Read the book review of Leap: How 3 simple changes can propel your career from good to great by Rick Smith on Amazon

There are tons of these books out there…how to find the career you want and love your life. Some are full of nonsense. This one makes sense. The book starts out telling us to find our “primary color” or best fit. Good advice, but I kept reading wondering if there is an easy way to do this. Rick Smith provides a free online test that helps with this part. So I went online and found my color. Now what?

The book then moves into what makes changes work, and here is where things do get interesting. Smith suggests that break-away ideas, career leaps incorporate three elements: they are big, selfless and simple. The book is full of believable examples, though I have to admit I was still not sold. What idea am I supposed to come up with, and where do I get it?

The last part of the book holds the unique message. Smith tracks the path of career-leaps with an interesting twist. Success does not come from leaping blindly into the night, but from use a spark sequence to get them going. This might mean working half-time at an old job for stability and half-time at a new one to try it out, or perhaps volunteering to test a job for a fit. The sequence means we educate ourselves, experiment with a new situation, and then turn our experience into a new life. This makes sense, and is actually something that makes me think differently about life change. Not just a toe in the water, but also not a dive from the high board.

Finally, Smith takes some time to talk about happiness and life changes. I love this quote “Winning is trying and failing. Winning is finding your own lily pad, your own definition of success, your own rules of happiness. Wining, in a word, is variance, not conformity.”

I recommend this book to anyone feeling stuck in a career or job. I also recommend this to people just starting to look for jobs, as well as to career counselors.

Elisa Robyn, author of Pirate Wisdom