Glossary

the passion hypothesis (introduced in Rule #1):  This hypothesis claims that the key to occupational happiness is to first figure out what you’re passionate about and then find a job that matches this passion. The basic tenet behind this book is that the passion hypothesis, although widely believed, is both wrong and potentially dangerous.

“Be so good they can’t ignore you.” (introduced in Rule #2):  A quote from comedian Steve Martin that captures what is needed to build a working life you love. It is excerpted from the following longer quote, which Martin gave in a 2007 interview with Charlie Rose when asked what his advice was for aspiring entertainers: “Nobody ever takes note of [my advice], because it’s not the answer they wanted to hear. What they want to hear is ‘Here’s how you get an agent, here’s how you write a script,’… but I always say, ‘Be so good they can’t ignore you.’ ”

the craftsman mindset (introduced in Rule #2):  An approach to your working life in which you focus on the value of what you are offering to the world.

the passion mindset (introduced in Rule #2):  An approach to your working life in which you focus on the value your job is offering you. This mindset stands in contrast to the craftsman mindset. The passion mindset ultimately leads to chronic dissatisfaction and daydreaming about the better jobs you imagine existing out there waiting to be discovered.

career capital (introduced in Rule #2):  A description of the skills you have that are rare and valuable to the working world. This is the key currency for creating work you love.

the career capital theory of great work (introduced in Rule #2):  This theory provides the foundation for all of the ideas that follow it in this book. It claims that the key to work you love is not to follow your passion, but instead to get good at something rare and valuable, and then cash in the “career capital” this generates to acquire the traits that define great jobs. This requires that you approach work with a craftsman mindset (focusing on your value to the world) and not a passion mindset (focusing on what value the world is offering you). Here is the formal three-part definition of the theory as presented in Rule #2:

• The traits that define great work are rare and valuable.

• Supply and demand says that if you want these traits, you need rare and valuable skills to offer in return. Think of these rare and valuable skills you can offer as your career capital.

• The craftsman mindset, with its relentless focus on being “so good they can’t ignore you,” is a strategy well suited for acquiring career capital. This is why it trumps the passion mindset if your goal is to have work you love.

the 10,000-hour rule (introduced in Rule #2):  A rule, well-known to performance scientists, describing the amount of practice time required to master a skill. Malcolm Gladwell, who popularized the concept in his 2008 book Outliers, described it as follows: “The idea that excellence at performing a complex task requires a critical minimum level of practice surfaces again and again in studies of expertise. In fact, researchers have settled on what they believe is the magic number for true expertise: ten thousand hours.”

deliberate practice (introduced in Rule #2):  The style of difficult practice required to continue to improve at a task. Florida State University professor Anders Ericsson, who coined the term in the early 1990s, describes it formally as an “activity designed, typically by a teacher, for the sole purpose of effectively improving specific aspects of an individual’s performance.” Deliberate practice requires you to stretch past where you are comfortable and then receive ruthless feedback on your performance. In the context of career construction, most knowledge workers avoid this style of skill development because, quite frankly, it’s uncomfortable. To build up large stores of career capital, however, which is necessary for creating work you love, you must make this style of practice a regular part of your work routine.

career capital markets (introduced in Rule #2):  When acquiring career capital in a field, you can envision that you’re acquiring this capital in a specific type of career capital market. There are two types of these markets: winner-take-all and auction.

In a winner-take-all market, there is only one type of career capital available and lots of different people competing for it. An auction market, by contrast, is less structured: There are many different types of career capital, and each person might generate their own unique collection of this capital. Different markets require different career capital acquisition strategies. In a winner-take-all market, for example, you need to first “crack the code” on how people master the one skill that matters. In an auction market, by contrast, you might simply emphasize rareness in the skill combinations that you create.

control (introduced in Rule #3):  Control is having a say in what you do and how you do it. This is one of the most important traits to acquire with your career capital when creating work you love.

the first control trap (introduced in Rule #3):  A warning to heed when trying to introduce more control into your working life. It represents the principle that control that’s acquired without career capital is not sustainable.

the second control trap (introduced in Rule #3):  Another warning to heed when trying to introduce more control into your working life. It represents the principle that when you acquire enough career capital to acquire meaningful control over your working life, that’s exactly when you’ve become valuable enough to your current employer that they will try to prevent you from making the change.

courage culture (briefly introduced in Rule #2; elaborated in Rule #3):  A term that describes the growing number of authors and online commentators who promote the idea that the only thing standing between you and a dream job is building the courage to step off the expected path.

Though well-intentioned, this culture is dangerous, as it underplays the importance of also having career capital to back up your career aspirations. It has led many people to quit their current job and to end up in a new situation where they are much worse off than before.

the law of financial viability (introduced in Rule #3):  A simple law that can be deployed to help sidestep the two control traps when trying to introduce more control into your working life. It suggests that when deciding whether to follow an appealing pursuit that will introduce more control into your work life, you should ask yourself whether people are willing to pay for it. If so, continue. If not, move on.

mission (introduced in Rule #4):  A mission is another important trait to acquire with your career capital when creating work you love. It provides a unifying goal for your career. It’s more general than a specific job and can span multiple positions. It provides an answer to the question “What should I do with my life?”

the adjacent possible (introduced in Rule #4):  A term taken from the science writer Steven Johnson, who took it from Stuart Kauffman, that helps explain the origin of innovation. Johnson notes that the next big ideas in any field are typically found right beyond the current cutting edge, in the adjacent space that contains the possible new combinations of existing ideas. The key observation is that you have to get to the cutting edge of a field before its adjacent possible—and the innovations it contains—becomes visible. In the context of career construction, it’s important to note that good career missions are also often found in the adjacent possible. The implication, therefore, is that if you want to find a mission in your career, you first need to get to the cutting edge of your field.

little bets (introduced in Rule #4):  An idea borrowed from the business writer Peter Sims. When Sims studied innovative corporations and people, he noted the following: “Rather than believing they have to start with a big idea or plan out a whole project in advance, they make a methodical series of little bets about what might be a good direction, learning critical information from lots of little failures and from small but significant wins” [emphasis mine]. In the context of career construction, little bets provide a good strategy for exploring productive ways to turn a vague mission idea into specific successful projects.

the law of remarkability (introduced in Rule #4):  A simple law that can help you identify successful projects for making your mission a reality. (This can be used in conjunction with the little-bets strategy.) The law says that for a mission-driven project to succeed, it should be “remarkable” in two different ways. First, it must compel people who encounter it to remark about it to others. Second, it must be launched in a venue that supports such remarking.