[MUSIC] Welcome to Week 2 in the Capstone Project for this specialization in job interviewing and resume writing in English. The learning goal for this week is that you develop and write down a vision of your future work, a vision that excites you. You may find the process challenging. Many people go through their life as wanderers. They have little sense of direction, little sense of where they want to go. But to control your job search, really to control your life, you need to have least a tentative vision of your future. So how important is your future vision? Consider this observation made by a friend of Steve Jobs. Jobs was known for staying the course, and for having stubbornness, tenacity, belief, and patience to do so. We've talked a lot in this specialization about Jobs and about Apple. His commencement speech at Stanford university continues to inspire today. There's a great deal you can learn from Jobs and the Apple story about creating a life for yourself that gives you a deep sense of fulfillment and satisfaction. Start with this task. This alone might be a challenge for you. Perhaps you scoff at the idea. Perhaps you refuse to believe it could be so. But I encourage you to embrace the idea. To make it the cornerstone of your planning. No matter what your age, the process of imagining a future may be difficult, and it can even make you anxious. In the West, the culture promotes a dreamy picture of going with the flow, or living day by day. Make sure to stop and smell the flowers. Herbert Rappaport has this to say about that attitude. Rappaport conducted extensive studies on the way people thought about time. His book, Marking Time, documents his research. Not surprisingly, he found that how you think about the future impacts your personality, your focus, your energy, and the way you cope with the ups and downs of life. He found that having a vision is important at every age and stage of life. At every age and stage of life. Without a vision, you are on a journey without navigation. You are taking day trips. You are not heading toward a meaningful destination. But a vision inspires you with goals, and these can be a great driving force in life. You'll feel satisfied working toward them. Even if you never reach them, you'll be living your life with a sense of purpose and direction. And as Victor Frankl, neurologist, psychiatrist, and holocaust survivor observed in the Nazi concentration camps, finding meaning in your experiences gives you the strength to persevere, and the power to overcome whatever obstacles you face. Without a meaning to live for, people grow weak and are easily defeated by even minor setbacks. I trust I've convinced you of the value of having a long-term vision, no matter what your age. Your first milestone in this Capstone is thus to build up a picture of your perfect work, and to write it down. When you first begin to craft your picture, try to do it without job titles attached. Have fun with it. I mean, sure, it's serious business, but let your mind go, and imagine all the possibilities you can create. Try to catch the excitement of imagining what could be. Imagine the kind of job you want, the work you want to do, the people you want to work with. What would that look like? Where do you go to work? What does the environment look like? Is it formal or informal? What does the office look like? How does it feel? What does it sound like? Is it a big organization, is it a small one? Is it a startup? Is it a blue-chip giant? Where in the world are you working? Who do you work with? Are you isolated or surrounded by people? Do you work with many people or a few? What kind of people? Are they creative? Energetic? Are they technical, quiet, conservative? What kinds of people bring the best out of you? What role do you play? What are you responsible for? Are you a decision maker? Are you responsible for complete tasks? Or are you responsible for a piece of a task? Are you working with people, with equipment, or with information? Be specific, get to know what is you really want where you will thrive. What are you doing? What are your working hours? Are they flexible? Consider the strengths and skills you uncovered in writing your accomplishments inventory. Pay particular attention to your most enjoyable accomplishments. Think about the values you uncovered in course one. Think about the mission statement you wrote in course two. How are you using your values and your mission to really thrive? What are the tasks you do? Use the worksheets attached to this lesson and take the time to create in your mind a vivid, detailed picture of where you want to go, be specific, be detailed. Once you've developed your vision, you can prioritize the details. You can rank them according to must haves, nice to haves, and fun to haves. Then as you work through this Capstone, be sure to honor your list. As you you work this Capstone, I will share with you key ideas taken from Napoleon Hill's most famous work, Think and Grow Rich. This is one of the best selling books of all time. It's a classic in the field of personal and professional development. You'll find a copy of it attached to this lesson. Today it may read as a bit dated. But the ideas you'll find there are still tremendously powerful. Hill's greatest contribution was to examine the power of the mind, and the role personal beliefs play in achieving personal success. Personal success. Not success by someone else's measure, but success as you personally define it. And by the way, asking how you define success is a fairly common question among hiring managers. Consider this idea here. This is the attitude I would advise you to take towards the future work vision you'll create for this milestone. This is the attitude that will let that future vision grow and evolve as you move forward in your life. The attitude that will let you protect that vision from the naysayers, both inner and outer, that assail it. Using what Hill called the workshop of your mind, to build up a detailed vision of your future work, is the think part of Hill's formula. Grow rich is the second part. And here too, you want to think what that means to you personally. Riches may of course be monetary. But they may also encompass any of the blessings of life. The many forms in which the goodness of life is granted. It's up to you to decide what it means to grow rich. Then add that to the vision of your ideal world. Your description of your ideal work, your ideal job, will embody your idea of success and the riches you seek. Remember that your ideal job vision is subject to change. You're not chained to it. You're the one who creates it. Your vision for the future is a pact you make with yourself. Writing it down makes it an even more powerful tool, but it's not cast in stone. As you grow and learn more about the options you face, your vision evolves too. [MUSIC]
