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To create your career, harness your superpowers, work with the multiverse.

The future is not binary: there are infinite opportunities and you can collaborate with them.

Deploy your non-negotiables to create boundaries for your life.

You are a gift in this world: Honor yourself and claim your belonging.

Part 2 of a Two-Part Series

Welcome, Alaina Levine. Alaina writes for Science magazine Careers, where she also contributes to her Your Unicorn Career column. And she's literally written the book on Creating Your Unicorn Career.

This book and approach can open up our field of view, like a microscope or a telescope, zooming out to more fully grasp our capacities and potentials in collaborating with the world beyond.

Like the Deep Field view of space, when we zoom out, we see so much more than we could before. This helps leverage a growth-mindset into a way of living that can help cut through systemic blocks and enhance mental health as we continually refine our own authentic work and life.

Full disclosure: I've worked with Alaina and consider her a colleague. When I saw she was releasing Create Your Unicorn Career, I wanted to bring her powerful process to you, especially given the current state of the job market and beyond. Welcome back, Alaina.

Rachel Clark: Do you have thoughts about the psychology of this approach? How does this relate to our "superpowers" and the multiverse of possibilities?

Alaina Levine: How you perceive yourself and your place in the universe is critical. Two examples from my book come to mind:

First, we will always face challenges, obstacles, and failures. Sometimes we internalize those losses and lament, “Why me?” This prevents us from solving the problem by harnessing the full suite of our superpowers. I want to shift the thinking from “the challenge is happening to me,” to “the opportunity is happening for me”.

Additionally, if you think there is only one type of job or career you can pursue, your brain cuts off your ability to see and seize others. However, if you understand that the future is not binary, that there is not one or two choices for your career and life, but actually there are infinite opportunities, then you see and navigate through the world very differently, more openly, and with much better mental health benefits.

You become an explorer, looking for new realms and new possibilities of positioning your experience, skills, and joys in such a way that you help others. And in doing so, you help yourself, you become more energized, you see your own power, and you grow stronger and more focused every day.

RC: How do non-negotiables help move us towards a unicorn career? Can adhering to this approach change other parts of our lives and communities?

AL: Since there is a multiverse of career opportunities out there for you to pursue, we have to do something to put boundary conditions on this problem so we can actually find the right career for you. Non-negotiables help us erect borders so we do not become overwhelmed in decision-making, and we can begin to identify opportunities aligned with our unique humanity.

Examples of non-negotiables include industries or organizations you won’t work with or for, places where you will not live or places where you have to live, time to work on certain types of projects or use certain skills, or quantities of compensation that are important to you.

RC: If you could give readers one or two key gifts from your discoveries with your work, what would they be?

AL: 1. Honor yourself: The pursuit is a love letter to yourself and a celebration of how awesome, wonderful, and resilient you are. To honor yourself means to respect, love, and appreciate who you are, as you are. It means that you will be frank with yourself about your needs, wants, motivations, and values. It also means that you have to put yourself first. You cannot do your best work, you cannot help anyone else, and you certainly cannot be an asset to someone else in building their own career if you don’t assert how to do so for yourself first.

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2. Claim your belonging: Recognize that this is your time and space, and you have a right to take up that time and space just as you are. You belong here, even if you are the only one “here.” In this new arena that you are exploring, at the nexus of your unique interests.

RC: How does creating unicorn careers apply? Does it relate both individually and systemically?

AL: This is about exploring and manifesting harmony between your goals, interests, joys, loves, and the aspects of your life that are important to you and the needs of your community. When you create a career, you are honoring your authenticity, summoning and leveraging your unique skills, talents, and gifts to solve a problem for the community.

You don’t have to put yourself in a box that doesn’t fit you! You can create something new when you do so in service to others.

That harmony I equate to finding new, clandestine instruments to play a new melodious piece of music that you score yourself. And when you seek a life of harmony, everyone wins – and more opportunity and music abound!

RC: Thank you for joining us, Alaina.

In conversation with Alaina G. Levine. Levine is the author Create Your Unicorn Career: A Practical Guide to Designing the Authentic Career That Brings You Joy, Meaning, and Money - Even in Uncertain Times, published by Quantum Success Solutions, LLC, 2025. She is also the author of Networking for Nerds: Find, Access and Land Hidden Game‐Changing Career Opportunities Everywhere (Wiley, 2015). You can find her many columns on careers and Your Unicorn Career at Science magazine. Levine is also a professional speaker, career coach, speaking coach, corporate comedian, science writer, and TEDx speaker. (Bio drawn from Science)

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