Do What You Are

June 26, 2006

It seems like a no-brainer to say that we as people should be doing what they’re best suited for- what they’re created to be doing. Of course, if you feel like you are an accident, well, good luck.

The husband and wife team of Tieger & Tieger wrote a primer for all those trying to find their niche in the marketplace. They wrote a book nearly fifteen years ago with the same title that you see in the headline to this commentary. The premise is that we should be doing that which our personality reveals: yes, a personality test. Theirs is not a complicated formula, but a time-tested sixteen point description as to who we are, who YOU are.

Their work owes much of its credit to Carl Jung and the mother-daughter team of Katharine and Isabel Briggs. We operate in a sea of personalities and as Tieger said, “Extraverts have something of an advantage in our society because there are so many of them. About 75% of the American population is extraverted, which helps account for our proclivity for fast food and sound bites.” Think about it.

Very much like the concept of somatotyping, we’re kicking against the pricks to try and force our personality into a job that doesn’t want us. You can’t take a four foot nine, four hundred pound person and make an olympic pole vaulter out of them. It simply doesn’t work: no matter how great the desire might be.

It all goes back to who we ARE. We cannot DO, outside of who we BE (and that’s not bad English). BEING is always a precursor to DOING, which is why we must DO what, and who we ARE!

Written by Ernie · Filed Under How to Get Promoted