Amazon.ca:Customer reviews: Quitter

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on December 30, 2014

Recommended on the Dave Ramsey show... this was a good read for someone who is always dreaming of leaving their day job to start their own business. Kind of gives you an example of how to make the dream job work,(working for yourself) while not completely throwing in the towel on your day job.
As with any business venture, there will be sacrifices - pulling double shifts, getting paid at one job while working your dream job for free until you can get paid to do it.
A good book for the dreamer to see that 'escaping' can be possible - but a good reminder stay focused and not sink yourself before you get started... (tip your toe in before you take the plunge, prepare yourself so you don't lose the dream too.... )

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Joanne

Was a good buy.

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on September 7, 2019

Verified Purchase

It was bought as a gift.

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RK Hawkins

Poorly Written

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on June 22, 2013

Verified Purchase

I was disappointed in this book. It was written for the 30 something group, who is struggling in a job and family obligations, but has aspirations for something else. The only section of much merit was a part of a chapter on discovering your dream job/profession. The writing is uninspiring, in general poorly written, and I struggled to get to the end. It smacks of an author who has over reached himself in his own success and though it was on the Washington Post best seller list, I can only surmise that is because there are a lot of discontented people there.

One person found this helpful

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N. Horner

Practical help, & encouraging.

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on December 11, 2014

Verified Purchase

Great, practical advice for not only pursuing your dream job, but appreciating and valuing your current job, and all the benefits it affords for you.

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robc

Packed with wisdom and humility

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on July 22, 2020

Every now and then a book comes along that contains no fluffy hype and instead is packed with wisdom and humility. Quitter is one of these books.

These days it's normal to see a myriad of posts of LinkedIn making it sound cool to quit a day job. What all of these feel good posts neglect is that this is rarely practical, in fact it's often a terribly ill thought decision with huge negative consequences. But hey, as long as you can write that killer LinkedIn post in your pajamas and get congratulated by lots of people you don't know - it's all worth it...

The main theme of Quitter is how important your day job is, and that it plays a vital role in allowing you to move closer to your dream job. The practical advice the author providef from his own experience lays down a concise road map for the journey between your day job and your dream job.

This is a wonderful book and a very enjoyable read.

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Echo

Comedic, Intelligent and Easy read.

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on July 3, 2018

Jon is hilarious, knowledgeable and is thrilling to listen to via audible. He has on-going antidotes that have ailed/assisted in his life which are relatable and comedic. Quitter explains the capabilities that you possess along with why you have natural hold-ups and reservations. Great read/listen!

Helpful

P. Worsley-Brown

great

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on November 29, 2011

This is an excellent book giving practical advice on how to move into a career that you were designed for. Great service Amazon.

Helpful

S.R.V.

A Kick in the Tail

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 15, 2011

Verified Purchase

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)

7 people found this helpful

TNeal/Ellen

Quitter

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 3, 2011

Verified Purchase

I had plenty of preconceived ideas when I opened Quitter: Closing the Gap Between Your Day Job & Your Dream Job by Jon Acuff.

I figured Jon would offer me information I could have used five years ago when I did quit my day job (actually evening job--I worked 2nd shift at a windowless factory, ugh!). And he did help me gain perspective on what I should have done five years ago.

I also figured he would write well. My single exposure to his writing came when he wrote as a guest-blogger on Michael Hyatt's website. His style engaged and his advice proved practical. Both would be true in Quitter as well.

The first chapter though burst my strongest preconceived idea which was that Jon would polish my dream, not knock the glitter off of it. Oh, he'd get around to polishing later but, in chapter one, he focused on reasons to stay with the day job, not quit it.

And from page one to "The End," Jon pulls the reader from a walk in the clouds to a journey in the real world. He doesn't do this to kill our dreams but to help us live them. Let me repeat myself here.

Jon pulls us out of the clouds.

He puts us on firm ground.

He doesn't kill our dreams (although they may get a bit bloodied).

He helps us to live them.

Jon's practical advice begins with chapter one's title: "Don't Quit Your Day Job." Why not? Because your day job funds your dream job. It pays the bills and frees you to spend time grooming that dream. Your day job allows you time to make mistakes (which will happen no matter what your dream), learn, and improve at what you really love to do.

Quitter helped me refocus on my personal dream--to write stories and be published--and gave me clarity on the steps I need to take to realize that dream. Jon's advice straightened my meandering journey (visualize a river running through hill country) into a more direct, purposeful path. Only time will tell whether his lessons prove effectual or not. I believe success or failure rests now squarely on my shoulders.

Here are a few thoughts I gleaned from my reading of Quitter. Let me add that these are my words, not Jon's. Any similarity to his actual meaning in anything he wrote is a pure shot-in-the-dark-oh-my-goodness-I-hit-something accident.

Living your dream isn't the same as winning the lottery. If your dream is to quit your day job, buy a house where the daily weather report involves only the strength and direction of the wind, sit and watch sunsets (because you're never up early enough to catch a sunrise), drink a lot of your preferred beverage, and write that burning-in-your-soul novel, then I offer you two bits of advice.

Dream on, big boy.

Don't read Quitter.

Living your dream involves real work. If you're like me, you thought that your dream job meant you did what you wanted when you wanted. It didn't eat up a lot of your time or thought so you could...er...um...well...sit in a big house by the beach and drink your favorite beverage (yeah, I know, this sounds a lot like point one above, but you'll notice subtle but obvious differences--like shorter descriptions).

Living your dream involves three things. Passion. Practice. Planning. Pretty much in that order (and those are Jon's thoughts, if not his exact words, in chapter 5, "Wait on the Main Stage").

Look. Here's the bottom line. I liked Quitter well enough to recommend it to friends and strangers alike, maybe even buy a copy or two for family, loan my copy out (but only if you promise to read it and get it back to me in the next 72 hours), and--here's the big one--reread the book and apply its advice personally.

God bless & good reading,

Tom

T. Neal Tarver
author of "Dark Eyes, Deep Eyes"
[...]

One person found this helpful

Kendal Brian Hunter

Dreamers, Awake!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 2, 2011

Verified Purchase

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.

4 people found this helpful

5 star		65%
4 star		21%
3 star		9%
2 star		4%
1 star		1%

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