What to Do With the Rest of Your Life: America’s Top Career Coach Shows You How to Find or Create the Job You’ll Love

Robin Ryan

ISBN 0-7432-2450-7

Amazon link

In the preface, Robin Ryan write that she has worked with thousands of clients during her years as a career coach and she saw them experience a lot of circumstances or reasons for wanting things better.

The contents of this book are:

Part 1 Figuring It Out

Chapter 1 Define your passion

Why change?

The hottest, fastest growing career fields

Our identities and our careers

Chapter 2 Identify your best skills, values, and interests

Skills identification

Values assessment

Blending your career with a family

Interests

Creating your professional profile and new direction

Chapter 3 Determine your ideal job and workplace

Is business ownership for you?

Your future

Define your ideal job look before you leap

Putting it all together

Career killers to avoid

Part 2 Moving On

Chapter 4 Hire me—strategic ways to land a great job

Know where to look

Job-hunting strategies

Tapping into the hidden job market

Is a company’s culture the right fit for you?

Relocation—how to find a job when you tag along

Summary

Chapter 5 Launching a business

Key mistakes to avoid in running a business

Start-up options

How to start a business while you still work full-time

Turn a hobby into a career

Where does the start-up money come from?

Running a business

Now it’s your turn

Chapter 6 Getting paid well for what you do

Salary negotiations

Why women are still paid less than men

Determine your competitive salary worth

Conclusion

Part 3 Staying Put

Chapter 7 CEOS and top executives reveal how to get promoted

Survey results

Technical competence and more

Network…network…network

CEOS reveal what it takes to get to the top

Increase your competitive advantage with these tools

Moving into management

When the best way to get ahead is to move on

Making the most of your current job

Summary

Chapter 8 Get that raise!

Worst ways of asking for a raise

Where the biggest raises come from

The secrets for getting that raise

When the answer is no

Chapter 9 Moving your business to the next level

Getting business to come to you

More effective marketing strategies

On becoming an authority

Make money off your website

Publicity—how to get your name in the news

Free up time to make more

Strategies for setting business fees and prices for products or services

Learn business skills from business experts

Summary

Part 4 Conclusion: Go for It!

Keep Your Paycheck, Live Your Passion

Erika Welz Prafder and Carole Sovocool

The subtitle for this book, “how to fulfill your dream without having to quit your day job”, defines the premise of this book. Few of us can afford to live without steady income.

According to the authors: “First of all, if you don’t believe in yourself, your talent, your dreams, then forget about it. The person who believes has no questions. The person who doesn’t believe has no answers. The alternative to not keeping your creativity alive is to have your soul slowly disintegrate with time. It may take a fair amount of soul searching to identify the obstacles that prevent you from realizing your dreams. Some people coast through life with one finger on the snooze button. It takes less work to suppress your innermost creative aspirations and dreams than it doe to respond to a wake-up call from your heart.”

The book has many short passages about people who have had the courage to live their dreams. Most of the passages include the defining moment from the person’s life that influenced him/her to follow the dream. These passages are entitled “Living the Dream”.

In chapter 10, “Discovering Your True Calling”, the authors use the John Holland codes to define choice of vocation to match individual interests. Definitions for each of the 6 Holland types: realistic, investigative, artistic, social, enterprising, and conventional are given.

A short survey to find traits is included. The authors suggest having others close to you give suggestions also to how they see you.