Contains a lot of good advice, just not unique advice.

books:


	• 48 Days to the Work You Love Dan Miller B&H Publishing Group, 2007 - 224 pages average customer review:based on 109 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

One of the most useful books you'll ever own

Everyone should be doing work that they love, according to how they are wired. If you are unhappy in your job, this book is for you. Even if you are happy in your career but missing something, this book is for you. Practical and fun exercises at the end of each chapter get your brain moving. Life is short - love your work!

Contains a lot of good advice, just not unique advice.

I was intrigued by Miller's title '48 Days To The Work You Love' and Dave Ramsey's endorsement. I'm guessing that many people come to Dan Miller through Dave Ramsey. I've seen some reviews of people saying that there isn't anything special about Dan Miller's book and in a way, I think they may be right. However,I believe there are many things in Dan's book that makes it worth the read, in my opinion, depending on where you're coming from. Your experience with any kind of book like this will depend on whether or not you've read several career assessment books or not. If you have, like me, then a lot of what Dan talks about in his book isn't new or unique perhaps, but I think is helpful. If you haven't read or done a lot of reading on career assessment, then you will most likely find Miller's book a Godsend. I would also advise anyone who is thinking about reading it - to get the most out of Dan's book, or any book on career assessment, don't read it while you're job searching. More than likely, it won't be that quick fix (more on that below) you're looking for and I don't think people get the most out of books like this when they're stressed out trying to find that next job or career change. Books like these need to be meditated upon. You really do need to give yourself over to it and think it through and it's hard to do this, at least in my experience, when you're needing a job yesterday!

For me, his book had a lot of things to consider, good advice and things that he reminded me about. I think it's definitely a book I will keep in my career reference collection to refer to again and again. I also commend Dan with devoting himself to helping people better their careers and find career satisfaction, if it can be had. I applaud his efforts in this area. These are the reasons I give his book four stars.

The reasons I didn't give him a five out of five stars is due to two pet peeves I have about the book. First, I think the title '48 Days To The Work You Love" is a little deceptive (and silly as to how he came about the title for it).For me, the implication I got from the title is just that, that in 48 days I would be able to find the work I love. In the Introduction, Dan explains how he came up with the title. He came up with it by looking at the Bible and, seeing that "40 days seemed to be a spiritually significant time period", based on some of the events that take place to people we read of (i.e., Noah's life & world transformed in 40 days of rain; Moses was a different man after 40 days on Mt. Sinai, etc, etc). Add to that 8 "free days" he gives you in the process to create your own plan and wallah! - Your new career direction to the work you love! Well, it didn't happen for me. His book helps, but I'm not there yet. Also, what happens if it doesn't happen within 48 days? Does it lose it's spiritual implications? I just thought that it was kind of silly to market the book this way. He would have been better off calling it "Doing The Work You Love" or something to that effect that wouldn't put a time table on it. Some times, or most often (more likely), it takes longer than a month and half to find out what work one would love to do in a career.

Second, as a Christian, I disagree with the view he presents of work and your career being "a calling" from God to do what you were created to do. No where in Scripture is this taught. He also teaches that work is a form of "prayer" (p. 12)which he takes from a quote from Richard Foster, offering no scripture references for this concept to support it. It's true that God does endow us with certain abilities and skills (a.k.a. talents) (Matt. 25:14-30) but these things are always discussed in Scripture in reference to what we could do and should do for the kingdom of God, not in reference to our careers, unless that directly applies to the kingdom (i.e., as in an evangelist). To teach otherwise is to read that into Scripture. No where in Scripture does God discuss his hopes of us fulfilling a calling that he has for us in our careers. Many Christians throughout history didn't have this as an option. Only recently in the last century or so was this even possible, but it hasn't always been this way. Although I applaud Dan's efforts to help people find a fulfilling career (who doesn't want one?), we need to get away from this idea that we have somehow missed our calling from God (if not God, who's doing the calling?) and have somehow missed blessings from him for our lives if we never find work we love. God never becomes a career counselor and for good reason. He is not as concerned with our careers as he is with our spiritual lives, hence, our response to him - which is what the Bible is all about.

Other than those two things, I think Miller's book has a lot of great material that can be helpful to anyone. In my opinion, his book and Richard Bolles' book What Color Is Your Parachute? 2008: A Practical Manual for Job-hunters and Career-Changers are two great great career guides.

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Contains a lot of interesting anecdotes

This book was recommended by Dave Ramsey as a great book to read if you have questions about finding the work you love.
It does contain a lot of interesting anecdotes, but I was disappointed by the amount of actual information in it. Maybe I just didn't read it closely enough, but I found myself simply not caring to read one short story after another about so-and-so's fictional life.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

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