What follows is a resource round-up of what I consider the very best material on non-conformism and love-oriented work — two fundamental themes of this blog.

One caveat: many of the authors referenced here assume that you can follow their advice even before quitting the work you don’t love. Suffice it to say that you already know my opinion on this.

The final decision is up to you. As blogger, world-traveler and champion non-conformist Chris Guillebeau would say — you are your own guru!

Please leave your suggestions about other useful resources on these subjects in the comments section!

And make sure to touch base every once in a while — I’ll be updating this post with new resources often.

Blog posts

  • Tolerance is Resistance to Love by Steve Pavlina. This article generalizes the motto “it’s impossible to discover work we love unless we quit the work we don’t love” — “You won’t be able to attract what you want while you’re still tolerating what you don’t want. You have to say ‘I quit’ first.”
  • Also from the Pavlina arsenal, learn how to discover your life purpose in about 20 minutes.
  • World-traveler and champion non-conformist Chris Guillebeau’s manifesto, A Brief Guide to World Domination is a little gem. It will inspire, motivate and guide you in the process of living your life according to your true beliefs and passions, and using them to change the world for the better.
  • This post by Zen Habits’ Leo Babauta combines his typically fresh insight on five things you need to know about discovering work you love with a link to Steve Jobs’ June 2005 Commencement address at Stanford University, which is a classic on its own right.
  • Freedom of itch, an essay by yours truly on becoming aware of our conformist behavior, breaking away from it and finding the work we love. It narrates my personal story while going through this process during late 2008.
  • Colleen Wainwright, a.k.a. “the communicatrix”, gave birth to the briefest, funniest, wittiest dirty little song for reminding us of the importance of hard work as a road to greatness. And this story is specially inspiring and soothing for dealing with the internal turmoil that inevitably comes with life-changing decisions, such as quitting work we don’t love. Thank you Colleen, you are definitely the Virgo guide to my universe!
  • According to blogger and new media uber-guru Chris Garrett, there is a questions we should all ask ourselves in order to find the work we love: What is so natural to you that it is like breathing?
  • Here is Pamela Slims’ view on the top excuses people have for not starting their own business. Again, I don’t think you can discover the work you love by simply doing the exercise of visiting a library that she proposes without first quitting the work you don’t love, but otherwise I love her perspective on these issues. Make sure you take a peak at the excerpts of her book, it looks great.
  • Discovering your natural talents and strengths is a crucial steps towards discovering work you love. This strengths test from the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania is a great way to start.
  • Umair Haque’s Awesomeness Manifesto puts love-oriented work as one of the pillars for what he sees as the next business revolution that will see the concept of innovation become obsolete.
  • Hugh Macleod’s manifesto, The Hughtrain, is chuck-full of insight about the radical value-transformation needed for a company to become “totally frickin’ amazing.” I particularly like the notion of “expressive capital,” which takes us far beyond “emotional capital”: “Our products make it easier for the end user to find and/or express meaning, narrative, metaphor, purpose, explanation and relevance in his/her own life than our competitor’s products.”

Books

  • Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell. The book is great not only due to the 10,000-hour rule insight, but also for how it elucidates the intricate and often unpredictable ways in which people in our lives and institutions shape our probabilities of becoming excellent at anything.
  • Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert. This book builds on psychology, cognitive neuroscience, philosophy and behavioral economics to construct a simple and powerful message: an essential part of our human nature is to be utterly clueless about what makes us truly happy — which is why we often struggle with finding work we love. And the most important tool in elucidating this fundamental quandary is through meaningful relationships with people who can help us in the process, more than our imagination or introspection. Therein lies the double-edged role of others in our quest for happiness: if we follow what they say is best for us in a conformist way, we’ll end up in misery. But if we build the right relationships, then our fellow human beings are the single most important element in discovering what makes life worth living.
  • The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt is a great introduction to positive psychology and happiness research in general. The notion of loving our work as a condition for happiness is central to the book.
  • Marcus Buckingham’s book Now, Discover Your Strengths is my favorite book on the subject. Buckingham is one of the few corporate consultants that I truly admire.
  • Daniel Pink’s The Adventures of Johnny Bunko summarizes in a few pages the golden rules for structuring a career aligned with work you will truly love… all in Manga comic book format!
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