A Roadmap for Life . . .

Jim Shaw, former US Air Force Pilot, business executive, entrepreneur and lecturer, has spent his life managing events, businesses and people. His expertise in planning, goal setting and success in life focuses on planning, dedication and execution.

Jim Shaw, President and CEO The Shaw Group Headquarters in Joppa, MD.

Regardless of whether you are a high school student, college graduate, business owner or retiree, you can benefit from his direction. His common sense approach to goal setting and planning will show you the way. As a wise man once said, “If you don’t know where you are going . . . how will you know when you get there?”

You have taken the single most important step in guaranteeing your own success. Armed with Success In Action, you soon can see your life change – dramatically. In fact, with some hard work and perseverance, you can actually achieve the three key goals that can turn your life entirely around.

• For the first time ever, you will see your own path to peak performance more clearly than ever before.

• You will begin exuding the inner confidence that tells others you’re ready to take charge, and . . .

• You will have mastered the essential decision-making skills that can put you in control of your personal and professional life for years to come!

The concepts presented are simple ones when considered individually.

Together, however, they are a formidable tool for self-development. Success In Action is not new. It has been in use for over 30 years. Hundreds have met with Jim Shaw personally to learn his systematic approach to career development. Recently though, through word-ofmouth and the present economic conditions, the number of people requesting this educational experience has grown beyond the scope of Jim’s seminars. This digital tutorial is the result of his continuing dedication to helping others capture their dreams.

Prepare for Change

In today’s word, the only constant is change. For all of us, no matter what our role in life, or place in society, change is as inevitable as sunrise and sunset. Yet, few people are prepared to meet the moment when change occurs. For most, change is the enemy. It is at best unsettling and at worst unthinkable. In short, they haven’t found the Success In Action way to anticipate change – and turn it to their advantage.

Those who remain unprepared to meet change are not only failing their future, they’re failing to face the facts of the present. They feel the adverse effects in every area of their lives.

Success at Work

With Success In Action on the work-front, you can control the timing and terms of your own career decisions. Most people don’t yet realize that the age old concept of job security is as outdated as the buggy whip and Black Jack gun. As Gerald Celente wrote in the best-selling book, Trends Tracking:

“You can no longer assume that if you work for a company and do well, you’ll always have a job with them. Your father could assume this, but you can’t

“If you’re a senior executive, a middle manager, or an employee, you have nothing to protect you other than your own ability to get a job elsewhere.”

With that the case, you would think that most people would fully prepare themselves for the inevitable vicissitudes of constant change. In fact, you would think they would prepare themselves to turn change into choice – of where they want to go next and how to get there.

Unfortunately, most people have never had the advantage of Success In Action. They end up confronting the following facts with little or no preparation – and the bleak prospect of a recurring nightmare:

• 12 million people are now forced to change careers – that’s careers, not jobs – every year. That’s over 30,000 career changes a day. According to the Rand Corporation, this number will double by the year ?????????

• The average person entering the workforce today will face a career change four to seven times during his or her worklife.

• The average person now works at ten jobs during their worklife.

• 56% of women and 40% of men now expect to shift from company to company throughout their working careers.

With Success In Action, you develop a plan for change. Used periodically, it serves to benchmark your career progress. Should a career change be necessary, you have a database of possible opportunities at your fingertips.

Success at School

With Success In Action on the school-front, you can plan the courses you take, and control the future. For high school graduates, college students and parents, it’s the perfect guide for making key college and curriculum choices. One former dean of a major northeast college recently stated:

“Students who come into college knowing what they want to do in life – having chosen the major to meet their needs – are invariably more successful than those who arrive with unfounded or vague objectives. Unfortunately, most students fall into the latter category.”

When you consider the time and money (average $40,000 a year for a private university) spent in pursuit of a college education, the value of Success in Action becomes readily apparent.

For the student, the college years should be a time when career choices are researched and developed, making for an easy transition from academic to professional life. For parents preparing to spend possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars for their child’s college education, Success In Action provides a career planning tool that can be used for years to come and will assist in the process by providing networking contacts.

How important is this guidance? Consider the following:

• The average high school graduate has more than 3,000 colleges from which to choose. Less than one third graduate from their first choice.

• The average college student has more than 600 major fields of study from which to choose. Less than one-fourth finish in the major they initially pursue.

• The average college graduate has less than one chance in five to work in their original field of choice.

With the clear, concise guidance of Success In Action, students can enter college knowing the course of their future – and the courses to assure success. In addition, they can begin building a database of key contacts that last a lifetime!

Success at Home

With Success In Action on the home front, you can control the choices and changes that bring families closer together. Most Americans find themselves trapped in a continual quest for mere contentment. The very idea of a family truly happy has almost been abandoned.

Even here – on the most important front of all – most decisions are made without the benefit of even the simplest systematized plan to assure spiritual, physical and emotional success. As a result, most people have little or no idea how to meet the inevitable moments of personal change. The results speak for themselves:

• One of five Americans move each year. An additional 40% would move if they could decide where to go to meet their needs.

• 50 million Americans diet each year but only 2 million succeed.

• Two thirds of all marriages end in divorce and three out of four divorcees remarry.

The remarkable Success In Action Personal Priorities Grid enables you to make the most vital decisions with mathematical precision. Unlike any other tool, the Priorities Grid focuses your attention, narrows your choices and helps you make not just the best decision possible – the but the best possible decision!

A Constant Guide to a Changing World

Clearly, change is the only constant. You have to ask yourself, “Why are so many people unprepared or ill prepared to meet the moments when change occurs?

The answer is simple. Until now, very few people had access to the incredible program you are reading. It contains a powerful system for positive change.

With Success In Action, you can know beyond doubt what to do to control your future and – in detail – how to do it. You now can not only meet the moment – you can actually master it and make it yours, for the rest of your life.

That’s the promise, and the power, of Success In Action – your constant guide to a changing world!

Overview

Do not attempt to complete the entire program in one sitting. Success In Action requires a lot of soul-searching and personal evaluation. Rushing through with a “got to get it done” attitude will only leave you short changed. Take your time, analyze your feeling and persevere. You will see revealed personal strengths and professional strategies guaranteed to take you where you want to go.

Success In Action is a complete system of establishing your personal priorities, evaluating those priorities, producing a professional resume, and most importantly, developing a system for effective interviewing. All of these components are used in a cycle designed to get results. As you read through the program, you will begin to see that Success In Action is far more than the sum of its parts.

This is a system you can use for the rest of your life as change demands. Your challenge is to learn to manage the inevitable process of a changing environment.

First, let’s take a graphic look at how it all fits together.

We will now break down the three phases In the program and expand upon each later.

• Phase One – The Employment Analysis. This enables you to determine your own strengths, weaknesses, wants and needs. Then, you can judge how well they match up with key aspects of your new job opportunities – and even with the parameters of your current career position.

• Phase Two – The Resume. This is a specially designed tool for introducing your most pertinent personal skills to a prospective employer. You learn not only how to put it together, but also how to use it to your own advantage during the interview.

• Phase Three – The Interview. This is where Success In Action teaches you how to control the ebb and flow of the interview – and gives you the confidence to make a great impression.

Now you’re ready to jump in with both feet and put Success In Action to work for you. You’ll find it to be a remarkable system, vitally important in making critical educational decisions, in choosing or changing a career, in evaluating your current job status, preparing for annual reviews and making the critical moves on a daily basis that lead to true personal satisfaction and happiness.

Phase 1: The Employment Analysis

Developing Personal Career Objectives

The first step in making a vital career decision – in taking control of your own professional future – is to thoroughly evaluate your own criteria for career success.

Each of us has our own criteria for judging our personal success. There is no “one size fits all” when it comes to true job satisfaction. Yet, it’s amazing how few of us take the time to carefully analyze our own definition of success. You may be surprised at the outcome!

Below are typical examples of the qualities you may be looking for in a job. Add your own in the spaces provided and choose the ten that are most important to you. Now, prioritize them from the most important (10) to the least important (1).

• Starting Income

• Future income (3-5 years)

• Benefits

• Working environment

• Flexibility of hours

• Advancement opportunities

• Job security

• Geographical location of job

• Travel requirements

• Self satisfaction

• Growth of the industry

• Size of company

• Diversity of job

• Training opportunities

• Prestige

• Responsibility

Employment Analysis Directions

It’s now time to turn your Priority Ratings into objective quantities that will automatically guide your career choices. Refer to the example following when using this simple six-step process. Remember, Success In Action is a cyclical program. Much of the information needed to complete the chart is described later in this tutorial.

• Step 1 – Take your ten Priorities and place them across the top of the Employment Analysis, along with their Ratings.

• Step 2 - Down the left side of the Employment Analysis, list specific industries and companies within those industries, for whom you might like to work.

• Step 3 – Immediately following an interview, objectively enter your Interview Results based on a scale of 1 to 4, with 4 being the most positive and 1 being the least.

• Step 4 – Multiply the Priority Rating by the Interview Result to calculate the Score.

• Step 5 – Calculate the Total adding horizontally the numbers from Step 4. This column will enable you to analyze the career options best suited to you. Through interviewing and evaluating, you will soon see that certain industries and careers meet more of your personal goals than others.

• Step 6 – The Remarks area on the right side of your Employment Analysis is used to make notes for appropriate follow-up. This is your “To Do” list.

We’ve analyzed some examples as a guide. To give you some up-front practice in using The Employment Analysis, analyze your current (or most recent) job using the six steps above. The results may surprise you.