©Arlene R. Taylor PhD
Almost anyone can choose a career or occupation and then learn the key tasks that are required. For example, most human beings can learn to exhibit caring behaviors and people skills although it will be easier for some than others. The degree of success achieved lies in how much energy it takes to learn the key tasks and to sustain repetition on a daily basis. Individuals with differing preferences tend to approach similar careers from differing perspectives, with differing emphasis, and with differing degrees of accomplishment and success based on what their brain does easily.
Confucius reportedly said,
Choose a job you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.
Selecting a career or occupation that is a good match for your innate giftedness is both a challenge and an individual journey. Some are fortunate in achieving a good fit early in life. Others struggle before achieving a match.
Global Strategies
Most people work, inside or outside of the home. When evaluating employment options, begin by identifying the key tasks that the specific job requires and compare them with your brain bent. Or look for a job/organization that allows you to contribute based on your innate giftedness—even if some of the tasks don’t match your formal education.
Following are examples of activities matched with each cerebral division.
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 Prioritizing Division
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 Envisioning Division
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An individual with a brain bent in this division tends to:
- Excel when difficult decisions need to be made that involve resource allocation, money, and structure; especially when priorities need to be understood and identified and acted upon.
- Be gifted at setting goals, identify steps that need to be taken, assigning responsibilities based on functional analysis, and discovering ways to achieve goals and/or to win.
- Prefer to delegate operational implementation, routine maintenance or follow-up, and the tracking of details to others.
Search for work that allows you to:
- Set goals
- Be in charge of something
- Make some decisions
- Identify required steps
- Prioritize required steps
- Direct
- Monitor (research) outcomes
- Redirect
- Achieve goals
Major Contribution:
Analysis and evaluation
Key Component:
A data-based project or program and the ability to make decisions and set/achieve goals
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An individual with a brain bent in this division tends to:
- Excel when something is beginning, getting started for the first time, or when it’s being turned around or reinvented. Once the project is working as envisioned, it needs to be passed to others to maintain. Otherwise, in a push to improve, reinvent, or change it, the project can be ruined.
- Be gifted at anticipating and making changes based on seeing the big picture (and usually wants variety)
- May enjoy planning and leading groups or expeditions to new or to a variety of different destinations
Search for work that allows you to:
- Begin a project or program, even if it involves temporary work (e.g., a political campaign, time-limited campaign, project or trip)
- Restart or turn around a project or program
- Brainstorm (research) solutions to problems
Major Contribution:
Envisioning and enthusiasm
Key Component:
A short-term project or program and the ability to be somewhat independent and innovative
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 Maintaining Division
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 Harmonizing Division
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An individual with a brain bent in this division tends to:
- Excel when something concrete needs to be dependably sustained, whether the something involves service or production.
- Follow routines/maintain projects as long as there is an understanding of why it’s important to do so.
Search for work that allows you to:
- Maintain something
- Continue the status quo
- Work with established routines
- Follow a schedule
- Be protected from constant interruptions
Major Contribution:
Dependability and production
Key Component:
A long-term project or program and the ability to produce dependably
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An individual with a brain bent in this division tends to:
- Excel at building connections, harmony, good will, and peaceful foundations and can do this in a wide variety of settings.
- Like to encourage others, help to build consensus and compliance (if the “reason for” is understood).
Search for work that allows you to:
- Read nonverbals
- Provide feedback
- Offer encouragement
- Provide nurturing
- Work in relative harmony
Major Contribution:
Connecting with others and translating for the BL and FR
Key Component:
The ability to experience harmony among people, or animals, or nature, and in the environment
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Selected Occupations
At the risk of being able to include only a few examples, following are occupations individuals may gravitate toward based on brain bent. The center sections and middle sections on each side represent choices by individuals who are considered to be “doubles.” That is, they tend primarily to utilize two adjacent divisions, although they are still believed to possess a brain bent in only one of the divisions.
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Prioritizing Division
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Doubles
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Envisioning Division
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- COOs
- Engineers
- MBAs and CPAs
- Fiscal management
- Consultants
- Accountants
- Speakers in area of expertise
- College or University Professors in area of expertise
If Extroverted:
- Negotiating
- Leading in times of controlled growth and plentiful resources
- Fighting, forcing, or driving to win
If Introverted:
- Engineering research
- inancial analysis decision making (accounting)
- Medical and scientific research
- Accounting
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- Chemical engineer
- Computer Programmer
- Research Scientist
- Chemist
- Economist
- Inventors
- New product development
- Advertising, display
If Extroverted:
If Introverted:
- Scientific and medical investigations and research
- Contemplative meditating
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- Artists
- Poets
- Entrepreneurs
- Philosophers
- Physicists
- Playwrights
- Strategic planners
- Motivational speakers
- Speakers in area of expertise
- College or university professors in area of expertise
If Extroverted:
- Creating, articulating, and sustaining a personal or corporate vision with which to lead others
- Founding new ventures
- Troubleshooting in highly complex, dynamic situations from business to fighting large fires
- Negotiating
- Leading in a charismatic or motivational manner, especially in difficult times
If Introverted:
- Computer programming, systems design
- Basic research, especially in chemistry or physics
- Designing logos, graphics, and layouts
- Reading “invisible patterns” from small, isolated quantities of data (e.g., geologist or futurist)
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Double Left
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Double Right
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- Mechanical engineers
- Attorneys
- Auditors
If Extroverted:
- Operational management
- Purchasing
If Introverted:
- Fiscal management
- Contract administration
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- Actors and dancers
- Organizational development specialists
- Public relations
- Family systems therapist
- Massage therapist
- Marketing
- Sales
- Staging presentations
If Extroverted:
- OD consulting to companies and organizations
- Human resources manager
If Introverted:
- Acting, dancing, singing, entertaining
- Using design skills for display or interior decorating purposes
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Maintaining Division
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Doubles
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Harmonizing Division
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- Bookkeepers
- Foremen
- Lecturers
- Line supervisors
- Operational planners
- College or university professors in area of expertise
If Extroverted:
- Assembling, using, operating, cleaning, and maintaining machines after thorough and adequate experience-based training
- Repairing machines when the diagnosis and repair processes have been proceduralized and require a minimum of troubleshooting and inventiveness (or where a computerized expert system is used to diagnose more complex problems
- Overseeing proceduralized productions
If Introverted:
- Completing and maintaining established office and legal forms accurately
- Keeping well organized and accurate/legible books, files, accounts, records
- Organizing and managing stock, parts, and supplies
- Monitoring schedules and productivity levels
- Attending thoroughly and regularly to established procedural, operational, legal, and financial details
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- Grade school teachers
- High school teachers
- Dental hygienist
- Physical therapist
- Clerk in a small copier company
- Technical training and orientation
- Coaching in specific technical job skills
If Extroverted:
- Due and payable debt collection
If Introverted:
- Bookkeeping in a group office
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- Human resource specialists
- Facilitators
- Social workers
- Therapists
- Musicians
- Interior decorators
- College or university professors in area of expertise
If Extroverted:
- Developing and maintaining positive customer relations including building goodwill and handling customer complaints; or employee relations; or community and public relations
- Developing and maintaining positive media relations, building goodwill and trust with the press
- Managing consumer affairs
- Singing in a professional choir
- Doing group therapy
If Introverted:
- Playing a musical instrument
- Providing pastoral counseling, spiritual comfort, and guidance
- Doing one-to-one counseling
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Examples of Nursing-Career Options Matched with Cerebral Divisions
Again at the risk of being able to include only a few examples, here are choices individuals might lean toward in the nursing profession based on brain bent .
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Prioritizing Division
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Doubles
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Envisioning Division
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Individuals with a brain bent in this division tend to prefer situations where they can be in charge, make decisions, use state-of-the-art equipment, or investigate and analyze something.
- Vice-president of nursing
- Emergency department
- Nursing or forensic research
- Specialty unit with specialized electronic or evaluation equipment
- Special projects (depending on the type of project)
- Legal nurse (expert witness)
- Abstracting records
- Chart review for analysis of care provided
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- Research nurse
- Disaster planning
- Emergency preparedness
- Performance improvement
- Quality measures
- Risk management
- Compliance
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Individuals with a brain bent n this division may gravitate toward working in unusual and somewhat autonomous settings. They tend to enjoy using innovative technology (once the learning curve has been reached), and may like some types of research (anecdotal, more outcome or results oriented and less straight data-oriented).
- Specialty unit if new types of equipment or procedures
- Behavioral health
- Emergency department
- Homecare
- Infection control
- Risk management
- Surgery (circulating)
- Cardiovascular lab
- Helicopter or ambulance
- Some supervisory positions, if duties involve broad oversight and not too detailed or oriented to budget-finances
- Teacher - nursing sciences
- Nursing research (some projects)
- Nurse recruiter
- Public health nurse
- Nurse traveler
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Double Left
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Double Right
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- Intensive care unit
- Intensive care nursery
- Monitored care unit
- Orthopedics with specialized equipment
- Specialty unit nurse using specialized electronic equipment (dialysis)
- Scheduling office
- Chart review for compliance and for standard of care
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- Behavioral health
- Home care nurse
- Newborn nursery
- Pediatrics
- Obstetrical nurse
- Special projects (depending on the type of project)
- Public health nurse
- Cancer center nurse
- Nurse educator (if work is not too routine)
- Outpatient surgery
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Maintaining Division
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Doubles
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Harmonizing Division
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Individuals with a brain bent in this division may gravitate toward providing services in routine or traditional settings with pre-established parameters
- Clinics
- Professional offices
- IV therapy
- Nurse manager / director
- School nurse
- Supervising nurse
- Surgery (scrub) nurse
- Teacher - nursing (e.g., skills lab)
- Legal research (health care)
- Scheduling office
- Chart review for compliance
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- Medical-surgical
- Outpatient surgery
- Office nurse
- School nurse
- Teacher (e.g., nursing skills lab)
- Nurse educator
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Individuals with a brain bent in this division may gravitate toward making contributions to a patient’s physical, emotional, and spiritual wellbeing in a variety of settings
- Clinics (e.g., immunization, pediatric, office)
- Counseling (e.g., grief, recovery, spiritual)
- Medical-surgical units
- Newborn nursery
- Pediatrics
- Oncology
- Pain management
- School nurse
- Teacher (e.g., nursing subjects)
- Nurse educator
- Nurse recruiter
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Factors that Often Impact Initial Career Choice
A great many factors can influence your choice of a job or career, especially your initial career choice.
Evaluate these and other factors and the contribution each makes to your life:
- Gender brain preference
- Birth position and position in the sibling lineup
- Position on the Extroversion-Ambiversion-Introversion Continuum
- Sensory system preference
- Chronological age
- Expectations (e.g., yours, family, friends, school, church, society, culture, politics)
- Educational opportunities
- Accomplishments and accompanying rewards
- Past experiences related to the observation / exposure to a variety of career options
- Past work-related opportunities and experience
- Level of self-esteem
- Presence and functionality of boundaries (personal limits)
- Personal beliefs and attitudes
- Living location and environment
You may need to alter some of these factors (e.g., expectations, personal beliefs and attitudes) in order to achieve greater levels of health, happiness, and success and a better brain-career match.
You may have selected a career due to expectations or opportunities rather than one that offered a good match between key tasks and personal innate giftedness. Over time, if your brain bent doesn’t match the key tasks required for this career, you may eventually:
- Gravitate to a branch of a profession that is a better match
- Change careers (if you have that option)
- Find a way to tweak the job to obtain a better match
- Self-medicate using an addictive behavior
- Burn out, become ill, or go out on disability
Because of this, it’s a good idea to evaluate your career choice ongoing and the way in which it is impacting your overall health, happiness, and success. Many people change careers midstream to obtain a better match. Sometimes this involves tweaking and existing career and sometimes it means going in a different direction altogether.
