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You Have A Choice: Beyond Hard Work to Meaningful Impact
You’re a high achiever on a successful career path—but something’s missing. You have what many would consider to be a dream job, but you’re feeling miserable and headed towards burnout—working from dawn to midnight every day, drowning in emails and meetings.
You’re working hard, but it lacks meaning. You know something must change, but you feel stuck. How do you make a change without losing everything you worked for?
You have a choice.
Written by a former Google leader who redesigned his life to be more meaningful and impactful after burning out, this book will provide you with the tools you need to find a new path—one where you define what success means to you. You will learn how you are keeping yourself stuck and what you can do to create profound professional and personal transformation.
Complete with actionable exercises and inspiring stories collected from the author’s own experience and years of coaching successful executives and leaders, this book will help you make new choices that move you beyond working hard to meaningful impact.
You’re working hard, but it lacks meaning. You know something must change, but you feel stuck. How do you make a change without losing everything you worked for?
You have a choice.
Written by a former Google leader who redesigned his life to be more meaningful and impactful after burning out, this book will provide you with the tools you need to find a new path—one where you define what success means to you. You will learn how you are keeping yourself stuck and what you can do to create profound professional and personal transformation.
Complete with actionable exercises and inspiring stories collected from the author’s own experience and years of coaching successful executives and leaders, this book will help you make new choices that move you beyond working hard to meaningful impact.
216 pages, Paperback
Published November 6, 2023
27 people are currently reading
1303 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
May 3, 2024
Via Jf K. The tactical pieces of the book are more interesting to me, but I don’t need this book to inspire me to establish a better relationship with between me and what I do (work wise or else). — is this too harsh of a comment.
November 6, 2023
This is a practical book that will help you move out of any unhappy situation in your life and move towards a more fulfilling one.
The book does not offer any magic pill. But it comes close! There are structured questions/workbooks to improve self-awareness and frameworks/exercises to harness that awareness to make a change.
The book follows an organically flowing structure from awareness, to acceptance, to action, and aspiration. Nested within this structure is the format urging one to act: What isn’t working for you? How are you the problem? You have a choice.
It is written in everyday language. The concepts are grounded in philosophy, systems thinking, behavioral science, and psychology. The author shares their personal experiences as someone trying to get unstuck and the experiences of those whom they coach. The author also acknowledges their privilege and provides a check with every advice. Overall, the reading experience is more like a conversation with a wise mentor at a modern company, and NOT like millennial tech-bro advice or hippie mumbo-jumbo.
Highly recommend it.
This is a book to re-read, refer, and continually work with and remind you that: "Your life will change when you change your life."
The book does not offer any magic pill. But it comes close! There are structured questions/workbooks to improve self-awareness and frameworks/exercises to harness that awareness to make a change.
The book follows an organically flowing structure from awareness, to acceptance, to action, and aspiration. Nested within this structure is the format urging one to act: What isn’t working for you? How are you the problem? You have a choice.
It is written in everyday language. The concepts are grounded in philosophy, systems thinking, behavioral science, and psychology. The author shares their personal experiences as someone trying to get unstuck and the experiences of those whom they coach. The author also acknowledges their privilege and provides a check with every advice. Overall, the reading experience is more like a conversation with a wise mentor at a modern company, and NOT like millennial tech-bro advice or hippie mumbo-jumbo.
Highly recommend it.
This is a book to re-read, refer, and continually work with and remind you that: "Your life will change when you change your life."
November 6, 2023
This book helps to understand the choices we have to sculpt our lives and define personal success.
As an Engineering Manager with a passion for efficiency and precision, I appreciate the structured approach it takes to learning through experimentation and managing commitments effectively.
The exercises get you thinking, guiding you to look deeply at your life's trajectory and putting the focus on the choices that you already have.
For a coach, it's a treasure trove of insights, offering numerous ideas and aims to really define the choices and options in life.
It's like having a Coach by your side. I would highly recommend it to anyone looking for a new path in their life and not getting to the point of burnout.
As an Engineering Manager with a passion for efficiency and precision, I appreciate the structured approach it takes to learning through experimentation and managing commitments effectively.
The exercises get you thinking, guiding you to look deeply at your life's trajectory and putting the focus on the choices that you already have.
For a coach, it's a treasure trove of insights, offering numerous ideas and aims to really define the choices and options in life.
It's like having a Coach by your side. I would highly recommend it to anyone looking for a new path in their life and not getting to the point of burnout.
November 8, 2023
Okay, I might be a little biased here :)
This book is designed for people who are stuck because working harder isn't working for them. They have had success in their career but are blocked from further advancement, often because they are holding onto mindsets or behaviors that are keeping them in place. I redesigned my own life after burning out at Google in 2011, and now help leaders as an executive coach to find a new path forward. I wrote this book to share what I've learned with a wider audience, because I want to help more people than I can coach individually.
This book is designed for people who are stuck because working harder isn't working for them. They have had success in their career but are blocked from further advancement, often because they are holding onto mindsets or behaviors that are keeping them in place. I redesigned my own life after burning out at Google in 2011, and now help leaders as an executive coach to find a new path forward. I wrote this book to share what I've learned with a wider audience, because I want to help more people than I can coach individually.
March 30, 2024
"You're a high achiever on a successful career path-but something's missing" stirred my curiosity. The book talks nicely about how to think differently about work. In particular, it has a good question to ask when things bother you: "What if you are the problem? This can be followed by thinking about whether you have actively made a choice that causes this problem. The book has exercises and examples to get you thinking deeply about this. I really liked the early part of the book, but found the later parts less inspiring.
February 3, 2024
Inspiring, empathetic, practical.
January 18, 2024
I’ve been a big fan of the author’s LinkedIn posts for years. They always seemed to concisely summarize exactly what what I needed to hear. I was so excited to find out that he wrote his first book, and it did not disappoint. This seems to be targeted to overachieving workaholics. That’s a season I’ve experienced in the past, but not recently. Regardless of your circumstances, the book is loaded with tools for anyone who is ready to commit to meaningful change. This is more of a book to “do” than to “read”. It is filled with deeply introspective exercises resulting in practical steps to help you get unstuck regardless of what change you need to make. Do them! For me, the exercises took longer than the reading, and I envision this book as a more of a companion that I’ll revisit as circumstances change, as opposed to a one-time read. Highly recommended!
November 18, 2025
This book explores the concept of personal agency and the power of making conscious decisions in all aspects of life. The key takeaway is that individuals are always in control of their choices, even when we feel limited by external circumstances. Nehrlich emphasizes that recognizing this power of choice can lead to more intentional, meaningful, and fulfilled lives. The book encourages readers to take responsibility for our decisions and act in alignment with our values and goals, creating the life we truly want.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews