Richard Nelson Bolles on Finding Your Mission

The author of What Color Is Your Parachute? explains how to figure out what you really want to do and then devise a way to do it

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January 4, 2001 at 5:00 AM UTC

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Back in the early '90s, the Library of Congress came up with a list of 25 books that, it declared, "have shaped readers' lives." The Catcher in the Rye made the cut, as did To Kill a Mockingbird and Little Women. And there, No. 24 on the alphabetical list, was the only business book of the bunch: What Color Is Your Parachute? A Practical Manual for Job-Hunters and Career-Changers by Richard Nelson Bolles.

Bolles, an Episcopal minister, self-published Parachute back in 1970 to give career tips to fellow ministers who were losing their jobs on college campuses. Publisher Ten Speed Press picked up the title two years later. Today the book is in its 31st edition, with more than 6 million copies in print. It still remains on many best-seller lists (including Business Week's) and is available in 10 languages.