"What else could I be?"
This single question shifts everything. It assumes you already have valuable capabilities and asks how else they could be arranged. It opens possibilities instead of searching for the one right answer.
Why This Question Matters
Most career questions close options. "What should I do?" assumes there is one right answer to find. "What am I qualified for?" accepts that external gatekeepers determine your possibilities. "What careers match my personality?" treats you as a fixed entity to be sorted into predetermined categories.
The question "What else could I be?" works differently. It assumes you already have something valuable. It focuses on arrangement rather than acquisition. It treats your capabilities as raw material that can take many forms, not as qualifications that limit you to a single path.
The question is particularly powerful because it contains two assumptions that shift your entire orientation. The word "else" implies you already have a current arrangement and asks what other arrangements exist. The word "could" treats possibility as something to explore rather than something to be granted by external authority.
You are not your job title. You are a person with capabilities in a temporary arrangement. The question "What else could I be?" helps you see the other arrangements your capabilities could take.
Capability, Not Title
The first step in answering "What else could I be?" is separating your capabilities from your current job. Your job title describes one arrangement. Your capabilities are what you actually bring to that arrangement.
Consider an accountant at a mid-sized company. The title "accountant" is the arrangement. The capabilities underneath include financial analysis, pattern recognition in numerical data, attention to detail, understanding of business operations, regulatory knowledge, clear communication of complex information, deadline management, and the ability to work with stakeholders across departments.
Those capabilities could be arranged as a corporate accountant. They could also be arranged as a financial consultant, a startup CFO, a forensic accountant, a financial writer, a software product manager for accounting tools, a compliance officer, a business analyst, or an entrepreneur who understands the financial side of building a company.
Same Capabilities, Many Arrangements
The job title is one arrangement of underlying capabilities.
Other Possible Arrangements
The person in any of these arrangements is not fundamentally different. They are the same person with the same capabilities, arranged in a different way to serve different purposes in different contexts. Seeing this clearly is what makes the question "What else could I be?" so powerful. It reveals options that the question "What job should I find?" cannot see.
The Question in Different Contexts
The anchor question adapts to whatever situation you face. The core structure stays the same, but the specific form shifts to match the context. Each variation opens possibilities that the default FIND-mode questions cannot reach.
Notice that each variation maintains the structure of the anchor question. It assumes something valuable already exists. It asks about alternative arrangements or possibilities. It treats you as an active agent who can explore and create rather than a passive recipient waiting for the right answer to appear.
Replacing the Old Questions
The anchor question is most useful when it replaces the default questions that keep people stuck in FIND mode. Each old question assumes the answer exists somewhere and your job is to find it. The new question assumes you create answers through exploration and action.
The shift is subtle but significant. The old questions put you in a passive position, waiting for someone or something to reveal the right answer. The new questions position you as an active explorer who is mapping possibilities and building options.
From Question to Action
The question "What else could I be?" generates possibilities. The next step is testing which possibilities are worth pursuing. This is where experimentation enters.
You do not need to commit to a new arrangement to explore it. You can design small experiments that let you test whether an arrangement fits without giving up what you currently have. A conversation with someone in that arrangement. A side project that uses your capabilities in a new way. A short-term engagement that lets you experience the reality of a different life.
The question generates options. Experiments test them. The combination of question and experiment is how you build toward arrangements that fit who you are becoming, not just who you have been.
The Capability Extraction
Take your current or most recent job title. Now list everything you actually do in that role, being as specific as possible.
- What skills are you using every day?
- What knowledge are you applying?
- What problems are you solving?
- What relationships are you managing?
- What results are you producing?
These are your capabilities. The job title was one arrangement of them. Now ask yourself what else you could be with these same capabilities, arranged differently.
What the Question Makes Possible
The anchor question is not magic. It does not guarantee you will find the perfect arrangement or that transition will be easy. What it offers is something more fundamental. It offers a different relationship with professional uncertainty.
When AI changes your industry, the question reveals what your capabilities could become rather than what job you might lose. When economic shifts eliminate your current role, the question shows you the arrangements that remain available rather than the door that closed. When you feel trapped in work that no longer fits, the question opens possibilities that were invisible as long as you were asking "What should I do?"
The people who navigate the coming changes successfully will not be those who found the right answer and held onto it. They will be those who developed the habit of asking what else they could be, and testing the answers through action. The question is simple. The practice of asking it, repeatedly and seriously, is what transforms your relationship with professional life.
What else could you be? This is not a question you answer once. It is a question you return to as your capabilities grow, as conditions change, as you become someone new. The practice of asking it is the practice of staying open to arrangements you cannot yet see.