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510 of 540 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Flawed but important, January 14, 2003
Questioning his own life, author Po Bronson set out to learn how others made tough career decisions -- and lived with them. He says he talked to nine hundred people, seventy or so in detail, and he includes the stories of fifty or so career-changers in his book. Bronson does not offer a systematic study or a self-help book. That's important to get out of the way. As other reviewers have observed, you won't find plans or guidance for your own career move. Instead, Bronson offers a jumble of anecdotes, unsystematic and uneven -- just the sort of stories I hear every day as a career coach. People seek new adventures. They weigh the cost (and there always is a cost). Sometimes they decide the cost is too high and they back down. Sometimes they leap and experience disappointment. And sometimes they leap and find themselves soaring. Career-changers are hungry for guidance. Bronson's interviewees often sought his approval -- and his advice. He insists that he's not a career counselor but they asked anyway. This quest for help is typical during any life transition and underscores the need to be cautious about seeking help from whoever happens to show up. And of course this overlap of roles can be viewed as a flaw in the book. Bronson admits lapsing from the journalist role. He gets so involved with his interviewees that the story becomes a quest, a journey-across-the-country story rather than an analysis of career choices. Bronson includes his own story, told in pieces throughout the book. This feature seemed to interrupt the flow: if the author tells his own story, we should be led to anticipate autobiography. Despite these flaws, Bronson comes up with some sound insights into career change. He observes that people avoid change because of the accompanying loss of identity. They hang back "because they don't want to be the kind of person who abandons friends and takes up with a new crowd," precisely what you have to do following a life transition. And he follows up with a warning of solitude that also accompanies any life change. "Get used to being alone," he advises, yet many people fear being alone more than they fear being stuck in a job they hate. WHAT SHOULD I DO WITH MY LIFE offers questions, not answers. It's like attending a giant networking event. You have to sort through the stories on your own. Despite these flaws, I will recommend this book to my clients and to other career coaches. Career change, like any change, is messy. You rarely get to move in a straight line and you always experience pain and loss. And every move is a roll of the dice: a coach can help, but there are no guarantees.
Each story in this book is unique and your own will be too. You, the career changer, must put together your own mosaic and find pattern and meaning on your own.
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157 of 167 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent book that makes the reader really think, January 2, 2003
If you are interested in a "5 Step" plan to finding a better job or simply reading a series of "How I became a rich from humble beginning" stories, this not the book for you. Anthony Robbins style of cheerleading plays no role in these pages. How do people change from what they really want to do for a living with what they are presently doing. How do you reconcile your dream job with how you are still going to make the car payment? What is holding you back from changing? What fears do you harbor? How do you know what is your destiny? These are some of the issues that are addressed in this book. I use the word "addressed" carefully, because you will not find a nice "bullet point" summary of steps to take in this book. Life is not that simple and neither are the issues faced by the average reader of this book.
Everyone profiled in the book (50 people... I believe a total of 900 people were interviewed) made the critical decision to act upon their desire to change the way they earning a living. Real people and real decisions. Unlike Hollywood, not every story has a perfect cute ending. The process for change is extremely complicated and ultimately takes a lot of work. Self-doubt was common. But change they did. The people in this book are just like you and me. Bill Gates has no seat at this table. Bronson does a careful job of covering all the different angles. There are people who rejected money to follow their dream ( including Bronson himself), then there are others who make a decision without the support of the their family, there are those who struggle for years to make a change and there are those who make the change immediately. Whether you are extremely rich/successful or just starting out you will be able to relate. Bronson weaves his own story throughout the book and you learn as much about him as you do about the people he is profiling. He is very geniune in sharing his own shortcomings as well as his successes. I believe the average reader can relate to him. The book is an easy read and is akin to being at a cocktail party, gliding from one conversation to another with Bronson acting as your host. The Book holds together well and you build on each conversation. Bronson does underscore some definite trends that he has observed. i.e. nobody he who made a change did it as a result of an epiphany. But stays clears from "one size fits all" type statements. The book is an excellent starting point to begin the long journey of self-examination to develop a sense how you really would like to spend your working hours. There is no magic formula. But one thing you realize is that you are definitely not alone.
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68 of 74 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
A BAD JOKE - MORE FICTION THAN FACT, February 17, 2003
By A Customer
Several contributors to this book -- the ones who haven't been duped by Bronson into joining the shameless publicity-fest -- have complained that their stories as told by Bronson are fictional, at best. Reading this ridiculous I'm-so-great-everyone-else-is-sadly-confused excuse for a book, I believe the naysayers. I also know three of the contributors, and I could not in the least reconcile the facts of their lives with Bronson's presentation of them. For instance, Lori Gottlieb had been a successful journalist and author of a national best-seller, the memoir "STICK FIGURE: A DIARY OF MY FORMER SELF" BEFORE Bronson interviewed her. Yet somehow he fails to mention that she was the author of two books and had written hundreds of articles for national publications --that she had found this successful career path -- after leaving medical school. Instead, he presents a story of a woman in search of a career merely to suit his purposes -- to fit into the theme of his book. But if a reader were to do a Google search on Gottlieb, the reader would marvel at the difference between the I-don't-know-what-to-do-with-my-life woman Bronson describes and the accomplished professional writer she actually is. It's not that Bronson didn't have this information when he was researching his book: in fact, he knows Gottlieb, and he had been interviewed for Gottlieb's second book, "INSIDE THE CULT OF KIBU: AND OTHER TALES OF THE MILLENNIAL GOLD RUSH," so clearly he was aware of her status as a well-known writer and failed to disclose this very relevant information in his book. Two other friends were made to sound like clueless airheads and pathetic lost souls, when both are actually quite accomplished and extremely articulate. The New York Times panned this book, and for good reason. The Times doesn't know about Bronson's loose line between fact and fiction or lack of journalistic ethics, but based simply on its value, the Times reviewer gave Bronson's book a resounding thumbs-down. During the dot-com era that Bronson made a career writing about, the phrase "drinking the Kool-Aid" was used to describe otherwise smart individuals who blindly joined the cult. Seems a lot of folks are drinking the Kool-Aid and buying into Bronson's cult, but for those who want to stay sober, the New York Times is particularly illuminating.
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