Wednesday, October 7, 2009

48 Days to the Work You Love

Last night I read '48 Days to the Work You Love' by Dan Miller.  Great book.  Easy to read.  Poignant.  Powerful.  Full of ideas.  This one is worth reading whether you are job searching right now or not.  The notes below barely qualify as a teaser.  These are just the points that I felt like I needed to keep handy for me.  I've read the book, so I know all of the meaning that Dan put behind these points.



Mostly I was already there, so it was a very fast read.  Dan crystallized some of my thinking, but mostly I was already thinking it.

Dan highly encourages goal setting.  He identified seven areas of life where a person should set both short and long-term goals:
1. Financial
2. Physical
3. Personal development
4. Family
5. Spiritual
6. Social
7. Career

I'm going to have to put that on my to-do list.

Dan identified three areas where the work we do must line up with our internal and unchanging characteristics:
1. Skills and abilities
2. Personality and tendencies
3. Values, dreams, and passions

Dan suggested that a person should look for work in these proportions:
85% where you are strong
15% where you are actively learning
5% where you are weak

He also asked one question that hit me between the eyes.  He asked if you are better at working with people, things, or ideas.  I don't need a second opinion on this.  Clearly I am best when working with ideas.

Dan has a chapter on working from home.  One of the things that he mentioned that you could do on the side, from home, is 'dispute resolution'.  That really sparked something in my imagination.  This morning I wrote 3 pages of notes on how I could form a business doing that.  I've filed that away for now.  I might clean it up for a blog post someday.  But for now I'm off to think and pray about the challenges that Dan laid out for me.

Christy is reading 'Wild at Heart' by John Eldredge.  She's only half done with it but told me to start reading it so we could take it back to the library soon.  I've read the first chapter this morning.  Between '48 Days..' and 'Wild at Heart', I'm afraid I know which direction I will be going.

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