Chapters: Mastering Change in Life and Work - Hardcover

Carpenter, Candice

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0071381813 ISBN 13: 9780071381819

Publisher: McGraw-Hill Publishing Co., 2001

Synopsis

This text picks up where "Who Moved My Cheese" leaves off. "Chapters", which means living life serially, like chapters in a book, is a concept that will fundamentally change the way we look at our careers, our relationships, our families, and our futures. By living serially, we can take charge off a force that threatens to overwhelm us. We can learn to master change. "Chapters" is constructed around two fundamentals truths of 21st century life: we are living longer, and we are living at an accelerated pace. Change has become such a constant in our lives that the old paradigms for living no longer apply. Two generations ago, the story of our lives was largely etched in stone by choices we made in our first 25 years: colleges, the mates we chose, first jobs, and contacts we made. Since then, social change, economic change, and technology have altered traditional expectations. We no longer spend our careers at a single or even several companies, or even a single occupation. Marriage is no longer necessarily for the long term. Retirement may mean life on the golf course, the start of a new career, or both. Today, we have the opportunity of choosing and choosing again every five to ten years how we're going to reinvent ourselves. The problem with living life at this pace, however, is becoming increasingly clear: humans weren't built for the degree of change now being imposed upon us or for the information overload that accompanies it. "Chapters" is about taking control of the change that overwhelms us all before change takes control of us. To master change and the transitions it brings, we need to discard the notions that life is lived on a continuum, that we should strive to achieve perfect "balance," and that we can have it all, all the time. Instead, "Chapters" prescribes a step-by-step approach to serial living wherein we anticipate and plan for the changes in our lives, treating each chapter as the only chapter rather than endlessly multitasking. By focusing serially rather than juggling endlessly, we can learn to live and work in the "zone," a term borrowed from the lexicon of athletes, which enables us to perform at our peak at achieve true personal satisfaction. Candice Carpenter uses the chapters in her own life to illustrate her step-by-step approach to living with change, and she draws on myriad examples from people she has interviewed. They come from all walks of life - doctors and lawyers; students, schoolteachers and stay-at-home moms; entrepreneurs and executives - but their lives have common themes: what it takes to begin a new life chapter, how to recognize when it's time to shift gears and take a new road, how to plan ahead for change, how to handle the inevitable false starts and failures, and above all, how to deal with the emotional upheaval that comes with changing from one life stage to the next.

About this title

About the Author

Candice Carpenter cofounded iVillage, one of the leading Web sites for women, in 1995, served as CEO for the company's first five years and Chairman of the Board for six. Before launching iVillage, she was President of Q2, the cable TV shopping channel that she helped develop with Barry Diller. She was also President of Time-Life Video Television, where she oversaw prime-time documentary miniseries for which she won an Emmy, and Vice President of Marketing with American Express. In her twenties, Ms. Carpenter was one of America's premier female mountaineers. She holds a BA from Stanford and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Howard Means is the author of three books and coauthor of two others. A longtime journalist and magazine editor, he lives in Bethesda, Maryland.

From the Back Cover

Do you dream of other jobs, other places, other careers? Are you a leader who wants to make your organization as fluid as the world we live in today, or just ease the discomfort of those who look to you for help. Are you just starting out in the workplace, a woman trying to balance the competing claims of jobs and families, or a husband and father who worries that your success is won at the cost of your children? This book has a simple message: You don't have to be all things at once, but you can be everything you want to be.

Chapters is a remarkable new approach to managing­­and mastering­­change. Whether you love your job or hate it, whether you long to live out a secret yearning or just want to get more comfortable with the ever-shifting terrain of modern life, Chapters gives you a new way to think about living in today's new world, where constant, sweeping changes in our personal and professional lives often threaten to overwhelm us. Chapters is not about surviving change, or even simply coping with it, but instead learning to take charge of change­­in Carpenter's words, to "dance with its rhythms"­­by living our lives serially, chapter by chapter. Just as each chapter of a book introduces different elements of plot while keeping to a central story line, so each chapter of our lives can be devoted to who we are, what we aspire to, and how we want to live while still keeping to the central narrative of our life.

An accomplished change-master herself, Carpenter draws upon her own experiences as a successful CEO, entrepreneur, and cofounder of iVillage, as well as the lives of dozens of other people who, over time and through hard experience, have developed the capacity to master change and realize both professional and personal fulfillment.

In Chapters, Carpenter suggests an approach to living that shows us how to cultivate, in each chapter of our lives, the internal fluidity needed for personal reinvention and for reaching the "Zone" of peak exhilaration and accomplishment. She offers concrete, step-by-step guidance for planning ahead for major changes, knowing when it's time to shift gears and embark on a new chapter, handling false starts and failures, and achieving true personal satisfaction over a lifetime. She shows how the Chapters model can be universally applied, not only to career planning and leadership in the workplace but equally well to personal relationships, marriages, and parenting in today's uncertain world.

Empowering and inspiring, Chapters propels us ahead of the change curve toward sustained personal success and satisfaction over a lifetime.

Edition details

• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Publishing Co.
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0071381813
• ISBN 13: 9780071381819
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 256