A WAY TO AVOID BEING MISERABLE Coupled with understanding your talents, discovering what your passionate about is a critical piece in determining career direction. I find, though, that many people forego incorporating their passion and even their talents into career choices because they don’t think they can make money doing it or they are afraid they will fail. While I’m an advocate for understanding the marketplace and the demand for certain skills before making career choices, I also believe that people putting aside their gifts and passions end up leaving themselves in very undesirable states. Consider this quote in A
DO WE REALLY WANT TO HAVE IT ALL? I’ve been overwhelmed the last few weeks with the emphasis in the media and through random conversations about the focus on women. Women and their choice to stay at home or not to stay at home, to feed Cheetos for breakfast or fix homemade heart shaped pancakes instead, to take a job that demands more travel or not. About women and equality from the extremes of equal pay to the need for basic human rights for women. Women having it all or wanting it all, or “leaning in” for it all, or
The last two weeks have been devoted to finding your passions through your Holland Code and through examining people, things and ideas that you are passionate about. To make the exercises more concrete, back to the example of Graham: His Holland Code ESA (Enterprising, Social, Artistic) is his Holland Code with a strong bent towards the E. I like to call him the ultimate capitalist. Job titles connected to these areas: Enterprising Social Artistic His Top Passions Establishing and Maintaining Interpersonal Relationships Provide Consultation and Advice to Others Selling or Influencing Others Monitoring and Controlling Resources Getting Information Analyzing Data
WHERE IS YOUR CAR AND YOUR NURSERY? Is your leadership philosophy one of servant leadership? Wonderful! I would challenge you this week to consider if you are behaving in ways that demonstrate servant leadership. Here are some simple questions to ask yourself: Where is your car parked at the office? Do you have an assigned spot with your name or title on it right up front, or do people simply just know the front row is your parking spot whether a sign is there or not? Or do you discretely park in the back row of the parking lot even
Identifying your Holland Code is a good starting place to consider your passions, but it isn’t the only way to discover what truly cranks your tractor. You can use the Find Your Point Worksheet to identify passions through the categories of people, things and ideas to determine career areas (the passion section starts on page 11). Each item underlined in the worksheet is a link to jobs connected to that dimension. Cool tools for finding your passion Stanford Resources Bureau of Labor Tool Who Do you Want 2 B? Questions to ask yourself What do you spend your free time doing? What do