Skip to main content

What Should I Do With My Life? by Po Bronson

Po Bronson's What Should I Do with My Life? is a difficult to describe book. Calling it a book about careers would be an oversimplification. But yet it's partly that. Calling it a life-coaching book also oversimplifies, but it's partly that too.

It's unlike anything I've ever read, and yet it inspired me and--encouraged me--like few books ever have.

Bronson, who traveled all over the country seeking out subjects for this book, builds his story around several dozen people who struggle with "the question." There's almost every sort of person here: old, young, smart, dumb, confident, insecure, emotional, analytical, rich, poor, failures, successes. Bronson paints by anecdote, choosing everyday people, and the result is an insightful and textured portrait of how people go about figuring out what to do with their lives.

Some of Bronson's subjects can't figure out their passions. Some of them know exactly what their passions are, but they feel too fearful or too undeserving to reach for them. And some were absolutely certain of their passions--until they pursued them and found out their passions weren't what they thought they'd be. Bronson is unflinching, candid and honest about each person's path, and when you read these various short tales of how people grapple with their lives, you'll learn the right questions to ask to help you grapple with your own life.

Finally, the most inspiring and encouraging thing about What Should I Do With My Life? is the book's fundamental truth: You are not alone in struggling with this critically important question. Almost everyone finds that the answer isn't always what we think it is.

Highly, highly recommended.



Reading List for What Should I Do with My Life?
NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman
Bombardiers by Po Bronson
The First $20 Million is Always the Hardest by Po Bronson
The Nudist on the Late Shift: And Other True Tales of Silicon Valley by Po Bronson
The End of History and the Last Man by Francis Fukuyama

More Posts

The Prophet of Edan by Philip Chase [The Edan Trilogy #2]

We all have our part to play and our duty to perform. This is a beautiful novel about performing your duty with honor, even in the face of almost certain failure. Author Philip Chase has an unusual gift for telling a compelling story, and The Prophet of Edan works on two levels: on the individual level, with characters we care about and root for, and on the grand, civilizational level, where entire nations  hurl themselves at each other in a desperate war of survival. And the geopolitical dramas in Philip's world of Eormenlond are downright Kissingerian --with betrayal, realpolitik and honor, all in equal measure. Now, any story with a large cast and a lot of moving parts presents the author with a structural challenge: how do you help the reader keep everybody and everything straight, but yet do it in a way that's organic to the story? After all, this is the second part of a trilogy,  and a lot happened in Book I . So I'll share an example here of what this author does,...

Godel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter

A wonderful, beautiful work. Ask me about it, and I'll start nattering at you about sphex wasps, fugues, isomorphisms and "jumping out of the system." And my voice will trail off and you'll see me get a faraway look in my eyes. It's actually quite difficult to describe what this book is about--at least, impossible to describe in a few short sentences. [1] But there are so many ways to read Godel, Escher, Bach , and such a wide range of ideas and insights one can get out of it, that it becomes a different book for every reader. And let me confess, if you haven't read GEB  yet, I am jealous of you. [A quick  affiliate link to Amazon  for those readers who would like to support my work here: if you purchase your Amazon products via any affiliate link from this site, or from my sister site  Casual Kitchen , I will receive a small affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. Thank you!] First of all this book can be understood on many levels. You can read it a...

The Investor's Manifesto by William J. Bernstein

In just under 200 pages, The Investor's Manifesto gives you everything you need to manage your investments: * A historically grounded discussion of the tradeoffs between risk and return, * How to design an investment portfolio using index funds, including advice on withdrawal rates and how (and how often) to rebalance, * A good discussion of human psychological biases (the author uses the wonderful phrase "investing psychopathology" to describe this topic), and * How to navigate the financial services industry without getting your head handed to you. Finally, there's a chapter that summarizes everything, followed by a solid reading list for continuing your investment education, broken down by topic: theory, history, psychology, and business. Anyone wanting to reach a reasonable competence level in investing should read at least one of William Bernstein's books. This one or The Four Pillars of Investing  will suffice. Since he's not a Wall Street guy--he's...