Futurescaping: Using Business Insight to Plan Your Life - Softcover

'A powerful tool for decision-making and scenario-planning in an era of chaos and constant disruption. Kasriel has distilled the knowledge of successful business leaders, behavioural economists and even life coaches to help you make smarter choices in your career, family life, health and personal finances.' --David Rowan, WIRED Magazine

'When it comes to the future, do you have a) a clear plan, b) a vague vision or c) a strong belief that planning ruins the romance of life? If the answer is c), you are in need of Tamar Kasriel s book, Futurescaping: Using Business Insight to Plan Your Life. To achieve this, the author suggests adapting scenario planning tools used by companies to our personal lives. Too many people, she argues, ignore the impact of macro and micro-economic factors on their personal lives. To cite one example she highlights, might an oil price rise mean the price of travel increased to the point where it became too expensive for a couple living apart to visit each other? The pacy text brings together ideas from self-help and business books. Kasriel s experience as a futurologist and founder of Futureal, a consultancy that helps companies forecast consumer trends, led her to believe there was a gap in the market to help individuals build a model for their future, showing them how to keep a smart, watching brief on the outside world and how to identify relevant changes and frame a logical model to combine them, just as we do for business . She suggests getting a few advisers or even a panel to consult on your plans. We could all learn, she argues, from companies objective scrutiny. The book s tone is pragmatic and mercifully steers clear of the embrace-your dreams- and-become-anything-you-like self-help territory...an enjoyable read. --Emma Jacobs, The Financial Times

Scenario planning taken from the business world can help people plan their personal lives. Those who haven't thought about the future will find it most useful. --Kevin Duncan, Greatest Hits Blog --Kevin Duncan, Greatest Hits Blog

It is a first-class piece of work. It beautifully achieves its purposes. It is well written, conversational, down-to-earth talking to readers in clear and interesting language. You avoid jargon almost entirely and speak in everyday English. You have truly created, as you say to your readers, 'a sensible guide to planning for your individual future.' The book is a job well done. Every reader will benefit from reading it. --Wendell Bell, Futurist and Emeritus Professor of Sociology at Yale

Futurescaping is an engaging guide to making better life decisions by adapting the best elements of business planning for personal success. So many people manage brilliantly at work, making smart and accountable decisions, yet let their personal lives slide into gentle chaos. Futurescaping reveals the truths of corporate future planning, outlining the importance and benefit of accountability and a clear bottom line. It focuses on the enigmatic technique of scenario planning which enables organisations to plan decades in advance, and shows how individuals can use the same technique to plan for their own futures. Building on interviews with business leaders, life coaches and behavioural economists, this engaging, clear-sighted book will allow you to build a model of your future to help you make smarter choices in your career, family life, health and personal finances. Presented with a dry wit, not only will Futurescaping help you to organise your life, it will help you free yourself from entrenched thinking patterns by getting you to think in a whole new way. If you've never believed planning could be liberating, prepare to be wrong.