Career Courage: Discover Your Passion, Step Out of Your Comfort Zone, and Create the Success You Want

A straightforward, yet inspirational look at your career, your calling and - in many ways - your own happiness. Katie Kelley breaks down the process of figuring out your life's calling and how that practically parlays into your career path. What I love about this book is that it's not just about writing great resumes or advancing your career. It's about figuring out your true values and what makes you tick first and then creating a career path that suits your purpose and happiness. This is different for everyone, so Kelley provides a wonderful construct, from many angles, for you to investigate and come to a more satisfying conclusion. She talks purpose, happiness and intuition just as easily as she talk about nuts and bolts of carving out your career or landing that job situation. The best part of this book are the many interviews she's done with people across a wide variety of industries and circumstances, from self-employed to happy corporate types, to share their nuggets of wisdom and success. A great read that both inspires and shares a practical step by step process to determine your path.

This is a great read for anyone looking to take the next steps in his/her career. Particularly useful for anyone earlier in their career or looking to make a change later on. It's full of insights based on psychology and solid research, it's well organized, and it's a good length (not too long, not too short.) Some takeaways: "make your vision tangible," "understand your unique talent," "remain open," "heed your gut instincts," "confront your discomfort." Career Courage is full of thought-provoking nuggets like these as well as exercises to help readers figure out what's next.

Just finished Career Courage. It provides a very nice roadmap for an upward trajectory in one's career. There's lots of tips and guidelines to help folks manage risks and avoid pitfalls. I teach university courses to mostly sophomore year students. These young adults are just beginning to think about what they want their career path to look like - I wanted to find a book that I could recommend and share with them - to help them organize their thoughts. I think this book will do the job just fine.Dr. Kevin CurranUniversity San Diego

I love Katie Kelley!!!! She put the pep back in my career step.

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A great book for all ages but particularly for those starting a careerIf you have a son or daughter starting along their career path this book is chock full of the right kind of advice for them. Or if you’re a person who started down a particular path but are finding that it is just not you, this is a great book for you. Or if you middle aged and are looking to re-invent yourself you’ll find this book especially helpful.Writing with the insight of someone who has been there MS Kelley offers a virtual handbook for finding yourself and what you want to do with your life.If that is as she says you have the courage to do it, to take that step. Not only will this book show you the way to get started it will also show you the way to accelerate your journey once you are on the right path.I especially like the examples of real life people that the authors writes about. Each chapter form the one on Motivation to the one on Confidence to the one on vision to the one on Harmony, yes Harmony expressively defines each step of the way highlighting it with true life examples.The book is filled with helpful delectable little sections designed to make the reader actually participate in activities to drive the point of that chapter home.Sections like: Coach’s Challenge which helps the reader to think things through by applying the challenges to his own situation; to Game Time where the author wraps up each chapter with summaries of what we have learned in that chapter and applying them to our own situations.This is one of those books that you are not sure you need until you open and read and sample and then read all of and realizing yes it is exactly what you need, when you need it. This books stimulates your mind and makes you think about things you should be thinking about… your career and most importantly your life. All I can say is there is no one either too young or too old who will not benefit greatly from reading Career Courage.

Career Courage is a holistic approach to finding and/or rediscovering your individual passion and vocation. Based on the experiences of a burned-out psychotherapist, the author takes you through a series of discovery activities that focuses on understanding yourself at a deeper level so that you can fully understand what it is you want out of a career, and life. Easy to follow advice and activities guide you through the discovery process.Through introspective activities that examine values, self-perception, emotions, motivation, and relationships, a clearer picture of “who you are” is discovered. Along with personal examination, professional roles of risk taking, networking, vision, decision making, and influence, your professional identity is explored and developed.Good pathway and guidance for those seeking career change or for those that are recent graduates and not sure what to do with their degrees.

Most career books I have read fall into one of two camps. They either present highly practical advice, such as how to write a knock-their-socks-off resume, or they provide a lot of rah-rah cheerleading. While Ms Kelley doe not tell readers how to write a resume, she walks them through the process that will help them build the sort of solid credentials that will impress the employer of their choice. She does encourage and inspire readers the way a good coach should, but she does not sugarcoat the daunting task of finding and fulfilling the dream of a rewarding career, not just in terms of cold hard cash, but in terms of the deeper satisfaction of doing meaningful work that makes a difference in the world. I highly recommend that parents and teachers make it required reading for recent graduates embarking on the next great phase of their lives.