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¡°Brimming with stories of sacrifice, courage, commitment and, sometimes, failure, the book will support anyone pondering a major life choice or risk without force-feeding them pat solutions.¡±
¡ªPublishers Weekly

What should I do with my life?

It¡¯s a question many of us have pondered with frequency. Author Po Bronson was asking himself that very question when he decided to write this book¡ªan inspiring exploration of how people transform their lives and a template for how we can answer this question for ourselves.

Bronson traveled the country in search of individuals who have struggled to find their calling, their true nature¡ªpeople who made mistakes before getting it right. He encountered people of all ages and all professions¡ªa total of fifty-five fascinating individuals trying to answer questions such as: Is a career supposed to feel like a destiny? How do I tell the difference between a curiosity and a passion? Should I make money first, to fund my dream? If I have a child, will my frustration over my work go away? Should I accept my lot, make peace with my ambition, and stop stressing out? Why do I feel guilty for thinking about this?

From their efforts to answer these questions, the universal truths in this book emerge. Each story in these pages informs the next, and the result is a journey that unfolds with cumulative power. Reading this book is like listening in on an intimate conversation among people you care about and admire. Even if you know what you should do with your life, you will find wisdom and guidance in these stories of people who found meaningful answers by daring to be honest with themselves.
Among them:

-the Pittsburgh lawyer who decided to become a trucker so he could savor the moment and be closer to his son.
-the toner-cartridge queen of Chicago, who realized that her relationships with men kept sabotaging her career choices.
-the Cuban immigrant who overcame the strong dis-approval of her parents and quit her high-paying job to pursue social-service work in Miami.
-the chemistry professor who realized, quite late in life, that he would rather practice law.
-the mother torn between an Olympic career and her adolescent daughter.
-the seventeen-year-old boy who received a letter from the Dalai Lama and was called to a life of spiritual leadership.
-the creator of St. Elmo¡¯s Fire, who wasn¡¯t sure he could quit his successful Hollywood life for the deeper artistic life he had always wanted to pursue.
-the author himself. Po Bronson has worked as a bus-boy, cook, janitor, sports-medicine intern, bus-lift assembly-line technician, aerobics instructor, litigation consultant, greeting-card designer, bond salesman, political-newsletter editor, high school teacher, and book publisher. Since then, he has written three books: Bombardiers, The First $20 Million Is Always the Hardest, and The Nudist on the Late Shift. But none of those experiences compared to what he learned by writing this book.


¡°We all have passions if we choose to see them,¡± he writes. ¡°Most of us don¡¯t get epiphanies. We don¡¯t get clarity. Our purpose doesn¡¯t arrive neatly packaged as destiny. We only get a whisper. A blank, nonspecific urge. That¡¯s how it starts.¡±

With humor, empathy, and insight, Po Bronson probes the depths of people who learned how to hear the whisper, who overcame fear and confusion to find a larger truth about their lives. A meditation, a journey, and a triumph of story-telling, What Should I Do with My Life? is a life-changing book by a writer who brilliantly tackles the big questions.


From the Hardcover edition.

In What Should I Do with My Life? Po Bronson manages to create a career book that is a page-turner. His 50 vivid profiles of people searching for "their soft spot--their true calling" will engage readers because Bronson is asking himself the same question. He explores his premise, that "nothing is braver than people facing up to their own identity," as an anthropologist and autobiographer. He tackles thorny, nuanced issues about self-determination. Among them: paradoxes of money and meaning, authorship and destiny, brain candy and novelty versus soul food. Bronson¡¯s stories, limited to professional people and complete with photos, are gems. They include a Los Angeles lawyer who became a priest, a Harvard MBA catfish farmer turned biotech executive, and a Silicon Valley real estate agent who opened a leather crafts factory in Costa Rica.

Bronson is a gifted intuitive writer, the bestselling author of The Nudist on the Late Shift, whose thoughtful, vulnerable voice emerges as the book¡¯s greatest strength and challenge. He describes his subject¡¯s lives along with the ways they annoy, puzzle, and worry him. He frets about meddling with his questions, yet once, memorably and appropriately, he offers a talented man a top post in his publishing company. While this creates the juiciness of his portraits, it also can make Bronson the book¡¯s most memorable character and the only one whose story is not resolved. Even so, this remarkable career chronicle sets the gold standard for the worth of the examined life. --Barbara Mackoff

Customer Reviews:

• Good Read, Good Insights
  For anyone in transition, Bronson's book does a great job of taking a broad view on approaches to finding your path, your life's work. And while I wouldn't consider it self-help (Bronson has as many questions as answers),
  the stories capture how varied and intricate the American work experience is. Bronson even steps into the book himself, telling his own story and critiquing his own path. Ballsy to be dropping the aloof objective view. This addition rounds out the experience: instead of blindly enthused to conquer the world or so beaten as to think no hope exists, What Should I do with my Life left me satisfied understanding a little better my place in the world knowning how much variation in paths exists....more info
• Helped Me Choose Quickly
  At a time in my life when I have the opportunity to make choices about what to do next, this book helped me gain perspective by telling the stories of others' choices. I credit it with helping me to just choose the path where I have the most interest rather than continue to ponder and agonize over the perfect fit. I rarely get audiobooks but this time I enjoyed listening to Po Bronson's voice in my car during a couple long drives. Only 4 stars because the title implies more of a self-help book when it is really a collection of mini-biographies of people choosing a direction for their lives....more info
• Peoples' Lives are always interesting
  This is NOT a career guide as described in the Amazon text above. To me this was simply a book about people. It is the people here who speak, not Mr. Bronson. He is being a modern day Studs Terkel perhaps, but this book let's a variety of folks talk about how they stumbled through their lives trying to figure out what gives them satisfaction, how to earn money, where to live et. Peoples'lives and struggles are always interesting, and sometimes their mistakes do not have to be our mistakes, but their lives can be inspiring nevertheless. This might be a nice gift for younger people....more info
• Personal advice to help seekers
  This isn't your typical job book.
  
  You won't find any quizzes to help you choose your career path, and you won't get any step-by-step advice on how to find the best job for you.
  
  What you will find are personal stories from people just like you. You'll discover people who had an easy route to career success, as well as people who had a longer journey.
  
  I personally found this book very helpful during a particularly rough patch. I wasn't sure I wanted to stay in my field, and I had a lot of questions about what to do with my life. I was depressed, unhappy, desperate, even angry.
  
  Reading other people's stories helped me feel less alone.
  
  The book also helped me priorotize what is important in my life. Turns out I'm OK with making less money as long as the tradeoff is living in a place I love and working for people I respect.
  
  I have a new job as a result of this book, and I'm very happy with my place in the world. ...more info
• A good read if you're in the right place.
  I first picked up this book because not so long ago I was graduating from high school, and that question has been foremost in my mind. Now people will tell you that this is not a self-help book, and going with the traditional defintion of that Genre, I will have to agree. I doubt that I could have waded my way through a self-help book, with vague, common sense phrases which anyone with a little bit of it might think of on their own.
  
  That was why this book was so interesting to me. I thought that by reading the concrete, detailed stories of other people, I might, somehow, find similar conflicts in myself and learn in the reading how this book various ways to resolve them. Picking up a book in this manner is a bit of a guilty pleasure. I have no doubt that many people who have read this book started for similar reasons as myself and secretly compared themselves to the different people in it. So, in a sense, I think that this is a self-help book, because reading it will certainly broaden your horizons as to the potential and variety of "destiny", as well as encourage a dispirited person who feels that they have no options. There are always options, as many of the stories in this book illustrate. Time and again, happiness is found for various individuals in various ways, and often they go through dispiriting trials. There is the example of Mike, a former co-worker of Po on Wall Street, who went for months without employment before finally being hired at a high-paying job in the middle east, where the environment seemed to suit his temper.
  
  Environment is actually one of the "sections" in the book; there are various sections, usually about different aspects of what tends to make people unhappy. This is where stories relating to a this aspect are clustered together, though oftentimes Po groups them so that both sides of the equation are shown (ex.: There is a story about a change "junkie", who didn't like change, next to the story of a Boom Wrangler, who thrived on it) From the top of my head I can recall appreciating people, the stimulation factor and caring about what you do. Po's analyses are really quite in-depth, and it is clear that he did his homework and then some on the subject. A lot of thought went into this book.
  
  Now I will address the criticisms of this book. A valid one is the sample of people Po chose to include in it. They are overwhelmingly smart, well-educated, adn successful (at least at one time or another in their lives). Many of them (I would dare venture almost half) have gone to Ivy League colleges. Many of these people did not start out on the top, and have worked their way up (they were not born with silver spoons in their mouths, at least not all of them). I found it rather disconcerting and admit to blushing a few times to think of so many remarkably intelligent people searching for the purpose in their lives, and was a bit humbled when I thought of my own (limited) talents. This is probably the source of those oh-so-angry reviewers who claim that Bronson should get over himself. And yes, the people that he chose is one of the faults of the book; it certainly couldn't hurt to have a greater variety of individuals in it. But it is, afterall, Bronson's own work, and he even says in it that he chose the stories that "spoke to him". It's no wonder from that that the stories that spoke to him are mostly from people rather affluent, intelligent, and successful like himself. I don't think that conceit or racism had much of anything to do with it.
  
  Another criticism is that he injects too many anecdotes from his own life. I suppose that this one is a matter of opinion. I rather liked to get a personal glimpse into the author's life, and I think that something would have been missing from the book if he hadn't put these parts in, for this book was clearly rooted from himself and the fact that he was asking his quesion as he was writing it. Reading this book, it is clear that it was a very personal project. Why then, take away passages that reveal that? He never reveals anything inappropriate, and his sidetracks are not so bad as to derail the book or do it the other stories any harm.
  
  Three stars, to Po Bronson, for an enjoyable, intelligent read. Three because it was well-done, but not more because four and five stars are saved for truly fantastic books....more info
• Stories of idealistic elitists
  I wanted to love this book, I really did. I work a little in career counseling, have changed careers, and believe the career search and finding what we enjoy is one of the most challenging, demanding and rewarding journeys in life. Bronson's idea for the book was outstanding; his choice of people to feature was narrow.
  
  Before reading this book I read the reveiws here and was surpised at some of the anger. After reading the book, now I understand it. By page 200 (or earlier) I was already tired of the words, "Stanford," "Yale," "stock broker," "venture capitalist," and "Hollywood," (he has two stories of disgruntled Hollywood scriptwriters, who go back to la-la land).
  
  Even the catfish farmer is an Ivy Leaguer/Wall Street guy who goes back to the big business world. So many dislikeable people, like the "Phi Betta Slacker" who bemoans a $1,500 a day runway model job; one Hollywood scriptwriter (Stanford or Ivy League alum, of course) who can't believe that going into the medical field requires having to deal with sick people, and that very ill people are actually in hospitals. Horrified, she runs back to Hollywood. Guess that high-priced education didn't pay off. And then there's the guy from Oregon living in the bay area who thinks he's just a goofball who got lucky making $160,000 a year, and is somewhat upset about it.
  
  Please.
  
  This book does not cross all economic levels, it's about elitists who just don't seem happy making those six figures. For someone not from that stratosphere, it's maddening to read time after time. I was hoping I'd hit a chapter where a middle or lower class person actually changed careers and liked it. Of course Bronson himself is a Stanford alum, high finance guy, so this is the prism in which he views life.
  
  On the bright side, there are some good insights in this book on how people make changes and take leaps of faith. But when I hit a guy with $9 million in the bank (and oddly sharing a small two-bedroom apartment) and Bronson tells us, "not to feel sorry for him" and then we hear how this guy's life isn't fulfilling. Of course he goes back to where? Stanford.
  
  I'm sure the Stanford and Ivy League alumni chapters love this book, but it's really not for the common man....more info
• Some Inspiring Stories, But of Limited Usefulness
  This book has great potential and the author really means well, but things keep falling into the sappy world of bookstore self-help that Bronson says he's trying to avoid. Bronson presents the stories of dozens of people, some inspiring and some less so, who really did decide to find their true calling in life. Some of these stories can be inspirational for those who are at similar crossroads, like myself (that's why I decided to read the book). Unfortunately, the entire endeavor becomes rather unfocused, as Bronson can't stop talking about his own quest for self-direction, under the guise of reporting on other people. Bronson also says throughout the book, and especially in the introduction, that he does not wish to give advice or crank out self-help mantras. Well he does just that throughout the book anyway, writing about how he gave real advice to his subjects (while telling us how uncomfortable he felt the whole time), and bloating the book with especially convoluted and rambling philosophy about finding yourself. The book could have been a greater success if the people profiled were left to tell their stories with less padding from Bronson.
  
  And though I've been praising the real people covered in the book, on average their stories show some variety of situations and outlook, but a general lack of real struggle. Everyone battled personal demons, to be sure, but only a few of the dozens of people profiled here had to struggle with real-world unemployment, bankruptcy, or severe personal trauma. Besides those few, most of the folks here were able to quit jobs they hated and open up their own businesses, go to college, or take extended vacations of self-discovery. Well guess what - that all takes lots of money, and many people reading this book won't be able to identify with that kind of opportunity. And while Bronson keeps saying that he wants to paint a bigger emotional and spiritual picture of what one should do with one's life, this book really boils down to people deciding to change careers. Many of the interview subjects truly found happiness this way, but we're still stuck with our culture's habit of defining ourselves by our jobs. This all worked for Bronson and his subjects, but I think what he rambles on about here has limited usefulness for most people, who are stuck in grittier realities. [~doomsdayer520~]...more info
• worst book i have ever read
  This book was terrible. It was all about rich people complaining about what they should do with their life. In this book Po Branson makes out janitors and other low paying jobs as not having any meaning. When are people like Po and these other rich people in the book gonna realize that a job does not make the person. After all jesus was a carpernter and look at the signifigance of his personality. According to Po and the rich people in this book a carpenter wouldnt be a good enough profession for them. The people in this book disgust me with their consumerism and shallow personalities. All they care about is themselves and what other people will think of them. I dont define myself by the job I work or the things I own. But the people in this book all care about those meaningless things. ...more info
• Thought-Provoking, Artfully Written
  I've heard it said that you can tell by how someone writes whether they genuinely like people. Po Bronson clearly likes people, and it shines through in this book. I highly recommend it for anyone seeking to set foot in others' shoes, whether you are in the midst of self-examination (and shouldn't that be a constant for all of us, really?) or not....more info
• This book has 255 reviews as I write this ...
  Clearly there is a lot of interest in this book. Anyone undertaking to read it without a pre-conceived personal agenda is going to enjoy it very much. Lighten up guys ......more info
• Heard a lot about it, so tried it - and LIKED it!
  As someone who's constantly trying new books about career development and life callings, I heard about Po's book from several friends. I recently bought a copy and sat down to read it - and didn't stop until late in the night, after I'd plowed through nearly the whole thing! I really enjoyed the portraits he painted of the different people, as they journeyed through life and figured out "what they wanted to do when they grew up". There were a lot of entertaining stories.
  
  My only complaint about the book is that the people Po profiled were relatively unknown folks. I would've been interested to learn more about people of higher profile - people who might've achieved fame previously and given me a reason to care about their paths. I wasn't sure why Po picked the people he did.
  
  Like I said, though, overall, this book is a THUMBS UP! I would recommend it to people like me who like reading about career choices and life paths....more info
• Vapid, not at all Inspiring
  I am in fact the "yuppie scum" that many of the reviewers have such disdain for (why, only they know). In any event, I, unhappy in my present career, was looking for a book that would inspire me to make a change. Don't be deceived, this is not a self-help book. The stories of the individuals in the book are half-baked, uninspiring and in certain instances go unresolved. There are no useful insights or "gems" to be taken and used in our personal lives. The writing by Po (or editing by his publisher) is disjointed and confusing. I could only get through about three-quarters of this drivel before putting it down....more info
• Sent as a gift
  I sent this as a gift to my daughter who is very pleased with the book...more info
• A little inspiration, but nothing special.
  I bought this one when I was at a point in my life in which I was asking the question posed in the title, read it, found it unremarkable and cheesy, then ended up selling it to a used book store. I think the appeal of this book hinges on what you're looking to get out of it. It's essentially a book of inspirational stories that will bring a smile to your face, but aren't too intellectually stimulating.
  
  If you're looking for a better collection of stories based around people talking about their jobs, try Gig: Americans Talk About Their Jobs by Bowe et al or Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do by Studs Terkel. Both Terkel and Bowe do a fantastic job of letting the interviewees stories shine for themselves instead of trying a little too hard to reach for a sappy sweet moral like Bronson does.
  
  If you're looking for some feel good inspiration al la the Chicken Soup series, you will probably like this title. Nothing wrong with those books or What Should I do With My Life, but they're just not to my taste. ...more info
• worth it if you need it
  This is a good book, easy to read and full of small insights....more info
• For Grads or Curious Readers.
  I got this book, hardback, when it was first published. I read it quickly and without much thought. It was nice and I kept the book around, randomly reading bits.
  
  Cut to: 2007. Read it again with intent and thoughtfulness. This is not your daddy's self-help book, but it is filled with lessons. In these narratives, and in his layout of these narratives, Bronson enables the reader to see the world as filled with dreamers, and lost souls, and people who don't have all the answers, all the time.
  
  These are important lessons for folks in their twenties: seeing the bigger picture, getting over yourself and allowing for the inevitable, "i don't know" of life.
  
  So, I recommend this highly for anyone who is graduating. I also recommend this for anyone who sighs sometimes and thinks, "there's got to be more than this."
  ...more info
• I liked it
  This book caught my eye because of its colorful cover and the title "What should I do with my life?" as I have asked myself that many sleepless nights.
  
  Contrary to many people who reviewed this book here, I loved it for the fact that it is not a self-help book. I couldn't stand another self help book telling me to "follow my heart" and "be happy".
  
  It presents real people's stories. People with different ideas and has followed diverse paths. I could identify myself with some and disagree with others but it was interesting to read about their points of view and feelings.
  
  I bought this book a year ago and read it several times. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone. ...more info
• Cool concept, poor execution
  While this book surely contains a few interesting stories, I just couldn't get over the arrogance and ego of the author. In way too many stories Bronson writes about how his own genius suggestion or question to his subject suddenly makes them have an amazing epiphany, like they've just been hanging out for 20 years waiting for a rich white guy to tell them to what to do. If Bronson stepped back out of the action and let the subjects themselves remain the story, this book would have been much stronger. ...more info
• It had gotten so bad, I tried Googling the universe.
  I was in such a funk that I typed, "What should I do with my life" into that all knowing box in the upper right hand corner of Safari. And I thought it was really funny that a book came up. And then I kinda recognized this Po guy from some other story that said he writes in a box or a small closet under the stairs or something. Then I actually started reading his web site. Then I read the first few lines of his book. Then I bought it and read it. Then I bought like, three more copies for my friends and family.
  
  This book isn't going to tell you what to do with your life. It just tells you how other people are answering or not answering the question. There is a sort of clarity in knowing that you're aren't alone in thinking about it. That there is a luxury in being able to think about it at all. That not everyone finds volunteer work to be the answer.
  
  I never answered the question officially. And I stipped thinking about it for a while, because I sort of just jumped out of my funk and back into my life. I'm not sure where I'm going, but I'm going SOMEWHERE. And I'm going with my own paddle....more info
• Inspiring read that leaves you with something to think about
  I think it this book is a great read and I recommend it to people who are wondering "what to do" with their lives. A collection of inspiring stories about different people and how they came into their lives. I found it a thoroughly satisfying read. Wide variety of personal stories, delivered in a pithy and straightforward way. I really like this book and I think it will resonate with anybody who has experienced the difficult of making and living with life and career choices. It would even be useful for recent college grads who are 'searching' for their corner of the world.
  
  Although some would call this a "self-help" book, I disagree. It's inspirational, but it is not prescriptive. Po Bronson leaves it up to the reader to make of this book what they will....more info
• There are no words to describe this horrible experience
  I could barely make it through this book. I found a copy downstairs in my apartment building and thought it might be a nice read. I enjoy knowing what people find meaningful in their lives. This book is nothing more than a bunch of self-entitled snobs whining about their jobs. I decided it would be best to throw this book away and top it off with my spoiled yogurt so nobody else would be subjected to this nonsense. ...more info
• We all face this at some point
  What Should I Do with My Life is a collection of personal interviews examining how people have answered this question and changed their lives. Many of the people in the book have different backgrounds, educations, and circumstances and came about their change in a variety of different methods. Some are stories of courage and some are stories of chance. Each story examines how the person arrived at their answer for their life. The stories include young people just starting out in their careers as well as older people looking to change careers. ...more info
• The Po-man cometh
  There seems to be a lot of excuses for this book in the reviews of the..."I liked it but well am not sure why and hey stop picking on my buddy Po, He is trying OK."
  
  Basically Po says in several hours of book tapes, using almost exclusively highly educated multi-degree, high powered subjects, from California (which the average person may not relate to, myself included) that in order to make a life change and discover what you should do with your life, something must happen in order to make the decision personal. Making a life decision personal adds power and in my opinion this is good advice and really the whole take home of the book.
  
  Basically, you need to be either be fired from your high powered, well paid, in most of the cases in the book banking, financial or lawyer job, be fed up with your life and make a change, experience a family or physical crisis or cue into a special calling through a series of random events which you should/could now look closely at for clues (but there is not much advise on how to do that)...then actually act on this input/calling/life event.
  
  There is not much advising on how to take action, merely stories on people who took action. I was not even sure if the people featured were certain that these "callings" were a right fit. The stories centered on in-between transitional time. This to me felt more like a book entitled..."What I should do with my life, while I am figuring out what I should do with my life."
  
  The book does not provide any real clarification on how we are supposed to decide what we should do or if that decision is correct if we do make one. Mostly it seems like trial and error with some follow your heart warm and fussiness thrown in which if that is what the book is about that would be fine...yet it did not provide any solace in what would appear to be a lengthy process.
  
  We do get to meet some interesting people along the way, yet I feel that if I sat down and had a heart to heart chat with the average group of people during lunch time at my local health food store who were doing interesting things, I would hear a similar grouping of experiences and stories.
  
  On a positive note, Po has a calm and relaxed voice that makes for an enjoyable listen, for those who get the audio book. I also commend Po for tackling what is a very tricky subject. There seems to be a lot of grains of salt taken with this read. I also recommend having your saltshaker handy.
  ...more info
• Good Reading
  Interestingly, I read this within a year after reading Studs Terkel's "Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do." The tone was so different.
  
  A large number of the people in "Working" talk about hating their jobs and their lives. Because it is edits by Terkel, it has that tone that no one likes their jobs because of Big Business/White Men/Republicans. Congress should mandate that everyone be able to find rapture in their jobs.
  
  Bronson's book doesn't guarantee solvency, but actually does a much better job. He actually offers different ways of looking at problems.
  
  The problem is that when one is sincerely seeking one's calling, one can become desperate. "Let this be the magical key that unlocks the universe for me." But no book can do that. So we feel let down, and because it usually comes after a lifetime of similar disappointments in things that we thought, each time, would bring The Answer, we feel backstabbed. So we are angry with the book.
  
  So just read it as an interesting story, to you know "you are not alone" in your quest. I only give 3 stars, because my standards are pretty high....more info
• Dreadful Mess
  Being that I'm at a crossroads in my career I picked up this book thinking it would provide me with insight from others' experiences. I sure was wrong! The book ought to be titled "What Po Bronson Thinks I Should Do With My Life," since he insists on interjecting his opinions and "guidance" into every interview. His ego is unbelievable.
  
  What's really appalling is when he shares unnecessary information from his personal life, as when he talks about how his ex-wife couldn't accept his second wife (like that's never happened after a divorce!) and how he cheated on her.
  
  I also found Bronson to be condescending to those who have different beliefs and backgrounds than him. For example, he chides his first subject, a Buddhist, about his beliefs in reincarnation; later in the book he makes gross assumptions about how recent immigrants feel about menial jobs. He doesn't bother to interview those immigrants, however.
  
  The book is poorly edited, lacks organization and is simply dreadful. It disgusts me that this piece of junk got published and that Bronson is making good money off such drivel. I encourage anyone who feels a need to read this book to check it out at the library. ...more info
• Good concept, never follows through
  The idea for a book addressing the question "what should I do with my life?" is a good one. It's something everyone faces at some point, and many struggle with. So I was looking forward to reading this book.
  
  Unofortunately, all it amounts to is a series of vignets or snapshots of different individuals interviewed by Bronson and the choices they made in their careers and lives, without any other real deeper insight or conclusions offered. It's interesting to read people's different stories, and the pool Bronson drew from is certainly varied/diverse. Yet Bronson sounds just as confused as the reader when addressing these stories, and just as unsetted about that basic question. And by the end of the book, Bronson AND the reader is left no further off then where we started. If anything, this book leaves you feeling more confused and conflicted then when you started reading.
  
  I kept hoping Bronson would get at some overarching theme that ties the stories together, or offer up some reasonable conclusions, however broad by the end of the book, but he doesn't. It's as if he interviewed these folks, wrote down their stories and just left it at that. I think it's intended to be thought provoking for the reader, and it is on some levels. But if you're picking this book up, chances are you've already been pondering this question, and don't need to be reminded to think about it.
  
  This book had potential, and it's a good concept, but Bronson just never follows through. While interesting in parts, it leaves you hanging and is ultimately unfulfilling. I was hoping this book would inspire some insight, and it just doesn't. Disappointingly shallow....more info
• There Are No Easy Answers to the Question
  I am grateful that this book does not pretend to be an easy answer book. For an individual who craves a formula and a step by step guide to finding the perfect career, this is no the book for you. What Bo illustrates is that the question "what should I do with my life?" changes as we live and experience our lives. He is able to to illustrate that building character through honest evaluations with ourselves and others and facing our failures and successes with humility and dignity is what we should be doing with our lives. The journey is the focus of this book and it is life affirming because what we should be doing with our lives is living it!...more info
• What's up with the first reviewer?
  I gotta ask the first reviewer where the deep, deep anger and hatred he has towards the people Bronson choose to profile in this fascinating, deeply profound, and helpful book?
  So the people who struggled with these questions didn't have the right to? So their struggle is insignificant, illegit, and not real?
  
  Tell that to the thousands who at least struggle to find their place. Tell that to me and my friends who struggle to find what they want to do. the biggest irony and joke about your review is that you are not only offensive and condescending to people who are educated, but to people who are under-employed, and people who haven't had the privledge to go to college. Should they "get real" like you did and stop improving themselves and being "all touchy feely and introspective?".
  
  People like you say things like, "Stop messing around and get serious." Which is really a guise for saying, "Stop dreaming and taking an active role in changing things for the better and get miserable like me."
  
  My guess is that you've got some serious jealousy and anger issues because your own introspection has yet to prove fruitful. That's also a lesson in the book by the way....more info
• Inspiring and important- have the courage to pursue what you want in life!
  Think for a moment of one of the commonly known laws of physics: " An object in motion tends to stay in motion." So too do we tend to keep going in the momentum of our jobs, careers, and lives. We choose to continue in the same familiar directions and patterns, rarely deviating from what is normal. We settle for what is good, rather than trying for something great. Po Bronson's illuminating message is just this: though never a guarantee, maybe that leap into the unknown is worth the risk... and, regardless of the consequences, you'll be a better person for taking it.
  
  This book served as an important wakeup call for me, and I think has the potential to open the eyes of many others as to the options that we are too often blinded from in our busy lives. Similar to the message of the "Road Trip Nation" campaign, ([...]), this book helps to paint pictures and share stories of those who dared to have the courage to venture out and try something new and different, something uncertain or risky. I myself quit a successful career in human resources to go back to school, pursuing a doctorate degree at less than 1/4 the salary. This book helped to give me the courage to realize that I could ACT on my desires and dreams, that comfort and familiarity are the enemies of a bold spirit, and that, if anything, the journey is always worth considering, regardless of the destination.
  
  To address certain critics of the author's methods, Po Bronson acted as an ethnographer. This method of research, validated and used globally (especially in the fields of anthropology and branches of the social sciences), an ethnographer asks questions, observes natural settings, conducts interviews, and incorporates his or her own perspectives, biases, and insights into the data. Differing from the actions of a journalist, Po Bronson hit the ethnographer role dead-on (minus all of the technical research stuff).
  
  Other critics of this book do have valid points. At times the narratives do bridge on being self-indulgent, and his opinions are injected throughout. I would argue that this is what makes the book interesting; it drives us readers to think about OUR reactions! Do we agree? Would we do the same? What do we think about these people and their choices? And (perhaps most importantly), how can we learn from these stories and perhaps apply these learnings to our own behavior and choices? I have respect for any book that drives me to think. I encourage you to read it, and see how it impacts what you do with your life.
  
  One final thought: this book should be required reading for all high school and college seniors!...more info
• This is NOT a self-help book, but a book of short case studies
  Other reviewers seem to have expected things from this book which I do not believe fit into the author's purpose in writing it. This book is not meant to inspire. Nor is it meant to be a self-help guide to career change. It is certainly not a how-to manual. If that is what you want, there are better books elsewhere.
  
  This book is essentially a collection of stories about people struggling to find their place in the world. Each chapter briefly tells of one person who either changed or contemplated changing the direction of his or her life. Some failed; some succeeded. Although the author offers his own personal commentary and insight into each case, he does not provide answers or even suggestions.
  
  I found the book interesting and thought-provoking because of the breadth of the cases covered. People may change directions because of a drive for financial succeess, a desire to help others, a search for meaningfulness, a guilty conscious, etc. Some fail because of fears, financial burdens, family responsibilities, pressures from others, lack of commitment, or other factors. Others succeed because of an inner drive, hard work, clear vision, access to resources, and sometimes a little luck.
  
  ...more info