Customer Reviews

Zen and the Art of Making a Living: A Practical Guide to Creative Career Design

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

After an unsuccessful and frustrating career as a cog in the corporate wheel, I took some time off, bought this book, and sat down with a pen. I came away with much more than I expected. The book's exhaustive charts, lists and essays helped me to focus my skills and desires into self-reflection, to figure out who I really was and what I wanted to do. The second half of the book is filled with information on grant-writing, government aids, and other practical tools to help you realize your dreams. If you don't want to support McWorld, let this book lead you down the path to realizing your full potential.

I read the 1993 edition of this book six years ago. I agree with other reviewers that it's not a quick action oriented book for someone who wants a job now. It's an entire philosophy of living. The reason I'm giving it 5 stars is that (1) doing the exercises deeply helped me figure out where I wanted to eventually go with my work choices; (2) these insights are just as fresh with me today as they were when I was reading and working with the book -- and I find that quality in a book extremely rare.

Turning the insights into action is an ongoing life project for me. It didn't immediately transform my life but it showed a path that made sense the way no other life/work guide has.

If you're lost in any way this book is a treasure chest of help, read it all the way though. If you're not it still is because parts of it will keep those who know why they are on the planet reaffirmed.. I was very lost and took three weeks off and read it up to the point where you go out and test your decision. Best thing I ever did. Now I'm reading how to best follow through. I plan on keeping this book around for a long, long time. It's like a manual for life, the game of life. framed in acts like a play and sprinkled with hundreds of great quotes. Einstien, to Cambell, to Hui Neng grace it's pages with Boldt sythesizing it all into a wonderful stream of wise advice. Life is an art, and a game, and to serve is paramount. It's one of those books that makes you wish everyone HAD to read it, and what a nice world it would be if they did. If Quest for the Holy Grail had a manual on how to search and find your own personal Grail, and do it in a honest and healthy way, this is it.

This is an excellent, in-depth book on following your bliss to find the career which best suits you. Though it is a book geared towards the career search, it is also great for learning how to find happiness in your current job as well as life in general. This is not a "quick-fix" career guide that one can just skim over and find the perfect job. It is a guide for looking within oneself to find the ideal mesh of talent and happiness and finding a job (or creating one) that suits one best.

The first portion of the book covers one's personal quest for happiness and satisfaction with life, using not only Zen principles, but wisdom from many different spiritual and secular paths. It helps one discover how to find the artist and hero within and use one's talents to find the career that will provide the most satisfaction and happiness. Relevant quotes and affirmations are liberally included within the text.

The second part focuses on choosing a career path best suited to one's talents and preferences. It not only covers the career itself, but whether one is best as self-employed, freelance or working for a company. It also helps with getting interviews and writing resumes. Throughout this section, questions and worksheets are provided so one can work out not only what job to look for, but also what one expects to accomplish when the job is obtained. Extensive resources and guidelines are provided.

Overall, this is a fabulous book for both those searching for a career path and those who just want to learn how to get the most out of life.

Very real, deep thinking , thought provoking and moving. Makes one, open the mind and heart to a more enjoyable experience in life/work. Several teenage friends read a few pages and had a hard time putting it down. A book for the person that is not into lying, someone that is interested in an honest life...not too many people can live a life like that. For Honest living...like the children really are! A great book...worth the time and money to challenge your mind and open your heart.

Since my main criticism is the wordiness of the author, I'll get straight to the point: This book would rate much higher if it were one-third to one-half of its 600-plus pages.

It is filled with good concepts, good advice, useful worksheets, and wonderful nuggets of wisdom. Unfortunately it is also filled with a lot of flowery, fluffy, unnecessary, and redundant language; distracting quotations inline with the main text; barely relevant full-page sidebars filled with quotations; and too much Zen-themed artwork in the margins.

In "Act II" and "Act III" (of four "Acts"), the page layout inexplicably changes from a one-column layout with wide margins to a two-column, magazine-style layout with narrow margins. A similar change is made between Appendices A and B. Without this layout change, the length of the book would probably balloon out another one or two hundred pages.

The book has a good bibliography, an acceptable index, and is relatively well-organized. I would recommend it to someone who is good at skimming. If you have read books by Hyrum Smith, Stephen Covey, or similar authors, you will recognize many of the themes. (In this case you may be able to go very quickly through the book and use the worksheets to help solidify your thinking.)

I am an integral coach who does a lot of career counseling. This is hands down my absolute favorite book on this topic because it provides inspiration, practical tools and presents good information in a way that is very easy for anyone to understand.

This book is essentially about finding your vocation or your heart's deepest desire. It encourages you to align your work with your values as much as possible and it is written from a spiritual perspective that is generally Eastern, but it does not actually push a particular worldview over any others.

If you have the discipline to work through this book, you will learn a lot about yourself and the type of work that makes you most happy. It will also show you how to take what you most love doing and create opportunities to do more of it.

This book is particularly good for mid-life career changers and young people who are idealistic or torn between their head and their heart. It provides tools that will help them to cut through confusion and get clarity about what really matters to them.

This is my favorite work by this author. His other work is good, but I find this particular book a step above his other work. If you want a good career resource in a similar vein, I also recommend "The Beginner's Guide to Finding Your Perfect Job" by Rick Jarow. This is a very helpful and inexpensive tape or CD.

Boldt is a true visionary. This book has the makings of a new bible. It is a slow read, but that is because every paragraph is jam-packed with riveting truth. The author's comprehension of philosophies and religions combines with his very practical insight into modern Western culture and society to paint a scathing picture of our life today. Fortunately, he offers just as much incisiveness on how to thrive in the midst of it. Very few titles, VERY FEW, have ever affected me to this degree. This text is a must read for anyone struggling with the current paradigm of time clock work in 20th century capitalism.

Pros -- great information, excellent non-traditionalperspective, provides lots of food for thought, discusses values andpurpose in an in-depth fashion which puts other career books to shame.

Cons -- WAY TOO LONG. There is a lot of unnecessary information in here which my be interesting, but is ultimately gratuitous, especially given that the reader is most likely already swirling with questions and conflicts regarding their career issues.

I suggest this book be used as a reference companion to other more focused and action-oriented career books -- it has good things to say, but you wouldn't want to have to slog through the whole thing cover to cover. END

I ordered this book years ago through a mail order company and have used it many times. This is just an impressive book on what Boldt has called creative career design. It inspires,it instructs, it guides and uses many sources,insights and philosaphies to do so. It is replete with inspiring quotes from philosaphers,poets, and sages and goes into the practical as well as the spiritual aspects of work. I have shared this book many times with others because it is a wealth of information on every aspect of work. But what I love most about this book is that it frees its readers to do some soul searching and discover what his/her own purpose is in life instead of trying to fit square pegs in round holes as it were. Browning pages and creases in my copy of this book are a testament to how well it has been used by me and how often I have returned to it for various reasons. I have even copied parts of it for friends and other people who I thought the information would help. As George Bernard Shaw has once said "I hope to be thuroughly used up". Well this books is very useful and sure has demonstrated what Shaw meant. There is also an updated version of this book out complete with email addresses for us computer users to look into if we so desired. You will find many uses for this book and I highly recommend either version to people who take their lives and their purpose seriously or who are in the process of searching for purpose.