Dan here, and this is the start of a brand new segment
that is called 'Ask Dan'.
If you're on my website, you'll see the top right corner
there is a link that says 'Ask Dan',
you go there and you can ask me just about anything.
So, in this segment I will basically go through
a question from a reader and I'll provide an answer.
Some will be really informative and specific
if they're on a topic or area I have a lot of expertise,
others, I'm going to be kind of winging it a little bit,
but I've made a commitment to answer every question
and just kind of give my layman's opinion on stuff
even if it's not an area I have expertise.
So, some of these, very detailed, very specific,
some, you're going to get my half-assed opinion,
for lack of a better term here.
So let's get into the first question,
chronological order here and it comes from
Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia.
I know that I don't know what's going on with me here.
"Hi Dan, I hope you are fine. Actually,
I finished my bachelor's degree in computer science,
and when I did the 16 personalities test
for Myers Briggs, it appears that I am an INFP,
and I've spent five years with that major
and at the same time, I was not comfortable at all.
What is your advice for continuing my master's degree
in Canada and what is the most appropriate majors
to my personality type?"
So, this is a great question.
If you're not familiar with Myers Briggs,
it's one of the few different personality tests where,
well it's test, then it's a whole area of psychology
where there's basically 16 types,
and you can use these types of psychology
to help you figure out lots of things,
you know the maybe most compatible person to date
or what area of business you might be best in
and, or what your job should be, things like that.
It really hits on a point in terms of
following the wrong path here,
where so many of us go down the path of
where we think we can get the best job
or where we think that might be the most opportunities
and very rarely do we think, "Hey,
what do I actually want to do?
What do I actually enjoy?"
I actually almost majored in computer science,
believe it or not, and it was mostly because of
what was apparently a good job market,
it wasn't that I'm really passionate about this
or I love it or anything else.
So my first bit of advice would be to, like you're doing,
focus on who you are in your personality and
find something align with that. Change your major.
If you're not comfortable for 5 years,
don't spend another 20 years on this route.
I can't tell you how many people I meet
in their forties or fifties, it's a different
personal development event, who have been
going down the wrong route for 20 years
because their dad or their mom or their friends
or whoever kind of put some pressure on them
to go down a certain route, to go to law school
or to become an accountant
or to become a computer programmer
when that wasn't really what they wanted to do.
So you've taken the right first step
of making that stand of saying
I don't like computer science or not happy doing it,
what else should I do.
For your specific personality, INFP,
I would think something in the more creative area
is going to be the most natural fit for you.
INFPs have this vivid internal fantasy world
where they're just much more creative
than just about anyone else.
If you look at authors of
kind of the greatest fantasy world and books like
Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit,
J.R.R. Tolkien, INFP.
People who can really,
really get into their own internal world and
have this level of fantasy.
So if you really want to dive into it,
you have things like the creative arts like writing,
visual arts you know, drawing, animation, arts in general.
You could then kind of extrapolate that into real-world.
I shouldn't say real world,
that's not that right for anything at all,
but in terms of like, the practical job,
if you have a need for that right away.
So, how can you take that ability to create,
kind of something new to create your own fantasy world
and maybe apply that in the marketing field
or apply that to maybe tourism,
maybe it's about creating experiences for people,
maybe it's becoming a writer for hire
and doing, work for people where you're able to
kind of describe something in such a vivid way
that they could never do for their businesses
themselves or something like that.
You can find some more suggestions on specific jobs
in my book on INFPs as well as online,
that there's lots of resources there for that as well.
There isn't a one size fits all,
I think personality types is a great way to get started
to kind of get a feel for
what could be the right fit for you,
but then you need to use it as sort of a starting point
and then take that further
based on your own experiences
and your own insights and who you are,
to really develop that feel for what you should be doing.
We've taken the right first step here
of realizing computer science is not your thing
and now it's a matter of just getting more specific.
I think going to Canada is obviously a great opportunity
to sort of have a fresh start and change majors
and everything else there.
Hope you enjoy Canada, my homeland.
So I hope you found that mildly entertaining,
useful, helpful, something,
just starting out this segment so it's going to be
kind of a work in progress.
If you do have a question you'd like me to answer,
you can submit it at DreamsAroundTheWorld.com
and just click the 'Ask Dan' link
in the top right corner there.
Thanks for watching, see you in other videos
and hopefully catch you somewhere in the world soon.