The 12 Points of pleasure at work - Part 2 (Q&A)
What happened after I discovered my pleasure points + answers to your most pressing questions
At first, I didn’t want to write this article. “Who am I to give advice to people on what they should do with their life?”, I thought to myself.
So, I did my best to reply as thoughtfully as I could to every single comment I received. But the questions kept coming: “What’s next?”, “What do I do with this?”, “What jobs align with these pleasures?”.
Then, I tried to help indirectly by sharing a practice that has helped me to develop self-awareness and make more aligned choices, with hopes that maybe this could help people find their own answers.
But still, the comments and questions kept coming, and over 100k readers later, this message reached my inbox:
“(..) I was wondering if you’ve written more about the choices you made afterwards, or if in general you could share how your life and career have evolved.”
And at that moment I realized that while I don’t think of myself as qualified to give other people career advice. I’m definitely qualified to tell my own story and what has worked for me.
I made peace with it, and here we are.
Since there’s much to cover, here’s an overview what you’ll find:
What happened after I discovered the career workbook
How I went from feeling lost to find meaning with the power of experiments & having some faith in life
Q&A from part 1
1. What specific jobs or careers are related to these pleasure points?
2. I’m stuck, what do I do next?
3. What if I can’t go back to college?
4. How to decide what you want to do for the rest of your life?
5. What if you’re on your 40s, 50s, 60s..?
How I practically aligned myself with my points of pleasure
What happened after I discovered the career workbook?
In part 1, I told you that I was feeling miserable at work, considering going back to university to change careers entirely, when I came across the career workbook that made me realize that maybe I didn't have to change careers after all. Now, 3 years later, I feel happy and fulfilled at work.
But it wasn't that straightforward. It never is.
A few months after I had discovered the career workbook, I was blessed with a lay-off.
I had been wanting to leave for a while, but I didn't have the self-esteem to do it. Because even when you need to quit things, it requires a minimum of trust and confidence in yourself.
The day after I was laid off, I remember waking up in the morning, walking to my balcony, and looking around the shared garden of my building. For the first time in months, I could breathe. I was amazed by the colours of the plants, the sound of the birds, and for once in a long while, I was present.
Now, with space, I started slowly remembering who I was. Out of the 12 years I had been working in my field, 8 of them were as self-employed. So, I didn't go looking for another job.
But I did feel lost. The reason why I had accepted that role was because I was not happy being self-employed anymore back then.
It had been just after COVID, and I was feeling very isolated and disconnected from the world. I had also made a bad business decision some time before that, which made me resent the way I was operating my business and the kind of clients I was attracting.
So, I thought that joining a team and a company in a field I was excited about would bring me the fulfilment I was looking for. As you already know, it didn't. So, yeah, I felt lost.
But, in retrospect, I’m grateful for that job. It was not all bad. I did learn a lot, I did achieve things I'm proud of, and worked with people I admired. But most importantly, I'm grateful because it was a different experience for me, and it helped me to learn a lot more about myself.
It was an experiment.
The power of experiments & having some faith in life
Up until that point in my life, I had exclusively worked with corporate brands. But right before I was laid off, I received an unusual inquiry for work. A therapist from New York reached out wanting to work on her own brand and communication.
I showed up to that call ready to tell that we weren’t a good fit. But the conversation flew so naturally that we ended up agreeing on a project. Her goal was to learn how to tell her story and amplify the reach and impact of her work. Working with her helped me rediscover my spark and motivation in ways I didn’t remember I had.
Helping her improve her communication also meant that she could make her life better, as well as, the life of the people she helped through her work. That’s when I realized that I love working with people, instead of for people. (it’s not an accident that I score high on the pleasure of helping others).
That was another experiment.
After that, I started taking notes on what excited me, what peaked my curiosity, what I liked, and didn’t like, and started trying new things on that direction.
That's how I applied on a whim to work with The Diary of CEO team (!!!) by replying to a post on Instagram. I thought I would never have a chance with so many people flooding their DMs, but less than a week later, I ended up being one of just two people they were considering to lead the project.
I was so taken by a mix of disbelief and excitement by what was happening that I completely bombed in the last interview because I couldn’t stop saying “I’m such a big fan! I listen to every episode! I’ll will do anything you want me to do!!” and wasted every precious minute of that call that I could have used to talk about what was actually important: the project.
Anyway, that was another experiment. I kept taking notes of what excited me, and moving in that direction. By the way, this newsletter was born as an experiment.
And that’s how, with a lot trial and error, and observation and adjustment, I gradually found my way back to work I enjoy doing.
If you’re interested in learning more practically about how to adopt the experimentation mindset, I highly recommend the book Tiny Experiments from the neuroscientist Anne-Laure Le Cunff, she shares her personal journey from quitting the “dream job” at Google, feeling lost on what to do next, and discovering she wanted to study neuroscience.
For me, experiments it’s one part of the equation. You have to try things to discover how you feel about them. But there’s another part of the equation, which is having some faith in life’s wisdom.
In short, it comes down to 3 points:
The more clarity you have about yourself and what you want, somehow life starts bringing you more of it.
Events and experiences in life are not all good or bad. Everything is information and feedback. That doesn’t mean that life won’t suck at times. But if it sucks, at least use this information to do something about it.
And no, we can’t predict what will happen, and what is the “right” path, the opportunities that will come, or the problems that will show on the way. Unfortunately, or not, we have no control in life. But what we do have control over is to learn about ourselves, who we are, and try to make decisions aligned with that, and then have some faith that life will gives us what we need to grow.
Q&A from part 1
1. What specific jobs or careers are related to these pleasure points?
Pleasure points don't mean a specific job or career.
It doesn't work this way.
There is no formula for the perfect job. Here's how it works:
Pleasures, in the way that the exercise in the book frames them, have more to do with the "how" than the "what." For example:
Similar career, different pleasure points
My best friend, Bruno Clozel , and I work under the umbrella of brand & marketing. But while some of my top pleasures are understanding & self-expression, some of his are making money & creativity.
Which means that he crushes at everything e-commerce, sales channels, experimenting with buttons, and systems. The pleasure of making money is not about being driven by the money itself, but it's about figuring out what moves or tactics will make the numbers change on the screen.
Me, on the other hand, I love understanding identity and how to communicate it in a way that connects emotionally with other people.
Whenever we have the chance to work together, it's like yin and yang flowing in perfect alignment. Because our skills and pleasures complement each other so much. So, although we both have careers in the same field, our focuses are different because our points of pleasure are different.
Different careers, similar pleasure points
My boyfriend and I have similar pleasure points at work: we both score high on creativity, but we have completely different careers. While I work in communication, he builds things — like physically. From houses to retail experiences.
People often confuse creativity with self-expression and beauty. After all, we were taught that painters, sculptors, and musicians are the creatives. But creativity is about problem solving.
I score high on creativity because I see every client and project in front of me as a puzzle to be solved (understanding), and the puzzle has to be put together in a way that serves a specific goal (creativity).
My boyfriend scores high on creativity because he sees every project as a Lego challenge to be solved, and he also scores high on the pleasure of making money, which for him means anticipating the needs of people and projects even before they can realize it themselves.
People shared in the comments
Someone shared how much they loved their work as a programmer and how it was no surprise that they scored high on understanding, technology, and order.
There were people who reported scoring low on creativity, even though they worked in "creative" fields, but the same people also reported high scores on self-expression. Which maybe means that they love to create to express themselves, but not to use this expression to solve problems.
For example, you might love to paint, but you want to paint what you feel like painting, and not what other people want you to paint.
So, no, there are not specific areas of interest or work that fit specifically each pleasure point. The pleasure points are the "how," not the "what."
2. I’m stuck, what do I do next?
If I were feeling stuck, here's what I would do.
Based on the points of pleasure I identified, I would:
Reflect if there's a way of incorporating tasks, or shifting focus, in my current work that would fulfil more of the pleasure points.
Additionally, or alternatively, I would make a list of interests I have, and things I'm curious to learn more about, that I assume resonate with my points of pleasure.
I would go to YouTube, or some educational platforms like Coursera, Skillshare, etc., and take short free or paid courses in those interests, and learn some basics about things I'm interested in. Some of them will pique my interest more than others.
Then I would cross some off the list, and would keep learning about the things that made me the most excited.
Once I know a little more about one or two things that I'm interested in, I would start projects to apply what I'm learning myself. Depending on what it is, I could do it by myself, or offer to do work for someone else.
Now, with real practice, I have even more feedback about what I'm interested in, what I like, what I don't, and what I see myself working on.
If I'm really excited, I would push myself to improve, and do more of it. And that's how I would start figuring out something new. You never know what possibilities will find you along the way, unless you start.
This is not only what I would do if I were feeling stuck, but it's actually what I did when I was feeling stuck.
I got super curious about behavioral science and started studying it on my own. It was during this time that I was also considering going back to university to become a psychotherapist.
I went pretty deep in both worlds. I dropped behavioral science first. I loved the psychology behind it, but I really wanted to work with people, not engineer user and consumer behavior.
Then later, while I was still contemplating the idea of a psychology degree, I discovered the science and art of storytelling, which made me feel pulled to do more and more of that. So, I didn’t change careers, I leaned in discovering what pulled me.
The best part is that this journey added some pretty cool tools and knowledge to my toolbox. Nothing is disposable.
Just keep in mind that, you don’t figure out things by thinking, you figure out things by doing.
Here’s a great article to help you act:
3. On going back to college
I know we all come from different realities, and different "worlds". For some, going back to university is just a decision away, for others, it’s something that sounds completely out of possible reality.
But unless you want to do something on the academical path or that requires you to have a license, for example like being a doctor, lawyer, engineer, or dentist, you don’t need to go back to university to change careers, or explore new paths.
Coming from someone who has two university degrees in different areas, I can confidently say that everything worth knowing I learned after I graduated and stepped into the real world. The problem with academic curricula is that they're made for perfect-world case scenarios, which rarely happen in the real world.
In many ways (not in all ways) college stopped serving people a long time ago. It's not a prerequisite anymore for finding a career or making money. I really believe in the power of the internet—there's so much we can learn for free. And real expertise doesn't come from a degree but from real-world experience.
4. How to decide on what to do for the rest of your life.
You don’t.
Nowadays, research shows that Millennials are likely to have 3-4 different careers in their lives, while Gen Z may transition between 5-6 careers.
Having one career for life feels like a boomer legend. Even among the boomers I know, some are already on their second careers.
You're under no pressure to pick one thing for the rest of your life. You're allowed to change your mind. You may find something you love in this moment of your life, and this might change in 10 years, because you grew and evolved as a person. And that's ok.
I wrote more about this here:
5. Finding a new path on your 40s, 50s, 60s..
Multiple people ranging from 27 to 55 years old shared that they worry it's too late to redirect.
I believe that much of what we think is possible for us, or not, is a reflection of the references we have about what is possible for other people. Unfortunately, for many decisions about our own lives, we may feel we need permission from others. And other people stories give us just that.
So, if you would like to change but you're scared that it's too late, please go to ChatGPT and ask it to find as many examples and stories as possible of people who made a career change around your age and became successful in it.
I, fortunately, have many examples in my own family. My mom graduated as an engineer, worked in the public sector for most of her life (not as an engineer), and decided to become a lawyer in her late 40s. I remember how terrified she was of going back to the classroom and sitting beside 18-year-old students. In her 50s, she was an intern at a law firm. I'm so proud she did it. She has no idea how much permission to follow my truth she gave me when she decided to follow her own.
My aunt was an occupational therapist who painted and sold art on the weekends in the markets. In her 40s, she decided to study interior design. She loved it so much that afterward, she went back to university to pursue a 5-year degree in architecture. We shared the same graduation ceremony. Today, almost 10 years later, she is one of the best architects in my city.
I also recommend you to check out this insightful article from Rachel Lawn — I'm sure it will inspire you:
It's only too late when you're dead.
So, how did I practically aligned myself with my points of pleasure at work?
I still work doing brand strategy and communication. I'm still self-employed, which gives me the freedom to shape the direction and approach of my work as I like. But this is what I changed based on my points of pleasure at work (understanding, self-expression, creativity, helping others, teaching, and independence):
I shifted my focus to work with people who want to create and amplify their own brand, either professionals or founders who have emotional connection with the story of their business. Instead of working with more corporate brands.
I made 1:1 sessions the core of how I approach my work, so I can spend more time interacting with people — it turns out that every single client tells me "I look forward to every session, this feels like therapy." (After all, it seems like I didn't need to become a psychotherapist to help people communicate their truth).
I shaped my approach to work to lead with personal truth and story, and build the business strategy around that foundation.
I made a pact with myself: I will never ever shift, mask, or dilute parts of myself to increase any chances of being hired or close a deal.
And this is what every piece of newsletter I write is about: authenticity in your life, work, and business. Because what a sad life it is to live someone else's life, and not yours.
— But remember, none of this is advice.
Please, let me know if this helped :)
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If you want to find your voice and build a brand that reflects who you are and your unique body of work, check out to my other newsletter: Diary of a Brand Therapist.
Read my latest piece there:
Great follow up article. It's so encouraging. Yes there are so many people now having multiple careers over their working life. The job for life is a myth, and restrictive when there are options out there. It takes courage and growing self-awareness to make changes. As I have found out over my working life.
So many good points in this. This resonates so much: That’s when I realized that I love working with people, instead of for people.