Making A Living While Making A Difference

by Melissa Everett

While we are enjoying the lowest unemployment rate in decades, our need to mesh career with purpose is at an all-time high. And, as business and society continue to place greater emphasis on social and environmental responsibility, opportunities for career-seekers with a conscience have never been better. This completely revised second edition of Making a Living While Making a Difference updates the rapidly expanding career opportunities in socially responsible and green business, industry, commerce, and non-profits. Professional career counselor Melissa Everett guides the reader through a 10-step program for career development that stresses personal fulfillment, integrity, and contribution. Unlike traditional career guides that focus on defining skill areas, Making a Living While Making a Difference focuses on personal, social, and environmental values as the driving force for career decisions. Expanded and updated self-assessments, exercises, and visualizations point the reader toward defining their personal area of commitment. Compelling stories such as the origins of the Endangered Species Chocolate Company or the success of Stonyfield Farm, the feisty little yogurt company, illustrate how ordinary people are doing good and doing well. Everett provides a compassionate self-help framework for dealing with the unique challenges of establishing and maintaining a value-driven life/work career path. Whether a new job-seeker, job-changer, or someone who would like to make a difference right where they are, Making a Living While Making a Difference is the definitive "how-to-make-it-happen" guide for anyone who wants to customize their work lives to reflect their values more fully. TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction PART THE WORK TO BE DONE Self Employment
The Work to be Done
Headlines We'd Like to See, Environmental Protection and Renewal
Headlines We'd Like to See, Social Healing
Catalysts for a Positive Occupations that Make a Difference PART A TEN STEP PROGRAM FOR PRINCIPLED CAREER DEVELOPMENT Step 1: Wake Up
Step 2: Stabilize Your Life
Step 3: Create a Vibrant Support System
Step 4: Turn On the Light of Connection W

256 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 1995

Reviews

[Charlie · Rating 3 out of 5]

The writing was engaging, and I enjoyed reading the stories about people who had found ways to combine passions and finances. Overall, the book left me discouraged since it drove home the steep slope I would have to climb to retrain for a different field at this point. I did pick up some ideas about fields that I wouldn't have considered in the past, but I felt frustrated by the lack of practical advice with regard to giving up one path for another without shirking my responsibilities to my family.

[Hannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Three-point-five. I think this book would be especially useful for people interested in going into environmental, non-profit and "sustainability" work. Even without that focus, however, it provides a lot of helpful reframings, and, I found, a generally freeing and empowering approach to re-orienting oneself in times of transition.

[Erika · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lots of details, lots of examples, and a good starting point providing you have an idea of where you want to go.