Customer Reviews

Passion and Purpose: How to Identify and Leverage the Powerful Patterns That Shape Your Work/Life

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Well, if you're job-hunting or career-searching or mission-anguishing, this is the best resource to work with the Miller Motivated Abilities model. I've worked with Marlys in person twice, once as corporate-employed and once as self-employed. So you can tell I like the model which is a great balance to the Myers Briggs approach. How do you REALLY like to operate verus how do you THINK you're supposed to operate? Once you see that, things go "clunk" and you say OHHH! so THAT'S what happened with that job / that boss / that person / that project etc.

The book gives you the complete method and context, all that's missing is Marlys' personal read, but hey you'll have to email her for that. She has a web site but what I liked most about the book was I could work through the whole process sitting at Starbuck's.

There are several other books detailing Miller's model with him as contributing author. Marlys' treatment is the most complete, self-contained, and usable.

I read Arthur Miller's books and thought them to be excellent. His view of "giftedness" and design really made sense to me looking at my personal history.

As much as I enjoyed Miller's books, I needed something practical to accompany it. I found "Passion and Purpose" to be just that. It gave me a superb framework to map out the necessary data and analyse it. One result: understanding my motivation payoff, a major "ah-ha" for me, and something I doubt I would have come to on my own.

The section pertaining to analysis I found to be particularly helpful. It assisted me to be both throrough and quick. Several subseqent sections that help work through a "Best-Fit" scenario and team design I also found extremely useful.

I would say that "Passion and Purpose" is a wonderful companion to Miller's books and/or as a stand alone work on giftedness. It believe it will really help you to identify and maximize your natural design, motivations and abilities, and ultimatley lead to a more impactful and fulfilling work life.

Are you having a hard time deciding what you want to be when you grow up? Are you 43 and still wondering? Or maybe you're 53 and considering your second career. For those of us who have ever had such thoughts, Marlys Hanson's "Passion and Purpose" is the solution.

In this excellent work you will learn about Motivated Abilities, and why you should work to your strengths more than always trying to improve your weaknesses. You will understand why you are particularly good at some activities, and perhaps a bit less so at others.

After you have read the book, help with understanding your Motivated Abilities is available from Marlys' company, Marlys Hanson and Associates. While the book teaches the method of doing this analysis oneself, the experience of Marlys and her team will help you learn even more about yourself for a modest additional cost.

I wish I had found Marlys sooner, but am thrilled that I found her at all.

I have spent many years as a psychologist counseling clients who lack a sense of fulfillment and meaning in their lives. I therefore read this book, and underwent the SIMA process, with great interest. I found that it was the most accurate, powerful, and comprehensive instrument that I have encountered to understand one's motivated abilities. I highly recommed this book to anyone serious about reaching their potential doing work that they enjoy.

Unlike many books about passion and purpose, this book has direct and meaningful applications to the lives of the reader. The authors have taken a concept - that of understanding the underlying motivational patterns we each possess - and shown us how to identify and then leverage these patterns.

As a psychologist, I am constantly reminded that the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. Many times in life, this statement is regarded as a negative, that we all fall into patterns of behavior that are not productive or even destructive. The focus here, however, is quite the opposite: by paying attention to our successes in life - in the sense of what we have been good at and what we have found pleasurable - we can craft our lives to increase passion and purpose.

The Hansons make the book easy to use by targeting chapters to specific needs or interests. For example separate chapters are recommended for readers who are concerned about their job "fit" and managing career direction. Other chapters are recommended for team leaders, supervisors, managers and parents, all of whom aid in the recognition, nurture, and use of the talents of others. An especially interesting chapter provides guidance to readers beginning to think about retirement years, encouraging the reader to begin the management of retirement long before retirement age. This chapter is of special importance to us aging "baby boomers" who for so many years have focused our attention on careers and family.

The authors include a step by step process on how to go about identifying motivational patterns. By following these steps, the reader is provided with "answers" and a greater sense of direction. This makes "Passion and Purpose: How to Identify and Leverage the Powerful Patterns that Shape your Work/Life" a resource with the real potential to change lives.

Before I completed the SIMA analysis presented in this book, I was ready to change employers, and even careers. However, I did not know what I wanted. The SIMA model is an excellent tool because it helps you identify how you are motivated to work, what you are motivated to work with, and what kind of results you are motivated to achieve. All of this is based on a careful analysis of your lifetime accomplishments - thus, your motivations are based on evidence from what you've actually done, not what you *think* you're interested in (e.g., if given multiple choice answers in the standard personality test).

I went through the book myself first and then contacted Marlys to help me "fill-in-the blanks". Marlys was very prompt in responding and turned around a full assessment within one week. The result is that I now understand why I didn't enjoy my previous jobs, and most importantly, I know what I need in my current job to derive satisfaction and enjoyment from my work. Now, I can clearly articulate my career and life goals because I know what my strengths are, and I will build upon them to achieve the greatest success. I look forward to being much happier and excited about my work as well!

Amazing insight contrary to most popular opinion. The exercise is an investment in time that pays off hundreds of fold. Better yet, the author is more than willing to take the exercise to the next level to really bring it all to life. One of the best investments I've made in years - in time and dollars!

This very clear and well-written book provides a very clear explanation of how to employ the enormously powerful SIMA technique. As a manager responsible for employee development in a large information systems organization, I made powerful use of the SIMA methodology. Through its use, we were able to fill positions based not only on "skill match," but perhaps more importantly, on "motivation match." It was a win/win for both the employees and the company: Employees gained insight into where their passions lay and were assigned to areas where their energies could be tapped, and the company got big productivity gains from their truly motivated employees.

Excellent follow-on to Dr. Arthur Miller's book, "Designed for Life." Merlys Hanson clearly describes a practical approach of determining one's innate purpose and discovering what motivates one to realize the very best 'you' that you were intended to become. She closes the book with an invitation to contact her for additional resources, AND she actually answers those who contact her. "Passion and Purpose" is a great resource for parents to help their children for their lifework. It is a great resource for individuals seeking to learn their potential for management or any professional area of life. It is a great resource for persons in transition, especially retirement, to take another shot at being who you really are. It is a great resource for anyone interested in discoverying themselves. This is a must read for life coaches who care about their clients.

I highly recommend this book. Before I read this book I was really struggling with the direction I wanted to go in life. Even though I have a master's degree in my profession, I wasn't sure if I wanted to continue in my profession. I've read a few books on career planning and I've taken a few assessment tests. While I found a few gold nuggets here and there, I just didn't have the clarity and assurance I was looking for. I read passion and purpose and it really helped me. Also, I contacted Marlys Hanson and she walked me through each step and helped me understand why I was struggling with my current position and she helped me see what I need to look for in my next position. The money and time I spent reading this book and being counseled by Marlys was one of the best investments I've ever made.