Five Years in the Fulfillment Zone

5 minute read...

I had a work anniversary this past week! Though I didn’t actually realize it until LinkedIn reminded me!

But it wasn’t just any anniversary: it’s now been 5 years since I retired from my role as a Partner with Goldratt Consulting (GC) and established Jenrada LLC.

My decision to retire from GC wasn’t due to dissatisfaction or because I passed some sort of best-before date. Instead it came out of an exercise that I had done, one which I now do annually. The exercise is designed to help professionals (myself in this case) decide what, if any, changes they ought to be making in their career . I had a great long tenure with GC and I will never regret my time with that incredible firm. But through this exercise I was able to gain clarity on the gnawing in my insides telling me that it was probably time to make a change.

Have you ever been in a role where, in order to be highly successful you had to set aside a part of yourself? That’s the feeling I had. So I picked up a process that Efrat Goldratt-Ashlag had taught me a few years earlier, one designed to help individuals set their personal direction in life. The last time I used this process it led to shifting my role in GC to lead the rebirth of The Goldratt School in various parts of the world. Now it was time for me to use the process again.

Efrat’s process guides you to uncover 4 aspects of yourself. When all 4 are utilized, you are well positioned to make the decisions that will lead you to a more fulfilling career and life.

• Do what you’re great at doing. It is your portal to a sense of accomplishment.
  
  We all have a few inherent talents or aptitudes. The challenge is discovering what exactly they are. To do so, you can start by listing what you consider to be your greatest accomplishments. For each, identify what specifically you did that led to the achievement. Look for patterns in that list and hone it to the few things that you are great at doing.
  
  If you feel embarrassed or are too humble to claim anything as a great achievement, you can ask those who are closest to you for help. I have no doubt your list of achievements is longer than you give yourself credit for!
  
  And if you are still unable to come up with a list, or if you think you’re missing something, consider the Johnson O’Conner Research Foundation¹. They provide an assessment to uncover people’s aptitudes – their natural abilities. I have taken their aptitude test, as have both my daughters when they were in the process of deciding their direction for college and career. I’m not affiliated with them in any way.
  
  
• Do what you love to do. It is the pathway for more joy.
  
  Some of us love to do things that we have no talent for, and some of us have talent for things we hate to do. So when we can set ourselves up in a way that we spend more of our time doing what we are both great at AND love to do, we can be more effective and more fulfilled. We have a chance to “be in flow” much more frequently.
  
  To hone in on those things you really LOVE to do, create another list. This list recounts times when you were doing something and totally lost track of time in the process. An hour felt like a minute, or a day felt like an hour. Write the list and then look for patterns. The short list of the kinds of things you love to do will emerge.
   
• Do what inspires you. It is the superpower for motivation.
  
  Call it your passion, your mission in life, your purpose, or just call it the thing that lights up the fire in your belly. The thing you REALLY would love to do something about, if only you could. It turns out we can discover this: through the emotion of anger. Most people think of anger as a bad thing, but it also serves as a helpful signal when you’re trying to figure out what inspires you. What in the world makes you angry? The inverse of that could be your inspiration.

• Do what aligns with your personality. It is the key to creating a harmonious environment.
  
  Our personalities are part of what makes each of us different. And that’s a good thing! For example, some people are introverted and some extroverted. Some personalities are more process driven and some are more experimental. Some are entrepreneurial, and some are more comfortable in well-established environments.
  
  There are a number of personality profile tools in the marketplace. The three that I see used most often are Myers-Briggs, DiSC and Enneagram.  Though I’m particular to the Enneagram, any of these provide fantastic insight into your personality and the needs of your personality. With some studying, you can also learn more about other personality types, giving you a pathway for improved communications with other people.

Notice I did not number these 4 attributes. I don’t want to imply an order of importance to them. If we model them in a Venn diagram,  we are drawn to the space where all 4 converge – I call it “The Fulfillment Zone”. The more time we can spend in that space, the more meaningful and fulfilling our lives can be.

You’ll see me in my personal Fulfillment Zone on display in my video showcasing The Jenrada Clarity Principle back in 2021. I still refer to that framework whenever I think about introducing or retiring a program or service. Jenrada is about helping people break down barriers and achieve meaningful goals. And we do that by equipping those same people to think more clearly, focus on what matters, and communicate more effectively.

Are you feeling ready for whatever's next? I encourage you to do the above exercise. Maybe you’ll find you actually aren’t ready for a change and are currently in the right place. But it’s also possible that you’ll realize you haven’t been in your own fulfillment zone and that you need to get back there.

I did this exercise in 2019 and I’m thankful I did. 5 years on, the decisions that came from it were the exact right ones for that time in my life. If you’re ready for your next step, it might help to walk alongside someone that has been there before. You can drop me a message at [email protected]. 

Until next time,
Lisa 

Remembering an Icon

Bob Fox  was a TOC icon. With Eli Goldratt, he co-founded the Avraham Y. Goldratt Institute (AGI),  the first organization dedicated to developing and disseminating the body of knowledge that would become known as Theory of Constraints. Bob invited me to become a Certified Associate of AGI in the late 80’s, and I’ll forever be grateful for that invitation and for his guidance during those early years of my TOC career. He was a great teacher and, when I close my eyes, I can see him working a workshop room, guiding senior leaders from a wide array of companies ever so Socraticly toward their “aha moments”. I was in many workshops with him, and that magic happened every single time. The Race, which he co-authored with Eli, was (and remains) a powerful teaching tool. 

Fast forward to 2015, and I learned that  he and his wife Loretta retired in Arizona, in a suburb not too far from me. We got together and reminisced. His hair was a bit grayer, but his voice and intellect and smile hadn’t changed a bit. We visited once or twice after that.    

Bob passed away on October 18th. During his 87 years, he made such an imprint on so many companies and lives. The world is a better place for having had him a part of it. 

_{June 2015 in Carefree Arizona with Bob and Loretta Fox}

_{Published in 1986.}