Everyone wants long term success. But it is elusive for most.

Long term success is dependent on knowing where you are now and where you are headed. Then closing the gap. Frequently. Continuously.  Whether it’s your business, your career or your life at home., it’s easy to get off track, lose touch or get buried under. Without a true sense of where you are in the moment, it is impossible to realize your dreams or be a leader in your field.

Re-calibrate your profound knowledge

The only way we can take 100% responsibility for sustaining our success is to keep re-calibrating-in every aspect of our lives and organizations.

Key to successful recalibration is to acquire what my dear departed mentor, Dr. W. Edwards Deming, coined as Profound Knowledge. This umbrella phrase emphasizes understanding change and how to measure it, being aware of emerging trends and shifts, and learning how to apply this knowledge to leading and sustaining long term success.

Bottom line: If we don’t acquire Profound Knowledge we cannot know how to prepare for and leverage coming change, thus how to sustain our success long term.

Understanding change means understanding shifts in our personal world as well as tracking trends that capsize us, overtake us, or cause us to flounder.

Learning the Hard Way

Unfortunately one of my Gen X male clients learned this the hard way. A rising star in his field and recently married, he was planning far a great future for his kids, tons of time for fun and all the trappings of success. As if out of the blue, the rug got pulled out from under him. His “Happy Homemaker” wife fled, saying I’m out of here!

Somewhere along the way there was a breakdown or perhaps many small fissures below the surface. Had they been recalibrating an checking in with each other, communicating the truth of what was so for each of them…perhaps they could have saved their marriage…or at least ended it with love, grace, and forgiveness.

Even in the most secure relationships, unexpected change happens to ruffle our plans. A recently returned to work mother of teenage kids reported that her new career is now going gangbusters and she no longer worries about the empty-nest . But, the new ripple in her life is that her once very successful husband, in his late 40’s, now faces an unknown future. Surprised by the shifts in his industry, “suddenly” he and his business partner are facing the probability of closing their doors. What once appeared to be the sure path to their dreams, is no crumbling beneath them.

Change is inevitable. If you can learn what Profound Knowledge is and apply it you can avoid these same pitfalls and NOT LEARN THE HARD WAY!

What steps are you going to take to future cast your long term success?

If you can’t afford to make a huge leap now—starting or reinvigorating your own business, changing or reinventing your career, transforming your organization—you can, and should, start doing the legwork now so that, when the opportunity presents itself, you’ll be on firm footing to make that leap with confidence, without hesitation.

Staying on top of trends can help you lead change with your ideas, instead of being swept along by it uncontrollably. As I describe in chapter one, we can all step into the role of modern-day oracles, connecting the realities of the present story with probable futures. We can then see which of those preferred futures we aspire to and begin to make steps to create our own self-fulfilling prophecies. 

The trends you analyze will depend somewhat on your personal and professional interests, experiences, goals, and vision. For most of us, however, having an idea of where the world of work is likely to go is crucial to creating a future that integrates what matters most to us and how we want to spend our time with what the world wants and needs. We need to know what story we are currently in and what stories are possible if we are going to create our ideal aspirational story. In other words, knowing something about the likely future of work will help us to create a future that works—for all of us. 

Read More in my Amazon Best Seller Gray is the New Green.

“Karen has knocked it out of the park AGAIN.A data-packed, awe inspiring, and valuable resource forany business or company owner that is lookingat the future, regardless of your industry!This is the book to read IF you don’t read any otherbook on aging and business marketing this year.”

~ Aaron D. Murphy, 

However, from the vibrating heart of our dissipating structures comes the promise of our true greatness: a greatness of awareness and action that will change the world. From the midst of the evolving Great Transition, we leave the Great Recession and the uplifting Obama era behind us as we enter an unknown, unchartered new cycle of populism and extreme radicalism ripping our valued democratic tenets to shreds and putting each of us on the line.  This Great Shift demands that we each unlock our potential for greatness which lives in each of us, and we are being called to make a difference. That is the premise of The Greatness Challenge, in which I offer a template for embracing and embodying our unique Signature Greatness DNA^SM to unleash our personal and collective greatness.

The Greatness Challenge is a manifesto for the growing wave of us who want to add value in all we do and who are being called to personal and collective evolution—from dentists to doctors, executives to engineers, artists to teachers and visionary leaders and futurists who are looking to redesign their lives so that every moment counts . . . for those of you who seek work that not only fills your bank accounts but your “values” bank as you yearn to do well doing good . . . for leaders who seek a pathway to visionary leadership, so the impact you have is of the greatest benefit for all.

To be one of the first to hear about The Greatness Challenge when it releases join us in the Secret Facebook Group here.

Before starting my internship with the IFA, I was asked a few times “are older people really the most at need?”  This question is one of the reasons that really motivated me to join the IFA. Indeed, in France anyways, the living conditions of older people are too often disregarded. While some older people, especially those in industrialized countries, manage to have a healthy life with decent income security, many of them still struggle to make ends meet, and have to remain active within the labour market longer that they may desire.

This appears to me as a major concern, as ‘active ageing’ should not be about working extra hours in order to pay rent, but really to enjoy some well-deserved free time and social activities after a life of labour. Older people have a lot to bring to our societies besides contributing to the workforce. Unfortunately, many cannot afford leaving it to pursue other activities, and contribute in other more meaningful ways. This is a real shortfall for everyone.

That being said, it is paradoxically more complicated for some older people to find a job when they need one. In France for example, many employers do not really consider hiring someone older, fearing that they would be slower at work, or less efficient.

In an attempt to offset these preconceived ideas, the “generation contract” is a new feature of the French labour market, allowing small companies to receive an allowance if they hire a young professional aged under 26 in a permanent contract, while keep employing a person aged over 57. It is supposed to encourage the employment rate among older people, and is just starting to show the benefits amongst smaller companies; however it appears much harder to establish this initiative in larger companies. There is still much to do to improve the quality of life for older people inside and outside the workforce.

These initiatives create intergenerational relations broadening the opportunity of knowledge transfers, skills exchanges, and society strengthening in the workplace. Everyone benefits from a multigenerational society, thus everyone should feel related to the current ageing issues, and not only the older people.

Finally, we all must recognise that ageing starts at birth and we are all going to be labeled old someday, even if it seems far away for those of us wearing the youth label. This is why it seems really important to me, as a young professional to care about this issue and, in my opinion, everybody – regardless of one’s age – should be aware of the issues, needs and opportunities that the future holds for us all.

•  •  •

Written By Ms. Juliette Davodeau

Project Officer, IFA

November 8, 2013