Nobodies to Somebodies: How 100 Leaders in Business, Politics, Arts, Science, and Nonprofits Got Started

Many successful people were once just ordinary twenty-somethings. They had talents, but little or no experience. They had career interests, but few clear goals. They wanted to find work that would be both financially rewarding and personally fulfilling, but they didn’t know how. And they had to overcome all the uncertainty and obstacles of being a Nobody.

Entrepreneur and writer Peter Han became fascinated by how others found their true calling and made the journey from Nobodies to Somebodies. In search of the wisdom that comes from life experience, he interviewed 100 highly accomplished leaders in a wide range of fields about how they got their starts. Han’s interviewees included everyone from actors (John Lithgow) to CEOs (Craig Sturken) to Senators (Bill Bradley) to scientists (Peter Agre) to nonprofit heads (Wendy Kopp). They shared with him the paths they traveled, the hard choices they made, and the lessons they learned along the way. Nobodies to Somebodies can help anyone who’s eager to start (or restart) a deeply satisfying career.