Born for This: How to Find the Work You Were Meant to Do

Born for This is a book that talks about finding the work you were meant to do. It’s written by Chris Guillebeau, who also wrote the $100 Startup. I really enjoyed reading this book, and found that I could relate to it more than the $100 Startup. I am an electrical engineer, and have been in my current job for 13 years! (I still can’t believe that). As with any book like this, the important part is not just reading the book, but following through with the ideas. This book was very applicable to my life, and I enjoyed hearing the stories from different people. The book was a little bit dry, so not as relaxing as reading People magazine, but it has the potential to be very useful for me in figuring out my next career steps. I felt that this book was more suitable for people in traditional jobs than the $100 Startup. I’m the primary breadwinner, and have a mortgage and a kid to support, so starting my own business is not that appealing. This book is very good for figuring out how to have a fulfilling career without quitting your job and starting your own business. Here’s a breakdown on the chapters. Chapter 1: Flip the Script. This chapter talks about how to choose the winning ticket to your career lottery. There is a traditional career trajectory that we’re all supposed to follow, but Chris points out that it is possible to flip the script, and have some non-traditional ways to get your dream career. Chapter 2: Your Money and Your Life This chapter helps you understand about your preferred work style using the Joy-Money-Flow model. To win the career lottery, you need to have a job you love, that makes enough money to support your family, and lets you do what you’re really good at. Chapter 3: Always Bet on Yourself You can learn how to evaluate risks, make better choices, and create backup plans that help you increase your odds of success. Chapter 4: Prison Break 101 How do you pick what skills you should master? You can make a list of things that you do well, things that you hate doing, and then improve both your technical skills, and your soft skills. Chapter 5: The Answer in Your Inbox Sometimes, if you have no idea what your perfect job is, the answer might already be in your inbox. What do people always ask you for help with? Another interesting concept covered in this chapter is setting up shop by talking to 100 people. Figure out what problems you’ve been able to solve for someone, provide 15 minute consulting sessions to 100 people, and use that to figure out how you can help people and turn it into a business. Chapter 6: Life Coaching from Jay-Z Jay-Z as a teenager had 2 career paths, drug dealer, or entertainer. Lucky for us, he chose music. For most of us, we can look at the joy-money-flow trio, and first expand your options (brainstorm ideas), and then narrow them down. In this chapter, he also had an interesting story from Warren Buffett for a struggling friend, which is: 1. Make a list of the top 25 tings you want to do in life. Circle the top 5 things. Discard the other 20. Chapter 7. Side Hustle This chapter talks about how to make more money with a side job, to start growing skills on the side. Chapter 8. You, Inc. This chapter is for people that want to quit their day jobs, and build their own small empire. (This is not me!) Chapter 9. How to Become a Firefighter How can you play the game that will increase your odds? The most interesting concept for me from this chapter is the concept of using your weak ties (which includes acquaintances, coworkers, etc). If you ask your close friends for help with connections, they may not be able to help you, since you probably all have the same circle of friends. If you instead ask your weak ties, they will be more likely to be able to introduce you to that literary agent, music producer, etc. Chapter 10. The Self-Employed Employee Hack your job by becoming invaluable to your organization while crafting the job of your dreams. This was a good chapter for me, since I like my day job, and already kind of modify the job to suit my interests and strengths. Chapter 11. DIY Rock Star In art, it is said that success is due to the relationships the artist maintains with their fans. We can take this concept and apply it to whatever career we’re in. Chapter 12: How to Do Everything You Want You can refuse to choose a niche. You can have ways to combine unrelated interests, or have 2 different jobs that fulfill different parts of your personality. Chapter 13: Winnters Give Up All The Time How to purse the right opportunities, and not accept bad ones. In summary, a definite thumbs up! Thanks for the great read Chris.

“Life is seasonal. There’s a time to explore and experiment, and there’s also a time to focus." –Chris Guillebeau Some things go down pretty well after a long work day. An engaging read and an apricot ale are two of them. Books like this are not my usual. I actually kind of dislike the genre of self-help-ish, entrepreneur-ish books because most of them seem to promise the earth and sky and offer platitudes instead. This book does make some pretty big promises at the beginning– to “unlock the life you were made to live." I figured this book would be worth looking into since I have a career change coming up at the end of the year, and Chris Guillebeau tends to be an exception to my general dislike of the genre. A lot of what I’ve read from him has been genuinely helpful, and there were some good ideas in this one. Finding the intersection of joy and money and flow. Making backup plans on backup plans. Always being willing to try new ventures. I especially liked his ideas of writing “resumes from the future” or discovering your skills through what sorts of favors people often ask you for to. That said, some of the results advertised in the book are finding work that doesn’t feel like work, amassing a base of supporters, and finding a side gig that can help provide more financial freedom. If you’d expect them all to come true instantly, you’ll likely be disappointed, but if you go into it expecting a good idea or two to stick with you, you’ll get something good out of it.

For most of my career, I wrestled with the question of what do I want to be when I grow up. I always looked with longing toward the non conforming options: consultant, seminar leader, entrepreneur, bike shop owner, solopreneur in some form or other (I don’t like taking orders). But the rational options seemed to be climb the corporate ladder, then join an established university faculty. And I never mustered the courage to go much beyond the rational. There have always been books which made the non conforming seem plausible and even attractive: Barbara Sher with Wishcraft: How to Get What You Really Want and later I Could Do Anything, If Only I Knew What It Was; Marsha Sinetar with Do What You Love, The Money Will Follow followed by To Build the Life You Want, Create the Work You Love; Tama Kieves with This Time I Dance; Corey Ciocchetti with Real Rabbits: Chasing an Authentic Life; and more. This is the milieu in which Chris Guillebeau caught my attention many years ago first with The Art of Nonconformity followed by The $100 Startup and The Happiness of Pursuit. Now (April 5, 2016) Chris is back with another entry: Born For This. This is the book I have been waiting for. It not only provides guidance to answer the question “What do I want to do?”, but also gives real down to earth advice on HOW to do it, and more importantly WHY to do it. Chris has already proven himself to be an accomplished writer with his previous books and his blog entries. This book contains the same easy to read style. It is not abstract. Again like his other writing, it is full of real life examples. And it recognizes that the only real way to get where you want to go, or even know where that might be, is to try things, then try again. Following Cal Newport, Chris subscribes to the philosophy that most of us don’t just write down our passion one day, then go for it. We learn what our real passion is by doing things, thinking about their impact on ourselves and others, judging how that fits with our self image, then doing some more. In 13 chapters, Chris translates that simple to grasp concept into action steps to help anyone make it real. When I completed my career at age 70, I decided rather than retire, I am starting over. Chris’ new book gives me confidence that this time I can do it even better, have more fun, and finally live the dream.

Several years ago when I first started following Chris's writing, I envisioned myself becoming an entrepreneur because I was miserable at my job. But I did not know where to start, and instead of being excited about starting something on my own, I soon became burdened with the question of "what IS my passion"? Trying out different things seemed scary because weren't we supposed to pick one thing and focus on that? "Born For This" helped answer that question. In the first sections of the book, you will discover how it is not only alright, but encouraged to try out different options. This may not be the book to guide you in building a multi-million business, but it shines a light of awareness on where your strengths and interests lie. The book is also useful in helping you discover how you would like to work - from the nature of the work you do to the environment that surrounds your work. Chris offers actionable items for developing side hustle ideas and to find your own unique "blend" of what it is you are meant to do. Even if you are happily employed working for someone else (which I am now), there are practical tips on how you can find more joy in your current work. It is especially a great read if you work in a field where you empower others in their (career) journey.

... oder auch beides: bei diesem Buch ist für jeden etwas dabei. Der Autor erzählt in "Born for this" auf eine - wie auch bei seinen anderen Büchern - kurzweilige Art und Weise über seine Erfahrungen als selbständiger Unternehmer und Solopreneur. Gute Beispiele und Tipps helfen dem Leser, den Inhalt noch besser zu verstehen. Absolut lesenswert!

If you have no capital or specific skill set, still want to be an (micro)entrepreneurs, go for this book. You won't repent.

Fantastic and actionable information on how to make or get your dream job. My head is truly spinning with ideas. Time to take action now that I have the path I've been looking for. Highly recommended.

Only reason for 4 of 5 stars is this... Very engaging, practical and easy to read book but with an inspiring 'how to' book, the fifth star comes when I've had a chance to run the tips, tricks & strategies and see how I pan out with them & they pan out for me. This really is great! Now... Step 2 for me... Impliment! See you next time.