Bronson does not offer a systematic study or a self-help book. That's important to get out of the way. As other reviewers have observed, you won't find plans or guidance for your own career move.
Instead, Bronson offers a jumble of anecdotes, unsystematic and uneven -- just the sort of stories I hear every day as a career coach. People seek new adventures. They weigh the cost (and there always is a cost). Sometimes they decide the cost is too high and they back down. Sometimes they leap and experience disappointment. And sometimes they leap and find themselves soaring.
Career-changers are hungry for guidance. Bronson's interviewees often sought his approval -- and his advice. He insists that he's not a career counselor but they asked anyway. This quest for help is typical during any life transition and underscores the need to be cautious about seeking help from whoever happens to show up.
And of course this overlap of roles can be viewed as a flaw in the book. Bronson admits lapsing from the journalist role. He gets so involved with his interviewees that the story becomes a quest, a journey-across-the-country story rather than an analysis of career choices. Bronson includes his own story, told in pieces throughout the book. This feature seemed to interrupt the flow: if the author tells his own story, we should be led to anticipate autobiography.
Despite these flaws, Bronson comes up with some sound insights into career change. He observes that people avoid change because of the accompanying loss of identity. They hang back "because they don't want to be the kind of person who abandons friends and takes up with a new crowd," precisely what you have to do following a life transition.
And he follows up with a warning of solitude that also accompanies any life change. "Get used to being alone," he advises, yet many people fear being alone more than they fear being stuck in a job they hate.
WHAT SHOULD I DO WITH MY LIFE offers questions, not answers. It's like attending a giant networking event. You have to sort through the stories on your own.
Despite these flaws, I will recommend this book to my clients and to other career coaches. Career change, like any change, is messy. You rarely get to move in a straight line and you always experience pain and loss. And every move is a roll of the dice: a coach can help, but there are no guarantees.
Each story in this book is unique and your own will be too. You, the career changer, must put together your own mosaic and find pattern and meaning on your own.
This isn't a book about answers - that was stated early on. Nor are the people profiled bred of stinkin'-rich parents. I'm certainly not one of those, though I am a Gen-X'er. I came nowhere close to any dotcom victories/traumas. Yet I still see glimpses of my demons and desires in the stories of others.
There are people who invested a lot of time and effort into becoming what they thought they're meant to become, and only when they actually become it do they realize it was not what they truly wanted. Nothing brings you down to the real world like living up to what you've signed up for.
I also identified with the story of the young Asian man who went to an Ivy League school (yes, his parents paid for it, but they earned the money through hard labor) and ended up as a teacher working for minimum wage. This case spoke to the stereotype of Asian parents, who respect education for the opportunities it provides but would have a fit should their children become educators (even worse, high school teachers).
So, please don't buy the book in hope for excellent writing styles, or for collectives of people who will not elicit your envious eye (you will read about twenty-somethings who pulled off millions from the dotcom fervor - and even then - they're STILL looking for purpose and meaning). This book isn't meant to make you feel like the magic formula is coming around the next chapter. People go from rags-to-riches and back to rags.
It's personal sacrifice, confusion, and perpetual struggle against what tempts you (title, money, sense of security) versus what may fulfill you - when you may not even know what that fulfillment may look like if it came and slapped you on the face.