The Traits That Were Already Doing More Than She Knew
What character traits could serve different purposes?
A weekly question to ponder what matters in your WorkLife.
Each question is drawn from the School of WorkLife Question Banks.
This is the question I want you to sit with today.
What character traits could serve different purposes?
Let’s explore the question through a character I created.
Elena.
Elena is the main protagonist in the Story Lesson: How Hidden Character Traits Shape Your True Professional Calling.
Her story is featured in The Stories Behind the Stories: Elena.
Elena’s story was told in WorkLife Stories: How Hidden Character Traits Shape Your True Professional Calling — if you haven’t already, reading that story will help you understand what becomes possible when you finally see what others have always seen in you and go deeper with this question.
What character traits could serve different purposes?
Elena Never Asked Herself This Question
Not because the answer wasn’t there.
Because she had already decided which parts of her working life were worth paying attention to.
She was a graphic designer.
That was her career.
The restaurant was temporary.
And that decision — made quietly, without examination — had made an entire dimension of her professional capability invisible to her.
That’s What This Question Points At
Not what you do in the role you’ve chosen.
What you do everywhere.
Character traits don’t stay within the boundaries of a job title.
They express themselves in every context.
In every room.
In every interaction.
The question is whether you’re paying attention to all of it.
Or only to the parts you’ve already decided count.
The Same Traits. Two Different Languages.
Elena’s traits — reading people, creating atmosphere, facilitating connection — were doing the same work in two completely different contexts.
At Rosario’s she orchestrated an entire dining room.
Reading what each table needed.
Adjusting the atmosphere in real time.
Facilitating connection between people who hadn’t expected to find it over dinner.
In her design work she did exactly the same.
Reading what clients needed before they could articulate it.
Creating environments — through design — that shaped how people felt within them.
Facilitating connection between a brand and the people it was meant to reach.
The same traits.
Two different languages.
She had been treating one as her real work and one as temporary when both were expressions of exactly the same capability.
What the Question Is Really Asking
That’s what this question asks you to look at.
Not which of your character traits you value.
Where else they could be expressing themselves.
And whether the contexts you’ve dismissed as secondary might actually be revealing something important about who you are professionally and what you’re truly capable of.
Because character traits don’t wait for the right moment.
They’re already expressing themselves.
The question is whether you’re seeing all the places they show up.
So the question isn’t just Elena’s.
It’s yours.
What character traits could serve different purposes?
Today’s question is from The Longest Way Round for Character Trait Development Question Bank — from the section Redirecting Talents to New contexts.
Deepen the practice with the WorkLife Compass Guided Programme: The Longest Way Round: A Journey of Character — How Embracing Your Natural Traits and the Wisdom of Great Storytellers Can Transform Your Path to Purpose.
Work With Me: Commissioned learning resources, speaking engagements, and organisational partnerships.
Support This Work: Your support makes a difference and helps me to continue creating resources that are accessible to everyone. Thank you. Carmel
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