John found relief in his Pilot profile and found happiness in sales role after 121 coaching

John was a young man who worked in his dad’s accountancy firm. When John came to take his Certified Public Accountant (CPA) exams he was completely stressed out! He was an extremely bright and intelligent young man but taking these exams was like torture to him and he was stressed because he hated it.

I remember speaking with John in a coaching session and asking him why he was doing something that he found so exhausting for him. It had always been expected that John would not only work for his dad’s business but carry the business on when his father retired. Keep it in the family. He felt that he had no choice but to become a CPA.

John did his ‘Check In’ quiz to discover his personality type so that he could get some insight into what he was naturally gifted and talented at, what he was most aligned to in his career role. The Ignition! personality type most suited to working in his fathers business as an accountant is the Air Traffic Controller profile, this was definitely his father as he described him to me.

John however, discovered that he was a Pilot profile – this is almost the complete opposite of who he was trying to be – no wonder he was feeling exhausted, stressed and out of flow!

Air Traffic Controllers like to be in the back office, analysing the numbers, using the systems, are certainty driven, and are exhausted spending too much time socialising and meeting with people.

Pilot profiles are high energy, fast past, creative, sociable, love to present, promote and sell. Obviously John was not going to enjoy being an accountant but that did not mean that he could not work in the family business. He just needed to find the right role for him in the firm. The relief on his face as we had this conversation was obvious and straight way he identified the best role for him was in sales.

Now John heads up the sales team, training them, setting targets for them, encouraging them and supporting them to do a great sales job. He loves to go out and meet with clients and share his passion for the business as well as run training sessions for his clients to help them grow in their businesses too. John is totally loving the work he is doing, his clients love him because he get’s the numbers but gets the people too and his fathers business has tripled because John is now completely aligned the right role for him, totally in flow!

As the above case study demonstrates, it is so important to align who you are to what you do if you are to add value, be valued and love every minute of what you do. Too many young people drift in to roles because other people thought it was a good job (but not a good job for them!) or they didn’t know what they were naturally gifted at so applied for anything and everything and find they hate what they are doing.

For an employer to align a candidate with the right personality type to a role is key, otherwise the person will find the job hard, not give their best, be criticised for not performing and be let go of. It knocks the confidence of the employee in themselves and knocks the confidence of the employer in taking on young people. There is absolutely no need for this to happen if we use Ignition! to align people with the right role that are like going out to play every day.