Customer Reviews

Second Acts : Creating the Life You Really Want, Building the Career You Truly Desire

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I am a New Yorker who was living here on September 11th, 2001. 9/11 is shorthand for so many things these days, I suppose it is something different for all of us. For me, the events that unfolded here, among many other things, caused me to reconsider the professional choices I have made. If our lives can change (or be taken from us) in an instant, then I had better be satisfied with who I am and what I'm doing in my career...Since then, I've been looking for books and other resources to help me sort through how to decide what I want to do next in my life. I've bought a couple of books on this topic, but overall they been very unsatisfying.

Second Acts is the best resource I've found to sort through how I create the career and life I want in uncertain times. What's best about the book is that the steps outlined by Pollan and Levine are concrete and helpful--a rarity with this kind of book, and I feel like I can really learn from the examples they've taken from other peoples lives. Already, the book has helped me to create a plan to take actions that will help me make changes in my professional life that will enable me to lead the life I want.

I wholeheartedly recommend this book!

Stephen Pollan draws on his background as lawyer and financial advisor, once again demonstrating that life is the best preparation for a career as a life coach. His book offers the familiar promise, "It's never too late," but with some surprising twists.

The best part of this book is the section on deciding what you want to do with your life. Pollan's exercises are original and would, I believe, help many people to discover their own next step. For instance, Pollan urges readers to review activities that they love -- and also places that draw forth a passionate response. His question, "What need does this passion address?" is extremely helpful and, unfortunately, rarely asked.

Implementation sections are helpful but I would encourage readers to seek supplementary guidance. Pollan suggests that a degree from University of Phoenix may be as helpful, in some cases, as a degree from Harvard. I encourage my own clients to talk to alumni from any school. Some doors will be closed to Phoenix alums, including some adjunct teaching options. On the other hand, a fifty-plus career changer who wants to set up shop as a counselor would do as well with a degree from the fastest, lowest-cost school whose courses are recognized by the state in question.
Still, I would be careful. I have heard first-account accounts of degree programs losing acceptability by accrediting bodies.

Pollan urges readers to omit dates from a resume. If you're using a back-door method to get a job (as you should!) that strategy will work. However, if your resume goes through a human resource department, it will most likely get tossed or you will be asked to submit traditional resume with dates.

Finally, I was disturbed by the grammar errors distributed lavishly through the text. A top publisher should have provided a copy editor! In particular the author writes "I" instead of "me"
("he showed my wife and I...")

Despite these qualms and quibbles, if you're a midlife career changer, you'll find this book more helpful than most. If nothing else, the author is a fine role model.

Let's see - I graduate from law school at age twenty, work as an attorney, a real estate developer, venture capitalist, and a banker over a span of about thirty years. Then I get sick and am out of work. When I am ready to return to work, I, through a large network of past contacts, just happen to get a job teaching college courses, which leads to writing books and appearing on national TV shows, and which, in turn, leads to forming consulting businesses including life coaching. And, of course, my advanced degreed wife takes a well-paying job at a magazine as a cushion. Then I hold myself up as an example of how the typical person can launch a second career and put it all in a book, SECOND ACTS. So the reader learns early on that the author cannot distinguish the irrelevant from the situation of most attempting to make a career change. Furthermore, it is an irony, which the author little sees, that he did not depend on the exercises that he recommends to others in finding a second career. He actually stumbled into most of what he calls a second career. Is that the real message: get lucky.

Of course, what would a self-help book be if it didn't have any number of exercises that must be followed to find a second career. First of all, one is to write about their dream: passions, strengths and weaknesses, interests, needs, and the specific dream. And then there are the typical obstacles of which one must be cognizant: age, money, duration, consent, location, physical condition, education and training, timing, esteem, fear of failure, fear of success, and fatalism. There is a subtle message here that failure to launch a second career may be due to your failure to overcome these obstacles - like they are not really obstacles after all.

This is the wrong genre to look for a realistic description and assessment of the world of work and training and education for it. If employees were actually empowered and if students could get educated and trained without tremendous amounts of extraneous hoop-jumping, perhaps all of these books about how to deal with work and workplace unhappiness would not be necessary. Issues such as obsolescence and downsizing could be dealt with realistically taking into account the interests of all parties. Changing the content of one's current job would be possible.

Chances are those who are doing what they absolutely love: painters, writers, wood carvers, etc aren't reading this book. For those who have struggled in the world of work, the typical self-help platitudes are here. Their help is doubtful. The author can hardly change workplace realities. When careers or jobs are changed, there is a very real possibility of experiencing the same limitations as before, just in another guise.

Adding to the irrelevancy of the book - the author insists on adding numerous mini-biographies of celebrities which have absolutely nothing to do with finding a second career as most would understand the concept. Furthermore, those writing a serious book on general employment need to keep their personal lives out of it. If one wanted to read memoirs, one can find plenty.

This book changed my life. Literally. Stuck in a job rut, unsure of how to make my long held dreams come true, I picked up "Second Acts". Not only do Pollan and Levine carefully lay out a strategy for distilling your dream down to its essence, but they also guide readers through the most common obstacles those trying to change their life encounter, many of which are actually self created. Their advice is simple, straightforward, and easy to understand.

If you've always dreamed of making a change in your life, either small or large, but were too afraid or unsure of where to start , then this is the book for you . Buy "Second Acts"-then start yours!

In a sea of thousands of self-help books this is one that really stands out. Without reverting to psycho-babble or self importance, best selling author Stephen Pollan gives practical, inspirational and user friendly advice and motivation that breaks down the walls of self doubt. A book you will want to read and keep around for advice and guidance as you pursue a more rewarding existance.

The authors draw upon Hillary Rodham Clinton, George Foreman and former junk bond king Michael Milken as examples of great second acts. How hard can it be if your first act was First Lady, boxing champ or Wall Street insider? These books always lose credibility when they draw upon celebrities as examples, simplistically implying that stardom is within your reach. Even using J.K. Rowling as an example is poor, since that kind of publishing success is a one-in-twenty-million phenom.

If it makes you happy, buy it.

I've been a huge fan of Stephen Pollan's books, especially 'Live Rich' and 'Die Broke'. In 'Second Acts,' Mr. Pollan provides a framework to identify and pursue your 'next act.' And since life (at least my life) is about an evolution of next acts, I highly recommend this book!

Mr. Pollan coalesces his core thinking into two very useful parts. First, he provides practical exercises and guidance to defining and refining your second act. And second, he gives you the tools to fight the battle to change your life -- a large part of which, as Mr. Pollan points out, rests between your ears! Stephen's advice is not some useless feel-good psychobabble ' his is straightforward and imminently applicable. And it's laced throughout with the humanity, humor, wisdom and grace that defines all of Mr. Pollan's writings.

Pollan and Levine have done it again: a bracing, upbeat and utterly contrarian book that opens new doors. Pollan is an evangelist of the possible, and in his latest, he shows you, step by practical step, how to turn dreams into realities-- whether it's a new career, having a baby, taking up a new form of self-expression. Second Act faces up to the usual obstacles --are you too old? unprepared? too broke?-- and then shows you how to surmount them. This is a how-to book in the great American tradition of self-re-invention.

The practical advice, which you can find in the exercises and building blocks, is what makes this terrific book stand out from the crowd. It's about more than just dreaming, as the crisp, inspirational writing here shows. Pollan and Levine have inspired me to go out and try that career in acting after all.

There are many books on life planning. There are many books on reinventing a life. I keep coming back to this one as a gold standard among the many instruction manuals out there. It's simple. It's well-written. The examples are clear. There are no gimmicks. The authors encourage introspection and self-reflection without making this seem scary and they offer simple guidance in indentifying and obercoming obstacles. This is one of a handful of books that I've used myself and highly recommend to my coaching clients.