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Visionary Career Success Stories and Strategies

A request from Donna Dunning

 

Please Share Your Story or Strategy

Although I have studied personality type for over 20 years, I still find it most helpful to hear from the experts on the different types. That’s you. To help others learn and develop, please share your stories. How does your career suit who you are? What have you learned to do to be successful? Thanks for sharing.

To find a sample of type-preferred occupations go to the Visionary occupations page.

Not sure of your type? Learn more on the What’s Your Type pages.

Share Your Story

If you want to share your career success story or strategy on our web site, please fill in the form below. *All fields are required. By submitting your story you are agreeing to let us publish it. We may edit your story for length and clarity. Thank you.

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14 Responses to “Visionary Career Success Stories and Strategies”

  1. Dianne says:

    Personality Type: INFJ

    I am a people person. I’ve been teaching for many years and it is a job I love! As a teacher, I must communicate effectively with people of different ages and backgrounds: students, parents, colleagues, administration and other professionals. I develop and monitor differentiated learning programs. Organizing workloads, determining time lines, setting agendas, and keeping my students focused and accountable are activities I enjoy and can accomplish. When opportunities arise to work collaboratively, I enjoy discussing ideas, soliciting opinions, and sharing a vision with my colleagues. One of the most effective ways that I help my students meet their goals is by learning about their strengths and weakness and understanding “what makes them tick”. Building strong relationships with people is both rewarding and motivating for me. I enjoy the challenge of engaging and motivating my students to do their personal best.

  2. Judith says:

    Personality Type: INTJ

    Since retiring and moving to a new city I have volunteered with a local non-profit society. As a board member I have contributed to and often initiated strategic planning, gap analysis and best practices models, and communications strategy. Recently I have felt the need to be able to follow one process through to tangible results so have stepped off the board to focus on the communications committee. I am enjoying working with the members of the committee who are very goal oriented and seeing the results of our efforts. It has also brought better balance to my life because I have more time for family and friends while still contributing to work that I believe in.

  3. Renate says:

    Personality Type: INFJ

    I’ve chosen a career path that had me seriously doubting I’m an INFJ for some time. I’m a hvac engineer, and I love every minute of it. It’s a career path that needs a logical, calculating approach. It has a lot do to with facts, and little to do with people – at the first glance.

    Today I look at it this way- I help people feel comfortable in their homes, at their working places or wherever they spend time inside. And my compassionate side helps me translate customer’s needs – when they can’t tell me in words.

    And I constantly watch my colleagues and myself and work on ways to make my work and their work easier, more efficient less stressful.
    I introduced new tools, new processes and constantly revise them to answer the constant changes in workflow.

    I don’t doubt my personality preferences anymore – I think that you need to love what you do to be good at what you’re doing, and there are generally no limits at what you can achieve.

  4. Gerrit Pelzer says:

    Personality Type: INFJ

    MBTI helped me discover my true passion: helping people!

    In the past, I lived a “successful” but not truly happy life. As the head of a chemical production for cosmetics, I did not see my personal values reflected in my work. Neither could I find much meaning in the products we manufactured nor in the money we generated for the shareholders.

    The MBTI supported me in a career change, and today I am truly successful and happy: I help busy people to step off their hamster wheel to unlock their true potential while maintaing a healthy balance.

    My INFJ personality is ideal for my job as Executive Coach & Life Coach: “INFJs are gentle, caring, complex and highly intuitive individuals. Artistic and creative, they live in a world of hidden meanings and possibilities. Only one percent of the population has an INFJ Personality Type, making it the most rare of all the types.” (http://www.personalitypage.com/html/INFJ.html)

    Introversion and Feeling make me an attentive listener who is passionate about his clients’ success. Intuition supports a big picture approach, and the Judging side helps turn dreams into realities.

    Seeing my clients succeed is my biggest reward. I love every minute of my “work”, if you want to call it work. It’s – almost – 24 hours fun every day.

    Follow your passion and get where you want to be,

    Gerrit

  5. Kayelle Allen says:

    Personality Type: INFJ

    I’m a self-employed, published author who coaches other authors about marketing. Learning my personality type and its strengths showed me that my talents — especially a strong sense of intuition — were not only real, but they would also benefit others. Most of my communication with writers is online, with few face-to-face opportunities. Being able to “read between the lines” helps me see what they are really saying. Reflective questioning helps me get to the bottom of a situation. Guiding others is something I enjoy. It hardly feels like a job.

    Currently, I’m creating a new company that allows me to leverage those skills and help others gain the advice and information they need. I’m putting it together in such a way that I can take full advantage of the INFJ strengths, and watch for the pitfalls. For every strong point, there is an opposite weak one. I’m analytical and can see which steps need to be taken. The flip side is that once I know what those steps are, I want to hand them over to someone else to do, and go figure out what needs to be done next. Being aware of that tendency helps me stay focused on the nitty-gritty.

  6. Zachary Schultz says:

    Personality Type: INTJ

    I’m not a people person at all. I will try to avoid social interaction as much as I possibly can. So my career, I am an author, suits me perfectly. It is a chance for me to leave people behind and live in my “perfect” worlds of imagination. It’s not to say I don’t care for people, I have to be with my family, it’s just I get exhausted from social events very quickly. (I)
    I can often guess with great ease what will happen next in a story or in real life. I have been known to describe a scene from a movie I have never seen before that won’t happen for another 15 minutes when we are only 5 minutes into the movie. These kind of movies and stories bore me, however, so I try to make stories that people can’t guess what will happen next. (N)
    I am often hurting the feelings of my enfp mother and sister without ever realizing it. I do not try to hurt them, I an just simply stating what I thought to be fact. If their is someone I enjoy the company of, I always have to ask myself “why?” I always land at a factual reasoning rather than I just have feelings for them when I am able to answer this question. (T)
    Whenever I do something it must have a plan that I have gone over 100 times in my head and decided was likely to work. Everything I do has been thought through again and again in my head before I ever act out upon it. Often I will devise a plan, look over it, realize it will not work, and start making up another plan. (J)
    INTJ is who I am.

  7. D. says:

    Personality Type: INTJ

    This INTJ strategic planner has learned to: (1) set limits for my “planning” time – usually in the form of setting a date by which I will stop planning/researching and start implementing (or at least recruiting support) and (2) to adjust my communications plan to match my audience. For example, when working with conscientious ISTJs or others who feel the need to know the details of my R&D phase, I grit my teeth, develop stacks of handouts, and plan for several long meetings. By the time I get to the meetings, I have (more or less) talked myself into enjoying the team’s discovery of my ideas/plan. I have also set a targeted deadline for this phase to end, at which point I plan to carry on (much like an ENTJ) with whatever support I have managed to build by then. This helps me endure the explanation phase, because I know that it won’t last forever, that the plan will be implemented while it is still viable. And, much to my ongoing surprise, every single time that I have done this, the plan was improved by the process of explaining it to others who bring different perspectives and expertise to the table. I am particularly grateful for the input of SFs who inevitably think of the potential implications of my strategies on the team/relationships and smooth out those rough edges before I can do much damage through premature implementation.

  8. Ms Z says:

    Personality Type: INTJ

    I run an online salon, it is a place where I communicate with interesting people, entertain and educate the readers. It suits me perfectly, I do not like small talk so I just get straight to the point with my guests. I have learned a lot and the free source publishing concept is taking off rapidly. To find out more, visit here: http://tgb.snack.ws/the-school-of-athens–pageid1 (Scroll down to see Donna Dunning’s interview)

  9. Catherine says:

    Personality Type: INTJorINFJ

    I am very even on the “f” “t”. I work as a Key Account Manager and Technical Writer for a life insurance company. Yes, I spend my day writing corporate life insurance contracts and thinking about how I can write eligibility terms in a clear and concise manner. I am also involved in client presentations and strategic planning. In addition I sit on a number of projects and committees. I have a very neat desk and if I am on leave unexpectedly my team will always know what I am up to. What I like most about my job is keeping abreast of legislative reform and analysing the impact on our products and services.

    I also have a very dry sense of humour and get into fancy dress themes in a major way. Eg dressed up as Katy Perry one year, this year the theme is 1920’s and lo, I am considering a 1920’s bathing suit.

    I spend my spare time thinking about how I can best assist my customers and also am involved in extreme sports. I retire in 30 years and can confirm my retirement plan is on track. Yes, I have planned my retirement, including activites, already.

  10. Hanayo.F.Y says:

    Personality Type: INTJ

    I worked as a PR officer for about 10 years. I can not say that I really enjoyed interacting and associating with media people. Some colleagues were really good at it and enjoyed themselves becoming friendly with so many media people. Of course I could deliver what they wanted and what our company wanted to say. Still, I was more confident in creating stories or interpretations of the company’s events and provided my collegegues and people who were to speak to the public with those stories which were constructed well with the company’s brand or images. Namely, I liked to work with relavant visions, concepts and stories, if nothing else I was thappy to be here to create one.

  11. Luc says:

    Personality Type: INTJ

    I have never like to socialize much. I would play chess or do weight training alone in my room with the door closed. When asked to go play outside with my friends or family, I would say ok. But I would usually wait until they asked me a second time before actually. I like this approach because most of the time, they would just leave me alone. When I get around massive crowds, my anxiety goes into overdrive within 5 minutes. I like to be left alone, both at home and at work as I need time to contemplate and think about ideas and concepts/strategies, etc. (I)
    I have so many ideas in my head all the time and I have a vivid imagination that has nothing to do with my surroundings. Most of my ideas are abstract and are part of a “big plan”, almost as if I am planning to build or accomplish something without even moving a muscle. I need to understand the meaning or underlying principles when listening to a question. (N)
    I play things in my head at least 3 times on a regular basis before saying anything to make sure that what I say is not only thought out correctly and competently, but is also coherent precise and intelligent. I want my thoughts to focus towards accomplishing one goal. (T)
    I plan most things. I plan my day, how I will spend my money, my weekend activities, etc, but not in a rigid way unless necessary. I like to have closure. I like to do things step by step most of the time. I am quick to complete a task. If I have 2 weeks to complete a project, it will be complete if possible in the first few days. I always ask myself “does it work”. Focusing on this question regularly allows me to be objective and decisive. (J)

  12. Leslie Zane says:

    Personality Type: INTJ

    For me, I can function at almost any job because I look for ways to learn and be challenged. I seek opportunities that provide depth, creativity, big picture thinking and a certain amount of adventure. I’ve had three vocations in the forty years that I have been working (I am a 56 y/o Wyandotte Indian/white, female). Starting as an aviation student at 17 after skipping my senior year in high school, I was the only female in a class full of returning veterans from Vietnam. Despite not having the maturity to handle being in that situation, I stuck it out and gathered a private pilot’s license and commercial-instrument rating until a flight surgeon deemed that my eye-sight prevented me from a career as a pilot (days before affordable Lasik).

    My second vocation has been devoted to my values of compassion and social justice working as a sociologist and psychotherapist. Earned a BS in Sociology and entered the field of mental health in my early 20’s. Have been employed by two mental health centers in different states and held direct service, supervisory and management positions. Earned a MA in Psychology at age 49 and was a family therapy intern for four years where I thoroughly enjoyed working with mentally ill kids. I currently work as the Quality Assurance Manager for the clinic and am a key decision-maker.

    Between mental health clinics which consisted of one 9-year stretch in Florida and current 5 years in CA, I pursued a career in graphic design. I earned an AA in Graphic Design and worked as a telecommuter for 13 years for one company and had various other freelance jobs as well. I have a passion for visual arts. Currently, I design original posters. Recently, I designed a paper quilt that will be entered in the county fair. The quilt features squares painted by children who are my former clients.

    If you are a hyper-intelligent, hard-working INTJ female you may feel out of step with your female colleagues. I know that I have. Working in mental health where the leadership is usually comprised of women has been a haven for me. The women that I have encountered in this profession have mentored and nurtured me. They tolerated my INTJ personality quirks and appreciated the big picture “mastermind” nature of my thinking. Often at meetings, I can tell that I am the visionary at the table and my directors are impressed that I have energetic follow-through on my ideas. In the work world, I have to suffer fools more graciously than I would like to but I have mellowed with age and try to practice “Live and Let Live”…but let me live my own way!

  13. Candice Whipple says:

    Personality Type: Candice%20Whipple

    I am looking for a business partner and I am very much an INFJ creative, visionary, analytical and I have many full blown plans laid out but I would really like a partner that can run social interference, is uber organized and can keep us on a functional timeline. I have several business plans laid out and I love adding to the models and prefer to work from the macro to the micro vision but I am really looking forward to the synergy and rapid progress/expansion a trust worthy, compatible and dependable partner will provide, Which type is likely to have the highest probability of a successful partnership with a highly creative INFJ? And how might I best connect with them in the first place and work with them for optimal results!….Any info would be helpful Thanks

  14. Donna Dunning says:

    Hi Candice, Finding a worthy, compatible, and dependable business partner is certainly a challenge.

    In my way of thinking it would be inappropriate to use personality type preferences as a criteria for choosing a partner, since people can learn skills and can operate effectively in a number of roles. I believe it would be helpful to determine, clearly define, and articulate the roles that you want a partner to play in your business. Then you can look for the associated skills and competencies.

    I would imagine that you could look at your contacts in your areas of expertise for potential partners. Perhaps you might want to “try out” a small project (I do understand that a small project is likely not what you prefer to do!) with a potential partner to test the waters and see how you work together.

    After you have chosen a partner based on merit, personality type preferences can be a helpful tool for building rapport and communicating. Understanding how each of you prefer to go about doing your work will help you work together more effectively.

    Hope this is helpful and good luck with your business ideas.

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