Words for Stories
  • Crafting Your Story
    • Privacy and Cookies Policy
  • About My Story
    • My Editing and Writing Bookshelf
  • Working Together
    • Collaboration Nuts and Bolts
  • Story Blog
  • How can I help?

Story Blog

Writer@WordsforStories.com

​A Storytelling Serial

​Are you reading this blog on a mobile device? If so and you'd like to subscribe to my occasional postings but don't see a blog sidebar for that option, please head to the bottom of this page on your device for subscription and other sidebar information, including quick links to archives. Thanks for taking the extra time to scroll! ​

WHERE DO YOU EXCEL?

10/13/2021

5 Comments

 
Photo of a nomad, wrapped in a brown-and-tan checked blanket and alone, picking their way across boulders against a backdrop of a mountaintop dusted in snow, capped by wispy white clouds and a blue sky. Courtesy of Pixabay.com.Always a new path. (Nomad photo courtesy of Pixabay.com)
Recently I watched a short video from writing-business guru Ed Gandia, in which he teaches viewers how to decide which projects to take on—and when to walk away.

He says that everyone has one to three things they do very well, in fact better than most other people, and it’s important to figure out those exceptional abilities.

Do you know the one to three skills where you excel? If so, I hope they’re better money-makers than mine are.


The Reality of Skills

A former career counselor, I’ve accumulated contradictory book titles. Phil Cooke’s One Big Thing: Discovering What You Were Born to Do occupies shelf space right next to Barbara Sher’s Refuse to Choose! A Revolutionary Program for Doing Everything That You Love and Margaret Lobenstine’s The Renaissance Soul: Life Design for People with Too Many Passions to Pick Just One.

Yet the coexistence of these guides makes an odd kind of sense to me. I’ve also completed the CliftonStrengths Assessment a few times. The results are consistent, unlike with other popular career inventories I’ve taken more than once (yes, I mean you, Myers-Briggs and Strong). My top strengths, every time: input, intellection, and learner.

Which means I have a talent for collecting information, thinking, introspection, and learning. (“Duh,” says everyone who has ever known me.)

According to Cooke, then, I was born to take in, ponder, and absorb information. And Sher and Lobenstine want me to use that Big Talent to pivot through everything I find interesting. It sounds like a reasonable way to live, but there’s a price to claiming my destiny in the way Sher and Lobenstine encourage.

By now, having been a learner throughout life and an inveterate explorer of the new, my job-performance expertise runs from so-so to good enough. I don’t stick with any one type of work for the time required to get truly great at it, and I can’t think of a thing I do better than most, or even extremely well—except for chasing my insatiable curiosity and pursuing endless education.

I’ve tried, but I still haven’t figured out how to bundle those two abilities into a package and charge for them.

Sure, I can be a curious learner in any kind of work; but sending stuff into the world requires much more than that. Practice is essential.

And the “more” is where I plateau at good enough. My billable skills top out at pleasing some of the people some of the time. When I’m not directly engaged in my strengths of discovery and learning, I find that genius—and sometimes enjoyment—eludes me.

So does significant profit. And this is where Ed asserts that when we do what we most enjoy, we not only become good at it but we can also earn more doing it.

He doesn’t understand why many folks—and I’ve certainly been one—stubbornly continue a path that doesn’t combine genius, enjoyment, and profit.


Some Don’t Fit the Mold

With me, the explanation is simple. In my working life, I’ve never been able to identify the sweet intersection of superpower, delight, and income. My career Venn diagram refuses to materialize.

Instead, I do what I’m able to do well enough and with some satisfaction, for whatever money I can earn. Would I like to achieve the elusive “more,” the one to three things where I happily shine and others happily pay me the value of those polished skills? Yes. Yes, I would. But am I willing to give up a core part of who I am to get there?

Not so far. I’m too much of an adventurer—easily bored, relentlessly seeking fresh territory. And I have to accept that if I continue to embrace that part of myself, Ed will always be confused by my lack of success, and I’ll never be paid for greatness in anything.

However, I’ll have the satisfaction of staying true to my nomadic heart, of remaining inquisitive and gathering knowledge. I won’t reach any pinnacles of persistence, but I’ll enjoy my own up-and-down journey.


Make a Conscious Choice

I know I’m not the only one who has been grabbing for the familiar during a no-normal pandemic. But given my nature, there was only so long I could trudge the same path. Now I sense that my bent for curiosity and learning conspire to send me in a different direction.

With age, though, I have dwindling confidence in my ability to handle the changes and manage the financial recovery required by career reinvention, so I’m more hesitant at this fork in the road than I’ve ever been when heading into virgin territory.

Still, I’m not in a great place now; so what do I really have to lose, except the chance to follow my questions and be a student once more?

That type of choice doesn’t make for good business or a comfortable living; but when what I’m good at isn’t the road to riches, and no amount of creativity can squeeze money from my deepest pleasures, sometimes I have to choose what I love and do best—realizing that for me profit doesn’t fit in a tidy box along with genius and enjoyment.

At the same time, Ed reminds me there are those who can make money from skills they love. If that’s you, I hope you’ll do so fully and completely. And please, don’t take that magical combination for granted. Embrace your good fortune in the worlds of work and income.

We wanderers wish you well.
​      
What are the one to three skills where you excel? Do you enjoy them? Are they profitable? If you’d like to share below, we’d love to hear about the strengths that influence your work choices.

5 Comments
Elizabeth Gauffreau link
10/14/2021 04:31:57 pm

Hi, Ranee. Interesting questions for someone who just retired! When I went to college and grad school, I refused to view my education as career preparation, and I did no career planning or development at all. Four Latin courses on my undergrad transcript got me a teaching job, and I stayed in education except for two years as an assistant director at a senior center. When it ended up coming down to any time I made a change (which wasn't often), I had the head and the heart for the job--but not the stomach.

Reply
Ranee Tomlin link
10/15/2021 04:11:22 pm

Congrats on your retirement, Liz! When I worked in college career counseling, it was an interesting dance of trying to help students understand the value of an education beyond job skills while simultaneously helping them find career-related motivation for their studies. I'm not sure I was ever able to succeed in convincing them that education has a valid purpose separate from vocation.

Anyway, now how do you use your strengths in writing and publishing, which seem to be your current work? Are those skills profitable? (You don't have to answer, of course; those are just questions for you to ponder, if they seem relevant.)

Thank you for reading and commenting; I always love your responses.

Reply
Liz Gauffreau link
10/22/2021 05:39:16 pm

Thanks, Ranee! I had fully intended to work for another five years, but the job was so stressful it was making me sick. What my dad used to say really sums it up best: when an organization's mission becomes perpetuating its own existence, it has no raison d'etre, and it's time to shut it down.

I'm still in the start-up costs phase of my publishing imprint. My hope is to break even. We'll see . . .

Liz

Reply
Ranee Boyd Tomlin link
10/24/2021 03:59:38 pm

Oh, Liz, I had the same experience in choosing to make an earlier-than-expected departure from my last job in higher education. And I know you have several skills to bring to your publishing imprint. You've made an admirable transition. Kudos and best wishes!

Elizabeth Gauffreau link
10/24/2021 04:56:10 pm

Thank you for the vote of confidence, Ranee!

Reply



Leave a Reply.


    ​Author

    Ranee Boyd Tomlin: 
    Story Supporter, Word Wonk, Lifelong Learner

    Thanks for subscribing to my email list.

    * indicates required
    Email Format

    You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of my emails. For information about my privacy practices, please scroll to the bottom of any page on my website and click "Read My Privacy and Cookies Policy."

    I use Mailchimp as my marketing platform. By clicking below to subscribe, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing. Learn more about Mailchimp's privacy practices here.

    View my profile on LinkedIn

    Categories

    All
    Creativity Lessons
    Language Lessons
    Lessons About Working
    Lessons For Learning
    Lessons For Life Choices
    Lessons In Being A Writer

    Archives

    July 2022
    April 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    October 2021
    August 2021
    June 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    April 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    August 2017
    June 2017
    February 2017
    November 2016
    October 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    August 2015

READ MY PRIVACY AND COOKIES POLICY.

Copyright © 2023 Words for Stories. All rights reserved.
  • Crafting Your Story
    • Privacy and Cookies Policy
  • About My Story
    • My Editing and Writing Bookshelf
  • Working Together
    • Collaboration Nuts and Bolts
  • Story Blog
  • How can I help?