Customer Reviews

48 Days To The Work You Love

5 star:		(104)
4 star:		(20)
3 star:		(20)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(20)

 

 

Did you know heart attacks increase by 33% on Monday mornings, more people die at 9am Monday than any other time of the week, and male suicides are highest on Sunday nights, just before the weekly grind? Dan Miller does, and impending death is just one of the reasons he wants you to find better work.

Dan Miller's 48 Days to the Work You Love provides a combination of the things you already know but need to hear again, and need to know but don't. This book will do more than help you strengthen old resolutions; it will teach you how to make meaningful changes in your career--and in the way you view work altogether.

First, Quit your Job

48 Days persuades the reader to leave the job that isn't working (no pun intended), and find something better. "Job Security" is no longer an excuse to stay where you are over-worked and underpaid. While in the early 80s the employment philosophy was work for a good company and they'll take care of you for life, today loyal workers are often (not fired but) "laid off", "downsized", "right-sized", "reorganized", reengineered", "put into the mobility pool", freed up to "pursue other opportunities", "uninstalled", and are often on the receiving end of "a cost containment exercise" (email other creative terms to Miller at work@48days.com). Why the change? Fifty years ago it took a lifetime for technology to make your job obsolete. Today it takes 4 or 5 years. Therefore, as Miller explains, "everyone lives on the edge of job obsolescence and the threshold of career opportunity"

Miller is so for you quitting your job that he writes, "You must develop a sense of what you can contribute that goes beyond 1 company or organization. A career path today will likely involve moving from organization to organization, creating a picture of rising circles, rather than a vertical ladder. In fact, a vertical rise within one organization will very likely move you away from your strongest areas of competence." And it will limit your earning potential, as Miller suggests "in changing companies you may be able to increase your income by 40 to 50 percent though that is unlikely to happen while moving up in one company."

48?

I have to address this, as you surely are wondering, why does finding the work you love take exactly "48 Days"? Miller explains that 40 days is a sacred time-span, and to this he adds eight "free days in the process to create your own plan". I can't decide whether this is blasphemous or just really hokey--to Christianize your book with an overused `sacred' numeric, and then casually change it. Still, it's certainly better than other possible titles: Every Worker's Battle, The Work Factor, Loving your Work too Much, and Work is Not that into You Either.

Despite the title, the book reads and flows well. It takes the lecture, vignette, lecture, vignette, lecture, vignette approach--which works--and most of the stories are really quite good. A few are perfectly cliché, of course. For those who haven't heard, if you help a struggling butterfly out of its cocoon, it will die. It needs to do that on its own. The same applies to hatching birds.

There are 4 Things you Need to Know

Often books are published that would make a good book chapter--the 4 points the author drones on about can be summarized in a couple hundred words. One of the best things about 48 Days is as soon as you think you know everything Miller is going to write, he introduces something else. For example, all this came from the second-half of the book:

* Fewer than 1% of job seekers find work by responding to an internet ad
* During an interview, your answer to any question should be no longer than 60 seconds
* The best times to have an interview are Tues-Thurs between 8-10am
* 2,322 of 2,756 managers rank enthusiasm as #1 in what they want in applicants
* Today people are paid for their productivity, not their time, not their seniority
* IQ contributes only about 20% to the factors that predict success
* 69% of businesses today cost less than $10,000 to start; and 24% cost $0
* The most successful people got there not by being in the most lucrative industry, but by doing work they loved

A Brick in the Wall

Finally, Miller reminds the reader that work is a part of life, it's not life itself. Don't sacrifice your family, community, church, recreation, or personal development for a job. He writes good advice I should take myself: "if you are working more than 45 to 50 hours a week in your job, you are limiting success in some other areas of your life. Don't expect all your fulfillment, value, and meaning to com from the work you do."

He also writes we should work out 4-5 times a week. This being said, I'm late for the gym...

In reading this I was reminded of the old saying, "To thine own self be true." I first thought that this was a book on how to find a new and better job in 48 days.

Instead it's a book on self discovery. It's how to find, look at, and understand your own skills, abilities, personality traits, values, dreams, and passions.

Once you understand where you are and where you're coming from, you have the basis for making some decisions about where you want to go. Then you can use this knowledge to find a better job, to start a business or whatever.

Dan Miller then covers the fundamentals of finding the new job, or the new business. It's an interesting combination of a self-help and business advice.

I listen to Dave Ramsey every day and read his books, I really think he's on the ball with his advice and helping people a lot. I can also understand why he advertises and endorses Dan Miller; Miller's heart is clearly in the right place and Im sure he's amazing as a one-on-one job counseler. But this book isn't anything special. I just got off the job hunt and I have to say that much of this advice can be found for free, on the internet, and is part of the whole college experience (which is about finding what you like to do and studying it in further detail). The book mainly says, "look and find out what you really want to do", "go find companies that do it", "let your enthusiasm show" and "negotiate shrewdly". Yes, this is all good advice, but its mostly common sense - you dont need to spend $20 to learn this advice.

So, you know, maybe Im too young and optimistic, but I really dont see the point or need for a book like this. Dave Ramsey, yes absolutely - everyone should listen to him. But Miller and his book - no, unless you go directly to him for job counseling. This book is much too general and non-commital to be of much use.

Having previously read Richard Nelson Bolles's classic What Color is Your Parachute, I was shocked at how much of the material in 48 Days to The Work You Love was a re-worded version of Parachute (first published commercially in 1972). In some sidebars Miller credits Bolles, but so much of the material (and format) is so dangerously close to plagarism that I intend to write a letter to the author and publisher asking for an explanation. This is especially galling since I am a big fan of Dave Ramsey and cannot believe that he is promoting this book unless he's never read Parachute.

The saddest part is that I actually like the original material Miller presents on "life goals", embracing change and work-life balance. Unfortunately, his presentation is so repetitious, disorganized and thinly developed that I didn't get much value from his ideas.

I'm particularly annoyed that there's no 48-day plan presented in the book! I'm not kidding. Apparently Dan Miller sells workbooks that include the arcane mysteries of "The Plan", but I only discovered this after reading the entire book! As it turns out, this "book" is more like a marketing pamphlet for Miller's "Plan workbooks"). Can you say "refund"?

The only way you could possibly be happy choosing this book over Bolles's Parachute would be if you think Miller's trite animal metaphors and seemingly random Bible quotes (perhaps monkeys typed them?) make up for this book's awful shortcomings. If you've never read What Color is Your Parachute this book will be helpful and insightful, but you would have been better off reading the original.

How wonderful to find a book that gives hope and direction to all of us in the workplace. As Dan Miller says in his book, "The fruits of a fulfilling life - happiness, confidence, enthusiasm, purpose and money - are mainly by products of doing something you enjoy, with excellence, rather than things we seek directly." He also made me understand that I should decide what kind of life I want, then plan my work around it. What wonderful wisdom! If you are feeling like you aren't getting all you want out of your career and life, READ THIS BOOK!

Dan Miller blows the lid of the traditional concept that work must be painfull and unfullfilling. This book is like a breath of fresh air in our TGIF mindset. Discover your skills, talents, natural bent, and build your work on that, you can't fail. Not to mention, Mondays don't matter when your doing what you love. Dan Miller causes the reader to begin their Vocation Search inwardlly. It's not a system designed to teach you how to manipulate others to give you the big money job that your not designed to do, rather he shows you how to find who you are and what you're made to do, and model you new bussines or vocation search after that.
If you hate your job, You are not where you are sopposed to be. It's that simple.

A great book, that blends both common sense and reality together concering finding meaningful work. If you think your work situation is awful, I would suggest this book. I hate to use this common uesed phrase, but it allowed me "think outside the box."

Unfortunately I have to echo the other negative reviewers of this book. I, too, got it on the recommendation of Dave Ramsey and was sorely disappointed in the fluffery of it. There is only ONE reference in the ENTIRE BOOK as to what the "48 Days" are. He says God worked major changes in the lives of people in 40 days and he (Miller) gives you "8 extra days." Really? That's it? It seems that if you are going to call your book "48 Days to..." you'd better have a very clear plan for those 48 days.

And the questions at the end of each chapter have NOTHING to do with the chapter you just read! In fact, some questions are REPEATED at the end of multiple chapters. And what do you do with your answers? There is absolutely no direction.

As others have said, this seems to just be an overblown marketing tool to go to his website and buy everything else. I didn't learn anything new from this book. "What Color is Your Parachute?" is infinitely more helpful and well written.

To top it all off, tucked inside the pages of my copy was a fake $100 bill that says, "Bummed that this wasn't real?" with a link to a website that will "show you how to make it real." I'm sure Miller cut a deal with these folks to "advertise" in his books. Tacky and classless.

I'm returning my copy tomorrow.

I rarely read self-help books, but this one was recommended by our pastor during a Sunday service I attended in the midst of a job crisis. Unfortunately, I found it less useful for my career as a teacher and nanny than for those in the corporate world. Worth checking out from the library, though, for the appendixes: sample resumes and business letters, recommended reading, etc.

Although not a silver bullet for "getting a job" it does provide focus and insights into what you should be doing as well as spending your time on in searching for your vovational calling. I recommend this book for one who is trying to find out what they should be doing versus someone who likes their job and is looking for advancement in that field.