‘If you do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life.’ Or so the old saying goes. When you have a career you really love doing, your life as a whole becomes immeasurably happier.
David is a lucky man in the eyes of many of his friends. He directs films for a living. It has taken him a long time to find a career he really loves. First he was a barman, then a professional limousine driver, briefly an electrician and, for several years, a cameraman and freelance assistant director. Finally, he started making music videos as a freelance director and now he makes films. The world of film is undoubtedly cool but, more importantly, he thinks it’s cool. For many years he followed a career path that wasn’t exciting, fun or interesting. Now he is fortunate, or clever enough just to fix his eyes on doing something he truly loves.
Your career, like David’s, is for you alone. A cool career will transcend the mere idea of work and become a job that you can be really passionate about. There really are no obstacles out there that you can’t find your way around. You have to love what you do and go for what you want to do in your life.
Cool Careers contains lots of ideas for some of the coolest and most fascinating careers on the planet right now. There are thousands of careers out there. Most conventional career guides only touch on the headline careers. The aim of Cool Careers is to tease out the little ones … the interesting jobs that you usually only discover when you have been working for a while.
It is not always easy to decide what career you might like. How should you make the decision? Based on what your friends do? Based on what you have done in your life so far? On your current qualifications or skills?
Well, if you are content with any old job, so be it. But if, on the other hand, you are looking for a career that will keep you fascinated, then this is the book for you.
This book came about because, over the last ten years, I have met hundreds of people who were seeking a career. I kept being asked the same question, ‘How do I find a truly satisfying career?’
Some were graduates taking their first steps on the career ladder. Some had lost their job and needed a new one. Many, though, had already held down a job or two before realising that they want something bigger, perhaps better paid, different, more exciting, with more free time or more of a challenge. Many simply felt that their career didn’t really express who they were. They just knew something wasn’t right.
In other words, what they were looking for was not just any old career but a really cool career.
What is a cool career?
Undoubtedly, there are some careers that lots of people in the world think are cool. Others are only considered cool by a select few.
A cool career is basically a career that is in a cool area or is simply cool itself. It is a career that is ‘a little bit more’ or ‘much more’ off the beaten track than the average.
Anybody can get a career. However, if you are creative or unconventional, if you want to do what you love and maybe even inspire others to do what they love, you probably are really looking for a cool career.
If so, look no further. This book contains around 500 of the coolest careers in existence today.
How do I use this book?
Cool Careers is deliberately not laid out like a conventional career guide, even though it contains plenty of ideas to stimulate your thinking about your future career.
This is not an A to Z career guide. A career is not simply something you should pick off the shelf like a tin of baked beans. It is what you are going to spend most of your time doing for the rest of your life!
Yes, you can find lists of careers here. Yes, you can find guidance and career definitions. But you will also find ways of thinking about career choices that are deliberately random and unstructured in order to stimulate your thinking about what matters to you in making your own choice.
Part One of the book takes a brief look at why and how you might find your own cool career – particularly in a rapidly moving global culture. Part Two is full of lists. The lists are selected to fit only one criteria – the areas they cover, and the careers they contain, are cool. See what catches your eye. Pick the book up, scan through it and get some ideas for what you want to do. You can read it all the way through or dip into the odd list.
This is not a definitive guide to every career out there, just the coolest around. Take your time, stimulate your thinking, come up with your own ideas and go and find yourself a really cool career …
Is it time for a cool career?
So what is cool?
How many of the following words would you use to describe your thoughts and feelings about your current choice of career?
Exciting
Aspirational
Free
Fun
Happy
Easy
Love
Unusual
Powerful
Challenging
Totally me
Joyful
Profitable
If you don’t think any of the above apply, you definitely don’t have a cool career. If you do, you think it’s cool, and it shouldn’t really matter whether other people do too.
Cool careers
You will find many examples of cool careers in the lists in Part Two of the book. Every one of these careers is being done by somebody somewhere. Some careers are so unusual that there is only one person in the world with that job title. Others are derivations of more normal careers, with a twist that makes them much cooler.
Am I ready to be cool?
In each chapter there are examples of careers within the area with varying degrees of cool. It’s up to you how cool a career you choose to pursue. You may agree or disagree with the classifications. It’s true that cool is a very subjective idea. It doesn’t matter if your friends think that you are making eccentric or frivolous choices – let your deepest interests guide you.
Types of career cool
Some areas of work are themselves so cool that any career within them qualifies as a cool career. Creative careers are cool simply because of rarity value; not all of us are creative, so having any creative career is to be recognised as a member of an exclusive club. More recently, green or ethical careers are seen as being very cool.
However, a cool career doesn’t have to be fashionable to be cool. You are ultimately the judge. Difference, exclusivity, eccentricity or an ordinary career in an obscure location can all be enough.
Do I have a cool career?
Possibly – you may indeed have a cool career right now. There is ultimately only one way to know. When you have a cool career, you’ll be proud to tell people what you do at parties. You’ll be one of those people others come up to and say, ‘Can you help me get a job like yours?’ And, more often than not, ‘How did you find out about that career – you lucky *!@@@””$%^&*?’ At which, of course, you will just nod