St. Louis Business Journal
The right job: What you do well, but also what you like

By Anna Navarro

September 1997 - Career success doesn't always translate into career happiness. That was the case with Jim, a 33-year-old, health-care attorney with three kids and a full-time homemaker spouse. He was a partner in his law firm, and had a thriving practice.

But he was miserable.

Although successful, Jim disliked his work and felt trapped in his job. He considered changing careers, but the only options he could think of involved additional training and it seemed impossible to do that and still earn a living for his growing family.

I knew how Jim felt. I too was once successful in a career that didn't suit me. In the beginning of my professional life, I found a career that emphasized statistics and number crunching and became a political pollster. What I didn't get to use in that job was my ability to help other people grow and develop.

While I was good at what I did, it wasn't good for me.

Through some twists and turns and years of refining this process, I found a career that works for me. At Work Transitions, I have worked with thousands of people ranging from top executives who became entrepreneurs to a mildly retarded man who became a stock clerk, helping them identify their skills as the first step toward making a career change.

Jim was one of my clients, and with his permission, I'll share his experience. When Jim listed the satisfying experiences in his life, they included selling the most magazines of anyone in his Boy Scout troop; making a game of talking his parents into letting him stay up late as a child; convincing the Jesuits who ran his all-male college to allow girls to visit on Sunday evenings; and fund raising for his civic club.

A strong underlying theme in Jim's peak experiences was sales. Today he is more successful as a salesman of highly specialized technical equipment to hospitals and clinics than he was as a health care lawyer. He's much happier and has been able to build on his already acquired knowledge of health care.

Jim didn't realize he had a talent for sales. When I ask my clients to think of their skills, they usually list acquired skills, such as knowledge of medicine or accounting. What they don't think of are natural abilities - innate skills that I call knacks.

Some of these are gifts from the universe such as mathematical expertise, mechanical skills or musical talents. Others are personality traits such as being friendly and outgoing. Still others are habits like being neat and organized.

A SKILL IS ANYTHING AN EMPLOYER OR CUSTOMER WILL PAY FOR. That can include some surprising things. For example, would you guess that the ability to sense beauty and a knack for trading favors are both essential career skills? One is essential to interior design, the other to lobbying, politics and many top-level management posts.

I have found that most of us take for granted what comes easily to us. We tend to discount the very skills we ought to build our careers around. That was the mistake I made when I was spending more time with statistics than with people.

Many of us have been socialized to shrug off compliments. As a result of this, and our tendency to discount what comes naturally, we often develop a blind spot about what we are innately good at doing.

The opposite also is true. Sometimes we're so good at one talent, we build our careers around that to the exclusion of other things we enjoy more.

One of my clients is a math whiz, so she became an actuary. Now she's bored on the job because she misses being with people. She's not using her leadership and management skills. If you spend time doing what you do well but you don't like, then you're not where you belong. You ought to be using your skills in proportion to your enjoyment. So my client, the actuary, should be in a position where 70 percent of her time is spent with people and 30 percent with numbers.

The ideal career situation is developed through an analysis of what you naturally do well and what you like doing.

Anna Navarro is the founder of Work Transitions, a nationwide career consulting firm that trains independent career strategists and consults with individual clients.

This column was originally published by the St. Louis Business Journal. The actual title of the column and date in which it appeared in the Business Journal may be slightly different from what appears on WorkTransitions.com.