The Career Clinic

August 18, 2008
Anderson has compiled interviews from her radio talk show into a self-help guide that gets off to a wobbly start with a maudlin introduction that argues in favor of using impending death as the starting point for making career decisions. The author suggests determining which activities—if never pursued—would fill the reader with the most regret if they suddenly discovered they were going to die tomorrow. Subsequent sections offer glimpses into how other people made their lives work for them after finding their job was keeping them from enjoying their lives. Unfortunately, aside from sharing manifold examples, Anderson provides no concrete steps; rather, she defers to the classic career book, What Color Is Your Parachute?
These short conversational stories attempt, merely by presenting a series of success stories, to inspire those who want to make life-altering changes, and after the first 20 or so testaments to the joy of finding a true calling, the results start to wear thin. Spending time reading about other people's happiness seems like yet another delay in getting off the couch to find one's own.