Knowing myself better through my hoozyu has made a big difference in my life.

Before I knew about my areas of interest, I didn’t know what I found really satisfying and what I didn’t. I expected myself to always have a go at everything - after all, new experiences and challenges are broadening, right?

There was nothing wrong with that on one level - its great to try lots of stuff, and be open to learn new things - but I also expected myself to succeed. As long as I had the ‘ability’ to do whatever it was, why shouldn’t I be able to succeed?

So, when I was offered a part time sales job, I naively thought, ‘I can pick up a phone and talk to people, there’s no reason why I can’t do this’! I had no idea then, that there was a motivational issue that was going to come swooping in on me by the time I had made the first few calls!


Sure, I could physically pick up the phone and politely talk to someone, but when they weren’t interested I couldn’t get beyond, ‘ok fair enough, I won’t bother you any more then’. Now, I was expected to line up meetings with these people for my boss, so I had to do better than that.

I had to make myself call back if they weren’t there, pester their assistants to put me through to them, try again when I got their answerphone, try again when they didn’t return my call… And when I finally got through, make myself sound enthusiastic about our services and (inwardly at least) beg them to say ‘yes’ to meeting my boss.

In 5 months I got one meeting, and I handed in my resignation.

I was so demoralised. I had dreaded each day, had to make myself pick up the phone, and would find as many other things to do as I could to avoid making the calls. I felt inwardly stressed, and I had utterly failed. My conclusion was there must be something wrong with me - I couldn’t make some calls and get some meetings lined up - it was ridiculous.


But you know, I was missing a big insight. Ability to do something, in a technical sense of having the skill, is just not enough. There has to be some genuine engagement and motivation too.

Now I can look at my interest scores - and particularly my very low persuasive score of 5 - and laugh. My failure was due to a complete lack of engagement and motivation. More than that, to a strong aversion to engaging with others in a persuasive way to sell.

You see, we are not all the same! Others will love to engage in persuading and selling - its their best thing!

And me? Well, now I know what I am highly motivated by. My top 3 interests are Social Service, Artistic and Scientific. It was only my desire to support my boss (social service motivation) that kept me working in that job for 5 months, but honestly… he may well have been better off without me!