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YOU have to pull them out yourself. Something to consider if you are buying this as a reference.Pros: This book more than any other really makes you become introspective. As a person who doesn't have very many blindingly obvious talents and options, I found it insightful and helpful, and the best thing I have read to date. Cons: Nothing in this book is really eye opening in my opinion. It makes you dig DEEEEP down inside into your psyche to pull out information to help you design a career. I have a softcover copy and the pages are literally falling out. It really spoke to me in a way that helped me finally narrow things down and come out with some strong options as far as careers. Anyway, the book does have a cursory review of talents/strengths and gives you a battery of "inquiries", questions to ask yourself while designing a career.
This book makes you WORK to get the information you want/need. First of all, a big BOO to the publisher for the very poor quality of the binding. (what did you want to be when you were a kid, what do you like about your job, what do you hate about your job (and every other job you ever had, etc)I found the talents section (where they try to sell you more tests) moderately insightful and this is the part of the book I gained from the most. It identifies several inherent natural talents that a person either has, or does not have, such as spatial ability, abstract thinking, etc. It forces you to create "commitments", or "what WILL be a part of my next career" and covers things such as "What to do when you get stuck".
A strong focus of this book is turning the information you get from the inquiries into reality. It's known as THE book for finding a job, and that's nice, but I truly value the Flower Exercise. It, again, will MAKE you do work, but not anywhere near as much as the Pathfinder and I feel I got more out of it. I think, if you are struggling in the same way I am, I would recommend "What Color is Your Parachute" over this book. The book is realistic that, sometimes, the answer is not within you and therefore you can consult outside sources, like career exams and interest/talent inventories. I wish there was a book on just this and identifying what one's true strengths/talents are, but I have yet to find one. I took pretty good care of this book, it hasn't been as heavily used as many of my other ones, and yet, I am losing pages.
I have already asked most of the inquiries of myself already and was still stuck, the entire reason I bought the book, so I was pretty annoyed when the book kept asking me questions that I viewed as essentially unhelpful, or things I have already covered with myself without the book that led me nowhere. I was pretty annoyed at the plug. If you think you can breeze through this book in a day and at the end have a brand new career you are wrong. Of course then he tells you that to *really* get it, you should go spend $500 at the Rockford Institute, a career institute created by the author, for a battery of career tests.
Vaughan Evans, business and career strategistAuthor, BACKING U. For the alternative top-down, demand-driven, passion-driven approach, where you identify a range of jobs that inspire you and systematically screen them for fit with your strengths, the reader should look elsewhere. But this is a landmark book in career guidance. This is the bottom-up approach to career and life planning set out at length. A Business-Oriented Approach to Backing Your Passion and Achieving Career Success The book is perhaps overly wordy, with a structure not the easiest to follow. Nicholas Lore draws on his and his institute's experience to lay out techniques for designing a new career direction to fit your goals, talents, personality, values etc and, most memorably, "how to deal with the yeah but voices in your head that keep you going back to the same ill-fitting job, day after day". But it is written by an acknowledged authority in the field and prospective career shifters would be wise to persevere.
I recently read 'Now What.' which was a better step-by-step guide for actually starting the process. After reading this book, I have been working with the Rockport Institute to find my future career and it has been extremely helpful. I highly recommend both books. This was one of five career counseling books that I ordered and read. I found it very inspirational and it gave me that extra push that I needed to go from "I hate my job," to "I'm going to do something about it." The other four were basically useless.
But, after reading the whole book, 374 pages of redundant ramblings, and a notebook full of useless lists, I was at the same point I was at before reading the book: clueless as to which career path I should pursue. Disappointing and very dishonest.
This book is just a big, long commercial for his Rockport Institute overprised $500 test you can take; that is the only way to get the careers list you'd be best suited for. Nicholas Lore should be ashamed of himself.
I purchased this book hoping that after reading it I would have a clear understanding of a career or careers that would fit me. Well, you get about 3/4 of the way through the book and he tells you to use his $500 career counseling service to see which careers are best for you.
Don't buy this book, it is a waste of your time and money. After reading the reviews here at Amazon I thought this book would answer all my questions.
The author keeps promising that all the work you are putting into it will pay off with solid answers as to which career you are best suited for.
I am very glad that this book was recommended to me and it has opened up a life of happiness with my employment options. If you are not ready to change your current situation and are just going to skim over it in hopes that you will pick up some new tricks by osmosis, don't spend the money.If you are willing to do a bit of work and know that you reap the benefits of change in many small ways not in one big lump sum, then stop reading the reviews and start ordering. I suspect that through the process laid out in this book and the work required to implement change most people that have purchased this book and truly followed the authors words and recommendations have had similar results. This is not just another self help book. It is a guided path to your new life.
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