Vishen Lakhiani presents a simple hiring/job-fit model he calls the "career quadrant," derived from ~1,000 interviews. He proposes four primary, often-unconscious motivators people seek in jobs—happiness (culture/fun), money (high pay/long hours), legacy/mission (making an impact), and education/growth (learning from masters). He suggests a practical exercise where a person allocates 12 chips among these quadrants to reveal dominant motivations, which employers and job-seekers can use to assess fit.
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So in this video, I want to share with you a really interesting pattern I observed. And when you see this pattern, it does two things for you. If you're an entrepreneur or if you're hiring for a company, it helps you identify who are the right people to bring in. And secondly, if you are an employee or someone looking to find a job, it helps you identify what companies to join. So I noticed this pattern, which I call the career quadrant after having done maybe about a thousand interviews for positions in various companies I've run. And the pattern looks something like this. You see, a lot of people think that we take a job for success, for stability, for money. Some of that is true. But I think it was around my 1000 plus interview that I started noticing that people applying for jobs were actually looking for specifically four things. And they were not what I was trained to see in college. So now when I do an interview, I have the candidate in front of me. Take a look at this simple diagram. So first I start by drawing a simple cross on a board, right? And then I tell the candidate this. I said, look, people who are looking for a job are really looking for four things. And you may not realize this, but unconsciously you're looking for one of these four things. You may think you're here because you want a good paycheck, or you want a position that fits the, the career, the education you got. But no, you're really here for one of these four things. And then I asked the candidate to tell me where they fit. Now, first, let me show you what these four things are. And as I explain this to you, ask yourself how these four things resonate with you. Now, the first quad is really simple. It's happiness. Often people want to join a company to simply wake up every morning being happy. If you're the type of person whose ideal company is, say Facebook or Google or Zappos or Mindvalley, companies which are known for their fun culture. Happiness might be what motivates you, but happiness isn't the only thing. There's also a large segment of people who would join a company for money. If you're prepared to work 70 to 100 hour weeks, say as a stockbroker on the financial industry, making a ton of money, but knowing that you're probably gonna be not spending enough time with your family, maybe facing some burnout, going through extreme stress, but you could probably hit 40 with a million buc in your bank, well, you're motivated by money. Nothing wrong with that. Now, there is a third category, and what I'M trying to draw here is a picture of the earth. Now, that third category is where what you're motivated by is leaving a legacy. In short, it's a mission that drives you. What you care about is leaving a mark on the world. My wife used to work for the United Nations. She worked for the unhcr, so she had to volunteer with refugees and be at refugee camps. And she would tell me it was like, really stressful work, but she loved it because she was working towards a mission to make the world a better place. And then there's the final category, and I used the word edu to represent it. All this means is that what you care about most is learning and growth. So learning and growth is what inspires you. If you take a job, say, as an apprentice to someone who is a master at his art for maybe very little pay, because you know you're going to learn some of that skill. Whether it's graphic design or photography or marketing, education is what inspires you. Now, here's the second part of this pattern, right? Neither of us are in any one specific quadrant. Rather, we have our own mental map of what matters to us. So I ask the candidate I'm interviewing. I tell them to imagine that they have 12 chips and they have to put these 12 chips based on what matters. Now, a candidate might say, put five under happiness and then put four under education, and that leaves maybe two for money, one for the earth. Okay? So that adds up to 12. Now, looking at a pattern like that, I can tell what this candidate's motivation is. I can tell what matters to this candidate. I know this candidate, for example, at Mindvalley would be really happy because he's going to have great colleagues, he's going to get a fun work environment, he's going to be really happy because he is going to be able to get a good education. I know our salaries because we are a private company are not as high as, say, the financial industry or large public companies that have more funds. So he may be a little bit disappointed here. I know he doesn't really care too much about mission, so maybe part of what we do may not inspire him, but overall, this would be a fairly decent match. So by having this mental map, by being able to ask a candidate you're interviewing where they fall in, by being able to do this for yourself, if you're job hunting or if you're trying to identify if you're right fit for your company, and being an entrepreneur, being able to know this mental map for your company, this helps us all, ensure that we are moving into the right jobs that truly speak to what our souls desire. The right jobs that truly resonate with us. Not just on a logical level because we are following certain rules about what career and work means that at a heart level, at our core, of what truly matters to us in the world. So I hope this simple exercise and this model helps you in your business or your job hunt. Feel free to share it and spread it around. Sam.
