The Career Game Loop

6Community Loop: Mentors

6.1 The Community Loop

As we discussed in Chapter 4, change is a constant. The world around us is always changing, our values are always changing, and our opportunities are always changing. But here's something that probably won't change anytime soon: It's who you know.

Or better yet, it's who you meet.

The people we meet expose us to new frontiers, challenge our beliefs, broaden our skills, and support us throughout our life journeys. It's been that way since the first two humans shook hands and decided to share a cave.

Throughout the Core Career Loop, we'll meet tons of new people, and we'll ask them for help again and again. Here in Phase 1, the people we meet will help us select professional paths to pursue. In Phase 2, they'll help us level up. In Phase 3, they'll open doors to new job opportunities. And in Phase 4, they'll help us grow on the job, leading us back to the start of the Core Career Loop.

Given the important role that the people we meet will play throughout our journey, Parts I through IV of this book will each end with a special chapter dedicated to community building. Across each of these four chapters, we'll ask: How do you build community to support your career? Ultimately we'll discover that the community-building process is a loop in its own right.

You might recall from the Introduction that any one video game can have many loops. The core loop is the one that defines the game (choose quest > slay monster > collect reward > repeat). ...