The Adventures of Johnny Bunko – The last Career Guide You’ll ever need

I found this book when I just moved together with my boyfriend and I was unpacking the books and putting them in the bookshelf. When he saw me reading it then he told me that he bought it in a train station to have something to read and he found a little pearl.

The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The last career guide you'll ever need, from Daniel H. Pink is the only (at least the only one I know) management book that present its ideas in form of manga comic book. It was good for me because I wanted to recreate the habit of reading on the train instead of being on the phone checking out my Facebook wall all the time.

I don’t believe this book will give you an answer for your career problems, but is a very light way to make you think about some topics.

Johnny Bunko is an unhappy account that is stuck doing something he doesn’t like and have no talent for! If you are in the same situation you get to identified yourself with the miserable Johnny and that makes this comic become much more personal.

Life goes on, normal and boring as always until Johnny finds out a coach genie that helps him out to move on with his life and teach him the 6 golden rules.

Diana’s (the coach chopsticks genie) 6 essential rules for thriving in the world of work are:

     1. There is no plan.

I have some problems already with the first rule… Mainly because all my life I made plans and I always heard that a goal without a plan is a wish.

But what I think the author tries to explain is that almost everyone makes plans that one day we will make a certain dream come true and work for it. This dream can be a business that we want to open, a job change, a book we want to write or a garden we want to plant… At the end we make what other persons want us to do, parents, family, society and in the end we are stuck in a dead-end job.

Are you in a dead-end job?

(Check the post: Step-by step we achieve)

     2. Think strengths, not weakness

The meaning of this lesson is we should work in what we are good at rather than where we have to work on weaknesses.

In general I think so, that we should do a job that we at least are good at, for motivation proposes…

I could never be a professional marathon runner but in every job we need to dare to go a little bit further and try to make it or better or faster.

At my job, I have a hobby. And that is to make my work more efficient so I have more time to focus in learning other things.

     3. It's not about you.

With this one I agree 100%. Is not about you! Is everything about the team you are part.

     4. Persistence trumps talent.

“I've never viewed myself as particularly talented.

I've viewed myself as…slightly above average in talent. 

Where I excel is with a ridiculous, sickening work ethic.

While the other guy's sleeping, I'm working.

While the other guy's eating, I'm working.

While the other guy's making love, I mean, I'm making love, too, but I'm working really hard at it!”

Will Smith

     5. Make excellent mistakes.

I old dearly to all my mistakes. And I  made many that I’m ashamed of.

     6. Leave an imprint.

In the Bible, in the chapter Matthew 5 you can find something related with this lesson. If you are an atheist or from other religion just try to read it in a more neutral way.

Salt and Light

¹³ “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.

¹⁴ “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden.¹⁵ Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. ¹⁶ In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.

This book remembered me that we should make the questions we associate with the end of one’s life in our everyday life.

-       Did I waste my life?

-       Did I matter?

-       Did I live the fullest life I could have lived?

-       Did I travel enough?

-       Did I love enough?

-       Was I loved enough?....