My Books
I wrote two popular career books that, combined, have been read over 200,000 times.
Click the books to view on Amazon
Play It Away: A Workaholic’s Cure for Anxiety
This book is the blueprint for people who are dealing with burnout from high-stress jobs (entrepreneurs, executives, soldiers, lawyers, students). I decided to publish this after an essay I wrote called How I Cured My Anxiety became the #1 result on Google for the search “cure anxiety” (with zero SEO or promotion). Hundreds of thousands of people read the article, and I received more than a thousand individual requests to turn it into a book.
In February 2014, Play It Away hit #1 in Stress Management on Amazon, got featured on Fast Company and Tim Ferriss’ blog, and was called “the cure to your stress” by Tony Robbins.
Actual Reader Feedback
This book really hit home, opened my eyes and lifted a huge weight. Several “Eureka!” moments. Life-changing stuff. I’m ready to play again!!! – Todd Lincoln
Living on the road for the better part of seven years representing and speaking for Tony Robbins landed me in the hospital… adrenals burnt out.. depressed, poor digestion, and miserable. It was pretty hard to be a “motivational speaker” when I was actually dying on the inside. Charlie’s book serves as a great reminder to enjoy life more… and also provides the necessary “how to” information and practical..not just conceptual advice to enjoy life more and be more productive. Highly recommend this book to anyone who is busy and wants to enjoy their life more. – Eli Wilhilde
I’m serious when I say it: Charlie’s topic is awesome. It’s been the biggest development in my professional work… ever. – Peter Shallard, The Shrink for Entrepreneurs
I had been interested in this girl at work for a bit and wanted to see her outside of work to see if we could take it to the next level. Instead of the overused go to a bar/restaurant and drown your anxieties in alcohol, I decided to take a page right from your book. I knew she liked the outdoors and had mentioned being athletic so I invited her to go to a big park and throw around the aerobie disc (awesome suggestion, so much fun). It was the perfect get to know someone date mixing sunshine, moving, laughing, and fun. From there we decided to make dinner (also in the book) which gave us a chance to interact on a different level and build something together. It worked out because we started officially dating the next morning! Can’t thank Charlie enough for the book and I keep it on my Kindle’s front page to go back to it every few months for a reminder to keep things fun. – Austin
Play It Away changed the way I see things. It’s changed my life. School doesn’t seem as hard anymore. I’m not as uncomfortable around people as I used to be. I still get anxious sometimes, but I don’t have panic attacks. Thank you for sharing your story. – Kinnedy Keating
I tried some of your techniques and in just two days I can see a massive progress within myself. Thank you and god bless you. – Mahesha Goonesekere
Recession Proof Graduate
I struggled to find meaningful work — or any work — after getting out of school. I graduated in 2008 — during the worst economy in 80 years — and spent my days spamming my resume to hundreds of companies I didn’t want to work for… and never hearing back. It was exhausting.
When I changed my strategy, I landed a handful of dream gigs, got to work with amazing people like Tim Ferriss and Ramit Sethi, and found myself turning down multiple paid job offers. Best of all, I was getting paid to work on projects that made me come alive. It was a far cry from the days of begging for soul-crushing work. People kept asking how I did it, so I wrote this free guide on how to use free work to land your dream job.
Recession Proof Graduate has been featured on Harvard Business Review, NPR TED Radio Hour, and Seth Godin’s blog. The book has been read by more than 150,000 people, given away as a graduation present, translated to Italian and Spanish, and used as course material at universities and high schools around the world.
Actual Reader Feedback
This guide is worth far more than any course you will take at school this year. – The Remarkable Student
This ebook is basically the magna carta that should be handed to every recent graduate. It should actually be given to everybody! – Nishant Mehrotra
It very well may become today’s solution for anyone unable to get an internship or job in this economy. – Identified
A must read for everyone who is going to be working in today’s job market- not just college grads… Charlie Hoehn is talking to you. And he sounds like the voices (of reason) in the back of your head. – Mental Makeup
I STRONGLY advocate Charlie Hoehn’s method. – Ryan Holiday, director of marketing for American Apparel, bestselling author of ‘Trust Me, I’m Lying’
You may have never heard of Charlie Hoehn, but consider him your new job search mentor. – Kathy Ver Eecke
Looking back, if I knew where RPG would get me today, I would have easily paid $50 for it, maybe more. And I’m a cheap f-ing person. – Joe Antenucci
If this doesn’t convince you that the ‘job’ game has changed, then I don’t know what will. This 30 page eBook gives you more value than most 300 page books do. – Ryan O’Laughlin
30 pages of thinking outside the box for landing a job, and not just any job, a job you actually like… It feels very much like a prequel to The 4-Hour Workweek. – Sassy Women Online
Passionate and fresh… Charlie tells it like it is and outlines how you can overcome adversity regardless of the economy. – My Wife Quit Her Job
Charlie Hoehn is a genius. After applying his methodology, I made friends with people I admired, and got job offers left and right. – Stepan
Recession-Proof Graduate made a big impact on me. After following the suggestions in it, I had a number of doors open up for me that would probably have not done so otherwise. – David Crandall
I read it within a half hour and have thought about it every day since… I interviewed with a photographer on Tuesday and we really hit it off. She hired me on the spot… I’m beyond excited for what the future may hold. I don’t know if this is what I’m going to do with the rest of my life, but I do know that this brings me one step closer. And, to think, I owe it all to an e-book! – Jennifer Noland
Charlie Hoehn has written a beautifully designed ebook that may change the way you think about [internships]. His argument is that ‘free work’ is something else entirely. It’s done as a freelancer, remotely, without direct supervision and it creates a measurable output. – Seth Godin, bestselling author of 14 books, creator of Squidoo.com
Bringing value to someone you want to work for is the BEST way to get noticed… Charlie Hoehn mastered this concept in his free ebook ‘Recession Proof Graduate,’ and I would highly recommend you read it if this is a path you want to take. – Tucker Max, #1 New York Times bestselling author
A must read for any recent grads looking for work or anyone looking to start a side hustle.– Jenny Blake, author of ‘Life After College’
One week from today I turn 60 years old. [Recession-Proof Graduate] makes the most sense of anything I have read or done since Zig Ziglar’s early days. – Jon S.
The message of the book is pure genius in my mind because it is simple yet innovative. Charlie masterly blends creative thinking with hard work to get exceptional results. – John Bardos, Jet Set Citizen
Charlie’s wisdom far surpasses his 25 years… He’s worked with some amazing thought leaders in Silicon Valley and has made connections through the methods he’ll teach you for free in his book… Follow what Charlie says! If you are thinking of going back to school, FOR THE LOVE OF MIKE READ HIS BOOK FIRST! – Matthew Peters
This is truly one of the best pieces of advice I’ve heard from anyone in a long time. If you know anyone in college, recently graduated, or even if they are older and exploring new career options, I strongly encourage you to share this with them. – Dan Andrews
Looking for an alternative to CareerBuilder and Monster? You might want to listen to what superstar marketer Charlie Hoehn has to say. – Savvy Sugar
Recession-Proof Graduate is somewhat misnamed. Its advice strikes me as sound even if (a) you graduated college more than a year ago, (b) there’s no recession, or (c) you didn’t go to college at all. In fact, it’s probably even more effective if (c). – Colin Marshall, producer of ‘Notebook on Cities and Culture’ podcast
Like the majority of my fellow graduating class out there blasting out resumes, I didn’t get a job right out of college like I thought I would. But after reading and applying this guy’s advice, I got two offers in June: a marketing manager position with a Fortune 500 company in Canada and to co-found an online marketing start up. – Radz Ketchum
The heaviness of doing something I hate has been replaced with the lightness of figuring out how I want to spend my ideal day. It’s like a blank canvas, and I can paint anything I want. – Sachit Gupta
One of the most popular and compelling e-books posted out there… A very entertaining read, he goes into the “truth” of what these graduates are going through, and then explains a very interesting approach to getting that job… not the job they will be hating for the rest of their lives, but the job they want to do. – Russell Miyaki
Charlie Hoehn has set out some great advice for those about to graduate from university and wondering what exactly to do thereafter… This is not entirely for graduates though: anyone considering a career change should read this. – John Lampard
A phenomenal read for anyone who’s currently job seeking, whether you’re fresh out of school or stuck in a dead end career. – Ryan Stephens
It made me want to jump and shout and hunt him down so that I could give him a hug. – Karen Au
It has such wisdom, foresight and level-headedness from one so young that I can only sit back and applaud him. – Nick McGivney
He’s so right! Playing by the rules is a scam! Vive la recession-proof revolution! – Studio Absentia
What I really took away from it was the whole idea of ‘free work’. It’s something that never really dawned on me until he went into detail about it. It’s actually pretty brilliant.– Marie Montemayor
At first, I was like, ‘Who is this guy and what makes him think he’s recession-proof?’ I mean everybody and their granddad is claiming to be a guru or expert of some sort, so I was a tad bit skeptical. I hit the jackpot this time, though… I was pleasantly surprised and excited to see that Charlie wasn’t much different from me. And indeed, he had found a way to be recession-proof. – S. MeShae Hankerson
[Recession-Proof Graduate] is in fact, exactly how I made it starting fifteen years ago. In 1994, I moved to LA without a job, a portfolio of my paintings and an absurd obsession with the computer. I offered to make a free website for a magazine and another for a company owned by the son of Walt Disney. I had no skill set, I had no contacts, just some books, free time, and a refusal to work a job I didn’t love for an hourly fee (I had unfortunately been doing that for a several years after college). On a meager living I went into only slight debt to do this. My next client was Apple. I went from making $20/hour in September to $100K in May working as the creative director of a major company. A year later, I left to start my own company… My first client was NASA, then Intel, then AOL, and for the last fifteen years I’ve made my own destiny. I employ artists and engineers— all over the world. It’s awesome. Whenever we want to get into a new industry, we offer to redo someone’s website pro-bono. We put our link on the bottom and the calls start coming in. I’m living proof that what you say in your book is right on. – Kimberley Brooks
A particular piece of your meaningful-work-finding strategy seems to be a “missing piece” I have been looking for for about 38 years. You see, inside me is a twenty-two-year-old guy fresh out of college with a lot of energy, ready to start his dream career. Yet my exterior physical body is 60 years old. So about 38 years of my life have passed me by, with me doing things that interested me, but rarely for any pay. The part of your strategy that deals with talking to the role model first and getting their blessing before launching into free work is a part that I have usually neglected. In other words, I have often just started doing the free work in a sort of guerrilla fashion, without “permission” to proceed, and often my efforts were not met with any appreciation and/or recognition. So this last week I tried it your way, talking to the admired person first, with great and immediate success. I have her blessing to proceed, and doors are opening that have seemed to have been closed to me for decades. Thanks for putting out a brilliantly simple yet powerful idea with great ramifications for any who choose to follow this kind of path. – Charles Sawyer
Anyone who’s spinning their wheels searching for an entry-level job after graduating from college should read his entire e-book and take heed. Hoehn’s definitely on to something. – Examiner