots more things
to do and experience, but this also means there’s more choices to be made,
definitely more distractions and maybe, more traps to fall into. And at last
count, still only twenty-four/seven in each week to get through it all. So
it’s hardly surprising when you do get around to thinking about you and your
future - what you want to do tomorrow, next year or for the next ten years, it
often gets all too confusing and causes the brain to hurt. It’s much easier to
chill out and not worry about anything. Just take it a day at a time
and concentrate on enjoying
yourself. Anyway, whatever happens in your life just happens. There’s nothing
you can do about it. If
any of this rings a bell with you then maybe, just maybe some of the tips and
pointers in this little book are worth trying. I should warn you at the outset
that this is not a book to be simply read passively and put aside. This is a
doing book, a work book if you like, full of practical ideas to help you get
your life to where you want it to be. But I should also add that none of it is
rocket science! There are no complex rigid formulas that you must learn. Of
course, there are a few basic truths about life that you should come to grips
with if you want to be happy and successful in this world, in whatever way you
wish to define success. But beyond that, the suggested practical tips and
techniques in the following chapters are just that – suggestions. They are
based on what has worked for many successful people to get what they want from
life. So check it out. If an idea makes sense to you, give it a go, if it
doesn’t, toss it out and move on to the next one. Here’s How It Works This book is designed as a ready self
-help guide for all sorts of stuff that you may be grappling with. It
really depends on how you feel about your life right now. You may think you’ve
got it pretty well together, but there’s just not enough hours in the day to
get through everything you have to do, or more importantly, that you want to do.
So go to the chapter on how to better use your time
and try some of the ideas there. You will be surprised how a
few simple techniques can make a big difference in your life. Then again, it may
be your parents
that are ruining your life. They won’t stop bugging you and
they won’t listen to you when you have something important to say. Perhaps you
should give the chapter on communication
a go. There are all sorts
of good ideas there on helping you to get your point across. Of course, if you
feel your life’s a total basket case, you might want to start at the beginning
of the book and work your way through to the end. If you genuinely do this, you
will almost certainly feel better about yourself, because you will be armed with
a bunch of new skills and knowledge that will help you through the maze of
challenges that life throws at you. You
might be thinking right now that you have so much on your plate you don’t have
the time
to read another book. And
anyway, your parents
do enough preaching about how to live your life; you don’t
need more stuff being shoved down your neck from a book too. Hey, that’s a
choice only you can make. Life is
all about opportunities and choices; as long you are honest enough to accept
whatever happens as a result of the choices you make, that’s cool. But
something caused you to pick up the book and read this far, and maybe that
something has to do with you wanting to get more from your life than you are
getting
just now. If this is where
you’re at, then there are two ways you can do something about it. You can
continue with what you are now doing in your life and when you do realise things
aren’t working out, try something different. This is called learning from your
own experience, and it can be a very slow and painful way of getting what you
want. A better way is to learn from other people’s experience, either from the
mistakes they’ve made or from the success they’ve had. Many people have
‘been there done that’ before you, and have actually shared their secrets of
success and failure. If you had the chance to read about these secrets and see
for yourself how to win what you want, without a lot of pain, why not take the
opportunity to do it? The
idea for this book first came to me during my final job in the Air Force. As
well as having an enjoyable flying career,
I was fortunate enough to work in various other roles
including teaching, recruiting, management and as the head of a training school
for young adults. All of these other roles had one thing in common – working
with young people - heaps of them - from all sorts of backgrounds and with all
sorts of personal issues. And my last job was no different; I managed and led a
large group of mainly young adults from the Army, Navy and Air Force, as well as
civilians, in the fascinating world of Intelligence. My
keen interest in young adults and their personal development grew from these
experiences. From those I worked with, one thing I found over and over again was
that some of them had managed to get their act together at an early age while
others didn’t seem to have much of a clue about their future or what they
wanted from it. I was curious about this, and spent time
listening to them talk
about themselves; their hopes and fears, the things that turned them on and the
things they thought were screwing their lives around, and I have used their
concerns to help filter the topics covered in this book. You’ll probably be
surprised to learn that in a nutshell, most of it comes down to one thing –
the basic need to feel good about yourself. But
to get to the point where you seriously feel good about yourself requires a
whole bunch of other things to fall into place. And those things will only fall
into place if you have the right package of life planning and coping skills to
handle all the stuff life throws at you along the way to adulthood. That’s what the rest of this book is about. It will give
you a personal toolkit to help build on your strengths
and overcome your
weaknesses
so that you will have the
confidence and knowledge to get out there and take your piece of the world
that’s just waiting for you. Are you ready for the journey? Okay, let’s go. Click on the cart below to purchase this book:
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