Week 15- What Color is Your Parachute

 Throughout the course reading this book has guided me and the last section oft he book is about finding your mission in life. We all wonder what our true purpose in life is and some of us think we know but others are so unsure have the time.


In this section Richard Bolles mentions that for a lot of us we want to do more then just go to work and then come home from work that their has to be more of a purpose for us than that. This brings in the word mission which is defined as task or responsibility that an individual is set or destined to do.


Finding your mission according to Bolles is is in three steps. 1. Is to seek to stand hour by hour in the conscious presence of God, the One from whom your mission derived and to share with everyone on Earth. 2. To do what you can by taking it day by day, step by step and believing God is with you. 3. using the talent that you were given on Earth.



The goal is to find a job that allows you to say I feel like I have done more in life then just going to work everyday and that maybe I made a difference but either way this what my purpose in this life was.

Week 14- What Color is Your Parachute

This next chapter is really important to me it's about starting your own business. This is the chapter I can relate to the most because that is exactly what I want to do one day.

Now some of us get lucky in life and know exactly what we want do and some of us don't for those that don't but know they want to be their own boss Richard Bolles chapter 12 has some advice for you. First he tells us to write your ideas down, create your resume, and write down what you love to do and what you can do. Next is to read the research you find on starting your own business. Explore is interviewing people that have started their own business and figure out what worked with theirs and what didn't. Last is to get feedback asking if your cut out for this and speaking to people you know about your idea and seeing what their response is.



Bolles ends the chapter with saying that their are a bit of uncertainties with starting anything new but if you keep three things in mind everything will be good.

1. There's always risk but the goal for everyone is to try and avoid that risk.
2. Talking to others that have already done what you want to do will help you.
3. Have a plan B just in case what you want to do doesn't play out.

Week 13- What Color is Your Parachute

Throughout Richard Bolles book he has given us many different pieces of advice in terms of finding a job, what the job seekers look for, etc. Now in this chapter he talks about how to choose or even change career choices. He breaks it up into five different ways.


The first way is by using the internet and being able to categorize the career you are looking for whether its by industry, largest number of openings, etc. Then once you have selected that it allows you to narrow down your search. The internet is a good way to help with career selection.


The second way is Tests or assessments. The thing about this way is that the tests aren't always accurate based on six things Bolles mentions about test 1. You are absolutely unique which means no test can measure you. 2. Don't try to figure out ahead of time what you want the results of the test to be. 3. Be looking for clues and suggestions and not a for sure answer. 4. Take more than one test. 5.  Broaden first then narrow down later. 6. There will always be mixed reviews about tests. So tests can be good but often don't read to much into the test.

The third way is to use the flower exercise which is organizing who you are and then putting your five favorite skills and three favorite fields of knowledge. Throughout the process you may be able to combine your favorite fields with one career. Once you find one then you start talking to those experts in those careers and see if you like it.

The fourth way changing career in two steps. Bolles in his chapter uses the words Difficult path which is changing both your field and title at the same time. In this chapter and with this way it's better to change one because then you can show prior experience instead of changing both at a time.


The fifth way is finding out what the job-market will need and what is going to be upcoming in the years to come.

To wrap up there are many ways to go about finding a career these are just some of the ways to think about.