The Butterfly Hunter: Adventures of People Who Found Their True Calling Way Off the Beaten Path

This is a book of case studies about ten people who are living their callings. I really love that it is not a self-help book, but a sort of "here's how to recognize a calling when you see it" book. It really gives me hope that one can find a calling, and it could be absolutely anything. I particularly loved the way the information built throughtout the book, with research on career, calling, jobs being incorporated and developed within each of the vignettes. I have recommended this book to at least 10 people since reading it, and plan to buy it for the local libraries. I highly recommend it as an alternative to books that give alot of advice about careers, etc. It really seems to affirm the idea that you have to go with what you love.

Chris Ballard is actually a family friend and I was lucky enough to meet him personally before I read his book. He is a great guy and his humorous personality really comes out in his writing. I started to read this book when I flipped it open to the chapter where Chris meets the "movie preview guy." After only a few pages I was hooked and read the whole thing cover to cover. Chris's character descriptions are what I looked forward to every chapter. The way he described people in a way that I had never read before was eye-opening, I wanted to know how he would describe me, what intersting traits would he pick out and examine. I am just starting college so I am on the beginning of my search for what I want to do in my life, this book gave me great insight to how some people have found thier dream job in unconventional ways. Not to say that I will drop out to become a butterfly hunter, but that I will pay close attention to my personality and choose a path that best suits it. I highly recommend this book.

This is a perfectly delightful book: Ballard's descriptions of his subjects and their offbeat careers are amusing and lively. But he clearly respects the people he writes about, no matter how eccentric some of their choices may seem, so I never got the sense that he was laughing *at* them -- they come across as well-rounded human beings whose common characteristic is a passion for the work they do. But the book isn't just a collection of interesting portraits. His main point (at least to me) is that what distinguishes a mere job from a "calling" is the worker's commitment to it. When asked, most of his subjects described their work not as "a job" but as "this is what I do." In some instances, a person took his/her passion and transformed it into a unique profession, while others are distinguished not so much by their line of work (e.g., industrial psychology, entomology) but by their individual "take" on it. Their stories will get you thinking about what YOU do, what relationship (if any) it has to your job, and whether there isn't a way you can make the two coincide.

As if I wasn't already feeling beaten down by my run of the mill job (i.e. - paper pusher, BA) with a Fortune 500 company, then I had to go and pick up The Butterfly Hunter. This book, as the subtitle states, is about careers found off the beaten path. Among them are: a dude who paints fake eyeballs, a chick who makes her living throwing axes and wielding the "hot saw," and a wheelchair-bound guru of placekicking. Fascinating folks, and Ballard relates their stories with warmth and humor. I wish he'd spent a little more time detailing his own career path (from door-to-door vacuum salesman to staff writer for Sports Illustrated) but other than that this book delivered 100%. The Butterfly Hunter hasn't inspired me to quit my job just yet, but it does have me listening a little harder for that true calling.