Start the day with gusto. Zena wakes with a mission. She’s motivated.

And she’s determined to motivate me. She stands beside my bed, rests

her head on the mattress, her eyes level with mine, and stares piercingly,

willing me to get up.

Focus on a task. Zena’s singular ability to concentrate all her mental

and physical energy allows her to achieve winning performance. Throw

a Frisbee, ball, or stick, and she’s off, tearing down the field, knowing

instinctively when to pivot and leap to catch it. She dives with abandon

into ponds, and swims with the strength and pure beauty of a canine

athlete, making a direct beeline to her goal in record time.

Stay present. Zena is wholly present, in the moment, with all her

being—a state that comes naturally to her. Her attentiveness to what

she’s engaged in is never clouded by her future ambitions or the need

to return emails, to tweet, or to juggle three jobs at once to keep her

business prosperous.

Value yourself and charge accordingly. Zena doesn’t do anything for

free. She gets paid in the form of barter, of course, but she gets paid well

for her services. There are no pay cuts, layoffs, or furloughs in her world.

Look at what goes right. Zena concentrates on the positive aspects of

her job. She doesn’t dwell on the negative or complain or whine about

the long hours when she’s parked under my desk while I work and her

talents aren’t being put to their best use. In a nutshell, she’s optimistic.

Push in fresh directions. Zena is always on the lookout for new

opportunities. She takes advantage of every walk. Smells and sounds lead

her from one new place to another with openness and a fresh sense of

excitement. She never fails to gain from social gatherings and networking

events with her dog pals. She rarely turns down an invitation to a dinner

party at our friends’ houses.

Network more. Zena may have a comfy job running our homes and lives,

but that doesn’t mean she stops networking. She’s proactive about her

networking efforts—attending events and reaching out to professionals

in her field whose work she respects. She is always going out for walks

to reconnect with longtime contacts, even those she has known since

puppy kindergarten—anything she can do to keep old relationships solid

and grab opportunities to build new ones.

Go places. Zena knows the importance of travel, of going new places and

experiencing new sights, sounds, and cultures. Each time out the door, out

of the comfort zone of her fluffy dog bed and the safety of her fenced yard,

she learns valuable skills—and maybe even gets some insights into how to

manage me better. She trots out to the car and pops in without looking back.

No questions asked. She props her front feet on the console of my Subaru

Outback and stares fixedly out the front windshield as if to say, “What’s next?

Let’s go!”

Excerpted with permission from the publisher, John Wiley & Sons, from Love Your Job: The New

Rules for Career Happiness by Kerry Hannon, © 2015 Kerry Hannon.

To discover more about Kerry and find links to her other books, click here