There’s a conversation happening in New Zealand career circles that doesn’t get nearly enough airtime, possibly because the people having it are too busy actually building good lives in places like Christchurch, Queenstown, Dunedin, and Invercargill to spend much time evangelising about it online. The South Island is booming. Not in the frothy, overcrowded, cost-of-living-crisis […]
Self-Defined Success: How to Build a Career Around Your Life (Not the Other Way Around)
There’s a version of career advice that’s been quietly running in the background of most of our professional lives for decades, like an old operating system nobody ever updated. It goes something like this: work hard, climb the ladder, accumulate the markers of success – the title, the income, the corner office or its modern […]
Reciprocal Mentorship: The Career Growth Strategy Kiwis Are Using That Most Australians Haven’t Heard Of
Let me paint you a picture of traditional mentorship, because I think it’s worth being honest about how limiting the model actually is. A senior person – usually older, usually more experienced, usually with more institutional power – agrees to spend time with a junior person who wants to learn from them. The junior person […]
The Big Five Personality Test: What It Actually Tells You (And What Most Tests Get Wrong)
The Big Five personality model is different. It’s not trying to sort you. It’s trying to describe you – accurately, honestly, and with enough nuance that you might actually recognize yourself in the results. It’s the most scientifically validated personality framework in psychology, which sounds clinical and boring, but stick with me, because what it […]
What Is Executive Function – And Why Does It Explain So Much About You (and Your Teen)?
You know that feeling when you know what you’re supposed to do, you want to do it, and you still somehow… don’t? Or when your kid is clearly smart – you can see it – but they can’t seem to get out of their own way? Homework doesn’t get started. Emotions run hot over small […]
The Non-Linear Career Path Is Now Normal in Australia – How to Own Yours Based on Your Personality
There’s a story a lot of us grew up with about how a career is supposed to go. You study something. You get a graduate role in that thing. You work your way up through the ranks of that thing, accumulating experience and seniority like points in a video game, until eventually you are a […]
Find Your Niche Tribe Online with Live Webinars!
Have you ever felt like a gnome in a city of humans? Passionate about something so specific – be it quantum entanglement for beginners or the history of 18th-century clockwork – that talking to your family makes you feel like you’re translating ancient Sumerian? You know, that feeling where you try to explain your hobby […]
DOPE Slots Is Here – Spin the Reels and Find Your Next Favorite Read
Okay, I’ll admit it. I built a slot machine. Not a real one – nobody’s losing their rent money here. But a personality-powered, bird-themed, genuinely-kind-of-addictive slot machine that lives right here on richardstep.com, and I am unreasonably proud of it. Say hello to DOPE Slots – the newest addition to the games corner of this […]
Your Network Isn’t a Friend-Finder; It’s Your Life-Support System.
Let’s be honest with ourselves for a moment. You’ve been scrolling. Maybe it was during lunch, maybe in that weird liminal space between sleep and wakefulness. Your thumb, a tireless automaton, has swiped past countless faces, each one reduced to a thumbnail and a curated highlight reel. You see a coworker’s vacation photos from last […]