Welcome to the third edition of the first book I ever wrote. A lot of water has passed under the bridge since I had the idea for a book which could help people rediscover their confidence and find new opportunities in their working life. I too have rediscovered new work opportunities in the last three years following breast cancer!

The word ‘job’ is becoming obsolete. A job implies boundaries, the parental company giving a job to those who seek one and rewarding loyalty with promotion and salary increases. In the workplace of today, it’s the word ‘work’ that is King. There may not be the kind of jobs our parents or grandparents were familiar with, and there may not be the traditional rewards offered. But there is plenty of work (and financial remuneration) for anybody who is willing to look for it and who can reinvent themselves to accommodate the huge array of opportunities out there. Work can mean having two or three strands of income. It can mean being employed by a company to do one thing but being able to move on to other roles. It can mean being self employed part-time and PAYE for the rest of the time. It can mean approaching a company on spec and creating work for yourself because you’re in the right place at the right time.

Being made redundant can happen to anyone – but it doesn’t mean you have to be a victim. So your job may have gone, your work load may have evaporated or been taken away, but that doesn’t mean you have failed as a human being. Paid work is only one aspect of your life – you are multidimensional with many facets. Although we depend on paid work to put food in our belly and live our life as we choose, paid work is only a means to an end and losing some aspect of our paid work is not the end of you. You can choose your reaction to redundancy. Is a glass half full or half empty? Do you want to fall in a heap, hold onto your resentment and anger or would you rather stand tall and take control of your life?

We can’t avoid losing a job or work through redundancy. What we can do is to have an eye on the future of the company we work for and know when the chips are down and we can continually update our skills so that we are a saleable commodity at any time.

To help you move forward, this book contains updated sections on selling yourself, using the internet to find work (including useful sites on the web), teleworking, becoming a consultant and new ways to work. Updating it has reminded me there are even more opportunities out there to take advantage of. So I’m off to find them as you will be soon. Good luck!

laurel.alexander@ntlworld.com