Dare to Change Your Job and Your Life

Rating:
Summary: At last!
Review: "An exceptional resource at the top of my list. It leads the way in the new millennium." Evelyn Kragie, EdD, John Hopkins University

"A fascinating and powerful formula for personal fulfillment and success." J. Michael Farr, Best-selling career author

"Chock full of information, suggestions, guidelines and case histories that will help you control your own life and career." S. Norman Feingold, EdD, President, National Career and Counseling Services, Washington, D.C.

"A superb model for living the examined life and career." David V. Tiedeman, EdD, Vice-President, Lifecareer Foundation, Los Angeles, CA

"... excellent ... filled with constructive messages for opportunity, growth, and mastery ..." Pat Nellor Wickwire, PhD, President, American Association for Career Education

"Challenges you to change your life ... gives real encouragement and sound practical advice." Bill Hague, PhD, University of Alberta

"A 'must' read if you are at a career crossroad or contemplating serious changes ..." Les Hewitt, President, Achievers

"Challenges us to explore ... and find our best role in the future. I strongly recommend this book to anyone seeking a new career or a new meaning in their life's work." Warren Farrell, PhD, author, The Myth of Male Power and Why Men Are the Way They Are

Rating:
Summary: Take Charge of Your Career and Life! -- Become a Quester
Review: "Would you know a Quester if you met one? Are you a Quester? Could you become one? Who are Questers, anyway?" Carole Kanchier poses these questions in "Dare to Change Your Job -- And Your Life".

Questers can be recognized by certain traits and approaches to their careers and lives. Do these characteristics sound like you or someone you know or heard about?

Questers value internal over external rewards, are inner-directed and self-confident, embrace change, take charge of their lives, and have a mission and sense of purpose.

Traditionalists and Self-Seekers are different from Questers. Traditionalist "are concerned about how their careers measure up with the approved timetables for their professions." They conform to rigid, narrow tracks which follow traditional sequences of moving up the ladder, severely limiting their options. Self-Seekers are "motivated by desire for personal fulfillment," shunning ambition and leadership in search of comfortable lifestyles.

Are you a Quester? The questionnaire Kanchier provides in Chapter 3 proves fun and thought provoking, with a useful scoring method that breaks down into trait categories such as innovativeness, self-confidence, and purpose. A person could be strong in some areas, less strong in others. Good information to create a road map!

In "Dare to Change" Kanchier covers much territory, including how the workforce has changed (and implications for now and the future) and how the career and life cycles interact. She explores job satisfaction and psychological aspects of decision making.

Interest, clarity, and relate-ability are enhanced by many excerpts from personal stories laced throughout the chapters, selected from the thousands of adults Dr. Kanchier has personally counseled and interviewed.

"Dare to Change" is an excellent resource for anyone wanting to develop the knowledge, confidence, strength, and courage to take charge of career and life!

Rating:
Summary: A Fresh Outlook on Careers and Jobs
Review: "Dare to Change Your Job -- And Your Life"

This book provides a fresh outlook on careers and jobs. Kanchier initiates the concept of "Questers" and utilizes it to both explore the segment of the population that fits its definition and elucidates how an individual can become more Quester-like. Quester's have a unique approach to careers as exemplified by the famous Quester, Pablo Picasso, who stated:

"What is always there is your work. It is the extension of you, not your child but you. You are the work. The passions that motivate you may change, but it is your work in life that is the ultimate seduction."

After describing what a Quester is like, and providing examples of famous Questers, Kanchier poses the question in Chapter 3 "Are you a Quester?" There is an interesting and enjoyable self-scoring, 149 item, questionnaire that identifies Questers.

If one were to just read Picasso's rendition on work, one may confuse the Quester with a workaholic. However, Kanchier's Quester is definitely a mentally healthy, well balanced individual. The Quester is in fact unlike a workaholic in every way except the focus on work. Indeed, the Quester values personal relationship that are "extremely rich." The balance of Chapter 3 defines healthy qualities of the Quester including: self-confidence, purpose (meaning of life), autonomy, achievement, innovativeness, androgyny, risk and growth. After each characteristic and its definition she provides useful tips on how to develop each characteristic of the Quester.

Another interesting aspect of the book, in Chapter 4, differentiates between the traditional ladder climber and the Quester. Unlike those individuals that see up as the only desirable alternative, Questers many times opt for "sideways" and even "down" in terms of traditional career advancement. They do this because "they have learned to do a little investigation into their needs, values and purposes". So the tradition "down" in dollar terms might be "up" for a Quester in terms of quality of life with the family.

The reward system that motivates a Quester is also highlighted. Questers often refer to their jobs as "fun" and "pleasurable", with such qualities of the job being more rewarding than titles or money. Chapter 7 provides the reader with another self-assessment to determine the reader's current level of job satisfaction. The book concludes with challenges to risk and to change.

This book would be an excellent reference for a career counselor. It would also be ideal as a supplementary text in career development classes. The book is also clearly designed as self-help book and would be highly helpful to anyone reflecting upon a career or job at any developmental stage. This reviewer found the book both interesting and enjoyable to read.

Rating:
Summary: Powerful--A must read for everyone!
Review: Carole Kanchier, Ph.d offers powerful and specific advice for those unhappy. She says, "The choice is yours. You can complain or you can change."

Here is what she suggests:

* Redfine Success

* Know yourself

* Take career control

* Enhance creativity

* Think positively

* Develop resilience

Overall a good read and I highly recomend it.

Rating:
Summary: Powerful--A must read for everyone!
Review: Carole Kanchier, Ph.d offers powerful and specific advice for those unhappy. She says, "The choice is yours. You can complain or you can change."

Here is what she suggests:

* Redfine Success

* Know yourself

* Take career control

* Enhance creativity

* Think positively

* Develop resilience

Overall a good read and I highly recomend it.

Rating:
Summary: Dare to take back your life
Review: One of the highroads to dissappointment and failure is job dissatisfaction.

I find it interesting that many people are unwilling to change jobs or careers while all the time complaining how bad their company is. Or people who get downsized and go right back in the same type of job.

Carole Kanchier, Ph.d offers a long overdue perspective. She says, "The choice is yours. You can complain or you can change."

Kanchier offers self evaluation. She suggests:

* Redine success. Maintain harmony between who you are and what
you do. Consider that job satisfaction may be more important
than money or position.

* Know yourself and what you want; Identify your mission in life.
Modify goals as you learn more about yourself.
Are you growing or standing still.

* Take career control. Think of building a career rather
than applying for a job. Develop a habit of lifelong
learning and self improvement.

* Enhance creativity. Trust and value intuition. Learn to
relax and have fun.

* Think positively. Learn to say "I can" rather than "I
can't" View setbacks as a learning experience. Listen
to motivational tapes. Reas inspiritional books.
Associate with positive people. Begin and end each
day with positive thoughts.

* Develop resilience: Balance fear of change with committment
Put on the blinders. Get tough. Break goals into small
success steps.

Dare to change your life and your job is a great book that
will help you take back your life and step up to success.

Rating:
Summary: "Dare to Change Your Job -- And Your Life" is Excellent
Review: This is a daring book. It challenges you to dare to change your life. Best of all, it gives you real encouragement and sound practical ways of going about it. It encourages risk taking, but with a factual basis offering real promises and possibilities of success.

The author, in her preface, disclaims originality in the ideas of this book. She does so, recognizing that she is adding yet another volume to the already crowded shelves in the self-help sections of bookstores and to the life span literature long graced by the names of White and Sheehy and other psychologists. What Carole Kanchier claims as her unique contribution is that she presents a holistic picture of career decision making especially in the realm of the emotions, addressing the question of liking or disliking a job in relationship to the broader perspective of personality development and periods of life. It is this that makes her claim for a niche on those already crowed shelves. She largely meets her own criteria by offering not only a holistic developmental view but practical help for decision making and excels by doing it all in an encouraging, two-feet-on-the-ground approach to the challenges of life in the real world.

Kanchier is not only addressing Questers, she is developing Questers with the firm conviction that these people are made and not born that way. She identifies their characteristics: Purposeful, Autonomous, Intimate, Androgynous, Achieving, Growing. She provides a 149 item test one can use to indicate if one is a Quester. "You too can become a Quester" she proclaims. She illustrates and encourages this premise with a multitude of short life stories. The question remains: "But can I become a successful Quester?" Much of the book is devoted to answering this all important question. Some of this is done with "Job Satisfaction," "Job Involvement" and "Burnout" questionnaires, insights into the process of decision making and practical down to earth help including guidelines for writing a resume.

Behind the practical aids in this book is a philosophy that is refreshingly broad and humane in the age of the "me" generation, when self satisfaction is often the only goal of some self-help books. "Job satisfaction" is there up front, but Carole Kanchier gently reminds her reader that public service, family responsibilities and altruism are still valid facets of job satisfaction, and strong motives for becoming a Quester. "Dare to Change Your Job -- And Your Life," although emphasizing the mobility of today's world of work, is based on an appreciation of lasting values.

In some academic circles to label a book as "popular" is to scorn it as trivial or at least to damn it by faint praise. This is a popular book. The language is straightforward. The illustrations are concrete, specific; the kind of life stories with which one can easily identify. The vocational choice theory behind it all is not fully developed as a scholarly document, but to a point that is tangible and meaningful for someone who is not just looking for a job, but seeking self-understanding that will help find a meaningful job. The self-help questionnaires, though not supported by documentation which would ease the doubts of academics about whether they are truly valid and reliable, have a face validity that should make them popular and truly helpful for the "man (or woman) in the street." In the case of Questers, the term "popular" is a compliment. Counselors will want to have several copies on their desks - one for their own use, and replacement copies for those that potential Quester clients keep stealing away.

Rating:
Summary: At last!
Review: Well, it was about time, finding a book that answered all my questions about what I really wanted out of life and, but of course, my fears and doubts. I was so trapped in my job, believing every manipulation corporate America put into my head. Now, I know what I want to do, and I am not afraid to risk and lose. Job satisfaction is more important than the money I'll lose, or that I'll make in the future. I just want to be happy. Security? There's no security anywhere, so the only risk I can avoid is the risk of not trying it. You should, too. Just read the book, and see what I mean.