If I told you a lawyer had great career advice, would you believe me? You would if I told you it was Jonathan Fields, lawyer turned serial entrepreneur. His new book, Career Renegade: How to Make a Great Living Doing What You Love, hit me particularly well because it wasn’t just a wispy, airy “you can do it, sweetheart!” type of book. Instead, Fields dives right in and gives you a path to making it happen.
If you are the kind to think up a new business idea every day (or five a day), buy this book just for Chapter 11: Is the World Ready for You? In this chapter, Fields gives you really practical ways to test the waters for your business ideas. It’s a wonderful example of how this book isn’t a pat on the back book. This book is a business person’s toolkit for the new web.
The next chapter made me feel like Fields was hanging out with me more often than I knew. It’s like he has the secret sauce on how I think about platforms and how the web changes trust. His chapter on authority could also be worth the price of the book alone.
Career Renegade does something that lots of books about job finding does not: it takes into account today’s web and how the world has shifted. I’m not sure I can say much more about it, if you’re not already sold.
This book is more for entrepreneurs than lifers. If you’re happily ensconced in the cubicle, leave it be. It’s not for you. Instead, give this to the Starbucks and Panera crowd. I mean, heck: buy a half dozen of these and hand them out. If you were a venture investor (and I know a few of my VC friends hang out her), buy a few of these to give out to the weirder pitches you get.
I can assure you this: Jonathan Fields’ book doesn’t read like it was written by a lawyer. It’s full of storytelling, bite-sized information, and it moves like a book written for the easily distracted. I’m a fan.
