What Color Is Your Parachute?

Following the completion of the Flower, there’ll be a detailed explanation of the exercises you use to find out this information.

Now, to the petals.

THE FLOWER’S PETALS

WHERE DO YOU WANT TO USE YOUR SKILLS?

Step 1: What Knowledges That You Already Have in Your Head, Do You Most Want to Use in Your Life and Work?

You have a whole filing cabinet up there in your head. The number of things that you know something about, by this time in your life, is awesome.

You, in fact, have doubtless lost track of all you know. What files are up there in your head? What do you know something, or a lot, about, anyway? Football? Skiing? Antiques? Gardening? Computers? Cars? Knitting? Scrapbooking? Information technology? Management practices? How to raise children? Design? Career counseling?

Let’s do an inventory of all that you know, and then pick your favorite subjects.

In order for you to do this, it is helpful to fill out the following chart; you may first copy it onto a larger piece of paper, if you wish, in order to have more room to write.

Please note that this chart is asking you what subjects you know anything about, not whether you like the subject or not. (Later, you will ask yourself which of these you like or even love.) For now, the task facing you is merely inventory. That is a task similar to inventorying what clothes you’ve got in your closet, before you decide which ones to give away. Only, here, the closet is your head, and you’re inventorying all the stuff that’s in there. Don’t try to evaluate your degree of mastery of a particular subject. Put down something you’ve only read a few articles about (if it interests you) side by side with a subject you studied for three semesters in school.

Throwaway comes later (though, obviously, if there’s a subject you hate so much you can barely stand to write it down, then … don’t … write … it … down).

THE SUBJECTS CHART

Subjects I Know Something About

Which column you decide to put a subject in, below, doesn’t matter at all. The columns are only a series of pegs, to hang your memories on. Which peg is of no concern. Jot down a subject anywhere you like.

THE SUBJECTS CHART

You want an example, of course, of what kind of things you might put in these columns; here is how a reader from South Africa filled out her chart: 

When filling this chart out, do not forget to list those things you’ve learned—no matter how—about Organizations (including volunteer organizations), and what it takes to make them work.

It is not necessary that you should have ever taken a course in management or business. Examples of things you may know something about (and should list here) are: accounting or bookkeeping; administration; applications; credit collection of overdue bills; customer relations and service; data analysis; distribution; fiscal analysis, controls, reductions; government contracts; group dynamics or work with groups in general; hiring, human resources, or manpower; international business; management; marketing, sales; merchandising; packaging; performance specifications; planning; policy development; problem solving or other types of troubleshooting with operations or management systems; production; public speaking/addressing people; R & D program management; recruiting; show or conference planning, organization, and management; systems analysis; travel or travel planning, especially international travel; etc.

When you’re done, you may want to let this chart just sit around for a few days, to see if any other items occur to you. But when you’re sure you’ve listed all you want to, then draw the matrix that follows on a large sheet of paper, and sort the knowledges on the chart into the four boxes.

Then, choose your three favorite knowledges, from any of these boxes. You want to pay particular attention to the knowledges you put in box 1 above. And next, those you put in box 2. Last of all, those in box 3.

Let us say it turns out your three favorite knowledges are gardening and carpentry in box 1, and your knowledge of psychiatry in box 2.

What you want to be able to do is to use all three expertises, not just one of them—if you possibly can.

So, put your three favorite knowledges on a series of overlapping circles, as follows:

Now, to figure out how to combine these three, imagine that each circle is a person; that is, in this case, Psychiatrist, Carpenter, and Gardener.

You ask yourself which person took the longest to get trained in their specialty. The answer, here, is the psychiatrist. The reason you ask yourself this question, is that the person with the longest training is most likely to have the largest overview of things. So, you go to see a psychiatrist, either at a private clinic or at a university or hospital. You ask for fifteen minutes of his or her time, and pay them if necessary.

Then you ask the psychiatrist if he or she knows how to combine psychiatry with one—just one, initially—of your other two favorite knowledges. Let’s say you choose gardening, here. “Doctor, do you know anyone who combines a knowledge of psychiatry with a knowledge of gardening or plants?”

Since I’m talking about a true story here, I can tell you what the psychiatrist said: “Yes, in working with catatonic patients, we often give them a plant to take care of, so they know there is something that is depending on them for its future, and its survival.”

“And how would I also employ a knowledge of carpentry?”

“Well, in building the planters, wouldn’t you?”

(Parenthetically, healers also use pets as they do plants. See www.sniksnak.com/therapy.html.)

This is the way you explore how to combine your three favorite knowledges, all at once, no matter what those three may be. The Internet can also be useful in this regard.

Put these three on your Knowledges petal of the Flower.

Step 2: What Are Your Preferred People-Environments That You Most Like to Work with, or Serve and Help?