Chapters : Create a Life of Exhilaration and Accomplishment in the Face of Change - Hardcover

Carpenter, Candice

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0071381813 ISBN 13: 9780071381819

Publisher: McGraw-Hill, 2001

Synopsis

An electrifying new approach to taking charge of change, from the cofounder of iVillage Sweeping changes in business and technology threaten to overwhelm us on many fronts: in our companies, our careers, and our lives. The rise and fall of companies and entire industries, the twin specters of downsizing on the one hand and uncertain careers in emerging industries on the other, the prospect of multiple careers over a lifetime­­these factors and more conspire to take us to an unsettling place where today's perfect life situation can be gone tomorrow. Against this backdrop, one of today's most admired business visionaries examines professional and personal change in a radically new context­­and offers a prescription for managing change so powerful it will forever alter the way we live and work. We can take charge of change instead of fearing it, says Candice Carpenter, by living serially, chapter by chapter, focusing our efforts­­and reaping our rewards­­one chapter at a time. Both a bold new metaphor and a practical plan for success, Chapters has profound implications for career and business decision-making and for marking the milestones in our personal lives. It reveals an entirely new way to think about change and a refreshingly innovative­­and workable­­framework for managing it. We can, for example, use one chapter in our lives to acquire status and responsibility, another to acquire wealth, another to focus on our children, and others to learn new skills, serve our communities, and make our mark on the world. With each new chapter, we can cultivate the wavelike quality of internal fluidity needed for every personal reinvention, and we can reach that heightened level of exhilaration and achievement Carpenter calls the "Zone." An accomplished change master herself, Carpenter draws upon her own remarkable experiences and the lives of dozens of other people interviewed for this book. Chapters propels us ahead of the change curve toward sustained professional and personal success, satisfaction in our accomplishments, and balance over a lifetime. In Chapters readers learn how to: Embrace change rather than fear it Know when it's time to start a new life chapter Plan ahead for major changes Handle false starts and failure Master change and achieve true professional and personal success

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.

Reviews

If you've been fired or are just feeling restless in your job, Carpenter is here to tell you there's nothing wrong with you. You're part of the new world where people go through four to five distinctly different careers and eight to 10 different jobs in the course of a lifetime. Between careers, they also take time to concentrate on their families, do volunteer work or simply regroup for their next career shift. Carpenter terms these changes "chapters" because they have distinct beginnings and endings. Her own genuinely encouraging chapters take the reader through the various stages of closing an old chapter and opening a new one. Carpenter offers advice on how to recognize when "The Gig Is Up" (being fired can be a powerful clue), how not to panic but to take the time to find out what you really want to do next (her advice to always have enough money on hand to be able to live without a paycheck for a full year won't seem practical to many readers, however). She also talks about the need for companies and managers to embrace their employees' desires to open new chapters. The book works more as inspiration than as a true road map, using anecdotes from the lives of the many high-flying execs Carpenter has known (Barry Diller, with whom she worked on Q2; Michael Milkin; Bob Pittman) as well as her own. Carpenter's background is from a world in which a driver is a necessity, the doorman at Versace knows her by name and the next job comes with a corner office and the title of CEO. So some of her ideas will be far-fetched for those struggling in lower-level jobs. She writes with such conviction, however, that she'll carry even skeptical readers along with her, and she offers genuine help by giving people the words to understand and describe what they are going through as they close and open chapters of their lives. (Nov.)Forecast: Carpenter is well known in the media and Internet worlds, which will bring interest for her name alone. The current surge in books on how to deal with change (e.g., Who Moved My Cheese?) will draw readers who are unfamiliar with Carpenter, as will the blurb by Deepak Chopra on the book's cover.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Life's lulls, finds energetic business executive cum entrepreneur Carpenter, are ideal times to begin transforming old notions of self professionally and personally if we can constructively change our inner conversation to reflect who we truly are and what we really want out of life. The author carefully outlines how we can regenerate ourselves through transition rituals such as disengaging from our old roles, casting about wherever our thoughts take us, and implementing new plans so that each phase or chapter of life is authentic and complete. Although she is able to move the concept of hiring a transition job coach to the forefront of mainstream consciousness, the content and tone of this book suggest that it will appeal mostly to professionals who have had some level of work success. Invigorating yet sometimes exhausting, Chapters is a worthwhile choice for its reminder that gaining access to self requires the equally difficult task of drawing the courage to respect and act on what comes from this exploration. Recommended for self-help and career sections of public libraries. Lisa Liquori, MLS, Syracuse, NY
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: McGraw-Hill
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0071381813
• ISBN 13: 9780071381819
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256