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| The Pathfinder: How to Choose or Change Your Career for a Lifetime of Satisfaction and Success | 
 enlarge | Author: Nicholas Lore
Publisher: Fireside
Category: Book
List Price: $16.99
Buy Used: $4.89
You Save: $12.10 (71%)
New (44) Used (91) Collectible (4) from $4.89
Avg. Customer Rating:  108 reviews
Sales Rank: 4138
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 400
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.6
Dimensions (in): 8.8 x 6.9 x 1
ISBN: 0684823993
Dewey Decimal Number: 650.14
EAN: 9780684823997
ASIN: 0684823993
Publication Date: January 5, 1998
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 What's the next step in my career? April 18, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Recently I was between jobs and deciding what my next career step would be. A friend of mine had read the Pathfinder and recommended it as a great aid for helping me with my decision. Indeed it was!
I found the book to be extremely helpful. Nick does a great job laying out a practical, easy to relate to, process for self discovery and defining what's important to you in a career. Key was Nicks abililty to bring attention to and explain psychology of making a change. This was a straight forward look into the internal conversation people have with themselves about any change. Very Helpful! The notion of "yeahbuts" is so true and once understood liberating and helpful to make progress.
I got tremendous value from the Pathfinder. Nick is having a dialog with you and brings the coaching process to life. It's like you learning about yourself while you writing your next chapter in life. At times the assignments are tough....if you don't do them you won't get the same value from the process and you will end up making decisions by default. Which is probably why so many people are unhappy in their current jobs/career.
After the book, I enlisted the services of the RockPort Institure, the company Nick runs provides career coaching services. Part of the serviec invloves an in depth teting process that is truely revealing and critical in undertanding you and what type of career/role you are best suited for. If you have the interest, read the book than enlist the services of the Rockport institute. I've taken many tests and done all kinds of profiling over my career, this was by far the best!
I hope my feedback is helpful.
Good luck in pursuit of a new job/career....
This book keeps on working April 13, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
When I first got this book years ago, what I learned helped me make a significant change in my life and career. Little did I know that, years later, I'd be back reading it again. Both times I had to really take myself in hand and actually do the work of seeing where my interests and skills overlapped, what I wanted now and what would help me achieve it. Both times what I learned in the process was a surprise to me, and gave me that "aha!" feeling to set me on a new path (first time) and renewed path (second time). Well worth it.
BEST CAREER BOOK IF YOU WANT TO LOVE YOUR WORK April 1, 2008
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
This is a rich and complex book that is the best single source for people who want that perfect career. It may have too much depth and complexity for some readers who want quick answers. It takes time and a personal journey to have something that most people don't have, a career they love.
I have read and tried several highly recommended career books over the past three years but they have all left me wanting more, much more. This one really worked for me. It took months to work my way through it but it got me there! It was obviously written for people with a passion for finding that perfect career and willing to stretch beyond the usual methods people use to figure out what to do with their lives.
I just read the previous reviews and that tells me this book isn't for everyone. Most reviewers gave it five stars. A few reviewers complained that the author seemed to go "on and on." I found the book to be brilliantly and humorously written and was entertained while I learned many powerful concepts that helped me leave my old comfortable career and make a major change that frankly terrified me at first. The author sometimes communicates an important concept in different ways in multiple places in this book. I found that to be a powerful technique since it usually takes me more than once to really absorb new material so it is more than just an intellectual concept. For example, Lore says that what keeps people from having what they want is what he calls yeahbuts, which he says are the doubts that we all have when we step out of our comfort zone. He says they are part of a built in survival system that kept our ancient ancestors from walking into danger and now get activated not only when we face real danger, but also when we step out of our comfort zone and seek a more satisfying life or a big change. One of the many goals of the book is to give the reader more power to not cave into those doubts. He brings up this subject and such things as the power of making definite commitments in several places that helped me start to practice the skills he teaches instead of just reading about them.
I did some research and found out that author Lore was the fellow who invented or first developed "career coaching" back in 1980, years before the whole "coaching" phenomenon began; that he was friends with the great futurist and architect Buckminster Fuller who guided him to his choice of career, and that he was personally commended by President Clinton. In the 1970s he was an organic and green living pioneer. His Rockport Institute recommends going through a several month long coached career choice program instead of just using this book. The book alone worked for me but I think they are probably right in this recommendation. I was so committed to making a change, nothing could have held me back.
I have gone from a comfortable, secure but boring career to a new life where I look forward to going to work. This book taught me how to choose the new career and how to have the skills and courage to make the change. Five stars all the way.
 You have to know what you want already March 26, 2008
10 out of 13 found this review helpful
I had very high hopes after agonizing over which book to purchase or company to contact to help me discover why after all these years, I'm completely dissatisfied with what I do, and really aching to find something that I feel good at and feel I am making a contribution. I have invested days and hours into the Pathfinder. I've worked through more than half of the exercises. But what I am realizing as I go through this extensive (very extensive in fact) exercise list is that these exercises are really to help someone who already has some inkling of what they want. This book will help someone who knows, even vaguely, what they want to do, but it does not help someone like me that is 37, a professional PhD. scientist and completely confounded on how to make a major career shift to match my own talents and likes. I don't know what I want to do. All I know is that I want to make a change. The Pathfinder will not help me target what I want to do. All it can do is help people who know what they want to do to work through whatever obstacles they perceive to get to their goal. It's more of Obstacle Jumping guide, rather than a Pathfinding guide.
Something you NEED to know before using this book! March 26, 2008
7 out of 12 found this review helpful
If you are serious about a career change and determined to make the necessary steps to achieve that goal this book won't help you. I repeat this book WON'T help you.
This sounds the polar opposite to the book's inflated promises on the jacket and the 90-plus "five star" reviews... it is because of an element of the career search that has been totally left out of the "Pathfinders" equation.
The element "Pathfinders" avoids is one's own knowledge of themselves; what you want to do, what really drives you, what really fits you. It is an essential element you NEED when attempting a career change to your personal satisfaction.
"Pathfinders" will give you exercises, lists, quizzes, speeches and work to unearth information, but it will not address the questions concerning the querent themselves. Without the personal information the "Pathfinders" work is actually unoriginal, uninsightful and it does NOT generate its promised results.
So if you feel that you do NOT know yourself on the level of personal drives, passions, and desires then save yourself time and headaches and just skip "Pathfinders"
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