Good evening, thank you for coming.
Every time I... I realize it's very late. Every time I plunge into some kind of adventures.
I graduated from one of the best schools in Moscow that was very strong at law sciences
All of my friends entered either the Moscow State Law Academy,
or the law faculty of Moscow State University, or the FSB Academy.
About 4 months before the entrance I realized that it was a bit strange to do what everyone else did
because it was too simple. That's why I decided not to enter a law faculty
and instead, I started thinking where to go. Then I realized that the second reason was that
I was really bad at maths. One has to be good at it, because maths can be very useful,
no matter what you do in life. So I had to put myself in such a situation where I simply
had to learn maths. Where do you have to learn maths, what do you think?
Well, no, I thought it would be too bold to enter the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics
with no knowledge of maths whatsoever. That's why I entered the Economic Faculty of MSU
where for many years I had to study mathematical analysis. I repeated the examinations
several times, but finally I mastered it on the necessary level. This was the first adventure.
Others happened to me after graduation, during my postgraduate courses.
I went on a hike. I'd never done this before, but decided to do it nevertheless. It turned out to be
not just a trip, but almost an Olympic contest with rapids and swashes on our way.
The last adventure but one happened in 2005 when my colleagues and I started our own business.
Due to the actual state of things in Russia, this is a bit of an adventure that neither entering
a university nor rapids can be compared to. We started a business called Future Today dedicated to
young specialists and their careers. We help leading companies to find young specialists that would
become the heads of those companies, in Russia and all over the world. We help those guys
to build their careers, we help universities to work with their own specialists and so on.
That's what I've been doing for the past 8 years, actually. So, there is one last adventure
that I want to tell you about. This was only the introduction. Actually, when they asked me to make
a speech about careers and outer space, I agreed, of course, because it's a great idea and
there seems to be a lot in common between the two. But when I started thinking about what to tell you,
it turned out to be not that simple. Careers and outer space are such broad conceptions,
how can I combine them? Can I simply make parallels between them? And then I started thinking,
for example, what images of space exist in the career field? Okay, so what do I do? I search for stars!
Stars, careers - here's a connection! What else? What other parallels?
I looked at the age structure diagram of Russia. Do you know what it is?
I looked at it and it turned out to be the shape of a space rocket. Here's another connection!
And then I realized that I'd got carried away. I was like the anecdotal serial killer whose answer
to the riddle "what is the same colour in all seasons?"  was "blood" . I started to notice in everything
around me connections to outer space. So I decided to try the other way round.
What connections do careers have to outer space? I started thinking and drawing analogies.
The first thing that comes to mind is the Earth as the cradle of humanity, the place where the
career of the human kind began. The Russian space program that passed an important exam
is another parallel. But I did realize that there was still something wrong – and then it struck me.
I have to say that besides running a business I also teach Marketing at the Economic Faculty of MSU,
I have to find a third analogy that would be neither about space nor about careers,
but would still illustrate what there's in common between them, something what would demonstrate
both concepts. And I found this third analogy that I'm going to speak to you about right now.
My speech is entitled the cosmogony of careers and the career of an astronaut.
Although I'm actually not going to speak about them,
but instead about careers, outer space, ladders and doors.
Well, actually I'll be speaking about all of them, but I guess you'll see for yourself in the next few seconds.
that's a whole other field that I work at.  That's the reason why I love giving definitions,
I can't make a speech without them. You can see the definition of cosmogony on the screen
and next to it, the definition of the word “career”. So, if you look at the key words –
you don't have to read all of them, there are too many. You can check them out on Wikipedia later on.
The most important thing is that cosmogony is a scientific field about the origin and development
of astronomical bodies, and career is about progress in life, success in life, moving up the job ladder.
The interesting thing is that when I put those two definitions next to each other, they turned out
to be very close. Those Greeks and Italians, they come from the same place -
well, plus or minus a couple of thousand of kilometers. That's what we're talking about -
about what the world is like and what paths we can find in it.
What kind of a metaphor can there be that would describe both cosmos and career, cosmos and path?
What do you think? I'll ask you questions and you'll try to answer them,
so that I'm not the only one giving a speech here.
Okay, let me give you a clue first and then you'll be on your own. I think that this metaphor describes
both career and space is a pathway and a door. A pathway and a half-open door.
I'll try to discuss with you why this metaphor is so good and why it is actually both about career and space.
What thing comes to your mind first when you thing about space?
Planets, universes, stars, space, infinity... The thing that comes to my mind is different.
It's the unknown. Actually, outer space is something huge and still unknown.
We know about planets, black holes, quasars, about different elements
of this infinite and incomprehensible thing, but on a large scale, it's unknown to us.
When we think about a career? do you know what career awaits you?
It seems that a lot of people think about their careers in the same way as about space.
The interesting thing is that when I ask first-graders – it actually happens too – and when I
ask high school graduates how they see their future, what is expecting them,
their answers are practically the same - entering the university and then deciding what to do next.
No matter how close they are to graduating and how broad has to be their planning time-frame,
they all say the same thing about entering the university and then facing the unknown, facing outer space.
And I think that actually this perception of the future is quite similar.
People who know at high school what they want to do in life are happy people.
People who are interested in space and know what's in there, and see the whole picture
are also happy people. This is the first metaphor, the first allegory.
The second thing I picture when I think about career and outer space -
What do you think it is? It's not planets or infinity. What is it?
What's that?
Hight? Well, in a way, but not exactly.
The way up? That's more like it! Very close.
No, it has more to do with going up than down!
It's a dream. Actually, space is a dream. The thing we've been celebrating for a few days now
is dreams coming true. We celebrate the fact that a man realized a dream
that thousands of people had had for hundreds of years.
He did what hundreds of generations had dreamed of before. He went into outer space, and it's awesome.
So, what do you think about when you think of your career? You dream too!
You dream about achievements, about your future life, about the great things you'll do
and that will live through the ages.
Whether we think about space or about our career, we dream.
It's really awesome and it's the right thing to do, and one thing should help the other.
There's a third thing I'd like to tell you. What else is in common between space and career?
What do you think?
The last thing.
It's a journey. We went out to outer space and though we haven't gone far away
and we travel only as far as the front door to get the morning papers, so to speak
but we're already making these steps, and the thing we all dream about and see ahead of us
is the journey humanity has yet to undertake. First to the planets close to us,
then to the nearest galaxies, then all across the universe, the Milky Way and so on.
And the journey that awaits us and all humanity in space is the same journey that awaits you in life.
I've heard people say that a man is a cosmos in itself, and so a journey through life
may be an analogy of traveling through space.
That's why career, your life and space are all journeys.
The last thing I'd like to say about career and space is about choice.
The choice you have to make, the choice which star to fly to first, which profession to choose,
how to follow your own way, whom to take with you on this trip.
This is the choice that awaits you and that's why space is impossible without choice
and a career is impossible without choice. That's what you'll have to do.
Senior high school students, you're now approaching this door.
Your dreams, your journeys and your choice to follow this path, what you want to achieve
and what you will do.
I want to tell you that, like the humanity that had been climbing for a long time the same ladder,
made a step out into open space and now has a lot of paths ahead, the same way you have
followed the path of education and haven't had many different options.
Now you're approaching your big choice and about to take a step beyond this imaginary line
where you'll have to make your own choices.
It depends on you what the world will be like beyond this door, whether it will be what you want it to be.
Good luck. Thank you.
