Kristin Allaben is the Chief Operating Officer and a coach at her company, The Forte Factor. During our conversation, Kristin offers some great strategies for parents to help guide their teens answer the hard questions as they find their way to a happy and successful life.
About Kristin Allaben
Kristin graduated from Bentley in Waltham back in 2008. She majored in information design and corporate communication, minored in psychology. She moved into the field of PR and I loved what she did. It was fast-paced. It was always on your toes, thinking critically, thinking strategically, thinking creatively. After about 10 years in the industry, Kristin started to question if that was really the right fit for her. She had a couple of interesting run-ins with bosses. She had a couple of interesting job descriptions where she was hired to do one thing, but the actual job was something very, very different. And she started to question if PR was actually the right thing for her.
Kristin took the talent assessment that you’ll find on The Forte Factor’s website and it helped her re-define what exactly it is that she is good at and what she would be happy doing. That led her down a road that she probably never would have considered into patient advocacy. And she did that for about a year or so and realized that the company she was working for didn’t have any internal PR or marketing strategy. So she marched into the HR office and suggested they create a department and then she moved into the PR and marketing in that world. It was a very different type of PR than Kristin had been doing. Previously she had been in IT security and business technology and then she was shifting into patient care and health care. So two drastically different worlds despite the intersection of technology across both. The Forte Factor is a company that is owned in partnership with Kristin and her dad. Her maiden name is Forte, and The Forte Factor came from their last name. But also to ask what is your forte? What are you innately good at? So they launched that company together a couple of years ago and then Kristin joined full time this past January.
Episode Highlights
- Working in a family business
- Most people don’t have a straight line through their career
- Questions to ask teens to help them discover what’s next after high school
- Helping teens find their greatness zone
- Parents need to become comfortable in the silence
- Think outside of “traditional happy”
- Self-discovery work will help teens find the right fit
- The venn diagram of talents, strengths and passions and the intersection of the “greatness zone”
- Kristin’s advice to her teenage self
Resources
Connect with The Forte Factor:
Connect with Kristin Allaben:
Useful links from The Forte Factor:
Quotes shared by Kristin:
“What is it on this planet that needs doing that I know something about that probably won’t happen unless I take responsibility for it?” – Buckminster Fuller
“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.” – E.E. Cummings