My Sweet Spot

Up to this point we've looked at how to analyze your MAPP exam on Assessment.com. In this post we are going to look at how to use that information to determine your personal "Sweet Spot".




Wikipedia defines a Sweet Spot as "a place where you get a maximum response for a given amount of effort."



In our lives, this is the place where our: 1) talents, skills, and giftings overlap our 2) passions, motivations, and energizing activities.


The most effective people in the world are those who have discovered their Sweet Spot and are living the majority of their life within it.


So, in my last post we made a summary of what I have within my Talent and Motivation circles. Using the info from that summary we are going to start identifying what my Sweet Spot contains.

The first step is to re-read both lists and write down anything that shows up on both lists.


My Sweet Spot:

• Leading, directing, managing, and supervising people.
  


• Communicating to people in an influential or persuasive manor.



• Teaching people information that will result in their good, growth, or gain.
  


• Seeing the big picture and directing people within that picture towards the accomplishment of the overall goal.



• Coordinate the skills and direct the actions of others towards a goal that benefits everyone.
  

The second step is to put this summary into one short sentence. Here is what you could say my Sweet Spot is:

Communicating information that will inspire people to take action and then leading them, through providing direction and coordinating their skills within the scope of the big picture, towards the accomplishment of a goal that benefits everyone.

The third step in using the MAPP test is to go back to the top of your MAPP Assessment, where we chose the top 5-10 phrases that jumped out at us and motivated us the most, and compare them with our Sweet Spot summary to see how they fit within it.

Here were my top motivational phrases from the career list:

1. Develop/apply human skills


2. teach


3. instruct


4. human development


5. training


6. inform

As you can see, these phrases are an exact match of my "Sweet Spot" summary.

Now that we have extracted a pretty clear picture of who we are from the MAPP exam, we should have a pretty clear answer to the question, "Who Am I?"

However, during my journey to discovering "Who I Am" I chose to validate my MAPP exam findings with a series of other tests and simple processes. Although the other exams did not uncover any new or 'life changing' information about myself, I found that they made my picture of 'Who I Am' even clearer by giving even more detail into some of the other components and aspects of my life.

One of my next posts will show you what these tests and processes are and give you some guidance on how you can walk through them to if you would like.

Thanks again for reading my posts!

My Assessment - Who Am I Pt 2

Ok, I'd like to complete my MAPP assessment.com results walk through today.

Section 5 deals with how I relate to THINGS and whether or not I have mechanical savvy and/or enjoy working with my hands. Here's what I learned from this section:

• I have a mind for engineering - I naturally understand "what makes things tick"


• I don't like activities that require close attention to precise standards, exact measurements, or detecting minor defects.


• Basically a job where I'm operating machinery or working with my hands as the majority of my job would frustrate me.
  

The 6th section deals with how I relate with DATA. This measures motivations and priorities for mental activities. Here's what this section taught me:

• Is so motivated to see things in "Big Picture" context that I typically look at all parts within the big picture and then see each part as it relates to each other yet still within the big picture.


• Sees things in holistic and conceptual forms.


• Loves to Synthesize: "putting two or more things together to form a whole; the combination of separate elements of thought into a whole; the operation by which divided parts are united" (Webster).


• Strongly motivated to coordinate: to take actions, to manipulate that which is at hand in order to "get the show on the road.

Section 7 is labeled REASONING and deals with how I choose apply my talents and motivations listed in Section6, DATA. Here's what I learned from this section:

• First priority when looking at data is to see how it fits within the big picture.


• Uses scientific/technical/logical thinking to solve problems.


• Is motivated and perhaps even mentally equipped for troubleshooting: to recognize or otherwise identify problems or developing problems in familiar areas; to tackle problems with intent to solve the problems and restore function to former levels or better.


• Change, variety, options, challenge, and opportunity to move up based on merit represent more preferred activities.

Section 8 is the MATHEMATICAL CAPACITY piece which shows the your motivation level for using math in a job or in day to day activities. Here are my top results:

• Is motivated to work with a wide variety of theoretical math concepts; make original application of those concepts; apply knowledge of advanced mathematical or statistical techniques to new areas of challenge, interest, or opportunity.


• Motivation is derived from conceptual, analytical, curious, and exploratory thinking.


• Research and theoretical logic probably appeal greatly.
  

Finally, section 9 deals with LANGUAGE CAPACITY and reveals your motivation levels for engaging in different forms of communication (oral, written, etc...). Here are my results:

• Highly motivated to consider creative writing and communicating at professional levels.


• Preferences are holistic, conceptual, imaginative, and creative.


• Preferences that probably include writing fiction, poetry, scripts for movies or television, advertising copy, marketing copy, teaching creative writing.


• Motivated to describe, explain, teach, illustrate, and interpret.


• Journalistic trait dedicated to inform people.

Ok, so we've looked at all of this cool data and have sifted it down to the point that we are left with only the "meat", or the main points/lessons we learned from each section. Now, let's take one more step and process all of this data into organized information that we can actually use to answer the question, "Who Am I?"

The first step is to put all of these main points into one of our two Circles: Talents or Motivations. Here is the result of this process:

Talents Circle:

• Seeing things as they relate to each other within the Big Picture.


• Leading and directing people.


• Working hard on a project until it is completed and then moving on to a new project.


• Independent and self directed.


• Persuasive communicator.


• Perception and mentally seeing concepts and ideas and communicating them.


• Talent for understanding or even 'experiencing' abstract ideas, concepts, theory, assessments, etc...


• Strong research skills.


• Engineering mind which easily and naturally understands how things work.


• Gifted in bringing things/people together to form a united whole/team for accomplishing a task or completing an objective.


• Gifted troubleshooter.


• Natural teacher that can take difficult ideas and present them in simple, easy to understand ways.


• Leads people with emphasis on performance and creating measurable results.

Motivation Circle:

• Leading, managing, supervising, communication with people.


• Highly motivated by the cause of good, growth, and gain in the lives of others.


• Influential communication.


• Recognition by others.


• Need change & variety - change is motivating, stimulating, energizing.


• Change, variety, options, challenge, and opportunity to move up based on merit represent more preferred activities.


• Giving of myself for the benefit of others.


• Organizationally active with others.


• Assume responsibility for the good, growth, and gain in the lives of other people.


• Loves new ideas.


• Direct access to a listener.


• Communication with goal of causing the listener to understand, accept, and act on what is being said.


• Enjoys taking ideas of others, filtering through own experiences, and then communicating them to others for their entertainment/pleasure/benefit.


• Motivation and drive to educate, train, or influence others.


• Persuasion is the primary preferred trait with intent to convince people toward a particular idea, viewpoint, direction, objective, or product.


• Self-satisfaction comes almost exclusively from the subjective realization that the information, voluntarily given, has been helpful to other persons.


• Feels prime responsibility as developing the will to work with employees and motivating them to higher levels of attainment and performance.


• Strongly motivated to coordinate: to take actions, to manipulate that which is at hand in order to "get the show on the road.


• Motivation is derived from conceptual, analytical, curious, and exploratory thinking.


• Highly motivated to consider creative writing and communicating at professional levels.


• Motivated to describe, explain, teach, illustrate, and interpret.

Now that we have organized all this information into ether our Talents or Motivations circle, our next step is to find where these talents overlap. The goal of this is to find our "Sweet Spot", which is the place where we are 'good at' (or gifted in) something that we 'enjoy doing' (or are motivated/energized by).

So there you have it, a quick down and dirty on my MAPP test from Assessment.com. My next post will look at how to compile this info into discovering your "Sweet Spot"!

Thanks for reading!

My Assessment - Who I Am Part 1

I now want to show you my results from this exam and show you how I used this information to learn more about who I am.

This is just a shot of the top of my report showing you that it is indeed my MAPP report from my Assessment.com profile.



As you scroll down the report the first part you come to is the listing of the top 20 career areas that your personality matches with the best. This was a wonderful section for helping me narrow down my search for a fulfilling career. Here's how I used this section:

1. List the most common words or phrases - in my report I found that the following words came up over and over again.

• Consult, consulting, evaluate, influence, teach, counsel, training, human development, develop/apply human skills, promote, inform, dispense information, teach/nurture, write/send information, supervise, instruct, manage, business training, communicate, demonstrate...

2. From that list, pick the top 5 - 10 words/phrases that jump out at you - choose the words or phrases that excite you, that give you energy, that make you feel good. These are some of the words from my list that jumped out at me.

• Develop/apply human skills, teach, instruct, human development, training, inform...
  

3. Match your top 5-10 words with the career areas that match them the closest


Next, the report gets into the section called "Narrative Interpretation". In this section there are 9 sections discuss more details about who you are.

The first section is INTEREST IN JOB CONTENT. This helps you discover your 'motivations and preferences'. This is a 'first glance at your top motivators'.

Here are a few pieces of info I learned about myself from this section:

• Prefer to work with and around people and I prefer to do is in a leadership, managing, supervising, communicating way. Togetherness is essential for my work/play environments.


• Very conscious of meaning, purpose, potential & destiny. I am highly motivated by the cause of good, growth, and gain in the lives of others. I prefer to do this by influential communication.


• I think in Big Picture terms.


• I am wired to be an executive or manager. I don't do well being in a subordinate position.


• I'm highly motivated by recognition by others.


• I love projects that can be planned, scheduled, and completed.


• I need change and variety. I wouldn't be good on an assembly line. Routine causes me to lose interest.
  

The next section is TEMPERAMENT FOR THE JOB which identifies motivation and talents. Here's what I learned about myself:

• Need change/variety. Change is motivating, stimulating, energizing to me.


• Benevolent (giving of myself for the benefit of others) which means I gain pleasure in helping others.


• Strongly motivated to be organizationally active with others.


• Self assumed responsibility for the good, growth and gain of others.


• Love new ideas and have talent for understanding or even 'experiencing' abstract ideas, concepts, theory, assessments, etc...


• Strongly motivated to have direct access to listener, communication with goal of causing the listener to understand, accept, and act on what is being said.


• Is going to persuade: the only questions are where, when and for what purpose.


• Leads people with emphasis on performance and creating measurable results.


• Independent, self-directed, self-achieved activity is preferred.


• Not great with detail but strong awareness of ideas, patters, concepts.
  
  

The 3rd section is APTITUDE FOR THE JOB focuses on combining talents with motivations/preferences. Here's what this section taught me:

• Ideas are the heart of my talent. Gifted at perception and mental seeing.


• Enjoys taking ideas of others, filtering through own experiences, and then communicating them to others for their entertainment/pleasure/benefit.


• Strong potential for academic, scientific, research, literary, executive, or consulting activities.


• Good at seeing the core concepts and how they fit within the big picture.
  

The 4th section is called PEOPLE and it deals with motivational levels and even talents for dealing with people. Here's what this section taught me:

• Mentor: trusted counselor or guide.


• Interested in helping people reach their full potential.


• Motivation and drive to educate, train, or influence others.


• Highly motivated persuasion with goal of having listener hear, understand, accept and act on what is said.


• Persuasion is the primary preferred trait with intent to convince people toward a particular idea, viewpoint, direction, objective, or product.


• Feels both privilege and responsibility to use communication (including persuasion) to voluntarily provide beneficial information to others.


• Self-satisfaction comes almost exclusively from the subjective realization that the information, voluntarily given, has been helpful to other persons.


• Feels prime responsibility as developing the will to work with employees and motivating them to higher levels of attainment and performance.

I'll continue going over the rest of my MAPP assessment in Part 2.

I hope you're having some fun and getting some useful information from my posts.

As strange as it may sound, I'm absolutely enjoying writing this for you!

Till my next post... Cheers!