Peak Careers

Professional Development for Career Practitioners

Book Reviews

Stand Out. By Dorie Clark

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Stand Out: How to Find Your Breakthrough Idea and Build a Following Around it.

I had a hard time with the beginning of this book because I was constantly thinking how I could use this for clients and I thought it had limited use for most of my clients. She talks about finding your own breakthrough idea to create something new, how to go about making it happen, etc…

Then I shifted my thinking in the second half on how I could use this information to grow my own business, develop my own “tribe” of followers and that’s when I started taking notes.

Many of her ideas I have thought about before but I realized that I really DO need to do them now. For example, repurposing content such as possibly doing a podcast or webinar on a topic, then tweeting out the best pieces, and then creating a slideshare explaining key concepts discussed, and finally putting together a short video explaining my biggest take-aways.

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The 4 – Hour Workweek. By Timothy Ferriss

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I was intrigued by this book title and it was recommended to me by a few people. Tim Ferriss writes about being the “new rich” or NR in this book and how you can create a lifestyle business that allows you to make money AND live / travel where ever you want.

Well…not sure this is for everyone.

No doubt there are tons of great tips on rethinking how we work like “make small to-do lists with never more than 2 mission critical items per day”. I have taken this advice and it certainly seems to help.

He has helped me really look at my “pain points” too…the things I don’t like to do and have been on my to-do list for a long time…which means I really don’t want to do them. His point is well taken on this; is there a virtual assistant (VA) who could do this? He has caused me to think much longer and harder about giving more things to my VA…which I have begun doing.

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Summary of my interview with Barry L. Davis, fellow prolific reader

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Here is the summary of my interview with Barry L. Davis on November 29, 2016

I met Barry Davis at the Mid-Atlantic Career Counseling Association Conference over 10 years ago. We immediately hit it off, mostly because we connected on my presentation on Using Happenstance Theory in practice. We both love chance events and “creating” luck and embrace “intentional serendipity” in our practices.

Barry is a prolific reader and introduced me to the idea of writing up short reviews of the books he reads and putting them on GoodReads.com (used to be Amazon Reading List). He is the reason I have a section for books on my website blog.

Below is a summary of the key points of our conversation.

Why is reading important to your career coaching work?

Barry started by quoting from the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes: “There’s nothing new under the sun” – Eccl. 1:9. That being said, there are always new perspectives to consider from those in our field as well as in other areas.

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A Good Man with a Dog. By Roger Guay

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A Good Man with a Dog. A Game Warden’s 25 Years in the Maine Woods. By Roger Guay with Kate Clark Flora

I had heard Maine Public’s radio show, Maine Calling interview Roger and Kate Clark Flora who helped Roger pull this book
from his 25 years of diaries. What a great book at providing insight as to what Game Wardens do and how the job has changed in the past quarter century with the advent of 4 wheelers and snowmobiles into the environment. They are spending much more of their time on OUI violations and accidents, as well as people getting lost in the woods much further out than people could go before. (with the exception of a few hardy souls who could ‘map & compass’ their way to remote lakes).

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“Make A Name for Yourself” – Ginsberg, Scott (Review by Barry Davis)

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This book review comes from Barry Davis, a man I met years ago at the Mid Atlantic Career Counseling Association conference and who has become a friend and inspiration to me to read more books.He is the reason I have a book section on my blog. Thank you Barry!
 
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“Make A Name for Yourself” – Ginsberg, Scott
The third book from Scott (The Nametag Guy) and self-described as 55 Strategies to Fast-Track Your Professional Prowess, reads like a collection of blogs on a wide range of topics helping you to “make a name for yourself, because no one else will.” Replete with quotes from every imaginable source (and some unimaginable), his practical, in your face advice includes the following gems:
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All The Light We Cannot See. By Anthony Doerr

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Wow, what a wonderful book. I kept hearing how great this book was and tried to get it as an audio-book for my drive to Connecticut but it was checked out of the library. I am glad I read it as a real book though as I love the feel of the book and the ability to flip back and forth throughout the book, especially because the story jumps from August 7 1944, to 1934, to August 8 1944, and back and forth throughout, ending in the 1970 and 2014.

It is a charming story about a young blind girl facing the reality of WW II in France and how her life crosses with a young German boy who was a victim of Nazi Germany. I found myself eagerly trying to find time each day to read and to find out what happens next to Marie-Laure (interesting my mothers name is Mary Louise, maybe that is why I loved this young girl so much) and Werner.

All I can say is “read this book”.