259: How to Figure Out Your Career, with Scott Anthony Barlow

Scott Anthony Barlow: Happen to Your Career

Scott Anthony Barlow is the Founder of Happen to Your Career. He’s been featured on CNBC, Yahoo, CareerBuilder, Fast Company and Huffington Post and various colleges and universities as a top expert on career happiness. He’s held roles executive roles in human resources, business development, and career coaching.

Scott is the host of the Happen to Your Career podcast, featuring the career stories of many successful professionals. His team and him have worked with over 25,000 people to help them stop settling, find their signature strengths, and start doing meaningful work they are enamored with.

In this conversation, Scott and I explore common career misconceptions, how framing your career around your strengths is key, and tools and assessments like StrengthsFinder that will support you.

Key Points

• Common career misperceptions:
  • You need to have it all figured out at the start
  • You should focus on getting better at the things you’re not good at
  • It takes a ton of experience to move into the job you want
• Framing a career around your strengths is key.
• If you had to work extremely hard to get good at something, it’s probably not a true strength.
• There are exercises and assessments like StrengthsFinder (also known as CliftonStrengths) that you can participate in to help you gain clarity on the above.

Resources Mentioned

• Finding the Career That Fits You (Scott’s FREE 8-Day Video Course)*
• The Ultimate Guide to Using Your Strengths to Get Hired*
• How To Become a Career Coach*
• Scott interviewing Dave on why your career is not a straight line
• StrengthsFinder training for individuals and teams* (use code CFL10 for a 10% tuition discount)
• StrengthsFinder 2.0

Related Episodes

• The Value of the StrengthsFinder Assessment, with Steve Dosier (episode 89)
• How to Interpret Your StrengthsFinder and CliftonStrengths Results, with Steve Dosier (episode 90)
• The Secret To Happiness (episode 134)

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