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Showing posts with label Who Am I. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Who Am I. Show all posts

Friday, June 10, 2011

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!

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Who Am I - The Answer


Okay, so now I'm convinced that I need to answer the question, "Who Am I?"


But putting everything I am into words seemed like a daunting task. I wondered, "Where do I start?"


Remembering the example of the two overlapping circles (from my June 6th post), I decided my first step was to discover what was in my "Talent Circle" and my "Motivations Circle".

As a quick review, the "Talent Circle" contains all of the talents, skills, abilities, giftings, etc... that you have while the "Motivations Circle" contains all of the activities that you love doing, that give you energy, that excite you, that you are passionate about.

Where these two circles overlap is called your "Sweet Spot". This is where you enjoy doing something that you are good at. This "Sweet Spot" is where the happiest people in life exist. They have built their lives around doing activities that they love to do, that they are good at doing, and that actually gives them energy to do.

Sadly, most of us are existing outside of our "Sweet Spot". In fact, many of us are existing completely outside of our "Talent and Motivations Circles"! This means many of us are in careers, doing jobs, or building our lives around activities that:





  • We don't even like


  • Actually drain us of energy


  • We aren't really that good at


  • That don't use any of our greatest abilities

Recently I heard someone say, "Being good at something is NOT reason enough to do it." This matches perfectly with my story. I've been able to be 'good' at lots of things! But just because I can do them doesn't mean I enjoy or should be doing them.

In order to truly experience a life of passion, meaning, significance, purpose, etc... I need to





  1. be using my best talents, gifts and abilities


  2. be doing things that energize and excite me

The philosopher Confucius once said,

"Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life."


Well that sounded very appealing to me! As I looked at some of the great actors, athletes, business people, etc... I found that many of them were saying things like,

"I can't believe I get paid to do this! I absolutely LOVE my
job!"

It finally dawned on me that the reason these people were able to say this is because they were all living in their "Sweet Spot"!

It was now time for me to find my sweet spot!


I started by performing a Google search for topics like "skills assessments" and "career placement tests".

I came across a website called Assessment.com that had a FREE assessment. Now, like most people, I have limited funds to work with, but I knew that I could afford "FREE". So I took the 73 question test and it only took me about 20 minutes.

The results were amazing! This test absolutely pegged me! Although it only showed me the first half of each description, I was amazed at how accurately it was describing me. It was putting my gifts, skills, personality traits, etc... into words that when I read the descriptions I though, "That's exactly what I was trying to say but I just couldn't find the words."


After several days of pouring over the results, I decided to go a head and purchase one of the smaller packages.

In my next post I'll continue sharing what I learned about Who I Am and how I started breaking down the information I received from my Assessment.com report into information I could use!

Below is a link that you can use to take your FREE Assessment.com report. Go ahead and click on it and start taking your test right now. Yes you have to register with an email and password, but don't worry, they've had my info for almost 2 years and they have never once sent me any spam.

Get started on your test today and I'll continue my story on my next post.












Who Am I? - The Question



In my journey to discover "what to do with my life", I uncovered a new question which must be answered first. This new question is: "Who Am I?"

Now, once this question was uncovered, it became obvious that there was no way to know how to best use my life (what to do with my life) if I didn't even know what my life was (who I am: what my skills/abilities/talents/attributes are).

Trying to choose a path in life without first knowing who I am is like wanting to use a tool to build something without even knowing what the tool does/is used for. If I have a crescent wrench that I'm trying to use to cut boards, I'm going to be very frustrated at the terribly slow progress I'm making. When I figure out that a crescent wrench is used to turn bolts, nuts, and screws then I won't keep trying to use it to cut boards.

It only makes sense that I must first identify who I am, what my gifts/skills/talents/abilities/attributes/motivations/passions/etc... are, so that I can then identify the best place to apply myself. If I choose a path to follow in life, a career for example, that doesn't best utilize all of the unique skills and passions that I have, I was going to end up being very frustrated, just like trying to use a crescent wrench to cut boards.

As I examined this question, I started remembering all of the different places I've seen this idea before.

The great philosopher Socrates said, "Know thyself".

It's also what Jesus talked about when he said, "I know who I am and where I am going."

The book "What Color Is Your Parachute" is the gold standard for finding a fulfilling career. Although first written back in 1970, it has been updated every year since then and, as of the 2009 printing, it has sold more than 10,000,000 copies. In this book, author Richard N. Bolles, also starts with this exact idea when he paraphrases Alexander Pope:

Know then thyself,
Do no the Market scan
Until you've surveyed all you are,
Then you will have your plan.


Bolles says, "Most job-hunters who fail to find their dream job, fail not because they lack information about the job-market, but because they lack information about themselves."

Before choosing a life path to walk down, you must first discover the answer to the question, "Who Am I?"


My next post will look at some methods for discovering the answer to this question.