What to Do Next: Taking Your Best Step When Life Is Uncertain

Marketing consultant and former pastor Henderson (Know What You’re For) presents a ho-hum guide to plotting career changes. Henderson draws on his time in corporate marketing and the clergy to share lessons on “managing risk, discovering the strongest version of you, and how to build a life you enjoy” when contemplating a new career. Henderson illustrates his advice with anecdotes about how he left a lucrative marketing position at Chic-fil-A to launch a video church, and later walked away from the lead pastor role at Gwinnet Church in Atlanta to start a marketing consultancy. Providing sensible if predictable strategies for coping with the risk of leaving one’s job, the author advises readers to have a financial cushion in case the opportunity doesn’t work out and to maintain good relationships with one’s coworkers so that one can return to one’s former employer if needed. His recommendations for starting anew also trend toward the commonsensical and include networking, finding a successful figure to emulate, and converting “negative thought patterns into positive ones.” Other suggestions come across as out-of-touch and impractical, such as when he encourages readers to develop a “personal advisory board” made up of experienced professionals who will meet with the reader once every several weeks in exchange for a free meal. This will leave readers wanting. (Aug.)