Monica O'Brien is the author of the book Social Pollination: Escape the Hype of Social Media and Join the Companies Winning At It. Social Pollination provides a strategic blueprint that helps businesses leverage social media for crazy growth! For a limited time, purchase Social Pollination and get a free membership to Monica's private coaching forum.

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Personality Tests

How to Find Passion in Your Career

By Monica O'Brien | October 13th in Uncategorized

6 comments

Should you be an entrepreneur? In most instances, people mistake becoming an entrepreneur for finding what they are passionate about. The two are sometimes related, but they are different concepts. Finding your passion could mean you are happy working for other people, while entrepreneurship is about building a company, plain and simple.

You don’t have to build a company to find your passion. I repeat, you don’t have to build a company to find your passion. Here is how to find your passion, whether you want to be an entrepreneur or not:

Look to your childhood

I spent most of my free time as a child with my nose in a book. I also spent countless hours documenting my life (yeah, not a good read from the perspective of an 10 year old) and writing short stories. In fact, my dad recently sent me a copy of a published short story I wrote when I was 8. It’s awful. But it reminded me that I have always been passionate about reading and writing. Always. So passionate about writing that when people ask me how I keep writing on my blog, or how I can write a book, I have no advice, because I always write.

You are probably passionate about many things, but you will find your strengths by remembering what inspired you when you were young. What did you care about then? Ask your parents or siblings if you are stuck.

Reexamine your hobbies

One of the best sources for finding your passion is stuff you already do for free. And don’t stop at things you do – also keep in mind subjects you are constantly reading about, ideas you’ve dabbled with on a blog, and magazines you are subscribed to. But be careful – sometimes turning a hobby into a job doesn’t work out.

Find the good in your current job

Compartmentalize your job. Even if you hate your current job, there must be at least one thing you like about it. Maybe it’s something unrelated, like you work with your friends, or it’s only 15 minutes away, or you get free bagels and orange juice for breakfast – but that’s still something you should know about yourself.

When I completed my analysis, I learned that I love to be near home. I think about the jobs I’ve quit and it was mostly due to the commute. So now I know to never take a job unless I plan to move within 15 minutes of it.

Do this with all your jobs, and look for patterns. You could find some skill set that you’ve overlooked. At the least, you will better understand your priorities in life.

Volunteer

You can find your passion by process of elimination. So volunteer whenever you can – for unusual projects at your current job, with a local organization or charity, at your church, wherever. Internships and apprenticeships, and shadowing are also good ways to eliminate options.

Throw out the BS

It’s so easy to tell yourself you are not good enough to do something as a career. Question those negative thoughts. Why can’t you? I recently watched something on TV where this guy who weighed over 600 pounds lost all his weight and became a fitness trainer. Can you imagine?

Pump yourself up, do whatever you need to do to boost your self-esteem, and above all, don’t rule anything out because you don’t have the education, the skills, the know-how, the degree, the talent, or the look. Skills can be learned, attitude can’t; so having the right attitude probably counts more in whatever field you want to enter.

This is not to say you should never stop pursuing an impossible dream, but don’t rule it out before you even begin.

Research

Learn about careers you think you could be interested in. Ask around. Sometimes your friends can help you see yourself differently – the people close to you may see a great career path that you wouldn’t have come up with on your own.

Take an assessment

I don’t have all the answers for you. It’s impossible for me or anyone else to look into a crystal ball and tell you exactly what your passion is. But luckily, there are a few people I can recommend who can also help you find your passion. Two passion tests I really love are:

Find Your Career Path by JT O’Donnell

Find Your Career Path is about getting a career and work environment that is compatable with your strengths. The workbook is divided into four sections using the G.L.O.W. Method:

Part I: Gaining Perspective – a series of unique personality assessments to give you a better perspective of your strengths
Part II: Luminating Your Goal – a guide to determining a best fit career and workplace environment
Part III: Owning Your Actions – information on creating your resume, developing a career story, and taking the steps necessary to get your dream job
Part IV: Working It Daily – a worksheet that will help you stay committed to reaching your goals

Get the book here. Or you can learn how this book literally changed my life (umm, yeah, I don’t say that often, so you know I mean it) by reading my entire review.

Passion + Profits Test by Jonathan Mead

ppt-preview I love this test. Jonathan first takes you through what getting paid to exist means in a video presentation. Then he has you brainstorm potential passion businesses, and gives you a 25 question quiz to evaluate the validity of your potential business.

Get the Passion + Profits Test here (short email sign-up required).

How to be an entrepreneur despite your personality type

By Monica O'Brien | October 1st in Entrepreneurship

9 comments

This past month, I’ve been editing and putting the final touches on my upcoming book. (I’ll be talking about it soon, but here’s a primer.) Having gone through the experience once now, there are many things I will be doing differently for my next book.

For example, I am not comfortable writing in a vacuum. I love getting feedback on my ideas, and the thought of publishing my first book with very little community feedback is making me a little crazy. So for my next book, I’m going to get some online feedback early.

60 Days to Entrepreneurial Freedom – The Not-yet-a-Book Experiment

I wanted to re-kick off this blog (after a short hiatus) with a series about something I write about often – entrepreneurship. I’m calling the series 60 Days to Entrepreneurial Freedom, and every day for sixty days I plan to write about some topic in entrepreneurship, with 3 actionable items to help you succeed as an entrepreneur. At the end of the 60 days, I might take some of the material, edit it, restructure it, add to it, clarify it, and turn it into a book. Or I might not. I’m simply using this blog as a playground to test ideas about (and my understanding of) entrepreneurship.

If this sounds completely vague, it is. But if you are interested in starting a business, hang out here every day for the next two months and let’s just see what happens.

Which brings me to…

Action Item #1: Discover your personality type.

Many people would not be okay with starting a 60 day series on their blogs without knowing what they were going to talk about, but I am. That’s because I’m an ENTP, and we’re comfortable with blueprints and improvisation.

I strongly recommend that everyone understand their personality type before trying to start a business. You need to know what your strengths and weaknesses are, and if your company ever starts expanding, you will need to know the strengths and weaknesses of your coworkers.

There is also strong evidence that small companies take on the personalities of their founders, and that the founders’ personalities become embedded in company culture long after the company passes out of the startup phase. One example is Steve Jobs and Apple – another example is Walt Disney from Disney.

So if you are serious about building a company, you better know yourself. Take an online Myer-Briggs test here.

Action Item #2: Learn as much as you can about weaknesses of your personality type.

I read tons of descriptions of my personality type so I know where I’m going to fail, and so I can hopefully circumvent the process. Here are some things I struggle with:

Finishing Projects

I am a classic “P” – I like to start things, but I have trouble finishing them. While I am capable of managing projects well, I have trouble when I must both manage and execute the project. Not only that, but I start way more projects that I can finish, keeping me slightly more busy than physically possible most of the time.

Taking Risks

I have a tendency to dream big and as such, rarely take the traditional route. While I try to take calculated risks, some of my ideas are really out there. This is typical of entrepreneurs, but knowing when to not pursue something or when to quit something is valuable. Sometimes I have trouble seeing that.

Abandoning Relationships

I like relationships that help me grow, and I am quick to end relationships that don’t. This can come across as harsh or unkind to some people, when I’m really just trying to manage my time better. I don’t take emotions into account often enough in my business dealings.

Action Item #3: Plan an attack on your weaknesses.

To give yourself a better chance at whatever entrepreneurial pursuits you undertake, it makes sense to figure out how you are going to compensate for your weaknesses. I’ve come up with three ideas, one for each weakness I’ve uncovered:

Finishing Projects Solution

Hire or find someone to manage you. For my upcoming book, I hired an editor who is also an excellent project manager. He not only edits my book, but helps me keep the entire book on schedule just by talking me through deadlines. If you can get a spouse or coworker to manage your creativity, even passively, you will accomplish much more than you can on your own.

Taking Risks Solution

I stay grounded thanks to my husband. He’s happy to give me a reality check, so I run all my ideas by him and talk it out with him. Find a confidant who has an opposite personality type – he can balance the extreme aspects of your personality.

Abandoning Relationships Solution

I try to relax at least a few times a week with people I don’t feel pressured to “optimize” – like my spouse, friends, and extended family. I remind myself to just have fun with people, and to not make everything about business. I try to convert business partnerships to friendships when I enjoy talking or hanging out with the person, so that the relationship doesn’t end when the partnership does.

Notice that with each of the solutions, I don’t necessarily try to change any of my weaknesses. For the most part, you can’t. What you can do is make a small improvement on your weaknesses and find someone else with those strengths to help you balance.

What’s your personality type, what are three weaknesses you have that could impair you in entrepreneurship, and how can you combat them? Feel free to respond to the action items in a comment, or share your results on your own blog.

If you have an idea for future topics, I obviously could use some. Feel free to email me at m@twentyset.com.

I look forward to hearing about your path to entrepreneurial freedom!

I May Never Be a Mother. And That's Okay.

By Monica O'Brien | May 5th in Careers

42 comments

Image Source: sweetimaginations via FlickR

Ever since I started at Brazen Careerist I’ve been obsessed with my MBTI type. Mostly because I couldn’t decide what I was – so I began researching each letter until I was sure.

Now I’ve come to the conclusion. I’m an INTP, which is the least common personality type. Something like 1% of the population has it. Here’s where you find INTP’s: teaching at colleges. Researching. Making theoretical discoveries. They are the “absent-minded professors,” in their own worlds. Disconnected from relationships, preferring to figure things out on their own. And the successful INTP’s are mostly men, which seems to be a reoccurring theme in my life.

In other words, my personality type is the exact opposite personality of someone who society thinks would make a good wife and mother. No kidding. ESFJ is actually nicknamed the “housewife” personality type.

Here is what worries me about my personality type: I feel like I’ve caught this anti-wife, anti-mom disease. And naturally, I want to be a good wife and good mom, because society tells me I should.

So the first thing I did after discovering all this was write an article about how you can change your personality type. It never went to publish, because I knew I was wrong. As much as I want to be a mother, I won’t ever be obsessed with my kids, the way my parents were. I won’t ever have the desire to quit my job, or even cut back on my hours.

I’ve always known this about myself, and up until recently here was my plan to make it work: get a puppy. I would get a dog to practice taking care of someone before I had kids, so by the time I actually had kids I would be ready to give up more of myself. But after five days of waking up at 6am to a puppy licking my face, I’m even reconsidering that.

Maybe that’s the thing. Maybe I don’t want to be a mother. Maybe I’ve been told my entire life that women get married, have kids, and clean their houses, and I’ve just assumed that’s the only acceptable path. Maybe it’s not, and I resent society for that stereotype, because I’ll never, ever fit it. Damn society.

Here’s my new plan for having kids: make my husband stay at home, or get a nanny if he doesn’t want to. Or not have kids, because the first two solutions make me feel very guilty (another side effect of societal views). Penelope wrote about stay-at-home-dads recently, and everyone, including me, hated it. Then I realized the reason I hated it is because it was about a guy cheating on his wife who provided all the money for him and their family. If the post was about a woman cheating on a man, I would say she was bored and taken for granted. Totally justifiable. But a guy cheating on his working wife makes my blood boil; because deep down I don’t respect a guy who does not financially provide for his family, then proverbially slaps his wife in the face by cheating on her.

Before you start hating me, know that these views make sense, given my personality type. But that doesn’t mean I’m not trying, and my biggest revelation is that as angry as I am about wife/mother stereotypes, I am not immune to prescribing to gender stereotypes either. So the only way I can ever have kids is to redefine what motherhood means to me and see if I can make it work with my personality. But that starts with me learning to truly respect a man who is willing to stay home with the kids.

Book Review: How'd You Score That Gig?

By Monica O'Brien | April 28th in Uncategorized

6 comments

Alexandra Levit is an author, consultant, speaker, and Generation Y expert. She has just come out with a new book, How’d You Score That Gig?: A Guide to the Coolest Jobs-and How to Get Them. Here are five reasons you should get it:

Cool Self-Assessment Tool

The book opens with a twenty question self-assessment that I love. It meets three requirements that all personality tests should meet:

it’s short and interesting
the “answers” are not obvious and you can’t inadvertently choose an answer to get the outcome you expect
the options cover a variety of scenarios and it’s easy to find one that fits

I’ve found that taking self-assessments are a great way to learn more about yourself and what kind of career you will be interested in. The more you take the better prepared you are to make decisions, and when it comes to choosing a career Alex’s self-assessment is essential.

It’s a Quick Read If You’re in a Hurry

Once you get the results of your self-assessment, you are directed to one of seven sections: Adventurer, Creator, Data Head, Entrepreneur, Investigator, Networker, or Nurturer. Each section is only about 40 pages long, so if you are in a hurry you can just read through the section that describes you best to get the biggest bang for your buck.

If you have a little more time, it’s worth it to take your top three scores and read those three sections. With seven possibilities, some of us are bound to score high in more than one (I did). The beauty of the book is you can explore careers that fit different aspects of your personality and pick and choose the ones that interest you most.

Really Interesting Jobs. Really.

Personally, I would read all the sections eventually, because the jobs Alex has found are really offbeat and interesting. Here are a few that struck me as cool: Futurist, Pro Sports Team Manager, Life Coach, Image Consultant, Professional Organizer, Travel Journalist, Oceanographer, Landscape Architect, Classic Car Restorer, and Urban Planner. Want to learn more about one of these gigs? Buy the book.

Stories. And Lots of Them.

To write the book, Alex interviewed a ton of people for each gig she talks about. So for every gig, you get real life examples from two or three people who have already transitioned into the gig, and practical advice for how to get the gig yourself. Interviewees include a past winner of the Survivor and an HGTV interior designer. It’s the real deal!

The Research is Done for You

For each gig, Alex provides a road map to follow in order to get the gig as well as further resources: websites, books, and real life examples. All her sources are quoted and annotated beautifully throughout the book, so it’s very easy to get more information and make your dream job a reality.

This book is perfect for: recent college grads, soon-to-be college grads, career shifters, and anyone looking to escape the cubicle. Purchase today at Amazon.

Find Your Career Path: Book Review

By Monica O'Brien | March 17th in Careers

16 comments

Image Source: Edge of Space via FlickR

If there’s one thing I hate, it’s when people ask me for my 10-year plan; and as I navigated through graduating from school, starting my first real job, then quitting it after the one-year mark, it seemed like everyone but me had a 10-year plan. My husband, who started volunteering his summers at a local hospital in 8th grade because he knew he wanted to be a doctor. My best friend and roommate, who had planned her life to the age of thirty before she started college. My dad, who stayed in the same military career for 26 years before retiring, then hiring back on to the same job as a civilian. Everyone knew what they wanted, something I didn’t have.

Six months ago, here’s what I did have: I had a degree in Computer Science. I had admission to one of the top graduate business schools in the country. I had 16 months of experience at a Fortune 300. And I had a job offer at one of the hottest software companies in downtown Chicago.

But I was incredibly unhappy with my career. My boomer parents thought I should be happy because I was making more money than some of their peers. My husband thought I should be happy because my degree was like a season pass to Six Flags when it came to the job market. My friends thought I should be happy because I got my job offer six months before graduating, with little effort, because there are no women in my field.

So I tried to be happy and make sense of the things I had. Every day I tried to put the pieces of my career puzzle together; and quite frankly, every day made me feel more hopeless.

I did what most people do when they are lost: search far and wide for a map or marker to help them navigate. But since no one else thought I was lost, I had to look in strange places. One day I came across a post from Ryan Healy that had a link to a personality assessment on JT O’Donnell’s website. Naturally, I was interested in my interaction style, so I took it… and lo and behold, at the end of the page was a link to JT O’Donnell’s workbook, Find Your Career Path. My credit card was out in seconds.

Find Your Career Path is about getting a career and work environment that is compatable with your strengths. The workbook is divided into four sections using the G.L.O.W. Method:

Part I: Gaining Perspective – a series of unique personality assessments to give you a better perspective of your strengths
Part II: Luminating Your Goal – a guide to determining a best fit career and workplace environment
Part III: Owning Your Actions – information on creating your resume, developing a career story, and taking the steps necessary to get your dream job
Part IV: Working It Daily – a worksheet that will help you stay committed to reaching your goals

This workbook is great for two reasons. The first is that JT provides a step-by-step guide to changing careers. Going through this process is similar to what JT offers in her personal consulting sessions, so it’s an inexpensive alternative to hiring a career coach. It’s great for people who are self-starters and want to get started understanding their work personality without shelling out a ton of dough right away.

The second reason, and the reason I like the book so much, is because JT illustrates her entire method with real-life stories from her clients. And her clients were very lost, much like me. For me, half the battle was admitting to myself and others that I was unhappy and accepting I didn’t have to follow anyone else’s definition of success in my own career. If you like reading about my story, you will probably like reading the stories in the book because they are easy to relate to.

What this workbook won’t give you is an overnight change to your dream job. In some instances, it will just help you understand how to do your job better. For example, part of my job is project management, which I thought I would be great at because I’m a Global Learner and can see things on a big-picture level. But I’m also an Architect and I don’t respond to the pressure of meeting deadlines. In knowing this, however, I’ve figured out that I was assuming the people under me didn’t like pressure either, which is why nothing ever got done. Some people need pressure to motivate them to perform, and the book has helped me become a better manager.

I also know the book will help me going forward in my search for a dream job. I want to start a business at some point, and sometimes I wonder why I haven’t just done it yet. And I get irritated because my entrepreneur friends are constantly reminding me how so many people say they are going to be entrepreneurs and then don’t have the guts to quit their day jobs. But the real reason is because I’m a Reflective Learner, and I like to let ideas sit in my head for awhile and mature before pursuing them. Which is what I’ve been doing for the last three months with my big idea, which I will pursue at some point, because I’m also a Commander and stop at nothing to reach my goals.

The greatest benefit of completing the Finding Your Career Path workbook is understanding who you are and how you fit into your workplace, and, if necessary, changing your workplace environment to something better suited to your strengths. If this sounds like something you’re interested in, I have great news…

JT has agreed to sponsor a contest I’m running at Twenty Set this week. There are two sets of prizes:

1 private Professional Strengths Assessment Session - You will complete all the tools in the book and then have the results interpreted in a 90 minute phone session with JT O’Donnell herself. To win, leave a comment here saying why you want to win, or if you are shy, you can also send me an email. I’ll choose one person for the prize.
3 Find Your Career Path workbooks – You can take all the assessments described here on your own to find career satisfaction. To win, leave a comment on any of the posts at Twenty Set dated from now until Friday, including this one. Winners will be randomly selected, and each comment counts as one entry (though read my comment policy first, because violations don’t count as entries).

JT also has one of the personality assessments online and offers the workbook at 20% off to anyone who takes it. Highly recommended if you’d like to learn more about the process. She also offers free career advice specifically for Millennials if you are interested.

As this is the first contest at Twenty Set, I’m interested to see how things turn out. Big thanks again to JT for sponsoring the contest and for changing how I view my career and life.