There are three traps when using interests to make choices in your work life.
The first trap is making a direct link between your interests and your job. It presents itself in statements like, ‘If you like animals, you should be a vet’ and ‘If you are interested in movies, you should get into the movie business!’
The second trap is disregarding them entirely because you consider they’re not real jobs or won’t pay. This presents itself in statements like ‘How will you ever earn an income playing with your computer?’ or ‘How can you get involved in sport if you can’t catch a ball?’
The third trap is avoiding or giving up something because it doesn’t absolutely fascinate you every step of the way. It presents itself in statements; ‘I’m no longer interested in law, so give it up.’ I did that. Of course, we need passion, enthusiasm, and commitment to things that matter to us, but expecting to live in a passion bubble every step of the way is setting yourself up for some tough and frustrating crossroads.
I recently facilitated a law conference, which I enjoyed enormously, even though it confirmed my worst suspicions about what many lawyers do. At the same time, I would not have come to any harm to have completed law studies. I also now realise how little I knew about the field of law and the many kinds of work it offered.
This chapter is not about finding and following your interests; it’s about challenging them before you follow them blindly, ignore them, or allow the follow-your-passion train to derail you.
Imagine what you study as a plane ticket to some exciting country in the world. If you said you were going to Austria, you might expect the other person to ask where in Austria you were going. Fields of work, evidenced by study and trade skills of every kind, are countries with many possible destinations.
Some of my most enjoyable work has been in business schools. They are my favourite kind of clients; keen, ambitious and willing to do the work. All have invested their time and energy in gaining qualifications in a vast array of disciplines. Yet here they are, ready to make new choices. I remember starting a particular workshop by asking, ‘How many of you are here because you want to take your career to a new place?’. Virtually every hand in the room went up. ‘And how many of you know what that is?’ Two hands went up in the back row, and maybe three more elsewhere in the room in a class of around ninety students. The room is filled with people who have professional qualifications in law, Medicine, Engineering, Accounting and Business disciplines in various forms. Many times, those who hate their careers the most are doctors, then engineers, and then a smattering of chartered accountants. The rest are lukewarm, looking for more.
In this chapter, I decided to take you into a typical business school workshop, more particularly the session on interests.
Notice your interests
I sometimes start a workshop with a discussion about interests, not because it’s the most important consideration but because it’s an easy, fun way to ease into the day and think about market segments and where people’s interests might live in the business world. Everyone has an interest of some kind, which is also a great equalizer. I also know how interests can lead you astray, so I am giving them tools to do some testing of their own.
I start by posing a long list of questions about things that interest them while they frantically write down everything that comes to mind. Questions include what interests them, what they like reading about, talking about, thinking about, where in a bookstore they lose themselves, what events they like attending, what subscriptions they have, what voluntary work they would do, what they would choose to talk about if cornered at a cocktail party if they could open a business that couldn’t fail what would it be, articles they read, conversations that inspire, courses, workshops or learning programmes they are willing to spend time and money on, and things that anger them and which they want to do something about. (These and other questions from the work of Daniel Porot are hard to beat).[i]
Common responses at the end of the exercise are: ‘This was hard; I haven’t thought about this for a long time’ and ‘I forgot about what interested me; how did that happen?’ ‘I can’t understand how something I am so passionate about got left behind’ ‘I would so love to get involved in this again if only it paid!’ ‘My interests are so far away from what I do every day!’ ‘My interests are all over the place’, or ‘There is such a common theme here; it’s frightening!’ Yet many of them also followed interests that got them into careers they now want to change.
It starts by noticing things that interest you, wherever they may be found. A few years into my career in financial services, I visited the office of a psychologist who was working with our executive team. While I was waiting, I peeked into a training room. There was a flipchart with a triangle on it, and the three corners, ‘Behaviour’, ‘Thinking’ and ‘Emotion’. I remember being intrigued by this and wondering what it meant. It would become the largest part of my consulting work.
As I gained experience in the corporate workplace, I discovered a growing interest in adult education, workplace culture, behaviour choice, strategy, business, psychology, and decision-making, to name but a few. There is no way I could have made a list of those in my younger life. Acknowledging the importance of the source of an interest means staying open to new interests that present themselves along the way.
When I took the standard career at a local university, it showed my interest in the workplace and people. It took many years to find a way to discover what that meant for me. Perhaps it’s time to notice again what you are enthusiastic about and what interests you. Use the questions above and make a list. None of your interests may end up having a direct link to your career, but they might provide some valuable signposts along the way.
Crack open your interests
A young lady shyly approached me at a social event. ‘I heard you only work with older people, but I spoke with a career counsellor and told her I loved animals. She told me I could become a vet, but with my grades, I was unlikely to get in. Had I perhaps considered something like a grooming parlour? Is there perhaps anything else you can think of?’
She was asking a more profound question perhaps than she realised, and which many of my business school students could benefit by asking. I had given up law because I had a fixed idea of what lawyers do. Just as many doctors in the room had decided medicine was not for them, with a very limited view of the vast field of opportunities medicine offered aside from seeing a patient.
To demonstrate this with my business school students, I ask someone in the room to give an interest they discovered that was definitely not a career interest for them. Typical shoutouts are travel, sport, cars, fashion, camping, food, and adventure. In one particular workshop, a lady from the back row shouted, ‘Parties!’ This produced quite a bit of laughter, and as the mood in the room lightened, other stories emerged: the pathologist with an interest in fashion, the accountant with an eye on beer brewing, and the environmental scientist wanting to get into financial services.
I learned a great question from my friend John Webb, who does Life/Work planning in Germany, that is effective in cracking open interests: ‘What kinds of businesses, organisations, or institutions have anything to do with… (insert your interest). So, I asked her the same question; ‘What kind of businesses, organisations or institutions are involved in any way with parties…?’
Here are just some of what emerged in literally a couple of minutes: Nightclubs, hire shops, bakeries, party shops, retreats, function venues, music groups, DJs, sound engineering, catering businesses, festivals, tourism, beverages, event management, restaurants, public relations, and wedding planning. Seems parties are a Billion-dollar industry. And if she chose to make a career in it, she could do absolutely anything in that industry, from belly dancing to being the financial director for a chain of hotels.
You ask the same of anything that interests you, even about what to do with a law degree that leaves you feeling uninspired. Just a preliminary list includes:
Administrative Law, Constitutional Law, International Law, Jurisprudence, Legal Theory and Philosophy, Maritime Law, Aerospace Law, Animal Law, Antitrust and Competition Law, Appellate Law, Arbitration and Mediation, Business and Commercial Law, Banking and Finance Law, Bankruptcy Law, Business Law, Commercial Law, Consumer Protection Law, Contract Law, Corporate Law (all the people at my conference), E-commerce Law, Civil Rights and Public Interest, Civil Rights Law, Disability Law, Elder Law, Environmental Law, Human Rights Law, Immigration Law, Nonprofit Organizations Law, Public Interest Law, Criminal Law, Criminal Defence Law, Juvenile Law, Employment and Labor Law, Employment Law, Labour Law, Family and Personal Law, Elder Law, Trusts and Estates Law, Intellectual Property Law, Copyright Law, Patent Law, Trademark Law, Technology, Cybersecurity Law, Privacy Law, International Law, Comparative Law, International Trade Law, International Humanitarian Law, Litigation, Dispute Resolution, Civil Litigation, Commercial Litigation, Criminal Litigation, Dispute Resolution, Mediation, Arbitration, Property and Real Estate, Real Estate Law, Land Use Law, Property Law, Construction Law, Regulatory and Compliance, Health Law, Insurance Law, Tax Law, Securities Law, Specific Industries and Emerging Areas, Entertainment Law, Sports Law, Energy Law, Agricultural Law, Health Care Law, Food and Drug Law, Biotechnology Law, Education Law, Military Law, Transportation Law, Water Law, Election Law, Gaming Law, Municipal Law. And as life evolves, new areas will emerge. In a workshop, this would have been a mind map with ‘Law’ in the middle. I got this list from ChatGPT, and it’s already outdated as new laws are being written around AI.
I asked the young lady who considered she had only two choices in working with animals the same question. ‘As you think about it now, what kind of businesses or organisations or institutions have anything to do with animals?’ Here’s a very preliminary list we sketched out on a serviette: veterinary hospitals, conservation bodies, pet daycare, animal research, animal rights, animal foods, grooming, travel, shelters, game farms, animal psychology, wildlife lodges, education, farms, import and export, stud farms, dog training, photography, magazines, book publishers, pet shops, pet accessory manufacturers and so on. This was not necessarily a list of careers but merely a way to crack open different fields that might have interested her.
Interests in themselves may not point at what you do but in what field you want to work. What you end up doing there is a different question. You might manage reception, do deliveries, work with clients, or manage their money. That’s a skills question.
You may also find the field you work in doesn’t matter too much. It’s not an important consideration for everyone. As long as they are doing something they enjoy enough, and it pays enough, whether they work in insurance or healthcare is not a big deal. I started out in financial services, consumer and corporate credit, to be exact. Those would never have appeared on a list of my interests, yet I had more fun learning and working there than in many more senior roles I held later on. And now, most of my clients are in financial services, and I get what they do. Life comes around, doesn’t it? So, just because you aren’t super stimulated or wondering where on earth you are going doesn’t mean you aren’t exactly where you need to be.
Talk about your interests
The next step in our workshop is to have a conversation. I invite students to choose an interest that is not career-related for them, then give them four questions to ask the person alongside them. There are always a few eyebrows raised when they have to do something practical, but the energy soon takes over, and I can hardly get them to stop. As they talk, I see their eyes light up, their body posture change and even those who look shy and reluctant find new energy as they talk about their own interests. I have to raise my voice to stop the conversation; it’s become so animated.
These questions come from Daniel Porot’s work and can be found in my favourite career book, What Color is Your Parachute. They are also the basis of informational interviewing, which I consider the most powerful and underutilised process in the career world, which is why I have devoted an entire chapter to it elsewhere in this book.
But for now, just four questions:
1) How did you become interested in… (insert interest)
2) What do you enjoy most, or what interests you most about… (insert interest)
3) What do you enjoy least or what interests you least about… (insert interest)
4) Who else can you refer me to that is also interested in… (insert interest. By that, I mean a real name with a phone number or an email address.
People love talking about what interests them. You might like to try it at your next networking event. Ask someone who may be standing on their own what brought them to this event, then explore what interests them most about what they do or the field they work in, and there you go. Often, you will find common interests this way, and you’ll connect with great people as you do. You can ask for their business card before you move on; that’s what networking is all about. Building relationships, listening better, and finding areas of common interest.
Separate your interests from your skills
When you separate interests from skills, you open a whole new bag of options. You can change the field you work in (from animals to sport) but still use the same skills. Or you can stay in the same field and do something different. Or you might also decide to change both.
I met a medical doctor on an aeroplane who told me he intensely disliked clinical medicine but was fascinated by technology. Without changing fields, he pursued his interest in technology and sold some of the most sophisticated equipment used in operating theatres. His clients are surgeons. He spends many rewarding hours teaching them to use equipment. He was having more fun and making loads more money than he ever made as a doctor. He could have left the field of medicine entirely and lost out big time.
I have been involved in many corporate retrenchments over the years. In times of great confusion and fear, people easily cling to what they have done before and forget how much else they have to offer. When they explore how they can combine skills and interests in different ways, their hope and options start to climb.
Blend your interests
Early in my consulting career, I visited Dr Pete Hawkins at Liverpool University. We had met in Oregon a few years before. I loved his energy and passion for this work and was particularly interested in his work on life-work balance.
‘How do we find balance?’ I asked him. ‘Oh, balance is a bit out of date,’ he replied. We now talk about life/work blending.’ I was hooked.
His system invites us to blend four areas: Work, Learning, Playing and Giving.[ii] Our WORK circle holds those things we choose to make part of our paid work. Our play circle holds those things we want to do in our leisure time. Our learning circle is for things we want to learn about, even though it may have nothing to do with paid work. Our giving circle includes those things we do to support other people and causes with no thought of financial reward. Each of these areas is presented as a circle, each with its own size, and possible areas of overlap are created. (See more about this lovely work at www.windmillsonline.co.uk and in his book No Regrets on Sunday.)
He quickly pointed out that our ‘Giving circle’ was not simply signing a debit order but giving real time and energy to things you care about. Pete has a full life. He has a young family, has written a number of books, speaks internationally and works with academics, corporations, and, at the time, the European Union. I was, therefore, interested in finding out what he did in his giving circle and how he found the time for it.
As life happens, I was there on the right day and joined Pete and his family on their giving evening. Nothing could have prepared me for such a profound experience. As we entered a local church hall, I was introduced to The Lord Mayor of London, who wore a top hat and the kind of chain you buy at a hardware store around his neck. Was this a fancy dress? No, but it certainly was a party. The hall was filled with fun, playful adults with learning disabilities. Whenever I tell the story, I have difficulty hiding the emotion that wells up inside of me, and it does as I write this. With a full consulting schedule, he runs a playgroup for people he cares about. I got it. I also had one of the most fun evenings ever.
Your blend doesn’t have to be balanced or look like anyone else’s. It may also look different at different stages of your life. A hobby may become paid work. What you did for a living may end up as voluntary work or mentorship. And maybe it’s time to start playing again! There is no perfect blend, only the blend that is perfect for you. So, before you dump everything in your workspace or expect your career to meet all your interests, you might like to do some blending.
Combine your interests
Your career might end up being a combination of interests. I worked with a successful accountant and businessman who had a passion for sports. He had combined them to managing contracts and finances for top sports personalities. An accountant I met many years ago and loves gardening works for a nursery where every piece of accounting, which he enjoys, is about manure, plants, and trees. He gets to smell the compost from his office window as it is delivered. How cool is that.
Replacing the word ‘or’ with ‘and’ means to expand the way you think about interests. My own work is driven by my combined interests in business, decision-making, change management, psychology, and spirituality. Each of them may suggest a single career, but I have chosen to use them in a way that supports the work I care about. Consider also how your interests might suggest more than one business card or job. Who says you can’t run a guest house from home, cater for outside events, use your graphic design skills to create brochures and cards, and in the afternoons, do homework groups to meet your love for children and child development?
Separate interests from qualifications
‘Our family is in crisis’, she said. ‘My son is at university studying law and wants to give it up, he says it’s not his passion’. I connected with that sentiment since I had done the same thing.
Changing careers, studying new things, and making new choices are important crossroads, but if everyone is still breathing, you’re OK. It is not a crisis. If you are studying something that is taking you in the wrong direction, and you know what you want instead, changing your study direction might be the sanest thing you can do. But many studies simply prepare you for the next step in your life and you don’t need to be passionate about every part of it to get it finished. Sometimes, education is like riding a bike; it simply takes you to places you may not have gotten to on foot.
My friend Cecile ran a successful physiotherapy practice until she decided to study art. Many years of study have now put her in a position to showcase some of South Africa’s best talent. We attended the opening of her contemporary art gallery, and as we stood under the oak trees of Muratie Wine Farm, I realised again how our interests, passions, and dreams can come true. How can we make any change if we are willing to do the work?
Decisions in earlier life may have been study decisions and not career decisions at all. “Don’t cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it,” said Aubrey de Grey. Whatever you may have studied provides a body of knowledge in a field of work, but it doesn’t define who you are.
Work your interests
You may not know whether an interest is serious for you until you give it a chance. My younger son Sam has always been interested in animals, ants, spiders, dogs, and rhinos. Unsure about whether this is his paid career, he has worked on his interest by taking courses on anti-poaching and wildlife tourism, and he is a regular volunteer at our local animal clinic. Will he find his career there? He might, or it might hold another signpost down the track. He has often been frustrated by the journey, as you might be. But he’s way ahead of the pack who aren’t asking the questions or bold enough to test them out.
A schoolteacher once told me, with frustration, that despite his best efforts to help his students think about careers, they all wanted to be soccer players or movie stars. Except they weren’t on the soccer team or any sports team. Nor were they in the dramatic society. If you have been lying around waiting for your passion to arrive and knock at your door, it’s probably waiting for you to discover it just around the corner. Go out and find it, then work it and see where it leads. Even if you discover it’s not where you want to go, you have made an important decision and can move on.
Guard your interests
My elder son has always loved aeroplanes and, from a very young age, would point at the sky saying, ‘Up! Up! He had his private pilot’s licence before he left school and seemed very clear about what he wanted to do. When he came home after doing a “proper” career test at school, he said to me: ‘Dad, you are going to be mad!’ I don’t get mad easily and assured him that whatever he wanted to do, even if it had nothing to do with flying, was fine with me. ‘Well,’ he said cautiously, ‘I told the counsellor I wanted to be a pilot, and she said I could do better and that the way they made planes these days would be a bit like driving a bus. ‘ He was right; I was mad! No one knows what you want better than you do, no matter what tests you do.
I remembered the many times my ideas and dreams were squashed by well-meaning people who were older and apparently more experienced than me. He is now a passionate and successful commercial pilot training new pilots who pointed at the sky, saying, “That’s where I want my workplace to be”. Steve Jobs famously said: ‘Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice’. That’s not always easy to do; there are many practical considerations fighting for your attention.
But, if you do know what you want, hold onto it even if the pressure is great to let it go. Ignore remarks like ‘Oh, that little interest of yours…’ or ‘You will always be poor as a musician’, or guilt trips like ‘It’s either me or your golf! and ‘if you appreciated what we did for you as parents…’ or ‘Your Grandfather would be so disappointed to see you break the family tradition in law…’ or ‘Your mother always wanted a son that was a doctor. After all she has done for you…’ It’s all just noise.
I am not suggesting you relinquish your responsibilities or put your livelihood at risk with a hair-brain scheme you are ill-prepared for, but if you have interests that you are passionate about and that give your career purpose, you will need to do better than allowing someone to steal them from you, no matter how well-meaning they may be. I believe all assessments, decision-making instruments and conversations with professionals are important in helping you gain insight into yourself, your interests, and your preferences. But don’t let anyone stifle your dreams. It’s your journey, not theirs.
Don’t give up on your interests.
You may be hearing a voice in your head that says: ‘There is no time to nurture my interests, what with a job and small children!’ ‘I’ll think about that when the year comes to an end…’
It was one of those special evenings in historic Cape Town at the District Six Museum to launch the book MEMORY AGAINST FORGETTING, a photographic journey through South Africa’s history by one of our most prolific photographic journalists, Ranjith Kelly. As we spoke, he whispered behind his hand, ‘I’m nearly 90, you know!’ Consider the hours you spend on an average book, the time you kill in airports, the time you waste on the internet, time spent trawling social media, or the evenings you spend on committees that frankly bore you to death and where you are not making many contributions as a result.
Interests are not enough.
You can use your best skills, be utterly fascinated by what you do, and still be miserable as sin. That’s because your work environment can support or undermine your career more than you might imagine. Many clients I have seen who thought they were in the wrong career were simply in the wrong place. The next chapter will help you think about the environments that will help you do your best work, and doing our best work is the whole point, isn’t it?
Your turn
How do your interests play into your work life?
What do you want to learn more about?
How can you feed your interests outside of work?
[i] Daniel Porot: The PIE method of career success.
[ii] Dr Pete Hawkins; www. windmills.co.uk; No regrets on Sundays.