What Color Is Your Parachute? A Practical Manual for Job-Hunters and Career-Changers

Always define WHAT you want to do with your life and WHAT you have to offer to the world, in terms of your favorite talents/gifts/skills-not in terms of a job-title.

I like the late Bernard Haldane's definition of an achievement. He says it is: something you yourself feel you have done well, that you also enjoyed doing and felt proud of. In other words you are looking for an accomplishment that gave you two pleasures: enjoyment while doing it, and satisfaction from the outcome. That doesn't mean you may not have sweated as you did it, or hated some parts of the process, but it does mean that basically you enjoyed most of the process. The pleasure was not simply in the outcome, but along the way as well.

So many times you will see people wringing their hands and saying 'I want to know what my mission in life is,' all the while they are cutting people off on the highway, refusing to give time to people, punishing their mate for having hurt their feelings or lying about what they did.

..a disability is something within you. A prejudice is something within the employer. ..don’t look at yourself through their eyes. Look at yourself through your own eyes.

..in any situation we may ever find ourselves, no matter how much we feel we are at the mercy of vast immutable forces that are totally beyond our control, we can always find something that is within our control, however small, and work on that. Sometimes that may only change a little, sometimes it may change a lot. You just never know. But what we do know is that by working on even that 2 percent, it saves us from a feeling of complete powerlessness.

We want to find that special joy, “that no one can take from us,” which comes from having a sense of Mission in our life.

Inventiveness depends upon two habits of mind, which we can adopt and develop: attention and curiosity. Attention means paying attention..... Curiosity means just that. Endlessly curious. Endlessly asking questions. Endlessly wanting to know how, and why?

Call it anything else if you will—fear, anxiety, nervousness, sweating —but “shyness” is the historic word for it.

The primary purpose of a resume is to get yourself invited in for an interview.

In today’s world, he or she who gets hired is not necessarily the one who can do that job best; but, the one who knows the most about how to get hired.

Use this opportunity. Make this not only a hunt for a job, but a hunt for a life. A deeper life, a victorious life, a life you’re prouder of.

God grant me the serenity To accept the things I cannot change, The courage to change the things I can, And the wisdom to know the difference.

It is a great victory if you learn how to survive in today’s hard times; it’s an even greater victory if you help someone else survive and find meaningful work.

As most of us know, the proper attitude toward ourselves is called “good self-esteem.” But self-esteem is an art. An art of balance. A balance between thinking too little of ourselves, and thinking too much of ourselves. The name for thinking too much of ourselves is “egotism.” So, how do we adopt the proper attitude toward our gifts—speaking of them honestly, humbly, gratefully—without sounding egotistical? Just this: the more you see your own gifts clearly, the more you must pay attention to the gifts that others have. The more sensitive you become to how unusual you are, the more you must become sensitive to how unusual those around you are. The more you pay attention to yourself, the more you must pay attention to others. The more you ponder the mystery of You, the more you must ponder the mystery of all those you encounter, every loved one, every friend, every acquaintance, every stranger. Self-esteem is an art. It is the art of balance. A balance between thinking too little of ourselves, and thinking too much of ourselves. But we can only think too much of ourselves if we lose sight of others. Look at yourself, but equally look at them—with wonder. That is the proper attitude we all should set as our goal.

..it is helpful to think of your life not in terms of work but in terms of music—particularly a symphony. A symphony, traditionally, has four parts to it—four movements, as they’re called. So does Life. There is the first movement, infancy; then the second movement, the time of learning; the long third movement follows, the time of working; and finally, this fourth movement, traditionally called “retirement,” though now that is an increasingly complex concept. It is much better to think of it as the Fourth Movement, a triumphant, powerful ending to the symphony of our life here on earth.

High tech needs to be complemented by high touch.

What the meaning of this period of unemployment is, now. One way to get at that definition is to ask ourselves, “What is this time for?

Self-introspection is the way to improve any company, any marriage, any nation. And any job-hunt.

The best parts of this world were not fashioned by those who were "realistic." They were fashioned by those who dared to look hard at their wishes and then gave them horses to ride.

Unless you look dirty, wild, and disreputable, and smell really bad, if you know what your talent is, I guarantee some employer is looking for you

Passion plus competency, not just competency alone, is key to securing employment.

I'm sure that a huge proportion of the situation you are facing, is out out of your control. There's nothing you can do about it. But that proportion can't be 100 percent. There's got to be some proportion--let's say it's even just 2 percent--that is within your control. You can work on that. Who knows what a difference that may make!

See if you can get hired as a temp, contract worker, or consultant at an organization you have chosen—aiming at a full-time position only later (or not at all).

So feeling helpless is a state of mind that you can change. It starts by recognizing that if anyone has the power to make changes in your life, it is you. Because it is your life.

Don’t Believe Everything You Think.” What a wonderful reminder that our thoughts aren’t always our friends.

I am not lucky. You know what I am? I am smart, I am talented, I take advantage of the opportunities that come my way, and I work really, really hard. Don’t call me lucky. Call me a badass. —SHONDA RHIMES

The reason for this increase in temporary hiring, as you’ve probably guessed, is employers’ desire to keep their costs down. In the face of the global economy and online competition, employers across the country (and, indeed, across the world) have developed a budget-friendly strategy, hiring only when they need help, and letting the employee go as soon as they don’t need that help.11 Not to mention that part-timers don’t have to be paid any benefits or granted paid vacation time. Indeed, 20 to 30 percent of those employed by the Fortune 100 now have short-term jobs, either as independent contractors or as temp workers, and this figure is predicted to rise to 50 percent during the next six years.

the premise of the Internet of Things is that “all things, including every physical object, can be connected—making those objects intelligent, programmable, and capable of interacting with humans.”8 Experts predict 62 billion devices will be connected by the year 2024.