Do What You Love the Money Will Follow: Discovering Your Right Livelihood

Rating:
Summary: OK vocation - inspiration book
Review: Anybody who recalls Joseph Campbell telling Bill Moyers "follow your bliss" has the gist of this self-help book. Sinetar throws in a few exercises for figuring WHAT you really love, but the basic idea is that old, old observation that you are likelier to be successful if you are working in a field you care about than if you are just punching a timecard.

'Likelier to be' is not, however, a word that comes easily to Sinetar and some folks will find the blind optimism of 'The Money Will Follow' a bit hard to swallow. Needless to say 'Trust in Allah but tie up your camel' is an adage always to be borne in mind when following this sort of advice, and everyone knows people who've done what they've loved and the money never appeared, let alone followed. It's to challenge this kind of pessimism that Sinetar has written her book, and she makes an engaging cheerleader.

There are lots of similar works and personally I think Napoleon Hill presents a better case, but Sinetar is a bit more up to date. Worth reading as an adjunct to other job-search books (like 'What Color is My Parachute'.)

Rating:
Summary: Great Book
Review: I am a big believer in "do what you love, the money will follow." However if that's so, why do some many people do what they love and the money does not follow?

The answer lies in 2 things.

1.They want the money too quickly
2.They don't think like a business owner. Marketer. Salesperson.

For example, my motivational role model Jack Canfield, back in 1992 thought up an idea of compiling emotional stories about overcoming obstacles and living your dream, (that turned into chicken soup for the soul mega best-selling series). But what is most remarkable is that Mark V Hanson, who joined him, was the key to making the series into a MONEY MAKING PROPOSITION. You see I think that Jack was doing it for the love of helping people and then the money, while Mark was doing it for the money then the love. Don't get me wrong. Mark V Hanson is a great I guy. He is not at all a money hungry charlatan. He is interested in helping people change their lives. However compared to Jack, he is more interested in making money.

The bottom line is do what you love, but if then money is not following, get a partner, a salesperson, someone to market your skills. Hope that helps.

Zev Saftlas, Author of Motivation That Works: How to Get Motivated and Stay Motivated

Rating:
Summary: Work as conscious choice that puts values into action
Review: In "Do What You Love, the Money Will Follow: Discovering Your Right Livelihood," Marsha Sinetar presents the countercultural idea that ordinary people can live their values through their work and that to do so doesn't require taking a vow of poverty or undertaking a religious vocation. "There are times when we must make personal decisions that force us to confront what we really believe," she writes. "These crisis moments, when we come to a fork in life's road requiring us to take a stand, help us to re-evaluate what we want to say with our lives and actions ... In the final analysis it is what we do that tells us and others what kind of person we are and what are our deepest values or antipathies." In this respect, she echoes Kahlil Gibran when he said, "Work is love made visible."

"Right livelihood is predicated upon conscious choice," she writes, as well as commitment and mindfulness. It means using work "fully for our own development and enrichment," as opposed o the economy's. It requires a level of self-esteem that "treats yourself as if you count."

"Before being capable of selecting a type of work that fits us, we have to be persons who behave daily in ways that support and enhance our lives," Sinetar writes. In other words, we must "validate and express our most cherished values" on a daily basis. Sinetar then takes her readers through a process of values clarification and demonstrates how upholding the values you cherish through your work actually rewards yourself and enhances your self-esteem. Work then becomes "something connected to the self ... a mirror of the person."

"The Money Will Follow" part of Sinetar's title implies not riches but rather the leap of faith required to risk taking responsibility for your own Right Livelihood, which Sinetar identifies less as hope than as resourcefulness: "the ability to deal with any kind of situation ... based upon the individual's faith that he can solve his own problems ... We truly evolve and grow only when we take control of our own circumstances and fears."

"I've made do with a lot less than I ever thought I could, and have even found fulfillment and satisfaction in a simpler life," one of her studies reports. "It's been hard, but in some ways it's also been a blessing."

Work that is Right Livelihood allows "weaknesses to be worked on" while "strengths and talents grow into full use," while being linked with others. "The actualizing individual is intrinsically involved with his work and uses it to help him understand the world around him." Such work is "a key vehicle for expressing their most positive emotions. They describe their efforts as a way to demonstrate their affection for others and to grow in respect for themselves ... They protect their time, say 'no' to unrewarding social invitations, recoil-naturally and without much guilt-from toxic people, situations, jobs and responsibilities. It is as if they instinctively know what they must do with their time and energy, and then determine to do only that ... The motivation that ignites the individual is positive, loving, devotional and earnestly sincere."

"Do What You Love" is a book worth revisiting frequently throughout the transformation from job or career to intentional, purposeful work lived as Right Livelihood. Her follow-up work, "To Build the Life You Want, Create the Work You Love: The Spiritual Dimension of Entrepreneuring" further explores the spiritual challenges particular to entrepreneuring; "Do What You Love" does not restrict itself to entrepreneuring as the only way to perform work that you love.

Rating:
Summary: bland
Review: perhaps it's the fact that the author who narrates her own book has a very monotone, flat voice--this is the disadvantage to an audiobook--you have the voice and tone qualities to factor in also--which isn't entirely fair. i found it bland and heard my mind replying "yeah, but we know that--that's why i bought the book!" anyway, there is a man who asks her questions and she responds--audio interview format--

Rating:
Summary: "The Mass of Men Lead Lives of Quiet Desparation"
Review: So wrote Henry David Thoreau in the classic "Walden." After reading Marsha Sinetar's book, you will understand why.

Most people, for a variety of reasons, have been schooled away from listening to their "inner voice," which is there to guide us in the discovery of our inate talents and interests. This is the basis upon which we should be engaging in our "Right Livlihood," a Buddhist term to describe the work that we were destined to do, which is more than just earning a paycheck, but is fulfilling in a Maslow "self-actualization sense," and is in service to humankind.

Ms. Sinetar's masterpiece is written from the perspective of someone who has looked within themselves and has asked themselves the tough questions about the quality of life they are living. She posits that to ignore that inner longing is to basically live in denial, and untrue to yourself. This incongruity, she argues, is the root of a great deal of dissatisfaction that people have with their lives. Hence the admonition, "to thine own self be true," which is the antithesis of the quote from Thoreau.

This book was instrumental for me during a period of major depression that I was experiencing, that I credit it completely in helping me "find my way back," onto my unique path. Space prohibits me from sharing any details, but I will happily correspond anyone who feels that they are in the middle of a midlife, or carerr crisis.

But first, buy this book, heed its admonitions, and prepare for a major change in your life!