What We Learned While Marathon Training - Everyday Fulfillment
No Vacation Required
It's hard to believe we're already kicking off Season 3 of the No Vacation Required podcast!
When we started this journey, we were mostly talking about careers and workplace fulfillment. Then we spent a season questioning the assumptions we all inherit about work, success, and the way life is supposed to be lived. Along the way, we realized something important: all of those conversations were really pointing toward a much bigger question.
How do you build a life you don't need a break from?
That's what this season is about.
In this first episode, we're sharing the origin story behind No Vacation Required and introducing one of the foundational concepts that changed our lives: what we call the Dream of the Planet – the collection of assumptions, expectations, and scripts we inherit about what a successful life should look like.
We talk about the marathon-training conversations that first led us to question why we were postponing fulfillment until some distant future. We explore how a single moment can break the schema, reveal that there are other ways to live, and open the door to creating a dream that actually belongs to you.
We also share why Season 3 is different. Rather than focusing primarily on our consulting work or research, we're grounding these conversations in our own lived experience – the lessons, experiments, mistakes, and discoveries that helped us build a No Vacation Required life.
If you've ever felt like you're following a script that doesn't quite fit, this episode is for you.
Onward and Inward,
COMMON QUESTIONS ANSWERED IN THIS EPISODE
❓What is the "dream of the planet" as discussed on the No Vacation Required podcast? The "dream of the planet" refers to the societal script or shared agreement about how we should live our lives, often characterized by deferred fulfillment and working toward a distant retirement. The hosts discuss how recognizing this script allows you to break away from it and design a more fulfilling life on your own terms.
❓Why did the No Vacation Required podcast change its format in Season 3? In Season 3, the hosts shifted their focus from strictly career and workplace fulfillment to a more comprehensive view of a life well-lived. They aim to center the conversation on their lived experiences and provide tools for everyday fulfillment, helping listeners build a life they don't need a break from.
❓Why shouldn't you use a personality test taken through your employer for personal development? Personality tests taken in a work setting are often skewed because people tend to answer from the perspective of an employee or how they believe they should perform for their employer. For accurate personal development insights, it is best to take these assessments independently, free from any professional roles or expectations.
❓How does the No Vacation Required podcast define fulfillment? The hosts define fulfillment as an "inside job" that begins with truly knowing yourself. They believe that understanding your own wiring and values is the essential first step to building a life you don't need a break from, rather than relying on external programs or societal expectations.
❓What is the "No Vacation Required" origin story? The concept was born during the hosts' marathon training runs, where they realized they were constantly talking about their dreams as something to be deferred until retirement. This led to the realization that they didn't need to wait to live a fulfilling life, sparking the philosophy of building a life you don't need a break from right now.
CHAPTERS
(00:00) Welcome to Season 3 of the No Vacation Required Podcast
(01:00) Mind Share: Yesteryear
(04:00) The No Vacation Required origin story
(07:20) Deferred fulfillment and the marathon conversations
(10:00) Breaking the schema and seeing beyond the Dream of the Planet
(11:30) Why Season 3 is different
(15:00) Everyday fulfillment and knowing yourself
(17:00) Relationships as catalysts for growth
(19:15) The Dream of the Planet explained
(22:00) The ongoing process of self-discovery
(29:00) Mailbag: Why workplace personality tests often miss the mark
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TRANSCRIPT
Caanan (00:00)
It's a new season of the No Vacation Required Podcast Season three.
Kent (00:03)
Season three. Than
Kent (00:05)
this silly podcast.
Caanan (00:06)
Everything you love about the No Vacation Required podcast, but now even more no vacation requiredy.
Kent (00:14)
I'm so excited to get into a little bit about the why and what this is all about as we as we get into the bones of this episode.
Caanan (00:23)
Yeah, so we're gonna explain how things have changed a little bit, the change we've made to the format, which we're very excited about, in a little bit. But first, we're gonna kick this off with something you're familiar with if you've heard us talk before, and that's what's on our mind. And Kent, you have a mind share.
Kent (00:43)
Or it could be on what what's on your mind or what's on the mind of culture.
Caanan (00:50)
Yeah.
Kent (00:51)
What's what's on the mind?
Caanan (00:53)
Yeah.
Caanan (00:53)
What's on the mind? So this is mind share ⁓ and Kent go ahead. Yeah.
Kent (00:57)
So we've both read the book yesteryear. If you haven't read it, it's worth reading. Just to summarize this part, we both have mixed but leaning very, very positive feelings about the book. But what I can't get out of my brain today because it it so talks about this new it speaks to this new season, why we're doing this, this
Kent (01:24)
what we feel big issue we've unearthed in our own personal life. Yeah. In our life with family and loved ones, very much so in the work we've done for a couple decades. And here's that tie-in. So we heard the brilliant author of yesteryear speak. And she basically said that while the idea of the trad wife
Kent (01:52)
Is an entry point into the book and it's the way everybody refers to the book. The Tradwife book. she said that in fact to her and what it's supposed to be is really a novel about control versus freedom and America and expectations and your dreams.
Kent (02:14)
versus the dreams of people like you or people who are like those who you want to be like. It's about, she says, performance and surveillance. And this just happened. This just came into our queue and I thought, okay, this is what I'm supposed to talk about during mind share because this feeds right into
Kent (02:42)
not only what we're gonna talk very specifically about today, but about the genesis of this entire season. So the book yesteryear and more importantly, plot twist, even though we've read it, what the author says the book is really about has me thinking.
Caanan (03:02)
Yeah, I loved seeing her we saw her live at Elliott Bay Books. If you're in Seattle or visiting Seattle, go check out Elliott Bay Books. It's that's a heavy recommend as well.
Kent (03:13)
there you've gone and and said it like I want to keep it a little secret.
Caanan (03:17)
Seattle's most famous bookstore.
Kent (03:20)
I was being all coy, like we kind of heard the up
Caanan (03:23)
Yeah. ⁓ But ⁓ as you pointed to, we really liked this book. We didn't l love love this book, but actually after listening to the author and understanding her motivation in writing the book and how she framed it, I'm going back in my mind and I actually like this book significantly more than I did
Caanan (03:48)
when we finished reading it. And again, we really liked it. We talked a lot about it. You know, good art makes you think and it it made us think. but yeah, the way she reframed it for us, it really elevated it in my mind.
Kent (04:02)
Let's get on to the season. Yay.
Kent (04:12)
Okay, so we've been thinking about this new season for a while and what we wanted it to be. And we're gonna explain that more in depth in the next segment. But I just wanna say that ⁓ what we call Caanan just called it as we were setting up our our origin story. It's really our no vacation required origin story.
Kent (04:30)
Very top of mind right now because we just had the opportunity to sit down with some new friends and they were asking how'd all this come to be? Your work is so cool. So we got to review this origin of story again, and and here you're gonna see the overlap with my what's on my mind with yesteryear, because it it all goes back a couple decades ago, as you've heard on this podcast before, when we were marathon.
Caanan (04:56)
Right. Yeah, you know, I have to just jump in here and say I think it's interesting. We may we've talked about this story in little pieces, but I don't think we've actually just told this story. Yeah. Which makes me excited to to get it out there in its entirety.
Kent (05:13)
I was just I was just laughing because how much we mentioned marathon training. It comes up in different in different 'cause we've done a few marathons, so it comes up in different ways in different podcasts. I'm like people must think we're constantly marathon.
Caanan (05:25)
We do not run marathons anymore. We run a lot, but we have we have exorcised the marathon demon. ⁓
Kent (05:33)
Yeah, so we're
Kent (05:34)
happily we were happily in jobs
Kent (05:36)
Leading what we call now the dream of the planet. And as a matter of fact, this episode is all about.
Kent (05:47)
The dream of the planet, ⁓ and we had always run, it was something we we did together, but then we decided we were gonna run the Paris Marathon, so we had to run more, and we had to find creative ways to get those miles in, ⁓ and as we ⁓
Kent (06:02)
spent time running and it was, you know, one of the only like real things we could do together 'cause we were each working separately, professional, upwardly mobile jobs, the whole thing.
Kent (06:11)
You know, we talk about life and dreams and I was just reminding Caanan yesterday that it got sort of funny because like I think we realized just by you know how you always get that advice to just do. Yeah. Just do, do something. ⁓ I realized like this is this is all we're talking about later in life, when we have the money, when our careers are over. ⁓
Kent (06:40)
And we were remembering how it sort of hit us like, wait, why are we buying into this model? It's a fine model for many people, and obviously it's a model that works for people. It certainly is a model that works for our culture and late stage capitalism and all of that. But through these runs, which turned into intense marathon training runs, I think we really started to realize.
Kent (07:08)
Like, this is interesting that we're talking about the model. All we want to talk about is what we really want to be doing
Caanan (07:16)
Yeah.
Kent (07:17)
which is great. But it was all when we've earned it, someday, yeah.
Caanan (07:22)
Yeah, and we realized that this was essentially this model was deferred fulfillment. Like we were talking about what was going to be fulfilling to us at some distant point in the future. Yeah. And having that shared realization, like, well, wait, what what is it we're waiting for? Why are we waiting to do these things that we know? Yeah.
Caanan (07:45)
are going to be fulfilling to us that we know that we're excited about right now.
Kent (07:50)
And I think it was really fun too because for a while that core dream was really satisfying. Like we're
Caanan (07:59)
Yeah.
Kent (07:59)
gonna do life in this way. Look at us. We're in these careers where we're really digging in and we're successful. We're doing this well. And there is something satisfying about that. Yeah. We were like, wow, we're doing it. We're doing this thing.
Kent (08:15)
But then it kind of flips. And I just I I think I tell you this from time to time, but we don't talk about it enough. I feel like I remember the exact run. I remember exactly where we were. We were on the waterfront here in Seattle, coming around a bend on the beach. And I remember thinking well, the first big kind of chink in this overriding.
Kent (08:38)
Dream of the planet as we call it, I started to think, Well wait
Kent (08:45)
We don't have to wait till we're retired. Maybe, you know, we're so successful, we're doing well. gosh, maybe we could push that up ten years. Yeah. And I think do you remember how that then unleashed this whole discussion where we sort of felt like we were coming out of the matrix and we were like, yeah, this is all just a predefined thing. We didn't use the term dream of the planet then, obviously. But we kind of were right then moving quickly into realizing, yeah.
Kent (09:12)
This is a dream and again it's a valid dream, but we can dream our own way.
Caanan (09:18)
Yeah. I that's such a great point. I'm glad you remember that. because it all, you know, all these years later and so far into our what we call our no vacation required life, it can all get a little blurry, but you're right, having that one moment, something that as we also say, breaks the schema, because the dream of the planet is essentially an a
Caanan (09:43)
Agreement we have about what reality is, right? It's a schema. And so you have this thought, like, wait, we could actually do this a little bit sooner. You weren't thinking right now.
Kent (09:59)
No.
Caanan (10:00)
That came later, but you had this one moment that breaks the schema. And like you said, you can sort of see through the matrix a little bit, and all of sudden
Caanan (10:09)
the scrim falls down.
Kent (10:10)
Yeah.
Caanan (10:11)
And then your brain opens up to a whole new possible reality. Yeah. And then we're off to the races.
Kent (10:19)
Yeah, there's there's a lot more to this story, but I think this is the point of this story for today's episode, which is this is when we realized there's what we call now the dream of the planet, and that we had the ability to create a different dream.
Kent (10:44)
In everything we've done, in our personal lives and as sought after business and career development consultants, we've learned one consistent thing. Most people just don't know themselves. NoVacationRequired.com is where we talk about how you too can build a life that you don't need a break from and how it all starts with knowing yourself. There you'll find all of our podcast episodes, information on services, and the scoop on us. And to really raise the bar, we model this as a couple.
Kent (11:13)
To show that a relationship doesn't have to be a compromise or a counterproductive union. When two people are each doing their own work, the heightened connection becomes a shortcut to building a no vacation required life.
Caanan (11:26)
as we said, we're now in season three of the NVR podcast. And as I joked earlier, this really is the most NVR y the No Vacation Required podcast has ever been. for sure. In season one, we talked about under the name the Change Laboratory, we talked about careers and being fulfilled in careers. and in season two, which we just wrapped up about a month ago.
Caanan (11:51)
we challenged ideas ⁓ by asking why are we still doing that? Which is a very no vacation required way to look at the world.
Kent (12:00)
Yeah, and that road, just hearing you talk about that road, it makes this evolution so clear to me. So season one, we're still deep in our consulting work, our traditional consulting work via our services arm called the Change Laboratory, but we were so deep in it that the podcast was called that. And it was really all or mostly centered on career experiences at the individual level and team experiences at the corporate level. And you know, then we
Kent (12:30)
Started to realize, like, there's just why are we
Caanan (12:32)
Where are we Where are we?
Kent (12:33)
looking at things in these traditional, not necessarily personalized ways. Thus the birth of season two. Yes. This, why are we still doing that? And there we threw the net far wider. And we still talked a lot about career and workplace, because that's how we cut our teeth, but we got into what people really want to know, which is
Caanan (12:56)
live. Yes, we'd been looking at just this career angle and it's funny, you know, you said the the whole season two is why are we still doing that? But we had that very question ourselves about focusing on career. Like why are we still doing that? People want to know about their entire life. They want a comprehensive view of fulfillment. Yeah, I think
Kent (13:17)
Season two was really just a bridge that we were fully aware of because we talk a lot about being immersed in something and you don't even know why you're doing it, but you're still doing it because it's what you know. You know, we were so immersed in that individual and professional consulting realm that we too had to find our bridge way out. And I think in terms of the podcast, the why are we still doing that season was that bridge. And as we dabbled in talking about people, what people wanted to know about even more than the career world.
Kent (13:47)
Which was the life role, all these roles we have that lead into what we call the life role, the one you roll. Doing that second season ⁓ and ⁓ the things we did surrounding that in our ⁓ work, etc., we realized this is the sweet spot, this is the mark ⁓
Kent (14:09)
We really want to leave. This is the legacy we want to leave because people are so craving information about how to build a life they don't need a break from, which to us translates to fulfillment. Yeah. Yeah,
Caanan (14:22)
They're one in the same.
Kent (14:23)
we talk about that. And we thought, okay, this is we just need to rip off the band-aid and do what we've always wanted to do. Another thing we talk about constantly on this podcast is.
Kent (14:35)
being so embedded in career and workplace issues and really having profound success and enjoying the help we were providing, we were really, I think we say on the website who people look to to we say, I'm looking at it right now. Individuals hired to get unstuck, leaders hired to fix broken teams, but all through that,
Kent (14:59)
We had this larger, more profound realization that no, we're just making people realize that their whole lives could take a good looking at. Right. So it was this weird
Caanan (15:13)
Weird.
Kent (15:14)
it was this weird kind of dual reality where we loved the work we were doing, it was very effective, but we always knew there was this bigger thing nagging at people, and this bigger truth.
Kent (15:28)
that you and I knew about. I mean, look at what we write about in the book, No Vacation Required, where we talk about how all this came to be and our our story, our path to building a life we don't need to break.
Caanan (15:41)
From
Caanan (15:41)
yeah. So here we are in season three, and we're gonna be centering this season in not just our professional experience and our professional acumen and not our academic experience and our academic acumen. We're gonna be centering a lot of this in our lived experience. Yeah. In our journey, creating a no vacation required life and learning the lessons we needed to learn.
Caanan (16:08)
To build and live the life we are living right now, which is an extraordinary, fulfilled life.
Kent (16:16)
Yeah, the reason I had the website up is because I wanted to read this on this first episode because it's something relatively new on the website. And when we just say it so well there, in everything we've done, from our personal lives to individual business consulting, we've learned one consistent thing that most people don't know themselves. No vacation required is where we provide the tools from our podcasts to our services to help you know yourself and to start building a life.
Kent (16:44)
you don't need a break from. So that's all about fulfillment and talking about in a more straightforward way, those broad tools that can help you chip away at building a life you don't need a break from. And something else we're really, really proud about, and we talked about this a little in season two for those of you who've been with us for a while.
Kent (17:10)
is we take great pride in doing this as a couple who helps each other. And especially in these tough times, we feel the exponential spark that we each get because we as individuals are doing the work and are committed to our own stuff, our own betterment, our own everything.
Kent (17:35)
So then when you put the two of us together to then have that impact on a relationship, and in our case, that impact on the work we do, it can just bring what an exponential level of lift. So for those of you
Kent (17:55)
who have you know, I I read a statistic, I think I quoted it last season. Like most people want to be in a solid love relationship or whatever. So I know of
Caanan (18:04)
Yeah.
Kent (18:05)
you can see this. You don't have to work together like we do, but
Kent (18:09)
are talking about using our relationship
Kent (18:15)
Where we commit to doing our own personal development work and using that heightened connection and the support that flows from that commitment to become a catalyst in building a more fulfilled life, a no vacation required life. So if you're in a relationship and it's you know not what you think is the most productive thing, or you're looking for a relationship, you can have this kind of a relationship where here's
Caanan (18:41)
Yeah.
Kent (18:43)
just the truth.
Kent (18:44)
We've talked about this before too. So many relationships where the the other person is like viewed as the enemy. Right. And to this day, we're always astounded in the work that we do, the things that people can't even share with their loved one. Yeah. it's sort of a an odd thing. So that's what this season is all about.
Kent (19:07)
No vacation required, everyday fulfillment. Actually those tools to build a life you don't need a break from.
Kent (19:17)
We're gonna ground things really firmly in our stories, which brings us right back to this episode where because this month our theme is fulfillment. The the big word. this first episode we're talking about the dream of the planet. And
Kent (19:37)
That process we talked about in our opening story about realizing like, wait, we can have our own dream. And are we the first per people to have our own no. But largely and just so coincidentally, this was confirmed by what the author of yesteryear was saying, we have this yearning for an idealized life, this nostalgia
Kent (20:04)
Of particularly in the Western and developed world in America, like what it means to live. And I was doing further research on her thoughts because I was so intrigued by this. We have this nostalgia for this idea of simpler things, and people translate that into roles. Like simpler
Caanan (20:25)
Yes.
Kent (20:27)
things means
Kent (20:28)
I should do this because that's the template. My love interests should do that. And in fact, that's not the outcome that's produced necessarily by having these ideas, by buying into that dream of the planet.
Caanan (20:46)
And I think it's important before we wrap up this section to say that the key part of
Caanan (20:52)
Our marathon training story and those incredible conversations we were having about what we wanted to do at some point in the future. And you having that realization, like, wait, why do we have to wait so long? We could do that a little bit sooner. That breaking the schema, seeing the matrix. ⁓ This is this is ⁓ if you are in the dream of the planet now.
Caanan (21:19)
If you were following the script that we're all supposed to follow,
Kent (21:23)
Yeah.
Caanan (21:24)
this is all you need to concern yourself with doing right now is just break the schema. See through it. Because it it isn't the truth, but it feels very much like the truth.
Caanan (21:43)
Thanks for listening. We'd be honored if you'd subscribe, like, and share. It means the world to us.
Kent (21:50)
Okay, so what does all this mean? we've talked about what we're doing this season. It's all about
Kent (21:55)
Everyday fulfillment. We're starting talking about fulfillment this month and this episode's theme is the dream of the planet. And I love what you said at the close of the last section, like just recognizing these things you're buying into. Yes. Reminds me of an article I read like two days ago. I haven't even told you about this yet, but it was highlighting again because of the state of the world, th people having all this
Kent (22:18)
dis-ease as we talk about. And the woman saying, like, I've got this and I've got that and I've got this, but I still have this lingering need, this sense, this void that I don't know if it's real. Is it the crazy world? And that's just agitating me and creating what I think is an unrest? Or is there something that I don't even know missing? And I just want to take this moment to say that this process of
Kent (22:47)
Debunking what we call the dream of the planet is an ongoing thing. In our prior seasons, you've heard us talk about you know we're always growing and there's aha's all along the road. Yeah. This does not end. When we talk about our marathon training story and the realization, we think that's probably the biggest realization, but it it never ends. And no.
Kent (23:12)
Breaking that original scheme, as Caanan said, is just a start. So do we have all the answers? Not at all. But are we committed to evolving and examining and recognizing? Okay, there's something to examine there, so let's examine it. And this article, which highlighted, you know, one of those ⁓ five people in a turbulent world.
Kent (23:41)
There's this common strand, and I just think if you only knew yourself, yeah, you would have a starting point. So that's the other thing we really want to make even more clear this season. The road to building a life you don't need a break from fulfillment is
Caanan (24:04)
Filment
Kent (24:05)
all about knowing yourself and figuring out you.
Kent (24:08)
There is no medicine or program or anything that is externally aligned that will help you in a meaningful way, like the very internal process of knowing yourself. We've said it before, we'll say it again. We do the work we do, which now, because of this evolution, we've told you about is
Kent (24:34)
much more centered on the individual and the whole individual. We have a change philosophy, which is why the service arm of what we do is called the change laboratory. And a big part of that is egoless, that fulfillment is an inside job. Yeah. So I read this article that I didn't tell you about, and all these people are just sort of what's the
Kent (24:57)
What's the term when you're out at sea and you're just sort of like rudderless or whatever? Yeah.
Caanan (25:00)
Yeah. Rudderless, I love that.
Kent (25:06)
the start to these answers is in you. And if you don't know
Kent (25:12)
how you're designed, like it or not. Yeah. Then
Kent (25:19)
you're not in a great situation. So that's you know, the process we went through realizing like we don't have to buy into this dream of the planet. It eventually forced us to go inward to examine
Kent (25:34)
Okay, what do we want to do? Who are we? Why do you contribute?
Caanan (25:36)
You know, knowing yourself first off you have to just recognize that there is a dream of the planet. There is a script in which, you know, this play we're all actors in.
Caanan (25:50)
You have to recognize that that's what's happening. And then the antidote to that, once you've recognized, is learning about yourself. And then you can use that knowledge to start picking apart the schema, the dream of the planet. Because you said earlier, and we've said this before: like there are
Caanan (26:13)
aspects of the dream of the planet that are not bad.
Kent (26:16)
Yeah.
Caanan (26:17)
We're not like saying wholesale you have to give up on this shared delusion we have. There are aspects of it that are good. And there are aspects of it that are terrible.
Kent (26:34)
So that's a very individual thing too.
Caanan (26:36)
And not even n some of it's not even true. It's not even based in reality. Yes. But unless you
Caanan (26:42)
recognize that this is what's going on, and then you learn about yourself, you can't really examine the dream of the planet and know which parts of it are real and wholesome and good and fulfilling, and which parts of it are absolute bunk.
Kent (27:00)
Yeah.
Caanan (27:02)
So that's why we say like fulfillment comes from knowing yourself, because knowing yourself gives you this internal roadmap, this
Caanan (27:12)
key
Kent (27:13)
Yeah.
Caanan (27:13)
by which you can start sort of actually examining the world, the dream of the planet, and deciding for yourself which parts of it you want to adhere to, which parts of it you want to completely eschew.
Caanan (27:32)
And that's what this is all about.
Kent (27:33)
Yeah, well said. I think yeah, having this framework also allows you to understand, I'm glad this is working for that person. That's not my thing. That's not my wheelhouse. Like it gives you a language through which you can better know yourself.
Caanan (27:50)
Snaps.
Kent (27:51)
Yeah, yeah. I hope I was hoping that that hits, that makes sense. Like at first it's a little tough because you still have that that FOMO, that fear of missing out, that wanting of what the other has.
Kent (28:02)
But you pretty quickly realize, like, wait, I'm not wired that way. And that's great. You do you. Yeah, I'm gonna do me. And interestingly, I think a lot of people have an apprehension, like, no, my whole identity is based on this dream of the planet or the dream of the other. And I think I kind of like that. I can't imagine not yearning for that. But
Caanan (28:28)
Yeah.
Kent (28:29)
People and the teams we've worked with, when you they have this discovery of who they are, there's no denying it. It trumps any desire to buy into a dream that isn't yours because the authenticity is so there, yeah, and so undeniable that you're able to say, that's you. I'm gonna lean into what I have natural strength and talent for.
Kent (29:06)
New segment. It's mailbag time. We used to do episodes based on client questions or prospective client emails or ⁓ listener
Caanan (29:15)
Listener email.
Kent (29:16)
emails. Yeah. ⁓ And now we're just gonna do one an episode because we get a lot and when we don't do them, we feel like, that's such a good question. Well yeah, it's kind of our favorite thing. So Caanan, I know you have one
Kent (29:31)
that you're dying to address because it's one of those we got last week and you were like, my gosh, we get this all the time. Yeah. And it's just so like staple information for us that we actually forget to talk about it. So go.
Caanan (29:45)
I think this will resonate with a lot of people. and I'll just paraphrase the question we got. It's this person wrote and essentially said, I did a personality test through my work. And I'm sure many of you have done this, where your employer ⁓ brings in a service and you do the DISC or the MBTI or whatever.
Caanan (30:11)
So this person says, I did this personality test through my work and I'd like to move forward with you guys doing this, you know, with your services, but I don't really need to redo the personality test. Can we just use the the information I have from what I got through my employer?
Caanan (30:32)
Heavy sigh.
Kent (30:33)
Heavy sigh.
Caanan (30:36)
I totally understand this question, but let me tell you why this doesn't make any sense. Why this is wrong.
Caanan (30:46)
A personality test is telling you about your mindset at the time you take the personality test.
Kent (30:55)
And the place, setting, everything. Yeah.
Caanan (30:58)
And your mindset shifts a little bit based on place and setting and your comfort level and all sorts of different things. That's not to say these personality tests aren't true, they're they're very valid,
Kent (31:12)
Yeah.
Caanan (31:13)
but they can change pretty dramatically based on where your head is. Yeah. So if you're taking your personality test and you're in
Caanan (31:24)
Your work role.
Kent (31:26)
Or work is paying for it.
Caanan (31:28)
Work
Caanan (31:28)
is paying for it, and you're doing this personality test in the capacity of employee. You're going to answer the personality test questions as an employee. I mean, if you're smart, you're gonna do that. And let me tell you: time and time again, we learn that clients we work with have done a personality test with their employer, and almost invariably.
Caanan (31:54)
They're incorrect because they are answering in the capacity of an employee as they believe they should be performing for their employer.
Kent (32:06)
Yeah.
Kent (32:08)
I just wanna say too so what we tell people in general is best to do it on your own, self-funded, but at the very least taking it through no one else's perspective, not a volunteer organization, not a hobby, certainly not your workplace. No. You need to take not as a not in a role, not as a role either, not as a mother, a spouse, or whatever. You just have to take it.
Kent (32:37)
very clear headed from a perspective that's you centric and only you centric. And yeah, it's tough to do that if it's paid for by another entity or if you know your job depends on it. So bottom line, no start fresh. Start fresh. Do it through your own eyes.
Caanan (32:59)
And if you are taking a personality test through your employer, just know that that that setting is going to skew the results.