Book Review “48 Days to the Work you Love” by Dan Miller

48 Days to the work you love

As mentioned before earlier in the week, I have been reading a lot of good business/personal finance/career books lately and wanted to take some time to review one.  “48 Days to the Work you Love” by Dan Miller is probably one of the best career books I have read.  The book does a good job of giving you purpose for finding work that has both passion and meaning.  The job seeking advice is not just a “How to Interview” or “How to get your resume noticed” but rather goes into defining what work is and how to face this current job market that is constantly changing.  Next the book goes very in depth on how to seek the great job you have always wanted with very practical, detailed advice.  The end of the book contains sample resumes, cover letters, etc that you can model after.  The book does have a spiritual tone to it, but it is not an overbearing one.  A few of the key points in detail:

The book starts off with describing the difference between work and play and asks the question, can work and play mix?  Yes, it can as work does not have to be a necessary evil that just pays the bills, but rather something that you enjoy getting up to do each day.  The next chapter goes into the challenge of change in the market place.  This is not our grandparents’ or even our parents’ job market, as people now change jobs on average once every 3.2 years.  We are currently in a shift from a production based job market to a knowledge based market and you need to be prepared to be able to respond.  Dan then addresses questions such as “What is real job security?” and “Is it bad to get laid off from a job you hate?”  

After diving into change, Dan switches gears and goes into finding your calling and discusses the difference between vocation, career, and job.  According to Dan one must find a career that has purpose, in addition to having a life plan that incorporates your job, instead of centering in it.  Too often we are defined by “what we do” instead of “who we are” and you want to achieve success in all areas of life and not just your career.

To achieve success in all areas of life, you then must create goals. The key is to write down these goals down on paper.  Goals can include short term and long term (up to 5 to 10 years).  After writing these goals down, the next step is to work backwards and take steps to figure out what you will need to do to achieve your goals.  Goals should not just be for your career but also in other areas of your life such as well. The seven areas of life he recommends to make goals in are:

1. Finances
2. Physical
3. Personal Development
4. Family
5. Spiritual
6. Social
7. Career

This all leads to the process of starting your job search.  There is a great deal of information and tips about creating a resume, finding jobs leads, the dos and don’ts about interviewing, and negotiating.  Each of these topics has its own chapter and breaks each down into detail and gives advice on such things as how to be confident without being cocky, when is the right time to talk about compensations, etc. 

To sum it all up, this book to me is an absolute must read.  The chapters on developing and creating goals really stuck out to me.  I wish I would have known most of the career information when I graduated college because it took me a while to get a job offer after college.  Dan wrote a follow up books which I am about to start called “No More Mondays” which is all about starting your own business.  I hope to review that one soon.  Again, I highly recommend this book to anyone looking for career advice.