Rating: 
Summary: Truly bad
Review: A true waste of time. I was given it as a gift and felt like I had to finish it. There is simply way too much amateur psychology in the book, and way too much PO in the book.
Rating:
Summary: What a miserable book!
Review: Don't waste your money. Read the title. He has nothing to say that the title doesn't say.
Rating: 
Summary: interesting but not very inspiring
Review: As a 40 something who has been struggling with this question for sometime, I picked up this book. I didn't do it for guidance or answers, but for some possible inspiration. Within the first few pages, it was apparent the author thought quite highly of himself and of his accomplishments, and I felt he was trying to emphasize, "see what I did?" a little too much. This alone left me a little cold.Continuing on with the stories, I began feeling DEPRESSED, rather than inspired. The reason for this was most of the subjects already had high powered careers, and made respectible livings. That's not my gripe. They apparently worked hard, and have earned their salaries and respect. My problem is that if there is money there to begin with and one or more college degrees behind us, most of us will already have more choices in our lives. I was looking more for the "average Joe or Jane" story who makes $50,000 a year raising 3 kids and gave it up to work with children with autism for $12,000, why, made it work, and how. I don't think most of us can relate to, say for instance, an astrophysicist who always wanted to work for NASA but is "stuck" and unhappy at Kennedy Space Center. This example is a fabrication, but most of the stories were along these lines. And Bronson certainly has an affection for those who already had several successes and accomplishments. However "unordinary" these people were to me, it was not an uninteresting book. I just think somewhere, out there, there's something more useful and helpful for the "average Joe" who wants to make a difference, and wants to be happy doing it. This is not the book to find that kind of inspiration.
Rating:
Summary: don't spend any part of your life reading this book!
Review: Waste of time. I was not looking for any divine inspiration (luckily), yet, still was disappointed. The author gives too much insight on himself (he is self-impressed and boring), preaches about what the moral of each profile should be (which should be self-evident), doesn't provide a fraction of the success stories that the publisher's review promises, and has his ugly mug blown up on the back of the dust cover, so I had to put it face up all of the time. Very few of the profiles were of people who actually figured it out, mostly of people who made mistakes, which is not what I purchased the book for and was not the premise of the subtitle. I don't write book reviews, but this one stank so bad, I couldn't help myself. But, let me help you: don't do it.
Rating:
Summary: Judgmental and pandering
Review: I like the idea of this book. It's based on Studs Terkel's 'Working'.
Unfortunately, the author doesn't keep his judgements out of the book, the way Mr. Terkel did. Throughout each person's "story", the reader is peppered with the author's judgements. The author is disdainful of anyone who gets a career and stays in it. He's only interested in those
that can't 'find' themselves. That's OK. But don't have contempt for those who haven't changed jobs that often. Don't belittle those that use their job as a means to achieve other ends, like raising children, and caring for their parents.
The author seems only interested in people and their jobs. Not people who may separate ther LIFE from their jobs. Just people who make the job the center of their life.
For instance, he interviews a man who was a Wall Street broker, and decided to start a catfish farm. Long story short, the catfish farm went bust. BUT, the broker/farmer studied fish genetics, and was able to get a job in a gene splicing firm. The author concludes that people who blindly take these major career chances are often rewarded with these situations. The author states "The other brokers, forced off Wall Street after the boom times naturally ended, now lead gray lives at small town brokerages." Gray lives!! Why? What if they don't
mind doing less than constantly exciting work, and enjoy coaching and gardening and reading? This type of adaptability isn't an option with the author. The author also whole-heartedly agrees with each decision made by the people he interviews. He becomes their best friend, constantly finding ways why each interviewees whims are so perfect, so creative, so unconventional.
He never disagrees with them. He constantly compliments them.
He becomes biased as he befriends these people. And once he befriends them, he judges everyone else around them as "not-as-good-as-them". The people around the interviewee have faults. But his interviewee is just misunderstood, or going through a phase, or unconventional. Kindness is only extended to the
interviewee, not anyone else mentioned in the interviewee's life. These stories have potential. But I long for Mr. Terkel's approach of non-judgmental listening. All the author's 30 something philosophizing shows his idealistic youth, unaccustomed to people who make a compromise on a career choice in order to have other things they value more in their life.
Rating:
Summary: Read the article version instead
Review: I've enjoyed some of Bronson's other books and articles, so when I took a sabbatical from work to travel and think about next steps, this book seemed like an ideal travel companion. After finishing about a third of the book and skimming portions of the rest, it was abandoned in a hotel room somewhere in South America, shaving valuable weight from my backpack. The book is bloated, a thick catalog of stories of people who made career changes and choices of one sort or another. If reading an exhaustive collection of accounts of other people struggling with their life's missions will minimize the angst of doing the same yourself, then this is the book for you. I would have preferred a more coherent narrative that organizes the stories in some logical fashion. There are bits and pieces of valuable learnings to be found, but they're buried amidst some long, rambling narratives. Perhaps Bronson was too invested in the stories to cut any of them out, or perhaps he couldn't find any patterns and answers and simply put every story in there, hoping the reader would do the work of extracting the wisdom. I recommend reading an article covering the same topic which Po wrote in the Jan 2003 issue of Fast Company. You should be able to find it archived on the web at their website. It was much more concise and enlightening than the book.
Rating:
Summary: Jack M. Zufelt
Review: Not bad --- just not new. Po misses the boat -- unhless you like stories. I am so tired of hearng the same old things about success and how we can make our lives what we want which is why I wrote the book, The DNA of Success. There is a better, simpler way
Rating: 
Summary: More questions raised than answers given
Review: Well, it's sure not a how-to book.
It's anecdotal, and as such, is interesting (but not riveting).
Wandering and poorly organized, actually 'disorganized' would be a better word for it. It's certainly not the kind of book where you can look in the Table of Contents or the Index and find what you're looking for.
The stories themselves, however, are gems. It's Bronson himself who is irritating.
I'm glad I borrowed it instead of buying.
Rating: 
Summary: One of the best books i've read!
Review: I can't imagine not reading this book. Po is a powerful writer and great researcher! His approach to 'making it' is refreshing and informative. Thanks Po for the change!
Rating:
Summary: This book could've been much much more.
Review: I picked up this book hoping for some answers. Honestly, it did have a lot of good nuggets and kernels of wisdom woven into the wordy and sometimes self-indulgent prose. However, I was somewhat disappointed by the narrow scope of the people who made it into the book. All tended to have graduate degrees or people who'd make lots of money in their old jobs who now had the luxury of whiling away the hours deciding what to do next. Although I do not believe it was an intentional slight to the majority of Americans who earn an average of $30-50,000 a year, I don't think he exactly did the readers any favors when on page 316 he states matter of factly, "He'd been passed over for partner and didn't make much money, forty or fifty thousand a year." That statement, in my opinion, is very telling of the priveleged background that Bronson is coming from. So, if you're a college graduate who's done well in life, this could be a great book. If you never went to college or don't have a mint stocked away to start your own fish farm, I'd save your time for a more down-to-earth book like "Working" by Studs Terkel who is the real master at this type of writing.
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