Boy oh boy, woweee.
Shoutout to the 3 dudettes (Hey Jen + Matilda + Sez) for joining this week.
Without further ado:
Essay From Me: Career Decision Framework (part one)
You know those observations that slap you in the face and leave you thinking why it’s taken me so long to realise?
Well, one of my biggest slaps came last year when pondering why myself and so many people struggle to answer the question “what do you want to be when you grow up?.
What I’ve since realised is formal education focuses on the knowledge required for a job, without ever teaching us the self-knowledge that helps us decide on what that job ideally is.
If someone were to create a framework that empowers you to identify jobs based on self-knowledge it may look something like this.
It redefines common job criteria by adding the lens of what brings you fulfillment.
The framework is a four step process I created after two years scouring what else was out there. Through the process you will identify:
Tasks you’re passionate about doing
A problem you’re passionate about fixing
People you’re passionate about helping
Who you’re passionate about working for
By the end, you know the change you want to create in the world, who you want to create it for, possible employers and your role.
Life Map
Part 1 is to create a life map. Think of your life map like train tracks. By reviewing your past you begin to gain insights into the direction of your future.
Grab a piece of paper and draw a line across the page or download the template I created. It will guide you through all three steps.
Start by identifying major life events. Use these to benchmark different times of your life.
Education: Primary school / secondary school / university etc
Jobs
Relationships
Now move back to the start of the line and ask yourself.
What are some of your earliest memories at pre-school and primary school?
What activities did you gravitate towards?
What did you do in your ‘free-time’?
Caroline McHugh on the Art of Being Yourself notes that the birth of consciousness occurs around the age of seven. From then on you become more self-conscious, and by default ‘less good’ at being yourself. It’s an occurrence that led the Jesuits to say, “Give me a boy until the age of seven, and I’ll show you the man,”.
By looking back at that time we can gain nuggets of gold of what we have a natural inclination for.
Next, begin to fill in the gaps of your time at high-school.
What extracurricular activities did you do in and outside of school?
What classes did you take?
Since leaving school:
Which projects at work have you been particularly proud of?
Have you engaged in any further education?
What are you hobbies and passion projects?
If you listen to podcasts or read non-fiction what have the topics of the last 10 you consumed?
Who are role models you've had throughout different periods of your life?
Take note of any trends in the types of activities and skills you gravitate towards. Ideally you end up with a life map looking something like this:
Consider each of the events as a dot. Steve Jobs states “you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future”.
By reflecting on Jobs' life you begin to see the random ways dots begin to combine in the future. A few examples:
Apple is known for introducing clean sans serif fonts to computer interfaces at a time when fonts were an afterthought. Jobs credits this to a calligraphy class he dropped in on at college.
The inspiration for the MAC logo was inspired by Jobs living on an apple orchard.
His pursuit of hobby electronics in the HomeBrew computer club led to the creation of the first MAC with Steve Wozniak.
A lifelong passion for music was the motivation for the launch of iTunes.
None of these things could have been predicted looking forward, only upon reflection. Next blog we’ll examine your dots and reflect on how they begin to connect.
What I learnt this week:
Creating rapport with someone is so influential it can lead them to do crazy things such as handing over their phone or wallet. Derren Brown using every rapport-building trick in the book proves it:
Image of the Week:
The execution sweet spot. The delicate dance between being ruthlessly disciplined & burning out and relying on motivation & not reaching goals.
Weekly Fail:
As part of the NLP certification I’m currently undertaking I’ve become certified in Hypnosis. Wanting to trial what I learnt I roped my girlfriend, Hannah, into being my first test dummy. She agreed provided she could do it from the comfort of bed.
Still too inexperienced to create my own scripts I decided to go with the “improve confidence” template we were provided in the course. Who couldn’t do with some more confidence?
After spending five minutes putting her in trance I completed a “convincer” exercise to test that she was. In the convincer I explained her eyes were very heavy and she was very tired so she couldn’t open them. I then asked her to open them, and she couldn’t.
Success.
I now begin reading from the improve confidence script. It’s seven pages long and takes me about 15 minutes. The first part of the script places her in an even deeper trance where by the end I notice her mouth slightly opens and her breathing deepens.
I’m thinking I’m pretty good at this.
For context, trance works by removing the ‘critical faculty’ within the brain which is the filter between the conscious and subconscious mind. The process of hypnosis is simply communicating with the subconscious mind.
The subconscious mind loves metaphors so over the next 15 minutes, in my most soothing voice, use the metaphor of cleaning a castle and finding its treasure. The meaning behind it was to remove the characteristics Hannah doesn’t like about herself and reaffirm what she loves about herself.
Upon completion, I count back up from three to wake her up. However, on the first attempt she doesn’t wake. I try again and this time she re-emerges, wiping her eyes and very drowsy.
I ask her how it was, if she enjoyed the metaphor.
Hannah: “What metaphor?”
Nic: “The castle…”
Hannah: “oh, yea I remember you mentioned a castle but I was so relaxed I fell to sleep”.
Nic: “….”
Hypnosis unsuccessful.
Until next week,
Cheers,
Nic Hurrell