do what you like, leave what you hate

In defining the kind of business I will build, I wrote as point number 5 out of ten:

Have the successful money-making process be linked directly to the skills I’m good at and enjoy using (and minimising dependence on stuff I’m weak at or hate)

So it’s time to figure out…what do I like? What do I hate?

first, a quiz

I like to do quizzes. They put me in a box that I can then either kick down or decorate to be my own – regardless of whatever anyone says about MBTI (do yours here), DISC or any other personality test, it gives you words to start talking.

So I looked up quizzes. Only did two in 10mins so no, I wasn’t procrastinating.

The first one from the UK gov says that my motivations are:

1. Analyst – dealing with compilcated problems or working with numbers
2. Helper – helping and listening to other people
3. Creator – coming up with new ways of doing things

For some white reason, the next quiz that came up was from the Canadian gov! To be fair, it’s a good set of quizzes that I might use the next time I’m running a skills related programme; you can find them here https://www.jobbank.gc.ca/career-planning/quizzes

Canadian gov says my key aptitudes are:

1. Verbal ability
2. General learning ability
3. Finger dexterity (I think it’s cos I kept saying I loved sorting stuff into boxes which is true 🤣)

I even got a score with some occupations. I knew I belong in a forest and why did nobody ever tell me Arrangers was an occupation?! SG gov, you have failed me.

(Oh wait, I clicked on it, it’s specifically musical arrangement. Oops I ain’t doing that.)

Occupations	Level of education:
89%	Forestry professionals
86%	Arrangers
86%	Community health nurses
86%	Composers
86%	General duty registered nurses
86%	Instructors of persons with disabilities
86%	Teachers of music or voice

things I hate doing (even if I can do them)

My boss once told me that she was still doing what she does, because everything is challenging – but we have to choose our challenge.

This part is about thinking what drains me, even if I have learnt to cope with it or do it anyway, I choose not to:

1. customise every single thing for every single unique customer
2. have to do a million useless reports, keep track of every single receipt and get reimbursed for stuff after 42 emails of questioning
3. work on the edge of a cliff, where one wrong move and everything falls apart

stuff I like

The flip side to the above is: repeatable, no grants/investors/bosses, minimal fixed costs.

If I could design my entire working life, how would it be?

1. 80% remote
2. lots of reading and writing
3. good conversations with interesting people doing good things
4. helping others grow
5. sparking new, collaborative ideas

Interestingly, now that I’ve written it out, I could not have written this list 10 years ago (or even 3!). Every new job I take up also gets closer and closer to this ideal – including the one I started 2 weeks ago and am excited to share but have told no one about yet. I’ll have to do that soon.

With all that above, here’s a revised playbook to yesterday’s post:

1. Create a standard survey
2. Send it out for a week
3. Decide if it’s the community I’d like to build for

We’ll be back with more. Thanks for listening.