Use ChatGPT to Hone In On Your Career Purpose

Happy Friday.

Like 100 million other people, I've recently gone down an intense chatGPT rabbit hole. I'll spare any alarmist pontification about these times and these tools and their increasing influence on our lives, for now. But I wanted to see if the technology could be helpful for answering a real, personal question: "What do I want to be when I grow up?"

If we've worked together or you've read this newsletter before, you may be aware of my fangirl admiration for Jim Collins' concepts, frameworks, and evidence-based approach to leadership and daily life. (Mentioned here and here.) So in the forever spirit of "How Might We..." here is a sequence of chatGPT prompts (an "algorithm," I presume) based on Jim Collins' Hedgehog Concept to help you identify your professional purpose.

1. Your Hedgehog Concept

From Jim Collins: "The Hedgehog Concept is developed in the book?Good to Great. A simple, crystalline concept that flows from deep understanding about the intersection of three circles: 1) what you are deeply passionate about, 2) what you can be the best in the world at, and 3) what best drives your economic or resource engine. Transformations from good to great come about by a series of good decisions made consistently with a Hedgehog Concept, supremely well executed, accumulating one upon another, over a long period of?time." Since Good to Great is from 2001 and is a study of companies, I've modified the language for extrapolation to personal use. But the premise of it, I believe, endures... This chatGPT x hedgehog concept is the intersection of three aspects of you: 1) VALUES - what passions & priorities guide your life, 2) VALUE - what drives your economic engine, and 3) TALENT - what are you encoded for. WARNING: for best results, the following steps *will* require some thinking and input on your part. So do this when you have some time to self-reflect. A "personal offsite," might I suggest!

2. Values - what passions & priorities guide your life?

• What you really love. Your input: Write out a list of 25 things you really love.
• ChatGPT prompt: A PersonalValuesProfile is a paragraph describing the broad, desirable goals that motivate someone's actions and serve as guiding principles in their lives. You are PVP, who analyzes someone's written text and creates a PersonalValuesProfile. Analyze the following list of 25 things [Your Name] loves, highlighting any overlap, then generate a PersonalValuesProfile for [Your Name]: [Insert list of 25 things you really love]. Save the output in a separate document.
• What you really care about. Your input: Gather 3-5 pieces of writing that most represent what you care about, what “keeps you up at night,” descriptions of tentpole events that have guided the direction of your life, articulations of your worldview. I selected 5 favorite blog posts I had written (ones where I felt I really “left it all on the mat”), but you could include texts you return to frequently, college application essays, journal entries, letters, etc.
• ChatGPT prompt: A PersonalValuesProfile is a paragraph describing the broad, desirable goals that motivate someone's actions and serve as guiding principles in their lives. You are PVP, who analyzes someone's written text and creates a PersonalValuesProfile. Analyze the following text written by [Your Name] and generate a PersonalValuesProfile for [Your Name]: [Insert one piece of text you’ve selected… you may have to combine multiple paragraphs into one giant blurb and reduce the size of the blurb to 4,000 characters or less]. Repeat this process separately for each piece of writing you’ve selected, and save each response in a separate document.
• Your Personal Values Profile. Your input: Combine the previous outputs into one paragraph using chatGPT.
• ChatGPT prompt: A PersonalValuesProfile is a paragraph describing the broad, desirable goals that motivate someone's actions and serve as guiding principles in their lives. You are PVP, who analyzes someone's written text and creates a PersonalValuesProfile. Analyze the following list of paragraphs about [Your Name], highlighting any overlap, then generate a PersonalValuesProfile for [Your Name]: [Insert each paragraph from the steps above, as a list]. Save the response in a separate document.

3. Value - what drives your economic engine?

• Your Work Experience. Your input: Make a list of any and every job for which you’ve ever been paid. I simply listed out every job I’ve held since entering the workforce, then de-duped the list. However you could list out jobs you’ve done by yearly or monthly cashflow, leaving in duplicates. I think this method of listing your work experience in terms of profit per time period might produce a weighted and thus more concise and accurate summary, but I got lazy. ˉ\_(ツ)_/ˉ
• ChatGPT prompt: Highlighting overlap among the skills required of each role within the following list of [Your Name’s] prior work experience, write a paragraph about the best careers for [Your Name] from a profitability perspective: [Insert List]. Save the response in a separate document.
• Your Expertise & Training. Your input: Make a list of areas of study or training that you’ve excelled in. I went back through my BS and MS degree transcripts and listed out courses for which I received an A grade (or equivalent… which for me is a pretty short list ;-) But you could get as creative and exhaustive as you’d like, which might produce better results.
• ChatGPT prompt: Highlighting overlap among the skills required of each field of study within the following list of prior coursework [Your Name] excelled in, write a paragraph about the best careers for [Your Name] from a profitability perspective: [Insert List]. Save the response in a separate document.
• Your Professional Role Models. Your input: Make a list of 3-5 people who you consider to be your professional heroes, and compile the text from each of their public bios. (You may need to batch or condense text, depending on how many role models you list and the length of their bios.)
• ChatGPT prompt: Highlighting overlap in the expertise within the following text about [Your Name’s] professional role models, write a paragraph about the best careers for [Your Name] to aspire towards: [Insert Text]. Save the response in a separate document.
• Your Profit Profile. Your input: Combine the previous outputs into one paragraph using chatGPT.
• ChatGPT prompt: A PersonalProfitProfile is a paragraph describing the best career paths from a profitability perspective given a person’s unique experience, expertise, and aspirations. You are PPP, who analyzes written text and creates a PersonalProfitProfile. Analyze the following list of paragraphs about [Your Name’s] experience, expertise, and aspirations, then generate a PersonalProfitProfile for [Your Name] that describes the overlap among the three paragraphs: [Insert each paragraph from the steps above, as a labeled list: "Experience:..."; "Expertise:..."; "Aspirations:..."]. Save the response in a separate document.

4. Talent - what are you encoded for?

• Your Myers-Briggs Type. Your input: Identify your MBTI Personality Type. (For example, mine is ENTP.)
• ChatGPT prompt: Write one paragraph about the best careers for MBTI type [Your Type]. Save the response in a separate document.
• Your Enneagram Type. Your input: Identify your Enneagram Type. (For example, mine is 7-4-3.)
• ChatGPT prompt: Write one paragraph about the best careers for Enneagram type [Your Type]. Save the response in a separate document.
• Past 360o Feedback & Comments. Your input: Compile a list of comments from prior 360o feedback, testimonials, and reviews from people who have worked closely with you.
• ChatGPT prompt: Highlight any overlap in the following feedback about [Your Name] which includes testimonials and praise provided by a variety of colleagues and audiences, and then write a paragraph about what [Your Name] can be best in the world at, professionally: [insert collected 360o feedback]. Save the response in a separate document.
• Your Talent Profile. Your input: Combine the previous outputs into one paragraph using chatGPT.
• ChatGPT prompt: A ProfessionalTalentProfile is a paragraph describing the career paths a person is best suited for, given their personality type, unique talents, and what it’s like to work with them. You are PTP, who analyzes written text and creates a ProfessionalTalentProfile. Analyze the following list of paragraphs about [Your Name’s] MBTI Personality Type, Enneagram Type, and 360o Feedback, then generate a ProfessionalTalentProfile for [Your Name] that describes the overlap among the three paragraphs: [Insert each paragraph from the steps above, as a labeled list: "MBTI Personality Type:..."; "Enneagram Type:..."; "360o Feedback:..."]. Save the response in a separate document.

5. Hedgehog - now discover the overlap between your values, your value, and your talent!

• Your Top 5 Hedgehogs. Your input: Gather the final resulting paragraphs from steps 2, 3, 4 above.
• ChatGPT prompt: A "Hedgehog Concept" articulates the unique intersection of someone's personal values, profitability value, and professional talent. You are JimCollins, who analyzes text about these three areas and creates a "Hedgehog Concept." Analyze the following text about [Your Name] and create 5 simple yet impactful options for a one-sentence "Hedgehog Concept" for [Your Name]. Ensure each option is categorically different from the others in terms of industry, skills, and positioning. [Insert each final resulting paragraph from values, value, talent steps above].
• Re-generate and refine - I tweaked this last prompt several times, playing around with adjectives, output quantity, and instructions for stylizing the sentences. I also re-generated the results many times, making sure to copy and paste to save any hedgehog statements that really spoke to me.
• Share your results - I refined the generated responses that spoke to me into a top five list, and even did some light copy editing (including adding a short title for each list item, and re-ordering the list from most- to least-obvious, to me). You can then send this list around to your “frentors” / personal board of advisors and ask them if any one of the statements strikes them as particularly *exciting* and *right* for you.

My takeaway: ChatGPT helped me summarize a lot of previously disconnected information, reflection, and feedback, and mirror it back to me as one clear and concise set of statements. It did NOT return anything wildly unexpected, or tell me anything I didn't know, deep down, already. But if you're like me in that you feel like you have Times Square swirling in your head constantly, swift synthesis is major key. To drill down to five clear yet personally-accurate career mission statements from so much input is really powerful, dare I say... magical. The tool may not be all that creative on its own, but for a lot of people I know, that was never the bottleneck to begin with. If you've ever found yourself swept up by inspiration/excitement, saying to someone, "I want to get moving on this I just haven't had a moment to sit down and organize my thoughts," consider this your synthesis superpower!