[Note: Read Predicting the Future – Part 1 first]
I left off with: “…our present is the result of our actions. What we do today determines our future. The extension of that concept is that we can predict our future based on what we do today.”
Before going any further, let’s discuss what “predicting the future” means. Let’s hold a heavy object like a brick about a meter directly over your toes. Let go of the brick. Can you predict the future? Sure you can – the brick is going to fall. After that, you can further predict the future, based on what you do. If you yank your foot out of the way (chicken!), it’s going to land on the floor or ground. If you don’t, you end up in acute pain after the brick lands on your toes.
Okay, that was pretty easy and not so mysterious. The point is that you can change the outcome, even though you have no control over the actual brick once it has been dropped. What we often misunderstand is that we have similar control over our entire world. Sure, the economy may suck, your boss is a jerk, the weather is lousy, and so on. Whether those things have a desirable impact on your life is entirely up to you.
In The Physics of Success I describe a process by which you select your future. Like a road trip, you can select a destination, a time frame, and a course. Once you are on your way you may encounter detours, setbacks, or you might even make better time than you expected. You can’t really predict whether you get a flat tire, or whether the car breaks down, or what kind of good/bad/indifferent experiences you are going to have along the way.
However, with very good accuracy you can predict where you are going to end up and when you are going to get there.
That was precisely the case for me when I had talked with my friend Ken earlier in the year. I knew where I was going to end up, so I wasn’t particularly worried. What strikes me as especially interesting is that I had once before been involuntarily unemployed, with a distinctly different frame of mind, and it was that experience that ultimately led to writing the book.
