Archives for May 2013

Who You Are – What You Do in the Future

Posted on May 14, 2013 // Leave a Comment

NPR recently shared the post of a young Ivy League graduate about his own future. The specifics of the young man’s questions are shown in BUZZ Today. Of equal interest is the string of comments readers gave to help the young man answer his important questions about his future. I am adding my comments here.

Buzz TodaySource: NPR: Assume I have no such passion. Furthermore, I am a fairly well-qualified young generalist.* What paths should most appeal to me if my goal is to maximize doing “interesting” work? Doing meaningful work? Achieving social status? (Which of these goals should be primary?) Need I try to develop a passion before selecting a life path/career, and if so, how do I do it?

The young man is asking the questions about his future. Many comments shared on NPR try to help the young man what to do based on what has worked for them. The advice is well intended but it does not address the core issue he is facing. The future he is trying to create for himself is one where what he does with his life matches who he is. The rest of us can add little to that decision.

I recommend that you read the comments after the NPR post reference in BUZZ Today. They are almost all about linking “who you are” with “what you do” to create a purposeful and fulfilled life. I have a lot of suggestions on how to link these two in my book Your Future is Calling. Here are suggestions on linking who you are to what you do.

There are many instruments that provide objective information on who you are. Here are three that I recommend:

* Myers-Briggs: From Wikipedia – The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) assessment is a psychometric questionnaire designed to measure psychological preferences in how people perceive the world and make decisions. See: MBTI

* Strengths Finder 2.0: To purchase see Gallup

* O*Net Interest Profiler: This is a free service on the government department of labor WEB site O*Net

For “what you do” part see the very informative and comprehensive information on over 950 careers listed in great detail at the O*Net home site.

Getting to an empowered and fulfilling future requires knowing where you are starting. It begins with who you are. It also requires reliable information on what your options are for the do part of your future. These are good starting points on your path to your future.

Filed Under: Adult learning, Career, Do, Who you are // Tagged: , , , , ,

What’s Missing?

Posted on May 12, 2013 // Leave a Comment

Who You Are  –  II

There are between 30 and 40 million Americans with a learning history that looks something like one of those below.  You may be one of them.

University -> Major 1 -> Major 2 -> Major 3: No degree
or
University 1 -> Major 1 -> University 2 -> Major 2 -> University 3: No degree
or
Community college -> University -> Start over -> Out of money:  No degree

Some in the blogosphere are debating whether earning a degree is worth it.

 Buzz TodaySource:   Your Future is Calling.  The number of jobs available is directly related to a person’s level of education. The number of jobs available if you have a bachelor’s degree has grown 82 percent since 1988. The number of jobs available if you have an associate’s degree has grown 42 percent, while the number of jobs available to those with only a high school degree actually declined by 14 percent.

Although having a degree does not guarantee you’ll enjoy a well-paying career, this information highlights that job growth occurred only in those jobs requiring degrees. The data are true through good times and bad—recessions included.

On this issue the data is very clear.  On average, those with a degree make more money, were better at retaining their jobs in the last severe economic downturn and degree holders have about one half the unemployment rate as those without a degree.

But even these facts are not the heart of the issue if you are one of the 30 – 40 million cited above.  For you the issue is much more personal.  This is about you.

At some point in their lives, every one of these 30 – 40 million individuals had decided that a degree was something they wanted in their future.  The question is not so much about whether a degree is “worth it”.  The important question for you is “what went wrong on the way to that degree?”

There are many reasons individuals are not able to reach their personal degree goal.  Simply put, life gets in the way.  I talk about these issues in the chapter “You Are Not Alone” in my book Your Future is Calling.  What is striking is how common the reasons are that people stopped out on their path to their degree.

One of the conclusions we might draw from the university -> major sequence, and the tens of millions of stop outs, is that there could be something else going on here.  Missing from this conversation is what I think are some of the most important pieces in this conversation.  Missing are “who you are” and careers.

My suggestion is that the decisions of university and major are means to an end.  The outcome you are trying create is the match between “who you are” and career.  It is this match in the future that will provide the satisfaction of a fulfilled life.

More on these two factors in future posts on this blog.

Filed Under: Adult learning, Career, College degrees, Income // Tagged: , , , , , ,

Who You Are

Posted on May 10, 2013 // Leave a Comment

Knowing Who You Are

The most important thing about your future is that you do things that fulfill you and give you satisfaction.  It sounds simple.  It can be.

The two words in this entire simple idea most central to happiness in your future are YOU DO.   Let’s begin with the you.   Buzz Today Source:  Your Future is Calling. Today’s adult student can’t afford to “figure it out” as he or she goes. Education is just too expensive. You do not have the luxury of endlessly exploring degrees and majors in the hope that you will eventually “figure it out.” My advice to you is to “figure it out” before you begin studying specific subject matter or selecting your major. The investment you make before you enroll (or re-enroll) in higher education will be far more productive than simply jumping in and beginning to take courses.

What I do, outside of sharing ideas with you, has virtually nothing to with your future happiness.   Your future, and the satisfaction it brings, is all about you – most importantly “who you are”.

I like to trout fish with dry flies.   Most of you would probably find that boring and some might even find it cruel and inhumane to set a hook into a living creature.   But for me, I (you) like to fish (do). Fishing appeals to my love of nature, the outdoors, the challenge of performing a difficult task well, the camaraderie of a day on the river with an experienced outdoor guide, the sharing of tales and past experiences like the grizzly bear episode in Alaska.

The point is that dry fly fishing for trout on a mountain river is about “who I am”.   For you to get pleasure and have satisfaction in the future you have to do what matches “who you are”.   Sadly, many go to college, get a degree, look for a job, go to work.  This is what I would call the hope plan.  The hope is that in the end the future that eventually emerges from all of this doing matches up with the “who you are”.  In this sequence the “who you are” is the last thing in the journey.  If, in the future all this doing aligns with who you are you are you will be happy and satisfied.  If it doesn’t you won’t be.

Don’t wind up in a struggle trying to figure out who you are at the end, especially after you have done all the work, made all the sacrifices, incurred all the debt to get a degree. There is another way.  Put understanding “who you are” first.

Finding out “Who you are” is a bit like an old Fram oil filter television commercial.  The key line of the commercial was “you can pay me now or you can pay me later”.    The point is that finding out “who you are” is key to a fulfilled future.  You can put it off into the future and pay later. Or you can step up and find it out at the beginning.  Pay now.   Some people try to figure it out along the way.  In fact, an important part of traditional campus based college education is give the student space to help the young men and women of our society “learn who they are”.

The point I want to make here is that discovering “who you are” is a very important part of your future.  In my book Your Future is Calling I start with “who you are” before giving detailed guidance about selecting a career, a major, and/or a college.  The most important thing about a fulfilled future is the right do of today.  You need to begin, not end with “who you are”.

And, oh by the way, here is the rest of the story about the grizzly bear.  I got away with my life humbled and grateful.  In the end the bear got its way.  She ran us out of her favorite fishing spot.  Fortunately she didn’t want to eat us.  All she wanted was to let her fish for the spawning salmon in that narrow stretch of the river.   And what did I learn from this about “who I am”?  I learned that I am not the top of the food chain while standing in fast flowing rivers in remote regions of Alaska.

Filed Under: Adult learning, Career, College degrees // Tagged: , , , ,

How to Make Sure College Fits Who You Are

Posted on May 10, 2013 // Leave a Comment

Should Everyone Go to College?  The answer is, of course NO.   But the no answer may be for a different reason than you think.  It is about matching what you do with who you are, not how much money you will make.  If you can earn a degree that earns a healthy income and matches what you want to do with your life then do it.  If that’s not possible, pick what fits you.  Actually it is nearly as easily done as said.

There is a huge debate raging about the advice to go to college.  Like so many things in our society today, this conversation has become politicized around national political agendas and public policy.  The politics is about other people.  What we are talking about here is you and your future.

Buzz Today Source:  Inside Higher Ed. Free for All Over “College for All” “Should Everyone Go to College?” is the title of the research brief co-written by Sawhill and Stephanie Owen, a senior research assistant at Brookings. The paper — essentially a review of existing literature on the topic — is facing sharp criticism, both philosophically and methodologically, from ideological friends and foes alike.  Averages mask enormous variation that means that many individuals do not fare so well, and the authors spend the rest of the paper documenting the ways in which students’ return from their higher education may fall short based on the colleges, majors and careers they choose.

Some in the media and many on the Internet are passionate about the political implications of the policy debates.  But I want to return to what it all means to the individual prospective student like yourself.  In the end, what law makers and policy wonks think about your personal decision is not critical to your future.  What is most critical to your future is starting with “who you are”.

I want to take a few lines to talk about “who you are”.  In Your Future is Calling, I point the reader to several instruments that will help you answer this important question.  The answers are the starting point for you to lay the road-map out to your future.  These are scientific instruments that have been proven with hundreds of thousands of users.  What these instruments do is take your answers to a number of questions and provide information back to you about what it all means.

What these instruments tell you is “who you are” based on the science of the instruments and your personal inputs. They paint a picture for you that lays a foundation for the rest of the decisions you need to make. In Your Future is Calling, I help you take that information and map it to careers, majors and colleges. This approach focuses on you and not the politicians and policy makers in Washington. In the end we are talking about your future, not theirs.

Filed Under: Adult learning, Career, College degrees, Income // Tagged: , , , , ,
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