Getting Your Future Right

Getting Your Future Right fills a huge gap in personal development! For perhaps the first time for many of us, using this book provides a way for any person to think about, develop, plan for, and then execute a Personal Life plan for a better life!

This is a skill we are never taught at school. It’s a skill that is rarely developed in our careers. Instead for some, the lucky few, the ‘school of life’ is the best chance they have to develop the kind of insight into making their life a success. For the rest of us, life happens by accident.

Up until now, for most of us, we just have not had a way to think about what we want for our life. For most of us, knowing what questions to ask, knowing what issues are important; and knowing how to get started is just not something that is natural.

And that is why this book has been written. It is part guide book and part workbook. It is written to assist you in Getting Your Future Right

The Quick Overview for People in a Hurry: how the book works

You will set a Vision of preferred destination for your life. If you’re not too sure what your Vision is, this book will help you consider and then write a Vision that appeals greatly to you.

You will identify the main challenges in your life. They will be those challenges that, were you to resolve them, will move you closer to your desired Vision. I call these main challenges ‘Strategic Issues’.

You’ll need to work out what skills and resources you have available to you right now. You’ll be asked to also identify which skills you will need to have available, in order to address the challenges (Strategic Issues) you’ve identified. I call these skills ‘Capabilities’

Then, having identified the Capabilities you will need and have, you work out how you will use those resources. I call this step ‘Strategic Action’ and having followed the process what you will have is:

  • A set of Actions
  • Using your available Capabilities
  • That will handle your Strategic Issues
  • That then moves you closer to your desired future, your Vision!

Very straight forward, yet very few people actually do it! The rest of the book shows you how to monitor your progress and to keep evolving and improving. But be warned – you will have to take action, to think and to apply some effort. This is no wish list. You will think, plan, then act and I’ll show you how to put this together. Best of luck!

Buy Your Copy

The model used in this book has been adapted from the model I designed for The Australian Strategic Planning Institute (TASPI) after participants in our public workshops asked me whether the appproach would work for personal planning. I responded at the time that, in the absence of any other approach, it was likely the model would be quite useful.

The feedback has been incredibly positive. The model works and works very well. But be warned! This is no quick fix book. For many people, this will be the first time they have taken the chance to think seriously about what they would like their life to be like. There is no ‘secret’ to a successful life where a simple ‘thought’ will make it all happen. In this book you’ll discover that the thought is just one part – you then need to know where to act and why. That’s what this book will help you sort out. I wish you much success!

When was the last time you sat down and really thought about the type of life you would like to create? When have you thought about what your skills were and how you would use them? How often have you felt that your life was going no-where and you weren’t sure how to make a change for the better? Through this book I’ll guide you with stories of my own up and down journey and then get you to apply what you know to making a clearer choice about where you want to be in the future.

Buy Your Copy

You are probably much, much closer to having the future you’d prefer, than you realise. For most of us (and I was one of them) we have never been taught how to put some form and structure to our approach to life. Instead we’ve just kind of stumbled along, often on ‘auto-pilot’ without even knowing where we were headed or why we were doing what we were doing.

This book is the wake up call for your life. You deserve to make your life better than what it is now. This book will help you do that

Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremony Blanketed by Dust Storm

Jan 17, 2008

If an ‘Inconvenient Truth’ raised the profile of global warming to the general population, it appears that a willingness by political leaders to take appropriate action to mitigate the possible ramifications is still very much lacking. It is such a pity. No one who holds the Global Warming scenario close to heart wants to be…

Read More >

Marcus Barber to be Interviewed on 774 ABC

Dec 6, 2007

Strategic Futurist Marcus Barber will join Tim Cox on 774 ABC as part of the conversation hour next week Tim is filling in for Jon Faine whilst he takes a well deserved break and Marcus will join him for the conversation hour kicking off at 11am on Thursday the 13th of December, where they’ll discuss…

Read More >

From Foresight Foreplay to Corporate Consummation

Nov 14, 2007

At the AustForesight 2007 Conference, Strategic Futurist Marcus Barber and fellow Futurist Steve Tighe presented their take on what is required to enable futurists to be seen as more relevant to the Corporate world. Drawing on their shared experience as facilitator and client, they detailed the journey of foresight and futures across the past 50…

Read More >

Melbourne Cup Predictions

Nov 5, 2007

Futurists often get asked things like ‘Okay then – who’s going to win the ‘flag’ this year’. In Melbourne Cup time most of my friends ring me asking for a hot tip. Given my consistent poor form at selecting a winner, why they would ask me is anyone’s guess (unless they are working out who…

Read More >

Applying Strategic Foresight to Organisational Change

Oct 17, 2007

Does your organisation suffer what Futurists call ‘Operational Sleepwalking’? That most organisations (and people) willingly sleepwalk their way into their futures is not all that surprising. What is surprising about that however is that those people and those organisations are: * Surprised when something unexpected (and not to their liking) happens and, * Claim they…

Read More >

The Australian Strategic Planning Institute Gets a Boost

Sep 27, 2007

Maree Conway, of ‘University Futures’ has joined the Australian Strategic Planning Institute as a lead facilitator for the Institute’s programs. Maree’s experience in policy development, planning and strategy initiatives provides additional weight to the sessions on offer. TASPI now have three key facilitators that cover critical steps in the Strategic Planning Process – Enhanced Awareness…

Read More >

How to Catch a Stealth Bomber & Other iiBubbles

Sep 21, 2007

The latest edition of Fast Thinking has hit the streets and includes another tool for those seeking to develop innovation and strategy. Marcus Barber explains how to use, what he calls an ‘iiBubble’, a process that helps capture an idea to see if it has innovation ‘legs’. As one of the tools unique to Barber…

Read More >

Talented Futurist Celebrates a Birthday

Aug 30, 2007

Looking Up Feeling Good would like to wish the very talented and focused futurist, Sophie Barber a happy birthday today. Sophie’s amazing talent at suggesting the possible future for a positive outcome is a true inspiration and we look forward to many more insights as the complexity of challenges continues to test our understanding, commitment…

Read More >

Leading Sustainability through Corporate Real Estate Hypothetical

Aug 22, 2007

The CoreNet Global Melbourne 2007 Summit incorporated a thought provoking Hypothetical panel discussion on the future of corporate real estate and the drivers for sustainability. With an economic futures framework provided by Melbourne University Professor of Economics Neville Norman who moderated the discussion, the panel included Aggie Aitken, Head of Workplace Development at ANZ; Strategic…

Read More >

Innovation in Employee Engagement

Jul 17, 2007

Among other great articles, the winter 2007 edition of Fast Thinking magazine highlights the ‘8 Factor’ model for effective employee engagement, created by strategic futurist Marcus Barber. Using the model he shows how organisations can develop greater flexibility when it comes to providing incentives as a means for improving productivity and ensuring longevity for staff.…

Read More >