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Life in the World of Yomo
Have you become a prisoner of your own career? After reading this book you will learn the strategies of a very exclusive society: People who love their jobs and how they went about getting them.
Melissa Luke is a motivational speaker who not only trains corporations nationwide on how to increase employee morale and create better work environments but works to guide and inspire today's youth in finding careers they love. She holds a doctorate in management (DM) and currently resides between Denver, CO, and Seattle, WA, pretending to be an athlete.
Melissa Luke is a motivational speaker who not only trains corporations nationwide on how to increase employee morale and create better work environments but works to guide and inspire today's youth in finding careers they love. She holds a doctorate in management (DM) and currently resides between Denver, CO, and Seattle, WA, pretending to be an athlete.
136 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2012
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July 30, 2013
As the urban dictionary defines it, YOMO means You Only Meck Once. Okay, I get that. Melissa Luke’s book I almost get, although it seems a bit of a rehash of traditionally non-traditional up-by-the-bootstraps fare. In an easy to follow format, Luke dismantles the traditional path to success, happiness and the three martini lunch in favor of the jump off the cliff daredevil life of the serial entrepreneur. Don’t hang your hat on that college degree, she seems to be saying; take your hat, toss it over the wall and figure out how to climb over and retrieve it. If you can’t force yourself to take the road less traveled, stick asparagus up your nose, sip cyanide tea and see where that takes you.
The road map is clear enough: write down what you want; write down what you don’t; describe your best life; put down a money figure you’d be satisfied with; write down what your time is worth. This is all workable, viable, possibly even easy stuff that may very well assure success for those inclined to break out of a mold. Much of the strategy is based on deciding what doesn’t work, on deciding “what your YOMO is not,” and that’s too bad in a way, because, short as the book is, it never seems to put any meat on the bones. As a guide it’s great, and likely a great start when academia and/or retail don’t work to put potatoes on the table. But it seems like thin gruel for a young person looking for real assistance in figuring out a life path. Kinda like, “I took the road less traveled by, now where the hell am I?”
Perhaps what’s needed are case histories of the system at work, YOMOs who made it, at least some besides the author. Perhaps a bit less of the corporate boardroom discussion, the venture capital intricacy, and the bankruptcy talk, since those items seem pretty far along the spectrum for someone lacking lunch money. We must, after all, put up scaffolding before decorating the corner office.
If the intrepid job seeker/life changer truly throws caution to the winds there’s much to like in the book. Such new-agey concepts as guided imagery (wearing the Batman PJs to bed) reprogramming the brain to ‘think different,’ as Mr. Jobs said, and becoming painfully aware of one’s own limitations. Printer not working? Fly someone in from Chicago to plug it in! Melissa Luke is a motivational speaker and serial entrepreneur who sold candy bars to her classmates in grade school at a 200% markup. She doesn’t recognize ‘I can’t.’ That’s a good thing. The book resembles one of her platform orations, and that may be a bad thing. As my writing teachers used to say, it needs to be unpacked.
The book does offer good advice, and if followed, will give guidance on paths to success. Read it and decide for yourself what to do next. And maybe that’s the real message.
Byron Edgington, author of
The Sky Behind Me, a Memoir of Flying and Life
The road map is clear enough: write down what you want; write down what you don’t; describe your best life; put down a money figure you’d be satisfied with; write down what your time is worth. This is all workable, viable, possibly even easy stuff that may very well assure success for those inclined to break out of a mold. Much of the strategy is based on deciding what doesn’t work, on deciding “what your YOMO is not,” and that’s too bad in a way, because, short as the book is, it never seems to put any meat on the bones. As a guide it’s great, and likely a great start when academia and/or retail don’t work to put potatoes on the table. But it seems like thin gruel for a young person looking for real assistance in figuring out a life path. Kinda like, “I took the road less traveled by, now where the hell am I?”
Perhaps what’s needed are case histories of the system at work, YOMOs who made it, at least some besides the author. Perhaps a bit less of the corporate boardroom discussion, the venture capital intricacy, and the bankruptcy talk, since those items seem pretty far along the spectrum for someone lacking lunch money. We must, after all, put up scaffolding before decorating the corner office.
If the intrepid job seeker/life changer truly throws caution to the winds there’s much to like in the book. Such new-agey concepts as guided imagery (wearing the Batman PJs to bed) reprogramming the brain to ‘think different,’ as Mr. Jobs said, and becoming painfully aware of one’s own limitations. Printer not working? Fly someone in from Chicago to plug it in! Melissa Luke is a motivational speaker and serial entrepreneur who sold candy bars to her classmates in grade school at a 200% markup. She doesn’t recognize ‘I can’t.’ That’s a good thing. The book resembles one of her platform orations, and that may be a bad thing. As my writing teachers used to say, it needs to be unpacked.
The book does offer good advice, and if followed, will give guidance on paths to success. Read it and decide for yourself what to do next. And maybe that’s the real message.
Byron Edgington, author of
The Sky Behind Me, a Memoir of Flying and Life
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review