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Making a Living While Making a Difference: Conscious Careers in an Era of Interdependance, Revised Edition

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Melissa Everett's Making a Living while Making a Difference is as if Paul Hawkins met Majora Carter and Joanna Macy in Career 202 and a hands-getting-dirty, how-to book came out of their conversation. In a book market shouting increasing warnings of the twin crises of environmental catastrophies and increasing human and economic struggle, this remarkable book gently yet firmly acknowledges the challenges, molds them together, grounds them in spirituality and then sets forth on a 10-step journey of discerning what is, finding, creating, and sustaining Right Livelihood.

This book remarkably re-constructs the way we understand our work in the world; from what it is - to how we find it - to what we do once we are doing it. The array of options and questions that any job-seeker who wants to make a difference face are enormous, and there are any number of constructive or debilitating processes for forging a path for oneself.

Too frequently, career-guides are not very good at balancing the enormity of the work to be done and an indivdiual's great passions with the realities of job-hunting, filling out applications, and receiving rejections from seemingly 'perfect' positions. Everett pratically includes exercises worksheets to help one successfully navigate changing and unpredictable currents.

She not only describes the twisting pathways that form most people's lives and livelihoods but she demonstrates through continual examples the interconnectedness and interdependence of our world today - and what it means to make a living in that world.

It is here, perhaps, that her contribution to the current discourse is the greatest - for she shows how the ideas, philosophies, beliefs and values motivating people around the world are combining and criss-cutting one another in exciting, innovative ways that are building the bridge into a sustainable, live-able world for all. Given the precariousness inherent in our current situation, this is not only positive, it is necessary for our survival.

I strongly recommend this book not only to other job-seekers like myself, but to all of those who are researching, engaged with and curious about the 'green shoots' that are arising to re-construct a world entering what she aptly describes as 'an Era of Interdependence.'

This book makes conscious career choice a matter of not just how to think about your earnings options, but also a means of seeing the kinds of difference you personally can make. Whether you are a young person stepping into the world of work or a semi retiree seeking new ways to contribute you will find doors in your mind opening to real opportunities.

It begins with awareness - of the abundance of choices, of your own wants, of what you can do now and of what you can learn to do. It is an enabling book and guilt free book that can give the reader a sense of adventure and happiness in the process of finding a better role even as you get better at it. As the author notes:

"Creating the working life you love, is work in itself. But it doesn't have to be a grim assault on a mountain peak - and in fact it works better if it is approached much more lightly."


David J. Dell, Ph.D.
CEO
The Sustainable Profitability Group

even if you knew how you wanted to `change' the world . . .
and so had become an architect, doctor, musician, zoologist or anything in-between, Melissa Everett's Making a Living While Making a Difference will bring fresh perspective on why and how to be more aware of our interdependence; and to be more responsive to the increasing social and economic struggle of making a living in our environmentally fragile world. Whether we re-structure our chosen paths, explore emerging trails or choose to create new tracks, the book outlines what needs to be asked, of ourselves and those around us, to better integrate how we work with how we live, in evolving and maintaining a sustainable, nurturing world for us all. Whether considering a career change or continuing what you do with renown passion and focus, there is something of value here.

Green consciousness has spawned Greenpeace, Green parties, green retailing and green investment funds. Add to the list a rapidly growing workplace phenomenon: green careers.

A 1995 US national survey identified 45 million "Cultural Creatives" who support green values. Many of them are committed to "redesigning the economy -- one organization, one project, one career at a time." To these legions we can add many others who are greening their careers. For instance, over a dozen American universities now host MBA programs in environmental sustainability.

To aid these seekers Melissa Everett has written an authoritative guide dedicated to the notion that "what you care about is more important than what you're good at." Making a Living While Making a Difference rebuts the common wisdom that business skills are more critical than personal vision.

The book is divided into two parts. The first provides an extensive human and environmental context to the second section, a 10-step program to guide individuals seeking a career that will embody their ethical ambitions. Both parts contain scores of anecdotes about people who have dedicated their working lives to achieve environmental goals. Ms Everett has clearly done her homework. The catalogue of green triumphs -- corporate and individual -- is inspirational for its breadth and depth.

That's a good thing, because the problems we face are staggering. For example, North American per capita consumption of "active" materials (e.g. forest products, fuel, cement, etc.) is about 20,000 pounds annually. Ninety percent of that is turned to waste within a year. Fortunately Ms. Everett doesn't dwell on these negatives. Her goal is to celebrate current accomplishments and to help others transform their work in order to advance the cause.

For example, she offers a brief narrative about buying an organic apple which illuminates the complex layers of support underlying the green marketplace: the local and national politics of organic certification, the years of organic pest management research, the bankers needed to finance the scheme, the grocer willing to stock fast-decaying organic foods, the risks absorbed by organic farmers.

Each level of activity identifies a part of "the work to be done." At times the enormity of the tasks appears impossibly huge. While the author acknowledges the challenge, she insists it must be faced head-on. After all, she's talking about saving the planet. And doing it in a organized, business-like manner that will provide personal fulfillment and, at times, considerable profit (e.g. The Body Shop).

In the 10-step section of the book, Ms. Everett often writes like a gestalt therapist. Rather than pointing the road to salvation, she peppers the reader with probing questions designed to identify individual values and how they fit into the working world. Furthermore, she combines an inventive, entrepreneurial attitude with the missionary zeal of a dedicated acolyte.

Step One (Wake Up) attempts to break the global malaise which has anesthetized would-be environmentalists and made them so comfortably numb. The following nine steps provide workbook exercises, group activities and evaluation methods. Anyone wanting to follow this path will need to spend weeks in self-analysis and is advised to establish a support network of like-minded individuals. The final step (Be a Co-creator of the Workplace You Want) is a testament to self-determination. Although her program will take commitment, it's difficult to argue with her moral appeal and her call to self-actualization.

In many ways, Making a Living is a natural sequel to Your Money or Your Life, the 1993 bible of the voluntary simplicity movement written by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin. The latter offers a way to eliminate personal debt and establish financial freedom. Ms. Everett points a way to reclaim individual labor by integrating work with personal values.

D.F. (Don) Bailey
Making a Living While Making a Difference: Conscious Careers in an Era of Interdependance, Revised Edition

If you're looking for some motivation to find a job that you love, I would definitley recommend this book. It does a great job at breaking down the myth that jobs that make a difference don't have the financial benefits as well. An easy read and very motivational.