Alexandra Cavoulacos - The New Rules of Work: The Modern Playbook for Navigating Your Career

We believe you should love your job. In fact, we believe that you should be thrilled with your job. And more than thrilledfulfilled by it.

We believe that you can find a career that gives you purpose, one that lets you use a set of skills that give you pride, and enjoy a day-to-day that gives you meaning. We believe that your work canand shouldbe a part of who you are, what you value, and what you want for the future of the world.

And we truly believe that youyes, youcan achieve all of this.

Decades ago, this would have been a revolutionary, even ridiculous, idea. For the vast majority of workers, a job was at best a means to a paycheck and at worst total drudgery. Work paid for your real life, the one outside of a 9-to-5: your hobbies and pastimes, your families and friendships, your weekends. Free time was where you anchored your identity. Work itself was never a source of fulfillment.

You may still feel very much like this now. But you should also know theres another way.

Were not the first to say it, but the world of work is changingin profound ways. The last twenty years have seen a massive shift both in terms of what work means to us, and in what it demands from us. We are connected by our smartphones twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Gone are the days when your clients or your boss couldnt reach you unless you were in the same room or at your desk next to a landline phone. Now not only can you take work home with you, but youre often expected to be in constant contact, available around the clock.

This dramatic shiftthis ability to be constantly connected, this blurring our boundaries between work and not workis exactly what makes it so crucial that your work is something that inspires and fulfills you. But luckily, these very same shifts also mean there is more opportunity for you to find a perfect fit between the things that fulfill you and how you make a living. Thats in large part because the same internet that connects you to work long after 5 p.m. has also democratized access to information and people, meaning it is easier than ever to explore and pursue new career opportunities, acquire new skills, and connect with an ever-expanding network of individuals across the globe. Today, its more feasible than ever to take control of your future and pave the way for change.

But theres more. In the past, people typically chose a career path when they were young and were generally constricted to a fairly limited set of options. Their opportunities were then further narrowed for the rest of their lives. Those who decided, at age twenty-one, to go to medical school or law school became doctors or lawyersand remained such until they retired. And while there were always people who broke through barriers, or experienced a midlife career reinvention, the obstacles to changing careers later in life proved too steep for most to overcome.

But you, dear reader, have options your parents never dreamed of. The traditional pathsgo to medical school, become a doctor; go to law school, become a lawyerare giving way to an increasingly broad set of choices: a menu of options that actually expands as we gain new experience and new skills and access to new networks over the course of our careers. For example, a med school grad today may be weighing private practice against a consulting opportunity in the healthcare space, a chief medical officer role at a healthcare start-up, or a position advising hospital staff on safety and reducing medical errors. Down the road, that same individual may write a book or speak publicly about national healthcare issues, or even run for political office.

Our menu of options has expanded in this way largely because of the explosion of new jobs and fields that didnt even exist as recently as a decade ago. Today there are countless jobs that have only recently become viable career paths: social media manager, cybersecurity analyst, UX (user experience) designer, to name just a few.

It used to be you went to college, picked a field, found a good job at a stable company, moved up in your department, got your pension, and retired. You worked in a single industry, sometimes for a single company, and never questioned your next step.

Unlike the generation before, most professionals now change jobsand even careersevery couple of years. They have many roles at multiple companies throughout their lifetimes, and some may even start their own businesses. What that means is that you will likely reinvent yourself many times over. This is an amazing freedom that our parents generation never enjoyed.

With this expanded set of options comes the opportunity to find not just a good on paper job, but a job that is the perfect fit for