Quitter: Closing the Gap Between Your Day Job and Your Dream Job

The only reason I didn't give this book five stars is because it made me feel like a big dumb jerk a lot. Okay. Fine. I revised my rating. I went back and changed it to five stupid stars. After all, it's not Acuff's fault that I've had such a sucky attitude toward non-dreamy employment. It's mine. Go Jon, yay. But seriously... God's been working on me about my attitudes toward my dream, my job, my expectation of spousal provision, and the financial irresponsibility of pursuing my dreams as I've been pursuing them, for several months now. This book came along at the right time for me: a time of decision; a time when going from part-time to full-time at my job has become not only an opportunity, but a necessity. I needed this book. So thanks God, for inspiring it, thanks Jon, for writing it, and thanks, Alan, for blessing me with it. Although the message of QUITTER hit me pretty hard in some areas, it also reasserted some of the truths God has been impressing upon me these past months. But it wasn't all a butt-kicking festival. This book also encouraged me. It drove home the truth that the dreams which drive and fulfill me creatively don't have to be sacrificed at the alter of necessity -- they just have to be pursued with wisdom, rather than with irresponsible abandon. I've been a dreamer and a planner of dreams all my life. Unfortunately, my "plans" -- if you could call them that -- involved a lot of dreamy pinnacle points and not a lot of grit. (Sometimes, my pinnacle points even included bright flashing lights, sequins, and a groovy soundtrack. Yes, they were awesome. But.... Hmm. Maybe I watched a bit too much DANCE FEVER as a kid. Whatever.)In any case, my grandiose plans for achieving my dreams gave little credence to the meat-in-the-middle that feeds the journey toward the dream. I was willing to work my butt off on the dream but I wanted to work on ONLY the dream. I resented my part-time job because it took time away from my writing. I resented my bills. I resented my house. I resented the orthodontist. I was carrying around so much resentment and festering with such a sense of righteous entitlement (because I am so talented and unappreciated, you know) that it constipated my dreams. I hit the wall with my writing. I began having anxiety attacks. I was poisoning myself ad nauseum. My dreams were inflated and anorexic at the same time. And, because I was chasing them irresponsibly,well, I guess you could say my dreams needed to pass some gas. (Wow. I really didn't intend to use bathroom metaphor when I began this review. Huh.Does that mean I'm full of... bathroom stuff??? Maybe. But stick with me here.) So between God's nudging and Jon Acuff's book, QUITTER, a can of reality beans was cracked open in my heart and it kicked me (and my sucky attitude toward my day job)in the tail. Luckily, I was alone most of the time while I was reading. So... is this a book for writers? Yes. And anyone else who has ever dreaded their day job or dreamed a dream. So read it already. But -- and pay attention here -- I recommend reading the first four or so chapters individually -- not more than a chapter a day. Take time to really think about and soak in how this applies to you and your dream. Eat your reality beans, digest them, and set them free, as it were, in small doses. You may want to read ahead, but don't give in to the temptation. If you, like me, need to smell the stink you've made with the attitudes you've held toward your day job before you can appreciate the all-you-can-eat Texas Roadhouse steak buffet of your dreams in motion,then this book is best read slowly, over the course of a week or two-- or more. This is a great book. It's a challenging and encouraging book; a great addition to your home library and a great book to hand out to a friend who is unhappy in his/her current job. Perspective is a beautiful thing. And I am now happy that, although I have mentally typed my resignation numerous times over the past 18 months, most days I can now smile, fall in like with my job, and say to myself, "My job funds my dream." (Jon Acuff, QUITTER)

I heard about this book while attending the Dave Ramsey Financial Peace University - not because it's my dream to be more financially sound, but because I have a dream that I want to follow. Jon Acuff works with Dave Ramsey, and there are a lot of references to him in the book. Jon Acuff writes a very enjoyable and thoughtful book on pursuing your dream. I thought he made an incredibly wise choice with his first chapter in which he instructs the reader to NOT quit their job...just yet. In Quitter, Jon Acuff does more than tell the reader to reach for the stars, he explains how the reader can change their life by making changes to their mindset. We all dream about just quitting our job and diving into our dream 110% and then being happy, but Jon grounds us...he reminds us that we have bills to pay and commitments. Kinda hard to pay your bills with "my dream is close to becoming a reality!" I really enjoyed Jon's wit and wisdom and I felt myself nodding in agreement at many of the frustrations that he faced on his route to his dream. Some complaints that I've seen about this book say that it doesn't actually tell you how to follow your dream...well that couldn't be further from the truth. True, there is no "do this, this, and then this, and you'll be happy" chapter. Rather, Jon shows us how the reality of the world must be married to our dream or else both will come crashing in on us. There's nothing romantic about being a literal starving artist. Jon explains how you can have success in pursuing your dream. I won't give away all the ideas - that wouldn't be fair to the author - but his ideas are rooted in being responsible, working hard, and figuring out exactly what our dreams are and what we can do to achieve them. For the complaints that this is not a "get your dream quick" book...Jon lays it out quite clearly...maybe you will achieve your dream when YOU are actually ready for it. You can't go from playing softball at the office party to hitting 40 homeruns in the MLB overnight, can you? That stuff doesn't actually happen. You can meet smaller challenges and build up the knowledge, skills, and abilities while staying in your job until you have everything you need in place. There are also complaints that this is a book for writers. That's not true either; Jon simply uses his experiences of blogging and writing to provide insight into pursuing your dream. While I haven't yet reached my dream, I definitely feel in a much better place to reach it. This book is full of wisdom, not just for getting to your dream, but for improving your life and figuring out what is really important. In summation, if you feel like you should be doing something completely different with your life, and your job is just a means to pay the bills, then this book is for you. You'll learn a lot from this book about how to get there.

The sad reality to the whole thing is that if you need someone to motivate you to pursue your "DREAM", then it really wasn't your "dream" to begin with. Your life's dream is something that has been eating away at you since your youth. You've picked away at it and looked for ways to get into "doing it" for most of your life. Someone to give you hints or direction on HOW to go about entering your dream as a career? Yes. Someone to motivate you to pursue your dream? No...if you aren't being eaten away with a burning desire for your dream then it's not your dream. It might be what you think you wish your dream was...but it's not your dream. No one has to convince you to love your dream. Whatever you gravitate toward, whatever you fantasize about through out the day, whatever you pretend to be or do when you are in private...that's your dream. You already want to do it; you just need to get organized about doing it. If found this book contain a good bit of wisdom about how to make your dream a reality without ended up sleeping under a bridge and begging at the traffic light in the process. While this book seems appropriate for adults, I think this would be a great book for teens and 20-somethings. I wish I'd had a book like this when I was that age. Most young guys are ready to live like Jewel Kiltcher did in the early 90's before she became famous. She was allegedly flat broke and lived in her car for several years while she strummed the guitar and wrote songs. Eventually, she was noticed and ended up with a hit album on the radio--BUT--that was actually a foolish way to pursue her dream. No safe housing, no medical insurance, no surplus funds to get her through a bad time, etc. By contrast, Madonna held a fulltime job working as a waitress in a restaurant in NYC while she pursued her music career. This book offers wisdom more in keeping with the latter story. Because the reality is that life marches on and as long as you are alive, there are costs of living. You have to be able to meet those costs if you expect to survive until you get where you're going. In my opinion, any parents who have teenagers who dream of being rock stars, movie stars, or inventors should give this book to their kids. While the suggestions in this book aren't NEW, ground breaking revelations to mankind, they are presented in an easy-to-understand way and they are helpful. Personally, I found the book to be a good read, offered some wise suggestions, and was worth my time. Not sure I can say the same for Acuff's other books.

I have read two books recently that had great impacts on my day to day outlook on my job and on life. One of those is Quitter by Jon Acuff. Author of the blog, Stuff Christians Like, and the book of the same name, Acuff takes his readers through his journey of establishing his popular blog and how he ended up with what he describes as his dream job as a writer and speaker. In doing so, he presents a guide to fulfilling our true callings in life. Although it may appear so, the book is not merely a how-to manual for creating a successful blog or writing a best selling book. Quitter is a handy guide to fulfilling life-long dreams by challenging misconceptions of dream chasing, providing realistic (and proven) advice, and highlighting potential road blocks to reaching one's potential. I recommend this book to anyone wondering if they are doing what they were truly called to do or contemplating making a dramatic occupational shift to chase a known dream. Acuff argues that although quitting one's job to pursue a dream might seem like an obvious step, the stability, predictable income, and other job related benefits make keeping that job a smarter choice for reaching the ultimate objective. He makes this argument successfully by providing first hand examples of how is own decisions to stay at his job (even when presented with "dream like" alternate options) paved the way for even better opportunities down the road. The book covers several key areas: why you should keep your day job, identifying your dream job, potential challenges to your dream job, how your day job (and hard work) can help you reach your dream job, and challenges you'll likely face as you start to see success moving towards your dream job. Each chapter includes helpful anecdotes from Acuff's own journey and also include potential questions or checklists to guide the way. Some of the questions I found most helpful were those related to identifying my own "hinge moments," which Acuff describes as key moments in one's life that help point towards a dream job. The questions were enlightening, and they reconfirmed and clarified my own understanding of what I am called to be. Additionally, while encouraging throughout the book, Acuff continually reminds the reader to think pragmatically by highlighting potential challenges. These not only include obvious issues like paying bills, balancing work, family, and the dream, but he also includes discussion on timing your choices, setting boundaries, and even the risks of success. If there was room for improvement I would suggest providing more perspective on dream jobs than just those pursuing their 'dream blog' or 'dream book.' Because Acuff's experience is in this arena, a great majority of the discussion tilts this way. Thus, in future editions, it would be great to see call out boxes of non-publishing related dream job success stories. Overall, however, I highly recommend this book. It was a refreshing look at pursuing personal goals without the egotistical, everyone-else-be-damned style of The Four Hour Work Week, which I hope to review soon.

I finished reading the book Quitter by Jon Acuff this past weekend and loved it. In this book Jon Acuff takes the reader through his own journey of finding his Dream job, while offering very useful and practical advice for pursuing your own personal dream job. In typical Jon Acuff fashion you will laugh yourself though chapters and finish them saying, "Whoa... I needed to hear that". Jon Challenges the "I'm a ______, but I want to be ______." mentality by providing the reader with sound advice that can be taken to move forward in your own dreams. Jon challenges the "jump first" mentality that is common when discussing pursuing your dream job. Instead he proposes that you "fall in like" with a job you don't necessarily want to do your whole life so that you can use it as a launch pad for your dream job. He reminds the reader that it's a lot easier to pursue a dream and see it flourish when you can pay the bills, have a place to live and can put food on the table. He also does a great job of providing the reader with a transparent look at what pursuing a dream job means for families. He wraps up the book talking about hustle. I loved this quote: "If you're ailing in one portion of your life, it tends to infect the other portions. If there's poison in a glass of water, no one says, "Be careful, the middle of that water is poisoned." The same principle applies to your work. Bad employees make horrible dreamers. You can't loaf on your day job all week and then expect to magically throw the switch on the weekend and hustle on your dream. The things you do on your day job tend to follow you home." Throughout this book Jon Acuff does a great job of providing the reader with wisdom and advice that encourages the reader to pursue their dream job. This book is not a "three step guide to getting a dream job"; there is no secret formula. Pursuing your dream job will take passion, hustle, patience and resolve. This book will rekindle your dreams and will put you on course chasing your dream job. I would recommend it to any and everyone who has a dream! *** You can find this book review on my website as well [...] ***

I had really high hopes for Jon Acuff's book, "Quitter" based on the reviews as well as the write-ups from the publisher. Being in the midst of trying to find what our dream jobs are, I order this book to read out loud to my husband in the hopes that it would help us in our quest to do what we love. I want to say right off the bat that Acuff has some GREAT ideas and ways of thinking about following your dreams while paying the bills. There were questions and points that he brought up in the very first chapter that created interesting and thought-provoking discussions later on in our home. He writes with a sense of humor and is quite honest about his career of quitting and in sharing what he learned along the way. These are the good points of the book. However, the reason I'm giving it 3 stars (and that's a stretch) is because of the writing style and lack of editing. The book is riddled with incomplete sentences, hanging thoughts due to lack of commas, and unclear points. There have been several times when I was reading it to my husband and gotten to the end of a sentence, only to realize that I had put the emphasis in the wrong place because there was a lack of punctuation guidance - and it totally changed the meaning and thought of Acuff's point. I've read a few of Acuff's blog posts, and perhaps he wanted his book to read like a blog, but it's driving me nuts. I hate the fact that his excellent points are lost because of poor editing. He continually talks about how he knew since childhood that he was a writer. Well, a writer he may be, but behind every great writer is a team of excellent editors and proof-readers to clean up his/her thoughts. Either his team stinks, or he ignores what they say because "he is a writer" and knows best. At any rate, it has put a sour note on the whole book for me as it is not a pleasant reading experience. I honestly hate it for Acuff and his book, because there are a lot of great ideas in "Quitter", but perhaps a second edition with some editing will help make those points a bit clearer. In the meantime, it might help to send Lynne Truss's book, Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation to Acuff and his editing team.

"Start where you are. Start with what you have. Start today." - Jon Acuff, "Quitter" These are the final words of the book, "Quitter." These words sum up this book beautifully. Though when I started the journey to read this book, I was wondering if this book even applied to me. Yet, I began to drink it up like life-giving water itself. As a stay-at-home-mom who homeschools her preschooler, blogs five days a week, is in the process of working (more like struggling) to get my first draft of my first book out, and looking to hit the books again this coming fall in college, I find myself at times asking myself the resounding question, "Do I really work?" This book has helped me realize just how much I work now, and how much value I do have. Now that latter part may seem a bit blasphemous to some degree - and against everything I normally blog about here concerning our value is found in Christ alone - but it isn't. Jon writes from the heart, and I can tell through his writing that it is a heart that is truly rooted in Christ. This book helped confirm the value I have already found in Christ not that long ago. It helped me realize that my value as a: - Wife - Mom - Friend - Student - Writer and Blogger - Ministry Leader - Etc... ...was completely going unnoticed in the reflection I saw in the mirror every morning I awoke. I deeply value this book, for it truly addresses the heart of Jon's message concerning dreams and chasing them. It matters not if you're simply a stay-at-home-parent (even dad's), or someone who is a mighty CEO of a major corporation; dreams matter - and they matter to God. He instills them inside of us for a purpose and reason - and it isn't shameful to embrace a title in our lives. You truly never know the power God will use through someone else's life to inspire your own (God is using Jon to truly affect my life in a deeply inspirational way), and it is not a negative (nor idolatry) to keep our inspirations within our views. God is using this man [in my life] through his blogs, and through this very book (amidst his other two, of which I am a proud owner of), to keep me motivated and inspired to keep pressing on toward the dream God placed in my heart - for His purpose, not my own (or anyone else's). I've found the heart of "Quitter" is to motivate you to go for the dream God has placed in your heart despite all the broken, shattered life that surrounds you - and I highly recommend this book to everyone; especially those who truly want to "change their stars." (refer to the movie A Knights Tale)

Governor Ronald Reagan. I'll get back to the Gipper in a second. The think I appreciate most about John Acuff's book is that he is close to his breakthrough point that he still clearly--very clearly--remembers the necessary early grunt work. In fact, this book should be read in parallel with Stephen King's " On Writing: 10th Anniversary Edition: A Memoir of the Craft " Acuff had to wedge in his early blogging before doing his cubical job in the same way that King monotonously typed in horror stories, and ceremoniously--and cathartically--impaled his rejection letters on a handy spike. In both cases, there is a lot of "in the dark" preparatory work to be done before we enter the limelight. Before he was president, Reagan was a governor. And before he was a governor, he was a speaker on the "mashed potato" circuit. And before that, he was president of the Screen Actors Guild ( Governor Reagan: His Rise To Power and Reagan, Man of Principle and The Education of Ronald Reagan: The General Electric Years and the Untold Story of His Conversion to Conservatism (Columbia Studies in Contemporary American History) ). Which bring up another point of his. Acuff quietly slays the boogeyman of the Plan Myth. Or, better yet, the Master Plan Myth. Successful people do not have a micromanaged cosmic checklist that leads to success. As he explains it, the three keys are Passion, Practice, and Plan (Chapter 5). The passion is who we are, "the being." Practice is "the doing," or refining our craft, networking, marketing, etc. So it is not so much following a plan, as is preparation for unforeseen opportunities. As Jim Collins says, "try a lot of stuff and keep what works" ( Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies ). As an aspiring author ( Consider My Servant Job ), I have intuited many of Acuff's ideas. The Day Job provides money, stability, and a base of operations for our quixotic dream-quests. Success comes in the margins. A writer is someone who writes. Think incrementally, experiment, and get the flywheel going ( Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't ). So this book was more of an affirmation than revelation. So I do recommend it. And get Dan Miller's books 48 Days to the Work You Love: Preparing for the New Normal and No More Mondays: Fire Yourself--and Other Revolutionary Ways to Discover Your True Calling at Work (Christian Edition) . Keep your chin up. Look at the Sky . There is hope. And Acuff's light the early "baby steps" involved in waking up to your dream job. Two more points. One, the style is Dave Berry. I personally dislike this approach. Aside from violating Strunk and White canon ("place yourself in the background," "do not affect a breezy manner"), I do not find it funny, but grating. Even so, the Barryesque approach is not "offbeat" (another Strunk and White canon), and works with many people. And, pleasingly, Acuff's own style emerges as the book progresses. Secondly, this book is published by the Lampo Group, Dave Ramsey's imprint (The Total Money Makeover: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness). So expect the same philosophy that you find from the financier of Nashville. Sound advice, straight-up opinion, good advice, and not-so-veiled Christianity.

Das Buch Quitter, welches mir den Weg zeigen will von meinem Tagesjob zu meinem Traumjob, beginnt damit: Kündige nicht! Oder wenigstens noch nicht. Jon Acuff hat Erfahrung damit, falsch zu kündigen. Von der Einladung zu einem Nachtessen für seinen Chef, um die schlechte Nachricht zu überbringen, bis zum ins Büro geworfenen Fresszettel mit anschliessender Flucht hat er alles durchgezogen. Doch das Buch endet nicht dort. Es zeigt auf, wie ich mit Geduld und Hartnäckigkeit auf die richtige Art von einer Beschäftigung, welche mich ernährt, zum Traum meines Lebens komme. Absolut lesenswert. Klar und in einfachem Englisch geschrieben, lohnt es sich für jeden, der sich Gedanken macht, ob nicht mehr am Leben sei als "Working 9 to 5, what a way to make a living". Kindle: Quitter Buch: Quitter: Closing the Gap Between Your Day Job & Your Dream Job

Well worth buying, this book stopped me in my tracks and made me change direction - for the better. Full of down-to-earth advice. Highly readable and recommended.

Excellent read giving me a good perspective on how to work towards independence while keeping a ft job.

The concepts are always on point and applicable.

The most helpful book about defining and following your dreams that I have yet met. Clear and wise advice given in an easy to read and chatty manner. Thanks Jon.