Life is too short to spend it doing something you hate — or something that sucks you dry. My advice in such situations is to learn to love what you do (and that’s easier than you think).
But if you just can’t learn to love it, then you need to find a career that you DO love.
That’s where the new book Career Renegade comes in. It’s all about how to earn a great living doing what you love.
Jonathan Fields, the author, had a high-paying career as a Wall Street attorney. The stress of that position — where one day he collapsed after working for nearly 72 hours straight to close a $100 million deal — nearly broke his health. Jonathan wisely decided on a career change. But where do you go in a career when you’ve already reached the pinnacle of a Manhattan “white shoe” law firm?
In Jonathan’s case, he made a radical shift. He founded a yoga studio. He also got into marketing and now offers entrepreneurship training as well.
Meanwhile, the yoga studio he created, called Sonic Yoga, went on to become the number-one rated yoga center in New York for the past four years. More importantly, Jonathan was able to do what he loves, and earn a great living. Through deft delegation and management, he’s arranged things so that he only spends about ten hours a week on the yoga business, leaving him free to pursue other interests he loves.
Along the way he has learned a lot about how to take the passion you have for something, identify an industry niche, and market and differentiate yourself enough to make a good living. As we all know, many activities and hobbies that people love will not make them enough money to support a family the way they’d like (ever heard the term “starving artist” ?).
But as Jonathan says in the book: “I live in New York City. I have a family to support. I need six figures just to scrape by.”
Settling for poverty was not option for him — nor should it be for you. This book is extremely practical about the need to be fiscally successful when you pursue your passion.
Many books of this type leave me cold because they are long on motivation and encouragement but short on proactive guidance on how to achieve anything. Yeah, you read a book and get pumped up for a week. But after that initial energy wears off, you’re left feeling empty. Why? Because the book you just read never told you HOW to achieve all those wonderful goals it got you all pumped about, beyond some shallow techniques such as making lists.
But that’s not Career Renegade. This book is different. It’s very prescriptive in telling you what to do and how to do it.
My Favorite Highlights of Career Renegade
- Career Renegade is a step-by-step approach to chucking it all to pursue the work that excites and fulfills you — without ending up broke, divorced or sorry.
- Career Renegade helps you identify what gives you the most satisfaction — what puts you into such a deep state of concentration and is so intrinsically rewarding — “flow” or being in the zone — that you care barely tear yourself away from it. This is your true inner passion.
- Once you’ve identified your passion, the book tells you how to turn that into a fiscally viable business or career path. It not only explains WHAT to do — but more importantly HOW to do it. You’ll get pumped up and inspired, but you will also walk away knowing how to channel that inspiration into action.
- I love the human interest in this book! Jonathan tells stories throughout the book — his own story and also the stories (“case studies”) of others who have made unusual career moves or pursued a passion instead of a more traditional career route. You’ll read about the software programmer who turned his love of sports video games into a business. You’ll also read about the lawyer turned Internet entrepreneur (Brian Clark, known as Copyblogger — no wait, that describes me too!).
- The book has detailed resources about how to use the Web to research customer demand for your business. It goes well beyond “look it up in Google” to much more subtle and lesser-known research methods.
- It also identifies marketing resources to help you promote your business and draw in customers and sales — with lots of emphasis on the most up-to-date online marketing methods. Marketing has changed dramatically in the past decade, and this book reflects the most up to date methods. It’s written in a way that anyone can understand — you don’t have to have a marketing degree to figure them out.
What the Book Could have Done Better
The many resources listed in the book are great, but like all resources in print they will eventually become outdated. However, this is not really a problem because in keeping with today’s trend of a book being accompanied by a dedicated website of its own, Jonathan has set up a website at http://CareerRenegade.com. He tells me he will be updating the book’s resources by adding new ones over time. Also, since many of the resources consist of Web pages, on the Career Renegade website you’ll have clickable links to jump directly to the Web resources he suggests you check out.
Who this Book is Ideal For
You should read Career Renegade if any of the following describes you:
- You hate to get up in the morning because you hate your work;
- You have been made physically ill from work;
- You feel empty in your work and search for deeper satisfaction;
- You long to take charge of your working life and the people you work with; or
- You want a better-quality life, with more balance, instead of the daily grind you endure today.
Good reading! Career Renegade.
