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It’s Rachel here, and if you’ve been reading what I write for any length of time, you’ve probably gathered that I’m not perfect. I have a major ‘tude sometimes. I’m snarky and I speak sarcasm fluently, which sometimes gets me in trouble (often in public). Kristen would probably tell you that it’s a risk to take me places where polite discourse is expected, lest I put my foot in my mouth. (Though TBH, Kristen enjoys laughing at my slip-ups more than most people. We’re those kinds of friends, you know?)
So, it should come as no shock that I’ve been wrong a fair number of times in my life. But recently, I was wrong about something that was both really important and fairly obvious.
It goes something like this …
I legitimately believed, up until just a few months ago, that most people in our demographic (read: Millennials) were bound to hate their job at some point or another. In fact, I believed that if people were satisfied working for other people in a 9-5 kind of way, that they were secretly unhappy and in denial.
Gulp.
You see, I don’t like working for other people (as you’ve probably noticed). I really love freedom and flexibility. And most of the clients we had attracted up to that point had been interested in the same kind of career I’m passionate about.
And so many people I’ve worked with have been dissatisfied with their jobs that I had gotten to the point that I believed working for other people was the problem.
I WAS SO FREAKING WRONG, IT’S UNBELIEVABLE.
It took working with a client who genuinely loves being employed (she just wasn’t passionate about her current job) to make me realize the point.
It’s embarrassing to confess how obvious this was, but I’ve got to say it anyway:
“Passion” intersects with “career” in different ways for different people.
Just because you might be dissatisfied by your current job situation, that doesn’t necessarily mean you need to jump to a completely different style of working.
THERE ARE 4 TYPES OF PEOPLE OUT THERE
Wrapped up in my own world, I didn’t realize that there were more than a couple of ways for passion to intersect with your career.
I was focusing on only two types of people: what Kristen and I call Firestarters (AKA tried-and-true entrepreneurs) and Side Hustlers (AKA the people who mix and match careers with a side business).
But there are 2 more types of people out there.
We call them Tribe Members (AKA the people who genuinely enjoy being employed for someone full time and want to feel passionate about their career) and Thrivers (AKA people who enjoy working for other people, but don’t need their career to be their passion).
I thought most people were either Firestarters or Side Hustlers, but I was totally wrong. Turns out the possibilities are much bigger than I had mistakenly assumed.
THAT’S WHY WE CREATED A QUIZ TO HELP PEOPLE FIGURE OUT WHAT THEY ARE
What if you’re meant to have a side business, but you’re trying to love the corporate world and it just ain’t working for you?
Or what if you actually don’t need your career to fuel your passion? What if your job is just a nice way to fund your music hobby, and you feel guilty for not wanting to be a “go-getting” career woman?
It’s so important to understand how your career intersects with your passion in life … otherwise, you could be going down a path that’s completely wrong for you.
So, we made the Passion Profile Quiz to help you figure out where passion and career align for you. The result (either Firestarter, Tribe Member, Side Hustler, or Thriver) is called your Passion Profile.
KNOWING THIS COULD CHANGE SO MUCH
I’m a Firestarter. So is Kristen.
Lately, and to our surprise, a lot of our clients have been Tribe Members. Knowing this about them has been so helpful in both figuring out what they’re meant to do in the world and how to go about getting it.
Consider the 4 Passion Profiles like the 4 points on a compass – knowing which major direction suits you will allow you to walk the right path. And being on the right path makes figuring out the fine details so much easier.
We would be so honored if you took 2 minutes to figure out your own Passion Profile. At the end of the quiz, you’ll get an official badge so that you can share (or brag about, whatever suits you) what you are. You’ll also get a short PDF that breaks down your result and tells you how to actually use your Profile in real life.
We’re also challenging ourselves to see how many people we can “sort” (why yes, that is a Harry Potter reference) into Passion Profiles in the next month. So we’d be thrilled if you forwarded the quiz along to your friends!
What do you think? Should I have realized this earlier? (Probably) Have I made up for my flub by co-creating a revolutionary quiz? (Well, I think so at least.)
Let us know what you think, and be sure to comment (or Tweet at us) with your quiz result!
Much Love,
Rachel + Kristen
