Rating: 
Summary: Flawed but important
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating...but be CAREFUL (it may not be what you want)
Review: A ton has been written and spoken about this book. But some things can be honestly said:
1)It focuses on people who try to answer the question What Should I Do With My Life. A great "high-concept" title for a book.
2)It is no way, by no stretch of the imagination, a self-help book that's going to help you ponder this question, take a survey and reach a conclusion. It's highly stylized in its writing and organization.
3)The book is as much about the author -- injected in the book throughout, as a character -- writing the book and meeting the people he interviews as much as the subject and the people he interviews.
4)It's very much a first person narrative book. Some chapters leave you unsatisfied. Some leave you satisfied. Some chapters seem like expanded diary entries.
Bottom line: Don't buy this expecting this is going to greatly help you arrive at the answer to this question, or read comprehensive pieces about people who struggled with this question and arrived at the answer (which would help you arrive at the answer).
Buy it if you want to read about some people who have dealt with this issue and about an author who writes about his writing project writing about people who struggle with this answer.
It has the title of a typical self-help book...but it isn't. Which will be welcome news to some readers and a big letdown to others. Dale Carnigie, it ain't...
Rating: 
Summary: Rated for what lessons I have learned
Review: I was very surprised to see some of the poor reviews given to this book. Up to this point, I was neither familiar with the author nor have read a summary article in Fast Company. I enjoyed the book not for its writing style but rather, for the lessons it attemps to present. This isn't a book about answers - that was stated early on. Nor are the people profiled bred of stinkin'-rich parents. I'm certainly not one of those, though I am a Gen-X'er. I came nowhere close to any dotcom victories/traumas. Yet I still see glimpses of my demons and desires in the stories of others. There are people who invested a lot of time and effort into becoming what they thought they're meant to become, and only when they actually become it do they realize it was not what they truly wanted. Nothing brings you down to the real world like living up to what you've signed up for. I also identified with the story of the young Asian man who went to an Ivy League school (yes, his parents paid for it, but they earned the money through hard labor) and ended up as a teacher working for minimum wage. This case spoke to the stereotype of Asian parents, who respect education for the opportunities it provides but would have a fit should their children become educators (even worse, high school teachers). So, please don't buy the book in hope for excellent writing styles, or for collectives of people who will not elicit your envious eye (you will read about twenty-somethings who pulled off millions from the dotcom fervor - and even then - they're STILL looking for purpose and meaning). This book isn't meant to make you feel like the magic formula is coming around the next chapter. People go from rags-to-riches and back to rags. It's personal sacrifice, confusion, and perpetual struggle against what tempts you (title, money, sense of security) versus what may fulfill you - when you may not even know what that fulfillment may look like if it came and slapped you on the face.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating...but be CAREFUL (it may not be what you want)
Review: A ton has been written and spoken about this book. But some things can be honestly said:
1)It focuses on people who try to answer the question What Should I Do With My Life. A great "high-concept" title for a book.
2)It is no way, by no stretch of the imagination, a self-help book that's going to help you ponder this question, take a survey and reach a conclusion. It's highly stylized in its writing and organization.
3)The book is as much about the author -- injected in the book throughout, as a character -- writing the book and meeting the people he interviews as much as the subject and the people he interviews.
4)It's very much a first person narrative book. Some chapters leave you unsatisfied. Some leave you satisfied. Some chapters seem like expanded diary entries.
Bottom line: Don't buy this expecting this is going to greatly help you arrive at the answer to this question, or read comprehensive pieces about people who struggled with this question and arrived at the answer (which would help you arrive at the answer).
Buy it if you want to read about some people who have dealt with this issue and about an author who writes about his writing project writing about people who struggle with this answer.
It has the title of a typical self-help book...but it isn't. Which will be welcome news to some readers and a big letdown to others. Dale Carnigie, it ain't...
Rating:
Summary: YOU must answer the question...
Review: I am not a good writer, nor am I proficient at expressing myself. You should read the review below called "Don't Miss the Point," (May 12, 2003 Reviewer: Carey M. Lesser from Manhattan Beach, CA United States) as it completely outlines how I feel about these reviews on this book. I can offer three pieces of advice for anyone reading this book: 1. Read the Introduction. Po talks about his experience writing the book and his mission when he started and how it changed as he wrote. You need to understand what he is trying to do to get anything out of this book. This book is essentially autobiographical. He tells you that at the beginning. 2. Get past socio-economic status. You need to look at these people that he writes about for who they are, not what they do. The issue at stake is not the amount of money that people make. Try to identify with the issues that these people face: fear, anxiety, social pressure, family pressure, depression, confusion, lack of passion, too much passion. Po chose to share his interactions with these people because their stories supported the various themes in his book. If you want diversity of economic status, make note of the security guard, the government workers, and the people who grew up in working-class families. Their stories are there too, but apparently people are choosing to overlook them (perhaps this resentment of the economically priviledged is why these reviewers haven't realized their own dreams??) 3. Like other readers have commented, Po Bronson is not trying to cheerlead us all into meaningful careers. He is investigating the process of trying to find meaning in our lives. If you read this book and let these people really get to you and forget about dollar signs and status, you will start to ask yourself the important questions that Po and his interviewees have posed themselves. The questions are more important than the answers, according to his thesis. Use this book to inspire you to ask these questions. Ok, so maybe he is a little preachy sometimes, but doesn't the topic deserve a good soap-box lecture? He is clearly passionate about this. He has found his calling. We should want to be as passionate about our jobs as he is about his. For those of you looking for a more hands-on, less philosophical approach, read "What Color is my Parachute" which is filled with quizzes and games to help you figure out what you want to do with your life and how to get there.
Rating: 
Summary: If you are over 35, don't bother...
Review: Bottom Line-- If you are young, well-educated, and making lots of money on Wall Street or Silicon Valley, but feel you need some inspiration to decide on a life-purpose or direction, you might get something out of this book. Otherwise, I would recommend that you look elsewhere. If you are older, you probably know more about life than what is presented here. However, some of the stories are interesting, so if you like to read about young, well-educated, rich people and how they, too, struggle with life, go ahead and read it.
Rating: 
Summary: Entertaining, but who is this book for?
Review: Po Bronson is certainly a skillful writer, and I found myself breezing through this book within just a few days. However, at the end, I wondered who the author had in mind as a target market. For example, the first chapter is about a young man who has received a calling from the Dalai Lama. While this may be an interesting story in its own right, what does this situation have to do with the career struggles of the typical reader? What is a machine tool salesman or an accountant living in Dayton, Ohio, supposed to take away from this? The people in this book don't seem to have too many day-to-day financial concerns. Only a few are parents. A significant number of them fall into the category of the educated elite. As a group, they are more interested in spiritual fulfillment projects than in financial success. (About half of them just walk away from a high-paying job to pursue a journey of self-exploration.) While these sojourners have their place in the world, I don't think that these were the stories that the average reader was expecting. This book could have included a few such dreamy-eyed wanderers and succeeded. However, these should have been balanced by some more conventional success stories. I wanted to read about the father of three who started his own business to provide a better future for his family. I wanted to read about the secretary who attended evening college for six years in order to achieve a more satisfying job and a better standard of living. Where were the people with more run-of-the-mill professional tracks? And why couldn't Po have interviewed some of the millions of entrepreneurs who have started superficially mundane, but socially productive and financially rewarding small businesses? Why does everyone in this book have be focused on something like volunteer work, politics, or filmmaking? While Bronson's selection of subjects is skewed, he does a good job of extracting insights from the material they give him. This would have been an excellent book with a more balanced selection of interviewees.
Rating:
Summary: On the Road with Career Discussions
Review: The title of this book is a little misleading. This is not a how-to book and won't help you find the answers to your personal career questions. What the book IS is an engaging, inspirational series of interviews or individual stories about people who have found their calling by listening to that inner voice, some who are still searching, and some who stumbled into their life's calling accidentally even when it was in front of them all along. This is not a book to be hurried through all at once, although the reading style is very easy and down to earth. Rather, each person's story should be read and digested on its own merits.
Rating:
Summary: not the only one...
Review: A collection of individuals' own journeys to happiness and contentment in career choices, this book was easy to read and hard to put down. Each "story" or chapter was bound together by the author's own personal account of his brief but meaningful relationship with each main character in this non-fiction collection. With my own career struggles and seeming failures, I was able to pick up the book at any moment of anxiety and read about another's similar feelings of utter distress, and feel a connection with each. In an almost twisted way, I felt as though I was glad that they went through the pains that they did...not to laugh in their misery, but to feel as though someone had personally talked to me about his or her own attempts to find the right path to meaningful work. I highly recommend this book. It is perfect for the student, mid-career professional, or retiree looking for the same.
Rating:
Summary: Warning: This book is subversive, and thankfully so!
Review: In an age when M.B.A. programs compete for students over the airways and in the newspapers, and promise degrees on weekends, when parents are training their infants for Harvard, it is welcome to find a book that deals with the serendipities of life, the ironies, the contradictions and illusions we place on ourselves to present a face to the world that we know just who we are and where we are going. America, the externally optimistic country has a "shadow," and to not admit it exists is to escape the nature of being human. In this book, we encounter men and women who thought they knew who they were, had dreams they thought were authentic, but found out through experience that their true natures lay elsewhere. This is a great book for anyone who believes one must always feel centered, focused and targeted toward goals that are encouraged by our culture, but has had at one time or another a knawing sense that what the world sees is not what you are feeling. In its conversational, authentic style, Po has managed to reveal the substance of our doubts and shows us that for true growth to occur, sometimes we must go through periods of confusion. I'm sure there are some people who have a straight-arrow focus on their goals and objectives, but for most of our confused and confusing society, the many and varied stories in this book will be a friend and make you feel like part of a much larger community than we are willing to admit.
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