Free Agent Nation

the four values I’ve described in this chapter—having freedom, being authentic, putting yourself on the line, and defining success on your own terms—have combined to expand our notions of the work ethic.

At the bottom level of the pyramid were basic physiological needs—food, sex, and oxygen, for example. One layer higher were safety needs—such as protection from illness, calamity, and danger. And still higher came love needs, esteem needs, cognitive needs, and aesthetic needs, proceeding all the way to the apex of personal growth—self-actualization

Working hard for a far-off reward is often a valuable exercise, but the act of work itself should produce its own intrinsic rewards. And since no position is permanent—but other positions are usually available and destitution is not around the bend—you might as well enjoy what you do. Produce quality work that’s a genuine reflection of who you are.

most free agents are at least approximations of one of three basic free agent species: soloists, temps, and microbusinesses.

Johns Hopkins study found that workers with little autonomy are 70 percent more likely to die from heart disease than workers with significant control of their work. 7

in the traditional workplace, authenticity is often neither condoned nor rewarded. As free agents around the country told me their stories, they repeatedly used the language of disguise and concealment to describe their previous jobs. They spoke of putting on “masks” or “game faces” at work.

Freedom—the ability to exercise one’s will—has become essential for making meaning in work.

Increasingly, this is a common arrangement for producing new Web sites, new electronic goods, new magazines, new buildings, new ad campaigns, new pharmaceuticals, and just about any other product or service whose key ingredients are the brainpower, creativity, skill, and commitment of the people involved. To craft a new piece of software, high-tech

soloist—someone who works for herself, generally alone, moving from project to project selling her services.