Try Stuff Prototyping 1. Review your three Odyssey Plans and the questions you wrote down for each. 2. Make a list of prototype conversations that might help you answer these questions. 3. Make a list of prototype experiences that might help you answer these questions. 4. If you are stuck, and if you have gathered a good group, have a brainstorming

Do this exercise three times—once for each of your mind maps—making sure that the three versions are different from one another.

2. Now try to combine those three items into a possible job description that would be fun and interesting to you and would be helpful to someone else (again, it need not be practical or appeal to lots of people or employers). 3. Name your role and draw a napkin sketch of it (a quick visual drawing of what it is), like the one shown here. For example,

Mind Map 3—Flow From your Good Time Journal, pick one of the experiences when you were in a state of flow, put the experience itself at the center of a mind map, and complete your mapping of your experience with this state (e.g., speaking in front of a large audience or brainstorming creative ideas). Now that you’ve done these three mind maps,

Mind Map 2—Energy From your Good Time Journal, pick something you’ve identified as really energizing you in your work and life (e.g., art class, giving feedback to colleagues, health-care access, keeping things running right) and mind-map this out.

Mind Map 1—Engagement From your Good Time Journal, pick one of the areas of greatest interest to you, or an activity during which you were really engaged (e.g., balancing the budget or pitching a new idea), and make it the center of your map. Then generate a bunch of connected words and concepts, using the mind-mapping technique.

Work is fun when you are actually leaning into your strengths and are deeply engaged and energized by what you’re doing.

Well, there are parts of any job or any career that are hard and annoying—but if most of what you do at work is not bringing you alive, then it’s killing you.

Flow is engagement on steroids. Flow is that state of being in which time stands still, you’re totally engaged in an activity, and the challenge of that particular activity matches up with your skill—so you’re neither bored because it’s too easy nor anxious because it’s too hard.