If I had a dollar for every moment I’ve laid awake at night wondering what I want to be when I grow up, I probably wouldn’t have to worry about it anymore.

As a kid, I had a skewed view of career paths.  From an early age it seemed like there were a limited number of options: baker, doctor, garbage collector, mailman, teacher. I realized in the 2nd grade that I was good at math and science, and my teacher put into my head that I should become an engineer.  Fast forward to my freshman year at BYU where I finished a career exploration class with more questions than when I started. Do I really want to be an engineer for the rest of my life? How does society expect me to make a decision after only 20 years of life experience that is supposed to determine where I will spend 25%+ of my weekly allotted time until I’m 65? 

Luckily, I learned a few great things over the following years. First, I learned that just because you study something in college doesn’t mean you have to do something in that field. Second, I learned that most people change jobs quite often. As the son of a medical professional who has worked for the same place for over 20 years, this came as a welcome surprise. 

However, I think we can do a better job helping people find a career they are passionate about. This is easy for some people. I’ve met many people who knew from a young age that they were going to do. I have many friends who are motivated by personal wealth or lifestyle that they don’t care what job they get as long as it provides the dough. Unfortunately, I don’t fit into either of these categories. I don’t think many other people do, either.

In my career development class I was often shown a Venn diagram like this one.

I have two main issues with this diagram. 

First, It’s missing a WHOLE BUNCH of variables. Too many to name here.

Second, it doesn’t allow for gradients. I have multiple strengths but some are much stronger than others. I’ll get paid no matter what I do, but my compensation can vary greatly. I may love my job, but how much do I love it?

I’d like to propose a modified but still simple graph that have gradients for each feature:

I’ll explain the features on the graph and simultaneously go over how I think about them.

Do I have the means to do this?

It is extremely difficult, perhaps by an order of magnitude, for some people to become rocket scientists, politicians, or hedge fund managers due to circumstances of their upbringing. Growing up in Libya is very different than growing up in Section 8 housing in St. Louis which is very different than growing up in a nice neighborhood in Connecticut. Setting aside differing opinions on whether or not the American Dream exists, I think we can all agree that your background and current circumstances affect current decisions.

This isn’t to say that you can’t accomplish something because of where you were born or your circumstances. What I am saying is that certain career paths require differing levels of luck, time, and resources to attain. Maybe your end goal isn’t possible for a few years. Maybe you need to take a few extra steps that someone else didn’t have to take. What’s important is that you have a realistic idea of where you are and what it will take to get where you want to be.

How much will I be paid to do this?

This one is pretty straightforward: how much does this career compensate?

The first thing you need to do is determine what kind of REALISTIC lifestyle you want to have. Will you be incredibly unhappy unless you are driving a Porsche? Or are you just fine driving a Corolla? Is a house with a pool a necessity? Will your vacations to Europe be once a year or once a decade? This is a tough conversation, and one that could vary depending on your spouse, health concerns, family issues, or a host of other things. You’ll need to work backward from this and determine how much you’d need to make per year.

Once you have this vision of what your lifestyle will look like there are two ways to think about compensation. First, look at the average salary/compensation progression for the careers you are interested in. Don’t just look at the entry-level salary, but look at the long-term potential. Does compensations rise gradually with more experience? Or does it stay level for a few years and then skyrocket?

Second, if you are confident/cocky enough, you can just not worry about this at all. The top 1% of all careers, even generally low paying ones, can be handsomely rewarding. Actors, chefs, writers, and teachers are all generally low paying jobs, but if you are among the best in the world, you’ll be making bank. This is the American Dream: work hard enough, and you’ll be successful, no matter what you do! While this optimism is infectious and has surely benefitted all of us, it would be wise to take an objective look at ourselves and see where we fall in the lineup. Which leads me to the next feature.

Am I good at this?

One of the best pieces of advice I’ve gotten from mentors is this: Mitigate your weaknesses, maximize your strengths. We can dive into this in another essay, but you should prioritize for two things in your search for a career: what you are currently really good at, and what you have the potential to be really good at.

One of the biggest issues people have with this topic is determining what their strengths are. My advice is to turn outwards and ask outsiders for their objective views. Tests like the Clifton StrengthFinder are fantastic, but also petition your friends and family around you. Ask 5 people closest to you for their honest opinion of what your strengths are. These people should be varied; perhaps your spouse, a parent, a friend, a co-worker, a boss, a mentor, a teacher, a neighbor. Don’t spring this assignment on them; give them a few days to think things over. When they tell you what they think your top strengths are, ask them why they think that. Determine if their view of you is based off of just one experience, or if it’s an obvious pattern. 

Once you have your list of strengths, keep it in the back of your mind as you explore careers. As you investigate professions or companies, ask two questions: “what characteristics does someone in this career need to be successful?” and “what characteristics does someone in this career need to go above and beyond?” The first question will tease out all the ‘duh’ qualifications like good communication skills, ability to work in a team, hold yourself to a schedule, and maybe some other role specific characteristics. This second question will tell you whether or not that career will be a good fit.

Do I love this?

This, in my opinion, is one of the most important questions that should be weighted the most heavily. While I can see the baby-boomers’ eyes roll to the back of their heads as I say this, loving what you do is the difference between a career and a job. The strategy that I’ve used (and am currently using) is simple: think back to when you were young.

Before you realized you had to make money. Before you had an ego. Before you knew that something was either ‘cool’ or ‘uncool’. What did you do for fun? What made you excited? What did want for your birthday? What did you race home from school to do? What did you daydream about? I haven’t really come up with an exact structure, but hopefully my experience can give you an idea of how to approach this.

I stumbled upon this strategy serendipitously and retroactively. About a year ago, I had a conversation with my mom about what I was like as a young boy. The first thing that stood out to my mom is that I liked to think and learn new things. I had several books worth of brain teasers that I would work through in the summers. I remember a “how-to” book on making paper airplanes and making every single airplane in one week. I loved math and science and always asked questions about how things worked. Looking back, I think this is why I love business strategy so much. I’m constantly intellectually challenged, always investigating and researching, and no day is the same. The second thing that stood out to my mom is my obsession with “nerdy” works of engineering. In the 2nd grade I printed off pictures of the Mars Rover and hole punched them into a 3-ring binder I kept next to my bed. With the help from a friendly neighbor, I built a robot from a box that had a sensor on the front so it wouldn’t walk into walls. My favorite book was a book of speed that contained everything there was to know about the fastest vehicles at the time like the McLaren F1 and SR-71 Blackbird. Looking on these memories, I realize why I’ve always been drawn to tech companies, who are often solving big problems with innovative, “nerdy” technological solutions.

While tastes and desires change, I think that we each have certain things are ingrained in us from a young age. All we have to do is think back to simpler times to determine what those things are.

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I think the biggest reason that people don’t find a career they love is not because it’s not out there, but because they just haven’t found it yet. And that’s because there are literally thousands and thousands of possible careers, yet I feel like we only explore a few dozen during college. Even within certain buckets of careers there are dozens of possibilities.  For example, let’s say that you want to be an engineer. Do you want to be a mechanical, chemical, petroleum, vehicle, aeronautical, aerospace, nuclear, civil, environmental, biomechanical, electrical, computer, or a manufacturing engineering? Ok, now do you want to be in product, design, quality, manufacturing, production, planning… you see where this is going.

That’s why there shouldn’t be only one Venn diagram, there should be dozens! Hundreds! Maybe thousands! Fill out as many diagrams as you can! 

While career centers, and career exploration classes are great resources, they are generally a first step that can help point you make macro decisions (business vs. not business). And while you’ll be able to fill out more of these Venn diagrams as you gain experience, I believe that taking matters into your own hands can expedite the learning process. Explore everything you think you could possibly interested in by reaching out to people in your network. Don’t know what private equity is? Ask someone in private equity. Don’t know the difference between production and manufacturing engineering? Ask someone in manufacturing engineering. 

Conclusion

– Realistically determine what lifestyle you want to have

– Take as many free “strengths-finder” tests as you can get your hands on

– Ask the people who know you best what your strengths are

– Think back to what got you excited as a kid by talking with parents, teachers, and siblings

– Research, research, research!

– Find people who are in a line of work that may be interesting and ask them about what they do