I am coming to you from Londolozi South Africa where I am running our annual self-transformation adventure retreats. It’s a tough job but somebody’s got to do it.

That last sentence was ironic. The fact is, of course, that I am bizarrely fortunate to be doing what I’m doing right now. That said, this good fortune came my way because my friends and I decided to make it happen. I just said “This is a tough job.” But of course, it’s not a job in the sense that most people use that word. I didn’t go down to the unemployment office in Phoenix where I live and ask an employment officer to please find me a job running luxury safaris in South Africa. I didn’t send out a bunch of resumes and out of the clear blue sky get an offer to do this for money.

Insofar as I can even call this a “job,” it’s a job I made up. I am continuously amazed by the way people frantically look for jobs when almost nobody likes them and they are going away. Most of the clients I’ve coached tell me two things: #1) They absolutely hated all the jobs they’ve done in their lives, and #2) They desperately need another one. This is insane, all by itself. The whole construct of a job is just a cultural anomaly that has existed for a brief period of history. We are problem-solving animals, born with brains that can make astonishing things like computers and Toll House cookies. Why in God’s name would such an astonishing creature submit to a lifetime of drudgery on the assumption that there is no other option, even when that option no longer works?

This may sound a little mercenary because of the way our culture deals with money (obsessing about it continuously without ever mentioning it out loud), but I’m going to say it anyway. Think of something you really really really love. Then repeat the following phrase in your mind: “Find a way to make it pay.”

You may think that the thing you love has no possibility of creating income. You may think your survival hinges on replicating what somebody else made up and labeled “job.” But do you know what that person was doing? He or she was thinking, “Find a way to make it pay.” All jobs are invented. And you can invent a job that has never existed before. In fact, this is the single most important skill you can have in the 21^st century­—not to do a job but to invent a job.

Some people get so indignant, even enraged, when I talk this way. They say things like “Well, that’s easy for you to say, you had all the skills and training to do what you’re doing!” But I have trouble recalling even a single moment during my education and training when someone said, “Yes, a PhD in Sociology is just what you need to take groups of Americans rhinoceros tracking for considerable sums of money.”

You can find a way to make it pay.

You can find a way that serves the world, serves your customers, and serves your soul. The job you are meant to have has not yet been named. It has not yet been imagined. It is waiting in the confines of your own heart to take shape in the world of form. I’ll talk to you next month. Right now I’ve got a job to do. Those rhinoceroses are not going to track themselves.

Photos Courtesy of Susan Honnell (c) 2012