Careers Books

I found the test helpful in that is basically confirmed what I knew about my strengths -- but good to have confirmation from outside source. Book and site both helpful.

I found it very informative and accurate with some creative ways to look at and use the findings of the survey included with the book.

I recommend this book to anyone looking to improve their skills, build a strong team, or even figure out what avenue of education or career to pursue.

It's also fun to talk about over cocktails with friends and colleagues. The information and the book have become great networking and self marketing tools.

I didn't learn a whole lot about myself, but did learn more about others. It's interesting to read how differently people process information.

The StrengthsFinder 2.0 assessment helped me understand myself better. I was so impressed with how this knowledge empowered me I bought the book for all of my family members so they could understand their strengths. The knowledge of our strengths helped our family communicate more effectively and gave guidance to each of us to perform our daily responsibilities more effectively. Knowledge is power, this kind of knowledge about yourself can be used in your personal life as well as your profession. Excellent read!!

This is a wonderful addition to the original text. After spending 100's of hours working with the Gallup process and teaching Now Discover Your Strengths in a graduate level course, this book really brings it home for the reader. The assessments outline in a more detailed way how to use the Talents and Strengths and the additional information about who we really are as individuals is great.

Interesting, but I think many of the concepts are difficult to apply in corporate America.

Well-written and actionable, the "Four Hour Workweek" book delivers a step by step process combining a variety of techniques designed to help people make outstanding use of their time.

For fellow 'serial entrepreneurs' like myself, the outsourcing and 'boundary management' tips were particularly useful, including must-read tips for avoiding outsourcing pitfalls (eg time caps on projects and how to select assistants), plus more.

His model is a sound one, on page 185, for developing an info-business plan; though there's much more to it than is covered, it's a great overview and outline of key productivity concepts. I found it impressive that the author was able to articulate many effective productivity-boosting strategies so clearly.

For more, be sure to study Brian Tracy and Dan Kennedy as well. I recommend Brian's "Eat That Frog", and Dan's "No B.S. Time Management for Entrepreneurs" books (along with all their other products, which are essential for success).

Overall, highly recommended; it got me thinking about outsourcing more effectively, plus other actionable ideas, so that alone is well worth reading this for.

-Ken Calhoun

This is an excellent book which includes many, many details and suggested exercises. My suggestion is to read the book all the way through once, then start working on the exercises, slowly, otherwise it can be a bit too much to really get a handle on. Awesome, so worth the money spent to purchase it.

This book is yet another motivational 'Rich Dad Poor Dad' ploy, only this time being applied to on-line products. Mr. Ferris strongly advocates outsourcing work overseas. Great! More potential USA work lost to third world countries. And the pay rate for that overseas work really isn't that much different than it is here (has Mr. Ferris checked the current US minimum wage?). And his web-site? Just a big advertisement to buy his book. Just what the US needs, more Wal-Mart capitalism.

That pretty much sums up what this book should have been called. I just can't fathom how so many people have been duped into drinking the kool-aid that young Mr Ferriss expounds so carelessy in his book.

For those of you looking for the 'Cliff Note' version, I'll summarize in 3 points what this book is basically about:

1 - Look for ways to generate passive income (ie, make $$ with little or no work). In Mr. Ferriss' case, it's selling vitamin supplements online...yeah you heard it right.

2 - Make it your life's goal to become a slacker by outsourcing everyday tasks(eg, checking email, paying bills, online shopping, etc). Yes, everyone is as busy and important as Mr Ferris that they need to manage a team of personal assistants in India to check their email, pay bills and shopping online.

3 - Once you become a slacker, look for activities that will give you meaning in life. Young Mr. Ferris has some real gems of wisdom for you ;-)

The 4-Hour Work Week is complete utter waste of time and not worth the paper it's printed on. Check out at the library if you must waste 2-3 hours of your life skimming through the drivel.

Why are the simple things so hard to do? As I look back at my past decisions when dealing with people I laugh because I noticed how many situations I could have approached differently. How to Win Friends & Influence People is a must read for everyone and should be taught to kids when they are young so when they get older they'll be able to deal with people in a more civilized and respectful manner.

I read this book decades ago and it changed my life. It's unbelievable and every human being should read it. As I was surfing Amazon looking for another book, I happen to notice it and had to write a review. I have to tell everybody how great this book is. I couldn't just not tell everyone. The author is brilliant! This book is so motivational that it truly changed my life and made me a better human being. There's a section in there about a father and a son, that I'll never forget - it really moved me. Every father should read that section.

Everyone should read this book. There is nothing bad that can come from it. The stories contained are interesting and the concepts are completely simple. In fact, nothing taught here was ever mind blowing or surprising. The surprising part was the self reflection it brought and the desire it created in me to want to adapt concepts from this book I previously felt needless. This is the kind of reading I wish I was forced to read growing up and not books about a bunch of stupid kids on an island that go crazy and fight each other.

How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie is a must-read for anyone who desires to put the Golden Rule into everyday use. Through numerous stories and examples, Mr. Carnegie shows how we can truly accomplish the impossible---just by putting others' interests before our own. The book bogs down a little if you try to read through it all at once, so I would recommend breaking it up and just reading a chapter or two at a time. Definitely push through to the end--it's very worth it!

This book is chock full of practical, common sense advice. Want people to like you? Show you like THEM, smile, be honestly happy to see them, remember their names, be interested in them, listen to them, etc. Want to influence them? Don't argue or tell them they are wrong (even if they are), but honestly emphasize where they are right, compliment them, and start with your areas of agreement. Want to be a leader? Ecourage people, praise them, listen to them, ask them questions. Of course, the examples in this book require us to apply honesty and common sense, and if so, this book is quite helpful. Sadly, too many of us fail to heed the advice in these pages. We can all do better, and this book can help us do so.

I have read the book and taken the test. While the concept is sound (focus and develop your strengths, do only damage control on your weaknesses), the test does not reveal anything that could be applicable to my work. Many of the 180 questions are just simply asking you where your strengths are and then telling you the same thing in the result. The applicability of the result is very low. 3 out of 5 of my strenght mean that I like to think, the 4th means that I feel everything is connected (how is that a strenght?) and the 5th is that I like to collect things (ideas, stuff). I don't feel this book and especially the test is worth the money nor the time. On the other hand I would be genuinely interested in hearing from someone who found the test useful in his/her life.

This book is the follow-on to "First, Break all the Rules." The latter targets management while this book is for the individual. If you buy your own copy of the book, you get a code with which you can take their Strengths Finder online survey. (You can now also go to the web-site and take the survey for a fee; they used to require a book purchase.) That tool gives you your top 5 strengths, in order, which is what is missing from First, Break all the Rules.

With your strengths in hand, you can now look at your career, your role in your company, and the direction of your life. In my case, I understood why I wasn't happy in the previous year with my job. I had been "promoted" to "leadership" for all of my good technical work and was no longer playing to any of my strengths. I HAD to make a change, which was to get out of the "leadership" role. Management wasn't very happy with me. I continued using the recommendations in this book and formed my own training plan that "exploited" my strengths and developed them further. Its been 5 years, and both me and my management are happy. In fact, this year was my best performance review and raise ever!

My opinion is if you have read the book(s), then take the quiz, that can skew your quiz answers. I believe the strengths it identified for me, just not sure that the order wasn't affected by my having read both books in their entirety first. Thus, consider reading this book first even though it is second in the series UNLESS you are a manager and only have time to read one of the two books. (In that case I would take the quiz using the code from this book, put the book down, and read First, Break all the Rules.)

There were many things I liked about this book and some that I found difficult. Buckingham's theme of focusing on one's strengths rather than weaknesses (as so many development programs and activities do) is an excellent one. He also provides a very good strategy for doing this:
1. How to distinguish your natural talents
2. Having a system to identify your dominant talents
3. Having a common language to describe your talents.

Let's start with the first - "talents". In talents, Buckingham distinguishes between what is innate and what can be acquired through practice. He categorises one's expertise into talents, knowledge and skills and makes the quite valid point that a person can improve performance in an area through practice and developing knowledge and skills. However, the extent to which overall performance (or expertise) can be enhanced is limited to the degree of innate talent. I liken this innate talent to aptitude.

The system to identify one's natural talents is based on the StrengthsFinder Profile. This profile is completed on line using a code provided with the purchase of the book. When I tried to log in using my code I was told that I had to register at one of these sites:
* StrengthsQuest
* Vital Friends
* StrengthsExplorer
* Bucket Book
* Gallup Online
As I object to having to do this, it is probably unfair of me to comment on this aspect of the book other than to say that I think the idea of a system such as a questionnaire to identify one's talents is a good one.

The final aspect a "common language" is fully outlined in the 34 themes of StrengthsFinder. Two points I would make about these. Firstly, from the text I think it would be hard to identify in others these 34 patterns. I also found the description of these to be a little light on.

On balance, this book is worthy of note for its emphasis on strengths and in awakening us to the notion of "natural talents" - worthy of a read for this point. Choose yourself whether you want to take the test.

Bob Selden, author What To Do When You Become The Boss: How new managers become successful managers

This is a wonderful book, but you have to buy it new! There's a code on the inside for the strengths quiz, and you cannot reuse the code. I had to buy StrengthsFinder 2.0--the new version--in order to get the quiz without repurchansing the same exact book twice.

It would have been nice to know this....

This book goes along with StrengthFinders by Rath. I enjoyed this book. I agree focusing on an employees strengths are key. In the book, Elephants Can't Change but Leopards can!!! it talks about the Now, Discover your Strengths book and how it can be implemented by Management.

Forget the little red book by Mao, We have a new mind numbing, thought control written device out there pushed among the working class. As it has been stated before..it truly is sobering that an American of any socio-economic status, level of wealth or educational background would be INSPIRED by this corporate tripe. Here's a thought for the cheese heads out there, has it occurred to you to move the " cheese provider " out of the picture and therefore the total dependence maze?..make your own cheese on further discovery out from the maze that was made specifically to control you? OR...perish the thought...maybe have more choices in your actual consumption other than cheese?

I understand that the book only addresses the need for accepting change but doesn't one's thoughts automatically leap to then who is the change maker?? Part of my offense to this little book is it's simplistic approach to life modifying decisions by OTHERS. Stepping back however, this book speaks volumes for the contempt corporate America has for redefining intelligent thought, decent & breaking linear either/or thinking, coupled with a current generation that turns out more votes for some lounge singer element on TV than in some civic elections in this nation. Unbelievable

I am grateful to all the reviewers that tried to save money and anxiety and anger for other people or potential readers of this book, by advising against buying it. I find all such comments are very interesting and very inspiring, which are elements you would never find in this book. In particular, I am grateful to the review entitled Show Me the Cheese by Bruce Silveman. It is such a wonderful review which should be published by major newspapers like New York Times and Washington Post. And we can read here for free! This book is an attempt to trash our culture, to put everything valuable we inherited from the past in a dumpster and sell some real garbage as the latest invention of once in a life time. This book and many other books such as the Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Shack, and the book insults God which I don't want to mention here, are all part of effort to show that man can be better off by themselves without the divine guidance of Jesus. Everything in the Western society in the last two hundred years are part of the development of that ideology. Just wait, you will read things worse than this!

The book is a quick read and reread. A good reminder of how we MUST flow with change in our lives.

A short easy listen giving great insight on what happens if you fight change. I for one had difficulty accepting changes that I didn't want, this book presented a new perspective and insight.

This book was recommended to my from my Real Estate Office. Being in a business that see's change frequently this book really provides a birds eye view of the thought process in dealing with change. It does not tell you how to do things or specify in any fields but rather sparks the notes neccessary on how to relate this to your own life! I hope my wife reads this too!

A Book which should be read by everybody in Portugal . Mainly by the politicians.
Daniel Pink makes evident that the Information Society is the past to the west. The dazzling growing of India (and China in a nearly future) in IT will absorb all the world necessities of IT development. The future, Daniel Pink says, is in the right side of the brain: the one who does not labors with mathematic but with creativity and sociability.
I sincerely hope Portuguese Prime Minister to read this book!

I appreciate the easy-to-read style of the important information in this book. I liked the way that Pink made clear the way that he defines his senses and gave exercises to develop those senses. His argument, or, as he would like to say, his story was cogent and his textual evidence is not disputable.

This is not a critique on how this book was written; nor, on whether or not I agree with the theories and methods discussed - with an open mind, it all makes sense to me. What I will say is that Mr. Pink does a very good job at both going into exhaustive detail and summarizes topics into layman terms for everyone's benefit (overall good read and flow). I am 31 years and am concerned about oil prices, the housing crisis and the off-shoring of countless positions to cheaper labor overseas; Mr. Pink offers his richly researched thesis' on how we, as Western's, will maintain competitiveness in our evolving global economy and career landscape. In addition to the analysis the author provides, there are also many other resources cited to aid in your High-Touch journey. Open your mind, expand your thoughts and act.

Teachers, business owners, corporate bosses will ruminate about Dan Pink's book for years to come. As a high school English teacher, I was thrilled to find teaching ideas and useful websites to use in the classroom. Pink tells us to think in a whole new way--in a right-brain way. He explains how we have been functioning in a left-brain, high tech, information age and now it's time to find ways to be comfortable and productive with all that information. By emphasizing, design, play, meaning, empathy, story, symphony--Pink's so-called six senses--we can have professional and personal happiness and success. For instance, in Pink's chapter about design, he explains that design is a way of creating solutions and that each of us employs it each day. In order to enjoy home or work, give it something it didn't know it was lacking--a new color a rearrangement. I have done this in the classroom by creating a seascape and and soothing colors. Pink concludes that good design brings us pleasure. Reading Dan Pink's book will do the same.

I lived to see the coming of the space age and the flight to the moon. Because we found ourselves behind the Russians and sorely lacking in trained engineers we began to push college education and the "knowledge trades."

We have flourished technically as a result. Computers and the internet magnified that and many of us scrambled to get into those leading edge industries because that's where the future lay!

That time is all but past and a new age is ushering in. By that I certainly don't mean that the computer age is over - far from it. But we pay engineers from India and other Asian places, fifteen thousand dollars a year to do what Americans want many tens of thousands of dollars to do. The last time you called for computer tech support - did you talk to an American or to someone in Bombay, Inida?

This is not a book about New Age philosophy or any of that sort of thing. The author will make three fantasic points and arguments (which I don't want to give away here), which show that we have reached the peak of that era, and he shows that these trades WILL NOT be the hot trades of the future.

So if you're thinking about making sure that little Mary or Johnny has a career in the knowledge industries in their future, think again!

The book will show you that being a lawyer, accountant, or software engineer are NOT the best trades for the future.

There are not too many books that can actually change the outlook of your mind, but this is certainly one of them. It is very convincingly argued.

The first part of the book tells you why the old paradigm will not serve us well for the future.

The second part of the book tells you what skills you will need to develop and gives some ideas and exercise to facilitate their development.

I heartily recommend this book.

This book delves into the kind of information that could help us avoid making the same mistakes over and over. If it can help create awareness of how susceptible the public is to being flim-flammed by the Oil Industry experts and its sycophants imbedded throughout the government and media we could clean this mess up. The book shows that it was the oil interests who politicized energy not the author of this book.

Contrary to the specious complaints of some, this book doesn't pretend to be a "How To" book on making alcohol out of fruit... which is plain from a quick look at the table of contents. Try a brewers store. Besides it is illegal to make alcohol in any useful quantities without an expensive license...ever heard of the ATF? ...good grief

I am an environmental educator at the Ecovillage Training Center at The Farm community in Summertown,Tennessee and author of Shutdown: Nuclear Power on Trial (1979); Climate in Crisis: The Greenhouse Effect and What We Can Do (1990), and most recently, The Post-Petroleum Survival Guide and Cookbook: Recipes for Changing Times, from New Society Publishers and Amazon.

Arriving in Sao Paulo, Brazil for the International Permaculture Conference in 2007, I checked the online schedule and saw that the organizers had set me down for a morning session on "making money from tree planting." Caught by surprise, I had to scramble to prepare a powerpoint and one of the ideas I thought to explore was biofuels. Conventional wisdom has it that "agrifuels" are in competition with food production and climate remediation. I dashed off an email to David Blume asking for an example of "permaculture fuels."

He replied, "Well to take a page from the book. In semiarid areas where the temperature goes no lower than 0 degrees F you can plant an overstory of mesquite to provide both 340 gallons of alcohol per acre from the pods and fuel the plant with coppiced branches from the tree. In the understory you plant perennial Opuntia (nopales) thornless cactus, and between there and the dripline and beyond you plant the starchy root crop, Buffalo Gourd, for a total yield of far over 1000 gallons per acre without irrigation."

There you have it, a polyculture for food and fuel. But what about climate change? I wrote him back, "Would you say the guild above is a net carbon sink?"

He responded, "It is absolutely a massive carbon sink. Pretty much all arid country crops put the majority of their growth underground and have a robust mycorhyzzal feeding regime. Perhaps 80+% of carbon produced in the top growth is exuded for rhizosphere associates. Mesquite is unique in that a large portion of its root burrows deep to support it with water extracted from far below. There have been recorded instances of mesquite going down 160 feet for water."

And that, in a nutshell, is Farmer Dave's permafuel thesis. That he takes several hundred pages to flesh it out, in Alcohol Can Be a Gas! Fueling an Ethanol Revolution for the 21st Century, is an enduring blessing for permaculturists everywhere. This six-volume set, bound into one thick paperback, is both required reading and a standard reference on a par with A Pattern Language and David Jacke's Edible Forest Gardens.

The six books contained in one are, in order, Understanding Alcohol: Visions and Solutions (including "busting the myths," polyculture and photosaturation, and Brazil's national program dissected), Making Alcohol: How to Do It (including 30 odd feedstocks from algae to whey, the sugar method, the starch method, fungal and bacterial enzymes, fuels, and distiller construction), Co-Products from Making Alcohol (animals, aquaculture, mariculture, mushrooms, methane, etc.), Using Alcohol as Fuel (carburetion, injection, small engines, flex-fuel conversions and cogeneration of heating, lighting and cooling, and typical conversions), The Business of Alcohol: Hands-On Advice (legal and economic considerations and case studies); and A Vision for the Nation (state and federal incentives, Community Supported Energy and permaculture).

Just exactly what is the appropriate role for alcohol fuels is an old, but ongoing discussion, and it has been known to get heated at times. The Tortilla Rebellion in Mexico, catastrophic overplanting of maize and soya, gene splicing by multinationals for cellulosic substrate alchemy, forest clearing worldwide -- these are serious concerns.

Recently, the U.S. Senate passed legislation to increase ethanol production by giving generous subsidies to the U.S. farm belt. The Act mandates the use of 15 billion gallons of biofuels annually by 2015 and 36 billion gallons by 2022 (up from 8.5 billion subsidized gallons now). Nearly all of this would be corn ethanol, taken from grain stocks, with the stover burned or plowed in. Beginning in 2016, the government would ask farmers to add the corn stover, along with switch grass or wood chips, to make annual increases of 3 billion gallons in "cellulosic" ethanol. This legislation passed over the opposition from Big Oil and food manufacturers, but is just the kind of massively soil-destroying, economically bankrupting, petro-addicted type of legislation that was ideal for harvesting votes in the Iowa caucuses.

By showing how ethanol can be ethically produced in combination with food, soil, carbon sequestration and other objectives for healthy system design, Blume provides a rescue remedy for our planet at a time when it could scarcely be needed more.

Loek Boonkamp, who studies agricultural trade and markets for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, estimates replacing just 10 percent of the world's current petroleum use with biofuels would consume about 30 percent of all the grain, oilseed and sugar produced in the U.S., Canada, the European Union and Brazil, not to mention a huge volume of water. Blume takes Boonkamp's argument head-on.

The US has 1500 million acres of agricultural land and uses 70 million -- about 5 percent -- for corn. Mesquite covers 70 million acres of desert land. Harvesting mesquite pods would yield more alcohol than corn without any inputs of soil, fertilizer or water. The US could achieve similar yields from the lawn clippings coming off suburbia on any given Saturday (30 million acres at last count). There are dozens of these examples in the book. Moreover, one has to consider how much of that corn produced in the US is actually used as a food, and how much is used in floor wax, plywood, crayons and other products.

But then, why use farmland at all? Why not harvest ethanol from cattails or dried seaweed? Willows and bamboo planted on berms separating long canals of cattails, with greywater, spent mash and fermentation carbon dioxide returned to the roots could yield 10,000 gallons of ethanol per acre.

The Chinese are getting 4.8 dry tons per acre off seaweed from coastal waters, and the Vietnamese, who farm shrimp from April to September, harvest algae from the same shallow lagoons and estuaries the rest of the year. Kelp grown on nets can cover hundreds of acres of ocean and provide bread flours, carrageenan, agar and other ethanol co-products while also restoring health to over-nitrified "dead zones." Blume estimates the energy return on marine ethanol is on the order of 15 to 1, significantly better than current returns on petroleum exploration and production.

Alcohol Can Be A Gas! goes beyond helping the mechanically adept convert their internal combustion engines to ethical fuels. It provides clear operating manuals for the farmers who will grow those fuels, the fermenters who will build and operate the stills, and the artisans who will create and trade myriad co-products.

I purchased this book with the primary intention of learning how I could convert all the waste fruit I generate in my grove into alcohol. The author is well educated and does know his stuff and shares his experience in creating alcohol to be used as fuel. However, the book includes chapter after chapter of political information (and mis-information) which really hurts the books ability to inform. When will people realize and understand that mixing in your political beliefs into a "how-to" type book just doesn't work. Like most people that would but this book, my primary goal is to learn how to make alcohol to use for fuel. I could care less about how evil the Bush administration is or how big oil is ruining our lives or how almost every topic he covers seems to always come around to blame someone for something ie. global warming.

It is unfortunate that Mr. Blume could not control himself enough to hold back his bias and simply write a cookbook style how-to book. He would have saved a ton of paper if he would heed my advice and drop the political stuff. The book would be about a third of the size it is now.
I wish that Mr. Blume would have taken his publisher's advice and wrote two books; one for his political agenda and the other that teaches how to make and use alcohol as a fuel. Then he would have a winner.

In conclusion, please strip out the political stuff which does nothing to advance your ideas and only causes more divisiveness. Think of it this way: if you limit your audience to only those that agree with you politically, the only people that will read your book are you and your mother. Make it universal by making it neutral.

This book is Huge! Full of really great information, everything from the history of alcohol fuels to how to convert any gas engine to alcohol. This is a must read for those that want to get off foriegn oil.

I am one person that is truly going to make ethanol for gas, whether or not I continue this adventure is another question. But where we live in Europe we pay about $8 per gal for diesel- just so you know what is coming your way USA. I also happen to live in the corn belt of Europe- so it's dumb not to try and we have a small farm. Therefore I am so thankful that I bought this book. I would also recommend for further study [...]

When I heard the title of this book I thought it surely is a must read. The title was the best part of the book. Concepts are decent but I read this while flying across the Atlantic and wound up just leaving it on the plane for somebody else. Nothing to write home about. Incredible title and the concept triggered a lot in me as a leader however....

The first thing that came to my attention was the title. What was it supposed to mean? What journey was Goldsmith talking about? The vehicles used to transit in life weren't working any more? Why? What are the new mediums?

Exercising leadership has long been referred implicitly to the capacity to command, control and dominate others in making them into what the leaders want from them. It doesn't work like that any more or at least, not to the same extent. People despise being ordered, brushed aside or looked down. Goldsmith wants us to embark on a new way of leading and connecting with others.

And to do that, he takes us to a reverse thinking mindset rarely found in books about leadership. It is one that brings us to look at what we do wrong in our leadership roles so that we really face reality instead of depicting it in rainbow type colors.

His authentic feedback is there for us to improve. For example, a major mistake leaders or managers make has to do with being arrogant, meaning believing that we will succeed no matter what and that the success we encounter is solely due to our unique qualities and even to our own flaws (ex. Overcommitment). Learning a little humility is a first step to changing our behaviour so we can cooperate better with others and achieve more, collectively speaking

Reading the book offered me a range of answers that I didn't anticipate. Moreover, I have successfully applied some of his key lessons. I recommend this book to all clients that I coach.
Edith Luc

A bad habbit kept me from productivity. This book not only helped identify what kept me stuck but empowered me to adopt new behaviors.
Buy this book and change your future.

Anne Browning Project Coach

Through this book, Marshall Goldsmith gives us each the opportunity to hold up a mirror to reveal insights into our own actions and reactions. This is a book we incorporate into a number of OD activities in our organization, certainly in coaching individuals, but also in working with teams. One business leader I work with recently read the book, and immediately turned around and purchased it for his entire leadership team, giving it to them as a gift at a recent planning session. Almost daily I am hearing stories of meaningful self-reflection, ranging from the hilarious to the poignant, all finding at least a bit of themselves on the pages. This example demonstrates what I think is the book's biggest strength, the clarity of Marshall's straight-forward and practical approach aimed at helping us all get better at what we do.

If you do what you have always done , you will get what you have always gotten.
Marshall's new book has shown us all a very effective work around. Read the book and watch how the direction you have been going can shift overnight.
Scott H. Silverman. Author, "Tell Me No. I Dare You!"

For those unsure of what lies ahead, this book is the perfect must-read. It will guide you through the voyage of self-discovery to assist you in choosing the career/work environment that best fits your personality. What could be better than finding a career you love?

The current verson of this reference is highly recommended. It seems like they have kept doing what they do best - helping you think through your career direction, organize your approach to improving that situation, and pointing you in the direction of resources. Get a new copy. It is a great investment.

A definate permanent addition to my library. It really helped me focus on where I want my professional and personal life to intersect.

My husband was laid off when the company he had worked for was acquired. My husband has very little experience with job hunting. I work as a Staffing recruiter so none of the information in here was news to me, but after my husband went through a month of disheartening job hunting... I ordered him this book. Sometimes it's just better to hear what you need to do from something or someone other than your wife.

As a recruiter I love this book, it goes into the concept of job hunting, interviewing, and how to decided exactly what it is you want to do. If everyone behaved as instructed in here during their interviews, interviewing candidates would not be such a harrowing experience. Many will read the interviewing part and thing "Duh, of COURSE I shower before an interview" but you would be surprised at how many do not.

The foundation of the education you will get in this book is basic social skills... now we all have them, but many of us have let them lapse or become less formal. I was also glad that he pointed out just how important and unimportant the resume is. I personally rifle through a couple of hundred resumes in a stack looking for something very specific - if I find it, you go in the very small, "I'll think about calling them later" pile. That is really the most important job your resume has, is to get you into the "I might call them pile."

There are also many self awareness tests that this book contains to help you find out a little bit more about yourself and what it is that you are looking for. There is an entire chapter devoted to the 50+ worker who either wants to return to the work force or make a change in their career. The starting your own business section was also nice, but I felt should have contained a little more information showing both the good and bad aspects of this idea. Probably the most helpful aspect of this book is that it provides websites for additional research on every topic. Hopefully those that read the book will be inclined to look into several of these websites.

For job hunters, career changers, and those curious about what else might be out there, this book is an excellent starting place. It should cover most of you basic questions and give you valuable information both about yourself and about the job market. Then the author is courteous enough to show you where to continue your research. I highly recommend this book, and believe it should be mandatory for exiting high school and college students.

I don't understand why this book is considered such a classic reference. I found it badly written, not that useful, and WAY too religious. The chapter about how to determine your true mission in life is ALL about God and religion. You may agree or disagree with the author's religious views, but regardless I do not think that belongs in a job-hunting book. As a disillusioned corporate worker trying to change careers, I really needed practical, real-world advice.

The book seems to written for ADD people because it keeps repeating the same things only a couple of pages later. Also, some of his advice I disagree with - he keeps saying that the Internet is not a good way to get a job. What century is he living in?? I have gotten almost all my jobs over the last 12 years through applying over the Internet (Monster, CareerBuilder, etc.)

It has a few listings of sites that may be useful, but the book overall was a waste. Unless you want to bring it to your Bible study group.

I recently bought this book hoping to learn how to read and better understand the behavior of the business people and situations I come across daily in my work in finance. My hopes for this knowledge were SURPASSED as the guidance Mr. Navarro provides in this book is so practical and constructive you can start applying it immediately. I like his style of writing too - easy to follow, engaging with many real examples. I also found the pictures used throughout the book are very helpful in making a behavior memorable so I can look out for it as I go about my day, in and outside of work. I can see how this information could be applied to so many different jobs and situations, not just business and finance, and as such recommend it to anyone looking for more understanding about the behaviors of the people around them.

I'd give it more than 5 stars if I could, because it's already helping me as I apply what I've learnt.

This book was so basic and did not have enough pictures... it's a body language book for crying out loud! If you want to invest in learning more about non-verbal communication buy "The Definitive Guide to Body Language" by Alan Pease - that book is the best book on the topic that I have seen to date! Don't waiste your money on arrogant Navarro's book! TERRIBLE!

This book is everything that I thought it would be. Reading body language is an artform and this brings you a little closer to understanding what it's all about.

Tremendously valuable information for public speakers (know when the audience is bored), interviewers, sales people, organizational change agents, and those of you who just plain want to know when you may be being lied to, or causing distress in the other person. Well written, to the point. Also, just a little bit fun.

This book reinforces non-verbal communications for all humans. I enjoyed this book throughly.
Dutch