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The Bigs: The Secrets Nobody Tells Students and Young Professionals About How to Find a Great Job, Do a Great Job, Be a Leader, St
What is The Bigs? In baseball, "the bigs" is slang for the big leagues. When you become responsible for yourself, and you are being paid to do a job, you are in the big leagues. The real world is tough, competitive, and much is expected. This is a quintessentially American story of one man's journey through his career and life. Wall Street veteran Ben Carpenter chronicles the people he met, the experiences he had, the mistakes he made, and what he learned along the way. Readers will encounter a colorful cast of real-life characters which include Big Hank, Hoops, Sweater Girl, The Zombies, Mr. Nuts, The Cheese, Deep Throat, and The RAT. Their tales illuminate Carpenter's progress from newly minted liberal arts graduate, to the owner of an out-of-control bar in Manhattan, to the CEO of a major international investment company. While the real world can be very fun, it's also very much a battle, and that battle is not easy for anyone. The Bigs is an eye-opening book with specific, comprehensive, and practical advice you won't hear anywhere else. This is a book that parents will want to read and give to their children—and their children will want to read and share with their friends.
- GenresNonfiction
288 pages, Hardcover
First published April 21, 2014
8 people are currently reading
108 people want to read
About the author
Ben Carpenter
14 books48 followersBen Carpenter has been a personal trainer since 2006 and has worked with a diverse range of clients ranging from young athletes training to be fitness models to elderly people who are just trying their best to live a bit longer. Over time, he shifted his focus towards specialising on the most common goal that his clients strived for, losing body fat.
He realised that if he truly wanted to help as many people as possible, he needed to step away from one-to-one clients only and turn towards social media to reach a larger audience. He has been posting social media content since 2009, answering as many of your questions as possible, completely free of charge, and his videos are now seen by millions of people every single week.
His goal is simple: help you as his metaphorical client. Whether that’s navigating the minefield of misinformation that the weight loss industry is rife with – like quick fix fad diets that are being endorsed by whichever celebrity is being paid the most – or providing you with simplified summaries of the latest research papers.
He is a self-confessed ‘research nerd’. He isn’t a scientist working behind the scenes to publish research papers. He is a personal trainer that has devoted his entire adult life helping his clients and social media followers get the best results possible. It isn’t just about being up to date on the latest scientific research, but actually helping you put this infor
He realised that if he truly wanted to help as many people as possible, he needed to step away from one-to-one clients only and turn towards social media to reach a larger audience. He has been posting social media content since 2009, answering as many of your questions as possible, completely free of charge, and his videos are now seen by millions of people every single week.
His goal is simple: help you as his metaphorical client. Whether that’s navigating the minefield of misinformation that the weight loss industry is rife with – like quick fix fad diets that are being endorsed by whichever celebrity is being paid the most – or providing you with simplified summaries of the latest research papers.
He is a self-confessed ‘research nerd’. He isn’t a scientist working behind the scenes to publish research papers. He is a personal trainer that has devoted his entire adult life helping his clients and social media followers get the best results possible. It isn’t just about being up to date on the latest scientific research, but actually helping you put this infor
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
December 20, 2017
Mostly interesting, I got a fuzzy feeling in my heart because I know this book came about as a father wanting to give advice to his daughter. This inspires me to start writing my own stories and extracting the lessons from them.
July 20, 2019
I actually did not finish this book, which is rare for me. I just couldn't get through it. I was reading it mainly to see if it would be a good resource for my children and the high school/college students I work with. I'm sure for some readers it will be enlightening and encouraging; just not me.
March 5, 2021
Helpful life/career advice for any age, but targeted to young adults just starting out. It helps to be a sports fan, it has a lot of sports analogies, but overall a good book.
My Review
My Review
January 25, 2015
3.5 stars
I picked up The Bigs at the suggestion of, of course, my dad. This book's genesis was in a father's notes to his daughter when she gets her first adult, "big-league" job, and it retains that flavor throughout. The introduction of The Bigs is very accurate: "The Bigs is unique. It is not a memoir. It is not a how-to book. It is not a self-help book, and it is not a collection of entertaining war stories. Instead, it's all of these." Think of a father (or mother) sitting down with his college-aged/early-20s daughter (or son) and telling the story of his career in retrospect, of success and failures and the characters he met, and then giving some solid advice about how the young person can get and succeed in their own "great job", and you'll have a really good idea of this book. I'm a college sophomore, so I feel like I'm in a good position to review this book.
"Part One: How to Survive, Thrive, and Have Fun in the Big Leagues" is mainly the section of memoir and war stories from Ben's career in Wall Street, with some advice mixed it, and is more than half of the book (~55%, while Part Two is ~31%, the rest being intro, notes, etc.). I wasn't expecting so much of a memoir component and, as I read, wasn't sure how much I liked it. While all of the characters Ben encountered and the experiences he had were interesting, and provided good context for his advice, I was expecting more of the advice up front and it felt like I read a lot of memoir before I got there. That's partly just me not understanding what this book was, though! By the end, I felt like I knew Ben well from all of his self that he put into the book, and that gave his advice more power. As for the Part One advice itself, I (Kindle) highlighted pieces of advice I wanted to remember as I went through, and there was a lot of good stuff. There are lots of other sources of career advice out there and they probably disagree in parts, but I learned a lot from this one and found it helpful. Additionally, as a woman who happened to be reading Lean In at the same time, it was interesting to look inside the head of a confident and successful man in a competitive arena like Wall Street and see how he conducts himself. Ben often did more aggressive things in his relationships with peers, superiors, and subordinates than I could see myself doing, yet reading about them and how often they were successful made me think about times when it could be appropriate to be more aggressive.
"Part Two: How to Choose, Get, and Do a Great Job" is a great resource where this book really shines. Ben lays out, step by step, how to get a great job, do a great job, and manage your finances. I think Chapter 7, "How to Get a Great Job", is incredible. It takes the reader through the nitty-gritty details of networking, informational interviews, job interviews, and other aspects of the process to find and get the job you want. I can absolutely see myself referring back to this section and Ben's practical, realistic, thorough 9-step process over and over during the next few years of my life as I decide on and get my first great job. I also loved his perspective that "In your job search, as in sports, you need to focus on scoring the next goal and not worry about winning the game," with goals being successfully setting up interviews and making contacts. Ben knows that finding that great job is hard (he tells young people to be prepared to contact at least 40 to 50 people in their chosen industry before getting the job they want) but gives good advice on being resilient and continuing to learn and sharpen your skills even if you are initially disappointed.
So, overall, even though The Bigs is somewhat unpolished (coming from an unprofessional author, writing as though talking to his daughter, purposely going for a "raw, straight-from-the-heart" quality) and is more memoir than I expected, I enjoyed it. Again, I can really see myself flipping back through the pieces of advice I highlighted and using Chapter 7 to guide my own job search. I think this book could be especially useful for young adults who don't have parents working in professional jobs who could give them first-hand advice about the ins-and-outs of business and this certain kind of career. If you are a parent thinking of giving this to a child, be aware that most of the advice comes later in the book, so perhaps suggest looking at Part Two before Part One so that they can better judge its value to them.
If this sounds good, I encourage you to take a look at The Bigs. I'm glad I read this book. If you happen to read this, Ben, thank you for writing!
I picked up The Bigs at the suggestion of, of course, my dad. This book's genesis was in a father's notes to his daughter when she gets her first adult, "big-league" job, and it retains that flavor throughout. The introduction of The Bigs is very accurate: "The Bigs is unique. It is not a memoir. It is not a how-to book. It is not a self-help book, and it is not a collection of entertaining war stories. Instead, it's all of these." Think of a father (or mother) sitting down with his college-aged/early-20s daughter (or son) and telling the story of his career in retrospect, of success and failures and the characters he met, and then giving some solid advice about how the young person can get and succeed in their own "great job", and you'll have a really good idea of this book. I'm a college sophomore, so I feel like I'm in a good position to review this book.
"Part One: How to Survive, Thrive, and Have Fun in the Big Leagues" is mainly the section of memoir and war stories from Ben's career in Wall Street, with some advice mixed it, and is more than half of the book (~55%, while Part Two is ~31%, the rest being intro, notes, etc.). I wasn't expecting so much of a memoir component and, as I read, wasn't sure how much I liked it. While all of the characters Ben encountered and the experiences he had were interesting, and provided good context for his advice, I was expecting more of the advice up front and it felt like I read a lot of memoir before I got there. That's partly just me not understanding what this book was, though! By the end, I felt like I knew Ben well from all of his self that he put into the book, and that gave his advice more power. As for the Part One advice itself, I (Kindle) highlighted pieces of advice I wanted to remember as I went through, and there was a lot of good stuff. There are lots of other sources of career advice out there and they probably disagree in parts, but I learned a lot from this one and found it helpful. Additionally, as a woman who happened to be reading Lean In at the same time, it was interesting to look inside the head of a confident and successful man in a competitive arena like Wall Street and see how he conducts himself. Ben often did more aggressive things in his relationships with peers, superiors, and subordinates than I could see myself doing, yet reading about them and how often they were successful made me think about times when it could be appropriate to be more aggressive.
"Part Two: How to Choose, Get, and Do a Great Job" is a great resource where this book really shines. Ben lays out, step by step, how to get a great job, do a great job, and manage your finances. I think Chapter 7, "How to Get a Great Job", is incredible. It takes the reader through the nitty-gritty details of networking, informational interviews, job interviews, and other aspects of the process to find and get the job you want. I can absolutely see myself referring back to this section and Ben's practical, realistic, thorough 9-step process over and over during the next few years of my life as I decide on and get my first great job. I also loved his perspective that "In your job search, as in sports, you need to focus on scoring the next goal and not worry about winning the game," with goals being successfully setting up interviews and making contacts. Ben knows that finding that great job is hard (he tells young people to be prepared to contact at least 40 to 50 people in their chosen industry before getting the job they want) but gives good advice on being resilient and continuing to learn and sharpen your skills even if you are initially disappointed.
So, overall, even though The Bigs is somewhat unpolished (coming from an unprofessional author, writing as though talking to his daughter, purposely going for a "raw, straight-from-the-heart" quality) and is more memoir than I expected, I enjoyed it. Again, I can really see myself flipping back through the pieces of advice I highlighted and using Chapter 7 to guide my own job search. I think this book could be especially useful for young adults who don't have parents working in professional jobs who could give them first-hand advice about the ins-and-outs of business and this certain kind of career. If you are a parent thinking of giving this to a child, be aware that most of the advice comes later in the book, so perhaps suggest looking at Part Two before Part One so that they can better judge its value to them.
If this sounds good, I encourage you to take a look at The Bigs. I'm glad I read this book. If you happen to read this, Ben, thank you for writing!
June 13, 2016
Some of this advice simply makes sense, and some of this advice is the type you get from a clear-headed uncle - not necessarily what you want to hear, but when he says it, you know he's right. One of the things I particularly enjoyed about this book was that it reflects a solid value system that many people are saying has been entirely lost in the financial industry. Hopefully it's not as bad as all that, but even if it is, Ben Carpenter reminds us that being a professional is a set of behaviors and attitudes that should be taken seriously. At the same time, he describes his path in an engaging and often humorous way, making the reader see that anyone can apply himself to these ideas.
August 19, 2014
where was this 15 years ago!?
July 26, 2018
Excellent resource
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews