Yes, that’s me zip-lining in the photo. Kauai, Hawaii more than a decade ago escaping the dreariness of a Seattle rainy Winter. Leaping off platforms over the top of 200-foot drops and reaching speeds faster than 50 miles per hour on the rainiest Hawaii mountain top. A great adventure.
My life has been a wonderful roller coaster adventure in my professional and personal life. In working with clients, I enjoy collaborating with the unique individual who is out for a radical change from their current role, industry, and open to a city relocation. I fondly refer to them as “The Adventurer.” If you are reading this TP or JM, I’m thinking of you.
Most of my executive clients have established lives with family concerns to understandably stay put but some are willing to take a leap of faith. Depending on your age or health, you have a finite time enjoying your next 10-30 professional years. If you can, why not do the extraordinary and go on an adventure?
Personality Types
It’s highly likely if you worked at a Fortune 2000 company, you took a Myers-Briggs personality assessment as part of your Director or VP’s team activity. Check off for leadership being “employee-focused” on their annual career review. For the team members, we simply shrugged since not sure how it helped with our professional collaboration or our own upward mobility. I’ve never been great at remembering — nor caring — about my personal alphabet soup of the following criteria which can change based upon the time of day or my mood:
- focus your attention or re-energize = extraversion (E) / introversion (I)
- perceive or take in information = sensing (S) / intuition (N)
- make decisions = thinking (T) / feeling (F)
- orient yourself to the outside world = judgment (J) / perception (P)
To frame it up only 9% of the population is an Adventurer = ISFP who according to the 16 Personalties website supposedly are “the ones redefining conventional beauty and behavior. They refuse to be boxed in by limitations, and they love to experiment with who they are, what they can do, and what is expected of them.” For me they are awesome individuals to hang out with for a joyous perspective on life. Their unconventional approach may limit an early retirement goal but we all don’t necessarily want that path.
Adventurer Characteristics
To find out about your personality, head over for a free analysis at the 16 Personalities website for a 12-minute test. It’s fun, easy, and provides you a high level assessment. Your test-taking time might be less as in my case 5 minutes since I don’t ponder that much. According to this personality test, an Adventurer Profile ISFP-A / ISFP-T has the following traits:
- Strengths: Charming, sensitive to others, imaginative, passionate, curious, artistic
- Weaknesses: Fiercely independent, unpredictable, easily stressed, overly competitive, fluctuating self-esteem
In case you were wondering, my results indicate a Protagonist Profile ENFJ-A / ENFJ-T. According to this analysis, which for some components my husband, friends, colleagues, and I will take issue, highlights the following:
- Strengths: Tolerant (except for certain hot buttons), reliable, charismatic (after Noon), altruistic, natural leader
- Weaknesses: Overly idealistic, too selfless (not really), too sensitive (at times), fluctuating self-esteem, struggle to make tough decisions (definitely not the case)
Take Calculated Risks = Personal Rewards
Within the first year of our relationship, my husband Pat and I enjoyed a great adventure for 3 weeks traveling to Fiji, New Zealand, and Australia. He had a phenomenal airline voucher that allowed us to travel business class around the world and we both worked at the same Global Fortune company providing those 3 weeks off in December. First time snorkeling, we brought our own gear and haven’t experienced anything like it since. How could I have lived so long without knowing about fuchsia and azure (not Microsoft-branded) giant clams and nurse sharks at The Great Barrier Reef? Or a stunning body of water, called Doubtful Sound, in Queenstown, New Zealand? The latter formed the plan to move from the Midwest to the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state 15 years ago. We did move to Port Ludlow and built our dream home on the Puget Sound surrounded by eagles, bears, otters, orchards, cold weather even in Summer, and very few humans. Idyllic? Not quite. We ended up moving to downtown Seattle 4 years ago after someone offered to buy our dream home. Frankly I was tired of the isolation and wearing fleece 24/7.
Change is great and nerve-racking. I haven’t had to live in less than 1,000 square feet nor share walls with neighbors since my 20’s. We adapted to downtown Seattle becoming a 1-car family and downsizing in personal belongings due to condo storage constraints. I love to hike in the woods and now I can walk in the bustle of a vibrant city or the Olympic Sculpture Park with my favorite Puget Sound views. I mentioned in a previous blog that I have new friends to engage in social outings like the Mariners vs. Yankees game this Wednesday.
Post my retirement, we’ve traveled and lived 1 month at a time in 6 cities never visited before in 6 countries including Croatia, France, Italy, Spain, French West Indies, and Dutch West Indies. It’s part of our 10-year travel bucket list. Next up Malaga, Spain; Montevideo, Uruguay; and Vari-Vouli, Greece. How do we select? Reading, blogs, and friends’ adventures. We are off on the road less traveled to explore, experience, shop, eat, and drink in different cultures. It’s a wonderful adventure.
Trying new things is exciting with ups and downs. My favorite moments within the past 10 years:
- Zip-lining in Whistler, British Columbia during the Summer and Kauai, Hawaii in the Winter
- Paddle boarding on The American River in Sacramento, California (initial intimidating sojourn); Kihei Beach in Maui, Hawaii (wind balancing act); Lady Bird Lake in Austin, Texas (turtle joy); and Lake Union in Seattle, Washington (seaplanes, Duck Boats, and boaters creating huge wakes)
- Cooking classes at Sur La Table in Phoenix, Arizona (hot-pot fail) and Palm Beach, Florida (crab cake delight)
- Foreign language classes including French (still dismal), Italian (Spanish knowledge made it challenging), and Spanish (refresh with an amazing binary teacher)
- Tai chi (not for me, no moment of zen)
- Volunteering focused on women empowerment (fulfilling helping clients at Dress for Success) and arthritis (legislative advocate looking for the mysterious reason for my personal affliction rheumatoid arthritis)
- Yoga in all its wonderful forms (hot, goat, aerial)
My Career Adventure
We moved from Kansas City, Kansas while Pat was retired. I was still working for a Fortune 50 company remotely in Port Ludlow, Washington as a manager with employees across the U.S. and then as an individual contributor business sales exec position. Then we moved to downtown Seattle to wait out my year and a half for early retirement. Being unfulfilled after 3 months of retirement, I decided to formalize a career consulting business based upon the joy of volunteering as a career advocate for Dress for Success and requests from friends and colleagues assisting on landing their dream job. I relish this new adventure and learning curve developing a web site, brand positioning, and meeting delightful clients.
Punchline
My takeaway is you can continue to evolve professionally and personally. Careers aren’t linear and neither are you. Most importantly, enjoy what you do professionally 40-60 hours weekly. Seek out your new adventure whether that’s within your current company or on a new path. Sometimes the title nor salary aren’t what their cracked up to be. Life is for enjoyment with friends and family.
Land your dream job, you deserve it.
