The Art of Work: A Proven Path to Discovering What You Were Meant to Do - Softcover

Goins, Jeff

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0718022076 ISBN 13: 9780718022075

Publisher: HarperCollins Leadership, 2015

Synopsis

USA TODAY, WASHINGTON POST, AND PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY BESTSELLER!

Jeff Goins, a brilliant new voice counting Seth Godin and Jon Acuff among his fans, explains how to abandon the status quo and live a life that matters with true passion and purpose.

The path to your life's work is difficult and risky, even scary, which is why few finish the journey. This is a book about discovering your life's work, that treasure of immeasurable worth we all long for. It's about the task you were born to do.

As Jeff Goins explains, the search begins with passion but does not end there. Only when our interests connect with the needs of the world do we begin living for a larger purpose. Those who experience this intersection experience something exceptional and enviable. Though it is rare, such a life is attainable by anyone brave enough to try.

Through personal experience, compelling case studies, and current research on the mysteries of motivation and talent, Jeff shows readers how to find their vocation and what to expect along the way.

About this title

From the Author

"What's happened to you is rare," my friend Mark said to me just before I made one of the most important decisions of my life--the decision to quit my job and become a full-time writer. My last day at work also happened to be my thirtieth birthday, which made it a milestone in many respects. The truth, though, is the day itself was less significant than the process it took to get there.

When asked how I got to this point, I struggle to give an intelligent answer. The experience of finding your calling can be both mysterious and practical. It takes effort but also seems to happen to you at times. What I've come to understand is that finding your purpose is more of a path than a plan: it involves twists and turns that you never expected. Ultimately these surprises lead you to your destiny. And once you arrive at what you thought was the destination, you realize it's only another leg in the journey.

This book is a description of that path, as well as the steps it takes to navigate it.

Everyone, it seems, is searching for a purpose, for something to satisfy their deepest desires. I believe that "something" is a calling.

What is a calling? You will hear me use the word interchangeably with the terms vocation and life's work, but quite simply, it is the reason you were born.

When I began working on this project, I thought I knew what the process of pursuing a dream looked like, but what I found surprised me. Discovering your calling, it turns out, isn't quite so simple. The journey looks different for each person, but there are common themes that consistently emerge. If we look at those themes, we can identify a pattern that will help us understand our own vocations a little better.

What if what happened to me wasn't so rare? What if everyone has a calling? That was the question that sent me on my journey. The people whose stories appear in this book, many of whom I personally interviewed, are not extraordinary, in the sense that you've heard their stories before.

They are not typical case studies for success, and that was intentional. In these seemingly ordinary accounts, I think we understand our own stories, which often feel far too ordinary for our liking, a little better. Some readers might be disappointed with the subjectivity of such a book. But this is the way we live our lives--not as research projects and book reports--but as anecdotes and emotions. And in each experience, we find certain truths we might otherwise miss. My hope is these stories connect with you in ways that plain facts cannot, and in reading them, you too are changed.

The Art of Work was not the book I intended to write but ended up being the one I was supposed to write. A calling is like that too, I suppose. It is the thing that you never thought would be, the twist in the plot that makes everything else come together, and somehow in the end you cannot imagine otherwise. Writing this book illuminated my own understanding of how purpose and vocation work together, and I hope it does the same for you.

From the Back Cover

DON'T SETTLE FOR THE STATUS QUO. LIFE A LIFE THAT MATTERS.

Life seldom unfolds the way we hope or plan. The twists, surprises, and setbacks leave us feeling stuck with no options left by to play it safe--to conform to what's expected of us. But what if there was more to life than this?

Jeff Goins envisions a better way, a daring journey to discover your life's work. The Art of Work recaptures the ancient understanding of vocation as more than a job, or even a career, but as a passion-fueled calling that makes each day an exciting adventure.

A calling is not some special opportunity reserved for an elite class of people. Meaningful work is available to anyone who dares to find it. The path before you is a perilous one, full of difficulty and challenges, but it leads to a legacy the world will not soon forget.

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins Leadership
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 0718022076
• ISBN 13: 9780718022075
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 240