Whistle While You Work: Heeding Your Life's Calling - Softcover

Leider, Richard J.; Shapiro, David A

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1576751031 ISBN 13: 9781576751039

Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2001

Synopsis

Everyone has a calling with a unique purpose to fulfill in the world. Heeding it is about deliberately choosing a way of life and work consistent with individual gifts, passions, and values. Through powerful stories and a guided exploration of 52 possible callings, Whistle While You Work helps readers discover how to make a living doing what they were born to do. The authors provide a framework for embracing a very abstract subject in a systematic, practical, and fun way. And their Calling Cards ""TM"" help readers develop answers to profound life questions as they learn to ""listen with the third ear"" to cultivate a mode of searching that isn't limited to the merely tangible.

About this title

Review:

In Whistle While You Work, Richard Leider and David Shapiro counter the clichéd query about what you want to be when you grow up with a more intriguing question: "What is your life's calling?" The authors define calling as "the inner urge to give our gifts away in service to something we are passionate about in an environment that is consistent with our values." Drawing upon psychologist James Hillman's metaphor of the acorn programmed to grow into an oak tree, Leider and Shapiro guide readers to discover their "core gifts" and the work they were born to do. Each chapter describes a conversation with a cabdriver in a different city to introduce a key idea about the process of heeding your life's calling. These lively conversations are followed by stories of individuals--from a Motorola executive to a building security guard--who have identified their calling. The stories are paired with bulls-eye exercises that allow readers to discover their calling. Tools include "calling cards" to identify core gifts, a "calling journal" and the "calendar/checkbook" exercise to align values with time management.

The book would have been strengthened with more narrative about the relationship between choosing a calling and maintaining a positive cash flow. Yet the clarity and conviction of its approach sets this book apart from other do-what-you-love career books. It is an eloquent and practical blueprint for being at home in the world by making a living with your uniqueness. --Barbara Mackoff

From the Publisher:

EVERYONE WANTS to live a life that enables them to make the most of their unique gifts, interests, and passions-to find their true calling, the work they were born to do. Whistle While You Work is a liberating guide that uses powerful stories and exercises to help readers find truly satisfying, fulfilling work consistent with their deepest values.

The authors combine a thoughtful and practical discussion about calling with examples showing how to apply these ideas to one's life. They mix in dozens of inspiring stories featuring individuals who have found-or are in the process of finding-their calling with straightforward advice and suggestions on how to discover one's calling. Most importantly, they provides readers with a solid path for embracing calling-a subject usually addressed abstractly-in a useful, fun, and systematic way.

Through a unique Calling Card(tm) exercise that features a guided exploration of 52 "natural preferences"-such as Advancing Ideas, Doing the Numbers, Building Relationships, Performing Events-the book gives readers a new way to detect and reflect on the core of their life's work. By using this and other tools in the book, readers develop their own answers to three critical questions: What gift do I naturally give to others? What gift do I most enjoy giving to others? What gift have I most often given to others? In answering those questions, they will reveal to themselves their calling-and ultimately move toward new realms of success and fulfillment.

Whistle While You Work is an inspiring, effective, and entertaining approach to discovering one's calling. It will equip all of us with the mind-set, stories, coaching, and, perhaps most importantly, the hope we need to find our way ahead-and see a clear picture of what our right work is and what to do with our limited time here on Earth.

About this edition

• Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 1576751031
• ISBN 13: 9781576751039
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 151