48 Days to the Work You Love

The description for this book should be a bit more forthcoming in the fact that this is "faith based". Faith is well and good, but it has little place in the job hunt.

I have done a lot of shopping on Amazon and have found the reviews to be accurate and dependable. Unfortunately I bought this on the advice of Dave Ramsey and did not read the reviews. This book is awful. I have read a lot of self improvement books and this is by far the worst.
I persevered to the end thinking (hoping) some structure would emerge. No such luck. As other reviewers have pointed out, this is just an endless string of quotes and stories. Half way through the book I found a reference to a site that sounded like it might be some sort of a form to define your interests. Turns out it was just a veiled advertisement to get you to pay $20 on Dan Miller's web site. Give me a break.
Give this one a miss.

Everyone should be doing work that they love, according to how they are wired. If you are unhappy in your job, this book is for you. Even if you are happy in your career but missing something, this book is for you. Practical and fun exercises at the end of each chapter get your brain moving. Life is short - love your work!

... worse, a cynical bid to take advantage of a religious angle to peddle this warmed over self-help junk.

Here are a few rules for governing the quality of any self-help book: starting from a perfect score of 100, subtract 10 points every time the author uses the phrase, 'The dictionary defines the [insert well-known term here] as ...'. Subtract another 10 points every time the author throws in a quote from another author or (in this case) Bible verse. Poor authors use these tactics to bulk up the text without having to think up words for themselves. Using this scoring methodology, the book is beyond valueless. It actually moves civilization as we know it Backwards.

There is Nothing New here. Nothing insightful. 'What Color is Your Parachute' did it much better and is the go-to book in this category for good reasons.

The author also chose to save money on the audio version, narrating the thing himself rather than hire a qualified actor that knows how to use his voice. His voice is monotone and soporific ... a dangerous thing to listen to while driving. He also apparently did the entire reading in a day or two, and is audibly tired (tripping over words and hoarse) towards the end.

There are much better ways to spend your money.

I was intrigued by Miller's title '48 Days To The Work You Love' and Dave Ramsey's endorsement. I'm guessing that many people come to Dan Miller through Dave Ramsey. I've seen some reviews of people saying that there isn't anything special about Dan Miller's book and in a way, I think they may be right. However,I believe there are many things in Dan's book that makes it worth the read, in my opinion, depending on where you're coming from. Your experience with any kind of book like this will depend on whether or not you've read several career assessment books or not. If you have, like me, then a lot of what Dan talks about in his book isn't new or unique perhaps, but I think is helpful. If you haven't read or done a lot of reading on career assessment, then you will most likely find Miller's book a Godsend. I would also advise anyone who is thinking about reading it - to get the most out of Dan's book, or any book on career assessment, don't read it while you're job searching. More than likely, it won't be that quick fix (more on that below) you're looking for and I don't think people get the most out of books like this when they're stressed out trying to find that next job or career change. Books like these need to be meditated upon. You really do need to give yourself over to it and think it through and it's hard to do this, at least in my experience, when you're needing a job yesterday!

For me, his book had a lot of things to consider, good advice and things that he reminded me about. I think it's definitely a book I will keep in my career reference collection to refer to again and again. I also commend Dan with devoting himself to helping people better their careers and find career satisfaction, if it can be had. I applaud his efforts in this area. These are the reasons I give his book four stars.

The reasons I didn't give him a five out of five stars is due to two pet peeves I have about the book. First, I think the title '48 Days To The Work You Love" is a little deceptive (and silly as to how he came about the title for it).For me, the implication I got from the title is just that, that in 48 days I would be able to find the work I love. In the Introduction, Dan explains how he came up with the title. He came up with it by looking at the Bible and, seeing that "40 days seemed to be a spiritually significant time period", based on some of the events that take place to people we read of (i.e., Noah's life & world transformed in 40 days of rain; Moses was a different man after 40 days on Mt. Sinai, etc, etc). Add to that 8 "free days" he gives you in the process to create your own plan and wallah! - Your new career direction to the work you love! Well, it didn't happen for me. His book helps, but I'm not there yet. Also, what happens if it doesn't happen within 48 days? Does it lose it's spiritual implications? I just thought that it was kind of silly to market the book this way. He would have been better off calling it "Doing The Work You Love" or something to that effect that wouldn't put a time table on it. Some times, or most often (more likely), it takes longer than a month and half to find out what work one would love to do in a career.

Second, as a Christian, I disagree with the view he presents of work and your career being "a calling" from God to do what you were created to do. No where in Scripture is this taught. He also teaches that work is a form of "prayer" (p. 12)which he takes from a quote from Richard Foster, offering no scripture references for this concept to support it. It's true that God does endow us with certain abilities and skills (a.k.a. talents) (Matt. 25:14-30) but these things are always discussed in Scripture in reference to what we could do and should do for the kingdom of God, not in reference to our careers, unless that directly applies to the kingdom (i.e., as in an evangelist). To teach otherwise is to read that into Scripture. No where in Scripture does God discuss his hopes of us fulfilling a calling that he has for us in our careers. Many Christians throughout history didn't have this as an option. Only recently in the last century or so was this even possible, but it hasn't always been this way. Although I applaud Dan's efforts to help people find a fulfilling career (who doesn't want one?), we need to get away from this idea that we have somehow missed our calling from God (if not God, who's doing the calling?) and have somehow missed blessings from him for our lives if we never find work we love. God never becomes a career counselor and for good reason. He is not as concerned with our careers as he is with our spiritual lives, hence, our response to him - which is what the Bible is all about.

Other than those two things, I think Miller's book has a lot of great material that can be helpful to anyone. In my opinion, his book and Richard Bolles' book What Color Is Your Parachute? 2008: A Practical Manual for Job-hunters and Career-Changers are two great great career guides.