You'll never see a duck imitate a hummingbird. You'll never see the big waterfowl hovering in front of a flower trying to suck nectar with its big yellow beak. That's because ducks aren't suited to that activity.

But according to Nicholas Lore, career counselor, author, and founder of the Rockport Institute, you'll see plenty of human beings performing activities and working in careers for which they have no innate talent.

The Rockport Institute helps people find and pursue fulfilling careers that are suited to their skills and personality traits.

Q:  How did you happen to become involved in career counseling?

A: My educational background is in psychology. But after graduate school, I found a job running a box manufacturing factory. After I had been CEO of a couple of companies, I realized that I was in the wrong career.

After visiting many career counselors...I realized that no one was capable of guiding me through the process. Luckily, I belonged to the same boat club as Buckminster Fuller, one of the world's most prominent architects and futurists. Fuller became my mentor in helping me choose my own profession.

Fuller and I decided that career counseling was being done in a primitive way and that what one would learn in a master's program was insufficient to help intelligent people make a choice that they would end up loving. Consequently, I decided that I wanted to develop a body of work in career counseling that would be useful to professionals in the field and to people in related professions.

Q:  And what is the Rockport Institute?

A: I founded the Rockport Institute 20 years ago. Here, we work, research and experiment with programs related to career counseling. We have served more than 10,000 clients in total.

We have worked with people from all backgrounds. Most range from ages 25 to 50, but we also work with a lot of young people in colleges and high schools. We have even worked with a client who is serving a long prison sentence.

Q:  Do you also offer training to career counselors?

A: Yes. Rockport's associate training program offers training to counselors, clergy, psychotherapists and educators at various levels. Instead of on-site training, we use videos and telephone coaching to assist people as they work with their own clients in their situation or practice.

Q:  What do your clients have in common?

A: The people who approach us recognize the importance of making an excellent career decision. They have looked around and realized that a lot of existing methodologies are too simplistic. We find that the more complex the person, the more pieces to the puzzle and the more difficult it is for them to make a fitting career choice. So, we specialize in that area.

We've developed a successful set of methods and practices that move intelligent, complex people through the process successfully. Each of these people has given us a learning experience. We never assume we know what we are doing. With every client, we take the position that we are beginners so we can look at each situation with new eyes.

Q:  What do you see as the problem with traditional methodologies?

A: Primitive career counseling means having someone add up internal information and match up what might fit. It does not lead to highly satisfied, productive people.

Traditional methodology assumes that the client knows most or all of what they need to do. It is just a matter of looking inside and weaving together what they find. In fact, the larger percentages of people don't know what would fit them and don't feel an inner sense of purpose and direction.

Asking a client to do an autobiography often leads nowhere, because often the client's youthful dreams are no longer valid. Or if you do a traditional values survey, you ask the person questions intended to reveal their values. This is seldom useful, since often people have not sorted out a lot of internal things.

For one thing, when people talk about values, they usually include ideals, which is confusing. Inherently, the word "ideal" means that which is unattainable. Then people have standards, and their standards get all mixed up with the picture. You have to help people sort out what they are really and truly willing to live by.

Q:  What have you learned about people?

A:  The most powerful thing I have learned is that people have an ability to invent their lives. Career counseling is not just a matter of uncovering inner information. More importantly, it is having clients discover their ability to invent their future.

Q:  What do people need to know to find the right career?

A: People are born with a very specific profile of strengths and weakness, abilities, aptitudes and natural talents. In our surveys, we have found that highly successful people who still love their careers after several years have an elegant match between their talents and personality traits and the work they are doing.

If we attempt to do work that does not utilize our strengths, we will not really enjoy what we are doing and we will not excel. For example, if you have no natural abilities for skiing, you might learn to ski, but you will never be a top-notch skier. People need to discover their innate skills and abilities and design a career around their strengths. Our testing helps people identify their strengths.

Q:  How does your testing differ?

A: We do a very in-depth testing process that measures a person's performance ability. After testing thousands of people, we are still amazed at the power of the process to have clients make distinctions about important parts of themselves that they haven't seen clearly before. We don't do testing to provide information to the counselor -- we use it so the clients see a mirror of themselves.

Clients use the tests the same way people use Myers Briggs. When people are first introduced to Myers Briggs, there is this "wow" experience where they feel their personality has been described with uncanny accuracy. The same thing is true for our tests of talents and abilities.

Q:  Do people reinvent their careers once they understand their skills?

A: They often have to deal with equilibrium first. We tend to do things the same way. When we try something new, we are knocked out of equilibrium and we have a little fear in the pit of our stomach. Then we get all of these "yeah but..." thoughts that prevent us from acting.

We say "Yeah, but I am too old" or "Yeah, but I have a family to support" or "Yeah, but I am not smart enough" and so on. Masterful career counseling involves helping people to make choices concerning the grip that equilibrium has on their lives.

Q:  But aren't some of these "yeah but" thoughts valid? I mean, could a single mom quit her job and go to university to pursue her career goals?

A: There is some validity to all "yeah buts." Otherwise, they wouldn't have power. Career counseling means helping people to figure out whether their "yeah buts" are valid or if they are just plain old "yeah buts" created to maintain equilibrium.

Many people find creative ways to accomplish their goals. A good choice is one that fits their talents and personalities and leads them to a lifestyle that is practical and doable and within the range of what they are ready, willing and able to make happen.

Q:  Nothing will change for the client unless he or she takes action. How do you motivate people to act?

A: It is important to have people start by making a promise to themselves to design a career that they will love. The client isn't just exploring -- he or she is committed. Human beings attribute almost all of our barriers to external circumstances, but then the people we admire as heroes are the ones who don't look at the world that way at all. They look at their lives as a creative expression of their intentions.

When somebody truly is committed to having a great life and to doing work they enjoy, they can find a way through, around or over the circumstances. Perhaps not in the way they thought they could in the beginning, but they usually find a way.

Q:  How do you get started?

A: We have them break the career choice process down into little pieces like talents, values and personality traits. Next, we have them explore each component within a large contextual question. This is not asking "What do I like?" or "What interests me?"

We ask instead "What are you sure of?" Then the client comes up with very definite, solid things. Maybe the client says, "I am sure that I want to work outside and that I will never wear shoes to work again." Then you would start thinking about careers that would meet this description. This type of questioning gives you a solid foundation to build on.

Q:  Do you have any tips for career counselors who work with youth?

A: Young people are easier because they are so eager. It's important to treat them as equals, to avoid talking down to them. Treat them like intelligent, capable people and then allow them to discover what type of career will suit them best.

We sometimes work with bright achievers who understand the importance of making effective choices. However, even problem kids respond well. Problem kids who are bright but not doing well in school are not connected with making good decisions about their future. Their acting out comes from not having success with their personal strengths.

They have a feeling of being at sea in their lives with no sense of direction. Many care passionately, but feel lost. They have no idea how to go about moving their life forward. So they get bored at school and behave in unacceptable ways.

Q: What's the most important message you want teachers and career counselors to know?

A: Take 100 percent responsibility when you are working with all of your clients. It is too easy to pass the blame for our failures on to the young people. We say "Their situation is too difficult" or "Their attitude is too bad."

At Rockport, we always look at the times we fail. We see it as our failure, not the client's failure. We look for things we could have done differently. Career counseling is rich, deep and complex. You have to keep developing your own ability.

If you take responsibility for both your successes and your failures, then you will be a lifelong learner. If you blame the client or circumstance, then you learn nothing at all. In this case, you merely become self-righteous.

The best advice I can give is to retain your innocence. People are wonderful and you will discover that in direct proportion to your willingness to listen to them rather than to listen to the never-ending output of your own brain.

Q: You offer scholarships?

A: People who are unable to pay for our prices might qualify for a scholarship. In this case, the person agrees to do a community project. For example, we had a young person from an inner city who gathered neighboring together to paint a lot of things in the community with fresh, bright paint. Another client who has been in prison for many years has developed a program to help prisoners prepare for the outside world.

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Rockport Institute

Learn more about how to choose a career you love

http://www.rockportinstitute.com/

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