Everyone keeps telling you it’s time to stop doing shit you hate. You should drop the stuff that isn’t meaningful to you, and do epic shit that matters to you.

If you’re a reader of my blog, you know The 4-Hour Workweek is still required reading for leading a kickass life. But along comes The Zero Hour Workweek!

If you ever wanted to figure out what you’re passionate about and learn how to create your own dream job, Jonathan Mead has shared a brilliant ebook that you need to download right now and read. And it’s free!

Jonathan is the incredibly compelling author of Reclaim Your Dreams and blogs at Illuminated Mind. In The Zero Hour Workweek he tells his own story of how he liberated himself from a traditional job (which you know I’m all about) and started getting paid to be himself.

Society typically defines “work” as the stuff you don’t want to do, but have to do. Most people don’t know why this is the way it is, and they don’t take the initiative to question that assumption, so they accept that work is supposed to be a chore. But Jonathan recognized at an early age (like I did, like you did) that work and play shouldn’t have to be mutually exclusive.

“For a long time I didn’t know it was possible to stop participating. I didn’t realize that I could choose that, or something different. That was until I started testing this convention: the cultural consensus that work must not be fun.“

Jonathan figured out how to make work fun though, and that it is possible to get paid to exist! He’ll show you how to figure out what you’re good at and passionate about, and how to make money doing what you love.

“You have to choose your purpose. You have to choose the way you contribute value that is meaningful to others. You have to find a way to pay yourself for the value you share. “

He will show you how to create a clear, remarkable message that people resonate with. He will tell you why it’s important to use things like blogging and Twitter to find your tribe and build a community of enthusiastic people who share your passion.

You’ll learn how important it is to focus your time and your energy on the activities that will have the biggest impact, and build relationships with a core group of people who can hold you accountable to your goals.

If you want to get paid to be you, the key is that you have to find a way to provide real value to others while you’re doing what you love: maybe through selling an ebook or information product that you created, building a video training site, leading workshops, doing coaching, teleseminars, or consulting, for instance.

You’ll hear inspiring words of wisdom from folks who are are striving to live an authentic lifestyle, providing value doing what they care about: Danielle Laporte from White Hot Truth, Chris Guillebeau from The Art of Nonconformity, Glen Allsop from PluginID, Nathalie Lussier from Raw Foods Witch, and Charlie Gilkey from Productive Flourishing.

I was sincerely gracious to be a part of these Zero Hour Case Studies myself! I’m overwhelmingly honored to be included among these really remarkable people in the book.

When Jonathan asked me to contribute to his book, I thought to myself, “I don’t consider myself the next big lifestyle guru or expert.” I’ll be the first to tell you that it’s a long hard journey—one that I’m certainly still in the early stages of and one that I will always be on—because building your life around providing real value and what you’re passionate about is not a destination, it’s an evolving, changing exercise in personal growth. But Jon had some really spectacular questions for me that I thought you would find useful:

Why the World Needs People to Do What They Love for a Living

“People who love what they do simply do it better than people who are ‘just doing their job’! I don’t know yet if a world where everyone truly loves their work is possible, but I know that the individuals who make the biggest impact in the world and move society towards positive social change definitely tend to enjoy their work so much that they work 60-80 hour weeks. It doesn’t feel like work for them!”

If I Had to Start All Over

“I find that there are things you are good at, things that you enjoy doing, and things that you can get paid for. There is a small area where they overlap, and that is where your business will be most successful. To be honest, I got my start doing things I was good at and could get paid for but that I wasn’t that excited by. So it can be a struggle to reposition yourself and focus more on the things you enjoy. Try to remain focused on the things that you really enjoy and are passionate about from the very beginning and you’ll be on the path to getting paid to be you!”

On Empowering Your Tribe

“Build your community wisely. Use tools like Twitter and Facebook to connect with like-minded people. Answer comments and emails from your website. Be helpful, answer questions (LinkedIn Answers, Twitter search, and Yahoo Answers are good for this). Address complaints and misunderstandings amicably. Find and empower the biggest influencers in your community—let your followers shine!—and continually, graciously thank and reward your True Fans!”

Those are just some of my thoughts on the Zero Hour idea, just to give you a taste of how much Jonathan’s philosophy resonates with my own. But don’t stop there! Jonathan’s writing, ideas, and advice are about 17 times better than mine, and he’ll key you into finding your “secret weapon” for Getting Paid to Be You.

“Getting paid to exist is about eliminating the lines between ‘work’ and ‘life.’ It’s about demolishing the disconnect between the value you create for others on the one hand, and the passion and natural talents you have on the other.”

The Zero Hour Workweek will reframe your definition of work: it doesn’t have to be a chore, it’s the exchange of value with others. So what value will you share with the world?

Steal this ebook: The Zero Hour Workweek: How I Liberated Myself from the 9 to 5 By Getting Paid to Be Me

Feature photo by Diego Cupolo.

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: In Your Face Tim Ferriss: Escape the 9 to 5, Work a NO-Hour Workweek & Get Paid to Be Yourself

Do you ever ask yourself how one of your friends got a seemingly awesome job? Or, ever find yourself staring off into space while you sit at your desk, daydreaming about being in another line of work?

Well, Alexandra Levit surveyed 500 gen-Y and gen-X professionals to find people with their dream jobs and she sat down for one-on-one interviews with nearly a hundred individuals to ask them that very question: “How’d you score THAT gig?” Her newest book comes out in bookstores today – How’d You Score That Gig?: A Guide to the Coolest Jobs-and How to Get Them – focused on young people in the workplace and the jobs they love.

Alexandra Levit is a leading business author and career consultant, and is one of the most prominent speakers of our generation on issues that face young professionals in the workplace. I recently had the opportunity to ask her a few questions about what she learned from writing the new book – from talking with all of these young professionals, like you and me, that love their jobs, and learning how they got to where they are now:

Alex, with your experience as a career columnist and consultant, beyond the traditional 9-to-5 job, what are some of the most coveted careers for young professionals these days?

My 500 survey responders thought the five coolest jobs were, in order of number of votes 1) Travel Journalist, 2) Event Planner, 3) Fashion Designer, 4) Documentary Photographer, and 5) Bed & Breakfast Innkeeper. I’m obviously partial to the book author and marketing exec careers myself, but I also found the futurist, forensic scientist, and screenwriter gigs personally intriguing.

So with information from your national survey of twenty- and thirty-somethings, tell us briefly about the seven main personality types that you’ve found among those surveyed.

The book features 60 cool jobs, divided into seven categories based on the broad personality types that are generally best-suited to those jobs. I selected the cool jobs via an online survey in which I asked nearly 500 twenty and thirty-somethings to tell me about their dream careers. Based on the responses, I generated a list of the top 60 careers and constructed a fairly comprehensive profile of each using the information I gathered from written sources and in-depth interviews with more than 100 individuals currently holding the jobs.

Then, I researched various personality type measures to develop my seven “passion profiles” – adventurer, creator, data-head, entrepreneur, investigator, networker, and nurturer – and placed the 60 cool jobs into the appropriate categories. In the first chapter, I designed an assessment (with help from my husband, who’s a psychologist) to help readers decide which passion profiles might be most appealing to them.

Of the many Gen-Y and Gen-X workers you spoke with face-to-face, who are just a few of the people that stick out most prominently in your mind, and what do they do?

Ethan won Survivor and parlayed his winnings into start-up funds for a new nonprofit organization called Grassroot Soccer. Peter worked his way up to become one of the leading news correspondents with NBC, regularly appearing on the Today Show and the national evening news. Carin left a very successful corporate career to open a hip bridal boutique in Washington D.C. Emily could name her price as a computational linguist whose job was to teach Japanese to a computer.

You’ve noted how Millenials have a hard time choosing a major that preps them for the real world and picking a career path after college. What are a few tips you recommend for college students who are deciding on their majors right now, or searching for their first real job after school?

Take time to do a self-assessment of your values, how you like to work, and what you’d be compelled to do even if you never got paid. Research careers and industries that map to your skills and interests. Hit the internet, set up informational interviews, take relevant coursework, and arrange to go onsite at a company in your chosen field.

What can students and recent grads expect to learn from your new book? What’s in it for readers to pick up a copy, and how will it benefit them in finding a career they’re happy with?

There are so many reference books out there that merely list cool jobs. I hope that How’d You Score That Gig? will provide a true insider’s glimpse into each and every one of the careers I profile, and provide access to people just like you and me who are in a position to give realistic advice about getting a job in each field. I hope that by learning about their personality profiles and the corresponding interesting jobs, a whole new world of possibilities will be opened up to readers, and they will have the courage to take the first steps on the journey to career fulfillment.

Order your copy today on Amazon: How’d You Score That Gig?: A Guide to the Coolest Jobs-and How to Get Them.

Alexandra Levit writes regularly for the Huffington Post, has published three career-related books, and runs a great radio podcast show on BlogTalkRadio for women in business. You can learn more about her on her personal homepage.

###

If you enjoyed this interview with Alex, you might also be interested to read more from my past interview with her for IWillTeachYouToBeRich.com.

Congratulations go out to Alexandra on the new book, but more importantly on the new addition to her family–a newborn baby boy! I’d like to thank her personally for making the time to talk with ThrillingHeroics.com during this busy time.

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: Looking for the Right Job After College? Alex Levit Provides Some Answers

Anyone who’s crazy about business books knows Tom Peters, the management guru who foresees an Inescapable White Collar Revolution that will transform business in the next ten years! (And if you don’t, you should read him!)

Well, Tom is getting to be quite the old-timer. (Sorry, Tom.)

Penelope Trunk is his engaging, competent, young replacement. ‘Nuff said there. The Work Revolution Peters talks about is already transforming the office…and Penelope Trunk walks the walk. Penelope’s new book Brazen Careerist: The New Rules for Success picks up where Tom left off. The name not only describes Trunk’s bold approach to work, but it delivers on its promise to key readers in to the important ingredients in a recipe for delicious career success!

Big corporations hardly employ people long enough to stick around and climb the corporate ladder anymore. Instead, they hire strong individuals who lend their values and skills to the completion of the specific short-term goals at hand, and then move on to the next gig. Even when they’re called employees, these workers are really “consultants,” and Trunk says you better catch up because consulting will be the new norm. Businesses like and encourage consulting because it cuts salary costs; workers like it because it means more flexibility.

The fact is, job security is an artifact of another generation long past. In the workplace, generations X and Y must have a project focus rather than a job focus. There is no longer such thing as long-term loyalty to company brands–employees must have their own, personal brands (!) which they bring to the table for each project they work on.

This means you get to have more say in what you do. Younger people in the workforce are looking for work that they’re truly passionate about–not just a nine to five that will pay the bills. We want meaning, we want to learn marketable skills we can take with us to the next project, we want work-life balance, and we’re willing to trade a little purchasing power to have time at home to raise a family when the time comes! (Yes, even us guys want this!)

What does all of this mean? Penelope Trunk says it means the end of the stay-at-home parent, the end of the glass ceiling, the end of gender-based pay disparity. It makes office hierarchy irrelevant. Promotions are irrelevant. For young professionals wrestling with a boomer-dominated work world, Brazen Careerist is Trunk’s comprehensive manual for career success!

I recommend you read this primer early on, and keep it with you at ALL TIMES throughout your career as a quick-reference guide! Whatever you’re facing–resumes, interviews, the grad school question, starting your own business, your first management position–consult the index (Thank you, Penelope! That’s one thing too many biz books are missing!) and take her advice. Some of her most notable peices of wisdom:

• Relish the Path from Starter Job to Dream Job. Starting out, most of us have no idea what we really want in life! Trunk says that young professionals’ primary task is to figure out who they are and what they want. As she describes, the trick is to spend equal parts time discovering your goals as attaining them, and it’s alright to explore. “The good news is that this is what most people are doing in their twenties: wandering. Taking trips to Thailand, changing jobs every year, volunteering for unpaid work while living at their parents’ house, and starting businesses that fail. All these options are, surprisingly, right on track for making a good decision about what to do with yourself in adult life,” she says.
• Hunting for a Job Is Not a Task, It’s a Lifestyle. So get used to it. Research shows that Gen-X-ers and Y-ers will typically hold eight jobs before age 32! Career instability and holes in your work history are the new norm. And besides, you should always be on the lookout for what will make you happy–don’t settle if you’re in a job that’s a poor fit. “Concentrate your energy on finding the right manager as opposed to the right position. There is no reason to be limited by the job description–you can always pick up extra work that increases your experience and exposure. But a checked-out manager can limit you. So seek managers who will look out for you in the company and make sure you get on good projects … and develop new skills.”
• First-Time Managers Do Not Need to Suck. When you find yourself in a position to lead, don’t make the mistake of focusing on tasks. Your job is to work with people–to coach them. They’ll make sure the tasks get taken care of, as long as you coach them right. “…Show the people you manage how to see themselves differently so that they are able to produce at a higher level than they ever imagined. For one person, this will mean you need to teach organization skills. For another person, you will help her discover what she loves to do and then set her up doing it for you. Each person wants something, and you need to find out what that is. Then help them get it.”
• Authenticity Is the Buzzword of the New Millennium. Don’t be ashamed of your mistakes–be yourself. Many of the world’s most successful individuals have innumerable failures on their record, and like they say, if you wanna make a tasty office omelet you gotta break some eggs. The Harvard Business Review says that authenticity is what defines great leaders–so be real, be vulnerable, be sincerely passionate about your cause if you want others to give a damn. Trunk says to practice telling stories–”…If we get practice being our true self while telling a story, authenticity will come more naturally when talking about something more difficult.”
• You Only Need $40,000 a Year to Be Happy. Research is showing more and more that there is a limit to how much happiness money can buy (gasp!). That means many of us are chasing the wrong incentives! “The first $40,000 makes a big difference in a person’s level of happiness. Happiness is dependent on being able to meet basic needs for food, shelter, and clothing. After meeting those needs you have to turn to something other than consumerism, because additional money has negligible impact on how happy you are. Your level of happiness is instead largely dependent on your outlook.”

Penelope offers direction on dealing with office politics and improving your likability (pages 88 & 90), some controversial (but excellent!) thoughts on how to use an incident of sexual harassment to boost your career (121 & 125), and advice on some alternate incentives to seek instead of a promotion (hint: training and valuable experiences, 166).

Trunk gives her readers insightful, unconventional tips on how to build great, fulfilling careers for themselves. She’s got plenty of attention-grabbing ideas, and she relates interesting stories about her diverse career experience (among other things, she’s worked in technology AND journalism, started three of her own companies AND taken international corporations public, gone through bankruptcy, and played professional volleyball!).

Bravo, Penelope! If you’re a young professional in your 20s or 30s, you NEED this first book from up-and-coming career rockstar Penelope Trunk! Brazen Careerist: The New Rules for Success comes out May 25, and you can pre-order it on Amazon. Penelope is also a columnist for Yahoo! Finance and the Boston Globe, and I’d highly recommend you become a regular reader of her Brazen Careerist blog.

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: Book Review: Brazen Careerist by Penelope Trunk