The Pathfinder: How to Choose or Change Your Career for a Lifetime of Satisfaction and Success
DO YOU JUMP OUT OF BED EVERY MORNING AND RUSH TO A JOB YOU LOVE?
Or is the work you once enjoyed now just a way to pay the bills? Perhaps you’re even doubting your career choice altogether. Let The Pathfinder guide you to a more engaging, fulfilling work life. Based on breakthrough techniques developed by Rockport Institute, an innovative and award-winning career-counseling network that has changed the lives of over 10,000 people, The Pathfinder offers invaluable advice and more than 100 self-tests and diagnostic tools that will help you choose an entirely new career — or view a current job from a new, more positive perspective. You’ll learn:
* How to design your new career direction step by step so that it fits your talents, personality, needs, goals, values, and is, at the same time, practical and attainable
* How to deal successfully with the “yeah but” voices in your head that keep you going back to the same old ill-fitting job, day after day
* How to land the perfect job in your new field, plus tips on writing a really exceptional résumé, personal marketing, and networking (even for those who hate to network)
Whether you’re a seasoned professional in search of a career change or a beginner just entering the working world, you want to make the right choices from the beginning. No matter where you are in your journey, if you want work to be more of a dance than a drag, The Pathfinder will expertly coach you through the process of designing a career you will love.Author Nicholas Lore uses the techniques of his career-guidance network, the Rockport Institute, to make The Pathfinder a substitute for a great job counselor. Through goal setting, list making, and other techniques, the book leads readers though the process of deciding exactly what they want to do for a living and finding a way to make it happen. Lore realizes that people have different temperaments and decision-making methods, so he provides individualized advice to suit each one. He also understands that creating a new career requires courage as well as desire, so The Pathfinder devotes plenty of space to motivation and overcoming fears. While anyone looking for a new career will find direction with this guide, people who didn’t know they were looking may decide to start once they go through Lore’s probing self-examination process.
User Ratings and Reviews
4 Stars A Landmark Career Guide
This is the bottom-up approach to career and life planning set out at length. Nicholas Lore draws on his and his institute’s experience to lay out techniques for designing a new career direction to fit your goals, talents, personality, values etc and, most memorably, “how to deal with the yeah but voices in your head that keep you going back to the same ill-fitting job, day after day”. The book is perhaps overly wordy, with a structure not the easiest to follow. But it is written by an acknowledged authority in the field and prospective career shifters would be wise to persevere. For the alternative top-down, demand-driven, passion-driven approach, where you identify a range of jobs that inspire you and systematically screen them for fit with your strengths, the reader should look elsewhere. But this is a landmark book in career guidance.
Vaughan Evans, business and career strategist
Author, BACKING U! A Business-Oriented Approach to Backing Your Passion and Achieving Career Success
1 Stars Do not waste your time or money on this book!
I purchased this book hoping that after reading it I would have a clear understanding of a career or careers that would fit me. After reading the reviews here at Amazon I thought this book would answer all my questions. But, after reading the whole book, 374 pages of redundant ramblings, and a notebook full of useless lists, I was at the same point I was at before reading the book: clueless as to which career path I should pursue. The author keeps promising that all the work you are putting into it will pay off with solid answers as to which career you are best suited for. Well, you get about 3/4 of the way through the book and he tells you to use his $500 career counseling service to see which careers are best for you. Disappointing and very dishonest. Nicholas Lore should be ashamed of himself. This book is just a big, long commercial for his Rockport Institute overprised $500 test you can take; that is the only way to get the careers list you’d be best suited for. Don’t buy this book, it is a waste of your time and money!!!!!!
3 Stars This was OK, but there are probably better books out there
First of all, a big BOO to the publisher for the very poor quality of the binding. I have a softcover copy and the pages are literally falling out!!! I took pretty good care of this book, it hasn’t been as heavily used as many of my other ones, and yet, I am losing pages. Something to consider if you are buying this as a reference.
Pros: This book more than any other really makes you become introspective. It makes you dig DEEEEP down inside into your psyche to pull out information to help you design a career. If you think you can breeze through this book in a day and at the end have a brand new career you are wrong. This book makes you WORK to get the information you want/need. YOU have to pull them out yourself. The book is realistic that, sometimes, the answer is not within you and therefore you can consult outside sources, like career exams and interest/talent inventories. Of course then he tells you that to *really* get it, you should go spend $500 at the Rockford Institute, a career institute created by the author, for a battery of career tests. I was pretty annoyed at the plug. Anyway, the book does have a cursory review of talents/strengths and gives you a battery of “inquiries”, questions to ask yourself while designing a career. A strong focus of this book is turning the information you get from the inquiries into reality. It forces you to create “commitments”, or “what WILL be a part of my next career” and covers things such as “What to do when you get stuck”.
Cons: Nothing in this book is really eye opening in my opinion. I have already asked most of the inquiries of myself already and was still stuck, the entire reason I bought the book, so I was pretty annoyed when the book kept asking me questions that I viewed as essentially unhelpful, or things I have already covered with myself without the book that led me nowhere. (what did you want to be when you were a kid, what do you like about your job, what do you hate about your job (and every other job you ever had, etc)
I found the talents section (where they try to sell you more tests) moderately insightful and this is the part of the book I gained from the most. It identifies several inherent natural talents that a person either has, or does not have, such as spatial ability, abstract thinking, etc. I wish there was a book on just this and identifying what one’s true strengths/talents are, but I have yet to find one.
I think, if you are struggling in the same way I am, I would recommend “What Color is Your Parachute” over this book. It’s known as THE book for finding a job, and that’s nice, but I truly value the Flower Exercise. It really spoke to me in a way that helped me finally narrow things down and come out with some strong options as far as careers. As a person who doesn’t have very many blindingly obvious talents and options, I found it insightful and helpful, and the best thing I have read to date. It, again, will MAKE you do work, but not anywhere near as much as the Pathfinder and I feel I got more out of it.
4 Stars Excellent place to start
This was one of five career counseling books that I ordered and read. I found it very inspirational and it gave me that extra push that I needed to go from “I hate my job,” to “I’m going to do something about it.” The other four were basically useless. After reading this book, I have been working with the Rockport Institute to find my future career and it has been extremely helpful. I recently read ‘Now What?’ which was a better step-by-step guide for actually starting the process. I highly recommend both books.
5 Stars Great Book for Rethinking Career Choice
Book was in excellent condition on quick receipt. A well written and thought provoking book to determine how to choose a career fit for your personality and strengths written by a career coach. Great excercises to get your thought organized.
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