Guillebeau - Born for this: how to find the work you were meant to do

A headline from the Onion proclaimed, Man Convinces Himself He Has the Job of His Dreams. The job, as you might expect from a satirical newspaper, is a soul-crushing and tedious one. Yet because the man sees no alternative, he decides he really likes it. Its wonderful that Im trapped here for the foreseeable future, he says.

The best satires relate to real life in some way. Many people really are stuck in soul-crushing jobs, with no escape route in sight. If you find yourself trapped for the foreseeable future, you have two obvious options: settle or make a trade-off.

In the first scenario, you accept that theres no way out, and you continue working the soul-crushing job that steals your joy. You spend a third of your life doing something you dont like, but you decide not to take any steps to change that situation. This first scenario is not actually that unusualplenty of people do this. They cant see any alternatives, so they disengage from work and try to find meaning and purpose elsewhere.

In the second scenario, you decide to live frugally, working a job that supports your basic needs without taking up all your time. You dont love your work, but thats okay, because you love other things. Or maybe the kind of work you love doesnt pay all that well, so you accept the sacrifice for what you receive in return.

Theres nothing fundamentally wrong with either choice, but neither is that exciting. What if you dont want to settle? What if you want to find the kind of work that you truly love and you dont want to eat ramen noodles every night? Why cant you have it all?

Happily, you can. As youll see throughout this book, some people manage to find this work. Theyve won the career lottery, and the results werent all determined by chance. Whether through their own brilliance or, more likely, as a result of trial and error, theyve found the work they were born to doand thats what makes all the difference.

This book will help you find that thing, too. If you dont want to choose between the two undesirable options, this book will show you a third way.

The book consists of two major sections. In the first section, youll master a series of lessons that will help you understand what you want and how to get it. In the second section, youll explore a menu of options designed to help you implement those lessons through a variety of strategies and tactics.

Everything youll learn in both sections is highly practical. Not everything will apply to you, but thats okayits a big book. Choose what excites you, and focus on what will bring you closer to your goals.

This book will also challenge many popular beliefs about the way we live and work. As youll see, some of these conventional assumptions about what a dream career should look like are misguided or simply wrong. Fortunately, theres a better way, a way that will lead you to the work you were born to do. This book will help you find it.

Because were changing the world together, the book includes a few different words and phrases that you may not have encountered before. Heres a quick guide to some of them:

Escapology: the art of leaving a job or situation that doesnt meet your needs

Serially resetting: the concept of changing your life and work every few years

Flow: the all-encompassing feeling you get from working well at something you enjoy

Side hustle: a means of earning money apart from your job

Digital asset: an income-earning project that exists entirely online

Gold rush: a short-term opportunity to make a lot of cash

Umbrella profession: a career consisting of multiple jobs or roles, but all under a unifying theme

My hope is that by the time were done together, these conceptsand the many others youll learn throughout the bookwill provide you not just a whole new vocabulary but also an entirely new way of thinking about how you live and work.

This isnt a book that tells you how to quit your job and work for yourself (I already wrote one of those). Theres no one-size-fits-all model for a dream career, and not everyone wants to work entirely on their own.

Even if you receive a regular paycheck and have no intention of ever starting a business, its important to understand that you are still essentially self-employed. No one will look out for your interests as much as you will, so you should make active decisions and take responsibility for your own success as much as possible. This book will give you an edge in both of those areas. Even if you have absolutely no desire to start your own business and are perfectly happy working for a conventional employer, there are plenty of tactics and strategies for turning that job into the work you were born to do.

Lastly, please note that this book is action-oriented. Youll learn why its important to do certain things, but you can also put a number of tools to use right away. If youre in a hurry, Ive listed some bookmarks to instant action plans for you below. For best results, however, dont skip over . Well be referring to it throughout the rest of the book.